Truth Engine

by James Axler

  Together, Grant and Kane charged down the corridor, sweeping aside the last of their hooded assailants with violent booms from their Copperhead assault weapons, even as the angry form of Ullikummis swayed in place beneath Brigid Baptiste’s brutal attack. Far behind them, Domi lay on the floor, her pale form twitching in semi-consciousness; they would worry about her later, when all this was over.

  Ahead of them, they saw Ullikummis rear up, the glowing magma of his screaming mouth a fiery circle in the stuttering lighting. The rock lord’s face and torso were still smoldering, the hydrochloric acid eating into his flesh. Then, as if in slow motion, Kane saw the stone creature’s smoldering right arm reach out, the bullets from Brigid’s blaster glancing off its dark surface. Ullikummis’s stony hand grabbed the blocky black square of Brigid’s semiautomatic, seizing it even with Brigid’s finger locked on the trigger. With a burst of sparks, the gun ceased firing as Ullikummis crushed the barrel in a show of incredible strength.

  Brigid fell backward, letting go of the weapon even as it seized up, and Ullikummis tossed it aside.

  Then the stone giant was standing over Brigid, looming over her like some ugly, primitive statue brought to life.

  Running beside Kane, Grant was firing shots from his Copperhead at the hulking stone figure. They had no great plan, Kane knew—it came down to this, a show of force against a wounded enemy.

  “Get Brigid!” Grant instructed as he crouched low and charged at Ullikummis.

  Kane obeyed, leaping over the prone form of a fallen hooded warrior in his path. Then he was just five paces from Brigid, calling out to her, his own Copperhead drilling shot after shot into the towering form of the would-be god. Ullikummis halted in place, his head rearing back as the bullets from Kane’s and Grant’s weapons slammed into his ruined flesh. The hydrochloric acid was eating at his hard covering, and their shots were causing the great Annunaki lord pain.

  Grant’s Copperhead spit as he charged at Ullikummis from the other flank, the bullets slapping against the Annunaki’s monstrous hide where it remained undamaged by the corrosive acid. Ullikummis looked up as he made to grab Brigid, and when he saw Grant’s charging figure, a look of recognition crossed his fearsome features.

  “The man bull?” Ullikummis queried, even as Grant’s powerful form slammed into him with all his might.

  In a blur of movement, Kane snagged Brigid, yanking her aside even as Ullikummis grasped the air where she had been just a fraction of a second before.

  Grant’s incredible charge pushed the stone god back a stumbling step, just out of reach of Brigid Baptiste as Kane dragged her from the floor. However, it was like slamming into a brick wall. Grant bounced backward, the Copperhead clattering from his grip as he landed hard on the floor.

  Across from Grant, without even looking, Kane stepped on the Copperhead as it skittered across the floor. His mind was focused on Ullikummis as the stone giant turned on him with fury in his burning eyes. Standing ready, Kane blasted bullets from his own weapon, using the bullpup grip to create a wide spraying pattern, locking the monster in place as the blaster spit titanium steel. There was something remarkable about Kane in that moment. The fabled point man utilized his special gift in the tensest of situations, and Grant recognized he was employing it now. Despite the noise and fury all around, Kane was one with his surroundings, his attention utterly devoted to the task at hand.

  A little way down the corridor, a handful of hooded strangers were righting themselves after the initial affray, while down by the rollback door, more guards were making their way toward the scuffle, leaving their defeated prisoners—remarkably—unguarded.

  Grant righted himself, clambering off the floor, his breathing heavy. With a practiced flinch of his wrist tendons, he called the Sin Eater into his grip from its wrist holster, his eyes fixed on the looming figure in the center of the corridor.

  Kane stood eight paces to Grant’s right, feet widely spaced, his Copperhead spurting furious bursts of bullets at the smoldering stone monstrosity as gouts of white mist puffed from the Annunaki’s ruined face.

  And a half dozen paces from Kane, Brigid Baptiste was readying herself, after retrieving Grant’s Copperhead from the floor by Kane’s foot.

