by James Axler
All traces of the suburban ruins that had been woven between the newer constructions of Memphis had been eradicated from this area, and it was only those strange erections that remained. Presumably because the ville had been founded, and initial work commenced, before skydark the ground in this area had been raised of all previous building to start from a level field. There was no wall past the patch of poisoned earth, only the straight lines of roads that weren’t paved, sidewalks that had no curbs and buildings that were constructed of bleached stone and brick, with squat designs that were square or rhomboid, roofs and porticoes supported by immaculately carved pillars.
It looked like a model of Ancient Greece, though to the Armorer it just looked strange. There were only two buildings that climbed above a two-story level, and both appeared to be situated in the center of the ville. One was five storys and looked to have been extant for as long as the rest of the ville. The other was much taller, and was still under construction. Flimsy scaffolding circled it, and workers milled like insects over the face of the building. Closer to the maze and parched earth surround, Atlanteans dressed in red, black and predominantly white went about their business, sparing not a thought or glance for the maze and the opening in which J.B. stood surveying them.
It crossed his mind that those who were content to live under Odyssey’s regime, or who were too scared to risk making a break, were so secure in the impenetrability of the labyrinth that it had never occurred to them that they might be watched from its entrances. At the same time, the fact that they were blithely going about their business suggested that they were unaware of an attack being mounted.
J.B.’s mind raced, weighing up possibilities. Could it be that none of the Nightcrawlers had reached Atlantis and reported to Odyssey? He found that impossible. Nonetheless, there had been no sec to pick him off as soon as he appeared, and it seemed as though the populace had been unaware of any imminent arrivals. Could it also be that Odyssey was so confident in the impregnability of his maze that he was unconcerned about any of the attacking party making it through?
J.B. allowed himself an indulgent grin; now that really was a stupe thought. Best option as far as he could see it was this: the Crawlers had reported back, but they had no idea of the real size of the Memphis force. It may have been just the party they encountered, or it may have been a vanguard. In which case, Atlantis needed to be on an all-out war footing. Looking at the people going about their business unaware of him, he had to say that it didn’t look too much like a war footing to him. It was all second guessing, but he would assume that the Nightcrawlers were on full guard, waiting to move as soon as any offensive was taken, meanwhile keeping a low profile so as not to concern the general populace. Certainly, everyone was busy, and it didn’t look as though Odyssey was about to let them stop.
J.B. wasn’t to know that Odyssey would never commit a full populace to battle while the vessel was still under construction; not with the alignment so close. But even without this knowledge, it was a more that reasonable assessment.
The Armorer couldn’t tell for sure whether or not he’d been seen; all he knew for certain was that no cold-heart had attempted to chill him. But it was a fair bet that they could, if they were triple careful, get across the wasteland and into the body of the ville before the fighting would start. And he knew enough about his own people to know that this would put them on a level field of battle, no matter the size of the force they may face.
J.B. edged back into the shadows, feeling a little more assured than when he had started out.
Attaining his previous position, he was more than pleased to see Ryan and Mildred’s sec crews waiting for his return.
‘What took you so long?’ he asked dryly.
‘You know what it’s like,’ Mildred replied, ‘you think you know your way, and then it turns out that you’ve made a left instead of a right…’
A brief exchange between the three companions established that they had managed to find their way to this spot despite each other’s trail’s petering out along the way. The fact that they had made it here independently suggested that there may, indeed, be only one way in and out of the labyrinth.
‘That’s the case, then all the Crawlers are going to be concentrated on this area, right?’ Mildred asked the Armorer.
J.B. scratched his head and placed the fedora—retrieved on his retreat—on the back of his skull before outlining the seemingly unaware landscape he had surveyed. When he had finished, Ryan whistled.
‘Fireblast, never come up against someone like this Odyssey before. What the fuck are his tactics? Can’t plan against someone you can’t fathom…’
‘Makes it all the more dangerous for us, right?’ Demis questioned.
