The Fadian Escape Read online

  “Right,” Egoly sifted through his memories from his trips to this world on behalf of Ilma. “Starfall pod.”

  “Yes, exactly. Very good. ” the woman smiled and the tension left her shoulders. “Do you want to wait here while I get someone to help?”

  “No, I’ve been here before,” He gave her a weak smile, “But this is her first time coming to this plane. I’ve got her.”

  “Ah well then you already know your way around,” the woman sat back down, and before she turned her attention back to her own work, she pointed to a doorway, “You’re just in time for a team strategy meeting.”

  “Thanks!” he adopted her nonchalant tone as he got up with Kaleigha in his arms. The woman didn’t respond, so he picked his way through the plots that his memory told him were experiments and turned sideways to get Kaleigha through the doorway into the hall. Slowly the way became familiar to him and he hurried to the room he knew the members of Starfall and of Fairmount 1776 used to plot new ways to extract Ilma from the experiment. He slid into the room expecting to see usual faces but found a distressing surprise.

  “Egoly!” Soren, Ilma’s partner and pod mate opened his arms and smiled wide.

  The creepy twins, also members of Starfall, rushed forward to take Kaleigha off his hands, but he resisted.

  “What’s wrong?” Soren asked. “And where is Ilma?”

  The room went still. Each person stared at him, their breathing stopped or completely unsteady, as if they already knew that something was horribly wrong. Egoly looked down at the woman cradled in his arms and entertained treacherous thoughts of ending her life. It would be easy with his new level of power and she wouldn’t have to suffer whatever Starfall had in store for them.

  He took a deep breath and hugged her close.

  “They’re all gone,” Egoly transferred his murderous thoughts to Soren. “Only we remain.”

  His words sent the room into a flurry of activity. Each person checked and double-checked their datapads while uttering explicatives and pacing the floor.

  Soren remained silent, his white hair an electrified cloud that foretold his rage.

  “That’s not possible,” Soren gritted out, his stare locked with Egoly’s. “The experiment is still active.”

  “I was there, Soren,” Egoly felt empathy for the man, but would protect Kaleigha at all costs. “There was a-” Egoly stumbled on the words. Obeh City was an experiment, a fun project created by pampered geniuses who wanted to take over their own world. Was Felder a man, a test, or an aberration in the program?

  “Kaleigha was the last.” He said finally. “The rest failed.”

  “Ilma is not one of you,” Soren crossed his arms over his chest. “She is the control.”

  “I don’t think that matters anymore,” Egoly chose his words with care, “We are all products of her mind and she is the brightest of all of you. It would stand to reason that the entities- the products of her experiment, would be nearly as clever.”

  “A rogue element would have popped up on our monitors,” Soren looked away. “We would have known. Ilma would have told us.”

  “She didn’t see him as a real threat,” Egoly thought of the other Fadians falling en masse beneath the onslaught of Felder’s firepower and winced. “None of us did.”

  “Ilma was not that foolish,” Soren spat. “She worked this experiment for decades and never once lost control of the elements.”

  Egoly felt a double pang of grief. Ilma was gone and all they had to show for it was two battered Fadians.

  “From what I know of science,” Egoly felt Kaleigha strain against his arms as he tightened his grip. “That is more than enough time for variations to occur. For things to get fuzzy and maybe learn to have a will of their own.”

  The man named Taylor came over and gave Soren’s shoulder a squeeze. After a whispered exchange, Soren thanked the man. Egoly remembered Taylor’s wife passed away a few years before.

  Egoly looked down at Kaleigha and wondered how many years they had left. Would time flow differently for them in this world?

  “Explain to me what happened,” Soren waved the twins forward. They pulled a cart behind them filled with vials and med-packs.

  “No.” Egoly’s heart clenched and he took a step back. He didn’t want them touching Kaleigha.

  “Please, “ Soren looked tired. “I cannot pull Ilma out unless I know.”

  Egoly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The air was crisp and scrubbed free of any smell at all. He hated the taste.

