Exile: Arc

by Jack Lance

  It reacted to sound, and so if it sensed that Arc was standing directly within reach it would undoubtedly try to snatch him.

  Arc felt a mild fear at this, but was resolved to having to take a chance. He pushed away from the ground slightly, letting the bike roll down and around the broad curve of the corridor.

  Behind he saw the fat red tentacle slide toward him, and a thousand fangs protrude from it. It made a horrible thumping sound, as if its heart had suddenly begun to race.

  Arc kicked the pedal and hammered the gas, then sped fast along the corridor, leaning hard into the curve. He made it to the hexagonal room at the bottom and skidded in the ice there, and fell away from the bike. He struggled where he lay, and strained against his own dizziness.

  Arc looked at the corridors end, seeing it filled with a pulsating wall of blood-fed flesh and fangs. It had reached to its limit, and so Arc was safe, for now.

  Trying to ignore it, he walked back to the bike while holding a deep cut he had opened on his forehead. Arc mounted the bike and walked it onto the hanging elevator, then pressed the button to go down.

  This was a completely different section of the colony to the desert side facilities such as the oil processing plants. This led deep down below the surface of the planet, to a massive room hollowed out of the bare rock. The elevator took him down into it, and Arc walked the powerless bike out from its metal grating, then rolling the down a slope to the stone floor.

  It was encircled by tiny control panels, each at the side of a pair of pipes that ran out of the wall of the room, then turning upward and entering the high ceiling. There were many pairs of pipes entering then leaving the room this way, some large and some small, each with their own control box flickering at the side. They were numbered by large signs bolted to the wall above them, and Arc free wheeled the bike toward number seven.

  He examined the comparatively smaller pipes closely, seeing that one was marked with paint as being the water pipe, and the other as being sewage. Along the outer side of each pipe was a hollow space with a rail track leading off into the darkness parallel to it.

  Arc entered commands to a control panel, and waited for a moment as a small, steel trolley bombed out of the darkness beside the water pipe. It slowed at the last second and stopped dead at the track’s end. There were panels on the side that would be used to examine data that had been gathered by a series of wire-like arms that reached out from the trolley to the pipe. The trolley would examine and repair any imperfections along its entire length that in this case, led between the dome and the citadels.

  Arc lifted the huge bike and fed it through the gap above the trolley. It was a tight fit but manageable, as it needed to be balanced over the much narrower trolley. He then unravelled the chain that was looped around the mudguard, and affixed it to the trolley at both sides.

  He then stepped back and entered more commands to the panel, and watched as the bike was carried off into the darkness, in the direction of the citadel zone.

  Next he entered the commands to bring the trolley at the other side of the two pipes, by the sewage pipe. It arrived and Arc climbed inside and onto it, feet first. Again it was a tight fit, especially with the compact parachute strap, but he managed to find a place while lying on his back. He reached over his shoulder to the consoles on the front of the trolley and without looking, entered the commands to move.

  The trolley started slowly then launched at great speeds through the tunnel. He grabbed tight, hooking his feet into crevices in the metal so not to get tipped by the inertia. It was uncomfortable and Arc had to use his strength so to remain down in position, but he had made good distance he knew and was at least half way to the citadels already.

  Then there was a prolonged electric flash just behind his head, and slowly the trolley lost speed. It rolled to a halt in the cold and claustrophobic tunnel, that had narrowed considerably in height deeper in. Arc could smell that something had overloaded and burnt in the circuitry behind him. He struggled to turn in the confined space and pushed his left arm out above his head, squeezing against the shape of his elbow.

  Darn, now we need a certificate in electrics.

  “Come on.” Arc muttered in the damp air.

  Back at the power plant the battle had gone silent. The party had waited and watched from the rocks for a while and were growing impatient.

  Behind them, at the cave three men watched them from the cover of the door. Nash, Dane and Barron had followed their trail and were now ready and armed enough to take their path from the planet by force if necessary.

