FicWad

The floor of the cell was cold, freezing cold, but Izzy didn't care. He'd wanted to be close to the creature, wanted to learn more about Icarus. With the stolen keys, he'd let himself in, body tensing as the toughened glass that separated him from the cell's interior swung open. Surprisingly, Icarus had sat huddled in the corner, making no attempt to escape. At the pathetic sight, Izzy had felt his heart fall and he'd wondered what had happened to the creature. The dark eyes had stared up at his, the ugly body rising and falling as it had panted, Icarus trying to make himself as small as possible. That look, those dark eyes, seemed to tell so much. Pain, loneliness, fear.

Sitting on the floor, Izzy had spread his own wings, letting them settle against the cool floor. He could feel his face quivering and he knew that somewhere, there were tears building. Here they were, two creatures from two completely different dimensions, both corrupted and abused for a selfish government. He's stretched out his hands, shaking as he reached out to Icarus. For a moment, the strange being had eyed him with suspicion before crawling forward. Its nails made a horrible scratching sound, like nails on a blackboard. Slowly it had closed the space between, eyes forever on Izzy. An overwhelming fear had taken over Izzy, his body telling him to move, to run, to get out. He had no idea what Icarus was, no idea what the thing could do to him. His wings had begun to flutter, the tips sweeping against the concrete. Icarus' tiny nostrils had flared, obviously smelling and sensing his fear.

You're not the only one that's scared Izzy. Sit still. Let him come to you.

He'd wriggled his fingers, gesturing Icarus closer. "Come on. I'm not gonna hurt you. I promise."

More snuffling and scratching and Icarus had finally sat before him. They were mere inches apart, their dark eyes watching each other. Izzy wasn't aware that he was still holding his hands out until scaly, bony fingers wrapped around his own. A quiet gasp left his lips and his eyes snapped open. Yet the fear was ebbing away. His eyes tracked Icarus' movements, watching as the talon fingers stretched out to stroke his face. A low rumble began to fill the room and Izzy realised that Icarus was purring.

Trembling, a tiny smile on his lips, Izzy reached out his own hand and delicately touched the dark creature's face. The formally dead eyes sparkled before sliding shut, the purr becoming louder, vibrating its body. Izzy felt his smile widen as he let his fingers dust over the thick skin. It may have looked leathery but Izzy found it strangely soft, tiny little hairs hidden from view.

For a moment, the two very different beings touched each other, both mesmerised. Eyes opened and closed, finally relaxed as they looked at each other.

"All you wanted was a friend, wasn't it?" Izzy whispered as he let his hands drop back to Icarus'.

He held the bony fingers in his own, softly stroking them. "I'll get you outta here."

~~~~

The forest was deathly dark, so dark that neither of the boys could see their hands. They were dressed head to foot in black, creeping through the undergrowth.

"How far now?" Slash heard Steven hiss. "We've been here for hours."

"Keep it shut," another voice, Joe's voice, growled through the darkness. "You never know what they've got here. They're probably watching us right now."

Slash rolled his eyes; he was sick of hearing all the "government is bad" babble. It had annoyed him from the moment he'd first heard about it a few days before but he was keeping quiet. Anything to get Izzy back. Besides, Steven did enough moaning for the both of them.

"Yeah, yeah," he heard Steven hiss. "What-ev-er."

Twigs snapped and leaves crunched beneath their feet, their slow progression through the trees seeming to take forever. Reaching into his pocket, Slash pulled out his cigarettes. He was about to flick the lighter when a hand clamped over his. Jumping, he looked at straight into Joe's eyes

"Don't," hissed the big man. "You don't know where the bastards are."

Biting his tongue, Slash shoved the packet back in his pocket. He wanted to hide, wanted to run. Wanted to leave the scary shit behind and go back to normality in LA. But that normality had been shattered the moment a pale boy with wings had walked into his life. Trying to keep his anger curbed, Slash followed them through the trees.

"Get down!" Joe's voice suddenly hissed. "Over there. Watch."

The tone was harsh and urgent, implying that something wasn't right. Falling to his knees, Slash focused his eyes on a spot in the distance. There was something odd about the darkness. Around him, he could see the trees, thick, dark trunks that extended far above him into the night sky. But ahead of him, there was nothing. No trees, no bushes, nothing. The ground just fell away into nothingness, a black extent of emptiness. Frowning, Slash sat back on his heels and studied what lay before him. As his eyes adjusted, the sound of wrenching metal filled the air around them. The sound ripped through him, like nails down a blackboard, and Slash pressed himself against a nearby tree, eyes wide and heart pounding.

"What the fuck?" he hissed.

"Watch..." Joe's voice hissed close to his ear, causing him to scoot away.

Shivering, Slash dropped into the undergrowth, terrified eyes turning back towards the sound. A rectangle of dull light had opened up in the flat space of blackness before them.

"Woah." Kneeling down, Slash crept forward a little, wanting to be closer.

He couldn't judge the distance between them and the light. It could be a few inches, or it could be miles, the darkness distorting distance and time. Biting his lip, he leaned forward, curious, wanting to know where the light led.

Suddenly, something sprang from the rectangle and into the night sky. Purple contrails streamed behind it, Slash falling back as he watched, eyes wide as whatever it was silently and swiftly moved between the trees and into the sky. It was there and then it wasn't, melting from sight.

"What. The. Fuck?" Slash lay, stunned, in the ground, eyes watching the last spot where the odd craft had hung.

"Aurora." Joe was somewhere close, the only noise being his voice. "The government's most covert project. They deny it exists but we know better." There was a near silent chuckle before the man spoke again. "And that, my friends, is our way in to your angel."


