by Matt Ryan
No. It wouldn’t come to that. He’d do what it took to make sure Marcus would die at the end of his gun or with his own hands if need be. One way or another, he didn’t want phase five of the plan to ever happen.
“Done,” Julie said.
“How do you know?” Hector asked, taking a step back from the line and looking at the tower. “You cross that line and you’ll be shot dead.”
“We cross the line. It’s the only way to know for sure,” Julie said and took a step forward.
“No,” Lucas said.
But Julie had already crossed over the green line, standing on divots of asphalt and glaring at the tower to defy her hacking skills. “See?” She turned around. “All good.”
Lucas seemed skeptical and walked past the green line to join his wife.
Hector crossed last and about a hundred feet toward the building he seemed more confident in the idea. “How did you do that?” he asked.
“I turned off the sensors.” Julie strutted toward the building.
Joey jogged ahead, keeping his gun hand outstretched. He searched for a front door in all the glass on the first floor and spotted a handle. Getting close to the door, he slowed down and waved for them to stop while he checked it out.
The sun reflected off the green tinted glass and he couldn’t make out anything behind the door. He took a deep breath and pulled on the handle. With nothing on the other side of the door, he flung it open and took a quick step into a lobby. A vacant desk and blank concrete walls stared back at him, as if trying to tell him, Hey, this is just a regular building, come on in. Another metal door stood at the far end of the lobby and had a staircase drawn on it.
Joey went back to the front door and waved his group to come in. “You narrow down where she could be?” he asked Julie as they joined him inside.
She nodded her head. “The tracker is still working. Floor sixteen. It appears to be the only floor with activity.”
“Sixteen flights, you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” She put her hand on her stomach.
Joey knew she’d never complain, but he saw the strain in her face when they pushed too far for too long. He’d have to watch her and keep an even pace. “Lucas, watch our backs.”
“Gotcha.”
Joey opened the staircase door and flashbacks of the casino hotel on Ryjack shot to him. He had been running across a mall to get to that staircase. He gazed at Poly while putting his foot on the bottom step, thinking of the dress she wore that day. He never saw her in it again and hadn’t had the nerve to ask her about it. She hated everything to do with Ryjack. How could he blame her?
He counted the unmarked doors as they passed each one, taking it at a slow pace and even then, he saw the strain on Julie’s face. Lucas seemed oblivious to it and walked mostly backward up the stairs, pointing his arrow at each door as they passed. Joey hoped he didn’t have an explosive tip attached; they’d all be dead if one of those went off in a confined space.
“Sixteenth floor.” Joey pointed at the door.
Julie spent some time getting her Panavice out and sliding her finger across the screen. “She’s on this floor.” She grimaced and held her stomach.
Joey nudged the door open with his foot, while keeping his gun raised. The next hallway looked much like the lobby. The difference on this floor, he heard a humming sound of power.
Stepping into the main passage way, he looked right and left. There were double doors at the end on the right, and a series of openings on the left, as if the doors had been taken off the walls.
He backpedaled away from the double doors and toward the first opening. Lucas had his back and walked next to him. One look and Joey conveyed the danger he felt to Lucas who only nodded, gripping Prudence.
Joey pointed at the opening and put his back against the wall. He gave Lucas a quick glance and then spun around into the room, holding his gun out in front of him. He lowered his gun and took in the blank room with a square bed on the floor. A pipe protruded out of the wall near where a person’s head might have been. Joey backed out of the room and went to the next.
Same thing.
“She’s here, maybe we can just call her name?” Lucas whispered.
“Better not, there’s only a half dozen left to look in anyways.”
Lucas shrugged and gripped his bow again, arrow cocked.
Joey did the same motion for the next room. A man lay on the bed in this one and Joey kept his gun trained on the elder. His white beard ran down over his filthy shirt. Body odor emanated from the room and into the hall, killing the sterile smell of the rest of the floor. Joey cursed himself for not smelling the man before leaping in. At least he seemed docile, or maybe even asleep?
“Hey,” Joey whispered, but the man didn’t respond.
A clunking sound came from the wall, rattling down a metal pipe. Something exited the pipe behind the old man and struck him in the head. Joey didn’t get a good look at what came out. With fear building, he pointed the gun at the man.
“Wake up and leave the room.” A soothing voice called out over some unseen speaker.
The man sat up and got to his feet.
“Hey, mister,” Joey said.
“Señor?” Lucas tried Spanish and didn’t get any reaction.
Walking toward Joey, the old man didn’t respond to the people or weapons pointed in his direction. Stopping just outside the door, he stood in wait.
“Go to the end of the hall, through the double doors.” The smooth voice called out commands once again.
The man walked down the hall to the double doors. He pushed against them, without slowing down, and they swung in and closed behind him.
Joey and Lucas followed behind the guy and told the rest of the group to stay behind as they checked it out. Lucas took the right side and in one motion they opened the doors. In the next room stood a large silver ball, reaching from floor to ceiling. The top half opened and folded into the bottom half, as the bearded man approached it.
