First World (19 page)

Focusing on the contents, I smiled, one of my first true ones since Lucy’s disappearance. We were going in armed.

Reaching forward, I grabbed a handful of palm-
sized grenades. Dark gray in color, they had small red tags attached to their detonator pins. Smoke and gas grenades, we used them in simulation practices, but they were real. Apparently that was the only way to really understand their debilitating nature. More like the only way Olden could torture us and receive payment for it.

They weren’t lethal
, but damn you’d find yourself dizzy and disorientated.

Josian
opened his pack.

I
placed them inside with care. “These grenades will be perfect for our initial infiltration,” I said as I went back to the cabinet. “And these goggles are night vision and assisted breathing.” I threw one to everyone. “Keep them on you until we get there.”

I went back to the hidden gold mine in the cabinet.

“Pepper spray.” I held it up so they all could see. “Spray straight into their eyes.” I moved on to the next gem. “Tasers – hold and press.” They were high voltage, knock an elephant down.

I pressed the button; Brace looked impressed as the
visible electricity arced across the prongs.

Near the back, I found the gun lock box. Dragging the heavy
container toward me, I dropped it to the floor. It rattled loudly. I crossed my fingers that it still contained the training weapons.

I picked the bolt-lock. Within thirty seconds I
was inside staring at three revolvers.

I
pulled out the first gun.

“This is a Colt 911, a semi-automatic weapon.” I checked the clip. “It has seven rounds, so you need to make the shots count.”

I turned to Quarn. “Do you have any experience handling guns?”

He was my best chance. Despite
guns’ rarity on the streets, they weren’t non-existent.

Quarn
nodded. “Besides chasing you around York, my other aim in life was to remove every gun from the Gangers. Which was hard to achieve without handling them on more than one occasion.”

The second gun was the same. I handed that to
Josian, after pointing out the basics. “That’s the safety; click it off before you shoot.”

He dropped the gun into his deep side pocket.

The third gun was useless, just a prop for beginners.

“So the guns are just as useful as a threaten-scare tactic. With some luck we won’t need to use them,” I explained to the men.

At some point everyone had moved nearer and we were pushing uncomfortably close to the corner of the room.

Most of the gear went into
Josian’s bag, although the tasers and pepper spray were shared around.

Josian
reached up to the top shelves. He pulled out a sheaf of rolled material, which he handed to me. I recognized it immediately.

A wicked smile crossed my face. This was my weapon.

I untied the leather string that held it together. I felt a slow motion flood of anticipation as the roll unraveled.

Quarn
, smiling broadly, let out an exclamation. “A throwing-knife set. Are you going to use that?”

He leaned forward eagerly, his blue eyes alight.
He wanted his sword, a gun and the throwing knives. Someone had a problem sharing ... weapons’ hog.

I nodded. “Oh, yes. This was one of my
specialized advanced classes. I’ve been waiting to get my hands on this set for a long time.”

I
lovingly stroked the shiny pearl handle of one of the eight knives. Lifting it free, I laid it flat on my hand, inspecting the high quality and perfect balance.

Reluctantly, I re-sheathed the weapon and tucked the leather into the deep pockets of my coat.

“Let’s go kick some ass.”

“
Aribella,” Lallielle protested half-heartedly.

My swearing had eventually
breached her maximum mother capacity.

Josian
laughed. “You’re definitely my daughter; your mother is going to have her work cut out.”

He ducked down to kiss her cheek. She chuckled
, accepting his attempt to appease her.

Looking away, I found myself caught in Brace’s stare. Something was up with him; his aloof coldness was growing the longer we were on Earth.

I didn’t have time right now – but something was there and I would figure it out. I shook my head. Well, I probably wouldn’t; Brace was awfully good with the secrets.

I moved aside then as
Quarn took the lead.

As I was
moving forward to follow them, I felt this strong shove from the right side that sent me reeling. I had no chance to recover my balance, so I simply closed my eyes, prepared to hit the ground.

But I never did.

I was back in the vacuum; I’d fallen straight into the rift.

I screamed silently in the pressing darkness. My energized cells bounced around my body as I moved at the speed of light. I guess I hadn’t realized the last time how much Brace had calmed me. It was quicker this time for the rift to expel me violently. Suffice to say I wouldn’t be sitting easy for a week.

The room was dark and I couldn’t find anything to anchor myself in it. I stayed still and quiet, trying to sense what dangers were lurking around me.

I could be anywhere in the entire universe. A jostling on my arm reminded me I still had my night-vision goggles.

Hmmm, Abby, that may be useful right now.

Pulling the rubber strap back, I slid them over my head, groaning as I poked myself repeatedly in the eye. Finally they settled over my face and images jumped at me. The darkness turned to a landscape of green and gray.

