The other man, the not-Yusef, haunted our conversation, “Do not let him know.” I proceeded to explain how such an artifact could be created.

“Tell him to rest under the shade in case he can understand.”

The man complied, failing to see how those words should have been my first.

“This is the power I can give you.” His mouth salivated.

“Give me water. . . feed me meat, and I will reveal the one secret I held back from your king.

 

He brought me the strips of horse flesh that sweltered in the sun, flies screaming at the robbery of their bounty. Meat was all I ever needed-- all my lies, truths and manipulation were for this very purpose.

 

As I stood, with the bones of my hand piercing his gut, his blank expression faded without ever understanding. I had drawn for him epics of the old powers, described the artifacts and the Book of Light, but he failed to realize I wouldn’t never dole them all out. Of course I would leave at least one for myself.

 

As his life blood spilled, I became me again. His flesh yet another bounty. My body knit anew.

 

-Whole, Still Hungry

 

###

 

I’m sure you regret the choice you made this day Joshua but you see now with perspective don’t you? Your slavish self-indulgence to the ‘good’ ended up saving your life.

 

            Joshua crawled out of the tent and thanked the Father Night for its merciful, meager, four inches of snow. They had hiked along the mountains parallel to the road for five days, deep enough into the massifs to not see a living soul, save for one helicopter which forced them to submerge below the snow drifts. But that was two days ago.

            Now, Joshua snacked on a granola bar and looked down below as the snow-haze cleared. The tent was back in the mountains still standing; the plan was to hide away in the wilds for a night or two if today’s operation went less than clean. And anything involving Joshua and Kael never was.

             “You see those black dots there?” Kael asked.

            “No.”
            “Right there.” Kael pointed to a lea that the road below their cliff cut through. “People. Maybe a gate behind them?”

            “Sorry for not being able to feel where people are.”

            “Not today. If there are Syches here, I’m going in cold for as long as possible.”

            While a simple jump into the snow was tempting, the brothers hiked a quarter mile west before finding a workable route to the base. Even closer now, creeping along the cliff face with snow up to their chests, the sharp edges of a building and surrounding compound came into view. Even closer and the white letters of A.R.P.A. shown through the early morning light plastered on a blue sign print, little waves etched into the background.

Kael grunted, looking at the closed gate. Supremely climbable. “Do you have a plan for when we get in? Syches or no Syches, no one is going to let us roam about.”
            “Oh I have a plan. When do I not have a plan?” Joshua laced his hands together and brought his index fingers up to his lips. “A wonderful, festive plan.”

 

Joshua Rasgard partook in performance art. Not the pretentious, showy kind. Merely the slow, self-absorbed, self-entertaining kind. He whistled a merry little holiday tune and pulled his hand-knitted scarf tight. His work came to a stop– as did the snowball he rolled– struggling to lift and place it on top of the snowman. Little by little, his masterpiece came together, and little by little, he grew increasingly frustrated.

He had jumped the gate easily enough and now had only to prepare the way for Kael. Nothing lay beyond the gate except for an expansive parking lot parking lot with three trucks. As well as loading bays on the east side. In other words: a shooting gallery.

So Joshua cursed under his breath. He expected to be caught. He wanted to be caught. If his brother really was correct about this compound at the edges of the wilderness, then a gaggle of black cloaked Syches should have been dragging Joshua towards a meat hook for some advanced interrogation already.

            “Perhaps I should have picked a warmer medium,” Joshua muttered, teeth chattering. Shrugging, he peered around the concrete square for something resembling arms.

As Joshua walked around to the trucks, the doors slowly flung open against the snow and two newcomers garbed head to toe in black robes, hastily throwing on their gloves or tossing up their hoods, bound into the lot. Joshua snapped two windshield wipers off and proceeded back to his snow person. He noticed the two figures stalking him with a befuddled wonder, but pretended not to see.

Joshua got to the snowman and shoved one arm in. They stepped forward. A second arm in, a perfect snowman if you ignore the slapdash face made from dirt.

Hands like iron vices clamped down on his shoulders. Just try and pull me away from the snowman. Oh they totally can if they wanted to. Crap.

            One of them ignored Joshua’s struggled his eyes under the hood glazed over, looking around with them seeing nothing. That was the rub, getting Kael past someone with a built-in human detector. Or maybe the rub was not dying. What’s a rub anyway? Joshua thought.

“Who are you?” the other guard bellowed, wrenching Joshua’s arm at an excruciating angle.

