AF317436 – The Phoenix Experiment
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."
--Leonardo da Vinci--
I watched as my phoenix partner flew high overhead.
The girl sees us, she screeched. Shall I take her?
I flicked a hand. As far as I cared, Aderyn could do as she pleased. She was more friend
of mine than anything.
She swooped and dove down to the car speeding along the road. We were lucky; the girl was the only one in the car looking out at the road. I would congratulate her before I sent her away.
Aderyn circled a moment, then plunged a claw through the roof of the car. The thin metal buckled like paper. Cars are so fragile. I don't recommend them.
In instants, Aderyn had the girl in her firm grip. Despite her size, Aderyn is strong. Stronger than I am, stronger than many I have met.
And the girl didn't scream. She closed her eyes and I caught a brush of strong thought from her.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration...
Aderyn dropped the girl in the cornfield and wheeled back over the road, circling and keeping watch for other cars.
The girl's eyes were green and hidden behind glasses. She watched me with calm detachment. It appeared she didn't care that a phoenix had just snatched her through the roof of her family's car and dropped her in the middle of a nowhere cornfield across from a mutant with her wings fully exposed to the wind.
"Who are you?" Her voice was unusually calm. Usually by this point, they were screaming.
"What's it to you?"
"I don't normally go in for formalities, but this is a... special occasion." Her eyes glittered. Maybe it was the sun, but I wasn't liking it.
"Call me Aideen. Who're you?" I kept up my best disguise of lightheartedness.
"Call me Kathy." Her eyes narrowed. "I want to fly."
So she was a loon. Okay. That explained everything.
I nodded to her. "Okay. Meet Aderyn."
Aderyn came down from the sky and landed beside the girl. Again, Kathy watched with detached interest.
And Alora came from nowhere. She stabbed the girl in the arm with a syringe of tranquilizer.
"Alora!" I roared. "She was mine!" I could feel my wings rising and hooking forward into a threat posture.
Alora raised her own wings, feathered a dingy grey. "Well, now she's mine," she hissed. "Too slow, Bron. You need to get faster."
"Wait!" I cried. "I can offer you something."
Alora turned to me, eyes hungry. "What?"
My wings drooped. "Myself."
Alora bared her teeth. "Very well then. Come with me."
I watched as she lifted off, unconscious Kathy in her arms. I sighed. "Aderyn, you're on your own now," I told her. "Take care of yourself."
I lifted off, following Alora.
We were an elite breed, experiments who went along cheerfully with what the scientists ordered. Most of us were winged, nearly all of us partnered with another experiment.
Alora had always been my enemy. We didn't do well together.
Alora's partner had been a griffon-like creature, keen-eyed and swift in the air. When it was killed during a mission, Alora blamed Aderyn. Why she blamed the then-small phoenix, I don't know. Phoenixes as small as Aderyn was simply don't produce enough fire to light a match. Even one of Aderyn's current size could produce only mild first-degree burns.
We were a vicious tribe. We had to be.
All of us had one task set before us: Capture children for experiments. And do it as quietly as possible.
Some of us were stealthy. Others of us used surprise.
But all of us, through training or nature, were ruthless killers.
If a family saw us abducting children, they would die. And we would take their children as well.
Most of us were hardly older than the children we stole. We did what we did because we were given food, shelter, and a tentative respect from the Erasers. Which was good, because even we were subjected to tests.
There were point standings. Points were gained for each child we captured. He (or she) with the most points at the end of a month won something. Since there were many of us, and few winners, no one ever seemed to know those who won. Therefore, there was fierce competition among us to win, so that we could know the prize.
I had offered myself to Alora to increase her point standing. My points would be added to hers, virtually doubling her rank.
And in the mind of someone like Alora, those small things were very large indeed.
---
I woke.
I slept.
I ate.
I thought.
That was how I lived during the weeks after my capture. They were slow processing me, with so many new captures.
It was fall, and we were winding up for the winter. Almost all experiments came into being in spring, after a winter's work on them.
I dreamt.
---
When I woke, I was caged. Not unusual; the scientists understood that new experiments were often wild. The cages were of steel, carpeted in a material it is hard to describe. It was a little like the cedar you put in a hamster cage, soft and durable.
