by Peter Tylee
“The same person who killed my wife.” Speaking with an emotionless voice was Dan’s best defence against the anguish that bubbled just below the surface.
“Wow.” Hans sadly shook his head. “Somebody really does not like you.” He was busy tapping the SAT into his computer. Several ribbon-cables snaked from its open case to the portal. They could see where Hans had prised the portal’s cover away and inside they glimpsed the smouldering remains of the anti-tamper circuit. Dan hoped Hans knew what he was doing; folding space sounded dangerous – several million g’s would squash every cell in his body if anything went wrong. The room smelled like burnt silicon and solder resin. And it was a mess. Open textbooks and loose papers with diagrams were strewn about the floor, the product of a cluttered mind.
Kat chose that moment to enter the room, annoyed that visitors had disturbed one of her favourite naps. She usually slept in bed with Hans, who didn’t have the heart to toss her out. She virtually had free rein of the house. Hans had only scolded her twice: once when she made a mess in the kitchen, and once when she protested her overflowing kitty litter by pooping on the couch. She affectionately rubbed Simon’s leg, earning herself a scowl.
“You don’t like cats?” Dan asked, sensing his friend’s discomfort.
“I’m a dog person,” Simon explained. He hated felines – they revolted him. Their fur tickled his nose. He made a special effort to be polite in front of their host, but couldn’t help adding, “I’ll restrain myself as long as she doesn’t spew on my shoes.”
“Do not listen to him Kat,” Hans toned soothingly. “He is just mean.” He was concentrating hard on entering the details accurately. One mistake could result in sending them to Siberia, Indonesia, or PortaNet’s lunar colony. “Now, you are sure this is accurate?” He tapped a finger to the paper.
“Yes.” But Dan secretly wished he’d confirmed it again. He’d checked it twice but it was 40 digits long and he couldn’t be too careful. “I’m sure.” But his tone wasn’t reassuring.
“Well good.” Hans lifted his head after rescanning the SAT. “Because if one of these is wrong you will be flattened as a pancake.” He gave them access to the monitor. “You read it. I am tired and not good with your handwriting.”
Dan and Simon both confirmed the number before declaring it correct. “Now what?”
Hans waved at the portal. “Whenever you are ready. Who goes first?”
“I will,” Dan said, stepping onto the portal platform and carefully ensuring he was inside the white circle. Other portals would refuse to operate if somebody left an elbow or a hand outside, but Dan was wary of Hans’s contraption. There was no telling which circuits he’d accidentally fried. He gripped his Colt. One benefit of Adrian’s death was the opportunity it’d given him to confirm the Colt’s sights. “I’ll secure the area immediately around the portal.” Dan winked. “See you on the other side.” He had ample ammunition to cater for several dozen hostiles.
Hans started pressing buttons and some equipment shoved into the corner began to hum. Isn’t something supposed to happen now?Dan wondered sardonically as the seconds crawled by. He was just about to ask when the portal folded space and his vision shifted. A tickle in his lungs begged for a cough but he fought the urge and backed up to a wall. The lighting was dim and his eyes scoured the shadows for potential threats. A long corridor led away from the portal chamber and he ducked to his left to avoid detection. The blue light from the portals was the most powerful illumination in the room, everything else was dim by comparison. Why, I wonder?Dan didn’t know what he’d expected, but this wasn’t it.
Simon appeared next to him a few seconds later and whispered, “At least we’re not pancakes.”
Dan just hoped they were in the right place. He signalled for Simon to guard the five portals while he inched along the corridor. They’d agreed to use search and destroy rules – shoot unfriendlies on sight. But that begged the question how they’d tell the difference between friend and foe. Dan hoped instinct would answer.
The grip of his modified Colt felt good in his hands and the back of his neck was tingling, partly due to the stimulants he’d swallowed and partly due to adrenaline. His senses had amplified his awareness. Jen’s in here somewhere.He patted his pocket, reassured to feel her microchip selector.
