by C. G. Hatton
“No shamans,” she said, gesturing vaguely, supremely confident in her domain. She believed she had Spearhead at her bidding. Of course she was confident. She leaned forward, cold eyes boring into his. “But trust me, my dear boy, one wrong move, one wrong word, and you will wake up in that cage wondering what hit you. Do we have an understanding?”
LC blinked, fuzzy headed, having to bite back the comment that sprang to mind.
They took off, he switched off and it was only once they’d jumped twice that Drake had her staff bring over drinks as they drifted, waiting at a jump point. He had no idea what for until Elliott whispered into his mind.
“Handing you in isn’t going to be enough. I know you might find it hard to believe, LC, but this is bigger than you and NG. The Bhenykhn want one of the Seven. That’s what Spearhead offered them. That’s what Drake is delivering. One of the Seven. And in exchange she gets to keep you and NG on the guarantee you’ll be out of the war against them. Do you understand? One of mine is giving herself up to them. So when I say you will do what I say, you will do what I say. Because it’s not just your ass on the line here. It will be one of mine. Do you understand?”
“Which one?”
“It doesn’t matter which one.”
“I know you’re Aries.”
“Well done. Then know this – it’s Yarrimer and given a choice, I will choose her every time.”
No less than he’d expect from a damn machine.
He could hardly think straight but he couldn’t help sending, “What’s the drill when we get there?”
“You don’t need to know. Don’t think about it. You’re our prisoner. If you need to, address me as Spearhead. Apart from that just be a good boy, don’t upset Drake and don’t piss off the shamans.”
He wasn’t planning to but he couldn’t guarantee it.
“Be smart, Luka,” Elliott sent. “You’ll be in the heart of the Bhenykhn hive. Get what you can, listen, learn, stay alive. We’ll get you out.”
It was the most sincere he’d ever heard Elliott try to be.
“Don’t get used to it. Just don’t screw this up.”
Drake was staring at him, a smile quirking at the edge of her lips. She raised her glass. Waited for him to do the same. They hadn’t restrained his hands. He reached with his left.
“I do wish Nikolai had come to me sooner,” she said, taking a drink and making a show of savouring the liquor.
LC took a sip. It was smooth but it could have been rough as moonshine for all he cared.
“Let me tell you a few home truths about your little guild,” Drake said, sitting back and nudging his foot again.
He moved it out of her way.
She smiled. “McIntyre got his ass roasted for his little indiscretion on Kheris. He was a liability. He deserved everything he had coming to him, by the way. A’Darbi was another matter. But no harm, I’ve made sure Nikolai paid for that one. And yes, I do know that Anya Halligan is his daughter. Precious child. You make quite a match.”
“You want to tell me something I don’t know?”
Drake held out her glass for a refill, one of her staff jumping to it. “Mind the attitude, my boy. I have been most constrained in my little experiments so far.” She leaned forward and placed a hand on his arm. “But I’m still curious. Would you regrow a limb, do you think…?” She stroked a finger across his forearm, dragging a fingernail in a cutting action across the muscle. “I would like to see that. Very much.”
The neurotoxin was as thick as anything they’d ever given him but he could still read in her demeanour that that wasn’t the only thing she wanted to see.
She raised her eyes, sultry, and said in that husky accent, “You know, I offered to work with the Man. A long…” She paused and smiled. “My god, such a long time ago.” She held up her glass, pointing a long finger towards him. “If there was ever a turning point in this sorry state of affairs in which we now all find ourselves, that was probably it.”
It was so far off his radar he didn’t care.
He took another sip, wishing for the first time in a long time that it had something in it, krakn or even a hit of insanity. Screw the consequences.
He blinked, realised Drake was still speaking and had to concentrate to bring her words back into focus.
“…but considering how careful Nikolai was to conceal his heritage, I’m sure you had no idea of that.” She drained her glass. “And as for Martha Hetherington…” She leaned forward. “Wouldn’t you just love to know who that little firecracker was working for?”
