Submantle- The Alpha Key

by Patrick Lane

  Both men turned towards Nifty, surprise on their faces.

  “He could go with you, Scotty,” Toro said quietly, moving beside Nifty.

  “Impossible,” Scotty said. “I could potentially be in greater danger than him.”

  “Doubtful, it was one of the things I wanted to discuss with you in private before the lad got his dander up.” Toro gestured to the books on the cot. “It will take him outside the Helixes, and far from the Council’s reach.”

  Scotty crossed his arms and considered the prospect as he evaluated the two. “What you say does make sense and is worth consideration. It would, after all, take the lad from harm’s way.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I have no say in the matter,” Nifty protested.

  “Despite the evidence that shows the Scourge is no longer a threat, some of the council members still aren’t convinced,” Scotty said. “For the sake of pacifying some of the fools we need to get one of the Alexandria cubes back. Historical records indicate that sixteen cubes have been lost or have gone missing on various missions in the past and even now teams are being dispatched to conduct more exhaustive searches. We suspect one of them may have even made its way to the surface years ago. Do you remember the engineer I talked about from earlier in my career? Richard Jackman? You may know him by his mantle-name, Plato.”

  “Yes,” Nifty answered. He knew where the conversation was going, but he also wondered how Scotty had been manipulated to find such a specific cube that coincided so completely with Ink’s mission for Nifty. His suspicious gaze found Toro, who merely raised a confirming eyebrow.

  Along with wild rumors about the odd little Topsider, Scotty had no shortage of stories about the man.

  “His last mission in Hellstamp required an Alexandria cube. As far as we know, Richard still had the cube when he was forced to flee the Helix and head for the surface after that terrible business with the Batista reaction.” Nifty detected a sadness in Scotty's voice. “There’s a good chance the cube is topside or somewhere betwixt here and there. He may even still be alive, but he’ll be an old man by Topsider standards, so it’s doubtful he’ll be any use to us. Knowing Richard as I did, he will have ensured that there is someone there to help Submantle should the need arise.”

  Yes he did, Nifty thought to himself, a Thomas and Caitlyn if he remembered correctly.

  “I’ve managed to get Ripper transferred back to my team, and I’ve tracked down a newly certified Monsourian lad to serve as a recorder. In three days, I will be traveling to the crust to re-establish the tunnels that collapsed when Richard left. It’s certainly against the odds, and it may be for naught, but if successful it will give us more leverage with the Council.”

  “Is this the Rings doing?” Nifty asked Toto.

  “Is what?”

  “Do you realize what’s going on here?” Nifty asked, now turning to Scotty.

  “How about you tell me what you think is going on?” Scotty replied, casting his own suspicious glance Toro’s way.

  “Well, I had hoped not to betray Toro’s trust any further but I was tasked by Ink to visit the Gears of Hellstamp. I am to retrieve some artifacts and then bring them to the surface for delivery to a Topsider.”

  “And?”

  “The recipient is to be a Jax, with a closer genetic link to Rion Jax than anyone else alive.”

  “And?”

  “I suspect Thomas Jackman is a direct relative to this Richard Jackman and the real Jax. It’s impossible to believe that our two missions for the same family are a coincidence. Am I right, Toro?

  Toro nodded. He had seemingly come to terms with Nifty’s power reversal, but he felt little need to give up any more information than necessary.

  Scotty’s glare reappeared in full force as he regarded Toro. “I knew something didn’t feel quite right about the whole thing. Too much emphasis on this blasted Alexandria cube for anyone one with good sense.”

  “No, not too much emphasis,” Toro replied, sitting back down on the stool beside the bed. “The retrieval of the cube would be a boon to us all. It was merely a convenient happenstance. We don’t even know if he possesses the device or if his grandson could be the Jax.”

  Nifty ran his fingers through his hair, pulling hard, as if trying to yank a plan from his skull. He knew he was being manipulated but he couldn’t see any other solution than that which he was trained to do.

  Put one foot ahead of the other and forge ahead.

  “Alright,” he said at last. “I’ve made up my mind. I will do as Ink asked. We will make arrangements for my departure to Hellstamp and then to Topside.”

  “We?” Scotty asked. “I hope that wasn’t an order, young Niftmire.” He had changed the focus of his ire and was now challenging Nifty. “I have no involvement with this Rions Ring. You hold no special sway with me, no matter what you’ve been told about Rion Jax.”

  Slagg, Nifty thought, he’d been hoping the senior Ranger would somehow be forced to follow Toro’s orders.

  “Toro?” Nifty asked, hoping for a little help.

  “Oh, don’t even ask for his help, young man,” Scotty cut in, “I only need to bring this matter before the Ranger tribunal and all this cloak and dagger will have been for naught. Our friend Toro will have as much to explain as you.”

  Slaggstone, why was he being so difficult? Nifty wondered as he fought for some kind of leverage.

  Scotty studied him intently for a moment before saying, “I tell you what, if I have your word as a Ranger and a friend that you’ll keep no more secrets between myself and Toro, I’ll consider your planned trip to the surface. Otherwise…”

  Nifty knew that Scotty wasn’t bluffing, not about this, just like he knew he’d been handled rather easily by a couple of well-seasoned negotiators.

