Chương 84: Chapter 81: George’s Run (XVI)

When George came out of the memory his heart was still pounding. He could still feel the disappointment at walking through the barrier and not seeing his children. >>Well, these backstory answers are coming in hard and fast, aren't they. >>You got catfished! I did not see that coming.

"What does that mean?" George said. >>Honestly, George. Weren't you the least bit suspicious when your kids voices coming out of dead radios? That's got "don't walk through this dimensional membrane" written all over it.

"I think I—" George said and then stopped.

"It sounded like the kids. I don't remember their voices, but I was convinced it was them in the memory." >>Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. >>Look on the bright side… had you never made that foolhardy and ill-advised decision, we would have never met. Then, you never would have been on the path to becoming two-headed, multi-armed, army-killing death machine. >>OK, George. Two more memories. I think we're about to learn the circumstances under which you entered the game and what happened to Max and Kat.

How are you doing? George felt like he had just been plunged into a river of emotions and was only getting fleeting moments to come up for air. But he was almost done. And he was learning things about his own past that he needed to know and the only way out was to continue.

"I'm ready," George said.

"Let's get it done." Memory Six: The Glass Prison The first thing he realized when the memory began was that he remembered what his children looked like. And they were here. Kat lay only a few feet away. George lurched toward her before he even had time to think. She was asleep—or unconscious. Her shirt was matted with dark blood and a bandage protruded from beneath the hem. He reached toward her and his hand hit something hard. A clear wall stood between them.

He pressed both hands to the barrier and looked for a door or an opening. Then he saw another person sitting against a different clear barrier with his eyes closed. It was Max. His face was thinner than George remembered. Older. Haggard. His son wore a filthy t-shirt and jeans ripped at both knees. He sat with his head resting against the wall, eyes closed. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Cassie was right. Tycho was Max.

His son had been across the voting room from him the whole trial and neither of them had known it. George looked up from his children and took in his surroundings. They were inside a large windowless room divided into separate cells made from some kind of transparent substance. Most of the cells were empty. A man George didn't recognize occupied one near the far end of the room. George and his children occupied neighboring cells, with George in the center. He could see no doors of any kind in the glass enclosures.

They were prison cells.

"You're awake," Max said, opening his eyes and leaning forward.

"I'd say welcome, but I wish you weren't here. This isn't a good place to be."

"Max, what is this place? Are you OK? What happened to Kat? Where is Christopher?" Max raised his hands.

"Slow down, Dad. I can explain. Some of it, anyway. Kat tried to escape. She made it out... then they brought her back like this. But Kit is gone. I am going after him."

"Wait," George said.

"Going after Kit? Where?" George felt a pang of anxiety. The thought of seeing his children had kept him going on the road for weeks. Now one was missing, another was bleeding and unconscious, and Max just said he was about to go somewhere. Max blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair.

"Yeah… it's a lot to explain. There's something in the middle of this place," he said.

"I don't know what it is. Everybody just calls it the gate."

"Where does it go?"

"Somewhere else. Another world." George frowned.

"How is that possible?"

"How is any of this possible? Magic, Dad. Nobody knows." Max gestured around the room.

"People get brought here. They wait. They come in and out. Then sooner or later they get taken to the gate and don't come back." A metallic sound echoed through the chamber and a large door slid sideways, letting a wide shaft of light into the dark room. The only other prisoner in the room stood up and moved to the rear of his cell. A group of people walked in and gathered on the far side of the room near the other prisoner's cell.

"What is happening?" George stepped toward Max.

"They are going to take him," Max said.

"And then they are going to come and take me."

"No." George felt something slipping away from him.

"Why?" Max looked at his father silently for a moment with an expression of pity.

"Dad. You are going to have to go through, too. Everyone who gets caught here goes through. But when they send you through, you get to negotiate. You can ask for things."

"What things?"

"Advantages. Knowledge. Powers," Max said.

"That is how the gang that runs this place is getting all their tech and weird abilities." On the far end of the room, someone took out some kind of device and drew a glowing line on the clear wall on the other prisoner's cell in the shape of a door. Then, like magic, a door-shaped hole appeared in the wall. The moment the hole opened, the prisoner charged out through it with a shout and pushed aside the one who had opened the gate. The others tried to grab him but broke free of them and ran toward the open door.

Suddenly, a bright purple stream of light shot out from someone in the group of guards and wrapped around the ankles of the fleeing man, toppling him to the ground. Several other guards piled on top of him and wrestled him to his feet while he swore loudly at them. Other guards walked down the hall toward down the row toward George's end of the prison.

"This is the only way to save Kat. If I go through, I can bargain for her to be healed. And someone has to go after Kit. He's alone. And I'm going after him." George felt powerless. He banged on the barrier between himself and Max.

"No! Stop this." One of the guards drew the glowing, door-shaped line on the wall of Max's cell and a hole appeared there as well. Max stepped toward the guards and walked out of his cell.

"Max!" George said, impotently banging on the clear wall again. Max looked back at George.

"See you on the other side, Dad." Then he turned away and walked out of the prison with the crowd. It happened so fast. He turned back to Kat and saw that she had opened her eyes and was staring up at him.

"Dad?" Kat whispered in a hoarse voice. Then the memory ended.