Book of Seth: Exit Strategy: A Fallen Chronicles Book

by Dan O'Brien

  Book of Seth:

  Exit Strategy

  Dan O’Brien

  © 2015 Dan O’Brien

  “The great war that destroyed the world of men was brief. There were none left who could recall those final days. It was said that men put up little effort, assimilating into what had taken them as easily as those before.”

  -Texts of Remembrance: Missing Passages

  I looked through the mesh cover of the ventilation system and watched as the dark-garbed guards pushed and prodded the inmates, ushering them forward like cattle. I felt pity for them. I knew that their fates were now intertwined with mine. My escape meant harsher penalties for them, but I could not let that deter me from what I knew I must do. We had crawled through the tunnels for what had seemed like days, but could not have been more than a few hours. The helmets that we had requisitioned from the guards in the tunnels had been deactivated from a remote source.

  “Still nothing,” whispered Hugo from deeper in the darkness.

  “That makes sense. They have started herding them back to their pens. They are looking to see who has escaped with me. They are looking for you.”

  I could see Hugo turning in the darkness, pulling the helmet from his head. His stringy gray was hair smoothed against his head from sweat. “Why would they be looking for me?”

  “If Jabo is as omniscient as you believe, then he would have known that I would need another to read the language of Culouth for me.”

  “I see,” he echoed mechanically.

  I moved back away from the mesh opening, rolling my body end over end in the cramped confines of the corridor. Looking at Hugo, I pulled the helmet from his grasp. “Hugo, return to them. Say that I forced you, threatened violence.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be foolish. They will come for you if you stay with me.”

  “They would kill me if I returned to them now. I will not betray you.

  “So be it.” I returned my gaze to the mesh opening and saw as they pushed Fredrick forward.

  I WATCHED THE GUARDS pass each other like specters in the darkness. Their dark figures were indistinguishable from one another as they navigated the musky halls of the Citadel.

  Hugo hung his head close to his chest. His eyes were closed. The rising and falling of his chest accompanied his snoring. I smirked despite the dire nature of our placement. His effortless slumber was a gift. “Hugo,” I whispered from a distance, not wanting to startle him.

  Silence answered me.

  I moved closer, reaching my hand out in the darkness of the corridor and grasping his shoulder lightly. He stirred. With his eyes still closed, he pushed away with my hand dismissively.

  “Hugo,” I whispered again.

  “Not now,” he mumbled. Not bothering to open his eyes, he turned onto his side. He hit his head hard against the steel corridor, which was jarring enough to wake him up. A yell began to form in his throat. I clasped my hand over his mouth, stifling the startled scream. He looked at me with wide eyes as I placed a finger over my lips for silence.

  He nodded shakily as I pulled away my hand.

  “We have to move now.”

  “Agreed,” he murmured.

  I turned and pulled on the mesh cover, feeling the aged steel give way at the edges. Holding my breath in anticipation, I knew a loud noise could possibly attract the attention of the guards below. As I pulled cover free, only the slightest of noises filled the air. The leap down was maybe was five meters at best. I dropped down into the darkness, crouching as I made impact with the ground. Craning my neck back up to look at the wide eyes of Hugo, I saw the shake of his head as he surveyed the distance he would have to drop.

  He would be much better suited in the corridors above.

  I waved my hand back at him as he grimaced down at me; he pulled the mesh cover back in place. The groan of the steel was loud and I crouched into the darkness, watching the guards as they passed. I felt my pant leg out of instinct and then remembered that my blade was no longer there. Rolling forward, I pushed hard off of my feet, flattening myself against the wall in one smooth motion.

  The guards disappeared farther down the corridor.

  The resounding bang of the stairwell door greeted my ears, signaling their exit.

  I moved along the walls. The faces of the prisoners were haunting as I passed. They watched me with deliberate and serious eyes as I moved past; each hoped I had come to set them free. They moved from their cots to the front of their cells in the blink of an eye. Their approach was horrifying in a way, silent motions carrying them. Pale and tortured faces looked back at me. I stopped, recognizing the large man who had been imprisoned with Fredrick.

  I turned to my left and saw him staring out at me. His round eyes were glassy.

  “You are the one from the north,” he muttered.

  I nodded back.

  “You have come to kill him for sending you here.”

  I looked at the man in confusion. “Why would you say that?”

  “That is what Fredrick believes, that you have come for revenge,” he responded simply, shrugging his shoulders. He moved farther back into the cell and sat on his cot. “Are his words true?”

  “No, I have come to help him escape,” I replied.

  He nodded, looking down as if he understood. “That is what I thought.”

  “Where is he?” I replied quickly, not seeing him in the dark confines of the cell.

  “Here,” Fredrick whispered, rising from the far corner of the cell. He approached the energy field of the cell, bringing his hands close. “You have not come to take my life?”

  “We do not have time for this.”

  Fredrick nodded.

  “Stand back away from the cell.” I ran my hands over the stone walls in the darkness. I felt the cold steel of the locking mechanism, the generator for the field itself. I backed away slowly. “I need something to deactivate the console with.”

