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by Gareth Worthington

  Teller nodded, then stared out into the distance. “What the hell is Nikolaj doing?”

  KJ followed Jonathan’s gaze out to his brother. “This whole place has an interference field. It stopped us from finding it for all these years. We think the transmission equipment is at the top of that temple. Nikolaj was going to take it out so we could contact you. I was supposed to take the orb from Victoria and take control of the Phalanx.”

  “Phalanx?”

  “The Nine Veils Huahuqui and human army.”

  Teller bobbed his head, apparently musing on the information. “Your mom, she’s in Antarctica.”

  “Antarctica? Why?” KJ said, suddenly feeling as if the world might swallow him up.

  “She’s working with some scientists. They found a knowledge bringer... broadcasting station. She has an orb. A super orb. We wanted to reach out to the Phalanx, as you call them, and perhaps find a way to stop them.” He rose to his feet. “If we can get that other orb from Victoria, maybe you can connect with her and together end this fucking madness.”

  “Then Nikolaj needs to take out the transmitter. She won’t be able to reach us otherwise.”

  Teller keyed up his radio. “Lauder, you copy?”

  “Here,” came a muffled voice over the handheld, accompanied by the rattling of fire.

  “Nikolaj is trying to make it to the top of that temple. Help him take out the transmitter at the top.”

  “Copy that, boss. Over.”

  “Let’s go,” Teller said, then slid a small caliber pistol from his belt and slapped it in KJ’s hand.

  “Wait,” KJ said. “Catherine and the monk brothers are down there somewhere.” He peered over the edge of the temple to see a swarm of Phalanx fighting with apparently other Huahuqui and locals with guns and farming tools.

  Teller put the radio to his mouth again, while moving to the stairs. “Tony, do you copy?”

  “I’m here John boy,” came a voice unfamiliar to KJ.

  “I need you to get eyes on a reporter and two of the Stratum. She’s a red head and they are two big black guys. Hard to miss. Somewhere in the main courtyard. Get them the hell out of there.”

  “Copy that,” said Tony. “Might be easier said than done.” More shots and screams sang out from the speaker.

  “How long do we have?” KJ asked.

  Teller shook his head while unclipping his ballistic vest. “No idea. Now take this.”

  KJ shook his head, pushing the vest away. “You need it.”

  “Yeah that wasn’t a request, KJ. Put in on.”

  KJ struggled into the protective armor. “Now can we go get this bitch?”

  “Now we go get her,” Teller said checking his weapon. “And pray to God your mom gets that damn super orb working.”

  Location: Eldorado, Antarctica

  “Is it working?” Melissa asked, pulling on the harness again.

  Freya felt the circulation leave her legs as the strap holding her to the makeshift scaffolding cut into her thigh. “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”

  Melissa touched Freya’s shoulder. “Just do what you did last time,” she said in a soft tone.

  “I don’t know what I did last time.”

  Freya stared down from high up at the pinnacle of the column down through the icy darkness to the expectant faces of the men, women, and Huahuqui who all craned their neck up to watch her. The world was about to end and her husband and sons were in a war zone fighting with the Nine Veils. She could potentially stop it all. Her lips and fingers felt numb. It was perhaps the blistering cold, or perhaps the Huntington’s attacking her nervous system. Maybe she was just afraid. Because deep down, she knew that saving everyone else, would likely mean she would die. Whatever she did to defeat Koa had been costly. The small amount of blood that trickled from her nose belied the excruciating migraine that now stabbed into her brain. She could literally feel the strain of using the super orb pulling on the last functioning neurons in her head.

  “You said you focused on KJ, right? Do that again.” Melissa stepped away and carefully climbed down the scaffolding, leaving Freya alone.

  High up in the air, vertigo made the stone in the pit of Freya’s stomach feel even heavier. Think of KJ, she thought to herself.

  There was a light slapping sound. Freya turned to see Dacey awkwardly climbing up the metal framework. She heaved herself over the last bar and plopped her heavy bulk into Freya’s bound lap. Freya stared at the little Huahuqui in the eyes. “You don’t need to do this,” she whispered.

  Dacey cocked her head and smacked her tiny lips together.

