A sound like distant thunder snapped them all back to the moment.
“They’re coming for us?” Tris guessed.
Kyra shook her head. “That was outside. I’d say our rebellious new friends have started their party.” She frowned at the trail of cables running from Loader’s housing into the underside of the console. “Which means the clock is ticking on our way out of here.”
“Loader? Any progress?” Kreon growled.
“I have gained access,” the talos reported.
“Excellent.” Kreon ran a critical eye over his handiwork. “Our most pressing need is for information. We need to know what awaits us in the Processing department; troop concentrations, security measures and so on. Also, if you are able to identify the section in which our targets are housed, that would expedite matters considerably.”
“Signing onto the network,” Loader droned.
“Waiting…”
“Waiting…”
“Wait— Ah. That is interesting.”
“What?” Kreon bent over the miniature machine as though it would help Loader hear him. “What have you discovered?”
“The Confessional Institution’s systems appear to be controlled by a rudimentary AI. I am engaging in dialogue…”
A bleep came from the console.
“Done. I have convinced the AI of the righteousness of our cause. It will now assist us in any way possible.”
“Just like that?” Tris was incredulous.
“It was an extremely protracted conversation,” Loader replied. “Over two million items of logic exchanged. Were I human, I would be exhausted.”
Kyra exchanged a look with Kreon. “Whaddaya know? Getting blown up actually improved his sense of humour.”
Kreon bent over the console again. “Loader, can you identify the holding location for the Proconsul of Berasko Station?”
“I can. The Proconsul is not in Processing. The entire contingent of prisoners from Berasko have been consigned to Transgressions, three levels below us.”
“Excellent work! Are you able to clear us a path?”
“If you patch me in to your transceiver, I will be able to negotiate with the AI in real time.”
Kreon hesitated for the briefest of moments. “Very well. Tris? Knife.” He held out a gloved hand.
Tris pulled the glaive from his back, taking care not to nick himself. Moving around with the blade fastened outwards was risky, especially for someone as clumsy as he was. The glaive was already shrunk to its smallest size; Tris twirled it in his fingers, handing it haft-first to Kreon.
The Warden took the glaive in one hand, opening his trench coat and slicing a flap in his jumpsuit. Revealed for the first time was the greying, necrotic flesh of his abdomen. Delicately, Kreon guided the tip of Tristan’s knife into the taut flesh of his side. No blood spurted; only the grimace on Kreon’s face told of the discomfort he was suffering. He handed back the knife, which Tris wiped automatically on the thigh of his jumpsuit.
Loader’s cables went into the wound next; Kreon’s grimace became pained as he rooted around inside himself. Finally, something clicked into place. Kreon withdrew his fingers and pulled his trench coat closed over the wound.
“Connection established,” Loader intoned. “You may be interested to know that a large number of hostiles are headed in your direction.”
“How close?” Kreon growled — just as a laser blast slammed into the booth from the far side.
“Approximately twenty metres,” Loader confirmed, as Kyra’s wall erupted in a blaze of blaster bolts. She returned fire, spraying her rifle through the slit in the booth’s armour.
“Got to go,” she said, crouching back as energy bursts blossomed against the heavy viewscreens.
Kreon had Loader back in the bag, the cables trailing like some heavy-duty Walkman.
“We’re pinned inside,” Tris pointed out. “The second we step out there, we’ll get barbecued.” A stray bolt got lucky, sliding through the firing slit and burning a hole in the wall beside him.
“Options?” Kreon called.
Then a heavy clang came from the direction of their attackers, and the barrage abruptly ceased.
“We have closed the door,” Loader informed them. “However, senior employees are equipped with overrides; we recommend vacating this position immediately.”
Tris was out of the booth before the talos was done talking.
Kyra took rearguard as they made best speed back down the corridor in the direction they’d come from. Kreon lurched along beside Tris, his gaze on the wrist-mounted holo. “Can we make the stairwell?”
