Surviving The Theseus (4 page)

The runner reverse-thrusted out of its
prison, knocking John and Paula’s ship again. The runner jumped
forward, banking to avoid the others, and then went directly toward
the gate.

Immediately, Mary’s voice came over the
speakers on their eyeglasses. “Who’s piloting, John? You or
Paula?”

“That would be me, 1C,” Paula said, before
John had a chance to speak.

“Paula, I want you on navigation. John, take
over.”

“You got it, 1C,” John said as he shook his
head at Paula that it was not going to happen.

The comm channel remained open so Paula took
her hands off of the yoke and shrugged her shoulders, not sure what
to do.

John pointed at her and then at the yoke, and
Paula nodded, taking control.

The runner went for the middle of the gate,
looking like a speck compared to the massive size of the gate. It
didn’t matter though, and everyone in the group knew it.

Sure enough, the runner went right through
the gate and came through the other side, as if it was there for
decoration.

The SPARS’s ships gained on the runner.

Regina charged down the hallway, her legs
pumping, adrenaline flowing, eyes sharp, mind focused. Her heart
pounded with some trepidation, but mostly her heart pounded with
rage, fueled by thoughts of what she would do to anyone victimizing
another. Snap. Break. Torture. Kill. Take your pick. She had done
them all and slept well at night.

She hooked around a hallway that ran by a
basketball court with high plexiglass walls, running for the exit
along the wall halfway down the court, right beside some
bleachers.

Regina got to the stairwell, her gun out and
pointed down. She heard some scuffling noises above her in the
stairwell.

As she ran up the stairs, she caught a flash
of movement from the corner of her eye, and immediately turned
toward it. Nothing there.

She kept climbing, jumping two and three
stairs at a time. When she got up three flights of stairs, one
floor up from the previous level, she stopped and listened.
Nothing.

And then she saw what she missed
before. A white t-shirt came floating down, a floor above. It fell
onto the banister below her and then slid onto the stairwell.
Whatever fell before must have been so heavy; offering no
resistance, it fell fast. A shoe? A toe? A foot? A head?
Jesus
, she thought.

“Whoever you are, you’ve got seconds before I
find you. Know this: I’m a SOAD officer and if I discover you’ve
harmed one fucking person I’ll drop you dead where you stand. You
got that? YOU GOT THAT?” She regretted saying what she did as soon
as she said it. She knew it was stupid. Stupid to threaten anyone.
Stupid to expect anyone to wait around after that tirade. Stupid to
tell anyone she was a SOAD. Regina ran up the stairs.

A flash of orange light filled the stairwell
one flight above, moving towards her.

Regina stopped. Her heart raced. She pointed
her gun up the stairwell.

She backed down the stairs, slowly, her gun
steadied at the wall above. And then she turned just as another
orange flash occurred. She caught it out of the corner of her eye.
It was closer. Not only did it look closer, but she felt it, like a
presence, the hairs on her neck and arms stood up, electric.

As she turned and started down, she slipped
on one of the stairs, quickly flipping her gun to her left hand and
grabbing the railing to steady herself as another orange flash
consumed her.

For a moment, the moment the flash occurred,
she froze. The light blurred her vision and she smelled a strange
odor, like burning leaves, but she didn’t feel singed in anyway.
There was no pain. She felt odd. What was it? That feeling? And
then she placed it. She felt sick. Not because the light made her
sick, but because the feeling the light evoked as it consumed her
made her want to be sick. She felt violated.

The flash lasted for only a second, and once
it disappeared, Regina ran down the stairs. At the bottom of the
flight, she dared a look back.

Regina waited, staring up the stairs, her
eyes wide, heart still racing, gun at her side.

And then, making a sound like a suction cup
snapping from glass, something came at her.

It beat out the pile after pile of clothing
as the strangest thing she had seen yet.

