Broken Angels (16 page)

Robert had experienced more Hell than Heaven during one of his earliest visits, which began with him floating weightlessly while suffocating in bluish beige smog. It wasn’t his flesh-and-blood body that was floating and choking, but it was
him
. The essence of his consciousness had translated itself into a taffy-like body that could exist in Xyn with only a minor measure of comfort.

The smog eventually cleared to reveal a monstrous free-floating tree. No ground or sky—just Robert and an enormous tree, whose roots immediately snatched him up. They stretched and strangled his neck, arms, and legs while teeth-bearing fruit appeared (possibly shaken loose from the malicious tree’s branches) to nibble at his exposed sections. Peaches, plums, nectarines, and cherries of various hues nipped and pinched, taking bits and pieces out of Robert while, between screams, he heard the harsh music of the tree’s leaves. It seemed to his strangely enhanced sense of sight that each leaf was vibrating and shaking in its own unique way, despite the complete lack of wind.

He was bitten at least a hundred times before something snapped—and Robert found himself in a new experience. His “body” had become wood. He’d become the tree. And he’d been planted atop a high mountain made up of the slowest quicksand, a quicksand containing a colony of ravenous, alien termites. The mites went to work on his roots while his trunk, limbs, and branches were subjected to the most extreme elements of all four earthly seasons, and maybe even a fifth or sixth one. It had been hard to tell what was what in the middle of all the rain, snow, heat, and incessant shedding of leaves, whipped up by tornado-like gusts. It all came to a stop only when a gorilla-like creature straight out of a drunken Dante’s infernal dreams grabbed him by his trunk and pulled him out of the quicksand. Robert had apparently been seasoned to the point where he could be happily devoured by the giant demon. In the pit of its stomach, Robert felt a bliss he’d never felt before or since as what passed as the stomach’s acids dissolved him. He regained consciousness in his familiar body on Reality’s surface, imperceptibly but definitely a changed man.

To those who’d been to XynKroma, the real world in which most humans lived and played—the Earth and its comprehensible universe—was regarded merely as the
surface
of Reality. The dimension of Xyn was Reality at its limits. It was fairly easy to get lost when visiting such a place, and there was a low chance one would even find an exit back to a relatively coherent and familiar realm of Reality rather than becoming lost in the mind, in
everyone’s
mind, having one’s senses and sanity permanently scrambled, as had happened to the numerous associates of The Infinite Definite.

Just three years ago, after one of his longest visits, seventeen-year-old Robert had been lucky enough to leave XynKroma and reenter his familiar realm of Reality, but what he’d learned during his visit wouldn’t allow him to ever consider
any
part of Reality as coherent or sensible again. It had been during this visit Robert that learned the fate of his mother, the final fate of the woman who’d carried him for nine months.

That goddamned day.

His parents had left him at home alone, sleeping through dawn on his eleventh birthday. His father had set off for work while his eight-month’s pregnant mother had set off for a cousin’s house. Out of the town of Wallace, Virginia, into the heart of its bordering city, his mother had gone to gather the gifts she’d stashed far away from where her too-curious son would be able to look, far away from where he would even think to look. She’d been determined to surprise him, and Robert had been. Later that day, he was surprised to hear how his mother had been ambushed.

The cousin wasn’t a close relative. Barely an acquaintance, in fact. Just a bloodliner who’d relocated from Louisiana only six months prior. No one in Robert’s house had any clue of the thirty-year-old’s addictions, or her associations. Robert’s mother had arrived at her house just as the Ecstasy- and heroin-fueled gathering of shady characters was breaking up. Most of the drug-fiends scattered back toward the dark corners from which they’d come. Three remained behind. Two eyed the stomach of Robert’s mother. And one had an idea.

The cousin. She ran to the kitchen, retrieved the second largest knife she could find and, as her drug-addled associates restrained Robert’s mother, she cut the unborn baby from her womb.

Minus some of the details, this was the story Robert had been told on the afternoon of his eleventh birthday by a less-than-sensitive cop who’d interviewed the missing cousin’s accomplices. The officer thought he was just doing his duty by talking to the victim’s son. Six years later, in XynKroma, Robert learned every minute detail of the story, and its epilogue. A denizen of Xyn, a fantastical creature that had spent every moment of its possibly immortal life in the realm, had told him all about it.

Unlike Robert’s mother, the creature said, her baby hadn’t died on the day it was snatched from her womb. The cousin had stolen it, stolen away with Robert’s baby brother to parts unknown. And the baby had the White Fire Virus. Robert’s mother had had the Virus. She’d been infected right around the time she got pregnant, a couple years before the new-and-out-of-nowhere Virus infected the first “official” victim, according to the “official” history. During the gestation period, the unborn baby had been subjected to the raw experience of XynKroma; its mind-and-soul had practically lived there. The final bombshell: Robert’s father was not the true father of Robert’s little brother.

Robert never had a chance to ask or confront either of his parents about any of the many questions raised during his extra-dimensional sojourn. After leaving Xyn with this new and improbable information, after awaking from his deepest of deep sleeps, his father was nowhere to be found. Disappeared without a trace.

How trustworthy was the story Robert had heard while he’d been in Xyn? How trustworthy was Xyn’s denizen, the three-mile-long albino serpent who told Robert the story while it devoured itself ? How trustworthy were any absurd words heard on any level of Reality?

There was a line beyond which he wouldn’t humor the ridiculous. There was a line beyond which he even refused to entertain the preposterous. But there were other lines he was obligated to cross in order to do his duty.

Ava stared at Robert. She may have been holding the gaze during all the minutes of silence that had passed while he was remembering the tragedy of tragedies. He must’ve been staring at her the whole time without fully seeing her.

