Hybrid (15 page)

Draylin nods and motions the others to follow as Mason opens the hatch. There will be no ambush; there will only be battle. Sai stands up and follows, wondering what on earth sort of weapons these men have that they’re not terrified of the death machines in front of them.

The Exiled fire the first shot, a huge, booming fireball streaking straight for the head of one of the Damascus. It rips clean off, sparks flying, and lands about fifty feet away as ringing starts in Sai’s ears.

Sai watches the head roll briefly against the cracked ground. “Those sorts of weapons.” Things that could never be used in a city, ones that would make the artificial air catch on fire. But out here, the only thing to catch fire are their enemies.

Her feeling of relief is short-lived, though. The Hound reacts immediately and runs toward her. She takes her eyes off it just for a second to realize one of the Damascus is already in the fray with the soldiers, and when she turns her attention back, the Hound isn’t not there—until it’s right in her face.

Only her speed saves her from what would have been a rather nasty clawing. Its eyes hold intelligence, and from what she just saw, the little buggers can phase, at least for short distances. She struggles to turn around in time to avoid yet another attack and is suddenly grateful for the rigid training she’s been doing.

Even the speed her new legs provide her with is barely enough to stay ahead of the Hound. All of her moves are defensive as she faces off with it. The smell is atrocious, almost overwhelming, and the weight of their consciousness weighs heavily on her mind. So much she’s loathe to try and connect with it. There’s a distinct possibility she’ll lose herself in whatever abyss of darkness their thoughts leak into if she does.

Finding an opening proves decidedly difficult, but an inhuman scream off to the right makes the Hound turn its head just long enough for her to aim a perfect kick at its suddenly exposed neck. She puts all the force she can behind it, not only psionic, but her newfound physical strength as well, focusing all her strength.

The snap is sickening, and for a few moments, the Hound tries to fight its fate before it topples to the ground.

She smoothes bedraggled hair out of her face, suddenly feeling several scrapes and cuts she didn’t realize she’d received during the fight. But the pain fades away when her brain finally registers the battlefield in front of her.

There are parts of Damascus lying around, sparking and fizzing as the last of their power finds no conduit to latch onto. It’s hard to focus on that, though, when there are other parts—softer parts, human parts—lying around in the same vicinity. So many more human parts than machine. She swallows and wishes she hadn’t as the stench of blood winds its way down to her bowels.

Sai stumbles a few steps as she orients herself and looks over to the clang of single combat. Only two of the soldiers are left, and they stand in front of Mason, fighting off the final two Damascus, apparently ignoring the bodies of their troop in pieces around them. Their efforts are feeble and ill-matched against the brute force possessed by their opponents, but their actions are valiant and all to protect the prone form of Mason, who’s bleeding from a terrible gash to his upper thigh. Only four of them left. There’s no way they can stand up to two Damascus—no way.

Draylin severs the spine of the remaining Damascus soldier with a strange, saw-like device, but the lieutenant brings down a heavy, iron hand onto the nape of Draylin’s neck.

“No!” Sai screams. She runs toward them—too late. The crunch echoes in her head, and Sai falls to the ground, hands over her ears. Her breath comes fast, a rushing rumble to her ears, and she remembers what it was like to feel the power coursing through her when it first awakened, when she faced her final exam, recalls what it felt like to just let it roar out. Shadows dance at the edges of her vision, beckoning her, calling to her.

As the last member of their team stands valiantly above Mason and Draylin’s body, Sai knows if the Damascus lieutenant lands another hit, they’re all dead. She closes her eyes, reaches down in desperation, and opens the floodgates.

The surface underneath her is hard and unforgiving and extremely uneven. She cracks her eyes open and groans as she tries to move. Every single bone in her body aches, including her legs, which aren’t really her legs, are they? Gone is the rejuvenation of this morning, yesterday, whenever... Everything is hazy. As she pushes herself upright, her eyes adjust to her surroundings. It’s still dark, but the light is starting to show at the bottom of the horizon. The sun will be up in a couple of hours. At least she wasn’t out for long or she’d have been burned to a crisp.

It wasn’t a nightmare; everything she remembers is real. Nausea threatens to overwhelm her as she takes in the carnage. Body parts, both human and machine, litter the ground, scattered for hundreds of yards. It’s amazing what a mess seven humans, five machines, and a construct can make.

