Author's Note: The opinions of the protagonist are not necessarily those of the author and should not be construed as validation or promotion of same. Nobody's perfect. Especially not people with developing character arcs.

Chapter 13: I Ran Out Of Subtitles

Effulgia was gone by the time two guards came to take Archie to a more comfortable location. Off to do God knows what with his granddaughter. Archie drove the thought out of his head. She’s an adult. It’s the 21st century. A person has to be open-minded.

This was all her mother’s fault, Archie decided. She’s the one who went to that clinic when she decided to have a baby instead of finding a good man and settling down. Without a stable and balanced home life growing up, how could Haley help growing up perverted? She never got to see what a good, solid, loving relationship between a man and a woman was like.

Society was to blame as well. It’s all over the place these days. A man can’t turn on the television these days without seeing two women all over each other. Everything is smut nowadays. Everyone’s business is all out in the open, experimenting and whatnot. It was disgusting.

In Archie’s day, people kept their business to themselves, the way they ought. If you did anything with another person, it was in private, the other person was the opposite gender, and you felt a proper amount of shame afterwards. It kept folks honest.

Archie continued muttering to himself along those lines during the entire journey from the interrogation room in the rear to the portside cabin he had been assigned. He was so deep in thought that he was surprised when they stopped him from walking past and continuing down the corridor.

“Oh, we’re here, are we? Doesn’t look like much,” Archie complained.

“Get inside,” grumbled the guard on the left, pushing the button to open the door. “This is the only door, and we’ll be out here all the time. You will be questioned shortly.”

Archie stepped into the cabin. “Better than the last place, anyway,” he mumbled. Indeed it was. For one thing, it was well lit. A track of concealed lighting ringed the walls near the ceiling, casting an indirect glow upward onto the white ceiling and down onto the ornate decorative pattern of the wall, providing uniform soft illumination. The room itself was on the small side, dominated to Archie’s right by a large couch that spanned one entire wall and curved to consume part of each adjoining wall as well. A square, glass-topped table stood in the center of the space defined by the couch, not unlike the sort of coffee table Archie was accustomed to seeing.

Along the far wall was a series of small, round windows. From where Archie stood, the sky outside appeared yellow, swirling with different shades and threatening to fade into either orange or green at any moment.

Through an arched doorway to Archie’s left, he saw a dimmed room with a variety of darker shapes huddled near the floor. He concluded that it was probably a bedroom, given the Holiday Inn-esque décor of what he could see. Between the doorway and the corner of the wall nearest Archie were a counter, some cabinets, and what Archie imagined were a refrigerator and a stove. “Kitchenette,” Archie said, approvingly. “Swanky.”

Satisfied that he was at least briefly not in any immediate danger of painful death, Archie set out to determine a method of escape. A cell was a cell, no matter how fancy, as far as he was concerned. He started by defining the parameters of his predicament. He was locked in a room with only one door—wait a minute. Archie stepped across the plush carpeted floor to the archway and looked inside. The lights came up as he did so. In the room beyond was a large oval mattress, flanked on either side by small tables. An upholstered chair occupied each of the near corners of the bedroom. On the wall to Archie’s left was a closed door.

Archie, curious, went over to the door. There’s no way, he thought. They wouldn’t be so stupid as to put him into a room with a rear exit. Would they? He wasn’t that lucky. At best, it would open up into the same hall that his two overly-protective companions were guarding. But what if it didn’t?

Archie was disappointed but not surprised when he discovered the bathroom. “I suppose some things are universal,” he commented to himself.

“Okay,” he said aloud so he could hear a friendly voice. “I’m locked in a decently-appointed room with only one door out. That door is being guarded by two men who didn’t seem all that amenable to persuasion or bribery, and whom I could never defeat physically. In a little while, someone is going to come in here and ask me questions I may or may not know the answers to. The consequences of which could be unpleasant for both myself and Haley. Meanwhile, Haley is in the company of, let’s face it, an evil princess, apparently doomed to suffer a fate worse than death. Whatever will Archie do? Tune in next week and find out!”

Archie chuckled and sat gingerly down on the bed in deference to his still considerable aches and pains. “Come on, Archie, think!” he encouraged himself. “What would Dash Mercury do? That’s easy. He’d overpower the guards, dress in one of their uniforms, make his way to where the evil princess was holding the girl, romance the princess, rescue the girl, then set the ship’s reactor to explode while he made his getaway in an escape pod.

“Great! All I need is someone to overpower the guards for me, a uniform that would disguise the fact that I’m old, a map of the ship, a lot of alcohol, the opportunity to ply Effulgia with it, some knowledge of how to overload a reactor, and an escape pod. Piece of cake.”