“Negative,” came Loader’s muffled drawl. “A substantial force is closing in from the opposite direction. There are multiple stairwells, however; the nearest is on your left in five metres.”
Tris skidded to a halt, scouring the wall. If there was an entrance, it was unmarked.
“Can you open it?” Kreon asked.
“Negative. Manual operation only,” Loader replied.
Kreon growled his frustration and palmed the top of his staff. Tris trained his rifle on the corridor ahead of them as the Warden swung the gravity orb into the wall. With an awful screech the panel caved in, revealing broken pipes and sparking circuitry. Kreon limped a pace over and swung again — this time the whole panel crumpled like tinfoil, falling away to reveal the stairwell beyond.
“We’re done with inconspicuous then?” Kyra said, poking her rifle through the opening. She followed it with her head, but Kreon pushed past her into the stairwell. “Okay, you go first,” she called after him.
Tris followed them both inside, switching to rearguard as Kyra jogged on ahead. Rather than back down the stairs he waited for Kreon to reach the landing below, then leapt down an entire flight, rolling to his feet at the bottom. The glaive dug into his back, but it was a small price to pay; even Kreon looked startled the first time he did it.
Parkour, baby! Tris was fiercely proud of the skills he’d developed back on Earth, before he knew anything about starfish-shaped aliens and psychic interrogations.
They made two full floors before the sounds of pursuit reached them. Laser blasts ricocheted off the steel bannister as prison guards above fired aimlessly down the stairwell.
“Keep going,” Kyra called. “One more floor!”
Then Kreon spun, catching her by the arm and throwing her back against the wall. Tris barely had time to register what was happening before Kreon leapt in front of him, sweeping him aside with the full strength of his mechanical arm. Tris staggered backwards, hitting the rough wall hard enough to see stars. As he gasped for breath he saw a flash — and was instantly engulfed in a cloud of flame.
Kreon took the brunt, his Aegis deflecting the burning fuel around him. The protective cocoon afforded by the alien device shielded Tris; he clung to Kyra as white hot flames licked the wall inches from his face. The heat scorched the air as he drew breath; then it was gone, the brilliant glare leaving spots of light dancing in his vision.
“Inferno grenades?” There was a note of dread in Kyra’s voice.
“Move,” Kreon advised her.
None of them needed a second hint — they sprinted down the last four flights, gaining their target floor as a fusillade of blaster fire lit up the stairwell above them.
Tris found himself in the lead, and yanked the glaive free of its magnetic fastening as he reached the door. The handle grew in his hand as he brought it around, telescoping rapidly into a short staff. With two swift strokes he removed the door’s hinges, sending it crashing out into the corridor beyond.
Kreon barged through the opening, Kyra hot on his heels. Tris followed, shrinking the glaive with a squeeze and slapping it back into place.
The sound of heavy footfalls echoed out from the stairwell, and none of them paused to look back. It was now a race; with armed enemies closing in on all sides, they had to find a defensible structure before they were caught in the open.
Though what t
he hell we’ll do if we find one is anyone’s guess.
All thoughts of the mission had evaporated from Tristan’s head; all he cared about now was survival. And given the way things were going, that seemed less likely by the minute.
“They’ll be on us in a few seconds,” Kyra warned.
The words were barely out of her mouth when the first energy beam blazed past her, scoring a black streak on the ceiling.
“Loader!” Kreon called out. “We need obstacles!”
In response, a heavy door began to descend in front of them. Kreon lengthened his stride, bounding forward to duck through the opening; Kyra followed, the two rifles jouncing behind her. She scraped underneath the heavy slab of metal in a sprinter’s finish, head down. The gap was closing; Tris put on a burst of speed and threw himself forward. He hit the deck arms first, tucked and rolling; the door slammed shut less than a second behind him.
“Little close!” he gasped, getting to his feet. “How long does that buy us?”
