H.A.L.F.: ORIGINS

by Natalie Wright

  The deep cuts and planes of the glass reflected the intense daylight. The entire structure seemed lit from within by the faceted glass.

  The hallway ended, and Tex stepped into a large, perfectly square open space. He stepped slowly into the cavernous room and peered around. The walls sloped upward to a point. He was in a pyramid, and based on the size of the room and the length of corridor he had walked, it was huge, perhaps the size of a city block.

  The floor and walls of the central room were made of smooth glass, with no furniture and no decoration.

  He wasn’t sure what he had expected to find, but an empty room wasn’t it. Tex sank to his knees and let exhaustion take him. His eyes were bleary from weariness and a misting of tears that sprang there.

  “Rise, Bodaway,” a voice said.

  He glanced up and thought he saw a shimmering image of Erika holding her hand out to him. “Erika?”

  She smiled, and her lips moved. He thought he heard her say, “Take off your helmet, Tex.”

  But Dr. Lewis… Didn’t she say something about the helmet? What was it she said?

  His vision was dark around the edges. His sight wavered like shimmering heat on the pavement, but Erika was there, her hand out to him, her voice beckoning.

  “Your suit is out of oxygen, and you’re suffocating. This room has air that you can breathe. Take the helmet off.”

  Attaching the helmet had taken two people. He fumbled at the closures with shaky fingers as though grasping a grain of rice with boxing gloves on. He twisted and turned, unsure if he was making the screws tighter or loosening them.

  Finally, he got the fasteners free, and the entire helmet pushed back off of his head. He gasped in the air, half expecting it to take what was left of his life.

  His lungs burned as oxygen filled them. He gulped the air greedily, like a dying man drinking water from a desert oasis.

  He fell the rest of the way to the smooth floor, lying on his back and breathing deeply. The air was fresh and clean, not dank, as he had expected. Also, the room must have been pressurized because he hadn’t exploded.

  As his cells refueled their oxygen supply, his head cleared. He was lying in a room entirely silent save for the sound of his breathing. He realized that he had imagined the voice just as he had imagined Erika. But it directed me here, didn’t it?

  As if reading his thoughts, a clear, deep male voice spoke. “Rise, son.”

  The sudden sound startled him, and he was on his feet nearly immediately.

  “Who are you? Where are you? Show yourself.”

  The room had been filled with light filtering through the layers of glass, but it darkened as though invisible shades were pulled over the glass.

  The walls and ceiling then filled with lights moving and whizzing around and around the walls at a dizzying speed. All the many-colored lights came together in a single point hovering a few feet in front of Tex. It was a tiny spot no larger than a speck of sand, but it cast a glow that nearly filled the space.

  “We are the Elosians, the ancient ancestors of your species.” As the voice continued, the point of light pulsed brighter then dimmer, a bit larger then smaller.

  “You’re beings made of light?”

  “This light projection is merely our way of giving you something to focus on. We are pure consciousness and without form. But perhaps you would prefer this?”

  In an instant, the single point of light disappeared. The space in front of Tex shifted. He squinted and blinked.

  A male figure materialized out of the empty air in front of him. The humanoid man stood at least three feet taller than Tex. The man’s broad chest was bare, the brown skin smooth and rippling with well-defined muscles. His head was large, his forehead and jaw wide, his eyes set deep and far apart. The man’s head was bald on the right, but a long, sleek black braid of hair hung on the left. Around his neck was a thick golden collar, set with coral and turquoise jewels, that matched the golden belt around his slim waist. His lower torso and legs were covered with a silver-white skirt flowing in a shimmery wave of fabric that seemed to move slightly in a nonexistent breeze.

  Though his size was formidable, the most striking aspect of the man was his eyes, larger than human eyes though not nearly as large as Conexus eyes. The color was unlike anything Tex had ever seen, though. They were nearly white, flecked through with gold. Tex didn’t think the eyes were actually glowing, but the white color in contrast to the man’s dark skin made his eyes appear to cast light out.

  Tex’s mouth hung open. He had so many questions, so much he wanted to ask and to say, but the man’s form towered over him, making Tex feel small and befuddled.

