Armageddon tsw-1

by Stuart Slade

  Underground Caverns, City of Dis

  She'd been this way many times, most recently to let others know about the new arrivals, who had slipped back out while she was gone. The new arrivals, who were doing things that she'd never have believed if she hadn't seen them with her own eyes. Her thoughts went back to the assault she'd witnessed, how they had magicked down the walls, then moved methodically through the ruins, ruthlessly killing and killing and killing.

  How they did it, she didn't know. She'd never been a fighter, preferring instead to ply a different trade, but she'd been in contact with enough soldiers to tell when someone knew what he was doing. Or she, in the case of this Kim. And, during her six to ten thousand years as a free person in Hell – she wasn't sure how many; the centuries blurred together now – she'd made contacts, and met quite a few military men. Most had been just the humble rank-and-file, but not all. Some had been great leaders and one of them was just down the passage. In this small underground city hewn from the natural cave network beneath this spur of the giant encircling city of Dis, the torches lit the dark passage with a flickering, orange light that played off the dry stone tunnel; above them was thousands of years' worth of soot staining the rock.

  The passage branched; before turning left, Rahab looked at the symbol scratched in the rock, as much out of habit as to remind herself; she'd been this way many, many times over the centuries to consult with the man who lived at its end, behind the simple wooden door that was before her now. She knocked twice, then thrice, a code as old as the resistance. If it's so old, how do we know they don't know? That was a disturbing thought, of the kind she'd been having more and more since the newcomers had arrived with their strange ways.

  The door cracked open; a man with heavy eyebrows and what seemed a perpetual frown peered out underneath short golden curls. His face softened as much as it could when he saw who had knocked. “Ah, Rahab. Please come in.” He opened the door wider to allow her to enter, and then shut it behind her.

  The room was much like the one she'd left a few minutes before, except that in the fireplace was a fire. In front of the fire was positioned a large wooden table strewn over with piles of dried clay tablets and some parchments. Sitting hunched with his back to her, carefully impressing on a wet tablet with a stylus, was a lithe man of average height, with thin black hair. Standing behind him and looking over his shoulder was a tall, dark, man with a short crew cut and a jutting chin.

  At the sound of Rahab's entrance, the man glanced over his shoulder, then smiled broadly, standing up and stretching. “Rahab! Come in! It has been too long!”

  Rahab smiled wanly back and embraced him. “Gaius Julius Caesar, it has indeed been too long.”

  He returned the hug warmly, then held her at arm's length. “What brings you here, my friend? The changes shaking up this prison we live in?”

  The surprise must have been evident on her face, because he burst into laughter even before she could ask, “You know about it?”

  “Rahab, how long have you known what I've been doing here? I have contacts all over Hell, and I have information constantly coming in.” Caesar smiled. “I know that there are rumors flying all throughout Mekatrig's domain about an invasion of Earth, about Abigor and his expeditionary force, and about a part of the Fifth Ring, along the Styx, where they dare not go. And most of all, of the assassination of Asmodeus. That news made all of hell ring with its chimes. Have you come to give me a rumor?”

  “No,” Rahab said firmly. “I have something far better than a rumor. I have seen it all firsthand.”

  Caesar's smile was gone in a flash, and he pulled a chair away from the hearth. “Sit,” he said, gesturing. She sat, he sat, and then she started talking. She told about her first encounter with the four strange escapees, how she'd led them to the holding room, and how they'd disappeared. She told about the explosions that had started echoing across the swamps, how the bridge across the Styx had been destroyed as though it were built of children's blocks, how the demonic patrols had started disappearing. She told how their shattered, lifeless bodies had started appearing, with the letters “PFLH” scrawled in the greenish blood.

  After a little bit, Caesar held up his hand. “Forgive me; I was so happy to see you, I did not offer you refreshments. Pullo, please get our guest some water.”

