by Janean Worth
Looking at these protections that even the well-armed Enforcers seemed to think were necessary to contain the tracken, Mathew felt a scuttle of gooseflesh rise along the nape of his neck. He couldn’t believe that they planned to open those doors and loose that terror on themselves, even if it was the right thing to do.
“Are you sure about this, Kara?” Mathew asked, eyeing the door with apprehension. “I mean, how are we going to free them of the ‘control harnesses’ while they’re still controlled? They’ll probably rip our arms off if we try.”
The tracken behind them yowled low in its throat, then stepped forward to bump its way to the front of the group, so that it was nearest to the door.
“Zandra seemed to think that she could help us remove the controlling devices from the other tracken,” Kara said, speaking directly to the beast in front of her. “Do you think you can help somehow in her stead?”
Slowly, the beast nodded its head. Yes.
“How?” Mathew asked, still uncertain. “I don’t want Kara getting hurt.”
The tracken’s golden eyes narrowed on him, and then the beast leapt forward without warning, knocking him to the floor and pinning his shoulders down beneath its massive paws.
The little girl yelped in fear and scuttled backwards and Kara gasped and stepped forward to help as Mathew threw up his arms to protect his face.
But the tracken made no more threatening moves. It simply stared down into Mathew’s face, as if waiting for him to comprehend its plan.
And, Mathew did. He relaxed his arms and grinned up at the beast.
“You plan to tackle them and hold them down so that we can remove the wires?”
The beast carefully stepped off of him and backed up several steps before nodding its head again. Yes.
“That could work,” Mathew agreed as he climbed to his feet and dusted off the seat of his pants.
“How many tracken are behind the door, Jack?” Kara asked.
Jack shrugged, looking anxious again, “A lot!”
Kara shared a look with Mathew. And, before she could speak, he knew what she was going to say, so he spoke first.
“Jack will open the door and I’ll go in with the tracken while you stay out here behind the shield,” Mathew told her.
She shook her head. “No, I’m going in too.”
“But who will protect the girl? And Jack?” Mathew asked. “Besides, I picked up one of the Enforcer’s Old Tech devices. Maybe it will help?”
He held up a small round Old Tech device that he’d picked up from the floor earlier when Kara had forced the Enforcers to dispose of their weapons.
The tracken hissed in alarm, then whimpered as if in distress.
Seeing the poor beast’s reaction, Mathew’s suddenly realized what the device must be.
“Is this what they use to activate the harnesses and control you?” He moved the device closer so that the tracken could see it clearly.
The tracken’s eyes widened in response to the proximity of the device, and Mathew could see that it was a learned behavior, one that had been forced into habit over years of pain and abuse.
The beast didn’t have to answer; its response was confirmation that the Old Tech device had been used to cause pain.
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to use it,” Mathew assured the beast, hating the way that the tracken’s eyes watched him now with fear. “But, it might be enough to keep me safe until we can remove all of the devices.”
The tracken whined, low in its throat, a sound of pained agreement.
Mathew gave it what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and though he didn’t have much practice at being reassuring, he thought he might have pulled it off as the beast stepped nearer to the door and nodded again, once, in agreement.
“Okay, let’s get this over with then. I can’t wait to get the other Strays and get out of this House.”
Jack stepped forward to remove the bar as Kara stepped to the side and activated the shielding device.
The soft sub-sonic buzz tickled at Mathew’s ears as Jack shoved away the thick wooden bar and jumped backwards as the doors yawned open.
Mathew ran through them with what he hoped was confidence, holding the round Old Tech device high.
“Kneel and stay quiet, and you will not be harmed,” he shouted into the throng of growling tracken as he rushed into their midst.
His fake confidence held until the largest tracken that he had ever seen leapt in front of him to block his path, baring fangs as long as his hand and crouching low in preparation to pounce.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kara heard Mathew cry out, and she stepped forward to go to his aid, but Jack’s hand upon her arm stopped her.
“Please, don’t leave us. You said that you would help us,” the boy whined, and Kara could see stark terror reflected in his eyes. “Without your device, we have no protection.”
Mathew was shouting now, his words coming clearly through the doorway, though she couldn’t see him from her position off to the side of the open doors.
“Zandra! Razer! Help us!” Mathew shouted.
Kara’s heart leapt with the words, jumping with two conflicting emotions: joy that Zandra and Razer were safe and terror that Mathew seemed to desperately need their help.
Kara looked at Jack and the small girl at her side, and she knew that she had to leave them and go help Mathew. She also knew that she could not leave them unprotected.
She stared into Jack’s eyes a moment, trying to gauge his level of honesty and loyalty, but she saw nothing but fear there. Terrible, all-consuming fear. While her heart went out to him, she knew that she could not depend upon him while he was in that state.
Next, she caught the girl’s gaze. While obviously frightened, the tiny girl seemed to be made of sterner stuff than Jack, who was easily twice her size. Her gaze held a hint of determination and rebellion, a spark of defiance was also there, and Kara thought that it must have come from her mother. Maude hadn’t had all of the spirit scared out of her yet when Kara had known her.
