Worlds collide architect.., p.12
Worlds Collide (Architects of the Apocalypse Book 2), page 12
“I didn’t think so,” Axel growled. He reached in for the handle and twisted it, pulling out a black cylinder that was about a foot long and maybe the same around.
“What is that?” Alice asked.
“Some kind of mechanical key, I think. Or a critical component anyway. The Gateway doesn’t work without it.”
“But it’s still charging?” Bruce asked.
“Yes,” Axel replied.
Bruce looked back up at the dish to check. The status hadn’t changed.
“You said we can’t activate the Gateway without you,” Tom pointed out. “So why are we so worried about the Russians figuring it out?”
“Because Fango has a mech suit,” Axel said. “And I might have twisted the truth about not being able to access the Gateway or the elevator. You need to be wearing one of these suits. That’s it.”
“You need to cut that shit out,” Bruce snapped.
“What shit?” Axel asked.
“The lies. You want us to trust you, but you keep twisting the truth or outright lying to us.”
“Sometimes we lie to protect people,” Axel said. “Everything I’ve done has been to keep you all safe, but I’m done protecting you from yourselves. You want to go home? Go ahead. I’m not going to stand in your way.”
“Yeah, you better not,” Bruce muttered.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tom said.
“Can I have my weapon back?” Axel asked.
“No,” Bruce replied.
Tom clipped it to his armor, while keeping his own rifle at the ready.
Alice turned and started toward the elevator.
As she did so, the doors sprang open, revealing a group of four soldiers and someone in a familiar suit of black armor. A bright red laser beam snapped out of the convict’s rifle and slammed into Axel’s side. Axel screamed, and dropped the cylinder he was holding.
Bruce and Tom both fired back, dropping two soldiers with electric-blue stun beams. They collapsed in shuddering heaps.
Alice recovered from her shock and fired into the elevator just as the remaining soldiers took aim on the source of the stun beams leaping out at them. Bullets roared into the chamber, plinking off the walls and their armor.
Bruce dove for the floor and held his fire, taking his time to line up Fango instead. Their cloaking shields made them invisible, but shooting their weapons gave the enemy soldiers something to aim at.
Bruce switched to lethal lasers and snapped off a shot at Fango. That crimson beam glowed brightly against his armor and drew a scream from his lips. With that, the elevator doors began closing.
The two remaining soldiers argued loudly with each other in Russian while snapping off parting bursts through the closing doors.
“They’ll be back with reinforcements,” Bruce said, breathing hard as he jumped to his feet.
“The stairwell ... we have to hurry ...” Axel croaked between gasps for air.
Tom ran over and helped him to his feet, and then the four of them ran for the reinforced door beside the elevator. It opened with their approach, and Bruce led the way, sprinting up the stairs.
“Which floor?” Bruce asked over the comms.
“S4,” Axel managed just as Bruce passed a landing with a door labeled S8 - Bunker.
The next one said S7 - River Access, and Bruce skidded to a stop.
“Can’t we get out here?”
“Only if you want to go for a swim,” Axel replied. “The lower access is on sub-level four.”
Bruce grunted and vaulted up the stairs with Alice right behind him. Five levels. Ten flights of stairs. Precious time was slipping away. Odds were good that they’d get intercepted again on their way out.
Bruce held his rifle at the ready.
A new voice joined theirs over the comms.
“Let’s talk about this,” Fango said. “They want the same thing as you. To activate the Gateway. Show them how to do it, and they’ll let you go home.”
“Yeah, maybe in a body bag,” Bruce muttered. “Axel, how the hell is he on our comms?”
“The suits are designed to speak to each other. Hang on ...”
“Be reasonable,” Fango insisted. “You won’t be able to get back in here again. I’m going to show them how to use the mech suits. The sensors will see through your—”
“Got it,” Axel said. “His comms are cut off now.”
Tom cursed fiercely. “I warned you he was trouble.”
Bruce reached S4 and the door opened automatically for him as soon as he began looking for a control panel. He ran back into the generator room with Alice, finding it mercifully empty.
“Wait up,” Tom said, breathing a rush of static into their ears.
They turned to look back, and found that Tom and Axel weren’t there. Of course they’d been slower with Axel’s injuries slowing them down.
Tom and Axel came limping into view.
And the elevator opened, sending another four soldiers out.
Bruce froze. As did Tom and Axel, pressing themselves against the nearest wall to get out of the way.
The soldiers silently fanned out through the generator room, rifles raised, and making hand signals to each other as they went.
“Let’s go,” Axel whispered.
Bruce led the way, creeping along behind two of the enemy soldiers as they wove between humming generators. At least the noise of the machinery muffled their footsteps.
The exit was dead ahead. But if they opened it, they’d be giving themselves away.
“We have to do something about these guys,” Bruce said. The soldiers ahead of them stopped by the door and spent a moment by the control panel trying to figure it out. Bruce wondered why it didn’t open automatically for them like the doors had for him when he’d first explored the facility. But then he recalled that he’d been abducted, and supposedly implanted with some type of alien device in his brain. These soldiers had come here on their own, so they wouldn’t have the same thing.
