by S. K. Holder
His brother was insane. Delirious. Connor thought about using the bolt-shot whip on the canteen doors. There was nowhere to go from here. Not without Luke.
Connor couldn’t disarm Steve with a bolt-shot whip. He wasn’t that fast. Not in this world. Mopping his forehead with the back of his hand, he bound his brother’s leg with another towel. How could he tell Luke he didn’t know what more he could do, other than stand at the door with the bolt-shot whip raised and hope that he didn’t have to use it?
As Connor had anticipated, Steve returned with a handgun. He didn’t bother to unlock the doors. He took aim and fired through the glass. Connor ducked. The bullet burst through the glass and ricocheted off the steel counter top.
Connor raised his hand and activated the bolt-shot whip. He held it out in front of him.
Steve blasted the doors open with his gun.
He grinned. ‘Don’t make me do this, Connor,’ he shouted through the din of the alarm. He fired another shot, aiming for Connor’s head. The bullet caught the whip, making it hiss.
Steve blinked the sweat from his eyes. His bottom lip quivered. ‘Surrender your weapon.’
‘So you can shoot me quicker. You can’t get out of here without being seen. The police are on their way.’
Steve’s eyes seemed to shrivel in their sockets. He hadn’t planned on Connor showing up. Now that he had, his plans were beginning to unravel. He staggered towards him, forcing him further away from the counter top.
Someone cut the power. The lights went out. The alarm went off. The bolt-shot whip lit up the room.
Steve cursed under his breath. He looked back at the door, and then at Connor. He fired his gun. The bullets bounced off the bolt-shot whip. The lack of light made it harder for Steve to get a clear shot at him. His eyes darted to each lash of the whip as if he were afraid one would break away and attack him. A movement from outside the canteen doors made him flee. Connor dashed after him, afraid to let him get away a second time.
When he caught up with him, he struck him with the whip. It caught Steve’s gun hand, severing it from his wrist. Steve screeched and forced his injured arm to his chest, cradling it at the elbow. He stumbled, but before he could run any further, a shaft of light struck him. He vanished within it, leaving behind an unpleasant smell. Connor stared at the hand lying on the floor still clutching the gun.
He deactivated the bolt-shot whip. Its lashes spiralled out of sight. He could hardly believe what he had done. He had been willing to kill Steve, rather than let him escape. It looked as if someone else had shared his sentiment: a mound of grey powder lay in the place where the light had hit Steve. The bitter smell had been his flesh, burned to dust.
He raced back to the cafeteria, failing to notice that the cubicle he had exited moments earlier was now shut. He skidded around the counter top, his heart thumping.
He crashed to his knees at his brother’s feet. Luke had fallen unconscious. Connor squeezed his brother’s wrist and felt the vague and weakening pulse. With every rise and fall of his chest, he fought for his life.
Connor tensed at the sound of thumping footsteps. He seized his rucksack and the bolt-shot whip and hid them under a cabinet out of sight.
Someone shouted. ‘Is there anybody there?’
Two ambulance crew members strode in dressed in fluorescent yellow and green clothing. One of them had a holdall bulging with medical supplies.
‘In here!’ Connor shouted.
He stepped aside to give them room to attend to his brother. His eyes drifted to the hole in the canteen door surrounded by cracked glass. Growing tense, he squeezed the straps on his rucksack. Steve had been on Earth for years, plotting against his family, waiting to strike. He hadn’t arrived with the aid of a computer game on a laptop. What if others had followed?
THIRTY-EIGHT
Ted threw his head back, snorting. He wiped the sleep from his eyes. First day on the job and he was already struggling to stay awake.
He grinned as he stared around the new and empty cafeteria. He couldn’t believe his luck. He had been assigned to the basement to work with Professor Hatleman on his special projects. And furthermore the professor had left him to it; there was no one looking over his shoulder.
He had been going through the staff handbook when he nodded off. It had put him in a napping mood. The handbook was as thick as a brick. He had a couple of the gaming guides to look at later: The Quest of Narrigh and The Plague of Pyridian.
Professor Hatleman wasn’t expecting him to do any coding on his first day. All he had asked him to do was make himself at home. With that said, it hardly felt like a work day at all. More like a holiday!
He had given him a laptop. It was an expensive model. He had also given him a smart phone just for work and assigned him a small office. It didn’t have any windows and Ted got to thinking that it might have once been a storeroom. But he wasn’t complaining. He had never had his own office in his last job. Plus here, he had the whole cafeteria to himself until the exhibit opened, which was ages away, judging by the amount of work to be done.
He took a sip of his coffee. It was stone cold. How long had he been out exactly? He brushed his hand through his hair and pounded his fist on his forehead. Ruddy headache. He would need a big pot of coffee if he was going to make it through the day. He checked his watch. It was after eleven. Almost lunchtime.
He pushed himself up from the table, trying to shake off the numbness in both legs with a few knee raises.
Once his legs were more limber, he left the cafeteria and went for a stroll around the basement. He thought a good walk would invigorate him.
