He saw a faint light down at the end of the hallway. That had to be coming from the holding room. That generator was always on. He'd use that as a starting point since it seemed to be the only thing that was lit around here. He trundled down the hallway towards the light. Oh, Rajav would not be pleased if his satellite entertainment were out. He had told Rajav to put the unit in the holding room so it wouldn't be affected by the blackouts, but no one listened to him. The light at the end of the hallway grew a little brighter as he approached.
***
Yep, once again Dirk was screwed. Cosmic fate had dealt him a sucky hand for what seemed like the umpteenth time. He could plainly hear the boots pound the ground as that lard-o night guard came lumbering towards them. Enough possum. Dirk started to quickly sit up. He got about five centimeters from the floor when the hand covering his mouth prevented him from going any further. Whoever this dude is, Dirk thought, He must have steel rods for bones and carbon fiber for muscles. He had never encountered such strength, not even from those goons guarding that Ganga shrine.
Dirk looked upwards. With the light seeping from the door, he could almost properly see his rescuer, or substitute captor; Dirk hadn't made up his mind on that one yet. The man's head was turned towards the sound of the guard coming down the hallway. Dirk seriously hoped this guy could fight. If not, at least he would get a potential cellmate out of the ordeal. Dirk wondered if the man liked chess.
In one fast, efficient motion, the man in black silently scooped Dirk up off the floor and pinned him against the wall, all the while never removing his other hand from Dirk's mouth. Dirk saw the faceless head turn towards him. Again, the black man's finger rose in front of where his mouth should have been and silently told Dirk to be quiet. Dirk nodded vigorously. The man regarded Dirk for a few more seconds, removed his hand from Dirk's mouth, and spun right next to him, pressing himself flat against the wall.
***
Almost there. He hoped that Rajav hadn't been watching the World Finals. Rajav would be pissed for weeks if the power had gone out during the games. He would check the holding room, and then go out back to see what was wrong with the generators. Kishiv had probably forgotten to put fuel in them again. Well, if Rajav was angry, he could be angry with Kishiv, not him.
He rounded the last corner and saw the light coming from beneath the holding room door. Something at the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned his head. For a brief second, his conscious mind struggled to put the pieces of what lay before him together. It never did catch up to his involuntary nervous system, whose alarm bells had started to clang the moment he had turned the corner.
***
Dirk closed his eyes. Six more steps, four steps, two…His heart was now exploding through his chest. He opened his eyes and turned just in time to see the rotund, hairy man round the corner. Dirk saw the man almost go right past them. Then it happened. In slow motion, Dirk saw the confused look dawn on the man's face. In what was probably a millisecond but felt like minutes, the black man's fist flew towards the guard. Dirk thought he saw sand fly at the guard, but as the man tumbled towards the holding room door, Dirk could plainly see glints of light reflecting off hundreds of tiny glass shards that were now buried in the guard's face and throat. When the tubby man stumbled and crashed through the holding room door, Dirk saw the bits of broken glass plainly. He continued to stare at the now dead man even through the first blares of the alarm. It wasn't until he felt the hard tug on his arm that time sped up to normal.
They were dashing through the maze of passageways. Dirk, despite his mental map, had no idea where they were, but the man seemed to know every nook and cranny even with the lack of light. He saw flickering lights coming down the hallway. More guards with torches. Just when he had thought that karma was smiling down on him, more guards with torches. The man stopped in front of Dirk. Through the flashes of the beams of light, Dirk saw the man hunch over like he was squishing an inflated ball. He felt the air around him change, and then grow colder. His ears popped painfully as the pressure around him grew. He felt some force starting to bear down on him. Then a giant blast of air whooshed away from him. One by one, each of the guard's torches flew wildly into the air and smacked against the wall. Dirk's ears were ringing as the two of them moved up the hallway where the guards had been. In the light of the now motionless torches, Dirk could see that all of them were unconscious and bleeding after being thrown against the passage walls by the sudden gust of wind.
Faint lights started to appear. They looked like emergency lighting and only barely lit the ground. As they rounded a corner, the door of the only modernized room in the whole facility came into view. Just as they approached the kitchen, it started to open. The black man jumped at the door, slamming it shut and throwing the guard on the other side back into the room. The masked man quickly squatted down and placed his hands along the threshold. Almost at once, Dirk felt the air pressure around him drop. Again his ears started to hurt from the rapid change in environment. The screams from inside the kitchen told him that the guards in there were suffering from it too. Then they stopped, and all he heard was moaning. The man whipped open the door and dragged Dirk behind him as they moved through it. All around the kitchen guards were lying on the floor, some clutching their heads. Each had blood oozing from their ears and nose. Those closest to the door weren't moving at all. Dirk's skin, while all this time looking like a human-colored pickle, did the impossible – it prickled even more.
