They had been expecting him, it seemed. They were able to get here so quickly. He was angry at himself. He should have known that they would watch the one person with whom they suspected he had a connection. The soldiers had stopped firing their small weapons. He could see larger weapons being outfitted. Men on top of trucks with 50 cal machine gun turrets. Several others on the ground with rocket launchers James had never seen before.
“I’m glad to finally meet you,” a voice said that spoke directly into his mind, “I was hoping you’d show up, try to visit the doctor.” The voice was dark, full of anger. James had no idea how this person could speak into his mind, and it disturbed him. It didn’t sound like Dante’s voice, so it couldn’t have been him. Someone was telepathically speaking directly into his mind. James looked downward at the soldiers all gathering for their attack. They were going to test his limits, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to be tested on a rocket launcher.
He heard another noise and turned to look in the sky. Over a dozen gunships were flying towards him. Each gunship was a two man pod roughly the size of a small car, with massive spinning propellers on the right and left sides of the pod. There were machine gun cannons and other armaments attached to the sides and bottom of each pod. They were black, with the Civic Protection emblem on the side, the letters “CP” in a stylistic blue shield.
He couldn’t let the gunships reach him, the level of destruction on this area of the city along would be massive. He hesitated again, trying to decide where to go.
Where can I go where they can’t find me? he thought to himself. Without warning all the soldiers started firing on him. He reacted quickly, crawling on the side of the building faster than he’d ever done before. The concrete crumbled in his claws as he propelled himself forward. The gunships were almost upon him, and there were hundreds of soldiers gathering from all around, not to mention all the vehicles. Tank rounds tore through the building around him. They don’t even care about the hitting people around here, he thought as he leapt off the building again.
He circled around them in the air until he finally saw his solution: the sewer, which would at least slow them down. Near the closest manhole was an armored truck with a turret on top. The soldier was turning the turret, trying to follow him. James circled around it while gaining speed. He dived towards the car, his wings folding behind his back. At the last minute he changed directions and landed in front of the truck on all fours and pulled up the manhole. Several of the 50 cal rounds hit him in the side. It stung, but he wasn’t slowed down. As the nearest gunship bore down on him with its own machine cannons, James wound the manhole lid back with his arm, and threw it like a frisbee at the gunship.
The heavy metal went right through the windshield of the gunship, hitting the pilot. The gunship barreled out of control from the disabled pilot. As it struck the ground the blades tore apart, throwing shrapnel everywhere. By the time people around had recovered from the crash and explosion, James was gone.
15
The sewer tunnel he was running through was larger than he expected it to be. He was easily standing up straight in it. As dark as it was, he didn’t have any trouble seeing anything. He used his mind’s eye to guide himself further along. The walls were curved, but the ground and ceiling were both flat. There was a stream of water running along the floor, but it was low. He ran through the water, ignoring the sounds his footsteps made. The xeno still covered his body, giving him more of a feeling of protection when he had the armor over him. He knew they’d go in after him, so he needed to get as far away from there as possible.
He stopped. He could detect people ahead. It was Civic Protection, already sending people down into the sewers to look for him. They were far ahead. There were civilians with them too, he could tell. Probably people who worked in the city’s sanitation department. They would need their help navigating the vast expanses down below Dirge.
He could see periodically on the floor of this main tunnel were small drains where the water drained further, deeper. It was in the floor covered by a metal grill that had been welded shut. He pulled it up with all his strength, and there was a metal groan as the grill broke off. He climbed down into the drain, pulling the grill back over it. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice that the welding on that grill was broken. He tried climbing down the narrower pipe, but he started to slide. He slid downward through the tunnel, which fortunately didn’t have any dramatic bends or turns. It was so narrow that he started to become claustrophobic, but it started to become wider. His ears echoed with the sound of rushing water. Other pipelines connected to it, draining more water and other liquids downward. Soon the pipeline tunnel was angled to a point where James was no longer sliding, but falling downward through the pipeline. In a short time he reached the end.
He exited the tunnel falling downward. He fell through the ceiling of a large, stadium sized room. There were thousands of other pipelines that exited the ceiling, flowing into the enormous room. It sounded like what he imagined a waterfall must sound like, the rushing water deafening and huge. The walls looked to be a mixture of stone and metal, but without any rust. His wings opened up instinctively, and he glided around the room through the falling water to a metal ledge that protruded only about a foot on one side of the wall. He landed on the ledge in a crouched position, looking outward into the room.
He could see now that the ceiling was domed, and the entire room was a perfect circle. James’s perceptions were advancing to the point that he could tell different metals apart. This was some sort of steel alloy. There were hundreds of holes in the domed ceiling just like the one James had fallen from, water draining out of them from the city above. The majority of the room was filled with water; a giant man-made lake underground. There were lights on the floor of the room, shining through the water. Even with it being the city’s waste water, it was still a sight for him to behold.
