by Brindi Quinn
I saw Theo’s open mouth gaping over the edge of the roof. I understood his reservation, but now wasn’t the time for cowardice. If I set an example for him, maybe he’d get over his fear, out of provocation or embarrassment at being shown up by a girl. I released another bit of slack, and once more, my stomach fell. I felt the weight of myself placing strain on the rope, and for a flashing moment, I imagined the wound thing snapping and sending me to a deathly fall. I swallowed, choking down the thought, and released another bit of slack. In this way, I bounced down the side of the wall until I was within reach of the broken tube's end. At that point, I gave one great push against the side of the building, but misjudged the duct’s opening, and crashed into its side. I heard Theo give a shout from above, but I refrained from looking up. Looking up or down in this situation would only make me lose focus. A second time, I pushed myself away from the wall, this time making contact with my goal. The momentum attempted to return me to the building, but I hooked onto the opening of the duct with my foot and forced myself backwards, afterwards releasing my greatest amount of slack and dropping into the hard metal of the tube. Not only was it hard, it was warm. Warm essence was streaming from within the building.
“There,” I called up to Theo. “Are you able to do that?”
“Daaaaang!” came Theo’s answer. “I mean, I’m sure I can, but–”
“Throw me the end of my rope,” I cut him off. Conserving resources was essential.
I caught the rope and returned it to my pack before again calling to Theo, who had disappeared onto the roof. “Are you ready?”
His answer was delayed, and for a split second, I worried that my partner had abandoned me, but eventually he came again to the edge of the roof, looking worse for the wear and with the rope tied securely beneath his bottom.
“Don’t think too much,” I told him. “Just do it.”
“Yeeeeah, I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re tough as fuck, Zillow Stone.”
“Not really,” I admitted. “My hands were shaking the whole way down.”
It was the wrong thing to admit.
“GREAT! If you were scared, how do you think I’ll feel?!” Theo rubbed his marked hand over the whole of his face before cupping his mouth.
“You’ll be fine, I’m sure,” I said, regretful.
“Gee, thanks for sounding so sure of yourself!” Theo lashed.
“No.” I shook my head. “You will be. Your balance is even better than mine.”
“Oh.” Theo calmed. “Really?” I nodded, and he put a hand to his hip. “And what’s with this ‘even better’ business? The girl’s hot and she knows it?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He continued to grumble even after his back was turned. He edged up to the side of the roof and took a hearty helping of preparation time before dropping himself over the edge.
Theo may have had balance, but he lacked in grace; thus, his repelling was much less graceful than mine had been. He kicked his legs awkwardly as he flung away from the wall each time, and when it was time to propel towards the tube, he missed it several times, his body wildly swinging out of reach.
“Calm down!” I called to him. “Steady yourself and go again!”
He listened, and when he tried again, he swung evenly into the center of the duct. I backed in as far as I could to allow him room, but still he bowled into me, knocking us both down. When he stood, he was panting.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He held his stomach with one hand and shook his opposite wrist. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a-okay.” But as he helped me to my feet, I felt just how sweaty his hand was – something he also realized. “Sorry.” He wiped it on his thigh. “I’m kind of a clammy person.” For some reason – maybe it was because of how harrowing the task had been for him, or because of his impossibly clumsy descent – I felt the urge to laugh, so I did . . . twice. His large eyes widened even further before narrowing. “Hey! You’re laughing at me now?! You’re kind of a jerk, Zillow Stone!”
So he said, but he was also grinning.
Theo undid the rope around himself, let the opposite end’s slack dangle, and attempted to retrieve it from around the smokestack with a few great yanks. The attempt failed, however, for once the other end was around the stack, the weight of its falling was too much, and the whole thing slipped through Theo’s fingers and dropped to the ground. Theo watched it go with orneriness. “Shit. Guess I’ll have to grab it on the way out.”
Together, we started our climb up the duct.
The warm air intensified as we crawled deeper. There was something within this building, causing this heat. That much was certain. I only hoped we were prepared for whatever it was.
When we came to the end of the tube, Theo punched me in the arm. “Nice work, Zillipede!” I’d been right. The hose extended into the factory.
“No praise until we’re back outside,” I told him, though truthfully, I felt a small sense of pride that my plan had worked.
On the inside of the building, the duct was even warmer, nearing on hot. We’d be in trouble if it reached scorching. A short ways in, the tube branched into two paths. I paused at the fork. I’d assumed that once inside, the passage would end abruptly, opening into a larger area. It hadn’t occurred to me that the ducts might be part of a larger network like this. So be it. Our new goal was to find a way out.
I fished about in my pack, retrieving my length of rope a second time. I gathered up equal slack on each end and wound them into two bundles, then handed one to Theo. “You go down the right passage. I’ll take the left. If you find a way out, give the rope three strong tugs and I’ll come to you. Be sure to keep the line tight. Drop slack only as you go, otherwise I won’t feel it even if you tug.”
Theo wiped away the perspiration dripping at the side of his neck and looked to the rope in his hand with determination. “Got it.”
