by Eric Warren
Someone not connected to the system.
Her parents.
Jonn shot out of his chair, access to level forty-one was only two floors below him. If her parents were here he might be able to help. Deflect some of the confusion away from Arista. He threw open his door and ran down the hall as fast as he could. No one paid him any attention as he made his way to the stairwell. Yells and sounds of—was that gunfire? —filled the stairway. He took the stairs three at a time until he’d reached the forty-fourth floor. After making his way down the hallway he found the entrance to the gates unguarded; most likely everyone had been dispatched to deal with the threat. If he’d had a weapon he would have stayed in the stairs to help her parents fight them off but at the moment the best use of his time was to get her out of that cage.
He entered the room and hit the speaker button beside the door. “Arista?”
The wall was still opaque, he pressed another button on the wall and it shimmered, turning transparent. Arista sat against the bed, oblivious to the alarms, looking out the window. She jumped up when she saw him, running to the wall. “What? What’s wrong?”
“There’s an intruder. Your parents are here to rescue you. We have to get you out now.”
“Jonn, what did they do to you?” she asked.
“They forced that program on me. The one they used for the Peacekeepers. I need to find a way to get rid of it or decompile it.” Something flashed at the edge of his vision again and he jerked his head to catch a glimpse of it.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing. We have to get you out of here, you might be in danger.”
“I can’t get out in case you don’t remember.”
A large boom shook the room. Jonn flinched, it came from the hall behind him.
“What happened?” Arista asked. Of course. She wouldn’t have felt it, technically she was still three floors below him, in the section of the building that had—up until four days ago—been a series of guest rooms. All that changed with Jonn’s suggestion. When he found out what they possessed.
“Stand back.” He reached over and pushed another button on the far wall, and the transparent wall began to vibrate. A low hum emanated from somewhere, as if it were all around them. “Come on through.”
“What?”
He could hear her through the wall now, not through the special speakers and microphones embedded in the walls. “Here, come on, we don’t have time!” He reached through the wall, passing straight through the glass like it were fog, and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her through.
“What the—” Once on the other side she looked at the wall in astonishment. “That felt very strange.”
“It’s a Quantum Gate. They were housing you three floors below us on forty-one, and now you’re on forty-four. It was the only way to keep you from getting too close to anyone you might infect. Of course, they didn’t know about me.” He couldn’t help but beam at her. In his mind, it had been a brilliant plan. Then again, the technology behind the Gate was brilliant as well, far above his level of comprehension. He hadn’t realized his people had developed such advanced technology. They certainly weren’t advertising it.
“A Quantum Gate?” she asked, her frame too thin in his arms. She really had been starved.
“I’ll explain later, right now—” He turned to see an imposing figure standing in the doorway.
“Which one of you is the human?” the figure asked. He was half a foot taller than either of them; a hood covered his head and a smooth mask blocked his face. Jonn stared hard into the darkness, did he see a hint of orange behind the mask?
“What do you want?” Arista asked. Jonn noticed she kept her voice even, no emotion, just like she had any other time she’d interacted with unknown machines. It was a defense mechanism: don’t show panic.
“The human. But I register no heartbeats in here…”
There was a ruckus down the hall and the man stepped back out of the doorframe, raising his arm out of their view. A strange noise filled the air and the ruckus stopped.
“What is going on here? Who are you?” Jonn asked.
“I don’t have time for this,” the man said. He reached out to Jonn with a skinless hand.
Jonn stepped back, he’d never seen the superstructure of their design before and it repulsed him. Had this person no decency? He peered into the darkness shrouded by the hoodie. But the hand grasped and dug into Jonn’s skin with its sharp fingers. “Ow!” Jonn recoiled.
“No blood.” The figure reached out to Arista and she recoiled but he was too fast. He pricked her arm without the missing hand. Red flowed from the wound. “There we go; you’re coming with me.” He grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her toward him.
“I am not! Jonn!” Arista reached out for him but the figure held up his skinless hand, some sort of weapon had been attached or built into the superstructure.
“Wait, please, don’t take her,” Jonn said, pleading. There had to be something he could do. Some way he could stop this from happening. Where were her parents?
“She’s the only reason I’m here.”
Arista squirmed against his grip but he was obviously much stronger. Jonn lunged for him but the figure knocked him back with a swipe, and Jonn stumbled through the fog of the Quantum Wall.
“No!” he yelled, falling back against the bed.
Before Jonn could regain his footing, the figure hit the button on the wall, trapping him inside. The last thing he saw as the wall shimmered back to opaque was the dark figure dragging Arista until she disappeared around the edge of the doorframe, yanking against him.
Eleven
“QUIT SQUIRMING, HUMAN, I AM TRYING TO HELP YOU.”
Arista thrashed against the dark figure. He was completely covered from top to bottom and that mask kept her from seeing anything. From noticing any details that might help her identify him again in the future. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you were kidnapped? Focus on the details? “Then let me go!”
“And let you get killed by gunfire? No.” He guided her down the hall, staying in front of her but with his hand wrapped around her arm behind him.
