The Girl Who Chases the Wind

Chapter 24: No Going Back

Despite the alarm, I could still hear Ada in my ear above the din telling me, “Stay with him.”

I jumped up as Feldon did and matched his alarm with my expression. I tried to ask questions, but he waved me off with a hand, saying, “Probably nothing.” His expression said something different. He looked rattled.

I persisted, but he wasn’t listening. Following him soon became impossible as he closed the door to his office, sealing me inside. I banged and yelled through the wood, met only with his muffled words, “Stay here” and nothing more.

Hitting with both fists, I slumped and turned away. Ada explained, “Good. We knew he’d do that. Worth trying to follow him but this is better.”

I tried to form the words only in my head for Ada, but it came out as an idle mutter, “What’s going on?”

Edgar took the opportunity to explain, “It’s the containment alarm. It’s the procedure Kala set up in case of Memetic Crystalline spreading beyond where it should be when active. False alarm but enough to get Feldon’s attention.”

Anticipating my next question, Edgar added, “The whole room, even the door, is lined with an inhibiting agent for Memetic Crystalline, that’s likely why Feldon told you to stay here. But this room, like Aura’s, should have access to the lower levels. Look for something which seems out of place.”

That wasn’t terribly helpful, but I began my search with the stacked papers behind Feldon’s desk and started working my way around the room. There was far too much to focus on though. Too many books, too many shelves. Too much….oh. The shelves.

Indeed, there seemed to be too many shelves, to the point that books seemed to run together and repeat themselves. Actually, they did. A side row had the same books in it three times. I pulled on the one at eye-level and a latch clicked behind the shelf.

The bookshelf swung back with a gentle push, revealing a hidden corridor. I scoffed at the opening but quickly stepped through it. The elevator was just a short ways back. It was the same design as the one attached to Aura’s room but much smaller. Only intended for one person at a time. I pressed the button marked “Air”, a silvery door unfurled to seal the elevator, and I quickly descended.

When it stopped, the elevator opened to a brightly lit but narrow corridor like the others Feldon had shown me below the surface. I leaned out to glance left and right. I didn’t see anyone else, so I made my way out of the elevator and down the hall.

While I had Mari’s jotted down plan in my head and what Ada and Edgar had told me so far, a lot of that was left for me to fill in. I paused and waited a long moment for some voice in my ear. With the dense, uncomfortable silence, I started moving down the hallway till I came to a junction.

Looking down each path, I noticed there were white flashing lights further down. Some sort of silent alarm. Probably why there was no one down here. Perhaps they’d evacuated. At least the lower levels were still negative pressurized.

“Left.” Finally, words from Ada again. I immediately took a left and followed the corridor all the way down until I came to a laboratory area with frosted windows. I remembered it. This was where Feldon had brought me last evening, only it was on the other side respective to where we’d been.

The nearest door hissed open and Mari poked her head out. She gestured for me to follow her through. We passed through a series of doors until we came to an area near where Feldon had shown me the control system he used. Mari gestured to the crystalline strings and said, “He has several fake systems planted around, but this should be the real one. All the backups are in here. All access is through here.” Ada filled me in on the details.

“This is where Feldon makes his adjustments. It’s normally not accessible to anyone but him. But, in an emergency containment situation, the security procedure permits access by anyone. Of course, getting here is not the problem. The problem is I’m not completely sure that I have control of the air systems. Fortunately, Mari is with you. Lily is nearby too.”

I noticed her quickly. She was through the frosted glass and in a room next to the one we were in. She leaned up against the wall with her arms folded. I looked around the tables for something sharp as I said, “We need to cut the access.”

Ada seemed to agree, but she cautioned, “I’m not sure whether there’s a further fail safe. Kala is paranoid but taught Feldon well. He might’ve included something we haven’t even found. We need to stick to the plan for now.”

What plan there was…I took a breath and still picked up a pair of surgical scissors tucked away in a side drawer. Aside from the web-like blue lines of the control system, the main backup of the complicated formula for producing Memetic Crystalline and its sibling compounds was displayed right next to it.

Stretching my fingers through the console, I soon found it was possible to issue a delete command to the entire system. I held my breath.

“STOP!”

Feldon’s voice cut clearly through the silence, even with those thick walls. I whirled around to see him, his eyes wide and his fists raised to the glass. It was clearly too thick for his hands to beat through. I didn’t see Lily.

Mari stepped closer with her arms stretched out and yelled, “It’s too late! It’s in your child's hands.” No pressure.

I steeled my resolve and glared back at Feldon. He shook his head slightly and asked, “How could you do this?”

Really, I should’ve just shown him. Not a word. Not a breath. Just one motion and it would’ve been done. But I drew back my hands and told Feldon, “How could you choose who you wanted me to be before I was born? How could you choose to define what is right and what is wrong? Maybe I’m just following in your footsteps.”

