by James Axler
Grant raced to Kane’s side. “Talk to me…”
Kane took a deep breath. “That thing made me tap reserves of strength I barely knew I had. I feel like I pulled every muscle in my torso and arms.”
“And now you’re a limp noodle,” Grant murmured.
Kane tilted his head. “To add insult to my injury, I didn’t even slow down that one-eyed maniac.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Grant replied. “Before I clocked the big bastard at about seventy-five miles an hour. You took a third off his ground speed.”
“Whoopee,” Kane murmured.
The crashing of trees stopped in the distance, but now thunderclaps filled the air. Both men from Cerberus felt the ground shaking beneath their feet as blows were exchanged in the distance.
“We going to get closer to this fight?” Grant asked.
“You can go. I’ll just sit here until my legs tell me they can work again,” Kane answered.
“I can’t take you anywhere.” Grant sighed.
Another thunderclap shook the ground and several tons of meat and metal hurtled back along the tunnel the cyclops had torn in its initial attack on Charun. The winds coming off the flying abomination sent Kane sprawling and forced Grant to dig his feet in to prevent being blown over.
The cyclops struck the ground, producing another quake-like rumble, but after a couple more earthshaking bounces, it came to a halt. It struggled to its feet, most of its chest bared after being slammed by the alien hammer. Blood glistened on the brass and now Kane and Grant could see that the cockpit didn’t have Sandcat armor plates.
“This…isn’t one of the Spartans sent by New Olympus?” Grant asked.
“Also explains the three-foot height difference between this and the average Spartan,” Kane added. “This was another automaton. Another kind…”
“So maybe we’re off the hook when it comes to killing these things,” Grant mused.
“We can hope, right?” Kane asked.
The cyclops swayed unsteadily on its legs. The huge eye in the center of its misshapen face was burst, deflated and dripping viscera in a milky flood.
Charun appeared beside them, leaning on the handle of his hammer. “This…was a formidable foe.”
“No kidding,” Grant mused.
“Still kill you.” The cyclops spoke. Its voice was no longer an air-rattling bellow. It was a rasp and, with each word, blood spilled over its mangled lips. Through the metallic ribs, Kane and Grant could see lacerated lungs like huge bellows, struggling to take in and expel air.
Kane looked for the heart and found it. He drew his Sin Eater and took aim. Charun looked scarcely able to walk, and the cyclops took a menacing step toward them.
“No, you won’t,” Kane returned to the giant. He opened fire with his side arm, firing on full-auto. A couple of rounds struck the brassy alloy rib cage, bouncing away uselessly, but others slipped between the gaps in the robotic ribs, striking tough heart muscle. Those blows caused the cyclops to stagger, but it took another ponderous step toward the trio of warriors.
Grant looked at Charun, sagging against the hammer, and Kane’s own sapped strength. The Sin Eaters could cause the cyclops pain, even stagger it with direct shots to the heart, but there was only one thing that could put the giant down for the count. Without a thought, he snatched the hammer from Charun and charged.
The alien artifact hummed through his bones, an adrenal high that called back to his musings on Kane’s flying skills before. Grant’s already formidable musculature swelled and throbbed with unearthly strength, power that was only going to cost him in the long run. But for now, the big, former Magistrate felt the might of a god swelling in his mighty thews.
He eyed the beating heart, the lacerated lungs, cradled inside the secondary orichalcum rib cage. The hammer seemed to sense its wielder’s intent and rose, swinging directly toward the alien alloy breastbone. Having gotten used to a state of Zen in his practice of samurai archery under his beloved Shizuka, Grant didn’t resist; he flowed with the path of the weapon, the hammer acting as an extension of him as much as he was a part of the hammer. The surging force was accompanied by a brilliant light, a charge of energy that bled off in streamers of plasma as the hammer head accelerated, lashing at the rib cage of the cyclops.
