Athena looked through the few places—walls, screens, holograms, physical tablets—that still had intact words to see what she could understand. A schematic? Athena found a piece of paper with a rough blueprint of the building and words inked on it. “Barracks,” something “Splice,” “Detention”…“Human Anatomy,” something “Anatomy,” something “Testing”… Is there anything resembling a fertility lab here?
Athena wasn’t able to glean too much from the paper, but kept it with her as rough guide while exploring. Barracks? Destroyed. Detention? Destroyed. Athena stopped by one of the facilities with “test” in the name.
The entry led to an open space. There was a series of ramps and banisters that spiraled ten meters above the entrance to the room to twenty meters below. The walkways circled a thick glass that enclosed a circular, fifteen-meter diameter arena from top to bottom. The gradient increased as it ascended until it completely enclosed the arena, reaching a conical point at the apex. Likely so spectators on any level could see the events unfold below. Athena inspected the glass encasing and looked down at the arena. The encasing appears intact. Some small gashes and chunks missing on the inside, but whatever happened in here didn’t break this glass.
Unlike the rest of the underground lab, there were dried stains that littered both the arena dirt floor and the bottom portions of its glass. This arena is sealed in a way the rest of this lab isn’t—there’s almost no erosion.
Athena moved to the bottom of the room and looked for a door or entrance into the dome. Nothing...why aren’t there any stains in the middle? The stains on the floor of the arena were almost exclusively on the edges and most blemishes appeared to be in the bottom three meters of the glass encasing. There’s so much it’s almost impossible to see through. I guess whatever happened in there caused at least one subject to seek escape.
How strong is this glass?
Athena took a step back and sent a small ripple through space-time at the glass. Nothing. Increasing the strength of the ripple a bit caused the entire structure to vibrate. Still nothing. Taking the exercise more seriously now, she sent a wave at about three fourths maximum strength. The glass shook violently, and a crack appeared on the opposite side. It wasn’t a complete break, but Athena was satisfied. Okay. So at least I know most Olympian military personnel could escape. Relieved, she went up the ramps to the main hallway.
She inspected the map again. One of these anatomy labs may be the closest match to what was in the Bandurria facility.
Athena briefly checked the room with ‘human’ in the title, which was twice as large as the lab she saw in Bandurria. Like before, it contained mostly female cadavers, many of which were pregnant. Unlike the first lab, there weren’t any indications hybrid creatures resembling mangled Olympians were present. She continued on and hit the other “anatomy” lab in the facility.
Odd. There isn’t much here to suggest dissection of any creature. There were a few vacant tables with tools next to them, but no cadavers that Athena could see. The room mainly contained racks and racks of small glass vials, many of which lay broken on the floor. Close inspection revealed that most of the intact ones were filled with blood—of many colors—and others were just gas. This isn’t getting me anywhere. There’s only one other room that might be of relevance: “Monte Splice.”
She arrived at the last room in the hall and was struck by the size: it was much smaller than the other chambers. Stepping in, Athena saw a variety of weapons on a rack to her right—both projectile and melee—and vials on her left. Those look identical to the vials in the anatomy lab. She looked to the back of the room and realized there was a door. A sliding door like the other rooms had at their entry, but this one was intact. It had writing carved all over it, a single phrase repeated multiple times in various languages: “WARNING: Death resides here.”
Athena rubbed her temples. This situation is falling apart. I don’t even know if these sites are related to the intruders—I haven’t seen signs of entry at either. I need to at least send a message to the Council about these labs in case they don’t know about them already. They’ll want to know why I’m still here, though, and that will lead to telling them about the intruders anyway…I just need a little more time.
Athena keyed her in-ear communicator. “Atlas, I need you to retrieve my ship I left docked in the hanger back at the hibernation chamber and bring it back here as soon as possible.”
“Are we done sneaking around?” Atlas eagerly asked.
“Not quite, but we are fighting against time, and losing.
“Keep my vessel as well cloaked as you can while flying back here. You’ll need to provide the Aegis with a verbal override to fly it. The code is XXII-Ergane-Metis-Hekatombaion-Chalceia.”
“Okay.”
If there is trouble in this lab I need to be ready… Athena unhooked the golden, meter-long cylinder from her belt and released the retractable spears from both ends. The weapon now resembled a staff about three meters in length, with the ends tapering to a point. On its surface the weapon seemed harmless, but by the end of the Fracturing the entire galaxy knew the lethality of Athena’s spear, Minerva.
Facing the door and the possible unknown dangers behind it, Athena gave her spear a quick two-handed spin to remind herself of its shifting heft. It wasn’t necessary of course, Minerva had practically become an extension of her. Very few people within or outside of Olympia were skilled enough to wield her spear. The risk of injury to the user was too great; one slight misstep could lead to death.
The retractable portions of the weapon were constructed from an unstable form of exotic matter. Athena’s spear ends were a form of carbon, but instead of the atoms being composed electrons, protons, and neutrons, they consisted of larger particles. Specifically, muons replaced the electrons and up and down quarks were eschewed in favor of heavier quarks when forming the neutrons and protons.
