The Fourth Sage (The Circularity Saga) (16 page)

"How do you know?"

"I don't know how, but you’re obviously communicating with him."

"Her."

"Her. Ask her where they are."

"Two floors above us," Aries answers.

"Okay. Stay behind me."

"What're you gonna do?" Aries asks.

Ty looks around. "Improvise, I guess."

They move into yet another hallway, but Ty stops, turns around, and peers around the corner, watching the staircase. When Aries can hear the footsteps above their heads, she presses her back toward the wall of the exchange unit. She watches Ty as he listens intently to their movement.

"They're coming," she says quietly.

Ty nods slightly, then throws the thermos over the railing and down the stairs. It hits the steps, generating a loud echo as it bounces off the metal treads on its way down. The movement above them stops. Then it continues, faster than before and down the stairs onto their floor. When she closes her eyes, Aries sees an image of the four men coming toward them. They hold about six feet of distance between each other. She can't identify the guns they are holding, but they look like rifles. One by one, the figures pass them and descend the stairs. Once the last one has passed, Ty turns toward Aries. "Come."

As quietly as possibly, they move past the stairway and through several hallways back toward the other staircase. When they are about to go down, Ty pulls Aries around a corner between two transformers, gesturing to her to be quiet. He lifts one finger. Now she hears it. A single set of footsteps, coming closer. Ty shakes his head. They hadn't bought it. The man steps into their field of vision and turns toward them. At that moment, Ty's hand shoots forward, grabbing the rifle and turning it upward. With his other hand he hits the man, who is easily a foot-and-a-half taller than him, in the throat and once more to his right temple. He makes a gurgling sound and staggers backward. Ty grabs him and pulls him down while holding one hand over his mouth. The man loses consciousness before he hits the floor. For a second, Ty and Aries don't move. Then Ty begins to search the man's pockets.

"We've got about ten seconds. Let's go," he says, and gets up. Aries follows and they make their way down the stairs.

"Don't you want to take his rifle?" she asks.

"It's useless. Only he can fire it. I'd have to cut off his thumb if I wanted to use it. We have to get to the other side. There's a lift a few stories below that takes us down forty more floors. Even though I think we should go up rather than down."

"But we can't go up," Aries says quietly, as she takes several steps at once to get up another staircase. "We have to go downward."

They run, as quietly as they can, through the hallways and toward the opposite side of the core.

I can see the lift.
Aries hears Born-of-Night's thoughts.

Where are you?
she asks.

Where I can see you.

When they reach the stairwell on the other side, three workers round a corner and come straight toward them. Ty and Aries slow down, trying as best as they can to appear nonchalant—two workers on their way to a job. One of the three men is younger. He wears orange coveralls. Rodent Control. Aries recognizes the kid, who looks at her in disbelief. It's Terrence, one of Seth's friends. Ty greets them. The two older men greet them back.

"Hennrichsen, what're ye doin' all the way down here?"

"Just visiting McAlistair at the 114th. I had to get him some parts. But we gotta go. In a bit of a hurry."

"Ya know McAlistair's five floors above you?"

"Really? I must've gotten the floors confused. Not getting any younger, unfortunately. I'd appreciate you not telling anyone about this. You know how it is." Ty flashes a smile as they walk away and toward the next staircase. Aries turns around and casts one more look at the kid. She so wishes she could tell him to tell Seth how sorry she is. But they disappear around a corner and are gone.

"We have to hurry," Ty says.

They reach the lift sixty seconds later. Ty opens the louver. Aries steps inside and Ty closes the gate. He punches in a combination of numbers and the lift moves downward.

"They're gonna see us."

"Yes, they will."

"They'll try to shoot us."

"They might. But don't worry. They can't harm us. Inside the cage we're safe from any electric charge. Just don't touch the walls."

"What about my shoes?" Aries asks.

"They are insulated—"

A blue ball of electric current hits the cage with a loud explosion. Sparks fly everywhere. Aries lets out a scream. Ty grabs her arms and pulls her toward him. "Don't touch anything and we'll be okay."

A second charge hits the cage. Now Aries can see two of the men, a quarter of the way around the opening and two floors up. Another charge.

"What if the charge shorts out the motor?" she asks.

"Then we're in trouble," Ty answers, as another charge hits them. “But their reach isn't that far. They should stop shooting about now," he says.

"That's reassuring."

The two drones are coming back up toward you
. Born-of-Night's thought doesn't register at first. Only when she looks down and sees them ten stories below does it sink in.

"What about drones. How far is
their
reach?"

"Too far. We have to get out before they get here." Ty begins punching numbers into the keypad.

"But how can they see us if we're invisible to cameras?"

"Their scanning lasers can still pick us up."

"Wait."

"We have to get out of here," Ty answers.

"No. Wait!"

Ty stops and they both watch as Born-of-Night flies by the cage, diving downward and toward the drones. Aries watches through the hawk's eyes as she approaches the drones. Her talons outstretched, Born-of-Night flies toward the first one. The impact smashes the hawk into the drone's metal chassis. For a second, Aries loses the image. Then it comes back. The hawk picks at the sensors, her sharp beak smashing them to pieces. Whoever designed them had obviously not considered a bird of prey trying to bring them down.

The drone turns sideways, crashing into the second one and taking it with it. From there it descends, faster and faster, until it crashes into one of the floors further down. The second drone's descent is slower but its erratic movements eventually crash it into one of the steel columns at the edge of the opening. From there it drops straight down until it is out of sight. The hawk flies up and lands on the outside of the cage.