Archie toppled backward on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He noticed a ventilation duct vent in the corner. He guessed it was roughly six inches wide and nine long. “There we go. I’ll just slip into the air ducts.” He laughed bitterly.

Maybe, Archie thought, having grown tired of talking, I could set a fire on the stove. And hope that they cared enough to come put it out before I asphyxiated.

He wrestled himself back up to vertical and walked back into the living room. He was fairly certain that two walls of his cabin had the hallway, full of guards, and the exterior of the ship beyond them. The hall was out, but what about outside? He didn’t know whether they were flying through air or vacuum, or, to be perfectly honest, if they were flying at all. They could be at sea or on a very smooth road. Still, it was worth exploring.

The portholes were less than a foot across. Archie doubted he could get his head through one, never mind his entire body. He banged on the wall experimentally. It sounded hollow. He had no idea what that meant. So he looked out one of the windows.

Above the ship, the entire dome of the sky was aglow. At about the level of what he imagined was the horizon, the yellow abruptly shifted to darkest black, which continued downward as far as he could see from the limited viewpoint of the porthole. Archie seriously considered retreating back into the blissful denial he had enjoyed when he first arrived in this strange place. While he pondered the benefits of consensual insanity, he noticed dark spots on the background, some mere specks and some he could not cover with his thumb. He did not know what to make of it.

Suddenly, a loud noise of rushing air engulfed the ship. A large object came into view under the ship, moving swiftly toward the rear. He stared transfixed as he recognized brown and gray stone, topped with green. It was gone in a moment, taking the sound with it, but he was sure of what he saw. It was land. It was a block of stone the size of a mountain, flat on the top with a field of green in the center. Floating in mid-air. What kind of crazy place had he fallen into?

Archie dealt with his confusion by ignoring it. It was not going to get him out of the room, so he had to put it out of his mind. He deliberately turned away from the porthole, then moved toward the couch along the side wall. There were only four possible directions he could move to get out of the room. Up, down, through the wall behind the couch, or through the wall behind the bed.

He thoroughly examined the wall behind the couch, looking for removable panels or some other method of egress, and failing miserably. As he headed back into the bedroom to search that bulkhead as well, he starting thinking that he was going about this all wrong. He was not in any shape to go crawling through ductwork, avoiding patrols and whatnot. He had to think of something else. But what else was there?

Trickery, he decided. The key to his escape had to lie with the interrogator who was coming to question him. Archie sat down on the bed again and looked around the room. Maybe, he could use one of the end tables to bludgeon him when he came. Archie lay back and closed his eyes to promote concentration. But then what? Once I have him on the deck, what do I do?

***

Archie awoke with a yelp. In the dimness, he saw, and felt, someone in a uniform shaking him awake. Driven purely by instinct, he swung both fists in a wide arc into the figure. It made a satisfying, “Oof!” and rolled away. The lights came up in the room as Archie tried to leap off the bed and press his attack. He managed to scoot to the edge of the bed by the time the uniformed man got onto his feet.

“Docian?” Archie said, incredulously.

“You’re awake,” Docian replied amiably. “Good. We need to get you out of here.”

“What are you doing here? And why are you dressed like that?”

Docian looked down at his attire. “I had to dress like this to get in here, obviously. But look at you! In the clutches of your enemy, and you stay calm enough to take a nap before your thrilling escape.”

“What are you, my press agent? Anyway, how did you get past the guards at the door?”

Helping Archie stand, Docian explained, “I took care of them. We have to hurry before they’re discovered missing. Here,” he added, hurrying into the other room. He returned with an armload of clothes. “Put these on.”

Archie held up the uniform jacket skeptically. “I already thought of this. Do they have a lot of senior citizens on staff on these ships?”

“It won’t matter. It’s not that far to the hangar, through mostly little-used corridors. As long as we stay far enough away from everyone, we should be okay.”

“We can’t go straight to the hangar. We have to rescue Haley from almost certain sex.”

“She doesn’t matter,” Docian insisted.

“What?”

“You are the Child of Destiny. Her fate is unimportant. You must survive.”

“Like hell,” Archie argued. “I’ve got three kids and six grandkids. Haley’s the only one worth a damn. I’m not leaving her here with these people.”

Docian stared at nothing. Eventually, he relented. “All right. If you insist. What do you propose?”

“Well, first things first. You were right about one thing. We have to get out of this room before someone comes.” He started putting on the uniform pieces over his clothes. “Go tie up the guards.”

“Why?”

“So they won’t sound the alarm when they wake up.”

“Um,” Docian said slowly. “That… won’t be a problem.”