Scientists knew for a long time that the majority of mass in the universe wasn’t the normal, baryonic matter composed of neutrons, electrons, and protons. There was some invisible form of matter that only gravitationally interacted with normal matter via the bending space. Many civilizations called this ‘mysterious matter,’ ‘dark matter,’ or ‘invisible matter.’
Olympians discovered that this amorphous blob of undisturbed matter permeating the universe evolved into a variety of fundamental particles when exposed to Hades space. “Hades matter” seemed the appropriate name since this invisible matter was the “normal” matter in Hades space. The fact that this Hades matter only weakly interacted with normal matter—composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons—meant the two forms of mass typically passed undisturbed right through each other.
Olympian scientists used this knowledge to formulate a state of unstable matter—called Ichor— that lay in the grey area between the two phases of space-time. The spear’s constant fluctuation between matter states meant that at any given fraction of a second her spear may be very dense with exotic matter or essentially massless with Hades matter. This feature gave Athena the ability to penetrate almost any object while her Ichor spear was nearly massless and then inflict deadly blows as it became dense again.
Athena felt the spear shift its mass as she held it, and welcomed the familiar rhythm. The vacillation between massless and dense followed a pattern and could be predicted, but it could not be controlled. As such, when unskilled users attempted to use the weapon, they exhibited jerky movements as they tried to penetrate various objects.
Athena knew, without hyperbole or boastfulness, that her hands were among the quickest and most coordinated in Olympia, allowing her to smoothly penetrate nearly any armor or shield. Properly used, the weapon was all but unstoppable on the offensive. Fear of the Ichor was so profound that its mere presence drove enemies to retreat. Athena had benefited from that fear during the Fracturing, as some enemies would retreat the moment it was drawn.
Unfortunately, the situation she found herself in wasn’t that sim
ple; the door she faced couldn’t flee.
Athena planted her right foot behind her, bent her knees, and shifted more weight onto her left leg. Her hands gripped her activated spear. She stood in her battle stance facing the locked door, wondering if she should open it and challenge Death.
Act I, Chapter 15
Growth
Location: Bandurria, Peru
Loki and Sigyn moved away from the crowd that gathered before the destruction in Bandurria. Sigyn used her augmented abilities to track the path the two Olympians used when they arrived hours earlier. She felt huge disturbances in space-time while she was near the destroyed monument, but they mollified as she approached the coast. She was trying to determine where and how the Olympians exited, but Loki seemed more interested in mapping the size of the underground facility based on the Olympians’ movement through it.
“I bet your intuition is twisted because those Olympians ripped apart the site with gravitational waves,” Loki said, walking behind Sigyn.
“I agree.” Would it be this easy for the Olympians to neutralize my ability?
“Can you tell whether they were above or below ground at any point?”
“Probably not, but I’ll have a guess once we figure out which direction they went.”
She led Loki to a strip of land between the ocean and the ancient ruins that looked like a large lake, but was likely the result of daily flooding from the ocean tide. Thick green brush and trees surrounded it, making it the only location flora flourished in what was an otherwise barren landscape.
“They were definitely in this area,” Sigyn said.
Loki paused. “Coastal research facilities usually had tunnels that lead out to the sea for exit and entry. I bet they were underground here. I’ll start digging. Meet you back here in an hour.” Loki knelt, pulled out his knife—Thoda Chandra—and started digging; his body began to blend in with the surroundings.
Sigyn was struck by his abruptness and spun around. “Loki, what?” It took her a second to pinpoint his general area through the mixture of the setting sun and his augmented camouflage. “We’ve already been exploring for 30 minutes and we agreed one hour in total. Going down there is a complete waste of time. What do you expect to find that will help us track them down?”
Without turning around, Loki replied, “Who knows? How often do you get to explore abandoned research facilities? Plus, there may be ships down there we can use.”
“And draw attention to ourselves?”
“Chances are that they took one from this facility—we know they crashed the plane they used to get here.”
Sigyn realized she wouldn’t get anywhere with him. Now this is more like Loki. There’s no budging him at this point.
Since Sigyn had first truly known Loki, he had been obsessed with ancient sites. He learned everything he could about the age-old experiments that went on across the galaxy and spent an abnormal amount of time exploring their ruined labs. Well, at least the ones he could sneak into.
“Fine, Loki. See you here in…59 minutes.”
Sigyn turned back to face the ocean and approached its edge, realizing she must be following along the exact path the Olympians used. She walked along the beach 100 paces north and south of that point. They likely ventured north. Given that she was waiting for Loki anyway, Sigyn decided to take the time to follow the beach north to verify her hunch.
* * *
Loki dug for 30 minutes, until he hit a piece of metal. The roof to the facility. It should be damaged enough from lack of maintenance, earthquakes, and general degradation to break through. He continued to cut, scrap, and dig at the roof for another 20 minutes before he had an opening large enough to squeeze through.
Loki was proud of his ability to sneak into any type of facility, but understood that his skill was certainly bolstered by the knife he carried. He had found it in the early days of the fracturing while scavenging the remains of a battle between two Primordial forces, the Naga and Pangu. A rogue troop of Naga, hell-bent on eradicating the Pangu, had attacked a largely civilian system—Yushan—that used to be central in Pangu’s territory. The attack, while successful in wreaking havoc across the system, ultimately ended in failure as fleets of Pangu were incidentally already enroute to Yushan for supplies. The small force of Naga made their last stand on the ruins of the planet Gun.
