Teleport traps are nasty things. Basically, a teleport trap is a web of energy set up between two poles. When you run into the web, a device is triggered that teleports you to a preset location.
The good thing about teleport traps is that they're easy to avoid if you know what you're doing. They radiate energies that interact with our force shields to produce that tingling sensation I had noticed, so you get plenty of advance warning. It's similar to the feeling you get when Wizzit teleports you someplace, but it's different enough that once you have felt them both, you won't ever confuse the two.
The bad thing about them is that they're invisible and can be set up pretty much anywhere in a hurry, like across a narrow street in a little town somewhere in eastern Vietnam. And they can send you anywhere, like directly into the sun. We think that's what happened to Bheka Nkosi, our first Prime Red, and the first Prime ever to die in battle.
Luckily, Enclave isn't much into random assassination. If they had set up a trap like this, it was because they figured we had a naive new Prime Violet who would run into it because she didn't know any better. And they probably wouldn't want to kill her; they would most likely want to capture her, which in some ways might be worse, both for her and for us. I'd bet that some of those Enclave scientists would just love to have their own Prime to experiment on.
These thoughts were running through my head as I went barreling into the teleport trap. When the haze cleared away, I found myself in a large, dimly-lit room -- it reminded me of my high school's gymnasium -- that was simply packed with Zoinks. Up ahead, I could see Lily walking passively beside a pair of baddies who were hauling a limp Violet between them. She appeared to be unconscious; she had probably been beaten into submission by the Zoinks the second she appeared.
I was all set to go thump me some bad guys, grab Padma, and teleport out again lickety-split. She looked completely helpless, and who knew what those goons were going to do to her? Something awful, I was sure. But then the rational part of my brain stepped in and said "Hold on there, pardner! Let's think this through." And I did; Shelley had taught me too well not to.
First of all, the odds were against me. Now, it's not like I've got a problem with long odds -- I'll happily take on twenty or thirty Zoinks any day of the week -- but there were easily two hundred of them in here, plus Lily and whoever it was that was carrying Padma. Pretty lousy chance of me getting to her, wouldn't you say?
And even if I grabbed her, I wasn't exactly sure how we were going to get out again. If we were in an Enclave facility, then chances were that I would not be able to communicate with my fellow Primes outside or with Wizzit, and he certainly would not be able to teleport me out of here. Until I could find some sort of usable teleport machinery on my own, I was stuck.
A quick shout-out to Wizzit confirmed that he was not answering my calls. So, while it might feel good to go save Padma right this second, my best bet, whether I liked it or not (and I didn't) was to hide, bide my time, and try to figure out some sort of a rescue plan.
Luckily for me, the first part -- hiding -- looked like it was going to be a whole lot easier than I had any right to expect. For one thing, no one had figured that a second Prime would be stupid enough to teleport through. Now that their trap had been sprung on Violet, they appeared to be closing up shop. No one was even looking my way. I guess it's lucky I ran in when I did. Too, Zoinks are not very observant critters, nor are they smart. Unless they had been specifically ordered to be on the lookout for another visitor, chances were that none of them would even notice me.
And I had a third factor in my favor as well: I was very hard to see right now. Remember that command I muttered to my force shield right before I entered the trap? The command was "Camouflage mode on." It's sort of a standard procedure of mine whenever I run headlong into some sort of unknown trouble. And yes, I learned it from Shelley.
Camouflage mode is a lot like having your own invisibility cloak. Instead of hiding me behind an indigo-colored haze, my force shield displays whatever is on the other side of me, so that I become essentially see-through. It's not perfect. In a brightly-lit room with a fast-shifting background, I would be pretty easy to see. Still, as long as I stuck to the shadows and didn't move too quickly, no one was likely to spot me.
I dodged around the nearest Zoinks and tried to follow the group carrying Padma as quickly as I could. It was harder than you might think; try running through a crowded room sometime without touching anyone and you'll see what I mean. By the time I reached the doorway they had used, they were out of sight.
What I saw when I exited was a hallway that went on for a short distance left and right before curving out of sight in both directions. I couldn't see which way Padma's group had gone, and the acoustics were bad enough that I couldn't hear them, either. The Zoinks coming through behind me were all heading to the left, so I went right. Surely they wouldn't keep their important new prisoner with the common rabble, would they?
Well, yes, they would. The right-hand side of the hall turned into a dead end after less than fifty feet. I made my way back, but by then there was a stream of Zoinks coming through the door, and I had to wait for them to get out of my way. I'm surprised that none of them noticed the wisps of smoke curling from out my ears by the time the last one came through. As the last Zoink was going down the hallway, I set out to find Padma, wherever she was in this Enclave facility.
I have to say, it was one of the most confusing places I had ever been in. There was no such thing as a straight passage or a right angle anywhere. Hallways crossed other hallways at irregular intervals; even the lighting didn't make any sense -- reds and yellows, greens and blues, all used with no pattern I could discern.
I decided to follow my hallway as far as I could; I had no compelling reason to change, and at least this way I could maintain the one point of reference I had, which was the large room where I had teleported into. The hallway arced more-or-less continuously around to the left, and at first I wondered whether I might be making a large circle. After about an hour, though, the intersections with other hallways started coming with greater frequency -- so quickly, in fact, that soon there wasn't enough space between the intersections for rooms of any kinds, just floor-to-ceiling pillars that kept getting thinner and thinner. Eventually, even those stopped, and I found myself in a large, brightly-lit circular room.
Well, maybe "room" isn't the right term, because that implies that there were walls and doorways, and there weren't, just these pillars that gradually thinned out into open space. I decided not to go too far into the "room", at least not right away, because there was a lot of activity there. Not too many Zoinks, but a lot of human-looking guards, a few monsters, and these stationary tubes of grayish-green gas that might have been Wizzit's sicklier-looking cousins. Or they might just have been gas -- who knows? Regardless, I saw no Padma, and no Lily, for that matter.
Like I said, I tried to keep to the outskirts of this area for fear of getting spotted or run into. I eventually drifted over to a section that didn't have too many people walking around in it and tried to observe what was going on in the hopes of getting a line on where Padma was. As I watched, I gradually began to figure out how the place was laid out.
