Survival Aptitude Test: Fury (The Extinction Odyssey Book 2)

by Mike Sheriff

Daoren’s gaze streaked to the ceiling. He kept it there long enough to convince himself that the corridor wasn’t collapsing. “It sounds like our guests have arrived,” he said once his throat relaxed.

  “The squibs will slow them,” Laoshi said. “To stop them, we must locate the vault.”

  They reached another terminus. A switchback turn led to yet another descending corridor; the fifth they’d traversed so far.

  “How deep do these go?” Cordelia asked.

  “The cultural records didn’t say.”

  By Daoren’s estimation, each corridor ran three hundred feet. Assuming a five-degree incline, that put their current position at one hundred twenty-five feet below the pyramid’s base.

  They followed the latest one for another three hundred feet. Another switchback turn opened into an abode-sized chamber. Limestone lined its surfaces.

  Daoren exhaled, thankful to be out of the confining corridors. He scanned the beige walls and floor. If the layers of caked dust were any indication, the chamber was part of the original build. “Does anyone see an exit?”

  Laoshi and the others swept their light cylinders across the walls and floor. After two minutes of searching, Daoren wrung his hands. It looked like they’d hit a dead-end.

  “Over here!” Cordelia said.

  Her light beam centered on a square-shaped groove in the floor near a corner. Laoshi and Heqet brushed away the dust, exposing the seams of a slab measuring three square-feet.

  Daoren pulled a sonic chisel from his satchel. He jammed its bladed tip into the seam and powered it on. The chamber amplified its chattering clacks.

  The seam buckled. The slab drooped half an inch.

  Daoren repositioned the chisel’s tip in another seam. It hammered away, sending jolting tingles through his forearm.

  The seam fractured. The slab fell away. A second later, a resonant crunch heralded its contact with a solid surface.

  Daoren dropped the chisel and aimed his light cylinder into the hole.

  The slab’s debris lay atop a gleaming silver floor, seven feet below.

  “What can you see?” Laoshi asked.

  Daoren couldn’t hand his light cylinder to Heqet fast enough. “I’m not sure, but it looks promising!”

  He gripped the sides of the hole and lowered himself through. The thud of his footfalls echoed in the blackened space.

  Heqet handed down the light cylinder. Daoren aimed its beam. “Oh my sapient Sha . . .”

  “What is it?” Laoshi asked from above.

  “Come see for yourself!”

  The others scrambled down the hole and surrounded Daoren. Their light cylinders flooded a massive chamber.

  Rows of silver racks stretched as far as they could see. Each rack stood six feet high, six feet wide, and three feet deep. Hundreds of drawers with semicircular handles fronted them.

  Daoren struggled to process the sight. The tale his father had recounted so many times, the tale his brother had so loved to hear, the tale he’d so long discounted as a fiction of the Cognos Populi . . . it was true. If ever a seed vault existed, this was it.

  Tears streaked Laoshi’s cheeks. Joyful tears, judging by his smile. Daoren shook his hand, rasplaughing. “Turns out I had something to learn from a Librarian after all.” He motioned to the closest rack. “You should have the honor of discovery.”

  The old Librarian didn’t move or speak. Heqet and Cordelia had to nudge him forward.

  Laoshi crossed the ten-foot gap and gripped a drawer’s handle. He drew a deep breath and found his voice. “Let this discovery mark the beginning of a new era for Daqin Guojin.”

  Daoren, Heqet, and Cordelia inched closer. Laoshi tugged the drawer open.

  It was empty.

  He tugged another drawer open.

  It, too, was empty.

  Daoren, Heqet, and Cordelia fanned out and reefed open more drawers on the adjacent racks.

  All were empty.

  Daoren’s head spun, orbiting the horrid conclusion. He gripped the rack to keep his balance. The tale was a fiction after all; the cruelest kind. Beside him, Heqet and Cordelia held one another, faces crumbling under the weight of the terrible discovery.

  Laoshi braced himself against a rack. “No no no no no!”

  “What does it mean?” Cordelia asked, voice pinched with anguish. “Laoshi, what does it mean?”

  “It’s been looted!” Laoshi’s fist pounded the rack in time with his sobs, blotting all other sounds. “Sapient Sha, what will become of us now?”