~~~~

Wide eyed and lost in thought, Izzy wandered the corridors. He was heading nowhere but looking for Dr Martin. He wanted to know where Icarus had come from and, more importantly, how he could be sent back.

Reaching the door that hid the doctor's lab, Izzy reached out and flicked the door of the control panel open. A moment later and the heavy door creaked, swinging open and letting him in. It was night time in the atrium and the glass domed room was filled with the heavy scent of sleeping plants and the quiet murmurings of lazing creatures. A relaxing blue light filled the area and Izzy could feel his own eyes beginning to slide shut. He wanted to curl up in the supple moss and doze. Just for a moment. But he couldn't, not yet. Muttering quietly to himself, he pushed open the door that lead into the lab.

Izzy had thought it would be empty, that people would be asleep. But it wasn't. Hunched over a work surface was the doctor, a look of tired determination on his face. For a moment, Izzy watched the white haired man. Izzy had spent a good few days in the clinical surroundings of the lab, being poked and prodded. Blood had been taken and results had come back. He'd been asked to run and fly, every little detail of his exertions recorded for posterity. But, unlike his original encounter with the staff of Mesa, these technicians had been happy and friendly, willing to joke around. He'd eaten a number of meals with them, enjoying the company of humans who didn't think he was a freak. As one of them had told him late one night, There's far stranger than what's contained in here.

Finally, bringing a hand to his mouth, Izzy coughed and the lab-coated man jumped, turning to look at him with shocked eyes.

"Jeffrey," he quietly scolded, a hand over his chest. "You nearly gave me a heart attack." The look of terror was replaced with one of joy. "I'm glad you're here. I've got something to tell you. Come over here."

Walking over, Izzy hopped up onto a table, shivering at the cool steel beneath him. Instinctively, the wings wrapped around him and his body slumped, welcoming the heat. Dr. Martin collapsed into a chair beside him, exhaustion replaced by a warm smile.

"Jeffrey," he began. "We've cracked it!" The smile widened, old eyes twinkling with a glimmer that wouldn't have looked out of place in a man forty years his junior. "We've discovered a way to reverse the DNA and make the wings disappear."

Confused, Izzy cocked his head. "How?" He gave a shrug, the wings dipping with fear. "How will they disappear."

The doctor shrugged and reached for his coffee mug. Swigging from it, he winced and put it back down. "'s gone cold," he moaned before looking back to Izzy. "How will they disappear? Well, the same way that they appeared. They'll just melt back into your body, never to be seen again."

Izzy felt his heart drop. His hands wrapped around the edges of the table and he looked at the ground. The wings hung heavy from his back. He'd survived a death sentence but they wouldn't.

"Will they ever come back?" he asked quietly, a tiny flicker of hope lighting his heart.

"No," whispered the doctor. "They won't come back. You'll be completely free of them. Forever. You'll be able to live a completely normal life."

"But what if I want them to come back?" Izzy lifted his eyes to the other man. "Can't I wish them back like I used to as a kid."

Pushing his cold coffee away from him, the doctor ran a hand over his forehead. "It depends. The anti-viral may not last forever. It's never been used before, obviously. So it may wear off and you may find them coming back." He shrugged again and gave Izzy a twisted smiled. "We don't know how it'll work. Science, it's ninety percent guesswork, Jeffrey."

Izzy gave a weak smile and nodded before focusing himself on why he'd turned up.

"I'll do it," he said. "If you do me a favour."

Dr. Martin nodded. "Certainly."

