by James Axler
“Now, that becomes more problematic,” Lakesh admitted. “It is heading almost directly east just now. We’re assuming that it is destined to deliver its deadly cargo to one of the major villes and not simply dump it at any site of human habitation. If we factor in those, the possibilities become mind-blowing.”
“Distance between C-ville and the targets?” Edwards asked.
“Mandeville is the closest, at 215 miles. The others we’re not so sure of,” Philboyd calculated.
“We could get the Manta there for the Mandeville target,” Edwards said, “then loop around and hopefully catch up to the one headed north. It’ll take time, but I can’t see many other options.”
“The Manta is the fastest vehicle we have,” Lakesh confirmed, “but we’ll also send out two Deathbirds and hope they can track down the other target before it’s too late.”
“What we need is both Mantas up in the air,” Sinclair said, confirming what everyone in the room was thinking.
Lakesh nodded. “That’s precisely what we need, but until Kane returns we’ll have to settle for—”
At that moment the door to the ops room swung open, knocking against the wall with a loud crash. Everyone turned, to see Grant standing framed within the open doorway. “I hear you need a pilot,” he said.
Chapter 33
Everyone in the ops room turned, stunned to see Grant in the open doorway. He was leaning against the frame, dressed in a shadow suit. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, and a kind of weight to his body language where he normally exuded confidence. Shizuka was standing behind him in the cavelike corridor of the redoubt, and she had an arm around his back to help him stand.
“Well?” he asked, eyeing the staring faces of his colleagues.
“Grant, I...” Lakesh began, at a loss for words.
“Close your mouth already, Lakesh. You look like you’re trying to catch flies,” Grant told him.
Reba recovered first, concern furrowing her brow as she rushed over to him. “Grant, you shouldn’t be out of bed,” she chastised. “You need rest to recover from—”
He held his hand up, staunching her words of concern. “Respectfully, shove it,” he said. “You need a pilot. I’m the best you’ve got.”
Lakesh was shaking his head, while Edwards turned away and muttered a single word: “Unreal.”
“You need to heed Reba’s advice,” Lakesh insisted. “We can’t have you out there in the field when your own health is at stake.”
Grant paced wearily into the room, using a well-placed desk to help him balance. “I heard everything. Brigid says there ain’t going to be much ‘field’ left unless you get the Mantas scrambled. Something about a virus being distributed.”
Lakesh peered past Grant to scowl at the samurai woman. “And you agreed to this?” he queried.
“Grant is not one to sit out of a fight,” Shizuka stated. “He is a warrior—he goes where he is needed, just as my ancestors did before me.”
“If I sit this one out,” Grant added, “it sounds like I may as well sit everything else out, and wait for the end of the human race.”
Lakesh looked from Shizuka to Grant, trying to read their thoughts. “Are you certain that you can pilot a Manta in your current condition, friend?” he asked.
“Shizuka will take the backseat,” Grant said. “She’ll keep me on my toes. Besides, you do need me, don’t you?”
Edwards rubbed a hand over his almost-bare scalp. “The Deathbird option is too slow,” he said. “Two Mantas gives us at least a fighting chance of reaching everything in time. If the man says he’s up to it.”
Lakesh’s gaze swept the room, taking in the concern on everyone’s face for their brave colleague. “Reba, I want you to provide Grant with whatever suppressors and medication he needs to fight through this,” he said. “No drowsiness, no side effects.
“Shizuka, are you capable of administering the drugs while Grant is in flight? If not, I will send Reba in your place.”
“I am,” Shizuka confirmed.
“Grant, get to the hangar bay now,” Lakesh said. “I shall brief you on the way.” He called across the room, “Brewster, send a message through to have Grant’s Manta armed and fired up. I want it ready to launch in ten minutes.”
“I’ll aim for six,” Philboyd stated, tapping his internal comms unit to life.
