Reunification (10 page)

“
Burned by a dragon's
fire?” the Checrom said. He sounded curious. “Odd. I didn't think
the explosion caused
that
much damage. Are you sure it was
the explosion?”

“
What else could it have
been?” I asked. “Unless, of course, ye are suggesting that these
lizard creatures can breathe fire.”

“
Who knows?” said the
Checrom with a shrug. “Anyway, did you see any of those creatures
or at least hear them? It's been so quiet out there that I thought
they might have gone, but I didn't look because I was afraid they
were waiting for me to come out.”

“
No, I did not,” I said,
shaking mine head. “I did not even know they existed until ye told
me about them. If they are as bad as ye say they are, then I am
thankful to have avoided them.”

The Checrom put his claws on his face like
he was afraid. “You're lucky, but now I'm worried for the rest of
my Foundation members. Those creatures were strong, much stronger
than us, and I haven't heard from anyone else except for you.”

“
Then what are we
waiting for?” I said. I jerked mine thumb over my shoulder. “Grab
whatever weapons ye want. We will find a way out of here and, if we
find any of those lizards, we will kill them in cold blood, as they
deserve for their crimes.”

“
I would rather stay
here, where they haven't been able to find me,” said the Checrom,
crouching low to the floor and putting his claws over his head.
“Right now, this has worked out pretty well for me.”

“
Coward,” I said. “Do ye
not want to avenge the deaths of your comrades and allies? Or are
ye going to allow these fiends to escape without retribution or
harm? Indeed, I ask, is this what ye Foundation members do, simply
run and hide whenever there is trouble?”

“
I-I'm not a fighter,”
the Checrom said, looking down at the floor, away from my face.
“I'm supposed to be the janitor of the Foundation's HQ. That's why
I didn't fight, because I'm not a fighter and I don't know how to
fight.”

The cowardly bird seemed to be telling the
truth, but I said nonetheless, “Well, now ye have me. I shall help
ye fight these monsters, if they are still lurking in the shadows
like thieves. Still, grab ye a weapon; 'twould make me feel safer,
knowing that ye can defend yourself if necessary.”

The Checrom gulped, but then he stood up
and snatched a laser gun off the wall. “All right. I don't want to
hide in here forever, anyway. I want to find out if anyone survived
the attack and just what happened here.”

“
As do I,” I said. “By
the way, do ye know what happened to the she-elf named Lanresia?
She was the one who spoke to me earlier. Is she still alive? I did
not see her corpse in the hallway.”

“
I don't know,” said the
Checrom with a shrug. “I remember seeing her going to fight the
monsters, but I don't know what happened to her after that. Why?
Did you like her?”

“
Not particularly,” I
said, shaking my head. “She was a freak, with that talking snake
machine attached to her waist. Still, she was the only face of the
Foundation I knew, so I asked merely out of curiosity 'tis
all.”

“
A freak?” the Checrom
repeated that word as though it were the most awful curse a wizard
could lay on another being. “That's not very nice. She needs that
speaking snake of hers to communicate with the rest of
us.”

“
That may well be true,
but it is still an unnatural abomination, one I hope to the Old
Gods to never wear myself,” I said. “But this is irrelevant. If ye
are ready to go, then we shall go, and speedily.”

***

Chapter
Five

A
h! How good it felt to have a
weapon with which to defend myself. For a while there, I had felt
as naked as if a thief had stolen all of my clothes and hid them
where I could not find them. 'Twas a relief to have this blade,
even if it was an ugly piece of Xeeonite tech that felt awkward and
strange in mine hand. I would have taken a sword, but the
Checrom—who said his name was Resita, an odd name, to be sure, and
different from other Xeeonite names I had heard—had said that there
were no swords of any sort held in the Foundation's cache.

What a roaring disappointment that was! I
had hoped to be armed with a sword, but now I had to rely on this
pitiful energy knife. Again, I was pleased to have a weapon at all,
even though this blade may not have been much. Resita offered me
one of those infernal laser guns, but I refused, as I did not know
how to use them and had no interest in learning how.

