The Keeper

J.J. Polson

(Six parts. 6000 words.)

One

I had come to the airport to escape. From what, I wasn’t quite sure.

The day had started like any other, but somehow, I knew that it was different. I knew that this was the day I had to run. I knew that my life depended on it.

The agent at the terminal gate held my identification card, stared at me anxiously. Why was he hesitating? There was nothing wrong with the card.

“I’m afraid this is expired,” the man finally said. “I can’t let you through.”

As the agent spoke, I noticed that the entirety of the airport had become silent, that everyone was watching me.

It was then that I knew – I had been here before.

The airport. The agent. The silence. It was all so … familiar. How many times had it been? Two? Three? A hundred? A thousand? How many times had I relived this exact scenario?

I thought of running but that was too obvious. I had certainly tried running before. It was likely I wouldn’t even make it out of the airport, and if I did, no one in town would help me escape. They were my Keepers.

Keepers. The word drifted through the tempest within my mind like a solitary snowflake.

What were they keeping me from? What were they keeping from me? Obviously, I was important, but was I dangerous?

I decided to find out.

I retracted my hand, then spun my pack from my shoulder and reached inside. I sensed the Keeper inch closer, wondering if he needed to act.

I decided not to reveal that I knew. Not yet. I wondered if I had ever tried something like this before and determined it didn’t matter. For all I knew, I would never reach this point again.

“What about this?” I asked, unveiling my passport.

I knew it to be just as legitimate as my identification card, but I thought another question might keep the man off balance. At the very least, it allowed me another moment to think. Time was precious. The Keepers within the airport had yet to realize that I had become aware.

I knew that would not last much longer.

“Wait here,” the agent said. “It will only be a moment.”

I met the man’s eyes as he spoke into his headpiece, trying to keep my face unassuming. He knew as well as I did that I would never be allowed to walk through the gate.

At that instant, the terminal filled with the roar of a descending plane. Somewhere in my mind, I remembered that the planes were real, that the Keepers were assigned to what I thought of as my hometown on a rotational basis.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two burly Keepers approach. Security.

It was time to make my move. Now or never. But why did they fear me? Why the need for such an elaborate simulation? Why not just kill me?

Then, I remembered. They couldn’t. Not before they understood what I could do.

I flexed the muscle in my mind, flinging the security guards through the air and into wall of the airport lounge. They disappeared in a mist of rubble.

Next, I downed the agent as he attempted to draw the gun from his waist. I knew the bullets were a preventative mechanism, that they were nonlethal. If one managed to hit me, I would wake up in my own bed with no memories of what had come before – I would be reset.

Instinctively, I raised my hand to halt a flurry of gunfire. A hundred bullets hung in the air before me, droplets of metallic rain frozen in time. Before they had hit the ground, I was through the gate and sprinting down the boarding tunnel.

Two more Keepers appeared ahead. I sent them through the tunnel wall with a single thought. I couldn’t stop moving. Others were coming. They always did.

The plane appeared empty. No passengers. No pilot. I sealed the door behind me.

Did I know how to fly? I saw a book spread over the console and began to search its pages as the Keepers assaulted the door. It wouldn’t hold long.

How did I know that? Had this happened before as well? How often had I made it this far?

In answer to my question, I felt a hand on my shoulder and the barrel of a gun pressed to my neck. I turned in time to see a familiar face. My heart sunk.

How could I forget that he was the one who always caught me? The King of the Keepers. My father.

“I’m sorry son.”

How many times had it ended this way?

Two

How many times had I been here before?

I knew without looking that the plane was empty, that the carpet was blue and frayed, that the luggage racks lining each aisle were open, and that a single black bag had been left behind.

How did I know these things?

The pounding came a heartbeat later, disrupting my thoughts. The Keepers always tried to open the door with brute force. Why? I decided it didn’t matter. Not when time was so short.

I found the book on the console where I knew it would be. The language inside was alien, endless runic letters dancing around complex designs. I knew the book was important, but it wasn’t important yet.

There was something else that was, something I was missing.

I turned at the last instant, catching the Keeper by surprise. I knocked the gun from his hand with a wordless command and launched him backwards through the aisle with another. There was a sickening crunch as the man’s body bent around one of the seats.

