Bryce launched another shaft, but the creature was on its feet now. It sidestepped the throw and continued on. It began to run, the pinions embedded in its body flopping up and down. Bryce hurled another pinion—and narrowly missed again. Adan reached back and pulled out one of his own.
Before he could throw it, the creature drew a glittering pistol from its belt. An oscillathe.
Adan threw his pinion with all his might. It sailed well past the creature. Bryce managed to get off one more pinion—his last—and the shaft plunged into the shoulder of the creature just as it fired, ruining its aim. A haunting whisper rushed over their heads, lifting up the hair on the back of Adan’s neck.
With no other weapons left, Bryce drew his shiv and charged the soulless creature. The somatarch raised its oscillathe again, but instead of disintegrating Bryce in a deadly whisper, five spears zipped towards the somatarch from the Sentients behind them. Three found their mark. The somatarch staggered forward, taking one last step before its oscillathe clattered to the ground. Its lifeless body doubled over and fell to the floor, riddled with the deadly shafts of the Waymen.
Twenty-One
Dissension
The Sentients stood staring at the fallen somatarchs. A hush had descended over the group, but it lasted only a moment before Von stepped forward, his eyes trained on Bryce.
“Where did you get that contingency trigger? Raif never made anything like that.” Von’s question shot out like an aftershock from the battle; his tone lacked the usual deference with which he addressed Bryce.
Bryce did not respond, but the muscles in his cheek flexed as he clenched his jaw.
“What’s going on here?” Von pressed him.
Bryce continued to ignore him, instead walking over to collect the oscillathe that had fallen from the somatarch’s hand.
“I think you owe us an explanation, Bryce,” Sierra said.
In response Bryce pointed the oscillathe towards Von and pulled the trigger.
Von almost tripped as he backpedalled, but there was no blast and he remained standing, unharmed. Exclamations of disbelief rippled across the group, most notably from Wik, whose cheeks flushed with color as the Wayman word for ‘crazy’—locura shot from his lips.
“That’s what I thought. It doesn’t work,” observed Bryce, ignoring the stir he had caused and shoving the gun inside his garrick. “These weapons can only be accessed with a connection to the Manx Core esolace.”
Von rushed him. It looked like he might take a swing, but Bryce took a quick step back and Von pulled up a hand’s breadth from his face.
“Stop playing with us and tell us where you got the trigger you used to blow up those somatarchs,” Von demanded.
Zain walked over to stand between the two of them. “Do not let anger take hold. We need to work together if we are going to rescue our people.” He gave Bryce a pointed look. “It does seem like a simple enough question, though.”
Bryce brushed Zain’s words aside, as if offended. “This is not the time. They know we’re here now. We’ve got to get moving—”
“We’re not going anywhere until everything is out in the open.” Von folded his arms into two rigid right angles. The looks on the faces of the others mirrored his.
“I saved your lives, what does it matter?” Bryce shot back. His outburst prompted Von to start forward again, but Zain held him in check.
Noticing Von’s second attempt to rush him, Bryce finally seemed to take stock of what was happening. The fire in his eyes dimmed somewhat.
“Look,” he said, “I got the trigger from someone who used to be a Developer—someone who defected, just like Adan’s friend Gavin.”
“So you lied to us about being sent here by the Waymen.” Von’s cold stare locked onto Bryce.
“No, that was true. He’s organizing the Waymen to fight back. He wants the same thing we all want—to put a stop to the Developers.”
“What exactly were you sent here to do?” Von’s expression turned more guarded than ever. Adan was on edge, waiting to see how Bryce would respond and whether or not he would tell them about Nolan.
“I told you—to free the Collective,” Bryce said, matching Von’s stiff tone.
Adan knew enough to know Bryce was not being completely honest with these people. They were trusting their lives to his leadership and he was taking advantage of that trust.
“That’s not true,” Adan said. It was high time the Sentients knew who their leader really was. If they still wanted to follow him after that, so be it, but they needed to make that decision based on the truth. “Nolan sent you. He wants to destroy Oasis. And this isn’t the first time he’s tried to do it.” Adan had finally been able to see the truth as it flashed through Bryce’s mind. And for the first time, he did not doubt the accuracy of his memorant abilities.
Bryce hesitated, taken off guard by Adan’s words.
“Who is this Nolan?” Von asked.
“Someone who used to be part of the Collective,” Adan said.
Bryce shook his head. His bravado and stiffness vanished. “Look, you’re right. Nolan did send me to destroy Oasis. But he didn’t know about the Sentients. Neither did I. I still want to stop the Administrators, but I’m fighting for you now. We have to save the Sentients. We have to be free. I want that as much as any of you.”
“And just when were you planning on telling us all of this?” Von said, stone-faced.
A shade of Bryce’s defiance returned. None of you understand what’s at stake here, his expression seemed to say.
Before Bryce could reply, the modulator on his wrist lit up. Patterned red lights reflected onto his face from the miniature screen. “There’s another patrol incoming.” Bryce’s nostrils flared in anger. “I told you we were wasting our time here.”
“We’ll finish this another time, Bryce,” Von said in a low-pitched voice. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this.”
