The Archivist

by Tom D Wright

  “They told me to bring you some food,” I say with an apologetic tone, and when he reaches for the box, I let it slip out of my hands.

  The box lands on the floor and the man leans down to get it. I place the hypo on the Disciple’s neck and activate the spray. With a surprised grunt he starts to stand, but then, his movement continues into a backward fall.

  “K’Marr! Watch out,” Danae cries out.

  I look up to see who else is in the room: another Disciple on the other side of the room draws a sword and steps toward me. The hypo has an effective range of about two inches, so I toss the useless weapon aside and grab the nearest item within my reach, which is a chair that the first man probably sat in.

  The Disciple steps forward to jab and run me through with his sword. I barely have time to parry his thrust with the chair so that, instead of piercing my guts, the weapon sinks into my left thigh. When the man pulls back to try again, I hold the chair in front of me and charge.

  The sword gets entangled in the legs of the chair, and as I twist it the man loses his grip on the weapon and it clatters to the side. Raising his fists, he approaches me and we square off.

  My opponent appears to be younger, and he is probably counting on wearing me down. But I will take experience over youth, because he has not been to the places I have been nor seen the moves that I have learned.

  When he jabs at my head, I seize his wrist and pull him forward in a classic jujitsu throw, and the guard finds himself on his back. He is stunned for a moment, then shakes his head and rolls over as he scrambles to his feet. Growling, he charges with his arms spread wide to grasp me in a bear hug. I grab an outstretched arm and drop to the side, essentially turning his momentum into a head-on crash against the wall, which ends with a sickening crunch.

  The man drops, knocked out cold.

  I stand there, eyes darting about the room looking for further threats. Both men lie motionless on the floor, so I let my guard relax. That is when I hear Danae call to me, sobbing.

  In that moment, I do not care about the generator, or the Archives, or getting back to Sarah. What matters most in this world—the only thing that matters to me—is right here in this room. I just want to take her in my arms.

  I search my second opponent for a knife and crouch down to cut Danae’s restraints.

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” Danae sobs and flings her arms around me, knocking me backward off my feet so that she is sprawled on top of me. We untangle and she sits up, then reaches for my left leg, drenched in blood from my wound.

  “You’re hurt,” she says.

  “I’m probably supposed to say it’s nothing, but it definitely feels like something,” I admit as I sit up and prop my back up against the wall. “I don’t think it’s too serious, or you’d see blood spurting across the room. But I’m not doing much running. What about you, are you alright?”

  She looks thinner, and her hair is disheveled. The journey definitely took a toll on her; she has numerous bruises on her arms, along with a growing shiner around one eye that attests to some rough treatment. But she still displays that enchanting smile which first captivated me.

  “I’ve had better days, but I think it’s starting to look up. Let me check that wound.” She kneels and her face turns pale as snow when she examines my injury. “You didn’t by any chance bring that thing Angelina gave you, for sealing wounds?” she asks, and I shake my head.

  Then she bites her lip and uses the knife to slice up one of the guard’s shirts. “Don’t get me wrong,” she says, while tearing the cloth into several strips. “I’m glad to see you. But I told you to just get your machine thing back. What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t care about the generator,” I reply as she wads up another square of cloth into a compression bandage, then I grunt when she presses it against my wound. It is starting to hurt like hell now.

  “How will you get back to your wife?” Danae asks, as she wraps and tightens the strips around my thigh. She begins to tie the bandage, and I grasp her hands. I want her looking at me when I answer her.

  “I don’t care. Finding the generator, returning to Mars, none of that matters anymore. The one thing—the only thing I care about—is getting you out of here.” Motionless and silent, she stares at me. “Danae. I love you.”

  Her gaze remains frozen for a few more moments, probably as shocked as I am at the words coming out of my mouth. Then, several tears ease out of the sides of her eyes.

  “I love you too,” she whispers, then leans forward to give me a wholehearted kiss that seems to stop time.

