Haven's Deep by TW Iain

Author:TW Iain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TW Iain
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Brice

It was too easy.

Brice ignored the rest-rooms, followed the buzzing to an unmarked door in the corner of the lobby. It was lattice-controlled, but that didn’t stop Brice. It granted him access, because he told his lattice to sort it out for him.

It opened onto a stairwell. Brice climbed down five floors, walked along a clean, brightly-lit, empty corridor. There was something clinical about it, and he expected to see medics scurrying about. But he saw nobody.

The corridor turned to the right. There were doors to either side, all unmarked.

If you had to ask, you shouldn’t be down here.

Brice followed the relic’s buzz, and he monitored traces. There were more than he’d expected, all lattice-rich. Some were fresh, within the last hour, and there was one that didn’t fit.

The trace flared bright, but also felt distant, like it wasn’t really there. It spoke of intelligence and strength. It reminded Brice of Keelin, but the taste of the trace was more intense. Darker, too.

Brice shuddered. Whoever this trace belonged to, he was in no hurry to meet them.

It passed along the corridor in one direction, but as Brice focused he felt it grow, like it was coming back.

He backed up, round the corner, reached a door. No sense of anyone behind it, so he pushed through. Into a cleaning store‌—‌mops and trundle-buckets to one side, shelves with acrid-smelling bottles to the other.

He let the door close. He listened to the footsteps approach. They slowed. He nudged the door’s system. It locked.

The handle rattled. The door shook.

Brice held his breath.

The door rattled again. Then the footsteps and the trace moved off, along the corridor. Another door opened then closed.

There were no more sounds.

Brice exhaled, swallowed.

And realised he hadn’t caught any thoughts, even though noise accompanied the strange trace. An empty noise, if that was possible.

He eased the door open, followed the trace along the corridor. It caught in his throat like a bad smell.

And, ahead, more traces approached. Two of them, and they were sussing. Their noise crashed over Brice.

<We have to check down here?> The voice was male, young, and fed up. The noise told Brice the man’s name was Kane Melis,

<Unless you want to argue with her.> This voice was female, and Brice didn’t need the noise to know who this was. Her trace was far too familiar. <She wants storage checked, we do it. End of story.>

Fen! What the hell was she doing at the Campus? He’d thought Macklyn would throw her out of the company, but maybe she’d been demoted to a grunt.

He looked around. Even if he could get back to that cupboard, he’d be discovered. There were no other doors in this section of the corridor, either.

But there were ceiling tiles.

The one overhead was broken, a chunk missing from the corner. It was enough. Brice backed up, ran, used the wall for leverage. He grabbed the metal frame beyond the missing corner.

He hung for a moment, catching his breath. The metal wasn’t as sharp as he’d feared.

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