by James Axler
“Doc,” Jak said sleepily, “shut up. Talk too much. Big words, no sense.”
Doc allowed himself a quiet chuckle. “Perhaps you are right. Sleep well, Jak, and tomorrow we will see if we can speak with Ryan.”
The old man had allowed himself some freedom in what he had said simply because both he and Jak had swept the room for any kind of bugging device as soon as the baron had closed the door on them. It had appeared to be bereft of such tech, and given that both men—like their companions—had experienced tech of all qualities during their travels, the old man had felt safe in expressing himself. His garrulous nature needed flight to enable him to clear the confusion in his own head, and although he realized that Jak was the opposite in nature, he needed the lad as a sounding board.
Yet still he was no nearer an answer. As he listened to Jak’s breathing slow into the regulated, shallow rhythm of sleep, Doc lay awake, his eyes focused on the dark ceiling of the room. Heavy drapes covered the windows, and there was little noise permeating this side of the building. Both men had taken advantage of the bathroom facilities, and both were feeling cleaner, the aches washed from their limbs along with the grime. Both had welcomed the respite of the soft beds, and had switched off the lights to welcome the blanket of dark with a sense of release.
But now, while his companion slept with an ease that he found enviable, Doc was wide-awake. Through his mind raced a thousand and one questions, a thousand and two images of a world he had left behind.
He tried to sleep; he needed the rest. His body ached, his eyes were sore and his mind raced like a galloping horse that was sweat-flecked and out of control. And that was the problem: no matter how much he wanted to switch off his mind and relax, he couldn’t. All he could see were the dark outlines of faint shadow that flickered across the ceiling. Maybe the result of some light bleeding in from the corridor beyond, under the door; perhaps the odd sliver of ambient light through the drapes, from the night beyond. Or perhaps nothing more than the result of his own internal eye, flickering and reflected onto the black canvas of the ceiling.
Whatever it was, he envied Jak the rest that he found so easily. Doc felt twitchy. Every nerve ending itched. His skin crawled with fear. With curiosity…
Something here made him uneasy. If it was himself, then he could deal with that. Similarly, he reasoned as he stared at the black ceiling, if it was an external source, then he would be able to find a solution to his unease.
The key here was that he would have to know. And he couldn’t wait.
Doc looked over to where Jak lay. His translucent, white skin seemed to shine in the darkness. His breathing was relaxed and steady. His eyes flickered in REM behind paper-thin lids.
“I wonder,” he breathed to himself, “could I rise without disturbing you, my friend?”
“DIMMER SWITCH. Man, I haven’t seen one of these since, well, since before I was here.” Mildred shook her head sadly.
“This really weird for you?” J.B. asked from the bed. His battered fedora and spectacles lay on the bedside table, and to Mildred it looked for all the world like they were ready to play out a scene in the kind of sitcom that she grew up watching. Except there hadn’t been any black women in them. Not then. That would have been strange enough to her, at one time. But now…
She shook her head once more, this time more out of a sense of disbelief than anything else. She turned the dimmer up and down a few times, lost in thought, before settling for a low light and moving over to where J.B. lay, watching her.
“Weird is not the word. I can’t explain to you what this is like. There are so many things.” She got into bed and moved up close against him. “You know, even the fact that this bed is so damn soft feels weird. Time was when this was the kind of thing I’d sleep on every night without even noticing. Now, it just seems like it’s taken me back.”
“That a bad thing? At least for tonight?” he asked, holding her close to him. Her plaits were rough on his chest as she nestled her head, and he realized it had been a while since they had been able to relax like this.
She shook her head once again. “It’s not just about me. I don’t know how I can explain it to you. There are too many things that don’t add up about Arcadian. Who he is. The way in which he’s used his power to recreate a version of the past that just doesn’t seem right.”
“In what way?” the Armorer asked, genuinely puzzled. Having no real notion of what the “real” past had been, he couldn’t understand her bemusement. “This is just old shit he’s putting back together, right?”
“No, John, it isn’t. It’s old, I’ll grant you, and a lot of it is authentic in itself, but it’s just that back then, his kind of man wouldn’t have had somewhere that looked like this. This is just all wrong.”
J.B. pondered this for a moment. “Mebbe you’re seeing things that aren’t there. He isn’t like you. Or Doc. He hasn’t seen the past like you have. He’s had to piece it together like me. Or Ryan. Or Krysty. You’re thinking like he was there. But he wasn’t. This is mebbe just what he thinks it should have been like.”
“Maybe.”
There was still a nagging at the back of her mind, but it was eased out by the low light, the feeling of relief from physical discomfort that the bed brought her, and the close proximity of her partner. Just as the Armorer had a few moments before, she realized that it had been too long since they had been able to lie like this.
Any concerns were forgotten as she moved closer to him, felt his warmth and hard muscle against her. Not just muscle.
“John, really…” she murmured. It was two words too many, and two more than the Armorer would waste. He preferred to let his hands do his talking, and slowly they began to explore each other, rediscovering an intimacy that circumstance had kept too long at bay.
Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
It didn’t take Doc long to dress. All the while, he kept an eye on Jak’s shallow breathing. At the slightest change, he would pause and wait to see if the albino teen awoke. But no. Doc speculated, as he dressed, that somehow Jak’s senses were so attuned to danger that he could even subconsciously filter out those sounds that he could identify as being those of a friend. Perhaps that was fanciful. Even so, Doc was able to prepare without the younger man even stirring in his slumbers.
When he was ready, he stood for a moment in the center of the room. Partly to orient himself in the darkness, but partly to ponder what exactly it was that he hoped to achieve.
“To find answers,” he murmured.
But what were the questions?
“That I shall only know when I find the answers,” he breathed, shaking his head. He knew he shouldn’t be taking a chance like this, but he also knew that he couldn’t rest until he had done so.
Knowing that his actions could cause problems for those who still slept soundly, but also knowing that he couldn’t resist the impulse, Doc headed for the door. He looked back briefly to check on Jak, even though he could tell from merely hearing that the albino teen hadn’t responded. Then, he tried the door.
Would you, if you were a baron wishing to lull us into a false sense of security, leave these doors locked or unlocked? Doc asked himself. Locked would signal distrust and captivity. Unlocked risked exactly the kind of action he was about to take. On balance, he assured himself, unlocked—engender trust, and attend to problems further down the line.
The door gave easily and Doc grinned in the faint light from the corridor. Was it a good thing that he could second-guess the thought processes of a possibly dangerous megalomaniac? No matter. He was out, now…
The corridor was dimly lit. It gave him some cover to move in, if nothing else. At one end, there was a wall with a central window. It had large panes set in a frame that stood six feet by three, roughly. More than big enough to climb through with ease. But that would merely effect escape. Investigation was more Doc’s aim. So he took the other way. He and Jak had been placed in the room farthest from the exit to a
corridor. On his way back up the shadowed hall he had to pass the doors of the other two bedrooms, occupied by his companions. It was with some trepidation that he passed these two doors. Would it be his luck to walk past at the moment that Ryan or J.B. also decided to try to explore?
As he passed them, he paused and listened at the doors. Although they were of a heavy wood—not oak, he was sure, but perhaps cedar—he could hear some faint noise from within. He felt, for a moment, both embarrassed and pleased. Was it an intrusion to hear them making love? At least they had the opportunity. And, in a practical sense, it allowed him to follow his own path without fear of being followed.
It was while he was at one of the doors that he heard the approaching footsteps, distant, but echoing in the chamber adjacent to the hall. Steady and slow, allowing him time to step back into the deepest pool of shadow he could find, using a display case as cover. He hunkered down, his head level with the case.
Doc tried to sink back into the wall, so that the case and its shadow absorbed him completely. The slap of the echo now became subsumed to the thump of heavy boots on stone floor, and Doc knew that whoever approached would be level with the entrance to the corridor.
It had to be a sec patrol. One man, by the sound of it. If he passed by, then Doc was safe. If not, well, it would not take much for the man to stumble on him, and who knew what would occur by then. Doc had his sword stick with him, as always. He fingered the silver lion’s head: a Toledo steel blade was a deadly thing, but not easy to unsheath in such a location. He prayed that it wouldn’t be necessary to take such action at this juncture.
The footsteps ceased. He heard the growling rattle of phlegm in the sec man’s throat. Then the footsteps receded, becoming once more bathed in the welcome glow of echo.
Doc rose slowly to his feet, listening for any change in the pattern of the footfalls all the while, then made his way swiftly to the head of the corridor and looked out. He was aware that he was now in light, and so checked as quickly as possible both the location of any sec, and equally the location of any pools of darkness.
He was in luck on both counts. Only selected lights were in use while the building was, ostensibly, sleeping. Points of light glimmered along the landing, and could be glimpsed on the levels beneath. Down in the central well of the building’s lobby, there was a vast ocean of black. Elsewhere, the points diffused slowly into dark.
Quickly, Doc sidled along the wall until he was beyond the periphery of the pool in which he stood. Then, feeling safer in the gloom, he moved toward the stone balustrade that contained the stairways.
Ears keen for any footsteps that came within range, he became attuned to the quiet sounds of the building at night. A distant and polyrhythmic tattoo of footfalls from the heavy boots of the sec patrols became apparent. Below him, men moved slowly in and out of view. It was a regular pattern of patrol, but standing in the center of one part of that pattern wouldn’t allow him the luxury of defining the whole. Even as he watched, he knew that the man he had so recently avoided was now past the farthest point of his patrol, over by the far wall, and making his way back to where Doc was standing.
Time to move. His big problem, as he saw it, would be to pass through the pools of light without being seen. Eliminating all risk from this would be impossible, yet if he were to time his runs across those spaces, then it may just be feasible for him to hunker low to the balustrade and make himself small. From below, he would be hidden to all but the keenest of eyes.
Timing his first run as much a possible to the footfalls of the sec man at his rear, Doc scampered from dark to dark, keeping low. He reached the stairs and de scended carefully. This was easier, as most of the incline was bathed in darkness, and he was able to pause before he reached the next level, listening and watching for the sec patrol on that level with a lesser chance of being seen. The sec man on the second level passed in front of him and, after a pause, Doc slipped into his wake.