He crept forward – Empty – and waved Simon on, indicating the first segment was secure. They’d agreed to take things slowly, cautiously. It’d be insane to rush around shooting everything that moved, and equally insane to split up.
The corridor was short and it emptied into a lounge room. It was large and luxurious, the antithesis of Dan’s expectation for a prison. But it’s not just a prison… it’s a club.It reminded him of the exclusive waiting area for World Bank where pretty women pampered rich customers until bank executives could tend to their financial whims. Here the lights were brighter, as if someone lived there. He sniffed the air. Cigar smoke?It was stale in his nostrils, but it was unmistakable. Someone had squashed the chewed stub of a cigar on a plate that rested on the lamp table between couches. That’s disgusting.Dan swept the room carefully, prepared to shoot anything non-female that moved. He was jumpy, his nerves pulled tighter than ever. It made him dangerous for the captive women and he hammered into his mind repeatedly to be careful – accidentally shooting Jen would pound the final nail into his coffin.
“Where is everyone?” Simon whispered when he caught up.
Dan shrugged. “Maybe my message scared them off.” It was disheartening, but he had to consider the possibility. He couldn’t hear anyone in the compound.
“I think this place is bigger than we imagined.”
Yeah, possibly… it has to provide living quarters for several women.Three new corridors branched away from the lounge room. Which way?Dan decided to go left. If he always chose left, he’d always be able to retrace his steps if he became disorientated.
He edged silently forward, glad for the muffling carpet. Where are you Jen?The corridor they’d chosen had a number of nodular rooms branching to the left and right. They all looked used on a semi-regular basis, but none was in use now. They were bedrooms, and Dan’s imagination coloured in the emerging pattern. People – Probably powerful men– used the place as an overnight stopover when they didn’t want to go home. If they have homes to…
Noise from an ablution block severed further contemplation.
A shower was running. He could hear the muted patter of water through the door. He motioned to Simon and they entered the room, a billow of steam engulfing them. Dan frowned, waving his Colt left and right in order to part the steam enough to see.
Jesus, how many people are showering?There was enough steam to theorise that there were at least a dozen. But his theory collapsed a moment later when the person in the shower turned off the water and the sound trickled away, Dan’s noise buffer vanishing with it. His boots clicked on the tiles, giving him away. Realising that whoever was in the shower would be unarmed – it simply wasn’t somewhere men took weapons – Dan strode the last several paces and ambushed the shower cubicle, prepared to shoot if the person turned hostile.
He hadn’t been expecting a naked woman. She looked up and tried to cover her oversized breasts with her hands, surprised by Dan’s intrusion. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded, frowning when she failed to recognise the intruder. It was against protocol for men to enter the women’s shower. They encouraged the women to take hygiene seriously and shower often, for which they needed to feel safe in the ablution blocks.
Her high-pitched voice was piercing with the onset of panic.
Dan held a finger to his lips and lowered his gun. “Shh! I’m here to help.”
He could see the confusion scrawled on her face. There was no telling how long the Guild had held her against her will. She’d resigned herself to spending the last of her days in the luxurious underground prison. She therefore found it difficult to process the fact that someone had gained unauthorised access and wanted
to help.
“What?” she whispered yieldingly. “How?” Why?
“I’m here to get you out,” Dan said to reassure her. “I’m with the police.” It was technically true. Simon was a cop, and he was there with him. So… maybe it was a white lie, but he didn’t think it would cause harm. “I’m looking for a woman by the name of Jennifer Cameron, do you know her?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“She’s new. She was only brought here a few days ago,” Dan prompted, his heart sagging. What if Adrian was lying? What if she’s in a different compound?
“Oh, her.” She didn’t seem too self-conscious about being naked; too many men had raped her for that to matter much. But she was getting cold and reached for a towel to dry herself. “I didn’t know her name.”
“Where is she?” Dan asked, an overwhelming excitement replacing the desolation of a few heartbeats ago.