I guessed that he was dead. I couldn’t waste time making sure.

The door neared its breaking point. If the Keepers came through, it would all be over. I wondered how long it had been since I had made it this far, if I had ever been further. I looked longingly at the cover of the book for aid, but I knew it held no answers. Not yet.

Suddenly, the muscle in my mind had begun to throb, a growing pain metastasizing deep within my skull. The pain felt … familiar. Did it always come at this point? Every step beyond the gate was the first step all over again.

I shook off the pain and turned back to the console as the shooting began. Sweeping the book aside, I placed both hands across the countless instruments and took a deep breath. This was supposed to work. I was sure of it. The plane was supposed to fly.

I had flown it before.

Inexplicably, the engine roared to life and the plane rolled forward. Slowly at first, then gradually gaining speed at my command. I watched the runway blur by, Keepers diving out of the way to preserve their own lives. Bullets struck like hail across the glass of the cockpit, but none managed to break through.

The pain came again as I willed the plane upwards. It was stronger this time. Blinding. I fell to my knees, hoping that the plane didn’t crash. Somehow, I knew that it wouldn’t. Not as long as I maintained my grip.

Wait. Was the plan supposed to crash? Something told me that I couldn’t land it. I had certainly tried that before. The Keepers would be there. They would be waiting.

The pain lessened as I evened the plane’s ascent and stumbled down the aisle, book in hand. I passed the broken Keeper on my way to the overlooked black bag. The man wasn’t dead, but he was near it. His eyes regarded me with a look of terror. A stream of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, staining the frayed carpet.

I knew there was no point in questioning him. Keepers didn’t talk. Especially to me.

Grabbing the black bag, I made my way past the dying Keeper and to the emergency door. I placed the book inside the bag and stared at the exit for a long moment.

Was this the right thing to do? How many times had I tried it before?

I decided to trust myself. Forcing the door open, I allowed the skies to take me.

There was something liberating about falling. I wasn’t worried about dying. I knew that I had done this before, that I had survived the jump. When the time came, I pushed against the ground with my mind, gradually slowing my descent.

I landed on a deserted road in the midst of a barren land, running as soon as my feet hit the ground. I knew that the empty plane wouldn’t fool the Keepers for long, that they were already on my trail.

The sun had long since set when I gave into exhaustion. I had managed to make it to an abandoned service station just off the main road. Once inside, I collapsed and sought sleep. Only for a few hours. My body would know when to…

I awoke to a familiar face. The face that haunted my dreams. The face of my father. The King of the Keepers.

“I’m sorry, son.”

Three

I sensed movement in the second before I opened my eyes. I knew that they had found me, that they always found me. How many times had it ended this way?

The Keeper gave a sharp cry of pain as I bent his hand backward with my mind. Somehow, he still managed to fire his gun, the sound deafening in the small room. I thought for an instant it may have been the end … an end anyway.

Then, I realized the bullet had missed. There was still a chance to move on, to find out what was being kept from me.

I sent the Keeper flying through the station’s aisles. Glass shattered as he burst through the front door and landed on a bed of shards, broken glass cutting through his black armor and severing his spine. I knew that he would never move again.

Just as I regained my feet, the others struck. I knew that five Keepers remained, that they had surrounded the abandoned building, that the dead man had served as their scout.

Since jumping from the plane, I questioned less and less the things that I knew. For the further I made it, the more I knew, and there was no longer time to question it all.

I reached out internally, seeking the individual minds of the Keepers. It would only take one. I touched the man nearest me and pulled him forward as the gunfire came. Again, I didn’t know how it worked, only that it would.

The bullets struck the Keeper a heartbeat after he had arrived, two after I had picked up my bag and begun to flee through the cramped aisles.

I knew that the bullets wouldn’t kill me, but I didn’t know if they were deadly to others. I didn’t know what would happen if the man died while I still touched his mind. Would that somehow kill me as well? Would it only be another reset?

I wondered if my death was even possible.

As I moved through the empty station, I forsook my grip on the man’s mind, instead, focusing on manipulating his armored body. I repurposed him as a revolving shield, instinctively maneuvering him to where I knew the bullets would arrive. I moved in the opposite direction from the shattered door, knowing it was the only way to escape.

