The Excisionists: Book 1 Page 15

  He chuckled and then pointed in the same direction. “You really don’t hear the singing?”

  I shook my head. “Why would there be singing? Look at me.”

  He sat down on the mountain top next to me. “Why would I hear something if it’s not really there?”

  I stared at him. “Focus on my voice. Tell me about a time when you were the happiest.”

  He shot me a strange look. “What?”

  I grasped his rubbery arm. “Just do it for me please.”

  He nodded. “Um, okay. Let me think.” He paused for a short time and then his eyes lit up. “Yeah, there was this one time when I was on the beach near sunset and I’d just finished a sand castle. I’d put some shells on it and the best part was that no one else was close enough to knock it down.”

  I smiled at him. “That sounds nice.”

  He grinned. “It was.”

  I stared at him for several minutes. “Hear that?”

  He shook his head. “No, is it the Commander?”

  I playfully slapped his arm. “You dummy! I got you to forget about the things you thought you were hearing.”

  He looked around for a moment. “Oh, yeah, you did. Thanks. But why would it just go away?”

  “I think it’s a trick with the lights and people think they see and hear things that don’t exist. I think that when you focus on something else, you can see the truth of it and not be distracted by something that the mountain creates.”

  “Well why don’t you hear it too then?”

  The Commander’s voice increased in intensity enough that I couldn’t completely ignore it. “See? Yet another reason you’re glad I’m always here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ve had years of practice ignoring things and being focused on the voices I hear. When your mind is focused on something totally different, the mountain can’t affect you. I think we need to explore this thing and then see if we can find the rest of them later.”

  He nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  We walked about the crags and boulders sometimes climbing and other times descending. All the while chatting about ourselves to get to know each other better. I felt a deep desire to be by his side. Something was unique and drew me to him even though I didn’t know what it was.

  Crispin stepped across a crack onto a mostly flat rock and turned back to help me over it. “What’s your favorite food, color, and type of music?”

  The yellow eyed Commander just kept talking. “You know he’s got the eyes of someone else. He’s not how you’d imagine him. You should probably walk back to the start and find what you’ve been looking for.”

  I grabbed his hand and hopped across the slit. “No that’s not right.” I looked up at him. “Sorry, not to you, to the Commander. Um, favorite food, barbecued shrimp. Color, indigo, and music…probably rock. I can usually play it loud enough to drown out the voices, you know? What about you?”

  He shrugged. “I like pork enchiladas with green sauce, the color green, and disco.”

  I tried not to laugh but couldn’t help it. “Disco? I didn’t know they made that anymore.”

  He grinned. “They don’t. I like the old stuff, it’s fun to dance to.”

  I nearly doubled over with laughter. “Dance? You?”

  The Commander wouldn’t be silenced anymore. “You’re in love with a man who likes to dance? How strange you are. And what’s that up there? Are you even paying attention to your duty?”

  I turned and looked right at the yellow-eyed devil. “Love? You really don’t know anything about me.”

  Crispin wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close. “You love me?”

  I stared up into his dark eyes nervous about his response to my confession about what had really happened. “That’s not what I said.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but that’s what you meant. The Commander’s right. I love you too and I really mean it. You’re different from other girls and I like that. You’re not afraid to say what you mean, and I can see that you’re a genuinely good person. That’s why we get along so well.”

  I could feel my cheeks getting warm and I slipped my arms around his waist in return. “You’re not bothered by the Commander?”

  He shook his head. “No. Maybe we could find a way for me to hear him too so you don’t always have to tell me what he’s saying.”

  I leaned in to him. “I’m not sure you’d really like that, but I appreciate your willingness to accept me how I am. I…I love you too.”

  We stood wrapped up in each other’s arms for some time before something caught his attention. He lifted one of his four arms and pointed in the distance. “Can you see that or is it just the mountain again?”

  I turned my head in the same direction. “That’s odd. I can’t tell what it is from here. Let’s go check it out.”

  We traipsed over the jagged mountain of glass to get to the pulsating orb of light that was imbedded inside the crystalline structure of the mountain. When we approached, we could see that it was inside a cave but because the surface of the mountain was transparent, it allowed us to see it from quite a distance. It took a few moments to locate the entryway because there were reflections from the light that cast shadows and dark colors in a variety of areas with each pulse and the cave mouth was narrow. I wasn’t sure if Crispin would fit and I wanted him to go with me.

  I stepped inside the opening and turned back to see him. “Can you make it?”

  He knelt down and wriggled in. “Barely, I think.”

