by James Axler
Affinity frowned. ‘This is all well and good if they are true to their word, but sometimes it seems as though Atlantis knows of what we feel and think as soon as we do ourselves.’
‘You think they may have agents that move among us, gathering intelligence?’
‘It is sometimes spoken of, and events lend credence to such an idea.’
She looked at him askance. ‘What a strange idea. I cannot say it is one which I have often encountered myself. Where, I wonder, would it emanate?’
Affinity looked flustered, stammered as he searched for words. ‘I-I know not what you imply, but I feel I am being judged harshly for half-suspicions that should not, perhaps, have even been voiced. It was only a passing notion, and one that is taking us away from the matter I really wish to discuss.’
‘Very well,’ she said gently, ‘we shall say no more about it. But you have my word that whatever you say shall not reach beyond this chamber. Now do, by all means, continue.’
Hesitatingly, haltingly, Affinity began to voice his concerns about Doc and the way in which he had probed the young man for information. He couldn’t say, exactly, why it so unnerved him, but hoped that he was able to voice his concern, no matter how nebulous it may be. When he finished, he looked at Cyran imploringly.
‘I cannot say why this worries you so,’ she said after some consideration. ‘I would have thought it was an obvious course of action for our allies to wish to know more about us. Such knowledge could only assist in their understanding of our plight.’
‘But why did they not ask openly? Why send Dr. Tanner to question me, a humble mason? Why did their leader, Ryan, not ask these things of Lemur or yourself?’
‘Perhaps to openly question in such a way could be construed as rudeness or hostility in their etiquette,’ she mused. ‘After all, as they know little of our ways, so do we, correspondingly, know little of theirs. Perhaps they saw that Tanner and yourself had forged an acquaintanceship, and it wouldn’t be such an imposition, under their way, for him to ask these things of you.’
Affinity considered that, nodding gently, but still something irked him. ‘I see, but even so there was something about the manner of the man that suggested that there were things that were important to him in a manner far more personal than that of the group.’
‘But why would this be?’ she asked in soothing tones. ‘I feel sure that you are worrying for no reason. Perhaps you have overlooked the fact that, no matter how well you seem to understand Doc Tanner, he is still from the outside, with different ways that may seem alien and unnerving to us, when in fact they have no import at all.’
Affinity brightened. ‘Of course. That would explain it, and it is logical. I should, perhaps, have considered this before even coming to see you. I fear that I may have wasted your time.’
She smiled. ‘Dear child, you could never waste mine, nor anyone’s, time when you have a genuine concern for the safety of your compatriots. Calm your fears, and go about your business now.’
Affinity left her company feeling reassured. That vague worry was still there, but now he felt that he could explain its origins, and was able to calm it with more ease.
He was so wrapped up in his own sense of relief that he didn’t notice that the sec guard watched him leave with interest, nor that the guard hadn’t been patrolling the corridors, in which instance he should now be on the other side of the building, but seemed to be in the same location as when he had shown Affinity into Cyran’s chamber.
For her own part, Cyran was nowhere near as unconcerned as she had led Affinity to believe. His words had left a deep impression on her. She believed that his initial impression had been correct. The old man had wanted the information for more than reference to his group. There was an underlying motive. Whatever it was, it could be disruptive, and that was information that it was invaluable for her to possess.
Knowledge informed power, in many ways was power. It just depended on how a person chose to use it.
THE NIGHT WAS CLOUDLESS, balmy, and the woodlands were silent. With a surfeit of silver light from the three-quarter moon, it seemed as though it would be an easy night for the chosen sec patrol. Especially as they felt more confident, sharper after their short bout of training with the companions. They felt looser, more alert, and more at ease with their weapons.
Yet the line between confidence and overconfidence is narrow, especially for those who have no experience on which to base judgment.
The sec patrol worked its way through the densely packed wood in a loose line. Even with the canopy above and the shadows cast by the trunks, it was still easy for them to keep at least two of their companions in sight at any given time. Not that it mattered. They had a shared feeling that nothing could go wrong this night.
Jason had been with Mark on the expedition when they had encountered the companions. Since then, he felt that he had learned so much from the strangers. He held his blade loosely in his palm, and he was calm. The nervousness that had eaten at him before, every time that he had stepped foot into the woodlands on a sec patrol, was no longer with him. Whatever he had learned in terms of combat skill, he hadn’t grasped that it was using the fear, not losing it, that was important.
Although he would be better able to defend himself in combat, he had first to be in a position to engage. And as he looked up at the clear skies through the darkened canopy overhead, he felt secure. Nothing could disturb his world. There was complete silence. No signs of movement.
But then, he wasn’t really giving it his full attention. He knew how skilled the Nightcrawlers were in their chosen arts, and so should have been on triple red. But so confident was he in his newly won ability that he no longer had the sensitivity that fear had given him.
His hand stayed slack on his blade, even as the muscular arm snaked around his neck, hand clamping over his mouth. Even as the blade slipped under his ribs, the pain like a white-hot needle in him, first numb and then so intense that it propelled him beyond the capacity to scream. His vision closed into a tunnel of blackness that grew tighter, light receding into the distance as though he were traveling backward at immense speed. The faintest scent of oil and sweat, sweet and rank at the same time, reached into his brain before it began to shut down, his kidneys ripped by the knife, massive internal hemorrhaging flooding his lungs.
