The New Adventures of Richard Knight Page 19

  ***

  Moss, vines, dirt and all other forms of forest growth had overtaken the flying machine; at least, Knight assumed it was a flying machine. Based on the angle of impact it had fallen from an incredible height, Knight guessed the stratosphere. But even despite the tremendous impact and the centuries—perhaps even millennia—worth of growth around it, the metal hull still gleamed, seemingly undamaged beneath it all, without any sign of rust or degradation, as if it had rolled off the assembly line beside Xander’s plane.

  “Congratulations, Xander,” Sophia said with a suspicious grimace. “You’ve discovered a giant metal dinner plate.”

  “What I’ve DISCOVERED,” Xander screamed, spit flecking his pink chin, “is so much more than you will ever understand!” He paused and ran his hand over his chest, pushing out the creases of his obsidian suit. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. “Come, I want to show you keys to our past… and our future.” Xander removed the shroud and raised the now glowing Crystal over his head. “What was the phrase…? Ah, yes: Open sesame!”

  ***

  “How old do you think this place is?” Sophia asked Knight under her breath as they walked through the disc, their footsteps resounding with hollow echoes. The tube pathways that ran through the vessel were a continuous pristine mirrored surface, branching out at random intervals and in all directions. Maybe it was just his imagination, but Knight could swear this thing was bigger on the inside. Xander walked ahead of them, quietly talking to the Crystal as if it were leading the way. He turned them left, right, left and back again, never pausing for an instant. Yudain still followed behind but had lowered her pistols, enraptured by their surroundings. The Mechano-Men, however, stayed ever vigilant alongside them.

  “Based on the amount of foliage that was covering this thing… Old. Really old,” Knight observed, his eyes falling on the strange machinery controls that looked like they had grown out from the mirrored surface. “Probably older than the pyramids.”

  Sophia shook her head. “No. That’s impossible. Look at this place,” she said, gesturing toward a strange array of crystalline controls. “This kind of technology…”

  Knight firmed his lips; goose pimples ran down his spine. “Yeah, I know. It doesn’t exist.”

  Sophia looked to Knight, fear bleeding through her eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “Soph, I won’t even venture a guess,” he said, though he had already pieced together the facts but the truth was too terrifying to admit. He glanced back at Yudain who had fallen a few steps behind as she examined one of the control panels. He moved closer to Sophia. “Listen, there might be a way out of this.”

  “Yeah, and I might be an octopus,” Sophia cynically replied.

  Knight ignored her comment and gestured over to the Mechano-Man walking beside her. “The legs.”

  Sophia stole a quick glance over, but kept facing forward. “What about them?”

  “They’re stick-thin. A swift kick and you might be able to topple them—”

  “You’re trying to get us killed, aren’t you?” Sophia growled.

  “Asks the girl who woke me with a gun to the head today.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Up until the point that Cat pistol-whipped me I was all for making your head explode,” she said, though she was less than convincing.

  “When you say things like that you make me forget all about Benita and I fall in love with you all over again.”

  Sophia spun toward him, her mouth was slightly agape, stunned. Were those tears pooling at the bottom her eyes?

  “Don’t read into it. Just a turn of phrase,” he said, praying he wasn’t blushing. Why was his timing also so off? “Just wait until I give the signal and take out the Mechano-Men. We move fast enough, we might just have a fighting chance.”

  “There’s no way it’ll work,” Sophia said bleakly. “Best thing we can do is play along and maybe—just maybe—they’ll let us live.”

  “And if they’re successful, then what? You want to live in a world ruled over by Xander?”

  “If it’ll keep me alive, yes!” she hissed.

  Knight’s face hardened. “Too bad. Rolling over isn’t an option today. I have a promise to keep.”

  “Don’t you get it? That was all a ploy to get you to bring the Crystal here!”

  Knight felt his stomach drop a little and did his best not to show it, though around Sophia, it was hard to hide his feelings. “No, I got that. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to prove myself to you.”

