Free Kirev's Door by JC Andrijeski

metallic green color however, almost like jade.
    That time, Wreg himself peeled off his gloves and placed his hands on that wall. As he did, Kirev watched his light.
    It occurred to him then that Wreg was talking to whatever it was.
    He was using his light and the Barrier to talk to the actual wall.
    Even as the realization hit him, the wall rippled, as if responding to something Wreg had said. Before Kirev could ask the question, a panel appeared on the wall.  
    Inside that panel, a keyhole appeared.
    That hole was round, with tiny, needle-like spikes, making it look like a small sun.
    Kirev stared, watching in disbelief as the shape formed itself out of nothing, right next to where Wreg’s bare hands pressed against the mirrored material. He continued to stare, unmoving, as Wreg fished the key Kirev had given the him out of his inside jacket pocket. He fitted it into that lock and the strange, cylindrical key covered in different-sized spikes slid into the corresponding grooves like a knife through melted butter.
    The door began to open.
    Kirev found he was holding his breath. He exhaled only when he began to feel light-headed, and by then the other seers were already filing into the dimly-lit room ahead of them.
    He could see lights flashing to either side, like distant stars.
    Otherwise, the space appeared to be totally dark, with only the light from the room at his back illuminating a splash of floor as the doors opened. That light seemed to stop only a few feet past the door’s entrance, as if blocked by some denser darkness it could not penetrate.
    Kirev heard nothing inside. Smelled only dust and faint whiffs of bleach.
    He was still standing outside the door, breathing too hard, when a hand touched his arm gently.
    Kirev jumped.
    “Come, brother,” Venai said, her voice a bare murmur as she glanced up at him. “It is time to meet this monstrosity the humans have built.”
    Kirev looked down at her, still tense. He saw her sculpted lips pursed in profile, the expression on her face more warlike than he’d seen on her up until then.
    Taking another breath, Kirev nodded.
    Then, gripping her fingers where they continued to clutch his arm, he walked them both through the mirror-paneled door and into that star-filled darkness.

8
    DOOR

    KIREV FOUGHT FOR air, his back only a few inches from one of the night-sky like walls.
    It felt like a lot of time had gone by since that door first opened.
    Too much time.
    He glanced around at the sharp lights as they winked off and on around him like individual eyes, in patterns neither his aleimi nor his mind could follow. He was sweating through the brown suit, feeling it stick the material to his skin as it soaked through his undershirt and his pants and dress shirt as well as the bandage he wore from Venai’s administering to his wound. The close, overly-warm space had begun to give him a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.
    Next to him stood Rigor and Venai on either side, both of them holding guns while they watched Wreg, Ute and Tan work. The latter three seers had been trying to communicate with the wall opposite since they’d all first entered the small space.
    Kirev wondered if they would care if he waited outside. He did not at all feel needed in here.
    “No,” Wreg said, giving him a hard look. “Stay inside, little brother. If we are breached, I don’t want our numbers to be obvious. The field in here should disguise that...”
    Looking at him, Kirev only nodded.
    Even so, he found himself looking wistfully through the opening to the comparatively cooler room filled with those glass cases.
    Several seers stood outside those doors already.
    The tall, black-haired seer, Jorag, remained just on the far side of that opening with two other seers. One of them––another Asian-looking seer who made Kirev think of a less muscular and slightly shorter version of Wreg, complete with tattoos on his bare arms, hands, neck and chest outside of a dark green military-style