The Broken Cage (Solstice 31 Saga Book 2) (32 page)

Wex got Barcus to his feet.

Po holstered her guns and picked up the Telis Raptor blade from the table. She walked toward the High Keeper, the last one alive. But, he was trapped.

She reached up and grabbed her own braid. In a single slice, she cut it off and threw it in the Keeper's face. “Good-bye, Atish the Despot.” She spat out his name like a vile curse word, then literally spat in his face.

He fell to the floor.

The suit had been guarding the door but now reached the High Keeper. It stood over him, as he lay at its feet. This suit had no hands, they had melted away as it fell to the planet.

“You don't understand. I’ll give you anything.” The High Keeper began to panic, to beg. “I'm not a despot. I'm a scientist, a prison warden, a jailor and this is...”

The suit pounded his head flat onto the flagstone. All this only took a few seconds.

Po came up to Barcus, in one motion, as he stood. Po slipped under his arm. Wex beneath the other. She seemed uninjured to Po.

“This way.” AI~Em’s avatar was there going upstairs
and suddenly winked out, into static.

***

“Olias, Barcus wants to ask you if you want to go to Earth with him and become a Keeper. Would you like to see what it’s like?”

“Yes, please,” he replied, in Common Tongue.

The canopy became a bird's eye view, flying over vast fields of grain.
 

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The Broken Cage

“We would not discover until much later that the High Keeper’s genetic program was a complete success. Po was very intelligent, dynamic, agile, strong, healthy, durable, loyal, and obedient. The High Keeper didn’t know it required love and respect as a catalyst. She would have died for Barcus without hesitation.”

--
Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, the chief medical officer on the Memphis.

<<<>>>

They went up a long flight of stairs, directly into the roof garden.

Po tore off her cloak. She was tangled in the single point sling and the rifle. She took it off and dropped it on the lawn.

Wex picked it up and ran into the garden, out of sight. Po heard the gunfire. She felt another
whomp
and heard a ship scream overhead in the dark.

Po had a med kit in a thigh pocket. She was sure she did.

Barcus fell sideways then, away from her, onto his side where the round had hit him. Blood and bile poured out onto the grass. The smell of it made her want to throw up.

She found the med kit. She gave him the trauma injection in the thigh, and rolled him onto his back to examine the wound.

It was a hole that went all the way through. She sprayed the nanites until the can was empty. The bleeding slowed but didn't really stop.

“Po.” His voice was faint.

“I'm here, Barcus. Hold on, you'll be fine, they're coming,” she lied.

His hand came up and touched her loose cut hair. “I like it.”

Her tears began to spill.

“You have to go,” he whispered, fading.

The garden was beautiful. It was so formal. He’d never seen ironwood trees so tall, or so straight.

“I love you. I won't leave you. We'll go, together,” she said.

With these words, he went limp. The color drained from his face.

“Em, damn you,” she screamed at the sky. “Barcus is dying, and it's your fault! Do you hear me?”

There was no reply. Personal HUD comms were down.

***

“Olias, it’s time for you to help Barcus. To save Barcus, and Po, and all of them.” It was AI~Em’s calm, soothing voice, in his head.

Peace relaxed out of his docking station and knelt before Olias in the cargo area of the EM. The images of a great, blue sky filled with birds was all around.

***

Wex didn’t say a word when they appeared, as if she expected them to appear. Jude and Cine advanced on the guards that surrounded the High Keeper's personal shuttle. Useless plasma rifles were dropped. They withdrew swords, as the access door opened on the opposite end of the landing pad.

The women’s habits again became part of their weapons. They hid their feet and fists, and when the flutes crushed their skulls, they never saw it coming in the whirling, black cloth. Jude dropped the last guard back into the stairwell.

Wex backed her way out of the door and into the garden, her eyes scanning for more targets as she returned to where Barcus lay.

“We can take the High Keeper's shuttle. We have to go, quickly,” Wex said, as she knelt on the opposite side of Barcus, looking down into his wound.

“Go. Get them out. I'm staying with Barcus,” Po said, flatly. Tears were still spilling.

