Walker

by Michael Langlois

  The sounds of scuffling and heavy footsteps in the corridor roused him. He sat up and looked through the bars.

  Two guards in full riot gear were towing Iyah down the hallway. She hung limply between them and there was blood running down her chin. Daniel could see that one of the guards was pressing an Arc against her arm where he carried her, no doubt to keep her docile. Even cut off from her strength, she was formidable.

  Across her shoulders was a metal pole with cuffs welded to the ends. Her wrists were in the cuffs, leaving her arms stretched out like a scarecrow. The guards moved her into the cell next to Daniel’s and secured the rod to the wall via two clamps. Daniel looked at the back wall of his own cell and saw that his room was similarly equipped.

  Once the rod was attached, the guards left, taking the Arc with them. Iyah hung limply from the wall.

  Horror and hot anger welled up inside Daniel in equal measures. Iyah’s leather jacket and silk armor had been taken from her, leaving her in a sleeveless undershirt that showed the bruises and welts that dotted her pale arms. Her hair was no longer pulled back in its usual ponytail, so it fell around her downcast face in a sweaty, stringy curtain. Daniel could just make out a livid bruise on one cheek through her hair.

  He clutched the bars between them and whispered roughly, “Iyah? Can you hear me?”

  After an eternity, her hair wavered as she nodded.

  Daniel wanted to cry or scream with relief, but his throat was too tight. His knuckles were white, and he couldn’t feel his hands around the bars anymore.

  “Are you okay?” she asked him in a flat, even whisper. She tilted her head so she could see him. One of her eyes was swelling shut. It was just like Iyah to be the strong one. Daniel tried to get a grip on himself.

  “Compared to you, I’m having a fucking day at the park. They haven’t done anything to me yet. Just put on two of those bands to keep me from Walking out of here.”

  Iyah let out a choked little laugh. “You should have seen their faces when you vanished. It was wonderful. I thought Keldon was going to have a stroke. The guards looked like they were going to piss themselves.” Her smile faded. “They took it out on us afterwards, but it was worth it.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault. Why did you come back? You were free. Idiot.”

  Daniel looked her in the eye. “So you would have just left me or Saul to rot in here, right?”

  She said nothing.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Well, me neither.”

  “How touching,” said Commander Keiler, as he entered Iyah’s cell with three of his guards. One of them was Metzger. Daniel didn’t recognize the other two.

  “I’m glad you two have had a chance to catch up, but I’m afraid it’s time to get down to business. Mr. Gray has asked me to arrange a little demonstration for you, Daniel, something that you can think about in the times ahead, should you decide not to cooperate to your fullest ability.”

  As he spoke, Metzger calmly put a knife to Iyah’s throat as the other two guards attached shackles to her ankles. They had obviously learned some hard lessons from the last time they had attempted to restrain her. Iyah stared Metzger in the eyes the whole time, unblinking.

  The shackles were attached to the wall by very short pieces of steel cable, leaving Iyah standing spread eagled against the wall. The men moved back.

  Commander Keiler surveyed his prisoner with satisfaction, then turned to face Daniel.

  “After this little show, Mr. Gray is going to come down and ask you some questions about your masters and their plans. We’ll want lots of detail, of course. And any time we don’t feel like we’re getting it, then the lovely lady here will be subjected to another demonstration. Do you understand?”

  Daniel shook the bars so hard that he rocked back and forth with the effort.

  “I’ll talk! You win! Anything you want, you can have! There’s no reason for this, okay? You’ve got my complete cooperation, do you understand?” he shouted through the bars.

  The commander walked closer to the bars and grabbed Daniel by the hair, tilting his face up.

  “You think you’ll cooperate now, I know. But I’ve found that without an example to think about, it’s easy for people to keep little details to themselves, supply just enough information to keep from being punished. This works so much better. You will do anything, and I mean anything, to keep there from being even a chance that this might happen again.”

  “This is completely insane! There is no enemy! I don’t have anything to tell you! You’re hurting an innocent woman for nothing!”

