The Cyber Chronicles Book III - The Core (19 page)

A bolt of
lightning hit the ground only a metre away, and she staggered away
from it, shaking with shock. Tripping over a low wall, she sprawled
on rubble-strewn ground, adding more scrapes and bruises to her
already extensive collection. As she climbed to her feet again,
something wet and hairy slammed into her, making her recoil with a
yell as a twisting Flux-creature reeled past, tearing at its
distorting body. She fled, vomit crawling up her throat.

A second wave
of sound, accompanied by a hissing scythe of golden power, sent her
sprawling on her back. The unfocussed neosin crawled over her in a
mantle, sinking into her hands, head and ribs. It passed through
her in a wave of throbbing agony, most draining into the ground.
She lay gasping, her ears ringing, then scrambled to her feet once
more. The world grew darker as the pink light faded to crimson. The
glow was brighter ahead, and she ran towards it, filled with dread
that Sabre was dead.

Sabre writhed
on a carpet of smashed crystal, clasping his ears as pain lanced
into his head. The gong-roar muted, and he lowered his hands,
finding them bloody. The second sonlar shot had evinced an
unexpected retaliation from the Core. It had amplified the
resonance and sent it back with mind-bending force, accompanied by
an unfocussed outpouring of neosin that had reddened his skin and
made his eyes water. A heavy weight fell on him, and he stared into
a ghoul's gaping, decayed face.

With a grunt
of disgust, he hurled it off and leapt to his feet, pulping the
rotten corpse with a kick. The creature grabbed his ankle, and he
shook it off, only to find himself surrounded. Ghouls clawed at him
with bony hands, their sunken eyes blank and decayed, mouths open.
He smashed them away, but more pressed forward. Raising the sonlar,
he pressed the trigger and swept it through them, shredding them to
globs of rotten meat and splinters of bone.

The Core's
light had changed to deep crimson with pulsing pink hues, and a
golden nimbus kept it airborne. Its spin had slowed, and, as he
watched, it stopped. Its beauty was gone with its radiance and
filigree crown, and the red mist formed a hellish scene.

Sabre stared
at it. Two sonic laser blasts had not significantly damaged the
crystal, and now it had learnt to turn the sound waves against him
with its natural resonance. A cry behind him made him spin around.
Tassin stood a few metres away, gazing at him, her hands and arms
bruised and bloody, her eyes filled with horror. A wave of cold
fear went through him, and he cursed.

"Go back!"

Tassin's eyes
flicked past him and widened. Sabre swung back to the Core as the
light gathered in its centre. He raised the sonlar, then realised
that the sonic backlash would kill her. Dropping the weapon, he
gripped the hilt of the sword across his back and drew it.

Chapter Twelve

Tassin tore
her gaze from the monstrous crimson crystal as Sabre drew the
sword. The blade reflected the fiery light, making it look like it
was formed from flame.

As he raised
it and charged the Core, she shouted, "No!"

Sabre swung
the sword high and smashed it down with all his might as the Core
released the bolt. The sword struck the crystal with a screeching
chime. The fire leapt into the blade and raced up it. Sabre's back
arched, and he flung back his head with a cry of agony. For an
instant he glowed golden, then the fire erupted from the control
unit in a great flame that rose high into the air and arced back
into the Core. Tassin clamped a hand over her mouth as Sabre's legs
buckled. He clung to the sword, trapped in the circle of power.

It seemed an
eternity that he hung there, a living conductor for energies that
would have reduced a city to ash. The sword was sunk into the
crystal for half its length, and Sabre's hands were locked around
the hilt, his muscles rigid as the neosin flowed through him. His
scream died as he ran out of air, and he drew a harsh breath. The
neosin crawled over his skin, some flowing into the ground. It
seemed incredible that he still lived, and Tassin ran forward,
wanting to end his torture but not knowing how. A spark of gold
leapt at her, but all the Core's power was channelled into Sabre,
and it was trapped as much as he. The sword tapped it, and the Core
sank lower.

Sabre
straightened his legs, every effort clearly a fresh torture. He
twisted the sword, his back muscles writhing as he sought to plunge
it deeper.

The Core gave
a chiming crack.

