Infinity Reborn (The Infinity Trilogy Book 3)
Read Infinity Reborn (The Infinity Trilogy Book 3) Online
Authors: S. Harrison
ALSO BY S. HARRISON
Infinity Lost
Infinity Rises
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 by S. Harrison
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Skyscape, New York
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503933460
ISBN-10: 1503933466
Cover design by M. S. Corley
CONTENTS
***BREAKING NEWS UPDATE***
THE SEARCH FOR THE BLACKSTONE FIFTEEN CONTINUES
International authorities are continuing their efforts to locate thirteen students and two teachers after they failed to return from a high school field trip. The fifteen individuals departed this morning from Bethlem Academy, a prestigious learning institution near London, England, and sources at the school have informed us that they were scheduled to visit a research-and-development facility allegedly owned by Blackstone Technologies. Those same sources have also told us that two of the missing students include Margaux Pilfrey, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Charles and Olivia Pilfrey, heirs to the Pilfrey’s department store empire, and Brody Sharp, son of Hannah Sharp, senator of California. All efforts to contact the missing have failed, but the school’s jet was tracked to a privately owned airstrip near the border of the eastern European country of Luvania.
Rare pictures of the supposed facility can be found on the net, but the identity of the person who took those photographs and the location where they were taken remain unknown. The fact that the jet was found near the border of the notoriously private nation of Luvania does suggest that the facility may indeed be located somewhere in its untamed wilderness.
High-ranking Luvanian officials are denying any knowledge that such a place exists within their borders, and every government surveillance agency we’ve approached has refused an interview at this time. The apparent ineffectiveness shown by international governments in resolving this matter quickly has resulted in many of the world’s most powerful parents threatening to violate international law by illegally sending retrieval teams into Luvania to mount private searches for their children. In an attempt to quell the escalating tension, the chairman of the United Alliance, Nicolas Tenzin, is advising caution:
“We must all tread carefully to discover the whereabouts and ensure the safety of the children without making this disagreeable situation even worse than it already is. I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for what has happened, but even if there isn’t, first and foremost we must keep calm. Panic and unsubstantiated rumors help no one.”
Chairman Tenzin may be quietly optimistic, but that certainly hasn’t stopped the rumor mill from churning. There have already been whispers of a mass kidnapping, and if that turns out to be the case, the kidnappers may very well ask for the world, because the parents of the thirteen missing students certainly have a very sizeable chunk of it to offer. Richard Blackstone, CEO of Blackstone Technologies, is currently unavailable for comment, but we will be sure to keep you informed of any further developments concerning the whereabouts of the Blackstone Fifteen, as they come to hand . . .
CHAPTER ONE
Absolute terror.
So powerful I can taste it.
Jonah steps from the doorway toward the bed, and the small dark box of a room seems to close in around me. I try to move my arms, but my wrists are strapped to the metal frame and jolt against their restraints. He takes another step, and I screech at his lumbering silhouette.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!”
Ignoring my plea, Jonah slowly reaches a hand toward me. I stare wide-eyed at his outstretched fingers and recoil in horror. Jonah’s hand inches closer still, and I tug helplessly at my bonds as a familiar and sickening feeling of dread surges through me. Suddenly the room bursts into stark white light as a horrific memory spews forth from the depths of my mind. I’m fifteen years old again, strapped to a chair in sublevel nine. There are machines against the walls and surgical tools scattered on the white-tiled floor, and Jonah’s hand is grasping a large metal ring with wires twisting from it. My whole body is paralyzed. Tears are running down my face from eyes that I’m unable to close. Carlo is lying on a table behind Jonah, his hair matted with blood. Nanny Theresa’s body is lying on the floor, her tongue a limp pink slug between her pale dead lips.
“Just like it never happened, Finn,” Jonah says as he puts the metal band on my head. “I’ll fix your memories. Wipe this whole day clean away. I promise.” His voice drips like warm syrup, and his consoling smile sends shivers through every atom of my entire useless body. I unleash a desperate scream, and suddenly the room is small and dark again.
