Dusk (28 page)

• • • • •

Cyrus had not seen Torvald in three DCs, and
it was already the dome-darkening the day cycle before the Advent.
For the last three dome cycles, Cyrus had still been able to sleep
during light hours, but every time he awoke with the image of
Torvald’s face just before The Flying Monkeys took him away.
Torvald was a grown man, hearty and stalwart, but he had not been
able to take the unexpected change in events and the captivity very
well. And worst of all, Cyrus had not been able to help him when he
needed it. And now, if he was not in the other room, it would be
too late. Cyrus had attempted to ask about Torvald’s whereabouts
through the wall, but he had received no response, which also
worried him. He could not think of anything he could have done that
might have have showed his hand, but Cyrus could not shake the
notion that these goons, as sophomoric and gullible as they seemed,
were on to him.

• • • • •

—
Dada, do you ever get afraid?

—
Yeah, all the time, Dari.

—
You don’t ever look like it. You never panic.
It’s like nothing ever bothers you.

—
Well, panic and fear are two very different
things. You know how they say there is a fine line between bravery
and stupidity?

—
Yeah.

—
Well, what’s the difference between a brave man
and a stupid man?

—
Is it the outcome?

—
There are plenty successful idiots, and plenty
of brave men that failed, so I don’t think that’s it.

—
What is it then?

—
It’s the fear. The stupid man jumps in headlong,
never considering the consequence or the risk. A brave man
calculates the risks, knows what he stands to lose, and goes in
anyway.

—
So the brave man never panics?

—
No, everyone panics on occasion, but the brave
man doesn’t let it get in the way until the job is done.

—
So you’re saying, if I want to be a brave man, a
man people look up to, I should always do what I believe is right,
no matter the outcome, and I should see it to completion no matter
how I feel.

—
Precisely, and after that, if it’s absolutely
necessary, you can fall the hell apart on your own time.

• • • • •

The manacles on his wrists were cold and
restricting, but they were loose enough to keep Cyrus’s mind from
racing as fast as his pulse. They had cuffed everyone’s wrists in
front, but evidently Cyrus had been perceived as a greater threat,
so his wrists had been restrained behind his back. The Flying
Monkeys had made a show of the small remote key that opened and
tightened the restraints before ceremoniously handing it to Soldier
43235. Cyrus and his bunkmates were then ushered from the barracks
room in a single file line toward the front of the building.

Soldier 43235 and Quadrad Chaldea, the
soldier that had ‘debriefed’ them on their first day, walked on
either side of Cyrus. Cyrus’s heart was beating so hard he was sure
they could hear it. Torus Denali himself walked directly in front
of Cyrus, and Denali, Cyrus, and his escorts all walked in the
front of the line of scientists toward the front of the building.
The orange light that had flooded through the façade had been
replaced with a veil of darkness. Most of the ambient light outside
had also been extinguished, and the glare from what little light
emanated from the city made the glass look as though the entire
building had been submerged.

They continued to lumber toward the dais at
the front of the building. According to Tanner, who had been
conscious when they first entered the building, they had been
brought up to the second level of lev traffic and had been ushered
in through a docking bay high above ave level. Tanner had said the
docking bay level was only one level below where they were bunking.
So there was ave traffic one level below them, and another level of
traffic on actual ground level, four to six levels below their bunk
level. The dais must have been elevated over the lobby that led to
the dock and the elevator down to the lobby must have been to the
left, because Cyrus had been ushered to the right after his tantrum
and had not seen any stairs. Tanner said they had been brought in
from a freight elevator near the rear of the building. So the
elevator they were being led to must be a general service elevator,
and as the freight elevator was considerably out of the way of the
one they were being taken to now, it must not have been able to
accommodate all the scientists and soldiers at once when they had
first arrived…

…which meant there was a gamble. In keeping
with their normal modus operandi, The Flying Monkeys would want to
keep the scientists separate. The question was, would they take
them in groups to the same elevator, or would they, in the interest
of time, take them to the separate elevators simultaneously? Or
would they take one group, and then the other, and if they did,
which group would be first…

…but at this point it didn’t matter. The ball
was already rolling, and any second now, it would plunge over the
precipice. Cyrus just hoped everything fell into place, and most
importantly, that everyone stayed focused. But he had faith in
them.

