“What—” the Wayman muttered, shaking his head and rolling his eyes in every direction. “You!” he grabbed Adan by his coat, a vengeful look on his face. “You were going to leave me here, weren’t you?”
“No, Nox—”
Nox jumped to his feet, never releasing his grip on Adan. He slammed Adan against the wall, scowling. “Thought you could crackle me with your fancy gears, did you? Well, Nox is too well-built to get shankled by that gimcracked scrap. Bah! Worthless relics.”
“I didn’t—I wasn’t going to leave you, Nox,” Adan said. He could see from Nox’s expression that he didn’t believe him.
Nox snorted and laughed derisively. “I’ve still got a few pinions left in my quiver,” the Wayman warned. “If you try that again I’ll hunt you down and do you like I did your friend.”
Adan shook his head. Nox would never change.
“Come on,” Nox said, pushing him again. “Malthus is waiting.”
Adan tugged his sleeve down over the neutralizer. At least Nox hadn’t noticed it. Adan now had a way out. He just had to wait for the right moment when it would be safe to abandon the Wayman.
Nox rode Adan’s heels down the short passage until they hit the door. Once there, he shoved Adan through the opening without bothering to listen if anyone might be on the other side. Thankfully, there was no one in the immediate vicinity of the exit. What Adan did see, however, was not at all what he had imagined.
Twenty-Eight
The Command Center
Yellow lights flashed on the outsides of every building in the complex. Far off towards the end of the cavern, humming engines heralded the takeoff of dozens of ships from the docks. A moment later they ascended, all of them attack skiffs. They sped towards Adan’s side of the cavern. Adan had the momentary urge to run back into the barracks, afraid he’d been spotted, but they weren’t headed for him. They were headed for the vault.
Had Bryce and the others been discovered? Had Sierra made it to the prison? Whatever was happening there, he could do nothing about it now. He had to find Gavin.
He and Nox started to run. The Command Center was just down the street. It rose above the low, flat buildings around it, solemnly reflecting in its shiny blue windows the chaos which had overtaken the cavern.
Ignoring the ships and the flashing lights, Adan and Nox reached the corner of the Command Center, but as they sped around to the back of the building they spotted a large contingent of white-robed somatarchs heading their way.
Nox yanked Adan back around the corner. “Is there another entrance?” he asked in a loud whisper.
Adan shook his head. “The other ways in won’t be any safer than this one—worse, actually.”
“Okay, let’s hope this trinket keeps working.” Nox clutched the little gear on the end of his necklace, muttering words underneath his rancid breath. It sounded like a prayer, but Adan doubted that’s what it was. Mostly it just sounded like he was mumbling nonsense and his babbling did nothing to calm Adan’s nerves.
The first of the somatarchs marched past down the street. A long stream of them followed, all headed toward the docks. The vault was beyond the docks. Was that where they were headed?
None of the somatarchs turned to the side to notice the two figures huddled together in the shadows at the corner of the Command Center.
More than twenty filed past before the line ended. When no more could be heard, Adan peeked around the corner and saw that the entrance was clear. He signaled Nox to follow and the two of them bolted for the back exit.
The back door consisted of two glassy panels identical to the walls around them, but Adan knew from the schematic they would slide away when accessed via the quorum. When they reached the entrance, Nox stood there glaring at his reflection in the glass, as if it had insulted him.
“Where’s the door?” he asked. There was no handle or other visible means to open it.
“It’s right there. I’ll need to use my mind to open it, though,” Adan said.
“And you wonder why I don’t like mechanical things,” Nox muttered.
There was no point in secrecy now. They had to get inside this building and using the quorum channel was the only way. Adan was just about to connect to the door when the panels slid open on their own. Nox stared at them in astonishment, as if he suddenly understood how mechanical doors worked. But his expression quickly turned to one of alarm as more somatarchs marched through.
