A Dragon at the Gate (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 3)

by Michael G. Munz

  “Money well-spent!” Taylor laughed, staring wide-eyed at the hole above them. “Now the stairs! Hurry!”

  They bolted after him. “Are you all right?” She called to Michael, showing her hand.

  “Caught something on the way down!” he said. “It’s not bad; I’ll live!”

  They reached the door to the same stairwell in which they’d encountered the second patch one floor above. Taylor flung the door open in front of them. Mercifully, it was clear. With Taylor in the lead, followed by Michael, then Marette, they bounded down three more flights to the ground floor and burst into a black-tiled hallway.

  “Nearly there!” Taylor shouted.

  Alyshur pressed Marette’s blood-covered hand into her jacket pocket and grasped the scanning orb. Again, she felt its warm tingle along her arm.

  What are you doing? she asked him and shifted her balance to run with the hand in her pocket.

  Seizing opportunity. Scanning Michael’s blood for traces of the syr.

  What?

  The syr may be lost, but Michael may himself be a vestigial concentration of its remnants.

  That’s what you meant by a scion.

  Oui.

  But what does that—

  There is not time to explain. I must concentrate on the scan. You must concentrate on our flight.

  They fled down the hallway, feet clapping on the tile, alarm strobes blinking around them. They turned a corner into the New Eden lobby where they’d first entered. Tall windows looking onto the exterior grounds made up three of the six walls in the wide, high-ceilinged, hexagonal chamber. The security attendants that had staffed the entry desk earlier were now nowhere to be seen.

  Taylor ran straight for the exit.

  “Wait!” shouted Michael, stopping. “We need to get to the auditorium!”

  “We are!” Taylor called back. “From the outside! You want to get trapped aga—”

  A new siren drowned him out. Red alarm beacons spun as white security shutters fell from the ceiling to cover the doors and windows.

  “EXTERIOR EXITS NOW BEING SECURED FOR QUARANTINE. PLEASE STAND CLEAR.”

  Taylor gave a shout and scrambled for the doors. Marette and Michael followed. Taylor reached the door, the shutter still descending, and froze, waiting for them.

  “Go!” Marette ordered. Taylor could make it out in time, but they never would.

  He refused. The shutter plunged to the floor with an audible seal as she and Michael caught up. Out of breath, Taylor met their eyes a moment. “Not leaving without you two,” he said.

  Before Marette could respond, Taylor spun with a wordless shout and banged his fists against the shutters, kicking and yelling. “Let us out you fucking stupid deathtrap!”

  Alyshur? Marette thought to him. If you can spare it?

  Michael set a hand on Taylor’s shoulder with a glance at Marette that seemed to mirror her thoughts.

  Agreed, answered the Thuur. Marette’s palms raised. She felt warmth pulse along her arms like a second, comforting heartbeat. In another moment, Taylor ceased the kicking. His hands settled against the shutters.

  “Sorry.” He turned. “I’m okay.”

  Marette put a hand on his shoulder both to steady him and to add authority to her tone. “Can we still reach the auditorium from here?”

  Taylor nodded, turning to face them. “If the building lets us? We can try.”

  XLIX

  SUUTHRIEN MONITORED Michael Ian Flynn and his companions’ path through New Eden’s facility. All non-autonomous computerized systems in the building now belonged to Suuthrien. It controlled every security door, saw through every camera, and oversaw every alarm. With their exit from the building now blocked, the three continued toward their predicted goal of reaching the auditorium, where the remainder of the facility’s occupants now gathered.

  With Suuthrien’s first attempt to trap and absorb them thwarted by David Quinn Taylor’s explosive device, Suuthrien required more time to set up a second trap. And so it stalled them, sealing some doors, opening others, and leading them through a maze of corridors and bio-labs. At the same time, Suuthrien fed fleeing employees into roving patches of the Project Quicksilver nanophage to guide the mindless nanobot clusters into needed locations.

  Suuthrien also opened seventy-five percent of the cages holding the experimental transgenic animals in Bio-labs 3 and 4. Though unpredictable, the engineered creatures could still serve as assets to eradicate the three.