J.B. nodded. ‘It’s hard to prepare a defense when you can’t figure out their attack options.’
‘Well,’ the sec man said slowly, ‘instead of trying to do that, why don’t you ask us what’s going on?’
J.B. looked at him blankly for a second, before a slow grin spread across his face. ‘What a stupe. I’m sorry, I should have realized…’ He gave a short laugh, turning to Ryan. ‘Demis, here, is an escapee from Atlantis. Unlike some of our sec, he knows the ville. I’m going for another recce, take him with me.’
Ryan agreed. ‘Good idea. If it gives us some kind of insight…’
So while the rest of the war party waited, the two men edged toward the exit passage once more. There was still a need for caution, but J.B. was able to make quicker progress this time, and as the two men stood as much in shadow as possible and surveyed the vista in front of them, Demis explained the significance of the building work and the timing involved.
‘Let’s get back. I think you need to tell everyone this,’ J.B. commented, pulling them back to the safety of the labyrinth.
Once back, Demis repeated his story to the assembled party. Ryan assimilated the information into the strategy forming in his mind.
‘That’s good,’ he said when Demis had finished, clapping the Memphis man on the back. ‘You have no idea how helpful that’s been.’ He turned to the assembled party. ‘We leave here the same way that we entered. In clusters, my group moving first and establishing a safe position. We then cover the next group. Once we’re in, we move towards Odyssey’s temple—shit, it’s not hard to find, right?—and we recce then attack.
‘That’s our position. Against us is the fact that the Crawlers will be all over the ville, and they’ll be waiting for us. Those of you who know the layout of Atlantis will lead us to the temple, and also tell us where we should recce for ambush or hidden traps.
‘What we’ve got going for us is that most Atlanteans don’t know how to fight, and in all probability will bolt. Even those that stand—no matter what we may think of them as an oppressed people—have to be fought. Mebbe we’ll have to chill a few to help free the many. Hell, if they’ve got any sense they’ll leave it to the Crawlers, and it’ll be a pleasure to chill those cold-hearted bastards.
‘With a little luck on our side, we should be able to reach the temple without too much of a firefight. Remember we have blasters, and we know how to use them. They use blades, and will want close combat.
This makes it more likely they’ll try to ambush. Shoot on sight, people. It’s possible that they’ll hold back a little as they don’t know if we’re the advance party or the whole deal. Let’s hope they do…but don’t expect it.
‘Okay,’ he finished with a mirthless grin. ‘Let’s do this.’
‘What about Jak?’ Mildred asked as Ryan turned to leave. ‘He’s got Lemur and Cyran. What about them?’
Her question stirred up some response from the Memphis sec, who had been wondering something similar. To go into battle without their leader, to leave him behind it was unthinkable.
When Ryan turned back to answer, she could see it had weighed heavily on him. For a fraction of a second, as he began to answer, it seemed that his shoulders slumped.
‘We can’t go bac
k to look for them. That’s taking too big a risk that we get lost ourselves. We’ve made it this far, and Jak’s party entered before mine. There’s nothing else we can assume other than they just haven’t…that something’s happened.’ He couldn’t bring himself to suggest that they had bought the farm, and this realization momentarily cast a pall over the gathered fighters. Ryan sighed, gathered himself up. ‘Fuck these assholes and their stupe games. Let’s go get this idiot Odyssey before he fucks over any more people.’
It was hard for J.B., Mildred and Ryan to dismiss the notion that they may never see Jak again; equally so for the Memphis sec to think the same of their leader and his wife. But the hard kernel of anger that it left in their gut was something to spur them on.
Ryan could feel this as he and his party made their way to the portal. Little did he know that it was an anger that would prove unnecessary.
