Brett Battles - The Collected

A pause. “Four.”

Nate woke with a start.

At first, he thought someone had come for him again, and he was about to be dragged away to some other round of torture. Waterboarding this time, or maybe something even more medieval, like the rack.

But it had only been the nightmares playing in his head. His cell was empty, the door firmly shut.

He lay on his stomach, letting the adrenaline coursing though his body dissipate. Once his heart rate had come back to normal, he sat up. The roar of the pain along his back had dropped a notch from cataclysmic supernova to titanic molten lava eruption. The spasms caused by the electricity, though, seemed to have stopped altogether.

Gingerly, he rose to his feet, felt his way across the dark room to the toilet, and relieved himself.

Time was a problem. His internal clock was misfiring, one moment telling him it was ten p.m., and the next, time for breakfast. He knew, though, that it was late, or, rather, early, because no light seeped in through the vent. The corridor lights so far had only been off at night.

The vent. There was something about the vent. A dream he had…no, no. An idea, as he’d been falling asleep.

A potential way out.

With growing excitement, he retrieved the bolt from where he’d stuck it in the mattress after using it last time, ran his fingers along the wall until he reached the door, and sat on the floor.

Given that no one had come after him the last time he removed the vent cover, he decided it was unlikely there was a camera in the room, night vision-equipped or otherwise, so he didn’t even bother concealing his actions as he removed his prosthetic leg. As soon as his stub eased out of the cup, he sighed with relief. He had worn the leg far too long without taking a break. Even toughened with calluses as his stub had become, it felt raw and worn. He allowed himself just a few seconds to rub his hand over it and massage the tissue.

Using the bolt, he removed the back frame of the vent again. This time he didn’t tie any strings to the front. Without any light, it would have been a struggle at best to run them over the slats and snag them back so he could tie them off, but he wasn’t worried. His previous experience had shown him the front wouldn’t fall out.

Once the back frame was free, he set it on the floor, out of the way. He felt along the slats embedded in the front half until he found a loose spot. Taking extra care, he worked his fingers into the space until he was able to wrap them around the corridor side of the slat.

Next, he used his free hand to push forward on each corner in succession until the frame popped out of the hole. He laid it quietly on the corridor floor.

With the hole now unblocked, he shoved his arm as far through it as possible, and reached across the front of the door until his hand came in contact with the locking bar that ran up and down the outside. He moved his hand upward, already knowing the door handle was too high for him to reach, but giving it a try anyway. After confirming his limitations, he pulled all the way back inside the cell and grabbed his prosthetic.

This was where his whole plan lived or died. Holding the leg by the ankle, he fed it through the rectangular opening. It was tight, but he was able to squeeze the whole thing through.

Closing his eyes, he pictured the front of the door as he turned the leg so that it was vertical, and moved it toward the door handle. When he passed the point where he thought he should have reached it, he shifted the leg to the side, and pushed up. He met no resistance, so he tried again. This time the cup struck home.

Down and vertical meant locked. Up ninety degrees to a horizon, unlocked.

It took him three tries to get the cup setting just right against the handle. The first two tries resulted in the leg shooting out away from the door, both times nearly causing him to lose hold of the ankle. On the third try, he felt the handle turn and heard the long metal rods slip along the side of the door. When the handle stopped moving, he gave the door a tentative push. It gave at the bottom, but the top held firm.

He placed the end of the prosthetic against the handle and shoved again. There was resistance, then finally a soft pop as the top rod slipped free of its locking slot. Immediately, the door swung outward a few inches.

Nate quickly retrieved his leg and remounted it against his sore stub. As soon as it was securely in place, he exited his cell, closed his door, and reengaged the metal rods. He replaced the front frame of the vent in the hole. Though he couldn’t see his handiwork in the dark, he was confident the door looked unchanged, and until someone opened it, there would be no reason to think he wasn’t still inside.

To his left, the corridor led to the doorway he’d been taken through every time he left his cell. On the two occasions he’d been unhooded, he’d seen that the door was similar to the cell doors in its metal makeup, but that there was no corresponding locking rod on either side. To the right was the unknown.

He hesitated. Should he open the others’ cells? Get them out, too?

He couldn’t just leave them there.

Find the way out first, then get them.

He decided to go in the direction he’d never been taken. But before he took his third step-

“Who’s out there?” a voice whispered.

Nate froze, sure a guard had quietly entered the corridor and heard him moving around.

“I know you’re there. Who is that?”

It wasn’t a guard, Nate realized.

He turned the other way, and tiptoed until he was outside the occupied cell farthest from his own.

“Peter?” he whispered, leaning down toward the vent.

“Hello, Nate.”

As Nate had suspected, Peter had figured out who he was the first time they’d spoken.

“How did you get out of your cell?” Peter asked.

“Creative use of limbs.”

A grunt. “All right, and how are you getting out of the hallway?”

“I was about to have a look around. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll come back and get the rest of you.”

“Might be better if you get out and go for help.”

“I’m not leaving you all here.”

Peter was quiet for a moment. “They made a mistake bringing you here.”

“And don’t think I’m not going to let Quinn know about it.”

“No. He would have been a mistake, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Residue of an old job neither of you were on, that’s all.”

“Then why the hell-”

“Doesn’t matter. Go find the way out.”

Nate wanted to know more, but Peter was right. Now wasn’t time for a leisurely chat. “I won’t be gone long.”

“Good luck.”

Keeping one hand in front of him, and the other on the wall, Nate made his way down the corridor as quickly as he dared. For the first thirty feet, he came across other doors he guessed led into rooms similar to the one he’d been in, but all their locks were open, so he knew they were empty.

A few yards past the last door, the passageway turned to the left. In the distance, he could see a thin glowing line low to the floor.

A door , he thought. Another way out. But did the light mean there was someone on the other side?

Stepping lightly, he approached the light. It was a door all right. There was enough illumination for him to make out that much. But unlike the other doors, this one was made of wooden planks held together with iron strips at the top and bottom. It looked old, perhaps not as old as the building itself, but a century or two wasn’t out of the question.

Instead of a knob, it had a ring, also iron. Unless it was locked on the other side, all he had to do was pull it.