Berserker (Messenger Book 2) Page 40

  “Omega,” Celeste exclaimed. “You mean he attacked you?”

  Hector shook his head. “No, I started it. I was the one who attacked first.”

  “What? Why?”

  Hector gave a rueful smile. “What was the phrase you used? 'Macho ego trip'?” He coughed, and a fresh stream of blood flowed out of his mouth.

  “Don't talk.” Celeste prepared an injection of stasis solution to induce a state of artificial suspension. If she could reduce Hector's metabolic rate, he might last long enough to receive proper medical treatment.

  “Our conversation in the Sunderland got me thinking,” Hector choked. “Your dream, to be a true warrior again. I guess it rubbed off on me. I wanted to prove I was the best, and the only way to do that was to defeat the reigning champion. But I guess the joke's on me. Looks like that kid is humanity's greatest warrior, after all. He's more of a monster than those things could ever hope to be.”

  “I told you not to talk.” Celeste grabbed Hector's arm and prepared to inject him.

  “At least with him on the job, Chalice will be safe.” Hector let out a shuddering sigh. “Not that I really give a shit anymore. Goodbye, sweetheart. Remember the man named Hector One-Eye, and know that he lived and died a warrior.”

  His eye glazed over, and he went limp. Celeste dropped the syringe. There wasn't much use trying to lower his metabolic rate now.

  “Died a warrior?” she whispered. “What kind of bad joke is that? You betrayed an ally and died a pointless death, Hector One-Eye. In the end, you didn't prove anything.”

  She gathered her medical supplies, stood up, and drew her sidearm again. Before she left, she cast one last pitying glance at Hector.

  “But I'll remember you,” she said. “As yet another victim twisted by the Union's cruelty. I'll remember you, and pray that someday we can put an end to these pointless sacrifices.”

  Then she turned away and, without a backward glance, ran deeper into the complex.

  *

  Once Omega penetrated to the inner spire, signs on the wall pointed the way to various facilities. He decided to head for the facility labeled “Dispersal Capsule Preparation Chamber.” From there, it was just a matter of following the signs. Within a matter of minutes, he arrived at the core. He took position next to the door leading to the central area and leaned out to peer around the corner.

  “What the...” he whispered.

  The chamber was enormous, with a domed ceiling far overhead and catwalks that crisscrossed over a precipitous drop, where enormous storage silos lay far below. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the thing floating in the center of the chamber.

  It was an orb of energy, crackling with crimson lightning. Something hung inside of it. At first Omega couldn't make it out, but upon closer inspection he realized it was a woman, hanging upside down, curled into a ball. Some kind of rod was slowly revolving around the orb. A foul miasma seemed to emanate from the orb, filling the chamber, rejecting Omega's very existence.

  None of Omega's training or experience had prepared him for this. He had no idea whether that thing was hostile, what its capabilities were, or even what it was. He didn't know what kind of countermeasures he could take against it. But he did know one thing. The capsule launch had to be stopped, and this was the place to do it.

  He entered the chamber.

  A control console lay far to his right. Without taking his eyes off the crackling orb, he followed the catwalk around the edge of the chamber, circling toward the console. He only made it about ten steps when an arc of lightning erupted from the revolving staff and sliced through the catwalk in front of him, dropping it to the distant floor below. He leapt back and took aim at the orb.

  “Can you hear me?” he shouted, his voice echoing in the vast space. “I will take that as a hostile action. I don't know what kind of weapon you're using, but disarm it and place your hands above your head. This is your only warning.”

  There was no response. This was not the time for kid gloves. It was a long shot with a handgun, but Omega had faith in his accuracy. He carefully lined up the orb in his sights and squeezed off several shots.

  The bullets disappeared with flashes of light before they could strike the orb. Dumbfounded, Omega fired one more shot, with the same result.

  Whatever it was, it had some kind of shield, he realized. And a deadly lightning weapon. This was too much for him to handle alone. He would have to withdraw to comm range, inform his allies of the situation, and return with reinforcements.

