Assuming there were still people to make contact with.
Nate spotted Kyle and Kelsey off in the far corner ahead, where Kyle looked to be animatedly instructing her on the finer points of children’s breakfast cereals. For a second, the sight felt so normal it actually put a small smile on Nate’s face. Then he caught the glint of their chains, and reality caught back up. His smile faded. His stomach rumbled.
Eat. I could use more resources to repair your internal damage.
The thought made him cringe in more ways than one. He didn’t even want to think about what his insides looked like after crash landing in McClanahan’s and getting chest-kicked by a troglodan. He damn sure didn’t want to know what the Excalibur meant by “repairing.”
One catastrophic nightmare at a time. That was the new policy.
He turned right, thinking to find a quiet corner and something to attempt to snack on while he gathered his thoughts. He didn’t make it any farther than the head of the last row, though, before he paused again.
Gwen was alone in the aisle.
He teetered at the corner, thinking of everything she’d said back in the brig, wondering what she’d think of him now that the truth was out, and she’d had a moment to cogitate on just how deeply right she’d been about her good pal, Mr. Nice Guy the Alien Lightning Rod.
He was about to turn and go when she looked up at him in the faint wash of eerie blue light. He almost could’ve laughed that even here in this hellish situation—even after an alien abduction, a bloody brig breakout, and a passable attempt at human flight he still hadn’t even begun to wrap his head around—his less-than-spotless insides could still flutter at a simple look from her.
It was embarrassing. Doubly so when he remembered that Ex was currently elbows deep, so to speak, in those fluttering insides. To his surprise, though, Ex didn’t express anything more than a wordless sense of impatience as Nate started down the aisle to meet her.
“So…” he said quietly, drawing up a few extra feet short, just in case she was feeling jumpy about him. If anything, though, the look in her eyes was one of amusement. Tired, yes. And scared and overwhelmed too. But also amused.
“So? That’s all you’ve got after all that?”
“Yeah…” Nate licked his lips, searching for something better to say, finding he had nothing. Nothing but a stupid, nervous grin, pulling wider with each second that passed between them. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
Jesus, why was he grinning like this? And why was she smiling right back? It was infectious. Pathological. They were in shock, some corner of his brain pointed out. Incoherently giddy from the rush of horrors and death and complete alien madness that had just swept by, and for the fact that they were still alive, despite it all.
“Oh my god,” she whispered.
It was like a three word detonation sequence.
Before he knew it, before he could think better of it, Nate was striding forward and wrapping her in his arms like he knew what he was doing, and she was burying her face into his chest, and they were both shaking with laughter, or sobs, or he couldn’t tell what.
“Oh my god,” she gasped.
“I’m sorry, Gwen,” he whispered, voice hoarse, eyes burning, not knowing why other than that he’d failed to stop any of this, and that he would’ve given anything to take it back and spare them all. “I’m so sorry.”
She tensed in his arms, pushing back enough to see him, looking like she wanted to argue, but not knowing where to start.
“I wanted to tell you,” he found himself saying. “There’s so much I wanted to tell you these past weeks.” He huffed at himself. “These past years. You were right, back there in the brig. About all of it.”
“No,” she murmured softly, planting her hands against his chest, chains lightly jingling. “No, Nate, you saved our lives.”
“I failed to keep them out of danger,” he countered. “I was too busy spectating, just like you said. Waiting for someone else to come and fix it all.”
“Nate”—she shook her head helplessly—“that’s not what I… I mean, I had no idea what…”
“You were right,” he whispered.
And maybe it was his sad inner warrior finally surfacing after too many close rounds with death, or maybe it was just the look in her eyes as she gazed up at him, but he found himself leaning closer to her as he said it, feeling oddly at peace in the moment. Not relaxed, exactly, just… content. Content, riding the razor’s edge between hapless nerves and the electric excitement of her warm hands on his chest. Intoxicated with the closeness of her, so close that he could taste the scent of his whispered name on her lips when she drew up breathless, searching his face for some sign of his intent.
He kissed her.
For a second, he was every bit as surprised as she was to find his lips against hers. So much so that he barely even registered the feeling of it, lost as he was in the sheer thought of the thing. Him, Nathaniel “IT Guy” Arturi, kissing Gwen Pearson—going for it, just like that, after years of telling himself just a little longer, and now’s not quite the time. And what had changed?
Nothing, he realized, faltering.
Nothing at all.
He drew back, remembering himself, registering how abruptly he’d just ambushed her with all of this.
“You were right,” he repeated, voice thick, throat tight, pulling back to give her space, suddenly afraid to meet her eyes. “And I think I needed to hear it,” he added, eyes fixed firmly downward on nothing at all. “So, uh, thank you.”
“Thank you?”
He glanced up at her amused tone, not quite sure what to make of it. She just laced her fingers through his hair and pulled him into another kiss, harder this time. She leaned into him, her hands finding their way back down to his chest, down to his hips, pulling him to her, her lips parting hungrily to meet his. He looped a hand behind her neck, pulling her tighter, breathless. She reached around his hips—
And drew back with a breathless giggle when her wrist chain pulled tight across his hips, catching her hands from reaching all the way around his waist.
