Chapter 12—The Cave
Save for Lydia muttering over breaking the seat belt in the van as well as in the plane, the ride for the first hour was quiet. Lydia didn’t feel like talking, and Arthur, at the wheel, had given up trying to make small talk. The only time he had spoken was when he called someone at the Cave, leaving a message for someone named Kirk to “Suit up and find Markus Bell’s address in Golden Springs, Colorado.”
After about an hour it started to rain, and Lydia entertained herself by watching the thin raindrops trickle down the window. She was aware of Arthur glancing at her every few minutes. He kept opening his mouth as if to start a conversation.
“I’m sorry, again,” Arthur finally said. “Sorry that I had to take you away so soon like that. Normally—”
“I know,” Lydia cut him off. “You already said what you would normally do.”
“Yeah,” Arthur said. “But I’m going to try and arrange for you to meet your parents soon.”
Lydia refused to look at him, but nodded all the same.
Arthur sighed as the rain picked up. “Look, I know this is a lot to take in, and that you’ve been through too much today. More than someone should ask of you.”
“I wasn’t asked about any of this,” Lydia said, the hate bubbling up inside her like boiling water. “I don’t want any of it. All I want is a cure. I don’t want anything to do with your stupid fight with the Brigade.” Between freaks like me, she thought, dredging up the name Mark had saddled her with.
“Although you don’t want to, you have to realize you can’t run away from this problem. If you do, the Brigade will seek you out.”
“For all I know, you could be just as bad as them!” Lydia shouted. “That tracker might not have even been from them! It could’ve been someone trying to save me from you!”
“Not very likely,” Arthur said.
“You don’t know!” Lydia turned back to her window. She considered smashing it, but settled down in her seat instead. “You don’t know.”
Neither of them talked for several minutes, but simply listened to the pitter-patter of rain on the car’s roof. Eventually, Arthur spoke up. “I will try to set up a meeting as soon as possible. I promise that we’ll do our best to keep you safe at the Cave as well.”
“What about my parents?” Lydia asked. She was upset at them for not preventing her from being taken, but she did fear for their safety. After all, if Arthur was telling the truth, her parents would be a target.
“Generally, Rooke only focuses on BEPs, not on their kin,” Arthur said. “He hasn’t gone after families yet, so I suppose you could say he’s honorable in that sense. Still, I’ll send Kirk over there to keep an eye on your parents for a while after he’s done with Mark.”
That relieved Lydia a little. “BEPs. You’ve said that before. What’s a ‘BEP’? And who’s Kirk?”
“Biologically Enhanced Person,” Arthur explained. “BEP for short. It’s basically someone with super powers, like a superhero in all but name. However, the politicians and our scientists don’t like such fantasy terms and they go with BEP, which is ‘any person capable of extraordinary actions or feats beyond the normal human capacity or limits.’ And you’ll meet Kirk soon.”
“Like BEP is any better,” Lydia said. “It sounds like an after-dinner mint.”
Arthur laughed. “That it does! It doesn’t help that we’re the BEP division. Hello, I see you had the garlic bread this evening.” He held out his palm flat. “Would you like a peppermint BEP?”
She chuckled. “Dariela actually said it was like I was part superhero. Like a halfway hero.”
He smiled and nodded at the description. “That fits pretty well.”
“Yeah.” Dariela. That reminded Lydia to whom she was talking. Her smile dropped. “How long does it take to find a cure?”
Arthur tilted his head from side to side. “Depends on the nature of the person’s change. Some have taken a long while. Weeks, months, years. I can’t say.”
Lydia almost made a snarky retort, but decided it might be better to play nice for now, on the off chance that he could find a cure. “It better not be years,” Lydia said under her breath. “So how many people have been cured?”
“A fair amount.” He dodged that question. Again, Lydia bit her tongue. She didn’t ask anything else and figured it would be better to wait. She’d soon see if he could keep his promise. Yet she kept thinking that Arthur had told her another lie so she’d be more willing to go to the Cave.
When the silence resumed, Arthur turned on the radio, choosing a soothing jazz station. That was good for Lydia, as a headache was setting in. The music, along with the van’s toasty warmth and her own exhaustion set itself to a steady rhythm, which eased her pulsing temple. Soon enough, she was lulled off to sleep.