Actual questions, I’ve got this thing nailed.. They couldn’t see it, but under his scarf, a thin smile crossed his lips. In a mock accent Joshua began zee answer, “I am how you zay, un arteest. Ow, ow. Zis is, eh, my art ere,” the boy motioned extravagantly to the snowman. “This znow in zis very plaza. Ohhhhh! It is just vat I need for–”

His blathering never found its conclusion as a burly fist plunged into his gut. He uttered one final guttural gasp and hung loosely between them like a roasted pit on a spit.

###

            “Why is there a random Syche in the mountain?” one guard asked the other as the steel toe of his boot crunched into Joshua’s thigh, knocking him about like a foosball player.

            “Just go put him in with the others,” the first man shrugged, letting go and causing Joshua to sluice into the snow. “New boss can decide when he arrives.”

            The second man struggled with Joshua’s lanky body: additionally having to pull it out of the snow and trudge all the way to the doors. “I'll send for backup.” He shot over his shoulder before disappearing into the dusky grayness of the building’s interior. The one who remained put his hands under his armpits and looked around; he was no combustion Syche and didn't appreciate the cold, let alone the headscratcher that was this boy: Some smart alec brat in the mountains? Who was a Syche no less? That’s what he had to be thinking, Kael knew. The dark robed man’s entire being jittered with disquiet, clearly knowing he should pick up on something going on.

            He flared his powers, pushed them out as far as he could. Tried to feel the distant mountain crags, tried to suss out the dangers hiding in the far-away shadows. His brain fought back against the strain, sent a fissure of pain through its core that felt like it would bisect his mind. The strain of these powers was intense at the best of times. Through swimming vision and tinnitus wracked ears he should be able to feel everything within the energy he sent out.

            But he couldn’t feel much further, because the power that had been in the air before was still here; the Syche was still here.

            It was the sort of realization that happens instantaneously, instinctively. The kind of thing you need a few seconds to understand. But that extra time never came.

            In a maelstrom of ice and snow, the giant bottom ball of the snowman burst open and Kael javelined out. He took the black cloaked assassin by the neck and together they felt into the snow.

###

            Inside of the aquatic research facility (although Joshua was becoming skeptical if that’s what this place really was), his captor grunted through brightly lit, empty hallways taking turns seemingly at random followed by descending some crudely hewn stairs in black stone. Opening the next door, the man stepped into a narrow corridor where a faint, electric hum hung in the air. In a chair immediately to his left sat a man in his mid-twenties. He wore similar black clothing, but nothing covered his face and stringy blond hair. The caves weren’t warm, but they were habitable.

            “Open one,” Joshua's captor ordered sharply.

The prison guard nodded, flipped a switch, and the humming ceased. The man dragged Joshua through the narrow corridor. The screeching rend of twisting metal revealed an open cell which Joshua was promptly tossed through with no concern to his well being.

As the groan of metal sounded alongside receding footsteps, Joshua spat dirt and straw, adjusted the arm he had landed on. Daring, he squinted one eye open: alone in a claustrophobic earthen cell. He rolled on his back and groaned, both hands caressing his abdomen. When Joshua came up with this plan to get inside, Kael had pointed out that he would end up being knocked over the head (“Not that a serious brain injury would change you much.”). Joshua supposed this was better, but in the moment that offered no consolation.

Coughing and groaning, Joshua sat up with clenched fists and used his feet to scoot himself against the nearest wall. The light was dim but he was already adjusting. Actually, it was bizarre they had a literal prison, and one underground to boot.

 Across the aisle, in two separate cells, sat two other people: one a dark-haired, tanned skinned girl resting against the hard stone, the other an older gentleman, huddled in the corner wrapped in a tattered blanket. Joshua couldn’t take his eyes off the girl, and not for the usual reasons. The black robes of the Dark Element covered her. Ripped, blood stained and dirty.

Why?

The faint and high-pitched buzzing vibrated through the cell bars once more. Somewhere down the hall, Joshua heard echoing footsteps that he took to be his captor leaving.

            “Is he gone?” Joshua signed. The girl and the man nodded. Joshua rubbed his stomach, massaging the pain away. “Name’s Joshua Rasgard, pleased to meet you. I’ll be your hero today.”

            The man in the corner hugged his blanket tighter and looked away; however, the girl gazed at him with her deep hazel eyes, almost transfixed.

            “I’m Gianna, what did they get you for?” she asked. A little too enthusiastically, completely ignoring the invitation for silent speech.

