“Good as done,” the large Knight replied. The visitor shifted in her seat as he towered over her. She must not be used to dealing with people like him. Maybe she was new. Nothing he hadn't encountered before, though.
Veterans of the Brigadier Knights made a lot of people uneasy, especially if the person knew to whom they were talking. Some of the more well known among his brothers-in-arms even had devoted fan followings. Possibly even a cult or two, somewhere, if you could believe the idle talk he'd overheard after missions.
You tended to win some friends among the thrill-seekers when your Fist of Knights was registered as having taken down a dragon with nothing more than your flight armor and shock-lances. Of course, most people were just afraid of men like him, and thought the Knights were completely insane. Those same people slept safe in their homes because of the men they feared so much. He couldn't help but notice the irony.
The metachip had already uploaded the information to his earbud, and had deleted its own data in the process. He tossed it into a gone-bin as he passed by, and noted that it was unusual for his handler to peg him with a job like this. He tended to be more of a brute-force tool for The Agency, not typically assigned to deal with the more subtle cloak-and-dagger situations. Can't be too choosy, he reasoned, and took a shortcut through the alleyway toward the shipyard where his vessel was docked.
Quinn received an earbud alert that his credits had just been transferred. Good. Maybe this would go smoothly after all, he speculated with a chuckle, and patted the pulse-gun holstered at his right hip. He spat to the side as he rounded the corner to the shipyard, preparing himself by going through his mental checklist of tactical points for the mission ahead.
He was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder.
Without even thinking, he grabbed it and twisted, laying his would-be-assailant flat on their back with one swift move. His mechanical knee pinned their chest to the pavement before they could blink, his pulser instantly in their face, ready to fire. The man was in his twenties or early thirties, judging from the scruff on his unshaven face.
“Who sent you?” Quinn asked in his cold, raspy voice. The sweat beaded on the young man's confused face, his weapon laying a meter off. Quinn heard footsteps coming up fast behind him, and he grinned at the frightened man beneath him. “Bait, huh? Some friends you've got.”
Then, he grabbed the man's greasy hair, used it to jerk him up and slam him right back into the pavement, knocking him out into the flexiphalt. The familiar cold zip from a lethal pulse warped the air past his left ear as he jumped behind a gone-bin, the only decent cover nearby. Three targets, he'd seen as he'd moved. He quickly popped his gun around the corner and fired off two well-aimed shots from memory, rewarded with the sounds of two chokes and thuds. The third assailant was smarter, though, and hid behind a metal support strut for safety. Didn't matter.
Quinn could see the man's left ankle and foot, and took the shot. SOOM! His foot ruptured, the man screamed and fell. Quinn was relentless, and took a shot at the man's now-exposed firing hand. SOOM! Mangled and unusable, the man was crying, now.
“Seriously, kid, you need to learn,” he said as he stalked over to stand above the man who had just tried to jump him. “This game isn't for people like you. What's your name, kid?”
“J-Jasper,” he whispered, clearly afraid.
Quinn took a squatting position beside him, picking up the ruined pulse-gun. “And where'd you get this, J-Jasper?”
Jasper looked at him blankly with sweat pouring down his face. “I...I don't...”
“You see,” Quinn continued as he turned the ruined weapon in his large hand, “I'd really like to think it wasn't you who set this up. I want to lay this at someone else's feet.” His leathery grin revealed a clean set of even, white teeth, his icy blue eyes burrowing into the young man's gray. “How about it? You interested in keeping that other foot?” He pointed his pulse-gun at the uninjured appendage, and Jasper let out a cry for mercy.
Jasper nodded fervently, his eyes rolling from the pain he was in. “No! I mean, yes! It...It was some guy from the warehouse district, man! He said it'd be like an easy job, just, you know...just take your earbud and get it to this guy.”
“Where were you going to drop it off?”
“I don't know, man! There was gonna be some shipper dude to pick it up for him!”
Quinn sighed, irritated. “Where was he gonna pick it up?”
“It was...um, you know...kark me. I can't tell you, man! They're gonna karkin' kill me!”
