Outlaw

by Dale Ivan Smith

  I shook my head. “Please. I’d like to say goodbye at the node or whatever you call it. A true goodbye.”

  “That’s not possible,” Loris said quickly.

  I smiled inside. “I want to see Keisha, too. She’s my best friend.”

  You could have cut the silence that suddenly fell in the room with a knife.

  “I’d like to go with her,” Alex said suddenly.

  “Do you mean to see her off?” Loris said, suddenly worried for the first time. “We can certainly allow that.”

  Alex said nothing for a moment. Was he going to go with me? “Yes, to see her off,” he said at last.

  My legs felt heavy.

  “What about Keisha?” I asked.

  “She’ll meet you the gate.”

  Ella stood up. “As will I.” She suddenly seemed older.

  Her apparitions no longer stood behind me. They’d vanished.

  “I don’t know if that is wise,” Loris said.

  “I want to say goodbye where it matters,” she said, sounding like me.

  My heart rose at this. I would have time to tell her about seeing mom alive. That would persuade her. It had to.

  Loris sent a messenger to look for Keisha. They brought Alex and I stools to sit on, and water to drink. We all sat in silence.

  After a while, the messenger returned, whispered something in Loris’s ear. She nodded gravely.

  “I’m afraid Keisha can’t join you.”

  I stood up. “Well, then I’m not leaving until she does.” I wanted Keisha with me. And I needed her with me. She’d been skating on thin ice, temperament wise, since I’d gotten here. Loris must have talked to her a lot since Keisha arrived, three plus months ago. I wouldn’t use anger to get to Keisha. But she was my friend. I’d find a way.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m going.”

  The tension fled the room

  “Very good,” Loris said. She leaned forward, like a hawk circling a kill. “This is best for all of us.”

  “Where I am headed?” I asked.

  “Back home. To your Oregon. We’ll close that part of your “fairy road” once you are gone.”

  I wondered if they actually could control the Dark-Net like that. If they really were sending me back to Oregon, it might be straight to Support if the other end was at Mossville.

  Loris smiled at Alex and my sister. “Please return here, Alexander and Ella, once you have said your goodbyes,” she said.

  They both nodded.

  We left the room, followed by two big, muscled guards.

  The muscled guys reminded me of ganger types. I didn’t remember seeing them before, but this place was huge.

  Another big guy joined us. This one had a gun, the first one I’d seen here. It looked like a big caliber automatic pistol. Probably not the only firearm here. Hell, the two behind me could be carrying hold outs. I had totally bought Loris’s act when I’d first arrived. No doubt just like Keisha.

  “Where have you been hiding all this time?” I asked the guy with the gun. Mister Pistol.

  Mister Pistol ignored me, standing out of punching range and motioning at one of the other goons. “You take the lead,” he said.

  The other goon nodded, gave me a wide berth as he passed. Then Mister Pistol took up position behind me, the big automatic pistol in his hand. He didn’t point it at my back, but it was clear he knew how to handle the gun by the easy way he held it.

  They really wanted me to leave.

  But why not just kill me?

  Ella. And now Alex.

  They didn’t want to lose them.

  Or Keisha.

  Loris’s persuasion power--killing me might break her hold over Alex and Ella. And Keisha. It would also show that this place wasn’t the peaceful hangout Loris acted like it was. Having me killed might even wake up the Fellowship people. Loris obviously couldn’t allow that.

  All this ran through my head as we marched along the winding corridors, into the open, beneath the soaring cavern.

  Another thought came to me. My mother lived. I was sure of it. That knowledge focused me. I had to find her.

  But first, I had to break Loris’s spell.

  14

  Our footsteps echoed as we crossed a huge square, ancient towers of stone surrounding us like giants.

  We didn’t say anything. I needed to get my act together, power-wise. I had to deal with the guards so I could talk to Alex and Ella.

  I concentrated on my power as we walked winding paths, and entered a tunnel, which sloped downward. Down we went, until the tunnel began to have water on the walls. There should be plants nearby. Even fungus.

