by W. J. May
“The Louers!” they cried.
Storey’s mind went blank, just for a moment, then raced ahead. The possibility that they’d arrived in the middle of a war was too much to contemplate.
Cautiously, Eric spoke as the voice of reason. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. That’s only one possibility.”
“True.” She nodded at his codex. “First things first. Do you have a way to get us out of here?”
Glaring down at the codex, Eric’s frown deepened. “I don’t know. Outside of trying to walk out of this.”
“Which may or may not work. So...” She pulled out her sketchbook and stylus. “Where should we go? To my world or deeper into yours? Are we thinking Louers have invaded? Or are we thinking Paxton did this to stop you from going home?” She stared up at him. He stared back, an odd look on his face. “Hey, are you in there?” she snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Pull it together. We’re in trouble here, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Let me reset my codex. Could be just a glitch?” He tapped a series of buttons again while Storey watched. Frowning, he studied his codex and the unchanging mist around them. “What’s the chance it needs another minute? A reboot so to speak.”
She snorted. “Get a grip. The gate is either not functioning or this is the destination. Either way, I’m not impressed.” She plopped cross-legged on the ground. It didn’t look like dirt or tile, more like black compressed nothing. Refusing to dwell on it, she opened her sketchbook and flipped to a new page. Her mind raced, searching for possibilities. After her one horrible encounter with the Louers, she’d hate for the same nightmare to take over Eric’s world. Just because his father was an asshole, that didn’t mean everyone else was.
“What are you doing?” He squatted down beside her.
“I’m trying to figure out where we should go. What if the Louers have entered your world? Do you want to help your people? Haven’t you imagined them tearing into your friends’ homes and attacking your family?” She stared down at the sketch forming under her fingers. The stylus had warmed, heating with an urgency all its own.
“I don’t have any friends.” His voice held a cool indifference.
She looked up, startled. “What?”
“I said I don’t have any friends. I have teammates, coworkers, associates. No friends. Everyone in my world is part of my work.”
“Girlfriends?”
“Not really.” Short and curt. Hmmm. Some history there, but not her place to ask. And she didn’t think she wanted to know. “Didn’t you make any friends through work?” Most people made friends with their coworkers. After all, that’s where most people spent the bulk of their waking hours. It only made sense that strong friendships would form during this time.
He shrugged. “My father.”
“Yeah, I can see how he’d put a damper on things. I have to admit my mother and her little candle shop have certainly brought me grief.” She returned to her drawing, her mind a muddle of remembered grievances with the townsfolk. Her poor mom was harmless. So what if her store was new-agey and her religion was different. He had no friends? Yeah, well, she could relate.
“He’s not all bad.”
“No one is.” She could feel his stare and ignored it as the picture emerged from the sketchpad. Paxton’s lab. She sighed. Talk about walking back into a lion’s den.
Eric studied the picture taking shape. “Paxton is a good man. He’s a government man who cares about my people. About me. He’s trained me for the last decade, longer even.”
“Decade?” She shot him a questioning glance before returning to her picture. “Sounds like he’s been more of a father to you than your own father.”
“That’s true.” He reached across and tapped the paper. “You’re thinking to go back to Paxton’s lab? Did you forget there’s a death sentence on your head?”
She sighed. “No, I haven’t forgotten that. I hate to say it, but I’m thinking they may have more important things to worry about now.”
“If they do, they might consider you responsible.”
She stared at him in dismay. “See, that’s the problem with you guys. You just don’t want to accept responsibility for your own actions. This isn’t all about me. This is about you and your people. Remember, I didn’t sneak into your world and leave you an innocent-looking bomb to play with.”
He grinned and shook his head. “I can see your point. However, just because I might understand, doesn’t mean the others are going to be so open.”
She snorted. “Well, they damn well better be. This is a result of their actions. The buck stops with them.” Her hand stopped. She studied the finished picture with a critical eye. “I suppose that’s close enough. I suggest we do a second picture. I don’t know. Possibly of the same mine again, so that we can step into Paxton’s lab and check out the climate, then if the Louers are trying to take the place over, we can use the second picture as an escape route. This way we’ll have enough for both of us to carry – in case we get separated.”
He nodded, apparently content to just watch. “That was the original plan anyway, right?”
“Kinda.” She sketched quickly, her hand a blur, until she was satisfied with the second drawing. She had to admit that the stylus had improved her artistic ability tenfold. “That should do it. Now let’s go.”
He stood up and held out a hand for her. “You first.”
“No, I think we’d better go together.”
“We won’t fit. You made complete doors, not partial ones that suggest bigger ones.”
“True, but, as I’m learning I’m finding it’s more about what you’re thinking than the actual size of the drawing.
He stared at her, dumfounded. “Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it. Come on.”
She ripped off the first page. “How can I go through and take the paper with me?”
“Like I did in the lab. Just grab it on the way through.”
She placed the sketch on the ground and motioned for him to step onto it. Casually, like it was every day event, Eric stepped through and disappeared from sight. She shook her head. There’s no way she was ever going to get used to that.