Nox snagged Adan by the collar and pressed him up against the side of the building as the somatarchs marched past. As before, the creatures rushed by without so much as a glance towards them.
As the last of the mindless creatures went past, Nox practically hurled Adan through the opening and darted in behind him before the doors slipped shut again.
Inside they found themselves in a wide hallway with metal walls, floor, and ceiling. Using the layout of the building from Faron’s map, Adan took off down the passage which led to Gavin’s lab. After a couple of turns down different hallways, he and Nox came to a stop in front of a black metal door blocking their way.
“Okay, we got inside undetected, but if I open this, they’ll know we’re here,” Adan said.
Nox squeezed the hilt of the knife on his belt. “Fine. My shiv is thirsty, anyway.”
Adan closed his eyes and focused on the doorway. It took him a few moments to find it on the quorum channel since he wasn’t used to it, but a moment later the black panel slid open. They rushed across the new room towards a blue sheet of light which blocked the doorway on the opposite side. Nox pulled up several paces from it.
“What’s that light?” he asked in a shaky voice. Adan did not bother answering. He found the new door on the quorum channel and a moment later the wall of locus energy disappeared.
Nox followed Adan tentatively through the door, looking it up and down as he went past. Once through, he ran like a man possessed, quickly catching up to Adan. They were on the same path now that Gavin had taken in the trace. It wasn’t long before they reached the metal door to the Processing Room.
This door also had no manual trigger to open it. Worse, when Adan tried to connect to it with his mind, he found he had no access to it. Whether it was a high security door or the Devs had simply found out what he was doing and locked him out, he couldn’t say, but it was far too thick to force. This was the only means for them to get into the Processing Room and down into the lower levels. They had to find a way through it.
“Are you going to open it or not?” Nox asked as Adan continued to stand there.
“I can’t. I don’t have access, if that makes any sense.”
“No, but it doesn’t matter. Move out of the way.”
Nox didn’t wait for Adan to step aside. He shoved him out of the way and gave the door a swift kick. When it refused to move, he stared at it, his face crimson from anger or perhaps from pain. With a grunt, he wrestled his water pouch from his waist and yanked off the stopper with a flourish. Lifting it up defiantly to the door face, he squeezed and clear liquid poured down the surface. Instantly, the metal began to smoke. Though the liquid looked like water, it wasn’t. It was taline acid. The substance ate away at the surface of the door until a hole large enough for even Nox to fit through opened up.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had taline acid?” Adan asked.
“You didn’t ask.” Nox flashed a triumphant grin and sealed the pouch. He walked through the smoking hole like he was stepping over the body of a vanquished enemy.
Adan followed him into the Processing Room. It looked just as it had in the chronotrace except that it was unoccupied. The black disc hovered over the hole in the floor as before, waiting to carry them to the lower levels. Once again Adan hesitated, knowing that not only would using the platform alert the Devs to his presence, but that it was possible they might take it off system while he and Nox were on it, letting them fall to their deaths. But with no other way to get down to the lower levels, there was no use delaying the inevita
ble. He stepped onto the disc, but Nox held back.
“Are you sure that thing is safe?” he asked.
“Yes,” Adan said. “For now, anyway. The longer we wait, the less safe it will be.”
Despite Adan’s warning, Nox made no effort to get on. He touched the edge of the black disc gingerly with his foot, testing his weight as if he expected it to give way even though Adan was already standing on it.
“Come on,” Adan urged, connecting to the disc with his mind. He gestured impatiently for Nox to hurry up, flustered that he was causing a delay. “You’re wasting time. They could—”
His words were cut short as the disc fell away beneath his feet. Adan dropped with it, but his fall lasted only a moment. Nox’s arm shot out and grabbed him by his coat. The disc disappeared below Adan’s dangling feet as Nox deposited him back to solid ground.
“I knew it wasn’t safe,” Nox said, spitting down the shaft, “Can’t trust these relics. Black circles weren’t made to stand in the air like that.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Adan said, trembling. “But that was our only way down.”
