by J A Bouma
When a hand grabbed him and held him firm.
Allowing him to grasp the edge and pull himself up with Rebekah’s help.
Just as the door on the other side creaked open.
Now or never!
Alexander pushed himself up with all his might as Rebekah tugged, the rattly HVAC offering enough cover for them to complete the scramble before diving for a larger ventilation unit that sat near them.
They dove behind it as a pair of Enforcers in charcoal armor climbed out of the hole and began scoping the roof on the other building.
Alexander held his breath, fearful merely breathing would alert them of their presence on the other side. Rebekah looked like she was doing the same, her hand digging into his knee as they sat bunched up behind the HVAC unit and wedged against a wall to a covered entrance that led down below.
Felt like an hour, but within a few minutes, the Legion soldiers seemed satisfied and went back down below, the door crashing closed with another protesting creak.
Alexander exhaled a heavy breath and heaved another one, closing his eyes and running an anxious hand through his hair as he sat recovering.
“That was a close one,” Rebekah said, searching for her own breaths.
He chuckled. “You think?”
They stood, squeezing out from their hiding place and making for the door.
Alexander took a breath and tried it. The knob turned without issue and the door opened. He gave Rebekah a relieved smile, thanking the Lord above for his providential protection. They slipped inside and descended a musty stairwell that led into a utility room, mops and buckets thrown in a corner and the smell of cleaning chemicals hanging in the air.
Exiting, it looked like some small-part machine shop, an open floor plan with a low ceiling. They ran to a door at the far end, the opposite side of the garage they had just come from. An office sat empty, and a dirty window with a mesh wire similar to the one they broke through earlier looked out onto the street from the door.
They came up to it fast, leaning out of its viewing on either side but able to see the street.
Completely clear.
No cars, no people. Which made sense, given the city seemed to be locked down tight. Not even the platoon of Enforcers were out in front, which seemed too good to be true.
Rebekah had the best angle of view toward the garage. “Anything?” Alexander asked her.
“Nothing. Must be milling about inside or gave up.”
They waited some more, but Alexander wondered if they were pressing their luck. Best to get out while they could before the Republic sought answers from adjoining buildings.
He took a breath and nodded to Rebekah. “Shall we?”
She moved to the other side of the door behind him. “After you.”
He flipped a deadbolt to unlock the door and grasped the handle. Turning it slowly, he eased the door open. Popping his head outside for a look.
No Enforcers yet, but a few people were walking briskly across the street. One solitary elder, a couple huddled together, and a trio of women with heads bowed and mouths moving in hushed tones. A group of children scampered from the other way with a ball, nearing the garage and heading their way. What you’d typically expect in a city, but the adults seemed to be on edge.
As the children neared, Alexander saw his window. Without consulting with his partner, he stepped out onto the street and motioned for Rebekah to follow.
The kids rushed toward them with laughter and taunts, the ball being passed from front to back in some sort of game.
Alexander closed the door. The pair rushed out ahead of them, hugging their cases tight against their chests and hoping the kids would offer some protection from behind as they made their way down the street, holding their breaths and praying for safe passage.
They made it two blocks before the kids hung a right toward the basin, taking their ball with them and their protection from Enforcer eyes.
The pair quickly crossed the street toward a bakery that looked already closed for the day and slid inside a covered doorway, looking back and assessing their options.
“Looks like the Republic gave up then,” Alexander said, thankful they escaped with their lives.
“Think we fooled them enough to think they had nothing in the first place, or do you think they know we were there and they missed out?”
“Either is possible. With the door window busted, they have to know people were inside at some point.”
She looked at him and nodded. “We better get going then.”
He nodded and led the way, darting around the corner and down a road that led back toward the Ministerium HQ ruins.
The plan was to get close to the former headquarters to a park that sat a kilometer away. They figured it would serve the best staging ground for their journey knowing they were near enough to the original site of the Church’s ecumenical meeting while being far enough away from watching eyes. Then again, they could end up in the middle of some home like last time—or worse: end up in the trunk of a tree or said home’s wall! Sasha didn’t think it worked that way, that phase jumping would sort of course correct itself, but it was all speculation.
Either way, Alexander felt conspicuous in their back-to-the-past getup weaving toward the jump site, Rebekah’s burlap dress with matching headscarf and his simple burlap shirt and linen pants with that cap seeming like red beacons now blaring their subterfuge intent and drawing everyone’s attention to them. Not that there were many people out and about to notice them, given the city was still locked down and Enforcers were roaming for whatever reason.
They cut across several blocks using alleyways between a smattering of last-century buildings of stone and wood and ultramodern ones of gleaming glass and titanium, making their way toward the park and nearing the direction of the Ministerium’s ruins.
So far, so good.
The sounds of activity were floating toward them through the streets up several blocks, more of the same grunting and rumbling, but it was hard to tell what direction. At least they hadn’t seen any sign of the Republic.
