...And Into The Fire

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 12

Kalie's homeworld, Lantra, was perfectly suited for otters,
at least in my opinion. It was hot, humid, and wet. It was
as if the whole planet was one giant rain forest.

Naturally, otters had no problems with all the water, it
just rolled off there fur, and that was also the reason for
there minimalist take on clothing. General being two pieces
for the females, and one piece for a male.

So you can see where someone in a full length cloak would
stick out, even in the middle of the night. Which was
exactly how it was the night before when, in the pouring
rain, I had gone out and collected all of the different
stuff Ken had on his list.

But that was last night, and right now i'm going to focus on
noon the next day, where things started to get interesting.
I (Steven Mason if you have forgotten from Ken's quick
interlude into this chronicle Fox is making us write) was
just getting out of a long COOL shower, and finally feeling
like a lion again.

Thus, I was only wrapped in a large towel was I walked out
of the bath room. Not to very much of my surprise, Ken was
still at his work bench, trying to move the feedback around
a few seconds, so he could open the Portal to Prid.

I flicked some of my still wet mane out of my eyes.
"Anything new?"

He sighed, looking up at me. "Some... well a very little
some. I've got it narrowed down, but I still have a large
range of possibility to go through."

I nodded. To my understanding, Ken was trying to find the
wavelength (or whatever he called it) that the spell (as far
as HE could tell) that was blocking Prid's folds was running
at. Apparently with out getting it just right, he was
intently out of luck.

Pulling on a pair of underwear and shorts, I threw my towel
in the corner. "Any idea how long it will take?"

He shook his head, and flexed his wings a bit. He was
getting frustrated. "No, my idea for narrowing it down as
proved to be useless." He grumbled a bit under his breath as
another test fold collapsed.

I pulled on a t-shirt. "Maybe you should take a break, get
some sleep, you never know, the answer may come in a dream."

He gave me a flat look. "Steven... I... I'm worried about
Kalie, I just can't sit and not doing anything." He hunched
back down over the table, and did some adjustments to his
spell.

I sat down next to him. "Are you in love with her?"

He shook his head. "No, and before you ask, we weren't
lovers either." He chuckled. "Hell, Fox was easier to get
into bed then she was, and both he and I tried."

With a final nod, he flicked a switch on the disassembled
controller. There was a pause, and a small fold started to
from in the corner. There was a flick as the colour fluxed
from blue to green.

Ken sighed, and turned away, expecting it to collapsed as
before. Suddenly there was a ripped of colour over the fold,
and it turned light blue.

Ken gasped. "The spell causing the feedback is down." He
said. Then there was another colour changed, but back to
green, and then the fold collapsed into a flash of white
static.

"Did you do that?" I asked Ken.

He looked back, shaking his head. "No, I just said the field
was shut down, then it went back up. It must have been
dropped to let someone through. This is great for us."

"Why?"

"Well," he explained, turing back to his bench. "You see, I
still have the old parts of the equipment set up for trying
to narrow it down." Gently he pulled a glass slide out of
it's holder. On it was a spot that was blood red. "So we
have the exact setting I need!"

With a grin to himself, Ken took another slide out of a
second holder, and set it on the workbench. Then he slid the
first slide into the now empty holder. With a few mutter
words, he activated the portal controller.

Instantly, the fold blurred, and created a small portal that
staid light blue.

"You got it." I said.

He nodded. "We got it." Then reaching over the equipment, he
flipped on a second device. There was a flash, the a
communication laser was shot into the open fold. The only
evidence of it's existence was the yellow light showing up
on the dust specs as the flitted through the beam.

Ken picked up a small two-way radio, and talked into it.
"Kalie? Are you there?"

After a few seconds, there was a low buzz, and Kalie's voice
floated over the radio. "Ken, is that you?"

"In the scales. Steven and I found a way around the
interference with the folds."

There was a low chuckle. "Good... Then we're going to need
you two here. Can you open any fold, or just the one to are
com-laser?"

Ken paused. "Should be any fold, why do you have a specific
one?"

"Yes, standard Prid verse number, fold slash BA."

The half-dragon nodded. "Well be there in ten minutes, can
you meet us there?"

There was a pause. "On my way," Kalie said. "And good luck.
Kalie out."

Ken dropped the radio, then reached over and shut off the
com-laser, and the portal controller. The he looked over at
Me. "Steven, did you bring any guns?"