Quinn shoved the gun up in the kid's nose. “Jasper, I'd worry about what I'm gonna do if you don't tell me.”
The young man cried. “It was the docks, man! The docks! He was gonna pick it up at the docks!” Jasper's eyes were dilating though, and Quinn shook his head, frustrated that this kid was trying to lie to him. He grabbed the wounded hand and twisted, hard. Jasper cried out in pain.
“What else aren't you telling me?”
Jasper looked even more afraid, now. “What...what do you mean?”
“I don't appreciate you holding out on me,” Quinn said as he twisted the man's injured wrist again, rewarded with another scream.
“Okay, okay! Kark, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't kill me, man!” the defeated attacker cried, breaking down. Through sniffles, he continued. “There's this guy named Roth, and he's bad news. Real stone-cold killer, you know? Word is he wants your scalp, and he's willing to pay good credit to whoever gets it for him.” Quinn held the man's wrist as he thought about this, absently clenching his fist. He knew a Roth, but he'd died years ago. Quinn had seen it. Jasper whimpered in pain beneath him, and Quinn relaxed his grip. Looking down, he let go and stood up to leave.
Before heading off, though, he fished out a twenty-credit piece and flipped it onto the ground by Jasper's face. “You'd better get yourself and your friends to a medic. Oh, and one more thing, kid,” he suggested as he looked over his shoulder toward the shipyards, “You should really look into pursuing a new line of work.” As Quinn left, he waved over his shoulder, “Thanks for the workout.”
5
Awakening
A soothing, hummed melody woke her up. Was her father singing to her? No, it was just Mtumba, and his eyes were still closed. He must be having musical dreams. Stella smiled, imagining what they might be. Her own dreams had been strangely peaceful. Almost like when she used to sleep in her bed at home and her father would come tuck her in at night with a bedtime story. Feeling well rested if still a bit homesick, she stretched herself into wakefulness with a grunt, hungry.
Rooting through the survival suit pockets with bare fingers, Stella fished out the rest of the nutrient bar and took a bite. It was sticky and sweet. Chewing the dense bar, she got up to inspect the pulsing red crystal in the center of the room, wondering what it could be. Where it came from. If it was alive.
She walked around it, getting a good look, and saw it was similar on all sides; a pillar of crystal as wide as she was tall with something dark in the middle of the strangely compelling glow. Looking closer, a light shined within that hadn't been visible last night. Strange. Stella leaned in for a better look.
There was a flicker of movement from the dark mass, and she thought it somewhat resembled an egg of some sort. Still, it would be a strange egg. Something else, then. Like the heart of this mountain, if mountains had hearts. Who knew? Maybe they did...
“You gonna eat that?” Mtumba said, surprising her. Stella shrugged and handed him the rest of the nutrient bar. He ate it in less than two bites, which made her laugh. “What?” he asked defensively, and wiped a sticky, sweet crumb from the corner of his mouth.
“Nothing,” she smirked, and looked back at the crystal. “Hey, when do you think we'll make it off this planet?”
“I guess I don't know,” he said after considering her question, “but I've got to think we will somehow.”
“I didn't ask if we'll get out of here!” she retorted hotly. “I asked when!” Stella
crossed her arms and looked away as she took a deep breath to calm herself. Great, she thought. Alienate the only other person on the planet.
“Sorry,” she said. Mtumba was probably right to be concerned about their chances of making it out of here, but when he'd mentioned it, a mixture of anger and fear made her stomach turn. What they saw last night in the main passageway...Stella shuddered, remembering how that monstrous worm had shot out from the wall and snatched the gigantic white spider into its horrible mouth...so quick...
She heard a familiar, ominous clicking, and felt her body go stiff with fear. The sound was faint, but getting louder. There it was again. It sounded like more than one of those things out there in the caves, just out of sight. Like they were crawling through the walls between the chambers...maybe they were...
Where could she and Mtumba go? How could they escape if they couldn't even find their way back out of the cave? Stella sensed Mtumba move to stand protectively beside her, searching the cavern with fear in his eyes.
