Cosmic Rift

by James Axler

  With that, the old king got back on his feet and led them past one of the mighty pumps, treading a narrow path between the pipes. Kane and Grant followed, watching the shadows through the light-enhancing lenses they wore over their eyes.

  A few dozen paces later, Jack stopped at a closed hatchway before running the God Rod across a plate in its center. The hatchway looked as if it had not been opened in a hundred years, rust and dark streaks marring its once shiny surface, but it swung open soundlessly at the God Rod’s touch.

  Jack stepped inside, dipping his head a little to get beneath the low frame of the hatchway. Beyond, a tunnel-like shaft led upward at a steep angle, barely wide enough to accommodate a man. It featured a smooth floor almost like a ramp, and scarred walls that showed evidence of what appeared to be quite brutal impacts. The whole thing was caked in dirt and it smelled of damp.

  “Where’s this take us, Your Majesty?” Kane asked.

  “It’s an old delivery shaft that we stopped using back in the Era of the Hawk,” Jack told him. “If my memory’s worth a damn, then it should lead us to a storage area over to the north of the building.”

  Kane and Grant followed the older man as he clambered up the shaft, pressing against the sides to hoist himself forward along the steep slope. It wasn’t quite mountaineering, but it wasn’t an easy walk, either.

  “What’s in this storeroom?” Grant asked, bringing up the rear.

  “It was abandoned a long time ago,” Jack told him, “so, hopefully nothing much.”

  “So long as it ain’t where you keep more slave bodies you were waiting to bring to life,” Grant muttered.

  * * *

  BRIGID RAN THROUGH the palace garage, watching Wertham’s engine lights as he shot away from the building.

  “Come on,” Brigid urged, taking in the contents of the room properly for the first time. “Got to be something here I can pilot.”

  Her eyes lit upon the familiar shape of the steed. It was the same vehicle in which Ronald had brought her and her companions to the palace when they had arrived in Authentiville. Its bricklike design looked decidedly blocky compared to its sleek stable mates, but Brigid felt confident she could fly it if she could just recall what Ronald had done.

  The steed’s door opened as Brigid approached, gliding back on a hidden mechanism so that it disappeared among the bank of windows.

  Brigid took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see if I took everything in.”

  Brigid stepped into the steed and stopped, spying the figure there with a start.

  “Who th—?” Brigid began, and she stopped. Her TP-9 pistol was up automatically, poised to blast the stranger, the muzzle focused perfectly between her ribs. But Brigid stopped shy of pulling that trigger, realizing instinctively that the stranger would not hurt her.

  It was the woman in the headband, one of the two who had accompanied Ronald on the airstrip to perform what Brigid suspected was a mental scan before she and her companions had been allowed to exit the grounded Mantas.

  Now, the woman stood statue still, eyes wide and unfocused, the headband reflecting the lights of the sky from the distant opening that led from the garage.

  Brigid stepped closer, eyeing the woman warily. “What happened to you?” she asked, bringing her blaster down but still holding it ready in her hand. “Brain seizure?” She looked at the woman’s face more closely. “No, it’s more than that, isn’t it?” Brigid realized. “You’ve been...switched off.”

  Well, that opened up a whole different can of worms. Brigid already suspected that the Gene-agers were artificial creatures, but she hadn’t much thought about the other people she and her companions had interacted with since they had arrived. It made sense, she realized. Like the Gene-agers who had served them dinner, this mind-scanning woman and her companion were in a role of servitude, as were the Vooers and the women operating the Happening. They were tools, labor-saving machines.

  No time to think about that now, Brigid realized, turning her attention back to the hangar doors. Wertham’s mule was still visible, cutting a path through the sky traffic.

  “Right,” Brigid said, passing her hand over the door mechanism to close it. “Let’s see if I can remember how Ronald did this.”

