by Jay Posey
Three sat on an overturned plasticrate in the supply room, rocked back on one edge with his feet up on a low shelf. Methodically, meticulously, he ran a gritstone along an edge of an eight-inch piece of scrap metal he’d found on some dusty shelf. Shaping it. Sharpening it. His hands moved with practiced precision.
Three small piles lay neatly arranged on the floor: supplies collected and carefully assessed for their weight, durability, and usefulness. He’d taken only what they’d need. Inwardly, he chuckled humorlessly. This wasn’t his way. Hopelessly entangled with the weak and wounded. He’d already done what he could for the woman. Another day or two, and she’d be strong enough to walk. And he’d done what he’d said he’d do. He’d gotten them safely out of the enclave, away from the crew that was chasing them. For now.
He looked at the back wall, where the hidden pressure plates waited. So simple. Stand up, walk down those stairs, move on. On to the next thing. Like always. This wasn’t his way.
He set the gritstone and scrap metal on the shelf behind him and stood. Silently moved to the main room, crept to the bed, stood over the woman and boy. Her color was better, her breathing steady. Both lay on their sides, the mother with a protective arm draped over the son. Peaceful.
They’d have everything they needed. He moved back to the supply room, quietly packed a harness with a few traveling essentials: water, food, an extra chemlight or two. As was the custom, honor code of travelers, he’d exchanged some of his own valuables for those he took. Not one, but two of his shells. Exorbitant for what he’d taken for himself, but he felt it only right to pay for the woman and her kid. He’d brought them in, after all. That left him three in the cylinder, one in the pocket. Three shook his head. He’d have to do something about that soon.
He leaned his head to the side, left ear almost touching his shoulder, and cracked his neck out of habit. He didn’t know why he was still standing there. In his gut, he already knew he’d made his decision. With a full exhalation, he reached down and picked up the harness, slung the straps over each shoulder, adjusted the weight of the two broad pockets that rested on either hip.
Move on. To the next thing. He’d done enough.
Three strode to the shelf at the back wall, fingered the secret plates, stepped back as the floor opened up and offered his escape. The blackness beneath him seemed inviting. His chance to return to a life in the background, in the shadows, without notice. And he stared into it. What was he waiting for?
He glanced back at the door to the supply room. Listened. Heard the deep and steady breath of Cass and Wren. A woman and a boy. Just some other people trapped in the same dying world.
With a silent and half-hearted goodbye, Three slipped like a wraith into the darkness below, and disappeared.
Eight
Cass stirred, shifted awake, let her eyes float open slowly, watched as they focused the haze into clarity. The first thing she noticed was Wren’s absence. The blanket was still compressed and rumpled from where he’d been curled next to her, but he was nowhere to be seen. She lay still for a moment longer, listening for the usual sounds of her son. Though there was no obvious reason to think so, she knew with a cold certainty that something was very wrong.
She rolled herself up silently, slipped her feet to the floor, tested her strength. About fifty percent. Quietly she stood, and crept stiffly around the wayhouse.
When Cass found him, he was standing in the supply room towards the back, in the dark, hand nearly to his face. Fist tightly balled. Staring. She’d seen him that way before; terror seized her.
“Wren?”
Blood ran freely from his palm, down to the elbow, where it dripped in a spatter on the concrete. He didn’t seem to notice her. She rushed to him, swept him into her arms, felt his hair damp with clammy sweat.
“Wren, baby, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Tears welled in her eyes. Still cradling him against her, Cass seized his hand, pried its stiff fingers open to reveal a blade, gently curved, one solid piece: a length of scrap metal crafted into a deadly thing. Cass took it and placed it on the ground, then reached for a nearby garment from a shelf and tore it, fashioning a makeshift bandage. Wren just stood, injured hand limp in hers, never looking to her.
Finally, as Cass tied off the bandage, Wren rasped, barely audible.
“He’s gone.”
Cass stopped, tried to absorb that.
