I am (not) human too - Mastermind #1, Chapter 14
The day has finally come: they had to stop the Rogue Writer to prevent any more murders in the city. It was now or never. Would Heila be up to it this time?
“You’re going back underground to look for the Rogue Writer when you’ve barely just recovered?” Dany said with reproach as Heila was putting on her boots.
She didn’t even look up. “The murders haven’t stopped. My injury didn’t stop time. And Judy’s been having a hard time with The Oracles because of this.”
She heard him sigh.
“You’re right. It’s just… right before our engagement party too…”
“Look, this time, we’re all going together, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. Besides, if we succeed, we’ll have even more reason to party this Friday.”
Before Dany could answer, Judy and Jake had come through the front door.
“Ray’s waiting for us downstairs,” Judy said.
Heila nodded and they all left.
It was time, finally.
Time to put an end to all of it…
And soon, here she was again, that dreaded place where she had almost died… a place where funnily she had least expected to have her first near-death experience. She looked down at her completely healed wrists now, as one was gripping her pen and her notebook in the other. Although she knew she wouldn’t really be using her writing this time…
“It seems like the Rogue has summoned a few creatures to fight by her side. And they’re coming this way,” Jake whispered.
Well, not exactly whispered. As the Mastermind of the Wind, Jake could make sound travel through the faint breeze coming and going through the sewage tunnels. He was also their watchdog, flying over and around, checking each corner from the dark ceilings. Almost invisible.
Heila had a feeling that the Rogue Writer knew that they were planning an attack. Of course, the Hybrid had to know. If they had been brought up as a Writer, even as a half-Writer, they would know that The Oracles wouldn’t stop until they were caught.
Hybrids would have known it all their life, as all their life they probably had to run, go into hiding and escape from all The Oracles’ attempts at capturing them.
It was nothing special really. It was just the protocol for any Hybrid that ever existed. They were constantly chased and if caught, either reformed to abandon one of their ‘sides’ and conform or… Heila could only imagine the worst. Most of those who were caught were probably already dead.
Jake was right. Soon enough, all of them could hear the march of four-legged creatures, their steps and monstrous growls echoing through every corner, splashing on the wet sewage floor.
There were a lot of them.
As expected. It seemed that the Rogue Writer had been waiting for this. They had anticipated this.
A hush into Heila’s ear, a whiff of cold air on her neck. In a fraction of a second, her pen had turned into her sword and she had pierced a beast’s chest with it. It spat some blood on her face and clothes before it fell to the ground next to her. She pushed it into the flowing underground river.
Hyena-like shapeshifters surrounded them.
The fight had just begun.
Heila and Judy had been particularly trained for this. If anyone ever got to be in a fight against inhumane creatures in a dark sewer, they would know that once it started, it was hard to keep track of who was doing what or where any of them was.
All Heila could see was the creatures coming at her one by one. She had to be sharp, focused and incredibly fast. Left, right, behind… there had to be no blind spots.
Or it could mean death.
But she knew that she had to find a way to reach the Rogue Writer somehow. Although most of them had been reluctant about it, she and Judy thought it best that it would be her that would act as bait. Because she’d been the one that the Writer hurt. So she had a motive.
Besides, she had the feeling that the Rogue Writer wanted to meet her. Otherwise, she would already have been killed from the time her wrists were slit. The Hybrid could just have slit her throat too: it would have been the cherry on top of the cake.
Most of all, she had prepared some writing beforehand that would inevitably lead her to the Rogue Writer. As soon as she gave the cue…
“Elena!”
...the shapeshifters would pave the way for her and lead her to their master.
She had called out her sword’s name—yes, she had grown attached to it ever since she had forged it in her pen—and it started to glow in a bright white light.
The shapeshifters around her stopped attacking her and ran away… and she followed them.
None of them dared to touch her now and it seemed like she was, in fact, running with them. They were leading her through a series of tunnels and turns until they reached a broken grill-rusted metal door. It had a hole, a big gap in the middle, through which the shapeshifters leapt.
Soon Heila found herself inside what seemed to be their headquarters. It was yet another tunnel, even darker than where she had come from. But as she walked on, she saw that the walls had hanging torches on each side, illuminating her path.
