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

  Chapter 4

  Hidden Hallways

  Ezra stared dumbfounded at where the wormhole had been. He frantically checked his clock. Twenty five minutes remained on his timer. There must have been some kind of power fluctuation, he realized, his mind whirring, or... or maybe sustaining a wormhole through a wormhole reduces efficiency? I should have tested it more thoroughly at the boundary value parameters!

  “Breathe Ezra,” he said to himself. “You're okay. You planned for this, that's why all the closer ports are shut down for the night.”

  Without the support of a real wormhole generator, his controller could only create and maintain a portal for about half a second. Enough time to drop a wormhole on himself and connect it to the nearest active port or generator then jump through immediately. His contingency plan had included scenarios like this, and Ezra had practiced the technique back in his lab several times. It had just never occurred to him that he might actually have to use it.

  “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 jumping 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 darted 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 slid away when he pressed it, opening into a dimly lit hallway. As he stepped out the lights 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.

  Ezra squinted. 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 scanned the hallway once and 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. Okay, he thought, accessing the connection protocols. Now I just need to... hold on, the last used coordinates are still cached in the system. Ezra scratched his head, recognizing them as somewhere in the university district. But not anywhere that should have had a receiving connection.

  It looks like the system doesn't have a standard override... I could connect to this mystery location right now, or try to work around it and make my way back to the lab. He bit his lip. 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.”

  “That answers that,” he whispered, punching in the connection 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 in 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 through, throwing the exit to the nearest accessible port. That should buy him some time.

  Something was poking him in the back. 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.