The boy in the cage next to me had long ago accepted that he was caged, but someone down the row hadn't. They banged against the bars of their cage. "Noisy, isn't he?" I said to the boy.
Voices do not seem to change when one is transformed. Like before, you hear your own voice part through the air and part vibrating through your skull. I believe that we perceive our voices as the same so we can slowly accept that we are changed. Your voice is part of your being.
The boy turned to me. He was covered in fur that rippled gently. A half-Eraser, then. Such beings spent their lives furred and half-transformed. They were good guardians of the nurseries.
He raised an eyebrow and nodded.
"What do I look like?" I asked. The first thing everyone wants to know.
He pointed to the mirror mounted in the corner of my cage.
I peered in.
My face hadn't changed much. The angles in it were sharper, more hawk-like. My nose hooked downward sharply.
My hair, however, had gone a brilliant shade of vermillion. In other words, it looked like the top of my head was on fire. My eyes were a glistening shade of gold, more like coins than eyes.
I twisted a wing around, bringing it into my field of view. It had been changed from my former chiroform style to an avian form, with feathers the same shade as my hair. No more night time attacks, then -- oh, wait. I wasn't a hunter anymore.
My skin was a shade of red that went beyond sunburn into ruby. It was slightly stiff and very dry.
So what was I?
In a word, phoenix.
The tag on my cage read AF317436. Part of me knew then that I was no longer Bronwen, called Bron.
The boy in the cage next to me spoke for the first time. "I'm Ichabod. Call me Ick."
I said instantly, "I'm Anstice."
He gave me an amused look, and I realized for possibly the first time that I was among the most intelligent people I had ever known.
---
I got to know myself a little better in the following weeks. Ick and I were moved to a larger room with more experiments, which is where I acquired a new last name from a girl who had some skill with languages and a phenomenal memory.
"Feng!" she said. "That's it. The perfect last name for you."
"What's it mean?" I asked absently, picking through the feathers on my wings. Since they'd changed my wings, I had found out the hard way just how much feathers had to be groomed.
"Maple," she said. Then she closed her eyes, thought a bit, and added, "Or phoenix."
Guthrie, or Serp as she liked to be called, was a snake/human hybrid. As such, her cage was the only one with heating. She was the smart one in my neighborhood of caged experiments. When there was an argument, one went to Serp.
An Eraser stepped through the door and called to me in his honey voice. "Testing time."
A scientist appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and unlocked my cage. I unfolded myself from the cramped position I'd been in and followed the Eraser out of the room.
Behind me, the other experiments except for the littlest kids were also being let out of their cages. Serp slithered from her cage with thoughtless fluidity, while Ick followed his Eraser happily, chattering away with him like there was nothing wrong with the world.
Today was my day for strength testing. This meant that today, I would have to either a), fight off Erasers for some hours, or b) run on a treadmill until I was exhausted.
Apparently, today was my day to do the treadmill. Little suction cups were glued to my pulse points and I was given the signal to start running.
At first, as always, it was way too easy. I had stamina, but on short distances, I did terribly.
Then it started getting a bit harder. Someone upped the pace, but I sped up with only a little strain. I was nowhere near my threshold.
A klaxon went off somewhere and a scientist (one of the upper level ones, I assumed) came through the doorway. "Get her off the treadmill," he said to the Erasers, and I was de-suction-cupped.
The scientist snapped his fingers. "Follow me."
I followed after him. I've always been one for following orders. What can I say? It's how I was raised.
We hurried along the halls, and he explained to me in bits and pieces what had happened. "Mass escape. New York. Institute. Renegades."
He showed me into a large, way too fancy office and called, "Mr. Batchelder? She's here."
In a scene well worthy of a B-movie, the chair facing the window turned about and I saw its occupant.
Mr. Batchelder, or Jeb as most of us called him, was one of the few kind scientists a lot of the kids would ever meet. He was just... a good guy.
And he was short. I blinked. Five six, at that. Almost a head shorter than me, but the guy had presence, I swear.
"Anstice," he said. "I need your help." Jeb motioned to a chair in front of his desk. "Go ahead; sit down."
