85 -What Are You Going to do to The Lab?

Terry couldn’t sleep, after his dream, the woman’s urgent commands echoing in his head, and even though he wasn’t inclined to listen to anything a woman said, his access to the greater galactic information had shown him thousands of women living and working without keepers following along behind them.  He drew on his dressing gown and padded barefoot down the stairs to the library.

He paused at the second landing, realizing that there was someone up at this unprimely hour, as evidenced by the lamplight showing around the edge of the partly open door of the book room, office and study, that his mother had grandly called ‘the library’.

Glad that his feet were bare and that even the fine leather of his slippers would have flapped on the tile, he padded down, careful of the fourth and the seventh step, both of which creaked like the devil, and looked into the light without stepping into the shaft of it himself.

From this angle he could see the corner of their father’s desk, the bright red china carpet his mother had made and the rose chintz arm of the settee.  The cool wind of late summer, full of the threatened bite of the water coming back again before freezing for the winter, blew the door open a bit wider.

Gerald sat at the desk, hands cupped over his bent head, unmoving.  Terry sighed.  “Gerry.”

Startled, he jerked as if someone had shot him.  “Good pages, Terry, don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry.”  He walked in and sat down in the chair across from his brother.  “Ger…” he ran his hands through his hair, not sure what to say.

“Terry.  Please think of what I’ve been trying to convince you to do.”  Gerald stood up and began pacing as if to draw attention away from the drying spots of his tears on the blotter.  “There’s two boys from somewhere else who I’m being forced to turn into mindless drones, so that Prime can catch his Heir and do the same to him… force him to be an obedient, un-thinking, proper heir.  They didn’t even know why they were caught so quickly… they’re so obviously of different illiterate stock… like the ancient earthan countries where Prime and the other owners recruited their workers.  Terry, I realize I’m asking you to give up your life, your –“

“—I’ll do it,” Terry cut in.

Gerald wheeled around, his arguments freezing on his tongue.  “Oh thank the blessed Page of true knowledge.”

“If the Heir is going to be arriving in two days…”

“Terry… get dressed.  Pack your bag… I can do this now.”

Terence reared back, startled.  “What, right now?”

“Yes, now.” He all but jumped to the desk, yanked out the middle drawer and rummaged in underneath, pulled out a handful of papers before carefully re-setting the drawer security.  “Here… I need to either send these with you or destroy them.  They’re the only copies of the process other than what’s in the lab and that will all disappear tonight.” He began jamming things into a briefcase.  “What are you waiting for, man?  We don’t have all of the night to get everything thoroughly vapourized.”

Terry found himself running quietly upstairs to pull on his favourite hunting clothes and begin flinging his things into a hiking rucksack.  He had no idea how to pack for this.  The woman wore a veil… a filter… he packed his camping breath filters and water filters… grabbed his multi-tool and its charger and a spare power pack.  He stood in the middle of the room looking at his bookshelves and his desk… He seized up his globe light, snapped it shut and jammed it into the bottom corner.

He knew he shouldn’t, but he seized his old toy horse and rider and the mechanical bird… realized the rucksack wouldn’t be enough, pushed the button to turn it into a trunk. It unfolded its legs and rose to waist height for easier packing. His inkwell sealed and his fountain pens all rattled into their slots before he tossed it on top.

He just had no room for his favourite riding boots, but laced on his desert boots, tucking his leather breeches into the cuffs where they sealed around his calves.  He regarded his top hat for a long moment, but set it down with a sigh, then jammed the soft brimmed hunter on his head, his fingers automatically pulling the brim down to a jaunty angle.

“Terence!” His brother hissed up the stairs.

“Coming!” He called quietly, to not set off any of the house alarms. He grabbed up his sword cane and his pistol box and sealed the side flaps of the trunk – that made it look so much like a large black beetle -- with a pat.  It rose up on its jointed legs and followed him out of the room and down the stairs. 

**

“Boys… Prime wishes you to drink this,” Gerald said.  The one seized the proffered cup and drank the contents down greedily, despite its viscosity.  The boy in the cage stood with his hands clasped behind himself and silently shook his head.  “Young man… you know I can make you,” Gerald said sternly.  Terry had to look away, not able to stand it.  The captives—just boys not hardened spies-- turned his stomach.

The boy took it and reluctantly drank it down.  Gerald turned to his screen and touched an icon blinking in the corner, twice, and both boys sank down as if they were puppets and someone had cut their strings.  “Gerald!”

“They’re just asleep.  Come on.”  They slung the unconscious boys over Terry’s trunk and crowded into the laboratory elevator.

“Tell me what you’re going to do,” Terence said as the door hissed open.

“Not yet. The video is off and the audio is hissing static but--” Gerald all but ran them to a garage door half buried in trashed filing cabinets and anti-static storage boxes.  They slid aside at his touch and he squeezed through the opening and down another four flights of stairs.

“No elevators down here?  Ger… this is starting to look like a very bad idea to me.  Buried a dozen stories below ground does not feel very ‘escape’ like. You're going to get us all killed!”

“Just trust me, little brother.” 

Terry groaned. "I knew it, we're all going to die." The bottom of the stairs was lit with electricity and clean.  Jammed into the space, folded up tight, was a sand-flea, nearly invisible with its camouflage skin wrinkled up so it was hard to see any edges. Terry stopped on the stairs, trying to see the machine hiding in plain sight and his trunk, with two bodies draped over it, continued on down the steps.

“What is this? How am I going to get us all out?”

Gerald keyed the remote and the door in its belly opened silently, speaking of good care and maintenance.  He handed the remote to Terry.  “Get in.  Stay here for the next three days… the authorities are going to be poking around at least that long.  It will give you time to read the manual and learn how to drive.”

The trunk had walked the boys up into the sand-flea, even as Terry gaped at his brother.  “Learn how to drive it? Drive it where? How? This isn’t like putting itching powder on great aunt Mariah’s nasty little fluffy.”

“I’ve got it set up that when Prime’s people leave a tunnel will open up… it will melt open, trust me, it’s First Class technology.”

Terry was climbing into the desert crossing machine, slowly, even as he flung questions at his brother.  “Manual? And what is going to happen to the lab?”  Gerry tossed the brief case to his younger brother, who caught it on his chest with an oof. Gerald had another remote and keyed the door shut, over-riding Terry’s suddenly stark grip on his controller.

“Why, little brother, I’m going to blow it up,” was the last thing he heard as the armoured door sealed itself.