They raced through the back door of the kitchen. Two more guards came hurtling up the hallway just outside the kitchen exit. Dirk watched as the man pulled thin metal rods from a sleeve on his arm. Making a move like he was fanning a deck of cards, the small rods became saw-like discs. The man chucked the discs, impaling the two oncoming guards squarely in the throat. Down a second hallway, Dirk witnessed the same type of rods become thirty-centimeter blades that the man used to skewer two more approaching guards.
Three hallways later, they reached an outside door. Dirk was yanked down into a squatting position as the man knelt on one knee at the door. He produced two black bags, dipping each of his hands into a separate one. Black and silver dust glittered as the man proceeded to crush the two handfuls of material together. He repeated this process two more times. When he was done, the man held five balls; two light gray, two a darker charcoal gray, and the remaining ball was as black as the man's clothes and slightly larger than its friends.
Dirk heard more running from the hallway that they had just come from. The man seemed not to notice, or not to care. He carefully palmed the four balls in one hand and pressed the fifth into the locking mechanism of the larger outer door. The noise was growing louder. The man adjusted the fifth ball and then leaned back to look at his work.
Dirk could now make out individual voices as the mob came closer to their position. The man looked at Dirk, nodded, then simultaneously pounded the fifth ball with his fist while tossing the four others in the direction of the oncoming noise. Dirk once again felt the man's strength as he covered Dirk's eyes and pulled him down into a fetal position just as the guards rounded the corner. Even through the gloved hand covering his eyes, Dirk saw through the glove what must have been a blinding flash from the hallway and felt a wave of compressed heated air rush out from the door. Seconds later, amid the screams and wails, Dirk was forcefully brought to his feet and shoved out of the now open doorway. As he looked back, his eyes adjusted to the retreating scene of a hallway filled with a thick gray smoke, a partially blasted doorframe, and for the first time in months, the clear night sky.
***
They had been walking for what seemed like hours. Dirk had asked the man where they were going at least thirty times. Each request was met with the same answer: silence and no change in the black man's rapid pace up the hillside. Dirk had started to wonder about his current situation. Something inside him was telling his brain that he just might have been better off inside the prison than outside with t
his one-man killing machine. Dirk replayed the events that had happened earlier that night and found they were all very fresh in his mind. After the initial shock of actually being outside of the prison, the fact that he was not out of the famed woods hit very close to home. Where was this psycho taking him? Why was the psycho taking him there? Was the psycho working alone, or did someone send the psycho to get Dirk? If so, who had sent the psycho and what had Dirk stolen from them? Why couldn't the psycho have just let him grab a few pieces of his find before they left? All these were very pressing questions in Dirk's mind.
Finally, after walking up a particularly steep set of hills and rocks, the man in black slowed his pace. They entered a mass of trees. The man grabbed Dirk's shirt to lead him through the dense thicket. Soon they exited the trees and Dirk saw a wide clearing before him. The man stopped just short of entering the cleared ground.
"Why did we stop? What are we doing here? Is this where you're going to kill me?"
Again, silence. Dirk heard it before he saw it. A faint humming noise coming from above the clearing. Once again, his skin prickled.
***
The chopper pilot hovered over the clearing and scanned the edges with his advanced Extra Sensory Goggles, or ESGs. The cloaked NightHawk was definitely military issue, but this pilot did not wear the uniform of the UWC or the Jade Empire. His sensors alerted him to one heat signature approaching from the Southeast and he notified the extraction team in the belly of the copter. The pilot saw the image approach as his goggles gave him a composite of its thermal, electromagnetic, and low-light resolution signatures. Walking next to the composite image was a moving void. The pilot brought the throttle of the copter down and triggered the de-cloaking protocols.
As the supports of the craft touched lightly upon the ground, the rear hatch opened to allow four armed men, all equipped with the same ESG's, to pour out and take up flanking positions across from the two now visible figures. A fifth man exited the belly of the aircraft and ducked low as he met the two men. He took the bewildered looking one, shoved his head down, and led him back to the open hatch. Once there, the fifth man radioed to the four sentinels, then to the pilot, and then placed a headset on the man's head. Instantly Dirk could hear the chatter from the six-man team.
"Dirk Garrett, you are one expensive acquisition. Not that I don't know the answer to this question already, but do you have any injuries that I need to be aware of?"
Dirk stared at the man. "No, I don't think so. Who are you guys and how do you know my name? You UWC Ultra Forces or something?"
The engine of the copter started to whine higher as the hover engines gained more power. The four flanking men slowly retreated into the craft.
"Nope, not Ultra Force. Well, at least not anymore. Private sector pays better. As for us knowing your name, well let's just say your benefactor has tasked us with getting you out of this place. He needs you for some reason, and all the persuading in the world that you weren't worth the effort wouldn't sway him, so here you are."
The whine of the engines reached their pinnacle of sound and the pilot started to engage the throttle again. Dirk looked out and could faintly see the shadow of the black man just where he had left him.
"Wait, what about him? Isn't he coming too?"
