Into the Dark

It was another early morning of work for Ken that day. He toiled endlessly, but the rhythm of it, the regularity, had grown to be somewhat pleasant.

May had left earlier in the day to go for a walk. Ken thought it would be helpful for her, he’d encouraged it. Though, he wasn’t sure where she’d gone.

She’s capable of keeping herself safe, he thought. Although, with the cropping up of new organized crime syndicates here and there what seemed like every week, he couldn’t help but worry. He prayed silently that she was just heading to the café.

“Ken, did you diagnose that problem with your software yet?” came Irina’s voice from his laptop. The conference call had been active for an hour already, and it was only 8:30. Ken took it as meaning that Irina was feeling the pressure, and wanted more tangible progress to signpost their nearness to success.

No such signs had revealed themselves yet, though the nature of the phenomenon was more concrete.

“I… didn’t get the chance yet,” Ken replied while fixing some other code. “Also, the particle simulations take hours and hours to run even on a beefed up system like this, so once I let you know—once I get to it—it’ll probably be a day or two before it runs successfully.”

“Can’t you just… ship it to the cloud or something?”

Ken thought about it. “Probably not. Not with our meager budget, and a lot of the major cloud offerings are being clogged up or shut down.”

“What have people been doing with it?”

Ken shrugged. “Lots of trying to upload consciousnesses. Which I don’t really understand, because even if you did, the one in the computer isn’t you. It’s like you, but—” He cut himself off. “Sorry. Anyway, yeah. Cloud… probably not gonna happen.”

“Is money the only issue otherwise? Bills won’t be a problem when we’re dead.”

Ken nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Good point. But I would rather avoid it. Death by extirpation or death by poverty, your choice.” Ken launched the website for one of the cloud providers, and said, “I’ll check it out regardless, though.”

He minimized the conference call window.

A metallic crash burst from the speakers, followed by a screech of feedback. He quickly switched back to the call. “Irina?” he asked.

She was turned around, standing.

And in the door to the lab stood an obscured figure. They wore a sort of cloak, the hood drawn up over their head so the uncertain light of the lab cast shadows to obscure their features. Though the cloak obscured most everything, Ken could tell they were relatively short, and slight of frame.

Then, as though wanting to be identified, they pulled back the hood.

A mask covered their face. One Ken had seen before. A mask with a spiraling design, giving an uncanny bending effect that made him nauseous as he looked at it.

The figure spoke with a distorted voice. “Hello, Doctor.”

The feed cut to black. The call ended.

“What?” Ken asked. He’d nearly forgotten about that day. About Irina’s old secret office, and the confrontation that had transpired then.

He pulled open one of the drawers of his desk. With a thud, the gun slid to the front of it, underneath a stack of papers. He grabbed it, quickly releasing the magazine to ensure it was loaded, and then checking that the chamber was empty, as he expected.

He wasn’t sure what that person was there for, but it was nothing good. They had been trying to steal Irina’s research then, and now… they’d found her personally.

He hopped out of the office, grabbing the crutch he’d leaned on the wall just outside. “Alice?” he called up the stairs. “You there, honey?”

“Yeah?” she called back. “I’m reading!”

“Something happened with your mother! I’m going to go check on her!”

He heard scrambling and bumping as Alice presumably sprang from her bed and to the door. “What happened to Mom?” she asked. “Is she alright?”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” he lied. “I just… want to make sure.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. You’re staying here.”

“How am I gonna know what’s happening if I don’t come?”

Ken paused. “You…” He clenched his jaw, looking up at her. “Fine. You can come, but if I tell you to wait somewhere, you wait, okay?”

Alice nodded, running back toward her room around the corner.

“And get out of those PJs!” he called after her.

———

The streets were much more empty than they had been when the incident at Opal Tower had happened. It was funny how panicked things got when a simple change like schools closing happened.

