by V. St. Clair
How long was I unconscious?!
He had hoped for a little more time to come to terms with his probable death for the lie he was planning to tell the Provo, and his courage was failing him now that the moment was here. It was not so easy to throw his life away after all, even though he knew it was the only sane course of action. For one wild moment he hoped and prayed it was Topher again, if only so he could try and convince the man he was innocent, in the vague hope that Topher cared and was able to do anything about it.
But no, it was Fox who crossed the threshold, and he was alone. Light flooded in from the hall and Max shielded his eyes, steeling his courage. This was it, his chance to tell the man he knew where Hera was and—
“You annoying little fuck,” Fox greeted him angrily, slurring the words a bit as the door closed behind him and flipped on the lights in the room.
Max shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness until he was able to acclimate to it—thank heavens they weren’t the floodlights—during which time he heard Fox move closer to him. It wasn’t until his captor grabbed him by the throat and dragged him to his feet that Max looked him in the eye. He was startled to realize the Major was intoxicated.
Fox’s breath didn’t smell like alcohol—or anything noteworthy—but the glassy sheen over his eyes and the flush in his cheeks was telling of something illicit; probably one of the higher-end drugs only the elite had access to.
I thought the Provo-Majors were under a strict ban on any substances that could impair their ability to fight in case of emergency.
“I—” Max choked on the word since Fox was still squeezing his throat. His captor slapped him across the face.
“You were supposed to be my crowning achievement,” he said through clenched teeth. “When that Minor told me what you could do, I knew you would be the one to bring me to Hera at last—that I would be hailed as a hero for uprooting that traitorous bitch. Instead you’re nothing but an embarrassment to me.” He shook Max angrily by the neck, causing his head to snap back and forth uncomfortably.
“I should just kill you here and have done with it,” Fox seemed to be talking himself into it, eyes glowing with fury and drugs, fingering the hilt of a knife on his belt with his free hand.
“Wait—” Max choked out painfully. “Please, don’t kill me—I’ll take you to her, I promise!”
Fox threw him to the floor but made no move to approach him again. He looked wary as he said, “What do you mean?”
“I know where she is—well, one of her safe houses, at least,” Max lied, coughing and massaging his sore throat. “I lied to you before, because I thought you’d let me go if you didn’t think I had any good information.”
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Fox answered blandly, though the flush was still high in his cheeks and he was beginning to look excited. “No one can lie through our truth-telling serums.”
Then why the hell have you been keeping me here after you knew I had no useful information for you?
Max finally realized this guy just enjoyed torture and was using him as an excuse to get his fix of it. He felt so hopeless in the face of such casual brutality, he didn’t even know how to fight it; how could he ever hope to escape from a creature like this?
But he still had to try.
“It’s not impossible,” he invented wildly. “A few of the Gifted have worked out a way around it, and they’ve been slowly teaching the others.”
It was a terrible lie, but for some reason it had an enormous impact on Fox, whose eyes widened in amazement as he said, “Of course…I knew it.” He closed his eyes briefly as though to savor something and said, “I tried to tell the Viceroy things were too quiet at the Academy, but that fucking pretty-boy has them looking at the finance district instead.”
“Who, Topher?” Max asked curiously, forgetting to keep his mouth shut. He had no idea what Fox was talking about, but if he was lucky enough to stumble on the one excuse his captor would believe…
Fox narrowed his gaze at him and asked, “How do you know his name?” his tone full of suspicion.
“You said it earlier, during your last visit,” Max reminded him quickly, sorry he had interrupted the man’s stream of consciousness.
“Did I?” Fox seemed not to remember, but then he shook the notion off and glared at him once more. “So you know where she’s at, do you? You’re finally ready to give her up to save your own worthless skin?”
Max tried to look conflicted and self-loathing, not meeting Fox’s eyes because it might give him away.
