The Portal of the Beast

by J. A. Hailey

  Esmeralda looked again at the garden. “Yes, the group of three, King, Sheikh and Michael are practically running out of the garden, heading for a door leading out of the far wall, away from us.”

  “Don’t come down the stairs, Esme,” screamed BC. “You’ll be shot for sure. That’s been a very fast response, and I am already under attack. Must be the security group stationed inside the palace itself. Someone’s kicked hard at the door, and now shot the lock. Yes, door’s open, and I’ve just shot dead one guy in uniform. Going forward to chase them away from the door. I have now shot another one. A group of security people at the far end of the corridor has dragged a chest out from some room, to cover behind. Shooting at random down the corridor, and with machine guns too.”

  “BC, there’s killing started in the party,” screamed Esmeralda. “Men with guns have begun shooting servants!”

  “It’s the King’s order,” said Caesar, urgently. “Get out by any means you can. Tell me how I can get involved.”

  “Esme, you won’t be able to come down the stairs to join me,” said BC. “Just as surely as I’ll get shot if I step into the corridor and try to run up the stairs to you. Lots of lead flying around. There’s no doubt that we have to fight our way out of this situation.

  “Tell me your options. As long as I’m alive in this room, they won’t be able to go up the stairs to you, so look around and come up with a plan, which will have to be based on somehow getting out through a window.”

  “Too high to jump down,” screamed Esmeralda. “From window to ground, well over 25 feet, and it’s absolutely hard concrete below, the border directly around the palace. And they’re shooting servants in the party. ”

  Esmeralda now addressed Sabine in the head. “Darling Sabine, this is looking very, very bad, and I fully regret finding ourselves in this situation. We’ll fight like mad, Caesar, BC and I, be sure of that, and do our utmost to get you and Louis out of here. But the first problem, as you can see, is that we are stuck in this room, with no way out.”

  “Esme, we are such an accomplished virtual, capable of doing things that even professional humans, experts in their fields, cannot imagine. Do we have the balance to walk the high wire, like across the Niagara Falls?”

  “Haven’t done it, as you know, but we should have the balance, as we are a very advanced and capable computer program.”

  “Come on, then, to the window. Look.”

  “BC, Caesar, Sabine’s spotted a potential escape route, the clever girl. A thick electrical cable leads to this building, attached about 3 feet away and five feet below the windowsill level. I’ll have to jump, like fall with outstretched arms from here, and catch it with my hands, and then I could attempt to walk the wire, but it’s got electricity in it, and will fry us dead on contact. Of course, it will also make our hands bloody with the scraping, as these cables are made of twisted strands; very scrapy, I imagine. ”

  “I have identified the cable you’re talking about, Esme,” said Caesar. “It’s the main power supply to the palace, from the tower you can see over the wall, and it is possible for me to run to near it and do something about it. I could shoot the electricity out of it; snap it where it comes into the tower, through the desert, so that it stays taut by remaining attached to the tower on your side. Running now; almost in position Yep, shot it once, and twice, and now thrice. Very little remaining; just a strand. The electrical load is too high; there’s a glow, and now a flash, as the last bit of the cable fuses and it snaps on the desert side, and there goes power to the palace. Not gone dark completely, as many emergency lights seem to have come on, but there is no power in the cable over the garden, and you can walk the wire.”

  “Esme,” said Sabine urgently, “I never had the balance to walk on a wire, but I know this game from a small circus that used to set up in Marseille, in a field near us, when we were kids. There are lots of socks in that drawer. Put on a number of layers on hands and feet, and cut holes for the fingers and for the big toe; we’ll have grip, and no scraping or bleeding.”

  Esmeralda ran to the drawer, saying, “Great idea, Sabine. Here, a couple of these thick cotton ones.” She pulled them hurriedly on over her left hand, and then took her knife out and stuck the point through at the fingertips. “Pull hard, pull, pull; there, the fingers have come through, and we have a glove. Quickly, now, one for the other hand.” She raced through it, and then felt her grip on the Glock, twirling it for a couple of seconds. “Not bad. I’ll manage to shoot accurately,” said she, satisfied. “Now a quickie for the feet, too.”

