The Thrones of Eden 3 (Eden) (29 page)

“Demir,” whispered Savage. “What the hell are you doing?”

Demir did not respond. The man kept his eyes low.

“Demir.”

The Turkish commando finally let out a sigh. “I failed my team,” he said.

“The only thing you’re failing at the moment is yourself. Now get to your feet. There’s another one out there.”

Silence.

Then: “It’ll wait for as long as it needs to in order to find the precise moment of attack,” said Demir. “It’ll use the darkness as its ally.”

“Then we need to move on.”

Demir got to his feet. “What we need to do is to get to the sphere,” he whispered, holding his knife. “We need to finish the mission.”

“We need to get out of here.”

Demir turned to Savage. “We’re near the top of the cap,” he said. “Maybe a few levels down. You need to get Professor Hillary and Ms. Moore topside.”

“What about you?”

Demir held up the knife. “I’m going to save the world,” he said as if in jest.

“You need to come with us.”

Demir pointed his knife at the direction where the Sentinels entered the chamber. “They came through there,” he said evenly. “Follow the course.”

“We’re not leaving you behind, Demir.”

“Look,” said the commando. He lifted his knife to showcase its forged perfection. “I’ve made my choice to stay with my team. It’s your duty, John, to see
your
team through.”

Savage looked upon the faces of Alyssa and Hillary and could see the stark realization that Demir was professing the truth, both as a soldier and as a man of strong fortitude.

Savage took a step toward Demir and offered his hand. “You’re a good man,” he told him.

Demir took his hand and gave it a vigorous pump. And in a voice that was almost too soft, he said, “Now go.”
And lead your team to safety
.

They released their grips.

Nothing more was exchanged between the two men. Their looks of admiration said it all.

Demir was offering them a chance against all odds.

The Turkish commando immediately pivoted and made his way toward the sphere, knowing that he was posing as a significant threat that would cause the last Sentinel to give chase and cut its losses with the much lesser threat of Savage and his team. In the shadows, Demir knew it would follow his every move.

He quickly made his way to the sphere.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

It had followed Demir along the fringe where light connected with shadow, always keeping to the darkness. Its footfalls were quiet and stealthy, its eyes drawing a keen bead on Demir as it held the halberd tight.

Savage and company had pulled out of the danger zone, so they were immaterial at the moment. Once it dealt with the primary threat, then it would give chase and cut down the rest.

It knew the humankind’s intentions, knew by the way he held the knife as he made his way toward the energy sphere. The man was prudent, keeping his head on a swivel and always looking.

But as he drew closer to the sphere the Sentinel became bolder by edging into the light and closing in on its mark.

Demir saw it coming.

The soldier hastened his pace as the glow of the sphere brightened and the humming became louder, the shine of its pearlescent light reflecting off his face.

The last Sentinel followed with a speed of its own by quickly closing the gap between them, the Sentry raising the axe-head of the halberd high.

Demir raised the point of his KA-BAR knife at the sphere that was warm and inviting.

The last Sentinel was now on top of him and feet away from the glowing orb. With a powerful swipe of the halberd’s axe-head, Demir ducked and rolled beneath the horizontal swing of the blade and came up to a standing position.

The Sentinel quickly reared back to proffer another blow, the blade arcing high over its head, and brought it down in an attempt to halve the man in two.

But Demir was quick, the warrior rolling to his right, the axe-blade striking the floor with a metallic clang.

Demir went to strike the Sentinel with the point of his knife, to drive it deep, but the Sentinel was just as quick as it brought a backhand across and caught Demir on the shoulder, the power of the Sentinel strong enough to send Demir across the air a good ten feet before he landed and slid beneath the energy sphere.

As Demir looked up he became mesmerized by the living designs of pearlescent color as they moved in perfect harmony within the shape, the soft shifting and graceful motions capturing his attention in a hypnotic way.

Then he felt the floor vibrate as the Sentinel closed in swiftly with the halberd held high.

Demir’s eyes shifted. He could see the blood lust in its eyes, could see the anticipation of the kill in its features. It was something he had seen too many times before in the eyes of his enemies—the look of savagery.

The axe-head of the halberd came down in a perfect arc, the crescent-shaped blade catching Demir at the point between the elbow and wrist of his left arm, the limb severed cleanly with surgical precision.

Demir rolled to his side as his injured arm became a tabernacle of pain, the nerve endings firing up with white-hot pain as he staggered to his feet.

Blood rained down against the floor, the man’s face growing suddenly pallid as he swung his blade haphazardly with his good hand, the knife finding nothing but open air.

A smile drew upon the Sentinel’s face, a grin of malicious amusement as it closed in.

Demir seemed to reel in the shock, his eyes growing detached and unfocused, his surroundings wavering as if seeing the world through a curtain veil of a waterfall. Images became warped and twisted in a funhouse sort of way. And the Sentinel appeared more pronounced in his vision. It looked taller, wider, its teeth more pointed in a feral way. But Demir knew that his mind was playing chaos with his sight.   

The humming of the energy sphere grew louder as he backed up to its position. He could feel its power grazing against his skin as prickles of electrical charges, his entire backside now awash with the pins-and-needles effect.

The Sentinel could see that the man was wasted as he continued to bleed out. So it moved slowly forward relishing the moment of the potential kill.

It raised its halberd and readied it for a horizontal strike, wanting to cleave the much smaller man at the midsection—to see the man evenly parted.

Demir saw the Sentinel raise the weapon, knew what it wanted to do to him on some subliminal level.

Come on,
he thought.
One good swing of the axe
.

Demir dropped his knife, the action telling the Sentinel that he was ready.

With an arcing and level strike, the blade came around in a perfect semi-circle as a blinding revolution—swift and clean.

But it didn’t strike Demir as he ducked beneath its cut.

