Dedication (The Medicean Stars Saga Book 1) (12 page)

Foothills of the Western Mountains

A University Campus

The crowd on the snow-covered field before the podium stirs restlessly, each person moving like a stalk of grass touched by a breeze. The speaker behind the podium gestures towards the buildings of the university campus that rise around the field, his breath fogging in the cold air and his thick coat giving him a rotund appearance. Yet the point he delivers is sharp and resonates with the crowd. Some turn toward each other to exchange a few words of comment, others shift from foot to foot and glance around furtively. The only people who don’t seem to react to this particular point of the speaker’s are those on the outside of the crowd. Completely surrounding the crowd and forming a line in front of the podium is what appears to be the entire local police force, supported by a division of the local military reserves. The officers ring the relatively peaceful crowd, whose members, given the potency and skill of the orator before them, have even stopped hurling the occasional jeer or rude suggestion and are listening intently to the speech.

The speech being given is discussing the continuing rise in student fees and tuition costs along with the cutting of a number of scholarships. The orator is one of the school’s deans, and the crowd is comprised primarily of students. The dean began the speech by attempting to connect with the students before him. Now his discourse has moved into a more detailed examination of the school’s funding.

“As an institution, we’ve been reliant on the control of others for too long. Our research dictated by the whims of those who provide the grants, our faculty and students dedicating their careers to fighting for the opportunity to further some private or government interest that only wants to see positive results. Research has become a quest for the next profitable idea. We no longer explore all the possibilities to prove a thesis, we no longer embrace the negative results as opportunities to explore what didn’t work. No, they are mistakes that are to be feared and ashamed of, swept under the rug and hidden. We have to produce a positive result if we want to continue drawing our funding, and if we don’t, there are ten other applicants waiting in line to snatch up the money.

“Admittedly this course was not the one we’d hoped to find ourselves on. Once, we were able to rely on the government to assist us with general funding, but those days are gone. We only see very specific grants that support specialized projects that serve some politician’s agenda, and even these are being cut back.” Trying to drive the crowd towards reason with an open discussion of the bitter truth, the dean continues. “We, the council of deans and the president of the university, were faced with a choice: sell our research and our integrity to the highest bidder to be used for private gain or employ more of our own funds so our knowledge could be shared for the greater good.

“Here at this proud, storied, institution, we want to change this status quo. If we can take charge of our funding, we can take our university back. We, meaning all of us,” the speaker continues, opening his arms to embrace the crowd before him, “can have a voice in the direction we head. We can pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge, not the next grant check.”

An observer well practiced in watching the ebb and flow of a speech before a hostile audience would be able to note that the most recent point, salient and well-reasoned point that it was, was exactly where the speaker tipped the scales and won the crowd’s favor. Such an observer would be able to conclude, with a minimum of doubt, that if the speaker were to continue, the crowd would in fact eventually be brought to support his position. The speaker continues trying, with honesty, to unite the crowd before him if not in support of his position than at least in understanding why their fees are increasing.

Unfortunately for the speaker’s chances of being remembered by history in a positive context, such an observer has, in fact, been watching this speech from the security of the police command post—a vehicle parked on the street by the field. Specifically it is unfortunate because this particular observer has been tasked by his superiors to ensure that this particular speech does not end in peaceful manner. If the university is able to successfully free itself from its current funding model—one that his employers have dedicated generations to ensnaring it in—his career would be cut short, terminally. The observer thinks back over the conversation that he had this morning, during which it was made very clear that in no way should this particular event be allowed to challenge the benevolent authorities. And if things are to turn violent, which, according to his superior, they most certainly will, he is to spare no measure of mercy, since those participating in the rally have already condemned themselves. While his superior regretted that any would get hurt. He stressed that the proper order of things must be maintained, and if the crowd were to disperse with its message intact, the seeds of dissent and sedition would have been irrevocably sown. The observer straightens his suit and keys the microphone in front of him.

“All units stand ready. Threat level is now Alpha.”

Contrary to what his warning would indicate, the view on his monitors remains almost identical as the speech continues, and the crowd appears to be calming down, the reasoned and measured speech diffusing the pent up anger the audience had come ready to vent. Only a slight shift in the arrayed security forces’ stances and the chorus of affirmatives he receives back over the speakers prove that his orders were received. Muting the microphone and focusing on the central monitor, which displays the view of the camera that is positioned directly in front of the podium, the observer switches to a private radio channel.