There appeared to be a number of hallways that left this room, about half of them circling out to the left and half to the right. The left-arcing hallways and the right-arcing hallways crossed and re-crossed each other many times as they spiraled around the central area and eventually moved out of sight. It made for kind of an interesting pattern, I guess -- one which I'm sure would interest someone like Nicolai much more than it did me -- but as far as I was concerned, it had one definite advantage: It would be very hard to get lost in. If you didn't know where you were, then you could just pick any hallway and follow it, and eventually you would wind up either at a dead end or in this central area.
Once I figured that out,
I decided it was time to go exploring. There was one hallway in particular, I noticed, that seemed to have more traffic than the others. I didn't want to go down there because I didn't want to get bumped into and caught, but at the same time, it seemed like a logical place to look for Padma. Finally, I compromised and picked a hallway that spiraled the opposite way, reasoning that I would cross it a number of times and get plenty of chances for investigation.
The hallways each seemed to have their own color of lighting. The path I picked was illuminated by an orangish light, while the one I was interested in had purple. That made it easy to remember -- violet light to find Violet.
It wasn't long before I made my first discovery. The first few rooms, being very small, appeared to be not much more than storage closets, and in the third or fourth one of these, I found Padma's clothes. Tan shorts, Hello Kitty tee-shirt, underwear, and special boots -- all folded and neatly stacked. No socks, but I was pretty sure she had been barefoot underneath the boots.
I started getting worried when I saw the clothes. I didn't think there was anything sexual about it; I didn't think, for example, that they would try to rape her. The Enclave monsters I've encountered just don't seem to think that way. No, taking away her clothes was probably more a way to control her. She would be less likely to try to escape if she knew she would have to roam these halls naked.
The thing was, if they had made her remove her clothes -- or if they had forcibly removed them from her -- then that must mean that she was not shielded. I didn't think that Enclave could turn off our force shields remotely the way Wizzit could, and the clothes didn't appear to be charred the way they would have been if Enclave had overloaded her shield to make it fail. So, somehow they had persuaded her to de-power her shield and probably remove her belt as well. I would need to find it before Padma and I left here.
I tried to remember what Wizzit had told us about our Prime belts. Now that Padma had been wearing hers for a while, it ought not respond to anybody but her, and if they altered her into one of their monsters (even though they supposedly couldn't do that against her will) her DNA would be sufficiently changed that the belt ought to stop responding to her. Any attempts to break into the mechanism to study it ought to make it burn itself into a molten pile of useless slag. Ought, ought, and ought, and none of them, as far as I knew, had ever been tested.
I gathered up the pile of clothes and tucked it under my arm. If I found Padma, I would prefer to be able to give her back her belt, along with a stern lecture on how she should never let herself be talked into taking it off again. Still, even giving her clothes to her would undoubtedly restore a measure of her self-confidence, and I was sure I would need her help in getting out of here.
I continued cautiously along my orange hallway, peeking into every room whose door I could open. My initial success was not repeated; I went on for more than an hour without finding anything else of interest.
Well, okay, maybe I shouldn't say I didn't find anything of interest. I poked around any number of storerooms containing all kinds of fascinating-looking equipment; none of what I saw, though, was Padma. Realizing that I might never again have this kind of unfettered access to an Enclave base, I tried to examine as much as I could and to at least look over everything. I hoped my belt-cam would record some useful information even though I was not connected to Wizzit right now. And it certainly wasn't a boring search. I was nearly caught several times, and I spent a tense fifteen minutes hanging from an overhead beam in an unfinished room while a tech of some sort ate his lunch beneath me.
My next breakthrough came as I was approaching the red intersection for the eighth or ninth time. I heard footsteps approaching from ahead of me, so I carefully tried a door which proved to be unlocked. The room inside was dark, so I slipped inside and closed the door as quietly as I could.
Almost immediately, I could tell I was not alone; I heard the quiet sound of someone breathing, slowly and regularly. I froze, letting my eyes and my force shield adjust to the dim light. There was a sharp inhalation -- not of surprise, but more like a sudden yawn, the way you'll do sometimes when you're asleep. Then I heard a soft creaking, as if someone were shifting about on a piece of furniture.
Gradually, I was able to make out that fully one-half of the room was closed off by heavy metal bars, sort of like an old-fashioned jail cell. Inside the cell, against one of the side walls, was a portable bed or cot with someone lying on it. The figure was covered up by a sheet or blanket, and from what I could make out, she was lying on her stomach. That's right, she. I couldn't make out much of her figure, and her face was turned away from me, but I could definitely see a lot of long black hair.
"Violet," I whispered. No response. "Violet!" Then, louder, "Violet! Wake up!"
The figure stirred, then settled herself again. Not wanting to raise my voice further, I reached between the bars, grabbed some hair, and started pulling. That finally provoked a response. The figure raised her head and asked muzzily, "What is it? Is it time to get up already?"
I had been wrong. This wasn't Padma. The sleepy questions had been asked in Cantonese; I had somehow wandered into Lily's room. Or cell, from the look of things.
She was pulling herself into a sitting position, looking around. "Who woke me up? Who is here?"
I decided to let her know I was in the room with her; otherwise she might start calling for help, and I couldn't risk that. "My name is Prime Indigo," I said in Cantonese. "Do you remember me?"
She peered through the darkness in the direction my voice had come from. "Prime Indigo? Yes! Yes, I remember. Where are you? I can't see you."
"I have made myself invisible," I said. "I am in great danger; I can't let anyone know that I am here."
"You said you wanted to be my friend," she said eagerly. "Have you come to help me? Are you going to take me away from here?"
She sounded so hopeful that I really wanted to tell her yes. Unfortunately, I have found that in these situations, it doesn't help to lie. "I do want to be your friend, and I will help you if I can," I told her regretfully, "but that is not why I am here. Enclave has captured another friend of mine, and I came here hoping to free her."
"Enclave?" she repeated, sounding puzzled, as well she might. I had used the English word, not being entirely certain what its Cantonese translation would be.
"That's our word for the people who are holding you here," I explained. "Have you seen another prisoner? A girl with long, black hair and dark skin?"
She shook her head. "I never see anyone. I never talk to anyone. I am in this cage all the time." She sighed, and I felt the weight of the entire world in that sigh. "Whenever they put me in here, I am always very tired. Usually I fall asleep at once. If I don't, then I cry until I sleep. They come back when I wake up, and then I go away again."
