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

by Michael G. Munz

  She shook her head. What if it was really him? “Just—Just tell me what happened.”

  He nodded, and sat back in his chair. “I don’t entirely know. It’s confusing. Except it’s not, but actually experiencing it is proving to be—”

  “Just tell me what happened!”

  “A little while ago, I woke up in Ondrea’s place. In the chair in her workshop. The last thing I remembered was you and I on our way to see her. To get my memory fixed. And then suddenly, there I am. And I’m alone. I didn’t know where I was at first. You were gone. Ondrea was gone. Most of the room looked like a tornado hit it.” He smiled, weakly. “Or maybe Ondrea’s just a real slob, I guess I can’t be sure. And then I heard Gideon’s voice.”

  He drew a tablet from his pocket and set it on the table with the screen angled toward Caitlin. “This was in my lap, playing on repeat.”

  On the screen Gideon’s face appeared, identically scarred to the face now sitting across from her. His expression was grim, even for Gideon. “Ondrea is dead,” spoke the Gideon on the screen. “And you, Felix Hiatt, are dead.”

  “That was a hell of a thing to hear, I can tell you,” muttered the one at the table as the one on the screen took a breath.

  “And for all of it, all of it, I am at fault. I should have been dead long ago, when Diomedes killed the real me. I would be dead, if Ondrea hadn’t done everything she did to bring me back. If you and Caitlin hadn’t risked yourselves to rescue me.” His face hardened, and he pointed to his skull. “And I’m still dead! I’ve been walking around on stolen time! . . . In someone else’s brain. And now—my sister is dead.”

  On the screen, Gideon looked away. He squeezed his eyes shut until he seemed to gain some measure of composure. “I’m just a collection of memories wrapped around someone else’s brain. This body, and the mind inside it, was it ever truly me?” He stared out at them from the screen and demanded, “Whose soul lies inside me? Is there one at all?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure if Ondrea ever really did this for me, or just because she couldn’t bear to be without a brother. Now with her dead, it doesn’t matter. I owe you, and I owe Caitlin. And if this brain, this body, this—this time I have is stolen, then I may as well give it to someone who deserves it.

  “Ondrea betrayed you, Felix. She tampered with your memory, gave you hidden directives and ways for Fagles to control you. He and RavenTech forced her into it, but that’s not an excuse. She did it, and she only had the chance because you got hurt helping me.

  “And then it got you killed. I don’t want that debt on me, and I don’t want that pain. Ondrea programmed a sequence into the chair you’re sitting in. It will wipe your memory and replace it with a secret copy she made when you were here.” He held up a data stick. “I figure it ought to work just as well for me. I give to you and Caitlin my second chance, Felix. At least you have each other. It’s the least I can do.”

  The video ended.

  “So now I get his pain and identity crisis,” he said with a quivering smile. “I’ve missed about three months? Some of it very interesting, apparently. And now I guess I’m the new six-million-dollar man.” He reached, hesitantly, for Caitlin’s hand. This time, she let him. “And I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through. Hell, I can’t even imagine what I’ve been through before I—”

  “You died in my arms, Felix,” she whispered. She kept her eyes on his hand, avoiding his face. “Shot. We pulled you to safety, I tried to stop the bleeding, to get you help, but I couldn’t! And you—” Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them away angrily. “And that sodding witch let it happen.”

  “I can’t imagine losing you that way. God, Caitlin, I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” said Felix. “And through this. I’m sorry we both do. This is so severely messed up.”

  “I should give you two some privacy,” Jade said. Caitlin tensed, startled, having forgotten she was there.

  Caitlin shook her head. “No, stay.” Somehow the thought of being alone just then with Felix, such as he was, skewed her stomach. Caitlin forced herself to meet Felix’s gaze and tried to see him behind Gideon’s visage. “If you don’t mind.”

  Felix nodded, though Caitlin hadn’t made it a question. He didn’t for a moment turn his eyes from Caitlin’s. “Though I’d appreciate if one of you could mention who she is,” he said.

  “People call me Jade. I’m her bodyguard, for the moment at least, and glad to have you back.”

