A/N: Hope you find this chapter as much fun as I did!
Chapter 5: What They Took With Them
"I want to choose my own destiny."
For a moment Arthur thought he was dreaming. Cold and exhausted and slow to think. He said stupidly, "What?"
The psychic took it as permission to shift his weight over the threshold of the tumbling-down shed, and offer explanation, swift and tense and desperate. "They've told me what to do. They've given me orders, ever since I can remember and I have to obey, whether I want to or not and I don't want to anymore. I want to be free."
Every word of it deeply, unshakably true.
But Arthur still felt two steps behind, unbalanced and off-guard and half-expecting the other black-clad Essetirians to come bursting in. "So you – ran away?" No, that wasn't it, that wasn't all of it, because, "Why did you come here?"
Straight to Arthur, like he was following the scent of his thoughts. Straight to an enemy who could realistically be supposed to want him dead for more than one reason.
"I'm not stupid," the psychic said in a low voice, never taking his eyes from Arthur. "I know they won't shrug and go home without me. I know they won't quit following me, I know I'm not safe anywhere in Essetir. I know I need to get out, and I know I need help."
True, again. But also double-edged. Was this the psychic acting on his own for the first time, setting his two enemies against each other, at once neutralizing both threats that Essetir and Camelot posed to him, personally?
Was he that clever?
Arthur said slowly, "You want to defect?"
The psychic brought his other boot inside the threshold, leaning on the door and watching Arthur with more hope now than wariness. That hope made Arthur want to retreat back into suspicion and deny responsibility.
"Is this the first time you-" he started, but caught back his words. Is this the first time you've been allowed off the base where they keep you? Way too revealing.
Except, he was a psychic. How much had he read of what Arthur knew about him? He never had to say, I'm a psychic. He knew – or guessed accurately enough – that Arthur and Gwen had followed his instructions to Lancelot without question. He'd taken it for granted when he pushed open the shed door that Arthur knew he wasn't just an ordinary soldier, that orders weren't just orders and the others weren't hunting him down to punish him for desertion. That it would be worth Arthur's while to risk helping him.
Every single thought? Every memory, every motive, every desire?
Arthur instantly rebelled against the idea of invasion. A man's home was his castle and the eyes were the windows of the soul so he erected an immediate stone wall mentally, impenetrable and unscalable. Not even shutters over the windows; there were no windows. Stone box, no gaps or cracks. Nothing in, nothing out.
Had it worked? He'd had practice over the years, after all, keeping Morgana out. Deflecting and pretending. She wasn't psychic, but she had an uncanny way of reading every emotion he tried to hide, digging out thoughts he buried unarticulated and throwing them back in his face like uprooted plants, with broken, clingy, dirty roots.
The psychic blinked, eyes dark and hollowed by the faint glow of the ash-bucket.
"Is this the first time you… were sent out on a mission?" Arthur said instead, carefully.
The young man nodded.
"And you want to escape your handlers and defect to Camelot? You want me to help you escape and take you with me back over the border?"
He nodded again.
"You know that we know that you're psychic?" Arthur tested. "If you come to Camelot, it's going to be a helluva lot of testing and questions and suspicion?"
Odd thought – were there free psychics just living normal lives in Camelot? All the ones he knew of were staffing vital positions in the military and government.
"I know," he said, his voice sounding suddenly hoarse to contemplate the reality. "I trust you."
Still that uncanny won't-look-away gaze, unflinching.
"Then you're an idiot," Arthur said.
Lips quirked and eyes crinkled and the psychic was smiling in amusement. "Yeah, probably."
And if Arthur told him no, he'd have another decision to make. Kill him. Or turn him out and gamble whether he'd make a run for it on his own, successful long enough to distract the Essetirians from Arthur's own run-for-it, or whether he'd go back to his unit and call the attempt a failure. Wait for another chance – with his mouth shut? Or giving up Arthur's identity and location? Would he call an immediate alarm?
But that meant they still needed the intel Lancelot hid nearly three leagues away, delaying professional medical attention for the pilot's injuries, also. And if the Essetirians suspected their psychic, conditions at the base could change, making that same intel useless.
I see… a gifted child, tortured by our enemies.
"All right," Arthur said, making his choice. "You can come with us."
