Project Brimstone

by Paul B Spence

  "Are you all right, my friend?" Anton asked him.

  "My ribs are killing me," Harrison replied. "How's Raven?"

  "He lost a little blood, but the muscle in his leg is intact. He will be able to walk."

  "You okay, Michael?" said Gillian.

  "I've been better. This sort of thing happen frequently?"

  Gillian shook her head. "Not usually." She handed him his rifle. "This was a large pack. They may have been attracted by the smell of blood. I don't know."

  "They coming back?"

  "I don't suggest we wait around to find out. We're lucky it wasn't something worse."

  He sighed and slowly rose to feet. He didn't want to know what was worse, not at the moment.

  "Let's move out, then," he said.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  The dark forest gradually gave way to a rockier terrain with small, twisted trees. It would have reminded Harrison of portions of the Southwest if not for the omnipresent red sky. Now and then, a ruined building came into sight. Most were too worn down for architectural features to be discernable, but the few that weren't seemed alien to him. Some of the ruins towered hundreds of meters into the sky, and he could tell most of the structures were probably buried, since there were no doorways in sight. He'd seen ruins on five continents, and these didn't look like anything he'd ever seen. The proportions didn't appear quite right. It made him wonder who had built these titanic structures, and how long ago they had been buried.

  How long does it take to bury a skyscraper? Ten thousand years? A million? What kind of technology must they have had, for there to be anything left of the building at all? He couldn't tell what kind of material they were constructed from, but it must have been tough.

  "Gillian, do you know who built these?" he asked.

  "No, I don't. I would assume my ancestors built them. I've read ancient texts that spoke of the ruins, though. The texts themselves are ancient by my people's standards, and they speak of the ruins as ancient. That's why I thought they could contain a hidden Waypoint."

  "So you think these ruins have something to do with your people?"

  "I think they must have," Gillian said. "My people were there from the beginning of time."

  "I assume not you, personally."

  "Me? No, I'm barely past a million." She laughed at his expression. "Lighten up. I really am in my late thirties."

  "You had me there," said Harrison. He'd been worried for a moment.

  "Tease."

  "Gillian, if no one comes here, then why is there a road?"

  "Well, it isn't much of a road. More like a goat path."

  "Still, why would it be here at all?"

  "I think caravans must still come through here. What does it matter?"

  "I don't know. I guess I just thought that if this place was uninhabited, there wouldn't even be a path."

  "Maybe it was made by animals."

  "You mean like deer?" he asked. He knelt down and studied the dried mud of the path. "These marks were made by booted feet when the ground was last soft."

  "I believe it rains every night here, like in the town," Gillian said, looking at the sky with a frown. "So someone came through here last night or this morning?"

  "I think so," replied Harrison. "Unless the way mud works is really different here."

  "Mud is mud. I don't like this."

  "You don't think it could be one of your caravans?"

  "They would have draft animals, and they wouldn't travel in the rain."

  "So we should be on guard. What else is new?"

  The path eventually led them into an enormous, bowl-shaped depression. There were ruins at the bottom, standing up out of a small pond. The sound of gunfire was clear, even a kilometer or two away.

  Harrison gathered the others around. "Earlier, I noticed several sets of boot prints that looked fairly recent. I can't be certain, but I think the boots had the same tread as the troops from the JRC. What do you think we should do?"

  "I think we either want to avoid this, or this is what we are looking for," said Anton.

  "Those sound like the security pulse rifles to me," Raven said.

  "I think so, too. Did Simone carry a gun?"

  "She had a small energy pistol."

  "Like a laser?"

  "More like a pulsed particle beam."

  "Does it have a distinctive sound?"

  "Yes, but it was quiet. We'd have to be close to hear it."

  "And if we get that close, the enemy will see us," said Harrison. "Gillian, what do you think?"

  "Two things," she said. "First, I'm fairly certain that there is a Waypoint in the ruins down there. Second, you and Raven think those are JRC troops, and that's good enough for me. So either Simone is down there, and they are attacking her, or they are attacking someone else. Either way, those are JRC troops. I say we give them a little surprise."

  "For once, I agree with you," Raven said.

  "Anton, stay behind us and follow at a distance. There isn't much cover out there. Raven, what's the range on your rifle?"

  "About a hundred meters."

  "Okay, Gillian and I will take point. We both have scoped rifles. Cover us and watch for flankers."

  "Right."

  "Gillian, what caliber is your rifle, and how much ammo do you have?"

  "5mm by 30mm, and not a lot," she said. "Just the one thirty-round mag."

  "That isn't going to have a lot of penetration against their body armor. Go for face, neck, armpit, and groin. They have little to no armor there."

  "Got it."

  "Also, whoever is hiding in the ruins down there, they're not necessarily going to come to us with open arms. They may even start shooting at us."

  "Simone –" Raven began.

  "Simone doesn't know Gillian or me from squat. We also can't be sure that it's her down there."

  "Okay, I'll be careful," said Raven.

  Harrison dug his scope out of his pack and fitted it to the top rail on his SCAR. "All right, let's make each shot count. I really don't want to have try this sword out." He had his sword hanging from the side of his pack like an oversized machete. It was difficult to draw like that, but it kept the sword out of his way when walking.

