by Mark Johnson
The Renegade Within
FireWall Book One
Mark Johnson
Contents
Free Firewall Content
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Shadows In Fog
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Glossary
Acknowledgments
The FireWall Series
About the Author
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The search for the massacre’s perpetrator has moved to another land, but what did the demon leave behind in Armer?
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The Renegade Within and the FireWall series are works of fiction. All characters, events and locations in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This book is copyright. No part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or by any information retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for short excerpts for reviews, in fair use, as permitted by the Copyright Act. FireWall and its characters are copyright.
For rights and permissions please contact:
Mark Johnson
PO Box 64406, Botany, Auckland 2163, New Zealand
[email protected]
The Renegade Within, FireWall © 2020 Mark Johnson
Cover Art by Christian Bentulan © Mark Johnson 2020
Maps by Patrick McDonald © Mark Johnson 2020
Prophecy Press logo by Hannah Wynn
Paperback ISBN: 9798623526656
KDP ASIN: B086B93255
Created with Vellum
This book is dedicated to AMAN.
Prologue
“That is not a mine, sir,” said Sergeant Tummil.
Examiner Damulen Reeben muttered under his breath. Night was no time to investigate Polis Armer’s rural minelands, but orders were orders. Reeben followed the young man’s gaze to the stone tower.
“No. Mines don’t need lookout towers, do they?” Reeben replied. “We’ll have a look and get out of this valley before—”
“We’ve company,” Tummil interrupted.
Shadowed figures emerged from behind a nearby grassy hill. Reeben swore. “Tell me that’s not plate armor they’re wearing.”
“It is,” said Tummil, waving the other eight troupe members to lower their batons. “They’re Seekers all right, sir.” Tummil swallowed. The troupe muttered.
Reeben bit his lower lip. “Seekers means chaos energy. So, is it a dark shrine or cadvers in there? If the Seekers reckon there’s enough chaos energy floating about, we’ll leave them to it. Remember, watch out for anyone fighting over stupid things. But if there’s a poltergeist, you’ll know it. They’re not subtle.”
Tummil exhaled.
The Seekers stopped far enough from Reeben’s troupe for the parties to ignore one another. The Seeker Head approached, removing her helmet.
“Evening, Head. You had a safe walk out?” Reeben said.
“Terese Saarg, Armer Stone Chapterhouse.” The woman was the youngest Reeben had seen in command of a Head’s complement, perhaps thirty years old. Her brown hair rested on her shoulders against her slender metallic plate armor.
“Damulen Reeben, Jurat Quarter,” he said, taking her hand.
Her grip was firm. “The Center hologrammed us. Said they’d detected… irregularities.” She looked past him, to the lookout tower.
The mine’s door was thick enough to keep out the most crazed cadver. He knew that, for the door’s battered wooden remains lay in the mud a short way off, its internal side facing the sky, its hinges shattered.
“Whatever did that was trying to get out, not in,” Saarg said. “Is the site secure?”
“We scanned,” said Reeben. “It’s clear.”
Saarg frowned at the gaping stone doorway. “I believe you have jurisdiction, for the moment, Examiner.”
Very well, then, he thought.
Their truncheons at the ready, the eight investigators followed Tummil into the stone-and-mortar structure.
His muffled shout echoed moments later. “Examiner! We’ll need those Seekers!”
Saarg ordered her troops in. Reeben and Saarg entered behind them.
Inside, stale bread crusts were scattered over dust-coated bench tops, in cold, empty rooms. Dirty clothes and old newspapers lay discarded atop musty furniture. Then they came to the damp kitchen. A battered black hole was all that remained of a camouflaged trapdoor in the floor.
It was proof the place wasn’t a mine: This place hadn’t been used to attract raw iron to the surface. Whatever madmen had built this, they had actually dug into the earth!
Reeben took a deep breath. “Underground? Should we send for back-up?”
Saarg didn’t move. “I’m not sure we have time. If the Center learned of this place tonight, perhaps Polis did, too.” Fear painted Saarg’s face, haunted her eyes.
Rebeen’s throat tightened. “Masks! Lenses!” he shouted, fumbling for his own mask.
Saarg gave a similar command. Her face disappeared beneath metal and dark glass.
Reeben gritted his teeth behind his vent. “You have jurisdiction, Head.”
Saarg’s complement took the stairs, their clanking steps and the hum of their shockpoles the only sounds.
Reeben and Saarg descended, his Investigators following. The spiral shaft was tight. His breath quickened. As usual, his hip twinged when he stepped heavily on his right leg. Almost forty years ago, on his third raid ever, a thug with a wooden bat had gotten lucky. Once.
“The stairs are metal, Head.” Reeben’s vent made his voice metallic and harsh. The recycled air was stale.
“And deep. How did they dig this?”
