Annara came beside her. "No, I believe Caveman gave the enemy more holes than they returned, but he's losing a lot of blood from his wound. Hernando's trying to convince him it's best if he stays here while the rest of us continue on to the objective."
That stupid Portal! If I hadn't wanted to get home so badly, poor Caveman wouldn't be bleeding to death now.
Olivia hated how selfish and unfeeling she was. Good people were risking—and had lost—their lives for her sake. The fight and its risks should be hers and hers alone. She straightened up and headed toward the grand entrance hall.
"Where are you going?" Annara followed her. "Hernando says we are to wait here for further instructions."
"Tell Hernando that I believe one of the functions of this armored suit is to maintain the health and safety of the wearer. There's a sort of built-in medic on board, you could say. If he can slip Caveman into one of the suits—"
"Then it might stop his blood loss?" Annara smiled at the idea. "That's brilliant! Are you retrieving another suit from the upstairs gallery?"
"Uh, yeah." Olivia hoped her tone didn't sound too guilt-ridden. She could do it in a matter of seconds and then be on her way. "Just a moment, I'll be right back."
She dashed up the turret's staircase and retrieved the remaining suits of armor, carrying the load back down as if it weighed no more than a couple of bed pillows. She deposited the suits carefully in the middle of the octagonal hall.
"There you go. One suit for Caveman and one for Hernando and one for you. You good with that, Annara?"
"Maybe." Her friend looked thoughtful and not excited at the prospect. "It is tempting. Legends say that when the Pure Bloods first came to this world they all wore similar armor, but in-fighting and breakages soon depleted their stocks. It's why they turned to the Portal and Earth as a way to extend their lives and avoid the need for mechanical contrivances to protect themselves."
"Well, obviously someone thought these particular suits were worth keeping and maintaining. I can see why. Very useful technology." Olivia flexed her now empty hands and brought up a display showing her suit's battery charge and what she assumed was the estimated time left on its ability to function. It showed a healthy charge but time pressed. She'd better go.
"Hurry and tell Hernando and Caveman about the medical functions of the suits for me. I can't quite fit into the room in this gear, you know?"
"Right." Annara ran back to the parlor.
Olivia blinked back a tear and waved good-bye. She turned to open the grand entrance doors, glad their immense size made it easy for her to exit. "Good luck, guys."
Olivia peered into the empty Portal plaza from the cover of a building on a side road. She started on her left and slowly scanned the area for signs of activity.
If there were crickets on this world, they'd be chirping.
The quiet sliced through her confidence and pained her like a stitch in her side. No one home? She cautiously left cover and strolled toward the open pavement.
It can't be this easy. Where is everyone? The Pure Bloods? Our people on the train—aren't they here yet?
The light of the second sun flooded into Portal portico itself, glimmering off the metallic surface, temporarily blinding her as she fixed her eyes on it. Could she operate it and return herself home? Olivia's objective was to simply take possession and hold it until the others had taken control of the city, so she put those thoughts away.
She kept up her steady pace, the interstellar transport machine growing larger and more menacing as she approached it. Maybe it was this easy? The extra starlight had put the Pure Bloods in their place. Why the humans and their allies hadn't on similar occasions in the past taken control of the Portal—indeed the entire planet—seemed more of a mystery to her than ever.
What am I missing? Olivia thought through each point of their journey into the city. The Overseers had met them indoors, but why couldn't they go outside into the light? They worked on the sunny side of the planet as farm guards after all. Were they like the suits of armor, few and far between? I'd be surprised if they aren't more of them. It just doesn't make sense...
Her answer came as the blast of a laser weapon struck her hard, sending her toppling head over heels.
Chapter Thirteen
"Ugh. I really should have seen that coming."
Breathless and disoriented, Olivia tried to scramble to her feet, but the suit's sheer mass turned her into a turtle stuck on its back. Her limbs thrashed about wildly. Obviously she wasn't alone and not the only person outfitted with laser weaponry. She rocked the suit to her side and grabbed onto something akin to an old lamp post to pull herself upright. Now on her feet, she assumed a crouching position and searched the horizon for the source of the attack. The square remained empty.