Despite all the perks Tridan Entertainment had to offer, the company was surrounded by scandal. One of the managing director’s was on the run for the murder of the C.E.O and the attempted murder of the C.E.O’s nephew. They were struggling to solve the case. Half the security footage was missing. Someone had tampered with the evidence and not one employee had any valuable information to give to the police. The police suspected one of the staff security guards. They had found his body in an alley close to Liverpool Street Station: an apparent suicide without a note of confession.
Ted shuddered just thinking about. And then there were two employees who went off sick and never returned: a graphic artist from the design department and a senior level designer who worked on the fourteenth floor.
All very mysterious.
Tridan was a gaming company not the Bank of England, yet there were security guards patrolling every floor but the basement. They didn’t appear to be any security cameras in the basement either, which Ted thought was lax given that it held a supercomputer and a no-expense-spared exhibit.
He pushed his reservations about Tridan Entertainment’s scandals to the back of his mind. He had no business having reservations. He had only just got here!
He planned to keep his head down and attend to the professor’s every whim. That’s how you get ahead in this game, not by scheming and getting swept up in controversy. He counted himself fortunate. His pay was astronomical. Three times the amount he had made in his last job. He wouldn’t have to struggle to pay rent or bills and he could send his brother a cheque for the money he owed him.
He found it rather odd that a few of the staff knew his name. Some had even tried to engage him in conversation. They didn’t like it when he ignored them or politely informed them he works for Professor Hatleman and that his work was confidential. In fact, one man had called him an ‘a-hole,’ which he thought was pretty mean. He hoped all Tridan Entertainment employees weren’t like him.
He sighed when he came to the teleportation platform. It was one of the coolest things in the basement. It reminded him of Star Trek. Of course the professor had told him there was no such thing as teleportation nor could there ever be. And he should know; he was a genius.
He had stumbled across another cool exhibit in the form of a Teleportation Capsule.
The professor had shown him the inside of the
capsule during his brief induction. He had yet to step inside it. He stroked the stainless steel exterior. It was now locked. Ted tried to remember what the professor had done to open it. It had no biometric panel, no visible swipe device and no doorknob.
There was a gap between the floor and the base of the capsule. He ran the tip of his foot around it. It hid a solid skirting board that felt as if it was made of rubber. He continued running his foot around the base until it slipped into a groove and hit a pedal. He pumped it with his foot. He smiled as the door to the capsule opened.
He went inside and took a look around. The basement held a number of other capsules. Professor Hatleman had told him they were in development. Now he knew how to open one capsule, he would open them all before the day was through.
The interior of the capsule was underwhelming. It had a table and a few stools inside it. That was about it. If it wasn’t finished, the professor would certainly need his input. He could see the potential for a more technical design.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took the call. It was the professor.
‘How are you getting on?’ The professor asked him.
Ted stumbled out of the capsule, catching his footing before he tripped. He knew the professor wasn’t in the basement, but he still felt as if someone was watching him. And the professor had asked him not to touch anything.
‘Okay.’ To be honest, he was beginning to feel a bit lonely. He wouldn’t have minded if the professor dropped in for a chat. He guessed he could go to the staff cafeteria. There were probably plenty of like-minded programmers in there he could talk to.
‘I have an assignment for you,’ said the professor.
Ted’s eyes lit up. He fished out his little notepad and pen, grateful to have something to take his mind off his basement doldrums. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I need you to test one our latest releases, The Quest of Narrigh.’
‘No problem.’ Ted put his pen and notepad away. He didn’t need to write it down. He hadn’t been employed as a games tester. Frankly, it was a bit below his pay grade. He imagined he’d get so caught up with the game play, he wouldn’t produce any decent reports. It didn’t matter. He could wing it; make it up as he went along.
‘It’s urgent and I would prefer it if you only conduct the tests in your office.’
‘Certainly professor. What’s the deadline?’
‘As soon as. I’ve got no problem with you bringing in a sleeping bag and whatever else makes you feel comfortable. We’ve had to take the game offline. We’re getting error code complaints from a number of our subscribers. They claim that the game has wiped the files from their hard drive. Play it and let me know if they are any anomalies. Don’t concern yourself with the graphics, I’ve got someone else checking those. Try to have some fun with it. Play on the laptop I gave you. The game’s been installed and I’ve set up a subscription free account for you. Of course, you’ll get a bonus at the end of the month.’
‘Thank you,’ croaked Ted, overcome with emotion. He made his way to his new office, beaming as he went. His first day on the job and his boss wanted him to sit around all day playing online games. There was no denying, he had the best job in the world!
THIRTY-NINE
Skelos caught a whiff of oil fumes and rotten food. He woke up on cold concrete and pulled himself to his feet with the help of a lit lamp post speckled with morning dew. He couldn’t tell if it was early morning or early evening. He felt cold down to the bone. A wave of nausea caused him to sink back onto the ground. His head hurt and his head almost never hurt. He gagged once and gripped his neck to stop himself retching.
Vastra was nowhere to be seen and neither was his map or his small bag of belongings. He found his Worral Stone in his trouser pocket.
