by Vic Connor
The footsteps receded, jogging down the theater steps, heading for its ground floor. Only the sound of the door slamming shut released Niko’s breath.
“Phew!” Kiele wheezed, unfurling from beneath the console before leaning against one wall.
“That was too, too close,” Catherine cried. “Did you see how big that gun he had was? Oh my god. I was shot at.”
“It’s too late for cold feet now, lady,” Kiele said. “Let’s move. Cal’s waiting for us.”
“Cal?” Niko said. “Cal got out?”
Kiele smirked at him. “It’s Cal, dude. Of course she got out.”
Catherine led them down the steps to the bottom floor of the theater. On the way down, Kiele grabbed an abandoned Stingers jacket from one of the seats, then tossed it to Niko. “Put some clothes on. You look way too much like a test subject.” The jacket was too big for him but was warm at least. Down at the bottom of the theater, Niko craned his neck at the huge screen, still playing the Binary System Championship. The tank for the Stingers—the massive frost giant, Wayan—was fighting some oily Phaeton monster Niko didn’t recognize. After one last glance, he followed Catherine and Kiele as they slipped out a set of double doors.
The hall had a few scattered employees running for a queue down the hall, where two guards checked badges before letting the employees leave. They skirted around the line, and after cutting through a large, empty meeting room, they moved relatively unnoticed, keeping to more abandoned hallways. Kiele called in. “We’re on four by the theater, heading to the rendezvous now.” She put the walkie back on her belt, then spoke to Niko over her shoulder. “Come on, we’re almost—”
Kiele bumped into a Territoria employee, a beanpole of a man with a chinstrap beard. “Hey,” he said, affronted. “You’re going the wrong way!” He adjusted his t-shirt, which featured some Lovecraftian pun. “Wait a minute—you’re not employees! That’s a test subject suit. Hey! Guar—” the man’s voice got cut off when a lead pipe slammed into his lanky side. He fell over, coughing until a battered high-top sneaker stomped on his windpipe.
“I’d keep it down, if I were you,” crooned the one and only Calloway Jones, twirling the lead pipe loosely in one hand and pressing her shoe down harder when the guy gurgled at her. She had on dark jeans and a green tank-top that showed off her shoulders. She’d gained a little muscle since Niko saw her last.
“Cal!” Niko moved toward her, stopping just short of stomping on her skinny, protesting captive.
Kiele poked the guy with her yellowed tennis shoe. “How much HP you think you shaved off this poindexter?”
“That remains to be seen,” Cal said, pressing her shoe against his throat again. “Come on. We only have one group left.”
Kiele and Niko passed Cal, followed by Catherine, who leaned down and whispered, “Sorry, Greg,” to the employee. When they were a safe distance, Cal followed, backing away from the guy, who only groaned and rolled over, clutching his sides.
“How are we on security, Cath?” Cal asked, outstripping them to lead the way.
Catherine popped open her laptop and typed, lines of text reflected in her glasses. She twisted the fingers of her free hand, and her eyes darted from her screen to Cal and back. “Five minutes on the door locks, but the cameras will come back on any minute. I’ll ping Anna to see if—”
“Anna?” Niko froze in place. “Anna who? Is that the person turning all the security systems off?”
Catherine paused her typing to look over her shoulder at Niko. She bit her lip, and her leg jiggled. “Ah—”
Kiele pushed him back to walking again. “Anna Somova, dummy. We all know your mom is the master hacker who whipped up that special Mythic of yours. She has turned off the Vat alarm system, allowing us to log out many folks before hell was raised. Now come on, or didn’t you hear the part about the security cameras coming back on any minute?”
“Calloway,” Catherine said when she’d finished typing. “We overheard one of the guard’s walkies that they came on a group…”
“We lost C and D,” Cal said. Her back was to them, but her voice quavered.
“Lost?” Kiele squawked. “Both groups? That’s nearly forty people, Cal.”