  Dross and double dross. He felt like screaming. He had been manipulated like a rookie—they’d planned this all along.

  “You win,” he said with a sigh. “You have my word as a Rocktower Ranger and a friend I will not keep details of this mission secret from Toro and yourself. Satisfied?”

  “No satisfaction, young Niftmire, just safe—safe from the idiotic problems that seem to arise when too many secrets are kept. None of this watching our tongues nonsense.”

  “We’re going topside?” Until now it had seemed like Ink’s flight of fancy, like a throwaway suggestion that probably wouldn't come to fruition. It was every Ranger’s dream to travel to the surface of the earth and be exposed to that unsettling void the little folk named ‘space’, not to mention the sun.

  Why did Toro think he would be in danger? All the fears about his own dire situation and the poor engineers were forgotten as the news washed away some of his exhaustion and pain like a cool wave.

  “When do we leave?”

  Scotty picked up two thick booklets from the cot and handed them to Nifty. He winced as he read one of the covers: Rocktower Ranger Level Three, Corporal Examination.

  “Regulations are regulations,” Scotty said. “We leave when your results for the Corporal examinations are ready to be filed with the Ranger regulatory office.” Scotty sounded extremely self-satisfied. “Rule 478 of the Spelunker’s Guide states: Hyper-mantle excursions are restricted to Rocktower Rangers with a rank no less than or equal to Corporal or Master Ore Surveyor. And don’t worry: Toro will file them once we leave, so I don’t want to hear any ‘what about secrecy?’ nonsense from you.”

  Nifty sighed as he listened to his mentor, a little annoyed at how efficiently he’d been handled yet again.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” Scotty continued, pointing to the large bundle he’d set down earlier. “This arrived from Ragnatex yesterday, from the forges of Smoath. Let’s just hope these upgraded parts you ordered were worth the fuss you caused.”

  Nifty ignored the parts for Riot and looked down at the Key encasing his forearm, a measure of acceptance finally registering. He knew he could deal with the responsibilities that possessing the device would entail—m
ost Rangers could and would be happy to be given the chance. He would find a way to remove it, that’s all there was too it. But he had to maintain a degree of freedom so he had time to search for a solution.

  Nifty decided he wasn’t going down without a fight. He squared his shoulders and planted his feet, figuring that an oblique attack might work best. “Well, how about this then? If we get to the surface, and we have any spare time, Newton told me about a thing topsiders do called bungee jumping…”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  None of the men noticed the mechanical eye watching from one of the shelves, seeing and hearing everything going on in the chamber. Nifty was too busy complaining about the legitimacy of upgrading tests held outside the academy while Scotty deftly deflected each salvo.

  The eye transmitted its signal to a room high-up in one of the Citadel’s tower, a room where Doon sat behind an expansive desk, spinning an ornate letter opener between his index fingers as he watched the transmission.

  The lad had really never been in any real danger. Well, other than from Toro. Doon was glad he didn’t have to issue the order to put the boy out of comission. Of all the candidates, he’d probably spent the most time and resources guiding this lad’s progress as a sleeper agent and assuring that Nifty would be accepted at the Ranger academy. Yet he was—what was that topside saying?—a loose cannon, and it was this that had kept Doon awake more nights than he’d care to admit.

  When he decided to send someone to the machine room—someone with the requisite genetics to control the Key—his first choice had been Oakley. Unfortunately, the incompetent fool had proven to be a resounding failure. It had taken Doon more time than he’d expected to get a hold of the handler responsible for Oakley’s well-being. Doon had wrung as much useful information as he could out of the coward. All that was left was to find the best way to make an example of him while still ensuring his silence.

  Upon assessing the rest of his candidates, he’d decided on competence rather than malleability, despite finding a few surprising irregularities in Nifty’s lineage. The chances of Scotty’s young partner accepting the mercurial device had been extremely low, so Doon felt it necessary to encourage the lad with a trip to the machine room. He had not intended for Nifty to make such an unexpected choice or to act with such haste in placing the Key around his wrist. He had simply meant to leverage the mission to the machine room as a way to guide Nifty into making the right decision.

  Scotty had been another matter entirely. He’d arrived at Doon’s office, face still only partially healed, spitting nails. If Doon hadn’t known better he’d have sworn that his old partner had been ready to come to blows with him as he ran down the list of coincidences that pointed to himself and the lad being manipulated like raw recruits. Doon had found himself telling the man far more than he’d wanted, bending each snippet of information so it almost appeared to be the truth.

  Despite all that, things were going as well as they could be considering the circumstances. The body count fell well within what was reasonable for a task of this size, and he’d made sure none of the deaths would be tied to him or his department. The abduction of the engineers, while not unforeseen, would not affect many of his long term plans. He just hoped the Ring and the Council could be brought together long enough for him to get what he needed.

