111 CHAPTER 110 MR. WILLIAM

"So you mean they cannot track us?" Nimrod asks. He was wiping the soil on his blue pants.

"Not with Joci's condition. So yes. They cannot track us." 

"We better hurry and get the others here." Anabel looked over her shoulders as if expecting something to jump out of the bush and cease them. "Last three weeks had been rough. That we had survived was a miracle. Should General Zack launch another attack, then I am afraid there would be no tomorrow for all of us."

Her words sent an icy spear on Alex's spine. He had not recovered from the last attack, let alone facing another one. This was a bitter lesson to him still. He would give anything to take the hands of time back to those times when he would skip training classes to play with Vanessa in the garden. If he had been skilled and knew his way around the Shocker Gun and Candor, perhaps he couldn't have been leaping like a fool.

He looked down at the cast on his right leg and hissed with frustration. This was no way to become a man. He muttered to himself as he walked with his clutch towards the stone. With the tip of his right clutch, he pushed the base of the stone and stepped back when the stone depressed.

Something groaned from beneath the stone. The leaf and the grasses that rounded its body initially, started to snap, paving way for the stone which was now lifting out of the ground. It was also rotating, and as they watched, it disintegrated into several parts, elevating into the air and swerving to the left hand of the clearing. The disintegrated parts rested on some transparent wall and disappeared. No sooner than that, did a loud cracking sound filled the air, echoing through every side of the forest. The parameter on the left suddenly began to flicker light a hologram image, and as they watched, out of a thin air, a door appeared, opening its hands into a dark room.

"Welcome," Alex smiled widely as he leaped towards the door, "to Zone-3"

"Wow," Came Nimrods words as they walked into the room.

"Welcome, to Defiant-3," The male programmed voice said as the door shut behind them. 

The only thing that stood for miles was darkness, but something started to hum, and as if that was the signal, the whole place brightened with white light, stretching into the distance until they were lost somewhere on the bend. It looked like a subway from the marble that was engraved on the wall, blinking back at the white light with their translucent reflection. There was dust on the wall too, and brown papers ran freely on the warm, leather stinking air. The place could pass for a ghost town but the rat that was roaming around.

"Impossible," Nimrod exclaimed, turning in a three-sixty degree with that sense of wonder lurking in his eyes. There was no building outside. 

"Amazing," Anabel laughed "How can this possibly be?"

"That's the power of science. That's the strength of knowledge." Matt giggled.

He remembered the first time Vanessa had brought him here. She had joked that his eyes would have fallen out of his skull if she had not intervened. Two of the three engineers that had designed the structure of the place were all dead, except for the Regent. Curiosity had led Alex into asking the Regent how they had designed the door and the building. But the answer the Regent had given him, had made him regret ever asking. That was a long time ago, though.

"Is this real, or is it some kind of hologram to confuse the mind of invaders?" Nimrod said.

"Haha," Alex laughed, "Why not ram your head on the wall and find out."

"Or pick one of those rats by the tail and see if they would bite" Anabel laughed. But her laughter seemed to die down when she noticed the looks on Alex's face.

"Em…about the rat." He said and sat down on the three-step, "I am afraid they are not the normal rat you know." He grinned when he saw the confusion and the question on Nimrod's face.

It was a triumph. Alex could tell by the feeling that was jutting his stomach. He had begged Nimrod to show him tricks on how to maneuver the gauge of the Shocker gun, but the boy had left him in a state of perplexity when he said that the Shocker gun was meant for adults and not kids. This is payback time. The widened expressions that lined Nimrod's face made him want to jump out of his skin with excitement.

"These rats were created to watch over this entrance. Emm," Alex shrugged, "It is like a pinhole in a door. Nim, you know what a pinhole is, or should I explain?"

"Humph" Nimrod stroked his hair backward, but did not take his eyes away from Alex, "You are enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Guess I am. How does it feel?" Alex laughed when Nimrod grunted.

"Wrap it up, boys, there are people waiting for us outside," Anabel said. 

The darkness in her eyes seemed to have disappeared. The motherly love and warm kindness were back for some passing moment, Alex wanted to run into her arms and melt in the affection. He swallowed and looked away when her eyes went from Nimrod to him. Was this what motherly love feels? If it was, then he blamed death for claiming his parents.

"They might have seen us by now," Alex said, dropping the metallic rat which limped and scrambled out of the way, toward the end of the wall where the hands of the light had not touched.

"What now?"

"Now," Alex chuckled, "Now we wait."

"For how long?" Anabel asked, folding her hands around her breast.

"Long enough for them to debate if it was safe to open the door for us or not."

"Is that supposed to make us feel better?" Nimrod said and leaned on the wall, tucking his hands into his blue pants. He seemed a little agitated and somewhat sad. Alex did not know the cause of the sudden mood swing, but he could tell that it has nothing to do with him or their little argument.

"No, I guess not." Alex dropped one of his clutches and rested his injured legs on them. His head was beginning to throb, just as Joci had predicted.

"What happens if they decide not to open the door for us?" Anabel asked

Alex shifted his weight, not willing to consider the option.

"You see that door over there" He pointed to the wall that was in front of Nimrod.

"What door?" Nimrod asked, looking at him as though he had grown a second head.

"There is a door in there, Nim. You might not see it now because you haven't seen it opened before. There is also another door directly opposite to it."

"So that's the way back to the forest if the Regent and the other resistant disagree to open the door for us?" Anabel said.

"I wish it were so. The door where Nim is standing is definitely an exit, but it leads to the top of the highest mountain you can ever think of. And this door at the opposite end has a compressor that can make the walls of this subway to converge. The only option would be to die by the walls or take the door leading to the mountains, where you would fall off the cliff and die. So dying is the only option."

Nimrod shivered and decided just then that it was time to lean away from the door. He kept staring at it as if what Alex had said was about to happen.

"I can see now why the resistance was hard to find all these years." Anabel nodded, "This place is heavily fortified and it would only take an intelligent mind to infiltrate its defense mechanism."

"No," Alex shook his head. "Only a mind that has a death wish can infiltrate this place. The way it was designed, no man, born of a woman, can beat it."

"You sure about that, Alex?" Anabel asked coldly.

"I am not sure," Alex said. His eyes were studying the cast on his legs now, but not seeing them actually. "I know. Many have tried. Many have died and none had succeeded. Not even one."

Anabel grunted but remained quiet. Nimrod was still looking at the wall where he had been leaning on. It was obvious from his looks that he was not ready to test what Alex had said.

There came the clattering of chains and as Alex lifted his head, he was delighted when he saw the only red door on the hallway, elevating to the ceiling. Two men were walking out of it, dressed in the resistant patched cloth. One of the men held a staff, and the other who looks slim and a head taller walked behind him, with his hands folded behind his back.

"Hello, Alexander," Mr. William said.