by P. S. Power
Ten minutes later they walked down five flights of stairs, white tiled and twisting hallways of them, cool and bright from the magic lights above. The light quality wasn't good, and when Tor touched it with his mind he was shocked to find it was a glowing gas, not his kind of magic at all. Lightning had been passed into it and that made it glow? Electrics.
Amazingly clever.
Also wasteful, but he didn't mention it. He wasn't here to comment on their society or how they lived, was he? Their place, their ways. Still, it was a stupid way of doing things when they could have simply made lights that didn't use energy at all.
Denno stood at the far side of his room, the door thick metal and see through glass for observation, wire shot through to make it harder to break. The man wore identical clothing to the one time Tor had seen him, a light blue outfit that had a loose top, much like a tunic and baggy trousers that didn't seem to have pockets. The material was light, cotton or something similar, and his shoes were light slippers, also in matching blue material. The leather on the bottom looked different, like it was something else entirely not cow hide at all. It was white and flexible not hard at all.
Having seen his image before Tor was ready this time. Denno Brown was beautiful. Dark skin that reminded Tor slightly of what a walnut shell would have looked like if it was perfect and unbroken by shadow. The eyes were brown, simple and clear and the hair black, like Tor's own. Then again, even if they looked as different as they did, they were, in some strange fashion the Ancients had crafted, brothers. Tor bowed to the man, noting that he'd held to looking about twenty-five or so. Burks could make himself look older too, apparently something he'd personally be able to do as well, eventually.
“Little Brother! You've come at last to relieve my boredom then? So good to meet you in person, not that I doubted you would come, given everything. Well, patience is the trick to everything, isn't it? Please, come in, come in… I see that Glost and Daria have brought a feast for us! Excellent, I've grown a bit bored eating alone, though the food hasn't been stinted… I just sometimes don't get to see anyone for days at a time, two or three days, even. Except guards. Nice fellows, but not allowed to chat much. Come sit when you are ready!” He smiled, but didn't try to touch anyone.
A single covert glance gave that away, six armed men had moved in behind them to prevent escape or trouble. They wore simple gray outfits, like Daria’s tan one, and held rounded silver and black tubes directly at Denno. Apparently Tor wasn't thought a threat at all. Good. He wasn't there to fight with them anyway, was he? Looking at Brown he smiled and gave a slow blink, showing he'd gotten the message the man had just sent him. It wasn't subtle really and Tor didn't want to give it all away so he acted pleased to meet the man, but a little bored.
“Two or three days? Why I could barely go two without going crazy, you must be strong to endure such. Well, I'm sure that the Premier will let me visit occasionally now that I'm here. Though you must promise not to be in the way all the time! He was just telling me how you are, always meddling. That's a bad habit you know. Burks does that too, and it's a pain. At the same time he keeps telling me that I need to let other people do things for themselves. It's hypocritical, don't you think?” Tor didn't sneer, that wasn't something he did well, so instead he put his hands on his hips.
The key to the Ancient’s secret message system was simple, you just twitched or tapped on the word you wanted to emphasize. The slow blink told the other that a message was being passed, that or hooded lids, the rest was just a matter of controlling what you did and when. It was awkward, but so far no one had seemed to catch on.
Denno had just told him that he'd be ready and wanted to know if it would be two or three days. The man had waited years and seemed a little impatient now. Tor had confirmed two days. He had the route down the stairs now. What he needed were just some items to help Denno out of the cell and weapons in case things fell apart. Or better, a shield for the man. That the guy might be setting him up was still possible. Handing him death weapons would be a mistake until he knew for certain.
A table was set up and the meal almost seemed cozy, except for the armed guards who acted as if the small dark man was going to kill them all suddenly, without warning. After a while he looked at the guards under hooded lashes and then winked at Tor.