In the commander’s shuttle, Travis talked
with the gate patrol officers, via a microphone built into the
holographic display panel in front of him. “Gate patrol, this is
SPARS group one with precinct ship Lancer, clearance code Zulu,
Bravo, Tango, Quebec, Five, Alpha, Foxtrot, Niner. Verify.”

The response came seconds later, a female
voice. “SPARS one, this is gate control. Code verified.”

Travis leaned forward, closer to the
microphone. “We are in pursuit of a runner who has stolen a SPARS
ship. As soon as we surround them again and lock them in, we need
to take them through to Gate Quadrant Seven, Section B.
Confirm.”

“That’s affirmative, gate set to Quadrant
Seven, Section B, whenever you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Debbie. You’re a doll.”

George shook his head. “Kids.”

“
You owe me a drink,” came Debbie’s
voice from the speakers, also a part of the holographic
display.

“You got it.” Travis clicked a button on the
display to cut communications and the link between his ship and
gate patrol ended. He then looked over at George. “What do you mean
– kids? I’m forty three.”

“Yeah, but she’s like nineteen.”

“Good point. I better buy her more drinks.”
Travis smiled. George did not, but Travis rarely saw him smile
since he’d known him.

After the runner went through the gate, it
moved towards the gate patrol guard tower, a three-storey building
with a control level, kitchen and leisure level, and a bunk level.
It had a dock on the right side of it, with one ship, similar to
the SPARS ships, but smaller. A tunnel to the left of the building
was used as a service tunnel, connecting to the gate and running
all the way through for any service that needed to be done. There
were two more docks, empty, on the other two sides of the
building.

As hard as the runner tried, the SPARS had no
problem catching up and re-capturing it with the magnetic towing
beams. The runner tried to bump and smash them, but with everyone
on the ball, including Paula, they captured the runner just below
the guard tower. Immediately, they came about and towed the runner
toward the gate. The gate hummed to life.

Like rippling water, the space between the
massive, red structure that formed the arch rippled inward, caused
by the vibrations from inside the gate. Just seconds before, stars
were clearly visible through the gate, but now it became a ripple
of darkness. All five ships disappeared through the gate as they
splashed through the blackness.

Regina watched a tennis ball-sized, brown
blob fly at where her head used to be, out of thin air, and thump
against the back wall of the stairwell. It stuck for a second and
then fell with a thud onto the carpet.

She watched the brown blob flatten. It looked
like a muddy puddle of water, and then it did something
uncharacteristic of a puddle of water. It moved, towards her.
Regina backed down the stairs, not taking her eyes from the
blob.

She raised her gun and fired six shots
in quick succession, but not at the blob. She hoped to hit whatever
she couldn’t see, but felt was there. All six shots went into the
wall, leaving six large holes clustered together.
Surely somebody somewhere developed stealth tech
by now
, she thought. It wouldn’t surprise her.
And don’t call me Surely
. She smiled.
It seemed crazy to smile in such a situation. Her father always
responded to her with “And don’t call me Surely” whenever she used
the word, since she could remember, back before he muttered to
himself and before the fits of anger.

The blob spread out more and more, making its
way towards her, oozing down the stairs.

Regina turned, jumped down the stairs four at
a time, no problem with her long legs, and then halfway down, she
grabbed the railing and hurled herself over to the next flight
down.

She ran down two full levels, before taking
an exit onto the Casino, Restaurant, and Shops level of the ship,
the level she had been on the night before. She ran toward the
front of the ship and zigzagged down hallways, taking a right,
running forward, right, and so on. She ran past several signs
advertising different kinds of food from various planets, and then
past bars and lounges offering drink specials. Finally, after
zigzagging to the right side of the ship, and passing places like
Planet Osiris’s Monster Lobster, The Ocean Blues, and Lover’s
Palace, she found it.

Regina took an exit. A sign picturing a tube
with wavy lines running through the middle of it was affixed to the
wall beside the doorway.