He continued. "There was a massive escape at our institute in New York."
I nodded.
"Unfortunately, we only got word of it a few minutes ago. The renegades Reilly told you about are in the Everglades. We need you to capture them, or at least bargain with them."
"Yeah."
"To do this, we have arranged that you be accompanied by a group of experiments from our facility in Colorado. All of them are well-qualified, I assure you. All you need do is pass by to pick them up, as it were."
"Can do."
Jeb shook my hand across the desk. "Good. I like seeing people with a positive attitude like yours. Reilly will equip you."
I showed myself to the door this time as Jeb busied himself typing on a computer. Reilly was waiting outside, and he wasted no time in giving me some "stuff."
"Here's some money." He pressed a wallet into my hand. "Just don't spend it all in one place." He rummaged in his pockets and produced a cheap ballpoint pen. "Your communications center. Use it wisely."
Reilly opened his mouth to say something more to me, then clamped it shut. "No, you can defend yourself well enough." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Good luck. Door's that way." Reilly pointed down a hallway like any other. "Two rights, a left, straight, and you're out."
"Thanks, dude." I started running down the hall he had specified, with a liquid thrill running through my gut at the thought that I was going to be defending everything I lived for.
---
I swooped and dove through the Rockies, amazed by the beauty around me. I know, I know, you've heard it a million times, but seriously, this was amazing to someone who'd lived in California her whole life! The air was clean and clear and the mountains were covered in snow.
I flew right over Trail Ridge Road. "Stupid tourists!" I called. "You haven't seen the Rockies the real way!"
After I crossed Trail Ridge, I made a sharp right towards Denver. I'd heard that the facility here was in the foothills just outside of Denver, so that was where I was going.
Turns out I hit paydirt. Not only was it exactly where I had been told it was, there were Erasers milling about in a courtyard. Unless I was in a B-movie, this was the place.
I landed. An Eraser immediately jumped me, demanding what business I had there. Tough security.
Before the guy could choke me to death, a scientist hurried over. "Toby, off!" she ordered, and the Eraser got off me. I gasped in a breath.
"Thanks," I told her. "I'm Anstice Feng, here to pick up my companions."
The woman nodded. "You're here already. My name's Molly; the guys'll be here in a minute."
After a while, I was starting to get a bit nervous. Me now being the rather odd personage I was, all the Erasers were eyeing me like a dog eyes a steak. I ruffled my wings.
Five experiments came out of the courtyard door, talking quietly among themselves.
Molly introduced them to me.
Adorjan, the leader, looked like another snake hybrid. Except he wasn't legless and snakish, like Serp quite literally was. He just had rattlesnake scales, fangs, and creepy eyes.
Annabel was a punky cat hybrid with purple hair that she later informed me was the result of a lab accident. Oh, and the tail, the ears, and the fur.
Iolani was a laid-back type. She never told me exactly what she was, but I guessed that she was an avian hybrid. With the wings and all.
Hesper and Latif were siblings, both Erasers, and the youngest. Okay, so they were thirteen and fourteen, respectively, but seeing as I was looking at eighteen on my next birthday, they were pretty young.
I was starting to guess that since Iolani and I were the only two with wings, we were going to be driving to Florida.
Then Molly gave us the plane.
Apparently, this plane was reserved exclusively for facility use. The thing looked like someone mashed a fighter plane and a Cessna into each other at 80 mph. Molly assured us, however, that it was fast. Which was all we needed.
We crammed into the plane, which was a bit of a struggle, since this plane was apparently designed for those under five foot six. Since I'm about six foot two, I was pretty cramped in there.
Molly came onboard and into the cabin, where she programmed the autopilot. Then she got off and told us to have a good ride.
Immediately, the plane erupted in a hailstorm of noise. Adorjan and Annabel started talking about some band, while Hesper, Latif, and Iolani engaged in a lively conversation about what they were going to do in Florida.
After a few nerve-wracking moments of turbulence (Latif almost threw up), we were firmly in the stratosphere. Or the upper part of the troposphere. I'm a bad student; I spent classes doodling flying people in the margins of my notebook.