He leaned over to whisper. “Don't be afraid. Just stay calm, and they should go away again.” Unfortunately, the comfort he offered was undermined by a quaver in his young voice. Mtumba blinked hard, annoyed. “They don't seem to like the warmth. Did you notice that they didn't bother us at all last night? We should be safe in here.” Their eyes darted to a punctuated scurrying sound above them. “But we should stay quiet.”
Stella backed away from the cavern entry until her back was up against the crystal pillar. Her hand lightly grazed it and received a shock that caused her to pull away in surprise. She shook out the twinge and glanced behind her. Mtumba placed his finger over his lips before she could tell him what had just happened.
Therefore, she simply nodded, and they stood waiting for the sounds to die down for what seemed an eternity. Eventually the noise receded, and they were left again in the almost painful silence. Stella wanted to scream, to tell someone that this wasn't right, but no one other than Mtumba would hear her...and, of course, those creatures that crept between the walls, ready to greet her with their glinting eyes and crushing maws.
The red crystal behind them pulsed brightly, and suddenly an arc of electricity shot out to connect with the wall of the chamber. The crystal of the surrounding walls grew dim, and the clicking returned in full force. Somewhere beneath it was the low sound of groaning. It didn't sound human in origin, and caused the youths to shiver in fear.
To their dismay, a multitude of large spiders swarmed out from a crack in the tunnel ceiling but stopped short at the threshold of the chamber. The crystal walls were nearly dark now, the powerful red thrum dominating the chamber. The heat grew more intense as the rhythm of the crystal sped up, and a lethal web of white lightning struck at the walls. The teenagers ducked, keeping as low as they could. They were once more thrust into the impossible, and Stella was certain they wouldn't live to see a rescue arrive.
The cavern shuddered, the rumble of the mountain overpowering even the frantic high-pitched clicking of the white spider swarm now completely clogging the exit. The cacophony was unbearable. Stella felt the hairs standing up on the back of her neck in the charged atmosphere, and gritted her teeth, covering her ears to stop the maddening sounds that were flooding the chamber. Then suddenly, in rapid succession, the brightly glowing red crystal flashed orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, white, and then...everything went black.
She was dreaming. No, was she dreaming? She was floating, maybe. Maybe somewhere between dreaming and awake. She couldn't really feel where she was. It didn't seem quite like a dream. It was too...she felt too awake, too much like herself...but it was still dark...so why was she floating?
“Am I dead?” Stella cried into the void.
“Who summons us?” a chorus of formless voices rumbled through the darkness, a chromatic shimmer accompanying the sound. It looked vaguely like a great bird in shape, indistinct wings of light stretching into the dark abyss like a coruscating rainbow sunrise.
Stella hesitated, but then figured that whatever it was spoke her language, and couldn't be any worse than what they'd been surrounded by just a moment ago. Maybe she was okay, and there was someone here trying to help her. Maybe they could help her and Mtumba get home. So she answered. “I guess it was me.”
The voices seemed to consider. “Yes, yours was the hand which opened the chamber, though you are not familiar to us.” The voices paused, and she felt something brush lightly upon her mind, almost like a feather of thought passing across her own.
Time felt like it exploded in that instant, and her vision splintered into an infinity of possibilities, a kaleidoscope of faces and lives and galaxies, all connected and growing, inexorably moving forward through a multiverse of existences like an eternal wellspring of life. Stella gasped and the vision stopped cold, the chromatic light in front of her dancing to the side like a leaf on a breeze.
“Ah, yes. Now we understand. This will be...intriguing...new. We've never seen through eyes like yours before. The adjustment may however, yield some...unanticipated results.” The voices were starting to make her uneasy, and she spoke up.
“Look,” Stella interjected, “I don't know who or what you are, but I just want to go home! We have to get back to civilization! I need to find my dad, and Mtumba needs to get to his family! Are you going to help us or not?”
