“Wise move, little Titan.” The servitor turned it's gaze back on Justin. “Now, my masters will take care of that colonel and his soldiers very quickly but in the meantime, we have the chance to have a little chat.” The maniacal grin spread from ear to ear and the machine's voice lowered to a harsh whisper. “So tell me, dear Justin, just how you did it, hmm?”
“Did it?”Justin gasped. “I, I don't understand. Did what?”
The servitor dropped him and Justin fell to his knees, his arms numb from the monster's crushing grip. But before he could take another breath, the machine had put it's hands on both sides of his head and Justin could feel their burning, titanium touch begin to squeeze his head between them.
“Oh such modesty! Now, now, little boy, you know what I mean. How did you get those oafs, those hunks of mindless metal at your so-called Sanctuary to attack my masters, hmm? What was your secret?”
Justin found it hard to think as his skull was being crushed by the servitor. “I, I'm not sure,” he gasped out.
Suddenly an massive explosion shook the room. The servitor staggered and dropped Justin, who collapsed face down on the floor, trying to breathe and focus through the stabbing pain in his head.
“Aha! That colonel had a little surprise waiting for my masters. No matter. It will only slow them for a moment.” The metallic monster turned back and looked down at Justin. “Now then, where were we? Ah yes. You were going to tell me your secrets, weren't you boy?”
The servitor reached for Justin again, then froze at as Aaron shouted “Don't do it, Justin! That thing won't kill you!”
The machine straightened up and fixed it's mad gaze at Aaron and the small group huddled behind him. “I won't?” it said with a high-pitched giggle. “And why do you say that, little Titan?”
“Because,” Aaron replied as he glared back at the servitor. “Your so-called masters won't be pleased with you if they can't question Justin for themselves, will they?”
The machine paused. Justin took the opportunity to catch his breath. He knew Aaron was buying him some time, hoping he'd have a plan. But there was only one chance and the thought of how much pain it would cause him made him cringe inside. But still, if it was the only way...
The servitor nodded, it's neck creaking. “You are a clever one, aren't you? Yes, the masters will want the pleasure of killing you all themselves. But they won't mind it I...damage him a bit. As long as he can still talk, what are a few broken bones or a cracked skull between friends, hmm?”
As it reached for him again, Justin listened aghast as the monster said “After all, I had the pleasure of killing the boy's mother before I took her place. That was so satisfying.”
Seeing Justin's expression, the servitor chuckled. “Oh come now, boy. How else was I going to be able to keep her quiet while I waited for you to arrive. The mighty hero! Shall I tell you how I did it? And how I disposed of the, um, remains?” It threw back it's head and roared with insane laughter.
Justin's mind went blank. The pain in his head was forgotten. Mom, dead? This thing killed her? A rush of memories threatened to overwhelm him. His mother's strength through her long illness. Her warmth, her endless love for Justin and for his Dad. But then something rose within him, and pushed back the tide. Something almost primordial. An anger that choked him. A hatred for this creature and for those that controlled it. Finally the servitor stopped laughing and reached for him again.
“You said you wanted me to tell you how I controlled the Sentinels, didn't you? What the source of my power is?” he asked the machine. He could barely speak through the rage.
It stopped and stared at him with it's huge eyes, it's jester’s grim widening. “Ah, decided to talk, have you? Sensible boy.” It leaned in eagerly. “Tell me, how did you do it?”
“Justin, no!” he heard Aaron shout. Did Aaron mean don't tell? Or did he realize what Justin meant to do? Either way, it was too late.
“I did it...” he whispered harshly, “like this.”
And then Justin raised his hand and slapped his palm between the monster's burning eyes.
His rage could not mask the intense stabbing pain that shot through his hand as the rune on his palm made contact with the titanium of the servitor's head. Justin cried out in agony but his voice was buried by the bellow of the mechanical man.
The servitor reared back but Justin's hand seemed to be fused to it's metallic skin and he was dragged as the machine tried to get away from the pain. A burning light blazed up through his hand where it was connected to the monster's head and Justin could see his bones illuminated by the brilliance. But pain or not, he was almost mesmerized as he watched the servitor's skull begin to bubble and melt in large droplets of titanium under his touch.
