by Simon Archer
“Uh, no, I don’t,” I said. “As I told you before, I won’t be commenting on any of that nonsense. I’m focused on bringing law and order back to our city. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“But Mr. Joch,” he and several others tried to protest all at once, but I held up my hands to silence them.
“No,” I said sharply. “But I have an update for you. A team of TelCorp employees, myself included, will be embarking on a major search for the escaped prisoners underneath the city. Semra here will be acting as CEO in my absence and will update you further. You will treat her with just as much respect as you would me… and I certainly hope more, considering how you’ve been treating me lately.”
Everyone started screaming and jabbing their microphones at me, but I continued to talk over them.
“Now, I have a lot of work to do to keep this city safe, so I’ll be leaving now,” I said, still holding my hands up in the air to indicate that there would be no discussion of the matter, at least not with me. “So please, direct all of your questions to Semra. She will be a more than competent CEO in my hopefully brief absence. Now make a path out of here, or face the consequences.”
I made a motion for the rest of my team to come out now.
“You’d better start talking and distract them,” I whispered in Semra’s ear. She nodded as cameras flashed all over the place.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” I ushered the rest of my team as they came running out of the building. But our path was still obstructed. Then, Semra started talking.
“Now, I’m more than pleased to answer any questions you may have,” she said, though her voice was dripping with sarcasm. Semra wasn’t exactly the best PR person, but she would instill the fear of God in these rats, at the very least.
A path appeared as the reporters practically threw themselves at Semra, and my team and I were able to push through the remaining stragglers who couldn’t get close enough to her. But every one of them hung on to her every word, not wanting to miss a thing.
“Okay,” I said to my teammates with a nod as we broke free of the crowd. “Gunnar should still be waiting for us. Come on, follow me!”
And so we ran down the street and back behind the alley where Gunnar had dropped us off. Sure enough, he was still waiting for us there, dependable as ever.
“Alright, Gunnar,” I said as we all packed into the car one after another. “Straight back to the docks this time. And fly high, as high as you can manage, okay? We need to get the hell out of here, and we need to avoid being seen if at all possible.”
“Understood, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said with a nod.
“And not a word of this to anyone, though I imagine that goes without saying,” I reminded him. “I’ll be out of reach for a while, but if anyone contacts you, reach out to Semra. She’ll double what anyone’s offering you to squeal on us, and then some.”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about me, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said, smiling at me in the rearview mirror. “I won’t tell anybody anything about you. You’re my best customer!”
“I figured,” I said with a laugh. “Thanks, Gunnar.”
“What do you mean you’ll be out of reach for a while, though?” he asked, concern etched across his brow. “Should I be worried, Mr. Joch?”
“No, don’t worry at all,” I told him. “We’re going to be fine. We’re just going underground to get in a good look for these guys, and we won’t be on the surface again for a while. You’ll see it on the holonews tonight, I have no doubt.”
“Okay, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said, still looking more than a little worried. “But take good care of yourselves, you hear? And if you need a quick ride out of there, you just call me anytime, day or night.”
“Of course, Gunnar, will do,” I said, giving him a warm smile of my own before turning to Malthe, “Can you erase any signal of where we’re going? We don’t want anyone to, well, you know.” I didn’t want to reveal too much in front of Gunnar. No matter how loyal he was, there was no doubt that the truth would be way more than the driver could handle on his own.
“Sure thing, boss,” Malthe said with a nod, pulling out his laptop and beginning to tap away on its keyboard. “I’m erasing all signs of us now.”
It took us about an hour to get back down to the docks, which was half the time it usually took us because there was no traffic. Gunnar dropped us off with a final word of support and concern, and then we rushed back over to Iggy’s ship, where the old man was dutifully waiting for us. The problem was that the whole place was still busy, crawling with shippers.
“Now, how are we gonna keep this under wraps with everybody watching us?” Clem asked, leaning in close so only Iggy and me could hear him, and none of the nearby shippers, who were already watching us closely.
“Good question,” I said, thinking this over. “Oh, I’ve got it! Iggy, Jami said that there are boats back and forth to the Void, and one of them went missing. Is one of them still operational?”
“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Iggy said, scratching the back of his head as he thought about this. “But no one’s been usin’ those the past couple of days.”
“Right,” I said. “But will one of them take us over there?”
“I thought you wanted to come with me on my shipping run,” he said, getting a little frantic. “I have to leave on schedule, or Jami’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
“Of course,” I said. “We wouldn’t want to keep you. But we still have a little time before then, right?”
“Just about an hour or so,” Iggy reasoned. “Probably not enough for you to get over there and do whatever you want doin’ and to get back over here on top of everything.”
“Right, but what I’m thinking is, in order to avoid these guys seeing us get on with you, we could hitch a ride over to the Void. Then you can stop there and let us on when you pass by the island. Does that work, or would that put you behind schedule?”
“Oh, no, I think that’ll be okay,” Iggy said, looking relieved. He really wasn’t the brightest guy around, was he?
