Quantum wrath, p.33
Quantum Wrath, page 33
I shoved his corpse aside and opened the door.
“C’mon,” I yelled down to Lu.
Her face screwed up with determination, and she got a running start before she followed my example in jumping up to the door.
Her hands clamped tight around the forearm I offered, and I hauled her the rest of the way into the room.
We panted as we looked around.
“Whoa,” I murmured.
Most of the room was occupied by a huge, round table. It had a massive gap in the center to accommodate a perfectly smooth crystal globe.
The globe was taller than me. It had a dark iridescence to it, and its surface was full of a cloudy haze that rippled slightly under my gaze.
I walked slowly toward it, but when I was about three feet away, the glass started to change color, and I froze.
Murky, gray-green shapes formed on it and arranged themselves across the globe throughout an expanse of gloomy blue. I barely had time to take this in before it abruptly zoomed in close on one of the shapes in a way that reminded me of several navigation systems I’d used across dimensions. Blurry shapes became crystal clear as they got bigger, and soon I realized I was staring at something along the lines of a map.
At the moment, the part of the globe facing me showed a swath of dim grayish-green. There were clusters of brighter, luminous green scattered around it, and they all surrounded a mass of dark rectangles that formed the layout of a city.
It didn’t take me long to spot the city’s layout, with its open squares surrounded by intertwined buildings. Near one side, there were three stunted volcanoes surrounded by a scattering of domed yurts.
This was a map of Pyrgeira.
“Interesting,” I muttered.
I did a quick scan of the map to see if it showed anything useful. After a moment, I spotted a bunch of small black points moving through the city streets.
I moved forward until my face was a few inches away from the glass, and Lu did the same.
“People?” she ventured.
“I think so,” I murmured.
But there definitely weren’t enough of them to be an illustration of every person in the city. And up close, I could see that these miniature people were shaped into figures that had a pointed black shape to their shoulders like the garb I’d seen Unit men wearing.
“Must only show men from the Unit,” I said.
There was a collection of the black figures inside the circular obelisk, too, but since the map was oriented from above, it was impossible to see exactly where they were.
I moved my eyes over to the weapons lab that was visible on the globe, too. I wasn’t entirely surprised to see that part of the building’s wall seemed to have been erased.
So, this globe device definitely functioned in real time.
I was satisfied to see that there were no Unit men marked in the weapons lab.
“Guess they disappear on the map when they die,” Lu snickered. “I wonder if it showed them being shredded into tiny black pieces, or just vanishing from view entirely.”
“No idea,” I said as I tore my eyes away from the globe. It was a pretty fascinating piece of technology, but it had nothing to offer us at the moment.
At the present, I was faced with a decision.
Which door?
There were two of them, both on adjacent sides of the room. They were arched and made of gleaming black metal with ivory handles.
And one of those handles had a spattering of red droplets on it.
“Oooh,” Lu giggled, and she skipped over the door.
“Wait,” I said sharply.
But she didn’t move to open the door. Instead, she reached down and lightly swiped one finger across the red droplets. They smeared at her touch, and her pale finger came away red.
Then she popped the finger in her mouth and sucked the red off it.
I rolled my eyes and groaned with disgust.
“Blood,” Lu announced as she removed her finger with a pop. “Human blood.”
“Jesus Christ, Blondie,” I said under my breath. “Fucking duh, it’s blood. You didn’t have to– Wait a second. Did you just discern the taste of human blood specifically?”
She sent me a slightly red-tinged grin that made her look like a damn lunatic.
“You could say I did some… extracurricular studies at school,” Lu giggled.
“Gross,” I sighed. “Don’t tell me about them.”
I strode forward and shunted her aside so I could turn the handle.
It was locked.
I reached out with my zenith to see if I could sense any kind of technology behind it. As I did, I could feel Lu’s pink eyes boring into my face, but I ignored her and focused on slowly questing out with my energy.
Then I encountered something weird.
“What is it?” she asked before I could say anything.
“Dunno,” I said distractedly.
I felt some type of energy, but it felt fuzzy and muffled somehow, like I was poking my finger into a bundle of cotton. Maybe it was some type of shield or force-field.
If so, the question was whether it would shatter under enough force.
“Only one way to find out,” I said with a shrug. “Stand back.”
I retreated to the far side of the room, and Lu followed me like an eager, bloodlusty puppy.
I deliberated for a moment as I looked at the two guns hanging from my chest.
After a moment, I decided on the acid gun. I had seen it punch through not only flesh and bone, but solid steel today, after all.
Still, I didn’t know exactly what type of shield I may or may not be dealing with, so I moved behind the giant globe and eased around just enough to see and aim the barrel of my gun at the door.
I aimed for a region near the three slim hinges, and I fired a quick test shot. Then I jerked my head and hands back without waiting to see the outcome, and I kept my zenith loose.
The sizzling hiss and a lack of green goo spraying into my field of view were promising, but the less tangible reaction was even more encouraging: The fuzzy feeling against my zenith flickered and died like a candle in the wind.