“Not with spades.” He almost lost his balance and steadied himself, one hand against the stairwell’s smooth wall. If something waited down here, just above Swallowing depth, he wouldn’t be able to quickly climb those stairs.
They reached the bottom step. Reeben’s lenses rendered his gloves in shades of gray as he stroked the smooth walls. These walls. With no reinforcing wood or steel buttresses, it was as if they’d been baked into shape instead of excavated. He’d never heard of such construction techniques.
“It’s safe!” shouted a male Seeker. “But Head, you should see this!” Reeben didn’t see Saarg draw her shockpole, but he recognized its quiet hum. The thrill of its vibrations lifted the hairs on his neck.
Reeben followed her down the curved corridor, past small, tidy bedchambers and minimal lounges. He’d never heard of Darkness worshippers keeping such military precision.
“Through there!” called the Seeker, pointing at a doorway.
Reeben looked inside. “Burned Gods!” He leaped back from the door, suddenly glad of his vent’s sanitized air.
Seekers upped the charge on their poles, the humming now a swarm of angry wasps.
The parts would have made ten or so bodies. It was hard to be certain. There was no order to how the limbs and torsos had been ripped apart, then tossed about the chamber. Arms, legs and heads lay amidst congealed blood, painting the cei
ling, walls, and floor.
Forty years. Forty years, and he’d never seen anything like this.
There was a large metal box in the center of the room. Pipes and wires were plugged into its base, its rectangular front cover had fallen open. It was empty. He’d never seen a generator container that size. But where was the generator?
“Flies,” Saarg snapped.
“What?”
She indicated a nearby leg. “Where are the flies?”
Stunned to motionlessness, Reeben took stock of the room. “By the state of the limbs… it’s been over two weeks.”
“Complement, search this room,” Saarg called. “Touch nothing!”
The Seekers complied, whispering and making frantic gestures to one another, leaning over scattered body parts like dogs taking a scent.
Saarg joined Reeben, who stood over a mangled torso. He stared at it, waiting for his brain to clear. She bent and pushed the torso over.
“Head! It’s a crime scene. Leave—” He gasped. The lower half of the body had been torn away, but enough remained for him to recognize the large tattoo on the back: the image of a ruby flame encased in a blue cage.
“They’re Seekers?”
Saarg neither moved nor spoke.
“Saarg?”
“This… These… They went deep undercover. A month ago,” she said, her tone flat.
Reeben squinted. Something was off in her behavior. Of course she was upset; he’d be surprised if she wasn’t. But there was something he couldn’t put his finger on.
“I’m sorry, Saarg, about your colleagues. But Darkness worshippers didn’t do this to them. Nothing human could have. What was this undercover mission—”
The earth trembled. Not hard, nor loud, although the shake was resolute. It subsided.
Oh Gods, no.
Saarg stood quickly. “It’s going to be Swallowed, Reeben. Polis is coming, now. We must adopt Swallowing protocol.”
“I concur.” So much for procedure. There was no rule of law when a Swallowing began: Few professionals worked well as the ground shook. “How long do we have?”
“An hour. Maybe less. I have a siren, don’t worry.”
He’d ask about the undercover mission later.
They moved to the empty metal box.
“Look.” He indicated an imprint on the empty generator box’s side. “A hexagon sigil. This box came all the way here, to Polis Armer, from Polis Sumad?”
Saarg was motionless. “Where’s the generator?”
He touched the fittings. “Saarg, what energies do you lot sense down here? You haven’t mentioned chaos energy.”
Saarg still hadn’t moved. “We can’t sense any, Reeben. We’re somewhat confused.”
Chaos energy powered evil. It was the energy of Darkness worshippers, of dark shrines and cadvers. Whatever had painted these walls with Seeker entrails was evil, so why couldn’t Saarg’s troops sense chaos remnants? Unheard of.
“Head!” called another Seeker.
Gods, what now?
Reeben followed Saarg and her Seekers further into the structure, the stillness punctuated by their footsteps and amplified breathing. Hopefully there wouldn’t be another shake anytime soon. After passing more offices, lounges, sleeping chambers, and a kitchen, a Seeker indicated a door. Reeben pushed it open and drew back his hand in shock.
Another dark stairwell, spiraling downward into ever-deepening gloom.
“Impossible,” he whispered to Saarg. “Nothing can be this large underground. Nothing! Polis Armer would’ve seen it being excavated.”
“We go together,” she said.
Everyone was equal under Swallowing protocol. Any of their troops could have run back to the surface at any moment, without fear of recrimination. He wouldn’t mind running himself.
Was it colder down here? He’d never been this far underground. It should have been impossible to dig this far down. Polis wouldn’t have allowed it – if He’d known.
At the bottom step they readied their weapons. Then they stepped through the door together.
