CHAPTER THIRTY SIX - BREAK DOWN
B was crying as he wandered alone down the corridor. He was screaming and tears were spilling onto his cheeks as he searched for Marlowe. He wanted to kill him. He wanted to physically tear his body apart in exchange for destroying B’s mind.
At the same time he felt the strange memories running through his head and crashing painfully into one another. He could see his blonde haired brother and every time he saw the memory it filled him with conflicting emotions: love, hatred, anger. His head ached and he felt dizzy. He wanted to see him again. He wanted to erase him form his mind. He reached a hand down and trailed it across the knife he had secured in his belt. He had to kill him. He had to kill all of them. Everything had to stop. When it was all over he would leave this place and live by himself where nobody could find him. He didn’t want any of them. He didn’t need any of them.
He wiped his eyes again on his hand. How had all this happened? He had memories now but he didn’t know what order they went in or how they joined together. They might not even be memories and instead be just figments of his imagination. He couldn’t understand. He hated his brother, Sammy. He hated him because he remembered calling and screaming in pain for him and yet he hadn’t come. But the memories showed something else. They showed Sammy holding him and playing with him.
‘Why did you leave me?’ he thought to himself. Nothing made any sense. The only person who knew the truth of what had happened to him was Marlowe. He had to find Marlowe, but how could he trust the treacherous scientist to tell him the truth about what had happened to him?
He thought of his family. There was two of them. Sammy and his father. And they were going to pay for all of the pain and suffering he had been forced to endure because they hadn’t come to rescue him.
Suddenly he sensed that he was not alone in the corridor anymore. He turned, but there was nobody behind him. Turning back he eyed the turning ahead of him suspiciously and waited.
A single Gerai came running around the corner and then gasped as he saw B. He was only a young man and he didn’t carry a weapon of any sort. He probably wasn’t even twenty from the look of his boyish and frightened face. He gaped at B before him. “Who are you?” he stammered.
“I’m B,” B replied, still eyeballing the young man curiously. This wasn’t like the other soldiers he had encountered in this base. This was a young boy, like himself.
“Oh, um, well I’m leaving this place,” the young man gabbled. “Please don’t hurt me. I just want out.”
B tilted his head at the coward before him. “Why?” he asked.
“The commander is dead!” the boy squealed. “And the resistance prisoners have broken free and are escaping! There’s also a group waiting in the valley and they could attack any day now! I’m outta here!”
B smiled. This base had fallen. He was free to run away just like this man, but first he had business to take care of. He had to track down Marlowe and then find his brother for a final talk.
“Go then,” B said simply. “I won’t hurt you.” He smiled at the boy, but at the same time he was repulsed by the cowardice. He felt a slight flicker of anger. This was still one of the soldiers who had held and tortured him, but somehow he couldn’t summon the anger that gave him the power to kill.
The boy smiled in relief. “Um, who’s side are you on anyway? There’s rumours about you. You are B Littrell aren’t you?”
B smiled again as he walked past the boy. “I’m on no one’s side,” he replied.
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Bri was lost. The base was a maze and he knew nothing about the locations of anything. He couldn’t even access any of the computing systems with the power blackout. He had tried to get power to one terminal, but that had failed. He wasn’t a particularly competent engineer.
The longer he spent in this base, the more disturbed he became with it. It all felt wrong somehow. He had already walked past several dead bodies, but none of them had laser marks upon them. He was certain one of them had been one of the high ranking leaders as well, judging from his uniform. Something was wrong here…
He held his weapon tight in his hands, conscious that there was still Gerai the building. He had used his little scanner to try and locate them but it seemed that most of them had been sealed in rooms. There had to have been a break out by Kevin, Sammy and the others. Only Sammy or B could hack a computer and gain control like this. He smiled and round each corner he kept hoping to bump into one of them. They’d spent too long apart now and already his stomach was floating inside of him as he imagined the pleased surprise on their faces at seeing him alive. They probably thought he was still in that coma. He just hoped that B would be pleased to see him…
He was still frightened about what state B would be in when they found him. He could still recall Nick’s haunting words about the virus and everything Brian had told him about the Gerai teasing him about memory loss. Had they been just mocking and trying to worry them? B had the cure in his bloodstream after all, so that should counter any effects the virus had on him. By now he’d probably be almost fully cured.