  “What are you doing?” one of the twins asked.

  Egoly didn’t bother to respond. He held the woman in his arms closer and pictured her smiling and happy. It was hard, as she’d never know peace in her life and her soul cringed from the light of that image.

  Kaleigha moaned and began to struggle in his arms.

  “Should we stop him?” The other twin asked. Soren must have nodded yes, because they approached him from either side.

  Egoly felt the twins grab for him, but their hands never made contact. As he willed it.

  “We can’t get to him,” the twin on the left said, fear seeping into their voice, “He’s out of control”

  “No,” the twin to his right sounded fascinated. ”He has the ultimate control. I’ve never seen this level of strength in a Fadian before. Get the chronometer!”

  The twin to his left hurried away.

  Egoly pushed harder. He didn’t want to hurt Kaleigha, but she needed to wake up soon.

  “Fadian!” Soren commanded, “Release her!”

  Egoly cringed, fully expecting the old urge to obey to rise up and take over his will.

  The room went quiet.

  “Fadian,” Soren growled, stalking closer. “We will terminate you if you don’t comply.”

  “No,” Kaleigha swept her arm in a lazy arc that sent Soren and the twins sliding into the med cart.

  “Wake up,” Egoly shook her with a little more force than before.

  “Owww,” she frowned and massaged her temple. “What happened?”

  “On your feet,” he whispered, lowering her to her feet. “We aren’t clear yet.”

  “Let’s sit and discuss this,” Soren stumbled to his feet. “You don’t know the full picture of what’s going on.”

  “We know enough,” Kaleigha asserted. Her voice was strong, but her body still leaned too heavily on Egoly. “The experiment is over. We’ve escaped. I say that earns us our freedom. What do you say?”

  “Let them go,” Taylor spoke up suddenly. “If the experiment truly succeeded, then we have no power to stop them.”

  “That’s more like it,” Egoly nodded and tugged on Kaleigha’s arm. “We’ll just see ourselves out.”

  They backed out of the room, prepared for an attack from any direction. It never came.

  “This way,” Egoly took Kaleigha’s hand once they were in the hallway and led her through a series of halls and half flights of stairs to the main lobby of the building.

  “Where are we going?” Kaleigha asked, pulling them to a halt. The lobby was hauntingly familiar in a way that made her stomach twist.

  “It’s a mirror,” Egoly took her other hand and gave her a warm smile. “Many things will feel familiar. They may even be the same as they were in the experiment. But we are safe here.”

  “Then what is that?” Kaleigha tilted her head toward a nearby seating area.

  Egoly felt an involuntary tremor run through his entire frame as the scene came into focus. A group of men and women stared at them with smiles of open admiration plastered to their faces.

  Each woman had Kaleigha’s face and every man was a slightly off copy of Egoly.

  “Be ready,” He whispered as he pushed Kaleigha behind him. “This is some sort of trick.”

  “It’s not a trick,” Soren emerged from the hallway behind them. “They are as real as you are.”

  Egoly felt Kaleigha began to tremble. His nerve felt like it was going to give, but he
did not dare allow Kaleigha to suffer another peril if he could prevent it.

  “Great,” Egoly began walking toward the building door while trying to keep an eye on the army of doppelgangers and Soren at the same time. “Then you don’t need us. You have more than enough to spare.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave,” Soren exchanged a glance with his colleague, who looked away. Soren gestured to the cluster of Fadians who stood up as one on some unspoken command. “We can’t stop you, but they certainly can.”

  Epilogue

  Felder sailed down the crystal-lined hallway, his suit glowing purple beneath the red illumination as if he was on his way to a long-anticipated dinner.

  He thought of the person that awaited him in the chamber and smiled.

  In a way, he was headed to a meal.

  He finally had cause to unleash the full breadth and depth of his fury and feast on the warm carcass of his ‘guest.’

  His smile grew.

  This was the moment he’d been waiting for most of his adult life. The village was gone, the insurgents and the Fadians were gone, and the city was under his complete control, but none of that compared to the triumph that lay on the other side of that door.

