The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (17 page)

The facility is in poor repair, and it doesn’t look
like anyone’s tried to seriously restore it over the decades, or
even maintain it. It looks stripped, patched, abused. The lighting
is just as dim as the corridors coming up on it. The paint is
chipped and scuffed. It smells of poor recycling. And there’s no
sign of indoor gardening. It strikes me as a place to hide, not for
a people to live and thrive.

This is it, Jonny. They call it The Barracks. Home of
the elite. Heh. It’s actually managed to look worse over the years.
I guess Thel isn’t a very good governor.

Catwalks ring the open dome interior of several
levels, each lined with passage hatchways every few meters. The
specs say the hatches on the upper levels access the VIP suites,
once reserved for high-ranking colony personnel, administrators and
skilled specialists. Now, apparently, this is where the current
elite live, the Keeper officer class and their families. From what
I can see, I wouldn’t call it living well, certainly not as well as
I imagined. But it’s certainly better than what they leave to their
Civvies.

(I wonder if their systems have been slowly
degrading, like they were at Tranquility before the immortals came
to help. And that makes me laugh again, because here I am, an
immortal come to “help.”)

There are a few Keepers moving around on the lower
decks, but no one up as high as we are. Most are probably asleep. I
can see dull glowing blobs of heat through the bulkheads, from two
to five per individual hatch, but they don’t move.

This is the best they have,
Peter confirms
with disdain.
Air, water, recycling. The old hospital is over
there…

The section he points to looks dark, unused,
abandoned.

…
too bad their last educated doctor died off about
twenty years ago. They’re lucky to have field medic skills. It
doesn’t matter though: the sick and injured Civvies get used for
target practice, except their own, who have the option of eating
their own bullets if they can no longer serve. They make a whole
ceremony out of it, special bullets and all.

The really pathetic part is that they could move half
their population in here, and restore enough warm pressurized
sections for the rest, instead of keeping them in the tunnels. But
then the Peace Keepers wouldn’t have as much real estate, and
they’d all have to water ration.

We stop at one of the bigger hatches that looks like
an exit, a section airlock, and my maps confirm it. That confuses
me: Are we leaving? We just got here, and paid our way with over a
dozen lives. But then Peter puts our hand on the control panel, and
I can feel us hack. And
lock
, killing the existing
encryptions. Whatever happens next, the Keepers outside won’t be
able to get to us without lock-breaking gear to reset the codes,
and the Keepers in here won’t be able to get out fast. Then, while
we’re still synced, he kills their security systems and their link
hub, making them blind, deaf and mute.

Now let’s go see Thel. He’s probably awake. He always
preferred the night shift.

Still unseen, we walk around the inside of the dome.
There’s a larger section coming out of the walls on the far side
from us, and there are lights on in the polycarb observation ports
overlooking the lower decks.

Colony Governor’s suite. Thel took it over after he
killed the Garrison Commander who was living in it.

I can hear voices from inside as we get close. The
hatches aren’t locked. I suppose Thelonious has no reason to worry
about security this far inside his fortress.

The outer room is empty. It’s a sizable space, but
like the rest of what I’ve seen, it’s less than what I expect for a
leader. It’s messy, poorly kept, with only basic furniture.

Thel was never much of a decorator. Or a housekeeper.
Head too much in his work.

There’s a single guard on the door to the next room,
but his attention is turned away from anyone coming in. He has his
back to us, focused on whatever’s going on beyond that inner hatch,
intently watching through the small polycarb viewport. The light
that comes through that small window is brighter than the outer
space, and I hear a muted voice and see body-sized heat ghosts—I
count four of them: two that look like they’re sitting or
crouching, and two that look prone down low on the deck.

The guard doesn’t hear us cross the room, doesn’t
hear us coming up behind him, so we spear him in the back of the
head with our Nagamaki, all the way in, and do a quick twist to
destroy his brain. The only sound he makes is a death rattle of a
gasp. We keep him standing, stuck on the end of our blade, and ease
him away from the hatch before we set him down.

