Outcasts of the Worlds Read online

  They emerged on the second level, on a walkway overlooking the lobby. A sharp wind bit at them in the unprotected space. The many tiles lining the floors were cracked, discolored, or stained. Nearly all the paint had long since flecked away, leaving exposed concrete and rebar. The inlaid planters on the level below were filled with shards of glass from the storied windows that once adorned the building’s entrance, while the secretary’s desk in the center had been replaced by a sturdy workbench strewn with computer parts. Overall, it looked more like a bus depot than a lobby.

  Their numbers scattered, few guards patrolled below. One sat at the center workbench, where new arrivals were registered, another at an old delicatessen-turned-weapons locker. The sirens blared ceaselessly. Down here, with only a skeleton crew, the air was tense. Searchlights blazed outside, illuminating the dark night of a waxing crescent moon. Snipers in the towers watched the courtyard with dread, fearing a dangerous escapee that had come this far, one that might be so elusive as to slip right by them.

  Flynn resisted the urge to freeze as a guardswoman glanced at them from below. Distant, uniformed, and obscured as they were, she paid them no further mind and carried on. There were other things to worry about. Coming around a sharp bend, Flynn halted the group. Two guards, rigid and disciplined, manned the double doors he sought. He considered moving fast and cutting both down himself. No. You work with the tools you have first.

  Despite her slightly ill-fitting armor, Jean looked better than the other two. She could pass, if only for a moment. Which one? Quickly, Flynn studied posture, expression, breathing patterns. It was the barest of hints to work with.

  “Jean,” he spoke softly. “I want you to go over there. Distract them until you’re close. Then, take out the one on the far right.”

  “Ya sure? ‘Cause the other guy’s closer, and I bet—”

  “That’s the one I need.” He reminded her, “I’ve gotten us this far.”

  Surrendering, she nodded and took her mace confidently in hand. In fervent whispers, Flynn spelled out code and protocol. When he was sure she could do it, he sent her out, and she bellowed loudly.

  “Hey, guys! We’ve got a three–eight–three on cue–zee–seventeen! Come on, double time!”

  The one on the far right stepped forward. “Sergeant, I don’t know who sent you here, but we don’t move for a three-eight-three unless—”

  Teeth fell from the man’s mouth. She had swung her mace, hard and sudden. Before the other could reach for his rifle, Flynn had moved in, wrapping his arm around the guard’s chest and kicking the back of his knee to shake his balance. The subjects of spectacle, though, were Flynn’s claws, formerly concealed and now jutting out from the ends of his fingertips. The shaken guard’s rifle clattered to the ground. Jean seemed more surprised than the hostage.

  “You really are a beast.”

  It was not something Flynn had wanted to reveal so quickly, if at all, and had Jean been more controlled, she could have dropped both men herself. Mack moseyed over as though nothing dire had transpired.

  “Heh, wow. Didn’t know you had that in you. Literally. In you. Wow.” He walked right past them, up to the keypad. “Alrighty now: coderisms?”

  Flynn delivered a sharp nudge to the guard’s back.

  “Fifty-one … eighty-three … two.”

  “Goodie! Now we’ll just—”

  “Mack, wait.” Flynn interjected sharply, before Mack had a chance to push the first button; then, to his captive, “Your ID code.”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Do you think this is my first day? Without a Civilis ID code, we set off a silent alarm and send every free gun right to this location.”

  “No shit?” Jean was more bothered than impressed.

  Flynn applied pressure before the man could argue. “Twenty-nine … twelve.”

  “Go ahead, Mack. Two–nine–one–two–five–one–eight–three–two. It won’t work if he’s lying.”

  Mack punched in the code. An affirmative green light, and Flynn elbowed the man in the back of the head, dropping him to the floor. As he approached the door, Flynn’s claws—white as bone—withdrew slickly into his fingers. He felt his digits tense, as they did every time. Within seconds, he could flex them once more; he made a fist to ensure the stiffness had receded.

  “Any more interestin’ surprises?” Jean asked.

