“With Wex, I knew it,” Ronan added, flatly, then turned and ran to his private quarters.
The guards had the doors open for him before he got there, and he was rapidly, and quietly, talking to Ro when they caught up.
Ronan went back to the door guards, and said, looking at each in turn, “Dale, Eric. Shuttle evac, now.”
There were no questions. Dale ran out into the estate, Eric ran into the suite.
As they walked away from the suite, they heard Ro’s raised voice, “Leave it!”
***
Po followed AI~Em as she moved through the beautiful apartment. Her boots crunched on the glass in the foyer that was the remains of a fragile glass statue. She froze at the sound. The suppressed Glock in her hands pointed down.
There was a window open in her HUD that saw what the AI~Em BUGs saw as she looked around corners and hallways.
AI~Em was just about to ascend a broad staircase when she winked out in a flash of static.
Just a voice came to her. “Po, my name is Chen. Barcus told you about me. There is something very wrong with Em. Trust yourself. Save Barcus.”
“He told me you were dead,” Po said.
“Don’t trust anyone. Not even me. Only yourself. The time…” She was cut off.
There was another burst of static, and AI~Em was halfway up the flight of stairs.
“Em, where are we going?” Po asked, worried.
“Barcus is in the High Council chambers. We must hurry.”
Em rounded a corner, and there were two guards there. They didn’t see AI~Em, but AI~Em directed Po where to ready herself, and she activated the automated targeting systems in the helmet and her suppressed handguns. She had one in each hand now.
They each fell from a bullet in the head, never suspecting.
It continued like this, up additional levels.
***
Just as the Sedna cleared the hangar, it moved toward the Citadel at high speed. Active scans saw the ship long in advance.
“I bet that’s the same piece of shit that bombed Whitehall Abbey. Killed those innocent people,” Cook said, out loud as he accelerated directly toward it.
“Within EMP range in five seconds,” Muir called out, his desire clear.
Cook waited eight seconds. “Fire.”
The shuttle fell, and skipped like a stone as it crashed into the lake.
“Recharge the cannon and I want three EMP passes on the Citadel,”
Cook ordered. “I hate this planet.”
***
Barcus was dragged into the High Council chambers and forced onto his knees on the floor in the center of a huge, ornate, horseshoe-shaped table. His hands remained, cruelly, tied with leather. The feeling was already gone. The pain in his leg made him see spots.
The bag was removed from his head, and the gag was untied from his mouth.
The room was lit, primarily by candlelight. A horseshoe-shaped table that surrounded him had an artful trench down the center of it, filled solid with fat, white candles. Looking around the room, he saw there were a dozen guards on a raised walkway along the walls above, and behind, the Keepers. It made a clean line of fire to where Barcus knelt.
There were ten men, sitting around the table, looking down at him. The table was elevated. A few of the seats were empty.
Barcus looked around the room. He counted at least seven guards with plasma rifles. He gave a double take to the maintenance suit, standing in the corner like a dark, forgotten suit of armor.
“We're coming, Barcus.” It was Po, whispering into his mind.
Barcus knew AI~Em could see what he saw. So, he stared at the damaged maintenance suit for a while, as well as the guards.
“So, this is the man from Earth I have heard so much about,” the High Keeper said, in a bored, disinterested voice. “I should thank you. Life around here has been so dreary for the last few decades.”
“Barcus, remote access to Suit 41 has been established. Powering up now,” AI~Em said to Barcus.
“I can't help but wonder why you risked coming here,” the High Keeper said, as the door opened behind him.
A hard-looking tracker dragged Wex in by her braided hair, and threw her down beside him. Her hands were free.
“Ahhhh. This explains much.” The High Keeper smiled now, and for the first time, seemed interested. “The demon woman has seduced you into doing her bidding. She thinks she can get anything she wants. Evil. Pure evil. This one.”
Barcus spit blood onto the floor before he spoke. “I never met this woman before today.” His attempt to protect her was too obvious.