I looked at her, unsure of what to do next. I knew that finding Padma was of the utmost importance, but I couldn't find it in me just to leave this girl here. I wanted to know more about her. "Where do you go?" I asked gently.
"Not to a place. I . . . go away in my mind. I think they take me somewhere. I sometimes have strange dreams of fighting, but I honestly do not know what happens." She shook her head sadly. "I am sorry I can't help you, friend Prime Indigo. I don't know anything about your friend."
"That's all right," I assured her. "I would like to help you if I can. Tell me, is this cage always locked?"
"Yes, always," she said. "I try it every day. Some days I come back to myself while the sound of its closing is still ringing in the room, and I rush over to try to open it. It never works." She shrugged in despair.
I examined the cage. The bars were thick; I didn't think I could bend them even with my Prime-enhanced strength. I couldn't see any way to force the door, and I have never learned to pick locks. "I cannot get you out of this cage. I am sorry."
"I under
stand. I know you must leave soon to find your friend, but can you please do one thing for me?"
"If I can. What is it?"
She looked down. "Can you . . . hold my hand?" she asked shyly. "Please, just for a little while? I don't remember the last time I touched anyone."
For a moment, I didn't know what to say. I mean, here I had essentially just bailed on her, but she didn't get mad or even complain. No, she just asked me to sit with her and hold her hand. My heart went out to her; how could I refuse? "Of course," I said with a little catch in my voice. I reached between the bars and took hold of her hand. She clutched it eagerly in both of hers. "What is your name, pretty one?" I asked her.
I heard her inhale sharply. "Do you really think I am pretty?"
I thought for a moment, and then I chuckled. "No, I lied. You are not pretty. You are beautiful."
She looked down demurely. "You are very kind, Prime Indigo. My name is Li Lin-fa."
I nodded. That actually made sense. Her family name was Li (or Lee) and I was pretty sure that Lin-fa meant something like lotus or water-lily in Cantonese. "Lily Lee" would be a reasonable Americanization of her name. "And where do you come from, Li Lin-fa?"
"I was born in a village near Shanghai," she said, looking up at me. "My father was the best fisherman in the world, but he drowned during a storm when I was fifteen. Younger Brother did his best to provide for us, but he had much bad luck; he and Mother and I often went hungry. One day, some men came to the village and offered to pay a whole year's earnings for me. Younger Brother agreed at once. I . . . thought they wanted me to become a prostitute for them. They put me in the back of their van. There was a funny smell, and I fell asleep, although it was only late morning. When I woke up, I was here in this cage. I have never left."
"What year was that?" She named a year in the Chinese zodiac. I know how the zodiac works, but I'm a little rusty. It took me a while to remember what year we were in and to calculate the difference. After a few moments, I said, "I think you have been here for six years."
She bowed her head. "So long. I did not realize it had been that long. My family probably thinks I am dead." She brought my hand up to her cheek; it was wet with tears.
I was feeling really bad for her right about then, and I would have given my right arm for a way to get her out of that cage and away to somewhere safe. Suddenly, I had an idea. "Li Lin-fa, are there bars on the walls?"
"On the walls? No, there is just . . . I believe it is cement. But the bars are securely set into the cement; you cannot pull them out."
"I don't think I will need to." My sap gloves. I hadn't had a chance to work with them much, but from what I had read, I could theoretically punch a cement wall without hurting myself. If I had enough time, maybe I could use my Prime-enhanced strength to punch a large enough hole that --
"Hsst!" she said suddenly. "Someone is coming. You must hide!"
She must have had exceptional hearing, because I was only now starting to hear footsteps. She let go my hand and I stepped back into what I hoped would be a dark corner. "I will remember you, Li Lin-fa," I told her. "I will do whatever I can to get you out of here."
"I will never forget you, Prime Indigo."
The door opened, the lights snapped on, and JB Swift stepped into the room. He didn't dawdle; he just pointed his remote at Li Lin-fa and pressed a button. Li Lin-fa straightened, and the expression on her face changed subtly. In the space of a single breath, she had become Lily Lee. "Come with me," JB Swift said tersely.
"Coming," came the near-mechanical reply. Lily pulled the plastic cap off the end of one of the metal tubes comprising her cot, reached inside, and extracted a key. This, she used to unlock the door to her cage. Once outside, she tucked the key into a pocket of her jumpsuit. I expected her to tell JB Swift about me at this point, but she didn't. Either her Lily Lee persona didn't share that kind of information with Li Lin-fa, or else she was so passive in this state that she wouldn't even report an intruder unless she were directly asked.
JB Swift walked briskly out of the room, and Lily followed him. Not having a better plan, I did the same. He led us down a series of hallways of varying colors, heading away from the central hub as far as I could tell. Finally he stepped into a largish room. A normal person might have held the door open for Lily, but JB Swift simply bulled his way in and let the door close on its own, right in Lily's face. I suppose I should have been grateful for this rudeness on his part, because otherwise I could not have gotten in undetected. As it was, Lily caught the door and pushed it open to let herself in, and I was able to slip in behind her.
JB Swift was standing in front of a low table -- well, probably not low for him, but low for me -- on which lay one of the two things I most wanted to see: a black belt with a nondescript metal buckle. Padma's Prime Violet belt. He pointed to it. "Put it on," he told Lily.
Lily stepped forward and fastened it on. It was a good fit; even though she was shorter than Padma, Lily's waist appeared to be about the same size. She was able to set the buckle, but it didn't fuse into a single piece the way it did when Padma put it on; I thought that was a good sign.
JB Swift picked up several sheets of paper. "Repeat after me," he said, reading from one of the sheets. "Belt on."
"Belt on," Lily echoed passively.
"Belt activate."
"Belt activate."
"Belt turn on."
"Belt turn on."
They continued in that vein for quite some time, systematically trying out pretty much every possible way to say, "Start up, you stupid belt!" (I think he actually had her say that at one point.) "Prime Violet activate" was on the list, but then, so was "Purple Prime go", so it didn't appear as if they had any particular insight as to how the belt worked. After a while, they gave up. JB Swift told Lily to remove the belt and place it back on the table, and the two of them left together, with JB muttering something about the stupid bureaucracy of this place.
Thirty seconds later, I had the belt rolled up around the rest of Padma's clothes and was making my way out of the room. I had decided not to try to follow them. For one thing, I was worried that they might hear me open and shut the door to the room. For another, while I really wanted to help Li Lin-fa, I had to find Padma.
