by Domino Finn
I encountered resistance, but not equal and opposite. Hadrian forced his will into the relic too, asserting his dominance as the Protector of Oakengard. I pushed back, fighting his growing presence, losing focus on the Crystal Core.
Hadrian growled. "The power... is mine!"
My face snapped away as crystal popped. For a second I thought the trijewel triangles had burst. No. It was the expanding quartz. It reacted violently to my touch, lashing at my face. It crusted over my hand, peeled my fingers away, submerging Hadrian's arm and the trijewel.
"Get out of there!" snapped Izzy.
Kyle helped her tug me away. I shook grains of quartz off my hand as it came up empty. Lucifer's broken staff in my other hand limped to my side. "He has the trijewel."
The Speculum shuddered and we braced against each other for support. It wasn't just the floor that shook this time, it was the whole room. The walls. The floors above.
Kyle looked around, dumbfounded. "What the..."
Slabs fell from the ceiling. I shoved my friends out of the way. The stationary schoolgirl was crushed. Hadrian was safe, mostly buried by the lake. Absorbed by it. The heartbeat of lights pounded beneath us.
"Uh, guys," said the brewmaster, "I've got a really bad feeling about this."
A deep voice reverberated through the room, carried through ice and crystal. "The power is mine," boomed Hadrian. "Arise Gigas, a titan, a god."
More chunks of roof collapsed. The ground broke open.
"We need to get out of here," said Izzy.
Lash and Conan hacked at the ice wall with their weapons.
"Get to the high tower!" I yelled. "That's an order, Lash! You need to get clear of Oakengard!"
The paladin grunted. We locked eyes for a second and she nodded. Bravo Team and the others retreated up Izzy's makeshift steps.
"And what about us?" asked the pixie.
She was attempting to carve away the ice wall but it was too heavily glazed with crystal. It wasn't reacting to her magic like it should. Kyle was tossing corrosives at it but wasn't having luck either. I scanned for weak spots, looking for a break in a wall or another door. The floor continued to shift as Hadrian was swallowed completely. I didn't want that to happen to us. I stared at the horrible power below, blinking, pulsing, breathing.
I could feel it. Like it was part of me, or at least I had my hooks in it. Lucifer called me a soulstone worker. It was too late for a power trap—the Crystal Core was too smothering to be contained now—but I had a good feeling I could tap into a small part of it.
"Wake up, Bandit," I whispered firmly.
I teased at the Crystal Core, the bit of magic that used to be the dragonstone. It was no longer physical but it was there. I called on it to activate once more.
"Wake up, Bandit."
A resounding screech answered my call. The chestnut dragon lifted her head and shook away the malaise. She locked on us through the wall of ice and yawned her mouth wide.
"Take cover!"
A bright sphere of gold exploded through Hadrian's wall, sending chunks of ice and crystal everywhere. We took to our feet and sprinted ahead. Izzy furnished the chasm with a bridge using whatever ice still heeded her call, and we made it through the hole in the wall and up the chunked stairs to Bandit.
"Bros," said Kyle uneasily as we stood on the elaborate stone tiles of Oakengard's second floor. "This fortress is shaking like a mutha. This kinda feels like the end of those old school video games where you gotta escape before the castle collapses on itself."
I grimaced. "Right genre, wrong trope," I said sourly. "I think Hadrian's about to take his final form."
>> Minigame <<
Tad pressed a hand on his leg to stifle his nervous energy. Christian's black box upload was complete, at least as far as he could tell, but the CEO wasn't waking up. Was he supposed to do something to complete the process? The man was still breathing, but none of his vitals were being tracked so he didn't have further details.
At least the InLink operatives had halted their incursion. The threat of destroying Haven was an effective one. Which was to say that only the immediate danger was stymied. At the end of the day, the two of them were still trapped in a small office surrounded by a rogue ops team.