  “What do you think we should do?” Barron asked. “They’re just lying there.”

  “That’s right.” Nash said knowingly. “They’re waiting.”

  “Look.” Dane said and pointed.

  The three men looked at the robed figures that had suddenly appeared as if from nowhere. They stood at various places and heights in the power plant, watching the crouching people behind the rocks.

  The party also noticed and immediately Rhia engaged the blue bubble of the EMP shield. It encased them and the surrounding rocks in a swirling film.

  Nicolae stood up and leaned back to throw the EMP grenade he had been given. Immediately the sheriff standing perched on the fence closest reached forward and a long rope flew out of it's wrist. It wrapped over Nicolae’s shoulder and then as if finding a way around each limb, wrapped him up tight. The sheriff then retracted it yanking Nicolae from the ground and through the air to it on the fence.

  The EMP grenade fell to the snow at the foot of the fence, and Dora Beldin, who had seen this stood up and stepped out of the bubble.

  Up on the fence the robed figure raised its arm up in the air and then stabbed it down into Nicolae’s chest. It ripped his heart from his body and then threw him aside onto a mesh of bare wires.

  Dora Beldin ran across the snow and picked up the EMP grenade.

  Rhia stood up and shouted “No!”

  Dora looked at her in fear and pressed the button. It clicked a few times in her hand and then a shockwave of electro magnetic pulse bust out over her, then spreading out over the whole of the power plant.

  Dora stood for a moment then fell back into the snow.

  The party watched as each of the sheriffs did also, falling from their perches down to the concrete.

  “No!” Rhia shouted again and ran out of the bubble.

  She ran across the snow to the body of Dora Beldin and began to nurse her like a child.

  The others left more calmly and walked around to each of the dead sheriffs.

  Randall glanced at the smouldering corpse of his friend and groaned "Oh sailor boy. Sorry I brought you now."

  Fenn Dore was the first to pull one of the robes back from the fallen corpses, and held a hand over his mouth in disgust.

  “Oh Hells! What the fucking shit?” he said.

  “Maybe we should wear these inside out?” Randall said, dropping his part of a robe and then flicking the slime from his hand. Above them, thunder rolled through the thickening cloud. The snow suddenly turned to sleet, and began soaking them to the skin.

  “Rhia?” Faye said quietly to her as they all came to take a last look at Dora, and what was left of South Syndicate.

  Rhia stood up and turned away from the body, and took one of the robes as it was handed to her.

  As they turned away they heard a whirring sound behind them, like an old theatre projector winding up. They turned to see a white hologram of Dora Beldin hovering over her corpse.

  “I record this to be played in the event of my death, which is likely since I’m an old frail woman now.” the scratchy computer recording said.

  ”We need to go.” Thom said worriedly, and some of them nodded in agreement.

  Randall and Faye stood watching, since she had been the last of their friends here on the colony.

  “I hope I died for something I believed in, like getting you guys away from this forsaken place. You all deserve so much better than
Narcosia, but this is all you know, so you will never know. Well, I will bid you iowaska.”

  There was a long pause and they were turning away toward the mountains when she said “Oh and guys… thanks.”

  They stood a moment watching as the ionized gas of her hologram fizzed and dissolved into the flurries of sleet.

  Then they turned and donned the robes, and left the outer boundaries of the colony.

  As they walked through the hideous carnage and dead bodies toward the first of the mountain gorge, Minuet Farnon whispered to Port “Does this mean we could have brought more luggage?”

  “What?” Port hissed at her slightly, trying to concentrate on the less bloody ground around them. He shook his head dismissively and said “No.”

  Allstar suddenly leaned in at them both having overheard their conversation and grinned “I bring with me only what I stole.”

  Minuet cringed from her and the others that were walking behind them. As they reached the mouth of the mountain gorge they each began donning the shawls they’d taken from the sheriffs.