In the center of the domed room was a giant hole, probably ten or eleven yards in diameter, where the water drained downward again. James examined the room and the area around with his mind’s eye. He chuckled a little as he realized what the purpose of this lake was. It was the filtration plant for the city’s water. He realized it was entirely automated as he followed all the pipes and the machinery down below with his mind’s eye. All the water that drained from the city above was drained into this plant, where it was sent back upward clean and sterile. He wondered how many people had been down here since it had been built. He stared following the ledge, inching along against the wall. He couldn’t sink his claws into this wall, so he had to be more careful.
The ledge circled the entire room, but had a few doorways. He approached eventually. It was large and metal, without any rust or sign of decay. It wouldn’t budge when he tried to open it. He glanced around, and saw a data screen embedded into the wall on the other side of the door. He walked over and placed his hand on it. After a brief moment, the data screen beeped positively. There a slight hydraulic groan from somewhere in the wall, and the door slid upward into the wall. James walked in without hesitation, and after three steps the door closed behind him.
The tunnel was dark and narrow. James was focusing his mind’s eye, trying to find life in the tunnel he was walking. He was seeing what appeared to be shadows, shadows of life with his mind’s eye. There imprints, imprints of life now long gone. Something seemed to be hovering just at the edge of his vision reaching out to him. When he reached back out to it with his mind’s eye, it faded. He wondered if it was fleeing from him, or if his own senses were playing tricks.
He started running down the hallway, wanting to move ahead. He was only aware of the metal grates he was running on after the fact. There was an alarm, and suddenly he was in incredible pain. The xeno pulsed through his body, unable to help him. They both writhed in pain until it stopped. There were sparks all around and he shut his eyes.
16
“What do you mean he got away?” Dante sai
d to an older Civic Protection officer, who flinched slightly when he finally spoke.
“Well sir,” the officer said, “we sent the men into the sewer where he was seen fleeing, but we’ve been unable to locate him.”
“How far could he have gotten?” Dante said. The man took a slight breath before speaking.
“We’ve been sending men in there along with sanitation workers,” the officer said, “but it will take weeks to search all the tunnels. It’s a maze down there beneath the city. Even the sanitation workers only know the surface tunnels, where they clean. No one knows what’s deeper than that.” Dante nodded quietly, contemplating.
“Pull your men out,” he said, “the fugitive is long gone by now.” He turned and started walking to Ares. Ares adjusted his glasses as he turned to him. He had a smile like he knew what Dante was coming to tell him. Dante walked over slowly and without warning punched Ares in the jaw. Ares’ head turned slightly, but otherwise there was no reaction. He took a step towards Dante.
“So it’s going to be like that,” Ares said. He held up one hand, and snapped his fingers together. Dante felt the pain, starting as a slow burn. He glared at his brother, ignoring it. Ares smiled sadistically, and the pain increased. Dante felt his knees and his back tremble, but he kept standing, ignoring it again. He narrowed his eyes at Ares. Suddenly the pain stopped.
“You’re not worth it,” Ares said. Dante felt the pain back off. Ares turned, walking away. The burning pain slowly subsided. Dante turned, suddenly aware of what was around him. Several soldiers and officers had stopped what they were doing and had been staring at the two of them. There was fear mixed with curiosity in their eyes. Dante felt liquid on his face, and put his hands up to his eyes. Some blood had come out of his eyes. He wiped it with his sleeve and turned towards his car.
* * * * *
“Wake up,” James heard a voice say. His vision was blurry. He tried to sit up, but was still in pain. He stayed there for a few more moments. The xeno was traveling through his body, repairing him on the inside while it recovered from what had happened itself. He inhaled a deep breath and pushed through the pain, sitting up. He slowly pulled himself to his feet. His legs still ached. He looked around again, his vision less blurry as he started to stumble forward.
“Hello,” he called out, “is anyone there?” He stopped, and leaned against the wall with one hand. He shut his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. He gathered his thoughts as he listened. He focused on where he was as he looked around. He was in the tunnel, where he was following some sort of presence he’d detected. That was when he’d felt the pain. He looked down at the ground. Metal grates. There was also smoke everywhere. He also remembered seeing sparks.
“I was electrocuted,” he said out loud to himself. He walked forward down the tunnel, where it turned in a bend. Turning the corner there was a large circular metal door that was cracked open. It looked like the door to a vault. He pulled it open, which took some effort at first. It had been sitting like this for a very long time. There was a smell of oldness, dust. It combined with the smoke from the previous hallway.
James walked into the room. There was another round vault door on the opposite wall. Otherwise the walls resembled the same stone and metal combination. He walked in slowly. There was a layer of dust on the floor. The wall to the right of him had another doorway, with a one way mirror window. The door was also cracked. It was a metal door, strong, but not even in the same category as the large vault doors.
He pushed it open, walking in slowly. There was a thick layer of dust and mildew that covered everything, filling the air with the uncomfortable smell of mold. Directly behind the one way mirror was a small desk and chair with a data screen embedded into the desk’s surface. There was a shelf directly behind with a few aged weapons. He didn’t need to look too closely at them to see they were unusable.
