by RF Hurteau
“You knew it was my mother’s doing?” Felix asked, startled.
The Weaver nodded. “It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, once I heard what had befallen the Elders. Poison always was her weapon of choice.”
Felix’s face scrunched up as he struggled to keep up. “You talk about her like she was some kind of soldier or something. She was part of your group, then? A freedom fighter or something?”
Gavin frowned. “Do you want to learn history right now or save the Ambassador? Because we aren’t going to have a huge window of opportunity here, once Nero realizes you haven’t returned with the prototype, and the Ambassador turns up missing.”
“Right, right, sorry,” said Felix, “just trying to, well, doesn’t matter. Okay, so we can get to the Ambassador but we can’t get through the Gate. A dozen, you say?” the Weaver nodded. “How many do you think you could take, Gavin?”
Gavin looked dubious. “I doubt more than two or three.”
“What! But I watched you take down Laevus’ guard without breaking a sweat!”
“Yeah, but they weren’t expecting an attack. We caught them by surprise. The Evenmire sits in the middle of a clearing. There’s no where we can sneak up on them, and they’re on high alert. They’re younger than me—“
“And much younger than me,” interjected the Weaver.
“And I just don’t think the odds are in our favor,” Gavin finished.
“If we just had Pluto up and running,” grumbled Felix.
“What’s a Pluto?” the Weaver asked.
Felix chuckled. “It’s a homely little airship that seems to spend more time crashing then flying. Uh, but don’t tell Ambrose I said that.”
“Who is—”
“Never mind,” said Felix. “Okay, so problem number one, how to get our friends to the Gate.”
“Tobias gave me the ship’s radio frequency before we left,” Gavin said quickly. “I can contact them from the Floater. Onyx knows the landmarks. I can tell her where to meet us.”
“Great. You’d better go now, then. Tell them to be ready.”
Gavin nodded. “And what about you?”
Felix looked at the Weaver, whose mischievous smile he took for confirmation. “I’m going with him. We’re going to get the Ambassador out, and we’ll meet you back here.”
“But we still haven’t got a plan to get you past the Evicti,” Gavin pointed out.
“I have a few ideas about that,” said the Weaver, “if you’re interested.”
“Well, that is sort of why we came,” Felix pointed out.
“To start, you’re going to need to pretend to be Laevus again.”
twelve
Sweet Evenmire
True to his name, the Weaver wove his way through the maze of underground tunnels with ease, leaving Felix struggling to keep up. His feet felt wet, and his boots made squelching sounds with every step. Fortunately, the trip was relatively short compared to the path Gavin had taken him on to find the hideout in the first place. As he trailed behind, he kept going over the plan in his head, looking for any potential pitfalls. It seemed like a solid plan if everyone did their part. Bohai was a bit of a wild card. After the way they’d betrayed him at the talks, would he really be willing to trust Felix a second time? Laevus also might prove to be a liability, if he tried to pull anything during the escape. Getting him through the Gate wouldn’t be too bad, but getting him to the tunnel the Weaver had told him about might be hard if he decided to be uncooperative. And what about the Evicti? Would they obey him without question? Ultimately, there was only one way to find out.
Felix knew they had reached a ladder when he heard the other man begin to climb, moving deftly from rung to rung with no more difficulty than if he’d been walking down a straight path.
“For an old guy,” Felix grunted behind him, “you’re in decent shape.”
“Spend a few hundred years in the shadows,” the Weaver suggested, “and you’ll learn to scurry with the rats.”
“Eh, no thanks,” Felix replied. The Weaver stopped to listen when he reached the top, then tentatively lifted away a heavy metal grate. “Where are we?” Felix asked in a whisper, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. They appeared to be in a small alleyway, and after they had climbed out, the Weaver turned and replaced the grate over the hole they’d just come through. Felix realized they’d been traveling through some sort of sewer system. The thought repulsed him, but he shoved the feelings back into the recesses of his mind. He was trying to save lives, here. He couldn’t let himself feel too put out over trudging through sewer pipes.
