We didn’t have time to think much about it. The alarm wailed, and the flickering lights in the stairwell made me frantic and nauseous. If I had to shoot our way out, then so be it. But we were going to get out. I turned and headed back up the stairs to the door marked 1, the only door in the stairwell I hadn’t opened. Rhodes crept close behind, putting one hand on my back to let me know he was there. I pushed open the door and peeked out.
It led straight into the strange atrium recently constructed at the front of the building. The air was cool, making me more aware of the sweat-drenched clothes sticking to my body. The alarm resounded on the multitude of glass panels all around. It was a beautiful, bright room filled with ficus trees, umbrella ferns, and flowerbeds. At the center was a white fountain where a gentle cascade of water fell onto an up-lit bed of blue moon stones. Cheerful yellow lamps simulating sunlight were artfully hidden around the room, beaming warmly onto a quaint collection of benches and tables. The black tinted glass of the ceiling was being painted royal blue, like a cloudless summer sky. But the work was only half finished, and the yellow scaffolding was an eyesore in an otherwise perfect setting.
A redwood plank walkway led through the garden to the two tinted glass doors at the other side of the atrium. And just beyond those doors was daylight. I led with the barrel of my gun, turning constantly to check all sides. Rhodes scurried along close behind. The alarm was so loud, it rattled my brain until I could barely think. What’s going on? I wondered. Where are they?
All at once, the alarm stopped. The new silence was jolting. The serenity of the room became apparent, with the soothing gurgle of the fountain. Our feet seemed to thunder along the planks, and Rhodes’s whistling breaths sounded loud to my ears. We picked up the pace, moving with single-minded focus toward those two front doors.
“Now where are you off to? To see the wizard?”
The husky voice was close behind us, and I recognized it immediately. We spun around so quickly that Rhodes lost his balance again and buckled heavily onto the walkway. Juliana stood not fifteen feet away, arms crossed, a voluptuous silhouette against the artificial sunlight. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, and she was wearing only a tank top and yoga pants, as if she’d been sleeping. But she still managed to look as glamorous as a runway model.
She was flanked on both sides by Noirs—identical twins who were tall, menacing guys with hard-eyed stares. They were also dressed in black trousers with black shirts and black baseball caps. At my feet, Rhodes made a low hissing sound, as if he were literally deflating.
I immediately set my sights on her, but before I knew it, something that moved like a blur came up from behind and yanked it from my hands. I looked over my shoulder. Five Noirs, all young and imposing, were lined up across our path. They were all dressed the same, black-clad with baseball hats. One held the rifle in his hand. He stepped forward and pointed the muzzle at my forehead. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the sound of the final blast. But there was only a metallic click as the Noir threw on the safety switch. Then I watched him bend the barrel of the gun like taffy.
“Now why do you look familiar to me?” Juliana said, taking several steps toward where I was sprawled on the wood planks. She stared at me, a vague smile on her face. Then her expression darkened. “Wait a minute. You’re the sparrow that flew away.”
“Listen,” Rhodes said from where he sat, frightened, on the ground. “Whatever you’ve got going on here…that’s great. Brava. I wish you all the best. I do. But whatever it is you want from me…I’m sorry. I just can’t help you. I’ve got a lot going on right now…my seemingly endless adolescence, for example…and I just want you to know that I will keep this whole… episode…to myself.”
Juliana let out a throaty laugh. She padded over to him with a smile. With one hand she effortlessly pulled him onto his feet. Rhodes’s startled eyes widened. She smoothed the rumpled fabric of his button-up shirt and straightened his collar.
“Oh, my sweet, little genius. The science team is still so small. I can’t spare you, I’m afraid. You have a youthful thirst for knowledge that will be irreplaceable. It’s exactly what we need.” She pressed her palms against his cheeks. Then she turned to look at me again. “You, on the other hand, I have no need for.” She shifted her eyes to the legion of Noirs waiting for orders behind me. “Just get rid of her.”
Before I could even react, there was a blow to my head that knocked me to the ground. Everything sounded hollowed out and strange. I thought I heard Rhodes shouting, but it was as if he were underwater. Then there were more voices, which sounded frantic and angry, followed by a lot of loud, crashing noise. I pushed myself up, blinking back the pulsing white lights in my eyes. It took a few minutes to register the chaos around me. One of the guards sailed over my head like a Styrofoam dummy. I turned just in time to see one brawny Noir hurled with staggering force into another. They collided with a gruesome crunch and collapsed to the ground.
At first I was too dazed to understand what I was seeing. An imposing figure had emerged from nowhere, his face concealed in a motorcycle helmet. He threw shattering, lightening quick punches at the other Noirs. But they fought back, slamming fists and elbows into his body, and wrestling him to the ground.
