by J M Guillen
What should our response be? Anya blinked and shook her head the tiniest bit. She continued to fight the effects of the biotoxins.
I hoped against hope that the injections we gave her had been enough. Without a Caduceus there was just no way to know.
“More than anything, I need all of us on the same page. When we close the last of the rifts, pay attention to the response. If they open more, they’re absolutely trying to distract us from something.”
“Copy that, Alpha.” Sofia nodded. “When you’re ready to go, we’re green on my end.” She gestured and ignited a scarlet aperture in front of us. “I’ll link on your word.”
“Hold off.” I raised one finger. “We’re going to go, but we’re going to be ready.”
“You sound like a man with a plan.” Wyatt smiled.
“Strategy.” I nodded at him and smiled. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
5
Clear, Delacruz linked the moment she stepped through. The passageway is short but empty.
Roger that. I stepped in after her, Wraith engaged, and the rest of our cadre followed. We had no clue if the packet would actually help, but at this point, it didn’t seem wise to take any chances.
Localized rift is less than seventy-five meters away, Anya reported. There are seven other Irrational targets nearby. I am updating your interface to show their locations. As she linked, Anya indicated the large room twenty-three meters to our east.
The passageway we stood in jogged to the east before it took a sharp turn north. From there, it opened into the large room.
We don’t have to go that way, Wyatt pointed out. If we take this alternate route we can avoid that room altogether. His indicated path showed on my Crown.
That’s the plan, I nodded. If we can stay out of sight and off their radar, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
Delacruz and I crept down the shadowed hallway as we… both took point?
I didn’t even know if it mattered anymore.
Rather than turn toward the large room, we went the opposite way when the hallway came to a T.
Wyatt, can we leave a stasis trap here, in case someone gets clever?
On it, Alpha.
Behind us a moment later, I heard WHUF! echo down the hallway.
Sofia, I’d like you to set a quarrel every few meters. We may need lots of fall back positions.
Makes sense. As she spoke, she fired the gatekeeper at our feet.
Michael? Slight panic threaded Anya’s link. Please check your relay and confirm Amir’s position.
Amir’s token revealed him to be in the large room with the other Irrats.
Holy shit. I gaped at the interface. Anya, is this correct?
It is impossible to know, she responded. Without Asset Gardener here, it is possible to receive a misqueue from the Huntsman’s mecha and not be aware.
It misqueued and placed him on our back porch? Sofia seemed unconvinced.
That asshole did not just move three-quarters of a kilometer in a matter of seconds. I felt Wyatt’s growl through the link. We have no data that indicates he can shift the axioms of space-time.
He’s either here or the system is mistaken. I shook my head. It doesn’t matter. If it’s the system, no problem. If it’s him, then we’re already in the middle of his bullshit.
It wasn’t the system. I knew it in my bones.
Alpha, I can set spikes in the walls as we progress. Just in case.
Right, I acknowledged. Wyatt, let’s just assume you’re a genius and know far better than I do about how to use Rosie.
Well, I felt him grin. I mean, I am. Pause. And I do.
Use the damn thing at your discretion. Sofia, you too. If you guys need to lay down collateral to be effective, then do it.
Door. Delacruz had paid attention while we linked, and she’d seen it before I had.
A common wooden bedroom door blocked the archway to the next room and clashed horribly with the surrounding death decor.
Shit. That couldn’t be good. I seriously doubted that ancient Roman catacombs had modern doors installed often.
Anya, I assume if you read anything Irrational in front of us, you’ll let us know.
Telemetry shows nothing. Michael. The blueprint file shows the hallway ahead widens considerably. It is wide enough to be a small room.
Maybe after the door. I skewed up my mouth in a frown. We’ll hold here and regroup. I don’t want to approach anything unknown unless we’re in force.
I still couldn’t shake the idea that something stank.
Do you hear that? Delacruz linked to me alone. From behind the door?
We crept forward, and as we grew closer, I did hear something. Rhythmic, almost soothing litanies came from behind that door. A single, male voice raised in a muffled chant.
