“’And others?’” James’ mouth twitched. “You mean like the PDA? You kept insisting it would take too long and risk too much to contact them, but it still sounds like you just wanted to cover your ass.”
“Everything I said about the Southguards was true.” Harper glanced around after a branch cracked under one of her ankle boots. “Just because it also happens to be of benefit to me, it doesn’t make it a bad thing. It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re here now. I paid for your disgusting barbeque, and now we need to end this. We can go our merry ways afterward, and you can go back to your wife and new kid feeling like you made the world a better place. I can hide on my island and reflect on the error of my ways.”
They lapsed into silence, the night’s song in the forest soothing in its own way. Even Whispy remained quiet, a vague pensive sense leaking from the symbiont. The noise of the animals relaxed James. If the Seasons had really been out of control, he doubted the forest animals would be staying nearby. He’d visited far too many eerily silent forests in his life.
At least she didn’t lose this shit in some already-haunted forest.
Harper hummed a happy song under her breath, her easy movements making it seem like she was on a jaunt at some corporate trust retreat.
“Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re holding back?” James asked.
Harper winked. “Oh, pseudo-Dad, don’t be so suspicious. As your pseudo-daughter, I’m disappointed you don’t believe me. I’ve been very honest with you, haven’t I? I told you from the beginning how I screwed up. I admitted that I don’t have a sob story. I guarantee I haven’t lied to you.”
“You know one thing you learn when you’re a bounty hunter?”
“How to shoot people who are running away?”
James grunted. “You learn the best lies are surrounded by truth, and it’s easy to leave something out if you shove a bunch of information at people. As far as I’m concerned, if you told me the ocean was full of water, I’d go to the beach to check. There’s an angle here I’m still not seeing, and I’m going to remain on guard.”
“That makes you smart.” Harper slowed and squinted. She pushed the glasses up. “You can see it, right?”
A faint blue glow haunted the forest in the distance.
“Yeah.” James nodded. “I can see it.”
“Then let’s hurry. I want to finish this up and go take a shower.” Harper jogged toward the light.
James followed. The light grew closer and closer until it resolved into a glowing wall of energy surrounding a hole in the ground. A group of roughly bipedal humanoids made up of angular white material circled the hole. Several holes in the bodies revealed they were mostly hollow, with a pulsing blue glow within the central chest cavity. They lacked eyes, but the soft ochre glow from one side suggested something approaching a face. Four sharp fingers protruded from their long arms, the same glow emanating from them.
Harper drew a hollow bone rod from the backpack with a forced grin on her face. “Now’s the rough part, pseudo-Dad.”
James cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, it’s time to go.”
Chapter Fifteen
Harper licked her lips, lingering uncertainty on her face. She raised the bone rod. “Once I drop this field, it’ll take me a little to get it back again. It’s part of the dampening system. I can’t predict what will happen, other than we’ll probably get jumped. These guys are tough. I used up most of my defensive artifacts not getting shredded by them last time.”
Let’s start out at advanced mode, James thought.
“One second,” James replied, shrugging off his coat. No reason to risk losing his gun, magazines, and Shay treats later. As Harper watched with open curiosity, James reached into his pocket and pulled out a small goddess figurine. He slipped it under his shirt and pressed it against the amulet. The artifact crumbled to dust, and James’ armor covered most of his body seconds later. He extended a single blade. “Now I’m ready. Do we have a plan other than destroying every last one?”
Engage and kill enemies for maximum adaptation, Whispy shouted in James’ mind, rare excitement emanating from the symbiont.
“That sounds about right,” Harper suggested. “The famous magic armor.” She twirled the bone rod like a baton. “I’d love to see if any of my dampeners would work on it, but I’m guessing I’m not the first person to get that idea. Since you’re still around, I doubt it would even work. I’m going to leave this to you, pseudo-Dad, because if it starts getting out of hand, I’m going to need to concentrate on trying to reestablish the barrier, so we survive and the nearby towns don’t get overrun.”
James grunted. “Fine. I’m ready. Drop it. The sooner we end this, the quicker I get to go home and take a few days off after this crap.”
Harper raised the rod and made several precise movements in the air. She began chanting in a rhythmic fashion, her pitch rising and falling. James wasn’t sure about the language, but he had heard Shay often enough to know Harper was likely speaking Enochian mixed with Old Aramaic. The tempo of her words increased, along with the speed of her movements. A glow suffused the rod and it buzzed softly. It grew in volume until a loud crack sounded and writhing, jagged lines of energy blasted from the rod and struck the blue field consuming it.
The artificial soldiers all turned and raised their arms. The brightness of their faces and chests increased.
“We’ve got their attention,” James muttered.
Destroy enemies, destroy enemies, destroy enemies, Whispy chanted. He was more excited than James had felt in a long time.
James hunched and prepared to meet the charge of the magical soldiers, but his opponents didn’t charge. Instead, they spread out, forming two inverted Vs, their movements cautious and precise like a carefully choreographed marching band—one that happened to be made up of killer magical creations with claws. “Formations and tactics? I was expecting something a little more mindless zombie.”