The hatch is locked, but easy enough to hack. I don’t
open it, not yet.

“…still can’t break the safeties on this thing to
make it attack organic matter,” I can now more clearly hear
Thelonious inside, complaining idly to someone who doesn’t answer.
“But then, the Rusties slather themselves with that iron oxide
paste, head-to-toe as you can see, and it sinks into the
pores.”

We take a careful peek through the viewport. Since it
is much brighter inside than out, we should be masked by reflection
as long as we don’t get right up to the transparency. A quick
glance around shows us that the room beyond is also more cluttered,
littered with the junk of a hundred unfinished projects over every
surface, including the one small unmade bed. We risk edging closer
to the transparency to get a more thorough look inside, still
counting on the glare to keep us from being seen. But we are.

It’s Murphy. He’s on the floor to the right of the
chamber, wedged up against one of the bulkheads, lying on his right
side, bound wrists to ankles behind his body in what my father
called a “hogtie”. He’s on his right side because his left hip is
packed with bloody bandages. He looks pale, sick, beaten, probably
starved and dehydrated, but he sees us. I raise a finger to my
mask, and he gets that we’re friend, not foe, no matter how bizarre
we may look, and stays quiet. I see enough recognition through his
confusion that I know he’ll play along—he would know this mask and
helmet from the ship, and knew we suspected it belonged to an
immortal. I’m guessing he hopes I’m one of the heroes, somehow
regenerated, and not another villain. I realize I don’t share his
hope. I certainly don’t feel like a hero. Peter certainly
doesn’t.

Also on the floor, bound in similar fashion, is a
Katar from our scouting party. He’s got a poorly bandaged head
wound. And he’s naked.

Thel is sitting casually in a high-backed swivel
chair in the middle of the room, still in his black robes, his
Sphere-capped white staff in his left hand. In his right is an ETE
Rod. He points it idly at the bound Katar, who starts to convulse.
I think I see a patch of skin on the warrior’s shoulder start to
blister. Despite this, he doesn’t cry out.

“Stop it,” I hear Straker order weakly. “He’s no
threat to you.”

“And this is where you tell me that Asmodeus is.
Again. Again again again again
again
…” He sounds like a
child. The kind of child I’d want to strike across the face.

I see her. He’s got her in a steel cage on the left
side of the room. It’s barely big enough for her to sit in, the
latches welded shut. She also looks unusually weak and pale, skin
slick with sweat like she’s feverish, green eyes dim and full of
pain. I don’t see her Blade. Then I do, I think: There’s a
containment tube on one of Thelonious’ work benches, behind him.
Inside it thrashes liquid metal, trapped. He’s been keeping them
separated. I’m sure I’ve heard that’s a bad idea.

How long was I out, healing?

Three days,
Peter answers in my head.

The number rises in my guts like poison. He’s had my
friends at his whim for three days. My rage blazes fresh, and seems
to interface with Peter’s, joining us together. I can feel myself
get back bodily control, flexing my own fists, breathing my own
hate.

Thel goes back to torturing the Katar, looking like
the only reason he’s doing it is for some idle late night
amusement. He burns one patch of skin to blisters, then moves on to
another.

“Just wait until I get to the
really
sensitive
spots,” Thel threatens like he’s looking forward to it.

“I told you, I won’t help you even if I could,”
Straker defies.

“But you
are
helping me. You’ve already told
me so much. You’ve told me there are a lot more people out there,
more leftovers from the colonies. Your pretty boyfriend, for
example.”

Thel swivels to face Murphy.

“That wound is
really
infected,” he pretends
to care. “I suppose we should start by getting the bullet fragments
out.”

He gestures with the Rod, and Murphy jerks against
his bonds, groaning in agony through clenched teeth. Then I see
pieces of bullet come tearing out through his bandages.

Straker struggles against her cage. I expect she’d
kill Thel with her bare hands given any chance at all.

“That’s better. Though I expect you’re bleeding a bit
more now. Too bad I can’t use these to manipulate flesh.” He waves
the Rod in the air like he’s stirring it, his eyes full of wonder
and malice.

