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

by Michael G. Munz

  And then she felt it: it was as if a hatch blew in her mind—a rush of suction that threatened to pull her into the void toward Sephora’s distant star. The quicksilver surrounded them, moments away.

  Marette seized Michael’s shoulders with both hands and gave way to the void.

  L

  HIS WORLD EXPLODED, and he fell. Overwhelming light blurred into frigid darkness, and he was tumbling through a thunderstorm. Electric rain pelted his skin. Heat flared in his mind. Nowhere was up. Nothing was right. Something cold and hard slammed against his knees.

  Michael lay on the floor, reeling against the impact. His fingers, limbs, and eyes clenched him into blind enfeeblement as panic quaked his mind. Quicksilver! It would get them!

  “Marette!” he yelled. He wanted to ask what was happening, if she was alright, why he couldn’t move. All that came out of his mouth was, “Out! Run!”

  “Agent Flynn!”

  The quicksilver had him, pulling at his arms, his legs. He thrashed with knotted muscles, barely able to move. “Holes!” he blurted. “Jade! Calling!”

  “Agent Flynn!”

  “I reached Caitlin,” he heard Holes say. The quicksilver wouldn’t get Holes! It only ate flesh! “There was no time for meaningful exchange before the connection was lost.”

  “Michael Flynn,” said another voice, more melodious. He felt his muscles unclench, felt the hands he’d mistaken for quicksilver release him, and managed to open his eyes.

  Where was he?

  Solid aquamarine eyes looked down at him. Who? The Thuur elder, Sephora. His mind was clearing, yet his heart still pounded.

  “Agent Flynn,” said another voice that he realized belonged to Councilor Knapp. “What has happened?”

  Michael sat up with a gasp. Marette lay beside him, unmoving. Her eyes stared wide at the ceiling. Beside her Uxil kneeled with hands pressed over the center of Marette’s chest and forehead. They were on the floor of one of Omicron’s medical bays.

  “We have to get back there!” Michael stammered, out of breath. “We need to stop it! In New Eden, it’s spreading, eating people alive!”

  “What is?” Knapp demanded. “What’s happened? How did you get here?”

  “We know,” said Uxil.

  “We most certainly do not!” Knapp shot. “What’s wrong with Agent Clarion? Doctor!”

  “Be still, if you please!” Uxil warned. “Sephora will explain once we have tended to them.”

  Dr. Seung arrived, kneeling down beside Marette. Uxil moved aside to allow him room but kept her hands where they were. “I have a pulse, but it’s faint. Help me get her off the floor.”

  Michael lay back down, taken by a wave of lightheaded nausea. His eyes closed as activity continued around them.

  “You must not move her until I can reach Alyshur!” Uxil called. “Please, make way for the elder!”

  With that, Michael shuddered into unconsciousness. When he opened his eyes after what seemed only a moment later, he lay on an exam bed. Beside him stood Dr. Seung, his back to Michael as he tended to Marette on the exam bed to his left. Bloodied gauze covered her eyes. Beyond her lay Alyshur’s body. Neither moved. He squinted through swimming vision in an effort to tell if Marette breathed.

  A hand touched his shoulder. “Welcome back, Agent Flynn,” said Knapp from where she stood to Michael’s right. “You will be alright.”

  “What about—” Michael tried to sit up, but Knapp restrained him, gently.

  “Marette is still in danger, but Dr. Seung and the Thuur are trying to help. They say Alyshur is dead. But right now I need you to tell me as much as you can about what happened. Holes has explained what it could, but I need to hear it from you.”

  Michael nodded. “One minute we were at New Eden, surrounded. Marette said Alyshur could get us out and— He’s dead?”

  Knapp nodded. “Surrounded by what?”

  “Some sort of bioweapon. Nanotech; that’s how Agent Taylor described it. We found him, he didn’t even know about the surge. He got us in to New Eden. He knew something was up, but not what. Suuthrien had taken it over, started them creating a ‘Project Quicksilver.’ God, it just…eats human flesh, and makes more of itself. It moves on its own. We would have died if we hadn’t gotten out.”

  “Where is Agent Taylor?” Knapp asked.

