by Ian Williams
“Who would you have the Overseer search for?” he said.
Phoenix heard his reply as an accusation. Time to appeal to his ego once more.
“I’m only impressed with the Overseer’s power. He can see much more than I realised. So, tell me, how do you contact him?”
After a short pause, and enough time for him to judge her response, the driller man returned to working on his console. She had passed his quick inspection, it seemed.
“The Overseer is between both worlds. When the Conduit is activated, he is awoken.”
“Er, Phoenix?” Rhys said from behind the spire.
“Hang on a sec. So is that done from here?”
“You’re gonna need to see this,” he tried again.
“Just give me a minute, Rhys. So?”
As the Sentient prepared to answer, she felt a hand touch her gently on the shoulder. Rhys had found something urgent. From the look of his pursed lips, she could tell it related to what she and the Sentient were discussing, too. He was about to spoil the mood.
“What?” she asked with a slightly hushed tone.
“Take a look for yourself.”
She stepped away from the Sentient, who appeared happy enough to be left to himself, and followed Rhys’ instructions. Around the other side of the spire was the outline of an opening in the glass-like structure. It appeared to be large enough for a person to slip inside, into the centre of the tower, once the hatch had been removed completely. Through the tiny gap the interior appeared dark and lifeless, much like the outside, but there was something else in there.
“How did you find this?” she asked, while trying to prise it open the rest of the way. The door was stuck with a gap only a couple of inches wide to peer through. Rhys had managed to unlock it and nothing more.
“In the light I could see the faint outline of the hatch, so I pressed against it and it popped open a little. That’s not what worries me though. Look there.” He pointed to the top of the hatch, no more than half a metre above their heads, where a small hole had been punched through.
“Help me pull it open,” Phoenix said.
Together they hooked their fingers around the edge of the door and began to pull in quick and forceful yanking movements. After a few, it started to reply with sharp and gritty squeaks as it came free. Then once it had opened enough for someone to fit through, they stopped. The light had its turn exploring inside before any of them could. She was thankful it did, because what was inside could now be seen. Another body, with a bullet wound to the skull too. The poor soul had been shot through the glass. They had not even bothered to open it during their rush to leave.
“Oh shit!” Phoenix said, staring into the makeshift coffin in front of them. She no longer had to guess what Rhys’ insistence on showing her was for. “Hey,” she called to the Sentient around the other side. “Hey, is this the Overseer?”
He shuffled around to them and froze the moment he saw the open hatch. Except he seemed less angry about the dead body inside, and more about seeing them beside it.
“Get away from there,” he began to rage. “It is forbidden for you to lay eyes upon the Overseer. You are not worthy. I will not tolerate your disobedience much longer, human. Close the hatch and allow the Overseer to sleep.” He still held on to this misconception.
“For fuck’s sake.” Phoenix had to walk away for a second to compose herself. Once again they had hit a problem with the plan. Not only did the spire require the Sentient tech to work, it also needed a human. Without the Overseer she had little confidence they would get any closer to finding Graham. All that kept her from flipping out altogether was the hope that Luke could fix this too, once he arrived.
The Sentient tried to close the hatch while Phoenix continued to curse the darkness at the edge of the room. He could not manage alone and turned to Rhys for help.
“You, human, help me close thiss,” he said.
“Whatever,” Rhys replied, before joining Phoenix instead. “You OK?” He stroked her arm softly.
“I’m fine. I just feel like someone’s deliberately making this harder than it needs to be, you know? Like every time something goes right, something else has to go wrong immediately after. If it was Karma, I’d understand if it was aimed at me, but this is all to find Graham. It’s pissing me off.”
“Hey, it’s not over yet. We’ve still got a good chance of finding him. We just need to figure it out, that’s all.” A muffled chime from his side broke the conversation before it had really begun. There was more to Rhys’ point, she could see from his open mouth, but he was not going to be allowed to share it. Without the spoken words ever having crossed his lips, she still received it, almost telepathically. His look, right into her eyes, had conveyed it well enough. He was with her all the way.
“It’s your wrist computer,” Phoenix said first, to prevent the silence from becoming awkward.
He reluctantly swung his arm up and then answered the incoming video call. “Hey, you outside?”
Rhys’ friend, Matt, then appeared on the small wrist screen, his face hardly able to contain his disapproval. “Yeah, we’re here,” he said.
Phoenix laughed quietly to herself. From what she had seen so far of Matt, he never spoke any more than required. At least this time he managed more than a grunt in reply.
“You’ll have to come in through the side entrance,” Rhys replied.
Matt instantly returned to form and simply grunted his next answer.
There was something on Phoenix’s mind all of a sudden as she watched Rhys end his call to Matt. After a second or two, it finally came to her. Luke could not come into contact with the driller man. They had already met.
“Rhys, can you do me a favour?”
“Sure, what’s that?”
