Off Center (The Lament) (30 page)

"Damn
it, Will! We were told that the Guardian would be coming with Pran. If she's out
there, then we need to go and get her."

The
voice was familiar enough, being Zeke. He sounded concerned at least, instead of
angry. Will, when he answered, did too, as far as that went. Why that was however
was hard to tell.

"I
know. It's dark out there, and that kid freaks me out. We never did figure out if
she was a spy or not. Whose side is she really on? I can see that taking her and
doing a Download makes sense, just like with her friend here, but if the one came
in alone... Well, how likely is it that he brought a little girl with him for backup?"

There
was a long pause and Zeke did something, changing where he was standing it seemed,
since his voice changed.

"That
won't work, Guardian Clark. You can't escape that way. These are designed differently
than the restraints you're used to. This won't hurt. We just need to replace you
with one of our agents. It's risky, but our sources in your High Council think that
having one of our personnel running the investigation into us will help. You have
to admit, it's not a bad plan, if we can pull it off. It will probably take a bit
for a match to be made. That's the real problem here, isn't it? We'll likely end
up with some scientist that doesn't know how to find his ass with both hands. What
can we do about it?"

Pran
got the idea, though there were no windows on the little dwelling to peek in to.
They had Clark, and were planning to replace him with someone else.

That...

Wasn't
going to work for her. If she had the idea right, it wasn't going to work at all.
His brain should be different than most people's from all those years of Guardian
training. Moving without rhythm and all that. The other mental disciplines that
they'd only hinted at to her. They weren't just going to find someone else that
thought like that in their network, she didn't think. Even if they
did
find
someone, they wouldn't have the needed skills at all.

That
meant, she realized that they weren't going to have the High Guardian either. Or
the High Judge, since those skills were ones that you couldn't fake very easily.
So, when they got to the capital, they might be able to trust them. Being a Bard
just took an artistic person though, didn't it? That was probably a thing that people
from the past might be able to fake. Singing had been around for a long time after
all, and so had playing and storytelling. So Clarice might be one of them.

That
was less than grand to figure out, but it did give her an idea. After all, she had
no weapons to speak of, and doubted very strongly that she was going to beat two
grown men in a fight. So what could she do that they wouldn't expect? What would
be so off center and without rhythm that they couldn't counter it easily?

She
stood up, brushed her dark clothing off and walked to the little door, and then...

Knocked.
Politely.

"Zeke?
Will Butcher? It's Pran. Go ahead and let me in. We have you surrounded. There's
no possible escape." She made her tone sound nearly giddy, as if she were joking
around with them.

"
What
?"
This came from Will, who sounded scared. Really frightened, almost to the point
of panicking. She didn't want that, since he clearly had some kind of weapon in
there. They had to have something good, if they took Clark alive.

She
knocked again.

"Yep.
The horses and I have you covered. Open up now. We don't have all day for this,
I have news for you."

She
did too. Oh, it was all made up, but they didn't know that. Not yet.

The
door made a small scratching sound, scraping as it opened, and a weapon pushed out
at her. It was like a kinetic pistol, but had a strange closed end on it. She stepped
to the side and grabbed it from Will's fingers as it hummed wildly, making her feel
faint. It was in his left hand, and while not broken, he was still too banged up
to fight her very well. Probably right handed too, but that arm had a splint on
it. If he knew how to fight at all, it didn't show as he gasped in pain from the
sudden action.

Then,
almost as if by reflex, she turned the weapon and tested it on the bearded man.
It worked pretty well, this bit of old tech. He went down like a sack filled with
potatoes.

When
she stepped into the small room, it was well lit, electric lights hanging from the
ceiling in several places. It was nearly too bright, to be honest. Zeke was standing
there with another of the sound making devices in his hand, pointing it at her,
but he was polite enough not to use it yet, so she didn't either.

"Now
that's a fine hello, isn't it? After all that work I did getting him free too. You
know what? I'm keeping all his stuff. He still has a house and a barn mainly full
of meat." She moved past Will, and then turned her back on the other man, carefully
pulling the downed one into the room, so that she could shut the door. It was chilly
outside and all the heat would be escaping. "My hands are still tingling. Anyway,
there's been a change of plans. You and Will are supposed to go to that base thing,
because both Clark and I are immune to the Download thing. I mean, we could go inside
the Network, but not get out? I don't know all of it, so don't ask, but it has something
to do with how our brains are built?" She shrugged, waiting for Will to groan
or try to get up. He didn't move at all however. She had to check to make sure he
was breathing, which he was.

To
her left there was a table set up, with Clark strapped to it. Those were made of
thick leather, with large buckles on them. He was looking right at her, but had
a gag in his mouth, his right hand working, trying to undo the bonds still. She
turned away from him, her new weapon pointed at the ground.

"Do
you know where that is? The place you need to go?"

"The
Utah compound? I suppose, who told you all this?"

She
looked at the man, who needed a shave, she realized. That or to let his beard grow
all the way out. Right now he looked like a bandit.

"I
got word from Doctor Millis. Where
he
got it from I don't have a clue. For
all
I
know he made it all up, because he likes us." She looked at the
man, who was still pointing his strange looking weapon right at her. It had a nice
bluish silver sheen to it. Decorative. She liked it, though it didn't seem much
like a real pistol at all, now that she had a good chance to look at it.