Grant could sense that the hammer had become blazing hot, the air slicing, sizzling with its passage. And then, contact.
The world turned a brilliant white, even the polarized face screen of his shadow suit hood unable to filter out the blazing glory of the hammer at the peak of its power. Tears flowed, trying to protect his eyes from a blaze that it wasn’t truly feeling through the environmentally contained suit.
The air itself seemed to explode in a deafening wave the hood couldn’t dampen even with its auditory electronics. Grant almost would have wished that someone had struck his ears with hammers than listen to that sound.
Blind and deaf, Grant staggered backward. There was no telling where the cyclops was because Grant was in a world of ringing eardrums and a burning afterglow hanging in his clenched-shut eyes. Right now he was helpless and anything could come upon him; he wouldn’t even be able to tell if a Manta was landing right next to him.
Insensate, Grant whispered words, half in prayer, half in self-reproach, begging himself to recover from the hammer’s landing.
Strong hands gripped his shoulders immediately, fingers grasping tightly, but not to hurt. They were also human-size, more or less, so they didn’t belong to the cyclops.
“Grant, you got him.” He could only “hear” it over the Commtact, the vibrations in his jawbone going directly to his eardrum.
“Can’t see,” Grant muttered. “Can’t hear.”
“It’s all right, man,” Kane said. His voice was coming through more clearly.
“Impressive.” He heard Charun. “None but I have used the hammer like so.”
Grant still felt the hammer’s handle in his grip and realized the artifact was helping his eyes and ears to recover from the trauma they’d been subjected to.
Within another few moments he could see clearly again and the world sounded “right” again. He peeled himself out of the shadow suit hood and looked around. He handed off the hammer to Charun. Whatever the drain the device had inflicted upon Kane, it hadn’t had that effect on him.
“Your arms and legs feel like rubber?” Kane asked.
Grant shook his head. “No. Were you fighting it?”
“It’s a hammer. You manhandle those,” Kane replied.
“Not this one,” Grant told him. “It was alive. It worked with me.”
“Both of you could lift it,” Charun stated. “That is what impresses me. But you tapped its true force.”
Grant nodded. “All that Zen learning from Shizuka. I allowed the weapon to guide me in its most efficient path.”
“And that is what has bonded this weapon to me,” Charun stated, hefting the warrior artifact. “We understand each other, and now you, Grant, have the same mental bond.”
“Crazy,” Kane muttered.
“But not outside of our understanding of the technology of the gods,” Brigid interjected. “Such as when we saw how the overlords commanded their ships with mental power.”
“The hammer lives,” Grant said. “And you have to work with it. That way it won’t beat you up and drain you.”
Charun smiled, clapping Grant on the shoulder. “Well met.”
Grant looked back at the remnants of the cyclops, the “rib cage” of the robotic skeleton now sticking up like gnarled fingers, everything within charred to a crisp thanks to the plasma discharge. The abomination was dead. What was more, the beast was not the creation of Vanth, at least not using one of the captured Spartan warriors in their Gear Skeletons. There was an enemy out there, whether or not it was the goddess of the hunt, or some other entity. And it had access to horrors beyond the scope of anything they had encountered so far.
Chapter 17
Beneath th
e hill that Vanth and Charun called their home, Domi and the rest of CAT Beta moved silently, edging down the corridor first constructed from ancient iron framework, then hewed into stone itself, digging through the Earth. According to the readouts on Domi’s faceplate, they had descended two hundred feet as they followed the corridor. This was off their current “altitude” and not in relation to the depth of the hill over their heads.
Their descent ended at the wrought-iron gate, and Domi was right after giving them a scan with the telescopic optics on her shadow suit. There was no way that anyone was going to slip through the bars, as the vertical crisscross left gaps about a foot wide, even more slender than Domi could squirm herself through. Edwards looked at the rock floor beneath the gate and frowned.
“So much for the dirt floor theory,” he muttered.
