What a way to look at the situation. But, why should he have to settle for what he had when he knew what he could have? A bell rang in the tallest building, sounding much quieter than it had before, and students began spilling out onto the campus from various lecture theatres. It seemed somehow wrong for people to be driven to the very edge of their own darkness before they were shown the light. Shaking his head, Professor Wright gathered his things and rose from his seat.
“Such fun!” Robyn lifted her head from the floor and grinned at Mika, towering above her. “Do it again. Hurt me,” she demanded.
“Do you mind? I can’t concentrate with all this noise,” protested Carly. “If you want me to crack these codes, I need a bit of peace.” She was glaring at a screen of moving binary digits, coded so well that she was having trouble breaking through. And she had been the one to create the encryption. To bump up the security even further – the demands of her boss – she had had to make different levels of protection.
“You’re not bothering us,” chuckled Mika.
“Hurt me, Mika. Make me scream. Make me bleed.” She lifted her hand and felt the broken finger that he had just snapped, testing it as she bent it this way and that. “Make me cry.”
He viciously backhanded her across the face, making a deep cut over her left eye with his ring. Blood began to pour from it and Robyn laughed in joy as she felt the tickling sensation of flowing blood. Nothing hurt after a good meal. Mika bent down to her, coiled like a spring but Robyn prevented him from reaching her by folding her legs to her chest and pushing out with all her strength. Mika stared down at her feet on his shirt but had no time to move, immediately lifted from his feet and thrown across the room, where he hit the concrete wall, hard, and crumpled to the ground.
Carly glanced at Robyn in disgust out of the corner of her eye and turned back to the computer screen. Not the most interesting task, but at least it meant that she did not see most of the things Mika and Robyn were doing to each other. It was hard to understand how two people who clearly loved each other passionately could willingly hurt each other so badly when the public outside were hurting each other for no reason and had no control over their actions.
“Mika!” yelled Robyn, hearing bones crack and fearing that she may have seriously hurt him. She sprang to her feet and rushed over to him, pressing one hand to her eye. “Did I hurt you?”
Mika was unsure of how to respond to that question – if he said no, Robyn might get upset and do something silly, however, if he said yes, Robyn might still get upset and do something silly. He couldn’t bear it if something happened to Robyn… She was the only one who had ever really understood him; the one who had made him the man he was today. “It’s the nightmares,” he said. “I’m remembering things… things we did. How are you getting on with that disk, Carly?” He took the hand Robyn offered, climbed to his feet and peered over her shoulder, not even pretending to know what all the computer jargon on the monitor meant.
“I’m having a hard time cracking all the encryption. It’s pretty much air-tight.” She didn’t pause in her work as she spoke, her fingers tirelessly flicking across the keyboard.
“But you created the damn thing!”
“I know. I’m good.” She swivelled around in her chair as she faced him. He could hurt her all he liked, she didn’t care anymore – but there was no way he was going to figure these passes out in time if she was dead. “I’m sorry, but it’ll take me the best part of a day to unlock them all if I’ve done them all like this.”
“You developed the damned system and now you don’t know how to get past it?” Mika could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“I can get through it,” she pointed out. At no point had Carly said that she would not be able to get round it. “It’ll just take some time, that’s all. I didn’t exactly plan on being held to a deadline.”
“We haven’t got time,” said Robyn. “They haven’t got time.”
“Who haven’t got time, Robyn?”
“People, animals, plants. They’re all going to die.”
“I’m working on it, okay.” Carly turned back to the grey machine and began typing again. “I’ll keep trying.”
“You hear that, baby. It will be over before you know it.” He stood up straight and arched his back. “I think I’ve cracked some ribs,” he smiled, wallowing in the pain he caused himself when he altered position. Oh, it felt good.
“Don’t worry,” soothed Robyn. “Everything’s going to be okay.” She laid a hand on Mika’s tense shoulder and tried to rub his cares away. After a few seconds of watching Carly working tirelessly on unlocking her disk, Robyn moved her hands to Carly’s shoulders and bent down to her. “You’ll get it. We won’t let you go until you do.”
But Carly knew exactly what she had meant by that. They wouldn’t kill her until she had done this – they weren’t even planning on letting her go. It would be too dangerous for them now that she knew what they were…
“Robyn,” Carly said, pressing her fingers into the corners of her eyes. She had been staring at the fluorescent display far too long and was now beginning to see multi-coloured dots swimming before her eyes. “I’m working as fast as I can but threats aren’t the best incentive. I did this a long time ago and I can’t remember all the shortcuts.”
Robyn stroked Carly’s blonde head and ran her fingers through it, teasing some of the knots apart. “This isn’t a threat, sweetie. We will let you go when this is over. All you’ll have to do is keep us a secret.”
“That’s it?”
“Just get the computer sorted, then we’ll talk freedom.”
“Mika,” gasped Robyn in mock-horror. “Don’t be so cruel. She’s just frightened.”
“How can you be so nice to me, and then suddenly be so nasty?” asked Carly.
