The Prince & The Popstar

You're Not Alone

"There is more to this, I know
You can make it out
You will live to tell"
— Saosin

     Rufus pulled his kayak onto the shores of The Island of Misfit Toys as snow started to fall in the Kingdom of Verastoria. He moved briskly through the woods with overwhelming determination and razor-sharp focus. As he approached The Treehouse, he only saw a single light, emanating from Ava's quarters. Rufus climbed the ladder at the base of the tree trunk and then knocked on the door frame with the familiar purple curtain.
     Ava sniffled and called out, "Who is it?"
     "It's Rufus."
     There was a moment of silence before the curtain whipped open. Henry stood and stared at Rufus blankly, carrying an unreadable facial expression.
     "Why the hell are you still in Verastoria?" he asked.
     "I couldn't leave until I made things right," Rufus replied as he reached inside his bug-out bag and took out a file folder filled with all the information he had collected from The Project Coeus flash drive. "I've made some significant strides, but I'm here because I need your help."
     Ava sat up in her hammock, her arms wrapped around Samuel's Magna Doodle. She had been spending the majority of her time in her quarters, suffering the terrible free-fall of a downward spiral. "Step aside, Henry. Let's hear what he has to say."
     Reluctantly, Henry allowed Rufus inside. The floor was covered with newspapers and tabloids which were marked with Post-It Notes in a variety of pastel colors. Henry had been tirelessly combing through anything and everything he could get his hands on, but found nothing substantial or encouraging. A mobile hotspot provided his laptop with the necessary internet access to sift through any and all online materials with the name Salchester, but it had yielded zero results.
     "Listen, Project Coeus is just the beginning," Rufus explained. "Salchester has a number of confidential projects and experiments in the works. There's even a file with the name 'Devereaux'."
     "What?" Ava asked, perking up slightly. "Are you serious?"
     "Yes," Rufus replied. "I mean, the file is encoded, but it exists. If we can take Salchester down now, it just might create a chain reaction that disrupts his entire system." Rufus took the clearance card from his pocket and held it out in front of himself. "But, I can't do it alone."
     Ava climbed out of her hammock and wiped her welling eyes. "If there's the slightest chance that we can get Samuel back, you can count me in."
     Henry, however, needed a little more coercing. He asked, in his usual monotone manner, "How do we know that you're not leading us on another wild goose chase that will only make more problems?"
     A silky voice drew all of their attention toward the doorway. "Because now we're ahead of the curve," Quinn said. "I worked my contacts and I found out that Elkotech is bringing in their investors for a first-hand look at Project Coeus. There's a special lab on the top floor of the tower where the project heads will show these investors the progress they've made thus far. Samuel must be there, along with the other missing orphans. This is our chance to sweep in and rescue all of them. It's now or never."
     Henry took a step forward and cracked his neck. "Then what are we waiting for?" he asked flatly. "Let's go save the fucking day."