  Commander Keiler jerked Daniel’s head into the bars, hard.

  “Innocent? This bitch killed three of my men, three friends of mine, if you even know what the word means. She’s about as innocent as you, spy. Just pay attention, or we’ll be forced to do this again until we’re sure you understand.” He shoved Daniel away from the bars and left the cell with a nod. Only the three guards remained.

  Metzger moved across the cell and stood very close to Iyah, looking her up and down. He reached out and put one hand on her neck. Iyah spat in his face.

  He smiled and wiped his face with the back of one hand. Then he slapped her hard across the mouth. Her lip split, and a fat drop of blood joined the rest of the red mess on her chin.

  He reached out and ran his hands roughly across her breasts and grunted his approval. Iyah pulled back her lips in a bloody snarl. His buddies laughed and began throwing their gear down on the cot.

  Daniel pressed himself against the bars. “I get the point! I get it! You don’t have to do this, I know what’ll happen if I don’t cooperate!”

  Metzger looked over his shoulder at Daniel, while his hands worked on Iyah’s belt.

  “You don’t get it yet, but you will. After the three of us are through, you’ll both understand who you’re fucking with.”

  One of the other guards snickered.

  Metzger had Iyah’s belt undone, and was tugging her pants down. He had one fist around the top of her pants and her panties both and was pulling them down her hips. Daniel could see a flash of snow-white pubic hair.

  He clenched his jaws shut against a scream. This was not going to happen. There was no way he could pull enough power to Walk them out of here, there was simply too much mass, and too much distance to do that. He couldn’t pull enough power to bend the bars and get at the men either. That kind of continuous flow would kill him before he could take two steps.

  Desperate and terrified, he tried to think. He needed to get these damn bands off, then he could pull all the power he needed.

  He heard a jingle as Metzger unbuckled his own belt.

  Daniel looked down at the two bands around his blistered wrists, trying to shut everything out and think. He put his wrists together so that the bands touched and stared hard at the space where they overlapped each other.

  He couldn’t Walk himself out of here, but maybe he could start to Walk a few ounces of metal and then let them go. He’d never heard of anyone being able to Walk something else and stay in one place themselves, and he’d certainly never heard of anyone Walking a part of something, but if it could be done, he was going to do it. Even if it killed him.

  He steeled himself and reached for the Veil all at once, like you’d snatch an ember from a fire. Pain exploded through him but he pressed on, not caring if he was killing himself in the process. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered.

  The bands began to smoke as the power built. The skin of his wrists blackened and cracked, oozing blood. He grabbed the entire area where the bands overlapped and yanked it into the Veil. A starburst went off in his head and he rocked back blindly, only his death grip on the bars keeping him from hitting the floor.

  The pain stopped. He heard tiny ringing sounds as four pieces of metal hit the ground. He looked down at his now bare charred wrists, then at the pieces of the bands on the floor. There were two Cs of metal with two small pieces next to th
em. The ends all looked like they had been sheared off by a laser.

  He looked across into the next cell. Metzger had managed to get his pants down and was holding himself in one hand, his other hand between Iyah’s legs. The guards were so intent on the show that they hadn’t heard the bands falling to the ground.

  Daniel gave an inarticulate, savage cry as the Veil roared through him. He snatched away the front of Iyah’s restraint band and let it drop to the ground.

  Her head snapped up with a shout and she bared bloody teeth. Metzger froze in surprise. In the same instant, she twisted her wrists contemptuously and snapped her manacles right off of the iron bar, the welds popping like plastic. Then she slammed her fists together where Metzger’s surprised-looking head was. The corpse dropped to the ground, pants still down around its ankles.

  Meanwhile, Daniel had wrenched the bars apart and stepped into Iyah’s cell. Before the stunned men could react, he had grabbed them both by the throat.

  “Daniel, no!” Iyah cried.

  Daniel swung his red gaze towards her. The muscles jumped in his forearms. It was all he could do to not clench his hands together. The men choked silently, turning red.