Only one. I pressed my ear close to the door and wished I’d geared the Spectre.
Unless there’s seventy of them and only one is making any noise, Delacruz snarked.
I held one finger over my lips, signaling her to remain quiet. Not that she could see me. Damn. I wanted to catch whatever the mysterious man said.
“[Throdlum, who bears the Many Young, Bringer of the Delving Deep, hear me.]”
Fuck. I linked my entire cadre but then directed a question at Anya. No Irrational telemetry?
None, Michael.
Well, I bet that’s about to change. I leaned toward the door and listened again.
“[Throdlum, who is Kiggolatta, the Rotting Pestilence. Our sacrifice is made unto you. The great paths of the sky open, great one, and your holy time comes.]”
The ninth? Like the ninth of January? Sofia linked me. Do you think that’s what he means by ‘time’?
No fucking clue.
“[Grant me use of your many gates, the secret to the unfathomable. Allow me to spread your name across the sunlit world.]”
I’m at your six, Alpha, Wyatt linked. What’s the play here?
Italian Zealator inside. I want a stasis trigger behind us. I’d like a link on everyone’s visual that shows ambient Rationality levels.
That’s easily done. Anya nodded, and in that same instant orange numerals appeared in the upper left-hand corner of my vision.
They read negative point three five.
Not quite Rational are we? Wyatt grimaced.
We are well within standards, Anya pointed out. Long-range telemetry would have read that as true Rational.
I’m going in first, I informed them. I know, that’s not typical for an Alpha. However, the case is I am geared as a combat Asset. I paused. Also, I say so.
Fine, Wyatt chuckled as he linked.
Delacruz, if things go south in there, take us back behind Wyatt’s stasis trigger. I’d like for anything in roaring pursuit to get stuck.
Alpha? I felt frown lines furrow Sofia’s brow. Has the chanting stopped?
No. I stopped for a moment, then realized it had. Yes. No more talking. I straightened and reached for the handle.
Naturally, that was the moment the door opened, smacking me squarely in my face.
Shit! I saw momentary stars. The door had caught me squarely in my invisible nose.
“[What?]” a woman’s voice, vastly different than the chanter’s, blurted. “[Who’s there? You’re not] David!”
I heard the cocking of a pistol.
Sofia stepped forward, and in one quick motion, jabbed the woman in the face.
“Ow!” She stumbled backward, obviously not expecting to be punched in the face by what seemed like nothing.
I grabbed the door as she fell inside and flung it wide open.
Sorry about that, Alpha. I mean, you are the one geared as a combat Asset. I felt Sofia’s lips quirk up in a sarcastic smile.
Oh, holy shit. Wyatt’s link held just the proper mix of horrified awe and stunned surprise.
As I stood in the doorway, I peered past the elderly gentleman who stood at the worktables. A second door, also newly installed, re
sted in the far wall. Dozens of laden shelves lined the sides of the room.
Shelves full of amphorae.
There must’ve been fifty of them, each sealed with rune-covered stones of Turkish Jade.
“[Fools!],” the man said predictably, as if he read from the same script as the rest. His Italian flowed smoothly, but his deep voice lent a horrific gravitas to the tongue. “[You have come to your own deaths!]”
Rationality dipping, Michael! Even as Anya said it, I watched the numbers on my visual drop another point.
Got him, Delacruz snarled through the link.
As the Zealator pulled forth a disk of inscribed clay, his eyes wide with crazed fury, Delacruz ignited an aperture over his head, flush with the ceiling.
Grinning, she shot him in the chest with the gatekeeper crossbow.
“Aarkk!” The man stumbled backward and dropped the disk on the floor in stunned surprise. In an instant, he vanished, only to reappear two meters off the floor. On his way to the ground, he cracked his head on the table.
Heh. Wyatt linked.
Nice. I nodded at Delacruz. Perhaps I’m not the only one combat geared.
I’m just saying, she chuckled.
