Shadow Box, page 20
Kane covered her exit with his Sin Eater, burning through another clip in next to no time as he held the trigger down, unleashing a stream of 9 mm slugs at the rampaging creature as it took another ponderous step toward the ledge. Kane was one of its last remaining attackers now; most of the brigands had either been killed, wounded or they had run. Even Rosalia was nowhere to be seen, Kane realized, wondering what had happened to the alluring dancer.
Brigid landed in a crouch on the roof of the Sandcat, just behind where Domi was firing twin ribbons of death at the monstrous brute. Brigid flipped herself off the roof and sprinted the last few feet to the open door, then ducked inside. Grant acknowledged her with a curt nod before turning back to watch their hideous attacker through the windshield. “Think this’ll work?” he asked.
Brigid rushed into the body of the armored vehicle and reached for the blocky carrying case of the interphaser. The metal case had taken a few dents, but the unit inside looked to be in fine working order.
“The interphaser itself looks fine,” Brigid confirmed, shouting to be heard over the firefight outside, “but I wouldn’t like to second-guess whether this plan will actually work.”
Overhead, Kane leaped from the high ledge, still blasting with his Sin Eater as he dropped to the cavern floor. The monster was glaring at him, its furious green eyes smoldering their putrid mist into the air.
“Come on, you ugly son of a bitch,” Kane muttered under his breath, standing to the side of the Sandcat, his pistol raised.
Grant looked at the monster through the windshield, then at Kane, who stood beside the open passenger’s door. “Get in, Kane,” he shouted.
Kane just waited, holding the pistol in a steady two-handed grip as streams of bullets blasted from the Sandcat’s USMGs beside his head. “Tell Domi to shut off the attack,” he shouted, not bothering to take his eyes from the monster watching him just fifteen feet away.
Grant passed on the order, shouting to be heard within the confines of the Sandcat.
“Are you loopy?” Domi asked, her fingers still depressed on the firing studs of the heavy weapons.
“Kane knows what he’s doing,” Grant told her. “At least, I hope he does,” he muttered to himself as he heard the barrage of gunfire from the heavy machine guns come to a sudden halt.
Through the windshield, Grant watched as the huge creature swept aside the last of the bullets from Domi’s attack. Two surviving brigands fired occasional blasts from their hiding places within the cavern, but the monster just ignored them, its eyes fixed on Kane, that billowing green smoke pouring into the air above.
Suddenly the Sandcat rocked, and Grant and Brigid heard something heavy clomping across the roof of the vehicle.
“Kane’s on the roof,” Domi explained as her hands worked quickly, reloading the twin guns with new strips of ammo that she had found in the storage locker beside the armored bubble.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Grant muttered to himself, his foot pressing at the accelerator pedal, revving the engine while he held the emergency brake, locking the low wag in place as its engine roared.
Then they heard the recoil of Kane’s gun above them, followed by another shot, and then another.
On the roof of the Sandcat, Kane staggered his shots as he fired at the hulking brute before him. “Come on,” he muttered, “come to Daddy.”
The monster watched him, shrugging and flinching as the 9 mm slugs pinged against its hard carapace.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Kane whispered. “I’m an annoying little bug and you’re going to come right over here and squash me, aren’t you, big fella?”
Suddenly the jet-black monster tossed its head in the air, opening its mouth and unleashing that awful shriek that was part wolf howl, part parrot’s caw, a mist of boiling saliva thrown before it. Then its head dipped and its smoking, green eyes zeroed in on Kane where the ex-Mag stood on the roof of the Sandcat.
“Well, come on, then!” Kane shouted. “I’m right here!”
A blur, and the creature was in motion, arms back, head ducked, charging toward the Sandcat and the annoying little human thing that stood atop it. Kane had almost forgotten about its speed, felt sure that he had underestimated as he dived flat on the roof and swung himself into the vehicle by the open door. As he did so, Domi took her lead and depressed the twin studs of the heavy machine guns once more, loosing streams of steel-jacketed death at the charging behemoth.
