Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
Back at my apartment, I take a well-deserved shower and pour myself an even more deserved glass of whiskey before sinking into my armchair.
I can’t stop running through the events of the day. Thinking about what I could’ve done differently, if I could’ve acted sooner. Whether I could’ve saved Vince.
I didn’t know him well, but it’s been a long time since I lost a colleague. It’s dredging up my old fears, my old guilt.
But there’s something else weighing on my mind too. Those whispered prayers I heard over the radio before I went to X-16’s room. Religion has always been a sore subject for me, and with everything that’s happened today, my mind is wandering back to my childhood.
Everyone thinks that growing up in a cult must have been traumatic. But to be honest, what I can remember from the first six years of my life with the Children of the Red Sun was idyllic. A life in the rural countryside, with rolling hills of grass and a pretty church painted white.
To a child’s eyes, there was nothing wrong with the compound.
I was never cold, hungry, lonely. I had nothing to compare to, so I didn’t know that there was anything unusual about going to church multiple times a day, praying for hours, studying the Bible with feverish intensity.
I was too young to understand the dire warnings of the preacher at the pulpit, speaking of fire and blood and the end times.
And even if I had understood what he was speaking about, he always promised that we—the chosen, the faithful—would be safe when that inevitable day came.
We would not suffer as the nonbelievers would. We’d ascend to heaven instead.
So even if I had understood, I wouldn’t have known to be afraid on that fateful day when we gathered in the church.
I had no reason to doubt my mother when she pressed the cup into my hands and told me to drink.
Even when the bodies began to fall, when my vision began to fade, I listened to the preacher’s voice at the front of the room, telling us that the day had come. The Harbinger is here.
I fell asleep with the preacher’s voice in my ears. It was peaceful.
The fear only hit me when I was the only one to wake up. Then came the panic, the vomiting and cramps, the crying as strangers ripped me away from my mother’s limp body and brought me into a world I knew nothing about.
I was the only survivor of the mass suicide that day…aside from one, whom I prefer not to think about.
I’ve carried that weight with me ever since. Trying to understand why I was the only one. I didn’t deserve to live more than anyone else did. Maybe I was more innocent than most of the people in that church, but I wasn’t the only child who drank poison that day. So why me?
I always hoped—and prayed, before I gave that up—that someday I would find a reason. That perhaps I lived because I was meant for a greater purpose. That I could find a way to help that would make me earn my survival in retrospect.
And perhaps today I found it.
“Director Wright and I have come up with some tests to gradually experiment with your proximity to X-16,” Barnes explains, after calling me into his office the next time I’m at work.
There’s a grim set to his mouth and tension in his shoulders; he obviously still isn’t thrilled about this, despite his words to me when we last parted.
“We’ll start today. Do a little bit at a time. ”
I nod. “I’m ready.”
“But before that, we should talk more about X-16. I noticed his file in the CCTV room at one point, so I’m gathering you read it?”
Something about that gives me pause, but I nod anyway. “I did.”
He takes another folder out from the desk and pushes it over to me. “Here’s the unredacted one. You should read it all.”
I stare at it for a moment. I thought the file I read before was thick, but this is practically a novel. Pages upon pages. “Got it,” I say after a moment, trying not to show that I’m rattled.
“I just want you to understand the severity of the situation. There are a lot of incident reports in there. A lot of people who’ve been hurt or killed. X-16 has been here for years, and we still don’t really understand what he is or why these things happen. And it’s been getting worse lately.”
I raise my eyes from the file to meet his. “You don’t need to remind me of the risks, Barnes,” I say. “I saw what happened to Vince. I helped carry his body out the door.”
Barnes meets my gaze steadily. “Yet you still don’t seem afraid of Subject X-16.”
I can’t bring myself to lie. “When I saw him in there, he didn’t look like he was trying to hurt us. He looked…scared. And alone.”
Barnes sighs. “You’re right. I don’t think he intends to harm anyone. But he does, Willow. That’s the issue.”
Not me, I want to say, but it feels pedantic. He didn’t hurt me.
Instead, I try to focus. “What do you mean about him getting worse lately?”
