Shadow of Alpha (v1.0), page 17
“Didn’t notice your hero trying to save us this time,” McLeod whispered harshly.
“He didn’t turn on you, either,” Parric snapped. “In case you’ve forgotten, there are four of us.”
The man wiped his face, brushed at his trousers, and scanned the ground for his hat, finding it behind the front wheel. He was grinning in spite of welling bruises on his right cheek, and nodded as he tried to comb the dirt from his hair with his fingers.
“ Well, you do come out when you ’ re told, ” he said. “I got to say that much. But why jump me? I mean, what have I done?”
“Bastard,” McLeod said despite Peg’s tugging at his arm. “If I wasn’t so tired from driving—”
“Oh, probably,” the man said, “but right now you are and I’m not, so let’s be friends, all right?”
“Friends?” Peg said. “What are you going to do, rob us?”
“Not me,” he said, looking insulted. “I’m no thief, I’m a soldier.”
“Then where’s your uniform?”
“Don’t have one, little lady. I don’t belong to the 'ContiGuard, if that’s what’s in your mind. I’m in Quilly’s army.”
"Never heard of him." Her folded arms emphasized her disdain. .
“You will. Now I want you to follow Mark over there. He’s going to put you all up for the night.”
“Frank!” she said, but he only shook his head and pointed to the raised rifles.
“Frank!”
“Hush, damn it!” McLeod said, taking her arm and pulling. “Do you want to get me killed?”
Parric heard them arguing, wanted to shut them up, but the man called Mark was walking only a few paces to his right, leading them off the road and down a winding, stepped trail toward, he could see through the trees, a village larger than the one they had seen earlier. Twice Jessica tried to goad their guard into talking, but she received nothing more than a general, menacing swing of his weapon. "Five against one,’ ’ he heard Peg say to McLeod in a ludicrous attempt at whispering, but when he turned around he saw Cam jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the road above where the two remaining guards were watching them through their rifles’ sights. Suddenly Peg began to cry and McLeod, from anger to comforter, hugged her close and didn’t let go until they had quit the trees and found themselves in a small park behind a two-story fieldstone building. Eisentor, Parric though instantly as he looked past the circular flowerbeds to the ordered streets beyond. He smiled, then, at Jess whose shivering led him to believe she’d received the same impression, but winced when the man called Mark jabbed his knee with his rifle and pointed to the side of the building.
“Up the stairs, first room, they’re waiting on you,’’ he said, pushing aside a heavy metal door.
“It talks,’’ McLeod said, and glared back when the guard stared angrily at him.
“Come on, old man, move it!’’ Mark snapped, pushing Dix in behind Parric and Jessica. “I haven’t got all day.’’
“Brave, too,’’ McLeod said, and when the rifle was swung in his direction, he grabbed the barrel, yanked, and threw it across the street. He nodded once, waited a moment before closing the door in the man’s face and running up the short flight of steps to join Peg.
“Could have been killed,’’ Dix said without turning around.
McLeod was silent for a moment. “You going to tell me you care?’’
“Yep.’’
“Damn,’’ he said. “I wish ...”
Parric waited until they’d reached the small landing, too numbed by their sudden capture to do more than follow instructions. It would have been foolhardy for anything else, he realized, since anyone in this town could instantly brand them strangers and ask questions he probably could not answer.
The room they entered was large, one of the biggest Parric had ever seen. A full ten meters on a side, it was virtually without furniture except for a battered conference table in its center. There were four chairs spaced irregularly around it, and on the walls nothing but the yellow and gray that had crept in yearly to discolor the paint.
“Not bad,’’ McLeod said, walking around. “Wish it had windows, though. I’d like to see what the rest of the place looks like.’’
“Not me,” said Jessica. “I just want out.”
“Why?” Peg said. “They’re not going to rob or kill us. Maybe they just want to know about where we came from. Maybe they’re just nervous we might be carrying the plague or something. You know, enemy spies?”
“Maybe,” Parric said, “but I doubt it. I had been thinking it would be silly to try anything, but now I’ve changed my mind. Some or all, we’ve got to get to the Central.”
“You worry too much," Dix said, sitting at the head of the table. “When we find out, doc, then we do something.”
“Is he always right?” McLeod said.
Parric shrugged, thinking incongruously of the song Dix had wanted him to like almost a light-year ago, and he was about to ask him to sing it when the door opened and several oddly uniformed men entered. They were all armed to one degree or another, and none of them smiled like the guard on the road.
Chapter 14
Parric awakened with his skull embroiled in a volcanic eruption. He sobbed and clutched at his hair as if to tear it out.
Who are you, Mr. Parric?
I told you who I was. Franklin Parric. From Philayork. My friends and I were out on a vacation when the war news broke. We—
You said that already, Mr. Parric. But you haven't answered my question. Who are you, Mr. Parric? And who are your friends ?
It was dark, too dark to see even his hands when he pressed them against his cheek to keep his teeth from rattling to the floor. He was leaning against a wall, his legs twisted behind him. He tasted blood and spat, and when he felt he would no longer vomit, he placed a hand on the surface beneath him, and it was earth, and damp.
