Flame

by Jim Heskett

  So they ignored the security cameras and forced their way into the open space office. For a moment, Yorick paused in the room and looked around. He recalled a propaganda poster Wybert had displayed at the plantación a few years back. An image of an office much like this one, with rows of desks called cubicles, and workers at each one. Those workers were all wearing shirts and ties for the men, long dresses for the women. Each one staring, seduced by the glow of the screens on their computers. Yorick didn’t remember the text on the poster, but he remembered it had something to do with how the old ways were meant to control people and make them behave. Ironic.

  “Yorick,” Rosia said, snapping him out of his daydreaming.

  He got to work, opening drawers on desks and rifling through file cabinets. Most of what he found had nothing to do with anything. Pens, papers, calculators, adding machines. A sense of anxiety worked its way through his bones as he moved from desk to desk.

  What if they kept the permits locked up somewhere, in an impregnable vault in the back?

  “Here we go,” Rosia said. “This one is locked.”

  Just like the footlocker back in the mountains, locked was a good sign. It meant something worth protecting. She jiggled the handle of a desk drawer, waving Yorick over.

  Yorick drew his knife and jabbed it into the space between the drawer and the desk, then he gave it a good shove.

  The lock snapped. He pulled the drawer open, and a pad of permits was sitting there, fresh and ready. Easy enough to tear four from the pad. He placed them in a row, ready to be marked with the right info to get them into the tunnel and across the border.

  But, each permit required a stamp and a signature, which stumped them.

  “This is a problem,” he said, and Rosia put her hands on her hips as she stared down at the blank permit.

  Rosia rifled through the trash can next to the desks, picking through one, then another.

  “What are you doing?” Yorick asked.

  “Stand by,” she said. “If this works, you’ll know in a moment.” After a few unsuccessful tries, she beamed as she held up a crumpled piece of paper.

  “Got it,” she said. “This one, they didn’t use, for some reason. It has a signature on it we can use as an example.”

  Tenney and Malina still stood outside, waiting and watching.

  Yorick rifled through the desk in front of him until he found the right stamp, and he marked all four of the permits in the same location as the crumpled one, using it as a template guide. He filled them out according to the same specifications. Reason for crossing, noting that the permit fee had been paid, and all the other matching details.

  The signature at the bottom, though, he didn’t know how to fake. He studied the looping collection of letters, then practiced mimicking the signature on a nearby blank piece of paper.

  He and Rosia scrutinized his attempts to forge the signature. His didn’t look anything like the real one.

  “Do you think they’ll look closely?” he asked her.

  Rosia frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe we can put our thumbs over the signature part, and they’ll never notice.”

  She chewed on her lip. “Maybe. Or maybe not. We only get one chance at this.”

  He gave a morbid chuckle. “But, no pressure, or anything.”

  “Let me try something.” She turned the template page upside down and studied the signature.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “Upside down, it looks like a drawing and less like letters. It’s easier to copy that way.”

  “How did you know to do that?”

  She shrugged. “It just makes sense.”

  For a moment, he stared at her in awe, marveling at her creativity. She winked at him, and he leaned over and kissed her. Rosia let him do it for a few seconds, then she pushed him away and flicked her eyes back down to the permits. No time for that now.

  Yorick studied the looping words upside down and found she was right. He looked at them not as letters, but as shapes. After a few more practice runs on the side sheet of paper, he was ready to do the actual forging.

  “Pretty good,” Rosia said after he’d done the first one. The next three were even easier.

  Yorick held up the four permits, waving the pages to dry the ink. “Let’s go to Harmony.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Hiding the chips had been the easy part. They’d decided to split them up and insert them into their shoes. Yorick, Tenney, and Rosia took two each. Malina didn’t have to wear any in her shoes, and Yorick wouldn’t have asked. She hung behind Tenney, refusing eye contact with the others. Yorick still burned to ask her what had happened inside the brothel, but he knew better. In his short time on this planet, one thing he’d learned for sure was that if a girl wasn’t ready to talk, there was zero sense in trying to force her.

  As they put their boots back on, Yorick tried to calm his racing heart. If they were searched, they had to hope the guards wouldn’t dig deep enough to look in their footwear.

  Leaving their weapons behind was a much tougher decision. Walking through the long tunnel unarmed was risky. But, Yorick believed they were so close to the end, they only had to brave the peril for a little while longer.

  Yorick led the four of them in line, standing before the men guarding the tunnel entrance. Over their shoulder, an abyss of black looked back at him. Small running lights dotted the side of the tunnel every twenty meters or so. He couldn’t see the other side. Not even to guess how long it was.

  “Permit, please,” the guard said.

  Yorick handed over the four of them, keeping his eyes down. It would definitely be better if the guard didn’t recognize him, and remember that only an hour ago, they’d showed up here with no permits.

  The guard eyed the papers one at a time and then each of the four former serfs. “There’s no final destination listed on these.”

  Panic gripped Yorick, making his throat dry up. In the discarded permit Rosia had found in the trash can, there had been no final destination written on that one, either. They hadn’t thought to include it.

