Survival Aptitude Test: Fury (The Extinction Odyssey Book 2) Page 5

  The antechamber slowed. Daoren settled onto the floor. The Jiren’s sandals stopped six inches short. The wireglass wrappings tightened around his neck. His legs jerked.

  The antechamber stopped. The Jiren gagged, legs thrashing.

  The gagging and thrashing ceased. The double-doors opened.

  Daoren snatched the sonic rifle off the floor and burst out of the antechamber. “The Jireni are coming!” he said. “Hundreds of them!”

  Three sets of stunned eyes greeted him. Heqet’s incredulous gaze flicked between Daoren and the antechamber’s gore.

  “They’ll be upon us at any second!” he said. “Is there another way out of here?”

  Laoshi snapped back to life. “Yes! Three tunnels used for clearing rock during the excavation.” He pointed at three different arches in the ruins of the ancient Colosseum. “Through there, there, and—”

  Jireni poured through the third arch at the southernmost end of the Void. A few slowed and halted, no doubt awestruck by the foreign artifacts covering the glass tables. Most raced forward without hesitation, fanning out with their weapons raised.

  Daoren hoisted the sonic rifle to his shoulder. “Down! Down! Down!”

  Deafening sound pulses streaked from the rifle’s bowl-shaped muzzle. Concussive contrails traced their flightpaths over the tables.

  The pulses tore into the leading wave of Jireni, rending flesh from bone. Those in the rear took cover and released their own torrents of sound pulses and glass darts.

  Daoren hunched behind a table. Projectiles pulverized its artifacts, showering him with debris. He glanced to the side.

  Heqet and Cordelia hugged the floor. Laoshi stood before a table in full view of the Jireni. He crammed an object into his satchel, seemingly oblivious to the lethal missiles streaking past him.

  “Laoshi!” Daoren said. “Get down!”

  Laoshi snatched the ancient violin off the table and dropped to the floor. He covered the women—and the violin—with his body.

  Daoren lifted the sonic rifle over the table and blind-fired another volley. Screams signaled the demise of more Jireni. He lowered the rifle. “We have to move before they flank us!”

  Laoshi pointed. “The closest shaft is beyond that arch!”

  The decrepit arch was at least eighty feet away on the west side of the Void. Glass tables provided cover for only half the distance.

  Daoren shifted sideways, popping up to fire every five feet. Darts and sound pulses hissed by his ears. He squeezed off another burst and kneeled beside Heqet. “Can you crawl?”

  “If it takes me out of here, I can run!”

  “Let’s go!”

  They crawled toward the arch, shielded by the tables. Daoren rose, scanning for targets.

  An Indonoid Jiren sprang to her feet behind a table twenty feet away. She aimed her sonic rifle.

  Daoren put three sound pulses into her chest.

  The Jiren staggered backward. She collapsed over a table, firing the rifle in her death throes.

  Its sound pulses arced into the ceiling, cleaving away chunks of rock. They plummeted to the floor and fractured. Rocky shrapnel raked the tables, shattering more artifacts.

  Daoren ducked and rejoined the others. They reached the final table on their hands and knees.

  He eyed the forty feet of open space beyond it—a classic cull zone. “Get to the arch as fast as you can. I’ll stay here to give you cover—”

  A Jiren poked his helmeted head around the end of the table, next to Laoshi. He grabbed Laoshi’s satchel and tugged, upending it. Grooll spilled to the floor. A glass scroll tumbled out and rolled under the table.

  Daoren snap-aimed his rifle, but Laoshi’s struggling form blocked the target. He shifted to the side to get a clear shot.

  Laoshi yanked off the Jiren’s helmet and smashed the violin over his head. The brute groaned and collapsed.

  Laoshi rocked backward onto his haunches. He gaped at the ruined instrument like he’d lost his dearest friend. “Sapient Sha forgive me!”

  Daoren grabbed Laoshi’s lanshan and shook his arm; this was no time to cry over smashed artifacts. “Are you ready?”

  Laoshi nodded. Heqet and Cordelia crouched, ready to make their dash. Daoren jumped to his feet and loosed a barrage of sound pulses.