He wasn’t the only one sweating. As I moved down the left stretch of duct, the heat affected me similarly. The air within the tube became more and more difficult to swim through, the deeper into the factory I probed. It was hot and moist, and eventually I could no longer tell if the wetness on my skin was due to my own perspiration or the settling dampness of the air.
When I came to another branch in the path, I took the left, but had no luck that way. The bundle of rope was dwindling and I realized it would run out before I’d get to explore the path completely, so I backpedaled, this time taking the right. I crawled in deeper. After a helping of minutes, I’d still felt nothing from Theo’s end of the rope, and it was getting harder to breathe the longer I explored the cramped space. It wasn’t that I minded tight spaces. It was that the passageways were also dim. I didn’t like the dark. I never had. Darkness hindered perception, and perception was one of the most important skills for those of us destined to be hunted.
Not to mention, the green glow of my hand only served to make the atmosphere eerier than it ought to have been.
But no matter how eerie, I preferred that glow to what came next.
When it happened, I realized it immediately, though it took me more than a few seconds to react. That glow that bathed the silver ducts, mellow and haunting, suddenly and uncompromisingly flicked from green to red.
As I stared at the red glow I hadn’t seen since the previous day, my chest began to pound. I was stuck within a series of tubes, and my Marker, icy-eyed unholy one, now knew my exact location.
Louder and louder, my pulse raced in my ears. I began a hasty scamper towards the other end of the rope. Theo had gambits he’d been saving for something like this. I needed to find him as quickly as possible – before my Marker realized where I was trapped. My Marker . . . I had no idea what resources he had. For all I knew, his tracker was incredibly detailed. For all I knew, it showed the function of this very factory even we had yet to identify.
With these thoughts running through my mind, I was spastic at first, perilously hustling over the bumpy
ridges of the duct; but then, my demeanor cooled as I came to an understanding: Even if my Marker knew where I was, there was no telling how far away he was from me at this exact moment. He could be innumerable tetramarks away from my location. For all I knew, it would take him hours to reach me, and even if he were somehow, miraculously within reach, he wouldn’t have such an easy time entering the building.
Even knowing that, I felt urgency as I collected the rope and made my way for the only person that could provide salvation: my wide-eyed partner.
“Theo!” When I came to the place where we’d separated, I began to call for him. “Theodorius!” But there was no response, nor was there tugging along the rope line. “THEO! MY TRACKER WENT OFF!” My voice echoed and bounced along the metal casing.
Drenched in ominous red light, I barreled through the ducts, taking a right branch where the rope led. I followed it diligently until–
“THEO?!”
I understood what had happened the moment I saw the wreckage. A weak stretch of pipe had torn under Theo’s weight, and now there was a large opening where the duct had separated from itself. Pushing myself forward on my knees, I made my way toward the opening, skin rawing against the unforgiving metal of the duct.
Though I’d found what I’d been looking for – a way out – this was far from the way I’d hoped to find it.
“THEO?! ARE YOU OKAY?! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”
I hoisted myself out of the tangle to see that I was stories above the ground in a muddled cavern of winding tubes and hissing machines. From the looks of it, the tube had given under the strain of my partner’s weight, and Theo had fallen somewhere into the tangle of hoses. I imagined that at one point, there’d been rhyme or reason to the placement of the tubes, but now, in its dilapidated state, the inside of the factory was a mess of fallen conduits and mechanical parts gone wrong.
I felt along the wrecked portion of pipe for something strong enough to support myself. “THEO!” Cautiously, I climbed to the topside of the downed duct and inched myself along it. “THEODORIUS!” I shouted for him, but received nothing in the way of an answer. Anxiety-ridden, I transferred myself from duct to duct, but it was a challenge to maintain my footing because the tubes were slippery on the top.
No, that was a lie. It was I who was slippery. The hot moisture of the air coated me, betraying my palms so that they struggled to gain traction at each pass.
This was no good. I needed to reach the ground before I fell to the ground. I needed to reach Theo.
The red mark on my hand taunted me, a reminder that for now, I was a sitting duck, and that the unholy one, born with an extreme lust for my people . . . no, born with an extreme lust for me, knew where I was.
And he would surely come for me.
I was the pink flower, and the black rose was coming.
Chapter 14: Retrect Rampage
From the moment I met him, I’d thought of my partner as a hindrance, even though he held knowledge and resources that I needed.
Now, for the first time, I saw Theodorius as salvation. I needed to reach him, and I needed him to be alive.
Outside the ducts, the factory was still just as dim and just as warm. The air hummed with manufactured energy. I used the red light on the back of my hand to check for safe footing as I sloshed and slid from one tube to the next, until my wet palms couldn’t take it anymore. Yet a story from the ground, I slipped and my body went bouncing through the remaining ducts.
I landed on the ground with an UMPH!
My shoulder smarted from the fall and my knees and elbows were bleeding from my rapid pass through the tubes. Nonetheless, I pushed myself to my feet and again began to call for Theo.
“THE–”
I saw the green glow of his hand before I saw him. I quickly ran to its source. The grimy boy was caught between two rigid ducts some yards up, neck twisted awkwardly to the side.
He’s . . . dead?
It was the first thing I thought.
He’s dead!
It was the second thing I thought.