The personnel hurried to their tasks, with Shizuka scampering along beside DeFore as they made their way to the medical wing. DeFore was running through what they would need and explaining to Shizuka exactly how each drug was administered and in what proportions and what circumstances. She took a moment to ask why Dr. Kazuko had allowed Grant to leave his bed, and the silent look of fiery determination on Shizuka’s face told her all she needed to know.
Grant and Lakesh split from them a few paces down the main corridor, hurrying to the bank of elevators that would speed them to the Cerberus hangar bay. Edwards trotted along beside them as Lakesh brought Grant up to speed.
“We’ll provide more information while you’re en route,” Lakesh said, as he whipped through the task parameters.
“Just so long as you can find me the target,” Grant told him, “let me worry about the details.”
When the elevator arrived, Edwards placed a firm hand on Grant’s shoulder. “Good to have you aboard, Grant. What you’re doing—that’s brave as hell.”
Grant shrugged, offering up a resigned smile. “Yeah, well—Shizuka had that look in her eye. She can be pretty persuasive,” he admitted as the elevator doors slid closed.
Cobaltville, Delta Level
BRIGID HALTED BEFORE the magistrate, wishing she still had her blaster within easy reach in the hip holster. The mag was pointing at her face as if in recognition, as a hygiene crew rushed past on the skyway, off to deep-clean an overburdened storage unit.
But then the mag seemed to think better of it and gestured instead to his own face, hidden as it was behind the stern helmet of his uniform. “Your face,” he said. “It’s covered in something. I think maybe you need to wash it. You can’t be on this level looking like that—hygiene standards.”
Brigid almost laughed with relief, but instead turned away and glanced at her reflection in the window of the skywalk. Though the reflection was not ideal, she could tell that her face was smeared with soot and her head was filthy. Little wonder no one had recognized her from her hair. Its vibrancy had been dulled almost to black with the soot she had been covered with in the smoky hangar.
“Whoever thought dirt would save my ass,” she muttered as she hurried down the corridor, away from the patrolling mag. The words made her think of something else, too—something about their mystery foe and the mask he wore, the way his pillow was still sealed in a vacuum wrap.
Beta Level
KANE STEPPED INTO the waiting elevator the moment the metal doors slid open, urgent to get off the public street and out of sight before someone challenged him. As he entered the car he stopped, utterly astonished by what he saw there. The interior of the freight elevator had been sprayed with bullets, the floor was covered in shell casings and a random pattern of pockmarks crossed the floor, walls and ceiling where someone had been using the elevator for target practice.
“Looks like they’ve been having a party without me,” he muttered, pressing the coded keypad and requesting Alpha Level.
The doors closed and the elevator began its smooth ascent.
Cerberus
TWO IDENTICAL BRONZE-HUED aircraft shot into the morning sky over the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana, streaking from the hidden hangar bay that served the Cerberus redoubt. The pair were fabled Mantas, aircraft designed in ancient prehistory by an alien race, and capable of phenomenal acceleration and other feats, including subspace travel.
They were constructed fr
om a bronzy metal whose liquid sheen glimmered in the early morning sunlight. Their graceful design consisted of flattened wedges with swooping wings curving out to either side of the body, in mimicry of the seagoing manta, a look that had spawned their popularized name, Manta craft. Each one’s wingspan was twenty yards, its body length was almost fifteen feet, but it was the beauty of the design that was breathtaking, an effortless combination of every principle of aerodynamics wrapped up in a gleaming, burnt-gold finish. The surface of each craft was decorated with curious geometric designs; elaborate cuneiform markings, swirling glyphs and cup-and-spiral symbols. Each vehicle featured an elongated hump in the center, the only indication of a cockpit.
Behind them, twin Deathbirds were only just launching from the Cerberus hangar. They were much slower than the Mantas, but would provide what backup they could if anything should go wrong.
Watching over the monitors in the redoubt ops room, the Cerberus staff let loose an impulsive cheer as the four craft rocketed from the base.
“And they’re away!” Philboyd cried out.