Jonah steps forward once more, reaching out to me with an open pleading palm. This is a man who I looked up to, who I thought of as more of a father than my real father could ever be. Jonah was a loving, caring man who raised me with a gentle hand. But now, all that has been brutally erased, only to be replaced by the searing visions of the atrocities he repeatedly forced upon me. I struggle, but my wrists are bound, jolting and straining at my sides, the brief flash of that horrific memory from two years ago serving as a cruel reminder of who this man
really
is. Jonah used to be my hero, but now my broken heart longs for the Jonah I once knew, not this monster towering over me in the dark.
“Calm down,” he says as he gingerly approaches. “You’re safe now.”
“WHERE AM I? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?” I rage at him.
He’s getting closer. I try to kick out at him, but my ankles are strapped to the bed frame, too. As my eyes adjust to the light from the doorway, I can see his shadowed face. His forehead is lined with worry, his eyes glistening with concern. His hand is getting closer. The thought of him touching me makes my stomach clench with disgust. My fear rises and curls inside me like a cresting wave, and as his fingers brush my arm, the wave smashes against my stone heart and explodes into burning red shards of scorching hatred.
Fire spears through my limbs, and hot blood rushes up my neck into my face. Adrenaline floods my body, turbocharging my awareness and electrifying my senses, causing time to slow to a crawl. Jonah’s futile cooing reassurance becomes a lagging, vibrating mumble of stretched syllables. In my imagination I can already see my fingers wrapped around his neck, choking the breath from him, but far deeper still, in the part of my mind that lets my lungs fill on their own and makes my heart beat without thinking, I can feel the cells of the bones in my arms hardening as the muscles wrapped around them expand and tighten.
Roaring with anger, I curl my fingers and power surges through my arm as I thrust it forward. There’s a metallic ping as my wrist breaks from the restraint and life snaps back to full speed as my hand streaks through the air and grabs Jonah by the throat.
With wild shock flashing through his eyes, he grasps my wrist with both of his big hands and wrenches my hand away. He stumbles and staggers back toward the open door. Like a demon unleashed from hell, I throw my head back and scream at the ceiling as I forcefully pull my left arm across my body. With a loud snapping sound the other restraint breaks away from my wrist. My fingers scrabble at the straps around my ankles. I quickly free one foot and then the other. Jonah grabs the door frame and steadies himself.
I glare right at him and see his big brown eyes. They’re the same, but I can never look at them in the same way again. When I was little they used to be so kind, peering over the top of a book as he sat on the rickety green chair beside my bed, reading me a story as the fire flickered in the hearth on a snowy winter night. He always wore the same style, a black suit, white collared shirt, and sky-blue tie, and I remember how he would drape his suit jacket over me when I was cold or sad or when I just needed to feel special. To feel loved. And I did feel special. I was loved. At least . . . I thought I was.
But it was all a lie. He strapped a machine to my head and stole my days from me over and over and over again, but much worse than that, now even the happy memories I had of him have been torn apart, ground into the dirt, and smeared with filthy deception. My childhood and trust have been completely destroyed by a man that I cherished, a man who I thought I knew better than anyone else in the world. Now that man has become a complete stranger.
A liar.
A thief.
A two-faced betrayer.
Tears of anger and loss stream from my eyes as I coil my body like a spring and pounce across the room like a hunting jaguar. The flimsy paper gown I’ve been dressed in flurries around me as I slam shoulder first into Jonah. We both burst through the open door into the next room. Jonah falls heavily onto his back, and spittle flecks my face as the wind thumps from his lungs. I pin his arms to the floor with my knees, and my hands blur as they spear toward his neck, gripping his throat with a vise-tight death lock. My limbs feel powerful and beyond my control, like my bones and joints have been replaced with iron rods and hydraulic pistons. Primal rage sears through me, and I wail through gritted teeth as I tighten my stranglehold even more. Jonah’s eyes bulge in their sockets, and veins swell on his temples as his face begins turning a deep shade of blood-flushed red.
