Rift Breaker (18 page)

The next thing he knew the cell floated high in the air. Way down below him was a city, arranged in a perfect circle surrounded by a blanket of green. In its centre a great tower loomed above all other structures, glistening in the sun. A giant platform ring stretched wide around the tower, standing high above the smaller skyscrapers. A speck of light flashed from somewhere in the city. Milton leaned forward. Another beamed from somewhere else.

He heard a voice — an unfriendly one at that.

‘Destroy,' it whispered.

Milton asked what it meant.

‘Destroy,' it repeated. The flashes spanned across the city. The city was burning. Everything, all the buildings, the people and the floating ring engulfed in flames. The ring broke away and its smaller pieces melted. Bloodcurdling screams rose up from all directions. Their howls cut deep inside him.

‘Hey! Stop it!' Milton cried, pounding the fatty wall of his floating home. The chaos worsened, serving to induce a radiant joy in the thing that breathed down his back.

Sixteen

Greatek's three moons were insufficient to illuminate the tenebrous surfaces of Mayogen Tower. The building instead opted for its own moon, a white logo that pompously blazed through the fog of the dank business district.

Luylla surveyed the site from a shadowy rooftop across the gaping traffic void. Her padded climbing harness hugged her waist. The leg loops, strapped tight against her thigh armour, housed a pistol on each side. She had also brought along a rapid-fire stream gun, which was a little shorter than her forearm. She tightened its strap across her torso before raising the barrel of her grapple launcher.

She placed the sign in her sights. Wind sprayed icy droplets across her face. She defocused her eyes and used her peripherals to adjust her aim to where she estimated the logo's scaffolding to be. The trigger gave resistance and the launcher fired, the spike exploding from the barrel and the recoil sending her back a step.

The device shook as the thin cable uncurled from the feeder. Luylla kept her grip tight. The projectile lobbed in an arc and disappeared behind the foggy glare of the sign. With the distant sound of metal clashing on metal, the cable stopped. The launcher beeped and signified that the claw pads had secured to an appropriate surface.

She detached the cable feeder from the gun and slotted it into the winch she had fastened to the bottom of a construction crane. The slack tightened to the optimal tension. Luylla slid the launcher with its spare cable into the sheath across her back and fastened her karabiner to the mechanical zip line. With the push of a button, the device took her across. She cleared the edge. An updraft carried fluctuating sounds of the distant flying traffic below.

A lens on her collar sent a feed directly to the
Inhibitan
's forward pane. Tazman's voice came through her earpiece. ‘Can you still hear me?'

‘Touch my ship and I'll drag you through an asteroid belt on this cable,' she replied.

The device slowed as she reached the scaffolding. She unclipped herself and her boots touched the platform. She climbed down to the roof.

‘There's a vent column on the south side,' instructed Tazman.

She jogged over the rooftop landing pad and found a row of columns secreting warm vapour.

‘To get in you must —'

Luylla stabbed her metal fingers through the cover slats and ripped herself an entrance. She tucked her legs through the opening and dropped into the windy duct. Clamping a small torch between her teeth, she crawled on. Tazman talked her through the system to a seemingly bottomless elevator shaft.

‘Use the maintenance lift to get down to the two hundred and fifteenth floor,' said Tazman.

Luylla climbed from the vent and stepped onto the maintenance lift dock. The balcony, a tiny strip of walkway, had barely enough surface area for the span of her boots. Holding the safety bar, she shuffled along to where her spotlight caught a control panel. She pulled the lever, activating a hum of electricity. The lights on the platform edges heated to life. Evenly spaced white orbs down the shaft side lit in unison.

She pushed a large button and a distant sound from below got nearer. The red lights of the maintenance lift blinked to life as it rocketed up towards her. The machine slowed at the last moment to fall in line with the dock. Luylla stepped on. She punched the floor numbers into the keypad and went for the big button.

‘Wait,' said Tazman.

Luylla stopped; she realised she hadn't been breathing and filled her lungs.

‘What?' she said.

‘You might want to hold on to something.'

