Chapter 61

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Friday 17th December 1999

It’s Lucy again! I know, about time, right? I’ve been busy being awesome, didn’t have much time to do this.

“So what’s changed?” you must be asking! You’re gonna like this if you’re anything like me, and if you’re anything like me, you’re an absolute star and you deserve tonnes of good things and a medal.

Now, where to start…? Oh! I’ll do that cool thing where they drop you right in on the action!

“We caught Melody!” I cheered down the mobile to Alex.

“Whu- What?!” he blurted.

“Yeah, earlier! We got back about half an hour ago, Nathan said I should probably let you know,” I explained.

“How did you- when did- what?!”

He’s so eloquent, isn’t he?

“How did I when did what?” I repeated with a laugh.

“I’m very confused, Lucy…”

“Melody was doing evil things and we caught her, how is that hard to understand…?” I said as clearly as possible just to help him out.

“I mean… I guess it’s not exactly hard. We beat her twice before…” he sighed. “It’s just pretty out of the blue.”

“And that’s mad since you’re the one in blue!” I teased him. “I dunno, she showed up so we went out and got her.”

“You’re sure it’s not a trap, right?”

“Uhm, if it was, it didn’t work, we caught her-”

“I mean you capturing her…”

“Interrupting, rude!” I pouted. So what if he couldn’t see it? I’m sure he could picture it from the way I spoke.

“If she was planning for you to take her in…” he said, all thoughtful and concerned.

“We took a weird route back and switched from helicopter to car to make sure we weren’t followed, and Dom put a clampy thing on her scythe, what else could she do?” I asked, knowing there wasn’t even an answer.

“I guess… just be careful, okay? Don’t get too comfortable around her… and hopefully you’ll get to come back soon…”

“Awww, you miss me!” I cooed at him and smiled brighter.

“You saying it like that makes me want to not admit it…” he grunted back.

“Too late, you basically just did!”

Rin poked her head around the corner, giving me a concerned look.

“Gotta go now bro, seeya soon!”

“Bye, stay safe-”

I hung up on him.

“Sorry, Alex, can’t spend all day listening to you saying goodbye,” I said, shrugging and shoving the phone back in my pocket.

“Lucy, come on!” Rin urged me.

“Chill, we’re good,” I told her as I strolled back down the hall and out to join her. Maybe two seconds passed and then Adam appeared, all stern and serious.

“I assume nothing’s happened?” he asked Rin.

“Been quiet as an old people’s home at night,” I answered for her, saluting.

“What she said… but not as weirdly…” Rin confirmed.

“Rin, I’d like you to continue standing watch,” Adam spoke with that rumbling voice of his. “Lucy… so long as you don’t cause any mischief, you’re welcome to stay with her.”

“Ooof, I mean, Mischief is my middle name, but hanging out here with my bud Rin sounds like a good way to kill time…” I smiled at him.

“I’m trusting you’ll be on your best behaviour,” he said, like he was warning me not to do anything else. Then he headed down the hallway I’d just been in, to the last door on the left, opened it, walked through, and immediately closed it again.

“I know what you’re about to do and you’re not allowed,” Rin told me immediately after that.

“Rin the psychic!” I gasped.

“Seriously, Lucy, just stay here with me and-”

I’d heard enough, and turned to walk down the hallway, stopping when I reached the door (duh, otherwise I would’ve walked into the wall).

“Lucy!” Rin hissed after me under her breath. I ignored her.

I put my ear to the door.

“It’s fairly simple,” Adam was saying. “I can’t have you causing mayhem with ‘a shadow of Lokonessence’. Not when that all leads back to me.”

“Ah, okay, you feel a sense of responsibility.”

Melody Hill, Little Miss Amazing (Academic Division) turned glorious monster revolutionary.

“This isn’t about protecting people, it’s about making sure you’re not the man who it all traces back to.”

“The responsibility is in making sure nobody abuses my work,” Adam rumbled with the same tone he’d just used on me. This time, somehow, it made me shiver.

“Excuse my presumptuousness, but you have a very broad definition of abuse.”

“Lokonessence is a force of creation. It isn’t meant to be weaponised, and it’s certainly not meant to be bastardised and used for purposes as destructive as yours.”

“Adam, I appreciate that you’ve dedicated your entire adult life to the study of Lokonessence, but I’ve been living with it for over a decade. You understand it as a preternatural force; you don’t understand it as a self-aware entity. And,” she added sharply so he wouldn’t interrupt her, “my purposes are only destructive in as much as you have to destroy to rebuild. You’re making it sound like I’m only interested in chaos. I have a greater end-goal.”

