by Rae Thomas
A figure steps from the shadow of the doorway. I did not notice him standing there before, but it’s possible that he’s been there all along. “I think you’ll have a good reason to stay.” The Alter. My father and the scientist both turn toward the sound of the cold voice, and immediately their smiles drop from their faces. The scientist swivels his chair back around and continues working. My father, visibly deflated, walks back to his work station. The Alter follows him.
When they both reach my father’s station, The Alter places a clear case in the center of it. Within the case is the shard. The piece of the artifact that he had called The Cube.
My father is the first to speak. “What is it?”
The Alter speaks curtly; he is all business. There is no familiarity between the two men. “It is a piece of technology. We believe it to be extraterrestrial in origin, but we cannot be certain. When stimulated, it has displayed an extraordinary amount of power.”
“Where did you find it?”
The Alter sneers condescendingly at my father. “That’s above your pay grade. The next time you decide that you have the authority to question me, I’ll have you discharged for insubordination.”
My father blushes. “I understand, sir.”
“Your assignment is to determine and document the properties of this relic.”
“I accept without question any mission given to me by my Alter, but I am a bio-engineer. I work in robotics. I am not sure that my skills are quite suited for this project.”
“Your concern is noted, but you were chosen for this assignment specifically because of your background in bio-engineering.”
“Sir?”
“We believe that this technology may have extensive applications in infantry design.”
“You want me to use this with BioMechs?”
“If we’re right about the extent of the power of this artifact, you won’t need to use BioMech technology to create artificial bodies. You’ll be designing the soldiers themselves.”
As quickly as this vision began, it is over. I struggle to regain my senses, and for a moment I am disoriented. I see The Alter’s lips moving, but I cannot hear what he is saying.
“What?”
“The game is over, Miss Price. Where is the shard?”
He saw the drawing in my sketchbook. He’ll never believe that I don’t know where it is.
“I told you, I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.”
The Alter slams my sketchbook down on the table in front of me. His face is red. When he speaks, spit flies from his mouth. “How do you expect me to believe that you’ve never seen it? You drew it!”
I have a feeling that now is not the best time to start talking about my dreams. But how else will I get out of this mess? Maybe he’ll believe me. Maybe he’ll take pity on me. I look up at him again; the crazed expression on his face is only becoming more extreme by the moment. Maybe not.
“I was injured in the explosion. I lost my memory. I don’t remember anything before I woke up in the hospital. That’s the truth. I hardly knew my father himself, much less his secret hiding places for stolen relics!”
“Oh, you lost your memory? Well, that’s original. All right, then. I guess you’re free to go.” His voice drips with sarcasm. I do not respond.
The Alter does not say another word. He gets up from the table, enters his code, and leaves. Perhaps he’s decided that questioning me is a waste of time. Perhaps he’ll be back to torture the information out of me. Perhaps he’ll be back to kill me. I’d rather not be here to find out. When he has been gone for several moments, I get up and walk to the door. There’s no window. For all I know, there’s an army on the other side of this door, just waiting for me to try something. I take a deep breath and decide to proceed. I’d rather die in an escape attempt than sit at a table waiting to be executed.
All right, it’s now or never. I raise my hand and begin to enter my arresting officer’s access code into the keypad. 2-9-1-1-5-0. I hold my breath for a long moment. The keypad turns green and the door lifts. I enter the code again so the door will close; ideally, I could escape before they ever know I’m missing. But what about David? I can’t just leave him here, but I don’t know where they’ve taken him. I hesitate for a moment but quickly make the decision to leave him. He is only in this mess because of me. Hopefully The Vox will realize that he’s just an unlucky acquaintance and send him home. He’s better off without me. Not only does The Alter think I’ve got information about the missing piece, but I’m about to humiliate him by escaping on his watch. Now I’m getting a little ahead of myself. I have to actually escape first.
