Angel of Doom (25 page)

Movement sounded in the corridor leading from the gate and Domi stilled and calmed herself, emptying her mind. There was one last Stygian, wearing the Olympian field armor, walking back. It carried a bloody lump of flesh in both hands. The lump looked like the squirmy, sluglike head of the things bonded with the Gear Skeletons. A severed head.

The soldier came closer and Domi continued to take pictures. The waxy eyes blinked, rippling, oozing flesh acting as lids, demonstrating that the severed part was still alive. Domi also got to see that the neck stump had fused with the Stygian holding it, the fleshy protuberance entering the opened belly of the armor and connecting to the thing beneath.

The soldier and its grisly charge passed her by, not noticing her, and continued into the robot hangar. Domi watched as the neck came unstuck from its bearer, and she fought the urge to shiver, her skin spawning goose bumps as the disembodied head was placed onto the flesh of one of the other “pilots.”

The dully gumming creature barely acknowledged the new mind merging with its body, until the new head
opened its wound of a mouth, moaning for spoonfuls of food. Then, the original head began licking the gore and blood off its new conjoined brother.

Domi steeled herself, ignoring the churning in her belly.

She didn't envy those who would see these pictures or this vid when she sent it back to Cerberus.

It took a half an hour for CAT Beta to come close enough to the surface to transmit their findings home. Lakesh had been on the edge of his seat awaiting the news.

“Any problems?” Lakesh asked.

“Nope. As long as there was an open conduit to the surface, even with an iron gate in the way, the signal was clear,” Bry said. “Of course, they had to transmit it to one of the satellites on their horizon, from their perspective.”

“I'm glad you were able to maneuver one to be in line with the entrance to the underground pyramid.” Lakesh sighed. “Otherwise, who knows how long we would have to wait for them to get out of…what is that?”

Bry glanced at the screen Lakesh was watching. Brewster Philboyd was on hand and turned away, spewing his coffee into a garbage can. Philboyd began dry heaving, his torment amplified by the echoes in the small metal bucket.

“That's—” Philboyd gagged “—nothing that should be.”

Lakesh observed Domi's photographs of the contents of the Gear Skeletons inside Vanth's hangar. He'd already made notice of the three captured war suits, but the molten, distorted blobs of flesh and muscle sitting within the cockpits of the extant armors were at once disturbing and enthralling. Though he wasn't a biologist, he could see where the amorphous nature of the pilots was a boon to their ability to interface with the control systems, especially
as he couldn't see where a command node could be inserted onto their forms.

He also was acutely aware of how similar a set of flesh sculpting had returned him from a 250-year-old cryogenically preserved man physically in his eighties to a man in his late forties. Flesh, bone and even his bionic parts had been broken down and rebuilt to the molecular scale by Enlil in his guise as Sam the Imperator.

That bit of transformation of old and dying cells to “new ones” was one of the few reasons why Lakesh could go out on missions, occasionally, and actually be a suitable lover to Domi. He realized that, quite easily, Sam could have made him into any manner of abomination. He looked through the pictures, eliciting grunts from Bry and Philboyd.

The armored soldiers, however, were an even greater revelation. Lakesh had been in on the Project of Unification; one of the great minds behind the barons and their means of crossing miles and keeping the great villes in touch with each other via mat-trans and the remarkable technologies stored within the redoubts. He realized that humanity's fate had been hijacked by tyrannical forces from the time that humankind was first crawling on all fours.

The Stygians were similar to the hybrids, but there was sufficient difference that Lakesh was wondering if they were some manner of prototype creatures, perhaps a halfway breed between the Quad V and Balam, the last Archon who had overseen and limited the growth of humanity's intellect and independence. Balam had wavered from his original mission as minion of the Annunaki and their baronial incarnations.

There was nothing to say that these creatures were not some intermediate form of servitor race. Over the past year Lakesh and the rest of Cerberus had been gaining
new insights into the world when Annunaki overlords were the unsubtle rulers of Earth, before their hibernation, their descent into the background due to their accords with the Tuatha de Danaan.