Lydia wasn’t sure how long she slumbered. The car hit a sudden bump and rattled her awake. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the night sky had been replaced by a tall ceiling made entirely of rock. It looked like the inside of a mountain. Turning in her seat every which way, she could only see the road lit up before them. Everything else was dark.
She tried and failed to place where they were. All she knew was that, according to the compass on the dashboard, the van had headed east. Finally, she asked. “Where are we?” Lydia touched her head. The headache was gone.
“The Cave,” Arthur said. “You were really out of it. I didn’t even have to blindfold you.”
So this was the infamous Cave, where Lydia could expect to be imprisoned for an indefinite period. “How long do I have to stay here?” she asked after staring for a minute at nothing but empty, inky blackness. To her it seemed intent on devouring the vehicle whole.
“The shortest time is usually six months,” Arthur said. “Sometimes we make exceptions if things go well, but that depends on a number of factors.”
Six months. Six months stuck underground with no connection to the outside world unless it was approved by Arthur. As they passed through a large metallic gate that sported several massive locks, the gravity of the situation started to sink in. There was no foreseeable way to escape this imprisonment, this horrifying situation. She was trapped here for at least half a year. Maybe longer depending on how much time it took to make a remedy for her condition.
When they passed through the solid gate, the van became bathed in bright lights hanging from the ceiling, like dozens of hot-white suns. A small booth sat off to the side. Arthur waved to the security guard within.
What caught Lydia’s attention was the roadway ahead. The van twisted and turned down a sloping road, and her view was obstructed now and then by craggy, jutting cliffs or steep rock walls. A group of buildings lay below them.
It looked like a small village. A parking lot containing a range of vehicles was visible. On the other side of the lot was a vanilla-colored six-story building, where a couple of teenagers about her age sat talking on the steps. Next to that were two grassy fields, set up for both football and soccer, and a black asphalt basketball court surrounded by bleachers.
In the middle of the lot was a circular gray three-story building. Large glass walls allowed Lydia to see the few people inside working late. It was too far away to tell what they were doing. Asphalt pathways with sharp angles were cut into the rocky floor and led to the parking lots and all the buildings. The only change in the floor’s pattern was a circular space in front of each building, wide enough to hold a fountain or some decoration, but the spaces were bare.
“That’s where we do all our work,” Arthur said, pointing at the gray building. “It’s the Center.”
Lydia rolled her eyes. Clever naming scheme they have going on.
“It’s where we’ll train you, and in your case, help you with rehabilitation. Should be good for you, since you need to learn to control your strength anyway.” Arthur pointed to the off-white building. “Those are the dormitories. I’ll take you to our doctor first and then to your room. Someone will bring you
r things up.”
He drove into the parking lot and shut off the van. “We’d better hurry. I hate to keep Dr. Barrett waiting.”
Lydia yanked off the seat belt and slowly stepped out. “Six months” kept echoing in her head. It seemed like forever since she’d talked to her parents, and it had only been less than a day. Six months loomed like an eternity. I won’t survive that long. Her parents had cast her to this cruel fate. Lydia set her jaw in decision. Her vow to refuse to see them if they visited was firmer than ever.
As Arthur and Lydia crossed the parking lot toward the Center, they were stopped by an oddly dressed man. Covering every inch of his body except for his eyes was a skin-tight black suit. He appeared to be in the middle of dressing in normal clothes, with a pair of slacks slung over his shoulder and his left arm in a collared shirt. He held a jet-black wig under his arm. A dark mask with several straps and pinpricked eye sockets and nose holes dangled from his neck. He tore back some of the body suit from around his head, revealing a youthful face. He beamed as he approached the pair and held out his free right hand to Arthur.
“Hey! Just get back?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Arthur said, nodding. He put his hand on Lydia’s shoulder. She pushed it
away. “I’m bringing our newest arrival to get her checkup. This is Lydia. Lydia, this is Kirk.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Kirk thrust out his hand to Lydia, but she was in no mood for pleasantries and didn’t raise her hand. He dropped his hand to his side. “Don’t worry. I know how hard it can be. I came here when I was twelve, after all. But if you listen to this man here,” he said, clapping Arthur’s shoulder, “you’ll be fine.”
