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

  Chapter 5

  Ambushed

  Ezra quickly tallied his options. Kirsten was not one to bluff, which meant that DOLT officers would be looking for him shortly. Worse, she would probably direct them to the university district, where she thought he would be for his experiment. The incessant alarms coming from the building behind him meant that they would probably check here first. What was he going to do? Another wormhole?

  No, he thought, I'm back inside Sanctuary, wormholes can be tracked. He winced, looking back at the museum. Like that one that I put down there. But if this is some secret organization, it'll be in their best interest to cover that up as well.

  Bolstered by the thought, he took off toward the entertainment district. There should be crowds out in the streets all around Sanctuary, he reasoned, but it'll be focused there. He could blend in and make his way back toward the Legacy district. Sneaking into his lab was his only real option. Had he remembered to lock the doors before he left? Maybe he could claim that he had been there the whole time, too caught up in what he was doing to notice the time. That might work.

  A sudden light at the university port station drew his attention. Someone must have come through a wormhole there. DOLT, or his mysterious friends with their secret base? He wasn't sure which would be worse at this point. With a groan of exhaustion he picked up his pace, heading directly away from port station and toward the loudest crowd he could hear.

  Staying to the shadows and skulking between buildings, Ezra watched as DOLT emergency response vehicles sped toward the museum. Overhead, the bright colors of Founder's Day waterworks launched into a particularly dazzling display of neon orange and green dashed through with hot pink, drawing a round of “oohs” and “ahs” from the crowd below. The vibrant explosions drizzled their colors down on the appreciative spectators and the city around them, painting everything with sprinkles and splashes of lightly glowing liquid.

  Nearby, a group of kids ran through the crowd with glowing guns, shooting more of the luminous liquid back and forth at each other, coloring anyone and anything in their line of fire with more stripes of brilliance. A harried looking woman came running along behind, undoubtedly trying to shoo them back to wherever they had come from. Ezra grinned. It hadn't been so long ago that he'd been having fun like that, with his mother trying to chase him back home.

  He shook his head again. What was wrong with him tonight? Maybe he wasn't cut out for these high stress environments. He would have to experiment with that hypothesis later.

  The liquid from the waterworks above and the squirt-guns below, as well as from the countless other ingenious sources that would inevitably surface tonight was harmless. The Sreedharan family had devised the formula for an inert, luminescent liquid that evaporated a few hours after being exposed to air well over a hundred years ago. Founder's Day was without a doubt their favorite holiday, from a strictly financial point of view.

  Ezra made sure to get some of the color on himself as well. Being completely clean tonight would be a surefire way to stand out in the crowd. He had worked his way out of the university district and was well into the entertainment district – the kind of place that catered to students out on their own for the first time – when he decided to take a shortcut through a back alley behind one of the local clubs.

  He stopped for a moment to catch his breath when a backdoor to the club slid open. A dark, sinuous shape leaped out, tackling him to the ground.

  Oh god they caught me.

  Ezra and his attacker went down in a mess of flailing limbs. He hit the ground and got his arms under him, pushing away hard and putting some distance between himself and his assailant. Feet scrambling to find purchase, he briefly wondered if he should try to duck into a building to lose his tail when he noticed that the girl on the ground was still lying flat on her back, laughing.

  “Sorry,” she said between panting, mirthful breaths. “Didn't see you there. You out here for some fresh air too?”

  A closer inspection revealed a small girl, no more than five feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, with a spiky, pixy haircut highlighted in bright blue. The little dress she was wearing displayed an intriguing amount of leg. She too was covered in spots and sprays of color that stood out in the relative dark of the alleyway, albeit much more liberally than Ezra. She was glistening from what must have been a vigorous bout on the dance floor inside, if the pounding beat coming through the closing door was any indication. Her eyes were closed as she smiled up at the night sky and raised her arms straight toward the heavens.

  “Help me up?”

  Ezra suddenly felt rather foolish, crouched as he was, ready to flee at a moment's notice. Before she could open her eyes and add to his embarrassment, he straightened himself and mumbled, “Oh, yeah, sorry, my fault entirely.” He grasped her upraised hands and pulled. She fell into him pleasantly.

