Alecto’s whole body shook. She slowly opened her eyes. Her voice was soft and hoarse. “They are… terminated.” She wiped the sweat from her brow with her sleeve.
Jack moved cautiously around the corner. Three men lay on the ground. Their eyes were open and glassy, their arms and legs askew. Two of them had blood trickling from their noses. The third had pink froth around his lips.
Jack motioned the all clear. They stepped over the bodies and moved down the corridor.
Alecto took point again. She was even paler than usual.
“Do you need a break?” Jack asked.
“Negative.”
“But you look tired,” Anna said. “Maybe you should rest a few minutes.”
Alecto continued to walk briskly, her eyes forward, her spine erect. “Keep moving,” she commanded.
“Hey, Alecto… thanks,” Jack said.
Alecto kept walking but tossed a look back at him over her shoulder. “For what?”
“For taking those guys out. You spared me some bullets. And blood spatter.”
Anna rolled her eyes and shot him a disgusted look.
“What?” Jask asked.
Alecto continued walking.
If Ian had said that, it would have at least made them smile. Jack didn’t have Ian’s gift for lightening the mood. Remembering Ian made him miss his friend. I wonder what’s going on in New Mexico?
They soon encountered another patrol. Alecto had taken out the first three men they’d encountered in less than two minutes total. Those guys hadn’t even known what hit them.
The next encounter was not as easy, though. After Alecto took out one man, the other two rounded the corner, guns drawn.
Fortunately, Jack’s trigger finger acted more quickly than his brain. Instinct forced him to fire his rifle. The first bullet missed by a mile and blasted chunks of concrete off the wall ahead of them. The second bullet grazed the man’s shoulder. Dazed, he didn’t get his shot off before Jack’s third bullet knocked him to the ground.
The third man limped toward them, his gun up and pointed in their general direction. “Come with me, and Sir Croft will spare your friend here.” The man spoke to Anna and indicated Jack as her friend with a slight nod of his head.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he dropped his weapon and fell to his knees. His hands were at his temples, his mouth open as if to scream, but no sound came out. His eyes were squished shut, his face pinched in agony. “Please… make it stop.” He opened his eyes slightly, tears filling them. “Please,” he said to Anna.
Anna’s face was contorted with pain as well. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She looked away, and the man fell the rest of the way to the ground. He kicked and writhed for a few seconds more until he finally lay still.
Jack wished he had looked away as Anna had. The man’s agony was seared into his brain, part of the collective memories of this ghastly episode in his life.
He put a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Are you sure you want to continue?” Waging a cyber war against Croft was one thing, hacking and infiltrating his servers and phones, but killing was an ugly business. Jack hated how comfortable the rifle felt in his arms, how easily he had pulled the trigger and mowed a man down, but he would put down a thousand more men if it meant Anna would never have to feel the guilt, shame, and sadness he would know for the rest of his life.
She swiped a sleeve across her face and sniffled. She turned to Jack, her eyes a turbulent storm. “Don’t ask me that again. Now, let’s go.” She was careful not to look down as she stepped over another mass of bodies.
Alecto followed.
They had two more encounters that played out similarly to the last, but terminating each man took Alecto twice as long as the last to finish the job.
Alecto’s trembling hand was outstretched, her bald head covered in beads of sweat, as the last man writhed on the ground and held his head, screaming for mercy.
Jack had had enough. “Stop,” he said.
To his surprise, Alecto did as he asked.
Jack stood over the man and looked down into the guy’s teary, puffy red eyes. Jack pulled out his pistol and aimed at the man’s head. “You have two choices. Renounce Croft and pledge to help us take him down, or die.”
The man’s mouth went from being twisted in agony to forcing a derisive smile. He choked as he tried to talk, but finally got out, “You plan to kill Sir Croft?” He chuckled, and it came out as a pathetic croak. His smile faded when he noticed no one else was laughing with him. “You’re serious?”
