Chapter 29
Twelve of Domus’s finest warriors stood in a cluster, eyeing Alex with hopeful skepticism. Six of them had been his escort to the Antechamber, the other six were at the tail end of a tour guarding the Core. Directly over Alex’s head, the Core’s red glow shimmered on the ceiling.
All of the other warriors had returned to the city. He didn’t know anyone standing before him. They’d never seen him fight against a Nocuous, but had heard the stories. He could see in their eyes that they wanted to believe in him, to believe he was going to save them all. But what Winston had said in his chambers was true: if Alex was smart, he would simply vanish from the Under forever. A quick flick of his wrist was all it would take to leave the struggles of these people behind—and every one of the warriors standing before him knew it. Looking back into their frightened eyes, he wondered how many of them would take the opportunity to flee if they were given the chance.
Alex sighed.
“I’m gonna come back,” he assured them, almost plaintively. Hearing it in his mind before he’d said it, he was sure he could deliver the words with the right degree of conviction. But there in the Antechamber, facing the stoney-eyed gaze of so many people who clearly were struggling to have faith in him, the words had sounded weak, false.
“I’m gonna come back,” Alex insisted again. “I promise.”
Still the warriors remained mute, as if patiently just waiting for him to get on with it.
Frowning, feeling more disappointed than he probably had a right to, Alex switched on the laser. He aimed for the shimmer on the ceiling and, with one last look at the somber group, closed his hand into a fist.
Alex had used the suit enough times now that he immediately noticed a difference in the journey. Going from one point to another, such as he had when he was practicing with his rock-man, was a lateral move. He didn’t know how it mattered, or why it did, but going through the shimmer was up, vertical, and didn’t feel the same. He knew he was traveling in a tiny, thin, ray of light, at the speed of light, but still it felt like it took longer and pulled harder in the shimmer. He didn’t feel any physical exertion from it, the suit did all the work. Possibly gravity was playing a part.
And then, in a matter of seconds, it was over.
He arrived on the surface out of breath and disoriented. When he felt his body stop moving he tried to open his eyes, but was immediately blinded. Thinking he was getting run down by another car, he flung his arms up to shield himself, but it was just the late-afternoon sun shining on his face. He frantically blinked his watering eyes, trying to adjust to a level of brightness he hadn’t been exposed to in months.
Squinting at the horizon, Alex took solace in the knowledge that it would be dark soon.
But then his blood ran cold. His mind began to race. The only way he could get back to the Under was through a shimmer, and for that he needed the sun. Not only that, but how was he going to find a place to buy swords in the middle of the night? What if he couldn’t get the weapons quickly enough and it got dark again before he could go back? He’d promised Winston no more than sixteen hours. What if it rained all day tomorrow and the sun never came out?
All the ways things could go wrong suddenly rained down on him in a jumble. Why hadn’t he considered all of this before he left? There were a hundred obstacles that could prevent him from getting back in time, but he’d been foolish enough to promise a quick return, as if he had complete control over what happened up here.
Alex closed his eyes, berating himself for being so foolish.
A cold wind blew down from the mountains. He shivered and looked around, feeling a sudden and irrational fear. He was back in the world now, back on the surface, where everything was wide open and anything could come at him. Down in the Under, things were so much more finite. He’d gotten used to it, possibly even liked it better there. It certainly wasn’t a comfortable or welcoming place, not by any means, but in the Under you only had to concern yourself with what you could see, and that usually wasn’t very far. Even Domus, as large as it was, was contained within its own cavern. You could see the boundaries of the city no matter where you stood in it. But up here, up in the great wide open, anything could come at you from anywhere. Alex felt a vulnerability that had never even occurred to him before his stay in the Under.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to calm down. This was stupid. He’d only been gone a few months. This was his home. The surface was where he came from, where he should feel most comfortable.
Setting his jaw, Alex pushed his paranoia to the back of his mind. He needed to focus on the task at hand and get back to the Under as quickly as possible. Nothing else mattered. He couldn’t afford to waste time on these thoughts, it might cost too many lives if he did. Sunlight, nighttime, rain—it didn’t matter what obstacles got in the way, he’d just have to figure it out. People were counting on him.
