Landing beside the hole, he hit the ground running. “Olivia, now!”
“Received.”
A second passed, and as he ran the load-bearing pillars in the foundation exploded, the entire building began to rumble. For a moment, the rest of the museum behaved as though it had not yet realized the floor had just been yanked out from under it. The building began losing its structural integrity from the ground up, and Jonathan didn’t risk the time it would take looking for an easy opening. He launched himself at the exterior wall, put his shoulder into it, and burst out into the daylight.
He made it to the adjacent building and anchored himself just in time to watch the museum complete its metamorphosis into a pile of rubble.
Jonathan used the time to catch his breath. He got on the comm. “I think that might slow him down for a min—”
A large block in the pile shifted. For a moment Jonathan hoped it was just the debris settling, but then the rubble bulged from within, and a large heap of the surface began to tumble down from the rest of the small hill of wreckage. Chunks of debris began to move as Malkier fought his way out.
Jonathan sighed heavily at the sight, then got moving again. He only made it to the next roof when Malkier exploded back out of the museum’s remains.
Grant was soaking wet when he stepped through the conduit into The Never. He stumbled into water up to his waist and gaped at the state of the city. Half the skyline gone. Most of the buildings still standing were riddled with holes and structural damage.
Yet, for a brief moment after he stepped through—everything was quiet. If Jonathan’s plan had worked, and everything he’d seen on the Feroxian Plane indicated it had, then that made sense. The city, for the foreseeable future, had expelled every Ferox from The Never. Given the amount of water that had come through the conduit—which Grant had just nearly drowned in, what remained of Malkier’s army would be hard-pressed to reach the conduit.
The Borealis was alone and cut off from reinforcements.
This was their chance.
For about a split second, Grant wondered how to make himself useful. He didn’t know where the fight was, but he needed to be there. The memories of his shadow haunted him still. He needed to prove to himself he wasn’t that person, he refused to be that person.
He was just about to try the comm when he heard a loud thud to the north. Actually, it was more like a gong.
He had to run up a steep hill of downed buildings circling the conduit, he did so just in time to see the Space Needle swaying drunkenly before falling and smashing into the street.
“Don’t see that every day,” Grant said, setting off toward the sounds of wreckage.
When the inevitable finally started catching up to Jonathan, he was at the south end of a short tunnel, where the I-5 freeway ran beneath the convention center passing through downtown. He’d been standing on the freeway, jumped backward when Malkier tried to get hold of him.
But it was a feint and he hadn’t realized it fast enough. The Borealis was quick, barreling into him the moment he’d slipped his grip. The shoulder plate of Malkier’s armor had rammed him so hard while he was still jumping back that his feet never touched ground.
What followed, was Jonathan shooting though the tunnel like a rocket with no control. His body shot backward headfirst, he had ricocheted off the sides of the tunnel and bounced off the street. Most of it was a blur of pain. By the time he finally exited the other side into daylight, he was parting the water that had flooded the freeway like a speedboat and his armor was skidding across the surface of the street. He finally slowed enough to come to a stop against a long steel girder from the remains of a building that had collapsed across the freeway when it fell.
“Well . . . that felt about right,” he said through a painful wheeze.
“Jonathan, are you clear?” Olivia asked.
He’d left his comm link open. She’d likely just heard every painful grunt and crash as he’d ricocheted his way through the tunnel.
He opened his eyes, at first he thought that there were two rather long cracks through his helmet’s visor. He realized it was the same crack, he was just seeing two of them.
“Detonate the tunnel,” Jonathan said.
The Earth shook, and a large eruption of fire shot out of the opening that he’d just been spit from. A dust cloud followed shortly after as the tunnel collapsed. They had played this game already though, and Jonathan knew it wouldn’t hold the Borealis for long.
“How . . . how much longer do I have to keep this up?”
“Seven and a half minutes,” Olivia said. “Are you injured?”
Good question, he thought as he tried to push himself onto hands and knees. The black exterior coating of his armor was alien, it could take a lot of damage, but his journey had been rough, and half the alien steel plates across his torso and legs were now exposed.
He wobbled pulling himself to a knee in two feet of water. He could feel a feebleness he wasn’t going to shake off—not as fast as he needed to.
“I got two tricks left, Olivia,” he said. “I don’t know if I can make it seven . . .”
He trailed off. Looking down at his hands and realizing they were empty. He closed his eyes and shuddered with a frustration so overwhelming he could have cried right then and there.
Excali-bar. He’d dropped Excali-bar somewhere in the tunnel. The tunnel he’d just collapsed.
“One. I’ve got one trick. We’ve gotta keep him in The Nev—”
He froze, he could feel Malkier coming. Not in his mind, but in the shaking of the ground as the damn Borealis pushed his way free and came for him.
Malkier could feel Brings the Rain’s stillness as he barreled his way out of the fallen wreckage. Knew the man had hardly moved since he came to a stop. By the time he broke free into the open air and saw daylight at the other end of the tunnel, he could see the man. Struggling, barely able to reach his knees.
He cleared the distance between them in a split second, splashing down onto the freeway. The wave from his landing nearly enough to push the man back over.