“For some reason they keep thinking I'm going to jump up and do battle with them. They're like this all the time, even while I sleep. Really it's over done a bit. I mean, how dangerous can I be then? What am I going to do, snore at them?” His voice was a little pissy and cold.
No secret message there, the Ancient was simply watched all the time and had told him that flat out. Ah. So if Tor was coming in he'd have to do something about the guards? He had weapons that could kill them, and could make non-lethal ones, but all of those would leave them a chance to sound an alarm or call out an alert.
Daria interjected then, needling the man.
“Must make it awkward to masturbate, huh? Want me to come in and do it for you? Or… you only like guys, right? So maybe Tor could?”
Denno laughed at her, a long and loud thing, meant to be derisive.
“Girl, don't try using that on me. I won't sleep with you because I don't like you. I like women just fine, I just prefer them sane. As for having Tor do things for me like that, well, I wouldn't say no. I always wanted Green too, but he never would. Kind of prude really, when you get down to it. How about you Tor, are you as big a prude?”
Honestly he was. Worse really, at least as far as he could tell. But the idea was for Denno and him to meet to… Ugh. It was a good enough plan, but Tor couldn't… Glost smiled wickedly and watched with a cunning eyes as Tor squirmed uncomfortably.
“Why what a wonderful idea! Yes, we'll deliver him to you for the purpose Denno. Maybe you can show him the wonders of your flesh? The two of you will make such a lovely pair! In fact I think I'll televise the whole thing. Yes, I like the idea! Oh ho!”
Tor swallowed, but Denno grinned happily.
“Ah! Finally then. Yes, I can see it now…” The scene that was set was graphic and precise, even to the timing. From when Tor would walk in to when Denno would penetrate him from behind and what positions would be used. Tor shook a little, not having to fake it. The whole thing sounded really embarrassing and uncomfortable. But he didn't say anything, because all the others acted as if it were an actual plan, not just teasing. Two of the guards had shifted their weapons to him, as if expecting an attack, but the whole thing, crazy as it might be, as gross as it sounded to him, was when the escape would come. If he could get everything in place in time. Otherwise he'd probably end up doing all that stuff himself and really… He'd rather not.
Glost laughed and clapped at the idea, his inner self watching Tor and actually feeling happy that this was making him so uncomfortable. Daria was watchful too, but didn't really seem to care. Amused by the idea, but not invested in it. Denno felt internally… cunning. Still if he had a plan of his own, other than using Tor for sex against his will, it wasn't something that was readily seen.
“Um, I don't suppose I get a say in all this?” Tor asked softly. They all ignored him.
Sigh.
It was set up for two days later, Denno crafting things carefully to guide Glost and Daria so easily that Tor really did wonder if the man couldn't have just walked out at any time? The others didn't even get that he was controlling them. If that was how it was, why hadn't he escaped on his own? Well, for his part Tor decided to sulk and act disgruntled.
It wasn't hard to pull off.
Everyone laughed at him, but after the meal they left him alone in his room, to sulk probably. He took a small metal piece that sat on a table, disabled the device inside, meant to listen to him at a guess, and started working, using it as the housing for the device he wanted. Food came and he had to rouse to eat, but other than that he worked. For two days and nights, the guards coming for him on the morning of the third day, which wasn't exactly the set time,
but would work well enough. Tor just hoped to all the gods that Denno always wore the same blue outfit, like a prisoner’s uniform. If he was wearing something else this wasn't going to work. If that was the case Tor had decided to simply try and fight their way out. Actually going along with the whole plan, magically put out to the homes of everyone in Austra for their titillation, was just too much for him to handle.
At the door of the cell he looked through to see Denno waiting for him, hands clasped in front of him and dressed in blue.
Thank god.
Now for the hard part.
Tor was let in, a full twenty guards suggesting he comply fully by holding dangerous looking weapons at him of varying types. They apparently really didn't get that those wouldn't work at all. He’d have thought Daria would have clued them in. She knew what magic was and had used it, seen a lot of it even at Debbie’s device shop. Knew that he could make it too, even if she thought it was some kind of secret science.