If you’ve been traveling as long as you say, Mr. Parric, why isn't your landcar more dirty ? Did you stop often to clean it? I’ve heard you city people are a cleanly lot, but I didn ’t think it would extend to lengthy trips in the country.
What town is this ?
We’re thinking about renaming it, Mr. Parric, so its former title will have no meaning for you. Especially if you’re from the city and wouldn’t know it anyway.
I told you a hundred times, I’m from—
Philayork and you work as a clerk in some ridiculous insurance company. All right, Mr. Parric, that much I can believe—
—then how about letting me out of this. What have I done, for crying out loud?
You? Probably nothing, Mr. Parric, but we are interested in your friends. You see, there was a mediteam in here not too long ago that supposedly took care of our needs concerning that war you said you heard about. Well, Mr. Parric, that mediteam was a sham. We had a lot of people die rather horribly around here.
Minutes later the aching subsided, burrowing wormlike but not forgotten. He passed his hands around him on the floor, looking for clues, finding nothing but dirt, dampness, and the stench of his lunch. With his teeth grinding, he pushed himself up against the wall, stood, but carefully since the lack of light threatened his balance, and for a long and vertiginous moment he felt as if he were falling slowly into a wide-mouthed well. A sudden shift and he was convinced he was standing on a narrow ledge. He flattened himself against the wall and edged along its base, his hands spread to either side. It took him a while to realize the wall was constructed of wood, roughly cut, perhaps even unpainted.
When he came to the first comer he stopped, reached above him, then squatted to examine the floor, stood, and moved again, counting this time to give him an estimate of the room’s size, something, anything to lend substance to the well that threatened to suck him under.
Listen, whoever you are—are you Quilly, by any chance?
Now be honest, Mr. Parric. Do you think Quilly would bother with innocent travelers just passing through his country?
His country? What the hell kind of talk is that? This is Noram, and I suggest you don’t forget it.
Noram ? My dear Mr. Parric, Noram was, not is. Things have changed since you've been gone, sir, and may I suggest you don’t cling to the old ways too long or you could easily get yourself hurt.
Look, mister, I really don't know what's going on around here, and I'd appreciate it if you'd fill me in. And while you're at it, you might tell me what's happened to my friends.
The second and third walls were the same: blank, splinter filled, and much taller than he could reach. Several times he stopped, turned to face what he thought was the room’s center, and stared, trying to find cracks of light that would guide him to a window or a door. But there was nothing but the gnatlights in his head that confused and dizzied him. He considered the possibility of being in a below-ground cell of some sort with no entrance but a trap in the ceiling; but he dismissed it immediately it occurred to him, not for the implausibility but for the desperation that would immobilize him when he would be unable to reach the exit. He moved again, slowly, his hands lightly brushing the wall, tender nevertheless and beginning to sting. And when, in an overhead movement, his fingers traced the metal outline of a pinned hinge, he had to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep from shouting.
Nothing has happened to them, Mr. Parric. They are as well-kept as you, perhaps even better.
If you call being tied to a chair ten sizes too small well-kept, then I hope to hell they're better.
You're short-tempered, Mr. Parric, a trait which will get us nowhere. Now, if you please, who are you and where are you coming from ?
You must be deaf.
I understand perfectly what you told me, Mr. Parric. What I want now is the truth.
I gave you that, too, but apparently our definitions aren’t quite the same.
Obviously.
What's that?
A needle, Mr. Parric. I should have thought of this before.
What are you going to do ?
Now don't get hysterical, Mr. Parric. I'm only going to draw a little blood. That is, if you have any.
You 're kidding. You mean to tell me you think I'm—
—an android? Could be, Mr. Parric. Stranger things have happened since the war, you know. Stories, if you know what I mean. About bands of superhuman men rampaging around the countryside raping women and burning little children to death. Tearing men apart with their bare hands, that sort of thing. The usual exaggerated nightmares, I suppose, but they do have some basis in fact.
What makes you think that ?
Why, Mr. Parric, we’ve killed a couple ourselves, right here in town. They tried to pass for human. Can you imagine that? Tell me, Mr. Parric, and it won’t hurt a bit, are your friends human, too ?
There was no disappointment when he found the door locked, but a genuine shudder of relief that his earlier fear of an underground cell could be buried without mourning. He listened for what he hoped was a long time, time now being nothing without a watch or light by which to measure it. Listened, hearing nothing but his own labored breathing, his own blood pounding to get him out. That the door was hinged gave him a much better chance to escape than a regular exit, and when he found the knob he pulled steadily until his arms ached at the shoulders. He stopped, listened again, then tried a series of quick jerks, each more frantic than the last, until he slumped onto the floor and tried not to cry. Without tools he could not hope to pry off the hinges or rip out the lock; without light, he couldn’t hope to find what weaknesses the door had except by touch alone, and his hands were too sore to be reliable. He crawled around on the floor, then, searching for something to use, one hand brushing over the dirt, the other held stiffly in front of him to guard against striking a wall. And there was nothing, not even a rock thin enough to be of some use. He sat, the walls somewhere beyond him, and began delving into his clothes. He knew there was nothing there, but he had to be sure, and in searching found a triangular piece of metal and glass tucked deep in a pocket.