“When X-16 first arrived at the MRF, he was a normal human by all appearances. There were still strange occurrences around him, but nothing like what’s happening now. Nothing dangerous. But when the incident occurred—when a demon tried to set him free—”
“Pause.” For the first time, there’s a zip of true fear up my spine. “A demon? Demons are real? As in…biblical demons?”
Barnes raises a brow, as if surprised by my reaction. “Ah. So you are afraid of some things. I was starting to wonder.”
I glare at him, waiting for an answer, my nails digging into the armrests of my chair.
He tamps down a flicker of a smile. “Yes, they’re real, but they’re not exactly like what you think. Demons are ghosts that have warped into beings of pure malice. We don’t have any of them here.”
I relax, hoping my relief isn’t too obvious. It must be my upbringing, but the idea of demons running around chills my blood in a way none of the other monsters do. “But one of them tried to set X-16 free,” I say, trying to get back on track.
Barnes nods. “It possessed an employee to break in, seemingly with the sole purpose of freeing X-16.” His gaze goes distant, a storm cloud passing over his expression.
“It killed almost every member of the security team on duty. I was supposed to be there that day, but I was sick. Just pure, dumb luck.”
I get it, I want to say. I know how it feels. The guilt, the regret. But I can’t. If he knew my past, I doubt I’d be here, and I can’t stand to walk away now. So I let the moment pass.
Barnes clears his throat. “Anyway. It broke down X-16’s door and tried to free him, but he wouldn’t leave.
That third eye opened on his forehead, and he had his first episode.
Ever since then, they’ve become much more frequent and severe.
Any strong emotion can trigger one, but lately his physical changes are usually the starting point. ”
I remember him mentioning an extra eyeball on his arm, but it sounds like that’s not the first time something like this has happened. “What kind of changes?”
“Strange ones,” Barnes says plainly. “Painful ones. Like I said, he seemed human when he first came here. Now, he’s becoming something else. But we don’t know what. And we don’t know how to stop it. How to help him. If we can help him.”
My stomach churns as he describes it. Barnes isn’t being particularly descriptive—his words are brusque and clinical—but I still can’t help but imagine the pain and terror that X-16 must be going through. What’s happening to him is horrifying. “We have to try.”
“As long as you understand the risk,” he says. “And as long as it seems like you’re safe. If there’s any sign that you’re adversely affected, or if you get hurt, we stop.”
Even as I agree, I swear to myself that I’m not going to let that happen.
We begin with the video feed. It’s a simple enough test: I sit in the CCTV room and watch the camera to X-16’s room. Barnes, out in the hallway, will keep an eye on me in case something happens and he has to intervene.
I turn on the camera that usually remains dead, sit back in my chair, and stare up at the screen. X-16 must be aware of the experiment we’re doing; he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring up at the camera, as if he’s watching me back.
It feels fucking weird. Watching someone and being watched.
Especially after all of the guilty glances I’ve snuck at X-16’s cell, the brief seconds I let myself linger before I shut off the feed again.
I keep waiting for something to happen—one of these adverse effects they speak so much about—but there’s nothing.
After a solid thirty minutes of nothingness, Barnes comes into the room, scrawling on his clipboard.
“Any headache?” he asks, making a note of my no. “Dizziness? Increased heart rate? Sense of impending doom?”
I blink at the last one after giving a negative response to each. “Seriously?” He waits, and I sigh. “No.”
“Good.” He tucks the clipboard under his arm.
It doesn’t look natural in his hands; that sort of office supply is at odds with his security uniform and his demeanor.
He seems like more of a hands-on guy, yet despite that and the chronic understaffing at this place, he insisted on overseeing these tests himself.
Maybe it’s necessary because he’s the only one who can stand to be around X-16 for long periods.
Or maybe, the paranoid part of my brain whispers, it’s because he doesn’t trust me.
“What’s the point of this?” I ask. “He’s not having an episode right now.”
“Since the episodes are unpredictable, it’s the best we can do for now,” Barnes says.
“Most people have mild but noticeable reactions even when he’s in a stable state.
Even the other subjects aren’t immune—Somnus, whom you met during your interview, has a pretty awful reaction to him.
Somnus can normally visit people in their dreams, but apparently X-16 is beyond his reach. ”
I blink, taking that in stride. Nothing is as bad as demons.