  “Jesus, why do you have to be so difficult?”

  “Because I know a few of things,” he whispered, leaning in close enough that his lips brushed up against her ear. “One, between Xander and me, I’m the best option you’ve got. Two, I see the way you look at me. And three…” Knight paused for a moment. “Three, I know how I still feel about you.” He looked her in the eyes, in those haunting blue-grey eyes. “And that feeling doesn’t come around all that often, so I’m going to make it count.”

  Sophia closed her eyes and turned away, biting her lip. “How you managed to survive this long is beyond me.”

  Ignoring the pain radiating out from his abdomen, Knight puffed out his chest and gave her his most winning smile. “My winning personality and ravishing good looks.”

  Sophia groaned. “If we make it out of this alive, I might just have to kill you.”

  “You say the sweetest things.”

  “Break it up, love birds,” Yudain said, pressing her pistols between them. “It looks like we’ve reached our destination.”

  ***

  The central chamber was a mirrored dome, their footsteps echoing back and around them infinitely. A shriveled body sat hunched over the main controls at the heart of the chamber, it’s massive cranium cracked and slumped to the side. One of its hands was still clenched around a lever, as if there was a still a chance for survival. Knight did the count, four fingers total, a thumb on either side of the withered palm. Its skin was a dark green, bordering on black, but maybe that was just the centuries of slow decay. Another creature—because that’s what it was, there was no way it could be human—had been thrown headfirst into what Knight assumed to be the windshield, a dark purple stain covering the mirror surface around its corpse. It seemed that while the ship was designed to withstand a titanic crash, those within were still susceptible to kinetic forces. Knight looked over the controls again and felt a pang of brotherly affection. They had been pilots.

  “What do you suppose they were?” Sophia asked eyeing the mummified creatures.

  “Not from around here,” Knight replied.

  “Visitors, Mr. Knight,” Xander answered, his voice reverberating around them. He hobbled past him toward the central console, the Crystal in hand. “Visitors from long ago and far away. What wonders they might have seen…”

  “There you go again with the myths and fairy tales.”

  Xander looked back at Knight, his face twisted with his lipless grin. He raised his robotic hand and beckoned Knight with a curled metallic finger. “Come here, Mr. Knight.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Knight said, taking a step back. “Reverence for the dead.”

  A gun pressed against the back of Knight’s head and the trigger was cocked back. “Play time is over,” Yudain said. “Do as he says so we can get this over with.”

  “Well, now that you’ve asked nicely.” Knight sauntered over to Xander, their eyes locked. Now that he was close to him, Knight could hear the chimes ringing out from the Crystal, and sure enough they sounded almost like screams. To Knight’s ears they felt like echoes from the past; all the lives Xander had taken and the life he should have lost in a pit of lava. No matter what happened next, this was the end of their little game. It made Knight feel oddly mournful. “How does this work, Xander? Are we going to hold hands and pray?”

  “Something like that.” Xander replied softly, like they were old friends about to say goodbye for the last time. He held out the C
rystal. When Knight didn’t take it, Xander added reassuringly, “I don’t think it will hurt. Not much at least.” He gestured over to the main controls, a collection of levers, buttons and glass. A slot about the size of a human head sat at the center, no doubt where the Crystal belonged. “This is their control deck; much like in an airplane, no? And here is where the Crystal sat, at once the key and the power source. Back when we were still crawling up from the mud, this beautiful machine drove these… men across space to worlds unknown. Imagine what we would find now.”

  “And how do you know that?” Knight asked with a raised eyebrow. “Another educated guess?”

  Xander shrugged dismissively, his unwavering gaze speaking volumes. “If that makes you feel better,” he replied, knowing it wouldn’t. “But you will never know what I will see.”

  A shiver ran down Knight’s spine as the truth hit him. “This isn’t about conquering the world, is it? It isn’t even about getting some kind of exotic technology,” Knight said. He took a step closer to Xander. “This is about flying. Flying farther than anyone could.”

