by Jim Heskett
The man across the room gave them a wry smile. Yorick didn't care. He wasn't intimidated by this guy one bit. All he had were his words and his intent to project fear. Yorick knew better than to let words puncture him by now.
The man coughed a wet gurgle. “Where did they catch you? Up north, in the industrial district? Trying to sleep in a warehouse you thought was abandoned? Or did they snatch you in town, stealing bread out of the dumpster of a restaurant?” When Yorick and his companions didn’t answer, the man grinned. His face changed. “No, it’s not that, either, is it? You’re not from here. You were brought in.”
Yorick did his best to ignore the man, but he raised his voice and waved his hands around, swirling them to indicate the entirety of the room, as if trying to catch everyone’s attention. “Well, well! Welcome to the great kingdom of the First City of Denver! His Majesty, King Nichol, would like to welcome you himself if he were here. Which, he ain’t, as you can see.”
A couple of guards on the top level clanked across the grate and paused overhead. Weapons pointed down through the grate at the loud troublemaker. The man looked up, waved a hand, and adopted a contrite expression on his face. After he’d quieted down for a moment, the guards strolled back to their posts.
The man leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’ll bet this is your first time, my little muchachos. Not for me. I’ve been chewed up and spit out more times than I care to count. Bad knees, bad back, bad everything. They’ll sell me to a factory owner and work me to death in a year or two. But you strapping young people… you have so much to give. They’ll put you to work for a lifetime of some lord's pleasure. All kinds of pleasure. You can’t even imagine…”
“Enough,” the bearded giant Tenney growled. His eyes flared, and the man relented for a moment, then he regained his smirk. “Welcome to the slave life,” the man said as he sat back against his bench. After that, he closed his eyes and said no more. He didn’t need to.
Yorick pivoted on the bench and beckoned Tenney and Rosia to lean in closer. When they were within whispering distance, he said, "I have something I need to show you. Let's meet in the bathrooms in one minute.”
Tenney nodded but said nothing. In the short time they'd been here he had said little. Understandable. Perhaps now, the full weight of his girlfriend’s death had settled on him. Yorick had a hard time reading his large friend, especially since the events in the tunnel.
"We should go separately," Rosia said. "One at a time."
Yorick agreed, and he set out first. The White Flames man across the room eyed him as Yorick made his way toward the bathroom. But, he made no further comment.
Above Yorick’s head, boots clanked on the metal grate. He kept his head down and his hands in his pockets as he left the main warehouse area and entered the side bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror and waited. The face in the mirror stared back at him, haggard breaths coming from between chapped lips. Brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes. He looked like almost anyone else here. How had the man known he wasn’t from Denver?
Thirty seconds later, Rosia joined him. Yorick checked the position of the nearby guards. While the bathrooms were separate and had a wall keeping them from the main population of the room, the overhead was still grated, and the guards could look down at them at any time. Rosia took up a position at the sinks and mirrors next to him. She splashed water on her face, ignoring Yorick.
A minute later, Tenney joined them. He stood in front of the sink on the other side of Yorick and waited.
"Why are we here?" Tenney muttered, his voice gravelly and strained. Even though the big guy looked like a solid hunk of invincible concrete, Yorick had no doubt he was hurting. Not only from Malina's death. There were legit physical reasons. Tenney had taken a bullet about a week ago on the run in Wyoming, and then his foot had almost been crushed during their escape attempt in Colorado.
But, Tenney kept it together. He had said nothing about his concerns or problems.
"I have something to show you," Yorick said. "A way out of here."
Tenney and Rosia both frowned at him. Yorick held out a hand and beckoned them both closer with a little flick of his finger. They pushed in, shielding him from view overhead.
Time to show them.
Yorick dug a hand into his shorts and removed from his inner pocket a small black device, no bigger than his thumb. He opened his palm to show it to them, but only for a moment. As quickly as it had opened, his hand snapped shut again around it, and then he shoved his hand back into his pocket.
But it'd been long enough for both Tenney and Rosia to see it. Rosia gasped. "You didn't smash all the control chips."
Yorick nodded. "I kept one. And this is going to save our lives."
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All material copyright 2019 by Jim Heskett. No part of this work may be reproduced without permission.
Published by Royal Arch Books
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Books by Jim Heskett
For a full list of all Jim Heskett’s books, please visit www.RoyalArchBooks.com
If you like post-apoc, you’ll want to take a gander at my Five Suns Saga. It’s an epic tale of espionage and a military thriller set in a dystopian and post-apocalyptic world. Featuring stories set before, during, and after a global economic and societal collapse, this decades-spanning trilogy dives into the mystery to answer two big questions: how did the world collapse, and how will the survivors put it back together?
About the Author
Jim Heskett was born in the wilds of Oklahoma, raised by a pack of wolves with a station wagon and a membership card to the local public swimming pool. Just like the man in the John Denver song, he moved to Colorado in the summer of his 27th year, and never looked back. Aside from an extended break traveling the world, he hasn't let the Flatirons mountains out of his sight.
He fell in love with writing at the age of fourteen with a copy of Stephen King's The Shining. Poetry became his first outlet for teen angst, then later some terrible screenplays, and eventually short and long fiction. In between, he worked a few careers that never quite tickled his creative toes, and hasn't ever forgotten about Stephen King. You can find him currently huddled over a laptop in an undisclosed location in Colorado, dreaming up ways to kill beloved characters.
He believes the huckleberry is the king of berries and refuses to be persuaded in any other direction.
If you’d like to ask a question or just to say hi, stop by www.jimheskett.com/about and fill out the contact form.
