The New World

Escape

Tecumseh's connection with his father had come to an abrupt halt. Tecumseh's father had quickly expressed to him in a coded phrase that he had to flee. This injunction, followed by the disconnection, left the young boy in a state of acute anxiety.

After dinner in the common room, he had settled in the Institute chapel, pretending to pray, to connect with his father.

Now he stayed for a few minutes, his forehead resting against his clasped hands, then rose from the prie-dieu on which he was kneeling. He stood for a few moments, his heart beating wildly, then left the chapel. His intuition advised him to escape as soon as possible. The plan he had been preparing for several weeks would be put into action sooner than expected.

He headed for the inner garden. Small groups of apprentices were walking between the colonnades. He strolled along, pondering his plan.

In a few hours, as every Thursday at midnight, a truck would come to load the bales of linen and take them to a laundry service. When he had been a Beginner, Tecumseh had taken part in the handling of the operation several times, and had scouted out the locations, the entrances and exits, the way things were done. He wouldn't have another opportunity for a long time, as his group was due to leave on a trip.

To check that everything was normal, he decided to take a little walk before going to his bedroom. He made his way through the ground-floor corridors and across the entrance hall to the auditorium. Here, some twenty novices were engaged in one of their favorite pastimes: a mental game with holographic projection of what was going on in the brains. He settled into a seat and contemplated the battle scenes on the big screen. Two teams were battling it out in an industrial setting. On one side, the Wamash anti-terrorist commandos, recognizable by their navy blue uniforms, and on the other, rebels dressed in brightly-colored disguises, metallic armor and horrific masks. No holds were barred, and players from both teams made abundant use of the direct connection to briefly enslave an opponent. When a character fell, with a generous splattering of blood, loud cries of joy erupted from the opposing team.

Tecumseh had played too much of this game, and he felt anguish rising. After a few minutes, he got up, left and continued on his way. He reached the sanitary block of the wing where he was staying and entered the toilets. From the cubicles he could hear the sound of showers and the occasional burst of voices reflected off wet walls. Everything seems normal, he thought.

When he arrived to the bedroom, his roomate Lutz was already asleep.

He lay down and set an alarm clock. After a quick relaxation, he plunged into sleep.

Half past eleven. The alarm clock chirped in Tecumseh's dreamless sleep. Without a sound, he slipped out of his bed and put on a bathrobe. Lutz had not changed position on the bunk on the other side of the room.

Two minutes later he left the room and headed for the sanitary block. Under the bathrobe he was wearing, he had rolled up his trouser legs. The corridors were riddled with cameras, and although he wasn't sure if anyone was watching him live, it was best to take precautions.

He entered the showers and crossed to the door leading to the service corridor. He opened the door ajar. In the dimly-lit corridor, a half-asleep Beginner was pushing a cart filled with the week linen. He motioned for him to come closer. Without waiting, Tecumseh made a direct connection and insinuated himself into the mind of the other, who was staring haggardly at him. Tecumseh commanded him to enter the shower room. He knew from having explored it that this place was devoid of cameras. He quickly climbed into the cart and hid under the pile of laundry.

A few minutes later, the Beginner had obediently driven his cart to the garage, then gone off to his other nocturnal chores. Twenty minutes later, when the vehicle parked, Tecumseh had to deal with the driver loading the dirty laundry. The man, under Tecumseh's implacable thumb, let him climb into the back of the vehicle without a word.