Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1) (4 page)

“
Okay Ezra, you've got this, nothing to it. On the count of
three, you're going to activate the wormhole and jump forward. Then
you're back in the lab, and all you have to do is sneak out and
come in the front door so Kirsten doesn't call in the DOLTs.” He
bounced on his toes a few times, shaking out his arms. “Here we go.
One. Two. Three!”

He activated the controller, forcing open a
wormhole and jumped forward with the strength and abandon that only
comes from real terror. Ezra landed on his face in the middle of a
darkened room. He looked up and his heart sank. This was not his
laboratory. This was not any of the ports that he had ordered down
for inspection. He checked his controller only to find the signal
blocked. He had no way of figuring out where he had ended up.
Panicking, his eyes ran furtively around the room, locking on to a
low object spanning the nearest wall, illuminated by a small row of
lights glowing gently up from the floor. A rack of weapons.

Guns, grenades, knives,
crossbows, swords, spears... weapons from every era. Ezra backed
away in horror. These were not weapons on display. These were
weapons to be used, kept ready and waiting next to an unlicensed
wormhole generator that was somewhere between the barrier and his
home. Wait! He was getting no signal here. It could be underground,
it could even be outside of Sanctuary entirely, in the perfect
location to watch the outside world undetected by DOLT.
In the perfect place to catch anyone coming out
of Sanctuary, too
. Realization struck him
with a horrible, crushing force.
In the
perfect place to make certain that the world outside remained a
secret
.

He stumbled to a wall, numb with terror. It
wasn't fair! Everything had been working so well. He was going to
do the right thing, the noble thing, for no other reason than that
it was the right thing to do! He felt his way along the wall until
he came to a door panel. It slide away when he pressed it, opening
into a dimly lit hallway. As he stepped out the lights above and
along the floor around him came on, providing a soft, steady glow.
Ezra whirled, catching a glimpse of the plaque on the door: a
triangular shape with three stylized letters - G o S - above the
number 242.

The letters looked familiar. Had he seen
them somewhere before? He would have to figure it out later. There
was no-one in sight, and he had to get out of here. Turning right,
Ezra began running for all he was worth down the hall, lights
heralding his progress. He passed more door panels, the numbers on
the plaques next to each descending as he went. Just after he
reached 201 a stairwell was illuminated on his left. The plaque on
the door in front of him stated “GYM”, and on the stairwell an
arrow pointing down declared “301-350, HANGAR”. Another arrow
pointed up toward “101-150, ADMIN/SANC”. He rushed up the stairs,
taking them two at a time as the lights came on above him. At the
top he saw a door marked “Administration” to his left. Directly in
front of him another the door read “Sanctuary Connection”. He
glanced back and forth nervously, then sprinted for the door. It
slid aside to reveal a well maintained wormhole generator in the
middle of stark room.

His net connection lit up, interfacing with
the console before the generator. A stroke of luck! The last used
coordinates were still cached! Ezra recognized them as somewhere in
the university district, and paused before connecting the wormhole.
Would the other end be guarded? Was this mysterious group doing
something to Sanctuary while everyone was distracted with Founder's
Day? He heard the door in the hall slide open, and a man's voice
said, “See, I told you I heard someone out here. The lights are on
and everything.”

Ezra didn't stop to think about anything but
escape. He connected the wormhole just as a man in uniform rounded
the door.

“
Hey, what are you doing in here? Everyone's supposed to be
out on the mission. If you need your gear I can help you get it
together so you can-”

Ezra didn't let the man finish. He leaped
through the wormhole and ran face first into something hard and
solid just on the other side. Walls blocked him to the left and
right as well. Thinking quickly, he pulled out his controller and
checked for available generators. Yes! The one he had used to get
here was of standard make. Pulling power from it, he placed another
wormhole directly between himself and the portal he had come out
of, throwing the exit to the nearest accessible port. That should
buy him some time.

Something was poking him in the back
uncomfortably. He reached around and found a small handle. He
frantically tried to twist it, pull it, push it, anything! It moved
when he slid it to the left. He threw the door open and stumbled
out. Looking around, Ezra spotted a display case containing a blue
suit with a red cape and a giant letter S on the front in red and
yellow. Other cases held brightly colored magazines of some sort...
comic books! He was in the Conservatorium of Culture, the largest
museum in the University Plaza! Breathing hard, he turned to the
box that had imprisoned him and saw an antique phone booth framing
the port station at the university lawn.

Gulping down lungfuls of air, Ezra sprinted
for the exit, throwing open doors and knocking down displays to
hamper anyone coming after him. Building security alarms started
blaring in his wake. He burst from the main set of doors and into
the empty lawn in front of the museum, eyes searching for signs of
pursuit. There were none. Laughing in unadulterated relief at his
successful escape, Ezra glanced at his time display. His heart
sank. The laughter died on his lips.

It was six minutes after seven. Kirsten
O'Donnell was going to kill him.

Ezra quickly tallied his
options. Kirsten was not one to bluff, which meant that DOLT
officers would be looking for him shortly. Worse, she would
probably direct them to the university district, where she thought
he would be for his experiment. The incessant alarms coming from
the building behind him meant that they would probably check here
first. What was he going to do? Another wormhole?
No,
he thought,
I'm back inside Sanctuary, wormholes can be
tracked.
He needed to find a way home, and
quickly. Luckily, there should be whole crowds out in the streets
all around Sanctuary. He could blend in and make his way back
toward the Legacy district. Sneaking into his lab was his only real
option. Had he remembered to lock the doors before he left? Maybe
he could claim that he had been there the whole time, too caught up
in what he was doing to notice the time. That might
work.