  “Nothing that interesting.”

  *

  The double doors were likely once the threshold to a conference room. It was spacious enough, but whatever equipment was originally installed had been stripped long ago. Cables in black, yellow, and blue draped from the ceiling, connecting dozens of telephones to switchboards and other, less certain devices. There was room enough for few people to operate, but only one worked the night shift. The operator rose to her feet as they entered.

  “Can you tell me what’s been going on? I’ve received multiple reports of false alarms for the last ten minutes—” She stopped as she saw the motley bunch. “… You three aren’t with us.” Quickly, she drew her sidearm, kept ready at the hip. Her other hand inched toward the phone as she ordered, “Don’t move.”

  “Look, we just wanna walk out of here—” Mack started.

  “You can’t leave,” she cut in. “You can’t break quarantine. We have a job, to keep you here, and you can’t just—”

  “Come on, lady! Show us a smidge of humanity!”

  “Except none of you are human.”

  Flynn extended his arm, stopping Jean before she could retaliate. It was easy to see whom the barb had stung most deeply.

  “No, we’re not,” he stepped forward. “Half-human, isn’t it? How they describe us? Human enough, but for something that sets us apart.”

  Unstirred, she snatched the receiver of a specific phone, groping past several others in the process. Wherever it connected, it could bring hell upon them in minutes. Flynn noted her name badge: Chang.

  “You won’t convince me to let you go,” she stated bravely. “I see you for what you are. You aren’t like me.”

  “A believer, huh?” Flynn asked, casually. His slitten eyes captured hers, while his hand caught the switch hook the moment she lifted it. She didn’t even notice.

  “It’s fine, Chang. I get it. We’re aberrations, apart from you. Some are more subtle than others, but we’re different. I understand.”

  “Then you’ll give up?”

  Chang hardly believed that, but Flynn saw the desperate hope in her eyes. The tiny white light. “I understand. Make the call. Sorry to have bothered you.” His fingers came off the switch hook, and only then did she notice it had been depressed. She was unsure now. Backing away, Flynn looked around. “What a mess.”

  She looked at him as though to say, Of course it’s a mess. It runs through the whole tower.

  “You’ve been here … how long? Five years?” Flynn asked. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a check, inferred from experience and her age.

  “As of winter.”

  “This post? You must be good, Chang. Not many people can handle so many lines—keep them running when things go awry.” Flynn ran a hand along the cable, toward the ceiling. “You must be real good. To run it alone, even if it’s the night shift.” It was as if he could see right through her. “They’ll bump you to day shift eventually. But they’ll never let you off this post.”

  It was likely true, and she knew it. Operators didn’t make captain, certainly didn’t make warden. Operators stayed operators; there were too few to spare.

  “What’re you getting at?” She knew better than to listen, but her hand drifted, inches diminishing between receiver and switch hook.

  “Whatever happens here, whether we escape or live or die … you’re an operator. That never changes.”

  “Oooh,” Mack caught on. Paranoid, Jean checked behind them. No one was coming.

  “How could they do this to you?” Flynn asked. “You’re sharp; you could do so much.
Yet they moor you. Here. In a dark room.”

  “There are windows,” she offered, weakly.

  “You work the night shift,” he reminded her with a smile.

  Chang didn’t respond. Whether or not looks mattered in running front post, she believed they did, and that she wasn’t pretty enough for it. That in itself was enough to nourish her insecurities, but Chang also knew she lacked the strength necessary for patrol – and scorned Jean a little, woman to woman, for the muscular poise the prisoner possessed that she did not. The operator was here, surrounded by cables and consoles. Usually alone. Chang looked at the three before her. This was power—their lives in her hands. She knew it. Flynn saw it.

  “Captain Hansen died not long ago, on level one–oh–nine. I promise, they haven’t found the body yet.”

  If she could have lined up the entire prison staff right then and showed them the power that an operator had, she’d have done so. The receiver had fallen to the hook, but she picked it up again. “Tower five? I’ve gotten word from Captain Hansen,” she looked up at Flynn, right into his unnatural eyes. She had no tolerance for what he was, but she abhorred her own lot in life more—though she had never given it much thought until this pivotal moment. “Kill the outside alarm. Prisoners are secure. Stand down.”

