The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4)

by Zen, Raeden

  He struggled to keep pace.

  Aera spun her boot through a Janzer’s visor, and Nero slung a shuriken into another. They shifted to another tunnel. The Janzers couldn’t execute their elliptical attack formations in these narrow passages, which extended for hundreds of kilometers through the Western Inaccessible Region. Aera broke them down easier than she could in either Permutation Crypt or the City of Eternal Darkness. From time to time, Nero heard her flip and scream, along with the sound of her diamond sword swinging.

  Now she kicked a Janzer into Nero. He broke its wrist and spun it to the ground, then thrust his sword into its head.

  His arms burned from exhaustion.

  Another Janzer spun around him.

  “Down!” Aera said.

  Nero dropped. She cartwheeled over him, roundhouse-kicked the approaching Janzer, and slung three shuriken into the next wave.

  They switched tunnels.

  On and on they traveled. When Nero couldn’t rise on his own, Aera helped him to his feet. They turned left, and left, and left and climbed a limestone cliff. Nero couldn’t tell how much farther the rock face ascended, but finally he froze, unable to move.

  Did she not tire? Nero pondered. Did she not sleep?

  Aera injected sustenance synisms and uficilin into the synsuit receiver near his forearm. He felt a surge of energy and hope. He found his way to the crest, where he crawled with Aera through a tunnel as hot as magma, which smelled like burning coal. He crawled and crawled, pushing his diamond-gloved hands to the limestone. They turned right, right, and right again, then dropped into a tunnel, as dark as the rest, but this one smelled of moss and musk.

  Aera kicked through an alloy grill that opened to a wider tunnel, where fiery bioluminescence streaked down the walls.

  Perspiration condensed on Nero’s visor. The air was suffocating, as hot as the Naturan spas but without the pleasure. Blasts from pulse rifles crisscrossed ahead, and Aera slid against the wall. She guided Nero to a new set of passages, narrower than the rest. They turned and twisted left, right, and up around a spiral limestone cave.

  Nero felt dizzy. How did she know the way? How could she remember?

  “Nero!”

  He had dropped to his knees and smashed into the limestone wall, where he lay shivering. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet.

  “You’re exhausted.”

  She lifted his visor and forced him to his feet, half-conscious. She seemed like a shadow to him when she injected the sustenance synisms and uficilin into his receiver. He awakened as if from a nightmare. Aera slung his arm over her shoulder and forced him through a limestone tunnel surrounded by silver-blue bioluminescence. She slashed at a set of chains that hung against the rock. An alloy grill broke loose, allowing their passage.

  “Where’re you leading us?” Nero said, finding his voice.

  The air felt cooler here and smelled like the ocean.

  “Here,” she said. “Slide with me.”

  A waterfall rolled down the limestone, alive with lavender bioluminescence. Nero lifted his visor, then reached out with his hands and threw the water over his face, savoring the cold. He wished he could drink it, for his mouth was as dry as the Earth’s core.

  They flew down the sinuous, stony slide to an underground lake. Aera squealed with delight along the way. Nero heard the unmistakable hum from a transport.

  “Is it truly over?” Nero heard himself say.

  It was only when he opened the entrance and Aera helped Nero inside that he believed. Brody, I’m coming for you next.

  The transport traveled through the supply tunnels in the Western Inaccessible Region. Nero was only half-conscious when the Janzers found them, but he felt the transport rattle and shake so violently he was convinced the hull would disintegrate. Then his head sank forward, and he remembered nothing for a blissful respite.

  The transport lurched to a halt, waking Nero.

  “Get out!” Aera said.

  He stumbled from the transport into a glowworm cave filled with lime-green bioluminescence upon the stalactites and the stalagmites. Aera and Pirro, who also wore a synsuit, took cover next to a shallow teal pond and Nero followed. He looked back as a wire flashed through the air and struck the transport. The launcher sent its pulse to it. When it ignited, Nero feared the explosion would destroy the cave.

  He heard a whisper. I see you, traitor.

  Antosha’s voice again.

