Truth Engine (22 page)

“You're forgetting something,” Rosalia told him. “In two hours or so that stone will kick in full force. Then you won't care about any of this.”

Kane was about to argue, but stopped himself.

“Truth sucks, doesn't it?” she said, raising a dark eye
brow in challenge. At her heels, the dog whined as if in sympathy.

Kane's mind was racing, trying to work out a way to use this discovery to his advantage. With a Manta at his command, he could fly anywhere, recruit help and stage a massive jailbreak. “If I could get to New Edo, I could speak to Shizuka, come back here with her Tigers of Heaven,” he reasoned. “They'd overrun this place in no time.”

“Are they that much better than your people,” Rosalia challenged, “or are you so inferior?”

“Listen, sweetheart,” Kane snarled, jabbing a finger in her face, “Cerberus was ambushed. Before we even knew what was happening, your new friends overran the place….”

“They caught you napping, you mean?” Rosalia said. “A big, strong military facility and they caught you on the one day you were all asleep.”

Kane made a fist in frustration, biting back a reply.

“This is bigger than you, Kane,” Rosalia told him reasonably. “You can't defeat this in one move.”

“Then…what?” he asked.

She pressed her hand to his arm, squeezed the biceps beneath the fustian robe. “Let's look outside,” she said gently.

Together, they made their way across the vast hangar, heading toward the little door that Rosalia had found to the side of the main exit. Kane saw other vehicles stored in the shadows as they strode across the echoing bay. The exit itself was locked, sealed with more of the living stone. Kane eyed it for a moment, saw it would be wide enough to bring both Mantas out side-by-side if he needed to. That was good to know. Once everything went ballistic, a rapid escape wouldn't be impossible.

Rosalia brought her hidden stone into play once again, swiping it over a recessed port until Kane heard a lock click open. Then the beautiful woman reached ahead, placed both hands on the uneven rock and pulled until the seemingly solid rock wall began to move toward her. It was a swing door, Kane saw, nothing more complicated than that. He felt fresh air on his face as the door swung toward him, and narrowed his eyes as the bright sunlight struck his face.

The mongrel went running ahead, brushing the side of the door with its flank as it hurried outside and went charging off into the forest beyond. Rosalia followed, with Kane a few paces behind her.

Outside Life Camp Zero, Kane blinked, drinking in the fresh air with deep breaths. Rosalia glanced at him and smiled before turning her attention to the dog hurrying ahead of them. The animal stopped at the verge of trees, looked back once with imploring eyes, then ran off into the tree cover with a single bark.

“He knows where he's going?” Kane asked, nodding toward the dog.

“He'll be fine,” Rosalia said. “He never strays far.”

“What's his name?” Kane asked, still squinting in the brightness of daylight. The sky was overcast, with silver clouds moving rapidly overhead as the wind picked up. Still, the brightness of the reflected sunlight was dazzling after being inside the dim prison for more than two days.

“He doesn't have a name,” Rosalia said. “I never gave him one.”

“How long have you had him?” Kane asked.

“Six months maybe.” She was watching the dog as it pelted through the brush, sniffing at rabbit holes it found.

“You have a dog six months and you don't give it a name?” Kane asked, taken aback.

Rosalia turned to him and smiled enigmatically. “You give things names and you get attached to them,” she said, “Magistrate man.”

“Touché,” Kane said, nodding in resigned agreement.

As they spoke, he looked around more closely. They were in a little clearing, high up on a mountain slope. The immediate area around the door was flat, with dusty soil marking a place where the trees had been cleared, presumably to let the Mantas take off. Five paces away, the steep slope of the mountain was covered with trees, a vast forest that filled the ravines and valleys all around. There was something nagging at Kane as he took in that vista through squinting eyes, something awfully familiar about the whole thing.

For a moment he stood still, peering at the mountains around them, the forest that blanked the area far and wide. Rosalia was standing two steps ahead of him as she watched her nameless dog sniff at one of the nearby trees, cock its leg and begin to urinate.

Kane turned then, glancing behind him at the open doorway, the rocky line that showed where a larger door for vehicles would open into the hangar. The smaller door was set within the larger one, Kane realized now, seeing how it all fit together. And he knew this place. This place was home.

