by Matt Ryan
She looked over the door. “Just the same kind of symbols the other doors had on them, and I didn’t hear anything when the rock hit it.”
Kris decided to test it a few more times, each time with the same result. It seemed to be a regular steel door.
Maggie came down and jumped the last few feet.
“I’m going up,” Char said. “If anyone of us can handle the effects, it’s me.”
Kris and Maggie protested, but Char went up the wall, ignoring them.
“I don’t like this,” Maggie said and got closer to Kris.
He didn’t like it either, but Char had a point; with his size and strength, he’d be the logical one to test the door.
“Careful,” Maggie called up to her dad.
“Okay, here we go.” Char raised his hand and slapped the steel a few times with his palm. “Seems normal.”
“Can you open it?” Kris asked.
“There’s a hole, I think I can reach it.” Char climbed another rung and stretched out. Kris squinted as Char put his finger in the hole.
The door flung open and Char grabbed the wall to keep from falling. A single round rock fell from the opening. Char grabbed it midair and then threw it back through the door.
“Was that a rock?” Kris called out.
“I’m not sure. It was black and shiny. I didn’t like the looks of it, so I threw—”
The room above exploded, and a gust of fire and smoke shot from the opening, hitting Char in the face and throwing him backward. His body slammed into the opposite wall and fell thirty feet, to the bottom of the pit, with a thud and a splash.
The front of his shirt had been blown off and his skin looked red and blistered. Blood trickled down his face, and into the water.
“Char,” Kris said.
“Dad!” Maggie cried out.
He didn’t respond.
Kris put his ear on his chest and heard his heart thumping. “He’s alive.”
“Dad, wake up.” Maggie touched the sides of his face. “We need to get him out of here. He needs medicine.”
Kris coughed at the burnt smell filling the hole. “We have to keep moving forward.”
“What are you talking about? We are not leaving him here.”
Kris knew this would be difficult for her to understand. “We grab what we came to get, and get out.”
“Like you know how to do either of those things.”
He stood up and met Maggie’s glare and then back up to the open door at the top of the ladder. “You can stay here with him, while I check out the next room.”
Char coughed, and blood colored his lips and chin. “I’m fine,” he said, gurgling and coughing again. “You two get out of here, while I rest.”
“Dad,” Maggie said. “Where are you hurt?”
He chuckled. “My foot hurts.” He grinned with blood on his teeth. “Now, get.”
Maggie stood. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too.”
“We’ll come right back for you.”
Kris made his way to the bottom of the wall, under the door. With a broken arm, it was going to be a Herculean task getting up the wall. He gripped the handhold, and to his surprise, it fit perfectly. He reached up and grabbed the next, using his legs to push up. It didn’t take him long to get near the top. His legs burned, but he gripped the bottom of the door opening and pulled himself up into the doorway.
Sliding along the floor, he got all the way in, then turned around to grab Maggie’s elbow, careful not to touch her glowing hands. He pulled her the rest of the way into the small hall. She got up, and looked past Kris into the next room.
Kris turned and couldn’t believe his eyes.
HARRIS WAITED TO SEE IF any of the purge kids would react to his merciless killing of the man in cold blood. If they made a move, he’d beat them to it. But they all stood, stunned, staring at the dead person laying in the doorway.
The smell of gunsmoke dispersed quickly, with the cold air blowing in from the open door. “He was about to hit you with that stone in his hand,” Harris explained, lowering his gun.
“You don’t know that,” Kylie said. “And you just killed him.” She looked up at him with fear in her eyes.
Harris kept his gun at his side, and waited for one of the stone throwers to make their move. “Look at the stone he dropped. It rolled near the door there.”
With her gloved hands, Kylie knelt down and picked it up. It was black, and she gasped, jumping back. “He was going to use that?” She looked to Wes and David.
“Orders are to kill anyone who comes out here,” Wes said. “I didn’t think we’d be found this soon. It won’t be long before more come.”
“Close the door,” Gladius said, rubbing her arms.
Wes went to the door and pushed the man’s head out of the way enough to close it. Some blood got on his feet. Kylie looked pale and placed a hand on the wall to steady herself. Wes went to comfort her, but she pushed him away.
Hank and Gladius had positioned themselves in the corner of the room, so their backs would never be to the others. Smart.
“I think we should go to this place now,” Harris said.
Wes nodded and looked to David. “We all don’t need to go. Kylie, you should take them.”
“I know the way,” Wes said. “I’ll take them.”
“It takes three of us to control the stone,” Kylie said and motioned to the glowing orb.
“We’re all going,” Harris said.
Wes, David, and Kylie looked at each other, then grouped in a tight huddle and disappeared.
“Shit,” Harris said. “I knew I should have killed them when I had the chance.”
“You didn’t exactly give them a reason to trust you,” Gladius said. “You killed that guy right in front of them. Did you see the look on their faces?”
“I know, but that guy was going to kill us all. I saved them, and they knew it. I bet this was their game from the start. A plan to stick us here, in hopes we die.”
“Maybe. But now what? We’re stuck in this cabin. We can’t go more than fifty feet outside, without becoming ice sculptures. And who knows if we are even near this supposed base?” Gladius said.
