Chương 27: Recruitment

I deliberately walked slower to match Filki's pace. Her cane tapped against the stone in a rhythm that kept me from losing my mind in the identical hallways. We walked in silence. I was letting my mind catch up with everything that had happened in the last hour. Zoldyck and his curse. Lania's power. Rifts closing. And somewhere in that mess, I was here, trying to save a little girl from an immortal priest who'd spent decades grooming her like garden.

"Wait," I paused, the rhythmic tapping of the cane did too.

"When your mother escaped, wasn't Aram there too."

"Yeah," she answered.

"Then why does he look so young? Shouldn't he be older or dead?"

"Good observation. The answer is," She took a pause for dramatic effect.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I mean…I am not sure but there are some possibilities."

"Which are?" I pressed harder to get the answers.

"It might be his superpower," I was about to interrupt but she said what I was thinking just after.

"Which doesn't make sense because if his powers let him not age, he would have been the one getting experimented on not the one conducting one." Hands crossed, I nodded in agreement.

"However, there's one other possibility for his power. Have you seen his eye?"

"Yeah, it's made of the same black sludge others seem to have been made of. On that note why does the kids see them like normal people."

"It's Mahilka's superpower. Something to do with hypnosis. It's better for them. Don't want them to see the abominations…Getting back on track, I suspect Aram's power somehow suppresses the black sludge. You know what the black sludge does?"

"I can guess, it gives immortality while letting you keep your powers, but makes an abomination out of you in the process."

"That's right."

"Hmm…I see, so Aram's superpower might have something to do with negation. I did see him flying. I suspect he can negate gravity, and many more things."

"Could be, I have no clue."

"You aren't that good for a master sleuth."

"The brain has rusted with the age." She said with a smile, letting me see her missing molars.

"Now it's my turn to ask questions," Her smile faded away.

"What's the plan?"

"We can't do this alone,""Obviously, did you think I dragged this old body up out of that chair to watch you die heroically by yourself?"

"I mean the kids. The others in the facility. There has to be more of them than just you, Lania and Pyiari."

"You want to arm the children?" She asked in astonishment.

"Not arm them. I don't want them to pick up spears and swords to fight. I want to give them a choice. The same choice I gave to Pyiari and Lania, the choice to fight for their freedom or dance here on Aram's whims." Filki studied me for a long moment, her old eyes peeling me one at a time. Trying to find what was hidden deep within. Whatever she found was apparently good enough.

"There's a children's quarter here, older children. They have seen more than Lania and Pyiari. If anyone's going to listen to a stranger with a stupid plan, its them." You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Great vote of confidence."

"I call them like I see them." Children's Quarter After a long day of lessons and treatments, every child deserves a peaceful night's sleep. Life's Last Hope built the Children's Quarter to give them a place they could call their own, lining the halls with soft lights, warm beds, and colorful murals. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13518. The children's quarter didn't look like a prison, that was the worst part.

Soft lightning, murals of forests and oceans painted on walls that the kids had never seen themselves, little cots with actual blankets instead of the bare mattresses. It looked like someone's idea of what a good orphanage should look like, stitched together by people who'd only ever seen the concept in a brochure. Twelve kids. Oldest maybe fourteen, youngest around eight.

All of them stopped what they were doing the second Filki and I stepped through the door — some mid-conversation, one mid-bite of what looked like the same sandwiches Burtic made, a couple of them frozen with playing cards in hand. A boy near the back, tall and wiry with a scar bisecting one eyebrow, was on his feet first.

"Filki, what are you doing here and who is this guy?" Renn He always stood at the front whenever the adults in white coats entered the quarters. He made sure the younger children were hidden behind him before he spoke, taking the brunt of any anger or extra treatments so the others wouldn't have to. Though he was just a boy, he carried the weight of a true leader—organizing secret games in the dark to keep their spirits high and taking the blame whenever a rule was broken.

He promised the kids that one day, he would find a way past the heavy steel doors and lead them all home. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13521.

"Renn, it's nice seeing you. This guy here is Clark, and he helped Pyiari escape." That did something to the room. A ripple of murmurs, a couple of gasps, one kid in the corner stood up on her cot to get a better look at me.

"Bullshit," Renn said flatly.

"Nobody gets out. That's the whole point of this place."

"She's out," I said.

"Why should we believe in you?"

"You can either take the chance or simply wait here." I answered. There really wasn't much I could do to convince them. They needed to take the first step on their own. Renn's jaw tightened. Around him, the younger kids had gone very quiet, the kind of quiet that comes from knowing that hope was usually a setup for something worse.

"Every kid who's tried to run has been caught," Renn said.

"Every single one. And the ones who get caught don't come back the same. If they come back at all."

"I'm not asking anyone to run blind. I'm asking you to trust that this time, someone's is actually trying this time." I crouched down so I was eye level with the girl still standing on her cot. Couldn't have been more than nine. Sil She rarely spoke, but nothing in the facility ever escaped her watchful eyes. While Renn stood at the front to draw the guards' attention, Sil stayed in the shadows—memorizing patrol routines, counting keyrings, and keeping track of which doctors could be trusted.

She was the quiet anchor to Renn's loud bravery, patching up his bruises after punishments and whispering warnings before danger arrived. She didn't care much about what the world outside looked like, as long as she could help Renn keep everyone alive to see it. Recorded in the Akashic system in the year 13523.

"What's your name?" I asked her even though the system had already told me.

"... Sil."

"Sil, I'm not gonna lie and tell you this is safe. It's not. But I promise you this — whatever happens tonight, I'm not giving up until every kid in this facility gets out of here." Sil looked at Renn. Renn looked at Filki. Filki, in turn, looked at me with something that might have been approval or might have been pity for how naive I sounded. Sil looked at Renn. Renn looked at Filki. Filki, in turn, looked at me with something that might have been approval or might have been pity for how naive I sounded.

"You know what happened to the last kid who tried?" Renn said in low voice, the anger in it curdled into something older and more tired than his small years of experience should have allowed.

"Two years ago, my best friend Orwin. Smart, funny, always talking about what he'd do once he got out—said he wanted to see the ocean, real ocean, not the fake one they painted on the walls. He found a maintenance hatch nobody else had noticed. Got maybe four hallways before they caught him."

"What happened to him?"

"They brought him back a week later. Except it wasn't really him anymore. He didn't talk right. Didn't remember the ocean, didn't remember wanting to see it, didn't remember any of us, really." Renn's jaw worked, like the memory still cost him something to say out loud. The room had gone very still. Even Sil had climbed down off her cot, standing close enough to Renn that her shoulder brushed his arm.

"That's on Aran," I said quietly.

"Not on you, and not on Orwin for trying. And Aran's not walking away from tonight to do it to anyone else." Renn studied me for a long moment. Silence covered the room as no one spoke.

"Fine," he said "but first tell us your plan."

"Before, we escape. There's a thing I have to do."

"What is it?"

"We have to find a way to save Lania from Aran."

"No, I am not risking my or anyone here's life for that bitch." Ah, right, I forgot. No one likes Lania because of what she did.