Birth of the Alliance

by Alex Albrinck

  The bait had offered himself up. The Hunters had captured him now, and drugged him to prevent any chance of escape.

  He smiled inwardly.

  It was happening just as he’d planned.

  XXVI

  Darkness

  1994 A.D.

  With his mind in a fog as the sleep serum took effect, Will barely noticed the Hunters deactivating the security cameras in the garage. His legs refused to work, and the Hunters were forced to drag him down the metal stairs to the parking level. While most of the wealthy patrons traveled the island just to visit the resort, the Aliomenti had developed other attractions accessible to those who wanted to spend money. Expensive, late-model rental cars filled the parking spots. Will knew that because he’d studied the entire layout of the facility upon arrival; he was currently aware only of the heavy thud of Hunter boots on the steps and the smell of oil and gasoline permeating the garage.

  The Hunters hauled him to an odd-looking two door sedan out of place with the shiny new four door models surrounding it. Will suspected he’d be removed from the resort in the car, but wondered how they’d get him inside without detaching him from Aramis. It wasn’t until he felt the displacement and found himself inside the car that his mind finally made the connection.

  Teleportation. Of course.

  Athos and Porthos scrambled into the car human style, with Porthos taking the driver’s seat. He pulled the vehicle out of the garage, and the Hunters discussed their plans openly in front of him, unconcerned that Will could do anything to stop them. The plans were nothing surprising. They’d need to get him to an isolated spot on the island, away from the human tourist attractions, where they’d rendezvous with a transport aircraft. That plane would have a dampering cell aboard, with enough power to restrain Will.

  To maintain the deception, he’d need to make the effort to escape before closed up in that cell.

  His eyes remained closed, but they were closed now to aid his concentration. The healing nanos injected into his body so many centuries ago had already isolated the sleep serum and eradicated it. Will had long ago developed the ability to Shield his Energy; he used the Shield now to mask his strength to Aramis’ and Porthos’ attentive specialty senses. He could feel his Energy recharging already.

  “How’s the prisoner?” Athos asked.

  I’m fine, Will thought. Never better.

  “He’s quiet,” Aramis replied. “He’s ramped up his Energy levels even more since our last encounter. He keeps trying to surge his Energy and break through the Dampering. I think the injection is thwarting him, though.”

  The injection had knocked him down, and it was something Will hadn’t expected. The Damper was something he knew about, having experienced it firsthand on several occasions in the past, and he’d taken the necessary precautions to ensure he wasn’t harmed. The healing nanos had done their job, and he was mentally alert enough to feign the type of lethargy Aramis would expect while quietly planning his next steps. The key part of his mission was to make contact with Athos and trigger the pods in his clothing to jump to the lead Hunter. The only contact they’d made thus far had occurred when the Damper was in place, and Will knew that even the faint Energy trickle required to activate the pod would get Porthos’ attention. He needed to be free of Aramis first.

  A thought occurred to him. Could he somehow use his general nanos to carry the pods to Athos? The nanos weren’t tied to his Energy at all, and their activity would be undetectable. Will directed a handful of the general nanos to the cuffs on his shirt. The communication link in his brain translated his thoughts into the code of the robots, and the robots communicated with each other to identify the best way to coordinate their activity to fulfill his commands. Will envisioned nanos forming a pod around one of the pods embedded in his shirt cuff, and carrying that pod to Athos shirt. He cracked his eye open just enough to get a solid image of Athos’ face to provide the nanos a target. That was the first part. The more complex part was explaining to those nanos how to determine that they’d been transported to Aliomenti Headquarters, to identify the prison level when Athos visited to extract confessions, to locate those Alliance members identified for escape. The general nanos flashed images back in his mind, the equivalent of repeating instructions to ensure comprehension. The communication occurred at high speed, and it took only a few minutes of dialogue before the nanos demonstrated comprehension. Will allocated additional nanos to surround each of the remaining pods, and had the first set transfer the operating instructions to the new batches.