"I...
We were told to take both of you, to control the investigation into us. No one mentioned
the conversion process not working on you." Zeke looked at Will, and noticed
that he hadn't been fired on yet, it seemed, since he relaxed a bit. That didn't
get the thing lowered at all, but a bit of tension left him. "Was there a code
given for this?"

That
nearly got her to freeze up. Was there
supposed
to be a code for things she
was just pulling from her behind like that? She sighed and shook her head.

"Not
exactly. Doctor Millis did say that I should let you know that Michael Morse is
a Jackass? Does that mean anything to you?" She didn't let herself hold her
breath, but still jumped when he laughed, since it came so suddenly.

"Oh,
that sounds like the Doctor at least. Well, when the others get here they can help
with it. I can't do the processing anyway and Will won't wake up for a bit. I can
offer you a meal? Dried meat and some fruit. It's mainly what you got for us."

He
turned, so didn't notice Pran lifting her weapon and shooting him. Or at least he
shouldn't have. He moved to the side, dropping to a knee and fired back. Pran wasn't
half as elegant, tripping over Will like she was, but she kept spraying the room
with invisible sound. The hum was deafening, but enough of it caught the man in
front of her that he went limp, and after a second, more head on blast, he dropped
like Will had.

The
problem there was that the man had also hit Clark, who was just as asleep as the
other two men. Pran wanted to curse, her left hand side numb, she noticed, now that
it was all over.

"I
must have taken a partial hit." She said it our loud and then sighed. If there
were people coming, she wasn't in any position to fight them. Not alone. "So...
What to do?"

Technically,
at the moment, she had two prisoners. That wouldn't do her a lot of good, depending
on who was coming, if anyone really was. Zeke had seemed pretty certain they were,
but she would have lied about that, if she were him. He might have too. What she
could do was try to get Clark out of there, and at least hidden. She shot Will again,
so he wouldn't wake up, and had to just hope that it wouldn't kill him. Then, slowly,
over the next half hour, she managed to get Clark free and slowly, with one hand,
drag him outside. It wasn't all the way to the horses or anything, but after a while
he opened his eyes, and while he couldn't help much yet, he did a little, as the
feeling slowly started to return to her left arm.

By
the time they got all the way back to the giant and shaggy war beast and her far
more proper horse, he was able to nearly walk. She still had to help him get up
on the horse, and then lead them both, on foot, down the road, as fast as she could.
It wasn't a good pace at all, given everything. Mainly it was the dark, and her
own limping. She didn't hurt, but her leg wasn't working totally yet, either.

There
were lights, eventually, that came from the sky, along with a roaring sound. She
moved the beasts, the still loopy Clark and herself off the path, and hid under
an evergreen tree. The bright light seemed to be looking for them, so either they'd
been told to search, whoever these new people were, or they really just liked to
look around when they had a chance.

Either
way, she huddled there, trying to calm the horses, and not moving for a very long
time. In fact, Clark was nearly recovered when she felt ready to leave, though not
walk. She wasn't riding a horse at night, but the light from the sky vanished and
had a while before, seeming to move further away. She walked them, silently, not
even speaking to her friend.

Not
until morning.

When
light came, she rested the horses and he slid off, all signs of shakiness having
left him, finally.

"Well,
that could have gone better. Did you see the weapon they used? I don't recall ever
having heard of that before. I couldn't move."

She
pulled the one she had from her waistband.

"I
got one. That and some information is about all I have to show for this. What are
we going to do, Clark? Someone on the High Council set us up to have our lives stolen!
I don't know if you heard Zeke, but that part seemed pretty real. This whole thing
was a trap for us. What do we do?" She could hear the panic in her own voice
now. It had been a feeling that had grown while the giant light searched for them,
like an eye from outer space, searching for them without end. Oh, it had finally
left, but it could return at any time, couldn't it?

There
may not always be a tree handy to hide under either.

She
nearly asked what they could do again, when Clark smiled and shook his head.

"What
can we do? Add some confusion to the whole thing. You and I will stay out for the
whole two weeks, and come back... acting just a little different. Then we head to
the capital. They might have word that we're still us, or they might not, but we
can see if faking it might just loosen things up. We can find out more about where
they're hiding their main base. If we can get that, then we stand a chance of ending
this, once and for all, finally." He seemed serious about it, as a plan, which
left her feeling just a bit scared.

Could
she fake being a slightly different version of herself?

That
idea nearly got her to laugh. Of course she could.

"It
might be in Utah. Not that I know where that is, but Zeke mentioned going to the
compound there. I... Should we go back for them? If they're still there, then we
might..." She really didn't want to try that. It was a stupid idea, going back.

Clark
loved it.

"Lead
on. If we can take them by surprise we might get even more information." He
turned and started to ride back.

It
wasn't far, but the three buildings were all totally empty when they returned. There
wasn't even dust on the floor to show footprints. That meant hiding, she realized,
since they didn't want to find them again. Or at least she didn't. That had been
far too close already.

Her
life wasn't always the best, but it was hers, and not having her mind stolen was
a good thing, as far as she knew. Yes, Doctor Millis had spun a good tale for her,
about how wondrous the Network and the fake world there was, but if it was all that
great, why were people from there trying to leave it?

For
that matter, why try to take over at all? Why not just, oh, send a note or something?
There had to be a better way than infiltration and building up a military, didn't
there? What that was, she didn't know, but almost anything would work, she thought.
They had enough people to change things, and they could have done it slowly, over
time.