* * *
INSIDE ONE OF those sleek Mantas, Grant sat in the pilot’s seat, his head encased in an almost spherical flight helmet that matched the bronze hue of the craft’s exterior. The helmet, attached to the seat and locked in place, not only masked his face, but fed a detailed heads-up data stream to him from the advanced scanning system that the Manta employed. Shizuka was seated behind him, and she watched carefully as his hands played over the rudimentary control board that operated the vessel. This was not the whole control system, she knew. Far more decisions were made by the pilot directly through the helmet, utilising the concentrated feed of the heads-up data.
“How are you feeling, Grant-san?” she asked, reaching forward to stroke one of his muscular arms.
“Still awake,” he said. “You know, I actually feel pretty good, getting out here again after that crap laid me out. How long was I out for, anyway?”
“After the initial infection? Twenty-seven hours.”
“Long enough, then,” Grant said, goosing more power to the air pulse engines that drove the graceful, slope-winged Manta.
* * *
PILOTING THE COMPANION CRAFT, Edwards checked his displays for a few seconds, watching Grant’s Manta for any signs of trouble, such as erratic flying.
After a moment, Edwards activated his commtact and hailed him. “You okay in there, boss?” he asked.
“Metaphorical wind in my hair,” Grant replied over the linked commtact. “I’m fine.”
“Metaphorical hair...!” Edwards chided, before bringing his Manta around in a tight arc that would put it in line with the first of the two deadly Deathbirds. “You okay to handle Mandeville?”
“If I need help, I’ll hail you,” Grant promised.
The graceful Mantas turned east, two bronze lightning streaks rushing across the cerulean skies.
Alpha Level
DEPAUL STEPPED OVER the last corpse, making his way to the sealed doors that led into Baron Cobalt’s suites. He would face him now, bring final judgment to this figure of law who had so failed the people he ruled.
The door needed a pass to enter and DePaul was momentarily stymied, until he grabbed a blood-smeared card from one of the magistrates. He swiped the pass through the reader, his sense of anticipation rising as the armaglass doors slid apart.
DePaul stepped inside, suddenly conscious of the weight of the final judgment ready to flow to his wrists, like blood flowing through his veins. A short flight of four steps led up into the baronial suite. The room was well appointed, with a panoramic window on three sides, floor-to-ceiling, looking out over the towers of Cobaltville. A figure leaped up from the couch as DePaul stepped through the armaglass doors—a middle-aged man with iron-gray hair running over his ears, his pate bald. The man wore a silk dressing gown and looked rather overfed.
“Who the hell do you think—” he began, but DePaul stopped him with a wave of his gloved hand as he ascended the stairs.
“Where is Baron Cobalt?” he asked in his eerily filtered voice.
“What? I—”
The sin eater materialized in DePaul’s hand and he fired immediately, sending a bullet straight into the man’s gut. He tottered back to the couch, blood blossoming on his silk robe.
“Where is Cobalt?” DePaul pronounced again, holding the pistol trained on the figure on the couch.
“He—he’s gone,” the man said. “I’m DeSouza. I—I’ve been...”
DePaul shot him again, cutting him off in midflow. The man grunted, a second wound appearing high in his chest, two inches left of his heart.
“Where is Cobalt?” DePaul demanded again.
DeSouza was breathing heavily now and there was sweat on his forehead, terror in his wide-eyed gaze. “He left,” he gasped. “They all left. All the...all the barons.”
DePaul watched the man through the lenses. He could tell that he was not lying. And there was something more, too—did he recognize this man? DeSouza, DeSouza... The name was familiar from way back, when he had been a rookie here in Cobaltville.
“Psych Division,” DePaul declared, making the word an accusation.
The man bleeding on the couch was drifting out of consciousness, but he looked up at the words. “What?”
“You were Psych Division,” DePaul said. He remembered the man now. DeSouza had performed the psych evaluation that had got him dropped from active duty. Of course, he had been thinner then, with more hair—curly, thick and black. But the eyes—those penetrating little pig eyes were just the same.
