The Seat of Power (The Securus Trilogy Book 3)

by Anthony Maldonado

  “How many other Agents of Guidance are there?” I ask through a clenched jaw, fighting from losing control.

  Surprise creeps onto his smug face when hearing my words. “You really are resourceful,” Baran sneers. “Well, you don’t need to worry about our Agents. After all, you’re about to join your friend at the bottom. But I think I’ll keep Sayda here with me for a while.”

  He aims the rifle at Hadwin. My mind spins. We have nowhere to hide and no way to overpower Baran before he shoots. The only possible chance we have is if one of us distracts him long enough for the other to disarm him. It does not matter what happens to me, Baran must pay for what he did.

  I plant my foot and lunge forward, charging Baran. He turns the rifle to me and squeezes the trigger. At the same time, Sayda spins on the ground, kicking his leg. The blow tilts his balance enough to send the shot off to the right. Before Baran regains his balance I leap into the air. My full weight crashes down on him, sending the rifle flying from his hands.

  Baran may be shorter than me, but he is much stronger than I anticipated. Before I am able to pin him to the ground, he tilts his body and pushes me off of him. Temporarily free from my grasp, Baran reaches out for the rifle. As soon as his arm extends, Hadwin’s boot slams down on in. The snapping echo from Baran’s bones breaking is quickly drowned out by his scream. Baran recoils from the pain.

  With his other hand, he reaches for his holstered pistol. I dive back at him, using all of my weight and momentum to throw my fist into his temple. His head snaps back from the impact, hitting a rock on the ground. The double blow to his head knocks Baran unconscious. His arms go limp and his pistol falls to the ground.

  Chapter 11

  Baran stays unconscious long enough for us to check him for weapons. I want to throw him over the cliff now, but we need to see what information we can get out of him. We move Baran to the edge, so he will have nowhere to run when he wakes up. Before we have a chance to bind his hands together, Baran’s eyes open. When realizing his tenuous position, he slowly stands. I wait until he is nearly upright before slugging him in the stomach. The blow instantly crumbles him back to the ground.

  “The next time you get up, you’re going over the edge,” I snarl.

  “So what now?” he asks through a painful grunt. “You have to take me back to Securus, unless you’re dumb enough to risk taking me to Munitus.”

  I lower my voice, making him strain to hear my words. “What becomes of you depends on what you tell me.”

  “Good luck with that,” he scoffs.

  Before the others can stop me, I lunge forward. Baran tries to move, but cannot get off of his knees fast enough. I grab his shirt, pulling him upward and twist his body, shoving him over the edge of the cliff. His legs swing over while he reaches for anything to stop the fall. Baran’s one good hand locks onto a tree root. Even without that, he would not have fallen yet. My hands are clamped onto his broken forearm and wrist, causing even more pain.

  “If you want back on this ledge. You will tell me who you’re working with!” I shout.

  “You’re bluffing,” he screams. “You can’t kill me. You need me.”

  “If you won’t talk, what do I need you for?” I ask him with a cold indifference. “Why should I keep you alive? So you can sabotage our meeting with Munitus? Or so we’re forced to turn back, making Radek and Korin’s deaths count for nothing?”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you, but only when we’re back in Securus,” Baran pleads, stalling for his life.

  I shake my head. “Not good enough. This is your last chance. Start talking now, or I let go.”

  Baran does not respond. He clearly does not believe I will let him die. At any other point in my life, he would have been right, but not now. I know if we take him back to Securus, he will never reveal who the other Agents of Guidance are. Once we are back underground, he will hide behind the protection of our new review process. We will have no real leverage against him. He will most likely refuse to talk and wait in hope of Caelum rescuing him. That thought enrages me even more.

  The Agents of Guidance have been free in Securus for far too long. They cannot be allowed to subvert what we are working to accomplish. In my eyes, Baran is no different than the Controller, and Braeden has already shown how merciless he is with our people. More than that, Baran has already killed two good men. I will not let their deaths become meaningless or go unpunished. We have to move on. There is only one way that can happen.

