Subject Seventeen: Wraith Among Shadows
Chapter 5

Sanders finishes talking and Nine and his team head off straight away. Without Seven present, the illusion would only last for a few more minutes.

“Hurry up,” Three says to me. My head rings as my body is automatically following her instructions. I wonder why. It feels as if I’m forgetting something important, but I can’t quite remember what. Every time I try my head explodes into a series of pain. I can’t even remember what I was doing yesterday.

The brunette girl I had spoken to on the plane keeps on glancing at me every now and then. Two is her name I think. I try to smile at her but my lips don’t move, so instead I nod at her. For some reason her face goes red and she ignores me. Strange...

We come to a large foyer filled with people jostling up and down, as if trying to find the place they belong. Guards in full combat uniform pace up and down the perimeter of the room, all clutching assault rifles.

“Seven, time for you to shine,” Three says. I look at Seven and see her face scrunched up in deep concentration. All of a sudden a heavily bearded man appears below, running through the glass doors before the guards can stop him. I pause to look at the scene from above but Three pulls me forward, ushering me to keep moving. The man begins to scream out, waving his hands about in the air, a gun in one of his hands. This causes everyone to start screaming and running for cover. A few of the guards in front of us run down the stairs to subdue him, leaving the doors leading to the central labs defended by only one guard.

The guards dive at the man, but pass right through him. They try several times, scratching their heads in confusion. A few try to use stun guns but these seem to have no effect either. The man charges at one of them. The guard in question yelps and runs out of the way. Another lets off a few shots in the air in an attempt to scare the man but to no avail.

“Three,” Two says. “What about the last guard?” I look towards the metal doors and see the last guard still standing there not bothering to aid his colleagues in dealing with the commotion.

“Seventeen. Deal with him. Seven, after we go through, rendezvous with Ten.”

Seven nods and walks off, keeping her illusion in place for a bit longer. I look at the guard and think. What can I do to get rid of him? As soon as I think this numerous ideas and strategies pop into my head. I have so many options I struggle to choose one. Eventually I choose the simplest idea I can think of.

I stare at him and snap my fingers. The strings which seemingly only I can see weave their way around him in a circle. The man begins to rapidly age, and drops to his knees. Eventually he turns to nothing but bones. I speed up the rate of his decomposition so that all that’s left of him is dust.

Three stares at me, her mouth open, but doesn’t question what just happened. After all, I literally decomposed a live human. She picks up the gun and clothes the guard had on him and we continue through the metal doors which now is defenceless. My ears are ringing and I’m sweating furiously. Decomposing a live human seems to take quite a lot of energy.

Through the doors is a white corridor lined with glass doors on either side. Small labs full of scientists and unknown devices make the contents of the rooms behind the glass. At the very end is a lift, capable of fitting at least six people I’d guess. Next to it is a keypad with a blue screen: it requires a pin.

“Sanders, we’re in,” Three whispers into her mic as we sneak past the glass doors, careful not to be seen by anyone inside the rooms. One unlucky scientist walks out into the corridor staring at some notes in his hand. Two shoots him in the head with her silenced pistol and we drag the body along.

“Good,” Sanders replies. “Nine has nearly finished accessing the data, so pick up the pace. The code is four-one-two-eight-eight. Be quick.”

Three punches in the code and the lift doors slide open. She throws the body inside and we all enter the lift. The doors close and Three presses the button for sub-level-three. The lift starts moving at a fast pace, but then I notice something strange. The strings in the air are moving in a strange pattern. A similar pattern to when Two blasted a man with lightning earlier. I notice her let off a small discharge when Three isn’t looking, and the lift slows down to a ridiculously slow speed.

“What happened?” Three asks, puzzled by the sudden deceleration. I don’t know why she’s bothered by it, I mean, she can just teleport us down there right?

“I don’t know,” I say, immediately feeling pain in my head. Is it because I lied? I don’t know why but something made me just blurt that out. I grimace, but I try not to react too much in case Three notices.