“About time,” his captor said greedily. “I’ll go get Andrew and we’ll—”
“I thought you wanted the glory for yourself,” Max dared another interruption. His odds of escaping were less-than-nothing with two Provo-Majors guarding him. In Fox’s intoxicated state, there was a marginal chance of success, if Max got very lucky…
Fox narrowed his eyes at him meanly and Max continued speaking into the silence.
“If you bring Major Andrew in, isn’t he going to get some of the credit for finding Hera, when it was really you all along? You were the one who knew I had useful information, you were the one who’s been interrogating me for weeks…”
Fox looked viciously satisfied with himself when he said, “Yeah, it was me. Andrew didn’t do shit.”
Max waited for him to form the conclusion in his mind, afraid to push too hard. How long would Fox’s intoxication last, anyway? Impossible to tell, but the sooner they left, the better Max’s odds of survival.
“Better make it just you and me,” Fox said at last. “I’ll be a hero when I drag that bitch into this cell and end her stupid little rebellion once and for all.”
Maxton wasn’t entirely sure the loss of one person would kill the entire movement against the government, even if that person was the leader of said movement, but he had no desire to discourage Major Fox when he was doing exactly what Max wanted.
I wonder if Hera has any idea just how much she has pissed these people off, he wondered idly, impressed with the unknown woman for inconveniencing an entire establishment.
“Okay, but can it wait until morning—or is it already morning?” Max looked around the room, wishing he knew what time of day it was.
“Why do you want to wait?” the other man asked suspiciously.
“Well, Hera usually meets with her people at night, and obviously I don’t want to take you there right in the middle of a meeting, so—”
“Even better,” Fox said to himself, pulling Max to his feet again. “We’re going now; the more of those traitorous fucks I can catch, the better.”
This was exactly what Max was hoping for, but he tried to look worried and miserable. Given the pain he was in, and the prospect of his imminent death, it wasn’t difficult. Even though everything had gone perfectly to plan so far, there was always uncertainty in the execution of his Gift. There was a fifty-percent chance he was going to end up somewhere unintended, which meant he wouldn’t control the environment. Since a fifty-percent chance was better than no chance, it was a risk he would have to take.
Max allowed himself to be pulled out of the room, delighted that Fox had to use one of his keys to remove the magnetic cuffs from his wrists and ankles to allow him to leave the cell. The narrow, curved hallway felt like freedom after his long stint in the torturous room, but he tried to keep his wits about him as he limped along beside his captor, who was gripping his arms in front of him and binding his wrists together with a plastic tie that was impossible to break without assistance.
How far would they have to go before he was able to use his Gift? Onto another floor entirely, to escape all the protections this one boasted? Fox had bragged to Max in his early days of captivity about how this floor wasn’t monitored by cameras or microphones at all, so no one would know what was happening to him, but it had to be one of the few floors of the Augenspire that wasn’t monitored constantly, aside from the very top levels. Was there a chance of someone else seeing them on a
camera before they left, and would that help or hurt his chances of escape?
As it turned out, Fox only dragged him to the end of the hallway and onto the main stairwell, which served as an emergency egress for the top one-hundred floors of the Augenspire when the elevators were out of service. Personally, Max thought anything deadly enough to take out the most secure elevators on the planet would kill them well before they made it down a hundred flights of stairs on foot, but he supposed they had to have some emergency option available, if only for peace of mind.
“Alright,” Fox growled, “you should have your freak powers back now. Take me to Hera.”
Well, here goes nothing…
It was time to see how lucky he truly was. Max fumbled with his necklace in his bound hands so he could touch the emblem, closed his eyes, and offered up a silent prayer to whoever might be listening. He gripped his key-shaped emblem, thinking of a bakery in the heart of downtown, picturing it clearly in his mind. He wanted to bring them somewhere with a maximum number of witnesses, where he could get lost in the crowd and eventually shake the Major entirely, and this bakery was in the heart of downtown Silveria, which came alive at night with activity. With any luck, he might be able to lose himself long enough to reach a good hiding spot.