“It most certainly will,” Archie began. “If we’re going to have any chance of getting Haley and getting out of here before….” His voice trailed off as the realization sank in. “What did you do?” he cried, hurrying into the living room.

On the floor were the two guards, their uniforms in various stages of dishevelment. Both of their faces carried accusing grimaces of pain.

Following Archie, Docian said matter-of-factly, “I shot them with my death ray. It was the only way. There’s no time.”

Archie kneeled down beside one of the prone men, felt for a pulse, but found none. “You couldn’t have used the stun setting or something?”

Docian drew the weapon from its hiding place and looked at it. “It’s called a ‘death ray.’ What makes you think it has a stun setting?”

“These were people!” Archie reminded him. “They probably had families. Wives, kids maybe.” He turned to confront Docian face to face. “Don’t you care about-” Archie noticed the gun in Docian’s hand. “Whoa!” He held his hands in front of him in a combination of a reassuring stance and a defensive posture. “Hey, let’s talk about this. Just relax, there, buddy. There’s no need for that.”

“What?” Docian asked, confused.

“Just put the gun down,” Archie said soothingly. “Stay calm. We can discuss this like reasonable people.”

Docian stared uncomprehendingly at Archie. Then, suddenly, he understood. “Oh!” he exclaimed, replacing the gun in its concealed location within his uniform. “No, please. I would never… it was an emergency… I’m not in the habit…” Archie relaxed as Docian’s stumbling words trailed off. “Listen, we don’t have much time. I have my ship in the docking bay. The longer we take, the more likely they will discover I’m not inside it. We’re done for if that happens.”

“Okay,” Archie said, having rethought his interest in confronting the friendly murderer before him. Putting on the dead guards’ clothes, he continued, “So, how do we get to Haley? She’s with that Effulgia woman.”

Docian started dragging the first of the corpses into the bedroom. “Her state room is in the nose of the ship, just above the centerline. We should be able to get there through the maintenance access tunnels. There’s a hatch at the end of the corridor.”

“How do I look?” Archie asked, extending his arms to the sides. The uniform hung loosely off of his frame. The sleeves were too long, and the pants bunched up at the waist where Archie had cinched the belt as tightly as he could. Noticing the skeptical look on Docian’s face, he added, “They weren’t small people.”

“It will have to do,” Docian concluded. He pulled a handheld device out of a leather pouch on his belt. It had flashing lights and was making small beeping noises. Archie watched as Docian manipulated the controls. Docian smiled when a light at the top turned from red to green. Then, Docian waved the machine at the wall of the room bordering the hallway. He examined the machine afterward, and declared, “It’s clear. Let’s go.” Docian returned the device to its pouch and stepped over to the door.

Archie stood back as Docian activated the door control. The door slid open with a quiet, “Shhff.” Docian stuck his head out the doorway, looked both directions, then looked back at Archie and said, “Come on.” Docian slipped out the door and disappeared to the left. Archie followed.

Together, they trod quietly up the corridor, doing their best to appear simultaneously invisible and perfectly at home. They reached a turn at the forward end of the hall without incident. On the wall facing the hallway they had just traversed was a closed hatch. Archie didn’t see any handles or other way to open it.

“Now what?” Archie whispered, well aware of how exposed he felt. In response, Docian pulled out that odd electrical device again. Now closer to it, Archie could see that the entire front face of the thing was covered with switches, buttons, and dials. These Docian manipulated with what Archie considered amazing speed. He couldn’t even keep up with what Docian was doing. He imagined it must take years of practice to learn to use whatever that thing was.

Finally, a light turned green and Docian stopped fiddling with the device. He placed it on the wall next to a keypad. In a few seconds, four of the keys lit up, one after the other, and the hatch hissed open.

“Well, that’s handy,” Archie said, as Docian led him into to hatchway. Inside, a ladder led down a short distance. Archie descended creakily. At the bottom, the small niche opened up into another hallway directly beneath the one they had just left. Archie stepped out, while Docian repeated the process with that device of his. Above, the maintenance hatch closed and resealed itself.

“This way,” Docian said softly, heading toward what Archie was pretty sure was the fore of the ship, amid pipes leaking steam and bundles of wires running overhead and underfoot.

As they traveled, Archie asked, “Say, what is that machine you keep using? What does it do?”

“This?” Docian replied, holding the device over his shoulder for Archie to see in the uncertain light. “It’s a widget. My father invented it many years ago. You can use it as a sensor, or to access computers, or store and retrieve data, or as a short-range radio, things like that.”

“The things they can’t do these days,” Archie commented.

Docian stopped and turned around, holding the widget out so they could both see it. “See, first, you decide what you need it to do. Then, you push this button.” Docian pointed out the large button on the side. “This light will turn red. Next, you operate these controls until the light turns green. At that point, it’s set for whatever task you need, so you use it. Simple.”