I had a hunch that they might be keeping her near where her belt was. Forty minutes later, I discovered I was right. Two right-curving hallways down and three left-curving hallways across, I spotted a door that had a guard stationed on either side of it. I hadn't seen any guards by any of the other rooms I had passed, so I figured this must be where Padma was.
The two guards appeared to be the same ones I had seen escorting Padma out of the large room. They were alters, but still recognizably human; I hoped that meant they weren't too tough. They looked bored, so I assumed that no one was expected to come by any time soon. I decided to try to take them out and chance being discovered.
It wasn't all that hard. Being mostly invisible, I just sucker-punched the first one with my specially-powered sap gloves. He went down in a shower of sparks. The second one was a little harder; I had to hit him twice before he went down. I dragged the pair of them into a different room and tied their hands and feet using some disposable cuffs from my battle vest. Then I stepped into the room in question just as easy as you please.
I seemed to be developing a knack for coming upon sleeping young women. Padma was lying curled up on her side on some kind of padded table, sort of like what you'd see in a doctor's examining room. She was facing away from me, but even so, I could tell it was Padma and not Li Lin-fa. She had not a stitch on, and, uh, let's just say I could tell her skin was Indian-dark all over. Nope, no tan lines on her anywhere.
"Violet," I whispered. She didn't move. I walked over to her, wincing at the bruises I saw on her face and arms. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing slowly and deeply.
The poor kid, I thought; she must have been through a lot in the hours I had spent searching for her. The braid she usually wore when training was undone, and her long, dark hair spilled across her face and upper back. Her underneath arm was pulled up tight against her breasts; the other arm dangled out of sight over the far edge of the table. "Violet!" I said again and touched her bare shoulder.
In a burst of motion, she whipped her arm back. She was gripping a short metal bar of some sort, and this she slammed hammer-style against the side of my head. Had I not been shielded, I'm sure she would have cracked open my skull. As it was, I stumbled backward and tripped over a standing lamp. She had been shamming, and now she exploded into action. She attacked me again almost before I hit the floor, swinging the metal bar with deadly intent.
"Hey, calm down!" I cried, trying to fend off her attack. It wasn't easy; I was dizzy from that blow to the head, and my eyes seemed to be crossing. She struck me a glancing blow across the temple. "It's me; it's Indigo."
She spun and landed a backwheel kick against the side of my head. "Liar!" she shrieked. "You have killed Indigo, and now I will kill you!"
"No, wait, it's really me!" I reached up, and despite my double vision, I somehow managed to catch her next swing. I pulled her off-balance, and she tumbled down onto the floor beside me. "No fooling, Violet," I said in a low voice as she struggled to get her weapon free of my grasp, biting at my hands and kicking. "It's really me. You know, fourth Dan, Kukkiwon, and all that? I'm not dead."
She froze, and a second later my arms were full of a very frightened, very naked nineteen-year-old girl. "Oh, Trevor, I am so sorry!" she sobbed. "They said they would kill you unless I gave them my belt, and after I gave it to them, they said they had killed you anyway! I didn't know what to do!"
"It's all right," I assured her, clasping her to my chest and stroking her hair. "I'm here now. We'll figure out what to do." When her sobs had subsided, I took hold of her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. (It was a bit of a struggle, I might add, not to let my glance drop down, say, a foot or so, but I managed it.) "Okay, first lesson: Don't trust Enclave," I told her sternly. "Ever. Don't trust anything they say, and never, ever take off your belt for them. They would have told you anything to get it off you. I was never their prisoner."
"But they knew your name was Trevor!" she protested. "How could they know that unless . . .?" Suddenly she slumped, and a look of horror crossed her face. "Unless I told them. I must have called out your name when you were about to be attacked by Lily Lee. Oh, I am so stupid!"
I grimaced. "Well, let's not argue about that right now. We have to get out of here before anyone gets back."
"But they took my clothes and . . ."
I shoved the bundle I had been carrying into her hands. "Here. I got lucky and found both your clothes and your belt. Get yourself dressed and powered up, and then let's see if we can find a way out of here."
She accepted the bundle with a grateful smile. "Yes, Indigo," she said meekly. "Thank you!"
I have to say, I admired the fact that she didn't get shy all of a sudden and tell me to turn around while she got her clothes on. I mean, I turned around anyway, but she couldn't have known that because she couldn't see me.
"How did you make yourself invisible?" she asked, and then immediately answered her own question, "Oh, camouflage mode. Right. Mike showed me how to do that." There was a pause, and then I heard her say, "Prime Violet, activate."
I turned back around to see her dressed and waiting expectantly. When nothing happened, she repeated, "Prime Violet, activate!" Then she said, with a note of panic in her voice, "Indigo, it's not working!"
"All right, just stay calm," I said as soothingly as I could. I had no idea why she was unable to power up, but panicking never solves anything. "Um, trying tapping the command. Mike showed you how to do that, didn't he?" I know I had had to practice the tapping codes every day for my first six months as a Prime, and I still went over them once a week even after three years.
For a moment she looked blank, but then she nodded in recognition. "Yes, he did. I . . . think I remember how it goes." I watched her carefully tap the code on her belt buckle, and a moment later she was surrounded by a violet haze. "It worked," she said, and the relief in her voice was painfully obvious. I was about to tell her to tap the sequence for camouflage mode, but I saw she was already doing it. In seconds, she disappeared from view.
"Good," I said. "Now let's get out of here."
In less than a minute we were walking hand-in-hand down an orange hallway. Yeah, I know. Hand in hand -- sounds romantic, doesn't it? The truth is, I was being purely practical. I couldn't see her, and she couldn't see me, and if we didn't maintain some kind of physical contact, chances were that either we'd be tripping all over each other or we'd get separated.
"How are we going to get home?" Padma wanted to know. "I don't remember the tapping code to teleport."
"That's because there isn't one," I replied. "Wizzit is the one who controls that, and we can't contact him from in here. We'll have to find an Enclave teleportation device. But before we do that, we're going to have to find a safe place to hide for a while and heal up."
"Why? I'm not that badly hurt."
"Maybe not, but I am." In truth, I was having an increasingly hard time staying upright. My double vision was not getting any better, my head was splitting, and I was starting to feel sick to my stomach. "I think I'm going to have to initiate a healing coma."