I was firmly bored. The people I was supposed to be traveling with had their own social structure, and I was way too old to interest them. Adorjan was way too absorbed with Annabel to be interested in me, and Latif was way too young for me. The boy was fourteen, for God's sake!
So I spent the time grooming.
Just as I was about to engage in a round of "I Know A Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves," the plane tipped alarmingly, Hesper and Latif screamed, and I found myself wishing we'd driven.
---
"Erk."
"I think I'm alive, but I'm not sure."
"What was that?"
Apparently, Molly's autopilot had either malfunctioned or tried to land somewhere that didn't exist anymore.
I stood up dizzily. "Whoa."
Adorjan, Annabel, and Iolani were already up, and Hesper was staring up at the sky with Latif, discussing the merits of clouds.
Adorjan clapped his hands. "Come on! Hesper, Latif, get up!"
Latif got up unwillingly and Hesper got up only after her brother poked her viciously in the side. It must suck to have siblings.
Iolani nodded to Latif and said, "Do your thing, man."
Apparently, I was just here to pose as adult figure, not to actually do anything.
Latif turned in slow circles, apparently sniffing for any trace of the renegades.
Meanwhile, Hesper was pointing into the bushes and exclaiming, "Ohmigod!" repeatedly. When I asked her what it was to get her to stop, she just said, "It's a Florida panther!" and kept going, "Ohmigod!"
And that's when the alligator came out of the bushes, doing what looked like a good 50 mph.
---
"I look like an explosion in a paint factory."
"What was up with that alligator?"
"Somebody poke her."
Somebody poked me with a stick. I was starting to really not appreciate waking up in a strange place with people talking. It creeps me out.
I sat up in the mud, trying to ignore the fact that seven different kinds of bugs were
crawling all over me. "So, um, what happened?"
Hesper said excitedly, "The gator tried to eat you and then Adorjan was beating it with a stick and then we were all screaming and it lit on fire."
Adorjan shot her a look that said, "Quiet. Or else." Then he turned to me and said, "Forget to tell us anything?"
"No, because a) this is the first civil word I've exchanged with you guys and b) I didn't know I was freaking pyrokinetic!" As I spoke, a thin coating of fire sprang up all over my body. "And I didn't know I could do that, either!"
"Um." stated Iolani, apparently deep in thought about the fact that I was on fire and not disintegrating into ashes. And not in a movie. And not missing limbs. The list goes on...
Conveniently enough, that was when Latif burst through the bushes and said, "I found them!"
Immediately, the rest of them filed after him. Although Adorjan shot me a look before I stepped to the end of the line.
---
We walked through the "swamp" for quite a while. To me, it looked more like an overgrown lot, but I kept that thought to myself. When one can set things on fire, one learns pretty fast to keep to one's self.
But we weren't in a movie or a book, and night comes on pretty fast in some places. We -- by "we," I mean that the group decided and I tagged along -- chose a clearing to sleep in. The younger kids fell asleep almost instantly, but the older kids stayed awake a little longer, talking to each other.
At last, I and Adorjan were the only ones awake. I moved a further ten feet from the main group, and he settled down. What was it with me?
I sat up a while, just thinking. Well, brooding really. Today hadn't been a good day, but then again... it wasn't like I'd had a lot of really stellar days, was it?
I ruffled my feathers with a hand. Feathers. They were weird to get used to. Before I'd been changed, I'd had nice smooth wings that didn't need to be constantly groomed.
But, argued the part of me that always disagreed, they are prettier.
True, I thought. The red was nice, but hardly camouflage. I mean, with these feathers, this hair, these eyes... it was gonna be like walking around with... with... I couldn't think of anything weird enough to compare.
I held a hand in front of my eyes. One tradeoff, though -- my vision. Before, my night vision had been about this quality, thanks to my bat genes, but in black and white. Now it was in color. Freaky.
A sudden crackle of static rang out, and I scrambled my "pen" from my pocket.
A voice issued from it. "Anstice?"
"Yeah?" I hissed. "It's night over here."
"Sorry about that. We have new information."
"On who?"
"Whom," corrected the voice. "On Maximum. We know where she is."
"Cool!" I gasped. "Spill."