  Operator Chang flipped a few switches on the console. The siren’s screeching fell silent. “When they catch you, I’ll tell them I had no choice. That you—” she reconsidered, and then pointed at Mack, “You.” Mack tapped his own chest, taken aback. “—used some trick on me.”

  “Of course,” Flynn consented, placing his hands on the shoulders of his allies and guiding them out through the same doors they’d entered, leaving the operator as alone as when they’d found her.

  *

  Impressed, Jean looked Flynn dead in the eyes. “You must get laid, like, whenever the fuck you feel like it.”

  Indifferent to flattery, Flynn gestured to the right-side staircase leading to ground level. “We have a couple minutes at best.”

  Jean nodded, deciding this really wasn’t the best time to argue. When they reached the bottom, Flynn pointed to the guardsman at the weapon kiosk. Mack hurried forward, lunging over the counter and narrowly grazing a service bell that had sat upon it for generations. To his right, Flynn saw Jean strike the man at the registration desk in the back of the head, knocking him out cold.

  Cued, Flynn darted quietly toward the patrolling guards. They hadn’t heard, hadn’t seen. The first crumbled to the ground and the other noticed—but not fast enough. Grabbing the unconscious guardswoman’s dropped rifle—no time to aim, too much noise if he fired—he flung it, knocking the other in the head.

  Flynn’s fingers ached, and part of him wanted to end his prey here. No. You know better.

  Twice he struck the man in the face, lunging at the woman when she began to recover. She didn’t get up again. As the trio reconvened, the searchlights dimmed. It was dark out.

  “What now?” Jean asked.

  “We walk.” Flynn beckoned and they followed—into darkness, into the courtyard of Civilis. Away from a prison none had ever fled before, had ever truly chanced to try.

  The moon’s light would have been enough to spot them, if someone had looked. But no one did. The guards in the towers only laughed and slapped each other on the back—the call, minutes earlier, having given them all peace of mind. The one working the gate didn’t notice anything wrong with the three approaching until they came too close. In the morning he would ache, uncertain what had hit him but for his missing key.

  Flynn took care to lock the gate behind them.

  Chapter Two: Rats in the Walls

  The trek following their escape was exhausting and brutal; the winds pelted them with blinding sand, leaving them red and raw. Ironic, that the prison rags they had so eagerly discarded insulated better than the stolen armor they now wore; the freezing winds cut right through. They had no water, and the dusty air left any pools too murky to drink. Yet for all this, the howling sands were a mercy. For even as the land beat upon them, so too did it give Flynn, Jean, and Mack concealment from any pursuers, or patrols that could stumble across them.

  At times as they walked, one would fall and another would pick him up. Where his allies suffered with each gust, Flynn’s woolen pelt provided insulation. For him, this alliance was necessary only to protect his own escape. So long as one behind him did not die, there was no trail to betray his passage.

  In truth, there was no safe path through the expanse where Civilis was so securely nestled. Although the tower’s dim gaze could not find them, it commanded the skyline in every direction for miles around. Such prisons were always placed in lands inhospitable, where escape was next to impossible. The untainted people of the world did not want half-humans within reach or smell or sight, and it was for their contentment that the imprisoned were kept isolated and away.

  The long walk was made in silence, the wind’s bellows punctuated only occasionally by Mack’s humming. He shambled along, blinder than the rest—he’d tried tilting the crooked bandana on his head at least once, and had promptly tripped on a rock. He’d reset it quickly, catching up before his friends had had a chance to notice.

  It was for Flynn that the silence weighed strongest. As he led the march toward the ever-brightening lights of Crescent, he gave much thought to the start of his misfortunes, to the events culminating in his eight-day tenure in the upper reaches of Civilis. Patchwork was his memory, pitch at times, yet engulfed in blue fire at others. He needed to find out what had happened to him—how he’d ended up imprisoned. His first instinct compelled him to break company, leave Jean and Mack behind and seek the knowledge he craved. But he needed respite and a chance to think without sand whipping his flesh, and to shed the damned uniform he wore before it got him caught and shot.