  I’d say I hope the Janzers and the journey in the West didn’t tire you too much … but then … then I’d be lying …

  A silhouette emerged from the dust and debris near the transport. It had humanoid facial features—citrine eye slit and the widest grin Nero ever saw upon a bot. Orbs covered with diamond spikes rotated around it, casting midnight-blue phosphorescence over the Protector Prototype. One of the orbs struck Pirro and sent him into the stalagmites on the pond’s far side.

  Aera screamed and charged.

  “No,” Nero said, “don’t!”

  One of the orbs sailed so fast that Aera couldn’t elude it. It knocked her through a limestone wall.

  The orbs flew back into the Protector, rotating around it like moons. It moved purposefully, its bright gaze fixed upon Nero.

  He backpedaled stride for stride with the Protector as it advanced.

  An orb flew at him. He fell over, rolled, and backflipped. Another orb passed under him, and he darted to a limestone column, where he hid.

  Orbs flew at him, high and low, left and right. He slipped to another column, thicker than the last.

  The stones rustled. Nero glimpsed Aera rise from the limestone debris.

  She distracted the Protector’s attention long enough for Nero to attack. He swiveled and flipped sideways to elude the orbs. One passed between his knees, one just missed his head, and a third grazed his side when he spun and kicked the Protector’s legs from under it. The orbs lost their way as the Protector faltered.

  It recovered its footing, as fast as a striker, far swifter than the Protector Prototypes that Nero knew. It drew a diamond sword and met Nero’s. The sparks mixed with the Protector’s citrine phosphorescence and the cave’s lime bioluminescence.

  Aera swung into the Protector’s side, tackled it, and stabbed it in the head with her sword, but then she screamed and flew onto her back as if she’d been electrically charged.

  The Protector pulled the sword from its alloy head and the hole closed, healing as if by uficilin. It drew up its robotic leg and kicked Aera so far into the stalagmite jungle that Nero thought for sure this time she’d perished.

  Instead, Aera lifted off the ground and spun back toward them. The Protector extended its arms, and the orbs returned to it. The bot spun and kicked and swung its arms as if it were a Hammerton Hall performer. The orbs disappeared into the geothermal mist and glowworm light, then returned with lethal momentum.

  Nero ducked as one skirted his head.

  He moved to attack, but the muscle fatigue was returning, slowing him. An orb tripped him. He barely recovered before it smashed to the ground where his head had lain.

  Aera swiveled to her sword and picked it up, swiftly enough, but she seemed hindered by lethargy for the first time.

  She spun and slashed her sword into the Protector’s neck, a move she’d used to slay so many Janzers over the last few hours that Nero had lost count.

  The Protector pinched the sword between its fingers. Its metallic lips lifted. An orb smashed her hand, shattering her synsuit at her wrist. She fell and gasped and bled. Another orb smashed her to the ground, and she squirmed in a way Nero had never seen.

  He moved in, twisting through the mist, focused upon his target, but an orb struck the base of his back. He wailed and fell. Before he could reach the uficilin, another orb smashed into his shoulder.

  Nero rolled along the ground.

  Spiked orbs now rotated and smashed Aera and Nero from either side, like comets upon planets, knocking them back and forth. Nero couldn’t see a
ny longer. Blood streamed down his head and over his face. He lifted what was left of his visor, unable to breathe, taking what he presumed were his final gasps.

  Forgive me, Brody … Verena …

  Nero inhaled the taste of dust and blood. He glimpsed Antosha Zereoue’s face, grinning, until he disappeared, replaced by the bottom of the Protector’s foot.

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Oriana Barão

  Harpoon VR

  Ceres

  Oriana followed Nathan, who led his team from rover to rover, dune to dune, taking cover behind the debris.

  Oriana peeked at the towers from behind a tire. The shadows’ rifles glistened in the windows, though from her angle, Oriana couldn’t get a good count, or a good shot. Her throat burned. They’d need sustenance soon.

  “We’ve gone a long way,” Nathan said, “at least five kilometers, and we still have several to go.”