The voice gave me directions to a spot roughly 150 miles northeast of where I was. Not very far when you can fly.
"Thanks," I said. "Who is this, by the way?"
"Jeb." My eyes widened. Holy... I was in with the big cheese now. Me, a lowly
experiment!
Bounty hunter, corrected that weirdo part of me. "Thanks," I said, and clicked the pen off. "Not bounty hunter," I whispered, tucking the pen back into my pocket. "Seeker."
---
I found a good spot to take off from soon after that. Another good thing about my new self I was noticing outdoors was that I was a lot more flexible. My wings felt like they were made of rubber compared to the pleasantly solid constructions they'd formerly been.
But the night was clean and cool, a perfect night for flying. Have you ever been outdoors at night? Not to get the paper really early. Really outdoors. Hiking or something. Hiking at night... that's about as close as you'll ever get to what it was like that night.
Once, a long time ago, I had a job that I had to do at night for some reason. The house I was sent to cover was by a cliff, and as I flew over, the bats were just coming out. For a few minutes, I flew in the middle of a storm of bats. Very, very cool.
Back to night flying. The animals that come out at night are singing down below you, and even though the view's spoiled by electric lights, it's still like flying in a planetarium; you can see what feels like all the stars perfectly. And sometimes a bat will fly past you.
It's even better in color.
It was an eerily silent night, without even a wind. When dawn came, a breeze came up, which would have been nice, but I had to land, and I was still far short of my target. But hey. Flying in daylight was just a stupid idea here. Way too many people.
Once I'd landed, my wings suddenly went sore. Really sore, like the way you get when you walk altogether too far one day. Which was strange. Well, strange until I remembered I'd been flying top speed the whole way. Okay...
I settled against a tree and fell into a light doze. I needed the sleep, after all.
---
I was sitting against my tree, contemplating the purpose of life and, to a degree, why the people I'd been sent to help had just left me to fend for myself. The wind rustled some branches above me.
I heard someone step on a fallen branch to my left.
"I hope I didn't startle you."
"Who was that?" I asked loudly, trying to cover up the fear hovering in my stomach.
Whoever had been speaking sighed loudly and stepped from the bushes. "Me."
He was about my height, roughly speaking, and appeared to have the body of a horse. A white horse.
When he saw that my jaw was hanging open, he sighed, "Honestly. You haven't met any other Specials before?"
I gave him a look that I meant to mean, "Special?"
He rolled his eyes. "Special. Mythic. Legend. Imaginary creatures, you twit." He sighed again and flicked his tail at a fly. "Look. What do I look like? What do you look like?"
I snapped, "I'm a pyrokinetic avian hybrid, you idiot!"
He hissed. "You must have been a skeptic. What I mean is that I'm a centaur. You're a phoenix."
"Both of which are mythical creatures, yes. I know that."
"Oh, no way," he shot back. "Really?"
"That's it!" I yelled, and shot fire at him.
"That's what I was looking for," he grinned. "Let me show you to the rest of us."
"Us?"
"Didn't we just go over this? We're the Ceteria, those who are the mystical creatures."
He was a bit too smart for my taste, but I wasn't complaining. He hadn't freaked out or rejected me at first glance, so I thought he might be a good guy.
He led me through a maze of bushes to a clearing where six others stood, sat, or paced nervously.
He bowed to a girl who looked to be something like a harpy. Then he turned to me and began introducing the kids who stood in the clearing.
As I listened to him reciting the litany of their names, I looked around at them.
The girl he called Cheveyo looked to me like a snake/human hybrid. She was sitting coiled on the ground, studiously looking almost through me. I heard a whisper of her voice in my head. -Greetings, traveler. Welcome.-
The girl Csongor looked like a triple cross to me, something I'd never seen before. Like me, she had gold eyes like coins. I guessed that the parts of her that weren't human were horse and eagle. Again, I heard a voice in my head. -They call me hippogriff.-
Her brother, Kinfe, looked like another triple cross of eagle, lion, and human. A griffin, then. He watched me with intense brown eyes.
Kass, the avian hybrid, stood completely still, eyes closed.
Kiros was something I'd never really seen before.