"What, here?"
"Well, not out in the hallway. I'm looking for a certain specific room, one with a cage built into it." I was trying to find Li Lin-fa's room, in fact; I figured that inside a cage would be about the safest place to hide if you're invisible. I saw an intersection with a red hallway coming up; I hoped it was the right one, because I wasn't sure how much farther I would be able to go on. Concussions can be nasty things, and I was pretty sure I had one, thanks to Padma's backwheel kick to the head.
I almost missed the door. I was having trouble concentrating and had thought it would be on the right. It had been on the right when I first entered it, but I was going the other way now. I guess Padma figured out what I was searching for, because she pulled me across the hall, opened the door there, and asked, "Is this what you wanted?"
It was. I stumbled inside and into the cage, which, thankfully, Lily hadn't closed behind her. "I'm going to lie down under the cot," I explained. I could tell I was having trouble forming my words clearly; my mouth felt like it was full of cotton. "Don't close the cage door. If Lily Lee comes in, don't worry; she's probably harmless. If she finds you and starts speaking Chinese, tell her Prime Indigo is here."
I wasn't sure how much Padma was able to understand my slurred speech, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I was fading fast; I figured I was going to pass out soon. She helped me slide beneath Li Lin-fa's bed, which was the most out-of-the-way place I could think of. I didn't bother to try initiating the coma verbally; between Padma's troubles and my mushmouth, I figured it probably wouldn't work. Luckily, I didn't have to think too hard about tapping the correct sequence; my fingers had it pretty well drummed into them over the years. I had a little trouble getting the sap gloves off to do it, though.
There's a reason that we let Wizzit initiate our healing comas at HQ instead of doing them ourselves. For one thing, he can judge just how deep the coma needs to be. For another, he can monitor the state of our health and terminate the coma as soon as the healing is completed. I could do neither, and so I blindly set it for forty-five minutes at maximum depth. It was probably overkill, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
My eyes snapped open after forty-five minutes of complete oblivion. I could tell immediately that I had set it for too long, because I had that funny taste in my mouth that you get if you take a three-hour nap in the middle of the day. My h
ead felt much better, though. I looked around cautiously; I could see no one in the room with me, although there was an odd distortion in one corner of the cage that might have been Padma.
"Violet," I whispered softly.
"I'm here, Indigo." I had been right; her voice was coming from the shimmer in the corner. "Are you all right? I was worried about you. What was wrong?"
"You kicked me in the head pretty hard," I explained, and before she could start apologizing I added hastily, "It was a good plan you had. I'm pretty impressed with how well you carried it out. You just kicked the wrong guy, that's all. I'm all right now." I rolled out from under the bed. "Did anyone come by?"
"No. No one. It has been a little boring." Then she gave a soft laugh. "I am not complaining, though."
"Are you feeling all right? I didn't get a chance to ask you that earlier."
"I'm a little sore, but I'm basically okay."
"All right. Our next step is to try to find some sort of teleportation device."
"How are we going to get out of this cage?"
"What do you mean?" I looked around. The cage door was shut tight. "Oh, no. How did that happen? You didn't close it, did you?"
"Yes, you told me to. You said, 'Go close the cage door.'"
I groaned. "No, I said, 'Don't close the cage door.'"
"That is not what I heard! I thought you wanted to lock us in to be safe. I thought you had a way to get out." She gave a little moan of dismay. "I am so sorry, Indigo! I am messing everything up. Now I have trapped us. Oh, I am so --"
"Stop right there!" I cut in.
She stopped, more out of surprise than anything else, I think. It was hard to tell, though, since I couldn't see her face and judge her reaction. "What is it?" she asked, fear in her voice. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing. I just don't want to hear you call yourself stupid again, do you understand?"
"Yes, Indigo," she said meekly.
I moved over to where the shimmer was and cautiously reached out a hand. "Where are you?"
"Right here."
I felt her arm brush mine. I took hold of it and hauled her to her feet. "It wasn't your fault, okay?" I said. "It was mine. I made a mistake. I knew I wasn't speaking clearly. I should probably have said something that was harder to misunderstand, like 'Keep the door open.'" I could feel her trembling, so I pulled her close. "We're going to be okay," I told her earnestly. "We're going to make it out of here. Believe that. We've just got to figure out how, that's all."
She put her arms around me and held on tight. "When we get back, I am going to quit the Primes," Padma declared firmly.
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am! As soon as we get back home, I am going to quit. I am no good to anyone, Indigo. I keep making stupid mistakes, I have put your life in danger, and I --"
Now, I suppose if I had been some sort of super-cool, secret-agent-type guy (or even Prime Orange) I would have given her the biggest kiss of her life right about now just to stop this little tirade. I mean, she's a pretty girl, I'm holding her in my arms -- what could be more natural, right?
Unfortunately, I'm not quite that smooth with women (and I couldn't see where her lips were), so, well, I pinched her instead. She jumped back. "Ouch! What was that for?"
"To shut you up!" I hissed. "Listen, Violet, do you think you're the only one who ever makes mistakes? We've all screwed up at one time or another, every one of us. Sometimes the mistakes are really big ones. Sometimes people even --"
My words died in my throat. I hadn't meant to go quite this far. But as long as I had started it, I figured I had to finish. I swallowed and went on more calmly, "Sometime people even die because of our mistakes. But that doesn't mean we should quit. What we do is important, Violet, and we are the best in the world at it. If you quit, then all that would happen is that Wizzit would have to find someone to replace you who is not as good as you are."
"The best in the world!" she repeated contemptuously. "How could I be the best? That's impossible!"
"Did you ask to be in the Primes?" I demanded. "Did you enter a contest? Did you fill out some sort of membership application?"
"N-no," she replied, sounding puzzled. "I . . . I was just picked. Prime Commander came to my house and asked me to join, just out of the blue sky, and of course I couldn't . . ."
"You couldn't say no, right?"
She let out her breath. "No. Of course I couldn't. Who could?"
"Lots of people," I said tersely. "And there are lots of others who would love to be Prime Violet right now, but who would be lousy at it. Wizzit . . . chooses us somehow. I don't know how he does it, but each person that he picks is just what the team needs at the time. Violet, trust me -- we need you. Please don't quit."
