19 Rescue Mission
Rescue Mission
Track lighting illuminates our way, and Doug, like an eerie will-o’-the-wisp, leads us as he scouts ahead, holding aloft a glowing tentacle.
We walk for what feels like hours, the gently rising slope of the ground almost unnoticeable.
The doorway out of the tunnel into the living quarters slides right open with the slightest pressure.
She never even bothered with a lock here.
I peer out of the door, open it just enough to step out, slip through the hanging clothes, and emerge into an expansive closet.
Doug silently scoots past my feet, appendages extending as he explores the room, zipping forward to lead the way again.
Adele’s room is luxurious in a cold way.
Massive and mostly empty. Like it belongs in an upscale hotel, not a home.
The walls curve so gently that at first it appears to be an illusion.
But this place is essentially a tower, a giant castle turret.
The inside of the apartment is decorated in severe black-and-white checkered tile, stainless steel contemporary chandeliers, no art or pictures on the wall.
A massive freestanding fireplace cuts through the middle of the room.
The outer wall is entirely glass, opening onto a balcony.
The view is unbeatable, a dark sky, a splash of Milky Way.
Most of the base is underground or windowless, disguised to appear as nothing more than rocky mountainside.
Adele hoards the best sky views for herself.
She spends her free time staring at the stars like a dragon does its jewels.
I quickly lead Calvin down through spiral staircases to the rest of the living quarters.
The entire apartment is silent and empty, impersonal, like staff cleans it daily, like no one lives here.
The only exception is the room I know to be Meredith’s.
It’s messy, almost deliberately so. Clothes strewn on every surface.
Books and papers scattered, makeup open on the vanity, an overflowing wastebasket.
Her walls are covered in artwork and posters.
A seashell mobile hangs from the ceiling, tacked in with nails.
Clearly not a professional job. Magazine clippings nearly cover one wall, some edged with so many staples it had to have been an intentional choice, not for the sake of securing the paper.
I’m impressed with her tenacity. To have this much personality when Adele is intent on shaping you is no mean feat.
The other two rooms have the hotel room feel too. A mask hangs on the inside of the door of one of them. I hesitate for only a second before grabbing it—a black, full-face model, decoratively covered in silver and obsidian piping and chain links.
“The eldest sister’s?” Calvin asks.
I nod my confirmation.
“Why isn’t she wearing it?”
That is a question I have to think carefully about before answering.
“Probably because she’s wearing another disguise, somewhere she doesn’t want to be recognized.
The thing about this kind of mask is that the person underneath it doesn’t matter.
Whether it’s really her under here or someone else using her reputation for their own dirty work.
” I remove the mask I’m wearing and pull the new one on, clasping it carefully over my tightly braided hair.
“Wearing it makes you become the monster it was made for. This will let us do whatever we want around here. They’ll think I’m her.
Call me Kingsley if we run into anyone.” My voice sounds raspy, distorted, no longer quite my own.
From the closet I pull on a dark hoodie that smells faintly of laundry detergent and stale air, as if it weren’t worn regularly, yet washed often.
I tug at the sleeve, pulling it down as far as I can over my hand; the lack of Gauntlet will be a dead giveaway if anyone looks too closely.
“Seems risky. What if you’re wrong and you’re caught impersonating her?”
“Worth it. Leave me behind as a distraction and try to get Eldi out yourself.”
With the hood up and the swagger that makes this performance believable, I transform fully into the monster who hides their guilt under this featureless shell.
I can’t see Calvin’s eyes with his own face covered, but a muscle twitches in his neck, and he draws away from me almost imperceptibly.
I doubt he notices, but it shifts our dynamic from partners in crime to heir apparent and lackey.
“It’s still me. This is just a mask,” I say, not sure whom I’m reassuring, Calvin or myself.
“You, stay out of sight no matter what,” I warn Doug.
He makes a clicking noise of agreement. We’re splitting up to search for Eldi and prioritize her escape rather than ours.
Doug was much more willing to promise than Calvin.
I have Eldi’s watch clipped around my wrist, which will alert me if Doug gets Eldi out first.