  *

  It was nearly dawn when they approached the periphery of Crescent. The outermost streets and buildings had been pounded to dust when the city had met bombardment from multiple sides, generations prior. Crescent’s border was a scatter of blackened buildings that had withstood the worst of the attacks, the ground between them dusted with soot. Yet within this border, many of the structures—none more than a few stories high—stood intact, collectively forming the shape of a literal crescent, hence the city’s name.

  Flynn was familiar with this place, and guided the others deftly between the blackened buildings, keeping to the alleys. Although the sun was only on the cusp of rising, it was clear that Crescent never really slept. Streetwalkers, male and female alike, prowled for their next clients while goods were trafficked in the avenues, mostly lesser-grade food for the town’s workers or the tower’s prisoners. A pair of drunken guardswomen shambled from a nearby bar, singing dirty limericks.

  As they drew near, Jean and Mack could see that what Flynn had long since known: Crescent existed for the pleasure of their jailers. Sex, food, drink, and rest were all in great abundance for those who worked to keep the world safe from people like them.

  The three kept mostly to the edges of the city, cutting across an open street only once to arrive at their destination. Not bothering with the door of the tiny apartment building, Flynn kicked at a poorly boarded window and climbed inside.

  “We safe yet?” Jean asked, once she and Mack were in.

  “In the poorest sense of the word.”

  Although the building had endured time’s abuse, its insides were more rotten than its skin. Much of the floor was patched with decaying wood and exposed pipes, and there were many gaps along the staircase. Ignoring the lower-level apartment, whose entrance hall was gulfed by a dark pit, Flynn led his companions upstairs. The wood—rotted out in two places—groaned, but what remained was firm. Flynn walked as if he’d been there before, knowing every step to take, while Jean and Mack followed distantly, cautiously.

  While the two tried to negotiate the upper steps, Flynn peeled a rubber welcome mat from the ground, removing an old key
that was stuck to it. The lock gave him some trouble before giving way at a sharp turn, the knob cracking a little in the process.

  They entered an apartment strewn with dirty mattresses, rotted articles of clothing, old bottles, and faded cans. The windows were boarded as poorly as below, and morning light seeped through. A rusted oil drum sat in one corner, the ceiling above stained black from old fires.

  “Oh, wondrous sleepy time!” Mack dove face-first onto a mattress.

  The others winced as the floor creaked, but it did not give way, and Mack did not stir again. Flynn and Jean scavenged a few rat-eaten blankets from a cupboard before shedding the most uncomfortable and constricting pieces of armor that had shielded them, lying down to rest.

  They were tired. Beaten. Raw. But free.

  *

  A sickly heat washed over them by afternoon, and the poorly insulated apartment stank from it. Their exhaustion had passed, exchanged for hunger and a restless fear that woke them. Still dressed as jailers, their clothes would only draw more attention now, not less. While Jean and Mack made their way to the downstairs apartment for salvage, Flynn remained, shedding the remnants of his stolen uniform and examining himself in the dingy mirror of an empty closet.

  He found a pair of scissors and attempted to thin the offending hair covering his body, although little could be done for the thick coat running along his shoulders and down his spine. His pointed ears proved too pronounced and twisted to bother hiding. However much effort he invested, Flynn knew he would never pass for normal. Momentary contempt welled for his companions, whose disfigurements could be effectively concealed.

  The stairs groaned, alerting him to Jean and Mack’s return. Jean kicked the door open, blinded by the mass of clothes in her arms. “This place is a jackpot,” she declared, dumping it all to the ground. “How the hell’d you find it?”

  “I used it for work, once.” Flynn scavenged a pair of weathered black jeans and pulled them on, before finding a dirty white shirt to match. There were more colorful clothes in the mix, but it was his deepest wish not to stand out.