“It’s like it’s abandoned,” Magnus said, holding his rifle at ready.
We walked past the gates, toward the dark prison.
NINETEEN
The main doors were tall and double wide, large enough to roll through supplies. Magnus was ready to blast them open, but Leslie held up a hand and tested the handle. It depressed, and she pulled the door open.
“This is odd.” Mary looked around, pointing at a camera in the corner. There was no light on it, and it didn’t move with us. Was anyone watching? Wind blew around the building, pushing light snow over us. Visibility of the area was poor, but that might help us get out of there.
“I’d planned on Jeff getting us a ship. How do we move this many?” I asked, hoping someone had a better idea than I did.
“First we see how many we’re talking about,” Magnus whispered, getting a dirty look from Leslie. He ignored it. “A place of this importance might very well have a ship parked out back.”
The entry was dim; even the backup emergency lights had expended their battery charges. There was an old bulletin board on the wall, half empty, and a depressing dirt-covered entry mat.
“Where the hell are the guards?” Magnus asked.
“If they’re still here, they aren’t doing a very good job of keeping anyone out. Hopefully, they did a better one of keeping them in.” I got a glare from Leslie. “I didn’t mean it like that. We’re going to find anyone left and get them out of here.”
The door closed behind us, clicking ominously. There was finality to the sound in the otherwise silent entryway. Mary jumped, smiling nervously in my direction.
The mud room, as I thought of it, had two more doors leading into a hallway we could see through the metal-lined glass. Leslie moved ahead, impatient to find her people. I expected the push lever to stop firm, keeping us from entering, but it moved, the door opening easily.
Leslie started forward, but Terrance reached an arm out to slow her. “It’s not going to do us any good to run in with guns blazing and get ourselves killed. We need to scope it out first.” She pulled away from him but heeded his advice, falling back and letting Magnus take the lead.
Magnus looked like he’d done this a thousand times, so we followed him, moving as a unit down the hall, keeping close to the wall as we did so. We passed a vacant reception desk; an old boxy computer monitor sat there, a reminder of the past. If I didn’t know better, I would have said Jeff had been pulling our chain the whole time. He’d sent us to the wrong prison.
Our LEDs illuminated the way, beams jostling up and down on the walls as we moved, shadow figures dancing in our wake.
“I hear something,” Mary said, and Magnus stopped, then held a finger in the air. We all stopped, and my heart thumped in my eardrums.
There was a faint noise coming from down the hall. It wasn’t much, and I couldn’t place what the sound was, but someone was inside the prison. We moved along, the tension thickening with each step. The clinking noise grew louder every ten seconds, and in a minute, we were past all of the offices at the front of the building. Doctor’s office, warden’s office, staff change room, lunchroom – all showing signs of recent use.
“They’ve abandoned it,” I said.
“Someone’s still here,” Mary replied. The next set of doors led us to a guard station, and a large metal door stood between us and the wing of prison cells.
“Give it a try, Leslie. You have the magic touch.” Magnus moved out of the way, making room for the smaller hybrid woman. She tugged at it, but it didn’t budge.
“Locked,” she said.
“The keys have to be around here somewhere.” Magnus started to rifle through drawers.
We all set to different parts of the room, sifting through paperwork and desks. I found an assortment of poker chips, half-full flasks that sloshed as I slid them out of the way, and a couple of erotic Russian magazines that looked like they were from the eighties. No keys anywhere to be found.
Jingling metal rang from the other side of the room, and Terrance looked pleased with himself, like he’d just won a prize on a game show.
“What’s behind door number one?” I whispered in a low voice.
“What?” Mary asked.
I just shook my head, waiting while Terrance inserted the metal key and turned it. With a click, it unlocked, and he pulled on the bars. They slid open, and Terrance walked through the opening.
“Stop where you are!” a panicked voice called from behind us.
I spun, pulse rifle ready to fire. Slate’s training took over again, and my finger settled on the trigger ever-so-lightly as I gauged my target.
A haggard man approached us, his face red with exertion. He was holding a revolver, and an old one by the looks of it. A white beard covered most of his face and neck. I almost fired, but there was something in his eyes that made me lift my finger off the trigger.
“Don’t let them out!” he yelled, panting as he came in the room.
“What happened here?” I asked, looking around the disheveled guard’s room.
“They all left. When those damned aliens started arriving, everyone left. Said it wasn’t their job to babysit and get killed in the process,” the man said.
“So the Bhlat came, you all found out, and assumed they would come for the hybrids, killing you in their wake?” Mary asked, her voice taking on a calming tone.
He nodded. “Something like that.”
“How long ago was this?” she asked.
“About three months now.”
“Then why are you still here?” I asked.
“Someone had to keep them penned up after what they did to us. We heard the stories of them being the masterminds behind the Event and all. Then killing those people, Dean and Mary and whatnot. Way I figured it, if the aliens came for them, I’d be spared for keeping them safe and in one place.” He shuffled on his feet. From his perspective, he was doing something honorable, and it was self-preservation at the same time.
“Just put down your gun. We’ll explain everything,” Mary said.