  Jireni in the open dove for cover. Those under cover kept their heads down.

  “Go! Go! Go!”

  Laoshi and the others raced across the cull zone. Daoren trained the rifle upward.

  Its sound pulses riddled the ceiling above the densest concentration of Jireni. Rock slabs calved away with a chain of booming reports.

  The rifle powered off with a weary hum. Daoren tossed it aside and sprinted into the open. To his left, tons of rock avalanched onto the floor.

  He reached the arch an instant before choking dust blotted its opening.

  PYROS DISMOUNTED HIS levideck.

  The transit from the southern entrance had taken fifteen minutes. Each mile had carried him closer to the Temple, and farther away from the Primae Jiren he’d hoped to be when he was sworn in by the Unum. The late hour had one advantage; virtually no one was present on the tiled pathways to witness his shameful journey. A few paces from his levideck, however, he realized his anonymity was over.

  Commander Cang had transported the Unum, Julinian, and Narses on her larger craft, arriving minutes earlier. They huddled fifty feet from the Temple’s mirrored windows. Three armored levidecks of the advance party rested on the tiled pathway before the single door.

  The Unum’s personal guard formed a perimeter around the structure, monitoring the crowd gathering in the shadows. The Libraria hurled profanities and insults, no doubt incensed to see Jireni within the Librarium’s grounds.

  Pyros couldn’t fault them for their rage. Hundreds of years of independence had been fractured in the space of fifteen minutes. He joined Cang and the others. Cang spoke first. “The assault team has initiated the breach, sire.”

  “When?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “Shall we go inside?” Narses asked, motioning to the Temple.

  “We should tarry out here until the assault team reports their capture,” Pyros said.

  “You mean their culling, don’t you?” Julinian asked.

  “Capture, culling,” Pyros said, masking his annoyance. “Regardless of the outcome, we should tarry here until the operation is over.”

  The Unum snorted. “A few hundred Jireni must have dealt with a boy, an old man, and two women by now.”

  Pyros didn’t share the Unum’s confidence. Laoshi and Cordelia had evaded the gauntlet at the Center. Daoren and Heqet had escaped the grooll mill. These were resourceful people. They could—

  A low-frequency rumble rolled through the night air.

  Pyros rotated in place, trying to pinpoint the source. The rumble translated into motion—sporadic undulations jounced the soles of his feet.

  “Do you feel that?” Cang asked.

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth when the motion’s period and amplitude exponentially increased. Cries of alarm arose from the Libraria and Jireni.

  Pyros lurched sideways. He spread his arms to keep his balance.

  “What is it?” Narses asked, voice an octave higher than normal. “An earthquake?”

  The Temple’s windows cracked and blew out, spraying mirrored glass. The ground slumped toward the structure. The armored levidecks toppled and skidded across buckling tiles.

  “Back!” Pyros said. “Everyone get back!”

  They fled from the crumbling structure. From a hundred feet away, they watched the Temple sink into the ground like a vessel going down at sea.

  5

  Thirty Seconds

  DAOREN INCHED UP the slope, one hand clutching the sleeve of Heqet’s pienfu, the other the waist belt of his mother’s shenyi. Laoshi led from the front, if leading was possible in a tunnel devoid of light.

  They’d ascended in single file from
the ruined Void as quickly as they could, but blindness hampered their progress. The tunnel’s slope had started at a relatively benign ten degrees, then abruptly reared to triple that for several minutes. Thankfully, the grade had reduced to a more tolerable fifteen degrees for the last fifteen minutes.

  Daoren had no idea how far they’d travelled; counting paces lost its accuracy over uneven terrain. And Laoshi’s experience as Primae Librarian was of no use in here; he’d never transited the excavation tunnels that had been used to clear rock from the subterranean void. The old Librarian had no insight into where it led . . . or what obstacles it might contain.

  Daoren half-expected to plunge off the edge of a cliff with every tentative step. He glanced over his shoulder, as he’d done every few minutes since racing out of the Void and rejoining the others. No light sources had appeared to the rear; a convincing sign that no Jireni had survived the collapsing roof to pursue them.

  “We must be close,” Laoshi said, voice leaching from the murk ahead. “I can smell fresh air.”

