Free Rise by Danielle Racey Page A

experienced it. Victoria continued forward, as the path lead her towards the city, and as she did, she felt a chill of fear. She always liked to know what she was up against, but now, she might as well have been blindfolded and gagged, because all she knew was that she was walking into a whole another world, and that wasn't exactly comforting.
    The path she was following widened slightly into a narrow road. For automobiles, Victoria presumed, and she made a point to stick close to the sides of the road. She continued on, walking as quickly as her legs would take her, stealing glances left and right. She passed a small home, with a thatch roof, and a good bit of land in front of it, where several cows grazed, lazily. Victoria passed a few more just like it, before surmising that she must be in the outskirts of the city. To her left, she spotted a lake, where several white sailing boats, that looked tiny from a distance, drifted serenely across the water.
    As she neared the city, the peaceful air of the outskirts began to disappear, and noise returned in its place. Victoria narrowed her eyes to see what was up ahead, and she almost stopped walking out of pure confusion. Up ahead, a mass of the smooth, black roads she had encountered earlier, seemed to be all jumbled together, leaving no clear path of where to go. That can’t be right, Victoria thought, the automobiles can’t possibly just drive into one another. She slowed her pace, so that she could look around. As she passed by the automobiles on foot, she could feel the stares of their occupants, like lasers, on the back of her neck.
    She wove between the cars, eliciting honks and angry protests, trying to find her way into the city. She passed by a car of teenage boys, yelling “Come here, kitty kitty” and whistling at the top of their lungs. Victoria darted off to the side, where she found refuge under a narrow overpass. She walked quickly, the commotion from the city traffic still rubbing her nerves. The overpass, she discovered quickly, was for “Pedestrians”, indicated by a bright red octagonal sign, with an image of a walking man. She continued across the overpass, melding into the crowd around here. Must be getting close to the city, Victoria thought.
    As she walked, she was struck by several observations at once. One, people were staring at her. Victoria looked down, subconsciously, at her robes. She had thought they were all right. Perhaps not of the latest fashion, but not so atrocious that people would stare. And two, Victoria remembered, as she flattened her robes nervously, no one looked the slightest bit like her. She knew her clothes would be different, of course, but as she passed by more and more women who looked to be about her age, she could help but wonder why they were all so different. They carried themselves differently, they spoke differently, with an accent she couldn’t place, and they were all just standing around, doing nothing. Victoria supposed she thought it was odd, considering there was always something to do at the convent, but she wasn’t sure what people did her age, if they weren’t cooking, cleaning, or the like. Is this their idea of fun? Victoria wondered, and her mouth gaped open, as she stared unabashedly at those around her. She could see the end of the pathway approaching, culminating in a small gazebo.
    Beyond the gazebo, Victoria could see the city in all its glory. She hurried along, and as she reached the gazebo and made to pass through it, a tall bar swung from her right side, barring her entrance. “What the—?” She stepped back out of surprise, and whipped her head around, looking for whatever was preventing her from entering the city. As she did, a man stepped out from a small booth in the corner of the gazebo, and positioned himself in front of her. Victoria kicked herself mentally. What kind of assassin was she, if she didn’t even see this guy, before he managed to step two feet away from her.
    The man was