Lydia was sick and tired of people trying to empathize with her situation and was about to tell him off. However, her brain processed the “when I was twelve” part before she replied, and she looked at Kirk curiously. “For what?” she asked. Was he a BEP?
Kirk smiled and shrugged the shirt off his arm, standing in nothing but the black suit. “Watch,” he said, winking. He pulled the hood of the suit back over his head and fitted the mask onto his face. All of a sudden, fire erupted from the suit, bathing him in lashing, licking flames. He walked around easily, with no trace of fear. His black mask shimmered, reflecting the fire surrounding it. Lydia couldn’t help but be awestruck at what she was witnessing.
After several seconds, clouds of smoke covered the fire, dousing it completely. The smoke stank and Lydia gagged. When the hissing died down, Kirk shook off the sticky residue and removed the mask. “Built-in fire extinguisher,” he explained to Lydia. He pulled the suit away from his face. He turned around, pointing to a device on his back that was connected to several clear tubes running into and underneath the body suit.
“And the fire?” she asked.
“All me,” he said, grinning at her. “It jumps out of my pores whenever I want. That’s why I wear a flame-retardant suit. It catches fire instead of me. My skin would burn off otherwise. As soon as the suit is saturated, this little baby,” he thumbed the fire extinguisher, “kicks in to give the suit a chance to cool off. I can only start the fire, not put it out. Also, it helps keep away any bad guys if the fire didn’t already.” He chuckled. “Then I let it reset and I’m good to go again.”
“That’s your way of helping him?” Lydia asked Arthur.
“Best we could do,” he said. Then he turned to Kirk. “You’d better be going,” Arthur said, tossing him a set of keys. “You got the address for Markus’s house?”
“Yep. It was easy to find from his school records,” Kirk replied, catching the keys. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Good. The other car should be at the Golden Springs Airport. Dilbert will know which one. They should be finished checking the plane when you get there. As soon as you get to Golden Springs, go straight to Markus’s house. Time is short.”
Kirk picked up his clothes and headed for the parking lot, stuffing the car keys into his pocket and pulling out a set of his own for a blue convertible. “I’ll see you two later. Nice meeting you, Lydia.”
Arthur and Lydia continued to the Center. “Kirk is one of our best agents,” he said. “He’s been with us for a good while now.”
“Agents?” Lydia asked. “Like secret agents? You use BEPs?”
“Yes. It gives us equal footing. Like I said, we’re called in for any BEP situation in the country, whether it’s simply to offer consulting or help when handling a terrorist, a rogue BEP. Those are the dangerous ones and we have experience with them.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Arthur said. “Anyway, we allow BEPs to join us if they want. Kirk signed up almost as soon as he turned sixteen.”
“Are we made to join?” Lydia asked. That would be the perfect cherry to what was already a rotten sundae. Then she realized that she’d just said “we.” Was she joining them before she’d even stepped into the building?
“No. We don’t make you to do anything.”
“Except come here and be watched the rest of our lives,” Lydia said, momentarily forgetting about trying her best to get along.
Arthur gave her a hard look but didn’t respond to her jab. “We had a tough time getting people like Kirk accepted. Our superiors are uneasy about letting BEPs help us with training and fighting the rogue BEPs. We’re short of help as it is, and they’re against our best option for—”He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s not your problem.”
Lydia had the distinct feeling that Arthur enticed BEPs to join when they were allowed. Or that he planted the idea in their heads like a military recruiter.
Inside the Center, Arthur handed his keys to a receptionist at the desk and told him to have Lydia’s belongings brought to her room. The receptionist nodded and scurried out the door.
Arthur led Lydia down the halls, pointing out rooms as they went along. “This is one of our training areas,” he said as they passed a large open space with matted floors. “That’s another one over on the other side.”
They passed some laboratory areas, though the building contained nowhere near as many as Rooke Pharmaceuticals did. There was a large rectangular swimming pool in one room, where Lydia thought she saw two shapes drifting through the murky water. Although Arthur insisted the complex was a simple layout to learn, Lydia thought it looked confusing.
