Chapter 22: And Refuse Thy Name
He searched the floor and found a metal flashlight. The girl inside the tank was panicking, pounding on the glass.
He felt the flashlight in his hand. The heavy steel casing weighed heavily on his palm.
Bubbles escaped from the girl's mouth but no sound.
I don't understand anything, he thought. But-
"Hey! Get away from the glass!" he yelled. Diana covered her face with her hands. Then he tossed the flashlight. It hung for a moment in midair and then struck the tank which shattered instantly into a million tiny shards.
Buoyancy failed her and she quickly fell to the ground. He saw cinnabar droplets mixed with orange liquid fly through the air and splash his face. He panicked and quickly wiped the bloody mixture off himself, but a strange sensation remained on his tongue.
She was coughing, spraying the orange fluid out of her lungs and all over the ground where it mixed with viscous red which flowed from her gashed knees like an oil slick spreading out on the pavement. Tiny shards of glass reflected light like diamonds set in the velvet of her kneecaps.
"Diana are you okay?" he stammered out.
She continued to cough as commotion rang out behind him.
"Come this way! I can get you out of here!" he yelled at her while extending a hand.
The door crashed open and Royce reached for the flashlight among the crystal shards.
The old doctor from the video files appeared in the doorway.
"You monster! How could you!?" He held the flashlight in his hand outstretched, then charged headlong at the man.
"You have no idea what you're talking about, boy. She's-" then the old man let out a growl of pain as he struck his kneecap with the light.
Another agonizing groan as glass shards cut into the man's knees. The choking and sputtering sounds of Diana in the background were all that his mind registered.
"What did you do to her?" he pointed at the coughing girl.
"No," came another voice through hurried gasps. It was Diana. She continued to cough in great bursts, unable to form the words to elaborate.
He looked back at the wrinkled scientist on the ground, now clutching his leg. The fluorescent orange hue of the room reminded him of a glowing bonfire.
A glint of a black pistol protruded from the man's pocket. His foot was caught under a pipe, bent backwards at an odd angle.
The girl stood up, still clutching her chest and crawled toward the old man's body. Her wet hair dripping with some unknown viscous liquid, stained red at the tips which dragged along the ground. She reached and inside his pocket and removed the pistol, racked the slide, and pointed it at the man's head.
"You are not my father."
He heard a familiar pop and ringing noise in his ears. He saw the man's body heave upwards then slump back down into silence.
She walked back toward the shattered tank and found an overturned surgical pan lying on the ground. A stained silver bracelet lay beside it, half submerged in fluid. She grabbed it and then walked back to him with the gun still in hand and the bracelet in her other.
Terror gripped him.
"Take it." She said.
She pressed the pistol to his chest.
He took it.
Then she made for the door, grabbing a white lab coat from a rack as she went. He followed her.
"Was he- your father?"
She turned toward him. The girl's emerald eyes glowed with a terrifying fire he had never seen as she lowered her head and growled, "I have no father. That man just wanted to use me."
Then she looked up at him, "are you afraid of - what I am?" she extended her fingers and he saw, for the first time that her nails were not flesh, but some kind of reflective semi-metal. Flakes of skin-tone enamel which once concealed their true nature had chipped away and underneath he saw the truth.
He looked up at her eyes and saw tiny gleaming lights within concentric emerald rings. Tiny rivulets of orange liquid ran down her cheeks, like her hair was crying. "I'm different now," she continued. "It could be dangerous if you-" He looked behind him. Only a pair of bloody footprints remained on the dark floor which led to where she currently stood.
"I'm not going anywhere," he gulped. "I came here to find you."
"Can I trust you?" she asked and put her hands around his neck. The points of her nails pressed lightly into his back and he gulped. Her nose was inches away from his own. Her eyes blinked slowly at him and he felt overwhelming fear mixed with excitement. Tears welled in his eyes as he was overcome with some strange emotion which he had no words to describe.
"Can I trust you," he asked in return, gripping the pistol in his hand.