“Just stay behind me,” came the reply, “and if I give you an order, don’t question it. Quickly, now.” The building beside them was large and austere, running the entire length of the alley. The Weaver stepped up to the entrance, listening again, and input a code into the keypad. The door slid open, and he motioned for Felix to follow him inside.
They progressed slowly, the Weaver stopping to peer around each corner and listen at every door. They narrowly avoided detection when a group of chattering workers rounded a corner up ahead. They dipped inside an open doorway, and Felix flattened himself against the wall, breathing hard, and waiting for them to pass.
The Weaver led Felix down one flight of stairs and up another, taking so many turns that Felix was certain they were lost. At last, he stopped in front of a small, unassuming doorway, listening once more before signaling Felix that it was safe to enter. They stepped inside, and Felix realized that it wasn’t a room but a supply closet. “What are we doing here?” he demanded in hushed tones.
“You stay here,” the Weaver told him, equally quietly. “We can go no farther without help. I will find my friend and bring him back here.”
“I’m going with you. What if you’re spotted? You could use my help.”
The older man shook his head. “I’m very good at this game,” he said. “I’ve been playing at it a long time. Just wait. I will return.”
He left before Felix could ask him how long it would take. He stood in the closet, looking around, unsure of what to do with himself. Should he hide? What if someone came in here needing supplies? He poked around the shelves, looking for anything he could use as a weapon, just in case.
His search yielded nothing, and soon he resigned himself to sitting on the floor, waiting—whether for the Weaver’s return, or for his capture, that was the question. When the door clicked, his heart leapt into his throat, and he scrambled to his feet to confront whoever appeared. But the door slid smoothly to one side, revealing the Weaver, and a much younger looking Elf who wore a look of worry on his face. “This is Rafe,” he explained. “He’s going to bring us the rest of the way.”
The Weaver hadn’t been lying. They were already quite close. They came to a door with a keypad and some sort of scanner that the young Elf placed his hand against before the door would open. He ushered Felix inside and closed it behind them.
This was not what Felix had been expecting.
Instead of entering a prison or a holding area, they had entered a very long room, lined with something Felix was quite familiar with—pods. Their footsteps rang out hollowly on the metal walkway, which hung suspended, fenced in by a waist-high glass railing. The pods stretched out a long way, lining the left side of the room, and stood in rows six deep. “What is this place?” he asked, awestruck.
“Follow me,” their guide admonished without answering, “The Ambassador is being held in one of the labs for potential future use.”
This took Felix a moment to register. “Potential future use?”
Rafe grimaced, seeming almost apologetic. “We don’t get a lot of Humans in Thera,” he explained. “They’re keeping him as a specimen. For experiments.”
Felix shuddered.
Felix followed dutifully until a flash of motion from one of the pods caught his eye. As if pulled by an invisible force, he felt himself being drawn toward it. He’d assumed, as they hurried thro
ugh the rooms, that the pods were inactive. Why had he assumed that? His companions hurried forward, but he stepped up to the nearest pod, peering in through the small viewing window.
Unseeing eyes stared out, framed by a smooth, chiseled face. Felix studied the pointed ears. The Elf looked young, but there was something odd about him. He had no hair, and his features appeared somewhat hollow, as if he had been malnourished. Felix backed away, looking at the other pods. Beside him, Rafe had taken hold of his arm, trying to draw him forward.
“We can’t linger here,” he was insisting. “Someone will see us.”
“Are there Elves in all of these?” Felix asked, ignoring the persistent tugging.
“Yes, of course.”
“Why?”
Rafe looked really uncomfortable now. “Please, come away. We don’t have much time.”
Felix complied, moving up to stand alongside the Weaver. “What is this place?” he demanded. “Some kind of treatment center?”
The Weaver glanced at him out of the corner of his eye but continued walking. “No. They aren’t injured. They’re clones.”
Felix’s eyes widened. “Clones? But why?”
