by Chris Lowry
“That’s the first step. How are you going to get into HQ?”
“My leader always told me, “Believe in me and take one step at a time.” the Templar said.
“I’m asking you to do the same. Have faith.”
Pip shook her head, not believing.
“You don’t have to go,” said the Templar.
“No, I’m in.”
But her face still looked despondent.
“What do you want me to do?
“Will you stay to watch your ship? Or will you come fight with us?” he answered.
“I would prefer your gun by my side, but I am confident of you holding this escape route for me.”
Reanna dazzled him with a brilliant smile that shone against her dark skin.
“I would like to fight by your side. My men can hold the boat.”
He nodded, satisfied.
“Then we will go to the Academy.”
He shouldered his rifle and hobbled to the side of the ship.
“Now?” Pip asked.
“It’s too early. There will be people there.”
“If not now, when? I am not ready for the Mob. We will go and act as if it is our business to go. No one will disturb us.”
“How?” asked Reanna, and gasped.
The Templar shifted in front of her, glimmering into a businessman. She looked at Pip and Bruce, to see if they saw the same thing, but they too were clothed in different attire.
“Magic,” she breathed.
“I should have known,” said Pip, following him to the side of the ship.
“Wow,” said Bruce, looking at his companions.
“I didn’t know you could do it for everyone.”
The glamour vanished.
“Not for long,” he said.
“But enough for anyone when we meet”
He swung over the side of the boat into a skiff that would take them to shore.
Bruce and Pip took up the oars as Reanna landed lightly behind them.
The Templar stood in the bow, facing the approaching shore, a gallant general leading his small outnumbered force into the fray to save his men.
“Do you think he’ll save us?”
Robe stopped searching along the wall in the dark to stare at the direction Darwin was sitting.
“I hope so,” he said.
“But I don’t know.”
The cell was pitch black, the kind of dark that only an enclosed room with no outside source of light could have.
No fractional seams at a window, leaking in a meager amount of light to outline shapes in the dark. The room was nestled in the bowels of the building, soundproofed so no noise entered or escaped.
It was designed to break down resistance, to isolate the hard case and trick him or her into thoughts of loneliness and abandonment. Not just by the Troops, but by the whole world, by body and senses.
No sight, no smell, no taste, no hearing. Only touch, if one dared venture around the cell in the dark.
Robe knew the tricks and didn’t let them bother him. He searched every square inch of the cell, from the cold bare floor to as far as his fingers could reach up each wall.
He looked for anything of distraction, a grain of mortar that could be worked into a hole, a break between the bricks that might become a prying point. Nothing. The walls were marble smooth, seemingly made of one piece, even at the juncture with the floor.
“I think he might,” said Darwin.
His voice was tired and raspy. His reaction to being caged in the cell was to talk, convincing himself he wasn’t alone, even with the shuffling of Robe’s searches.
He began with thoughts that ran through his head, moving to lectures from times past, memorized formulas, tables, and inventions, both fantastic and realized.
Robe felt overawed by the amount of knowledge in this one man, so much learning and experience trapped with him. He listened at first, trying to absorb as much information as possible.
But the cramped quarters and dark emptiness soon got to him. He let the Doctor ramble, ignoring his treatises. Instead, he searched for an avenue of escape.
For his part, aware that someone might be listening, Darwin never divulged secrets.
He talked about the Templar, but that fact had already been discovered.
He racked his brain for every conceivable tidbit of information he had digested over his years, bringing it up for examination. The sound of his voice comforted him.
He was glad Robe let him talk.
“It’s part of his creed, to always go back after his men.”
“Is that your book or fact?” Robe asked.
“Book,” Darwin sighed.
“I hope he comes to get us.”
Robe continued his search.
“Me too.”
“I’m worried,” she told him. Stephen would usually answer with a “Yes sir,” so she was surprised when he didn’t.
“Me too.”
She stopped reading from her monitor and looked at her faithful assistant.
“You?”
He flushed with embarrassment, unsure of himself now that he had spoken.
“It does not seem right. And it does not seem like you.”
She leaned across her desk.
“Sit down,” she invited.
He moved to the chair in front of her.
“Tell me more,” she directed.
“Robe was your friend. He betrayed you and the Troops, I don’t deny that. But I don’t think it’s right to ask for his death.”
“Why not? The Main Terminal say’s it’s exactly right.”
Stephen glared at the Terminal.
“I think the data is misinterpreted by the Computer,” he whispered.
“He should be punished, but killed?”
She watched him shake his head.
“There is more to all of this than we are allowed to know,” he leaned closer.
“I do not think we have all the facts.”
The door chimed and Bram burst in.
Stephen jumped, drawing his blaster.
Bram reacted with lightening quickness, leaping to the wall, bouncing to the other side of the room.