“Walk behind me and let me do the talking if we run into anyone. If we’re caught, try not to give away that you’re a werewolf, if you value your freedom,” I say as I stride out of the apartment like I own the place.
It’s fortunate I grabbed the mask, because we’re stopped immediately by guards stationed outside the apartment. That’s new. They wear the shoulder patches and masks that identify them as part of Adele’s closest inner circle of guards.
“Get off,” I order, instinctively twisting out of the grip on my arm and knocking his feet out from under him.
I have my dagger out and at the second guard’s throat before he has time to do more than grab Calvin.
All three men freeze. No one notices the camouflaged patch at the top edge of the doorway that is Doug, scuttling off along the ceiling and down the hall.
“Let him go,” my voice in the mask thoroughly disguised, an effect that’s partly my method acting and partly some physical mechanism in the mask itself.
The guard holding Calvin twitches slightly, looking hard at my mask.
He stiffens as he clocks my bare left hand, the lack of Gauntlet.
If these guards think Kingsley is somewhere else, if I can’t play this part right, I’m screwed.
I press the tip of the dagger against his neck hard enough to force him to let go of Calvin as I lean in.
“If you think I can’t make you hurt just as badly without it, you’re mistaken.
” The guard holds his breath against my dagger.
It would be so easy to silence him that for a moment I consider it.
It might be the quickest way to get back to my mission.
But the mess would take time, time I need to get to Eldi.
My stomach twists. Eldi. She deserves a mother, not a monster. I pull back.
“Sorry, Kingsley,” he says, stepping away from Calvin. “I didn’t realize you were in there.” He looks toward Calvin, clearly waiting for an explanation.
An explanation that I will not be giving. Relief floods over me that my gamble paid off. I grin inside the mask, knowing my face is unreadable from the outside.
“Where’re my mother and sisters?” I prod the guard on the ground with my foot, flipping the dagger in between my fingers, a showy old trick that comes back as easily, as naturally, as riding a bike.
It’s a risky question, as Kingsley should already know the answer, but the guards simply exchange a look as the one who attacked me gets to his feet and resumes his position at the door.
“Dealing with the situation at the loading bay.”
It’s got to be Dave.
“The robot?”
“Carving symbols all over the place, starting fires, trying to murder anyone who gets close to it.”
I nod. Dave is finally putting his havoc-wreaking skills to good use. If only I could witness the disarray he’s causing. But I don’t have time for that, and I have a toddler to find. “My sisters?” I ask again. The more threats I can track, the better I’ll feel.
“They’re with your mother.”
I turn without another word to stride away, but one of the guards calls after me, “She’ll want you to help with the specimen down in the dungeon.
You’d do well to get a head start. She says we don’t have much time left now that first contact is imminent.
” The mask saves me. My face would have given me away.
Of course. The dungeon. Its nickname naturally came about because it’s one of the deepest rooms in the place. And it’s where Adele doles out the worst punishments. Trapped in the depths of the earth—an ancient punishment, because who needs innovation when your deepest primal fears work just fine?
Specimen. Eldi. Eldi is down there in the dark in a cage.
There’s a cage in the back that’s made for creatures like her—one similar to the Winnebago’s, with no gaps to let someone small slip through.
I’m sure that’s who “the specimen” is; it’s got to be where she is.
It was the logical conclusion all along, but to have it confirmed sets my blood boiling.
A rage that befits the wearer of this mask floods my body.
What exactly are they planning on doing with her?
Almost there. First contact. Hurry.
That little tingling voice of intuition that lives inside my head grasps at pieces of the puzzle. This isn’t just about punishing me, luring me here. Adele usually works things from multiple angles. Do I have time to investigate?
“Where are we headed?” Calvin draws close, speaking quietly as we turn a corner.
“Information about why they’re looking for kids like Eldi,” I say, jogging now. “Then the dungeon to get Eldi out.”
“We should get Eldi and run,” Calvin mutters. But to my relief, he only quietly swears and follows me instead of arguing.
I know where I’m going. I still remember this place by heart, and I make turns and slip through doors, Calvin at my heels. The base is quieter than it should be. Maybe most of the personnel have been drawn toward whatever situation Dave is creating, but I don’t like it. It feels too deliberate.