Moving slowly, reluctantly, Tor walked across the room and embraced the man carefully, awkwardly, and kissed him on the lips using his best form.
“Ready lover?” Tor said, hoping the man wouldn't think he really meant for them to have sex. Because if that was the case, the foreplay was about to be really disappointing.
“Always.”
Then Tor activated the sigil on the small metal sphere and walked the other man backwards, pushing him a little roughly onto the low bed at the back of the room.
Chapter Six
When they hit the bed Tor pushed Denno through the wall behind them, coming out on the other side with only a little struggle, when the good looking Ancient panicked a bit. Apparently just going through the wall hadn't seemed like the obvious plan? A guard room with screens that showed the inside of the room, where Tor and Denno were making out on the man’s bed. There was a guard wearing a gray one-piece watching the screen, chuckling as he did, but he didn't look down to see the two men under his desk.
Denno was wide eyed but stayed silent and crawled to the far end of the set up, leading to a corner, going left would take them back into the room they'd come from, so Tor was opting for straight, but Denno placed a slow and gentle hand on his back and shook his head when Tor turned around, pointing at the wall to the right. Tor nodded that he got the idea, his way wasn't going to work and the guy that knew where things were suggested going another direction entirely. But could they get there without the guard seeing them?
In the end all they could do was wait for a chance. The scene would last forty minutes, then the fake images of them would sit up and put their clothing back on and move to the table to talk. No sound would come out then though. There would be grunts and murmurs before then, hopefully when appropriate. Tor didn't really know. It wasn't like this was anything he'd done before. The whole scene was just made up after all.
The guard moved forward to watch the screen suddenly and Denno pushed Tor into action. Getting through the wall into a stairwell behind the stone material, smooth and bland, was no harder than a tree and took less time over all, since it was only about a foot thick. From there Denno led, running quickly, faster than Tor could go, but not so much so that he got lost. Finally, after climbing not five, but six flights of stairs, Denno pointed at another wall and grimaced. There would be a fall, Tor knew. When they left the building Denno rolled out of the fall, only about ten feet up, but Tor didn't have that skill, so landed with his legs nearly straight, the force of the whole thing going into the ground with a small pop. The other man looked worried for a bit, but Tor waved him on. Shields were nifty that way, taking the force of falls for you.
In the open Denno was faster than Tor by far. After about a minute of panting and struggling to keep up, being left far behind, Denno stopped, freezing by a fence made of metal, gray and oppressive. Inside hundreds, maybe thousands, of gray suited military men worked and trained. It took a minute for Tor to get what he was looking at. Inside the fence wasn't a military base, it was an assassin training facility. This was clear, because all the men inside were a single individual. All with eyes that had whites, but the rest was a pure black, eerie and off putting.
Larval.
Clones designed to ruthlessly take out any target, anywhere in the world.
Tor got ready to panic, but held himself still for the moment, taking in the scene, trying to count how many there were and how big the facility was. Huge. When he got to three hundred men, Denno started running again, this time towards the sea. On the beach he stopped and looked at Tor meaningfully.
“I don't know the plan…”
Of course not. Now they had to swim. Three miles out into the ocean and hope that Burks hadn't gone into town for a snack. Tor said this with a grin, as if he were joking and moved to the water, swimming as best he could
Denno might have been faster than he was, but after a few minutes the work was obviously getting hard for him to keep up. This wasn't a sprint after all. At fifteen minutes the man started to struggle, so Tor had to slow down and let him keep up. It took nearly two hours to get far enough out, and it was the place where he'd planned to wait, he guessed. It was really hard to tell. Looking down into the water Tor couldn't see anything, so they floated and treaded in place for a while.
He could make a craft for them, true. Tor could do it at any time, having one around his neck even, but that might show up to the Austran science and he didn't want to force them into action just yet.
