by Andy Remic
But that was later.
Carter sighed, gazing around at the cold woodland. A fresh breeze made the trees hiss and sigh, and chilled the 5kin of his face. It was pleasant after the dry heat of Egypt, and he ran a blood-encrusted hand through his short hair, wondering how bad he looked: like a man who had been through the wars, probably.
Carter climbed wearily to his feet.
Nearly there, he thought.
One more burst, and then it will be over ...
One way or another.
Carter moved up through the woods, slowly at first but speeding up as the chemicals kicked in. When he reached the edge of the trees he monitored for Nex activity.
Nothing local, but hostiles swarmed over the coordinate target on his ECube.
Settling his back against a tree, and pulling the straps tight, Carter secured his Browning and M24. He began a slow, loping jog.
He followed the rough stony trail for a while, then cut across fields scattered generously with hornbeam, their leaves rustling. Carter paused beneath one, breathing heavy now, and rested his hand against the smooth grey bark. He could see something ahead, the top of a grey -almost black - crenellated tower peering over the nearest hill.
Carter continued, reaching the crest of the slope and dropping to one knee beside the bole of another tree, eyes scanning. The castle came into view, built into the side of the mountain. Jagged uneven ground, rocky and scattered with a few pines led steeply up to the vertical grey walls of the castle. A slightly offset central tower rose from within, capped with dark red tiles. Another narrower tower rose from this central edifice. To the right the structure was more square in shape, like a vast cube of black, whilst to the left, leading away from the mountain, it fell in a series of small circular towers, each rising to a black or red spire. The building looked ancient, and very, very strong. Built to resist an attacking force. Built to rain down fire on the enemy. Built to resist an invasion ...
A single wide dirt track swept up from the valley below, far to Carter’s left, zigzagging through heavy woodland which thinned as it reached the castle’s huge twin iron gates.
Carter could see a swarm of Nex activity by the gates, and up over the lower battlements he could make out more distant movement. His eyes narrowed, lips pursing in thought.
The whole castle was a massively imposing edifice, dominating the landscape below while in turn being overshadowed by the magnificence of the vast mountains behind it.
Carter checked his ECube.
Durell’s helicopter was there, somewhere in the castle.
Which meant that, logically, this was Durell’s centre of operations - the heart from which he was controlling the earthquakes.
And this was where Durell had the Avelach. Guarded by Jam, Carter’s oldest friend ...
‘Let’s do it,’ said Kade.
Carter said nothing.
He moved slowly, warily now that his target and destination was in sight. The temperature was dropping as he moved higher from the valleys and up the vast steep slopes before him. His calves burned and offered him yet more pain. Despite the drugs, Carter felt far from OK. He felt a million fucking miles from fit, healthy, and ready to take on the greatest of his enemies ...
‘The Avelach.’
The word sounded strange, spoken out loud. And it felt bad on his tongue, like Carter was pinning his tentative hopes for Natasha’s life on a machine that he did not understand, had never seen work, and that was the core of Durell’s Nex creation.
It sat badly with him.
Carter moved forward, slowly, carefully, continually scanning for the enemy. If they know I’m coming, he thought, I don’t want it to be because of carelessness. A disturbed bird, the crack of falling rock upon rock. Carter wandering aimlessly out into the open or silhouetting himself against a skyline like a shooting-range target ...
Carter took his time. Used his eyes, and occasionally his Sniper Scope, which clicked and whined softly as a magnified and digitally enhanced landscape, castle and Nex came into Carter’s field of vision. He noted the enemy’s pattern of movement, and watched as a patrol of four tanks and two trucks growled through the gates, heavy steel tracks grinding the stone trail to dust.
Carter worked slowly, coming in from the south with the mountains to his right and hugging them, their sheer vast walls, almost as if for protection. The landscape was slowly changing as he gained height, long grasses scattered with more and more huge rocks which gave him plenty of cover.
‘They know you are coming,’ said Kade smugly.
‘I don’t care.’
‘You’ll care when Jam shoots you in the face.’