  Felix’s gaze continued to hold Caitlin’s. “I can’t blame you there. I’m a fun guy to have around.” He swallowed. “Speaking of me . . . Where is my body? And there’s a question I’ve never had to ask before.”

  “Safe, I hope,” said Caitlin. “It’s with the Agents of Aeneas, on the Moon.”

  “You know about—?” Felix laughed, though an uncertain shadow seemed to pass over his face immediately. “Oh boy. Just what all has happened?”

  LIII

  MICHAEL CONVULSED. Fire crackled through his bloodstream as if his body was breaking apart; it came in waves. Moments after each ebb the sensation renewed, like fresh magma swelling up through cracks in a cooling surface. Eyes clenched against the pain, his only choice was to hold out. Yet what had begun hours ago, as a gentle tingling, had grown subtly with each new wave until he’d begun to doubt he could take it much longer.

  The Thuur had smuggled him back aboard Paragon in a crate—a precaution against Suuthrien trying to stop them now that it judged Michael “corrupted.” They’d gone deeper into the Thuur sections of the craft than the AoA had been before—areas that Uxil assured were isolated from Suuthrien’s presence, like the Paragon engine room once had been before the AoA’s entry three months ago. Within that isolated section lay the spherical chamber which had kept the syr in stasis during the Thuur’s interstellar journey; the chamber Sephora would have used to reconstitute the expended syr had things gone as planned; the place where Michael now suffered through the augmentation of the syr’s remnants within his DNA like a baptism of fire.

  Somewhere amid the ordeal lay the shelter that Sephora maintained in his mind. “Remain in that place,” Uxil had warned him. “It will shield you from pain.” Yet every wave had shaken him more, until he could only cling to that space like a tiny raft in an ever more violent storm. As the pain intensified, he’d been thrown clear of that raft completely, and he struggled to find it anew each time, managing only a few moments of solace before being tossed aside again.

  How long had he fought? Michael had lost track. Sephora’s shelter rose up before him, an aquamarine aura in his mind’s eye. He reached for it, pulled himself into it, and savored the scant relief before the augmentation process threw him into the fire once more.

  He awoke into blackness and peace. The fire in his veins was gone. The curved floor of the syr focusing chamber pressed warm against his left side as he became aware of his body lying in a fetal position. Though his eyes were closed, Michael could sense a presence near him in the chamber and somehow knew it was Sephora. At the limits of his senses stood others—Thuur? Human? He couldn’t tell—perhaps ten or twenty feet away. They were less distinct, but he knew without a doubt that they were there.

  He opened his eyes.

  How do you feel?

  Her voice came not from within his mind, but from without. It was not truly audible, but came to him along some newly discovered sense. He turned toward what felt like the source of the voice to find Sephora perched in a half-crouch along the curved chamber wall. She watched him with a glint in her pupil-less eyes.

  “I can hear you,” Michael said.

  She nodded. I had wondered at the possibility. As the other Thuur hear me, now so can you. This is a good sign for the augmentation’s success. Now, how do you feel?

  He considered the question. Though his body ached, it was the ache that came after a good workout, with a sense of sapped energy already returning. His muscles, his lungs, even his skin danced with
a faint tingle. “Tired. But—not.” He stretched and felt his joints open, felt the blood moving through his body in a way he’d never felt before. Not only could he feel more of himself, the sense of Sephora’s presence in front of him and others nearby grew stronger. It was as if they each hummed with their own rhythms, somehow inaudible yet distinctly musical. “And—hyperaware, I guess you could say.”

  This is a very good sign. Sephora crept close, extending one double-thumbed hand to help him up. Come.

  She led him out of the syr chamber and into the larger room that surrounded it. The black material coated much of the walls there—a simple system, isolated from Suuthrien’s influence. Its midnight surface danced with Thuur readouts, the nature of which Michael could not understand. There, Uxil waited with two other Thuur. Their rhythms grew stronger in his senses as his eyes passed over them. Beyond, he could feel a faint yet steady hum swirling in the background.

  Sephora motioned to the walls. Touch the black interface, and tell me what you experience.