I make a left out of the doorway and another left when my hall intersects with another. 36 steps. I walk as quietly as I can, but even if I’m being completely silent, I cannot stop the motion-sensing lights from activating as I pass. I can only hope that no one will notice. Step number 29. I’m almost home free when I hear footsteps. Someone is coming.
I duck into a dark doorway and watch the men as they approach. My heart pounds unrelentingly as I wait to be dragged from my hiding place. Surely one of them saw me. The hallway was fully illuminated. As the men get closer, they do not quicken their pace, and I relax for a moment. The gait of one of the men seems familiar. I nearly faint when I realize that it’s David. Just as I come to this realization, we make eye contact and David suddenly swings around, elbowing the other man in the jaw. Stunned, the officer falls back against the wall. David rushes forward and takes me by the hand. “Come on. They’ll be coming for us.”
With the next seven strides, we are literally running for our lives. David never lets go of my hand. In fact, he all but carries me. When we reach the door on the left, the door that leads to the roof, we are still unsure whether we are being pursued. I enter the code again, and we are on the roof. When I planned my escape, I forgot to consider the fact that my escape route leads to the roof. We’re cornered. We have nowhere to go. I am halfway entertaining the idea that perhaps I should just fling myself from the building. At least that way I’d avoid the torture my father endured. As soon as this thought enters my mind, I shake my head, ridding myself of it. Of course I’m not going to fling myself from the building. I’m going to escape.
I look at David and smile. “You think you can fly that contraption?” I gesture to the small transport that brought us here.
David laughs skeptically. “Violet, we can’t even open the door.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” I grab David’s hand and pull him toward the ship. As we run, I make the mental observation that being in a life-threatening situation is certainly making me more brazen.
2-9-1-1-5-0. The door swings open. David looks at me, shocked. I smile bashfully. “I memorized the pilot’s access code.”
We board the transport and learn quickly that this ship was built for ease of use. A child could fly it. David gets it into the air and we’re off.
David is the pilot, so he is giving me instructions. “We need to find an open area to land this thing immediately. I’m sure it’s equipped with some kind of tracking device. We need to get as far away from it as possible.”
As soon as he finishes his sentence, I see the perfect place. “There!” An empty lot, perhaps the construction site of a future skyscraper, but for now it’s our landing pad. David smiles and begins to manipulate the controls to land the transport. The moment the ship comes to a stop on the concrete, we are out the door. We hurry to a dark area in the blind spot between two street lamps behind the neighboring building.
We have no time to gather our thoughts.
We have no time to formulate a plan.
They will be here any moment, and when they get here, they will kill us.
“David! What do we do?”
David looks at me. I’m sure the panic in his eyes mirrors my own. His expression is not hopeful when he says, “Run.”
Nine
We ran.
We moved silently between buildi
ngs and down dark alleyways. We avoided streetlights. We avoided other people. We kept moving for hours. With every step, I could see the energy draining from David’s face, but we could not stop. We had no other option.
Summus is a sprawling urban landscape. There are no trees, there is no grass or open area. A few tiny parks dot the map, but they are seldom used. People who want to enjoy nature can move to Eligo. Summus is steel. Summus is stone. Summus is factories and skyscrapers. Summus is home to the elite, the best of the best, but someone’s got to work in those factories. Someone’s got to wash the windows on those skyscrapers. So there are poor areas of Summus. The Sententia would never allow an area to become an eyesore. Often entire street blocks are closed down when they are deemed too old or too run-down. The working class is relocated to brand new low-income housing while their old street block is renovated and readied for a new wave of inhabitants.
This is how David and I found a place to hide. In the early morning hours when the sky had begun to grey, David and I knew that we needed cover. We needed to lay low for a day or two while The Vox searched for us. We had come to an area of Summus that had been cordoned off. Signs read “Closed for Renovations.” Theoretically, these buildings were abandoned. We chose a tall apartment building at the end of the block; all of the construction equipment was located at the front of the street. Hopefully, this would mean that we would have a few days before anyone ventured into our building. By then, we would be gone.
