Whispers Behind the Gates

The rain fell for three days straight, coating Seattle's streets in a symphony of barrenness. Aria Cross hung her black fingers over the edge of Black Hollow Bridge, clutching the rusty railing till her knuckles shone white. The water below was dark and churning, consuming the city's secrets and vomiting them up like foam. Three years previous, she'd witnessed Sebastian Wolfe fall from this same spot, his body disappearing into darkness after their game went awry. Three years previous, Gates had declared him deceased and told her to move on to the next target. The memory hit her like a blow—Sebastian's gray eyes opened with betrayal as he stumbled back from her, her own voice calling out his name as he vanished into the night. The rain last night had been light and almost apologetic. The rain tonight was accusatory, each drop a reminder of what she'd lost. You were never supposed to care about the targets, Cross. Dr. Marianne Voss's tone haunted her occasionally, clinical and abstract, like the steel of surgical equipment. The Gates had spent years conditioning their operatives to view people as a variable in an equation, not flesh-and-blood beings with beating hearts. But Sebastian was different. He'd pierced her facade, past the well-planned deceptions, and had somehow reminded her of who she used to be before The Gates sucked the life out of her and replaced it with their venom. Aria wrapped her leather jacket tighter around her against the wind and turned away from the bridge. She'd come back to Seattle for closure, but being here only opened up the wound further. Her phone rang. Unknown caller. You shouldn't have come back. Aria's blood went cold. She glanced around the empty street, training kicking in automatically. A second note: *Meet me at Pike Place. One hour. Come alone.* Pike Place Market at night was a different animal. Tourist crowds had dispersed, leaving behind the skeletons of the market—weathered stalls, the ghostly odor of fish and flowers, and darkness that seemed more profound than it had to be. Aria moved through the empty corridors and practiced stealth. She saw him perched on a wooden crate next to the flower vendors, his back hunched over a laptop that lit up in the darkness. He was seventeen, maybe eighteen, with the pale, sharp face of one who spent more time staring at computers. His dark hair was dripping wet. "You're late," he muttered without looking up. "You're not who I expected you to be." Aria kept ten feet away. "Who are you?" "Somebody who knows what you used to be." His gaze fixed on hers—sharp, troubled, determined. "Somebody who's been following the breadcrumbs The Gates scattered behind." The name stopped her cold like a throw of ice water. "I don't know what you're talking about." "GlassMirror92." He positioned the laptop so she could see, and Aria's heart stopped. The screen was covered in a forum thread analyzing corporate acquisition trends, unexplained deaths, and psychological evaluations. Across the top of the page was a username that seemed too familiar—one she'd used years before. "Her Echo," continued the boy. "It's what we call ourselves. Those who've come to the conclusion that The Gates is more than just some conspiracy theory concocted by basement rats. "We follow them around, try to warn would-be victims, document all that they don't want the world to be aware of." Aria's mind spun. She'd lost that handle when she'd arrived at The Gates, but apparently not before leaving sufficient electronic breadcrumbs for someone persistent enough to find her. "What do you want?" "What do you want?" "I want to show you something about Sebastian Wolfe." The name hit like a punch in the gut. "Sebastian Wolfe is dead." "That's what they want everyone to believe." He pulled out his phone, scrolled through the screens. "This was uploaded three days ago before it got erased." The video was jerky, from a security camera in the ruins of WolfeTech. Someone was strolling through the wreckage—tall, lean, with measured steps. The figure halted, glanced at the camera, and shadows fell away from his face. Aria's hands shook. The face was thinner, scarred, but the eyes were not distinguishable. Grey like storm clouds, pointed with intelligence. Sebastian Wolfe was alive. "My name's Marcus Chen," the boy went on. "And someone needs to know the truth." They drove to the ruins of WolfeTech in Aria's rental car, the radio set to soft jazz that was making no dent in her nerves. Marcus sat next to her, glancing at her from time to time as though he expected her to vanish in a puff of smoke at any moment. She couldn't fault him. Three hours before, she'd been nobody—a face in a crowd trying to leave a past behind that wouldn't stay hidden. The WolfeTech tower had once been intimidating, all steel and glass reaching towards the heavens like a monument to man's ambition. It now looked like a cracked tooth, black