Luckily for Loki, the destruction to the system was severe enough for mass evacuation. Eventually, territories shifted as the war progressed and the remains of Yushan now lay on Olympia’s boundary. While scavenging the ruins of Gun, Loki found Thoda Chandra sticking out of the skull of a completely decomposed Pangu. He recalled how the blade, even where it had pierced the thick Pangu bone, looked still fresh from the whetstone.
Intrigued, as much of the advanced pre-Fracturing technology had been lost or classified, he decided to keep it. The knife didn’t always cut through what Loki was hacking at—there were walls in the galaxy too strong to break through—but even so, the blade never dulled.
Loki put his treasured blade back in his belt and moved into the small opening he created. Two or three stories? I can handle that. Loki fell into what was the hanger room and waited for a few seconds before moving on; letting his body heal his injured ankle.
He scanned the room and noticed a spot on the floor with less dust and residue than the others. The Olympians did take a ship. Unconcerned, he turned toward a ramp leading up to a centrally raised platform. The same platform the Olympians must have used hours earlier.
Loki moved forward, noticing the language etched on the inside of the waist-high wall separating the raised platform from the rooms below. Definitely a Huacan research facility. He recognized the gold décor and general syntax from three other sites he had explored throughout the galaxy. Surveying all of the rooms quickly, his eyes fell to a broken section of the wall. Loki gazed over at the rubble that lay on only one side of the break. Multicolor liquid and bits of yellow flesh and tissue created puddles around the debris. Severed limbs and large sections of unknown creatures marinated in a few of the puddles. Before descending the ramp, he glanced at the label for the room. Hmm…I think this symbol means “growth.”
He reached the bottom of the ramp and surveyed the room. Pregnant women, decayed women, and the monsters they gave birth to…presumably once in those shattered tubes. Loki looked closer at the tubes. Why so much life support? Did all these creatures require it? He looked back at the body parts sticking out beneath the rubble, realizing they increased in size the further down he looked. And they needed it throughout their entire lifecycle? That doesn’t make sense.
Loki slowly approached one of the larger creatures and inspected it without contact. He unsheathed his blade and poked at the bag of chemistry before him, hesitant to make assumptions with such an odd lifeform. Satisfied with the creature’s structural integrity, he delicately punctured its skin and winced while he moved the blade to open a fist-sized gash. He held his breath and rummaged through the insides of the unknown being.
The fluid within the specimen was more viscous than Loki expected—it bordered on watered-down tree sap. He pushed through the syrupy substance and blindly groped for organs, indiscriminately pulling out any structure he could find. Momentarily, he had a few organs organized before him, including a wrinkled tube that resembled intestines.
He punctured a sac attached to the assumed intestines and sought anything that would give him a clue as to what was being done. Vegetation? Loki found bits of green and brown foliage that likely came from the adjacent room overrun by flora. Intrigued, he repeated the exercise on another similarly-sized creature and found the same stomach contents. What about one of the smaller, less well-formed creatures?
He moved toward a particularly diminutive, partially crushed entity which resembled more of a yellowish blob than sentient lifeform. Let’s see what you’re hiding…what? Loki found that the entire blob was riddled with bark; its insides looked like plants spliced with organs. A network of ro
ots with what appeared to be veins flowed through the entirety of the creature. Maybe these are the older ones? Unsure of how to make sense of the tidal wave of information, he looked over at the preserved pregnant women. No…
Loki moved to dissect a few preserved specimens. Less squeamish now, he made quick work on a few cadavers. Some women were indeed pregnant—with creatures Loki had never seen before—but others that showed no signs of pregnancy had flora growing throughout their bodies. He looked again at the creatures scattering the lab. Why all this experimentation on humans? And what the hell were those creatures? The liquid hasn’t evaporated, so someone—presumably the Olympians—recently caused this destruction. Maybe—oh shit, I have to meet Sig!
Loki rushed back to the blob, which he had begun to surmise was a plant disguised as a sentient being, and removed a handful of vegetation. Sticking it in the pouch on his belt, he repeated the exercise with a creature exhibiting a more distinct humanoid form. Spinning around, he dashed up the ramp, back to the hanger, leapt up onto one of the ships, and looked up at the opening he made to get into the facility. I can’t exit through the hole I made—it’s too high and narrow. And there’s nothing to grip.
He glanced at the first ship he recognized: an old, simple, cylindrical Linter. It will get me out of here and give me a way to get to Egypt…
“Sig! I’ll be right up!” Not waiting for a reply, Loki scrambled into the Linter’s cockpit, dropped the hatch remotely, engaged the engines, and took off down the long conveyor belt. His ship exited the facility and ascended to the top of the ocean; he continued to fly low back to the beach. The night sky above and the black water below gave him natural cover from prying eyes. Shit, Sig is already waiting for me. I’m ten minutes late.
The Gods Who Chose Us Page 13