This time I moved slowly, trying to trace our steps and looking around with dark curiosity. This part of the HQ was clearly allocated for laboratories. All kinds of strange machines, surgical equipment and high-tech monitors were packed inside every room, making me wonder about what exactly were the Protectors studying here. Something told me that I didn’t really want to know.
Judging by the still steaming cups of coffee and slight mess, the scientists themselves evacuated in a hurry just minutes ago. There was not a soul around, allowing me to stroll through the PA’s HQ like a tourist, gawking at different pieces of advanced and, without a doubt, extremely secret technology. Most of them looked like elaborate torture devices.
All in all, I felt like Dante descending further and further down into Hell.
In one of the laboratories, I found nothing but rows and rows of shelves filled with blood bags. In another, a hermetically sealed glass chamber encompassed something that closely resembled a humanoid figure made entirely of shadows and light. The figure was either artificial or dead. In any case, it didn’t feel like something alive.
And in another laboratory, which looked like a surgical theater, I found Mickey’s body.
He was lying on a metal table, pale and naked. No one bothered to cover him up after performing the autopsy. Neither had they closed him up, leaving his corpse butchered, organs laid bare in open view. His skull was cut open, and his brain -- what was left of it after the Protector’s bullet had passed through -- was floating nearby in a bottle of preservative solution. His one remaining eye was open, staring at me with silent blame.
I spent several minutes on the floor, puking. Every spasm hurt my chest and broken ribs, plunging me into a sea of suffering. Tears rolled down my face, and I wasn’t sure if they were caused by pain or sorrow.
After a while, I regained control over my body and stood up. Wiping off tears and bile from my face, I approached Mickey and closed his eye with a shaking hand. Then I covered his body with a white sheet. I tried to find some words to say to him, but nothing came to mind. Finally, I forced myself to speak.
’Goodbye, Mickey. You were my friend. You didn’t deserve any of this.’
None of this did, really.
Then I left him for the last time.
The pieces of the puzzle finally clicked, and I understood what had happened and why the Protector reacted so strangely to me mentioning Tanya’s name.
She wasn’t afraid of Tanya. It’s just that, at that moment, she finally realized the true nature of Zero’s Ability. Tanya was a sensate, an extremely rare type of wraith with abilities akin to telepathy. She was able to find a person miles away by knowing their name, having access to things that had held meaning to them, or physical contact.
The sensates were so rare because their powers were terrifying. They were capable of manipulating people’s thoughts, using them as puppets, destroying their minds... and worse. Throughout history, they were feared and hunted down and killed not only by humans, but also by wraiths themselves. Tanya was weak, so her threat level was negligible.
Zero, on the other hand, was strong to begin with, and the Disease had supercharged his Ability even further. And if Tanya inherited her dominant Affect from him...
He only had to attune his Sense to Mickey, send him to his death and wait until the Protectors took the corpse to their HQ for study. As soon as it happened, the location of the elusive HQ would reveal itself.
Mickey thought that Zero had abandoned him because he was of no use anymore, but actually, he was being used even after being killed.
The air tasted bitter.
A few minutes later, I returned to the long, white, clean corridor where the interrogation room was located. Only it wasn’t white or clean anymore.
The thing I saw looked like a scene from a horror movie. The air was hot and filled with the nauseating smell of burned flesh. The walls, which were pristine before, were now covered by soot and blood. The mangled bodies of the guards were everywhere, some of them cooked alive, some cut apart and dismembered as though by a giant blade. Empty bullet shells littered the floor, and blood was dripping from the ceiling.
Shuddering, I stepped over the bodies and moved forward.
The interrogation room was empty. The one-way mirror was broken, revealing a small observation post on the other side. A body was pinned to the wall with shards of the mirror, burned beyond recognition. Its mouth was open as though in a silent scream.
Surprisingly, my Rubik’s Cube was still on the table, where the Protector had left it, untouched by the carnage that surrounded it. The colorful toy looked so out of place in the midst of this nightmare that I almost laughed. Bewildered and feeling like I’m in a dream, I picked the cube up and put it in a pocket.
Further down the corridor, I found the place the guards were most desperate to protect. There were more bullet shells on the floor, more bodies and more heat in the air. The door they were protecting was torn and deformed, as though melted, as were the walls surrounding it.
