The Place Beyond

by Ryan Lohner

  Jane turned to Matt and said, “I agree. Thanks, Matt. It hurt, but we needed it.”

  Matt’s mouth worked a few times with nothing coming out. Finally he managed, “Hey, one other thing is going to help us get through this, and that’s sticking together. What do you say?”

  They all just smiled.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jim’s dreams tended to be nothing but nonsense. Sometimes he’d been asked what they were like by his parents or friends, and all he could do was joke that there must be nothing all that interesting going on in his head. The dream he was having now wasn’t like that. Everywhere he looked, people had his parents’ faces. But then they talked, and none of them sounded right. He ran from person to person trying to find the right one, and none of them were. Then he found himself back in the room Chapman had put them all in, the hole in the wall constantly opening and closing, revealing someone different each time. They were all people from school, or just people from Berkland, all asking, “Where’d you go?” and then vanishing. Finally, his parents’ faces appeared, and he somehow knew these were really them at last. They opened their mouths to speak, but nothing but a loud clapping sound emerged. And then his eyes opened as the sound continued.

  Charlie was standing in the middle of the room, slapping his hands together above Jim’s head. Jim sat up, struggling to clear his vision. After a few more seconds the noise stopped and he looked around to see that everyone else was in a similar state, rubbing their eyes as they blearily sat up. Even Jane wasn’t awake as quickly as she’d shown herself capable of before. Also among them was Bram; apparently he’d come back last night, or early this morning more likely, after they’d gone to sleep.

  “I know it’s hard, and you’d like to sleep away a few hours more, but this is a special occasion,” said Charlie. His eyes fell toward Jim and said, “Yes, it involves you three. Why not? It seems everything else does these days.”

  Bram stood up. “I assume you’ve come up with a plan to get them back?”

  Charlie rolled his eyes. “Very nearly, yes.”

  Now Lilah asked, “Well, what does that mean?”

  Charlie’s hard gaze turned to her. “If everyone would stop interrupting, I could tell you, couldn’t I?” He paused, and no one else spoke. “That’s better. Now, as I was saying …” He looked around the whole room before continuing. “I’ve been devoting my quite valuable time to this problem, despite several other things I could be putting it towards, because it’s a time-sensitive issue, and no one wants us to run out of that particular resource. And I believe I’ve put together the start of a plan that can get us through it. We’ll get these three to the training programs at the police station, upload them with anything that could help, and then transport over to the corridor headquarters so they can make their daring escape. Now, the full version is all very complicated – it involves a lot of teams making distractions in one place so teams in another place can do their work, so I won’t get into the specifics right now. And it’ll probably cause a huge increase in our standing among the general’s priorities. But hey, you all knew perfectly well what coming down here was going to be like, right? So that shouldn’t be a problem. And it’s certainly not these people’s problem.” He gestured to Jim and his friends. “Because if this works, they never have to see this place again. They just go back to their ordinary lives, and probably never think of us again, doing their best to forget this all ever happened.”

  Jim saw several people turn toward them, and he didn’t like the looks in most of their eyes. In just a few seconds, Charlie was turning his people against them, while setting himself up as some completely selfless hero for helping them with no expectation of gratitude. And the worst part was he and his friends had to just sit there and take it. His mouth had run away from him a few times since coming here, but by now he’d learned his lesson. Anything he said in his own defense at this point would just come off as desperate and wouldn’t help at all.

  Lilah, looking a bit sheepish, raised her hand. “Well, sir, I think I may have detected a problem with this.”

  Charlie smiled at her, looking completely genuine for once. Which of course just made it all the worse for Jim and his friends, as he was a bit surprised to find himself thinking of Matt and Jane. Now Charlie looked all the more reasonable for treating his own people better than them. “Well, I did say it wasn’t quite finalized, after all. So tell us all, what do you have to say?”

  Lilah glanced around the room, where suddenly all eyes were on her. She looked momentarily put off her game, but quickly recovered. “Well, uh, an operation with a bunch of teams like you’re talking about will require precise timing between them. And no matter how much we all study our roles and rehearse them, with so many people involved the odds are pretty high that someone won’t complete their part correctly. I’m not pointing any fingers, that’s just the math of it. So we need some way for these groups to communicate with each other. And the implants are out, because it’s a police station and all communications are under constant surveillance. If the system detects any strange users, it’ll issue an alert.”

  Charlie clapped twice. “Very good, Lilah. I’d run up against this issue myself, and you’ve outlined it beautifully. And I might have been able to come up with a way around it if I and some of our other great thinkers had, say, a few weeks to work on it. But sadly, we don’t. And I don’t think the answer is just going to pop into my head in the next couple days. Therefore, I’m afraid we will probably have no choice but to go ahead and just hope everyone’s timing is perfect.”

