Harmonics: Rise of the Magician

by Collin Earl

  *****

  Dirk closed his eyes. Six more steps, four steps, two...His heart was now exploding through his chest. He opened his eyes and turned just in time to see the rotund, hairy man round the corner. Dirk saw the man almost go right past them. Then it happened. In slow motion, Dirk saw the confused look dawn on the man's face. In what was probably a millisecond but felt like minutes, the black man's fist flew towards the guard. Dirk thought he saw sand fly at the guard, but as the man tumbled towards the holding room door, Dirk could plainly see glints of light reflecting off hundreds of tiny glass shards that were now buried in the guard's face and throat. When the tubby man stumbled and crashed through the holding room door, Dirk saw the bits of broken glass plainly. He continued to stare at the now dead man even through the first blares of the alarm. It wasn't until he felt the hard tug on his arm that time sped up to normal.

  Dirk and the man in black were dashing through the maze of passageways. Dirk, despite his mental map, had no idea where they were, but the man seemed to know every nook and cranny even with the lack of light. He saw flickering lights coming down the hallway. More guards with torches. Just when he had thought that karma was smiling down on him, more guards with torches. The man stopped in front of Dirk. Through the flashes of the beams of light, Dirk saw the man hunch over like he was squishing an inflated ball. He felt the air around him change, then grow colder. His ears popped painfully as the pressure around him grew. He felt some force starting to bear down on him. Then a giant blast of air whooshed away from him. One by one, each of the guard's torches flew wildly into the air and smacked against the wall. Dirk's ears were ringing as the two of them moved up the hallway where the guards had been. In the light of the now motionless torches, Dirk could see that all of them were unconscious and bleeding after being thrown against the passage walls by the sudden gust of wind.

  Faint lights started to appear. They looked like emergency lighting and only barely lit the ground. As they rounded a corner, the door of the only modernized room in the whole facility came into view. Just as they approached the kitchen, it started to open. The black man jumped at the door, slamming it shut and throwing the guard on the other side back into the room. The masked man quickly squatted down and placed his hands along the threshold. Almost at once, Dirk felt the air pressure around him drop. Again his ears started to hurt from the rapid change in environment. The screams from inside the kitchen told him that the guards in there were suffering from it too. Then they stopped, and all he heard was moaning. The man whipped open the door and dragged Dirk behind him as they moved through it. All around the kitchen guards were lying on the floor, some clutching their heads. Each had blood oozing from their ears and nose. Those closest to the door weren't moving at all. Dirk's skin, while all this time looking like a human-colored pickle, did the impossible – it prickled even more.

  They raced through the back door of the kitchen. Two more guards came hurtling up the hallway just outside the kitchen exit. Dirk watched as the man pulled thin metal rods from a sleeve on his arm. Making a move like he was fanning a deck of cards, the small rods became saw-like discs. The man chucked the discs, impaling the two oncoming guards squarely in the throat. Down a second hallway, Dirk witnessed the same type of rods become thirty centimeter blades that the man used to skewer two more approaching guards.

  Three hallways later, they reached an outside door. Dirk was yanked down into a squatting position as the man knelt on one knee at the door. He produced two black bags, dipping each of his hands into a separate one. Black and silver dust glittered as the man proceeded to crush the two handfuls of material together. He repeated this process two more times. When he was done, the man held five balls; two light gray, two a darker charcoal gray, and the remaining ball was as black as the man's clothes and slightly larger than its friends.

  Dirk heard more running from the hallway that they had just come from. The man seemed not to notice, or not to care. He carefully palmed the four balls in one hand and pressed the fifth into the locking mechanism of the larger outer door. The noise was growing louder. The man adjusted the fifth ball and then leaned back to look at his work.

  Dirk could now make out individual voices as the mob came closer to their position. The man looked at Dirk, nodded, then simultaneously pounded the fifth ball with his fist while tossing the four others in the direction of the oncoming noise. Dirk once again felt the man's strength as he covered Dirk's eyes and pulled him down into a fetal position just as the guards rounded the corner. Even through the gloved hand covering his eyes, Dirk saw through the glove what must have been a blinding flash from the hallway and felt a wave of compressed heated air rush out from the door. Seconds later, amid the screams and wails, Dirk was forcefully brought to his feet and shoved out of the now open doorway. As he looked back, his eyes adjusted to the retreating scene of a hallway filled with a thick gray smoke, a partially blasted doorframe, and for the first time in months, the clear night sky.