The Search for Artemis

Chapter TWENTY

CONFLICT

IN THE

LABORATORY


With his hands and knees pressing into the cold tile, Landon was unaware of what was going on around him. Carrying him and Cortland up to the forty-seventh floor was surprisingly easy, but what was difficult was keeping his abilities in check. He couldn’t allow them to take control of him again as they had during his apocratusis. If it happened, he knew the consequences would be catastrophic, so once he had released them on to solid ground, he had to fight the blazing fire within and contain it. It felt like a lump in his throat—a burning, scorching lump—that he had to choke down, and he couldn’t do anything until it was gone.

Cortland’s body suddenly slammed into the glass railing with a loud boom just as Landon was getting back in control of himself. The sound of guns firing in rapid succession was muted from where they stood but could still be heard echoing up the inner shaft of the tower. He looked quizzically at Cortland, who in a forced voice said, “Artemis,” and then made a directional motion with his head before falling unconscious.

Landon’s eyes bulged in surprise, and he hurried to his feet.

She stood powerfully in the middle of the hallway. Her high collar concealed her face, and her eyes glared at him with determination. There was no denying that Landon recognized her as the same girl he had encountered at the Gymnasium all those months ago.

His mind raced. He couldn’t believe she was standing right in front of him. In the back of his mind he wondered if in different circumstances, they could have just sat down and talked like civilized people with her answering the many questions he still had. What would she say if he could tell her that Dr. Pullman had told him to find her?

But these weren’t different circumstances and it wasn’t a different time. There was no changing his and Cortland’s situation. Anxious chills ran through his body; he knew he’d have to fight Artemis in order to fulfill their orders. She was the one thing standing between them and the laboratory, and they needed to get to the laboratory.

Landon clenched his jaw and focused. Time seemed to slow down around him as he awaited Artemis to make the first move. As he concentrated, the world shrank until nothing existed but the two of them. Apart from the steady sound of his own breathing, he could hear nothing, not Cortland stirring behind him or even the clatters from the battle raging below. Following his training, Landon widened his stance and rooted his legs. Tiny flecks of dirt and dust spurted into the air as he ground the balls of his feet into the tile.

Artemis reacted accordingly, crouching down into a low fighting stance, and then with a seamless thrusting motion of her arms, she projected her telekinetic force forward in hopes of pushing Landon aside as she had done Cortland.

“Not this time,” Landon muttered to himself as he pressed his hands forward and directed a similar telekinetic force toward Artemis. He knew what he was facing. He’d experienced the strength of her abilities before when she pinned him to the golden doors of the Gymnasium. But this time was different; this time she was not the only one with control of their abilities.

His quick reaction took Artemis by surprise; his reflexes were much faster than she had anticipated, and she had to reinforce her posture to brace herself for the impact of Landon’s oncoming wave of power.

The moment their fields collided, Landon’s feet slid a few inches back on the tile as his body absorbed the initial pressure. Like trying to walk against gale-force winds, he could feel his body fighting to stay upright as each of them worked to overtake the other by attempting to extend their powers forward. It was a strange feeling, standing against an invisible field of pressure and fighting to hold back an unbelievable weight. Landon looked like a mime trying to break out of his imaginary box, but the strained expression on his face was not the result of good acting.

They reached a stalemate; they were both too powerful to take the advantage. Landon could feel beads of sweat form on his forehead and start to trickle down the sides of his face.

“Hector!” he shouted behind him. “Are you all right?”

Cortland groggily moaned in reply as he regained consciousness. He was still a bit bleary from his head colliding with the balcony’s balustrade.

It was not the response Landon was hoping to hear. Still maintaining his hold, he turned his concerns back to his opponent. It was only the two of them. Looking at him, Artemis’ eyes were narrowed and her face tense. Her hands pressed forward as if trying to hold up a falling wall. Sweat streamed down the side of her face and her brow was furrowed with grit determination. It appeared to him that he was gaining ground and that she wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer, but a lingering thought stirred in the back of his mind: Could she be holding back?

