NOVEL NEXT Book 4: Chapter 6
I plunged out into the darkness. For me it was a different experience than for the men who had gone before me. They relied on mortal muscles, mortal reflexes, mortal limitations. I was Griidlord. I was God in a God suit.
AGILITY took over my actions as POWER seized my perception. I could see it all, laid out above me, as I leapt and grasped a hanging line.
The balconies we sought were some 40 feet above us. Already, in such a short time, the assault team had fired grapples and slung rope lines in a chaotic frenzy. I could see them even now, pressed to ledges, blind-firing upwards. Submachine guns roared with a constant explosion of bullets. Energy weapons hummed and barked. Everywhere was a rain of spent brass casings and tiny exhausted capacitors, tinkling and scattering down the face of the Tower.
White-robed forms whirled above. A power-sword flashed and a rope came free. I reached for the knight who had been suspended from it a moment before, but he was too far. My fingertips brushed his flailing hand, but he was gone, disappearing into the darkness. He screamed. I ignored it. He would be falling long enough to run out of breath. It was a chilling thought.
My suit muscles contracted, pulling on the rope and hurling my body upwards. Immediately a cry went out among the templars above. They'd seen me. They'd direct every man they had to this balcony now, concentrating their fire on me, their efforts on the ropes I hoped to use to reach them.
I reached for a contour in the face of the Tower. Its surface was smooth and shining, but adorned with strange organic-like protrusions, shelves and recesses. These were purchase and refuge for the assault team. I grasped the contour, again throwing myself upwards, consuming a dozen feet in a single motion.
The voices above became more urgent. Particle beams raced over the surface of the Tower, only POWER giving me the speed to avoid the blasts. Bullets sparked, blooms of light in the darkness. Some of the rounds struck my armor. The kinetic impact rattled me, I felt the hits as childlike punches, not unnoticeable but without real pain.
I landed on a shelf that was recessed into the side of the Tower. Projectiles of every kind stormed against my shelter, pinning me there, even with the suit I dared not try to dip out. A torrent of bullets, directed energy, rail projectiles devoured any available space.
I stayed pressed back. The max-tech weapons could hurt me. They could damage the suit, pierce my flesh, send me hurtling down for those horrible sixteen seconds.
A flash of movement. There, opposite me, in a recess of his own, Theo, catching my eye. He'd found his spot unnoticed, grasping the cord of a grapple that had yet to be cut. In his other hand he waved something at me. A grenade. I understood. He winked. Then he threw it.
A roar erupted from above. They'd seen it. I could see them in my mind's eye. Some of them leaping back, one or two of them pouncing forward to kick it away. It wouldn't be allowed to detonate and kill them, but it did what I needed it to. It bought me half a second.
The muscles of my legs coiled and I exploded upwards. Weapons roared and buzzed and hummed and a stream of death blasted through the night sky pursuing my arc. My fingertips found the edge of the balcony.
The grenade boomed somewhere out there in the darkness, kicked away by a defender.
I swung under the balcony, gathering myself. With my strength I could have hung there all night. This was nearly the moment. I could hear them scrambling, rushing, knowing I was there somewhere, peering down with weapons blazing, desperate to arrest my ascent.
A man leapt from the left, a knight with a shotgun. The weapon boomed, a scream answered it. I darted up, hearing the hum of a power-sword severing the attack from life. I grasped the edge of the balcony and flipped myself up and onto the platform.
Even as I landed I saw Theo touch down, his sword blazing. It was a strangely fortifying moment. He had scorned me like the others, mocked and murmured. But here we were, fighting for the city we called home. Side by side against the traitors.
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A railgun barked and Theo simply didn't have a head anymore. The moment hung frozen before, preserved horribly by the world-slowing POWER. A shower of organic matter bloomed, a cloud of vaporized blood and fragmented bone. I'd seen so much carnage, had been the engine of so much carnage, it should have affected me. Yet I stood frozen for that instant as his headless body tumbled back off of the balcony.
Barrels of guns and the edges of flowing power weapons turned towards me.
I gave them everything I had.