She removed her finger from the silver button of the device, and the shield stopped humming. She held the device out to the girl.
“I must go help Mathew with the tracken, but I don’t want to leave you out here without this. Press the button and hold the device in front of you until I get back,” Kara told the girl as her thin fingers reached out to take hold of the device. “I’m counting on you not to run away with it and leave us here. We will need this if we are going to free the rest of the Strays.”
The Old Tech looked huge in the girl’s small hand, but she clasped it firmly and nodded.
“You won’t leave us?” Kara asked.
The girl shook her head solemnly, and the gesture was enough to assure Kara.
“All right then,” Kara said. “I’ll be back soon.”
She heard the device activate again as she dashed into the room to help Mathew.
She cleared the open doorway easily, but skidded to a stop immediately beyond the threshold as the scene before her froze her in her tracks.
Zandra, Razer and a third tracken were each on top of three other tracken, trying their best to subdue the snarling beasts. Mathew as also on the floor, a monstrous tracken stood over him, teeth snapping inches away from his face.
Without thought, Kara dashed forward and leapt onto the back of the huge beast crouching over Mathew. She knew she’d only have seconds to find the device and remove it before the massive animal flung her off of its back or ripped into her with its massive teeth.
She landed gracelessly upon the animal’s shoulders, her hip giving an uncomfortable twinge of pain as she flung one leg over as if she planned to ride it like a horse. Gripping with her legs, she plunged her fingers into its thick ruff of fur and searched frantically for the wire that was there.
The beast snarled and lurched backwards, its long stride causing it to collide with several other tracken. As a group, the other tracken lunged for Kara just as
the beast beneath her began to buck and rear like a wild stallion.
Kara leaned forward, both hands feeling frantically through long, thick fur. Her fingers met the hard end of the wire device just as something heavy struck her side, knocking her from her perch. Instead of trying to break her fall with her hands, she pinched the wire tightly and let momentum carry her, and the controlling harness pinched between her fingers, off of the tracken’s back and onto the hard, stone floor.
Kara hit the floor with a painful thud, the wire still clutched in her fingers.
Immediately, the huge animal stopped snarling and bucking, and instead let out a roar that seemed to shake even the sturdy stone walls.
At the sound, the room went quiet. Every tracken there stopped snarling, fighting, hissing and yowling and instead focused their attention on the huge beast in the center of the room.
Kara scuttled backwards across the stone floor, crablike, trying to add distance between her and the beast in front of her.
None of the other tracken had ever roared like that when they’d been freed. She didn’t know what it meant, but it hadn’t sounded like anything good.
She kicked her feet and slid awkwardly across the floor on her butt, scrabbling backward using the one hand that was free of the wire. Belatedly realizing what she was doing, she flung the wire away and used both hands behind her as leverage so she could climb to her feet, hoping to be able to make a break for the door.
The massive tracken was staring at her; its deep green eyes alight with intelligence.
Kara could not read its expression. She had no idea what it might do next.
Had it been controlled for too long? Was its viciousness no longer reversible? Would it leap upon her and tear into her with its teeth now?
“We are here to help you,” Kara said, not surprised when her voice came out sounding shaky. “I only jumped on your back to remove the thing from your neck. It’s what the Sovereign and the Enforcers use to control you.”
The beast stared at her and Kara stared back.
The silence in the room lengthened eerily.
And then, to Kara’s great surprise, Zandra and Razer stepped forward on silent feet, padding toward the huge tracken, and then kneeling before it.
After several seconds, the huge beast roared again, and Kara had to refrain from clapping her hands over her ears. The sound was so loud and ferocious that it hurt to hear it.
The other beasts began to creep forward too, their eyes fastened upon the enormous tracken as they too knelt before it.
When all of them were quiet, the huge beast met Kara’s gaze again and nodded, once.
And she suddenly knew what it wanted.
She rushed forward, quashing down the fear in her belly, and pushed her fingers into the furry ruff of the nearest controlled beast while it knelt, quiescent and quiet, before its true leader.
Mathew took a cue from her and stepped forward to the closest harnessed beast, feeling around in its fur until he located the wiry device and then quickly pulling it free.
Kara did the same. Moving from one to the next, to the next, as fast as she could, fearing any moment that the odd calm of the group would break, and she would once again be attacked.
She tried not to think about how the Enforcer’s tracken had torn into her arm in the skyscraper, or about how one of these beasts had killed her beloved mother. She focused instead on getting the task done quickly, knowing that it was the right thing to do.
When she and Mathew were done, and the last wire had been removed, the lead tracken made a rough, chuffing noise deep in his throat, and the throng of beasts around him rose to their feet.
Kara approached the leader with some trepidation. The beast did not act at all as Zandra and Razer had acted after being freed, and she was still a bit wary of what it might do. It was obviously the king among these beasts.
“We’ve come back to GateWide to free you, these other tracken and the Strays that the Sovereign keeps as slaves. We have come not for ourselves, but because it is the right thing to do. Will you help us?”