  Daoren set his hand on Laoshi’s bucking shoulder. “Take heart. At least we—”

  Two percussive reports assaulted the air.

  Two glass darts pierced Laoshi’s back. He grunted and pitched forward into the rack.

  14

  Echoes

  DAOREN RECOILED FROM the apparition. He rattled his head, trying to dislodge the horrid vision, but it had seared into his mind. At a base level, he recognized three events.

  Laoshi had been struck in the back by three glass darts. The screams saturating the space had come from Heqet and Cordelia. And the Jireni had arrived.

  Assembling the primordial sights, sounds, and thoughts into higher understanding seemed to take a lifetime. Translating higher understanding into action took even longer. He finally overcame the paralysis and whirled around.

  Jireni dropped through the hole leading to the limestone chamber, joining others who’d already breached the vault. They fanned out and trained their dart guns.

  Primae Jiren Pyros lowered himself through the hole and landed behind the men. “Hold your fire, damn you!”

  Laoshi huffed an aspirated moan. He slid down the rack and slumped to the floor. His unblinking gaze fixed onto the bloody dart tips erupting from his chest. He raised a quivering hand and touched them as if to confirm they were real.

  Heqet and Cordelia stilled their screams and rushed to his side. Daoren placed himself between them and the Jireni. His body offered scant protection, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  Narses lowered himself through the hole, grunting at the effort. He strutted to a rack, splendid purple mianfu aglint in the beams of a dozen light cylinders. He pulled open a drawer and sucked his teeth. “No buried treasure? How disappointing for you.”

  Daoren assessed the threat, heart trip-hammering his throat. They faced a dozen armed Jireni, plus the Primae Jiren and the false Unum Potentate. Their weapons—if they could be called that—included four light cylinders and three sonic chisels. A fraction of a second was all he needed to calculate their odds of survival.

  Exactly null.

  Narses closed the drawer, cacklebracking. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You and your glinty friend escaped the grooll mill and somehow managed to reunite with your treasonous tutor and mother. Then you somehow escaped the assault beneath the Librarium, stole an aerostat, and traveled a great distance to end your lives in an even darker tomb.” He pitched his head back and rasplaughed. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to have been harvested in the mill?”

  Daoren swallowed his retort. He wouldn’t dignify the question—or the man—with a response.

  “Your Unum Potentate asked you a question, slag,” one of the Jireni said.

  “He’s not my Unum Potentate.”

  Narses performed a slow pirouette, arms held out to the side. “Funny, my mianfu says I’m the Unum Potentate.”

  “Any fid can wear a costume,” Daoren said. “That only makes you a fid.”

  Narses’ complexion reddened, matching his regal garb. He pointed at the floor. “Kneel before me.”

  Daoren stood his ground. He’d sooner die on his feet than grovel.

  “Kneel and I’ll cull you first,” Narses said. “You won’t have to watch your mother and your glinty friend die before your eyes.” He held up a finger and tapped his lips. “Make that die slowly before your eyes.”

  Suffocating fatigue conquered Daoren’s will to resist. He shifted his gaze to Heq
et, Cordelia, and Laoshi. They’d fought countless battles and overcome innumerable obstacles to discover the fallacy of their salvation. It had been a worthy struggle, but it was over. One option remained; to accept their fate. He could still die like a man—with his eyes open and his mind clear. His posture no longer mattered.

  He sank to his knees.

  Narses beamed. “These dissenters will be culled for their crimes against Daqin Guojin,” he said. “Starting with Daoren al Lucien.”

  The Jireni formed a two-rank firing line next to Narses. Behind them, Pyros paced in a tight circle.

  Daoren ignored the firing line and studied the Primae Jiren. Pyros’ gnarled brow and thin-set lips betrayed a divided mind, one wracked by internal conflict—an odd emotional stance for a Jiren poised to eliminate a major threat to the Unum.

  Heqet crawled to Daoren and kneeled beside him. “Take me at the same time,” she said to Narses.

  “As you wish,” Narses said.

  Daoren’s hand found hers. His gaze found Cordelia.

