Ascension (34 page)

Throughout the years, she'd re-enacted such an event over and over in her mind; how the occasion must have looked or felt to all those involved. Yet here she now stood a first-hand witness to this important event in her parent's lives. She peered up at Monica, where all other wedding participants seemed overjoyed and to revel in the occasion, this younger version of her teacher had barely cracked a smile, nor once showed approval during the ceremony.

Once more, leaving her no time to absorb what she'd seen, her surroundings blurred again and she found herself teleported from the wedding procession to the organisation's library.

Toward the library's depths, she watched as her young father peered closely at a worn tome. As she moved closer, she read its title:
Anubis
. When her father reached the book's middle pages, she saw the bookshelf suddenly give way and an underground passage appeared in its place. She followed after her father, scampering down a winding staircase until she reached the bottom. She crept along a narrow corridor and came to an abrupt end before an ancient looking doorway of solid bronze.

Forged at its centre and carved in the surface metal, she recognized an archaic depiction of Anubis: the god of the afterlife in ancient Egyptian mythology, with a head of a jackal, dressed in a golden laced kilt and carrying a flail. But what caught her eye most about this peculiar engraving was that Anubis glared out at her through bloodstone eyes.

A most unsettling sight
, she thought. The depiction eloquently captured and showed both the deity's majesty, and its condemnation.

His narrow and fierce eyes stared down upon those who approached the door with malice.

At this point, the younger Monica had also descended the staircase. She passed Katherine and placed an open palm directly against the carving, activating it with her touch. A heavy grinding noise ensued and the bronze doors slid open to unveil an underground laboratory. Inside, she could hear her father's voice booming, echoing about the walls, expressing contempt to a pair of operatives as to the ‘
Project's'
supposed purpose.

“I'm here to free my wife,” he said. “I refuse to simply stand aside and let you pursue this end.”

“We must look toward the future. There will come a time when this current generation of the ‘
Project'
will struggle to endure,” replied one of the two operatives; a man with short dark hair and light stubble on his chin. “Vast numbers of the Corrupted continue to surface and wreak havoc. We must find a way to replenish of our own stock.”

This operative adjusted his spectacles and intently gazed through a glass chamber pod. Carefully she picked her way over endless cables that covered the floor leading up to this pod. Brimming with curiosity about what had drawn his attention, Katherine went to get a closer look. But she soon wished she hadn't, as what she saw left her aghast and reeling backward. Behind the glass, encased in a plasma-like substance lay her mother: dormant, and with a plethora of surgical tubes protruding out her body.

Katherine could tell her father was furious. His cold glare danced back and forth between the operatives. “And you think cloning is the way we should try to achieve this end? Well Walter? Answer me, damn you.”

But Walter continued to stare through the glass and ignore her father's obvious wrath.

“To date, we've had limited success from recruiting potential students from the pool that is Anabasis High,” she heard Monica tell him, as her teacher skipped over the wiring and pressed her hand against the chamber's glass. “When she decided to join the ‘
Project
,' my sister volunteered to become a surrogate. She believed it was the only way she could truly assist us in our cause. And even though she met you, her sense of priority never once wavered. You knew this, and yet you persisted and married her anyway.”

Duncan clawed at his hair and ground his teeth. “I can't believe you'd let your own sister, your own flesh and blood…, become a part of this twisted experiment.”

“You didn't seem to have a problem with this concept during the earlier phases of the process,” a third operative reminded him. He was a muscular figure with a thick beard of black hair. “You didn't speak out when we tried this with those others – with whom you haven't had the same vested interest. You know very well that if there was an alternative, I'd be more than happy to consider it.”

“I bit my tongue, as it wasn't my place,” Duncan replied coldly, his face bitter with resentment. “You made the choice to undergo the cloning process. You sought to create a son who could succeed you in this organisation. But what does that mean for your real son, Robert? How will he cope when he inevitably learns his brother is his father's clone…? A being created solely because he, the natural born son, failed to live up to the organisation's expectation?”

Robert snarled back. “You should have reined in your views and kept biting your tongue. Our duty is to the greater good. When each of us signed up and became a working part of this organisation, we knew there was a chance we'd have to forgo the family pleasantries afforded and a normal life. Elizabeth too made that choice.”

Frustrated, before what she'd heard and seen could sink in, the room around Katherine was spinning and she found herself once more back in the organisation's vehicle bay.

“You can see for yourself Ms Munroe, trust is a most curious thing,” said the masked Corrupted, now materializing before her. “This organisation demands your loyalty, yet it refuses to treat you with respect. To this organisation you are nothing more than a weapon. One with which it will use to its own end.”

She stared back at him, her eyes stinging. “And what makes you any different? These are nothing more than illusions…”

“Because whether you reciprocate or not, I still care for you deeply,” Justin proclaimed, as he walked toward her and offered her his hand. “I need you by my side when Atlantis reclaims its rightful place above the waves.”

“Atlantis…? What has Atlantis got to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything,” he asserted. “It is where we, the chosen few, will ascend and finally rebuild this world anew.”

Brow-beaten, light-headed, and emotionally spent; she gazed up at Justin through a blank expression. Her mind was tied in knots. She wasn't sure how to comprehend his words or what it was she'd seen through Alu's illusions. She found herself accepting Justin's hand: the hand of one she now believed to be a depraved lunatic. As she looked deep into his eyes, she searched for those qualities in him that had initially won of her affection. But the deeper she delved and the more she thought about it, the faster she came to realize she had truly only had a schoolgirl crush. A crush now overshadowed by his repulsive and vile beliefs. Justin wanted to create an ideal world where only those he deemed deserving would live, and where any who fell short would be forfeit. Justin Ellis had chosen his side; and Katherine wanted to play no further part in it.