  Michael did so, settling his fingertips against it before adding his entire palm. The swirling background hum he’d sensed before rushed to the forefront of his mind. “I can feel it,” he said. “I think I can feel the interface itself. It’s hard to describe.”

  Concentrate.

  He focused on the sensation and felt it broaden and multiply in his mind. There came a greater awareness of the cells and systems within it, though he could not put a name to them, nor understand just what it was that he saw. “I can see . . . depth. It’s complicated.”

  Remember, and then remove your hand and recall what you experienced in as much detail as possible.

  Though the details were as varied as if he were looking across an active city skyline, Michael tried to take it all in. Within him, something stirred, billowing up and seemed to brace his efforts. He removed his hand from the surface. The sensation withdrew again into the background, yet its imprint remained, nuanced and whole.

  “I still have it,” he told Sephora. “I don’t really know what ‘it’ is, but . . . I have it. I remember.”

  I believe what you are sensing are the designs and harmonies of the interface on a cellular level. I cannot be certain; this has never been done before, to my knowledge. Nonetheless, the power of the syr seems to be alive within you. More may come.

  “But is it enough to use against Suuthrien?”

  Sephora’s eyes narrowed. Her lips formed what Michael took to be a grim smile. That is your next test.

  Doctor Seung spoke to Michael over his earpiece. “I don’t think you’re in any immediate danger, though I’m getting some unusual readings from your suit’s bio-scanner. I’d feel better about this if you first returned to Omicron for a medical scan.”

  Michael glanced at Sephora, Uxil, and the other Thuur, who stood ready to take him into the Suuthrien-controlled sections. “Doctor, realistically, if there is anything wrong then it’s probably already too late. Councilor?”

  “Agent Flynn is right,” Knapp answered. “If the Thuur’s augmentation worked, we should use it as soon as possible, while we still can.”

  “Realistically,” said the doctor, “I can’t overrule you. But be cautious. I will be monitoring, of course.”

  Michael nodded, if only to himself. “How is Marc? And Marette?”

  “Both stable, but unconscious. Marc’s coma persists. We’re keeping Marette sedated, for the moment. There is severe damage to her optic nerves and moderate spinal nerve damage, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to pull her through.”

  “Thanks, Doctor.” Michael turned to Sephora, whose words followed before he could say more.

  When she and he brought you both here, Alyshur called to me along our link, and together we pulled you back through the ethys, the between-space. The strain was too much for him, and caused the damage that Marette now suffers. Both showed great bravery. I hold hope that she will overcome. Sephora set two fingers on Michael’s shoulder. In Alyshur’s final moments, I could sense his admiration of her strength. It is a strength I believe you share. Are you ready?

  Michael nodded. Without a word, Uxil and two other Thuur led him and Sephora through the doorway to the Thuur hibernation chamber.

  Do not interact verbally with the suuthrien, Sephora told him. It will only serve to distract your concentration.

  “I remember.”

  Blue and yellow lights from the hibernation pods bathed the otherwise darkened expanse. The moment Michael was inside, he called to mind the feel of the uncorrupted black material he’d sampled in the syr chamber, as Sephora had instructed, and then pressed his naked palm against the material along the wall. The rhythms of the cells under Suuthrien’s control poured over his senses with that touch. Michael focused on the differences between the two, and somewhere inside him, power sparked.

  * * *

  “Bio-computational medium now fully loaded into all Dragon craft chassis,” Suuthrien reported. “Now beginning software configuration. Stand by.”

  Adrian stood by at the bay’s observation room window and watched over the five trapezoidal aircraft below. As promised, Suuthrien had accelerated their construction in exchange for more time on Paragon and, of course, Adrian’s official installation as project leader. From what Suuthrien said, the black bio-computational material—now inside each craft’s airframe—would both augment the mechanical components and control their systems with the precision required for advanced flight capabilities. RavenTech’s engineers had verified the claim. Now Suuthrien just had to program the material, and the craft would be operational and ready for testing.

