“I’ll need money. And at least a week to prepare.”
“You’ll have everything you need. Just find out what the hell is going on up there.”
“One monster, coming up,” Alexander joked and swaggered out of the room, leaving Teo to his dark thoughts. What if monsters are real? He remembered Cyrus’s ramblings and his hair stood on end. Could the boy have been on to something? He slumped into his chair, tapping his fingers on the desk. A chill ran down his back. No. It’s ridiculous.
The Marshes
Azalia
“Damn,” Moirah whispered as the corridor carried them forward.
A self-assured half-smile appeared on Azalia’s face. She had met only briefly the small group – the only ones trusted by the Old Woman to enter the heart of the hill, where the armoury lay. After a brief discussion, the awakened Dreamers had agreed to let Azalia, first to offer her services, lead them. They had all fought with her on various missions in the thousands of years of gaming, and respected her. She had now agreed to escort several Orbs and four humans down the armoury in order to check the condition of their ancient weapons.
“How come you understand us?” David asked her.
“We made sure of that,” the Old Woman answered before Azalia had a chance to ponder the question. “We regularly updated the games’ language files to make sure the Dreamers would be able to understand their descendants should the Rapture...” She cast a wry smile at David. “Should the opportunity arise.”
“We were afraid you wouldn’t join us,” David explained.
Azalia pondered the implicit question. How could she explain the excitement of the real world? Aeons of gaming had offered her all kinds of experiences, but in the back of her head lay the knowledge it was all a game; an illusion. She knew that, if she wanted to, she could replay entire segments of her life; escape death; make different choices. Real life, though… That was terrifying. One decision could alter your future forever. She did not blame those Dreamers who preferred to remain in their sleeping state. Real life was scary. But, to her, that was the ultimate test of her abilities. She had forgotten how enjoyable it could be, and was still riding the high from her spontaneous decision.
“How come you can walk?” Moirah asked.
Azalia shot her a surprised glance. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, you look surprisingly agile for someone who slept for so long,” Moirah explained with an embarrassed half-smile.
“Oh!” Azalia pursed her lips in thought. “Once our consciousness is transferred to the dreamworld, time itself stops. Our bodies stop aging.” She tapped a finger on her temple. “We have a hundred thousand years’ worth of fighting experience in our head, though.”
The long corridor came to an abrupt end, on a vast metallic wall that slid apart to let them in. The half-smile on her face widened at the gasps let out by the people behind her. The Orbs’ colours shifted, indicating their excitement. One of them glowed in red for a second, catching her eye.
“What is this place?” Cyrus asked.
Pride painted Azalia’s voice. “This is the small-weapons armoury.”
“Small weapons?” David asked, emphasising the first word.
“Here we keep our personal weapons and armour, plus the Hoppers.” Azalia noticed the confused looks around her. “Short-range transports. Larger weapons and interplanetary ships are stored farther below.”
Rows upon rows of low tables filled the cavernous space. Thousands of scarab-shaped items, each a foot long, formed endless lines on them. A Sheimlek and a Sheimlek-dar stood before them. Each scarab was made of a dull grey metal. A simple golden disk decorated its centre. She picked one up and examined it, marvelling at how heavy it felt. In the games, armour was almost always lighter than this.
“Toys,” Lehmor said, a frown on his face.
Azalia picked a scarab up and placed it on her chest. As soon as it touched her body, the legs twisted and snapped on her flesh. The scarab pressed against her skin, securing itself on her body. She ran her fingers atop the metal and pressed the gold disk. The scarab came to life with soft clicking sounds. It spread silver wings to embrace her form. Small plaques jutted out of the membrane to cover her whole body. They parted around her shoulder to crawl upwards, forming a silver helmet over her head. She turned around, her arms stretched at her side, enjoying the feel of the armour on her body. She had missed this; the feeling of being invincible, impervious to anything but the deadliest weapon.