She didn’t need the help of the shapeshifters anymore to find her way, so they started to disperse away into the darkness, either back to where the battle was still going on or to their master, to signal her arrival.
At this point, she was sure that the Rogue Writer had, as much as she had, written about her arrival. It was tricky if two Writers wrote about the same event and their goals were different. However, if two Writers wrote about the same thing, wanting the same circumstances to happen, it increased the chances of it happening tenfold.
This was why, often, The Oracles would assign teams of Writers to work together. The more Writers wrote about the same events with the same goals, the more likely they were to come to reality and succeed in their task. And the harder the mission was, the more Writers were put together.
It was a surprise actually that The Oracles hadn’t sent more Writers for this particular mission. Though Heila could guess why… after what she had been through… After all, she had almost died.
No. They wouldn’t have taken the chance to sacrifice more Writers. It wasn’t as easy to go against a half-Writer: the collective power of writing just wasn’t enough.
Right now, what she most needed was her own wit… and her physical skills in battle.
She had never met a Hybrid before so she wasn’t sure what to expect…
She finally arrived in front of a heavy wooden door, barricaded with metal armour. Before she had even touched it, it opened the way to a wide and tall concrete room, devoid of sunlight, away from the outside world.
Four torches hung on the walls. Beneath her feet, she could feel something like… a carpet. She looked down and saw that it was of a burgundy colour, rolling all the way to the end of the room.
She bit her lip to hold her laughter. It looked like the Rogue Writer had made themselves a throne room.
Indeed, as she followed and walked on the red carpet to the very end, she saw a high chair made of steel and other metallic debris that had most likely been collected from the sewers’ waste. Although it would have been a disgusting sight in plain daylight, in this dark and damp room, it looked mighty and almost threatening.
Like a mad king’s secret castle.
“Don’t be shy. Come closer. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Despite the sharp infrared vision she had written about in preparation for this situation, Heila could barely see the person sitting on the chair… but from the voice, she knew it was a woman. She took a few steps forward.
“Well, I’ve been waiting to meet you too.” She took her time as her steps grew more confident. “Again.”
The Rogue Writer's laugh echoed and bounced against the walls.
“Again, yes. But properly this time.” The shadow stepped out of the chair and into the faint light of the torches. “I’m truly sorry about last time… How are your wrists doing? Ah… they’re totally fine after all.”
The woman took a few steps forward, but Heila could still not see her features too clearly: she figured she was using either her Mastermind abilities—whatever they were—to blur out her appearance or she had written something for the same purpose.
What she could see was that she was wearing a dark brown overall, sewn with a blend of metal and fabric, like armour, but not quite. She was also wearing a dark brown hood, although it couldn’t hide the most distinguishable feature that was too flamboyant to hide: strands of bright red hair covered her entire forehead and sprouted around her face.
“Heila. That’s what they call you up there, right?”
“I see you’ve done your research. On the other hand, I’m still kept in the dark, I don’t even know your name.”
She heard a snicker.
“You can call me Aria. Half-Mastermind of Fear and half-Writer. Also known as Hybrid. Outcast.”
Aria took off her hood and let her long red hair fall all over her shoulders. Her dark grey eyes glowed. She then waved her hands up in the air, as if to say…
“It’s okay, I didn’t allow you in here to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
Heila realised that she was still holding her sword, Elena, by the sheath. She tightened her grip on it. Although she had that strange feeling that the Rogue Writer before her wasn’t actually trying to trick her.
“What is there to talk about? You know why I’m here. I’m here to take you back to The Oracles and to stop you from murdering anyone else.”
Aria didn’t seem to be in the least bit impressed. She looked dead straight into her eyes.
“I know, officially, that’s your job as a Writer. But I also know you, Heila.”
She took a few more steps forward. They were now probably barely a metre away from each other. Heila had the strong urge to step back, but she knew it would only signal fear… or even defeat.
Aria smirked as if she could read her. As if she saw through her.
“You and I aren’t so different after all,” she continued. “And that’s why I would like to propose a deal.”
D. K. Waye