Luylla gripped the railing and spread her footing. When satisfied, she pressed the button. The platform dropped,
freefalling on its rails. Her hair shot straight up and her face stretched in the turbulence. In her vision, the white orbs blinked past. She closed her eyes.

A few spuckons later, Luylla felt the platform slow. Her insides began to settle beneath her tense abdominals. The lift stopped and locked onto the rails. Luylla rested her head on the railing.

Tazman's voice crackled in her ear, ‘Are you okay?'

With effort she calmed her nervous breath before opening her mouth to speak.

‘I'm—,' the real elevator shot past from below, leaving an updraft in its wake. Luylla dropped her light beam and it spun into the bottomless dark. She cursed.

‘That's good to hear,' said Tazman. ‘Now open the doors and you're in.'

She looked up; the shaft doors were on the other side. At this point she fully realised the insanity of the plan. She psyched herself and began working her way around the strip of platform that surrounded the drop.

When she reached the other side she wrapped her flesh arm around the safety rail and worked her metal fingers between the doors. Bit by bit, the doors were forced open. She got a decent grip on the edge and threw her weight back until the opening was large enough for her to swing inside.

Luylla found herself in a darkened office space. Rows of desks were evenly spaced across the carpeted floor; each desk had a holo-data terminal embedded. All furnishings faced the
same direction and were arranged at immaculate right angles. A spotless glass wall revealed a main stretch of sky path. Several hover units whizzed past.

She kept to the shadows, Tazman leading her on, and advanced through a corridor that led to a similar room, bar the set of glass doors on the far wall.

‘That's it,' said Tazman.

The glass opened automatically. Beyond lay the entrance to the mainframe room. The reinforced double doors were secured with internal security locks — there was a keypad with about fifty different alien symbols. Squinting into the dim light of the keys, Luylla felt around underneath the buttons and found the small port Tazman had spoken about, a sentinel input terminal. She detached Tazman's haphazardly made leeching device from her belt and had to bend one of the prongs into line before plugging it in the socket.

‘Now it's Tazman's turn to shine,' the simian chimed.

Luylla sank bank into a dark corner. From the ship, Tazman hacked the system with software designed to mimic a Tyde sentinel. The locks released one by one, clicking heavily enough for her to feel. She wiped her sweaty face. You shouldn't be here, she thought. ‘Shut up,' she answered herself.

‘What was that?' said Tazman.

‘Just open the door,' she shot back.

‘Way ahead of you.'

The last lock gave way and the door began to move. Luylla
grabbed the leecher and ventured inside. Continuous rows of towering rectangular mainframes lined the straight path before her. No ceiling was visible. Beeps and spinning drive sounds emanated from the blocks. The edges of the walkway a nd bases of the mainframes had strips of light that shone up against the metallic surfaces. Luylla's boots clicked on a slightly elevated metal grate under which clumps of tangled wires wound and twisted.

‘Turn right,' said Tazman. Luylla glanced back at the door where she entered, which now seemed tiny. She entered the alley. A few paces down, Tazman stopped her. ‘That one will do.'

She felt the surface for a place to put the leecher. The connection points were of all different shapes and sizes. On the opposite side she found one that fitted.

‘I hope you know what you're doing,' said Luylla, securing the pins.

‘Me too,' replied Tazman.

Luylla let out a shaky sigh. Almost there, she thought. She leaned against the adjacent column and watched the blinking green light as Tazman interacted with the computer system. Luylla was grateful she hadn't needed her guns. Now that the data transfer was underway she found herself breathing easier. Mayogen Tower didn't feel all that intimidating anymore.

‘I've got it,' Tazman shouted.

An alarm echoed through a distant hollow.

‘What did you do?' Luylla shrieked.

‘Umm, the alarm—'

‘I know, the alarm.' Luylla's nervous system quivered, her breaths shallowed, her heart pounded. She darted out to the main path.

Dark, glistening figures appeared at the security doors. Energy weapons clicked and charged. Sentinel arms rose. Luylla ducked back into the maze. An indiscriminate spray of plasma fire blasted forth, shattering the mainframe of her previous position and exploding out chunks of flying debris.