Taking a deep breath, she knelt on the paper keeping a firm grip on the corner with her hand. She fell through.
Tumbling into Paxton’s lab, she groaned as she smacked into the hard white tile. Kneeling wasn’t a good idea. Then again, as she surveyed the paper in her hand with satisfaction, it allowed her to bring the gate with her.
“That wasn’t very graceful.” Eric’s voice was a little fuzzy.
Struggling to her feet, Storey turned to face him. “It also gave me a hell of a headache.”
Eric stood, legs straddled, hands on his hips, staring at her. “You’ve crossed through a lot of doors recently, some damage is possible.”
She shot him a worried look. “What kind of damage?” Shaking her head, she added, “Never mind. Don’t tell me. I can’t do anything about it now.” She spun around, realizing that the room was empty. “Is this Paxton’s lab? If so, then where is he?”
Eric walked around, opening doors then closing them after checking the rooms on the other side. “He’s always here. We’ll have to go looking for him.”
“Where does he live? He must eat and sleep somewhere else?”
“Yes, but he lives here most of the time.” Eric fisted his hands on his hips. “He should be here.”
Storey understood. War, and all that it entailed, wasn’t part of Eric’s thought process. He’d never encountered it. Didn’t live with the possibility every day, like her people did. He had no idea of what was going on here.
There was no point explaining things to him. He’d have to sort through this on his own, eventually.
It wasn’t for her to tell him that his peaceful world was under attack.
* * *
Chapter 12
Storey headed for the last door.
Eric reached it ahead of her and opened it.
“There should be lights on.” He scanned the room before crossing past the big oval table and to the door on the far end. Storey followed.
The meeting chamber didn’t appear to have been used since she’d been here last. Cups and bottles littered the table and the chairs sat everywhere, as if pushed back in a hurry. It was consistent with an emergency meeting having been called or everyone having left at a run.
Eric disappeared into the next room. Only it wasn’t a room at all, but a long hallway with doors set off each other in military precision for as far as Storey could see. The floor gleamed in white tile. The walls and ceiling sparkled in winter white, almost blinding her. Nothing but black hardware marred the pristine color.
“What’s with all the white?”
“White is a power color here.” He came to a stop at the third door on the left. He knocked.
The doors reached from floor to ceiling. Storey couldn’t help comparing the building to an institution of locked cells. There was a real creepiness to the emptiness. “If there were people walking around, the place wouldn’t be quite so off-putting.”
He turned to give her a curious glance, then pushed open the door, calling out, “Paxton, are you in here?”
No answer. He poked his head around the corner of the door and called out louder, “Paxton?”
The stillness of a place that should have been teeming with activity gave her the willies. “It’s not Sunday, is it?”
Eric pushed the door fully open, then paused to look back at her. “You ask the darnedest questions. What does Sunday have to do with it?”
“I don’t know. I just thought that if it were Sunday, then it would make sense that no one was here. If you have church, that is? Or if it were night time? Could everyone be asleep? Are we even on the same clock?” She couldn’t stop asking questions. Besides it would help take his mind off things.
His lips quirked. “Remember, we’re still on the same planet. Same solar system. If it’s daytime on one side of the veil, it’s daytime on the other. It is Sunday, although we call it something slightly different here.” His face became serious again. “But even on Council days, this building is always manned.”
He walked through what appeared to be a small apartment, heading for the far side of the room. There was a weird set of cushions on the floor. Furniture of some kind. As she passed it, her leg accidentally brushed the edge and it moved. She jumped back, shrieking, her hand slamming against her chest. The pillows rose and adjusted, almost as if it were fitting to her size.
Eric snickered. “No church. No religion as you know it. The Council sets the rules for everything.” His grin widened. “And we don’t have time to play with the chairs.”
Giving the piece a wide berth, she glared at him. “I don’t consider a cushion that looks like it’s going to eat me as funny, thank you.”
“That’s a polo chair.” At her blank look, he added, “One size fits all.”
She gave the cushion one last assessing look, realizing it had shrunk back down to its original size. Handy. The next room appeared to be a bedroom. She wandered around. What else was different over here? The bed looked normal, although higher than she was used to, with a small set of stairs on the side. No headboard, but a control panel of some kind had been mounted on the wall above some more weird looking pillows. She stayed well away from it, just in case it moved, too.
Everything was white.
Glancing down at her black jeans, black boots and her charcoal t-shirt, she realized she looked and felt like a dandelion among the roses.
Eric checked out the room and stood in the doorway of another room. She could only surmise that it was a bathroom of some kind. Not that she’d seen anything along those lines since she’d been here. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she realized she needed to pee. Damn.
She headed in the same direction Eric had disappeared. It wasn’t a bathroom. It appeared to be another workroom. “What on earth? Why would he have another lab here?”
“This is his private space. And the one other place I expected to find him.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Paxton doesn’t go anywhere else. He can’t. Where the hell can he be?”