Where were they? None of this looked familiar. All the walls were white and it seemed the corridors had no end. What was it Jonn said? A Quantum Gate?
“That makes so much sense,” Arista said to herself, as the figure picked up the pace. No wonder the Device had only picked up a hallway on the other side of the wall. That’s all that had been there. The Gate was a transporter, capable of moving people from place to place instantaneously. But how had the machines built such advanced technology? She’d never seen anything like it outside of the old media.
“What?” he growled. At least she assumed it was a he from the pitch of his voice. She still couldn’t see his face or even his eyes. But this was obviously a rogue Peacekeeper. And he didn’t need to know her innermost thoughts. Where was she being taken this time? Another torture room? This one must have discovered the truth about Jonn, which is why he trapped him in that room. There was a very good chance Arista would never see Jonn again.
“What do you want with me?” she demanded. She couldn’t let this be the end of it.
“Against the wall!” The figure pushed her to the wall in what she figured was punishment for an act of insolence. Until something buzzed through the air past them, close to her head.
What the hell?
Something wasn’t right. Claxons blared through the hallway. She’d been so distracted she hadn’t even noticed. At the end of the hall stood two men, their hands raised with…were those guns? She’d never seen one in real life, but the sound they made through the air was unmistakable. Whoever this Peacekeeper was, he was going to get her killed.
This is how I’m going to die, yanked down a hallway like a puppet.
“Don’t fight me, human, I’m trying to save us both,” he told her. “I’ve been searching for you too long to let you die in a Cadre hal
lway.”
“Who are you?” Arista peered up at him again, but the hood and mask shrouded any hope of recognition.
“Do you understand or not?”
Another volley whizzed by them. Bullets. Closer this time.
“I got it.” He obviously wasn’t here to kill her, and was probably her best way out, but what about Jonn? The Peacekeepers would destroy him for sure as soon as they found him. “We have to go back.”
He raised his arm and a pulse of light flashed from it, and one of the men collapsed. “I’m only here for you. I can’t risk losing you for anyone else.”
He raised his arm again, the light flashing once from it. The other one fell.
They stayed against the wall, his hand still grasping hers, until they came to the corner. The figure checked around it. “He’s not like the rest of them. He’s been changed,” she said.
“Too bad for him. There’s nothing I can do.”
Maybe Jonn would be okay. After all, he’d managed to fool the Cadre this long, why not a longer? Once she was free and back on her own two feet she could formulate a plan to get him. But only after she had her parents back in her possession. They were still priority number one. Jonn would just have to wait.
“You’re different too,” she said. “I can tell. Your eyes are orange, aren’t they?”
The figure stopped for a moment, as if to consider it, then continued along the wall. “Don’t assume you know what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “Let’s move.” He led her across an open area to another hallway.
“Who changed you?” she asked.
He yanked her close to the opening in his hoodie. She couldn’t smell anything, no sweat or odor of any sort, but she could almost see the outline of a face in the darkness beyond the mask. She leaned back. He wasn’t a Peacekeeper, rogue or otherwise.
“Listen to me, we don’t have time for this. So you’re either coming with me or you’re going to die by way of Peacekeepers. I’d much rather you make it out of here under your own power.”
“How do you even know about me?”
“I told you, I’ve been searching.”
Searching? Did he have something that could detect her? Get past the Device? If so, he might have something that could find her parents as well.
“Fine,” she said. This person, whatever his identity, was like her parents. He was free of the Cadre. Though she wasn’t thrilled with his method of extraction. It felt hastily thrown-together. Like he hadn’t been working on it very long. Otherwise he would have figured out a way to disable the alarm system which still blared through the building.
Arista focused on the matter at hand. She needed to use this for everything it was worth. To get back to her parents. Who knew what this—person—wanted from her. What was he? To her knowledge she’d never seen him before. Though she wouldn’t be able to confirm that for sure until she saw his face.
The Device lit up, downloading the floor plan of the building. “So what’s the plan? All the exits have to be blocked.”
He stared down the hall. “I came up through the stairs, I’ll have to fight my way back down.”
Her eyes traveled all over the hallway, landing on the ceiling. “I’ll never be able to keep up with my limited speed. Go up.”
“What?”
“Get to the roof, we can get out from there.”
“How?”
“Chicago is a city of skyscrapers, trust me,” she said. A bullet clipped the wall above them. Three more Peacekeepers had appeared. She’d never believed there were so many here, they were supposed to be scarce. So rare most people never saw one for their entire span.
“I have to get through these…gentlemen first.” He raised its arm again and the pulses of light flashed over and over. Arista saw one of the Peacekeepers stagger backward. “Come on!”
They sprinted down the hall toward the stairwell, Arista losing her balance more than once. She still wasn’t used to running with one hand, but it was getting easier. “That weapon in your hand, what is it?” she asked.
“Focused Electromagnetic Light Pulse Gun. My own design.”
“A felp gun? Is that what you call it? That’s a terrible name.”
He eyed her. “Do you have a mental injury of some sort?”