  His attention returned to the Hunters. The inside of the car was stuffy; the tropical heat had cooked the inside during the few minutes they’d been driving outdoors. The hum of the engine suggested that they’d picked up speed, which meant they were getting close to their destination.

  Aramis was reading a list of the Aliomenti charges against Will, including ninety-eight minor rules violations. Will listened with little interest, barely stifling a yawn as Aramis proclaimed total prison time of nearly three centuries. The reality was that prisoners were released when Arthur decided they’d learned their lesson. They all knew Will would never learn any lesson Arthur sought to teach.

  As Aramis finished, Porthos glanced over his shoulder from the driver’s seat and taunted Will, sneering about his inability to commit a full one hundred violations. Will, sensing a chance to act in the character of a man seeking a chance to escape, took the opportunity to lean forward and smack Porthos in the side of the head. Porthos uttered a few curses Will had never before heard.

  That should be worth at least two more violations, he thought. He refrained from laughing at the absurdity of charade the Hunters were living. Would they never realize that the rules were irrelevant to the Aliomenti? They existed only to give an air of propriety to any punishment Arthur decided to dole out. The Hunters only Tracked and captured those men and women approved by Arthur. Why did they only chase a specific handful? All members of the Alliance had earned prison time by the rules scratched down in the journal stowed inside Aramis’ top hat. So had dozens more still formally part of the Aliomenti. Yet, they only moved in certain cases.

  The only rule that mattered was the rule Arthur decided made abduction necessary.

  Aramis yanked Will back against the seat and elbowed him in the side of the head. Will anticipated the blow, and managed to get an invisible shield of nanos in the way to cushion the blow. He still pretended to lose consciousness, allowing his eyes to close and his head to loll around.

  He didn’t appreciate the blow, though. I’m going to kill you if you do that again, Aramis, he thought. His memories flashed to the distant future, when a younger Will Stark might well have initiated Aramis’ death by deflecting the Assassin’s sword. Unintentional and indirect though it had been, he was still struck by the fact that he may have kept that half-hearted promise. He kept his eyes cracked slightly open.

  Porthos had driven well outside of the concentration of tourist attractions, and found a quiet street off the main road he’d been traveling. The street was heavily lined with trees for added isolation from any humans who might ignore the signs telling them not to enter the street. After reviewing a screen in the dash that Will suspected was some type of radar system, Porthos turned down the street, brought the car to a stop, killed the engine, and flipped a switch on the steering column.

  The exterior panels of the car began to move, and the sound of gears and scraping metal filled Will’s ears. Wings sprang from the side of the car, and he realized that the car was transforming into a miniature airplane. When the sound of scraping metal finally ceased, Porthos restarted the engine, but the new engine wasn’t an internal combustion engine meant to power a terrestrial vehicle. The jet engine picked up speed, the familiar whine reminding Will of years spent flying in planes for business trips in the twenty-first century. Porthos glided the small plane down the street as if it was a runway, and the craft soon soared into the air.

  Will wondered if the
Aliomenti had figured out how to make the craft invisible. The idea was sobering. If that was the case, the Aliomenti might well have been spying on them with far greater effectiveness than the Alliance had realized. His eyes focused, and he realized he’d need to change plans. The transforming craft, the potential invisibility capability, the advanced communication devices the Hunters had used to mask their presence from Will’s Energy senses… all suggested that the Aliomenti were further advanced than they’d suspected. He needed to get that message back to the Cavern.

  Will allowed his Shield to dissipate slowly, giving Aramis the impression that the Damper was starting to lose effectiveness. Aramis tried to fight back, increasing his own concentration levels to try to smother Will’s Energy. As the minutes passed, the effort became an incredible strain for the Hunter, so much so that the strange man with the top hat was struggling to stay awake. If he slept, Aramis knew his Damper would fail and Will could break free of his containment. Athos, seated in the passenger seat, recognized the symptoms and passed a pill to Aramis. Will realized—too late—that the tablet contained a type of stimulant. Aramis swallowed the pill dry. He became more alert, but the mental strain was something he couldn’t maintain much longer.