Once we were both ready, I stepped
carefully through the gap between the door and the frame and looked
both ways. The occasional flickering of the lights showed nothing,
save more corpses. I saw no sign of those lizard-like monsters that
Resita claimed had attacked this place, but perhaps they had moved
to the upper floors.

As Resita followed me out of the room, I
said, “How many floors does this place have? One? Two?”

“
Eleven,” said
Resita.

I started. “Ye mean ten and one? And they
extend underground?”

“
Yes,” said Resita,
nodding. He pointed at some strange markings on the wall opposite
us. “This is Floor Number Five. Unless there are a bunch of
obstacles between here and Floor Number One, where the Command
Center is, we shouldn't have any trouble getting out of
here.”

“
I hope ye are right,
because I wish to leave this place as quickly as a rabbit leaves
its burrow,” I said. I shuddered. “Look at all of this death. 'Tis
like the battlefields of Saljamor, where death greets you at every
turn.”

“
I don't know what the
battlefields of Saljamor are,” said Resita, shaking his head. “But
I do know—”

He stopped speaking when he noticed the
corpses on the ground. He made a strange choking sound, which I at
first did not understand, 'til I realized he was shocked at the
sight of so many of his deceased friends. His eyes in particular
were focused on the dead human I had noticed before, the one with
the burnt skin and the missing hands.

“
'Tis indeed a grim
sight,” I said. I patted him on the shoulder. “But we cannot simply
stand here and do nothing. Lead the way out of here, or at least
tell me in which direction we must go.”

“
To the right,” said
Resita, turning his face away from the corpses of his allies,
nodding in the direction which he had indicated. “We'll reach an
elevator that will take us to the next floor. We'll be passing by
the Command Center on our way out, so we can stop there to see if
anyone is still alive.”

“
How will this 'Command
Center' of which ye speak show us that?” I said, tilting mine head
to the side.

“
There's a map of the
entire HQ in there,” Resita explained. “Assuming it's still
functional, it should be able to show us the location of every
Foundation member who was in here when the attacks started,
assuming no one has left the place since then. We can also send a
distress message to the other members who are out in the field, and
to the Delanian branch.”

“
Ye mean to say that not
all of ye Foundation people are in here?” I said, gesturing at the
dark hallway in which we stood. “And what is this 'Delanian branch'
ye speak of?”

“
No one told you?” said
Resita. He gestured at the hallway. “The Foundation has two
branches; one here on Xeeo, another on Dela. We don't communicate
often due to the difficulty in communicating between the two
worlds, and I've never been there, but I've seen footage of it and
met some of the agents who work there.”

“
Why does your
organization have two branches?” I asked. “I thought ye were
working to stop Xacron-Ah's plans.”

Resita blinked when I mentioned that name.
“Who?”

“
The current Mayor of
Xeeon,” I said, frowning. “Lanresia told me that ye Foundation
people are keeping an eye on him. He is planning something sinister
for Xeeo, yes?”

“
Oh,” said Resita,
realization dawning in his voice. “Him. Well, yeah, he's one
threat, but … well, I don't think I should be telling you about
anything else. It's not really relevant and I don't have permission
to blab about all our secrets to you anyway.”

Did seem exceedingly relevant to me. After
all, I still did not know as much about the Foundation as I would
have liked. They had reassured me that they fought on the side of
light, but what if this was all a lie and they were indeed trying
to do something sinister? After all, Lanresia had not told me about
the Delanian branch, which made me wonder what other major secrets
these Foundation agents were hiding from me. 'Twould not be the
first time that I was fooled by someone pretending to be mine ally,
that was for certain.

I could tell, however, that Resita, at
least, was an honest fellow, though it was not easy to do so, as
his lack of human facial features made deciphering his feelings
nigh impossible. I resolved to keep a careful eye on him until I
could be certain that he was a friend and not a foe.

