Tethered Twins

Chapter Fifty Eight

Emmie Keyes

My father had returned and he now held my arm in a tight grip and walked me out onto the stadium field.

I could see row upon row of computers with orange lights lit up on them. On the stands of the stadium there were many more computers that didn’t have any lights on but could still be heard whirring away as if they were awaiting instructions. It looked like a computer was located in every seat of the stadium, with many more on ground level.

“Just do exactly what I say,” said my father. He gripped my arm so tightly that it seemed more of a threat than comforting.

Around the running track of the stadium were hundreds of satellite dishes aimed up to the sky. Thousands upon thousands of wires criss-crossed around the stadium connecting the satellites to computers but there was one destination every wire seemed to flow to.

In the centre of the stadium was a large chair that connected up to thousands of wires. In the seat sat Tobias. He was held in place with a tight harness across his chest and a helmet on his head. From the helmet ran small wires that circled around his chair and the harness.

It was a more high tech version of the machine I had seen in the video. The machine that Tobias had been subjected to when he was younger. It was horrific to think what had happened to him then and why he would want to subject himself to it again. Yet, the most horrific image of all was not Tobias but the chair that sat next to him. Unoccupied.

“It that chair for me?” I asked my father.

“Yes,” he replied. Tobias would no doubt be able to hear us by now so there was no more time for questions. I hoped what the man who claimed to be my father had told me was true. If he was my father, then I hoped I could trust him after all this time.

“I have her,” said my father.

Tobias did not move from his chair. His eyes remained motionless and he did not look at me. His gaze remained fixed at a point in the distance slightly upwards to the sky.

“Welcome Emmie,” said Rex, who stood next to Tobias with Rufus. Tobias did not move and did not speak, he continued to use Rex as his voice and as his puppet.

“Do you like everything I have shown you today?” he asked.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” I replied. “You hated the people who did this to you. Why would you return to the chair?”

He didn’t reply for a moment as if his attention was elsewhere. I could hear shouting coming from outside of the stadium. Some of the voices sounded familiar.

“What … they did … to me,” he replied, his voice breaking and trailing off every few words. “It cannot go … unpunished. I need to get revenge… and I need … you to do it.”

“Me?” I asked. “But why?”

“Show.. you…”

“I’ve seen enough,” I replied, as Rex started to walk towards me, an arm held out to escort me.

My father held one hand in the air in front of him. “I’ll do it,” he stated. He gripped tightly on my arm again and walked me towards the chair. I could see where we were heading and I tried to fight him. I’d seen what the chair could do and how it had destroyed a man. I couldn’t let that happen to me.

“Trust me,” he whispered into my ear. As I looked at how Tobias was mesmerised at the distance, I started to trust my father even less. I tried to fight him but he yanked me forwards. “Emmie, you have to do this. If you fight me then it will ruin everything.”