The psychic nodded, pleased – and didn't even ask what Arthur meant by us.
Damn. Arthur was going to have to interrogate him later and figure out how the psychic thing worked – because it was different for this one, wasn't it. It was different, and more.
He stepped closer to the window, looking out to judge the time by the sky. Numbers on a time-keeper couldn't predict things like first light, though weather reports were usually accurate about the time of dawn.
"They don't know you're gone?" he said.
"No."
"How long before they figure it out?"
The psychic looked away for a moment, frowning in concentration and it was unnerving to watch him and wonder if he was just thinking like an ordinary person, or doing his psychic thing.
"An hour at least? Hopefully more?"
"What'll they do when they realize you're not where they left you?" Arthur said, bending to his little stack of scrap wood and newspaper, fashioning a quick actual torch to light from the subsiding coals in the ash-bucket.
Quick cursory search of the dark end shed and its contents, looking for useful tools and ideas, keeping the torch aloft so as not to inadvertently catch anything else on fire. Retrieve the recording and escape, had become, abandon the recording and escape a troop of Essetirian para-military with an extra person they badly wanted back.
"Yesterday morning I hid in the laundry room in the hotel basement," the psychic said. "Today they'll probably spend another hour searching the hotel before wondering if I've actually left the premises."
Pausing, Arthur looked up in surprise. How long have you been planning this?
"A while," the psychic said, sounding sheepish.
Dammit. Chink in the wall. Unacceptable…
…Useful? He'd test theories later.
"And they don't know about us," he said aloud. Set of wrenches in a hard plastic case. Wheeled-barrel with one handle broken and the tire so buried between bundles of replacement fence-stakes it couldn't be turned and pushed free, it would have to be lifted, and – idea.
"They know the pilot survived the crash," the psychic said, sidling to the backless chair and lowering himself to sit, spreading his hands over the heat rising from the ash-bucket. "They haven't found the recording."
Deep within his mental stone fortress, Arthur pondered on the irony – the purpose of that recording was to gather intel on Essetir's Fort Araun so Camelot could plan an infiltration to do something about this psychic. Talk about jumping the line.
Take him back to Camelot, and they didn't need the recording at all.
"But with you missing, they'll break off their investigation of the flyer crash to get you back," Arthur said, watching the young man from the corner of his eye and fingering the wrenches.
Quite a chance he was taking, handing himself over to Arthur.
Had he seen that Arthur was incapable of murdering someone who'd surrendered?
Did that mean Arthur was actually incapable of something like that, if the mission required it? You also need to know who – and what – you're dealing with, Gaius had said.
Never mind. Moot point now, wasn't it.
"Do you have a kit?" Arthur asked, pulling one glove off to scrub his face in an effort to wake his brain up a little more; he smelled palm-sweat and the interior of the glove on his skin.
"A kit?"
"Gear. Equipment."
The psychic huffed and mumbled to himself, "I am the equipment…"
Arthur tried to imagine what he'd do, were he the Essetirian captain. How he'd anticipate a rogue psychic running away, if he didn't realize the man was defecting, and could ask enemy agents present in town for assistance. How he'd do it, if he were doing it alone.
On foot, he'd get nowhere. Ealdor was a remote mountain town, and it was the middle of winter.
Public transportation, then – trolley could only take him around town, and if he didn't have contacts he'd have to pay strangers to help him hide, feed him and say nothing to searching soldiers… The odds were good that they'd eventually find him, if he tried to hide and wait out a search. Would they assume he knew that, though.
"You've got money?" Arthur said. "Identification?"
"Yeah?"
He set his boot on the handle of the wheeled-barrel, rocking the front tire back and forth between the fence-stakes, the rubber following the line of the wooden slats, refusing to bump over them.
If the psychic had his team occupied searching the hotel, he could head for the train station. ID and money meant a ticket, no questions asked. The earliest one didn't go until 6:30, though, by which time the Essetirians could have concluded their quarry wasn't hiding in the hotel, but fleeing town.
"Can you drive? Drive a truck, I mean?"
The psychic straightened on his seat, pulling his hands back to rub the textured palms of his gloves together. "I never learned. But if it isn't difficult, I could…"
Arthur was moving before he finished, stuffing the torch down into the ash-bucket, where it would burn up and out harmlessly. "Come on."
