Decipher (56 page)

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Authors: Stel Pavlou

BOOK: Decipher
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The canal was filled with melt water, and seemed strangely closer to the level of the thoroughfare than when they had first journeyed out on it.
Matheson, constantly in awe of the amazing engineering feats of this city, ran over to the side and looked down.
“That's it!” he cried. “This whole city must be built on some kind of mound, or a hill! The closer to the center we get, the closer to ground level we get! It can't be more than fifteen or twenty feet down to the water level—”
And that was when his voice caught in his throat.
“Jesus,” he said. “Michaels … !”
A few hundred yards away, Michaels lay crumpled and motionless out in the middle of the canal. Not a difficult thing to do considering the water was frozen solid. But not through any natural processes, for though the canal sparkled like fluid water, and though it was as clear as fresh water, it was
not ice. It was frozen through the standing wave phenomenon of quasicrystallization.
Ripples in the water and disturbances had been captured and frozen in time by the standing waves pumped out by the C60 walls on either side of the canal. These ripples were most notable at the water's edge on each side, exactly where the quasicrystallization began. It showed clearly where the power and force to achieve this feat was coming from.
The others rushed over to where Matheson stood at the side of the thoroughfare.
Gant was the first to spot it—the black container lying on its side a few feet away from the marine. Already the major was going for the ropes slung on his belt. All he said was: “The bomb.”
“Screw the bomb!” Pearce snapped. “We've got to help him—Michaels! Hey, can you hear me? Hey, Michaels, are you okay?”
Michaels seemed to stir after a moment. With a groan he raised his head before collapsing back down and rolling over onto his back. He seemed to be speaking but nobody could hear.
“The radio,” Yun urged. “Use your radio.”
As Hillman reached for his unit, Gant was already securing his line to some kind of ancient lamppost and tossing the other end over the edge.
“Ray,” Hillman said firmly, thumbing the transceiver. “Ray, can you hear me? We're comin' to get you, bud. Don't worry.”
“We don't have time for this,” Hackett warned desperately.
“We don't leave a fallen man,” Hillman growled.
“Fine!” Hackett shot back. “You go down and get him, we'll continue on to the control center.”
“We go together!” Gant barked.
Out on the canal, Michaels's arm flopped weakly onto his chest as he unclipped his radio. They could barely make out what he was doing. It was peculiar. But he seemed to be tossing the thing away. He seemed to be indicating that he didn't want them coming out to him.
He was warding them off.
“Damn, what's he doing?”
Hillman went for his binoculars again. “Oh crap. Sir, poor bastard's broke both his legs. I can see it. They're all twisted outta shape.”
Yun immediately went for his own set of ropes and started to tie one off around a post.
“What the hell d'you think you're doing?” Gant demanded.
“I help.”
“Like hell—”
“We do not have time for this macho bullshit!” November spat, grabbing her own safety clip and hooking her leg over the edge. “Christ,
I'll
help, y'all. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get going again.”
Before anyone else could say a word, she was already climbing down onto the canal. Gant exchanged a look with Scott. “Gets up quite a head of steam, don't she?”
Scott shrugged.
Gant got going as Hackett took the epigraphist to one side. “What is it with you?”
“I'm gonna die,” Scott replied simply, almost flippantly. “It kind of changes one's perspective.”
Hackett obviously hadn't expected to hear that. He wanted to press the man further, but Hillman was forcing equipment into his hand. “Here, hold this,” he was saying, giving him his backpack and swinging his legs over the edge. “I'll be back in two shakes.”
But even as the three soldiers and the anthropologist's assistant stepped out onto the canal, Scott frowned, like late breaking news had just filtered into his head.
“Something's wrong,” he said simply.
Sarah exchanged a look with Scott as he came back over to the edge, scouring the horizon with a keen eye.
“There!” she pointed.
And that's when they all saw it.
Michaels groaned in such hideous agony he was almost delirious from it as he held his mashed arm in one hand. He had thick congealing blood caked all over his face. His nose was all smashed just like the side of his face. His left leg stuck out at right-angles halfway down his shin bone. He wasn't certain, but he was pretty sure a broken rib had punctured one of his lungs.
And then out of the mish-mash of his blurred vision—came the cavalry.
There was only one way to describe it. With the little power left in his voice and air rasping in his throat he said: “Fucking idiots.”
His head flopped back down.
 
