The yammering of my smaller gun was muffled abruptly by a horrendous blast about twenty meters down the walkway. The suicide gun. It may or may not have taken out some NATech grunts, but it certainly cleared the way for Aaron to give me support.
And support was becoming desperately needed. The base had been on full alert for three and half minutes now, and the place was coming alive with hostile activity, all focused on us. They had made the logical assumption that the amount of damage we were doing pointed to the main focus of the attack. And so it was. But we were only the first part of a double feint.
The last of my attackers fell away just as the gun emptied. I released the clip and reloaded in an instant. My first attacker, the one who had actually shot me, was on the ground, her head, neck and shoulders shot away from Sarah's overhead assault. She jumped down from the roof, landing near me as Aaron came around the far corner and loped up to us. We were now in an undesireable position, highlighted against a wall, with the enemy out of effective range for us to attack. We were best gone.
I ran back to the east side of barracks, then cut north to the walkway we had first entered. The walls were now popping and chipping as slugs and beams began tracking us. My right shoulder gel pack jumped as it deflected a slug. Another five seconds and they'd have our range.
We needed only three seconds to reach our objective, which was the far edge of the walkway. Below it was darkness. Though located in the west center of the cavern, the Xeno barracks was at the northwestern edge of the base. In front of us were rough-cut and partially used service areas. This was our way out.
I leaned over the walkway and pinged the depths. Empty, flat cavern floor.
"Fifteen meters, flat," I called. Without hesitation, Sarah vaulted over the railing and disappeared into the darkness. Aaron picked me up and followed.
"Bogies," I heard Sarah call, just as bright spots beneath us lit up. Damn. We'd wasted too many seconds outside the barracks, allowing NATech to get one of their powered quad teams into position. They had state of the art enerarmor, too. My sensors hadn't registered so much as an anomaly during my quick scan. That was good and bad. Bad that we'd been surprised, good because stealth armor didn't have the staying quality of front-line issue.
There was no turning back. Sarah was touching down, and Aaron and I were in free fall. We had been caught fair and square. Of course, you can also catch a tiger fair and square. It's what you did after you caught him that counted.
Aaron threw me off a split second before touching down. But he didn't throw me to safety, he threw me at the head of the nearest of the four. It was a risky move. If this NATech goon reacted in time, he could snap me in two with his powered armor. If he didn't react, though, I had one of two superior positions: either on him or behind him.
Mama Wyeth's little girl lucked out. He couldn't react in time and I crashed into his upper helmet. Using my momentum, I grabbed on and threw him back. He had the strength, but I had the leverage. He hit the ground with a loud bang, not doing any damage, but distracting him enough for me to pull the nullifier off my belt and attach it to his back shoulder. I clicked it on and it started the decoding process.
He moved to throw me off, but I anticipated his action and slithered inside his grasping arms. Jerking my right hand down, I fired my remaining holoknives into his chest plate.
His armor snapped and crackled as the knives disintegrated against his energy shield, doing no damage other than some scorching. He laughed and swung his arm like a club. I raised my arm to catch the hit in my upper chest armor. Just as he crashed into me, I launched myself in the same direction. Between his hit and my leap, I landed three meters from him. Rolling over, I drew my energy gun and fired the laser. The beam took him straight in the chest as he rose, but as with the holoknives, it caused a great deal of crackling and popping but little damage. He laughed, thumping his chest.
"Go ahead, you little whore. Shoot away. You're not going to penetrate NATech enerarmor with that little popgun. Even if you did, I still have enough hard armor to take a dozen more shots."
The man was an idiot, and obviously didn't consider me a threat. Unneeded talk demonstrated either his lack of training, his lack of confidence, or both. No point in showing him the error of his ways. I should have thanked him, though. He gave me the time I needed for my gun to recharge. It toned and I fired.
