Truth Engine

by James Axler

  As he examined the strange light fixture, Grant heard a noise from the end of the tunnel, and immediately recognized the sound of approaching footsteps. He stepped back from the weird light source, his ebony skin and shadow suit helping him blend with the thick shadows of the corridor. The body of the man who had come to feed him was obvious enough if they were looking for it, but it might take them a few seconds to notice it in the semidarkness of the tunnel, half sticking out of the open cell.

  Grant watched as two figures appeared at the far end of the tunnel, like dark shadows moving across the volcanic magma lights. They were talking, and while Grant couldn’t hear every word they said, they appeared to be discussing the forthcoming relocation of their captives.

  Captives—plural, Grant realized. Then he wasn’t the only one. He had no idea who these people were, but they acted as some kind of prison guards for him and the other captives; that much was obvious. He watched as they came closer, stilling his breathing as they came within earshot.

  “Life Camp Zero will welcome them all in time,” the warden figure to the left was saying. “Some of them are beginning to understand already.”

  “They all will in time,” the other replied, his voice hoarse, as if he was suffering from a sore throat. “The future’s opening up to us, my brother. It’s all just a matter of t—”

  Abruptly, the man stopped talking, and Grant watched warily as he trotted the next few steps forward, having spotted his comrade lying on the rocky floor of the tunnel.

  “What the heck’s going on here?” the guard demanded, pressing his fingers to the man’s neck and feeling for a pulse.

  Behind him, his companion seemed stunned by the sudden change in tone, and he took a moment to gather his wits, peering into the empty cell where Grant had been held. “That’s Lance, isn’t it?” he said. “He was on food detail….”

  “Someone didn’t appreciate dinner,” the first man said, and he looked up along the tunnel, gazing frantically into the darkness.

  Grant came at them both then like a runaway train, the reinforced soles of his booted feet slamming against the rock floor as he charged. His hands reached down and grabbed at the one who had checked for his fallen companion’s pulse, wrenching him off the floor even as he struggled to stand up of his own volition. In an instant, Grant had tossed him up against the low ceiling, where his skull smashed with a loud crack. There was something eerily familiar about the move, the thought nagging at Grant for a fraction of a second, like a single flash of lightning, unexpected and bewildering. Then he watched in satisfaction as the guard flew through the air against his partner, both of them crashing to the floor like falling skittles.

  Like the one who had come to feed Grant, the two men were dressed in simple clothes, hooded robes with nothing out of the ordinary about them, their dirty uniformity the sole indicator that they shared an allegiance.

  “Where am I?” Grant snarled as he loomed over the two struggling guards.

  Though physically capable, neither of them appeared to be any great challenge to the huge figure Grant cut. But to his surprise, the second of them—the one at whom he had thrown the first—reared back and launched himself forward, springing from the floor in a flash.

  Grant shifted his weight subtly, falling just a little backward as the man lunged at him, swinging a balled fist at his face. Grant dodged, letting the fist swish through the air past him before he reached out and snagged his wrist. With a crack, he snapped the bones, and the guard hissed in pain.

  Grant bounced lightly on his heels, readying himself for the next attack. “You want, we can keep this up till I’ve broken both your arms,” he warned. “Or you can just answer my question.”

  In response, the man smiled, his dark eyes meeting Grant’s. “I am stone,” he replied.

  And then he was upon Grant again, his left arm swinging through the air with phenomenal speed. Grant batted the punch aside, taking a step back as he did so. The man’s first attack may have been of poor quality, but he seemed to be getting into it now—deflecting that second punch had felt like batting aside an iron bar. Furthermore, Grant wanted to finish this quickly before the noise of the scuffle attracted any further attention.

  His opponent was hindered by the broken wrist, and his right hand flopped at an uncomfortable angle as he struggled. Still, he seemed incredibly powerful and single-minded in his attack now, fighting more like a machine than a wounded man. Grant ducked, avoiding the arc of the next swinging punch, and drove his hand up and forward, connecting with the man’s jaw with a ram’s-head blow. The guard’s teeth clamped shut with a horrible clack and he staggered back a half step. Grant was already following through, thrusting his left knee into his solar plexus with such swiftness that the man folded in two like a snapped twig. Grant stepped back as his opponent smacked into the wall behind him, then keeled over, a wave of disorientation obviously overwhelming him.