Jack nodded.
“Looks like I’m going to die either way.”
Jack flicked his head toward Alecto. “She has single-handedly taken out close to a dozen of his men in the last thirty minutes. I’ll take our odds.” When he said it out loud, he began to believe it.
The man sat up, and Jack’s stomach lurched. “Stay where you are.” His palms were slippery with sweat, but he managed to keep his gun trained on the guy.
The Makers guard held up his hands and stood. “My name’s Michael Donovan, but people call me Mick. I’ll switch sides. What the hell. I’m only in it for the money anyway, and I hadn’t planned on dying today. I’ll pledge to help you as long as you swear on your mother’s life that that thing won’t attack me again.” He pointed a shaky finger at Alecto.
“My mother’s dead,” Jack said. His throat tightened, and he swallowed to keep tears away. He indicated Alecto with his head. “And her name is Alecto. She’ll leave you be as long as you stay loyal.” He got into Mick’s face. “But you make a move that puts either of them in danger, I’ll kill you myself.”
Mick nodded. “Sure. I get it. But you know you don’t need to worry about anyone killing the girls, right?”
“What do you mean?” Anna asked.
Mick put his hands down to his sides. “We got orders to bring you both in alive. That’s why you’ve burned through our guys—I mean Croft’s men—so easily. We was hamstrung by our orders not to harm the two girls.” He turned his eyes on Jack. “Sorry, bud, but you’re not so lucky. You’re a marked man.”
Jack shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
Anna stepped closer to Mick. “Why does Croft want me taken alive?”
Mick shook his head. “Don’t know. I’m a grunt, ma’am. A guy like me is hired for one thing. Follow orders without question, and shoot whoever they tell me to shoot. The less I know, the better. Like, take your situation. You got me on your side now. You tell me shoot Croft, I’ll shoot him. Don’t matter if he was the one giving me orders this morning.”
Anna’s lip was curled up in a disgusted sneer. Her hands were balled in tight fists at her sides and she looked up into his eyes. Her voice was low. “Then let me make this very easy for you, Mr. Mercenary. Our mission is to take William Croft out of this world. You help us, and you live. You even flinch in the direction of giving him aid, and you die. Are we clear?”
Mick gave her a curt nod, his face wearing a sneer.
Jack had the urge to smack the sneer off of the guy’s face with the blunt end of his rifle.
Anna eased back from him. “Let’s get going, then.”
Alecto pushed onward with Mick on her heels. Jack continued to bring up the rear and watch their backs. As he watched Anna’s head bob in front of him, he thought about how he hoped to never be on her bad side.
As they walked, Anna and Jack peppered Mick with questions about Croft’s location and the extent of defense he had already installed around him. Anna tried also to get intel about the stolen antivirus, but Mick said he knew nothing about it. He was less than helpful, but the reason was hard to say, whether because he was withholding information or because he truly knew little.
The only thing remotely useful that he gave them was that two patrols were dispatched twice a day to search A.H.D.N.A. to try to find Sturgis. “One of those patrols radioed that they had heard something and were going to check it out. When they didn’t answer the radio call,
more patrols were sent out.”
“Is Lizzy in charge of the patrols?”
Mick said, “Lizzy? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
It seemed unlikely that the guy wouldn’t know who Lizzy was. Jack let the statement go, but it gave Jack another reason to be wary of the guy.
Alecto turned a corner, and they entered a wide hallway. Jack recognized the place. It was a junction he’d been in before. One corridor led to the lab where he’d nearly died by lethal injection. Another hall led to the administrative offices and the heart of A.H.D.N.A. The hall to the left led to the jail cells where Jack had been a prisoner, and ahead of them down a wide hallway were the double doors that led to Apthartos.
“We’re nearly there,” Jack said.
“Good. Once we’re through the doors, we’ll—” Anna said.