Still pressing against Artemis’ telekinetic force, he slowed his breathing and tried to relax his body and mind as best he could under the circumstances, preparing himself for what was to come. There was only one thing he could do.

The entire time Landon had been fighting two battles: one against Artemis and the other with himself. Landon could feel the raw strength of his psychokinetic abilities burning at his core, waiting for the moment when he couldn’t contain them any longer. If he let them go, he believed he could easily win, but he was afraid of what might happen should he not be able to stop himself.

He had no idea how long he’d fought with himself. Time had no relevance. It could have been ten minutes or ten seconds, but the longer he waited, the more he knew—there was no other way.

Mustering his courage and strengthening his resolve, Landon surrendered himself to his powers, embracing the strength he’d fought so hard to restrain. He could feel raw energy ignite through his bloodstream like wildfire. Heat emanated from the surface of his skin and from the palms of his hands. As it coursed through him, Landon’s mind began to cloud. He had only moments before he would lose any vestige of control. Then, with a pulse from his hands, an uninhibited wave of telekinetic force was released, cutting through the air like a falcon’s wing, and collided with Artemis.

She let out a frightened scream when the wave hit her, knocked from her feet, and shot her backward through the hallway. Landon heard the thud as her body plowed into a wall in the distance, but the fate of Artemis was the least of his worries. He had to regain control of himself before it was too late.

The muscles throughout his body were twitching violently. He was panting heavily, almost hyperventilating, and he could feel his hands tingling. His body felt like it was on fire.

He shut his eyes and worked to steady his breath. Then the image from his nightmares of the white fire contained in the glass dome flashed through his mind. He couldn’t explain why, but the image, one that had caused him countless nights of fear and panic, somehow filled him with a sense of calm. It was almost as if his brain were telling him he could do it; he had the strength to contain the fire raging within. With his eyes still closed and his breathing steadily relaxing, he felt the heat recede from his hands and arms. Landon’s mind cleared.

When he reopened his eyes, he could see the motionless black lump that was Artemis in the deep recesses of the hall. He wanted to rush over to her, discover who she was and make sure she was alive, but his obligations to the Pantheon overshadowed his need for answers. Knowing the coast was clear, Landon turned and helped Cortland to his feet.

“Come on! She may be up any second. We need to get to the lab while we can,” he said.

Cortland nodded in agreement and the two rushed down the hallway, the sound of their steps echoing off the heavy walls as they made their way to Dr. Lovecraft’s laboratory. They found the appropriate door near the end of the hallway, a placard with only the word “Lovecraft” serving as the means to identify the room.

Cortland stepped up to the keypad next to the steel door and began inputting the sequence of numbers that would grant them access. As he worked, Landon turned to his left and looked down the hall at the nearby body of Artemis.

She was slouched against a wall some twenty or so feet away. Her head was almost completely hidden inside her collar as her chin was pressed against her chest, and the rest of her body lay oddly contorted on the tile floor. A twinge of anxiety spread through Landon’s body as he looked at her. Was she dead? Had he killed her? It couldn’t be so. He needed her alive, and he knew he couldn’t withstand the weight that would be on his conscience if he had allowed his abilities to claim another life. He had accepted that the death of his parents was out of his control, but this time he had willing submitted to his abilities. He was responsible for her fate.

The loud metallic sound of the door unlocking jolted Landon back to the task at hand. He turned and followed Cortland into the laboratory. Taking one last look at Artemis’ motionless body, he shut the door.

Accompanied by the loud clank of the door’s heavy lock re-engaging, the motion-activated florescent lights of the laboratory switched on. The lab looked a lot like one of the rooms in the Forge of the Olympic Tower, but on a grander scale. There were a number of computers lining one wall and a row of filing cabinets along the other. Numerous scientific machines and sophisticated equipment covered an expansive table that extended down the center. Most of them Landon had never seen before, nor did he understand their purpose. The air was filled with an antiseptic aroma akin to bleach.