As they reached the dais, Cyrus could hear the
garbled voices of men beneath them funneling into the lobby. That
was when it began.

There was a pop, like someone had dropped a
closed glass bottle, and then an odd crackle and a prolonged hiss.
Winberg and the two Flying Monkeys that brought up the rear
stopped. One of the men grabbed Winberg, while the other went back
to look at the room the scientists had been kept in. Winberg
managed to peek around the corner to see the images from the
holovision contorting under bluish flames that erupted from the
wall behind it. The flames turned reddish orange as they moved
across a bed sheet that had been left on the floor inside the
holovision image. The flames leapt across the sheet to a bed and
began spreading.

“Someone stop him! He’s going to get us all killed!”
Winberg belted down the hallway.

Fucking Winberg. What was he playing at? Why
couldn’t he mind his own goddamned business? But Cyrus went on
anyway. Soldier 43235 attempted to grab him, but Cyrus purposefully
tripped over his own feet. He stumbled into Chaldea and they both
fell. Cyrus landed on his butt and exhaled, pulling his knees into
his chest as he had practiced for several DCs now. He looped the
chain connecting his cuffs under his butt and behind his heels, but
it caught on his right foot.

Soldier 43235 reached for the remote. He fumbled to
find the number code of Cyrus’s cuffs, but he gave up. Instead, he
pressed the button to select all the units, and then pressed the
button to tighten the chains.

The chain twisted Cyrus’s body to the side as
it constricted, but he instinctively kicked it with his free foot.
The jolt sent a frozen shaft through his body as the arm he had
dislocated a few years before slid out of its socket. For a moment
Cyrus’s vision went hazy, but as he continued to spin on his hip,
he realized both feet were free and his cuffs, which were now
tightened to only a few centimeters apart, were now in front of
him.

Cyrus extended his left leg into 43235’s knee,
buckling him to the ground as Cyrus himself kicked his legs up and
then down, bouncing his torso off the floor and landing on his
feet. When he landed, he felt the tremor rush up his legs and into
his shoulder as his arm drooped uselessly at his side. Denali was
two steps away, moving toward him, and Cyrus could hear Chaldea
behind him now. Soldier 43235 was prone between them, but it
wouldn’t make a difference for long.

Uzziah had worried that he had not pushed the
shaved-down bolt that Cyrus had slipped him far enough into the
inlet slot of the holovision. The slot was much like its
predecessors on Earth. It was designed to accept a video signal
from an auxiliary device and to provide power to the device through
a node nestled at the end of the circular input. He was worried
that just before the men entered the room to usher them to the
viewing of the Advent, that he had not had enough time, or had not
applied enough force, to jam the bolt into the power coupling, but
the chaos and commotion that erupted behind him allayed his
fears.

When Dr. Winberg yelled, Uzziah did not even
turn around. He kept his eyes on Cyrus who had dropped to the
floor, stumbled two of the guards, and had slipped his chains in a
move that seemed like it hurt him. Cyrus had then hopped to his
feet as everyone’s handcuffs whirred and tightened. The two guards
next to Uzziah split, one moving toward the fire, the other toward
Cyrus. As the guard moving toward Cyrus turned his back, Uzziah
clasped his hands together and launched his left knee into the
soldier’s tailbone. As the guard stumbled, Uzziah brought his elbow
around into the base of the soldier’s skull. The guard collapsed as
Uzziah yelled to Tanner “
La madregot!
” To the stairs! Uzziah
knelt as the other guard began turning. By the time he had spun
around, Uzziah had grabbed the fallen guard’s weapon from the floor
by its barrel, and had spun, bringing the metal stock of the
assault rifle across the second guard’s temple.

Tanner was already moving as the man collapsed. Jang
followed him, and Uzziah moved behind them both. Uzziah didn’t know
what miracle Chamberlain was going to work to loose his chains, but
chains or no, he and Tanner had to get Jang to the stairs and to
the bottom floor.