“Give it a minute,” Axel whispered.
The soldiers figured out how to open the door from the control panel, and they cautiously slipped out into the dazzling light of day.
The waterfall was roaring beside them, generating even more noise than the generators.
“Now!” Axel hissed.
Bruce shot one of them in the back. A char-blackened hole opened in the back of the man’s body armor, and a little gout of flames erupted from his spine. He fell with a gasp and slipped through the railings to the river below. Another man shouted in alarm and began spinning around. Alice ended his struggle with a stun bolt, and he collapsed in a spasming heap.
“Run!” Axel shouted, racing by them, still limping, but using the railings for support. Tom had the component from the Gateway in one hand. His rifle in the other.
When he was only halfway down the catwalk between the dam and the cliffs, Bruce heard some commotion erupt behind him. The other two soldiers. One of them was crouched by the fallen man, the other sweeping his rifle warily around. Bruce lined the soldier up, backpedaling the rest of the way down the bridge, but the Russian never opened fire. He helped his friend drag the stunned soldier back into the generator room, and then the door slid shut behind them.
Bruce hurried down the stairs on the other side of the bridge and reached the shore of the river just in time to see Axel emerging from the water.
“That’s better,” he said, and Bruce noticed that he was no longer limping from his injuries.
“That easy, huh?” Bruce asked.
Axel nodded and pointed down river to the shaded green bulk of the harvester.
“We’d better get out of here before Fango comes out and tells them where we are.”
“Second that,” Bruce said.
Axel took off at a run, leading the way. Bruce marveled at that. He’d experienced it first hand, but the water’s miraculous healing ability never ceased to amaze him.
It was as though Axel had never been shot.
“What happens if they figure out how to use one of the other ships in the hangar?” Tom asked. “How easy will it be for them to find us with that ship’s sensors?”
“Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen,” Axel replied.
Chapter 15
1:02 AM, February 8th, 2070
Layla strolled through the aisles of the supermarket, choosing products carefully to make her money stretch: two dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, sliced cheese, ham, oatmeal, frozen burritos ...
She focused on necessities, anything that would provide sustenance, and chose cheaper brands wherever possible.
She’d already spent a hundred and fifty credits of the thousand her mother gave her. She had no idea when or if she would get more, or be able to safely access her own bank accounts.
It was a ridiculous position to be in. Abducted, then returned, and now hiding from the authorities—when she herself was a detective with the NYPD!
Maybe she should have turned herself in. Her sister might be right. Maybe nothing would happen. They’d ask their questions, she’d tell them the truth, and then she could go back to her life.
Layla frowned and shook her head. No, that didn’t ring true. At least, not yet. She needed to wait. At least until she knew the status of the follow-up mission to Planet B. Once the government had their own people on Planet B, they wouldn’t need her as badly. In the meantime, she’d done the best she could to arm them with the intel they would have wanted from her. She’d recorded herself telling everything she knew about Planet B, the dangers there, and the Architects who’d supposedly built the Menagerie System. And perhaps most importantly, she’d told them about Axel’s warning of an imminent invasion.
When she was done, she’d sent it all to the Pentagon and hoped for the best. If they were smart, mission planners would use that information to prepare the soldiers they were sending. Her conscience was clear.
Layla began pushing her cart toward the automatic pay stations. Almost all of them were empty. Just one other person was busy bagging their groceries and paying.
She’d deliberately come shopping at this hour to avoid being recognized. Her face was all over the news. She’d done her best to mask her appearance by cutting her hair and dying it black, as well as by wearing plenty of make-up whenever she went out. Since she never wore make-up, any photos being shown in the news wouldn’t look the same. As an added measure, she kept the hood of her jacket up and cinched it tightly around her face. Yet even with all of that, she knew that some people were better at recognizing faces than others, and the more people who saw her, the greater the risk.
The cosmetics aisle appeared, and Layla slowed, realizing that she was missing something important. Her period was just around the corner. Pushing the cart down the aisle, Layla stopped in front of the feminine hygiene products. She picked a package of pads from the shelf and tossed it in.
There. Now she could hole up in her brother-in-law’s cabin for another week. Layla went back to the pay stations, pushed her cart in front of the scanner, and then activated it from the screen. She waited while it detected the contents of her cart and then spat out the total.
Two hundred and six credits.
Layla frowned and scanned the meager contents of her cart. It seemed like food just kept getting more expensive. She wasn’t even sure that this would last her a week. But then, she had been meaning to lose a few pounds, so maybe it was for the best.
Layla fished into her pocket for one of the thick golden coins and then swiped it in front of the credit scanner. The amount was automatically debited from the coin. She pressed a button in the side of it, and the total appeared, hovering above the coin:
141₡
Great, Layla thought with a frown. I’ve only been here for a week and I’ve already spent a third of my budget.
She pushed her cart past the pay station, heading for the doors. The other person finished paying at the same time as her, and began pushing their cart out alongside her. It was a middle-aged man with a bushy, reddish-blond beard and a thick green bomber jacket with a gray hood. He was wearing ARCs, imagery flickering across them that made Layla suspect he was watching the news. She caught a whisper from the directional speakers in his glasses as she walked alongside him, but it was too soft for her to discern what was being said.