The voices paused before answering. “We can try, though it could be a longer journey than you might believe.” The wings flickered, and the voices seemed to sigh. “And yet, so much closer than you realize.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means what you choose to believe is where you are. It means you journey deep within the great dreaming and might yet wake at any moment.”
“So I am dreaming, then?”
“No,” the voices answered, “this is not the dream, though you continue the dreaming by your belief in it...but that is for you to discover, as the dreaming is now for us.” The voices merged into something more human sounding, and the dancing colors coalesced into a boy her age with golden hair. He looked at her, his vibrant blue eyes filled with life and wisdom. “Please help us remember who we are when we see you again. We may forget, but there is much work we must do and it is important that we succeed. Thank you for freeing us.”
There was a loud roar, and a powerful jolt rocked her out of the vision.
Mtumba was shaking Stella's shoulder, trying to get her attention. She felt wind on her face, and there was...daylight? “Can't you hear me?” Mtumba asked urgently. “Come on, wake up! You better be all right, you crazy girl!”
“I'm fine,” Stella coughed, and waved away his concern as she sat up.
“You sure?” Mtumba asked, giving her some space. He was visibly relieved.
Strange. There was a gaping hole in the wall, revealing the snowy landscape outside. Her face was cold. There was no sign of the spiders that had been there earlier. Then she looked behind her, and where the large pillar of pulsing red crystal had been, was now a smooth crater in the polished stone floor. Crouching within the fresh formation, a golden-haired youth wore an iridescent red garment that held to him much like the skin of a serpent. His head was uncovered, as were his hands. He was looking at the floor, mouth open and eyes closed.
The boy took a deep gasp of air, rocking forward onto his knees, and Mtumba noticed him for the first time with a start. “What just happened? What-Where- Where did he come from?”
Stella was already moving over to check on the strange new addition to their circle. Mtumba followed close behind her, and Stella took out a nutrient bar. The shiny wrapper crackled as she opened it to break off a bit for the boy to eat.
He was sitting up, clear blue eyes staring at his hands as he flexed them in amazement. Breathing was clearly a novel experience for him. He looked over at Stella and Mtumba with a bright smile. “Who are you?” he asked in wonderment, looking around as if seeing the world for the first time. Maybe he was, Stella realized. He blinked. �
�What is this place?”
Stella sighed. So much for getting any answers from him. Hadn't there been a boy in her dream that looked like this? Hadn't he said something to her? Stella let out a frustrated sigh as she tried to hold onto the memories that were already slipping away from her. She really wished she was better at remembering her dreams.
Mtumba crossed his arms as Stella handed the food to the new boy. Mtumba coughed conspicuously from behind her, but she ignored him. Quite well, too, she noted to herself with no small amount of pride.
“Who,” Mtumba asked through gritted teeth, “the heck...is this?”
Stella finally looked back at him and shrugged before turning again to look at the boy. “Whoever he is, I think he's just as lost as we are.” A part of her wished that he wasn't. She wanted answers, and knew on some level that locked behind those clear blue eyes was the key. That only made it harder to stay calm, but she managed in spite of her burning curiosity.
“And why would you think that?” Mtumba asked skeptically, finally getting under her skin.
“Well, why wouldn't you? Just look at him!” She glared at Mtumba and sat down beside the boy. “C'mon,” she said as he knelt on the cavern floor, looking curiously at the uneaten food in his hands. “Where are you from?”
He looked around the chamber. “Here, I guess” he said. She sighed. “Sorry,” the boy said. “I don't know.” He looked away. Okay, maybe a different question, Stella decided.
“Can you tell us anything about this place?” she asked hopefully, smiling as best she could. She caught a cold draft of air from outside and shivered, glancing at the hole in the wall again. Why had that happened, anyway? More questions.
The boy shrugged and looked at her. He pointed up, and they followed his finger. “For some reason...I think that maybe I used to be bigger?” he almost said it like a question. Stella shook her head, and Mtumba sat down beside them as fussily as he could manage. He squinted at the new boy, sizing him up.
Phoenix Rising (Dragon Legacy) Page 4