  My arms wrap around her and I pull her against me, our mouths locked in oneness while I caress her flowing red hair. Then she pushes away and quickly ties the compression bandage around my thigh, which staunches the flow of blood. I reach down to examine her handiwork.

  “You did yourself a disservice, when you said you wouldn’t make a good nurse. That’s a first-rate battlefield dressing.” My leg is already starting to stiffen, so I use a chair to give myself leverage as I rise. The pain is sharp enough to take my breath away.

  “Would you hand me that?” I ask Danae, and point to the hypo spray.

  I set the device to yellow and give myself a half-dose. I want just enough to take the edge off without affecting my wits. Even with the spray, the pain in my upper thigh rivals that of my hand now. I use one of the mental exercises I learned to ignore the remaining pain. I am by no means a trained SEAL or Ranger, but my Archivist training included intensive sessions with a couple of former SEALs.

  Danae hands me the sword before we step over the tranquilized guard and move toward the hallway. She has her arm around me; I feel her body tremble.

  “How did you find me?” she asks.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but for now let’s just get the hell out of here.” We reach the doorway, and are about to step into the hallway when Danae pulls me back. I turn to look at her. She is crying.

  “Wait, I have to tell you something first. Before we go anywhere,” she says, wiping away her tears.

  “I’m sure it can wait,” I say impatiently, then tug on her arm. “Believe me, every minute counts.”

  “This is important. You need to know.” Then she just stands there looking into my eyes, as if the balance of the universe hangs in front of us. Clearly, she has something she must tell me.

  “Alright. What is it?”

  Danae takes a deep breath. “Remember that first morning on the ship to Entiak? When I said that you made me pregnant? Well, I wasn’t kidding.” She pauses, and I just stare at her. “I’m pregnant.”

  This is, without question, the last thing I expected her to say. “How is that possible?”

  Danae gapes at me in disbelief. “Really?! Well, my father was a doctor, and he explained that the man makes these little fishie things, so when a man and a woman…”

  “I know how it works,” I interrupt her. This certainly is not the time or place for Human Anatomy 101. “I’m just surprised, because we only slept together that one time. I just don’t understand how it happened.”

  “Well, the little fishes swim up the woman’s stream looking for her pond, then they…”

  “Yes, we’ll go over that later. Right now we need to get ourselves out of here.” I look down and touch her belly. “All three of us.”

  Now I have something else to shove into my emotional lockbox. This is not the time or place to wrap my mind around the fact that I am going to be a father. I have already realized that Danae is my number one priority. Now, if anything, the depth of my bond with her redoubles. So much so that it almost hurts to look at her standing there.

  I glance out into the hallway. The passage is clear, so we step out and start heading back to the stairwell. We are about halfway to the stairs when I hear numerous footsteps approaching from ahead of us. I pull Danae into one of the door-less rooms. This one has a row of desks standing on their sides. We crouch behind one of them as a small
contingent of men passes, heading toward the room I rescued Danae from.

  All the shit is about to hit the fan in one big dump.

  After they pass, I give Danae a hand up so we can leave, and hold her hand for a moment. “About you expecting. I’m glad you told me, and I’m glad I’m going to be a father. But why didn’t you tell me before, and why now?”

  She does not hesitate. “You were always leaving or planning to leave. I didn’t want you to change your plans for the wrong reasons. Saying you love me—that was the right reason.”

  There is obviously so much for us to discuss, and there truly could not be a worse place or time to do it. We head out into the hallway and as we reach the stairwell, I hear distant shouts from the direction where Danae was being held.

  Damn, everything has gone so well, up to this point. All we needed was five minutes, but I guess that was asking too much, since we only got about two.

  I urge Danae to run down the stairwell as fast as she can. I move as fast as I can, as well, but I am actually slowing her down.