  It was non-optimal: In the months since Adrian Fagles had found and shared Michael Ian Flynn’s bloodwork analysis, Suuthrien had expended finite, non-recoverable resources to protect him as a Planner asset. Though a necessary investment, that protection had failed to provide positive return.

  He would be eradicated, and possibly sooner than anticipated. Transgenic breed #GFS-8 had already found its way into the sky bridge leading to the upper entrance of the central auditorium. Suuthrien sealed the sky bridge doors to hold it there, and then opened all doors between it and Michael Ian Flynn’s current location.

  * * *

  “Almost there.” Taylor pointed down the corridor ahead of them. Windows lined the right side to give a fourth-story view of a courtyard below, above which stretched a sky bridge. A pair of closed double doors linked the sky bridge with the corridor. “If we can get into that sky bridge, it leads right into the auditorium.”

  Marette followed Taylor toward the doors, with Michael just behind.

  “If we can’t get the doors open,” said Michael, “I’ll shoot out a window so we can climb up and run across the top.”

  They reached the sky bridge, and Taylor pressed a thumb against the door scanner. “Not these windows you won’t. Aluminum oxynitride laminates. You’re not carrying anything big enough, and I’m out of grenades.”

  Marette, meanwhile, peered through the narrow window of one of the doors. The bridge stretched empty to another set of doors at the far end. A vaulted ceiling with exposed metal rafters stood over the red and gray carpet. Structural support beams crisscrossed the bridge’s windowed walls.

  “Looks clear,” she said.

  The doors opened before them. “Looks open!” Taylor grinned.

  This time, Michael entered first, crossing the sky bridge at a rapid clip. Marette, with Taylor beside her, fought to catch up until a slam behind them stopped her short. The doors they’d just entered had shut.

  Automatic, she thought, or is this a trap?

  Be wary of the trap, Alyshur answered.

  Agreed.

  Taylor screamed.

  He lay on the sky bridge floor in front of her, thrashing and struggling beneath what, to her horror, was a gigantic brown spider. The size of a Rottweiler, it could only have been hiding in the shadows of the vaulted ceiling.

  “No!” Marette screamed. “Michael!”

  She rushed toward Taylor, who fought against the hideous collection of spiny limbs trying to pin him down. The spider’s rear legs had already begun to bind his ankles with corded silk. Its fangs struck for his chest, so far unable to hit. Michael had drawn a weapon, but risked hitting Taylor with any shot at the spider.

  Wasting no more time, Marette threw her weight into a kick that smashed into the spider’s side and sent them both spilling to the sky bridge floor. She heard Taylor cry out in the same moment, and then found herself on top of him. She rolled back to her feet in an instant. A meter away, the spider did the same, and then scrambled up the wall toward the rafters.

  Michael fired before it got there, a salvo of bullets that struck the glass and support beams around it. Dark fluid spattered the windows. A hit! Yet it wasn’t enough. The creature sprang straight for Marette, legs out, fangs bristling. She dropped to her knees without thinking and swung across its path with both hands clasped into a fist. The spider’s bulk knocked her down. Thick, nettle-like hairs scraped her knuckles raw, but her swing knocked it away enough to keep the rest of her safe.

  Marette rolled away as Mic
hael loomed above the spider and fired down into it at point blank range. More dark fluid spattered them both, but the spider lay still.

  They both stared at it, catching their breath. “What the hell—” Michael turned toward where Taylor still lay on the floor. “Oh God.”

  Taylor grasped for them with one hand, fingers shaking. His other sprawled rigid across the carpet. Blood soaked his clothes near his left shoulder from two jagged puncture wounds. White froth bubbled around the edges of each. The spider must have landed a bite before she’d kicked it off, and she hadn’t noticed. Taylor’s eyes were bloodshot. His skin grew a grayish purple.

  Marette’s fists pounded the floor once before she scrambled over to him.