The curve of the axe-head struck the sphere, the edge of the blade piercing and slicing through the orb with ease. Immediately blue charges of lightning began to emanate from the globe and discharge to all corners of the chamber, the endpoints of the bolts striking and destroying everything they touched. The impact points of the lightning strikes took out chunks of stone walls and smashed divots into the floor.

And then the sphere began to go crazy and unmanageable. The pearlescent light grew to indescribable colors that were dark and harsh and caustic looking. The air became charged with the smell of electricity as the bolts extended to the furthest reaches of the room, annihilating anything in its circumferential path, including the ceiling, floor and walls.

Chunks of stone and composite went airborne, the destruction beginning to weaken the structure as the lighting strikes assailed the area without mercy.

Alnitak was falling.

The Sentinel dropped the lightning rod of the halberd and immediately realized its folly. In its dire to commit to the kill of the humankind it had become careless. And in doing so, Alnitak was crumbling like a house of cards in the course of a strong wind.

Blue bolts shot out from the sphere that was shrinking by the inches, its energy becoming depleted.

And then a lightning charge whose bolt was as thick as a fire hose struck the Sentinel. The punch of the strike was so hard and so violent that the Sentinel was obliterated as its body exploded outward in a splash of red and white and gray, the bits and pieces of its remains no larger than silver dollars.

Demir backed up along the floor as the tips and points of the electric bolts scored all around him, tearing up chunks of floor.

One bolt struck a point between his legs, missing his groin by inches. Other bolts struck similarly close—so close that he could feel the heat of their strikes graze his skin.

When he looked up he noted that the sphere was beginning to glow and dim with the unsteady beat of an ailing heart. Its color was sickening—dark and rancid. And with every beat, with every discharge of lightning, the sphere was growing smaller.

Demir could only smile as the sphere finally sent out its final burst, a blinding light that suddenly expanded like a supernova on the cusp of its finality, and went off in the ultimate explosion.

Demir was no more.

#

The amniotic fluid
within the stasis bins of the Second Generation began to bubble and boil, the temperature increasing to a magnificent level of heat.

The eyes of thousands opened in unison, all in panic as the fluid within the chamber began to boil strips of flesh from bone, the heat driving the beings to frenzy as they clawed at the sides of their chambers. Some pulled out their tubing, causing them to drown within moments as burning liquid scalded their lungs.

Flesh began to peel off, eyes imploded within sockets, and their bodies stewed as they floated in boiling fluid. Within less than two minutes the Second Generation was entirely gone, their life forces depleted.

And then the world began to disintegrate as the temple of Alnitak began to cave and crumble.

#

The floor beneath
them rippled like the crest of a wave and the walls shuddered. Suddenly chips of stone and chunks of black silica began to fall from walls that were fracturing, the fissures racing quickly along the floor, ceiling and walls in record time.

They all heard the explosion. But no one knew that Alnitak was exhaling its final breath.

Alyssa fell to the floor as Savage and Hillary lost their balance.

“What happened?” she asked.

Savage’s answer was to hold his hand out to aid her back to her feet. So she took it. And having been driven by the notion to survive, the remaining three ran up the incline toward the temple’s cap.

“And what do we do when we get to the top?” Hillary asked Savage. “We’re still buried beneath the desert floor!”

The walls behind them began to enfold and crumble. And the floors began to break and rise upward as if something from underneath was trying to punch through to the surface.

They ran.

But the decimation of Alnitak was catching up.

“Run faster!” yelled Savage. “We need to run FASTER!”

The composite of the floor began to buckle and rise as the concussive waves from the explosion below forced the floor in upheaval. Splinters and spikes of flooring shot up like pongee sticks, sharp and wicked. One pike missed Hillary by inches. Another, however, grazed Alyssa and sliced her elbow, tearing a four-inch rip along her flesh.

“FASTER!”

Ancient stones bearing cuneiform writings cracked, crumbled and fell forward, the stones beginning to clutter their pathway topside.

We’re not going to make it
, Hillary thought.
We’re not
.

And then the floor rose and settled—the sudden pitching dropping everyone to their knees.

Then the roof caved in.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Above Ground, Tent City

For several hours the people and the media had been watching streamers of smoke rise from the landscape above Mintaka, the raging fires within the temple fueled by the natural oil and oxygen that ran through the architectural tunnels.

Smoke rises. And the black smoke could be seen from miles in every direction, bringing countless speculations from the media as to what was going on inside the second temple west of Eden.

Then the earth began to shake, the ground undulating beneath their feet as the tents threatened to buckle against their tethering poles and ropes.

A few kilometers to the east of the smoke streamers, the dusty landscape appeared to heave and pitch as desert sand blew skyward, ejecting rock and granules in boiling plumes. The ground rippled beneath their feet, the concentric waves of the blast expanding outward with seismic activity that could be measured more than 30 miles away.   

The plain bubbled and rose. And then it imploded, sinking into the earth and leaving behind a massive crater.

People began to run to the sight.

#

When John Hillary
opened his eyes he saw a sky that was the color of desert sand. The sun could barely penetrate the floating veil of dust as plumes rolled in slow eddies as he raised a clawed hand upward at the obscured rind of the sun.

Beside him rocks began to stir. And a hand rose from beneath the depths of debris, reaching, with the rest of the body remaining underneath.

Hillary reached over and began to rake his fingers furiously at the rock and sand. In moments he was able to uncover the crown of a head, and then a face.

In a long intake of air John Savage filled his lungs, cloying them with dust, dirt and wonderful oxygen. After going into an extensive coughing jag to clear his airways, Savage pulled himself free from the dirt.

Missing, however, was Alyssa.

She was nowhere to be seen.

#

In a small
space wedged between two large stones, Alyssa Moore came to.