The Girl Who Could Fly (15 page)

escape,
Dr. Hellion waved her hand, indicating the events of the evening. “I’ve been wracking my brain as to the cause of all of this. And then it came to me. Someone
lied
to you.
    “It’s a terrible thing to be lied to. That person probably told you things that aren’t true. They made them up. Lied. I can imagine how easy it would be, once you have mistakenly accepted the lies for truth, to jump to a conclusion where your only option is, well, to do what you did this evening.” She paused and smiled, and there was nothing but warmth and understanding about her person. Her whole being said,
I understand and you can trust me.
“I see your actions tonight as nothing more than a call for help.
    “Rest assured, I’m here to answer your call.” Dr. Hellion sighed and spoke as though she was sharing a terrible secret. “I can be sympathetic to those who were misled. But at the same time, the person who told you the lies really needs my help the most and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t help that person. So”—Dr. Hellion smiled in the most kind and caring way—“which one of you will tell me whose idea this was?”
    No one moved. Even though Piper knew better, Dr. Hellion’s sincerity was so persuasive that despite herself, she began to doubt. What if she had been mistaken? If she had been so wrong about the escape, then maybe she’d been wrong about everything. What was real? Who could she believe? Certainly not herself anymore. She’d proved that, that very evening.
    “Of course, if you feel that you can’t tell me, then I’m compelled to help you all equally. Certainly not my choice. But I will respect your wishes. Nurse Tolle?”
    Nurse Tolle came forward with a cart. On it were eleven hypodermic needles. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were filled with drugs.
    “It came to Nurse Tolle’s attention this week that you have not had appropriate nutrition. Undoubtedly this has contributed to your confusion. Nurse Tolle and I would like to rectify that immediately. Nurse Tolle, please bring Jasper forward.”
    Nurse Tolle and three agents dragged a squirming Jasper front and center. The other children were forced to witness his feeble attempts to resist. “N-n-no,” he stuttered. “P-p-please, Dr. H-h-hellion. P-please don’t.”
    Piper’s eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Poor Jasper, the weakest and most helpless, was twisting and turning like a bird with a broken wing before a pack of hungry dogs. Dr. Hellion watched him without mercy and, with the slightest nod of her head, Nurse Tolle plunged the needle into Jasper’s thin arm. Jasper yelped and the kids averted their gaze, unable to watch. A moment later, Jasper’s eyes clouded over and his body became limp and relaxed.
    Dr. Hellion waited, but still no one came forward. “Very well, Nurse Tolle, please assist Lily.”
    “Nooooo.” Lily’s high-pitched voice hovered in the cadences of true panic. Her cry struck Piper to the quick.
    “Wait!” Piper stepped forward. “Wait.”
    Dr. Hellion nodded to Nurse Tolle, who pulled the needle away from Lily’s arm. “Yes, Piper?”
    “It was all my idea, Dr. Hellion. They didn’t do anything. Please let Lily be.”
    Dr. Hellion carefully looked at the others. “I see. And no one helped you?”
    “No, it was all me. And I’m sure sorry.”
    “I understand, Piper. I really do. There’s no need to be sorry. Why don’t you come stand here by me?” Dr. Hellion waited for Piper to shuffle forward and come to her side. “There is something I can help you understand, Piper, and it will change your life. It’s very important.” Dr. Hellion bent so that she was eye level with Piper. Lowering her voice, she spoke with a quiet intensity. “When you fly, people get hurt. Your flying causes pain and it hurts everyone you love.”
    Piper got lost in Dr. Hellion’s eyes and doubt took advantage of her confusion, taking firm root and quickly spreading its poison.
     “Piper, I am here to support you, but it’s important for you to see the consequences of your flying. You may proceed, Nurse Tolle.”
    “But, Dr. Hellion, please. They didn’t do anything. You don’t have to do that to Lily.”
    “You still don’t understand, Piper.
I’m
not doing anything. It is
you
who are doing this to them.”
    “I am? But—” Piper fought with the notion, but as the needle plunged into Lily’s arm, her gut-wrenching scream took away all of Piper’s ability to form rational thought and left in its stead guilt, remorse, and pain.
    And that wasn’t even the worst of it. As Piper was forced to stand and watch, Nurse Tolle went down the line and one after another picked out a terror-filled, writhing victim and injected them with the drugs. Daisy cried. Smitty covered his eyes. Myrtle tried to run. But nothing could save them from the needle. Before the injection they struggled and resisted; afterward their bodies were limp and their eyes vacant.