Sai rises slowly to her feet, ignoring the caked blood down the left side of her body, seeping through the armor, and hobbles over to where Mason lies on the ground, his chest rising shallowly. With a light touch of her finger, she focuses as much as she can and encourages his body to heal, just a little faster. Even with her own reduced ability, she frowns at his sluggish response. It takes longer than anticipated and her sigh of relief is involuntary as his chest finally evens out, breaths coming less shallow now.

It must have worked. That last-ditch, insane effort looks like it worked. She walks a few feet and kneels down by the other soldier. He’s caked in blood, but his chest still moves, very slightly. She reaches forward to try and trickle the remnants of her energy into the man’s wounds. There’s barely anything left in her reserves, and she has to divert some of it to her joints, but it fixes enough that he’ll be fine until she finds a first aid kit.

First, she has to check the lieutenant. She keeps herself carefully facing away from the brunt of the carnage and approaches the hulking piece of metal.

The head lies not far from the body and appears melted in ways it wasn’t before. She sighs and picks it up, walking slowly back to the transport, desperately conscious of the way her feet are dragging. It’s like her body knows she needs to replenish her psionic energy. She glares at the head again, highly doubtful they’ll be able to do anything with the kernel inside it. Perhaps some tests can be performed to figure out exactly what it is they can and can’t do in order to retrieve one.

It takes her longer than she’d like to clean and bind the wounds of the only other two people left alive. Her reserves are tapped, barely enough to help her power her legs, and it’s all she can do to keep it together. Every response is sluggish, and if she stops too long, the pounding in her head will lull her into sleep. Rigging the litter to get them into the transport takes a while, but the longer they stay here, the more danger there is of another team of Damascus turning up, and she doesn’t have the ability to do anything miraculous again. She’s not even sure she understands how she did it in the first place.

Making them as comfortable as she can, Sai climbs into the pilot seat and looks blankly at the controls. There has to be some way for her to do this. Casting her mind back, she tries to remember the movements Dom would make when he drove her to her old assignments. Her head aches, and she knows in the pit of her stomach how lucky they were to have any survivors. Without her desperately draining action, they’d all be dead.

After several false starts, she engages the engines and flips the shields on, hoping they’ll hold because none of them have time to wait for the dark. She sets the navigator to trace back to Alpha, relieved to have pulled them all back in the transport before the sun hit its most destructive stage.

Since the awakening of the Damascus, the streets are empty and most of the shops have been cleaned out of their wares. People aren’t taking any chances at a repeat of the Psionic Wars. They’re not risking the Damascus turning on their makers. The GNW are apparently the only stupid people around. Dom grins, both amused by his thoughts and glad that, for once, they’re not being slickly intertwined with the darkness inside.

All he has to do is survive long enough to defeat the Damascus and let people be free. Simple enough.

He shakes his head and clears his thoughts, maneuvering his body to get a better view of the new and extremely nervous replacement for Davis and Selwyn. Owen is anxious, so much that others seem to sense his anxiety levels and steer clear of him. But for all his strange social awkwardness, the man is brilliant. Potentially equal to Mathur.

Dom decides he likes the guy. After all, it’s really Dom’s fault that he landed this position. He pulls in on himself, shies away from most people, even Harlow. And unless he’s talking about his precious technology, he withdraws into himself. Any people who bully him won’t do it for long. Dom’s been having a lot of fun with his own ability to not be seen.

It’s been easy to keep an eye on all the ingoing and outgoing communications since the Damascus scouts were released. Owen is a night owl for obvious reasons; the Damascus can’t scout in daylight—or, at least, not during high noon. Dom has always wondered why humans still insist on night as the sleeping time and day as the active one. Really, they should have adapted to the fact that the sun was no longer anyone’s friend, not in its unfiltered state. Although maybe it was the whole protected Dome atmosphere.

Any other thoughts on the subject go out the window as Owen scrambles over to one of the feeds. The images are jumbled and the readout is going haywire, but there is no doubt that the Damascus are engaging some of the Exiled.

The information streams constantly, providing weapon statistics, power, firearms, armor types, and a count of how many people are there. The smallest among them is dismissed as an assured casualty, while the others move onto the armed soldiers.

He follows the battle until only the lieutenant is left standing, facing down two men, both injured. Then a pulse hits him, a bright, violent, and heated force. The transmission ends and the readings flat line.

