Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  It was spooky. And—Oh, Alpha be damned, I need to go check on our latest graft assay. I’ll be back soon.>>

  “So they are sick,” I said.

  “And human blood is the only treatment,” Elise added.

  “That’s what I took away from all this,” James said. “But there’s more, too. Therese’s team was trying to figure out how to harness the regenerative machinery of the raknoth tissues for medical applications.”

  “But?” I asked.

  “But apparently the raknoth tissues kept pulling some kind of hostile takeover of whatever human or animal samples they touched. Like a virus, almost. And the only thing that could slow the process down was—”

  “Human blood?” Elise said.

  James nodded uneasily. “I’m thinking that’s how the, uh, hybrids might’ve gotten started. Some kind of early trial. Or an accidental infection, or…”

  “A not accidental one?” I provided.

  James’ swallow was audible, and I didn’t blame him one bit.

  “There’s one more thing,” he said, reaching for the tablet.

  <
  We’ve all been wondering for years what these raknoth look like, what manner of creatures these raknoth are, but we have yet to see one in person, or in… whatever. Doug’s best guess, though—from the admittedly small amount of information he has to work back from—is that they’re fairly small creatures.

  About the size of a human brain, he told me today.

  Those were his words. The size of a human brain. We’d already heard his report that the raknoth were likely small, but the way he said it today, it was like there was a reason he didn’t just say, “About the size of a dew melon,” or something less… creepy. Like he’d been thinking about raknoth and brains a lot lately.

  So, after five years of study, here’s a quick summary of what we actually know about these things. They’re likely damn tough. They somehow exhibit parasitic behavior even at the subcellular level. They seem to require human blood to survive. And, last and maybe creepiest, we have reason to believe they’re about the size of a human brain.

  This is purely wild speculation, but I can’t help wonder: what if the raknoth aren’t actually quarantined up north? We’ve all wondered how they’re surviving up there without the human blood they presumably need. I’ve been assuming that, since we’re getting samples, we must be sending supplies to them as well. But what if that’s not it at all? What if they’re already among the population, feeding? How would they go unnoticed? How would you slip into a totally novel society and hope to blend in?

  I think I’d take over one of the natives, if I could. Slip in. Learn from their memories. Take control. Become them. In other words, I think I’d take over one of their brains.

  Or take its place…

  Alpha, I sound like a delusional nut.

  I’m tired. I need more data before I rattle out any more wild conspiracy theories. I just… have a bad feeling. About all of this.>>

  I stared at the tablet, my own bad feeling thickening in the pit of my stomach. It sounded like Therese had figured it all out. And if she’d tried to get the word out, as these audio logs seemed to indicate…

  “What happened to her?”

  James looked at Carlisle, who nodded. With a grim expression, James started the last audio file.

  <
  Those things I said about talking to Doug, about him happily resigning… I don’t think they’re true. I can’t… It’s all mixed up in my head. I don’t know how to explain it.

  I’m not crazy.

  Alton Parker. I think he did this to me somehow. I don’t know how. I think the raknoth have converted him, made him one of their own. I think he’s—

  Thud. Thud.

  Oh sc—

  Crack.

  Hey! What the hell are you doing? You can’t—Hey! Stop! Don’t—>>

  I listened in horror as Therese Brown was roughly dragged away from her recorder, kicking and screaming until James paused the file.

  Silence hung in the air.

  “Sweet Alpha,” Elise finally whispered.

  James bobbed his head. “Yeah.”

  I looked at Carlisle, whose brow was furrowed in a troubled expression. “You think they put her on one of those racks?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  The same racks from which he and I had failed to liberate a single soul back at Vantage. Had Therese Brown been one of those poor victims? The panic in her voice at the end there…

  I buried my face in my hands, guilt crashing down on me. I barely even heard what Elise said next. Something about us having kept her in the dark. An apology from James. Some back and forth about what we’d just listened to. I could barely form a coherent thought for the wild maelstrom racing through my head.

  This was it. As awful as I felt for Therese and those like her, as worried as I was about Franco and Phineas, these were the answers we’d been looking for. If we could get into Sanctuary, get this out there for the rest of Enochia to hear…

  I moved my right arm experimentally, assessing the pain and wondering how quickly I could be back in proper fighting condition.

  “Ah, yeah,” James said, apparently noticing my cringe. “We grabbed something for that, too.” He opened the dark case from the bag to reveal a line of cylindrical vials packed neatly beside a larger injector.

  “Tissue scaffold gels,” he explained, plucking a vial from the case. “Infused with nanites and other good stuff. Guess it’s about time you were conscious for a dose, huh?”

  Not really sure whether to agree or disagree, I gingerly followed his gestured directive to remove my shirt. An uncharacteristic calm settled over James as he focused on the task of cleaning my wounds and readying the injector. I only half-noticed. My mind was already back on Therese’s logs, and the raknoth.

  Aliens. Was it really possible? I’d never stopped thinking of them as demons, but Carlisle had said as much right from the start. Maybe that’s why I felt so numb to the realization. Or maybe it was just that, much as the revelation would shock the world, I knew it didn’t matter anymore because, either way, the raknoth were our enemies.