“They will need to cut through,” Loader’s disembodied voice reported. “I have convinced ALI to disallow command overrides from the prison employees.”
“ALI?”
“The controlling AI. Technically she is Lemurian.”
Kyra had her head down, breathing heavily, but she managed to mug a shocked face for Tris. “Loader?” she panted. “Are you flirting?”
The next guards they passed were mercifully unconscious. Gerian’s weapon was showing no sign of wearing off, which at least gave them one thing in their favour.
“Up ahead,” Kreon wheezed. Running full-tilt had to be tough on him; the mis-calibrated mechanical leg gave him an uneven, lurching stride that looked supremely uncomfortable.
They passed through another security check-point, two armoured figures draped over the control console.
“Transgressions!” Kyra pointed at a sign in gibberish above a wide entrance on the right. “Our stop.”
The doors slid open as they approached — Loader and his new girlfriend presumably anticipating their movements. Tris jogged through the doorway—
And froze.
They had entered a lab. It was scarily reminiscent of the last lab he’d been in, on the nightmare-ridden flagship of the late Admiral Benin.
Only the walls of this room weren’t decorated with captured Siszar body parts.
They were decorated with humans.
Fastened in place by articulated steel frames, the bodies lined the walls like grotesque paintings. Limbs missing, eyes missing, heads missing — there wasn’t a complete corpse in there.
Tubes and wires snaked from every part of the bodies, feeding back into the frames which supported them. It was only when one of the bodies in front of him convulsed slightly that Tris realised the horrible truth; They’re still alive.
Kyra’s expression said it all. She was staring around at the gallery of horrors, her mouth open and working unconsciously. She’d been to a lot of places, Tris reasoned; she must have seen her fair share of nasty stuff as she fought her way across the galaxy. That this room had the power to shock her so severely made Tris feel better about the mouthful of vomit he’d just swallowed.
“Abomination,” Kreon said, the single word imbued with such loathing that Tris turned to look at him.
“You know what this is?”
“Transgression,” the Warden said, his tone bleak. “Mutilation… enhancement… these people will become the front-line soldiers of the Lemurian Empire. It is the ultimate fate of any who are Committed to the Church.”
They found Proconsul Augustus suspended from the ceiling. Dozens of wires from several roof-mounted black boxes led down into his spine, which had been laid open for easy access. From the rictus of pain on his face, he had been awake during the procedure. Whether he’d been anaesthetised pending more work, or had been writhing here in agony until Gerian’s sound bomb went off, Tris had no way of knowing.
He was kind to me. Tris stared at the Proconsul’s hands, from which the flesh had been peeled back. Steel knives had been grafted onto the bones of his fingers, with mechanical components extending back to his elbows. This is because of me, Tris realised. I did this.
“Animals.” Kyra had finally found her voice, and it shook with barely suppressed rage. “We should kill them all.”
“Indeed.” Even Kreon sounded subdued. “But that is not the mission. According to the records Enneas gave us, sixty-five prisoners were taken alive from Berasko Station. I estimate there are less than twenty in this lab; the others must be housed nearby. If we can find them, perhaps we can spare them the same fate.”
“What about these?” Tris’ throat was closing over with emotion. “Augustus… he helped me. I made a mistake at first, and he…”
Kreon placed a gloved hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “There is only one thing we can do for them now. A quick end will be a mercy for one in a state such as this.” He turned to Kyra. “You brought grenades?”
Kyra shook her head as though trying to rid it of what she’d seen. When she replied, there was a measure of her old self in her tone. “In this outfit? They spoil the lines.”
“I’ve got some,” Tris said. He pulled a pair of fragmentation grenades from the magnetic strip around his waist. “These enough?”
“Many of the gases and substances in this room are explosive,” Kreon said, taking the grenades. “They will suffice.”
Loader’s muted monotone issued from Kreon’s backpack. “Transgression has a dedicated detention centre, currently at one-third capacity. The entrance is through the laboratory on the right hand side.”
