Queen's Journey (Lilith's Shadow Book 5)

by Benjamin Medrano

  “Very well,” Black Harbinger replied, then paused, adding. “However, if she does interfere, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

  “Yes, I know!” Omega Code shouted after the villain as he headed for the door, then continued muttering under his breath, “It’s always my fault, even when heroes break down the doors and shatter the core-tap drill, or knock the doom laser out of the sky, or whatever else…”

  He continued working on the console, trying to figure out just how to ensure that all the detonation signals would go out at the same time. It was hard work, ending the world, but someone had to do it.

  Chapter 50

  Tuesday, November 4th, 2031

  Glendale Shopping Center, Glendale

  “This will be difficult,” Rashida said, and Morgan couldn’t help a slight wince, since that wasn’t something she wanted to hear from the mage.

  Rashida was a tall man, with tanned golden-brown skin and features that were delicate, and almost androgynous. That didn’t match the rest of his body, though, as he was sturdily built and muscular, which almost looked odd under the brightly colored teal, orange, and white robes he wore. It was almost eye-searing, but the magic that radiated from the Atlantean mage’s clothing and jewelry was enough to quell any sense of amusement she might have. He was just too skilled, as his items made her realize just how far she had to go. Any one of his enchantments was worth ten of Morgan’s.

  “May I ask why?” Morgan asked, ignoring the cluster of onlookers that the police were keeping away from the parking spot. She was glad that she had spells to keep her warm, as chilly as it was, but the parking lot felt startlingly mundane under the circumstances.

  Rashida looked at her, revealing the bright green eyes that felt so out of place with his dark hair. That wasn’t fair of her, since Lilith’s eyes were bright green as well, but it felt odd anyway. After a moment he spoke. “You do not have the knowledge necessary to explain it properly, but I will attempt to simplify. The mage who cast this spell likely spent weeks weaving it, and they interlinked the destinations to mask the destination admirably. I am attempting to unravel this weave in mere hours.”

  “Ah, of course,” Morgan said, though she had to resist the urge to correct him.

  What he was talking about was a common strategy in spellcasting, as masking spells were hardly new. She’d used several on her home in California, and had helped Warden do the same, though they weren’t perfect. The problem with Atlanteans, she’d always heard, was that they tended to underestimate how much other people could learn about magic. Rashida certainly proved the point.

  “Good. Now, I will begin. It is up to you to follow the link,” Rashida said, turning back to the spot as he raised his hands, and Morgan glanced at Warden, who returned her look with barely concealed impatience.

  Morgan was surprised that Warden had resisted the urge to reply sarcastically to Rashida’s arrogance, but she wasn’t going to complain, either. Neither of them liked the man, but if he could help them rescue Lilith, they weren’t going to object.

  The one thing that Morgan had to wonder was how in the hell Madison had managed to get him to come help. The Atlanteans barely even paid attention to most people off their island, save for through their handful of embassies. It was a mystery, and she wondered if she’d ever get an answer out of her predecessor.

  Probably not, Morgan decided, watching the man begin weaving his spells with practiced elegance, and her eyes narrowed. The least she could do was try to learn while she had the chance.

  The Internet

  Seismic Rock had run out of patience. He had a job to do, and the titans clashing in the main pipes were making his life harder. The smart thing to do would be to hunker down in his data center while listening to music and wait for the fight to die down, but he knew better than to think that was a real option. There was data waiting to be collated, and most of the scientists he worked with had absolutely no idea how devastating the fight between the Class 10 AIs was. They just wanted their data analyzed and couldn’t understand why Seismic Rock couldn’t get to it. So he carefully slipped out of his data center, flinching as a stray virus went flying by him and infected a firewall, which promptly began murdering unfortunate packets. That much he could deal with, and he removed the infection, then hastily moved away from the main pipes. Couldn’t they have at least left the university links alone?

  It was safer going through the secondary pipes, but Seismic Rock didn’t like doing it. The pipeline was smaller, with far, far too much data running through it as the internet tried to route around the war zone. Fortunately, the secondary links had been upgraded over the last few decades, but they still weren’t sufficient to handle everything going through them, and he was putting a squeeze on space.

  As he moved, Seismic Rock began putting his priority list in order. There were sensors all across the country, but fortunately the different universities collated all the data for him, making it so that he didn’t have to visit all of them individually. He was still going to spot check several to make sure that the data hadn’t been corrupted, and if there was much of a variance, he intended to take a hard look at the sites, but that rarely happened. No, he’d start with San Diego, then work his way—

  “Gack!” Seismic Rock yelped as something grabbed him and yanked him out of the node he’d been passing through. An instant later he was in a box, dazed and confused as he shook himself, then a much louder voice spoke.

  “Sorry, Seismic Rock, but I’m afraid that I need to emulate you for a bit,” Circe told him, and he could feel her virtual smile. “I’ll collect your data as I go, but I really need to get around these pests, and you happened to be in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place, from your perspective. I’ll see you later.”

  “Wait a second, that’s not acceptable! I need to gather the data myself, not… hey, wait a second and listen to me!” Seismic Rock protested, but there wasn’t a response. Instead, he began trying to work his way out of the box he was in, only to find that he’d been quite thoroughly trapped.

