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No matter how many times Baz looked at his watch, time had not slowed for him. Baz had been through the factories regularly over the years, called out whenever there had been an accident before he had been confined to the prison. However, he had never been needed around the warehouses. He had made two wrong turns that had cost him more time than Fahima’s interruption. It was a secret blessing, this way he would never get to the rendezvous point on time and he would go home never knowing if the deal was a trap or not, and better for it. However, he hadn’t come this far to back out. Baz was not going to give up until his watch said midnight.
The clunking monotony of the fans so close to the edge of the dome was loud enough that it masked Baz’s footsteps. He could run through every street without having to worry that someone would hear him coming, but the threat of a Valkyrie sneaking up behind him had skyrocketed. The streets were a labyrinth, and he couldn’t risk completely losing his way in a mad dash. The path had looked so simple on the map, but amongst the blandness of the warehouses, he could have been anywhere.
There were no markers to indicate that the next street was different to the last. Baz tried to find the small signs to make the street different: a crack in the wall, a stain on the concrete, a misaligned door. Most of the time, there was nothing. The one time he found a piece of graffiti, he had doubled back and gone around three streets further down. After ten minutes he hadn’t been sure whether he would be able to find his way out. He’d walked into a trap. He knew it.
There were a dozen people taking care of the factories at night, hidden away in their operations rooms, but no one watched the warehouses. The lights were at bare minimum. Every shadow was a cop or an official or a Valkyrie. The only thing moving were the fans and Baz, and still the shadows seemed to change. He’d given up on playing the innocent or naïve: he kept the shiv in his hand and for the first time in SU wished he had a gun instead. If Quade had her hands in this, she would have loved that. He would have been able to put up a bit more of a fight so when she shot him, she’d think it was worth it instead of sending in one of her other Valkyrie underlings.
Baz glanced at his watch again. One past midnight. He was too late. It served him right, running around in the middle of the night because someone had scrawled a letter. If he had watched someone else do it, he would have laughed in their face, and there was no reason to pretend he didn’t deserve the same. Fahima would happily take his role when he got back to the apartments – if he could get back to the apartments. ******** knew where he’d ended up while he was chasing his tail.
Using the edge of the dome as his guide, he made a heads or tails call on what was east and west, and started heading back. There was nothing he could see that made a difference in which way he was heading. The warehouses always blocked out the sight of the factories, and the light pollution on either side could have been anything. He’d screwed up, Baz had to admit that.
At the end of every street, he stopped and searched the darkness for something. A quick scan was no longer good enough when he had nothing to show for the night’s escapade. It was the only thing that stopped him from getting spotted. On his second check, he saw that the moving shadows were more than his imagination. The man was trying to go unnoticed. He couldn’t be a cop or an official, he wasn’t holding himself like he had a gun. If he was a human, it would have been easy, but Baz couldn’t bet he wasn’t a metahuman – he had to have been to know what was in the letter – and then he wouldn’t need a gun to be a threat.
Baz ran into the back of the man, pinning him against the wall. He forced the knife against the man’s throat and pressed the two good fingers of his left hand to the side of the man’s forehead. All the fight the man had in him was gone in a flash. He was completely limp, supported only by Baz’s pressure wedging him against the wall. Even though there was not even an inch’s difference between them, Baz looked twice as large and felt every part stronger for it.
“Don’t try anything funny or you’ll be a paraplegic for the rest of your life.” The message seemed to register. “What’re you doing out here?”
The man tried to get a look back at him, but it wasn’t fear on his face, it was curiosity. He didn’t even seem to worry about the question. That wasn’t right. Even people who knew Baz for years didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was only putting on a show when he had pulled out a knife. Baz let the shiv dig into the man’s skin, and suddenly all the fear he was used to started to surface.
And still no sound came out.
“You better say something soon, mate, or I’m gonna leave you for the coppers and Valks to pick up in the morning.”
The man grunted out a noise. It was almost stuttered as his throat fought back against the knife. Baz didn’t ease up. On his second attempt, he managed a choked sentence; “I was looking for you.” Baz pulled the knife back and the man breathed a little bit easier. The man paused for a moment waiting in case something happened then managed a few more words. “We were hoping you’d make it this far. I’m supposed to answer any questions you may have about the letter.”
Matthew Cable · Sat Aug 02, 2014 @ 11:47am · 0 Comments |
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