  “He’s dead. Eaten. Just before we escaped. Other New Eden employees were there, too, just as trapped. Suuthrien said it needs them, but I’m too corrupted to be of use anymore.”

  A mournful cooing distracted their attention. It came from Uxil, now standing on the far end of Alyshur’s bed. Her hand rested on his forehead. Her head hung low, and her shoulders slumped. The cooing permeated Michael’s own spirit and resonated with the death he’d just seen and escaped. Sephora, beside her, lifted Uxil’s arm from Alyshur’s body and embraced her.

  Michael realized that all the humans in the room were watching. Even Dr. Seung had paused from tending to Marette. Suddenly aware their attention intruded on a private moment, they turned away as if a spell were broken.

  “Suuthrien sealed the New Eden building, but I’m not sure if that was to keep Quicksilver contained or just us from escaping. I don’t quite know what it plans to do with it, but . . . ” He let Knapp assume his meaning. It couldn’t be anything good.

  “Did Marette and Alyshur learn anything about this ‘syr’ object?”

  Before Michael could answer Knapp’s question, Sephora appeared at the foot of his exam bed. Uxil followed and moved to stand beside Knapp. Having gained their attention, Sephora nodded to Uxil, who then spoke.

  “Sephora says we have little time to mourn. Alyshur did indeed discover the fate of the syr, and his discovery became Sephora’s own through their link. The syr itself is lost, activated on Earth soon after it was first carried there. With no elder to reconstitute it after the terraforming process, the syr’s remnants wove themselves into the fabric of your world. They are traces only. Yet they endure, and, given the proper conditions, may concentrate themselves in certain organisms.” Sephora’s gaze focused on Michael as Uxil spoke. “Alyshur discovered that Michael Flynn is one such organism.”

  Michael balked. “So, wait, I’m the syr?”

  “Not the syr itself,” Uxil answered. “But as Sephora indicated, some vestiges lie concentrated within you.”

  “You mean DNA.” Knapp said.

  “Perhaps, if we comprehend that term correctly.” Uxil nodded. Sephora motioned to Michael, and Uxil continued. “In your life, have you ever felt a special relation to the nature of your world? An energy in proximity to plant life, or an affinity for tending to it?”

  “Er, yeah, I guess you could say that. I like being around nature. It refreshes me. But doesn’t everyone feel like that?”

  “Perhaps, but not as strongly as you.”

  Sephora moved closer, raising a hand as if to touch him. Michael nodded his permission. Rather than laying her hand on his forehead as he expected, she took hold of his hand to hold it between hers. Sephora’s eyes closed, and Michael glanced at Knapp, who observed warily.

  “What is she doing?” the councilor asked.

  “Testing the findings that Alyshur sacrificed himself to bring us,” Uxil whispered.

  Sephora released Michael’s hand and opened her eyes with a smile. “A vestige of the syr is there,” Uxil relayed with audible relief. “Buried deep, but accessible.”

  “So.” Michael swallowed. “What does that mean?”

  “We must bring it to life,” said Uxil. “You must consent to augmentation.”

  Michael blinked. “Augmentation?”

  “Must?” added Knapp.

  “She may be able to bring the power of the syr to life inside you, to grant you access to that power. As you hold vestiges only, she cannot reconstitute the syr as was originally intended. Yet the weapon against the suuthrien, which we had sought to create from the syr, may still be possible through Sephora’s efforts. Through you.”

&n
bsp; Michael took a deep breath. Could that be true?

  “And what happens to Agent Flynn?” Knapp pressed.

  “He remains,” Uxil said. “His mind, his will, intact. His body, strengthened, able to wield the syr’s power to cleanse the haldra of the suuthrien.”

  “What about other things?” Michael asked. As quickly as he could, Michael told Uxil and Sephora about Project Quicksilver. “If that gets out, a lot more people are going to die, and I don’t have any idea how we can stop it.”

  Sephora frowned. “Possibly, on a small scale,” Uxil said. “Possibly not at all. Until we know more about it, it is impossible to answer.”

  Michael sat up on the bed. His head had cleared. “Let’s do it.”

  “Agent Flynn,” Knapp started, “We should discuss this alone.”

  “Councilor, every moment we hesitate means more people die. Even if this doesn’t let me stop the Quicksilver, we can take out Suuthrien here, and that’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it?”