He felt the shift inside of himself, almost as though he was unlocking something hidden away within his own body. And there was the door.
It wasn’t actually a door, of course, more of a ripple in the air that had the same dimensions as a standard doorway, hovering in the middle of the landing beside them. Stunned, Fox released him long enough to look around the back side of it, as though expecting to see their destination on the other side, but that wasn’t how it worked. The portal would only reveal its destination when one stepped through it. Right now it just looked like a wavy patch of air that made Fox’s image look blurry when seen through it.
“Well, I’ll be…” Fox mumbled in amazement from the other side. “That’s some trick.”
Max said nothing, and the other man grabbed him firmly by the arm and pulled him around to the same side of the portal as him so they were standing together.
“There’s nothing there,” Fox commented dumbly, narrowing his eyes in anger at Max once more as they stared through the opening at the other side of the stairwell.
“It doesn’t show you anything until you step through it. It isn’t a portal hanging open between two places, showing you a tear in the space between them,” he rattled off in annoyance. “The tear doesn’t exist until you cross the threshold.” It would also close once Max willed it to, cutting off their return to the Augenspire.
Max didn’t feel the need to share that tidbit just now.
Fox still looked suspicious, but took a deep breath and stepped confidently over the threshold, still holding Max’s arm as he rippled out of sight. Max struggled to break free of his grasp as he was pulled through the opening—
And suddenly they were falling from the ceiling onto the hard-tile floor of a women’s restroom.
Max and Fox became separated during the fall, and the former tried to roll in midair to prevent himself from hitting his head on the floor, but was only partially successful. He willed the door shut behind him and the air became rigid once more as the portal closed.
Fox let out a howl of shock and outrage as he landed on all fours on the ground, swaying a bit in his light armor as he tried to reorient himself. Whatever he was high on was definitely slowing down his reflexes, or he would have bounced right back to his feet.
This wasn’t where Max had intended to bring them, which just went to show how bad his luck was even when his life depended on it. He had no idea what part of the city they were in, or if they were still in Silveria at all. All he knew was that he and the Provo-Major were entirely alone in this women’s restroom, with the notable exception of a scared-looking girl around Max’s age, who had platinum-blond hair, bright purple lipstick, green eyes, and a black vinyl jacket.
He struggled to his feet, which was hard without the use of his hands, just as Fox was attempting to do the same. The first thing he noticed was that the girl must have come in here to change clothes, because a different outfit was bundled up on the countertop beside her. The second thing he observed was that she was Gifted as well, wearing the emblem of an eye around her neck; an illusionist of some sort, no doubt.
“RUN!” he shouted at her, and her eyes widened in horror as she considered the Provo-Major nearby, who was getting to his feet with some minor stumbling—the intoxication was probably messing with his equilibrium after the fall.
“This man is a prisoner of the Viceroy, and is attempting to evade the law!” Fox bellowed in a surprisingly authoritative tone. “Help me restrain him or you will be brought in on charges as well!”
The moment the girl made eye contact with Fox, something palpable seemed to occur between them. In the time it took her to exhale, she stumbled backwards and said, “You’re going to kill him—you’re plotting to kill the Viceroy because you think all the Gifted should be exterminated—you helped the Provo-Minor fake the evidence against Maxton to have him arrested…”
Max had never met this girl in his life, and had absolutely no idea how she knew his name or anything she had just said about Fox. This was the first he was hearing of any attempts on the Viceroy’s life from within his own government.
Fox’s eyes widened horribly and he gasped, “You’re a fucking psychic.”
He lunged at her without further ado, all thoughts of Max seemingly forgotten. This was Max’s chance; he could run and never look back, as long as the girl provided a distraction long enough for him to get away.
Instead, he groaned at his ill-timed integrity and hurried over to where Fox had the girl pinned on the ground, kicking him hard in the side of the head with one worn sneaker. It was the only part of his body not protected by his light armor.
