Walker

by Michael Langlois

  Saul shrugged. “Too bad.”

  Sika brushed past them and glanced out of the door’s small window. Then he dashed out into the corridor and pulled the disabled guards inside.

  “I think it’s time to round up Bruce’s flock and run to Daniel’s new world. Here Saul—catch.” He tossed one of the downed guard’s machine pistols across the room. Saul plucked it out of the air and checked it over.

  “What about me? That other guard had a gun, too,” said Daniel.

  “You ever fire an automatic weapon before?” asked Sika.

  “Well, no.”

  “Are you suggesting that I give you a live machine gun so you can fire it experimentally for the first time in close quarters next to all of us? While being shot at?”

  “Oh, but you’ll let me risk dying by trying to Walk to a new world with a bunch of passengers.”

  “Of course, there’s no chance of that experiment ending up with me getting my face shot off.”

  “Fine. I’ll just cut some cell bars for myself.”

  Daniel ended up cutting two shorter rods instead of one long staff, each about two feet long. They felt more controllable than one long pole.

  He nodded at Sika and they headed out.

  29

  The containment area was divided into two main sections. The high security section contained only two cell blocks, each of which was now enjoying a complete lack of both security and containment.

  The higher volume, lower security side was the new target. To get there, Daniel and his cohort had to cross a wide, clear hallway containing another pair of guards. And of course, if either of the guards managed to get off a shot, the sound would bring a dozen more armed men running.

  “Okay,” said Sika as everyone huddled close, “Daniel can see the guards from the observation port in the door leading out of this section. The guards should be directly across the hall. He’ll disable their guns and as soon as they’re cut, Iyah and I will rush the guards. Then we use their keys to enter the low security section.

  “In a real prison, all the guards have line-of-sight to the next guard position, but these cells are really just temporary holding pens. Normally, there are only a couple of prisoners at any given time having information extracted before they’re killed or shipped off to the Piellette, and only a few pairs of guards to watch them. Bruce’s group is probably the largest load of prisoners this place has ever seen. Any questions?”

  “Yeah, what happens if we screw it up and all hell breaks loose?” asked Daniel.

  Sika shrugged. “Then you grab us up and Walk us out of here. Failing that, we use what my unit calls the Standard Mission Fallback Protocol.”

  “Panic?”

  “Improvise and don’t get shot.”

  “My version is more honest.”

  Sika grinned at him and led everyone in a duck-walk to the high security entrance. Saul unlocked the door as slowly and quietly as possible, then stepped back so Daniel could take a quick peek out of the door’s view port. There were two guards about ten feet away directly across the hall.

  They were standing to either side of another steel door chatting quietly with each other and glancing nervously up and down the hallway. Likely more worried about the amount of Top Brass activity down here than any kind of concern about a jail break, but on high alert nonetheless.

  Daniel peered through the port and immediately went to work on the first guard’s gun. The trick was to disable it before they saw his head in the window across the hall. He pushed a tightly controlled flow across the entire front half of the weapon and then gave it a wrench, jerking it into the Veil.

  An instant later it reappeared and fell to the floor with a clatter, pieces bouncing away in all directions as half of the barrel and most of the receiver sprang apart. While the guards both stared openmouthed at the suddenly multi-part weapon, Daniel did the same thing to the second guard’s gun.

  Then he shoved himself back away from the door and said, “Go!”

  Iyah and Sika threw the door open and launched themselves across the hallway. Sika kept his staff behind him and off to the side, and straight armed his guard in the forehead with his open hand. The man was unconscious before his head rebounded off the wall behind him.

  At the same time, Iyah had dashed across the hall and whipped her staff across her target in a wide arc with one hand. The heavy steel pole broke his neck and spun him grotesquely down the hall like a boneless rag doll.

  Saul raced across the hallway and opened the door, allowing Sika and Iyah to pull the guards inside. Once that was done, the door was relocked, with everyone huddled on the inside of the door. The whole thing had only taken a few seconds.

  Sika looked warily at Iyah, who wore her satisfaction and rage openly on her face.

  “What happened to only killing when necessary?” he whispered.

  She stared forcefully into his face and hissed, “Like you said, some actions void your right to live.”

  Sika looked surprised. “These are our men, remember? We all wear the same uniform. And they were disarmed. Keiler needs killing. And Gray and Keldon. Not the guards.”

  The look on her face made Daniel’s stomach churn. He shuffled closer and said, “Metzger and his buddies are already taken care of, right? These men didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”

  “No,” she shot back, “those men were just the lucky ones who got the order. Any one of these animals would have jumped at the chance to be in their place.”

  “Yeah, all men are rapists. Tell me again why you stopped me from killing those guards in your cell?”

  “Don’t question me, Daniel.” She stalked angrily down the hallway.

  Daniel and the others followed her to where the corridor joined the middle of the long hallway containing the holding cells. Daniel lay flat on the floor and took a quick peek around each corner.

  There were doors and guards at each end of the intersecting hallway. Each team of guards could clearly see the other. He explained the problem in a whisper.

  “Sika goes right, I’ll go left, and we’ll take them out before they know what hit them,” said Iyah.