  She leaned over Laoshi, lending what comfort she could. He lay on his side, ear pressed to the floor, mouth open. Blood seeped from two exit wounds near his heart. It stained his yellow lanshan and pooled around his chest.

  Cordelia’s tortured gaze rose to meet Daoren’s. Her aspect softened as though she’d made peace with their fate. “I am your mother.”

  He sensed the love in her psychic embrace—as tangible and comforting as the warmth of Heqet’s hand. He petitioned Sha, asking for his eyes and voice to return the same feeling. “And I will always be your son.”

  “Any other final words?” Narses asked, the question plump with contempt.

  Daoren gazed at Heqet. He voiced the one thought he had left—the one thought that mattered— and this time she’d hear it. “I love you.”

  Tears streaked her micro-studs. “And I love you.”

  “How touching,” Narses said. “Make ready!”

  The Jireni hoisted their dart guns.

  “Cull Daoren and you cull the true Unum Potentate,” Laoshi said, voice clotted with pain. “Pyros . . . you know I speak the truth!”

  Pyros continued his pacing behind the firing line, silent and brooding.

  “He also knows his daughter won’t survive the day if he intervenes,” Narses said. “Take aim!”

  The Jireni aimed their weapons.

  Heqet squeezed Daoren’s hand. He squeezed back and held his breath.

  Behind the firing line, Pyros halted. “Tarry, comrades! These denizens may be dissenters, but they’ve proven to be worthy foes. At least honor their courage before you carry out this order. Come to attention!”

  The Jireni obeyed the command and drove their sandals into the floor. A high-pitched slap resounded off the walls and ceiling before fading away.

  “St-st-stop!”

  Daoren turned his head to the gurgling shout.

  Laoshi coughed up red froth, ear pressed to the floor. Two muted syllables, no more than bubbling sibilations, escaped his bloodied lips.

  Eh . . . ko. . . .

  A flicker of hope ignited inside Daoren. “He heard an echo!”

  The Jireni firing line wavered, hesitant.

  “He heard an echo!” Daoren repeated. “There’s another chamber below this one!”

  One by one, the Jireni lowered their weapons and traded puzzled looks. Beside them, Narses appeared equally confused by the revelation—and equally distracted.

  Daoren sprang to his feet and charged forward. He broadsided the false Unum Potentate before he could react, driving him backward. Narses slammed head-first into a rack.

  The rack tipped. It crunched into a neighboring rack, knocking it into the next . . . and the next. The din of toppling racks obliterated every sound for the next thirty seconds.

  When the echo dissipated, Narses lay unmoving, unconscious. Daoren rolled off him, winded from the collision, and raised his head.

  A dozen dart guns pointed at him. “Still your fingers!” Pyros said, stepping in front of the firing line.

  Heqet crept to Daoren and helped him to his feet. A glint on the floor snared his attention.

  Where a rack once stood, a round, silver hatch gleamed. It spanned nearly three feet in diameter, with a recessed handle offset to one side and two hinges on the other.

  Daoren pointed at the hatch. “We have to finish this, Pyros. For the sake of Daqin Guojin.”

  “What are you trying to finish?”

  “The Unum’s reign of terror.”

  The answer emboldened the Primae Jiren. He grabbed two Jireni. “Tarry here. If Narses so much as moves, put a dart through his leg.”

  “Why not cull him now and be done with it?” Heqet asked.

  “He’s more valuable alive,” Pyros said. “We may need him upon our return to Daqin Guojin.” He motioned to Laoshi. “I’ll help you carry him down.”

  Daoren grasped the hatch’s handle and yanked. It swung open on its hinges.

  Ambient light illuminated a set of stairs below and little else.

  Pyros and another Jiren picked up Laoshi, one on either side. Laoshi’s shallow breaths popped and crackled while they bucket-carried him to the hatch. Cordelia and Heqet supported his head and feet as they went down the stairs. The other Jireni followed.

  The two Jireni picked by Pyros trained their dart guns on the false Unum Potentate. Narses hadn’t moved, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. “Don’t take your eyes off him,” Daoren said.

  Both Jireni nodded, acknowledging the warning. Daoren descended the stairs. At their base, a wall-mounted panel emitted muted green light. He swiped his hand across it.

