Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (10 page)

Alessa gasped. “Isaac. Are
those –” she looked up at Isaac, her eyes searching, “– are
those
human footprints
?”

10. WAITING

The now-familiar scrabble of 14’s note
and makeshift pencil thrusting through the wall caught Nikhil’s
ear. She’s up!

He rolled quickly off the cot and
scooped up the note, eagerly moving into the thin stream of light
by the door to read her message.

“
Hear them
again?”

Oh, did he; last night’s racket of
snarling howls was the entire reason Nikhil had been lying
half-dazed on his cot for the past several hours. The inhuman cries
had woken him from a deep slumber, and the unsettled feeling they’d
left in his gut had made it near impossible to get back to
sleep.

Without any supplies to send a note,
Nikhil had banged fruitlessly on 14’s wall and even tried shouting
to her, but to no avail. He’d been left to ponder those
inexplicable growls on his own. And even after hours of thinking,
he still couldn’t imagine what was going on out there. Or who – or
what – those horrifying sounds were coming from.

He dipped the pen in the black grease
smeared across his door hinges. “Yup – couldn’t sleep
after.”

Nikhil pushed the note back through
and waited for her reply. It came quickly. “Poor baby. Quiet jail
cell spoiled you?”

Nikhil laughed out loud. Up until a
few days ago, he couldn’t have imagined a reason that he would ever
have the occasion here to feel the familiar warmth of that hearty
rumble in his chest. But 14’s notes shooting through the wall had
changed all that. He had actually – incredulously – laughed from
joy.

It felt good.

Nikhil thought back to his days at
Eastern State University, to the plentiful laughs he’d shared with
his teammates on the water polo squad. His memories were hazy, but
they’d grown more clear over the past several days with the help of
14’s prompts. She seemed to remember the school distinctly, and her
musings about different places and events on campus had begun to
jog his memory.

“
Hah! Guess so,” he
scratched out on the strip of paper. “Couldn’t sleep at ESU, either
– housemates.”

“
Lived with the polo
team?” she asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Where?”

“
Polo frat.”

There was a longer pause between her
next response. Nikhil knew she was thinking about her next
question, trying to piece something together. She did this
sometimes. He wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for yet, but
he figured he didn’t have anything to lose by giving her the
information she sought.

“
When did you get to
ESU?”

“
August – pre-season
training. You?”

“
Sept. Usual move-in. Were
other students there in Aug?”

“
Just some other
athletes.” Those were some good times. No class, no homework, just
workouts with the guys during the day and parties with a different
girls’ sports team every night.

“
I think you were on a
jock drama,” she replied.

That made sense – there’d certainly
been plenty of drama those weeks before school had started, and
then once the competitive season had gotten underway, the action
had only intensified. Nikhil guessed that watching from the outside
would probably have made for some solid entertainment.

Though he was still having
trouble wrapping his mind around the fact he’d been living on a
television show. 14 had explained everything to him, but it was
easy to forget that much of his life had been false, that all of
his memories from ESU had been “stitched” – as 14 had called it –
into his brain. That life had felt so
real
to Nikhil at the time. It still
felt real.

But then again, so did all his other
memories – of being a knight, and a soldier, and a medical intern,
and an 18 year old kid venturing across a wasted country to find
sanctuary at a government quarantine zone. He knew now that most of
these experiences had been constructed; he just had to keep
reminding himself which story was reality. But sometimes – most of
the time – he felt in danger of forgetting.

14 was helping him with that,
though.

He wanted to know more about 14, but
he’d had difficulty getting her to reveal almost anything about
herself. He decided it was worth a shot to ask about her show again
– maybe she’d open up more about her role this time so he could
finally remember who she was.

“
You? Sorority
drama?”

“
Kind of – ghost love
story mainly (side character). Were you here before
ESU?”

He considered. His time in Paragon’s
prison was a blur. He’d certainly been here before, but prior to
this stint in solitary, all of his many stays here sort of jumbled
together.

“
Yup – a few times, I
think. You?”

She ignored his question. “Always in
solitary?”

Nikhil sighed. She obviously wasn’t
ready to talk yet. He gave up on his questioning for
now.

He thought back. At least some of his
other visits in between stitches had been in the normal cells,
where there were other prisoners around and they were let out for
meals and recreation. He’d even had a friend here, once, if memory
served.

It was always so difficult for Nikhil
to remember the order of events with so many different lifetimes
bleeding together in his brain, but he was fairly certain that he’d
been on at least a couple dramas before they’d moved him into
solitary. And somewhere in between he’d made contact with the
prisoner in the cell across from him, a younger guy about Nikhil’s
age whose name eluded him at the moment.

He replied, “I remember a friend –
forgot his name – blue-eyed guy across the hall. So, no, not always
solitary.”

14’s response was immediate. “What did
he look like?”

Nikhil couldn’t imagine why she cared,
but he indulged her odd questions as usual. “Tallish, built. Brown
hair.” He wasn’t sure what else would distinguish him, so he shoved
the note back to her and waited for her reply.

Again, there was a delay before the
response came. She seemed to be considering something. Finally, the
note returned.

A fresh scrap of paper held one word:
“Joe?”

Joe… Nikhil considered. That just
might have been his name.

“
You know him?” he
responded.

There was a pause before the note came
back. “He worked with the rebellion.”

Nikhil gripped the paper in his hands
at this subtle revelation. Had 14 been a rebel?