The psychic followed him, out of the shed and closing the door behind him, hopping the fence to the public walkway. "What happened to your coat and coveralls?"
Why was he asking? Couldn't he simply read that information from Arthur's mind?
Maybe the stone fortress was working.
Or maybe this icy water ran deeper than that – if the Essetirians knew about the presence of the scouts of Camelot and were using Arthur and Gwen to test their psychic's effectiveness in the field… No way to know that, whether this was a ruse more elaborate than sensible, til it was all over. That meant cooperation was the best way Arthur could play it – but warily.
"Donated to a good cause," Arthur said, moving fast to keep warm.
Boots on concrete, echoing in the stillness, down to the end of the street. Glance at the hotel – no movement, no sign of anyone up or awake – before turning the other direction, toward the rail station.
"When your team arrived in Ealdor, you came in on the train?" Arthur said. There was a rail-line connecting Fort Araun to a station further north, but his impression was that it was used for freight-supplies for the base, not passengers.
"No, we had a transport truck. Parked behind the rail-station with the others til we need it again."
Better than perfect. If it worked, it would be positively poetic. Easy enough to guess that the psychic could have been reading the mind of the driver the whole trip from Araun, and possess the theoretical knowledge of vehicle operation.
He quickened his pace, and the psychic kept up, not a single hint that the situation was anything but what he claimed. He followed, close as a shadow but not crowding Arthur, hurrying and pausing to mirror Arthur's movement, not chattering questions.
Willing to trust. A thorough idiot or… just desperate and without any other option.
Public transportation. Two ways over the border crossing, Arthur mentally reviewed as they slipped back the way he'd come with Gwen, over the tracks and around to the rear of the station.
The paved road was fastest, but problematic at the border. Two checkpoints on either side, and you'd have to get past them both. Convince the Essetirians to let you leave, and the border-guards of Camelot to let you enter. Can't simply floor the accelerator because those big transports didn't corner worth a damn, and there would be concrete barriers making a maze that needed to be navigated slowly, and razor-wire and spike-strips to stop any driver who was suspicious or noncompliant.
Couldn't hide Lancelot in the cargo and bluff their way through. No way to explain why two Mercian students attending university in Camelot and an Essetirian soldier without orders needed to cross heading south in a transport truck.
"That's the one?" Arthur said as they crouched behind a stack of empty pallets in the rail-yard.
The lights here were few and far between, sufficient illumination for one night-watchman, who was moving with his torch at the far end of the yard, doing his last cursory check before the morning crew would arrive with the light of dawn. Freight unloaded periodically through the day and the last load in the evening…
"Yeah," the psychic breathed, crouched beside and behind Arthur. He leaned out momentarily, but Arthur didn't look away from the boxy shape of the vehicle, the canvas tied down tight over the back-frame. Four wide tires, as high as Arthur's waist.
So. The Essetirians would assume that their psychic would not choose to steal their transport truck. They didn't know for sure whether he knew how to drive, and both sets of border guards would be suspicious of a single soldier taking a transport over Camelot's border unescorted. They'd conclude train, then. Railway officials less suspicious; if a man had money and correct ID, that was a ticket. No pause at the border; he'd be checked and questioned at the station where he disembarked, as Arthur and Gwen had been.
Potentially, time to change clothes, and if he was lucky and good, he could snitch the ID of someone who looked enough like him to pass the inspection. Potentially, he could leave the rail-car for the external connection assembly, wait til the train slowed for a curve or an incline, and take his chances jumping out into the countryside.
Except, they could be here before the first train left, especially if the unit split up to search all possible escape routes from the town. Simple enough to review the records of boarding passengers, or board and search the cars as they traveled.
Arthur didn't want to try to outrun or evade, not with Lancelot injured and unpredictable, and the psychic just… unpredictable. He needed a distraction. A diversion.
"Come on," he whispered, slipping out from behind the crates and crossing the rail-yard to reach the troop transport, parked between two other freight-trucks.
Their boots crunched in the dusty gravel, laid to absorb spills and leaks of fuel and oil, truck and train both. The odor wafted on the icy night breeze, carrying a particular tang Arthur associated with metal rubbing on metal. The lot-lights buzzed with half-hearted power above them, minimally keeping the darkness at bay.
