The door then twitched ever so slightly as the slack in it tightened. The shutter then lifted from the ground.
A gap of no more than an inch had opened up when Seb saw something forcing its way through. A silver bug about the size of his hand.
Once the strange creature had crawled free, it leapt into the air, took flight, and headed straight for them.
Frozen for a moment as he tried to assess the thing, Seb flinched when one of SA’s blades flew through the air and cut it in two.
The two parts of the now defunct metal bug landed and skidded to a halt at Seb’s feet. When he picked one half up, fire ran through his fingertips. “Ow!” He dropped the heavy little thing.
Fresh blood ran from Seb’s cuts, and just as he raised his hand to suck the wound, Sparks called out, “Wait!”
Seb froze.
Sparks rushed to him and grabbed his hand. She looked at the cut. “You don’t know what those things have on their sharp little bodies. For all we know, you might be about to suck poison into you.” She dropped her bag on the floor, rummaged around, and pulled out a small spray pot.
One sharp squirt of the clear liquid and Seb shouted louder this time. “OW!”
“Better for it to sting than swallow poison.”
Seb looked back at the small bug when Sparks moved away. It looked like it had been modelled on a locust. “Something that sharp, with those buzzing wings would have torn straight through me. Thanks, SA.”
A gentle nod met his appreciation.
As Seb went to step forwards again, a deep bass sound stopped him. His heart skipped when he looked at the darkness beneath the shutter. He might not have seen anything, but it sounded like thousands of the creatures were heading their way. A plague of razor blades, he pulled his world into slow motion and shouted, “We’ve got incoming.”
CHAPTER 48
Before Seb could react, Sparks sped past him and ran at the dark space leading to the humming swarm of metallic locusts. Although he called after her, she either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. “Sparks, what are you doing?”
As she ran, Sparks raised her mini-computer, and by the time she’d reached the open shutter, the darkness in front of her had turned into a glinting and glistening cloud of chaos ready to burst forth.
A bolt of electricity from Sparks’ computer lit the darkness up with a magnesium glare. Every bug glowed, acting as a conductor for their neighbour before they froze and fell to the ground.
More appeared a second later and the ones on the floor looked to be stunned but not defeated. “They’re getting back up,” Seb shouted.
Another magnesium glare and they all fell again.
As much as Seb wanted to stand beside Sparks, he didn’t. She clearly had a plan, that much he could tell, and him getting close might hinder it.
When Sparks removed her right boot, Bruke voiced Seb’s—and probably the others’—thoughts. “What’s she doing?”
Another crackle and the air turned white again. Electricity ran a dot to dot through the bugs, revealing a glowing swarm. They all fell and hit the floor in a metal showering rush. Sparks lobbed her boot at Reyes, who caught it.
For the briefest of seconds, Reyes frowned at Sparks. Then the small Thrystian pointed at the pipe running up the right wall. It had a tap protruding from it about three metres from the ground. “Smash that off.”
Another buzz, another glare of white light, another shower of metal crashed down against the floor. A temporary measure to their growing problem.
Seb gasped to watch Reyes barely slow down when she got to the pipe and climbed it. At the tap quicker than a monkey to coconuts, she held the boot aloft and looked down at Sparks. “Now?”
“Wait.” Another white buzz to stun the swarm. “Now.”
It only took one swing to send the circular metal tap flying from the pipe. It skittered into the darkness with the locusts and a hiss rushed from the hole Reyes had just made.
Seb watched on, frozen with the other two as Reyes charged towards them. It took for her to shoo them and say, “Get out of here,” before he twigged.
They took off, heading for the double doors leading back outside into the ruined city.
Now on board with the plan, Seb looked behind while he ran. The metal swarm stirred again. “Faster!” he called out.
SA made it out first. Bruke and Seb burst out a second later. But when Reyes got to the doors, she stopped and waited inside. Whether she and Sparks liked one another or not, they clearly had an understanding.
Although Sparks opened her mouth to call out, she looked over, seemed to notice Reyes, and held it in. Instead, she nodded at her and Reyes pressed the controls. The doors started to close.
To see it unfold in slow motion stole the breath from Seb’s lungs.
SA, Bruke, and Reyes took off around the side of the gene farm, getting away from the closing doors.
Sparks ran through the foyer towards them at a full sprint, the swarm rising up behind her, the gap in the doors closing.
The hiss of gas delivered a stench similar to the one Seb had smelled on Carstic—the agent added to ruthane.
The gap in the doors closed tighter and Seb had to fight against his urge to dart inside and halt them. Sparks would tell him if she needed his help.
At the last moment, Sparks dived through the vertical split, which had closed so tight, she whacked her knee as she passed the doors. While in midair, she pointed her computer back into the building and sent a blast of electricity where they’d just come from.
A huge suction of air like a giant dragon inhaling. Seb then dived to the side. He watched Sparks make the jump towards him a second later, the vertical slit funnelling out a tall blade of fire into the ruined city.
The doors closed completely. A charred line ran along the ground away from them. A path of flames had shot out about ten metres long. Some of the lion creatures’ corpses held onto them, the flickering amber crawling over their fur.
