“Maybe not. Might kill them, though.”
He gave a noncommittal harrumph. We touched down and unclipped from the line.
I made quick work of the door mechanisms barring our way into the lab and reached out further to give the lab another quick sweep, trying to avoid touching the hybrid minds enough to risk another reaction.
“Scud,” I mumbled, pulling back. “Three hybrids now. Two on our level to the right and left, one down below, by the humans.” I looked at Johnny. “We need a third shooter.”
He took a step toward the door and froze at a look from our steely-eyed lioness.
“Edwards,” she said, quiet and calm. “Look sharp.”
Edwards shot Johnny a kindly wink. “Yes, Ordo Mara.”
“Cut the scud,” she hissed, then muttered something under her breath about gropping children.
It seemed less than wise to press the issue.
“I’ve got the door when you’re ready,” I said.
Mara, Davis, and Edwards lined up and called their targets, only partially letting on how ridiculous they felt taking targets from a kid acting like he could see through walls. I voiced a quiet reminder to shoot for the head, earning myself a couple glares, then I gave them a countdown and pushed the doors apart with telekinesis.
The hum of running machinery poured into the shaft from the vast lab space. Three suppressors coughed. Mara’s and Davis’ hybrids dropped to the left and right. Below, Edwards’ mark didn’t.
Not that it was Edwards’ fault.
The creature had thrown itself behind cover as if it’d been expecting us. I reached out and yanked it into the air with telekinesis. It took more energy than I’d expected—maybe because working over distance degraded my efficiency, or maybe because the thing was heavier than most of its kind.
Johnny’s rifle coughed twice, and the hybrid went slack in my long-range grip, two neat holes in its head.
I lowered the hybrid. In addition to being rather heavy, it looked different than the other two—it’s hide darker, thicker-looking. And maybe it was my imagination, but I thought its eyes had glowed more deeply crimson than its brethren as well. It probably didn’t matter right now.
“Hostiles down,” Mara murmured into her earpiece.
Below, the three humans hadn’t even bothered looking up from their work consoles when the shooting had started. That couldn’t be good.
“We need to stop whatever those people are doing,” I said, starting forward.
Mara reached back and planted a hand on my chest without turning.
“Do it,” Dillard’s voice came through the comms.
Above, two more fireteams were already descending to join us.
Mara withdrew her hand with a scowl. “Affirmative, Ordo.”
“You guys have restraints?” I asked.
Edwards nodded.
“Good.” I squeezed around Edwards and into cavernous room that had haunted my nightmares ever since my first visit. “Because I think we might need them.”
6
Sprung
If the hybrid breeding facility beneath Vantage was every bit as disturbing as I remembered, then the blood racks were almost certainly worse.
“Holy scud,” Johnny murmured beside me.
I knew what he meant.
The room was enormous—so enormous that most of its extent was lost to darkness outside the lighting near the lifts. The faint green glow coming from the rows of large cylindrical tanks along the walls, though, showed that the room stretched on for at least a couple hundred yards. But no one seemed to be noticing that.
Their attention was fixed firmly on the ground floor below, where rows and rows of cold gray blood racks were stretched out like some sick collection of pristine trophies—each one affixed to an array of tubes and connectors. Each one occupied by a pale, unmoving body.
“Holy scud,” Johnny repeated, his voice weaker this time.
The air reeked of pungent chemicals, underlaid by the sweet, sickly smell of decay. I shifted my gaze to the rows of tanks on the walls. Hundreds upon hundreds of them. And inside each of those tanks, a fledgling hybrid in the making.
“Sweet Alpha,” someone whispered behind us.
Edwards. He’d gone pale and looked like he might throw up. Beside him, Mara’s face had finally given in to open shock as she took in the horrors.
I felt for them. They’d probably be having nightmares tonight. Long after that, as well, if they were anything like me. But right now, we needed to know what the people below were doing at their respective consoles.
The three workers wore identical blue gowns. Two women and a man. None of them had so much as shot us a curious glance yet.
“Hey,” I called, hurrying down the mesh metal steps to the ground floor.
No response.
“We’re here to help,” I called, drawing past the first row of blood racks. “But whatever you’re doing, you need to stop for a minute.”
One of the women paused momentarily, her hands curling into tense claws over her workstation. She started to glance my way as I neared, then thought better of it and resumed her work.
“Stop!” I said.
No response.
Gently as I could, I pulled her away from her console. She reached for the console, but the attempt was only half-hearted, like she didn’t intend to fight me so much as she’d simply forgotten she was obstructed.
“A little help, guys?” I called.
Johnny and the rest of our fireteam had frozen at the blood racks, their faces all shades of ghostly white as they stared mesmerized at pale bodies and the blood lines slowly draining them dry. On the catwalk above, legionnaires were filing into the room from the lift shaft, many of them having similar reactions.
“Johnny,” I called.
He snapped to, as did Mara, and Edwards a second later. They hurried over, preparing restraints for our three… rescues? Hostiles?
I wasn’t sure yet.
“Help… me,” mumbled the woman I was holding, still reaching for her console.
Rescues, then.
