Patrick Lee - The Breach

Only their wrists were restrained. The bonds were zip ties made of some type of metal. Aluminum or steel, probably. They wouldn't break-that much was certain.

But they would cut skin.

Travis needed both guards looking away. One already was; he was standing in the doorway, staring off down the hall. Maybe the smell of the blood had gotten to him. The other wandered the room, his gaze going everywhere, and nowhere in particular. He was never quite looking away long enough for Travis to do what he needed to do.

Another minute passed. Travis thought about what Pilgrim had said.

You're supposed to be here.

The Whisper wanted him here. Had always wanted him here. Had arranged for it. And what else had the guy said? That they'd met before? Given the Whisper's amnesia effect, that was plausible. It could've happened anytime. Any random day in Fairbanks. Or in prison.

He was part of the Whisper's plan, somehow. And Pilgrim knew that. That was why he'd included him among the survivors. Why he needed any survivors, who knew? Maybe Pilgrim didn't even know. Maybe that was just another play he'd let the Whisper dictate.

But Travis's importance to the plan was something he could use against these guards.

He'd lost sight of the wanderer. He turned his head slightly, and saw that the man had settled into place at a dry-erase board that took up most of the wall beside the door. It was covered with random scribbles of information, no doubt most or all of it concerning Breach entities. The guy seemed pretty absorbed by it. He'd probably been with Pilgrim for years, hearing all about Border Town and the Breach, and waiting for today. Well, tough shit for him if it all ended badly in the next sixty seconds.

Travis took a hard, silent breath. Set his teeth firmly together.

Then he pulled his hands apart with all of his strength.

The metal tore into the skin at once. Like razor wire. Then, deeper. Cutting not just skin but muscle, fat tissue. Cleaving across his tendons. The loop around his left wrist was the tighter of the two: within seconds he felt the metal pull taut against the wrist bone, and stop. It would go no farther. The loop around his right, looser by maybe two notches, eased over the wrist bone, slippery with the blood it'd already drawn. Beyond the wrist, it was home free. Everything else would compress, if only barely. The fit was still tight enough for the bladed loop to carve deep, though. At the pressure points-his base knuckles and the pad of his thumb-it grated against the bone, taking the meat off like a knife against a drumstick. If there was a limit to physical pain, this was it.

The loop came free with a jerk. His left elbow hit Paige, and she turned to him, her eyes still soaked and bloodshot. He looked quickly for the guards. Both were still looking away. Down the hall. Across the note board.

Travis brought his hands forward into his lap. The right one looked even worse than it felt. Thick ribbons of skin and muscle hung ragged, blood draining from the wounds in pencil-thick streams.

Even after the carnage Paige had just witnessed, she reacted to the sight. Only for a second. Then she got control. Looked at him, questioning. No way to explain to her what he was about to do. If he tried to rationalize it even in his own mind, he'd only convince himself it was a shit idea. It was a shit idea, but it had the benefit of no competition.

He got a bearing on the guards again. Both still looking away. He tipped forward into a crawl, grateful for his lack of shoes to scuff the floor, and started toward the backpack.

There was no point in even watching the guards. No move he could make in response if he saw them turn right now. It would just be over.

He kept his eyes on the backpack instead. Kept his focus on being silent, and moving as fast as that constraint allowed.

He reached the pack. Took hold of the zipper. Eased it open. Blood still streaming from his hand. When the pack was open wide enough, he reached in. Felt for what he needed, guided by his memory of what it looked like. He felt it, and gripped it with his shredded hand. Drew it from the pack and stood. The two guards were more or less centered in his vision, twenty feet away, ten feet apart. Both of their rifles slung on their shoulders, two full seconds from being ready to fire.

"You're covered," Travis said, his voice ringing hard in the dead space of the room.

The guards flinched and turned, and found themselves staring at the Medic in his hand. Hard to distinguish from a gun, even up close. And they weren't up close. Neither man even tried for his rifle. Travis thought there was another reason for that, beyond the effective bluff of the Medic.

Pilgrim really did want him alive. They knew it. The indecision was etched in their eyes.

"I'd rather not risk the sound of a shot," Travis said. "Otherwise you'd be dead already. Weapons down and you live."

The guards traded a look. Hesitated another second. Then the one in the doorway complied, slowly unslinging his gun, bending low and setting it on the tile. The second did the same.

Travis indicated the floor in front of him. "Slide them."

They did. Both rifles came to rest within feet of him.

"Now lie flat," he said. "Arms away from your bodies."

A few seconds later they were pressed like insect specimens to the floor, faces down. Travis considered the options. He really didn't want to shoot. No telling how far away the nearest hostile was, or how far the sound would carry.

He set the Medic down, picked up one of their rifles, and crossed the space toward them, still moving silently to keep them unaware of his position. He stopped just shy of standing between them, reversed his hold on the rifle, and rammed it down onto each man's head, the second guy reacting and turning just enough to take the blow on his temple instead of behind the ear.

Both of them out cold.

Not good enough.

Travis saw a jackknife clipped to the second man's belt. It offered a quicker solution than physically breaking their heads apart, as much as he might have enjoyed the catharsis of doing that. He took the knife, opened it, and cut each gunman's throat, carotid to carotid.

Still holding it, he turned to the others. He saw more relief than revulsion in their eyes. He tested the knife's blade on the bind that still hung from his left wrist. It did nothing. It would take heavy-duty cutters to free Paige and the rest. He searched the guards' bodies for a pair of them, but came up empty. And just as he finished, the first guard's cell phone rang.

And rang. And rang. Travis looked at Paige. She looked back, eyes wide, unsure for a second. Then very sure.

"There's no time to free us," she said. "Take my backpack and get to the surface through the elevator shaft. Use my phone to call for-"

He shook his head, moving toward her and the others, the guard's phone still ringing behind him. "There's gotta be a way to get you guys free-"

"Listen to me," she said. "They'll be here in sixty seconds. Take the pack. Go to the elevator, press the call button three times, then hold it for a five-count. The doors will open on the empty shaft."

"Ten of us against them, he said, we can double the guards' rifles and ammo-"

"And Pilgrim will turn on the gas again," she said.

He had no counter for that.

She was right.

Shit.

He felt every good option break off and fall away, like pieces of blacktop over a washed-out cavity in the soil.

"They blew the roof off the elevator shaft when they came in," Paige said. "You can get all the way out. You'll see the inset ladder when you open the doors. When you reach the surface, call the ninth number on my phone's list. By then, you'll understand why."