  “Right,” Oriana said, “and we’ll need a canteen, but not so much that we cramp.” She still remembered what had happened to her during the frigid maze with Pasha early in her development.

  Nathan agreed. He popped the lid. It hissed, and he extended three intravenous tubes, one for each of them. Oriana inserted the needle at the receiver on her arm. She felt a pinch from her synsuit when it allowed the needle to pass into her vein. The icy liquid moved through her body, around her shoulder, spreading from cell to cell. The canteen beeped. They rested.

  They continued along the barren Cererian landscape and snaked their way to the towers. Day turned to twilight, the white light from the sun disappearing over the horizon. The air chilled quickly on Ceres. The fading light mixed with particles that hung in the air, like insects lost in space and time, clouding their view.

  “We have cover of twilight,” Nathan said, “and soon we’ll have night on our side.”

  They dashed from rover to rover. Nathan stopped behind one that had been overturned and ripped open from collisions. He put up his hand. “This is good.”

  Oriana set up the pulse rifle atop a flattened tire and scanned the towers through its scope. Her visibility was better than it would be for the shadows, who faced west, into the sunset. She blew the air from her lungs, then closed her eyes. Opening them slowly, she caught a shadow in her sight, its pulse rifle upon its shoulder. She pulled the trigger. The pulse blast sped into the shadow, and it fell out of the broken window. Its comrades returned fire. Oriana, Nathan, and Duccio took cover.

  The salvos ended.

  “They’re reloading,” Oriana said.

  “This is our chance,” Duccio said. “All three of us are Champions of the Harpoons.” He nodded to Oriana the same way he did to Nathan. Was this the Duccio Nathan knew? Oriana wondered. Was he finally treating her like a person?

  “Yes,” Nathan said. “Let’s go.”

  The team advanced with stealth and speed through the cover of dusk. Near the entrance lay a shadow’s corpse, its blood spilled on the Cererian surface.

  Oriana moved closer.

  “What’re you doing?” Nathan said.

  She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was drawn to the shadow and she was going to touch it and she—

  “Get out of there!” Duccio said.

  Pulse blasts landed all around Oriana. She slid behind a shivering carbyne plate.

  The pulses rang loud as Duccio and Nathan scrabbled to Oriana’s position.

  “I can make it,” Duccio said. “Once I’m in, I can take them out.”

  “Not yet!” Nathan said. He grasped Oriana’s shoulder and spun her to him. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like the shadows entered my consciousness and … I felt their pain.” She paused. “I don’t think we’re supposed to kill them.”

  “How many are left?”

  “Couldn’t count them all. Fifty levels up, third tower from the center on either side, twenty levels up in each tower.”

  “I can make it to the entrance,” Duccio said.

  “Not yet,” Nathan repeated.

  Duccio rose and took off, sprinting.

  Oriana exchanged a wide-eyed look with Nathan.

  Duccio was running toward the central tower when a pulse blast sheared through his helmet. His brain splattered. He fluttered to the icy ground.

  Lifeless and defunct, Duccio Serretta had returned to Peanowera Hall.

  “Damn it,” Nathan said, “I told him.” He pounded the ground over and over. “I told him!”

  Oddly, Oriana felt some sympathy for Duccio. “I’m sorry, Nathan.”

  Finding a fractured piece of carbyne plating, she gripped it by a hook on the side. She motioned her head to the towers. “On the count of three.”

  Nathan took position in front and they knelt.

  “One … two … three!”

  They vaulted forward and sprinted across the rugged ground. Oriana watched for impact craters and debris, even as pulses clapped all around them, striking their carbyne shield.

  They reached the blown-apart entrance to the central tower and slipped inside. White phosphorescent light lined the alloyed corridor. Black orbs glistened and spun in the ceiling. Tiny bulbs provided light along the dark floor. Incoherent messages flickered on digital screens along the walls. Except for the fizzing sounds emanating from the floor vents, there was no sign of life. Oriana had presumed that with millions of downed rovers surrounding the towers, furious battles for position inside would be ongoing. Where had all the candidates gone? Did the shadows take them out? Did Pasha make it?