  The man’s lips curled upward into a smile. “Perhaps this form is better. This figure is Cynothian. He was on the Council of Elot, the ruling body of Elosia.” The man’s lips moved, but the sound seemed to come from everywhere, not just out of the man’s face.

  “Where is he now? Is he dead? Is this a projection or… What is it?”

  Cynothian threw back his head and let out a thunderous laugh that rumbled in Tex’s chest. “Ah, our star child. We had nearly forgotten how impatient humans are.”

  Irritation rattled Tex. Cynothian had not only laughed at him but also called him human.

  “But I’m not human. Not entirely, anyway. I am from Earth, but I was created in a lab with both human DNA as well as DNA from another species, the Conexus. They are from Earth’s future so technically human—in a way—but definitely evolved far enough into the future to be a wholly new species.”

  Cynothian laughed again. His voice echoed throughout the cavernous space.

  “I did not risk my life to be here simply so I could be laughed at. Earth is in trouble. The situation is rather dire. And seeing as how you are the architects of the galactic highway the M’Uktah are using to come to our planet to destroy us, I had hoped you would come to Earth and help us destroy the gate they’re using.”

  Cynothian stopped laughing. He shook his head, his eyes closed. “Many mistakes.”

  “What mistakes? I’m running out of time. Are you the Architects or not?”

  Cynothian opened his eyes, and the room was again brighter. “Architects? Yes. We like that term as far as we understand it. The builders. The creators—but of more than a warp in space-time used for many millennia for galactic travel.”

  Tex wasn’t interested in the marvels of their engineering. “You’re great builders. I have seen that, but what I need to know is how can we prevent the M’Uktah from coming to Earth? Can you shut the galactic gateway down on their end? Or destroy it on our end?”

  Cynothian’s eyes grew wide, and his brows furrowed with anger. “You seek answers, yet you listen not. You have wisdom beyond that which most humans achieve, but you are young yet. You fail to grasp the larger picture that has been shown to you.”

  Tex was typically interested in wisdom, but he was focused solely on his visions of Erika being mowed down by one of the monsters with the hinging jaws set with razor-sharp teeth. He could nearly smell her blood as the animal sank its jaws into her throat. The mental picture haunted his days and nights alike and was swimming before his mind’s eye.

  Cynothian’s face relaxed, and he took on the countenance of compassion. “Please relax, Bodaway. Time is not your enemy. Fear is. Focus your attention on us. We have the answers that you seek. You will leave here with the information you require. Be still, star child. The gods would have a word with you.”

  35

  JACK

  Jack stood at the gateway to Apthartos with half a dozen guns trained on him. Lizzy Croft wore a smug smile as though she was looking forward to watching Jack’s blood stain the floor.

  A gun nudged Jack’s back. He realized too late he’d made the rookie mistake of allowing the mercenary to get behind him.

  “I’d like the honor of taking this one out for you, Lady Croft,” Mick said.

  Anna stepped in front of Jack. That wouldn’t keep Mick from pumping
some bullets into him from behind, but Jack appreciated the gesture.

  “I won’t allow you to kill Jack.” Anna sounded calm and assured. “You’ll take all of us, including Jack, to see your father.”

  Jack admired Anna’s attempt to do some Jedi mind trickery on Lizzy, but he doubted it would work. Lizzy was not the type to be intimidated.

  “Oh I will?” Lizzy asked, mocking. “Or you’ll what? Bat your long eyelashes at me or flip your hair?” She laughed. “You’re pathetic. What my father sees in your genes, I’ll never know.” She thrust her chin upward haughtily as her lips pulled back into a thin angry line.

  Anna eased her rifle up and pointed its red laser dot at Lizzy’s chest. “I’ll kill you now and worry about killing your dad later.”

  The men surrounding Lizzy didn’t know where to aim their weapons. Half of them stayed on Jack, but the other half shuffled and pointed their weapons at Anna instead.

  The gunpoint was uncomfortable at the small of his back. At eight against three, Jack knew they couldn’t win a shoot-out, even with Alecto’s help.

  Jack slowly reached for the radio device on Anna’s belt and tapped the call button three times.

