by Alex Leopold
This will be easy, thought the shooter, I’ll get the girl right after I get the grizzly.
Yet, just as his cocking hammer struck the rifle’s blasting cap, the girl placed her hand on the ursinian’s shoulder and the two of them disappeared in a flash of white light.
“Crinks!” Someone shouted and the guards began firing into the yard.
“There!” One of them cried-out spotting a blonde girl materializing twenty feet from the space the dark-haired one had just vacated.
She was running with a houndsman who was carrying a woman in his arms. One of the rifleman tried to cut her down but the shot was wide and before he could get another one off they were gone.
“How do we hit ‘em?” A guard called out.
“Just shoot everywhere!” Someone shouted and then they were all firing blindly into the yard.
Cooper rematerialized seventy-yards from the library steps and waited for Acadia to release two more arrows before she reached for his arm.
“Switch!”
Run! Run like hell, her father had told her. She could see him doing the same with Ellis along the eastern perimeter trying his best to draw their fire.
“Switch!” She shouted again and they portalled sideways twenty-yards.
Don’t switch too far, he’d added. And whatever you do don’t let go. That last order though had come from Acadia, who’d wanted to remind Cooper that he was no anomaly and didn't want to be left behind.
They should’ve also warned her not to fall over her feet, Cooper thought, having to learn the hard way how difficult it was staying up right when you portal at a sprint.
Riley came out of the blue capsule thirty yards from the steps and fired her shotgun at a guard. Her eyes never left the library, knowing that Varick would be somewhere inside, waiting for her.
Her shot missed the Directory soldier. She slowed to improve her aim, but before she could pull the trigger, Redtail began shaking her arm frantically.
“Cannon! Cannon!” He yipped.
Riley barely had time to realize she’d switched them into its path before the guard ignited the cannon’s fuse.
“Switch!” She yelled and felt the earth explode around her as the capsule pulled her away.
Quill teleported for the eighth time and was now only a dozen yards from the library’s steps.
“I need to disable the guns.” He told Ellis as he pointed to the machine gun nest on the eastern plinth.
“Wait here.”
He channeled his abilities into his legs and leapt the eighteen feet up. Jumping onto the plinth, he struck the first guard with a spark to the chest. The second guard was too fast.
“You’re dead, crink!” The toady-blend said leveling his pistol at Quill’s chest.
Quill swiped his hand down and used the shift to telekinetically point the pistol’s barrel to the ground. The guard pulled the trigger before he could stop himself and shot himself in the foot.
As he cried out in pain, Quill drove the rush into him and the plasma-ribbon launched the guard over the barricade.
Quill turned his attention to the machine gun. Using the shift, he swiveled it around on its wagon wheels and pointed it toward the nest on the opposite plinth. He was about to turn the firing handle but stopped when he noticed someone familiar.
She’d vaulted over the barricade smoothly and in one fluid movement cut down the gunner’s assistant with her fighting staff before pressing the blade of her knife up against the gunner’s throat.
“You weren’t watching your back.” The felisian whispered into his ear then she drew the blade through.
58
When the guards saw they'd been robbed of their machine guns they quickly dropped their weapons and scattered.
“You came back!” A thrilled Cooper raced up the library steps and threw her arms around Mayat. “Knew you would.”
“We’re family.” The Sekhem replied softly into her ear as she let the young woman hug her one more time before pulling away. “And family don’t leave one another.
“With exception.” She said somewhat frostily to Acadia but the big ursinian didn't seem to hear her.
Surprising both women, he pulled Mayat off her feet and into his arms. Before she could stop him, he’d removed the black cloth that hid her mouth and kissed it.
She tried to squirm free, but his arms were so thick she could do nothing but yowl with surprise.
“Because I knew how much you needed that.” He said with a wide grin when she’d finally pushed herself free.
“I had no idea.” Cooper stammered. “I mean, I didn’t think you two even liked each other.
“What can I say, I’m irresistible.” Acadia winked.
“Stop wasting time, get inside.” Her father snapped.
He was running down the steps to where Riley was helping Redtail carry Nakano.
“She’s fading.” Riley said.
“Nothing we can do for her here!” He huffed. “We need to get into the gateway, the Directory will be back…”
The crack of a single gunshot cut him off.
Riley and Redtail picked up their feet and quickly ascended the stairs. At the top she turned to check on her father and found him swaying, almost like a drunk, as he struggled to walk.
“What’s the matter?”
“I …” A puff of material blew out the shoulder of his coat. He jerked forward unnaturally, then fell to the ground.
“No.”
Riley practically threw herself down to where he was lying.
“Myrmidons.” He said with a labored grunt and tried to push her away. He didn’t want her covering him.
“Where?” She scanned the yard.
“Not on the ground. He’s in the air.”
She barely believed her eyes. The shooter was a hundred feet up in the air, floating above the buildings like a bird in the sky.