Harris had been in cold weather plenty of times, and knew this kind of cold would kill them before they made it anywhere. The stick frame building and the glowing ball hanging over the fireplace were the only things keeping them alive.
He opened the door and dragged the man’s body inside. Kneeling next to him, he rummaged through his pockets. He pulled out a piece of paper and a sack of stones, being careful not to touch them. He unfolded the piece of paper and read the note.
We love you, Daddy.
Harris crumbled the note in his hand and stared at the ceiling. He couldn’t escape the path laid out before him. He didn’t know this man laying on the floor, and his family might never know what happened to him.
He didn’t know how to break the cycle around him. He’d gone numb to it so long ago. After his first wife . . . something broke in him. But he’d found a way to rebuild his life, and found love again, then she died. Then Compry. He hated himself for not breaking down, even when he saw what Marcus had done to her dead body.
Samantha and Joey’s deaths didn’t bring sadness, but a weight—a crushing feeling he shouldn’t live.
Now, looking at this man, laying dead on the floor, he felt nothing. Even this note from his children didn’t send up tendrils of guilt choking his throat, as it once might have.
“I’m going to scout it out,” he said. “I think that stone can keep me warmer if I’m by myself.”
“We know you’re going to go to the place on your own. We’re going with you,” Hank said.
Smart kids. “No, you two need to use this.” Harris picked up the black sack and pulled the tie loose enough to spot the purple stone inside. “This is just like the stones they used to transport us. I think if you picture where you want to go, this will get you there.”
&
nbsp; “And what, we just leave you out here to die?” Hank said.
“He’s right, Vanar sort of needs you, Harris. You remember what MM was without a person like you running it?” Gladius said.
Vanar and MM seemed distant now, like a different life. Since the day he’d taken over the company, he’d poured himself into the work, burying his thoughts into something he could control. And he’d done a fine damned job of it.
By all accounts, the company should have collapsed after Marcus left it in shambles, but he’d managed to bring it back around and turn it into something great. Upon his death, he had standing orders to break up MM into thirty-two different companies, headed by people he knew would do at least a passing job. He had peace in knowing Jack and the rest would take care of it. Plus, if he didn’t stop this cube factory, there wouldn’t be a Vanar to return to.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Harris said. “I’m going alone for a reason. What I have in this bag, will end these bots. But there are risks and I don’t want you guys anywhere near this when it’s used.” He pointed to the bag on the floor.
“It won’t matter much if you get shot in the back,” Gladius said.
“Yeah, we’re a good team. You’re going to need us,” Hank said.
“You two are good together. I am a disease to those around me. Travis has been right all along. If I lose you guys, I’m afraid. . . .”
“What are you afraid of?” Hank asked.
Lies spread around his mind, and he squashed them. Maybe that orb had gotten into his brain. “I’m afraid I won’t feel anything.”
“Harsh,” Gladius said.
“When I was a younger man, a long time ago, I did horrible things. I was a horrible person. A young woman changed that, and she became the first person to die because of me. But she wouldn’t be the last.”
“You’re not a bad person, Harris,” Hank said. “Not anymore. You’ve kept us alive more times than I can count.”
Gladius looked him in the eye. “My dad told me and my sisters that he didn’t care what man we took, as long as we were happy and it wasn’t Harris Boone. I spent my whole life thinking of you as some sort of nightmare man and then you showed up at our door one day. You remember that moment, Harris?”
“I do, you tried to kill me.”
She laughed. “And surprisingly, you tried very hard not to hurt me, and then you didn’t kill my dad. I started to think there was a man behind the legend. I saw a glimmer of what my sisters must have seen. You’re a kind man, Harris, and the circumstances of what has happened is because you’ve put yourself so far out front, the bullets are missing you entirely. I don’t blame you for my sister’s death, I blame Marcus.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me,” Harris said.
“Then don’t go through with this. If this thing has a hundred-mile radius, then let’s blow it up right here,” Gladius said. “The factory has to be closer than that.”
Harris rubbed his chin and found it hard to argue with her logic—if the bag held a bomb. Might as well leave them thinking it is. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“Good, then set the time on this thing and let’s blow this ice cream stand.”
He saw that famous Denail spark in her eyes, and it made his next decision all that much easier. “Fine, I’ll set the timer and we’ll jump out of here.” He knelt next to his bag, and fumbled with the keypad and typed in the numbers. “Okay, it’s set. Hank, you remember the place we burned to the ground, the one holding the master Alius stone?”
“Yeah.” Hank fidgeted and looked at his shoes.
“Good, lock that image in your mind and the purple rock will take us there. We only have a few minutes. Let’s do this.” They placed their hands in a triangle and Harris held the bag above them. “Here we go.”
He dropped the purple rock from the bag, and right before it struck, he pulled his hand back and let it hit Hank and Gladius’s only. It melted into their skin.
“Harris, no!” Gladius yelled, then they both disappeared.
