The Ancient Breed (54 page)

“How are we going to get past those two?” Neo asked restively. “They’re blocking the damn passage.”

Hugo punched Neo’s shoulder. “Shut up and just go with the flow.”

Neo eyed Nick’s new shape warily. “What the hell happened to you? You look a lot like . . .”

Nick bared his teeth and growled at his friend, and Neo quickly dropped the questioning.

Lisa hooked Nick’s massive, scaly arm and looked up at his reptilian face. “I love you, Nick. I know all about you and Gabriella, but I just wanted you to know how I feel,” she declared without a hint of fear.

Strangely, her confession failed to penetrate his primitive mind. He cocked his head like a confused animal as he attempted to decipher the meaning of those words. He felt numb and distant, as if he and Lisa had never met. The only reason he had sought her out earlier was that his instincts directed him to save her at all costs. But why? He didn’t know.

Neo elbowed Nick’s hip, and another shallow growl escaped his lips.

“Your buddy just kicked some ass and saved your skin again,” Neo said, referring to the Zyloux. He studied Nick. “You know, you don’t look like your usual self. In fact, you look
better
. More bulked up. You been working out behind my back?” he quipped.

Nick regarded Neo derisively. Of course he was muscular. He had to be. He was a killer.

Tobias stood ominously over his wriggling partner and then glanced back at the others.

“When I’ve finished with him, you’re all next!” he threatened. “Especially you, Bellamy.”

Fritz silently materialized behind the arrogant destroyer and rammed the second Duneden Dirk into his back. Simpkins dropped to a knee as his flesh rapidly turned a sickly green. His mouth opened as if to speak, but his flesh withered and wrinkled like a raisin and clung to his skull like green plastic wrap. His eyes popped from his skull and bounced once on the cavern floor before liquefying into gelatinous puddles. Finally, the destroyer’s skull and black robe collapsed inward. Tobias Simpkins’s entire body dissolved into green ooze; his threat against the others died with him.

Fritz gave them the all-clear signal and ran to his grandmother’s horribly mutilated body. Hugo ran to Fritz’s side, and they knelt and prayed. The rest of their party walked somberly toward the exit, their thoughts and prayers with the Guttentags. Lisa turned her head to avoid witnessing the abhorrent spectacle as they passed the brothers.

Suddenly, the alien rose up behind Fritz and gored him with one of its machete claws. Lisa gripped Nick’s forearm and stifled a scream. Hugo scooped the Duneden Dirk from Tobias Simpkins’s glutinous remains and leaped on the shape-shifter as it brandished Fritz’s corpse like a limp puppet. He thrust the dagger into the alien’s burnished flesh. A second tentacle slashed Hugo’s chest, and the broad incision immediately spewed blood like an obscene fountain.

Nick roared angrily and started forward, but Neo and Lisa restrained him.

“Not here,” Lisa shouted.

Nick’s primordial mind didn’t understand the concept of retreat and pulled free. The hulking reptilian monster charged the shape-shifter, but it quickly manipulated Fritz’s corpse between itself and its attacker like a shield. As it defended itself from Nick, it continued to hack Hugo’s frame into bloody chum with a second tentacle. Nick tugged Fritz off the tentacle, tossed him aside, and grabbed the freed appendage. He wrestled with the alien while fending off two other thrashing tentacles; the squirming, tentacle claw in Nick’s grasp was within inches of his exposed, scaly throat. But, the shape-shifter’s wounds had sapped its strength, and before Nick ripped the one tentacle from its body, the alien dissolved into its familiar, black cloud form.

“Get out of there!” Lisa screamed at Nick.

The black cloud drifted to the ceiling and filled the cavern with its angry drone. As it readied its counterattack, Nick and the others suddenly vanished. The droning intensified as it spied the Zyloux across the grotto, knee-deep in dead Cumalodins. The last of its ancient breed army – its army - was dead.

The cloud orbited the cavern perimeter as it again prepared for an attack. It plunged toward the demon guardian like a swarm of angry bees, but the Zyloux saw its approach and disappeared before the shape-shifter even made contact.

The shape-shifter shrank to the size of a greasy ball bearing and flew into the passage.

Crow inspected the outdated contraption that filled most of the lead-lined test cell at the
Old Mother Hubbard
’s computer facility. As far as he could tell, it appeared to be a massive, souped-up particle generator that was based on Cockcroft-Walton generator technology.

“Are you positive this hunk of junk is operational?” Crow asked Geronimo. The computer had a networked presence in every zone inside the refurbished silo.

“The components of this particle generator have aged well. It is really a machine of simplistic design; even the test cell’s instructional integrity shows no sign of deterioration. The most difficult phase of Nick’s plan will be . . . Alert! Intruders!” Geronimo announced.

Crow snatched his gun off the worktable and peered cautiously into the corridor. He quickly holstered his gun and rushed toward the intruders.

Nick, Neo, and President Hanover lay sprawled on the floor outside the command center. He joined Lisa, who was bent over a bleeding Nick.

Crow’s jaw dropped. “This is . . . Nick?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “Now help me get him to a bed.”

“Are you sure this is Nick? It . . . I mean
he
looks more like the
Creeper
,” Crow insisted.