  “Whoa, haven't quite found my feet yet.” Her voice still bubbled with laughter as she smiled up at him.

  “Uh, n-no problem, um, miss.”

  Deep blue, almost purple eyes looked up at him from an elfin face. A huge swipe of dark pink ran adorably across her cheek, emphasizing dimples to die for. Ezra's heart suddenly started beating very fast as his face heated. She didn't seem to notice, but her smile broadened as she spotted his radiation badge and camera.

  She pushed herself up to a wobbly stand. He caught a whiff of some sort of a sweet alcohol on her breath as she said, “You doing publicity for the club or something? I've always wanted to be on one of those ads.”

  He tore the badge off his shirt before she could take a closer look at it. Stupid hormones. He didn't have time to get distracted by a pretty face right now. Or a pretty body. It didn't even matter how nice she smelled or felt when she had been pressed up against... Gah, stupid hormones!

  “Oh, yeah, publicity. They, uh, wanted to show what a great Founder's Day party they could throw and hired me on to take video. I just need to... edit it a bit. Yeah, a little editing! Just heading out to do that now.”

  “Why are you using such an old model?” She asked, taking a swaying step forward. The motion of her hips as she moved was just... Whoa, down libido, down.

  “Pretty... pictures! The quality, that is, on the older models.” He mopped at his forehead. Is it warm in this alley? “Much higher than on neural net recordings.”

  That sounded plausible. Now he would just make his exit and be in the clear. He took a step back just as a huge display went off somewhere in front of him, lighting everything in a sunny yellow. That was the only reason he noticed the shadow passing overhead. Glancing up, Ezra felt the blood drain from his face in shock. Time seemed to slow.

  A glider flew in between him and the waterwork display. But that was not what shocked him. There was a man strapped to the glider, almost exactly as Ezra himself had been only a few hours ago. As he watched, the man threw a glowing ball out over them and then vanished behind a building. The waterwork exploded into burst of blues and silvers that sprinkled down on Ezra's upturned face as he tried to figure out what he had just seen.

  The girl laughed with delight and cheered up at where the man had been.

  “What,” Ezra asked in a weak voice, “was that?”

  “Oh, you didn't see them earlier? It's the Guild of Sundry! The Founder's Day event that everyone was talking about! They've had people flying around for the last two hours at least!”

  “Two hours, you say?” Ezra didn't think his voice could sound much weaker.

  “Yeah, it was a little shocking at first, but once everyone figured out what was going on, they really got into it, even throwing waterworks up to the gliders and trying to run along with them. It's been so much fun! You really didn't see them earlier? They've been everywhere!”

  Ezra's mind was whirling, trying to make connections. What were the chances of the Guild of Sundry doing something exactly like what he had done at exactly the time he had done it? Was this a good thing, or a bad t
hing? People wouldn't be nearly as shocked at seeing him fly by anymore, they'd just think it had been part of the event. He was so caught up in his train of thought that he barely noticed the flirtatious smile that spread across the girl's face as she swayed closer to him.

  “So,” she said in a low and sultry voice, “did you get any footage of me dancing in there? I always try to stay where things are wildest.”

  “Oh, yeah, uh, I'm sure that I saw you.” Ezra was still trying to puzzle out what these gliders meant for his plan.

  “Really? I bet you got some really hot stuff of me. Can I see?” Her voice was a husky whisper as she reached for the camera. Ezra snapped back to the present and tried to stop her, but somehow her hand ended up behind his as she stepped in and pressed her body against him again, going up on her toes to plant a quick kiss on his lips. Frozen, stunned, he had no chance when she deftly disconnected the camera from its strap and retreated with her prize, popping on the holoscreen and starting the recording from the beginning.

  “What you are seeing here is actual footage...” His voice sounded tinny and far away. Something unreadable flashed through the mischievously pleased look on the girl's face, so fast that Ezra thought he must have imagined it.

  Her eyes were glued to the image. “This doesn't look like the club at all. What is it?”