"Remember when I said you were an expensive acquisition? Well that's cuz we had to hire him to get you out. His contract ended when you stepped onto the floor of this bird. Besides, as I'm sure you've already figured out, he doesn't exactly need any help."
Dirk watched as the hatch started to close. He felt the electric field grow around him as the cloaking engine engaged. The last glimpse he saw of the black man faded as the lights blinked out inside the chopper, the hatch sealed, and the copter rose into the night.
Have Credits, Will Shop
Time: Current day, late afternoon
Scene: Mega Lots Shopping Center
"Sam, you're really starting to piss me off." Cammie set down six or seven outfits in a range of colors and styles. "This is for graduation, probably the last time that we will all be together. You aren't taking this seriously enough."
Richard looked up from his tablet. "This is the last time we'll all be together? Oh hallelujah, there is a god. Consider the debate settled; all hail the mighty creator."
Cammie ignored him. "Sam, seriously, time is running out. If you don't talk to Adam soon there might not be another chance. You need to pull out all the stops for graduation and the after-party."
Sam modeled another dress made from liquid silk. It was silver and looked terrible on her, not to mention that it was way too expensive. Sam stepped back into the dressing room and ripped off the dress. She picked another one, a brand she didn't recognize. She put on the dress and glanced at herself in the mirror.
Now this didn't look so bad. Sam pulled at the pay strip, touching the holographic tag to get the price. Her face went white.
"Cammie, this was a terrible idea."
"Why, does it look bad?" Cammie slid back the curtain, causing Sam to reactively cover herself despite being fully dressed. Sam walloped Cammie on the arm. "How many times do I need to tell you not to do that? I could have totally been naked."
"And who are you afraid of seeing you?" Cammie said as she inspected the dress. "The only person here is Dick, and he's too smart to have delusions of that sort about you. Right, Dick?"
"The only delusion I have, Camille, is that someday you'll put together a semi-rational thought. But alas, we can all dream, right?"
Cammie stuck her tongue out at Richard as she pulled back the curtain so Sam could change again. "I liked it better when you were in the hospital. You're not going to get your appendix out again any time soon, are you? The time you were gone was so delightful."
"For me as well, Camille. For me as well."
Sam frowned slightly, sticking her head out from behind the curtain. "You don't really mean that Richard. You missed me, right?"
Richard glared as he looked at Sam's pout. She sighed. He was still mad at her. She stomped the floor in frustration. She had let it slip to one person during the break that Richard was going into the hospital. One single stinking person. Unfortunately, that person just happened to be Cammie, and telling Cammie a secret was the equivalent painting that secret on the side of building, shooting a pic, and sending it to every person on the Interweb.
"Come on, Richard," pleaded Sam. "I told you I was sorry!" Sam put on her cutest puppy-dog face.
A half smile broke on Richard's lips that traveled briefly up to his eyes. She had caught him! He forgave her. She smiled back at him. This was one of those rare moments that Richard showed any sort of emotion. Well, excluding his usual haughty discontentment. "Yes, of course Samantha. I missed you while I was gone."
Sam giggled and pulled back the curtain. She had accomplished her mission, but as the feeling of elation came, so did the guilt. She really shouldn't do that to him, try to charm him like that. She didn't want to give him false hope, and acting all girlish and cute was not the way to avoid that. Sam's conscience nagged at her.
Three months ago Cammie made the observation that Richard might be in love with her. There was no explicit evidence, and he never said anything to make Sam think that, but now she was so conscious of everything he did that it often stressed her out. She really didn't know what to do. She didn't want Richard to go after graduation, but how could he stay?
She grumbled inwardly. Ever since they had become friends in their second year of Secondary School, Richard had been a rock for Sam. He had been there no matter what. Now that she thought about it, it would make sense that he had special feelings for her. What guy did the things Richard did – does, is doing, will do – for her and isn't in love? She didn't think that kind of guy existed.
Of course, she didn't think of him like that. She just wasn't attracted to him physically, as painful as that was to admit. But she also wasn't ready for Richard to disappear from her life either. She did not want him to go,
though she knew that keeping him around was going to be impossible. Richard was on the fast track. He was going to enter the United Western Collective's most prestigious school, Western Advanced Research, in two months. There Richard would be treated like royalty, because Richard was a genius amongst geniuses. He could do anything, be anyone. All he had to do was try.
And then there was her. She was average in every sense of the word. Sure, her body had finally caught up to her age and now she actually looked like an 18-year-old girl, but there were a lot of semi-talented pretty girls in the world. There was only one chubby, sarcastic genius boy out there, and he had proven to be a good and trustworthy friend, one that she was going to sorely miss when he was gone.
"Ok, I found the one. I think. Richard, don't you dare laugh."
Sam stepped out from behind the curtain. Cammie's voiced sounded astonished. "Oh my George W. Bush! Sam, this is perfect. You have to get it!"
Harmonics: Rise of the Magician (Harmonics Series Season One) Page 10
