Memero | 4

34

Cain and Sophie were running through the hallways of SubCon. Cain carried Abel on his back, Sophie had his backpack on her back. Abel had been unconscious from the sleeping pills he'd taken from his mother's cupboard. Everything was so close to coming how he and Sophie had planned. He wouldn't have to feel guilty anymore. He'd be the hero, and Abel would get to live a normal life. He'd studied the machine Timaeus described from cover to cover. If he had the chance he was sure that he could do what he needed to do.

As they reached the fifth dead end Cain was bouncing on his feet, looking for another way to go. They'd already been through two floors of similar looking hallways that was making him sick of being lost. Thankfully, they hadn't run into any troublesome people. That much he could consider his own luck.

"Next floor down?" Sophie asked.

"Yes, it seems we're not going to make much headway here."

"He doing okay?"

"He's fine," he said, incredulously. How could he not be fine? He was about to have everything fixed. All of his problems were about to go away. He didn't realize how good it was going to be.

They ran back to the nearest lift and descended even deeper into SubCon. Sophie couldn't as much feel it, but Cain felt there was a noticeable difference in how the air felt. Something felt like it was sitting in the back of his mind, a whisper that rang through like the tone of a bell, a song just below the surface. Abel didn't realize how much he had been risking for him.

The next floor held what they had been looking for.

Not a soul lingered except for the two brothers and the girl, they walked in on an observation room with a long window at the far side. Just outside the window was the interior of a large shaft-like room that housed a large machine with thick and heavy cables. It looked like it stood on three pointed legs almost like the claw of an arcade machine and had a multicolored core in the center that shined brilliantly.

"That's it," Cain said, approaching the window. "That's it…" he was exasperated, his heart flooded with all kinds of feelings. None of them were joy, but he pinned it up that he would feel that after it was complete. Sophie had a smile on her face, a justified look as she clasped her hands together.

"It's real...it's actually real. I can't believe it...we're actually going to save him." She looked toward the two boys and smiled.

Cain wondered, how much of that smile had been for him...and how much was for Abel?

"Come on, let's go," Cain said, moving toward the far right side of the room. There was a doorway that would lead to the inner areas of the observation room. A walkway led down another few feet before depositing them just before their target.

"Godsong," Sophie wondered, looking up at it. It was probably fifteen feet tall sitting in the middle of the darkened room, a heavy cable ran out through the backside all the way up to the ceiling that must have stretched hundreds of feet up. Beside the machine itself was a small circular pod. It was hollow and didn't look very comfortable to be used as a chair. The inside was coated with a leathery material, but it didn't accommodate much space for the human body.

Cain laid Abel down in the pod, bending him in a V-shape with his useless legs pointed upward as his rear end sank to the bottom of the pod. "Okay, now bring out the cables."

Sophie nodded and swung the backpack off of her shoulder, kneeling down as she unzipped the bag, pulling out Mr. Gray's jumper cables.

The human brain was a complex system of signals being received and transmitted. When these signals successfully arrive at their intended destination the brain gives a response. We burn our hands on the stove so the nerves in the body sends those signals to the brain to make our body experience pain to avoid hurting itself again. It sends similar signals when we move, when we walk, when we listen. When those signals are interfered with we receive...complications. Abel went through some complications when that car accident severed the nerves to the lower half of his body. It was their goal that day to repair the connections that had been lost using the power of Godsong. It had the will of the universe under its very control. How selfish had Arctic Systems been that they'd hide it all to themselves? He didn't know why, only that it complicated things. Abel...complicated things. He was very lucky to still be alive. He was very lucky. So lucky that his older brother was here to save him—receiver of good fortune had been he, the lucky brother.

Cain took the cables in his hands and walked over to his brother. The Lucky One, he played back in his head. He didn't have to keep thinking about it. He moved on. He was The Lucky One.