She saw his long-rifle though and when he took aim at her father again, she didn’t hesitate. Covering his body, she used the shift to telekinetically slide them out of the way.
“Myrmidons!” She shouted to the others as the bullet ricocheted off the steps.
The Myrmidon had let his rifle drop to the ground and was reaching for his sword as he levitated himself to them.
“Go!” Her father grunted. “Run!”
It was too late, the Myrmidon came through the switch and ran up the steps to where they lay.
Acadia and Mayat hurled themselves at him, but the Myrmidon was too fast. He flung Mayat brutally against the wall of the raised plinth and shot the spark’s electric-flame into Acadia’s chest catapulting him to the bottom of the library’s steps.
“Get out of the way, girl!”
The Myrmidon shouted in her head as he gripped her by her throat and dragged her off her father. Raising her off her feet, he turned her to face him, his sword ready to plunge into her chest.
That was when their eyes met, and Riley saw something she could not believe.
She knew his face.
Intimately. Lovingly. And so very deeply that if she had to describe it she could’ve done so in almost perfect detail. It was the man from her visions. The man she loved.
“Varick?”
Her voice took him by surprise and the dark rage she’d seen a second ago in his cold blue eyes suddenly extinguished. He looked more closely at her and when he did she saw his whole body simply pause.
“Varick, it’s me.” She whispered desperately, almost tenderly, as she reached for him.
When her fingers touched his face he flinched away from her.
The rage returned within him. Screwing up his mouth, he placed the tip of his sword against her chest.
A throwing knife from Mayat stopped him from killing her, the blade sinking into his forearm and causing Varick to lose his sword. She threw a second at his heart, but before it reached him, Riley punched out her hands and hit Varick with the rush. He was sent him flying.
When he picked himself back up, he looked
at her with eyes burning with hate. Then they heard the sound of the firing handle on the machine gun being turned. Cooper had it aimed right at him.
“Next time.” He tapped to Riley then vanished through the switch as bullets drilled into the stone where he’d just stood.
59
Acadia ordered everyone inside the old library, yet Riley found she couldn’t move, could barley breathe. She was stuck. Trapped by a revelation she’d witnessed with her own eyes but didn’t want to believe.
Varick’s Directory, her mind told her as Cooper took her by the hand and almost dragged her inside the building. He’s always been Directory.
She checked on her father. Varick was going to kill him.
Acadia had him on his feet but had to hold him up by his gun belt to keep him standing.
“I’m okay.” He tried to reassure her but his legs were dragging and blood was dripping from his coat onto the ground.
“Pity your sister struck that scum with the rush.” Ellis said to Cooper as they crossed the library’s atrium and climbed the steps into the gateway chamber. “The knife from your cat-lady friend would’ve killed him.”
It hadn’t been a mistake. I did it on purpose, Riley thought. I used the rush to save him.
They’d entered the gateway chamber but Riley didn’t realize it. She didn’t feel the thickness of the air on her skin, or hear the sound of the furnaces firing the quicksilver. She could only replay one thought over and again in her head.
Everything she’d come to believe was a lie.
She did notice however, when Cooper shook her by her shoulders and slapped her across the face.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Her sister shouted at her with a confused look. “Cover your ears! They’re going to collapse the entrance.”
There was no blocking out the blast from the canon. It was so loud she felt it vibrate along her spine and when the shell exploded against the roof she watched as an avalanche of stone and smoke rained down onto the atrium, blocking it.
“That’s how you make a barricade.” The houndsman said proudly, it had been his idea to use the canon.
“Are you okay?” Cooper asked when the smoke cleared.
Riley shook her head.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then what the hell is wrong with you, Lee?” Cooper was getting annoyed.
“Varick was the Myrmidon.” She said quietly.
“Who?” Cooper asked. Then she placed the name and her eyes grew wide with disbelief.
“Oh my god, are you sure? Maybe you’re mistaken?”
Riley shook her head, there was no mistake. “It’s him.”
“Holy crap.” Cooper held a hand against her mouth. “Holy, holy crap.”
“What are you two discussing?” Their father asked as he made his way toward the machine.
“Nothing.” Cooper responded after Riley gave her a look.
“Then follow me. We haven’t got a lot of time.”
Their father ordered Redtail to turn a nearby valve. When he did it caused the machine to hiss loudly as the two ends of the glass orb came apart. Once it was open, they followed him across the gangway.
Inside a thin man in rags stood in front of a large bath of water.
“You the portaller?” Riley’s father asked, his voice sounded hoarse. “What’s your name?”
“Tipler.” The thin man replied warily.
“Tipler, I'm the Great Inventor, have you heard of me?”
Tipler nodded. “You built these machines.”
“That's right, and now I plan on using this one to escape to Hellanta where the resistance are hiding. Do you want to come?”
“I do, but I was not aware of any gateways in Hellanta.”
“That’s because there aren’t any.” Her father winced. The wound in his back was making it difficult to talk.