“I see,” said Archie, who didn’t. “How do you know which buttons to push? Is there a manual?”

Docian looked confused. “I don’t understand the question.”

“For instance, the way you opened that hatch back there. I find it hard to believe that you just happened to have the proper settings memorized to make your widget a hatch-opening device. I assume you looked it up before you came, in case you might need it, but it looked awfully complicated just the same. So, how do you know how to work it?”

“Um, no,” Docian admitted slowly. “I just needed to open the hatch, so I worked the controls until the widget could do it.”

It was Archie’s turn to look confused. “You just flip switches at random? That doesn’t make sense.”

Docian shrugged. “I don’t understand the science behind it. But that’s how it works.” Docian looked ahead of them. “I’ll show you. Up ahead, there’s a security checkpoint. We have to disable it to get into the nose of the ship. Let’s go.” Docain led a bewildered Archie to the checkpoint, just outside of sensor range. “All right, what we need here is a security bypass, something that will keep the sensors from reporting our passing to the central electric brain.

“So, the first thing I do is fix in my mind the idea that I want a security bypass device.” He pushed the button on the side of the widget. “See the red light here?” Archie nodded. “Now, watch. I’ll go slow.” As Archie observed, Docian’s fingers jumped from one control to the next, seemingly at random: a button here, a dial there, three switches in a row, then reversing the middle one to its original position, and so on. Archie could make no rhyme or reason out of any of it.

Eventually, the light on the machine turned green. “Ah!” Docian exclaimed. “There we are. Now, we move forward. Stay close to me.” Archie did as he was told, stepping into Docian’s footsteps almost before the other had vacated them. He noticed the cameras mounted just above head height on both sides of the tunnel, tracking their movements.

“They see us!” Archie hissed.

“Relax,” Docian assured him. “They do, but they aren’t sending that information anywhere. We’re almost past.” Archie listened to the whirr of servomotors behind him until they fell silent.

“There. We’re through,” Docian announced. “Effulgia’s rooms are a couple decks above us. We need a ladder. Keep an eye out.”

“That worked,” Archie said, incredulous.

“It seems to have,” Docian agreed. “No alarms went off. That’s usually a good sign.”

“What if they were silent alarms?”

“Silent? What good are alarms if you can’t hear them?”

“No,” Archie elaborated. “Silent for us. They get warned someplace else, but we don’t know we set anything off.”

Docian pondered this. “Hmm. Never heard of such a thing. Not Lao the Pitiless’ style to let those who threaten him think they’re getting away with it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“That makes me feel so much better, thanks.”

Docian disappeared in front of Archie. Taking a step forward, Archie discovered that Docian has stepped into another side niche.

“Found a ladder. If I’m right, then the corridor outside Effulgia’s suite should be almost directly above us.”

Archie looked up into the darkness of the ladder’s shaft. “How far up, do you think?”

“Not far. Come on.” Docian began climbing the ladder. Archie labored with his stiff joints to follow. He fell behind, and by the time he caught up to Docian at the top -- his heart pounding, his shoulders screaming in protest, and his vision blurring -- Docian had already used his widget to open the maintenance hatch. Docian stepped out, and Archie collapsed through the doorway behind him. Docian helped Archie to his feet, and then went to peek around the nearest corner.

“There it is,” Docian whispered. Archie leaned against the wall and took his word for it. “Just one guard,” Docian added, fishing out his death ray. “Looks like a boy. Probably just ceremonial.”

Archie saw the movement of Docian’s hand and grabbed the other’s wrist. “No,” he stage-whispered. “I won’t let you kill anyone else.”

“Well, what, then? This was your idea, after all. You want in that room. He’s in the way. Would you rather run over and beat him unconscious?”

Archie was still struggling to catch his breath after the climb. “Maybe,” he offered. “It’s what Dash Mercury would have done.”

“Perhaps, but do you know what will happen to him if he’s discovered alive after failing to protect the emperor’s daughter from us? Killing him now is a kindness.”

Archie pushed himself off the wall. “We’re in uniform, right? Maybe you can convince him you’re a superior officer and order him away.”

“It won’t matter to the boy in the long run. Lao the Pitiless is not called that because he accepts failures gracefully.”

Archie wheeled on Docian. “I can’t control that. What happens later is not my fault. What happens now is. We trick him. We scare him off. We knock him out. We do not kill him. Understand?”

“Fine, anything. Let’s just hurry. We’ve already wasted too much time.”

The two men straightened up, adjusted their uniforms as well as they could and marched around the corner toward Effulgia’s suite.