The Troll (26 page)

“
So
what?” The Troll said with a shrug.

Her
sadness turned to disdain. “You’re an awful human being,”
she said, and though he pretended it didn’t, it wounded him.
“The Guide was right about you. Everyone was. I shouldn’t
have picked you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“
You’re
asking me to die for something that can’t be done and never
will be. We will drown and he’ll either destroy it or they’ll
lock it up. Best case
scenario is they let another troll try to bring it across country and
he wouldn’t make it out of state either. There is no way that
Psi will ever end, unless they decide to end it.”

Iris
turned to The Poet instead. “Please…” she said,
begging him with her eyes.

“
Please
what?” The Poet asked. “Don’t flatter yourself my
delicate rose. I have no favors for you. You've wounded me where no
man shall feel pain.”

The
Troll looked to Iris quizzically.

“
I
kneed him in the testicles,” she said.

The
Troll grimaced, but it disappeared a moment later.

“
No
jesting?” The Poet asked, studying The Troll's face.

“
I
honestly assumed you didn't have testicles,” The Troll said.

“
Your
troll was right,” The Poet said, facing Iris. “You never
had a chance.”

And
then he threw it over the edge, so simply and quickly that it took
half a minute to realize he’d really thrown it. “There,”
he said, and pulled a gun from the back of his pants. “I’m
reminded of a sonnet…”

Then,
to everyone’s surprise, Rainbow flew back up over the edge,
over The Poet’s head, and landed in the middle of the street.
If tensions weren’t so high, it might have even been humorous,
but in the moment, it only perplexed everyone. The realization that
someone had to have thrown it took a long time to sink in, but when
it did, The Poet turned and looked over the edge.

A
second before, The Acrobat leaped from a beam at his side, grabbed a
cable, swinging in an arc over and around The Poet, and just as The
Poet realized something was happening, The Acrobat crashed into him,
wrapping his arms around The Poet and letting the momentum of his
motion send both of them off the bridge to the water below.

Everything
was silent again and all that remained was The Troll, Iris, and
Rainbow.

The
Guide’s world was moments away from ending, but he felt one
last burst of energy within. The problem was that whatever that burst
caused him to do, it would only buy him moments before two bounty
hunters and five bots came down on him at once. What The Guide needed
was for a burst of energy to be enough to eliminate everyone and
everything in one shot.

He
felt cold steel stuffed into his shoes, digging into his ankle, and
remembered he still had a keepsake from his time in the jail. He’d
used a pair of handcuffs to lock The Troll up. He’d kept a pair
for himself.

The
bots pushed him further into The Mortician’s radius, but he
frantically inventoried the placement of everything around him. He
was a leap over the railing to the floor below. It would be a hard
landing, but would buy him time before the bots could catch up. Above
him was the pipe that ran to the faucet. If broken, water would
cascade down, washing away the metallic gel. And if everything worked
the way he’d played it in his head, that left The Coach—who
would walk one floor down with one of his pouches and put a fresh
coat on him immediately after.

He
knew he had to move fast, but was interrupted by The Mortician, who
grabbed his wrist and sent a surge of electricity up his arm. The
Guide winced as his skin slowly started to rot, his veins turning
blue and protruding from his skin as he felt the poison spread past
his elbow and up his arm. He could control the rest of his body, but
only until it reached his heart.

He
let out a scream, partly from pain, but the true motivation was to
initiate a burst of energy that only had to carry him for about
thirty seconds.

The
bots were moving away, letting The Mortician have his fun, and his
window of opportunity had opened, but would close just as fast. He
felt the pain shoot though his shoulder and reach his chest.

With
his other arm, he reached down and brought his foot up, clinging onto
the handcuffs with his fingers. He strengthened his grip and brought
one end down over the pipe above him. The other, with some finagling,
he clasped over The Mortician’s wrist, causing The Mortician to
loosen his grip. The Mortician was suddenly aware of his own
predicament, his arm reaching out of the elevator cage, fastened to a
pipe outside the cage. He tried to track what The Guide intended to
do, but by the time he figured it out, there was no power to stop it.

The
Guide let himself drop to the ground with all his weight, and
suddenly, the cuffed hand of The Mortician was bound to the pipe
above and unable to reach The Guide. The Mortician’s other hand
pulled back into the elevator, and he didn’t bother with The
Guide. Instead, he began to tug at the handcuffs, desperate to free
himself without pushing any buttons that could result in ripping his
hand off.

The
Guide used every bit of momentum he had to send himself souring over
the rails and to the platform below, landing on his feet and knocking
the wind out of him as he crashed to the ground. He ignored the pain
as he pushed himself back up and ran back to the elevator and hit the
button with the arrow pointing down. A moment later, the elevator
hummed to life and started moving to his floor.

The
Coach’s eyes went wide and he ran to help his friend, but as
the elevator slowly went down, The Mortician found himself suspended
in midair within the elevator, held in place by the handcuff while
the elevator around him kept moving descending. The Mortician looked
to his friend with desperation in his eyes. “Help!” he
shouted. “Get it off me!”

The
Coach only stared, frozen in place as he watched the situation
helplessly. The elevator reached The Mortician’s head, and
suddenly was pushing his body down, while his arm pulled the opposite
direction. Two things happened at once: The Mortician let out a
terrifying scream as his body all at once disjointed and everything
inside him shattered, and the pipe above him bent, sending a
waterfall to the floor, which then seeped through the metal wiring,
falling onto The Guide below.

