by Matt Ryan
“Now, why don’t you get out of that booth? You and I need to take a little trip.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Travis said.
“Listen, I’m not talking to you, and if you keep your trap shut, I’ll just take this little girl and be on my way.”
“That won’t be happening.” Travis slid out of the booth and stood in front of the officer.
“And what is mister fancy pants going to do about it?” The officer flicked a stone and hit him in the neck.
Travis fell back into the booth like a stiff board.
The café stopped their chatter and focused on the cop’s encounter with the booth next to the bathroom. Most of them didn’t say a word, but moved out of the café and onto the streets.
The cop held a purple stone out in his gloved hand. This was the moment Evelyn wanted. A portal stone back to, most likely, the queen. She begged for time to slow, but nothing happened again.
With Travis out and Jackie a lump on a log, Evelyn knew it would be her against this man. She slid out from the booth and got ready to counter whatever attack this man planned on making against her.
“What makes you so special?” he asked.
Evelyn watched his embers floating above him. Nothing extraordinary about his flow; average, from what she could tell. “If you can’t see it, then you’ll never know.”
“I’m going to enjoy watching you turn for her.” He reached for her arm, but Evelyn sidestepped and struck the man’s wrist as hard as she could. He reeled back and laughed. “You hit hard for such a little thing.”
Ready for the next attack, Evelyn searched for his mind to end this, but got nothing but blackness. How was he blocking her now, when he was an open book only a few minutes before? He grabbed her arm and Evelyn struggled against him, but he was too strong.
He glared at Jackie. “You have her?”
Jackie sprung awake and threw a stone, striking the officer in the neck. Evelyn didn’t get a good look at the dark stone but whatever it was, the cop fell to the ground with white foam coming out of his mouth.
“You faker,” Evelyn said.
“I just saved your ass. Now let’s get out of here, buttercup.” Jackie slid out of the booth.
“We aren’t leaving Travis.”
“Fine.” She pulled him up and slung his arm over her shoulder. “That was very stupid coming here.”
Evelyn tried to help as Jackie mostly carried Travis to the door. She glanced back at the man laying on the floor. Another waitress knelt next to him.
“Man can’t hold his coffee,” Jackie said to the hostess and stopped at the door. The woman and two men stood there.
Jackie smiled and hugged the woman. “We don’t have time for a reunion, you think you can clean up our mess?” She motioned back to the frothing cop.
“Yeah, it’d be my pleasure to rid the world of that asshole.”
Jackie nodded and said thank you as they left the café, stepping onto the sidewalk. She used her free arm to wave down a taxi. The yellow cab pulled to the side of the road and the passenger window rolled down.
“I’m not taking him if he pukes or dies in my car,” the driver said.
“He won’t do either, I promise,” Jackie said and opened the back door. “Come on.”
Evelyn helped push Travis to the far side of the backseat and then sat in the middle, between him and Jackie.
“Where to, young ladies?”
“Just get us out of town,” Jackie said.
Evelyn grasped Travis’s wrist and felt his pulse. “What’s wrong with him?” she whispered.
“He’s paralyzed . . . temporarily,” Jackie added.
“How long?”
“I don’t know, depends on how potent of a stone it was. Probably only a few minutes.”
The cab driver kept glancing in his mirror as he drove down the road. Evelyn watched a few people walking down the street. None of them had the embers like Jackie. Then, she spotted a couple, holding hands and walking down the sidewalk. Evelyn stared as they drove past them.
“What are you looking at?” Jackie asked.
“You guys don’t see it, do you?” Evelyn said as she spotted a man sweeping the sidewalk in front of the bakery store. His embers floated above.
“See what?”
“There’s something different about you and the people like you. You have something I can see. Your queen can see it as well.”
Jackie groaned. “She’s not my queen. I think you’re talking about quintessence. It’s what gives us our power.”
“Is it learned?”
“Nah, we’re born with it,” Jackie said.
They passed tall buildings and the people on the streets grew in numbers. More people than she’d seen in other spots around this world, and the embers floated above them.
“This is one of your cities, isn’t it?” Evelyn asked.
“No, this is their city. We don’t come here.”
“Jackie?” Evelyn turned to face her and regretted the look on Jackie’s face.
“What?”
“I wish I had more time to ask you for your thoughts. And it doesn’t help that you tried to kill me, either.”
“What are you saying?” Jackie said and Evelyn watched as she fumbled around, looking for her stones.
Evelyn glanced at the cab driver and sent a thought to him, to ignore what was going to happen. He gripped the wheel and stopped looking back. She looked over at Jackie. “So, I’m going to take them.”
“What? My thoughts?” Jackie shook her head in confusion.
Evelyn breathed in and stared into Jackie’s eyes. They glazed over as she sent her soothing thoughts, much like a leech numbing the area as it sucked the blood. It wasn’t the preferred way—it could leave Jackie damaged—but it wouldn’t matter. How many lives had these purge people taken?
“Evelyn, stop it,” Travis said and touched her arm.
The connection broke off and Jackie slumped in the chair.
