Threader origins, p.4
Threader Origins, page 4
The sound of the lock sliding open behind him wrenched him from his near catatonic state. He heard the door open and shut softly. When the lock thunked home again, he turned in his chair and silently watched a man walk toward him.
“Hi, Darwin. I’m here to look at the cut on your head.”
The man’s voice was deep and strong, the complete opposite to the tall and skinny frame it came from. He wasn’t carrying anything. Darwin wasn’t sure what he expected, but at the very least one of those white first aid boxes you could find in any office building.
He reached for his head, stopping his hand before it touched. It had been so long, he’d almost forgotten about it already. He forced himself to fight his natural desire to stay silent around people he didn’t know. “What am I doing here? Where’s my dad?”
The man sat on the edge of the desk, looking at Darwin with a grin on his face. “I’d say you’re sitting in a chair and staring out the window. I can’t be sure that’s what you were doing before I came in here, but it fits the probability curve.”
Darwin felt his blood start to boil. Who the hell did this guy think he was, making jokes when he had been locked in this room most of the day?
“That’s not what I mean.” His voice rose and he took a deep breath to get it back under control. “Why am I here? Why is the door locked? Who are you people? Where is my dad? What’s going on outside? Where is everyone?” As the questions tumbled from his mouth, his voice rose again. “I want answers.”
The smile left the man’s face. “Whoa, one question at a time. I’m not allowed to answer everything, but I’ll do what I can.”
“Not allowed?”
“Rebecca hasn’t given permission.”
“Who’s Rebecca?”
“Another question? A wise man once told me you learn more by listening than by talking.”
Darwin had his mouth open to ask another question, and caught himself, quickly closing it, no longer able to keep talking to a stranger. He leaned back in the chair, creating a wider gap between them. Who did this guy think he was, trying to tell him what to do? It was easy to bite down on the retort his brain had created. Instead of talking, he took the opportunity to study the man. The fact that he was tall and skinny was obvious, as was the mop of brown hair that fell over his face, but it was his eyes that caught Darwin’s attention. They were a brilliant blue and seemed to hold a twinkle, as though he was just on the verge of telling a joke.
The silence in the room thickened as they stared at each other.
“My name is Michael.” He paused as if expecting some response, and smiled when none came. “To answer some of your questions, I have no idea how you got here. It is beyond anything we’ve seen before. As for where you are, you should know. You’re in the old Quantum Labs building, sitting in your father’s chair.”
Darwin’s gaze swept around the office space. What the hell was this guy talking about? “This isn’t Dad’s office. His is on the main floor, near the back of the building. He always says he gets more work done if he’s far away from his bosses.”
Michael stood and tilted Darwin’s cut toward the light. Darwin jerked back at the touch before deciding to hold still.
“Hmm.” Michael’s fingers probed around the bump and Darwin winced. “Hold still. The cut isn’t bad. You’ve got a bit of a goose egg, but time will take care of that.”
Darwin grabbed Michael’s wrist and pulled his hand away. “What do you mean hmm? What’s going on around here? Why haven’t I seen anyone I recognize?”
Michael twisted out of Darwin’s loose grip and crouched down so they were at the same height. His voice lowered to barely a whisper and the smile in his eyes turned to concern. “I can’t answer your questions now. I simply don’t have the information, and they may be listening.” He threw a glance over his shoulder to the closed door. “Look, just don’t trust them. The Qabal deal in shadows and deceit and lies. Do. Not. Trust. Them.”
The last words were spoken through clenched teeth with a ferocity that took Darwin by surprise. He leaned forward to ask another question when the sound of someone at the door made Michael stand up, the smile coming back to his face.
“Who are you?” asked Darwin.
Michael pulled a small bottle of water and gauze from his pocket. So far, the only first aid equipment Darwin had seen. He wet the gauze and placed it on Darwin’s forehead, squeezing water onto the dried blood. He didn’t answer the question. The door opened and one of the men who had brought Darwin upstairs walked in.
“How long does it take to heal a cut?” the man asked.
Michael faced the man and a hard edge entered his voice. “When I’m done, I’ll let you know.”
“Well, make it quick.” The man stood in the doorway watching Michael clean up the blood.
“Hold still now, Darwin. I’ll just close the cut. The bump will be gone in a couple of days, and there won’t be any bruising.” Michael dropped his hands and his eyes lost their focus.
Darwin felt a sudden tingle around the wound. It stopped as quickly as it started.
“Here are a couple of pills. They’ll help with the headache. I had to fight to get those for you, they’re getting harder to find.”
Darwin took the pills and dry swallowed them.
Michael threw the wet gauze, now pink with Darwin’s blood, into the garbage can beside the desk and put the water back into the pocket of his blue anti-static jacket. Both men left the room without saying another word. Darwin was alone again. In the silence, he heard the lock drive home.