Once again Tad checked on Christian. If there was a pulse at his wrist, it was weak enough to be ambiguous. Tad's eyes locked on the EXSIL head interface. Maybe he needed to move it away. He reached slowly, afraid of messing something up. As the tip of his finger touched the device, the entire room shook. Tad gripped the bed for support.
That was an explosion outside.
The programmer looked around but the room had no windows. He hopped on one leg back to the main office. A huge fireball floated over Harbor Island, curling into black smoke.
"Oh my God." Tad spun around. "Christian! Christian, wake up!" He arrived back at the EXSIL just as the CEO stirred. Tad would be patient no longer. He grabbed the man's shoulders and shook violently. "Get up."
Christian blinked and sat up, grabbing his stomach and wincing as he did." I nearly forgot," he said, examining the bandage. He slipped off the bed and trudged to the console, nodding in approval. "Nice work. The transfer was a success."
"Christian, you need to see this."
Tad hopped back to the window. Christian's face fell as he gazed on the Phoenix Y launch site.
A radio beeped and sniggers came from the opposite side of the barricaded door. They quickly hushed as a light knock came rapping. A new voice spoke.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Everett. My name is Mr. Hines." The man was clean-spoken and polite, which distinguished him from the rest of the ops team. "It appears as if your backup satellite experienced a severe catastrophic accident."
Christian swiveled his attention from the barricaded door to the smoke cloud. "They knew..."
"Who are you?" barked Tad.
"Mr. Lonnerman, I presume? I believe I've already introduced myself. If you open the door—"
"I mean who do you work for? What do you want?" Tad realized he was asking questions he already knew the answers to. He was angry and in a demanding mood, and the obvious questions were all he could think to demand.
Mr. Hines sighed. "My employer's of little consequence. Mr. Everett, the servers in your office are all that's left of Haven, and there's an unfortunate reality we need to discuss."
"What's that?" asked the CEO tepidly.
"So you are still alive." Tad could hear Mr. Hines smiling through the door. "Your simulation is never going into space. The Universal Interstellar Rights will never vest. But that doesn't mean your incredible legacy will end here. We'd like to work with you as a partner."
Christian scoffed. "You seriously expect me to believe this is a business offer?"
"I do, and I have the proof." On the other side of the door were two clicks from what must have been a briefcase unlocking and the flutter of papers. "I have documents from my employer—"
"InLink," he stated firmly.
Mr. Hines cleared his throat. "InLink contracts, yes. If you'd just open the door I promise—"
"Slide the papers under the door."
Tad turned to Christian in alarm.
"This is a waste of time," came the voice of a gruff soldier. "He's not gonna sign anything."
Mr. Hines coolly replied, "I have my instructions, as do you. Give them the contract."
The other man grunted. A few seconds later a stapled pack of papers scratched against the carpet beneath the door. Tad approached carefully, worried this was some kind of trick, but the door was locked and the crutch was jammed tight and the heavy Victorian bookcase wasn't going anywhere. Tad scooped up the paper and handed it to Christian.
"You'll see," continued Mr. Hines, "that you'll be given every opportunity to work on and direct the future vision of Haven. It goes without saying that you'll hand over ownership, but you can still be the face of your creation."
"You blew up the studio and sent in an army of gunmen," hi
ssed Tad. "What's stopping you from killing us the second we open the door?"
"He has a point," acknowledged Christian. The CEO skimmed the legalese and flipped pages as the sales pitch continued.
"You're an asset, Mr. Everett. No one here wishes to deprive the world of your genius. But the choice is in your hands: Let us have Haven and we can continue your legacy, together, or you can destroy the servers and the lives of all the people you thought you were saving. Either way, we're coming in. What do you say?"
Tad flushed with anger. Christian neatly turned the stack of papers in two hands and ripped it in half. "I'm sorry," he said stoically, "it appears as if your employment contract experienced a severe catastrophic accident."
Mr. Hines remained quiet behind the door. After a moment, it was the gruff soldier who spoke. "Heh, was hoping you'd say that."