Slowly, like a
man underwater, he turned his head. His eyes were closed and his
brows drawn together as he struggled against the agony. She barely
heard his shout over the Core's rising thrum.

"Go!"

Tassin
hesitated, torn by her longing to save him and the knowledge that
she could not.

"Run!"

The Core made
a tinkling sound, and a shard of crystal fell from above to smash
near her, spraying razor splinters. She cried out as one slashed
her leg, and backed away. The thrum deepened and the fire that
burnt through Sabre brightened, streaked with silver. He cried out
again, and the Core touched the ground. It flared brilliant white,
and Tassin staggered back, shielding her eyes. Sabre was
silhouetted against it, clinging to the sword. He straightened, and
the Core gave a grating creak.

Terrified, she
fled.

Sabre could
not release the sword. It seemed as if his hands were welded to it.
He shifted, trying to block out the white-hot agony that seared
him. With the last of his waning strength, he thrust the sword in,
twisting it. The Core gave an almost human groan. The light burnt
through his eyelids, and he dared not open them lest he be blinded.
He sensed that Tassin was no longer behind him, and prayed she had
reached safety.

The Core
chimed. There was a dull crack, followed by a creaking, ringing
sound as crystal tore. The cracking sounds continued, like ice in
warm water, pinging, clicking, chiming. Then it exploded.

Raw fire swept
through him, and he screamed again. Visions flashed before his
eyes. The surgeons with their flaying lasers, the trainers'
electric prods, the pain of abused muscles, bruised joints and
strained lungs. The cyber's domineering, exacting torture. The roar
of the explosion seemed distant. Fire engulfed him, and agony
flared from his chest and legs. His head was smashed back and
twisted aside. The shockwave lifted him and flung him backwards.
Hard cold objects ripped into his skin. He went limp, and the
ground knocked the wind out of him.

Sabre opened
his eyes. Where the Core had been, an expanding ball of pink dust
spread rapidly outwards, crackling bolts of golden flame arcing
into the ground. The mist rolled back before the cloud of crystal
dust, which swept out and settled in a gentle, sparkling rain.
Sabre closed his eyes, and he was falling again.

Tassin tripped
over the ruined wall a moment before the brilliant flash almost
blinded her, and a thunderous roar hammered her ears. Rolling into
the lee of the wall, she clasped her head and prayed. The shockwave
swept over her, tugging at her, then flying crystal filled the air.
It whined and hummed as it flew past, smashing into the chaotic
Flux-reality with sharp reports. Some shattered against the wall,
making her jump and cry out. Icy splinters fell on her back, and
she yelped as one stabbed her leg. The explosion's rumble rolled
away, leaving a moment of eerie silence, then wind howled past her
as air rushed back into the void the explosion had caused.

Rain and mist
mingled with twisted columns of black cloud in the cataclysm's
aftermath. The air pressure stabilised and the wind rebounded,
gusting with snow and hot rain, whipped into whirling eddies that
twisted dust into the air. Tassin raised her head, staring about in
horror. She crouched in a sea of crystal. Over it, Flux-reality
warped unbelievably in shimmering, violent chaos. Her eyes filled
with stinging tears. No one could have survived that explosion. She
bowed her head and sobbed, cursing the world, and fate, but most of
all, the Core.

Rising shakily
to her feet, she pulled the sliver of crystal out of her leg with a
hiss and looked around again. Where the Core had been, a pure white
column of mist rose into the sky, aglow with sunlight. She climbed
over the wall and walked towards it, her mouth dry. Her stomach
churned at the thought of Sabre lying amongst the smashed crystal,
bloody and mangled. She ignored the twisting Flux-realities that
cavorted around her in a wild dance of madness. Warped landscapes
mingled with silently screaming creatures torn between meshed
realms. Within the Core's domain, they were merely fleeting mirages
of ghostly corruption.

A huge crater
marked the place where the Core had hovered. Chunks of concrete lay
in jagged piles, twisted reinforcing thrusting from them like bones
protruding from a corpse. She shuddered, scanning the ground for
Sabre's body. She wondered if he had been thrown clear or shredded.
Bile stung her throat, and she thrust the thought away. Steam rose
from the ground, swirling around her, and Flux-realities flickered
through it.