  “Harmony,” Malina said. It was the first word she had spoken in at least a day.

  The guard tilted his head at her. “And why do you want to go to Harmony, young lady?”

  Without missing a beat, Malina said, “to pick up a solar cell for a Camaro. We got a good deal, and we’re bringing it back to Pinedale to sell it to a man there who has that car.”

  “You won’t be bringing anything back,” the guard said. “This tunnel is closing.”

  “Let us worry about that,” Malina said, no fear on her face. Not backing down. She stared at the man with a flat expression.

  The guard’s eyes twinkled at her, his eyebrows a little raised and a wry smile on his face. Finally, he stamped the pages and then slid them into his pocket. “If you say so, young lady. I’m not one to stand in the way of a good deal on a solar cell. But, keep moving once you start. The other end closes in less than an hour, so if you dawdle, that’s a mistake you don’t come back from.”

  Then, his head jerked to the side. The guard sneered at something off in the distance.

  Yorick turned his head to see what the guard had seen, and his eyes landed on a dozen Royal Army soldados, marching along the streets of Cheyenne. Weapons in hand, chins up, feet stomping the ground in rhythm.

  Marching toward the tunnel.

  “Thank you,” Yorick said, and he took Rosia’s hand and led her into the tunnel without another word. Malina and Tenney followed close behind. They had a hundred meter head start on the soldados.

  Not nearly enough distance when they were unarmed and outnumbered.

  “Move,” Yorick said, and they all broke out into a run once they were in the darkness. He felt pavement under his feet, his words echoing off the walls of a tunnel normally reserved for vehicle traffic. It was large, at least thirty meters across and ten meters tall. Hard to say for sure, though, because he cou
ldn’t see much. Only the yellow glow of the ground running lights spaced at intervals ahead. He kept his aim in between each set of lights and ran.

  Rosia paced even with him, and Tenney seemed to be holding his own, despite the lingering injury. Malina, again blank-faced after her brief show of bravery at the entrance, moved in step with Tenney.

  For a few seconds, only the sound of their feet filled the space. Hunting for the other side.

  Yorick heard an argument break out behind him, the words reverberating down the tunnel above his head. The gate guards and the soldados having a heated back-and-forth discussion. The exact words warbled and blended together, but the volume and intensity ratcheted up at lightning speed.

  A few seconds later, the shots came. The sounds bounced all around along the tunnel, and Yorick couldn’t even tell which direction they were coming from.

  But he heard the rustle of boots clearly. The soldados were incoming. Closer and closer. They were finally going to catch up with them. Yorick’s eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, and he could see the open space in front of them.

  “Go!” he shouted.

  He pushed his legs to the limit, feet smacking against the cold pavement with every step. His hand seized Rosia’s, pulling her along with him. His eyes slowly adjusted to the lack of light inside.

  A single bullet tore down the tunnel. In the large, open space, Yorick could almost hear the individual round travel. He didn’t see it strike, though. His eyes were forward, and it had come from behind.

  When he spun, he saw the immediate aftermath of that single, well-placed shot. Malina, her arms flailing as the middle of her chest turned red with blood. Her eyes spread wide, her mouth dropped open.

  Tenney was still holding her hand as she crumpled to the ground. He tried to rush forward another step, clearly half a second behind reality. His eyes were still facing the Colorado end of the tunnel. When she sank, Tenney stumbled.

  Yorick watched her crumble to the ground, a hole in the middle of her back where the bullet had exited. Face pointed to the side. On the tunnel pavement, her eyes were still and lifeless. In a way, she looked almost peaceful.

  Tenney bellowed and dropped to his knees. He grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to pull Malina to her feet. But it was too late. Yorick knew it was too late. Even in the dim light, Yorick could see the whites of Tenney’s bulging eyes. The desperation on his face, refusing to accept reality.

  She was gone.

  “No,” Yorick said, gripping Tenney’s arm. Bullets continued to whiz by, but in the darkness, none of the random shots found a home. Tenney was frozen in place, trying to shake Malina. Shake life into her. But she gave him no response at all. One bullet had turned her from a breathing person to a hunk of meat. Just like all the other hunks of meat that had been left in their wake.

  “We have to go, now!” Yorick said, screaming at Tenney. He had to snap out of his paralysis, immediately, or they would all die.

  Tenney blinked. He looked up at Yorick with vacant, wet eyes. But he did as he was told and rose to his feet. Not a word. Jaw set. Fists balled at his sides.

  Bullets flying, the three of them ran as hard as they could toward the other end of the tunnel.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Valentine saw the four of them standing at the gate to the tunnel. Their goal the entire time had been to reach Cheyenne and then to escape into Colorado. She’d known this. But why? Were they some band of revolutionaries who intended to march to the First City and kill the King of Denver? What possible change did these four teenagers think they could bring about?

  Either way, it didn't matter. Because within minutes, Valentine watched the king’s soldados marching toward that same tunnel. They probably wanted her prize of the chips, too. But, Valentine would not let anyone else come between her and what she wanted. Ever again.