“She could be anywhere down here,” came her unwanted reply. “But her room’s across the other side, you’ll have to go around. Here, like this.” She drew a basic map on a steam-covered mirror. “You’re here.” She marked an X on one segment of the compound. “And your friend’s over here.” She marked it with another X.
Dan’s eyebrows shot up, he’d imagined the compound was large but had no idea it was enormous. He thought about how far they’d walked from the portals and estimated the compound was 200 metres wide. “Okay, thanks. Now I want you to stay here until this is over, okay?”
She nodded, hiking her towel up before it slipped from her wet skin. “Okay. Good luck.”
Dan couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with her. She’d displayed no emotion about her plausible future freedom. She’d just accepted it as the next twist in her life. Is that where numbness leads?It was scary. Dan didn’t want to end up that way, unable to feel the terror of the bad but also unable to connect with the joy of the good. He shrugged it off for later analysis; he had urgent matters to focus on.
They followed the woman’s directions, carefully sweeping forward, and Dan was beginning to hope they’d find Jen without encountering hostiles. Of course, that didn’t mean they’d happily scarper, hoping to escape without a fight – there were other women to free. He couldn’t leave them. He could bear to think of lonely families wondering what’d happened to their daughters and wives. And nobody deserved to spend their lives trapped in an unlawful prison, serving as slaves.
A shout came from his left, “Hey, what the hell are you doing here?” And it was loud enough to raise the alarm. Within seconds, others had spread the warning and everyone in the compound knew something was wrong.
He was a large man, sporting a barrel chest and sagging girth, the product of too many three-course luncheons and not enough exercise. His neatly trimmed moustache came to life when he talked, wiggling with a mind of its own. “How did you get in?” He yelled, taking a pace forward. Then he saw their weapons.
Dan hesitated no longer. He raised his Colt and squeezed the trigger. His silencer muted the shot to a predatory hiss and he clearly heard the clank-clink of the semi-automatic reloading. The bullet entered the man’s eye, ricocheted inside his skull, and make soup of his brain, killing him instantly. His body jerked and, without the necessary nerve impulses to support his considerable bulk, his knees crumpled and he thudded facedown on the floor where some of his mashed brains leaked through his obliterated eye-socket onto the carpet.
“Here they come,” Dan warned, listening to the not-so-distant shouts of co-ordination. They crouched in the sunken entrances of two bedrooms, their niches the only protection from bullets that would soon be zinging past.
Damn.Dan had hoped to reach Jen before anybody noticed them. At least then he could’ve done his best to protect her. For all he knew, Esteban would use her as a bargaining tool. And Dan didn’t want to know what he’d do under those circumstances.
Two men scurried into the lounge room ahead. They overturned tables and ducked behind couches amidst a few well-aimed bullets from Simon and Dan. Then they laid some covering fire to enable other Guild members to take up strategic positions. Simon fired another two shots, his massive cannon booming and a foot-long flash coming from its barrel. It didn’t have a silencer and left his ears ringing. “They’re digging in.”
Dan nodded.
“So you know what that means?” Simon fired another shot between volleys from Guild members.
“That we’re fucked?” Dan said pointedly.
“They’re going to come from behind and trap us here.”
“So we’re fucked.”
Simon nodded, wishing he’d brought more ammunition. Dan too was starting to think he’d made a grievous error in his calculations. He didn’t havein believing he enough ammunition to cater for this type of gunfight. He tried not to fire until he had a smiling face to shoot at, and even then he was careful to make every round count.
*
Esteban’s frown was extending in ripples over his forehead, mirroring the confused tension that mustered in his mind. But that doesn’t make sense.He was watching Dan’s movements, wondering why he’d portaled to The Netherlands. He couldn’t think of anything strategic in the move.
And it irked him.
He needed to know.
So his brain revved to its limit, trying to figure it out with the pitifully limited data he had on hand. Why the hell did you go to Holland? What’s in Holland? Friends?It was possible. Maybe he’s getting reinforcements.But that didn’t make sense either. He couldn’t get into the Guild even if Adrian had squawked and told him where it was.