     Once they arrived at The Elkotech Tower, Quinn led Rufus and The Crew inside the massive atrium, where a security guard sat at a large reception desk.
     "Ms. Gunnerson," he said nervously. "What brings you here at this hour?"
     "Official business of The Crown," she replied, shifting her weight to one side, showing off her disarming curves. "I'm sorry, Brandon. It's nothing I can freely divulge. You do understand, don't you?"
     "Of course—psh—sure, I mean, I don't know half of what goes on in this building. I don't even have access to the floor with the good bathrooms." He stood up and gestured to the left. "The lifts are right through there. Please let me know if I can provide any further assistance."
     "Thank you, darling," Quinn replied with a sly smile. "Give your mother my best, won't you?"
     "Of course, Ms. Gunnerson. I hope to see you again soon."
     After entering the elevator, Rufus placed the clearance card on a digital interface which scanned the card and promptly took them all up to the top floor. They immediately fanned out and began searching the floor for the mysterious lab, but a half-hour later, they all came to the same dead end—a conference room on the north side of the floor.
     "I don't understand," Quinn said, looking around. "Where is it?"
     "I can't believe this," Rufus grumbled as his frustration started to get the better of him. "What are we supposed to do now?" He tossed the clearance card on the conference room table, believing it to be nothing but a waste of plastic. But, as soon as the card hit the surface of the table, a light started to shine underneath it and scanned the card. Turns out, the conference table was an enormous, interactive screen. Then, the bookcase at the far end of the table started to move and the floor beneath their feet rumbled. An entryway was revealed—a long corridor that led to the lab where they could all see two figures standing. A man in a white lab coat was conversing with a man in a tan trench coat, wearing a dark fedora.
     "It was a pleasure, Mr. Salchester," the man in the lab coat said. "I do believe Fiver shows the most promise. We will closely monitor his progress. I'll see you at the demonstration."
     "Salchester," Rufus whispered to himself, his small steps becoming larger and quicker paces as he ran in the mastermind's direction. However, Salchester entered the freight elevator on the far end before Rufus had made it halfway down the hall. Salchester never turned around, so Rufus wasn't able to get a good look at him. He got away, keeping his secret identity intact.
     But, the sting of that was immediately dulled as Ava cried out, "Samuel!" She sprinted to the lost member of The Crew who was lying on a steel slab, unconscious and motionless. Ava held him in her arms as she wept uncontrollably.
     "Who the hell are all of you?" the man in the white lab coat asked. "You're not cleared to be in here!"
     Henry walked up to the man and asked, "What's your name, sir?"
     "I'm Dr. Walker," he replied. "How did you gain access to this lab?"
     "I'll tell you, but you have to keep it a secret, Dr. Walker," Henry said, motioning him to lean in closer. As the doctor leaned forward, Henry punched him in the face, rendering him unconscious. 
     "You've got a hell of a right hook," Rufus said, quite impressed.
     "Thank you," Henry replied, cracking his knuckles. "Vinny showed me a few things." 
     The four missing orphans were lined up next to Samuel, also in a medically-induced coma.
     "Henry, make sure they're breathing and have a solid pulse," Rufus said as he approached one of the orphans, who was a huskier child. There was a bracelet around his wrist made of some kind of rubberized polymer and it was stamped with the name: "Bigwig".
     "This one looks like he's in the clear," Henry called out as he took the pulse of another orphan. He also noticed the stretchy bracelet. "They're calling this one 'Hazel'." He moved toward the child one slab over. "And this one is 'Hawkbit'."
     Rufus checked the last remaining orphan. "And we have 'Clover' right here."
     As Ava stroked Samuel's hair, she noticed his bracelet. She breathed back her tears and said, "They're calling Samuel 'Fiver'. What's with these names?"
     It finally clicked in Rufus' mind. "They're all characters from the children's book, Watership Down. They're named after rabbits—defenseless creatures ideal for experimentation."
     "That's horrible," Ava retorted, holding Samuel tightly. "We really need to get all of these children to the hospital right now."
     Quinn held up her hand. "I'm on it." She quickly pulled out her cell phone and called emergency services.
     "Hello, this is The Switchboard, please state your emergency," the voice on the other end dictated.
     "This is Quinn Gunnerson. I need ambulances for five unconscious children who are on the top floor of The Elkotech Tower. Please hurry."
     Rufus walked over to Ava and Samuel, stopping at the end of the slab where a medical chart hung off the side. He started reading over the things he could make sense of and called Henry over. "You've gotta see this."
      "What is it?" Henry asked.
      "Samuel's brain activity is off-the-charts," Rufus pointed out, flipping through the pages. "According to this, he has more active areas of the brain than anyone else who has been tested."
     "You mean, more active areas than the rest of the children?" Henry posed.
     "No," Rufus replied. "More active areas than anyone. Ever."
     "So, what does that mean exactly?" Henry asked. "How's that going to affect Samuel?"
     "We won't know until he wakes up," Rufus said, setting down the chart. "God, he's gotta wake up. I need him to wake up."
     Within 15 minutes, paramedics and police were on the scene. Uncle Tim made a beeline toward Rufus.
     "You did it," he said, grinning as he patted Rufus' shoulder. "You don't look happy. Why aren't you happy?"
     "Salchester got away and we don't know if Samuel is actually going to pull through this," Rufus replied, looking down at his shoes.
     "Samuel is going to be just fine," Uncle Tim assured. "He's a strong kid. Have faith, Your Highness. As far as Salchester goes, give it some time. I doubt that it ever crossed his mind that he'd be thwarted by a ragtag team of teenagers. You definitely rattled his cage."
     "But, rattling a cage isn't enough," Rufus argued. "We need to catch him before he has a chance to move forward with all of his other schemes."
     "His other schemes?"
     Rufus handed over The Project Coeus flash drive. "It's all on here. Maybe your techs will have better luck than I did."
     "I'll have them look at it right away," Uncle Tim replied as he squeezed the drive. "And don't worry. We will catch him. I promise."

