mystery_sim | JENNY: ONE (Reply)

JENNY: ONE

Glabe Curious knew they had to leave.

Every day, for the past eighteen years, she had known. While they had napped, just over there on the couch, with little bears and baby dolls tucked under one arm, she had known. As they laid out tea parties on the living room rug, she had known. Each time she looked at a family picture – any family picture they had taken – she could see the knowledge churning in her own eyes, just under the surface, ever-present but completely silent. Except for once, on their tenth birthday, when she had cried because there were officially fewer years together ahead than were behind them.

And today, of course: the day that they were to do the leaving.

“Happy birthday, Lola,” she whispered, lighting the last candle on the first cake. Striking a new match, she lit the first candle on the second cake and said to the empty house, “Happy birthday, Chloe.”

The military vehicles rolled up on the suburban home in almost complete silence: no lights, no crackle of the radios, barely even the crunch of wheels on gravel. The metal beasts rolled over the front lawn and flower beds, stopping just short of rolling into the building itself. The drivers killed the engines.

Two people, a man and a woman, stepped down from the vehicle that had lead the pack. They signaled the occupants of the other vehicles. As silent as they had been in their approach, the recruits unloaded from the backs of the massive transports. Hollow beams of flashlights darted around the lawn, still damp from last night’s rain, and for a moment the swish-swish of gear jostling against hips filled the air.

But then total silence descended once again like a heavy weight, everyone having reached their positions.

Like predators in the wild, eyes trained on the alpha beast, the recruits waited for the signal to storm the home.

From the corner of her eye, Glabe caught the first sliver of white light, cutting through her tightly drawn blinds. She thought she was prepared for this. For the past eighteen years… She thought for a moment that she had imagined the light. How many times had she woken herself up in the middle of the night, trying to keep these searching lights out of her house? Glabe stared directly at the front window and waited.

But there it was again: the sliver of light, darting from one side to the other, as a soldier’s flashlight passed.

All of her preparation, it seemed, had done nothing to cushion the fall of her heart into the pit of her stomach.

General Missy Grunt, the woman who had given the signal to her men, stood at the back of her vehicle, her husband close at hand.

“She’s desperate. She might be armed,” he said, taking care to keep his voice low.

“They always ‘might be armed.’ That’s why we’re armed.”

“That’s why we let infantry go in there first,” he grunted, shooting her a warning look – one that she returned, quickly and ten times stronger.

“Insubordination isn’t a good look on you,” Missy warned with a slight smile.

She squeezed his hand and motioned to the recruits to move up.

Kitty Curious scampered across the slats of wood that she supposed had been laid as a bridge. They bowed beneath her bird-like build so that each step spat droplets of murky water at her boots. On her way across, she completely expected one of the planks to snap in half. But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t. And once her feet were planted firmly in the sand again, the bridge vanished from her mind – like the half a dozen near-death experiences that had followed her up the mountainside tonight.

She raised her lantern, casting the dim candlelight across the landscape. Just like they had said she would find, there was a crater at the top of the mountain. And in this crater remained the equipment of the excavations, which had stalled long ago enough for the whole place to go to hell. Rust, exposed wires, rock slides.

“Of course he sent me,” Kitty muttered at a pair of chairs that looked to have been abandoned mid- break, judging by the rusted out lunchboxes stuck in the sand beside them.

She slapped at a small flutter on the back of her neck – which she could only assume had been yet another mosquito – and hurried across the crater to the decrepit crates the workmen had left behind. She set her lantern on top of one.

From the moment she made contact, the first box gave a little jolt. A brilliant, green light burst forward from between the slats. Beams radiated out from the holes and cracks in the wood.

Missy closed the door and tried not to look at anything – anything that would make this place seem like more than a criminal’s lair. Instead, she looked at Glabe – and tried to see anything in her that would make her seem like more than the criminal.

Of course, there were the two birthday cakes set out on the counter. Presents, piled on the kitchen table. The blue glow of the computer, still open to one of the girl’s homework assignments. Bills, stacked on the shelf. And the pictures – the pictures were always the worst. Missy balled her hands into fists and forced herself to ignore them.

“Where are the girls?” she asked in a stern voice.

“Gone,” Glabe snapped. “Safe.”