The door led to a set of stairs leading up. I made my way through the corpses and started to ascend, noticing more and more signs of struggle. I just had to follow the bodies.
Soon, I even heard the last echoes of gunshots that dissipated in the air after a loud scream.
I recognized the person who was screaming. The Protector’s voice was too familiar, even though I’ve never heard her raise it.
I followed her voice to the top floor of the HQ, where, behind a chic, luxuriously decorated lobby, there was a large office with windows opening upon a gorgeous view of the city.
Inside the office, there was a wooden desk with a headless body of an old man sitting behind it. The head was nowhere to be found. The Protector was standing on her knees on the floor, face pale with pain and one hand twisted at an unnatural angle. Zero was standing a few meters away from her, controlling her body with thick strands of the Ability.
’It’s over, Annabelle.’ He was saying. ’Stop resisting and tell me what I want to know.’
When I entered, they both turned to me -- the Protector with a grim and determined expression on her face, Zero with a surprised, but happy smile.
He looked just like he did the last time we met, clean and otherworldly, with shining blue eyes and a healthy complexion, as though invigorated by the massacre. His Ability was raging all around us like an invisible storm.
’Matthew! It’s you. I’m so glad!’
My hair stood up and cold shivers ran down my spine. Even my Ability shrank, as though trying to hide from him. I licked my lips.
’What are you doing, Sergei?’
He raised an eyebrow.
’What do you mean? It’s just as I told you. I am trying to save our...’
The Protector moved, and the Affects controlling her arm reacted, twisting it even further. A sick sound of crunching bones filled my ears, and a low, animalistic wail escaped from her mouth, soon turning into a moan and then disappearing abruptly. Unable to speak, she just pierced me with a look full of hatred.
’You stop it.’ Zero said lazily and then smiled again. ’Do you see, Matthew? This is the unbeatable Agency. Truly pathetic.’
Another moan sounded as the skin on the Protector’s arm was torn by bone fragments. Blood dripped on the expensive carpet. She turned her head to Zero, clenching her teeth.
’Just kill me, asshole.’
Zero laughed.
’No, no. It’s not going to be that easy. You still haven’t told me the codes.’
She fell silent after that. I could practically see the gears of her inhuman mind spinning, coming up with a way to escape from the torture. But there was no escape from Zero. He just waited, smiling. Fully in control.
The Protector turned to me. There was a strange, mocking light in her eyes. I had no idea what she was planning.
’I was there when your mother died, you know.’
I don’t know what I expected to hear, but those words struck me like a hurricane, sending my thoughts into a spiral. She grinned.
A slight frown appeared on Zero’s face.
’Don’t listen to her, Matthew.’
But it was too late. With just one sentence, the Protector managed to destroy the armor of fatalistic indifference that dulled down my emotions ever since the PA had captured me. A familiar cold feeling woke up from the depths of my soul.
’She was really, really weak. Screaming, crying, calling out for her useless son. My God, the bitch made my ears ring.’
’What did you just say?’
I opened my eyes wide, frozen in place.
’Don’t listen to her! She’s just trying to taunt you into killing her quickly!’
The Protector laughed.
’I mean, you were the one who delivered her on a silver platter to the Agency, so what did she expect to happen?’
Zero twisted her arm again, which by then lost any resemblance to a human limb, looking like a bloody lump of mangled flesh. The Protected screamed, but her scream soon turned into creepy, gurgling laughter.’
’She even pissed herself! Aha-ha, it would have been funny if it wasn’t so disgusting. The lab smelled like piss for days after we got rid of the body! Well, what was left of it...’
’That’s enough!’
A cruel grimace appeared on Zero’s face, and he raised his hand, preparing to unleash another torture. But before he could, I stepped between them.
I got down on one knee and cradled the Protector in my arms, shielding her from Zero.
An expression of absolute astonishment appeared on his face.
’What are you doing?’
I looked at him from below, feeling the Protector’s body trembling.
’That’s enough, Sergei. She has had enough.’
He stared at me in shock.
’I know that she’s lying. Or maybe she isn’t. It doesn’t matter. Just stop.’