  Our enemies who apparently required human blood to survive.

  Was that what this had always been about? Not demons of the nether, spreading misery for the sake of pure evil, but rather a strange race simply doing what they must to survive?

  Had my parents died for nothing more than cosmic chance?

  I didn’t realize I was trembling until Elise’s hand found mine and squeezed. I looked up and found James hovering nervously, having paused at his work. I nodded to him, and he resumed without a word.

  We needed to move on this. On all of it.

  How long before Vantage’s new facility was ready to begin harvesting blood and churning out hybrids at Alpha knew how many hundreds or thousands of civilians a day? How long before Franco and Phineas were moved to a permanent detention facility, or slated for execution? Before they were interrogated—assuming it hadn’t already happened?

  I squeezed Elise’s hand back, trying my best to look reassuring. “We’ll get them back, Elise.”

  “I know we will,” she said quietly, her eyes somewhere far away. “No matter what.”

  I glanced at James and Carlisle. “And these logs…”

  “We’re going to splice them with the footage from the labs,” James said, “along with some of the other evidence on the drive. We’ve already got some of it figured out.”

  “Will it be enough?” I asked, to no one in particular.

  “Alone,” Carlisle said, “they could probably bury any single piece of it as a fabrication. Our word versus theirs.”

  “But Enochia wo
n’t be able to ignore all of it,” Elise said. “Not all of it together. Not when the reporters start digging, connecting the pieces.”

  Carlisle nodded. “I agree. The truth will prevail this time.”

  “Okay,” I said, rising and looking around at our ragged crew before pulling on my shirt.

  James dropped my gaze when I met his eyes, looking almost abashed as he tucked the injector away and grabbed a fresh bandage. “There’s just one more thing,”

  “What?” I asked, my stomach sinking.

  “We think Enochia should hear your story first,” Carlisle said. “What the raknoth did to your family. What they’re going to do next. You and your father were respected members of the Legion. Even after everything they’ve said in the reels, that fact will at least get the people’s attention. Then we can hit them with the footage James compiles.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Me? Bare my story for Enochia? It sounded… dirty somehow. Not to mention mortifying. At least up until I remembered what they were already saying about me. The world thought I was a terrorist who’d helped murder my own parents. Could it really get much worse?

  Probably. But it didn’t matter. The world needed the truth. And, whatever they might say about me, my parents’ memory deserved better than that.

  “Fine,” I said, pulling on my shirt and sinking back into my chair, trying to gather my thoughts. “Get the camera.”

  34

  Homecoming

  An eerie silence filled the dark skimmer cab, interrupted only by the muffled crashes of ocean waves on rocks. We flew low over the water, skirting along the cliff face parallel to the west wall of Sanctuary high above. Up there, the sky was hazy with the faint glow of Sanctuary lights, and those of Divinity beyond. Down by the water, though, darkness permeated everything.

  The only light in the skimmer came from the controls and the dim windshield display that guided James’ flying without the need for big shiny skimmer lights. The tug of acceleration joined the anxious churning in my stomach as he swooped the skimmer upward and banked around to the north cliff face.

  Next to me, Elise was a silhouette. I found her hand and gave it a squeeze.

  Scuddy as the visibility was with just the windshield display, I expected it would take us several slow sweeps back and forth before we had any hope of spotting the concealed entrance we’d gleaned from Smirks’ memories. Assuming we found it at all.

  In the four days we’d spent planning and training—and, occasionally, eating and sleeping—this had been the part that had scared me the most. Because, as dangerous as the rest would be, if we didn’t find this entrance, we were gropped, plain and simple.

  Thankfully, we had Carlisle. He must’ve been searching with more than his eyes, because he pointed to a spot of pure darkness above in short order. “There.”

  James gently steered us up, up. Under a rocky protrusion, over a large crag, and into a tight tunnel, so dark that James was forced to nudge the skimmer’s lights to dim to see anything at all. Perhaps fifty feet into the cliff, the claustrophobic passage opened to a small, unadorned hangar that had been hollowed straight out of the stone.

  I wiggled some of the achy stiffness from my arm as James guided the skimmer down. It’d be another cycle or so before I was actually in good shape, but James’ gels had done enough. I’d make do. James landed, and we climbed warily out, weapons at the ready.

  What I wouldn’t have given for a pair of night lenses. But we hadn’t had access to Franco’s toys this time around. Our lanterns would have to do. We kept them dim, just enough to let us navigate.

  The hangar was empty, save for a couple gear crates and a single dark skimmer off to the side. Hopefully no one would be coming for it anytime soon.

  One last gear check, and we headed for the only visible door at the rear of the hangar. Pausing at the door, Carlisle and I both checked the way with our extended senses. It was a risk, dialing our cloaks out anywhere in Kublich’s domain, but, as long as we were careful, the advantage of effectively seeing through walls probably outweighed the risks. Carlisle had outfitted Elise and James with cloaking pendants of their own to keep their minds safe.

  “Clear?” I thought at Carlisle.

  He nodded and pulled the door open.

