by James Axler
The clock showed six minutes since last contact. Already Lakesh felt sure the elapsed time was too long. Six minutes was plenty enough time to die.
Chapter 9
Location unknown
In the Manta’s rear seat, Brigid Baptiste smiled as she watched the sky change color. “I can’t get over this place,” she said. It had been five minutes since the armored pilots had disappeared and CAT Alpha remained waiting on the airstrip.
“We should get out,” Kane told her.
“Not yet,” Brigid insisted. “They know we’re here. They’ll come to us when they’re ready.”
“I still say we should get out and speak to them,” Kane growled.
“And say what?” Brigid challenged. “‘Hi, we didn’t invade your airspace in heavily armed vehicles to cause any harm’? The weight of human history says otherwise—don’t be too surprised if they shoot you on the spot.”
“Humph,” Kane snorted. “I just don’t like waiting.”
“No one likes waiting, Kane,” Brigid assured him. “But most of us learn patience by the time we’re ten.”
“Humph,” Kane snorted again.
Eventually, more figures emerged from the low building. There were five in all, including the two pilots. The pilots had removed their flight helmets and to Kane’s relief looked entirely normal—and human—beneath. Both were clean-shaven, Caucasian males with neatly cropped hair, one blond and one black haired.
The pilots led the way, escorting a man in what Kane took at first to be a single-person conveyance. The chair had no discernible means of propulsion yet moved across the airstrip with remarkable grace. A line of lights ran up its exterior in a pattern of bright white circlets, and the vehicle was colored a reflective red like tinted metal. It featured two great struts running above it like an elephant’s tusks, towering over the heads of its lone rider’s standing companions. The rider wore a pair of dark goggles over his eyes and a skullcap that entirely hid his hair—assuming he had any—along with an indigo uniform that buttoned up tight to his neck and covered his seated body in one piece.
Besides the man in the conveyance and the pilots, there were two other figures, a man and woman. Both were young and wore armorlike suits similar to the pilots but with their heads uncovered. They carried boxed equipment belted to their hips. Although they didn’t have helmets on, both of them wore headbands that encircled their foreheads with narrow metal strips. The strips were of a multicolored, mirrored material, glinting as they caught the swirling sky.
“Looks like the party’s starting,” Kane muttered as the strange figures neared.
The others held back while the man and woman approached. They first stood before Grant’s Manta and touched their fingertips to their headbands, closing their eyes. In the cockpit, Grant was overcome by a strange sensation, a feeling of vertigo, and the inside of his skull seemed to itch. He reached down for the handgrip of the Copperhead subgun where it waited in the foot well, but after a few seconds the vertiginous sensation passed.
He watched through the viewport as the man and woman turned away and reported to the man in the strange conveyance. Once they had, they strode across to Kane’s Manta farther down the landing strip. Grant could not hear what was being said, but reading the strangers’ expressions he detected no hostility or alarm.
The two strangely garbed figures halted before Kane’s Manta and performed the same routine. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, Kane grumbled something to Brigid, expressing his loathing for mind readers.
“I think we have to trust them,” Brigid told him. “At least for now.”
In a moment, the weird sensation had passed, and once the two had reported to the rider of the red chairlike conveyance, they took up positions behind him while he approached the Mantas.
The seated man motioned, his fingers spread wide. Grant took this to be a signal to open up, and he popped the canopy of the Manta and let it glide back on its runners, his free hand grasping the Copperhead subgun.
“Welcome, traveler,” the seated man announced in a loud voice. “There’s no need to be shy.”
Grant raised himself in his seat until he could be clearly seen over the lip of the open cockpit. “Howdy,” he said.
“Let me introduce myself,” the seated spokesman said as his companions waited at his side. “My name is Ronald and I’m here to welcome you to Authentiville. I must apologize for the manner in which you and your companions arrived—our scouts had not realized that your conveyance was occupied when we snagged it, and once they were made aware of the error it seemed prudent to bring you here to explain their oversight.
“Is there just one of you in that craft?”
“Yes, sir,” Grant confirmed.
“And the other one? Your companion? Two inside, I am told.”
“Yeah, two,” Grant confirmed. “Pilot and, um, teammate.” He didn’t like giving information so freely, but these people seemed to be a step ahead of them right now. He guessed that the itchy experience he had felt in his skull had been some kind of mental scan—he had experienced similar before, most recently at the hands of a group of deranged immortals known as Dorians. He didn’t like it. However, Grant had detected no outward signs of aggression from these people—in fact, they didn’t even appear armed, although he guessed the odd vehicle that their leader utilized might have some armament. For now, at least, they weren’t pointing anything obviously in his direction.
“Please—come down,” Ronald encouraged. “Join us.” As he spoke, his companions made their way over to Kane’s Manta.
Carefully, Grant flipped the Copperhead’s safety back on and slipped the weapon into a hidden sleeve in the inner lining of the Kevlar duster he sported. Then, with the weapon concealed, he lifted himself from the cockpit and clambered down the wing to join Ronald and the others on the landing strip.
Thirty feet behind him, Kane and Brigid were just exiting their own Manta at the request of the other local reps.
