Runners: Escape Prison World or Die (Empire of Time Series) by John Argo

Page 7.

Amela led Vikri outside into the busy corridors and gray halls of the warehouse complex adjacent to her barracks. Along a slight bend in a main thoroughfare under flickering biolumes, they found a place for talking. They sat on the dark, rough wooden floor, leaning their heavily padded backs against gray, streaked sheetstone walls. Hanging nets, hooks, burlap supply sacks ready for return to the equatorial supply bases, and other paraphernalia dangled from ugly looking steel hooks in the walls. So did rusting chains, pulleys, tackles, and gear blocks. It wasn't even a proper corner, but a bend in a long wall, with a constant stream of heavily clad prisoners and blue-uniformed capors passing in either direction. The very public nature of the spot afforded them some visible anonymity. With her hood back, and her thick, long dark hair matted with holz debris, it would be clear to anyone that Amela had just returned from a wearying detail.

"My name is Vikri," said the white-haired woman.

"And I'm Amela. Thanks for coming to help me."

Vikri grimaced pleasurably as she sipped her steaming cafir. "I knew they'd start shooting, those idiot women."

Amela understood. Vikri meant the capors and Sekurita. "What made you help a total stranger?"

Vikri's eyes were strangely, almost ethereally bright for a second. Her pale, watery gray eyes flared momentarily with incandescent inner humor or vision. "It's time for me to go."

"What do you mean—?"

"Time to die," Vikri said. She nodded her fragile-looking head. Her age-speckled skin looked fragile as thin paper. She was covered in tiny blue and red spots where capillaries had broken. Lightning-trees of tired blue veins lay rooted under milky skin. She had been pretty once, with a well-defined face. Her mouth was expressive, her brow high and intelligent, her eye orbits baggy and troubled, her nose gently tapered. By contrast, Amela had dark almond-shaped eyes, thick firm skin the color of forest amber—almost greenish, so olive—and an oval face with small, airbrushed nose and prominent cheekbones. Seeing the denial in Amela's eyes, Vikri reached out and took Amela's hands in hers. "You are so young." She closed her eyes in delight, and seemed to absorb the firm thickness of the younger woman's feel. Amela was short and smoothly, heavily muscular. She was larded like any long-distance sea swimmer, the national sport of Belair. She had dusky skin and dark eyes in a narrow, exotic face with almond-slit eyes. Amela's hair was glossy blackish blue, and hung straight in a page style that just covered her ears, but not the lobes. Vikri gushed: "You are so pretty. I was like you once—even if my people are lighter, thinner, blonder. I was a red-head." Vikri surprised herself at the long-ago memory. "Sometimes, my past life is like yesterday. At other moments, it's like someone else's life, who died ages ago." She opened her eyes. "You must escape, Amela. It can be done."

Both women sipped anew from their chipped white ceramic cafir cups. Steam fleeted ghostly around their faces.

Amela's heart skipped two beats. The first beat was replaced by the overwhelming sense of what it would be like to be free, to soar like a hawk over the forests of Belair under a balmy blue sky. The second beat was a hole full of terror. Were they being watched? Were they being recorded? "You want to die, and you want to take me with you," she said.

"No, no," Vikri said with a laugh as she nursed her cup in both hands. "I want you to take me with you!"

"Be careful what you say…"

"They can't hear us," Vikri said with certainty. "I've been here nearly two decades, as near as I can tell time in this place. I may be the longest prisoner still alive. I know everything about how things work. I know more than the capors or the guards. I can help you, girl. I ask nothing in return but a chance to cross to my ancestors in peace, on my own terms, not die here like a discarded tree fungus or some trash."

"You think there is a way out?"

"I know so. That's the first part. I knew women who made the run. A few of them got to see the desert and jungle continents near the equator. Most came back and were hanged on the parade field as warnings to the rest of us. A body can hang for months in this cold. It's a hard reminder."

"What happens if we get caught?"

"Be prepared to die like a free soldier, not a broken animal in a collar." Vikri got dreamy. "But escape is still better. I have been dreaming about it all these years." She looked sharply at Amela. "I know you are dreaming about it too. I see you coming and going. A few of the women have it in their eyes. Most of them are beaten, empty shells. They just shuffle along looking at the snow before their feet. A few, like you, look left and right all the time. You miss nothing. You haven't been here long enough to know much, but give you twenty years or more, and you'll be just like me."

"I don't want to die here," Amela said, "especially not of old age."

"I waited too long," Vikri said. "Don't make the same mistake."

Amela pressed: "Wasn't there ever a moment…?"

"Oh yes, a moment." Vikri looked far, into the past. "There were moments. Like I said, a few got away. Most came back dead, or to be hanged. The trick isn't just getting out of here. It's staying out of here. It's about escaping to the jungle way down south—evading cannibals, head hunters, and merk patrols. That's the second part. Becoming a Manaul survivor, under the Swarm grid, becoming a native…"

"…like the Fith?"

"…Yes. And then the last thing you'll want to do is to escape from Manaul, make a run through hostile Swarm space, and find your way back to civilization. It's a tall order."

'You said that most came back dead. Some didn't?"

Vikri nodded. "There have been rumors that there are small pockets of escaped prisoners leading a free life under the jungle canopy and out of sight. But there are other rumors. Most of those escapes happened when I was still young." She leaned close. "You see, there was this story about the Pitz Boat."

"The what boat?"

"I never did learn the exact truth, but I believe the boat exists. One way the story goes, there was this humanian cargo ship bringing prisoners and supplies to Manaul after the Pitz Duchy fell to the Swarm years ago. The prisoners mutinied and took over the ship. As they tried to retrovert her engines on the same spaceways path of her coming, Manaul militia zoomed in and shot the cargo ship full of holes. Atmosphere leaked, prisoners died, cargo looted by Manaul pirates, end of story. Several life boats got off, but Swarm militia captured them all. There is supposedly a place called Aerag-186 near the south pole, where they kept them out of contact with the other prisoners on this world."

"But this Pitz Boat…?"

Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you want to thank the author, you may also buy a copy for the low price of a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your favorite coffeeshop, but the book lasts forever while the beverage is quickly gone. Thank you (JTC).

TOP | MAIN