The team waited. Minutes passed by. Emil moved from the spot. Whomever or whatever was behind this mystery had brought him here for a reason. Zoe held his forearm, breaking confusion’s hold on him.
He gently removed her hand and stepped toward the orifice. “I’ll go alone.”
“Guess again.”
He curled his upper-lip and implied his unwilling approval. As a group, they approached the vault and passed through the unassuming opening.
A few meters inside the dead zone, Max’s tel-link lost the connection. Tapping it didn’t help, so he removed the useless device and stowed it in his pocket. As his often underappreciated asset, Dinx was the ever pestering voice of fearful rationale in his ear, working to keep him grounded. He didn’t always listen, but it was comforting to have him there. Right now, Max needed his buddy more than ever.
Except for the entrance, the interior had no features by which to judge their bearings. How deep it went, they couldn’t guess. It would be easy to lose their bearings, so they huddled close.
The daydream became stranger the farther they explored. From nothingness, hundreds of invisible bookshelves formed. Every shelf contained innumerable volumes of digitalized books.
Out of curiosity, Adi tapped the slender spine of the closest copy and a flat transparent readout appeared with text sprawled on nonexistent pages. Another tap changed the image into a vaporous casting of Shakespeare. The Bard covered its chest and recited Sonnet 18. Everything it said became a reality behind it. Upon completing the performance, it bowed, and morphed back into sparkling pages. Another tap returned the volume to its home on the imaginary shelf.
Farther inside, holographic humanoids chatted with one another as they promenaded past the real humans. Two male holograms in early twentieth century dapper attire tipped their hats to Adi. She laughed and passed her hand through their projections. One of the holo-men took offense and rapped her knuckles, causing a mild shock. She hadn’t expected the interaction and jerked away as if stabbed by a knife.
“No one touch anything,” Emil suggested. “Who knows what could happen.”
At the core of the chamber, they found an actual spherical bed. Asleep on the cushion was a living girl, not much younger than Max. Her long shimmering hair draped her porcelain beauty and the pristine ruffles of her gown.
Zoe and Max were speechless. The General looked on the girl, sad but elated.
“What is this?” Zoe demanded.
He circled the bed, afraid to wake the child. Adi grabbed his arm. He looked at his first officer. A tear beaded in the corner of one eye.
“This is my mission,” he explained, unconvinced of his virtue.
Adi loosened her grip and something more considerable with the release.
“You said nothing about kidnapping,” Chacon countered.
“Kidnapping? I didn’t sign up for this,” Max protested.
“We’re going — now.” She yanked Max to her.
They turned to leave, but the elderly man blocked their way; his appearance shocking them both. On his pale, slender face was a horrified countenance.
“How did you get in here?” His French accent thickened with excitement. Seeing Pavel, his complexion lost what little pigment it had. “How — how did you know where to find her?”
Emil dug a wadded cloth from his pocket. Opening the folds, he exposed the crimson ora and held it up.
Something hidden within Adi’s brain shifted. No one noticed the hiccup in her awareness.
The little man recoiled. “Where did you get that?”
Emil rushed in and seized him by the neck. “Nenorocitule!”
“Do you know what you have done, being here,” Markus Nerees argued as the hand tightened around his throat.
Zoe shoved Max. “Go outside!”
Frozen by panic, he couldn’t move.
Adi pulled him. “Max, come with me,” she said with her eyes locked on the crystal.
“What have you done to her?” Emil yelled. “You promised to keep her safe.”
“I have... for all these years. Now, because of you, she is in danger.”
“Liar. What did you do to her?”
Zoe pried him from Nerees’s throat and pushed the two men apart. “Stop it!”
“Emil, you must understand why. The only way to keep her safe was to hide her from the world, from their watchful eyes. They have eyes everywhere. You know this.”
The General wrapped the crystal in the cloth and stuffed it in his pocket. Fearing he would strike again, Zoe acted as a buffer.