He clamped one of the cables onto Abel's right foot, just above the ankle. He made sure it connected to bare skin. He then ran the cable up the length of the distance between the pod and the main of the machine. The lower edge of the core hung low between the legs, it looked like a brilliant gemstone, but gawking was not what he was here to do. There didn't seem to be any surface with which to connect the cable, but he knew better. He read The Eye. His glasses wavered on the bridge of his nose as he thrust his hand holding the cable into the core, entering it as if it were made of gelatin. He let go of the cable and let it dangle below, turning back to Sophie and Abel.

She'd been caressing the top of his head, whispering something under her breath.

There was something about that...something that he didn't like. The Lucky One. Something he didn't like very much. The Lucky One.

"Man, it's a good thing you've still got your sense of humor, or else I would have dumped you like the sandwich I had for lunch yesterday." Cain flashed back to the morning the torrential rains had kept them to their room.

"You still ate it though!" Abel pointed a finger at him, "And you tell me that my feet stink, imagine how your breath must smell! Sophie must hate kissing you." They'd been talking about a sandwich, he thought. But it wasn't just a sandwich.

"Yeah yeah," Cain shook his head, "Go on and keep your jabbering. Least I could get a girl."

"Yeah yeah ten bucks says once you kiss her next and she smells that stuff on you she'd rather take the cripple."

Cain chuckled, "Yeah, pigs will fly and God will descend upon us."

Pigs will fly and God will descend upon us. He looked up toward Godsong, and then back down toward Sophie and Abel. God indeed.

35

"Your troubles will soon be over."

A voice stirred Abel awake. He was remembering through his own eyes.

His body ached and he saw that he couldn't move his legs. "Wh...where am I? What happened?" He asked. He felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked up as he saw Cain's face upside down. There was something...troubling about the way he looked.

"All right, we're ready to begin," he said, without emotion. He stepped out of view and then all at once there was a tingling sensation at the nape of his stomach. Abel looked around, confused. "What's happening?! What's happening?!"

"We're fixing you, dear brother," Cain said, his voice was gruff.

"Does it hurt?" Sophie asked, then turned up to Cain. "Maybe we should stop."

"Stop? How could we stop?" Cain pressed a lever on the desk nearby forward a little more. The core began to glow dimly, there was a hum in the air that felt electric.

The tingling feeling moved down toward Abel's crotch. It was a feeling that confused him, excited him. It continued down until...he felt the tingling in his leg...his right first, but then it spilled over to his left. They vibrated as if they were dancing on their own. "How could we stop and deny Abel his luckiest day?" Cain continued. "It's all for him and he doesn't even know how much I had to risk to get him here!"

"Cain, that's enough," Sophie said, "Shut it down."

"I...I can feel my legs," Abel said, lifting his right leg slowly, using muscles he hadn't in years.

"See Soph?" Cain laughed, letting go of the lever, "It's working! You know what they say, it's working so well we should make it a double lucky day." He raised the power higher.

The core grew brighter and the hum was palpable in the room. The vibrating increased intensity and Abel felt it through his whole body. It stopped feeling good. It was not good.

"C-Ca-ain h-he-elp," he tried to say.

"Cain, stop it this instant!" Sophie called, placing a hand down on the pod.

"He's the lucky one!" Cain screamed back, a terrible look engulfed his face. "He's always been the lucky one! He betrayed me. How dare he leave me with the guilt?"

He looked up at Sophie, who was trying to help Abel out without getting shocked herself. "And you tend to him even now?" He called.

Cain frantically looked back at the taut cable going from Godsong to his brother's leg. "NO!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. "NOW ITS YOUR TURN. I AM THROUGH-" He grabbed the cable and yanked.

Sophie's screams joined his own, and Abel's were off in the distance. A bright light formed at the connection and from Godsong an outburst of energy traveled down the cable and set Cain aflame. His skin melted to the cable's exterior, his hand wouldn't let go even if he tried.

His screams echoed forever and his body slumped against the desk. The sound of a door closed behind them, Abel saw the tall shadow give off a blinding smile before his eyes closed.

"They're right on time."