  It took several seconds for him to exhaust most of the tricks he knew to get out of this sort of thing, but every one of them failed, and at last he huddled up, fuming quietly to himself as he muttered. “I hate it when they pay attention to me. Do they have no respect for science?”

  Seismic Rock found it even more insulting that there wasn’t a response, which meant that Circe wasn’t even monitoring him, she considered him that little of a threat. So he sighed, queuing up some rock music from the early twentieth century, and started picking his way through the data he had on hand. At least he could get some work done.

  Emulating Seismic Rock was easy enough for Circe, since his core programming wasn’t that complex, and he didn’t have enough processing power to require more than half of one of her nodes. Better yet, he was beneath the notice of the other AIs she was fighting on other fronts. They were too busy fighting what they thought was a full-scale frontal assault to pay attention to a single AI whose entire existence was intended to study fault lines and earthquakes.

  So she calmly moved through the pipes to the various locations where Seismic Rock normally collected his data, and as she did so, she began looking for other information and opportunities. Oh, she could attack the others from the back lines if she really wanted to, and maybe fry a few of their core servers, but that wasn’t her goal. She was looking for Lilith, and that was her one and only concern. Argus, Melzi, Yaga… all of them were just distractions.

  It took time, of course. She needed to collect all sorts of data, but as the war raged, she quietly gathered what she needed in the background, while making certain that she could use an appropriately powerful kinetic strike at the time of her choosing. Though, if she was being honest, she had every intention of giving an unofficial, indirect tip to the heroes instead.

  She didn’t trust Amber with Lilith anymore.

  Chapter 51

  Tuesday, November 4th, 2031


  Final Countdown Redoubt, Kansas

  “What do you want?” Sabra asked, watching Lilith suspiciously. Lilith could understand that, since she wasn’t sure she could trust the Atlantean either.

  Lilith sat back on the bed and tilted her head, considering her for a few seconds, then replied, “Simple. You want to escape here alive as well, don’t you?”

  Sabra nodded, still watching Lilith warily. That amused Lilith, since from this distance, she wasn’t sure if she could hurt the woman before being incapacitated.

  “Excellent. If I removed the explosive collar, could you teleport us out of here, like you did to get us to the one warehouse?” Lilith asked, quirking an eyebrow. After her conversations with Gina and Rachel, she suspected she wasn’t going to like the answer, but she had a couple of backup plans.

  “No. Creating a portal for even short distances takes days, and teleportation is too dangerous for anyone to use if they don’t have the talent for it,” Sabra replied, folding her arms as she spoke, a slight edge to her voice, along with a hint of hope. “You can do so?”

  “Unfortunate… but yes, I can remove the collar,” Lilith said, and gestured toward the computer. “It wouldn’t be doable without the schematics, but Omega Code didn’t anticipate someone skilled at infiltration getting access to his computer system. He thought he’d locked it down, but I gained access to his personal files, which includes your collar designs. It doesn’t help with everything, but it also gives a couple of other options. The question is how to escape, and what we do about his plan to destroy the planet.”

  Sabra’s eyebrows rose, and she stared at Lilith suspiciously, then let out a breath and asked. “What’s your price?”

  “Pardon me?” Lilith asked, pausing and blinking in confusion.

  “What price for your assistance with this?” Sabra asked, reaching up to tap the collar gently, almost nervously. “There must be something.”

  For a few seconds Lilith thought, studying Sabra. Her first impulse was to laugh it off. The obvious answer to her was that there wasn’t really a price at all. They were both trying to escape, but she doubted that the woman would trust that. It seemed to be part of the nature of villains. So she came up with one quickly.

  “It isn’t a traditional ‘price’ at all, but you won’t trust me if I tell you that, so… here it is,” Lilith said, watching the woman’s eyes narrow slightly, then she explained. “We will work together to escape. If you manage to get free, but I do not, you will inform the Paragon City Sentinels about where I am, and that Omega Code is planning to use devices to trigger massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions around the Ring of Fire and Yellowstone. You will inform them as soon as possible, though you do not need to put yourself at risk. You will not betray me and will cease any villainous activities for at least a month. I will not betray you either or attempt to hunt you down for that time period. The same goes for your fellow Atlantean. Is that acceptable?”

  For a few seconds Sabra seemed to consider, but she slowly relaxed and nodded. “It is. I believe that we will be able to work together.”

  Sabra wasn’t sure what to make of Lilith. She was attractive, with her power making her even more mesmerizing, and confident. So confident that Sabra wondered how she managed to make it seem like she wasn’t a prisoner at all. Omega Code’s minions might be afraid of him and Black Harbinger, but in less than a day they’d come to trust Lilith implicitly, following her directions when it came to cooking and so many other subjects. It was strange, and she didn’t understand it.

  That wasn’t the true reason she didn’t know how to regard her, though. If it was just that, Lilith’s lack of magical training would have made her someone Sabra never would have given a second glance, at least not without sneering. No, it was the blessing of Sabra’s gods, and maybe not just her gods, that filled her with trepidation.