  I was relieved that he wasn’t going to make me explore this alone. I turned back toward the cave interior and walked for a while before the walls of the cavern opened up. Originally, I was under the impression that the orb was near the surface of the peak, but now that I was inside, I could see that it was a reflection from something deep inside the mountain in a lengthy well that was filled with fluid.

  I stood at the lip of the well and gazed at the clear pool. “Crispin, I don’t think I can go down there. Can you do it?”

  I felt a rubberized tentacle slide onto my shoulder. He had made it in and was standing behind me. “Yeah, no problem.”

  He slipped past me and dove into the water with ease. I watched as his body morphed into a creature suited for swimming and the chromatophores shifted so he was almost as transparent as glass. Seeing the flexibility of his avatar made me almost wish I’d chosen his race.

  The Commander popped up behind me, leaned over my shoulder, and peered down into the pool. “Long dive?”

  I looked up at his pale face. He had a square jaw and a stern look. His eyes were glowing yellow and tiny spines formed his hair and brows. Although he was humanoid, he also possessed a tail that ended in a menacing metal spike. Silvery plates of armor protected the vulnerable parts of his body and thick leather covered his arms and legs. “Why are you still here? I thought you had something better to do today than follow me around and make annoying comments.”

  He shook his head and stepped out from behind me, kneeling down to dip his hand in the pool. “Mmmm, nice and cool. You know, you’ll never be able to be rid of me, so you might as well accept it.”

  “Maybe for now that’s true, but I don’t have to listen to anything you say.”

  He stood up and put his arm around my shoulder. “You can’t possibly believe what they’re telling you. No one has ever been cured, not permanently at least. You know, I’ve heard recently that there’s a way for me to leave your head and become real. Can you imagine that? Crispin would get his wish.”

  I crossed my arms and glared at him. “You heard about that? Really? Explain how you’d go from being a figment of my imagination to a living organism of flesh and blood.”

  He smiled sardonically. “You act like I’m nothing, but what you fail to understand is that I’m made of electrical signals and chemicals in your brain. The Excisionists are more than capable of converting that into a computerized signal and transferring that to an A.I., mimicking the chemicals and patterns
of your body, and voila. I’m just like you.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Sounds stupid. You know, I’m surprised that I’d make that up.”

  “You? You mean me.”

  “No, I mean me. When I was little, I’d have blamed you because I thought you were real but now, I know you’re just a screwed-up part of my brain which means I came up with this scenario.”

  His cheeks reddened with anger. “You’ll see. There’s a reason they chose you for this game. I’m getting out of here and it’ll be sooner than you think.”

  He vanished before my eyes. I was shocked that he’d get angry and a little disconcerted with his scenario. It made me wonder if there was any truth to his little tirade. Maybe I’d subconsciously overheard them talking when I was being prepped for the game and was just now putting the pieces together. It felt odd, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Before I could think anymore on the interaction, Crispin broke the water and morphed back into the land walker version of his race.

  He opened his hand to reveal a small silvery sphere. “There’s thousands of these at the bottom of the pool. They are all transmitting some kind of signal. It was all lit up until I grabbed a hold of it. I think this is what’s responsible for the stuff people see and hear.”

  I picked it up from his palm to examine it more closely. “It’s got to be some kind of a distraction device. There has to be something more important nearby. Can you collect all of them so they shut off and we can see what it’s hiding?”

  “Yeah, but it’s going to take a while. Why don’t we go round up the rest of our group and get everyone that can stay underwater for more than a few minutes to help out.”

  I tried to suggest another alternative. “Or, we could see if Zuri could build something to drain it.”

  “Hmmm, that might work. Let’s go find her.”

  I agreed, and we left the cave in search of our friends. I was hoping the Commander would help me out by pointing the most likely direction to go, but I couldn’t hear or see him which was odd. We walked quickly and chatted to keep Crispin from focusing on the sights and sounds of the mountain. Several times, he thought he saw someone from our party, but I was always able to set him straight. I was glad he trusted me enough to ignore what he saw. I’d never felt such a deep and instant connection with anyone I’d met and hoped he’d never leave me. I wondered if it would be hard for him to meet me in real life. What if he didn’t find me attractive enough or tired of the intrusions from the Commander or one of his replacements. I was beginning to get wound up with negativity and was getting tense.

  Crispin stopped walking and put his hand on my cheek. “I’m not sure what’s going on in that head of yours, but you need to relax.”

  I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. When I opened my eyes again, I felt like he was staring deeply into my soul with his dark eyes. “You just get me. I really like that.”

  He grinned. “Ditto.”

  I heard something off to our side and turned my head to see what it was. I could see the spiny lizard avatar’s shape behind a glob of glass. When I rounded the structure, I could see Wes sitting on the ground with his head in his hands.