“They got penned in by guards after the lockdown was lifted. There wasn’t anything we could do.” It was clear from her tone of voice that while Cal knew it was a fact, it didn’t make it any less hard to swallow. She directed them into an empty meeting room, locking the door behind them.
There was a small crowd of twelve or so kids inside, shivering in their wetsuits or else huddled in sweaters or lab coats. One of them was passing out hodge-podge clothing from an industrial-sized cooler. Cal turned to Catherine. “I need you to get ahold of Anna. Tell her we can’t do the shutdown tonight.”
Catherine hesitated, fingers over the keys. “We might not get another chance like this. If we don’t shut it down tonight, they’ll know we’re coming back for the rest.”
“Damn right, we’re coming back for the rest,” Cal said, brows turned down over glinting eyes. Catherine was cowed, hunching to type into her laptop, muttering urgent words under her breath.
“You can’t, ah, I mean, you shouldn’t shut the servers,” Niko said. “Not just because of our guys who got pinned down. How many people are waiting in the Queue? Hundreds? What will happen to them—will they get executed now?”
Catherine looked at him, tight-lipped. “We’re working on it.”
“Once out, we’ll expose what goes on here,” Cal said. “We’ll bring this system down. Catherine, your mom, many others still on the inside, we’re all working on it. They protected us for weeks. I trust them.”
I wish it were that easy, Niko thought. “So, you’re telling my mom? About not shutting down the servers? Or I can, y’know, speak to her.”
Catherine clasped and unclasped her hands over her keyboard. “It’s okay. Done. She won’t.”
“Thank you.” Niko looked around the meeting room at the faces of all the people crammed in. Unsure. Dazed. Some of them terrified. “What are we waiting for now?”
“The vans to get back from dropping the previous group off. Silver lining, we’ll get out faster than anticipated, I guess.” Cal took the chance to grab Niko’s hand, pulling him in for a tight hug. Her voice was cracked when she said, “I never thought I’d be so happy to see your bewildered face, comrade.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easy,” Niko said, patting her back. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Cal, but you’re awful…y’know, leaky ever since all this came down.”
Cal stepped back, thumbing a tear from the edge of her eye. “I don’t see how you aren’t. This whole thing is so insane.”
“But you’re a, that is, you were always so cool and collected when we were doing Hunts.”
“Hunts are a game, Niko.” She laughed a sad, mournful laugh. “They were important, sure, but not important like this. Lives are on the line. Don’t you think the big stuff is worth getting upset about?” She looked from Niko to the dozen other underweight kids, pulling on ragged hoodies and faded scrubs that put Niko in mind of his wardrobe before entering Territoria. “This is just a fraction of the people we broke out today,” she said. “All these kids, and the others already escaped in the vans… We saved them from a dangerous, damning lie. But as you said, there are hundreds still in the Queue.” She smiled a misty smile. “So forgive me if I’m a little emotional.”
“Do they understand what’s going on?”
“They start to remember pretty soon after getting out, so understanding isn’t really the problem. Some of them are grateful, and pissed at the Territoria people, like I was. Some just shut down.” Cal nodded at Kiele, who was helping hand out clothes now. “She acts casual, but she was kind of mess for a month, maybe longer. Just wouldn’t get out of bed. All that time, all her plans. She wanted to be a shoutcaster for the Phaeton League one day, and then she woke up one day and remembered that the Phaeton League wasn’t r
eal, that she was a criminal. Some people demanded to go back, ran off, surrendered to the guards, even flipped sides and started hunting us. We didn’t have the manpower to stop them. I don’t know what we’ll do with those people when we come back. Catherine’s right, it’ll be tougher the second time around, but we can’t just leave them here to die.”
“It won’t be harder next time,” Niko said. “Because now you have all of us to help.”
That made her smile, just a little.
Cal had a walkie as well, hooked to a belt loop, and now it squawked to life. “Vans are back, ready for extraction,” an intense male voice said. “We left them parked in the back. We’re heading back to the employee evac point before we’re missed. Keys in the sun visor. Going dark now.”