The winged boy's smile widened. "I want to send Icarus home."

The snowy haired doctor chuckled and he gave a small nod. "I had a feeling this time would come."

Standing up, the doctor gestured for Izzy to follow. Ever curious, Izzy slid from the table and fell into step with the other man. Pushing a curtain aside, Dr. Martin revealed another door. Heavy and fortified with locks, Izzy wondered where this one led. All of Mesa was one giant rabbit warren, Alice in Wonderland on a secret military scale.

Opening the door, the doctor walked, pausing while Izzy entered the brightly lit corridor beyond.

"Icarus, as you've named him," he said quietly. "Came from another world. You know that already." Izzy watched him as they walked, nodding and listening. "We've been trying to reopen the vortex that he came through and, finally, we believe we've achieved it."

Dr. Martin pressed another keypad, pulling open a smaller metal door. The room lit up as they walked in, control panels and computer screens suddenly springing to life, other machines whirring and clicking. Izzy paused and took it all in, speechless as he looked through a massive window directly ahead of him.

In a massive, concrete room beyond the glass stood an enormous machine. Two huge metal balls, supported on wire wrapped columns dominated the area. The window looked directly at the balls and, as Izzy stepped closer, he found that beyond the glass was a sheer drop of twenty or more feet.

"It's a Tesla Coil," the doctor said quietly, trying not to break the hold it was having over Izzy. "It creates a high voltage electrical field. Couple that with some military hardware and it opens up a vortex. The problem is, we don't know where to."

Frowning, Izzy turned and leaned against a control board, eyes narrowed as he looked at the doctor.

"How do you mean, you don't know where to?"

"It's complicated," replied Dr. Martin, ignoring the look of frustration on Izzy's face. He sighed, thinking for a moment before beginning to speak, "Imagine, if you will, an onion. An onion has many skins. Imagine that each of these skins is a different dimension, a different world. You can slice through many layers and get to a different dimension each time. Or, you can peel away the layers one at a time, looking beyond to see what's there."

Pulling up a chair, the lab coat wearing doctor sat and looked at Izzy as he quietly continued, "It was all theoretical, you understand. There was no such thing as other worlds or other dimensions. Yes, we wanted to prove that there were. It was one of the reasons Mesa was created; to try and understand, and perhaps just prove, what others didn't want to." He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We created a whole group of creatures before you. That's what we did. Created things for the government to use. UFO's?" He grinned at Izzy. "That was us. As were the aliens that people supposedly saw. They were just the modified airmen, the bastardised DNA of human pilots and creatures that crossed here from other plains."

Shifting from one foot to the other, Izzy carried on curiously watching him. "How did these creatures keep turning up? I thought there was just Icarus?"

Looking at the floor, the doctor shook his head. "No. Icarus was a chance find. He probably slipped through a random vortex, ones that happen when electrical build up in the atmosphere becomes too much. The others." The doctor looked at him, eyes suddenly filled with a weariness and pain that Izzy had never seen. "The others, we brought here. We sliced open the world around us and dragged them through. We then took what we needed before disposing of the evidence." He sighed and looked away, eyes focusing on flashing lights. "I'm not proud of what I did. I'm not proud of the poor beings and humans that I've hurt and killed over the years. You and Icarus." He turned back to Izzy. "You two were the turning point, the chance to make something beautiful and to, hopefully, set them free."

Pushing himself away from the control board, Izzy dragged a chair over to the doctor. Turning the back to the other man, Izzy straddled it, wings relaxing behind him.

"I thought you couldn't access other worlds?"

The doctor nodded. "We couldn't but others did. We didn't know how they were doing it. Half the time a random crate would turn up with some snivelling whimpering being that wasn't a million miles from home. All that separates us and them is an onion skin thing layer." He smiled weakly and looked over Izzy's shoulder to the room beyond. "We can send Icarus home. It might take some experimentation but, hopefully, Icarus will know once we peel back the right layer. The warm smile turned back to Izzy, eyes sad and he whispered, "Please forgive me?"

A small smile, one that was filled with warmth, crossed Izzy's lips and he reached out to place a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "I forgive you but you've got to learn to forgive yourself, doc." He shrugged, the wings moving with his shoulders. "You were just following orders and, if you didn't, the bastards would probably have given you the same treatment as those poor people, right?"

The doctor slowly nodded. "You're right, they would. But I'm glad that at least my angel forgives me."

Izzy's smile widened a little and his eyes slipped shut for a moment.

"Right." A hand fell onto his shoulder. "Let's send your friend home, shall we?"