“Stay here; watch the door,” I say to Calvin as I duck into a room filled with bright terminals and the quiet buzz of computer cooling fans.
“Reggie, I don’t like this,” Calvin hisses. “Let’s go get Eldi and leave.”
“Watch the door,” I bark, and he curses but stays, his back to me, his eyes on the corridor.
This will undoubtedly tell them I was here, as I log in with my old credentials.
But hopefully not until we’re gone. I’m beginning to think this is a game, a power play, a message that I am nothing to be worried about.
I’m not sure I care anymore—being here has rekindled a reckless and long-burning anger within me.
What I find on the computer makes my stomach drop.
Readily accessible information. I don’t have to look for long.
It’s like she wants me to investigate. Files on creatures like Eldi all across the world.
Neatly labeled folders filled with pictures, video surveillance, reports.
“Deceased,” “Missing,” “Unknown,” “Acquired,” “Failed/Terminated”; they’re all tagged.
I skim the information as quickly as possible.
Some are labeled as children, others as various animal species, and still more are classified as unknown.
A sullen black-haired teenager appears in a security camera still with a backpack slung over their shoulder, lips pulled back in a growl full of sharp teeth.
There’s a video clip, taken from some sort of body camera, of a girl who doesn’t appear to be more than a year or two older than Eldi, with wide, frightened eyes.
I can’t play the sound, but someone’s trying to shield her; someone is pushing into the frame to shove away whoever is taking the video.
A screenshot from a humane society adoption website features a strange-looking cat with human eyes and odd protrusions along its spine.
A blurry photograph taken with a trail camera shows a silvery snout and reflective eyes peering out of the brush.
There are even names I recognize: Calvin’s cousin and his daughter.
“Reggie, come on,” Calvin whispers loudly from the door.
I raise my hand to speak to Eldi’s watch on a desperate hunch. “If you know how to steal this information somehow and take it with us,” I say into it, “now would be the time.”
It pulls a very Doug and Dave move, flicking out a silvery string of an appendage, latching right onto the computer, and pulsing with light. It’s like a little straw drinking up knowledge.
“Hurry,” Calvin says shortly.
“I know, but what I found was worth it.” I can only hope this will prove true and I didn’t just lose us our chance to rescue Eldi and escape.
The watch buzzes in quick succession—our warning sign we’re running out of time.
I’m flat-out sprinting as we reach the dizzying spiral of staircases that leads down to the dungeon.
The air grows cool and artificial tasting in my throat the deeper we go.
It’s stale and wet, like something left to rot.
The lighting dims, too, to a pale reddish orange—artificial lighting meant to evoke the feeling of slipping into a timeless, liminal horror space.
There’s no lock on the outer door. Why would there need to be when everything that stays down here is put in a cage?
There’s a little table in front of the cells. On it lies something that looks like a piece of jewelry, a choker-length piece of silver metal. Its design is simple, beautifully austere rather than ornate—a taunt, a message for me.
I start to hyperventilate. Calvin looks at me in alarm.
The sound of singing takes me back a decade in a single instant.
“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.”
Something is wrong. I’ve made a mistake. This wasn’t about Eldi. At least, it was never all about Eldi; she was a bonus. I was the objective. This was always a trap for me, not Eldi.
“Ladybird, ladybird, your house is on fire and your children are gone.”
A voice that’s hauntingly familiar echoes around the dungeon, a voice I last heard ten years ago, singing a nursery rhyme that I taught her. A figure tucked into the corner of a cage near the back, deep in the darkness, stirs.
“Meredith?” I breathe, stepping forward, my mind going entirely blank.
“Reggie,” Calvin warns.
Instinct overrides judgment, and I stumble toward the back without a thought, Calvin at my heels.
A flash of movement from the last of the metal-barred cells stops me in my tracks.
A second figure I overlooked steps out of the darkness.
Close enough to reach through the bars and grab the front of my sweatshirt, hauling me close.
Calvin snarls and tries to pull me back, but the trap is already closing around us.
“You came back,” Zara says, pure shock in her tone, face an inch from mine, separated by bars. “You fell for it.”