  “Athos,” Aramis said, gritting his teeth at the strain of speaking while trying to maintain the Damper. “I could… use a hand… here.” Sweat poured down the Hunter’s face, and Will was highly amused. The sight made the centuries of work building up his Energy stores completely worthwhile.

  Athos held up his hands. “I only brought one dose. The lab guys said it would be enough.” Aramis had wanted Athos to inject more of the sleeping serum into Will. While the healing nanos would clear the serum out, it took time, and Will didn’t have that much time. Another dose or two like the first one would likely see Will safely imprisoned in an Aliomenti prison cell before he could escape. Even though he had no intention of escaping, he must make the effort.

  Porthos, who had been occupied with flying the craft, snorted. “Lab guys wrong again, huh? Stunning, isn’t it?” With a quick turn of his head, he took in the sight of Aramis' sweaty red face. “Wow. Aramis, you’re going to need a shower after this.” Porthos sniffed loudly. “Hey, Stark? Be a real gem and stop forcing Aramis to ramp up the body odor, okay? I’m trying to fly this thing safely, and I don’t need that type of distraction.”

  Will thought the request was strange. To the Aliomenti, Energy was either on or Dampered. Will couldn’t, as Porthos had it in his mind, stop his Energy and alleviate Aramis’ suffering. So why ask? Was it a fishing expedition? He had to think it was just a case that the sleeping serum was the only thing that allowed the Damper to work more than a few moments, and if the serum was wearing off, the Damper was being overrun as they might expect. Then again, Porthos was likely to say anything; the comment might just be his way of injecting humor into the tense situation they all faced.

  He elected to smile. “I can’t exactly turn off my Energy now, can I, Porthos? That’s Aramis’ job, though he’s not doing a stellar job at the moment. As I see it, the only solution to your olfactory quandary is to release me.” He glanced at Aramis. “Or Aramis can just give it up and I'll leave on my own. No hard feelings for the unfriendly greeting back in the parking garage.”

  That got a reaction from Athos, who turned and glared at Will. “Not a chance, Stark. We have a job to do, and we will complete our mission successfully.”

  Will wondered when the Hunters had started referring to him by his last name. It had been a centuries-long tradition for the Aliomenti to use only given names; the use of family names was a taboo in a group that frowned on committed relationships and literally killed anyone who reproduced. But Will wasn’t part of the Aliomenti anymore, so that taboo wasn’t one that applied. That consideration hadn’t stopped them from trying to enforce their rules upon him, though.

  Athos’ words irked him, sparked his competitive nature, and gave him even further motivation to make a good show of trying to escape. He yawned to demonstrate his lack of concern. “I’d say that's dependent on whether Porthos can get me into your long-range prison craft before Aramis cracks under pressure, wouldn’t you?” He reached over and patted Aramis on the arm with his free hand in a patronizing manner. “Ease up, old man. It’ll be less painful for you if you do. You know you can’t win this battle with me.”

  Aramis’ eyes blazed in fury, in marked contrast to his beet-red face, damp skin, and pallid complexion. “I know nothing of the sort. I won’t ever quit.”

  Will shrugged, and pretended to mop Aramis’ sweat off his sleeve. “Wake me when it’s over, if by some miracle I haven’t already escaped.”

  Athos radioed the transport craft, presumably to determine when they’d arrive at the rendezvous point. Will’s Empathy skills deduced that the Hunter didn’t get the answer he was seeking, and he heard his name uttered. Despite his words to the contrary, Athos was terrified that Will was going to slip out of their clutches once more.

  Except that Will couldn’t escape. Not yet.

  Like the Hunters, he had a job to complete, and until he finished that he couldn’t disappear or let them complete the capture and toss him in the dampering cell. His mind came up with a problem with his earlier plan. Embedding the pods in Athos’ clothing wouldn’t work, because Athos was likely to change clothes before ever visiting the prison area. There was only one way to ensure the pods made it to their final destination.

  Will needed to embed the pods in Athos’ skin. He had only a few minutes to figure out how to do that. He didn’t think the pods were small enough to get inside the cells, and they had no means to attach to the skin.