She walked into a small alcove with a large,
clear tube that had a diameter of six feet. A sign beside the
entrance to the tube read: Access restricted. Pyramid Staff Only!
In case of emergency, under supervision by Pyramid staff.

Regina debated taking the elevator, which
would be very quick, run by magnetic technology like the tube in
front of her. Something could be waiting in the elevators. It would
be a perfect opportunity for an attack, especially for desperate
people wanting a quick way out.

She looked down at the tube button and saw
that only a fingerprint identification was needed. Normally, only
the Pyramid staff would be able to gain entry, but her title of
SOAD gave her privileged access to areas most people did not have.
She had even been through security so restricted that it required
not only fingerprint I.D., but also an eye scan, voice recognition,
and a DNA sample.

Regina stuck her right index finger on the
button by the entrance to the tube, and a clear door slid upward to
let her into a smaller tube inside the larger one.

Regina walked inside her transport, held in
place by a support platform below it. Once inside, she grabbed a
handle above her, realizing now how people got hurt in them, with a
metal bar just above to bash your head against if things went
wrong.

A sign above the controls told Regina that
there was a four person maximum. She saw this as a disaster waiting
to happen. Granted, with only vertical movement, people shouldn’t
slam into one another. Who was she to judge the engineering
experience that went into this thing? Not many things made her
nervous, yet she could not deny using the tube gave her pause.

She looked at the console inside the tube,
like a normal elevator, with floor descriptions instead of numbers.
She considered the shuttle bay, but that would not get her closer
to the control room. She pressed the button reading:
Observation.

The door slammed down.

Jesus!
Regina
exhaled heavily.

The tube support platform below released just
as the magnets kicked in. The smaller tube dropped slightly, and
then hovered inside the larger one.

And then, without warning, the smaller tube
flew upwards at an incredible rate, faster than any magnetic
elevator she had ever been on.

The area surrounding the tube blurred as she
whipped upward. Even if she did have a clear view, the jump up four
levels took a fraction of a second and viewing anything would have
been impossible at that speed.

The tube shot past its mark by five feet, and
then quickly came down to the exit for the Observation Level so
quick that Regina’s stomach rose with an uneasy feeling.

Thank Christ!
Regina waited for the tube door to open, her gun in hand down
by her side.

She came out of the tube onto a narrow,
gravel pathway, which connected to an intersection with three
choices. Two paths ran along a beautiful forest of lush pine trees
over fifty feet high, and the third ran directly into the forest. A
simulated sky of gray, misty clouds moved slowly over her. The
illusion was incredible as the clouds seemed to be miles in the
sky, but she knew that was not possible. The area seemed immense.
The wall opposite the forest had moving images projected onto it,
or from behind, adding to the overall effect. Even more incredible
to her was a simulated wind, soft and warm, blowing in the same
direction the clouds were going. As the tops of the pines gently
swayed in the wind, the images on the wall matched them with the
direction of the sway. Her trench coat flapped slightly in the
breeze. Regina could hear a stream in the near distance.

Regina walked straight, taking the path into
the forest. Through the trees and then forward, ever forward, was
the plan, ultimately getting to the control room eight floors down
at the front of the ship.

She walked slowly through the trees, taking
her time, keeping a watchful eye and an open ear for any strange
sight or sound. She did not stick to any path, winding around the
trees, moving towards the front of the ship. Darkness spread in the
trees, the gray clouds above not allowing much of the simulated
sunlight through. Regina kept close to the outer edge of the forest
in case she needed to get off the level quickly.

As she walked, her thoughts wandered to her
father. When younger, she thought him a cruel man. Just days after
Regina’s sixth birthday, her mother, a planet realtor, had been
killed showing the amenities of a small, lush planet, with no
industrial or chemical plants or large cities. She was in a
village, showing a quaint cottage to a man who had many names, none
of them real. He raped her and then slit her throat on the front
porch, and nobody saw a thing.