  As he started back for the exit, another bolt of lightning lashed out from the staff. This one did not hit the catwalk, but struck Omega directly. He dropped to his knees, stunned, when the atmosphere around him grew hotter and he felt himself being lifted into the air. The invisible force drew him away from the catwalk and turned him toward the orb, which still contained the dark silhouette of a woman curled up inside. He thought he saw something shimmering in the air around the woman. A shape, like an enormous face. An inhuman face, twisted in hatred.

  “What,” he gasped, “what are you?”

  “Death,” something answered in his mind.

  Strangely, Omega felt no fear. No regret that he wouldn't be able to complete his mission. Even the fate of Chalice and its people faded from his mind. He felt only exhaustion.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “Maybe now, at last, I won't have to kill anymore.”

  A final surge of lightning arced from the staff, flooding him with so much energy that his heart stopped. Then the invisible force dropped his body into the silos below.

  Thirty-third Escalation

  paradise; I can no longer return

  Vic and Astral managed to push their way through the increasingly malevolent atmosphere and follow the signs to the processor core. They took position to either side of the door and peered around the corners into the ominous chamber beyond, then quickly pulled back and stared at each other in alarm.

  “This is obviously where to stop the launch,” Astral said. “But it's being guarded by Scathe. That person in the orb is serving as its vessel. It must be one of the Xenolists' Synegers.”

  “That almost looks like...” Vic trailed off. “What can we do? Can you protect us from it?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “It's far more powerful now than when it possessed Falsrain. But I can try.”

  “Do you think it would help to come back with reinforcements?”

  Astral shook her head. “I think it's beyond something that can be overcome with physical force. Besides, we're running out of time.”

  Vic took a moment to steel himself. “OK then, it's all or nothing. Let's do this.”

  They entered the chamber side by side and headed straight for the orb floating in the center. There was barely enough room on the catwalk for the two of them to walk abreast. Vic kept his gun trained on the orb, mostly as a psychological placebo since he didn't expect it to be of any use.

  As they drew nearer to the orb, Vic faltered and he dropped his aim a few centimeters. “It is,” he gasped. “My god, Janice, what have they done to you?”

  Janice's third eye fixed on Astral, glowing with malevolent green energy. A crimson bolt arced from her staff. The bolt was drawn to Astral's MINDs, saving Vic and Astral from the brunt of the blast, but it still knocked them backward. Astral shrieked in fear and surprise.

  “Janice,” Vic cried. “Janice, stop! What you're doing will destroy everything. Is that what you want?”

  A hideous face flickered in the air around Janice. “Yes,” its voice reverberated in Vic's mind. “That is what I want.”

  “No,” Vic shouted. “That's not you talking, it's the Voice. Fight it, Janice! Don't let it control you like this!”

  Another blast of lightning exploded from the staff, danced around Vic and Astral in a circle, and was again absorbed by Astral's MINDs. They flinched, but held their ground. The inhuman face continued flickering around Janice.

  “Return all to nothing
ness,” the Voice said. “This world is hopelessly corrupted. Erasing everything is the only recourse.”

  “Those are the words of a coward,” Vic said. “Janice, I know you're not a coward. You're stronger than this pathetic thing that's taken you over. You can overcome it.”

  Scarlet lightning arced all through the chamber, coursing through metal surfaces and sending sparks flying. One of the bolts lanced toward Vic and Astral and was once again absorbed by Astral's MINDs.

  Haltingly, with an excruciating effort of will, Janice's two normal eyes fluttered partway open. They turned to look at Vic, their irises shining with emerald light.

  “Vic,” Janice croaked, her broken voice barely audible. “H—help me.” She reached one hand out to the edge of the orb holding her prisoner.

  “All right, Janice.” Vic holstered his sidearm. “I'm coming. Just hang on.”