Jason had bought the farm before the Nightcrawler even let his body slip to the woodland floor. The Crawler looked down, prodded him idly with her toe, then gave a short nod of satisfaction before slithering back into the shadows in search of additional prey.
It was an eight-man sec party and the orders to the Nightcrawlers were clear. One among the party was a traitor, who would arrange for their access to the walled ville. If possible, they were to leave the sec alive, so that it wouldn’t look suspicious for the insider to be left standing. But some had to be killed, to make the attack seem authentic.
Jason had drawn the short straw. His only mistake—other than lack of awareness—was to be on one end of the strung-out sec line. At the other end, a man named Homer was also being eliminated, a Crawler dropping on him from a tree, landing with a gentle thump astride his shoulders, pulling back his head and running a razor-sharp blade across his throat as the downward momentum forced him forward and into the turf. The gargling of his death rattle was muted by the moss and grass into which his face was pressed, the earth around now made mud with his lifeblood.
Along the line, Crawlers watched the sec patrol go by. The fact that two of their number had dropped out of sight should have alerted them to the possibility of attack. The Crawlers responsible for the killing avoided this by moving between cover, making it hard to distinguish their exact outline, making themselves visible as little more than a shadow in the night. It was enough to make the sec party believe that their numbers were at full strength.
As they moved, so their pace was controlled by the thickness of the foliage they had to pass, and so they began to move out of phase. It became harder to keep sight of o
ne another the deeper and darker the woodland became.
Time for the Crawlers to take advantage. The sec party was two down. Another two were put out of action, though not killed. Slipping from the shadows without making a sound, two Nightcrawlers came upon sec men and downed them with swift blows. No blades were used, only the iron-hard sides of trained hands, which efficiently hit nerves and blacked out the unaware sec men before they had a chance to react.
Four down. Four left standing. Three were to be left alone, ignorantly blundering their way through the patrol. One was waiting.
‘I thought you were never going to arrive,’ snarled the sec man as a Nightcrawler appeared at his side, making him start violently.
‘Shut up. Go,’ the Crawler said softly. In the quiet of the woodlands, any words were amplified out of all proportion. The Crawler was aware of this, even if the sec spy wasn’t, and had no wish for the remaining sec to be alerted.
The sec man was around five seven and thick set. By contrast, the dark figure beside him was more than six feet and almost invisible in the darkness. Even if the remaining sec men had seen their traitorous companion standing in the woods, he would have seemed to be alone unless they were so close that the Crawler would have a chance to dispose of them. Sound, not vision, would be the only thing to give them away now.
Stelos, the sec man who had kept allegiance to Atlantis, squared up to the Crawler. He was doing a dangerous job, risking a slow kill if his treachery were to be discovered, and the last thing he wanted was some outsider telling him what to do. His task was simple: he was to lead the Nightcrawlers back to Memphis and gain admission for them without raising the alarm. It was simple, yes, but a major task. His sense of his own importance wouldn’t allow him to be treated in this manner.
The Crawler sighed inwardly. For the mission to proceed smoothly, it required cooperation. But the spies within Memphis had grown slack and were no longer the disciplined force from whence they had sprung. It would give him no greater pleasure than to dispatch this idiot to the hereafter. But no, there was a greater job to do.
The two men stood for a moment, eyeballing each other. With the dark lenses, it was hard for Stelos to tell what the Crawler was thinking. One thing was for sure, though, he was feeling more unnerved by the second.
‘All right, all right, let’s go,’ he mumbled.
As the two men moved back toward the ville, the other Crawlers in the party melted from the shadows and joined them. They kept in a tight formation behind the rogue sec man, far enough back so that they could melt right back into shadow if he was approached.
As he had planned, there was neither opposition nor obstruction to their progress. The sec party were still in the depths of the woods, and there was only the sec on the main gate to deal with.
Stelos had planned it that way. They moved through the ruins with ease. The few sec posts that were scattered within the old suburb were far flung, and it was easy for someone with knowledge to pilot a path through them. To try to tackle them would risk blasterfire, alerting others to the Nightcrawlers’s presence. It would be pleasing for the Atlantis warriors to send some more of the Memphis scum to the hereafter, but right now that was not their task. It was about stealth and achieving an objective that dictated getting inside the walls.
To attempt getting over would be pointless. The sec system was crude but effective, and to counter it would take too much time, risking being seen. The only way was to get past the gates. And that could only be done with Stelos’s help.
As they approached the gates, the traitorous sec man beckoned the Nightcrawlers into cover.
‘Two men on,’ he said, breathing hard through exertion and fear. ‘I’ll give the code, when the gate begins to open, come through hard on my heels. I’ll take out one man, but you’ll have to deal with the other.’
‘Already done. Just go,’ the tall Crawler snapped.
Stelos jogged toward the gates, pausing to gather himself before delivering a coded knock. It was an emergency signal that all sec personnel knew, to enable them to alert the gate guard if they should arrive detached from their patrol.