“And they’re here.”
Terror and despair collided, with Cass caught in between. She felt her breath escape, her heart icy cold as it leapt and pounded in her chest. She squeezed him tighter still.
Somehow, by some unholy miracle, they had found her. Asher, or at least some of his crew, prowled somewhere just above them, undoubtedly searching for a way in, and most certainly capable of finding it. It was just a matter of time, and not much at that.
Her mind raced, tried to find an explanation. Maybe Three had sold them out. Kept them here until Asher could reach them. It made some sense, but not much. Her nightmare flashed back. Asher, grinning over her. It clicked. In her fevered torment, her digital mask had cracked. He had found her signal.
A grinding sound pulled her out of her paralyzed thought. Down the corridor, towards the entrance from the street. They were coming.
“Come on, baby. Quiet as you can.”
Cass noted the piles of supplies on the floor, hastily scraped them into a backpack. Wren remained motionless, unblinking. Staring into nothingness. Or seeing something beyond sight.
Cass slung the backpack over her shoulders, took Wren’s hand, and gently pulled him towards the back corner of the supply room. She searched the wall, found the signpost cracks, felt for the pressure plates. The instant before she pressed into them, Wren’s hand tightened on hers, unnaturally strong, painful. She flinched, but his eyes stopped her dead.
Terror.
“Not that way, Mama.”
He was with her now. Frightened, but lucid. She nodded, understanding. They were coming from both sides. Cass bent down, nose to nose with her son. Whispering.
“The other way, the secret you found. Can you open it again?”
“I’m not sure… I… I don’t think so.”
“Let’s just try.”
Cass swung Wren up in her arms. He felt so much heavier than she remembered. Her legs trembled at the extra weight. A few steps outside the supply room, she placed him on his own feet. The grinding continued, faint but relentless.
“Go ahead, baby. Just see what you can do.”
Wren nodded, uncertain, shoulders sagging with a lack of confidence. He closed his eyes, stretched out a hand, touched the wall.
The grinding continued. Cass thought she caught the trace of a deep rumbling voice floating from the supply room, muffled through the concrete.
Wren raised his head, opened his eyes. Crying.
“I’m sorry, Mama, I can’t.”
“Yes you can, sweetheart, you’ve done this same thing a hundred times. You can do it.”
“No, it’s different. They’re always different, Mama.”
“Try again, Wren. Just try.”
Wren lowered his head, stared at his feet. Defeated. He shook his head. He was just a child, Cass thought. A child with a gift he didn’t understand, frustrated by his own incapability to control it. What more could she ask of him?
“Just try, baby, OK? For me?”
“I can’t,” he murmured. “I can’t feel this one, I can’t.”
It was the recent near-death experience, perhaps, or maybe the sheer anger at the circumstance, the futility, or the helplessness she felt; whatever the reason, Cass did something she had never done in her entire life.
She slapped her son.
Wren’s little face snapped to one side, and in an instant he looked back to her, wild-eyed, shocked, bewildered, tears at the verge. His cheek flushed hot purple. Cass’s heart shattered at the raw pain in her precious child’s eyes. But she couldn’t stop. Their lives were at sta
ke.
“They are here, Wren. Asher is here. And he is going to take us away, and separate us. And we will never be together again, not ever. Not unless you open this door and get us out of here. So you find a way, and you make it happen. Right. Now.”
She snatched his arm and whipped him to face the wall. It was a dangerous game, and for long seconds Cass thought she had played it wrong. Wren just stood there, chin trembling, hand on his cheek, not daring to look at his mother, but not daring to let her out of his peripheral vision either.
Then, the grinding sound stopped. And Wren set his jaw. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and slammed his palm against the wall. Brow furrowed in intense focus, lip curled in the slightest hint of a snarl. He looked very much like his mother.
Finally, his face softened, the timid boy returned, and he let his hand fall from the wall. Down the corridor, there was a hiss; the magnetic seal unlocking.