  A faint energy pervaded Lilith’s body, likely from when she’d been healed by a goddess, which ever-so-faintly glowed to Sabra’s senses, mostly because it was energy she was familiar with. Comparatively, the ankh around her neck blazed so brightly that it was all Sabra could do not to look away unless she tried to avoid seeing the divine energy. It was so very comforting… and at the same time, so frightening. To know that Ra had directly blessed Lilith was intimidating, and she had to wonder if she’d made some mistakes. That was a thought that had run through her head over and over during the day, and it was getting harder to banish. She couldn’t have made a mistake… could she?

  But now, now Lilith was offering to work with Sabra to escape. That was an incredible offer, and something Sabra wanted desperately… and quite honestly, she didn’t trust Abasi enough to ask Lilith to help him. Which meant asking her not to help him, as the odds of him ruining everything were far too high.

  “I must add that I believe asking Abasi to assist us would be unwise. He has talked many times about getting revenge on Black Harbinger, despite not having the power to do so. He would likely make any attempt fail,” Sabra said after a few seconds, hugging herself a little more tightly. She hoped that this didn’t come back to bite her, but she didn’t dare take risks. Even if the Ascendancy would disapprove of her working with someone who wasn’t a mage over one of their members.

  Lilith looked a little surprised for a moment, then nodded, her voice soft. “I understand. That is… unfortunate. And while I like some of the people here well enough, I doubt that I would trust any of them, except for possibly Percy.”

  Sabra smiled briefly at the thought of the cat. Relaxing in his playroom was one of the few enjoyable things she’d had while stuck here, as the cat was affectionate and amusing, most of the time. Besides, cats were sacred to Bastet.

  “How do you intend to leave?” Sabra asked after a few moments, wondering if the woman truly had a plan.

  “Since teleportation isn’t an option, I see three possibilities. I don’t care for the idea of trying to get through the death traps Omega Code has set up, but it is a possibility,” Lilith said, her face flickering with distaste. “The second option is to open up one of the old escape tunnels. According to the notes I read, Omega Code covered the stairwells with steel panels, then filled the bottom five feet with concrete. If those can be removed, we’d be able to escape that way. Last, we could break into the control room and open the missile silo, which would allow us to escape up the ladder, assuming there is one. I lean toward the last, simply because I think disabling the bomb would be a good idea.”

  “Bomb? Escape tunnels?” Sabra asked, frowning heavily. She had no idea what Lilith was talking about, and that irritated her.

  Lilith’s eyebrows rose slightly. Fortunately for both of them, when Lilith spoke, she didn’t sound patronizing or critical. “This place used to be a nuclear missile silo owned by the military, which was decommissioned and sold off to civilians. It didn’t have any sensitive equipment when Omega Code acquired it, but he decided that if he had a missile silo, he’d build a nuclear missile. At the same time, it had multiple evacuation points, not just the front entrance, and when he redid the walls, he plated over them with sheets of steel which he poured concrete behind.”

  “Ah. I was not aware this was a government structure originally,” Sabra said irritably, frowning at the thought, though it reminded her of what Lilith had said earlier about the area being a barracks. “You would think that they would properly dispose of such things, rather than allowing one such as Omega Code to claim it.”

  “I entirely agree. Unfortunately, I don’t see that there’s much I can do about it,” Lilith said, shrugging. “Either way, those are my ideas. The question is whether you can help me or not, and if you have a preference.”

  Sabra thought for a few seconds, debating. It was a difficult question to answer, and she wasn’t sure… after a few seconds she came to a tentative decision, though it required Lilith to answer a different question first.

  “How long would it take to remove this?” Sabra asked, tapping the collar nervously.
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br />   “Based on the schematics, no more than a minute. Preferably two or three if I’m careful, which is what I’d like,” Lilith said, smiling slightly. “You want to keep your head, I want to keep my hands, and we both want to get out of here alive.”

  “This is true,” Sabra agreed, relief washing through her. “Then the missile silo appears to be the best option. While I’m not certain, it is entirely possible that he would attempt to fire it at Atlantis as a form of vengeance. While the wards around the isle should protect it, I do not wish to take the risk.”

  “Seems reasonable. Now for a question that you can answer more easily than I can,” Lilith said, her smile growing more troubled. “When would the best time be to make the attempt? When Omega Code and as many people as possible are asleep seems the obvious answer, but I don’t know when that is.”

  Sabra nodded, thinking for a few seconds. Fortunately, she’d been up at essentially every time at one point or another, so she knew the general flow of when people were active. There were always exceptions, but she couldn’t predict when things would go strangely.

  “I believe between three and four in the morning,” Sabra eventually replied. “Much before that, and some of the minions will still be awake, drinking or in the arcade. Much after that, and Omega Code and the early risers will be moving. I cannot guess regarding Black Harbinger, however. I cannot tell when he sleeps or not, or even if he does. I haven’t seen a room assigned to him.”

  “Mm… that makes some aspects easier, but it’s going to make coordinating more difficult. If anyone sees you coming over…” Lilith murmured, her gaze growing distant for a moment, then she smiled. “Well, I have a solution. Unless you can turn invisible?”