“You’re welcome,” she giggle-whispered, planting one last peck on his lips before favoring him with a slight frown. “As long as you don’t take that to mean I actually agree that this whole thing is your fault.”
He smiled guiltily. “Wouldn’t dream of—”
Something is coming, Nathaniel.
“—it.”
He looked around the dim stockroom, tight-chested fear slapping aside swimming-head bliss so fast he felt the mental whiplash.
“What is it?” Gwen whispered.
He held up a finger for silence, straining to listen for guttural troglodan voices or the hum of a descending ship. There was nothing. Nothing but the feeling of Gwen’s warmth pressed against him, and the barely audible sounds of Kyle and Kelsey talking somewhere in the far corner. Nothing but—
The faintest creak from the end of the aisle.
Nate’s heart leapt into his throat right before the back door jerked open and two dark figures swept in. Armed, Nate registered, as he shoved his way in front of Gwen, reaching for the first thing he could find, a dark weapon training in on him ahead.
“Easy there, friend,” came a tight voice, just as Nate’s brain caught up and recognized the face behind the gun. “Put the pretzels down, and let’s talk about this.”
Nate glanced from the gunman to his own cocked hand, which had managed to find itself a nice plastic tub of pretzel sticks in the mad grab for an impromptu weapon. He looked back to the two intruders, and blew out a relieved breath as he confirmed it a second time.
It was the big guy and the driver from the SUV.
Tessa’s SAS backup had found them—a fact that was less than soothing for other present parties, Nate realized, at the crash of falling boxes in the far corner, followed by the sharp hiss of, “Oh, shit!” and running footsteps.
“It’s okay, Kyle!” Nate hissed through the shelves as lou
d as he dared, setting the pretzels down and waving insistently at the two SAS goons to close the damned door.
The driver splayed his hands and gestured to his gun as if to point out Nate was in no position to be making demands. His big partner just shook his head and shooed the driver toward the door to do it.
“Who are these guys?” Gwen whispered beside him.
“Nate?” came Kyle’s uncertain voice from somewhere toward the head of the stockroom.
There’s something else.
“It’s uh… Everything’s fine,” Nate called uncertainly back, head spinning with the flurry of inputs. “They’re, uh… backup,” he added to Gwen, frowning at the two men. “I think.”
The two men were striding down the aisle toward him and Gwen, weapons lowered.
“Kid,” the driver said, “you are almost definitely sitting in more shit than I could measure with a box of rulers and a roll of duct tape.” He glanced uneasily in the direction the troglodan fleet seemed to be drifting. “Then again, I’m not so sure that doesn’t also describe the entire human race right now. Where’s Kalders?”
Nathaniel.
“Right here wondering if you’d remember to tape before you measure, Snuffs,” came a voice from the shelf to the left.
The big guy gave a monosyllabic chuckle at that.
What is it? Nate thought at Ex. He could just barely see Tessa there in the dim lighting, watching them through the gaps in the boxes.
Something…
Ex hesitated, uncertain. Nate’s heart rate picked up, the momentary gush of relief cold and congealing in his gut.
“Ha-ha,” the driver was saying, waving his weapon too casually. “Snuffy snuffs it up. Original. Now can we—”
You need to move, Nathaniel.
“—and get the hell out of here before—”
“Shut up.”
Tessa’s voice had taken on a sharp edge, like she’d heard something. Something like—
Nathaniel! Move!
Nate reached for Gwen’s hand a split second before the wall exploded inward with a sharp crack and a racket of collapsing shelves and boxes. Halogen blue light flooded into the room, casting the shock on Gwen’s face into sheer relief. Nate snatched her hand to run, and barely made it a step before something snaked around his torso and yanked impossibly hard. He felt her try to hold onto his hand. Heard her cry his name as he took flight.
Dim storage room shelves blurred to firelit pre-dawn sky, and troglodan floodlights in the distance, then he crashed into something hard and unyielding, and smacked down to a rough landing on the equally unforgiving pavement. He coughed for breath, grunting in pain, trying to sit up.
Something moved at the edge of his vision, stepping in to block out the eerie light of the distant ships. Nate tried to roll away, but something stomped down on his chest, holding him in place. He turned back and looked up at a tall, armored figure, glinting copper in the reflected light of some nearby fire.
“Aya kunithi jera,” it hissed down at him from behind a dark helmet, flickering copper and ruby in the flames, serpentine hair wriggling like a wreath of shadows.
Serpentine hair. Gorgon.
“Wait,” he started to say, but the Excalibur Knight was already scooping him effortlessly from the ground, clamping frighteningly strong arms around him. Then she jumped. Impossibly high. Wind howling in his ears. The Knight’s arms crushing him half to death.
He still found the air to scream when he noticed the ship they were about to collide with.
Then a section of the ship’s belly slid open, and they hurtled through a shimmering green wall of light to land in a bright room. Some kind of loading deck, Nate had all of a split second to register before the serpent-haired Knight tossed him across the room like a stuffed animal that’d lost its allure.
