Javier looked over at Mari and the others. They shared a serious, knowing glance, but said nothing. They turned their attention back and just watched.
Alpha-2 kept looking back at the tablets. The whispering was getting louder. It was aggravating.
“Tell me!” he shouted.
He felt edgy, like he was on speed. His mind was racing. Impatience and anger were taking hold, growing exponentially.
The whispering was now growing louder. It started to sound like crashing ocean waves in his ears. He was growing hotter, too, he was boiling inside. He needed to take some of his layers off. But he’d have to put his gun down to do that. He was growing increasingly paranoid and confused. Why can’t I understand what it’s telling me?
He then walked towards Rick and Luis.
Luis backed away, along the wall of tablets, his jaw dropping. The man had a crazed look in his eyes. It was frightening.
“What? What did you say?” he asked Luis. But his own words sounded strange, like trying to speak underwater.
Luis shook his head. “I didn’t say anything.” He tried to back away farther from the man.
Rick went to Luis’ side. “What the hell, dude?”
The man shook his head and blinked his eyes rapidly. As he looked at Rick and Luis, their faces were becoming distorted, grotesque.
“What... what are you?”
Oz tried to intervene. “Alpha-2, what’s going on with you?”
But he couldn’t hear him.
He fixated on the rapidly morphing forms in front of him. They no longer looked human at all. The smaller shape appeared at first to mock him, then its features grew more menacing. He could feel a malevolent presence emanating from it, stretching out towards him. Then, he thought he saw it reaching for some kind of weapon.
Oz was about to warn him to back away from the tablets. He suspected they were having some kind of bad effect on him. The man seemed crazed. Unhinged. But it was too late.
Alpha-2 suddenly lunged at Luis.
It all happened so fast.
Rick and Luis leapt out of the way.
Alpha-2 ran headlong into the section of tablets behind Luis, smashing into it at full force. The powerful magnetic force held the tablets in place, but the impact sent a shower of sparks ripping through every nerve in his body at a cataclysmic speed.
A bolt of what looked like lightning went sparking down the wall of tablets, lashing out and making contact with Alpha-1’s gun at the other end. He went rigid for a moment, then shook violently and dropped to the ground.
At the same moment Alpha-2 let out a piercing, guttural scream as the blazing heat within him went critical. Thought and reason were pushed aside for primal agony.
The others watched aghast as his skin turned red, then started blistering. They heard grisly popping sounds.
He screamed and scratched and clawed wildly at his clothing and his face. Smoke rose from his garments. A sickening burning smell began to permeate the cavern.
Then, to their horror, he burst into flames.
In shock, they all recoiled, watching as he tore from the cavern, screaming, arms flailing wildly, his entire body engulfed in flames.
Alpha-3 and Alpha-4 dodged their comrade. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
They watched as he disappeared into the dark cave system beyond, his screaming growing fainter, then abruptly it stopped.
They looked back at Oz, who stood there, momentarily as dumbfounded as the rest of them.
Oz turned back to the wall of tablets. “Alpha-1!” he shouted. “Get up!”
No answer. No movement from the fallen man.
“Alpha-3,” Oz ordered, “check him.”
The man nodded and dashed over to his teammate.
Oz and Alpha-4 kept their guns trained on the group.
He checked the man’s pulse. There was none.
He looked up at Oz. “He’s dead. I think he was electrocuted.”
“What did you do?” Oz shouted at Luis.
Luis stumbled backward several feet farther along the wall of tablets, in shock and horror.
“Answer me!” he yelled.
Luis was too stunned to answer.
Rick shouted back. “You were watching. It wasn’t him! He didn’t do anything.”
“Bullshit!” Oz edged towards them; gun drawn.
“Calm down, alright,” Rick said, putting his hands out. This situation was getting worse by the second, and he knew at this point this man could do anything.
Oz glared at him. “Don’t you tell me to calm down!” He again zeroed in on Luis. “Tell me what you did!”
“N-nothing,” Luis said, trying to back away.
“Stop!”
Luis stopped in his tracks. “I don’t know what happened!” He started to back away again.
“I won’t tell you again,” Oz shouted. “Stop! Now!”
In a panic, Luis stumbled.
Oz moved forward still, taking aim.
Luis gasped.
Rick saw what was about to happen and without thinking, he leapt to push Oz’s arm away, but as he did, his hand whacked into the corner of a nearby metal tablet, his knuckle making direct contact with one of the symbols a second before a shot rang out. At once, he felt the twin shocks of a powerful electrical-like current blazing through him and a thunderous, fiercely intense punch to the chest.
The shock of both sent Rick flying against the ground. He hit it with a hard thud. He saw the shower of sparks behind his eyelids. He felt himself drifting away, being pulled along as though on a strong, fast-moving current. Then all went black...
CHAPTER 18
A moment later, Rick awoke. He was lying on what felt like a cool, marble floor. He was alone. He pushed himself up and looked around. His vision was fuzzy. He could tell he was no longer in the Cathedral cavern, but in some kind of vast, white room. He gazed upwards. The soaring white walls and ceiling were shaped somewhat like the Cathedral cavern they’d entered, but instead were perfectly smooth and uniform, lacking any kind of detail, as though crafted by man, not nature, and the space was far, far larger.
As his vision began to clear, he noticed shapes in the distance. After a few moments he could