In a swift movement, he reached forward, grasping Rosalia by the arm and pulling her off balance. He bent his face close to hers, spoke through gritted teeth.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Kane snarled. “Why didn't you tell me we're still in Cerberus?”

“Would you have believed me if I had told you?” Rosalia asked, her dark eyes meeting Kane's as he loomed over her.

Beyond the plateau, the dog peered up at the sound, barked once in excitement.

Kane glared at the mongrel. “Stay,” he commanded.

The animal whimpered, turned to run, then seemed to think better of it. It waited, watching from the relative safety of the tree cover.

Kane turned back to Rosalia, anger flushing his cheeks inside the shadowy hood. “Explain it to me,” he growled. “Everything.”

“Let me go,” she responded. “I'm not your enemy, Kane. Now let me go.”

“I was just beginning to trust you,” he snarled, “and I find out this.”

Rosalia tried to shake off Kane's grip, but he held her tighter, grasping her other arm with his free hand.

“Explain it to me,” he repeated, his tone brooking no argument now.

“We came here under the cover of night,” Rosalia related, “with Ullikummis at the head of the group. There must have been fifty, sixty people, Kane. He said he wanted to overwhelm this place, to strike hard and to hurt those within.”

“How did you get in?” Kane asked.

“He had people on the inside,” Rosalia told him. “Obedience stones embedded within them, dormant in their bodies, grafted to their central nervous systems.”

“Players on the inside,” Kane murmured, seeing the picture unfold before him.

“We waited in the woods,” Rosalia continued, “and he called to them. Ullikummis called to them, a mental signal like a song you can't stop humming. I heard it, too, vibrating inside me. We all did. The stones are like a part of him, and they send signals to his people, not instructions so much as emotions. Once the stone is inside you you have to learn to block them, look past them.”

“Or what?” Kane demanded.

“Or they drive you insane, Kane,” Rosalia told him, “make you one of them. A firewalker.”

Kane nodded, taking the information in. “What happened then?” he asked.

“At the signal, we attacked this base,” Rosalia said. “Your Cerberus, whatever you call it. I didn't know it was yours, Kane, I didn't know you would be here.”

“I wasn't here,” Kane told her. “My crew was out in Louisiana when you attacked. When we got back here the whole place was in disarray.

“What happened then?” he demanded, tightening his grip on the woman's arms.

“Your sentries didn't see it coming,” Rosalia said. “How could they? They were the very people Ullikummis had recruited, and they didn't even know it. It didn't take long to take over this rat hole, enclosed and under-manned as it was. You make it easy for people.”

“That's a point of contention,” Kane snarled. “You shouldn't have been able to just walk through the doors.”

“You put up a fight,” Rosalia said with an approving
smile. “I saw you. You gave that monster a good run for his money. I wanted you to succeed, Kane—you have to believe that.”

Still holding her arms, Kane shook Rosalia angrily. “Then why didn't you help me?”

“I was in the enemy's base, surrounded by armed subjects loyal to that monster,” Rosalia said with a laugh. “You don't know when to pick your battles, Magistrate man, but I do.”

Kane considered that, and his grip on Rosalia's arms eased. Finally he let her go, stepped back a pace and looked out over the mountainous vista that surrounded the Cerberus redoubt. There were guards high above, stationed beside the thick pillars of stone that blocked the main door. “Is this you picking your battle now?” he asked.

Contritely, she nodded, her dark eyes fixed on his.

“Go on,” Kane encouraged. “Tell me what happened once I was down.”

“Ullikummis placed his hand on the wall,” Rosalia said, “like this.” She pressed one hand to her breast, the fingers spread wide. “Then there was a rumbling, and the place began to change, like a bug shedding its cocoon. The rocks seemed to grow like mold, forming before my eyes, reshaping and entwining with one another like a lover's embrace.

“He speaks to rocks, Kane,” Rosalia said. “He tells them to do things. It makes no sense, but I see him do it.”

Kane gazed off into the distance, watching as the silvery clouds sailed by overhead like boats on a stream. “It's a form of telekinesis,” he told her. “Psionics. Baptiste figured he had something embedded deep inside him, some tool that could reach out and do these things.”