  “Your effort was in vain,” spoke Fredrick.

  “Giving up so quickly, Fredrick?”

  Lowering into a ready position with my feet rooted firmly beneath my torso, I snapped forward. I drove my boot into the mechanical console. A shower of sparks erupted like fireworks as the energy fields on the floor sputtered and dissipated. Fredrick’s cellmate approached the empty space where the energized field had been and reached his hand slowly, unsure that it was really gone. Fredrick walked through without missing a beat; he hugged me tightly, startling me.

  “I thought for sure that you were angry with me,” he began sheepishly.

  “This is not your fault,” I replied as I turned away from the cell. Craning my neck, I watched as the inhabitants of the other cells emerged from their individual prisons with haste now. They hollered at one another and drew attention from the approaching guards as they came back around.

  “I am called Chren,” murmured Chren as he joined Fredrick behind me. He watched the other inmates as I had.

  “We need to leave,” I replied, acknowledging him with a quick nod.

  Chren watched me carefully. His taller frame was lithe and powerful, though his muscles were thin and vascular. Veins crawled along the surface of his skin. “The guards will be upon us shortly.”

  “We will use them as cover for escape,” I spoke as I moved into the darkness and around the corridor.

  Chren and Fredrick followed quickly. They watched as the guards emerged, their energized weapons drawn. I grabbed Fredrick’s shoulder, squeezing hard, and he turned to look at me. Pointing to the mesh cover that I descended from, he nodded, moving over to it.

  I stood beneath the mesh cove
r, cupping my hands around my mouth. “Hugo!”

  The mesh cover disappeared from view and the white shock of Hugo’s beard appeared as he dropped a line down. The braided rope dangled on the floor and I gestured to Fredrick first.

  “Quite a gentleman,” he chided.

  I shook my head. He began to pull himself up the rope, grunting hoarsely as he struggled.

  Chren came up alongside me, his lank figure towering over me. The thin line of his jaw hardened.

  “He says that you are a hero, braver than all others,” he spoke sternly.

  “Fredrick says little, though he speaks much,” I returned.

  Chren chuckled. “That is most true.”

  The line loosened and I looked up, watching as Fredrick disappeared into the darkness of the corridor ducts. I passed the braided rope to Chren. He shimmed up it quickly and then disappeared. I looked back into the darkness once more, unsure of what would come next.

  HUGO APPROACHED ME WITH EXCITEMENT. It was the first that I had seen from any of them since having sprung Chren and Fredrick. He ran toward me, cradling the helmet we had taken from the guards. He slid to a stop, crashing down next to me. My back was against the wall, staring out into the darkness for what had seemed like some time.

  “It’s back online,” he replied in a hurried tone.

  “What is back online?” I responded, turning to him, not really listening to his words.

  He extended the helmet toward me. “The helmets are restored. Everything is accessible to us once more. We can find a way out of here.”

  I was unsure why Jabo would risk giving us an advantage. “They know where we are.”

  “How could they possibly?” replied Hugo dismissively as he crossed his legs underneath him and slipped the helmet over his head once more. Chren and Fredrick approached me from farther down the tunnel.

  “What’s going on?” questioned Chren.

  “They are on to us,” Fredrick spoke, shaking his head slightly.

  “It is a possibility. They brought the networking back online. One of the other prisoners must have given us up,” I reasoned. I tapped the helmet lightly and Hugo slapped my hand away. “Found anything yet?”

  “A lot of information to go through here,” he began. His arms reached out in front of his face, manipulating icons that only he could see. “It appears that the external wall exits have been locked down as well as the floor-to-floor automatic shafts.”

  “Where are the exits?” I pressed.

  “The main one is several floors above us, though it has already been shut down and reinforced with a steel door on a time release set for 128 hours,” he replied, the helmet hanging comically over his much smaller head.

  “We need an exit, Hugo and we need one fast,” I replied.

  “Fine, fine, calm down.”

  We moved farther down the duct system to another of the openings. I took a seat there, watching for the passing of the guards. Since the reactivation of the network they had begun to move about. Fredrick leaned across my shoulder, peering out through the mesh wiring of the corridor. He watched the guards as I had. Seeing their numbers swell, he sat back with a sigh. “Something is going on. We have a lot of movement down there.”

  “Got one: basement level seven. There’s a tunneling system. It might be closed up farther down the shaft; but from what I can see in the technical readouts, it appears to be our only way out,” called Hugo.

  “How far is that from here?”

  “It’s hard to say without pinpointing our location in the grid system itself. That would only give us away.”

  “There is no way to tell where we are at?” I queried in frustration, pounding my fist against the side of the duct corridor.

  “Let me see here….” trailed off Hugo, reaching out at the air once more. He pointed to Chren and Fredrick and then back to the air once more. “They were delivered to cell 471-AZ on level seven, which places us one floor above that. We have our work cut out for us.”

  “Guards are going to be crawling through the halls looking for us,” commented Fredrick, shaking his head.

  “We have to make it to the auto shafts,” I uttered quickly, rising to a crouch.