LC looked up. Martha? Christ, yes, but Drake just smiled, cocked her head as if she was listening to someone and nodded.
They made jump and the entire weight of the Bhenykhn hive crashed into his mind.
Elliott’s voice was a distant murmur. “Welcome to Earth.”
Chapter 30
Sebastian stabbed the knife’s tip deep into the console, leaving it standing there. “Is that why the Bhenykhn want the Seven?” he asked casually. “To learn AI technology, adapt and integrate that biotech for their own ends?”
“Presumably.”
“Or to learn how to counter them?”
The Man reached and took the small metal component between his fingers. “The Bhenykhn leech what they want from everything they touch. They morph and grow. This is not simply evolution outfitting the strongest to survive, or technological advancement giving an advantage over an enemy. The Bhenykhn absorb culture, traditions. It is a hive mind in its purest form. What one feels, they all feel. What one learns, they all learn. You are smart, Sebastian. Far superior in many ways than the rest of the human race you see as so far beneath you. Why do you think I created a guild of thieves of all things?”
•
“From here on in,” Elliott said into his head, “we need to be more than careful. Nothing stupid, do you understand?”
LC sat still. He wished everyone would stop telling him not to be stupid. It was almost like a dare. A red rag.
But doing nothing was easy. The pressure from the hive was more punishing than he’d ever felt, as if he’d somehow encountered a higher intensity, a more overbearing command level. He could feel the shamans blocking him already, no chance to reach out to see if NG was there.
For the first time ever, he almost felt out of his depth. A seed of doubt that this was maybe bigger than all of them. He quickly pushed it down. He’d never doubted his own abilities, never failed at any task, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to start now.
Drake looked at him. “Well, my dear, we’ll continue this little chat once our business here is concluded. Then I might get to take you to my villa at last.”
She left him there as they flew in, escorted by Bhenykhn ships, the latest shot of neurotoxin starting to wear off and the thoughts of the crew starting to filter through into his mind. It was stifling, an uneasy awareness that they were flying into the unpredictable, no one totally convinced by their seemingly safe status as allies, collaborators, whatever, and there were more than a few disturbed by the side of the fence they found themselves on. LC stayed calm. It was a tab. A freaky ass bitch of a tab, but still just a job, a mission, even if it was just to stay alive, and he couldn’t do anything other than deal with what was right in front of him. He’d learned that fast at the guild.
By the time they made orbit above Beijing, he was almost asleep. He didn’t move as Hilyer turned up in front of him, unfastened the harness and told him to stand.
He lazily opened one eye, playing the part and not about to make it easy for anyone, and was hauled to his feet.
Walking into the courtyard of the Bhenykhn stronghold trashed any illusion this was just a tab. Huge walls enclosed hulking structures on every side, the atmosphere oppressive, airspace full of huge thunderous vessels, coming and going or maintaining a low altitude, defying gravity to darken the skies over the city.
Drake was a step ahead, Hilyer right at his side, her entourage around them. Five Bhenyk
hn warriors were waiting for them, four shamans lurking, staring.
LC kept his head down, hands clamped in heavy manacles, the pain from his wrist down to a dull throb. It was tough keeping the barriers up against the insistent pounding of the hive as he walked, surrounded by this unsettling mix of alien aggressors and human traitors. His boots crunched across ground littered with debris, broken glass, kicking aside what looked like bone fragments and shell casings, rusting weapon parts abandoned in whatever fight they’d tried to put up here. The stench of the Bhenykhn mixed with the smoke drifting from ruined buildings.
He raised his eyes, couldn’t help scoping out the courtyard even though he knew there was no escape. It was bustling, a mix of Bhenykhn warriors training, sparring and beating the shit out of each other in hand to hand, and human soldiers, various militia uniforms, mismatched armour but all wearing black armbands, herding human prisoners and standing watch. Heads turned as they walked past.
They were escorted through massive gates of twisted black metal, up to a great structure with huge doors that clanged open as they approached. A blast of hot, fetid air billowed out, engulfing them as they were led inside. It was hard not to gag. The lighting was low, the walls seeming to pulse. The whole scale of it was off, everything too big.