He kept a stationary train-car between the two of them and the distant night-watchman, hopping the iron rails of the holding-yard and careful of the ties between them, not quite buried in settling gravel. The psychic slipped, and swore breathlessly, but when Arthur crouched to peer beneath the rail-car, the night-watchman turned the corner of the supply shed and the light of his lantern disappeared.
The psychic gulped, his glove squeaking a betrayal of the tension in his grip on the door-groove of the rail-car, above them as they paused.
Arthur breathed deep of cold and petroleum, and moved again.
Two shadows over the frosted gravel, to the bulk of the troop transport. Around the thigh-high back bumper, textured iron so boots could boost a soldier up and in, tied canvas shuddering in the cold almost as much as he was. Excitement and action was good for getting the blood pumping, though. He paused a moment to visually measure the gauge between the wheels – yeah, he was sure this could work. 95% sure.
Around to the driver's side, and step up to reach the door handle. Careful and slow so if it creaked, it wouldn't be loud. They needed the watchman to raise an alarm – but not yet.
"What are you doing?" the psychic hissed up at him, nervous enough to break silence. "What are we doing? What do you want me to-"
"Shut up!" Arthur demanded in a fierce whisper as the cab light blinked on.
Bending backwards over the corner of the driver's seat, he wriggled himself into position and stripped his gloves with his teeth. The knee-panel popped free with a judicious bang of his fist like the ones in Camelot's troop transports, and he discarded it on the floorboards to reach into his sweatshirt pouch-pocket for Lancelot's flip-knife. Find the wires – one white, one navy-black - cut and strip, and spark the engine into starting.
"Wait!" the psychic said urgently.
Arthur lifted his elbow to look out the open door, sideways at the psychic, frozen and straight, his profile intent on something Arthur couldn't see.
What?
"Wait. Just… one… okay, go, start it up!"
It was no time to question or second-guess. Scratch-spark-rev… Big old engine, unhappy about starting in the cold. Scratch-scratch-rumble… rumblerumble, and the fore- and rear-lights immediately illuminating the dim rail-yard. How's that for not-subtle-enough?
"Go get in," Arthur ordered, leaving the wires hanging – no need for the starter-circuit any longer – and spinning his body on the seat to assume the driving position. With one hand he stuffed his gloves into the front pocket of the sweatshirt, along with Lancelot's flip-knife.
Check the mirrors – the psychic appearing around the passenger rear and leaping up to open the side door – shift the gear. Eyes on the shed where the watchman had disappeared, he eased down on the accelerator. Maybe the younger man had timed the start of the engine with some other distraction for the night-watchman in an effort to help Arthur's plan – but they weren't going to get off that easily.
That was part of the plan.
The troop transport lurched forward. Kicking the knee-panel under the seat and out of his way, Arthur steered toward the end of the yard, heading south where the rail-line left the station and wound south toward the border. They rolled off the edge of the pavement, jouncing over turf; the psychic perched on the edge of the bench seat, gripping the brace-handle above the passenger door, leaning like he could see out the front window better if he was closer to it. Arthur caught his glance out of the corner of his eye, his entire body intent on wrestling the transport where he wanted it, and a cold thought crawled up his neck like a millipede. He's reading me…
"What are we doing?" the younger man repeated. "What about your partner? The pilot?"
Arthur cocked his head, mostly focused on rolling the transport up the gravel rise to the level of the tracks without tipping the bulky vehicle over. Was the psychic pretending not to know Arthur's thoughts? Or did the mental stone castle actually block him?
"You said you trusted me," he said shortly, gripping wheel and gear shift as if he could physically force the truck where he wanted. The cold leeched his body heat through sweatshirt and jeans, and the sweat oozing through his skin made that worse.
"Yeah?"
"Then shut up."
Bump-thump, over the first rail. In the dinner-tray-sized side mirror, he saw lights flashing back in the rail-yard – the night-watchman alerting to their theft, running with his torch in his hand. Running to investigate, or to sound an alarm?
If he followed them, that would be bad. They'd have to keep driving – bump-thump over the second rail, and the inner sides of the big rubber tires rubbing the outsides of the iron rails – further out from the station than he wanted to go.
