Spiral (53 page)

Drake quickly told him and Will about the huge amount of New Germanian hardware they’d seen waiting to be transported to the outer surface. “Sealing the route through should put a crimp in the Styx’s plans, once and for all,” he said. “And they won’t be able to reexcavate the Ancients’ passage for a good few decades because the rock will be too radioactive.”

The water was bucketing down around them, already forming large puddles on the ground. Not more than a couple of hundred feet away, a blinding spike of electricity struck the earth with such power that it left a small sizzling crater.

“Holy smokes!” Sweeney shouted, slapping his forehead.

“Let’s get down there, shall we?” Drake proposed, glancing over his shoulder at the crater, then back at Sweeney with concern.

“I’m not coming,” the Colonel announced abruptly. He was shouting to make himself heard over the sound of the wind and the torrential rain. “This is my country. I want to try to salvage what I can.”

“But how are you going to do that, Colonel?” Drake asked. “All by yourself?”

Colonel Bismarck indicated his Bergen. “I have a Purger in there. Maybe I can deprogram enough of my men to take on the Styx.”

Drake stepped over to him and shook his hand. “Good luck.”

“Good luck to you,” Colonel Bismarck replied, looking at each of them in turn.

“There should be minimal radiation up here from the nukes,” Drake told Colonel Bismarck. “But get yourself as far away as you can, just in case. You’ve got time, because I won’t detonate them until we’re well into the zero-grav belt. I’ll —”

He never finished the sentence as a shot rang out. Colonel Bismarck looked down at his chest, where blood from a gaping hole was mixing with the rainwater. It was a precise shot to the heart, and there was no question that he’d been fatally wounded.

He dropped to the ground, and everyone whipped around to see who was behind them.

“Nobody’s going to detonate anything,” Rebecca One said.

“No!” Will gasped.

As if it wasn’t enough that the Styx twin was standing there, beside her was Vane. It was the first time that Will or Elliott had seen a Styx woman for themselves. Their eyes widened at the sight of the woman’s cheeks puffed out by the three egg tubes wreathing in her mouth like snakes, and her limbs consisting of not much more than muscle and bone, while her abdomen was hugely distended.

She and Rebecca One were flanked on either side by a pair of Limiters, their weapons trained on Will and the others.

“Didn’t see us sneaking up on you, did you?” Rebecca One said smarmily. “Pretty sloppy for you, Drake.”

Will realized they must have approached around the inside lip of the crater. There was probably one of the odd-looking Drache Achgelis twin-rotor helicopters hidden in the jungle not far from where they were.

“Nice to finally meet you in the flesh,” Drake said tightly. He had his assault rifle slung over his shoulder and his hands in his pockets. Will couldn’t believe that he appeared to be so relaxed, given the circumstances. “How did you know we were here? Did you pick up the radio signals?” Drake asked.

Rebecca One shook her head.

“It was me,” Vane said, fluid spraying from her cracked black lips. “I smelled another female in heat.” She was staring straight at Elliott. “Why aren’t you joining with us in the Phase?”

“Me?” Elliott mouthed wordlessly.

“Golly, Gargoyle Lady can talk!” Sweeney chimed in as he smiled at Vane.

Her face creasing with fury, Vane reared toward him, three pairs of insect limbs flailing out from her shoulders.

“That’s new,” Will whispered as Elliott shot a glance at him.

“I . . . want . . . him,” Vane growled at Sweeney, one of the egg tubes poking from her mouth. “I want to lay my babies in him.”

Sweeney chuckled mirthlessly. “There’s an offer I can’t refuse.”

Vane’s insect limbs threshed furiously at this impertinence.

Rebecca One placed a hand on the Styx woman’s arm. “All in good time, Vane,” she said. “First, we’re all professionals here, so I don’t think you’ll be wildly surprised that I want you to lay down your weapons. My men have you in their sights, so no funny stuff.”

Thinking that it was all over, Will and Elliott had begun to comply, when Drake spoke. He had slipped his hands from his pockets.

“No,” he said.

“Oh, please,” Rebecca One sighed wearily. “Let’s not prolong this. You can’t escape — and I’ve got another detachment of men on the way. Take a look for yourselves if you don’t believe me.”

Will and the others turned to see. Along the side of the crater, there must have been forty or so New Germanian troops running in formation, a Limiter leading them. They were minutes away.

As the rain continued to beat down, Drake slowly raised his arms. “No, I won’t do what you say. In this hand I have the detonator,” he said coolly. “One teeny-weeny press and the nukes detonate and you’re stranded in this world forever. And if you think you might be able to stop me with a shot, then look at what Sparks is holding.”

Sweeney held up his identical detonator.

“If that isn’t enough, I have something rather special from your Laboratories in my other hand,” Drake said. As he revealed it with a flourish, the blue flash of a lightning strike reflected from the small test tube.

He had Rebecca One’s attention now. “What’s that?” she asked.

“I snitched it from the vaults in your Laboratories before I leveled the building. I’d heard rumors from the Scientists that you had something like it. You know how academics like to show off.” Drake agitated the test tube, the fluid inside spinning around. “My immunologist friend says it’s the most virulent pathogen he’s ever encountered. He says the prospect of it getting out makes him shiver because it’s capable of killing just about every complex life-form on the planet. Is that why the Scientists never deployed it, because it’s indiscriminate? Because it kills Styx, too?” Drake smiled. “Is all this ringing a bell with you, Becky, dear?”