Juliana stood back and watched the fight, mesmerized, recognizing the stranger’s Noir strength. When the twin guards beside her made a move to help the others, she barked, “Wait!”
Even when my head began to clear, I struggled to accept what was happening. It was Jack, of course. He’d come in spite of the daylight. But how was that possible? Did the helmet protect him from the sun? I watched him expend an astonishing amount of force battling the two Noirs, sending one smashing straight into the ground, and hurling the other so far across the room that the guy vanished in the dense foliage. After a moment, he pulled off the helmet and let it drop to the floor. His hair was drenched with sweat, and his face flushed. He panted for breath, but his eyes were startlingly fierce.
Juliana gazed at him in wonder. She slowly shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it was true. “It’s you,” she breathed. She took several steps closer, studying him carefully. “My god. Our long, lost fellow Noir. Jack. What is this? A suicide mission? Out in the daylight?”
Jack didn’t respond. Juliana took several steps closer to him, but still, she kept her distance. She appraised him carefully.
“You’re weakened,” she said softly. “You’ll suffer for these heroics.”
For a moment his gaze shifted to where I lay on the ground, and our eyes locked. I could see the depletion in his face.
“That’s the trouble with kids,” Juliana said with mock sadness. “They don’t realize that Romanticism was never about happy endings.” She took a few more steps closer to him. “Let me help you, Jack. Before it’s too late.”
Jack looked at her in disgust. “I’m not one of your suicidal degenerates.”
Juliana held her hands in the air. “Of course not! You never were. You just got caught up in the wrong brigade. I mean, a revolution first needs its soldiers, right? But wait until you see this next wave. Professionals. Young people. Beautiful people. Jack, you can’t imagine what I have in the works! The money we’ve spent! You can be part of a thriving society. A Noir society! And I can’t spare a beautiful young man like you.”
“Beautiful?” Jack said with an ironic smile. He was blinking quickly, as if struggling to keep sleep at bay.
“Why not? Why shouldn’t Noir be synonymous with beauty? And strength. And youth. And immortality.”
“Are you kidding?” Jack looked down at his hands. “This body isn’t even real! Who cares if it’s beautiful?” He pounded his chest with his open palms. “This isn’t me!”
“Says who?” she snapped, as if he were attacking the validity of her own beauty. “What makes that body any less a part of you than the last one?”
“This one can disintegrate!”
“So could the last one! It just did it in slow motion. It was a progressive, steady decay. This body is constantly recharged. Reborn. We’re going to eliminate the flaws, adapt to life on earth. The possibilities are staggering.”
Jack hesitated. He looked around at the recreated nature in the atrium, the cheerful, synthetic sunlight, the half-painted sky. And I thought I saw a hint of longing in his weary face. Juliana seemed to detect it as well. She gave him a warm, almost compassionate, smile.
“Come with me,” she said gently. “I’ll get you recharged. Let you rest up. And then I’ll have a beautiful room set up for you back at the mansion. And far from the…” she threw an impish glance at the stone faced guards, “…the riffraff, of course. When you’re feeling better, I’ll show you our plans. They’ll send you over the moon.”
Jack blinked out at her, uncertain. He looked like someone who knew he was out of options.
“If you come with me now,” Juliana said, her voice low and reassuring, “I promise we’ll let them leave right now. You can even visit your girlfriend tonight. Let her know you’re okay.”
She gave him a disarmingly maternal smile and extended her hand toward him. Jack looked at me. He stood very still, eyes filled with confusion. His face was pale, almost gray. He seemed to be quickly losing strength. I knew he wouldn’t last long if he went back into the day. Even worse, I recognized that, as evil as Juliana was, she offered him the only real hope he had left in the world. I held his gaze and slowly nodded my approval. Jack looked at the guards.
“Let them go right now,” he said.
Juliana nodded emphatically, turning to the guards as well. “Yes, walk them down and unlock the doors,” she said.
I watched as Jack walked haltingly toward Juliana. He wouldn’t take her hand, but he followed her down the planks, away from the front doors, never taking his eyes off of me. And then they were out of sight.
Immediately, one of the twin guards hauled me roughly off the ground, his fingers like steel handcuffs on my wrist.
“Don’t you touch me!” I growled, pulling uselessly against him. “You heard her. Let us go!”
He looked at me, expressionless, and shook his head. “You believed her?”
Almost without thinking, he held my index finger and pulled it against its natural bend, his huge thumb pressed against my knuckle. It snapped like a wishbone. Pain exploded with white bolts of heat inside me as I thrashed against him, screaming.
