In the day or so that Alia was preoccupied with Wendy on the third floor, the IBF basement was tense without her and everyone wondered if they should do something to help. The chaos from the third floor had rocked the building, but the actual crashing and rumbling happened quickly; about three minutes from the first crash that could be felt in the basement. Eakran, Maria, Darker, Cousins and Aile watched news coverage of the event that was unfolding just above their heads. They all crowded into one of the patient rooms watching the TV on the wall, each of them with a similar concern; that Alia was ok.
They watched shaky footage from a helicopter camera that showed the view inside a lab on the third floor through a giant hole in the side of the building. There was fighting and chaos, people floating and glowing, and then a blinding white light.
Shortly after the incident was over, the elevator opened and everyone wandered into the main laboratory as Alia appeared with Giovanni who was holding an unconscious woman.
“Everything is fine. This woman had a spider inside of her and Alia and her friends stopped it.” Giovanni smiled at everyone, seemingly unaware that he was covered in glitter from the party he had been forced to enjoy in Wendy’s lab while she was under the influence of Uttu.
Everyone looked around at one another confused, and then Eakran and Cousins tended to the woman.
“You had us all worried,” Aile said as she hugged Alia. “What happened up there?”
“Do you know Wendy?”
Aile nodded, “She helped me with Moss. She’s a nice woman but I thought she was out of town, I haven’t heard from her in a while.”
“Apparently she was being manipulated by something, a spider that my friends Clay and Ivan are fighting as we speak. I hope they’re ok.”
“What kind of spider?”
Alia thought for a second how best to explain it to her. “It’s like magic, but real. I’ve seen some crazy things since I’ve been gone. I’ve met some strange people in strange places. There’s different types of matter that create different planes of existence with beings and such. It’s scientific gibberish, if you can even call it scientific. But there’s an existence over ours, it’s a different place but you can see our place from it, and there’s things there. Spiders, or things that look like spiders, are part of that, and it’s how my friends, Ivan and Clay do what they do, I think.”
“How do you know all this?” Aile asked.
“I met a guy with wings once.”
“Well, we have a more pressing concern. Cousins is ready to pop. I feel bad for misleading him. I think I will relay Moss’s messages to him. I don’t want Eakran to die.”
“You sure?” Alia smirked.
“I’m going to help him and let him help me. I like our family here, and you are part of it. I think you should stay.”
Alia was surprised by Aile’s show of emotions. She had been very quiet in their time together at the IBF before her transfer and though they had an unmistakable bond, it was unspoken and there were rarely ever physical gestures of affection between them. Aile held her hand when she asked her to stay, and Alia stared at it smiling. For a girl born into the world with no family, she was doing pretty good to make one for herself and she was so grateful that it brought her to tears.
She wiped them away. “I need a lot of answers from Eakran before I’ll agree to work with him. But I’ll give him a chance to give them to me. Let’s go check on Wendy.”
When Wendy wakes up a few days later, she is in a patient room and very disoriented. Alia and Aile smile at her from their seats; they had both been watching the news about the dangerous, escaped prisoners whom Alia affectionately called friends.
“Where am I? Why are you both here?” She sits up and groans, rubbing her throat. “It feels like I swallowed sandpaper.”
Alia gave her a glass of water and sat next to her.
“Do you remember anything?”
“I threw up a giant, invisible spider didn’t I?”
Alia nods as Wendy groans again.
“Why are the things you want to be dreams, never dreams? So I had a lovefest in my lab. And I stabbed you with that stinger? I don’t even want to know where it came from. I’m so sorry Alia.”
The two hug. “You know you don’t have to apologize,” Alia says rubbing Wendy’s back.
“Your Great uncle is here, and Ishe and Ane too,” Aile says. “My relatives caught them when you banished them.”
Alia watches as Wendy talks with people she can’t see. Then Aile puts a hand on her shoulder, and she sees them. They look ancient and they are so happy to see Wendy alive.
After their reunion, Alia is curious about the spider.
“Have you ever encountered something like that before?”
Wendy shakes her head, “No, I just deal in spirits. And that was not a spirit.”
“Did you learn anything about it?”
“It was like a phone almost,” Wendy struggled to explain. “Like it was talking to me, but with someone else’s voice, and the voice called the spider Uttu. It was telling me what Uttu could do for me if I gave Uttu what she wanted. Which was you. Why did it want you?”
“To get to my friends,” Alia says. “But they’re alright. It’s over, here at least. You can get back to your work.”
“Yeah. Am I still at the IBF?”
“You’re in the basement,” Aile says. “I can show you around if you like.”
Wendy agrees and Alia goes to speak with Dr. Cousins. She finds him reading at a lab table.
“How’s your friend,” he asks, never lifting his head.
“Well, he seem kind of agitated, honestly.”
Cousins looks up at her and she smiles at him.
“You consider me a friend?”
“I’d like to leave the past in the past. You are a good guy, you deserve my forgiveness. You and Dr. Moss. Both of you were misguided by a man who seemed to have all the answers. It’s easy to fall victim to that.”
“I’m glad you understand,” Cousins says genuinely.
“You can’t kill Eakran,” Alia says.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Cousins feigns ignorance.
“You know who I am doctor, I know what you want to do.”
Cousins is suddenly furious and he slams a fist on the lab table.
“He killed Moss! Right over there, right in front of me! I let it happen!”
The commotion brings Eakran, Maria and Darker into the main room of the laboratory.
“You killed her!” Cousins yells at Eakran who seems to be crying.
“I did,” Eakran says shakily. “I murdered her and disposed of her body in such a way that her family, her friends, will never be able to see her put to rest.”
Aile enters with Wendy and they both look on with concern.
“I lied to you doctor,” Aile says to Cousins. “I was not being honest with you when I told you that Moss was upset with you. She’s not upset at all, and she does not want you to be a murderer.”
“You’re just saying that!” Cousins screams and he pulls a gun that he had stolen from Giovanni. He aims it squarely at Eakran and he is very steady.
“Touch him,” Alia says to Aile, “show him like you showed me.”
Aile approaches cautiously, but when she puts a hand on his shoulder, Cousins doesn’t seem to have the same experience that Alia had.
“I think it was our connection,” Aile says.
Cousins brushes Aile away and then he fires the gun several times while he approaches Eakran. Everyone scatters and when the commotion settles, Alia sees that Eakran is fine. Darker had saved him and he has been shot multiple times.
Maria screams when she sees it and she stands before Cousins.
“Kill yourself!”
He scatters his own brains all over the lab.
PRL Serials 