Yet, my mouth continued to call for him. No, it screamed for him. “THEO! WAKE UP!” Body drenched in moisture from the air, I clawed at a low-hanging duct, wildly trying to climb up to where he was, but it was no use; I was too slippery.
If I made it out of this, the first thing I’d buy with my rewarded SPs would be a pair of hide gloves.
As my mouth continued to call for him, I waited for any sign of life. I hated this moment and the knowing that I was useless. I was a proactive person. I’d always been that way. I was strong and fast, and there was no way I’d let this game get the best of me, and yet . . .
There was nothing I could do to retrieve my fallen partner, nor to put an end to the red glow of my mark.
There was nothing I could do.
I let myself think that way for only a moment, before turning my self-pity into resolve. I began to look around the area for something I could use to reach Theo. Out of all of the bits of scrap, there had to be something I could utilize to get to him.
I was just beginning to heave a round barrel-like tub beneath my partner’s caught body, when I saw the green glow fluctuate against the wall. I shot my gaze upward in time to see Theo’s arm moving. Not only was it moving, it was attempting to push the rest of him up.
“Y-YOU AREN’T DEAD!”
I heard him grumble into the side of the duct.
“CAREFUL!” I shouted. “DON’T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS! IS ANYTHING BROKEN?”
“Zill . . . entine?” With a dazed expression, his head peeked upward from the crossing of tubes.
A surge of relief moved through me. “You’ve used that one before,” I said quietly, rubbing my brow like a concerned warden. I closed my eyes to let my heartbeat slow. I concentrated on the rapid thudding, bidding it to calm. Theo was alive. He’s alive. I let it sink in before I opened my eyes again.
By that time, the living boy had successfully pushed himself into a sitting position. “Ouuuch,” he sang as he rubbed the side of his neck.
“Is anything broken?” I asked again.
“No, don’t think so . . .” But he continued to creak and groan.
“Let yourself down gently,” I instructed.
He twisted his neck to the other side, let out another loud griping, and then set his eyes on me, where they widened into a state of emergency. “ZILL! YOUR TRACKER!” I’d forgotten, in lieu of my relief for Theo’s recovery, but at his mention of it, the red glow seemed to swell and fill the hissing, metallic place with a dreadful urgency.
“It went off a little while ago,” I said, veins racing, but fighting to keep composure. “Hurry and come down here.”
Suddenly, my concern wasn’t at all for Theo’s wellbeing; it was for my own. By now, my Marker had used whatever tools he had to pinpoint my exact location. By now, he’d realized that I hadn’t moved from it. If he had any sense at all, by now, he’d realized that I was stuck here.
Understanding the danger of my lit hand, Theo did his best to scamper through the remaining mess of hoses, but he was disoriented from the fall, as well as filled with panic over my tracker’s glow. These combined made his descent ungainly. Arms thrashing, he came crashing to the ground.
I rushed to his side. I didn’t bother to see if he was okay.
“A gambit! Quick!” I barked.
He let a pained sound out through his teeth as, holding his neck with one hand, he used his other to madly sift through his backpack, ultimately pulling out a small leather binder. “Everything I’ve got’s in there!” he spat, wincing from the pain of his neck. “Go for a decoy one!”
I began to leaf through the binder, which on each page had slots where round discs, roughly the size of tokens, were stuffed. Those discs were gambits? I hadn’t seen one before, aside from the animated depiction on the vendor screen. Each was sliver thin, and transparent in the center, though each one was tinted a different color, depending on type, I figured. Only the rim of each dis
c was opaque and etched with the name of the gambit.
20-Min W Decoy was tinted orange in the center. “This one?” I flung the open binder up for injured Theo to inspect.
“West?” Theo chewed his lip. “Not ideal. Don’t I have a North in there?”
20-Min N Decoy was also tinted orange. I pulled it from the binder and held it out to inspect it. “What do I do with it?”
“Oh right, I guess you wouldn’t know. Press it to your mark.”
“Like this?” Chest thudding, I fought to keep my anxiety under control as I pressed the thin disc to the back of my right hand.
“Yup, now hold it there until it changes,” said Theo, favoring his neck.
Droplets of moisture rolled from the tips of my nose and chin and fell onto my chest while I waited for the mark to react. My chest moved in and out, absorbing the droplets. My hair was matted to my neck, sickly and feverish. Each breath I drew felt like an eternity until, finally, the red mark flicked blue twice before returning to red; although the red was no longer a constant glow, but a soft, fluttering fluctuation.
“There,” said Theo, exhaling loudly. “That’ll do it.”
“If we’re lucky,” I added. If we were lucky, my Marker would fall for it. If we were luckier, my Marker was too far away to follow the tracker anyway. When I removed the disc, it was no longer tinted orange. Now, it was clear and colorless. I moved to return it to the binder.
“Chuck it,” said Theo. “It’s useless now.”
I let the disc fall to the ground, then released an exhale to rival Theo’s, before turning to attend to the damaged boy. “Let me see.” I took the side of his head and tipped it the opposite way.
“Ow, ow, ow, eeeeasy, Zill! I’m fragile.”
I pressed against the side of his jaw. “Does this hurt?”