She picked up a Sheimlek and pushed it into the loop extruding from her belt. It slapped onto her thigh, tiny magnets holding it into place. Then, she placed a Sheimlek-dar around her wrist. It clicked into position, becoming part of her armour.
“This is a Sheim-h’thor,” she said, eyeing her bug-eyed companions. “The whisper armour, the best developed by man. The suit offers protection from both energy and projectile weapons. The two Sheimleks will turn you into a deadly weapon.” A wide grin appeared on her face, invisible to the people surrounding her. “It will even keep you warm in winter and cool in summer.” Her palm slapped the gold disk and the armour reverted to its inert state, still hanging from her skin. “So, where is this enemy of yours?”
“Beyond the mountains,” Cyrus said. “Can your suits fly?”
Azalia pointed towards three vessels at the far end of the hangar. “No need to. We’ll take the Hoppers.” She yanked the scarab off her body to lay it down on the table. “Now, why don’t you tell me everything about our enemy. It seems that we’ve been asleep for too long.”
They explained everything to her, starting even before the arrival of UES Pearseus on the planet. A hundred-thousand-year-old war, victories and losses, countless lives summed up in a few sentences. David then explained of his chance encounter with the Orbs and the fate of the first humans. The tale was picked up by Lehmor, who told her of his own capture and fateful decision to ignore the Old Woman. Every now and then, an Orb blinked in crimson hues, catching Azalia’s eye. Then, a name caught her attention. “Pratin?” she asked. “Did you say Pratin?”
“Yes,” Lehmor said. He explained the man’s betrayal of the Iotas and his plans for his clones, but she listened absent-mindedly, lost in memories.
“How do you know him?” David interrupted Lehmor.
She glanced at him with dark eyes. “He’s the reason we went to sleep. Our civil war was over – we had finally agreed to a ceasefire. Then, our units were attacked. We resumed the war, but it made no sense. Why would they attack? That’s when my father suspected there was someone who didn’t want us on the planet. They had made sure we humans killed each other. We had no real evidence, though, so we started looking. We uncovered a conspiracy by a man called Pratin. But no one believed us. My father tried to turn humanity against its common enemy.” Her eyes moistened at the memory. “Pratin murdered him.” She bit her lip, waiting for her heartbeat to steady. “That’s when we refused to fight anymore. If the rest of humanity wanted to kill each other, we wouldn’t be part of it. We withdrew to this hill and made sure no human died from our hand again.”
“And Pratin?” David asked.
Her jaw jutted out. “I killed him myself.”
“They’re clones,” Lehmor said.
Her brow creased for a moment. Clones… “So this Pratin…”
“Is the same as the one you killed,” David finished her thought.
Her mouth twitched. “Why did you not kill them all when you had your chance?” she snarled at Lehmor. The red orb glowed triumphantly beside her.
“Not everyone is guilty.” Lehmor met her glare in defiance. “I’m a warrior, not a butcher. I only kill when I must.”
Her hands dropped to her sides to form clenched fists of tension. “So what’s your plan? How do we tell good Iotas from bad ones?”
“Pratin has killed all Iotas,” Lehmor said. “We’re free to attack.”
“So they’re all dead?” she asked with disbelief. “Then you failed to save them?”
“They’re clones,” David reminded her. “Stripet said they can be built again.”
The crease on her brow deepened. “So Pratin will kill us all, then hand back the planet to the rest of the Iotas?”
David shrugged. “Or keep it for himself. We don’t know what he’ll do. What we do know is that we must hurry. In a few days his new clones will be ready. Once that happens…”
She grinned. “If that happens.”
“We’ll make sure it doesn’t,” Cyrus said.
Moirah took one step forward. “We all have unfinished business with him.”
Azalia sighed. The last thing she needed was to babysit wannabe warriors. “I don’t have time to teach you how to use the suits or the weapons. The Sheimlek is unlike—”
David raised his arm and the bracelet around his wrist came to life. “I know how to use it.”