  His companion nodded and moved into an adjoining chamber. Caesar nodded at Rahab. “Please. Continue.”

  And she did, stopping only to take the cup of water from Titus Pullo. Now, she told of her encounter with the forces, of the assault on the castle she had witnessed. She told of the lightning speed with which the insurgents had moved, of their ability to kill from a distance and to call explosions. As she did so, Lucius Vorenus moved slightly and listened to her words. Always the eternal soldier she thought. And she told of the strange man she had been tasked to hide, the man who was so fascinated with ants. Then she was done, and Caesar stared at the wall, his face hard and unmoving in the firelight. The only clue to his thoughts was the drumming of his heel on the ground, which continued incessantly.

  At last, he spoke. “Rahab, I need you to contact the leader of this PFLH. I need to talk to her as soon as possible. Tell her that we will meet on neutral ground of her choosing. She will know that this means I am approaching her in good faith. I will send Pullo and Vorenus with you; they are to collect the man you brought with you and bring him back here. Now go; go now, and may the powerful gods that caused me to be spared down here guard you also.”

  Chapter Fifty Four

  Tapton Hall, Western Sheffield, United Kingdom

  "Come on now, clear out, we can't take you after all."

  The older man was furious. "Are you insane? Two of us can barely walk and that guy is completely out of it." His mask was still on and his voice was slightly muffled.

  "I'm sorry sir, we have priority orders. There's another unit in the next road over there." Special Constable Amstead gestured towards a row of houses half-hidden by the drifting smoke. "I have to ask you to move, now." He put his hand very deliberately on his holstered Smith amp; Wesson pistol, but it was more the blank uncaring look in his eyes that convinced the evacuees not to argue.

  John watched the civvies limp away, the cursing man trying to support the two girls and the younger man trailing listlessly behind. It was a sad sight but this a was top priority mission. He ducked back into the building, where Constable Hillier was escorting the demoness down the central corridor. He'd managed to splint and bandage her leg and even her damaged wing with creative application of duct tape, but it was obvious that every step was still a minor agony for the creature.

  "Affirmative, the weapons discharge was accidental. Piece of falling debris caught me on the arm, no injuries. My partner's radio was out, no cause for alarm. 523 out."

  Constable Hillier clicked the radio off. It was lucky they'd found the demon defector first. She'd already been wounded by a unit that obviously shot first and interrogated any survivors later, and if those trigger happy Home Guard amateurs had gotten to her first they'd have likely finished the job.

  "Civvies are clear, we can move her into the van now." John reported.

  "My apologies for what happened to you. You did a brave thing coming here." Matthew looked at the demon uncertainly, not sure if he was improving the situation. "I'm sure with your help we can prevent this happening again."

  The gorgon spoke in a silky yet slightly rasping voice. "Yess, of course, but you have to get me to that meeting with your king's advisors. I was told to speak only to them."

  "Right, you were flying there when you were shot down."

  'Probably the SIS Matthew thought. 'Odd, but if that's what she says…' The idea that the demon might be lying was somehow unthinkable. They'd arrived at the van; the sounds of the fire teams and circling aircraft louder than ever but the thick ashen haze rendered them invisible.

  "Where did you say the rendezvous was?"

  "A small village, a dozen miles to t
he north of here. I cannot remember the name…" Lakheenahuknaasi tried her best to look sympathetic.

  'Poor thing, probably scared out of its wits.' "Barnsley perhaps? No, that's a decent size town…"

  "Grimethorpe?" Special Constable Amstead volunteered. He had an aunt who still lived in that run-down sink-hole.

  "Yes, that's it, Grim-thorpe!" Lakheenahuknaasi was desperate to escape this awful place, anywhere would do. She climbed into the yawning interior of the iron chariot, shuddering at the feeling of the cursed metal all around her.

  “Huh, lucky guess John.”