Toutopolus’s teeth clattered together
unexpectedly and he put his tongue between them to keep from
calling attention to himself. He was so nervous that he didn’t
notice the confusion that had erupted around him until someone
bumped into him. He turned to see the guard that had bumped him
crumple at his feet, and he realized the chain on his wrists was
tighter than before.

Then he remembered;
when all hell breaks
loose, get to the next floor down.
He had no idea what he was
to do when he got there, or even how to get there, but he knew he
needed to get there to help Cyrus. He took on faith that once he
got there, what he needed to do would be clear.

Toutopolus saw Commander Uzziah turn, still
holding the gun he had just used to brain the man at his feet. He
then began running as he yelled something garbled that Tanner
seemed to understand. He, Tanner, and Jang seem to have been moving
with purpose.

When all hell breaks loose, get to the next floor
down.
To Toutopolus it seemed like an alarm should have been
ringing. This was an emergency. Why were there no alarms? This was
wrong. In the drills his lab conducted in the Arcology of Athens,
through Laureateship, even all the way back to Novitiateship,
emergency drills taught him there should always be alarms and
order—and an obvious way out. The rules were odd but simple: no one
responds to ‘rape’ or ‘help’, but everyone is afraid of ‘fire’; the
elevator is not safe in an emergency, so always take the stairs;
stairwell doors always swing, never slide; stop, drop, and roll. He
debated running back the way he had come to the freight elevator,
but he had seen Tanner, Uzziah, and Jang rushing through a swinging
door, so he followed them. He followed them because they seemed
motivated and orderly. He followed them because when all hell
breaks loose, he had to get to the next floor down; but the
elevator is not safe, and stairwell doors always swing, never
slide.

Denali rushed right into Cyrus’s hands both
figuratively and literally. The Torus stepped forward and Cyrus
closed the distance between them, looping his cuffed hands over
Denali’s head. Denali tried to duck, but Cyrus brought his knee up
into his armpit. The force of the knee stunned Denali, but also
sent waves of pain through Cyrus’s own shoulder—but the pain only
his spurred his rancor.

Cyrus heard Chaldea come up behind, and he glanced
over his shoulder to see Chaldea raise his rifle butt. Cyrus shot
back the leg he used to knee Denali and caught Chaldea in his solar
plexus. Chaldea’s knees buckled, but he stabilized himself by
bringing the rifle butt to the floor. He leaned onto the rifle, but
as he pushed himself up, Cyrus brought his foot down and across the
improvised kickstand. As Chaldea fell over the rifle and caught
himself before hitting the floor, Denali reached for his side arm.
Cyrus lifted his left leg, stepped down onto Chaldea’s stooped
shoulder blades, and still holding onto Denali’s neck, vaulted over
the wall of the dais.

Davidson stayed close to Milliken, but had no
idea what signal he should have been looking for. The ride down the
freight elevator had seemed longer than it should have been even
though they only went down one floor. They were being led back the
way they had initially entered to watch the Advent—probably back to
the lev dock they had set down on originally. Davidson and Milliken
were at the head of the group of scientists being led two-by-two
toward what must have been the front of the building given the
amount of glass forming the wall. The guards that had applied their
restraints led the procession. The one that had pulled Milliken’s
hands behind his back and clasped the cuffs around his wrists had
called him a pill-kicking puntmongrel. The smirk on Milliken’s
face, even as his arms had been cranked uncomfortably behind his
back, told Davidson that guard must have been the recipient of
Milliken’s groinal assault.

Everyone else’s hands had been clasped
somewhat loosely in front of them, and the guard now walking to the
left of Milliken’s favorite guard was carrying the remote to the
cuffs. Davidson figured if he could somehow get the remote, he
could free everyone. But how could he possibly do that? His kung fu
was good, better than he had ever imagined it could be, but he had
never used it for anything other than sparring. Besides, even if he
could release everyone’s bonds, what good would it do? He knew
Cyrus had some sort of plan, but he had no conceivable idea what it
could be. He had, however, seen enough of Cyrus’s tricks and
schemes to know that the inconceivability of the results of his
methods didn’t mean they were ill-conceived.