by E. E. Knight
The water in the moon pool boiled again. Dozens of gilled Méne horrors flopped out of the water, their greenish skin glistening like wet rubber, their wide-open mouths revealing rows of pointed teeth. They attacked anything that moved: Méne cultist, sacrifice … but the abominations did not stay to fight. Instead, they dragged their shrieking victims to the moon pool and dove in, pulling them under in a flutter of webbed limbs.
Frys tore himself from the grasp of one of the swimmers and fled toward the arched tunnel from which Borg had been dragged just moments ago. Lara ran around the edge of dome to intercept him, dodged an awkward lunge from one of the green servants of the Deep Ones, and fired at the
Prime. He ducked into darkness.
Lara ran after him. As she ran, she saw a mutant clawing at Heather. The reporter blocked the blow with her bound wrists. The creature’s webbed claws sliced open Heather’s wrists—and the plastic restraint as well. Heather rolled, but the monster got a hold of her feet. Without slowing down, Lara shot the creature on her leaping run toward the tunnel mouth.
Lara pulled up just outside the dark portal, aimed her right gun down the tunnel. “VADS, left lumen.”
As she reloaded her left gun, Frys popped out from around the corner of the darkened root-archway, an arm’s length away from the Tomb Raider. One hand held a small pistol, the other the crystal on its ivory handle.
He fixed his gaze on Lara.
“Drop the guns, Croft!” he ordered, staring at her through the lens.
Lara complied. She wanted a better look at the monocle anyway; she’d been curious about it since first learning of its existence. She stared into it, saw a fuzzy version of Frys’s right eye.
Behind her, more shots and screaming. It seemed unimportant now.
Frys stood, legs planted a little wider than his shoulders, one hand clutching the small pistol and the other holding the monocle between himself and Lara.
“Now pay attention, Croft,” Frys said. He seemed tired, a hundred years old. “You’ve committed a terrible crime. We all must answer for our actions, sooner or later.”
Lara agreed with that. Frys wasn’t such a bad person at heart. He’d gone bad, that was all. A pair of fleeing cultists with a sacrifice following pushed past her, but she hardly noticed them, so intense was her concentration.
Frys continued: “Here is what you must do now. You’ll dive into the moon pool and swim down, down farther than you ever have before. The Transformed will help; you’ve met them already. They will bring you deeper, where you will answer for your deeds and serve until your crime is expunged. This will take a lifetime, if the Deep Gods are merciful. If not, it might take several.”
“Yes?” Lara asked. She stood before Frys, strangely relaxed as she saw him through the glass. All her doubts and reconsiderations vanished. She knew exactly what she must do.
The Tomb Raider held out her hand. “Alex, give it over.” She didn’t take her eyes from his face, slowly turning lighter in the little piece of crystal.
“What?”
“Hand me that, please. It’s too dangerous a toy for the likes of you, I’m afraid.” She opened and closed her palm.
Behind her, she heard Heather scream, “Borg, look out!” More gunfire echoed in the dome.
Lara didn’t dare take her eyes off the Prime.
“Come on, I don’t have all day. Hand it over,” she demanded.
Frys’s arm shook. He lowered the crystal from his eye as if fighting the impulse of his own muscles, placed it in Lara’s outstretched hand. Then Lara put the crystal to her own eye. The wavy shadow that was Alex Frys pulsed. As her eye focused on him, the color drained away, and he became as white as a sheet of paper waiting to be written on.
As I thought. An empty space within. Tragic cases like his find solace in cults, either as followers or leaders. It fills a hole. What was it, Alex? A remote father? A lonely childhood?
“Alex, if anyone should talk to the Deep Ones, it’s you,” she said. “Humanity no longer needs to be numbered, weighed, and judged like cattle at auction. You’ll go down and explain, won’t you?”
“I’ll go down and explain,” Frys said, walking toward the moon pool stairs. Lara saw Heather empty one of Ajay’s guns into one of the “Transformed” as Borg knocked another back with a powerful kick. Ajay lay unconscious between them.
Alex Frys stepped over the dead body of the cultist Lara had shot in the chest without even a glance downward. Lara picked up her guns as he walked away.