Weapons—he had to find a way to get a mass amount of swords and bring them to the airstrip or somewhere similarly isolated. On the journey to the Antechamber, he’d mulled over the idea of bringing back something more modern. Guns had come to mind immediately, but the more he considered it, the more he realized that for tunnel fighting, in such close quarters, guns were definitely not the ideal weapon. To kill thralls and Nocuous, their heads had to come off. Guns just couldn’t do that. And in a place where silence was a key factor to survival, a gun would make no sense at all.
So swords it would be, but to get enough of them Alex would need money, a lot of it. And to get that kind money he needed Silas.
Alex frowned, knowing he had his work cut out for him. Silas was another subject he’d thought a lot about on the hike to the Antechamber. The last time they’d been face-to-face, things had not gone well. Whether Silas’s tactics had all been in an effort to keep Alex safe or something else entirely, the tall, pale man had scared the bejesus out of him and was the last person on earth Alex wanted to go to for help.
But until Alex’s father was safely back home, Silas controlled EMIT. And that meant Silas controlled the money.
The sun continued its descent toward the horizon, the shadows becoming longer, and it strengthened Alex’s resolve.
There was only the occasional car passing by on the main road, so Alex used the suit at first. In small, quarter mile jumps, he “zapped” his way into town, stopping when he reached the “Welcome to Beaver” sign. From there he jogged to his house, knowing he couldn’t run around wearing just the suit and a jean jacket without drawing some curious stares, even in the dark. And after his disappearance, it was likely people were on the lookout for him.
Staying in the shadows, Alex crept to the front door of his darkened house. It was locked tight, no surprise there, but that wouldn’t be a problem. He’d always left the window of his bedroom unlocked, mostly because he’d been too lazy to worry about it. Of course, back when he’d thought he might need to sneak into the house he’d been thinking more along the lines of a “keep-from-being-grounded” scenario as opposed to a “save-a-city-from-invading-monsters” one.
Keeping low and close to the wall, Alex skirted the perimeter until he was at one of the front corners.
Alex was up on the first-story roof in no time, crouching low as he slinked to his window, muttering a relieved “thanks” when he found that it was still unlocked.
In seconds, Alex was standing in his bedroom, the window closed behind him.
It was surreal.
Nothing had changed, everything was exactly as he had left it.
And yet it no longer seemed like his. Not anymore. What had once seemed like a too-small space now seemed enormous and wasteful. All his things, his gadgets and trinkets, were nothing more to him now than accumulated crap.
What use did he have for the iPad he’d insisted he needed?
The television that hung on his wall and the gaming console that was plugged into it now seemed like such a colossal waste of time, just mere clutter.
&nbs
p; With a thin-lipped smile, Alex shook his head. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t that person anymore. He just needed some clothes.
He yanked on his favorite pair of jeans and pulled a thick, comfortable sweat shirt over the suit. The jeans would be great protection against scrapes and cuts in the Under and the sweatshirt would keep him warm at night. It might even double nicely as a pillow. Either way, they should keep from drawing too many stares for the time he was on the surface.
As an afterthought, Alex shoved a handful of clean underwear into one of his jean jacket pockets—Lord, how he had missed having clean underwear every morning.
Checking himself in the mirror, Alex did a double take. He was sure no one in Beaver would give him a second glance, but seeing himself after so long in the Under made him feel positively odd. He reached up self-consciously and took a swipe at his ratty, long hair but he knew anything short of an entire bottle of shampoo and a barber wasn’t going to help. There just wasn’t any time for that now anyway.
The last thing he did before leaving his room was to rummage through his desk in hopes of finding some spare money. In the end, he came away with less than seven bucks.
Definitely not enough to outfit an army.
With the intention of leaving out the back door, Alex went downstairs but decided at the last minute to duck into his father’s study. Maybe he would have better luck finding a little cash in his Dad’s desk or even better—his checkbook.
He stopped cold in the doorway.
The room was ransacked, files strewn everywhere. Where his father’s computer used to be was an empty square surrounded by a thin line of dust. Every file cabinet drawer was open, every file folder wide open and empty.
Someone had come and removed every note, every bit of research this room had contained.
Gooseflesh broke out across Alex’s back as he remembered the noises he’d heard in the house the day he’d fled to the Under. Had this been what they were doing, or had people come in the house after he had left?
What if they were still watching the house—waiting to see if Alex came back?
Alex turned and sprinted for the back door, flinging it open and running for all he was worth. He never looked back.