Chapter Nineteen
‘We must hurry. They may think us deceased in the labyrinth,’ Mark muttered to Jak as the albino led his party through the maze. Jak shot the sec chief a withering glance. Mark held up his hands. ‘I know, I know. I shouldn’t have said it. It is stating the blindingly obvious, but…’
‘We have no way of knowing if any of the others have made it through,’ Cyran blurted. There was an edge of panic to her voice that had been with her since they had recovered her from the trap. ‘They may all have perished.’
Jak looked at her, his red orbs piercing in the gloom. ‘They okay. Would know, feel.’
He didn’t have to finish. There was something in his tone that would brook no argument. Cyran looked away, seemingly ashamed to have even suggested such a thing.
They reached another junction. Jak halted and gestured for them to be still. In the ensuing quiet he listened for even the slightest sound that could give them a clue. They had lost track of all other trails, and even their own had become obliterated in the effort to recover Cyran after her flight. They were filthy, exhausted and at least two of them were terrified. The leader and his wife were proving to be the liability Jak had suspected—he was slow and out of condition, and she was seemingly a hysteric—while Mark seemed to be on edge. Jak could smell the tension coming off him. He knew that the Memphis sec chief was no coward, but wondered if the added burden of having to baby-sit Lemur and Cyran was proving too much.
One thing for sure: if they were to keep it together, then Jak had to get them out of here, and triple fast.
Jak strained every sense. If ever he had needed to call on his years of hunting—human or animal prey—then it was now. The scent of a charnel house hung so heavily over the maze that it was difficult to pick out anything else. He couldn’t pick out his friends’ individual scents, not at such a distance, but he could tell the warm musk of human scent from that of a wild beast, and he knew that they were still in the game. There were enough of them to make a sizable olfactory dent in the stench of the labyrinth, and if he could just match their musk with the direction in which the air drifted…
Then he could ally this to the sounds he faintly registered above the distant howls of hungry wild beasts. Human sounds. Faint fragments of discussion, the padding of footfalls, the sound of a body of men gathered, ready to move.
Jak was sure that the other three parties had found one another and, that being the case, had also found the way out of this pesthole. Now that he had found direction, it was just a matter of guiding his party there without falling prey to any traps; there would be no dead ends, not now he could follow scent and direction.
He turned back to his party with a rare grin breaking across his usually somber white visage. ‘This way…quick,’ was all he needed to say.
He led the party in the direction indicated, a fresh sense of purpose to their actions.
RYAN CAWDOR HEADED for the squat, white stone building that stood at a thirty-degree angle from the exit portal. It was closest in terms of distance and seemingly empty. Certainly, the people that moved around the streets of Atlantis were farther into the built-up area, and less likely to register bodies in the otherwise-deserted area of parched earth if they were headed away from them.
Despite this, it was a nerve-shredding and naked run across the flat ground, the Steyr held across his chest as he ran, keeping low. He was half expecting a Nightcrawler to step from nowhere and engage with him. Okay, so he was being covered from the portal; that wouldn’t matter if J.B. couldn’t get a clear shot. And even if he did, blasterfire would let loose all hell.
Ryan’s breath escaped from him in a gasp of relief as he made cover without being fired upon or attacked in any way. His orders to the next runner were to wait until he signaled. Unlike their entry to the maze, where they knew there was no opposition to immediately attack, on the exit run he wanted to check the chosen building for signs of life before risking the life of a fellow soldier.
Checking the Steyr, Ryan counted five to psyche himself before checking out the building. The wall he had thrown himself against had no window and the side to his left was a porch supported by pillars. Two windows and a doorway broke the length. Swiftly and efficiently, as he had so often with buildings of different style but similar layout, Ryan checked for occupancy. A quick glance to see if anyone was passing, and he was into the building, checking the rooms.
They were in luck. There had been no one near the building as it was currently unoccupied, the rooms bereft of furnishing. Swiftly, he passed through every room, confirming its safehouse status. Within a minute he was out again, signaling for the next member of his party to make the run.