  'How can she be cold in this heat?' Matthew thought. "There's some space blankets and a thermos of tea in the back there." The gorgon blinked at him. "Shout if you need anything else. We'd best be off then." The two police officers shut the rear doors and climbed into the cab. Moments later, the van pulled away and headed north.

  DIMO(N) Special Devices Assembly Facility (formerly Payne Whitney Gymnasium Complex), Yale, Connecticut

  The raised track formed a convenient balcony for viewing the main assembly area, one which Dr Kuroneko had taken to spending his breaks in. The repurposed space was packed with tools, workbenches, stacked components and half-finished subassemblies. Many would not be out of place in any light engineering shop, but some were thoroughly exotic and quite a few had been requisitioned directly from high-energy physics labs. The place was crowded with engineers and technicians of diverse specialties; DIMO(N) drafted whoever they needed (not that coercion was required often) and left no stone unturned in building their tiger team. The work went on 24/7, watched by the heavily armed guards that stood at every entrance.

  “Quite a sight, isn’t it.”

  The flat voice again. Kuroneko tried not to look startled as he turned to face the newcomer.

  “You’ve been approved for deployment over Sheffield.” the man continued “Your project plan implies that you’ll be ready to ship the first device in five more days, correct?”

  “If everyone continues to work day and night and there are no more component problems, then yes. But remember that this is just a prototype…”

  “Yes, you’ve made that clear, we won’t string you up if it’s a dud. Not the first time anway.” The man smiled. Kuroneko tried to smile back.

  “You’ve got a third prototype under production now?” he continued.

  “Yes, but we’re holding further components for the weaponised version. The engineers tell me those HT superconductors are hell to work with, we’ve trimmed another three hundred kilos off but I’m not sure how much more we can take out.”

  “These aviation types don’t look hard enough. I’ll see if I can get you some ICBM RV designers. There’s no one better at shaving ounces.”

  Kuroneko didn’t know how this mysterious civilian was going to rustle up nuclear missile builders and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Both men stared out at the work in progress.

  “In any case, you’ve been assigned a designation. EBU-5(V)1, prototypes will be mod 0, first production run will be mod 1. McAlester is turning out the casings for you now, based on the GBU-43 supersize design study. C-17s will be providing emergency capability until we can dedicate B-1s for the role, crews are about to start training in Nevada. Just as soon as we can spray paint some weather balloons black to serve as the targets.”

  Kuroneko wished he could tell when this guy was joking. Best to change the subject, the thought.

  “What about early warning? Would you believe, the cellphone companies told us to quit bothering them! Told us to go through the FCC, and they’re a bunch of…”

  He was cut off again. “Not a problem. I have it on good authority that they’ll be a presidential order going out in the morning. You’ll have full access to network diagnostics and freedom to reprogram the base stations as needed.”

  “Right. Well, that’s great. Thank you.” Kuroneko stammered. “Of course that’s just, ahh, how do you say, ‘emergency capability’, until the production line for the dedicated sensors is running.”

  “Of course.” The man looked at his watch. “Keep up the good work, Doctor.” He walked briskly away, leaving Kuroneko alone.

  ‘Damn’, the scientist thought, ‘now my coffee’s gone cold’.

  Lady Wood, near Grimthorpe, United Kingdom

  The big police Transit rolled to a halt on the loose gravel, stopping under the canopy of trees at the end of the disused lane. Two police officers got out and opened the rear doors. An unearthly humanoid form emerged, trailing oversized bat-wings and gleaming bronze and silver in the fading afternoon light. The silver came from the mylar blanket that the creature had wrapped around itself like a shroud.

  "Are you ok?" Constable Matthew Hillier looked at the demon dubiously.

  "Well enough, human." She flashed a fanged grin. “Your assistance is appreciated.”

  "You're sure this is it? There's no sign of anyone else here."

  "I was to meet them at a farmhouse, in that direction I believe." The demon pointed into the trees, seemingly at random. "You will escort me of course."