  A low murmuring in my mind from around the curve of the tunnel.

  This was my chance. I reached out with my power, through the tunnel walls and across to the other side, brushing hidden plant-things there. They trembled.

  The low murmuring continued, deeper in tone now.

  We rounded the corner. As we did, I pushed my power into plant things there. Light exploded, and I was blinded. I blinked furiously. Alex and Ella gasped. Our escort now wore sunglasses. Expecting it, I guessed.

  Opposite us was a spiral of shining emerald. It had to be worth billions. My eyes focused and I realized it was some kind of plant, hard shelled, like a crystal, and that was what murmured in my mind.

  The tunnel walls here were encrusted with it as well.

  How the hell could I use that stuff to beat the guards?

  No sign of the Dark-Net hoodie guards. Maybe it was different here.

  In fact, I didn’t see any sentinels. Nothing.

  The spiral changed color, from green, to blue, to gold while the air was cooler, filled with the scent of pine and wet grass. It smelled like Oregon.

  Beyond the spiral a path appeared. How the hell did they control the node here? Could they go anywhere? It didn’t seem likely.

  “Time to say goodbye,” Mister Pistol said behind me. His arrogant tone was just begging to be punched. But he had the drop on me. “You have two minutes,” he said.

  “Thanks, Mister Generosity,” I threw back at him.

  “Don’t press your luck, babe.”

  Yeah, he sure wasn’t the run-of-the-mill Fellowship member. He sauntered up beside me. “Your sister’s waiting.” He gestured with his gun at Ella. Getting cocky. I’d decided anger wasn’t the way out of this but I’d make him eat that pistol if he kept gesturing it.

  “Fine, give us our time,” I said. Alex and Ella fidgeted, muscles in their faces working overtime. Good.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said. He shifted uneasily. Time to break Loris’s spell.

  “I love you,” I told him. Even as I said it to push him, I felt lighter. Love, not something I had imagined ever getting the chance to feel for a man. I’d buried that thought for years, because just getting by was hard enough. But now, there was Alex, who loved me back, despite me being a hard-headed asshole so often.

  “I can’t imagine being without you,” Alex said abruptly. He shook himself.

  “I’m sorry, sis,” Ella said. “I didn’t mean to be such a jerk. You see how this is best though, right?”

  Ordering her to come home hadn’t worked with the apparitions, and probably wouldn’t with her. But I had an idea. It would be playing dirty, but in a good cause.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. I turned to Ella.

  I’m sorry, Mat,” she said, tears glistening in her eyes.

  “Ruth and I are sorry, too,” I said. “Ruth misses you so much.” She flinched when I said Ruth. That was my opening. “I’ll tell her you’re fine. You know how much she cares about you, how much she loves all of us, even though she’s sick.” I paused. A tear ran down Ella’s face.

  Now to be a real bastard. I twisted the knife. “She’s already lived longer than the average for Thalik’s,” I said. “By a lot.”

  Ella looked away, sobbed. She had to be close now. Alex, too.

  The goons were meatheads, muscle. They were tough, an
d one of them was armed for sure, maybe the other two had the hold out pistols.

  There were no plants here. No seeds in the rock. Nothing to work with.

  Except the weird, living floral encrustations. I pushed my sense into them, and it was like leaning over a deep well. I pulled back.

  These would do. But I needed a way to deal with the guards, and I still hadn’t come up with one.

  “Time’s up,” Mister Pistol said.

  I gave him a pleading look. “Just let me kiss my boyfriend.”

  The goons laughed. “You don’t seem the mushy type,” Mister Pistol said, flashing his teeth.

  “Looks can deceive.”

  More chuckles from the muscle head brigade.

  I pulled Alex close. “I’m going to miss you,” I said.

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  We kissed, for the first time, there in that tunnel, with my sister and those three goons watching. I didn’t care. Our lips touched, and for an instant, the world froze and it was just Alex and me.