The exterior of the building was dark, almost black. The door was located at the top of a small staircase that led up from the street. An awning over the entrance was falling apart. Chunks of stone were missing, and the steel supports were visible through the cracks. As we made our way up the stairs, we had to tread very carefully because some of the steps could no longer support the weight of a body; some of them had already collapsed with age. Yes, this building certainly needed to be remodeled.
We entered the building and were immediately met with the musty smell of a room that has been long unopened. We decided that we should choose a room near the top of the building so we could survey the street from the window. This would also give us time to leave using the fire escapes if someone entered. This building had five levels. As we made our way through the hallways, we noted the decorative paper peeling from the walls, the light fixtures that hung sideways. The carpet was dirty and wet in some places. Several times, I took a step and a squishing sound was accompanied by water puddling around the imprint that my shoe had made. There must have been a water leak. This may be advantageous for us; perhaps this building still has running water. Webs hung in the corners where walls met ceiling. No doubt there were many unseen insects teeming within these walls.
When we reached the fifth level, we began to look into the apartments to find the one that was in the best condition. As we opened the doors, we saw elements of human life left behind. Abandoned dolls. Sometimes a forgotten box of papers. Sometimes a picture frame still hung on the wall. Often, there were faded areas where long-hung photos or paintings had been removed from the walls. This reminded me that someone had once lived here; this had been a home.
The final apartment that we entered was in the best condition. A dilapidated table and chairs still sat in the dining area. An old blanket lay forgotten in a corner. Coincidentally, this apartment also had the best view of the street, which is a beneficial asset to people eluding the law. Without a word, we decided that this is where we would stay. The bolts had been removed from the doors; things that could be sold or reused were generally not left behind. David wedged a chair under the door so we would know if anyone tried to enter.
We were both exhausted. Neither of us could bring ourselves to lay our heads on the carpet, so we decided to sleep in the dining area. We had no choice but to use the blanket, though. This place was drafty and neither of us could afford to fall ill. We made our sleeping area against the wall in the dining room so we would not be immediately visible to someone who entered. David was asleep within moments. He slept on his back, with his hands folded behind his head as a pillow. I am still awake.
It’s not that I’m not tired; I feel exhausted. Perhaps I’ve reached that point of delirium where I’m too weary to sleep. In any case, I’m lying here awake. The soft light that streams through the window falls on David’s face and I watch him sleep for a moment. He is sleeping soundly; his eyes move beneath his eyelids and his chest rises and falls as he takes deep breaths. His face is calm. There is no trace of the panic that he was feeling earlier tonight as we fled. Though David made the choice to help me, to come with me, I cannot help but feel responsible for his involvement in this mess. After all, I had begged him to investigate my father. He had likewise begged me to leave well enough alone. I had refused. Now, we’re both fugitives. At some point, probably sooner rather than later, The Vox will catch us. Surely we’ll be executed. The Alter will not show mercy. It is my fear that keeps me from sleeping.
The more I think about it, the more I feel uneasy about the circumstances of our escape. Yes, I took measures to help my chances of escape, namely re-sealing the door to my interrogation room in the hopes that my absence would not be detected until it was too late. But that effort was rendered futile when David attacked his guard and we left him unconscious in the main hallway. Surely someone heard it. Surely someone saw him. And yet we never saw pursuers. We never heard anyone in the hallway behind us. We wasted several moments on the roof deciding the best course of action; even from the air, I never saw anyone in pursuit. When we landed the transport, we knew that we had to distance ourselves from it quickly, but we never actually saw anyone giving chase. There were no other ships in the air. No one yelled for us to stop. Our escape was just a little too easy.