    Each one broke Piper’s heart. How could she have been so wrong? If she couldn’t trust other people and she couldn’t trust her own heart, then there was nothing left for her to believe in and trust.
    And right then and there Piper’s heart broke in two.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

P
IPER DIDN’T resist when Agent A. Agent and Dr. Hellion escorted her to the fourth level. Led past row upon row of experiments, she saw the rose covered with black soot and a closed door behind which the banging of the silver giraffe was no longer heard. Finally, at the far end of the laboratory, Piper was led into a room protected by more security protocols than any other in all of I.N.S.A.N.E. At the center of that room stood a strange metal contraption. It looked to Piper like a giant metal frame shaped into the outline of the human body, almost like a life-size version of what her mother used at Christmastime to cut out gingerbread men from cookie dough.
    Dr. Hellion approached the contraption reverently and ran her hand down the cold, shining metal with admiration. “This device, Piper, is specifically designed to help clear your mind. It’s called a Molecular Orienting Limitation Device or M.O.L.D. for short.” Dr. Hellion’s face appeared very helpful and kind. “At a core level, it will adjust you so that you can enjoy a more normal way of life.”
    At Dr. Hellion’s command, Nurse Tolle and Agent A. Agent lifted Piper up and placed her into the center of the metal shape.
    “As we input your information on this computer over here”—Dr. Hellion indicated where a scientist was working by a monitor against the wall—“it communicates with the M.O.L.D. and instructs it to create the exact normal specifications for someone of your age and sex. While you relax, the M.O.L.D. will help you discover what it feels like to be normal just like everyone else. Wouldn’t you like that?”
    “I—I can’t rightly say.” Piper didn’t know what she wanted anymore. She no longer had any frame of reference.
    With a few more keystrokes, the scientist completed his data entry and the metal frame began to contract around Piper from all sides. It quickly went from feeling snug to pressing against her with a force that made her scream out in agony.
    “Ahhhhh!”
    “You’ll learn to love that feeling, Piper.” Dr. Hellion caught the scientist’s eye. “I think it would best serve Piper if you increased the intensity, Dr. Fields.”
     Dr. Fields’s brow furrowed and he looked as though he wanted to object, but then thought the better of it. Silently, he complied, and after a few more pecks at the computer, the metal instantly responded to the commands and squeezed Piper even more tightly.
    “Owwwww.” Piper’s eyes widened and she couldn’t catch her breath. The M.O.L.D. was literally crushing the life out of her. It took all of her strength just to stop herself from begging for mercy.
    “I’m told that the more you resist, the more painful it is. When you learn to relax and accept it, you’ll feel nothing but comfort and safety.” Dr. Hellion smiled reassuringly. “Dr. Fields, I believe that Piper still requires greater assistance. Please increase the intensity.”
    This time Dr. Fields was not able to restrain himself. “But, Dr. Hellion, it’s already at the maximum level.”
    Letitia Hellion turned with icy calmness and fixed Dr. Fields with dead eyes. “Is there a problem?”
    Dr. Fields inched forward and lowered his voice fearfully. “Dr. Hellion, if I increase it any more, it could cause permanent damage, maybe even cripple her. It’s not . . . I can’t . . . it isn’t recommended.”
    “Thank you, Dr. Fields, for that information. Shall I ask someone else to come in and take over your responsibilities?”
    The beads of sweat on Dr. Fields’s brow became tiny rivers. His hands hesitated and then trembled as they returned to the computer. Even as he did it, Dr. Fields knew that on the day he died, this was the moment he would remember with the most regret. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Piper as the metal responded one more time and somehow, although he couldn’t imagine at this point how it might be possible, pushed Piper in farther.
    “AHHHHHHH.” Piper would have begged if she had been able to speak. It took all of her resources just to draw breath.
    “Perfect. That’s much better,” Dr. Hellion approved. “Now, Piper, when I see you again, you will not only never remember the fact that you flew, but you will never have the desire to do so again. Flying is a nasty habit. It hurts people. It hurts you.”
    “B-b-but”—Piper had to struggle through the pain to remember how to speak—“I love flying.”
    “No, Piper, you don’t. You just
think
you do. Soon you’ll
know
that you were mistaken. Just like you were mistaken about the escape.” Dr. Hellion snatched Piper’s wooden bird from around her neck, smiled brightly, and left the room. Nurse Tolle and Agent A. Agent promptly followed on her heels, leaving Dr. Fields behind.
