Amnon pushed the transport to its limits across the outskirts of the city, through the snaking neighborhood streets, all the way to the center of the plaza. Every moment forward caused Katherine’s anxiety to increase. The plume of smoke she saw when she exited the tunnel had divided several times as the city center drew…
The smell of musty, wet dirt hit Katherine in a pungent wave. It stopped her breathing momentarily as if her body rejected the impure air. Katherine’s mind’s eye immediately invented a vision of the tunnel as covered in a carpet of black and green mildew crawling with any number of space bugs. She was only…
Evan paused when he stepped into the Central Processing Unit lobby. The ceiling went higher than any building in Athens, Kansas, and every surface reflected a pristine gloss. Much to his surprise, there was no one in the lobby to stop him, so he walked briskly toward the opposite side of the space where a…
“What is that?” Keetha asked staring wildly at Evan. “The princess. She’s… we’re trying to keep a low profile.” “That’s probably a good strategy.” Keetha grabbed Evan by the shoulder and tugged him to follow her. “Look around the corner and tell me what you see.” Evan did as she said and what he saw…
Amnon Saxe remained vigilant in the pursuit of the pressure point to make the torture stop and show the way out of Saw Yatha’s cruel mind game. Katherine Gold lay in a clump near him. “It’s so hot,” she moaned for the umpteenth time. She was not wrong. The temperature had grown unbearable the further…
It did not take long before Evan’s exhaustion and Lillian’s weight to encourage him to reassess his strategy. The path to the other side of the Processing Unit seemed to get longer with every step, while its peril grew faster. To their right lay the building, its tall, sleek facade providing the only protection from…
Evan nodded, and they decided that Keetha would use her uniform and credentials to draw guards and soldiers away from the termination center. While at the same time, Evan and Lillian would limp to the rear loading dock. If all worked well, Keetha would meet them back there and escort them across the plaza to…
Lillian’s knees buckled, and Evan quickly wrapped his arm around her waist. Keetha helped the princess to the ground before stealing Evan with a glare. “We can’t keep her here,” Keetha said. “Were you followed?” Evan, breathless, shook his head. “There were alarms, but they weren’t about us. We, we, we, we left through a…
For a long moment, Saw amused himself with the vain attempts of Amnon and the strange woman to find a way out of the chamber. “It’s like watching bugs get out of a jar,” he chuckled to himself. The head of security standing next to him cleared his throat. “So, all is well then?” Saw…
The security team was in a frazzled panic when Saw Yatha strode into the termination center’s lobby. Lines of guards in battle gear tromped this way and that. Flashing lights and the pulsing alarm, which to Saw seemed like the adornment of victory, did nothing to help the trained guards get a plan together. In…