  Knapp looked to Sephora. “Is there a risk to Agent Flynn?”

  “This has never been attempted,” Uxil answered. “She does not know. She believes the augmentation process may be painful, but expects him to survive it. There is a miniscule chance of complete mental and physical annihilation.”

  “That would be your people’s brutal honesty at work,” Knapp said.

  Michael imagined the horror of Jade being absorbed into the Quicksilver to feed it. Jade, and Caitlin, and countless more people dying in front of him. It was the AoA’s faked gray goo scenario of a few months ago come to life, for real.

  “We’re sitting on the edge of an actual apocalypse, here,” he said. “Like I said, let’s do it.”

  LI

  THE DECKER STREET BRIDGE stretched out before her: a path out of The Dirge to the dirty glow of the “safer” parts of Northgate. The device she and Jade had taken from Easy Jack weighed down Caitlin’s coat pocket. The size of a deck of cards, she gripped it so its edges bit into her hand. Yet she didn’t let go.

  Felix had given it to Jack on his initial visit. The device would record certain specific data from the goo itself during the nightmarish “tests,” and then encode that data onto a special chip that Felix would bring each time they forced him to deliver a new version of the stuff. Perhaps more importantly, with the chip plugged into the device, it could also emit a code signal to render the goo inert for safe recovery.

  At least, that was if Jack could be believed. He’d talked willingly enough. Caitlin and Jade’s threats against his person or property had pushed him through any occasional hesitation.

  After he’d dropped off the last batch, Felix had never recovered the chip. She now carried it in the pocket of her jeans. It bore the data from the most recent murderous test. Jade, walking watchfully beside her, carried the canister of recovered goo herself. It was a gesture Jade had insisted on, in the interest of keeping Caitlin safe. Deciding that was what Jade was paid for, Caitlin had agreed, for the moment.

  Yet what should she do with it? She suspected it either came from Fagles directly at RavenTech, or—possibly—New Eden. It was biotech after all. New Eden had a campus in Gibson where Rue had tracked Felix, and the emails that triggered him came from New Eden as well. Was Fagles working with New Eden on the side? The two companies didn’t normally partner, but weren’t there New Eden crates in the RavenTech facility? Or was it that this Suuthrien had designs of its own?

  “Bloody bollocksing hell,” she muttered.

  Jade tensed. “What is it?”

  “I want a clear target.”

  Jade relaxed, only slightly. “I know that feeling. You went straight for Easy Jack. A clear lead, low-hanging fruit. Now you’re catching your breath and looking—”

  “Aye, you understand; I get it,” she snapped. “I’m trying to think!”

  “Hey, now I’m a target? I’m not so easy.”

  “You are with that hair lighting up the night.” It was only half serious. Already she’d regretted snapping just now.

  Jade seemed to sense that. “Hardly. Blinds them with style.”

  “Felix once joked to me that you blinded them with science,” Caitlin smiled, mournful. He’d been referencing something, she was sure. But she never got to ask. Jade gave no answer.

  She’d look into the leads, Caitlin told herself. Maybe one of the Scry could get more out of the device to help her decide which direction to go. If not, Fagles was the closest option. She’d have to find some way to get to him. Maybe if she could get some luck with Ondrea. She’d already tried Gideon as they’d left Jack’s: still no answer.

  Despite the situation in which she’d last seen him at the RavenTech facility, Caitlin refused to believe that anything had happened to Gideon. Maybe she just couldn’t bear the thought that another life may have been taken because of all this. Maybe she just didn’t want to lose anyone else.

  “I bet Michael might be able to do something with that thing,” Jade suggested. “Or those . . . people he’s with.”

  “Aye, maybe. And maybe they’d take it away from us and say it’s none of my business.” It was an option, but not one she’d consider until she could find a way to duplicate the chip or safeguard her find in some other fashion.

  What must it have been like for Felix? Was he even aware of it at the time? Caitlin remembered the anguish on his face in the video and realized she already had her answer there. Given what Felix said in his captured conversation with Fagles, it seemed he was allowed to forget such things. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to consider a blessing such a mental violation.

