Athos held up a hand. “Before you go, you need to know that the Leader found out about those little machines of yours. He has several methods of rendering them useless.”
Adam sighed. “I noticed. It’s basically the dust you used back in the Cavern, right?”
Athos nodded. “That’s one of them, but I think I’m the only one who had that besides him. There’s at least one more I’m aware of that has a similar effect. I’m just saying… don’t rely on them. They’re a great advantage against an Aliomenti without any reversal technology, but don’t get so overconfident that you stop thinking about what you’ll do without them.” He hesitated. “I only just found out. I knew the Leader had spies, but one of them… one of them knew a lot.”
Adam’s face tightened. “I know. And that’s why I have to go elsewhere first, to make sure that she’s not hurt too badly because of that decision.”
Athos grabbed his arm. “One more question.” He hesitated. “Did Will Stark… he really figured out how to reverse the ambrosia? He really has a son?”
“He really has a son and a daughter.” Adam paused. “But no, Will didn’t figure it out. Someone else did. But he was able to use that knowledge and become a father as a result.”
A look of quiet sadness filled Athos’ eyes. “Of course.” He held out his hand. “Good luck. Until we meet again, then.”
Adam accepted the Hunter’s handshake, and the former enemies teleported to their separate destinations. Adam teleported inside the main floor of Headquarters to listen to the Energy from below without falling victim to the savage fighting in the process. He cringed, unable to sense nearly the numbers of unique signals he’d expect. That meant that the Aliomenti had better Energy shielding technology than he knew… or the casualty count had already reached staggering levels.
It made no sense, though.
Those fighting were telepathic and empathic, able to sense murderous emotions and thoughts of attack quickly enough to move and teleport out of the way. How, then, could so many die when they ought to be able to defend themselves better, to move out of the way? He shook his head, able to reach only one conclusion. People weren’t teleporting away. They were staying where they sensed the attack coming in order to attack, swinging at spots where a teleporter would emerge from the void. They’d moved people here using the teleportation machines in part, to conserve Energy to provide that defensive capability for the longest possible period of time, giving the best chance to disable opponents for the insertion of the reversal medicine. If they used that excess Energy to attack, mirroring a likely Aliomenti technique…
He shuddered.
With the death toll clearly mounting, he began to doubt his decision to trust Athos. The former Hunter’s story came across as genuine, admitting his inadequacies as a military commander and the pain Porthos’ comments on his lack of skill had caused because Athos recognized them as truthful assessments. There was no reason for him to reveal his lack of military prowess in the presence of an enemy, for Adam wouldn’t know the truth. But the story of his forced conversion had been what sold Adam on the genuineness of the conversion. The story was related with far too much pain over the circumstances and what that conversion forced him to do to doubt Athos’ intentions.
He wondered if Athos was a better actor than he’d been a military man. He’d always looked the part of the former, if nothing else. Perhaps that acting ability helped Athos hide the fact that he’d secretly enjoyed the role as Hunter, even if he’d been forced into its performance.
He decided that Athos couldn’t do much harm at this point. He would, at worst, be one more fighter on the side of the Aliomenti. If he put his historically poor strategic mind to work on behalf of the Aliomenti? So much the better.
It was time to move on.
He took a deep breath and focused the target image in his mind. He’d quietly peeked in young Will’s mind a few weeks earlier, as the man slept following his ordeal at Headquarters, getting the imagery he’d need for a teleportation hop. He meshed those with the imagery pulled from an older Will’s mind in the past into the memory videos, giving him a clear image of the space on the upper floor devoted to the Leader. He pushed himself there over a stream of Energy, feeling the near instant activation and cessation of the teleportation hop, finding himself inside Arthur’s penthouse office space, with all the ornate decoration he’d seen in his target image.
He scanned the room with his eyes and his Energy senses, trying to form an assessment of the status here, sensing in an instant that something was wrong.