  “If you connect to me, you know what will happen,” Freya said.

  Again, Dacey’s sweet gaze simply told Freya the Huahuqui knew.

  Freya gave a sad smile and ran a shaking hand over the symbiote’s head and through her soft gills. Then, with one hand on Dacey, Freya closed her eyes and slipped her fingers into the freezing water within the crucible and felt for the orb.

  The connection was instantaneous. Immediately every mind in the room was with her own. Without having to fight Koa for control, the Huahuqui gave it freely. But more than that, Freya could feel every human too. The Huahuqui acting like multiple receivers and transmitters to her master signal. Fear and hope overwhelmed every other emotion. The burden of the knowledge everything may end soon occupied each and every consciousness. Their thoughts of home, friends and loved ones, things not said and things that they wished could be unsaid sloshed around inside Freya’s mind.

  Her own regrets, hopes, dreams, friends past and present rushed in incoherent fragments through her brain. Flashes of Minya’s face as she fell to her death. Of Freckles the Huahuqui who had saved her from drowning. Jonathan proposing to her using a handmade ring of steel and meteorite. Nikolaj’s proud grin while receiving his first science award for bioengineering at ten years old. Every birthday KJ ever had, where K’awin would bring him a dead fish to eat—yet no one ever knew where she got them from. And of course, Kelly Graham. Their final night in the tent. Their only moment together that resulted in the creation of their son.

  A tear streaked down Freya’s cheek.

  Life was short and cruel, but precious. It took those you loved but gave you others in return. A never-ending cycle of loss and discovery. Some became so burdened by the loss that they were unable to see what they were given in recompense. Kelly had never seen what he had gained following the death of Carmen and Izel. Guilt pressed down on Freya’s chest. She herself had mourned Kelly for so long that she had neglected Jonathan. Had not embraced what she had been given.

  She sucked in a breath, realizing what she must do; what message she needed to convey to every soul with which she would now bond. The people in the temple, the Huahuqui, the Stratum, the Nine Veils. But most of all to her sons and to Jonathan. They needed to stand together now and fight for the survival of everyone on the planet. So that another generation could laugh and love and cry. Because that was being human and, indeed, Huahuqui.

  Freya sank deeper into the orb-powered trance, pushing her mind beyond Eldorado, beyond the ice and the ocean outward into the atmosphere. She felt whales and birds and fish and insects. Past small villages and farms, Freya concentrated on reaching out to China, where Jonathan said they were. Somehow following the path of his consciousness, she shadowed him through Laos and several villages until pressing on into China where the trail abruptly stopped.

  Freya’s brow knitted in concentration as she forced harder against an invisible barrier. Whatever this was, it was clearly designed to keep anyone with telepathic ability out. She screwed up her face, pushing her mind as hard as she could. A warm stream began to flow freely from her nose and her limbs began to jerk.

  Melissa called up in concern from below, but Freya just shook her head.

  This was it. This was where they were, her sons and her husband. She had to break the barrier and reach the Nine Veils. Reach her family. Freya clenched her jaw and curled her fi
ngers around one of Dacey’s gill stalks. Blood slipped over her lips and seeped into her mouth.

  Find them, Freya. You must find them.

  Location: Tocayōtla, Southwest Rice Terraces, China

  The courtyard was alive with the sounds of war.

  Jonathan’s arm braced against KJ’s chest, pressing him against the wall as he surveyed the battleground and searched for a path through. KJ’s wide-eyed gaze moved from face to face. From human to Huahuqui. Stratum to Phalanx. Soldier to Laos tribesman. The distress and rage and confusion coursing its way through the melee was unbearable. Two factions of Huahuqui fighting each other, driven by their bond and sense of loyalty to their individual human. War was not really in their nature; but forced upon them by people. KJ couldn’t help but wonder if the Nine Veils had the right idea after all. Humans were inherently violent.

  Two Huahuqui rolled past KJ like tumbleweeds, pulling and clawing at each other’s gills and limbs. K’awin warbled at them as they bounced off a Laotian man locked in combat with a soldier.

  “Where the hell did she go?” Teller asked.