Alexander remembered the first time he had been dropped off with that gruff, grande taxicab humanoid over a year ago now, with that Tara Rodriguez character who would later betray the Ministerium to the very forces now fighting against them. Could hardly believe his eyes when Father Jim brought him down below the Church of the Dormition and then on to the conclave that met in a reconstructed Sistine Chapel several stories beneath the city. It was magical, if not a bit surreal taking part in yet another historic meeting of Ichthus’s minds to help right the Christian ship after a rise in apostasy threatened to undo the Church.
And there he was, heading back to the area to continue that work, ready to jump headlong back in time to—
Rebekah yanked his arm, pulling him backward with a jerk as they rounded a block.
“What the—”
She wrapped a hand around his mouth to quiet him. Then she pulled it away and put a finger up to her lips and pointed around the corner.
Alexander leaned around and spotted it.
Roadblock. Totally missed it in his daydreaming and focus on getting to the park.
Just one Destroyer with two Enforcers milling outside, then another up top manning one of their powerful Neutralizer cannons. Lots of firepower for a simple roadblock. Why, was the question. Seemed more like they were cordoning it off. Again, for what reason was the question.
Then he realized where they were.
It was only a few blocks beyond that the Ministerium’s HQ used to sit. He stole another glance and saw the devastation now, which was a blank slate of dirt and some trees. All the rubble from the Ministerium’s security measures that detonated the building had been cleared away, the crater filled in. It was as if it had never sat there to begin with for all those centuries. The Republic made sure Solterra was wiped clean of its memory.
And Panligo, no doubt—even his father.
Now some makeshift structu
res stood behind the Republic’s roadblock, several Legion officials and other unmarked personnel going about their business.
Rebekah poked her head over Alexander’s shoulder. “Why the firepower for an empty lot with a handful of tents?”
He went to answer when a magnacar, sleek and silver, rushed past them from behind toward the roadblock.
They startled and stumbled back, their heads and chest filling with alarm at being spotted. They stood clear of the entrance to the street, recovering their breath and waiting for a response, some sound of rushing boots or shouts of intercepting command that would alert them they’d been seen.
Nothing came.
“Let’s get out of here,” Alexander said.
Rebekah nodded. “Agree.”
She edged to the building corner, then waited for an all-clear visual, making sure the Enforcers were busy with something other than looking their way. Getting it, she darted across, clearing the threshold into the next alleyway.
She put up a hand for Alexander to wait while she ensured the coast was clear. Took a minute, but she finally motioned for him to come.
He did, darting across the street but not before taking one parting glance toward the cleared ruins of the Ministerium HQ.
And spotting someone he absolutely did not expect to see in those parts.
He almost faltered his steps at the sight, disbelieving his eyes, but he made it across, heaving a breath and sighing before reaching around the corner for another look.
“What is—”
This time Alexander put up a finger to quiet Rebekah. He glanced back and put two fingers toward his eyes, then motioned around the corner. He stepped back for her to confirm what he had seen.
The startled breath confirmed it.
“Is that who I think it is?” she asked lowly.
A cold dread spread down Alexander’s body at the sight of exactly who she thought it was, her wide eyes telling it all.
Apollos Nicolai.
They stole another confirming glance. It was him, tall with wide shoulders and that mane of blond hair, with high cheekbones and the equine nose.
Coming up behind him was Dominic Weiss, the former Ministerium cardinal who had architected the schism in Ichthus and helped birth Panligo. Or so they had thought before they learned Alexander’s father, Martin Zarruq, was the true brains behind the religion’s hostile takeover of all others, including the Church. Weiss rested a hand on Apollos’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear.
With wide eyes, he and Rebekah looked at each other, communicating the exact same pressing question.
What were they doing here?
Apollos and Dominic. Riding together into an area secured by Enforcers. Into the former Ministerium HQ!
Alexander and Rebekah simply watched them for a while from the edge of some convenience store—waiting, discerning, intuiting what it was the former members of the Ministerium were playing at. For a while they simply convened with some of the personnel milling about the site. The pair couldn’t make sense of it, given how far away they were.
Alexander ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “What the heck is going on? I can’t make anything of their conversation.”
Rebekah turned to him with a raised brow. “What, you’re not a mind reader, Master Zarruq?”
He smiled at her. “Very funny. What, pray tell then, do you suppose they’re going on about? Why are they here, at the grave of our former HQ?”
She shrugged. “Beats me. Perhaps there is some excavation work going on? Trying to sift through the rubble of our ruined headquarters for intel on the goings on of the Ministerium? Knowledge is power, as they say, and what better way to run the Republic’s Purge than to leverage what we left behind to wage their war?”
Alexander considered this, eyeing the men engrossed in some conversation with a tall, broad-shouldered Legion with combed silver hair in a cream-colored suit, patches on his chest showing him to be of some rank.
Perhaps…
“But weren’t Father Jim’s countermeasures supposed to eliminate such a problem, incinerating and destroying the evidence?”
“That’s what I had understood. But supposed to eliminate and actually eliminate are two different scenarios. Obviously, something’s brought them back to the site of Ministerium operations. For what...that’s the question, isn’t it.”
