The Place Beyond

by Ryan Lohner

  Tom said, “About that …” but stopped as they came upon Bram and the team that had rescued him. Their leader was a man whose name Matt hadn’t managed to catch; he had never seemed to take any sides in the arguments over whether Matt and his friends were worth helping, so Matt had simply never focused on him. He certainly had a reason to notice the man now, but asking his name at this point seemed like it would be rather gauche, so he kept quiet on that. Instead he just jogged forward with Jane and Jim to shake Bram’s hand.

  “Well, well. The conquering heroes,” Bram said. And he sounded completely genuine about that, Matt noted to his pride.

  Jim said, “Well, we had to return the favor, right? It would have just been rude not to.” Though his delivery had a bite to it that didn’t go unnoticed.

  Bram didn’t quite meet Jim’s eyes. “Right. That. Look, I had a lot of time to think in there, and … look, I am just so sorry for everything. I know you probably don’t even want to hear that, but it’s all I can offer.”

  Matt was surprised to see Jim stick out his hand. “Anyone having that much trouble talking is probably telling the truth. Besides, it looks like it’s all going to work out okay.”

  Bram shook the hand, tears brimming in his eyes. “You don’t know how much that means to me. I tried to be a good guy. Everything I did, I told myself it was for the right reasons. But what happened with you guys showed me that I can really hurt people in the process. There’s been a lot weighing on my conscience lately. It’s good to make it a little lighter.”

  Matt said, “Well, like he said, you’re out, we’ll be going home soon, and it seems like these guys took care of any bad guys around here, so I’d say it’s time to move to the next step.”

  The team leader smiled. “Yep. Wasn’t even much of a job. Just three guys patrolling. Easy work for me and my boys.”

  Tom snapped to attention. “What was that? You just came across three guards on this entire floor?”

  “Yep. All guarding the cell.”

  Tom put his face in his hand. “And you didn’t think that was a little odd?” He looked at Matt. “You see it, right? What I was getting at before.”

  And suddenly, Matt did. “There’s all kinds of important stuff here that they wouldn’t want people like us messing with. Which means the place should be crawling with guards.”

  “Yes, a rather pretty maneuver, if I say so myself.”

  Matt spun at the voice, and was not as surprised as he supposed he should have been to see Pren approaching, slowly clapping his hands. Behind him stood five men, all with Dave’s face.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Pren, ever the dramatist, strutted back and forth as he looked over his catch. “You know, people have been looking down on me since I joined this bunch. I guess it’s kind of an occupational hazard when you join up out of prison. Not the general’s most popular move among some more traditional members of the military. But who except us could do the kind of work none of those guys wants to even think about? And believe me, what we do is absolutely necessary. This government wouldn’t last a month without it. And what are the thanks we get? Everyone else sees us as just one more of those things they don’t want to think about. Chapman never appreciated me. You saw how he talked to me, right? Can you blame me for not liking the guy too much?”

  He paused, and Matt wondered if he was actually expecting an answer. But not for long.

  “But look at what I’ve created. I knew this one was important enough to you people that you’d send plenty of your best and brightest after him. Though apparently there are a few runts in the litter with just how easily this guy fell into it.” He nodded toward group three’s leader, who hung his head. “There’s a top clone soldier waiting to ambush every team of yours once they reach the cell they’re heading to. I’m a bit surprised to see you all here, actually. But I’m guessing the one you got past put up quite a fight, and you’re not in the mood to go up against all of these.” He made a grandiose gesture to the five clones behind him. Now that Matt looked again, they weren’t all identical. Only one really looked like Dave and the other clone he’d just faced. The others appeared older, ranging from their 20s to their 30s. But they all had identical expressions, though oddly enough there was nothing aggressive in the look. It was simply a serene confidence, with the inescapable feeling that they knew they could defeat any of the people they were currently looking at.

  Jim said, “All this just for us, huh? I guess I’m flattered.”

  Pren gave a dismissive wave. “Don’t be. You’re just what I guess I would call a bonus. Although now that I think about it, just how are you still alive?”

  “If I tell you, will you let us go?” For once Pren was left without a word, so Jim shrugged. “Eh, it was worth a shot.” He turned to the others. “Well, that was all I had. Anyone else got any ideas?”

  “Actually, yes.” The words hadn’t come from any of them.

  Then Matt saw one of the clones holding his pulser to Pren’s head. The one who looked exactly like Dave, in fact.

  “Dave?”

  His friend winked at him. “For two months now they’ve been trying everything they could to get me back in line. I’ll spare you the details, but it involved quite a bit of pain. And they thought they’d succeeded. Except I knew something they didn’t, which gave me something to hold onto through it all and ensured I’d never go back to them. Spectacular timing from you all, by the way. As hard as the conditioning was, I also wasn’t looking forward to pretending to work for them again.”

  Pren was standing utterly rigid, but his voice still held the same arrogance. “Yes, yes, very dramatic reveal and all, but you seem to have forgotten it’s still just you, against four others. Take aim, boys.” The other clones all turned their pulsers to point at Dave’s head.