“Step into the egg and sit in the chair,” the voice said.
“Don’t do it,” Lucas called out.
The man took a big step over the lower half of the egg and sat in the chair. Straps went over his hands and the egg closed down around him.
“This can’t be good,” Lucas remarked.
Another clunking sound came from the egg. Joey squinted as he heard the man screaming. It sounded faint, blocked by the metallic eggshell, but Joey knew it was coming from the man and they were doing something terrible to him in there. “We’ve got to help him!”
He ran to the egg and gripped the edges where the two sections met. Pulling as hard as he could, it wouldn’t move. He kicked at the bottom and punched the top.
The man kept screaming.
He pulled his gun, momentarily thinking of shooting it open.
“Don’t, that’ll kill him or ricochet and kill us,” Lucas said.
The screaming stopped and Joey lowered his gun. His heart pounded in his chest. The egg opened and he winced, expecting to see gruesome remains of the man. But the chair was empty. It felt like magic. Where could he have gone?
Another clunking sound drew Joey’s attention to the floor. Whatever it was, it rattled down the pipe and then the sound was gone.
“So freaking weird,” Lucas said.
Joey turned to Poly, who was holding Evelyn and standing in the doorway.
“You hear that?” Hector said, looking back down the hall.
Joey did, the soothing voice had just told someone to get up. He ran down the hall and came face to face with Edith. She had the same blankness as the man.
“Go to the end of the hall, through the double doors.”
Edith moved toward the doors, but Joey grabbed her. “You can’t go down there. I won’t let you.”
She pushed against him.
“Lucas, help me,” Joey said.
Lucas pushed against Edith with Joey, but she shoved past them both and kept
walking.
“She must work out,” Lucas mumbled.
“Edith, stop!” Poly yelled.
“She’s under their spell. I’ve seen it once before. They can control us somehow,” Hector said.
Edith walked up to Poly and Evelyn.
“Edith,” Evelyn said and held out her arm. Her baby hand grazed Edith. “No.”
Edith stopped. She looked at Evelyn and then back to Joey and Lucas. “What happened?” she asked. “Where am I?”
“You blew up that cube and it shot you off to a tower,” Lucas said. “We’re here to rescue you.”
“I remember throwing the arrows in the last second before the cube pulled me in. I felt the explosion and something in the cube touched my arm. The next thing I remember is your voice.” She touched Evelyn’s hand. “I heard you, in my head. You pulled me from the dream.” Edith looked confused.
Hector raised an eyebrow and stared at Evelyn. “What are you people?”
Everyone ignored his question as Evelyn giggled and patted Edith on the arm. “Edith.”
“Yes.” Edith picked her up from Poly. “I’m your Edith and I’ll never leave you again. You are my little queen, yes you are. Who saved me? You did.”
“I think I found a way off this planet,” Julie blurted, looking at her Panavice.
“Off this planet? Are you guys from the stars?” Hector asked.
Joey sighed and put a hand up to stop Hector’s line of questioning, urging Julie to continue.
“The cube is a transport. They take people from here and transport them to a master stone in the north. I found a way for us to hitch a ride.” She smiled and showed them the screen.
“Oh, you are my little queen,” Lucas said to Julie. “Who’s going to save us? You are. Yes you are.” He pet her hair and she swatted him away.
“It’s the next floor up,” Julie said, ignoring Lucas.
Joey went to the staircase and opened the door.
“The birds are back,” Sharati said running up the last few steps to floor sixteen. “You are foolish for going into one of these reclamation centers.”
“Reclamation?”
“That’s what Simon called them.”
Joey choked down the shock of hearing she’d worked with Simon. “Come on, we think we found a way out of here.” Joey bounded up the next flight of stairs. Sharati followed close behind him, keeping her hand on her dagger, bouncing her attention in all directions.
Joey pushed on the door marked 17. The door flung open and the wind gusted down into the stairwell. The wind moved through the open walls. Only a few pillars broke up the empty floor. Several cubes sat on platforms marked with different colored lines running to them. Joey held out his gun, looking for anything moving as he moved further away from the stairwell. There were four cubes in total, but at least twenty empty platforms spread across in a grid pattern over the floor.
“We should take the red one,” Lucas said, pointing at the black cube sitting on a red platform.
“It doesn’t matter. Once we’re in, I’ll tell it to take us to the master stone,” Julie said.
Sharati grunted and didn’t look like she had any intention of boarding.
Hector stepped forward. “I can leave this place . . . go somewhere that doesn’t have this?” He pointed at the cube.
Joey looked at Poly and Julie. They both gave him a nod. “We can get you off this planet. There is another one, I think it might be a fresh start for you. It doesn’t have this.”
Tears formed in Hector’s eyes.
Julie walked up to the cube sitting on the red platform and punched into her Panavice. A door slid open. “Come on, we can all fit in.” She stepped into the craft with Lucas running in behind her.
Joey and Poly stepped in behind Edith, Evelyn, and Hector. Julie leaned against the wall and made more room. Joey slid to the side and watched Sharati pace at the entrance.