It took a few minutes for me to adjust. The strange
color plateaus from the night vision were disorientating. Eventually, the room came into focus. It was small and empty. There was a door on the far wall. An empty room whose only purpose could be receiving from the compound.

I walked a few steps forward, moving
toward the door. I wondered why no one had followed me through the rift. Did it close behind me?

I couldn’t stand around waiting to be rescued. There was only one way to figure out where I was.

I dropped my hand onto the handle. Taking a deep breath, I pushed down and the door clicked open. I gave a gentle shove.

The next room was dark as well; I took my time before stepping through into
what looked like a huge single-level room. I was puzzled by what I saw through the goggles. The room looked like a dungeon – like those from the fifteenth century, similar to those I’d seen in books about the medieval period.

I moved forward two steps. The straw on the floor crunched under my boots. Yes, I said straw. The room appeared to consist of a long row of cells, with large and heavy bars along them.

Crap, could you time-travel using the doorways?

I couldn’t tell if there were people in the cells.
Although, as I moved further along, my nose wrinkled in distaste. There was a distinctive smell of sweat, fear and other disgusting-ness lingering in the air. If that aroma was any indication, humans had been held here and it hadn’t been that long ago.

A noise from behind had me swinging around. The door was opening.

Awesome.

What was coming through there now?

I crouched down to present a smaller target. I was just fumbling for my throwing knives when a massively tall person stepped through.

Okay, how many people could be that tall? I hesitated for a moment, just in case I was wrong.

“Baby girl?”

Relief flooded
through me. I recognized that whispered and deep baritone.

Trembling, I scrambled to my feet and took off at a flat-out run. I dived into
Josian’s arms.

“What the hell. Where have you been?” I whispered into his shirt front.

He was clutching me close, my feet hanging off the ground.

“Sorry, baby girl. It takes a few minutes before
anyone can use a doorway again.”

Lallielle
was at our side. I could smell her unique flowery scent. “Thank the gods we found you; I could not get through that rift fast enough.”

Josian
laughed as he lowered me back to the ground. “She was definitely a riled up mama bear. I was a little scared for my life.”

“Yes, my love. Lucky you got us here in time or things could have gotten very dangerous for you.”
She sounded only half-serious.

Josian
kissed the top of her head.

“I would never let our baby go again,
Lalli. You know that.”

“Where are we, Abby?” I smiled as
Quarn interrupted them, probably deliberately.

“No idea; I didn’t make it far before you arrived.” I tried to keep
my voice low, but someone had to have heard this racket.

It appeared that everyone had better eyesight then I had. None of them were using their goggles. I turned back to look around the room again.

“Can we go back in time using the Walker travel, Josian?”

I felt him shift next to me. “There are no Walkers that have that type of power anymore. One of the powers
we have lost.”

I shook my head. “It’s just strange. This looks medieval.” I pointed
toward the barred cells. “Fifteenth to sixteenth century.”

Brace’s voice came from the darkness. “We’re definitely still on Earth; my
energy power isn’t swirling around as it usually does.”

Now just to figure out where on Earth.

A loud clang sounded from behind us. Josian pushed me and Lallielle aside and he stepped forward, hands raised.

The door at the far end was opening. Everyone fell silent. Keys clanked as a whistling man stepped inside.

“Time to wake, you disgusting wastes of good quality air.”

I felt a small relief that he had the distinctive clipped tones of Brooklyn. We might still be
near New York.

Suddenly the room lit up. One by one, each cell came alight.

We remained crouched in the darkness near the initial part of the room. As each cell was illuminated, the inhabitants began to move behind the bars, as if they had been in stasis until that moment.

I shoved my glasses up to rest on top of my head
and squinted into the brightness for a moment. Finally the scene before me came into focus.

Noise was everywhere, sobs and groans echoing throughout the stone walls. There were about twenty cells, ten lining each wall.

The occupants had moved forward to grasp at the bars of their caged homes.

For the first time I could see
every one of them.

A hand covered my mouth just as I was about to scream out loud. I looked up. Brace was beside me and it was his hand preventing my shriek of outrage.

The girls from the compound filled many of the cells. But that wasn’t all – Lucy was there, and she looked terrible – thin and pale. Her hair was limp and dirty, hanging in swirls around her face.

I tried to wriggle out of Brace’s grasp, but he tightened his hold. I had to get to Lucy. Her expression was blank, as if she had seen it all and nothing affect
ed her anymore. Something inside of me crushed, seeing her so broken.

I bit down into the fleshy pad of Brace’s hand.

“Naughty, Red, don’t make me spank you,” he whispered into my ear.

I spun around to glare at him
. At the same time my elbow flew back into his abdomen. He released me slightly.

“In your dreams,
douchewad.”

