CHAPTER TWO
ROSLYN RESEARCH FACILITY: The Corridor 5 Days Remaining
As we moved through the facility and climbed into the next level, the scene was much the same. We found scoring on the walls, broken glass all over the floor, and damage.
The Wraiths moved ahead, clearing rooms and corridors, making sure we didn’t walk into a threat. We advanced quietly through the open halls. The only sounds were footsteps crunching on broken glass and debris, and the low hum of Yumi’s shield drones.
She could field eight of the little drones now. Four stayed in front of us and four behind as we made our way through the facility. None of us was sure how well they’d hold up against small-arms fire, but it was better than nothing.
We finally reached a collapsed section of the interior.
The two forward scouts appeared at the end of the corridor near the rubble, and Maddie and Erica jogged up to meet them.
“Architect, our scouts can’t get past the debris,” Maddie said. “We don’t know what caused the collapse or what’s on the other side.”
“It’s pretty deep, Gavin,” ARi said. “I can see the far side, but even if we tried to dig through, I don’t know how stable it would be without some pretty serious reinforcement.”
“My guess,” Kyle said as he pulled his hood back and stepped toward the rubble, “is that they did this on purpose. The colonel and his men, I mean. Probably a way to safeguard the cradle chamber from whoever was attacking.”
He raised a hand. The rubble on the floor began to fade out and reappear, lining the walls as newly formed structures that braced the end of the corridor.
“I can move the debris and reinforce the outside,” Kyle said. “But I can only manipulate earth and stone. ARi, can you phase the other materials and help reinforce the tunnel as we move forward?”
Beams of hardened bronze formed along the outside of Kyle’s stone framework. Debris vanished as the two of them worked forward at a steady pace.
“Once we’re halfway through, we’ll seal it off as best we can without compromising the surrounding structure,” she said. “It’ll block access back to the cradle chamber, but since you or I can remove the stone barrier, it shouldn’t be an issue.”
Tanya started to protest. “If something happens to Kyle or ARi, how are we supposed to get back?”
ARi answered before I could.
“If something happens to me, getting back to the cradles won’t matter.”
Yumi leaned in as she passed Kyle, kissing him on the cheek.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. If something happens to you, I’ll be really sad for a while.”
“You know,” Kyle said as he strained, moving stone and debris, “that’s not as comforting as you think it is.”
We made it through to the other side, and I had the Wraiths hold back.
“We’re going to need to make a decision here,” I said as I stretched my aching legs. My whole body had still hurt after coming out of the cradle.
But before we had a chance to say or do anything else, the sound of an elevator car descending at the far end of the corridor caught our attention.
“Shit,” Tim said. “Gavin, we’re caught out in the open!”
ARi stepped into the middle of the corridor.
“Everybody, get against the wall!”
She lifted her hand, and a projection flared into existence in front of us, recreating the collapsed corridor.
“If they look close enough, ARI,” I muttered. “They’re going to see it’s a projection.”
Maddie and Erica ordered the other Wraiths to either side of the corridor and took positions on both sides of ARi themselves. Erica reached over and touched ARi’s hand.
“Ward,” she said quietly. “You only need to hold it long enough for us to see if they’re friends or foes. If they’re hostile, we’ll deal with it.”
She slid her kris daggers free and cocked back the dart launcher on her wrist.
We stayed pressed to the wall, silent and motionless, as the elevator reached the floor. The front doors were partially forced open, and three black-clad soldiers stepped into the corridor.
Their armor and uniforms were unlike anything I’d ever seen. The design wasn’t terrestrial, but the materials were. And so were the MP5 submachine guns.
They swept the corridor with their weapons and flashlights as they moved toward ARi’s projection.
“I told you guys, there’s nothing here.”
“That’s not what the motion sensor said, Johnson.”
“Well, why don’t you go fuck yourself, Thomas? Or maybe your rich daddy can pay someone to do it for you.”
“You’re not my boss!”
