“We have made quite a lot of advances since you were last on our planet. I used what knowledge I gained from your datalog to create a rudimentary, one-person ship to come here.”
“Wait,” I said, eyes going wider. “You made a ship? Just like that?”
“Well, I started it several months ago as a resource for the coming battle. But the sudden silence caused me to speed up the production. But, as it is a one-person ship, it is not appropriate for our escape.”
I grimaced. “Oh, what are we going to do about that?”
“I had hoped you might have some ideas for that. I spent all of my time and planning on finding you. I’ve been on your planet for weeks and I feel as if I have been running around in circles. Your planet is baffling.”
Bahn looked from me to Mimic. “We, uh, we did have a plan before we got here. Would it be that insane to try again?”
“We certainly would have the element of surprise if we act quickly.” Ciangi added. “I’m assuming that you took precautions to make sure the alarm won’t sound the moment we leave here?”
Mimic nodded. “I have learned much about what you call security measurements. I ensured that we have a clear path out of this building.”
“Actually,” I interrupted. “What exactly is this building?”
“What do you mean?”
“We were kind of unconscious when they brought us here. We have no idea even what country we’re in.”
“Ah. In that case, I feel much more accomplished that I found you.” She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a quiet laugh, and I felt my mood lift with her. It was as if I had a thorn in my hand for the past year and someone had finally removed it. I felt relief, and satisfaction, and happiness all wrapped into each other. I wasn’t even concerned that we still had a daring escape to get through.
“You are under a large, um, what is your human word for it? A place that holds many physical valuables from your ancient times?”
“A museum?” Ciangi supplied.
“No, I do not think that is it. Um, perhaps it is called, oh goodness, I know this world. A fortune holder?”
My mind spun through about a dozen definitions. “Do you mean a treasury?”
“Ah yes! That! You are under a treasury. The most heavily guarded treasury I have ever seen.”
“Mimic, isn’t this the only treasury you have ever seen?”
“Ah. Yes, I suppose. But anyway, you said you once had a plan, Coin Twin?”
“Yeah. Granted, I’m sure we’ll have to make some changes to it considering how long we have been down here, but the building blocks are all still there. I doubt they will have improved security since they probably think we were a one-off fluke.”
“Then let us go,” Mimic said, nodding resolutely. “Time is of the essence. I am sure my brothers and sisters have no doubt wound themselves into a tizzy.”
“Your brother and sist— Oh, right. The mini-Mimics. Yeah, let’s go.”
A roar sounded behind us, and I turned to see that Lazer had risen to his feet and was barreling toward us.
He didn’t quite make it, however, as a dark shape slammed into his side. He flew into what had just been my cell, and I heard him collide with a wall.
The sound of fists hitting flesh and bone filled the hall and we all ran over to see Gonzales sitting on top of the man’s chest, beating the man who had tortured her for so long.
Once again, none of us said anything. I was sure we had all daydreamed many times of putting the sadist in his place, but it was another thing entirely to see Gonzales dole out her revenge. I could hear her ragged breathing from where I was, and even from behind her, I could tell that she was crying. She yelled no insults, and spat no curses. She was silent other than the small sobs escaping her lips.
Eventually, Lazer shuddered and then went still. For a moment, I thought that he was dead, but I saw his chest rise and fall sluggishly as Gonzales stood.
“Your gun,” she said finally, extending her hand but not looking at any of us.
“I’m sorry, what?” I sputtered, my eyes focusing on the blood coating her knuckles.
“Mimic, there’s a blaster on your guard uniform. Give it to me.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ciangi murmured.
We weren’t judging her, or telling her what she could or could not do, but I couldn’t blame the blond Coin Twin for wanting to make sure if her best friend was really ready to take a life.
“Yes,” was the succinct answer.
Mimic, who obviously didn’t quite understand what was happening, removed her gun from her belt and handed it over.
Gonzales took the blaster then turned once more to her previous tormenter. She stalked over to him, steps as silent as death itself. When she reached his prone form, she grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up.
His head stood at a strange angle, his long, carefully coiffed hair leaving some distance between her hand and his scalp. Without so much as a pause, she brought up the blaster and fired.
I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut as the smell of burning filled the room. I heard Lazer’s body fall back to the ground and opened my eyes. I expected a grisly scene, one that would stay with me forever and haunt my dreams. But instead, the guard was still in one piece and very much alive.
“What…what happened?” I murmured before looking to Gonzales, who was still facing away from us. It was right about then that I noticed the thick chunk of hair in her hand. Looking back to Lazer, I saw the blaster had burned an ugly looking trough through his normally impeccably styled hair. There was even a bit of a burn in a stripe along the top of his scalp, which I was pretty sure meant that no hair would ever grow there again.
Gonzales bent down, leaning over the man so she could hiss into his ear. “You took something away from me, so I took something away from you.” Her voice was as I had never heard it before. Low, calm, but as dangerous as the deep seas of Earth. “Now, every time you look in the mirror, you’ll know that you were bested by me. I hope you learn from this, you abusive prick, but I doubt you have the brain power left for it in that ever so thick scalp of yours.”