Snake I'd seen, cat, rat, bird, wolf I'd seen. But nothing like him.
Kiros had skin --scales, really-- that shimmered in every color. Red, blue, green, black, white -- every color there is. His wings were the same way, flashing colors. His eyes were a warm, centered brown.
And there was Aman, the centaur.
He spoke to them in a flowing language I didn't entirely understand. Cheveyo hissed something, and I heard her voice. -I welcome her.-
Csongor and Kinfe spoke together. -As do we.-
Kiros answered, -And I.-
Kass was silent a moment before saying, -And I.-
Aman said to me, -It is settled. Welcome, my sister.-
---
While I was flying over the forest before, I daydreamed of a world where all people could do strange things like I could. Someone would teach me how to control my fire, and someone would understand me.
Living with the Ceteria, I changed.
Most people never get this part, no matter how I try to explain it.
In the Ceteria, you see through everyone's eyes. If someone is hurt, you feel it. When someone finds something that is of use, you know where it is. If you need help, or if someone else does, everyone else is there in moments.
I suppose that the Ceteria were the only ones who ever figured out how to really use the power the scientists gave us. They figured out that if one person could carry off a small thing, then two or more people could carry off bigger things. So they worked together in everything.
In a sense, it was kind of like doing group projects in school when we did something big. Everyone found something to do.
Our language was either mental, a sort of weak telepathy that came from our proximity to each other, or a quick, flowing English. And sometimes, when Kiros was in charge, everything just flowed the way it was supposed to.
Oh, yes. Kiros.
He was the charisma of the Ceteria. Kiros was something that no one I talked to after from any of the labs had ever seen. They said that Jeb himself had created Kiros. How else, they said, could one boy have so much power?
The answer I puzzled out from my sources was that Kiros was a people magnet. People loved to be around him. He was the only one of us who could willingly shift his skin tone and hide his wings.
If I had been jealous, instead of consumed by the essence of the Ceteria, I would have deeply envied Kiros. He was brilliant, powerful, strong. Presidential hopefuls would kill for his charisma.
Part of his power came from us. The Ceteria never had a formal leader, but he often led us.
Understand, I tell this after everything. I speak of him as I remember him, not as who he truly was. None of us had a perfect memory.
But through the bits and pieces each of us possess, I can begin to piece together the story of my time as a Ceterius. Which was what we called ourselves.
It was a magical time.
Literally. Well, not magical as in "casting spells." Magical as in "things happened I can't explain."
I heard once about this one group somewhere who created a ghost with the power of their minds. It was kinda like that.
Except, instead of making tables move, we moved people as we traveled slowly through the forest.
Oh, yes. The traveling.
Apparently, the rest of the Ceteria had gotten the ping from Jeb too, except he'd pinged them again with new information. So when I ran across them where Max was supposed to be, they were on their way to where she was.
Of course, we needed food, and Kiros mainly took care of that. He never told us how.
And we needed shelter, which mostly meant a clearing we could sleep in.
We often stopped along the way for one reason or another. Occasionally, we'd glimpse other experiments through the trees. Was there another center in Florida, maybe?
With the Ceteria, I was actually needed, not ignored. They needed me to start fires on cold nights, and because I could guide them in some things, which was a talent apparently latent in me. Kind of like the telepathy was.
In those weeks, I daydreamed often of how it would be when we found Max. I would tell her that Jeb needed to speak to her, send her on her way, and keep going, looking for the escapees from the Institute.
The reality, however, was quite different.
---
Kiros had found tracks in the grass that morning, and we'd tracked the flock all that day, looking for them up and down. Finally, Aman found them.
We entered their camp as a group. Cheveyo, who we'd elected as our spokesperson, slithered up to Max and began.
Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes. Many, many things. Were I to tell all the things of importance that happened, this story would be much, much longer than it is. But I'm trying to speak mostly as the person I used to be, not the one I am now.
One of the talents Kiros could apparently transfer to each of us was something like invisibility. I'd call it camouflage. To approach them, he'd transferred it to all of us in turn. I knew he was going to be tired from so much expended energy when we returned to our camp, just like the rest of us.