“I know this is probably beyond your capabilities, Abigail, but try and exercise a small level of patience. We need to assess this threat before we act.” His
tantalizing voice was still low in my ear, sending shivers along my spine.

I was way too hot-blooded to assess anything before acting. I was
‘action first, consequences later’, thank you very much.

Lallielle’s
gasp had me spinning back around, searching for the source of her concern.

“Sammy?” Brace whispered in disbelief.

What? My brother was here as well. I craned my neck trying to see into all of the cages. A tall, dark-haired man, who looked eerily like Lallielle, but without her green eyes, moved forward into the light. He was in the cell next to Lucy’s.

My eyes narrowed. He’d just laced his hand through the bars to squeeze Lucy’s. He was hovering over her protectively, glaring at the man
jauntily making his way through the cells.

The whistling intruder was easy to see now.
He was short, with a large stomach protruding over his dirty pants, and a filthy white shirt, buttons missing so that his fat rolls hung prominently on display.

“That’s a quality packaging that man has.” Brace’s silky hair tickled my ear as he leaned in close to murmur.

“Don’t be jealous,” I whispered back. “You’re bound to be that attractive one day.”

He groaned.

I ignored him to continue my observations of the man. He was around fifty years old, his face dominated by a beaky nose and small angry eyes. He was walking in our direction, pausing at each cell and throwing a brown paper bag through the bars.

The occupants snatched at the bags before
scurrying back into their cells.

No one had noticed us standing there, but I was over waiting. We could take out this one little rat
-man.

As if she had read my thoughts,
Lallielle bolted into the light. Josian’s attempt to stop her was useless. He was close behind but she got to rat-man first.

She hit him hard. He was turning at the sound of her steps when she right-hooked him straight in the jaw. His eyes rolled up in his head before he crashed to the floor.

I’m going to be honest: I was impressed.

Josian
laughed out loud. “Taught her that.” His tone was cocky.

“Mom!
How are ...? Where did you come from?”

Samuel had their beautiful accent; h
is was just rougher ... husky, as if something had damaged his vocal cords. Lallielle headed toward him. I was distracted by Lucy.

“Abby. Oh, gods. I can’t believe you’re here.”
The dead expression she’d been wearing wavered and suddenly she was crying, tears pouring down her face.

She pulled her hands free of Samuel and held them out. I ran into her arms, hitting the bars hard.

She winced as I pulled her close. I loosened my hold a little.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She smiled, with a fraction of her old joy. “I’ll be much better when you get me out of here.”

Lallielle
was hugging Samuel through the bars to his cell. Brace and Josian were right behind, huge grins on their faces. Quarn was crouched over rat-man on the floor.

I searched the cell front to find the lock. There was nothing on the smooth bars.

“We have to get out of here. There seems to be a permanent delivery door between the warehouse and the compound.” I was thankful my voice didn’t express the cold trickles of fear inside.

“That is not possible.”
Josian’s brow wrinkled in worry. “It can’t be done.”

“All the more reason to get out of here.”
Brace’s words were clipped and short.

“
Quarn, does rat-man have any keys or remote locking devices on him?”

I tried to turn, but Lucy clung to my hand.

Quarn smiled. “You named him rat-man?” He shook his head, screwing up his nose. “That’s appropriate, actually.”

Many of the occupants of the other cells had moved
toward their bars.

“Abby?” I turned to see Chrissie
and Chandra plus a few of the other girls together in one cell.

I smiled
, but couldn’t help notice the vacancy in their stares, the motley nature of their skin and general air of neglect they were all rocking today.

“Hang tight, girls, I’ll get you out of here.”

“He doesn’t have keys; there is only one person who ever accessed these cells.” Lucy drew my attention. With her free hand she pointed toward the entrance. “Try that little box next to the door; I think that’s some type of control panel.”

Quarn
moved away from the group to inspect the small black box which was attached to the wall.

“Sammy baby.”
Lallielle held both of his hands. “This is Aribella, your sister.”

Lucy and Samuel both nodded.

Lucy answered. “After I explained the situation, Sam and I kind of figured that Abby must be his sister.”

Josian
stood near Lallielle, staring at Lucy. His expression was ... odd. I reminded myself to ask him about that later.

A creaking noise was the first indication the cell doors were opening.
Quarn shut the box again and nodded once: success.

Lucy squeezed herself through the small gap. The centre of the room filled as one by one
Samuel and the girls managed to escape.

Lallielle
swept Samuel into a proper hug. Lucy’s smile was shaky, and her eyes were crinkled up in worry as she watched them.

He held back, stiff and unresponsive, but
eventually he reached around and gave Lallielle a half-hearted hug.

“I’ve missed you, Mom.” His voice broke a little on the last word. “I thought I would
die here and no one would ever know.”

“I have missed you so much, Sammy,”
Lallielle sobbed out both her sorrow and relief.