“I’m really not sure that you do, Miss Hill.”

And then either nobody said anything for a few seconds, or I temporarily went deaf. Probably the first one.

“I’m flattered you think you have a good sense of my personality after all of two minutes of conversation-”

“It’s more than that. I’ve read about you. I’ve taken in enough about you to recognise, under the circumstances, that you’re a psychopath.”

“And there’s no place in the world for a psychopath, is there?” Melody asked him bluntly.

Another brief silence, though I thiiink I heard Adam sigh.

“Then I’ll humour you, and ask you this: what is your end-goal? Beyond your rhetoric of rebellion.”

“A world of monsters,” she said with so much lustre that I almost barged in and swore loyalty to her right then and there. “I don’t think you could ever really understand, Adam, but it would be a world of absolute freedom. No more stigma. Life how monsters want to live it. A world where your teen soldiers and I aren’t judged for our abnormalities. Is that not fair, Adam? Are we not allowed that?”

“Revolution has never been the answer,” Adam declared. “Meaningful change – lasting change – can only come slowly, incrementally.”

“No, not this. They can accept different races, they can accept people being gay… they might not be all the way there yet, but I know how things have changed. Us monsters, though… they find us inherently repulsive. It’s not something time can fix. Not something that the next generation will think of any differently than this one. We have to make the change by force.”

“They’re mental illnesses, Melody. They can be cured.”

“I will never let myself be ‘cured’ of who I am,” Melody growled. “We are not ill-”

“Chemical imbalances, slight irregularities in the brain… Lokonessence can bond with you because of the instability-”

“Listen to me.”

Her words cut right through Adam, and the door.

“We aren’t weak. We aren’t in need of fixing: we’re not broken or ill or in the wrong. You’ve proven my point beautifully by saying otherwise. That view won’t change in a thousand years. And I refuse to let it oppress us for the rest of time. Let me make myself clear: the new millennium is ours.”

“Lucy, come on!” Rin whispered harshly from the other end of the hallway. Almost ruined my concentration…

“I’m afraid your rebellion has already come to an end. You’ve spearheaded this on your own, haven’t you? I can’t see you having shared the full extent of your plans with any of your followers, and the likelihood of even one of them having the charisma and dedication you carry seems remarkably slim to me,” Adam said as I pictured him giving a triumphant fist-pump.

“It really looks that way, doesn’t it?” Melody replied cheerfully. “You’ve got me tied up in here, and you’re blocking my scythe… and there’s no way anybody could know where you’ve brought me… that you know of.”

There was a brief pause. I don’t know her especially well, but I think she was letting that sink in.

“I’m not bluffing. A little marking behind each ear is all it takes for them to track me. Lokonessence really is a remarkable thing, isn’t she? The things she’s capable of… not that you’d know, spending all those years viewing her as nothing more than a force of nature. You don’t see an ounce of what she can do. That’s the real reason she loves us more than you.”

I heard Adam walk across the room.

“Now you find them,” Melody chuckled a moment later. “Any minute now, Adam.”

My amazing spy-play was over at this point. I heard Adam charging for the door and I backed away so he wouldn’t run right into me. It swung open and he glowered at me.

“Get your Contact Suit on,” he commanded me. “Rin, you too. And the others. As fast as you can. Melody’s followers are about to raid us.”

“Never been ordered to strip before!” I cheered, rushing off down the hall while Rin dashed ahead of me.

“I’ll get Clay, you find everyone else!” Rin said once I caught up to her. “They’re probably in the common room-”

“Chill out, I’ll find them easy-peasy!” I assured her, making a beeline for the common room. I zoomed in like Sonic the Hedgehog or something and, luckily, I found Nathan, Kayleigh and Will all sat there. They had shocked looks on their faces, which makes sense since I’d rushed in so quickly and suddenly.

“Christ, knock first!” Kayleigh grumbled.

“No time, Melody had secret tracking markings and her people are coming here! We’ve got to suit up and kick butt!” I told them, and then I ran back out and started making my way to the changing room.

Is it weird that I didn’t feel scared or nervous or anything like that? I was kinda excited, but mostly just ready for action. It seemed fun, y’know? Fighting people at the country house. Home turf!

I was the first to reach the changing room, and quickly stripped down to my underwear. Nathan, Kayleigh and Will arrived right after that, and I dunno, it was all a rush as I put on my Contact Suit and they undressed and Rin and Clay showed up…

As soon as we were all suited up, we stormed back to the main hall, aaaaand dude. I had no idea Melody had so many people on her side. The big doors had been smashed through, and monsters were scrambling all over the place like ants. Unsurprisingly, the six of us got noticed pretty quickly.