“Can you take our friend-with-the-drill back upstairs? If he sees Luke with Matt he could turn nasty.”
Rhys had realised why immediately. “Bollocks, you’re right. If he recognises our one, we could lose his help with fixing this tower thing. I’ll get him out before you let Matt in.”
“Thanks.”
They parted as each set about their own tasks. Phoenix headed straight for the side exit, through the emergency stairwell, while Rhys told the driller man some concocted story about being needed upstairs for some reason. She stepped outside and held the door open with her foot, only enough for her to see when Rhys and the Sentient had disappeared upstairs.
Matt stood with his arms crossed and a look of contempt on his face that brought his forehead out in ruffles. Next to him was Luke – previously known as Ninety-three – who did not appear to have improved much, health-wise. The thick bandage wrapping around his waist was stained with dark patches of sweat. The blood had all but drained from his face too. Matt had not even offered an arm in support.
“Christ, you look terrible,” Phoenix said, taking his arm and placing it around her neck at the same time. She was feeling guilty, just at the sight of him. “Are you in any pain?”
“I am not, Phoenix. This body, however, is suffering from some weakness.”
“Jane mentioned you could end up with a slight infection from the injury in your side. You’ll need something for that.” She heard the door to the ground floor open behind her and the sound of Rhys’ voice becoming quieter as he and the other Sentient began taking the staircase slowly. Finally she could get the two inside the building. “Come on,” she said, leading the way without any assistance from Matt.
He really was an arse.
“What is this place,” Luke asked.
“You don’t recognise it?”
He shook his head, which sent a flicker of sweat Phoenix’s way.
“I’ve found something in here that might help us find Graham. When you turned up at my home, you said you knew where he was. Well, I think this is where he is.” She pointed to the tall spire sitting amid a circle of light from the small lamps.
“Oh my,” Luke said, stopping instantly on the spot. “Th
at… that is…”
“It’s called The Conduit. Do you remember anything about this?”
He removed his arm from around her and hobbled forward like an elderly person with a missing walking-stick. It was taking most of his strength just to stay on his feet. But he continued regardless, the slightest of recollection pushing him on.
“I … I’ve seen this before.”
“Do you know what it does?” She took a supportive position beside him while he struggled to recall.
“This is where I came from. Is that correct, Phoenix?”
Hearing him say it out loud filled her with joy. It was exactly what she needed from him. The memories were still there, they just required a little jog every now and again to release them.
“That’s right. You were brought out of your Sentient world and into this one. This machine can do that. It should be able to find someone in your world too. Something called an–”
“An Overseer, yes,” Luke interrupted. More than a few of his missing memories had begun to reappear. “The Overseer can see into my world.”
“Awesome, you remember.” She struggled to think of where to go next, he had overtaken her thought process already. It took her a few seconds to find her place again before she could continue. When she did, she knew there was no point in delaying any further, she needed him to try and fix it. “Take a look at this for me.”
Around the other side, the small panel beneath the tower’s control console had been shut. But she had seen enough of it to know it would not take much to change that. With a swift kick, it flipped open to reveal the dead internals of the system. Inside, it appeared a mess of wires similar to the ones that still glowed on the side of Luke’s head, in the unsealed black box. The technology had to work in the same sort of way. What that was remained a mystery to her. She hoped that was not the same for her friend.
Luke dropped unsteadily to his knee and studied the wiring. All the while he wobbled and swayed from side to side, as he tried his best to stabilise. Phoenix lowered herself to the same level and steadied him with her hand. She had enough balance to share.
“This device is deactivated,” he said.
“That’s the reason I needed you to see it, Luke.” Crap, don’t use his real name, he hasn’t remembered it yet! She thought a second after saying it. “Do you think you’d be able to get it working again?” she said, moving things quickly on.
He stayed silent. His eyes had already begun to work on the device. The rest of him was hesitant to join in for some reason. Had the name sounded familiar to him?
“Hey, you OK? Can you fix this?” She leant down to see the rest of his face.
With his concentration suddenly broken, he flinched and then settled his gaze upon her. This close she could not get away from the awful stench of his clothing and on his breath. The guy was in a bad way and getting worse all the time. She could hardly leave him like this, both Luke and the human he inhabited deserved better.
“I believe I can bring this device back online,” he said. “As far as I can see, it hasn’t blown or become damaged, it just lacks power. I suspect whoever deactivated it simply cut the physical connections. They must have been in a panic to leave the Conduit in this way.”
“Back at Sanctuary I saw another structure made from the same stuff as the tower, going away from the area, in the direction of the city. This has to go through the ground to that.”
“You are correct, Phoenix. In order to reconnect this device I will need to reattach the severed connections. That will take time and require some equipment. May I write a list for you?”
She had been waiting for words of that effect since they began talking. The last time he gave them a list of what he needed, they had made great leaps in her search for Graham. If he could do even more this time, she was certain they would eventually get there.