  I glance up the steps as we round a flight. Damn it again, I am leaving a trail of blood that a five-year-old could follow. We reach the main level as running footsteps reach the stairwell above. With even a minute to spare, I would tell Danae how to find the access tunnel and send her ahead on her own while I lead our pursuers in a different direction. But we do not even have time to stop running.

  Before we continue down, I take a few hopping steps out onto the floor, which scatters some blood drops. Then I squeeze my leg and hope I can make it at least half a flight down without shedding any more blood. We resume our descent. Just as we get to the bottom, our pursuers pause; then it sounds like a couple of them continue on down. At least I tried—maybe I evened the odds a little.

  We come out on the basement level and head in the direction of the access tunnel. I know we will not get there before our pursuers catch up, but I want to at least move in the right direction. We pass several doors. The first two are either locked or rusted shut from disuse. The handle on the third one turns, and I swing the door open onto what seems like a large closet.

  I start to pull Danae in, but then I see dim candlelight and some movement at the back of the closet. Two Disciple brethren turn to face me in surprise, one of them with his robe up around his hips.

  Just my luck, barging in on a couple of gay Disciples.

  “Sorry, wrong door,” I say as I back out. At first they hesitate, but when they hear distant shouts, they drop what they are doing and move after us. I slam the door just before they get to us and one of them crashes into it.

  I grab Danae’s hand, and we dash down the hallway, but the Disciples emerge from the room just in time to join the ones from the stairs. We are almost at the doorway to the servants’ locker room—where I hope to make a stand—when several servants dash out just in front of us, in response to all the noise. Danae and I pull up short.

  We have run out of room to run.

  Robed Disciples encircle us and hold us at bay with their swords. Part of me yearns to explode into a frenzy of slashing as I wield the sword I confiscated upstairs, but I am no master swordsman. Over the years I have learned well enough how to handle one-on-one situations, but by no means do I have the skill to take on a whole pack.

  If I could ensure Danae’s escape and survival, I would not hesitate for one moment to fight and die at the end of these swords. But my certain death here would benefit my lover and unborn child in no conceivable way. On the other hand, I can escape a prison cell a lot more easily than I can a grave, and it would not be the first time I did so.

  With a sigh, I toss the sword to the floor in front of me.

  A gray-garbed servant dashes into the locker room and returns with a length of cord, which he cuts to length and uses to bind our wrists. Then the Disciples roughly prod us back down the hallway and up the stairs to the main level.

  There, we walk along the concourse that leads around the whole building, until we come near the front and they take us up a small flight to what appears to be the master club suite.

  Undoubtedly, back in the day, this suite was part of the complex of rooms where the college president entertained his guests. Now it belongs to Erde Vater.

  We are directed to sit on a cold, concrete bench as Disciples come and go. I am not sure how long we sit—perhaps fifteen minutes, or it could be a couple of hours—but based on the fact that they replace a couple of the torches during our wait, I think it is more the latter.

  At one point Danae leans toward me and whispers, “No matter what happens inside, I love you, and I’m just glad you came for me.”

  “No talking,” a guard threatens, moving toward us and hauling Danae down to the far end of the bench.

  Sitting here on a cold, hard bench, I think about what has transpired since I entered this building, what has changed, and how it has changed. Everything is suddenly, vastly more complicated.

  I am not sure how to respond to Danae. Do I tell her that I finally made contact with home, and that my wife waits to hear from me? Certainly not while we’re both facing possible death, but what if we somehow get out of this?

  I will not be less than completely honest with Danae, and then what do I tell Sarah, if and when I talk with her? That my heart held out for her for thirty years, but now it belongs to another woman?

  For now I simply reply, “I love you too, Danae.” At this moment it is the only truth that matters.

  Any further discussion is prevented when a Disciple comes back out and gestures for us to follow him inside. We pass through a pair of double doors and enter a large room, about as big as a tennis court. One side looks out over the arena and faces the stage. Seats are filling up rapidly now, and the performers on stage are shifting from warm-up to performance mode.