“Clay, come with me, we’ll try and keep them away from Melody,” Rin said shakily.

“And the rest of us stand here?” Will asked.

“Force them out,” Nathan concluded.

“Sounds good to me!” I cheered, dashing down the stairs with my knife in-hand. Two men moved to intercept me, so I used my momentum to bowl into them. They fell backwards in slow-motion and knocked over a few more people that were rushing over.

“Hellooooo, ladies and gentlemen!” I called out, spreading my arms wide. “Thanks for stopping by but we’re not ready for guests right now, come back in a decade or two!”

“Shut up, shut up!” one monster snapped at me. “This ain’t your place now-!”

A sphere of Lokonessence cut him off, sending him sprawling. I turned to see Nathan throwing another, and another, out across the hall. Not all of them hit anyone, but some did. Rin led Clay off for the room Melody was in, and I spotted a few monsters going to follow them.

“Ignore those two, they’re probably gonna go make out or something,” I told them, skipping after them. “Play with me instead!”

One of them – a woman probably three foot taller than me – turned around with a furious glare. The others kept running.

“Alright, let’s play, traitor,” she hissed.

“Whoa, whoa, traitor? I was never on your side to begin with, missy!”

“You should be,” she said, before punching me square in the face (well, sort of, cos our Contact Suits have that little Lokon field around them so at least she didn’t break my nose or something, that would suck). I lost my footing and collapsed to the floor, and she stomped on my wrist, making me drop the knife.

“Cut it out!” I snapped at her, and went to kick, only she caught my foot. So I threw a sphere at her face and that sent her tumbling backwards. Fortunately, she let go of my leg when she did. I jumped back to my feet, picked up the knife and ran past her to follow the people following Rin and Clay, but she grabbed my ankle and brought me to the floor too.

“Do you really wanna mess with a girl with a knife, Humonga?” I asked, shifting about to watch her raise her free hand up, prooobably to grab my other leg. Apparently, she did want to mess with me.

I threw my knife right into her palm. All that training finally paying off!

She screamed out in pain, and I moved around a little more to kick her in the face. With that, she let go of my other leg. I quickly grabbed my knife back out of her hand, making her scream more.

“See, if you can’t play nice, you’re just gonna end up getting stabbed in the hand and kicked in the face,” I lectured her. “Didn’t you learn this kind of thing at school?”

“Ggghh… bitch…” Humonga gurgled between wails.

“Where?” I asked, looking around pretending to look for a dog. Then I remembered what I was trying to do in the first place, and skipped off down the hallway. More intruders to extrude!

“Lucy,” I heard Dom’s urgent voice, and I turned to see him peering at me through the narrow space in a half-open door.

“Hi Dom, can’t stop, place is under attack!” I told him.

“I know, come here quickly!” he said. I shrugged, and skipped into the room, his workshop place. Before I even had a chance to say anything, he grabbed my left arm and clicked a handcuff into place. When I looked, there was a silver briefcase attached to the other end.

“They can’t get their hands on this,” he explained while locking the cuff around my wrist. “If things go well, then there’s nothing to worry about, but if they…”

“Some of them were heading towards where Melody is-”

“If they take this place, then you have to run away. Take this and run,” he finished. I’d never seen him this serious.

“We’re gonna fight them off, Dom, chill out-”

“Think about it. Melody let you capture her so she could lead her followers here. They aren’t here to retrieve her, they’re trying to take us out as a threat. They want Mr Montgomery.”

He stopped looking at me, letting his gaze wander off.

“We should’ve… I should’ve thought of this… I should’ve seen it coming…”

“I’ve just got to keep this safe, right?” I checked, raising the arm with the briefcase. Man, it was pretty heavy.

“No matter what,” he nodded.

“Got it! You chose the right monster for it!” I saluted with my other hand but making sure I didn’t stab myself in the head. I dashed back out of the workshop, but then I stopped. If Dom was right, then finding Adam was more important than keeping Melody captive. The problem was, I had no idea where he’d been for the past five minutes. Maybe he was still with Melody, but he could’ve been anywhere else in that huge building too. Except for where Dom was, obviously. Or the hallway I was in. I had my eyes open, I could see he wasn’t there.

There was a secret staircase that led upstairs… so maybe Adam had used it, and maybe none of Melody’s monsters knew it existed? So long as Nathan, Kayleigh and Will had kept the main stairs clear, nobody should have gotten up there.