Dom stares at the screen, trying to make sense of it, before creeping out of the room and making his way to see Bastian.

For your own safety, please do not leave your designated areas. Report any unauthorized personnel immediately. Remember, the future of GNW depends on you.

Dom barely resists the urge to jump in surprise. It’s the first time he can remember noticing it, and now the mantra plays on repeat in his head. This isn’t right. Something is extremely wrong. The Damascus appear to be stronger, more ruthless, for having rested. If that pulse hadn’t hit, the whole delegation would have been killed with 1.5 Damascus left standing. Perhaps it lies in the exact language of the new directive they were fed. Eliminate all of the Exiled and reacquire the source of Shine.

“Damn,” he mutters under his breath and is relieved to see no one in the corridors to hear him.

Bastian’s shields are far more complex and detailed than they were before Selwyn sent Nimue to spy on him. But Dom is attuned to them and it’s easier for him to enter than others. The only problem is that, to the security recordings outside of Bastian’s quarters, it would appear the doors opened for no good reason, so he needs to alert Bastian. Luckily for Dom, he’s still awake.

The door swings open, and Bastian’s head pops out to look either way and frown theatrically for the cameras while Dom slips in undetected.

With the door shut firmly behind them, Bastian sighs. “You really need to figure out a better way into my quarters.”

“Sure,” Dom says calmly. “I’ll just scale the outside of the building next time and break through a nice thick pane of glass.”

“Don’t be silly.” Bastian ushers Dom into his living quarters. There’s a tired pull to his voice, as if the dearth of sleep is finally catching up to him. “You’ll set off the alarms if you do that.”

Dom smiles, a more relaxed smile than he’s managed lately. He still has difficulty with emotional expressions, but the parasite is getting easier to coexist with. “The Damascus found what I think to be a scouting troop of our own. Everything was going about how I’d expect it to when the lieutenant was taken out by a brilliant pulse of some kind. I mean, white-hot, something I’ve never seen before. Not even in all the history Mathur crowded into my head.”

Bastian frowns, and his eyes seem dull, his reactions slowed. “What exactly was it like?”

Dom shrugs, intent on studying his friend. “I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. He was about to wipe out the last couple of people and all of a sudden was hit by something big and shiny that ripped him apart. I’d suggest you get the recording off Owen.”

For a brief second, Bastian draws himself back to the man he’s always been—sure of himself and everything around him. “I’ll see to it. You might want to go and see how they’re doing. I’m going to need to know anything they’ve discovered that can help me help them.”

The Mobile is bustling with activity when Dom arrives. He leaves
Mele
safely in the parking bay and makes his way to Mathur’s quarters. Several hours away from the city, even as fast as
Mele
can travel, isn’t nearly far enough out. Dom frowns at the risk.

The sun is high in the sky, so he’s is surprised when he finds Mathur’s quarters dark. “Mathur?” he calls out tentatively. “Mat, you’ve got to wake up. Something bad has happened.”

The old man isn’t there. Perhaps he’s in his lab. He couldn’t have been so stupid as to go with the scouting team. That would be absurd.

He finds his creator hunched over his workstation, fiddling with some sort of scalpel-type instrument at the base of a domino’s skull. Jeffries murmurs instructions at him from off to the side.

Dom clears his throat to get attention, while trying his best not to eye what looks like his twin laid prone on the table like an experiment.

“Dom?” Mathur scrunches up his brow as if confused by his appearance. “I thought you were...well, not here.”

“You sent out a scouting mission?” Dom doesn’t have time to make small talk. In fact, he has no time to do anything. “Already?”

“Well, yes.” Mathur puts down the instrument.

“I need to get Sai. We can go out and see if any of them survived.”

“What?” The color drains from Mathur’s face, and he sits himself in the chair at his desk. “What do you mean,
survived
?”

Dom shrugs. Impatience encourages the darker part of him, and it’s all he can do to push it down. “Pretty much the exact definition. Your scouting team encountered the Damascus scouting team, but there may be a couple of the Exiled still alive. Sai can come and get them with me—about half of her isn’t as susceptible to the heat. And she can help heal them.”

“Dom...” A layer of sweat breaks out on Mathur’s forehead. “Sai was with them. Sai and Mason.”

“What?” Dom quickly quashes the fear that rises inside, the anger that threatens to let the darkness claim him, and recalculates a few things in his head. “How far did you send them out?”