“Look Carly.” Mika crouched down at her side and peered up at her, hoping that those tears threatening to fall would not. He couldn’t take her crying again – not with the memories. “It’s nothing personal – actually it is but that’s beside the point. You’re the only one that can help us stop this. And, unless we give you some hope...”
Robyn moved over to the corner of the room where she mewed like a crying kitten and curled herself into a tight ball, the same way she had done for as long as Mika could remember. He looked over at her as she swept one outstretched arm in to her chest and carried on making the thin, tinny mewing, full of confusion. “Robyn?”
“It’s the game,” she told him. “The rules are all changing again. So many people are lost. They don’t know what to do – they’re not strong enough to do the right thing.”
“So, we’ll just do it for them.” Mika held his hand out to Robyn to help her up but she ignored it. “We’ll just have to show them what to do.”
I don’t think we can, Mika.” She stared up at him and stood up. “I don’t think we can.”
He looked at Robyn, now less sure of himself, and folded his arms. Robyn was always right, in some form or another, when she slipped into one of these semi-trances and Mika was always careful not to push her with more questions in this state. She could only tell him what she was hearing. “Don’t…” he began in a whisper, as she seemed to stare right through him at something. “Don’t do this.” Robyn got to her feet and Mika turned to see what she was staring at, certain he would see nothing. And nothing he saw.
But, he felt something. Strong and irresistible. Surrounding his body until he almost began to vibrate to the vibrant pulsing energy. “I can feel it,” he told Robyn. Carly glanced over at them as she triumphantly typed in the first correct code and waited for it to unlock and let her begin on the next level. She already knew they were weird people (especially after seeing the strange ways they complimented each other) but this was scary on a scale she barely knew existed. Shaking her head, the blonde girl faced the computer again and calmly watched the screen ref
ill with digits. Mika saw her in his peripheral vision but had no chance to watch her as he was yanked back by the overpowering pull of the growing energy field. “The promise of a new life we can mould and shape. We can teach. Like the others – we can control.” The pulsing shock-waves around him grew to proportions even he was not yet able to handle, and Mika dropped to his knees, hardly aware of what was going on. “What happened?”
Robyn didn’t lose the wide grin from her face but rushed to his side, wanting to protect him from harm just as he did for him. “So close…”
EIGHT
“Door!” yelled Carly as she heard a frantic pounding on the door. “Robyn? Mika? Door!” It sounded quite urgent.
Robyn pulled the covers over Mika’s body – a completely unnecessary measure but it seemed like the right thing to do – kissed his forehead and stalked down the stairs into the hallway. “Well, why don’t you answer it then?” she asked, sarcastically, as she looked into what had now become known as Carly’s room.
“Uh, I’m chained to the computer,” she shot back, holding up her shackled wrist.
“Are you nearly done with that?”
“I told you –“ The remainder of her sentence was cut off as the frenetic pounding on the front door started up again. “Are you gonna get that?”
Robyn shot Carly a deadly look and pushed off the doorframe to go open the door. She laid a hand on her side of the door and her face began to brighten, as she realised that the person on the other side of the door meant them no harm. She had enough to worry about with Mika without vigilantes trying to kill them. Cautiously, Robyn opened the door a little way and peeped out to see who it was. Hurriedly, she opened the door wider and their visitor burst through it and stopped himself on a wall. Nothing could hurt him now, in the darkness, but how was he to know?
A wide smile reappeared on her face and she leaned back against the closed door. She reached over and slammed Carly’s door closed then walked over to their new house guest and gently stroked his cheek. “Johnny. You’re all shiny and new.”
“Who am I? What am I?”
“You know who you are, silly. And you even know what you are.” She lazily hooked one arm around a few wooden poles on the stairs and gazed at him, coolly. “You came back to us. You’re feeling it aren’t you? The power?”
Johnny swallowed a knot of hunger in his throat and didn’t answer. He hadn’t even known where the couple lived, even if they were from the city, but something had brought him here – a connection. “It feels wrong,” he told her, neglecting to mention that it felt good, also.
Robyn could read him like a book and knew everything he wasn’t tell her. “Oh, honey. I know what it’s like at first – it hurts. But you have to give in to it. It’s no good trying to resist it. You’ll never win. It will eat you alive.”
“I’m so hungry. Got anything to eat?” His developing sense of smell keyed into a scent he had been yearning for and he looked pointedly at the closed door.
Johnny had no control yet, that would develop in years to come, and needed to drink of anything in his path. Luckily, Robyn could tell that he was hungry enough not to have fed en route. In his weakened state, Robyn could sate his desire with the packets of blood she kept in storage for such an occasion. He was too weak, his tastes too unrefined, to notice the difference. “What’s happening out there?” she asked as she took his hand and led him through to the kitchen.
“Chaos rules.”
“Why? Did you sense anything?” His senses may not have developed fully but were as sensitive to changes in the atmosphere as those of a newborn baby.
“There’s something in the air. Like an anger. No-one knows where it’s coming from, but it’s too strong for them to fight.”