“Did I disturb something?” he asked.
“Sorry,” Stephen lowered his gun.
“Why so jumpy?”
He shrugged.
“It’s because of Webster, isn’t it.”
Again, Stephen shrugged.
“Don’t kill Robe,” he said.
“No matter what anyone tells you, just wait. I don’t have anything to offer yet.”
Nova settled back in her chair and watched him walk proudly out of the room.
“What was that all about?”
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“What do you have?”
“Just a normal check up. All systems are go for tomorrow night. I’ve got a special assignment detailed to Webster. Harry’s on the team.”
“Good. That should take his mind off the Templar.”
“Not bloody likely,” Bram said, and she nodded in agreement.
He sat in the chair Stephen had vacated.
“Everything’s fine,” he told her.
She looked at the door leading to her assistant.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Pip.
She quietly led the small group through the grounds of the Academy, sticking to the less populated pathways that twisted between old trees and over thick grass.
Bruce followed a few steps behind her, with the Templar and Reanna abreast of each other bringing up the rear.
“Just keep moving,” the Templar said. He kept his voice low, so as to be heard by only the four of them.
“We’re almost there,” Bruce informed them.
They stopped in front of a double sealed side door. Bruce slipped ahead of Pip, and keyed his password on the electronic lock. The sm
all box buzzed.
“They changed my access,” he said, a worried look on his face.
“Was that an alarm?” Reanna pulled her pistol.
“Put that away,” the Templar warned her.
The glamour was starting to take effect on his worn body. A thin sheen of sweat covered his brow.
He reached out with a massive fist and smashed the lock, tearing between the metal and wiring to grab a single circuit.
“They’re going to notice that,” said Bruce.
“We’ll be gone before they do,” he answered.
A small pop, a fizzle and a tiny cloud of gray smoke escaped from the box. The doors slid open.
“How’d you do that?” Pip wondered, slipping in the door.
They crept down the corridor, avoiding contact. The building was almost empty. Sunset was coming fast, and with it, curfew. Many of the students and teachers took no chances and were behind plas-steel doors long before the darkness came.
Darwin’s office looked different.
“They’ve changed it,” said Bruce.
The Templar noted the differences.
“They’ve moved the terminals.”
Bruce inspected the new monitors situated on a long counter top against the wall.
“We’re logged to the network. They found out about him.”
“Are we finished?” Reanna asked.
Bruce smiled, in his element.
“Of course not,” he picked the nearest keyboard. His fingers flew over the keys.
“Darwin would have expected something like this. I mean, how long can you work off the Net and go undiscovered? Computers are too much a part of our lives.”
“We never needed them,” Reanna said.
“I know. But I see where they could do your people a lot of good. I also see where, you seem to be okay without them. It’s a quandary I’ll have to take up with Darwin.”
The Computer alarm beeped abruptly and was cut off mid-wail.
“I’m done.”
“That was fast,” said the Templar.
He stood up from a chair he had found.
“I’m sorry sir,” Bruce apologized.
“I meant, I’m off the Network. I can do my work in stand alone now. It’ll be awhile before the program is written.”
The Templar folded his legs under him, settling back into a position of meditation.
“Wake me when you’re done,” he said simply.
He rested his rifle below his knees, just beyond the tips of his fingertips which sat on his thighs. He held himself stiff as a board, his eyes half closed, but moving, alert on everything in the room.
“You can lay down-” Bruce started.
“I am resting.”
Bruce nodded and turned back to the monitor.
Reanna moved to sit by Pip. They both watched the doors.
“Since you’re offline,” asked Pip.
“Won’t that alert them to us?”
He nodded.
“But it’s almost dark now. Troops won't make a move after dark unless it’s to pull some fat out of the Mob fire. We’re okay until dawn,” he explained.
Reanna nudged Pip.
“How does he propose to get us to your HQ tonight?”
Pip shrugged.
“I don’t want to fight the Mob. My revenge is on the Troopers.”
“It’s his plan,” Pip said.
“I’ll do what he tells me.”
“You like living that way?”
“My choice,” she answered.
“Besides, he’s the leader.”
Reanna hunkered down beside her, staring hard at the Templar resting in the corner.
Near dawn, the Templar poked Bruce awake.
“How much more, soldier?”
Bruce rubbed his eyes, trying to force the fog from his brain.
“Sorry sir,” he checked the monitor.
“It’ll be done any minute.”
He keyed a sequence on the keyboard.
“This part of the program writes itself.”
“Will it work?”
“Like a charm. The Computer won’t know what hit it.”
Bruce stretched his cramped muscles, rubbing his sore neck. He had slept with his head in his arms and was paying the price for it now.
Reanna stirred at their voices. She raised her head from Pip’s shoulder.
“Are we ready?”