A sudden light at the university port
station drew his attention. Someone must have come through a
wormhole there. DOLT, or his mysterious friends with their secret
base? He wasn't sure which would be worse at this point. With a
groan of exhaustion he started off in a run, heading directly
across the plaza, away from port station and toward the loudest
crowd he could hear.

Staying to the shadows and skulking between
buildings, Ezra watched as DOLT emergency response vehicles sped
toward the museum. Overhead, the bright colors of Founder's Day
waterworks launched into a particularly dazzling display of neon
orange and green dashed through with hot pink, drawing a round of
“oohs” and “ahs” from the crowd below. The vibrant explosions
drizzled their colors down on the appreciative spectators and the
city around them, painting everything with sprinkles and splashes
of lightly glowing liquid.

Nearby, a group of kids ran through the
crowd with glowing guns, shooting more of the light liquid back and
forth at each other, coloring anyone and anything in their line of
fire with more stripes of brilliance. A harried looking woman came
running along behind, undoubtedly trying to shoo them back to
wherever they had come from. Ezra smiled fondly. It had not been so
long ago that he'd been having fun like that, with his mother
trying to chase him back home. He shook his head again. What was
wrong with him tonight? Maybe he wasn't cut out for these high
stress environments. He would have to experiment with that
hypothesis later.

The liquid from the waterworks above and the
squirt-guns below, as well as from the countless other ingenious
sources that would inevitably surface tonight was harmless. The
Sreedharan family had devised the formula for an inert, luminous
liquid that evaporated a few hours after being exposed to air well
over a hundred years ago. Founder's Day was without a doubt their
favorite holiday, from a strictly financial point of view.

Ezra made sure to get some of the color on
himself as well. Being completely clean tonight would be a surefire
way to stand out in the crowd. He had worked his way out of the
university district and was well into the entertainment area nearby
– the kind of place that catered to students out on their own for
the first time – when he decided to take a shortcut through a back
alley behind one of the local dancing clubs.

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath
when a backdoor to the club slid open. A dark, sinuous shape leaped
out, tackling him to the ground.

Oh god they caught
me
, he thought to himself as he and his
attacker went down in a mess of flailing limbs. He hit the ground
and got his arms under him, pushing away hard and putting some
distance between him and his assailant. Feet scrambling to find
purchase, he briefly wondered if he should try to duck into a
building to lose his tail when he noticed that the girl on the
ground was still lying flat on her back, laughing
breathlessly.

“
Sorry,” she said between panting, mirthful breaths. “Didn't
see you there. You out here for some fresh air too?”

A closer inspection revealed a small girl,
no more than five feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet,
with a spiky, pixy haircut highlighted in bright blue. The little
dress she was wearing displayed an intriguing amount of leg. She
too was covered in spots and sprays of color that stood out
vibrantly in the relative dark of the alleyway, albeit much more
liberally than Ezra. She was glistening from what must have been a
vigorous bout on the dance floor inside, if the pounding beat
coming through the closing door was any indication. Her eyes were
closed as she smiled up at the night sky and raised her arms
straight toward the heavens.

“
Help me up?” she asked innocently as her breathing began to
come under control.

Ezra suddenly felt rather foolish, crouched
as he was, ready to flee at a moment's notice. Before she could
open her eyes and add to his embarrassment, he straightened himself
and mumbled, “Oh, yeah, sorry, my fault entirely.” He grasped her
upraised hands and pulled. She fell into him pleasantly.

“
Whoa,” the girl exclaimed, her voice still bubbling with
laughter, “haven't quite found my feet yet.” She smiled up at
him.

“
Uh, n-no problem, I gotcha,” he stammered out. Deep blue,
almost purple eyes looked up at him from an elfin face. A huge
swipe of dark pink ran adorably across her cheek, emphasizing
dimples to die for. Ezra's heart suddenly started beating very fast
as his face heated. She didn't seem to notice, but her smile
broadened as she spotted his radiation badge and camera.

She pushed herself up to a wobbly stand. He
caught a whiff of some sort of a sweet alcohol on her breath as she
said, “You doing publicity for the club or something? I've always
wanted to be on one of those ads.”

He quickly tore the badge off his shirt
before she could take a closer look at it. Stupid hormones. He
didn't have time to get distracted by a pretty face right now. Or a
pretty body. It didn't even matter how nice she smelled or felt
when she had been pressed up against... gah, stupid hormones! “Oh,
yeah, publicity. They, uh, wanted to show what a great Founder's
Day party they could throw and hired me on to take video. I just
need to... edit it a bit. Yeah, a little editing! Just heading out
to do that now.”

“
Why are you using such an old model?” She asked, taking a
swaying step forward. The motion of her hips as she moved was
just... whoa, down libido, down.

“
Pretty... pictures! The quality, that is, on the older
models,” he mopped at his forehead. Was it warm in this alley?
“Much higher than on neural net recordings.”

That sounded plausible. Now he would just
make his exit be in the clear. He took a step back just as a huge
display went off somewhere in front of him, lighting everything in
a sunny yellow. That was the only reason he noticed the shadow that
suddenly passed overhead. Glancing up quickly, Ezra felt the blood
drain from his face in shock. Time seemed to slow.

A glider flew in between him and the
waterwork display. But that was not what shocked him. There was a
man strapped to the glider, almost exactly as Ezra himself had been
only a few hours ago. As he watched, the man threw a glowing ball
out over them and then vanished behind a building. The waterwork
exploded into burst of blues and silvers that sprinkled down on
Ezra's upturned face as he tried to figure out what he had just
seen.

The girl laughed with delight and cheered up
at where the man had been just a moment ago. “What,” Ezra asked in
a weak voice, “was that?”

“
Oh, you didn't see them earlier? It's the Guild of Sundry!
The Founder's Day event that everyone was talking about! They've
had people flying around for the last two hours at
least!”