  Iyah kicked free of the wall, pulling the bolts out of the masonry.

  “They’re defenseless, helpless. Don’t become the kind of man who kills like that, not because of me. Please.”

  He looked at her bruised and bloody face, at her pants down around her knees. The flesh on the guard’s faces shook in time with his trembling hands, and he yearned to crush the life out of them.

  “Daniel!”

  With a snarl he slammed their heads together and let them drop. He felt one skull crack, but he doubted it was fatal. A part of him hoped it was.

  Iyah pulled up her pants and buttoned them. Daniel badly wanted to grab her and hold her as tight as he could, but he didn’t know if that would be welcome. She didn’t move towards him, so he just stayed where he was.

  “Do you know where everyone else is?” asked Daniel softly.

  Iyah nodded and smoothed her hair back with both hands. “Some of them. Saul, Bruce, and Sika are across the hall, but I don’t know where anyone else is.” She absently straightened her clothes for the third time, then seemed to come fully into the present. “How did you get those bands off?”

  It took Daniel several seconds to answer, he had to tear his eyes away from the catalog of injuries to her face. The split lip oozing blood, the deep red abrasion on one cheekbone, the purpling bruise on the other. He knew that she’d heal amazingly fast now that she was again connected to the Veil, but it was still gut-wrenching to see.

  “I Walked part of them away. Not to any actual destination, I just took them into the Veil and then let go so they would drop back here.”

  She shook her head and gave a weak smile. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to do that.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t know that at the time. After all, you can’t fall unless you look down, right?”

  Daniel made a waving motion at Iyah’s puzzled expression. “Sorry, lame joke. We should probably get started. Are there any more guards in this section?”

  “I doubt it, or they would have come running already. We’re in the high security containment block, so there’s only these eight cells in this hallway. We’re going to have to cross the hall to get to the others.”

  Daniel snatched a set of keys off the bed and unlocked the cell. “Then let’s go.”

  28

  Daniel and Iyah were crouched on either side of the door. Outside was the main cell block corridor, and according to Iyah, a pair of guards.

  Daniel had tried keys from his newly stolen set into the lock as quietly as possible until he had found one that fit. The entire ring was now dangling from the lock, ready to use.

  “Can you see them through the door?” whispered Iyah.

  “No, they aren’t Veil sensitive. All I can really see in here are the current distortions caused by the restraint bands being worn by Veil users. I can make out two of those across the hall, so I hope that means Saul and Sika.”

  “Well, can you destroy their guns the same way you cut our bands?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I’d have to see or touch the guns for that. I’m completely blind unless the thing is actively carrying Veil currents, so from this side of the door I’ve got nothing to work with.”

  “Okay, then we’ll do this the old fashioned way.”

  Very slowly, Iyah turned the key in the lock until the bolt silently disengaged. The door itself was plain steel, painted white to match the rest of the detention area, with a small rectangular wire-reinforced window set at eye level. Crouched where they were, neither Daniel nor Iyah could be seen through it.

  Iyah knocked on the door, a couple of sharp, businesslike raps. They remained crouched out of sight. Iyah waited for a moment to give one of the guards time to put his face to the window, then cannoned through the doorway and into the hall.

  The guard unfortunate enough to peering through the window was thrown across the corridor by the impact, getting a crushed nose from the door and a concussion from the far wall. The second guard was just opening his mouth to shout when he caught an open palm strike to the face that snapped his neck and sent him sprawling across the floor. The first guard was unconscious, which saved his life.

  None of the keys from the first set fit the door for the next cell block, which was a smart setup, but one of the hallway guards had one that did. Daniel peered through the little window and saw no guards, so he and Iyah slipped inside, closing and locking the door behind them.

  “Well, Sika, looks like you owe me a drink,” said Saul with a shit-eating grin on his face. Bruce let out a quickly stifled whoop, and crowded close to the bars of his cell.