He shifted into neutral and released the wheel, riding the bench seat to see what happened. The truck trundled gently forward, steering wheel wobbling on its own as the tires bumped and rubbed, protesting Arthur's plan but still following the mild curve as it slowed toward a motionless idle.
Yeah, this could work. Honestly, if not for the Essetirians bound to give chase, he could have done this with any other freight truck, and Gwen and Lancelot in the back.
"Is he still coming?" Arthur questioned the psychic, losing the rail-station in his side-mirror.
"No, he's turned back… He recognized the truck. He's going to call the hotel and alert the soldiers – local law enforcement – the stationmaster…"
He could've said, my unit. And he didn't.
"We're taking the truck over the border on the rail-line?" the younger man went on, rising up on the bench seat to lean over the back and rummage in the storage gap behind it. His tone was noncommittal, but the way he jounced back down, arms full of black material, conveyed reservations about Arthur's plan.
How long did they have? For the watchman to connect to the hotel, for the staff to find the Essetirians searching for their missing psychic, for them to deploy to the station…
"They're meant to think you're taking the truck over the border on the rail-line," Arthur said, ducking beneath the wheel to fumble under the driver's seat. "Are you clever enough they'll believe you thought of that?"
Camelot's troop transports had a collection of tools stored beneath the bench seat. Arthur didn't want to risk reaching into the strange dark space without his glove – there could be sharp edges, or… moldy sandwiches, he didn't know. He shoved the knee-panel toward the gear-shift, feeling around it.
"They don't know me," the psychic said, squeezing the dark cloth he'd pulled out from behind the seat. "They don't trust me. I don't know whether that means they'll overestimate or underestimate, this situation."
Ah – the shaft of the brush used to clear ice or mud or other detritus from the front window when the wipers weren't enough. He straightened, measuring the length of the rod and bouncing himself to judge the give of the front seat padding, toeing the tread on the pedal. It would have to do.
"Get out," he said tersely. "Time to go. Let me know if you see them coming."
Because it was all over before it started if the two of them were seen jack-rabbiting away from the truck.
The door creaked open and the cab light went on as he dropped out, but the psychic didn't call out to warn him that anyone was in sight to catch their deception, and slammed his door as Arthur opened his, scooting to the outer edge of the seat.
He wedged the shaft of the window-brush between the pedal and the front of the seat, careful to angle it to remain in place, but not to dangerously increase the acceleration. The engine turned faster, raising the tone of its rumble. Fast enough to keep going, not fast enough to tip over a corner taken too recklessly. The longer the Essetirians chased the truck they believed their psychic was inside, the better.
Arthur wrestled the shift from Neutral to Drive, and nearly lost his balance as the truck lurched forward. He let go, slamming the driver's door and jumping backwards without looking. His ankle twisted on the rail-side gravel as he landed on loosened boots and he let his knees bend him into a tumbling roll rather than trying to catch himself.
"Hey! hey!" the psychic hissed, scrambling down to him. "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," Arthur responded automatically, and the younger man offered him the bulky bundle he'd carried from the cab.
"Here. It's for a worthy cause."
Arthur took the lump, feeling for edges and spreading it out and realizing it for one of the Essetirians' spare black overcoats. Bloody hell – he stuffed his arms into the sleeves without hesitation, numb fingers fumbling for the crossover buttons. Not even the strangest thing he'd ever appropriated to wear, on a job.
"Thanks," he said. And was that humor, from the psychic? A joke?
"Don't mention it."
Arthur pushed to his feet, testing the ankle by climbing up to the track and over. The psychic stayed with him, and for a moment they squatted down to watch the truck trundle down the rail-tracks, steering free to follow the curves in the iron rails, rear-lights glowing red and innocent. Perfect. Arthur briefly regretted that all four of them weren't tucked safely inside the truck, heading for home with no fear of being followed.
From the station, a train-whistle blasted, loud and long – again againagain in a cadence Arthur had never heard before. He flinched and the psychic ducked and they both took off at a crouching run, heading obliquely through the deep gray shadows clinging to the contours of the land, away from the station platform and toward the southwest section of Ealdor.
Evidently the Essetirians weren't going to waste time trying to drive another truck out along the tracks and catch up with their transport. The train engine pulled away from the station just as they reached the high fence at the back of the rail-yard – just the engine and the first car, though, not the whole train. Uncoupled to travel faster and lighter, and could he count Essetirian soldiers at the small half-shaded windows?