EVELYN STARED AT TRAVIS AS she froze time. She wanted to be safe, not sorry. They’d just portaled, and white tiled walls gleamed all around them; the smell of cleaning products filled the air. A row of toilet stalls sat with closed doors and she knelt down to check for feet. To make sure they were in the clear, she opened each door, all empty.
Jackie lay on the floor with her eyes closed, and Evelyn wondered why this would be the place the stone took them. Travis squinted, with a frantic expression stuck on his face. His hand hovered over his hip, in an act of grabbing at his gun.
Evelyn walked over to the door and opened it. The long room looked like a café, with a bar on the right and on the left side, booths ran along the windows, overlooking the city street. It looked like a normal city and a normal café, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Nearly every person in the café had embers floating above them, and their connections freely flowed from one person to the next. They had jumped right into a den of purge people. This could have been Jackie’s drop point to deliver her to the queen, or maybe a sanctuary for purge people like her.
Evelyn spotted an empty booth right next to the bathroom door, and knew what she would do. She rushed back to Travis and slid him along the tile floor, until she got to the booth. She pushed his stiff body into the booth and sat his hands on the table. Next, she took Jackie and shoved her into the booth and sat her face down on the table. A passerby might think she’s resting or taking a nap.
She sat down next to Jackie and let time slide back into place. Noises inundated them, with the sounds of conversations, orders being placed, and silverware hitting porcelain.
Travis jerked and looked around. “What the hell?”
“Sorry, I just thought it’d be better if we appeared in the booth, versus a man walking out of a bathroom with a little girl and a passed out woman.”
“How did you even get me here?”
“I’m stronger than I look.”
Travis looked around the room and one of the waitresses saw him. She raised a finger and went back to talking with the people in front of her. “Don’t people notice us just appearing in this booth?” He looked at Jackie.
“You’d be truly amazed at how little people observe their surroundings. People will ignore everything that isn’t demanding their attention.” A table with a woman and two men caught her attention. She looked again and made eye contact with the girl.
“Hey, didn’t even see you come in,” the waitress walked up, holding a pen and pad. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Just some waters please,” Travis said.
Evelyn nodded and gave a stupid little girl smile that seemed to appease the waitress.
“How about I bring you some chocolate milk to go with that sweet smile?”
Travis spoke first, “That’s fine. Thank you.”
“Okay, great. Hey, is she all right?”
“Yeah, she’s got a sleeping disorder,” Travis said.
“Oh, poor thing. I’ll get those drinks and take your order when I get back.”
“Thank you,” Travis said and the lady left.
Evelyn made eye contact with the woman at the far table as she and the two men got up and approached them. Evelyn readied herself to slow down time if needed.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, then stared at Jackie.
“And why is that?”
“This is one of their hangouts. You need to leave before the wrong person comes in and spots her.” She motioned to Jackie.
“Who are you?” Travis asked.
“A friend. It doesn’t matter, but . . .” She looked outside at a police man walking by. She turned and rushed back to her table before the officer entered the café.
Evelyn watched the uniformed man enter and take off his sunglasses.
Travis leaned forward. “You know, this could be where Jackie intended on trading you. This might be a terrible place to be, I think that woman was
telling us the truth.”
“I know, but I think it’s worth it to stick around and figure out these people. One of them knows where the queen is, I bet. I just have to sort it out.”
Evelyn watched the cop take a seat on a stool at the bar. Jackie’s hand moved and Evelyn took in a deep breath, hoping that Jackie didn’t burst awake and cause a scene.
The cop sipped on a coffee and looked over to Evelyn as he panned the whole café. Good, a little girl sitting with her dad shouldn’t arouse suspicions. She stared at the side of his head and pried into his thoughts. She got pictures, horrible pictures of tortured people. This man hunted people like prey, and didn’t see them as any more than that. He knew the queen, but hadn’t seen her in a while. He feared her. Interesting.
Then a vivid image of Evelyn appeared in his head, a photo of her in the queen’s mansion. He wasn’t just hunting people, he was hunting Evelyn, and she’d walked right into his bar.
He straightened up and turned to face Evelyn. She turned away, but the damage had been done. He got off his stool, carrying his coffee as he walked, hand near his gun.
“Should I kill him?” Travis asked under his breath.
Evelyn gave a slight shake of her head.
“Good morning, little girl.” He ruffled her hair, hard enough to pull some from her head. “I haven’t seen you around this café before, you all from out of town?” He sipped his coffee and put on a weak smile.
Evelyn glanced at the table with the girl and two guys. The girl was watching, but appeared not to be willing to do anything beyond that. Good, Evelyn had use of this man.
“We’re just passing through, heading to New York to visit an Aunt,” Travis said.
“Oh, New York?” he said, stretching out the name. “You know, in this world, its name is New Amsterdam. But I suppose you wouldn’t know that.” He dropped a stone on top of the table, and Evelyn stopped time; or, at least she tried to. It wouldn’t work. She tried to do it again, but nothing changed.
“What is it, you can’t change time?” the officer said. “What are you going to do now? Slap me, beg me? I’d like to hear some begging from you.”
Evelyn tried again, but something was blocking her. Could that small green rock on the table keep her from slowing down time? How would that be possible?