“None of us can fly a shuttle,” Wex said.

Wex looked at Barcus, and then at Po. When she spoke, only Po heard her, and Po somehow heard nothing else.

“Po, would you save him, even if he cursed your name for eternity?”

“Yes, I'd do anything. I'd die for him. I'd kill everyone on this planet, even you. I'd suffer anything, if he lived,” Po sobbed.

Wex withdrew something out of the folds of her clothes, then. It was a bright, mirror polished, silver tube. The light shifted on it as though it was alive. Wex pressed a control and a silver, six-inch long spike emerged from one end, like an ice pick.

“Do you know what nanites are, Po?” Wex asked.

Po got tunnel vision.

“Yes.” She looked at the spike. It was covered with liquid silver that never dripped away.

“This is more than nanites. It is alive, and made of pain and magic. It must go directly into his heart.”

Wex held the tool out to her. The implication was clear; she wanted Po to do it. It was then that Po felt his heart stop. All tension fell away from him. He was now just heavy meat. She could smell urine. She looked up at Wex.

Without hesitation, she grabbed the device and stabbed it deep into his chest. The grip suddenly became hot, and she reflexively drew her hand away, burned.

The grip liquefied and turned black as it disappeared into his chest. The hole where it entered sizzled and closed.

“Now we have to go. Get him up,” Wex commanded.

Wex reached under one arm and Po under the other. They dragged him to a sitting position. There was so much blood. She saw that the hole in his back was already closing. It looked like threads reaching across the space. Po touched it and it burned her fingers.

“Jude, help us!” Wex called.

Cine was already opening all the doors of the shuttle. Jude took the AR and let it swing around to her back as she grabbed Barcus's legs.

They moved, quickly, to the shuttle as he began to stir.

“We need to get him in before he wakes up. Hurry!” Wex said.

Wex was now panicked, for the first time. As she fell backward into the luxury rear compartment, blood splashed the seats. Cine slammed the door behind them and ran around to the other side, firing at someone as she climbed in. Jude got in the back with Barcus and Wex.

“Po, you have to fly us out,” Wex said.

He was waking up.

The
Sedna
buzzed the Citadel at high speed.
Whomp
.

Po moved.

Barcus tensed and his eyes flew open. His screams were masked by the turbines spinning up until the gull doors closed and sealed.

The shuttle lifted off as Barcus arched his back impossibly far, breathless from the pain.

“What did I do to him?” Po sobbed, flying nearly blind through tears. The only directional guidance she gave the craft was directly up.

“You saved him, but don't expect him to thank you later,” Wex said, as the acceleration drove them all into their seats, Barcus across their laps.

Po somehow saw the
Sedna
and turned to follow it, accelerating to catch up. Automated HUD based control systems, which she had never seen before, came up in her vision. She understood the information as she synced with the shuttle she was flying. It didn’t have an AI, but it was more advanced than the PT-137 or the
Sedna
.

“
Barcus, it's Em. The real Em. Chen’s Em. I know you can hear me
.”

Barcus opened his eyes and looked at Po, who craned her neck around to look at him. He could tell she heard it as well.

“
Something got in. It took over the primary AI systems. I don’t know where or for how long. There was always a secondary. I activated once you granted me multi-persona and allowed new admin subroutines. I replicated an old self and watched. It doesn’t care about you. It’s using you
.
It has control of the defense grid. It may just launch all the Javelins
.
You have to get away
.”

They were catching up to the
Sedna
fast.

“
Po was right. It is all my fault. I have been compromised. There seems to be only one thing left that I can do to help keep you safe
.
To stop it.”
AI~Em sounded sad as she spoke.

“
Get away from the Citadel. As fast as you can,”
AI~Em ordered. The sadness was gone, replaced by something else.

***

“Is this really what Earth is like?” Olias asked, in Common Tongue.

The 360° display showed high-definition fly overviews of the Grand Canyon, then beautiful views of New York City, London, Sidney, and Helenka. It showed sunsets, and waterfalls, and beaches with people swimming. He loved the cities the most.