  Light flooded the space. It revealed a carbon copy of the upper vault, but twice as large. It was also cooler; so cool that the silver racks glimmered beneath a glaze of ice crystals.

  Pyros and the others set Laoshi on the floor against the first row of racks. Cordelia and Heqet kneeled beside him, stroking his head and whispering words of comfort.

  Laoshi nodded at the closest rack. “Go ahead, Daoren. You’ve earned it.”

  Daoren inched toward the rack, every fiber in his body as taut as a crystalline cable. He grasped a drawer handle and tugged.

  The drawer didn’t budge.

  He tugged harder.

  The drawer opened with the hiss of a breaking vacuum-seal.

  He gasped.

  It brimmed with plump, brown objects no bigger than his fingernails.

  Seeds.

  Daoren scooped a handful. He kneeled and poured them into Laoshi’s outstretched hand.

  Laoshi ran his fingers through the seeds, weeping. “They’re so cold . . . and so beautiful.”

  Pyros and the other Jireni crouched around Laoshi. They gazed wide-eyed upon the foreign objects. “Are those what I think they are?” Pyros asked.

  “Yes,” Daoren said. “Welcome to the seed vault.”

  Pyros gaped at the endless array of racks. “Sapient Sha . . . we’ll be able to feed all of Daqin Guojin!”

  “You did it, Laoshi,” Daoren said. “You’ve saved us.”

  “No, boy. We did it. You and Heqet and Cordelia and—”

  His words devolved into gurgling coughs. Bloody droplets showered his tunic.

  “Grandfather!”

  Laoshi turned Heqet’s hand and poured the seeds into it. “Sweet Heqet, you must finish this for me.”

  “Be still,” she whispered. “We’ll get you home and get you better.”

  “I’m afraid my journey ends here.”

  “No . . .”

  “It’s okay, child. I’ve held the seeds in my hand and that . . . that’s enough.” His drooping gaze found Daoren. “They require nutrients to grow. Plant them in a mix of grooll and sand until you can re-harvest the old stocks.”

  Aching pressure constricted Daoren’s throat. It made speaking impossible. He grunted to no effect . . . then the tears flowed, blurring his vision, soaking his cheeks, easing the vise. The old
Librarian had taught him something else. “Always the tutor, hmm?”

  Laoshi managed a feeble smile. “An occupational hazard.” He grasped Daoren’s hand. “The seeds need water and light to grow. They—” He coughed up more blood. Red rivulets dribbled into his beard. “You . . . you’re a clever boy. You’ll figure out the rest from locked scrolls in the Spires.”

  Daoren squeezed Laoshi’s hand. “We’ll find them.”

  Laoshi’s other hand fell upon a bulky satchel, the personal one he always carried. His trembling fingers fumbled with its closure. Daoren opened it for him.

  Laoshi tugged a rectangular object from the satchel. Its cracked, brown covering bore raised lettering.

  Biblio Sacra Latina.

  Daoren snorted at the ancient book. “You’ve been lugging that around since we escaped the Void?”

  “It’s part of our past.” He thrust the book into Daoren’s hands. “Preserve it, Unum Potentate, for you are our future.”

  “I will.”

  “Good.” Laoshi bared his teeth and winced. “Cordelia?”

  Cordelia rested a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, Laoshi?”

  “You remember what we discussed in the desert?”

  She sniffed back tears. “Yes.”

  “I think . . . I think it best not to tell him. Ever. It could be used against him.”

  Cordelia nodded. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Laoshi blinked—panic rinsed his face. “Heqet? Where did you go, dear?”

  “I’m here, Grandfather.”

  His jaw relaxed. “My brave, brave girl. Your heart is the strongest in Daqin Guojin. Promise . . . promise me you’ll always follow it.”

  Heqet spoke through her tears. “I will.”

  Laoshi’s eyelids fluttered and closed. “Good . . .”

  He released one more gargled breath. He didn’t draw another.

  Daoren bowed his head. His teardrops pattered on the ancient book’s covering, keeping time with Heqet’s hushed whimpers.

  Three percussive reports shattered the stillness.

  Daoren whirled to the din.

  His mind had a split-second to register the shimmering objects streaking toward him.

  On instinct, he hoisted the ancient book like a shield.