She gave a little shuddering sigh and buried her face in my shoulder, clutching me tightly. I think she was crying, but like I said, I'm not all that smooth with women. I stroked her hair and let her hold onto me and tried to think of something to say that didn't sound dumb. After a few minutes, she asked in a quiet voice, "So, what should we do now?"
I thought for a moment. "Well, first of all," I told her, "I think you ought to initiate a healing coma of your own. Just a light one, maybe ten minutes long, to get rid of your bruises. I realize you may be feeling only a little sore right now, but I don't want your muscles getting all stiff if we have to wait around for a while."
"Yes, Indigo," she said.
Something in the resigned tone of her voice caught my attention. "Um, are you sure you're okay, Violet?"
"Yes, Indigo." She sighed and laid her head against my shoulder. "You are right; I should not quit. It was foolish of me to say that. But I want you to know that I am sorry for all of my mistakes and for causing you so much trouble. I promise I will make it up to you. From now until we get back home, I will do whatever you say." Then she added meaningfully, "Anything you say."
Okay, time out. Quick poll here: Guys, how many of you would dearly love to be in my position right about now? Threat of death aside, I mean. You're alone with a pretty girl (even though she's currently more-or-less invisible), it's not likely that you're going to be interrupted any time soon, and she has just told you she'll do anything you want her to do, with the emphasis on anything. Let's have a show of hands, shall we? Let's see -- one, two, three, . . . . Okay, and how many of you would have, ahem, taken advantage of the situation? Uh huh . . . that's about what I thought.
Well, guess what? I didn't. Yup, Padma was sending me signals that even I couldn't possibly ignore, and I decided to ignore them anyway.
It wasn't that I didn't think she was attractive. Of course I found her attractive; I had ever since she had joined the Primes. Hey, I'm a healthy, normal guy. I might possibly have even daydreamed at some point about walking into my room at HQ and finding her (and/or Trina and/or Shelley) lying on my bed waiting for me. And I sure don't mind walking behind her when we're on our way to the gym and she has on those blue short-shorts that she sometimes wears for training, the ones that are just a little too small. So maybe I was an idiot for throwing away what might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
But look at it this way: I figure I have at least seven or eight years left as a Prime, and Padma probably has ten or more. If I took advantage of her now (and it would have been taking advantage, she presently being scared out of her mind and feeling guilty as hell) then we'd both have to live with it -- and each other -- for that long. Awkward City, population two. Nuh-uh, not a good idea.
So, I gave her another hug and said, "Anything, huh? Well, right now, anything means getting yourself comfortable under that bunk and initiating a light, ten-minute healing coma. Got it?"
She took a long breath, then let it out. I couldn't tell whether she was disappointed or relieved, and I'm not sure I wanted to know. "Yes, Indigo," she said meekly. She pul
led away, and I heard the sounds of her moving herself under the bed. "What is --?" she murmured, then she said, "Oh. Indigo, here are your gloves."
My sap gloves, which I had taken off to initiate my healing coma, came skidding out from under the bed, propelled by Padma's unseen hands. I bent down to pick them up. "Thanks."
"May I ask you a question?"
"Sure, if it's a quick one."
"Did you ever make a mistake that caused someone to die?"
This was exactly what I had not wanted to get into. "Yeah. Once."
"Was it . . . Robin?"
I stiffened. "Where did you hear that name?" I demanded. Then I forced myself to relax. "Never mind. Shelley's history lessons, right?" Shelley made sure that every new Prime had at least heard the name and some of the history of each of their predecessors. Not just the three who died, but the ones who retired, as well.
"Yes," she replied, sounding a little nervous. "And Trina mentioned her to me once. Do you remember that sketch she made during my healing coma? It was of you and Robin, not you and me. It was quite a romantic-looking scene and the two of you looked quite happy, but Trina said not to mention it to you because the affair had ended badly."
"Badly?" I laughed bitterly. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."
"Also, you were babbling earlier. You mentioned Robin's name several times. I know I am not supposed to talk about what you said during your healing coma, but you seemed quite upset."
I sighed and sat down on the floor beside the bed. "Yeah, they tell me I still babble about Robin sometimes, especially when things aren't going well."
"Is . . . is it anything you would want to talk about?"
"No," I said firmly. "Maybe some day, but not here and now. I will tell you this, though. When she died, I almost quit the Primes myself. That little pep talk I gave you? It was the same one Shelley gave me, almost word for word. And guess what? It worked; I'm still here." I reached under the bed and gave her shoulder a squeeze. At least, I hoped it was her shoulder and not something that would get me slapped. "Start up your healing coma," I said. "I'm going to try to figure a way out of here."
"Yes, Indigo."
I stayed where I was, my hand on her shoulder, until I felt her relax and heard her breathing slow and deepen. Then I began to search the cage. The first thing I did, obviously, was to take all the plastic caps off the ends of the tubes comprising the cot and check inside. Nothing but some dust and a few bugs. No spare key. Then I checked all through the sheets, blanket, and pillow. Still nothing, except I noticed that the pillowcase smelled faintly of shampoo.
That got me to wondering about Li Lin-fa. Had she really spent all her time in this cage over the past six years? How had she taken care of herself -- eating and drinking, not to mention personal grooming? Had her Lily Lee persona done all that? If so, then why would Enclave ever want to return her to this cage and revert her back to Li Lin-fa? Besides the cot, there was very little inside this cage, just a toilet. Presumably, Lily Lee would take care of any other personal matters before she entered the cage. It appeared, then, that they really did trot out Li Lin-fa just to sleep. I wondered why that would be.
I concluded my search without finding anything. Nothing was hidden here, at least as far as I could tell. I decided to run through our options. As I saw it, we had two: we could try to get out now somehow, or we could wait for Lily to return. Sitting around passively waiting for her didn't appeal to me; she would come or not regardless of what we did. So, how to get out without her help? Bending the bars or punching through the wall were the only possibilities that I could see. I didn't especially want to disturb Padma while she was healing, so I decided to try the bars first.
They looked intimidating -- solid steel, probably an inch in diameter. To be honest, I was pretty sure I couldn't bend them. Our force shields increase our strength, speed, and endurance, sure, but only to the theoretical limits of our individual bodies. When I'm shielded, I'm not Superman. I'm just Prime Indigo.
After a few minutes of straining, I heard Padma ask sleepily, "Indigo, why do we call him Wizzit? Is that his real name?"
