and the ones I do know how to use can’t exactly get me through a mountain of aliens. Looking around the room, I’m losing hope. But it’s after studying the giant’s melting skin and disintegrating bones that I get an idea.
With my dagger back in my jeans pocket, I slowly approach the moat of bubbling green liquid. I take a deep breath and carefully dip a finger in it. Just as I’d hoped, it’s scalding hot but merely tickles my skin like fire. It’s like green lava.
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“When I say open the door, I want you to open it and get out of the way immediately.”
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
Visions of Henri running the Loric crystal over me as I lie on the coffee table, my hands in open flames, run through my mind, and I dunk my hand into the moat and pick up a dripping scoop of the green lava. I close my eyes and concentrate, and when I open them the liquid is hovering over my hand in a perfect flaming ball.
“This, I guess,” I say.
“Wicked.”
Sam runs over to the wooden door, and I nod to show him I’m ready.
He rips the door open and dives to his right. A cluster of heavily armed Mogs are running our way; but when they catch sight of the fiery green ball coming their way, they try to turn around. As the ball is about to splash on the chest of the first Mog, I use my mind to spread it out like a fiery blanket. Several Mogs are hit, and after a moment of burning torture, they turn to ash.
I wing ball after ball of green lava at more Mogs, knocking them down. Sam collects a pile of their guns, and once there’s a lull in the advancement, I grab two more balls of green liquid and run out the door. Sam follows me with a long black gun under each arm.
The number of Mogs running down the dark tunnel is staggering; and with the flashing lights and piercing sirens, it’s a sensory overload. Sam pulls both triggers and mows down row after row of Mogs, but they keep coming. When he’s out of bullets, Sam grabs two more guns.
“I could use some help here!” Sam yells, mowing down another line of Mogs.
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” The mucus-covered walls of the tunnel don’t appear to lend themselves to spreading a decent fire, and I don’t have enough of the green lava in my hands to do enough damage. To my left are the silver gas tanks and silos with their heavy pipes, spouts and aluminum ducts. Next to the tallest of the silos I eye the control panel with electrical wires pouring out. I can hear the screams and roars of the beasts in the barred chambers farther down the hall, and wonder how hungry they are.
I toss a flaming ball at the control panel and it disintegrates in a storm of sparks. The bars of the chambers lining the walls begin to rise, and that’s when I toss the other green ball at the base of the gas tanks and silos.
I grab hold of Sam and sprint with him back into the giant’s chamber. As the explosion erupts, I whip Sam against the stone section between the wooden door and the rising steel gate, and allow the advancing wave of flames to sweep over me. My ears are flooded with the crackle and hum of fire.
Dozens of krauls burst from their open chamber and attack a series of unsuspecting Mogs from behind; several pikens stomp into the tunnel with roars and swinging arms; the reptilian mutant with horns charges towards the back of the tunnel, plowing over Mogs and krauls under the legs of the pikens; the gargoylelike winged creatures buzz at the ceiling, swooping down to take a bite out of anything they can; and the monster with transparent skin sinks its rows of teeth into the calf of a piken. That all happens in a matter of seconds, then they’re overtaken by a sea of fire.
After a few minutes, once the fire escapes up the spiral cavern at the end of the tunnel to continue to wreak havoc throughout the mountain, the long corridor in front of me is littered with ash piles and black monster bones. I extinguish the fire surrounding me and brush my hands off onto my thighs.
Sam is singed, but otherwise okay.
“Brilliant, dude,” he says.
“Let’s just try to get the hell out of here, and
I stick my Chest under my arm and Sam picks up the other. We race through the fire’s destruction; the stench of death is choking. The charred ladder at the end of the tunnel appears stable, and with only one free hand apiece, we climb with difficulty. Our feet hit the burned and blackened spiral ledge, and we sprint around and around until we reach the cave’s center.
The inferno I unleashed did much more damage than I thought it would, and we see piles upon piles of ash; but we also see hundreds of Mogs crawling out of different corridors and tunnels on their hands and knees, burned or still on fire, barking in pain, unable to pick up their guns, unable to do anything as we jump over them. There are other soldiers racing above us on ledges, some with weapons in their arms, others with the wounded.
I’m confused which way the exit is; and as I lead us through a series of tunnels with my pendant swinging around my neck, Sam and I each pick up a discarded gun. We run with them chest high, firing at anything that gets in our way. Even though we don’t know where we’re going, we don’t stop moving until we come to the cells with human prisoners. That’s when I know for certain we’ve gone the wrong way. I pull Sam in the other direction, but he plants his feet and stops me. I can see the concern and hope on his face. The cells have their steel doors stuck a foot above the floor and the bubbling blue force fields have disappeared.
“They’re open, John!” he yells, tossing his Chest at my feet. I drop my gun and pick up the other Chest, and Sam finally says what I knew he was thinking: “What if my dad’s here?”
I look into Sam’s eyes, and I know we have to check. He runs along the left side of the corridor, yelling into each cell for his dad. I’m investigating the cells on the right when a boy my age with long black hair sticks his head under a door. When he sees me, he puts a hand cautiously into the corridor.
“The force field is really gone?” he shouts.
“I think so!” I yell.
Sam hoists his gun over his shoulder and ducks his head under the boy’s cell door. “Do you know a man named Malcolm Goode? Forty years old, brown hair? Is he here? Have you seen him?”
“Shut up and stand back, kid,” I hear the boy say. There’s a grittiness to his voice, something that makes me uneasy, and I immediately pull Sam to the side. The boy grips the bottom of the door and rips it from the wall, tossing it into the corridor like a Frisbee. The ceiling cracks and boulders fall, and I use telekinesis to shield Sam and me from being crushed. Before I can say a word, the boy emerges clapping the dust off his hands. He’s taller than I am, shirtless and muscular.
Sam steps forward, and to my surprise he aims his gun at the boy’s head. “Just tell me! Do you know my dad? Malcolm Goode? Please!”
The boy looks past Sam and his weapon, focusing on the Chests under my arms. That’s when I notice the three scars on his leg. They’re just like mine. He’s one of us.
I drop the other Chest to the ground in shock. “What number are you? I’m Four.”
He squints at me and then offers his hand. “I’m Nine. Good job staying alive, Number Four.”
He reaches for the Chest I’ve dropped. Sam lowers his gun, retreating down the corridor, stopping every few seconds to look inside a cell. Nine places his hand on the Chest’s lock and it instantly shakes and snaps open. A yellow glow lights up his face when he opens the lid.
“Hell, yeah.” He laughs, placing a hand inside. Nine pulls out a tiny red rock and shows it to me. “You have one of these?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I’m embarrassed by how little I understand the items in my own Chest.
Nine places the rock between his knuckles and aims his fist at the nearest wall. A white cone of light appears, and instantly we can see through the wall and into an empty jail cell.
Sam runs in our direction. “Wait! You have X-ray vision?”
“What number is the nerd?” Nine asks me, digging around in his Chest again.
“That’s Sam. He’s not Loric, but he’s our ally. He’s looking for his dad.”
He tosses Sam the red rock. “This will make shit go faster, Sammy. Just aim and squeeze.”
“He’s human, dude,” I say. “He can’t use this stuff.”
Nine places his thumb on Sam’s forehead. Sam’s hair blows upward and I can smell electricity in the air.
Sam stumbles backwards. “Whoa.”
Nine ducks his hands back into his Chest. “You’ve got about ten minutes. Get to it.”
