Eden's Gate

Chapter 25: Execution

The endless game of Cat and Mouse was beginning to wear thin, even on Eliza. At first she had been very impressed to see her children so cleverly discover what was going on. She was especially proud of how they were honing their powers and their bonds. But they were still children. Clifton had been a perfect example of that. Using his power to explore an entire night's worth of potentials, to find the exact moment when she would just happen to leave her door unlocked and remember when she was too lazy to go back and fix it, while another teacher just happened to carelessly leave open the door to the teacher's wing, while Nikolai, who had been assigned to the cameras that night, went to take a piss, and then act on that? She couldn't have been prouder. But he made the mistake of not covering his tracks and looking beyond what he would find. Had he done that - had he asked Taylor to come with him and cover their sense - she would have never realized he was there and would have never found him.

She was also very glad to have Sasha on her side. Sasha was a bit of a loose cannon, especially after she had been excluded from being one of the Five, but making her Prefect of their dorm had been a genius decision. While the children were smart enough to not trust anyone, she had gathered enough that Eliza was easily able to predict their plan.

The curfew had been set up explicitly in response to it. While it had been fun for a while, she was tired of being misunderstood and even more tired of being played for a fool. The children were smart, but they were inside her school. Not a single thing went beyond her gaze here.

She wasn't sure exactly when they were going to pull their little stunt, but she knew the exact details, and had prepared for it. The thinking was simple here: let them loose just long enough that they mess they made would be easy enough to justify with a suspension, and then capture them. Like a spider, all she had to do was wait for the fly to land in her web.

It was 12:34 in the evening, and she had gone to her office to clear her mind. The Sickness had been acting up again, and while she had developed a medicine that helped keep it from killing her, she found the mental effects could only be handled by a long night in contemplation of The Great Mystery.

Not some paltry discussion of the meaning of life, no. Her Great Mystery was the planet itself. She seemed to have been one of the few people to notice it. The Earth itself was, in a way, alive. Every psychic could feel it's beating pulse, the raw energy that passed through every living thing, tying them all, no matter how great or small together to the very living rock on which they stood. They even had a name for it's shadow - The Thoughtweft. For some reason, though, only Eliza had pulled on that chord long enough to see the light that cast those shadows.

No, that wasn't an accurate analogy. It was a very difficult thing to describe. The Thoughtweft was more like a small part of the much larger radiance that encompassed the entire planet. The Thoughtweft was created by thoughts, of course, and not every living thing could think, but The Great Mystery was the very essence of everything that had ever lived - maybe everything that would ever live - on this planet.

She had first learned about the monstrosities beyond the veil when she had seen a being, barely disguised as a human, that was not a part of The Mystery. It had come from some other world, either beyond the stars or maybe beyond their reality, and the very Earth itself rejected it, abhorred it, felt repelled by it. This thing was not meant to be on it, and all it could do was cry out into the void of souls in the hopes that they too would fear it. This had been when she was only 12, and it had led her down the path to eventually find salvation.

The Elder Things. Their vast empire, their unthinkable knowledge, their immense magical understanding. They could do so much good for the world, and what's more, the Great Mystery liked them. Maybe they had been on it so long that it grew accustomed to them, maybe they had changed it, maybe they were its origin. Whatever the case, they were an exception in a vast, long list of extraterrestrials.

That was why she was determined to meet them. They could tell her so much. She longed for the day when the answers finally came.

There was a flicker in the lights, and she knew that was the sign. She was so close she could almost taste it now. Or maybe that was just the adrenaline of knowing the children had made their move. She reached her mind out to Kevin, who was at the cameras at this moment.

'What's going on?' She asked him.

'Not sure, the cameras have all cut out,' he said.

Exactly as she expected. Next, Richard would create a bunch of Projections of that strange Lepus creature, to go and cause chaos. He was a very capable young man, being able to keep track of at least 4 of the things. If they weren't dealt with, they'd cause mayhem. And once they were, he could just make another.

'Sasha, Nikolai, Stewart and Asher,'' she called out, 'Search and spread out. They're taking the expected path. The bunnies will be along there.'

'Roger,'' Sasha said.

Everyone else just sent her feelings of affirmation and got to work. Eliza would cut them off at the Laboratory. She was actually glad she had built that exit down there - it was perfect to get them. As she walked, she heard the sound of manic giggling and papers being thrown around, along with Asher's ridiculous scream of frustration. She just went on the way, knowing he would handle it. So much effort would mean the individuals were weak. Her Eye could see them, running down the halls to the Lab, and her Sense could feel their trail. She calculated that the best idea would be to corner them at the door itself. They'd need to use the key slowly, or it would snap.

Yes, this was definitely them. She could feel Richard's power in particular, exploding like a star in the void of space as it put on this show. It overpowered the other childrens. She noticed another sense off somewhere distant, but that was of no concern - she knew they had been trying to confuse the issue by making it look like there may have been two groups.

She made it to the lab door just in time to see a wisp of Kaitlyn's long blond hair racing down the stairwell. Blast and damn, she wasn't fast enough. Oh well, she had accounted for that. She had installed a new locked door with a separate key at the bottom of the lab into the cavern. They were stuck between that door and her now. She made her way down the stairs, seeing all three of the children frozen in front of the locked door. Taylor had picked up an object, about to throw it at it, when they paused in horror at her arrival.

"This was all very impressive, children," she said "but the game ends here. We have much to talk about, so why don't you all relax, while I expla-"

She raised her hand, using her power to snap Taylor's arm before they could throw the object at the door, but instead of the expected screaming and crying in pain, they shattered into so many red shards of fading glass.

Eliza's eyes went wide, her cheeks red. Her head buzzed with confusion and rage.

"What?!" She demanded.

"That's checkmate," Richard said with a grin.

Dangling from the window outside the fourth story workshop was a long chain of bedsheets that had been tied together, one at a time, to make a rope long enough to reach the ground. Tied securely to a bolted table, it would safely hold the weight of, say, a ten year old as they made their descent. Two of whom already had.

"C'mon, Kaitlyn!" Called Taylor, "you can do it!"

Kaitlyn looked down at her friends, and the massive fall that awaited her if she happened to let go, cold sweat dripping down her bundled body.

"Ar-re you sure we can't use telekinesis?" She pleaded.

"Yes, they'll notice it, now come on! We're running out of time!" Richard ordered.

Kaitlyn swallowed, looked up, and put one hand below the next as she made another cautious drop down the rope.