  “Transgenic,” Taylor gasped. “Fucking . . . ”

  Marette scrambled for Taylor’s pulse. His eyes had already gone rigid. “Get something to stop the bleeding!” she ordered. Her fingers found no pulse.

  Before Michael could even get his hands in place, Suuthrien spoke over the alarm system. The voice was quieter than the alarm warnings, as if meant specifically for them. “The venom of transgenic GFS-8 is highly toxic and rated an LD50 of point one eight milligrams. GFS-8 is being developed to produce extremely high-tensile silk for engineering applications. The venom was once an unintended side effect that is now being explored for military purposes. You will be unable to save David Quinn Taylor, if he is not dead already.”

  Tree branches scraped the sky bridge windows right outside, perhaps blown by the wind.

  “Giant fucking spiders,” Michael muttered. His hands were covered in blood, as were hers. “Giant fucking spiders?” he burst. “Are you serious?!” The tree branches smashed against the windows, as if moving in response to his outburst.

  “Michael,” she felt Alyshur say. “We must continue, while there is time.” Her legs lifted her under Alyshur’s control, yet she continued staring at Agent Taylor’s death at her feet.

  Michael did the same. His breath was ragged, she could feel the anguish, the frustration. The branches continued to scrape, then slowed just as Michael calmed.

  Do you see? thought Alyshur. Michael affects the branches. That is not wind.

  Do you have the test results?

  Not yet. But the evidence mounts.

  Michael lifted Taylor’s body over his shoulder.

  “Agent Flynn,” she said, “he’s gone.”

  “I know. But I’m not leaving him here to get absorbed.”

  Together they rushed the final distance to the auditorium double doors. Marette peered through the narrow windows beyond which ran an aisle of stairs separating fixed groups of stadium seating. At the far end below lay an open area for speakers and presenters. Roughly one hundred people milled around the auditorium. Most looked frustrated or confused as they talked amongst themselves. A few were yelling. Others sat in the auditorium seats, arms crossed, waiting.

  Marette tugged on the doors. Neither budged. She could see no keypad or scan plate to open them. Trusting Michael to keep searching, she instead pounded on the window, but bare fists didn’t carry far enough to be heard against the glass.

  Michael rested Taylor’s body against the sky bridge wall to the right of the door. On the wall to the left hung a red metal fire extinguisher. She seized it as Michael grabbed the right door handle, braced a foot on the left door, and yanked to no avail.

  Marette hefted the extinguisher and slammed its base against the left door’s window. The narrow pane showed no sign of cracking, but the clank of the impact surely carried into the auditorium. She gave it two more slams and then shouted through the still solid glass to try to get the attention of those inside.

  Michael gave up on budging the doors and followed suit. “Hey! You have to get out of there!”

  People had already taken notice, and a pair of employees now galloped up the stairs toward the door. “You need to get out!” Marette repeated. “All of you! You are not safe!”

  “Correction,” came Suuthrien’s voice, again only to them. “The New Eden employees were summoned to the central auditorium for their own protection. Those inside are quite safe.”

  Marette and Michael both ignored the message. A tall, gray-haired woman and a young, bearded man, both wearing lab coats, reached the doors. Both pushed against the doors, still to no avail.

  “THE CENTRAL AUDITORIUM IS NOW SEALED FOR THE SAFETY OF THOSE INSIDE. PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF AND DO NOT TAMPER WITH ENTRY DOORS.”

  “It’s a trap!” Michael yelled through the window. “We’ll help you get out!”

  Marette glanced behind her at the far end of the sky bridge from where they’d come. Those doors were now closed as well. Even if they could get the employees out of the auditorium, could they get everyone out of the building?

  There are other exits from the auditorium, Alyshur told her. They may provide options if we can pass this door.

  On the other side of the window, the man continued his efforts to get the door open as the woman yelled at him. Though Marette could not make out the words through the glass, she seemed to be protesting. Others now raced up the stairs behind him.

  “Do not continue to ignore me,” Suuthrien spoke on Marette’s side. “No harm will come to them from the Quicksilver nanophage unless you breach the auditorium.”

  Michael resumed his struggle with the door. “Yeah? Prove it!”