Cheveyo lowered her camouflage and Max jerked a bit, evidently surprised by the snake mutant in front of her. Although, technically, Cheveyo was a basilisk. I won't go into that; it comes up later anyway.
Cheveyo began to speak in her smooth voice. I'd so rarely heard her speak; she preferred telepathy, for some reason.
She told Max who we were, introduced us by name as we lowered our camouflage, and began to explain our situation. "You see, Mr. Batchelder needs to see you in California..."
Max's head snapped up, and she said harshly, "Who?"
"Mr. Batchelder," Cheveyo repeated. "He runs the project."
"Get out." Max said. "Just get out."
Cheveyo hissed quietly and slithered backwards. As she "spoke" privately to us, her natural accent became slightly more pronounced. -She doesssn't want us there,- she said. -I think she thinksss we're againssst her.-
"We're not against you!" I cried thoughtlessly, and I recieved one of the strongest thought-pulses I'd ever heard. -That doesn't matter,- yelled the voice. -You're with HIM!- The last word was represented in huge lettering, underlined in red and blue.
I got the message, and backed up, as did the rest of the Ceteria.
Once we were a fair distance away, I commented, -Well, that went well.-
---
We decided to split up to search for escapees. I was allocated Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. I didn't hear what the others recieved as their patrolling territory, but I am sure that no one got an area west of the Minnesota state border. Cheveyo, though, was directed to remain behind to (I loved this wording) "negotiate relations with" Max and her gang.
Once I left the rest of the Ceteria well behind me, it was like a fog lifted from me. It was like I was seeing the world for the first time, all bright and green and full of life.
Jeb pinged me the morning after I left, as I was preparing to settle down for the day. This time, I was slightly more prepared.
"Who... is this?" I asked.
A strange voice answered. "Someone you know."
I took that in stride. I'd gotten weird phone calls before. "Okay. Orders."
"Don't move."
Okay... that was an odd order.
Or so I thought, until an angel of darkness descended from the east.
---
I awoke in a dark room.
I tried conjuring fire for a light, but the little flicker I managed went out almost as soon as it appeared. I even tried squinting, which usually worked, but it was still the darkest I'd
ever seen a place.
There was a sound like the wind blowing, and a light came on. Another sound like that, and the door was open.
There was a man… a boy… I didn't know what to call him… standing by the door.
Another windy sound, and he was standing next to me.
His voice… like shadow pouring from a pitcher.
"You seek the answer to what you have become."
He wasn't tall, nor short, nor fat, nor thin. To use a cliché, he was all things and none. He had wings, yes; they were black. No. They weren't black; they were void. They were the color of absence and loss.
"You seek the answer to your destiny."
I found my voice from where it had been hiding, deep in my throat. "Yes."
He offered a hand to me. "Get up. We have far to go, and the night is waning."
I took his hand. All I could think was His hands are cold.
He was quite right, I saw as we stepped outside. The moon was sinking to the west of us,
and the east was slightly less dark.
For him, night flying must have been natural. After all, when one is naturally camouflaged for darkness, the night becomes a second home.
However, I stood out like a beacon. Think about it… phoenix… birds of fire… fire is light.
His voice startled me. "Phoenixes were briefly associated with the Devil."
"What?" I asked. And I'd thought they were nature spirits or whatever they're called.
"They were birds of light… bringers of light… Lucifer was a bringer of light."
Okay then. The Devil, a phoenix? I couldn't even begin to comprehend that.
He laughed, a sound just like his voice. "No one thinks they can at first. Once you meet him, that will change."
Okay, the mind-reading I could stand, the creepy voice I could take, but meeting the Devil one on one? Uh-uh.
Word to the wise? Don't faint midair. When you're accompanied by a guy who just might be an avatar of darkness, it tends to give one the heebie-jeebies after one wakes up.
---
I awoke to another dark room. Before I could begin to think that what had come before was a dream and that this was the real thing, I heard a voice.
No, not the ones in my head. A human voice. And surprisingly (to me), a female one.
"So where is she?"
Then, a voice I recognized. That voice like shadow itself.
"The phoenix girl? In that room."
Someone entered the room. I could see them silhouetted against the rectangle of the open door for an instant before the light came on.