The double doors opened, and when they were only halfway, water cannons unloaded on them. The men wielding them, dressed in black Makers guard uniforms, aimed at Alecto, but the water sprayed over Jack, Anna, and Mick as well.
Alecto stood planted and pulled up to her full height, her hands on her hips in defiance.
A woman’s voice yelled out in a British accent, “Take her down.” Lizzy Croft stood in the center of a throng of half a dozen men. Her brown eyes were wide and dark with fury.
When Jack had first seen Lizzy in Apthartos, she had worn a businesslike skirt and blouse with high heels and immaculate hair and makeup. Her high heels were gone now. She was dressed in all-black military-style pants, boots, and long-sleeved shirt over which she wore body armor. Her long, chestnut-colored hair was pulled behind her head in a neat ponytail. Her forehead crinkled, and her lips pursed as the water had no ill effect on Alecto.
“Have your dogs stand down so we can talk,” Anna said. Her voice was calm, her face smooth and unfazed by seeing Lizzy.
“Talk?” Lizzy tittered. She watched and became angrier by the second as she saw that the water cannons had no ill effects on Alecto. She finally yelled, “Stop! Save it.”
The men turned off the water cannons. Jack was soaked and chilled by the cool underground air.
“We have nothing to talk about,” Lizzy said. Her lip curled into a derisive sneer as she looked Anna up and down. “Little miss perfect. I used to envy you, but now I know the truth. I almost pity you. Almost.”
“Truth about what?” Anna asked.
An unsettling grin came to Lizzy’s lips. “You’ll find out. Now, time for you and the thing to come along like good girls. Father is waiting for you. Say goodbye, Mr. Wilson.”
34
tEX
When the Conexus had spoken to Tex telepathically, it made his head feel as if it was being split open, but the voice he’d just heard in his mind did not cause an agonizing buzz or dizziness. Maybe I’m going mad. He also considered the possibility that he was running out of oxygen and his mind was starved for the chemical element that sustained it.
Even if he was going mad or suffering from hypoxia, he answered the voice that had referred to itself as Elosian. “Where are you? Show yourself to me.”
His voice had more edge to it than he had intended, but he didn’t regret it. He was too hot, tired, and frustrated to care if he offended. Perhaps I was not the best choice to be a diplomat for humanity with a new species.
The voice repeated its prior direction. “At the center and deeper still. Come to us, Bodaway.”
Tex had been walking, albeit more slowly than he would have liked, but he stopped then, stunned to stillness. They—whoever “they” were—had just referred to him by name. That was the name he was given after his journey of the sweat, but it was still his name.
He tried to rub his temples, forgetting that his hands were wrapped in gloves and his face stuck in a plastic bubble. I am going mad. I am talking to myself.
“Reach out to us. Feel our presence. Continue your journey, Bodaway. To the center and deeper still.”
He decided to follow the command of the mysterious voice. He had no choice. He could do that or lie down in the dust and wait for death to claim him. That option did hold some appeal for him. He was tired beyond what he had ever experienced—tired of searching, tired of running, of trying to escape.
The memory of Erika’s lips on his flitted into his mind. He could nearly smell her citrusy sweat and soap aroma . If I die, I am no help to her.
Tex made one leaden foot move in front of the other. At that point, his only fuel was the promise of answers. “Reach out to us,” the voice had said. Tex closed his eyes, took a few calming breaths, and moved his attention inward. His mind raced with question and worry. Reaching a place of inner calm was more difficult than he had ever found it. He was finally able to focus his attention on the core of his being.
At last, he was aware on a level removed from the material world. At first, he sensed nothing other than the beating of his heart and movement of air through his lungs. He focused deeper still, and after a few minutes, he became aware of what seemed like a second heartbeat. It was faint, like an echo of his own. The second beat came from outside of himself, though. As he concentrated, it became less a beat and more of an awareness of a wave pulse.
The pulse was slow, but it was there. He mentally chastised himself for not noticing it before. It was the sort of thing he should have been aware of, had he not been so focused on the needs of his body in that place.
