All around her was the army she’d raised in the Quarantine Zone, surging and
churning in an unorganized mess. They may not be organized, but there were enough of them for their corpses to pile up against the wall high enough for her to stroll over the top and still have minions leftover to seize the Spires.
In her army, there were beings that might have once been human, or had human
ancestors. Others obviously had little or no human in them. Most were animals mutated by the radiation to the point that they’d developed intelligence. Some of them were incredibly smart, and many of them had at least enough intelligence to understand human speech if not the ability to actually speak it.
It was an army out of nightmares, but the Apostle did not care. Her goal was
within sight, and she would soon be inside the walls and traveling back through time.
Soon, she would be able to remove the cause of her suffering forever.
Though she had known from the memories of the man she’d drained of blood to
expect the energy shield, it still vexed her horribly. Having taken steps to deal with it, she knew that it was only a matter of time before she could begin her assault. The wasted time waiting for her agent to do his work began to chip away at her patience. She abhorred pointless wastes of her time.
Sneering behind her mask, the Apostle didn’t even think the saboteur realized he was hers. Such was the beauty of her power to manipulate the hearts and minds of men.
She could erase all memory of the commands from his mind, while still leaving them ingrained in him. Her man would follow orders without even realizing what he was doing.
Green lances of fire began to rain through the shield into the massing mob of
mutants. Any flesh touched by the beams melted into a pile of gory goo. The stench of it even managed to penetrate the Apostle’s mask.
Counting the cannons that were firing, she removed one from the count as it
exploded in a large ball of flames. There were only nineteen, and a considerable recharge period between shots. They could fire into her army for days and barely put a dent in it.
She was not concerned in the least. She could wait until her man did his job.
“It is a good day to triumph over the Council,” the Apostle hissed.
Howling with feverish laughter in the back of her mind, Cain seemed even more
excited than she was. His excitement radiated into her, making her heart race and her chest seem to burn with the anticipation. She only hoped that prisoners were taken so she could drain them of blood to celebrate her victory before she had her revenge.
Chapter 35: Unexpected Rescue
Groaning, Gabriel could feel a small animal desperately trying to dig its way out of his skull, either that or it was the worst hangover of his life. He couldn’t remember what was happening, but there seemed to be some urgency, though it was far away, and the pain was close, and all consuming.
“Gabriel, you have to wake up before the security systems notice you,” a voice insisted in his ear.
“Primary systems activation in five minutes,” the same voice blared over a
loudspeaker.
“Wake up, Gabriel,” the voice cried frantically.
Everything came back in a rush. He’d gone through the Gate, fallen through hell, and now . . .
Opening his eyes, Gabriel squinted against sudden pain caused by bright sunlight, digging into his skull like daggers. Sitting up, he massaged his temples, but it did little good. His hands came away bloody, and there was a large lump to the right side of his forehead.
Humidity pressed down on him like a heavy, wet blanket, condensing on his skin, and mixing with his sweat. It wasn’t just humid, it was hot, made more so by the change from freezing cold a few moments ago. It felt like Chicago in summer.
“Are you all right,” Allie asked.
“My head,” Gabriel muttered woodenly, attempting and failing to get to his feet.
Grabbing onto the railing beside him, he forced himself dizzily upright. His hand slipped on a bloody patch and he collapsed against the rail for a second, hanging out over a very long drop down the side of one of the fang shaped towers of the Spires of Infinity.
He must have hit his head on the rail when he arrived.
Righting himself, Gabriel swayed with woozy nausea, as the ground seemed to tilt unpredictably under him.
“See,” Allie said cheerfully. “I got us here safe and sound.”
“If you say so,” Gabriel was having fond thoughts of emptying his stomach down the side of the tower. Only the twinge of pain from his mostly healed rib gave him the willpower to keep it down.
“Primary systems activation in two minutes,” Allie’s voice blared again over a loudspeaker, making Gabriel’s head feel like it might pop. Her voice was mechanical and completely devoid of emotion and personality.
“Two minutes,” Allie said in his ear, her excitement contrasting deeply with the emotionless voice on the loudspeaker. “Am I good, or am I good? I almost nailed exactly where we wanted to go.”
“You sure nailed something,” Gabriel moaned, holding his pounding head in his
hands. “I think I have a concussion. Good job.”
“Oh, shut up, you,” Allie sniffed indignantly. “You are the one that bashed his head against the railing, not me. Be more careful, I do not think I could stand any further diminished capacity due to brain damage.”
Stepping away from the railing, Gabriel realized that he was on the same
observation catwalk he’d thought things through on earlier, but before the railing had gone missing.
Looking to the sky, he saw that the sun was much smaller, and a bright yellow
color. For the first time in memory, there were clouds in the sky. The difference in climate was amazing to say the least. What had been nuclear wastelands, was now a thick jungle of bright purple foliage mixed with lush green and vibrant red.
Everywhere he looked, Gabriel saw men in black uniforms patrolling with rifles in hand, or robotic guards with a lot more menace than the trundling, docile manner they’d displayed in the future. They patrolled the courtyard, the wall tops, and everywhere else a man could patrol. None of them were NVMs. The fact that none of the men far below had tails or malformed mutations seemed rather strange now that Gabriel had become accustomed to such things.
“Gabriel, this is what we need to do. Once the black hole is created, we need to disable the computer as quickly as possible, and then copy me onto the mainframe. She will see us as saboteurs, and do everything in her power to stop us. The computer core and controls for everything but the containment field are in this tower.”
“Well that’s just great,” Gabriel muttered. “If this is the control tower it’s going to be crawling with people. I’ll get caught the second I set foot inside.”
“Relax,” Allie said. “They only allowed the bare minimum of personnel today in case of accidents. There are only two people on the entire floor of the control room.
After the computer is disabled we will use the underground accessway to reach the containment area. Once there I will program a Gate Jump back to our time, and set the containment field to shut down. You will have thirty seconds before the command registers to Gate Jump to safety.”