Quantum wrath, p.25
Quantum Wrath, page 25
“Yeah, alright,” Lu sighed with a little disappointment. “So, what are you thinking?”
“Think about the weapons we’ve seen so far,” I said as I started up the stairs again. “They’ve been brutal and sadistic, yeah. But they’ve all ended in some variant of the same thing: A dead person… Except for this gun. This one not only killed the guy, it pulled something else from a new fucking dimension. Something incredibly dangerous. Now, why the hell would Alvari want to do something like that? Not just for shits and giggles, I guarantee you.”
We arrived outside the final set of double doors, and I would’ve bet good money that this was the holding cell where the prisoners were kept.
“I’ll have to think more about this once we get the fuck out of here,” I said as I rubbed my jaw. “There are missing pieces here that might be vital to what we’re planning. I just need to figure out what they are.”
Lu nodded silently.
I unlocked the manacles that held the final door handles together.
The stench of foul breath and unwashed bodies hit me like a freight train, and I almost staggered backward.
As the light from the rest of the tower crept into the dark room in front of me, I saw a mass of huddled bodies. Shadows pooled under their gaunt ribs, hollow cheekbones, and sunken eyes. They shifted weakly on the ground as they tried to cower away from the door.
Then one of them staggered to his feet.
“Take me,” he said in a ragged wheeze. “Just spare my son… Please…”
“Nobody’s being taken,” I spoke through the eye-watering stench. “You’re all free.”
Man, that wasn’t something I was used to saying.
There was a long moment of silence.
“A trick,” one of the people on the ground mumbled. “A trap.”
In general, my feelings toward people ranged from distrust to loathing, but I felt only pity for these poor bastards. They were not only starving and on their way to a painful death, they were also likely having serious withdrawals from Tress. The light leaking in from the tower glimmered off the sheen of sweat that covered their bony bodies, and it outlined every tremor and shiver that ran through them. Some people had their knees drawn up to their chins, and they were rocking as if to soothe themselves. There was the odd pool of liquid on the ground that could’ve been vomit or excrement or both.
There was nothing I could do to genuinely save these people, but the sight of them just made me that much more set on our mission at the obelisk.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine the work it would take to knit this tattered mess of a dimension into some type of livable society. It just seemed impossible.
But toppling their chief tyrant felt like just the right thing to do before I vanished. Then, in the blink of an eye, decades would pass.
It was honestly up to the people of this shitty dimension to decide what to do with all those years from there.
As the thoughts flitted through my mind, one of the men shifted to sit back on his heels, and he squinted up at me and Lu.
“Never seen no one like this working for ‘Vari before,” he finally said. He nodded his head toward Lu. “’Specially her.”
“Listen,” I said with a sigh. “You guys have got a chance to get the fuck out of here. The men who worked here are dead and locked in the capsules, but their Unit buddies will come looking here eventually. You’ll want to be gone when they do.”
In reality, I hoped that by the end of tonight, the Unit would be too badly crippled to even contemplate sending someone out to investigate the weapons lab. But who knew how many people this Alvari dude actually had working for him?
A few prisoners shuffled slowly to their feet, and they clutched at each other for support ‘til they managed to find their balance.
“Alright,” I said gruffly.
I was never one for goodbyes.
The glowing runes flared into life ahead. I cautiously knelt to disarm them again, and then I glanced back to see if everyone behind us made it through alright.
After that, I sped my pace to a brisk trot down the stairs.
Lu bounded down at my side, and she was oddly quiet as her pink eyes flicked back up toward the ragged people emerging onto the top landing.
“Think they’ll make it far?” she asked.
“Dunno,” I said honestly. “But at least they won’t die in here.”
On the ground level, I scoured what remained of the dead men’s bodies. There was an arm with a gunmetal bracer on it, which I promptly snatched to use for myself.
“Heath,” Lu called.
I straightened up and walked over to where she was crouched on the other side of the room.
She straightened up too and held out her hand to show me something she’d grabbed.
“A key?” I asked with intrigue.
It looked different from the keys to the manacles. It was bigger and far more intricate, and it was made of something light and shiny like platinum rather than the darker metal I’d glimpsed elsewhere here.
I immediately started hunting around for what it could belong to.
I noticed Lu drawing hearts on the walls with blood from one of the mangled bodies, and I shook my head.
“C’mon,” I said impatiently as I tossed the key from hand to hand. “If you were an utter simpleton, where would you hide–”
“Under the rug, of course,” she interrupted, and she stabbed her finger at the red rug near the back of the tower.
“Oh, right.” I smirked as I strode past her toward the rug. “I forgot, this type of thinking comes naturally to you.”
“Shut up, Heather-man.” She scowled and flicked blood drops at me as I passed her by.
I kicked the rug aside, and I couldn’t help but laugh as I spotted a keyhole in the ground.
I knelt, inserted the key, and turned it.
The keyhole gleamed bright blue as I removed the key. Then a network of glowing blue lines lanced through the ground like spiderwebs to form a wide circle with geometric panels in it.