There was a silence of almost brain-numbing intensity before the gate began to open. This was when Stelos felt an adrenaline rush and knew that the childishly simple plan—which was, perhaps, its strength—couldn’t fail.
An armed sec man appeared in the widening gap, blaster raised. ‘Stelos?’ he murmured, confusion written across his features. ‘The others? Where are—’
‘No time to explain,’ the treacherous man said quickly, indicating that the sec man join him. ‘You need to see this.’
Stelos was relying on the fact that, despite the training from Jak, J.B. and Ryan, the sec force of Memphis was still shot through with ingenuousness. His instinct didn’t let him down. Without wondering why Stelos was alone, or questioning why he would wish to take another outside the walls, he stepped forward.
‘What? What is it?’ he asked, nerves making his voice shake.
‘This,’ Stelos whispered, showing the man the blade he had cupped in his palm. He looked the sec man in the eye, noting the confusion as he tightened his grip on the knife before bringing it up smoothly so that it pierced the sec man’s stomach and ripped across his intestine, resisting slightly against the wall of muscle before rupturing it and letting his intestines spill out. The light of confusion in the other man’s eyes faded into blankness as his life spilled out over Stelos’s hand.
The sec man had barely the time to moan before his life was extinguished, but it would have been enough to alert his partner on the other side of the gates if not for the fact that party of Nightcrawlers had already swarmed from the shadows. Even as Stelos guided the sec man to his doom, the Crawlers were level with the traitor and past him, making the open gate.
Surprise was always the greatest weapon. The reactions of Memphis sec men were slow, not yet honed by training, never sharpened by combat. By contrast, the Crawlers were like a visceral machine, ready to move fluid and fast whenever it was required.
Before the startled sec man had a chance to raise his blaster and even begin to tighten his finger on the trigger, he bought the farm. The Crawlers swarmed over him, one ripping his hand away from the heavy handblaster, a remade 9 mm Walther PPK that had been his pride. His pride, yet never fired in anger; and destined never to be.
A second Crawler pulled him back by his long, curling blond hair, slicing across his windpipe in one smooth motion, the blade opening his throat at the same time as it ripped his carotid artery, his blood arcing out in a spume in front of his own startled vision. Few have the opportunity to see their own lives drain away in front of them. He wanted to yell, but nothing emerged but a bubbling, hideous gargle.
Before he was even killed, the Crawlers had left him in the dust, his body contorting in death throes, spreading his own blood around the asphalt. He was still thrashing when Stelos entered the ville, sweating as he tackled the heavy gate alone. The Crawlers were already on their way to their intended target, and the traitor had to work hard to catch up with them. The intelligence fed to them in Atlantis had told them where their target was housed. In fact, Odyssey had a full road and house plan of Memphis, and could pick his targets at will. The presence of Stelos wasn’t necessary, but the traitor wanted to be in at the end of the chase. His main duty was to insure that the gates stayed clear for evacuation before joining the sec patrol in the woods as though nothing had occurred. However, his pride dictated that he not let himself be marginalized.
He headed for the house where the companions reposed, his heart thumping as much from exertion as from stress. He had been away from Atlantis too long and had lost his edge of fitness. If he didn’t hurry, the action would be over before he arrived.
JAK JOLTED AWAKE from a dreamless sleep. It wasn’t often that his rest was free from the personal demons that stalked his nightmares, and he relished such moments. So his mood was darker than the night outside as he sat up, breathing slow
and shallow to cut out extraneous noise. Something had disturbed him, but he wasn’t sure what.
Memphis was a true son of Atlantis. The people lived to a rigid schematic, rising early and working hard before retiring early to a long and much-needed rest. In many ways, they lived just as they had in Atlantis. If Jak could be bothered to think about it, he would reflect on how freedom was such a nebulous concept. They did exactly the same in so many ways, yet were happy with this as they were free, and not forced to act in the way that, paradoxically, they opted to choose.
But Jak was no philosopher. Instead he was glad that there were no bars and no gaudys, no fights and loud noises to keep him awake into the night. At least here he was able to rest, and it was quiet.
At least, usually it was quiet. Not now. The sounds were small, but they were enough to disturb him in this silence. They were out of character, out of place and that made them a possible danger.
Now that his attention was focused, he could hear them clearly. Still a few streets away, but approaching rapidly. He could hear people, moving fast and with some care. They were attempting subterfuge, and would have succeeded in another ville than this. Muddled so that he couldn’t make out how many at first, he soon narrowed it down to seven or eight people. Farther back, there was another: less stealth, more noise. Not one of them. Was he following or chasing?
Nightcrawlers. It had to be. There were no others they had encountered in this region who moved with that degree of practiced stealth. And a sec man bringing up the rear. Another enemy if he had aided their egress, or an ally who would soon be in need of assistance.
Another thing. They moved with assurance: they knew where they were going. And from the way in which they were changing direction, they were headed for this house.
Jak sprang to his feet and moved across the room to where Ryan lay. Without ceremony, Jak shook him once and began to speak before Ryan’s eye had even opened.
‘Enemy. Headed here. Seven, eight. Mebbe Nightcrawlers.’