by Dima Zales
What’s particularly funny, in a purely morbid sort of way, is that no one stops me as I go. They keep their distance and don’t utter a single word as I walk toward the Witch Prison of my own volition.
I assume the Dean, or one of the other Adults, gathered his wits shortly after I left, because after a few minutes, a Guard heads my way from the pentagonal prism that is my destination.
“This is going great so far,” I subvocalize as sarcastically as I can. “You sure I shouldn’t have gotten naked, covered myself with tar, and rolled around in some feathers?”
“I think it would’ve helped if you had licked the Dean’s bald head like I suggested,” Phoe says, still chuckling. “But I think even without that, we got the point across.”
I give her a chiding look, but that only adds to her merriment.
As the Guard gets closer to me, however, Phoe grows serious again.
“Remember, I’ll have a hard time getting in touch with you once you’re in the Witch Prison,” she reminds me. “I figured out how to see through the Guards’ cameras, but that’s still fairly limited—”
“And we hope the Envoy will have similar troubles,” I repeat, my mental voice a parody of hers. “Isn’t that why I’m doing this crazy stunt to begin with?”
“Even if the Envoy can see everything that happens inside the Quietude building—which I doubt—my plan should still work, assuming the Envoy is not all-knowing and all-seeing,” Phoe says. “And if he were all-knowing and all-seeing, we’d be dead already. The Faraday cage of that building provides us an extra bonus, because if he can’t see inside, it turns a good plan into a great one.”
Since I know what the plan is, I can’t help but mutter some more curses, this time as a way to show my opinion on the ‘greatness’ of this so-called plan.
When I meet the Guard, he stands there, arms folded over his chest, and says nothing.
With disappointment, I note that this Guard is much too short and stocky for what we need. He’s closer to Liam’s build than mine. That means I’ll have to work with a slightly more complicated version of an already-dubious plan.
“I’ll go with you,” I say, failing to not sound belligerent. “Lead the way.”
The Guard gestures.
“I can’t believe he tried to Pacify you!” Phoe exclaims. “These people really do abuse their power.”
I stay quiet and do my best impersonation of getting Pacified. Having actually felt this when Jeremiah did it to me helps my acting.
The Guard is convinced enough by my performance to turn around and head in the direction of our intended destination.
As we walk, Phoe repeats the remaining steps of the plan. If I weren’t pretending to be Pacified, I’d be screaming obscenities again.
“Good luck,” Phoe says as we’re about to enter the Prison. “I know you’ll do great.”
“Thanks,” I think grumpily. “I hope you’re right.”
We walk in.
Phoe doesn’t talk anymore, but I derive comfort from the knowledge that I’m not completely on my own. She got me out of here the day before yesterday.
After walking the maze-like corridors, we reach a nondescript door, and the Guard gestures.
The door to the room opens.
The Guard stands in the corridor expectantly.
I walk in, and he closes the door, locking me in.
So far so good—or at least, according to plan.
I look at the table and whistle. There are three bars of tasteless Prison Food. That means, under normal circumstances, I’d be stuck in this room for at least three days.
I walk back to the door and count to a thousand to make sure the Guard who brought me here is gone.
When I put my ear to the door and listen, I hear nothing.
A ghostly Screen appears in the air next to me.
A cursor flickers on the Screen, and a single character shows up and types the letter ‘G.’ Then the second one appears with the letter ‘O.’
I make an okay sign in case Phoe can see me and wave my hand at the door in the standard ‘open’ gesture.
The door unlocks with a loud click.
This first part of the plan didn’t even require Phoe’s help. All I did was use my newly acquired Elderly access.
Annoyingly, the Screen now says: I told you so.
I shake my head and walk out of the room.
The Screen follows me. On it, Phoe types out: Two lefts and a right. When I make the first turn, the Screen flickers and disappears.
I walk down the next corridor, making sure to turn carefully when I reach the end.
The second left takes me down a winding corridor that looks like the one we passed when the Guard brought me in here. I could be wrong, though. All the corridors in this place look the same in their washed-out grayness.
Before I turn right, I crouch and look around the corner. My target is where he should be, and this Guard matches both my height and weight.
Great. Finally something is going my way.
The Guard is leisurely walking away from me, so all I see is his back.
This is actually good news.
The bad news is that, according to Phoe’s estimations, I have to get closer, within six feet to be precise, to execute the next part of the plan.
I enter the corridor as slowly and softly as I can. My feet are barely touching the floor.
The problem with approaching the Guard stealthily is that I’m moving at the same speed as him. If I keep this up, I’ll never catch up with him.
I take longer strides, trying my best to keep quiet.
The ghostly Screen shows up again and asks: What’s the holdup?
I walk a few more steps and decide the distance between us should be sufficient.
As I stop, my shoes make a barely noticeable rustle against the floor.
There should be no way the Guard heard it, yet he slows his pace.
Crap.
He heard me.
“Oh well,” I think in case Phoe can hear me. “It won’t matter in a moment anyway.”
I raise my hand the way Phoe instructed me, the way the Guards do when they try to Pacify me. Phoe figured out that if I make my wrist flick stronger, the Pacify effect will be more intense and will nearly knock out the target.
