Deadlocke - Book #1 of the Inter-Planetary Anocracy Series

Made in Blender 3D by Josiah Yarbrough

Bio:

Timothy Bannings, a withdrawn teen, is kidnapped from his high school in Washington D.C. and is forced to finish his education in a terrorist training facility, along with hundreds of other captive youths. All of which are being taught a superior style of combat that will revolutionize modern tactics. To make matters worse, the deceptive acts of his uncle, a Major in another military organization, has placed America between a nuclear assault and a war with an hostile country. Timothy, trapped between three struggling giants and multiple missile threats, must bring about peace for his homeland. Facing his greatest fears was only the beginning of the long trail to facing the world’s fiercest enemies.

Excerpt from Chapter 5: Wrought for War – Fear of What End

The Mess-Hall closed and the four walked to the Assignment Desk. A man at the desk waited until all the Synth-eds had gathered, before speaking into the desk microphone.

“Your assignment for today is to weather Breaking-Point Alley. Standing beside me here is Captain Kurylenko. The man who engineered this course. He will be overseeing today's assignment.” He motion to the sharp featured man.

The Captain stood, his eyes seem to be made of glass and his expression of steel.

“I will not tell you what you will be doing. For that is greatest part of the assignment. Naivety… and trust. Now, there are bracelets here for each of you. It will monitor your heart rate and other vitals, while your in the course. There is also panic buttons on them, don’t push them by accident.”

After everyone had grabbed a bracelet, the captain left the desk and strode down the hall to the left. They passed the hall that led to the hospital, descended two flights of stairs, and rounded multiple corners before coming to a long oppressive looking hallway.

As they passed by the first door on the left, Captain Kurylenko ordered those from Barracks One to enter the room and wait for further orders. The next door was on the right, and he order the Synth-eds of Barracks Two to enter and wait for orders.

They entered and the door closed and locked behind them.

Timothy looked around the empty room. The only doors were the iron ones that they entered by. The room was lit by fluorescent tubes. The ceiling and the walls were made of concrete. There were air-duct vents at head height on either side of the room.

A voice that came from everywhere erupted startling many of the people in the room.

“This is Captain Kurylenko speaking. The doors will not and cannot be opened. You will receive no food. Your only hope is to find a way out. This is no joke if you stay in those rooms you will die. Your objective is to survive. There are backpacks with water, head-lamps, energy bars, and some miscellaneous items, for each of you, at the furthest end of the room. Let the trials begin!”

Timothy looked at the other three.

“Is he serious? We’ll die if we stay here?”

Vain attempts were being made to open the iron doors.

“I doubt he vould stress zhat point if he vere joking,” Casey said, her Ukrainian accent seemed thicker than normal.

Panicked voices, that sounded like heavy rainfall, made it hard for Timothy to hear Casey.

“I don’t like this. Not at all,” complained Lauren.

“Alright, Captain Obvious! Tell me, who does?” Albert snapped.

“Let’s not waste time. Help me find a way out,” advised Casey.

Timothy scanned the walls and ceiling, then said, “Unless there is a false wall, the only way I see, is through the air-ducts.”

Albert ran over and pulled loose a grate, then threw it down. He helped Casey into the duct followed by Timothy, and Lauren, then lifted himself in. Casey flicked on the head-lamp and crawled through the three foot wide, by three foot tall, shaft.

They crawled for what seemed like fifteen minutes up the steep incline, before it straightened out and formed a junction. There was a shaft to the left as well as two in the floor separated by a inch of steel.

Casey, with much difficulty crossed the two gaping, floor shafts, and turn around so that she could help the next person across. Timothy was next. He stretched across the three foot gap, placing his palms on the inch thick, steel spacer, then carefully move a knee onto the spacer.

With both knees and hands on the inch between the shafts, he gently reached out his right hand and braced it on the opposite side. Casey had a hold on the collar of his green jumpsuit. While Lauren helped him keep his balance from behind. Timothy was now planking over the last gap. He brought his left foot over, and was about to do the same the the other foot when it slipped. Timothy smacked the floor of the shaft as he tumble down into the uncertain darkness. Lauren was also thrown off balance, and fell forward, barely grasping the corner of the duct. Casey reached for her hand, but Lauren’s grasp slipped, and she too faded into the dark.

Timothy was still falling, then he thrust his feet against the opposite wall, which brought him to a dead-stop. He listened for a moment to the commotion above him. A second later Lauren came tumbling down onto Timothy. Shouting incoherently, together they plummeted down the the rest of the tunnel, until it shifted to a forty-five degree-angle. Timothy had managed get in front of Lauren, and work himself into position where he slid feet first through the shaft.

In the utter blackness, They felt the floor vanish from out beneath them, and Timothy had the sensation that he was falling into limbo. Suddenly he felt a shock wave pulse through his body as his feet pierced something like glass. Within a second, the vast emptiness of the dark, became suffocatingly close as Timothy realized he was underwater. His mind reeled as he tried to swim to the surface. But which way is up?

He flailed about in the darkness trying to make some headway. A second later, something grasped his collar and tugged him away. His lungs were burning and felt collapsed, when he broke the surface. Gasping for breath, and swinging his arms wildly at the thing that had grappled his suit, he caught an arm.