The creature's screams became higher in pitch and Justin was tossed around like a rag doll as the servitor writhed in agony. But there was no escaping his fused palm and finally the construct collapsed, it's head a half-melted shell that exposed a brain of seared wires and glowing gears.
Justin's hand came free as the servitor convulsed one last time and he lay back, closed his eyes and gripped his wrist, the blood beginning to flow freely from his hand. He felt a pressure on his palm through the pain and turned his head to see Aaron holding a rag tightly over the wound.
“This looks vaguely familiar,” he joked in a feeble voice.
Aaron glanced down at him and his grim expression changed to a tight grin for a second. “Yeah, seems we've been down this road before, doesn't it?” he said gently. As a part of the rag quickly soaked up the blood, Aaron refolded it and applied it again to Justin's hand.
“I knew you were going to do that, Just,” he muttered as he worked
“Please don't tell me I was wrong, Aaron.” Justin lay back and closed his eyes again for a moment. Between his exhaustion and his wound, he found that everything around him would begin to spin if he kept his eyes open too long. “I had no other choice.”
“I know, bud, I know.” The pressure on Justin's hand changed and he looked over to see that Aaron was binding the rag tightly to his hand with scraps of cloth he had ripped from his own t shirt. “But now what? Those adult Titans will be here soon and there's no way we can fight them off. You're wounded, the other kids are scared and hungry and I'm, well, I'm just useless.” He looked down at the plain bracelet on his wrist and shook his head.
Justin sat up with a jerk. The room spun around him but he ignored it as he glared at Aaron. “Don't you ever say that! I wouldn't have made it this far without you, Aaron. You think I would have had the nerve to come to this place, to fight that monster without you backing me up?” Aaron just stared at him, speechless for once. “You have my back, bud. You're the one person in this whole mess that I can trust. So don't you tell me you're useless,” he said fiercely.
“Um, okay.” Aaron's face reddened and he looked down at Justin's hand and adjusted the bandage unnecessarily for a minute. Then he looked back at his friend. “Thanks for that,” he whispered.
Chapter 23
Justin shook his head and tried to smile. “Don't thank me, you've earned it. Now,” he tried to collect his thoughts, “ we have to move. If we just had some water, we could try a gate.” He looked around the room but there was no water to be found.
“But we don't have a rune, Just,” Aaron said, sounding a bit frantic. “How can we get back to Sanctuary?”
“I think I can get us there, Aaron. You know, the whole ' heir of Cronus' thing. This rune,” he held up his throbbing, bandaged hand, “seems to be like a, I don't know how to describe it, a generic rune? I think that it doubles for all the other ones.”
Aaron looked at him dubiously. “You mean it could act as a gate rune?”
Justin glanced at Aaron thoughtfully then back at his own hand. “I think it can act as any rune, Aaron.” Then he shrugged. “But that doesn't really matter now, since we don't have any water to try a gate.” He looked over at the other teens, all of whom seemed to be frozen in sho
ck. He suddenly realized that his fight with the servitor had terrified them and they were still trying to figure out what was going on.
“Hey, you guys okay?” he asked. Several of them jumped but one, an older girl with short curly brown hair, seemed to be steadier than her fellows and, after swallowing nervously, spoke up.
“I think so,” she answered. “What was that?” she asked and pointed a shaking finger at the heap of melted slag.
“It was a servitor,” Aaron answered as Justin coped with a wave of pain that had suddenly shot up his arm. “The Titans built them ages ago to serve them, but I didn't know that they could be turned into...something like that!”
They all jumped as the servitor's head snapped off of it's neck and plopped on to the floor. Several of them giggled.
“Looks good on you,” Aaron growled at the melted head. He looked at Justin. “I think we should move, Just. Those guys will be here any second, I'm sure.”