The buzzing of his mobile interrupted his thoughts and he decided to check the display. After all, Dan wasn’t posing an immediate threat so the pressure was off. It was Junior. Esteban heaved a sigh and mentally disengaged from his quandary to answer the call.
“What is it?”
“It’s Dan.” Junior sounded excited and panicky at the same time. “He’s here.”
Esteban sat bold upright. “Where?”
“In the Guild.”
That’s impossible.Esteban’s first impulse was to call Junior a liar, but then he heard the muted crackle of gunfire filtering through the receiver. “Hang ten. I’ll be right there.” He was already halfway to the nearest portal, loosing his automatic and coming dangerously close to colliding with walls as he banked hard around corners.
*
Jen’s head felt as if it was stuffed with cottonwool, but the sound of gunshots penetrated the haze. Initially she thought somebody was having a party and it was party-poppers or firecrackers, but people were shouting when they ran past her door – things were not as they should be.
She wobbled to her feet where a wave of nausea slammed her to her knees. There she knelt, shaking with the ugly threat of vomiting. She was about to give up and allow the nausea to overpower her when her sluggish mind correctly processed the sounds of battle growling outside her door. It’s Dan.The thought revived her and she stood again, still wobbly but determined to stay upright. She wanted to help, in any way she could.
But how?She tentatively laced her fingers around the doorhandle, feeling the cold metal chill the pads of her fingers. She wished she could think of something to do. She hated feeling helpless and didn’t want Dan, the strong knight, to have to rescue her. Is that what I am? A useless princess that needs saving?Another lashing of nausea made the room spin but she doggedly twisted the handle, opened her door, and strode into the corridor.
*
“So now what?” Dan asked, hoping Simon had a miracle in store.
“Well, unless you want them to trap us, we have to go back that way” – he jerked a thumb over his shoulder after ducking from a volley of shots – “and we have to hurry.”
Dan grimaced. Fuck me dead with a stick of broccoli. He didn’t want to abandon the cause, not now, not when he was so close. If they fled, the Guild would pack up and go elsewhere. But they’d lost the element of surprise and, the way things
were developing, they’d be dead in ten minutes. And dead men couldn’t help anyone. What the fuck are we doing in a goddamn corridor!They wouldn’t be able to hold their position for long.
“Okay, let’s go.” Dan squeezed off several shots while Simon dashed low for the next door. He followed a few moments later, hugging the wall to avoid a bullet in the back.
They turned right after the showers and entered the lounge room they’d first encountered, the one with the corridor that led to the portal chamber. “If we leave now we’ll never get Jen out, not alive. You know that, don’t you?” Dan held back, hoping Simon had brewed his miracle.
He just nodded solemnly. “I know.” But there’s nothing we can do.“If we’d found her before they raised the alarm we would’ve had a chance. Or if we’d taken the bulk of them by surprise then we’d be cruising. But…” He didn’t need to finish his sentence.
Besides, he didn’t have the chance. Dan shoved him hard in the stomach and Simon sagged to the ground, a fraction of a second before a bullet ripped through the space where Simon’s head had been. He lay winded on the carpet, safe behind a couch.
“Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.” Esteban’s voice came bright and clear. He was hunkering low in the corridor to the portals. “Funny I should meet you here.”
Dan’s control was starting to fracture and he knew he could only withstand so much taunting before he’d implode. And he had no idea what would happen then.
“I was hoping you’d come and join our party,” Esteban said, his mirthful voice betraying his self-satisfaction. It was Esteban’s sweetest dream come true.
“Drop dead, moron,” Dan said quietly to himself. He was surprised to discover Esteban had heard him.
“Aw, that’s not a nice thing to say to your host.” Esteban was stalling. He knew the other members were creeping forward and he held aspirations of taking Dan alive – if wounded.
Dan knew it too. He divided his attention between Esteban and the other three corridors. He felt open and vulnerable, though Simon looked in no condition to move yet. He was badly winded and struggling for breath.