In the driver’s seat, Grant watched Kane almost fall into the Sandcat, his arms splayed out and his legs tangled behind him.
“Floor it,” Kane instructed, flipping over and reaching for the large door handle with his extended leg, pulling it closed with the toe of his boot.
Grant didn’t need the instruction. His hand was already releasing the emergency brake by the time Kane fell into the passenger’s seat, and the Sandcat hurtled forward as Grant fed full power to its engine. The tanklike vehicle collided with the monster with a bone-jarring impact, and Grant felt his teeth clack together as he continued powering the Sandcat forward.
The massive creature lay across the nose of the wag now, its legs bent and being driven across the rock floor ahead of it, its arms reaching for the windshield, slapping at the streams of bullets that came from the twin machine guns atop the vehicle.
“We’ve got it,” Grant confirmed, his eyes narrowed in intense concentration as he tried to see past the obstruction of the unwilling passenger on the hood. He turned the wheel in a languid arc, wary that he not shake the monster loose as he pulled into the low-roofed exit tunnel.
From the raised dome, Domi’s urgent voice shouted down to the main body of the vehicle. “Grant, you’re too close to the wall!”
They all felt the right-hand side of the Sandcat scrape along the rough rock walls, a shower of sparks playing up and down its metal flank like witch fire. Grant tugged at the wheel, correcting their course as he powered the Sandcat down the narrow tunnel toward the exit.
“I’m blind on my starboard side,” Grant explained. “Any advice gratefully received, but make sure it’s in enough time that I can react, okay?”
Even as he said it, Domi’s voice shouted again. “Pull left! Pull left!”
Grant spun the wheel, looking through the clear window to his left to assure himself that he had room to maneuver. As he did so, the monster’s huge arm slapped against the windshield, jarring the strengthened plastic in place. “Brigid,” he shouted, eyes fixed straight ahead. “How far to the nearest parallax point?”
“Less than two klicks,” Brigid responded from the back of the Sandcat, as she examined the interphaser. “Bear south.”
“What the hell way is south?” Grant yelled as he wrestled with the wheel, trying desperately to see past the huge creature as it secured itself to the Sandcat’s hood and began pulling itself toward him.
“Right,” Brigid shouted back, “go right!”
The Sandcat rocketed out of the tunnel and bumped over the dunes as the sinking sun painted the whole desert a rich vermilion.
Still catching his breath, Kane brought himself up into a sitting position and searched his pockets for a new ammo clip for the Sin Eater. As he reloaded by touch, he looked back at Domi manning the turret, ignoring the beast barely a foot before him, pounding its jet-black fist against the reinforced plastic of the windshield.
“Did you find the hybrid DNA?” Kane asked, raising his voice to be heard over the straining engine and the pummeling of bullets outside.
“I couldn’t see it,” Domi admitted, “but I’m pretty sure you hit one flask with the flamethrower.”
“What about the other one?” Kane demanded.
“The whole lab was up in flames, Kane,” Domi reminded him. “No way I was standing around there a moment longer.”
“It’s probably incinerated,” Brigid pointed out hopefully.
“‘Probably’ isn’t enough,” Kane growled. “I don’t like loose ends.”
Grant’s irritation came through clearly in his sarcastic response as he fought with the wheel of the heavy vehicle. “You want to go back?”
Kane turned to look through the windshield once more, an angry scowl crossing his features. “No, you’re right. It has to have been incinerated.”
In the raised turret, Domi turned her head back, looking for the hidden entrance to the underground lair behind them. Smoke billowed from it now, marking it clearly on the landscape. “The whole place has gone up in smoke,” she told everyone, her voice quavering a little from the recoil of the heavy machine guns that she operated.
The Sandcat bucked and writhed as it leaped over the sand dunes with the heavy weight of the monster dragging it down, and the engine roared louder as Grant pumped his foot against the accelerator, urging even more speed from the vehicle.
Grant pulled at the wheel, struggling to make it turn as the creature’s arms pulled around the chassis and its clawed hand reached down into the spinning wheels that drove the treads. “Getting hard to turn,” he admitted, straining against the steering wheel.