The huge beast gazed at her, its green eyes steady on her face for a long moment, as if searching for her true character behind her eyes. Much like she’d done moments ago with Jack.
Kara hoped that the beast did not find her lacking.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mathew spun around as the heavy doors clanged shut behind them.
Jack and the tiny girl had been shoved inside ahead of a group of eight Enforcers. Behind the Enforcers stood what must once have been a man, but was now something that seemed to be a rotting mix of Old Tech and human flesh.
Mathew heard Kara gasp as she caught sight of the man, and he struggled not to do the same.
The man was like nothing he had ever seen before. Judging by what remained of the man’s face, Mathew thought that he looked to be middle-aged, perhaps fifty, but it was hard to tell with all of the Old Tech attached to his face.
One of the man’s eyes had been replaced with Old Tech that had been embedded sloppily into his skin, and one of his flesh-and-bone hands was gone, too, replaced with a metallic replica.
The man’s skin was sallow and sickly, mottled blue-gray in places, deeply yellowed in others, and Mathew could tell, even from some distance across the room, that the man was very ill.
He walked with slow shuffling steps, supporting himself by resting a hand atop the head of a tracken that prowled along on each side of him. The trackens’ innate grace allowed them to match their strides to his stumbling shuffle as he moved closer to Mathew and Kara with each shambling step.
The Enforcers parted ranks for him, stepping far out of his way as if to avoid any chance at touching him.
Behind the man, a retinue of Strays, in all states of neglect, followed. More than twenty of them trailed along behind the man.
Mathew knew at once that the man had to be the Sovereign. He felt fear twist in his gut when confronted with the true monstrousness of the man’s appearance, knowing that his reputation had not done justice to the evil reflected in what was left of his face.
“Finally, we meet, Mathew, son of Gregory,” the man said. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am the Sovereign of GateWide, and this is my House. But, I’m sure you both,” here the Sovereign stopped speaking for a moment and glanced meaningfully at Kara, “…know that already.”
Mathew said nothing. Kara did likewise.
A tense silence spread across the room as Mathew faced the man, frantically wondering what he was going to do now. Their options seemed very limited.
“I’ve relieved your little friend here of an ingenious Old Tech shielding device. She failed to keep her finger steady on the button, you see,” the Sovereign paused in speaking again, just long enough strike out viciously with his Old Tech hand, hitting the tiny girl between the shoulder blades and knocking her sprawling in their direction.
Kara cried out in shock, and rushed forward to help the girl, but the enormous lead tracken moved to block her path.
Mathew was very glad to see the beast’s action of protection, that is, until the Sovereign chuckled.
“Ahhh, I see that they’ve removed your control harness, Tiber,” the Sovereign said, a sharp blade of malice slicing through his words. “Enjoy your small taste of freedom, beast, because I will have you harnessed again very soon.”
Tiber snarled.
The Sovereign laughed.
And, somewhere behind the Sovereign, a child began to cry.
“I will enjoy bending you to my will once more, beast,” the Sovereign said.
The man’s gaze turned to Mathew, the Old Tech device that had replaced his eye moved wildly in his face, as if it tried to focus upon Mathew, but couldn’t quite manage the feat.
“However, before that amusement, I will enjoy defeating your father, once and for all, Mathew,” the Sovereign sneered his name, drawing it out as if it were a curse word. “Bring me your father’s Old Tech device, and perhaps I will ki
ll you quickly, instead of allowing you to serve me for your entire life, short as it may be.”
Mathew swallowed hard, hearing again Otto’s words in his mind: ‘This device of your father’s is very powerful, Mathew. You must take care that it does not fall into the hands of the Sovereign, because, in his hands, it would be capable of great evil.”
Very powerful…
Great evil…
Mathew gulped down his fear and stood a bit straighter.
“No, I will not give it to you willingly. You’ll have to take it from me,” he said, knowing as he said it that his actions were the right thing to do, but the fear in the pit of his stomach said otherwise.
The Sovereign raised one metallic hand, and a fine line of red light shot across the room, finding Mathew’s chest unerringly. Mathew looked down to see a small red dot resting upon his chest, directly over where his heart thundered in his chest.
“Do you know what this is, Mathew? What it can do?” the Sovereign hissed.
Mathew was afraid he did know, since it looked exactly like the thread of light that Otto could project, but he shook his head negatively anyway.
“Since I’m sure you’re too stupid to understand the device if I would care to explain its use, which I do not, suffice it to say that the tiny dot on your chest will cut through your skin and bone and muscle and end your life should I so command it to,” the Sovereign said. “Which is quite ironic, since your father was the one to show me how this device worked.”
Mathew shuddered under the reach of the red light, and he could almost feel the sensation of the red dot burning through his chest before it actually happened.
“Okay, I’ll give it to you,” he said, inching his hand into his pocket until his fingers found the device hidden there.
He turned his head and looked deeply into the eyes of Tiber, hoping for the beast’s understanding.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Tiber blinked. Then, nodded once, regally, as if he understood.