I was a storm. They'd expected a god to battle them. But I was the god their gods had nightmares of. My Sword was molten fire, swirling blacks and reds, blazing with CUT and BEAM. White robes whirled around bodies sheathed in the finest armors. It was a haze of perfect violence. Arms flew in the air, trailing blood. Templars flew from the balcony riding the tide of blazing BEAM, falling shrieking in fear or in the simple silence of the already dead.
It could not have been more than seconds later that I was the only man standing on the balcony. I rushed into the chamber.
There it was. The Oracle. A brilliant white sphere, the size of a small house, filling the centre of the chamber. Each balcony led directly to it. The rest of the chamber was below. One of the other four balconies was a battlefield, templars wrestling with the black armored figures of the assault team. Guns roared, weapons smashed against each other. The templars of the other two balconies were turning towards me.
I needed to reach Mario.
BEAM roared from me, like an exhalation of unfiltered violence, sweeping the uncontested balconies. The templars were smashed by the wave of kinetic madness I directed at them. They hurtled from the balcony or crashed to its surface. I leapt, aiming for the floor of the Oracle chamber 20 feet below. The assault teams could find purchase in my wake and clear the balconies. The words of Ra echoed in my mind. Stop Mario before it was too late.
I hit the floor of the Oracle chamber. Three templars rushed me. The finest of the finest, as well trained and equipped as a mortal man could ever really hope to be. My blade sang, blazing with CUT, turning them into so many pieces of shredded meat.
Then it was just me and him.
Other bodies lay scattered, the bloodied robes of the priests who had been manning the Oracle Chamber. All slain.
Mario was afraid. I could see that. The intensity of the zealot burned in his eyes, but it was not so bright as to outshine the existential dread he faced. I was that existential dread, with a glowing sword.
He darted for the Oracle. The Oracle was supported by a mass of shining tube-like structures that grew from the floor in the centre of the chamber. This forest of tubes was surrounded by consoles, screens, control panels. It was towards one of these panels that he darted.
My sword flashed and his hand fell to the floor with a wet smack. He staggered back, clutching the stump, the flow of blood nearly impossible, lancing the air with dark red arterial pulses.
"You pitiful child!" He meant it as a snarl, but it came out sobbing and broken.
I stepped forward. He was bleeding, his heart was driving the blood from his body by the pint, the pulse misting and spraying as he clutched at the wound. His face was rapidly growing pale.
Ra had said to end him instantly, to take no chance. But a glance around showed me that there were no chances. He was the last one left standing. I was between him and the consoles. He was weakening, staggering. He would slip away soon enough. But that still left an interval for answers.
"Why did you do it Mario? A self-righteous prick like you? You're a bastard, but I never had you pegged for a traitor."
He tore a strip from his robe, aiming to tourniquet his own arm. He gasped, his voice drunk with shock and blood loss. "I'm no traitor! I am the savior. Boston is a den of Children, F'ael has its teeth in the hearts of the elite…"
My sword flashed. It was cruel, yes, but darkly delicious, as my sword cut the strip of cloth in half. His fingers went slack, letting the strips of cloth flutter away. He met my gaze, his eyes weak, understanding he wouldn't be surviving this encounter. He whispered, distantly, "How is it that one such as I should be at the mercy of a lowly dog who stole the power of the Oracle."
My own voice was calm and at ease. "I earned the suit. Won the suit. You were there. Why do you think F'ael worshippers are corrupting our city, Mario? Before you die, set the record straight."
His legs wobbled and he fell to his knees. Oh, I wanted to swing my sword and take that head off. This was a moment of poetic magic. But I couldn't waste the time on my satisfaction.
Mario mumbled, so low that I might have missed it without HEARING. "They've been growing for years. Their time looms closer… Danefer will purge them…"
I shook my head, "You've been in contact with Danefer? You believe him?"
He sagged lower, collapsing to all fours, his body trembling, blood spurting onto the pristine floor, leaving dark streaks and growing pools. Spasming, he turned his face to me. "I don't die in vain. You'll… You'll see… I'll have my place by… the Oracle…"
Unconsciousness swept him away. He wasn't dead yet, though I could see a few more minutes would take care of that. I didn't even consider acting to save him. The chamber was secure, but Albany could be falling even as I stood there.
I rushed to the main doors of the chamber to give access back to the Tower.