Kane leaned across and clasped the wheel from where he sat, pulling it toward him with all his strength. As they struggled together, Grant and Kane saw the creature pull itself up, its head passing over the view window of the windshield, its thick torso dragging past them. Then, all they saw were the creature’s legs as it pulled itself to the roof by its mighty arms.
Suddenly Domi let out a shriek and, when Kane looked down the length of the wag, he saw her swinging back and forth in the swivel chair of the raised turret. “It’s got the guns,” she cried as an all-powerful fist slammed against the strengthened glass of the bubble.
The armaglass bubble shook along with the rest of the Sandcat, but it held firm.
Domi ducked out of her seat and dropped into the main body of the Sandcat as the mighty fist pounded against the armaglass a second time.
“ETA, Baptiste?” Kane urged, his voice strangely calm, the eye of the furious storm.
“Almost there,” she promised.
“This had better work,” Grant growled, fighting with the steering wheel as he tried to keep on a straight path.
They rushed across the dunes, a cloud of sand kicked up in their wake, the engine of the Sandcat screaming in protest at the demands being made on it as they headed farther to the south.
“Brake!” Brigid shouted suddenly, glancing up toward the dashboard.
Grant slammed his foot against the brake pedal, spinning the wheel rapidly with one hand as his other engaged the emergency brake. The Sandcat spun into a skid and then, as the weight of the hulking passenger shifted above their heads, the Cerberus warriors felt the wag begin to roll. Sand was kicked up as the Sandcat toppled onto its side, and the monstrous creature flew from the roof as the wag continued to roll, first upside down, then over onto its side.
BEFORE HIS SQUAD left the little settlement, Decard made a final report to Lakesh at Cerberus redoubt. The report was short and to the point.
“Conclusion—everyone infected dies.”
Lakesh’s voice came through over the portable radio equipment that Decard’s team had used to contact the Cerberus redoubt.
As they spoke, several of Decard’s Incarnates were busy burying their dead comrades—three in all, including the man who had been infected by the strange virus, a single bullet wound now visible dead center between his eyes. They had found Amun’s body in an even worse state than Farouk’s, where the bikers had torn him to pieces. This would go down as a black day for the brave Incarnates of the city-kingdom of Aten.
“Thank you for the report,” Lakesh responded. “Do you have any further idea of what it is?”
“Theories, but nothing we could prove,” Decard replied sadly, watching his men dig shallow graves for their colleagues. “The whole thing is over in a few hours. It just moves too quickly to study.”
Lakesh thanked him once again, then broke contact. In the silence that followed, Decard watched the sun as it finally disappeared below the western horizon.
BRIGID LAY THERE, clutching the interphaser close to her body, holding it protectively, like a baby, as she struggled to keep her grip on consciousness. Something had hit her across the top of the head, probably the roof or side wall as the vehicle rolled. She looked around, but her eyes were blurred with tears. She blinked the tears away, shaking her head and feeling the pain there, running along her scalp and clawing down to her eyeteeth, making her feel she was about to sneeze. “Kane?” she asked. “Grant? Domi?”
Grant’s voice was the first to respond. “Present,” he said. “Kane? You want to wake up, buddy?”
Kane had toppled into Grant with the rolling of the vehicle, and his weight was pushing Grant down against the side door.
“What was…?” Kane muttered, his eyelids fluttering as he came back to consciousness. “How long was I out?”
“Seconds,” Brigid confirmed, carefully making her way to the front of the rolled wag. “We need to keep moving. It’s outside.”
Kane grunted something unintelligible, feeling beaten and bruised where the vehicle had flipped. Behind him, Domi was grasping at the back of his seat, trying to pull herself up.
“Everyone in one piece?” Kane asked as he wedged his feet in a recess and pushed at the door that was now above him.
“Let’s just finish this,” Grant responded, a weary edge to his voice.
Kane flipped the door open, and the Sandcat rocked in place with the movement. He tensed his forearm, drawing the Sin Eater into his palm as he prepared to exit the vehicle.