Evelyn watched as Travis sat up and put his body between her and Jackie. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t think these are the bad people. They just want to find their friend. Wouldn’t you do anything to help a person you loved?”
“Yes, and I am, right now. So let me get back to it. I was getting flashes about how this whole world works.”
“It’s not right, and you know it. You can’t treat people like they are things, Evelyn.”
“She can help me understand them better.”
“Not this way. She was telling you everything you wanted to know. Why break her?”
“It’s faster.”
Evelyn thought of probing Travis’s brain and stared at his forehead. The man had always evaded her kindest probes. She found Travis to be such a fascinating person, she didn’t want to damage that beautiful mind, so she never probed deeper than his fleeting thoughts.
“Evelyn, there are better ways than this. You need to stay as human as possible. If you start down this road, you’re going to end up just like their queen. She sees all life as just a means to her end.”
Jackie held her head and sat up. She looked past Travis. “What happened?”
“You passed out,” Evelyn said. “You’re better now.” She gave Travis a look to tell him she wouldn’t break Jackie. Then she crossed her arms and went back to looking out the window.
“I don’t feel better,” Jackie said. “It felt as if you were in my head.” She held her hand over her forehead.
“Where are we going?” Evelyn asked as they passed a group of purge people walking down the street.
“It doesn’t much matter, we just need to get out of here. That cop back at the café will be sending . . .” Jackie stopped and leaned forward, looking out the front window. “Oh crap.”
Evelyn spotted it as well. A group of cars parked along the street, blocked their escape. Half a dozen people stood around the cars.
“Did you tell anyone?” Jackie asked the driver.
“Tell who, what? What’s going on here?” the driver asked as he slowed down.
Another car rammed them from behind. “Where are my stones?” she demanded, and held out her hand.
Travis took out a sack and gave it to Jackie. She rolled down her window and tossed a stone, hitting the car behind them. The stone exploded into a large goop that covered the front of the pursuing car. It skidded out of control and struck a parked car.
“What the hell?” their driver screamed. The cab came to an abrupt stop. The driver opened the door and ran down the road, away from the blockade directly ahead.
“Are these your people?” Evelyn asked and made sure she had a bit of her fingers in Jackie’s brain.
“No,” Jackie said. She told the truth.
“You have another one of those jump stones?” Travis asked.
Jackie looked in her bag. “No, that café one was the last one.”
“Make another,” Evelyn said.
“It’s not that simple,” Jackie said and looked ahead. “We’ve got to get out of this car.”
Several of the purge people had left their cars and walked toward them, each of them holding a colored stone of some sort in their hands. Evelyn went to slow down time but again, nothing happened.
“None of them have guns, do they?” Travis asked as he eyed the group walking toward them.
“We don’t use them. They can mess with the stones.”
“Good. These people get any closer and they’re about to get a lesson in lead,” Travis said.
The three people stopped, maybe fifty feet away. One tossed a stone at the car Evelyn sat in. It bounced along the asphalt, until it exploded, blowing out the windows of a nearby car.
A warning shot, as Evelyn took it.
Travis gripped his gun and put a hand on the car door. He glanced back and then shoved the door open.
Evelyn couldn’t help but smile. How she loved Travis, and kicking these people’s asses would be a good way to show him how much she’d grown.
HARRIS KEPT THE ORB DANGLING from his wrist. The longer he looked at it, the more he wanted to. So he reserved himself to quick glances. The glowing orange light seeped into him, spreading over his anger and massaging out his regret.
He thought after ending Marcus, there would have been a great weight taken from him. Marcus had been the architect of so many horrible memories, and the direct result of so much death around him; but with him gone, he felt hollow. He felt as if his sole purpose for so many years, had been to find a way to stop Marcus, to take control of MM and restore peace to the world. He’d done those things, and maybe if he had Compry still at his side, he would have found a hidden spot in the world to live the rest of his life out in ambiguity.
It was the orb talking. He chuckled to himself and snuck another look at it. These weren’t his thoughts, nor did he want them to be. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time. He found himself staring at the orb again. He shook his head and looked up at the sky. The wind had died down, and the sunrise sent a blue hue over the sky.
How long had he been staring at it? It must have been hours. Blindly, he grabbed the orb with his fist and stuffed it in his pocket. He unbound the string from his wrist and took a deep breath.
The sun brought warmer weather. Stinging cold, but tolerable. A large rock outcropping, layered with a snow cap, stuck out from the ground. A good vantage point to look over the surrounding area.
He climbed the rocks and tested his footing, before standing all the way up. There, he saw it, stuffed down into a valley and surrounded by a large forest, a large white building with no markings and a layer of snow covering the roof. He got off the rock and worked his way toward the building.
As he got closer, he didn’t spot any cameras or windows. Working his way around the building, he found a single white door with a keypad next to it. Getting up close to the structure, a humming sound roared loudly, and constant.
The keypad wasn’t more than the equivalent of an old ten-key lock, and a joke for his Panavice to break through. He slung his bag across his back and used his Panavice. The door clicked and he turned the handle with one hand and pulled out his gun with the other.
