Tris was impressed. All he’d done since escaping the Pit was shower and nap.
Still, he’d come up with the plan that was hopefully going to get all these people to safety.
He just had to convince Àurea it was better than all the preparations she’d been making…
In the end, it was as simple as making the offer. Though Àurea herself had no desire to visit Earth, she was well aware of how excited her people would be. In a remarkably short time the first group was ready to go, lined up in the corridor with whatever supplies they could carry.
Tris stood in front of the Portal and stroked the edge of its frame with a finger. He still wasn’t sure what mechanism activated it; whether it was his presence or his physical touch, his dad’s genes or his Kharash ones. Whatever the case, the Portal came to life with an almost imperceptible ripple to the darkness. Tris swallowed; it was always unnerving to look into those inky depths, no matter how often he did it.
Kyra led a string of twenty refugees into the docking bay and over to where Tris stood, transfixed by the mirror.
“Everything alright?” she asked.
He shook his head minutely. “There’s nothing right about this. I get the chills even thinking about going through there. Especially now we know what’s on the other side… Did you ever feel watched when going through?
She put her hands on her hips. “Tris, look at me. I used to feel Blas watching me every time I walked past him. I feel you watching at me sometimes, and you’re dating one of the scariest women in the galaxy. If I can cope with being watched, so can you.”
“Ha! Yeah well, it doesn’t help that everything you own clings to you like spandex. You might want to think about buying some baggy clothing while we’re on Earth.”
She mimed shock. “But where’s the fun in that?”
The refugees clustered around the Portal, and Tris told them what to expect. He mentioned the cold sensation, but left out the part about vague perceptions of ancient evil. Then he turned to stand before the frame again, studying the movement in its depths. He took a deep breath. “I’ll be watching for you,” he said to Kyra.
She winked at him. “I know it.”
And he stepped into the darkness.
This time, perhaps because he was braced for it, the chill didn’t seem as bad. As always he blundered out into a closet full of his dad’s finest shirts; the sensation of ice-cold silk draped across his face was more panic-inducing than the trip trough the Portal.
He quickly cleared the way for the rest of the travellers, leaving the cupboard doors open, too. The first of them — a nervous looking young girl, followed straight away by her mother — were already sitting down at the old wooden table as Tris climbed the stairs to the basement door.
He’d left it locked, bolted and barred, and was extremely relieved to find it the same way. Along with his uncertainty about turning the Portal on, he also never figured out how it turned off.
Pulling off the bar, he slid back the bolts and turned the key. He had no idea what time it was in England, but there was a pretty good chance his friend Mark would crap his pants no matter when it was.
Tris tip-toed out into the hallway and made for the kitchen. Someone was definitely in there…
A tall, well-groomed man in a suit.
“Shit!” Tris cursed, grabbing for the glaive affixed to his back.
“SHIT!” yelled the intruder, spinning around — dousing Tris in milk and corn flakes in the process.
It was Mark.
“Shit, Tris! You nearly killed me!”
“You’ve no idea,” Tris gasped. “What the hell is all this? You going to a funeral?”
“Ah… no mate, not exactly. It was last time you were here, you seemed to have gone all serious and stuff, so I thought… well, you know, might be time to sharpen up a bit. Give up stealing stuff. So I got a job.”
“You got a…?” Tris could hardly believe his ears. “You got a job? Mark, who the hell would give you a job?”
“Hey! Love you too, buddy! It’s just an admin thing in an office. No biggie. Less responsibility than being a Prefect at school.”
“Like you were ever a Prefect.”
“I could have been!” He laughed. “But it was too much responsibility!”
Tris chuckled as well, and brushed at the soggy mess on the front of his tunic.
Mark watched, wrinkling his nose up. “Speaking of funky outfits, what the hell have you got there? You’ve been shopping at car boot sales again?”
“Mate, you have no idea. I can’t seem to hang on to a set of clothes for more than a day. But I’m loving the new ‘respectable’ you. That suit looks good on you. Where’d you get it?”
Mark re-settled the jacket. “Stole it.”
With first contact made, Tris felt a lot better about the whole situation. He apologised to Mark for ruining what was possibly the single most adult choice his friend had ever made — then got him to call in sick.
“The thing is — and please don’t ask me how to explain this — but I’ve got some people in the basement that need… looking after. Basically I thought, if you’re not doing anything, you could help out — bring them food, clothes, stuff like that.”
To his credit, Mark didn’t bat an eyelid. “Yeah mate, no probs. In the basement, eh? How many of them?”
“Ah… about two-hundred and seventeen.”
Kyra was the last to come through. Her appearance in the kitchen signalled to Tris that the exodus was complete. It also had a galvanising effect on Mark, who’d spent the last few minutes eating his corn flakes in a confused manner, stopping every so often to mouth, “two-hundred and seventeen?”
He leapt up, offering Kyra his chair, his cereal and his coffee in quick succession. She refused politely, but Tris could tell she was loving every minute. He even felt a brief pang of jealousy; messing with him was meant to be Kyra’s favourite pass-time, and he wasn’t super-keen to share.