“About eighteen hours,” Jeffries interjects, apparently aware that Mathur isn’t completely up to speed at the moment. “We sent them north for in an E-27 model transport.”

Dom nods. About ten hours in
Mele
. “If they managed to get back into the transport and leave, they should be here by midnight. If not...it doesn’t matter when we find them, they’ll all be dead.” He refuses to let himself think about it any further than that. There’s not a lot to be done but go and figure what can be salvaged. If Sai... He stops himself. He can’t have saved her for this to happen; she has to be there. He needs her to survive.

“I’ll head out in
Mele
. If I can tow them back or help in anyway, I will. If I can’t find them, we know what happened.” He doesn’t tell them about the brilliant fiery pulse or the smaller person the lieutenant had dismissed as already dead. Dom is certain that, if Sai were dead, he’d know it before anyone had to tell him.

“You’ll need medical assistance,” Jeffries pipes up, his own face a little pale and pasty.

Dom just shakes his head. “I have some medical training. Emergency first aid, anyway. Unless you want to come with me, Doctor, I can’t afford a hold up. I’ll leave as soon as we’re done talking here.”

“I’ll go grab my things while you wrap it up, then.” And he’s out of the door before Dom can protest.

“We’ll leave now. Let the others know, and you need to hide better.” Dom takes a long hard look at Mathur. “The survivors will be fine, and we’ll grow stronger from the knowledge they’ve gained.”

The older man doesn’t move, just sighs and focuses on his fingers, suddenly appearing far older than he actually is.

“Mathur.” Dom knows he doesn’t really have the time, but he needs to make it anyway. “None of this was anyone’s fault. It seemed like a good idea, and had they not apparently gained in strength during their stasis, the normal weapons and a decent ratio would have been sound. For future reference, you’ll probably want to opt for three men per Damascus, trained in unison with each other. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just motions Jeffries to follow him down to Mele. Neither of them speak a word until they leave the bay, follow the path of the transport taken by Mason’s scouting group.

“What are the odds they made it into the transport before the sun was up too long? Those suits won’t protect them for long after sunrise...” Jeffries voice trails off, uncertainty obvious.

“It was about two o’clock this morning when the final pulse hit the fight. I’m hoping they could at least crawl to the transport.” Dom isn’t quite sure whether or not he should mention the lieutenant’s dismissal of who he hopes was Sai.

“Final pulse?”

There’s an odd note to Jeffries’ tone that Dom can’t place. He files it away and tries to explain a little better. “Flash of bright light of some sort.”

“Could be a number of things,” Jeffries states, more to himself than to Dom, probably not quite aware of just how acute Dom’s hearing actually is. “So they may have had time.”

He chooses to ignore the doctor and concentrate on locating Mason’s transport using
Mele’s
scanner. The signal is easier to pinpoint than he anticipated, and he adjusts their direction accordingly. Attempting audio contact doesn’t work, and he tries to push back at the encroaching darkness. If he were more human, he’d think it was panic. Sai would say he’s more human than most. The thought catches him unaware, and he has to clench his jaw to refocus.

The transport isn’t traveling as fast as it should be and is apparently weaving a little. Dom frowns and leans forward, placing a hand directly on the steering console of
Mele
, hoping to lend her the urgency of the situation. He’s fully aware she’s not sentient, but sometimes it feels like she truly responds to him. The only problem now is figuring out how to get on board the other vehicle once they catch up to it—and masking their trail as well as possible.

It takes a few hours for him to get within range of the transport, and the sun is just starting to set. Overriding their controls from within
Mele
proves challenging but completely possible. A few minutes later he pulls up next to the vehicle and brings his own to a complete standstill.

Motioning the doctor to stay behind him, Dom opens the doors and waits for it to clear. He can see across into the other transport and can’t help frown as he closes the distance. Something is wrong. A dull and coppery smell, like lingering death, assaults his senses and teases the parasite within. The lights are dim, almost as if it’s running on reserve power, and the black haze around his vision as he fights that part of himself lends it an ominous miasma.

He can hear Jeffries several feet behind him, wariness evident in each step the man takes. Dom frets about the survivors, and the darkness threatens to take over his vision numerous times on the short walk across the sand. They were limping back home much slower than they should have been. There’s no time to check the vehicle’s propulsion, but it may have been damaged by the conflict. He hopes Bastian has managed to interfere in the data transmitted.