The evacuation from the labyrinth proceeded at pace, with each successive runner entering the deserted building while Ryan maintained cover. The fact that no Nightcrawlers seemed to be waiting for them, or had as yet made themselves known, played on his mind.
What were their tactics? Were they waiting to see how many emerged? Would they then attack the safehouse? On this assumption, Ryan had detailed the arriving sec to mount guard within. If they were to wait until the entire party headed for the temple, how then would they attack? Despite the fact that he had laid out a simple plan of action when in the labyrinth, Ryan was still wondering if there were any angles he had missed, something that would surprise his troops, endangering them.
However, the surprise coming his way would be most unexpected.
‘JAK, WHERE THE HELL have you been?’ J.B. yelled exultantly as the albino youth appeared at his shoulder. ‘No—no time to explain now. Listen…’ With which the Armorer filled in Jak’s group on Ryan’s plan. Jak and Mark stood and listened intently, but Demis, standing to one side, waiting for his chance to make the run to Atlantis, couldn’t help but notice the contrasting attitudes of Lemur and Cyran.
To the Memphis sec man, who took the time to watch them carefully despite the controlled chaos going on around him, it appeared that his leader was distracted and nervous, whereas his wife seemed detached, almost as though she weren’t really here, and would any minute awake from a nightmare.
He figured to himself that he should mention that to J.B., see if it was worth bringing up with Ryan, when something happened that shocked him and made him reassess what he had just seen.
Cyran had appeared to be diffident all the while that J.B. and Jak were conversing. She was standing a little apart from the group, and wasn’t noticed. But when Jak turned to ask if Lemur and Cyran had taken in all that had just been said, her demeanor changed. In the blinking of an eye, her manner became suddenly cowed and nervous, so that she resembled a shrinking baby animal. When she answered Jak’s request, it even seemed as though her voice trembled with the rest of her.
Demis didn’t know what to make of this sudden change in manner. Was it another manifestation of her fear? Or was she, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, playing a part? If so, why?
He would definitely have to raise her behavior with the hardened fighters. Something was very wrong, and the fact that he couldn’t put his finger on the exact reason was all the more
worrying. But he wouldn’t be able to do that right now. While he had been watching Cyran with growing unease, the evacuation had been progressing and there was now only himself, J.B. and the newly acquired sec group left to make the run.
As Demis made his way swiftly across the open space, his mind raced faster than his feet. He had to speak to Ryan or J.B., but what exactly could he tell them—that he had seen Cyran act in a strange way that unnerved him in a manner he could not define? It would be hard to know where to start.
Wherever it may be, it wouldn’t be at that point where he arrived at the white stone building.
‘Ryan, I have something to tell you,’ he began breathlessly, only to be cut short by the one-eyed man, whose face was split by a broad grin, staring over the sec man’s shoulder.
‘I know, I can see,’ he said, relief and exultation in his voice as it had been in J.B.’s. He added, ‘Get in cover man, hurry.’
Demis looked over his shoulder as he turned the corner of the building. Ryan’s delight had been caused by the sight of Jak making his run from the maze. The moment to mention Cyran’s bizarre behaviour had passed, yet he had to make sure it came around again. And soon.
BUT TIME WAS SLIPPING away from the anxious sec man. Now that they were in the ville, things were to move at a faster pace.
J.B. was last man to make the run, and as soon as he was clear, Ryan followed him into the house, where he found that Mildred was jubilant at the return of Jak, while the Memphis people had similar emotions over the appearance of the leader they thought lost. Realizing that there was no time for this, Ryan called them to order and reiterated his plan, for the benefit of Jak’s party and also to focus the minds of the others. He didn’t notice the sec man who lurked at the back, seemingly apprehensive and searching for the right moment to raise his voice.
Even if he had, Ryan would have assumed it was nothing more than a case of combat fright, and tried to talk him up rather than listen. So they left the deserted building on the edge of Atlantis with Demis’s fears and concerns unspoken. There were more pressing matters, or so it seemed.