by Mercedes Lackey; Cody Martin; Dennis Lee; Veronica Giguere
Red nodded, still focused on the panel. “And if this chamber is as big as Bull says it is, no way our flashlights will be enough. Ah, here we are . . .”
He reached in and withdrew a large circuit board still tethered to the panel by ropes of wires. The circuits were printed in gold. The transistors on it were vintage 1960s—about as big as grains of corn rather than the head of a pin.
“Wow . . . that is brilliant work.” Bella’s eyes were like dinner plates. “Vic’d kill to see this. Have you got any idea how much that would be worth to a museu—”
“No idea,” Djinni said, and proceeded to smash the board against the wall. There was a mighty crash as the glass-walled transistors shattered. The silence that followed was interrupted by a steely hiss as the portal slid open.
Bulwark sighed. “Was that really necessary?”
“Sorry, Bull,” Red chuckled. “I’m a sucker for the dramatic.”
They turned as Harmony uttered a small squeak. She was standing in front of the vault door that had swung silently inward. “Then you’re going to love this.”
Before them . . . was something that could not possibly be described as a “room.” It had walls, a floor and an arched ceiling, and it was underground, but this was no mere room. Red squinted, and thought he might, just possibly, be able to make out the wall at the opposite end. But he wasn’t entirely sure, the light was too dim.
This place was easily big enough to hold a small family farm with some space left over for, say, a racetrack.
“What the hell is in here?”
The lights in the room began to fade up—standard fluorescents slowly warming up and flickering on in sequence.
There was an army below them.
Row after row after row of powered armor, beneath a huge vaulted ceiling, looked uncannily like the rows of clay warriors in the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuang in Xian China. Stiff and at attention, each suit of armor gleamed in the new light. Despite being still and lifeless, each held the promise of unthinkable violence. And there were hundreds of them, packed into neat little rows, four abreast, trailing off into the distance. The only interruption lay in the center of the chamber—a massive structure with a square base and a smooth domed roof.
Red turned and punched Bulwark in the arm. “Told you.”
“This . . .” Harmony paused, unsure of how to continue. “This makes the kind of sense that . . . doesn’t.”
“How . . .” Acrobat’s voice broke, he gulped, and tried again. “How do you get all this crap down here? And this room! We must be hundreds of feet underground! They built this?”
Scope swore. “Would someone please tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be seeing?”
“An army, Scope,” Bull said. “We’re looking at an army of metal. Based on what we fought, though, these look a bit archaic. Not primitive by any means, but first generation. I’m sorry, Acrobat. I have no idea how this is possible.”
It was Bella’s turn to swear. “Bomb tests.”
They all turned to blink at her. “What?” asked Acrobat.
“Bomb tests. A-bombs, H-bombs. I live here, remember? My grandparents worked for Oppie. In the forties, fifties, even the early sixties, Las Vegas was a handful of mob-owned casinos on Fremont Street and a few divorce ranches. The only thing that was important out here then was the military and the test site. And if it was military, no one ever asked questions. You could move anything out here as long as you stuck your crew in Army Surplus uniforms and painted the trucks olive-drab. Everyone would assume you were doing something with the bomb tests and no one would say a word.” She shook her head. “Brilliant. He installed all this right under the noses of the military.” Then her face soured. “He could even have done blasting timed with the bomb tests and no one would notice. Seismographs weren’t that accurate back then, and the bomb test times were posted in the papers so people could gather and watch in Vegas. Mom has postcards. Mushroom cloud with Vegas Vic.”
“Great,” Djinni muttered. “Fabulous. Make sure to add that in your report. So, mystery solved. We’ll be going now, yeah?”
“Not yet,” Bulwark said. “We should investigate, see if we can take a sample with us.”
“And just how are we supposed to do that, Bull?” Red scoffed. “Those things weigh a ton. What, you think you can grab a helmet and be off?”
“You could crawl in one and pilot it out,” Bella suggested.