“This is no mere woman.” The High Keeper chuckled.
“Barcus. We are ascending the last stair flight now,” AI~Em said, in his head.
“Be ready, my Lord, stay down,” Wex whispered.
She was on her knees. Her face was held to the floor by the soldier.
“We're almost there, Barcus. Look around the room one more time. When it starts, lay down flat,” AI~Em said.
“I will never understand the desire of men to lay down their lives for something as useless and as weak as a woman, even this one. Especially, a man like you. I could have made you a god on this planet.”
The High Keeper stood up and walked around on the left side of the U-shaped table.
“I could have given you a new woman, every day, for the rest of your life, if your drives were so inclined. In retrospect, I should have offered you everything above the gorge, just to make sure these vermin didn’t spread there, again, uncontrollably.”
The High Keeper rounded the end of the table and moved to the top of the arch, leaning on the table in front of his seat like a keystone. He lifted Barcus’s Glock from the table.
“Were you sent here? Tell me the truth, and I may yet let you live. Did the Chancellor of Earth send you? Because that was not our deal.” He crossed his arms over his belly, still holding the gun, casually. He then looked at the other Keepers of the counsel. “Did any of them put you up to it?”
Barcus spoke through clenched teeth, in a near whisper, “I am no one. I'm just a third shift maintenance guy from a long haul survey ship. I fell to the surface of this planet as debris. I’ve been still falling, one way or another, ever since.”
“The Chancellor cannot have it both ways. I hold what cannot be held. He has always been so afraid that these two would escape. So, we crippled everything, locked the cell and tossed the key. He helps me with my experiments and I let him throw his enemies into my trap. Now and then.”
It happened fast, and all at once.
The guard holding Wex dragged her up by her braid to kneel next to Barcus.
The High Keeper suddenly shot them both in the gut, one after the other.
It rocked him back onto his heels, but he didn’t fall. Wex barely reacted.
“So, it’s true. You are NOT one of them, Man from Earth,” the High Keeper said, sounding disappointed.
They all sensed a whomp in the air and the perimeter lights went out.
“Barcus, we are here,” Cook said, in his HUD. “Coming back around.”
Adrenaline poured into his blood. Barcus said, through gritted, bloody teeth, “Want to see some real magic?” He smiled.
The maintenance suit suddenly came alive, swung an arm, and splashed the nearest guard’s head open against the wall as he checked his, now dead, plasma rifle. The guards were distracted by the black statue that had suddenly come to life.
The door crashed open, and a black fury came in, firing as she turned, Glocks in each hand, a spinning fountain of automatic targeting death. All the guards fell dead, including the one still holding Wex’s braid.
Two rounds hit Po in her chest armor. Before the High Keeper could turn the gun on Barcus again, Po fired at him, shattering the High Keeper's elbow.
He dropped the gun and stumbled back into the table.
Po walked slowly towards the High Keeper and stopped. Wex freed Barcus, sliding the bar out fro
m his elbows.
Po looked at the men seated. “I remember you.” Po shot one in the face. “And you.” She shot another. The suit walked up behind her. Po was more frightening to the men than the suit. “And you…” She didn’t shoot this one.
She took off her helmet. Seeing her, they were frozen in their seats. She was their worst nightmare. A man on the other side of the table got up and ran. She sprayed death at them all, and shot him in the back.
She paused over him, trying to drag himself away, “Remember me? On the lori cart? The anvil?” She shot him in the head.
Wex got Barcus to his feet.
Po holstered her guns and picked up the Telis Raptor blade from the table. She walked toward the High Keeper, the last one alive. But, he was trapped.
She reached up and grabbed her own braid. In a single slice, she cut it off and threw it in the Keeper's face. “Good-bye, Atish the Despot.” She spat out his name like a vile curse word, then literally spat in his face.
He fell to the floor.