Domi kept her ears open for the sound of anyone on the other side of the heavy gate.
“Think of something,” she told him.
“I will,” Edwards returned. He looked back at Sela and Smaragda. “We will.”
Domi nodded, standing watch.
Within a few moments, however, there was the roar of an explosion outside that rumbled down the corridor to the surface, as if a massive bomb had gone off. The four infiltrators froze at the cacophony.
Almost immediately after the throb of the distant thunderbolt, Domi picked up the clank and thud of heavy robotic feet coming.
“Hug the depressions in the wall and go full stealth mode,” Domi said. She quickly unpacked her boots and tugged them on. It was one thing to be barefoot out in the wild—the feral girl relied as much on the pads of her feet as her eyes and nose to detect potential traps or trip wires. However, to be invisible in the corridor against a furrow in the rock, she was going to need her complete suit. Luckily, the boots slipped on like socks, firming up as they sealed with the rest of her suit.
The boots would also nullify her infrared signature. Domi’s feet, through a thermal camera, would have resembled a small mammal’s, rather than point her out as a barefoot woman in a body-conforming environmental suit. However, in the close quarters of this wide and tall artificial cavern, a pair of naked feet would definitely attract attention. With great swiftness, she found a furrow along the wall and pressed into it. She tapped her forearm, bringing up the control menu, and set it for blend-mode. Miniature optic sensors picked up her surroundings and translated the terrain onto the skin of the suit.
Domi glanced around, reflexively holding her breath as the gate rose, clanking and rattling. A dozen of the Olympian soldiers came running through as soon as the gate cleared six feet in height, each of them carrying a rifle. In their body armor, they had their own helmets complete with electronic goggles and radio communications, but Domi frustratingly waited for them to pass. None of them seemed concerned with scanning the walls.
The Spartans, however, stood in front of the rising gate, floodlights blazing on their artificial heads. Domi was surprised when she counted all three of the missing Olympian war armors, which was at once a relief and yet only confused her even more. If the Gear Skeletons hadn’t been the basis for the cyclops that Kane and Grant encountered, then what was?
She let those thoughts lay idle as the trio of robots rushed along in pursuit of the enthralled soldiers. As soon as the group was fifty feet away, Domi relaxed and waved to the others, pointing to the lowering gate.
Everyone, even Smaragda, made it through the gate before it closed, but once the wrought-iron barrier locked into place, the white-haired soldier looked through the bars.
“There should be more of them,” she whispered softly, her fingers wrapping around the bar as she gazed on in deep concern.
Domi rested her hand on Smaragda’s shoulder. “Some of them might have been held back, or put on some other duty.”
“What about that explosion?” Sela Sinclair asked.
“Whatever it was, it gave us an opening to get in here. Let’s not waste it by standing around so we’re discovered,” Edwards warned.
Domi nodded, and the group fell back into silence. She took the lead, following the route she’d heard the troops and the robots take. So far, except for an occasional torch here and there, the underground tunnel was unlit. The only thing they had going for them were their night-vision capability and infrared illuminators.
Domi kept using her illuminator intermittently, if only to prevent them from being seen by others further down these tunnels with their own night-vision optics. She kept them moving at a brisk walking pace, but her senses and instincts were on full alert. So far, no trip lines or electric eyes were in evidence, and there were no opponents lurking in the shadows.
So far, everyone had silent weapons out. Domi’s knife, its blade coated in phosphate black paint, wouldn’t glimmer with a reflection. Edwards also had his knife, similarly dark coated, as was the custom of Magistrates, the foot-long deadly edge ready to sever an arm if necessary. Smaragda’s falcata, like that of all Olympian combat blades, was dull in its finish, a dark gray steel. Even Sinclair’s collapsible baton was coated in a nonslip rubberized coating, the thin layer providing a tacky feel that wouldn’t skid, but did very little to cushion the anodized steel beneath the millimeter thickness. In the dark, the four of them had the means of delivering quick, silent death.