“You coming?” he asked. With a small hesitation, she ran into the space left for her. “Get us out of here,” Joey said.
The door closed and the cube hummed to life, lifting off the platform and out of the building.
“Oh, look,” Julie said.
Joey turned around and faced the wall. The world below moved by, visible through small sections of what looked to be glass.
“Wow,” Hector said. “There’s the airport. I spent five years there.”
Soon, they passed over a mountain range and many miles of desert. Another city passed by and Joey tried to find any signs of life, like in New Vegas, but this planet had been completely obliterated. He couldn’t imagine something worse than Marcus and he wondered if he was somehow involved in this purge.
“Julie, can you show Hector a picture of Marcus?” Joey asked.
She shrugged and in a few seconds had a picture of Marcus on her screen. Hector leaned close and took in the image, shaking his head. Then she showed him a picture of Alice and again he didn’t recognize her.
“Did the person on the message, the one who told this world they were gone, did she mention her name?” Joey asked.
“No, it was just the message. After that, everything went to hell.”
Joey went back to the window and stared at the rubble city racing by. City after city they passed over looked the same. Some had the same tower and some didn’t but they were all left to waste. This woman, the one on the message, stripped this world and probably moved onto the next. The number of planets is what ultimately made him feel better about Earth. What was the chance this woman would find his Earth out of all the other ones? He looked to his friends, each looking out a different window. Julie questioned Hector for a while longer, but it became evident he didn’t have a clue to the bigger picture of what all this meant.
After another hour, the cube slowed and descended. They all grouped near the door and waited for it to touch the ground.
“I got it from here,” Julie said.
The door opened and right in front of the cube sat a dome shape in the rubble surrounding the Alius stone. Joey took a deep breath and smiled. He wanted off Hector’s planet and away from these cubes. He had enough on his plate to think about.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Lucas said and went to the stone. “Stage four?”
“Yes,” Joey said. “Nothing’s changed.” He looked at the hills in the distance and thought about the city beyond the peaks. Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed.
One thing at a time.
“Stage four isn’t what I’m worried about,” Poly said.
Joey lowered his head. He didn’t want to think about them failing at stage four. No. He shook the thought from his head. Stage four would work, he’d make sure Marcus was dead.
“Where are we going?” Hector said.
“Away from here. You can still stay if you’d prefer. I can send you back in the cube,” Julie said.
“I have nothing here. Wherever we are going, it has to be better than here.” He was quiet before glancing at Poly. “It’s better than here, right?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
Hector crossed his arms and looked around the circle, keeping his attention on Lucas, watching his movement around the stone.
“I have a friend in LA, I’ll give her a call and get you set up until you get on your feet,” Gladius(?) said.
He bowed his head. “Thank you.”
“As soon as we get to the master stone, I’m going back to my planet,” Sharati said.
“Okay, then. Any other statements or can I get us out of here before the Rubik’s Cube from Hell sucks us into nothingness?” Lucas said.
“Go.” Joey moved next to Edith and Evelyn. Evelyn smiled and reached for him. He patted her head and ran his fingers down her cheek. Then he pulled out his gun and got ready for the unexpected.
“Here we go,” Lucas said.
Joey mentally prepared himself before they landed in his most hated place on any planet. The stone hummed and the desert changed to the charred re
mains of Zach’s house. His attention went directly to the spot where Samantha had died. He felt the tears building.
Poly touched his hand and rubbed his back.
“Lucas, Julie!” Rick ran over to them. “Something’s gone terribly wrong at Marcus’s.”
JOEY LAY ON A GRASSY bank overlooking a shanty house way outside LA. Samantha had given them the clue about this house just before she died. If she hadn’t, Julie said she’d never have found it. Thanks to Samantha, they had gotten this far and Joey glanced to the sky to reflect on the amazing friend they once had.
“She loaded the program,” Julie said.
“Great, we should execute it then,” Poly said.
“We do that and we risk killing every person on the entire planet.”
Poly huffed and went back to staring at the empty house.
“I’m going to try and get into the camera system without her feeling me poking around. It’ll take a few minutes.” Julie prodded her Panavice.
“We may not have long,” Rick spoke up. “I’ve got a bad feeling. They aren’t responding to my radio calls, or cell calls. It’s gone black in there.”
“Not for long,” Julie replied and Joey hovered over her shoulder. “Got it,” she said.
An image of a hallway appeared on the screen. She swiped her finger and a black image appeared, static on the next one. “They’ve got to be down there.” Julie swiped her finger again and a bedroom appeared. She gasped and covered her mouth.
Everyone gathered around the screen to get a better look at what elicited such a response. Joey pulled out his gun at the sight of Marcus with his friends and his dad, in the same room, not a hundred yards away.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” Poly said, putting a hand on his arm. She knew him well. “We can get down there before Marcus knows what hit him and end this all.”
“And what if we don’t?” Joey asked, moving close to Poly. “Can we really handle what comes next? Can we live with ourselves if we fail this stage? We all know the next one will be unbearable.”