I made a mad dash for the entrance to the staircase (by the way, do you like all the different ways I’ve been saying “running”?), and barrelled up them (there’s another one!). Now I just had to explore, and see if Adam was around.

“Adam! Are you heeeere?”

I mean, that’s the easiest way to find someone, right?

“You have to tell me if you are! You’re in grave danger! That’s such a weird term, it’s not like you’re in danger in a grave. If you’re here, can you tell me who came up with that? I promise I won’t forget and keep asking like the last thing… … which I’ve forgotten again… was it ‘freeze the balls of a brass monkey’?”

I didn’t hear anything from him as I walked around. That could only mean he wasn’t there, because he loved explaining where weird sayings came from. Even if he was hiding, he’d have to burst out and tell me everything he knew about it.

I turned a corner and found Melody, stood in her Painter costume (not that she’s a Painter, but I dunno what else you’d call it), holding her scythe. She was smirking.

“You’re a little too late, I’m afraid,” she said.

“Nah, it’s just gone arse-kicking o’clock, I’m right on time,” I replied, waving my bloody knife at her.

“You can’t save him.” Err, hello lady, I just said I was going to kick your arse…

“Sure I can, I save posh old men for breakfast.”

“I’ll leave you on tenterhooks over whether he’s even alive or not…”

She started walking towards me. Like a tiger prowling closer.

“I think it’d be more fun that way. Because let’s face it: none of you are so loyal that you’d try to fight your way through me to get to him if he is alive. You can scurry away with your tails between your legs and leave this place to me.”

“Are you kidding? I like that man like a grandfather!” And then I shot a sphere of Lokonessence at her.

She cut through it with her scythe.

“I’d love to study your suits, too… but I’ll have to make do with the schematics and prototypes in the workshop. Assuming Dominic isn’t destroying all of those as we speak. From what I’ve heard, he’s not really the type to do that.”

She’d almost reached me. I took a step back to be safe, and she used that opportunity to slash towards me, letting out a sizzling arc of white light. It struck me, and seemed to surge through my Contact Suit. I stabbed forward, but missed as she dodged me.

“Go and grab whatever you don’t want to leave behind.”

“How did you even escape?” I asked her with a bit of a growl. “Didn’t Adam have you tied to a chair or something?”

“He did.”

“Did someone already get to you before we saw- well, I guess you wouldn’t know what happened first unless your powers give you all-seeing eyes…”

Another step back, and another step back, as she kept advancing on me.

“This building has two back doors, Lucy. Not everyone came in through the front. If any of your friends are trying to guard the room I was in, they’re guarding nothing.”

“Y’know, all you have to do is win the lottery or work hard for about fifty years and you could buy a place like this, you don’t have to steal it…” I grumbled.

“But now I have this, and Adam Montgomery is out of the picture,” she countered with a bigger smirk. “Now, you have a choice. You can stay here and join us, or you can get out of our house. Which is it?”

“Option 2, if you’re so hung up on this idea that we have to turn the world upside-down just to be who we are.”

“We do.”

“Nah, I don’t care what other people think,” I told her proudly. “You’re right that we shouldn’t have to change, but I’ll be who I am without changing the world.”

“Then you’ll live your life being scorned and avoided,” Melody replied with a pitying look. She swiped towards me with her weapon, and I only just managed to get away; when I tried to fire a Lokon sphere at her, nothing happened.

“Your suit is deactivated. Try and fight your way to a man who might be dead with nothing but a knife, or run while you have the chance.”

“Fuck me, you’re so annoying!” I yelled, before swiping at her with the briefcase. It made contact with her head and knocked her to the floor.

More monsters turned up right then, because of course they did. And I realised I had a decision to make. I could keep running around, checking in every room and looking for Adam, and then have half a chance of finding his dead body. If I did that, I’d make it harder and harder for myself to escape. And I was carrying the briefcase now. Dom had entrusted me with it and I couldn’t let Melody or her guys and girls have it. Getting away was actually the better option. The briefcase was more important than Adam, apparently.

I scurried off, quickly heading for my room. I stuffed a few things in my big backpack – the little teddy I got for my birthday, things like that – and then I did something very kind and went into the others’ rooms and packed whatever I thought they’d care about the most too. Rin’s little book of poetry and her family photo, Nathan’s fancy camera, I even went in Clay’s room and took down his crazy death metal posters. And once I did all that, I sprinted for the main stairs, where Nathan and Will were still trying to fight off some monsters.

