The Almrin Tower, named after the tower's architect and designer, Jerod Almrin, looked otherworldly. Built almost entirely of glass and bosting only three sides that were twisted into a spiral shape the Almrin tower had an incredibly unique look, with the large, ball-shaped top making the building look like a giant wizard's staff or an odd-looking mushroom. Even though the building stood at one hundred and eighty floors the tower found itself short of most other buildings of its size. That was because the tower was built leaning at a forty-five-degree angle.

I stared at the Almrin tower from across the street in the shadows of an alley dressed in the finest clothing I had, a red, strapless dress that hugged my five-foot-nine, one-hundred and fifty-pound figure tightly from my chest to my hips, the hem of which swayed about halfway down my shins with matching red one-inch high heals and a small, red purse that hung from my shoulder by a strap of fake gold chain. I led my wavey brown hair flow halfway down my back, the curls dramatized by me taking a curling iron to it for several hours earlier that day. I had put on red lipstick and lighter eyeliner that complimented my dark green eyes but tried to keep from over-preparing myself to not seem too insecure or desperate because I was here on a date. A first date. And I wanted to look good for him.

I had met the man on Good Finds, a dating app where people were supposed to find other singles. I had met Alan on the app and couldn't believe that a man so beautiful could be single.

Discreetly, I pulled a DataViewer from my purse, projecting the holographic display I had been looking at a little too often, even though I remembered every exact detail on account of my near-perfect photographic memory. Alan Gerswic's Good Finds profile.

The picture showed a tall, athletic-looking man with dark hair and eyes with reasonably tanned skin in a plain T-shirt and black jeans, with a chiseled face that could have been made by one of the ancient sculptors I had read about, like Michelangelo, or Leanardo DaVinchi. He leaned on a brick wall that had a mural painted on it, but not enough of the wall was shown to make the mural decipherable.

And his description was most interesting. 'I am 21, and looking for the love of my life to run into the sunset with! I am an active person, and can't seem to stop going. Can you keep up?'

We had spoken through the messages function of the app and he had told me that he often left the neon lights of the city to venture into the forests, and the mountains around the city around New Helget, the city where I lived. After we had been talking for a few days, he asked me to go on a date with him so we could meet in person. He was incredibly chivalrous, never asking me to do anything unreasonable or obscene, like some of the other men I had met on Good Finds and some other apps I was on. A few other dates I had been on had ended oddly or on bad terms. No one had yet gotten me to want a second date, but Alan was different from all of those other men.

Maybe this relationship could become more than a possibility, I hoped. He was kind, polite, physically active, and had handsomeness down in spades!

Jacklin Gerswic, I thought, feeling the name around in my head. Not bad.

I turned off my DataViewer, closing the holo-display. In a minute, I would meet my date in person once and for all.

Alan, in his apparently opulent wealth, had invited me to eat with him at the Leurmont, a restaurant that not only had some of the best chefs in the world working in it, but had the best, and most expensive, view in the city. The very top of the Almrin tower.

I quickly walked down the crosswalk with the throng of people walking with me, the ever-active traffic whizzing by on my right and the impatient drivers waiting in their hovercars on my left. When I reached the other side I went straight to the door of the Almrin Tower, which had a gilded canopy and a man in a silver suit who opened the door to let me in. I thanked him as I walked in.

Inside everything was sleek and silvery, with light floating down from garish lights hanging from the ceiling. there were six separate elevators, three on each wall, and there were two halls on either side of the reception desk, set on the other side of the room. At the silvery table was a sleek, silver-bodied robot in the shape of a woman, who looked at me with cold, electric blue eyes as I walked up to her.

"I'm here for a reservation at the Leurmont," I said. "For two. Under the name Alan Gerswic."

"Yes, madam," the robot replied in a soft, polite, emotionless voice. "You would be Miss Jacklin Holst, yes?

"Yes."

"Please take elevator four to floor one-hundred seventy-nine. Enjoy your stay."

"Thank you," I said to the robot, and I walked over to the fourth elevator. I pressed the button, and the door opened to reveal a glass elevator. I stepped in and pressed the button for floor one-hundred and seventy-nine. As the elevator started to smoothly and silently move diagonally up along with the tilt of the building, I looked at the view.

"Woah," I muttered, surprised. I knew that the Almrin Tower was made mostly of glass, but I hadn't expected this.

Through the glass of the tower, I could see everything. I saw people working at computers, I saw several meetings in progress, I saw people living in apartments, and I saw spaces where the glass was tinted so that I couldn't see through. and through the clear glass, past the people, I could see the city outside. I noticed a slider nob in the side of the elevator, which, when I moved it up or down, made the glass of the elevator more or less opaque.

Clever, I thought.

I left the elevator clear, but slightly tinted so that others would have a tougher time seeing me back.

As the elevator moved I slowly came into sight of the end goal, at the bulbous top of the Almrin Tower. The very top floor, floor one-hundred and eighty, was almost perfectly opaque, but floor one-hundred seventy-nine was bustling. The Leurmont occupied two floors, technically, but both floors were blended and were covered in glass furniture. I saw men and women dressed in their best. Important, and wealthy people, eat fine food. My heart raced. Not only was I not an 'Important' person, but this restaurant was far nicer than anywhere I had ever been.

Looking at my outfit, the nicest clothes I owned, I felt very underdressed.

The elevator stopped and opened, opening up to the glass restaurant. A hostess was working the glass reception desk, and I walked up to her.

"How can I help you?" she asked in a very good customer service voice.

"I'm here for a reservation," I told her. "With Alan Gerswic?"

"Right this way," she said, picking up two menus from her table and leading me through the restaurant, up to the second floor, and over to a table for two next to a window. Alan stood from his chair and smiled.

"Hi, Jacky," he said, using my nickname.

"Only my friends call me Jacky, Alan," I responded with a smile. "Are you sure you want to take that job on? It's full-time."

"I think I will manage," he said.

I was fidgeting with the zipper of my purse. I hadn't realized just how tall Alan was! He must have been at least six feet tall!

Alan stepped over to the second chair and pulled it from the table.

"Thank you," I said, sitting in the chair. He pushed my chair back into place and sat back in his chair as the hostess placed down the menus.

"Someone will be with you shortly to take your order," she said.

"Thank you," Alan said, and she walked away.

"Were you waiting very long?" I asked.

"Oh, no," he said, looking at his watch. "In fact, you were earlier than I had expected."

"Oh, good," I said.

"So, Jacky," Alan said. "What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Me? This place? Anything."

"Well, for one, this place is way out of my budget."

He chuckled. "Other than that."

"It's beautiful," I told him.

"I think so too," he said.

"And you are taller than I had expected," I told him.

He laughed. "I could say the same about you."

I nodded.

We talked on, and we looked at the menu. When the waiter came Alan ordered a bottle of champagne and two glasses for our drinks, and we ordered food.

Then the waiter set out our silverware, three separate forks of varying sizes on the right, and a spoon and a steak knife on the left.

"What is it?" Alan asked.

I started, surprised. "Oh, just not used to having so much silverware."

I grimaced on the inside, chiding myself for acting like such a pleb.

"Yeah, I just use the big fork," Alan said, shruging. "I was always taught 'Waist not want not,' you know?

"Yeah, same," I said, relieved.

"Well, we have a little while until our food comes out," Alan said. "How have you been?"

~~

By the time our food arrived, we were deep in a conversation about pets. Alan said he had had several dogs, and once had a fish, and I lamented not ever having the chance to own a dog, but I mentioned that I had a cat. Xeran.

"Xeran?" he said. "That is an odd name."

"I think it's cool," I told him.

"I didn't say it wasn't cool," he said, holding his hands up innocently. "I just said odd."

We finished eating, and he poured both of us a third cup of champagne. I was never much of a drinker, but it was really easy to lose track of how much I had drunk as I was so intoxicated by Alan's presence. He was like a bold of lightning, always doing something. If he wasn't talking, he was eating or drinking or fiddling with something as if he was ready to start bouncing off the walls at a moment's notice.

"Are you finished with your dinner, Jacky?" he asked.

"I am," I said, sipping at the champagne. I felt it polite to at least have a little of the third cup, although I was certain the two had already been a little too much for me.

"Alright then," he nodded. "Now, I have a very important question to ask you. That is, only if I can trust you. Can I trust you?"

"Of course Alan," I said. "You can trust me. I feel as if we have a connection."

"Good," he said, scooting closer to the table and leaning forward. I leaned toward him, intrigued by his odd behavior.

"You can tell that I am well-connected right?" He asked.

"I got the hint," I told him.

"Now, when I met you on Good Finds, Jacky, I thought you would be just another gold digger, another fool, but you are a fire-cracker. You have brains and ideas."

"Thanks?"

"You're welcome. But I wasn't only interested in you due to your good looks, good brain, and charming personality, but also by your adventurous nature and..."

He looked to either side of him as if checking to see if anyone might hear him.

"... your grudge?"

The mood shift was palpable. Chills rippled down my spine and up my arms.

"What?" I asked. "What grudge?"

"Against the ones who killed your parents?" he said.

His words sent me back. Back to my childhood.

When I was only young, I lived with my family several miles away from the city. I was only five when they came.

The New Helget Law Enforcers had gotten tipped off that my father owned a stash of weapons. Firearms mostly, of many shapes and sizes, along with a variety of deadly close-ranged weapons like swords and things. Illegal things.

The Enforcers had come to our home in the night like a hurricane, coming through windows and breaking down doors without warning waving their guns around. They had a stand-off with my father for a time, until one trigger-happy Enforcer fired a shot, and my father fired back with deadly force. The Enforcers fired back, and they killed my father.

While this happened my mother had been smuggling me out of the back, but we were stopped by a wall of Enforcers surrounding the house. My mother opened a hidden compartment where we had been keeping some of the weapons and preserved food.

"Stay here sweety," she had said. "Wait for mommy okay?"

Then there had been a bang, and mom had shut the door on me.

I hid in that cubby for a whole night before I couldn't stand to wait any longer. I left my hiding spot to find my home deserted, and my father dead where he had fallen, dressed in his pajamas. My mother was out in the yard. They had executed her.

I swallowed hard. I hadn't told anyone what had happened to my family.

"How did you know about that?"

"The Enforcers keep good track of their secret evil deeds," Alan said. "Don't worry. I have a grudge too."

"You do?" I asked.

He nodded. "They took my sister."

My heart ached for him. I knew what it was like to lose family. "So what do you want?"

"Did you know that the tower has more floors under the ground?" Alan asked.

"I'd heard about that, yes," I told him.

"Well, I know of a place that is of great import to the Enforcers. A secret laboratory, where they study secret technologies that no one is allowed to know about. A place that they keep under the deepest of wraps, but that comes at a cost. It will be trivial to infiltrate. If you are willing, of course."

I was stunned. I hadn't expected this date to take this turn.

"Well, let's say I was interested. Which I am not saying I am, or that I am not. What makes you think that they didn't just hear you?"

"What?" he asked.

"They have their secret lab in the building right?" I asked. "Surly they have the whole place bugged."

"True, they do. They had to be extra clever to bug a building made entirely of glass, but they did it. Fortunately, I have this."

He reached inside his blazer and flashed a small metal box. "It makes us unintelligible to the bugs. What we say here is protected."

"Okay," I said. "Now, next question, what makes you think I am even capable of infiltrating a secret government lab?"

"I did some digging when I realized your history with the Enforcers. I found some suggestions about you having a history with this kind of thing. With the Steel Triad."