  “It’s a guess,” KJ said, “but she seems to hole up in that temple. A replica of the Pyramid of the Moon. Maybe she hides the trigger in there.” He pointed down the dusty road.

  “Have to start somewhere,” Teller said. “Ready?” He tugged on KJ’s shirt then dashed out from the base of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent and into the courtyard, heading straight for the Avenue of the Dead. Soldier after soldier, he effortlessly cleared the path. A roll off one guy’s back to deliver a spinning kick to another. A shot to a chest sent one soldier down. He grabbed a Laotian by his jacket, saving him from a bullet to the skull and then thumped two well-placed slugs into the attacker.

  KJ watched Teller in awe and for the first time saw the man for what he was: a hero. Jonathan Teller was the real deal. He’d tracked KJ down across the globe and saved his life and now, on KJ’s word, was heading to the Pyramid of the Moon to take out a crazy woman all to save the world. For as long as KJ could remember he’d doubted Jonathan. He’d been wrong, so very wrong.

  “KJ!” Teller shouted. “Stop day dreaming and move your damn ass!”

  KJ jerked to life and chased after Jonathan as fast as he could.

  Teller shoulder barged through another soldier and burst out onto the Avenue of the Dead, running full pelt toward the temple. KJ straddled K’awin and together, they galloped along the road toward the Pyramid of the Moon.

  The temple’s silhouette grew quickly until it was a colossal shadow bearing down on them. Teller quickly dispatched two guards who were posted outside, stole their key card and swiped it through the reader. The metallic door popped open.

  “Let’s go,” Jonathan said, then disappeared inside.

  A sharp pain shot into KJ’s head. A familiar pain. The same one he’d felt in Washington.

  Svetlana.

  He scanned behind, gun raised in readiness, yet saw nothing but the billowing cloud of dust from the battle raging far down the road. KJ took one more glance then darted inside himself. The door clanged shut behind.

  A shower of ammunition rattled across the telekinetic shield.

  Merry and Lex squinted each time, probably terrified their mental power wouldn’t hold and the bullets would stream through ripping them all to shreds. They were pinned down, with their assailants taking the higher ground. Nikolaj knew they were screwed.

  Another wave of shells.

  “I don’t know how long,” Merry started.

  “We can hold this,” Lex finished.

  Nikolaj scanned the upper levels. The guards were out in the open, but they had the higher ground and to be able to fire out, the girls would have to drop the shields. His mind raced. There was no telepathic control here. No way to manipulate them. Think Nikolaj, think.

  The protective shield began to flicker, and fizzle—signalling Merry and Lex were all out of power. Time seemed to slow, the screeching of bullets overhead, drawn out. There was only one thing he could do: pull a stunt like KJ. There was no way they were all getting out of this. He had to sacrifice himself. A small smile crested his lips. After all his lecturing, he was about to die doing something stupid.

  “Fuck it,” he shouted. “Merry, Lex. On my order drop your shield, climb onto Kiska and Kroshka, and get the hell out of here.”

  “What are you,” Merry began.

  “Going to do?” Lex finished.

  “I’m going to distract these assholes. And Chernoukh is going to take out the equipment at the top.”

  The black-gilled Huahuqui snorted and shook his head, gills ruffled in annoyance.

  Nikolaj grabbed his symbiote firmly around his pear-shaped head. “You’re much faster and stronger than me. You can make it. I know you can.”

  The girls, sweating and exhausted, looked to each other, then to Nikolaj.

  He gave a weak smile, acknowledging his fate then, as the barrage of gunfire subsided for the attackers to reload, he sucked in a deep breath and shouted: “Now!”

  The shield dropped. Merry and Lex leaped onto the backs of their Huahuqui and bounded down the steep stairs of the temple. Nikolaj let out a war cry as loud and long as his lungs would allow, sprinting toward the guards. Chernoukh darted outward and then up the right flank headed for the summit.

  Gunshots rang out, but Nikolaj kept pounding forward, a scream still upon his lips, headed for the nearest soldier who struggled with the action on his machine gun. Every one of Nikolaj’s limbs burned and though he knew adrenaline was all that was carrying him through the rain of munitions, he didn’t stop. He tilted his shoulder forward and crashed into the soldier, knocking him from his feet and hard into the temple stones. The momentum was too great and Nikolaj toppled over with his target.

