Rebel's Construct: Sim-Verse: Book 1, page 7
“Blast it,” he said as he turned and ran. He rushed to the nearest building and checked the door, one of the dozens he’d passed on the way. It was locked. He thought about kicking it in but decided to try the next one.
He reached it, but it too was locked. The sound of the dogs grew louder, and Taven thought he could hear the click of their nails on the pavement.
He turned down the little alley-way he’d passed before and ran for his life. He didn’t know what he was aiming for, where he was going exactly, just that he was trying to get there before the dogs got to him.
Taven became conscious of his jagged, uneven running and the heavy weight of the revolver he still held in his hand. What were the odds he could take them out with six shots? he wondered.
He was about to find out, he realized, because the alley was a dead end. He looked frantically for an exit, but all he had were more closed doors, which he figured had the same chance of being open as the others.
He whipped around and discovered he had run faster than he thought. The hounds had just turned the corner and entered the alleyway.
Knowing he had to make his shots count, he raised his revolver just as he’d practiced before. The difference now was that he was aiming at a moving target.
He fired once, and the ground next to the lead hound blew up dust. His ears rang from the explosion and he could barely hear the incessant baying of the dogs who didn’t seem gun-shy.
“Still too far away,” he muttered.
He aimed again. He steadied his breath, letting it out slowly as he squeezed the trigger.
The revolver slammed his wrist, and this time the ringing in his ears ratcheted higher. But he wasn’t worried about his ears; his eyes were on the hounds. And apparently, he’d missed again.
They were closing the gap, and Taven had to aim again quickly. He squeezed the trigger, and the bullet lodged in the pavement in front of the lead hound. The dog yelped but quickly resumed its pursuit.
“Blast it! Another miss.”
Only seconds away now, there were still as many dogs as he had bullets left in his revolver.
He looked around, hoping to find something akin to a blunt object that he could use as a weapon. If they got near him, he’d need one.
There was nothing. Nothing to hide behind, inside of, or get on top of.
He dropped to one knee instinctively and raised his cowboy gun. Down the barrel, his view was nothing but dog.
He had to hit his target this time. Or else.
As he squeezed the trigger, a sustained blast of sound and fury reverberated down the street for several seconds.
Amazed, Taven watched as the dogs were quickly dispatched. They were dead. Not dying. Dead.
He looked at his gun, knowing there was no way he had done all that. Then, out of the corner of his eye he spotted motion from the window one story up in the building to his left.
He glanced up, and the figure was gone. But he was sure he had seen someone. And they must have taken out the dogs, he realized. But who?
There was a loud creak to his left that made him want to jump out of his skin. His ears were still ringing, but the unexpected sound seemed amplified. It was the door to the building.
He stared at the doorway. Too numb or dumb to take cover or even raise his gun in defense. No one appeared, just the shadow of the entryway.
Finally, he heard a familiar voice say, “Well, don’t just stand there. Get in here.”
CHAPTER 13
WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Taven demanded.
She didn’t answer, and he searched the shadows of the room for her silhouette. Then the door closed to the outside, and the room seemed even darker.
“I’m here to help you, of course,” she said. Another pause. “You still can’t see me, can you?”
He squinted. There was a rough outline but no features. “No, my eyes haven’t adjusted.”
They waited in the dark, or what seemed like the dark to Taven. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, his eyes pulled in the available light, and he saw Ferah’s face.
He quickly grew self-conscious. They were standing only a couple of feet apart, and he now knew he had been staring her in the eyes the whole time.
“Better?” she asked, apparently noticing the change in his demeanor.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
He looked down, and she moved to the small window in the corner. He stole a peek as she did. She wore what amounted to a ski suit with attitude: dark colors, leather knee and elbow patches. And her gun was about five times bigger than his. She seemed to know more about this place than he did.
“Looks like we’re alone,” she said. “But that won’t last long. They heard us shoot off, and those dogs had owners who won’t be far behind.”
“Ferah,” he stammered. “How did you—”
“I’ll explain later. Right now, we’ve got to move.”
She didn’t wait for his approval. This wasn’t the apprehensive, rookie he remembered from the St. George. She had an edge and confidence he’d never seen before. Maybe this was how she responded to battle, he thought. People are all different. Some rise to the occasion. Others—like Taven—seem to come up short.
Ferah marched out of the room, and Taven followed, glad to let someone else do the thinking for a change. When they came to another door, Ferah glanced out the window beside it.
“Stay close by,” she said.
Taven couldn’t imagine doing otherwise. Then she pulled the door open quickly and darted out into the street.
A part of Taven freaked, not wanting to go back out in the open, but he knew his survival depended on staying with his new-found guide.
He pushed himself out, and as he did, Ferah turned and whispered to close the door. Taven’s head lowered, and he felt stupid for having left the door open. By the time he had gone back and closed it, Ferah was already inside the next building’s doorway, waving for him to hurry.
The only thought that came as he sprinted across the barren street was, how did Ferah get that door open? It seemed like all he had were questions, but all he acted upon was the apparent certainty of his companion and her guile and skill at traversing this alien world.