“Ooooh,” Lu hissed as she skipped up to stand at my shoulder.
“Eeny, meeny, miny…” I reached out and cautiously pressed my fingers against one of the panels.
There was a low beep, and then the stone rose straight up of its own accord.
The hollow compartment that rose up was two-sided, so I leaned forward slightly to see what was inside.
It was a stack of little briefcases that were each about the size of a three-ring binder. I pulled the top one into my lap and noted that it had a moth engraved on it before I opened it.
“Grenades?” Lu suggested over my shoulder.
“Maybe,” I murmured.
The grenades, or whatever they were, that were nestled in the briefcase weren’t uniform in appearance. Each one had a slightly different size and shape, although they were all made of the same material.
I nudged one ever so lightly with my finger.
“It’s… soft,” I muttered as I stared at the little device.
But it also seemed sturdy, and it had a ring on it that was attached to a short little string.
“This is fucking bizarre,” I said. Still, I couldn’t help but grab a whole bunch of them and stuff them into the leather bag. They should come in extremely handy for our mission at the obelisk.
Some of the prisoners had finally reached the ground floor. Some of them took a step or two toward me and Lu, but when I rose to my feet to show something to her, they cowered away from my height.
They had hungry looks in their glazed eyes as they contemplated us, but they seemed to realize the shit I was holding wasn’t Tress, food, or water. So they shuffled along the edge of the mini canyon created by my grenade earlier and headed over to the big, cave-like gap in the wall.
When I glanced up again, they were hobbling out into the night together.
I opened a few more floor panels and found other weird-looking grenade type things. One of them looked like a damn Poke Ball to me, while another was an eerily glowing canister with a switch. There was a little glass panel in it that allowed me to see the neon-blue light inside, along with a gaseous, swirling mist.
“Looks like a trapped soul,” Lu said as she popped a bubble in my ear.
I shot her an irritated look. “Is that gum from that bald dude, or did you raid more people’s pockets for edible shit?”
“It’s baldy’s,” she assured me. “I’m trying to be, ummm, smarter, about that stuff.”
“Riiiight,” I muttered darkly.
I harvested a few more items from the safe. I wasn’t always one to fuck around with highly mysterious weapons so lightly, but considering we were planning on simply burning the obelisk to a smoldering husk, I didn’t really give a shit in this scenario. Maybe I’d even just chuck a handful of these into the building’s remains before we warped.
The idea was certainly a thrilling one. Even warping in general seemed a bit more thrilling than it once had. I wasn’t quite sure why this trip was affecting my mindset differently than the previous ones, but I wasn’t going to overthink it at the moment.
Sure, I wasn’t leaving the lab tower as a heap of smoldering rubble. That was the fate I had in mind for the obelisk. But the destruction here felt complete despite that. We’d effectively gutted the damn place, thrown off operations for who knew how long, armed ourselves properly for the fight ahead, and as a slight perk, we’d sent the right message:
Alvari wasn’t the only guy taking big swings here anymore.
Let him soak in that knowledge a bit before we slaughtered his ass.
But most importantly, I had learned something chilling, but undeniably important about this place.
Something that warranted more investigation.
We exited the tower through the giant hole that had been blown in the lower wall, and I smirked at our casual exit even as the surviving Unit men were ticking toward their various deaths up in the capsules.
But the red-skinned entity still haunted my mind.
The similarity to my own powers was extremely eerie. The only thing I could think of was that the Unit had somehow created a weapon that used the energy from its victim’s death to summon a creature from another dimension. This seemed like a blending of technology and magic that I hadn’t quite seen before. But judging by the enchanted sound panels in the deathly instrument capsule, this sort of blending might be something Alvari dabbled in quite a lot.
I knew this weapon was exactly the type of thing the Bureau would’ve wanted to do with my powers if they were able to harness them somehow.
So unlike Lu, my first instinct wasn’t to get my hands on such a weapon.
No, my first instinct was to destroy the creator at all costs.
But first, I needed to figure out what the fuck was going on with this place.
Chapter 14
The next day, I woke up feeling like I’d just touched a live wire, but in a nice way, if that were possible.
Electric flares danced across the inside of my skin like sparks chasing each other out of a roaring fire, and I had the brief sensation that all the molecules in my body were doing the conga. The light overhead shuddered, but it steadied as soon as I reined my zenith back in.
I was finally back at full charge. My next warp was pulsing and ready to be unleashed.
It wasn’t quite time for that, though. I had some business to clear up here first, but just knowing my zenith was at peak performance again seemed to realign all the atoms in my body.
Echoes of my dreams drifted back to me as I laid there and focused on calming the charged energy that flooded my body. The dreams had been bloody and chaotic– something that belonged in Blondie’s head more than mine, really.
But at this point, I had no complaints about being bloody and chaotic. That’s exactly what I intended to bring to the table for this place. Or the obelisk, at least.
“Sweet dreams?” Lu asked me as she bounced through the door.
“Yeah,” I grumbled as I swung to my feet. “I dreamed you learned how to knock.”