  As one, the oft-fabled triumvirate of Cerberus warriors unleashed a storm of bullets at the wanna-be overlord, the fizzing of the acid that ate at his body filling the air like a snake’s hissing as the overhead lights shimmered. The sounds of gunfire filled the air as streams of bullets pelted the monstrous figure, some locking in his ruined flesh while others struck the hard rock skin and zipped away to the air, where they slammed against the walls, floor and high ceiling. Ullikummis ignored them, his fierce eyes glowing a hellish orange as the lights above them flickered and dimmed, flickered and dimmed.

  Then the stone overlord took a mighty step forward, despite the bullets blasting against his incredible flesh. Ullikummis began his final assault, his stone feet stamping against the plates of the floor as he trudged toward the trio of Cerberus warriors, a handful of his hooded warriors at his back.

  This is it, Kane thought.

  Chapter 13

  Kane’s bullets cleaved the air, 4.85 mm slugs whipping across the space between himself and Ullikummis as the stone god trudged toward him. To Kane’s right, Brigid Baptiste was using the recovered Copperhead subgun to drill the monstrous figure with more slugs, even as it stormed at them. Meanwhile Grant stood eight feet to Kane’s left, his Sin Eater belching 9 mm bullets in a lethal stream.

  Ullikummis’s tree-trunk-like feet slammed against the floor as he stomped toward them, and Kane watched as the stone creature’s right arm lashed out, knocking Grant off his feet with an almighty slap. His fellow ex-Mag hurtled backward, slamming into the far wall.

  To Kane’s right, Brigid Baptiste’s Copperhead clicked on empty, its ammunition spent. Grant had the spare ammo, Kane knew, although he himself had several cartridges stuffed in his pockets for his own use.

  “Get out of here, Baptiste,” Kane shouted. “Go free our colleagues.”

  She shook her head. “No, Kane,” she said, “he’s wounded now. We have to find some way…”

  “I’ll find the way,” Kane promised. “You free Lakesh and the others.”

  Brigid glanced past Ullikummis, saw that her defeated Cerberus colleagues were unguarded now. And yet, despite that, they did nothing to fight back or make a bid to escape. Even the security personnel seemed to be beyond caring, just kneeling there with their hands entwined behind their heads, the fight gone out of them.

  While Kane and Brigid continued their hurried exchange, Grant forced himself back to his feet, and he reached for Ullikummis, grabbing one of his thick wrists, as the stone monstrosity passed. Ullikummis pulled his arm close to his body, dragging Grant nearer, the ex-Mag’s booted feet scraping across the floor. And then Ullikummis’s misshapen face split in what passed for a smile as the corrosive continued to billow smoke around him like a halo. “You make fine sport, Enkidu,” Ullikummis growled. “It almost saddens me that I must end this now.”

  Before Grant could guess what the stone creature was referring to, Ullikummis flipped his mighty arm and pulled him from the ground. Suddenly Grant was hurtling vertically, and the high metal girders that held the rock ceiling in place came rushing toward him. Grant twisted his body, bracing for impact. Then he slammed into the ceiling, his left arm and shoulder striking first with bone-jarring finality. Mercifully, perhaps, Grant blacked out for a moment before he began the twenty-foot fall back to the floor of the tunnel.

  The hard impact of his landing brought him back to full consciousness, and he struggled to right himself and bring the Sin Eater pistol to bear once more. Ullikummis batted the stream of bullets aside, while behind him Kane contributed his own lethal salvo to Grant’s frenzied attack, drilling slugs into the monster’s back where it continued to billow white mist.

  Then Ullikummis’s arm swung and he slapped the supine Grant across the face wit
h the back of his rocky hand. Grant rolled over, feeling as if his head would tear from his neck. His vision swam, the flickering of the lights doubling and tripling as he hurtled into the wall to his left. He struck the rock with the force of a battering ram, howling in agony as he slumped to the floor. Ullikummis stood there a moment, looking at the ebony-skinned ex-Mag as he struggled to stay conscious.

  “A worthy foe,” Ullikummis growled when Grant’s head finally tipped backward and he sank into the quagmire of unconsciousness.

  BRIGID WEAVED BETWEEN the hooded figures as Ullikummis shoved her partner aside, and sprinted down the tunnel toward the rollback door. She ducked the assault of one guard, leaped to avoid a low kick from another.

