Decimal River walked back into the cave, chewing at a cooked chicken leg, grease running down his fingers. He had worked himself up with stress, been unable to eat for the final days leading to the push against Cerberus. Now that he was finally able to eat once again, the chicken tasted like something magical as it touched his tongue. Satisfied, he sat before his computer screen and gazed at the data feed.
The three subjects were still there, but there was something wrong. A new line of code was running rampant through the system, fragmenting his virtual world, destroying the trap. Someone had discovered them.
Decimal River wiped his greasy fingers on the legs of his pants, leaned forward and began tapping out a rapid code to grant him back-door access to the system. Two words appeared on-screen: “Access denied.”
“But that cannot be,” he cried as he ran through his code again.
THE ELEVATOR DOORS opened onto Alpha Level, and a well-dressed guard rushed over to greet the trio, a stern look on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he began, “but this level is closed to—”
Kane’s right arm lashed out and the Sin Eater rocketed into his palm from its wrist holster, extending to its full length in a fraction of a second. Kane’s finger was crooked as it met the trigger, pushing the trigger down and blasting a stream of steel-jacketed bullets into the guard’s face.
“No time left to argue,” Kane told the unfortunate guard as he fell to the floor, his face now just a bloody smear.
“Let’s go,” Kane told Brigid as the Sin Eater retracted into its holster and he maneuvered Grant’s wheelchair.
“This way,” she directed, relying on the vague memory of a gateway that someone called Lakesh had described.
LAKESH HELD HIS BREATH as the information on the monitor flickered, and his fingers darted forward to adjust the code. Someone was trying to break through the Cerberus firewall, the same person who had originally manipulated the data. With a swift tap on the keyboard, Lakesh added a further level of encryption to his data stream, blocking his unseen opponent’s access.
He looked up from the screen, watching with nervous anticipation as howling began and the familiar mist began to fill the mat-trans chamber itself, billowing from the vents and fogging up the glass.
As he watched, Lakesh became aware of a presence behind him, and he turned just in time to duck a powerful punch aimed straight at the back of his head. Kane stood there, a bloody streak across his chest and torso, blood oozing down the casual clothing he wore. Not Kane, Lakesh reminded himself—something other.
Lakesh spun from his chair and leaped out of the way as the false Kane swung another pile-driver punch in the older man’s direction.
“Time to die, you irritating little megalomaniac,” Kane growled as he stalked toward the retreating scientist.
ON THE OTHER SIDE of the ops room, Broken Ghost was caught in a tangle on the floor with Shizuka lying on top of her. Broken Ghost tossed her head back until it crashed into Shizuka’s forehead with a loud crack. Shizuka felt a wave of nausea flood through her with the impact, and her grip weakened on the assassin’s agile body.
A moment later, a sharp elbow slammed into Shizuka’s belly as Broken Ghost renewed her attack. The skull-faced assassin thrashed on the floor tiles, throwing Shizuka’s battered body aside. A moment later, she stood over the samurai as Shizuka slumped to the floor, utterly exhausted.
As Broken Ghost flexed her muscles, preparing to put Shizuka out of her misery, the door beside her crashed open and Cloud Singer and Brigid Baptiste entered, dragging the unconscious form of Domi.
“Lakesh is gone,” Cloud Singer explained hurriedly. “You promised me we’d—” She stopped, spying the ongoing skirmish on the far side of the room via her night lenses.
Lakesh was there, backing away as a bloody, wounded Kane closed in on him. As Cloud Singer watched, Lakesh stepped into a wall of smoked glass at the edge of the room, finding himself trapped with nowhere left to run.
“THIS IS IT,” Brigid declared.
In front of them was the pewter-gray armaglass wall of the secret gateway that Lakesh had used to commute between Cobaltville and the Cerberus redoubt.
“How does it work?” Kane asked, clearly skeptical.
“Guess we’ll find out,” Grant rumbled.
Brigid entered the chamber and looked around, a puzzled expression on her face. She touched the control panel inside the armaglass-walled chamber, then examined the lock on the door. “We all have to be in here,” she stated, and motioned for Kane to lift Grant out of the wheelchair and into the jump chamber.
Brigid closed her eyes, visualizing her fingers, touching the keypad and locking the door before her memory was overwhelmed with a rising howl and spark-shot mist. She opened her eyes and looked at Kane and Grant.
“This is it,” she said, reaching for the keypad.
LAKESH FELT his heart pounding in his chest as he backed up against the armaglass wall of the mat-trans. Kane stood before him, fists clenched, his chest oozing blood over his torn shirt. Behind him, in the half-light cast by the computer screens, Lakesh saw three women stalking toward him—the fake Brigid Baptiste, the tattooed teenager called Cloud Singer and the skull-faced athlete who had introduced herself as Broken Ghost.
Lakesh peered into the darkness beyond them, trying to locate Domi and Shizuka, hoping against hope that they might yet come to his assistance.
“They’re dead,” Broken Ghost said, as though reading his thoughts.
“If it’s me you want,” Lakesh said, struggling to keep the tremor out of his voice, “then just kill me. Please, leave my people alone.”
“You killed my friends,” the teenager snarled.
“No,” Lakesh began, shaking his head, “I didn’t—”
“Liar!” Cloud Singer spat. “You ordered your people there, ordered them to kill my war brothers. They may have done your dirty work, Kane and his ilk, but the blood is on your hands, Lakesh of the Cerberus tribe.”
The four figures had surrounded Lakesh now, where he stood backed against the tinted armaglass, the mists billowing within the cubicle behind him. There was nowhere left to go, nowhere left to run. He had done everything he could.
“It’s over, Lakesh,” Brigid said, her emerald eyes fixed on his. “Time to go.”
Behind him, the mat-trans was powering down. Suddenly the mists swirled out of the opening.
As the door swung wide, three figures emerged and Grant’s voice came through the open doorway of the mat-trans: “…where someone doesn’t start shooting at us?”