  The landscape was starting to darken as the sky clouded over. Harrison brought his companions as close as he dared, about four hundred meters from the ruins. He knew from experience that the JRC soldiers were terrible shots and tended to prefer extremely close range. Half a dozen of the JRC soldiers crouched behind tumbled masonry at the edge of the pond. Two of them appeared wounded. As Harrison watched, an actinic pulse of crackling energy shot out of the ruins, almost hitting one of the soldiers.

  Harrison glanced at Raven, who nodded. It was Simone, then.

  Harrison knelt and braced his rifle. He picked the enemy farthest from them and gently squeezed the trigger, gratified to see the bullet punch through the man's torso. Gillian opened fire a second later, and Harrison watched through his scope as the first two rounds sparked off body armor. Then the third bullet hit the man in the base of his throat, and he went down coughing blood. It was a one-sided slaughter that almost sickened Harrison. The enemy never had a chance. As he advanced, Harrison shot the two wounded soldiers before Anton could rush forward to treat them. They didn't have the supplies or the luxury of being civilized just now.

  He advanced warily. At least whoever it was in the ruins didn't shoot at them. That was a good sign. Harrison motioned for Raven to come forward.

  "Call out and see if she recognizes your voice," Harrison said. He caught Raven's arm. "Don't expose yourself or use her name at first."

  Raven nodded and found a position behind some of the masonry. "Hello?" he called.

  "Raven?" replied a woman's voice.

  Raven glanced at Harrison and nodded. "Simone! Come on out. These are my friends. They won't hurt you."

  "Stand up where I can see you!"

  Raven stood up.

  A tall, lanky woman wi
th dark hair worked her way out of the ruins. She ran across some stones in the pond and came close to Raven, then stopped, raising her pistol. "Prove to me that you're Raven," she demanded.

  "What? Oh, shit. Right. What do you want me to say?"

  "You don't have to say anything. Just hold out your arm."

  He only hesitated a second, then held his right arm out.

  Simone stepped forward, stripped off her gloves, and placed her hands on Raven's arm. Then she embraced him suddenly.

  "I guess that means he's the real Raven," Gillian said.

  "What I'm curious about is how she knew," said Harrison.

  "She senses thoughts by touch," Anton said as he moved past them.

  "Ah, that explains it, then."

  "Anton!"

  "Is good to see you, Simone. I see you took my advice about shapeshifters."

  "I did," said Simone. She looked over Raven's shoulder. "Are they from the JRC, too? I don't recognize them."

  "No," Raven said. "They are other travelers. Simone, meet Michael Harrison and Gillian Novakoph. Harrison is the one who found and freed me."

  "Thank you for that," Simone said. "And for taking those bastards out." She gestured at the fallen JRC soldiers.

  "Any idea why they came across open ground, instead of just opening a Door?" Harrison asked.

  "I locked this one down."

  "You can do that?"

  "For a short while. I guess they wanted me badly enough to come another way."

  "How long have you been here?" asked Raven.

  "About three days. I've been using this ruin as my base camp."

  "I understand you're looking for Deegan," Harrison said.

  "I am. Do you know him?"

  "No, but we're hoping he can help us."

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  They shared their lunch with Simone and listened to her story.

  "I'm afraid I haven't found much," she said. "These ruins are, as the name suggests, buried. If there was a hidden Door here, it is long since gone."

  "I'm curious as to how you know about these ruins at all," said Gillian.

  "The library at the JRC is quite extensive. Even still, I only found one reference to these ruins and the Plaza. Since Deegan said he was headed for the Plaza..."

  "You came here to try to find him," Gillian finished.

  "So what now?" asked Harrison.

  "Well, we now have evidence that there is some connection between these ruins and the Plaza of the Worlds. We just have to figure out what the connection is."

  "That sounds easier said than done," Raven commented.

  "Maybe," Gillian replied. "You said you'd been exploring for three days? How far from here have you gone?"

  "About ten klicks in each direction," said Simone.

  "Well, any exploring is going to have to wait for morning," Harrison said. "It's getting dark, and I just felt a raindrop."

  "I've been staying on the second level of the ruins in the pond. The water level rises when it rains, but not dangerously."

  "Then I guess we should go there now," said Raven.

  "I'll join you in a moment," Harrison said. He gathered together the weapons and ammunition from the JRC soldiers. He didn't know if any of it would be useful, but with ammunition for his weapons running low, it was the smart thing to do. He'd rather be safe than sorry.

  Gillian helped him carry the gear to the upper level of the ruined building. After that, they sat against a wall and tried to relax. It had been a long journey to get to the Buried Ruins, and now it looked as if it had all been for naught.

  Except for saving Simone, of course, Harrison thought.

  Gillian was frowning at nothing.

  "You look pensive," he said.

  "I just can't help but think I'm missing something.".

  "You think we're in the wrong place?"

  "No, I don't. I think this is it. I just don't know how it can be."

  "Maybe there is no Plaza."

  "No, I'm sure that it existed at one time," Gillian said. "My people don't make many monuments. There'd be no reason to invent a place just for a monument no one remembers the purpose of anyway."