  Grant moved swiftly, dismissing his struggling foe as he hurried down the tunnel, leaping over the other one, who was still recovering from being thrown against the ceiling. Boots striking against the hard stone, Grant rushed past the glowing pods of light winking eerily within the wall cavities.

  As he ran toward the junction in the tunnel, confused thoughts rattled his mind. Who were these people and how had they trapped him—an ex-Magistrate, of all people? His memory of how he had come to be here was blurry at best, but the torn shadow suit and the evidence of his being stripped of his weapons suggested that he had come here as part of a Cerberus field mission.

  He struggled to remember how it had happened. Had he been with Kane? With Brigid? His memory was a closed book to him just now; he couldn’t seem to pinpoint anything at all.

  Grant was an ex-Magistrate, trained in the arts of combat. His captors, though fast, appeared to be normal enough. He should not find himself like this, trapped in a cell, with no memory of how he had come to be here. It seemed ludicrous.

  At the end of the tunnel, he found himself with two options, left or right. He looked back and forth for just a moment, trying to discern any difference between the choices presented to him. Bland rock walls ill-lit by magma lamps on either side—no choice to speak of.

  He was trapped like a rat in a maze, he realized, with no idea which way to turn.

  He glanced behind him, saw his foes rolling on the floor. Then he made a decision on instinct, turning right and hurrying down the tunnel, while keeping his movements as quiet as he could. He needed to put as much space as possible between himself and the three people he’d left outside his featureless cell, and the more turns he took, the more difficult he would be to track down.

  Right, then left, then another right, keeping up a zigzag pattern, boots slapping against the floor of the empty tunnels carved from rock. An open doorway led him to a stone stairwell, eerily lit by the same magma pods.

  Here and there, Grant found low walls, some barely reaching to his knee, and he leaped over these, wondering at their purpose. It seemed that the labyrinthine cavern was a natural feature, adapted for use as a prison block, yet the shifting walls gave him the distinct impression there was more to it than that.

  Grant ran on, frequently peering over his shoulder to check that he wasn’t being pursued. Turning a corner, he found himself in a wider tunnel, its ceiling stretching approximately twenty feet above him. He peered up into the gloom, seeing the stalactites that lined the ceiling, scarcely visible in the dull glow of the magma pods lining the walls at irregular intervals. This tunnel stretched a long way, and Grant saw two of the now-familiar hooded figures moving toward him, some distance away. He pulled back, pressing his flank to the wall of the tunnel he had emerged from.

  The hooded figures walked toward him, talking in low mumbles. Hidden in the gloomy shadows, Grant prepared himself, bunching his hands into fists. It was hard to think clearly for some reason; he felt as though he was recovering from a hangover. Was it the lack of food, perhaps? Or was something else affecting him he
re?

  Grant was about to pounce upon the robed figures when they turned off the main tunnel, into a side corridor in the opposite wall. The entrance was almost hidden in shadow, the lighting here was so poor.

  Grant reached over, tapping his finger against the nearest glowing orb of magma. Close up, it seemed to flicker, as if it were alive. The light became brighter for a moment as the lava within the pod was drawn to his hand, then it ebbed back to its dull glow as he moved away.

  “Weird,” he muttered.

  Carefully, Grant made his way out into the main tunnel once more, looking all around him. Jutting rock walls were place here and there like hurdles on a race course, low to the stone floor. At one end, perhaps a dozen paces from where he now stood, there was an open archway, the low rocks overhanging in a jagged pattern. From beyond that arch, the eerie orange glow of lava seemed brighter.

  With as much stealth as he could muster in his tired body, Grant padded toward the archway. Edging up to it, he put one hand on the wall there and peered at the scene beyond.

