Krin’s mind spun. With a new ship, he had an unlimited reach. Let him sweeten the pot, as a safeguard—in case Jnedz backed out of the deal and doublecrossed him. An image formed in his mind, of the humans he could prey upon on the many cybernetic labs of the human Mathias. “I will lead you to a goldmine of human souls. Would that be a fair bargain?”
Chapter 7
The corridor arched through the gloom with service piping running across the ceiling, giving off a faint hum, as if carrying coolant or heating fluid, perhaps oxygen. Yul stared, moving up the hall, Cloye ahead of him. Black power cables ran alongside the pipes, thick enough to carry significant wattage. They were in some off-limits service area. Anything could happen.
Some minutes passed and they came to a large chamber, squarish in shape, dim of light. A dead end? Only a heavy door with red bars blocked access to a chamber at the far side. To reach that they must cross the chamber, but the room, while empty, seemed slightly suspicious to Yul’s eye. He thought to make out a tiny pinprick of red light or a motion detector set on the wall to one side. Cloye moved toward the door, but Yul held her back, pointing to the sensor.
With caution, he stepped across the invisible line that cast a tight beam from left wall to right. He smiled, only to feel a ripple of pain course through his nerves from spine to toe.
Damn that Mathias! He had fired the nanoparticles in his blood with his pain dispenser. Even as he lifted his foot to make the next step, he could not keep his balance or stop himself from triggering the alarm.
A sudden wallop of sound jolted from the leftmost wall, machinery moving with a thumping electric whine. The wall pushed toward them, sweeping them aside into another dim chamber whose right wall had vanished to grant them access.
“Get back!” Yul cried, reaching for his weapon. But it was too late.
Rolling, he raised his blaster to take out two anthropomorphic shapes leaping out at him. Mechnobots. They sported four wavering arms not dissimilar to Zikri invaders. But could it be? “What the shit—?”
He cursed Mathias’s ill timing. The chamber had sealed itself. A row of the monsters with gruesome faces and mechno bodies glided forth to replace the others he had blasted.
Cloye let out a yell that sent echoes reverberating as she loosed waves of blaster fire into the moving murk, severing heads from torsos.
Yul whirled about. From the smoking corpses emerged something hideous. What in the name of—? Stringed masses propelled by mysterious means reached out wavering feelers. One of the glistening ropes whipped out and latched onto his blaster, jerking it out of his grasp. He leaped aside, gaping as another tough cord coiled on to his mechanized wrist. He pulled free, found his weapon coated with a foul-smelling grease. Another jerked toward Cloye, tripping her.
No sooner had it descended upon her than she tore her arm free from the strangling creepers, raking them with the side of her blaster. She clawed for the fire button but it refused to function. Her weapon was now coated with more of the substance to which Yul had fallen prey. That weapon too was wrenched out of her grip as a stringy mass pinioned her wrist.
The room was alive with the writhing shapes. Jellyfish-like streamers flowered from all angles. The last Zikri bots stood like wraiths, staring hollowly. Why didn’t they kill them outright? Feeling he was fighting a hopeless battle, he broke from the oily masses and crashed his whole weight into the creature that was restraining Cloye. Surprisingly, it went limp on contact and became a lifeless heap.
The floor fell through. He and Cloye thudded onto a hard surface. He looked up. The Zikri bots and stringed monsters were gone. Yul stared in confusion. A trick? Some virtual reality mind bend? Glass partitions now came tumbling down from on high, trapping them in a maze. He saw Cloye’s reflection mirrored in the glass—three of her, staring glazed-eyed, her fingers pressed to the clear barrier. Yul snatched at his blaster which had fallen with him.
He raced toward her and smashed head-first into an invisible wall. He fell back, momentarily stunned, then turned left down another narrow passage. Another transparent wall came down, blocking his path. He grunted, aimed his blaster, and fired. The red flare from his gun ricocheted off the peculiar barrier, nearly taking his head off before he could duck.
“Shit! What is this house of horrors?”
The right wall disappeared and the opposite wall pushed him toward where the other wall had been. He blinked in amazement as he staggered out into a huge, fluorescent-lit chamber. The place was a beehive of activity. Fifty or more scientists, a mix of men and women of various ages, worked diligently at tables and workstations, garbed in lab coats. Cloye lay panting behind him. The moving wall which had pushed them out had stopped and merged seamlessly with the spacious chamber’s wall.
A stocky, middle-aged man stood well back, regarding Yul with rising curiosity. There was a trace of admiration on his features, which quickly faded. The man had a dark complexion, curly brown hair and piercing gold eyes. He wore an immaculate, pressed blue lab coat, black shoes and thick glasses, which he pushed high upon his nose as he hitched himself forward with interest. Others, no less than eight who looked like hitmen, lingered at the sidelines of this huge room, hefting E1’s.
“I see you ran afoul of my testing chamber,” the man said. “It’s a combination defence, security and testing entry to my lab. I get a little absorbed while making my observations. Your scores are high, granted.”
Yul wanted to reach out and strangle him.