  "What do you mean?"

  "There is a monument back home. The words carved there tell of an armistice signed at the Plaza of the Worlds. It must have been important, or it wouldn't have merited a monument outside the Imperial Palace, but I couldn't find any other record of the armistice or anybody who knew what it meant."

  "That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Records get lost over time."

  Gillian nodded impatiently. "Sure, but the records in the Royal Archive in the Courts go back for tens of millennia. Literally thousands of years."

  "Impressive, but not conclusive," said Harrison. "You said you knew of some connection to these ruins. Where did that come from?"

  "Remember when I said that I'd met a traveler who told me of the different worlds?" She waited for him to nod, then went on. "I wasn't lying. The man I met was a distant relation. We shared a meal and spoke of many things. One of the topics that came up in passing was his desire to discover if the Plaza of the Worlds still existed. He mentioned tales of caravans coming across the wastes and finding themselves in a strange place between worlds."

  "You don't think he was just pulling your leg?"

  "No, because he mentioned the Buried Ruins. He said that people who stayed here were sometimes lost overnight..." She trailed off, with a strange look on her face.

  "What?"

  "Son of a bitch, it was right there the whole time," she whispered.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Where would the people stay, if they were traveling across these wastes?" Gillian asked, jumping up.

  "Well, Simone said there wasn't really anything for kilometers around...," said Harrison. "Wait. Are you suggesting that the way to the Plaza is right here?"

  "That is exactly what I'm suggesting," Gillian said. "What if it's only available at some times of day, like the middle of the night?"

  "When caravaneers would be sleeping."

  "Exactly!" She raced off, calling Simone's name.

  Harrison sighed, pushed himself up from the floor, and followed.

  "Simone! Did you explore here at night?" Gillian asked.

  "In the rain?"

  "I have an idea," said Gillian. "Maybe it's crazy, but maybe I'm right!"

  "What idea?" Raven said irritably. Harrison got the impression that Raven really wanted some time alone with Simone. Not that he could blame him. From Raven's own personal timeline, it had been three years since he'd seen his girlfriend, even if it was only three weeks for her.

  Sometimes that made Harrison worry about how much time might be passing back home.

  "I think the way to the Plaza is right here," Gillian said.

  "It can't be," said Simone. "I've checked with my Door device, and it only registers the one Door."

  "Your Door device is primitive. Sorry, but the people who built that didn't entirely understand what they were doing."

  "Who are you, exactly?"

  Gillian waved her question away. "The Doors use Waypoints, ancient portals left by my people across all of the myriad Realms in the multiverse. The thing is, your Doors are just a brute-force hack. A Waypoint always allows travel between two points, without any fancy gizmos. The thing about Waypoints, though, is that they sometimes link more than just two points."

  "That's... crazy," Simone said.

  "Follow me," replied Gillian.

  After calling to Anton, they all traipsed down to the first level with her. The rain was coming down hard outside, and the air smelled faintly of sulfur.

  "Your Door device hacks into the location of the Waypoint," Gillian said. "When you lock the Door, it jams the Waypoint. Unlock the Door, but don't open it."

  Simone shrugged and did something to the device strapped to her wrist.

  Gillian studied a space in the air in the center of the room. Then she walked around
the room, looking at it from different angles. "Watch," she said. She stepped forward and vanished.

  "Gillian!" Harrison yelled, but she was back in a moment.

  "As I suspected, this Waypoint connects to the next one in the series," she said.

  "You scared the hell out of me," said Harrison.

  "So you're saying all of these points can be navigated without a device?" Simone asked.

  "Well, not exactly. Some are open to anyone. Some require a certain sets of genes, open only to certain bloodlines. Others just need to be approached in a particular way, or at a particular time." Gillian knelt on the floor and marked the path into the Waypoint in the dirt. "In this case, you have to circle into the Waypoint widdershins to make it work."

  "But you think there is another path here?"

  "I do, but I'm not sure what unlocks it. It may be the time of day, or it may be the water level outside, or it may be something the user is thinking about."

  "Okay," Harrison said with a shrug. "How about saying, I'm looking for the Plaza of the Worlds." He stepped forward and felt an intense rushing sensation, and then came blackness.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Harrison gradually became aware of light against his closed eyes.

  He groaned and rolled over, realizing then that the weight he felt across his legs was a body. He pushed himself up. Gillian and the others had followed him through the Waypoint, and all of them had been struck down by whatever had knocked him out. His ribs were hurting again.

  The room was circular, maybe five meters in diameter, and made of exquisitely shaped and fitted pale red stone. A low stone bench ran around the walls. The room reminded him of ruins he'd once seen in Peru. The dim light was coming from an open archway that led to a stone corridor, but it was too bright to see what lay beyond the opening. A low grinding noise and vibration were being transmitted through the floor, as if from distant machinery.

  All of his weapons were missing. Even his multitool was gone. His ribs hurt almost as much as when he'd broken them. He supposed that was from the others falling on him. He checked each of his companions, reassuring himself that they were only unconscious. Their weapons were missing, as well. Anton rolled over on his side as Harrison was checking him, and made retching noises.