  She took up the same position as Ronald had on their journey over. As she did so, a clear plate seemed to drop down before her eyes. It hung in the air in front of Brigid, framing the hangar opening where she could see Wertham’s flyer. Glowing grid lines appeared across the image. Brigid realized absently that the image must have been there when Ronald brought them to the palace, but the projection was so specifically mapped to the pilot’s retina that it could only be seen from a single angle, directed precisely for the pilot’s sole use.

  Brigid’s eyes flicked to Wertham’s retreating vehicle. The design was intuitive—the grid overlay showed various pathways that could be taken, the pilot need only select one and the engine would do the rest.

  Brigid felt the steed begin to move, rising from the floor and swinging around toward the opening. In a moment she was out of the garage and floating high above the city streets, a rail of light forming before the strange sky craft as it cut a path through the air.

  She was on her way.

  * * *

  DOMI HAD BEEN keeping pace with Ronald and the captive queen for almost five minutes now, her keen senses guiding her through the dark maze of the unlit palace, ducking from view when she crossed the path of one of the patrolling sentries who had been left to clear up the last of the royal court’s stragglers. She took a parallel path to Ronald, sometimes utilizing the same corridors, but often following an alternative route, confident that he was escorting the queen back to the throne room.

  Ronald’s chair glided almost silently through the corridors, but he was still easy to follow, for the queen’s reluctant footfalls were heavy as she was dragged by his relentless grasp. He would not slow, nor would he allow her to, and Domi caught snatches of their conversation as the queen tried to reason with her once-loyal aide.

  “You must stop this, Ronald,” the queen instructed. “It can only end in pain—for everyone.”

  “The people will accept me in time,” Ronald insisted. “As will you.”

  “Never,” the queen shot back.

  Domi halted at the end of a corridor, ducking behind a purple-leafed plant that stood taller than she was, awaiting Ronald’s approach. They were a few doors away from the back entry to the throne room, Domi knew. There were no guards in this area, and it provided an ideal opportunity for an ambush. Domi hunkered down as Ronald’s motion chair whispered closer.

  “You see only my disability,” Ronald told the queen. “You fail to envisage what I am capable of.”

  “No, it is you who only see your disability,” Rosalind told him, the regal tone back in her voice. “Wertham has poisoned your mind, infecting you with his strange ideas, turning you against...”

  “Against what?” Ronald sneered. “You, Rosalind? King Jack? And what are you? My betters, is that how you think?”

  “Wertham’s spell has turned you against the people,” Rosalind finished lamely. “You need to consider what a war with the surface will cost them.”

  As the chair glided past, Domi leaped from cover with the Detonics pistol thrust before her.

  “What is this?” Ronald snarled as he spied the lithe figure barreling toward him in the semidarkness.

  Then Domi’s leg came up in a swift kick, and her boot connected with Ronald’s jaw, knocking him back in his seat. He slammed the headrest with a grunt of dispelled breath, and the motion chair edged backward several feet with the impact while he let go of Roz’s hand. Wrong-footed, the queen collapsed to the floor, tripping over the retreating motion chair.

  Domi moved fast then, rolling forward and reaching with her free han
d for the replica God Rod where Ronald had placed it in a sheath at the side of his noiseless conveyance.

  “Game’s over, traitor boy,” she snarled as her hand closed on the Devil Rod. Holding it, Domi felt its pulse as though it was subtly changing size with each erg of energy that channeled from its core, almost alive.

  Ronald’s eyes narrowed as the albino woman danced away, Devil Rod in hand.

  “Now, I guess you have a way to talk to your buddy so you’re going to tell him to stand down,” Domi ordered. “And after that we’ll see about getting the pair of you a nice cosy prison cell together or whatever it is that the people do here.”

  Without warning, an electrical lance discharged from Ronald’s chair in a single, dartlike bolt, cutting the space between them before striking Domi’s chest. She glowed for a moment as electricity played across her whole body, before sagging to the floor with a crash.

  “Stupid immigrant,” Ronald muttered, bringing the motion chair around and snatching the Devil Rod from the floor where it had fallen from Domi’s grasp.

  “Domi—no!” Rosalind gasped.

  Ronald looked back at her. “Come, my queen,” he instructed. “We have a kingdom to rule.”