  Daniel shook his head. “Just wait a second. I can see the disturbances that the restraints cause, let me see if I can find our people before we go rushing in.”

  “Fine,” she replied sourly, “but hurry it up.”

  Daniel let his vision slip to a more internal vista and began looking at the currents around him. One of the guards in the hallway to the left was slightly Veil sensitive. Daniel could see a faint outline of the man where the door should be. He’d likely be a faster shot and harder to put down than the others.

  A few yards behind him, a cluster of restraints close together made agitated knots and swirls in the otherwise smooth current moving through the area. A few feet in front of them was a fiercely churning vortex with two very bright spots to either side of it. Likely someone being tortured with an Arc and a restraint.

  “Okay, looks like everybody is down the left corridor. One of the guards down there can Channel a little, so we’ll want to be careful of that. Also, it looks like somebody is getting questioned the hard way in a separate cell, so there are probably guards inside as well.”

  After a few moments, Saul spoke up. “I can’t think of a way to get into the cell block without the guards down one side or the other raising the alarm. Sika?”

  Sika shook his head.

  “Okay, so we just concentrate on getting inside without getting shot and then try to Walk everyone out as fast as we can. While holding off a small army at the door at the same time.”

  “Agreed,” said Sika. Saul handed Bruce the keys they had collected, and everyone stood ready. Saul re-checked his machine pistol and Daniel shifted his grip on his two bars. His heart was racing and he felt lightheaded from the adrenalin.

  Together, Sika and Iyah launched themselves around the corner and to the left. Saul waited a beat, then stepped around the corner to the right
and opened fire.

  Saul deliberately sprayed the hallway floor in front of the two guards, forcing them to flee around the next corner. He tapped out a few more short bursts into the far wall to keep them back, and then he was out of ammo.

  At the same time, Sika and Iyah were running headlong towards the other guards. The guards reacted swiftly and professionally, whipping their guns into position. Iyah saw that they weren’t going to reach the men before they could open fire, so she stretched one arm back, took another step, and threw her staff like a javelin.

  It struck the first guard in the upper thigh, piercing his leg completely and shattering the bone. Both the blood and the sudden scream distracted the other guard long enough for Sika to reach the end of the hallway and take him out with a downward sweep of his staff, then silence the injured one with a quick reverse to the man’s chin.

  The downed guards were Bruce and Daniel’s signal to make for the door. Saul began pelting down the hall as well, throwing the now useless gun to the floor. As Bruce reached the door and began shoving the key into the lock, the guards at the far end of the hallway came back out and opened fire. The door sprang open and everyone threw themselves inside as the hallway became a death trap. Sika spun around as he caught a round halfway through the doorway, and hit the floor on his back.

  Daniel pulled him inside and slammed the door shut. Then as planned, he pulled as much power as he could and jammed his two steel rods down through the bottom of the door and into the floor. Sparks flew as the rods punched through the door’s steel cladding and into the concrete below.

  Iyah snatched up Sika’s staff and spun to face the guards in this cell block. Daniel helped Sika stand up, and then faced the room. Two dozen mouths hung open on the left side of the room, both cells crammed full of wide-eyed prisoners.

  On the right-hand side, a prisoner was hung from the wall on the now familiar hook and rod assembly, with a guard hovering next to him with an Arc in his hand. Another guard was standing in the hallway between the two sets of cells with a notepad and pen in his hands, his gun strapped across his back.

  “Get on the ground or I swear I’ll hook my fingers through your ribs and tear you in half slowly,” Iyah snarled.

  Both guards sank to the ground and slowly and carefully and put their hands behind their heads.

  Sika hurried past her with a limp and knocked the guards out before she decided to pin them to the floor with her staff.

  “How bad is it?” she asked, pretending not to notice his quick intervention.

  He showed her the shallow gash across his right hip. “Just grazed me, it’ll be fine. Nice leg shot out in the hall, by the way. That guy’ll live.”

  “I missed.”

  Daniel doubted that very much.

  Bruce began unlocking cells and reassuring people, some of who were crying with relief. Saul and Iyah freed the torture victim as gently as they could, and sat him down on a bunk.

  Daniel was about halfway through splitting restraints when everyone in the room flinched at the sharp sound of gunfire hitting the view port. The armored glass went white with stress fractures instantly, but it held.

  “Daniel,” said Saul in a calm and steady voice. “I don’t want to rush you or anything, but as soon as that window gives out, those boys out there are going to poke a gun barrel in that hole and hose this whole room down. Unless they can find some grenades to pitch in first.”

  Daniel nodded and kept working. Tiny white fragments began to shower down from the buckling polycarbonate square in the door as the gunfire continued.

  “We don’t have time for this, let’s just jump now and get the restraints off afterwards,” said Sika.

  “Can’t,” replied Daniel as he worked on Boro’s restraints. “As soon as I began to push power through these people, the restraints would light up like Christmas. Probably kill them before I got close to jumping. They have to come off.”

  Saul snatched the gun off of the nearest guard and crouched under the door.

  “Nearly there,” said Daniel.

