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

by Michael G. Munz

  It took only another block’s drive before she saw what the gangers were likely running from. A fuel station with ganger symbols sprayed across its front and half of its pumps marked “out of order” was under siege. The silver stuff was oozing out of a beaten-up van and into the station’s tiny convenience store. Amid the goo floated a few sets of clothes and more than a few weapons.

  Inside the station, a man screamed for help.

  Caitlin stopped the Tempest across the street in front of a boarded up six-story hotel that had seen better days. “Ready?”

  Felix held out Jack’s device and slid the security chip into it. “Trying it now!” He hit the button for the deactivation signal, and they both turned their attention to the goo across the street. There was no change. “It might be out of range.”

  Another scream for help came from the station. At once Felix climbed off of the Tempest and shoved the device into her hands. “Drive closer and keep trying it. I’m gonna try to help!”

  “Felix!”

  “I’ll be okay! Most of me isn’t technically organic anymore!”

  The screams continued. Caitlin let go. “You bloody well be careful!”

  With a nod, Felix dashed off toward the station. Caitlin propped Jack’s device on her handlebars and edged across the deserted street, pressing the deactivation button repeatedly. Gunfire echoed from somewhere down the block. Felix dashed around the goo and disappeared out of view behind the station. Artificial or not, Caitlin didn’t think for a moment that he was invulnerable.

  She reached the other side of the street, edging the Tempest past a hydrant. The silver goo continued to undulate like a living thing, edging one way, then the other. It spilled out of the van, rolling her way in what seemed a tentative fashion. She pressed the button so hard her thumb ached. The signal light glowed, but the goo only continued its approach.

  How far away had Jack been when he’d used it? Only a few feet, but safely behind the glass. She didn’t want to get closer.

  Motion to her left caught her eye. Another patch of the stuff bubbled up through a manhole cover not five meters away. Caitlin steered away and gunned the engine, gaining herself some breathing room before she stopped again to look back at the station. She held the device toward the goo, wishing they’d thought to try boosting the range before they’d rushed out.

  “Felix!” she yelled. Bollocks it all, where was he?

  Something slammed into her side. A pair of hands shoved her further, and she tumbled from the Tempest before she could react. Surprised, she barely had the presence of mind to protect the device when her shoulder crashed into the concrete sidewalk. Her helmet cracked onto the sidewalk immediately after, and she had to clench her eyes shut to force out the dizziness.

  Her cycle! Caitlin lifted her head and saw a tall, barefoot woman in a torn blue miniskirt. She had a knife tattooed on the back of her shaved head, and was already on the Tempest. Caitlin lunged, but the woman gunned the engine and left her choking on exhaust.

  Now fearing the worst, she yelled for Felix again and spun around to find the goo nearly upon her. Finger-sized tendrils reached from the surface of the pool. She backpedaled toward the hotel and gained its front door as new screams sounded from somewhere inside.

  Caitlin didn’t have to see through walls to know the stuff was in the hotel as well. She scrambled to the side as gunfire broke through some of the boarded windows. The goo continued to follow her. Trash piles and other debris forced her to plan her retreat so she wouldn’t be cut off. She shoved the device into her coat, focused on movement.

  “Caitlin!”

  She spared a glance to see Felix atop the station. He leaped down to bare ground, then bolted her way. On his right shin, in the glow of a streetlight glinted a patch of silver that he seemed heedless of.

  Caitlin grabbed a discarded length of pipe and swung at a trash pile to knock it into the path of the goo pursuing her. “It’s on your leg!” she yelled.

  Felix cursed and changed direction. At the same time, she reached the end of the hotel to spot another patch of goo headed her way from down the alley. Hoping the shit couldn’t climb, she ran toward an adjacent tenement wall, leapt against it, and then pushed higher with one foot to grab a dangling fire escape ladder.

  Across the street, Felix was at the hydrant. He twisted it open with his bare hands and shoved his leg into the gushing water to wash the goo away. “Hang on!” he yelled.