“You met him before?” Rosalia asked.

“Couple of times,” Kane told her. “First time was Tenth City up in the north. He built it literally from the ground up, pulling rocks out from the soil, turning them into buildings, nightmarish architecture that twisted and turned. Baptiste called it a sigil, a magical symbol of power. She said it could affect people's way of thinking, make them more susceptible to his instruction.”

At the edge of the trees, the dog was sniffing the air, and it turned back to Kane and Rosalia and barked.

“What's that—he sense something?” Kane asked.

She shook her head in irritation. “Stupid mutt, jumping at shadows. He'll get us both killed.”

Kane ran his hand over his face, putting pressure there as if to awaken himself. He was trying to work out a map of the complex in his head, figure out how the place they called Life Camp Zero related to the Cerberus redoubt. “The cells are the living quarters,” he speculated, “but he's boxed them in somehow, filled them with rock.”

“I don't know your home well enough,” Rosalia admitted as he looked at her.

“We'd need to open the cells all at the same time,” Kane proposed. “Release everyone at once.”

“And then what?” she challenged. “You saw the woman, Kane—you saw the state she was in. Nobody's going to fight with you. You barely have the strength to fight yourself.”

“Grant and Baptiste,” Kane said with a smile. “Release them and we'll have a fight on our hands. You'll see.”

“So that's your great plan?” Rosalia said contemptuously. “Open the cells and let the great unfed fight a losing battle against superior odds? Even you can't be that foolish, Magistrate man.”

But Kane was still thinking, figuring out his game plan. “You said you heard music when you were near Ullikummis,” he said. “I heard the same thing when I was near Dylan, niggling in the back of my skull like an itch I couldn't scratch.”

Rosalia's dark eyes flashed beneath the hood as she looked at him. “Yes, I feel that, too, even with my stone blocked. Your point?”

“Architecture that affects people's minds,” Kane stated, using his fingers to tick off each point he was making. “A broadcast system hidden in the shapes of the rocks. A signal sent from Overlord Ullikummis, or maybe from the chosen devotees to his cause. Dylan's broadcasting the boss's instructions, somehow. Maybe a bigger stone, something like that.”

Rosalia smiled wickedly, seeing Kane's reasoning.

“Take out his stone and the system's got nothing left to broadcast,” Kane concluded. “And in the subsequent confusion, even a half-starved army of Cerberus personnel could potentially overpower your stone-chucking friends. Am I right?”

Rosalia reached forward, placing her hands on Kane's biceps in unconscious imitation of the way he had held her just a few minutes before. She leaned close to him, her voice low. “It's possible, but how are you going to shut down Dylan's broadcast stone?”

Kane fixed her with a no-nonsense stare. “The only way there is,” he said. “By force.”

The dog trotted back to them, and Rosalia offered it soothing words of encouragement. Then she looked at Kane. “You've fought these people before,” she said. “Do you remember?” He nodded.

“They're strong, Kane,” Rosalia reminded him. “Not
all of them, but the one with stones in their heads, here—” she brushed her finger on Kane's forehead, just above his brows “—they can tap into something, become like stone themselves.”

“So that's what it was,” he grumbled. “I half thought I was imagining things. They shrugged off my bullets, got up and just carried on.”

Rosalia looked at him with pleading eyes. “We could run, you know? Get away from here. I'll get that stone shit out of you once we're clear.”

“I won't leave my friends, Rosie,” Kane said. “You don't know me well, but you do know that, don't you?”

She knelt down, stroking the dog's coat over and over until it settled beside her. “Your concepts of honor and responsibility are so quaint,” she told Kane.

He shrugged. “Right is right. Now, these stone people, how do they become invincible like that, do you know?”

“Concentration,” Rosalia told him. “I don't know how, but the stone works in concert with them. They're still human beings, but they can switch, make their flesh solid for brief bursts. They just concentrate.”

“So, if we broke their concentration…” Kane began, an idea beginning to take shape in his mind.

“Yes?” Rosalia prompted.