  Ullikummis turned and, with a seemingly casual flick of his hand, commanded the floor to part beneath Brigid’s feet. She stumbled as a ridge of rock appeared, burrowing up from the floor plating, splitting the tiles apart.

  Brigid leaped over the next hump as, behind her, Kane drilled shot after shot into Ullikummis, drawing the stone god’s attention. Then another of the guards reached out as Brigid ran past, and he snagged her red-gold hair, yanking it with such force that she felt a strand tear from her scalp. She screeched in agony, stumbling and righting herself in the same movement.

  But Brigid’s momentary pause was enough. The guards had her now, leaping upon her and brutally forcing her to the ground.

  Brigid Baptiste was slammed facefirst into the floor, and the sounds around her seemed to become distant. Her vision swirled and blurred, and she felt the weight upon her back as someone drove her head into the tiles a second time. If there was a third time, Brigid didn’t know.

  TWENTY FEET AWAY, Kane’s Copperhead clicked on empty, finally out of ammunition. With a weary shake of his head, he clawed for the spare ammo he had stored at his belt, his eyes fixed on the hulking monstrosity of stone that stood before him, the figure’s face and upper body still smoldering from the acid attack.

  Kane already knew how this had to end. Grant was down; Baptiste was down. It was just him now, and he’d tried this twice before with the stone god, had tried to defeat him in combat, and both times had failed. Still, what was it Grant had said? Third time’s the charm.

  As Kane grasped for the spare ammunition, his hand brushed against the equipment he stored at his belt, and a desperate plan formed in his mind. He reached into the clip-down pouch there, pulling out three of the tiny explosive charges he carried as protocol. Small, spherical items about an inch in diameter, the charges were called flash-bangs, and were primarily used by Cerberus field teams to shock or divert an enemy. Now, with the stone giant still reeling from the hydrochloric acid, they might give Kane a further—and much needed—advantage.

  With a sweep of his arm, he tossed the spheres at the stone figure looming toward him, a half dozen of his hooded subjects hurrying in his wake. The flash-bangs hurtled through the air for two seconds, and Kane saw Ullikummis reach up to swat them aside. On short timers, the flash-bangs detonated, still flying through the air within arm’s reach of the stone monster, and the shadowy tunnel of the redoubt was suddenly lit up like a sunburst. The flash of light was accompanied by a colossal bang, the noise echoing loudly in the enclosed space.

  Flash-bangs were not designed to cause damage, just to startle and confuse an opponent, their unexpected brilliance stunning an attacker.

  Prepared for the explosion, Kane turned away as they went off, bathing the redoubt’s main tunnel in light. There was no time to place protective eyewear over his face; he just closed his eyes and turned away from the savage burst of brilliance. There was no defense from the cacophony the triple explosion brought, however, and Kane gritted his teeth against the ringing pain in his ears as he reloaded the Copperhead subgun with practiced surety.

  When he turned, the flash-bangs were fizzling out, drifting in the air like the trails left by spent fireworks. Screaming was coming from the far end of the tunnel, where Ullikummis’s people had looked straight into the spasmodic bursts of light, and Kane could hear several of the hooded intruders behind him cursing and groaning, as well. Twelve feet away, just past the dwindling lights of the spent flash-bangs fluttering back to the floor, Ullikummis was reeling in place, shaking his head and grumbling in irritation. One thing about light, Kane thought—no matter how big or nasty a foe, five will get you ten he’d be affected the same way as anyone else.

  As Ullikummis struggled to make sense of what had happened, Kane charged toward him, the Copperhead spewing bullets from his outstretched arm. The projectiles slapped against Ullikummis’s stone shell, batting against his skin and hurtling off in all directions. Kane smiled grimly as he saw Ullikummis stagger backward, and he reassured himself that several of the bullets had driven through the monster’s acid-damaged skin, embedding themselves in the stone overlord’s flesh, where the corrosive was still eating at it.

  “So you can be hurt, you son of a bitch,” Kane muttered to himself as he continued drilling the stone figure with 4.85 mm bullets, running an evasive pattern around Ullikummis’s towering form.