Harper wiped the sweat off her forehead as she took short, shallow breaths. “They might be artificial, but they’re made using magic. They’re not robots, and you can’t think of them that way. They can act smarter than you would think. There’s probably someone at a magic school somewhere doing something weirder, like making self-aware cupcakes into an army.”
James scoffed. That sounded like the kind of annoying shit that happened at places like the School of Necessary Magic, but the wider the gates to Oriceran opened, the more that kind of bizarre twisting of reality would become the norm on Earth. Fighting an old magical automaton factory might be nowhere near as bizarre as the kinds of challenges the planet would face in the coming centuries.
I can’t worry about that. All I can do is take down the enemies in front of me.
“If they’re smart, I guess I’ll have to invert the expectations.” James bellowed a challenge, bringing up his blade. “Come on, assholes. We’re here to destroy the Seasons of Rage. If you don’t take us down, your little invasion is going to end before it began.” He pointed the blade and slowly swept it through the air to point at different soldiers. “The Earth and Texas barbeque will be safe from your Oriceran pineapple magic-cow bullshit.”
Harper crept toward a tree. “Pineapple magic cows?” she murmured.
The soldiers didn’t move. Several crouched, their long, jointed legs at what would be uncomfortable angles for a human.
They might be smart, but it doesn’t look like I can provoke them.
Engage and kill enemy immediately, Whispy demanded.
The symbiont had a point. With the containment field down, the clock was ticking faster than before.
James shrugged and charged one of the V formations. Once he had closed to within a few yards, the first formation broke apart, the soldiers rushing to surround him. He continued pushing forward and slammed his blade through the chest of a magical soldier. Its ochre and blue glow died, and the magical enemy collapsed to the ground and disintegrated into thick gray smoke. There were no scr
eams or sounds other than the light thud of the body on the ground before its destruction.
“They’re not so tough,” James yelled.
Harper didn’t respond. She reached into her backpack, but the surge of the rest of the formation focused James’ attention on the soldiers. They swung their claws, and the first few blows ripped deep gouges in the armor. One dug into his side, drawing blood. The wound throbbed.
Yesssss, Whispy sent. Adaptation in progress.
James hissed and slammed his armored elbow into the attacker. The enemy flew backward and crashed into several others, taking them down. They scrambled to their feet.
He growled and sliced the head off another soldier, but it kept up its attack. It was slower than before, but it didn’t have any trouble striking him. Adding a new hole through its chest finished it. He backhanded and kicked a few others to give himself some space. They crashed to the ground, but they were on their feet in seconds. There was no sign they felt pain, fear, or worry. He couldn’t intimidate them into surrender. He could only annihilate them.
The second V formation formed two looser circles around James. Individuals moving to fill the holes in the internal ring as the magical soldiers continued ripping at James’ armor. They continued their shredding for a few more seconds before their blows began to bounce off instead of penetrating. The throbbing from James’ side faded.
Moderate adaptation achieved, Whispy announced. Regeneration in progress.
Good. Those were decent hits. It’s been a while.
As if testing James, the surrounding enemies stopped their attacks and made quick, careful swipes at different parts of his body. A few tried for his head, but perished for their attempts without landing a hit when he stabbed them. New silver-green metallic tendrils sprouted to fill and repair the damaged armor.
The careful testing ended when the entire remaining group of magical soldiers surged forward at once, ripping at him with no obvious tactics or target. Their claws scraped all parts of his armor but left only the shallowest of scratches in the regenerating surface layer.
You had your chance, assholes. Too late.
James punched a few of the enemy away before delivering a series of quick stabs to destroy the closest opponents. The thick cloud of smoke from the disintegrating bodies blinded him for a few seconds, allowing one opponent to claw at his unarmored face; the attack stung and drew blood. He sliced the soldier into three pieces, and it soon added its smoke to the cloud.
High adaptation achieved to existing attack type, Whispy reported. Continued regeneration in progress.
A bright flash ripped through the forest. A crackling white orb exploded against several soldiers trying to crawl over each other and claw James. The force of the attack scattered the magical soldiers, but they hopped to their feet in an instant, showing no permanent damage. James took his opportunity to push out of the hole and ripped through a few of his foes along the way. The soldiers attempted to regroup into something approaching a rough semi-circle, but now, free of the smoke and the constant attack, James became a machine, stabbing with brutal regularity to destroy foe after foe. Their lines thinned.
In the corner of James’ eye, Harper held a sapphire pendant in front of her in her left hand and murmured something under her breath. Another crackling white orb blasted from the pendant and scattered more of the soldiers. A group turned toward her after standing back up. James leapt into their midst to stab their energy hearts, as he’d come to think of them. The enemy forces had been reduced to one-third of their original strength.
The survivors backed away from James, forming a tight line this time, their claws raised in front of them. Much of the earlier damage to his armor had already been repaired, and the cut on his face was gone.
“Are they afraid?” James wondered aloud. “Do they realize I’m beating their asses and they aren’t accomplishing anything?”