With that, she stood and threw his singed hair onto him before turning to us. “So, I think someone said something about escaping?”
11
THE MOST WELCOME CASE OF DE JA VU
IT WAS strange to admit it, but it was almost fun to run with Mimic again. It reminded me of older, simpler times when our only opponent was a greedy ship captain or an enslaving alien. It seemed that going up against an entire military was much more complicated.
But nevertheless, we were escaping yet again.
We bolted out of the door first and into a surprisingly long corridor. I had expected more guards, but Mimic informed us that most of them worked in the upper levels, protecting the physical valuables of human history.
“How exactly are we getting through the upper levels?”
“I can shapeshift,” Mimic offered hopefully.
“Uh yeah,” Ciangi said, trying to hold back her sarcastic tone and failing miserably. “Believe it or not, I figured that out by now. Too bad the rest of us can’t shapeshift.”
“And we’re far too dirty to blend in,” Bahn added much more helpfully than his smaller twin. “Even if we could incapacitate enough guards and steal their uniforms, we would still stick out like sore thumbs.”
“Yeah, we definitely look like we belong in the trash,” Gonzales said, almost sounding like her old self.
Almost.
“Wait,” I breathed, my mind rushing in that way it liked to do right when I was about to suggest something ridiculous. “I think I have an idea.”
“Is this in the same vein as ‘we should steal a ship’ because right now we’re rocking a two out of three average on that actually working.”
“No, actually. We’re trash!”
“Um, what?”
I realized that I wasn’t explaining myself well and shook my head. “I mean
, does this facility have specific protocol for waste disposal? I’m sure we could somehow smuggle ourselves into the trash and get out of here that way. Especially if Mimic is our cover as a worker.”
Everyone else’s face started to brighten, telling me that I hadn’t thought of the stupidest plan ever. It seemed even a year away from the action hadn’t totally ruined my clutch bizarre suggestions.
“Actually, I think that might work,” Ciangi said. “Mimic, did you learn anything about the sanitation system of this building?”
“Yes, actually. All trash is deposited through a shoot that then goes into a sorter. It’s picked through by employees before being put through another shoot that leads into the recyclers outside. They’re turned on at the beginning and end of the day, so should we go now, we should be fine.”
“What about the workers down there?” Gonzales asked through her split lips.
“That’s easy,” Mimic answered. “I will go down as an actual item of your Earth trash, scout the area, then signal back up to you if the coast is clear.”
“How will we know what the signal is?”
With that, Mimic smiled and the whole room seemed to grow a little less dark and foreign. “Trust me, you will know.” It seemed a shame when her face grew serious once more. “But first, we must make it to the chute. It’s one floor above us, and by the lavatories, if I recall correctly. We shall have to be careful, as I have observed that you humans do not seem to relieve yourselves on a regular schedule.”
“You knew us for months and you just recently figured out that we don’t poop according to the clock?” Gonzales asked, snickering lightly. It was strange to hear the weapons engineer laugh again, but I certainly wasn’t complaining about the sound.
“I suppose I never paid attention to it much before,” Mimic answered honestly. “However, my lack of attention to your bowel movements is neither here nor there as we should probably hurry before their lunch break. Then I do know that the floor above usually floods with those on their midday respite.”
“Wait, it’s that early?” Ciangi asked. “Man, my sense of time is all messed up.”
“Being cut off from natural light for so long is bound to do that to anyone,” Bahn supplied, rubbing his sharp chin. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re all struggling with some serious vitamin D and B12 deficiencies.”
“Really, you don’t think they would account for that in our diets?”
“Guys,” I said gently, clearing my throat. “I think we’re getting off-track again.”
The two blushed and looked to me like they forgot I was there. It was pretty clear to me that we were all a little goofy from the adrenaline rush borne from our escape, as well as months of captivity. Hopefully that wouldn’t make our efforts to get out of the building a total waste.
There was only one way to find out, I supposed.
“Lead the way,” I murmured to Mimic. She smiled softly at me again, then opened the door and strode down the hall, her form shifting once more into the male guard.
“It’s too bad we can’t all fit on the food cart,” Gonzales mused as we watched Mimic saunter down like she belonged. “How great would that be?”
“Could you imagine?” Ciangi laughed quietly. “The four most wanted humans on the Earth being shuttled out of here by the alien we made first contact with? Priceless.”
I would have laughed if it were any other situation, but I forced myself to watch Mimic as she scouted ahead. She turned around a corner and disappeared for a second, causing my blood to rush and my face to sweat, but after a few seconds, she appeared again and gestured to us that the coast was clear.
We bolted to her as quietly as we could, careening around the corner to end up in yet another hall. Mimic went ahead of us again, leading us to a heavy door at the end. With a practiced ease that made me wonder exactly how much time she had spent scoping this place out, she whipped out her badge, slid it through the card-reader, and swiped her finger across the sensor.
The door let out a subtle beep and I heard the lock click. Without hesitation, she threw it open and we were all rushing up the stairs contained within.