“I knew it. They’re being torn between good and bad.” Robyn turned away from Johnny’s puzzled face and fetched out a bag of chilled animal blood, using a sharp fingernail to punch a small hole in the plastic. “Reality is so cruel and harsh, how are they meant to stand up to that?”
“Courage,” said a voice behind them both – Mika. “What’s going on down here?”
Robyn looked over at him, one hand supporting most of his weight as he leaned on the doorframe. “It’s Johnny, baby. He’s come back to us.” She dropped the packet into his waiting hands, and Johnny began to suck at it eagerly. Robyn wandered over to Mika and folded her wrists over each other behind his neck. “He needs us to teach him. We can show him, Mika. We can show him everything.”
Mika looked around her and smiled, all memories of the things he had once done forgotten, covered by the prospect Robyn had presented him with. “Don’t worry about Robyn,” he told Johnny, who barely looked up. “She tends to talk in riddles.”
Johnny nodded. “Who’s in there?” He jerked his thumb to the other room and growled in barely controlled hunger. God, he was ravenous. Blood was like a drug for him now and he needed more. Johnny didn’t understand how Mika and Robyn could not feel it. But, they were feeling it more viciously than ever, but they were feeling something else as well. Something they could only stave off to a point…
“Never you mind,” barked Robyn.
“It’s a girl – I can smell her. They all smell different.”
“You’re learning. What else can you smell?”
Robyn leaned over and took his hands in hers, watching as he began to tremble. “Remember, you’re stronger than them. You’re better.”
“There’s something better than us. Something stronger. Can’t you feel it?”
Mika moved to break their hands apart, fearing that Robyn would be as overwhelmed by the power as he was, but Robyn gave him a decisive look which made him stop stock still on the spot. He could see that she was lost in the moment and watched her as her happiness grew. He had no reason to be jealous of her and Johnny’s current bond – after all, it was his arms she would be resting in come the morning.
“I feel it,” she breathed, seeming to glow with energy. “I’m connected to everything… to everyone. And there’s so much hurt.”
“It’s okay baby. We’ll find a way to stop it.” Mika hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Robyn’s last cryptic speech had brought some niggling doubts to the front of his mind but he didn’t want to worry her.
“And if you do?” started Johnny, pulling his hands away and smoothing them through his short, black hair. “What good will that do? The fire and the pain won’t just go away, you know. It’ll still be there – under the surface.”
“Oh, my precious, naïve boy.” Robyn looked at Mika, eagerly awaiting their adventure. “You have so much to learn about what you are. We’ve got so much to teach you. You can be one of the best.”
“I don’t want to be one of the best. I just want to be normal again.”
“Don’t fight your calling – you don’t want to be like the others out there. It’s easier to give in to it, because it will just come and get you anyway.” Mika draped one arm around her shoulders and buttoned his half-open shirt with his other hand. “Come on, New Boy. We’re going out.”
“Hunting?”
“No, Johnny. We don’t hunt. We’re going to show you what it really means.” Robyn watched him get out from his chair then looked at Mika again, a silent conversation passing between them. “How to use your power. How to create your own personal chaos. We’re going to give you a lesson in art.”
Lucie had just finished her shift at the local homeless shelter and was now on her way to the child minders house to pick up her young daughter. Lucie hated working late nights anyway, but especially not now it had gotten so crazy out here. Things had seemed to calm down a little after darkness had fallen and she was grateful that she would be able to walk home for once without having to run across the road to examine some poor, injured old soul. Her daughter, a two year old called Michelle, was the love of her life and was the person she spent every
spare minute with now that her husband had been called away on business in Switzerland. Switzerland, of all places. The winters were far too cold for Michelle, having only recently recovered from pneumonia, for them to go out with him. Lucie was more than happy to stay and wait for him to come home.
Whatever was tipping everyone over the edge had not touched her, for some reason. Sure, she felt the bubblings of something deep in the pit of her stomach, but the only feeling she felt consume her was one of total calm, peace and a wush to help. She couldn’t prevent it, she didn’t know what the cause was, though she could helo clear up the mess. The woman turned into the garden off the babysitter’s house and knocked the door. Michelle would probably be asleep by now, and Lucie longed for the days when she would be the one Michelle saw before going to sleep every night.
The door opened and Lucie sidled into the hallway, trying to find a piece of carpet to stand on beneath the jumble of toys cluttering the floor. “Hey, Andy,” she greeted him. “How’s Michelle been?”
“She cried a bit when you left today, but she’s been okay since. I think she’s asleep now – I’ll go get her.” He went into the front room and Lucie idly kicked a pile of toys towards the stairs. There was a sound outside – what was that? Chiding herself for being so jumpy, she figured that it was just some people using the alley at the side of the house. The front door was still open and she peeped out, unable to even see a shadow. They had probably gone past already. Andy returned holding a dozing child in his arms and gave her over to her mother. “I thought I’d lost her again – she was curled up under a giant teddy.”
“She likes teddy bears. Her room’s full of them.”
“It’s just a phase. It’ll pass.” Andy carefully let go of Michelle when she was safely in her mum’s arms and worked his finger free from her hot little fist. “Got her? She’s a fidgeter, that one.”