  He walked, slowly but purposefully, toward Janice. When he had drawn within a few steps, a shock wave of expanding air erupted from her, throwing him to the floor. He nearly slid between two rails and off the catwalk, only stopping himself by grabbing one of the rails.

  “Vic,” Astral exclaimed.

  Several bolts of lightning exploded from the staff, heading straight for Vic; then veered off course and flooded into Astral's MINDs, which cracked and sputtered from the strain. One of the MINDs nearly fell, and its bobbing motion grew erratic. Astral's expression hardened in determination and she ran at Janice. The staff flew at her and swung to knock her over the railing. She intercepted the staff with her MINDs, knocking it aside, then leapt forward and reached out one hand, brushing the tips of Janice's fingers.

  The Messengers' minds connected.

  *

  Janice was watching a little girl. She was a bright and cheerful girl, eager to please others; and talented, too. She tended to brush off her studies, getting by with mediocre marks, but she had a lot of friends and she excelled at many extracurricular activities. Piano, singing, musical composition, acting, dancing; she was good at them all. As she got older, she won the starring role in a school play. She even composed the music, wrote the lyrics, and performed the main theme song. Her performance brought the house down. Her path in life was obvious. She was an entertainer.

  But the idyllic scene gradually took on a dark turn. The girl's relationships were only superficial; most of her friends only associated with her for the benefits that having a popular acquaintance brought them. Her good looks and popularity earned her many enemies, who spread foul rumors about her and played vicious pranks. She was harassed by selfish, hormonal boys who only wanted to exploit her beauty and charm for their own gratification.

  The escalation of betrayals culminated in spurned would-be lovers allying with jealous rivals to spread rumors that the girl was a slut who would sleep with anyone for a little attention. It wasn't true, but they used image editing software to craft pictures of the girl performing deviant sexual exploits and posted them everywhere. Everyone began to shun her, even her supposed friends, who turned on her in an instant when it became socially expedient.

  The girl turned to the adult figures in her life for support, but they had seen the pictures and they believed the rumors. They treated her with derision, telling her that this was what happened when you started wasting your time with worthless diversions. They told her to stop acting like a tramp and think about doing something useful with her life. The girl began to wonder if she had a single true friend in the world.

  “You don't,” Janice whispered to her. “You're alone, just like I am.”

  It soon became clear that the bright beginning to the story had been an illusion. Every pretty facade had an ugly underside; every source of light cast a deep shadow. The girl's desire to please others only brought resentment, envy, and contempt. She grew increasingly coarse and disillusioned as she came to realize that behind every smile was a desire to exploit her for its own ends; behind every fawning admirer was a spreader of lies and gossip.

  This is people's true nature, she realized. How very ugly it is.

  She even began to see her own works, which she had hoped to turn into beautiful art, as nothing more than vapid tripe. She reflected the hatred of those around her and turned it inward upon herself, where it multiplied before spreading back out into her environment.

  Finally, unable to hold it in any longer, the girl began to lash out. She broke her piano, burned her books of lyrics and musical compositions. She derided her friends, mocked her teachers, disrupted her classes, and found ways to publicly humiliate her enemies. She became a menace, tearing down the foundations that supported her own life. But at least she was striking back. That was all that mattered to her now, even as it made her more miserable.

  Janice watched in sorrow. This is the real tragedy, she thought. That same darkness that you despise in others lurks in you, too. You're no better than any of them. Yet despite this understanding, she sympathized with the girl's plight.

  An invisible presence materialized on Janice's left. “Help her,” it hissed into her ear. “I have given you the means. Strike out and destroy, once and for all, this world that corrupts even the purest intentions into this filth.”

  Janice looked down at the sword that had appeared in her hand. She hesitated. What right did she have to carry out such a sentence? And yet, the scene unfolding before her was a worthless story, after all. Better to destroy it and have nothing than to continue witnessing such misery. She raised her hand to strike.

  Someone grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

  Angered, Janice wheeled to her right, glaring at the presence who had dared to interfere. She saw a pale young woman with three eyes, looking at her with compassion.