Jonathan looked up at him and forced himself to stand. He couldn’t manage it with dignity, looked like a drunk man stumbling against the current in a river.
By the time he steadied himself enough to keep from falling over, Malkier had taken the first steps forward.
“Hey,” Jonathan said, pointing a finger at Malkier’s right arm. “Look, scratched your armor.”
Malkier paused, looking down to see for himself. Then wiped away a small twig to reveal a pristine Borealis plate of steel remained.
“Ah, dammit,” Jonathan said. “Couldn’t just let me have it?”
Malkier sighed and began to come closer again.
“You uh, you sure you don’t need a break, big fella?”
Malkier reached to take hold of his neck. “Words will not save y—”
His fingers gripped nothing, passed through Jonathan’s neck as though he were insubstantial. It was at that moment, it occurred to him, that the Jonathan he had been about to strangle didn’t feel as close in his mind as his eyes suggested.
The fist came from below. The real Brings the Rain rising from the water, up and through his own hologram. His upper cut caught the Borealis under the chin. For a moment, Malkier was helpless as he traveled along a wide arc up and over the freeway, only to crash down with a splash back at the mouth of the tunnel.
He clenched his teeth as water flowed over him, more annoyed with having fallen for yet another of the man’s traps than any physical harm. He growled as he moved to get back to his feet. But again, he felt something unexpected. Jonathan was coming toward him—not fleeing.
He sat up in the water just in time to see Jonathan coming at him from above. Doomsday was no longer around his chest, one end was wrapped tightly around his hand, and the chain was trailing something. In fact, Jonathan was bringing the chain up and over his head.
For a split second before it came down o
n him, Malkier thought he saw the spiked tip of the chain driven through a heavy steel girder.
As Jonathan landed in the water a few feet away he saw how the girder had sunk into the street. Could see the water flowing into a hole Malkier’s body had just punched into the highway.
He staggered a bit, grunted. He knew better than to think Malkier anything but surprised, could feel the bastard already regaining his wits to push the metal off. As he did so, Jonathan pulled in the slack and yanked the girder into the air. He turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees as he was whipping the bar back around when Malkier’s helmet emerged out the water.
But he no longer had the element of surprise. Malkier planted one foot and put his arm up to block. The girder crashed into him, and the force moved him a few feet as the Borealis’s armored foot drove through the highway. The girder itself bent around his arm without so much as knocking Malkier over.
It was time to move. But as Jonathan went to do so, he found he couldn’t. He turned just in time to see Malkier holding tight to the other end of Doomsday.
“Oh, god dam—”
Yanked from his feet by the chain looped around his hand he flew at Malkier helplessly. He came to a jarring stop with a gauntlet around his neck. He reached for the hand to try and pry it off but couldn’t.
He heard a grunt of effort from Malkier before he was hammered down into the street. The impact took everything out of him. The visor of his helmet gave way, and water rushed in as his HUD went dark.
He barely held onto consciousness as he felt Malkier pull him back out of the water and hold him in the air.
“So, familiar,” Malkier said, as he looked at Jonathan. “But not quite right.”
Malkier’s free hand reached for the remains of his helmet, his claw so large it nearly engulfed the entirety of Jonathan’s head. He fought to keep his eyes open as Malkier applied pressure, and the helmet broke into pieces and fell into the water.
He remembered being Douglas. He remembered how his father had died on that rooftop. He remembered . . .
Jonathan spit a mouthful of blood into the Borealis’s face.
“I didn’t get to see Echoes the Borealis, or the woman die,” Malkier said. “But I will remember this.”
He grabbed the front of Jonathan’s armor to pull it from his chest. The alien fabric, already ragged, tearing away under the Borealis strength. The glow of Jonathan’s device exposed, reflecting off Malkier’s armor as the prophet slowly brought his hands up, fingers forming a spear between them.
Jonathan struggled uselessly. He couldn’t even reach the water with the gleamers as Malkier’s grip tightened on his neck. What little strength he had left failing as each breath grew harder and harder to pull into his lungs.
Then, suddenly, he was free.
As though Malkier had been hit by a tank, something unseen violently jarred them over. As the grip the prophet had on him suddenly let go, Jonathan fell into water. He felt himself rolling with the same momentum that Malkier had been the main recipient of. He choked on water at first, then felt a hand, a smaller human hand pulled him back onto his knees where he could breathe.
For a moment, as his vision cleared, he saw nothing to explain what had happened. Then Grant’s cloak came down.
Standing over him like this with Excali-bar in hand. He looked up into the man’s face and Grant flinched away. Seemed to find it hard to look down into his eyes when they glowed as they did. Then again, there was something familiar about all this that Jonathan didn’t care to remember either.
Grant sighed. “I saw you drop it.”
He held the demolition bar out to him, and as Jonathan reached up and took it, for the briefest moment, he had to admit he was glad to see Grant Morgan.
“So, just me, or were you trying to die before making yourself useful?” Grant asked.
An exhausted smile came to Jonathan, cut short by the effort it took for him to get to his feet. “Where’s Malkier?”