  “Thank Sha,” Cordelia said. “I’m starting to feel dizzy.”

  Abrasive dust particles still filled the tunnel; an aftereffect of the collapsed Void. It made every breath caustic, which in turn made every step a struggle against oxygen deprivation. The ascent had been especially hard on Heqet.

  She’d stopped several times to regain her strength. Daoren’s grip on her now was as much for guidance as support. Despite her weakened condition and the wretched environment, she never once voiced a complaint. He admired her stoicism.

  They groped up the slope for another five minutes before coming to an abrupt halt. “Why have we stopped?” Daoren asked.

  “We’ve run out of tunnel,” Laoshi said. “There must be an access door somewhere.”

  Daoren inched forward, hands raised before him. They butted against a cool vertical surface, as smooth as glass. It had to be crystalline or nullglass. He wiped his hands back and forth, feeling for a seam or a handle.

  “Here,” Cordelia said, lost to the gloom. “I can feel something here.”

  Daoren held his breath. A screech resonated to his left. A scraping sound followed, like bricks being dragged over sand. Footfalls echoed, seemingly emanating from beyond the tunnel’s terminus.

  Ten seconds later, muted light poured through a rectangular opening. Daoren squinted despite the weak luminance; thirty minutes in total darkness had dilated his pupils. He followed Heqet and Cordelia through the narrow doorway set in the opaque wall.

  The doorway led to an interior chamber. Its dank, dingy atmosphere reminded him of the storechamber housing the free denizens, though it occupied less than half the size. Dust-laden cabinets lined the perimeter of the windowless space. By appearance, they hadn’t been accessed in decades. Laoshi lingered before a muted-green light panel near the doorway.

  Heqet turned a slow circle behind him, blinking against the garish light. “What is this place?”

  “It probably housed circulation pumps to remove noxious gases from the excavation tunnel,” Laoshi said. “But that would have been a long time ago.”

  “Is there an exit?” Daoren asked.

  Laoshi shrugged. “There has to be.”

  The four of them spread out to search the exposed sections of walls among the cabinets. Cordelia made her second discovery of the night and signaled the find. Daoren, Heqet, and Laoshi joined her.

  The door’s width spanned less than two feet, it’s height barely four feet. Encrusted dust coated the circular handle set in its center. Laoshi examined the grime-coated walls on either side of the door, rubbing the filth away using his tunic’s sleeve. After a minute of effort, he sighed. “I don’t see a keypad.”

  “Why don’t you just try the handle?” Heqet asked, voice edged with impatience.

  Laoshi gripped the circular handle with both hands. It creaked in protest at the applied torque, then rotated freely. He chucklebucked. “That was easy.” He pointed at the opposite wall. “Could you dim the lights, Daoren? No telling what this will open into.”

  Daoren traversed the floor and swiped the light panel. The chamber plunged into near-total darkness.

  Laoshi tugged the door inward, keeping the movement slow and deliberate. It opened less than a inch. He peered through the crack.

  Daoren crossed the floor and lingered behind Laoshi with Heqet and Cordelia. The old Librarian remained silent. “Well?” Daoren asked, channeling Heqet’s impatience. “Where have we ended up?”

  “Only a few hundred feet from the Spires.” Laoshi glanced over his shoulder. A smile hiked his beard from his lanshan’s lapels. “I can see the utility shed.”

  “Any Jireni in sight?”

  “Not a single one.”

  Daoren released a whooshing breath. “Then we’ve no time to tarry.”

  DAOREN GUIDED THE levideck along the pathway, steering by intuition more than sight. Waning moonlight provided poor illumination, making it difficult to distinguish between the tiled pathway and the rougher sandstone of the Librarium’s grounds.

  He’d switched off the craft’s forelights and tuned its varinozzles to the lowest—and quietest—levitation setting to minimize the odds of detection. They’d diverted well north of the Temple to maximize the distance between them and their pursuers.

  A shudder rippled through his body—another seismic aftershock from battle in the Void. Free of the confining tunnel, his mind had been granted the space to process the evening’s unnerving events. Encountering Jireni on the way to the aerodrome had been a strong possibility, but not until they were outside the Librarium. The possibility of encountering them inside the Librarium hadn’t entered his head for a second.

