"Ah, I'm glad you're here Angus," Dr. Frest said in his frail, aged voice. "We've been trying to contact you lor the past few weeks."
"I've been busy," Cage replied. "As a matter of fact, I was just finishing a job when I happened upon your little gathering. Anybody seen a nasty little villain named Purple Haze run through here?"
The Guardian snapped his fingers and the crowd parted. There, held fast between a Rocket Ranger and a fidget hero, was Purple Haze.
"This isn't fair, Cage!" Haze screamed. "You tricked me! You had all these heroes waiting for me! Scared to lace me on your own, huh?"
Cage ignored Purple Haze, turning to Dr. Frest. He and the scientist went way back. Frest had been forced by Dr. Mobius to construct the gizmos that made Mobius so formidable. Forced by threat of harm to his family a wife and daughter that Mobius had spirited away as insurance of Frest's cooperation. It was ten years ago I hat the Guardian rescued Frest's family, allowing the
scientist to finally turn against his villainous master.
"I'll ask again, Frest," Cage said. "What's going on?"
"Mobius is not dead, Angus." Frest's words cut through Cage's rough exterior, striking his heart like cold ice. "All those gadgets and weapons he forced me to construct over the years, they were never meant for use against Terra. Mobius has left our world and is even now attempting to conquer other worlds."
"I don't understand ..." Cage stammered.
"I have located him on another world, Angus," Frest emphasized. "He has left our planet to spread his evil elsewhere. And what evil it is! He has destroyed at least six worlds over his thirty-year career. But we have him now!"
Cage looked around at all the costumed heroes. These were the Mystery Men, as the tabloids called them, the heroes that fought to keep the world safe from the madmen like Mobius. In fact, each of the men and women here had battled Mobius at one time or another.
"What are you planning to do, Alexus?" Cage asked softly.
"That is what I am here to explain, Angus."
The Guardian helped Frest up onto a large crate so that the scientist could be seen by everyone in the chamber. Then he addressed his audience.
"My friends," Frest began. "For years I toiled in the labor of the villain Mobius, helping him gather wealth and power. It was always my impression that I was helping Mobius further his plans on Terra, but I was wrong. Records we found in this very temple, hidden in a secret chamber, reveal that Mobius is in possession of a device that allows him to travel to other dimensions! And he is using this device to conquer these dimensions with impunity. We have all fought against Dr. Mobius
66
at some point in our careers, and we have all failed to stop him. So, we each must share a portion of the blame lot what has befallen these innocent worlds."
A murmuring started, quickly spreading through the chamber. The Guardian tapped his cane on the stone
floor three time, loudly cutting through the noise. The chamber fell silent again.
"I have devised our own way to travel to this newest
dimension," Frest continued. "But the systems are fragile, i mtested. At best, this will be a one-way trip. I'm not sure if I can duplicate the process once we reach this new world."
"Why us?" called a woman Cage recognized as Miss Freedom.
"Because," the Guardian answered, "someone has to do it. Afraid you can't cut it, lady?"
"No one is required to make this trip," Frest Interrupted quickly. "But those of you who do decide to iccompany us must make a pledge. That is my only request."
"What kind of pledge?" Cage asked as he weighed his options.
Dr. Frest stood as straight as he could, and his voice i.ing out with a power it never had before. "We, the Mystery Men of Terra, must pledge ourselves to each other and to our quest. We must fight to end Mobius' roign of terror, even at the cost of our own lives!"
Cage glanced from side to side, noting that while not ,ill of those present had raised their hands, more than half of them did. He added his own to the group and let his voice join the others.
"We, the Mystery Men of Terra, do pledge ourselves to each other and to our quest. We will fight to end Mobius' reign of terror, even at the cost of our own
lives!"
Dr. Frest smiled. "Help me down, my boy," he said to Cage. Cage did so, then followed the scientist over to a weird machine.
The machine was all controls and dials, connected to a frame that was attached to one wall of the chamber. When Frest threw a switch, blue and red light filled the inside of the frame.
"This is our gate to another world," Frest called above the hum of the machine. "Step through while you can, before the machine burns out and the gate closes."
Not waiting to see if anyone else was coming, the Guardian stepped into the light and disappeared. With a shrug Cage followed him, letting the light engulf him in its crackling embrace.
27
"Very good, Mara," the pilot said. "Very, very good."
Mara was pleased herself. She was finally handling the plane on her own, not through repetition via chip replay. Forced-learning drugs, administered to her throughout her days in school, made her mind more susceptible to new ideas and processes. She laughed out loud with the sheer joy of flight.
"That's Australia down there, so we'll have to start our approach," the copilot explained.
"I guess that means you want me to get up, huh?" Mara asked. The copilot nodded, and Mara slid out of the seat.
"H.M. A.S. Nirimba, do you copy?" the pilot said into his headset, trying to raise the control tower that would guide him into Australia.