He landed heavily, scrambled to get back up, and lurched straight into a transparent wall he hadn’t noticed there. He whirled and found more walls surrounding him, a few feet away on every side. A cell. And she was already standing in the only opening, barring the way.
“Wait,” he said. “Please.”
She made a gesture with two long fingers, and the last wall closed in on itself between them. No door swinging shut. No panel hissing up from the floor. The wall just materialized, trapping Nate within the clear panels.
“Wait!” he cried, raising his hands in peace. “Wait a second! There’s been some kind of misunderstanding!”
But the serpent-haired Knight was already slicing her hand through the air in another gesture, and the walls went opaque, leaving Nate all alone in his perfect white prison cell.
31
Man in the Box
“Wait!” Nate yelled for what must’ve been the fifteenth time, pounding a fist against the solid white wall. “Hey!”
Nothing. Nothing at all.
If you are quite finished, I have something important to tell you.
“Oh yeah?” Nate growled. “Is it more or less important than the fact we just got kidnapped by—”
The ship lurched with a violent burst of acceleration. Nate hit the deck hard and scrambled for the closest wall, heart pounding, desperately seeking some kind of handhold. The deck fell away without warning, momentary weightlessness engulfing him before it yanked right back up and smacked him flat as a Nate Pancake, taking his stomach right along with it, then tying the poor organ into animal balloon knots with a series of aggressive maneuvers he couldn’t comprehend, busy as he was bouncing from one cell wall to the other like an oversized racquetball.
He was going to be sick. He was sure of it. Then he was sick, and he couldn’t even keep planted in one corner long enough to finish before another sharp jerk sent him flying.
“Have you people never heard of seat belts?!” he screamed at one perfect white wall, right before another jolt sent him smacking into it.
I believe they have disengaged the local gravitonic intertial negation systems. It is possible they deliberately seek to minimize your comfort.
“No shit!” Nate growled, attempting to wedge himself into a corner with feet and hands on the two adjoining walls.
It didn’t work.
He couldn’t have said whether their wild ride lasted two minutes after that, or twenty. All he knew was that the blind mechanical torture was somehow almost worse than being manhandled by laughing troglodans, and that, by the time the ship’s flight finally leveled out and calmed, he would’ve done just about anything to get the hell out of there.
Then again, judging by the fact that no one came to work him over in his vulnerable state, he wasn’t sure they’d even care if he promised to do whatever they wanted. It wasn’t like he knew anything useful, after all. Probably, the gorgons simply wanted the Excalibur from him, just like the troglodans did.
Which brings us back to what I need to tell you, if you are prepared to listen like a rational being.
Nate pushed himself up from the deck, scooting to sit in the closet corner, then paused, remembering he’d tossed what little stomach contents he’d had in one of these corners just a few minutes ago. There was no puddle of sick to be seen, though. Just clean deck and pristine white walls, all around.
Whatever else there was to say about his second alien abduction of the night, at least the lighting was better, and the ship far less grimy.
“Fine,” he muttered, sitting back against the wall. Fire away, then. And I’m fine, by the way. Thanks for all the concern.
You are fine because I have built you to withstand such punishment. Three weeks ago, that ride might well have killed you.
Nate glared at the white wall. What’s so important, Ex?
I appear to have been dimensionally sequestered.
Nate frowned. Say I didn’t understand what the hell that actually means...
If you were a feeble-minded simpleton, you might say this cell is “bending space” in such a way that my “good bits” have been “placed out of reach.”
“You have good bits?�
�� Nate muttered.
Juvenile rebellion will get you nowhere, Nathaniel. But neither will I, so long as we are stuck in this cell.
“Great. What the hell am I supposed to do, then?”
In the future, do not get stuck in four-dimensional cells. Additionally, it may be wise to stop blathering out loud like a simpleton. Better they remain in the dark about your limited intellect.
Nate clenched his fists, gnashing his teeth and resisting the dire urge to punch the wall. And what do I do now that I have gotten stuck in this thing?
Ah. Yes. There was a pregnant pause. Do not die in here, perhaps.
“Helpful.”
It’s hardly my fault you allowed yourself to be captured twice in a single night.
Says the Master Sword who has yet to tell me a single thing about how to wield his mighty power, Nate shot back, looking around as if he might actually find something more useful than uniform white walls.
He ignored Ex’s retort’s about whosoever holds this hammer, his mind drifting groundside, to what Gwen and his friends would be doing in response to his abrupt abduction.
Doing the smart thing and getting the hell out of State College, he hoped. Tessa and the SAS goons would see to that much at least, wouldn’t they?
Your friends appear to be on the move.
Nate blinked dumbly at the comment, trying to track how Ex could possibly know that.
“The earpiece,” he whispered, as realization set in. You can still connect to it?
Electromagnetic shielding does not affect quantum coupling, Nathaniel.
And you didn’t think to open with that?!
I was under the impression we were looking for helpful solutions.
Nate pinched his temples. We’re gonna have to have a serious talk about the things you deem helpful.
Here, allow me to patch you through to the Mother Hen and his band of sniveling chicks. I’m certain they will be right along to… Oh.
The Eighth Excalibur Page 29