“Urban Two, commence phase one.”

The screen before him dissolves into chaos as the speech is interrupted by something thrown from the crowd, and the security cordon, already on edge, responds to the threat instantly with riot clubs ready. Scanning the rest of the monitors, the observer sees the crowd surrender relatively meekly to the onslaught of nightsticks and clubs as the security forces move in and try to isolate the trouble makers. The observer shakes his head and keys the microphone again.

“All units, a bomb has been spotted in the crowd; I repeat, a bomb has been spotted.” He pauses for a minute to let the warning sink into their minds, then ups the ante once more. “Crowd is armed; I repeat, center of crowd is armed. Crowd is active resistance, not civilian. Repeat: Crowd is combatants. Lethal force authorized.”

The observer switches off the microphone and keys the private channel once more.

“Urban Two, initiate phase two. I repeat, initiate phase two. May fortune smile on you. Over and out.”

Somewhere in the heart of the crowd, a voice yells, “Freedom or death!” before unloading an automatic rifle into the air. The observer sees on the monitors that the security forces have all drawn their rifles and are advancing more cautiously, as the crowd around them sinks deeper into panic. He only has to wait a couple of seconds for the tension to swing past its breaking point.

A series of explosions rips through the crowd, sending protestors and police alike flying. What little calmness had remained in the crowd disappears, and the students begin stampeding. The security forces are spread out in isolated bunches. Each group, feeling fatally threatened by the chaotic press of panicked students, responds with full automatic fire.

Smiling at the monitors and the success of his mission, the observer flips a switch on the side of a timer so that it begins counting down, and then he turns to leave the command post. On his way out, he pauses to adjust the hat on the corpse of the police chief, whose chair he had been using, and to brush an imaginary piece of lint from his shoulder. Jumping lightly down to the pavement, he loses himself in the steady stream of people running away from the field, as the peaceful crowd dissolves into a bloodbath. The command post disintegrates into a ball of fire, and the snow begins to turn red.

Foothills of the Western Mountains

A University Campus

Jon is still buried in the work he hasn't been completing for months now. In the hall, the single casement shows snow drifted around the base of the trees that have long since lost their leaves. Not that it matters—he would only be able to see it if he weren't behind a stack of paper and he were standing almost at the other end of the hall. Between his brief spells of sleep and the long hours at his desk, he has managed, a few more times, to run into Ryan, who, frustratingly enough, is moving ahead with his own research and getting active with the protest movements that are still sweeping across the academic world. On top of it all, he’s managed to start a relationship with Sara, which only goes to prove that some people are blessed with all the charm, while others with far too many piles of paper. How he does it Jon has no idea, but when he spares the time to think about it, he can't help but be jealous. Fortunately, those moments are brief and usually followed closely by falling into a restless sleep.

Suddenly, the hallway bursts into sudden commotion, and the sound of gunfire and shouting breaks Jon away from his study. He has already moved halfway across the room to investigate when Ryan and Sara come tearing through the door. She trips on a stack of paper, sprawling across even more and almost taking Jon's feet out from under him. Ryan pivots, shutting the door, locking it, and switching off the light.

“Shhh, don't make a sound.” hisses Ryan as he holds his ear to the door.

In the hall, the sound of running boots and clanking tactical gear comes around the corner, and the light through the crack under the door flickers, as a squad of soldiers sprint by in pursuit of someone.

From the end of the hall, they hear a shouted order—only slightly muffled by the door—for one of the pairs of boots to remain in place and keep an eye out. Further orders indicate that they are to shoot first and ask questions later.

By this time, Jon's eyesight has recovered enough that he can see Sara crouched by the edge of his desk and Ryan turning towards him. Motioning them both to remain quiet, Ryan gestures towards the desk, indicating that they should have a conference.

“Is there any way out of this office other than that door?” he asks, indicating the door through which he had just tumbled. “We need to get out of here before they come looking for us. It’s only a matter of time before they begin searching the entire building room by room.”

“Can't we just act like we don't know what they are talking about?” asks Jon, still in shock and not fully grasping what is going on. Jon assumes this has something to do with protest Ryan had mentioned that morning when he ran into him outside the restroom, but why are they being chased by soldiers? The panicked look on both their faces is understandable given the gunfire and the order he’d heard from the hall for them to be shot on sight, but his mind is still trying to reason a way out of this predicament when Sara recovers her breath from her ungainly sprawl across his stacks of paper.