Michael! Anya stepped forward and leveled a kick at the woman on the floor who’d regained her gun.
“Ack!” the woman cried and rolled to one side.
Anya’s kick had caught her in the shoulder, although I suspected that hadn’t been on purpose. More likely she intended to kick the pistol from the woman’s hand.
The Preceptor’s mistake was assuming the woman sought to aim her weapon at us.
Instead, the woman aimed the semi-automatic at the side of the room.
At the dozens of amphorae stored there.
“Throdlum!” she cried in ecstasy.
The moment she pulled the trigger, the pottery began to break. As the amphorae shattered, furious, death-blue water began to boil and froth.
“[Bear me! Show me the unfathomable!]” the woman cried.
No! Wild fury twined through Delacruz’s link. In less than two seconds, the Gatekeeper had thrown up an aperture between the woman and the as-yet-whole amphorae. As the madwoman’s bullets tore into the gateway, they exited from the one on the ceiling and made certain the old man was now, in absolute fact, a corpse.
The madwoman rolled on the floor in an attempt to avoid Anya’s boot.
I stepped closer, dialed down the focus on my kinetic disruptors, and put a hole in her skull.
The song of blood upon the floor echoed through me, passion scrawled in crimson beauty.
My heartbeat answered that song, a paean of sacred—
I blinked and shook my head.
Apparently, my meds had run thin.
Alpha! Wyatt frantically pounded his keys. We’ve got multiple incursions here!
Seven, Anya reported, even as I watched Rationality factors dip three more points. Nine now.
In less than a minute, a simple situation had spiraled horrifically out of control.
Wyatt! Seal them! Toggling the Adept, I leapt toward the shelves and caught hold of two jars about to plummet to the stone floor.
“ROOOaaaak.” From the far side of the room, one of the bestial toads had already crawled forth from its maddeningly azure pool. It glared up at us, and its dark eyes burned with a midnight fury. “Rooooooak!”
“Fucking damnit!” I disengaged the Wraith, as it apparently did no good against these guys.
I hadn’t taken a single step before the croaking nuisance leapt further down the row of shelves. It seized one of the amphorae and hurled it with malevolent glee.
The elegant jar shattered against the far wall.
Eleven incursions.
Wyatt? I leapt at the creature, disruptor in one hand and katana in the other. What the fuck, man?
It’s the aberrant vectors? Maybe? He punctuated the link with a WHUF! My system still isn’t right, Hoss, I dunno.
Before I could respond, one of his stasis fields blossomed around the spike and covered two rifts at once. Unusually, however, the surface of the field pulsed a brassy bronze, instead of the silvery, mirror brightness it typically held.
Um… I shook my head.
“Rooak. Rooooak.” Another of the aberrations crawled out of its watery portal, all slick skin and soulless eyes.
As I spun toward it, Shogun-class katana at the ready, it leapt away, faster than I could track.
I can’t get a tracking location. Sofia slowly spun in place and tapped furiously at the few keys in the back of her Corona. Alpha, the Gatekeeper is practically useless in here.
WHUF! WHUF! WHUF! Wyatt peppered the far side of the room with spikes. He ignited the first one into a stasis field, and it flickered for a moment before solidifying into the brassy shine.
Not good, Hoss. Wyatt struck his keys frantically. I keep getting remainders! Photonic remainders, of all fucking things. Kinetic, too.
Fix it, Wyatt! I leapt to one side, dodging one of the frog-fuckers.
Its moist skin glistened, and it hissed at me where it landed.
Engaging, Michael. Anya held a SIG in each hand and moved to the center of the room. Her head twitched as she assessed the situation, Preceptor processors cataloging everything.
I’m at your back. I stepped close to her, a katana in each hand. I figured this way, I could keep toady at bay while she shot.
She fired, three short bursts.
At each, one of the aberrations fell. Anya hadn’t exaggerated when she teased about her skill with a firearm.
I was amazing, of course, but my skill came from the Adept and the injectables to the Stilettos.