This line of thought leads me to reflect on my interrogation with The Alter. He was very angry, and yet he left me alone. He did not resort to the torturous methods that had been used on my father. Is it because they didn’t work the first time, or does he have something else in mind? Why did his questions about The Cube trigger some kind of vision in me? Perhaps my mind is so desperate for me to understand something that it has resorted to waking dreams. My thoughts begin to blur and my eyelids grow heavy. There is something about my interrogation that was very, very wrong, but I cannot remember what it was. For now, my body has decided to sleep, and I can no longer fight it.
When I awake, I notice two things. First, it is early evening. I slept through the day. Second, David is gone. He left no note, no sign that he may return. I am simultaneously crushed and relieved. It was easier for me to deal with the reality of this situation knowing that someone was here with me. Without David, I have no one. I am alone in the world. On the other hand, the burden of my father’s death has not left me. It is a weight around my neck. It threatens to crush my chest, threatens to stop me from drawing breath at any moment. I fear that I could not survive if faced with the realization that David, too, was dead because of me. I am lonely, but I am glad that he is gone. I can imagine him living a normal life. At least, more normal than the one I’ll be leading. I hate to admit it, but my father did what was best for us; everything was better when we were dead.
Now that I am alone, I need to figure out my course of action. What to do now? I feel at a loss; David was the great strategist. He knows how the government works. I only have basic knowledge of any of that. Perhaps I could try to disappear again. I could make my way back to my home in Eligo, find my father’s survivalist research. I could disappear into the wilderness. No, surely that would not work. Every public transport station probably has a photograph of me in the ticket office by now. Not to mention the fact that I have a little money, but certainly not enough for a transport to Eligo. I couldn’t walk hundreds of miles on foot without being seen by someone. Even if I could get there somehow, the house is most certainly under surveillance. I can never go back. I place my hand in my pocket and draw out my father’s watch. At least I have something of his. I flip the cover open
and look at the picture of my mother for a moment. I flip it closed. I will not end up like my father. I will not hide. I probably couldn’t if I wanted to, but I’m not going to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life, suspecting everyone that I meet of being some kind of informant. I don’t know if my father did what he is accused of. I don’t know if he stole the Cube shard, but from now on, I’m going to trust him. If he did, he did it for a good reason. If The Vox is looking for it, that means The Sententia has given the order. The only way to save my own life is to have a bargaining chip. I know that they’re looking for The Cube. I’ll just have to find it first.
Now that I know what I have to do, part of the weight has been lifted from me. Somehow, I’ll find a way to finish what my father started. I don’t feel helpless anymore. I feel uplifted. I feel empowered. I hear a quiet creak as the door to the apartment is pushed open. I feel terrified.
As silently as I can, I drop into a crouching position and press myself up against the wall. It’s too late for me to run to the fire escape. That plan could only work if I had been watching the window. Why hadn’t I been watching the window? If I die right now, my father’s death will have been for nothing. I’m simply not going to let that happen. I’ve got nothing on my side but the element of surprise. This intruder does not know where I am. Again, my heart feels that it may pound its way right out of my chest. I’ll be astonished if I don’t die from a heart attack before this is all over.
My plan is to wait for this person to walk through the doorway to the dining area, lunge at his legs, and knock him to the floor. Beyond that, I’m not sure. Should I make a break for it? Race madly for the door? I am fairly certain that he is alone, but that’s not to say that there aren’t more in the building searching other apartments. I doubt I’d be able to hide. I probably wouldn’t even make it to the door. My other option is to fight. If he is a member of The Vox, he is in prime physical condition. I do not have a weapon, though I notice that part of the baseboard where I am crouching is no longer attached to the wall; it has simply been propped up against it. The wood is fairly thick. I could hit him. The end is sharp where it splintered apart. I could stab him. When I think this thought, I wonder, Could I? Could I stab a man, gravely injure or maybe kill him? He’s only following orders, after all. Soldiers don’t choose which missions they’re sent to complete. For all he knows, I’m a murderer. I don’t know if I could really hurt him. Then again, who knows what a person would do to survive?