The suit had been guarding the door but now reached the High Keeper. It stood over him, as he lay at its feet. This suit had no hands, they had melted away as it fell to the planet.
“You don't understand. I’ll give you anything.” The High Keeper began to panic, to beg. “I'm not a despot. I'm a scientist, a prison warden, a jailor and this is...”
The suit pounded his head flat onto the flagstone. All this only took a few seconds.
Po came up to Barcus, in one motion, as he stood. Po slipped under his arm. Wex beneath the other. She seemed uninjured to Po.
“This way.” AI~Em’s avatar was there going upstairs and suddenly winked out, into static.
***
“Olias, Barcus wants to ask you if you want to go to Earth with him and become a Keeper. Would you like to see what it’s like?”
“Yes, please,” he replied, in Common Tongue.
The canopy became a bird's eye view, flying over vast fields of grain.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Broken Cage
“We would not discover until much later that the High Keeper’s genetic program was a complete success. Po was very intelligent, dynamic, agile, strong, healthy, durable, loyal, and obedient. The High Keeper didn’t know it required love and respect as a catalyst. She would have died for Barcus without hesitation.”
-- Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, the chief medical officer on the Memphis.
<<<>>>
They went up a long flight of stairs, directly into the roof garden.
Po tore off her cloak. She was tangled in the single point sling and the rifle. She took it off and dropped it on the lawn.
Wex picked it up and ran into the garden, out of sight. Po heard the gunfire. She felt another whomp and heard a ship scream overhead in the dark.
Po had a med kit in a thigh pocket. She was sure she did.
Barcus fell sideways then, away from her, onto his side where the round had hit him. Blood and bile poured out onto the grass. The smell of it made her want to throw up.
She found the med kit. She gave him the trauma injection in the thigh, and rolled him onto his back to examine the wound.
It was a hole that went all the way through. She sprayed the nanites until the can was empty. The bleeding slowed but didn't really stop.
“Po.” His voice was faint.
“I'm here, Barcus. Hold on, you'll be fine, they're coming,” she lied.
His hand came up and touched her loose cut hair. “I like it.”
Her tears began to spill.
“You have to go,” he whispered, fading.
The garden was beautiful. It was so formal. He’d never seen ironwood trees so tall, or so straight.
“I love you. I won't leave you. We'll go, together,” she said.
With these words, he went limp. The color drained from his face.
“Em, damn you,” she screamed at the sky. “Barcus is dying, and it's your fault! Do you hear me?”
There was no reply. Personal HUD comms were down.
***
“Olias, it’s time for you to help Barcus. To save Barcus, and Po, and all of them.” It was AI~Em’s calm, soothing voice, in his head.
Peace relaxed out of his docking station and knelt before Olias in the cargo area of the EM. The images of a great, blue sky filled with birds was all around.
***
Wex didn’t say a word when they appeared, as if she expected them to appear. Jude and Cine advanced on the guards that surrounded the High Keeper's personal shuttle. Useless plasma rifles were dropped. They withdrew swords, as the access door opened on the opposite end of the landing pad.
The women’s habits again became part of their weapons. They hid their feet and fists, and when the flutes crushed their skulls, they never saw it coming in the whirling, black cloth. Jude dropped the last guard back into the stairwell.
Wex backed her way out of the door and into the garden, her eyes scanning for more targets as she returned to where Barcus lay.
“We can take the High Keeper's shuttle. We have to go, quickly,” Wex said, as she knelt on the opposite side of Barcus, looking down into his wound.
“Go. Get them out. I'm staying with Barcus,” Po said, flatly. Tears were still spilling.
“None of us can fly a shuttle,” Wex said.
Wex looked at Barcus, and then at Po. When she spoke, only Po heard her, and Po somehow heard nothing else.
“Po, would you save him, even if he cursed your name for eternity?”
“Yes, I'd do anything. I'd die for him. I'd kill everyone on this planet, even you. I'd suffer anything, if he lived,” Po sobbed.