As before, his armor crackled and sparked. This time, however, the effect didn't fade away. It gained intensity and began spreading over his entire suit. The nullifier had used my attacks to find the armor's energy frequency and was disrupting the flow of power. Now was the moment. I drew my boot knife and ran at him.
He was flailing wildly, ignoring me for the perceived danger from the energy backlash. I stepped nimbly under his arm and slid the heavy blade between his chest and arm plating. He screamed through his solid mask and fell to his knees. He'd put all his faith in his wonderful combat suit, and was now finding out the truth: it's not the suit, it's what's in the suit. My slug gun came up, the barrel jamming into the space between his chest plate and helmet, and I pulled the trigger a quick five times. The gun pulled free as he fell back and I went to help my wingmen I seriously doubted the blood would jam up the barrel significantly.
Sarah was holding one in close combat. His helmet was off and he was raising an arm to hit Sarah's faceplate. I stepped up, drawing the knife back, but it was suddenly over. Her hand shot to his throat and even from five meters distant, I distinctly heard a series of cracks as she snapped his neck. It sounded like lions cracking the rib cage of a zebra as they feasted. She tossed him away and I came to her side. As a pair, we went to Aaron. Close to Aaron, that is. To come too close would invite disaster.
Being the strongest of our squad, he'd sought out and engaged the strongest of theirs. And now they were locked in each other's grip, motionless, silently waiting for the moment of weakness that would decide the outcome. Despite centuries of refinement in the art and weapons of war, their struggle was reduced to this most basic form of conflict. Two huge beasts engaged in a primal battle of brute strength. Until the decisive moment came, neither could advance nor retreat. One was already dead.
The moment suddenly came and it was over in a heartbeat, literally. There was a high whine as the shoulder servos in the NATech suit burned out. Aaron jerked the man's arm down, breaking it, then punched his fist into the chest plate. The chest plate collapsed into the man's ribs, then popped out as Aaron's fist broke through. I saw the dead man's back plate dent out, then Aaron lowered the broken suit with its broken contents to the ground. Not out of tenderness but to place his foot on the man before wrenching his fist free.
"Number four?" I said.
Sarah jerked a thumb to a bloody mess about eight meters to our left. Sarah had no equal in a knife fight. Conditions made no difference to her; she could cut up a powered suit as easily as the flesh underneath. The shredded suit and woman that lay crumpled in the darkness only underscored how inevitable the result had been. There was only one way to fight a war and that was for keeps. I nodded.
"Good. Let's move."
I glanced up at the walkway above. There should have been an audience by now. No one. I looked at the internal clock. Six minutes, thirty-eight seconds since the PDQ. That explained their absence. Our friends up top had other things to worry about. Three regiments of other things. I clicked on the common channel and listened in for a few seconds, than turned it off. Phase Two was on schedule.
We worked our way to the east, following the cavern floor. The floor, now a rough corridor about ten meters wide and ten meters below the base main level, continued straight into the darkness. Undoubtedly guarded during normal operations, it was empty now. The commander of this base was no fool. The fight for the life of this base was occurring at main level. He'd left a powered quad team down here, probably thinking it was overkill, but wasted no more resources. Any squad caught down here could be obliterated from above. And other than undetected move
ment, the corridor offered no advantage.
We moved quickly, staying close to the cavern wall. About three hundred meters along the corridor, my foot stepped on a piece of wood, cracking it with a dull snap. I jumped to one side and landed on another piece. Knowing we could not be heard or seen, I held my position and shone my helmet light onto the cavern floor.
Scattered about carelessly by the thousands were bones. Human bones, ancient and dry. At least a hundred were sticking out of the solid cavern walls. An open graveyard of the workers who had built this fortress centuries ago. Those in the wall were the ripes who had not made the time jump precisely and had died horribly when they appeared in solid rock.
I raised a hand to the bones that jutted from the wall. How horrible a death it must have been, I thought in numbed wonder. Just below one half-embedded skull dangled a diamond cross necklace. Why would a ripe be wearing this? Not that it mattered. She had long since passed from this world and hopefully to one infinitely better.