     At St. John's Hospital, located on the east side of The Historic District, Rufus and Henry sat in the waiting room while Ava stayed vigilant over Samuel, refusing to leave his side. Samuel was medically stable, but before he could wake up, he would first have to pass all of the drugs in his system.
     In the waiting room, Henry finally broke the silence with a peculiar admission, "I'm the black sheep of my family."
     Rufus sat up straighter, rubbing his eyes. "You're what?"
     "The black sheep," he reiterated. "My family has been ashamed of me since before I can remember. I've always been different. I'm an embarrassment to their Noble lineage. I know I can come off as abrasive and even ridiculous, but it's just who I am. I can't change that. So, you can imagine when I found acceptance from Vinny and Ava and Samuel, I finally felt worthwhile. They made me feel like I wasn't alone. It was a foreign feeling, but it's one that's helped me get this far. They became the purist definition of 'friends'."
     "That's great and all, but why are you telling me this?" Rufus wondered.
     Henry sighed deeply. "Because you're also the purist definition of a 'friend'. You didn't have to do what you did. You could have left all of this behind without a care in the world. But, you didn't. You stood up and you fought for what's right. You're an incredible person, Mr. Spencer."
     "Oh, come on, Hank—you can call me 'Rufus'."
     "Please don't call me 'Hank'. My family calls me 'Hank'."
     "But, that's what we are now, Hank," Rufus said as he shook Henry's knee. Then, in a sing-song voice, he continued, "We are family!"
     "Christ, I knew I was going to regret this."
     Ava walked into the waiting room, her arms crossed as she entered. "They're taking Samuel up for an MRI."
     "How's he doing?" Rufus asked.
     "The doctors expect him to make a full recovery," she said, nodding her head. "But, they're not sure about how his mental faculties are going to be ultimately affected. The formula from Project Coeus is something they've never seen before. It's bleeding edge science. They simply don't have the equipment necessary for a complete assessment."
     "But, the full recovery part—that's really good news," Rufus replied.
     "Yeah, it is," she admitted. "I just hate all of this waiting around. I want to look Samuel in the eyes and tell him that everything's going to be okay."
     "You will," Rufus said confidently. "I know you will."
     Ava sniffled. "Anyways, do you two want to go find some coffee?"
     "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Rufus replied. "Let's head on down to the cafeteria."
     "I'll meet you down there," Henry said. "I've got to run to the loo."
     Rufus and Ava walked down the hallway and waited for the elevator to arrive at their floor.
     "I never got a chance to say thank you," Ava said, rubbing her neck. "What you did—it was nothing short of heroic."
     "You don't have to thank me," Rufus said. "It's nothing you wouldn't have done yourself, had you been in my position."
     "No," Ava replied adamantly. "Only you could have done what needed to be done. Quinn told me about The King's Game. There's no one on the face of this earth who could have done what you did. You're very special, Rufus Spencer."
     Rufus exhaled deeply, trying to keep his cheeks from blushing. "Well, I had some pretty deep-seated motivation to help me keep going through it all."
     "Yes, I know. The thought of saving Samuel would drive anyone with a heart."
     "I wasn't talking about Samuel."
     Ava took a step away from Rufus. "Listen—we can't... We're from two very different worlds and it would never work between us. You have legions of boy-crazy fanatics who would throw themselves at you, given the chance. And I... well, I'm me."
     "I don't think you understand. That's enough for me. You are enough for me."
     "But, you're leaving on Christmas Day. You're going back to your life—the life you were meant to live. I can't be the thing that keeps you from that. I'd be taking you away from your destiny."
     "Who's to say that you're not my destiny? You felt it, too. I know you did."
     "And it will be one of my fondest memories. But, that's all it can be—a memory. Look, I'm suddenly not feeling the need for caffeine. I'm going to go back to Samuel's room and wait for him to come back from his test."
     "Wait—Ava, please—"
     But, she walked away, fully knowing that it had to be this way. And all Rufus could do was watch her become the one who got away.