He flinched, his gaze darting from face to face, and for the first time, he saw Leslie and Terrance.
“You. How did you get out?” He raised his revolver, shakily pointing at Terrance, who had stepped in front of Leslie.
“They’re with us,” I said. I glanced over at Mary. “You thought Dean and Mary were killed by the hybrids? I have news for you: you’re looking at us.”
He looked from my face to hers, and back again. “That’s impossible. You’re too young to be them. You don’t look a day over thirty-five.”
“It’s the truth. That big man…” I pointed to Magnus. “…is Magnus.” I lifted my chest, putting on a bravado this man might buy in to. “You’re looking at three of the Heroes of Earth. What vessel were you on?” I asked, using my old trick.
“That doesn’t matter anymore. We’re all doomed anyway.” His shoulders slumped, and his gaze lowered to the floor for a moment. Mary went for him, racing to him with her shoulder ready to plow into his, but he spun with far more agility than I would have guessed. Mary went past him, her momentum too much to slow, and he turned with his gun pointed at her.
A red beam lashed out from behind me, striking him in the back just as his gun went off. He went down in a heap and stumbled onto Mary.
I rushed forward, rolling the man off of my fiancée, careless of his condition. She was all that mattered. My throat went dry, and I said her name in a croak, seeing blood on her uniform. Her eyes opened and she grimaced.
“Fast for a skinny old guy,” she said, feeling her abdomen and chest. “It’s his blood. Lucky for me, he’s a poor shot.”
“We didn’t have to kill him,” I said, helping Mary up.
“You want to let that raving lunatic walk around with a gun?” Leslie asked. She was already going for the opening in the bars. “We don’t have time for this.”
The hybrids took the lead, Magnus close behind them. He took a quick look ba
ck at the body on the floor and shook his head. “What a waste,” he muttered, and kept moving.
Another body. But given the choice, it was going to be a stranger on the ground instead of my beautiful Mary. I didn’t even ask which one shot him. It wasn’t important.
I grabbed his gun and tucked it away into one of the half-full desk drawers and looked to his belt for a keyring. A guy like this would always keep the keys to the cells close at hand, and from the looks of this place, automation wasn’t in the budget. I found the ring in his pocket but tied to his belt on a leather strap. Pulling out a knife from my boot, I cut the hide and took the keys.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked when no one else was in the room.
Mary looked down at the dead man and back at me. “I’ll be better when we’re back on New Spero, picking tomatoes and having tea on the porch.” The skin at the sides of her eyes crinkled as she forced a smile at me, and I leaned in, giving her a kiss on the lips.
“Me too.”
“Over here!” Magnus called from a way away, his voice carrying to us easily.
I ran to him, unsure of what to expect. What I saw was heartbreaking.
Leslie was fumbling with the locked bars, but the key she had didn’t fit. She was crying, a soft sob as she struggled to open the lock. Beyond it, a dozen or so hybrids were in a mess hall. A couple were lying on tables. Others sat together, heads low to the tables, none of them speaking.
One of them looked up, saw us, and put her head back down like we were nothing more than an apparition. Another one – who looked like Terrance, only ten years older and gaunt – looked toward us and stood up on shaky legs. “Are you real?” he asked, his voice a gravelly whisper.
“Brother!” Terrance called through the bars. “We’re here to bring you to paradise.” The excitement and energy in Terrance’s voice was electric. I took the keys in my hand and went to the lock, trying them one by one until one inserted and turned to the side. Leslie slid it open and rushed into the room.
“Where is everyone?” she asked one of her people, who were still coming to, realizing something important was happening. They seemed like zombies, their skin gray, the flesh tight against their bones. It was horrifying, and we’d done this to them. Humans had locked them up to waste away.
The man who’d first spoken was hugging Terrance, and he broke free to answer the question. “This is all of us.”
TWENTY
“What do you mean, this is everyone? When we left the compound on Long Island, there were twenty times this many.” Terrance stood straight, his posture rigid and his fist cocked like he was ready to punch something.
All of them were now over beside us. Mary had already gone with Magnus to find food from the guard areas for these sad souls.
“They left us here. We heard the guards say something about the Bhlat being here, and within a week, they were all gone except some sadistic bastard. We begged him to let us go, and he said it was his duty to keep us locked up. When we realized he wasn’t going anywhere and wouldn’t let us go, we begged him for food. We had a little bit stashed away here, and he wouldn’t dare come inside with no backup, so we ate for the first couple months. Now we have nothing left. You’ve come at just the right time. Steve died this morning.” The first one to speak to us had called himself Byron. His hair hung in his face in greasy clumps as he told us his story.
“I’m so sorry. We thought we would help by leaving.”
“It is you two. Terrance and Leslie, our fate sealers,” one of the women said, her voice so weak it came out like a whisper.
Leslie already looked a wreck, but that comment set her over the edge.
“We couldn’t have known!” she cried. “We were trying to improve our future.” She slid to the ground, her face in her hands.
“All you did was give us a bigger target than we already had, and we didn’t think that was possible,” Byron said, the others nodding along.