“Sure,” she replied with a gentle pat on his back. “Whatever you need–” She stopped short of saying his name again.
“Excellent.”
They finished with a smile each, exchanged between them for very different reasons; his was through politeness, whereas hers was another symptom of her growing guilt. Was she asking too much of him, or at least of Jack’s body? He did not appear to have slept much at all in the interim. Not much of a surprise, if his dreams were filled with the same terrors she had seen in his short memory clips.
After returning to her feet, Phoenix watched as Luke began to very carefully tease the wires inside the console apart. He was content enough to do so in silence while he concentrated wholly on his task of bringing it back to life. When he found something of interest, he made a note of it on a wrist computer Rhys had given him. His list was growing at a rapid rate. The job he faced was going to need some heavy duty tools, if he was planning on digging down through the floor.
Whatever he needed, she was going to get him.
She noted to herself that once again he had neglected to tend to himself first, even though he sorely needed to. Anything would have helped. A bowl of water and a handful of soap at the very least. Phoenix decided it was to be her next task. There had to be a working tap somewhere in the building. After sending Matt out to get the correct supplies – he would go whether he wanted to or not – she would see to cleaning Luke up a little. She had done the same for her brothers on countless occasions. Her years looking after them had left her unable to ignore someone so vulnerable.
For that reason she had something she wanted added to the list too; antibiotics. If his wound had become infected, he would need them most urgently of all. Jack had told her how Luke struggled to understand the feedback of his body. If that was true then he probably had no idea how to process the signals he was receiving. Could he even tell if he was in pain or not? The body he inhabited was like a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off at any moment. If it did, it would leave an innocent human hanging on for dear life.
All she could do for the time being was wait for the list to be compiled. Once Luke had done that, she would help him get started. They really were going to get a chance to find Graham after all.
* * *
Preparations had now come to an end and the time had arrived for Graham and Alex to lead the mass exodus of Sentients to safety. For the most part it was to be a speedy dash out of cover and on through the battlefield. Unfortunately, none of them could even hazard a guess at how the enemy was going to react to their escape attempt. Kindness had to have a good idea, but he was choosing not to share it with everyone.
That did not fill Graham with much hope.
A plan had been put forward to the other Sentients inside their hidden space, and so far it appeared to have gone accordingly. Everything that could be done to ready them for what was to come had been done. That left only the unknown standing between failure and success. Whatever the enemy were to throw at them in the last desperate moments of their escape, for them to overcome it they needed no less than a miracle.
Graham, Alex and Stephen stood beside Kindness and the other Sentients as they went through the plan one last time. Everyone was required to follow it exactly. All except Graham and Alex, who were one of the largest unknowns still facing their trip. No-one could say for sure whether the two were capable of doing what was needed.
“So,” Graham said, his hands leaning on the table in front of them. The overview of the proposed escape was strewn across it like old fashioned paper war plans. “While Alex and I are at the front and guiding the group, the main Sentient force will be at the rear, ready for the enemy to begin its attack?”
“Indeed,” Kindness replied.
“Well, then, who’s going to protect the sides?”
“The front and rear will be the most vulnerable to attack, so we will maintain a higher level of readiness there. The sides will be protected by force-fields. The injured cannot fight directly, instead they will combine their energy to assist in maintaining this protective barrier. Our job is to keep the enemy away from them.”
&nb
sp; “So, who’ll protect us at the front?”
Kindness leaned in closer to the table to see Graham and spoke with a tone of concern. “You will, Graham Denehey.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I am not. You possess the ability to create a force field yourself. Use that ability to keep the enemy at bay. Alex will be able to help while she is leading us too.”
“And what of our route?” Another of the nearby Sentients asked of his leader.
Kindness turned his luminous head to Alex for the answer to this question.
“There are two choices,” she said, stepping forward. Being so little had almost become irrelevant, until she reached the table. She could not quite make it up onto it. Graham saw her trying and did as he always did in this situation; he picked his daughter up and gently set her down with her legs dangling over the side of the table. While she described each of the routes, she playfully swung her legs. “The first is the longer of the two. It would take us back the way we came, to Sanctuary, and then through to the puzzle maze.”
“And the second?” Graham said.
“Well, that one would be much, much quicker. The problem is that even though it would take us directly to the puzzle maze, it would also take us dangerously close to the enemy’s central spire.”
“So we take the longer path.”
“There is one problem with the longer route though,” Alex said as she began to search the paperwork on the table. “Here. This part is really narrow. It would be the perfect place to trap us, if the enemy is able to get ahead.”
Kindness took the small map from Alex and held it up for closer inspection. It showed the layout of Sanctuary, and more importantly the single-file corridors within.
“Being, as it will be, almost twice as long a distance as the second route, there is another issue too,” he said, turning their attention to the many Sentients still suffering from their injury. “I fear they will not be able to maintain their protective barrier for such a long time. What they will create will be strong, but not for as long as we would need.”