  Many emergency lights had come on in the garden, and one had also come on in the room, providing enough light for the work.

  It now became apparent that the lawn had a few dozen armed security men in plain clothes, and neither Sabine nor Louis would have ever stood a chance of getting out of there alive - except that an amazing, although extremely sad, opportunity was provided through a massive mistake made by the King!

  “It’s our chance,” said Caesar. “The King has made the mistake which has caused the commotion that is going on. He’s ordered the killing of all servants in the palace; and the servants on the lawn, there are hundreds of them, have begun fighting back.

  “First, two girls picked up knives and stabbed a guard each, and then everyone decided to fight for their lives. Poor things; they’ll still get murdered by the troops afterwards. I’m standing on the boundary wall; it was easy getting up onto it, as there’s a lot of wind-blown sand piled up outside; easy. You’ve got to take off your jackets; it’s what the poor servants on the lawn are doing. Without a jacket on, it gets a little bit harder to tell who’s a servant, especially with the total commotion that is going on now. Also, I’m shooting into the crowd on the ground.

  “I am in uniform, and could be aiming for servants, although I am shooting security people dead. Difficult to identify, until you see them with guns in their hands.”

  “Servants, Sabine, it’s servants that are the targets, obviously because they have seen us in servant clothes.”

  “Then put on a dark shirt," said Sabine. “Those poor servants are all in white or light colored shirts. There are many shirts in the cupboard.”

  “Another good idea,” said Esmeralda, appreciatively, and quickly changed her pale shirt for a black one from Michael’s wardrobe, which meant she was now dressed completely in black.

  “BC, I’m ready to jump.”

  “Wait a few seconds, Esme. I’ve just fired two shots down the corridor, to keep them there, and now I have opened the window, and there, I’ve killed a security man right here in front of me. As soon as he saw me, he made as if to take a shot at me.”

  “If you haven’t done so already, take off your jacket,” said Caesar. “It’s the ID of servants.”

  “And wait. It’s much better to change your light shirt for a dark colored one,” said Esmeralda. “There are many shirts in Michael’s cupboards upstairs, and I’m going to throw one down to you. Get it and change into it. And make sure the corridor security guys don’t pop up at the door and shoot you in the back. What was that explosion?”

  “A grenade. They’ve tossed one in, but it went off far from me, as they dare not come to the door. That gives them a very acute angle from which to throw things into the room. The shirt you threw down has floated away from the French window, and I don’t want to attract immediate attention by stepping out looking somewhat like a servant, but beginning to shoot dead some of these armed people. Bundle the next one tight, like a ball, and let it fall along the wall. We don’t care about creases. We are not guests.”

  “Absolutely not guests, BC. We’re the party poopers. There, the shirt has fallen straight down along the wall. Get it, change, and let’s get going.”

  A few seconds later, BC gave the go-ahead. “Not a bad fit. I’m ready.”

  “Okay, then. I’m about to have a jump at the wire. My Glock’s out of sight, and I’m hoping they will not view
me as a target straight away. I’m first shooting out the emergency light inside the room, so that I’m not visible when standing, framed in a window of light.”

  Esmeralda stood on the windowsill and leapt and fell, arms outstretched. It was perfectly calculated, and she was able to pull herself up, to stand on the wire, in another two seconds.

  “I am doing nothing, Esme,” said Sabine. “But I now understand what being a computer program means in these situations. Still, any bullet will kill me, so I just want to tell you that I love you, and that I have had a fantastic life, ever since you entered and possessed me. Even this is fun.”

  “I’m hoping they don’t see us as a target straight off, Sabine. These guys are lousy shots, but a monkey at a piano will eventually end up playing Beethoven. Later, if they begin targeting us on the wire, I’ll begin shooting also. Caesar, how are you for bullets?”