Christian's eyes went wide. He lunged and tackled Tad as a stream of gunfire tore through the wood door. They landed on the carpet hard under incoming bullets. Tad gritted his teeth, rolled over, and crawled to the bookcase beside the door. Another round of bullets disintegrated the door handle and deadbolt. Tad grabbed the edge of the bookcase and pushed, leaning on the hard cast to prop up the great weight. The heavy antique slid on the carpet, barricading the door completely.
Case set Big Bertha to the door and it bounced in its hinges. The handle mechanism was obliterated, but the bookcase held. Another round of gunfire erupted. Tad ducked, but the solid wood and stack of programming tomes absorbed the impacts. As the soldiers continued to slam into the door to no avail, Tad turned to Christian, pleased.
The CEO was wheezing and clutching his ribs. A new gunshot wound welled under his armpit.
"Christian!" Tad collapsed beside him and scrambled on the floor for the stack of bandages.
The CEO grabbed his wrist tightly. "It's too late for the medkit, Tad."
The programmer kept searching but slowed as the tightness clamping his wrist intensified.
"I'm serious," said Christian. "We're out of time. Both of us." Christian offered him a bronze key. "You need to get to the roof."
Tad furrowed his brow. "The roof? What good's a satellite dish without a satellite?"
Christian swallowed hard. "I haven't told you everything, Tad, but I trust you completely. I suppose it's all up to you now."
The banging on the door continued. "What's up to me?"
"Did you ever find it odd, Tad, that I named my satellites Phoenix X and Y?"
The Phoenix code name spoke for itself. A new life, stirred from the ashes of death, rising into the sky. The X designation was for SoCal and Y for Harbor Island. Tad blinked. "You have a third satellite."
The CEO smiled. "Phoenix Z is an ultra-compact microsatellite on the roof of this building. It's a complete secret. Not even Abbie knew about it. You need to manually launch it from the dish console."
"Manually launch? I thought they were automated."
"The primary and secondary sites were, yes. This mini-rocket was a personal guarantee of sorts. A desperate fail-safe. It's not even cleared for launch by the FAA, and seeing as how it's illegal to put it into space at all, it won't quite matter if we launch it a bit early, will it?"
Tad nodded as he digested the information. The grim reality was that Christian might not be around to answer for the crime. "What about Talon? We told him he'd have more time."
Christian grimaced. "We've run out of time. We can only hope he's accomplished his mission."
Tad swallowed. "And what about you?"
"I've assured my future. As soon as Haven's in the sky, data will beam from the satellite dish and perform a full sync. My patch, my digital life, is waiting in the queue."
The pounding on the door intensified. Big Bertha was having a hell of a time with the bookcase.
"Go through the back door," urged Christian, placing the key in Tad's palm. "Take my private elevator to the roof. Everything's been prepped. You'll know what to do."
The wounded man pushed Tad to his feet. Tad hopped to the edge of the room and leaned against the doorway, looking back at his boss. He worked his jaw uneasily. "You saved my life."
Christian smiled. "You've been real dependable, kid. You remind me of myself, when I still had a future."
"You do still have a future."
He nodded. "I know, and it's up there. Now get out of here."
Tad backed away through the server room, pain welling in his leg as he exited the back door. More unfamiliar ground. This was just a small vestibule with a private service elevator. He limped in the open door and held the bronze key to his face. The job was simple enough, but it felt more momentous than anything else he'd done over the last few days. It could very well be his final act.
Tad glanced in the direction of the server room, a moment of indecision crossing his thoughts. Had it been a mistake not to back up his consciousness as well? As the gunfire against the barricaded door intensified, Tad saw his opportunity dwindling away. It was a hell of a gamble. If he spent valuable time at the EXSIL, it might enable InLink to prevent the launch. It would risk countless lives in the sim.
Tad slid the key into the bronze fixture and twisted. The elevator was unresponsive. The fire alarm protocols rendered it offline. Another doorway in the vestibule led to a stairwell that only went up. Tad bitterly abandoned the key and advanced, gritting his teeth. He leaned on the handrail and heaved up the first step. The effort made him wince, and when he checked his broken leg, he noticed a tiny hole in the cast below his knee.