But Mark was harmless enough, and a really decent bloke. Scruffy as hell, kleptomaniac and borderline alcoholic, but otherwise sound.
And anyway, Kyra had way too much on her plate to bother flirting. “Tris, we’ve got to start moving these people out,” she said. “I can’t go back for the next group until we’ve made sure these guys are safe. It’s going to be a long night at this rate.”
“It’s not even 8am,” Mark said, reaching out to flick the kitchen blinds open. Bright sunlight poured in — a rare enough phenomenon in Bristol. “It’s a cracking day,” he added.
“Bollocks.” Tris was less impressed.
“No way we’re waiting till nightfall,” Kyra said, leaning down to squint through the blinds. “That damn ship might kill us all by then.”
Mark looked at her, an obvious question on his lips. Tris sighed. “Look mate, can we just call it role play for now, and leave it at that?”
“Yeah…” Mark didn’t look convinced. “Only, you show me a role-playing group with chicks like that.” He jerked a thumb in Kyra’s direction.
Tris sniggered. He had a point. “Alright mate, look. Help us out with this, and I’ll tell you a secret that will melt your fucking brain. I’m serious! I’m talking aliens and shit.”
Mark stared at him, his mouth working silently. “Shit, Tris! Did you join the CIA?”
“Ha ha! Not in the slightest. What I’ve got is way better.”
Tris left the house first. He made a quick sweep of the street, walking up and down both sides whilst pretending to take the sun. It was a gorgeous day, with birds singing and the smell of freshly-mown grass in the air. He could almost believe that none of the last few months had really happened; that it had all been a particularly vivid dream brought on by too much booze and late-night Xbox.
Then Kyra strode across the road to join him, and his pulse quickened.
Thank God.
His life before all this had been so unremarkable he wanted to reach back in time and slap himself. All that staying under the rad
ar, keeping his head down, and for what?
Now he was a galaxy-spanning adventurer in the middle of an intergalactic rescue mission.
Or something like that.
It sure as shit beat unemployment.
“We ready?” Kyra asked.
He nodded. It felt good that she was treating him as a full team member now, rather than ignoring him until he messed up, then sarcastically explaining what he’d done wrong. He wasn’t about to start giving her orders, but he definitely felt that their relationship had shifted.
Perhaps he would become a Warden, if Oktavius requested it.
Kyra snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “Hey! Earth-boy! You still in there?”
He blinked. “Yeah, sorry! It’s just… it’s good to be back.”
She linked arms with him playfully. “I know what you mean. This is already my favourite mission of the month. Now let’s haul some ass and get these people to safety asap. I want an ice cream.”
6
The warehouse looked exactly as Tris remembered it. It still didn’t seem big enough to house a parked spaceship, but he couldn’t quite remember which spaceship they’d been using back then. Had he ever seen it from the outside? He couldn’t even remember how they’d lost that one… it was all a blur.
He took a casual stroll around the block, twirling his glaive around his fingers like a fidget toy. With the knife blade concealed, it didn’t look dangerous enough for anyone to comment on. Not that there was anyone around; the industrial estate was mostly abandoned, and had been for as long as Tris had known about it. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe Sera’s people had bought the whole place, just to keep people away.
Kyra had the warehouse’s small metal door open and was letting the refugees inside. Tris finished his circuit and went to join them.
The door led into a shabby reception room, which had clearly not been used in a while. Through another door, they came out into the main warehouse — a hangar-like space with a smooth concrete floor and walls of corrugated metal. It looked… like any other disused warehouse in the UK. Grubby and oil-stained, with rusting steel girders holding up the triple-height tin roof.
“Aha!” Kyra said in triumph. She’d found a heavy fire door in one wall, but when she opened it using a concealed keypad, it didn’t lead back outside. It led down.
Into the kind of place Tris had only read about.
One level down, every surface was white. Walls, floor, ceiling… gleaming, pristine and seamless.
There were rooms containing consoles, rooms containing all manner of supplies from food to clothing to weaponry…
And there were hangars full of vehicles. Several of them.
“Holy shit,” Tris said, after his second circuit. “I can’t believe all this is under here. There’s helicopters back there, for Sydon’s sake!”
Kyra smiled — perhaps at hearing him use her favourite curse. “Yeah, there’s a bunch of these places scattered about. At a guess, I’d say that’s why your dad picked Bristol.”
“Yeah… so what’s the plan? Leave these folks here and go back for the next bunch?”
Kyra pondered that for a few seconds. “I’m thinking, it makes more sense to get these people set up first. Once they’ve got everything they need, we can bring the rest in bigger groups.”
“What else do they need?” Tris waved his hands around. “Look at this place, Kyra! Hell, I want to live here.”
Kyra gripped his shoulder with fingers like steel. “We’ll find something they need. Trust me.”
“Oh. Okay then. I’ve got to get that money, anyway. Dad’s letter said it was Bristol Vaults, in Temple Meads.”
“Great!” Kyra let him go, and Tris rubbed his shoulder. “Is that a busy part of town?”