His robes lay crumpled on the roadside. He padded through the pockets and found a small pouch of binding dust and two keys that he had stolen from a rogue he had met in Narrigh. He found a single gold coin caught in the hem. He also discovered a signed note from Vastra penned on a piece of canvas he had torn from the map of The Other Worlds:
‘We go our separate ways. If anyone asks we have never met. I intend to find my way to Pyridian from here. Blend in and good fortune to you. Vastra.’
Skelos imagined Vastra couldn’t wait to be rid of him. The audacity! If it weren’t for me, he’d still be stuck on that monstrous ship.
He gazed around him. Patches of fog hung in the air. Modern pale-coloured buildings stood either side of him strewn with glass windows; the lights were on in some of them. Four-wheeled motor vehicles were parked in the road.
A man dressed in a thick coat was coming up the road. Skelos would have liked to take the coat for himself. But he felt too weak. He could hardly stand. The man passed by, glancing at him with a mixture of concern and suspicion.
He knew he had to appeal to someone for help. The-Maker-only-knew how much more he could abide. He needed food, decent clothes and accommodation.
He pulled on his robes and wrestled to stand once more. He wrapped his arms around the lamp post and slowly drew himself up, his legs trembling with the exertion. He gave a ragged gasp and arched his back. Every joint in his spine seemed to groan.
He glanced up and down the road, unsure of which direction to go. He attempted to tune into his sixth sense to give him a pointer but got nothing back. He wandered in the direction the passing stranger had come from. It had been a while since he had walked on flat ground and his movements were jerky and uncoordinated.
He walked until his feet were numb and his neck was stiff from the cold. He knew he looked and smelt atrocious and that he wore inappropriate attire; such shortcomings prevented him from finding his voice. Strangers crossed the road to avoid him or dipped their heads. One young woman dressed in trousers and a thick coat had stumbled into the road to get away from him. In doing so, she had caught her heel in a drain. The heel had come off clean. She had wrenched her shoe free, and then hobbled away, leaving the heel behind.
He left the pale buildings with their vast windows behind him.
He came to a row of modest beige bricked houses. He peered through the gossamer curtains of one brightly lit home and saw a table set for dinner and a boy, no older than three, sitting on a black chair staring at a moving image on a plasma screen. Skelos gave a squeak of satisfaction. Earth had technology and with technology came opportunity. With the power of his mind, he made the screen go blank. The boy called for his mother and when no answer came he crossed to the dining room table and reached into a bowl filled with bread rolls. He saw Skelos watching him and ran from the room, screaming for his mother. Skelos switched the screen back on and slunk out of sight.
He discovered a house further along that looked as if it were vacant. A for sale sign swung from a wooden stake in the front garden, where weeds were in abundance. The lower windows were boarded up. Perfect. Skelos started up the steps and then hesitated. He thought of the Crocksford Arms tavern he had visited in Narrigh and the red paint smeared upon the door, and of how it was full of vicious writhing beasts. He also remembered the Crocksford Arms had a magic portal. He continued up the steps. Perhaps the same luck would fall upon him this day.
He reached the top of the stairs and tried the door. It was locked. Aware of another passer-by behind him, he froze with his face to the entrance until he had heard their footsteps receding. He dug around in his robes for one of the keys he had stolen from the rogue, Barnabas Spinks. The first key he tried didn’t fit the keyhole. He took out the other. His numb fingers fumbled to slot it through the keyhole. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard a click in the lock. He pushed the handle and the door popped open.
He entered the dark hallway. It was pitch black. He couldn’t see a thing. He opened the front door wider, relying on the light from the streets to guide him in. The house had a damp sticky odour. A beaten carpet stretched up a flight of stairs and along a wide corridor. Apprehensive to venture any further in such meagre lighting,
Skelos pushed the door shut. He felt his way to the staircase. He sat on the bottom step. He closed his eyes. With his vision compromised, he would have to wait for the natural light of this new world to show itself.
FORTY
Connor hesitated before drawing back the curtains to his brother’s hospital cubicle. He had never seen him so fragile, so close to death. He had considered his own passing many times over. Not Luke’s. He had thought his brother was invincible.
He knew the horror of that day in Tridan Entertainment would never leave him. The day he had arrived home safely had become the day his brother almost died. He would never forget the pain he felt in his chest. It felt as if his heart would break. He never wanted to have that feeling again.
The hospital emergency department was busy as usual. Nurses, doctors and visitors swept in and out.
It was dark out. Rain lashed against the windows. The traffic had become a trickle. There were fewer pedestrians on the road.
He had gone with his brother in the ambulance. The doctor had examined Luke’s wound and confirmed what they already knew: that his injuries were caused by a single gunshot to the leg.
He had waited outside Luke’s cubicle while the police questioned him. They couldn’t get much out of him because he kept slipping in and out of consciousness. A nurse had ushered the two police officers out not long after they had gone in to see him. They had wanted to question Connor too, but they decided to wait until their mum arrived. Connor had told them he had called home. It was a lie. When they had asked him for his mother’s phone number, he had given them Luke’s number. He had wanted to stall them as long as he could. He knew Luke wouldn’t have passed on their details to the police either, not without speaking to Connor first. They had a lot of explaining to do and not just to the police.
Somehow the police had contacted their mum without his help. She was now on her way to the hospital.