  Beyond the opening was a large cave, where several more of the hooded figures were moving about. Waist-high ridges of rock cut across the space in two curved lines, with breaks in them here and there. Grant’s attention was drawn to something over in the far left corner of the room. Lightning bolts seemed to flash there, behind a screen of misted glass, and he recognized with a start that it was a mat-trans unit, with fingers of rough stone cladding branching across the armaglass like a creeping vine.

  “Where the hell am I?” Grant muttered.

  A mat-trans, he thought, turning the fact over in his head. If these people had a mat-trans, then here was a chance for him to escape, to bring help. If he could access that device, he could return to Cerberus and bring his allies to shut down this hellhole. Or he could take a quantum jump to New Edo, call upon his lover, Shizuka, and her fearsome Tigers of Heaven, to back him up as he closed down this perverse prison. He wouldn’t need to program in the correct coordinates for the mat-trans unit—he could take a random leap, then recover at that destination, once he was out of the vipers’ nest. But to access that unit in the first place would mean somehow crossing this room without getting caught. He could wait it out, maybe, skulk in the shadows until such time as an opportunity arose. The prison guards were all dressed in shapeless hooded robes, and if Grant could snag one of these, he could likely pass unchallenged for a short while at least, until word of his escape from his cell became widespread. Or he could fight it out now, take on the eight figures in this cavern, but in his hungry, weakened state that could be suicidal.

  In the far corner of the cave, the crackling lightning ceased and the mist inside the mat-trans unit began to dissipate. Another robed figure appeared within it, and Grant watched with interest as the figure stepped forward through the opening door, greeting others in the room with friendly authority.

  Grant stepped back from the archway as the new arrival turned in his direction and began walking toward him, with two of his similarly dressed companions in tow. Dammit, they’re coming out here, he thought.

  The ex-Magistrate turned, heading for the access tunnel he had recently used, only to spot the three figures he had left by his open cell.

  He turned back, looking across at the far side of the tunnel, to a branching corridor where the other figures were disappearing. A moment later, he ran through that doorway and found himself in another rock-walled tunnel. This one ended in a sharp turn, and Grant heard something from the far end as he rushed along it. Pulling up short, he leaned against the wall and peered around the corner. A bank of elevator doors was embedded in the rock. The glistening steel was at odds with the cavernous tunnel, reflecting the glowing pods of magma like fire.

  Grant peered behind him for a moment, checking that he wasn’t being followed, before he turned back to examine the situation.

  As he stood there, the farthest set of elevator doors slid open and a familiar figure stepped out.

  Chapter 5

  The wall behind shook Kane as he pressed against it, vibrations carrying from the other side of the tight cave. The wall before him, eight feet away and almost lost in darkness, seemed to be rocking, as if struck by a quake.

  Kane watched as the wall began to shift. And then, to his astonishment, it seemed to part before his eyes, more akin to liquid than something solid, like the Red Sea’s fabled parting before Moses. Where once had stood a solid barrier, now there was a gap running from floor to ceiling, easily wide enough for a man to fit through. Light filtered dimly through this impossible doorway, the orange-red of flowing lava.

  Kane was about to take a step forward, wondering what new trick this was, when two figures appeared at the edge of the doorway, their features hidden, backlit by the lava flow in the tunnel beyond. “Kane.”

  It was a man’s voice, firm and solid, with a slight accent.

  “Yes,” Kane replied warily.

  The figures strode through the doorway, and Kane saw that both wore hooded robes that hid their features. He waited, pressed back against the wall, assessing the shapes their robes disguised, automatically checking behind them for more people. The one in front was a man, tall and well-built, with wide shoulders and a swagger to his step that spoke of power and confidence. Behind him was a thinner figure, also tall but more shapely—obviously a woman. Behind them, silhouetted in the doorway, Kane noticed a mongrel dog following them with weary disinterest, stopping to sniff at the new doorway and the floor and walls.

  “Well, it seems you know me,” Kane said, “but I’m a little at a loss. Care to bring me up to speed?”