My flight had become purely instinctual. I was certain where the next Keeper waited. I seized his neck with the growing muscle in my mind and forced it to break, overcoming the man’s internal resistance.

The fallen corpse rocketed through the station’s back door at my command, collecting the next Keeper and driving him into steel post coated with flaking red pain. Again, I didn’t question how I knew where my next foe was hidden – time was of the essence.

Adjusting the Keeper-shield behind me, I caught a storm of bullets from inside the store, then propelled my shield into the approaching enemy. The two Keepers tangled together, reaching a deadly speed before crashing into the far wall.

One more to go.

I raced into the growing sunlight, diving for cover behind the truck I knew to be parked at one of the long-abandoned pumps. The bullets of the last Keeper sprayed across where I had been an instant before, ricocheting off the skeleton of the rusty vehicle.

Without thinking, I ripped the Keeper’s gun from his hands and drove the stock into his chest. As he staggered backwards, I spun the floating gun, orienting the barrel upward and driving it into the man’s throat. The Keeper maintained his balance for an instant before finally cratering forward and allowing the barrel to finish the job.

I took a deep breath. The Keepers were dead.

I knew there was something important that the last of them held, much like the book from the plane. I walked to where the man had fallen and began to search. For some reason, his blinking earpiece drew my eye. I went to remove it and–

Wait. Another mistake. How many times had I died here before?

Raising my hand, I stopped the sniper’s bullet inches before it reached my temple, seconds before I would hear the man’s words though the headset. Grimacing, I reversed the bullet’s force and sent it back at the hidden Keeper.

This time, the words would not come.

The words. What were they? Who spoke them?

It was something I didn’t know. However, I knew that I was destined to hear them again.

But where? I realized I didn’t know where to go next.

No. That wasn’t true.

I took the book from my bag and opened it. Like magic, the foreign words unscrambled before my eyes. However, the magic was fleeting, lasting just long enough for me to decipher what needed to be done.

Then, the words were once again illegible. They would be until I needed them again.

I took the Keeper’s earpiece and began to walk north, down a path I traveled at least once before. A path that would bring answers.

Four

The Keepers didn’t follow me from the station. They never did.

They waited for me ahead. No. They weren’t waiting. They were guarding something – someone. I didn’t know who.

I had grown increasingly confident since leaping from the plane, since thwarting the sniper’s ambush. Where before there had been countless questions within my mind, now there was relative silence. Still, I wondered how often I had made it to this point, when and if I would ever escape.

There was one question I did not dare to ask. Had I escaped before?

I came upon the bunker that had been briefly depicted within the book as the sun peaked in the cloudless sky. The barbed wire fence surrounding the structure had long since rusted over, a dozen wide gaps offering no resistance.

A row of yellow signs bearing the runic language of the book lined the path forward. Weeds sprouted through every crack of the broken concrete, pushing the cement aside with the vigor of renewed life. That was something I could understand.

As I descended the stairs leading to the entryway, I raised my hand and redirected the bullet intended for my head. I acted without thought. I understood how the Keepers were aligned and which tactics they would employ.

Still, I was careful not to be overconfident. That had gotten me killed before.

I diverted the next wave of bullets with my mind. Then, I swung open the heavy metal door, flattening the Keepers against the stone wall. Seconds later, I crossed the threshold into darkness and closed my eyes, again knowing what was to come.

The spotlight was blinding. It had certainly ended me before, but I couldn’t focus on how many times it had. No. This time, my journey would not end prematurely. This time, I would escape the Keepers once and for all.

As the bullets came, I launched myself down the narrow hall like a missile. I didn’t bother to open my eyes. I knew exactly where the Keepers waited.

My fists took the first two men, shattering their protective visors. I claimed the third as my shield in the heartbeat before the fourth unloaded his clip.

I allowed the third Keeper’s body fall and pulled the gun from the hand of the fourth Keeper, breaking his neck before he could draw the pistol at his hip. I lifted the weapon from the ground and ended the fifth and final Keeper as he raced around the corner.

Then, I walked forward, delving deeper into the concrete bunker. The tunnel turned sharply left and began to slope downwards. Thick metallic doors lined the passageway to either side.

I knew that the Keepers were guarding someone. But who? I felt that I should have known the answer. As I passed the Keeper hiding behind one of the metal doors, I pulled him into the hallway, ripped the keycard from his waist and sent him into the concrete wall.