Then there was this organisation. She still had so many questions about the history of this ‘
Project
'. But she had never anticipated that the answers would prove so perplexing and traumatic. In the short time since she'd become a part of the organisation, never had cloning or this kind of experimentation been mentioned by people she'd come to trust. The image of her mother encased in a chamber of glass and subjected to experiments, was easily the most distressing sight she'd ever witnessed. It was something that would leave indelible, emotional scarring. But with Monica still their captive, and with no one else she could trust with the information she had learned, she resolved not to dwell on the illusions for the time being. For it was crucial not to let herself stray from both hers and Anzu's objective.

“Katherine, we must find a way to escape,” she heard Anzu cry, as he seemed to fly through the vehicle bay's basement wall.

Of course we do, but we cannot leave without Monica,
she thought, as she quietly contemplated the next course of action.

“What would you have me do?” She asked, as she took comfort in Justin's arms as if to signify an acceptance of his proposal.

“Katherine…this has all been an illusion,” Anzu pleaded, confounded by this sudden act of affection toward the young man. “It's all been a fabrication to trick us…”

Alu appeared to hover before the guardian. “I assure you there has been no fabrication of any kind. Everything I've shown are the honest memories circulating in the mind of our prisoner. There hasn't been the need for me to change a thing, as each memory speaks for itself.”

Anzu, can you hear me? Please work…,
she chanted over again in her mind, spurred to communicate with her guardian through their celestial bond.

“Alu, was that how my mother died?” She asked, trying to ensure she did not arouse both Justin's and the Corrupted's suspicion.

“I find it hard to accept…,” the Corrupted sighed, taken aback, snapping his fingers, and thus returning them all to the school's corridor. “To once again hear my name so casually roll off the tongue of a babe…Do you not fear me child?”

“Should I?” She asked. “It is your name, isn't it?”

He headed back toward the principal's office. “As is the case with all my kindred, your kind has labelled us with many names over the years. But it is the name I go by the most. Come, I will show you the fate that befell your mother.”

Anzu…, Anzu…, please answer me
, she called out to him within her thoughts, concentrating her mind upon his energy.

Katherine?
She saw him respond in her mind's eye.

Anzu?
She cried out to him, glowing with pride that she'd successfully broken down the communication barriers.

For now, we need to play along with whatever they demand of us,
she told him
. At least until we find out what they've done with Monica.

“Katherine! If you lay a hand on her…,” she heard Aleisha threaten, as she and Gavin emerged along the corridor.

“Such insolence,” Alu cried, as a series of groping palms crept from out the shadow-coated walls.

Upon Alu's orders, these arms woven from shadow slivered along the corridor and wrapped themselves around the beleaguered operatives. She looked on as Aleisha and Gavin vainly tried to fire at these arms, only to see them both pulled off their feet and sucked into the walls.

Katherine rushed forward and grabbed hold of Aleisha's outstretched fingertips. “No, you mustn't.”

I must help them,
Anzu proclaimed from within the depths of her mind, as he dashed toward the wall and clawed away at the shadows.

“Anzu, watch out,” she screamed, for a new pair of arms had materialized and bound the winged guardian.

As her guardian too was sucked into the shadow-smeared walls, she began to plead with both Alu and Justin to let them go free. “If you free them, I promise to do whatever you ask of me.”

“There is nothing you can do, nor offer. And I will not tolerate any further distractions,” Alu grumbled, pressing one of his gloved palms against the wall.

“Katherine, have you not taken anything from what we've shown you?” Justin asked, aggrieved to learn that she still saw him as a villain. “You owe these people nothing. They are corrupted; and we must bring their corruption to an end.”

She whimpered, gazing up at him and feigning tears. “I'm just so confused…, I don't know what to believe. I don't know who's lying, or who's telling me the truth.”

“You need only believe in me,” he said, his hands resting firmly upon her shoulders. “I would never lie to you. And it is time you learned the truth.”

He guided her along the corridor and into the principal's office. With Alu already there, the masked Corrupted strolled over to Monica seated and bound in the centre of the room. Glassy-eyed and hunched over in the chair, Monica failed to respond, or even register acknowledgement of her entry.

“What have you done to her?” She asked the masked Corrupted, trying to hide from her voice the disgust she felt.

“So many questions. It seems all you do Ms Munroe is ask questions…, Alu responded. “If you must know, I've banished her mind from this plane. Any sense of consciousness she has left now drifts aimlessly in an empty void.”

Their surroundings then trembled, raising Katherine fears that the earthen Corrupted had returned. For it felt as though the carpet was rising up from beneath her, elevating them all up toward the ceiling. Unable to comprehend what was happening, she watched as the roof's plaster crumbled away and unveiled the darkness of the night. Knocked off her feet as the floor continued its ascent, she crawled along the carpet and glanced out over the edge. As the office disintegrated around her, she came to realise that its floor had become a plateau of solid rock.

“I've seen this once before,” she murmured, recognizing this as the location where the organisation had first fought Namtar.

With a sense of pride and fealty, Justin quickly confirmed exactly that. But he also said something which caused the energies within her to swell and bubble toward the surface.

“This was also the time and place where Monica Hawthorne let your mother die.”

Chapter 27

“Aleisha… Gavin… anybody…? Where have you all gone?” Anzu cried out into the darkness, unsure with where he was, or of what had happened.

As the guardian resolved to keep his wits about him, he concentrated on detecting Aleisha's and Gavin's respective energies. But no matter how hard he tried, he could no longer sense anything of their presence within the void. While he roamed about the cold and empty space, and relying on what little sight his keen eyes afforded him; he soon spotted up ahead the dull flicker of blue flames.

There must be a way out of this realm…,
he pondered, carefully trudging toward the faint glow off in the distance.