  As he spun the sharpened letter opener between gnarled fingers he studied the boy. That seemed a little too easy, he thought to himself. He rocked his body back into his expansive chair and began whistling an age-old funeral dirge. His musings circled back to the pressing matter of the Gears of Terraport and the apparent absence of the virus in the machine room—the final proof that Submantle was entering a new age. If Scotty was correct, it wouldn’t go undiscovered for long. He had best plant a few seeds in the Council about the matter before it was too late.

  “Councillor Doon,” said a familiar voice upon entering the office. “A pressing matter has arisen.” Quentin approached him at a brisk pace, all pretense of the stuttering fool vanished.

  Doon arched an eyebrow.

  “A visitor has arrived from the Ragnatex cluster claiming to know the whereabouts of the missing Rangers. She refuses speak to anyone but you. She claims you know her.”

  Doon’s mind ticked through his contacts from Ragnatex, “Well, out with it man. Who is it?”

  “She is the daughter of Commander Dysuss Dripvein.”

  The End

  Book two coming soon.

  SUBMANTLE: THE FLUX LEGACY

  CHAPTER ONE

  Richard woke with the early morning sun peeking through the cracks in the blinds. He lay there for a few moments, enjoying the golden warmth as it slowly enveloped his room. He’d been roused by the sounds of coffee percolating from the brewer in his kitchen. He inhaled deeply and let the rich smell fill his nostrils, urging him out of bed. With a rueful sigh and the realization he was about to end the only peace and quiet he would get all day, he slipped his legs over the side of the bed to where he’d propped his leg brace the night before.

  His attention drifted off to the list of things that still needed to be done for the fair next week. He had several tests to run on the Scorpion, his cave crawling transport, before its big unveiling. He also needed to—

  His musings were cut short when a lancing pain shot up his leg like a lightning bolt as he tightened the last buckle on the brace. Mad at himself for not paying attention, he jumped off the bed, hopping and cursing around the room until the pain subsided slightly and limped off to the bathroom.

  After a brief shower and shave, he returned to his sparsely decorated bedroom, dressed quickly, and gave himself a cursory glance in the mirror. Despite the shock of white hair and matching handle bar mustache, his tall, lean, seventy-five-year old frame could easily pass for a man fifteen years younger.

  Confident that the rest of the family would be satisfied with how he’d cleaned up, he went into the kitchen, poured himself a large cup of coffee, and flicked on the radio. More news of quakes from around the world were reported, bringing the tally to over a dozen in the past two weeks—Indonesia, China, New Zealand, the list went on. They’d even experienced rumblings right here on Grimson Mountain. Fortunately, none of them had done any significant damage, although the last one had been connected to the eruption of a volcano in Peru. He shook his head and wondered what it all meant. Something was amiss in the world and Richard wasn’t ashamed to admit that it had been causing him many a restless nights.

  Turning off the radio with a sigh, he pushed all the worries away and focused on the preparations for the coming day. He left the small suite and passed through the building’s upper offices to a long metal staircase that descended into the workshop nearly three stories below. As he climbed down he examined the floor below and was happy to see that the new programming for the vacuum-bot had been successful. The expansive cement floor glistened like polished marble between nearly a dozen rows of fabricating machines and work benches. He made a mental note to send the prototypes off to his engineering facility so they could complete the designs for a production model.

  He crossed to the bay entrance of the shop, his right knee clicking lightly as he walked. He lifted the small cover on a keypad secured to the wall, and punched in a seven digit code. The mechanism whirred to life and the heavy titanium doors slid open with a quiet rumble.

  Standing at the entrance, he looked out over his farm and inhaled deeply the fresh country air, cradling the coffee between his hands and enjoying its warmth. They had really lucked out with the weather. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and a cool breeze washed in from the east—he couldn’t have asked for better day to run some tests with the Scorpion.

  Across the yard stood the modest two-story farmhouse he’d helped build as a younger man. His son, Michael, and daughter-in-law, Loretta, now lived there with their two children. He could see that Dwight and Davis, the farmhands, had been busy, a new cord of firewood had been stacked neatly along the side of the h
ouse, but the men were nowhere to be seen. The low growl of quad bikes from the pasture behind the barns let Richard know they were probably herding sheep from the inner pastures.

  A flicker of movement caught his attention and he turned to see Roly clearing the tall fence at the far side of the yard between the farmhouse and Grimson forest. The dog landed lightly and trotted lazily towards the shop. Richard had sent him out the night before to run a patrol through the forest and clear out any riff raff he found.

  At over three hundred pounds, Roly was somewhat of a legend in these parts. The dog possessed not a lick of fat. He was a bullet of bunched muscle that very few creatures could hope to contend with. A crossbreed between wolf and mastiff, Roly had been just a ball of fur when Richard brought him home nearly twenty years ago. He’d raised and trained the pup to be a guard dog against the wild animals that would sometimes stray from Grimson Mountain. But sometimes Richard wondered if maybe he’d trained the wolf in him too well. Despite his gentle nature and his playful yet protective attitude to the family, Roly often took his job as farm security a little too seriously. He had developed the unfortunate habit of biting first and barking later. Richard thought it best for everyone if any nervous energy he had was dulled by a night of running.