Dead Waters - Anton Strout [96]
“How surprising,” Connor said, standing back up.
“So what do you want to know?” Trent asked.
“Why don’t you start with what you meant when you said there was a problem with those. . . things that came after us?”
Trent settled back into the chair, looking sheepish. “Those creatures that were attacking you,” Trent said. “They were a part of an ongoing experiment that the professor had started when he was alive. It was all part of what he called the next level of cinematic achievement—interactive films.”
“So you were finding ways to bring things to life using film,” I said.
“Yeah,” Trent said, “but despite all of the professor’s efforts, anything he animated didn’t last very long. Whatever he created would disappear back to nothingness after a short time, liquefy. He died before he could find a way to stabilize it.”
“Even so, how was he able to do even that much?” I asked.
Trent shook his head. “I don’t know. The other students didn’t really let me in on everything. Said it was because I was new . . .”
“Or maybe they wanted you for something more sinister,” I said. “Maybe they needed a little something human to get things stabilized.”
“What do you mean?” Trent asked.
“When Elyse cut you, your blood seemed to spark things off,” I said.
Trent looked down at his bandage. A little bit of the blood had soaked through to the surface, forming a tiny circle on the top of it. “Don’t remind me.”
“You said that those manifestations weren’t permanent,” I continued. “That they’d run out of steam and dissolve away.”
Trent nodded. “That seemed to be a very vexing point to Elyse, the professor, and the others,” he said.
“You know what I think?” Connor asked, and then pressed on without waiting for an answer from anyone. “I think Mason Redfield found a way to make the manifestations permanent, only he didn’t share it with you all. I think he figured out that it would take a full-on blood sacrifice.”
“But once he figured it out, he kept quiet and only used it on himself,” I said. “Which means that really was him we were fighting the other day.”
“Wait,” Trent said, leaning forward. “Are you saying the professor’s alive?”
Connor looked at him, watching his face. “You mean you really don’t know?”
The color drained out of Trent’s face. “No. . . I mean, we knew he wanted to try and get the whole process to work on humans, but it had never succeeded. When he died, we thought that might be the end of it until Elyse talked us all into continuing on his work. But he’s alive?”
“Reborn,” I said. “Much younger, too.”
“Wow,” Trent said, suddenly looking more thrilled than terrified. “Forgive me, but from the practical science aspect of it, it’s impressive, isn’t it? How did he get it to work?”
Connor gave him a grim smile. “You remember what we said about your blood sparking up those movie creatures earlier?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Have you seen your pal George lately?” Connor asked.
“Oh,” Trent said. He sat there in silence as the realization took hold of him.
“So you’re saying you didn’t know this was Professor Redfield’s plan?” I asked.
Trent shook his head. “We were all going to get rich together making films—that’s it, as far as I knew. Think about it. If you could take a bank robbing movie and reproduce the contents of a bank vault. . .Well, it wasn’t like we were actually hurting anyone, right?”
“I think you’re underestimating the power of greed,” Connor said. “You know what I think? I think your fellow students had a better idea of what the professor was up to and I think they kept you in the dark. You were getting played, kid.”
“But why?” he asked. “Why would they do that?”
“I think the professor taught them something very fundamental about magic,” I said.
Trent looked at me, his face searching for understanding in mine. “And what is that?”
“Magic has a price,” I said, “and for something like Mason Redfield being reborn, that price is high. You want to achieve the impossible, there’s going to be a big price tag on that. This one was written in human blood.”
Trent was practically shaking in his seat, his eyes nervous. “I