The rest of the room was a small living quarters designed for two people with a bunk bed and some shelves and other personal items scattered about. The room was a mess, with items and the few pieces of furniture it had turned over. It looked like there had been a struggle a long time ago. No bodies though.
This seemed to James like an outpost, where guards would have watched a doorway and approved any entries. Why would they be guarding the entrance to the water plant? James wondered as he approached the data screen embedded on the desk.
It crackled and fizzled as he tapped it. Only for a brief moment was it active before it shorted out again. When he tapped it for a second time it was unresponsive. He left the small guards’ room and walked to the large vault door opposite the one he’d entered through the hallway. He put his hand on it. It was cold and solid. He tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge. There was no way to open the door.
He glanced at the one way mirror. That data screen that was unusable was obviously the controls for the door. He leaned on the large vault door for a moment, thinking. He turned to stare at it closely, examining the door’s edges.
The door wasn’t airtight. There was a small enough crack that followed the edge all the way around. He had an idea. He shared his thoughts with the creature, telling it what he wanted it to do. It instantly covered his right hand in its scaly metallic form.
He placed the fingertips of his scaled hand over the crack at the edge of the door. The creature extended from his fingertips like small metal tendrils feeling out everything. There were mechanical workings on the inside, connecting to the locking and opening mechanisms. There was no power, but maybe he could force them with the xeno. James focused all the small metal tendrils to encompass the locking mechanism and the hinges that connected to the door’s hydraulics. The tendrils followed his orders, tearing the mechanisms apart in every possible way.
It seemed like an hour’s worth of work, but it actually only took moments for him. There were small sounds of broken metal inside the door. He then pulled his hand back as the tendrils pulled away from the door. Finally they shrank back into his hand, which he tightened into a fist and punched the door as hard as he could. It fell forward, with the remaining piece that were still attached to it breaking easily. He walked over the door into another wider tunnel.
As he walked he focused his senses trying to find any life in the tunnels around him. He saw the ghosts again, fading in and out of his mind’s eye. He had a sense that there was someone ahead of him. He knew it couldn’t be real, but it still made him curious. He ran forward down the wider tunnel, watching his surrounding for any more forgotten security traps.
Soon the tunnel ended. There was a flight of metal stairs going downwards about thirty feet, he could tell. He started walking down them slowly, the clang of each step echoing loudly in the chamber he was in. Something detected his movement, and suddenly a bright light shone above him. He stopped as he looked outward, speechless at what he saw.
17
Forty years ago a thirteen year old Elijah Vanguard sat in a chair in his father’s office. It was one of the two red velvet armchairs that faced his father’s dark wood desk. It was so dark that it looked black to him if he stood far enough away. Just the same, he had to get close enough that his eyes were only a foot away from the desk to see the wood grain. He smiled to himself as he tapped it with one finger; it wasn’t wood at all. Just metal. Wood was a rarity in Dirge.
The rest of the office was filled with warm colors, shelves that were made of a metal that was molded and painted to resemble a deep red wood, filled with single volume data screens and vid screens. The carpet was a warm brown. The room had a pleasant fragrance, probably the cologne his father liked to wear. The desk seemed to intentionally stand out, however. His father liked to stand out.
Dr. Isaac Vanguard was a prominent physician and philanthropist. Most people in Dirge had heard the name Vanguard. He was well known for doing everything he could to help everyone in need in Dirge. He was such a public figure that even Civic Protection ha
s backed down from him before. Since the collapse, anyways. No one ever talked about life before the collapse. Elijah was only two years old when it happened; he didn’t remember it at all. He wondered what life was like before then, before Dirge. He wondered what the sun really looked like.
He was stirred from his thoughts by his father, who walked in suddenly and quickly. His father was an imposing figure, strong and reliable. He was in his forties, and solid as steel. Dr. Isaac Vanguard was tall and thin, just like Elijah would one day be. He had uncharacteristically darker skin in tone. Isaac had said once that Elijah’s lighter complexion came from his mother, Charlotte. That and the city’s lack of light. Elijah had his father’s eyes though, intelligent and thoughtful.
Isaac walked with a grace that implied that he’d had combat training sometime in his past. Isaac walked around his desk, and sat in the office chair behind it. His dark suit matched the dark wood-patterned desk. The man sat thinking, staring at the data screen in the center of the desk.
“Dad,” Elijah said, “You wanted to see me? Anna said it was urgent.” Anna, Elijah’s nanny, had indeed emphasized the urgency of him seeing his father. So much so that she canceled his classes for the day and took him his straight to his father’s office in Capitol District.
“Yes,” Isaac said, in a slightly worn voice. His eyes moved to his twelve year old son, and he spoke. “Eli, do you know what a vanguard is?”
“A vanguard?” Elijah said, “you mean like our name?”
“The word, vanguard. Do you know what it means?” Elijah shook his head.
“The word, vanguard, is actually a title. A vanguard is a leader. A leader in ideas, technology or even combat.”
City of Twilight: Rise of the Hunter (The Vanguard Chronicles Book 1) Page 9
