A Twisted Memory

Restraints on his wrists, ankles. A struggled step forward; the sensation of falling and the cold concrete against his face. Blinding light poured around him, a ringing in his ears as he called out desperately.

“IZZA!!”

Movement wasn’t possible, and even conscious thought drained away the more he struggled. Where was he?

The frantic, flitting memories of the five minutes before filled his mind. He had found himself alone in the darkness. He had been with Izza the moment before – at least, as far as he could remember. But…

A face from this twisted memory, hidden in darkness, forcing its way upwards through the panic and pain. It was her face, but the eyes were filled with hatred and anger.

“WHAT DID I DO?”  Stef screamed, trying to get to his knees. Whatever was binding him crept along his forearms and up his legs, binding him tighter.

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?”

The sound of his voice barely penetrated the ringing that filled his ears. He could only pray that Izza was out there, somewhere. He could only hope that she could hear him and that she cared.

The restraint was to his shoulders now, locking him in a half-bent position. His breath began to come in raspy gasps as it continued to his neck.

That face appeared again to haunt him. He did not know if it was from the memory if she had returned to mock his final moments.

“Izza…” he mumbled, reaching his bound arms up and falling to his side. “Help me. Please.”

Izza’s cold eyes watched him squirm in fear and alarm. “You don’t belong here,” she finally said.

The rest of her words were cut off as Stef lapsed into unconsciousness.

Snapshots of memory returned to him.

“Which way, Miss Déjà Vu?”

“That way,” Izza said.

“Your memory telling you where to go?”

“No,” she replied, a wry grin playing on her lips. “It’s just the only path.”

More events were unfolding, but Stef couldn’t tell what order they were supposed to be in.

A table in the middle of a library, loaded with books. A cover stood out in his mind – theories of magical mechanicals. A wave of kinky hair was the only visible feature of the reader, and Stef could feel the smile on his own face.

The stars stretched across the sky above him, a flash of magic interrupting the serenity. Laughter from the launch pad, a moment of rare joy in the chaos and pain of the collective months.

Twin waterfalls, defining the edges of a concrete edifice. A dam, doing a poor job of holding back a river. Graffiti covered every visible inch, artistically confusing in the way each piece covered and exposed each other. Stef struggled to focus on it, his eyes darting from side to side to take it in.

“Eager.”

“That word? What about it?”

“Look at the shape. It’s just like my dad’s garage key.” A pause of silence, uncomfortably heavy with things unsaid. A quiet whisper. “That’s what our name was going to be.”

The top of a plateau. An engine revving.

“In Jeopardy, we are safe.”

A ring of friends, encouraging them to stand up and dance. A fire, dancing in its own way. Music swelling, a night of near-perfection.

“You’re Isaac’s daughter. What do you think you’re doing here?”

The night ruined, tears, anger.

Why was that important?

He could see his fingers tracing the edges of a graffiti word. Eager.

“There’s a lip here!”

“Well, don’t put your hand into any weird holes. You don’t know what could be in them.”

Grinding, a door opening.

Darkness.

He was alone again.

A face haunting him.

Stef’s opened his eyes and was greeted by darkness and silence. His hands and legs were free, and breathing came easily. He touched his throat, but could find no sign of any pressure.

He rolled to a sitting position, waving a hand in front of his face. He thought he could see motion, but who could be sure?

He closed his eyes again. Something about it helped him focus on his other senses.

Hearing – there was a faint murmur, like softly flowing water?

Smell – musty, like the air was unused.

Touch – the ground was cold and level, but rough, like a parking garage.

He forewent sight and taste, figuring he could make do without either of them. He checked his pockets, finding his wallet and keys. He had a distant recollection of a flashlight, but if he had one, it was gone now.

“So they’re not muggers, whoever these people are,” Stef said. He reached around him, hoping to find a wall or door. But there was nothing in all directions. Hesitantly, he stood, reaching above him to make sure he didn’t hit his head. On a whim, he bounced on his feet, and his fingers scratched against a rough ceiling. “Same as the floor,” Stef noted. “Hopefully well-made. Function is the key, not fancy, I can se…tell.”

Blindly, he stepped forward, testing the ground in front of him while moving his arm up and down to ensure he didn’t walk into any low-hanging walls or something equally dumb. He’d seen enough slapstick humor to know you couldn’t trust anything.

Within a few steps, he had found a wall. He peeked an eye open, but there was still no visible features. With a sigh, he began following it, resting his arm and side against it to catch any variations in the uniformity of the wall.