“Quick, everyone grab a pair of skimmers.” Bryce reached down and scooped up a nearby set. “They don’t have a bioseine interface. Click them together to engage the hover plates.”
The other Sentients scrambled to collect the rest.
“Pair up with a Wayman—we can carry them on our backs. Four groups of two.”
Adan, Von, Sierra, and Bryce each stepped into a pair of skimmers. They were simple to put on, forming a bond with the bottom of their feet in the same way lentes attached to a person’s eyes.
“I hope I am not too much of a burden,” Zain said, sidling up behind Adan.
“You carried me out of the riot at Sparc’s camp. Now I get to return the favor.”
Zain hopped onto his back. He was even lighter than Adan expected.
Adan clicked the skates together and slowly rose off the ground. Though the skimmers had been easy enough to put on, he was not prepared for the complete instability of walking on air. Had his bioseine not kicked in and adjusted his balance, he almost certainly would have crashed back down to the floor.
“Hurry,” Bryce warned, “they’ve already entered this tunnel.”
Standing on nothing more than a cushion of light was the most unnatural thing in the world, but once he got moving, it got a little easier. Before he knew it, he was fifty paces down the tunnel and picking up speed.
The last to start out, Adan trailed the others. Glancing over his shoulder, he didn’t see any sign of pursuit.
“How close are they?” he asked.
In response, Bryce projected the information from the modulator on his wrist across the channel. The patrol was still a ways off, but was moving much faster than they were. They would not be able to outrun them.
“Let’s just hope they’re assessors. We need to make a hard link or we’re never going to get anywhere,” Bryce reminded them.
“All right, tell us what to do,” Von came back. Of necessity the distrust which had dominated the group a few moments before vanished as Bryce’s plan came streaming over the shared connection and into each
of their minds.
The assessors came flying down the tunnel less than three microslices later. There were four of them, each one piloting an attack skiff. They were coming much faster than the somatarchs had.
“No matter what happens,” Bryce instructed, “just keep going. When the riders lose control of their skiffs they’ll come crashing down the tunnel after us.”
“You’re sure they won’t be killed in the crash?” Adan asked.
“The chances are good that at least one of them will survive,” Bryce answered. “Their bioseines should keep them alive long enough for us to get what we want.”
Even though the plan was only to stun the assessors with the trigger, Adan didn’t like the possibility that some of them might die when their skiffs crashed.
“I don’t like it either,” Sierra told him, in answer to his thoughts. “But I don’t see any other way.”
Catching up to her, Adan caught a glimpse of the fear in her eyes. “I should be the one reassuring you, not the other way around,” he thought.
“Remember, these are assessors,” Bryce cautioned. “They’re smarter than somatarchs. If for some reason they spot the trigger and destroy it before it goes off, we go to the backup plan.”
The skiffs were getting close enough now that Adan could see the large oscillathes mounted on the front.
“They have to be in range by now,” Adan observed. “Why aren’t they shooting?”
“They want to take us alive,” Bryce replied.
The skiffs hurtled on. They would overtake the Sentients at any moment.
“Now, Bryce!” came Von’s command.
Bryce was the furthest back, having let the others go by. He reached into his garrick and hurled the contingency trigger onto the floor of the tunnel.
The skiffs came in hard and fast. In a heartbeat the first assessor’s ship passed over the black disc. The air around it flashed, exploding in white light, but then something strange happened. The light clung to the assessor’s body for several moments, flickering a few times before dying out. Adan couldn’t say what had caused the brightness to linger, but it was clear Bryce’s trigger had failed. The assessors kept coming.
The next moment the second assessor passed over the trigger with the same results: a flash, followed by flickering lights and the skiff flew on. Two more flashes followed, lighting up the tunnel as the last two skiffs passed over the useless trigger.
“Blanks,” Von cursed. “I didn’t think those skiffs would have energy suppression fields.”
Bryce pushed his skimmers to the limit, surging forward, but it was no use, the first skiff overtook him. Two short white bolts of energy shot out from the pilot’s hand as he passed by. Bryce and Yor, the Wayman on his back, went limp. They careened into the side of the tunnel upside-down and slid to the ground.
Von and Ket pulled up and spun around in midair while Adan and Sierra went flying by. As the assessor’s skiff got within range, Von hurled a tiny black energy disruptor at the incoming ship. It blossomed into an enormous sphere of white energy, filling the passage and consuming the entire flight of assessor ships.
As the light from the blast faded, the skiffs came skidding down the tunnel, sparks showering the air where their bases scraped the floor and walls. All the vehicles were empty, their pilots having been thrown to the floor. The disruptor blast had completely disabled the skips.
Adan, Von, and Sierra slowed to a stop.
“We did it,” Adan said.
Von allowed himself a rare smile. “Let’s go back for Bryce and Yor.”
“Wait,” came Sierra’s voice, cold with fear. “Look—they’re getting up.”
Adan didn’t understand what she was so alarmed about at first. He thought she meant Bryce and Yor. But they were still lying motionless on the tunnel floor. The assessors were not. One by one, Adan watched in morbid fascination as they rose and advanced down the tunnel. All of them were bruised and bleeding, but none were seriously injured.