“You find the files. I’ll take care of the computer,” Cortland ordered as he ran to the nearest computer, switched on the monitor, and pulled a tiny capsule containing the Janus Key out of a small pocket on the underarm of his suit. Pulling the monitor up, he secured the minute device to the underside of the screen’s stand.

Landon hurried over to the nearest filing cabinet. He pulled on the topmost drawer, but it was locked. He used his abilities and forced the drawer out of the base. As the drawer shot from the cabinet, the sounds of metal bending and breaking echoed through the lab. Landon wanted to complete the mission as fast as possible and get back to the Gymnasium. It would have more discrete to unlock the cabinet with the lock picking kit strapped to Cortland’s upper arm, but Landon needed to be done with this mission and had lost the patience he’d need to pick it appropriately. In a fit of rage, Landon just went with his first response. The strange soreness that had inexplicably developed in the back of his head wasn’t helping his mood any either.

While hearing Cortland type furiously on the keyboard, Landon flicked through the series of files in the cabinet. There were projects by countless names, but none that said Herakles. He tried to close the drawer, but his rash actions a minute earlier made it impossible to shut, so he grabbed the handle and with a forceful pull, yanked the drawer out of the cabinet and threw it to the floor.

Using gentler tactics, he proceeded down the line, checking each drawer for the necessary files. He thumbed through personnel files, files on projects with “Top Secret” written across the filing tab, and even an entire section that was filled with nothing but loose papers. It wasn’t until he was about two-thirds of the way down the wall that he found what he was looking for—a thick file in a pale blue folder with “Project Herakles - Top Secret” typed across the label.

He yanked out the folder, but as he shut the cabinet, he stopped dead in his tracks. The image embossed on the front of the file-folder caught his attention. It was the same silver owl holding a branch that he had seen stitched onto the lab coat of Dr. Pullman. In that instant he realized there was more to Metis Labs than Dr. Wells and the Gymnasium had explained. His mind started to race with more questions. Could Metis Labs somehow be linked to the Pallas Corporation? Was it Dr. Pullman who had told them about Project Herakles? How had Dr. Pullman ended up in the Gymnasium if he worked here?

“Apollo!” Cortland called over his shoulder as he scrolled through the files he’d pulled up on the computer. “This says there’s some kind of test sample related to the project. We should grab that too. Check the tables and stuff. See if you can find it. It’s supposed to be labeled ‘PH-LW-BS001.’”

“On it.”

Landon stepped over to the long lab table. Setting the folder down on a small empty patch near the edge, he began to scour the equipment for any signs of a vial, petri dish or anything with the label Cortland had specified. Toward the back of the lab, he noticed a small glass cabinet backlit with a blue light. Inside were rows upon rows of test tubes set up in a series of racks. He opened the cabinet and felt the cool air of the temperature-controlled case. On the second shelf he found a vial with a large white label that had the owl symbol and “Metis Labs” printed across the top, followed by the appropriate identifier, “PH-LW-BS001.”

As he pulled it out of the rack, Landon was a bit taken aback by the appearance of its contents. A viscous, rusty-colored liquid filled the glass tube.

“Hector, this stuff looks like blood!” He turned the vial around in his hand, curiously staring at it. Why would they need blood? “Is that right?”

“Doesn’t say.”

“Are there supposed to be any others?” Landon asked as he turned back to the refrigerated case and scanned the remaining labels.

“Why? What do you see?” Cortland was still typing rapidly at the computer, giving partial-attention to their conversation while concentrating on copying the computer files they needed.

“Uh, because there are others with ‘PH’ in here,” Landon answered. There were two other samples directly to the right of the one he found with the prefix “PH.” He assumed it stood for Project Herakles, but they looked nothing like the one he had in his hand. The first was a bright, translucent blue liquid with the label “PH-LW-Isolate” and the other was an odd yellowish-white, like the color of spoiled milk, with the code “PH-BioEnh #014”.