  * * *

  KING JACK REACHED for the hatch at the end of the shaft and ran his God Rod over its sensor. The hatch was square with rounded-off corners and it squealed as if alive when it swung open. Ideally, either Kane or Grant would have gone first to ensure that they were not walking straight into an ambush, but with the tight proportions of the shaft, such a move was nothing short of impossible.

  “This way,” Jack said, stepping out into the room beyond.

  Kane followed while Grant struggled out of the narrow hatchway last of all.

  “What did you use that for?” Grant asked as he clambered uncomfortably through the tight gap.

  “Supplies,” the monarch said vaguely. He was scanning the room, using the light cast by his God Rod to see. It was a vast room, two stories in height, rectangular in shape so that it felt long and narrow. The walls featured some struts on which large, sealed boxes had been hung using thick leather straps. Each box looked large enough to house a modest-sized family along with their pets.

  There was no internal illumination in the room other than what poured from Jack’s baton, but a small line of windows ran high up along one of the long walls, displaying the golden towers of Authentiville and the rainbow mosaic of sky above them.

  Kane and Grant scanned the room, too, splitting up to make a more difficult target, and swooping around the king. Their lenses brought the whole room into stark relief and they spotted the Gene-agers waiting there.

  Four Gene-agers were poised statue still, until they saw the light of the God Rod. It seemed to act as a beacon, and immediately they began moving menacingly toward the king’s position.

  “Get back, Your Highness,” Kane shouted, commanding his Sin Eater back into his hand from its hidden sheath with a flinch of wrist tendons.

  Almost before the Sin Eater was in his palm, Kane felt the arm of the nearest Gene-ager slap against his chest, shoving him aside.

  “Not so fast, bozo,” Kane growled, bringing the Sin Eater up against the mindless creature’s gut and stroking the trigger. The Gene-ager seemed to collapse into itself, its clothes smoldering with propellant.

  Behind Kane, Grant put his hand out before the king and guided him back, searching for cover. “These guys move pretty fast,” he observed.

  “Yeah, they’re...” King Jack began, but suddenly a fifth figure was on him, having dropped from his hiding place atop one of the hanging crates.

  Grant moved without conscious thought, bringing his right hand out in a ram’s-head punch as the attacker reached for the king. The blow connected with the back of the thing’s shoulders, much farther back than Grant had planned, and again the thought occurred to him that these people were moving faster than he expected.

  Grant’s punch did just enough to knock the Gene-ager off balance, and the man stumbled as he reached for the king, snagging only a handful of his red cloak.

  Then Grant was on him, driving a second punch into the slave’s emotionless face, following up with a third strike low to the body that knocked the wind out of the Gene-ager.

  The Gene-ager reeled in place, struggling under the force of Grant’s controlled attack. He brought up one arm to stave off Grant’s next blow, but Grant surprised him by commanding his Sin Eater into his hand and snapping off a single burst of fire in place of the punch he had telegraphed. The Gene-ager staggered back, collapsing to the floor with a hiss of pain.

  “Come on, Your Highness,” Grant instructed, pushing King Jack toward one of the walls where he could better protect him.

  Kane, meanwhile, was hurrying across the room toward the next of the dronelike servants, his Sin Eater held in line with the rapidly approaching figure’s face. “Who commands you?” Kane snapped. “Who do you obey?”

  The Gene-ager ignored him, moving with a burst of uncanny speed and swiping at the pistol.

  “Kane, look out!” King Jack called from his hiding place. “They’re mover drones, they can move twice human speed if they need to.”

  “No kidding,” Kane growled as he was knocked back by the blow to his gun. He spun wildly toward one of the swinging crates, his feet leaving the ground entirely.

  Across the room, Grant had ushered the king behind the cover of a jutting pipe that stood almost three times his height. “Fast movers,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Time to break out the heavy artillery.” Then, Grant was reaching into the hidden pocket in the lining of his coat to retrieve the Copperhead subgun, keeping the pipe between himself and the approaching servants. In a moment, the weapon’s two-foot barrel was thrust before him like an accusation and he squeezed the trigger. Two more Gene-agers went down in a fury of sparks, bullets cutting through them in a storm of 4.85 mm pain.

