They didn’t realize they had reached the park until Mhara ran smack into a play fort with platforms and slides. While it probably wasn’t safe to climb on, it was still standing after two thousand years. Made of some kind of Ahlemoni plastic, it would have been poster-perfect, Kane thought, for an environmentalist campaign against nonbiodegradable materials. Mhara took in the scene.
“I keep feeling like I was just here, sitting on a bench in a beautifully manicured park. I must have dreamed of it in suspension; it’s so vivid.” She took her face in both hands as if she were trying to hold herself together. “I’m having a hard time reconciling that this is the same place. In a single night’s sleep, my world has disappeared.”
“I’m sorry, Mhara.”
“No, I chose this. I went to sleep knowing that things would be different when I woke. You did not. Against your will, you were pulled out of your world and thrust into ours, and great danger. I have no right to feel sorry for myself.”
“Mhara,” Kane said, stepping in front of her, “you have every right. You’ve suffered through a mind-numbing tragedy like none I have ever had to face. And besides, I just haven’t had time to feel sorry for myself.”
She smiled. “Do all Earth humans interject humor as you do?”
“No. And I’m an amateur next to Tygert.”
“Yes, that is true. It is not common among my people. But it is an Earth trait that I am coming to admire.”
A long-range searchlight flashed over the jungle, and they crouched reactively. Mhara looked around the area more seriously.
“With the tower there, and the fort here, my bench would be further to the right . . . over there.” She pointed. “And the access stairs into the city would be at the end of the park.” She pointed directly ahead.
They found it quickly, a gazebo-type structure with a wide, open stairwell leading down into the city. But the jungle had claimed it as its own; it was choked with vines. They would have to hack their way through. Using his knife, Kane led the way.
They had reached the first landing when Kane turned to check on Mhara. With the brighter night sky behind her, she was a silhouette in his night goggles. And so was the thick vine that was slowly extending itself down from the ceiling and swaying directly behind her. Instinctively, he pushed her to one side, leapt up the stairs, and grabbed it with one hand. Twelve feet of snake dropped from the ceiling vines and wrapped itself around Kane’s neck and shoulders. He immediately grasped the snake at the neck, dropping his knife in the process. It took both of his hands to keep the creature from biting him in the face. He fell to his knees, choking as the coils exerted a crushing pressure on his Adam’s apple. He was about to pass out when the tension released and he found a severed snake head in his grip. Mhara unwrapped the coils from his neck and he slouched, recovering his breath. She knelt beside him, a bloody knife in her hand.
“Thanks,” he wheezed. “Everybody keeps savin’ my ass. Especially you. Isn’t the hero supposed to save the girl?”
“You are a hero because you throw yourself in harm’s way to protect others, and you do it with no thought for yourself.”
“I never noticed.”
There was a hissing sound from below. Kane twisted, using one arm to move Mhara behind him and the other to draw his laser pistol. He fired two shots and another large snake fell to the floor.
“See what I mean?” she said.
“It’s not what you think. You’da killed it in one shot. I didn’t want you to show me up again.” She shoved him away, playfully.
Numerous swishing sounds came from below them, and they both jumped to their feet, pistols in hand. Between hacking and shooting, they made their way down, turning through two stairwell landings and killing at least a dozen snakes before they reached the bottom of the stairs.
They found themselves on a large observation deck with open windows on three sides, the glass long since gone. Benches lined the three walls. The deck overlooked the central mall. An open area that encircled the tower under the skylight, the central mall had once been the primary hub of commerce and community in the city. Almost half a mile across and rising three hundred feet from the city floor to the skylight, it was cavernous. Mhara groaned when she looked down at the dimly lit floor; it was a buzz of activity, crawling with Breakers and utility robots.
“Never a dull moment,” Kane said.
Mhara’s shoulders sagged with despair. “We are frustrated at every turn.” Then she lit up and pointed to the mall floor. “Kane, look. Is that our team?”
It was difficult to see clearly, but she was right; a circle of Breaker sentries was tightly escorting three of their team members across the mall floor toward the tower. One was Super 3; his was the only shiny silver head on the mall floor. The other two heads were human, obvious from the hair. Kane couldn’t distinguish their identities, but he could see that one had some type of material wrapped around his head . . . possibly injured.
“There are only three. Someone must have escaped,” Mhara said.
“I hope you’re right.”
Kane turned his attention to examining the immediate area, trying to figure out how to proceed. There was no way they could get across the mall floor. “Are there any bridges from this outer section into the tower?”
“No.”
Kane scanned the skylight ceiling. It was reinforced with a lattice of beams supported by arches on each end. There were innumerable light fixtures, half of which weren’t working. Hover robots were likely responsible for ceiling maintenance, but surely the architects would have designed some kind of option for human access. He scanned the ceiling more carefully, looking for something very specific.
“There,” he said, pointing. “A catwalk. That’s our way into the tower.” The catwalk spanned the entire mall. It connected to the outer building, several hundred feet to their left.