“Lauren! Is that you?” He shouted.

“Yes. Yes. Calm down, and stop splashing. Or you’ll drown us both,” she snapped.

Timothy tried to relax, but it didn’t help very much.

Lauren switched on her head-lamp, and scanned the vast room. The ceiling had to be at least fifty feet from the surface of the water, and the walls to the left and right were about the length of a locomotive from them. The worst of it was, they were in the center.

Timothy turned on his lamp as well and searched for the chute they fell from. His heart pounded in despair as saw, that the wall behind them, though rather close, had three square holes near the ceiling. Making it impossible to return by that way.

“We can’t go back up the chute!”

Lauren turned her head so that the light beam was on the exits, “Yeah, so? Even if we could get up there, we don’t know which of the three is ours.”

Timothy aimed his light to the opposite end. There was nothing visible, Their lights faded into darkness, and the two side walls ended as well, which meant that way opened into a larger room.

“That looks like the only way out.” Lauren said thoughtfully.

“I am not going that way. Its too dark, and you have no idea what’s out there!”

“Are you scared of a little darkness? Come on, man up.”

“Darkness is okay. Water is awesome. But together I can’t stand them. You never know what things are below the surface.”

“Monsters don’t exist.” She sneered.

“While on land, I believe that. But look down and tell me what’s beneath our feet. Then tell me from the bottom of your heart, that there is no possibility that a monster could be down there!” Timothy argued while attempting to keep afloat.

Lauren look down and dunked her head under the water, then pulled it back out.

“I still say, monsters don’t exist.”

“Several weeks ago, you would have laughed me to scorn if I had told you, you would be kidnapped.”

“You do have a point… Wait a minute-- that wall,” she said pointing at the wall with the chutes, “is a lot further away.”

They noticed that the current had brought them nearer to the dark foreboding chasm, and they were gaining speed. Hearing a loud sound, Lauren strained her eyes in the darkness. Her eyes widened as she noticed, that further ahead, she couldn’t see the surface of the water. She reached out and grabbed Timothy’s arm as once again a supportive surface disappeared from beneath them. Before she knew it they were screaming their way down and unfathomable drop.

Staring down, Timothy saw a shiny sparkle, race up like lightning. Timothy balled up, to avoid doing a belly-flop, and plunged through the sparkling surface. Fear of drowning and the looming watery abyss struck Timothy’s heart like thunder. Fear was telling him to freeze and give up, when through the blurriness of water, Timothy could see the light from Lauren’s lamp. He swam over to see just her head-lamp flouting deeper into the water. Timothy looked down and almost drowned as he gasped at the sight of numerous spikes covering the floor. Had they fallen any faster or harder, they would have been impaled on the spikes.

He dove under, grabbed the lamp, then shined it this way and that, to find her. Timothy spotted Lauren floating two feet under the surface, where she had been knocked unconscious from that great fall. He raced over to her, and lifted her head out of the water.

Scouring the room for an escape route, he found a small alcove, that had a landing and a door in it. He pulled her onto his back and crossed her arms across his throat, and swam to it.

Once on the concrete landing, he brushed her drenched blonde hair aside, felt her neck, and was relieved to find a pulse. With Lauren on his back, Timothy passed through the door and into a twisting, and dimly lit corridor. The hall was square and had ribs every so often.

Ten minutes later, he arrived in a much larger hall. He began shivering from the cool breeze which blew through the hall. Timothy walked unsteadily, and heavily for another ten minutes or so down the large, dark, and desolate passage. The hall was made of dark grey metal, and was lit by red fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. The only sounds to be heard were his own footfalls and his heavy breathing. Timothy laid Lauren on the ground and shook her shoulders gently.

“Oh, wake up, won’t you!” He said in a low tone.

Suddenly she stirred and opened her eyes.

“Are you okay. The fall knocked you out. And I have been carrying you for the past ten or twenty minutes.”

“I think so… My head hurts.”

“Probably the way you hit the water. Can you walk?”

“I guess,” she said rubbing her head.

He grabbed her hand, and helped her to her feet. The two of them jogged down the corridor.

Soon they came to a different looking part of the corridor was about sixty yards long. Half-way through, a daunting clunk and whir came from the walls. Timothy and Lauren dashed as fast as their legs would allow. The walls were closing quickly, now only feet from Timothy’s sides. Only seven yards to safety lay before them, and the two ran single-file through the narrowing walls. The walls slowed, but were just as oppressive. They gasped and struggled, fighting their way to the exit.

Timothy wormed out the end, and turned to see Lauren caught between the walls, that were nearly too tight for her to move.

“Lauren!” Timothy shouted.

With extreme hatred for the UCS and their tricks, he reached in, grasped her arm and pulled her most of the way out. They fell to the ground, Lauren jerked her feet up close to her as the walls finally closed...

Excerpt from Chapter 5: Wrought for War – Fear of What End

From the book Deadlocke - Book #1 of the Inter-Planetary Anocracy series

For more information contact me at josiahwoodwright(at)gmail(dot)com