“I told you…” Straker starts to deny him again, but
I’m all done with this conv…

“
Mage!
” someone shouts from behind us, from
the hatch we came in through. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we’ve
been attacked! Some of our sentries aren’t responding and systems
are down in several sections. We’re bli…”

And he sees us. Sees that we’re not who he initially
thought we were in the dark.

Peter draws our revolver, but before he can pull the
trigger, the man in the outer hatchway jerks, stumbles and topples.
There’s a long metal spike sticking out of his skull.

The Ghaddar is here. Apparently we made a hole for
more than just us.

Reunions later.

I take the opportunity of Peter’s distraction to take
control, pop the inner hatch, and as soon as I have a clear line I
fire into Thel’s “workshop”, but not—as I can feel Peter hoping—at
Thel. The .454 shell flies over his shoulder—right past his ear—as
everyone jumps from the intensity of the blast, intensified in the
tight metal-walled space—it’s almost as effective as a flash-bang
grenade.

My shot shatters the containment vessel. The
Companion immediately spills onto the floor like molten metal, and
flows fast toward Straker like water running down a steep incline.
Thel recovers his senses, spins and gets up fast, moving like he’s
trying to stop it, and finds the blade of my Nagamaki up under his
jaw. He backs off of it slowly, grins.

“You were still charcoal when I shut you back up
three days ago. Should I ask who you ate?”

He’s not really interested in an answer, just
figuring his next move. He lashes out with his stolen Rod, and I
feel a wave of energy slam me in the gut like a hard kick. He hits
me again, knocking me back through the hatch. I can hear shouting
now from outside, gunfire, but it’s not aimed this way. I plant my
feet, hold my ground. He brings his staff around.

Straker breaks her cage open, climbs out of it like
she can barely move, her Blade reforming in her grip. This
distracts Thel long enough for me to strike. I swat his staff aside
and thrust at his face, managing to gouge his left cheek, bite
bone. He ducks back, brings the Rod around to counter-strike, which
is what I wanted him to do. Still in control, I chop down on his
hand, knocking the Rod out of his grip and costing him part of his
thumb in the bargain.

He screams, then tries to put his staff between us,
but instead of attacking or defending myself I use my sword to kick
away the Rod as it hits the floor. I swat it toward Straker, who
catches it, holds it up in her free hand.

“You don’t know how to use that!” Thel screams, a
child having a tantrum, more focused on his lost prize than his
lost digit, pressing his bleeding hand to his robes. “It took me
years
to figure out how to use one!”

“I don’t want to
use
it,” Straker tells him
icily. Then she holds the Rod out in front of her, and chops into
it with her Blade. The device bursts, and I can feel a spike in
neutron radiation, just a flash that quickly fades. Straker is
drawing the energy of the thing’s micro-fusion core through her
Blade and into herself, using it. Her green eyes blaze. I think I
can see things moving under the skin of her face, like wires.

Thelonious roars like he’s lost a loved one and slams
the butt of his staff into the deck. Every piece of loose metal in
the room starts flying like a storm, swirling around him as he
“stirs” it with the staff, building up speed. Then he flings it all
at us. Murphy and the burned Katar seem safe enough hugging the
deck, and Straker can draw most of what comes her way into her
Blade. I let the rest batter my armor to no effect.

But this is Thel’s turn at distraction. He plants his
staff again and ducks. The roof blows through over his head, and he
throws himself upwards before we can react. He’s running. Like a
coward.

Straker runs to check on Murphy, snapping his
bonds.

“I think these are yours,” Peter growls through our
mask before I can say anything myself. I reach into my satchel and
toss him his revolver, loaders and ammo box. He barely manages to
catch them he’s so weak.

“You’re the… The armor… from the ship…” Straker
struggles for words.

“Enemy of your enemy,” Peter tells her quickly. I
realize I have no desire to let them know who I am. Then I point to
Murphy and the Katar and order like I’m in command: “Get them out
of here.”