I suppose you've heard this before, but the sudden light felt like someone was driving nails into my eyes. Altogether, very painful. I doubled up on the bed, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to keep that infernal light away.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jerked away from it. Again – the sensation was far too intense. Felt like someone had dropped a brick on that shoulder. A brick covered in broken glass.
Then came a barrage of sound. It was worse than the lunchroom back home.
And smell, and taste. Imagine sucking on the largest lemon imaginable, imagine being in the middle of a pile of rotten food.
Inasmuch as you could understand, that was basically it.
I heard shouts of sound, a loud voice that, in reality, was probably only a whisper.
"My God! What's going on?"
I heard the angel's voice again. Angel? Well, that was how I would call him, I decided.
"I'm not sure."
There was a cool absence-of-a-touch on my forehead and I heard his voice again.
"Whatever it is, her temperature is normal." His voice seemed to be something like his touch and wings; an absence of sound.
The touch went away.
"I would suggest the infirmary for her. Perhaps the nurses will know what to do."
I heard an infinitely loud murmur of assent and I was lifted from the bed, into darkness.
---
I don't know how long I spent in my personal hell of entirely too much sensation. The angel came and went, bringing silence and a semblance of normality to me. Nurses came and went as well, bringing a babble of noise and other sensations with them.
What I do remember is very clear: a single night.
I felt the angel's hands pass over my eyelids, squeezed tight shut and still allowing spotlights through from the stars, and I could see again. His voice sounded, words of some ancient language, and I could hear, speak, taste again. His hand gentle on my arm, and touch was suddenly bearable. And I could smell again! "Who are you?" I asked.
"They have called me worker of miracles. I call myself Reza. Now rest."
I heard the whisper of a wind, and there was darkness.
---
When next I woke, it was late morning. A woman with dark brown hair was sitting on a stool at my bedside, checking over a clipboard that I assumed held my vital information.
I heard voices from the hallway, and for the first time in God knew how long, I was actually straining to hear something.
Reza entered the room at the head of a group of children who clamored behind him. What was I, a celebrity?
"Now get out!" he commanded. The door shut behind him, closed by no hand I could see.
Reza hurried over and conferred with the nurse quietly. Then he turned to me and said, "There is not much time. Up."
I lifted myself from the bed and followed him. He waved a hand absently and clothes appeared in my hands. "Put them on," he said, pushing the door open.
I unfolded the bundle of clothes that had appeared and discovered a loosely-fitting cloak, a shirt, and pants. Reza ushered me into a small, empty room. He stepped out into the corridor and shut the door behind him, leaving me alone to dress.
I shed the paper hospital gown – who invented them? They hide nothing. – and donned the clothes. Thank God for underwear.
The clothes were surprisingly light and soft to the touch. After a moment of marveling over this, I stepped into the corridor. The door swung shut behind me.
Reza was standing there, a silhouette of darkness against the stone walls. He beckoned me on, already proceeding down the corridor. "We have little enough time already. Let us not waste it."
I hurried beside him. He was fast. His feet made soft shushing noises on the floor as he walked.
I followed him through the twisting halls until we came to a door, standing slightly open.
Reza almost dashed through it – I'd never seen someone in such a hurry. And of course, I followed him.
The air outside was cooler than that inside. I was already grateful that my clothes were insulating.
Reza lifted into the air, beating at it with those singularly strange wings. "North," he said, pointing to what I assumed was north.
I followed him into the air.
Not only was he a fast walker, but Reza was a fast flyer. I would estimate that he flew at least twice as fast as I did.
I had no idea how far north we were going, and so I gave over my time to thinking, never minding that Reza could read minds.
I began by reflecting on my life – my God, was it only weeks ago? It was so hard to imagine that I once had been a… well, what to call myself? I had been somewhat a child, yet not a child.
I moved on. And the past weeks! From… whatever I had been… to experiment, to seeker, to abandoned, to accepted member of a group, to seeker once more, and now…
"To the future," Reza said simply.
I grinned at this. Words had never held such power for me. "To the future."
"A hunter of shadows, himself a shade."
--Homer--
end of chapter one