  “Unlimited. As soon as I knew that we’d be shooting, I picked up ammunition belts from many of the security people I passed. I am now going to keep shooting out emergency lights to make it as dark as possible, and as confusing as we can manage.”

  BC began keeping pace with her as she walked the wire, slyly shooting dead whoever nearby was showing himself as armed. “I’m out of servant uniform and armed with a gun,” he said. “I have to make the security people think I’m one of them, which works as long as they don’t catch on that I’m shooting at their types. But every time I use the gun, I’m having to fight off servants, because gun means security fellow. Damn difficult as I don’t want to hurt any servant, especially the girls. It’s too sad, the poor things, crazed with fear; crying; dying.”

  “I am almost halfway, I think,” said Esmeralda. “Look at the way the cable is sagging. It’s all uphill from here on. I could probably jump down now, but I reckon it would be slower and more dangerous on the ground, especially now with BC’s update. I’m going to run.”

  But she had no chance to run just then. “Ouch!” she screamed suddenly, into the virtuality. “We’ve been hit in the leg.”

  The force of the unexpected bullet made her foot miss the wire, and she fell. Yet, with instantaneous reactions, she twisted her body in the air and spread her arms out to catch the wire, like a trapeze artist at the circus. And then, employing the natural bounce of the cable, and spreading her legs parallel to her body, she made the jump to sit sideways on the wire.

  “That one,” said Esmeralda to Sabine. “That group on the other side of the wall, to our back. We are obviously clearly visible, in silhouette, against the very bright light at the front of the palace,” she said, twisting her body around to face the direction from which the shot had come. It was a group very far away, which included Michael and the rulers, and it was Michael who was pointing her out as a target to a uniformed officer with a rifle.

  Esmeralda instantly took her Glock into her hand, on seeing which action, Michael and the others, despite the great distance for a pistol, ducked behind cover, leaving the rifleman to do his job. Esmeralda shot dead the officer with the rifle. He was possibly at the range limit of the handgun, but it was also clearly a head shot, for he became absolutely still, toppling to the ground as soon as the bullet hit him. “He’s the one who shot us.”

  “Good,” said Sabine. “But will we be able to save these poor servants? They’re being killed like flies.”

  “We won’t be able to save them, sweetie,” said Esmeralda. “We’ve got to get out ourselves.”

  “It hurt when the bullet went in, Esme, but it’s not paining now.”

  “I’ve diverted the sensations out. We still have to run for our lives. Can’t afford being disabled by pain.”

  “I’ll have a permanent scar.”

  “You’ll have a permanent nothing. We’ll get it fixed when we get back, out of this horror and into civilization again.”

  “Or Louis will just have to love the scar.”

  Esmeralda stood, and amazed her distant watchers by actually sprinting now on the cable, shooting as she ran. She had been noticed and had become a target, and bullets tugged at her shirt, with the odd shot passing through her flying blonde hair. Caesar and BC kept trying to protect her, by shooting and killing anyone aiming in her direction.

  Caesar, firing his two handguns simultaneously, also shot out emergency lights, but many were facing away, attached to other walls, or around corners that he could not get at, and so, though it became much darker, it was still sufficiently bright for the ground battle to continue unabated.

  The lawn was littered with dead and dying bodies, the wounded screaming horrifically. Many guests were now involved in the fighting, primarily on the side of the waiters, as, in the confusion, they were also being targeted by security people, who were otherwise shooting them in their heads at point blank range.

  As Grietzmann, eyewitness to it all would later observe, “If the security people were in uniform, and able to be identified easily, instead of being in regular clothes and getting mixed up with the guests, these virtuals might have actually finished every single one of them off in no time at all.”

  Finally, Esmeralda made it to the boundary, leaping off the cable to stand on the wall with perfect balance, and then immediately hanging down by her arms, for BC to grab hold of her legs and acrobatically scramble up the wall.

  The reunited couple then immediately toppled off the wall, out of the battle zone and onto the soft sand on the other side.