The Igigi were what the Nephilim had once been, before Enlil's terrible act, lobotomizing the race into a seemingly endless army of warrior drones. Perhaps it wasn't a lobotomizing of an entire species, but a cloning and genetic manipulation. The Nephilim were not on display here, though. It was the Stygians, and Lakesh saw one of them enter, wielding the apparently severed head of one of its allies. Judging by the similarity of the appearance of the “skeleton pilots” and the fleshy linkage with the humanoid Stygian, this must have been another pilot.

Lakesh had received the report of the battle with the cyclops from Kane and Grant.

This had been the mind operating the giant warrior, the thing that CAT Alpha had fought, shoulder to shoulder with Charun, against. Grant may have showed that he was able to operate the deadly hammer of the Etruscan godling, but a small sliver of the creature survived, possibly for the sake that Kane and Grant had been spent after their war with the gigantic abomination and three of its smaller comrades. Tired, unwilling to stick around the abattoir, the two men and Charun returned to the buried pyramid, letting the “mindless thralls” do the cleanup work and to conveniently bring the surviving seed of the cyclops home.

Lakesh would have to ask DeFore about this. While she was nominally the chief medic at Cerberus, her strengths were in biology, so she would understand these things much better. If that thing could withstand a plasma discharge of the kind that Grant and Kane described, they'd need to know a lot more about these entities.

For now, Lakesh forestalled the ill feelings in his gut
and began composing a quick, cryptic note for Brigid Baptiste to receive during their next bit of contact.

Lakesh simply hoped he'd still be able to warn CAT Alpha of the true extent of their trap.

* * *

S
MARAGDA WAS GLAD
when Domi returned to their hideout in the storage cell. She'd been trying to process the memories of the passage of her fellow soldiers. Her alleged fellow soldiers.

Finally, when Domi returned and explained what she'd seen, the Olympian soldier let out a breath of relief.

“I thought my mind was playing tricks on me,” she told CAT Beta. “None of them looked right as they passed by.”

She looked over the pictures, shared via suit-to-suit electrical conductivity rather than by transmission, on her suit's forearm sleeve, configured as a monitor. “Then it's likely that my people are down in the pit?”

“I know you'd love to go down there,” Domi said.

“Only if Charun and Vanth are kept busy,” Smaragda stated. “Face it, we heard the sound of that hammer striking outside. We're all loaded up with some nice firearms, but that is some terrifying shit.”

“Not looking forward to fighting him, either,” Domi admitted.

“That much is obvious,” Edwards murmured. “All right, so Myrto is not going to get stupid and jump the gun to rescue her partners. Great. We're all being smart about this.”

“Smart is a relative thing. After all, we're stuck in here with aliens, including alien-piloted robots, and locked in by a several-ton, wrought-iron gate,” Sinclair said.

“Always looking on the bright side,” Domi answered.

“Well, you came back fairly quickly,” Edwards said. “How much more did you explore?”

“We could look for another exit to the surface,” Sela
agreed. “But the chances are, the way up and out would be right through the hangar where the aliens are.”

“And going through them would raise enough of a racket to bring Vanth and Charun running. Or even if we snuck past them…” Edwards noted.

“We wait for them,” Domi said. “Commtacts on passive pickup. Hear when they're talking.”

“You think they'll bring them down here to see the prisoners?” Smaragda asked.

“Been dealing with enough of these types,” Domi answered. “Love to show off. Show how smart they are. Their I-love-me wall.”

“Even if that means it'll turn Kane and the others against them?” Smaragda continued.

Domi nodded. “Enlil never minded. Walked us all around his ship. Thought he was the shit.”

Smaragda nodded. “Hera was the same way with you, too. The old Hera, that is. She let you in, even though you might have figured out her scam.”

“She was balancing threats at the time. The Hydrae were now under the control of Marduk,” Sinclair added. “And we were the only ones who could help her stop him. Well, Kane, Grant and Brigid.”

“You helped, too,” Domi returned.

Sinclair shook her head. “We all know who the stars of this show are.”

“This world…more complex every passing day,” Domi said. “We get involved as much as they do. We carry our weight.”