’What do you mean?’
I sighed.
’I’m not going to let you kill anyone else.’
The astonishment in his eyes slowly turned into anger.
’What?! Are going to betray your own people?!’
I didn’t answer, looking at him in defiance.
’And for what? For humans?! What have they ever done to you that wasn’t a slap in the face?! Have you lost your mind?! They’re the enemy, Matthew! We can end their tyranny together!’
He clenched his fist, agitated, unstable. I shook my head.
’I don’t care about all that very much.’
Zero flinched, as though my words struck him.
’Then why?!’
I looked at the Protector, who was on the verge of losing consciousness from pain and blood loss, defenseless and vulnerable for the first time since I’d met her four years ago. Despite that, she was still as hateful as ever. But it didn’t matter.
I turned to Zero and answered simply.
’Because they’re people too.’
He froze in place, failing to comprehend the words that came out of my mouth. Soon, an expression of all-consuming fury engulfed his features.
’So you’re just an Agency’s dog. No, you’re worst than a dog. A collaborator.’
Zero crazy eyes met mine, and there was a deadly fire burning in them.
’Then die with your masters, traitor!’
His Ability crashed into me like an avalanche.
Its weight was unstoppable, inevitable and obliterating.
The air around me slowly heated, threatening to set my hair on fire. I unleashed my own Affects, trying to resist Zero. Two Affects, four. Ten, sixteen. But it was like pouring water into a volcano. In front of his immeasurable power, my own was negligible. I gritted my teeth and stood up, willing my mind to go farther than it ever did before.
Eighteen Affects, twenty. Thirty, thirty-six.
But it was still not enough. It was getting hard to breath, tears were streaming from my eyes, and blisters appeared on my skin. Outside of the small island I managed to create around me and the Protector, a whirlwind of flame was devouring the office, avoiding only Zero, who stood in the middle of it like a deity of destruction.
More, more. Just a little bit more.
Fifty Affects. Fifty one. Sixty.
I was not going to let him win!
And then, something inside my mind changed, like a dam opening to let a flood through. The reality shattered into innumerable pieces, and my Ability roared, finally free from its shackles. The Affects flowed from me like a river, so many that I didn’t even try to count them.
They clashed against Zero’s Ability, suppressing it.
A violent storm of opposite forces made the space around us bend and tear. The glass in the windows shattered and turned into molten liquid and then into sand before falling to the floor. The walls crumbled, letting the wind and noise of the city in, but they were immediately silenced by the roar of our fight and the hurricane of fire that escaped from the building like a wave.
I stood my ground, stubborn, despite all the wound that Zero had inflicted on me, resisting, pushing back.
Eventually, an eternity later, my Afffects had finally overpowered his.
And when they did, I raised my hand and boiled his blood inside his veins.
Killing him.
#
Sometime later -- maybe a few seconds, or maybe a few years -- I was sitting on the floor inside the Agency’s HQ. My mind was broken and scattered, shattered into a million pieces. Zero’s corpse was somewhere far away, or maybe close by. The Protector was unconscious, her head lying on my knees.
I was thinking that I had to get away from this place, but the concept of distance was hard to comprehend. All I knew was that this place was bad, and another place might be good, but I seemed to forget how to change from one place to another.
In my hands, I was holding a children’s toy, trying desperately to assemble it into an orderly combination of colors. But I couldn’t quite get how to do it. The whole concept seemed strange and impossible. How was a bunch of flat squares supposed to form a three-dimensional cube?
I didn’t understand.
After a while, the toy turned into dust in my hands.
There were sirens coming closer and closer to the place I was in.
They meant that I had to get out, but I didn’t want to.
There was just one thought in my mind.
Somehow, I managed to get my hands on a phone. I had to call Claire, to say something to her, but the phone wouldn’t listen. I pressed its screen here and there, trying to make it do my bidding, but I don’t think it did.
I wasn’t sure.
But I had to say it.
Because it was important.
The most important thing in the world.
Hi, Claire
I’m sorry
Goodbye
I don’t think I will see you again
I love you
I think I finally know the answer
It’s us
We are lost inside the golden pyramid
Buried alive
Falling
Forever
Searching for relief...