“Right,” Djinni said, rubbing his temples. “I’m sure there are simple Gameboy pads and instruction manuals in each. And you’re assuming they aren’t automated death machines. Christ, they might wake up the minute we get in there.”
“The suits all had organic pilots,” Bella told him. “That’s in the Invasion debrief.”
“Enough,” Bulwark said. “We go in. Stay tight. Anything looks wrong, we still have our path of retreat. Djinni, you’ve got point.”
Red gave Bull a hard look, then swung himself onto a nearby ladder. He began to scale down, his eyes never leaving Bulwark. They followed him cautiously, making their way to ground level. Bella winced as her feet made jarring sounds on the metal rungs, with each clang echoing off into the giant room. She softened her descent, flexing her knees to ease her feet onto the rungs. She noticed the others following her lead. Except for Djinni, who slid silently away from them and down to the bottom.
“How the hell does he do that?” she muttered to herself.
Once on the floor, the space was even more intimidating. The lighting wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the whole place, just enough to make spooky pools of shadow everywhere. But there was one thing Bella noticed. These suits weren’t like the ones she’d seen in Groom Lake. They looked . . . clunkier. Just as big as their modern counterparts, perhaps, but noticeably less articulated. She supposed if you managed to get one on its back, it was out of the fight. No arm cannons either. Each held their hands close to the chest, gripping . . .
“Are those . . . are those swords?”
Bulwark nodded. “And battle axes and clubs.”
“First gen?” Bella said aloud. “If they are . . . a sample from one of them might tell the techs a lot.”
Djinni crept up to one, like a stalking cat, his curiosity overcoming his apprehension. Gingerly, he took hold of a sword, his hands running up to the hilt. He pulled. The sword didn’t budge.
“Somebody didn’t eat his Yankee Doodles this morning.”
Red didn’t answer; instead, he somersaulted up and sat on the armor’s immense shoulders. Reaching down, he strained to pry the cold metal fingers from the sword hilt. Nothing. They were locked tight.
“Well,” Bulwark said, “so much for that idea. Let’s move along. There might be something else salvageable further on.”
“Maybe a spare parts bin,” offered Scope.
“Or a scratch-’n’-dent section,” Acrobat chuckled. “Fifty percent off, only used to invade on Sundays.”
Laughing, they moved deeper into the room, their initial panic at seeing the extent of the place quickly lost when nothing moved or offered a threat. Red hopped down from his perch and watched them go. He didn’t join in on the laughter.
Neither did Bella. The rest might not be spooked—but she still was. There was a vast maze out there to prove Goldman was a psychotic nutball bastard. This was still part of his creation.
And despite what they had gone through to get this far, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that it had still been far too easy.
* * *
The image of her team blind down there jolted her. Hard. Right into thinking mode again. The pain didn’t matter; she’d gone through worse. What did matter was her team. She’d let them down already; she couldn’t leave them.
Right. From cold boot and see what comes up. Vickie powered everything down and, one piece at a time, powered them back up again. She nearly wept to see the tests run and most of them come back live. A couple hard drives lost, that was not a problem, she had backups of her backups—but
no BSODs, oh gods be thanked. Grabbing her kit she plunged into the belly of the beast, taking care of the purely mechanical and electrical first.
Then the Overwatch system. Known quantity first: JM. Murdock wasn’t expecting her to ping him, but he was getting into the habit of always wearing his wires on patrol, and—
—yes. Yes, he was, and he was live. She got his camera and mic-feeds and the mechanical locator on the map. So the mechanical part of Overwatch was working.
Now the magical . . .She pulled Bulwark’s packet from the USB interface and plugged JM’s in.
Nothing. And it wasn’t the packet. Back she went to the spare parts shelf and hauled out a new interface, blessing her own paranoia. Plug and plug, cast the spell, and there he was on the map without benefit of the mechanical locator.
She pulled JM’s packet and plugged in Bull’s.
Nothing. She tried not to scream.