Tipler gave him skeptical look. “Well then, without another machine, I can’t portal you any further than a hundred miles maybe. Would’ve thought you of all people would know that.”
Acadia shrugged off the pack he’d been carrying. Unlocking the clasps he opened it to reveal the accumulator.
“I've found a way to get us there with just the one machine.”
60
A cheerful Goose, recently freed from Mayat’s holster bag had returned to his rightful place on Redtail’s shoulder and was loudly whistling, humming and talking as Redtail helped Riley carry Nakano into the shell.
“Good boy! Beautiful boy! When do we eat?” The macaw asked.
“Let’s see if we don’t die first.” Redtail replied after they laid Nakano’s body on the grating.
“Don’t die.” The macaw repeated. Then looking at Nakano he repeated himself. “Don’t die. Don’t die.”
“Not now, Goose.” Riley whispered and asked to be left alone with her.
“How are you feeling?” Nakano’s skin was white.
“I’m all spent up.” Her voice seemed resigned to her fate. “My body has taken me as far as it will go.”
“No, we’re going to fix you.” Riley promised, but Nakano shook away her attempts to comfort her.
“I'm a beacon. A tether between this world and the one that exists beyond it. I know what it feels like when you slip into the void.”
She slipped her notebook into Riley’s hands.
“You must carry it now.”
Riley didn’t want the book. After what had just transpired on the library steps she wasn’t sure if she trusted what was contained within its pages anymore. All her beliefs had been based on the fact that Varick was good. So if she was wrong about him – and she was wrong about him – then was she wrong about everything else too?
“Help your father fulfill his destiny.”
“Please don’t leave us.” Riley implored.
“My sister is calling for me, and I have longed to see her face again.”
The muffled sound of an explosion rocked the building and caught everyone’s attention, a second quickly following.
“They are coming.” Mayat said stepping into the shell and watching the two ends come together.
Tipler swallowed a green tonic from her father’s bag. Then he quickly lowered himself into the isolation tank and laid his body out on the reclining chair.
“Once I release the first tank of quicksilver we’ll only have ninety seconds to create a portal and tether it at the other end.” He said as his hand slipped into the metal glove that controlled the portal’s direction. “I can create the portal but you need to supply me the energy to cover the distance.”
“I’ll transfer the power to you from the accumulator.” Cooper’s father agreed as he drank his own tonic.
“I also need you to show me where to exit. I can’t visualize something as far as a thousand miles away.”
“I know where we’re going.”
Cooper’s father tried to remove his coat but shuddered from the pain.
“Let me help you.” She carefully pulled the coat off his shoulders and tried to hide her horror as she examined the wound in his back. Blood was running out of him like a leaky tap, and worse, the bullet was still in there somewhere.
“We need to fix you.” She said and looked about herself pathetically, she hadn’t the first clue of how to help him.
“There’ll be time on the other side.”
“Promise me you’re going to be okay?” She demanded.
He touched her face. “I promise you, I’ll never leave.”
“I'm sorry!” She blurted out as Acadia lower him into the tank behind the portaller, the blood from his wounds turning the water pink.
“I called you a coward. I ran away. I can’t believe I did that.”
He smiled. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
Then Tipler was calling for his attention.
“I'm ready.” The portaller said.
Her father twisted one end of the accumulator all the way round like a bottle top. When it bega
n to glow he placed one hand on the accumulator, the other he pressed against the back of Tipler’s head.
“Let's begin.”
61
When the portaller pulled the first lever, Acadia threw the power switch on and, as the quicksilver rushed through the thin glass tubes that wrapped the shell, hundreds of electric volts leapt from the four transmitters.
“Ninety seconds!” Acadia shouted having to raise his voice in order to be heard above the deafening hum of the machine.
Bathed in the accumulator’s blue light, Riley watched all this beside Nakano’s fading body. The notebook was still in her hand and she looked down at it with trepidation. What had once been full of such promise now only filled her with uncertainty. This could all be an illusion, she thought.
A loud bang outside the shell made her raise her head and through the gaps between the glass tubes she saw Varick staring back at her.
“Where are you going, little girl?” He shouted.
He’d struck the handle of his sword against one of the shell’s glass plates, splintering it. He was going to strike it again but a gateway operator stopped him.
“If you break the glass the machine will explode when they release the next tank!” The operator shouted.
She watched him throw his sword aside. When he looked back, she'd stepped closer to the glass.
“You don’t need to be here, Miss Riley, come away.” Redtail urged, but she didn't move.
“I can't, I'm where I'm supposed to be.”
Varick was watching her with one hand on the glass. She’d seen this play out a dozen times before and covered his hand with her own.
Please don’t say it, she begged silently even though she knew he had to.
“I’ll find you, I promise. Wherever you go, that’s where I’ll be.”
Riley didn’t say anything. She fell to her knees and prayed her father would soon spirit her away from this nightmare.
