Phoenix13: Redemption (Phoenix13 Book 2)

Part #8: Una Anima: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Jason's heart beat fiercely in his chest. There was a roaring in his ears that refused to abate, and the ring and pinky fingers on both his hands were tingling sharply. He was shaking violently, spasms that ran down his spine and spread into his limbs. This can't be happening, he thought, numb and burning at the same time. I'm dreaming.

The computer screens began returning to blank blue, the words flashing and disappearing one after the other.

The last to fade was James McKinley's. The white words remained seared on Jason's retinas and in his mind's eye, as clear as if they were still before him. King James McKinley. Father of Jason James McKinley of Nathandria. Arrested for unknown reasons by King Skyler Callista of Nathandria. Sleeping since 2213. Revival date unknown. Sleeping bill to Skyler Callista of Nathandria.

Jason swallowed hard, as dizzy as if he'd been on a tire swing too long. Bile burned the back of his throat, making his breath catch and turning his mouth sour. "What the fuck," he whispered to the dark silent room. "What the fucking hell shit."

When he finally moved past the computers and located the cryofreeze cylinder that corresponded with his father's screen, he was no longer sure that the past day had been real. From the impossible flight from Nathandra to Jyith to the equally improbable escape from the Carceris Caecian guards. The rockfall, the door that opened at the first password he tried. The frozen prisoners all in a row, as silent and cold as the corpses they should've been.

The door to the cylinder was almost as tall as the container itself, a piece of tempered metal curved and inlaid into the glass surface. Like the entrance to the hidden room it had no handle, but unlike it there was no keypad either. What the hell? Jason lifted his hand, pressing his fingers tentatively to the smooth, freezing metal. His breath billowed. Heatless smoke wreathing his face. Under his fingertips, the metal began to glow.

At first it was faint, like a single red star in a foggy night sky. But then tendrils of light shot out from under his hand, licking at the curved glass and steel like hungry flames. Jason pulled back as if stung, heart hammering and mouth sudden paper-dry. Fine cracks appeared in the cylinder's surface, light spilling through like blood from a wound. A high-pitched sound filled the room. Spinning lights flared to life all around the outer rim of the ceiling. They flashed on and off, crimson and white, like police lights in the pre-War action movies Jason had loved as a kid.

"Alert," a synthetic female voice drawled in thickly accented Truce, "containment integrity compromised. Self destruct sequence initiated. Evacuation of Sleepers to lower level in thirty seconds."

Jason snapped out of his shock-induced trance. Pulling back his fist, he slammed it hard against his father's glass prison. He could smell something in the air, soft and faint. His stomach roiled, knees weakening. Gas, he thought, panic and desperation flaring in his chest. He continued his assault with renewed vigor, watching with vicious pleasure as glass and metal bent and splintered under his unrelenting blows. Airlessness burned his lungs and numbed his fingers. He kept his lips pressed together and his throat closed. Neurotoxin. He recognized the smell—Skyler's Defense League had used it on one of the Liberators a few years back. Anyone who inhaled more than a mouthful would either be paralyzed or die within minutes.

He was unendingly relieved when the glass case finally gave under the onslaught, crumbling like a sandcastle under rough surf. The body inside—my father, Jason thought in disbelief—was frozen solid, eyes closed and arms at rest by his sides. Two ropes twined around his arms and torso, holding him upright even though his protective shell had shattered. James McKinley was wearing what he had the day he'd lost his throne: a regal gold-threaded cloak, white leather and silver steel body armor, thick cotton pants, and knee-high hunting boots. His weapons had been removed, but other than that he appeared exactly as Jason remembered him: A true king, strong and regal even in frozen sleep.