"That was close!" Ty says.

"Ty, may I introduce you to my friend. Her name is Leila. I call her Born-of-Night. This is Ty.”

"Pleasure to meet you," Ty says.

Born-of-Night lets out a long cry.

"She likes you," Aries says with a smile.

"That's good to know. I'm going to wonder about all of this later. Right now, we gotta get off this lift. We've got some ways to go before we reach the food processor. Then there's the water treatment. And below that is pretty much where the prison starts."

The lift stops and Ty opens the door. They step out and walk away. An old man with his protégé, on whose young shoulders rests the fate of her world and all its inhabitants.

//from voice recorder file**q.442_07_11xtl.ut kiire_understaad//

While going through Ty's belongings, I found this, neatly folded in one of his shirt pockets. The pencil writing on it was washed out and/or blotted out by a dark stain, most likely blood. The note was signed with a letter that I could not clearly identify. But I can say with near certainty that it came from Aries. Here is what it said:

Need AI/RSC-13 chip module

Also blueprints of the prison air duct system

Have to reach Forgotten Floors

Can't explain now. No more lies

So sorry

A

I never found out why he dropped everything, left his job, his life, and walked away from it all to help Aries. He was a brave man. We owe him so much.

//End of upload**q.442_07_11xtl.ut//

Chapter 9 — No Exit

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egan, aries, d. id#: 4746-poc-201-0017485
0001000 0101 01001
change of status effct immed: imnnt threat to corp sec
. 010001010 0 1000 0 0 100111 10101 010 101 0 01001 101 011 00 001110100010 010011 111100100100000110101001001
0100001011last known loc: 105th floor, Tier 0
000111010 01010100011101010001110100 101 01010111 01010
deploy 3 S.S.Units
001 11010000101 1000100010111101001011100011 10000101
deploy a.i. kill-drones zx.7
0010 010 0100101011111
lethal force authorized after eval of dest
01010000100110010 0101 01010 10010 010 01 00101 101110 100 01010 01010 01000010111111101010100 01010 0101 0101010111111000010100010010 0101 0101 010 101010
capture hennrichsen, tybault, f. id#: 92204-poc-917 211998 prep for interrog
00010100111 01000 010100

"
Ty?"

"Yes."

"When you said there’s no way into the prison, did you mean it or did you tell me that because you didn't want me to go?"

They’d made it through the food processing plant without incident. Throughout, Aries received images from Born-of-Night as she circled above and below, her watchful eyes scanning their surroundings for any drones or more S.S. Units. One of the images was of the prison from above—built like a large steel tube and reaching down about twenty floors with no visible entrance and only a few small rectangular openings toward the core. An impenetrable fortress.

"It's both, I think," Ty answers. "There is one access point that I know of. At least it was one when I worked there about ten years ago."

"What is it?"

"A pipe that is part of the water treatment plant. Several of the tanks there hold fresh water. One of them feeds the prison. There is a maintenance entrance but it is only accessible when the water is drained. Or at least that was the case when I worked there ten years ago."

"There is no other way in? What about the air ducts?"

"All the openings face the core. We have no way to get there."

Aries is beginning to feel discouraged. From what Ty’s told her, the water treatment plant is a dark labyrinth of pipes—of rectangular, round, or cube-like containers, some no larger than a few feet, others spanning easily thirty meters and reaching three stories high. A foul stench of rotten food hangs in the air. Condensation drips from the grated floors. The temperature must be about ten degrees Celsius warmer than in the rest of the core. If the floors above them were hard to navigate, this section is almost impossible. The configuration of the water treatment units seems random at best and Aries has lost her sense of where she is only a few minutes after they enter.

Ty doesn't seem to notice. With a sure step, he leads them through the labyrinth, through narrow passageways and darkened corridors, ever downward toward a destination neither of them wants to arrive at. Once in a while, Aries receives an image from Born-of-Night. There is no movement on the floors above or below, except the occasional worker here and there. An eerie emptiness envelops the space. Ty stops in his tracks, pushes backward a few feet, signaling her to be quiet. They are in a narrow hallway between two large filtration units, eight floors above the prison.

Born-of-Night, can you see anything on the floor we're on?
she thinks, hoping the hawk is receiving her scattered thoughts.

I'm three floors above you; coming down now.

Ty pulls Aries behind one of the units. From there they watch as at first one, then two, and right behind them a third member of the S.S.U. passes their hallway. The third one slows down and turns in their direction, about thirty feet away. Ty looks around. There is only a very narrow space where they can hide. The semidarkness might help them, but only if the guards don't have infrared or night vision goggles. At that moment they see that the guard has turned on a flashlight. A bright beam, most likely from a headlamp, dances over the floor and walls.

Aries points at the area above Ty. He nods and holds out his hands for her to step into. She pushes up and over his head, trying to find something on the slippery surface to hold on to. There are two narrow welding lines on either side of her. She pushes her hands into them to see if they’ll hold her up. They do, but barely. She figures she has about ten seconds before she'll inevitably begin to slip. Ty holds her foot but she can feel his arms starting to shake from her weight.

Then she hears the footsteps approaching their hiding place. Aries dare not to move. Are they slowing down? Is the guard moving in their direction? Has he maybe seen them already and is now waiting until she can't hold on anymore? Her arms begin to shake. Dread spreads within her. It could all be over now, all end right here.