With a wince, Justin managed to get to his feet. He staggered a moment and Aaron steadied him with a quick hand under his elbow. Justin smiled at his friend.
“We can't, Aaron. Unless you can pull some water out of mid-air, we're trapped in here.”
Aaron looked at Justin for a second then he blinked. “Oh, yeah. About that.” He slipped a hand inside his jacket, rummaged around for a bit then pulled out a full plastic water bottle and handed it to Justin. “There you go,” he said.
Justin stood there staring at Aaron. “How the hell did you get this?” he finally asked.
“Well, you know when I was looking in the fridge, back at your apartment? There wasn't much in there except a few bottles of water, so I just grabbed one. You know, thought we might be thirsty later or something.”
“Aaron, you are a freaking genius!” Justin looked at the bottle just as they heard a distant yell. He looked over at the door. “Someone close the door. Lock it if you can,” he yelled. One of the boys slammed the door shut. There was no lock on the inside and the guy just looked at them and shrugged.
“Nothing we can do about it,” Justin said. “Okay, have any of you traveled by water gate before?” Judging by the head shakes and confused looks, none of them had. “Alright, no sweat. Just, um, stand in a circle, as close together as you can.”
The curly haired girl stared at him. “What's the point of that?”
Trying not to sound impatient, Justin said “Trust me. You saw me beat that machine,” he glanced down at his palm, “barely. But I know what I'm doing, honest. This is our way out so please, just do as I ask.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay, I'm with you, Justin. My name's Maria, by the way.” She turned to look at the others. “Come on, guys. Get in a circle.”
It was obvious from their response that the teens were used to listening to Maria. Justin could tell that they considered her their leader and was pleased that she was giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“Great. Okay, Aaron, get into the circle.” Justin slipped in between Maria and a blond boy who looked at him nervously. Justin tried to smile at him reassuringly as he opened the water bottle and poured it's contents on to the floor in the center of the circle. He tried to make it as large a puddle as the water would allow.
When he saw that Maria was about to speak, he shook his head. “I'll explain later,” he said quickly. “Now, everyone join hands and on the count of three, all of you jump into the puddle.”
“Oh, this is stupid,” said one of the other boys. “Those Titan guys are going to charge in here and tear us apart and this guy wants us to play in a damn puddle!”
Before Justin could say anything, Maria spoke up. “I trust him, Dominic. Now if you want to, you can leave the circle, or wait until we all jump. But if it works, you'll be the one standing here alone facing those animals. But it's your choice.” She glared at the boy.
Dominic's faced paled under her gaze and then he nodded silently. “Good,” Maria said. She looked at Justin. “Whenever you're ready.”
He squeezed her hand briefly as a thank you, then he closed his eyes and pictured the entrance pool in Sanctuary, the way he remembered it from his first day. Convinced he had the image locked in his mind, he opened his eyes and looked at each of his fellow Titans.
“On three then. One, two...” The door was smashed open and a huge man that Justin had no trouble recognizing as an adult Titan stood in the doorway.
“Hold it, you brats!” he shouted.
“Three!” Justin yelled and jumped forward. He saw all of the circle follow his lead and he caught a glimpse of the Titan leaping toward them. Too late, you jerk, he thought as he heard a tremendous splash and felt himself sinking into deep water.
Wow, it worked, he thought.
Justin held his breath and tried to be patient. He worried about the others and if they would panic at this new way to travel. Not that there was anything he could do about it. And as the seconds passed, he remembered his mother. He couldn't think about how she died so he thought about his life with her and the thousands of moments that they had shared.
His revery came to an abrupt end as he landed on a hard, irregular surface accompanied by a loud splash.
He stood up as quickly as he could as the others appeared around him along with gallons of water that soaked quickly into the dry floor. The others lay gasping for breath except for Aaron who stood up and looked around the room.
Justin bent down over Maria, who was trying to catch her breath. “You okay?” he asked her.
Still breathing hard, she gave him a brief smile and a thumbs up.
He checked each of the other teens. All of them seemed fine, if a little confused. Justin stood up again just as he heard Aaron call him.