They donned their night vision goggles, and Mhara led the way through a set of double doors located next to the stairwell. They entered a large, circular room; then she veered hard right into a hallway that ran around the inner perimeter of the building, overlooking the mall. Within minutes they were standing under the catwalk. It ran above the hallway ceiling, probably into some maintenance room deeper in the building. Not wanting to backtrack, they knocked down a door and entered an office area, where they found several dilapidated desks and tables. They used them to create a platform to stand on. Kane raised a ceiling panel for a look . . . and it crumbled in his fingers. The catwalk was directly above, but once again, it was too high to reach with a jump.
“Your turn,” Mhara said.
“You sure?”
Mhara squatted and patted her shoulders. Not wanting to argue, Kane stepped onto her shoulders, balancing himself in the ceiling tile frame. Surprisingly strong for her stature, with a grunt, she pressed him up and into the ceiling space. He caught the edge of the catwalk and pulled himself up. With his lower legs wrapped around a post, he hung upside down, extending his arms to Mhara. She jumped, caught his hands, and climbed up his body.
Once on the catwalk, they found a door leading out of the perimeter building and into the central mall; it was locked. Hoping that two thousand years of aging had weakened the superior Ahlemoni building materials, Kane worked the latch with his knife and managed to get the door open within a few minutes. Musty air from the mall washed over them. Cautiously, Kane ventured a few feet onto the catwalk to check its condition.
“It feels solid. Are you afraid of heights?”
“No. Are you?”
He didn’t respond.
“We can do this,” Mhara said, brushing past him and leading the way.
Kane followed. They moved carefully but briskly, walking right over the heads of the unsuspecting Breakers. The open height underneath posed a fierce mental challenge for Kane, but he made it across without pause.
When they reached the tower, they found another locked door. Kane pried at the door latch, but this one was not as cooperative
as the first. Mhara pulled a bar of plastique from a pants pocket and gave it to him. “Very handy,” he said. He pressed a thin strip against the hinges and timed the explosion to coincide with a repetitive thud coming from some Breaker activity below. As the doctor had promised, the explosion was little more than a poof, and it worked perfectly.
Inside the tower, the catwalk led them down and into a small maintenance room. Kane pressed his ear to the only exit door and listened. With his handgun at the ready, he eased the door open into a dimly lit hallway; enough to remove his night vision goggles. Venturing out, they moved together, checking the immediate area. The maintenance room was located midway down a long hallway leading to an elevator and small lobby at the core of the tower, and to an outer stairwell at the opposite end. This floor appeared deserted. They returned to the maintenance room.
Mhara pulled an energy bar and water pack from her trouser pocket, and Kane did the same. As they ate, they discussed next steps. The rescue team had identified two likely places where the hostages could be held: at the top of the tower and underneath. The rendezvous point was in an underground floor near the base of the tower. They decided to explore the top before venturing down.
“I want you to stay here,” Kane said.
“No way. I’m going with you. We need to stay together.”
“Normally I would agree, but not this time. I think it’s better if I go alone. If both of us are captured, then there’s no backup.”
“But what could I do alone?”
“From what I’ve seen, you can do plenty.”
Mhara clearly didn’t like the idea, but she didn’t have a quick rebuttal.
“I want you to watch this area,” Kane told her. “They could come up behind us. It shouldn’t take me long to check out the tower. If there’s something up there, I’ll come down and we can go back up together. If there’s nothing, we’ll move down together. If I’m not back in thirty minutes, you follow up the outer stairwell. If I’m captured, don’t reveal yourself—make your way to the rendezvous point without me. If our other team member is alive, that’s where he’ll be.”
She frowned.
“Mhara, please. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for twenty years. And I’ll be careful.”
“I trust your judgment. I just don’t trust the I’ll be careful part. But I’ll do as you ask.”
“Thank you.” Kane turned to leave, but then paused. “I’ve been rude to you several times recently,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Mhara gave him a curious look. “I forgive you. I have never met a man like you, Mr. Kane.”
“That’s probably a good thing.” And with that, he left the maintenance room.
“Please come back,” she whispered to herself.
———
Kane climbed twenty stories up the stairwell. The top of the tower contained a penthouse, executive offices, a kitchen, the command center, and an observation walkway that ran all the way around the exterior of the tower. In its heyday, this was the seat of power in Alto Mair and therefore the most likely site for Atticus’s headquarters. If he was keeping the hostages close, they were probably in the executive offices or on the floor directly below.
It was deathly quiet at the top, already a bad sign. Even without the hostages, it should have been a hub of activity. Kane surmised that everyone was out looking for him and Mhara. Leading with his handgun, he eased open the stairwell door and slipped silently into a hall. He had committed the layout of the top two floors to memory, and from what he could see, nothing had been altered from the original schematic. He made his way to the first door. It would let him into a balcony overlooking the command center, one of three spaces he wanted to check. He pressed his ear to the door and listened. Silence. He slipped into the balcony and hugged the wall. To his right was a glass door leading out to the observation walkway. To his left, the command center lay below. The entire exterior wall was glass, with the early morning sun illuminating the room. He dropped to the floor and crawled to the balcony railing. The command center looked more like a big lounge, with a few rows of computer workstations, a long conference table, a dining area, a couple of sitting areas, and an executive desk on a raised platform at the far end. It was empty and eerily quiet, but Kane knew better than to let down his guard.