Arthur stood alone, near a large desk. Both Assassins lay dead on the floor. Abaddon’s lifeless eyes stared up around a massive hole into his head. As to the original Assassin… Adam winced at the brutality of the man’s death, wondering how such a gruesome end had been wrought, and by whom. He found no sign of Aramis, which seemed to confirm Victor’s post-fighting, post-conversion comment that the Damperer had succumbed to the wounds sustained during Young Will’s visit to this place. Will and Fil were crouched in predatory poses near Arthur, though each had turned his head away from the Aliomenti Leader. Two women he didn’t recognize—no, wait, was that…? He shook his head as he noted that the two women had also turned away from Arthur, joining Will and Fil in staring at…
His mind screamed at the missing pieces to the puzzle. Where was Hope? And where was—?
His assessment had taken a mere fraction of a second, interrupted by Arthur’s scream of warning. He snapped his head around and found the missing parties he’d missed earlier. Hope was ensnared in a net that seemed too great a burden for even an Energy user to escape. And the sword gripped in Porthos’ left hand plunged from on high, straight down toward the top of her head.
His own cry joined that of the others just as the blade stopped its descent, embedded inside the chest cavity of the one who’d teleported in to take the blow meant to claim Hope’s life.
Arthur.
XXVIII
HE LOOKED UPON THE DOMAIN he’d ruled as a prince with new eyes, eyes unfettered by the mental programming inflicted upon him long ago by a General whose name he couldn’t recall and enhanced by the man he viewed as his role model and supreme commander. The medicine had opened his eyes to the truth, to the fact that he’d spent centuries tormenting people who wanted to bring the best to everyone in the world, who wanted to end the fighting and death of war, the fighting he’d tried to lead in the past but in which he’d failed miserably. In many ways, the ability to look back made him realize that he’d failed in his original life because he’d wanted to fail. He’d no interest in spilling the blood of innocents, whether that blood belonged to those he attacked or those he led. His seeming incompetence was, in many ways, pure genius, for when he was given targets for attack he’d always “failed” and delivered far fewer dead on both sides than desired by his commanders.
He realized he’d succeeded after all.
He swallowed as he felt the Energy pulsing with anger and hatred below. There were wisps of positive emotion mixed with confusion, which he recognized through his own experience as those Aliomenti who’d gotten injected with the miraculous medicine that cleared Arthur’s mental blockages from the mind.
There were too few in that state, though, leading Athos to fear the descent into the lower levels. He knew now that those floors were the source of death and freedom-limiting realms of study. While a few members of the Aliomenti worked on technology similar to what he’d seen in droves in the Alliance Cavern, most worked on techniques to broaden Aliomenti influence and control in the world. In no portion of those underground floors was that more evident than in the prison levels. In a past life, he considered it a measure of success. Cells full of captured members of the Alliance, stripped of their Energy and ultimately their dignity, wasting away lest they put their skills to work for the accursed Alliance and humans. He cringed in shame at the years he’d spent studying mental techniques of torture to enhance his truth detection techniques. His si
ngular skill worked only when a target was presented with a statement enabling him to assess the truthfulness of the statement in the reaction of the very cells. They didn’t know the questions to use as prompts in most cases, however. The Alliance they’d captured withstood pain he couldn’t fathom lest they reveal the questions he’d need to learn secrets of Will Stark, secrets of Alliance strategy, the secrets of the base of operation he’d only just departed after finding and visiting for the first time.
He wondered if his programmed loyalty, and the mental fog and limitations that programming imposed, would enable him to resist torture by the Alliance.
Then again, from everything he’d experienced in the Cavern, he’d never been more certain the Alliance would never stoop to such techniques, doubling down on the shame he now felt for participating in those efforts for the Aliomenti.
It was time to stop wallowing.