Once again, his words sent me down memory lane. As an orphan I had been starving in the streets, when I ran into Jed, a member of the Steel Triad. He had paid me to bring him information, just street talk and rumors mostly. One day I heard a rumor that the Enforcers had found the Steel Triads' operating base, but instead of going straight to Jed I slipped into an Enforger outpost and found the digital files that the Enforcers had on the Steal Triad. I brought Jed the Enforcer's attack plans and their maps of the Steel Triad operations base, and the times when the Enforcers planned on attacking. Jed had me trained for espionage after that.

"Okay, maybe I could," I said. "But even if I wanted to, for one thing, I would need an in-depth schedule for every single person in the place and time to study their habits and everything. Second, I can't do a mission like that dressed like this. Third, why should I trust you? You have been stalking me."

"First, I haven't stalked you," he said. He stopped, thinking. "Okay, maybe a little, but you are such a fascinating person it was hard not to. Second, I have a suitable change of clothes for this mission. Third, I have schedules for every man, woman, and test rat that goes in the place. Fourth, from your last childhood medical records and your parent's above-superb intellect, I don't think you would need all that long to memorize the schedules."

I bit my lower lip, trying to process all of this new information. "Alright, mister know-it-all. Let's just pretend I was in. What would the purpose of such a mission be?"

"In the laboratory, they have an experimental serum. When fully realized, it is supposed to be an instantly effective performance enhancer. As of now none of their tests have worked as intended, but they keep getting better with the more blood they spill. On paper, it is a miracle of medicine and a weapon of war, but it is killing all of the test subjects they forced to take it."Once finished the serum is supposed to enhance a person's physical strength, speed, agility, mental acuity, and more. And according to their diagnostics, possibilities for extra unforeseen abilities like telekinesis, or control over fire."

"So it's a super soldier serum?" I asked.

He stopped, thinking for a moment. "Kind of, actually."

"So you want me to steal it?"

"I want you to destroy it."

I sat back.

"So was this what the date was about?"

"No," he said. "Well, this is why I picked the Leurmont for our date, but the date itself was because of you. This proposition was a happy coincidence."

I was silent, thinking about what Alan wanted me to do.

"Will you be helping in the mission?"

"I will be your eye in the sky," he said. "That is my specialty. Now, from your record I would guess, but I must ask. Do you have much combat experience?"

Images of bloody fellow orphans hit for swiping my food flashed through my mind. Memories of me in the gun range filled my head as I trained under the Steel Triad. Days on days where I practiced fistfighting and knife fighting until I was sore and bleeding all over.

"Yes," I answered simply. "Do you have a knife? Preferably a butterfly knife. And a handgun would be helpful, in case things get dicey.

Alan smiled. "Does that mean you are in?"

I nodded. "Yes."

~~

Alan paid the bill, tipping the waiter generously, and we left. He brought me down to a lower floor, floor eighty-six, and led me to a room with heavily tinted glass. Inside the room was lit with a single bright light, giving the place the surreal feel of being lost in space. The room was empty and bare, except for three plastic folding tables.

On the table to the left were five separate guns, three handguns, a rifle, and a taser, along with a wide assortment of attachments. The table to the right held a generous collection of hand-held weapons. Brass knuckles, knives, a sword, a chain, and other kinds of weapons.

On the third table, across the room from the door, was a black skin-tight suit that looked like it could fit me, although it might be tight, with belts and straps for equipment alongside a few technological toys, and a stack of papers that had the names, hours, and pictures of all forty-five people working in the lab, seven guards and thirty-eight scientists.

"Take your pick," Alan told me. "I got you everything you might need."

I surveyed the selection. It really did seem as if he had thought this whole thing out.

"Okay. You can go now. I am going to change."

"Alright." He left.

Ten minutes later I opened the door to the room to let him in, dressed in the black suit. I had a 6mm pistol and two eight-round magazines of ammo, one in the gun and the other strapped next to it, strapped to my right thigh, a butterfly knife sheathed next to my gun, and two throwing knives sheathed on my left thigh. I had other little gadgets hidden elsewhere, like like in the sole of my shoe, or strapped to my wrist. There were three cylindrical toys strapped to my belt at the back, that I was particularly excited about. All of this was under my red dress, which covered everything except my shoulders.

"Your suit is still exposed," he said. "Here."

He handed me his coat.

"Do you not have anything you need in this?"

"No, I have my bug jammer on me."

"Good," he said. I put on his blazer, covering my new fatigues more totally with more conspicuous clothes.

"You look like you are coming back from a satisfactory date," he said coyly.

"I think I did," I told him.

"That's good. Did you memorize the schedule already?"

I nodded.

"Alright then. Here."

Alan handed me a small earpiece no bigger than a pill.

"So we can keep in contact."

"Alright," I nodded. "Let's do this."

~~

I walked out of the room and straight towards the elevators. Alan's voice came over the earpiece.

"The bugs in the building can't hear me right now. The earpiece is protected, but the bugs can still hear you. I can see you on the cameras, so just nod slightly to confirm that you can hear."

I nodded slightly.

"Good," he said. "Now, there is a special elevator, the only one able to go past the negative tenth floor, as the laboratory is on the negative eleventh floor. The special elevator is pretty cleverly concealed, hidden in plain sight. Can you guess where?"

I looked around, trying to find a place in the transparent building where someone could hide an elevator. I shook my head.

"The corners," Alan said. "They are the perfect size for a small elevator. Emphasis on small, but the elevator is not our way in. That would be the elevator shaft."

The elevator shaft? I thought as I pressed the button to call the elevator. Surely...

"And before you think that I am going to try and get you to climb down a hundred stories of the elevator shaft," Alan said, "I don't mean that you will be climbing down the shaft."

I was relieved, but also confused. How would I use the elevator shaft...

Then I thought about the schedule Alan had given me. I checked the time on my DataViewer and saw that it was eleven forty-two. In about eight minutes, the secret lab was going to receive an unspecified shipment, through the elevator shaft more than likely.

"What do you think of wrangling an elevator, cowgirl?" Alan asked.

I shrugged. He chuckled.

"Alright. Now you need to get to the seventy-first floor. That is where the elevator is. It is also a closed office area, so everyone has gone home for the night, and the windows have been fully tinted to keep people from being nosey. The perfect cover for the Enforcers delivery. The delivery will be brought in by a man dressed as a janitor, so keep an eye out."

The elevator arrived, and I stepped in.

"Press the ground floor button. I will make sure the elevator stops at the seventieth floor. You will want to use the stairs the rest of the way. We need to do this because they monitor the elevator activity."

I nodded, pressing the ground floor button.

The elevator grumbled down and stopped at the seventieth floor. The door opened and I walked straight to the stairwell nearby. It was a little disorienting walking up the stairs, which were made of cloudy, white-ish glass, but I made it to the next floor without a problem. The Seventh floor, as Alan had said it would be, was darkly tinted and the lights were out so I could hardly see my own hand in front of my eyes. I reached for my wrist, where I had stashed a little gadget. It looked like a tiny old-fashioned television remote, with two empty compartments and four buttons, and a small turnable dial. While I couldn't see the buttons, I remembered that they were green, red, yellow, and white. I pressed the green button and the contacts I had put in switched to night vision mode, allowing me to see everything in an odd, green tint.

"Now just wait for the janitor. He should be coming up in the elevator now. And don't let him see you."

I looked, and I realized that I couldn't see much past the walls of the floor I was on. I pressed the red button on the remote, switching to infrared vision. I saw the red shape of a man coming closer to me, assumably on an elevator.

"Do you see him?"

I nodded.

"Good. He will lead you straight to where you need to go."

The man stopped on my floor and started walking, pushing something, assumably a cart. He held up a hand, and with a click a beam of light lit the area around a corner from me. I slid over and took a glance at my target. He looked unremarkable, clean-shaven, and dressed in a blue denim onesie and a matching baseball cap. He held a powerful flashlight in one hand and pushed his cart in front of him with the other. I followed him through the twists and turns of the seventy-first floor until he reached the exposed steel edge of the rounded corner support for the building.

This was when he stopped, next to the support. He pressed his hand against a part of the tower, pressing a button that was so flush with the support I wouldn't have been able to find it if he hadn't just pressed it. The button opened a small door inside of which was a keypad. I took the remote for my contacts and spanned the dial, which zoomed my vision in on the keypad, so I saw him put in the password. Heracles. A small selection screen opened, with a dozen little buttons. The man pressed the 'call elevator' button.

Then the elevator door slid open, revealing a small, cramped space that, after he rolled his cart in and got in himself, there was hardly any room left. The door closed, and I rushed up to the spot as I pressed the yellow button on my remote, making my vision normal again.

"Did you get the password?" Alan asked.

I nodded.

"Good," he said. "Now, if you get to the door, you can get the door open. You will have to catch up with the elevator, but once you do then you can ride it all the way down.

I pressed the button and put in the password, and the selection screen opened up, with various options, like raising a silent alarm and others, but I pressed the 'open door' button. The elevator opened and I was standing before the empty elevator shaft, which curved down awkwardly. I reached into my purse pulled out a pair of gloves I had stashed in there, and slid them on. I tested them on the metal support, and the creases on the fingers and palm of the glove that looked like fingerprints lit up and magnetized to the wall.

Perfect.

I leaped into the elevator shaft as the door closed behind me, leaving no sign I was ever there.

I was climbing down the shaft with the gloves like a spider, climbing down as quickly as I could when Alan came over the coms.

"If you have any questions now is the time to ask them. The shaft itself is bug-free."

"How did you know about this place?" I asked him. "It seems that they have gone through some great trouble to keep this secret."

"I know some guys who are on my side. They told me about this place."

"Who are these guys?"

For their security I am not going to tell you now," he said. "The fewer who know, the better."

"Understood."

"I like it when you get all buisnessy," Alan said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You were so much more casual before, but now when business is going down you are ready to do business. I like it."

"Thanks," I said. I could feel my face getting hot. "Oh, there is the elevator!"

The elevator was slowly creeping down the awkwardly shaped shaft, the elevator itself being a cylinder that probably looked like a weird metal CRAFT mac and cheese noodle.

"Good," Alan said.

I started climbing faster, my muscles aching slightly from the climb.

When I reached the elevator I awkwardly rolled onto the moving surface from the stationary wall, and something heavy in Alan's blazer pocket thudded against the top of the elevator.

I froze, my hand hovering over my butterfly knife, wondering if the man in the elevator had heard me. I waited for several moments before Alan said, "What's wrong? What happened?"

I was about to respond when a trap door opened next to me and the man peeked his head out. I drew my knife and, flipping it open, immediately shoved the blade into the man's eye. He fell back into the elevator like a sack of potatoes.

"What happened?" Alan asked again, sounding agitated.

"He spotted me, so I killed him," I told Alan.

He groaned.

"Don't worry," I told him. "Now is the time for improvising! This is the point when I do my best work."

I closed my knife and dropped into the elevator. The man had fallen back onto the top of his cart, knocking cleaning supplies all over the floor, a line of blood trickling from his eye to his ear. On the floor was a small step ladder that looked like it had been strapped to the side of the cart where, under the top table of the cart, there was a second part that was concealed by a small yellow tarp-like curtain.

I took off the dress and the coat and shoved them behind the yellow tarp. Then I reached down, and stripped the man of his suit, throwing it to the floor. Then I wobbly lifted him up and managed to shove him up on top of the elevator, rolling him away from the trap door. I slipped into the onesie and the man's hat, put my gloves into the large pocket in the front, strapped the step ladder to the cart, picked the cleaning supplies back up setting them on top of the cart. Then I took my dress, my purse, and my shoes, and threw them up on top of the elevator with the body. Hopefully, I will be able to get those back later.