He still wasn’t sure though. His mind was tearing itself apart as his imagination ran wild over the consequences that could have been imposed upon B.
He peered carefully around another long corridor and then pulled his scanner form his pocket. There was a locked room to his left that contained about four Gerai, but they were trapped. The rest of the corridor appeared to be empty.
He stared for a moment at one of the computer terminals upon the wall. He had no idea whereabouts he should be going to find B or Sammy. Presumably Sammy, Kevin and the others would be in some prisoner cells somewhere and B might be one of the labs… he shuddered and clenched his fingers. His heart was banging in frustration. He didn’t know where anything was.
He hurried along the corridor further. There seemed to be nothing that could help him on this floor. He’d look for another elevator and climb down to another floor and search there. Perhaps the prisoner cells would be on the bottom floor?
‘How ironic,’ he mused to himself. For days he had been desperate to get inside of this place, he’d even dreamt of it in his sleep. His mind had fixated upon getting here and now he suddenly realised that it wasn’t that easy. What had he expected? To be bale to walk in and find his family waiting for him? Or signposts that told him exactly where to go?
He paused as he came to a part where the corridor split left and right. He stared down each of them, both silent and dully illuminated with the weak emergency lights. Maybe he should head back the way he had came from the elevator. He could definitely climb down there…
But there had to be another path down as well and this would allow him to explore more of the base. He hesitated for a moment and took the left turning, hoping that it would lead him somewhere useful.
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B had found something. He’d found several dead bodies that had not, unfortunately, been caused by him. These three men had been killed by laser wounds, he realised as he leant down to peer at the body. It was quite amazing how interesting a mutilated body could be, especially when it was your nemesis you saw bleeding. These people had tried to turn him into their slave. They had kept him locked up and allowed Marlowe to try and control him. Now everything had changed.
He smiled at them and then turned about the corridor, searching for who had done this. There was no sound or sign of any attackers. He tentatively peered into the elevator shaft opposite them, but it was empty as well. Whoever had attacked these men was gone now. His eyes narrowed to slits as he pondered about his brother and his comrades. Maybe they had decided to break free.
B sniffed slightly, noting that his brother, who claimed to have cared about him so much, had not come looking for him. “Bastard,” he spat. “leave me and see if I fucking care. He didn’t need him and if he did see him, he was going to kill him. This time he wouldn’t fail.
He made his way along the corridor, passing one Gerai who was unconscious and groaning in pain, but he ignored him. He wasn’t interested in Gerai anymore. He just needed to find the people he hated the most: Marlowe and his family. They were all going to pay. He was stronger than them now. They should not have left him. They should not have betrayed him and Marlowe was responsible for all of that. He had to pay dearly.
He turned another corridor, wandering aimlessly and wondering why everything was so quiet. There was something wrong with the power in the base. The lights were dimmer and all of the consoles and computer terminals he had seen were dead. Well, at least his weapons still worked.
He came to a turning and went right, his eyes beadily glaring about his surroundings. He remembered the fleeing Gerai he had passed. Maybe that was where they had all gone. Maybe they had all left. ‘Cowards.’
Then suddenly he knew that there was somebody ahead of him. He heard their footsteps sneaking along the carpeted corridor. He could sense them. Immediately he slowed his own pace, becoming as silent as the predator that stalks its prey. The person ahead was trying to be quiet and that was enough to make B suspicious of him already. He crept forwards stealthily.
As he turned the next corner he saw who it was. He paused, his eyes falling upon the light blonde hair and the small frame that had his back to B and was cautiously moving along the corridor. He closed his eyes, comparing this man to another memory. And then he knew.
‘Father.’
Suddenly he didn’t know what to do, so he just stared. Everything around him suddenly felt like a dream. He swayed slightly and pressed a hand up against the wall to steady himself. His stomach appeared to be floating inside to fill him with light nausea that rose into his throat. His head spun. A part of him wanted to cry. A part of him wanted to scream in anger.
