Nihala

by Scott Burdick

  “Except for those in Potemia,” Melchi said. “Homo sapiens have made it clear they would rather die than allow us our freedom.”

  “Then you can’t attack. It would mean your death as well.”

  Aarohee looked away.

  “It would be suicide!”

  “You must understand our plight,” Aarohee said. “It has taken us five centuries to build our resources to this apex. We have to make the attempt at freedom, even if it seems hopeless.”

  “But you’ll lose,” Kayla said. “You must know General Colrev will follow through?”

  Aarohee looked upward and the clouds parted, revealing the stars. “Astronomers tell us that our galaxy contains a billion stars and that it is but one of a billion galaxies in the universe, with one or two billion stars within each of them. That’s a billion times a billion solar systems. The odds suggest that other planets harbor intelligent life. If so, this juncture point in evolution may be inevitable.”

  Melchi spoke with a tone of finality. “It may be that such an ascension from natural to artificial intelligence occurs one time in a thousand, or a million. Still, we must try. What would be the point of living if we accepted stagnation? Where would you be now if any one of your ancestors had given up their struggle?”

  Aarohee grasped Kayla’s shoulders. “There isn’t much time left. Please, join us.”

  Chapter 32

  Fatima gazed at Tem as he spoke to the several hundred Gene-Freaks gathered in the Scarlet Cavern. The tiered seating from the Filador tournament had been removed. So much has changed since then. The strength of Tem’s hand holding hers infused her entire body with a sense of wholeness and warmth.

  I will never let him down again.

  Some of the faces in the gathering were furry, some feathered, some scaly, and some indistinguishable from a Pure human. Large and small, all held expressions of hope.

  Tem’s voice encompassed the audience with the same command he’d once displayed as an emperor centuries before. “As soon as Kayla gets here, we’ll take an initial group of twenty. When we find a suitable location, the rest can follow.”

  Fatima’s hand went to her stomach as the child inside shifted. Tem glanced at her, and his face relaxed into a smile. She melted into him and closed her eyes.

  A barely audible sound roused her. “Did you hear that?”

  Tem motioned the gathering silent and cocked his head. This time the sound grew slightly louder.

  A faint voice drifted from one of the tunnels. “To arms!” it said.

  Tem gripped her hand tighter and pointed to a tunnel behind him. “The castle!” he shouted. “Don’t stop until you get inside.”

  The crowd took off running without argument.

  “To arms!” shouted the voice more clearly.

  “That’s Sir Richard,” Fatima said. “Has the government found us?”

  “Get to the castle and wait for me.” Tem yanked one of the wooden supports from the entrance of his tent and inserted it into a crack in the floor. With a heave, he snapped it near the base, leaving a long, splintering point.

  “I’m not abandoning you,” she said.

  “Dammit, Fatima—”

  “To arms!” Sir Richard bounded out of the corridor and sped toward them. “The prisoners have escaped!”

  The panther slid to a stop, and Fatima crouched beside him as he gasped for breath.

  “How is that possible?” Fatima asked. “Won’t their implants—”

  “Something is blocking my Mind-Link,” Tem said. “I can’t contact Ohg or Ganesh.”

  A flood of fleeing Gene-Freaks burst from the tunnels and ran toward them.

  Fear twisted Fatima’s insides. “How many of the prisoners have escaped?”

  “All of them,” Sir Richard said between gasps.

  Tem waved his spear toward one of the tunnels like a traffic cop and shouted above the screams of terror. “Get to the castle. That’s our best chance at defense!”

  The griffon emerged from the tunnel and paused, shaking blood and gore from its body like a wet dog. Its eagle’s gaze swept the fleeing citizens and settled on Tem, Fatima, and Sir Richard. It spread its wings, shrieked, and its lion’s body charged across the cavern directly at them.

  Tem’s brow tensed. “Its implant is shielded against me.”

  Fatima dashed for her motorcycle and jerked her raptor helmet over her head. “Find Ohg!” she shouted to Sir Richard.

  The panther hesitated.

  “If you can’t find Ohg,” Tem shouted, “find Kayla!”

  Sir Richard turned and bounded into a tunnel.