  Farnon led on ahead, as they slowly and carefully walked along the icy path in their new disguises.

  Within the Red Sector door the three men lay on the rock floor of the cave behind the falls. They held their heads and bleeding faces having been caught in the backwash of the EMP blast. Their blood trickled down the rock and through the door to the snow outside, forming a growing scarlet stain.

  They groaned and rolled over, but were unable to steady themselves enough to get up.

  “Don’t leave me.” Barron groaned as he watched the others disappear from view beyond the barbed wire.

  Arc, far across and beneath the icy surface of the crater, had freed an arm enough to lean it across the front of the trolley. He felt underneath the control panel and found an area of wires that were hotter than the rest.

  With another twist and after a little working he managed to get the other arm there too and leaned his arms inward and began to feel a way through the system of electrics. There were two that were required for simple motor function of the wheels, and so he pulled those wires free and peeled back the plastic coating with his thumbnails. He was pretty sure he had picked the correct wires, and since he had no real choice but to try he held the bare wires together.

  There was a flickering and the trolley powered up again. It shot off along the tunnel, and Arc, who would have to keep the wires connected tensed him arms against the fluctuating inertia.

  It took a while too long and Arc had become quite enraged when the trolley reached the cabin at the end of the track. The groan of the track brakes echoed loudly in the place.

  He shot a hole out of the side of the metal cabin and dived through, flopping out onto the soaking snow. He rolled on and to his feet and began pushing through the thigh high sleet around a giant radar dish that had fallen, then crumpled and sunk into the earth.

  He was panting and snarling like a mad man with each movement pulling the ice cold t shirt over his limbs. Massive hands of lightning rolled out over the thick black clouds above him and the thunder that followed cut through the land.

  Suddenly, when he felt the cold had crippled him and he couldn’t go on any further, his hip rammed into the fallen arm of the dish, folding him over it.

  There was a ringing nearby, not unlike the off tone bell he’d heard outside Red Sector. One of his eyes had frozen shut and he glared around with the other searching for the source.

  Then he saw something, atop an embankment that indeed did reach away in both directions like a mini crater. He stood up and limped toward it, still staring at the space over it as it hissed and fizzed back and forth as the sleet pounded it.

  He used his hands to help himself up the slope and slipped onto his side as he reached the top. When he gained his bearings he noticed that his hand was hanging inside the cloaking field, disappearing into the false image that was being projected. The static pulled and stung at his flesh, but he realized that within it was warm and dry.

  He shuffled closer to the field and leaned forward, pushing his head and shoulders through.

  Inside he saw first the bright glare of the many lights, then as his eyes adjusted he saw the three mammoth white citadels at intervals along the center of the zone. At this side of them were two sports fields full of young things throwing a frizball to one another in blatantly suggestive sporting clothes. They were laughing and playing with one another in the warmth of the place.

  Arc pulled his head back out and looked over his shoulder at the dome in the distance. After another scowl of thunder an arm of lightning struck its roof.

  Arc grimaced bitterly and then leaned into the force field and fell through it to the other side. He fell onto his back in a steel trough that ran around the full circumference of the inside of the crater, and lay in its cover while regaining his strength.

  He stared up at the sky that was a holographic projection a little like the inside of the biosphere, only this projected an illusion on the outside too. From the outside it looked like a large empty wasteland of snow and ice, while from the inside it looked like they were back on Lantis, with flowered meadows stretching away into an eerie infinity on all sides. And at the center of the illusion, the citadels and their sports facilities.

  He heard that ringing again as he lay staring up, and slowly pushed himself up by his elbows. Keeping his head as low as possible so not to be seen he looked around again at the place, and saw just ahead a rectangular tower reaching up from the base of the slope just below the trough. Its top was around his head height and he could see now within it a spinning dish emitting a ring every other cycle. There was a faint, milky beam reaching up from the tower, reaching right up to the sky above, and looking around the rest of the rim he found many more.