“What kind of ques—”
A voice erupted from behind before she could answer. “Arista, step away from him.” She turned to see Patrick, the barrel of his gun staring at them like a dead black eye. Arista raised her arms—one hand out and one arm clad in a silver bandage—stepping away from the kidnapper. He had turned to face Patrick as well, his hand-weapon hanging loosely by his side.
“Patrick…” She considered her options. The kidnapper, whoever he was, was her best chance out of this place. But could it lead to somewhere worse? If she stayed here it was a life of psychoanalysis and torture until someone got bored and decided to kill her. She’d made it beyond the Gate. She wouldn’t go back. Not inside the room, not inside any cell again. It was either this or die. “…don’t. You don’t need to do anything rash.”
“You have to come back. I’m supposed to bring you back.”
Her heart thundered in her chest, he had them dead to rights but would he actually pull the trigger? What was he waiting for, why hadn’t he taken one or both of them out yet? “Patrick?”
“I…I’m supposed to…bring…you…” She saw his eyes widen and his red pupils flare, tiny suns in milky white clouds, had they changed to a deeper shade of orange? Could they do that? The Device registered his eyes as a shade of ochre. His arm dropped and his shoulders relaxed.
“You need to get out of here, now,” Patrick whispered.
“Patrick?”
“Go, hurry! There are more Peacekeepers on their way!” She looked up at the man in the hood, wishing she could see his face. Was he as shocked as she was? If he was, he gave no indication; only grabbed her arm again and turned back toward the stairwell.
She wasn’t about to question her good fortune. “Thank you, Patrick.” They took off, reaching the door in only a few strides. “Go back for Jonn, he’s stuck back in my cell,” she called over her shoulder. Patrick nodded and headed back down the hallway.
“What just happened?” asked the kidnapper.
“I’m not sure myself.” Had she somehow turned Patrick? Just like she’d turned those people in her office. And the nurse? But Patrick already had been awoken by the Cadre. Did she somehow have the power to overwrite his programming? She was only a few steps behind the hooded man. “Seven floors to the top,” she yelled.
As they scaled the stairs she became aware of a strange clinking sound every couple of steps. She glanced up to see one of the man’s hands was devoid of any skin, just the flexible mesh of his polymorphic coating underneath. Each time he grabbed the railing the hand made a small clink as metal hit metal.
“Hurry,” he said. She furrowed her brow. What could have happened to him that he hadn’t replaced the skin? There were plenty of shops and skin matching was a common business. Not that she’d ever needed to visit herself, but her father had accidentally crushed his leg during an unscheduled accident and had to engage a repair bay for replacement parts. They hadn’t had the cosmetics that matched his skin color so he’d taken her to one of the specialty shops. Arista had only been nine at the time. It was odd, seeing all those skin samples laying on the counter, each one feeling as real as the next.
“What’s with the hand?”
Her question went unanswered as they reached the fiftieth floor and the man burst through the door into the overcast sky. Wind whipped her hair about her face as she walked out onto the flat roof, holding her silver bandage. Climbing the stairs so fast had caused the arm to throb and she didn’t see the two Peacekeepers at first.
But then she did.
Twelve
FREES STARED AT THE WEAPONS. He was quick but he wouldn’t be able to get off two shots before one of the Peacekeepers fired back, and he couldn’t risk the
human. “Identify yourself and release the prisoner,” the one on the left said.
“No and no.”
Out of the corner of his eye, she cocked her head at him.
“Step away from the prisoner.”
By now there had to be dozens of Peacekeepers behind them in the stairwell. Why had he listened to her? He’d had a plan, get her out through the basement. His tunnels ran all over the city and no one ever used them; it would have been an easy exit. But instead they were out in the open, completely unprotected, the wind whipping at their backs and two Peacekeepers for company. He leaned over keeping his voice low. “I need you to do your thing.”
She stared at him, pursing her lips. “Thing?”
“Do not converse!”
He tempered an urge to shout at her. He didn’t need her scared, he needed her effective. “Like with that other Peacekeeper back there.”
“Step away from the prisoner!” one of them said more forcefully and taking a step forward.
She hesitated and netted her brows. “I don’t know how. It isn’t something I can control. It happens when it happens.”
She doesn’t know?
He turned back to the Peacekeepers, holding perfectly still, their red eyes locked on Frees and the human. He sighed. “Okay, plan B it is.”
A modest calculation and quick duck to avoid a bullet to the brain began the ballet. Still holding his hands in the air, Frees jumped forward in a zig-zag pattern, darting closer to the Peacekeeper on the left who continued to adjust his aim to keep up with Frees’ erratic movements. The weapon fired just as Frees moved to the right, piercing his upper thigh. The Peacekeeper fired again, this time having acquired his target. The bullet hit him square in the mask, producing a spiderweb crack. Frees readjusted his vision to compensate. He was close enough now. The Peacekeeper aimed for another shot while the other one trained his gun on the girl. Frees dropped his arms, firing the Felp from his hand, felling the Peacekeeper with his weapon trained on the human. A third bullet pierced Frees’ midsection. He fired again, taking out Mr. Trigger-happy for good. The woman stood behind him, lowering her hands as he turned back to her. “Are you hit?” he asked.