  The girl shook her head. “You know this isn't right.” She turned to the tragic scene before them. “This girl is in the wrong. Look at what she's allowed herself to become.” She turned back to Janice. “Janice, you have to stop her.”

  “And let this miserable scene go on?” the Voice on her left said. “You would punish the victim and allow the tormentors to continue unopposed?”

  “The story isn't over,” the pale girl countered. “It only ends here if you end it. Is this the conclusion you want? That girl can still reclaim the light that once shone within her, but only if someone checks her now, before she falls completely.”

  “It's already too late,” the Voice said. “Only you can end this torment.”

  “It's not too late,” the pale girl said. “Only you can free her.”

  Janice's limbs trembled from the intensity of her conflict. Finally, she let out a cry of anguish, threw down her sword, ran into the scene, and slapped the girl across the face.

  “Enough already,” she screamed. “Stop being such a damn baby, you pathetic whiner!”

  The scene cracked. The cracks multiplied until, like a glass facade, the entire world shattered. As the crumbling fragments fell, they revealed another reality behind the veil. Here, everything was cloaked in darkness. A fetid mist hung over the ground. Dark fluid rained from the sky, which was empty save for the giant, leering face of Saris, watching everything. Rivers of blood flowed over the girl's feet. Janice followed the rivers to their sources and discovered that they were pouring out of mutilated corpses, their faces frozen in howls of agony. They were the bodies of people who the girl had victimized in her fits of rage. Janice spun around to confront the girl.

  “What have you done—”

  She recoiled in horror. The girl had hideously changed. No longer a beautiful young woman, she had transformed into a faceless demon, with glistening scales for flesh and enormous, tattered black wings that flared out behind her. Its fingers ended in long, vicious claws that dripped with blood. As she stared at the apparition, Janice was pulled forward and merged with it. They were one and the same.

  The invisible presence from earlier materialized again, undulating all around Janice. “This is what you have wrought, Janice Runner,” the Voice crowed. “Behold the fruits of your
own weakness and descent into darkness.”

  Janice buried her face in her hideous, bloodied hands and cried out in despair.

  “The queen of the maggots,” the Voice exalted. “Do you realize now, there is no turning back. You have made your choice, and now the time has come to see it through.”

  Janice writhed in agony as an excruciating mental assault bombarded her from all sides. It brought out her horror at what she had done and amplified it a hundredfold, pushing her to the brink of madness, so that the tiny sliver of consciousness that remained desired nothing more than to end the agony. Chains materialized out of the darkness, binding her arms and legs.

  “End it,” the Voice demanded. “Finish it!”

  If I give in, the pain will end, Janice realized. All I have to do is capitulate. But... She hesitated. Then it really will be over.

  As she vacillated, a light appeared out of the darkness. It was the silhouette of the pale girl from before, bathed in light, her three red eyes shining. The girl hovered before Janice and reached out to her.

  “Take my hand,” she cried. “This is your last chance. Scathe has unleashed its full fury on you. If you fall here, you fall forever.”

  With one last, wrenching cry, Janice shattered the chains binding her and lunged for the light. She grasped for the girl's hand, missed. Then the girl grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a tight embrace, and everything dissolved into blinding light.

  *

  Astral dropped onto the catwalk beneath Janice and fell to her hands and knees, panting. Her MINDs went dark and fell next to her with a clang. She could barely maintain consciousness, she was so spent.

  There was a huge rush of air as the miasma that filled the chamber was sucked back into the crackling orb, and the harsh glow of the crimson energy faded to a gentle blue. Janice's eyes came the rest of the way open, and she slowly turned over into an upright position, then dropped lightly to the catwalk as the orb holding her prisoner disappeared with a crack. She held one arm over her head, and her staff leapt into her waiting hand. It glowed with azure light that cast radiant shafts into the silos of Messenger spores below. The glow passed on to the spores, which rose slowly into the air, glittering like millions of tiny fireflies before fading into nothingness.