“Sorry, Mama.”
Cass ran her fingers through his hair, kissed the top of his head.
“It’s OK, baby.”
A thunk from the supply room signaled the activation of the stairs. Back there, in the darkness, the floor panel was sliding open. And without any sound at all, a small hole appeared in the wall where Cass and Wren stood.
A half-moment of shock was all Cass could spare before she grabbed Wren by the arm and shoved him inside. She bent double and followed him in, shuffling sideways as quickly as she could with one eye on the opening.
“It’s OK, Mama,” Wren said. “I see it now.”
He sounded much older. And with that, the opening disappeared, and the two of them were plunged into complete darkness.
After a neck-breaking crawl down a pitch-black tunnel, and several painful collisions with abrupt turns in the walls, Cass and Wren finally found themselves at a gentle upward slope, where the ceiling suddenly gave way in a matching curve. Cass stood at full height, and managed to scramble higher onto the smooth metal surface. The top was covered by a smooth steel mesh, more like a drain than a grate, and with one solid push outward, Cass was disheartened to discover that’s exactly what it was. An exit convincingly concealed in some sort of waste recycling reservoir.
It appeared that the levels never actually rose high enough to enter the pipe, but that was small comfort. There was no obvious route from this exit to the next, except through the filth and refuse. Cass swung her backpack around to the front, and had Wren climb up on her back. Then the two set out, scrambling out of their secret tunnel and into a pool of stinking sludge, thigh-deep for Cass. She struggled her way to the nearest edge, where it was shallowest. Following the curving concrete around the outside, they eventually came to a small iron hatch: a maintenance access.
“Once we get outside,” Cass whispered to Wren. “We’ll have to be very, very careful.”
Wren just nodded.
Cass grabbed hold of the access release, and slowly, gradually, almost imperceptibly, applied strength to it. She could feel the flexing metal, feel the parts that had been unused for untold years reawakening. Her great fear was that the hatch would spring open with some horrible shriek, instantly alerting anyone who might be outside. As she felt the hatch release and begin its automatic opening, she realized she had no idea whether it was day or night.
Her first look at the outside world in six days turned out to be dark. Wren constricted around her neck, and she heard him hiss involuntarily. But a closer look revealed that their limited view was just in heavy shadow. Cass poked her head through the hatch timidly, and saw the bright gray horizon to the east that signaled a new dawn fast approaching. For once, things were going her way. Light enough for the Weir not to be about. Dark enough to conceal their escape.
Cass swung Wren off her shoulders, and lifted him through the hatch to the ground outside. She quickly followed, and readjusted the backpack once she had joined him. As quietly as she was able, she closed the hatch. It thunked dully when it sealed.
“OK, baby,” she said, taking Wren’s hand firmly. “Stay right with me, no matter what.”
Wren just nodded. He knew what they were up against.
Together, the pair slipped cautiously from the concrete recycler to a nearby building. Its bottom floor had been gutted by vandals, or fire, or both, but there was ample concealment there. Though everything in Cass’s body told her to run, she forced a creeping pace, using every ounce of her will to search out danger. She was especially glad to have Wren now, knowing he would warn her before her own eyes could.
Ten minutes stretched to twenty, then thirty. Still they picked their way from building to building, alley to alley. Spending no more than a fleeting moment in the open, no less than a few minutes observing from each new position.
Finally, they reached the outer ring of a small courtyard. It was in a chaotic state of urban disrepair; once-beautiful archways collapsed to formless piles of rubble. That was where Cass saw the first of them.
She recognized her instantly. It was Jez. Mesmerizingly beautiful Jez, with her skin-tight fibrasteel suit, and white-blonde hair dangling down her back in tight braids; braids that often concealed razortips cunningly woven in. Jez moved like a heron. Graceful, fluid steps, punctuated by a piercingly sharp gaze that snapped from point to point with almost inhuman precision. Cass’s breath caught in her throat. Instinctively she dropped to a low crouch and pulled Wren tight to her side.