"That's them?" he tested the psychic, leaning on the upright wooden planks of the fence that topped them higher than they could reach. His ankle ached in a sullen way. "All your team?"
"That's… all but one," the psychic said, sounding a bit dazed. "They left one behind to keep searching the hotel. It… it worked."
Arthur's skin crawled to think of the range of the psychic's ability, if he was reading that from men riding the train. Nearly two hundred yards and counting, and through the wall of the train car when Arthur couldn't see any of them clearly… Adrenalin was beginning to drain, and Arthur reacted with annoyance.
"Don't sound so surprised. No telling how long they'll follow that truck before it runs out of gas or lurches off a tight turn or they just decide to ram it." He paused til the psychic glanced at him, face pale and eyes dark in the close-to-dawn light. "Last chance to change your mind."
He shook his head. "That passed me a long time ago."
Cryptic. Whatever. Arthur said, "Let's go."
Outskirts of Ealdor – residential districts – lazy cold alleys and crumbling blocks. The sounds of their boots echoed from the walls around them, and if the weather had been warmer, there might have been dogs to protest their passing – pets or guard animals. Some houses were beginning to show lights in upper windows – early risers, first-shift workers.
"Your team," he panted, ignoring the twinges in his ankle, but still trying to come down easy on that side. "Rented those skid-carts from that place three blocks south of the bed-and-breakfast, right?"
"Yeah?" the psychic said quizzically, uncomprehending.
At some point Arthur was going to pass exhaustion and enter the endurance phase of a mission – it had happened before, and usually soon after it felt like success was within reach. Exultation and determination on the heels of sleep deprivation and pushing his strength and wits to the limit.
Finding more. Bring it.
The psychic followed him to the one-story needs-paint porch-furniture house across from the large grand B-n-B, and Arthur paused at the corner, just out of sight. Since they were coming from the south, and because now it was light enough to see that far, even if the sun hadn't broken the horizon yet. Few high streaky clouds today, he expected.
"You wait here," he told the psychic, who was panting quietly for breath after their trot from the station.
"Why?" he said, brows pulling together beneath the edge of the knit cap.
Arthur halted his twitch of surprise at the question. Psychic, right? What's with the questions?
"It doesn't work like that!" the younger man hissed, sounding annoyed himself.
Arthur blocked him and all the gruesome possibilities his ability presented. "I told my partner I'd meet her an hour ago," he said shortly. "Give me five minutes to explain. I'll be right back."
The psychic nodded, hugging his arms around him and squatting against the house's stone foundation, glancing back the way they'd come. Clearly feeling exposed and uncertain and for a moment Arthur sympathized. How he'd grown up – how he'd turned his back on his whole life, bloody miserable or not – how he was forced to trust strangers and enemies in a situation of potential danger.
Arthur took a second to make sure the street was clear, then trotted across, reminding himself the kid was psychic, and could very well be playing mind games. Maybe he knew exactly what he was making Arthur think and feel, and he was banking on those reactions and emotions.
Gwen was huddled on the porch steps, sleeve-cuffs over her knuckles, smoking a cicala in the very tips of her fingers. She didn't move, watching him jog up the walk, and then he saw the pinched tension beside her eyes and mouth.
"I didn't know you smoked," he said lightly.
"I don't. It's an excuse to be out here," she told him shortly. "You're late. I checked the shed – you were gone."
"A good reason and a long story," he countered. "How was the night? Can Lancelot leave now?"
She blinked and really looked at him. "That coat is Essetirian military."
"Yeah."
"What about the recording?" She twisted the cicala between her fingers, dropping the glowing end to a bank of snow flanking the B-n-B's front step.
"Handled." He couldn't help grinning at her look – disbelief and worry and hope, all mixed up. "Can he move? Can he make it over the track without looking like he's still drunk and has no business trying the slopes today?"
Gwen pushed to her feet, a step above Arthur, consideration in the gaze directed at his right shoulder. "He can. I'll help him. Which way are we going?"
"Southwest," he said.
She gave a short nod, turning on the heel of her boot to mount the porch and open the door of the B-n-B. She knew that meant the mountains, and didn't need him to detail further suggestions.