The sun was toiling across the sky, plunging behind towering clouds that sent vast rolling shadows tumbling across the valleys. The cold wind blew stronger, ruffling Carter’s hair and chilling his fingers, nose and ears.
Reaching the base of the huge mound of rock on which the castle had been built, and with a sheer blue granite wall to his right, Carter started to clamber up the steep incline whose gradient steepened the further he went. Using his hands to help pull him forward, he found himself quickly sweating - sweat that was instantly chilled by the cold wind to leave him shivering almost uncontrollably.
A beautiful place, he thought.
But also a barren, deadly place.
A desolation.
After a half-hour of climbing, he reached the base of the castle wall. He crouched for a long time, searching for Nex, or cameras, or any other type of high-tech scanning devices. He could see nothing, and his ECube could see nothing ... but Carter found it hard to believe.
Still, he couldn’t exactly walk through the front gates.
He gazed up at the vast vertical expanse of stone ahead of him.
There were no windows, and no handholds that he could see.
Just stone ... stretching high above his tilted head like some vast plain of rock, a towering wall of smooth sheer impossibility.
Breath coming in plumes, Carter pulled free his Sp_drag, his Skimmer, and reaching up he allowed the tiny alloy jaws to chew into the stone. With the aid of this digital crampon, Carter began the long long climb up the vast grey-black bulwark.
The climb was protracted, incredibly treacherous and an act of insanity. Wind smashed against Carter as he climbed; slowly, deliberately he moved upwards, and within minutes his hands were numb with cold and pain. Sweat ran and then chilled him, and he pressed himself tight against the flat wall, a limpet against a stone with the waves of cold air washing in violent crests up and over him.
Carter felt awesomely vulnerable. Perhaps more vulnerable than at any moment during his life. All it would take was a helicopter to spot him, or a sniper to sight him ... and bam. Fish food. Dead meat.
Carter smiled grimly, and continued to climb.
Up, endlessly up, he travelled.
Carter did not look up. To do so might destroy his resolve, and so instead he focused on the grey wall to which he clung. The stone was rough, cold under his numb fingers. Pins and needles raced along his hands and arms, and cramps spiked his thighs and calves. The staples holding the bullet wound tight in his back moved and stretched his flesh, and he felt a little blood weep out, soaking into his torn battered dead Nex clothing.
Up, he climbed.
Eternally upwards.
Reaching for Heaven?
Or climbing to Hell in an ironic reversal?
Carter licked his lips, pausing, panting, and gazed out over the valley. He could hear distant noises, crashes and booms, the whines of engines and suddenly he brightened - when he realised that it sounded - incredibly - like Spiral TankSquad tanks being airlifted and fast-jetted to this location ... backup?
I fucking hope so, he thought.
Squinting through the cold light, Carter could see nothing through the swathes of lowland forest. Then he heard a distant rattling and watched forty Nex tanks trundle onto the trails sweeping down from the castle and speed off, engines roaring. Someth
ing big was going down.
Something heavy—
But Carter had his own problems.
He continued to climb, and at one point broke his own rule and glanced up. The summit was tantalisingly close and the Sp_drag continued to eat stone, tiny spiral trails of grey stone dust whirling away down the face of the sheer castle wall and then, when he thought his endurance had finally reached its pain-filled limits, thought he could go on no longer, his aggrieved and screaming hands grasped the edge of the parapet and he hauled himself up onto a low crenellation, squatted, eyes quickly skimming the area before him as he drew his Browning with stumps of numbness and clumsily flicked free the safety.
The wind howled, a soft moaning, blowing eerily through the castle.
Below him spread a broad platform of uneven and time-worn stone flags. It measured perhaps forty or fifty metres square, was bordered on the left by a high stone wall leading to a tower and whose only feature was a narrow arched doorway. Ahead squatted another battlement that dropped away to what Carter assumed was the castle’s central courtyard. To the right stood a high stone wall with three ancient doorways, all shrouded in gloom.