As Sparks lay on the ground, gasping for breath, Reyes said, “My god, you’re awesome!”
A hard frown, Sparks looked up at the ex-marine, smiled, then nodded. “I am, aren’t I?”
CHAPTER 49
Seb couldn’t help but smile when Reyes winked at Sparks, bent over, and said, “Here we go, little monkey. Jump on.”
Even Sparks took the dig with the humour Reyes intended. A half smile, she shook her head. “I don’t need to. I can’t imagine the electrics will work now anyway. I expect the fire just fried everything. We’ll have to pry the doors open if we want to get back in.”
An old bar from an iron railing lay on the ground by Seb’s feet. He picked it up and held it in Bruke’s direction.
Still absent of his berserker rage, Bruke simply stared at the bar.
Hard to temper his reaction, Seb said, “My god, Bruke, when will you accept you’re the strongest one here? You need to use this bar to pry the doors open so we can get inside.”
Only a mild telling off, it seemed to do the trick. Although tentative, Bruke came forwards, took the bar from Seb, and wedged it into the slit where the doors met. Once he’d wiggled the bar into place, he clenched his jaw and growled as he pulled on it, his thick arms bulging with the strain.
It took just seconds before the large doors creaked and moaned. A few more seconds and the gap down the middle widened.
Bruke roared through gritted teeth, his call echoing out across the desolate city. After a few more seconds of straining, he pulled the gap in the doors wide enough for them to slip through. He looked at the others and let go of the pole, seemingly ashamed of his power. The bar hit the ground with a loud clang and he stepped aside, his shoulders slumped.
As their leader, Seb had to go in first. On his way past Bruke, he patted him on his broad shoulder. “You have a place on this team. Without your strength, things would be a lot harder.”
The praise seemed to lift Bruke’s spirits, the hunched and scaled creature straightening his posture an
d snapping a sharp nod at Seb. “Thank you. My rage scares me sometimes,” he said, his eyes tearing up. “I worry I might lose control and hurt someone I care about. I worry how violent it makes me.”
“Have you ever hurt someone you care about before?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t worry about it, then. The violence comes out when it’s needed. When you need to save yourself and others.”
Another sharp nod.
When Seb stepped closer to the doors, the acrid stench of smoke stopped him in his tracks. A stream of black cloud poured through the gap and up into the sky.
While pointing at the doors, Seb said, “We need to wait for a few minutes before we go back in.” He held his breath and peered into the swirling darkness. “I don’t think anything’s on fire, so we just need to give it time to clear out.”
After pulling away, his lungs tight from the small amount of smoke he’d inhaled, he looked at the others to see them nod their agreement with him.
Where the place had been illuminated by strip lighting and light paintwork, everything had now been turned black by the fire. The electricity was out, as Sparks had guessed it would be. It sucked away what little light the opening in the huge doors let in.
Despite the devastated environment, the others followed Seb, all of them either covering their noses or coughing from the thick stench.
Because Sparks had a torch on her computer, she nudged past Seb and turned it on. He followed behind her with the others behind him.
Small lumps of metal littered the floor. The burned machines would no doubt be doing damage to the soles of his shoes, but there were too many to avoid. Every step Seb took gave out another crunch as he crushed them like snails on a wet garden path.
The place had been silent before, yet it seemed even quieter now, almost as if it held its breath. Seb’s throat dried and his heart raced. It felt like something could spring them at any point. Instead of breaking the silence, he spoke to SA. Is it me, or is something amiss here?
Yep. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. And it’s more than what I should feel because of the situation.
You think there’s any other way to do this?
The pause lasted for a few seconds before SA simply said, No.
The first to walk beneath the shutter, Sparks entered the space where the metal locusts had come from and waved her torch around. Seb stepped in after her, the tunnel much tighter than the foyer had been. A corridor, it stood about two metres high and the same wide.
As much as Seb’s instincts told him to stop, he followed Sparks, and the group delved deeper into the tunnel. Sparks’ torch had little impact against the pressing darkness. It felt like the void closed in on them. But the walls and ceiling remained about the same distance away. It had to be his mind playing tricks on him.
Whatever feelings Seb had, they needed to keep going so they could find out about the parasite. They needed to know the truth. Besides, if he had to have anyone with him to go on this mission, it would be the team he had around him at that moment. They’d cope with whatever they needed to. He had to trust that.
It took for them to get close to a right-angle bend before Seb even saw it. Sparks’ torchlight sank into the black wall in front of them and she slowed down to allow him to catch up with her.
Together, Seb and Sparks rounded the next bend to see the end of the long corridor. About fifty metres away sat a square of light the same size as the tunnel they were in.
Seb took the lead and picked up the pace. The smell of smoke cleared as they got closer to the light. There must have been ventilation somewhere.
When Seb got to about ten metres from the tunnel’s exit, he jumped to hear a loud boom from behind them. He spun around to see the others frozen to the spot. “What was that?” His voice echoed in the tunnel.
No one answered. Instead, Bruke shoved through from the back and sprinted towards the light at the end. The coward had well and truly returned. Not a bad choice, but he could have told the others to come with him. Seb chased after him and the others ran behind.