"Of course," she smiled a bit, "after all, you are my Darling!" Then she released him and grabbed his hand gently.
Her captivating eyes still beamed at him. In an instant she pulled his hand and he stumbled behind her as she ran toward the door.
He nearly toppled over half from surprise. Dragged like a hawk's prey in her talons. He shouted, "hey slow down!" He nearly tripped on a tube and tried desperately to stay upright as his mind continued to race. So many brief and fleeting thoughts rushed through his mind as if it was about to explode with confusion and fear, excitement and wonder all rolled into one.
They ran down hallways lined with doors. Squares of light flashed like train car windows above and beside them. Men picked up handheld telephones and dialed as they ran past, and he heard yelling in a strange foreign language with echoes of angry footsteps behind them. They kept running, through a half-open door at the end of a hall.
He tripped and lost his grip on her hand as two armed guards emerged from behind the door. He saw her race toward them and scratch wildly at the air like a wounded animal. "Darling, run!" she yelled.
He pointed the gun at one of the guards and pulled the trigger, but only a soft click issued from its iron depths. Jammed. Or out of ammo. He had no idea. He threw the gun to the ground and yelled, "I'll come back for you!"
Then he turned away and ran down a set of darkened stairs. Down five flights until he saw light at the bottom. He knew nothing- nothing at all. He just ran.
At the bottom he found a lobby with shining windows pouring sunlight in bright summer beams. He crashed into a pair of locked glass doors. He heard a snap next to his ear and the glass panel exploded into a shower of glistening sparks. He ducked instinctively and looked back to see two men clad in body armor staring back at him, one pointed a small handgun at him and shouted, "stop where you are, kid!"
He leapt over the broken door frame and into a crowded street bustling with cars and people. He drew concerned and panicked looks from a small crowd that had gathered around the broken window.
He saw a flash of light, then he heard it, the cracking of bone like a car crash, and then the snap of a bullet.
He fell forward, not knowing which way was up or down. A red puddle appeared below his nose on the concrete. He felt cold liquid run down the back of his neck.
A woman screamed in the distance and he heard sirens wailing as a cacophony of civilization rushed in to fill the void of darkness he'd just escaped from.
He tried to whisper her name, but only his lips barely moved. No words came out. Then he closed his eyes.
"Your son sustained permanent damage to his temporal lobe and multiple fractures to his face-"
"Are you-"
"We won't know the extent of the damage until he wakes up. He got very lucky. The bullet entered - missed it by a fraction, bounced off C1, then ricocheted - temporal lobe, missing the rest of the critical structures. If it was a millimeter off-"
"He can make a full recovery?"
"It's unlikely. The vasculature in his brain - without intervention he could be at risk for - reconstructive surgery to repair his nose and facial structures - damage to his memory could be permanent - administer a localized optogenetic treatment and reconstruct -"
"No optos."
"It's interesting you say that – because he's been showing localized activity since we tested – he's showing weak but positive titer."
"That's impossible."
"We have no idea where it came from - he's been in containment since he arrived."
"So he's already been exposed to - in a Khanian lab?"
"It appears so."
He opened his eyes and saw green and white fireflies dancing above a hazy white hospital bed. A gray haired doctor wearing a blue coat and a kind smile looked down at him. His father stood against the wall, his bald head reflecting a white fluorescent light above them. Near the door, a soldier stood with his back turned.
"Where- am I?" he asked.
"Rex, you're-"
"Rex?"
His father wore a concerned expression. "Do you remember your name?"
They exchanged looks.
"Do you remember what happened?"
"I-" He tried to remember but only flashes of horrific images, orange liquid, blood, screams of agony, and fires flooded his mind. "No." He stated, resolutely.
He heard whispers, "post-traumatic amnesia is a common response," the white haired doctor hid his lips behind a clipboard. "might be best- not to push too hard."
