The heavy door swung open, he heard a step, then one more, and he vaulted against the door with his shoulder, knocking the intruder back into the hallway. He grabbed at the handle and jerked the door inward. Flat on his back a green Pegasi pirate held a hand against his head and moaned quietly. Without hesitation Jackson jumped over the prostrate body with the grace of a gazelle and bolted down the hallway.
He didn’t recognize the building. This wasn’t the New Hope medical facility, but neither did he spot any clues to tell him where he actually was. Sterile, artless, seafoam colored walls with a dozen doors on each side of him funneled him to the unknown; the sound of his footfalls ricocheted behind him. He reached a dead end, no door, not even a window.
“Shit!” One of these doors had to go somewhere! Jackson returned up the hallway trying each door. On the fifth door his hands slipped on the slick handles, his heart raced and his adrenaline was pulsing. Door six, or maybe it was seven, didn’t open. He threw himself on door eight, grasping the handle and found himself hurled into the room, the door slamming shut behind him as he crashed headlong onto the cement floor.
The air was frigid and the room void of light. In blackness he barely knew which way was up and crawled on hands and knees toward the direction he thought he’d come from. Reaching the wall he stood and felt around for a lighting control and found nothing. He slid his feet to the right, keeping his hands on the wall to orient himself and try to figure out just what fresh hell he landed in. This wasn’t any better than before, except perhaps that the door wasn’t locked.
His foot stopped at a solid object; he reached toward the blockage and found a table of sorts, heavy, hard, warm like wood. He slid around it and back to the wall when he fell over something, probably a chair. Something metallic crashed, clattered, then fell on top of him, hitting him in the chest.
“What the hell is this?” he shouted, flinging the bucket off and against the wall where it kablanged with a nerve jangling but satisfying smash.
“Tom?”
Jackson’s heart stopped for a moment but only a moment.
“Scott?”
“Buddy! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, not that I can see you now.” The captain stumbled through the blackness toward the voice.
“What are you doing here?” Tom asked.
“I was kidnapped by a Pegasi outside the stadium. You?”
“Yeah, so was I, on the way to New Hope. The unholy spectacle was making me sick, so I left, and then when I tried to reach Maria Mi- oh! Sorry,” Tom said. He’d bashed into the chair Scott occupied and fell halfway across his friend’s lap.
“You’re okay; there’s another chair here.”
“It’s as black as a coal mine in here. Is there a light?”
“I haven’t found one.”
“Why are you sitting here? The door was open, let’s go!”
“It must lock behind you. I tried for hours but I gave up. I didn’t know it was you, Tom or I would have said something when you came in. I thought you were a Pegasi.”
Tom felt around and planted himself in the other chair adjacent to Scott, relieved to be off the floor and off his feet.
“Have you eaten anything?”
“No, I’ve been here in the dark for hours. You?”
“My room was lit and there was food and water, but no furniture,” Tom said.
“How’d you get out?”
“A Pegasi came in and I knocked him over with the door, took off. I thought maybe this was the way out.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Captain. Nice to have some company, although I wish we were both on the other side of that door.”
“Do you know where we are? They knocked me out, I woke up in the room on the floor.”
“We’re not in New Hope anymore. They took me several kilometers outside the city. When I tried to run, though, they kicked me down and I couldn’t walk. They dragged me in here and that’s all I know.”
“Have you seen Wagner? I thought the two of you were at the game.”
“No. I never even got inside the stadium.”
“Be glad you didn’t. It’s like those old historical movies about the Romans and lions and gladiators. It’s carnage. I just lost all respect for these people. They’re savages.”
“The Cinconians? They’re pacifists,” Scott said.
“I thought so, but not from what I saw. If this is how they elect their government, we ought to just let them live with the plague. It took down the Roman Empire, and that’s exactly what they deserve.” Tom fumbled with the zipper on his jacket.
“You don’t really mean that,” Scott said. Tom thought briefly and guilt inched up on him, forcing him to agree.
“I just wish their leaders would get it and the people could go about their business. And keeping an entire race of their own species at the bottom of society, well, that’s just wrong.”
“It’s their culture, Tom, it works for them, we can’t be their judges or juries.”
“You’re right, and I won’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be disturbed by what I see around me here. Not that I can see anything at the moment.” Tom shifted in the large chair hoping for a more comfortable position. “These chairs aren’t half bad for Cinconian furniture.”
“I took a long nap in this one,” Scott said.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Tom asked. He found a pillow on the chair could be moved to his lumbar and support his back in the soft hollow. “I think,” Tom continued, “that Dukvita must be around somewhere, wanting us out of the way so he can keep his antibiotic trade going.”
“That’s logical,” Scott said. “Think they have anyone else?”
“I’m betting they have everyone else. I’m wondering what’s happening on Maria Mitchell.”
They sat in silence for a minute. Tom rarely felt helpless but he was at a loss for a plan. Everything was locked up like Alcatraz. He heard the handle on the door click and snapped to attention, tapping Scott, or perhaps the arm of the chair.
“I hear it,” the man hissed. Tom crept silently across the floor toward the microscopic crack of light on the wall. Scott followed close behind him. The door inched open and the crack of light grew wider. Tom could see finally, that the room was small and another chair across from their pair was empty. The door inched again and squealed on its hinges. He looked at Scott, holding up his hands so Scott would stay behind him and at bay. They flattened themselves against the wall.
“Human?” a low voice asked, and a green head appeared in the crack. “Human?”
Tom held his breath. The Pegasi had to get inside the door before he dared. The door opened wide and the two men stood behind it in utter silence. The Pegasi that Tom had slammed in the hallway stepped in and looked around. Tom jabbed Scott in the ribs and leapt forward. With a primal scream he jumped on the brute’s head and Scott shouted and dove for the giant’s legs, the two of them sending the big man to the ground in an instant.
Tom sat on the big green chest and with every fiber in his body he slugged the ugly face against the temple, knowing the toxin would get him but also knowing his most vulnerable spot given Tom’s limited strength against anyone that size. Scott stood and jumped on the Pegasi’s knees. He moaned.
“Come on!” Tom shouted. They climbed off the brute and sprinted out the door into the corridor where bright, almost blinding light stopped long enough to grab the door and slam it behind them, trapping the green devil. “This way,” Tom suggested, heading away from the dead end. While they ran he burnished his knuckles against his jacket and, gratefully, the tarry toxin began to rub off.
At the end of the hallway past Tom’s confinement room another door looked promising. They skidded the last two meters and tried the door gently. It obeyed and opened into the dusky light of early evening. As the two of them shot through the door, the alarm sounded on a dozen electronic sirens mounted inside and outside the building. Like escaping from Scotland Yard, a nee-naa nee-naa sound blared across the open fields.
“Run!” Tom yelled over his shoulder; he and Scott sprinted across the yard toward a grove of trees. The sound dwindled as they increased their distance by a kilometer. Eta Cassiopeia slipped behind a mountain; the landscape darkened and dramatically cooled in a matter of minutes.
“Tom!” The captain turned and saw what Scott saw: their footsteps in the grassy mud leading from the building directly to their position. “Nothing we can do now,” he said, and they dashed into the woodland. The mud soon turned to brown and yellow leaf litter that masked their trail. “Come on, we have to get deeper.”Both men hunkered into their jackets and slowed their pace as the visible light faded and snowflakes drifted down; they plunged deeper into the darkness until they couldn’t run another step.
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