  “They’ll be after us in no time,” said BC. “It’s Michael; he’s seen you on the wire, and he knows the direction we’ve taken. I don’t understand his game, but we are the enemy to him, the King, and that group, who are all in this together. Without us in there, those poor waiters and other servants will be slaughtered in no time, and then they’ll be sifting through the bodies, looking for us. Or maybe they have it all on camera anyway. The cowards ran for their lives.”

  “They are out on that side of that wall,” said Esmeralda, pointing. “Michael instructed the shooting that got me in the leg. But I was watching at the time just before the King’s group ran away. Abraham Grietzmann did not get out with them. He’s hiding in the toilet.”

  “Which one, Esme?” asked Caesar. “I can safely go in there, as a colonel of the Royal Security Force, and I’ll get hold of him.”

  “Shoot him dead, like a dog?”

  “No, Esme. He’s got the answers we need. I’ll kidnap him and squeeze the juice out of him. You folks better run for your lives. You’re far from out of danger, despite having got out of the palace boundaries. If you want, you could run to me, and all three of us can join forces to head for one of the front gates. We could take a couple of four-wheel-drive vehicles and head out over the desert.

  “That should work, as any tracking of us would come into the Internet zone, in which we can tamper and mislead. As I am a colonel in uniform, and a recognized commander, you two should be under no threat when with me. They have no visuals yet, on whom they are actually gunning for. Any ideas?”

  “We’ll head for the small airstrip around the wall,” said BC. “The Sheikh landed a plane just a little while ago, and we’ll get to it and fly it out of here. We need to get out of here fast, because from now on they’ll become far more organized. They have long-range weapons, and once we are away from the crowd, as we now are, we won’t stand a chance. Have to get out while the confusion still exists, and before people like Michael start organizing the planning.

  “And you, Caesar, must get hold of Abraham Grietzmann. However chaotic the end of our mission, it will be a complete success if you get the information that we came for. And it’s all surely inside that man. You’ve got to extract it. We’ll make our way. You go and get him.

  “Darling, you think you can walk around these walls? I mean with that bullet in your leg?”

  “I can. And it’s not a bullet; just a hole. I’m loaded; the Glock. You?”

  “Yep, loaded. We’ll be walking around from behind, deser
t side, and the security forces there will not be already looking to shoot us. They should view us as ordinary fugitive guests from the mayhem inside the palace. Keep your gun concealed, and please, Esme, don’t start shooting at them. If something comes up and we have to kill a couple, let’s not start a firefight. We can do it quietly. Goodfellow, please get hold of Charlie and tell him to be ready. As we begin coming into range with our satellite signal boosters, he is to start up one of the jets on the airstrip, preferably the one with the maximum fuel, although I think all planes will be parked with nearly full tanks.”

  They turned around the corner of the palace wall and started walking at pace, alongside the long back wall, heading towards the airstrip on the other side.

  Somehow, the system had broken down completely, and it was clear, by the sound of the occasional gunshot, that absolutely no instruction had gone out regarding who exactly was supposed to be killed, and that servants were still being found and shot dead inside the palace.

  31

  Abraham Grietzmann, hiding fearfully in one of the bathrooms off the lawn, had been left behind in the theatre of mayhem and murder, as he was on his way to the toilet when King, Sheikh and Michael had leapt up and fled to the far end of the garden, to vanish through a door leading into another area of the palace grounds.

  “Shoot to kill! Shoot to kill! Shoot, shoot,” the King had screamed, in Arabic, as the garden door had begun shutting behind his fleeing inner circle. And then he had given in to his base nature, and screamed out the dreadful command, which was the terrible mistake that had created the opportunity for the virtual intruders to escape his palace. “Kill the servants. Hunt them down. Kill them all. Kill all servants in the palace!”

  The secret security forces, already unsettled by the unexpected and most unusual movement of the King, began pulling out weapons and shooting at the closest waiters and service staff. And that was when Grietzmann realized that the place was absolutely crawling with undercover armed security people.