"Oh, come on! Don't tell me they developed an invisible tank. Maybe they're shooting at me from the roof on one of the surrounding buildings?" A quick scan revealed no such weaponry or troops. There was only one direction she hadn't checked. Slowly she turned around...
The second blast hit her square in the midsection and sent her flying backward. The wind knocked out of her, she slumped against the brick column of the Portal's portico which had halted her straight-line trajectory. Ominous amber lights glowed silently in various sections of her visor read-out. She sensed it was the equivalent of a klaxon bell and flashing red lights. A smell of burning metal tainted the air. Her suit had been hit in a vulnerable spot. It was rapidly bleeding power.
"Damn! Just when I was getting used to the contraption, too." Olivia gritted her teeth in a feral smile. "Before I have to abandon ship I'm going to use my last shot to take you bullies out of action."
The targeting display on her visor flickered then lit up. It formed a bright green square over a part-open manhole cover several yards away. Olivia squinted at it. Something moved there. She raised her glove, aimed the laser at the manhole. The square icon turned red and flashed rapidly. She fired. Not expecting to hit a near-invisible enemy, she was pleasantly surprised when an explosion blew the manhole cover into the air and rocked the entire plaza.
"Aw right! You jerks act like a bunch of crazed prairie dogs shooting at me from underground. How could I have been so stupid?"
The first explosion triggered a second, then the muffled sound of a third rang out. The Pure Bloods and their minions have made good use of the caves and crypts under the city. This must be how they kept BloodDark under their control all these centuries. There's no need for them to risk too much daylight when they have a method of protecting strategic locations from below.
"Oh, no... I need to tell Hernando and the others about this. Our people from the trains could be walking into a practical mine field."
Olivia struggled to her feet and began to jog back the way she'd come, scrutinizing the pavement and sidewalks ahead of her for signs of possible prairie dog attacks. The atmosphere in the suit grew hot and stuffy. She flipped the visor up and gulped the outside air into her lungs.
"It's like Dad always says—the AC somehow always manages to conk out on the hottest day of the year!"
The amber lights dimmed, and the suit's hydraulics began to work less efficiently. The burning metallic smell grew stronger in spite of the open visor. Olivia could barely maintain a leisurely stroll. Soon she'd have to stop and crawl out of the armor, all alone in the middle of an open plaza, vulnerable to attack.
"Timing was never my strong point." Olivia staggered the suit step by step closer to the grand entrance of the clan stronghold. Only a dozen yards to go—would she be able to open the doors? Would her fellow fighters let her in if she knocked?
As if in answer to her questions, both great doors creaked open. Out stepped three mirror images of her armor. Saved by the cavalry!
"Watch-out!" she shouted. "The Pure Bloods are shooting from below ground."
The suit on the left stepped forward and caught her by the elbow joints before she collapsed face down onto the pavement. She used th
e last of the suit's power to maneuver herself into a crouch so the others could help her shimmy out of the armor.
"We spotted them from the turret windows, but we had no way to contact you without crawling into one of the other suits first." Hernando's voice sounded muffled coming from the suit's speakers. Olivia smiled as she heard the relief in his words. "Go inside with the others and gather up all the explosives you can carry from the armory. Annara and Caveman will join me in a bit of reconnaissance to find out where our train riders have gone."
"Gotcha."
Olivia was happy to see how well Caveman had recovered. Her assumption about the suit's ability to detect injury in its occupant and work on lessening the effects turned out to be correct. Without it, she knew she'd have felt more than just winded after each blast hit her—she'd be black and blue and possibly suffering from broken ribs and a punctured lung. Her fellow fighters didn't seem to think her brief foray toward the Portal in vain, either. She had demonstrated where the enemy was lurking and how best to flush them out.