  Had Xander lips he would have smiled sadly. “We see each other, Mr. Knight, for the first and the last.”

  “Isn’t that touching?” Knight mused as he took the Crystal from Xander, instantly cutting the singing chimes. He stepped over to the console and eyed the small black portal at the center; shallow as it was it seemed almost cavernous. This wasn’t the worst way to go, he thought. The way he figured it he should have already died twice today. Probably more than that. He lifted the Crystal up to the slot and hesitated. If he was going to kick the big bucket and take his long dirt nap, there was something he needed to do first. He looked back over to Sophia. “I meant what I said back then. Before. You know, with that big ‘L’ word.”

  Sophia thinned her lips, something between a smile and a frown. Tears welled up in her eyes, which even now were crescent moons. “I know you did, you idiot.”

  Knight laughed at that. Well, at least he would go out smiling. “Good. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page for once.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and slid the Crystal into position.

  And…

  “What the hell, Xander?!” Yudain cursed. “Did you bring us all the way here for nothing?”

  Knight opened his eyes and glanced down at the Crystal, ever shifting, but the control panel was as lifeless as before. He frowned. “Looks like I broke it.”

  “No! This isn’t supposed to happen! Bring the girl!” Xander screamed, shoving Knight aside. He reached into the slot in the control panel and gripped the Crystal. There was a flash of light and somewhere beneath their feet machinery groaned back to life, a low thrumming that echoed up and out into the walls and the ceiling above until everything around them thrummed. What Knight had assumed was the front windshield came to life like a screen in a movie theatre. An image of one of the creatures appeared on the screen, speaking in grunts and clicks. Symbols, like those on the Crystal, spun around each other in circular motions, twisting, inverting and intersecting. If that was their language, Knight mused, it was impossibly complex.

  “Ah… There you are,” Xander said breathlessly, his eyes alight. “Miss Burdett, Mr. Knight; thank you both. You have been very helpful, but it seems that we didn’t need either of you after all. Miss Yudain if you could do the honors,” he said offhandedly as he searched over the controls.

  “Sorry, Soph,” Yudain said with a crooked grin as she pressed her pistol to Sophia’s temple and cocked back the hammer. “It’s been fun, but it’s time to say goodbye.”

  “Not today,” Sophia replied. In a blur of motion that felt like minutes but only took seconds, she kicked out the Mechano-Men’s legs and the robots dominoed sideways into Yudain, knocking her back. Her finger squeezed down on the trigger as she fell back a step and the bullet went wild, soundlessly bouncing off the curved ceiling. Without taking a chance, Sophia rammed her shoulder into Yudain, sending her and her gun flying to the floor.

  “No!” Xander screamed, reaching for the pistol hidden in his obsidian suit. “You’re ruining everyth—”

  Knight grabbed Xander’s head and smacked it hard against the console. Xander fell to the floor, blood trickling out from a gash on his forehead. “Let the girls sort this one out,” he said, taking Xander’s gun and sliding it into his vacant holster.

  Sophia dived after the gun, her bound arms forward. She slid across the mirrored surface, but the gun was just out of reach. “You should have hit harder!” Yudain screamed as she leapt at Sophia, but Sophia was quick. Rolling onto her back, she kicked out her feet, smacking Yudain hard in the jaw. Blood and broken teeth sprayed out from Yudain’s mouth as she dropped to the ground. Sophia rolled to her side, snatched up the gun, and moved into a kneeling position in one smooth motion. “Hands high, Richard!” she screamed, aiming the gun.

  Knight instantly understood and raised his shackled hands above his head. Without hesitating, Sophia fired off a quick shot, shattering Knight’s chains.

  “Damn fine shot, Soph!” Knight said proudly as he returned the favor with Xander’s gun. He ran over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. He was smiling like an idiot and he didn’t care. “And here I was beginning think we never had a chance.”

  “You wait long enough, I might just surprise you,” she replied with that beautiful crooked smile.