“There’s a train station there. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll manage to blend in with the crowds.”
“Yeah, blending in. Good thought.”
For some reason, Tris got the impression her mind was on something else.
They left the refugees exploring the base, with strict instructions not to leave. Tris was on the verge of telling them not to touch anything when he realised that these people had lived their whole lives in a space-faring society. The youngest child amongst them could probably operate the base’s equipment better than he could.
Back out in the sunshine, Kyra stretched and cracked her knuckles. “Okay, let’s hit the town.”
“Low profile, remember? We can’t just go around killing anyone who questions us. Not on Earth.”
Kyra rolled her eyes at him. “Tris, which one of us has decades of clandestine operations under her belt?” She shook her hair out, and the red and black streaks vanished. A vibrant rainbow took their place. “There! That’s better.”
Tris felt like it was his turn to roll his eyes. “What part of that is low profile?”
It took a good half-hour to walk to the bank. It was in a section of town Tris had never visited much — mostly because he couldn’t afford anything for sale there, and the security guards were too edgy.
“This is it,” he said, stopping outside an ornate edifice of pale Bath limestone. “I guess the ‘vaults’ part is underground…”
Kyra clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
Tris turned on the first step. “You’re not coming in with me? What if it’s a trap?”
“Set by your dad? For you?” Kyra swept her gaze around the busy street. “Trust me, if there’s a threat, it’s coming from out here. I’ll keep watch.”
Tris nodded reluctantly. “Alright. Hopefully when I see you next, I’ll be a millionaire!”
Kyra grinned at him. “I’ll be right here, I promise.”
Huge oak doors led Tris into an impressive marble-lined foyer. He‘d traded the weird clothes from Wayfinder for jeans and a t-shirt from his old bedroom, but he hadn’t felt so out of place since first meeting Sera on Homeguard.
He walked up to the front desk across a vast expanse of empty floor space. The clerk at the desk saw him coming and probably had time to make a cup of tea before he actually arrived.
“Ah, hi there,” he opened. “I got this… letter, from my dad.”
The man nodded soberly. Tris suddenly realised his story sounded like the most pathetic invention any street urchin could come up with. “He, ah, mentioned leaving me something… in a box. Here.”
The clerk gave a long, solemn nod. “Of course, sir. I’ll need so see some identification, if you please.”
“Oh yeah, right.” Tris fumbled in his pocket for his passport. It was the document he’d travelled Europe with, on the one real holiday he’d ever taken with his dad. He hoped it was enough. He’d never been able to afford driving lessons, so he didn’t have a license.
The clerk took the crumpled passport and typed into his computer.
Tris stood up straight and grinned at the man. He tried not to look suspicious — then worried that that was exactly what a suspicious person would do.
As always at times like these, a Star Wars quote formed unbidden in his mind: I don’t know, fly casual.
He let out the breath he’d been holding and propped an elbow on the marble counter.
The clerk didn’t bat an eyelid. “Yes, Tristan Andrews, we have your record here. Do you have the number of the box…?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Tris dug in his pocket for the letter, much read and re-folded. “It’s, ah… Box 210700.”
The clerk smiled graciously. “Yes sir, that’s correct. If you’d accompany my colleague, he will take you to the vaults.”
Tris looked around — he hadn’t even noticed the concierge approaching. Something about being back on Earth had made him forget about using the Gift. He almost contacted Kyra to tell her, but she’d only give him grief for it.
“If you’d step this way, sir?” The concierge held out an immaculate white-gloved hand. Tris nearly took it, before realising the bloke was just pointing out the way.
Wow, holding hand
s. That would be awkward. Must have happened a few times.
The young man led him through a number of enormous doors, winding deeper into the building. At some point Tris felt the stone closing in around him, and knew they were underground. Their journey stopped at a corridor lined with nondescript doors. The concierge took him to one of them — it didn’t even have a number on it to distinguish it from the rest — and unlocked it.
Inside was a comfy-looking leather swivel chair and a wooden desk. The back wall was lined with little doors the size of shoe boxes, each with its own lock. The concierge unlocked one roughly in the middle, withdrew a long steel box, placed it on the table, and left.
Tris waited until the door snicked shut before daring to open the box. After all, there was still at least half a chance it would blow up in his face…
Dad. He sent out a silent prayer. Dad, I wish you could hear me. I love you so much! I don’t know if you’d be happy with what I’m doing, or pissed off that I went with Kreon or… I don’t know. I just wish… a sudden sob caught at the back of his throat. I just wish you were here. God, I miss you so much! His shoulders shook, and tears trickled down his cheeks. Just imagine! We could travel the stars together with Mum in the Folly… we could do anything! Hell, you’d probably own half the galaxy by now…
The memory of his dad’s clone, Gerian, suggesting just such a possibility rose unexpectedly. Tris shuddered. That was not something he wanted to think about.
Wiping his face with the back of his hand, Tris steeled himself to open the box. He took a long, deep breath… then another.
And opened it.
Luckily, it didn’t explode.
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