Die. You. Bastard.
I don’t know how he does it, but he manages to lever his arms out from underneath my knees, then quickly raises his hands and grabs my forearms tightly.
“Stop,” he hisses breathlessly. “Stop!”
I struggle against his hold and wrench my arms free. I roll off him and glance from side to side, taking in my surroundings as Jonah spasms with coughs and retches. I’m in a medium-size room with a gray concrete floor. The low ceiling is covered with rows of bright lamps positioned over long tables of potted flowers and seedlings.
Jonah slowly hauls himself to his feet, grabbing the edge of a nearby table for support. Strings of saliva drip from the foam at the corners of his lips. He wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He doesn’t look concerned or worried anymore. Now his expression is stern and serious, just like it used to be during our training sessions in sublevel one. I saw that look for the first time on the front steps of the house when I was thirteen years old. I’ve seen it many times since, and I know it well. It’s his military face. His “do what I say or else” veneer.
“Infinity One!” he booms. “Stand down. That’s an order.”
I snatch a gardening trowel from a table beside me and thrust it threateningly in his direction. “Let me out of here!” I screech.
“Infinity One, stand down, right now!” he bellows.
“Stop calling me that!” I scream. “That’s not who I am!”
I can’t stop the tears streaming down my cheeks. My hand gripping the handle of the trowel is shaking uncontrollably.
Jonah leans forward and stares at me. He frowns and looks me right in the eyes, studying my face. All of a sudden his expression changes again. His eyes soften, and his shoulders slump. He looks sadder than I’ve seen anyone ever look before.
“Oh, Finn,” he whispers. “It
is
you. The neural scans told us you were back in control, but when you attacked me I thought—”
“SHUT UP!” I shout. “I remember what you did to me the day that Carlo died! I know that you’ve been messing with my head since I was a little kid! You screwed up my mind and made me a killer! You’re a monster, and you made
me
into one, too!”
Jonah’s face drops. He looks like he’s been kicked in the stomach. “I . . . I can explain, sweetheart.”
I jab my makeshift weapon toward him and growl from the depths of my soul. “You don’t get to call me that. Ever again!”
I hear the sound of footsteps hurrying this way, and there’s a blur of movement as someone dashes into the room behind Jonah. Suddenly I see big brown doe eyes, a freckled button nose, and that oh-so-familiar heart-shaped face appear from behind Jonah’s bulky frame. I’m so glad to see her that all my anger instantly melts away, but it’s replaced with unexpected surprise.
With her flawlessly pressed white school blouse and tartan skirt, her thick black-rimmed glasses, and a computer slate permanently attached to her hand, she used to make me think she was some kind of robot nerd, designed to study and programmed to do homework. In the three years that we’ve shared a dorm room, she has always been up and dressed in the morning long before I am, and she hardly ever seems to sleep, so I’m taken aback when it suddenly dawns on me that I’ve never seen her wearing anything other than her ever-present uniform. But now her glasses are gone, and she’s standing there barefoot, in boxer shorts, wearing a t-shirt that’s three sizes too big. She looks like she’s just leapt out of a shower, her usual frizzy hair slicked wet and dripping on her shoulders. She’s the same person, and yet somehow everything about her is so strikingly different. It sounds crazy, but she suddenly seems more human to me, more real. It almost feels like I’m seeing my best friend for who she really is for the very first time . . . and she’s so beautiful.
“Bit?” I whimper.
I drop the garden trowel, and it clatters on the floor. Bit quickly pushes past Jonah and runs straight at me, nearly knocking me over as she collides with me and squeezes me in a tight embrace. I wrap my arms around her and sob. I usually hate being touched, but right now, a hug is
exactly
what I need, and I grip my friend even tighter.