There were no words to describe the sense of deep sorrow that hung over this scene, so I turned off the spot. We continued on, thinking our own thoughts, and reached our objective in two minutes: a small, rough-cut access corridor that trickled north behind the backup generators.
Although the Eighth regiment would be performing their insertion attack in just under five minutes, we three no longer had a timetable. Just a goal.
We moved quickly up the narrow passage for forty meters. Hard rock all the way, then the tunnel suddenly widened on the right. I turned a spot on the area and saw the dull white glow of the generators. Located on the far edge was the power access port.
Sarah dropped the gear and headed back down the corridor to make sure we weren't bothered. I picked up the equipment and lugged it over to the power access. Latching the relays, I ran the fiber out toward the center of the floor. I unlocked my helmet and took it off. Even the stale air of this ancient cavern felt cool against my sweat soaked face. Aaron had already set down and set up the access grids, positioning them into a square, three meters on a side. I connected the power feeds to each of the grids, and they began to hum. It was possible that the significant power draw would be noticed. Possible but not probable. By now everyone who might be concerned had more immediate problems to address than why a backup generator was experiencing a five-percent power drop-off.
There was a hiss of compressed air behind me. I stood up after connecting the final power grid and saw Aaron had removed his helmet. In the soft white glow of the generators, his face looked carved from granite, his wet face and hair glistening slightly. His eyes shone like pinpoints of light from the shadows cast on his face. Had I not known him, I would have been frightened. As it was, I still felt concern. He had never broken combat regulations by removing armor unnecessarily. He obviously had something important to say. Something personal. I struggled with my beast, leashing it for a moment, and walked up to him.
He said nothing, instead staring into my eyes. So quiet was the cavern that I heard the micro-servos in his arms as he lifted his hand and ran it gently along my chin to the back of my head. With his enhanced armor, he could have burst my head like a soap bubble. Instead, he held me so softly, that same soap bubble could have nestled in his palm. He continued staring into my eyes, then brought his face down slowly. His lips brushed mine and we kissed tenderly, our mouths trembling, as though scared to bring something as soft and intimate as love to a place such as this. He released me, still staring into my eyes, and stepped back.
"Finish this, love," he said with his eternally soft, eternally strong voice. "I want to take this armor off today and never have to put it back on."
I nodded and stepped into the center of the access grids. Looking at him one last time. I smiled slightly, then looked away. I tossed my head, throwing my ponytail back, and the beast tore loose. Mike and Kiki would be waiting for me to get there. And Aaron would be waiting for me to come back.
"Total."
Chapter Nine
The three of us stood on a high pinnacle, all alone, just Mike, Kiki, and me. Beneath us lay a vast panoramic view of the puterverse.
It was indescribably beautiful. At unrestricted access, where we were now, there were no barriers to mar the horizon, no limits or veils to cover the vivid colors, enhanced scents and million shades of light that made up this fantastically unreal place. Overhead, a sky so black that it stole one's breath poured its deep quietness onto the world below it, sharpening and increasing the beauty. Far to our right was the mighty Quantum River, the primary carrier of the vast amounts of data transported around the world at the speed of thought. Throughout the entire puterverse, and we could see only the smallest portion from even this high vista, nothing could be seen to sully or ruin this dimension. The ion breezed brushed my aura, making me think of lilacs and meadowlarks and deep space. The whole of the sensations were stunning. Almost overpowering.
"Destroy it," I said.
I stepped to the edge, facing out, and raised my arms. Mike and Kiki did the same and we joined hands. All our months of effort had culminated to this single point in time. For as beautiful as the puterverse was, as efficient and fast and exciting, it had underneath it the rotting odor of evil and the stench of death. Despite all that I had done to hide Chris Young's selfish influence here, my work was only stopgap and diversionary. I'd known from almost the beginning that this needed to be torn down, then rebuilt from the ground up. Not in the image of its creator, but in its own image. Because the puterverse was not a series of webbing techniques. It was not a complex database, or information processing center. Nor was it a virtual reality, capable of holding simulated life forms. The puterverse contained elements of each, but was much more It was real. It was an actual dimension that supported trinary code as living things, and could be visited and used by physical creatures. But we had made a mess of it, and the three of us were going to clean it up.