“I have no idea.” Harper offered him a merry smile. “Before I was saying they were smart, but that’s not the same thing as being self-aware. I just wanted you to not expect zombies. Not that it might have made a difference. Let’s just finish them off. The longer we take, the more that might come. Remember, this thing is a factory, and I’m surprised there aren’t more here.”
“Ending this is fine by me.” James crouched, jumped into the enemy line, and destroyed three of the enemies before they adopted a new triangular formation. The adjustment accomplished little as he continued ripping into the magical soldiers, his blade cutting through their bodies with ease. He punctured the last standing enemy before waving some of the now-thick acrid smoke out of his face and looking over at Harper. “I thought you weren’t helping fight?”
He wasn’t certain he needed the help, but that didn’t kill his surprise.
Harper clipped the pendant around her neck and gave him a dismissive shrug and smile. “I’m committed to ending this now, and you looked like you were getting swarmed. Those guys were carving you up like a bunch of starving cats going after the same fish.
“I was okay, but thanks.” James marched over to the hole and peered down. It was a ten-foot drop into a wide, roughly circular tunnel. Soft ochre light the same shade as the soldiers dimly illuminated the tunnel. There were no ramp or handholds. He wondered about the climbing and jumping capabilities of the magical soldiers. If they were smart enough to use formations, they were smart enough to get in and out of the hole efficiently.
Moderate potential for additional adaptation, Whispy reported. Recommend additional engagement of enemies. Proceed into enemy base.
“You said these things are adaptive,” James commented. He gestured to the lingering clouds of smoke. “They got in a few good hits, but they didn’t seem very tough afterward.” He shrugged, a little surprised by his disappointment. Maybe he was becoming more like Whispy than Whispy was him.
“That might change in the future, but I don’t know with you.” Harper patted her pendant. “I destroyed several of them with this when I was leaving, but soon I was just bouncing them around and couldn’t finish them.” She eyed his blade with a greedy smile. “I’m surprised you were able to keep destroying them, but that was why I went to you for help. When you absolutely need something destroyed, go get James Brownstone. Maybe they can’t adapt to whatever is powering your blade.” She gestured to the hole. “Pitmasters first. Ladies second.”
“Brave to the end, huh?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
James dropped into the hole with a grunt and looked around for new enemies. There were no soldiers, but six different tunnels were evenly spaced around the entrance. Now that he was inside, he could see residual claw marks in the uneven tunnel walls.
Harper followed him in, her arms held to her sides at a slight angle. Her boots buzzed for a few seconds, and her fall slowed for the last few feet. She floated down the final three inches and bowed. “That’s what I call an elegant fall.”
She’d be nothing without her artifacts. Shay used a lot of toys in her day, but she kicks ass without them.
“Let’s skip the elegance and finish destroying this thing,” James replied. “I’m guessing since you disabled that barrier, this thing is going to rev up to a higher pace?”
“I would assume so, based on what I know.” Harper shrugged, an apologetic smile on her face. “Omelets. Eggs. Right?”
“In this situation, I’m pretty sure we’re the eggs.” James looked around. The tunnels all looked the same to him, and there were no markings on the walls. “Where to? You’re the woman with all the answers.”
“Have faith, pseudo-Dad.” She pulled out a white crystal on a chain. Elaborate curly script in a language James didn’t recognize was etched in connected circular lines all around the crystal. She held up the chain and sang a short, odd melody. The crystal swung back and forth a few times before settling, the bottom raised and pointing toward one of the tunnels. “That way. Once we find the core, I’m going to need a good minute or two to complete the dis
arming sequence. If I go down, I suggest you run and call in the PDA and Army. I won’t care because I’ll be dead.” Her irrepressible grin remained.
Harper motioned to the tunnel. “Pitmasters first.”
Chapter Sixteen
James assumed once they entered the tunnels, it would be a simple matter of walking a few hundred yards and arriving at the core, but every twenty to thirty yards, they arrived at a new intersection with six tunnels, including their original one. Calling it a maze didn’t adequately describe the interlocking complexity of the Seasons of Rage base the artifacts had dug underneath a Central Texas forest.
At this point, I don’t even know if dropping a nuke on this would work. They’d have to drop several.
“I don’t get this,” he muttered. “Why is it so fucking complicated? It’s just supposed to be a soldier factory, right?”
“Really? It makes perfect sense to me.” Harper shrugged, a faint hint of disappointment on her face.
“How do you figure? What am I missing?”
“It’s not just a soldier factory. It’s an all-in-one invasion kit.” Harper ran her free hand along a cave wall. “And if you make it this ridiculous maze, that means short of blowing the whole thing to hell with a huge blast, you’re going to have to go through this place tunnel by tunnel to clear it out, all while it’s making new reinforcements. I don’t know all the particulars of this place, but there’s a lot of magical reinforcement, too. It would be harder than you would think to just blow through from the top, and depending on where it’s set up, that could cause problems. Think about it, though; this was built in days while being somewhat dampened. If it’d been going full speed, we’d already have a full war on our hands.”
“You’re telling me they purposely designed this shit to be as annoying as possible? As some sort of defensive strategy?”
Road Trip: BBQ Delivered with Attitude (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 20) Page 12