  * * *

  In an instant, it all became clear in Matt’s head. Charlie was setting them up to sacrifice themselves. He may or may not have come up with a real plan, but either way, he had never expected to act on it. In fact, he had never cared about them at all. Why, Matt couldn’t know, but the best he could come up with was that they were nothing but a nuisance to him, just three extra mouths to feed, and the only good thing was that they wouldn’t be on his hands for long. But at the same time, he had to give the impression that he was trying to help them, so the rest of the group would still look up to him as a man worth following. So instead he had made them look as bad as possible, probably in any private meetings he’d had in the past couple days as well, and he was now trying to guilt-trip them into giving up their own lives rather than letting any of these people die on a likely hopeless mission. They would be out of his hair, figuratively speaking, and he would remain in charge with his reputation intact.

  The theory only became more likely with the next thing Charlie said. “I’m sorry for any loss of life this may entail, especially to you three, as it’s going to be such a hard way to go. My one consolation is that I will be able to offer you an easier way out, if it should come to that.”

  Matt stared into that smug face in disbelief, struggling to process a mind capable of such deviousness, which could still claim to be working on the side of good. However, just then an idea suddenly popped into his head, just like Charlie had said would need to happen. He raised his hand just like Lilah had, and couldn’t help giving a bit of a smug tone himself. After everything he’d put up with from the man, he’d earned it. “Actually, I think there might be a way to do it.”

  Charlie didn’t say anything at first. He just turned to look at Matt and blinked twice. Then that confidence returned. “Oh, by all means. This is your mess, so I’d love to see what you have in mind to try to clean it up.”

  Matt pulled his phone from under his bed, where he’d been keeping it ever since their clothes were sent away. He hadn’t seen any need to worry about these people stealing it, as they probably wouldn’t even know what it was. Jane and Jim had done the same.

  “We don’t have communication implants where we come from. We have these – cellular phones. You dial a number on one, and it connects to another. And their signals definitely won’t be monitored, because we have the only three in this whole world, outside of maybe a technology mu
seum or something.”

  Charlie blinked once more, but he soon came back with, “Quite interesting, yes. However, seeing as those things aren’t physically connected, I imagine they operate through frequencies specifically set up for their use. And as you just pointed out, there aren’t any more in this world, so it seems they won’t work here. I’m sorry, but it looks like the plan will still have to go ahead as is.”

  A cough came from behind Charlie and he whirled around. Matt leaned to the side to see past him and saw that Bram was the culprit. “Actually, they do. I saw it when I rescued them. The things are clunky, sure, but they get the job done. I think the young man is on to something.”

  Charlie turned back around, and Matt was satisfied to see a tiny quivering in his upper lip. Apparently being thrown a surprise like this wasn’t something that happened to him very much. “Yes, I see,” he said, seemingly just to fill the silence that had resulted from Bram’s statement. Then, “Well, I still see one issue with this.” And the gleam in his eye looked far too predatory. “There’s only three, you say. Well, we’ll need more than three teams for this operation. So it seems it doesn’t improve our odds very much.”

  Now Lilah spoke up. “It’s still a better chance than what we had before. And who knows, maybe we can set up a system of passing the phones around. Why don’t you let us see what you’ve come up with so far, to see if more heads on the problem can’t help?”

  His lip quivered a bit again, but now that he was talking to one of his own people again, it seemed Charlie had to rein himself in. “Absolutely. I’ll set up a presentation in the gym in an hour, and anyone who wants to participate can come help. Wonderful. Glad it worked out.” He promptly left the room.

  Lilah turned to them, confused. “I really don’t know what’s got into him lately.”

  Matt doubted telling her his suspicions would do much good. The woman had been following Charlie for too long to take such an idea on faith alone. But for now it felt like he’d got a stay of execution, and he allowed himself to feel good about that, at least.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Morning, one and all!” said CJ as the three kids entered the gym. They had decided to stay out of the planning phase currently going on, as they all agreed they probably wouldn’t be welcome and were all sure they wouldn’t have much to contribute anyway. These people had been working together for years; they knew each other, and they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and who would be best for what job. The best any of the three friends could do would be to look at a map and point out a good spot to meet and pass the phones around, and there were probably plenty of people in the room who could have that covered anyway.

  Though that wouldn’t include Mike and CJ, apparently. “Not joining in the big think tank?” said Jim.

  Mike glared and said, “Is that some sort of wisecrack?” But then he brightened. “Yeah, be honest, when you think of us, do you see someone good at that sort of thing?”

  CJ smiled alongside him. “We’re part of the muscle. They know it, we know it, and we’re fine with that. We still serve an important role, just not one that’s very much in demand at the moment.”

  Mike continued the thought with, “But our time will come again, trust us! It always does.”

  Jane quickly interjected, “Yes, I’m very happy for you two.” After theatrically looking around she continued, “But I notice Lilah isn’t here, which I guess means she is one of the smart people around here. Which I could have guessed, really. So that means I’m out an instructor. So, what do I do?”

  Jim put a hand on her shoulder and smiled, almost as impressively as Mike and CJ. Suddenly she was reminded of how they first met. “How about we all stick together today? After all, it’s probably going to be the last time, one way or another.”

  Now Matt seemed excited too. “Yeah, let’s all show each other what we’ve got.”