Then I picked up Alan's coat, and thought, what was that that hit the elevator?

I was reaching into the pocket when Alan said, "You are almost at the bottom. I hope you know what your-"

He cut out.

"Alan?" I asked aloud.

The elevator stopped. I threw the coat up just in time before the door opened.

Here the walls were cold concrete, exposed wiring leading to a heavy metal door with a screen at the end of a short, narrow hall. I walked up to the door, pushing the cart in front of me. I typed in the code, Heracles, into the computer, and the light blinked green as the door clicked, and swung silently open. Inside was a bright, pristinely clean white hall, with a guard wearing black Enforcer armor standing at attention with a rifle in his hands. I walked past him without trouble.

When I reached a door on my left a woman in a lab coat opened the door.

"Finally," she said. "You're late. Bring that in here."

I turned the cart into the door and followed the woman. The room was full of tables laden with all sorts of scientific equipment and various vials of a range of colors, mostly red or blue.

"Put the delivery here," she said, pointing at a table. I pulled the delivery off from the bottom of the table, with a grunt as it was really heavy. It was a metal crate of smooth metal, with hand holds that dug into my fingers. I grunted as I set it on the table.

The lady lids a panel on the side of the crate to the side, revealing a fingerprint scanner, which she used to unlock the crate. When she opened it a cloud of icy air drifted out and spilled over the edge of the crate. She reached in with gloved hands and pulled out several vials.

She then seemed to notice I was still there.

"Well go on then," she said. "Don't you have better things to do than stand there and stare?"

I looked at the name tag she wore. #27: Doctor Denice Vogle: Level Three Entry.

I remembered her from the files Alan had given me. She looked much older than her photo had looked, and angrier, and she had only level three out of four levels of clearance in the lab, but that was more clearance than I had.

"Yes I do, Doctor Vogle," I said. Then I drew my knife and stabbed her in the eye, piercing straight through into the brain. She didn't make a sound.

I took the lady's lab coat and I.D. badge, and then I stashed her under a desk with the janitor's denim onesie, slipping my magnetized gloves out of the pocket and opting to wear them. I grabbed a random stack of papers to look like I was doing something important and left the room.

I walked quickly down the hall, moving with purpose, walking past two doors and a pair of scientists in lab coats walking the opposite way. If no one looked too closely at me, then no one would notice the gun and the knives strapped to my thighs.

I reached a fourth door which had a card scanner. I pressed Doctor Vogle's card onto the reader and it opened, letting me into the room. Inside was a busy observation deck, with seven people in lab coats watching something through a large glass window, and a second door on the opposing wall labeled "Doctor Gear". On the other side of the glass were two rats, each inside a different container. Both looked thin, hungry, and angry.

One of the scientists pressed a button, and a small, blue syringe on a robotic arm came down from the ceiling and stabbed the rat on the right.

The injected rat twitched, and then it shook, and then it grew. It grew almost fifty percent of its size in the first few seconds, and but the time the little doors for the containers opened, the rat was twice its original size. the juiced-up rat charged the other rat, and ravinously tore the other rat apart, spraying blood all over the floor.

The scientists nodded, one jotting something down in a notebook. They looked very excited.

Then the rat stopped from its meal, shuddered, and began to heave. Then it threw up blood. It fell over after what seemed like an excruciating ten seconds, dead.

I was horrified. The scientists looked disappointed.

"Can I help you?" a voice asked from behind me.

I jumped, startled, and turned around. An older man with greying hair in a lab coat, about three inches shorter than me, stood waiting for an answer. His ID read, #16: Doctor Hararan Gears: Second Level Entry. According to the Employee list Alan had given me, he was a particularly important person here, overseeing many of the experiments. His photo had been taken from a distance as he was getting out of a car. Apparently, he was rather far from the public eye.

"Doctor Gears," I said. "Doctor Vogle wanted me to bring these papers to you."

I held out the papers I had in my hand.

He looked at me with cold, icy blue eyes. I felt like he was doing an x-ray of me just by looking at me.

"You must be the new girl they sent, aren't you," Doctor Gears said. "Doctor whatever Hurly."

"Yes sir," I said.

He sighed. "Come with me."

Doctor Gear me to the other door, and we stepped inside. Inside was a blandly decorated room, with a desk and a large screen on the opposing wall. with a keyboard coming out of the wall on an adjustable arm at waist level. On the desk was a cup with a couple of pens, and a short stack of lined papers. Doctor Gear sat behind the desk.

"Let me see that," he said, reaching out a hand.

I handed him the papers, and he started to leaf through them.

He sighed.

"What was your name, again?" He asked.

"Doctor Alice Hurly, sir," I lied, coming up with the rest of the name on the spot.

"Well, Doctor Hurly, tell Doctor Vogle to stop sending me this same thesis all of the time. We won't be putting the serum through a particle accelerator, as that would more than likely just make it explode."

He handed me back the papers, and I turned.

"Hold there Hurly," he said. I turned.

"Where is your ID?"

I reached into my pocket and handed him Doctor Vogal's card.

"What the..."

I drew my butterfly knife and slashed his throat, his blood splashing onto his desk as he fell forward.

I took his ID, slipping it into my pocket, and I stowed away my knife. I then turned on his computer and was faced with a pin wall, with four spaces.

I looked around, wondering what the pass could be, then I saw his card again.

#16.

I typed in 1616, and the computer opened. The display only had one desktop option. A file labeled 'Files'.

I opened it, and it showed a list of other files. 'Employees', 'Subjects', 'Ingredients', 'Beta Serums', 'Alpha Serums', 'Logs', 'Orders', and, 'Maps'.

Wow. Doctor Gears was very well informed.

I turned around and locked the office door. I wanted as much time as I could get with these files as I could get. Alan could probably use these.

If he is alive, a small part of me thought.

I opened the 'Subjects' file and saw a series of photos. First was several hundred rats, each with a list of the particular rat's characteristics, and whether or not they survived testing. Three had survived but two had been terminated as each one attempted to escape. The third was kept in the facility.

Then there was a series of photos of other animals. Cats, dogs, snakes, and a variety of insects, most of which had died, and the survivors similarly terminated.

And then there were the humans, ten had been tested. None had survived.

I took the remote for my contacts and pressed the white button, which activated tiny cameras in my contacts to take a photo of the screen.

I then went back to the last page and opened the 'Employees' file. it listed all forty-five employees in the lab. Under some of the female names was another file. I opened the first for a woman named, Sarah Handcock. I quickly closed the file after a glance at the contents. Mr Gears, it seemed, had been far too close to several of his employees.

Then opened the Logs file and saw a large collection of videos, all of Doctor Gears sitting in front of the camera. I started the most recent video.

As I did I held the white button on the remote for my contacts, which triggered the tiny cameras to record.

"Log number six hundred and seventy-four," Doctor Gears said on the video, looming large like a giant of the huge screen. "We have made a breakthrough. I have determined the reason why some of the test subjects have survived, and why the others haven't."

"It is all on account of a particular gene, present in one in one hundred of almost any life form on the planet. I've coined the term, the 'Hericulian gene'. Or, gene 'H' for short. This gene is passed on through birth if at least one of the parents has this gene. People with this gene are also disproportionately exceptional, known carriers of the gene including athletes like Usain Bolt, and Chuck Noris, and scientists like Elon Musk, probably others like Albert Einstein, and Leonardo DaVinci, and many other greats, and it is this that allows for the test subjects to survive. I would recommend a combing of the general population's DNA for this gene if only someone could find a way to reliably detect the gene in living creatures without the risk of killing them. For now, we will have to continue testing for a serum that works for anyone, but whatever new serum we come up with won't compare to what someone with gene H could do with a perfected Project Hercules Serum."

The video ended.

I opened the maps file.

Jackpot.

Inside the file was a map of the entire laboratory, each room in the 'L' shaped laboratory clearly labeled. I saw the elevator, and the room where I had killed Doctor Vogel was labeled 'Synthisising Lab C and Doctor Vogel's Office'. The two rooms I had passed on the way here included a 'Generator Room', and a 'Guard's Lounge / Barracks'. This room was 'Testing Room B', connected to 'Doctor Gear's Office'. Next, the hall would turn right, where there was the 'Scientist Lounge / Bedrooms', the 'Mess/Kitchens', 'Testing Room A and Doctor Clanences Office', 'Synthisysing Room B and Doctor Manns Office', 'Synthisysing Room A and Doctor Holdensongs Office'. At the very end of the hall, the hall turned right again, and there were three more rooms, 'Storage', 'Containment', and the 'Server Room'. It also had each room color-coded, to show which level of the four levels of clearance you needed for each room.

I studied the map, quickly committing everything in it to memory. I pressed the white button on my contacts remote to photograph the map as well.

I turned and walked around the dead Doctor Gears, and stepped out.

As I stepped out, one of the female scientists, whom I recognized as Doctor Hannah Jurri, came to walk past me.

"Err, the doctor wishes to not be disturbed right now," I told her.

"I have some very important papers to show him," she said. "From Doctor Kegsen."

"He is rather preoccupied," I told her, looking back at the body while blocking her view into the room. "I can bring it in for you."

She grimaced. "Oh... I see. You, uh. Okay, take it."

She shoved the papers into my hands and bolted.

She thinks I am one of Doctor Gear's photo girls, I thought, looking at the body of Doctor Gear.

I glanced at the files and saw that they were on a test subject.

A human test subject. A current, live one.

I read the file feverishly, memorizing every word and taking photos of each page. The subject's name was Brandon Waxer, thirty-nine years old, who they had kidnapped and forced into the program.

I gritted my teeth. This wasn't the mission, but I decided then and there. I was

going to get Brandon out.

"Take a look at these will you?" I set the papers on Doctor Gear's head. "Doctor Freak."

I left the Office, locking the door behind me, and walked past as the scientists directed a robot to clean up the mess they had made with the rats. I had a new job. Save a life.

Leaving 'Testing Room B' I walked further down the hall until I reached the bend in the path, to the next several rooms. I knew that I needed to destroy the serums, but the only way I could think of to do that was to kill everyone here and then destroy everything. I didn't relish the idea of killing everyone. Brandon, however, could be more easily done. But I would have to do with a distraction.

A plan started to form in my head. It was a gamble, but if it worked, it would do everything I needed.

But for it to work, I needed access to the Server Rooms, which required a Level One Clearance card.

There were only two people in the Laboratory with level-one clearance, the head guard, Leo Hamsbar, and Doctor Holdensong, the head scientist. I had seen Doctor Holdensongs's office on the map and didn't know where the head guard could be, so I thought to find him there.

This part of the lab was much more active, with about a half dozen scientists rushing throughout the halls and acting excitedly. They seemed celebratory.

"He survived the initial shot!" I heard someone say excitedly. "I really think that the new version will work!"

"You say that about every version," another said.

"But I think..."

"Don't call victory yet," said a third voice. "Who is to say it won't kill him in the next hour? Or day? Or Week? If he survives a week then I would consider it a win."

The third voice was that of Doctor Clancie, an aging woman with dark, curly hair that was streaked with grey. She had level two clearance and so did not need to die. Yet, at least.

I slipped past the conversation and walked straight to Synthesizing Lab A, and I used Doctor Gears' level two clearance ID to unlock the door. Inside I saw something much like Doctor Vogel's Lab, with the screens and tables, but larger.

"Where is that delivery agent?" an old bald man with a short grey beard bellowed as he walked through the laboratory.

I had found Doctor Holdensong.

"You!" Doctor Holden song yelled, pointing at one of the scientists.