"Um, just my plasma gun, but it's more for show really. Not
something that you can use for more then a quick defense."

Ken nodded, fiddling with some of the actual spell
components. "Well then, get one of Kalie's spares for
yourself. I'll have to pick one up when I can."

I grinned, and went to work.

* * *

"So there it is in a nutshell." I explained, sitting down in
one of the chairs that litter the control room. Rachel, and
her friend Marn did the same.

Rachel looked a lot worse for wear. The afternoon before she
had been dressed in a pair of deep blue slacks, and a light
blue blouse. Now most of the left leg of her slacks where
gone, the right was partly shredded, and what was left of
her blouse was a dirty black, as well as her orange-red fur.

I let out a loud yawn. "This is all starting to catch up
with me." I said slumping down in my chair.

Rachel looked at me, rubber her right shoulder, where a
nasty bruise was showing through her fur. "Have you had any
sleep?"

I shook my head. "None."

She grimaced, as her paw ran over the bruise. "Right now,
that's something we have to put on the back burner. Can you
find the controls for the cameras?"

I nodded, my paws flipping over a few controls. "Right here,
I saw them, but just ignored them." I started flipping
through the different places the internal cameras where set
up, finally getting it stopped on the auditorium. There were
fifteen cameras set up inside it, all controllable. Each one
was showing the same image.

A room full of people, overflowing the seats, all look the
worse for wear. "There they are." I said, leaning back a
bit.

"Amazing." Marn said, leaning a bit closer. "Are there
cameras like this in all the rooms in the place?"

I shook my head. "All the major gathering spots, like there,
all the trade rooms, the Council room, and many others."

He nodded, rubbing his chin. "Interesting..." I said to
himself.

Turning in my chair, I faced the control board where I had
the tap setup. Most of the channels I was watching showed no
activity, one or two did quick flashes of use. A few quick
checks proved them to be check-ins. I set the computer up to
look for any long communication, or repetitive checks with
no response, we didn't want them getting suspicious of us by
not having the guard Kalie killed check in.

Right at that second, I got amazingly lucky. Just seconds
after I set the watches up, I got a flash on one channel.
Quickly I flipped it onto the speaker in the room.

The first thing that came over it, was the tail end of
someone saying something. It was just the last bit of the
last word, and I didn't hear enough to recognize it.

There was a second, and a female voice come over the
speaker. "Base here, what exactly do you mean one's gone?"

The first voice, a male, replied. "Just that, the old one, I
look away for a minute, and when I looked back in, he had
vanished."

"Did you check the room?"

"Yes sir, all the seals held, and no evidence of any more
attempts to escape. It is if he just vanished into thin
air."

There was a pause, then the second voice said. "Did you see
anything of note before this happened?"

"Um... yes I did. He and the elf had spent the last two
hours talking to each other separated from the rest of
them."

"You elf is Rathal, and if he spent so much time talking to
that old one," the voice paused again. "I'm going to send
three guards down, Jenner will want to talk to him. Base
out." There was a click, and the channel shut off.

I slowly turned to Rachel. "He's alive."

She nodded. "And someone has decided that he IS in on this.
That also sounded like the Ancient they where talking about.
If he's escaped..." she paused. "Well, I don't know if we
will see him again."

Marn put his head over Rachel's shoulder. "Well, if his a
friend of yours, I suggest we go pull of some kind of
rescue."

Rachel looked at him. "First we don't know where he is,
second we don't know where they will take him, and third, if
we found out one of both of those, how are we suppose to get
him. Run in gun blazing!"

He grinned. "Come on, if this group is as large as you said,
they'll need some place to gather, right?"

She nodded. "Right."

"That big?" He said, pointing his finger at the monitor,
that still was showing the auditorium.

I looked at Rachel. "I'll start checking all the different
places that have cameras. Though we may get a better chance
by listen in on them."

She gave a slight grin. "I'll do that. I suggest you find a
place to lay down, and get some sleep."

I nodded, sliding my chair away from the control boards,
letting her slide in. "You know how to use it?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes."

"Good," I said nodding. "I'm be in one of the other rooms."
Then I slid out the door.

I was too tried to try and fight Rachel, and didn't want to
anyways. Also, yet another bit of my Grandfathers numerous
about of advice he had given me was, 'In a hard situation,
when you can get sleep, get it. You may not know when the
next chance will be.'

I always though it was nonsense, but right now I couldn't
agree with him more.