  His body was so warm. I could hold him forever. After all we’d been through, he never stopped being there. Me from a few months ago would have thought I’d lost it, but come on, he cared, he was strong, even when he’d been manipulated by a spider in a giant web.

  Power surged into me. But it wasn’t like when I was in the tunnels beneath Mossville or below in the Sacred Spring. It wasn’t like wearing the Amplifier when my body burned with energy from every cell.

  Alex’s superpower must be to give more power to others who were gifted.

  The world was brighter. The crystalline plant things were shining more deeply. The murmuring was words now, but in a language I didn’t recognize. I felt the rhythm of this alien language, the rise and fall, ran through me. I shivered, not in cold, not in fear, but in excitement.

  The world was alive to me in a way it hadn’t been before. I could see the structures in the crystals, shifting inside.

  And I could change that structure.

  Plants inhaled and exhaled, just like we did. Only they inhaled carbon dioxide, and exhaled oxygen. The crystal things were no different. If only I could come up with a toxin, but I didn’t see how I could from the crystal things, and even if I did, how to not hit Alex, Ella and me.

  But the crystals were part of something colossal. I could see their roots in my mind, fibrous threads like silken roots, but crystalline, running through the Earth, into a blurring space.

  The fairy road.

  They also ran around it, anchoring themselves in the bedrock.

  So very peaceful, even as the potential for an earthquake was coiled there, like a giant spring.

  Understanding exploded inside me and my eyes widened. I could unleash that force by making the fibers react. Create an earthquake.

  “All right, hugging time is over,” Mister Pistol said.

  I sent a command into the fibers, to tremble.

  The world began rocking.

  “Shit, earthquake!” one of the goons shouted.

  We tumbled back and forth. Dust showered down. Cracks opened in the earth.

  The world rocked harder. I tumbled into Mister Pistol and the two of us slammed into the wall, me throwing an elbow hard at his throat as we did. He made a choking sound. The other two goons had fallen. Ella had managed to brace herself in a corner, while Alex lay on the ground. The world kept shaking.

  I held on to Mister Pistol and we were flung from the wall. I twisted him around as we staggered away, and managed to lever him so that he fell underneath me, and my knee was planted in his groin. He gave a strangled gasp, still choking.

  I reached into the crystalline fibers and calmed them. The Earth’s trembling died down.

  I stomped on each goon’s throat. No time to be nice. I gave them each a kick to the head. Took Mister Pistol’s gun and dropped into one of the cracks that had opened up in the earth.

  “What did you do?” Alex stood up, brushed off dirt that had showered down. “I can think clearly again.”

  I kissed him, again. “Helped you break a spell,” I said.

  Ella nodded. “It’s like I can think again. When you said Ruth still cared, it was like the fog in my brain cleared.”

  “Loris’s persuasion power.” I shook my head. “That’s one powerful bitch of an ability. Subtle, too. I think it’s easy to break at first.” The whole community was built around it—a web of lies, persuasions, motivations sent in motion by her words. I shuddered. I’d thought Support was bad that way.

  I’d gotten what I’d came here for.

  Except Keisha wasn’t here. And those kids. And their parents. Shit, I’d gone from needing to rescue my sister to rescuing a freaking village.

  “We can’t leave,” I told Ella and Alex. “We’ve got to find Keisha and the others.”

  I snapped my fingers. I was an idiot. I grabbed Ella’s shoulders and grinned like one.

  “Your power! Alex can boost it.” I shot him a look. “How do you do that by the way?”

  “I have no idea. I just see the power flowing through the air, and I can thicken it, or clear it. It’s like a golden aura that I see whenever I use my power.”

  No wonder Loris wanted Alex to stay.

  We had to break Loris’s hold on the community. “Okay, so here’s what I want you to do,” I told Ella. “Send apparitions to your friends in Sanctuary. Remind them of their home—you know things about them, right?”

  Ella nodded.

  “Good! Tell them the earthquake was worldwide, and that they need to go home, through the fairy road, to help. Or tell them that this place has become too dangerous. Whatever works to get them moving here.”

  Ella closed her eyes, began concentrating.

