Alien Storm (24 page)

“Then that's where we're going,” Sarah interrupted with determination. “You have to take us. We need a guide—”

Yuri rose from his seat abruptly, anger flashing in his eyes again. “
Have to?
I don't have to do anything other than stay here and protect the last bit of this land that Makarov doesn't control, girl. I'm not going anywhere near that village. There's nothing left there. You'll see.”

Beside Alex, Laika lay down on the floor and covered her nose with her forelegs. She emitted a noise that sounded very much like a whimper. Yuri waved a dismissive hand at his dog and turned to the monitors. The storm had passed.

“Good,” he said. “Get out and leave Laika and me to what we do best.”

Alex shook his head in disgust. “What? Hide underground? Pick fights with Makarov's machines for spare parts?”

Yuri moved swiftly towards Alex, towering over him. His fists clenched and unclenched, but when he spoke his voice was low and even.

“I'll point you to the village, but only so you can see there's nothing left there,” he said. “I can spare you some food and more thermal clothing. If you set out now, you'll make it by nightfall. Trust me, you don't want to be caught on the snow plains after dark.” He tapped the side of his head with a grimy finger. “Makarov showed me the future. A vision in my mind. Soon the whole world will be like this. Just Makarov and his slaves.”

“What about our friends?” Alex demanded.

A sad smile crept across Yuri's face. “Forget them. You can't fight Makarov.”

Alex was about to say something else, but Sarah laid a hand on his shoulder. “Leave it, Alex,” she said. “He's given up already.”

She turned to Yuri. “Give us food and water and show us the way to the village. We've wasted enough time here.”

27

Ten minutes later, Yuri led them down another corridor that ended in a steel door. Now supplied with a backpack filled with bottled water and some very tough-looking dried beef, Alex and Sarah followed silently behind while Laika brought up the rear. Throwing a heavy bolt on the door, Yuri heaved it open and sunlight flooded the corridor. As they walked through after him, they were surprised to find themselves standing on the other side of the factory complex, some way outside the perimeter fence. The storm had gone as quickly as it had come and now the sky was brilliant blue.

“That way,” Yuri announced, pointing directly ahead across a flat plain of snow that stretched for kilometres into the distance. On the horizon, mountains rose. “The village is beyond those hills. It should take you until sunset to reach it, which is about three p.m. in these parts.”

“Thanks for everything,” Sarah said harshly and started walking away.

Alex hesitated and turned back to Yuri. “Are you sure you won't come with us?”

Yuri shook his head. “No. The robowolves will catch you before you get there.”

“We have to try to contact the outside world. We have to warn them.”

“Even if you find the communications gear hasn't been destroyed, there's no one who wants to hear about what's happening here anyway.”

“We have to try,” Alex replied.

By the door, Laika cocked her head to one side and made a whimpering noise.

“Alex!” Sarah yelled from thirty metres ahead. “Stop wasting time!”

Alex nodded and started after her, but was surprised as Yuri called out for him to wait. The man ran back to the door and produced an item from a hook by the entrance. It was a steel tube about forty centimetres long with a nozzle at one end and a red cylinder at the other.

“It's a portable gas axe,” Yuri explained, pulling a trigger at the base of the tool. Immediately a yellow flame leaped from the nozzle. Yuri adjusted the gas flow with a knob and the flame went an intense blue. “If you come up against one of the robowolves use this to blind it. Their visual components are highly sensitive to light.”

Yuri killed the flame and handed the tool to Alex, who took it gratefully. He opened his mouth say thanks, but Yuri waved at hand at him impatiently.

“Get going!”

Alex turned and ran to catch up with Sarah, who was already making good progress. Laika let out a bark as he left.

Yuri turned to the door, but was surprised when his dog did not follow.

“Come on, girl,” he snapped. “They'll be back. Maybe.”

The robodog hesitated before moving after its master.