“No,” Sara answers, her voice strained as if she is forcing it to remain calm, but the way her eyes keep darting to the door betray her fear. “They caught Ryan and me on their security cameras as we tried to get away. They'll have our images, so we can't just pretend we weren't there. And anyway, how they've been treating the other students we saw... I wouldn't put it past them to just shoot us on sight, even if they didn’t recognize us.”

She shudders as her voice trails off. Even in the dark, Jon can see her face pale and Ryan stiffen as they both think back over the last few minutes before they came running into Jon’s office. Taking this all in, Jon realizes that their situation is significantly more important than his research and that neither of his friends seems to be able to focus fully at the moment. He dumps all thought of peer-reviewed journals and literature reviews from his mind. As his mental gears are shifting, he begins looking around his office, trying to envision the space before it looked like a paper delivery truck had exploded in it.

“I don't think there is even an air conditioning vent in these walls...” he begins. “Wait, hold on a minute. I always smell the solvents they use in the lab that is behind this room. There must be some kind of connection through the space above the ceiling tiles.”

Ryan moves around the desk, refocusing once more now that there might be a way out of this trap, and reaches up to the depressingly low ceiling. With little effort, he is able to push one of the dingy panels up and to the side. A faint glow seems to come from the now removed tile. He crouches down, cupping his hands and nodding to Sara. She gracefully strides over, her face a mask of grim determination, and, using his hands for help, springs up so that she is standing on his shoulders, stabilized by the edge of the opening.

“Boost me up a little more,” she whispers. “I think can see a way out.”

Ryan presses her up by her ankles with no more apparent effort than he'd use to put just his own arms over his head. She pulls herself up the rest of the way and disappears, along with the little bit of light that was filtering through the hole.

A tense few minutes pass for Ryan and Jon before Sara's head pokes back through the opening. Their eyes have now adjusted enough that they can see her teeth flash in brief smile.

“We can get through,” she tells them. “There is an old vent that seems to have vibrated itself loose, and I don't think there is anyone in the lab.”

Ryan motions Jon over, presenting his hands to help boost him up. Seemingly effortlessly, Jon finds himself through the hole, with Sara helping him to keep his head from hitting any of the pipes that run through the space.

Below them, Ryan slides over the chair that was behind the desk. When it is directly under the hole and only a little off to one side, he climbs gently on top of it and springs up to the rim, where Sara and Jon both help him get up onto the rafters. Being careful not to drop it through the hole, Ryan and Jon slide the ceiling tile back into place, hoping that they did not leave anything too obvious as to their means of departure.

“This way,” Sara says. She leads them off towards the light, navigating through the network of pipes and conduits, her smaller and lither body seeming to bend and twist around the fixtures like she is a snake. Jon, being significantly less flexible and hardly in the best athletic shape of his life, thanks to the hours he has spent at his desk, follows her at a much slower pace. When he has the chance to look back, he notices that Ryan is having an even harder time than he is. His shoulders are broader than Jon’s, forcing him to pick his own route through the maze, since the gaps that are big enough for Jon and Sara just won't fit him. Ryan’s path is significantly longer, and he is steadily falling behind.

Jon focuses on his own movements, as he ducks under a ventilation duct and crawls over a pipe that is covered in about an inch of dust but is still hot to the touch. Nearly burning himself when his stomach brushes over the pipe, he swears softly, then immediately wishes he hadn’t. The ceiling tiles are thin enough that he can hear soldiers beginning to search the rooms below.

Finally, clearing a mass of communication lines, he can see the opening ahead of him. There is a faint breeze that pulls air into the crawl space and brings with it the smells of solvents and cleaning supplies. Through the opening, lab benches are visible, segregating the floor space of the room into long strips with deep shadows along the floor. The only sources of light are the emergency bulb above the door and the strip of daylight shining through the office windows at the far side of the lab.

Jon drops down to the floor beneath the vent, crouching behind the nearest bench and crab-walking down to the other end of the bench. Barely visible in the dark is Sara’s form, peeking around the corner towards the door, across the cold tile striped by the light shining through the top half of the door. By the time he makes it to her, he hears Ryan’s bulk land as lightly as it can behind him. Unfortunately, he still sounds like an elephant jumping off a roof, his sound echoing in the crypt-like silence of the lab. When Ryan catches up, Sara turns to them and leans against the cabinet. Her eyes still seem haunted, but her movements seem focused and precise.