“CEDAR. It’s an acronym. Cloning Experimentation, Development, and Research. They’ve been working on it for a very long time.”
“I don’t understand. Why would the Council need clones?”
The Weaver shook his head. “It is a very long story. One we don’t have time for now.”
Felix grabbed his arm, turning him so that they faced each other. “Make time,” he said.
The Weaver sighed. “You are aware, I assume, that Therans, despite their long lives, are only capable of having one, perhaps two children.”
“Yeah, that’s common knowledge. So what?”
“It hasn’t always been that way. Certain…incidents…drastically reduced the Theran fertility rates. As a result, any event that impacts the population takes a devastating toll. For centuries now, Therans have been trying to perfect clones, in order to increase their numbers. They even continued their work in Sanctuary, hoping to create a ready-made army on Earth’s side of the Gate. My organization was successful in forestalling the Sanctuary project, to a degree, but here on Thera they have finally begun to realize the fruits of their labor.”
“So they’re trying to boost the population using clones?” Felix asked, shuddering slightly.
The Weaver looked conflicted. “It’s true that without them, we face extinction. Granted, our longevity will draw it out, but it will come, nonetheless. But they are hoping to do much more than just repopulate. With these, Elves will once again be able to assert their dominion over all of Thera. And, they hope, all of Earth. They desire to eliminate any and all threats to their well-being and survival.”
Felix glanced at the pods as they began moving again. “A single room full of clones doesn’t seem like it will be much use in total world domination,” he said skeptically.
The Weaver snorted. He motioned to the railing, and Felix moved over to peer down.
Vertigo overtook him, and he grasped the rail with both hands to keep from toppling. He was looking down into a structure so deep that he could not make out the bottom. And it was completely lined with Pods, one upon another in endless columns, down into the depths.
“All of them?” Felix whispered, disbelieving. The Weaver shook his head sadly. “I fear for our future, Felix. There are so many variables, so much we do not know. What are we, that it comes to this? If only we had learned from the past. Embraced the truth and moved on.”
“Come on,” Felix said dazedly. “Let’s get out of here.”
The sight remained seared in his mind as he followed, no longer paying any attention to where they were going. The Elves were building an army—literally. But although that fact explained a great deal, it also led to many more questions. Felix’s only consolation was that they had not succeeded in Sanctuary. It would be damn near impossible for them to march an army through the Gate. At least not without the assistance of Culei or one of the other nation-states. Antarctica was a natural protection from invasion by foot soldiers. Of course, they could easily overtake Sanctuary, that was true…but they wouldn’t be able to get any farther than that.
For now.
Felix almost ran into Rafe as he stopped short, motioning for them to stay put. The idea unsettled Felix. They were at the end of a long corridor with nowhere to hide. But he didn’t argue. He waited beside the Weaver, neither of them speaking. A few minutes later Rafe reappeared, the bedraggled form of Bohai beside him, looking confused and shaken, but none the worse for wear. Bohai saw Felix and began shaking his head, backing away. “No,” he said. “I’m not going with you. Your mother—she, she did it. I had nothing to do with it. It was her!”
Felix stepped forward and grasped the Ambassador firmly by the shoulders. “You need to listen closely, because I am only going to say this once, okay? I know what happened, and I believe you. I’m going to get you out of here, but you have to trust me. You need to follow us and keep your mouth shut.”
Bohai swallowed hard, looking around at the three of them, then nodded. “All right,” he said meekly.
“I’ll get you out of the labs,” Rafe said quickly, “but I can’t go any further. I can’t take the risk of being seen with you, if you’re caught.”
The Weaver offered him a solemn nod. “Of course. Don’t worry, my friend. We’ll see ourselves out.”
Rafe took the lead back through the pod room, where Felix quelled the morbid desire to peer back down into the endless expanse below. Rafe bid them farewell when they came to the closet where Felix had hid on the way in and made his way back to whatever duties he was supposed to be attending.