  Jane wasn’t quite so sure. “Well, that will be fine for you guys, sure, but I’m pretty sure the stuff Lilah’s been teaching me won’t go very well with what you’ve been doing.”

  Mike cut in with, “And do you think the people you’ll be going up against will all be using your own moves? It’ll be good for you to see how you stack up against someone with a more physical style.”

  The point was taken.

  “Well, it beats sitting around all day. All right, let’s get started.” Matt and Jim nodded, but then simply looked at each other. Jane was confused for a couple seconds, and then realized what was going on. “Oh for God’s sake, I trust you both not to beat me up. So, Matt, you go first. Let’s get this going.”

  Matt said, “All right,” and then swung a wide, clumsy punch at her, quite a bit more slowly than she suspected he was really capable of. After waiting for it to arrive, she quickly ducked under it and weaved to his side. The swing was still going on by the time she popped back up, and Matt turned to stare at her.

  “That’s really the best you’ve got? I could have landed two punches on your face by now,” she said.

  CJ looked quite impressed. “Suddenly I’m wishing I’d gotten you to train.”

  Matt said, “I’d be insulted but, yeah, that’s about right.”

  Mike stepped closer. “Now what if someone grabs you, like this?” He reached out and held Jane’s upper arm securely.

  Jane gave a smile of her own. “That’s the first defensive move Lilah taught me.” She moved her foot closer to Mike, turned, and rammed her hip into his stomach, loosening his grip. From there she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him forward, the same hip making a handy fulcrum that Mike tumbled over, to land on his back on the mat.

  Jane herself couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. “You didn’t … help me, did you?” she asked Mike.

  He stayed on the ground and smiled. “Oh, I would never dare. That right there was all you, little lady.”

  Stunned, Jane turned to Matt and Jim, who were both staring at her, pole-axed. Then Jim turned to Matt and said, “I don’t know about you, but I just got very turned on.”

  Jane snorted. “Every time I start to forget what kind of guy you are, it comes back to me somehow.”

  CJ walked a few feet to a crate of pads. “Well, if that’s what we’re in for, you all might want to put these on.”

  Mike raised his hand from the floor and said, “I can vouch for that.”

  * * *

  Training together with Jim and Jane was not good for Matt’s self-esteem. Jane continued to pull out surprises with how limber and agile she had become after just a couple days’ training, and Jim proved to be a natural at transferring his football skills to powerhouse offensive moves. They both pulled off one impressive punch, kick and throw after another. And then there was Matt himself, who had certainly improved, and today felt rather less fatigued from his previous workouts than he had after his first day here, but he simply couldn’t compare to either of his friends.

  Not that either of them did anything to make him feel bad about it. They were constantly encouraging him and offering to help him with a maneuver they had picked up more easily. And Mike and CJ were nothing but supportive. But just watching them was plenty humiliating all on its own. He knew he shouldn’t feel this way. He may have entertained a few revenge fantasies about bullies when he was younger, but he’d never really had goals in developing his physical skills outside his own head. But seeing how easily both his new friends had picked up their lessons, he still felt rather embarrassed that he wasn’t able to do the same.

  A reprieve from his ruminating finally came when Bram and Lilah walked into the room. Mike waved to them. “Lilah, you are one impressive teacher.”

  Lilah replied, “Thanks, but it’s not getting you any closer.” Mike just waved the comment off and they both grinned. Matt got the idea this was a regular routine between them.

  Bram waited for a few titters around the room to die down and then said, “Anyway, after more time with Charlie than was probably good for me,
we think we’ve got a solid plan down. Everyone has a day to memorize their roles, and how they correspond with all the others.”

  Matt quickly figured out what he’d said between the lines. “So we’re waiting another day? That seems to be cutting things pretty close.”

  Lilah shrugged. “Would you rather we go in now, with everyone still only half-prepared at best?”

  Jim said, “Well, it is our lives on the line, here.”

  Now CJ cut in with, “And ours, don’t forget. Don’t get me wrong, I like you guys, but I’d rather not die for you if I can avoid it.”

  Jane said, “Okay, okay. One day to memorize our roles. That shouldn’t be too bad.” Matt was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining the unease on her face. “And if it gives us a better chance at getting home in the end, all the better. So, what’s my part?”

  Chapter Twenty

  The police station was located in the center of town, a three-story building that Matt couldn’t help but think looked unimpressive after what he’d built up in his mind. Of course, his only real idea before this of what buildings in Krell were like was the giant tower he’d arrived in, and on the way over to the resistance base he’d seen many other buildings not nearly as big, though they were still very tall, like walking through Manhattan after a lifetime in Kansas. He turned to Bram, who had been assigned to babysit him, Jane and Jim (that wasn’t what Charlie had called it, of course, but the implication was clear). “It doesn’t seem like enough for a city this size.”

  Bram nodded. “It’s pretty much for show, really. The people at the top don’t care much for what goes on in a place like this. Everyone can just go hog wild, and unless you’re stupid enough to pull something right in front of a cop, you get away with it. Luckily for them, that happens often enough to justify their paychecks.”