“The house is surrounded. There are enough men on that lawn to take you, your children, and all of their kind. It wouldn’t even be a fight,” Missy warned. “Blow the candles out. Let’s go.”

“Don’t get there hopes up for nothing,” Glabe hissed grimly. “Let them in.”

“Come on. You don’t want to make any more trouble than you already have for the girls.”

The handcuffs jingled, as Missy took them off her belt. Glabe’s heart surged in her chest at the sound.

“General, please. You know what will happen to them if you do this. You are condemning them. You wouldn’t do that to your son,” she plead.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back,” the General ordered, calm but stern.

When Glabe refused, Missy took her by the arm and spun her around herself.

You have to hold out, Glabe plead with herself, gritting her teeth against the instinct that rose up inside of her – the compulsion to fight the arrest; to fight the General, one last time. You have to hold things together here.

Missy cinched the second handcuff tight around Glabe’s wrist.

“Glabe Curious, on the other side of that door, you will be placed under arrest and charges for acts of treason against the nation of Ritland,” General Grunt announced. She leaned close to Glabe’s ear. “The best you can do for your daughters now is cooperate. Tell me. Where did you send them? Where are Lola and Chloe?”

General Missy Grunt took Glabe by the arm and steered her out the front door. Glabe stepped out first, into the field of flashlights. They leapt all over the front of the house, converging on her face the moment there was movement at the door. Glabe squinted against the flood of bright white and naturally recoiled against it. But the General forced her forward and motioned toward two of the recruits.

“Conduct a search of the property!” the general shouted over the front lawn of military personnel. “I want any persons found on the premises to be taken into custody and subjected to questioning.”

Kitty stood frozen to the ground, staring up at the sky, expecting for a flying disk to descend from behind one of the clouds. The light had to be some sort of summoning beacon. But if it was, no one was responding, Kitty realized. Which means they’re still counting on me.

Two hours’ worth of dust and sweat was caked on her skin. Didn’t even give me enough warning to buy the proper wardrobe! she lamented and shrugged off her button-up. She knelt in the dirt – And ruining the wardrobe that I do have! – and peered through the largest gap in the crate. But all she could see was the brilliant light, slowly pulsing, brighter and dimmer, then brighter again. She maneuvered her hand through the hole and felt around the splintering slats for a way to open the box.

Glabe froze mid-step, her foot barely over the threshold to her home.

“Don’t keep making this mistake,” the General warned. “Stop resisting. It’s over.”

But the order was lost on Glabe. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she pitched over sideways, having lost all feeling in her limbs. The General stumbled forward, trying to keep her grip on the hand cuffs. But Glabe’s body was ripped out of her hands as it crumpled to the lawn.

The General followed her down, dropping to her hands and knees in the middle of the yard.

“Glabe,” she called, her heart surging in her chest as she shook her by the shoulder. “Glabe!”

She heard her husband give orders to the recruits – “Everybody stand down!” – as he broke away from the line of vehicles and dropped to the ground beside her.

“What’s happened?” he demanded gruffly.

“She collapsed,” she snapped obviously. “Roll her onto her back.”

“Did they get to her?” Chip asked, the disgust evident in his voice.

And even though the same question had flashed across Missy’s mind when Glabe collapsed, hearing someone voice it still gave her chills. She was about to say that she didn’t know – that she had been in her custody the whole time, but that didn’t mean she had been safe. That’s what we’re fighting for here, Glabe, she worried, grabbing a handful of the girl’s blouse and helping turn her over. This is why we’re doing everything we can: to keep our people safe, you included.

“Missy,” Chip’s voice, low and grave, cut through her concern.

“Not that the world will ever know I saved it,” she complained bitterly. “No thank you cards. No muffin baskets. No –”

Her thoughts about a ribbon-cutting ceremony was interrupted as warmth wafted at her face. The deeper she reached into the decrepit crate, the more it felt like her fingertips were being roasted. Instinct begged her to withdraw her hand. But he’s counting on me, she remembered. They’re all counting on me. Gritting her teeth, Kitty shoved her hand deeper inside the crate.

Missy followed his wide-eyed stare to the body of Glabe Curious: dark lines had appeared on her bare legs. Veins, she realized. Her veins have gone dark.