It wasn’t much further now.

There was only one door at the end of the hall. Stronger than the rest. So strong that I couldn’t pull it open without harming the bourgeoning muscle in my mind. I knew that I had tried such a feat before. I knew that it had been my doom.

Inside the room was the person I had come to find. Outside, another wave of Keepers would soon arrive. He would be with them. The man with the shadowed face. Who was he? It didn’t matter yet. I knew it wasn’t time to face him.

The door unlocked at a touch from the card. The room inside was small and damp, lit by a flickering light.

A child crouched in the corner of the room, slowly opening his eyes at the sound of my arrival. They were wide and blue, embellished by the grime darkening his face. We stared at each other for a long moment.

Was I supposed to kill him? No. He was important. He was who I had come to retrieve. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the path that led to escape.

“You’re not … one of them,” the child said before I had decided.

I shook my head. I knew that I would need him to defeat the King of the Keepers.

I extended my hand. “Come with me. Quickly.”

The boy nodded and followed me back down the tunnel. As we reached the exit, he asked the question I knew had been on his mind. It was the same question he always asked before we emerged into the sunlight. “Where did you come from?”

I didn’t know the answer. I only knew what came next.

A storm brewed within my mind. There was something about the way the boy watched me. Something inherently familiar. Something…

I growled, unable to place it.

As we fled from the bunker, I sought the beginning of my journey only to realize it was no longer there. I wondered what was happening to me, if this always happened.

We sheltered for the night in a small cave the strange book had revealed. I opened one of the tin cans from the black bag and passed it into the boy’s dirty hand. Interestingly his nails looked sharp. I wondered if the boy had been planning an escape of his own.

Was that the thread that linked us?

“Where are we?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know. Eat.”

There were only four cans left in the black bag. I somehow knew that it was more than enough, that the decisive moment would soon be upon me. Upon us. I forced myself to remember that the boy was supposed to help me. That he was important. That he was the key to defeating the King of the Keepers.

“Why did you save me?” the boy questioned between bites.

“Because … you are important,” I told him after a long moment. It was the truth at least.

“How am I important?”

I ran a hand through my dark hair, fighting frustration. Had I always been so easy to anger? I didn’t believe so. Likely, it had to do with my level of exhaustion, with the throbbing muscle in my mind that I had overworked rescuing the boy.

“There’s a man,” I explained presently. “A man who is hunting me – hunting us. He was one keeping you in the bunker, the one keeping me from … the truth. He is the King of the Keepers.” It was the best I could do.

Fortunately, the boy nodded. “Keepers. That is a good name for them. When will we see him?”

“Soon,” I assured him.

Sometime later, I realized the boy had fallen asleep. I retrieved the strange book and watched the words unscramble, just as I knew they would. What I saw there relaxed me, allowing me to follow suit.

The boy woke me when the morning came. Fortunately, I didn’t lash out in self-defense.

To my chagrin, I saw he had emptied the black bag of its contents. There wasn’t much left. Only the book, the tins of food and the earpiece I had taken from the Keeper as I left the service station. I no longer remembered how I had arrived there.

I picked up the earpiece and tapped into the electronic device with my mind. I waited until I heard the static, knowing that my words would reach the right ears.

“I’m coming to kill you,” I told the King.

Five

The King awaited me in the top room of an ominous tower. The building rose from the desert like an oversized gravestone, black against the setting sun. A series of deserted roads and smaller buildings littered the surrounding area.

The boy had been silent in the two days since we had left the first cave. I couldn’t remember him saying a word since I had alerted the King to my approach. Our approach.

It surprised me when he spoke.

“I’ve been here before,” the boy said as we stood before the foreboding edifice.

The windows of first floor were shattered. Those of the floors above had remained intact and were stained by prolonged exposure to the sun. I wondered how long the building had stood, how many times I had been here before.

“Do you remember anything?” I asked after a moment.

The boy shook his head. “Is this where he lives?”

I didn’t know. I told the boy the truth as I understood it. “It is here he waits for me. It is here that we always come face to face.”

It was then that the pain returned, driving me to my knees before the high fence surrounding the tower. Fighting through my discomfort, I raised my hand and forced open the gate.