  "Of course." Matthew echoed. He was feeling increasingly uneasy about this. There was something wrong here… had someone tricked the demon perhaps? To what end? In any case they couldn't abandon her. He unslung his MP5 and moved forward.

  "That was a close call back at the checkpoint." his partner remarked, after a few minutes walking. “If those yobs hadn't been making a scene, they probably would've searched us.”

  “Yeah, then we'd have had some fast talking to do.” Matthew couldn't shake the feeling something was horribly wrong here. The more he thought about it – and for some reason he hadn't until now – this scenario made no sense. Why where they here? Why had they taken that creature at its word? Suddenly he realized that the demon was no longer beside them. Clarity came a moment too late. The spray of paralyzing darts pierced his back and for the second time his limbs went rigid before he could draw a bead on the demon. For a moment he stood like a statue, before falling to the ground stiffly. As he fell he saw that John had suffered the same fate.

  Lakheenahuknaasi limped up to the paralyzed humans. They always looked so pitiful, frozen in horror like that. And to think that they'd been trying to show her pity.

  “It's almost a shame, after you've been so helpful.” Clinically, she reached down with a clawed hand and ripped out the first man's throat. “But I'm afraid you've become more trouble than you're worth”. The second man was staring at her in terror; he mumbled something, but it was too slurred for the gorgon to tell whether it was begging or defiance. No matter. She grabbed his throat and squeezed the life out of him. Finally giving in to her instincts, Lakheenahuknaasi dropped to her knees and began to feast.

  After half an hour she'd had her fill. The demoness dragged what was left of the bodies into a nearby ditch, concealed them as best she could and slipped away into the woods.

  Underground Caverns, City of Dis, Hell

  Despite the oppressiveness of being cooped up underground, Richard Dawkins was fully recovered and had been for some time. The professor of biology part of him was only half conscious of his surroundings, the rest of his mind was riveted on the world around him. As the trauma of his days of torment had slowly died, long after no trace of the hideous burns remained, he'd begun to take note of hell, his scientific training taking over.

  Even here, inside this labyrinth of granite caves, he'd examined his environment. The floor was coated with mud, brown, but flecked with what looked a bit like duckweed, or algae of some sort. It was the consistency of cake batter. There were tufts of thick grass growing out of it here and there, but it wasn't like any grass he'd ever seen – short, thick, and serrated. On the walls surrounding him, were strange lichen formations. And the bugs – the bugs were like nothing in his experience.

  An evolutionary etymologist by profession, Dawkins had spent his life studying insects. He knew a new species when he saw one, and right now, all the things he was seein
g were new species. The flies buzzing around, flitting from wall to wall, light source to light source, were larger and faster than their counterparts back on Earth. The dragonflies that swooped in and out of the shadows that marked the natural origin of this complex did so on iridescent wings that were colored to reflect the environment of Hell, striated orange beneath and muddy brown above. Dawkins supposed that they must have a natural predator, else there would have been no need for camouflage from above.

  So, in the true spirit of scientific inquiry (he would not admit to himself that he had nothing better tp do at this point) he devoted himself to carefully watching the insects around him for several hours. Finally, he was vindicated as a small, dark-orange bird swept out of the shadows, caught a particularly large and (Dawkins supposed) juicy dragonfly in its beak, and perched on a convenient ledge not two meters from him. As it crunched on its meal, it looked for all the world like a little puffed-up bundle of feathers with two large, black eyes and a short, sharp beak.

  Yet for all its differences, the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that everything here was similar, somehow, to everything on Earth. The biosystems had to be related somehow; it was all slightly different, slightly off, from the natural ecosystem, but they were so much the same. Certainly not the entirely different life forms one would expect from a completely separated alternate universe. That fitted in with all his observations to date, wherever this place was, it shared a common ancestry with Earth. Or at least the creatures here did. He wondered briefly if they were the, he tried to think of a description, his mind rebelling from using the word soul,