Chapter 17

[Central District, Athens, Athena-Dimokratia]

[8:30 AM]

The city is alive and busy, even more so than Patras at this hour or any other time of day. While the streets are mostly clear, save for scarce refurbished motor vehicles, the sidewalks are teeming with people. To the right of the street, pedestrians walk away from Lucas and Wren. To the left, pedestrians walk towards them. There exists an evident and unspoken system for walking around in an efficient manner. Shops are stationed on the first floor of most buildings, with signs posted on their windows advertising products. Low chatter fills the air and creates a bustling but serene atmosphere, like the sound of light rain in a forest. The city is organic.

Wren takes the initiative to begin walking forward and join the loose stream of people walking on the sidewalk. Lucas follows immediately after her.

“So, what’s a customs office?” He asks. His demeanor is one of caution as he looks left and right. Evidently, he isn’t fond of the busy environment of strangers. In contrast, Wren moves with unaffected focus even as she answers his question. “It’s a place where the local authorities handle everything related to travel into and out of the country.” Wren closes her answer there, but takes Lucas’s silence as a sign that his unfamiliarity with international affairs is greater than she assumed. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Lucas still looking at her as they walk. Her response continues with further explanation. “If you wanted to travel between countries without some express permission like we have, you’d need documents from that office. Otherwise, you’d be turned away at your destination or even at your own borders.”

“Ok.” His voice conveys a level of understanding as he nods and looks ahead again. “If I were Homer, I’d stay put in Athens. It seems as good a hiding place as most other cities outside of Patras.”

“You’d be making a mistake. It’s a different country, but well within Patrae’s sphere of influence.” While they have been conversing at a lower volume than the rest of the crowd so as to not be overheard, Wren speaks even quieter as she continues. “They can send hundreds of soldiers here if they want to. All under the guise of bolstering Athena’s defenses.” Her voice returns to normal volume. “That’s the kind of relationship we have with most of the territories south of Lamia.”

“‘We’.” Lucas repeats the pronoun with a scoff.

A moment goes by in which Wren’s gaze remains fixed on the path ahead. The city square inches ever closer, but Lucas’s question makes her feel as though the walk drags on without progress.

“I identify with my people.” Her tone, though quiet, conveys her feelings on the matter. Lucas takes the hint and opts not to continue that line of conversation.

“Fine.” Both remain silent for a moment before Lucas returns to his initial inquiry. “Where do you think Homer’s trying to go?”

“The safest place for him is Thessalonica. It’s far enough away from Patrae and is a political and military rival. I have no doubt that they would give him and his family asylum just for delivering items related to Patrae’s research activity.”

“Alright. Considering that they’re on horseback, they’ve probably made it to the customs office by now.” His walking pace increases and he inches closer to the street. Then he slips out of the crowd and steps onto the black road. Wren follows after him. The road ahead is clear and they proceed to make haste past the more leisurely pedestrians.

# (scene break) #

As they approach the city square, the atmosphere changes slightly. Here, the majority of people stand and sit in conversation. Those few who walk about gravitate towards the outer edge of the square where the sidewalks are wide. Soldiers, very few in number, blend in with the people in their demeanor. While they carry spears, they do so in a relaxed fashion as though it were any other long stick. Their armor is the only distinguishing feature about them. Without it, Lucas would wonder why some civilians brandish weapons.

Lucas is the first to slow his pace and come to a stop, with Wren doing the same and coming to stand beside him. They are at the mouth of the street, the square opens up ahead of them and stretches to the left and right. With the sidewalk having cleared up, they climb onto it and move along the wall of the building. At this point, the path has become an obscure, thin alley with no passersby. Lucas moves just beyond the precipice of the corner of the building so as to peek around it. He looks to his right. Down that side of the city square stands the customs office: three stories tall and made of the kind of stone that telegraphs its ancient status. People enter and leave, but none of them match the picture from the briefing in the capital.

Lucas moves back from the corner and turns to Wren.

“The insignia on your shoulder might give us away. I’ll engage, you stay far enough away that we don’t look connected.”

“Agreed.”

When he turns again and starts around the corner, Wren quickly grabs his shoulder to stop him. “Wait, what’s your plan?”

Lucas is prepared to answer that he has none, and this is the truth, but he realizes just before speaking that to proceed aimlessly would be unwise. His expression conveys as much to Wren.

“Were you just going to stand outside of the building and arrest him when he tried to go in?”