My blood felt like fire under my skin, and my own voice was deafening in my ears. But there was another sound, a furious howl that rang out with my screams, echoing off the cold surface of the glass around us. At first all I could see were bursts of light before my eyes. I felt the tips of a thousand knives piercing the bones of my finger. And so it was hard to say how long I’d been sitting on the floor before I realized I was free from the guard’s grip. Then I heard Juliana’s angry voice.
“You idiots!” she screamed, over and over again.
Blurred through the tears, I saw Jack wrestling with the Noir. The twin brother was sprawled motionless in a bed of pink and red pansies. Jack and the Noir exchanged blows that boomed like wrecking balls against brick. At first they seemed equally matched. But then I detected an increased heaviness to Jack’s movements. His body seemed to lumber and resist. I watched in horror as the Noir grabbed him and hurled him into a cluster of ferns.
“Jack!” I yelled.
I watched him get to his knees, desperately fighting the languor inside him. He tried to find his feet, but couldn’t seem to get his balance. The Noir approached him, breathing hard, and for the first time his inscrutable face revealed a kind of sadistic joy. As he reached for Jack, his mouth hooked up in a crooked smile. Suddenly, Jack turned, his arm cocked back like a shot putter, and he slammed a sod-covered brick square into the Noir’s face.
The guard teetered back, arms pinwheeling. His nose had vanished into a deep crater in the center of his face. His upper lip was stretched long like bubble gum, and his chin was thrust off-kilter. The guy looked like a grotesque, claymation monster.
Beside me, Rhodes let out of long, frightened moan as he stared at the Noir in disbelief.
The guard prodded at the damage, eyes wide with alarm. Then he turned to Jack and unleashed a terrifying bellow. Jack came in for another blow, but the Noir turned quickly, grabbing him and flinging him through the trees. Jack lay in a mess of fronds and broken branches, exhausted. Instantly, the Noir was on him again, this time hurling him into the fountain. It toppled to the ground in a burst of water and moonstones.
“Leave him alone!” I screamed.
Juliana looked furious. “Stop it!” she yelled. “Do you hear me! You stop this immediately!”
But the Noir didn’t stop. He was like a murderous machine without an off switch. He picked Jack from the wreckage of the fountain, soaking and gasping for air, and slammed him mercilessly against the ground. Jack swung at him blindly, but it was hopeless. The air filled with sickening thuds as the Noir pummeled his body. My eyes flooded with tears.
I clamored to my feet and searched the room. I had to do something. Longingly, I lifted my eyes to the half-painted ceiling with its celestial blue meant to ease the gloom of a nocturnal world. If only that sky were real, I thought. If only, if only, if only. I turned quickly to the ugly scaffolding, which rose up to the unpainted glass. The sky.
I ran across the garden, my shoes plowing through the pristinely arranged flowerbeds and decorative stones until I reached the scaffolding. On the ground just beside it, concealed in the plants, was a smaller second scaffolding, still unassembled, the parts in a pile. I grabbed a metal rod from the pile and glanced anxiously over my shoulder. The Noir continued to unleash his fury on Jack, who lay wasted on the ground, arms covering his face. Juliana stood with clenched fists, watching. I scrambled up the ladder, my throbbing finger unbending, already a deep purple.
Once at the top, I stepped onto the narrow platform, my legs weak with vertigo. I was so tired, I could swear the platform rose and fell beneath my feet, like an elevator. I called upon every last ounce of strength in my body, and, shielding my eyes with one arm, I whacked the rod against the glass. At first it only splintered into a web of cracks. I swung the rod again. This time it shattered, and shards of glass rained down all around me. There was a burst of cold, and a cloudy winter sky peeked through. I struck again and again, smashing every inch of glass within my reach. The blows sent distress tremors down several panels, and large swatches of ceiling began to splinter and collapse. At first the effect was muted and unimpressive. And then, as if heaven sent, the cloud moved on, and the room was suddenly flooded with sunlight.
The Noir was encapsulated in gleaming rays of light. For a moment he froze, as if confused by the sudden warmth on his skin. The finger-like strips of flesh hanging from the center of his face twitched with surprise. Then his face snapped up and he squinted, unbelieving, at the sun. He covered his eyes and howled. Jack lay unmoving at his feet, and I felt a surge of panic to see him bathed in sunlight. The guard staggered around, face buried in his hands. He stumbled over fallen trees, slipped on the moonstones, and fell to the ground. Juliana let out a furious shriek. She turned quickly and fled down the walkway, disappearing into the shadows.
I rushed down the ladder and ran to Jack. Rhodes was already there, kneeling before him, a careful hand on his back. With a nervous glance at the exposed sky, he quickly squirmed out of his coat. He draped it carefully over Jack, and then looked at me, sullen, but resolute.
“We have to get him out of here. Now.”