The false monks journeyed on, and the industrial district gave way to a business district full of brightly lit store fronts and street vendors loudly hawking their wares. Every alley led to another market overflowing with foot traffic and wafting out strangely delicious smells. They were the smells of fried vegetables and roasted meats.
A residential area came next, complete with terraced stalagmites that were apartment complexes. Parks with oddly complex terrain sat between the apartments, where adolescent jackrabbits played a game like football, but with a weighted rod in place of the ball. One rabbit would fling the staff to another, who would then grip it with the claw on his back and dash across the obstacle-laden field.
Each district was dense in a way that would make even Manhattan in its prime feel jealous, and the traffic grew thicker the deeper they went.
All the while, the infiltrators kept their heads down and did their best to avoid attention. Jack threaded a route that avoided crowds, and even managed to avoid the many street markets. Every now and again, they passed another coven of hooded monks, and they silently waited to be discovered, but the real monks never motioned to them or paid them any mind.
Too many of Jack’s prayers were being answered, and it was starting to make him nervous.
There were many more types of aliens than they’d seen outside. Jackrabbits were plentiful, but the city dwellers were less muscular and sinewy than soldiers, and none wore the black gas-masks. The creatures were playful and lively, and could often be seen talking excitedly and singing in the streets, in brightly colored clothes and jewelry that jingled.
More surprising were the rhinos, who were nearly as common as the jackrabbits. They were so different than the soldiers that Jack didn’t recognize them at first. Civilian rhinos were much closer to humans in size and proportion, with four average-sized arms, faintly striped beige skin, and no armor to speak of. Not a single one had an insect attached to its back either, and their clothes always left their blowholes uncovered.
Even after Jack had decided that these striped creatures were the rhinos, he still had trouble connecting the two. The idea that they grow to five times their original weight, and sprout bulletproof armor was simply too fantastic to believe.
There were other species, but none in numbers approaching the rhinos or jackrabbits. There were great tall aliens that stalked through the crowds as a giraffe walks through tall grass, and other hunched-over, skulking creatures that kept to the shadows, but could occasionally be seen darting from one shelter to the next. The strangest thing the Bravos saw was a floating animal with a gelatinous sack for a body, which appeared to be filled with other, smaller creatures swimming around inside of it. He was like a living aquarium, and it was anyone’s guess if either he or his inhabitants were intelligent.
They never saw a pilot anywhere, but with the number of vehicles flitting about, their numbers were obviously healthy. It also occurred to Jack after a couple kilometers that he’d seen several groups of monks, but had yet to see any of that species outside of their robes. He filed that away as another mystery he would likely never answer.
Then they came to the generator complex. It was impossible to miss, a massive column of twisting fibers which extended from the floor to the canopy above. It was thicker at either end and thinner in the middle, like a sticky bridge of fluid slowly pulled apart. Glowing amber cables sprouted everywhere on its surface, and extended out toward the rest of the city like creeping ivy.
The Bravos huddled in the neighborhood just before the generator, where foot traffic grew thin. It wasn’t obvious how to get into the facility, or if there even was an entrance. From the looks of things, they might as well have been looking for a door on a tree trunk.
In a hushed voice, Nikitin said, “I don’t see a damn doorway, Jack.”
“If there’s no way in, the mission’s a bust, chief. Our charges wouldn’t even dent that thing.” Trash wasn’t a problem solver. He got jobs done when directed, but any deviation from the plan stopped him dead in his tracks. Where he picked up demolition skills before joining the Corps was a total mystery, as was his terrible nickname.
Jack tilted his head back and looked up the great height of the thing. He didn’t even want to guess at how tall it was, because it dwarfed every skyscraper he’d ever seen. Still, the glowing cables made for interesting terrain, and there appeared to be plenty of hand-holds and ledges. Did he just think what he thought he thought?
As Jack second guessed his fleeting idea, one of the flyers high above slowed and entered a tunnel in the facility’s side. The angle from the floor made the entrance itself invisible.
“Who’s got some climbing experience?”
“You didn’t just ask that,” Nikitin said.
Albright, Trash, and one of the demo men raised their hands. “Good. Looks like there’s a docking port for flyers up there. That’s where we’re getting in. There isn’t another option. The rest of you stay behind. Stick to the shadows, and be ready to get the hell out. Clear?”
“Clear,” they all said.
Just then, Jack noticed a pair of rhinos walking in their direction and he motioned for his team to shut up. The two creatures, an adult and child, walked right past the circle of false monks and stopped at the street corner a couple paces away. The adult, a female, pulled out a glowing crystal and looked deep into it, while the child stared up at the mess of traffic above.
Then the young rhino turned and looked right at Jack, and he knew it saw his face. Its big, bright eyes showed surprise, and then it smiled and waved to him. It tugged its mother’s hand, but Jack raised his finger to his mouth in a silent hush. To his amazement, the motion was understood.
The small rhino giggled and waved again, then its mother put the crystal away and started walking, pulling her child along behind her.
Jack heard Albright’s voice in his memory, from the day she dissected the alien specimens. “I haven’t identified everything yet, but most of it’s more like us than not.”
Right at that moment, Jack realized what sort of demon he’d become, and he couldn’t shake the thought from his head no matter how hard he tried.
Chapter 36:
Jack and the Beanstalk
The climbing team stripped off their robes and left them folded up on the ground. The disguises wouldn’t matter, since a group of monks climbing the generator would be as suspicious as anything else. Fortunately, the generator complex was of little interest to the citizens of the blue city and there was no traffic nearby, flying or on foot. Their chances of being seen were small, and if they were lucky, that would be enough.
Jack didn’t like trusting in luck.
All four were former corpsmen with jumpsuits dyed darker colors. Each also wore the standard corps duty pack, which housed a climbing-harness with built in rappelling cable. The hooks allowed corpsmen to latch onto each other and form a human chain, great for climbing but also useful in strong winds and flood waters. A large part of Corps Basic Training was devoted to the harness’ effective use.
Albright was the most confident climber and she volunteered to take lead. They all hooked up to her, and then off they went up the side of the giant, twisting structure. It felt like they were making quick work of it, but the entry ports remained a long way off, and they seemed only inches closer after a half-hour.
The surface was covered in handles and was as difficult to climb as a good ladder. Albright supposed the handles were for use in zero-g, and her theory made a lot of sense, but things that made too much sense were often wrong in Jack’s experience. Jack’s experience was surprisingly cynical.
They fell into a comfortable rhythm, ascent interspersed with short rests in shallow alcoves they found, and thanks to the many hand-holds, they rarely had to backtrack. At each new rest stop, they could see more of the city stretching out beneath them, and Jack was beginning to admire the view. What was foreign and deformed at first was becoming familiar, reminding him not only of Manhattan, but also of Hong Kong and Mumbai. It was a rainbow of brightly colored clothes, spicy smells and strange produce.
After nearly two hours, they came to the entry port, which was a tunnel just barely large enough for one of the flyers to squeeze through, located half-way between the colony’s floor and ceiling.