She awoke strapped down to a steel table. Explosions could be heard in the distance. She looked out the steel door and saw men flying backward through the air outside. There was nothing and no one in the room except clamorous noise and the odor of death. Her small bracelet was still around her wrist. They never managed to pry it from her hand. She wouldn't let go. The silver bird was smeared with crimson. She yelled out. "Get me out of here!"
A man wearing a white lab coat appeared in the doorway and walked over to her and began to unstrap her, then he stopped suddenly.
"What happened to Doctor Karmann?" The man was young, in his mid-thirties, with long dark hair and dark eyes. "Did the U.N.F. get him?"
She peered at him and said coldly, "No idea."
The man continued to undo her straps but paused again shortly. "You know he cared about you very much."
"Yes." She gritted her teeth.
"He told me that you're the key. You're all that's left." He finished with her wrist restraints and continued to unstrap her ankle. "If you don't get out of here- the U.N.F. is going to get you. Better to let you go than let you fall into their hands. When all this is over - I hope you'll find us. What's inside you could save us all. The restraints that have bound us since the dawn of time."
Her last restraint undone, she scowled at the man. A fire burned in her eyes and she reached up for the man's neck with her free hand. Then she squeezed and watched five rivers flow down the man's chest. The smell of raw meat. She stood over the bloody scientist's body.
"Lambda- Why?"
What the slab of meat says no longer matters.
She reached down and swiped the man's key card.
"Lambda? Screw that. I'm not your experiment. And screw Karmann too."
She looked down at her blood stained talons. "You can call me Zhenniao."
She kicked the man who let out a pained gasp, then walked over his body.
Outside the cold metal door, she came to a hallway barricaded with overturned tables, men clad in black Khanian uniforms squatted behind them, firing ceaselessly at camouflaged U.N.F. commandos who advanced from the outside toward her. She walked through the carnage.
A bullet struck her in the arm and she winced, then she continued forwards. She glanced down and saw the wound healing before her eyes. Another struck her leg, she winced in pain but continued to advance.
A commando looked up at her in fear, gun quivering. She looked down at him, then stepped over the metal table behind which he was hiding.
Men rushed past her, not even paying her attention anymore, shoving her out of the way as they flowed around her like a river around a boulder.
It was night by the time she reached the city street. A cacophony of growling sirens and a mirage of flashing lights blinded her as she left through the shattered glass doors.
Two commandos stopped in front of her and motioned for her to stop. She stopped.
One tapped a finger to his ear and then waved his hand forward. They flowed around her, ignoring her as they rushed headlong into the blasted building.
She walked along darkened streets, drawing strange eyes from those who dared to look at her. The bloodspattered naked girl wearing a lab coat with blood-encrusted metal talons.
She walked. She walked as a dead man walks to their own grave. Like a machine, a robot who walks to the destination programmed into it. And finally she reached it. Home. She had no key, but she turned the knob and found the door was open.
"Mom-" she called. "Mom are you home-"
She turned a darkened corner and saw a heap on the ground, collapsed. A note rested on the ground.
Her skin was cold. Her body limp.
Diana screamed. She ran to the other room, looked around, then realized she was alone. There was no one to help her. No one to hurt her. No one at all. The house was empty. She ran back to her mother's body and picked up the note that lay beside but couldn't summon the calm to read it. Her hands were shaking too badly.
She dropped it, then picked it up again, then threw it away. Then she beat the wall until a hole appeared and she grabbed a structural beam and forced her fingertips through it, leaving deep gashes in the metal. One of her sharp fragile nails chipped off inside the beam and she screamed in pain, now actualized. Her hand was bleeding.
She ran to the bathroom, blood still dripping from her fingers and ran her hand under the cold water. But instead of washing her anger away, the pain only moved from her shattered nails and bloody hand into her mind. Her heart was on fire. Her mind was numb.
She looked into the bathroom mirror and saw her own reflection for the first time in three days. Three days that felt like an eternity. Her hair was matted, her eyes had red streaks underneath them. She lifted her upper lip and noticed canine teeth where her innocent smile to be. In the mirror she no longer saw the face of a ten year old girl, but the face of someone, or something which scared her. A different person- barely even a person at all.
