by Ryan, Matt
“That was amazing,” Hank looked at her, as if seeing her as a different person.
She tried to smile at her friend’s happy faces, but instead focused all her energy on taking a deep breath and trying not to pass out.
“That was amazing, but reckless to put your body at risk.” Travis walked next to her. “I will honor my promise,” he said and extended his hand to her.
She was glad to see his right hand and shook it.
“Gladius, can you please get a medical team in here?” Travis said.
“Yes, sir.” Gladius’s voice came from a speaker in the room.
Within a minute, two men with oak trees printed on their white shirts, opened the door. Travis pointed to Poly. They hustled to her and had her lay down on the carpet.
“Where are you hurt, miss?”
She lay on her back with blood soaking into her left pant leg. She pointed to her arm, leg and then her head.
The man nodded and opened the large black bag. He picked through the top layers and pulled out a gun, like Harris had used, and two vials—one red, one blue.
Her arm and leg began to burn with pain and the sweat dripped down her forehead. She wanted to cry, but with everyone looking on she held it in, making her head ache all the worse.
“We need to cut your pants to get to your wound,” the man said, and she nodded her head with her lips pressed hard together.
A cold pair of scissors slid up against her ankle as he cut a path in her pants to her upper thigh. He pulled the wet pants apart and she looked away from her red leg.
“Here is something for the pain.” The man placed the blue vial in the gun and shot it into her thigh. She felt the injection and immediately the pain diminished and faded to a pinch.
She relaxed her tense muscles and slowed her labored breathing. With the pain gone so quickly, she looked wide-eyed at the doctor.
“Good stuff, right?” He smiled and cleaned the blood around her leg.
“Uh, yeah,” she said and smiled back.
“My name’s Blair,” he said.
“Hello, Blair, my name’s Poly.”
“We’ll get you fixed up here in a minute, Poly.” He winked.
Once clean, he smeared a paste over the wound and it stopped bleeding. He moved to her arm and did the same. He looked at her head, moving sections of her hair. She could feel a hint of pain from his touch.
“You have a nasty bruise on your head. When did this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
He rubbed something against her scalp and then took the gun and placed the red vial in it.
She moved back from it. “Is that going to make me pass out, like in a coma?”
He gave her a questioning look. “Only if you are near death, otherwise, they just do their work in your body. You shouldn’t even notice them.”
“Them?”
“Yeah, Nanomeds,” he said, as if it was common knowledge.
Travis walked over to the doctor. “Let’s finish this up, Blair.”
“Certainly,” Blair said and shot the red vial into her arm.
She winced and pictured little robots swimming around in her. It sent chills down her arm.
“Okay, all done,” Blair said and stood up.
The man next to him put all the items back in the bag.
“Try to take it easy for the next twenty-four hours,” Blair said and smiled at her.
She smiled back and stared into his eyes. Something soothing about the way his soft face looked.
“Alright then, Blair,” Travis said and pushed him and his assistant out the door. The door closed.
Poly stood up with her left pant leg dangling, cut in half. She put weight on it and it felt fine. She laughed and felt good.
“Woo-hoo,” She said and raised her arms.
“You’re lucky she’s okay,” Hank said stepping closer to Travis. “You could have killed her.”
“Whoa, big man. I think her whole plan was to take those blades. Wasn’t it?”
“Hell ya, it was my plan. I can’t beat you straight up. I had to take advantage of the fact I was willing to die.”
Travis nodded his head. “We do have a paralyzing fear of death around here. It’s possible to live forever, but one can still die from the simplest of things. The worry consumes us.” He rubbed his chin and looked at her leg. “You are truly an interesting woman, Poly.”
“You know it.” She turned in a complete circle on her left leg, like a tap dancer, laughing.
Lucas gave her a concerned look and then looked to Travis. “Pain meds?”
“Yeah, she should be fine in a few minutes, when the tingling hits.”
“What you two talking about?” Poly said, skipping over to Lucas. “You know how to get us home right?” She poked the buttons on his shirt. They were such nice buttons, round and smooth. She took one in her fingers. “I need a hug.” She leaned in to Lucas, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Your shirt is so soft.”
He lightly patted her back. “It should be soft, it was a gift from Compry. She really knew how to dress.” He smiled and glanced at Travis. “Julie, I already messed up enough on that stone. Would you be willing to give it a try?”
“I remember Ryjack, but not Earth.”
“I’ll teach you guys the code,” Travis said.
Poly noticed Travis’s cute face perk up when Julie mentioned Ryjack, at least she thought it did. Maybe she imagined it.
A tingling sensation started in her shoulder and spread across her whole body. She shuddered and took a step back from Lucas, looking at her chest.
“You okay?” he asked and grabbed her arms, steadying her.
Her head tingled and the cloudy feeling cleared. She thought about the things she had just done and said. Her face turned red as she tried to adjust her pants to cover her upper thigh. “Sorry,” she mumbled to Lucas.
Even though she felt embarrassed about acting that way, she wanted the feeling back. For a moment, she didn’t have to think about the people she’d killed or seen killed. She didn’t have to think about Joey being held.