The first time it didn’t work, so Max kicked him twice more in the head and Fox toppled off of the girl, who was scrambling to her knees and grabbing whatever she could reach from her assailant’s belt in passing. The first thing to come off in her hands was a ring of chips, though Max had no idea what they were for, nor did he care right now.
“Get those metal brackets!” Max shouted at her, kicking Fox in the face and breaking his nose as the Major tried to get up. He stuffed a foot against Fox’s bleeding face to force him back to the ground while he howled in pain. Max would love to kick the man in the balls, but even the light armor that the Majors wore protected most of their body from injury, though for some reason they never wore neck or head guards with it. Perhaps they thought they were invincible?
Not today, asshole.
“Which ones?!” the girl screamed up at him, because Fox had gripped one of her arms in his pincer-like hold and looked like he was trying to rip it off at the shoulder by brute force alone.
“Those ones on his left side! The one with the hilt makes a sword if you put it with one of the others!” There were three different sizes of brackets hooked to his belt, which Max assumed was to make different-sized ion-swords.
The girl grabbed at them frantically with her free hand, scattering all of the brackets onto the tile floor in her haste except for the hilt, which she clutched like a lifeline. As soon as she squeezed it, the nearest bracket on the floor seemed to come to life and float through thin air towards the hilt, positioning itself about two feet out and polarizing into place.
A burst of color filled the space between the two brackets, forming an inch-wide beam of brilliant orange light. Startled, the girl swung it at Fox’s arm.
Because he was wearing armor, the sword didn’t shear his arm off, but it clearly hurt him in some way because he shouted and abruptly released her. The light scattered away from the sword where it had made contact in a wild burst of sparks, and the space was immediately refilled with more orange light to cover the gaps.
“Run! GO!” the girl screamed at him, though Max knew he couldn’t l
eave her alone with Fox without killing the Major. Fox would hunt them to the ends of Elaria for this.
“Hand me my emblem! I can get us out of here!” he shouted at her, kicking at Fox again to keep him down and gesturing to the spot where it had fallen on the floor during their tumble from the ceiling.
Fox swung an arm wildly and tripped Max, who hit the ground on his knees and smacked his chin against the tile since he couldn’t use his hands to catch himself. He rolled out of the way as fast as he could, using the momentum to push himself sloppily back to his feet.
The girl leveled the ion-sword at the Major menacingly, looking for an opening to strike at him and end him, but the man was smart enough not to present an easy target for her, and was now back on all-fours.
He may be drunk off something, but he still has years of deadly combat training on his side and nearly-impenetrable armor…
She picked up Max’s emblem without taking her eyes off of Fox and pushed it into his hands, still backing up slowly while Fox got to his feet at last.
Take us to safety!
The portal popped into existence behind them as the air itself seemed to melt into the shape of a door. Fox reached for his belt and looked truly alarmed when he realized his ring of chips wasn’t on it anymore. There was something more than rage in his eyes as he faced them now: there was fear.
“What the hell—” the girl began.
“Go through it!” Max shouted at her, and she whirled around and did so without further delay. Max followed just as Fox drew a knife from his belt and threw it at him. Max heard it fly past him through the door and hit something solid with a terrifying thud as the portal closed behind him.
They were in a basement of some kind, though Max didn’t recognize the place as somewhere he had ever been before. The most important thing at the moment was that they hadn’t fallen from the ceiling this time—sometimes when he panicked he messed up the orientation of the doorway—and the two of them seemed to be alone.
“I don’t know where we are, but I think we’ve escaped Fox for now,” he informed the girl, whose platinum bangs had slipped sideways at some point during their fight and flight. He finally realized the blond hair must be a wig. She was still holding the ion-sword at attention, looking around frantically for danger. The orange light from the sword cast eerie shadows around the otherwise dark basement.