He entered the well-lit hall, closing the door behind him. He thought being indoors might take the edge off the bitter cold, but it couldn’t have been much more than a few degrees warmer inside. The sounds though, were more pronounced and defined. The hum of energy came from all directions, and in different degrees.
The hall led to a set of double doors with small windows at the upper third of the door. He stood at the window and peered into the vast expanse of the next room. Beyond the doors, held a massive room, leading far down into the earth. He pushed open the door and winced at the noise.
A cube floated up from below and flew into a square hole at a wall at the far end and disappeared. Then another cube, then another. Soon, a large cube, maybe ten times as big as the small ones, floated up from below and went through a larger hole in the same wall.
He walked the edge of the wall and kept an eye out for humans, but no one came; no alarms sounded. Maybe they figured Ryjack’s environment and inhabitants would have been enough of a deterrent. It was brilliant, really. In a world where traveling meant increased chance of death, no sane person would try and make a journey into such a place.
Harris leaned over the edge to get a good look below. He spotted the bottom and a flurry of movement. Carts moved around, carrying loads of rocks and other materials. Still, no people. Everything seemed to be operated on complete autonomy. Vanar could have built such manufacturing, but Marcus kept this sort of thing at bay. He’d always thought once people became a hundred percent dependent on machines, they’d already lost the war. Of course, this was the same person who gave them Orange. . . .
Thinking of Marcus, Harris wanted to take another look at the orb. He resisted, and kept walking toward the doors under the holes the cubes took. He suspected the Alius stone would be behind the wall, with at least one person holding the portal open.
He pushed open the next door and walked toward the circle in the middle of the large room.
He kept his gun out and pointed at the stone. A man was crouched next to it, and never looked up as Harris approached. The dome around him flickered with pictures, much like a person changing channels.
Then a large crate appeared at the middle of the stone. A mechanical arm rotated out and picked up the crate, bringing it to a large, steel funnel. Stones poured out of the crate and clattered into the funnel. The arm shook out the last stones, then rotated again and dumped the crate into a hole in the floor.
The man at the stone still hadn’t noticed his entrance, he didn’t think the man had even moved. He wore a set of headphones and stared at the stone, without ever looking up. Harris questioned if the man was even real.
Another cube floated by and a picture of a forest appeared. The cube floated into the circle and disappeared. Then another cube floated in, and a scene near an ocean appeared.
Harris walked around the circle, making sure to stay out of it. He tried to fathom what the man was doing. Taking in what he knew about the stones, this should be impossible; not only was the man holding a portal open, but he was able to change locations without moving his hands.
“Hey,” Harris called out, not more than thirty feet away. The man didn’t even flinch. “Hey, you, at the stone,” he yelled.
The man lifted his head and looked over to Harris. Harris kept his gun trained on him, and was shocked at how bad the man looked. His face was sunken and withered, and Harris had a hard time pegging his age. He could have been twenty-five or seventy-five. His thin hair might have been a light blond or a shade of gray.
“Who are you?” The man croaked out, as if he hadn’t spoken in years.
“I’m the new maintenance guy,” Harris said.
The small man smiled and another cube went through the portal and into another world, all while the man gazed upon Harris. “There’s no main
tenance in this place. Are you here to kill me?” His voice cleared, and the last part of the sentence perked up with hope.
“I’m here to end this place.” Harris didn’t see any reason to lie to the guy.
“Oh, thank heavens.” He looked at the ceiling.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?”
“Oh yes, every horrible thing I see never leaves me. I can’t forget, as much as I want to.”
“How long have you been doing this?” Harris asked and kept his gun trained on the man.
He laughed again, his cracked lips getting stuck on his dry teeth. “As long as I can remember.” A large cube went through the portal and Harris noticed no change in the man’s expression. “But, you can’t kill me. I know, I’ve tried.”
“Is there another distribution center like this one?”
“This is the last functioning center. And if you kill me, they won’t have an easy backup person to do what I do.”
“Let me put you out of your misery.” Harris fired and the bullets bounced off the man’s chest.
“I told you, I can’t be killed.” He looked at the ceiling.
Harris lowered his gun. “Then tell me, how do I kill you?”
“If I knew how to die, you think I’d be here right now? I haven’t eaten, slept, or had water for so long, I don’t remember what it even tastes like.”
“How’s that possible?”
“The queen made me a special stone, at least that is what she called it, but I consider it a curse. It’s unnatural to live without dying. People need to die in order to make room for the young.” He coughed and wiped his mouth as another cube flew into the portal.
“Can I get you off the Alius stone? That should be enough to stop all of this, right?”
“You can get me off this portal stone as easy as you could detach your penis from your crotch.”
“A knife would do the job.” Harris stowed his gun and pulled out his knife.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
Harris stepped passed the edge of the circle and took one step onto the dirt floor. Something struck him in the chest and sent him flying backward. He slid across the smooth floor for several feet, then rolled over, clutching his chest. Whatever hit him felt like a giant boot kicking him. He struggled to catch his breath.
