Jay Posey - Three

He had intended to lower himself slowly down until he was just hanging from the edge, and then drop. Something didn’t go right. It happened too fast, about when his waist went through the hole, and all of a sudden he was slipping and falling, and something punched him in the arm and chin, and then his feet hit before he was ready, and he fell to his hands and knees on cool, hard concrete.

It took a second for Wren to figure out he’d hit the ground, and that he was where he meant to be. His arm felt funny. And his chin was burning. Really burning, like he’d put it on the stove. He tried really, really hard not to cry. But he couldn’t help it.

Through the tears he picked up his chemlight, held it high, tried to figure out where he was. Then, there was a sound. A sort of scuffle. A mouse running through paper, or a raven’s sudden flight. Wren froze. Strained. Gripped his knife so hard it hurt. Again, the sound. Coming from slightly behind him, over his right shoulder. Then a scraping, metal on metal.

An arctic wave of panic rushed over Wren then, as every nightmare creature he’d ever imagined exploded in his mind, there, trapped in the room with him, and he holding the only light. He wanted so desperately to scream, but his only thought, his one lone rational thought was to be still, and he clung to that thought. Be still. Be still. Be still.

Again, a rustling. No closer. And this time, followed by a voice.

“Wren?” it called. It sounded small, tinny, strange. “Wren, baby, are you in there?”

Mama.

“Mama! It’s me, I’m here!”

“Where are you, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know,” he called. He wasn’t even trying anymore. The tears fell freely. “Mama it’s all dark!”

“Come to me, Wren. Just come to my voice.”

He moved towards the voice he knew and loved the most, each step making it sound fuller, warmer, more and more like Mama.

“Keep coming, baby. You’re real close.”

Finally, in the last few steps, Wren could barely make out a stripe of pale purple light slipping in. The gap in the gate. He dropped to his knees, set the chemlight on the floor, and stuck his hand through.

“Here Mama, I’m here.”

He felt her strong hands close around his, warm, certain.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

“I fell.”

Another voice now.

“The engines. Can you see ’em?”

Mister Three.

“No, sir. It’s all dark.”

“Wren, are you OK?”

He laid the knife down by his side, wiped the tears away with his free hand. He still had a job to do.

“Yes, Mama, I’m OK. I’m OK now.”

“Wren, you’re on the left side of the gate,” Three said, louder. He must’ve been kneeling near the gap now. “If you follow the gate over to the other side, the engines should be right there.”

“OK. I’ll find them. Hang on.”

Wren stood up, picked up his chemlight, followed the gate across the room, running his other, empty hand along it more for comfort than direction. Mama and Mister Three were on the other side of that gate. Eight inches away. Everything was fine.

He reached the end of the gate, where steel met concrete, and held the light above his head again. A few paces away he saw the beginnings of some kind of machinery: old, brown, massive. Had to be the engines.

“OK, Mama, I found them!” he yelled.

And in the next instant, froze again, as the echo from his voice trailed off. He felt it.

Something was there, moving in the darkness. Closing.

No faint rustle now. Just a steady, slow pat… pat… pat , like bare feet carefully placed. There was no hope for control now. Wren screamed.

“Mama! Mama!”

“Wren?”

Absolute terror seized him, a waking nightmare.

“Mama! Something’s in here! Mama! ”

“Wren! Wren!” she called, hysterical. “ Wren!”

Back, back, he slid back to the wall, down to the corner, hugged his knees. The knife, his knife, he’d left it on the floor across the room, just now when he needed it most. And the patter never stopped, never sped up. It just came closer, closer, closer.

In his panicked fright, Wren threw the chemlight at the sound, watched it sail and clatter away, bouncing off some block of rounded, rusted metal. Clamped his hands over his ears, screaming for his mama to come get him, knowing there was no way she could.

The woman was hysterical, and Three couldn’t really blame her given the situation. Wren had gone suddenly silent, and wasn’t answering her calls now. But they were on a knife’s edge, minutes from the waking of the Weir. Without the safety of the Vault, he was out of options. And without options, Cass wouldn’t survive the night.

She was on her knees, sobbing into the gap in the gate, calling for her son. Pleading for an answer. But the intensity was waning. Three knew she would be useless in searching for another way. There was always another way. Knowing that had gotten him this far, and he hadn’t come this far to stop searching now. He could feel his eyes sliding over details, instincts screaming to slow down, go back. But Cass’s cries were interfering, dulling his focus.

“Cass,” he called her gently. She didn’t respond. “Cass, come on.”

He reached down to take her arm, thinking to help her to her feet, but the instant he made contact, she sprang up, screaming again, right in his face.

“He’s gone! You killed him!”

She flailed at him, weak, pathetic blows that he didn’t even bother defending himself against. Behind the chaos, the storm of a woman that raged in front of him, a hint of sound caught his attention, something he felt more than heard.

“Cass,” Three said, his voice calm, even.

“You sent him to die!”

“Cass,” he said it again, firm, urgent; a warning, if she’d been listening.

“He’s gone! My son is gone! ”

He didn’t have time for this, or to explain, so he did what came naturally. He punched her in the sternum, a sharp, shallow blow that stole the breath from her body, and crumpled her to the ground. There. Quiet. Controlled. He put a hand on her neck to keep her in place while he scanned, strained. Every sense stretched outward, seeking to disprove what he’d thought he’d heard. Knowing in his gut that he had. Yes, there again… he’d heard it. The faint, distant but unmistakable call of the Weir. The very first of them were out. More would follow.

Cass had fallen into a silent, shuddering sort of sobbing, and Three took advantage of her stillness. He took his hand from her, scanned everything he could think of: the gate, the vent, the alleyways, the maglev line… In all that surrounded them, there had to be something to use, some place to hide. But his mind kept sliding back to the Vault. It wasn’t an option, but it refused to remove itself as one. He fought to forget it, to force his eyes to see everything else.

Under normal circumstances, he never would’ve let it happen. But the stress, the exhaustion, the pressure… whatever the reason, he let himself forget about the woman for a moment. A mistake. She hit him from the side, a blur of movement in the waning light, and drove the edge of her hand into his neck, just under the jaw. Three’s vision jolted; blacked out for an instant. As he fell to a knee, he felt the pistol sliding clear of its holster. Her words flashed through his dazed mind, her promise that if anything happened to Wren, she’d kill him herself.

She got two shots off before he managed to grab her wrist, and the third round tore a chunk from the upper corner of the Vault’s reinforced exterior. As the rolling echo from the blasts rumbled into the distance, Three wrenched the gun from her, and threw her back to the ground. For a long moment, he just stood there, staring, jaw clenched tight, temples throbbing, fighting back the urge to do her some violence. She stared right back, smoldering, defiant; he had no doubts about her will or ferocity. But there was something else… a vulnerability he hadn’t expected. Resignation to a familiar fear. Acceptance of what was about to come. And he knew in that instant that this woman was no stranger to abuse.