The Guard turns around.
I repeat the gesture.
He’s too spry for someone under the effects of the Pacify.
The letters show up frantically on the Screen: Shit. It didn’t work.
The Screen clears, then says: They must be protected against another Elderly using Pacify on them, which was unexpected. The Screen clears again, then in very big font: Why are you still standing there? Abort mission and run.
“You said this was a great plan,” I think angrily at the Screen.
Run already.
The Guard is a leap away.
I’m not sure running will be that effective, so I decide to improvise.
“My door just opened,” I say to him in a meek voice. “I stepped out and got lost.”
The Guard performs his own Pacify gesture at me as he reaches for the Stun Stick on his belt.
Why is he going for that Stick? Does he know Pacify didn’t work? Or did he see my attempt to Pacify him?
I slump as though I’m Pacified.
At the same time, through my half-closed eyelids, I watch his hand.
He’s still reaching for that Stick, leaving me little choice.
I have to attack the Guard.
As I mentally prepare for what I have to do, I can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu. I confronted a Guard inside the nightmarish vision of the IRES game. That fight didn’t go so well for me. I would’ve died had it not been for the in-game History Instructor driving a tractor into him, something I’m pretty sure can’t happen now.
The Screen shows up in the air again with a very pertinent message: Act.
I stop thinking and become motion. As quickly as I can, I squat and swee
p my right leg around, hoping to bring the Guard down to the floor.
The Guard jumps.
Fighting panic, I jump back up and prepare to rush him.
The Guard takes out his Stun Stick and fiddles with its controls. I use his momentary distraction to ram my shoulder into his midsection.
The Stun Stick falls out of his hands, but I can’t tell if it’s from pain or the kinetic energy of my impact. With his helmet on, it’s hard to tell what my opponent is feeling or where he’s looking, which puts me at a big disadvantage.
My hit didn’t slow him down much, though, because seamlessly, he slams his fist into the side of my head.
My ear explodes with burning pain.
I grit my teeth and ignore the blood pounding in my temples. I channel the anger flooding through my system into a not-so-gentlemanly maneuver I also utilized against that virtual Guard.
My leg goes up, and my foot connects with the crotch area of the Guard’s white outfit.
If the pain in my foot is any indication, the kick was strong. Had this been a soccer game, the ball would’ve flown far beyond the field.
The Guard stops.
Again, the visor makes it hard to see how I did, but I’m hoping the stop means he’s in pain.
Capitalizing on my success, I put my right foot behind the man’s ankle and push.
I’m hoping he trips and falls. When I used this trick back in kindergarten, Owen certainly fell.
The jerky motion and my foot’s odd position almost tip me over, but the Guard keeps his balance as though his feet are glued to the gray floor.
And just when I think things can’t get any worse, they do.
The Guard sidesteps, and before I fully understand what’s happening, my neck ends up in a chokehold between the Guard’s forearm and bicep.
Blood drains from my face.
I’ve seen this scenario in movies. It typically involves the hero sneaking up on the bad guy in an attempt to get rid of him silently. It never ends well for the bad guy.
The Guard squeezes.
I grab his arm to pry it away.
It’s like trying to pry apart welded pieces of steel.
Fighting panic, I attempt to inhale.
Nothing.
The Guard’s chokehold is preventing air from entering my lungs.
11
I kick backward, but the Guard dodges. I stomp on his foot, but the white spacesuit shoes must have steel toes, because he shows no sign that I hurt him. Instead, the Guard tightens his grip. My squirming doesn’t have any effect on him.
After struggling for a few seconds, I realize something rather odd. Though I haven’t taken a breath in at least thirty seconds, I’m handling the oxygen deprivation relatively well. In the IRES version of this fight, when the imaginary Guard choked me, my vision went white and I became faint almost immediately. Granted, that was a simulated experience and the Guard was using his hands, not this elbow grip, but given the game’s ultra-realism, I imagine the principle of choking someone to death would hold, and if so, I should be feeling what I felt then. Why isn’t it happening? Why do I feel relatively okay, with no signs that I’m about to pass out and die?
Then I remember the Respirocytes—the nano machines Phoe turned on inside my body. Naturally, when she returned my memory, she reactivated everything else, including that technology.
That must explain why I’m still okay, but without consulting Phoe, I have no idea how long I’ll last.
I’m not even sure if the Guard is blocking my air supply or the flow of blood to my brain. If it’s the latter, it might be bad. I can go a long time without air, but I’m less sure about having my blood flow restricted. The Respirocytes travel through my bloodstream, so even they can’t save me from blacking out if I stay in this position long enough—however long that is.
I formulate a quick plan.
Acting like someone who’s running out of energy, I lazily tug at the Guard’s forearm.
He keeps his hold on my neck.
I have no idea how long I’ve been in his grip or how much time it would take for a normal person to get so weak they’d stop fighting, but I hope the Guard doesn’t know those statistics either. It’s not something that’s useful in our violence-free society.
I slow my movements.
He doesn’t let go.
I let my body go slack, pretending to pass out.