“Yeah, well, I am your boss,” a third voice cut in. “And both of you need to shut the fuck up. Let’s find the faulty motion sensor and get back upstairs. We lost two people to Antonov when he caved this shit in yesterday, and we still don’t know what that bitch was doing in the observation room.”
“I heard them talking upstairs about finally getting the air shut off in the lower sections,” the one named Johnson had snarled. “Antonov and the rest can choke and rot.”
From the wall, I saw the anger burn across ARi’s face as she glanced down at Maddie and gave a short nod.
Maddie and Erica turned to opposite walls and phased into them behind the projection.
A heartbeat later, they emerged from the walls behind two of the soldiers.
Both Wraiths climbed their targets’ backs and drew their daggers deep across exposed throats. The bodies collapsed without a sound as the rogues guided them down.
Tonya stepped up beside ARi and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Drop the projection ARi.”
ARi lowered her hand and the projection vanished. In the same instant, a necrotic bolt punched through the third soldier’s chest and blew out the other side. It left a basketball-sized cavity where his sternum had been and sprayed the wall and floor behind him in a wide arc. He stood there for a moment, staring at us, eyes wide before he looked down at what was left and crumpled to the floor.
“Holy fuck,” I said. “We should have tried to keep one of them alive.”
I rushed over to the body.
“Architect,” Maddie said, crouched near one of the others, “this one’s still gurgling if you want to try to ask him something.”
She paused. “Never mind.”
I stood there. We’d been back maybe an hour and we were already killing people. I looked over at the others and nobody seemed to be having the same problem that I was. Yumi stepped over one of the bodies and moved toward the elevator. Tim had already started prying the doors the rest of the way open.
“Are we not going to talk about this?” I said.
Tanya stepped in front of me.
“No,” she said. “We’re not.”
“Tanya, they were—”
“They were what, Gavin? Human?” She shook her head. “They lost that the second they decided to side with whatever came here and did this.”
She took a step closer, dropping her voice.
“Our parents are in this building. Your father. My little sister.” Something sharp crossed her face as she said it. “And these bastards were standing right there, bragging about cutting off the air and letting them all die.”
She turned on me, her eyes blazing.
“We are not in college anymore, Gavin. We’re soldiers. Earth’s champions, God, I hate that word, but that’s what we are. And we’re at war. So no, I don’t feel bad about killing these—”
Erica kicked the dead soldier in front of us with her boot, and her face twisted in contempt.
“Kobolkai,” she spat.
Tanya looked at the body for a second, then back at me.
“That’s exactly what they are.” She held my gaze. “So snap out of it. We need you. And so does your family.”
“This can’t be happening,” I said, panic creeping in as I searched the body for insignia, anything that might tell us who or what these men were.
A hand settled on my shoulder. I looked up to see ARi kneeling beside me.
“Gavin, this ‘is’ happening,” she said. “Your family could still be alive, and we need to find them.”
“Fuck,” I stood and began pacing the corridor.
Tim finally forced the door open on the elevator as Yumi stepped in.
“You know,” she said, “a really nice Marine once gave me a lesson about these elevators. Did you know this thing can survive a nuclear war?”
Tim smiled. “We got the same lesson the first time we had to use it. I hope that guy’s OK.”
I took a breath, steadying myself, and turned in time to see ARi lift her hand and phase two of the bodies out of the corridor.
Kyle walked up and stood beside me. “You’re not the only one struggling with this, Gav. I promise.” He shook his head in amazement as ARi phased the last of the bodies. I could tell by the way he was looking at her that he wasn’t just talking about the soldiers we had just killed.
“Gavin,” ARi said, turning back toward me, “one of them was carrying another one of those tablets. This one’s intact.” She turned it over in her hand, studying it. “I can’t read the language, but the technology is similar to what we saw inside the Ascendancy.”
She passed it to Kyle.