He reached for the belt he still wore beneath his robe, running his finger along the pouches until he found what he was looking for. “You're going to need these,” he said, handing her the things he had removed from his belt.

The beautiful dark-haired woman smiled. “Simple and brilliant,” she said with an appreciative nod.

Together, the two refugees began to work out the details of their audacious plan.

 

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
, Kane found himself wandering alone through the tunnels of the eerily remodeled redoubt. Despite the surface changes, the complex was still recognizable, and now that Kane realized where he was he navigated with ease. Rosalia had left him at the doors to the hangar bay, agreeing to her part of the plan with surprising good grace. Kane needed her to free the prisoners using the stone located under her skin, while he took Dylan out once and for all.

“Keep your head down,” Kane had advised her. “No point getting killed by the guards around this place until… Well, just don't get killed.”

Rosalia had laughed. “Oh, Magistrate man, you can be so naive. It's almost sweet the way you care for others.” She'd pinched him on the arm then, before turning down the ill-lit tunnel and disappearing into its shadows, the pale-eyed mongrel trudging along at her heels.

While Rosalia headed down to the remodeled living quarters that now served as cramped cells, Kane trotted along a service tunnel, searching the monotonous surface of the wall for the door he knew must still be there. He spotted the vertical ridge that marked the position of the door, used his obedience stone to unlock the rock coating, making it roll away into the skin of rock all around it. Inside, he found the locker he wanted, and the emergency survival equipment stored within, just as he had expected. Kane pushed the first-aid kit aside, reaching farther into the cupboard, where the flares were kept. He wouldn't need them, either, just the thing that was stored beside them. Picking it up in one hand, Kane removed the little cylindrical device and hid it beneath the folds of his robe.

He continued on his way, heading back to the ops room. He realized now that this was the Cerberus oper
ations center, that the bands of rock had been constructed over twin aisles of computer equipment. The room had acted as the nerve center for the Cerberus team, and it made a kind of perverted sense that it would be the setting for Kane's overthrow of this terrible new regime.

He halted at the arched doorway, eyes scanning the cavernous room beyond. A dozen robed operatives were working there, and Kane concluded that they were now patching together the computers, trying to get the systems operational for their own arcane purposes or those of their leader, Ullikummis.

Dylan was sitting near the rear of the room, where Lakesh's desk had stood just forty-eight hours earlier. Parts of the desk remained exposed, poking through the rocky veins that had clawed over it in thick, branchlike lines. Kane scanned the equipment there, searching for what he needed. The computer was almost entirely gone, hidden beneath the rock skin, but that didn't matter— Kane wouldn't need it. He fidgeted for a moment, feeling the weight of the thing he'd nabbed from the emergency survival kit.

Dylan looked up at his approach. “Feel better?” he asked, pushing aside the report he had been mulling over. Again Kane was aware of some second level of meaning, some trick that subliminally changed the man's words, made him somehow more appealing.

“I need to eat,” Kane said.

“Of course,” Dylan agreed. “I'll get something brought down while we discuss battle tactics. Lord Ullikummis wants to move swiftly on this project. Now that you're on board I see no reason for delay.”

“How do they work?” Kane asked, standing over the man's desk.

Dylan looked baffled, his brows knotting in confusion.

“The stones,” Kane growled impatiently. “Tell me how they work.”

“The stone we placed in you simply helps you embrace the new world,” Dylan said, “opening your mind to it.”

“What about the endurance of your people?” Kane asked. “I remember them shrugging off bullets.”

“They're your people now, Kane,” Dylan reminded him. “You're one of us.”

Again, a wave of pleasure swept over Kane at the priest's words, a mother's lullaby. Kane shook his head, willing the effect to pass. Rosalia had blocked his stone, but had said he only had a couple of hours before it bonded completely with him. Once that happened, Dylan's words, and those of chosen servants like him, would cage Kane, alter his personality, making him a pale imitation of what he had been. He needed to break the control right now.

“Can anything hurt them?” Kane asked.

“Why would you want to hurt your brothers?” Dylan asked reasonably.

“If they're to be my army,” Kane said, leaning his hand on Lakesh's desk as he bent closer to Dylan, “then I need to know their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Don't I.”