Truth Engine

Dylan almost spit, he was so surprised by the demand. “Surely you can’t be serious, Kane. Look around you. Look at what you’ve been reduced to, you and your people. You’ve lost. You’re lucky that he even kept you alive.”

Kane held the man’s gaze as he spoke. “You and your boss’s little army surrender now,” he snarled, “and I’ll go easy on you.”

Dylan sniggered. “You’re a fool, Kane. A blind fool. You cannot stop the future from happen—”

Kane struck suddenly, swinging his arm forward and punching the man in the face with his balled fist, forty-eight hours of frustration and rage finding primitive release in that one blow. He staggered a step backward in surprise and Kane was on him in that instant, swinging his other fist at Dylan’s face even as the first priest of the New Order tried to fend off the blows.

Rosalia, the woman who had entered with Dylan, moved then, taking two swift paces forward before high kicking Kane in the face with professional detachment. The blow knocked the ex-Magistrate back against the wall, and Kane felt his head spin with nausea as the rusty taste of blood filled his mouth.

Behind the woman, somewhere close to the open door, the dog yipped before assuming a low growling, clearly irritated.

When Kane looked up, he saw the dark hair of Rosalia as she pressed her face close to his. “Don’t be a fool, Magistrate man,” she hissed.

It was good advice, Kane knew. He was weak from lack of food, and his body was still recovering from some battle he could not fully recall. Or perhaps he could. The name Ullikummis had triggered something in his memory, and he was just beginning to remember what had happened in Cerberus’s main corridor.

Kane discarded the nagging memory for the moment, struggling to stay on his feet as he leaned against the rough wall.

Dylan stepped close to him, standing over him but not bothering to strike him. “You will learn the error of your ways in time,” he said, “and you will come to embrace the New Order. The Life Camp is calling you, Kane. You cannot begin to imagine how the world has altered, how different it is becoming.”

The priest turned and paced toward Rosalia, who waited at the doorway, her dark eyes fixed on Kane’s pitiful figure as he slumped against the wall, gingerly fingering his lip, which dripped with blood.

“The world is changing,” Dylan said yet again as he stepped through the door. “Your time—the age of Cerberus—is over.”

Then he was gone, and Rosalia followed him, the dog trotting along at her heels. Kane watched as the strange stone doorway slid back into place, the magma glow of the space beyond obscured by a rock wall. Once more, Kane was locked in a cell with no exit.

“First priest, huh?” he muttered as he wiped at the blood that trickled from his mouth. “Didn’t I know you when you were just the understudy, you self-important prick?”

Chapter 6

Grant hunkered down in the shadows of the tunnel as the silvery elevator doors in the rock wall slid apart just a few feet from him.

Striding from the elevator, much to his surprise, was the familiar form of Edwards, an ex-Magistrate like Grant himself, and a member of the Cerberus outfit. Edwards was tall and broad shouldered, with hair cropped so close to his scalp he appeared almost bald. His lack of hair left his ugly, bullet-bitten right ear on show. Like the other people Grant had seen here, Edwards was disguised in a dark fustian robe, its hood pushed back from his head as he scratched his ruined ear. Grant was relieved to see a friendly face, and he realized immediately that the ex-Magistrate must have had the same idea as him—disguising himself in one of the enemy’s robes so that he could scope out this prison. The thought struck Grant that maybe Edwards was part of a larger rescue party, and he waited for a moment to see if anyone else would emerge from the elevator cage. No such luck.

Or maybe Edwards had come with Grant, whose memory was so scrambled it was hard to recall how he had come to find himself in that cell. Maybe they had infiltrated together and Grant had been captured. Maybe his long-trusted partner, Kane, was somewhere nearby, too.

Grant watched as Edwards reached for the hood of his robe, pulling it down over his face.

“Edwards,” he whispered, stepping out of the shadows to reveal himself to his Cerberus ally.

Edwards turned to look at him, his face an emotionless mask.

“Man, am I glad to see you,” Grant continued, as he took a step forward, keeping his voice low. “I guess they caught us both, huh?”

With the speed of a flinch, Edwards’s right arm snapped out, his fist clenched. Surprised, Grant tried to avoid the blow, but he was too slow. With the solidity of stone, Edwards struck him across the left cheek, sending him lurching against the nearest wall.

“Whoa, whoa! Cool your jets, man,” Grant cried. “It’s me—Grant. I ain’t one of them.”

Edwards’s blue eyes focused on him, and his brows knitted in an angry scowl. “Yes, you are,” he replied, following his first punch with a vicious left cross.

Grant was so surprised, he didn’t have time to avoid that blow, either, and he grunted as Edwards’s knuckles rapped the side of his face, knocking him even farther backward. Grant stumbled as he tried to stay upright.

Edwards’s hood fell back from his face, and before Grant could protest, the shaven-headed figure drove another punch at his skull. Grant deflected it with a grunt, batting the swinging fist away with his outstretched hand.