  “I warned you.” I say.

  His eyes open wide when feeling my hands release their grip. Baran shrieks in horror, struggling to hold on. With only one good arm, he cannot hold on for long. I turn away from him to see Hadwin and Sayda watching me in stunned silence. They do not speak or even move when I walk past them to pick up my pack from the ground. As I sling it over my shoulder, Baran’s terrified scream fades. He has plummeted to his death below. I take a deep breath, fighting to calm the shaking in my hands before turning to face the others. Hadwin and Sayda have barely moved at all. They both still watch me.

  “I, I just...” I try to explain before Sayda cuts me off.

  “You don’t need to say anything, Kagen.” Even when she speaks, Sayda maintains an emotionless façade. “We all know if we tried to take him with us to Munitus or even back to Securus he would’ve been looking for a way to kill us the whole time.”

  “We had no choice,” Hadwin says in a near whisper.

  Seeing them like this breaks my heart, opening a new flood of anger tangled with guilt. Two more good men have died. Not being able to save Radek hurts all of us even more, knowing he saved each of our lives before. The ever present tragedy of death continues to torment us. The pain drains all of our strength. It has even taking away the fire that has always burned within Sayda, leaving a stunned and emotionless shell to deal with this sordid plight.

  I want to move forward, but my feet refuse. My legs buckle, folding me to the ground. The will to get up has left me. All I can do is weep. This is what Caelum has turned me into. The hatred they planted into my heart has consumed me. Along with Baran, a piece of me was thrown over that cliff. I fear I may never get that part back. Hadwin and Sayda come and sit next to me. No one speaks. The only sound we make comes from our ragged breathing and broken hearts.

  We lay on the ground for what feels like an eternity. As time passes, the anguish only gets worse. I could stay here on the ground forever for all I care.

  Hadwin is the first to break the silence. “We have to move, but where are we going?”

  “I don’t care anymore.” My words come out involuntarily.

  “You better care!” Sayda snaps at me with surprising anger. “After everything that’s happened, I’m not giving up, and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let you give up either. Now get your ass up and let’s go to Munitus. We’re not stopping until we finish what we set out to do.”

  Sayda’s words seize my mind away from the clutches of its own sorrow. She is right. We have to move on. My legs finally find the strength to lift me back up. Before we leave, I pull Hadwin and Sayda together, hugging them both. They have been with me every step of the way, and I want them to know they are appreciated.

  Now that we have decided to move forward, we need to get down this cliff. It looks exactly like the one we saw on our way back from Munitus after we chased Aamon out here. Our original path meant to take us to the side of this area, but with the obstacles we encountered, our course has changed. Even so, the landmark tells me we are getting close.

  We will need to take another detour, but we may have a way to get down this wall. Luckily, Baran took off his pack before he attacked, so his supplies were not lost with him. His pack holds some gear we can use to climb down. Unfortunately, we first need to find a suitably lower portion of this cliff for our ropes to reach the bottom. Either that or we will be forced to travel all the way around.

  Getting around the cliff will be tiring, but not as arduous as it seemed the fir
st time we were confronted by the rocky wall. Then again, that time we were completely unprepared and severely dehydrated. Sayda’s strength steadily improves as we move forward. She no longer needs any assistance at all. None of us speak much on the trek, choosing instead to focus on our mission. We need to contact Munitus. With the new threat from the Agents of Guidance, this may be the only chance we have to do it. Considering the uncertainty they bring and how this trip has turned out, Leadership would not likely approve another expedition. I would not blame them for denying another team, especially since I would refuse to come back out here with them. We cannot afford to throw away any more lives.

  The path along the edge of the cliff is surprisingly crowded with trees. I thought the instability of the ground this close to the edge would not support trees as well, but apparently it does. Despite that, the terrain has a continuous downward slope, making us expend less effort. After a while, I realize getting to the bottom will take longer than we thought. We may not be able to make contact with Munitus today.

