The Iron Hallway

Chapter 5

(Baird's POV) 

Half an hour of laborious cleaning later, a sharp rap on the door grabbed my attention. I sighed, wiped my sweaty brow, and leaned my mop against the wall. After awkwardly stepping over all the clutter on the floor, I reached the knob and turned it. 

Khemera's calm gaze met my frantic eyes when I swung the door open. "Hello, Baird. Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, I'm fine, but confused." 

"Why's that?" 

"How in the world are you the first one here? You were still eating when I left!" 

Khemera shrugged, but gave me no verbal reply. 

"Well," I began, moving so Khemera could step over the threshold, "here you are." 

The old man's almond eyes scanned the room slowly. "Quite a place you have here." 

"Yeah...the previous tenant obviously had no concept of—" 

"Heyoo! I'm here!" Hannah's voice shouted from the other side of the door the moment I pushed it closed. 

"Oh, sorry about that. Come on in." 

"Hello again!" Hannah greeted me with a beaming smile as she stepped into the apartment, "Jedrek's parkin' out front." 

"Alright, I'll just leave the door open then." 

With that, Khemera, Hannah, and I sat down in the living room and waited. It only took Jedrek a minute or so to enter as well, and he instinctively shut the door behind himself. Without ceremony, he took a seat. 

"So," I began, "I'm assuming we don't want to waste a bunch of time here. I have some questions that should get us started." 

Khemera raised an eyebrow. "Ask away." 

"First off, I want to know, since we're freeing a princess from a concentration camp and all, how do we plan for me to have any role to play at all? I mean, Hannah's got a shotgun. Cool. Jedrek's got those revolvers, and probably some other weapons I don't know about. Great. Khemera, you've got martial arts training. What have I got, though? Nothing." 

Khemera sighed. "I suppose you'll be my first student in a while." 

"Wait, you're gonna teach me how to fight like you?" I asked, excitement growing in my voice. I can't imagine being able to fight like he did in the bar earlier. That was epic. 

"I may as well give you some lessons on the way. But you must keep a teachable attitude about you, or you won't learn anything." 

I slowly nodded. "Makes sense." 

Hannah cleared her throat. "Anybody got a blanket?" 

"Yeah...I do." I replied, confusedly glancing at the comforter in the corner. "Why?" 

"I've got a plan for how we can get past the town's border patrol without waitin' weeks or months for permission." 

******************** 

Half an hour later, I sat in the passenger seat of Jedrek's pickup truck, as we sped across town to the border of Pistoldraw Canyon. Quite expectedly, Jedrek drove, and Hannah sat squeezed between us. As we had planned, Khemera lay in the bed of the pickup with our supplies, under a blanket. We all donned the uniforms of Alcontean National Guardsmen, which Jedrek inexplicably had in his possession. Questioning him on the matter, I had realized, was fruitless.