He'd been shot as well.
2160 Mass Effect
Hail-sized chunks of ceiling crumbled to the floor.
"The faster we get outside, the better," said Izzy. She hurried to a courtyard exit and struggled with the locked door.
Bandit snorted agreement. I cocked my head at her curiously. She was a mountain bongo again. Which was strange, but no more strange than her transforming into a dragon for the second time in the same day. Without a dragonstone no less. I was just gonna roll with it.
"Not that way," I said. "The high tower. That's our evac."
Kyle nodded. "Already scouted out, my man."
The pixie stopped putting her shoulder to the door and equipped her wand. "Don't worry, I can get this open."
"That's not the point."
Izzy rested her hands on her hips. "Why do I get the feeling there's more to the plan than I know?"
I shrugged. "Did I not tell you? It's hard to keep track. Kyle?"
"Right," he said. "This way."
We charged down the perpendicular hallways of Oakengard as the fortress shook and groaned. Cracks opened in the stonework. Doorways sealed themselves off with brick.
"Something's giving me the distinct feeling we're not welcome here," said Izzy.
"Just getting that now, huh?" I quipped. "Thing is, I also get the feeling we're no longer allowed to leave."
We leapt aside as the floor splintered apart.
"Come on!" called Kyle, holding a heavy door open with his shield. It was attempting to crush him. We slipped through and he heaved with all his might, barely recovering the mirror shield as the door slammed. "Up the stairs."
Luckily, as we climbed to Oakengard's third floor, the incidents of structural damage diminished.
"The castle's not toppling," noted Kyle with an engineer's eye. "I think its just the foundations that are cracking."
Izzy fired off a pointed glare. "Wouldn't that have the same end result?"
Kyle's lower lip stuck out. "Good point."
We hurried into the tower. Given our home was Dragonperch, we were old hats at navigating the spiral staircase, even under earthquake conditions. It reminded me of stumbling down the steps when Orik awoke. As Bandit raced ahead, I realized the comparison was closer than I thought.
This was another titan rising from the ground. This was Gigas.
We burst into the sunlight of the high tower's roof. Stunning midnight-blue sails on the Void dominated the sky.
The black flagship was docked alongside the battlements, hovering on magical ether. Dune, Lash, and the others were loading up.
"I knew what to expect," I said breathlessly, "and still it's amazing."
"That she is!" chimed Admiral Oates. "Now get yer arses on me frigate 'fore we all crash an' burn."
I helped Kyle as the others hopped over. I was the last to jump aboard, greeted by Lash and Bravo Team, Dune and Stigg, Errol and Avisa, and Cleric Vagram and Papa Brugo.
"Hell of a crew," I said.
The Void veered away as the tower bucked sideways. Dust kicked up in the foothills surrounding Oakengard.
"What's our headin'?" asked Errol.
"What are we doing?" added Avisa as she gripped the handrail.
"The Lake of Dreams," I said.
Errol nodded and took the helm. Sergeant Avisa stomped to me and pointed down. "I mean what are we doing about that?"
A giant sonic boom knocked us to the deck. The ship bowed sideways. I crawled to our starboard and peered over at the impossible.
The fortress of Oakengard and the mountain cap it rested on rose from the ground on massive pillars, each wider than the Void but spindly in comparison to the mountain itself. Large swaths of land tore away and crumbled as the titan awoke.
I blinked back disbelief. Gigas, the All Mother, wasn't buried under the ground, she was the ground.
Trafford sighed as he took a seat on a large rock. It wasn't a particularly comfortable rock, but it was the first chance he'd had to sit in hours. The battle of the Godsbog was over. The final remnants of the plague were purged. Every last member of the Violet Order had fought till the last and fallen to the mud. The old general shifted in place to ease his back and massaged a bum knee.
He'd said it to the point his words were losing meaning, but this time it was really true. He was getting too old for this.
