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It was quickly apparent that the golden giants had lost all interest in Maddock and the others. That was the good news. The bad news was that the animated statues were now clustered around the only exit from the vault—a breach they had forced in the false walls separating the Prometheus vault from the empty seed vault.
The even worse news was that the permafrost overhead was melting fast and coming down even faster.
Maddock had one arm raised overhead to ward off falling rocks and mud. It was a symbolic effort but at least it kept the mud out of his eyes.
“When I heard this place was called the Doomsday Vault, I thought it meant something else,” Bones said, shouting to be heard over the din. He looked past Maddock to the line of stragglers behind him. “Where’s Kismet?”
“He took off,” Maddock said. He knew there was more to the story, but once again, their new friend had made a unilateral decision and abandoned them all.
Bones evidently felt the same way. “Again? Screw that guy. He’s off the team.” He glanced over at Christian Garral and Leda Hauser and shrugged. “Sorry, but you’re kid’s a dick.”
Garral grimaced, apologetically, but Leda’s face was an emotionless mask.
“There’s Professor,” Jade shouted, pointing in the direction of the logjam at the exit, and to a figure huddling in the relative shelter of the wall nearby.
Bones nodded. “I hope he can figure out how we’re gonna get through that mess ‘cause I got nothing.”
As if to mock his hopelessness, the mass of statues surged again and then, like a shower of champagne behind a loosened cork, exploded through the hole. beyond the opening, Maddock could see the statues continuing their destructive rampage, trashing the shelves in the empty vault. The giants were still between them and freedom, but at least the way out of the Prometheus vault was clear.
Behind them, huge chunks of the ceiling continued to crash down, obliterating what little remained of the collection and splattering the fleeing group with cold mud, but as they cautiously started through into the seed vault, something changed.
The statues’ movements were growing sluggish. Some were squatting on their haunches or kneeling amidst the ruin of the seed vault as if uncertain what to do next. One of them—a male figure—took a tentative step toward the exit, but then froze in place.
“The ichor is depleting,” Leda said, pushing forward.
Beside Maddock, Bones muttered. “Translation: Dead batteries.”
“Not dead enough,” Maddock said. “We need to get past them.”
Easier said than done. The giants had transformed the seed vault into a nightmarish obstacle course. The neat orderly rows of shelving were broken and scattered across the floor, and the steel posts that had supported them were bent and twisted around the slow-moving statues like tentacles. Worse, the warming effect had followed the giants, and despite the refrigeration system, ice and chunks of melting permafrost were starting to fall from the ceiling.
Maddock glanced back to make sure everyone else was still with him. “Watch your step,” he advised, “And keep your head on a swivel.”
With that admonition, he started forward, picking his way over the tangled metal and ducking slow swipes from the giants. He guessed their dwindling power supply would be completely exhausted in another two or three minutes, but they couldn’t afford to wait and see. Not only was the vault still coming down around them, there was an even bigger problem. Hauser had possession of the elemental relics. Despite his irritation with Kismet’s decision to leave them all behind, he knew why the man had done it. It was bad enough that Hauser seemed to be unkillable. They couldn’t afford to let him add “omnipotent” to his resume.
He reached the far end of the vault without mishap, noting the drops of blood that were freezing on the floor, and kept going. There were more bloodstains on the floor, a trail leading all the way back to the front door and beyond. Someone had been injured during the escape from the vault, and the dark drops showed exactly where they had gone.
The air outside, cooler than in the vault room, quickly froze the mud on his coat and snow pants into a crust that crackled as he ran. Thankfully, the waterproof outer shell of the garments had resisted saturation.
Although the snowmobiles were too far away for him to hear them, their headlamps showed their location and progress. The lead vehicle—almost certainly Hauser—was halfway to the airport, the second machine—Kismet—trailing by about a hundred yards.
Maddock ran to one of the two remaining snowmobiles. Bones landed in the saddle of the other. He knew there was almost no chance of either of them catching Hauser, but Kismet was almost close enough. Almost.
Maddock searched the line of figures emerging from the seed vault until he identified Professor. “Prof! Can you do something with that rifle?”
The other man squinted into the distance. “I doubt I can hit him.”
Jimmy piped in. “Let me take a crack at it. I’m pretty good with a sniper rifle.”
Maddock gaped at him. “Since when?”
Professor rolled his eyes. “Video games.”
Maddock shook his head, more an expression of disbelief than denial. “Whatever. You don’t need to hit him. Just give him something to think about. Keep him away from the airport. Buy us some time.”
Maddock hit the starter and the snowmobile roared to life. He goosed the throttle until the skis fell into the trail left by the other two machines, and then opened it wide.
The wind chilled his unprotected face, pelting him with ice crystals that stung his cheeks. He had to squint to keep from being blinded. His only consolation was that the ordeal would not last long. It would only take a few minutes to cover the distance to the airport.