The sun disappeared behind towering black clouds. Carter glanced back at the dizzying fall, at the sheer wall he had ascended and the vast slopes beyond, dropping through to distant valleys. It was a fucking awesome drop.
Carter hopped down to the rough-worn stone flags and something moved in the shadows of the narrow doorway leading to the tower. Dropping to a crouch Carter sighted along the Browning’s barrel, finger tightening on the trigger and eyes narrowing as Jam stepped into view.
Jam had changed since his last encounter with Carter.
He seemed less ... deformed.
Jam moved forward, triangular head swaying, and stopped a short distance away. He carried no weapons, only a silver box in black claws that had once been hands.
‘Hello, Carter,’ he rumbled softly.
Carter stared into those slitted copper eyes and his words caught in his throat. This was his oldest and greatest friend, and they had fucked with him, turned him into a Nex and now Carter would have to ...
‘Kill him,’ supplied Kade.
Carter uncoiled slowly, lowered the Browning and slid his pack from his back, allowing it to drop to the stone flags. Clouds whirled across the bleak grey sky and the wind stung his face with its cold sharp needles.
‘You knew I was coming?’
Jam nodded and stooped, placing the small silver box on the ground at the base of the tower. Then he smiled, his once twisted jaws now aligned and straight, his stance more powerful, more erect. The copper eyes looked at Carter coldly: calculating and appraising.
‘Of course,’ said Jam. ‘You told me yourself that you wanted the Avelach. To save Natasha ... and here it is. The prize you seek. The gift you would wish to steal. Our power, and our source for the creation of the Nex ... it is in the silver box which protects it, encodes it, and yet haunts it.’
Carter licked his lips, glancing down at the box.
‘You have changed,’ said Carter.
‘Yes. You misunderstand the process of creating a Nex. When I was created, at first I was horribly disfigured, deformed if you will. The ScorpNex always are - it is the price of the more complex blending, the more complex and savage inhibitors used. But then the subject refines itself, heals itself, becomes more stable, more beautiful. To become a ScorpNex, Carter - it is a symmetry ... it is celestial. It is an act of perfection, of healing, of evolution. You would not believe the way I feel; it is sublime. You could never understand unless you yourself became Nex.’
‘And why the fuck would I want to do that?’ snarled Carter.
‘Because it is your future,’ said Jam softly. He took several steps forward, and Carter found himself backing away involuntarily. Jam’s movements were precise, controlled, and awesomely powerful. Carter felt a deep fear gnaw at him from the depths of his belly ...
‘I don’t fucking think so,’ said Carter. ‘You have betrayed your race, Jam. Betrayed mankind ... You have become something you are not - yeah, you never volunteered for it, but now you are part of Durell’s fucking insanity.’ Carter’s eyes stared fiercely into Jam’s copper slits. ‘What do you want from me?’ he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
‘Durell wants to turn you into a Nex - like me. A ScorpNex - the ruling elite. The all-powerful. As close to God as God.’ Jam chuckled, a deep-throated rumble. ‘He says you would make the perfect ScorpNex ... and if you do this, then we will let you take the Avelach, we will let you heal Natasha. Everything you desire will be yours. Your life will be complete.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Come on, Carter.’ Jam moved forward again, armoured claws scraping the stone as his huge muscles coiled under black chitinous armour. Jam stared at the man in front of him. ‘You can save Natasha’s life - and we can be friends again, comrades - you can join our army, you can rule the world with us, Carter, with Durell and I, you can be a part of this first great step to power and glory - when we overthrow Spiral, smash and control the world governments . .
‘You want to rule the fucking world?’ snarled Carter. ‘Have you fucking heard yourself? It’s like a dictator’s wet fucking dream ...’
‘You do not understand, truly you do not.’ Jam halted. Behind him, Carter could see the glitter of the silver box - a tease, he realised. Clouds broiled overhead, carried on the fury of the gathering storm. ‘And if you do not wish to save Natasha, if you do not want to join us, then there is only one thing I require from you.’ His head tilted. Slitted copper eyes surveyed Carter coolly.