At the edge of the moon pool, a screaming elderly cultist hung on to one of the fixed platinum panels with his fingernails. He reached out a hand toward the Prime, but Frys ignored him. The cultist disappeared with a wail. Frys stepped down into the moon pool and submerged.
“I hope they’re merciful,” Lara said, and slipped the crystal into her lucky pack.
A flash of green—she emptied her right gun into another Méne mutant leaping from a hiding place among the thick roots. It showed no expression as it died; the creature just sagged and sat, its pupiless eyes vacant.
VERY GOOD CROFT.
The Voice was back in her head again. Lara felt her knees buckle.
What? she thought dully.
SUPERB EXTRAORDINARY OUTSTANDING YOU ARE TRULY ONE IN A THOUSAND LARA CROFT.
Go away.
HEAR ME YOU WON A CONTROL LENS WITH IT YOU COULD RULE THE SURFACE WORLD ULTIMATE POWER ULTIMATE FREEDOM THE WORLD FOR YOUR DESIRES WE ASK LITTLE TRIFLES IN RETURN.
I wouldn’t know what to do with it, she thought back. You keep to your world. Leave us ours.
VERY WELL ONE THING CORRECTION YOURS IS OURS TOO OURS OURS OURS OURS…
The Voice faded away.
Nothing moved within the Dome now but the three passengers who had gone upriver on the Tank Girl on a trip that seemed to Lara to have begun a very long time ago.
Plus one would-be Tomb Raider. Ajay gave a groan.
“I think it’s time we got out of here,” Heather said, picking up a Kalashnikov. She pulled out the magazine, looked at the bullets remaining, and slammed it back into the gun.
“I thought you couldn’t shoot,” Lara said.
“I’m a quick study with monsters on my ass,” Heather said.
“One of you must pick up Alison,” Borg said.
“First I’ve got to take care of those plates,” Lara said. “VADS: right nitro.”
“No!” Ajay howled. She rose, drawing her other machine pistol. Her pupils gaped wide, her body trembled, sweat plastered clothing and hair to her body. Milky white liquid ran from the corners of her mouth. “You’ll all join Alex at the bottom. Uhluhtc demands it. But first, drop the lens!”
“Lens?”
“The crystal on the stick!” Ajay screamed, her voice cracking. “Don’t play dumber than you are. Lara Croft is going to return to England, oh yes, and take up residence in that fine estate, become a bit of a recluse perhaps, and have very few visitors, but she’ll buy the Harfleur manor and fix it up properly—”
Lara reached into her lucky pack and took out the crystal. “Very well, Ajay. If you really want to be me so badly, catch!”
She threw it to Ajay, who lowered the machine pistol to grab the falling lens. Ajay caught it, held it for one second before Heather clubbed her across the back of the head with the Kalashnikov.
“I know Lara Croft, girl,” Heather panted. “Seen her in action. You’re no Lara Croft, and I’ll accept no substitutes.”
Lara nodded at Heather, bent to retrieve the lens, reached behind her, and put it back in her lucky pack.
Ajay’s head came up, and she flung herself at Lara. Lara’s pistols fell with a clatter as Ajay attacked her like a wild animal, hissing and gibbering.
It felt like wrestling a tiger. The Tomb Raider got her knee up, somehow forced Alison off her, and rolled over the small roots covering the dome floor, drawing her diving knife.
Ajay smiled and drew her own knife, a K-bar-style fighting and survival blade
, complete with blood gutters. She waved it before Lara. Lara dropped into a defensive stance.
Ajay stabbed, powered through Lara’s guard, bounced her blade off a rib as Lara just managed to turn the point. In return, Lara drove at Ajay’s neck with her own blade, cut a piece of cheek instead.
The pair broke away and circled through the water, blood glistening on their knives.
“What if we kill each other, Ajay?” Lara asked. “Would you call that a tie?”
“I’ll take it,” Ajay said, lunging at Lara. “All I ever wanted was to be your equal.”
Lara stepped in, feinted, and swung her empty fist at Ajay’s jaw. Ajay brought up her guard hand and caught Lara’s arm. Lara brought her knife across Ajay’s exposed forearm, going for the tendons at the wrist, but only cut Ajay’s muscle. Ajay swung with her own blade, and Lara felt a hard thump at her back, waited for the pain and the horrible feeling of a lung deflating, but realized Ajay had buried her knife in the Tomb Raider’s lucky pack. Then she felt warmth inside her wet suit, and knew that Ajay had gotten to at least some skin after all.