            Joshua chuckled at this. “They didn’t get me. I snuck in here.” The old man grumbled. “It still counts if they helped me sneak in here. I got in, and that’s what counts.” Joshua waited for a response, but the man had given up any pretense of conversation. “Fine. You in the rags. Doctor Bartholomew, correct?”

 “Is this some kind of new torture?” he moaned.

            “No…?” Joshua dawdled. “No,” he said more forcefully. “Here’s the deal, we break you out of here; you answer all of our questions. And I mean all of them.”

            “But who are you, and how did you even find me?” At leas this guy understood the value of silence.

            Joshua sighed as his foot tapped and fingers fidgeted. “It would be horribly redundant to explain. Let's just get you out of here and you can go see your daughter.”

            “My daughter is here?”  

Emilie was waiting in the tent, true enough, but that shouldn’t have been the Doctor’s assumption. Joshua would have liked to believe they lived in a world were most people were smarter than his brother.

 Joshua shook his head and paused turning back to the outside of the cell as a new pair of footsteps rang down the staircase. “And here we go.”

            The door down the hall squeaked open and a newcomer dressed no different than any other assassin, slunk into the room, their hood drooping and face obscured more than normal. In three steps, the figure crashed into the prison guard, knocking him down and sending him off on a tirade.

            “I’m so sorry. I'm so sorry,” the new voice said timidly. “I’ll be even more careful next time.” There were some more sounds of clutter as the footsteps began again. The new person shuffled by the cells with a shine between his index and middle finger. With the flick of the wrist, a small iron key sailed through the vibrating bars and into the cell. And then he was gone.

            Picking up the key at his feet, Joshua turned to his captive audience with a grin. “And this–" he paused for dramatic effect– "is how we get out." His voice oozing self-satisfaction.

            “And just what does that go to?” Gianna, apparently completely indignant to the concept of silence, asked with a hint of smugness in her voice.

            Joshua double taked at Gianna's seemingly contradictory moods before carrying on. “The cell door, obviously.”

            “What door?” Bartholomew asked. He was being loud now too.

            Joshua stared at the solid bars transfixed looking up and down for a keyhole, a padlock, anything; it was solid metal from bottom to top. His smile transformed into a look of pure bewilderment in an instant. “Then what does this key go to!?” Joshua yelled.

            The man in the chair stirred. Joshua screamed down the other way: “Kael! Get back here! The key does not open the cell! I repeat! I cannot open the cell! Code red!”

            Kael had stopped, just about to turn the corner. Joshua could swear he heard his brother’s teeth grate as he slowly turned to face the guard that sprinted down the hall, swooshing past Joshua.

            “Are you kidding me, Josh?” Kael shouted back as he sprinted around the corner. The guard rounded the bend in pursuit.

            A bright light and loud crack split the air; a body flew back into view and crashed into the wall. The jailer crumpled on the spot, embers glowing on his chest, steam rising off his skin. Kael walked over to the downed guard and lightly and politely stamped on his chest. He sauntered up to the bars and glared at Joshua.

“You idiot, there is no room to dodge in this corridor. He could have killed me.”

            “Well you had to go and give me a key that doesn’t work,” Joshua shot back. “Learn to take responsibility for your own mistakes.”

            “You didn’t realize it either until I told you,” the girl behind Joshua noted sadly.  Her speech always off with what she was saying.

            “You can shut it!” Joshua spat back. 

            “Whatever you say, hero,” the girl answered.

Joshua glared at her for a second unable to decide whether she was mocking him or genuinely nuts. The tone and inflection of her words, her general mood? They were on a roulette wheel. Almost replying to find out if it was a joke at his expense, he instead turned back to Kael. “It’s electrified so you can go ahead and shut that lever off over there,” Joshua said.

The electrification was smart. Other sources of energy, if relatively high enough, interfered with Sychakenetic powers. A Metal Syche couldn't bend the bars with the voltage coursing through the beams, a Combustion Syche couldn't blow it up: it was the same principle that stopped Syches from affecting humans directly, their life force interfering with the powers.

            Without speaking, Kael looked back to Joshua and nodded. Joshua’s eyebrow raised in turn. Kael’s head bobbled from side to side to a second before holding up five fingers which prompted Joshua to nod once again. This wasn’t a hand dance or any real type of communication; they just knew. The plan was once again in motion. Kael walked to where the guard previously sat and threw the lever, and the dreadful humming ceased. His job done, Kael turned heel and disappeared down a smaller hallway and into the abyss.

            Bartholomew stood up now and clasped his hands together. “I take it you two have a plan?”