“Let’s go,” I said, marching toward my fate. Our fate.

Why was I always forgetting to include the boy? Perhaps I should have let him die. No. That wasn’t right. I was supposed to save him from the Keepers. The boy was important.

“Aren’t you coming?” the boy asked from within the tower. What had once been a revolving door was now only a frozen metallic frame. Inside, the lobby was heavy with dust and bootprints. Fresh bootprints.

I paused. Somehow, I knew it was a question the boy always asked at this point. That it was supposed to lead to some sort of … revelation.

The book.

I removed the item from the bag. Within, there was a single sentence that I could read. That I was supposed to read.

You can’t let him escape.

The words confirmed what I had begun to suspect. The King had to die in order for me to escape my imprisonment. Killing the King was the only way to discover what was being kept from me.

I took the boy’s hand and led him through the lobby. Before the Keeper appeared from the behind the central service desk, I pulled him into the air and sent his rifle spinning across the tile floor. As the elevator door pinged, I threw the squirming Keeper into the group of emerging foes.

Bullets streaked by, but I knew that none would find their mark. I twisted the arm of one of the Keepers within the elevator, turning his gun on the others. Three armored men fell to the ground before the clip expired. I broke the remaining man’s neck with a sharp command, and silence reclaimed the lobby.

The boy took in the violence wordlessly. It seemed he had seen worse. But where?

Inside the elevator, the boy touched the button for the top floor.

“Are you really going to kill him?” he asked.

I nodded. “It’s the only way. I can’t let him escape.”

Just before the elevator door opened, I positioned myself and the boy against the left wall. At the familiar ping, I claimed the rifle of a fallen Keeper and fired on the next wave the King had sent to intercept me.

I knew they wouldn’t be prepared for such a maneuver. Somehow, I knew that I rarely used guns. Keeping that thought in mind, I pulled a dozen rifles away from lifeless hands. When I stepped from the elevator, the weapons greeted me as if we were old friends.

Wait. Had I been mistaken? Did I always use the guns? Did it matter?

“Are they for him?” the boy asked as we passed the pile of bodies.

I nodded.

After the elevator, there were no more Keepers to face. There never were.

I walked down the empty hallway alongside the boy, the parade of guns hovering before us like a personal guard. I wasn’t sure when the King would appear. I thought it likely we always fought in the same location, but I wasn’t sure.

The top floor of the tower had once been important. To either side were dozens of small offices. Piles of paper were stacked on bland desks; thousands of stray sheets crowded the dusty floor. An assortment of posters and televisions decorated the once white walls; all were riddled with bullet holes.

“He’s there,” I said a short time later, pointing to a room at the end of the hall. The warm light of the setting sun crept through the half-open door, inviting us within.

The boy nodded. “I can sense him too.”

Again, I wondered how the boy was supposed to help me defeat the King, why the King kept him imprisoned. Did the King fear him?

The sharp pain returned, dousing my thoughts. Again, I fought through it. I wouldn’t let it stop me. Not now. Not so close to discovering the truth of what was being kept from me.

I followed the floating guns through the door.

The King faced the far window, looking over the silent desert. When he turned, I felt that I should have recognized his face. It was one I had seen countless times before. Yet … there was nothing. No memories. Not even a name.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the King said simply

Before he could speak again, I attacked. I held nothing back, emptying every bullet from every clip. I knew that the King had to die – that I couldn’t let him escape.

When the dust finally settled, the King still stood. Hundreds of bullets were suspended in the air between us. His dark laughter filled the room as the bullets fell to the ground.

“Don’t you think this is all a little pointless?” the King asked. “Both of us know that you can’t actually kill me, that I always win.”

I drove the floating guns at him, wielding them like blunted blades. The King stepped back, effortlessly avoiding a hundred blows in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly, I felt control of the guns ripped away from my mind. As I fought back another surge of internal pain, the King let the weapons fall.

“I suppose you deserve some credit for getting this far,” the King mused. “The number of attempts that reach this stage are surprisingly few.”

Then, I remembered where I had seen the man before. He was always there at the end. The King always struck the final blow. It was always then that he said the words. Words that I had promised myself to never hear again.

“After today, I will finally be free of you!” I shouted, launching myself forward.