It felt like his mind was swaddled in cloth, isolated, but he could feel the virus healing, his strength returning slowly as it leached energy from the mass of bodies in range. Not just bodies, the entire stronghold itself was a living mix of biological entities melded together within a high tech structure of metal and pulsing wires. The amount of energy buzzing everywhere was immense. He kept his heart rate steady, mind calm. Thinking this might actually work.
They walked along a vast corridor. LC kept his head down, glancing sideways as flashes of colour caught his eye. Some of the walls had a touch of red and gold looking disturbingly like the elaborate facings of the millennia-old Imperial palace. The Bhenykhn had built their stronghold over and around the ancient building, their biological constructs growing, creeping and rolling over the age-old human seat of power. In everything he’d seen, it was one of the most disgusting, stomach-turning signs of what they were facing. The total, overwhelming stamp of oppression of the Bhenykhn. His eye caught what looked like part of a lion’s paw, green metal, resting on a crushed sphere, the ancient human symbol of might devoured by the pulsing fleshy mass of the alien invader.
It was hard to think this was Earth.
They reached a set of steps, each one too big, too high to step up comfortably. It made him feel like a child. Drake was a tall woman but she still had to adjust her stride to climb them. She stopped at the doors at the top, waited there serenely. Hil nudged his arm. LC didn’t turn but nodded slightly. He’d done tabs where he’d been sent in blind and had had to wing it on the hoof. It didn’t bother him. Sometimes not knowing made it easier.
The doors opened with a waft of air that was even more rancid, a sticky heat that caught at the back of his throat.
One of the Bhenykhn grunted at Drake to enter. She cast a glance at LC, smiled and walked forward into a massive chamber lit by smoking torches.
He was nudged into following, leaving the human guards behind and flanked by Bhenykhn as he stepped down into a central circular arena, a huge fight pit, he realised. He could smell the blood, dark stains on the floor. It was surrounded by rows and rows of stepped seating, like an amphitheatre, a raised platform at the far end with a massive throne. It was like the bridge of the command ship they’d raided, only larger. The Bhenykhn seated there was the biggest he’d ever seen, the first crimson cloak he’d ever encountered, pinned with a hefty kill token that glinted in the torchlight.
Drake stepped up to it, stopping at the base of the steps and kneeling, head bowed for a second, deferring to it but not subservient somehow, self-assured as she stood and gave it a regal nod, as if she was a visiting dignitary on some kind of equal footing.
It gestured her to move to the side, beckoning for him to be brought forward. A Bhenykhn overlord. Its opposite number no doubt in command of the forces controlling Winter. It regarded him, its orange eyes narrow, as he was dragged before it. It was sitting lazily, leaning with one elbow on the armrest of the throne, a jagged blade in its hand, long fingers curled around its hilt.
It gave an imperceptible nod.
LC braced himself as he felt the Bennies to either side move close, talons digging into his shoulders. One of them grabbed him round the back of the neck and held him there as they ripped his shirt and pulled it off. It let go and shoved him forward, leaving him standing there, half naked. He caught his balance and calmed his breathing, keeping his head up and staring the overlord in the eye.
It looked him up and down, noting the black lightning marks, the brand on his chest. He could hear within the hive a collective memory of everything he’d ever done against the Bhenykhn, cascading down into a hatred and satisfaction that gleamed in its alien eyes as it reached into his mind.
It nodded and grunted, guttural, “This is the one.” It gestured with the blade, and said, “Go,” to Drake, dismissive, still staring at him as it added, with a smirk, “Take it for processing. Let’s see if this one will fare better than the last one.”
LC glanced at Drake.
She was stepping forward, frowning. “That was not the deal we agreed.”
One of the alien warriors moved to stop her but the overlord gestured it to stay, to let her speak.