Hillman broke into a sprint.
“We're right here, man! We're right here! We're gonna get you out of this!”
The only one who didn't rush immediately to Michaels's side was Gant. Not surprisingly, his main concern was the bomb. He turned it over onto its skis. “It's still in one piece,” he realized. “Jesus, thank God.”
“Thank Samsonite,” Michaels gasped, amused with himself.
“What the hell happened to you, man?” Hillman asked, frantically making a note of all the marine's wounds.
Michaels coughed. “I fell out of the fucking sky … What do you think happened to me?”
“Jesus, you're lucky to be alive.”
“Then why don't I
feel
lucky?” But though it was said as a joke, he wasn't laughing. He let his mashed-up arm flop to one side and grabbed Hillman by the collar. “You gotta get outta here, before they come back. You gotta go.”
Hillman didn't get it. “What the fuck are you talking about? We're getting you out of here.”
But even as Hillman spoke, Michaels's face was a picture of pure, undiluted fear. Tears welled in his bloodshot eyes. Any moment and there was a chance he was going to blub like a baby.
“Oh fuck, man, it's too late. They're here. Man, they're here. We're all gonna fucking die.”
The others snapped their heads up to see, while Michaels caught a glimpse of Hackett and the rest of the team over on the bridge. They were waving.
“Get—out—of—there!”
came their belated cries.
“They left me out here as bait,” Michaels sobbed. “And you fell for it.”
But it was all too late. Michaels flopped his head back down, the strain once again too much on his neck. “That's what I've been telling you,” he murmured, breathless.
November rose to her feet slowly with Yun as Gant backed up next to them dragging the warhead with him.
“Holy buck …”
“What do we do?” November asked.
But there was little point in answering such a redundant question.
 
Across the far expanse of the canal, on the empty quaysides and docks of the ancient city, in a vast swathe as far as the eye could see, the Golems waited.
Not one, or two. Not even a hundred. But thousands. Maybe even tens of thousands.
Motionless to begin with, no one knew which one moved first, but there came a sudden imperceptible shift in attitude throughout the forest of crystal effigies and within seconds the Golems had taken to swaying, their huge heads lumbering upon thick necks as they shifted their weight from foot to foot. Ritualistic and menacing.
Hillman checked behind for an escape route, but the comment: “Oh no,” pretty much let everyone know there wasn't one. For standing in a line along the enclosing arc of the nearside of the canal, back the way they came, were thousands more Golems. However, these were a far more aggressive bunch than any they had encountered before.
The front line took a step forward and thrust out their right arms. In unison they balled their fists and, starting in the middle of the group and simultaneously working out to the periphery on both sides of the arc, each Golem's clenched fist mutated. Warped. Suddenly, razor-sharp stiletto-style daggers rose up from within their fists and then
shot up to become fully-fledged crystal swords.
The sound they made as they did this was like ten thousand razor blades scraping down a chalkboard. It was the sound of death—a sound that made it perfectly plain that the group would not be going back the way they came.
“Fuck that shit!” Hillman screamed.
For now though, the Golems simply stood in position and stared across the void at them. Like they were weighing the odds. Assessing the options.
“How many do you think there are?” Michaels panted.
“Does it fucking matter?” Gant growled. “We're outnumbered.”
“One hundred and forty-four thousand,” November said sourly. “That's how many there are. That's what the Bible says about the size of the army in the final conflict.”
“We gotta get to the bridge.” Gant checked his sonic artifact as he tied the warhead off on his belt. “What's that word I gotta use?”
“It's two words,” November reminded.
“Zihamtu”
.
Gant nodded as he spoke into the device to check it worked.
“Zihamtu …”
It was, perhaps, not the best thing he could have done. All along the edge of both sides of the canal the Golems started emitting a low rumble, their body language indicating they were about to go on the offensive.
Michaels lay on the ground, shivering. “Sir, I don't think that was a good idea.”
Hillman cocked his rifle. “And that's just their reaction to those two words, huh?! Well, I got two words for 'em.
Heckler and Koch!
Or how about
Eat Lead!
Or maybe
Die
,
Bitch!”
Gant started marching. “C'mon, let's go.”
“Sir,” Hillman protested. “What about Michaels? Sir, we can't just leave him.”
Gant pulled out his handgun and immediately handed it to the fallen marine. “Here, son. You need this more than I do.”
But even as he said this the Golems on either side of the canal started climbing down onto the hard surface of the water.
“Get out of here!” Michaels pleaded. “Or you're all gonna fucking die!”
“I'll stay with him,” Yun piped up suddenly. “You cannot leave him to die.”
“Bullshit!
I'll
stay with him!” Hillman protested. “You never served with him! I did.”
“We don't have time for this horseshit, soldier!” Gant exploded as he realized the mass of Golems on both sides of the canal were marching toward them. “If you're both prepared to stay with him, you can both pick him up and carry him.
Now let's go!
”
November quickly clipped her tether onto the warhead and began pulling alongside Gant. Together they broke into a run heading for the bridge where the others were screaming for them to hurry.
It was the best course of action, because the Golems too had quickened their pace.
They had started to charge.
 