“Where did you get that thing,” she asked, knowing what it was.
He steadied himself on his knees to get relief from the rage overtaking him. “Wake her up,” he begged more than he demanded.
“If I do, your very presence will only confuse her.”
“Wake her up!”
Markus only obeyed out of fright for what the mad Romanian would do if he refused. He went to the bed and sat beside the girl. Removing a pen-like object from his vest, he held it over her face. With a click, it emitted a gentle hum. She stirred and slowly woke.
“Papa,” she smiled.
“Marta, mon tresor.”
Marta, Emil repeated in his mind. That’s her name.
Discovering the strangers were physical and not one of her holographic illusions, she shot up. “Who are they, Papa?”
“Be calm, child. This man, his name is Emil. He is an old associate of mine.”
She looked at Emil as if uncertain of his true character.
He stared at her with shame. “You look like your mother.”
“My mother? Papa, what is he saying?”
“Emil, I beg you not to do this. She is my child. I keep her safe. I did just as you and Nadiya asked of me. You were to stay far away. Please, if you care about her, you will leave and never return.”
He couldn’t hear Markus’s words. At last, he had answers. When he started on this path, he had only a gut feeling to go on. His soul knew the truth his mind wouldn’t speak of. After seeing Marta, he understood what had to be done.
Max and Adi stumbled from the vault. He stopped near the doorway to catch his breath. She ran to the window.
“What the hell is going on?”
She didn’t answer.
“Adi?”
She stood next to the glass shield, sobbing. He couldn’t see her scratching at a patch of skin close to the tendons of her left wrist. Her rough nails dug deep and produced blood. She found the edge of a chip buried under layers of raw tissue. Her thumb poked the wound, activating the device. The stinging pain was nothing compared to the heartbreak.
He went to her. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him, revealing the blood.
“Oh, muck.” He coddled her wrist and applied pressure to the cut.
“Have you ever loved someone more than yourself, Max?”
He didn’t understand the question’s importance. It wasn’t something he cared to think about.
She had only known him for a few hours, but that was enough time to get an idea of who he was as a man. She got closer and kissed him as if it was her last. The act caught him by surprise, but he didn’t resist. The taste of his tongue in her mouth electrified her body. If it wasn’t for the drama inside the chamber, Adi would’ve given herself to him. Yet, what she desired could never be. In the end, she settled for one fleeting instant of infatuation in this cruel and unfair existence.
Max swam in the thrall, unaware of her hand on her pistol. She jabbed the muzzle in his lower abdomen.
“Get inside,” she ordered with a nudge.
He did not argue.
“Step aside,” Emil demanded.
Marta hid behind Markus. “Why are they here? Tell them to go away.”
“Be calm, ma chérie,” he comforted her. “Emil, you are frightening her.”
“Stop,” Zoe pleaded with the General.
“Nerees, I won’t let you stand in my way.” He charged at
Markus.
“Haiduc!” Adi’s sudden howl stopped Emil from making good on his threat. Raising the gun, she held Max in front of her. “Drop your weapons on the floor and kick them to me.”
They did as she commanded.
“The crystal. Hand it over.”
Emil removed the wrapped ora and tossed it to her. Stuffing the wad in her cleavage, she reached down and claimed the weapons.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said in Romanian.
“Why, Adi?”
“I don’t know why. I can’t stop myself. I tried to resist, but I’m not strong like you.”
She pushed Max over with the rest of the group and backed out of the vault. Once outside, she sealed the door closed.
“What just happened?” the boy asked.
Zoe sat on the bed. “We’ve been had.”
“No. It’s not her fault. She’s been tranced.”
“What?” Max asked.
“Tranced,” she clarified. “Someone is controlling her mind.”
“By who?”
“A Zolarian agent.”
“Zolarian? You mean Zolaris? The tech company?” The theory sounded too silly for Max to accept as the truth.
Markus held Marta. “We are doomed.”
Emil reeled from the betrayal.