  They’d underestimated the Unum’s desperation, never imagining he’d risk dissension among the Libraria by violating their most sacred edict. The misjudgment could have proven fatal. It should have proven fatal. If it wasn’t for Heqet’s poor condition sending him into the Temple, they’d have been trapped in the Void with little more than artifacts to fend off the assault. Despite Laoshi’s clubbing skill with the violin, none of them would have survived. They’d been lucky.

  Doubly lucky, in fact. The excavation tunnel’s lone exit had put them within five hundred feet of the Spires. In short order, they’d liberated two levidecks from the nearby utility shed.

  Heqet nestled beside him on the craft’s deck. Her hand hadn’t left his arm since they set out from the shed thirty minutes ago. Every so often it squeezed—six times in the past ten minutes by his count—likely to aid her balance. Its presence ruined his concentration, making it that much more difficult to drive.

  Laoshi and Cordelia rode five feet abeam of them on the second levideck, mere shadows in the gloom. The moderate pace permitted easy conversation, but they’d negated the levidecks’ speed advantage over walking by diverting so far north.

  “We’ll need to amend our route to the aerodrome,” Laoshi said. “Bypass the obvious checkpoints between here and there.”

  “You’re sure about the flight?” Daoren asked.

  “Positive.” Laoshi leaned to the side to check a dash-mounted screen. The shift in body position caused the levideck to veer off the path. “Sha’s silica teeth!”

  Cordelia muffled a cry with her hand, clutching a handrail to stay on her feet. “Do you want me to drive?”

  Laoshi stabilized the craft and regained the path. “It’s coming back to me.”

  A squeeze of Heqet’s hand hijacked Daoren’s attention. “Will we get there before daybreak?” she asked.

  “Not at this rate.” Daoren glanced at Laoshi. “Once we’re outside the grounds, we’ll need to find transportation with better speed.”

  “Do you have anything particular in mind?” Laoshi asked.

  DAOREN CROUCHED BEHIND the waist-high median separating the transway’s opposing lanes. Heqet, Cordelia, and Laoshi kneeled beside him.

  It had taken fifty minutes to reach the Librarium’s unguarded northern exit
, and another fifteen minutes to get to the transway. They’d abandoned the borrowed levidecks in a laneway between two structures a few hundred feet to the east. The black horizon beyond the structures bore a nebulous halo—dawn was less than two hours away—and they were still deep within Zhongguo Cheng.

  To the north, the transway ran in a straight line for a mile before curving west. A quarter-mile to the south, elevated ramps bridged the east-west transways bisecting a borough thick with administrative structures. Once through the borough, they faced an hour’s journey to the aerodrome . . . assuming no obstacles blocked their path.

  Daoren maintained his scan. An hour’s journey to the aerodrome also assumed they could acquire transportation that was capable of reasonable speed. In the last twenty minutes, two Jireni patrols had whisked by on armored levidecks. No civilian vehicles had passed in either direction—not an encouraging sign. If a curfew had been invoked, they might have no choice but to risk a slow journey on the abandoned levidecks. If that was the case, they had maybe fifteen more minutes before—

  Two forelights winked on and off, occulted by the stanchions tracing the transway’s northern curve. Their low profile hinted at a civilian levitran, heading south.

  “This looks promising,” Daoren said.

  The forelights whisked closer. Varinozzles whined, their high-pitch announcing high-performance.

  “That’s definitely a civilian levitran,” Laoshi said.

  Daoren nodded at Heqet and Cordelia. “Take your positions.”

  The women climbed the median and strode to the far side of the southbound transway. They halted and waved their hands above the heads, floodlit by the approaching forelights.

  Jets of compressed air obscured the forelights and streamed over a sloping windshield. An open-top levitran slowed and stopped beside the women.

  Its sleek, red hullform floated six inches above the transway, the hiss of its varinozzles no louder than a whisper. A stylized emblem gleamed on its rear quarter.

  WhisperDart.

  The portly driver turned his head to the women. Brown studs speckled the back of his shorn scalp. Daoren and Laoshi climbed the median and crept toward the levitran.