He suddenly closed his eyes as he remembered. Brian. Brian, his father, was smiling at him and looking after him and B was happy. The moment he tried to probe the memory deeper, though, it was gone. Suddenly that love and happiness were replaced with more recent, vicious memories. He was tied down to a table. He was frightened. Why was he alone? Nobody came to help him. Nobody.
He stared, but he did not cry. He didn’t want to cry again. He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and then clenched his hands into fists. “You abandoned me,” he hissed quietly to himself. He had lain on that table in Marlowe’s lab and cried. He had wanted his father to rescue him. He had wanted his father to take the pain away.
That had not happened. Instead he’d been forced to endure the torment.
He had screamed and screamed and yet is own father had not come for him. He closed his eyes. He was angry at his brother, but what his father had done was much worse. A father was a parent. A parent was supposed to protect their offspring and prevent anything bad from happening to them. B’s father thought had not been there to save him.
They had abandoned him when he had screamed.
But a part of him still wanted to cry and curl up in those arms…
‘Daddy…’
To his shame, he felt a tear rolling down his cheek.
“I don’t want to cry,” he said under his breath. He felt the memories surfacing again but they hurt too much. He was aware that the anger he was feeling he was wrong and his head felt like it was being split in two. He couldn’t withstand this confusion. He didn’t want the memories to add to it.
He glanced back up and saw that Brian was still moving down the corridor. B stared at the knife that was still in his own hands. His face was wet with tears and he was ashamed at the weakness he was showing. His eyes closed again. ‘You abandoned me.’
He ran a hand over the knife blade, allowing it to slice into his skin and trickle blood onto the ground. He began to noiselessly follow his unsuspecting father silently along the corridor. All the time he spoke the same words to himself.
“You abandoned me.”
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‘B where are you?’ Bri thought to himself miserably.
It was becoming unbearable. The silence of the base was thick and oppressive and reminded Bri of death. It was unnatural. There wasn’t even the familiar hum of local computers at work. Instead the place was dead. It gave him a sinking feeling as he thought of that word. He should have found someone by now… if he could just find a Gerai then he might be able to ‘persuade’ them to tell him where B and Sammy were being kept.
He stared at the corridor ahead of him. He was certain he’d been there before and it felt as if he were going round in circles. He shook his head. There was nothing on this floor. He’d have to try and find his way back to the elevator. The prison cells had to be lower down and he had to be able to find someone down there.
He wiped the perspiration from his brow. His hands were clammy and sticky and it was difficult to hold his laser, which kept slipping in his grip. Hunger was also beginning to attack his stomach and frustrated despair was gnawing away at every part of him.
“God damn it!” he screamed, unable to stay quiet any longer. He had to scream. He had to unleash every piece of tension that burned at his strength. He threw his laser across the corridor. He was so close, so close! Why couldn’t he find them?
He covered his head with his hands and felt the tears streaking down his face. “B,” he sobbed faintly. “Sammy… I’m so sorry.”
He wished that Brian was with him. His twin’s presence may have been disconcerting, but at the same time it was soothing. He doubted if he would have made it this far alone. Brian had been the only reason that Bri hadn’t already been on his knees screaming at the cruelty of the world. With Brian he hadn’t allowed his feelings to show. They had supported each other but now that support was gone.
He breathed deeply, his hands rubbing at his red face. He slowly retrieved his laser from the ground and sighed. He was a wreck. He was falling to pieces and he knew it. Exhaustion, worry… they were both beginning to reap their toll upon his body and he didn’t know if he could fight it anymore. He wanted to lie down and sleep. He didn’t want to be aware of the pain anymore.
He slowly turned around and then gasped as he saw the person standing at the other side of the corridor. “B?” he whispered. His lips trembled. The laser slid from his hands again as he found himself no longer able to grasp it even with his fingertips.
B was staring at him. He was in one piece. He was breathing. He was alive... but tearful. Bri closed his eyes and felt a tear trickle slowly down his cheek. He opened them again and the found that the vision was still in front of him. “B.”
B’s green eyes stared back at him. “Dad.”