Feldon clenched his teeth. I could see shadows of people running around behind him as he said, “They’re not choices I would ever make lightly. If you make this choice…you will have to live with the consequences. You don’t want to do that.”

I snarled back at him. “Do you think I don’t know that?...They don’t deserve this. But none of us deserve to be controlled by someone who thinks they have…the best intentions.”

Slowly, Feldon’s body relaxed and he quit pressing against the glass. His expression was reserved as he said, “I love you, Rachel….Leslie…Logan…whichever name makes you happiest to hear. My child. There has to be another way.”

Hearing him say Logan and feeling like he was on the verge of uttering “son” did soothe me, but I remained vigilant. “I want there to be another way. I want you to just give up this project and make good of what you’ve done. You’ve done so much good and this spoils it. But I know whatever you might promise for later is only as certain as the glass separating us.”

His eyes dipped as his hands slid across the glass. The alarms still blinked at regular cycles. He spoke quietly but loud enough to be heard through it. “I know. Sadly, I know. I want to be a good man. But I can only be who I am and I would set fire to the entire world if it meant there would be no more people like those who slaughtered our family…those who would let children suffer and die without a second thought.”

I thought about the children above my head. Did Feldon see me as one of those same people? I asked him and he clenched up, vehemently denying, “Never! I know you already. I knew you when you were born. I’ve seen your writings. I’ve known you these scant but vital days. It’s so much less than it should be. but I know my child.”

I looked to the console and asked, “So, you know what I’m going to do?”

I could hear him behind me as he said, “Despite what you might think, I am not inside your head. I can only hope for what will happen.”

I took a breath, looked over the controls, listened to an instruction from Ada, and moved my hand. Was it really my hand? It was hard to believe. I stood there and operated the controls. I issued the command to shut down all the connections of control and I destroyed the archives. And all it took was a single motion of my hand. Such a small thing to connect the fates of millions.

The console immediately blackened, and the strands evaporated. I looked to Mari and she bowed her head after a solemn nod. I heard a long sigh behind me before Feldon asked, “How could you? How?”

I took a deep breath and told him. “With many second thoughts. With a mind full of doubt. With a heart knowing how much good you’ve done and could do but realizing it’s too dangerous.”

Feldon pressed his hand along the glass. “I am still a little surprised. I respect your resolve despite everything you know...But I couldn’t allow you the burden of that choice.”

My eyes widened as I realized his words and what they meant. “What did you do?”

Tapping a bit of glass, Feldon brought the console to life again with the same image. “I respect Kala, but Kala has taught me to share in their same paranoia. I knew about her involvement along with Edgar and Lily. I almost let you do it. I pondered it sleeplessly. But I couldn’t let it happen.”

I pushed forward, I tried to make Feldon think I was the ringleader, but he quickly waved me off. “No need. I know the details. I think no less of any of them. They did what they believed right, same as I have always done.”

I nearly made my way to the glass before Mari’s hand reached out to pull me back. She told me, “It’s over. I’m sorry for getting you involved.” I turned back, while clutching her hand. “No. I made my own choice.”

Feldon watched calmly and manipulated the glass to open a door on the side. “You may leave now, if you wish. I’ll tell the staff it was a security test program that malfunctioned. They still need to get ready for a surgical guest.”

Still clutching Mari’s hand, I asked, “Guest?” Feldon gave me the base details and I started to piece together the implicit meaning. The Russian president, the one he’d kept alive despite advancing age and turned into a humanitarian, was coming for special surgery.

As Feldon said, “His implanted Memetic Crystalline has been acting up recently”, I very much doubted it was a coincidence. It wasn’t long before Lily made her way over to us. She looked fine but with tears pooling around her eyes. She hugged me and Mari and apologized over and over. We learned she had tried to provide a distraction to Feldon in the form of a series of very eager questions and even attempted to cling to his legs.

I pushed Lily and Mari both behind me and stated, “Don’t you dare do anything to them.”

Feldon’s gaze crinkled with surprise. “What do you think I am?”

“I don’t know what you are…”

More than anything else, those words seemed to rattle him. He tightened his lips and said, “Then, I will have to show you…”

Carefully, he looked to both Mari and Lily. He addressed each in turn and said he “held no ill will”. He also seemed to speak to Kala and Edgar/Ada, though they were unseen. I didn’t know if any of them could hear through my earpiece, but I hadn’t heard a voice from it in quite some time.

He spoke a little of Memetic Crystalline and focused on words of regret that so many things were “incomplete”. His gaze even found me at this point. I could see, fleetingly, the doctor who delighted in children feeling better and curing the seemingly impossible. A sense of melancholy concerned me though and I had to ask, “Are you going to do what I was going to do? Are you going to shut down the Mantlemay Project?”

Feldon took a deep breath and said, “In a way, it concluded when I finally found you again. Things will have to change. And there is no going back...”