“Gladius, can you bring in some pants for Poly?”
“Fine, just a minute,” speaker voice Gladius responded.
In a minute, the door opened with Gladius carrying a pair of black pants. Poly took them from her and felt the fantastic fabric. It was smooth, but sturdy, and a perfect shade of pure black. They even had pockets on the upper thighs to hold her knives in. She put a finger in one of the pockets and gave a questioning look to Gladius, but she had already left the room.
All eyes were on her and her new pants. “Can you all turn around?” She slipped off her pants and pulled on the new pants. The fresh pants felt as wonderful as anything she’d ever worn.
“Can we see Harris?” Poly asked.
Travis looked over his shoulder, saw her dressed fully and turned around. “No.”
“What?”
“That wasn’t the deal. I won’t hurt him, as promised, but I won’t let him see anyone he cares about for the rest of his life.”
“That isn’t fair,” Poly protested.
“What is?” Travis said. “You keep looking at me like that, Hank, and I’ll stick you.”
Hank took a step back with anger in his face.
“Fine, but we want to go home,” Julie said.
“Julie?” Poly said.
“What? I want to see if Samantha is okay, and our parents. Besides, the guy put bombs in our necks, dragged us to this world and Ryjack. I just want to go home,” Julie said.
She stomped the ground. Looking around, she saw the same look on all her friends. They were okay with abandoning Harris to Travis.
“What about Joey?” She saw the pain in each of their faces. “I will never give up on Joey, we can find a way.”
“I know how to get to Capital and a few other places,” Lucas said.
“We can find a way,” Julie said.
“Who’s Joey?” Travis asked.
“He’s our f
riend,” Lucas said.
“He’s part of the Preston Six,” Hank added.
Travis gave a questioning look, he rubbed his chin and took each of them in, as if contemplating a great matter. “I should get you to the stone. If you are ready to go?”
“Can I have my Panavice now?” Julie said.
Travis gave a small laugh. “I think it’s a good idea you have it back. Gladius can you bring Julie her Panavice?”
“Ugh, yeah,” Gladius blew out in annoyance.
“You know, your Panavice is very interesting. We couldn’t track it or access it in any way. A gift from Harris, I presume?”
Julie nodded.
“Can you spare a bow, with a quiver and arrows?” Lucas asked.
“Lucas, right?” Travis said and Lucas nodded. “Bow and arrow, eh? You guys are full of surprises,” he said shaking his head. Travis opened a cabinet and pulled out a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
“This is one of the finest bows ever made by the Shindo.” He handed Lucas the bow. Lucas took it in both hands with open wonder. He grinned and pulled on the string and flung the quiver on his back.
“Thank you,” Lucas said.
“You need anything, Hank?” Travis said with a wide smile.
Hank shook his head and still seemed to be angry about the threat of sticking him.
“I have something I want to give you, Poly, something that belonged to Compry.” Travis went to the display case with the sword on it.
“This blade was forged for over three months. Using the most modern steel, with the most ancient techniques. I won’t bore you with the history, but I will say this is a significant sword meant for a significant person such as yourself. I hope it serves you well.”
He pulled the sword off the display and handed it to her. She gripped the long hilt with both hands, then pulled the blade out from the scabbard, staring at her reflection in the mirror-like blade.
“This doesn’t make what you are doing to Harris any better,” Poly said, sheathing the sword, and placing it over her back.
“If you knew our history, you’d be amazed I even agreed to spare his life,” Travis said. “But,” he took a deep sigh and continued, “let’s get you out of here.”
Gladius entered the room holding a Panavice. She handed it to Julie.
“Thank you,” Julie said.
Gladius rolled her eyes and walked out.
Travis waited until the door closed. “Let’s go,” he said, before walking over to the glass windows. The floor to ceiling windows displayed the passing cars and aircrafts. He placed his hand on the top right corner of the last window and made a circle with his finger and pushed the windows of the distant building on the glass and the windows lit up. The window hummed and slid open, revealing a black corridor behind it.
The window was a fake, but it looked as real as all the rest of the windows. Are they all fake?
Travis walked into the corridor behind the window. “Come on, we can all fit.”
Poly walked in and looked at the small square room and knew it was an elevator. She adjusted the sword on her back and scowled at Travis. She didn’t like how much she liked the sword. It was a connection to Compry and she never wanted to forget her.
Travis took a key from around his neck and slid it into the control panel. The window closed over them and the elevator moved downward.
The motion continued and then slowed to a stop. The door slid open. A white circular room was beyond, with an Alius stone in the middle.
Travis stepped into the room.“This is a fake stone my dad used to show me a few codes on,” he said. “It will give me a chance to teach you the code.”
Travis talked with Julie and showed her the code. She mimicked it, until he was satisfied she had it.
“I think you got it,” Travis said. He walked to the white curved wall, took out the key from around his neck and then pulled off his belt buckle. He moved his thumb over the buckle and it lit up green. The wall in front of him moved upward like a wedge of an apple slice with darkness behind it.
Poly smelled the musty subterranean dirt.