  She broke into a run to narrow the distance between her and the soldados, but by the time she was close enough, they were already inside. An argument quickly broke out as it often did between soldados and local law enforcement. The argument escalated into bullets within a single minute.

  All the tunnel guards were dead soon after, and about half of the soldados. Four or five of them survived to rush into the tunnel to pursue Yorick and his friends.

  Valentine paused and liberated one of the dead tunnel guards of his rifle. It was a high-tech thing, something she'd never seen before. An LED readout on the side of the rifle indicated the number 64, probably the number of rounds left in the magazine. She checked for a thumbprint scanner, which would make the weapon useless. Instead, it only had a simple latch for the safety.

  “Perfect,” she said. She took a couple of spare magazines from the guard and shoved them in her back pockets. Then she proceeded into the tunnel.

  The acoustics of the enclosed space made it difficult to understand who was doing what in front of her. There was a gun battle, obviously, but coupling that with the inability to see made it impossible for her to formulate a strategy. Were Yorick and his friends holed up somewhere along this tunnel, making a stand? Had they found a side door to lead them to a tunnel maintenance room, and out to safety? No way to know.

  Valentine proceeded forward, cautiously. She wished she could hurry to catch up, but that would be foolhardy. No more mistakes. She came upon the first soldado a minute later, a straggler of the group. He was marching, panting, a weight problem clearly slowing him down. Rather than fire the rifle and give away her position, she swung the weapon around to her back and drew her knife. She stabbed him in the armpit and then slit his throat in two quick moves.

  As she continued to press forward, her eyes adjusted to the meager level of light in the tunnel. Illumination from the occasional gun blast up ahead did make it a challenge for her vision to completely adjust, but it gradually got better than it had been at first.

  The tunnel wasn't uniform. In the middle were lanes for vehicles, and there were sidewalks on either side. Occasionally, the sidewalks were broken up by doors, guide railings, piles of boxes. Valentine shifted over to the sidewalk so she could take advantage of the slim cover provided, if necessary.

  In another hundred meters, she caught up to two more soldados. Now, a decision. If she tried to approach with stealth, she could definitely take out one, but the other might put a bullet in her before she had time.

  But, if she brandished her rifle, she might give away her position to the remaining enemies, as well as risking retaliation from these two.

  Running out of time to strategize.

  She raised the rifle and spit shots in an even arc across both of their heads, punching enough holes to completely disable them instantly.

  The rifle in her hands was like a roaring lion. Within two seconds, she had emptied the entire first magazine. She ejected it, popped in a fresh one, and told herself to be more careful next time with the trigger.

  Valentine pushed forward, to get as far away from this position as possible. How many of them were left now? Two? Three? The flash of weapons fire had stolen her ability to see, so she blindly rushed, keeping her path along the sidewalk, so she didn’t bump into anything.

  After about fifty meters of hustle, a bullet zinged past her head. She ducked down and scurried along the sidewalk until she came to something to use as cover, a truck parked on the right side of the vehicle lane. She scrambled around the back of it, crouching behind a large tire. And then, not far from where she was hiding, she saw Malina, the pale and sad girl. Dead on the tunnel floor.

  Her friends had been forced to leave her there. The big one—Tenney—was probably devastated. Good. A distracted target made him easier to catch.

  Bullets continue to slice the air in her direction. One punched through the truck’s tire. It hissed air as the back end of the trunk sank, deflated. She didn’t know if they knew where she was, or if they were firing at random, hoping a stray bullet would take care of it. In the arched nature of this tunnel, any ricochet could catch her, no matter
how well she hid.

  With all the gunfire, the flashing lights ruined Valentine's night vision. These soldados were smart. They weren't staying in one position because they knew they were being followed. Each time she saw a blast, she tried to calculate where the next would come from, and she was always wrong. The king trained his assassins well, apparently.

  After another full minute went by, Valentine knew she had to do something. She couldn't hide here forever. Not only would the soldados eventually close in on her, but she also risked letting Yorick and his two remaining friends get away. If they were still alive. She had to assume they were.

  Time to move, now.

  So, Valentine jumped up and peppered bullets from one side to the other. When the magazine had emptied, she knew she'd hit at least one of them. She heard his screams as he scooted around on the floor in a pointless attempt to move away from his injury. His screams soon ended.

  After the echoes of the ricochets died down, the tunnel's darkness became eerily silent. She inserted her last magazine into the rifle, and the echo of the click as it drove home was as sharp as a pull of the trigger.

  Hand on the rifle’s trigger, heart thumping in her ears, loud enough to obscure the sounds around her.

  Nothing came back. She'd killed them all. Yorick and the others, too?

  Time to hurry. Valentine raced forward, as quick as her legs would carry her. Up ahead, the tunnel bent, and when she followed that around she could see the opening on the Colorado side. The light grew larger and larger as she ran closer to it.

  In sixty more seconds, she entered Colorado. Her night vision evaporated in an instant as the world of light enveloped her. Trees, grass, buildings, people. Most of them cowering, watching the remnants of the firefight in horror.