I was breathless and achy by the time we reached the top. It seemed, although I had certainly pushed myself to exercise in my cell, that being confined to a single room had left me much weaker than I had been previously. Thankfully, I still had the adrenaline going from just being granted freedom, but I had the feeling that as soon as we got to safety, I would be collapsing into a Higgens-shaped puddle.
Of course, Mimic reached the door first and slid through, closing it behind us and leaving us to wait. I knew that stairs were an antiquity only used in case of emergency, but that didn’t stop me from worrying that anyone could come down them at any moment and catch us cornered against the door. Sure, Mimic would probably hear us and come to save the day, but it didn’t stop me from fearing what could happen in those precious seconds before she arrived. I had seen much of human cruelty in the past few months, and I didn’t think I would be able to trust anyone beyond my circle for a very long time.
Thankfully, no one arrived before Mimic returned, opening the door and motioning for us to follow along once more.
We did so, and this time, none of us held back as we sprinted across the hall. Even from where we were, I could see the silvery-metallic opening of the chute kitty-cornered to the bathrooms. It was there that we would have to be vulnerable again as Mimic would have to slide down the thing and tell us if the coast was clear.
“If you hear anything, duck into the bathrooms,” the shapeshifter said. “You can hide in the privacy pods should you need.”
“Honestly, at this point, I’m surprised you know what those are,” Gonzales said, crossing her arms and shooting the shapeshifter a wry grin. It was only then, in the LED lighting of the hall, that Mimic seemed to see the engineer’s appearance and took a double-take.
“What’s wrong with your face?” she asked without any guile or hesitation.
Gonzales’s expression grew shadowy and I rushed to interrupt. “We’ll explain later. For now, you have a chute to slide down.”
“That I do,” she said with a shrug. “See you in a moment.”
With that, she climbed in, the only thing keeping her from disappearing was her grip on the edge. She sent us one last grin before her human form began to melt and she turned into a long bit of metal, sliding down into the darkness beyond our vision.
“I’ll go stand guard at the intersecting hall,” Gonzales said. “I’ll call if anyone’s close.”
“Wouldn’t they hear that then?”
She groaned, pinching the bridge of her bruised nose. “Ugh. I’ve got rusty at all this sneaking stuff. I guess I’ll like… I dunno, break into a dead sprint toward you guys.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll somersault into the bathroom like it’s my job.”
“Good.” She jogged toward the intersection in question, and I waited for Mimic to give us the all-clear.
It was just as terrifying as the stairs, if not more so. I imagined the bathrooms were used much more frequently than the steps, and it was only a matter of minutes until someone needed to come relieve themselves.
My chest hurt, and my heart thundered away in its anxiety. Man, I didn’t know if it was the year of press touring or the months of prison, but I had certainly turned into a stress-ridden, paranoid man. Hopefully that would ease now that I was leaping feet first into the fray, but only time would tell.
I was so locked in my thoughts, I didn’t see a shape slithering up the chute toward me until it was nearly on top of me. I saw two brightly glowing, serpentine eyes staring at me and almost screamed before cutting myself off. The eyes blinked rapidly, and only after several solid seconds did I realize it was Morse code.
ALL CLEAR
“We got the signal,” I said, looking back to the others and waving for Gonzales to join us again. Once I was sure she saw, I looked back to the chute. “And, Mimic, please never use w
hatever this form is again. It’s absolutely terrifying.”
I couldn’t see any of the other features in the darkness of the shoot, but the corners of the glowing eye crinkled as if it was smiling before it slithered back down the chute.
“I’m going to see that in my nightmares,” I murmured before clambering into the slide feet-first and pushing myself down.
I picked up pace very quickly, the seat of my pants growing warm as I gained speed. The chute was much longer than I thought it would be, going past floor after floor after floor, until I was sure we were much farther down than the cells where we had been held for so long.
But after long enough, I saw a glimmer of light at my feet, rapidly approaching until I was dropping down into the open air.
My stomach felt like it shot out of my throat as I hovered there for a moment, nothing below me except a great fall, and it took everything in my mind not to scream like a little baby. And then I was tumbling down, to what I was sure was my death, until I landed on something soft and forgiving.
“Quick, out of the way before the next comes!”
I recognized Mimic’s voice giving the order and quickly rolled off whatever it was that had cradled my fall. Sure enough, Bahn came hurtling down and landed just seconds after me. I got to my feet and managed to warn him before Ciangi came down.
Since my feet were on solid ground, I got the chance to see what had saved me. It looked like Mimic had put a container filled with different foam cushions for shipping delicate items under the chute. I hadn’t even thought about us having a comfortable landing, so I was more than impressed that she remembered how squishy our bodies could be when it came to high-impact falls.
Soon Gonzales arrived as well, rounding up our group. We looked to each other, and I could feel the disbelief rolling off all of us.
“Is anyone else surprised that we’re still alive?” Bahn asked, tightening his greasy ponytail. Even sani-packs couldn’t properly clean long hair, and I certainly felt for the taller of the Coin Twins. I was sure when we got out of here, his first wish would be for a long, hot shower.
Mimic and the Space Engineer Boxed Set, Books 1 - 3 Page 22