  The couple stopped before him, and Kane watched as they pushed back their low-hanging hoods, revealing their faces in the dim orange glow of the lava flow beyond the cave. To his surprise, Kane recognized both of them, although it took a moment to place the man’s features.

  He had short, dark hair and a hard face with tanned skin. He was in his forties and had grown a beard since Kane last saw him. His right ear was mangled now, but Kane recognized him as one of the farmers who had been indoctrinated by the Annunaki prince Ullikummis in Tenth City, out in the wilds of Saskatchewan, Canada.

  Kane thought for a moment, struggling to recall the farmer’s name. Dylan, that had been it. But Kane’s team had freed the man, released him from the mind worm that had controlled his thoughts. What the hell was he doing here, holding Kane captive? Was it some kind of misguided revenge? It made no sense.

  Standing behind Dylan was a beautiful woman whom Kane had last seen many months ago out in the Snake-fishville desert close to the fishing village of Hope. In her early twenties, the shapely woman had long, dark hair and hazel eyes like pools of chocolate. Her olive skin showed a tan, and there was something altogether entrancing about her, the way she carried herself, the swell of her breasts and the casual sway of her round hips. This beautiful woman was called Rosalia, and when Kane had last seen her she had been a bodyguard in the employ of a group of immoral profiteers who were trading in pirated DNA. Kane’s team had burned down that operation, halting the threat of reborn baronies in the process, but evidently Rosalia herself had escaped. She looked more tired than Kane remembered, tired and drawn. But then, Kane suspected that he, too, looked pretty exhausted just now.

  “This is your future, Kane,” Dylan began. “The world changed while you weren’t looking, and you’ve woken up to the new reality. Rejoice.”

  Kane smiled in self-deprecation. “New reality, huh? Just how long was I asleep?” he taunted.

  Dylan ignored his frivolity. “Your team, Cerberus, waged a war upon the Annunaki,” he stated, as if this fact was commonplace. “The Annunaki were your betters, of course, but you stood up to them, managed to disrupt their plans and, in your limited and infantile way, stymie their progress.”

  “Well, I do what I do what I do,” Kane muttered.

  “That is to be commended,” Dylan affirmed. “Though primitive, your efforts repelled the hated Overl
ord Enlil and the others of his coven. But you did not stop him entirely. Enlil still lives and his power base is growing once more, on the banks of the ancient Euphrates.”

  This was news to Kane. The last time he had seen Enlil, the lizard-faced monster was trapped aboard an exploding spaceship called Tiamat.

  “The future requires men like you,” Dylan continued, “men of good standing, to extinguish Enlil’s threat once and for all.”

  Kane ran a hand through his hair as he considered the proposition. “This all sounds good…Dylan, isn’t it?”

  The man nodded. “First Priest Dylan of the New Order,” he clarified.

  Kane locked eyes with him in challenge. “And whose New Order is that?” he asked, his interest piqued.

  “Lord Ullikummis,” Dylan said. “Our savior. He has seen the great works you have done. You, Kane, have faced Enlil when he was Baron Cobalt, Sam the Imperator, and as Enlil himself. And no matter what face he presented, you have always sought to stop him, to strike that face.”

  “Well, what can I tell you?” Kane said. “I’m a face striker.”

  “Lord Ullikummis studied the history, saw your works,” Dylan repeated.

  Kane realized what the man was referring to. Less than two months before, Kane had been part of a team sent to protect an undersea archive called the Ontic Library. According to their information, this archive was the storehouse for the rules that governed reality, hosting a sentient data stream that contained and ordered all of history, down to the smallest minutiae. When Kane’s team had arrived, they’d found Ullikummis working his way through the data, where he’d appeared to be searching for evidence of his mother, Ninlil, whose rebirth had been the source of much conflict between Cerberus and the Annunaki overlords. In accessing those records, Ullikummis would have learned of the role of Cerberus, and the almost archenemy status that existed between Enlil and Kane. Ullikummis himself was an adept assassin, so little wonder that he would see the benefit in recruiting Kane’s skills if he planned to do battle with Enlil and his armies.