“It’s Nick! Ask Neo if you don’t believe me,” she replied impatiently.

Neo nodded grimly.

“Is he all right?” Crow demanded.

Lisa shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Nick eyes blinked open, and Crow fell back, startled. The
Orion Sector
director’s eyes had been transformed into fiery yellow orbs that were more reptilian than human.

Nick’s three razor talons curled tightly around Crow’s arm and yanked the Indian to him. “It’s coming,” Nick managed. His thick-tongued words were difficult to understand, but Crow got the gist of his message.

“The shape-shifter?” Crow asked nervously.

“Of course. Are you ready?”

“I . . . think so.”

Nick shook Crow roughly and released a savage roar akin to an entire lion pride. “Are you ready?” he repeated viciously.

Crow was visibly shaken. “Yes, yes. Geronimo’s all set to fire it up when your guy arrives.”

He shoved Crow away and glared at Lisa. “Who pulled us out of the cavern?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, dodging his eye contact.

Nick glared at Neo and Hanover, but his instincts suggested that neither one of them had the magical ability of teleportation. That left Lisa. He stared into her placid, hazel eyes. She was not afraid of him or the McGrath thing.

He clutched her leg so hard that he nearly broke it. “Why did you try and stop me from killing that alien?” he growled.

Her gaze remained undaunted. “It wasn’t time.”

Nick tightened his grip on her leg, and his talons drew rivulets of blood from her soft skin.

“Answer me - or die!”

Crow reentered the test cell, grabbed a heavy metal pipe, and returned to the corridor. “Sorry about this, boss.” With that, he brought the pipe down hard on the back of Nick’s elongated skull. The yellow eyes flashed twice and then closed.

A series of incredibly violent quakes shook the entire underground facility, sending Neo and Hanover crashing into the far wall like a pair of flailing rag dolls.

Crow looked glumly down at Nick and then at an incensed Lisa. “It’s here.”

“And you’ve just knocked out our only hope of survival!” she cried above the rumbling roar.

68

T

he command center door slid open as Neo and Crow dragged Nick’s unconscious body inside. Hanover pushed past the others to safety, eliciting nasty looks from Neo and Crow. Jill, Blossom, and Clay came running down the corridor from the lunchroom and crowded inside the command center behind Lisa.

The rumbling quake subsided as quickly as it began.

“So what’s the plan?” Hanover snapped. “It had better be a good one. That alien is both clever and powerful.”

Blossom, Jill, and Lisa attended to the swelling on Nick’s head while Clay, fatigued from the brief spurt of exercise, slumped into one of the chairs around the lone conference table. It was littered with the facility’s structural blueprints and particle-generator schematics.

Crow ordered Geronimo to seal all the ventilation ducts, except for the particle-generator zone.

Crow faced Hanover. “The plan is to trick your clever alien into the particle-generator area, switch it on, and fry his body’s molecules into random, disorganized atoms. Once that happens, nobody will be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again,” Crow explained, his childish tone flaunting his distain for the president.

Hanover was so scared that he didn’t catch Crow’s sarcasm. “I hope it works.”

“Crow, you really bopped him good,” Blossom scolded her uncle. “We can’t revive him.”

“He’s always been hardheaded,” Neo quipped. “He’ll survive.”

“This is not a joking matter,” Lisa snapped. “What happens if Crow’s plan doesn’t work, and we don’t have Nick to save us?”

“I don’t see how he could save us anyway.” Crow cleared his throat. “Actually, this whole scenario was Nick’s idea. His back-up plan if you failed to kill the shape-shifter beneath the lake.”

The air grew stale and warm as they silently awaited the alien’s entry into the particle-generator test cell. Minutes slowly ticked into a silent, sultry hour.

“Where is the damn thing?” Neo swore, the strain pinching his face.

“Geronimo, can you identify the intruder’s position?”

“It is not inside the ventilation ductwork leading to the particle-generator zone,” it answered. “I can’t detect its presence anywhere.”

Crow tapped his fingertips on the computer desk. “It must have found another way inside.”

“Oh, that’s just fucking great!” Hanover exclaimed.

“Geronimo, run a diagnostic on all systems and possible entrances.”

“That will take time.”

Crow sighed heavily in the oppressive atmosphere. “It appears that’s the one thing we have plenty of.”

“I will commence my diagnostic check now.”

“Put a damn rush on it, okay?” Hanover commanded, sweat glistening on his face.

Crow slid out of his chair and joined Blossom and Lisa. “How’s our warrior?”

The women scowled at him. “Still out. His breathing’s strong, and his body seems to be . . . ,” Lisa hesitated.

Crow glanced at one woman and then the other. “Seems to be
what
?”

“Uh, growing again. Getting thicker. More muscular,” Lisa replied.

Neo leaned over Crow’s shoulder. “Weird, man. The guy’s a regular Hulk.”

“Not funny, Neo,” Jill rebuked him.

“Bad news for silo city.” Geronimo’s voice startled them.

Crow rushed back to the console, barely beating Hanover.

“Spit it out,” Crow ordered.

“There’s a power surge in the command center quadrant, and it’s flowing quickly through the electrical cables in this direction.”

“Oh God, oh God!” Hanover whimpered.

“Shut up!” Neo and Crow shouted simultaneously.