They repeated this trip several times, entering one building and exiting out the other side. Finally, on the third try, Taven got a glimpse of Ferah in action as she pulled out a large silver skeleton key from her pocket and unlocked the exterior door. So that’s how you’re doing it. But this revelation only brought new questions to mind: Where’d she get the key? How’d she even know about a key?
Inside another nondescript building, when he was thoroughly out of breath and his side had started hurting, Taven asked, “Where are we going?”
She didn’t answer, not immediately. At another exit, she stopped as she’d done several times before and looked out a window to see if the coast was clear. She turned with the same stone-hard look of determination and scrutinized Taven with her eyes.
“You’ll have to take those off,” she said. Then she began undressing, taking off her boots and ski suit. Taven was getting accustomed to surprises, but he felt as if he was free-falling down this rabbit hole now.
“What do you mean?” he begged.
Ferah was now reduced to a red jumpsuit that resembled the kind worn on the St. George, except this one clung to her young body even more tightly. “You’ll have to take off your shoes at the very least,” she said.
Taven looked down, still bewildered.
“The rest of your clothes should be fine, but those rubber soles will squeak too much.”
Taven complied, pulling off the sport galoshes. As he did, he noticed for the first time that he had developed two blisters, one on each heel. Why would someone want to construct a world with blisters? he thought.
“When I open that door, the thing to remember is to be extremely quiet,” she said.
“Then what?” Taven said. He was tired of getting only half the facts, the ones that Ferah thought were important.
“There isn’t time. If we’re lucky enough that no one’s guarding the medallion, then it won’t be long before someone does spot us and tries to foil our plans.”
Medallion? Taven was beyond confused, but he sensed Ferah was done entertaining questions.
“Just stay behind me,” she said. “And when I give the signal, grab the medallion.”
“How will I—”
“You’ll know,” she assured him.
CHAPTER 14
TAVEN HAD GROWN numb to the monotonous repetitions. Each time Ferah had opened a door, she had sprinted ahead, unlocked a door with her key, run through another building, and then did it all over again. Even the buildings had started to all look the same: a gray, concrete, soviet-style design.
But this time was different. This time Ferah wasn’t the confident warrior he’d come to expect. Taven thought he even noticed her hand tremble slightly as she grabbed the door handle to exit the building.
“Remember,” she said, “quiet.”
Taven nodded in compliance but wondered what all the fuss could be about.
Ferah tuned the knob slowly and lifted up on it as if to keep the hinges from squeaking.
Sheesh. She’s serious, Taven thought.
Ferah stepped out the door like a cat walking in snow. Each step was carefully placed, and Taven wondered if he was supposed to literally follow in her footsteps.
Once outside, he realized this alleyway was different, though he still didn’t understand what he was looking at. Down the alley, filling the entire street, was a mountain of rock and rubble that had been piled as high as a building, and on top was a small structure with a red blinking light.
As they moved toward the mountain, Taven kept his eye on the blinking light. Somehow, he knew it was important.
His concentration broke when they reached the base of the pile. He had completely missed the fact that there was a razor-wire-topped fence around the rubble, and they were at its gate.
He watched as Ferah slowly moved her assault rifle on its sling around to her back. Then she reached down the neck of her shirt and pulled out the skeleton key with two hands, as if to prevent it from jingling.
She continued to keep both hands on the key as she placed it into the gate’s lock. In an instant, the door was open, just like the door back at Taven’s house. There was no movement, no sound, just a sudden change in appearance.
Ferah gently placed the key back under her shirt and moved her rifle to the fore. She looked back at Taven, making sure he was ready.
Apparently satisfied, she moved forward and stepped upon the first boulder. She tested each rock, each step to be certain of her footing. Taven followed her, doing likewise.
After about twenty paces, the slope of the rubble pile became steeper, and Ferah returned her rifle to her back and began using all four limbs to climb.
Taven’s addled mind became lax, unable to maintain one hundred percent focus on his task at hand. Questions surfaced from his subconscious as he climbed: What was the need for quiet? What was the medallion, and why did they need it.? And more frequently, his mind went to juvenile thoughts about how he enjoyed the view from this angle, how nice Ferah looked in those pants.
That was the one that aggravated him the most. Of course, Ferah looked good. All the guys on the St. George talked about it every day, but why couldn’t he focus on something else? Why here, when he needed to be practical and get this job done, when thousands of lives were at stake, did his libido fight for dominance?
Suddenly, Taven slipped, and one of the rocks he had held on to came apart in his hand. He flailed backwards, and the rock went sailing through the air behind him. Ferah caught his other hand, preventing him from falling back down the hill.
He caught her gaze with his and stared, mesmerized first by the fact that she had saved him, but then by the glint in her eyes. They were beautiful.
Then he heard the sound of the rock land down at the base of the rubble, and in an instant a cacophony of gunshot and explosions erupted behind him.