"Find that fool man, and get him to bring me the shipment!"

"Yes, Doctor," the scientist said, rushing out of the room.

Uh oh, I thought. I was running out of time. And fast.

I walked up to Doctor Holdensong, and said, "Doctor. I have an update from Doctor Gears."

Doctor Holdensong sighed. "What is it?"

"The serum failed, doctor."

He sighed. "As we supposed it would. At least the serum is working so far on the

latest human subject. We might have made a real breakthrough!"

"Yes, doctor," I said.

Doctor Holdensong turned and walked away.

How was I going to get him alone?

But I don't need him dead, I realized. Yet, at least. I needed to take his card.

But to do that I needed him distracted.

But I was also running out of time. Fast.

I left the room, wondering how I was doing to distract Doctor Holdensong when I saw someone.

Leo Hamsbar slipped into the Mess, closing the door behind him.

Perfect.

In the mess was a full room. I saw two of the guards and a half dozen of the scientists in the room, talking and eating, and Hamsbar joined them, being handed a plate with food.

Mr Hamsbar was a broad-shouldered, well-muscled man, in a polo and black khakis and a large handgun at his hip. Next to his gun was his ID.

I meandered over to the kitchen and looked to see what I would be able to take and, seeing a bowl of fruit, grabbed an apple, and wandered closer to the table. I took a bite of the apple, thinking about what I was going to do.

Whatever, I thought. I set the apple down, and I walked up to the table as if I was just going to pass them, and I reached to his side, slipping his ID and his pistol. I walked on without stopping, my heart pounding. I threw the gun into a trashcan by the door to deprive the guard of his weapon, left the Mess, and went straight to the end of the hall.

The three doors loomed in front of me. I used Mr Hamsbar's ID on the middle door and entered the storage room. Looking around at the food, and general supplies, I also found an abundance of different chemicals.

Perfect.

I grabbed a tank of oxygen, some vials of Potassium, Hydrogen Sulfide, and Nitrogen, a box of matches, a couple of zip ties, and a bottle of cleaning chemicals. I carried my supplies out of the storage room and opened the door to my left. The Server Room.

In the server room, there were three giant black boxes, each with an array of blinking lights and a small access screen. Normally I would search through the terminals but I didn't have that kind of time. I had no idea just how long it had been since that scientist had been sent to find the delivery, but when they did it wouldn't take long to find Doctor Vogle so I had to make it quick.

As I closed the door behind me a woman stepped out from behind the servers. I remembered her from the Employee list, Doctor Cathrin Broill. She looked up from her clipboard and froze, seeing me.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "No one is supposed to be in here."

"I would have said the same about you," I told her.

"What are you doing with all of that?" she asked.

I looked down at the chemicals and assorted objects I held in my hands.

"School prodject?" I sugjested.

We stared at each other for a moment.

"Whatever," I muttered. I pulled one of my throwing knives and threw it at the woman, the blade burying itself just under her collarbone. She stumbled back, gasping, as I rushed forward, pulling the knife out of her chest and slashing her throat. She gurgled slightly and fell to the floor.

I sheathed the knife with a sigh as I turned back to my supplies. With every second I had wasted talking with that woman, I was running out of time.

I jerry-rigged the supplies together and pulled a gadget from my shoe. It was a small ball, like a metal marble, with a little red eye-like spot on one side that glowed. I twisted it, and the red eye displayed thirty seconds. I taped a match to the side of the device, lit the match, strapped the device to the now-open bottle of cleaning chemicals, and started the timer. Then I cracked open the tank of Oxygen gas, and the Hydrogen Sulfide tank, and bolted from the room.

Then an alarm started to blare, the lights switching to red.

Uh oh.

I dashed to the Containment room, counting down in my head.

Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight...

I unlocked the door with one of the IDs I had and flung the door open. inside was a row of cages, the cages on the left were small and only one had a large rat pacing inside it. To my right were three human-sized cages. one was occupied, the one closest to the door.

Twenty-one, Twenty, Nineteen...

"Brandon Waxer?" I asked the dark form huddled in the corner.

The man's head rose. "Yes?"

"I'm here to get you out of here."

He scrambled to his feet as I unlocked the door.

Fourteen, thirteen, twelve...

"Do you know how to shoot a gun?" I asked him as he came up to me. He was giant, as in unusually tall, almost seven feet, with shoulders as wide as a bull. His brown hair was twisted into corn rolls, and his large, dark hands fidgeted with each other in excitement.

"No."

"Can you throw a punch?"

"Yes."

Eight, seven, six, five...

"Then come on, and punch the daylights out of anyone who gets too close. Just a second."

"What are we waiting for?" the man asked, agitated.

"We are waiting to see if I made it too big," I told him.

"What?"

Tree, two, one.

Then the timer rang, dipping the lit match in the cleaning chemicals, which lit on fire and sent fire exploding into the air, which set alight the Hydrogen Sulfide in the air, which exploded, causing the oxygen to explode, and mix with the Nitrogen and Potassium to create more fire.

The room shook violently with the explosion as I let Doctor Vogle's lab coat fall from my shoulders. Time for the third part of my escape plan.

I walked up to the door, drawing my gun and gesturing for Brandon to follow me. He loomed behind me, like a gargantuan shadow, and we waited. We didn't need to wait long.

I heard men yelling on the other side of the door, and they got closer. I waited until I heard them right outside the door.

I waited a moment, and then I opened the door. Four men in black enforcer armor stood in the hall, facing the burning room. One carried a fire extinguisher, his rifle at his hip, and he was trying to fight the fire. At the sound of the door opening one guard turned toward me, and I shot him straight in the visor.

Blood spurted from the cracks in his helmet as he fell over, and the other three guards turned to me, raising their guns. I fired twice more, hitting one guard in the chest, but I ducked back to avoid getting shot by the other two as bullets slammed into the concrete of the wall.

Then Brandon charged out the door.

"Wait!" I yelled. But the bullets that the guards fired at Brandon ricocheted off of his body, one bullet grazing my arm as he plowed through the bullets they fired. HE hit one so hard his helmet crumpled, blood oozing out of the crumpled metal helmet, and then he turned and lifted the second guy above his head, slamming him down and eliciting a series of snapping noises making the enforcer scream in pain. I shot him in the head, putting him out of his misery.

"Impressive," I said to Brandon.

"I don't know how I..." Brandon stuttered. He looked terrified, staring at his bloody hands.

"Don't worry about that now," I told him. "There are still three more guards in the building. Can you help me get you out of here?"

He swallowed. Then he nodded.

"Good. Come on."

As we heard boots coming toward us I dashed across the hall and pressed my back against the wall around the corner from the rest of the lab. I heard screaming and yelling over the blare of the alarms, and the sound of Enforcers getting closer. I pressed the red button on the remote for my contacts, activating the infrared vision, and saw two human-shaped red shapes coming towards us in front of a whole throng of people going away, toward the elevator, the only exit.

I leaned out quickly and fired on the two enforcers walking toward us. I hit one, causing him to fall with an angry shout, but the other Enforcer started firing, peppering the wall with bullets. I pulled one of the cylinders from my belt and pulled a small pin from it before throwing it around the corner. I heard it clack on the ground twice, and then the whoosh as the grenade exploded into smoke, obscuring the Enforcers' vision. He started firing blindly in my general direction as I leaned around the corner, aimed at his blurry red form, lost in the smoke, and I blasted the Enforcer in the head.

I deactivated my infrared contacts and gestured for Brandon to follow me. I moved forward, gun-ready.

We walked to the end of the hall without much trouble, but then we reached the home stretch. Here all of the thirty-six living employees were crowding around the elevator, but Leo Hamsbar was threatening them with a gun as Doctor Holdensong franticly tried to work the elevator. I turned to Brandon, grabbing my second smoke grenade.

"When I throw this, run for the elevator. If you can, kill the man with the gun. Got it?"

"Okay," he said.

I pulled the gin on the grenade and threw it. the grenade hit one of the scientists in the back and fell to the floor before spewing smoke. the scientists started screaming, and Leo Hamsbar started shooting.

"Now!" I told Brandon, and we ran into the smoke.

It was chaos. I plowed past confused scientists making my way to the elevator, and tripped over a couple of dead scientists that Hamsbar had shot. I stumbled out of the smoke to see Hamsbar's gun pointed directly at me.

It seemed almost like time slowed. I took stock of my situation in an instant. I had my gun in my hand. I had my gun in my hand, probably the closest thing I had to a chance, but he already had his gun ready and about to fire. my last grenade was not an option, as he would see. My knives were too slow.

I was probably going to die.

Is this it? I thought. Is this how I die?

Then Brandon flew out of the smoke and tackled Hamsbar.

I rushed up. "Great timing!" I grabbed Hamsbar's gun and pointed it at Doctor Holdensong.

"Get out please," I said politely.

He got out, shaking like a leaf.

"Good."

Brandon got on the elevator. I shot the screen that gave them access to the elevator from the lab and hopped on the elevator as the door closed.

I typed in the pass for the elevator, Heracles, and the elevator started to rise.

By the time we reached the top of the elevator, I had retrieved my dress and purse and had Brandon wearing Alan's coat. My suit was exposed because of my strapless dress, but it would have to do.

We left the elevator on the seventy-first floor, and I rushed Brandon to the elevators.

"Brandon," I said as we reached the elevators. "I have a friend in the building, who helped me get to that lab. We lost comms, so I need to check on him. Now, I need you to go. They will be looking for you."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Where can I go where they won't find me?"

I looked around. "Shh, they have the building bugged. Here"

I looked around. since this was an office floor, I was able to find a pencil and a sheet of paper. I turned on a small lamp on a desk and wrote the following.

'Meet me in the abandoned Steel Factory downtown. 31st and Fentil Street.'

I folded the paper and handed it to him.

"Now go."

I pressed the button to call an elevator and one door immediately opened. I gestured for Brendon to enter.

He looked at me. "Thank you. What is your name?"

"Jacklin," I told him.

"I will see you again," he said.

He went down in the elevator, and I went up the stairs.

When I reached floor eighty-six I walked straight to the room I had left Alan in and found the door locked. I pulled a small device from a pocket on my suit and set it against the glass where the door lock was. A small arm extended, and from the end a tiny steel blade. the arm spun around a few times, circling the lock, and then it popped into my hand.

Opening the door I found the room empty, with no sign of the tables or the weapons in sight. There wasn't even a scrap of paper in the room.

Completely cleaned out, I thought. Something must have spooked him. Maybe when we lost contact? Or...

I rushed out of the room, bolting down the stairs three or four at a time and often leaping across the gaps, but it still took a good minute to get down to the ground floor. I bolted into the lobby, and froze, panting heavily. Outside was a whole squad of Enforcers, each with their rifles directed at me. Behind them were four separate vans, with bright lights on top shining into my eyes.

I sighed. No running from this. I would just have to kill as many of them as I could before they stopped me.

I stepped out through the glass doors.

"Put your hands in the air!" a voice said from a speaker on one of the cars.

I put my hands behind my head, and two enforcers walked up to me. One stayed a step back there gun trained on me, while the other stepped behind me with a pair of cuffs.

I stomped on the Enforcer's toes, eliciting a howl of pain from him. I then tucked and rolled as gunfire erupted all around me, but I managed to pull the pin of my last smoke grenade.

Smoke billowed out from the grenade on my back, wreathing me in the safety of obscurity as I activated my infrared vision contacts. I pulled my gun and fired the last three shots in my clip toward the wall of Enforcers, which were still firing all around me. I felt a bullet graze my chest, and someone yelling, "Stop! You fools!"