He’d heard through prison gossip that
there was some kind of resistance movement, though he’d never
really understood who was involved or why. Of course, the vile
practice of stitching prisoners was something worth fighting
against, but Nikhil suspected there was more to it than just that,
other sinister goings on of which he hadn’t yet caught wind. Maybe
14 would be able to fill in the gaps for him eventually.

But more importantly, he
realized, she’d
finally
shared something of herself outside of her time
at ESU. Maybe she was beginning to trust him.

There was more – he kept
reading.

“
What happened to him?”
she’d asked.

Nikhil tried to remember. He’d seen
his friend – this Joe – daily for a while, but sometimes they would
take him away for a bit. He’d always come back confused, out of it.
And then one day he just didn’t come back.

The past was fuzzy for Nikhil, but he
thought he’d remembered seeing Joe one final time, the day they’d
moved Nikhil to solitary. It’d been after he’d finished another
drama, when the muddled chaos in his head had really begun in
earnest. The experience stuck out in his mind because they’d
brought him for the first time to this other part of the prison, an
endless labyrinth of halls lined with solid steel doors.

He remembered his shoes scraping
against the floor, the guard’s hands on his wrists driving him
forward. This was before Nikhil had grown resigned to his fate as
Paragon’s puppet, and he recalled that he’d been carefully making
note of the descending numbers above the cells as they traversed
the hallways, trying to remember a series of digits that would lead
him out if he ever got the chance.

And then they’d turned the corner, and
Nikhil had caught sight of another prisoner being shoved into a
cell. The prisoner had been resisting violently, snarling almost,
and a flash of blue had sparked some whisper of recognition in
Nikhil. At the time he couldn’t place it, but now he thought he
did. He thought it might have been Joe.

“
Haven’t seen him in
years. #116 last I think.” The number marked above the door where
he’d witnessed the scuffle had been seared into Nikhil’s
memory.

He still couldn’t imagine why 14 was
interested in this. It was clear she knew something she wasn’t
telling him. Maybe Joe had been her boyfriend or something before
they both ended up here. Who knew? He was certain she wouldn’t tell
him if he asked.

Sure enough, her response was cryptic
as ever.

“
They’re going to come for
me, Nikhil. And when they do, we’ll get you out, too.”

11. PHILOSOPHY

Time was passing quickly for Phoenix.
Or at least, she thought it was.

It seemed like only moments since the
Developer had left her side, but then again, her body felt stronger
and her myriad bruises had developed an olive tinge around their
edges. And while her body felt heavy with lethargy, the cloud in
her mind was showing the beginnings of an inclination to clear.
Maybe one day soon she would finally remember her real name. For
now, though, Phoenix it was.

The door hissed and slid open with a
whirr, and Phoenix closed her eyes – it was easier to pretend she
was asleep through the probes and prods of these routine medical
examinations than to expend the strength responding to the nurse’s
questions.

But she was curious enough to peek
through her bandages when an unfamiliar male voice cleared his
throat and called gently out to her.

“
Ph-Phoenix… are you
awake?”

Phoenix slowly peeled her eyelids
back, feigning a drowsiness that was only slightly more pronounced
than the fatigue her broken body actually felt.

What she found was a middle aged
gentleman with side-parted hair and a soft boyish face beaming down
at her encouragingly. He eagerly sidled up next to her bed in the
same white plastic chair the Developer had sat in and lightly laid
his hand on top of hers.

“
I s-see you’re feeling
better after a couple days’ rest.” Everything about her visitor was
unthreatening, from his soft-spoken voice to warm demeanor – even
his slight stutter. Phoenix simply gazed at him and waited for him
to continue.

“
Oh! I’m being rude,
sorry. Let me introduce myself. My name is Benoni – Ben for short.
They also call me the Economist.”

Phoenix smiled weakly in reply. He
obviously already knew who she was, so what else could she
say?

“
I’m so glad your spirits
are up, Phoenix. I wanted to stop by today to try to explain to you
what Paragon is meant to be, what we’re trying to achieve here.
Hopefully I can give you something uplifting to think about during
your recovery.”

Phoenix nodded ever so slightly,
urging him on. Perhaps today was the day she would get some
answers.

“
I’m not sure how much you
remember given your recent injuries, so please excuse me if I’m
repeating things you already know.” He paused a beat and looked off
into the distance. “So where to begin?”

Moving his eyes back to Phoenix, he
took a deep breath. “Let’s start with our ultimate goal. The
Engineers and I are working to bring about a peaceful, truly
egalitarian society – the first the world has ever
known.”

He smiled to himself. “A noble goal,
but as you can imagine, more d-difficult than it sounds. No
civilization that came before us has been able to achieve it –
there’s always been too much competition, too much power-mongering,
too much disregard for others unlike ourselves.”

He sighed. Shaking his
head, he explained, “The human animal is not an easy one to
appease. We are, by nature, selfish – even cruel. To be truly
happy, we must rise
above
nature. We must seek to overcome our baser animal
instincts in pursuit of something greater. And that’s what we’re
seeking with Paragon – a better place for
all
of us.”

Once again that faraway
look came into his eyes and he gripped her hand a little tighter.
“Just imagine it – no hunger, no poverty, no war.” He gazed
intensely into her eyes. “
Ever
. Never again. We’ve
learned
from the
m-mistakes of those who came before us, and we are building upon
the foundation they laid to create something
more
.”