The Center, a huge building to begin with, was larger on the inside than it had looked from the parking lot. All the halls were the same, with blue marble walls embedded with sapphire neon lights. Anyone could look into the rooms easily, as at least one wall in each room contained a row of clear windows, which had a cerulean tint from the hall’s lights.
Arthur led her around one corner, and then down a long stretch to the right, and finally around a left turn, where they entered a waiting room. Lydia was relieved to be away from all the blue. Instead, the waiting room was brightly lit and bare of anything except chairs.
Ignoring the chairs, Arthur stepped up to the only other door in the room and knocked. He was answered with a muffled, “Come in.” He turned to Lydia and beckoned her to follow.
The next room was a combination of doctor’s office and hospital room. A bed, covered in crepe sheets, took up one side, next to several cupboards. Some were open and chock full of medical supplies: cotton swabs, syringes, blood pressure cuffs, as well as items Lydia had never seen. On the other side was a small desk and bookshelves nailed to the wall above it. Beside it was another door.
A curly blond woman in a white coat sat on a small balcony outside the room, flipping through a large book. A cigarette dangled from her lips. When Lydia and Arthur entered, she squashed her cigarette into a nearby ashtray. She stepped through the open glass door from the balcony and into the room, reeking of smoke. A chain-link necklace was draped beneath her light-blue shirt and white coat, and a pair of glasses dangling from a strap on her neck bounced on her bosom. “About time you showed up,” she said, throwing the book onto the desk. She appeared to be abou
t Arthur’s age.
Arthur coughed and waved the air in front of him. “Do you have any spray?”
“Don’t start with me,” she said.
“I can’t stand that smell. Couldn’t you at least air yourself out a little before your meetings?” Arthur asked.
“How about I hang an air freshener around my neck instead?” the woman said. “Would you prefer ocean breeze or scented pine? Or better yet, you don’t have to come in. You’re not the patient.”
“Well, you don’t have to smoke,” Arthur countered. “You of all people know you shouldn’t.”
“You’re right. I do know. Know how I know? I know because I’m the doctor here,” she said. “Besides, you know I do my duty to others.” She turned to Lydia and said in a monotone voice while flipping her hand in circles, “Don’t smoke. It’s bad and can cause cancer or other health problems.” Then she raised her arms over her head to Arthur. “Happy? My influences have been balanced out. All is right with the universe.”
“Did the hospital send over her file?” Arthur asked.
“Yes,” the woman said. She sat at the desk and picked up a folder, slipping on her glasses.
“I take it you went over it.”
The woman swiveled in her chair and peered over her glasses. Her stern gaze focused on him, then on Lydia, and then back to Arthur. There wasn’t a trace of surprise in her eyes when she saw Lydia. Her chiseled face was hard, and grew harder the longer she stared. “Of course I have,” she said sharply to Arthur. “Have you?”
In a flash, the woman stood up and directed Lydia over to the bed, where she sat. The doctor picked up her bandaged arm and examined it. “Transporting a girl in her condition is bad enough. But did you give them a chance to dress her arm? Look at this!” She lifted Lydia’s cast and glanced at Arthur, an incredulous expression on her face. Lydia saw no problem with the bandage but said nothing.
“Yes, I did,” Arthur said.
“Then the doctor must have been an idiot,” she said, no longer paying attention to him. She turned to Lydia. “I’m Dr. Barrett,” she said, introducing herself. “Let’s fix this. Make it less sloppy.” She went to the cupboards and rummaged through them, pulling out bandages and various supplies.
“How long do you ne—” Arthur began.
“An hour at least,” she said. “But I’m sure she’s tired, so make it twenty minutes. I want to see her first thing tomorrow though.”
“Right,” Arthur nodded.
Lydia stifled a laugh. Arthur was no longer in control of the situation. They had been there only a few minutes and she already liked Barrett.
“So do I—” Arthur tried.
“No. Now leave. Patient confidentiality and all,” Barrett said. She shooed him out the door and locked it.
Lydia liked Barrett a lot.