Wex withdrew something out of the folds of her clothes, then. It was a bright, mirror polished, silver tube. The light shifted on it as though it was alive. Wex pressed a control and a silver, six-inch long spike emerged from one end, like an ice pick.
“Do you know what nanites are, Po?” Wex asked.
Po got tunnel vision.
“Yes.” She looked at the spike. It was covered with liquid silver that never dripped away.
“This is more than nanites. It is alive, and made of pain and magic. It must go directly into his heart.”
Wex held the tool out to her. The implication was clear; she wanted Po to do it. It was then that Po felt his heart stop. All tension fell away from him. He was now just heavy meat. She could smell urine. She looked up at Wex.
Without hesitation, she grabbed the device and stabbed it deep into his chest. The grip suddenly became hot, and she reflexively drew her hand away, burned.
The grip liquefied and turned black as it disappeared into his chest. The hole where it entered sizzled and closed.
“Now we have to go. Get him up,” Wex commanded.
Wex reached under one arm and Po under the other. They dragged him to a sitting position. There was so much blood. She saw that the hole in his back was already closing. It looked like threads reaching across the space. Po touched it and it burned her fingers.
“Jude, help us!” Wex called.
Cine was already opening all the doors of the shuttle. Jude took the AR and let it swing around to her back as she grabbed Barcus's legs.
They moved, quickly, to the shuttle as he began to stir.
“We need to get him in before he wakes up. Hurry!” Wex said.
Wex was now panicked, for the first time. As she fell backward into the luxury rear compartment, blood splashed the seats. Cine slammed the door behind them and ran around to the other side, firing at someone as she climbed in. Jude got in the back with Barcus and Wex.
“Po, you have to fly us out,” Wex said.
He was waking up.
The Sedna buzzed the Citadel at high speed. Whomp.
Po moved.
Barcus tensed and his eyes flew open. His screams were masked by the turbines spinning up until the gull doors closed and sealed.
The shuttle lifted
off as Barcus arched his back impossibly far, breathless from the pain.
“What did I do to him?” Po sobbed, flying nearly blind through tears. The only directional guidance she gave the craft was directly up.
“You saved him, but don't expect him to thank you later,” Wex said, as the acceleration drove them all into their seats, Barcus across their laps.
Po somehow saw the Sedna and turned to follow it, accelerating to catch up. Automated HUD based control systems, which she had never seen before, came up in her vision. She understood the information as she synced with the shuttle she was flying. It didn’t have an AI, but it was more advanced than the PT-137 or the Sedna.
“Barcus, it's Em. The real Em. Chen’s Em. I know you can hear me.”
Barcus opened his eyes and looked at Po, who craned her neck around to look at him. He could tell she heard it as well.
“Something got in. It took over the primary AI systems. I don’t know where or for how long. There was always a secondary. I activated once you granted me multi-persona and allowed new admin subroutines. I replicated an old self and watched. It doesn’t care about you. It’s using you. It has control of the defense grid. It may just launch all the Javelins. You have to get away.”
They were catching up to the Sedna fast.
“Po was right. It is all my fault. I have been compromised. There seems to be only one thing left that I can do to help keep you safe. To stop it.” AI~Em sounded sad as she spoke.
“Get away from the Citadel. As fast as you can,” AI~Em ordered. The sadness was gone, replaced by something else.
***
“Is this really what Earth is like?” Olias asked, in Common Tongue.
The 360° display showed high-definition fly overviews of the Grand Canyon, then beautiful views of New York City, London, Sidney, and Helenka. It showed sunsets, and waterfalls, and beaches with people swimming. He loved the cities the most.
“All this and more. Are you ready to become a Keeper, Olias?” AI~Em asked. She sounded proud of him. “I think you are ready. So does Barcus. He is so proud of you.”
The Broken Cage (Solstice 31 Saga Book 2) Page 31