Yes. It was.
Couldn’t make sense why Apollos and Dominic would be back at the leveled Ministerium HQ. Now he didn’t care. Only thing that mattered was stealing into some hidden place that would let them jump to the past and retrieve the memory to the central element of Ichthus’s faith: the Nicene Creed, defending the deity of Jesus Christ. That’s what mattered, so they couldn’t take their eye off that ball.
But where? And how would they avoid the Enforcers roaming around, much less make the jump back to the past?
Rebekah grabbed Alexander’s arm. “Look…”
He peered around the corner again to see Apollos and Dominic back at their magnacar. Some sort of case had been hoisted up on its hood. Silver and not much bigger than their own cases they had been lugging around all day.
“What the bloody hell is that?” Alexander muttered, squinting for a better view but not finding any.
“Whatever it is,” Rebekah said, “maybe it’s the reason they returned to the Ministerium’s HQ.”
Perhaps…
He glanced behind toward the west, the sun beginning to edge toward the horizon now and cast long shadows across the city with a deep orange glow.
“Regardless, our time is running out.”
Rebekah smacked her case. “Pretty sure we’ve got all the time in the world with these things.”
He laughed. “Good point. But the longer we stand around, the greater chance we have to being picked up by those roaming Enforcers.”
The grunting rumble of a Destroyer echoed from up the block, the darkened nose of the menacing beast poking out and bending toward them down the magnaroad.
Alexander pulled Rebekah back inside the block in time, but it also sent him jumping into action.
“Come on!” he said, snatching his black case from the ground and motioning farther inside the alleyway. She did the same, the pair running until they slipped inside a narrower corridor slicing between a high-end clothier and a wine bar.
The rumble echoed back toward them through the corridor of buildings, but then it passed, the beast moving on.
He sighed and leaned against the wine bar wall. “That was close.”
“I’m not so sure the park is a good idea anymore,” Rebekah said, taking a breath herself. “With these Destroyers and the Enforcers roaming about, I doubt we’d even make it there, let along make the jump to the past.”
“Agree. But now that our jump point is pretty well cut off, now what?”
Rebekah turned back toward where they had come. “How about the basin we traveled across to make it into the city?”
He turned to follow her gaze. “What do you mean?”
“If I remember it right, it used to be a massive lake. Lake Ascania. Seems like it has served us well in past missions making the jump through time along waterfronts.”
Alexander snorted a laugh. “I seem to recall how well that served us on our jump back a mission or two ago, me nearly drowning at the bottom of the Mediterranean!”
Rebekah shrugged. “Good thing I was there to save you.”
He smiled, the memory of her giving him mouth-to-mouth surfacing. “Yes, good thing. But the Enforcers, what about them?”
“I’d imagine they’ve moved on by now. Besides, we’ve gone fifteen, sixteen blocks over by now. I’d say we head straight back that way—” She gestured down the street toward an open front that edged the basin. “Then go from there.”
Alexander considered this, frowning at the thought of returning anywhere near the swarm of Legion knuckleheads, but it was clear it wasn’t much better where they were at.
Another r
umble grunted toward them from behind, much closer now—sending them scrambling farther into the shadows.
It roared past but wasn’t a Destroyer. Just an aging, sagging magnacar model from last century. But all the reminder that they needed to move out.
So they did, hustling down a magnaroad that lead toward the basin, weaving inside covered doorways and alleys if they suspected danger, darting across blocks to other streets. Running toward the basin now, it appeared to be a park the closer they got, which meant there would be a bathroom or maybe a maintenance building they could use for cover from unsuspecting eyes.
The trees were tall and full of leaves, the grass long and soft and green, smelling of lilacs and honeysuckle coming off a warm breeze gusting through the paradise. An unexpected find but not entirely, given that parks were a major feature of the Five-Year Plan Solterra offered pretty much every five years since the Reckoning a few decades ago.
Blessedly, the park was empty. Not a soul to be found. Again, made sense given the roadblocks and checks, even the Legion seemed absent. Probably too preoccupied with the pair of preening knuckleheads back at the former Ministerium HQ. Regardless, Alexander was just grateful for the providential light shining down on them now, considering what they had endured earlier.
And there was what looked like a bathroom! A small structure painted brown down at the far end of a path along the edge of the basin nestled inside a grouping of three rather large oaks, boughs thick and bending, offering a canopy that would shroud the facility from view.
He followed Rebekah toward the building. She came up to it fast and went to open the door, glancing around first for signs of prying eyes. Alexander joined her, holding his breath as they waited.
Finding none, she tugged at the handle.
Moment of truth.
It swung open.
They let out a collective sigh and rushed inside. There wasn’t any lock they could find to latch them inside, but a large single handicap stall offered enough privacy. It stank from lack of ventilation and air conditioning. Gaseous refuse clawed at Alexander’s nostrils, feeling like defecation was clinging to his lungs. He was just thankful for the open door, and ready to get to it.