He blinked twice, shook his head, and asked, “Would you like to go for a ride?”

EIGHT

Robert had been told there was no need for a blindfold. Adam was sure someone of Ava’s abilities would be able to see right through it anyway. Robert was sure that none of this was a good idea.

It was a lot to decipher from such a short message—Robert’s pulse and watch and intuition working in mysterious harmony to break the encryption—but it seemed Adam believed Ava deserved a proper introduction to the Isaac-Abraham Institution. After all, she was a young Virus-carrier with no parents and nowhere to go. Not only did Adam want her to trust the IAI to keep her safe, he also wanted to see if he could trust his instincts about her. She might make a good Watcher agent.

Robert didn’t have time to protest, but he was wary of the whole set-up. They still knew so little about her. What if she was affiliated with The Infinite Definite? What if, once inside The Burrow, she revealed her true colors and went berserk like her friend did inside the high school? Yes, they could take her down, but how many would she take down with her? Robert had studied the videos in the archive. She was tough. And if she did escape and meet back up with her terrorist associates with information about The Burrow’s secret location…

“Why so quiet?” Ava asked.

“Just thinking,” Robert said.

Ava went silent for a few moments before asking, “How long have you been looking for Marie-Lydia?”

“Since her parents reported her missing.”

“Any good leads?”

Robert took a long breath. “Just you.”

Silence seemed to disturb her. The thought of this made Robert want to prolong it even further. Spurred by nervousness, Ava might blurt out something interesting. But her only words during the rest of ride were questions about some of the buildings they passed. Robert said next to nothing until they drove into the parking garage.

“The Isaac-Abraham Institution is a publicly known organization,” he said, “but its main office, which we call The Burrow, has always been a well-guarded secret. It’s located underground, for various reasons, the most important one being that almost everyone in there has the same condition you and I do. Even though we’re not officially affiliated with the government, we have connections, and the location of the facility and the nature of much of the work is top secret. Adam Smith is the chairman of the Institution. He insisted I bring you here, without blindfolds or any other of the simplest security measures. He didn’t tell me to request it, but I’m asking that you please keep anything you see or hear strictly to yourself.”

“You have my word, Robert. This angel doesn’t lie.”

“Yeah,” he said as he pulled into a parking space.

They walked to one of the garage’s elevator banks, and Robert pushed the “up” button.

“I thought we were going underground?”

“We are,” he said after looking around them for busybodies. “Just wait.”

The first elevator cab had four people inside. Robert waved them off, saying they’d catch the next one. The people gave them funny looks. Robert ignored them. Ava smiled and shrugged.

They waited for three silent minutes until an empty cab arrived. After entering, Robert pushed the button for the door to close, selected a key on his keychain and stuck it into a slot near the buttons. He then pushed the button for the highest level.

At the top level, the door didn’t open. Instead, the cab began to vibrate.

“What’s happening?” Ava asked.

“It’s turning around.”

When it stopped, the door opened onto complete blackness. Robert adjusted his vision until he saw through the opaque wall of nothing. There was another elevator ten feet away. He moved forward with Ava close behind. He pressed some of his fingers against a pad next to the second elevator and stooped down so his eye was level with the iris scanner. The door opened, but Ava hesitated. The inside of the cab was as pitch black as the space outside it. Robert waved her inside.

“The door will shut in less than seven seconds.”

She just made it.

After the door closed, Robert again touched some of his fingers to a pad and looked into a scanner. The cab began to move. After a long, silent descent, the door opened. They stepped out into a darkened corridor.

“Follow me,” Robert said.

He led Ava through halls and around corners, down stairways and through several doors. They didn’t pass anyone. The place seemed deserted. But Robert knew better.

When they reached Adam’s office door, Robert pressed his fingers to the keypad and lowered his head until his eye was level with the scanner. For the second time that day, he heard the recorded voice announce, “Enter, Mister Goldner.”

The two stepped into a room lit by three low-wattage lamps. Robert was surprised to find Adam already waiting behind the reception area’s desk. He was even more shocked to find Darryl sitting in one of the three metal chairs in front of it.

“Come in, both of you,” Adam said as he gestured toward the two empty chairs. “I ask you to please excuse the dimness, Miss Darden, but I am sure you can see just fine.”

“Yes, thank you.” Ava sat in the seat next to Darryl. Robert sat on the other side of her and then scooted his chair back a few inches so he could get a clearer view of Darryl. The sleeves of Darryl’s shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and a bandage was on his left forearm. Must’ve been a tough charity case.

“I am Adam Smith, chairman of the Isaac-Abraham Institution.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ava said with a respectful nod.

“First, I would like to know if you are feeling okay,” Adam said, “considering everything you have been through over the past few days.”

“Yes,” Ava said. “I guess I’m feeling as well as I can be, considering.”

Yes—what was she feeling? As far as Robert could detect, she didn’t seem the least bit put off by Adam’s exoskeletal suit or his atypical manner of speaking. Then again, Robert didn’t have a full view of her face, and the funhouse reflection on the front of Adam’s helmet was of little help. Ava’s actual facial expression may’ve revealed something her tone of voice didn’t.

“Good,” Adam said. “For now, I just want you to relax. I did not ask Mister Goldner to bring you here for an interrogation. I wanted him to bring you to a place where you could be sure, and we could be sure, that you would be safe.”

“Thank you,” Ava said.

“I have also called Miss Goins, our medical specialist. She is on her way here to have a quick look at you. Then you will be shown to one of our secure apartments so that you may get some rest. But before all of that, I thought it would be wise to tell you what we are all about.”