A voice came back over the radio, welcoming them to Australian airspace and giving them heading directions.
Mara took it all in, trying to digest everything at once as her internal computer recorded the scene. But her joyous mood was cut short when she saw what was happening outside the cockpit. The dark ash clouds had been with them since they left California, but now a small storm
was forming in front of the plane. Black clouds swirled together, connected by flashing lightning. Driving rain pelted the windshield, and then the plane was submerged In the dark cloud.
"What's going on?" she shouted above the static that had replaced the control tower voice on the radio.
"Damndest storm I've ever seen," the pilot called back. Then he cried out, "My God!"
On the other side of the window, out of the rain and swirling mist emerged two vaguely human shapes. banshees! Mara thought. Like the monsters the Sims threw at us on Kadandra! These banshees were ghostly, with long, flowing hair that framed their heads, and transparent torsos which faded away below their stomachs. They raised spectral arms and floated toward T he windshield, apparently intent on crashing into the plane — or through it.
For a moment fear gripped at Mara's heart, and she hacked away from the horrors. But as the banshees slid I h rough the windshield and into the plane, she shook off l he paralyzation and moved forward. She wasn't fast enough, however, to save the pilots. The banshees reached into the pilots' chests with incorporeal fingers, opening their spectral mouths wide to let loose their screams.
Mara fell back, rocked by the supernatural sound. The pilots own screams joined that of the banshees, and Mara could only watch as the men began to wither and die. She watched their life force drain away, a thin mist leaving their mouths and entering the banshees. With each departing breath, the pilots became thinner, more corpselike. The banshees, in contrast, became fuller, less vague.
The door behind Mara swung open and Father Bryce was there. "Sweet Jesus," he muttered. The banshees stopped their death call as the pilots collapsed into dust and bone in their seats. Then they turned toward Bryce and Mara, their hands outstretched to deliver another death-cold touch. Mara, still weak from the effects of the previous scream, could barely get her body to move. But Bryce was there, brandishing his cross before him to intercept the ghostly hand.
The banshee kept sliding for
ward, reaching out to touch Bryce's cross. Upon contact there was a flash of blinding light, and the banshee screamed. But this was not a death call so much as a scream of pain. The light rolled from the cross and up the banshee's arm, disintegrating the spirit as it traveled. In seconds, one of the creatures was destroyed. The other, more cautious now, held its distance and regarded the priest warily.
"Banish the monster, Chris," Mara demanded as she weakly unholstered her laser pistol. "Do it before it can scream again."
Bryce thrust his holy symbol at the spirit, trying to put as much faith as he could muster into the act. The banshee darted back and forth, remaining out of Bryce's reach. It opened its mouth wide, and fetid breath filled the cockpit. Then it screamed.
The blast of sound was like an icy wind. It knocked the priest back, stunning him, causing him to drop his cross. The banshee drifted forward, ready to finish off Bryce. Mara started to rise, hoping to place herself between the monster and the priest, but a strong hand
gripped her shoulder and pushed her back down.
"No weapon you have can stop a banshee, girl," Kurst growled. "The priest is on his own. If he fails, we are all dead."
"If I don't get to those controls," Mara reminded him, "then we're dead anyway."
28
Dr. James Monroe entered the operating room. His patient, Congressman Andrew Jackson "Ace" Decker, had been prepped and Monroe had examined the X- rays. The strange metal staves produced a shadow on the film that made it hard to see detail, but it appeared that they weren't lodged too deeply in Decker's chest. When Monroe physically examined the pieces of metal, he was intrigued by the arcane symbols carved into them, and by the weird patterns of light that ran along the staves. But more so, he was confused by the lack of blood, by the cleanness of the wounds. The staves simply appeared to have passed through Decker's flesh without puncturing it. The strangeness of the whole case bothered Monroe's logical mind, reminding him of his mental struggles with the Miller/Tolwyn case.
Monroe acknowledged the attendants with a curt nod. There were two nurses, Major Boot, and a doctor who was a general practitioner. All had their surgical masks in place.
"Is everybody ready?" Monroe asked lightly.
"I don't think we should try this, doctor," the general practitioner said. "His friends repeatedly warned me against trying to remove the staves. They said it could kill him."
Monroe turned his strong gaze on the general practitioner. "Were any of these friends doctors, doctor?
Were any of them a surgeon with my qualifications? I can see why they wouldn't want you to attempt this, but surgery is what I do. Now, either take your place to assist me, or get out of my operating room."
The GP stood indecisively for a moment, then he lowered his head and took his place beside the operating table. Monroe nodded.
"Good," he said. "Unless anyone else has any problems, let's get this operation over and done with."
Monroe began with a simple clamp assembly, attaching it to one of the staves. He applied pressure, but the staff refused to budge. "Must be lodged in the rib," he reasoned. "We'll have to open him up."