“He can’t go anywhere? Ever?” She studied the all white and silver room, so painfully clean she had to resist the urge to toss a cabinet to make it look normal.
“No. You don’t understand. He doesn’t do well in the outside – something to do with his extreme age.”
“How old is he?”
“No one really knows. He won’t talk about it. Somewhere between one-fifty and two hundred.”
Storey choked. “Two hundred. What is the life expectancy of your people?”
He frowned. “Same as your people, I imagine. Although, we’ve stopped disease and slowed aging, so maybe not.”
She blinked. “Did you say stopped? You mean you wiped those two things out? We could sure use that technology. We live to seventy or eighty and anyone who makes it over one hundred is considered ancient.”
A weird crack sounded in the other room.
Pushing her behind him, Eric held his finger to his lips and motioned her back to the main living room. He snuck up to the doorway and peered inside. Something crashed to the floor in the other room.
“Crap. What was that?” she whispered, racing to his side.
“Get down.” He yanked her behind the wall. “Are you nuts?” He stood up and peered around the corner. “Whoever it was is gone.” Racing to the window on the far wall, he searched the outside grounds.
“A window?” She laughed and ran to his side. “That’s the first one I’ve seen here. I wondered if you had them.”
He shot another strange look in her direction. “You’re really odd, you know. Come on. We have to continue searching.” His voice had chilled. “Someone has to be left around here.”
Storey followed in silence as Eric strode from door to door, opening each and every one, calling out constantly. No one answered. The place, the whole huge mausoleum, was empty.
“Do you guys have an underground bunker, a safe room, or something?”
“Not if you mean like a place to hide when under attack. Remember, we don’t have wars. This is extremely unusual.”
That’s not the word she’d have used. But if this problem sidelined the death sentence on her head, she was all for it. She stood in the hallway and waited as he finished checking each door. Nothing. “Now what?”
“We’re going to my place.”
She perked up. “How far away?”
“Only a couple of minutes.”
“Oh good. Do you have bathrooms here?”
He winced. “Of course. You are so weird.”
“I’m weird. Look at the way you’re acting. I’d have contacted the people I care about to make sure they were safe then I would check the media for updates. The Internet would be teeming with news. Look at you. You don’t even know where to look. Do you have media here? Computers? Internet? Phones? How much research did you have to do to blend into my world?”
She was almost shouting by the time she finished, struggling to keep up with him as he followed a series of twists and turns. He came to standstill in front of yet another white door. It opened on its own.
“How’d you do that?”
“It’s my apartment.” He shot her a puzzled look. “Why wouldn’t it open for me?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe because you didn’t open it with your hand.”
“I don’t need to, it’s tuned to my vibration.”
She nodded. “Yup. I can see how that might work. Not.”
She walked into another sparse, almost utilitarian type of apartment. Eric’s had even less furniture than Paxton’s rooms, and it was equally as nondescript. There was no personality here. Nothing on the walls to liven things up. If she lived here, the first thing she’d do is get out her paint brush and color the world.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Again wi
th the questions. Since I was old enough to live on my own.”
Sensing this might answer a lot of questions, she asked, “How long ago was that and how old were you?”
“The same age as everyone else. Fourteen.”
She sucked in her cheeks. The same as everyone else. So at fourteen, everyone in his world was independent. She kind of liked that. “How old are you?”
“A couple of years older than you. I think Paxton said you were what, sixteen, seventeen?”
“Yes, just turning seventeen.” A loud buzzer sounded. Relief washed over his face. He raced to the far wall and placed his hand on a circle looking thing. A large screen materialized, taking up most of the wall at his head height.
“Greetings, Eric.”
“What’s going on? Where is everyone?” Eric stared into the blue screen. Standing beside him, Storey couldn’t see anything but a blue snow. She had no idea who he was speaking with.
“We’re under attack. Central is on lockdown.” A computerized voice gave a general status report. Understanding filled Eric’s face. “Who’s attacking? We’ve never even had enemies before.”
Storey winced at the shock in his voice. She already knew the answer.
“The Louers are attacking.”
***
The blue screen died. Eric yelled, shoving his face right up to the monitor. “No, wait! I need more information. Where are you?”
The reception blinked off and on, then a cracked voice said, “Mansfield gate has been reopened.”
Eric blinked. “Mansfield?” he whispered. Fear settled at his feet. It couldn’t be. He raised his voice. “That’s not a real place – is it?”
The static on the screen increased, drowning out the computerized transmission.
“Now that’s a weird phone.”
He spun, having forgotten she was standing beside him. “It’s not a telephone. The visual is broken, that’s all.”
“So how do we get to Mansfield?”
No way. She couldn’t go with him. She shouldn’t be here now. The whole game had changed. This was no longer about saving the two of them; it was about saving his people and their way of life. “Not we, me. My country is at war. You shouldn’t be here. Go home and stay there. Look for a place to hide over there, just in case. You might be lucky and the Louers will be too busy here to worry about attacking your world.”