Ken had learned to walk quite quickly in his time with a crutch. His prosthesis had not been processed or made yet, and he doubted it ever would, what with the end of the world looming just over the horizon.

“Dad,” Alice panted, struggling to keep up. “Are we almost there?”

“Sorry, honey,” he said, himself struggling for breath a bit—it had been a while since any of them had done much in the way of exercise. Luckily, a completely empty bus had arrived right in the nick of time, but it had still dropped them at the stop a few blocks from the lab. “We’re about a block away now.”

Alice nodded, huffing as she kept with his relatively fast pace.

Adrenaline coursed through him. With every stilted step, his idle hand brushed past his waist, running along the outline of the gun “holstered” there. He prayed it was redundant to bring it.

But in his mind, he saw the image of the figure. She’d moved impossibly fast, closing a 30 meter gap in but a split moment. At the time, she’d been relatively docile, as had her companion. But… seeing her entrance, and hearing her voice as she spoke to Irina, the atmosphere this time was clearly different.

At long last, they arrived at the corner of the alley. Ken stopped, nearly flying past it in the frenzy of his mind.

He held up his crutch, stopping Alice, and shepherded her into a small awning of a shop just next to the narrow passage. “Stay here.”

“But—”

Ken hardened his gaze—not difficult, given the situation. “Remember our deal, Alice.”

She froze, locking eyes with him. Finally, she nodded.

Then, he started down the alley.

The door at its end was open. Ken could see to it, but not inside, thanks to the difference in light levels. He crept up as quietly as he could manage, considering the crutch, and slid along the wall to the narrow gap just to the side of the doorway. With a deep breath, he poked his head around the corner, peering inside.

Though his eyes took a moment to adjust, everything was surprisingly orderly. There was no sign of anyone, though. The room was completely still.

“Shit,” Ken muttered. He stepped out into the doorway, descending the couple of steps just beyond it, and ducked into the darkness of the lab.

The state of things seen from inside didn’t tell him much more than he’d already seen. He scanned his eyes over the room. The shelves were all in order. Some things were moved around, but not more than was reasonable. All the lab benches were empty. But on the floor, peeking out from behind one of the tables was a heap of disorderly papers.

Ken approached it cautiously, teetering over to it. He lowered himself using his crutch and a table onto one knee.

The papers were… old, and trivial. Research that would never matter again. Not anymore.

“Doctor…” croaked a voice from behind him.

Ken whirled around, struggling to his one good foot as fast as he could manage.

“Who’s there?” he asked, looking around.

“Doctor…” came the voice again. From… the shadows cast by the stairs. Ken leaned over, trying at a better angle.

In the deep shadows, lying deathly still, was Irina’s quiet attendant, Marcel.

Ken hurried over, tossing his crutch aside. Using the stairs, he fell into a clumsy kneel.

The man’s wounds were dire, from the looks of things. His legs were broken… clean fracture of the femurs, by the look of their twisted state. Outside that, he was beaten to a bloody pulp: blood yet ran from his nose and lips as Ken studied him. To his side, clutched limply in his hand, was his cane, snapped in half. It was held together by a couple thin strands of wood.

“What happened, Marcel?”

“Doctor, you… she took… her…” he sputtered, gasping between words for quick agonal breaths.

“Marcel, slow down!” Ken shouted, reaching to grab the man and hoist him up, but stopping to avoid risking further injury. “What happened?”

“That… woman…” Marcel rasped, words snagging in his throat. “Took her… up!” He turned his eyes to the ceiling.

“Shit!” Ken muttered. “I’ll get her, Marcel. You stay here!” Ken drew his phone from his pocket, dialed emergency services, and placed it into Marcel’s hand that rested in his lap. “Tell them!” he called, hopping over to his crutch, and starting across the room.

The door to the staircase at the back of the room, unused in his brief tenure working with Irina on this, was held slightly ajar by the draft running through. A door was open somewhere. Presumably at the top—where that woman had taken Irina.

So Ken started to climb.