“I think we can get out of the main door,” she says, eyeing the seemingly vast distance they have to cross to get there. Three more lab benches provide shadows to hide in, but the final stretch is clearly visible from the doorway and illuminated by both the light in the hall and from the office. “It looks like there is one guy patrolling the hall, but he seems to make regular rounds, and there is a door to the stairwell right across the hall.”

“Let’s go,” Ryan says without hesitation, his fear clear in his breathless rush to keep moving. Jon nods a little slower, still feeling like this is all some sort of misunderstanding.

With Sara leading the way, they move across the lab, staying low and avoiding the light that blankets the main aisle as best they can, flitting between shadows and hoping no one looks through the door. Before they make it to the door, Ryan motions Sara and Jon to a halt.

“Hold on a second, guys,” he whispers. “I’m going to rig a little surprise for them, so they won’t think to follow us. See if you guys can find anything that is flammable.”

Jon and Sara, glance at each other. Bewildered by the excitement in Ryan’s voice but also sensing the urgency, they quickly turn to the drawers and shelves around them. Rummaging in a drawer, Ryan produces a bottle of alcohol and a line of string. He soaks the string in the alcohol, then runs it out along the counter until one end is next to the outlets for the gas at the far side. Sara quickly finds a stash of paper, swabs, and cotton rags while Jon uncovers a large bottle of alcohol used to refill the small bottles located at each workstation.

“Quick, pile all that stuff you’ve found down here,” Ryan says, indicating the gas valves that he has now opened, the start of a smile playing across his lips. “Then get ready to run.”

The sound of hissing gas fills the silence as they all crouch near the door, Ryan with the alcohol-soaked string in one hand and a lighter in the other. When the guard's shadow darkens the window in the door, they begin to count. Once they can safely assume that he has almost reached the other end of the hall, Ryan lights the end of the string, while Jon dashes across the hall with Sara directly on his heels. From the far end of the hall, the guard hears the door open.

“You! Stop!” he shouts, and, without waiting for a response, brings his rifle up to his shoulder and fires a burst, nearly hitting Ryan as he rolls across the hall and into the stairwell. Without catching his breath or checking to see if any of the bullets have hit him, Ryan is up on his feet and starting across the landing towards the stairs, blowing past Jon with a maniacal grin on his face.

Sara leads the way down, throwing herself from landing to landing and pushing off the walls to make it around the corners. Ryan is behind her, thundering down the stairs, inducing a vibration that can be felt in the hand rails that Jon is using pull himself through the turns. They have made it down one floor before they get knocked to the ground by a thunderous explosion, Ryan misses the last few steps and stumbles into the wall, putting a hand sized hole through the concrete blocks.

The lights flicker and die before the strobe and klaxon of the fire alarm come on, leaving them stunned in a moment of darkness followed by blinding intensity. Regaining their feet in the alternating darkness and blindness, they start once more down the stairs, running as quickly as they had been before the spill. When all three have reached the ground floor, Sara moves to open the door to the outside.

“Wait, I bet they have the building surrounded...” Jon, out of breath and sweating, says as he brings up the rear. “I know a place down in the basement where we can get into the steam tunnels. Follow me.”

They run down two more flights of stairs and then through a hall that is lit by nothing but the faint glow of yet more exit signs and the brilliant flashes of the alarm. About halfway down the corridor, Jon pulls up from his sprint in front of nondescript door. Trying the handle, he finds it locked, but Ryan quickly pushes him aside and squares his hips and, in one powerful kick, breaks the door off its hinges. Before it even hits the floor, he is already ducking into the small hallway that had been hidden behind it.

Jon is the last through the opening and, therefore, is the last one visible on the monitors of those who have been tracking the three of them as they have progressed through the building.

Somewhere outside, in a large van that is parked amongst the emergency vehicles that now clog the campus's roads, a man in a suit turns from the monitors he has been watching. He indicates the screen that shows the frozen frame of Jon, right before he stepped into the tunnel, and turns to the older man in a military uniform, who stands half a pace behind him and to the right.

“I want that one alive,” the suited man says. “I don't care about the other two, but we've had our eye on him for a while. Don't screw this up, or it will be you that we hunt next.”

“Yes sir!” the soldier responds. “I already have teams moving to watch the tunnel exits.”