The King smirked. At the last second, he stepped to the side and grabbed my left wrist. The pain within my mind spiked as he propelled me back across the room and into the wall.

I tried and failed to regain my feet. My vision was blurred. The iron taste of blood filled my mouth. The pain came again, stronger than ever before.

I couldn’t move. I could barely think.

The King laughed as he forced me to my knees. Desperately, I reached with my mind for something, for anything, that could buy me a moment of time. But it was to no avail. The King’s will was stronger than my own.

Helplessly, I watched as the other man made his way towards me, a jagged shard of glass flying in his outstretched hand. He walked with the sun at his back, a trick of the light veiling his face entirely in shadow.

In that moment, I realized I had been here before. That the fight between us always came to this.

How many times had it ended this way?

The King pressed the glass to my neck. “I’m sorry, son. I can’t let–”

The words caught in his throat as he staggered backwards. An invisible force caught his weapon an inch from the ground then redirected it into his heart. The King fell to the ground, clutching at the shard embedded in his chest, still trying to speak.

“How many … times…” he managed before his death.

To my surprise, I saw the boy standing before me. He pulled me to my feet with his mind.

In that moment, I knew why the King had imprisoned him. It was the same reason he had caged me. We shared the same power.

Only … the boy was impossibly strong, stronger than the King had been. Again, I wondered if he had been supposed to die, if I had I made a mistake by not killing him. What if he couldn’t control his powers? What if he was dangerous?

“What do we do now?” the boy asked.

It was only as he spoke that I realized the pain in my mind was gone. Somehow, I knew that it wouldn’t be returning. The thought was reassuring. But where had it come from in the first place? I decided that I would likely never know.

I summoned the black bag to my side. I removed the book and studied the words within.

Then, I smiled at the unstable boy. “I know where I have to go, where I can find the truth of what is being kept from me.”

Six

I couldn’t let the boy escape.

He had grown far too powerful. He couldn’t control the limitless force that was inside of him. Not anymore. I should have known that it eventually would happen. Thousands had died because of my mistake.

However, I couldn’t kill him. Not yet. There was something about our shared power that he held the key to understanding. I was certain of that. It was written in the book, and the book had never lied to me before.

After successfully crafting the muting drug detailed on one of the book’s pages, I had moved the boy to a small, isolated town of my own devising. Of course, I couldn’t be completely cut off from the outside world. I was forced to construct an airport to fly in supplies and those I paid to keep him from harm.

I knew that such choices would ultimately lead to questions I couldn’t answer. That, one day, my son would use the airport in an effort to escape.

Luckily, I held the key to his elaborate cage. The book knew exactly where he would go at every turn if he ever managed to get past the terminal. I didn’t remember exactly where I had found the omniscient book, nor did I care.

It was one of the questions I no longer bothered to ask.

I received the call while I was away from the city, sensing it an instant before its arrival. It was almost as if I had taken the call hundreds of times before. But I knew that was impossible, that this was the first time I had received it.

As I flew back to the airport, I thought of the strange child I had found wandering the desert. His presence was certainly peculiar. It had drawn me to him like a beacon. It almost felt as if I had been supposed to find him.

The boy had fought wildly, killing twenty men in a moment’s time. In the end, I had prevailed, slipping past his mind’s defenses, disabling him just long enough to shoot him full of the muting drug. I had imprisoned him within the bunker, a place of last resort.

He would be safe there.

Waiting aboard the plane, I wondered how long it would take to find the key to understanding our powers, if the strange boy was the missing piece. It was an answer I worked tirelessly to uncover. However, even with the book’s help, it was still out of reach.

It was as if it was purposefully being kept from me.

I laid the book down across the plane’s control console and concealed myself as my son shut the boarding door. I wondered why the drug had worn off prematurely. It had worked for years without fail. What had changed?

Fortunately, all wasn’t lost. His powers would not fully return for another few hours, and he would be subdued long before then. When he awoke, he would be back in his room. I would be at his side, protecting him as always.

I watched my son enter the cockpit and examine the book. Just as I hoped, the strange artifact provided the perfect distraction.

I placed my hand on his shoulder, pressed my gun to his neck. He turned to face me, recognition flashing within his eyes.

“I’m sorry son,” I said. “I can’t let you escape.”

THE END