“You’re okay,” I said, holding fast against her weak struggles. “You’re safe now.”
“What in demons’ depths is this place?” Dillard’s voice crackled over the comms.
I glanced at my palmlight to see he’d opened a private line with me.
“This is where they’ve been building their army this whole time, sir,” I said quietly. “And harvesting the blood supply to feed them. We take this place down and we might be able to keep Oasis under siege. Starve them out.”
“A valiant proposition,” called a voice from above. “Though I’m afraid you’d be disappointed were you to try it.”
That voice curled my stomach into knots. I’d heard it before, in this very room. I followed the sound to the second level of catwalks, back where the cavernous room was still engulfed in shadow. I was squinting at a faint silhouette when one of Dillard’s men found the lighting controls.
Floodlights snapped on throughout the gigantic room with a series of cracking pops, and there he was, nearly fifty feet above.
Alton Parker, the suave demon in a charcoal business suit.
Only he didn’t look so suave now, I realized at a second glance. He looked ragged. Wild. His hair was disheveled, his sleeves balled up to the elbows, the lightsteel of the catwalk railing bent where he gripped onto it.
Somehow, it was far more terrifying than the composed monster I’d expected.
Johnny and Mara already had their rifles trained on him, Edwards easily holding the other two floundering rescues away from their consoles in his burly arms. Behind and above, boots were pounding down the steps and along the catwalks—more legionnaires getting into position.
Alton Parker hardly seemed to notice any of it. He just continued kneading the metal railing like a piece of doe, rambling to himself in apparent agitation. I could only pick out a few phrases—something about too many moving pieces and sticking to the plan.
“Fireteams B and C,” Dillard’s voice crackled through the battle channel, “seize that maniac, and be careful about it.”
“No!” I called. Or started to, before the trembling woman in my arms bucked against my hold, jolting my attention back to the ground floor. She began whimpering like a desperate pup, her struggles growing more urgent.
“You really should let those poor people get back to work, Raish,” Alton called, suddenly seeming to remember we were there. “I was quite thorough in my instructions. I imagine they’ll be ready to chew their own hands off soon if they think it’ll help.”
As if in response to his words, the woman struggled even harder against my arms. Beside us, Edwards nearly lost his balance as his two charges likewise struggled.
Something was wrong.
I looked around and saw a few legionnaires sweeping in to help us with our unruly workers, and several more fireteams already hastily planting explosives among the rows of hybrid cylinders as Fireteams B and C moved into position to come at Parker from both sides.
None of it eased the dread in my gut. Something was wrong. I felt it in my pounding heart and in the struggles of the blond worker gnashing her teeth and trying to catch me with a wild elbow.
“Parker!” I yelled, not really knowing what the plan was, only that I had to stop him.
But it was already too late. I saw it in the way he stood to his full height above, his eyes blazing to life with crimson demon fire. “Do you remember your last visit, Haldin?”
Horrible understanding hit me. I whipped around to the closest workstation just as it chimed with an alert.
“Scud,” I heard myself whisper. Then, at a yell, “Dillard! He’s waking the—”
But my voice was lost to the rapid-fire series of sharp clacks sounding down the lines of chambers on either side of the room. A choir of rumbling motors filled the air. Fluid levels began draining.
A few feet away, another console gave an identical chime.
Gropping scudbuckets.
“Fall back!” I looked wildly around for Dillard, panic gripping my chest. “Get them back to the lifts, Dillard! He’s waking them all up!”
His voice sounded in my ear. “Control yourself, Raish. The explosives are almos—”
“We’ve got live civilians hooked up down here!” I snapped. “We need to come back with more men.”
In the darkness above, Alton Parker began to laugh.
“Shoot that son of a bitch!” I cried.
But I wasn’t in charge. No one did a damn thing. Not until Parker cocked back and hurled a piece of the broken railing at the approaching Fireteam B. That was all Mara needed.
She opened fire, followed almost immediately by Johnny and Davis, their rifles all coughing tight bursts. Above, B and C teams added their own fire, but Alton was already in motion. He covered a good forty feet of catwalk in one leap, nearly landing on Fireteam C, then he grabbed one of the shocked legionnaires by the armored utility vest and jumped again.
The gunfire died down through the room as Alton sailed another fifty yards, slammed down to ground floor permacrete, and took off at an inhuman sprint with his legionnaire human shield bouncing wildly over his shoulder.
Then the first hybrid chambers popped opened, and things got messy fast.
Eager howls filled the chemical-stained air. I dragged the frantic blond woman along, crying for everyone to fall back and rally at the lifts. I wasn’t sure anyone was listening. Hybrids dropped from catwalks on both sides, a few at first, then more. And more.
I was drawing my paltry excuse for a handgun when one landed right in front of me. Johnny put two sofsteel slugs in its head. Another dropped from above, straight for Edwards and his struggling lab worker. I threw my senses out and yanked them both several feet backward with telekinesis.
Edwards landed on wobbly feet after the surprise ride, then got his heavy rifle under control enough to fire a burst from the hip. It punched a gory hole straight through the hybrid’s bare chest, and the creature collapsed with a wet gurgle.