“Down? We need to go down?” Nox asked. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Waymen are nothing if not expert climbers. We have to be if we want to get at those crankshaft Welkin settlements in the Viscera.”
He pulled out a cord and a pair of rusted spikes from a small pack he wore on his hip and tossed them on the floor.
“I’m not so sure about this,” Adan said, as anxious about Nox’s rope as Nox had been about the disc.
“What’s the matter?” Nox gave him an impatient look, “You climbed out of the pit, didn’t you? Going down is easier than going up.”
“I don’t know,” Adan said. “This looks a lot farther.” He glanced around the room, trying to think of some other way, but knowing he wouldn’t find any.
“This will be as easy as snorting sand out your nose after a storm,” Nox assured him, but the malicious look on his face suggested he was enjoying Adan’s discomfort.
“It won’t work,” Adan objected after a long pause, “We don’t have any way to secure the rope.”
“Nonsense. That’s why I brought these.” Nox grabbed the two metal spikes and started pounding one of them into the floor with the thick end of the other. It caused a tremendous racket which made Adan wince, but the Devs already knew they were inside the Command Center by now. The noise wouldn’t make any difference.
“You pound the stakes then knot her up. I prefer the girdle knot myself,” Nox said. The spikes had holes in the thick ends. Once he had the first spike nice and snug, he threaded the cord and tied one end of it to the spike with several quick loops. Then he tossed the other end into the hole. “There we go. Straight down the gut,” he said. He grinned and stared expectantly down the hole as if this were going to be a pleasant side diversion. “I should probably go first. Test it for weight. If it will hold me it will definitely hold a flim like you.”
Adan nodded, surprised the Wayman would risk himself like that, but Nox looked anything but worried. Adan suppressed a shudder as Nox plopped onto the floor and rolled over the edge. Nox wrapped one of his feet around the cord and slid down, hand over hand. A short time later, he stood on the distant ground below. When he realized he was actually standing on the fallen black disc, he quickly hopped away towards the little niche in front of the doorway at the bottom.
“All right,” Nox called up, sticking his head in from the opening. “I’ve shown you how it’s done. I’ll wait for you in the passage, away from that…black thing.”
Adan took a moment to collect himself. Then, as if each of his limbs had to be moved by a separate mental command, he bent down onto his knees and eased his way over to the edge of the shaft, his heart thumping inside his chest. He could not get over the fact that all that stood between him and serious injury or death was a flimsy looking piece of rope and a rusty metal spike.
He thought back to the rickety cart which had carried him across the endless chasm of the Basin. If he had made it across that large of an expanse, he could make it to the bottom of this shaft. Hands trembling, he eased himself over the side.
Because his bioseine was still repressing his senses, he couldn’t get a feel for how much grip the rope really had, but it probably would not have mattered. His hands were so covered in perspiration they started to slip from the outset. He fiddled with the cord, trying to get one leg wrapped around it the way Nox had, but after several frustrated attempts, and with his grip slipping by the moment, he started to let himself slide down using just his hands.
He might have slid all the way down if he had not accidentally banged his feet against the side of the shaft and kicked away in a panic. This made him swing away from the wall, and also checked his momentum. When he drifted back towards the wall, he got his feet out in front of him and managed to brace himself. From that point on, he was able to walk himself down while holding onto the rope. He was almost to the floor when he heard sounds of movement up above. Footsteps beat against the metal floor, approaching quickly.
Panicking, Adan let go of the rope and dropped the rest of the way. Though he only fell about a body length and managed to land on his feet, he wondered if the impact would have any effect on his ribs. He didn’t bother to check, though, he was too terrified at the thought of getting caught.
“They’re coming,” he said as he rushed towards a burned out door which the Wayman had already destroyed with acid. The moment they stepped through, the black disc flew back up the shaft.