He continued this pattern until he reached ground level, where he was able to slip into the relative security of the dark that surrounded the displays in the old lobby. Silently, he thanked Arcadian’s strange mix of vanity and curatorship for the cover it afforded him. The darkness was full of shapes with which he could meld.
Now he was down here, he wondered why he had made for the ground level and not lingered on the corridors leading to the baron’s quarters and the mysterious rooms they had glimpsed on their arrival. That, surely, would be where he would find answers. Why, then, had his subconscious led him here without a thought?
As he watched the sec men move in and out of the ground-floor rooms, it came to him. From what they had been told, these were used merely for the administration of Arcady. Why, then, did they need such a heavy sec presence when compared to the levels where the baron reposed?
Two reasons sprang to mind. The first was that they were in place should any of the baron’s “guests” attempt to escape or carry out reconnaissance. Considering his own position at this moment, it was a reasonable assumption. The second was that they were defending something. But what? The ground level itself held nothing that would be of significance. That was safe to assume. But what if…
This had once been a library. It would have a basement, in which town archives would have been stored in the days before skydark. He knew this from his brief sojourn in the twentieth century, and from the origins of such buildings in his original time frame. A substantial basement. One that could house any number of secrets, should a man choose. And Arcadian, Doc felt sure, was a man with secrets.
How to access this basement? That was his dilemma. The physical entrance was easy to see, once he cast around for it. Under the staircase as it began to rise was a stout, unremarkable door.
That was the easy part. However, even from his vantage point he could see problems. The door itself had a light suspended by a bracket over the frame. There only appeared to be one lock, but to pick it would require standing in a telltale illumination. The sec patrols had a pattern that, he could now see, kept the door in an almost constant view.
“Problem, dear boy,” Doc murmured to himself. “Lock under light, easily seen. Light goes out, work in darkness. But light goes out, guards become suspicious. Create a diversion? Possible. But then the whole building comes alive.”
Doc settled in a little. He could afford to wait, for the night was still young. It would be some time before dawn’s early light started to seep through the windows of the old building and betray his position. His time was finite, but it should be enough to observe, and to analyze from these observations. In the world that he now lived, it was easy for Doc to forget that he had once been an academic, and although that brain was blunted by the traumas of time travel and an alien world, still it had enough of the old capacity to think.
Hunkered down by one of the display cases, he was aware of his thigh muscles cramping. He moved so that he was now on his knees, but even then he found that pins and needles warmly invading his calves were warning of being in one place for too long. He sighed. Why did his life have to be so, well, awkward?
But his discomfort and time weren’t without result. He was able to watch several circuits of the sec patrols, timing them and noting the points both at which they crossed and when they were farthest from the lobby area. They worked on regular and well-drilled patterns. But now he had the chance to observe them close-up, and he could see that although the sec men had been well-drilled into their regime, they weren’t necessarily the most enthusiastic footsoldiers he had ever seen. Their faces were haggard and betrayed a lack of sleep that may—if he was fortunate—be reflected in a concurrent lack of awareness. Certainly, the two who crossed over at the point where the door stood grunted or exchanged a few words each time they passed, and these words betrayed their lack of enthusiasm for their task.
Doc allowed himself a small smile as an idea came to him. It wasn’t a perfect idea, and certainly it relied on these men being less than thorough in their tasks.
<
br /> He rose, massaging his calves, getting the blood flowing once more. The last thing he wanted was to get halfway to his intended target and fall flat on his face. Ignominious as that might be, the danger in which it would place him was more of a spur.
There was an optimum point at which all the sec patrols—and these men in particular—would be facing away from the lobby. He would have to time his run with as much care as he possibly could, and act quickly and without fumbling. Just thinking of it made him nervous. He blanked his mind, watched and waited.
Now.
While they were at the extremity of their circuit, their footsteps distant echoes, Doc moved as smoothly as he was able. Weaving his way through the display cases, he crossed the empty space between the clustered cases and the door, unconsciously holding his breath as he entered the cone of light. He would have to move quickly, and take great care… His heart thumped in his throat as he wrapped his hand in the cuff of his shirt and reached up for the bulb that hung above the door. The thin material was no insulation for the heat, and he winced as it burned his fingertips. He wanted to pull them away, but couldn’t risk dropping the bulb. For he didn’t wish to extinguish it. Not yet…
It was a bayonet cap, not screw. That might make it easier to engineer. He loosened it, inhaled a sharp breath as it flickered into dark and then, as it lit up once more, stole a look in either direction.
The sec men were barely visible shadows, plodding their way through the circuit. They didn’t appear to have noticed.
Good.
Retreating as swiftly as he dared, yet at the same time keeping as light on his feet as he could, Doc returned to his place of safety, crouching once more. Now he had to wait. Had to endure the burning in his calves that matched the stinging pain in the fingers of his hand. Had to hope that his calculation had been correct, and that he had just that small piece of luck that any intrepid adventurer may need.