At this, Lucas scoffs. “Of course not.” After which Wren remains silent, waiting to hear what Lucas would have done instead. He shrugs, looking around the corner again. “You’d be surprised at how well I can improvise.”

Wren ignores this. “We’ll wait here until he comes out. Then, you’ll start following him. If he’s alone, then he should be regrouping with his family after getting their travel papers. We have to hope that they’re hiding somewhere isolated, in which case, we simply arrest them. Otherwise, you should —”

In the quickest and most fluid of motions, Lucas steps out from around the building. The sound of his shoes scraping against the concrete communicates this and forces Wren to halt her train of thought. She sighs, approaches the corner of the building, and keeps her eyes on Lucas as he melts into the scene of pedestrians.

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Lucas’s own eyes are locked and focused on one individual. The man sports a brown beard about half as tall as his face. His head is balding, with hair remaining only on the sides and back, fading into nothing at the top. He looks left and right, clearly suspicious of every man or woman who looks in his direction. It is mere luck that his wandering eyes do not meet Lucas, for the mere sight of the hunter’s focused gaze would convey an unfettered intent to pursue.

Homer Smith turns right and proceeds towards one of the exits out of the city square. Lucas follows and shortens the distance between them. This is when Wren comes out from behind the building and tails Lucas at around three times the distance between him and Homer. The bearded man walks down that street leaving the square and walks another thirty feet before slowing down considerably. This causes Lucas to find the slowest moving person nearby and step behind them so as to reduce his speed without appearing suspicious should Homer turn around.

Again, the man looks around with caution before turning down an alleyway directly to his right. Lucas now runs to the entrance of this passage but enters it at a leisurely pace. Wren continues to follow, noting the alleyway which Lucas and Homer entered. Its sheltered position causes all-encompassing shadows to be cast between its walls. Here and there, large green dumpsters sit against the edges. Lucas considers these to be advantageous to him, places to hide behind should Homer have the sudden urge to turn around. Until then, he stalks.

The alleyway is not a simple dead end. It proceeds between a multitude of buildings and stretches throughout the entire block, making lefts and rights and splitting at random. Homer takes turns: left, right, right, pause. With silence, Lucas ducks behind a dumpster. When he hears Homer’s footsteps again, he comes out to follow. A moment is taken to look over his shoulder and see if Wren is on his tail. No one. He looks forward.

Homer makes a left further into the alleyway. Lucas follows as he did all of the previous turns. When the corridor ahead comes into view, he stops in his tracks. The path is empty. Homer’s figure is gone. In this section of the alley, a single dumpster is present not far from the corner where Lucas stands. He does not think, but concludes that Homer has reunited with his wife and daughter. A quick look back leads Lucas to believe that Wren is elsewhere in the alley maze. He proceeds in silence.

There is no other point of focus than the area hidden by the dumpster’s metal body. As it is approached, Lucas’s body tenses slightly. His intent is not necessarily to hunt but the situation encourages his instincts to flare up. Every step intensifies this until the large container is reached. He comes close to the thing’s edge and stops to listen…. Nothing.

“Do they know I’m here?” Lucas wonders. He takes a step forward and looks around the dumpster. Again, nothing.

Lucas pauses and thinks something along the lines of “What?” and “Where?”. Then, on instinct, he turns around. There is nothing to see, not because nothing is there, but because Lucas has no time to look. He is too quickly tackled against the stone wall by a figure that lunges forward at him. The force of the impact is enough to put him into a momentary daze from which he recovers to see Homer before him.

“What do you want? Why are you following me?” His voice is a vigorous whisper, shaky and fearful. As though he grips a snake in his hand and remains wary of its fangs.

Lucas takes a deep breath, finding that the tackle knocked some of the air out of his lungs. One of his arms is held horizontally across his chest, the only protective reaction he could muster before being restrained. When his wits return to him, he assesses his physical situation. The force Homer applies is trivial and his hold is flimsy. The only reason Lucas does not break free is to convey his lack of malicious intent.

“I just want to talk.” He responds in a calm voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Why were you stalking me?” The time between this question and his next words are too short to allow for a response from Lucas. “The Court hired you! Who else is with you?”

It occurs to Lucas that lying would be detrimental in this situation. His response is delivered as sincerely as he can muster.

“Yes, the Court sent me.” He refuses to pause, knowing that this information must be accompanied by more assuring sentiment. “But I am not your enemy. Relax and let me explain.”

