Critical Path

Maria strained her neck to look to her right to see Layla. Layla gave her an encouraging smile, but it didn’t help, Maria could still see the fear in her eyes. Her legs shook as she gripped the bike tight. The rider in front fired the engines, and they lifted up into the air with a sudden jolt. Her stomach knotted with the sudden movement. She closed her eyes and held on as they sped off toward the settlement. Maria thought this was likely it. She doubted they would keep them alive if the video of that battle was anything to go by.

She tried to make peace with the situation, that her life was rapidly coming to an end, but she couldn’t do it. She wanted to live. She wanted to survive, and that’s when she realized that it was this thinking that made her human—and vulnerable.

And she didn’t like it.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The swelling on the back of Denver’s head throbbed and made him feel sick. He looked around the prison cell in which he was thrown. For what seemed like an hour he’d been left there to stew about how stupid he was in letting someone come up behind him like that.

He wondered if it wasn’t because of the lack of root dulling his senses, taking the edge off his mind. He sat back on the filthy mattress, leaning his back against the cold stone. The walls were rough-hewn lumps piled on top of each other to make a room no larger than three meters in any direction.

Raw, damp dirt lay beneath his feet. He coughed, the stench of carrion wafting through the bars of the door from somewhere off down the corridor. The groans of other prisoners echoed down the narrow passage.

At least he wasn’t the only one here. Maybe one of the other cells contained his father. Looking at the door, he wished he still had his weapons on him. The bastards had even found the bush knife strapped to his calf. With that, he could have hacked away the wooden frame and door and got to the hinges, but with nothing but his clothes and bare hands, he was stuck.

Checking the mattress and the dark corners of the room, Denver sought anything at all that could prove useful, but he came up blank. Nothing but dirt and worms and the frayed fragments of someone’s old clothes.

They probably died in here, he thought.

Through the cracks where the wooden beams of the ceiling were crudely cemented into the stone walls, a beam of light filtered through, shining against the iron bars within the door.

No way of telling what the exact time was or how long he had been out. Could have been an hour, could’ve been a day. Without the root in his system, the unconsciousness mixed with his general tiredness could have lasted a lot longer than usual.

Either way, it didn’t help him out much.

Standing to stretch his legs and help clear his head, he paced the small cell, walking off the cramp that had set in to his calves and thighs. The swelling on the back of his head felt like a tennis ball.

Whoever it was, human or croatoan, really went to town with the blow.

Remembering the others, he searched the pockets of his fatigues in vain to find the communicator, but as was expected, they, whoever his captors were, had already taken it. That probably spelled danger to Layla and the others if they gave anything away over the comm line before they realized who was on the other end.

But nothing he could do about that.

At least they had Gregor with them. As despicable as he was, he afforded them a certain level of protection. Assuming he hadn’t got them to do anything stupid like storm the settlement.

Of course! The settlement… Denver moved to the far end of the cell and, on tiptoes, lifted his face to the crack. Although the aperture only gave him a narrow angle of view, he could see the rooftops of other buildings and in the distance a building on top of a landmass.

Beyond that, and surrounding his view, he saw the steps cut into the high sides of the town. He wondered if this wasn’t once a quarry or a lake given the bowl shape of it with the high sides. A shadow cut the beam of light. A man, or woman perhaps, in robes walked across his vision. He made to shout out, but something about it made him stop. Something familiar…

The way they walked and held themselves prickled at the edge of his recognition, but with his head throbbing with pain he couldn’t quite place it. He did, however, recall seeing the group of robed people through his scope before he was knocked out, but that wasn’t what was ringing bells for him, there was something more fundamental with their body language that screamed at him to remember.

He’d have to leave it for when his head cleared a little.

Whenever that might be. His captors hadn’t even provided him with any water or food. Even an interrogation would be better than nothing. At least then he’d have an opportunity to gather some information on what was happening.