I ejected the empty magazine and pulled out my spare, sliding it into place as Enforcers started running into the smoke.

Why are they coming into the smoke? I wondered. They don't know where I am.

I shrugged it off and fired at one enforcer twice. I missed, so I charge-tackled him, slamming into his side with as much momentum as I could muster, knocking him over. I landed on top of him, putting my gun to his chin, and firing.

Nothing happened.

The trigger pulled, the gun clicked, and the round even went off, but no bullet went through his head.

My head was reeling as the Enforcer suddenly shoved me, overpowering me in an instant, suddenly pinning me down.

"I've got her!" he yelled. "I've-"

Unfortunately for him, I was able to reach my throwing knives. I drew one and stabbed him in his abdomen. He groaned, grabbing the wound with one arm, freeing me further and giving me the chance to slash his throat.

Red, hot blood spilled out of the man as he gurgled, spraying in my face as I shoved his dying body off of me. Suddenly an Enforcer showed up behind me, wrapping his large arms around my body, pinning my hands to my sides. He suddenly squeezed my whole body so I could barely breathe, and I felt my ribcage cracking.

He dropped me to the ground as I breathed heavily, moaning from pain. I stood. wobbly, drawing my butterfly knife. I flipped it open and glared at the man viciously. I froze.

This wasn't an Enforcer at all. It was Alan.

More Enforceres appeared out of the smoke, holding their guns ready. Immediately one of them came up to me and took the knife from my hand. I didn't stop him. I was done fighting.

An enforcer forced me to my knees, and another bound my hands with handcuffs.

I looked up at Alan, who stood with a blank expression.

"Just do it," I told him. "You rat!"

"I can tell you aren't much of a fan of me anymore," he observed, adjusting his now wrinkled dress shirt. "I apologize, Jacky, but we are not done with you yet."

I felt a needle stab in my shoulder, and I blacked out.

~~

I woke up slowly, like from a deep sleep. It was cold, my bare arms prickling with goose bumps. My eyes were still too heavy to open fully, only giving me a glimpse of what was around me. Bright light. White tiles. A large hand. I have no idea how long I was in that state of half-awakness. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? However long I was there, I remember the way I was woken up.

A terrible smell, and suddenly my mind cleared. I sputtered, my nose suddenly runny as that smell burned in my sinuses. I recognized the smell of smelling salts. I blinked away the tears that blurred my vision and after a moment everything cleared up. I was chained to a wide, cold, smooth surface at a nearly sixty-degree slant, dressed in nothing but an oversized hospital gown. My head felt light, and I thought I was dizzy for a moment, but then I realized that the reason was that my hair had been cut, down to the skin.

Several wires were strapped and tapped onto me. Two on my head, one on either side, one on my right bicep, another on my left forearm, three others going down my collar or up my skirt, one in the middle of my chest, another at the base of my ribcage, and another at the base of my spine. The last two were attached to my legs, one on my left thigh, the other on my right caff. all of these wires trailed up over my head and were twisted into one wire, the wires all going into the ceiling and assumably connecting to all of the machines and screens that covered the wall. On the screens, I could see a diagram of a human woman, probably representing me, with all sorts of data on my vitals displayed next to it. I thought I was in the middle of the room, so I was unable to see the other half of the room.

Then I heard a whirring, a click, and a whoosh from behind me, and I heard footsteps come into the room. I heard the rumble of a desk chair rolling on tiles, and I heard two voices.

"Are you ready for the demonstration, Doctor?"

"Yes. but are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Very. Why do you ask?"

"We will probably kill her."

"Well, probably, but this can't hurt us as the project is already losing favor among the leaders."

"We don't even know for sure that this 'Gene H' exists! That was little more than a hypothesis Doctor Gears had, and you are hinging the project on the fact that this girl has this mystery gene?"

"But she certainly has the potential. You must accept that fact."

"True, her behavior has shown her to be rather exceptional at what she does, but that doesn't mean-"

"It doesn't hurt either!"

"I just think that showing them this would endanger our program more."

"Project Heracles is losing support anyway, so it can't hurt. If this works, then it will save our hides. If it doesn't then it will just be another failure."

The speakers came into view on my left, deep in conversation. One was an older man, with a horseshoe of grey hair and a pinched face.

The other man was Alan.

I glared at Alan as they continued talking, tears welling up in my eyes, unbidden.

"Another failure," the old man said, "would likely put us in the grave. Maybe literally! Who knows!"

"Calm yourself," Alan said. "We can't stop now, the show is already scheduled. We just need to finish getting her ready."

Alan turned to me, seemingly already aware that I was awake. The old man, however, started as he looked at me.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, putting a hand over his heart.

"You think she looks scary now?" Alan asked with an irritating smile. "Try Jacky when she's covered in blood with a knife in her hand!"

"Only my friends call me Jacky, Doc," I spat.

Alan's smile fell. "Okay then, Miss Holst. Or should I call you by your parent's name, instead of the one you made up for yourself?"

I gritted my teeth and screwed my eyes shut, a single tear streaking down my face.

"Why, Alan?" I asked, opening my eyes. "Why do this?"

"It's nothing personal," he said. "And I honestly enjoyed talking with you. But I needed you to trust me in order for the test to work."

"Test?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "The whole mission was a test, to see how well you would perform. You outshined my greatest hopes."

"The whole thing..."

"That laboratory had nothing left of value to give me," Alan continued. "It was the perfect testing ground. Of course, those men and women will never know that they were a test. They will sleep easy knowing that the rebel who trapped them in a basement for five days, you, will never see the outside of a cell again. But I have other plans for you."

I stifled a sob as I heard him talk. He sounded so cold, and detached, nothing like before.

"How much of what you told me should I believe?"

"Not much."

I nodded. I was already planning on ignoring almost everything he had said over the course of our date. I just wanted to hear it from him.

"You put blanks in my second clip, didn't you."

"Yes," Alan said.

"You cut out comms."

"Yes."

"You lied about your sister to gain my sympathy."

"Yes."

I stared at him, trying to find any semblance of the man I had spoken to that night. Then I noticed that he was wearing the same coat he had been wearing that day. The coat I had given to Brendon.

"What did you do to Brendon?" I asked, my voice strained.

Alan looked down at his coat.

"Oh, yes. We actually didn't need to do anything. The serum killed him shortly after he escaped the building. While on the subject of Brendon, we thought..."

I couldn't hold the tears any longer, and I cried as Alan continued to babble on.

"You're a monster!" I yelled at him, interrupting him.

He stopped. "Maybe I am. Then again, who are you to judge? Killer."

I glared at him. "You still haven't answered my question. Why?"

"Well, I picked you because you are exceptional," he said. He walked over toward me as he talked pressing a lever that turned the table I was laid on to my right.

"You are smart, genius even. And clever too. You are innovative, an excellent shot with again, excellent with those knives, both the throwing knives and that butterfly knife. You are fast, fierce, and determined. You hold many traits that make you a cut above the rest."

The table stopped turning, and I found myself facing the other half of the room. instead of the walls being covered in machines, I was facing a giant white curtain.

"You know what that means, I think," Alan said as a projector lowered from the ceiling. It whirred to life and displayed on the curtain was Doctor Gears. The video o had seen began to play.

"You think I have the H gene," I said.

"Exactly," Alan said. "Now you are catching on!"

Alan pulled three tubes from behind the table to my left, each tipped with a thin, sharp needle. He stabbed the first into my arm, the second into my leg, and the third into the base of my neck.

The old man, who I had all but forgotten about until now, appeared on the other side with three more tubes and put them in the same places, but on my right side.

"I didn't ask, 'Why me'," I told him. "I asked 'Why'. Why make the Heracles serum? Why try and trick me like this?"

Alan sighed as he secured the tubes into place with medical tape.

"Do you want me to duct tape your mouth closed? Because I will!"

"You don't know, do you?" I asked him. "You are doing these terrible things, and don't even know why. You are no better than a beast."

"Can you get me duct tape?" Alan asked the old man.

"I don't think we have any in here," he said.

Alan rolled his eyes, and suddenly turned and pressed a long strip of medical tape over my mouth, and wrapped it around my head.

"Shut up," Alan growled.

They continued working on the machines in silence as Doctor Gears talked over the projector, and I cried.

Eventually, Doctor Gears stopped talking, and the projector shut off. Alan moved to stand before the curtain. The old man realized they still had the tape on my mouth, so he hurriedly took it off, agitating my skin. He stuffed the tape into his coat as the curtain opened, and revealed a large window, behind which stood several dozen men and women, each dressed in official dress, like military uniforms and suits.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Alan said, his voice coming softly over the speakers. "A display of the power of the Heracles Serum."

Alan and the old man looked at each other. Alan nodded, and the old man nodded. They went. to opposite sides of the room to panels set in the machines. They opened the compartments, revealing two large levers. They flipped the levers simultaneously, and the table under me started to shudder. Then there was a 'whir', and the tubes stiffened as they filled with a thick, red substance that I felt suddenly ooze into my body through the needles.

The pain was unbearable. I screamed at first, but the pain grew so great that I couldn't scream. I felt as if a million-pound weight had just been set on top of me like I was being crushed all over, but wouldn't die. My skin burned, and my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was outside of my chest.

Then, after what felt like an eternity of blinding pain, it all went away. I breathed heavily, catching my breath before I opened my eyes.

I felt bigger. I certainly felt that I filled out the hospital gown more and that the chains that bound me dug into my wrists and ankles worse.

I looked blearily around and saw Alan smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

"Congratulations, Miss Holst," Alan said. "You have just survived the Heracles Serum."

The ancient archway built into the side of the cave had been around far longer than the cult that now inhabited the caves it granted access to. Once those caves had been a place for citizens of the nearby towns to go in case of an invasion or mortal danger that they needed to hide from, but now the cave was inhabited by cultists. Cultists who hid behind masks as they knew what they were doing was wrong.

There were four cultists outside of the cave, each one wearing a mask and dressed in cark, silken robes. They carried weapons.

From an opposing cliff face a Stranger watched them. The Stranger was a dark-skinned man, seemingly native to the Western nations, who was lying on his belly, observing the scene from a vantage point up and about fifty feet away from the cultists. He had tracked the cultists down to this hidden place. Usually, he would watch the place for days on end, studying every movement and investigating every nook and cranny to make certain that there weren't any secret ways in or out for the cultists to escape, but this time he didn't have time for that.

This time, the cultists had a sacrifice. A human sacrifice.

The cultists had kidnapped a young girl, no older than fifteen summers. A virgin, innocent soul. These cultists, whoever they were, were likely serving an Evil Touched Wizzard, a wizard who gained magic power by making a pact with Satin, or The Enemy, and they strengthened their power through service of The Enemy, and through sacrificing the lives of God's children in the name of The Enemy. This put The Stranger on a time crunch, and he had no idea how long his timer was.

The Stranger crept forward, the small, odd shield strapped to his leather-clad right arm glimmering in the light of the setting sun. the shield was small, like a buckler shield, but not only was oddly thick and dome-shaped, but it was strapped to his arm in a way to make his hand to. The shield curled up in an unusual, and seemingly impractical fashion, rounding into a ball-like shape over his right hand. Concealed discreetly under a lip of metal, in reach of The Stranger's right thumb, there were two small switches, and visible under the shield there was complicated machinery and clockwork.

The Stranger, after getting within twenty feet of the door, raised his shield arm and pointed his right fist at the cultists.

The Stranger looked closely at the cultists and smiled. They had made it easy for him! All of the cultists wore the same steel mask.