I peeked around the globe and saw a softball-sized hole in the door where I had shot. There were no glowing green drops on my side of the door, so I went ahead and traced a sizzling green line all the way down it.
It took me only a few seconds to slice through the door from floor to ceiling. I waited for a few moments to make sure no one was bursting into sight, and then I darted out from behind the globe.
“Let’s go,” I said.
I nudged the acid-free portion of the door open wide so we could get through. Inside, I skirted around the splattered goo and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dimness.
We were at the bottom of a stairway that zigzagged up into the darkness. It looked like there was a door at each landing, and my mind worked fast as I decided our next course of action.
Sure, we could go room by room ‘til we got to the top. But at this point, I was extremely interested in meeting this Alvari dude personally.
And if I were a power-hungry jackass who plastered statues of myself all over the city, I would sure as hell make my home at the very top of the obelisk.
Judging by the oil slick that the stairway had been turned into, I was fairly certain that he knew we were here. So the question was whether there would be more traps that hoped to stop us from our ascent. Or whether he’d save the best for last, knowing our most likely target was him.
Regardless, I sure as hell wasn’t about to turn back now. I wanted to at least lay my eyes on this bastard before I warped out of here and left this place in my dust. We would proceed carefully until either we found him, or we were forced to warp out of here.
“We’ll go straight to the top level,” I said in a low voice. “And deal with any obstacles along the way. Keep your eyes and ears open.”
Lu nodded silently, and she was close on my heels as I approached the staircase.
I gazed upward for a few moments, and then I slowly stretched out my foot and stepped one toe onto the bottom stair.
Nothing.
“That was anticlimactic,” Lu said under her breath. “Super boring honestly, it would’ve been way more fun if–”
“Stay ready,” I murmured.
“Yeah, fine,” she sighed.
I kept my gun poised as I stole up the stairs. We made it to the first door without incident, and I stopped to listen for a brief moment. Everything seemed silent, but my zenith sensed the same weird, cottony feeling on this doorway as the one we had just passed through.
I moved on.
Door after door stayed still and silent as we gained height inside the obelisk, and I couldn’t help but wonder why we were making it completely unscathed.
Maybe this Alvari dude thought he was leading us into some type of trap.
If so, the fucker had no idea what he was dealing with.
Lu and I were like a walking, talking, bear trap and kamikaze combo wrapped in two super-powered packages.
Finally, we made it to a wider landing with ornate double doors at the top. To my surprise, these ones were made out of simple wood, a pale white grain with red veins running through it.
My zenith sensed a similar muffled feeling around this door, and I debated for a moment how I wanted to get in.
I had seen by now that the acid gun posed some threat of cutting just about anything in half, and if this Alvari dude was in the wrong place, that could happen to him.
I wasn’t quite ready for that yet, though. After all, we’d come all this way to bring death and destruction to his doorstep. And I couldn’t deny I was burning with curiosity at this point. I wanted to at least meet this bastard before I did him the courtesy of blowing his brains out.
Lu tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to see an evil grin blooming on her face.
She stepped toward the door with her fist raised as if to knock and shot me a hopeful look.
I stared at her pulsing pink eyes for a long moment, and I almost shook my head.
But then I realized… Why the hell not?
I quickly made sure the leather bag I’d stolen from the lab was tucked under my shirt, because I thought the fact that I’d stolen it should remain hidden for the moment.
Then I gave Lu a nod.
Her pale knuckles rapped firmly against the door three times.
“Enter,” a smooth voice called from the other side.
Lu couldn’t have understood it, but either she recognized the inviting tone of voice or she just didn’t care.
Probably the latter.
She opened the door and strutted right into the room like she owned the place.
I shoved my way forward to stand at her side and get an eyeful of whoever the hell this guy was.
He was standing there almost like he’d been waiting for us. He had his weight propped back against a gleaming obsidian desk on the far side of the room, and he was gazing out a round, open window at the twisted lights of the city nearby.
He took his time turning his face toward us, but the first thing I noticed was that he was wearing something like a respirator mask. My mind leaped to the possibility that he was about to gas this whole place and stand there while we suffocated.
But as he faced us, I realized the mask was something completely different.
“What the hell?” I breathed.
Chapter 19
The mask Alvari wore was hooked up to a small canister that hung by his hip.
That was when I realized this wasn’t a respirator.
It was a ventilator.
He sucked in a harsh, rattling breath and smiled through the foggy glass at us. Other than the ventilator, he looked just like the statues depicted him: Trim and suave, with an aristocratic face and a slightly sardonic smile.
It struck me that somehow, his mustachios were perfectly preened and curled. I couldn’t help but wonder how it was possible, but then my eyes caught the telltale gleam of dark metal, and I had to bite back a smirk.
I had already known Alvari was vain by the fact that he plastered the town with statues of his own likeness. I just hadn’t realized he was vain enough to have a fucking prosthetic mustachio to keep up his appearance.
I could’ve struck at that moment, but a good part of me was consumed by curiosity. I’d come here expecting, as Lu called him, the big baddie.
I managed to keep my face deadpan. I let him look his fill while he scanned the two of us up and down, and I did the same for him.