Grant gestured vaguely to a hole in the side of the retaining wall. The water that had been trapped on the freeway overpass now gushing over the side into downtown. “Hit him with everything I had. It’ll take him a moment to walk it off.”
Jonathan, already splitting Excali-bar apart at the center, shook his head. “Dropped buildings on him. Trust me, you barely slowed him—”
His HUD had been lost when Malkier destroyed his helmet, but Grant had his visor pulled back and they could both hear his proximity warning going off. They exchanged a look and then launched themselves in opposite directions. The armored prophet crashed down, having intended to land on the both of them but instead only leaving a crater in what was left of the pavement.
He’d not had the time to look before he leaped, and as a result Jonathan was diving out over the side of the freeway. As he sped down toward the city streets below, he tried for the gleamers to stabilize him. Unfortunately, a number of the discs had been damaged over the last few minutes and without his HUD he got no warning. Instead of a controlled hover over the water, he suddenly jerked sideways, spun himself about and landed flat on his back with a splash.
He hardly thought of the fall as an injury after the hits he’d taken, but he was bruised up and disoriented to the point that he was slow. At the moment, he ignored his aches and pains, along with every instinct to find somewhere soft and lie down.
His mind was focused on one thing as he pulled himself out of the water onto a pile of rubble that had once been part of a building. He laid the half of Excali-bar he’d managed to keep hold of across his lap. His hands struggling to push down on the flat surface where the two halves connected when the weapon was whole.
A small cylinder made from alien steel ejected from the center of the bar into his palm. He let the bar roll off him and back into the water as he lifted the cylinder.
The AI hadn’t told him. Hadn’t said that he’d given it a name. But there, written across the side of the cylinder read the words: Mr. Hyde. As Jonathan’s fist tightened around it, a long thin needle came out on one end.
Malkier’s gaze drifted slowly over the freeway. For a moment, Grant felt the Borealis’ stare as though the eyes of that helmet lingered on him too long. Grant didn’t move—didn’t dare to breathe. Finally, Malkier turned away, sweeping back to where Jonathan had disappeared, and following him over the side of the overpass.
Grant closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath before he could move. He remembered how much his shadow had feared this monster.
His cloak hiding everything but his footsteps, he made his way through the water. Soon, he was standing where they had been before Malkier tried to smash the two of them. He saw a glint of light in the water. The half of Excali-bar Jonathan had left behind, lying there on the ground. He reached down and pulled it out of the water, and for a moment it seemed the length of alien steel hovered in the air. As he tightened his grip, the cloak adjusted—extending itself to cover the steel.
He made his way to the overpass’s edge, saw Jonathan and Malkier below. Jonathan wasn’t moving. He watched Malkier, exhaustion and pain impossible to hide. Yet, he stared at that armored monolith, raised one hand, and beckoned Malkier forward. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look scared—he just looked like he was gonna take whatever the damn Borealis had to give him. He would endure or he would die. Either way, he was done running.
Grant closed his eyes and . . . he did hesitate. Some might have said he hesitated a moment longer than he was proud of—one hair longer then he should have. But, he launched himself off that freeway. He gritted his teeth, growled and threw himself at the monster.
He landed hard on Malkier’s back, with enough force to stagger him, as he brought his half of Excali-bar down around Malkier’s neck. Grant reared back with all his strength. Malkier was confused—but only for a few seconds, as the metal clanged to a stop against his armored chin. The Borealis swung about wildly, like a rodeo bull, trying to buck him off—but Grant’s grip on each side of the b
ar was tight and he had leverage.
That was until one of the Borealis’ massive claws clamped down on his wrist, and the other took hold of the bar beneath his chin. Then he began to pull in opposite directions. Grant growled in effort, and then in pain, as Malkier’s strength overwhelmed his own. He knew he’d just spent his life, but he’d thought he was gonna buy Jonathan more than just a few seconds.
The moment he lost hold of the bar it sprang back into Malkier’s fist. At the same time the grip Malkier had on his wrist was unbreakable. Grant felt his body ripped off Malkier’s back and smashed into the pavement.
Thwack . . . Thwack . . . Thwack . . . Thwack.
The experience repeated itself over and over again—Grant had felt himself go limp somewhere between the first and second agonizing crash. He felt Malkier let go—felt himself fall and hit the ground. He opened his eyes and saw the rim of a hole Malkier had just hammered into the street with his body. It seemed like looking up from the bottom of a grave.
Malkier stared down at him for a moment. Seeming to wait to see if he would move. When Grant couldn’t, Malkier’s fist came up. In the Alpha Ferox’s hand, the half of Excali-bar looked a bit like a stake.
Grant felt it when Malkier drove it through his chest. Yet, it wasn’t a wholly unfamiliar thing—that pain. He remembered dying the same way once before. Except, he’d been on the wrong side that time. He felt Malkier lift him one last time, and the pain was excruciating. The Borealis used Excali-bar like he was the appetizer at the end of a toothpick. He stared at Grant a moment, then tossed him aside onto a pile of debris.
As the light faded around Grant, his vision like dark tunnels that seemed to be shrinking, he watched Malkier turn his full attention back to Jonathan.
The Never Army Page 85