There was a muffled sound, but he missed its source. Listening intently, he heard it again . . . it came from below and across the room. Someone, or something, was sitting in the high-back swivel chair on the far side of the executive desk, facing the window. He moved laterally along the railing to try to get a better look. As soon as he saw the red hair, he caught his breath and his skin prickled. It had to be Charly. He instantly knew that it was a trap. Atticus was a smart one; Charly was the perfect bait for Kane. Ignoring twenty years of elite military training and experience, he jumped up, leapt down the balcony stairwell, ran across the command center floor, and stopped in front of the high-back chair. It was Charly, her mouth covered with tape, her hands taped to the chair arms, and her legs taped at the ankles. Her eyes went wide with fear when she saw him. She shook her head vigorously, screaming at him from under the tape. “Shush,” he said, kneeling in front of her. He carefully pulled the tape from her mouth and then began cutting her hands and feet free.
“Oh, Kane,” she said, crying, “it’s a trap. You should run. It’s a trap.”
“I know, honey, I know. But I’m here now. That’s all that matters.”
Freed from the tape, she launched herself into his arms and buried her head in his chest. They knelt together on the floor, and Kane held her as she cried. Then he watched calmly as two doors opened on the inner wall of the command center and Rakaan, accompanied by a dozen Breaker sentries, entered the room and surrounded them.
20
Day 4
0500 hours
Wharf, Alto Mair
After the third flying rhaji demolished the boat, Thorin picked himself up from the wharf and moved toward the city wall. The Breakers were scattered, but several took notice and followed him. Hearing a low-pitched whistle grow louder, he instinctively leapt forward. A rhaji landed on the wharf behind him and rolled from the momentum of Leevee’s throw. His pursuers took the brunt of the blow, slowing the creature down, but not enough to keep it from overtaking him. The rhaji came to a stop, pinning his legs almost to his waist, seawater pouring onto his back. In the throes of death, the creature convulsed, lifted itself, and fell further up Thorin’s body. The weight of it brought a sharp pain to his spine and hampered his breathing. Another shift like that and he knew he would be crushed. He prepared himself. As the rhaji’s body lifted with its next convulsion, he dug in with his toes and hands and launched himself forward, twisting his body sideways. He watched in dreamlike, slow motion as the rhaji rolled toward him, its slimy skin finally coming to rest on his shoulder and pressing into his cheek. He slid away, rolled up to his feet, and ran to where the first rhaji lay stretched across the entrance of an open hangar door. He slipped into the hangar. After confirming that he had not been followed, he ran to the back wall, winding his way through rows of storage containers. He paused to catch his breath in a dark corner, feeling the sting of saltwater seeping into several cuts on his legs, the work of barnacles from the rhaji’s hide.
Having eluded the Breakers, Thorin’s thoughts went to his teammates. They had counted on his knowledge of Alto Mair to navigate their route to the city’s central tower. Even with maps, they would find it challenging to make their way inside the city without a guide. But the team had made a strict pact: if separated by an attack, they would not attempt any isolated actions or rescues but would proceed to the next rendezvous point to regroup.
As Breaker reinforcements flooded into the back of the hangar from deeper in the city, he slipped through an obscure corner door into a dark stairwell. Every fiber in his body wanted to go back to his friends, but he knew it would be a wasted effort. If they were captured, he could better serve them with his freedom and a
calculated rescue plan.
Donning his night vision goggles, and with gun in hand, he made his way to the lowest underground level. To his relief, it did not appear that the Breakers had modified the floor plan. But the entire area was in severe decay. In his mind, he remembered it brightly lit, clean, and bustling with human and Meken activity; it was difficult to imagine that these were the same hallways. As he pressed into the city, he was struck with the realization that the world he once knew no longer existed. Fending off a wave of despair, he turned his thoughts to his new comrades from Earth. Their spirit inspired him. Despite their abduction, they had risked their lives to save the colonists, showing great bravery and compassion. Yes, he needed them to rebuild his world. But it was nice to discover that he also liked them.
With renewed resolve, he picked up his pace. Jogging through a maze of hallways, he deliberately avoided the main tunnel for fear that it would be in use by the Breakers. He turned a corner, and his vision registered something odd about the corridor ahead. But he plowed forward, unaccustomed to the nuances of night vision goggles—and ran straight into the transparent mucous membrane stretched across the hallway.
21
Day 4
0900 hours
Tower, Alto Mair
Mhara sat in the mechanical room, getting angrier with every minute that passed. She was mad at herself for letting Kane talk her into staying behind. They were in the Breakers’ lair, with no real idea of what they were up against, guessing at the right next move, and only three of their team at liberty to do anything, all of whom were now isolated from each other. What was I thinking? she fumed. I wasn’t. “He distracts me.” She growled the last three words out loud, venting her frustration and admitting a truth to herself. “Yes, I like him,” she said, overly loud.
The Last City (The Ahlemon Saga Book 1) Page 19