The Stranger grinned, reaching back with his left hand to the handle of a large, two-handed blade that was mostly concealed under his dirty, patched-up black cloak. He partly drew his giant blade as he rose slowly from his stomach to one knee, hidden behind a thick bush. The Stranger waited for the right moment as the cultists wandered around, talking to one another. Eventually, three of them stood near enough to each other, with the fourth standing behind them. The Stranger, seizing the opportunity, gently flipped the first switch on his shield.

With a thud the front of the shield detached and was propelled toward the cultist as fast as an eye could blink, a cord of steel trailing behind it back into The Stranger's shield. When the steel ball was in the middle of the group The Stranger flipped the second switch. Suddenly, the little steel ball turned into a magnet, pulling itself into the ground with so much force it cracked the stones, and this magnet also pulled on the cultist's masks. The first three cultists were jerked so suddenly and strongly by the head that all three of their necks snapped in that instant, and their limp bodies were pulled together by the head and were slammed face-first into the ground. Simultaneously, the machinery in the shield began to whir, and the shield pulled The Stranger at great speed toward the magnetized steel ball, his cloak flying behind him and his sword in his other hand. He switched the switches back into place, and the metal ball retracted back into his shield as his momentum kept him flying forward, he stabbed the fourth cultist before the man could even make a sound. The Stranger's momentum kept him going for another few yards before he rolled and skidded to a stop on one knee. The Stranger stood and looked over the bodies of the men he had killed. One looked about the right size, and the fourth cultist mask was undamaged.

"I thank you for your service, but now you may depart," The Stranger said, seemingly to himself. Then the man's black cloak and dark studded leather armor darkened, and in strips faded away into the shadows, silvery light filtering out from under the strips of shadow. His sword faded away, and his shield melted into shadow. He now wore a plain tunic and plain trousers, and he stood barefoot in the cold canyon.

The Stranger shivered in the cold. He had forgotten that he was wearing this.

The Stranger quickly took the robes from one of the cultists who looked about his size and took the fourth cultist's mask. He then walked into the archway, following the long, twisting path. Soon he heard a muttered chanting, which grew stronger and louder as he walked forward. He heard a cheer, and he picked up the pace, turning a corner and nearly running right into the back of a cultist.

"Hey! What are you doing?" The cultist asked turning around. "Who are you?"

"Errm," The Stranger stammered, surprised. "Stranger danger?"

The cultist, a rather large man, stood there for a second, and then he laughed.

"I like you. You must be new! Come on, the boss is about to make the sacrifice. I'll get you to the good seats!"

That was easy, The Stranger thought, and he followed the man.

The man led The Stranger further into the cave, and to a large cavern. inside there was a throng of cultists crowding the space, maybe forty or fifty total, who all were listening with rapt attention to a tall, handsome man in a grand suit of armor. The Stranger's guide started to shove through the crowd, saying, "Get! Scoot! Move!" carving a path for The Stranger straight through the middle of the room.

Some cultists gave him dirty looks, but The Stranger wasn't here to make friends. Quite the contrary.

As The Stranger got deeper into the room he could better hear the words of the cult leader.

"Just this last year, this sect has gathered more souls for the Master than any other!"

The cultists around me cheered, raising fists and weapons in salute.

"But there is more! His lordship wishes to extend his thanks, in the form of a grand feast held in your honor!"

The Cultists went wild, going into a frenzy of excitement.

This man is not the wizard, The Stranger thought. He probably is a wizard, but this will be a lesser wizard serving a greater master. This particular cult is larger than I had suspected. How have I not even heard of them before?

Then The Stranger reached the front of the room, right in front of a raised stage made of stone, with a blood-stained altar under a rough statue.

Oh dear, The Stranger thought.

The statue was the statue of a man, about six feet tall, with his hands held out to either side, wearing a long robe. The man's face was split into three, the one in the middle being a rather handsome young man, the second, on the left was the rotting, decaying face of an undead, and the third on the right being the face of a goat.

In front of the altar was the speaker, his face sweaty from excitement and the heavy, mostly ornamental armor he was wearing.

"And now, our latest sacrifice to our lord's power!"

The man stomped his foot, and the ground rippled like water in front of him. The man reached into the earth and pulled the girl from it.

The girl, no older than fifteen, shivered in the cold cavern. She wore nothing but a pail blue nightgown that flowed down around her ankles, her pail brown arms wrapped around herself. Her dark hair spilled around her shoulders and fell over dark, terrified eyes as the monstrous cultists laughed and cheered and jeered.

The Stranger's heart ached to see this young girl in this horrible situation. Now, he was definitely killing everyone in the room.

The speaker grabbed the girl by the arm, and yanked her roughly over to the alter, shoving her onto the top as she fought him, screaming angrily. The stone of the altar warped and wrapped around the girl's wrists, trapping her on the altar.

The girl pulled against the binds and looked up at the lead cultist with a hatred that could have killed, and growled, "I'll kill all of you! All of you!"

The speaker laughed. "We have a lively one here!" The cultists around me laughed uproariously, jeering and catcalling at the girl.

The speaker pulled from his robe a very strange dagger, with three edges twisted in a horrific-looking spiral of sharp edges. The girl's eyes widened at the sight of the knife.

Then the cultists started chanting. They chanted in unison, swaying from side to side as they did. The speaker slowly, and menacingly, walked around the altar, behind the girl as her stone binds jerked her around, forging her onto her back, tears streaming from her face.

As the speaker raised his knife, The Stranger pulled off the mask. He called upon the power within himself, the power of the night, and forced it into the mask, causing it to shimmer. As the knife reached its apex, The Stranger threw the mask.

It wobbled as it flew, but it made it right in front of the speaker. That was when it exploded into a flash of moonlight as bright as the sun.

The cultists, including the speaker, shrieked or screamed in pain and grabbed at their eyes. The Stranger stepped up on stage, lowering this hood, and walked up to the altar, where the girl lay, unblinded by the light.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

She nodded, stunned.

"Good," The Stranger told her, breaking her stone bindings with my bare hands. After she was standing he handed her two small, carved rocks. "I am going to need you to take these, leave the cavern, and throw one down at the entrance from about five feet away. The second is for emergencies."

Then The Stranger handed the girl a dagger.

"This is a last resort," he told her. "Now go."

She ran to the door as the cultists shook their heads blearily, clearing their sight, and threw one of the stones down at the entrance. The stone grew into a large bolder in an instant, immediately closing the cavern off completely as the cultists finally regained their sight.

The Stranger stepped to the side suddenly, dodging as the speaker attempted to stab him. The Stranger then grabbed the man's arm, twisting it so that the man screamed in pain and dropped the knife, which The Stranger caught in his free hand, and swiftly stabbed the man at the base of the neck, the strange, swirled blade easily pierced into the man's flesh, and as The Stranger pulled the knife out it trailed the man's blood, leaving an inch wide hole at the base of the man's neck, he died before he hit the floor.

The Stranger dropped the now bloody knife on the floor, and said, "For better or worse, I need your power. Return to me at this hour!"

The shadows in the corners of the room stretched toward warren, and silvery light trailed out from the shadows, including The Stranger's own shadow and the shadows of the cultists, and the silvery light wove together into The Stranger's dark leather armor and thick, dirty, black, patchy, mud marked cloak.

The Stranger's shield swirled into existence on his right arm, and The Stranger drew his large, two-handed sword out of his own shadow.

"Would you lot like to dance?" The Stranger asked menacingly.

~~

Drellin Shivered in the cold, dark cave, waiting for something to happen. after being kidnapped by those cultists, she had thought she would die! But that man had saved her. She had no idea what her savior had done, or how, but now she was alive thanks to him.

But now he was trapped with those cultists. She had no idea how many of them there had been, but she was worried about the stranger.

after she had been sitting there for what felt like hours, but was more than likely just minutes, the stone that blocked the cavern shifted, and shrank. The stranger stepped out, dressed in black and carrying a giant sword that dripped with blood.

"Let's get you home," The Stranger said.

"Thank you, sir," Drellin said, tears in her eyes, as she shivered. "Please, may I know your name?"

The Stranger unclasped his cloak, and wrapped it around Drellin's shoulders, instantly making him look much smaller.

"Call me Warren," Warren said.

"Thank you Warren," Drellin said. "Thank you."

"Of course," Warren said. "Now, let's leave this horrible place, and get you home."

And they left.

The Shattered One Prophecy

The Shattered Blade assembles,

The shattered boy is its knight.

The shattered girl is his rock,

The shattered dragon is his might!

The king who sits upon his kingdom,

Raises the throne.

The faceless men rise,

Their faceless king calls!

The storm heralds his coming,

Our deaths are his door,

The cage breaks on his coming,

And shatter, does the floor!

Rise all, stand tall,

Or all things will fall.

The faceless men rise…

Do NOT heed the call!

or all things will fall.

Chapter One

Kiggi

I didn’t want to wake up. I felt like it seemed early as the sun's light wasn’t even peaking through the open window, and didn’t want to face the day.

But Mom was pushing, and I knew I couldn't hide any longer.

“Kiggi, get up! Get up or the Dragons will get you!” Mom teased.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” I told her.

“Get up, you have chores to do.”

She left and I got up and got dressed. Then I walked downstairs, glancing out the window to see that the sun was just peaking over the horizon, meaning it was about time that I weeded the garden. And so it was that as Gaven, our hired hand, started his shift, I weaved through the well-stocked storage room, full of different foods and the various types of liquor and alcohols we served, and exited the tavern at the back. We were backed up to the woods near the edge of town, but we were on the main road allowing us to be the first place travelers saw when they entered the small town of Lonelyton, in Tallis, the Crown of Alrax.

Lonelyton was an unremarkable village near the southeastern border of Tallis, and it still is. It’s cut off from the rest of Tallis from the north by the Dragon Claw Mountain Range and from Adria to the south by the Great Forest. It is, and was, the kind of town where everyone knew of or was acquainted with everyone else, and it didn’t like anything that brought discomfort or messed with the flow. It was a town that never seemed to change.

I was weeding the garden and I was not paying much attention to anything in particular. Just listening to the morning song of the birds and the dripping of water from the leaky water pump. As the sun rose, it became easier to see what I was doing. My other family members were getting the tavern ready for the morning, as the townspeople and weary travelers and merchants, the first of whom I could already hear coming into the tavern, would want to feed themselves and the old Lonely Inn was the only inn or tavern in the sleepy little town

Everything was so still, it seemed that I was the only one awake in the whole town. As if the town had not yet shaken the bonds of their mattresses and blankets, as the sun still climbed over the horizon.

Suddenly, I heard something running in the woods. I stopped and focused on the sound of this moving creature. It was two-legged by the sound of it, but that didn't satisfy me. It could still have been a thief, or even a small ogre or minotar.

I drew my knife, the weapon I was to use until Dad decided that I was deserving of and ready for my own sword. To deal with werewolves the small blade was tipped with silver. The edges were serrated, the better for shredding flesh, and the pommel had a heavy metal ball to break windows, although it would work well on bone as well.

I could hear the thing coming closer. And closer. It vaulted right over the nearly six-foot tall fence, and I turned… as it fell on its face.

It was not a thing but a man. He was, maybe, in his mid-twenties with unkempt hair; wild and standing in tufts. He was unshaven.