    “I’m so sorry,” Dr. Fields mumbled and fled. He sealed the door and left Piper alone with her agony.
     “Oh, it hurts. It hurts. Make it stop. Make it stop,” Piper begged no one in particular. The pain was unmanageable. The word
pain
couldn’t even contain the feeling. It was like being hit by a train, specifically the moment after you’re hit but before you die (and are given the comfort of oblivion).
    “Oh, Ma, Pa, help me. Someone help me.”
    A tiny wiggling motion moved against Piper’s leg. Then it wiggled some more and traveled up toward her waist, until the white linen handkerchief her ma had given her was pushed out of her pocket and fell to the floor below. A moment later Sebastian squirmed free of the pocket, hopped over the metal, and found a perch on the wall at eye level with Piper. He settled himself across from her.
    The sight of her dear black cricket brought tears to Piper’s eyes. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” She was so grateful that she wasn’t alone.
    “I guess you’re not far from where I first found you, huh? I’m sure sorry about that. Probably I should’ve got you out sooner. But see, over there.” Piper moved her eyes, the only part of her capable of movement, toward the direction of a vent. “You could use that if you had a mind to. Bet that leads somewhere.”
    Sebastian saw the vent but turned his black face back to Piper and didn’t move. He obviously had no intention of going anywhere.
     “If you change your mind, I won’t hold it against you.” The pain caught up with Piper again and she fought it with everything she had.
    “Piper?”
    Startled, Piper’s eyes darted about the room, but she could see nothing.
    “Piper McCloud?” The voice spoke again.
    It was the same voice Piper had heard in her room back in Lowland County—the one Dr. Hellion had warned her about. Just as Piper had suspected and feared, it had been stalking her.
    Suddenly a shadow passed before the door. Moments later, the overhead security camera violently snapped free from its casing and fell to the floor. Terrified, Piper couldn’t move away or defend herself, and was forced to watch in horror as the shadow moved toward her closer and closer. The nearer it came, the more substance it gathered, until the shadow morphed into a man.
    He was dressed in black, a backpack about his shoulders. He had a wiry frame that was perpetually in motion and rippled with muscles. He had the harried look of someone who was constantly on the run and under the gun. The dark circles under his eyes spoke of hard decisions and a life lived with deep regrets.
    “Piper McCloud?” he asked with a quiet authority that reverberated throughout the room.
     “I—I am. How’d you do that?”
    “Do what?” He had already slipped the backpack off his shoulders and thrown it to the ground in quick motions. Unzipping it, he pulled out specific instruments with practiced motions.
    “You weren’t there and now you are. How’d you appear like that?”
    “Oh, you mean how was I invisible? I don’t know. How do you fly?”
    No one had ever asked Piper that before. “I dunno.”
    “Then I don’t know either.” The man placed gray plasticine against the computer control panel. “Listen to me, we don’t have much time. I’m J. and I’ve been following you and watching you for a long time. I am here to get you out.”
    “Dr. Hellion told me you were up to no good.”
    He quickly looked up from his work. “And you believed her?”
    Piper didn’t answer.
    “If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be dead already. I’m here to help you—to get you out.”
    After all Piper had been through, she wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Seeing her hesitation, J. put down his tools. “Look at me. Unless you trust me, they’re going to make you forget you ever flew. Is that what you want?”
    “No.” As Betty always said—beggars can’t be choosers—and Piper was hardly in a position to be choosy.
    J. nodded and went back to work. He was an expert at what he did. Retrievals were never easy and sometimes things went terribly wrong. He had to be careful and make sure Piper was up to taking direction. “You’ll have to do what I say when I say or they’ll snap you back in here so fast it’ll make your head spin.” He was attaching wires between a small clock and the plasticine.
    Relief washed over Piper. In precious moments this man could take away the terrible pain and freedom would be hers. Her prayers had been answered and tears of relief clouded her vision. “Did you get the others already? Or do you need me to show you where they are?”
    “I’m only here for you.” J. was definitive on this point.
    “And you’ll come back for them later?”
    “That won’t be possible. It’s taken me weeks to reach you undetected. With the security in this place, I’ll be lucky to get you out in one piece.”
    “But—” In a matter of mere moments Piper’s top-of-the-mountain elation fell to twenty-leagues-beneath-the-sea despair. “But we can’t leave them behind.”