  Inside her coat, Caitlin’s phone vibrated. She took a deep breath and, finally, pulled it out. It was Michael, or Holes, by the call ID. She picked up.

  “Caitlin Danae?”

  “Holes?” She realized a computer voice could be replicated.

  “Correct. I am with Michael Flynn. He is—”

  She checked her phone’s screen: the call was ended.

  “Michael trying to reach you?” Jade asked with a glance over Caitlin’s shoulder.

  Caitlin frowned, stopping. “Sounds like it. The call dropped.” She tapped the screen to try calling back. Jade tugged her elbow.

  “Keep walking. You know this is a dangerous place to stop.”

  Caitlin obliged. On the call, she got nothing but voice mail. It gave her a tiny pained twinge in her gut. Somehow, something was wrong. Before she could think of what, if anything, she could do about it, her phone buzzed to life again. She answered without looking, expecting Holes or Michael on the line.

  Except it wasn’t either. “Caitlin? It’s . . . um, it’s Gideon. Are you anywhere near your place?”

  Gideon! Thank goodness. “Not precisely, but I can get there. What is it? Are you alright?”

  “Michael?” Jade mouthed. Caitlin shook her head.

  “I’m—” Gideon began. “Not over the phone. I’ll meet you at your place.”

  Something was definitely wrong. What if RavenTech had captured him, and he was being coerced? She reminded herself not to jump to conclusions, but . . . “Not my place. There’s a night club below Felix’s. I can meet you there in about fifteen.” It was public, and if this wasn’t some sort of RavenTech trap, she could ask his help to search Felix’s flat for any other strange equipment.

  “Yeah, I know it,” Gideon said. “Fifteen minutes. Hurry, okay?”

  “Aye, soon as I can.” She hung up and turned to Jade. “Time to find a taxi.”

  Not until they’d crossed the bridge and hailed a taxi did it occur to Caitlin that Gideon hadn’t asked where Felix’s flat actually was.

  Gideon was waiting for them at one of the more secluded tables along one wall on the ground floor. Caitlin’s heart wrenched: though Gideon surely didn’t know it, he’d chosen Felix’s preferred spot.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d made it,” Caitlin found herself saying as they sat down. Aside from a gash down one side of his face—minor, consideri
ng it was synthetic skin—and burns and scratches on his armor and clothing, he looked alright at first. Yet as they made eye contact, there was something more: an unsteady urgency that she couldn’t quantify.

  “It’s good to see you,” Gideon breathed.

  Jade took the seat that shielded Caitlin from the rest of the room. “How did you get out?”

  Gideon waved the question away with a shrug, fixed on Caitlin. “Caitlin, where—” He swallowed. “Where is Felix?”

  She bit her cheek, clamping down on the flood of pain that threatened to boil up from her chest. “Gone.”

  Gideon stammered, finally managing, “ . . . Dead?”

  Caitlin could only nod.

  “At RavenTech,” Jade added. “Soon after we saw you go through the floor.”

  “Shit,” said Gideon. He looked up, and then across the club, just staring into space. “I don’t— I don’t know how to say this.” He reached for Caitlin’s hand where she’d rested it on the table, but her instincts pulled it back before he could make contact. Gideon hesitated, and then withdrew it as if stung.

  “Everything hurts right now, Gideon,” she said. Did he find Ondrea? Or was he about to betray them? “Just say it.”

  Gideon actually laughed; it was a bitter, short chuckle, but it was the most she’d ever seen from him. “This is a big band-aid to just rip right off.” He sighed and wiped his hands down his face.

  “Gideon, just—”

  “I’m not Gideon,” he blurted. “I’m Felix.”

  LII

  CAITLIN FROZE.

  “Apparently,” said the man who claimed to be Felix. “I think. I feel like me. Like Felix, I mean, but . . . ” He turned his hands over as if examining them.

  “How can you even say something like that?” Caitlin growled. “You’re Felix? Do you even— I can’t—”

  “Caitlin, it’s me, I swear! Gideon and Ondrea did something, and I’m confused and I need help! . . . Please.” He stared down her glare, his blue eyes pleading, and for just a moment she imagined she could see something of Felix’s brown. “Caitlin, I’m scared here. Ask me anything Felix would know.”