“I hope you’ll forgive my not standing,” Ronald began as Kane and Brigid joined them. “Unfortunately, destiny has decreed that I not perform such feats.”
Grant realized then that the strange conveyance was a wheelchair, though it was one unlike any he had seen before. “You called this place—Authentiville?” Grant asked to cover his embarrassment.
“That’s correct,” Ronald said, nodding eagerly.
“Can I ask where we are, exactly?” Brigid asked.
As they spoke, the group passed through the doors of the golden tower and found themselves standing in a grand lobby. The lobby had eighteen-foot-high ceilings and featured towering machinery set at the sides of the vast space to leave a spacious, open floor area. To Brigid’s trained eye, the machinery looked like something medieval, and yet it glowed with modern illumination.
“Authentiville is an independent city state,” Ronald continued as he glided across the room. “Our contact with other territories is of a limited nature.”
“We’re searching for a friend who went missing,” Kane stated.
“Missing friend?” Ronald repeated, confused.
“Pale girl by the name of Domi,” Kane told him. “Pure white skin and hair, red eyes. There’s no mistaking her. We think a couple of your flyboys picked her up yesterday morning.”
Ronald offered Kane a sincere smile. “I know Domi—and I assure you that she’s quite safe. I’ll send word ahead and see that she knows you’re here. May I enquire as to your names?”
“Kane,” Kane told him. “And you’ve already met Grant, and this is Baptiste.”
“Brigid,” the distaff member of the Cerberus group corrected automatically. Kane had an irritating habit of using only her surname.
They passed through another set of doors and into a corridor lit by long horizontal streaks running along the walls. The illuminatio
n was a soft yellow color, like sunset in the tropics. Ronald glided alongside Kane, discussing Domi further and deflecting questions adroitly. His conveyance moved with almost total silence, only the very faint whir of its energy source humming at the periphery of hearing.
The two pilots took time to welcome Grant, apologizing for the way in which he had been brought here and complimenting his piloting skills.
“Your conveyance is Annunaki in origin, did you know that?” the dark-haired one asked.
Grant’s eyebrows rose in surprise at the query, but he covered it swiftly. “Yeah, me and Kane came across these two while we were doing a little exploring. Liked the way they handled and decided to keep them.”
“They’re fine vehicles,” the blond pilot agreed with a curt nod. “Safe skies to you.”
The two pilots disappeared through a door to the side of the corridor, leaving the Cerberus team, Ronald and his two assistants alone.
The corridor ended with a circular seal made up of four interlocked panels that peeled back like the petals of a flower. Kane, Grant and Brigid watched as the sections parted, revealing a long platform that jutted outward from the building. They could see now that the platform was arranged high above street level and it contained enough free space to hold a dozen or more people with ease. Beyond the platform, the colossal towers of Authentiville waited like golden monoliths, forming a skyline that looked like the pipes of a church organ.
“Our steed will be here in a moment,” Ronald assured the Cerberus visitors as they halted at the end of the corridor.
It took only a few seconds before their promised “steed” arrived, a broad-faced mechanical vehicle that traveled along what appeared to be a projected beam of light. The vehicle was a wine-red color with rounded sides and an arched roof, a continuous broad golden metal bumper running along its sides at waist height. The vehicle approached with a whsk-whsk sound like a desk fan before pulling to a halt at the platform edge.
In a moment, the sides of the vehicle retreated into their casings, granting a wide entrance through which passengers could enter. There were no seats inside, and nothing to hold on to while the vehicle was in transit. There was also no driver, just a box of lights located at the rear of the cabin that flickered different colors while the group stepped aboard.
Ronald assumed a position at the center rear of the vehicle, while his assistants, still wearing their mirrored headbands, took up their posts immediately beside him, hands folded behind their backs. The Cerberus team were encouraged to join them.
The interior of the “steed,” as Ronald had called it, was very plain, with strip lighting set in the curved walls and ceiling to illuminate the interior. There were windows on all sides, running the whole length of the vehicle. The windows reached up to the ceiling and down to Brigid’s kneecaps, granting the passengers a panoramic view of the city beyond the airfield. There were separate window panes set in the roof and a circular one in the center of the floor, beneath which the empty drop beyond the platform’s edge could be seen in all its breathtaking glory.
Kane ran his fingertips along one of the windows, feeling the smooth surface. It did not seem to be glass, but neither did it have the warmth of plastic. In fact, it felt more like crystal.
Once everyone was aboard, the side of the vehicle shuttered closed and it began to move noiselessly along the beam of light, picking up speed as it made its passage across the rooftops and between buildings, running on the narrow beam of light.
“What powers this vehicle?” Brigid wondered, addressing her question to Ronald.
“I can’t say,” Ronald replied with a shrug. “I didn’t build it.”
Brigid laughed at that, realizing it was like asking someone the principles behind the mat-trans simply because they could operate the teleportational system by punching in the right transmit code.
While Brigid had their host’s attention, Kane turned his back and surreptitiously activated his Commtact. Because the remarkable communication devices were surgically implanted into the user’s skull, they could pick up subvocalized speech as well as words said aloud. Thus, not using his voice, Kane called for Domi.