  “Wes? You okay?”

  He lifted his head quickly and stared at me. “Are you real? No, you couldn’t possibly be. It’s another trick.”

  I shook my head and reached down to grab his scaly tawny hand. “No, it’s not a trick. Get up. We found what’s causing the hallucinations. Do you know where Zuri is?”

  He shook his head and seemed surprised that he touched something solid when he grabbed my hand to pull himself up. “Nope.” He eyed me with his golden lizard irises. “You’re sure you’ve figured this mountain out?”

  “Mostly. There’s these things in the bottom of a pool that are sending a signal. We need to drain the fluid from the pool and turn them off. I’m pretty sure they’re there as a distraction from something else that’s either worth a ton or is supposed to be a secret.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Crispin tapped my shoulder and pointed to something off in the distance. “That might be someone over there.”

  Dark shadows bobbed and shifted in the distance and we kept each other focused as we walked to the vacillating darkness. We didn’t know what to expect but when we got inside, we found that Jinx had entered a shallow cave and couldn’t find her way out. We saw her floating back and forth with her bony clawed fingers scratching the glassy surface at the back of the cave.

  I called out to her. “Jinx, what are you doing?”

  She spun around with wild eyes. “I’m trapped! There’s no exit! The glass must have started flowing and now we’re all stuck in here!”

  I got close and grasped her icy wrist. “Look at me. Don’t think about the cave, I want you to tell me what your favorite animal is.”

  She ripped her arm from my grip and floated back far enough to put her back flat against the cave wall. “What? Are you crazy? We must find an exit. Now!”

  I narrowed my eyes at the necromancer and stood in front of her blocking the exit that she couldn’t see. “Don’t think. What’s your favorite animal?”

  She blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Frogs.”

  “Okay, why? What’s so great about frogs?”

  “What?”

  “Just answer the question and I promise I’ll get you out of here.”

  A glimmer of hope entered her eyes. “You can get me out?”

  “Yes, but you have to answer my questions no matter how strange they sound. Agreed?”

  She nodded and wrung her hands as she swayed back and forth.

  I repeated my question. “What do you like about frogs?”

  She swallowed hard. “They’re colorful and slippery. And some of them have poisons in the skin which is super cool.”

  “You’re talking about tree frogs, right?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “What’s your favorite food?”

  “Uh, cheeseburgers.”

  “Have you ever driven a car?”

  “Wha…um, no.”

  “When was the last time you were in school?”

  “School? You mean like with Dr. Sonnet?”

  I shook my head. “No, like in a desk at a school before you met Dr. Sonnet.”

  Her eyes shot upwards as she tried to recall those details. When they lowered back to me, they were much calmer. “Third grade. My mother had insisted that I learn like the other kids and stay in a private school, but my father didn’t want me being influenced by their overly conservative views, so he made me switch to private tutors in a suite on the east wing of our home.”

  “What was your teacher’s name?”

  She paused for several moments before conjuring up the name from the distant regions of her mind. “Mr. Moody.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Dark hair, soft kind brown eyes, and…hey, when did that open up?”

  I smiled at her. “It’s been there the whole time, but the mountain’s been making you perceive something else.”

  “No way. I’ve been searching all the walls and there wasn’t an opening.”

  I pointed to the wall behind her. “You scratched some pretty deep holes, but you didn’t move from that one spot. You’re not crazy though and I believe you couldn’t see the exit because of this. This right here is the thing that’s been keeping you from seeing the truth.”

  She gazed at the little sphere and then turned around to see what I was pointing at. When she finally understood what had happened, she turned around with confidence in her eyes. “We should find the others.”

  She sped past us and held her head high as if nothing had occurred. We followed her back outside the small cave.

  Crispin was behind me and leaned closer to whisper into my ear. “That was weird.”

  I kept my voice low and slowed my pace. “She doesn’t want to look like she’s vulnerable. It will be better if we pretend this didn’t happen at all.”<
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  “Okay.”

  We spent the next thirty minutes or so rounding up the rest of our group. Some of them were convinced that what they were experiencing was actually happening, but most were easily swayed to recognize that it was all imagined. We spent more time than we had anticipated on the mountain top and it was getting dark which made it difficult to travel back to the cave. Crispin used his bioluminescence to light the way and we all paired up with someone else to engage them in conversation. We didn’t want anyone to be taken in again by the strange happenings around us and everyone agreed. It was completely dark by the time we reached the cave. Each of us walked single file to enter the narrow cave opening and then congregated around the pool’s edge.