It was a dilemma though, because they couldn't tread water forever.
“Hello.” A voice came from behind them, about twenty feet off. “Would you two like a ride?”
The craft looked different than Tor would have made it, like a perfect tear drop, a small hatch coming out one side, with Burks standing there dressed in a strange skin tight outfit of black that was vaguely shiny. It had a bright green stripe about four inches wide down the sides. It looked good on him, but strange. No one in Austra, Afrak or Noram dressed like it at all. Tor couldn't even identify what the material was supposed to be. Since he'd been the one that added all the field templates on the clothing amulet Burks wore, that meant the man, or someone else, had altered a field he'd made. It was possible to do, but showed a lot more building skill than he'd suspected before from the man.
Swimming towards the craft Tor wanted to shake his head. He was a moron sometimes, a big one too. Burks wasn't that good at building? Not only was he basically the same person as Tor, who did OK at it, but the man had invented the kind of magic they used. All the techniques, all the tricks and templates, were based on what he originally discovered. Of course he could tap into a field Tor had made. Now that the idea occurred to him, it wouldn't even be hard to do himself. Just match the work, like copying and rebuild it with the additional or altered information. He'd even done a little of that with his own work. It was nearly what he did to make shield improvements.
The first thing Tor did was touch Burks arm as he steadied himself on the craft then moved forward stepping inside to let Denno on.
“Burks, can I get a copy of the field for that material? It seems waterproof but flexible.” That was a rare combination. As he nodded, smiling, Tor remembered the important bit and blushed.
“Oh… Also, giant Larval army back there. I couldn't get their ages or exact numbers, but I left off at about three hundred and fifty and that was only about half of what was visible. The complex could hold more than that I think.”
Burks sighed.
“Of course. It had to be something didn't it? So, Den, what have you to say for yourself?”
Denno even looked good wet, which made Tor feel a little jealous. He probably looked like a drowned rat, this guy looked ready to seduce the upper crust of royal society. Tor moved past him and closed the hatch, a complex thing that melded into the body smoothly once it shut. Functionally the door was one with the solid and smooth side.
Cool.
Tor decided to take them down and get underway while the other two talked, o
r fought. Whatever was going to happen. He held them at about ten foot deep then hopped up to check the air flow in and out. It was a strong and healthy breeze on his hand coming in and the out port tried to grab him with suction. It was a little embarrassing, but he got his hand back before anyone laughed at him. Not that either of the others was paying attention to his antics, being a little busy.
They'd both collapsed into the passenger chairs in the back, large and comfortable things in a sturdy looking blue material, attached to the floor in a space bigger than his school dorm room. The men stared at each other silently, neither moving or even breathing hard. Shrugging Tor headed due west, it was both away and not particularly going towards Noram, which would be where he'd search first, if looking for a fleeing Tor. Almost everyone would try to run straight home, so he didn't.
If anyone was following yet they were good, he decided, or using techniques and tricks he just didn't know. Either way amounted to the same thing, a dead him if they weren't careful.
When Brown spoke his voice was mellow, relaxed and almost sounded like he was planning on trying to trick them into something. Believing him or what not. It wasn't a voice that Tor would trust, as much as he wanted to in the moment. It didn't sound phony, but it was clearly designed to manipulate. Incredibly sincere. Too much so.
“I have no clue what he's been up too Burks. He's held me prisoner for years, a decade I think. It's not any plan of mine. I admit that I was lax in my duty. Glost should have never gained power, but you know how I loathe killing and nothing else would have been half as effective.” It was a persuasive argument, but Tor snorted loudly, causing both men to look at him.
“You didn't want to kill him, which I get, killing is… hard. But you did nothing because you didn't want to kill him? Half as effective is better than not being effective at all, isn't it?” Tor made his voice stay relaxed and conversational, but felt like shouting at the man for having not done his job. It wouldn't help in the long run, so he made himself stay cool.