Travis stood at the door and took a deep breath while gazing at Poly. “Poly, if you want to stay here, I could provide you with anything you could ever imagine . . . cars, crafts, clothes, money, anything you could think of.”
“Can you get my friend back from Marcus?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t provide the one thing I want most.”
“I had to try, I don’t encounter many women like you,” he sighed. “You sure you won’t stay?”
“And leave my friends? What kind of person do you think I am?”
“I thought not, but please take this advice. Marcus is not beatable, if he was, he wouldn’t be here. His influence is wide and I am not beyond its grasp. Even the mighty Harris failed all those years ago.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Lucas said sarcastically from inside the stone room.
Poly took a step into the room and Travis put his hand on her arm. “Be careful out there.”
Poly yanked her hand free and stepped into the dome of the Alius stone. “Get us out of here, Julie,” she said.
“Sorry.” Travis stared at her from the door and took a step back. “Such a waste,” he whispered.
Poly turned to face him when the room changed to blackness. Blackness? No, they should be smelling trees and hearing the rustle of wind on leaves.
Where did that bastard send us?
POLY EXTENDED HER ARMS IN the dark, feeling for anything. Her footsteps echoed around the room and muddled with the others. Light emanated from Julie’s Panavice, revealing a domed room, with rusted metal walls.
“This isn’t Preston,” Poly said.
“No kidding,” Lucas said.
The panic of not knowing where they were again made her frantically search around, hoping to grab a tree trunk, maybe it was just really dark.
“Travis lied, I suspected as much when he tried to keep you,” Julie said. Her Panavice lit the dome.
Poly slumped at the news and touched the steel walls, making sure they were real. How could she have been so stupid? She thought Travis might be a decent person, maybe even help them . . . but he was just another pawn to MM. She should have sent that knife into his neck when she had the chance.
Hank found the door. “Well, let’s find out where here is,” Hank said and opened the steel door.
A concrete staircase led up and at the top of the stairs, another door. But this door had smooth polished steel on the back side and no handles. Nothing like the doors they had seen before. This one looked unmovable. She touched the smooth steel, searching its surface for a handle. Hank moved next to her and pushed against it, but it didn’t move.
“Was that a one-way stone?” Poly didn’t even need him to respond to know the answer.
“Yep,” Lucas said.
They were stuck. Travis sent them to die. This was probably some chamber they sent people to starve or suffocate to death. Nice and clean.
Julie moved close to the door with her Panavice and slid her fingers around the screen. Poly held her hands together and hoped that beautiful mind found some way to get them out.
“It’s solid steel, over a foot thick,” Julie said and then her eyes lit up. “There’s digital keypad on the other side, I think I can hack it.” Her face concentrated on the screen.
Poly stood on the steps below, taking slow breaths of the limited air they were breathing. Nerves bent as she watched Julie work. The door clicked and groaned. Julie pushed it open and shined her light into it. Safety deposit boxes lined the walls of the next room. Poly let out a long breath and walked through the door. They were in a human world, somewhere she would be familiar with. Arracks, she doubted had deposit boxes.
“We’re in a bank vault,” Lucas said and pulled on the handles of the deposit boxes. “I bet there’s all kinds of stuff in these.” None of them opened though.
Another much larger s
teel door stood in front of them. Julie moved close to it, and in a minute the door made the same clicking sound as the first. She pushed on it and then Hank helped get it open.
What would the bank think of seeing a group of people coming out of their vault? Her mind raced with plausible explanations, but as the door opened to the bank, she realized it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anyone to explain anything to.
“Must be after hours,” Poly hoped.
“It’s Sunday,” Julie said.
Poly laughed, she had lost track of the days. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. Sunday, of course. She’d been worried they might be on some horrible Ryjack-type planet.
Kepper’s Bank signs were displayed on the walls and in little plaques on desks. Poly frowned as she looked around the bank. A thin layer of dust on the counters, the stale smell in the air, dirt on the windows . . . it didn’t seem like anyone had been there for years. She felt her heart beating faster.
“Maybe they went out of business?” Poly tried to convince herself more than any of them.
“It’s an old MM front,” Julie said. “Maybe they just closed it down or something.”
Out the dirty window she saw a car parked in front of the bank on the asphalt road. Across the street a row of businesses, but each had broken windows. Then she noticed the street had dirt in the gutters and weeds popping up from cracks in the road. Her breath quickened.
“Where are we Julie?” Poly’s voice cracked because she knew the answer.
Julie studied her Panavice as if it was a real question she could just google, but Poly knew there wasn’t Google here, or Moogle or whatever they once called it. This world had ended all that a long time ago. Even knowing all this, she still squeaked and could only point at the man in torn, dirty business suit walking by the bank window. It turned to look at her with bloody eyes and a black mouth, lunging at the window, striking with its head, pounding and clawing at the glass. She had seen this exact scene not too long ago at a small town convenience store. Something she never wanted to relive.
She took a step back with fear in her eyes, looking at the man, or what was a man.
“Oh no, no, no. . . .” Lucas whined and kicked a desk. A cup of pens spilled. “Were back on Ryjack?” he yelled.