  “Just don’t ever stop surprising me,” Knight said as he began to pull her in when the floor shook violently, throwing them off their feet. There was a sound like wind through a vortex, and Knight could feel the telltale thrum of engines coming to life. He looked toward the front screen and a pit formed in the center of his stomach. The projection of the creature had been replaced with a green light and large flashing symbols. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they meant.

  “Well, that was surprising! What was it?” Sophia asked over the rush of air.

  “Nothing good,” Knight replied. “Come on!” He grabbed her by the arm and they ran toward the entrance.

  “Look, Mr. Knight!” Xander shouted from behind them. “The stars! Look at the beauty!” Knight looked back over his shoulder. Xander had found his feet, the gash on his forehead still spilling blood over his ruined face. Knight looked over at the screen and even he had to admit they were beautiful. It wasn’t just twinkling dots in the dark, they were orbs of fire, gaseous giants, rocky moons, the spirals of galaxies; colors unimaginable. “I will see them,” Xander said with a pleasurable shudder. “I will see them all!”

  Knight grimly thinned his lips and looked back to his old nemesis. “Enjoy your flight, Xander,” he said with a tinge of sincerity. He lightly put a hand on Sophia’s shoulder and they ran out of the control room without looking back. And as they raced through the tubed passages, Knight silently admitted he was jealous.

  ***

  They had a minute, maybe less. The craft shook around them as it worked its way free of the millennia of growth and dirt. His lungs screamed and the broken ribs bit down, but Knight kept running, kept driving forward, Sophia’s hand locked with his. He could see the light at the end of the hall slowly narrowing as the portal slowly irised shut.

  “We’re gonna have to jump,” Sophia said breathlessly.

  Knight felt his ribs shift and grimaced. “I know,” he sighed and their feet clanged against the floor in rapid unison.

  “Wait!” someone shouted behind them. Knight risked a glance back and saw Catherine racing after them. She had several teeth missing, her chin was covered with blood and panic was flooding her remaining eye—this wasn’t what she had bargained for. She tried to catch up but slipped against the mirror surface and fell down face forward.

  Knight let go of Sophia’s hand and swung back toward Yudain. She might be a killer, but Knight wasn’t—not when he didn’t have to be. “Soph, don’t stop running! We’ll be right behind you!” He ran over to Yudain, grabbed her hand. “Come on, Cat! Don’t let go!” he screamed as he lifted her of
f the ground.

  But just as Yudain made her way to her feet, the back of her head exploded in a flurry of crimson and grey. Her hand slipped limply from his and her body crumpled to the floor into a puddle of blood. Knight stumbled back a step, his jaw open in shock.

  “Forget her, Richard,” Sophia said behind him, lacing her finger with his. “She’s gone to the other side of Hell.” Knight slowly turned to face her, unable to ignore the still smoking pistol in her hand. Her face was unreadable, her blue-grey eyes cold. “Don’t give me that look, she deserved it.”

  “We’re supposed to be better than that!” Knight said through gritted teeth.

  “You are,” she said pointedly. “I’m not so limited. Now come on,” she pulled him forward, “before we end up on some other world.”

  ***

  They leapt through the orifice, now so narrow they had to dive through arms around each other, a moment that any other time would have been intimate. The entrance sealed up instantly, pinching the toe of Knight’s boot. A hot blast of air flowed around as they hit the ground. Despite the agony radiating through his body he found his way to his feet and watched as the ship broke out from its ancient prison, lifted up into the air and without any visible means of propulsion, shot out into the night sky, a pinprick of light.

  “Well, that’s definitely something you don’t see everyday,” Sophia commented from the ground beside him.

  “No, definitely not,” he replied. Even though he was furious with her, he couldn’t help but smile. She was covered in dirt and more than a little bit of blood, but still looked radiant. How was that even possible? Part of him wanted to laugh with her; another wanted to scream. Sophia laughed and gave him her lopsided smile, and her eyes curved into those enchanting crescent moons. Their whole relationship in a look.