  Dave didn’t seem troubled, though. “Well, one more thing you may want to think about. I’ve always had a bit of an itchy trigger finger. Maybe something the cloning process put in, I don’t know. I really should ask them sometime. Anyway, the point is that if any of them put me down, my finger is going to contract, and considering where I’m pointing my pulser right now, I don’t think you want that to happen.”

  Another of the clones said, “Shut up. I’m sure he’d be glad to sacrifice himself so we wouldn’t have to worry about someone like you. Isn’t that right, sir?” The others voiced their agreement.

  Now a drop of sweat was forming on Pren’s forehead. It dripped down before he was able to give an answer. “Now, Dave, that is what you like to be called now, right? I’m sure we can come to some agreement here. I mean, you can see that you’re not going to be walking away from this any way it turns out, right?”

  Dave’s gaze didn’t flinch at all. “It all depends on you, really. You like to talk a big game about how no one appreciates you, and everything you can do for the Krell government. But you’ve never answered the biggest question of all – are you willing to die for it? Maybe you don’t even know yourself. But the moment has arrived when you will have to decide, because this pulser in my hand isn’t going to be pointing anywhere else until you do.”

  Pren’s face seemed frozen, all except his eyes, which blinked furiously for a few seconds. Matt was briefly concerned that Dave had overplayed his hand, but then those eyes stayed closed as he said, “Everyone stand down!”

  The clone who had spoken before looked confused. “Sir?”

  “You heard me!”

  Dave smiled. “I had a feeling that’s what you would go with. And now if you wouldn’t mind, get them all back into the teleporter, and you with them, and then head to the clone training room.”

  Pren was surprised enough to turn slightly. “Why do you want us to do that?”

  “Oh, trust me, you’ll know once you get there.”

  Pren gritted his teeth and then gave the order just as instructed. The clones didn’t look happy, but they still obeyed. It seemed an order from a superior would always be obeyed by them, no matter
what. It made Matt wonder what Dave could have been talking about that let him resist the kind of thing that could produce such obedience.

  As soon as they were gone, Bram turned to Dave. “You do realize they’ll just come right back here, right? Seeing as how you’re not pointing anything at him anymore.”

  Dave nodded. “Except that I’ve spent a lot of time on that level in the past couple months, and I managed to get my hands on a training cartridge for programming teleporters. As of today, the one on that level will let you in, but it won’t let you out. They’re probably just now realizing how screwed they are and calling for an engineer. And getting one who’s brave enough to risk getting trapped himself will probably keep them busy until we’re all long gone.”

  Tom walked up to him. “Son, I would like to shake your hand.”

  “Later, maybe. You heard the man, there are more of me heading for all your other groups. And if we’re going to stop them I need to know how many are we talking about?”

  “Three,” said Tom. He turned to the other group leader. “I’ll contact two and four, you take five. Make sure to tell them not to let on that anything’s wrong.”

  They made the requisite calls and then Mary asked, “We’re going to help them, right?”

  Tom nodded. “Two groups of us. We’ve already shown that one group working together can handle one of them.” He turned to Dave. “I assume you’ll be able to take on another one on your own?”

  Dave nodded. “I’ll at least be able to hold him off until the rest can put him down.”

  Tom clapped his hands. “Excellent. Let’s get to work.”

  * * *

  Everything proceeded like clockwork. Matt, helping group two along with the rest of group one, was far more confident going into this fight, knowing just what his opponent would be capable of against the number of people he’d be taking on. They managed to catch him completely by surprise and the fight was soon over, this time without anyone even being put at risk when the time came to finish it. The clone simply lay on the floor exhausted as group two’s leader took the final shot. This time Matt didn’t bother objecting; it still made him wince to see a life suddenly end, but with the real Dave located, he found he had a hard time caring about anything else. Speaking of, they received word that Dave had also played his part as well as could possibly be expected, holding off his fellow clone in what the group he’d saved assured him was a fight like none they’d seen before, until they were able to get the enemy to submit. Matt actually kind of wished he’d been able to see it, though definitely not enough to stop him getting to the corridor as soon as possible.

  The whole operation only lasted a few minutes and Matt was quite impressed with how well everyone was able to work together. They ended up taking out each clone soldier without losing a single person. Then all that was left was to regroup on the corridor floor. There was only enough room in the teleporter for one group at a time, so naturally group one went first. But there was just one problem: as soon as they emerged in the new location, a hand stroked the side of the door in an unusual pattern before they could get out, making three loops on its way down. “That will give us some time alone. Not as elegant as your clone friend’s technique, but it serves my purposes well enough.”

  It was Charlie.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Charlie didn’t speak for a few seconds and just shook his head condescendingly. Matt was about to ask what he was doing there when he finally spoke up.

  “You people. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused for me? For years I was running this thing, and everything worked perfectly. Dozens of moving parts, but I had it all under control. And then you come barging in. The one thing I couldn’t possibly plan for. People from another universe. How could I know what you would be like, or how you would react to anything you saw? Oh, the headaches.” He briefly rubbed one of his temples.