Adan suddenly didn’t care about getting access to the Manx Core esolace. His whole body tensed, ready for flight. But they couldn’t leave behind Bryce and Yor.
“They’re not drawing any weapons,” Sierra said.
She was right, the assessors held nothing in their hands and had no visible weapons on their belts. Had they lost them in the crash?
“They’re not unarmed,” came Von’s ominous warning. He floated to the ground and let Ket slide off his back.
Watching the hardened stares and deliberate movements of the advancing assessors, Adan had no doubt that Von was right.
Twenty-Two
Hard Linking
Adan and Sierra landed beside Von and Ket. Zain and Wik slid off and had barely touched the floor when Von and Ket hurled two pinions through the air. The pointed shafts zipped towards two of the assessors, but the gray robed men thrust out their hands and a white burst of energy shot forth from their fingers and wrapped around the javelins. The two shafts froze in midair and fell clanking to the floor.
“It’s what I thought, neutralizers,” Von said.
The Waymen stared at the inanimate spears, their eyes dark pools of disbelief—but only for a moment. The four advancing figures soon recaptured their attention. The assessors did not move in unison the way somatarchs did, but Adan had no doubt they were mentally coordinating their attack.
“We’ve got to do something,” Sierra said. “We can’t just wait for them to come at us.”
“The neutralizers have a short range, but once they get close enough, they’ll knock us unconscious,” Von informed them, signing the same message to the Waymen. “We need to stall until I can think of something.”
“I’ll try to read their thoughts to see if I can figure out anything,” Adan shot back, though he knew he had little chance of finding anything in time.
He fixed his eyes on the assessor closest to him, but it took a moment to focus. The man looked so much like Gavin that Adan kept having to fight thoughts of his friend from creeping in.
Von moved to the side. “Spread out,” he said. Then he added a mental message, “Draw your cutter, Adan. I have an idea.”
Adan pulled the tube from the strap on his garrick, but one of the assessors pressed forward before the Sentients could react, stretching his arm towards Wik. In response, the Wayman rushed to meet him, drawing forth his shiv.
“No, Wik! I told you to—” Von cried out.
Wik slashed at his enemy’s hands, but the assessor’s gloved fingers flashed with white light and Wik fell to the ground and did not rise.
Von, who was isolated now, made a feint with his pinion, but the assessor in front of him didn’t fall for it. Ket rushed in with his shiv to help, but he wasn’t quick enough. Von fell to the ground with another white blast. Ket tried to check his charge when he saw what happened, but a second blast dropped him beside his friend.
“Adan, hurry. Have you thought of anything?” Sierra’s thoughts were scattered and frantic. “Did Von want you to kill them?”
“I can’t do that. I need to get a read and figure out a way around those neutralizers.”
“I’ll keep them distracted.” Sierra stepped in front of him. “Just figure something out before they take me down.”
“Stay back,” she called out to the assessors. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
The gray robed men fanned out to ensure the Sentients did not outflank them.
Adan concentrated, trying to get a glimpse into the mind of the assessor advancing on him.
Sierra and Zain backed down the tunnel.
“Stay close to me,” Sierra said, pulling Adan with her. The three of them gave up spreading out and huddled together.
The assessors advanced steadily, but more quickly now. They were closing in.
Adan thought again about running, but it would only delay the confrontation at best. He forced his mind to cut through the distractions and hone in on the assessor before him. At last he caught something. It was lik
e a little thread poking out from the door of the man’s mind. Adan rushed to follow it inside before the door shut. He found himself in an unlit room. As his mind adjusted to his surroundings, the dim outline of what the assessor was thinking slowly revealed itself.
“Neutralize the one with the cutter,” the assessor told the others. “Just in case.”
Adan had no idea what the other man replied, but the other assessor responded with “All right. We charge on my command.”
At last Adan saw what the neutralizers were. They were the segmented metal bands the assessors wore around their wrists. And he realized what Von wanted him to do.
The cutter’s yellow blade leapt to its full length and he lunged forward. At the same time, all the assessors surged forward in unison.
Everything happened so fast it was like someone shook the room. The blade swiped through the closest assessor’s arm in a blazing flash.
Zain leapt forward to meet the enemy, striking with his shiv, but jumped right into the white bursts shooting forth from their hands. Sierra hopped backwards, trying to dodge a blast from the left.
Adan dove to the side to avoid the neutralizer blast from the right, but was a step too slow.
A numbing sensation shivered across his skin. The last thing he saw before he went unconscious was Sierra’s body slumping next to his to the floor.
Adan’s body jerked awake as if he had just startled himself out of a dream. His eyes still closed, he caught the soft rustle of fabric beside him. He felt the cutter jerk off his forearm. His first thought was that the neutralizer must have merely stunned his body and that his mind was still aware, like when Will had possessed him at the Institute, but a moment's reflection told him that was not the case. His body tingled a little from the lingering effects of the neutralizer, but he could still move.
He had no time to figure out what had happened because another thought followed quickly after this realization. They must think I’m still unconscious.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 54