Homer’s eyes narrow and his body shifts slowly. He raises his right arm so that it comes into view. Along with it, Lucas is startled to see a knife. The man brandishes the weapon with anxiety. His breaths quicken and he brings the knife to Lucas’s left arm.

“You lie…” Homer’s anxiety transmutes into acrimony. Blood pools around the blade as he adds pressure, cutting into Lucas, whose breathing deepens and quickens in response.

The wound is shallow, but the sting is intense. Of the multiple occasions on which Lucas has endured cuts and scrapes, never has the pain been this ferocious. It hisses into his brain and forces him to groan. He manages to regain his composure. “Listen, listen!” In a moment, he conjures up some form of leverage. “I was in the customs office with you. If I wanted your head, I would have killed you there and ran off with it. The soldiers here are jokes; I’d be home free.”

Lucas can see that Homer is thinking about these words. For the most part, they are false but in a moment of panic, appearing genuine is no difficulty. What time has been bought quickly runs out. Homer’s face becomes like stone.

“Still, you’re a bounty hunter. That’s all I need to know.” He raises the dagger with viciousness, intending to bring it down into Lucas’s neck.

Seeing that he cannot maneuver the situation into his favor with passivity, Lucas acts to preserve his life. He raises his right leg to kick Homer off of him. The man is propelled backward into the wall from which he sprung. The dagger falls out of his hand and falls to the ground between them. Homer comes to rest on his side, jarred by the impact.

“I can help you and your family escape.” Lucas’s words are concocted with haste on the spot. He notes that Homer holds no papers on his person and uses this to further convince him that they are not enemies. “I know you didn’t get your travel papers. With my help, you and your family can go to Thessalonica or wherever else the Court won’t chase you.”

Homer’s only response is a groan. Lucas moves forward and bends down to grab the dagger. His intent is to throw the weapon farther away so that it poses no threat. However, as he approaches, a peculiar sight catches his eye. From behind Homer, from the space between his back and the wall, a figure emerges. It rises as though ascending a flight of stairs and places a hand on the ground to prop itself up.

Lucas’s only reaction is to wait and stare with a look of subtle trepidation on his face. “What am I looking at?” These words pass through his mind just before the entire entity emerges. It is human and its back faces him. Suddenly, while Lucas is still dumbfounded, it turns around and attempts to grab the knife from the ground. Lucas kicks the weapon away. He rises to meet the figure, defend himself, and look the threat in the face.

His face. Lucas stands before a man of his height and physique, in his own clothing, with his own satchel. His heartbeat quickens beyond that of a hunter in the zone of confrontation. Rather, it beats to the rhythm of genuine fear. They meet eyes, but Lucas finds no life in the human he’s looking at, if it should be called “human”.

“It’s happened again!” Homer’s shaken voice interrupts Lucas’s focus. His attention, for but a moment, is diverted towards the man on the ground. This is when the man in front of him quickly moves forward and swings a fist at Lucas’s head.

The hunter’s focus returns to the most imminent threat. He ducks to avoid the blow. The man who bears Lucas’s face does not let up, throwing attack after attack. Lucas stands his ground, weaving beneath the next punch and attempting to lunge forward and tackle his adversary. However, before he covers any ground, a knee collides with his side, just beneath his ribs. The blow sends him to the ground and makes him writhe in pain.

Lucas’s instinct is to curl up and defend his vital organs. But when there are no blows to block, he looks up at where his assailant used to be. In his place is a plume of dust in the wind. This is when his vision begins to cloud up.

Wren comes rushing into view through the fading dust cloud.

“Lucas!” She kneels at his right, out of breath. His only response is heavy, labored breathing. He looks up at her with wide eyes, trying desperately to speak but failing to form words. “Are you alright?”

As his sight dims, his hearing goes entirely, replaced by a perpetual high-pitched tone, punctuated by the sound of his own heartbeat. His breathing hitches, as though sucking in air from a vacuum.

“I’m dying.” He thinks.

Vibrations through the ground make Lucas look to his left. From the light of the main road, a figure runs towards him. The man kneels at his left and speaks, looking back and forth between him and Wren. His mouth moves, but his words are inaudible.

Lucas gives up on paying any sort of attention as his mind becomes too foggy to do so. He looks straight up at the blue sky through the vertical gap between the buildings towering on both sides.

All fades into darkness.