Then Seb saw it. The light at the end of the corridor shrank as what looked like a door closed down from the ceiling, threatening to pin them in. It hit him at that moment, so he shouted at Bruke’s back. “The sound, do you think it was the shutter at the other end?”
“Yes,” Bruke gasped, dipping his head with the effort of his sprint as he closed down on the shutting door.
By the time Bruke reached the door, it had closed halfway, leaving a gap of about a metre to get through. Plenty of space for him, which must have been his intention. But then he stopped, turned his back so he faced his onrushing friends, and hooked his hands out behind him, catching the door’s steady but unrelenting downwards momentum. He managed to slow it down.
Seb caught up with him, breathing hard from the sprint. “What are you doing?”
A strained face from the effort, Bruke spoke to Seb through clenched teeth. “Just go through.”
“What about you?”
Bruke shouted at Seb. “Go!”
So he did. Once Seb had climbed through to the other side, he helped first Sparks, then SA, join him.
Even though Bruke slowed it down, the door was still closing, and Reyes hadn’t appeared yet.
The slap of the ex-marine’s footsteps drew close. A few seconds later, she slid beneath the door.
Seb jumped out of her way and then called through, “Come on, Bruke. It’s your turn now.”
“Come back for me when you can.”
“What?”
Bruke’s hands then disappeared and the door slammed against the floor as if it was spring loaded. The loud crack snapped out through the new room they’d entered and Seb felt the vibration of it through the soles of his feet.
Seb banged against the rock-solid door. It would take more than that to get it open. A deep breath, he slowed his world down, but he couldn’t see a weak spot. Then he searched for a control panel. “Sparks, can you see a way to get this open again?”
Silence.
“Sparks?” This time Seb turned to her.
She looked pale as she stared at him and shook her head. “The panel must be on the other side. There’s nothing we can do for him at the moment.”
Silence engulfed the group.
CHAPTER 50
The room beyond the corridor they’d just left Bruke in had similar dimensions to the foyer. Seb spun on the spot to take in the large space. Unlike the foyer, shelves and ledges were attached to the walls at various heights. They seemed to move up in a spiral, getting progressively higher as they wound around the room. They were all empty. The space must have had some use previously. Maybe a training area for some of the farm’s more acrobatic projects.
Still in slow motion, Seb looked at the door that separated Bruke from the rest of them. He sighed before pulling his world back to a normal speed. “The only way we can help Bruke now is to get to the heart of this place, find the information we’ve come for, and find whoever’s locked him in. If I have to put a hole in their head to get them to release him, then so be it.”
“Good idea,” Reyes said, “but how do we get to the heart of this place?”
A good question. Although Seb had looked at the layout of the room, he hadn’t yet seen an exit. “I’m not sure.”
An expectant Reyes looked at Seb as if he could give her more of an answer. Both SA and Sparks looked around the room.
Before Seb could say anything else, the sound of rushing water called through the space. Cold dread fell through him as if the water had already soaked him. It came in so quickly, it covered the floor in seconds. His heart quickened as he looked for the source of the noise. Four shelves—about five metres wide each—were attached to the wall on the opposite side of the room. Unlike most of the other shelves, they all sat at the same height, about one metre from the ground. The water ran over them and fell down in sheets as wide as they were. His boots were already soaked.
Fe
ar sent Seb’s world back into slow motion. For what good it would do. He ran across the room, water kicking up at his feet. When he got to the shelves, he saw the inch-high slits running just above them. They were the entire width of each platform. They belched the cold rush out into the room.
Seb jumped up onto one of the watery shelves and planted his feet so the hard flow didn’t pull them away from beneath him. Sparks shouted at him, “What are you doing?”
“Getting to higher ground, now hurry up and come with me.”
The other three ran over to Seb, SA getting to him first.
By the time Sparks had made it across, the water had reached her waist. Reyes ploughed through the flood behind them. She used her hands to cut a path, sending the water splashing away from her.
After she’d helped the other two up, SA climbed onto the ledge.
Now the others had joined him, Seb led the way, the water threatening to clear his feet out with every step. Although he’d already sussed it, he pointed at the shelves running around the room and explained it to the others. “They get progressively higher. I can’t swim because of my metal hands, so I’m going to need to make my way up them to get away from the flood. You can follow me if you want to.”
The water had already risen to the ledges they were on. Seb jumped to the next shelf and the others followed. All of them crossed the gap with ease.
What do we do when we get to the top? SA asked.
We’ll deal with that when we get there. The shelves must be arranged in this way for some reason. I’m hoping there’s an exit up there. After that, he ran along the next ledge and jumped the gap.
The next three shelves didn’t raise them much higher, but the gaps between them were small, so Seb kept up his pace, jogged along them, and jumped from one to the next, conscious of his damp boots in case he slipped.
By the time they’d made their way back to the wall with the door leading to Bruke in it, the gaps between the shelves had stretched a little wider. Seb’s next jump looked like the widest of the lot. It didn’t pose much of a challenge for him, but Sparks, and possibly Reyes, would struggle. Can you throw Sparks across?
Fugitive: A Space Opera: Book Five of The Shadow Order Page 17