  “Doing more than that!” she yelled back, climbing to the escape’s first platform. The goo pooled beneath her, quivering and grasping as if perplexed, before it relaxed to flow outward again in multiple directions.

  Yet one of those directions was against the tenement wall, up which it began to flow. She scrambled for the stairs up to the next level and hoped the easily decades-old structure would hold. “Someone stole my Tempest!”

  “Keep going!” Felix yelled again. “I’ll meet you on the roof! I think this thing’s got a grapple hook of some kind somewhere!”

  She yelled her agreement, taking her attention from Felix and the goo below to focus on her assent. Soiled sleeping bags and abandoned belongings littered the fire escape’s higher levels, but so far they were clear of any goo. She made it up the remaining seven stories and reached for the roof’s edge, thinking to pull herself up and over, when a hand grabbed her forearm.

  “Found the grapple!” Felix grinned from above her and tugged her up the rest of the way. “Are you alright?”

  “Are you?”

  “Not dead again just yet. I found someone inside, but . . . ” He shook his head.

  Caitlin peered back down the building. The goo was four stories below and still climbing. She turned away and pushed Felix back from the edge. “That makes two of us, I think. The signal didn’t work.”

  LVIII

  FELIX LET HER PUSH HIM to the center of the tenement’s roof while he looked around them, searching for options. “Certainly is a nice view from up here. I mean, aside from the fires nearby and—”

  “Not really the concern right now, ducks!”

  He stifled the urge to make a “stop and smell the flowers” crack. “Let me see the transmitter thingy.”

  Caitlin pulled it from her coat and shoved it into his hands. “I got quite close, and nothing.”

  “I know.” He pressed the button and found that though he couldn’t hear the signal, he could still detect it if he focused. A frequency oscillator appeared along the bottom of his vision, and he flipped a mental switch to isolate and record it. Nifty. “Think this stuff is a newer version of what you saw at Jack’s?”

  “So whatever code this thing’s sending isn’t the right one for this batch? Aye, maybe, with what we’ve seen.”

  Hoping the recording was adequate, Felix pulled the data chip from the transmitter. He pressed a hidden spot at the base of his wrist until a port revealed itself, and then plugged the chip into it.

  Caitlin grabbed his arm and pointed to the edge of the building form where they’d come. The silver stuff had begun to crest it and spill over onto the rooftop. Barely a moment later, it pushed its way toward them, gaining speed. Caitlin backed away from it, pushing Felix with her until they were both running for the other side of the roof.

  They reached the far edge and looked down. Six stories below, a wide swath of goo slithered along the ground between their tenement and a shorter one directly across from them. The goo behind them would be on them in moments.

  Without a word, Felix shoved the transmitter into Caitlin’s hands. He then lifted her in his arms, backed off a few steps from the ledge, and made a running leap across open air to the building ahead—a drop of two stories. His feet crashed against the roof with his thighs absorbing much of the impact through some sort of internal suspension that he was glad to discover existed.

  He set Caitlin back on her feet. “Sorry, wasn’t time to ask.”

  “Nice jump.”

  “I know, right? Now I’m Batman! Bought us a li
ttle time, at least.” He pulled the chip from his wrist port, having finished the copy, and handed that back to her as well.

  “Bought us time, aye, but now it’ll hunt for someone else.”

  “Hate to say it, but I don’t think that’s our greatest problem right now. But hold on.” He concentrated again, bundling the copy of the chip with the recording of the transmitter signal.

  Caitlin stood close and kept watch on the edges of the building around them. “What are you doing?”

  “On the tiny, miniscule chance of us not getting out of here, I’m posting everything about the transmitter online. We’ve got a city dissolving here. Someone’s bound to take it and run with it.” He also sent it to Michael, Marc, and a few other AoA contacts that he could remember, hoping it would get to at least some of them. Given what Caitlin had told him about the AoA—and about Marc—those messages might be doomed to never reach their destination. “I just wish I’d thought of it before.”

  Caitlin heaved a sigh. “I wish I had, too.”