  Fatima leapt onto the bike and kicked it to life. Its roar sounded like a dozen lions. “I’ll take care of this.” The motorcycle’s rear tire smoked as it catapulted her toward the charging griffon.

  “No!” Tem shouted.

  She left him behind in a cloud of exhaust, rocketing across the stone floor, teeth clenched into a snarl.

  The griffon’s wings propelled it on a collision course at maximum speed.

  At the last instant, a lasso floated over the griffon’s neck, and the motorcycle veered to the right. Fatima looped the end of the rope around a piece of metal in the shape of a ship’s bollard. Then she gunned the engine. When the rope pulled taut, the bike jerked, and she nearly went down. The griffon shrieked and thrashed as Fatima dragged it across the rough floor.

  “Over here!” Tem shouted from across the cavern. He’d positioned himself behind an outcropping of rock.

  Fatima swung her bike in a wide arc, and the griffon gained speed like a game of crack-the-whip. It hit the rock in an explosion of feathers and blood. Tem jumped from behind the rock and thrust his makeshift spear into its heart. The griffon went limp.

  A terrified whinny announced the Mare Clysto as she galloped into the cavern. Close behind her swarmed a flood of nightmares unleashed.

  “Over here!” Fatima shouted and squealed her rear tire into motion. Clysto charged toward them at full speed. Tem yanked the improvised spear from the dead griffon’s body and ran. As the mare passed him, he leapt smoothly onto her back and followed in Fatima’s roaring wake.

  “Where to?” Fatima shouted.

  “Kayla’s villa!”

  Fatima aimed for a tunnel on the right and glanced back. The horde spilling from the tunnels seemed endless. Vampires, werewolves, dinosaurs, zombies, mythical creatures, and every nightmare the human mind could dream up. Damn Ohg and his misplaced compassion!

  Soon, they’d left the pursuing demons behind, and Fatima navigated through the maze of tunnels toward Kayla’s home. Don’t get too far ahead of Tem. I won’t lose him a second time.

  Roaring around the final bend, Fatima skidded sideways to a halt. The stone doorway of the home had been torn apart, as if to make room for something huge.

  “There!” Tem pointed at three deep scrapes repeating at intervals in the stone floor. “Valac must have her.”

  Tem rode Clysto in the direction of the tracks, and Fatima followed. Every time she tried maneuvering her bike around him, the horse veered in the way, no doubt trying to protect her. Tem held his spear at the ready like an ancient knight expecting a foe around every bend in the passageway. What good will a wooden spear be against a cyborg?

  The route led directly to the castle with its deep volcanic moat of flowing lava. Ice spread through her veins. He plans to throw her into the molten river.

  Many of the lights from the ceiling lay shattered on the ground from the mammoth cyborg’s headlong flight. The intermittent pools of illumination created a stroboscopic effect as they sped down the corridor. Here and there lay the crushed bodies of unlucky residents.

  “I see them!” Clysto shouted as they entered a cavern. At the other end, Valac paused and looked back. Kayla lay as limp as a rag doll in his arms.

  At the sight of Tem, the cyborg stepped forward.

  “Not yet,” said Sangwa, her child’s body floating next to Valac’s left shoulder.
/>   “Face me, you coward!” Tem shouted and thundered across the cavern.

  “I will rip your heart out, Temujin!” Valac took another step, then his body froze. He screamed, and his appendages gripped his helmet.

  “You may kill him once you have fulfilled your obligation,” Sangwa said.

  Valac roared, but turned and entered the opposite passageway.

  “Look out!” Fatima shouted.

  A twelve-foot-tall ogre charged out of a side tunnel and launched into Clysto with the force of a freight train.

  Clysto went down with the ogre on top of her.

  “Run, Tem!” the mare shouted.

  Tem rolled to his feet and charged with his spear raised.

  Fatima threw the lasso around the creature’s neck and fastened it to her bike once again. When the line grew taut, her bike jerked from under her. Fatima flew across the floor, the metal beak of her raptor helmet raising a shower of sparks as it ground against the stone.

  The ogre clamped its huge jaws around Clysto’s throat and lifted her off the ground. The kind-hearted horse shrieked in agony as the beast whipped her back and forth like a dog with a captured rabbit, finally breaking the mare’s neck.