  “He’s reaching for something,” one of the men said.

  Jack quickly put his hands in the air. “I was scratching an itch. See? Nothing in my hands.”

  Lizzy let out a loud sigh. “I tire of this game, cousin. There’s a gun at your boyfriend’s back. You may have found a way to get the thing there to resist water, but a few bullets will end her anyway. Don’t think that just because my father favors you that—”

  The lights blinked out, leaving them in darkness. Sturgis had gotten the predetermined radio signal and cut the lights in A.H.D.N.A.

  Jack spun quickly, taking advantage of the momentary confusion. He tried to grab for Mick’s gun but caught only air.

  A few seconds later, red lights embedded in the ceiling blinked, and an alarm wailed as the A.H.D.N.A. lockdown sequence commenced. Metal screeched and groaned as gates rolled out of the ceiling, cutting off the hall in which they stood from A.H.D.N.A.

  The scene was lit by an eerie red glow as the lights blinked on. After a few seconds, the lights pulsed off, and everyone was again in the dark. When the lights came on again, Lizzy’s eyes were wide, the smug confidence gone. Anna stood with her gun still aimed at Lizzy, seemingly oblivious to everything else. Mick found Jack again with his aim, his eyes locked onto Jack’s form.

  The red lights blinked off again. As darkness engulfed them, Jack bolted to his right and pushed Anna to the left. The large hall echoed with gunfire. Jack got down on one knee and pulled his pistol from its holster. The scene lit up again in a red glow.

  Two bodies were down. One was a black-clad Makers guard. The other was the mercenary named Mick.

  Alecto’s eyes were closed, her hand outstretched, looking very vulnerable standing in the open. The only reason she wasn’t dead already was because Croft had ordered them not to kill her. But how long will that last when she’s knocking them down like bowling pins?

  Movement caught Jack’s attention out of the corner of his eye. Lizzy fumbled with the gun holster at her waist and finally got the pistol free.

  The red lights flickered out again, leaving them in darkness.

  Jack moved as quickly as he could. Two more bodies thumped onto the ground, and he hoped one of them was Lizzy.

  He was so close to Anna that he felt her breath on the back of his neck.

  “Move,” she whispered. “You’re blocking my shot.”

  The red glow lit the corridor.

  A deafening explosion filled the hall as the gun’s hammer hit the pin, igniting a chain reaction that sent a bullet whizzing through the air at him at the speed of sound. The impact of the bullet hitting his chest knocked him to the ground.

  Anna sounded as if she was yelling to him through water. “No!”

  The sounds of his beating heart and rushing blood filled Jack’s ears. Air was forced from his lungs.

  Jack’s head spun. His chest burned, and pain shot through his upper arms and back. The dim red lights pulsed off again, leaving them momentarily in the dark. His vision blurred and narrowed. Darkness played at the edges of his vision. He was in danger of losing consciousness.

  He blinked and sucked in a deep breath of the dank recycled air. He forced his aching arm to feel under the Kevlar vest for blood. He was bruised and maybe had a cracked rib or two, but his hand was dry—no blood.

  The red lights blinked on again as Jack forced himself up to his knees then staggered to standing. Anna’s eyes were filled with tears, but she smiled widely at him as he stood on wobbly legs.

  He turned to face Lizzy, his body still a human shield in front of Anna. “You can send a hundred bullets at her. I’m going to take every one of them,” he said.

  “You want a hundred bullets? Ask and you shall receive. Take him out,” Lizzy commanded.

  Jack wished he’d thought through his smack talk before saying it.

  “Without lights, we risk shooting her,” one of the men said.

  Lizzy threw up her hands and yanked a rifle out of the hands of the man next to her. Then the lights went out again. “I’ll do it myself. I’ll tell him she got in the way. Oops, I accidentally killed your pet fa—” She gasped for air.

  The red glow came back. Lizzy dropped the rifle. Her hands were at her throat, trying to pry away invisible cords wrapped around her neck. Her eyes bulged.

  Alecto’s hand was trembling, her large eyes focused solely on Lizzy.

  Lizzy writhed on the floor, choking and gasping.