  As Will plotted, Porthos spoke into the radio transmitter, not troubling to keep his voice down. “Transport, please confirm that the execution of the human targets is scheduled to proceed as planned.”

  Will sucked in his breath. Had they sent others in to abduct humans from the casino? Had they seized the mother of the leukemia patient? The thought sickened him.

  “No, if they're resisting, you're permitted to… dissuade them,” Porthos said. “The Leader won’t mind, and I’m sure The Assassin would assist. He might… slip, though.” Porthos laughed.

  “You wouldn’t dare!" Will snarled. In the back of his mind, a voice of sanity tried to speak, telling him Porthos was baiting him, distracting him from his efforts to escape, that there weren’t any human prisoners at risk. But emotion reigned. He didn’t notice the slight burst of Energy from Athos until it was too late, until the lead Hunter had teleported a heavy object to Aramis’ free hand, until the bespectacled Hunter had clubbed him in the side of the head with something resembling a brick.

  The blow stunned him, and he fought to maintain consciousness. He couldn’t pass out now, not with the pods of nanos still attached to him. His healing nanos raced to the site of the blow, working to repair the damage. Will felt Aramis relax. The Hunter believed Will was unconscious, and he was frighteningly close to being correct. Will’s Energy dipped momentarily.

  Porthos landed the flying craft a moment later and powered the engine down. He flipped the lever near the yoke, and the plane slowly transformed back into the two door sedan. Aramis’ efforts in trying to contain Will’s Energy had left him too drained to teleport them out. The Hunters believed Will was unconscious. Athos helped Aramis crawl over the seats to exit the vehicle, pulling the bound Will after his fellow Hunter. With the two men out of the car, Athos whirled on Porthos, scolding the Tracker for his failure to aid in the removal of Aramis and Will from the car.

  Porthos busied himself “inspecting” the vehicle rather than listening to his boss’ complaints.

  Will, who was finally getting his mental clarity back after the blow to the head, realized he was running out of time. The transport craft was coming, and he’d yet to deposit the pods on Athos’ skin in a manner ensuring they’d not fall off in transit. He needed to act, and he needed to do so immediately. The time for subtlety had ended. />
  Will sent a contingent of nanos into the glove binding him to Aramis, and the microscopic machines complied, beginning to eat away at the bonds that kept his hand in contact with the Hunter. And he let his Shield drop even further, accelerating the speed at which it dissipated.

  Aramis noticed Will’s increased Energy immediately. His efforts to alert his fellow Hunters were ignored, as Athos and Porthos resumed their earlier argument about Porthos’ lack of assistance in extracting Aramis and Will from the car. Aramis mentally flailed away at Will’s Energy, trying desperately to reinforce the Damper. The wildlife around Will aided in his growing strength. The surge Aramis felt wasn’t just the surge from Will recovering from the blows and Dampering he’d suffered. Will’s eyes remained closed, but a look a peace and calm descended upon his face.

  “You could have been asking Stark to provide his pleas to the charges against him,” Athos shouted at Porthos, “instead of forcing me to Read him while he was unconscious. But no, instead you stand around—”

  “Guys!” Aramis screamed. “Stark is waking up right now!”

  “How do I plead, Athos?” Will asked. The question hadn’t been directed at him, of course. He considered pleading guilty to their charges, for he was. He considered pleading not guilty, since he disagreed with the rules and had never agreed to be bound by them. He considered pleading insanity for putting up with the three Hunters and their Leader. But in the end, his plea, for himself, for his friends, and even for the Hunters themselves, was always the same. He wanted them free of Arthur’s tyranny.

  Will opened his eyes and smiled at the Hunters. “I plead… freedom.”

  And Will Stark unleashed his Energy in full.

  He burst a large amount of Energy out of his body, still a small fraction of what he felt available in that moment, when anger and adrenaline and purpose came together. Aramis, still trying to snap the Damper down, screamed in utter agony. For Aramis, that burst proved the mental equivalent of looking directly at the sun with powerful night vision goggles.