I let go the bars with a smile. It's funny, the things your mind comes up with when you're in a healing coma. She would probably feel embarrassed, remembering this later, but at the moment I found it quite charming.
"I don't think anyone knows his real name, or even whether he has anything we would recognize as a name. Calling him Wizzit started off literally as a joke," I explained. "I guess when he founded the Primes, he didn't really understand the idea of Earth humor, so Prime Commander started telling him jokes and then trying to explain why they were funny. There was one in particular that he really liked, something about a parrot who kept yelling, 'Who is it? Who is it?', and he started repeating it to everyone, just in case they hadn't heard it. Eventually 'Who is it?' got shortened to just Wizzit, and so that's what everybody started calling him."
I didn't hear any immediate reply, other than the quiet sound of her breathing. A few minutes later, she said, more alertly, "Indigo?"
"I'm here, Violet. How are you feeling?"
"Better. I'm not sore any more. What have you found out?"
"Well, there aren't any keys hidden anywhere in here."
She laughed, and I heard the sound of her rolling out from under the cot. "Did you really think you would find one?"
"Well, you never know," I replied with a grin. "Come over here and help me; I'm trying to bend the bars." I stretched out my arm and guided her over to me.
"Have you had any luck?"
"Not much. They're pretty thick."
The two of us pulled and strained for a while, trying every way we could think of to get leverage, before we finally gave up. "I think we made a little progress," I said as we sat down on the bed.
"Sure. We made them a little more shiny." Despite the lightness of her tone, I could tell that she was worried. "Do you have another plan?"
"I have two more," I said confidently. "First, I thought I would try punching through the wall using my sap gloves."
"And if that doesn't work?"
"Then we wait for someone to come by." She gave a disgusted snort, and I added, "If you have a better plan, let me know."
"I wasn't criticizing you. There is no need to be defensive," she protested.
"I'm not," I replied calmly. "Seriously, let me know if you come up with any ideas. You're marvelous company and all, but I don't want to stay cooped up here with you forever."
"I . . . will try to come up with something," she replied. "Um, do you have a rubber band?"
I blinked in surprise. "A what?" I asked stupidly.
"A rubber band," she repeated patiently. "We may have to fight our way out of this place, and I can't have my hair flying around in my face. I need something to tie off my braid, and they took the ribbon I was using."
"Oh. Um, let me check." I patted the pockets of my battle vest. I finally gave her one of my disposable handcuffs; they're basically just serrated strips of heavy-duty plastic, like an oversize garbage bag tie. As thick as her hair was, it should hold the end of her braid quite nicely.
Then I set about the business of punching through the wall. I decided to start work on an out-of-the-way spot, one that might not be noticed if someone came in before I was finished. I eventually settled on the section of the wall near the toilet, away from the cage door. My first few punches didn't do much, nor did I expect them to; I was mainly interested in trying out the gloves. Fortunately, the walls seemed to be just painted cinderblock, and I had heard of guys punching through individual cinderblocks before.
I had started to get comfortable with the gloves and was just thinking about trying my first big punch when Padma hissed, "Indigo! Someone is coming!"
"Get under the bed!" I ordered her. "Don't do or say anything unless I tell you to."
/> "Yes, Indigo," she replied, although I could tell she wasn't happy about it.
A few seconds later, the door opened and JB Swift entered, followed closely by Lily. She must have had standing instructions, because she immediately drew out her key and unlocked the cage door. Then she went in the cage, put the key in its hiding place, and slammed the door. JB Swift snickered and said, "Sweet dreams." A moment later, he was gone.
I waited silently, watching Lily. Gradually, the blank look left her face. She glanced around the small room, and with a resigned sigh, she lay down on the bed.
"Li Lin-fa?" I whispered, hoping I had interpreted her actions correctly.
She sat up at once. "Prime Indigo!" she cried. "My friend, you have come back! Where are you?"
"I am over here," I replied in Cantonese. I stepped over and laid a hand on her arm. "But please speak softly. I am still in danger."
"Oh! Please forgive me!" she said, immediately dropping her voice to a near-whisper. "I am just so excited that you are here!" She stood up and clutched my arm with both of her hands. "Did you find the friend you were looking for?"
"I did. She is here, but she is hiding. She has made herself invisible as I have." I switched to English and said, "Violet, come out and meet a new friend of mine."
"Are you certain?" Padma's voice came dubiously. She had switched to Prime-to-Prime communication. "I recognize her. She is Lily Lee; she is the one who tricked me into coming to this place."
"She is and she isn't. She seems to be at least two different people. This is the one who speaks Cantonese. She calls herself Li Lin-fa. She seems harmless."
"Are you sure?"
"No, not completely," I admitted, "but reasonably sure."
Padma sighed. "Very well. How do I say hello to her?"
"Nei hou. But let me first tell her that you don't speak Cantonese."
To Li Lin-fa, I explained, "My friend is shy, but I have persuaded her to come out to meet you. She does not speak the language, though. Do you speak English?"
"Just a little."
"Very well. I will translate." Switching back to English, I said, "Come over here, Violet." Back to Cantonese. "My friend's name is Prime Violet."
"Prime Violet," Li Lin-fa repeated. Then, to my surprise, she said in passable English, "Hello, Prime Violet. Happy birthday."
"Happy birthday?" That was Padma, Prime-to-Prime. "What does that mean? It's not my birthday."
"Um, it's probably the only English she knows," I replied the same way.
"Oh, I see." Then she said aloud, "Nei hou, Li Lin-fa."
Li Lin-fa performed an odd pantomime, reaching out as if she were shaking someone's hand. Then I realized that must be exactly what she was doing, shaking hands with invisible Padma. "Prime Violet -- she is your sister?" she asked hesitantly.
It was an understandable question, given the way that Chinese put the family name first. "No," I said. "She is just a friend. We are not, er, that is, we are just friends. Nothing more." I wasn't sure why I added in that last part, but it seemed to make Li Lin-fa happy. I went on, "She and I need to talk in English for a while to decide what we are going to do."
"I understand," she said. Still clutching my hand, she sat down on the cot.
"Violet," I said, "we need to talk about Lily."
"Lily? I thought you said her name was --"
"It is, but if we use that name, she will recognize it and know we're talking about her."
"Oh. I see. Yes, we do need to talk about her. Do you realize that she is -- um, what is the term? -- crushing on you?"