  The center of the glass gave out, leaving a ragged hole the size of a baseball. Saul crouched under the window, held his gun high, and emptied the entire clip into the hallway through the hole. Screams and shouting followed.

  “Now Daniel! We’re out of time!” he shouted.

  “That’s the last one! Let’s go!” Daniel shouted back.

  Saul jammed the spent gun in the hole and ran back to the group. Everyone linked hands. Daniel began concentrating, forcing himself into the right frame of mind to jump to Autumn. He wasn’t getting it. There was too much fear to grab the slow, melancholy feeling of the place.

  A gloved hand pushed the gun in through the hole and it hit the ground with a clatter.

  Daniel fought for concentration. Somebody’s sweaty hands gripped his forearms so tightly that it hurt. He heard the clicking of metal on armored glass as a gun was stuck through the port.

  He reached hard for the memories, and at last, they came. He pulled the essence of Autumn full-blown into his mind and seized the Veil.

  They were gone before the sound of the incoming machine gun fire could reach their ears.

  30

  They appeared on the leaf strewn lawn hand-in-hand, arranged in a huge lopsided circle. A fairy ring of refugees.

  Autumn seeped quickly through everyone’s thoughts like an irresistible tide. Even Daniel, who had been through it before, was rocked with the power of it.

  The saccharine melancholy drowned his panic and desperation, and replaced his urgency with the wistful yearning for time to stand still, to desperately cling to the fading sunset and its nostalgic beauty.

  He struggled against the narcotic effect and won, but not many did. Glancing around, he counted less than ten souls not glassy-eyed and staring into themselves or the eternal sunset. Those with a close connection to the Veil seemed to fare better, but a potent will alone seemed to be enough in the case of Bruce and a young woman he didn’t know who stood near him with fists clenched and eyes screwed shut.

  He saw that Ekani and Boro were among the conscious, heads swiveling around to take in their new surroundings through the mental fog that assailed them.

  Daniel gathered together those that could function and sat them on one of the dozen or so benches scattered around the area. There was a small reflecting pool off to one side and several young trees barely a foot around that stood nearby. The glade had either changed or he had come to a different place, but the nearby park was still there in its accustomed spot, and still populated by its eerie compliment of families participating in their perpetual outing.

  “Well,” he began, “welcome to Autumn. I know it’s hard, but you have to keep your heads as clear as you can. Once you space out, you could be gone for minutes, days, or forever for all I know. Just fight it as best you can, and let somebody know if you start to lose it, okay?” People nodded foggily.

  “What is it?” asked Iyah, tear tracks clearly visible on her face. “I feel like I’m at the Pairing Festival back home, right before it ends and everyone goes home. Our last night of being independent before you go to live with your mating partner.” She wiped roughly at her cheeks.

  “I know, I get a similar feeling as I imagine every one of us does. It seems a lot stronger than the last two times I was here, but maybe I’m just more tired this time.”

  “Daniel,” said Bruce, “I had thought that you had access to a new world, a place where we could start new lives away from the Guild and their influence. I was prepared for new people, languages, customs, even a harsh wilderness, but nothing like this. What is this place?”

  “Just like I told you before Doc, it’s not like other worlds. You see that sunset? It never ends. The sun doesn’t set. See that park over there? See those people? They don’t arrive or leave, but there’s always a different number of them when you look closely. And they’re always dressed like that, like cast members from a Dickens novel.”

  Bru
ce squinted at the figures in the distance and then looked at Daniel. “A Dickens novel? Perhaps Dickens is too far before your time, Daniel, those people are wearing clothes straight out of the American Puritan era. Bonnets and prairie dresses, suspenders and felt hats.”

  “Oh, shit,” whispered Daniel. “Doc, I see black dresses and gloves, and the men are wearing high collared suits, like old English bankers. Iyah? Saul?”

  “1940s Sunday best,” said Saul.

  “Temple robes and chimon, which are baskets for carrying babes. They have the legs folded down and the sun covers on,” said Iyah.

  Daniel fought to think clearly. He thought about what his version of the park denizens meant to him, what the imagery suggested. “Let me ask you guys a question. Does the way those people are dressed feel comfortable to you? Non-threatening, or maybe friendly?”

  There were nods all around.

  “That’s very good, Daniel,” said Bruce. “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s like a defense mechanism that puts you at ease, emulating whatever culture you feel the most comfortable with.”

  “Or a hunting mechanism, like a lure,” said Daniel. “I don’t know how well it works to put you at ease though. I got within about thirty feet of one of them and it scared the crap out of me. They were just, I don’t know, wrong somehow. Like walking up to somebody and then finding out they’re a walking manikin or something at the last second. It was just creepy.”

  “Well, whether it’s for protection or something more sinister, I suggest we give them a wide berth,” said Bruce.

  Ekani, who had been following the conversation quietly, spoke up. “I’m sorry, Bruce, but I must disagree. They’re people, and they live here. They’re obviously peaceful, visiting the park with their children is a good indicator of that, so I think we should ask them for help. Maybe they can help us adapt as they have, so we can live here.”