Mr. Parric, we might as well be honest with each other. We're not quite as primitive as some of our young men would lead you to believe. There was a link between our roadblocks—
—I gathered that. So what?
So, Mr. Parric, it seems that one of the ladies with whom you are so innocently traveling was part of the mediteam that thought it was helping us. You look surprised.
I didn’t think anyone recognized doctors, especially when they're too busy doling out shots.
This particular lady is most striking, you have to admit, Mr. Parric, and as she is part and complete a factor in our troubles, naturally we wanted to meet her again. And just as naturally we wanted to meet her friends.
I don't understand. If you were inoculated, how did you get the plague?
Oh, we're working on that, Mr. Parric, believe me. The best our local medicine men have come up with for the moment is that the synthidote was not entirely pure to begin with. Perhaps haste in its manufacture, perhaps something inherent in its basic structure. At any rate, Mr. Parric, it didn't work for all of us, and needless to say we are not very happy about it.
You could at least be thankful you 're not Eisentor.
We could be, and we are, Mr. Parric, but that hardly changes matters, does it?
He thought and remembered: in carrying Jessica out of the Town where Ike had been killed, he was the one who had opened the barriers, had thought he had returned the patchkey to Jessica, which caused him to blame her when they could not immediately get into McLeod’s Town. When he had changed clothes, he had absently transferred his pockets’ contents without checking them. He wanted to see himself smiling, hugged himself instead, and it was Time again as he searched the walls for the door, then waited a millennium until nerve regrouped and he felt for the gap between the lock housing and the frame. And when he found it he breathed. Carefully he slid the key against the bolt and tried to push it back into the door. The key slid twice along the bolt before it caught, and moved, but not enough. He beat back frustration and tried again.
A simple matter of justice, Mr. Parric.
Nonsense.
You’re a rather brave man for one in your position.
Stand me up and I’ll show you how shitless I’m scared, mister, but that doesn’t change things for me, either. If what you say is true, then—
Oh, please, Mr. Parric, stop playing with me. You forget I make up the rules here.
If what you say is true, then you ’re considering the rest of us guilty by association.
That’s a good way to put it, Mr. Parric.
And what happens to us?
We have three choices: we could kill you all right now and be done with it. We could detain you indefinitely as an example to those few remaining recalcitrants who aren’t exactly taken with Quilly’s, shall we say, presence ? Or we could let you go free and forget all about you.
I prefer the last one, if you don’t mind. The other two are senseless.
Senseless, Mr. Parric, only when you ’re not trying to prove something.
Are you?
Not me, Mr. Parric, but Quilly certainly is. Absolutely. I think, Mr. Parric, the phrase is: I’ll see you at dawn.
The door opened slowly as Parric stuffed the patch-key back into his pocket and stood to one side. There was light, dim but bright enough to momentarily blind him. Without looking back, he stepped out and closed the door. He was in a hall cluttered with unidentifiable pieces of machinery, split and warped lumber, and plastiboard cartons piled in unsteady rows to the ceiling. At a junction some twenty meters away was a small bulb fastened to the wall and a second corridor running at right angles to the first. There were no other doors that he could see, no guards or sensing devices readily apparent. Picking his way over the litter, he managed to reach the light without undue noise. He waited a moment, listening, sniffing once at the nausea clinging to him before looking around the comer. A maze, it seemed to him. To the left was another bulb marking yet another junction, to the right a triple fork, and no doors or lights. The silence began to fade into faint background sounds of gurgling pipes, floorboards trod upon above him and, closer, someone crying. To the left, and he saw a door similar to the one he had just jimmied; and again, no guards. He smiled at his cap-tors’ self-confidence, trusted in their continued faith as he entered the new hall and crept to the door. Knocking once, lightly, twice, once, he tried the knob, found it locked, and freed it with the patchkey. Jessica stood blinking at him before accepting his arms and clinging with her own before he led her away. There was no conversation, he permitted none until retreating to his own hall and pressing his lips against her ear to ask if she knew where the others were. She shook her head, then pointed past her own cell and shrugged. He thought, then led the way to the next corner, the next door, and Dix, who was sitting in the middle of the floor, humming.
Parric watched the android rocking, wondering if he had been discovered, but when he called in a whisper, Dix turned and smiled, rose and followed.
Several times, in the labyrinth of the underground prison, they found themselves retracing their steps, finding their footprints in layers of dust, seeing the junk they had pushed aside to clear their way. Many passages were impassable, two others blocked by solid metal doors that stymied breaching. Parric began to fear becoming hopelessly lost, entrapped by his own daring in a warren to which he was a stranger. For half an hour they crouched against a wall listening to sounds of increased activity directly above them, a great deal of running and, finally, muffled shouts. When it quieted, they moved cautiously again, this time trying to follow the sounds’ direction, and in following, discovered a staircase.
“Choice,” Parric whispered, the word echoing unpleasantly in his ear. “We try for the Central and bring back help, or we risk getting caught and find Peg and Cam.”