Before we went anywhere, however, I first
asked, “But why should we head to the first floor? Why not check
every floor between here and Floor Number One for any survivors who
may be able to tell us more about what had happened?”

“
Because I don't think
there are any survivors,” said Resita. “If there were, they'd have
made an effort to contact us by now. No, I think everyone is either
dead or has left. Which means it's probably just us and the
monsters now.”

“
What luck,” I said in
the most sardonic voice I could muster. “But I will not argue the
point. I have no great love for this place and would like to get
out of here as soon as possible, for the quicker I leave, the
quicker I can be reunited with mine sister.”

So we began walking down the hallway, to
the right, but carefully. Though the flickering florescent lights
above did not show any threats, the sheer silence of this place
made me instinctively wary. I half-expected a vengeful spirit to
come flying out of the shadows, wailing a terrible song, ready to
gouge out our eyes and crush them betwixt it's teeth.

We found more corpses the further we
walked. Resita identified them all: Jonark, Cadax, Ijir, Foxah, and
others. He did not tell me much about them (for I was not
interested enough to ask), except to identify their occupation
within the Foundation every now and then (Jonark was a technician,
for example), but even I could tell that their deaths must have
affected him greatly. We did not dally too long on any of the
deceased; we had to keep going, because the only way not to end up
like them was to do what we were already doing. That, and none of
the corpses had any shoes I could wear, which only added to my
frustration, as though the Old Gods were intentionally keeping mine
feet bare like some kind of cruel and unusual form of
punishment.

As luck would have it, we did not run into
any of those lizard creatures, though we did find several scratch
marks on the floor and walls that indicated that some kind of
monster must have been through here. There was also the stink of
slime, which Resita told me was most likely left behind by those
beasts. 'Twas a terrible smell that almost made me wish I could not
smell anymore, especially when it mixed with the slightly smoky
stink that already permeated the hallway.

We arrived at the end of the hallway, in
front of the strange contraption that Resita called the 'elevator.'
I had heard of these strange lifts before, which were said to be
even more convenient than stairs, but this was the first time I had
seen one in person.

Or would have been, if the accursed door
would have opened. Like with the door to the weapon cache, this one
was also jammed shut; only, unlike the previous door, this one did
not have even once inch of a gap between the door and the frame for
me or Resita to use to force it open.

Resita attempted to open it by pressing
one of the dozens of buttons on the wall next to it, but as soon as
he pressed the 'up' arrow, the elevator made a loud, groaning noise
that reminded me of the shriek of a dying monster. 'Twas enough to
make me back up and pull Resita with me, though after only a few
seconds the machine went silent.

“
Great,” said Resita,
throwing up his feathery hands. “The elevator is broken. I should
have expected this. I just hope no one was on it when it
broke.”

“
What terrible luck has
befallen us,” I said. “Tell me, Resita, is there any other way we
could get to the higher floors? I do not wish to be stuck down here
forever, where I could die of hunger and thirst or be choked to
death by smoke.”

“
Yeah, there's a set of
emergency stairs we could use,” said Resita, gesturing at a door
not far from where we stood. “I would have mentioned those before,
but I figured the lizards might be hiding inside them, so they
wouldn't be safe for us to use. But if the elevator really is
broken … well, it seems that we don't have much of a choice now, do
we?”

“
No, we do not,” I said.
I held up my energy knife, which blazed to life. “But fear ye not,
my comrade. We shall fight any monsters that attempt to stop us on
our way up. To the death, if necessary.”

There was no mistaking the look of terror
on Resita's birdlike face now. I had almost forgotten that Resita
had not been trained in combat, unlike myself, but 'twas not a
problem, as I would be leading the way and therefore would be the
first to run into any creatures lurking in the stairs. Whilst I had
never fought any of these lizard creatures he spoke of, I doubted
they would be much of a threat to my combat prowess, for I had been
trained in the way of the Knights of Se-Dela, and the Knights of
Se-Dela were hardly weaklings.