“Awesome, thanks, Iggy,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Now, where’s this other ship?”
“It’s more of a little boat, really, like Jami told ya,” Iggy said, meandering over to the edge of the dock and pointing down to the west. “It’s right down that away. And the shippers there with it now. You’ll wanna hurry before he leaves to pick up any of the guys workin’ over there today.”
“Okay, thanks, Iggy,” I said again, already taking off in a run to make it down there, the rest of my team following close behind me.
We ran all the way to the small boat which was more of a long canoe than anything else.
“Will we all fit?” Clem asked when we arrived, gasping for air as he clutched his still healing leg.
“Will we?” I asked, turning to the shipper nearby, who was staring at us like we were some kind of pack of zoo animals.
“Oh, uh… I don’t know,” he stammered. “I mean, I think so. I can make it work. I’ve taken one or two bigger groups before.”
“Thanks,” I said, nodding to him. “Can we leave now?”
“Well, I was just…” He gestured feebly down to what I took to be cleaning supplies, indicating that he’d been in the middle of cleaning his boat.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” I assured him. “And you don’t have to come back to pick us up.”
“Oh, I mean, okay,” the guy said, still a little flustered. “Hey, are you all who I think ya are?”
“Probably,” I said with a grin. “But we’re in a hurry. And don’t tell anyone anything about this, got it? We’re trying to keep at least some things about our whereabouts under wraps.”
“Um, sure,” he said, still a bit floored.
“I’ll make that worth your while, too,” I assured him, and he nodded and hopped into the boat.
“Just get in easy now, ya hear?” he instructed. “You don’t wanna take a tumble.”
We let Lin a
nd the foxgirls in first, then Clem, and then I rounded out the rear.
The ride itself was rather peaceful. The shipper didn’t talk at all, and neither did we. It was just us and the rippling water, along with the sounds coming from the city behind us. And Malthe still tapping away on his laptop, washing away any trace of us, though I’m sure people noticed us getting on the boat.
I pulled out my E-pad to message Semra one last time and instruct her to tell the press that we made one last round to the Void before going down into the tunnels to keep the press off our trail.
It was about a half-hour ride, and it was beautiful. There was a slight fog cast over everything, and it was the most peaceful half-hour I thought that I’d ever had. I’d never really been this far removed from the action in the city, other than a few yachting expeditions in my youth. But those were just a bunch of rich kids partying. There wasn’t much that was peaceful about that.
About halfway into the ride, the Void emerged on the horizon of our vision. It was a long sandy strip smack dab in the middle of the ocean, with the tall, uninviting steel prison sticking out of the middle. It would be a nice vacation spot if it weren’t for all the criminals and everything.
“Thanks, man,” I told the shipper when we docked, sending him a more than ample sum through my E-pad.
“You’ll find another way back?” he asked us. “Not many air car drivers want to make the trek out here.”
“We have one who will,” I told him. “He just wasn’t available right now.”
“I find it hard to believe anyone wouldn’t drop anything to be available for you,” the shipper said with a startled laugh as the notification with his payment came through on his own E-pad. “Thanks for the tip!”
“Well, we had another job for him with an employee of mine,” I lied. “And no problem. Have a good one and stay safe!”
We waited on the sand for some time for Iggy to arrive. No one up at the Void itself would see us, I was sure. Their cameras were destroyed, and no one could see this far with the naked eye. The island itself was large, though not as large as Termina obviously.
“Do we know where we’re going?” Malthe asked after some time. “Or where we want to go?”
“Not yet,” I said, setting my mouth in a grim line. I hadn’t even had time to think about that. Before this, my thoughts had been all consumed by thoughts about whether or not Achilles was in the outside world, so much so that it hadn’t even crossed my mind yet what that outside world might actually look like. I had no idea what we were going to find when we got there.
“What if someone recognizes us as from Termina?” Lin asked. “I mean, we’re completely isolated from the rest of the world. It would make sense that we would stick out.”
“We’ll have to answer all these questions in real-time,” I said. “We’re not going to get any answers now, are we?”
“I guess not,” Malthe said, biting his lip as he continued to look through his E-pad. “But I like information. And I don’t like not having it.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not sure what’s coming, but I do know it’s at least going to be interesting. I mean, think about it, there’s a whole world out there that we know nothing about. That’s fascinating to think about.”
“And weird,” Cindra said, scrunching up her face as if she smelled something funny.
“Yeah, that too,” I laughed. “It’s definitely weird.”
“They might know nothing about us, too, right?” Clem asked. “I mean, we’re isolated from them. So that means they’re isolated from us, too.”
“Yes, but at least some of them know about us,” I reminded him. “Case in point, Achilles and his people, which is more than can be said about us until today. None of us would’ve ever dreamed about any of this a week ago.”
“That’s true,” Clem admitted, his tone and expression glum.
“But it’s true that maybe everyday people won’t recognize us as being from out of town,” I said. “Maybe Achilles and his people keep us a secret from them as they do them from us, for whatever reason. That’s what we need to hope for, anyway. But we need to prepare for the worst.”