“Jesus Christ! They're never going to make it!” Pearce yelped.
“Run!”
Matheson went to climb over the edge but Scott held him back. “What are you
doing?”
he complained, struggling to get free. “We've got to do something!”
“Staying here,” Scott said firmly, “is the safest option.”
“What!”
“Look around you,” Sarah explained coldly. “Do you see any of those things climbing up here onto the bridge? No. Because it's Carbon 60. There is a battle raging in this city right now, for control of those creatures. If they come into contact with this crystal bridge they will interface with it. Then they die!”
“It is
really
starting to disturb me that you two know so much about this place all of a sudden,” Pearce snapped.
Scott started wrapping one of the ropes around his waist. “When they get here, we'll pull 'em up.”
“Let's hope they get here.”
 
November could literally hear her heart pounding in her chest. Her cheeks flushed as she sprinted across the quasi-crystallized
canal toward the bridge, dragging the warhead alongside Gant.
Out of the corner of her eye she could sense the Golems looming large, bearing down like a wave of frenzied, shattered glass.
She could hear them dragging their swords behind them, forcing the points into the crystallized canal and creating such a God-awful screech it sounded like a herd of freight trains all ramming on their brakes to avoid a full head-on collision.
She could feel a scream building in her throat. A bubble of sheer terror.
She turned her head to look, though she knew she shouldn't, and that was when the Golems closest to her raised their long thin blades and went in for the kill.
November didn't know where her presence of mind came from.
All she knew was that at some instinctive level she realized she had to retaliate and had the means to do so within her grasp. She brought the sonic artifact up to her lips, and without breaking the rhythm of her sprint she screamed into it like some frenzied banshee:
Zihamtu! Zihamtu! Zihamtu!
The front line of sword-wielding Golems exploded in a cloud of electrified dust.
But through the stormcloud and residual lightning came the second line of attacking automatons.
They tipped their blades forward, to let her know they intended to skewer her.
 
Hillman fired again and again, blasting bullets deep into the thick of the marauding machines.
He knew it wouldn't kill them. But he also knew if he tripped enough of them up, took their legs out or knocked them on their asses, it would slow them some and buy the group more time.
“Take that, you fuckers!”
“Argh!” Michaels bellowed in such a blood-curdling manner it made both men carrying him wince.
Michaels had tried to put weight on his legs, even though he knew they would never support him. But his desperation to speed the process up was that great.
This was no good. They couldn't both carry him; they would have to stop. One of them would have to put Michaels's full weight over his shoulder, and carry him fireman-style.
Hillman jerked them to a halt. Shoved his gun in Michaels's hand. “Here, hold this!”
Yun knew what he was doing. In symbiosis, he helped heave the marine up onto his comrade's shoulder and set out ahead.
Michaels was heavy. A deadweight in fact, but there was just no way Hillman was prepared to leave him behind. He fired to the side as he yelled at his cargo: “Shoot the fuckers! Shoot 'em from behind!”
He listened with a satisfied air as Michaels loosed volley after volley into the oncoming swarm. But it wasn't enough. Hillman just wasn't strong enough. He couldn't maintain the speed required to stay one jump ahead. Within moments they were engulfed.
In the panic that followed, Hillman tripped and was brought crashing to his knees. Yet despite the severest jabbing pains shooting through his kneecaps, he was miraculously able to keep Michaels firmly balanced on his shoulder.
But he needn't have bothered.
The clips spent, the ammo gone, perhaps Michaels would have preferred to have crashed to the ground himself.
“You okay, buddy?” Hillman called out thinly.
“Uh-huh,” came the equally weak reply.
For the last thing Michaels was to see as he pulled his head up over his friend's shoulder, was a massive Golem looming large, the serrated tip of its ultra-thin blade pressing square against the flesh and bone between his eyes—and pushing.
 
Yun couldn't hear them behind him anymore. The two marines.
He knew he shouldn't look back, but he could see up ahead that November and Gant had still not reached the bridge. They were going to need a diversion.
Casually he jogged to a halt, having come to his deliberate conclusion in a measured manner. He lowered his gun and knew the waves of Golems had altered course to attack him.
 
 
Up on the bridge, the others couldn't believe what they were seeing. Pearce gripped the edge and called after the Chinese soldier, but it was no use. Yun's mind was made up.
He was turning back to confront them.
 
The sight before him was as gruesome as he had feared. He just caught the tail end of a double decapitation and watched as the heads of the two fallen marines rolled across the floor.
On impulse, he screamed.

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