His ingenuity proved useful as a switch caught him in the ribs. He hissed in excitement as he flipped it, and a second later, vision was returned in bright, blinding light.

Stef was in a room with a singular door, bare except for the single fixture hanging from the ceiling. As Stef had surmised, it was all of poured concrete. “Thomas Edison would be proud,” he muttered, trying the door.

It was, naturally, locked.

He took another look at the room, hopeful to find something he had missed. But, as he turned in a slow circle, he found nothing to help him in his escape plan.

“Maybe it’s a push,” Stef said, trying the door again. Unsurprisingly, it did not budge.

He pulled out his wallet, but the mess of plastic cards weren’t going to open this door. Unless… He took one – an expired gift card – and tried to fit it between the door and jamb. For a second, he thought it was going to work, then it slipped out and he started forward, banging his head against frame.

As he reeled back, pain throbbing in his forehead, he caught sight of movement from by the lightbulb. Without thinking, he looked directly at it, causing him to blink and lose vision again.

In the same moment, something was springing at him, flying at his face with alarming speed. He threw up an arm on instinct, and batted something soft and pliable away. He blinked, trying to clear his vision.

Across the room lay a pile of knotted rope. Stef laughed to himself. It must have been hanging from the light and just fallen…

But he wasn’t anywhere near the light fixture for the rope to have fallen on his face so directly. He hadn’t…

The rope sprang at him again, this time latching onto his leg. Stef yelped as he jumped away, lifting his leg to avoid being ensnared again. Even as he did, he kept an eye upward, making sure no other living ropes were going to come down on his head.

“Get. Off!” Stef yelled, finally kicking free and stumbling backwards. The rope crumpled to the floor and lay there innocently. “Now stop it!” Stef continued, raising a finger.

For some reason, the scolding seemed to work. The rope didn’t move. Stef flicked his eyes upwards, checking the light again, but nothing else appeared.

“Now,” Stef said. “Who sent you? Who’s your master?”

The rope did not respond. It did not even move.

Stef walked toward it hesitantly. He thought it was inactive before, and it had nearly gotten him. He didn’t want to give it the chance to get around his neck.

Then, slowly, it began to move. It flopped upright, two frayed edges of rope supporting a thick, knotted ball. Then the ball began to untangle, a larger half swaying up so that it stood almost a foot and a half high. A torso of braided rope supported what Stef could only call it’s head, while a smaller knot split the braid into two legs. Just under the head, two arm-like cords unraveled, reaching up toward Stef’s confused gaze. For a second, it looked like a child that wanted to be held. Then Stef remembered the way it had attacked him, and he opted to back away again. “Gremlin child, maybe,” he said, wagging a finger.

The head drooped, as did the arms. The whole body sagged, like a cartoon character walking through a desert. Stef didn’t get taken in.

“Look,” he bartered, “If you get me out of here, we can call it even for trying you trying to kill me.”

The head snapped up, and the torn edge of one of the arms pressed against where the chest would have been. The head twisted away, and Stef would have sworn eyes appeared only to be closed in distaste.

“Well, if you weren’t trying to kill me, what were you doing?” Stef asked, putting his hands on his hips.

The rope-thing put out both arms, as if saying, “What do you think?” Then it fell over, wrapping it’s own legs with it’s arms.

“You were going to tie me up?” Stef asked.

It stood straight again, nodding solemnly. Then, just as solemnly, it shrugged.

“I guess that’s a good point,” Stef said. “You do have to do your job.”

‘Right,’ the rope-thing nodded.

“And I’m having a full conversation with a rope,” Stef said, staring at the blank wall.

‘You sure are,’ the rope-thing implied.

“You’re not helping.”

The rope-thing just shrugged.

“Can you help me get out?” Stef asked, trying the door again. It hadn’t magically unlocked.

The head shook vigorously. It pointed upward, motioning behind the light.

It took a second for Stef to make out what he was pointing at. “Is that a hole?” A decided nod. “And that’s how you got in?” Another nod. “And I can’t fit up there, right?” A pointed stare. “Well, can you go out and call for help or something?” The stare grew more pointed. “Oh, right. No mouth.”

Stef turned away, then turned back. “Wait a minute. Why are you trying to help me?”

The rope-thing pointed to the lack of a defined mouth, then gesticulated wildly in what appeared to be some kind of language. It stopped when it saw Stef’s blank expression, then threw up its hands.