Somehow, he was able to pick up the pace of his walking. He moved into the dark void ahead of him. Diffuse light trickled down from above but did little to dissipate the darkness.
“That is it. Come to us.”
Tex kept his attention deep and removed from the physical. His preternatural speed returned, his feet no longer mired by sand dunes. The only light came from the helmet lamp. Even with his better-than-human night vision, he saw no more than five feet ahead of him at a time.
“You do not need to see to discover,” the voice said.
Though the headlamp was nearly useless, he kept it on anyway. It was a comfort that he clung to as he made his way farther and deeper into the blackness.
His foot found air, and he wobbled as he nearly tumbled down a wide set of stairs that he had not seen. “Deeper still,” the voice had said. Tex waited at the top of the stairs and allowed his racing heart and wobbly legs to settle. Once his legs were steady, he stepped down, then down again, step after step, deep down into a pitch-black void.
He moved based purely on faith that he was going to see or experience something worthwhile, but his heart fluttered with panic. Deeper and deeper still, the stairs spiraled down and down. He counted until he hit one hundred then stopped counting. He didn’t want to know.
Finally, the stairs ended. He moved forward cautiously, his feet skimming along the surface gingerly, hoping not to find another set of stairs.
The low, constant thrum was stronger there than it had been above. He sensed the wave pulsing through him then with his human senses rather than only noticing it in the void of pure consciousness.
He shone his helmet light down and saw he was walking on stone. It had been smoothed and appeared worn by the ages, but it was not the slick, colorful marble of the city above. He still saw no lights. His vision remained limited to only a few meters in any direction.
Each step on the stone floor echoed loudly. He felt as though he was walking into a forbidden sanctuary.
After twenty paces or so, he came to a wall. It was not made of the pink or coral-colored marble of the city above. He reached out and touched it. The wall was made of smooth glass. The light from his helmet glinted off the glass but was unable to penetrate through to reveal anything within. It must be thick.
“You are nearly there, our son. Step inside.”
He would have gladly stepped inside if he could find a door. As with the green pyramid on the planet’s surface, though, as he walked along the edge of the glass structure, he found only meter after meter of smooth green glass.
He turned a
sharp corner, and his hands slid along the glass as he walked the edge. He searched for a mechanism or lever, a handle or a button, but as with the pyramid above, an opening suddenly appeared.
Tex cleared the glass threshold and walked pace after pace down a corridor made of glass. The thrum of the wave vibration that had been a low beat in his belly grew in intensity and rattled his chest.
Something shifted beneath his feet. The subtle rattle of his chest boomed like a cannon firing. Tex braced himself by placing a hand on either side of the narrow glass corridor. The thunderous roar of engines filled the space. A mechanical beast groaned as if angry after being awoken from hibernation. After so many hours in nearly total silence, the sound of machines was nearly deafening but also like sweet music to his ears.
The structure he was in vibrated so much that his vision blurred. He felt as though the entire ground beneath his feet and the walls he was pushing against moved with him.
Light spilled from above and dispelled the darkness. At first, the movement was barely perceptible, but he was rising, and the light grew brighter. Tex looked up and had to shield his eyes as he had become accustomed to the darkness.
The light revealed what had been shrouded in darkness below. He was in a glass structure that rose from the cavernous depths into the bright light of the alien planet.
The higher it rose, the more the light caught at the facets of the glass and revealed the structure. Tex was near the outside edge of the building, in a corridor cut diagonally toward the center. Glass towered over him, glimmering green and silvery in the bright light. His eyes watered and burned from the brightness.
The quaking had stopped, but the glass building continued to ascend. He braced against the glass walls and continued walking. “At the center,” the voice had said.
The great glass building groaned to a halt. He looked back through the corridor he’d walked, back toward the outer edge of the structure. He was deep enough into the building that nothing but green glass was all around.
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