“We all do,” Cyrus assured her. “And Lehmor’s the only one who’s been to their city. They… they’ve done stuff to him. You need him.”
Azalia cocked her head to examine them. She could see the determination in their eyes, their thirst for revenge. Her lips curled into a sideways smile. “Very well. But no one else. Only those who have used Sheimleks in the past. You will follow my orders. Now, get some rest while I brief my men. We leave three nights from now.”
“How?” Lehmor said.
Azalia nodded towards the dark, towering silhouettes at the far end of the hangar. “We’ll take the Hoppers. I have to check them, of course, but these things were built to last.”
“Why night?” David seemed confused.
“The Hoppers will be cloaked, and they’re silent, but I’m not taking any chances. I want to make sure no one knows we’re there until it’s too late.” She raised three fingers and smiled. “Three nights. Better get ready. I have much to teach you.”
City of Oras
Moirah
Moirah’s mouth twitched downwards. The strap made her feel trapped. Even before her experience with the balloon, she had been afraid of heights. This is not a makeshift contraption, she told herself. This is one of the vessels mentioned in legends, recounted around campfires for countless aeons. The thought was less reassuring than she would like. The fact remains that we’ll be flying through the air inside a hundred-thousand-year-old tin box, another voice countered in her head. She grasped Lehmor’s hand, ignoring his surprised glance when the Hopper jumped upwards. Her breath stalled when it burst forward. It shot out of the side of the hill and into the night. Three hundred men and women were slumped around her, in six long rows of thin benches that faced each other, running through the long hold. Only a thin strip of blue light illuminated the cavernous cabin. She flashed a nervous smile at David, sitting across from her, in an attempt to swallow her nausea. He did not notice, lost in his own thoughts.
“You okay?” Lehmor whispered in her ear. She had expected the machine to roar, but the Hopper glided through the night air like a bird of prey. Only the sound of the wind sliding off its narrow wings broke the silence.
“Fine,” she said. Anything more and she risked spewing the contents of her stomach on him. The Hopper bumped. She groaned and squeezed his hand harder.
“You sure?” he asked, a worried look on his face. “You don’t look well.”
“If the Lady wanted us to fly, she’d have given us wings,” she hissed and lay back, closing her eyes.
His soft chuckle annoyed her, but she had no choice but to tolerate it. “You should have stayed,” he said after a while.
Her eyes flew open in surprise. “Why?”
“Our daughter should have at least one parent.” His words sounded strained, choked.
He, too, is scared. “I’m a mother, but I’m also a wife.” She paused for a moment. “And a warrior.”
“…Who hates flying.” He chuckled again.
She planted her fist on his arm, drawing a playful moan of pain. “Anyway, if we fail, our daughter will…” Her voice choked and she failed to continue. Should they fail, Pratin would unleash his horrors to the world. Mankind’s hundred-thousand-year-old reign on the planet would come to an abrupt end. Their daughter would be just another one of countless deaths. But the only one that matters to me.
“We’ll make it,” Lehmor said, as if reading her thoughts.
She shut her eyes, grateful for his fingers holding her hand, almost as if she could draw strength through him.
The Hopper bumped again and she moaned in frustration. Even if they made it, she would still have to go through this ordeal again to return. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“What do you make of that?” Lehmor asked, clumsily trying to take her mind off her ordeal. He pointed at the dark sphere secured in the middle of the transport. A faint blue light traversed its middle every now and then, as if seeking their attention.
Moirah tried to remember what Azalia had called the device. An iron bomb? No, not iron. Ion bomb. “I don’t understand how it can kill everyone without destroying the city.”
Lehmor shrugged. “We’ll know once Cyrus takes it to the plaza.”
“How many Dreamers is he taking with him?”
“Most.”
Which would leave them dangerously outnumbered for the other two missions: to destroy the clone room and keep the Iota matrices safe. The thought filled her with mixed feelings. She admired Lehmor’s determination to save the Iotas he had befriended, but it made little sense to her that they should risk everything for them. Still, that was David’s job. Their own was to destroy the clone room. “We need to make sure the clone room can never be rebuilt.”