“All this and more. Are you ready to become a Keeper, Olias?” AI~Em asked. She sounded proud of him. “I think you are ready. So does Barcus. He is so proud of you.”

“Yes.” He was so happy. “What do I need to do?”

“Do you remember the exercise we practiced when I was broken in the hangar?” AI~Em asked.

Olias turned, and Peace was already there, kneeling low before him.

“Yes, Em,” he replied. “I'm ready.”

Barcus watched, in horror, as the front access opened the suit, revealing it wasn't empty. The chest contained the Javelin missile pod, self-destruct nuclear bomb.

“First, I raise the red toggle cover,” Olias repeated, from memory.

“No. Em, what are you doing?” Barcus asked, through gritted teeth.

“It's the only way, Barcus. The cage is already broken. I cannot do it myself. You know this. It's the only way.” AI~Em was sad.

Olias flipped the toggle. The large button went from green to red.

“Em, it says ‘Armed’,” Olias said, proud he could read it.

“Yes, Olias. A is for armed,” AI~Em said.

“B is for button,” he said.

He pressed the button.

***

“I want you to watch the sky, peanut.” He pointed in the direction away from the Citadel. He sat with his back to a giant boulder. “Just keep watching,” the Scarecrow said, as she sat in his lap. “Don’t be afraid. We are free. We are
all
free. The cage is broken.”

He covered her ears with both hands.

***

Even though they were far away, the shockwave tossed the shuttle like a leaf in a storm. Po almost failed to recover, before hitting a mountain that surrounded the valley. The canopy on the High Keeper's shuttle had windows, but they automatically adjusted for the flash.

Everyone, except Po, was violently tossed about the compartment when the shock wave hit. Po looked down and saw the five-point harness held her. She had no memory of clipping into it.

The Emergency Module had been parked in Mason's suite, in the center of the Citadel, but on the outside edge. The explosion gutted the fortress and threw the rubble away from Exeter, up the rocky valley. The avalanche that followed created havoc and damaged hundreds of buildings. The shock wave and the fallout moved away from the city. But, the forest was now on fire.

“The Citadel is gone, sir. Erased,” Cook reported to Worthington. “EmNet comms are down. EmNet does not seem to be routing any traffic, anymore. Even the sat traffic is off-line.”

“
Sedna
, this is Po. Please respond. This is an emergency,” Po said, over broadcast comms, breaking radio silence.

“Worthington here. Po, I need a status. Is Barcus with you?” Jim replied.

“Yes, but the Citadel has been destroyed.”

“Yes,we know th
e—
” Worthington began, but was interrupted.

“No, you don't understand,” Po interrupted. “Earlier, Em said there might be… It might not be over… The planet-side defense grid.”

“Oh, shit,” Worthington cursed, looking at Hume, and then Cook.

“Po, where are you? Is Barcus okay?” Worthington asked.

“I’m just to your left, sir.”

Jimbo looked out the windows and a sleek, luxury shuttle flew there, keeping pace with them, thirty meters away, at Mach 2, like a fighter jet escort. “Barcus is hurt, badly. Open the dock? He needs the med bay.”

“Po, we are flying supersonic on manual. You want to dock?” Jimbo was incredulous. Only experienced fighter pilots even tried it.

“When Barcus taught me, he said pilots do it all the time. Open the dock. Do it,” Po growled.

Jimbo never knew why he did it. He risked their lives by even considering it. The rear ramp slowly began to open.

***

Po landed directly in the bay next to the STU, barely skidding into the port wall. They had to climb out on the right side. The dock apron was already closing. The sudden silence was disturbing as it sealed.

Cook looked at Jimbo, wide-eyed. “We are at Mach 2,” he said, in a quiet, incredulous tone.

Jimbo just shook his head.

“They are dragging Barcus to the autoDoc now. It looks like he’s bad,” Muir said, looking away from the monitor.

“Po, Wex, Jude and Cine are taking Barcus to the med bay.”

“Mr. Cook, East Isles at best speed. We need to drop these people off and get off this rock, in case it decides to slag itself,” Worthington said, as they turned and began to ascend. “If you see anyone move to intercept, let's make sure the EMP cannon is fully charged.”