“You’re awake.” Bit sighs, her voice laden with relief. “I was so afraid for you. We almost lost you so many times. I thought you were going to die.” Bit pulls away and looks into my eyes, and then she smiles with a huge beaming grin. “Welcome back, Finn.”
“Where are we?” I ask shakily, scanning the room.
“We’re underneath Blackstone Technologies,” she replies. “You were hurt; we brought you down here, and Dr. Pierce tended to you. Do you remember?”
“I . . . I don’t know. Everything is hazy. Dr. Pierce . . . does he have a beard . . . and glasses?”
“Yes, that’s him,” Bit replies. “He told me he used to be the gardener at your house or something like that. I mean, that’s what he said, but from what I’ve seen, he seems a little overqualified.”
“Graham. His name is Graham,” I murmur.
“Yes. What else do you remember?”
“It’s . . . it’s all fuzzy and patchy,” I mumble. “I vaguely know what happened. I mean . . . I remember snippets of it, but, it’s all . . . murky.”
Bit smiles and nods. “Dr. Pierce said something like that might happen. It’ll come back to you. I’m sure of it.”
I look over at Jonah. “What is he even doing at Blackstone Technologies?” I say, snuffling as I wipe the tears from my eyes.
Bit glances over her shoulder at Jonah as he undoes his tie and pulls it away from his neck.
“I was already here, Finn,” he croaks. “I was training a new team of young people who—”
“A new team of
killers
?” I seethe at him. “More brainwashed assassins to do your dirty work?”
Jonah actually looks hurt. “No . . . no, I swear. They’re a specialized rescue unit that I’ve—”
“Shut up,” I growl. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie.” Jonah takes a deep breath and lets out a long, dispirited sigh.
Bit looks awkwardly flustered. “What’s going on, Finn?” she asks as she looks back and forth between me and Jonah. “Is everything OK?”
Now is not the right time to explain my sordid history with that traitor, so I decide to lie instead. “Yeah, everything is fine.”
“Are you sure?” asks Bit.
I take a deep, cleansing breath, and I can feel my heartbeat normalizing. Part of me still wants to rip Jonah’s head from his body, and my skull feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton wool, but besides that I’m genuinely surprised that I actually feel . . . kinda great. “Yeah, I’m good,” I reply with an amused smile. “How long was I out?”
“Almost four hours,” Bit stammers.
“Why was I shut in that room, and tied to that bed?” I ask, looking over at the still-open door.
“About an hour ago you started screaming and thrashing around. It was pretty disturbing. We had to strap you down so you wouldn’t hurt yourself. Jonah, I mean, Mr. Brogan and I took turns watching you, but you were scaring the others so Dr. Pierce suggested that we move you in here.”
“The others?” I whisper. “Is everyone OK?”
“Yeah, a few of us made it down here,” she murmurs, her eyes glazing over with a film of tears. It’s not the vague answer I was looking for, but for some reason she forces a smile and leaves it at that. The subject is obviously too painful for her to talk about right now, but whether my memories clear or I see for myself, I’m gonna find out soon anyway, so I decide not to push it.
“Well, I’m glad you’re safe,” I say, changing the subject for her sake.
Bit grins at me. “Oh, I’m so happy that you’re back, Finn. Brody has totally been following me around and bringing me cups of cocoa for no reason. Oh, and he also fabricated these clothes for me. Look, this t-shirt has Einstein printed on it. Because I’m smart, he said. He’s so weird.” Bit rolls her eyes as if she’s annoyed, but I see a hint of a smile flicker on the edge of her lip.
Brody and Bettina? She’s right; that
is
weird. Bit is way too good for that dim-witted jock. Never in a million years would I ever have imagined that he would be the one to make her smile like that, but it seems like Brody has been a welcome distraction for her, so I can’t help smiling as well.