A glint of
gold caught her eye, and she hurried towards it. Sabre's sword lay
there, oddly golden, its blade aglow with preternatural light. As
she approached, she realised that it hummed, and stopped, staring
at the weapon. The hilt was warped into an intricate shape that
defied the imagination. No craftsman could have sculpted such a
hilt; the lines were too fine, the strange patterns too detailed.
As she gazed at it, the pattern changed. Tassin blinked, frowning.
The sword's thrum grew louder, its glow brightening. She stepped
back, and it whined, a faint chiming, then with a flash it turned
to crystal.

Tassin rasped,
"The Core!"

The sword
whined again, a rainbow nimbus surrounding it. Hatred burnt her
blood, and she grabbed a chunk of concrete and smashed it down on
the crystal weapon. It gave a pealing chime as the rock bounced
off. The sword was gold once more, unscathed.

"Hateful
thing!" Tassin shouted, "You should have been destroyed!" She
kicked dirt at it. "You'll rot here! You're not crystal anymore.
Without someone to take care of you, you'll rust away!"

The sword made
a series of sweet, melodic chimes. She spat at it and walked
away.

Sabre fell
through a maelstrom of madness. Swirling colours darted and
congealed, weird forms loomed and vanished. Cat-like, he fought for
balance, tried to get his feet under him, but there was no up or
down, only a tumbling fall into chaos. Visions flashed before his
eyes, fleeting images a life he had not seen clearly before, now
revealed in sharp focus. The nursery pen, filled with hundreds of
identical boys. He screamed. His flesh seemed to melt, then reform,
and pain flashed through him.

The cyber
hummed. He sensed the vibrations vaguely, a distant sensation
utterly devoid of presence. He fell. An instructor thrust a goad
into his back, making him writhe and bellow, but with a boy's
cracked, unformed voice. The cyber's hum deepened, its vibrations
penetrating his head, and he gripped the band. The surgeons' lasers
flashed, peeling away his flesh. They thrust their hands into him,
and the mind-bending agony increased.

Sabre fought
for sanity, clawing at the fabric of reality while he tried to stem
the rising tide of blackness that threatened to engulf him. The
cyber flashed red warnings in his mind, evicting him from the
terrible nightmare with pulses of pain. The scrolling readouts
zipped past, almost too fast to read, but he glimpsed some numbers
and words. His bio-status was in the red, and several alerts
flashed. He was in a vacuum, then a super-hot atmosphere of methane
gas, then the icy chill of pure hydrogen. He screamed again,
falling into nothingness, surrounded by madness.

Tassin
stumbled over the ruined wall again, her breath coming in frantic
gasps, her mind numb with despair. She could not find Sabre.
Crystal shards crunched under her shoes as she hurried back to
where the sword lay thrumming. She approached it cautiously, unsure
of its danger. The possibility that the explosion had shredded
Sabre into a bloody smear kept thrusting itself at her, but she
refused to believe it. Something of him must remain. A mere
explosion could not destroy the armour on his bones.

Only
electricity could melt barrinium, not neosin, which he had
described as relatively safe, unable to kill except in concentrated
amounts. There had to be something left of him, and she could not
give up until she found the proof that he was dead. She wondered
why the sword hummed. It appeared to be using its power for
something, but what? She scanned the swirling chaos, but the
madness made her eyes hurt, and she looked away. A flash caught her
attention, and she glanced at the sword, which had turned to
crystal again. It whined, then chimed and reverted to metal.

Sabre twisted
in the terrifying nothingness, and now he could not breathe. The
searing cold of absolute zero burnt his skin with its frigid touch,
and his lungs craved air that he could not inhale. The cyber's hum
rose to a startling, painful pitch, making him want to clap his
hands over his ears to block it out, but he knew it would do no
good. The infuriating whine rose higher and higher, piercing his
skull with excruciating needles of sound, and pain washed through
him in a red tide.

Time started
to run backwards. He sensed its reversal like a fish senses a
change in the current. His hair stood on end, and his mind cried
out for sanity. The cyber's hum shot beyond his hearing and blessed
silence clamped down, which proved to be as uncomfortable as the
whine, for it seemed as if he had been struck deaf. Sabre closed
his eyes to block out the whirling insanity and flailed for
purchase, but found nothing to grip.