‘My telephone number?’ Carter smiled as his whole body tensed for the battle and he slowly brought the Browning up.
‘I want your death.’
Jam leapt forward and Carter started firing, the Browning slamming in his fist. One bullet took Jam in the leg, one grazed his armour, another passed over his shoulder, a fourth sliced a line across his throat and then—
The claw lashed out.
Carter’s Browning skidded across the stone and he stumbled back.
Kade rattled against the bars of his mind but Carter ignored him. He would not allow him life.
Jam lashed out again. Carter ducked, smashed a right hook against Jam’s triangular head and heard one of his own knuckles crack under the impact. Jam’s armoured elbow crashed into Carter’s sternum, slamming him back, and Jam’s leg powered out, armoured foot catching Carter under the jaw and lifting the Spiral agent from his feet. He flailed backwards to roll against the battlements.
Carter slumped against the stone.
Stars danced in his head and he breathed in deeply. Rolling swiftly to his feet, he spat out blood and worked his jaw - but felt no pain.
Fuck pain, he thought.
I am beyond pain.
‘Is that all you have to offer? Your future fucking wife could do better.’
Jam’s copper-eyed stare fixed on Carter, who charged - and Jam leapt to meet him. Carter spun and whirled, dancing under Jam’s heavy blows and then jumped, boots striking Jam’s chest. Jam took a step back. Carter delivered a kick to Jam’s throat, then another to his groin. Leaping up, Carter came down with his elbow smashing into Jam’s broad head. Carter dodged a swipe from the glistening black claw and another kick to Jam’s throat sent the huge ScorpNex stumbling towards the battlement wall above the cold square expanse of black cobbled courtyard below ...
Snow started to fall, gentle swirls of flakes that danced on flurries of cold bitter wind from the mountains and landed, making the battlements slick and slippery. Deadly.
‘Go on, one more,’ hissed Kade.
Carter braced himself. He had hurt Jam, amazingly; could see it in the ScorpNex’s face - in his eyes. His blows, although devastating to his own frame, had smashed through Jam’s armour—
Carter sprinted and leapt, his boots aiming for Jam’s head and a deep long tumbling fall for the ScorpNex into oblivion ... and beyond.
Jam twisted with a blur of speed, caught Carter and smashed a heavy punch to the Spiral agent’s forehead. Then another to Carter’s nose, then a third to his jaw. He dropped Carter on the flags with a dull slapping sound and as Carter looked up Jam kicked him savagely in the face, snarling with contempt.
Jam paced around Carter in a wide circle.
He seemed agitated.
Filled with unease.
Carter rolled in a world of agony, his nose broken, pain screaming through his face. Through scattered flickerings of bright light he gazed up through the soft falling snow. It settled gently over him, a veil of pity.
Distantly, he heard the smash and crump of tank shells. Screams of metal filtered through the swirling snow to his ears. And with a deep dark thankfulness he realised that a battle - the battle? - had at last begun ...
‘Come back to us, Jam,’ said Carter hoarsely, forcing himself into a sitting position and trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose. ‘Come back to the real fucking world.’
‘I am in the real fucking world,’ hissed Jam. ‘To be Nex, it is awesome, it is perfect, it is immortality.’
‘You are living a lie,’ croaked Carter. ‘What about your friends back at Spiral? What about your comrades, men you fought with, men who fucking died for you? What about Nicky? Remember her, fucker? You would deny yourself this? You would cast your life away? Piss away your fucking humanity?’
‘Fuck them all,’ growled Jam. ‘I do not need them. I am whole like this; I am perfect; I am evolved.’
‘You are a fucking genetic mess.’ Carter laughed weakly, through strings of blood and saliva. He dragged himself to his feet and despite the powerful drugs pain was screaming through him. ‘Well then, fucker, come on, come and finish it. You’re such a supreme fucking being, you think you are so fucking hard ...’
‘Let me,’ whispered Kade.
The sounds, of the tank battle were coming closer. Below in the courtyard Carter heard the bustle of activity: the stomp of boots, the rattle of weapons.