“Agreed,” Kinley said. “So how’re we going to get on that ship? The second one that meets Iggy near the shore to pick up the cargo?”
“I thought we could try to sneak on somehow, maybe with the cargo,” I said. “Whatever the case, we need to keep a low profile. For whatever reason, they don’t even want the shippers going anywhere near the shore of any continent, so I think it’s safe to assume that they don’t want anyone else tagging along either.”
“This is all so overwhelming,” Kira said, cradling her head in her hands. “It makes my head hurt.”
“For real?” I asked, suddenly concerned. “Or are you just saying that?” The last thing we needed was for her concussion to make a comeback. Or at least that was one of the many last things we needed.
“No, I’m fine,” she said, waving away my concern and lifting her head from her hands. “I meant that figuratively.”
“Well, in that case, me too,” I said, though relief washed through me. “How’s your leg, Clem?”
“Healing,” he said. “I imagine that by the time we get anywhere where there may be action, I’ll be good as new.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said. “We don’t need anyone else collapsing on us.”
“Oh, look, is that Iggy’s ship?” Cindra asked, pointing to a brown speck off in the distance.
“I hope so,” Clem said. “Otherwise, we’re screwed. We don’t need anyone else seeing us around here.”
“It’s Iggy,” Malthe confirmed. “I have footage of him leaving the docks about fifteen minutes ago, so he’s right on schedule for arriving here. And no one else has left in a while.”
“Good,” I said, breathing another sigh of relief. Clem was right about this one.
“Have you erased any memory of us running around the city today?” Lin asked him.
“Aw yeah,” he said. “I got done with that ages ago. I’ve just been watching to see how everyone’s reacting to all this in the city.”
“And?” I asked, turning to him.
“They’re predictably panicking,” he said with a shrug. “But no riots or anything yet. Semra gave a good speech, very reassuring.”
“I knew she would,” I said. “She’s got that commanding presence, all right.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Clem said with a hollow laugh.
I looked around at the group. Everyone had some kind of nervous tick going on. Clem was tapping his good foot on the ground repeatedly, while Kira continued to cradle her head. Lin wrung her hands, and Kinley kept squinting out at the water to make sure no one else was coming. Cindra was hugging herself tightly, and Malthe was still absorbed in his E-pad, though in a moment, what went on in Termina was no longer much of a concern of ours. The rest of the world was our game now. And we needed to do everything we could to learn about it.
“Do you think there’s any way the signal will reach out on the boat?” I asked him again.
“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head. “If I had more time, maybe I could try to figure out what that machine Jami had is and try to replicate it. But that would take some time that I don’t think we have, and it might not even work then.”
“Yeah, we can’t afford any more wasted time,” I agreed. “That was a good call, man. And it’s not like we’ll be able to do anything for the rest of the board or anyone else in Termina once we’re out on the water. I’d just really like to be able to stay in the loop on things.”
“Maybe it’s for the best that we won’t be distracted, though,” Lin said. “This way, we can focus on the task at hand and let Semra handle the rest without fretting over it all the time.”
“That’s true,” I said, though it still bothered me not to be in the know about everything going on in my city.
“Looks like he’s here,” Kinley said, pointin
g to the ship that was rapidly approaching us, now a large mass of wooden boards against the shore.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep, sharp breath. “It’s time to find out what’s out there.”
15
Iggy greeted us from the side of the ship and helped us one by one after he let down the anchor.
“How’s the beach treatin’ ya, Mr. Joch?” he asked me when he helped me on last, after the rest of my team.
“Peaceful, I guess. We’re excited to be getting out of here,” I said, taking his hand and helping pull myself up and into the ship. “And please call me Nic. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together over the next couple of weeks, after all.”
“Sure thing, Nic,” he said, wiping his hands off on his tattered jeans once we were all collected in the entrance to the boat. “Though I still don’t understand much why ya all are comin’ with me.”
“Well, it’s probably better that way,” I said, my mouth set in a firm line.
“I figured as much, to be honest with ya,” Iggy said, scratching the back of his head again. “Ya know, if you want to go into shore on the next continent over, you’re gonna need to find another way about it. Like I told ya, I don’t actually dock anywhere other than Termina.”
“I worked that much out for myself, Iggy,” I said, giving him a warm smile. “Do you think we could catch a ride with some of this cargo over here?” I pointed at the stacks of cargo crates surrounding us. The old man’s eyes widened at this suggestion.
“You can’t really think that’s a good idea, Mr. J… I mean, Nic?” he asked, looking around wildly at the rest of the group. “I mean, I presume they inspect the stuff before they unload it and all.”
“You just let us worry about that,” I said, smiling at him again, this time mischievously. “We just need them to not notice us initially. We don’t know how to sail a ship ourselves after all.”
“No, I guess not,” Iggy said, still appearing very nervous about all this. “I don’t know, Mr… I mean, Nic, I just don’t know.”