In the distance, hidden in the shadows of the factory, a robowolf watched as the man pulled the hidden entrance to the basement closed. The wolf knew Balthus, its master, would be pleased they had found the location of the outcast's hideout, but that would have to wait for another day. The children were the priority.

It turned its gaze towards the two tiny figures setting off into the wilderness and sent a command burst to the remaining robowolves scattered around the area:

COMMAND: WOLF PACK > ASSEMBLE > TARGETS ACQUIRED

One by one, the members of the pack pinged back acknowledgement of the message. From kilometres away they began to converge on the signal.

Keeping low to the ground, the wolf began to stalk its prey.

Robert screamed in agony. Five hundred volts of energy surged through the electrified metal floor of the cage, making his body jerk uncontrollably. With effort, he teleported halfway across the room to a cage with flooring illuminated green. He sank to his knees.

“No, no, no,” Makarov's sing-song voice echoed from speakers in the ceiling. “You're not paying enough attention to the pattern! I know you don't believe this, Robert, but I'm giving you every chance not to get hurt here. You just have to concentrate.”

Robert gritted his teeth and looked round at the window set high in the wall. Makarov stood, silhouetted against the light of the observation room.
Concentrate
. Easier said than done when you'd been teleporting non-stop for an hour. The room in which he was being held was made up of forty caged sections, each with a metal floor that could be electrified at any time. Those cages illuminated green were okay. Some were yellow, which meant they were imminently about to turn red – meaning the floor was electrified. The colours changed every twenty seconds.

Robert knew there was a pattern to it, but just as he thought he was getting it, he'd land in a red cage and he would lose it. He shook his head and tried to clear his head.
Okay
, he thought.
I'm standing on a green square, so the cage three to my left and one forward will be green next turn. Like a knight move on a chessboard
. As the floor under his feet went yellow he teleported into the other cage. The floor was green. He breathed another sigh of relief. He was okay for the next twenty seconds.

“So, what do you think of my little game?” Makarov asked. “It's designed especially for teleporters like yourself.”

Robert jerked his head up at the observation window. “I think it stinks.” The cage next to him went yellow. That meant the adjacent cells for four blocks were about to turn red, he thought. He teleported five cells to the left and landed in another green.

“Oh, well done,” Makarov said patronizingly. “Of course, all this can end right now if you just give me what I want.”

Robert teleported into another safe cell and looked up at the window. “No way.”

“Come on, Robert,” Makarov cajoled. “Your sister never should have been on the lower levels. She knew the consequences of turning against me, but she ran away rather than face them. She left that to you and the others.”

Robert wiped his eyes and teleported again – this time into a red cell. The electric shock threw him against the bars of the cage and he barely had time to jump to an adjoining cell before he got caught in the hold of the electricity.

“You're lying,” he hissed, kneeling to catch his breath. “She'll be back for us.”

Makarov chuckled. “Oh, I don't think so. Nothing survives out there without my permission. Computer, pause the game.” Immediately the colours under the cells went out, leaving only grey floor. Makarov moved closer to the window so that his face was visible.

“All I ask is that you acknowledge me as your leader,” he told Robert. “Kneel before the Entity and everything will become a lot easier. For you…and for your friends.” Makarov pushed a button and the sound of Nestor screaming above a howling wind was piped through the speakers from the adjoining room. After a few seconds, he killed the sound. “Help me persuade them that cooperation with the Entity is the only way forward.”

“And what type of cooperation do you want?” Robert asked.

“Bow before my master,” Makarov explained. “The Entity regards your type as an anomaly – an unwanted side-effect of the virus it uses to spread its consciousness. If it were up to it, you would all be dead already.”

“You're one of us,” Robert replied with a shake of his head. “Why are you doing this?”

“When you've lived as long as I have, perhaps you'll understand, boy,” Makarov said brutally. “There are only two things worth having in this world: money and power. I already have all the money I could ever need, but there's never enough power. The Entity is going to make me ruler of the world.”