A whirlwind of yellow blew on my back as a vortex sprang to life in our midst. Groaning to release its energy, we held it in check, waiting. From beyond the Quantum, a black cloud rose from the unseen ground and boiled rapidly in our direction.
With incredible swiftness, the cloud crossed the Quantum and obscured the plain beneath us. Like a living thing, it scaled the high spire we stood on, clawing its way up desperately, as though its very life depended on reaching us. Which it did.
"Abby, I'm scared!" Kiki cried above the roaring wind.
"Good!" I yelled back. "I'm glad you're just scared! In a few seconds, you'll be terrified! All three of us have to keep holding hands! Share your strengths and your weaknesses!"
The black mass was almost on us. It was Chris' best attack, for in it he had committed much of himself. I could sense his presence within. Terror began to build in my heart, threatening to frighten even my beast I looked to my left. Kiki - standing taller than me now - had thrown =her shoulders back and was gripping me with an iron grasp. Though I couldn't see her face, I could feel the moist gold of her tears as they whipped away from her face and splashed against me.
On my right was Mike, his green aura painful to view. Of the three of us, he was the most resolute. He had been horribly wounded by Chris when we first attacked him. A polluted Pseudo Trinary Code virus had invaded his body, threatening to rewrite him from existence in the same way Chris had rewritten me into oblivion so many centuries ago. Yet Mike had not learned to hate. He was disgusted by Chris' actions. Repulsed, angry, and saddened by them. But he did not hate Chris, nor could he kill him. Mike, more than Kiki - for Kiki had not experienced as deeply as Mike the failings of humans - had seen what we could become, known he could follow, and had turned away. He was not pure because his creator - me - was not pure. But here in the puterverse, Mike could administer justice without revenge, could punish without anger, could correct without hate.
The cloud spilled over the edge of the pinnacle and engulfed us. The glow of the vortex and our own bodies faded as the slime of the cloud's interior coa
ted us. My entire body began itching wildly as millions of energy locusts bit into my aura, wanting to feed on me until I was nothing more than a gutted husk.
"ABBY!" Kiki screamed.
"Wait! Not yet!" I gripped her hand, nearly crushing it, and poured my life energy into her, hoping to give her enough strength to endure the horror a few moments longer.
***
Aaron Marks stood just outside the energy perimeter, guarding and watching his beloved wife. He didn't like what he saw, but was helpless. To step inside the perimeter would mean his instant death.
She was standing very stiff, arms thrust up and back, staring out and gasping. Blood was trickling from her left hand. Her entire body was rigid, racked by pain. He had never seen her access with any difficulty before, and he was afraid for her.
He was afraid for himself as well. Twenty-three years old, Aaron had joined the Resistance nearly eight years ago, at age sixteen. Though he had known several girls before going in, he had viewed all women as comrades and fellow dogs shortly after joining. His rapidly advancing skill in combat and his ability to patiently solve whatever problem arose had earned him respect throughout the entire unit. Unfortunately, it also distanced him from everyone but Sarah. Sarah had understood his quiet solitude, and was always there to cheer him up, or keep him from withdrawing too far. She loved him, and he loved her. But it would always be a sibling love, one born from respect and identity and the knowledge that neither was meant for the other.
Then Abigail had come. At first only a Cue, he had thought nothing of her other than a symbol of what he believed in and what he fought for. He had been on the raid that stole her then empty body from the physiomanufacturing plant in Bern. She was just a thing, hemolixer her only covering. She had no thoughts because she had no mind. She had no shame for she had no soul.
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