I inched up to him, cautiously so as to not startle him, after he hadn’t moved for a moment. He didn’t look particularly dangerous, with his spindly limbs and shallow breathing that I could barely hear rasping through the air. He was younger than I had originally thought, about the age of my older sister. Seventeen summers, maybe a little older. As the sun crested the wall, I rushed to his side as I realized why he’d fallen. His light brown hair was coated in blood from the large cut on the back of his head. From his back, three arrows stood proudly, happy that they had made their mark. His ribs jutted out like little hills, his belly dropping dramatically sunken into a valley. His legs were covered by a pair of tattered wool pants. He was cold to the touch and was breathing shallowly. His back was covered in mostly dry blood though his arrow wounds still bled a little and whip marks crisscrossed all over his back. Around his neck rested a raw crystal the color of storms, hung by a rope.

“What happened to you?” I asked this battered and unconscious body. “Dad!?”

“What?!” called back my father in his deep, resonant voice

“I need you in the garden!”

“Why?!”

“You gotta see this!”

Thunk, thunk, thunk, went to the floorboards as my Dad walked on them.

“Alright, what is -,” I could see when he saw the bloodied and battered boy before me as his eyes sprang open and he stuttered out his next words, “Oh, oh, boy! Where’d he come from?”

“No idea Dad, but he needs help.”

“He’s alive?” He jogged over and picked him up, with what looked like relative ease as the guy was quite a bit smaller than my father. “I'll bring him to the surgeon. Just finish settin’ up the tavern, and your mother’ll work the counter ’till I get back.

Shara

The next day, the town surgeon helped bring the man to a room.

He looks so strong, I thought as my mother and I finished rewrapping his stitched-up body. Mom had applied the smelly, yellowish paste to his back, which the surgeon had said would help heal him as well as soothe this pain, as long as we also replaced the bandages whenever we reapplied the paste. He still hadn't moved much though he had accepted the beef broth we’d fed him.

He will be fine, I told myself, as I descended the stairs into the latenight chaos.

This was the most lively that the Tavern got, except for on festival days when many of the people of the village came to party. I wheved throught the loud, active tavern to the Bar where father was putting on a show for the five other men at the bar, juggling five mugs in his giant hands. One by one he took one mug, deftly filled it with one hand while keeping the others still in the air, and passed one drink to each man as they cheered.

“Any table orders Father?” I asked.

“Yes, here!” Father said, handing me a paper. “Gavin just brought this order in, but he is already pretty swamped as Kiggi seems to have disappeared!”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh Kiggi.”

“Burnin’ boy’ll be the end of me,” Father told me. “Now get to it!”

I got cought up in a whirlwind of delivering, making, and taking orders as people cam and went and the traffic slowed, at which time Kiggi suddenly showed up again. Dad gave him a bit of a chewing out, and sent him to help me and Gavin in the Dinning aria. There was a few people who got a little loopy on their alcohol, and some got mad when they reached the store cut-off, three drinks, but no one made any problems that night.

Except, ofcourse, for Axril Magillinan.

“What do you mean you cant sell me any more?” Mr Magillinan, as he insisted he be addressed as, yelled. “Its not like I am drunk or nothin’.”

“You are definatly drunk,” I told the stocky man. “You can get anything else you might like, like hoe cooked food or some water, but we will not give you more alcohol.”

“Didn’t the deal I made with your Pa remove my limit?” he asked, smoothing back his thick, grey-tinged, wavy hair and scratching his chin through a thick beard.

“No, it raised your limit,” I reminded him.

“You-you,” Mr Magilinan stammered. “Get me your Dad, kid!”

He did this every time he came in. which was every night. So, my father was already on his way over.

“Axril,” Father said.

“Lear,” Mr Magilinan said. They were the only two people I had ever heard use either mans first name, except my mom who called Father by his first name.

Kiggi, my brother, had told me what he thought had created animosity between Mr Magilinan and our Father. He said that our Father and Mr Magillinan had known eachother for a long time, since childhood. We thought they had been friends, which didn’t seem so far fetched to me as Mr Magillinan lived in the house just across the road from the tavern, where he grew up, and Father had also grown up here in the tavern. But at some point, their friendship had broken down.

The thing was, Mr. Magillinan loved alcohol and this tavern was the only taven in the town, and since Mr. Magillinan was a hunter by trade, he sold fresh game to the tavern for a discount if Father gave him slack on the alcohol limit. Father had alowed Mr. Magillinan to stretch the three drinks maximum to a five drinks maximum in exchange for a discount on fresh meats, especially venison, which was Fathers favorate.

This deal had been going for years now, but no matter how many times it happened, Mr Magillinan always seemed to foget he had a drink limit at all.

“Kid’s tellin’ me you wont sell me any more booze,” Mr Magillinan said, sitting back.

“Yes,” Father said, sighing. “You reached the drink limit.”

“But what of our deal?” Mr. Magillinan asked.

“The deal raised the limit,” Father said. “It doesn’t eliminate the limit. Other wise, I know you would drink yourself strait into the ground.”

“Always thinkin’ you need to protect me,” Mr Magillinan grumbled. “Just let me do what I want, alright? And I’ll let you do what you want.”

“What I wan’t to do,” Dad said, “is cut you off here at five drinks.”

“Bah!” Mr Magillinan grunted. “To the Fires with your ‘cut-offs’, just get me a drink I’ve had a pretty bad day today.”

“You say that every day,” Father told him.

“And everyday was pretty bad.”

“You say that too.”

“Because its true.”

“I still wont get you a drink.”

Mr. Magillinan was suddenly gripped with rage, gerking up from his chair and charging to tackle Father, who stepped to the side of the drunkenmans wobbly charge, grabbed Mr Magillinan, and lifted the man off the ground, the drunk Mr Magilinans feet dangling a half a food above the ground.

“Let me go you dumb oaf!” Mr Magillinan yelled.

Father tossed Mr Magillinan gently out the front door and into the street, but in spite of the soft toss Mr Magilinan still stumbled and fell to his hands and knees. He wobbled to his feet, shook his fist at Father, and meandered bach into his house.

“Why does he not like you?” I asked Father.

“That is a story for another day,” Father told me. But I could tell that he was sad.

~~

“Kiggi!” Mom called out. “It's time for your tests!”

I was sitting in front of the bookshelf in the back of the tavern where Mother did our schooling, usually for an hour after the night rush at around nine-c’clock. On the wall, next to the bookshelf, was a piece of paper pinned to the wall, with me and Kiggi’s name written on it. Kiggi, as usual, was inexplicably late.

Kiggi came rushing down the stairs. “Sorry, Mom!” he sat next to me, cross-legged on the floor.

“You would think someone who mves so quickly would at least get to where he needs to be on time,” Mom teazed. “Now, today's first test is on the Expansion War. The second test is on the legends of the Dragon Age, and how the Expansion War ended that area of darkness. Question one on the Expansion War: Which Talinian king ruled at the time of the War?”

I raised my hand.

“Kiggi,” Mom said, “do you want to give it a try?”

Kiggi winced. “Er, King Corgan?”

“No,” Mom said. “Shara?”

“King Amagoth the Invincible,” I told her. “King Corgan the Patient actually…”

“Wait, there is a question later about King Corgan,” Mom said. “But you are correct!” Mother put a tick mark under my name.

“Second question,” Mom said, “In which battle did King Amagoth the Invincible die, and how did he die?”

“Oh!” Kiggi’s hand shot up.

“Yes Kiggi?” Mom asked.

“Well, I don’t remember the name of the battle, but I remember that it was down south, and he died after he got into a fight with the evil Wizard Das-Vire, the last of the Order Silgren and ended the Order Silgren and he killed them, but then died.” Kiggi said all of that in one breath, as if someone was going to stop him and he was trying to beat the time.

“Good! A half point, for the how King Amagoth died,” Mom said, marking half of a tick under ‘Kiggi’. “Do you know when and where he died, Shara?”

“The battle of the lost city of Harinati, thirty years ago in the year 417 New World,” I said. “Also, that wasn’t the end of the Order Silgren. The Order fell many years before the Expansion War even started, if it even existed in the first place. I think they made Das-Vire up, and King Amagoth the Invincuble got bitten by a jungle serpent or some-such.”

“Which is a good discussion to have on another day, but a half point to Shara for the location and time,” Mom said, marking up my new half-point. “Who was the greatest Talinian General during the war?”

I raised my hand, and Kiggi raised him a moment after me.

“Shara?” Mom asked.

“General Jerinatan the Great.”

“Good,” Mom said. “One point to Shara.”

“I was going to say that,” Kiggi whispered.

“Oh yeah? Well, I said it first,” I said teasingly.

He stuck his tongue out at me.

“Now, which Great King signed the Treaty of Harinati to end the Expansion War?”

I raised my hand, and Kiggi shook his head. “I can’t keep the boring names straight,” he complained.

“King Coramin the Patient,” I said.

“Oh, I even said his name earlier!” Kiggi lamented.

“Correct,” Mom said, marking a point for me. “That is the end of hte Expansion War test.”

“I’m winning,” I told Kiggi, looking at my three-point lead.

“We still have the Dragon Age test,” he retorted.

“Yes,” Mom said. “We do.”

We settled for the next test.

“Of the Nine Western Dragons, which one is said to have been able to see the future, and delivered prophecies?”

I raised my hand an instant before Kiggi.

“Kiggi?”

“But I raised my hand first,” I protested.

“No,” Kiggi said, “I clearly raised my hand first.”

“I thought it was about the same time,” Mom said, “and since Kiggi is behind, he gets the difference. Kiggi?”

Kiggi smiled. “The Propet.”

“So easy,” I grumbled. “It literally was named for its power!”

“Good, Kiggi,” Mom said. “One point.”

“I’m catching up,” Kiggi said in a sing-songy voice.

“Of the Nine Western Dragons, which one was said to be the eldest?”

I raised my hand, and Kiggi timidly raised his after me.

“Shara?” Mom asked.

“The Fire Brand,” I said.

“Correct,” Mom said, marking me a point.

“What were you saying again?” I asked Kiggi.

“Oh, harty-har-har,” he said.

Mom interrupted my tezing with the next question. “Which dragon was said to be a shapeshifter, and is said to have destroyed the town of Galinatin by posing as its finacial agent?”

I raised my hand, but Kiggi had me beaten by a moment.

“Kiggi,” mom said.

“The Deceiver.”

“One point Kiggi! That was the last question, so Shara won this week's test!”

“Woho!” I said, putting my fists in the air in victory.

“Oh man,” Kiggi gronned. “You always win though.”

“That’s because I read the reading in the clean, quiet house while you are out mud wrestling with your buddies.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Now you two go read or go outside or something,” Mom told us. “I need to get the tavern ready for the morning.”

Four?

SOME TIME AGO...

I was surrounded by the same walls that had surrounded me for so long. Their cold stones were as cruel as ever. I had no idea why I was there but I was and I could barely remember anything beyond the bricks and the pain. I used to lash out, get mad, angry–but this would only cause them to hurt me more. I hardly fought any longer.

What does the world outside look like? If they let me see... I’d be happier, but they won’t even give me a chance!

No. They don’t like it when you do that.

Hide it.

They can see it in your eyes.

Hide it.

Bury the flame.

Hide it.

Kill it.

Hide it.

They don't like it.

They see it in your eyes.

Hide it.

Hide it.

Kill it.

Bury it.

Hide it.

Hold it.

I have many fantasies and daydreams. Most don't make any sense, but they are mine. I have three to share. One about a group of seven people, The Watchers (I posted about them previously, like, years ago) who are given powers connected to the moon, sun, sea, storm, earth, ice, and fire. One is of superheroes, The White Rose (she is similar to Venom in many ways, but she is a whole thing), Vesuvius, (a man who was infused with the powers of lava after the fall of his city Pompei), The Black Tiger, (A mutant Tiger ninja), Fire Wall (a genius hacker who can break or make any code), and Electron (inspired heavily by our late Tony Stark). Then there is one of a Dragon-man named Dr. Boom (a cooler dragon man version of me) doing cool stuff. Those are my biggest fantasies.