  It was an extremely high powered holo projection system, and practically ancient judging by the peeled painted all along its sides.

  Beyond it were the strange players, and the more he watched them the less he believed they were the controllers of the citadels. They squeaked and squawked like exited infants, but in far more suggestive attire.

  Arc tipped himself over the side and skidded down the slope to an outer fencing. He climbed up and flipped over it in full view of the players, and then walked toward them across the first of the track and field.

  The place felt bizarre to be in. He suddenly felt no connection to his surroundings, and felt no fear as the men and women approached. He wondered if this phenomenon would pass.

  The players came up to him on the grass and Arc smiled a wide, goofy grin.

  They stood and stared at each other for a moment then Arc pointed at their shirts and said “You’ve got too many defenders… Um… I’m looking for the citadel controllers.”

  “Who are you?” one of the more confident males said.

  “Who are you?” Arc said, being blatantly awkward.

  “We’re from there.” the same young man pointed back over at the furthest of the eerie citadels. “We’re an escort community.”

  “Prostitutes?” Arc said, genuinely taken aback.

  “We service the family in the command tower, here.” a girl beside him pointed at the nearest citadel, then thumbed the one in the middle and said. “The old timers aren’t so interested.”

  “Just one family?” Arc asked carefully. “I thought there were a group of families in this colony.”

  “Not any more.” the girl said, as if it were nothing at all. “They’re all one big happy family now.”

  Arc thought for a moment then said “Well, I guess it had to happen.”

  “Are you from one of the prisons? You must be a crim. You’re not meant to be here.” another woman said at an infantile gait.

  “Quit winging at me, you fucking whore. You’ll help me or I’ll kill ya all.” Arc said wearily pulling out his pistol.

  “We don’t want your sort here. How did you get all the way here?” the first girl probed him.

  “Wel
l it wasn’t easy in this weather.” Arc said sarcastically, then pointed the pistol at her face. “How do you guys get on and off this planet?”

  She pointed over her shoulder at a long, low roofed transport shuttle.

  “Just the one shuttle?” Arc said, pointing the gun at someone else.

  They all nodded and then Arc put the gun away.

  “Who the hell are you to judge us?” a young upstart of a man said from the back.

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Arc said rubbing the palm of his hand over his half frozen eye.

  “You should go back. There’s no way to escape from here.” One of the men said. “Cequodus built this place to last. Nobody has ever escaped. Never.”

  “Damn my mind is in flux… say why send me here at all? Treason against the royal house of Cequodus equals the death penalty. Why am I even in this stupid place? The Cequodus wouldn’t do it all without a profit margin.” Arc muttered, as if to himself.

  “I dunno. I’m just a male prostitute.” he said. “If you’re going to depress us then you can just go and get out of here. Lucille is right. We don’t need that kind of shit.”

  “Ah yes.” Arc nodded at him. “How do I get into that tower?”

  Arc pointed at the nearest citadel, the control tower.

  “You can see the bridge leading up from the central pathway. But the bridge has a gap that closes only when one of us is called up. You can’t jump past it.”

  “Lucky I brought the bike then, isn’t it?” Arc smiled, but they just looked more confused.

  Arc turned and started walking away.

  “What do you eat around here by the way?” he said to them over his shoulder.

  “We eat lots of burgers!” a girl said with an overexcitement. “And soda!”

  “I wouldn’t eat those burgers.” Arc said. “You’d be amazed at what they put in em.”

  Arc made his way back up to the top of the embankment and pushed through to the cold side. He then walked in a wide stride down to the bottom and then waded snow to the opposite side of the metal cabin, stepping over the two pipes that were running out from it to the zone.

  With the gun aimed carefully he shot the upper corner from the cabin and began pulling back the thin wall, bending it down to widen a hole. He reached in and grabbed the motorbike from the trolley, unclipped it and then pulled it half out of the gap.