"She has a crush on me?" The thought hadn't occurred to me, although, now that she had mentioned it, it seemed a likely possibility. Li Lin-fa had not let go of my hand since I had announced my presence, and she had seemed especially pleased to hear that Padma and I were nothing more than friends. "Well, she tells me I'm the only person she has spoken to for the past six years, and I have tried to be kind to her," I explained. "I guess that could lead her to form an attachment."
"You mean, she has never seen your face because you are invisible, and as far as she knows, you are the last man on earth? Yes, I suppose that would explain it."
It took me a moment to realize that Padma was teasing me. "Ha ha, very funny," I said. Actually, I was secretly encouraged to hear her show some personality. She had seemed pretty down on herself up to now. "She said she was kidnapped from her village when she was fifteen," I explained, "and now all she does is sleep in this cage. The rest of the time, I presume she's Lily. JB Swift appears to turn her from one to the other with that remote control he carries."
"I see. You believe she is harmless right now, but the moment JB Swift shows up with his remote control, she will become our deadliest enemy?"
"Err, yeah. Something like that."
"And yet, you want to take her with us, correct?"
I had been thinking about that very problem, in fact, and had come to a definite conclusion about Li Lin-fa. It was going to be hard to say, though. I sighed. "No. We can't. It would be far too dangerous. We don't even know where to find a teleport device here. We could spend hours searching, and it's going to be hard enough for just the two of us not to get caught. We're going to have to leave her here."
"Oh." There was silence for several seconds. "I . . . I agree. I am just surprised that you . . . I mean, she is so very . . . a-and you seem so . . . never mind. When should we leave? Now?"
"I want to talk with her for a few minutes first."
"You want to say goodbye?"
"Well, yes, and I'm going to tell her why we're leaving her here. But I also want to tell her what has been happening to her, why she doesn't remember most of the last six years. I think she deserves that much. And I also want to show her where her key is hidden."
"Do you want her to try to escape? That would be madness! She would have no chance!"
"I know that, but I don't think she will try to escape. I mean, look at her." Li Lin-fa was lying down on the cot now, her eyes half-closed, still holding tightly to my hand. "I honestly don't think she has the energy to try to get away. Whatever they have Lily doing must be exhausting, and they make her pay the price for it."
"But then, why tell her where the key is?"
"She'll see us get it out anyway, and . . . maybe it will give her a bit of hope, knowing that she could walk out of this cage, even if she couldn't go very far."
There was more silence. I wished I could see Padma's face and get an idea of what she was thinking. "All right," she finally said. "I will exit the cage . . . and I will turn my back so the two of you can speak privately."
"Thanks, Violet." I saw the cap float off the end of the metal tube as she retrieved the key from its hiding place. There was a click as the cage door was unlocked, and then the key floated back into the tube.
Li Lin-fa had fallen asleep. I sat down beside her and shook her gently awake. "Li Lin-fa, I must leave now with Prime Violet," I told her. "I would like to take you with me, but I cannot. We are in great danger here, and I want you to remain where it is safe."
She bowed her head. "I understand," she replied. "I will miss you terribly, friend Prime Indigo."
"I will miss you, too. Before I go, I want to tell you some things that I think you ought to know. Things about yourself and what they are doing to you here." I explained to her a little about Enclave and how they seemed to have turned her into a living robot. "Do you remember any of what happens when you go away?" I asked her when I was done.
She looked thoughtful. "Small bits, I think. I remember fighting someone, as if I were in a dream . . . and few other things."
"Do you remember your broken arm?"
"Only waking up beside you. I went away again soon after that, and when I came back, my arm was healed. This Enclave, they are bad people?"
"Yes, very bad.
They destroy things and kill people without reason. They killed a friend of mine."
"Have I -- has Li-li-li killed anyone?"
"No, Lily Lee has not killed anyone. Not yet."
"Then you should kill me now."
"What?" I half-rose from the cot in surprise. "Of course I am not going to kill you!"
"But you should," she insisted. "Strangle me, or tear a piece of metal off of this bed and bash my brains in. I would not fight you." She closed her eyes and went on in a quiet voice, "I do not want to kill anyone. I do not want to be responsible for anyone's death. I would prefer to die before that happens."
I laid a hand on her shoulder, and she shivered at the contact. "Even if I wanted to kill you," I said gently, "I would not be allowed. We are not permitted to kill in cold blood."
"Then I suppose that one day I will become a murderer." She laid her hand atop mine. "Is there anything else you wished to say to me?"
"I have something to show you." I pulled the cap off the metal tubing, extracted the key, and held it out to her. "This is the key to your cage."
She took it and looked at it closely. "Is that where it always is?"
"Yes, I think so." I took the key from her and replaced it in the tubing. "But I must warn you -- even if you got out of this cage, you most likely could not escape from this place."
She nodded. "I understand."
"Li Lin-fa, I promise not to forget you. I will return for you some day, if I possibly can."
She picked up my hand and caressed her own cheek with it. "May I ask one thing from you, friend Prime Indigo?"
"What is it, pretty one?"
She smiled at the compliment. "You will think I am silly, or unduly forward." She hesitated. "No, I should not ask."
"Li Lin-fa, there is no harm in asking. I may simply tell you no."
She dropped our joined hands in her lap and looked down at them. "I had never kissed a man before they . . . before I came here. Now it does not appear likely that I will ever get free. Would you . . . kiss me once before you leave, so that I will know what it is like?"
Man, oh man, if they ever offered classes in heart-breaking, Li Lin-fa would be the teacher. She was playing me like a violin, and she probably didn't even realize it. I looked around. Padma was nowhere to be seen, which didn't tell me anything. Trusting to her discretion, I said, "It would be my very great pleasure." I tilted her chin up and gave her the softest, tenderest kiss I could manage.
"Thank you, Prime Indigo," she said when it was over. Tears sparkled in her eyes. "Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Li Lin-fa." A thought occurred to me. "Do you want me to find your family and tell them that you are alive?"
"No. It is better that they think I am dead."
"As you wish." I stepped out of the cage and closed it firmly behind me. "Let's go, Violet," I said in English.
"I'm right here, Indigo."
At the door, I turned for one last look at Li Lin-fa. She was lying on the cot, eyes closed; she appeared to be already asleep.
Chapter 18