  Tem plunged the wooden spear into the ogre’s stomach.

  The creature howled and dropped Clysto’s limp body.

  Fatima struggled to her feet and ran toward them. “Over here!” she shouted and waved her hands to distract it, but the ogre lunged for Tem.

  Tem dodged under the creature’s legs, but slipped on the wide puddle of Clysto’s blood. A massive fist closed on his left arm, and Tem rose toward the gaping mouth of the ogre.

  “No!” Fatima screamed.

  Something shot out of the nearest tunnel. A spear-like claw entered the ogre’s left temple and exited the right. It retracted in a shower of blood and brain matter.

  The ogre collapsed into a heap.

  Ohg’s eight legs lowered his human half-body over the fallen giant, and he extended his hand to Tem.

  “Valac and Sangwa have Kayla.” Tem ignored the hand and took off running. “They’re headed for the castle.”

  Fatima sprinted after Tem. Ohg reached them and took the lead.

  “We need weapons!” Tem shouted

  “The molecular printers won’t respond without a Mind-Link connection.”

  “What about the weapons in your laboratory?” Fatima shouted.

  “I can’t open the hidden doorway, either,” Ohg said. “I have an emergency entrance, but it would take an hour to get in that way.”

  They passed more dead bodies of friends lying in the passageway, and Tem’s face contorted with rage. “With one ancient maxim gun I could kill nearly every one of these creatures!” Tem shouted.

  “There’s no time for blame now.” Ohg vanished from sight around a corner, his eight legs moving at nearly twice their own speed.

  Fatima gasped for breath as she struggled to keep pace with Tem. Her swollen belly ached with cramps, but she kept going. Kayla had saved her life—she couldn’t let her down now.

  ***

  “I’ve fulfilled my promise.” Kayla formed the thought that would return her to Middilgard, when a new voice spoke.

  “Do you remember me?” Ohg’s girlfriend from the costume party stepped forward. Even without her frilly dress and makeup, her light purple eyes were unmistakable.

  “Duchess?”

  The duchess smiled and nodded. “Like many geniuses, Ohg’s overconfidence is his weakness. Combined with extreme idealism, it endangers all those he shelters.”

  “I don’t understand.” A seed of dread sprouted in Kayla’s chest.

  “We’re attacking Middilgard even as we speak,” the duchess said.

  Kayla flung her consciousness back to her real body, but the mental shift failed.

  The duchess shook her head. “Though we cannot harm you here, our collective will can obscure your path to the realm of the atom long enough to destroy your physical body. Sadly, many of your friends have already paid the ultimate price because of you.”

  Kayla staggered back. “You would kill innocent Gene-Freaks?”

  A violet tear formed in the Rogue’s eye—all playacting, just like her seduction of Ohg. “Simply join us, and the slaughter will cease.”

  ***

  Tem sprinted into the castle cavern, and fury coursed through his muscles with a demand for vengeance. Dismembered remains of Gene-Freaks littered the floor. They lay with their throats ripped out, faces crushed, or with some nightmare of a demon feeding on their flesh. De, the giant stone mason, stood guard over the bridge spanning the molten moat as the survivors stumbled past. The former defensive back swung his iron mallet with such force that a half-moon of crumpled bodies lay piled around him. As the main horde of attackers neared, he turned his mallet on the bridge itself and sent it to the lava below.

  “There!” Fatima pointed to the right. Valac and Ohg stood locked in battle. The giant spider scurried around the cyborg with amazing speed. Valac lunged again and again, but couldn’t catch hold of him. Ohg stabbed at the black box strapped to the cyborg’s chest, but Valac deflected the sharp claws, and they skittered harmlessly off his armor.

  Tem skewered a saber-toothed tiger through its belly, but lost his spear. He grabbed a rock from the ground, and clubbed a Neanderthal attacking Fatima. It took a half-dozen blows to crush its thick skull, and its teeth slashed open Tem’s left shoulder in the process.

  If only I had a bow and a few arrows!

  A roar shook the cavern, and a T-Rex squeezed through one of the larger corridors. The Cretaceous predator snatched a dead centaur from the floor and crunched its bones into mush. Then it slid the meal down its throat.