Arthur turned and jogged back down the walk, across the street. The cold made his jeans feel stiff and frosty, but as soon as they were out of sight of the town he could reclaim his coveralls; Lancelot's flight suit would be sufficient protection for him from the cold.
He passed the psychic crouching in the shaded dark shape of the house and didn't slow. "Come on."
Maybe the psychic heaved a sigh of effort or exasperation, and maybe it was just Arthur's own breath, puffing there-and-gone white clouds in front of his face.
The rental shop advertised skid-carts for winter activities and turf-bikes for seasons when there was no snow on the ground. It was further south along the western edge of town, and if Arthur remembered correctly from the vacationer's pamphlet Leon packed in his kit, it opened in less than an hour. If they were lucky, the proprietor or a manager might be present already…
Lights illuminated the showroom – three sides of glass walls, with a rear half that was maybe storage, maybe repair shop, and a back lot with a privacy fence. Maybe storage, maybe repairs. A dozen or so skid-carts were parked on an artful angle in the front lot, contoured weatherproof covers zipped over their shapes, skids lifting eager for the snow. Fueled and ready.
CLOSED sign still on the door, movement visible within.
"You had to present ID for these rentals, right?" Arthur said to the psychic, threading his way between the machines.
"Well – not me, but yeah." The psychic stopped, half-facing him across the bulk of one of the carts as Arthur positioned himself for best effect. "What are we-"
"Listen," Arthur demanded, and he pinched his mouth shut, eyes wide and serious. "Focus. You are going to the door to demand entrance and require them to loan us two of these machines, with all necessary gear, and as much extra fuel as we can safely carry."
The psychic inhaled without reacting, and let his breath out. "But I'm-"
Arthur had seen the way the troop handled and treated him, and understood. But they had no time. "You're Essetirian military," he stated. No room for hesitation. "They don't question you. They obey you. Go."
Brief flare of panic, but the psychic turned and marched to the door, back straight, and lifted a gloved fist to pound at the locked glass door, carefully but insistently.
Arthur unzipped the cover from the skid-cart, fold-rolling it for storage and hopefully they wouldn't question why it wasn't left behind at the shop. He did his best to look like he was controlling impatience, leaning over to check the controls of the machine he was hiding his jean-clad legs behind, watching the exchange from the corner of his eye.
Sorry, we're not open yet.
Some version of, military emergency, extenuating circumstances, can't wait. Make an exception.
The door swung wide, and the psychic glanced over his shoulder at Arthur before following the attendant – owner or manager – inside.
A thrill of icy fear slid down the back of his neck when the door closed between them, shutting Arthur out of the conversation he couldn't have heard anyway - but not even body language could be read through the warping reflections of the glass. What was the psychic saying? Was the proprietor reaching for the store's comm-block to contact the hotel, the rail-station, calling for the other Essetirirans? Calling their bluff?
He hoped with the diversion of the truck and the tracks, it would be hours until anyone thought to check with this shop. And they wouldn't contact anyone until their machines weren't returned in the evening…
The psychic's ID was just as valid as the others, or at least the attendant could be made to believe it. Any charges could be reconciled when the skid-carts were returned – assurances could be made that the troop would return again and again the rest of the weekend, increasing the balance owed, no need to worry about reimbursement this morning, or collateral at all with a military unit. No need to question just the two of them when yesterday it had been nine soldiers. No obligation to explain mission or maneuvers to a curious civilian.
Confidence. Don't volunteer true information. This persona won't gush stories or crack jokes – give him a cool and stony stare, say I beg your pardon and repeat your requirements. Don't threaten, depend on his inclination to be cooperative…
Movement behind the glass, and the attendant pushed the door open wide for the psychic to exit, two full-heavy red jugs of extra fuel swinging from his gloved hands. He spoke over his shoulder to the man, and Arthur saw the fellow smile in return before allowing the door to close behind him again.
Exhale in relief.
The concentration of carrying an extra ten gallons of liquid balanced in either hand showed on the young man's thin face, but as he reached Arthur, his eyes lit with excitement.
"I did it," he said swiftly, trying to restrain an incredulous euphoria. "I did it."
Arthur reached to take one of the faded-red jugs, careful of the cap sealing the spout. "Keys?"