The watchers fight an evil king (a reoccurring thing in my stories, I need to shake it up a bit) who is also a Thithromancer, a wizard who can control animals, and if they are powerful enough, thing with advanced minds like humans, and dragons. Together, they face this powerful king, and his children, all unnatural wizards, meaning that they were not born with their power, but sought it out, doing horrible things to gain this power, like murder, and human sacrifices.

The superheroes are superheroes. I might post their origin stories someday, but not here.

And lastly, Dr. Boom is a very intelligent man, and he is a skilled warrior. He fights injustice in a torn world of war, and hate. Of technological marvels, and magical power!

Those are my fantasies.

I love that I am me.

To love being me is special, I think.

When I am me, I am not hiding.

Sometimes I even try to hide behind a mask, but I forget.

For a moment I get worried.

"Why did I say that? Do they hate me? Did that sound weird? Why?"

But then I think on my thoughts, and I realize...

I don't care.

Chapters 1-5(Please tell me your favorite name for the book)

Chapter One

James

I DIDN’T WANT TO WAKE UP. I FELT LIKE IT WAS TO EARLY, AND I DIDN'T WANT TO FACE THE DAY.

But mom was pushing harder, and I knew I couldn't hide any longer.

“James, get up,” Mom kept saying.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” I told her.

“Get up, you have work to do.”

She leaves and I get up and get dressed. Then I walked downstairs, and I noticed that it was about time that I weeded the garden, so as Gavin, our hired hand, started his shift, I weaved through the pretty well stocked storage room, and exited the tavern at the back. We were backed up to the woods near the edge of town, but it was on the main road allowing us to be the first place travelers see when they enter the small town of Lonelyton, in Tallis, the Crown of the Dragons.

Lonelyton was an unremarkable village near the southeastern border of Tallis, and it still is. The main reason anyone went there in the first place were the rumors of magical protection from attack, caused by the surrounding, heavily wooded Dragon Claw Mountains, the rumored home of the ancient mother dragon. It’s the kind of town where everyone has met, and no one can get away with anything, because someone will recognize your shoe or something like that. Well, except for the rich kids. They do something, and their parents protect them. Mostly to protect themselves.

Now this is my family

Dad, whose name was John, was the biggest guy in town, so everyone had to look up to talk to his bearded face. His rather intimidating appearance is accompanied by his hard-earned money, and he is a trained sword fighter, because he was some knight's squire at one point or another, so he’s a match for basically everyone. So, no one wanted to make him mad, unless they were too drunk. In that case, Dad had a way of sobering them up rather quickly.

Mom, whose name was Laurie, was kind of mousey, meaning she was small, and had a love for books which she had passed on to my sister. A love that my dad and I couldn’t understand, mostly because he couldn’t read very well, on account of him never being taught how, and me being too impatient to sit through more than a page. She had back hair, and a smooth, soothing voice. She was also really fast, which had been passed on to me, while my dad's beastliness went to my sister in ways that were more mental than physical.

Shara, my sister, when we were not working the tavern or doing a sword or bow lesson with Dad off in the woods, would spend most of her free time reading, while I mud-wrestled my friends. She gets her facial features mostly from mom with dad's brown eyes, and blond hair. I on the other hand look more like Dad, with Mom's bright green eyes, and more of dad’s blond hair. She was stubborn and would eat you alive if you crossed her. She also got that from Dad.

I was weeding the garden and I was not paying much attention to anything, just kind of listening. As the sun rose, it became easier, and easier to see what I was doing. My other family members were getting the tavern ready for the morning rush, as the travel weary travelers and merchants will want to feed themselves, and since the Keeled Koder burnt down, the old Happy Dog was the only inn or tavern in the sleepy little town of Lonelyton.

Other than me, everything seemed still, as the town had not yet shaken the bonds of their mattresses and their blankets.

Suddenly, I heard something running in the woods. I stopped and focused on the sound of this moving creature. It was two legged by the sound of it, but that didn't suit me. It could still have been a thief, a small minitour, maybe even a werewolf?

I drew my knife, my weapon until dad decided that I was deserving of, and ready for, my own sword. The small blade was tipped with silver, to deal with werewolves, the edges were serrated, as to be able to shred flesh, and the pommel has a heavy metal ball to break windows, but it would work well on bone too.

I could hear the thing coming closer, and closer. It vaulted right over the nearly ten-foot-tall fence, and I turned… as it fell on its face.

It was a man, maybe twentyish, as he appeared to have a scruffy beard.

I inched up to him to find that he was younger than I had originally suspected, about my sister's age of sixteen summers. As the sun crested the fence, I rushed to his side, as I saw why he fell. His light brown hair was coated in blood, assumably from the large cut on the back of his head. His ankles, wrists, and neck were encircled by rings, each with a heavy looking chain dangling from them. From his back three arrows stood proudly, happy that they made their mark. His ribs popped up under his skin like little hills, his belly dropping dramatically into a valley. His legs were covered by a pair of tattered wool pants. He was cold to the touch and was breathing shallowly. His back was covered in dry blood, and whip marks crisscrossed all over his back, along with the obvious arrows. On his chest rested a raw crystal of some sort, tied with a rope around his neck. A necklace.

“What happened to you?” I asked his battered and unconscious body. "Dad!?”

“What?!” Called the deep resonant voice that was associated with my father.

“I need you in the garden!”

“Why?!”

“You got to see this if you’re to believe it!”

Thunk, thunk, thunk, went to the floorboards as dad walked on them.

“Alright what is i-, oh, what even happened to that guy?”

“No idea Dad, but he needs help.”

“He’s alive?” He jogged over and picked him up. “I'll bring him to the surgeon.

Just finish setting’ up the tavern, and your mother ‘ll work the tavern ’till I get back.

Chapter Two

Shara

I COULD’NT BELIEVE HOW GOOD THE BOY LOOKED.

His square jaw, his luscious hair, and the strange streaks of white mixed in, and his sculpted chest, with that strange necklace. So handsome.

Stop, I said to myself, you don't even know the guy. You can when he wakes up, which means you need to help him feel better, which will not happen if you goggle at him instead of bandage his wounds.

The tavern was empty. The other day, the surgeon had helped them bring the man to a room, and told them to replace his bandages as needed, and to apply a fowl spelling green salve when we do.

He looks so strong, I thought as my mother, and I finished wrapping his stitched-up body. Mom had applied the paste to his back, but he still hadn't moved much, though he had accepted the broth we feed him with.

He will be fine, I told myself, as I descended down the stairs into the mid-afternoon calm, in-between lunch and dinner, Gavin, the helping hand, was just getting back from serving at another table. I knew he fancied me, but the feeling was not mutual.

The man was a coward, and a liar. He looks like the kind of man who would sell the devil his mother's soul for two silver chips. He was the guy that your parents point out and say, “Stay away from him.” He’s the one that acts like your friend as he slips poison in your coffee. He is skinny, weak, and silky.

His face even bore a resemblance to that of a weasel.

That was his nickname, infact. In Lonelyton, everyone had a nickname that everyone called you. I was Miss Library, James was Garlin (after the burrowing dragon of legend), Dad was Big Man, Big if you're lazy, Mom was Madam Word, and Gavin was Captain Weasel Boy.

I personally hated him.

But sadly, he liked me, and wouldn’t leave me alone for too long.

“How are you darling?” he said in his nasally, oily, and sickening voice.

If he knew I hated him, he definitely wouldn't show it.

He was set on me being with him. Bagh!

I decided not to acknowledge him at all.

I can feel his eyes boring into my back.

Why me?

Why not Betty Morgs, the daughter of the farmer next door? She’s nice, and pretty.

Actually, scratch that. She is my friend. Sandra Gorg then. She is pretty, but also a jerk. She deserves him.

He just needs to go away, before he gets booty hurt… again.

Chapter Three

Four

SOME TIME AGO...

I was surrounded by the same walls that have surrounded me for so long. Their cold stones are as cruel as ever. I don't know why I’m here, but I am, and I can barely remember anything beyond the bricks and the pain. I didn’t even know my own name... I was just called Four. I used to get mad, but that just caused them to hurt me more. I barely even tried anymore.

What does the world outside look like? If they let me see... I’d be happier, but they won’t even give me a chance!

No. They don’t like when you do that.

Hide it.

They can see it in your eyes.

Hide it.

Bury the flame.

Hide it.

Kill it.

Hide it.

They don't like it.

They see it in your eyes.

Hide it.

Hide it.

Kill it.

Bury it.

Hide it.

Bury it.

Chapter Four

James

IT’S A REGULAR DAY.

The only thing that was new is the very sleepy guy, and he made his grand entrance a week ago, and hadn’t woken up. He kind of does, but barely, and sporadically. Barely for a few moments. Where his eyes fluttered, and he tried to say something, but sleep reclaimd him first.

It was late, as I listen as my sister reads. My foot is wiggling as I impatiently wait for sleep to take me. I don't understand why she is able to sit there for so long, just reading.

Someone is knocking on my door.

I tell them to come in.

Speaking of the devil!

“What’s up?” I’m asking Shara.

“I have a question.”

“For me?”

“Yes.”

“Well... shoot.”

“Do you think... will the new guy wake up?”

“Well, we did all we could. Don’t see why not. He’s eating, and he is noticeably rounder. All to do now is pray, right? That’s really all anyone can do.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know, just worried.”

“Makes sense”

“Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

“Well, see you in the morning.”

“See you.”

She is gone, off to bed, and finally, sleep is able to take me.

Chapter Five

Shara

THE DAY WAS ABOUT ENDED, AND MY SHIFT IS OVER.

I’m going to the new guy's bedroom.

Ba, ba, ba, ba my feet said as they climb the stairs.

Clomp, clomp, clomp my feet said as I walked down the hall.

It’s quiet. Those in the rooms above are asleep or are preparing for sleep.

Creek says the door, and thud, a hand stops the door from opening.

“Gavin, don’t.”

“But why, my beautiful buttercup?”

“One, I am NOT ‘your buttercup’ and two, I don’t like what you're doing, and you know how Dad will have you dealt with if you continue.

His hand is gone, and I enter without ever needing to look at him.

I see the man in his bed, his eyes still closed.

I sat on the chair next to his bed and read to him from an old book of tales about the ancient dragons who apparently protected the land of Tallis. He responds well to these stories. I read to him for a long time, and I only realized that I fell asleep when I woke up, head slumped back, the book in my lap, a crick in my neck. I opened my eyes to see, the bed empty, and the blanket over my lap.

Alexander

A horse skreeming.

A boy yelling.

A girls skreem.

Father yeling.

“Oh no,” I’m wisspering to myself.

I’m oppening the door of the carrage, and father is hopping off the front of the carrage (he insists on driving himself), with his spair whip in his hand.

A small dark skined girl had fallen infront of the carage.

Father is raising his whip.

“Father!” I’m, saying.

Father jumped, and turned around, suprised, and mabye alittle anoied, his armor shining, and since he has no helm, father's short whight hair is glinting like snow.

“You promised.” I reminded him.

He grunted, “Oh yes,” he said, sighing.

He climbed back onto the carrage kinda grumbling to himself.

I'm helping the girl up. Her dark hair hangs like a curtan behind her. Her green eyes look into mine, and she seems releved. A dark skined boy who looks like her brother is running in, along with a bigger light skined boy who must be a freind as I’m walking back to the carriage.