“Don’t call me that,” she fumed, but her bluster had gone.

“And my friend Charlie tinkered with it. With a little bit of genetic manipulation, it’s now not solely waterborne in its distribution but airborne, too. So it’s spread by the wind, and it kills in a few hours. Very bloody nasty.” Drake raised his eyebrows. “And have you had the vaccine for it? No? I didn’t think so. Shame — all of us have.”

“You’re bluffing,” Rebecca One said. She turned to Vane. “He’s bluffing. He won’t use the virus because it might find its way to the surface. He’s not going to take the risk.” She swung to Drake. “I don’t care what you say, because there’s no way I’m backing off. So we’ve got ourselves a complete stalemate here.”

All of a sudden, a line in the ground seemed to burst open behind one of the pairs of Limiters. Will had the briefest glimpse of an extremely thin man with an unruly beard and the palest of faces. The man caught the first of the two Limiters completely unawares, slashing the Styx soldier’s throat.

“Jiggs!” Drake exclaimed.

The second Limiter had more time to put up a fight; as he and Jiggs struggled with each other, they tipped over into the crater and out of sight.

Sweeney took full advantage of the distraction, covering the ground at superhuman speed. In a blur he’d disarmed the other two Limiters, quite literally tearing one of the soldier’s heads from his torso, using only his bare hands.

Although it all happened in not much more than the blink of an eye, Will allowed himself to think they might be in the clear.

Until the Styx twin shouted at him.

“You’re not getting out of this one, Will!” Rebecca One cried. “Not this time!”

She’d drawn her handgun and was pointing it directly at him.

Will was frozen to the spot.

Rebecca One’s finger tightened on the trigger.

In a heartbeat, Drake was on the move.

“Sparks!” he cried, flinging the test tube at him as he put himself in the way of the bullet meant for Will. It struck Drake in the shoulder, but his momentum was enough to carry him forward. As Rebecca One went for a second shot, he swept her over into the crater with him.

Vane had joined the fray, but she’d set her sights on Elliott. The Styx woman pounced at the girl, knocking her to the ground. The egg tubes were out of her mouth and trying to insert themselves into Elliott’s.

Will had his Sten up and was attempting to get a clear shot at the Styx woman. But Vane knew this, and kept rolling over, taking Elliott with her. Will dropped his Sten, instead trying to pry the woman off with his hands.

But, as if they had minds of their own, the pairs of insect limbs were lashing at him like animated lengths of barbed wire. As he came close to Vane, one of the limbs raked across his face, opening up a gash on his cheek.

An egg tube sank into Elliott’s mouth. The girl was shouting with alarm, but it was garbled.

Will could see a pod squeezing down the tube.

“Come here, blondie,” Sweeney growled. He wrenched Vane from Elliott, the woman’s insect limbs bunched together in one of his massive hands. The Styx woman could do nothing as she was lifted from the ground, her legs kicking ineffectually.

Sweeney turned to the approaching Styx Limiter and troop of New Germanians, Vane suspended high in the air. She was wailing like a banshee, liquid spraying everywhere. “You make tracks right now, or I’ll squash Ugly here under my foot!” he shouted.

The Limiter hesitated.

“Shove off, Sticky!” Sweeney shouted. He shook Vane threateningly. “I’m not going to tell you again!”

The Limiter didn’t have much idea of what had just happened, but in the absence of any other orders, he couldn’t put Vane’s life at risk. So he and the New Germanian squad turned the way they’d come.

“Drake!” Elliott gasped as she picked herself up. She and Will tore to the edge of the crater and peered in. Although they’d already fallen a long way, they could see that Drake and Rebecca One were still locked together in their struggle with each other.

Lower and lower they fell, spinning dizzyingly around. Drake’s arm was broken at the shoulder and he couldn’t move it. And although his hand was numb and his fingers unresponsive, he hadn’t let go of the detonator. With his other arm he was trying to stop Rebecca One from taking a shot at him.

But he was losing blood and could feel himself succumbing to shock. Drawing on his last reserves of energy, he managed to wrestle the pistol from her grip. It went spinning off, but now she tried to gouge at his face and eyes with her nails.

He had a glimpse of the side of the void, a red blur as it flashed past him. He realized how far they’d fallen.

He knew he probably wasn’t far from the nuclear device he’d planted.

But he didn’t know if Sweeney would detonate it with him directly in the blast radius.

He couldn’t take that risk.

At that moment, Drake knew he was likely to lose his life.

Rebecca One was preventing him from reaching the detonator with his good hand. But he had to reach it somehow.

That was when he remembered the booster attached to the side of his Bergen. He stopped shielding his face from the twin’s vicious onslaught and managed to detach the booster and fire it up. The propellant mix was still on the maximum setting from when he’d last used the booster.

He and the Rebecca twin accelerated down the rest of the void, quickly reaching breakneck speed.

Drake angled the booster so that they went into a spin. His limp arm swung into his field of vision and into his reach.

They were still moving at an incredible rate as he cut the booster and snatched the detonator from his numb fingers.

He and Rebecca One had almost reached the zero-gravity belt. Drake knew he was still far too close to the nuclear device.

But that didn’t matter now.

He clicked the arming button.

The detonator in Sweeney’s hand bleeped as it picked up the signal.

He glanced at it.

“BOMB!” Sweeney screamed at Will and Elliott. “GET OUT OF HERE NOW!”

They weren’t about to argue with him.

They sprinted away from the edge of the crater, the low gravity helping them as they fled.