“Heads!” I snapped over the battle comms. “Shoot the heads!”
Johnny scooted to my side, picking off one hybrid after another. I took a medium range shot at one emerging from its chamber, but my blonde cargo bucked at the wrong moment and threw my aim.
Around us, legionnaires were falling back to the tune of Dillard’s orders barked over the comms—keeping their scud together to an admirable degree, considering the situation.
We moved with the flow, Edwards dishing off his wily lab worker to Davis so he could better hold point beside Mara.
“Hal, above!” Johnny cried.
I followed his aim in time to see three hybrids leap from the upper catwalk for Mara and Edwards.
No time to warn them.
I cast my will like a fisherman’s net and opened myself to the energy cells in my pack. The three hybrids yanked to a halt in midair. Liquid lightning crackled through my body, driving out my breath and spotting my vision, but I held on.
Mara, wide-eyed, caught on faster than slack-jawed Edwards. She darted backward, barking at him to do the same, and opened fire. Edwards unfroze, and when I released my hold a second later, the three hybrids were dead before they hit the ground.
As intense as the channeling had been, the sudden drop back to nothing hit me even harder. My head swam, my vision dipping darker before starting to recover. I was out of shape. Catching eight hundred pounds of hybrid wasn’t an easy feat by any stretch, but it’d clearly been too long since I’d pushed myself.
Something smacked my back. I turned to see Johnny saying something and frantically waving. My ears were rushing. He was trying to get me moving.
A hybrid was closing on his turned back.
I twisted, pulling my unwilling blond passenger into Johnny and releasing her to draw one of Carlisle’s daggers. The hybrid was almost on him, arms outstretched, eyes shimmering red—far too occupied to react when I stepped past Johnny and buried my blade in its left eye.
The hybrid fell.
We pushed on for the steps, Johnny handing back our passenger so he could take up his rifle again.
Most of the legionnaires had already made it to the lifts. I reached out to telekinetically hurl a few more hybrids away from Mara and Edwards. We reached the top of the stairs, and one of the legionnaires relieved me of my blonde charge, freeing me up to move to the railing and cover the few legionnaires still retreating.
The outpouring of waking hybrids seemed to be stabilizing, if not quite slowing. At least half of the chambers remained closed, holding their occupants in stasis, which seemed a small miracle.
But that still left more than enough coming for us.
Several dozen of the growling creatures pushed after us, some leaping up from the ground floor, others dropping down from upper catwalk, all driving us toward the lift doors, where our escape was critically bottlenecked.
No, I realized. Not just bottlenecked. Simply not happening.
At a second glance, I understood why.
Only two of the five lift cars stood open and waiting, the ones from the shafts we’d rappelled down apparently inoperable thanks to their breached shaft doors or maybe some collision detection sensors picking up our lines. Either way, Dillard and Carter had arrived at the same conclusion I promptly drew.
Retreat wasn’t happening.
Not without heavy casualties.
We’d already lost a few legionnaires to the hybrids, but that still left far too many to fit into two lift cars. There was also the two open shafts, but ascending those manually would be a single-file bloodbath with a couple companies’ worth of hybrids at our backs. There were less than a hundred hybrids still standing, and under Dillard’s command, Hound Company was quickly organizing into a strong
defensive formation—funneling the bulk of the hybrids into multiple lines of overlapping fire, two fireteams working to the catwalk above to provide additional cover.
Holding the line was our best bet of getting everyone out of here alive. Assuming the rest of the hybrids didn’t start waking up from stasis, at least. So I followed Johnny in rallying with our fireteam and settled in for the fight.
Fireteam E had already dropped an additional four hybrids—one by Edwards’ heavy rifle, two by Mara’s sharpshooting, and one by my telekinetically-propelled dagger—when the ceiling amps clicked to life and Alton Parker’s voice boomed down.
“Much as I’ve enjoyed reliving old memories, I have facilities to run, and imbeciles to manage.” At the far end of the room, I could just make out his tiny shape, red eyes aglow, his legionnaire hostage still draped over one shoulder. “Best of luck protecting your own monkeys, Haldin.”
With that, he gave a wave and disappeared into a mag lift.
I rounded on the lifts behind us, mind racing. If Alton was running… if there was a chance I could catch him alone… I looked and found Dillard already glancing my way, along with the couple legionnaires around him who weren’t actively gunning down hybrids.
“He’s headed for the roof,” I called.
“Don’t think about it, Raish,” he snapped as I pushed my way over to him.
“I can stop him, Ordo.”
I wasn’t all that confident about that—or even about the headed for the roof part, really—but I must’ve at least sounded the part, because Dillard actually hesitated. He took the time to add a few bursts to Hound Company’s thunderous kill zone before turning a troubled scowl back on me.
“No. Too dangerous.” He turned away to fire again and bark a few commands to his squad. I thought about doing the same.
Maybe he was right. I couldn’t leave Hound Company down here. Not when they were only here because I’d driven for it.
But I also couldn’t let Alton Parker get away, and down here, with Hound Company firmly dug in and the hybrid tide slowing… would I even make much difference? I wasn’t sure, about that or about what I should do.
Demons of Divinity Page 6