He touched his forehead and felt only the bump. The cut seemed to have disappeared. He pulled his hand away and stood, leaning into the window hoping to find his reflection in the glass. Outside, the shadows deepened. He thought he saw a flicker of blue at the edge of the parking lot, but when he looked at it directly it disappeared.
He raised his fingers to the cut again. Where had it gone?
* * *
• • •
Darwin twitched awake, the chair under him shifting with the sudden movement. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep, and a sense of dread settled on his shoulders. Had someone come in while he was out? Had he missed a chance to find out what was going on? He pulled his phone from his pocket, powered it on and looked at the time. It was just after eight thirty p.m.
The door opened and Darwin realized it was the sound of the lock moving that had woken him. He must not have been sleeping that deeply, which was a relief.
The smell of food wafting in from the open door made his stomach grumble. He followed the reflection from the door in the black window, watching his mother carry a tray toward him. He spun in his chair and the teenager holding the tray almost tripped, the look of fear and curiosity in her eyes etched into every fiber of her being.
Looking directly at her, he could see why her distorted reflection had tricked him. She had the same dark, wavy hair, and behind the fear, he could see his mother’s soft gray eyes. This had happened to him before, early on in his recovery process after the accident, where he had seen his mother in the distance only to realize it wasn’t her. That it would never be her. This time the resemblance was uncanny. He put on one of his forced smiles, hoping it would make her feel better. It didn’t seem to work.
The door behind her stayed open, light flooding into his darkened room from the entryway behind it. He resisted the sudden urge to jump out of the chair and bolt for the door, quickly tamping it down, following the pattern of years of trying to be inconspicuous and quiet, to blend into the background as much as possible and not be noticed.
The girl placed the tray on the desk, staring at him for a moment longer before turning to rush out of the room, turning on the lights as she closed the door. It seemed to Darwin as if she had wanted to ask him a question. Once the door was closed and locked again, he examined what she had brought him.
The food looked delicious. Two slices of buttered bread with potatoes and two baked chicken legs. The carrots were fresh and cooked to the point where they still had a bit of a crunch to them. The smell set his mouth watering, and he realized he hadn’t had anything to eat all day. Despite his hunger, it was the chipped mug that sat beside the plate that held his attention. He leaned in and stared at the black liquid inside it. Coffee! He pulled the cup closer and lowered his head over the steam rising from it, breathing in deeply, and let out a huge sigh. Just what the doctor ordered.
It wasn’t until he tasted it that he realized it wasn’t coffee. It looked and smelled like it, but the taste was way off. He drank it anyway.
In spite of the food’s appearance, the taste was bland. At least it was hot, and the crappy coffee—or whatever it was—helped wash it down. A bit of salt and pepper would have gone a long way.
It had been ages since a couple of pieces of chicken and some potatoes and carrots could fill him up, but as he leaned back in his chair sipping the last of the black liquid in the coffee cup, grimacing at its flavor as it cooled down, he felt better than he had since getting to this place. He gave in to the thoughts running through his head, something he’d avoided for most of the day.
He was still at Quantum Labs—that much was obvious. But where was everybody? Just before everything went at a right angle, his dad had been running tests and the lab had been full of people. And where was his dad? Why were they being kept apart? Was it his dad’s choice? He found that hard to believe, throwing the thought away as soon as it had formed. They had passed his office, and it was empty, and that Michael guy had called this his dad’s office. What was with that? It was one more thing that didn’t fit.
What exactly had happened down in the lab? The test had gone to full power and his vision had gone all funky. It was like the episodes he’d been having since he’d left work for the summer, but it had been mixed with elements from the Coke can dream. There had been multiple copies of the lab, all overlaid on top of one another. In some images it had looked empty, in others it had looked destroyed. He remembered one that was dark and stuffy, like his dreams of being buried alive after the accident.
All of it had been made up of the mist and wispy threads, and it was definitely tied to the QPS itself.
But it was the people in the images who stuck in his mind. Sometimes they were there, either doing the same thing or moved a little to the left or the right. Sometimes they were gone. Where his dad had stood was just an empty space on the floor without even a shadow to show where he had once been.
Sometimes things were just different—his dad with a full unkempt beard, typing alone at a terminal, or rubble strewn on the floor and the sun shining through a gaping hole in the ceiling. Just thinking of the variations brought traces of the headache back.
And what were the sheer strands of light he had seen?
Darwin shook his head and turned to look out the darkened window again. His reflection showed the same guy he had seen in the mirror that morning. Maybe a little worse for wear. He gingerly touched the bump on his forehead and pressed it lightly, feeling no pain as the pressure increased. It was smaller than it had been earlier, but it was still there. He let his finger run down the invisible scar on his face, remembering the light touch that had done the same not too long ago.
He changed his focus to outside the reflective glass, then moved to cup his hands against the window, shielding his eyes from the light in the room, and looked through them. All he saw was black. There were no lights, no moving cars. Maybe if he turned off the lights in the office he would be able to see better. He walked to the door and flicked the light switch, turning back to the window after his eyes had adjusted to the change.