What is this I see in the mirror? Is that me? Is that what I've become?
No. I won't believe it. I can't. It's not. IT'S NOT WHO I AM!
A scene of a gun pointed at her father's head intruded into her conscious thoughts and she screamed.
"THAT'S NOT WHO I AM!"
She struck the mirror with her already injured hand which instantly shattered.
When she returned her deranged face to the mirror, only half remained. The other half was black as the grout beneath the glass. Streaks of hair distorted her eye and specks of blood dotted her cheek.
She returned slowly to her mother's body and collapsed on the dark living room floor. Crying, bleeding, and grasping at the world around her now crumbling down. But no one was there. She begged and pleaded for someone- anyone.
"Darling- where are you? I'm alone. I wish- I need you. Please-"
She curled up on the floor and clasped her hands around her mother's lifeless arm, "mommy- please, just be asleep."
She tugged on it and turned her over. Her eyes were gray and opaque in the straylight. Only pain remained on her frozen face. She released the arm and fell back against the wall. For second, minutes, she remained motionless and silent, gazing into the plaster. She felt the warm pulse in her hand.
Pain- that's my only companion.
Finally she summoned the courage to look at the note on the floor, and through clouds of tears she began to read.
…
I'm not sure who will find this. If it's you Remi- our daughter never knew you, and you never saw her as your daughter anyway. I hope you rot in whatever hell you've engineered. I hope you're happy with what you've done to your family.
Diana- I'm sorry. I couldn't take it any more. I hope they didn't hurt you and I hope you can forgive me. I'm sorry for separating you from your friend. I didn't want to see you make the same mistakes I made. I'm sorry I didn't tell you why you shouldn't get too close to others. You could still be contagious- with whatever your father tested on you when you were young.
If you haven't learned by now- your father was an evil man. He couldn't conceive a child, and neither could I, so we conceived in-vitro. He said you're not related to either of us, at least not by blood. He said he cloned you from a human trapped inside of a tree, preserved for hundreds or thousands of years. I don't know how much truth there is to that. But it's the only thing he told me that I halfway believed.
He swore me to secrecy but it doesn't matter anymore. I told my brother. He said that the world is different because you were born. I still don't understand what he meant.
I'm sorry if you don't understand what these words mean right now, but you will when you get older. Please know that life is ugly. But death- is just death. You were born the same way as any other child. No matter what anyone says, you're just as human as I. As human as any of us. Your father tried his best to make you something different, perhaps something more, but you'll always be human, because I'll always be your mother.
And if my daughter never reads this, I'll have no regrets.
All to Diana, and those who care about her,
Miranda Karmann
…
For hours she stared at the note. She slept there. Until the morning came, and she realized what she had to do.
He clutched a small brown backpack between his arms as his father led him toward the waiting plane.
"Where are we going," he asked his father towering above him.
"Back to the UNF." His father looked down at him and smiled. "I've asked to be re-assigned." He continued to beam. "I promise, I'll do better this time, Rex. Or- I guess- Royce. It's best if we start using your new name. It'll be easier to adjust. We can't let anyone know what happened. In a way, it's good that you don't remember."
He reached up and felt the thick bandage still wrapped around his head.
"Will we ever come back- to Serilona?" he asked.
"No son, I don't think we will. We've stirred up quite a fuss around here, and the Serilonan consulate wants us gone without any trouble."
"Oh," he unzipped his backpack and pulled out the sketch pad, flipping slowly to the last page. "But what about her?" he showed his dad the drawing of the girl with the pink hair and emerald green eyes.
"That your girlfriend?"
"Girlfriend? I- don't remember."
…after all, you are my Darling!
He clutched his head in pain. "Ugh! I-"
"What is it?"
"Nothing, I just- thought I remembered something, I think she's-" he peered down into the two captivating eyes of the girl in his drawing. "or I was- her Darling."
His father looked down at him in confusion, "her Darling- now that's a word I haven't heard in a very long time."