He asked for a knife, and Julie handed him one. She had moved in to replace the nurse as soon as the operation became more complicated. She dabbed Monroe's forehead with a cool sponge, wiping away beads of sweat before they could fall into his eyes. Then he lowered the blade to Decker's chest.
As the gleaming tip touched the patient's skin, Monroe screamed. Fire leaped from the glowing staves into the knife and up, engulfing Monroe in burning agony. He fell back, vaguely aware that the lights in the operating room were exploding. Julie used her own body to protect the patient as glass shards rained down. There was an electric screaming that seemed to come from every piece of machinery in the room at once. It mingled with Monroe's own scream.
He dropped to his knees, sure that the fire had melted away his flesh and was now working on his nerves as it ate toward his bones. The fire crawled over him like a thing alive, bubbling the soft tissue so that he could smell himself cooking. He closed his eyes and screamed again, praying for death to take him so that he didn't
have to suffer any more of this pain.
He wasn't sure how long he went on screaming, but gentle hand finally roused him from his pain. Julie was standing beside him. There was worry in her eyes. He blinked, realizing that the pain had stopped and the fire was gone. He carefully looked at his hand and saw that his flesh was whole, unscarred.
"Decker?" he managed to ask.
"No change," Julie answered.
"Then let's get him back to his room," Monroe said. "I've got to think about this before we resume the operation."
29
Andrew Jackson Decker's dream of choices continued. He walked through another door and found himself in a barren field of crumbled rock. Next to him, standing where only a second ago nothing stood, was the Gaunt Man.
"I'm getting tired of this dream," Decker said, kicking a stone across the field.
"But it has only just begun, stormer," the Gaunt Man laughed. "And I must say, you are doing extremely well."
"Doing?" Decker asked. "What am I doing?"
Before the Gaunt Man could answer, a burst of flame erupted from Decker's chest — from the metal staves, actually — flashing brightly before it dissipated into the air.
"I see someone tried to remove the rune staves," the Gaunt Man said. Decker turned to him, concern etched deeply in his face. "Oh, don't worry," the Gaunt Man said with a dismissing wave of his thin-fingered hand. "They would need to rip them out of you before any harm would befall your body. The person who attempted the action, however, may not be so lucky."
"What are you after?" Decker demanded. "What do you want with me?"
The Gaunt Man gestured and more doorways appeared in the barren field. "I need your choices," he explained. "I need you to distinguish one possible event from another. Take this field for example. In mere minutes the ground will start to shake, fissures will appear, and you will more than likely be swallowed into a deep, rumbling pit. Unless, of course, you choose which door does not have this outcome behind it."
Decker couldn't believe it. He was stuck in a dream obeying the dictates of a madman! No, he decided, I will not let my subconscious mind turn me into someone's slave!
"Make your own decision," Decker shouted above the rising wind. Somewhere in the distance a deep rumbling began to build. It rolled like a wave beneath the ground, shaking the landscape as it passed by.
"Very well, Mr. Decker, this is your dream," the Gaunt Man said, straightening his long coat and adjusting his wide-brimmed hat. "If you have no regard for your own life, who am I to tell you differently?"
The Gaunt Man started to walk away as the ground shook and cracked wide. Long crevices split open, releasing foul, long-trapped vapors into the air. Decker lost his footing and hit the shaking ground hard. He remained that way for long seconds, trying to regain his breath. When he did move, a fissure opened in the place he departed.
On his feet again, Decker watched as the Gaunt Man walked across the field as though the ground was not shaking violently. Decker, meanwhile, was doing everything he could to stay upright and avoid the ever- widening cracks. He turned back to the doors. Already a number of them had been knocked down or swallowed into the dirt. If he didn't move soon, he wouldn't have any choices left to make. He turned again to the Gaunt Man.
"It is your choice to make, Decker," the Gaunt Man called above the roar of the earth. "It is your decision. Choose a door and life, or choose to stand where you are and die."
Decker stepped back as the earth shifted in front of him, throwing up a mound of rock. Then, without another moment of hesitation, he dashed through one of the remaining doors.
30
The banshee floated closer, and Father Christopher Bryce tried to control the fear that raged through his body. He was shaking badly, acutely aware that he had no weapon with which to battle the specter. His cros
s, which handily dispatched the other banshee, was lost somewhere on the floor of the cockpit. Even if it were close by, he doubted he could reach it before the grave- cold hand touched him and drained away his life force.
The ethereal arm reached toward him, spreading ethereal fingers wide. Bryce desperately forced his mind to think through the problem facing him. What was the cross that it was able to destroy spawns of hell? What power did it possess? Perhaps, he reasoned, it only possessed what he gave it, focusing his faith into a tangible field of good that no evil entity could withstand. Did he need the cross to duplicate the feat? Rationale told him no, but faith was a leap beyond the rational.
torg 02 - The Dark Realm Page 7