  Anna screamed, “Don’t torture her!”

  Alecto cocked her head to one side and let her hand fall.

  Lizzy Croft’s head whipped sharply to the side. The cracking sound of the bones in her neck breaking echoed off the stone walls. She fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Her face was plastered to the cold, gray concrete floor of A.H.D.N.A. much as Robert Sturgis’s dead face had laid on the marble floor of the Croft penthouse when Lizzy had shot him.

  Jack had almost looked forward to Lizzy’s death. She had caused Anna, Alecto, and Thomas untold agony. Her glassy dead eyes staring up at them gave him no satisfaction. The stench of death permeating the corridor made his stomach lurch.

  The red lights blinked off and on. Off and on. Only three Makers guards still stood, huddled around Lizzy’s lifeless body.

  Jack wanted to offer them an out, but the last time he’d done that, he ended up with a gun in his back. Mick had proven more loyal to the Crofts than Jack had expected.

  He didn’t spend more time dwelling on the choice. Without the antivirus, Ian’s entire family might die. Everyone he knew was in danger, including Anna and himself.

  He unloaded round after round from his semiautomatic until the three men were as dead as Lizzy. “Radio Sturgis. Let her know we’re on our way to Croft.” Jack stepped among the dead bodies and avoided looking into the faces of the men he’d killed as he took Anna’s hand and marched toward the doors leading to Apthartos.

  36

  ERIKA

  The first star was visible over the horizon to the north, suspended in a deep azure sky hung like a curtain atop a rim of orange. The night was beautiful, but Erika was in no mood to appreciate nature’s splendor. Her butt was numb from sitting on the hard ground all day, her eyelids heavy with the kind of tired that came from being bored. She wanted to be there for Tex when he came back, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that she wasn’t sure she’d make it through a night out in the desert.

  A cool wind whipped the blanket and nearly ripped it from her. She clutched it more tightly about herself and shivered.

  Behind her, the air crackled with electricity. There are no power wires out here.

  She grabbed the Taser from her lap and was on her feet in an instant. The woolen blanket fell from her shoulders, and cold air stole what little heat she’d built up
inside the blanket cocoon.

  Her hands shook as she pulled the pistol from her back waistband while she turned toward the crackling sound. Less than twenty yards away, a ball of purple-and-white electricity lit up the dusky sky. Electricity arced and sputtered in a spherical ring, as if thrown off by a Tesla coil. The arcing currents were so bright that she couldn’t see whether any mechanism was within the sphere of light causing the anomaly.

  She backed slowly away but couldn’t take her eyes off of it. The light was so bright she had to squint to protect her eyes. The sphere of electrical current was beautiful and scary at the same time.

  The ground around the radio dish was sparsely vegetated, but the few small dry shrubs and grasses nearby caught fire. Smoke filled the air around the electrical sphere and further obscured what might lie inside.

  That the anomaly was appearing where Tex had vanished into thin air caused hope to well inside her. He had assumed he would get back to Earth the way he left it, but perhaps the Architects, as he called the distant aliens, had an advanced machine. Can it be? She stopped backing away, her feet rooted.

  “Tex!” she cried.

  No answer came.

  The electrical current fizzled and buzzed. As suddenly as it had appeared, the sphere of electricity vanished, leaving behind a patch of scorched and smoking earth. As the wind cleared the smoke, an iridescent egg-shaped orb was revealed.

  Erika moved slowly toward it. She lowered her gun and Taser but kept them in her hands. She was nearly certain Tex had returned safely to Earth. She wanted desperately for it to be him, but she approached cautiously, in case the orb was not what she hoped it was.

  The smoke shifted ever so slightly, and she saw movement. The small brush fires had nearly exhausted their fuel and burned low. The sun was almost completely set, leaving her in near darkness. The orb glistened white, but everything around it was silhouette and shadow.

  She heard a faint whoosh and stood perfectly still and quiet. Her eyes were wide, her ears alert. Sweat beaded on her brow, and she wiped it so the salty liquid wouldn’t sting her eyes and obscure her vision. Her heart thrummed in her chest, and she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Footsteps sounded.