* * *
Their progress was slow at first, until they realized they were inspecting the same thing, over and over again. With each new row, each new battalion, they found the same armor, wielding the same weapons, each as immovable as the last. They sped up, moving to a cautious march, their eyes everywhere, until they came to the giant domed structure.
It towered over them. The dome appeared to be a flawless ceiling of metal, glinting softly in the dim light, atop a tall, square, metallic slab.
Red squinted to make out the details. Unlike the domed roof, the square walls of the base seemed rougher. He inched closer and finally ran his hands along it. He realized his mistake. The walls were smooth as well, but inlaid with intricate carvings. He shone his flashlight over them, and was surprised to see a brilliant relief of an enormous wolf, beautifully portrayed midbattle with human soldiers half its size. He could almost hear its snarls, feel its rage . . .
He nodded to Bulwark, and made his way around the monument. Another relief, this time of a bird. An eagle, he would say, wings spread, claws extended, captured in that flash of time just before snatching its prey and hurtling up into the sky. A rabbit, perhaps? Red looked closer, his eyes widening. No, a horse.
Giant animal predators. What kind of whackjob carved these, I wonder?
Continuing, he found two more similar carvings, again depicting the savage wolf and the triumphant eagle. But no doors, no panels, nothing suggesting that this structure was anything more than a monument to the crazed inner workings of the mind of the Third Reich’s most infamous inventor.
“Well?” Bulwark asked as Djinni joined the rest of the group.
“It’s official,” Djinni replied. “Goldman was a nutjob.”
“Take a look here, Djinni,” Bull said, shining his flashlight on a new row of armor. “We’re finally seeing something different.”
Red gave the armor an appraising look. “No more medieval weaponry, and thicker arms too. No, not arms . . .”
“Arm-mounted Gatling guns,” Bulwark said. “And no, they won’t come off. We just tried. Acrobat, I hope you’re getting all this.”
Acrobat nodded, guiding his sensors over every inch of the armor. Strobe lighting pulsed from the handheld accompanied by soft clicking sounds as the miniscule camera snapped a steady stream of pictures.
“Odd,” Bull said. “It’s like we’re walking through more than just an armory. They’re lined up in some sort of historical order. More like a museum.”
Red jerked a thumb back towards the dome. “That would explain that monstrosity.”
“Sir!” From ahead, they heard Harmony’s surprised squeal. “You should probably take a look at this!”
They rushed ahead, and came to an impossible sight.
“No . . .”
“The hell . . . ?”
“That’s . . . not possible . . .”
“Hello!” Scope cried out. “Still blind here!”
Bella shook off her shock long enough to grab Scope’s shoulder and give her another dose. Which wasn’t going to help her see much now . . .
“Um . . . it’s . . . modern armor suits. Like we fought.”
“Like we fought?” Scope repeated.
“Yes,” Bella answered.
“In here?”
“Yes.”
“In this really, really old vault?”
“Yes.”
“Modern armor, in this really, really old vault, like we fought three months ago?”
“And lots of it.”
“Okay,” Scope nodded. “I’m with Red. Let’s get out of here. Before the bears come back for their porridge.”
“Seconded,” Bella said promptly.
“Agreed,” Bulwark said. “This goes beyond any measure of uncertainty. If these are here, someone’s been here recently. We’re gone. Now.”
“Wait,” Red interrupted. “Don’t panic. Panicking tends to get you dead a lot faster than thinking something through.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” Acrobat blurted.
“Uh . . . guys, I can’t see but I still got my ears.” Scope said, pointing a thumb behind her. “What just happened back there?”
They all turned. The light at the entrance was dimming. And the door was closing. Not quickly, but fast enough they’d never get there before it shut and sealed.
“How ’bout now? Panic good now?”
“Yeah,” Red muttered. “Panic good now.”
With a steely hiss, the door shut. Behind them, from the labyrinth, a warning bell began to peal. The room, once dimly lit by a few panels high in the ceiling, exploded with light.
* * *
Vickie froze a moment with despair. Please please please don’t let them be . . . but her hands were already moving by themselves, grabbing six fresh spell-packets from the storage bin, and plugging them into the interface. And . . .