“I’m just very confused,” Stef said. “The only thing I did was tell you off, and you’re suddenly docile. I’m just saying I’m not sure I can trust you.”

Another look of wounded pride. Then a motion to the door.

“Oh, is it unlocked now?” Stef asked, reaching for the handle. It turned as he touched it, and he jumped back, preparing to fight whatever was about to come through. He relaxed when he saw Izza’s face. Then, as he saw a second Izza behind the first, he put up his fists again.

The rope-thing had put a hand to his head and was shaking it in a surprisingly human motion. Stef saw this from the corner of his eye, but ignored it, keeping his attention on the double Izza’s he was seeing.

“Relax,” the first one said with a smile. “It’s me.”

The second one remained impassive. A third figure had appeared next to her, tall and broad with a face Stef recognized from picture frames in Izza’s house.  

“Wait,” he said. “This is your dad’s lair, or office, or whatever, isn’t it?”

The first Izza looked confused. “Yeah. That’s why we came out here, remember?”

It sounded right to Stef, though he had no clear recollection of the event. “But I thought your dad was… you know.” Another light turned on in his brain. “Oh, no. He was cloning people. He cloned himself, and you.” His eyes took on a paranoid glint. “Have you been a clone all this time?” he whispered loudly.

Izza laughed, and he felt the worry wash away. That was a laugh he knew, and only a select few others beside. It would be impossible to replicate, no matter the skill of cloning or body-snatching.

“They’re defenses,” Izza explained. “They look like the owner and operators of the facility so they can act as body doubles if necessary.”

Stef nodded slowly, as if it made sense. “And that’s why you attacked me earlier?” he asked.

“It wasn’t me,” Izza said, giving him a look. “It was one of the defenses, yes.” She waved for him to come out of the room. “Here. I’ll explain what happened while we walk.”

Stef exited cautiously. It might have been his prison, but it felt safer than being in the open hallway, even if this Izza had the right laugh. “Explain what?” he asked.

“Do you remember coming in?” she asked. “The graffiti, the door, all that?”

Dimly, Stef replayed the scene. “Vaguely,” he said.

“That happened about two hours ago,” Izza said. “When we came in, it registered me as my dad’s daughter and cleared me for entry. But it caught you in a time-stop, and there was no way of clearing it there.”

“All that still works?” Stef asked, surprised. “I’d think that it would run down by now. Even magic will lose it’s charge if it’s not powered properly.”

Izza pointed upwards. “We’re under the dam. It’s a hydroelectric plant. My dad was working on how to use electricity and magic together – just like I’m studying now. But because the river never dried up, the charge hasn’t died. Everything still runs – probably too well, if I’m being honest.”

“That’s where the defenses come in?” Stef surmised. “The reason I was nearly killed by your doppelganger?”

Izza grimaced. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I got to the main controls, and finally figured out how to release the time-stop. But I didn’t clear you as authorized, so the defenses went out to stop you. And I had already left the controls, so I didn’t see the alert that there was an intruder – well, actually, a couple intruders. Then Ike-0 found me, and explained what was happening.”

“Iko?” Stef asked, then his eyes landed on the biggest of the defenses. “Oh. Ike-0.”

There was a moment of silence. Stef could see the reunion replaying in Izza’s mind, and gave her a small smile. “Sorry it wasn’t actually your dad,” he said.

“I don’t know if it would have been better,” Izza said. “Then I’d have to find out why he’d stayed in this crummy place for so long.” She let out a quick exhale, dispelling the memory. “Anyway, you had been detained, and I had a list a mile long of intruders I had to sort through, so I decided to leave you alone while I took care of it. Then you woke up, and an overzealous restraint defense deployed itself to stop you from getting out of the room.” Stef’s eyes wandered behind him, where the rope-thing was trailing the group. “But I got the alert and immediately cleared you as authorized, which shut it down.”

“That explains the sudden shift in mood,” Stef said. “I thought I had just yelled at it into submission.”

Izza gave the creature a quick glance. “That might be. He wants to be something great, but he’s quite small and very young, compared to the others.” She shrugged. “At least, as far as I can tell. I’m still learning about this place.”

“You said your dad built it?”

“Yeah,” Izza nodded. “Years ago, when he was at the college and had the funding for it. As far as I can find, everyone thought it was shut down. And anyone who tried to find it got trapped in the time-stop.”

A sudden thought made Stef stop. “How long where they in there?”