“Almost,” the Templar began turning over the heavy desks.
“Help me.”
Pip woke up and together, the three pushed all of the thick desks against the far wall, under the windows, forming a deep row.
“Bruce, open these doors. Come with me.”
He led them into the other classrooms. They dragged back armload after armload of loose chairs.
“Scatter them,” he ordered.
Soon, the floor was covered with a thick layer of chairs blocking the way to the desks turned with their legs against the walls, making pockets of space.
“It’s a fort,” said Bruce, from the small path leading to the desks from the door.
“We used to make something like this when I was a kid.”
“And why the chairs?” asked Reanna.
“Interference,” said Pip.
“But from what? What are you going to do?”
The Computer chimed.
“Program’s done,” he held out the disc to the Templar.
“You keep it,” he instructed.
“I’ll need you to drop it in the Main Terminal.”
Bruce nodded, tucking the disc into his shirt pocket and glowing with pride. He was needed.
“I asked what are you going to do?” Pip demanded.
“Go to the desks,” the Templar pointed to the wall under the windows. “Prepare yourself for battle.”
He led Bruce to the hallway.
“Do you remember the night I arrived?”
Bruce paled.
“I need you to open the doors.”
Bruce shook his head.
“What?” Pip screamed.
“That’ll let the Mob in here.”
“I know.”
“We can’t fight the Mob,” said Reanna.
The Templar pushed Bruce down the hall.
“Be fast,” he turned to the women.
“You will have to fight. How else will the Troopers come?”
He shoved them up the small pathway toward the desks. Bruce shrieked and sprinted down the hallway.
“They’re coming!”
The Templar let him pass. He waited at the entrance to the path. The Mob swarmed up the hallway, churning over each other to reach him first, smaller bodies being run over and swallowed under the press of the mass behind them.
He set his rifle against his hip and fired indiscriminately into them as they boiled forward.
Bodies fell and were lost, replaced by another, barely noticed.
Over the top of the chairs, Pip and Reanna lay down cover fire, adding to the carnage.
They stood on the desks and fired in unison, twin daughters of destruction.
The Mob smashed into the jumble of chairs.
The Templar backed down the path, firing into the press of bodies and toppling chairs to cover his retreat.
The furniture cracked and popped, twisting under the weight of so many bodies forcing against it.
He reached the desks, a body made it through the press to hit him, knocking him down.
The Mob surged forward.
Bruce jumped over a desk and planted a shoulder into the body, sending it flying.
He fired with his small rifle, giving the Templar time to scramble over the desk.
Bruce leaped after him.
The four held the Mob in the doorway., bodies piling up to clog the passage, and disappearing back into the crowd.
“I don’t think this was a good idea,” Reanna screamed, replacing a power cartridge.
“Keep shooting,” the Templar growled.
&nbs
p; The battle lust was on him, and it took every ounce of will to fight it down, hold it in check. He longed to throw himself into the press with abandon, ripping and tearing until he was no more. But he had other plans, work to be done and he had to suppress the urge.
Instead, he picked each target to maximize the congestion in the doorway and dropped them.
“Tell me again, why you did this?” Pip screamed, a rifle held in each hand.
“Troops!” he screamed.
A body hurtled across the top of the chairs, thrown by an unseen force in the back of the room.
It crashed into Bruce, knocking him to the ground, clawing at his face. He screamed.
Reanna bolted to his side, ripping the thing off of him and snapping it’s neck.
But her rescue left a hole in the defensive line.
The Mob pounded on the weakened area, putting through.
The Templar herded his team behind him, using his massive body to partially shield them from the Mob as it pressed closer and closer.
“You killed us,” Pip whispered in his ear.
“I don’t know what your plan was, but we’re dead.”
He winked at her, quickly glanced out of the window at slowly rising sun.
“Your Troops will come,” he assured her and jumped into the fray.
“Templar! No!” she lunged for his arm, but he was gone.
The Templar was swallowed in the press of bodies, lost to her sight.
She prepared to hold them back, but the Mob was no longer concerned with advancing.
The front ranks turned back on themselves, clawing to reach the spot where the Templar disappeared.
Pip took advantage of the distraction and fired into the presented side, pulling Reanna and Bruce beside her to fire blast after blast into the distracted mass.
The Templar took but a second to release the rage in him. He no sooner landed in the forefront of the Mob, when he exploded, like a volcano, destruction raining down on all near.
He ripped and tore, beat and shot.
The press on him was too thick to damage him, crushing the wind from his lungs slowly, but he didn’t notice, so intent on killing them, he carried on without air.
He didn’t move far from the wall of desks, hoping in the confusion that his men didn’t shoot him.
The Troops would respond to the breach, as they did last time he was at the Academy. He only hoped his timing wasn’t off.
The Mob was too much, too many.