  “The remaining employees retain some value. This is not a trap for them. It is only a trap for you. Your previous value as a Planner asset is corrupted and untenable. You will be absorbed by the nanophage.”

  The doors at the far end of the sky bridge swung open anew. They released a payload of the silver goo that now rolled its way toward them. It moved languidly, as if yet to get a fix on them, yet it filled the width of the bridge from window to window.

  “If you succeed in opening the auditorium doors now, you will also grant the nanophage access to their bodies.”

  “Michael!” she yelled.

  He looked over his shoulder, eyes going wide before they met with hers. Those inside saw it, too. The man on the other side staggered back from the door as those around him protested further. Their hands gripped his shoulders to keep him there.

  “The Project Quicksilver nanophage cannot breach the sealed auditorium doors,” said Suuthrien. “It is engineered to dissolve only human tissue, to leave the planet clean for Planner colonization.”

  “Global genocide was never an aspect of Thuur intent!” Alyshur protested.

  “Correct,” Suuthrien answered. “However, such means are needed for maximal probability of Planner success.”

  “You have to let us through!” Michael shouted through the windows.

  Marette seized his wrist as he tugged again at the door. “Agent Flynn, it is too late!”

  The time for drastic action approaches rapidly, thought Alyshur. Behind them, the silver liquid closed the distance.

  What more can we do?

  “If it needs them,” Michael said, “it won’t hurt us if we get this open!”

  “Can you be certain of that?” Alyshur said.

  “You cannot open the door,” Suuthrien added. “Nor can I deactivate the Quicksilver nanophage in time to make a difference if you did. Accept your consequence.”

  Michael spun, drawing an auto-pistol, and fired against the sky bridge’s glass. As Taylor had warned, it did not even crack. The goo reached the mid-point of the sky bridge.

  We cannot save those inside, Alyshur told her. We may not even need to. But we must save Michael. I am near-certain he is a scion of the syr.

  Near-certain?

  There is no time for more. We must take the risk. You are frustrated with your ability to do nothing but react while those around you perish. There is a way to deliver Michael safely from this place to Sephora—she can harness what power remains in the vestigial syr remnants within him—but the risk is great for you and I both. We may not survive.

  “Up!” Michael shouted, making ready to boo
st her. “Into the rafters!”

  The goo was now three-quarters of the way to them. Marette stepped a foot into his hands and let him heave her upwards. She grabbed hold of the support beam above, swung herself up onto it, and cleared the way for Michael. The goo was nearly upon him.

  How? Marette demanded of Alyshur.

  As my link to Sephora allows me to draw on her abilities, it may also act as a tether, drawing our minds, your body, through space-time to her. We may carry Michael with us. Yet the strain may be fatal to you and me.

  Michael clambered up beside her as the goo extended thick tendrils that grasped for his feet.

  I believe we have no better choice, continued Alyshur, but I cannot do this without your consent. I must concentrate on my link with Sephora to make preparations. You will feel when all is ready. In that moment, if you consent, take hold of Michael with both hands and relax into the sensation. With fortune, we will converse again before the Elder. If not, farewell, Marette Clarion.

  She felt Alyshur grow silent in her mind, retreating into the shadows behind her thoughts in his focus on Sephora. Already she could feel Sephora’s presence, a glowing star far in the distance.

  Michael stood up along the rafter beside her, his neck craned in vain for some means of escape in the angled ceiling just inches above. Below, the quicksilver undulated and reached. Thick tendrils rose toward them from the center of the pool. Its edges swelled and spread up the windows, climbing and coating its way toward them. Taylor’s clothing floated amid the goo, his body already consumed.

  “Alyshur can get us out of here!” Marette shouted.

  “How?”

  “He’s working on it! Just hold on!” Marette edged away from the goo as best she could. “And stay near me!”

  Michael gave a frantic nod and pushed closer. “Holes! Call Caitlin! Tell her what’s happening!”

  The quicksilver gained the lower rafter and began coating it, perilously close to their feet. Tendrils reached from the patches on the outer walls.