“Domi, this is Kane. Please respond.”
Kane waited a few seconds as the strange steed powered away from the airfield, weaving a path through the buildings as it followed its single, shimmering rail. There was no response. It appeared that, wherever they had landed, the Commtacts didn’t work.
Through the windows, the buildings were set in clumps of varying styles. It took Brigid a moment to recognize that they were flying over an industrial area, by-product pouring from high golden funnels in clouds of multicolored mist. Seen from above, the factories were shaped like gigantic cogs, giving the appearance of the workings of a bank-vault door. Steam dissipated above the buildings, and the steed cut a path through its fog. From inside, the steam appeared washed through with colors in the whiteness, pale blues, pinks and greens hanging there in pastel shimmers. It looked like cotton candy, pollution turned into art.
“What do you think this train runs on?” Grant asked Kane as they peered from one of the windows at the strange rail of light. He pitched his voice low, not trusting these strangers.
The rail seemed to be forming just a few feet ahead of them, giving the impression that it materialized as needed and changed route as required.
“It looks like a rail,” Kane said, “but not like one I’ve ever seen before.”
Despite the sudden appearance of the rail just a few feet ahead, the journey was exceptionally smooth.
As they traveled, Brigid spied someone flying past the window panes.
“Look!” Brigid called as she spotted the figure.
He was a young man in his early twenties wearing a blue jumpsuit. He had a luxurious mane of long red hair and a set of honest-to-gosh wings strapped to his back. The wings looked to be made of molded plastic with a hinge attachment at the midpoint. They did not flap, but seemed to glide, finding passage between buildings. The Cerberus team watched dumbfounded as the man landed on a building rooftop and the wings folded in on themselves as his feet touched solid ground.
As they watched the emerging vista around them the Cerberus teammates spotted more of the flying figures in ones and twos. Their dress varied, and so did the color of their wings, but they all traveled through the air in a similar manner.
“What are those things?” Brigid asked. “How do they do that?”
Ronald smiled amiably. “Pegasuits,” he said. “They gift the user with the power of flight—it’s very simple. Of course, it’s easy to forget how little you have down on the surface.”
They continued past the industrial area and crossed over green fields where cows and sheep grazed. The fields were arranged in steps that ran across the tops of buildings, fences of hard light penning the animals in place.
In total, the journey took ninety seconds. Soon they were approaching a colossal building that dominated the center of the city. The building reached not just upward but outward, spanning hundreds of acres. Its roof was curved in a graceful arc resembling a wave, rolling from west to east in a golden curl. Beneath this, the building’s facade was decorated with huge pillars and columns, each one more than a thousand feet high and as wide as ten men. The windows were vast, too, panes of colored glass as tall as redwood trees, grand figures etched into them that twinkled like cut crystal.
“Where are you taking us?” Kane asked as the strange conveyance shuttled toward the colossal building.
“Where all visitors to Authentiville go,” Ronald replied. “The court of Jack the King.”
It looked like a palace made for gods.
Chapter 10
King Jack’s court was as impressive from the inside as it had been on the outside. The first room the Cerberus crew entered was wide as a football field, with a ceil
ing so high that birds flew up there, nesting in the distant rafters. The floor was polished onyx that caught every highlight and reflected back the faces of Kane, Brigid and Grant when they peered into it.
There were statues to each side of the vast room, human figures dressed in elaborate armor, carved to three times life-size so that they towered over anyone who entered. The twin statues at either end of the room wielded spears the size of saplings, which they aimed at each other, creating a makeshift arch over the two doorways of the room.
“This sure is one big room,” Grant muttered as he saw its proportions for the first time.
Ronald led the way through the room in respectful silence. The Cerberus warriors followed while Ronald’s two psychic readers brought up the rear, their shiny headbands catching the light. Brigid had been thinking about the mind scan that they had performed, concluding that it was mechanically enabled somehow, utilizing some function of the headbands coupled with the equipment they wore at their belts. She peeked surreptitiously at said equipment but it gave away no secrets, its appearance a blank-faced box with a series of small, diodelike lights running up one edge.
Grant stopped before one of the towering statues, brushing a hand across his shaved scalp. “I wonder who she is,” he said.
The statue was of a woman wearing a stylized breastplate, metal skirt and long boots with spiked heels and spurs. A helmet covered her face, leaving only her ruby lips on show. The sculptor had gone to great lengths to elaborate on her cloak, a fan of feathers that flowed down to her ankles, billowing out behind her like the rising tide.
“Looks like an old girlfriend of mine,” Kane said with a chuckle.
A few paces ahead of them, Ronald pulled his chair to a halt and turned back. “This way, please,” he instructed, his voice barely above a whisper.
Laughing like schoolboys, Kane and Grant followed the wheelchair-bound man with Brigid and the mind readers striding behind. As he approached the far door where the twin spear-carrier statues waited, Ronald said a word that none of the Cerberus warriors recognized. The spears in the statues’ hands glowed momentarily and then the double doors opened inward, granting entry into a second room.