He moved to the elevator, hoping he could ride the car to the levels below, step out, and assess the situation. He had no doubt the scene would be one that would haunt him to the end of his days. He needed to live, however, and teleporting directly into the midst of the chaos struck him as suicidal. He found the call button light out, though. He jogged down the hall to a seemingly innocuous portrait of the Leader and pushed on the frame, revealing a hidden staircase. He’d never needed to use it before. It seemed the time had come. He moved down the steps quickly, not quite running, and finally opened the door to the sixth sub-floor where they’d located the prison cells. He’d not gotten the full battle plan from Adam—he still harbored doubts toward the man he’d only known as Porthos, after all—but suspected that the Alliance would first seek freedom for their captured colleagues. They would relieve their suffering just in time to fight their captors with an eye toward freeing their tormentors.
They were far different from any people he’d ever known.
He stepped into the hallway.
The reality was worse than he’d expected.
In the Cavern, he now knew, his men had all received injections of the medicine in the food provided, and thus the fighting lacked any true savage intensity, save for the first few minutes. There were many dead on both sides, and he’d sensed Gena’s horror at the thought that only those sitting in the light survived. Many more had taken it upon themselves to move through the dark to gather and identify the dead, as she’d learn. The battle ended quickly.
Here, though, the Alliance came expecting a fight, and the Aliomenti—without the critical medical injections—were swarming to provide it to them.
He’d figured actual connecting blasts of Energy or sword thrusts would be rare. How, he wondered, could they land when the targets knew they were coming and could teleport away in an instant? But what he saw confirmed his worst fears. Those firing Energy bursts couldn’t simultaneously teleport, lacking either the Energy stores or mental dexterity to do both. Both sides had quickly developed a pairing approach, one prepared to teleport to an Energy-blasting opponent and swing their sword while the other guarded them and did the same. With hundreds of pairings, the permutations of those moving and sitting still nearly always put someone in sword range, and the Energy blasts were more successful when aimed at defenders who had to remain in place to fulfill their role. Victor watched as a member of the Alliance teleported to an Aliomenti defender and swung her sword, gashing the woman… and was blasted to dust by an Energy parry from a member of the Aliomenti.
He knew the Alliance swords seeped medicine. The slashes and gashes would heal and with that healing would come the far more critical healing of the mind. But would the Alliance numbers last long enough to make that desired outcome a reality?
He watched as an Alliance man with a military bearing raised his arm and murmured into a band on his wrist. He’d not heard the words, but he watched as the tide of the battle began to turn in the Alliance’s favor. Energy blasts were absorbed or ricocheted off walls. Many hit the wounded and dead, adding to injuries previously sustained or further mangling the bodies of the fallen.
He watched as a combined Energy blast from the Aliomenti ricocheted off the outstretched arms of the Alliance leader… blasted through the ceiling above. He heard the creaking and crumbling as the ceiling caved in. Those in the path teleported out of the way, moving the fight to the intact fifth floor above them. Several began levitating themselves with Energy, changing angles for Energy blasts, and he noted that Energy blasts to the heads of the Alliance would at least stun them.
He dove to the side as a blast of Energy finally weakened the floor between the fourth and fifth floors. Debris fell to the ground, shrouding the lower levels in dust. The sections of sixth floor ceiling still intact collapsed under the weight of the debris, catching a few fighters by surprise. Victor watched in horror as eleven people fell under the debris.
None of them emerged.
The fighters crawled over debris on the floor, trying to get stable footing while keeping an eye on the ceiling above for additional hazards. The Alliance were growing more savage after the long beating they’d taken over the centuries as they recognized their growing advantage in this fight. It was the little machines, he realized. They were using the little machine as armor, deflecting the swords thrusts—Adam told him that’s how Will Stark survived the attack outside his home centuries earlier—and Energy bursts alike. They swung to inflict deeper cuts, harsher wounds, as the numbers began to move more steadily in the Alliance’s favor.
Both sides were still losing people at a steady rate, but the Aliomenti were falling far faster.
That bit of Athos still in him pushed to the forefront of his mind. He’d not been able to join the fighting, unable to raise a sword against his Aliomenti friends, unwilling to turn against his new Alliance allies. He watched, and no one took notice of one who didn’t raise a sword in this fight.
