1st 5 Pages November Workshop- Monson

Christine Monson
YA Speculative Fantasy
The Promethean Effect

I am in control.

Steel gears grind overhead along thin aluminum girders. A red glow illuminated the gray cinder block wall to my right. The weighted anodized-pistol warms my palms. As I wait for the targets to line up, two questions rotate on heavy cycle: Why did my brother have to die? And, will Ms. Reddington remember I prefer chocolate cake over spice this year?

The panel next to the speaker box embedded into the wall beeps and ten cardboard birds drop down from the ceiling. According to my father, the gaming system is the latest in target technology. I wouldn’t know. My siblings and are allowed to leave the compound. The birds’ tails flash red, blue, and green. It doesn’t matter how quick they move or in which direction, blue is always first. I adjust my stance and squeeze the trigger. One by one, the targets return to the rafters.

“Kade,” Mother’s voice crackles through the intercom speaker on the wall. “Come upstairs. Your father and I wish to speak with you.”

My gaze flicks to the red START button. Two-tenths of a second and I’ll have beaten the high score. Perhaps I can squeeze one more–

“Now.”

Game over.

My dress shoes squeal along the glossy anti-static tiles as I sprint across the open atrium. Spotless glass gleams all around me. Like the gaming system, the three-story, fully-staffed house in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains is supposedly hi-tech. Again, I wouldn’t know. My brother’s unexpected death changed a lot of rules. As I dash up the staircase, two steps at a time, my mother’s urgency slips through the cracks. I halt, I press my back against the wall. The smell of Ms. Reddington’s overly-peppered roast beef mixes with chlorinated-air of the basement.

“You promised this time would be different, August,” she exclaims.

“He has been here two years longer than–”

“Don’t say his name.”

“Dang it, Grace. Stop fighting me. You knew this day was coming. Wouldn’t you rather he be able to walk there?”

“I rather he be drugged and gagged,” she quips. Mother is never sarcastic. “Of course, I want him to walk over there, but when he is ready. Not when she says he is.”

I steal a peek. Under the three-tier chandelier, both of my parents face each other in the foyer. Grace Maddox is dressed in her usual travel attire, black slacks and sweater with her gold hair tied up in a loose bun. Father’s sleeves are rolled to his elbows, his work pants wrinkled.

Mother moves to the other side of the round, mahogany-red table. A dazzling display of rainbows reflects of the crystals above her onto the walls and floor around her feet. “Be their father for once in your life.”

Father smacks his hand down on the table and skinny orange petals rain down from the bouquet of chrysanthemums. “I am not doing this now.”

Mother sweeps the petals in her hand and deposits them in a small crystal bowl. Like me, the table and flowers don’t seem to belong in this icy world of crystal and snow-white furniture. I step into the foyer, closing the door behind.

Honestly, I despise liars. But, sometimes telling my parents the truth is dangerous. “Sorry to make you wait, but I had to go back down and retrieve my jacket.”

Father shifts his favorite brown journal and electronic pad behind his back. “You’re here now.”

Mother reaches out to touch me, then stops. She withdraws her hand back to her side. “You’ve wrinkled your dinner suit.”

I run my hands over the thick black wool of my dinner jacket. Static cracks under my fingertips. “I wanted to get a few more rounds before dinner.”

Father places his hand on Mother’s shoulder. The twins say I look like him but I don’t see it. We have the same brown hair and eyes, but my father’s complexion is pallid and dull from sitting under florescent lights all day. While I have a ‘kissed by the skin glow’from running outdoors every morning. The only time Father steps outside is to walk from the front door to the awaiting Lincoln Town Car or SUV that drives him next door to work.

“Your mother and I are leaving,” he says.

“But–”

“We have to go back to the lab. It’s important.”

“What about dinner?”

On the other side of the foyer, Father’s office door opens. Sofiya Snyderman, my parents’ colleague at AIB– the Advanced Institute of Biotechnology– and family creeper steps out. The click of her high heels sends a chill up my back. The chandelier above flicks on and off. I glance up at the top of the staircase. Thankfully, no one is there.

“Sofiya,” my father chokes out. A patch of black lace peeks from under the doctor’s lab coat. “I thought you were in D.C.”

“I stopped by to admire your stamp collection, August,” she purrs. Her German, Russian, and possibly Ukrainian accents blend together in a sticky dialect-pudding. The click of her heels taps across the tile towards us. “I kid. I am here to oversee the… hello, Kade. Happy birthday.”

I take a tentative step back. I have known Doctor Snyderman my entire life, and she still sends shivers up my spine. The psychiatrist adjusts her short, black wig, and turns her attention to Mother. “You haven’t spoken to–”

Mother cuts her off. “We were just telling Kade we won’t be joining him for dinner.”

Movement at the top of the main staircase catches my interest. I shake my head in warning for my two younger siblings to stay upstairs. Behind Snyderman’s red cat glasses, her eyelids narrow.

“Why can’t work wait until morning?” I snap. “For Pete’s sake, it’s my birthday.”

Mother gasps. “What in the world has gotten into you?”

“Kade Maddox, recite the rules, right now,” Father demands. Like Snyderman, his gaze narrows behind rimless eye wear.

Mother’s gaze jerks over my head. Her shoulders drop. I drop my regard and focus on the white scuff on the tip of my left shoe.

“Rule number one, obey authority. Rule two, never ask questions. Rule three–”

“August,” Mother interrupts my tangent. Her eyes flick from Father to me. “We should go. Kade, Ms. Reddington made your favorite dinner. Roast beef and herb potatoes. Cake is in the sitting room. Hummingbird, I believe.”

“This is what I have been talking about, Grace. You coddle them too much and–”

“–coddling encourages disobedience,” Mother quips. “Yes, I know, August. Thank you for reminding me. Again.”

A smug grin slides across Dr. Snyderman’s thin lips. “Where is Bishop, Grace?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Sofiya.” Mother touches my arm briefly, sending a nauseating wave of prickly pain through my body. “It is not my job to keep track of the hired help. My husband deals with kids’ schedules. So why don’t you interrogate him?”