Had his lenses failed? He peered into the darkness as his lenses whined, struggling to adjust to the room’s massive dimensions. No, not a room. A warehouse, filled with rows of enormous sacks hanging from metal racks. Most of the racks had fallen over, and the sacks had been torn apart, ruptured, like broken eggs. Scattered beside them were irregular lumps of clay. No, not clay.
Reeben gagged. “Polis Armer preserve us,” he whispered.
Saarg wheezed frantically.
Cries of revulsion and dismay erupted around them.
Fragments of bodies. A sea of severed limbs, scattered in all directions, with hardened dark ooze pooling. Hundreds of souls torn from those strange bags and ripped to pieces. Gods, something had gone methodically through each row and killed each person in each bag, then tipped over each rack as it finished. But it had stopped in the middle of its work, where one rack was incompletely massacred. The racks beyond still stood, their bags untouched.
Behind him, someone vomited.
Slowly, the living edged forward. They grouped automatically, Seekers and Investigators together, not caring for political distinctions in the carnage. They kept a sweeping, rotating scan of the chamber. Reeben’s unsteady boots squelched underfoot. Saarg stumbled on an arm. She righted herself, sweeping the area with her shockpole.
Gods, nothing made sense! There was about to be a Swallowing, and Reeben could only gape in terror. The dead needed him aware and functioning. They deserved justice.
Look around, Reeben. Use your brain. Start where you see something different and work your way out from there.
“Let’s check the racks that are still standing,” he said.
If anyone or anything was waiting, surely it would have attacked by now?
The ruptured sacks were leathery. “Here. These sacks,” he said. “The ones standing. The bodies were inside. This clear stuff that’s mixed with the blood… some sort of preservative, maybe? Oh Polis, they were kept alive, fed oxygen and food with these tubes. Look, those tubes carried away their waste, because they were inserted…” He shook his head.
“These power cables head up,” Saarg said, “probably to that Sumadan generator box…”
That missing Sumadan generator was at the center of all this. But how?
Reeben went on. “Something pulled each person out, tore them apart, and stopped. Stopped right here. Those sacks still hanging will have bodies inside.”
“Without life systems they’ll have suffocated,” Saarg said.
He wanted to say he’d seen worse, but he hadn’t.
“Here.” Saarg knelt at the side of the row, by a fallen filing cabinet. She picked up some papers. “Names, and locations: by row and column.”
Information! Some blessed understanding at last.
Reeben stumbled toward her, over severed bodies, and grabbed at the nearest papers. Each paper had neat handwriting. He couldn’t read clearly because a black, flaking handprint obscured the papers. Dried blood.
“A survivor,” he said.
Saarg gasped.
“Saarg, there was at least one survivor who checked this cabinet when they got out of their sack.” He swung his head. “Saarg?”
She was motionless.
He examined the papers more closely. “Gods,” he said. “They’ve listed everyone. Their profession, age and the date they were ‘acquired’.”
“Here,” Saarg said, pointing at one paper. “The column and row the thing stopped at…”
“The missing Brogen Quarter guardsmen,” he said. “So, they didn’t all desert.”
Months earlier, the curious story of the Brogen guards had dominated the news for weeks. Forty of the miserable wretches on patrol around an abandoned village on the other side of the Polis had utterly vanished. To have brought forty men so far without witnesses was quite an accomplishment.
A grinding rumble echoed through the cavern. The ceiling cracked, dusting t
hem with debris.
“That was the Roar,” Saarg shouted above the quietening aftershocks. “We don’t have long.”
Reeben took a deep breath, careful to let it out slowly so none would notice. The Roar. Harbinger of the divine, foreshock of the Swallowing.
Polis Armer’s arrival.
These walls wouldn’t last. They’d shrink, trapping and suffocating them, leaving him stuck down here with all this evil death. He had to run for the surface. To daylight. Seekers with shockpoles weren’t enough. He needed light, not a world rendered in shades of gray. Gods, he needed to get out of here.
Tummil stepped in from the staircase and recoiled at the carnage. Reeben clasped his shoulder. “Just look for anything… you think I should see.” He’d almost said ‘unusual’.
“That Sumadan box upstairs was probably a generator, sir.”
“Yes, I know, Tummil.”
“A Seeker energy-scanned it.”
“And?”
“Nothing. No traces of electricity, no vibrations, no chaos. Or currency or suppression. I looked over his shoulder. Dry as a bone, sir.”
How could the Seekers not scent anything?
Reeben pushed a hand through his hair, scanning the chamber for some clue, some hint. No energetic traces? Nothing removed energies; they simply faded over time. Every device, mechanism, artifact and golem used energy. His vent used electricity, and his lenses used vibration energy.
What if…?
He removed his lenses, resting them on his forehead. The underground cavern should have been pitch darkness, but Gods help him, there was light.