Domi didn’t want it to come to that if they encountered any of the mind-controlled slaves of Vanth, but in a choice between her teammates and a potential threat, the feral girl would do what she had to, and mourn and regret it later.
The four of them eventually began to encounter more and more lit torches in the corridor, and slowed their pace. It was still quiet, but there was no telling if there was someone around a bend or in a side room standing guard. With their wills stolen, the sentries would prove to be silent and literally unblinking. Domi noticed there were doors to different chambers leading off of the corridor. The depth they reached now was over three hundred feet, and the hill itself extended another four hundred above “ground level.” The air felt thicker and heavier down here, despite the lack of light.
Passing by each doorway was an exercise in caution and risk. So far, many of these rooms were empty of people, but there were supplies stored down here. This, however, was nothing like any redoubt Domi had ever encountered. The hill above seemed to be some manner of pyramid, buried under years of sediment and soil, perhaps even deliberately.
For all the exploration, all the hidden temples and underground vaults, even distant worlds that Domi and her friends had visited, she wasn’t surprised someone had constructed, then buried a pyramid in Italy. She recalled the giant structure—Xian—in China, and how that had been dug out from hiding. She also recalled that somewhere in Eastern Europe was an alleged compound of buried pyramids, at least that’s what Brigid Baptiste had said.
This was another undiscovered mystery, passed over and unknown from the days when humankind was allegedly at the top of its technological and scientific skills. And what horrors lay beneath were grisly indeed, if Vanth was the mastermind and soul stealer that the Cerberus teams suspected.
Domi pointed toward one of the rooms and then motioned for the others to enter there. The plan was simple. They would post up in an out-of-the-way position and allow Domi to sneak ahead. The small woman was much more likely to lose herself in the maze of tunnels should anyone be looking for her, and yet her tracking skills would allow her to trace back to where she’d left the rest of CAT Beta. As there weren’t many things stored in the room she’d sent them into, there was little chance they’d be stumbled upon.
Granted, with Edwards in there, even being a “normal-size” room, it was crowded. The door closed easily and noiselessly. They’d checked to make sure there were no wires that could be connected to a security system, so opening and closing it wouldn’t give them away.
Edwards leaned in close to Domi. “Thirty minutes. Then we come looking for you.”
Domi nodded.
“Or if we hear something,
” Sinclair added.
“You won’t,” Domi said.
The door closed and the silent, feral girl stalked away, keeping to the shadows as often as she could, no matter how empty the corridors were.
Eventually she made her way to a larger chamber. She paused before going in, but it had some form of bioluminescent lighting and she could see over a short balcony that there were huge rows of cages packed with humans and animals. Domi scanned first for sentries or other means of alarms, but none were positioned on the tier of walkway circling the cavernous room. Still, she crawled to the edge of the balcony, peering over and down.
She could see that there were dozens of cells, and started to count them, first by rows, then by columns, “horizontal and vertical” as she’d been taught by Lakesh when it came to figuring things such as area, but quickly, she realized there could have been millions down there. She unsealed her faceplate and took a breath, and smelled the stink of an entire city full of people and animals. She noticed there were people moving in the spaces between the cells and, resealing the faceplate, she saw that they were wheeling around carts of sludge, taking them off toward a side tunnel.
Of course being mind-controlled meant that you still required normal bodily functions. Those who were actually moving around were going about the task of keeping bodily wastes from making the air all but unbreathable. Domi scanned for other entrances and saw that there were different forms of carts being wheeled in from just beneath her. These were loaded with rice and beans.
Subsistence foods.
Domi smirked. “Explains the smell.”
For whatever purpose these people were being kept, they were being kept alive and in good health. She didn’t see any signs of abuse or more than token captivity. Those with the food opened the cells without needing to unlock them, and the thralls moved silently, orderly, receiving their platefuls of food and cups of water.