  I had no idea where to find Keisha.

  “I have to try looking for Keisha,” I said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Alex said. “I know the layout of this place.” He tapped his head. “That’s one of things Support found useful about me—my memory for layouts.”

  “You can’t. You have to stay with Ella.”

  “I can do this while walking.” She opened her eyes. “Once I’ve created my projections, it’s easy to walk and chew gum at the same time. Unlike some people.” She winked at me.

  God, it was good to be back with my sister. I hugged her.

  “Glad you are you.”

  She hugged me back. “So am I.”

  The tunnel that headed back up was filled with debris. My little earthquake had been bigger, wider than I’d thought. We reached the square closest to the tunnel, and found rocks scattered across the stones. One of the towers had collapsed. My heart sank. This was far more than I’d planned. It was one thing if Loris’s private army had been injured, but another if innocents had been hurt or worse. Especially the kids. My jaw tightened.

  “Hey!” A man’s voice boomed across the square. A big guy, carrying a rifle scrambled over a ruined wall. He wore a turban, and a long coat. “Loris is looking for you,” he called in heavily accented English.

  No time for conversations. I reached into the ground, brought flowering vines to life, urged them to climb up, powering my power into them to speed them up. And I altered the flower buds. When the vines snaked out of the ground around him, the guard’s eyes widened. He aimed the rifle at me.

  “You do plant magic, I kill you. I’ll not get choked.”

  “There’s new kinds of plant magic,” I said. The flowers sprayed a knockout odor into the air. He grabbed at his throat, the rifle slipped from his hand, clattered on the ground, and he crumpled.

  Alex ran to the rifle, scooped up the weapon and jogged back to us.

  “Okay, where to next?” I asked Ella.

  “This is fine.” Her eyes were closed. Her fingers wiggled. I could see her eyes darting behind closed eyelids. “I’ll send my projections to the people.”

  Her face was flushed, and she breathed hard. Standing still.

  “How about we find a place for you to sit?”
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  “No, standing helps me with my projections. She began to weave in a little weird dance, arms swinging around.

  My brows furrowed. “How many apparitions have you created?”

  “A dozen. I’m trying to get a thirteenth,” she said between clenched teeth.

  A dozen. She must be pushing herself to her limits. Sweat drenched her face and her arms and legs shook.

  “Alex, can you help her?” I asked.

  “Absolutely.” He put a hand on her shoulder, closed his eyes.

  She took a deep breath, and smiled. “That’s better.”

  Boots crunched on rock on the far side of the square. I peered into the shadows there.

  A man appeared, wearing a fur cap and brown coat. He didn’t have a gun that I could see, but he scanned the square.

  “We got company,” I whispered. I tensed, reached into the vines by the sleeping thug, and sent them snaking across the square.

  The newcomer smiled when he saw us. Children appeared behind him. Then women. Finally, an Ella projection, dressed in her old-fashioned Empowered costume. She winked at me, then turned, and took up a position back the way they came.

  “That’s one group,” Ella whispered.

  How many more, I wondered.

  Two more came in the next fifteen minutes. There were more women in those two groups, and kids. I saw Hala and Christianne.

  They both ran across the square toward us, calling out Ella’s name. They reached her and hugged her from two sides, looking up at my sister with smiles. My throat tightened.

  I looked away. “Have you found Keisha?” I asked Ella.

  “No.”

  She had been guarding the entrance, but she could be anywhere.

  “How many are left?” The square had well over fifty people, adults and kids, squatting down, waiting.

  Damn it, I didn’t want to risk the kids we’d already saved, but I couldn’t leave Keisha.

  I touched Alex’s shoulder. He was still facing Ella, his eyes closed, concentrating. The muscles in his neck were tight. He must be straining to continue to use his new found power. “Where is the most likely place she’d be?”

  “I’d guess either the entrance outside, or heading toward the Dark-Net node, or…” He turned away from Ella and faced me. “Or she could be with Loris.” He turned back to Ella. “You’ve double checked the entrance?”