The Weaver spared no thought for Bohai’s inferior Human endurance, walking quickly down the passageway, racing up and down the stairs now. Bohai jogged to keep up, letting out a squeal of fright when the Weaver turned suddenly and grabbed him, shoving him inside the closest open doorway. Felix followed, and put a finger to his mouth, willing Bohai to be silent.
Two guards passed by the open doorway, talking loudly as they went, discussing their plans for the midday meal. The Weaver shook his head in apparent disgust.
“What is it?” Felix asked.
“Incompetence, that’s what. In my day, we’d have been caught a half a dozen times by now. Their most important facilities, poorly guarded by a handful of imbeciles.”
“Well, let’s just be thankful we’re not back in your day, then,” Felix suggested.
They encountered no more guards along their path and emerged into the alley soon after, Bohai gasping to catch his breath.
“No time for that,” said the Weaver, grasping the grate with both hands and pulling it open to reveal the ladder. “Down you go,” he said to Bohai, who was staring into the hole with a look of concerned reservation on his face.
“I’ll go first,” said Felix, offering Bohai an encouraging smile. “Just follow me.” The Ambassador hesitated a moment, then nodded.
Back beneath the ground, Felix could finally breath freely again. So far, so good. The Weaver led the way through the winding system of tunnels, Bohai whimpering from the exertion.
“How much farther?” Felix whispered after a while, concerned that the Ambassador might collapse, and he would be stuck carrying him.
“Not too much longer,” replied the Weaver. “We aren’t going back the way we came. I was worried about Gavin’s Floater being spotted going back and forth between the grove entrance so much, so I told him to meet us somewhere else.”
“Inside the city?”
“No. The main city Gates aren’t the only way in and out of the city. There are other, less used entrances. We’ll come out near one of those and meet him outside.”
They stopped only once, briefly, to allow Bohai to catch his breath. Felix listened to him whimpering in the darkness, drinking in the air in short, gulping breaths. He had to admire the Ambassador. The Weaver
had set a grueling pace, and yet Bohai had made no protest.
“You’re doing great, Bohai,” Felix said. “We’re almost there.”
Bohai didn’t answer, he merely grunted in reply.
Soon after, they came to the exit. There was no ladder here, and the Weaver whispered when he spoke now.
“This is one of the older tunnels, and the rungs have all rusted away. You’ll have to give me a boost. Then I’ll pull the Ambassador up, and you last.”
The Weaver climbed onto Felix’s shoulders, his shoes pressing hard as he pushed away the tunnel’s cover. Felix wobbled just slightly as the old Elf went up on tiptoes to peer out onto the street.
“It’s clear,” he said, pulling himself up and out, then turning to reach down. “Your turn, Ambassador.”
Bohai’s face was bathed in light from the opening, and it revealed a look of determination. “Right,” he said. “Here I go.” Felix formed a step with both hands, and Bohai put one arm around his shoulder to steady himself, stepping into the cupped hands and reaching up with his other arm.
Felix stood, lifting the thin man high. Bohai caught the Weaver’s outstretched arm and held tightly as he was pulled up and into the street. “Now you,” Felix heard, and he flexed, getting ready to jump.
Just then, another voice floated down from the surface. “You there!” it said. “What are you doing?”
The Weaver’s arm disappeared from the circle of light. “No!” Felix said. “Pull me up! I can help!” He knelt low and sprung upward, stretching as high as he could, but his fingers grasped only air, just shy of the rim. He heard the sound of running footsteps.
“Behind me!” he heard the Weaver growl to Bohai. Felix heard the sound of a sword sliding free of its sheath. There was a grunt of pain and the sound of a struggle. He cast around, looking for anything that might help him reach the surface, but the circle of light revealed nothing but stark, damp walls. A few jagged remnants of the old ladder stuck out at odd angles, but when Felix tried to grasp one, it crumbled beneath his grip. Did the Weaver even have a weapon to defend himself with? The scuffle above continued, and Felix tried jumping once more with no more success than the last attempt.