“Affirmative.” Cal put down the walkie and turned to the group. “All right, folks. We’re moving out now.” She unlocked the door, holding it open for them to file through, Catherine and Kiele showing the way. When Niko didn’t immediately fold into the flow of people, Cal nudged him.
“Jeny,” he said. “She was in the first two groups, right? The ones that already escaped?”
Cal’s posture shrank, and her eyes went to the carpet. “No. I put her with Hunk in C and D.”
It sent a cold freeze through Niko’s body. “Hunk…Hunk is alive? But…” He started to look back and forth, searching for another exit, ready to race through the halls screaming their names. Hunk was alive, alive, and they were just going to leave him?
Cal gripped him by the arm. “We can’t, Niko,” she said.
“We have to. We have to. Hunk, he won’t survive any more experiments.”
“You can’t scour the whole facility. They could be anywhere.”
“So call them on the—”
“We changed frequencies. That was the plan if anyone got caught. We can’t risk the guards hearing any of our communication. They aren’t supposed to call in to the new one unless they’re free and clear.”
Niko sagged as the last of the group trickled out to the hallway. Cal tugged on his wrist. “We can’t lose four groups trying to get two out. You remember our first Hunt? You went to protect Hunk, and both of you ended up out.”
“You just said that was just a game—”
“Exactly. I let you go then so you could learn why not to do it. But if I let you go now, I’ll have lost you and Jeny and Hunk and I can’t…” Her voice cracked. It was the first time Niko had ever heard Cal say she couldn’t do something. “We need to go, Niko.”
With a cough, a sigh, a snarl of rage, Niko assented, pushing past Cal and following the group into the hallway. She went with him, closing the door behind them.
With Kiele and Catherine at the front checking if the way was clear, the group ran down a short corridor to an emergency exit door. They pushed it open to a fire escape, descending the metal stairs single-file. They emerged at the back of the building, a vast field of brown, trampled grass that led out to a forest of dark pines. They were as hauntingly beautiful as Cygnus’ ghost pines were—Niko felt a wave of comfort wash over him at the sight of evergreens.
A pair of black vans stood parked in a gravel driveway that fed back out to the road. They were decorated with a cursive catering logo printed on the side, parked behind a silver Prius. The car chirped, lights blinking as Catherine jogged toward it. “I can take four, maybe five more, and a few in the hatchback.”
Kiele hopped up into the cab of one of the vans, retrieving the keys and starting the engine as Cal opened the back door. “Pile in, tight as you can stand. This is the last train out of here.”
Niko helped some of the frightened kids onto the truck. One of them was Fob, two-eyed and with a shaved head, but the same angular features and delicate movements. It wasn’t until they were stuffed inside like sardines that Cal closed the door and told Kiele she could go. She and Catherine drove off, and now only one van remained.
“This is our ride,” Cal said to Niko. She took two steps toward the van, then stopped when her walkie garbled at her hip.
“Cal?” The voice on the other side was soft, familiar, breathless. “Cal, we’re here. We’re near the extraction. Have the vans left yet?”
Like a shot, Cal tugged the walkie from her hip and yelled into it. “Last van’s still here,” she crowed, every inch of her face lifting, “get here now.”
“Got it! Haha, good, we’re coming out now.” The walkie beeped. Cal barked for the other kids to stuff closer in the van. As the group pressed back, a few people burst out from a back door of the facility.
The figure in the lead looked familiar, even with her jacket and long hair gone. He recognized that jog from countless mornings training. That hourglass shape was etched in his mind.
“Niko?!” Jeny called.
Niko jogged to meet her, putting his hands on her shoulders just before they crashed into each other. “Are you okay?”
“They caught our group,” Jeny gasped. “We all scattered, they were shooting at us, it was so mad, and I’m remembering more every minute.” She still had her Scottish accent, although it was less exaggerated now. Except for the missing hair, she was the same as he remembered, and he was glad for it. She dipped her head, shrugged into her shoulders, closed off even more than normal.
“I’m sorry,” Niko said, “For all of this. I wanted to tell you, I tried to, I…”
Jeny shivered. “It’s so much, I…I know it weren’t real now, but without my Mythic I feel so…exposed.”