She kept moving and loosened the strap of her stream gun. Columns whooshed past on either side. Clunking footsteps with hydraulic muscles rushed the room.

‘I thought you had it?' she said in a yelling whisper, pulling the strap over her head.

‘Just get out of there!' Tazman yelled.

A sentinel sprang from the left. Luylla reached with her stronger arm. With no momentum lost, she slammed the sentinel's weapon to the closest wall. The metal arms wrestled with a straining of machine hydraulics. Luylla hooked her stream gun over the clashing limbs and squeezed the trigger. The hammering shock of continuous pulse hit the sentinel's torso plate. The gun rumbled in her shaky grip. The machine head twitched with every blast. Face lights blinked out. The pulse stream blew out the sentinel's reverse side, spraying circuitry, robotic innards and metallic spine pieces. The broken machine collapsed.

Another click behind. Luylla turned. The fast metal hand circled her aim away and a discharge fired upwards. She snatched its neck. With all her strength she slammed the machine's metal skull repeatedly into the edge of a column. The head buckled and, on the third blow, lenses cracked. The sentinel released Luylla's weapon. She stepped back and kicked the machine to the floor.

Machines appeared down the alley. Luylla sprinted, doubling back to the exit. Relentless firepower blitzed from all sides. Debris and hot slag flew off her surroundings.

She raised her weapon and emerged again at the main path, firing a spray in the general direction of the door. The sentinel there was caught in the stream and dropped. The twisting body fired off a blast that skimmed her metal forearm. Luylla grunted. The door started to close. She kept her focus; tri-blasts shot from behind and sparked against the doors. She cleared the gap in time and blasted away to make an exit through the glass.

She slowed onto the carpet and every office light rose to full capacity. She started towards the elevators.

‘Not that way,' cried Tazman, ‘The other lifts! Get to the other lifts!'

A squad of six charged through the passage Luylla had entered. She dived between the desk rows. The machines opened fire.

‘Stay there a spuckon,' said Tazman.

‘What?' screamed Luylla, holding the earpiece.

A security door dropped over the passage mouth, crushing
the front guard. Its head and weapon sparked and fizzled at the base of the door.

‘Go now,' shouted Tazman. He had successfully hacked the security system.

Luylla broke in the other direction. She turned a corner and moved down a new corridor, running along another wall of window glass. Two sentinels appeared ahead. Suppression fire forced her behind a pillar on the right. She pressed flat against the wall. A decorative plant exploded in front of her. Pieces of her deteriorating cover bounced past her face. She tightened her grip on the weapon and leaned out. Before she could level her aim, sentinels fired again, pinning her in. They stopped shooting. Luylla breathed hard; she could hear the mechanical clicks of their advance. Their reflections appeared in the window.

The glass vibrated. A dark shape rose into view outside. Circular cannons hung beneath angled wings. Jets fired and sent the craft into a turn. A tinted, hard-edged forward pane faced her. The cannons twitched, locked to her position and began to spin.

Luylla bounded from her cover and blasted at the sentinels. The gunship unleashed a torrential wave of glowing red rounds. Broken glass pelted her from behind, wall debris from the side. She kept a tight hold on her weapon. Blue and yellow sparks splashed from the sentinel bodies. She thinned her body and swiped between their collapsing frames. They were ripped apart by the gunship before they could hit the floor.

She cleared the walkway and found the second set of
elevators. She slammed her palm to the call button. The gunship appeared again, lingering beyond the windows across the room. Thrusters swivelled and turned its armoured body. The elevator opened. She slid inside and hit the top button. The doors began to close. The ship spotted the movement. Luylla dropped. High calibre firepower burst clean through the doors. She hugged the floor and rolled to the side, making herself as small as possible. She blocked her ears and closed her eyes. Under her eyelids she could see the room flash and flicker as smoking bits of exploded wall sprinkled down on her.

The elevator shot upwards and the barrage sank. She opened her eyes. Smoking holes, larger than her fist, dotted the door and opposite wall. A spark crackled from a burned hole in her metal forearm.

The elevator abruptly died, leaving her in smoky darkness.