He turned it over a couple of times, then looked up. “I think it’s safe to say we’re dealing with whoever attacked Earth. There’s no guarantee they’re one of the races competing on Adaeya, but they’ve been here, and they were here before the tournament even started.” His voice trailed off.
“Then as long as they’re not getting external assistance, they’re going to get away with interfering,” I said. “Just like they did with the Kobolkai on Adaeya.”
“The hell they are,” Yumi said as we climbed into the elevator.
Tim yanked the mechanical lever, and the car started its slow crawl upward.
“Gavin, how are your reserves?” ARi asked.
“Better than when we came out of the cradle,” I said. “But not by much.”
She nodded slowly. “You’ve had maybe an hour. Your energy reserves have started recovering, but your stamina is still low.” She looked at me. “I don’t want you to spawn a control node, not until you’ve had more time to recover.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“I know you,” she said. “You were thinking about it.”
I didn’t argue.
“If you push into your stamina right now and something hits us hard before we reach the lab, you’re going to be a liability instead of an asset. We have two full squads of Wraiths and they’ve handled everything so far, so let them keep doing it. When your reserves are full and your stamina has had time to come back, then we talk about a control node. OK?”
“Okay,” I said. “I hear you.”
I looked around at the group as we rode up in the dark. “When we hit the floor, we don’t know what’s waiting. Yumi, I want your drones out front. Wraiths phase into the walls and clear adjacent rooms as we move toward the lab.” I paused. “And remember, we need a prisoner.”
The elevator shuddered to a stop and Tim pulled the doors open, and Wraiths the dissolved into the walls without a word. Maddie and Erica stayed close to ARi as Yumi’s drones spread out ahead of us, casting their soft blue light down the corridor.
We moved slowly, room by room, the Wraiths phasing in and out of the walls on either side as we pushed forward.
“Those guys downstairs mentioned motion sensors,” Kyle said, keeping his voice low as we moved. “There’s a good chance they’ve got some on this level too.”
ARi stopped for a moment looking back at the elevator. She walked up and pressed her hand briefly against the wall beside her, and a section of the corridor above us groaned softly as stone filled the shaft. “I’ve already taken care of the elevator shaft above us. Can you seal the emergency hatch at the far end of the corridor, Kyle? That should keep us from having any visitors, at least for a little while.”
Kyle nodded and peeled off toward the far end of the corridor.
The Wraiths finished clearing the last of the adjacent rooms and fell back into formation around us as we reached the main laboratory doors. ARi stopped in front of them and stood there for a moment.
“Gavin,” she said quietly, “I never imagined I’d be alive, standing here, walking through these doors.”
She took a deep breath, gathered herself for a moment, and pushed the double doors open.
Inside, we found a massacre.
The smell hit us like a wall. Rotten and sweet and sulfurous, thick enough that you could feel it in your lungs the second you breathed it in. Tangible, like you could chew it. We all stumbled back from the doorway. But the horror of what was inside that room followed us out into the corridor.
I had both hands pressed hard over my nose and mouth, and my eyes were watering. I could hear someone retching and getting sick behind me, and I came close to losing it myself.
ARi had taken the worst of it. She’d been the one to push the doors open. She stood with her back against the corridor wall, eyes closed for a long moment. When they opened, we could see her resolve as she walked back across and through those doors.
We watched as she moved through the room, steady and unhurried. Section by section, the smell began to ease as she worked her way from one end of the lab to the other. When she finally came back out, the room behind her was empty except for the debris and broken glass that still lay scattered across the floor. Her tears fell freely from her face, leaving tracks in the dust.
“ARi, were any of them—”
“No,” she said as her knees went weak. I caught her and helped her down to the floor. “The Henry wasn’t here. No one in this room was family.” She stopped. “But these people were my friends, Gavin. Some of them helped create me.”
She looked back toward the open doors.
“They were innocent. Every one of them.”
When she looked back up, the tears were gone. What was behind her eyes now was something else entirely.
“When I find the people who did this,” she said, “they won’t leave this place alive.”