“You'll never rule us.” Robert turned away from the window and folded his arms by way of ending the conversation.

Makarov sighed in frustration. “Computer, resume.”

The
game
began again.

It was just past noon when they saw the robowolf following them. Sarah noticed it first when she stopped to take a sip of water from one of the bottles Yuri had provided. Far in the distance, at least a kilometre away, the wolf was a black speck against the endless white of the plain. It was making little effort to hide itself and appeared not to be moving.

What's it doing?
Alex asked with a shake of his head.

I don't know
, Sarah replied.
Maybe waiting for backup from the others. Is it Balthus?

Alex removed the gas axe from his pack and turned it over in his hands nervously.
I can't tell from this distance. Let's keep moving
.

Sarah nodded and they set off at a faster pace. They seemed to be making good ground towards the mountains, but she judged there were still several kilometres to cover. Most disturbing of all was the sun, which was already starting to hang low in the western sky, bringing the threat of night with it. This far north during the winter, the days were short and the nights were long. She glanced over her shoulder as they walked and saw that the wolf was keeping pace with them, neither gaining nor losing ground. It was clearly in no hurry to catch up with them, but it wasn't going anywhere either.

Alex clapped his gloved hands together. “Can you feel it? The temperature is dropping.”

“Yes,” Sarah agreed. “There's probably only a couple of hours until nightfall. Then it will really drop fast.”

Alex glanced to the right and let out a groan. “Another one.”

Sarah turned her head. Sure enough, there was the figure of a second wolf, about the same distance away. She looked left and made out the shape of yet another keeping pace with them against the glare of the snow-covered plain. The realization they were being herded on three sides by the dogs dawned upon her. They could not turn right or left or even slow down – the wolves were steering them away from mountains.

“Ever felt like a lamb to the slaughter?” Alex asked, reading her thoughts.

“There's something up ahead,” she replied, straining to see. In the middle of the flat plain there was a large indentation in the distance. “Look, it's a crater!”

Alex nodded. “That must be where the meteorite struck.”

“And they're herding us right towards it—”

She stopped speaking abruptly as a bolt of pain ripped through her skull. She stumbled forward with a cry as Alex caught her arm to stop her from collapsing.

“Sarah!” he cried. “What is it?”

Shaking her head as the pain subsided, Sarah looked back in the direction from which they'd come. The Spire was still visible in the distance.

“It's my brother,” she said, straightening up. “He's in pain.”

Alex looked at her with concern. “You can feel that? What's happening to him?”

Sarah clenched her teeth as another wave of agony lashed her mind. It was as if someone had stuck her finger in a light socket.

“Makarov,” she said. “He's torturing him.”

Sarah closed her eyes and began to visualize a room filled with cages, coloured floors and electricity. Robert was there. She tried to see more, but the vision faded. All she sensed then was the massive psychic power of the Entity, draped around the Spire like a shield. The extreme emotion Robert was suffering had broken through the barrier for just a second.

“Why?” Alex asked.

“Control,” she replied. Once again, her brother was in danger – goodness knows what Makarov was doing to the others. Sarah knew one thing: they had to get them out of the Spire at all costs.

Alex began to ask a question, but she waved him into silence. “Right now the main thing is to get to that village. Here's the plan: we allow the robowolves to herd us to that crater. When we get to the edge, we run over the side and fade out. It's probably our only chance to lose them.”

“If they don't decide to take us out before then,” Alex said pessimistically.

“Well, let's make it before they can do that,” Sarah replied and they doubled their pace.

At least it was a good way to keep warm.

Lying flat against the far edge of the meteorite crater, Balthus could watch over the plain as the two children were pushed towards it. Contained in the bowl-like indentation, they would have nowhere to run – a much better plan than risking a chase with them over the plain during the daylight. The girl's power was in its infancy and had no effect on their mechanical minds, but the boy's invisibility was a powerful tool.