Lara used her leverage to throw Ajay across her hip, judo style. Ajay rolled over in the water and rose again, knife held toward Lara like a lance.
CROFT! The Voice exploded in her brain like fireworks.
Lara fell back, stunned.
The Deep God lunged out of the pool, tentacles reaching for her. Some had fingers, some had hooks, some even had what looked like eyeballs. A thick-fingered one knocked Ajay aside.
Borg kicked one of Lara’s pistols over to her. She snatched for it, knowing that whether she would live or die could very well depend on whether the pistol was loaded with illumination shells or explosive. She grabbed it as it slid past and felt the custom grip of her right-hand gun with a thrill of triumph—
—then felt the world jerked away from her. The tentacle lifted her into the air, and for a moment Lara thought it would dash her brains out against the housing of the Archimedes’ screw. Instead, it pulled her over the moon pool.
A tooth-lined mouth big enough to swallow an SUV opened beneath her. She saw pieces of what had perhaps once been Alex Frys in the circular rows of teeth.
HUMANS UNDERSTAND NOTHING the Voice cackled in her head.
It dropped her, but she clung to the tentacle with her left arm and fired her pistol into the maw of the Deep One.
A howl of pain and anger tore at her mind, and she nearly dropped her gun.
HURT YOU EACH SHOT AS HURTS ME came the Voice, gloating through its pain.
One more psychic blast like that, and Lara knew she would fall unconscious, easy prey for the Deep One. It was time for Plan B. She swung herself around and aimed with her right hand for the crystal screw housing…
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!
WHAT?
Explosions ripped across the crystal housing of the Archimedes’ screw. Great shards of crystal fell away.
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!
STOP! NO!
The screw’s mounting shattered in a shower of water and crystal.
Lara saw the screw begin to drop. It spun as it picked up speed.
Lara looked down at one of the Deep God’s red eyes as it brought up a second tentacle to grab her.
She used her free hand to wave bye-bye and slid down the tentacle. She kicked out and fell into the moon pool instead of the God’s mouth. The forest of tentacles turned for her. The redwood-sized screw plunged out of the shattered crystal housing, spinning like a rifled bullet. The screw struck Uhluhtc, tearing through its flesh even as its weight dragged the Deep One back to the depths it had risen from.
Water cascaded from cracks in the peak of the dome where what was left of the screw housing descended. More and more water forced its way in as the dome gave way to damage and water pressure.
Borg ignored the falling seawater, patting Ajay with his stumps, trying to waken her. Ajay moaned.
“Now?” Heather asked, tossing Ajay’s knife and gun into the moon pool. Fluid from the Deep God covered the surface like an oil slick.
“Almost,” Lara said, retrieving her other USP Match. “VADS: both armor.”
She loaded the armor-piercing magazines, stepped over to where she had a good view of the nine plates from the Whispering Abyss, and went down the line, riddling the platinum plates—or were they circuit boards?—with bullet holes.
“What was that for?” Heather asked above the sound of falling water.
“Just hitting the snooze button,” Lara said.
Ajay rose, looked wide-eyed at the destruction all around. She glared at Lara, snarled, and rose.
“Ah-ah,” Lara said, pointing her right USP. Borg put himself between the gun barrel and Ajay.
“No, Lara,” he said.
Ajay ran for the edge of the dome and jumped down among the twisting roots. Borg rose and followed.
“Now,” Lara said, looking at Heather.
“Make for the diving bells, Borg,” Lara yelled as Borg jumped down among the roots.
Lara and Heather ran together, under a monsoonlike downpour of seawater. The ocean rose to meet them, welling up from the moon pool and the edges of the dome as air escaped out the top.
Lara filled her lungs, grabbed Heather’s hand, and plunged in. Heather kicked off her shoes and breaststroked next to Lara as they swam out under the lip of the dome.