Ferah pulled him forward, righting him. And he turned to look down the hill, only to see the sentry guns—having utterly destroyed the offending rock—retreat down into their hidden gussets.
An extra shot of adrenaline pulsed into his veins, the stakes suddenly becoming clear. He wanted to ask Ferah why the sentry guns were activated by sound instead of motion, and, for that matter, how she knew all of this. But why was unimportant in this upside-down world. How was all that counted, and for now, Ferah knew how to move forward.
They climbed the mountain of rubble in silence. Taven didn’t struggle with keeping his focus this time. His journey was one of meditation: sound, silence, focus. When they reached the top, where the rubble ended and the poured concrete base of the metal shack began, they stopped. Ferah motioned for him to go on ahead without her.
He didn’t understand why she didn’t just do it herself. She obviously knew more about this place than he did, but he didn’t argue. How could he?
There was an awkward moment as Taven had to essentially crawl over Ferah to get past her, and Taven’s immature teenage-boy thoughts returned. He was embarrassed by them, but they were involuntary.
As his face passed near hers, he saw that she was grinning, the first smile he’d seen on her face inside this construct. It was comforting, familiar. And it told him they were in this together.
As soon as Taven stepped onto the poured concrete base of the shack, he regained his normal sense of balance; similar to a sensation of walking after being in the ocean for hours, the invisible waves continuing to crash into you after reaching the shore.
Taven moved around the corner of the metal wall and found an already opened door. And there, just as Ferah had told him, was the medallion. It had to be it. The golden oversized coin floated in midair, suspended with its lanyard in a perfect circle above it.
He looked for wires or something from which to unhook it but found none. This didn’t make sense, but what else was new? Taven thrust his hand out to grab the medallion, and in an instant, the lanyard and medallion reappeared around his neck. Its appearance changed; the lanyard shortened to better fit his body, and the medallion was no longer glowing.
Now what? Taven wondered. But as soon as he stepped outside, he saw Ferah climbing down the other side of the mountain. More rocks, more certain death. But there she went, and he was out of better ideas, so he followed her.
To his surprise, everything went smoothly. That is, until they got to the bottom of the hill. Even his medallion—it didn’t feel like it weighed an ounce—didn’t bounce around or threaten to make noise against the rocks. He had to check it a couple of times, fearful that he had lost it, but it was there, secure and impossibly light.
Ferah reached the bottom first and immediately went to work unlocking the gate. They were almost home free when the first shot rang out. It sounded like it came from a nearby building, but it was impossible to locate because the bullet’s ricochet caught the attention of the sentry guns that attempted to obliterate the tiny piece of lead that was already long gone.
Taven rushed forward through the gate, hoping it represented a measure of safety. But as soon as he had burst through the imagined finish line, he spotted more trouble. This other side of the rubble mountain was part of the same alleyway, except there was an intersection close by. And it was there Taven saw what looked like a motorized gang, a dozen men—where were the women? —riding an armored vehicle with a too-heavy-to-carry machinegun mounted on its cab.
“Come on!” Ferah shouted as she darted for the closest door.
The street in front of them ripped up with the heavy machinegun’s fire, and Taven had the distinct sense that he was going to get torn in two by the lead dragon that raced toward him.
His eyes turned to Ferah. She was his only hope. Follow her. Reach her. Maybe if he didn’t look, they couldn’t get him.
Illogical as it was, it worked. He passed into the darkened doorway, and Ferah immediately locked it behind him.
“That won’t keep them long. Let’s move,” she said.
But there was a problem. This wasn’t like the half-dozen buildings they’d traveled through before. They were in an ascending stairwell, without another ground-level door.
With no time to think about it, Taven and Ferah climbed the stairs like the trapped rats they were. At each new level, Taven hoped they would find new doors, but they didn’t. It was a straight shot to the top floor, and when they reached it, they burst through the door and discovered they were on the roof.
Ferah locked it behind them, except this time she spent extra time with her key doing who-knows-what.
“There, that will hold them off for a while,” she said.
“We’re toast,” he said. He’d already checked the ledges. They were too far from any other buildings to jump and make it. “We’re trapped up here,” he said, shivering from the cold.
“But we bought ourselves some time,” she countered.
“And a lot of good that will do,” he said.
“Would you listen?”
He nodded.
“This,” she said, touching his chest where the medallion was, “is why I asked you to meet me here.”
There was noise at the door as the goons tried to kick it in.
“When did you get in here? Why’d you come after me?” Taven asked. He knew it wasn’t a question that would help them escape, but he was running out of time and needed answers.
She hesitated. “I’ve been here the whole time you have.”
That didn’t make sense. Maybe she’d entered right after him, but why would she do that?
“Am I in trouble? I mean—did you enter the construct to rescue me?”
More sound at the door. They were trying to shoot off the hinges, he realized.
“I’m here to help you, Taven. That’s all. Look, you have the medallion, and that’s what counts now. They can’t take it from you if you don’t give it willingly. Which means, they are going to try to coerce you through whatever means necessary. Do you understand?”