The Guard keeps his hold on my neck.
My panic reaches new heights. If my bluff doesn’t work, he might stand here long enough to choke me to death—with or without the Respirocytes.
I fight the panic and the need to stiffen my body. I keep my limbs relaxed, the way someone who’s lost consciousness would.
Then I genuinely begin to feel faint, and with that, the panic returns with exponential intensity. In another second, I won’t be able to stand here, slack, pretending to be passed out. I’ll be forced to fight again.
The Guard loosens his grip and lowers me to the ground, careful not to drop me.
Through the slit in my eyelids, I spot the Stun Stick.
If I reach with my right hand, I might get it, but I’d give away my true condition. The problem is, he still has me in that chokehold.
I stall as the Guard lays me on my stomach and lets go of my neck.
Surreptitiously, I take a small inhale.
Though my lungs feel unsatisfyingly empty, I know I can rely on the Respirocyte technology to keep me oxygenated.
The Guard grabs my left arm and pulls it to the right.
I don’t fight him at first, but when I feel something click on my left wrist, I decide not to wait any longer. As swiftly as I can, I push up off the ground and leap for the Stun Stick.
Whatever the Guard snapped around my left wrist tightens painfully, and I realize I’m tethered to the Guard somehow. Reaching out with my free hand, I stretch my fingers to grasp the handle of the Stun Stick.
The Guard pulls on the thing tethering us together.
My left arm threatens to pop out of its socket, but my fingers close around the Stun Stick.
Swallowing a scream, I shove the Stun Stick into the Guard’s thigh and squeeze the button so hard the bones in my thumb crack.
The Guard slumps against me.
Sucking in a lungful of air, I turn around.
The thing on my left arm is some kind of handcuff, though instead of being made of metal, as depicted in ancient media, these are made of the same dull gray material as the Witch Prison’s walls. The Guard was holding on to the second cuff right up until I zapped him. I was lucky he never finished cuffing my right arm, or else I’d be toast.
I fiddle with the handcuff, but it doesn’t yield.
The ghostly Screen shows up in the air and tells me: Gesture for it to open the way you would a door. Then do the same to the Guard’s helmet.
I gesture hysterically at the cuffs.
Both the cuff on my hand and its empty cousin open with a loud click.
Emboldened, I repeat the motion at the Guard’s helmet.
There’s a hollow whoosh sound, and a gap appears between the Guard’s helmet and the neckpiece of his white outfit.
As a precaution, I unload another Stun Stick charge into him. He doesn’t react.
Content with my victim’s passivity, I take off his helmet.
The man’s eyes are closed and his hawkish features are calm, as though he’s taking a nap. His hair is mostly black, with only the beginning of gray at his temples. Like the other Guards, he looks like a younger Elderly. I hope that’ll allow him to survive the boatload of Stun Stick zappings coming his way.
I put aside the helmet and work on taking off the rest of his suit.
Phoe’s plan, for all its craziness, is simple: to make sure no one recognizes me as I make my way to the Elderly section, I’ll dress as a Guard. It worked for Fiona and Jeremiah, so the same idea should work for me. The crazy part was the cursing-assisted Quietude, plus the actual act of getting the Guard to giv
e up his suit.
When I finish with the man’s boots, I begin to undress instead of disappearing my clothes with a gesture, so I can leave the Guard dressed in something rather than naked.
Before I put on the Guard’s suit, I zap him with the Stick to make sure he stays knocked out.
I put on the helmet, and the world becomes dimmer but with a bunch of overlaying visualizations. This helmet has something like a Screen built into the visor. As cool as it is, I don’t dare play with it, at least not until I bring Phoe’s plan to its conclusion.
Haphazardly, I put my old clothes on the unconscious man. Then, using his handcuffs, I cuff his hands behind his back and make a ‘close’ gesture.
The restraints seem to stay put.
Now the hardest part begins. I drag the unconscious Elderly by his legs and pause every so often to zap him. I’m not sure if it’s from my adrenaline or the Respirocytes, but backtracking to my room isn’t as exhausting as I imagined.
When I get back to my designated Quietude room, I drag the Guard inside and thoughtfully put him on the bed. I zap him one last time, put the Stun Stick on my belt, and exit the room.
This is the last part of Phoe’s plan.
I make a door-closing gesture, and the door slams shut.
There’s a locking sound, then an unusual crunching noise. Phoe said she would jam the door once it was closed, so I assume that’s what the crunch was about.
The ghostly Screen comes to life and confirms that the door is jammed. It also informs me of where I should go to make sure I don’t run into any of ‘my fellow Guards.’
I run the whole way, which makes my trip out of the Prison last about a minute.
“Phoe?” I think as soon as I exit the final door. “Is this helmet preventing you from talking to me?”
“Not at all,” Phoe says, her voice coming from my right.
I turn and see her standing there, grinning as she looks me up and down.
“Your helmet isn’t attached,” she says and makes a closing motion with her hand.
I hear a click around my neck, and the controls in my visor really come to life.
A map of Oasis appears in my peripheral vision, as well as a million other inputs I don’t understand.
To top it off, the air smells different, ozone-like.