DeSouza’s head was lolling atop his shoulders and he seemed to be having trouble focusing. “Baron Cobalt changed,” he said, his voice weakening, “...left us. The barons all changed...leaving the villes...in chaos. Reports...of anarchy taking hold, in Snakefishville...Thuliaville. We...couldn’t let that...happen here. Not to Cobalt...ville.”
Through the artificial barrier of his emotionless mask, DePaul watched the man speak, taking in his words.
“The loss of a baron,” DeSouza continued, “is...crippling. It...would...have...destroyed us. So we made...a new baron...for the public.”
“You?” DePaul asked.
DeSouza’s head lolled as if it were adrift at sea. “Kept...pretense. Remained...unified.”
DePaul shot him through the forehead, the bullet drilling at the spot just above where his untamed white eyebrows met. DeSouza slumped back, dead.
No baron to kill. DePaul had come all this way and there was no baron to kill. He was too late.
Chapter 34
Alpha Level
Kane waited impatiently for the bullet-riddled elevator to complete its ascent to Alpha Level. He had been here before, years ago, back when he had been a magistrate. It still sent chills through him, recalling the way it had felt to meet Baron Cobalt back then. It was a mystical, semireligious experience, the hybrid baron partially hidden behind gossamer drapes, the better to hide his alienness, that he was something other. That was before Kane had discovered the true nature of the barons, and before all nine of them had evolved into the hateful Annunaki overlords, thanks to a genetic shunt from an orbiting spaceship called Tiamat.
Kane shook his head, piecing his strange life story together. “If I only knew then what I know now,” he muttered.
He was prepared to be challenged by mags when the elevator doors opened, but instead was met by a scene of carnage. The corridor walls were splattered with blood. Two of the magistrates who stood guard over the entryway looked as if they had been gutted, and black tears smeared their cheeks. Kane marched past them, drawing his sin eater as he hurried along the corridor toward the baron’s suites.
Kane stopped at a junction in the hallway and listened, stilling his thoughts, calming his breath, the old point-man s
ense searching for signs of danger. There was nothing, just silence. If he hadn’t seen the abomination near the elevator, he would have thought he had been wrong to come here. But no—the lunatic in the fright mask was here; he felt certain of that.
Assured there was no one waiting around the corner of the corridor, Kane stepped out, sweeping the sin eater before him. Two more magistrates lay crumpled on the floor, dead. Behind them, the elaborate twin doors to the baron’s chambers were open.
Kane paced toward them, looking left and right, wary of an ambush.
* * *
DEPAUL COULD NOT believe it.
Empty. It was impossible, and yet the baron’s suite was empty. Just that fraud from Psych here, posing as the baron, living a lie to quell the public and apparently keep Cobaltville at peace.
DePaul had checked the complex of rooms that made up the suite, confirmed that there was no one here other than himself and DeSouza’s corpse. No baron to receive sentence, no final judgment to dispense.
DePaul stopped his angry pacing, stood before the vast bank of windows with their panoramic view of Cobaltville, its golden towers a thing of wonder and of magic when seen from so far above.
The plague would still be unleashed. Even now, parcels were winging their way across the land to begin the final judgment of the human race, to purge all evil from this wicked world.
But it felt an empty gesture now, with no baron to pass sentence on, to share in his hideous victory.
* * *
HE HAD MET Baron Cobalt once, nineteen years ago, when DePaul was eight years old. Salvo and another magistrate, Hunt, who had lost a hand and worked now as a trainer in the magistrate school, had placed goggles over DePaul’s eyes before accompanying him to a hidden elevator that needed two keys. The goggles blocked DePaul’s sight, leaving him reliant on his other senses instead. The men did not tell him where they were going, only that he had shown remarkable potential in his classes.
Is this a reward? DePaul wanted to ask, but he knew better than to voice the question. Hunt could turn cruel at the drop of a hat, while Salvo was an unknown quantity to the child, but had a reputation for impatience.