“All right.” Nox shoved Adan towards the bridge beyond the doorway, glaring at the disc as it jettisoned up the shaft. “You keep going. I’ll take care of these shims.”
Adan paused, giving the Wayman a questioning look. Nox was perhaps the most irrational man he’d ever met, but even he could not possibly think that he would be able to defeat a group of assessors or somatarchs single-handedly. Nox just grunted and gave him another shove. “Get going,” he growled.
Realizing that even if he stayed, he wouldn’t be much help, Adan took off running across the bridge. Glancing down, he saw endless rows of transparent blocks below. Unlike when Gavin had passed through a few days before, at least half of the containers were empty. The chill in the room ran down Adan’s back. Had all those somatarchs been activated?
Looking back as he reached the other side, Adan saw that Nox had stopped in the middle of the bridge.
“What are you doing?” Adan shouted. “Come on, I need your help getting through the door. I can’t access this one either.”
Nox waved him off. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
Adan thought about going back for him and trying to coax him across the bridge, but knew Nox would never listen. All he could do was stand and watch as a group of three assessors rushed out onto the opposite side of the bridge.
As far as Adan could tell, none of them had oscillathes, so perhaps Nox might have a chance against them. But the Wayman wasn’t drawing any of his weapons either. He just stood there as if waiting to be captured. In fact, he even beckoned them forward with his hand.
The first of the assessors was no more than twenty paces away when Nox flipped the stopper off his taline pouch. He sprayed the bridge in a line, all the way across, then turned and bolted towards Adan.
The metal span shuddered as he ran. Within moments, it snapped in half where the line of acid had been laid down. The assessors on the other side plummeted to the floor, landing in the stacks of empty containers below and toppling them over with a thunderous crash.
Nox was shrieking and still running like a madman. The bridge was falling out from under his feet, pulling him towards the floor. When it became clear he wasn’t going to make it to the other side in time, he flung himself onto the slanting walkway, thrusting his fingers into the grated surface. The bridge bounced as it crashed against the cubes below, nearly jarring him loose, but somehow the tenacious Wayman held on. Once the bridge stopped falling, Nox began clawing
his way back up bit by bit, his pudgy face bulging from the effort. It looked like his eyes might burst, but somehow he made his way to the top.
“That was close,” Adan said as he helped Nox over the edge and onto the floor.
“Out of my way.” Nox pushed past Adan without so much as a glance. He pulled out his taline pouch again and doused the door with the acid.
Nox let out a subversive chuckle as the door melted away, but his laughter was cut short by the sounds of stirring below.
Adan looked down to see that the assessors, whom he had assumed were dead or at least unconscious, were on the move again. One of them had reached the base of the fallen bridge and started climbing up. Adan considered waiting for them to reach the top and using his neutralizer, but guessed the assessors had neutralizers of their own and he couldn’t count on getting off his blast first.
Nox whipped out one of his pinions and flung it at the first assessor. The throw was on target, but the assessor saw it coming and waved it away with a gesture and a flash of light.
“More demon tricks!” Nox shouted. He pulled out another pinion and was about to hurl it as well when Adan grabbed him by the arm and pointed across to the opposite side of the room. Three more assessors had appeared in the doorway.
“There’s no point. We have to find Gavin. He’s our only chance to get out of here.”
The acid had by now burned a hole in the doorway large enough for them to fit through. For once, Nox heeded Adan’s advice and turned and squeezed through the opening. Adan darted after him and they took off down the hallway.
They were half the distance to the Repository when Adan glanced back to see the first of their enemies step through the opening they’d made in the door. The assessor did not seem to be in much of a hurry.
Adan and Nox stopped in front of Gavin’s door. As expected, Adan could not access it. He turned to Nox.
“Do you have any more acid?”
Before he answered, Nox turned and fired one of his pinions at the lead assessor. The weapon flew straight for the man’s chest, but again a white light sent the shaft harmlessly to the floor.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 60