“This isn’t all their fault. Were you all on the vessels, piloting our people to their deaths?” I waited for a response that didn’t come. “Humans didn’t trust you from the start. Would you have? If the Kraski had suddenly told you they had a change of heart and they wanted to be your friends, would you have listened?”
“No,” the woman said, abashed.
“Then cut these two some slack. They found a world for you to go to. The only glitch was that the wormholes messed with our timelines. We’re going to get you food and water, then take you to your new home. Let this be a new bridge to your future, and let your past go. Mourn for your losses and be grateful for your lives, because we’re all lucky to have them at this point.” The speech was a little overdone, but I meant every word of it.
“A new world?” one of the others asked. “With sunlight?” He raised his face to the dark ceiling, closing his eyes like he was feeling the rays of the sun on his pallid skin.
“Yes, my brother. With sunlight, and rivers, and food aplenty. We live there among others, the Deltra included.”
“Don’t forget swamp monsters,” I said under my breath, getting a glare from Terrance.
“Deltra? What the hell are you doing with them?” Byron asked.
“They weren’t all evil. Even those ones were only doing what they needed to keep their people alive. Even Dean likes Kareem, right?” Terrance looked at me, raising his eyebrows in a signal saying he needed support.
“Sure. He’s a stand-up guy. In an ‘engineer weapons of mass destruction’ sort of way.”
They looked unsure, but the subject changed when Magnus and Mary came back with a duffel bag of supplies.
Magnus dumped it out on a table. Water bottles and bags of chips with Cyrillic script on them fell out. The hybrids scrambled for them, and my heart sank, feeling terrible for them. I couldn’t wait to see their faces as we left the portal and walked onto their new planet.
Thinking about it made the urgency increase. “Gather anything you need, and let’s leave,” I said.
“How are we going to get everyone back?” Magnus asked.
“The transport isn’t big, but there are only twelve of them.” Mary scanned the group as she spoke. “By the looks of them, they won’t take a lot of room. I think we can make it work.”
“What about Dinkle and his pilot?” Magnus asked.
“I think we have a good spot for them just around the corner.” I followed his gaze to a cell just beyond the mess hall. “We’ll leave them a little water and food, of course. It’s more than they deserve.”
Soon a line of hybrids in tattered clothing, smelling like death, followed us out of the prison, their eyes wide as they walked past the guards’ station and into the main halls. Byron set his hand on the whitewashed cinder blocks making up the wall, looking like he was about to pass out. I set my hand on his bony back and he turned to me, eyes glistening.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You didn’t deserve this. We’ll make it right.” I knew we could never make it up to them, but even though I wanted that Bhlat homeworld portal location, this was important. I was glad Kareem had made us barter for it. These people needed our help.
Snow blew on us as we pushed out the entrance doors, the hybrids covering their eyes from the bright light of the Siberian morning. They weren’t dressed for the cold, and we ushered them quickly to the ship. Magnus and Terrance hauled Jeff and the pilot out of the transporter.
“What are you doing?” Jeff asked, his face covered in blood from his head injury. “You can’t leave me here. The Bhlat are expecting me.”
“Have they seen you before?” I asked nonchalantly.
“No, when would I have met…” He seemed to catch on and hung his head.
“Tell us what you were supposed to do, and we let you live,” Magnus said, standing over the tied-up man.
He looked defiant, and Magnus gave him a light kick. Jeff didn’t need to speak, because the pilot did.
“He was going to take you to them, and in exch
ange, he was promised he would live like a king among their people. I heard the conversation. I had nothing to do with this. I’m just a hired hand.” The pilot looked up with pleading eyes.
“Fine. Put Dinkle in the back, leave this guy tied in the guards’ room. We’ll call for someone to get him later,” I said, knowing I had no one to call.
“We’ll bring them,” Terrance said. He and Leslie grabbed them by the arms, hauling them both to their feet.
We loaded the hybrids into the transport; I glanced back at Leslie as they entered the prison again. They came back out just as we had everyone set, Mary in the pilot’s seat and Magnus and I squished beside her. From the grim look on Terrance’s face, I wasn’t about to ask how it went. I really didn’t want to know.
With the sun behind the clouds, and a small ship full of potent-smelling hybrids, we lifted off the snow-crusted ground on our way back to Egypt and the Pyramids of Giza.
In a cramped hour, we reached our destination, my back aching from being squished into my seat. When the doors opened, we saw them: ships lowering into our atmosphere. They were bulky, reminding me of the oil rigs used to dig in the ocean.
Magnus stated the obvious. “That can’t be good.”
“We need to hurry,” Mary whispered.
I hoped Kareem was still alive when we got back.
____________
Kareem slowly opened his eyes, blinking away his sleep. He looked surprised to see us, but it quickly gave way to a coughing fit. An attendant held a cloth to his mouth for him, and it came away with flecks of blood on it.
“You did it?” he asked once his breathing was back under control.
“We did,” Mary answered.
“How are our friends doing now?”
I wasn’t sure how he would react to the story, so I elected to keep it as simple as possible. “They’ve been through a lot. Only twelve came back with us.”
New World Page 15