Swiftly, Kane dragged himself up and leaped clear of the toppled wag, scouring the area with his eyes, his Sin Eater in the ready position. Grant was just behind him, backing Kane up as he climbed from the Sandcat. There was a ridge of churned-up sand where they had rolled, a little clump beside a flattened, compacted streak across the fine grains.
Brigid and Domi followed a moment later, keeping pace as Kane and Grant led the way toward the fallen beast that lay ten feet from the felled Sandcat.
“Looks dead,” Grant said, keeping his voice low.
“It isn’t,” Kane assured him. “Look at its chest—it’s still breathing. Baptiste? Do you have your parallax point?”
Brigid searched the terrain with her eyes until she saw a circular indentation in the sand, roughly six feet across. She rushed over to it and began brushing sand away until she saw the cuneiform markings that surrounded a circular stone base. She had no idea what it was, some kind of Pueblo artifact maybe, but it didn’t matter. The interphaser’s sensor was registering this as a viable parallax point.
Brigid leaned down, swiftly setting up the interphaser. Domi stood beside her checking all around, her Detonics Combat Master in her right hand and her recovered backpack slung over her shoulder.
“Where are you planning on sending the big bad?” Domi inquired.
Without looking up, Brigid instructed Domi to call Cerberus. “Tell them we’ll need to use the mat-trans chamber. Tell them to fill it with anaesthetic gas.”
The idea had come to Brigid when she had realized that the mat-trans chamber could be used as a temporary prison.
“That’s insane,” Domi cried.
Brigid glanced up at her for a moment, her emerald eyes burning with determination. “The interphaser would disappear with the creature,” she explained, “and that’s too big a risk and too high a cost. It’s breathing, which means it needs air the same as the rest of us. Now, call Cerberus and tell them we’re coming home. Tell them we’ll need to be pulled out of the jump chamber as soon as we arrive. Tell them no one is to touch the creature.”
Nodding, Domi acknowledged Brigid’s instructions and engaged her Commtact, passing on the requests while Brigid finished programming the interphaser for the jump.
Kane and Grant circled warily around the monstrous creature as it began to shake itself back to full awareness. Its long arms stretched out ahead of it, its claws and bone protrusions dragging through the fine sand, and ponderously it began to raise its torso off the ground.
“Baptiste,” Kane called loudly, his eyes and blaster trained firmly on the monster as it pulled itself up. “Do you have us that jump point ready?”
Brigid punched in the code and glanced over at the monster. “Ready when you are,” she called back.
Stirring to wakefulness, the creature moved slowly as it struggled to its feet, assuming its full, majestic height once more.
“We’re bringing it over,” Kane shouted to Brigid. “Engage the interphaser in ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds?” Grant spit, incredulous. “Are you nuts? How are we supposed to—?” His words dried in his throat as Kane pulled the trigger of his Sin Eater and held it down, blasting a stream of bullets into the creature’s face.
“Come on, ugly,” Kane growled, “time to play ball.”
The coal-skinned creature tossed its head, its green eyes billowing smoke as the bullets slapped against its armored skin. And then, with no warning, it leaped, eight feet of taut muscle hurtling toward Kane and Grant as they turned and ran.
“Well, you sure got its attention,” Grant shouted as they ran across the sand toward the interphaser.
Ahead of them, the blossoming flower of the interphaser had emerged from the little metal pyramid, tip and base, a swirling cone of colors and lightning streaks.
Kane looked over his shoulder, blasting shot after shot at the creature as its powerful legs pounded against the ground. “It’s all in the subtle planning,” he told Grant as they leaped into the blossoming flower of the interphaser, with Brigid and Domi accompanying them.
The monster followed, its huge feet slapping against the sand, its massive weight barreling ever onward, reaching into the cone of color as its prey disappeared from sight.
In a moment, the monster, the interphaser and the four Cerberus warriors were gone, and the only evidence of their passing was the overturned Sandcat they left behind.