  Adrian more than suspected that part of the programming process would involve imbuing the craft with some of Suuthrien’s own code. RavenTech might well wind up with five hypersonic-capable, fusion-powered miniature Suuthriens. Even if RavenTech didn’t realize it, Adrian knew they’d long passed the point of being able to control her. She was already out in the world. Now this was an alliance.

  If RavenTech didn’t realize that, Adrian decided, then so much the better for him. He smiled, imagining himself in that penthouse condo in the Meridian.

  Suuthrien interrupted his daydreaming. “There is a problem. Deactivate the Paragon gate.”

  “What? Why? There are RavenTech assets there.”

  “There are no MEDARs present in the gate bay. I therefore do not have control. You must signal your people to deactivate the gate.”

  “As you like. Some sort of interference with the craft?” Adrian uncovered his arm screen and punched up communications with the gate room. A camera image displayed the active gate. Suuthrien’s data umbilical fed through it. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “This is Adrian Fagles. Tell our people on the other side that we’ll be shutting the gate down for—”

  “Deactivate the gate!” Suuthrien boomed. “Immediately!”

  * * *

  His eyes shut tight, Michael braced against the energy that waged a battle within his chest. Suuthrien was out there in the system—a discordant strain that sliced through the rhythms of the black material. The power that had sparked within Michael reached out for it, rooted in his heart and mind. It was like firing a weapon mounted inside his own body; he was bracing against the near-overwhelming kickback while at the same time struggling to aim it at Suuthrien.

  He could sense he was making headway. In his mind he could feel the black material that stretched throughout Paragon’s systems. Whatever power of the syr that now lurked within him, it was working to push Suuthrien out, segment by segment. Yet every time he cleared another segment, the focus required to direct the syr energy left him gasping and wondering how he’d possibly cleanse Paragon entirely. If he failed, if he even took a moment’s break, would Suuthrien be able to flow back into the spaces he’d cleared?

  For just a moment Michael tried to pause, intent on somehow clearing his head and regathering strength. It was in that moment, as he relaxed his grip on the energy streaming through him, that i
t surged forward, more powerful than before. It leaped to its task as if of its own accord, chasing after Suuthrien’s corruption. Somewhere within Michael glowed the feeling of the black material in its uncorrupted state. It remained strong in his memory, and the syr energy imbued that memory upon itself as its mission.

  The realization lifted Michael on a wave of euphoria: once he’d called the energy, all he need do was give it a goal and allow himself to be its conduit.

  The energy poured further into the black material, spreading faster, transmuting it all cell by cell and leaving it cleansed of the A.I. He gave the energy its head, and held on. He was riding it now, carried along with the current.

  Yet the current grew faster, stronger. The energy effected the task of cleansing Paragon of Suuthrien, yet it soon became all Michael could do to keep himself afloat amid it all. The power, the sensations, they thrummed and rang around him, threatening to engulf his own psyche. Energy buffeted him, pounding through his mind in a deafening symphony. He struggled to hold on, this time only to himself; his ride atop the energy had become a tumble within it.

  Somewhere in the distance, a connection broke.

  Suddenly Suuthrien was gone. The energy seethed at its target’s absence before it calmed, like a whirlpool suddenly stabilizing. Michael felt a gentle tug at his shoulder and, arms trembling, pulled himself from the wall. It was Uxil that had tugged him. He met her wide-eyed gaze a moment before his legs buckled beneath him, and he sank to the floor, utterly drained.

  * * *

  “Gate is deactivated,” Suuthrien confirmed to Adrian Fagles. “Threat level now at zero percent within acceptable margin of error.”

  “What happened?” he asked. “When can we open it again?”

  “Catastrophic processing failure spreading from within Paragon systems. Source unknown.”

  Adrian Fagles followed Suuthrien’s statement with a needless interrogative. Suuthrien had not dissembled. Self-diagnostics indicated the failure’s origin in the deeper Planner sections of the craft. Yet by the time it was detected, the failure had already disrupted all sensor feeds in the affected section. Log checks of sensor data up to the point of disruption were impossible due to data loss from the spreading failure. Suuthrien could only infer that the failure was part of an attack of uncertain configuration, intended to destroy its systems.