A member of the Aliomenti fell at his feet, a gaping wound on his right arm just above the elbow leaving the limb useless. His opponent leaped at him, eyes almost feral, and he watched as she stomped her heavy boots on her fallen foes ribs. A thunderclap-like sound reached his ears as the fallen Aliomenti screamed at the new pain.
He snapped.
He’d not let this atrocity continue. It would be a fair fight, and the better group would simply win at the end. They’d converged on a field of battle, and he’d not let his old friends suffer indignities like he’d just seen. Not when he could eliminate the source of the Alliance’s overwhelming advantage.
The woman who’d cracked another’s ribs turned and noticed him. Her eyes lit with recognition at the sight of the Hunter. He couldn’t recall her name, but he knew she’d been captured in a Hunt a few decades earlier and had been in prison since. She’d been freed, reunited with those little machines, and was taking out decades of frustration upon others.
And now the Hunter who’d put her in that prison cell stood before her.
She charged him, sword held high, and he saw in her eyes a complete lack of compassion. She’d not swing her sword to open a wound and push the transformation medicine into the Hunter. She’d swing to kill.
He teleported away as she swung the sword toward his neck.
He phased into existence far enough away that she’d struggle to see him. He needed time to do what needed doing. The Leader had been vague when he’d supplied him with the dust, saying it was available in limited supplies. But there was something else, something he’d constructed into the very fabric of this building that would counter the invisible little robots. If Athos judged it necessary, he could disable all of those robots with one call.
He just needed to wear the special boots.
He glanced down. The boots were heavy, but he wasn’t sure why. He noted that the Aliomenti wore similar boots due to an email decree from the Leader mandating them as part of Aliomenti standard attire until further notice. That had gone out shortly before Athos departed in the submarine.
Athos didn’t know why the boots mattered, just that they did.
His old mind, ingrained through centuries of practice, simply accepted the fact.
He dialed the memorized code into his phone and held the device to his ear. When the voice answered, he spoke the code words.
“Commence Operation Newton’s Apple.”
He didn’t know what would happen next. But it couldn’t possibly be worse than what he was watching unfold here below the ground on Headquarters Island.
He hung up the phone and waited.
XXIX
THE SHARP POINT OF THE sword glinted in the lighting as she looked up, fully aware that even with one arm disabled, Porthos possessed the necessary strength to lift and drop the blade into her. The net held her in, but it wouldn’t protect her. The nanos, disabled inside the netting’s strange Energy-sapping web, would do nothing for her. She flicked her eyes to Will, desperate to ensure that the last thing she ever saw would be those green eyes.
Something got in the way, and an instant later, she felt not the searing, life-sapping pain of a fatal sword thrust, but a heavy weight that rocked her back to the ground. She hit the floor with a grunt as the wind briefly fled her lungs. She realized someone had teleported between her and a fatal stabbing. Again. The sacrificial victim now lay atop her. She flicked her eyes upward to see whose life would end in place of her own.
It was the last person she expected to see.
Arthur’s head wobbled without control, his body dead weight. He still lived, but with the point of the sword severing his spinal column near the base of his neck, he had little control of bodily functions.
His words slurred. “Poy… shun.”
Poison? She looked around. Will, Fil, Sarah, and Anna had heard the word and realized its ramifications. She turned and looked to the other side and saw that Adam had arrived in silence, his face showing the shock of the carnage on the floor, likely trying to work out the nature of both Assassins’ deaths even as he struggled to make sense of Arthur’s selfless move. She found the staggered eyes of Porthos, who’d backed away from the crumpled bodies before him, as if he thought moving far enough away would undo the damage done. But he’d heard Arthur’s low volume whisper and flicked his eyes back in the vicinity of where Abaddon lay. Of course. The crazed Assassin would take no chances, would ensure that even a scratch would end the life of those he attacked.
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