Far above, Lara glimpsed Ajay frantically kicking for the surface, felt a stab of regret. Whatever Méne potion she had taken to enhance her physical abilities, it had interfered with that wonderful brain of hers. Borg followed, just a couple of meters ahead of her and Heather, not rising as quickly with just his legs to power him.
Lara yanked on Heather’s red hair, pointed toward the nearest diving bell. She got her point across. When Heather swam for the sphere, Lara swam after Borg and caught up to him easily. She grabbed him by the wet suit and pulled him toward the diving bell by main force. Borg pointed toward the distant figure of Ajay, but Lara shook her head and continued hauling him to the sphere.
They broke the surface together.
“Lara!” Borg protested with his first breath. Heather looked like a doused Irish setter, and did nothing but breathe as Lara struggled with the armless Norwegian.
“We have to rise slower than our bubbles or we’ll get decompression sickness. Understand, Borg? You know what that is.”
“Of course,” he said. Then his eyes widened. “Ajay!”
“Too late,” Lara said.
Borg plunged anyway.
“Slower than your bubbles,” Lara said to Heather, took a breath, and went after him.
Borg kicked her all the way up, but she managed to retard his rise. Heather helped restrain him, grabbing him by a leg.
It might have been the most awkward ascent in lung-diving history. But at last they reached the surface, bursting into the pure, clear, life-giving Pacific air.
They bobbed under the stars. The arms of the storm were breaking up, revealing the night sky above. With nothing to compete with the stars, each sparkle of diamond dust stood out bright and clear.
Shanks would have no trouble bringing the floatplane in. Lara had some flares in her lucky pack to signal him.
Heather and Borg both sputtered; he’d taken in some ocean, evidently, but floated easily in the calm of the lagoon.
Lara heard a faint cry. She swam swiftly to the source, found Ajay, her eyes two bruised wells. Blood ran from her ears.
Decompression sickness. Nitrogen bubbles expanding in the bloodstream, wreaking havoc with soft tissue as they did.
She got an arm around Ajay and followed the others to the shore, making for the tiki torches at the camp. One final time, she dragged Ajay’s body out of darkness.
Nils Bjorkstrom, on his knees in the wet sand, looked through his wet hair at Ajay. He let out an anguished cry and staggered to his feet, sank down beside her, cradling her in his stumps.
Ajay’s bloodied eyes were ope
n, but Lara doubted she could see Nils. Alison Harfleur keened weakly. She was dying … and painfully.
Lara unholstered her left gun, ejected the illumination magazine, and put in one of the spares from her lucky pack.
“You’re going to shoot her?” Heather asked, disbelieving.
“No!” Lara said. “I’m going up to the camp. Try to find a radio or a satellite phone. But if any Méne have escaped up the tunnel, I’m going to be ready for them.”
“Are you going to radio for your ride home?” Borg asked, tears in his eyes.
“I’m going to call for a plane to get Ajay to a hospital,” Lara said. “We’ve got to get her in a pressure chamber as soon as possible.”
Heather followed her as she trotted toward the tents. “I’ve done enough scuba diving to know that she’ll be dead before a plane can get here. It might be kinder to just shoot her.”
Lara flicked the safety on her gun, handed it to Heather. “Be my guest. I’d rather give her a fighting chance, no matter how small.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what I’d want.”
“Do you really think she can make it?”
“No. I don’t. But she’s proved me wrong before, Heather.”
“You almost sound like you admire her.”
“Not at all. At least, not now. Not after what the Alison I knew turned into.”
“Surely it was Frys. The crystal. He just about had me with it. He tried to use it on you.”
“No, Ajay wanted it, in the end. She was 90 percent there before she even met him, I expect. Just a tiny nudge and … She wanted to be the Prime. She didn’t need a crystal to encourage her to overreach.”
Heather pursed her lips. “Still, nasty thing, that crystal.”
“Yes, that’s why I’m going to destroy it.”
“I think you mean it.”
Lara searched the ground, picked up a rock. “Von Croy would have been surprised to see this. He was a collector, and I became one, too. Now I think Frys—the father, I mean—was right. There are some things that human beings are not yet ready to know.” She took off her lucky backpack, rummaged in it for the crystal, then began to laugh.
“What?” Heather asked, pulling her wet hair out of her eyes so she could see. “On a night like this, what could possibly be funny?”