“How do we get out of here?” Zoe asked the Frenchman.
“We don’t. The door is locked from the outside. It is impenetrable.”
“Like a prison,” Emil accused.
“No, not a prison — a sanctuary.”
She didn’t buy the pessimism. Kneeling on the floor, she felt for anything to aid in their escape. “Max, look around. See if you can find a seam or a crevice, something we can jimmy.”
“Why? He said it’s impenetrable.”
“But, he didn’t say anything about it being escape proof did he?”
Markus mocked her optimism, “It will not do you any good. It was designed as a perfect barrier. There are no seams or crevices to jimmy.”
After a lengthy search, she found a seam in the shape of a squared meter panel. The Frenchman didn’t react well to her discovery, proving he had lied.
“No seams, huh?”
She used a knife to pry the panel loose and uncovered a tight crawlspace underneath. She lowered down into it. A few seconds later, she called, “Max, get down here.”
“No.”
“Get your ass down here!”
He chewed on the inside of his mouth as he dropped into the cramped space of pipes and cobwebs. With no conduit larger than a few centimeters wide, it was definitely not a workable escape route.
“You know you sound just like Patti,” he said, remarking on her attitude.
“Watch your mouth.” Pointing at a comm-bus junction, she asked, “Can you do something with this?”
“Maybe. If the lines lead to the outside, I can do a hot-wire and get a signal out.”
He popped the cover, exposing a jumbled mess of shiny circuits. Pulling apart several chip-sets, he wired the data-plate to a circuit. He put the tel-link back in his ear and swiped several commands on the device’s screen. It wasn’t getting a connection. “Crap.”
“I don’t want to rush you —“
“Then don’t.”
After a few more failed attempts, and a bout of uncontrollable swearing, he connected to an outside comm-line. “Dinx! Dinx!”
“What?” the kid answered.
“We’re trapped in a vault. Can you get us out?”
“You’re joking right?” He was enjoying Max’s predicament. “Same old — same old.”
“Cut the crap and help us.”
“Alright. Hold on.” After a delay, he returned. “The code for where you’re at is like nothing I’ve seen before. I’ll try to override it. Oh, muck! The system rebooted and it’s reporting a security breach in your area. K9Es are on their way.”
“Swell.” Max relayed the information.
“Goddamn it. Tell him to hurry. A place this big will have dozens of those things on site.”
“Don’t worry. Give him a sec to do it.”
“I got the door open,” Dinx reported.
“Buddy, you’re the best around. Okay, let’s move.”
Zoe and Max sprung from the hole.
“We got the door open,” she said. “Let’s go. Drones are on their way.”
Emil reached for Marta, but she latched on to Markus.
“Please, don’t do this. She must stay here. It was Nadiya’s dying wish.”
He gave the small man a death stare. “Listen to me. Trouble is heading this way. Staying here is not an option. If you want to protect her, then she needs to go with me.”
“The drones are of no threat to us. I can deactivate them.”
“That’s not the trouble I’m talking about.”
For better or worse, Markus understood the dangers he and Marta now faced. If the General found her, then who else could?
He kissed her on the forehead. “Come along, Marta. We will go with these people.” With gentle urging, he got her to go without argument.
As they rushed to the entrance, the alarm’s wailing intensified. When they exited the vault, they found Adi’s mutilated body in a blood-pool on the floor. Emil flew to her side. The hope of her being alive was dashed after seeing the savage wounds.
“Drum bun. La revedere,” he whispered in her ear as he tenderly lowered her eyelids.
“K9Es. They are here.” Markus held his child close.
Zoe picked up the guns Adi had taken from them. A check proved the girl died without getting off a single shot. She handed Emil his pistol. “Keep it together. We’re going to need you.”
She walked away. He removed the crystal from Adi’s remains. He wiped off the warm blood and stuffed it in his coat.
Four robotic wolves appeared from opposing angles; their metallic jaws created razor pings each time their fangs snapped shut.