  With a savage growl, the monster lunged forward, blindly grasping for Kane with one of his stone hands. Despite his bulk, Ullikummis moved with astonishing speed and his reach was far greater than a normal man’s. Kane leaped as he ran, averting the stone claw by just a few inches, the Copperhead booming once more into that monstrous stone face.

  Like some crazed jack-in-the-box, Kane kept moving, circling Ullikummis and blasting shots at him from all sides, never more than six feet away from that monstrous stone form. All the while, Ullikummis was reaching out, smoke billowing from his misshapen features, his long arms grabbing at the air where Kane had been just a second before.

  Then, with an animal-like snarl, Ullikummis powered forward, his hulking legs kicking off the ground and sending him blasting at Kane like a stony missile as the Cerberus warrior neared one of the tunnel walls. With nowhere to run, Kane ducked, bending so low that his empty palm slapped the floor to keep him upright. Above him, the bulky shadow passed by, and then Ullikummis’s tree-stump feet crashed against the wall behind Kane, sending a shock wave down the length of the tunnel as he sprang from it like some deranged stone monkey.

  Ullikummis landed on the floor with his back to Kane, but already he was turning, his movements so fast they were a blur in the winking overhead lights.

  Kane ran backward, the shock-resistant soles of his boots slamming against the floor as he dodged away from the attacking god. Kane had fought with the Annunaki before; he had even battled the dark goddess Lilitu to a standstill in a brutal fistfight aboard the living mothership Tiamat. But even that could not prepare him for the speed and savagery with which Ullikummis attacked within the confines of the Cerberus sanctuary, his face billowing with smoke as the acid ate away at his strange rock flesh.

  Once more Kane’s Copperhead clicked on empty, and he tossed it aside without a second thought. There was no time left to reload, he knew. He had to finish this as quickly as he could, no matter how messy that might be.

  The useless Copperhead subgun clattered against the floor, skittering away. Even as it did so, Kane retrieved his Sin Eater from its wrist sheath, standing his ground as the fearsome figure of Ullikummis began to run at him.

  Steadying himself, Kane raised the Sin Eater and targeted the hulking figure between his glowing eyes. Ullikummis was charging now, his feet thumping against the floor with mighty drumbeats, his arms outstretched to encompass the vast width of the corridor that ran the length of the Cerberus redoubt. Kane’s Sin Eater spit, bullet after bullet rushing through the air and slapping against the brute’s face. Some shots zipped away in ricochets, but one in three seemed to find purchase, embedding itself in the monster’s fearsome face as he charged at Kane.

  With a mighty howl of defiance, Ullikummis bore down on the Cerberus warrior, the shots smashing against his rocky hide with bursts of fiery sparks. At the last second, Kane started running at the mighty st
one giant, then dropped to his knees, dipping below the monster’s reaching arms and sliding between his hurtling legs. Still on his knees, Kane spun, his finger never easing the pressure on the Sin Eater’s trigger, and a line of bullets sprayed across the wall to his right as he located his gruesome target once more.

  The bullets smacked against Ullikummis’s broad back, and Kane watched in awe as his monstrous foe stumbled and fell, crashing against the floor with the force of an avalanche.

  FARTHER ALONG THE CORRIDOR, lying on the cold floor, Domi struggled to regain consciousness, the flickering lights making her eyes ache. She saw Kane’s muscular figure whipping his Sin Eater around, firing shot after shot at the powerful form of Ullikummis, a lone man fighting a god. Kane’s denim jacket was shredded, just a tattered rag clinging to his back now. Beneath it, Domi saw, the black weave of the shadow suit was torn, and red streaks lined Kane’s skin where the thrown rocks of their enemies had cut into him. Then—incredibly—Ullikummis dropped, stumbling to the ground.

  Domi struggled, trying to pull herself out of her daze. “Kane…” she muttered, his name tumbling from lips made thick from the assault she had suffered.

  Her hand reached for the Combat Master handgun that lay beneath her, and she brought it around, her hands shaking as she forced herself to move.

  But it was impossible. She was so tired. Domi’s eyed closed once more as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

  ONLY NOW WAS KANE’S hearing coming back properly, the ringing effect of the flash-bangs subsiding. He peered behind him as he got to his feet, checked that the hooded attackers were still down. They seemed to be; it was just him and the Annunaki god-prince now.