  “We’re in the right spot,” Nathan said.

  “What?”

  “Come here.” He telepathically manipulated a holographic crosscut of many parts of the facility. It showed a set of trapped candidates banging on the walls of a red and silver elliptical hallway as the water rose to their waists. Candidates in another corridor scurried here and there as pulse blasts shot around them. Still more climbed a chamber with ladders that led up to circular hatches.

  Oriana’s eyes followed a gray and green hallway that led to a water tank; a row of tables with holographic globes displaying Ceres and Earth; steps leading to several doors with yellow lettering that said MACHINE DECK, LIVING QUARTERS, WATER RECEPTACLES; and a bridge lined with green phosphorescent light.

  “Stop, there!” Oriana engaged the controls with her mind, zooming. The lettering read AQUA LEVEL. “That’s him.”

  “That’s who?”

  “Pasha.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I just know.”

  “He isn’t on your team, not here—”

  “He’s always on my team.”

  Oriana requested a map of the mine, but before she could access it, a pulse blast pounded the corridor. She and Nathan took cover behind a column. They drew their pulse guns. Oriana heard footsteps and incomprehensible chatter.

  Shadows, she mouthed to Nathan.

  Nathan pulled a pulse grenade from his belt, flicked the clip, and threw it toward the invaders, close but not close enough to harm them. He grabbed Oriana and threw her. There were mutterings of confusion, then the blast.

  An alarm belched, and the lights flashed orange. Nathan lifted Oriana, and they dashed down the corridor to a transparent elevator. Neon lettering illuminated the sealed entrance:

  PYRAMID PATTERN

  1 x 1

  11 x 11

  111 x 111

  1,111 x 1,111

  11,111 x 11,111

  For how many steps is the number pyramid produced by these products valid?

  Oriana extended her consciousness and conducted the calculations.

  “Watch out!” Nathan pushed her and she flew. He leaned back as a pulse shot between them and smashed against the elevator. “I got this! Cover me!”

  Oriana took position behind a column in the corridor and held the pulse rifle to her shoulder. She set her sight on the roaming shadows and pulled the trigger over and over. She contained them with her blasts but didn’t kill them.

  Mo
re and more shadows zigzagged through the corridor and behind the pillars. Soon they’d be too close for pulse weaponry.

  “Hurry, Nathan.”

  “I have it,” he said. He projected his answer, nine, and the cylindrical door rotated open. Oriana and Nathan dove in. Pulses smashed the wall above. Nathan pulled Oriana to him, and she ordered the door to close. The shadows pounded their fists and shoulders against the transparent door.

  She and Nathan descended, safe, away from the shadows.

  “You can let me go now,” Oriana said.

  He held her tight.

  “Nathan, get off me.”

  His distant eyes returned, and he unwound his arms from her. He rolled over and stood with Oriana in the transparent elevator. Layer after layer of ice flew past them.

  The elevator stopped, and the door swiveled open to reveal a hangar. Rows of polished carbyne vessels rested on oval platforms lined with neon violet light. Each vessel looked like an enclosed canoe, curving to a beaked point at either end.

  “What do you suppose they are?” Nathan said.

  “They’re submarines.”

  There were no candidates or shadows in sight. Oriana heard a faint ticking, like that of a clock counting down. Nathan followed the tracks beneath one of the submarines to a system of transparent dams separating the hangar from an underground sea on the other side. Poles protruded through the water, glowing red.

  “Those poles melt the ice,” Oriana said. “This must be how they mined the water.”

  Nathan moved back to the submarine, rubbed one of its beaks, and examined a panel on the side, while Oriana inspected the digital displays against the wall. She accessed the controls and requested a holographic rendition of the mine. Instead, she looked upon a chessboard that swiveled up and down.

  You will have access to the map if, and only if, you discover the values of n for which an n x n chessboard with two missing squares of opposite colors can be tiled with 2 x 1 dominoes.