“Justin, where are we?” Aaron asked in confusion.
“What?” Justin looked at his friend and saw him looking puzzled as he looked around the room. Justin glanced around and then realized what Aaron was talking about.
It was definitely an entrance room. But it wasn't the one that he had first arrived in.
The floor was covered with dust, washed away here and there by the water that had appeared at their arrival. Little piles of rubble lay scattered on the ground and when Justin looked up, he saw that the high ceiling was dense with cobwebs and had little holes where the rocks had fallen out. The walls were also covered with dusty cobwebs and only two of the half dozen torches were still lit, their flames low and sputtering.
“It's definitely Sanctuary, Aaron,” he said as he stared upward. “But this is a different entry. Let me find a communications carving and I'll ask someone for directions.”
“Okay. I'll try to explain a bit about the place to the others while you're doing that.”
“Good idea. Be back in a minute.” With that, Justin headed through the low arch that led out of the room and into a dark corridor.
When he emerged from the short corridor into the main hallway, Justin became even more confused. The hall was lit by the usual lights hanging from the high ceiling, but here too there was dust and cobwebs coating most of the surfaces. The dust on the floor showed no evidence of tracks and he could tell that no one had used this part of Sanctuary for a long time.
He had never gotten a satisfactory answer on how big the place was but with everything he had heard, he knew Sanctuary was immense. This could be a section that hadn't been used in centuries. But why did they end up here. Justin was sure that he had precisely envisioned the original entry room of his arrival, but somehow here they were.
Well, at least we're in Sanctuary and safe, he told himself. At that thought, he shivered slightly. Were they safe? He dismissed the idea. Of course they were. This was home now. The sooner he got in touch with someone in authority, the sooner they'd get back to their rooms and have a chance to eat and rest. They sure would be surprised when Justin told them what had happened! And when they saw the other teens that he and Aaron had saved.
These thoughts made him eager to get out of this area and he examined the walls
, looking for a comm node. Finally, after brushing away a bunch of dirt and dust and coughing as a cloud of grit engulfed him for a minute, he found one. He put his uninjured hand on it and pressed firmly.
For a moment nothing happened and Justin wondered if these things could actually wear out or break. Then the carving began to glow slightly and a soft voice could be heard.
“What do you want? Who is this? Don't you know the rules? No comm use! You'll get into serious trouble.”
Justin stared at the carving, momentarily surprised as he recognized the voice.
“Mrs. Mallon? Is that you?”
“Yes, of course it's me,” Mrs. Mallon replied, still almost whispering. “Who is that?”
“It's me, Mrs. Mallon. Justin. Justin McLeod.”
“Justin?” he heard the shock in her voice. “But how is that possible? We were told you were captured, possibly killed.” Her voice broke for a second and then she seemed to recover. “Oh Justin, it's so good to hear your voice! And Aaron. Is he...?”
“He's okay,” Justin assured her quickly. “He's here with me. And we rescued six others that were being held by the government. But when we gated back, we ended up in some part of Sanctuary that I've never seen. We need a little guidance to get back home.”
“I'm sorry, Justin, but we don't have much time to talk. Now listen carefully.” She seemed to take a deep breath and Justin waited, still puzzled.
“Sanctuary's been captured. I don't know exactly how they did it, but Titans have taken control of the upper levels. Mr. Fitzgerald is missing. The Destroyers have been routed; I don't know if any of them survived. I've been set to answer the comm nodes because I'm 'harmless'. I'll give them harmless,” she muttered.
Justin smiled at her comment but he was reeling in shock. “But how did they get in?” he asked. “I thought the place had been sealed or whatever.”
“It was, Justin. The story is that Mr. Benson found a way to communicate with his father, a rather powerful man I take it, who got in touch with the Titans and got them into Sanctuary. Exactly how, I don't know. What matters now is that they are here. All of your fellows are imprisoned. Lord knows what will happen to them. And, if I'm reading this correctly, you are literally on the lowest level of the installation; miles below us.”
The Return of the Titans Page 26