    “It can’t be helped. There’s only so much that I can do.” J. was a realist and he didn’t candy-coat anything. Life was hard, and as far as he was concerned, people were better off dealing with cold hard facts.
     “You have to try. . . .”
    “Try?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t talk to me about trying. It’s all I’ve done my whole life. You don’t know what’s been happening. There used to be thousands of us. But now you down here are the only young ones left. Letitia Hellion has seen to that. You’re it.”
    “But—”
    “I’m here for you.” J. set the clock on the timer and it started to count down from sixty seconds. “You’re exceptional, Piper McCloud. Do you know how incredibly rare it is to do what you do? To fly? It’s unheard of.”
    “But—”
    “Close your eyes, there’s going to be a small detonation.” He took cover at the side of the room.
    “I
won’t
go without them.”
    J. looked up, shocked.
    “ ’Cause of my flying, they’re all in trouble. Dr. Hellion says that if I break the rules again she’s gonna take it out on them. If I leave and they find out I’m missing, there’s no telling what’ll happen to my friends.”
    “You can’t make yourself responsible for what she does. It’s not your fault.”
    “I still can’t go with you.”
    “I won’t take no for an answer.”
    “I CAN’T!!!!” Piper screamed. She didn’t have the strength to fight the pain and J. at the same time. “If you try to take me, I’ll scream and I’ll let ’em know what you’re up to. You won’t get more than two feet out that door before they’ll be all over us.”
    J.’s clock was counting back from thirty and he began to pace back and forth and pull at his hair. Piper had the distinct feeling he was itching for a cigarette by the way his fingers were twitching and going to his mouth, like he was expecting to find one dangling there.
    “She’s already brainwashed you. If you let me take you out of here, I can fix that.”
    “No.” No matter what, Piper wasn’t going to hurt anyone else ever again.
    J. visibly deflated and sighed with defeat. Rushing to the clock, he quickly unwired it. A simmering rage seemed to bubble up inside of him. “We don’t have the resources she has. Every day she stamps out another species, snatches another kid, and we have to sit and watch her do it.” Suddenly he violently punched the wall. “What will become of us?”
    “I’m sorry.” Piper wept miserably.
    J. ran a hand through his hair, sorting through the rubble of the debacle. “It’s not your fault. I was too late. I should have found a way to get to you sooner.” He gathered up his bits and pieces, shoving them aimlessly into his backpack.
     Piper didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t be sorrier or feel worse. After J. put the last of his instruments away, he picked up Betty’s white linen handkerchief off of the floor and held it in his hand. He ran his fingers slowly over a tiny embroidered bluebird.
    “I’ll be back for you, Piper.” J. had steely resolve in his eyes and he gently placed the handkerchief in his pocket closest to his heart. Slowly he began to fade, and then he disappeared altogether. The room appeared empty, but J.’s voice was close by. “I’ll find a way.”
    After J. departed for good, Piper was left with only Sebastian and the terrible pain to keep her company. Through the darkest hours of the night, she bravely waged her silent battle. It wasn’t until dawn approached that her last reserves of energy dwindled. Her breaths came in short rasps, and Sebastian drew close.
    “The—pain—” Piper whispered to Sebastian, “it—I . . . can’t.” She wanted to apologize to Sebastian for not being able to save him, but was too weak to talk. Sebastian watched as her body went limp. Beside himself, he jumped up and down, but Piper remained silent and still. In desperation, Sebastian stood upright on his hind legs and inhaled deeply. Opening his mouth wide, he began to sing—not with the voice of a cricket, but with the deep, rich sounds of an operatic tenor.
    
“I have seen the coming of the dawn.”
    Sebastian’s voice was so extraordinary that Piper’s eyes flickered and then opened, and she managed to focus on the little black cricket singing his heart out.
“Unconcernedly watching the passing of the day,
Whiled away my hours in joyful play—
I live to simply sing the song of love
And play the music of my heart—”
    The music filled up every space in the room and then spilled outward through the vent, and quickly traveled through the entire facility of I.N.S.A.N.E.
    In the laboratory the silver giraffe raised his head, listening to the music. Stretching his long neck so that he could press his ear right up to the vent on the ceiling, he drank in every note. The red rose, no longer feisty, paused in its coughing to listen to the music.
    In the facility’s main security room, sensors promptly notified Agent A. Agent of the sound disturbance. He instantly activated the silent alarm and reached for the phone. “Dr. Hellion? Yes. We have another situation.”