  Nikolaj gasped for air, his lungs unable to fill properly. He hacked a cough. Warm blood stained his sweat-soaked t-shirt. He glanced up to see Chernoukh. The Huahuqui was already at the top. Nikolaj huffed out a laugh. It had worked.

  A shadow cast over Nikolaj, blocking out the searing sun. He shielded his eyes and looked up but could see no features of his assassin. “Just do it already, asshole.”

  “I thought John boy said this was the sensible one,” came an unfamiliar American voice.

  Nikolaj frowned.

  “He did,” came another voice. This one he knew. Tony Franco.

  “Tony?” Nikolaj said.

  A hand reached out and clasped Nikolaj around the forearm, then hoisted him to his feet.

  “Yeah it’s me. And this is Matt Lauder.”

  Nikolaj slumped into Tony’s chest. “Am I glad to see you.” He suddenly stood upright and began patting himself down. “I’m not shot?”

  “Nope,” Tony said. “That’s the other guys blood. I have a good aim.”

  “Shit,” Nikolaj said with a sigh. “Wait, Merry and Lex?”

  “They’re fine. We brought some friends along for them.”

  Nikolaj peered over Tony’s shoulder to see Catherine and Leo hauling a wounded Igor up the side of the pyramid to meet with Merry and Lex. All of their Huahuqui bounded around each other like hamsters in a box. “They all made it.”

  “Honestly, we don’t know what happened,” Lauder said with a shrug. “The whole lot of them just suddenly downed sticks and flooded out of the courtyard toward the smaller pyramid. Like they weren’t interested in us anymore. Our guys and half the Stratum we came with chased after them. So, we came looking for Tony and you.”

  In the distance, wavering in the heat haze the Pyramid of the Moon stood tall. A swarm of bodies locked in battle slowly meandered up the avenue. It was impossible to differentiate between Stratum and Phalanx. “KJ,” Nikolaj said. “They’re going after KJ.”

  “Did Chernoukh get to the transmission equipment?” Tony asked.

  “You knew about that?” Nikolaj asked.

  “KJ filled Jonathan in,” Tony replied.

  “He’s here?”

  Ton
y nodded.

  A loud crash followed by the fizzle of electrons sounded from above. A mass of steel and wires clanged past them, rolling down the side of the temple. Nikolaj watched it smash into the ground below, kicking up dust and debris.

  “We were taking it out to call you, but you’re here so that was a giant waste of time,” Nikolaj said.

  “Not true, we needed that down for our plan to work too,” Tony replied.

  “Okay great, fine. But, we have to go after KJ now. He was trying to take an orb from Victoria.”

  “Who?”

  “Doesn’t matter. KJ’s in danger. We need to get to him.”

  “Yeah, look. Your dad, he’d be pissed if we took you back into that craziness. We gotta—”

  A crackle of electricity licked its way over Nikolaj’s brain. Once. Twice. It sent a pulse down his spine and into his limbs. He shot a glance at his friends. They were all silent staring up at him. Even the nearby Huahuqui had stopped their antics, their gazes now fixed on his. They must have felt it too. He concentrated harder on it, teasing it out piece by piece, the static sound becoming a voice. A woman’s voice. Freya’s voice. A single word slipped from Nikolaj’s lips. “Mom?”

  “What the hell is going on, this place is like a friggin Tardis,” KJ said, studying the vast, dark, hollow interior of the temple. Its walls were smooth and black like obsidian, all pointing up in four perfect triangles to the apex. In the center, a column of glass—an elevator shaft.

  “Great,” KJ said. “You think she’s gone to the top, or she has a creepy super villain dungeon under this place?”

  Teller stalked further inside, gun raised to track his line of sight, but didn’t answer.

  A crackle of static echoed off the shiny walls. Jonathan grabbed his radio and keyed it up, all the while creeping toward the midpoint. “Tony? Lauder?”

  “Boss... incoming... get... ass... there,” came the garbled words.