She was trembling, hugging herself, looking stripped-down in nothing but the regulation Vat wetsuit. Niko pulled his purloined Stingers jacket off, then wrapped it around Jeny’s shoulders. It was practically a gown on her, but she tugged it close, pulling the hood over her shorn head. “Thank ya,” she said with a weak smile. “I guess it’s not all bad, yeah? Look.”
Jeny nodded toward a short, broad figure approaching among the others, somehow well-coiffed in a faded button-down and ill-fitting slacks. Niko only knew one guy who would wear business-casual to the revolution.
“Hunk?”
“Niko!” A small but radiant smile spread across Hunk’s wide face, infectious as sunshine. They collided into one another, a car-crash of a hug.
“We were so worried about you,” Niko said, and he was shocked when his voice cracked. His eyes burned, and when Hunk leaned away, there were wet spots on the shoulder of his shirt where Niko had buried his face a moment ago.
“W-whoa, Niko!” Hunk gave him a gentle shove. “Don’t get so emotional, man,” he teased, and Niko laughed as a tear fell down his cheek. He glanced back toward the van and saw that only a few guys remained outside. The van looked pretty packed.
Cal approached and put a hand on Niko’s shoulder, eyes glittering, then she grabbed Jeny and Hunk in a hug of her own. After a sniffle, she raised her voice. “All right. Hop in the back and I’ll get this bad boy started. There’ll be plenty of time for well-wishes back at camp.” Cal circled around, heading for the van’s cab, Hunk in tow. “Move, guys, move!” she shouted to a few people still outside the van.
“Wait,” Niko said. “I have to get to Seattle.” He turned toward the Prius.
“You mean into city?” Cal’s head popped out from the driver’s open window and she frowned at him. “What do you need to go there for?”
“There’s a Vat there, outside Territoria’s control. I need to go there and get back into the game.”
“What?” Hunk gasped from behind Cal. “Get in!”
“I’m able to log out at will,” Niko told them. “And I still remember the real world. I’m the only person who’s still safe there. We have to save the kids left here before we can shut the server down, and the Phaeton server needs to be taken offline too. You’ll need someone on the other side to help.”
“No way!” Jeny protested. “You’re coming with us, I’m not going to be stuck in this horrible place alone.”
“You won’t be alone,” Niko said, puzzled. “You’ll have Cal
, and Hunk, and—”
“But not you!” she yelled, then hit her head against his chest, blubbering. “You picked a bloody stupid time to become the self-sacrificing type.”
Niko hugged her then, smiling despite himself. “Well, y’know, I learned it from this totally hard-headed Scottish idjiet.”
Jeny laughed into his chest, then leaned back, and pulled him down a little. Her face was hard in an unsure kind of way—a toughness that existed to hide fear. Niko cupped her cheek, and after a moment, her face changed, becoming soft and brave. She leaned away from it an inch, breathing against his lips, looking away again. Her long, spindly fingers traced a line down his chest, then took his cross between thumb and forefinger. “The jacket I get,” she breathed, “but where did ya get this from?”
Niko looked down at the silver glinting between her fingers. “It’s a long—”
The doors to the back of the prison slammed open, and half a dozen guards rushed out, rifles in hand. As soon as they spotted the van and the people, two of them aimed for the nearest target—Jeny. Niko grabbed her and pushed her aside as the shots rang out.
For a moment, Niko was kneeling beside a cool creek lost in the woods. He remembered cupping his hand in it, pulling the water to his face and letting it run down his chin to soak into the collar of his shirt. The splash made his whole body feel cold. It spread out, like ice, like rot. Jeny pulled away from him, and there was blood on her coat. She patted her torso frantically, until she realized it wasn’t hers.
“Niko,” she gasped.
“Run,” he wheezed, feeling blood spread out and seep into his suit. Cold pain choked him, filled his lungs to his throat, drowned him. He heard another shot, and the front window of the Prius exploded. People screamed.