“We’ve finished downloading the data,” Five says, his voice erupting in my mic. “We’re heading to the rendezvous with Seven and Ten.” His voice trails off.

We’re minutes behind schedule. Somehow I know he’s lying. He’s up to something. However I don’t question it.

Three’s foot is constantly tapping the floor and she keeps on checking her watch. It almost seems like her veins are going to burst out of her skin.

“We shouldn’t be this far behind schedule…” Three says. “Something is wrong.”

“It’s just this stupid lift,” Two replies. “I’m sure one or two minutes won’t hurt the plan.”

Three doesn’t seem to relax however. Eventually – and much to Three’s annoyance – we arrive at sub-level-three. What we see there makes One gasp.

It looks like an enormous capsule with ladders on either side, filled with what I can only describe as black sludge. The black substance hisses and sometimes a few bubbles appear at the top. Several scientists are running back and forth in hazmat suits. At least two dozen guards stand on balconies observing the scene. As soon as the doors of the lift open everyone stops to look at us, their faces showing they have no idea why we’re here.

The guards point their gun at us preparing to shoot if we give them any reason to. We’re definitely not supposed to be here I guess. Well, according to them at least.

“Now would be a really good time, Five!” Three whispers into her mic. Right on cue all the lights switch off and everything is left in complete darkness. Five set off an EMP blast. A series of voices start to cry out in panic and the guards open fire at the lift despite the fact we’ve already moved to another location. Half a minute later the lights come back on; it must be the back-ups, although that was quite fast. Was the intel Sanders gave us about the back-ups wrong? Wrong intel?

“One, Two.” Three says. “Blow them away.”

Two pushes her arms out, and I expect to see lightning but instead an incredibly strong gale of wind pushes everyone back; a few are sent flying. One the guards falls over the railings and lands in the huge vat of black sludge. He screams. Trying desperately to resurface, he tries to swim to the edge and climb out, however his skin begins to melt, horribly disfiguring his face. His eyes are now completely black and pus roll down from his eyes. Eventually he stops moving completely and lays there, dead in the chemical.

“It’s a chemical weapon,” Three says, shaking her head. One stamps on the ground with her right foot, creating a tremor which causes the ground to split in two. Everything starts to sink as cracks form in the wall and a huge hole opens up in the ground. The floor begins to shake, causing me to stumble. Two then fires of a horrific burst of lightning which creeps its way around the entire room, frying whoever had managed to escape from the destruction One had reaped below. Something blurs across my vision and disappears a second later. I dismiss it.

The ground beneath us starts to split as well, but Three teleports us out in time. We re-appear back in the Foyer. The chaos has spread to here as well. The tremors from the earth-quake One had initiated can be felt here. People scream and push their way through the crowd, all trying to get out. A man is knocked to the floor and people run over him, not bothering to help him. Blood begins to drip from his face onto the floor. Panic spreads everywhere.

Three guides us out of the complex, taking out any guards who cross our path. We head in the direction of the gene therapy ward on the other side of the research center. The rest should be waiting for us there.

Just as we have the building in our sights, six Humvees stop in front of us, blocking our path. Two dozen soldiers jumped out at take aim at us, but it’s Three who fires the first shot. The bullet flies through the man’s forehead, sending him flying backwards before he drops. The remaining all start shouting, firing a barrage of bullets at us.

I wave my hands and negate the kinetic force of the bullets, dropping them in the air. Before I have time to do anything else all the men are knocked in the air by a blur. Confused I look around only to find Three, One and Two are still by my side. The blur speeds around knocking over every soldier in our path.

“No…” Three whispers. “This shouldn’t be possible… You should be dead...” Both One and Two have the same looks on their faces. Fear. Shock. Disbelief. But I don’t understand their expressions.

The blur slows down and takes the form of a boy with silver hair. He’s tall with intense grey eyes and dressed in a black coat with furred edges. He looks back at us and smiles.

“I see you’ve got a new friend, Three,” the boy says.

“How are you alive?!” Three screams whilst taking aim and shooting the boy, but he’s too fast. He’s in her face before she can react.