“But every day, we get a little closer to being disposable,” Sinclair murmured.

“No,” Domi countered. “We're all needed to keep building. Protecting future.”

“Yeah, Sela,” Edwards added. “What'd that actor say? No small roles, only small actors?”

“Speak for yourself, Tiny,” Sinclair countered. “All right. Just the way that Lakesh talks about their damn confluence of luck…”

“Hey, we're still here,” Edwards said. “It's not like we're red shirts. Just keep going, one step after another. And don't be stupid. We weren't picked because we make mistakes.”

“Just remember, we're human, not legends,” Sinclair said.

“So're Kane and others,” Domi added. “Smart enough to avoid mistakes. Tough enough to survive when we make 'em. Quick enough to learn from 'em, too. Why they picked you two. More 'n' one-dimensional.”

“More than just hammers looking for nails,” Sinclair agreed. “Okay. Even so, we're going to be waiting awhile.”

“But now we know,” Smaragda said. “We know they're not using our people as soldiers, and that one of our Spartan pilots didn't die to give Kane and Grant a good show as a cyclops.”

“Things are looking rosy all over, but I wouldn't get too comfortable,” Sinclair added.

Domi narrowed her ruby-red eyes. “Why you think sitting back at door?”

“All right. Just remember, someone has to take the role of the grumpy bastard,” Sinclair told her. “I'm just looking on the bad side of things…”

“Expect worst. Enjoy disappointment,” Domi concluded.

“You're getting too smart for your own good, girl,” Sinclair chuckled.

Edwards smirked. “Let's hope we stay too smart for the good of Vanth.”

Smaragda uncapped her canteen and took a sip. “I'll drink to that.”

The four people passed the water can around, biding
their time, knowing that sooner or later the warriors of Cerberus were going to have to rise as one to do battle together against the Etruscan godlings and their Stygian minions. Thanks to Domi, they knew the odds, not limited to merely a dozen soldiers and three brutal robots, but also a million humans and animals kept in the deepest pit of the pyramid.

* * *

I
T WAS A
victory feast, with human thralls—women mostly—bringing food before the battered but victorious Charun and his honored guests. Brigid was included with them, for he claimed that it was under her observations and overwatch that Kane and Grant had been able to help the demigod prevail against the cyclops and his twisted brethren.

Brigid felt as if she were being paranoid as she sniffed and tentatively tasted each glass of wine and morsel of food. Indeed, they were dealing with aliens whose mental and physical capabilities were such that drugs or poison would be the furthest thing from their minds. Vanth herself demonstrated a song designed to infiltrate a human brain and leave the person it was attached to a drone without free will. Herbs or toxins were beneath such capabilities, and yet she couldn't help but feel the necessity to be careful.

Vanth smiled at her across the great feast table in the cavernous hall in which Charun conducted his revelry. Her golden eyes were at once warm and alienating, and Brigid partitioned her mind, burying her concerns and worries deep within, creating barriers of useless and nearly endless trivia.

“You are used to dining with those who may be devils, Miss Baptiste,” Vanth observed, her voice smooth and sensuous, like silk reimagined as sonic waves.

Brigid wondered why she would even need her song
with seductive tones that threatened even to enthrall a straight woman as herself.

“Yes,” she answered, sipping her wine. It was classic Italian wine, fortified concentrate, diluted with clean spring water. To drink the original fruit of this vine before its diminishment would be to risk one's health. She recalled that a goblet of fortified wine was how Caligula assassinated his brother, the sheer weight of its alcoholic content poisoning the young man, yet looking to the rest of Roman society as “an honest mistake.”

“You say you have dealt with the likes of Enlil…so you know of our struggles.”

“My ordeals have been with Marduk and his followers, co-opting our godhood. Before we were driven to our slumber, Charun and I saw him masquerade as Zeus. Charun and I were not guards, but those who cared for the souls and spirits of our people,” Vanth stated. “Back then, the power of believers was something worth warring for. We gained our role as psychopomps in that we managed to rescue our worshipers from the overlord's dominion.”