“Okay, Mr. Grumpy-Pantaloons,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. Ugh. Y’know, before I met you, I could count the number of times I’d apologized for anything, ever, on one hand. And now…”
“Now your life is much more exciting, no?” I yawned and propelled her out the door in front of me. “Get ready. We’re going to get something to eat. Do some listening around town.”
“Are we sure it’s safe?” she asked.
“Do you care?” I snorted as I dug my toothbrush from Laylix out of my rucksack.
“Nope.” Her eyes twinkled, but then a small frown creased her forehead. “Although if we’re splitting hairs, I’d rather not end up with a fuckin’ demon crawling out of my chest, I’ve gotta admit…”
“You already are a demon,” I pointed out with a grin. Then I got more serious. “If the worst comes to worst, we’ll warp… but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. I haven’t seen any signs of surveillance here like I have in other dimensions. That makes me think it’s worth another roll of the dice to venture back into the city itself and do some more recon.”
She tilted her head. “Signs like what?”
I almost sighed as I realized it was going to be a twenty-questions type of morning, but then I realized I didn’t really mind. I had never talked to anyone much about my travels. Not that I thought it was necessary. But the parallels I’d drawn between different dimensions were filed carefully away in my mind, and I honestly liked to go over them at times. Call it a morbid fascination, call it a practicality.
“I’ve found that Earth is actually pretty unique in how many areas specialized technology has branched out into over the years,” I said after a moment. “And Most dimensions tend to really hone in on one or two aspects of tech, like weapons. In places that are more trade-oriented, it’s transportation, translating devices, stuff like that. Sometimes it goes really far sideways, though, especially where magic is involved.”
“Is it common, then?” she asked curiously. “Magic, I mean.”
“Not quite as common as advanced technology,” I said with a shrug. “Still, the people in power tend to go just as overboard with either one. It almost always ends the same.”
“Huh.” She blew another bubble and popped it. “So, you think it’d be obvious if there was surveillance stuff here in… what’s it called?”
“Ryuqin. That’s what the guy in the city square called it,” I supplied with a nod. “In the few dimensions I’ve been to that did possess more surveillance tech, it was obvious right off the bat. Tyrants seem to find it irresistible to go overboard with that shit. In those dimensions, everyone tends to be painfully aware that they’re being watched. Constantly. Kind of like on Earth lately.”
“Yeah, ew,” Blondie said with a scrunch of her nose. “What about the creepy statues, then?”
“I’m thinking the statues aren’t for surveillance,” I said. “Although it’s possible– anything is possible, really. But again, I haven’t seen the telltale signs that overlords love to go for, like the statues’ heads turning when people walk by. One dimension I went to even had humanoid statues standing around, pacing, and scratching their noses and shit like they were people. All to remind everyone that they had eyes on them. And aside from that… I think Alvari will be busy tightening up security at the obelisk, at least for a short time.”
“Why?” she asked with a baffled look.
“Think about the security around that door with the crazy demon thing,” I said patiently. “Magic security inside a lab that everyone already tries to avoid at all costs? That means he didn’t want to take even the smallest sliver of a chance for someone to stumble in and witness that shit. Now, he knows someone has. As upset as I’m sure he is about that, I think there’s a good chance he’s going to want to increase security at the obelisk before going on a manhunt. And even when he does, what are the chances that he knows who he’s hunting?”
Lu almost went cross-eyed at this detailed line of reasoning, but after a few moments, she nodded.
“So,” she said with a frown. “Just to clarify… Are we in a hurry, or not? Do we want to make our move before he has a chance to tighten things up toooo much?”
I smirked a little. “Why? Are you concerned the two of us won’t be a match for his little security details?”
“No,” she snickered with a twisted grin.
“Exactly,” I chuckled. “If I cared about all that, I wouldn’t have risked exposing our presence with the heist at the weapons lab. As it is, it hardly matters. We’re more than adequately armed, and we’ll be able to swing things in our favor when the time comes.”
“True,” she sighed. “You and thinking things through…”
“So boring, I know,” I snorted. “For now, though, I think it’s important to gather more information, even if it costs us some time. I have questions I want answered. For one, I want to at least have some hint as to what Alvari’s endgame might be. Think about the raid, for example, when we saw the Unit guys basically creating new crawlers. Sure, maybe that was just a sadistic cherry on top of the excruciating clusterfuck of torment they’re putting these people through, but… What if it’s something more? What if that’s even something that happened purposefully right from the start?”
“Like Alvari turned people into crawlers on purpose, you mean?” Lu asked with an unnerved look.
I nodded. “I can see it happening. And partly, I can see why. They’re easy targets to drag off to the lab, for one. And it’s a population he can prey off without the rest of the people being too outraged. It creates an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’ But still, it just seems like there has to be something more. Because how the fuck does that creepy demon rifle fit into all this?”
I had been to dimensions where society’s villains were more than just thugs who used brute force to get their way and stay on top. Where they were playing the long game, with some grand plan going on– sometimes openly, sometimes behind the scenes.