“I brought you one of the Seven,” she said. She was standing up to one of the most powerful aliens in the whole invasion force and if she was in any way scared or intimidated, she wasn’t showing it. “That was the deal. I have this thief under my control. He’s no threat to you any more. You agreed I could have them, both of them, if I delivered one of the Seven.”
“All of the Seven.” It turned its head to face her.
“You treacherous bastard,” Drake hissed, the perpetual, icy demeanour slipping for the first time LC had ever seen.
The overlord grinned slyly. “We learned from the best. Think of it as a compliment. The tribute we now demand is all of the Seven. Bring them to me and then you can have these two creatures…” It looked back at LC and raised the blade. “If they’re still alive.”
The knife was in the air before he could react. He tried to twist away but taloned fingers dug into his arms, pinning him there. The blade hit him high in the chest, biting deep, poison pulsing. He really wished they’d stop killing him. His knees went, darkness closed in fast and he dropped.
He dreamed of breaking into Yarrimer, one of the toughest tabs he’d ever pulled off, sitting on the edge of the roof afterwards, legs dangling, the cool, clean air at the top of the skyscraper fresh in his lungs, brilliant blue sky as far as he could see. Deciding to go back in because he was an idiot. Flash forward to heat, falling. Impact. The snap as his leg broke. Pain.
He woke with a jolt. He couldn’t move. The paralysing toxin was stronger than anything he’d had to deal with before. He could still feel it pulsing, burning through his bloodstream, breathing laboured, heart beating but only just, the pain in his chest excruciating.
“I know what you did that day,” a soft voice whispered inside his mind. Female. Gentle, so soft he could have imagined it.
“Yarrimer?” He’d never told anyone what had happened. He almost asked how, how the hell could it possibly know, but it hardly seemed polite to throw in the fact it had been locked away on Pandora back then, captive and shut down in a box.
“I have my means,” it murmured. “Stay alive, Luka. We will get you out of this. You and Nikolai.”
It sounded like a medic he’d known on the Alsatia. One of his favourites. If it was another hallucination, it was one he didn’t mind.
He could feel the presence of at least one shaman keeping him blocked, mind contained, energy levels low.
“I can’t access their systems,” the soft, alluring voice whispered. “Can you?”
LC reached out half-heartedly, bumping up against a barrier that sent a shockwave of agonising feedback bouncing into his mind.
“No.”
It was difficult to breathe. He had to pull every trick NG and Mendhel had ever taught him, reaching into the depths of the darkness that had always been there, threatening to overwhelm since he was five, touching that point of calm that meant life and being okay.
It was somewhere to go that was elsewhere.
He went there.
Stayed there.
Calm.
Floating in the darkness.
Until there was a tug on his senses and he crashed back into a nightmare that was warm and humid. Not paralysed but he still couldn’t move. Something was encasing his arms, his neck, hips, legs. Warm. Intrusive. It felt like he was suspended, realisation dawning that it was a living organism that was wrapping around his limbs, his chest, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He could feel something pressing against his skin, nudging against a spot just below his ribs, a concentrated pressure that started to increase. He tensed, almost anticipating what it was going to do and still cried out as it stabbed suddenly and excruciatingly into his flesh.
“Don’t fight it,” Elliott said, breaking into his mind.
He couldn’t rise above the pain, riding it, struggling to think coherently and not panic. “How the fuck can I not fight it? What are they doing to me?”
“Calm down.”
He was trapped in an alien machine and a damned AI was telling him to calm down. Screw that.
He tugged his left arm, felt the warm substance pull against him and tighten, squeezing.
Something else stabbed into his abdomen with no warning, pulsing. His heart was racing.
“They want to know what you are,” Elliott said. “They’re impressed by you. They want new organisms to assimilate. New biological entities to absorb and twist into their evolutionary lines. They’re taking samples, trying to infiltrate your systems but it’s not working. The virus is repelling it. Combined with all the elements you’ve been exposed to, it’s mutated far beyond its original structure. It’s defending itself. It’s repelling or killing anything they try to put into you. You need to get free but if you respond badly, this chamber will get stronger to hold you. Let the virus do its work.”