  The remaining Gene-ager had followed Kane where he had dropped. Kane had hit the floor hard, and for a moment the whole room seemed to be spinning. The shadow was the only alert he had that the Gene-ager had followed him, but he whipped his gun up, instinct-swift, and pulled the trigger. The Gene-ager swung back in a blur, and Kane’s bullets shot past him with a cacophony of noise.

  “Kane?” he heard Grant calling to him from his hiding place. “Kane? You okay?”

  “Get the chief out of here,” Kane shouted back, regretting once more how their Commtacts had failed once they had passed into the cosmic rift. Still, the old man was important, and if he didn’t survive, then Kane figured it was even money that none of them would.

  Kane watched from the corner of his eye as Grant seized the opportunity to run, ushering King Jack toward a door set within the wall beneath the windows. Kane’s attacker turned, hearing the sound as King Jack ran the God Rod across the door’s sensor plate, commanding it to open for the first time in years.

  Without targeting, Kane sent a cluster of bullets at the Gene-ager, rattling the floor at his feet. The Gene-ager turned back to face him.

  “Uh-uh,” Kane said. “You’re not done with me yet, pretty boy.”

  As Grant and King Jack disappeared through the unsealed door, the fast-moving Gene-ager came at Kane again, stomping toward him as the ex-Mag struggled back to his feet. Through the miraculous lenses, Kane saw a second figure moving amid the forgotten storeroom—one of the Gene-agers he had thought he had already dropped. Damn, these guys weren’t just fast, they could also take a good pounding before they went down.

  Kane darted aside as the nearest Gene-ager threw a punch at his face. The movement was eye-blink fast, and the balled fist cut through the air with an audible whistle.

  Then the other one blurred across the room, some kind of metal bar in his hands. Grim-faced, the Gene-ager swung the bar at Kane. The ex-Magistrate ducked,
and the bar whipped just inches above his head. Kane didn’t know what the weapon was. It looked something like a crowbar or maybe a long-handled wrench, but he was pretty sure that with enough force it could still bash his brains in or maybe even take his head clean off his shoulders. Time to end this, then.

  Kane ducked as the armed attacker took another swing, but he realized he was backing into a corner as the first Gene-ager rounded on him. All of a sudden Kane had run out of options and his backup was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 28

  Brigid had lost Wertham.

  But the sensor-ware of the steed hadn’t. Under her mental instruction, it shot across the sky, weaving between the tallest buildings of Authentiville as it sought its prey.

  Wertham’s vehicle was faster, and he had had a head start, but the steed tracked his path unerringly, displaying his route on the heads-up grid that flashed across Brigid’s retinas.

  “Just incredible,” Brigid muttered as the steed hooked around another golden tower a hundred stories above the street.

  As they passed the tower, Brigid saw their destination for the first time. It looked like the inside of an automobile engine had been enlarged and sunk into the ground, existing now in a great hole drilled beneath the city. The pit glowed with a soft orange radiance, the color of smelting metal.

  Brigid had passed here before, she recalled, her eidetic memory filling in the details as the steed swooped lower, angling toward the ground. But it hadn’t been a pit then; it had been a park or field, a great swath of grass imprinted on her memory.

  “What did he do?” Brigid wondered as the steed dropped toward a landing platform. There was one other vehicle there—Wertham’s two-seater mule. It was time to finish this.

  * * *

  KING JACK STEPPED from the storeroom and stopped so suddenly that Grant almost crashed into him.

  “Your Highness?” Grant asked.

  They were outside, a little above street level on a balcony wide enough to be used as a turning circle for a Sandcat. The city was dark, the sky reflected from the shiny towers but their internal illumination dimmed. The phenomenon encompassed the whole city, Grant saw as he took in the view. But out there, somewhere between those now-dark towers, there came a glow like a volcano.