The explosives lay behind the doors she'd barricaded the Overseers behind earlier, however.
Olivia frowned as she helped remove the barrier piece by piece. "I feel like I've been trapped on the same level of a video game for the past few hours. How are we going to get around the Overseers?"
Pablo pulled a chair off the top of the furniture pile and tossed it to the person behind him. "Hernando said you'd think of something when we encountered them. We trust you."
Olivia cringed. Glad to know you have confidence in me after I've acted so selfishly. If only I could trust myself to come up with a fool-proof strategy. Bouncing ideas off of others is one effective way to brainstorm...
"You have any thoughts on the matter, Pablo?" she asked him.
The sturdy fighter paused for a moment and stroked his chin bristle. "If we could find another way back into the armory, we could take them unaware."
"Great idea." She smiled encouragement. "And?"
"Problem is, the only other way we know of is the way we came into the city." He tossed a crate to the side and began working on another pile of debris. "So that's a dead end."
Was it a dead end? Olivia didn't feel quite convinced that it was.
"Exactly how did those shooters pop up in the Portal plaza? There must be tunnels from this building—and others—to those locations. If we could start with one of those tunnels and work backwards..."
"We'd find all the explosives and weapons we'd ever need." Pablo chuckled. "I see where you're coming from, but we'd still encounter Overseers and bloodsuckers either way. Fighting in narrow tunnels isn't easy. They'd be upon us before we knew it."
He had a point. Still, if they could slip in and get the explosives out without giving their position away they'd have the problem solved. Invisibility suit? Maybe the Pure Bloods had one stored in the opposite turret? Olivia groaned. Somehow they had missed the obvious. What would their enemy not expect?
"What if we made our own explosives?" she wondered aloud.
Pablo frowned and dropped the end of the table he was helping to movie. "We make our own explosives?"
Olivia shook her head. "Oh, sorry! I was muttering to myself. I do that sometimes when I'm thinking through a problem."
"It's not a bad idea. There's no reason why we shouldn't search the clan house for things that we could construct weapons to smoke the bloodsuckers out of their holes with." He grinned. "Hernando knew what he was talking about—you are very smart."
She blushed. "Thanks."
Olivia gathered the fighters together and then split them into several groups to search the clan house for materials and chemicals that might work in their cause.
"Work fast and be careful. This creepy place seems empty, but we don't know for sure. If anything looks even the least bit usable, bring it back to the hall. We'll sort through it and decide at that point. Good luck."
Olivia waved her comrades off and headed for the entrance. Pablo grabbed her arm. His eyes narrowed.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I want to drag my suit of armor back inside. It's mostly intact. We might be able to scavenge something useful out of it."
"You'll need some muscle." He motioned for his group to start their search without him. "Let me help."
Together Olivia and Pablo dragged the suit from the portico and into the grand hall. It looks like a marionette with its strings cut. All we need is a magic spell to bring Pinocchio back to life. We could then send him on a scouting mission without risk to ourselves. That's it!
She grinned. "This thing is the perfect container to take an explosive down the Pure Blood tunnels."
Pablo frowned. "Are you muttering to yourself again?"
"I am." She sighed. "Still, I believe this suit hasn't outlived its usefulness. If we could power it up, we might be able to use it like a drone."
"A what?"
She'd have to watch the technical words to save on explanations in future. "A drone is a mechanical device that is remotely operated by a controller from a safe distance," she began. "We could walk it into the tunnels and then trigger it to explode. Unless this thing comes with an RC unit to operate it remotely, it's a bad idea."
"I think it's a good idea," Pablo said. "The legends say the Pure Bloods once built mechanical men to do their fighting for them. They have always been so few and vulnerable to extremes of light and heat. Perhaps we could locate a mechanical man and force it into the armor?"
"I just wonder if the mechanical men of legend and these suits aren't one and the same." Olivia picked up the helmet and slipped it over her head again, flipping the visor down. A residue of power remained in its batteries. The display briefly lit up. "Yes, I see a symbol that might indicate a remote control switch. Let me try it."