Lehmor patted a rectangular box strapped to his thigh. “We will.”
The Hopper jerked once again. Its back hissed open to transform into a ramp.
“We’re here,” Lehmor said and rose to his feet. The men and woman around them mimicked him, and Moirah realized with a start that they had arrived. This was the point of no return. She released the strap, as Azalia had shown them, and slammed the golden disk between her breasts. The Sheim-h’thor clicked to life, encasing her in its protective armour.
She followed everyone, waiting impatiently for her feet to touch the ground. When they did, she fought the urge to kiss it, focusing instead on the darkness around her. Above their heads, threads of wisp-like clouds floated above, so thin that the stars shone through them.
“Switching to night vision,” someone said beside her, and she remembered Azalia’s training. She flicked a switch behind her ear and the area around her shimmered into existence. A ghostly green hue covered everything, but her eyes adjusted in no time.
A hand patted her back and she spun around. Her eyes looked at the name on the woman’s chest, written in the ancient alphabet. Azalia. She pointed to a narrow footpath that disappeared into the nearby woods. Moirah nodded her understanding. It was time.
City of Oras
Lehmor
He slid his finger over the dark metal covering his eyebrow and the image zoomed in. The suit’s capabilities made him feel giddy like a child unwrapping his Equinox presents. They had only practiced for three days, but already he could not imagine fighting in anything else. If only we had one of these in the old days… He let out a sigh as he grudgingly accepted why the Orbs had hidden their weapons from the First. The tribes would have wiped each other out with them. Still, he could not stop wondering how much sooner the war against the Whispers might have been won.
Silent movement caught his attention. The Dreamers had fanned out around the same entrance where Abaddon had died. This time, half a dozen clones guarded it. Azalia’s voice in the suit’s microphone startled him.
“Go!”
Without a sound, the clones jumped in the air, hit by blue bursts of light. They thudded to the ground and lay still. Dark silhouettes emerged from behind boulders to hurry towards the hill.
“Lehmor.”
He jumped at Azalia’s whisper in his ear, still unnerved by the headphone. “Coming.�
�
He hurried through the stream of people, wondering if the rest of them could see the door, or just the illusion of rocks and dust on the hill’s side. “Can you see the door?”
“Negative,” a voice echoed in his helmet.
Doesn’t matter. He could. His eyes searched for the rectangular indentation on the cliff. He pushed his fingers inside and wiggled them until they found the trigger. Once again, red symbols shimmered into existence to dance in the air. Surprised gasps sounded around him.
He traced a symbol with his index finger. It froze in place and glowed under his touch. What had Stripet done to open the door? Lehmor closed his eyes to remember. Everything had happened so quickly, but the sequence was somewhere in his head. He opened his eyes again to stare at the symbols, then tried a combination. The symbols clicked and disappeared.
Lehmor cursed under his breath and pulled the trigger again. How long before someone noticed them? The letters danced before his eyes and he tried another sequence. Instead of the click, this time they glowed for a moment and a crimson light blinked over the gate, painting the ground red.
“Everybody, back!” Azalia’s voice echoed in his ear.
Throngs of people hurried back behind boulders, leaving Lehmor alone before the door. The blinking light pulsed faster. That’s not good.
He cracked his knuckles and stared at the bright symbols. Was the squiggly one before or after the harp-like one? Hathor. Part of his brain translated the symbols into letters. Hathor before shebo. With trembling fingers, he punched the sequence. He hit the final symbol and held his breath. The letters disappeared. The door jolted open with a loud groan.
Lehmor exhaled loudly inside his helmet. He raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow, but his hand met metal instead.
Azalia patted his shoulder. “Good job.” She disappeared through the door, not waiting to see who was following.
Pearseus Bundle: The Complete Pearseus Sci-fi/Fantasy Series Page 83