Without waiting for Cortland’s opinion, he grabbed the vials, figuring he could leave it up to the scientists at the Gymnasium to sort through later. As he shut the glass door of the substance cabinet, Landon heard a loud crash behind him.

When he turned, all he saw was the figure of Artemis standing near the computer with the broken metal drawer from the filing cabinet clasped between her hands. Cortland was nowhere to be seen, but Landon could hear his body hit the floor. Trying to rescue his teammate, Landon dashed down the side of the table toward the girl, slamming the vials of liquid on top of the file folder he passed before diving to tackle her.

He wasn’t sure how, but he was able to wrap his arms around her torso before she had a chance to step aside or telekinetically freeze him in midair. In another second, they had collided with the wall. The impact jarred Landon, but his body worked through muscle memory, using what he had learned from combat training. Before he knew it, he had pinned Artemis to the ground, holding her wrists to the floor and straddling her midsection.

Once the initial excitement of the attack had subsided, he looked down at her, but he could never have expected what he saw. Her collar had fallen, making her face visible, and looking up at Landon, with her grey, stormy eyes was the face of Celia Jackson.

“Wha—” Landon exclaimed in shock as his body rolled off her, and he pushed himself away in a state of sheer panic and surprise. “Celia? How? It can’t be!”

Before he knew it, Celia had risen from the floor and forced Landon against the lab table, the edge of its surface digging into his back as she held him down by the arms. Landon frantically tried to break free and get away from her.

“Landon!” she said forcefully. “Landon!”

The second shout was strong enough to break through Landon’s erratic state. He kept his face turned away, but his eyes turned and looked at her. Alarm still read all over his face. He squirmed one final time in a last-ditch effort to break free from her grip. He needed to get away.

“Landon.” Her voice was panicked and jittery as it resonated through his mind. She was speaking to him telepathically to ensure she had his complete attention. “You cannot tell them who I am.”

Getting nowhere in his efforts to escape, Landon relaxed slightly and looked back at Celia with caution. He didn’t say anything or even attempt to give a gesture of understanding; he just continued to stare at her.

“I’ll explain everything back at the Gymnasium,” she continued. “You’ve trusted me to keep your secrets, now I’m trusting you to keep mine. Not everything is as you imagine it to be.”

“How can I trust anything you say?” Landon’s voice was strong, but Celia could hear the panic in it.

“Because you have to,” she answered sternly. “Yes, I am Artemis. I know you’ve been looking for me. Landon, I promise I’ll tell you everything later, but now is not the time.”

The sound of the office chair sliding across the tile floor stole Landon and Celia’s attention. Cortland was regaining consciousness and fighting to get up.

Celia’s voice re-entered Landon’s mind. “Trust me, Landon. Trust me. I’ll tell you everything.”

Landon gave Celia an almost imperceptible nod of assurance. He didn’t know what else to do. He was so confused. How could Celia be Artemis? It just didn’t make sense. She had tried to kill him earlier, but wasn’t she his friend? He knew he wasn’t ready to be an active operative in the Pantheon; he couldn’t handle the pressure of all this stuff. It was too much. He had learned hours earlier that Artemis was the enemy of the Pantheon; he should have been able to give her up to the Gymnasium without remorse, but in the back of his mind, he knew he needed to give her a chance to explain.

Celia released Landon’s arms and slowly stepped backward. She kept her eyes fixed on Landon, who had pushed himself up while continuing to stare at her. As she continued to walk back, one step after the other, she projected her voice into his head one last time.

“I’ll tell you everything in the morning. Now, grab what you came for and get out of here.”

After she spoke, Celia shut her eyes and took a final step back, but rather than colliding with the wall, she sank into it and disappeared, passing through it like a ghost.