  “What?” replied Hugo, pulling the helmet off. Sweat streamed down his face as he did so. “Are you out of your mind? They are out of commission and even if we could get to them, there are going to be guards all along the way.”

  “Let me ask you this: do the shafts run to the basement?” I queried.

  “Of course,” he replied.

  “That is our exit route. We make our way down the auto tunnels into the basement. They have no way of tracking us there. It is just a deep hole,” I reasoned.

  “Fair enough. How exactly do we get past all of the guards?” asked Hugo.

  “We fight our way through. We do not have any other choice.”

  “Through possibly hundreds of guards?” the old man queried.

  “I agree with Seth. We have no other option before us,” added Fredrick.

  “If they catch us, we will be killed,” conceded Chren.

  “We have don’t even have any weapons,” lamented Hugo.

  “We still possess the element of surprise.” I pulled the mesh cover free and peered out the side of the duct corridor into the galleys below. There were no guards; the darkened hall was empty and silent. I leapt down despite the whispered protests. Craning my neck, I looked back up at those above me. I could see Hugo’s withered face.

  Chren dropped down next to me. He brought with him the rope; soon, Hugo ambled down the line. “That was foolhardy, Seth.”

  I waved my hand dismissively, ignoring his worrying, and looked back up as Fredrick scurried down the line.

  “The longer we wait, the greater the possibility that we are apprehended,” I argued with a scolding tone.

  Fredrick landed on the ground haphazardly, pulling at the twine to set it free.

  The impending footfalls of guards captured out attention.

  I drew the photon rod from my side and handed it to Fredrick.

  He grasped it with his spindly hands. “What about you? Don’t you need a weapon?” he queried, gripping the weapon awkwardly. He swung it back and forth, the crackle of the photon emissions loud in the dark hall.

  I reached forward and grasped his forearm, stopping him. “Chren and I can do enough without weapons. You and Hugo have to run out ahead of us, just in case we are pursued,” I replied and then turning to Chren. “Unless that is unacceptable, Chren.”

  “I would prefer it,” he said with a nod.

  “I still don’t like this, Seth.”

  “No choice left. Go now,” I urged as Chren and I stood our ground.

  We watched as they came, their legions appearing through the darkness. They approached with their weapons lowered.

  The muzzles of their weapons were hollow circles of death that were centered on us.

  “What now?” called Chren.

  I watched as Hugo and Fredrick disappeared farther down the hall.

  Turning, I drove my elbow into the console, a shower of sparks erupting from its base. The energy field sprang out from the edges of the arch unevenly at first––and then erupted into a clear sheet as the guards fired on us. Both Chren and I raised our arms in defense. The suddenness of their attack settled in before we realized that the energy shield would protect us.

  Chren turned and began to run; I followed. I craned my neck back, watching as the guards frantically worked on the console.

  I paced alongside Chren, watching as the cells passed by me. The figures inside were nothing more than a blur. I wondered whether or not I should free them as well. The thought was fleeting. The urgency of the moment took over my senses.

  “The hard part is behind us, yes?” spoke Chren breathlessly as Hugo and Fredrick came into view.

  They struggled to open the steel doors that blocked our descent into the shaft itself.

  “Not even. There is much more ahead,”
I replied as we slid to a stop.

  I slammed the photon rod into the crack of the steel doors, the energy leaking from the staff and crawling over the door itself. The veins were amber and gold as they climbed from edge to edge. Fredrick stood up quickly, carrying Hugo with him as his eyes grew wide. The reflection of the amber energy glowed like a sunset lowering behind the mountains. I wrenched my arms to the side as fought the strength of the age-old metal. Soon, a groan emanated from the dormant steel and the doors labored open. Chren ducked in, his strong hands, marred with calluses, pulled on the doors as well. The darkness of the tunnel was revealed as the doors locked into place.

  My chest heaved and sweat poured from my face. “It appears all that is left is a leap of faith.”

  “You don’t expect us to dive blindly into that, do you?” queried Hugo, an incredulous look splattered across his features.

  “I would never ask you to do anything that I would not first do myself.” I backed off a few steps and leapt forward into the darkness, reaching my hands out. The rush of air against me was euphoric for a moment. Then, I felt what I had anticipated: the thick coils of the car that descended into the depths of the Citadel. I pushed off the far side, sending me back onto the ledge, albeit shakily. With my left arm on the cable, I felt the pull of the flexible steel cables within my grasp.

  “What are we to do: slide down the cables?” queried Fredrick.

  “Precisely,” I returned, feeling rather confident about the entire ordeal.

  Chren laughed. The loud sound was strange in the dismal halls. I realized that we had been whispering the entire time. “I will go first. I do not fear the darkness,” he spoke. He reached out to where my hand held the cables and disappeared into the darkness, a whining noise following him as he delved deep into the darkness.

  Fredrick craned his neck into the darkness; his feet lifted up as he peered down into the shadows.

  I placed my hand on his back, giving him a slight push. A startled cry emanated from his lips as he turned back to me for a moment and then grasped the coils at the center of the shaft. His screams echoed far into the shadows below.