Jez, on the other side of the courtyard, stopped. Stood stone still. Listening.
Finally, Jez moved on, out of sight. Cass felt a rush of hot breath on her neck, as Wren released the one he’d been holding.
“Back out. Slooowly,” Cass whispered. “We’ll find a way around.”
Without taking her eyes from the corner around which Jez had disappeared, Cass took cautious steps backwards, back the way they’d entered. As she stood, she bumped into something that hadn’t been there before.
And before she could even draw a breath to cry out, a hand clamped tight over her mouth, jerking her head back into a shoulder. Lips on her ear hissed a warning.
“Shhhhhhhh.”
She nodded as much as she could, caught as she was. Immediately, the hand relaxed, slipped from her mouth down gently to her neck. Cass felt the tension release from her body. Three hadn’t left them after all. He must’ve been watching for them.
His lips lingered on her earlobe, wet, slightly parted. She heard him inhale deeply, as if drawing in her scent. As if he’d missed her. Cass hazarded a sidelong glance.
Not Three.
Dagon. The Grave.
Cass spun out of his loose grasp; instinctively jerked Wren behind her, shielding him. She hunched down, readied, tried to trigger a boost before she realized she had nothing to tap. For a moment, Dagon just stood there, watching her.
Then, he spoke.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Low tones, conspiratorial. He glanced off to where Jez had gone, as if he hoped no one would notice him here, with Cass and her son.
“I was worried. About you,” he said, “and Spinner too, of course.”
Dagon leaned to one side, trying get a look at Wren.
“Heya, Spins.”
Wren clung to his mother’s leg, but offered a half-wave in response.
“Hi Dagon.”
“I’m not coming back, Dagon,” Cass said. “Neither of us are. You know that.”
Dagon shifted his gaze around, met her eyes briefly, quickly looked away. He had an awkward posture, always uncomfortable, like his bones didn’t quite fit together. Pale skin almost translucent at times, dark circles under dark eyes. Impossibly thin, like a knife-blade. Unequivocally deadly.
“I’d watch out for you, Haven. I always have.”
“My name is Cass.”
He looked at her again, fleeting. Nervous.
“Cass,” his voice quavered. “Just come back with me. We can work it out. Me and Ran. We’ll take care of you, I promise.”
“I don’t think you�
�ll get the chance.”
“Why? Asher won’t do anything.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He looked back to her, held her gaze for once. He looked lost. For a split second, she almost felt sorry for him.
“What are you–?”
Dagon almost asked the question, but at the last possible moment, he twisted his body, bent backwards, held a gravity-defying pose as Three’s blade severed the air where Dagon’s neck had been a half-instant before. How Dagon had sensed Three, Cass would never know. Even watching Three’s approach, she hadn’t heard him. It didn’t matter now anyway. She could hardly believe what was unfolding before her.
Three must’ve been surprised by Dagon’s sudden evasion, but he almost seemed to expect it the way he redirected his blade in a fluid motion, a single strike. Dagon bent again, twisted, dropped on his shoulder and whipped his shin across Three’s collarbone. Three stumbled back, rebalanced, just as Dagon whirled and regained his feet. For a heartbeat, they sized each other up.
Then collided.
Dagon was the first to impact, his knee crushing into Three’s solar plexus a half-second before Three buried his elbow into Dagon’s jaw. Dagon spun with the force of the attack, but carried through with a kick that knocked the sword from Three’s hand. Three responded with a stinging backhand, followed it up with a flurry of strikes too fast for Cass’s eyes to see. Dagon bounded backwards, but in the next instant lunged forward, catching Three with a hard palm to the face, and then darting his fingertips into a nerve cluster at Three’s shoulder joint. Three fell back again, dazed, clutching his arm as it dangled uselessly. Dagon melted to the ground, rolled, somehow came up to his feet with Three’s blade in hand.