  When we stop to rest, I wander over to the edge of the cliff and look out at the forest. My eyes are drawn to the birds circling in the skies. Their wings carry them high above the forest, seemingly out of reach of the misery constantly stalking us. One of the birds veers off to the side before taking a sudden turn downward. The bird plummets below the tree line, as if to remind me nothing can escape its fate. A darker canopy stands out amongst the surrounding green treetops in the area the bird crashed in. That must be Munitus’ Solar Panels.

  “I can see Munitus from here,” I tell the others while my eyes remain trained outward. I pull out my compass to check the direction. This could help keep us on course later.

  Sayda comes over to me. Instead of looking out to see Munitus, she yanks me away from the edge. She does not want to chance me falling. I take the not so subtle hint. After a few more minutes of hiking, the pitch of the slope increases significantly. Soon we are forced to hold onto the trees as we move to keep from falling down the steep hillside.

  We wind our way down, until we are confronted by another sheer drop blocking our intended path. This time the ledge is not nearly as high as before. Even so, it presents another problem. The drop off goes back as far as I can see, leaving us no clear path to go around from here unless we backtrack. Doing that would waste hours of time.

  “Looks like we need to climb down,” Hadwin says, examining the rocky wall below us for a suitable path. “I think our ropes should reach the bottom from here.”

  Hadwin has been keeping up well, but ever since his run in with the bear last time we were out here, his leg has never been the same. I wanted to avoid making him climb on his weakened leg, but we are left with no other options.

  “Well, at least this gives us a more direct route back without having to go through the tunnel,” I say, resigning to climbing down.

  I pour out the contents of Baran’s pack to gather our climbing equipment. We have repurposed some of the harnesses normally used when servicing the upper turbines in the Deep Vents. We should have little problem using the ropes and harness to rappel down the wall. Climbing back up will be another story. Thankfully, we have a special addition to make the ascent less arduous. The last piece of equipment is a compact rope climbing machine with enough power to pull us up. Radek carried the extra power pack, so we cannot risk depleting the power by using it on our way down.

  Once we secure our rope, I throw the rest of the rope over the edge. We are only about one hundred feet above the bottom, but the height still makes me dizzy. The area we chose to go down has an indented groove in the wall. If there are any issues with rappelling, there should be enough cracks for us to manually climb down. I put on two supply packs, squeezing my rifle between them. The extra weight might be problematic, but it is necessary. We cannot drop the packs from this height and the supplies are crucial, so leaving them is not an option. I attach the rope to my harness and turn around to descend.

  My head swirls as soon as I go over the edge. Looking down only intensifies the fear. I force my eyes back to the rocks in front of me while straining to imagine this as just another climb in The Caves. In there, the rock walls always felt less intimidating to me. Then again, that was before I saw my friend thrown over the edge.

  My hands become pale from the force of my grip on the protruding rocks in front of me. Before becoming paralyzed by overthinking the climb, I force myself to let go of the rocks and lean back. The rope holds strong. My legs push off lightly as I unlock the rope. With the tension in the line, I barely move. At this pace, it will take hours to get down.

  I release more tension from the rope. This time the rope slips, dropping me much faster than intended. When I manage to move the rope back into a locked position, the abrupt stop jerks my body, tilting me backward. The momentum carries me back into the wall nearly upside-down. My leg extends to steady me, but the rock flakes off beneath my boot, flipping me even further. Bright spots cloud my vision as my head slams into the wall. I am now dangling upside-down, barely clinging to both the rope and consciousness. I hang there for a moment, watching the inverted sky twirl before me, thankful my rope held.

  It takes a few more seconds before I realize Hadwin and Sayda are screaming my name. I wave my hand, signaling that I am alright. When my normal vision returns, I flip myself upright and carefully resume the descent. This time, my control of the rope is measured and meticulous. Once I settle into a pace, the rest of the descent goes much easier. The instant my feet are safely on the ground, I move out of the way and yell for Sayda to come down. When she appears on the edge, I turn away, unable to watch. Instead, I pull out my rifle to make sure this area is safe.