  “We’ve had an odd twenty-four hours, in our defense.” Something exploded not more than five blocks away. It startled them both, shaking the building beneath them and breaking windows nearby. A plume of fire rose up in the distance.

  “Felix, I’m sorry for getting us into this. For making us go after Gideon last summer, everything.”

  The upload was nearly done. “That’s hardly something—”

  “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have gone to the Moon, your memory would have been fine, and then you’d still— None of this would have happened!”

  “That’s not—”

  “Let’s just find a way out of here, alright?”

  Felix frowned at her, hoping his new face managed to convey his utter lack of acceptance of her need to apologize. “Fine. We have to get about fifteen blocks north. I’ve got a grapple in this arm. We’ll building hop.”

  Together they took to the building tops, first giving a wide birth to the tenement they’d escaped and then starting to angle back out of The Dirge. They’d only crossed three buildings—checking as best they could for goo each time—before Felix’s willpower broke. He grabbed Caitlin’s arm as they passed a rusted out cooling vent.

  “I’m not accepting your apology,” he said.

  “Felix, we’re—”

  “You’re passionate about the people you care about. You go the distance for them. You go the distance for me. Did you notice that? Did you notice that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you? Now you’re going to apologize for that? Do you notice that’s why we’ve even got this thingy in the first place, because you went to Jack to find out what he knew about me? Are you really going to apologize for being yourself?”

  The hint of a smile twitched in the left corner of her pursed lips. She kicked him in the shin, but gently, and then squeezed his hand. “Fine. But I’m at least apologizing for getting us stuck in a burning Dirge surrounded by carnivorous goo. So deal with it.”

  “Fine. And I apologize for being so awesome at playing the fiddle.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense, Felix.”

  “Then I apologize for always making sense.”

  A scream shot up from below amid the sound of breaking glass. It came from the edge of the building ahead of them. They both rushed to the edge in time to see, two stories below, a pale, shirtless man, in a mad scramble to get through a broken window. Goo surged out from behind the man, engulfing him before he could escape. He thrashed and then tumbled out the window entirely before Felix could think of how to help. Patches of goo fell with him, then subsumed his body after he’d crashed into a pile of brick below.

  Up at the window, the rest of the goo crawled their way. Felix swallowed the bile in his throat, grappled the next building as Caitlin climbed on his back, and then swung them toward it across the narrow street gap as a crowd of Dirge residents ran below. His feet hit the side of the other building, and the grapple line pulled them both up to the top.

  “Clear!” Caitlin reported, as the first with a view of their new rooftop. She clambered off his back and over the side, and then helped Felix up the rest of the way. “Bloody hell!” she yelled when he was up.

  Felix followed her gaze as the building they’d just left erupted in silver. It flooded from windows and burst from the roof vents to cover over half the exterior within a few seconds. Pedestrians screamed below.

  Felix and Caitlin both backpedaled, searching for their next move before any goo sensed them. None of the buildings nearby were very tall. One was already on fire. Screams, fruitless gunfire, and the crackle of distant flames filled the air, mixing with the regular city noise into a clamoring mayhem.

  Amid it all, Caitlin’s phone rang. She skidded to a stop to answer it while Felix continued to scope out their situation. Felix focused his hearing to pick up the voice on the other end.

  “I’m not saying I told you so, Caitey, but . . . ”

  “Jade! What the hell? You’re gloating?”

  “I’m not that much of a heartless bitch, Caitey. Look up, hang up, then grab the rope!”

  Together they looked skyward. Landing lights shone down as a small cargo-floater swooped in to hover twenty feet above them. Thrust jets pounded Felix’s hair, and his stomach—such as it was—felt queasy from what he’d guessed was the floater’s magnetic field. Almost immediately, the rear door opened. Two lines tumbled out and hit the roof with little room to spare.

  With a shared, incredulous glance, Felix and Caitlin seized them and began to climb.

  LIX

  THE ROPE FELT ROUGH against Caitlin’s palms—a welcome discomfort as she and Felix clambered into the back of the floater from the nightmare below.