“Because, little one, I’m too fast for death.”

He sounds like a cartoon character. I find myself wondering what exactly a cartoon character is despite the fact I just compared him to one.

Three swings her katana at him but the boy is picked up by a girl with shoulder length hair and carried into the air. The girl stays hovering in the air, staring at us.

“So you’re still alive…” Two says, her voice incredibly hard. “Why?” She can hardly control herself now; her voice is beginning to shake. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

The two simply stare at us expressionless. ‘Supposed’ to be dead?

“Who’s that?” the boy says pointing to me. “Seventeen?”

“You can find out when you explain yourself back at base,” Three says. “I order you to stand down!”

The two laugh at Three’s words.

“Stand down?” the girl finally says. “You don’t control us anymore, Three. And you know better than anyone you can’t beat us right now; well, at least not both of us at the same time. See you later.”

With that the girl flies off, the boy clinging on to her.

“Who was that?” I ask

“Don’t worry, we need to move. Now!” Three says. Her face is full of rage.

I follow Three and One as they move on ahead to meet up with Nine and Five, but I can’t stop myself from wondering who the other two were. It takes a while for us to notice that Two is still standing there dumbstruck.

“What’s wrong with her?” I ask Three. Three runs back to grab Two. It doesn’t seem like anyone wants to talk about what we just saw.

“Three!” Sanders voice rings out. “What’s taking you so long? Ten can only provide you with cover for so long, move to the evac now!”

Three grabs me and One, and One holds on to Two. The next thing I know is that we are right behind Nine who is in a shootout, fighting off nearly fifty guards while taking cover behind an overturned car. He turns back to look at me.

“Do something about this,” he says. “I can only hold off so many.”

I nod at him and reverse the flow of gravity around the soldiers. They all begin to rise up, yelling at each other in confusion. One of the soldiers manages to grab his gun before it floats off and fire off a shot. Nine stops the bullet in mid-air, but the force of the shot sends the soldier flying back out of the zero-gravity zone and into a Humvee. He doesn’t get back up.

“Hurry the hell up!” Ten screams at us from behind. It seems as if he’s stolen a couple of cars to get to the evac point. Seven and One are already inside the other. The rest of us scramble inside the cars and slam the door shut. Ten hits the gas straight away, driving straight through the fence whilst keeping his head down to avoid being hit by the onslaught of bullets echoing all around us.

Ten pulls out some sort of remote control and presses a button. Almost immediately a feel a tremor from behind us. I turn and see the building we had just exited rising up in flames. Another explosion goes off and smoke starts to rise. Ten had planted several units of C4 in the center it seems.

“Three,” I say. “Who were those two?” I stare at her, waiting for an answer. Ten and Five turn back to look at us from the front of the car. Nine shifts strangely next to me.

“What two?” Five asks.

“That doesn’t concern you, Seventeen,” Three replies coldly.

“It does when one has enhanced speed and another has the ability to fly and lift a person up with one hand.”

“What did you say?!” Ten says, his voice wild and frantic. “You saw someone with super-speed and another with flight? Isn’t that -?”

“Four and Six are dead,” Nine replies hastily. “It isn’t possible. We all have transmitters embedded in our skin, if they were alive the Doctor would know.”

Four and Six. Some of our own. Presumed dead. The bodies were never recovered. They’re members of the Shadows. It makes no sense. The Doctor had told me that Four, Six and Fifteen were all dead and the rest were either at the base or preoccupied with their own missions. Was he lying?

I clutch my head as it bursts into pain again. This time is worse than all the others. Images flash through my head. Some of a white room, others of a run-down building with a handful of other kids with a young me at the centre of them. I keel over, the pain building until I can no longer hear anything. I can see Nine’s panicked face hovering over me while Three is barking orders to the others as usual.

I think back to Two and the others in the car behind us. I wonder what she’s thinking about, that weird girl. The ringing in my ears grow louder until I can no longer hear anything. The last thing I remember is closing my eyes.

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