Royce put the sketchbook away and touched the black cover of the other mysterious book that rested in his pack. The picture book filled with strange symbols he couldn't read.
I'll come back for you, one day. And you'll be able to tell me what it all means.
Diana looked at the gruff old face of the recruiter, clad in a gray flight suit.
"You're too young to join the military, kid. What are you? Fourteen?"
"I'm eleven."
The man chuckled. "Go home to your parents, little girl."
"I'm not a little girl. I've killed two men with my bare hands." She glared at the recruiter who was still smiling in amusement, "and my parents are dead."
The man stopped chuckling and looked down at her with a more serious expression, "you know we can't take you."
"I have something you want. You have something I want."
The man crossed his arms, "what?"
"I want somewhere to sleep that's not the side of the road. And I want revenge. On them-" She held a finger tipped with a razor sharp nail at the propaganda poster taped to the wall:
REPORT SUSPICIOUS KHANIAN ACTIVITIES
SECURING THE EARTH'S CRUST STARTS WITH YOU
White block letters were superimposed on two blue-trimmed dark figures with glassy eyes amid a battlefield of ruin.
"That's some crazy nail polish you got there," the recruiter said.
She smiled, "I have information."
"Oh? What kind of information could an eleven-year old girl possibly have that the Serilonan intelligence service would want?"
"I know everything about that lab you all knocked down."
The man's eyes widened.
"They experimented on me. Something about a-" she struggled to remember the words, "optogenetic therapy and radiotrophic blood cells."
The man said softly, "you- just, wait right here- I've got to make a call." He hastily scooted away toward his desk and picked up the phone. Whispered a few words, then returned.
"I don't know how much we can help you. There are treaties that govern this sort of thing. Does anyone know where or who you are? Does anyone know how you escaped from that lab or what happened to you?"
"No one knows I'm alive, except for a boy who's probably dead."
"The Nimbus Tree incident," he whispered, barely audible. "So that's the girl."
He turned away but stopped and glared at her warily, "is there anything else?"
"Yes. If you trick me, I'll destroy you."
She was silent. She lay on his chest, her arms limp and dangling by her sides. There was a wet puddle of tears on his shirt below her head. She blinked at him. The book rested at his side.
"It's been so long. I never thought I'd see you again-" She sounded exhausted. Emotionally drained, turned inside out and upside down. "I didn't want- you didn't have to see all that," she whimpered.
He continued to stroke her long pink hair, transfixed on some strange and arbitrary point in time and space. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing. She was there with him. He had found her, along with his past. Terrible, haunting memories of a dark and gruesome world.
He traced lines on her head gently, relishing every second he got to spend with her.
Haunting bloody details of memories half his own flashed before his eyes.
Then he hugged her tightly. "I'll never let you go. I don't care about the terrible things you've done. We don't have to relive the past," he started to say, he thought of the numbers in her plane. Then he remembered - a flash of yellow – a conversation from a dream or a premonition.
"I'm trying to think of a name for you." He said finally.
"A name?" she replied.
"Yeah, Diana just seems- so out of character."
"Well, I've always been Diana."
"Has anyone ever called you-"
She looked at him and seemed to remember. A faint glint shined in her eyes, like she just remembered something distant and incomprehensible.
She said, "Darling- do you want to run away with me?"
"Yes." He said without hesitation. "Let's run away and get out of here. To the place I promised, all those years ago."
She chuckled. Then she crawled up close and whispered in his ear.
"Good. Now that you know all those terrible things. Maybe, together, we can start to forget them."
He looked down at her.
She continued to whisper, "let me make you breakfast. I hope you like waffles with lots of syrup. It's my favorite."
Now he was weightless, free from some gargantuan load now lifted off his shoulders. She was beaming at him, watching as a smile crept over his face and he closed his eyes. He was sinking deeper into his pillow. The girl from his dreams rested on top of him. He heard a whisper in his ear, "don't worry, I'll wake you up. I can't believe I finally found you- darling…"