  Watching the preparations with his back facing us is a lean man dressed in black pants and shirt, without a robe or cape. Beside him stand several Disciples in plain black garb, along with one wearing a black cape that has gold trim, who I presume is Vater’s second in command.

  When we enter, the Disciple with the gold trim turns to face us, and Danae lets out a gasp. The man gives her a wicked leer as he says, “Bring them front and center.” It is Angie’s nemesis, Deep Throat.

  We stand for several minutes in the center of the room before the leader turns slowly to face us. His face is thin and drawn, with a sallow complexion and small, tightly drawn mouth. I cannot say where, but I have seen him before, under different circumstances. His eyes linger on me, and though his face does not register any emotion, I am certain I see a flash of recognition.

  “So, you came to rescue the lovely Archivist,” Erde Vater says to me, with a voice that is deep, low and although flat, still carries menacing overtones. “Is it because she’s an Archivist, or because she’s an attractive female? No matter, it changes nothing.”

  He points at me and waves his hand with a dismissive flip toward a far corner. He is done with me for now, so a couple of Disciples escort me to the side.

  Vater snaps his fingers. On this command, the door to the hallway opens and Franz Kaufstetter is led into the suite by a Disciple wearing a silver-trimmed cape. This must be the third-ranking Disciple.

  Franz is covered with dust, and his clothes are grubby from an extended trip; he has not had any time to clean up, or prepare for this meeting. He sees Danae and stumbles briefly before recovering his balance. When Danae sees her uncle, she gives a low cry of joy and starts to move toward him, but she is restrained by her guards.

  “Mr. Kaufstetter,” the Disciple leader smiles, and strides forward to greet the trader. “It is good to see you once more. I trust that you kept your word. The device, if you please.”

  When Franz sees Danae, his expression is surprise, but when Vater mentions the device, the man’s visage changes to embarrassment, if not outright shame. With a resigned sigh, the old man swings a small pack off his shoulder and pulls out the e-reader I gave to h
im in Entiak.

  Franz holds it out as he steps forward, and Deep Throat takes the device to examine it, then hands it to Vater. The leader hands it back disdainfully, and Deep Throat stashes it for safekeeping, in a satchel he carries over his shoulder.

  “So,” Vater states out loud, not to anyone, and yet to each one of us. “This is why so many people in that dreary little town of Port Sadelow suffered, some even losing their lives. You realize of course that we couldn’t let this information fall into the hands of those who would do us harm—not even ineffective, bumbling idiots who harbor delusions of grandeur. There is always a chance, no matter how minute, that one might actually achieve some measure of success through an unexpected stroke of pure luck.”

  Danae looks at her uncle in shock and horror as the truth dawns on her. Her uncle was a double agent all along. I wish I could say I am surprised, but I have seen too many double-crosses in my time.

  When I hauled her out of our tavern meeting back in Entiak, I felt something untrustworthy about him. I did not expect it to be this deep, but a lot of things make sense now, such as the note I found on the Disciple that ambushed us at the cave and why the Disciples showed up in Georges.

  Vater pauses to let his words sink in, then resumes. “The one thing I didn’t anticipate was that the device the Archivist retrieved would be worth so much more than what he gave to the underground. In fact, though he knows what it is worth to him, he doesn’t realize yet how much more it is worth to me.”

  “What about our agreement?” Franz asks, taking a step forward, before he is hauled up short by a guard.

  Walking over to a side table, Vater seizes a small pouch and tosses it to the trader. The sack jingles as Franz catches it. Then the merchant points to his niece. “What about her? You said she would not be harmed.”

  “I’m afraid it’s much too late for that,” the leader says as he shakes his head. “I do like to be known as a man who keeps his word, but unfortunately, the girl publicly declared herself to be an Archivist. My people now expect an offering to the Earth Mother, and I cannot disappoint, either them or the Goddess.”