  The temperature feels like it has dropped by ten degrees now that I stand in the shade of the cliff. Oddly, there are no trees on my landing. The forest has receded from the rocky wall for about thirty yards. Even the tree line itself appears curious to me. They seem to be arranged in a nearly straight line, forming a solid wall of leaves. Off to the side, a conspicuous opening breaks up the barrier. A couple of old trees must have fallen on each other, with their now rotting logs forming an archway. Below the arch is a ten foot wide portal leading into the forest.

  When I turn back, Sayda is nearing the ground. She does not seem to be having any difficulty with the descent. After disconnecting her harness from the rope, she signals Hadwin to come down. When he joins us, we are faced with another decision.

  “By the time we make it to Munitus, it’ll be too late to make contact,” I tell them. “What do you guys want to do? Set up camp here and leave first thing in the morning, or hike closer to look for another area to spend the night?”

  “Let’s set up here. Their panels didn’t look like they were more than an hour-long hike from here anyway,” Hadwin says, already taking off his pack. “Besides, we don’t want to get too close or they might see the smoke from our fire.”

  Hadwin is right. Besides, with the cliff behind us it will be easier to set up a perimeter around our camp. The only concern is the possibility of falling rocks. No matter what, we have to take some risks, and this seems like an acceptable one. While we have enough light, Hadwin and I pick up as much firewood as we can carry before setting up our tarp shelter. Next we secure the perimeter. Once that is done, we make a fire in the middle of the clearing.

  We rest our weary minds and bodies while eating more gruel. Since we now have less people to sustain, our water supply should last another day. The morbid thought makes me cringe.

  Soon the skies darken, signaling the coming night. The sounds of the forest bounce off of the wall behind us. I sit alone with my rifle in hand, keeping watch while Hadwin and Sayda get some rest. With time to think, the full implications of the day’s events hit me. We knew of the existence of these Agents of Guidance, but discovering one of them so close to me is much worse than I imagined. Just as disturbing is the fact that Eyra insisted on Baran coming. She could be one of them. I assumed their main purpose wa
s to whisper doubt into the ears of our people, but this goes way beyond that. Radek was a good man. He is irreplaceable.

  The more things play out, the more alone I feel. Trusting anyone outside my immediate circle of friends now feels nearly impossible. Even worse, the number of people within that circle has been steadily shrinking. Tired of being lost in these negative thoughts, I go to walk the perimeter of our camp. Nothing draws me out here other than the need to find a distraction. The air is cold enough for my breath to become visible every time I exhale. The forest has turned too dark to see anything beyond the tree line even with my illuminator on its highest setting.

  After a couple minutes, the cold drives me back to our fire. Next to the fire, Sayda sleeps with her head resting on Hadwin’s shoulder. He holds her in a similar way to how I hold Talia at night when sleep eludes me. Thinking of Talia worried inside of Securus only makes me feel even more alone tonight. For me, this trip cannot be over soon enough.

  *

  When the morning comes, Hadwin wakes me after he and Sayda have finished packing our gear. The nervous anticipation I felt when we first left for this trip has long since disappeared. Now the only thing driving me is a sense of duty owed to Radek and Korin.

  We head through the arched portal into the woods, following my compass toward Munitus. The ground is ragged but relatively flat. With the favorable terrain, we make good time. When we come across a small clearing the hair on the back of my neck stands up and a nervous tingling runs through my body. Only a few yards away, the unmistakable metallic form of an exit hatch penetrates the surrounding vegetation. This is the last place we saw the mountain lions.

  “Let’s keep moving. I don’t want to stay around here too long,” Sayda says.

  Hadwin appears puzzled by our reaction to the hatch. I almost forgot the condition he was in the last time we were here. He probably does not remember what happened. Even so, he does not question our motivation to push forward.