Norr nodded, reached back to draw her sword, and followed the runner as he jumped to the ground. It felt strange to enter the melee without Hoggles at her back, but the sensitive thought she could feel the heavy’s protective presence and felt better as a result. The majority of the tomb raiders had abandoned their chariots by then and were busy fi?ghting their way forward. Most were focused on entering the newly revealed passageway rather than battling their competitors but there were exceptions, and Rebo heard the occasional bang as someone fi?red a weapon at point-blank range. Those who were lucky fell dead—whereas the wounded were often trampled to death as the mob pressed forward. The runner tried to avoid stepping on the bodies, but that was increasingly diffi?cult to do, and there was more than one occasion when Rebo felt fl?esh give under his boots.
Then, like some subterranean monster, the steeply sloping ramp opened its dark maw to swallow the tomb raiders whole. Rebo and Norr were jostled back and forth as oil-fed lanterns were lit, cell-powered glow lights came on, and handheld fl?ares were hoisted high. The off-worlders still had their trusty squeeze lights, but felt no need to use them so long as the rest of the tomb raiders were willing to illuminate the ramp for them. A trio of metal men, their eyes aglow, brushed past.
In marked contrast to the pyramid’s richly decorated interior, the walls to either side of the ramp bore little more than badly faded admonitions to activate headlights, watch for oncoming traffi?c, and obey the posted speed limit. There was some graffi?ti, however, including one entry that might have been spray-painted onto the wall during the fi?nal days of the plague, when Surface Ramp-47 had been packed with infected people all trying to fi?nd a way out of the doomed city. It read, why, god? why us?
But Norr saw no answers as the ramp leveled out and gave way to what might have been some sort of checkpoint, before splitting into half a dozen competing two-lane pathways. Orders were shouted, and blobs of light wobbled over ancient walls as teams of loot-hungry tomb raiders plunged into the branching corridors. All according to protocols established by their patrons. But the truth was that every pathway would lead them to artifacts! Because Sogol wanted the thieves to succeed and had gone to considerable lengths to make sure that they would.
Unlike the rest, however, Rebo and Norr were after one particular artifact. That’s why they stood off to one side and let the others rush by. The light level began to drop as Norr removed the ring from her belt pouch, and most of the mob surged past. The fi?rst thing Rebo noticed as he began to squeeze the glow light’s curved handle was the fact that the ring’s green gemstone was lit from within and seemed to fl?icker as the sensitive moved it from left to right. Norr noticed the phenomenon as well. “Look!” she exclaimed. “It’s brightest when I point it at the second passageway from the left.”
“At least that gives us something to go on,” Rebo acknowledged. “Let’s see where that tunnel leads.”
The twosome entered the passageway designated as DR2N. It began to turn as streaks of refl?ected light washed back over tiled walls, and they heard unintelligible shouts off in the distance. Then, just as Rebo and Norr rounded a curve, there was a disturbance up ahead. Half a dozen blue lights appeared as Pyra’s lum bugs soared out of a ventilation duct, sought the white lights below, and opened fi?re. Each robot was armed with a nose-mounted laser. Their energy weapons made sizzling sounds as they targeted the tomb raiders below. Shouts of pain were heard as some of the energy bolts struck home, quickly followed by the stutter of a submachine gun, and the deliberate bang, bang, bang of a semiautomatic carbine. “Uh-oh,” Rebo said grimly, as the squeeze light was returned to its holster. “It looks like we have company. . . . Keep your light handy—but let it go dark.”
Norr complied, but if the runner hoped to escape notice, the plan didn’t work. Even as one of the airborne lum bugs exploded, another broke away from the battle with the tomb raiders and hurried to intercept two additional heat signatures before they could do damage to the city beyond. Rebo had drawn both handguns by that time, but rather than pepper the quickly advancing machine with 9mm slugs, opened up with the Sokov instead. The six-shot dart gun bucked in Rebo’s hand as the fi?rst self-propelled round left the barrel, deployed its stabilizing fi?ns, and accelerated away. The dart hit the lum bug head-on, smashed through the robot’s outer “skin,” and detonated within. There was a red-orange explosion as the machine came apart, followed by a wild clatter, as bits of metal sprayed the immediate area. Then came a satisfying crash as what remained of the construct hit the pavement and skidded for ten feet before fi?nally coming to a stop. But there was no reason to celebrate because two additional units were on the way. Bursts of ruby red energy stitched black scorch marks onto the duracrete where the humans had been standing moments before as the wily intruders ducked into an alcove marked fi?re fi?ghting station 89. Rebo stood ready to attack the machines the moment they appeared, but Norr had doubts about the runner’s ability to destroy the fi?rst robot before the second machine could fi?re, and took matters into her own hands by dashing out into the center of the passageway. Rebo swore, fi?red the Sokov for the second time, and was rewarded with another explosion. Then, even as the runner swung the handgun around to acquire the second target, Norr charged straight for it. The sword, which was held high, came down with all the strength the sensitive could muster. And because the edge of the blade had been made from a single “stretched” molecule—it cut through the lum bug’s fi?ber-composite body like a hot knife through butter. There was a loud bang, followed by a brilliant discharge of electricity, and a clatter as both halves of the robot landed on the pavement.
A beam of light came into existence as Rebo shifted the Sokov into his right hand and began to pump the squeeze light with his left. A blob of illumination wobbled over the machine’s burned-out remains before turning toward Norr.
“That was a stupid thing to do,” the runner observed darkly.
“What am I supposed to do if you go and get yourself killed?”
“You could fi?nd yourself another sensitive,” Norr replied lightly. “One who’s a lot less demanding. Come on—Sogol is somewhere up ahead.”
There were no sounds other than the steady click-whir of their squeeze lights, and the soft scuffl?e of their footsteps as the twosome advanced down the passageway and past the point where the earlier battle had been fought. The fl?oor was slick with blood, and two of the three dead men were still present, standing over their badly charred bodies. They weren’t sure what to do, and the sensitive was tempted to stop and help them, but knew she should focus on fi?nding the all-important AI. The green gemstone glowed brightly as the passageway terminated in front of a raised loading dock. Stairs led up to a fl?at surface where bodies had been stacked during the early days of the plague before eventually disintegrating to a heap of bones.
The runner followed a badly faded yellow line back to an open door and the narrow corridor beyond. “The ring is getting warmer!” Norr proclaimed as she gripped the object in her hand. “I think we’re almost there.”