What I saw was mildly disturbing.
He was wearing a high-necked black shirt with armored silver shoulders, and wide-legged pants that swung around his stockinged ankles above a pair of black loafers. But the few inches of neck that were visible above his shirt had a mottled gray appearance.
Disgust flickered through me as I noticed an actual maggot burrowing through the flesh.
Alvari appeared to notice it, too. His brow creased momentarily, and his lip twitched in displeasure.
Then a thumbnail-sized golden spider skittered out of the collar of his shirt and ate the maggot in one crisp bite.
It was followed by the appearance of a slim, scaly golden snout. A pair of emerald eyes came next. Bit by bit, a clinking, metallic golden snake proceeded to slither up out of the collar of Alvari’s shirt. It twined itself loosely around his neck, and his fingers drifted up to stroke its head absently like it was a living creature and a beloved pet.
But my brain barely even had time to contemplate these bizarre occurrences, because I was too busy staring at the thing my eyes encountered next: Alvari’s chest. The fabric of his shirt had a circular cutout in the front to display a big glass window.
A window that showed directly into the man’s chest cavity.
My mind was racing in silence, but Lu wasn’t so accustomed to holding in her thoughts.
“Impossible,” she scoffed.
Alvari’s dark eyebrows rose, and he shot me a questioning look.
For a moment, I contemplated what I should do. Attack, or roll the dice?
I rolled the dice.
“She said that’s impossible,” I said with a gesture at his chest.
I took care not to let it show, but I was burning with curiosity, too.
Because the body I saw only looked marginally human.
I wouldn’t have said I was an expert on the human body by any means, but still, it seemed to me that there was a hell of a lot more empty space than there should’ve been in an ordinary person’s chest. I could see the tops of his entrails, which were a slimy and disgusting nightmare, but above that it was like a fucking empty cavity with the odd band of ragged muscle stretched taut across it. I stared through the bars of a ribcage that seemed to be made of pure metal and saw a grossly swollen, slowly thudding heart, along with a shrunken and shriveled-looking set of lungs and a wilting diaphragm below.
And throughout it all, there was a network of thin, twisted metal frameworks that seemed to hold things in place. One had a silvery membrane that hung like a hammock to cradle something that might’ve been a kidney, but looked like nothing more than a shriveled beet.
The lungs puffed and sagged several times as I watched, and I had time to notice several sets of gears and tiny, gleaming points of light inside the window, too.
His voice drew me out of my almost mesmerized state of contemplation.
“I’m known as Alvari,” he said in an impeccably polite voice. It had a slight accent that sounded almost like a Spanish accent back home. “It’s good to finally meet you two. My apologies for the trick with the stairs. I’d given my men orders to admit you to me if you managed to make it through the outer barriers, but I believe the manner of your coming frightened them.”
He chuckled lightly and shook his head as if his murderous thugs were a bunch of precocious children.
I guessed that explained why we hadn’t encountered any more traps or attacks on the way up here, though.
“Let’s play a game,” Alvari offered in a friendly, inviting voice. “Or rather, make a trade. Question for question. Answer for answer.”
“Sure.” I looked into his dark, steady eyes, but I didn’t smile back.
He lifted a hand like he was going to stroke his mustachio, but his fingers bumped into the respirator instead. Annoyance flickered through his eyes, but he made a show of leaning back and switching his gaze to look out the window in a leisurely way.
“Several days ago,” he finally said in the tone of someone telling an amusing anecdote, “my men told me they encountered something very odd. A great, hulking brute of a man, and a small, skinny woman at his side. They appeared to be caught up in a raid.”
He paused and sucked in another deep, rattling breath before he continued in his casual tone of voice.
“It is said that these two people managed not only to battle against my stone wardens,” he went on, “but against the mercenaries themselves. They snatched the men’s weapons, and they managed to battle against my stone wardens– who were only there to shield the people, as anyone will tell you–”
I snorted loudly, but Alvari went on in his serene voice.
“And then I was told of something even more curious,” he said. “That these two people had not come from somewhere nearby, but appeared out of thin air, in a flash of white light and a smell of burnt metal.”
Lu appeared to be growing bored with this conversation that she couldn’t remotely understand, but I shot her a warning look, and she ceased her shifting from foot to foot.
“I was quite curious about these two people,” Alvari went on. “But I lost track of them soon after this encounter. Still, they had arrived in such a spectacular fashion that I expected them to make quite a scene in the city. And yet, I heard nothing… until eight of my good men unaccountably vanished.”
“Your good men?” I chuckled. “By what standards were those poor, dead bastards anything along the lines of ‘good?’”
“So you did kill them,” he said lightly and without surprise. “How did you manage it?”
“With their own guns, of course.”
“Ahh.” He eyed me with blatant intrigue and a hint of suspicion, and the snake on his shoulder stirred. “And yet… Other than those pesky mercenaries and the beloved Unit who shields our society from them, no one in Ryuqin has any knowledge or experience of such weapons. Most people have never so much as touched a gun. They can be tricky for one who’s unfamiliar with such things. But forgive me… I believe it is your turn now.”