  Jim folded his arms. “Well, I’m sure we’re all very sorry about that. But you can’t deny it all worked out fine.” He nodded to Matt and Jane. “These two left the first time just like we all wanted, and now we’re going to leave again. And believe me, none of us have any plans about coming back.”

  Jane held up a hand to him. “Which is all rather beside the point, I think.” She turned to Charlie. “That being, how did you get here? You couldn’t have had the surgery to use the teleporters in this place with no one noticing.”

  Charlie smiled and pointed at her. “You’ve hit right on the mark once again. To answer that, I have my own teleporter to this building, which works from my voice only. It’s hidden in my office. Very fancy thing, too, on the same level as these beauties. No upset stomach for me.” He looked rather unreasonably smug about that.

  Now Mary stepped forward. “So you make all those people who work with you go through that horrible experience, when you could just send them to and fro perfectly fine?”

  “It helps keep them in line, my dear. They have a constant reminder of the things other people have that they don’t, and they want those things too. And they see me as the best way to do it. So if any of them ever have had thoughts of doing things their own way, and I’m sure there have been quite a few, they know they’d never be able to pull it off when the vast majority of my people would refuse to go along with them. A rather neat setup, if I do say so myself.”

  Matt said, “But what’s the point of it? You want to lead these people to freedom, right? So what’s the harm if they do it for you or someone else?”

  Charlie scoffed. “Grow up, you stupid boy. If we ever do take this government down, and make no mistake, that is certainly one of my goals, ask yourselves – what happens next? Look to your own history. Even if it isn’t the same as ours like I’ve been told, I’d guess it shows that true rule by the people is never a good idea. All those people with their own ideas of how to do things, all with equal power, squabbling like children so that nothing ever ends up getting done. No, you need someone to steer the ship. Someone who can be trusted with that kind of power.”

  And then it clicked in Matt’s head. “Someone like you, you mean.”

  Charlie briefly looked surprised. “Well, it seems the girl isn’t the only one with something resembling a head on their shoulders. And why shouldn’t I? Look at everything I’ve already done. All those people you met while leeching off my hospitality, how far would they have got without me? None of them have any ideas of their own. It all comes from me. And let me tell you, it hasn’t been easy. Arranging things so some of the smarter ones will think my idea is theirs, so their confidence will be kept up, while also keeping them dependent enough on me that they’ll always follow my orders? It’s a tricky balance, and I’ll be honest, there have been a few times when I wondered if the whole house of cards was going to crash down. But it hasn’t, and all because I was good enough at what I do to keep it that way. If that’s not a qualification for the job, then what is?”

  Jane said, “And that’s why you hated us so much, huh?”

  Charlie nodded, looking as venomous as Matt had ever seen him. “I suppose you do deserve an explanation, at least. Like I said before, you were the one thing I couldn’t tolerate – an unknowable factor. For all I knew, at any moment, any of you could have destroyed all my work just by being yourselves. And it seems I was right, just look at how handily this one,” he gestured to Mary, “got everyone to agree to get you back here. So there was only one thing to do. And I really outdid myself on that one, I don’t mind saying. I turned almost all of them against you, so nothing you did would get through. But not just in a way that would make me look like a bully. That wouldn’t have been any good. Instead, it seemed to them like I was their only protection against you, just like I’ve been since I started this little scheme. I’d hoped you’d get killed somewhere along the way here – you’ve certainly been given plenty of opportunities. But I’ve long since learned to not leave anything to chance when I can help it, so I rigged up my teleporter to bring me straight here.
And so here you all are.”

  He paused, taking what seemed to Matt a rather indulgent look at all their faces.

  “You wanted to know why – I could see it in your eyes every time I worked a new step in my plan. Well, there you are. I hope you’re satisfied. And now it’s finally time for my favorite part of this job.”

  Tom said, “I thought I disliked you as much as I could before. But you are just a very sick man. What’s the point of killing us now? We’re going back home, and we’ll never bother you again.”

  Charlie shook his head. “So you say now. But you’ve seen this place. Worse, you know where the corridor opens in your world. Who knows what reason you might have some day to come back here? And with the time distortion effect, no matter how long it takes for you to do it, it could be tomorrow here. Like I said, I don’t like to take chances. In fact, once I do take over this place, I think I’ll just crush your world. Your weapons certainly won’t be able to stand up to ours. Now that would help me sleep better at night.”

  Matt was reeling from everything he’d just heard, and try as he might, he just couldn’t come up with anything to do. But then he was surprised to hear a laugh. Turning, he saw that it came from Jim. Charlie’s bug-eyed stare zeroed in on him.

  “Something you’d like to share with the rest of us, boy?”

  Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “I never did thank you for giving this back to me. It seemed a bit hypocritical, considering what I was planning to do with it.”

  Charlie’s eyes narrowed, at least as much as those oversized orbs were able. “What do you mean?”

  Jim held the phone up, like he was doing a commercial. The quite unnerving smile he had pasted on his face fit the image too. “I imagine you don’t know much about these. I mean, from the way I understand it, you did have them once here, but it was so far back that none of you bother learning about them anymore. It’d be like someone from our world learning how to make horse-drawn carriages or something.”