Anya had earned her stripes the old-fashioned way. After an adventure in the Mojave several years ago where she’d found herself helpless, Anya had sworn it would never happen again. She’d probably practiced with firearms every day. The martial arts she’d taken up only made her more dangerous. If I were ever to face her zero-geared, I had no doubt who would come out on top.
In the words of Wyatt Guthrie, Anya Petrova did not play fuck-around.
We need to fall back. Sofia frantically tinkered with both the gatekeeper crossbow and the Temporal Corona that hovered near the back of her head. I can’t calibrate the Gatekeeper. Not near all of these rifts!
Spunky Spice has a point, Alpha. Wyatt cursed, and I heard his fingers madly key equations into his system.
Ominously, both active stasis fields flickered and whined loudly.
“Fucking shit.” He hit three more buttons, and the flickering stopped.
I need a baseline Rationality in order to configure the Gatekeeper, Sofia reiterated. And even though he’s too proud to say it, I know that Bubba’s gear works along similar parameters.
Five minutes. I felt Wyatt’s frustration bleed through the link. If I had five minutes, I could prequeue the appropriate shots. He paused. Yeah, I could do this.
Okay. I took a good look around. Anya had continued blowing the faces off amphibious horrors, which was good. However, that created a problem at a completely different level.
The corpses began to writhe horrifically with the aberrations’ young. In a matter of moments, the young would begin to seek out new hosts, an issue I wasn’t exactly certain how to fix.
Go. Fall back until you find you can calibrate your gear. I winced as I heard another of the amphorae shatter. We’ll hold them off here, as best we can.
This won’t take five minutes. Sofia grabbed Wyatt by the arm.
But it might. The giant barbarian gave me a glare. Turquoise numerics flitted by on his oculus. You certain, Hoss?
Go! I frowned at him. Consider it an order.
Come on ’Bama. Delacruz began to drag the large man. Let’s get this done.
6
Five aberrations down, seven active. Anya linked me the moment the rest of our cadre left the room. Nine active rifts.
Understood. I sheathed one of my katana and drew a disruptor pistol with my left h
and. Using my thumb, I flipped the focus as wide as possible.
It would be preferable if the remaining amphorae remained whole. She took aim and shot one of the infested deformities in the leg.
“GROOOaaaach!” it screeched, fell to the ground, and made several rapid croaks, as if terrified.
The truth smacked me in the face.
Anya had said five of the aberrants were down. Now that I looked, I realized she’d mostly maimed the creatures. Likely because she’d realized the same thing I had—once the slimy bastards died, their progeny sought a host.
Therefore, Anya had made certain to leave them alive, yet wounded beyond the capacity for movement.
I know it would be preferable if the amphorae remained whole. I frowned at her a little over the link. I have been paying attention!
As I linked, the odds changed yet again. Along the left hand wall, two more of the amphibious aberrations clawed their way out of the water, blinked inhumanly, and let out a simultaneous, “Roooooaaaak.”
Twin pairs of eyes stared squarely through me, haunted and mad.
Along the right side, another toady plopped wetly into the room. This light-green monstrosity pulled itself out of the pool quickly, took two short hops, and then leapt straight at us.
“Rooooaaak!” It stretched its arms out, wicked claws reaching, and bared teeth like jagged blades.
The thing horrified me.
Anya!
I didn’t even need to link. Before I’d gotten the first syllable out, she had both of her weapons up and shot a barbari-toad squarely in the head.
It fell into a boneless, unmoving heap.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the aberration’s larvae. The moment momma frog fell still, they began to wriggle free from her corpse.
Got it, I linked Anya. Keep the rest of them at bay.
Understood, Michael.
“Roaak! Rooooooak!” A few more hopped closer, wary of our weapons.
I glanced at them and took two steps to the side, keeping my disruptor aimed at the corpse. So the kinetic energy wouldn’t have even a sliver of a chance to rebound into the shelves, I stepped wide.
The last thing we needed was more rifts.
“Roooa—!”
Anya fired twice as some of the aberrations got too close.