The psychic set the other jug down, glancing over the skid-cart next to Arthur's as he reached in the black overcoat's side pocket. "Gear stored in the seats," he said, offering Arthur his choice of two brassy keys, attached to blue plastic tags that identified their machine with a black printed number. Arthur's was 10, the other was 9. "Helmets for driver and passenger, tool kit, first aid."
Arthur unlocked the long-deep compartment under the briefly-padded saddle-seat to check, and to deposit the fuel jug into a specially-separated compartment designed for it. "Good."
The psychic unzipped the cover of skid-cart number 9, crumpling the weatherproof material and shoving it down in place of one of the helmets as Arthur buckled his in place under his chin.
"Never driven one of these either," he mentioned, buckling his own helmet on over the knit cap before stowing the second gas-jug.
If the attendant was still watching them out the glass front of the establishment, what would he do with the curiosity of one Essetirian soldier in college-boy jeans instead of government-issue uniform trousers?
Nothing to significantly impede their successful escape, Arthur concluded.
"Turf-bike?" he asked, slamming the seat down and mounting it, inserting the key into the ignition. "It's not totally different."
The psychic shook his head, settling himself more gingerly into the driver's position on his machine to start the second engine, the noise sharp and high in comparison to the transport truck's rumble.
"Steering bar," Arthur explained succinctly, letting the engines warm up a few moments also. "Brake on your left. Acceleration on your right – squeeze to go faster, let go to slow down to a stop. Turn the skids like this, button to sound the horn if you need to get my attention. Slow and steady to the resort track – follow me."
The psychic nodded, pale and determined. Arthur knocked the clear plastic face-guard of his helmet down into place, squeezed the accelerator and steered his way from the rental lot, glancing back to keep an eye on his companion.
Controlled rather than swift, but the buffeting of the cold air and the tremble of the machine beneath him was enough to get his adrenalin going again. They took the snowy ditches to reach the track adjacent to the B-n-B, rather than trying to scrape noisily down the shoveled pavement of street or sidewalk. Some of the angles might have been intimidating for a beginner, but Arthur chose the smoothest, easiest paths, and the sun broke cover even as they eased to a halt, fifty paces from Cheery Point, and turned so they could head down the southern valleys as the Essetirians had done the day before.
Had they caught up to the unmanned truck yet? How far would they have to go to reach a place where they could turn the train engine around to return to Ealdor empty-handed? Would they waste more time searching the rail-station, upsetting delayed travelers whose irritation might slow them down?
"That was-" the psychic started, genuine enjoyment lifting the corners of his mouth.
Arthur stood on the boot-rests beside the skid-cart's seat, bending to lift the seat open beneath him and retrieve the passenger helmet. "This will be rough," he warned the younger man. "It'll take at least two days to cross the mountains, and then we deal with our border patrol."
The psychic dismounted to pop the seat-compartment of his vehicle open as well. "They don't know you're coming?"
"Best if they never know we've crossed, either," Arthur said. "We'll flag 'em down and surrender if we absolutely have to, but that'll be last resort."
Because that meant the Director would have to be notified, and come to rescue them or assume custody or whatever, which would be clumsy and embarrassing. Regular troops – border-guards or infantry – shouldn't know about Spec-Ops. His was an ID never to be flashed – and in any case, the only one he carried at the moment was that of a Mercian student who had no business crossing the border on a stolen skid-cart, whether in company of a man in a Camelot flight suit, or one in Essetirian black.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gwen and Lancelot trudge down the front walk of the B-n-B, and round the corner. Lancelot's head was down, though he carried Arthur's pack over the shoulder of his good arm – Gwen was tucked underneath it, and led, coaxed, and encouraged him along.
She'd seen Arthur's companion, too, and Arthur had missed the moment of her reaction to his identity; she came on unhesitatingly resolute. As Arthur lifted the protective face-plate of his helmet and stepped forward to meet them, Lancelot bobbed his head up high enough to recognize him and communicate comprehensive gratitude and endurance.
The shadows under and inside Gwen's eyes spoke of insufficient rest, but she gave him a look that snapped, Tell me everything. Right. Now.
"Pendragon," she said aloud. "What have you done. That's-"
"The Essetirian psychic, yeah," he said, and gave her his cockiest grin. "We're going to take him with us."