and jagged against the night. The rumor was that it was an electrical fire from damaged wiring in the research labs. The unofficial word, spread in the shadows of the internet, was that The Gates had decided Sebastian's writing was too dangerous to pursue. Marcus led her through a hole in the fence, his motion a welcome surprise considering he lived in the World Wide Web. Inside the building, it was even more terrible than the video had suggested. Entire floors had collapsed in on themselves, tangled metal and concrete lying scattered about like shattered skeletons. The acrid scent of ash and chemicals lingered in the air, mixed with something else that Aria couldn't identify but that crawled under her skin. "This way," Marcus panted, pulling out a small flashlight. The video said he headed down to basement levels. They navigated the wreckage, Aria's memories giving her glimpses of the building prior to the fire. She'd been here previously, three years prior, when The Gates had first recognized the potential in Sebastian as a resource. He'd taken her for a tour of his labs, eager to present his work to someone who truly seemed to care. The basement had come through better, surrounded by concrete and steel. Marcus stopped in front of a thick door left open. "Here." Aria stepped inside and into what had been Sebastian's private lab. Most of the equipment was destroyed, its plastic melted and metal charred, but the support structure remained. And in the middle of the room, miraculously, a worn upright piano had been set. The appearance of it hit her like a punch. Sebastian would play when he was focused, his fingers flying across keys as his mind unraveled hard things. She'd found it adorable once, when she thought she knew what her life was supposed to be. "Aria." She spun in the direction of the voice, hand already reaching for her blade, but stopped when she saw him. Sebastian Wolfe stepped out of the darkness near the opposite wall, and the fact of his living, real, breathing almost brought her to her knees. He looked like a ghost of the person he once was. The left half of his face was scarred from burns that curled the flesh into new lines, and his previously flawless features had been reshaped by time and pain. His gray eyes were still the same, however—still piercing, still watching too much, still looking at her as if she was a problem he couldn't solve. "Hi, Aria. I figured that you'd come back." "You're alive." Not a question. "In a way." He advanced, limping on his left leg. "Though I've been worse." "Three years, Sebastian. I saw you fall." "You only saw what The Gates wanted you to." His smile twisted. "They're great at staging deaths when it's convenient for them." Marcus swallowed. "Security sweep in twenty minutes." Sebastian sat on the piano bench, fingers poised above the keys. "They've changed, Aria. Matured into something better than you recall. They're not content to operate from the shadows any longer." Ice edged its way up into her belly. "What are you talking about?" "They have a new program. "Horizon." He tapped one key that rang out like a bell. "And the one running it is a person you thought was dead. Someone who has been waiting for you to return." "Who?" Sebastian held her gaze. "Your mother." Music ended. Aria could hear her own heartbeat, pounding like thunder. Her mother. Elena Cross. Dead in a car accident when Aria was twelve. The woman whose funeral she'd attended, whose grave she'd visited until The Gates found her. "That's impossible." "I thought so too. Until I saw her three months ago," Sebastian stood carefully. "Aria, you were never just another operative. You were the prototype. And now they're ready for the real work." "What is real work?" "Complete overhaul of human consciousness. Starting with people close to the people in charge, working their way out until everyone thinks exactly as The Gates wants." The room spun. Aria clung to the wall, needing something solid. "You're lying." "I wish that I were. I've seen the files, Aria. I know what they did to you." Marcus's voice cut through her fog. "Black SUVs surrounded the building." But Aria was paralyzed, stuck in Sebastian's gray eyes, in the impossible reality of his survival and her mother's homecoming. "Come with me," Sebastian commanded, offering his hand. "I have a place to hide." I'll tell you everything about Horizon, about your mother, about what The Gates really wants." "And then?" Sebastian's scarred face pinched into a line. "Then we stopped them. Before they make the world their lab." Outside, car doors slammed, voices shouted orders into the rain. The Gates had caught up with them, as they always did. But this time, she was not alone. She took Sebastian's hand, felt his fingers close and warm and living around her own, and for the first time in three years, allowed herself to hope the dead could be brought back. Even if that meant facing her mother's ghost.