  Sika just shook his head ruefully and said, “Saul told me that you didn’t have the brains to stay away from here, Daniel. I really should have …” his voice trailed off as Iyah stepped around Daniel and into full view. The men stopped and stared, faces going slack. Then angry. The quiet clacking of Daniel opening cell doors underlined the silence.

  They gathered around Iyah, uncomfortably aware that there was nothing to say. Bruce and Saul’s faces carried worry and shared pain, while Sika’s was a frightening mix of eerily calm features under a hellish gaze. He was already looking past Iyah to the cell block door, his mind on pain and retribution.

  Saul cleared his throat. “Are you okay? I mean, besides the beating?”

  “They didn’t get to rape me, if that’s what you want to know. Daniel freed me in time.” Iyah looked down at the black crust of dried blood on her hands, and nobody had to ask what happened after that.

  “He cut my restraint band from the cell next door.”

  “How’d you manage that?” asked Saul.

  “I Walked a piece of the band just far enough away for it to separate from the whole, then let it drop back into the world. Instant cut.”

  Saul shook his head. “I don’t get that. You Walk by merging the place you’re in with a distant place that you can feel, so that in your mind both places are mingled together. How would you get the parts to be in different places afterwards? There’s no boundary at that point, it’s all one space.”

  Daniel nodded. “It doesn’t make sense to you because you’re missing part of the puzzle. When Master Giric showed me his sense of the Veil, I could see distant worlds, but the Veil itself was missing. It wasn’t part of his imagery, because like other Walkers, he can’t sense it, it’s invisible like air or the vacuum of space. But I can. I can see the Veil itself, each eddy and current as it flows around us. That’s the only difference between us, I can act directly on the Veil, as opposed to indirectly by joining places I can feel.

  “By manipulating the current, I can do things like make it part around you, cutting you off,” Daniel nodded towards Sika, “or isolate just a part of something and take it, not to another place, but just into the Veil between places
. It’s not a matter of having more power, just finer control.”

  As a demonstration Daniel split their bands, one by one.

  Saul and Sika gave great sighs of relief, while Bruce just rubbed his chafed wrist.

  “Daniel,” said Sika thoughtfully, “cut a bar out of this cell for me, one cut at the top, and one at the bottom. Also, make the cuts at a steep angle, not straight across.”

  It took some concentration, but Daniel eventually managed it, creating a six-foot-tall steel staff with pointed ends. He grinned. “I should have thought of that myself.”

  “Very true. Now cut one for Iyah, and let us rescue Bruce’s followers.”

  It was obvious that the last thing on Sika’s mind was rescuing anyone, but nobody wanted to point that out.

  “Daniel,” said Saul, “can you do that cutting trick on people?”

  “Saul!” snapped Iyah. “The last thing we need to do is make Daniel into a killer like the rest of us. Let him be free of that at least.”

  “Some people need killing, you of all people should know that,” said Sika.

  “Then I’ll do it, leave him out of it,” she replied.

  “We need to know what tools we have to work with if we’re going to take on the entire guard unit, Iyah,” said Saul.

  “I don’t have a problem with killing anyone who’s trying to kill us first. It’s okay,” said Daniel.

  “No,” Iyah shot back, “it isn’t. It only seems okay to you because you’ve never done it. There aren’t any consequences that you can see, so that makes it seem easy. But you can never go back afterwards.” Her face softened and her eyes turned inward. “You can never be clean again. Just don’t, Daniel. Please.”

  Daniel put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, as long as I can avoid it, I will. But I won’t hesitate if it means saving someone’s life. Anyway, I don’t know that I can Walk a part of a person anyway. The Veil is very responsive to the conscious mind, which is why the Wayguides can be seen from so far away, and why we can manipulate it in the first place. Walking inanimate objects is hard, but doable because they don’t resist. People are entirely different. It’s not even a matter of overcoming a conscious desire to be in one piece, I’d have to beat the actual subconscious will to live of another person in order to force the Veil to ignore his contiguous flow. Even if I could do it, I don’t think I could do it fast enough to make a difference in a combat situation.”