  A wash of damp, musty air hit me like the embrace of an unwashed street dweller on a sweltering Midsummer day.

  We all exchanged a somber wrinkling of noses and pushed cautiously into the network of ancient and long-disused sewage tunnels beneath Sanctuary. The air was wet and thick on my skin and in my lungs, and it tinted our soft lantern lights a sickly green hue. Vegetation covered more of the arching brick walls than not, and our boots splashed into shallow puddles here and there.

  At the first intersection, we paused for bearings. As expected, our palmlights’ nav chips didn’t function this far underground. Which meant—also as expected—that all we had to go by were the fragmented images from Smirks’ mind, my own familiarity with the base above, and a compass.

  I took the lead, turning when and where I could to keep us headed mostly south and a little east, toward the main comms building. A few times, we paused to inspect a startling noise or movement, but each alarm turned out to be false—merely a foraging rodent or the echoes of our own progression.

  All except one.

  We’d been walking for about fifteen minutes and were passing by the arched opening of an overflow chamber or some such when I heard it. The faintest trace of a low rumble nearby—something like a snore. Or a growl.

  My heart was already thudding when Carlisle grabbed my wrist to halt and gravely nodded in the same direction.

  “Hybrids,” he sent. “A dozen in that chamber. Sleeping, I think. More ahead. We shouldn’t stay down here.”

  Gropping right, we shouldn’t.

  But were we far enough into Sanctuary to ditch our chance at free passage?

  It didn’t matter. If one of those things caught our scent… better we take our chances slinking in shadows above than getting trapped in these dark tunnels with a frothing horde of bloodthirsty monsters.

  Not wanting to risk even quiet murmurs in the vicinity of those monsters, we relayed the need to get above to James and Elise by silent hand signals. They got the gist enough not to ask questions, and we moved on quietly, eyes peeled for access to the base above. Another few tense minutes saw us past another side chamber and an old service room, both full of slumbering hybrids by the sound of it.

  What in demons’ depths were they all doing down he—

  Something prodded my shoulder, and I barely suppressed a spastic jump. It was James, getting my attention to point out a ladder in the next tunnel over. We headed for it, trying to balance the need for quiet with the urge to get the scud out of those tunnels as quickly as possible.

  Carlisle ascended first, up the circular well that extended through the tunnel’s ceiling. James followed, then Elise. I let out a sigh of relief as I emerged after them into a cramped stairwell and James quietly lowered the hatch behind me, sealing us off from the sleeping monsters below.

  “There must be a hundred hybrids down there,” I murmured to Carlisle.

  “More,” Carlisle said.

  James blanched at that, wide-eyed, and Elise didn’t look much better, though the surprise didn’t rock the grim determination in her eyes. I squeezed her shoulder, and she placed her hand over mine for a brief moment.

  James swallowed audibly. “Those were… That was…”

  Carlisle patted him lightly on the back. “They’re behind us for now.” He frowned at the floor. “Though this probably means our original exit plan is out of the question.”

  That went without saying. We were going to have to commandeer a ride out of Sanctuary. But I was too busy thinking about the hybrids—the ones below, and the ones that had attacked Franco’s alongside the Legion company.

  Had the legionnaires known?

  The hybrids had been disguised in Legion gear, sure. But had that b
een to hide them from the soldiers, or just from any prying public eyes?

  From what little I could recall, the legionnaires had seemed surprised when one of the hybrids had lost it and plowed the security room door down, but still…

  “What if the Legion already knows?” I asked quietly.

  The question hung silently for a stretch.

  “If the hybrids’ existence were common knowledge here,” Carlisle finally said, “I doubt Kublich would be hiding them down there. The more troubling question is when and how he’s planning to use them.”

  He had a point there.

  “Either way,” he continued, “the rest of Enochia must know the truth. They may yet band together even if the Legion were lost.”

  It wasn’t a comforting thought. But he was right, so we filed up to move on.

  Carlisle took the lead in ascending the stairs.

  I was expecting outlets to the subbasement levels, but the narrow stairwell led nowhere but up for several flights. Finally, the stairs ended at a small landing and the first door we’d seen. I carefully dialed out my cloak and felt ahead.

  Four minds in the next room, blessedly human, noticeably drunk—on power and other substances. An officer’s lounge?

  I checked that my gun was set to stun rounds and gave Carlisle a ready nod. He pushed open the door. I put stun bolts into the two men by the well-stocked bar to the left as they turned. To the right, the other two were frozen in shock, halfway to their feet.

  Before I could tag them with stun rounds, Carlisle telekinetically shoved their heads together with a cringe-worthy bop, then walked in and calmly applied his stun rod to each of their necks. Elise and James followed us into the room, their own weapons drawn and ready.

  “We should hide these guys,” James said.

  I almost laughed—out of excitement at how smoothly we’d cleared the room or relief to be away from the hybrids, I couldn’t say. Maybe some part of me was simply starting to get a taste for the thrill of real action. Still, I couldn’t help but feel guilty and maybe a little treasonous as we each picked an officer and dragged them into the stairwell we’d come from.