  Felder paused and allowed himself a moment of elation before composing himself and opening the door.

  The figure tucked into the crystal casket looked worked over and frail. The eyes were wide and flickering and the hands gripped into tight fists that trembled.

  Felder shook his head.

  A lesser man might have fallen for such tricks and offered mercy once he looked into the frightened eyes. A lesser man might have forgiven the years of war by consoling himself that the correct side had won and there was no going back.

  A lesser man might have failed.

  But Felder had not gotten this far by showing mercy when his enemies were at their most vulnerable. Felder did not believe in the false security of polite victories.

  No, Felder was one who did not discriminate when it came to wiping his competition off the map.

  “There is no place for fear, old one,” Felder said after stalking the perimeter of the casket. He allowed a bit of a lilt to thread through his words. “You chose this fate and now I shall give you just what you asked for.”

  The thought made him grin from ear to ear.

  “You wanted a world that was centered around you?” Felder took off his jacket and cast it aside. “Great! I shall make sure your ass is never out of my focus.”

  Ilma twitched.

  “You wanted strip-mine this world of every fucking bit of value and leave it a husk ready to implode on itself?” Felder ripped off his tie and shirt, sending them to join the jacket. “Excellent! I’ll shove so much down your gullet that you’ll be pissing ore and shitting gold!”

  Her face creased with horror.

  “You wanted to die to get away from the crazy shit you conjured?” Pure rage tore through Felder’s heaving chest. “No fucking problem. I will personally drive you to that dark valley every. Single. Day for the rest of your useless existence until you are too weak for me to drag back.”

  He paused, drinking in the desperate whimpers of his captive before leaning in to whisper a last threat.

  “Then, once your body gives out and your spirit believes this terror is finally over, I will reveal the true monsters your little experiment created and they will feast upon your soul for the rest of eternity.”

  About the Author

  I had the privilege of growing up with my elders on a sunny front porch in the country. Here I learned my family’s history, hospitality, and the art of good storytelling. My favorite stories were those about dark and haunted places and the entities that lurk there. But time is not kind. I slowly lost my elders and my days on the porch became few and far between. The joy of storytelling stayed with me and the paper became my audience. Now, I share my stories with the world as a tribute to my ancestors.

  I’ve been telling stories and creating worlds since I could write. In 2013, I completed my first manuscript and plunged into the wild rapids of traditional publishing. Two years later, I emerged with few viable offers and a greater appreciation for those who’ve succeeded in that game. In the interim, I’d created more books and had notebooks overflowing with ideas. A friend introduced me to the amazing world of self-publishing and advised that this, thanks to Amazon, no longer had the old ‘not good enough’ stigma. I refined my manuscript and in the summer of 2015, published my first book, ‘The Dogwood Grove.’ I enjoyed the entire process and the non-writer skills I acquired. I went on to publish two more books before taking a life break. ‘The Fadian Escape’ is my second published book since coming back to writing.

  You can find me on social media via:

  https://linktr.ee/thefarbackroom

  You can connect with me on:

  https://www.farbackroom.com

  Also by W. A. Ford

  Welcome to Obeh City, where the Method rules every aspect of its citizens’ lives. On the surface, there is order and contentment, but the gleaming perfection is only surface deep. Grinding poverty and immense wealth exist within arm’s reach of each other and those who cannot conform to the Method’s expectations find themselves in great peril no matter the balance of their bank account. From this toxic brew emerges a new class of beings, the Fadian. However, their existence and increasing powers are heralds of hope. These beings represent a greater threat than the secret power struggles of the city’s elite: complete annihilation. Dive into the exciting world of the Fadian Trilogy and find out their fates.

  The Fadian Experiment

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08GJ9L6GH?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_0&storeType=ebooks&qid=1629504993&sr=8-1

  Kicked out of home after a mysterious incident, an impoverished woman discovers she can manipulate reality; but when the shadowy elite of her city seek to destroy her, she finds her efforts to avoid certain death bring increasingly disastrous results.