Hauser was already almost there.
The rifle report cracked overhead, loud enough for him to hear it over the engine noise and the rush of air. Another followed quickly. Then another. Jimmy and Professor were alternating their shots, setting up a constant, if slow-tempo, barrage of suppressive fire. He couldn’t tell where the bullets were hitting, but evidently they were close enough. Further down the hill, the headlights of the lead snowmobile abruptly veered to the right.
Maddock risked opening his eyes a little wider, tracking the course correction. Hauser was zigzagging, carving a wavy line in the snow, but with each left turn, he pushed closer to the illuminated runway. Up on the hill, Jimmy and Professor seemed to realize what the other man intended; not only did they intensify the rate of fire whenever Hauser shifted back to the left, they also appeared to be directing their shots closer, adjusting their aim and dialing in on the moving target. Accurate or not, the constant fire was having the desired effect. Hauser’s evasive maneuvers had cut his lead on Kismet by half, and Maddock and Bones were closing quickly as well.
Without letting go of the throttle, Maddock reached up, unclipped his walkie-talkie and held it against his ear. “Bones, you still with me?”
Bones’ voice crackled back a moment later. “Right on your ass. Gotta say, the view sucks.”
Maddock suppressed a chuckle. “Then let’s change it up a little? I’m gonna sweep wide-right. Try to push him back toward you.”
“Gotcha,” was all Bones said.
Maddock immediately veered off the blazed trail, plunging into the untrammeled snow. It was like floating on a cloud. Over the top of the waist-high accumulation, he could just make out Bones’ snowmobile, charging straight down the hill, and further out, two pinpoints of light—the headlights of Hauser’s and Kismet’s machines—drifting across the horizon in front of him, getting closer as he moved to intercept.
Hauser must have realized what he was attempting. After a few seconds, he veered back in the other direction, but his window of opportunity had already closed. He was past the airport and running headlong toward the open water of the fjord beyond.
Maddock stood up for a better look and saw Kismet, closing fast on Hauser, driving him relentlessly forward. Bones had swept to the left, cutting off any escape in that direction. Directly ahead, the white snowscape ended abruptly, marking the transition from ice to water.
“We got this bastard,” Bones shouted over the radio. “He’s got nowhere to go.”
Maddock felt a twinge of apprehension. Hauser was like a cornered rat; with no avenues left for escape, his only option would be to fight, and with all four of the elemental relics in his possession, he would be more than a match for all of them.
Hauser had evidently reached the same conclusion. His snowmobile slowed and came to a full stop less than twenty yards from the water’s edge, but he did not dismount. Instead, he remained in his seat, wrestling with the burden he had carried out of the Prometheus vault, fighting to pry the individual relics apart in order to assemble them in the correct order so he could use it to blast them all to oblivion.
Something flashed into Maddock’s view. It was Kismet on his snowmobile, still running at full speed in pursuit of his brother.
He’s not going to stop, Maddock realized.
Kismet didn’t stop, but he launched himself off the snowmobile at the last instant, rolling away as the riderless machine kamikazed into Hauser’s vehicle.
From his vantage a hundred yards away and closing, Maddock saw the two snowmobiles come apart in an eruption of shattered fiberglass, metal and smoke, and then a second later, heard and felt the impact.
Maddock kept the throttle wide-open, charging toward the smoldering wreckage. The snow around the site of the collision was dark with oil stains and pieces of debris, but despite the violence of the crash, he knew better than to count Hauser out of the fight. He spotted Kismet, evidently unhurt, shaking off the effects of his tumble in the snow, then he saw something that caused him to let go of the throttle and slam on the brakes.
A dark hole had opened up under one of the broken snowmobiles, swallowing it completely.
He saw Bones approaching from the other direction and started waving frantically to get the other man’s attention. Remembering the radio, he keyed the mic and shouted, “Back off. There’s thin ice here. We’re over water.”
Bones must have gotten the message because he immediately turned away, heading back toward the lights of the airport.
Maddock knew he should probably do the same. Most of the fjord was ice free but evidently land ice had crept out over the water to form a shelf along the coastline. The mass was thick enough to support the weight of the snowmobiles, or rather it had been until the crash. Now there was no telling how much longer it would remain solid beneath him. Reasoning that he’d have a better chance of making it off the ice shelf on foot, he dismounted and cautiously started toward the wreck site. He found Kismet again and waved his arms. “Nick. Over here.”
Kismet’s head turned toward him but before he could reply, a grinning form materialized out of the darkness behind him. It was Hauser, and in his hands, the elemental relic—re-configured as it had been in the Prometheus vault—was beginning to glow.
Maddock threw out both hands in a plaintive gesture. “Stop. You’ll melt the—”
An ear-splitting crack cut him off, and then the entire section of ice under all three of them came apart.