He
worked quickly, washing himself of all traces of the gel. The bots
had already started the chase, but slowed as the gel mixed with water
and fell to the ground below. Finally, they stopped, with nothing
left to chase.

When
it all became clear to The Coach that The Guide had beat the majority
of them at once, he knew he had to act fast. He hurried down the
stairs, reaching into his jacket and pulling another pouch. “You’re
going to pay for this!” he shouted, but his words only echoed
in the factory. When he reached the third floor landing, there was no
sign of The Guide. He walked slowly with the pouch in his upturned
palm, ready to throw it on The Guide the moment he figured out where
he was.

“
You
got nothing left Guide,” he shouted. “You might as well
give up.”

He
quickly turned a corner, expecting to see The Guide standing there,
but moved slowly again upon seeing it was just another empty landing.
At every corner was darkness. The Guide was tired and every moment
wasted, he could be recovering, rebuilding his strength, and ready to
strike.

Then
he did from behind. He wrapped his arms around The Coach, but The
Coach wasted no time to back him into the wall, smashing his body
against the brick and sending him to the ground below. The Guide
scurried away backward on his hands and feet, crab-walking quickly,
but The Coach towered above him, gripping the pouch and holding it
above him with a sadistic smile on his face. Before he could throw
it, The Guide was on his feet, running toward him again, his arms
wrapping around The Coach and trying to wrestle him down. The Coach
brought an elbow down on his back and The Guide flattened face down
on the platform again, rattling the ground. He slowly rolled to his
back, wheezing, breathless.

He
was done.

The
Coach crouched down to one knee and leaned toward him. “I’m
going to let my players kill you slowly, putting a thousand cuts on
your body so you bleed out for days. You’re going to wish you
hadn’t killed my friend. You’re going to beg for anyone
to come for you, but I’ll be sitting right outside, waiting.”

The
Guide said something, but it came out as a whisper.

The
Coach leaned in.

The
Guide said it again, but barely had a breath left.

The
Coach leaned in again, and suddenly The Guide’s arm shot up,
and the shattered glass The Acrobat had given him was stabbed into
The Coach’s shoulder, but not before going through the pouch
first. Metallic gel oozed out onto The Coach, covering his skin and
running over his wound, mixing with his blood.

“
What?...”
was all he could say before the bots began moving. The Guide fell
back again and slowly pushed himself away from The Coach, whose eyes
were darting back and forth, trying to make a decision between
running and trying to finish off The Guide. He could control their
speed to an extent, but
he couldn’t extinguish their hunger for the gel. “Get it
off me!” he screamed, and suddenly looked back for where the
pipe had been spraying water. It was now two stories up and only
droplets fell. He knew
he
wouldn’t make it back in time. Suddenly, he was surrounded by
bots coming down on him. He tried to get away, but only managed to
find the edge of the platform which in his desperation to escape, he
toppled over backward. His body hit the railing below and nestled
there for a moment before he slid off and fell to the first floor.

As
The Guide slowly limped his way down the stairs and to the first
floor, he passed The Coach on his way out, who only laid sprawled out
on the ground with five bots surrounding his body and tearing it up.

The
Guide tried to hurry to Iris, but couldn’t find the strength.
Instead, he dragged himself at the pace he was able, until he was
back at the fountain. It was there that he first saw The Troll
searching the area. Not far from The Troll, Iris was doing the same.
She stopped as if sensing he was standing there and turned. Upon
seeing him there, she ran to his arms and hugged him.

From
where The Troll stood, he watched. He put his hand in his pocket and
wrapped his fingers around Rainbow.

A
mile downstream, The Poet got caught in a thicket of branches and
weeds that protruded from the riverbank.

It
was there that The Magician found him and hauled him to safety. He
spit up a mouthful of water and stretched his body out on a large
rock, letting the sun dry him off while The Magician stood over him
and waited patiently.

When
The Poet was ready, they walked through the sludge and over a bank of
rocks until they were in a thicket of trees. The Poet glanced up for
a moment and stopped at the site of The Acrobat, propped against a
tree, having been saved moments earlier.

The
Acrobat froze in place when he saw The Poet—the only man who
knew his secret and The Poet was more than willing to spill.

“
He
threw me over!” he yelled, pointing his finger at The Acrobat
accusingly. “I had Rainbow. They were all as good as dead. He
threw me over!”

The
Magician turned and studied The Acrobat’s face, watching every
movement.

“
I
admit that I was at fault,” The Acrobat said, “But I
wasn’t trying to throw Poet over. I was trying to help and
unfortunately, I
got in
the way.”

“
This
is absurd!” The Poet yelled. “I know what took place!”

The
Magician approached The Acrobat and studied his mannerisms, aware
that The Acrobat tensed up, that his hairline had a line of sweat,
that his eyes were widened and there was fear within. “Do you
believe in Psi?” he asked.

“
Of
course I do.”

“
Are
your loyalties with The Moderator?”

“
Yes.
Absolutely.”

The
Magician took another long moment to stare into his eyes until he
finally smiled and put his arm around The Acrobat. “How about a
little magic?”

The
Acrobat nodded, but was tense under The Magician’s touch.

The
Magician took off his black hat and turned it in his hand, expertly
spinning it with his index finger.