James Axler - Truth Engine

“Weird,” he muttered.

Carefully, Grant made his way out into the main tunnel once more, looking all around him. Jutting rock walls were place here and there like hurdles on a race course, low to the stone floor. At one end, perhaps a dozen paces from where he now stood, there was an open archway, the low rocks overhanging in a jagged pattern. From beyond that arch, the eerie orange glow of lava seemed brighter.

With as much stealth as he could muster in his tired body, Grant padded toward the archway. Edging up to it, he put one hand on the wall there and peered at the scene beyond.

Beyond the opening was a large cave, where several more of the hooded figures were moving about. Waist-high ridges of rock cut across the space in two curved lines, with breaks in them here and there. Grant’s attention was drawn to something over in the far left corner of the room. Lightning bolts seemed to flash there, behind a screen of misted glass, and he recognized with a start that it was a mat-trans unit, with fingers of rough stone cladding branching across the armaglass like a creeping vine.

“Where the hell am I?” Grant muttered.

A mat-trans, he thought, turning the fact over in his head. If these people had a mat-trans, then here was a chance for him to escape, to bring help. If he could access that device, he could return to Cerberus and bring his allies to shut down this hellhole. Or he could take a quantum jump to New Edo, call upon his lover, Shizuka, and her fearsome Tigers of Heaven, to back him up as he closed down this perverse prison. He wouldn’t need to program in the correct coordinates for the mat-trans unit—he could take a random leap, then recover at that destination, once he was out of the vipers’ nest. But to access that unit in the first place would mean somehow crossing this room without getting caught. He could wait it out, maybe, skulk in the shadows until such time as an opportunity arose. The prison guards were all dressed in shapeless hooded robes, and if Grant could snag one of these, he could likely pass unchallenged for a short while at least, until word of his escape from his cell became widespread. Or he could fight it out now, take on the eight figures in this cavern, but in his hungry, weakened state that could be suicidal.

In the far corner of the cave, the crackling lightning ceased and the mist inside the mat-trans unit began to dissipate. Another robed figure appeared within it, and Grant watched with interest as the figure stepped forward through the opening door, greeting others in the room with friendly authority.

Grant stepped back from the archway as the new arrival turned in his direction and began walking toward him, with two of his similarly dressed companions in tow. Dammit, they’re coming out here, he thought.

The ex-Magistrate turned, heading for the access tunnel he had recently used, only to spot the three figures he had left by his open cell.

He turned back, looking across at the far side of the tunnel, to a branching corridor where the other figures were disappearing. A moment later, he ran through that doorway and found himself in another rock-walled tunnel. This one ended in a sharp turn, and Grant heard something from the far end as he rushed along it. Pulling up short, he leaned against the wall and peered around the corner. A bank of elevator doors was embedded in the rock. The glistening steel was at odds with the cavernous tunnel, reflecting the glowing pods of magma like fire.

Grant peered behind him for a moment, checking that he wasn’t being followed, before he turned back to examine the situation.

As he stood there, the farthest set of elevator doors slid open and a familiar figure stepped out.

The wall behind shook Kane as he pressed against it, vibrations carrying from the other side of the tight cave. The wall before him, eight feet away and almost lost in darkness, seemed to be rocking, as if struck by a quake.

Kane watched as the wall began to shift. And then, to his astonishment, it seemed to part before his eyes, more akin to liquid than something solid, like the Red Sea’s fabled parting before Moses. Where once had stood a solid barrier, now there was a gap running from floor to ceiling, easily wide enough for a man to fit through. Light filtered dimly through this impossible doorway, the orange-red of flowing lava.

Kane was about to take a step forward, wondering what new trick this was, when two figures appeared at the edge of the doorway, their features hidden, backlit by the lava flow in the tunnel beyond. “Kane.”

It was a man’s voice, firm and solid, with a slight accent.

“Yes,” Kane replied warily.

The figures strode through the doorway, and Kane saw that both wore hooded robes that hid their features. He waited, pressed back against the wall, assessing the shapes their robes disguised, automatically checking behind them for more people. The one in front was a man, tall and well-built, with wide shoulders and a swagger to his step that spoke of power and confidence. Behind him was a thinner figure, also tall but more shapely—obviously a woman. Behind them, silhouetted in the doorway, Kane noticed a mongrel dog following them with weary disinterest, stopping to sniff at the new doorway and the floor and walls.

“Well, it seems you know me,” Kane said, “but I’m a little at a loss. Care to bring me up to speed?”

The couple stopped before him, and Kane watched as they pushed back their low-hanging hoods, revealing their faces in the dim orange glow of the lava flow beyond the cave. To his surprise, Kane recognized both of them, although it took a moment to place the man’s features.

He had short, dark hair and a hard face with tanned skin. He was in his forties and had grown a beard since Kane last saw him. His right ear was mangled now, but Kane recognized him as one of the farmers who had been indoctrinated by the Annunaki prince Ullikummis in Tenth City, out in the wilds of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Kane thought for a moment, struggling to recall the farmer’s name. Dylan, that had been it. But Kane’s team had freed the man, released him from the mind worm that had controlled his thoughts. What the hell was he doing here, holding Kane captive? Was it some kind of misguided revenge? It made no sense.

Standing behind Dylan was a beautiful woman whom Kane had last seen many months ago out in the Snake-fishville desert close to the fishing village of Hope. In her early twenties, the shapely woman had long, dark hair and hazel eyes like pools of chocolate. Her olive skin showed a tan, and there was something altogether entrancing about her, the way she carried herself, the swell of her breasts and the casual sway of her round hips. This beautiful woman was called Rosalia, and when Kane had last seen her she had been a bodyguard in the employ of a group of immoral profiteers who were trading in pirated DNA. Kane’s team had burned down that operation, halting the threat of reborn baronies in the process, but evidently Rosalia herself had escaped. She looked more tired than Kane remembered, tired and drawn. But then, Kane suspected that he, too, looked pretty exhausted just now.

“This is your future, Kane,” Dylan began. “The world changed while you weren’t looking, and you’ve woken up to the new reality. Rejoice.”

Kane smiled in self-deprecation. “New reality, huh? Just how long was I asleep?” he taunted.

Dylan ignored his frivolity. “Your team, Cerberus, waged a war upon the Annunaki,” he stated, as if this fact was commonplace. “The Annunaki were your betters, of course, but you stood up to them, managed to disrupt their plans and, in your limited and infantile way, stymie their progress.”

“Well, I do what I do what I do,” Kane muttered.