  “Wow, floater ex machina!” said Felix.

  “Close the door!” Jade called from the front. “Then strap in! Didn’t I tell you not to go in there?”

  “Aye, and I told you we had to!” Caitlin took a few wobbling steps to the front of the cramped floater as Jade banked them away from The Dirge. “Where did you get this thing?”

  “My friend Lucian owed me a favor. And don’t ask.”

  “Jade,” said Felix, “I always ask.”

  “Okay, less a friend than a weapons dealer.”

  “Oh, that Lucian,” said Felix. “So we owe you double here, then.”

  “Right. And now I’m taking it back before he misses it, so don’t scuff the seats.”

  Caitlin settled into the front seat beside Jade. From behind them, Felix caught Caitlin’s eye before telling Jade, “You can’t. Not yet.”

  “Watch me! I got you both out of there. Mission accomplished.”

  “This stuff probably came from New Eden, right?” Felix said. “Whatever they did to it since Jack’s thingy worked to shut it off, they’ve got the details at New Eden.”

  Caitlin’s breath caught as she realized what he had in mind. “Felix, it’s not that simple—”

  “We go in there, we learn what we need about this latest version—”

  Jade glanced back at him. “That’s not—”

  “We upgrade the thingy with the new data, and maybe we manage to stop this!” Felix finished.

  Jade kept the floater on course. “That’s real noble, guy, but you don’t even know what you’re looking for. You can’t just waltz in—”

  “I can! I’ve seen some of what this body can do. Marquand designed it for this exact thing.”

  Marquand, Caitlin thought. How long before they came looking for Gideon? She had no idea how much they considered his body their property. She forced it out of her mind. “Jade’s right, Felix. We have to be cautious now.”

  “Caution’s a casualty when there’s a sea of carnivorous goo devouring the populace, don’t you think?” Felix reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. “You saw it down there. They’re not going to be able to contain that.”

  “We rushed right into that too, ducks, and nearly got killed.”

  “We can’t just do noth
ing,” Felix said.

  Caitlin swallowed, holding his gaze. Seeing so many devoured right in front of her was worse than any video footage. Felix was right. They couldn’t do nothing. She couldn’t. Yet, fresh from their escape, safe after a near fatal mistake, nor could she voice that agreement. Bloody hell.

  Jade growled and punched in a new course. The floater banked and accelerated, forcing Caitlin to grip her seatbelt to stay in place.

  “I can give you a quick lift out to Gibson, drop you off at New Eden,” Jade said, “but then I’m taking this thing back and getting the hell out of Northgate! No suicide runs for this gal.”

  “We need all the help we can get, Jade,” said Felix.

  Caitlin nodded finally. “We do.”

  Before Jade gave any response, Caitlin’s phone rang out. She answered on reflex. Silence on the line greeted her before, finally, “Caitlin? It’s Michael. Are you safe?”

  “Safer than I have been. Where are you?”

  There was another moment of silence before his answer—only about a second, but noticeable. “Safe, also. The transmitter signal you posted and sent me—I mean, was that you? It came from Felix’s account, so I figured it was either you or Suuthrien.”

  Her answer caught in her throat as she locked eyes with Felix. Should she explain? It wasn’t the time. Plus, that pause before each of Michael’s responses was raising her suspicion. “Aye, that was me.”

  Again, the pause. “That transmitter, do you still have it with you? Where did you get it?”

  She frowned. Was it Michael at all? Felix moved as if to say something, but she silenced him with a motion. “Why?”

  Another pause. “Because I think we can use it to stop that stuff. Marette and I ran into that stuff at New Eden yesterday and barely made it out alive. We know what it can do. I want to come pick you up. If I can swing it, maybe Gideon too, if he’s with you.”

  “Michael, bluntly: How do I know this is really you?”

  The pause was longer this time, as if he were considering his answer—or dissembling. “I first met you at a construction site. At night. With Diomedes. And the last time we talked I told you to get out of Northgate if you didn’t hear from me within twenty-four hours.” He chuckled. “Which I guess you ignored.”