“Edwards!” Grant cried as the fierce ex-Mag came at him with a savage right jab. “It’s not a trick. It’s me. They had me in a cell but…”

Edwards wasn’t listening, Grant realized. Not exactly renowned for his even temper even in the best of circumstances, his teammate had built up a head of fury now, and was coming at him with the relentlessness of a thunderstorm, driving punch after punch at his face and torso, years of Magistrate training making his body a lethal weapon. Grant held up his left arm, blocking Edwards’s latest blow and turning it against him, making his fist snap back and cuff himself across the nose. Edwards ignored it.

Grant leaped backward, putting a few feet between them. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but you keep up this ruckus and we’re going to get ourselves caught and tossed back in our cells.”

Edwards dipped his head, and for a moment Grant thought he was acknowledging the point he had just made. But no—he suddenly charged again, his boots slapping against the rocky floor. The tunnel was too narrow, Grant realized; he had no chance to step out of this maniac’s way. Even as that fact sank in, Edwards’s shoulder was slamming against his ribs, forcing Grant to give ground. There was nothing for it, he knew. Edwards was out of control, and he would have to fight back, restrain him if the man was to see sense.

They had fought before, when Edwards had been under the influence of the faux god Ullikummis. Grant recalled how Edwards had been singular in his purpose then, too, when Grant had infiltrated Tenth City with Kane and Domi to rescue Edwards’s scouting party. As Brigid had explained it, the architecture of the metropolis had been designed to grip the inhabitants’ minds in stasis, forcing them to do the bidding of Lord Ullikummis. It had been a subtle and strange form of brain control, and the implication that it had been employed across the globe and was inherent in the design of every city ever built by man was worrying, to say the least. But like so much that the Cerberus warriors had encountered since Ullikummis had returned to Earth, the implication remained unexplored while other problems commanded their attention.

Grant stumbled backward once again, almost toppling over one of the strange ridges that broke up the tunnels. He stepped up onto it before kicking out with his other foot, slamming the charging Edwards across his breastbone. His old colleague staggered back, his arms wind-milling as he fought to keep his balance.

As he stepped down from the low stone wall, Grant heard other sounds coming from the tunnel at his back, the noise of hurried footsteps as prison guards were alerted and rushed to grab their escapees. If he hadn’t been sure before now, Grant knew at that moment that he needed to stop this insanity or dispatch Edwards quickly and come back for him later.

“Just listen to me for a moment,” he urged. “Try to think. They have a mat-trans. I saw it. If we work together we can—”

But Edwards didn’t seem to be listening. He had stepped back slightly, and Grant noted how he was lowering his center of gravity in preparation for delivering a nasty double kick. A moment later, Edwards’s right leg swung forward, slamming hard into the cartilage at the back of Grant’s knee before sweeping up to connect with his face. Grant held his position as the first blow struck, not quite placed to pop his kneecap, though Grant knew he had to put that down to luck. He was more concerned by the second blow, anticipating it and deflecting it with both hands.

Edwards’s foot came back down to the floor, but he was already spinning, driving his left knee upward toward Grant’s groin. Grant stepped aside and his opponent’s knee missed him by the smallest of margins.

Then he saw the opening in Edwards’s defense, and he grabbed the material of the man’s tunic in his left hand even as his right fist powered out, striking him across the cheek. Grant cried out as his fist connected, for it felt as if he was striking a solid wall.

“What the hell?” Grant spit as he followed up with his right fist again, swinging it in a powerful cross.

Edwards took the blow to the side of his face without even blinking, the whites of his eyes flashing red in the dim magma glow of the inset lights.

Grant glanced back down the tunnel, saw the approaching forms of the three guards he had dispatched outside his cell. “Dammit, Edwards,” he said, turning back to his old colleague, “there’s no time for this shit. You have to trust me or we’ll both end up dead.”

“Don’t you get it yet?” Edwards snarled in response, his leg kicking upward at Grant’s face. “Haven’t you figured out where you are?”

Grant dropped low as Edwards’s foot brushed past his jaw, kicking out his own foot in a sweep designed to knock Edwards’s legs from under him. The blow struck hard, and Edwards sagged against the far wall of the tunnel, collapsing to his knees with a grunt of pain.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Grant growled at the ex-Mag, leaping toward Edwards’s toppling form, his fists bunched.

“Look around you,” Edwards growled, indicating the rough walls and the flickering volcanic lights. “You’re in hell now, Grant. And you’re here to stay.”

Grant stopped short, his fist poised to strike Edwards in his wickedly grinning mouth.

The man took advantage of his momentary hesitation, driving his foot up across his foe’s jaw, knocking him backward. Grant cried out as he rolled away, tumbling across the rough tunnel floor beneath the glowing embers of the magma lights. His mind was racing, trying to piece together what Edwards had just told him. Could it possibly be true? Wasn’t hell just some crazy old myth, like all the others he and Kane and Brigid had exposed across the globe? Another primitive belief based on nothing more than ignorance and superstition?

From behind, the three people Grant had come to think of as prison guards hurried toward his fallen form, their feet clattering on the hard floor. The lead figure was pointing at him, his finger jabbing the air.

“Stop him!” he called.

Standing over Grant’s sprawled form, Edwards smiled, his teeth glinting orange in the eerie glow of the volcanic lights. “Already ahead of you,” he assured the prison guards. “This little puke ain’t gonna cause us no more trouble.”