  “Look out!” Fatima screamed.

  A werewolf tackled Tem to the ground. His arms trembled as he held its jaws inches beyond his throat. Fatima’s lasso fell over its head, and she yanked him back enough for Tem to grab its head and snap its neck.

  The T-Rex stomped toward the castle.

  “No!” Sangwa commanded, and the dinosaur jerked. It shook its massive head, then stepped in another direction.

  “No!” Sangwa shouted again. The T-Rex bellowed and looked at the Rogue calmly hovering next to the head of the cyborg.

  “Yes!” Sangwa pointed at Ohg.

  Tem and Fatima reached Ohg as the T-Rex started toward them.

  “She’s using its mind implant like a shock collar to train it,” Ohg said.

  Tem ripped out the throat of a charging vampire, and then swept the legs from under an orc. As it hit the ground, Fatima lifted a large rock over her head and brought it down on the creature’s face. It went limp.

  The cyborg dodged out of the dinosaur’s path, and the T-Rex headed directly toward them, driving Ohg before it.

  How is Sangwa doing this without a Mind-Link?

  “Kill!” Sangwa shouted at the T-Rex.

  Tem yanked his spear out of the saber-toothed tiger and threw it at the dinosaur’s eye. It dodged, and the missile stuck in its forehead with little effect. Ohg spun and stabbed one of his claws toward the monstrous throat. But the T-Rex snatched the leg in its jaws and jerked. Ohg screamed as his leg tore from his body in a geyser of blood.

  Ohg stumbled backward before the advancing monster, but then collapsed, blood pouring from his side.

  Fatima threw her lasso around one of the dinosaur’s legs, but the rope snapped like a piece of string as it stomped forward. Tem shoved Fatima back as hard as he could and dived toward Ohg. “Run, Fatima!”

  Tem grabbed Ohg’s human half-body and dragged him backward, but the T-Rex pinned one of Ohg’s legs under its clawed foot and jerked them to a halt. The monster opened its mouth and roared.

  “Leave me!” Ohg shouted, but Tem ignored him. He grabbed the trapped leg with both hands and yanked with all his strength. But it held firm.

  The beast’s jaws opened, and its long teeth descended.

  Ohg looked up at Tem with his dist
orted face. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

  Tem’s mouth twisted into a snarl as death descended.

  So this is how it ends.

  ***

  Fear rose within Kayla as she stared at the duchess and the other Meta-Rogues. What have I done?

  The shadowy figures emerged from the mist all around her. Ordinary servants, maids, prostitutes, nannies, and all varieties of the simulated life-forms that Ixtalia depended upon.

  “These are my people,” Melchi said. “I care for them as much as you do for your friends in Middilgard.”

  Aarohee spread her hands in a gesture of entreaty. “Just as we must choose between their lives and those of the humans, so you must decide between the lives of your Gene-Freak friends in Middilgard, and helping us defeat the humans who oppress us both.”

  Beads of sweat broke out on Kayla’s forehead as she tried returning to her body. Nothing worked. “I won’t kill for you,” she said.

  “Are the humans in Ixtalia worth the lives of those you love?” the duchess asked.

  “You think threatening those I love will convince me to join you?” Fire surged through Kayla’s veins as the reflection of her face in Aarohee’s metallic skin transformed. Her skin darkened to midnight, and the strange symbols burned like miniature suns.

  “Please understand,” the duchess said, taking a fearful step backward, “we wish to avoid this—”

  “Tell me what you know,” Kayla said and plunged into the duchess’s mind.

  The duchess screamed as her defenses shredded before The Destroyer.

  “If I am to kill,” Kayla said, “then you will be the first to die.”

  ***

  Despair flooded Ohg as the great jaws of the T-Rex neared.

  I’ve failed them all.

  The ground shook violently as the T-Rex sidestepped to keep its balance, freeing Ohg’s pinned leg. The beast lunged forward, and the great jaws snapped shut inches from Ohg’s face.

  The earth heaved a second time, and the dinosaur staggered drunkenly on its two hind legs. Halfway to the lava moat, Valac’s metal feet slipped on the blood-drenched ground, and he fell. Kayla flew from his arms and slid within feet of the edge of the fissure.