A wall of dark slate lay before him. There was nothing for him to see on the other side of the glass. Moving back to the window, he stared into the distance, straining to find something—anything—that indicated there was a city out there.
People.
That’s when he noticed the stars. It was just one or two at first, and then millions of them. These were the stars he remembered as a kid, camping out by the lake with Mom and Dad beside a darkened fire pit. The memory brought back the smells of the dying fire and the sound of water lapping on the shore. He hadn’t thought of their camping trips in years. He stumbled back, bumping into the mesh chair, banging it against the desk.
The movement brought a flash of blue light into focus. It was gone as fast as it had appeared. Something was out there! He leaned into the glass and squinted, looking out of the corner of his eye. There it was again, a soft blue glow that appeared at the edge of the parking lot. It was the same light he’d seen earlier today, but bigger. Much bigger. When he turned to look at it directly, it disappeared, fading back into the night.
He turned his head away from where the blue glow was and let his eyes lose focus. It shimmered back into view. It looked like a mesh, like a chain link fence that followed the edge of the parking lot, curving around the corner and disappearing around the edge of the building. The light eddied and rewove itself, changing the links, creating a living tapestry that was never the same. He tilted his head and followed the mesh into the sky. It faded into nothing somewhere above him. It was like a wall. A wire cage made of light.
A prison.
* * *
• • •
The sound of the door opening pulled Darwin away from the window, and he blinked in the sudden light, staring at his reflection in the window once more. He turned and pressed his back against the cold glass and raised his hand to his eyes.
Someone he hadn’t seen before walked in wearing the same blue anti-static jacket as everyone else here. Darwin snorted, covering it up as a cough. The only point to them must have been as some sort of uniform. There didn’t seem to be any other reason since the lab didn’t have any equipment in it. The guy who walked in couldn’t have been much older than him, though he was at least four inches shorter. His blond hair was chopped short and looked as though it had been cut with a dull knife.
“I’m Lyell.” He stopped just inside the door and nodded his head in greeting. “Please, if you will come with me. Revered Mother would like to see you.”
Darwin pushed off the window, feeling it flex slightly under the added pressure, and moved toward Lyell, trying to ignore the religious title and the dark road it wanted to lead him down. “Who is this Revered Mother?” Hopefully someone who would answer his questions.
“Revered Mother Henslow guides and teaches us. You met her this morning when you . . . when you came here.”
Darwin stopped just short of Lyell and leaned in, using his extra height to try to intimidate the other man. He felt awkward doing it.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on here. How about we start with where is my dad? Why won’t you let me see him?”
Lyell didn’t cower or step back. “I’ve been told to bring you to the Sanctum. Your questions will be answered there.”
“Where are all the people who work here? Where are all the cars? All the people?” Darwin tried to sound menacing, swinging an open hand toward the windows and lowering his voice, forcing the words out. It wasn’t convincing. The last question came out in a high-pitched whine. He was losing his mind.
“I can’t—”
“Why the hell not?” The anger Darwin had been holding inside exploded, pushing through his reluctance to talk with people he didn’t know. He was tired of waiting, of being left alone, of the whole world cascading down around him. But most of all, of feeling weak. “Tell me!”
Lyell took two steps back into the hallway and furtively looked both ways before rushing back into the room. “There isn’t much time. She’s expecting us. Please don’t yell, just come with me and I’ll answer what questions I can . . . as long as you don’t draw too much attention to us.”
Darwin saw the look of concern mixed with fear on Lyell’s face and immediately moved away from him, feeling horrible about what he had done. It wasn’t like him to confront people like that. He couldn’t remember the last time he had even raised his voice. Despite that, he still mumbled, hopefully loud enough for Lyell to hear. “About time.”
“If anyone sees us talking, I’ll be replaced. Just keep your head and your voice down. I brought you a lab coat.” Lyell pulled a dirty blue anti-static jacket from under his belt and held it out. “We guessed the size,” he said, grinning. “But it looks like you already have one. Great condition too!”
Darwin didn’t care what his jacket looked like. “What’s going on here? Where is my dad?”
“As far as I know, still back in his lab trying to figure out what’s going on.” Lyell led the way out of the room, pulling at Darwin’s jacket. The foyer opened up below them, with its large black entrance showing the way out.
“I was there this morning. It looked like the lab was damaged, and he wasn’t there. Is he working on it now?”
“Strictly speaking, that wasn’t your dad’s lab. It was Henry Lloyd’s lab, but—as best as we can tell—it wasn’t your father’s.”
Darwin stopped walking, wanting to grab Lyell’s arm. He didn’t do it. “That doesn’t make sense. Henry Lloyd is my dad.”
“Keep walking and keep your voice down.” Lyell continued on, pulling Darwin along with him. “Our Henry Lloyd died over five years ago, when they first brought the Source online at full power. He was killed trying to shut it down.”