They reached the exit at the same time, and the stranger stopped his cart, smiling tightly and nodding for her to go ahead.
“Thank you,” Layla said, and immediately regretted it. Somehow it felt like talking was an added risk, as if someone might recognize her voice. Pushing her cart out into the frigid winter’s night, Layla shivered and picked up the pace, both to escape the possibility of that man having recognized her face, and to get to the warmth of her vehicle faster.
She reached the aging black electric truck that Rick’s family had left at their cabin. Waving the doors open, Layla quickly packed her groceries into the crate and the reusable bags she’d brought. She shivered as she worked, wishing she’d had the sense to bring the reusable bags into the supermarket so that she could transfer the groceries from the cart to her truck faster.
As soon as she was done, Layla hurried over to the cart return. Along the way she spotted the bearded gentleman packing his things into the back of a big black SUV that was designed to carry at least eight people.
Strange. She’d pictured that man as a loner, not a family man.
Layla hurried back to her truck, waving the front door open and shimmying into the bench seat. She tapped the ignition button, and the truck whirred to life, along with a welcome blast of heat from the vents. Layla used the touchscreen to select the cabin from a list of recently visited places.
“Please buckle up,” the car said.
Layla fumbled for her seatbelt, clicked it into place, and then sat back and waited for the truck to reverse out of the parking space. Snow and ice crunched under the wheels, and the brake lights bathed the parking lot in crimson light. She glanced at the view from the back-up camera, half-expecting to see that man standing there, blocking her way with a gun in his hand. The truck’s sensors would detect him, and automatically stop the vehicle. Then he’d shoot out one of her tires. The autopilot wouldn’t drive on a flat, and that would be it.
But there was no one there.
Layla chided herself for being so jumpy. That man definitely hadn’t given her the vibe of a government agent. More of a prepper or a drifter.
With a giant SUV.
That detail still didn’t fit. She supposed he could be working undercover. But if that was the case, then he had her under surveillance.
Layla pushed those thoughts from her head and looked out the window at the rippled black expanse of water. Lights shone across the bay.
Soon the rhythm of the wheels and whirring motors lulled her to sleep. She was running through a forest. Sharp, reptilian eyes followed her. She burst into a clearing, to find an army of barbarians dancing around a fire. They were roasting something on a spit. One of them, a one-armed man waved her over to join them.
As she drew near, Layla saw what they were roasting on the fire.
It was Neil, his skin blackened by the fire.
The one-armed man smiled and muttered something in a grunting, guttural language. “Which piece would you like?”
Layla recoiled, stumbling away from the fire. She fell over, and the barbarians burst out laughing.
“You have reached your destination,” the car announced.
Layla awoke with a start and sat up quickly just as the truck came to a crunching halt in the snow. Blinking rapidly to clear the sleep from her eyes and get her bearings, Layla saw that she was parked outside Rick’s cabin.
A pang of guilt echoed through Layla as she recalled her nightmare. Rationally, she knew there was no reason to feel guilty. She hadn’t chosen to leave the others behind. But it was normal to feel guilty. Why did she get to leave while they were still stuck there with their lives in jeopardy from at least a dozen different threats.
Hopefully the information she’d sent to the Pentagon would result in them being rescued.
Bracing herself, Layla opened the door and stepped out into frigid night.
* * *
12:10 PM, September 28th, 2069
Preston Baylor sat around yet another fire on the shore of the river, watching firelight reflect in the eyes and haggard faces of his companions. It was night. Again. The days and nights cycled so quickly on Planet B that it was hard to keep up. Even harder to adapt their sleeping schedules to two-hour increments. Axel said it got easier over time, but Preston wasn’t so sure. He felt like he had a permanent case of jet lag.
Bruce stood up from the rock where he sat and used a long stick to check one of the leaf-wrapped fillets he’d placed on the coals at the edge of the fire. He’d spent the last couple of hours catching and cleaning another saber-toothed salmon.
“Looks like it’s almost ready,” Bruce said.
“Good,” Tom said. “I’m starving.”
Jess made a face. “There has to be something else to eat besides fish.”
Axel shrugged. “Dino steaks, but it won’t be an improvement.”
Jess sighed and leaned her head on Neil’s shoulder. He didn’t react. He looked shell-shocked. All of them did. The expression on his face fairly mirrored the way Preston felt.
Trapped.
Preston’s gaze wandered to the shadowy forest beyond the shore of the river. He spent a moment searching for eyes watching them from the trees, but didn’t see any. Axel had assured them that he’d set the harvester’s guns to sentry mode, which, he’d promised them, would automatically scare away any dinos that got too close.
The ship hadn’t opened fire yet, which Preston hoped was a good sign.
Of course, Axel could have been lying about the sentry mode. Like he’d lied about everything else.
Bruce used his stick to nudge the bundles of fish closer to the edge of the fire, and then folded a giant green leaf and used it like an oven mitt to reach in and pull them out.
“Alice, would you mind helping me?” Bruce asked.