“Guys, Melody’s won, Adam might be dead, and we have to get out of here now!” I shouted out as I zoomed past them, even taking someone out with the briefcase.

“What?!” Nathan asked.

“We leave or they kill us, Nathan!”

Like, was it that unclear?

“I’m gonna find the others and tell them!”

“Tell us what?” Rin asked as she and Clay came running back up the hallway they’d ran down a few minutes earlier. “We know Melody escaped-”

“And now it’s our turn!” I said, trying to be as quick as possible.

“Are those my posters…?” Clay muttered. Obviously he’d seen them poking out of my backpack.

“You’re welcome! Someone find Kayleigh and let’s G-O!” I clapped on the G and the O because holy crap why was no one listening to me?

“I’ll look for her, the rest of you-” Will said before turning to fight another monster.

“I’ll go,” Clay grunted. “Help Will and then get out.”

He strode off down the hallway again.

Nathan turned and launched a sphere at Will’s opponent, knocking her away.

“I had her, but thanks,” Will scowled.

“Okay, okay, out we go!” I yelled as I rushed for the broken open doors, straight out to the dark, cold evening, and running on and on. I could hear more footsteps following me, which I was really hoping were Nathan, Rin and Will. I got halfway down the long road that leads to the house and then turned around, with my three friends catching up and joining me.

“Why did we stop…?” Nathan asked, panting just a little.

“To wait for the others,” Rin answered. We watched the house for what felt like ten minutes before Kayleigh and Clay came running out at top speed.

“Thank god…” Will sighed quietly.

And then – and I’m being deadly serious – there was an explosion from the left side of the house, rumbling like thunder, blowing out windows. Even I jumped.

“What the…?” Rin muttered in shock before Kayleigh and Clay caught up with us.

“I think that was Dom,” Kayleigh told us straight away. “He was heading for the workshop when we were leaving. Probably blew it up so they wouldn’t get his data.”

“Is he okay…?” Nathan asked. “Like, do you know if…?”

Kayleigh shook her head.

“I don’t think he’s the type of person who’ll blow himself up with his work, though.”

“Maybe he’s trying to find Adam…” I suggested. “Melody wouldn’t say if he’s dead or alive, and I would’ve looked for him but Dom gave me this…”

I showed them the briefcase.

“And he said they’re not allowed to have it. So getting out seemed like the better choice.”

“I hope they’re okay…” Rin whimpered.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Will asked, looking at the rest of us in hopes of an answer.

“Get as far away from here as we possibly can,” I proposed, and I was so satisfied with that idea that I immediately turned and began walking towards the trees that surrounded the area. “Quickly, before they come after us.”

…

We walked through the woods for a few hours, with no idea where exactly we were going, and we wound up finding a little cabin which Kayleigh broke into for us. There were a couple of lanterns inside, so we weren’t completely in the dark, and I emptied out the backpack. Everybody was super-glad that I’d grabbed some of their things, but we all agreed it would’ve been great if I’d packed food too. Hindsight’s a bitch. Maybe Humonga was talking about that after all?

I’m not sure why I couldn’t sleep, but I was still awake at some very dark hour while Kayleigh sat in the doorway and smoked. She was meant to be keeping watch, but I got the feeling she wasn’t too interested in that.

“Is it my turn yet…?” Will’s voice spoke up in the dark.

“Beats me,” Kayleigh replied. “You can keep me company if you can’t sleep.”

I heard him moving about, and figured I’d pretend to still be asleep. As much as I wanted to join in and annoy them, I couldn’t find the energy.

“I was really worried they’d gotten you for a minute…” he told her. She just chuckled.

“They’d have a real fight on their hands. Nah, I was busy… getting this.”

“… you stole a floppy disc?”

“Yeah, Will, you know how much I love floppy discs…” she snarked. “I went into the workshop. Copied everything I could onto this. All of Dom’s crucial data. All the knowledge he took with him when he left Nick. Now it’s ours.”

“… meaning… we’ve got what we wanted…”

“Finally. Only took us a year. I’d offer up a toast if we had drinks.”

“Wow…”

Will let out a little amazed breath.

“What next?”

“No clue. We’ve got all this shit to deal with first. Let’s stick with the others until this blows over. Provided you’re not still looking to stab me in the back or-”

Then, I heard a kiss.

“That’s not a ‘no’, y’know…” Kayleigh purred a few moments later.

“I guess,” he spoke.

“The future’s ours, Will. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives.”

Don’t tell anybody about this part, dear reader. It’s a secret!