Yes! All six lovely, lively little dots on a blank screen, one she quickly overlaid with the last saved version of the map they were making as they made their way through the Catacombs. They were in a big space—the big space they’d been heading for when she got knocked out.
Now in a fever, she brought up the mechanicals. Please let the headsets and mics—
Nothing on the headsets, only static on the mics. Vickie hammered her fist down on her desk.
* * *
“Gather up,” Bulwark ordered. “I want eyes everywhere.”
They clustered together, their backs to Scope, and waited. They had each drawn their firearms and they let their eyes adjust to the sudden light. The ceiling had become one giant light source, so strong they could feel its rays beating down on them. It was as hot as movie lights. And through the heat, the klaxon blare of the alarm grew louder. And still they gathered, with hairpin triggers, watching through the glare, listening through the din, for an enemy.
“There!” Bella screamed.
As one, they turned and fired. Hurtling through the air towards them, something all metal wings and razor talons. A giant bird, steely death, and with a start Djinni recognized it. Its eyes were huge, out of all proportion to its head, even by raptor standards, giving it the look of a cartoon designed by a homicidal maniac.
“The hell? That’s—”
“Krieg Hunter!” Bella yelled. “It’s got an energy cannon!”
“It’s real?” Djinni yelled back. “It was a goddamn hieroglyphic five minutes ago!”
The eagle hit the power suit above them as they all reflexively dove to the side. It bounced off, and headed back up for another dive. “That real enough?” Bella screeched.
Djinni shot a look towards the massive structure that loomed over them. Sure enough, a large bird-shaped hole was now where the bas-relief eagle had been.
“Real enough,” he growled. “Bull, you can’t shield us from that!”
“Affirmative,” Bulwark said. “We need cover.”
They dove as the Hunter descended on them, this time firing long steady blasts that reflected off the armor around them. They scattered again, diving behind power suits. Bella let out a yelp as s
he tackled Scope to the ground, the blasts just missing Scope’s head. The smell of scorched hair and metal filled the air.
“We can’t just keep dodging this!” Acrobat yelled. “Escape or fight?”
“Escape to where?” Djinni yelled back, dodging another blast. “Keep moving! Who’s got Scope?”
“Here!” Bella barked, gripping Scope’s arm and desperately leading her through a row of armor. “Harm’s with us, too!”
Bulwark rose from cover and aimed his gun at the Hunter. He fired off three steady shots and cursed as they ricocheted off the robotic bird’s massive hull.
“At least there’s only one—” Acrobat began. Whatever he was going to say was drowned in the massive crash of an entire row of suits going over. And through the hole in the ranks leapt—
“The wolves . . .” Djinni muttered. “Well, this just got festive.”
* * *
Tactical mess.
Bulwark prided himself on being able to assess any situation. He glanced around him, mapping the scattered positions of his team. Bella and Harmony were on the run, guiding Scope as best they could from the deadly energy blasts of the Hunters. That’s right, Hunters, plural. There were four of them. Djinni had started off in hot pursuit, but had flagged the attention of one of the wolves. Cursing, Red screamed something about the wolf’s mother and led him away from the women. That left Acrobat, a damn weak reed to lean on—
Not mess. Disaster. Tactical disaster. Escape route cut off, no obvious plan of attack . . .
The guns were useless on Krieg armor, unless it was heated white-hot first. He wasn’t carrying armor-piercing loads, which might have had some effect on the joints, provided he was a good enough shot, which he wasn’t. He ran through their options at lightning speed. They didn’t have any. He came to the conclusion that Djinni had been right. This had been ill-advised. The Djinni was right. He hated when that happened.
There were two raptors, circling and descending like missiles on Bella, Harmony and Scope. And two wolves, one off chasing the elusive Djinni. Which left . . .
The hair on his neck rose in instinctive reaction to a sound his caveman ancestors knew only too well.
It’s growling at me. A robot wolf is growling at me.