“No one panic.” Markus confronted the lead drone. “I am Markus Nerees. Identification neuf huit six neuf —”
Something was wrong. Maybe it was the shake in his speech, or a glitch in the automaton’s programming, but whatever the reason, the metal beast didn’t receive the shutdown code. It reared on its hind legs and attacked, snaring the elderly man’s arm in its jaw. Marta reached for him, but Max moved in to protect her. He struggled to keep her from going to the old man’s aid.
The second K9E lurched and slashed Zoe’s side with its claw. Despite the wound, she fought it off with the butt end of her gun.
The third drone pounced on Emil. He fired, expending an entire magazine before the beast thumped to the floor. One of the bullets ricocheted and pierced the nearby window, creating a hairline crack.
Nerees kicked the machine loose and tried to run, but it rammed him into the cracked window. The glass shattered and both he and the drone tumbled from the building.
“Papa!” She squirmed to break free of Max’s restraint.
The fourth drone prowled in their direction. As it reared to pounce, Marta screamed. Sparks erupted from the robot’s head. With its motor functions disrupted, it flopped about.
The last K9E attacked Zoe again, but this time she blasted its head apart, putting it down for good. The smoking hot pistol’s slide locked in place.
Max let Marta go and went to Zoe. “You okay?”
She nodded yes and covered the seeping wound with her jacket as he helped her up.
He tapped his earpiece, “Dinx, cut the security system.”
The alarms stopped, leaving only the howling wind outside for them to talk over.
“The grid knows there’s a hack and will reboot faster next time,” Dinx warned. There was a pause. “Look out! You got company heading your way. It’s people this time.”
Max ran to the lift, but it had already been recalled to the lobby. He yelled to the others, “We got company.”
While the adults searched for another exit, Max returned to the inconsolable gi
rl.
Zoe found a stairwell ascending to another level. Left with few choices, they used it. Max scooped Marta up in his arms and carried her.
A minute later, the lift opened. Faso and a squad of five hunters fanned outward with guns shouldered for action. Kroll emerged but stayed back, allowing the humans to flush out the quarry. He acknowledged Adi’s corpse in passing; he was more interested in the vault. He went inside holding his crystal blade, anticipating an ambush.
Faso looked out the busted window just as an aero-car streaked above him. “Contact!”
The hunters ran to the shattered gap and opened fire on the fleeing vehicle.
Kroll came out of the vault. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
In a flash, he was at the window. Stretching out his hand, he summoned an energy wave and seized the small craft in a clutch of psionic energy. He instructed it to come to him. The car shuddered violently, and then surged, breaking free of the hold. The blowback knocked him down. Deprived of his prey, all he could do was let the vehicle disappear below the clouds.
How did it break free?
He had felt something unfamiliar, an anomalous neural-kinetic pitch right before it broke away. The signature was faint and erratic, but it was there nevertheless. He knew the neural signature of every Zolarian in the world. This one was not a transhuman.
It must be an aberration.
Whatever the explanation, the mystery would have to wait.
Faso and his men stood to the side, not knowing what terrible reaction the dark agent would unleash. Kroll didn’t display anger as he went to Adi’s body. Dropping to a knee, he placed his free hand on her bloodied scalp. With the other one, he inserted the tip of the ora knife through the apex of her neck.
The body convulsed and a swirl of spectral images appeared, replaying the events leading up to her death. He saw her intimacy with the boy — the forced betrayal of her mentor — waiting by the lift — the horror of drones ravaging her flesh — and again the kiss she shared with the boy.
The last particle of life departed the body. He removed the ora and studied the memories. Her dying thoughts centered on the kiss. That fixation intrigued him.
“A data-plate, if you please.”
Faso gave him one. Kroll downloaded the images from his mind directly into the electronic device, displaying them across its screen. Once the load completed, he searched for and paused on an image of Max. He showed it to the hunters.
Brigends (The Final War Series Book 1) Page 11