“Everyone get back,” Chip barked.

But Missy couldn’t tear herself away. Her heart surged in her chest as, right before her eyes, the darkness seeped along Glabe’s veins like oil climbing in a straw. She felt Chip’s hand squeeze and pull her arm, trying to draw her away to safety.

“She was a victim,” Missy realized, short of breath and the horror evident in her voice. Her hand found Chip’s, still camped around her upper arm. “We didn’t protect her. We said we would protect them. But we didn’t protect her.”

The symptoms had spread to the rest of Glabe’s body now: a maze of dark, pulsing veins pressed against her skin. They merged at the center of her chest, where something else was forming in her skin: the shape of a diamond, about the size of a child’s hand. It was as if someone had inserted the thing beneath her skin, and now it was pressing its way back out.

As soon as Missy noticed the diamond, it lit up with a bright, green radiance. The light shot out from the diamond, down Glabe’s swollen veins.

“Missy!” Chip shouted, his voice a warning, as the other recruits recoiled from the strange infusion.

But Glabe’s veins filled in a matter of seconds. And the moment the last drop of green filled the last space in her veins, the green light was overwhelmed by a red light that burst from her body, a hundred times more brilliant.

The green light flashed, turning red.

Heat roared at her body, drawing moisture from her skin.

Then Kitty’s body was sent flying backwards.

Missy felt grass slam against her hands and knees. A heat more intense than what any of them had ever felt before pounded against any bare skin, so strong and so sudden that their bodies hadn’t time to begin sweating.

After the flash, the light began to steadily fade, as if reabsorbing into the body of Glabe Curious.

When Missy opened her eyes, she found herself having taken cover behind one of the vehicles. She squinted against the remaining light, barely able to make out the dull, red pulsing glow that sat on Glabe’s chest, where the diamond had risen beneath her skin. The pulsing grew quickly slower, as the glow faded. It looked, Missy thought with a shudder, like Glabe’s heart had been pulled out and plopped on her chest.

Something hard smacked against her back. Her arms flew to her sides to feel the sandy earth beneath her fingertips. A headache had slammed into the base of her head, like a spider crack in a piece of glass. The ache melted through the rest of her body.

Kitty laid there, frozen with pain and fear. The red light has to be a beacon! she worried, slowly reopening her eyes just to check the sky for a flying, metal disk and blinking lights.

But again, there was nothing.

The fiery, red explosion had softened to a pale, barely-there pulse, duller than even the original green light. A strong gust of wind blew through the gaps in the rock walls, sweeping the rest of the light away. Darkness settled in to the crater at the top of the mountain. Kitty’s fingertips brushed the handle of her lantern, which had been thrown off the crates and landed a few feet from her in a bit of mossy rocks. But the candle’s flame hadn’t survived the blast, either. Her hand startled back, fingertips coated in hot wax that had dripped through the crevices of the lantern.

Kitty squinted through the darkness, searching for the crates. When she couldn’t spot them, she thought that the explosion, the force field – whatever had blown her backwards – must have thrown her farther than she thought. She looked around the area for landmarks. The road in, the bridge over water, the dilapidated ‘DANGER: DO NOT ENTER’ signs strewn around the rocks… All of it was correctly aligned, how she remembered it. She stared harder at the place where the crates had been and slowly realized: All that was left was a pile of smoking splinters.

Whatever had been there – whatever she had been sent here to retrieve…

It was gone.

The suburban neighborhood had gone completely silent. Within seconds, the light had vanished from the front yard of Glabe Curious, taking with it any sign that it had ever been there at all. From her vantage point, Missy could barely make out the shadowy outline of Glabe lying there, with her arms twisted underneath her and clamped behind her back still by the handcuffs.

Somewhere, a recruit thought to turn a flashlight on. Missy startled away from it at first. Chip’s hand rustled in the gravel as he withdrew his arm from overtop of her, where it had instinctively slung itself during the flash. At first, no one said spoke, oppressed and silenced by what they had just witnessed.

But then the same recruit who had turned on a light thought to check the body.

“She’s dead.”

The words rang out over Missy and Chip and the recruits still lying on their bellies in grass seed and children’s toys. They bounced off the walls of the neighboring houses. In the distance, dogs started barking.