She focused her line of sight onto the icon. A blip of light passed in front of her eyes and the remainder of the suit stirred. Pablo shouted and jumped back.
"Dios mio! It's alive!"
Olivia laughed. "No, it's following the orders I'm trying to give it. Let's see if I can make it move its arm."
She bit her lip and concentrated her thoughts on moving the suit's left arm. Telepathic communication proved harder than it looked in the movies. She closed her eyes and refocused her thoughts.
"Is the left arm moving at all?"
"No, but it's kicking its right leg." Pablo stepped away from the jittery mannequin. "Can't you see the movement through the visor?"
"The right leg is moving?" Olivia opened her eyes and the leg fell still. "It seems to move the opposite limb and side of what I'm thinking. Odd, but workable."
"Can you see anything at all through the visor? You'll have to see where it's going or it could walk into a wall."
"You're right." She tested her theory and moved the left leg by concentrating on moving the right arm while looking through the visor. A small camera located about mid-chest clicked on and displayed a fairly wide-angle view of the ceiling. "We have a second pair of eyes on this suit connected to the visor read-outs—good." After several false starts and stops trying to move the arms by thinking about the legs, Olivia noticed the power had reached a critical level and reluctantly shut down all systems.
"We're out of juice. We need to plug it into an electrical outlet to recharge its battery."
"Outlet? You mean a place where the Pure Bloods tap into the planet's power?"
Olivia's eyes glowed with excitement. "Like geothermal energy? Glad to know the vampires use green energy sources instead of fossil fuels." Pablo's puzzled expression spurred her on. "Geothermal energy is probably how they heat their homes on the dark side here, but right now we need a current. Do they have a factory where they generate steam to drive turbines in order to create electrical current?"
He shrugged. "No machine other than the city to farm transport generates steam as far as I know."
"Rats. Their buildings must be wired for electricity somehow, or they receive it freely through th
e atmosphere like Nicolai Tesla envisioned. After all, this house has lighting, a rather dull, low level kind, and these suits were charged up recently." She tapped her lip and began to pace. "So, how do the Pure Bloods power their devices and appliances?"
"Slaves do most of the everyday tasks, but the laboratories..." Pablo lowered his voice as if he worried they'd be overheard. "I have been told that there are many powerful machines in their laboratories. The bloodsuckers jealously hoard their power for their experimentations there."
Olivia nodded. "Makes sense. I suppose their labs are located underground, too?"
"No, they are found on the highest floors of the tallest buildings. Closer to the lightning they harvest from storms."
She laughed. "Just like Frankenstein! Why am I not surprised?"
The others began returning with arm-loads of various items gleaned from the clan house. Large containers of household cleaning liquids seemed the most promising. Olivia queried her fellow fighters on possible electrical outlets in the building, but none seemed to have noticed anything close to her description.
"Maybe there's one of these electrical outlets on the rack that displayed the armor?" Pablo tossed a long roll of gauze-like cloth into a separate pile as it was handed to him. He seemed to have thought hard on the problem. "It would make sense to keep it close by to where the weapon is stored."
"Yes, it's located on a higher floor—you're brilliant!" Olivia wanted to hug the muscular fighter but was interrupted by the creak of the large double doors swinging open.
"Look what happens when the adults are away scouting." Caveman's voice came booming through the suit's speaker units as he pointed at the piles. "The children collect things to start a bonfire."
"It does look like a bonfire." Hernando lowered himself to a crouching position and worked off the helmet before squirming out of the suit. He crossed to Olivia's side and gave her a quick hug. "Didn't we tell you to look for explosives?"
Olivia stood taller. She wasn't about to let her great idea be shot down in flames. "We thought of another tactic, one with the element of total surprise. We're going to construct our own bomb and deliver it in a manner they'll never suspect."
Olivia's Escape Page 14