“Any last words?” Kreon asked.
Tris gazed around the room, unable to comprehend the depth of human misery that had been experienced in there. That anyone — any person — could sink so low as to do such things…
“I’m sorry.” It was all he could come up with.
“And don’t worry,” Kyra added quietly. “We’ll get these bastards.”
They made for the exit Loader had mentioned. Kyra got there first and didn’t wait for the door to open; two excessively violent hacks from her swords sent the door crashing inwards, taking a good piece of the surrounding wall with it.
Tris followed more slowly, unable to tear his eyes from the grotesque figures on the walls. He’d got maybe halfway to the door when he saw something that made him shriek. Laid out on a bench to one side was the naked body of a woman. Both arms had been severed at the elbows, both legs at the knees. An assortment of metal rods and connectors protruded from all four stumps, as though waiting to be connected to something. But the face was the worst part. Her jaw had been replaced with a jagged steel trap; the surgery was so fresh that tiny beads of blood were still leaking from the joints.
Tears clouded Tristan’s eyes as he stared down at the familiar face.
It was Naria.
“I…” His chest shook. He hadn’t the words.
Kreon had come up beside him to stare down at the body.
“This wasn’t you,” the Warden said. “It was them. The Keepers of the Faith, and their Church. And we will find a way to make them pay.”
Tris nodded mutely. He couldn’t take his eyes off Naria’s ruined face.
Kreon nudged him, holding out the grenades.
Tris took one, a shuddering breath making his shoulders shake.
“Prime?”
Tris pressed the activation stud.
“Release!” Kreon threw his grenade and lurched towards the hole Kyra had cut in the wall. Tris followed suit, aiming his bomb towards the dangling shape of the Proconsul, then diving through the opening.
The double roar of detonations and the searing blast of heat filled the air above him. Kreon and Kyra had taken refuge either side of the hole, but flames curled around the edges to lick at them. Tris stood and looked back into an inferno; every surface was ablaze, with more explosions coming every second.
“Rest in pieces,” he murmured.
Kyra laid a hand on his shoulder. “Was that a joke?”
Tris just shrugged. He couldn’t ever imagine feeling more wretched than he did at that moment.
She pulled him towards her into a fierce hug. “I’m sorry, Tris,” she whispered, as his ear came to rest inches from her lips.
He let one ugly sob go, then merely held her, trembling.
She let a few seconds pass before gently pushing him back. “It’s not weakness, Tris. You feel like this because you’re a good person.”
He could hardly bring himself to look at her. “How do I make it stop?”
“You don’t,” she said, giving him half a smile. “But killing a bunch of evil bastards will make you feel a whole lot better.”
18
They found the remaining prisoners from Berasko Station a few minutes later.
There were forty-seven of them, housed in a dedicated cell block; the two guards that had been on duty were lying slumped on the deck, unconscious.
As were the prisoners.
“Sydon’s Name,” Kyra cursed. “What the frig do we do now?”
Kreon stood awkwardly at the end of the cell block. “They’re alive.”
“And dreaming,” Kyra confirmed.
“Our contacts would prefer it otherwise.”
Tris glanced between them, unable to believe what he was hearing. “After everything we’ve just seen? You want to murder them?”
The Warden turned a cold stare on him. “No. I do not. However, the reality of the situation is, we have no way of moving them. If they remain here, and alive, they will become subjects for experimentation. In that regard, the equation is simple.”
“There must be something we can do!” Tris looked around for inspiration, finding none.
A distant explosion caused dust to fall from the ceiling.
“Outside!” Tris exclaimed. “Enneas gave us a device to contact the… resistance types, whatever they’re called? Use that! Maybe they can come in here and get these guys!”
Kreon fished in the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out the tiny code-chip. He fitted it to the device on his wrist, causing a holographic menu to spring up. “Loader?” he called. “How secure is this comm-chip likely to be?”
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