“Some of them, years,” Izza said. “The longest is about a decade, if I’m right. I’ve already contacted the Agency to help figure out what to do with them. But all of them have some kind of magical background, so at least the concept of a time stop isn’t far beyond their understanding.”

Stef whistled. “I don’t know what to say.”

Izza shrugged. “I’m still figuring it out myself. But there’s so much here, Stef. My dad was working on something, but I can’t figure out what. I haven’t had the chance to try and break it, but his files are under some kind of encryption. Something is hidden, but I don’t know what.”

Stef thought back to the night on Chimera Circle again. The vindictive man, pulled away from them by their friends. It was clearer than his dazed recollection earlier. “He never told us what it was your dad was trying to do,” he said.

“No,” Izza said. “And the professors who knew my dad refuse to say anything about him. They’ll say he was brilliant, but that’s it.” She sighed. “Maybe we’ll never know.”

“We will, someday,” Stef promised. “If anyone can crack that code, it’s you.”

“At any rate,” Izza said, “I think I’ve figured out how to close this off from accidentally opening eating random people.”

Stef shuddered. “That might not be the best description.”

Izza laughed again, then listed a technical and detailed report of how she could shore up the defense. Stef listened intently, but didn’t understand most of what was said. It didn’t matter, really – Izza just needed to hear herself puzzle it out to make sure she understood.

By the time the Agency had arrived – two Agents they didn’t recognize, accompanied by a satyr who looked vaguely familiar – most of the intruders were ready to be released to their care and start rehabilitation to enter the world again. Only one, an angry-faced man only a little older than they, refused to move out of his cell.

“You think I’m going to go with them?” he asked, dark eyes glaring at Izza. They ignored Stef and the Agents, solely focused on the mirror image of the woman and her defense. “Do you even know what they did?”

“We’re only here to help however we can,” one of the Agents said.

“Shut up!” the man shouted, still ignoring them. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked Izza.

“No,” Izza said. “But they’ve only ever helped us.”

“They – that Agency they work for – they killed your father!” the man accused, lifting his bound hands and pointing them at the two Agents.

“That’s a lie,” the Agent said. He was going to say more, but Izza cut him off.

“How can you say that?” Izza asked. She lifted a finger, stopping him from speaking. “You’re the one that broke into my father’s facility. You’re in no place to throw around accusations.”

“You want answers,” the man said. “So do I. Let me help you! We can take it back, take it all back. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Take what back?” Izza asked quietly.

“The Project!” the man said, like it answered her question. He cocked his head, a humored expression on his face. “You don’t even know. Even his daughter is kept in the dark?” He laughed like it was a joke, shaking his head at the thought.

“I didn’t even know my father did anything magical until last year,” Izza said. “I thought he was just a mechanic.”

“Just…” the man didn’t finish the sentence, chuckling angrily as he shook his head. “No wonder you so blindly trust the Agency.” He leaned forward, brow furrowing as he narrowed his eyes. “Forget my offer. I might have been able to help, but not now. Not after you’ve been in bed with them for so long.”

“Get him out of here,” Izza said, taking a step back. Her defense doppelganger and Agents stepped forward. Even the small rope-creature, which was still following Stef, made a motion like it was going to try and join until Stef lifted it up onto his shoulder and out of the way.

The man was pulled from the containment room, kicking and swearing. His tormented eyes met Izza’s. “You’re just like your father,” he said. “You sit back, too scared of pushing through! Well, I won’t be scared. I will come for what you have. If you won’t take your father’s legacy, I will. His name will be forgotten – but the name LeFesse will be immortalized! Remember that, little girl. Remember Eogan LeFesse – remember me!”

Izza’s reply was as quiet as the man’s was loud, but just as forceful. “You say he won’t be remembered. Say it to his face, Eogan LeFesse.”

From the shadows behind Izza stepped her father’s defense doppelganger. It was silent and impassive, but it shut Eogan up. The Agents and Izza’s doppelganger pulled him away, and Izza sagged against the wall.

Stef crouched beside her, but remained silent.

After a long pause, Izza finally spoke. “He made a mistake.”

“He made you mad?” Stef asked.

“No,” Izza said, looking up, her eyes wet, but refusing to cry. “He told me his name.”

Author’s Note: This story is inspired by a waterfall near my home, and by my desire to introduce Twister, the rope-creature. The questions that are raised by this story are unfortunately unconnected to the current Adventures arcs, and so will not be answered for a while. Suffice to to say, there are a lot more secrets within this world to discover!