Boldt searched the screens, watching as the skirmish lines Pepper and his men had set up suddenly gave way in front of the New Londoners’ vehicles. “Referencethe people who first breached the integrity of this complex.”
“Searching.” One of the monitors suddenly started cycling images as Merlin flipped through the banks and cameras available to him.
Boldt watched the carnage unfold on the screen. The fires had spread across the houses, whirling infernos that at once covered over and backlit the struggle. One of the jeeps from New London got too close to a tangler bed. A plant shot out, and as the cameras outside picked up the motion and cataloged it, Boldt saw the poisonous thorn ram deep into the man’s throat.
The dead man lost control of the vehicle. It skidded and overturned, flipping and tearing through one of the burning homes. Embers and flaming debris were scattered in all directions, setting off even more fires.
“There are three groups,” Merlin replied in the mechanical voice.
“Where?” Boldt demanded.
A map formed on the monitor that the computer had been directly accessing. Boldt recognized the layout at once, realizing the strangers were closer than he’d imagined.
“Sec post 8 has been breached,” Merlin said. “Uplinking video now.”
“Has the system been shut down at that sec post?”
“Affirmative. Less than five seconds ago. Following primary security programming.”
Boldt followed the maze of lines, locating the two groups of bright dotsone paired, the other in a triangular groupingthat were headed in opposite directions. The three were closing in on the cell where the woman was being kept under guard.
The pair was making the turn at the far end of the corridor that would bring them to the outer door walling off the nerve center where Boldt stood. Somehow they’d found him.
“Are there any video uplinks for the other two groups?” the Celt prince asked.
“No. Surveillance is managed by sensor implants in the root walls.”
Boldt looked at the approaching two lights. They were too close now for any other defenses to be used to shut them out. Unconsciously he turned and glanced at the steel door closing the room off from that direction. It would hold. Even if they had explosives, it would hold.
And he wasn’t going to be there anyway.
He glanced back at the monitor. A window had opened up, showing him strangely garbed men whom he’d never seen before going through the firepit left in the sec post. The way they set up told the Celtic prince that they were no friends of the earlier groups. They looked to be more interested in defending themselves from the strangers who’d been with Mildred Wyeth.
It was all too much for Boldt to puzzle out. None of it would matter after the next few minutes anyway, not once the plague had been set free. The Prince glanced back at the monitors displaying the bloody action taking place out in the valley. With the flickering firelight and the muzzle-flashes from the various weapons, it was impossible to say who was winning.
In the long run the battle was more than Boldt could have hoped for. Ideally the plague would have been released only on the people staying in the valley. But with the seed heralds trapped outside when he released it, as well, and the fact that both the seed heralds and the villagers would know that the valley was no longer inhabitable, they would spread in opposite directions. Their enmity wouldn’t die.
The presence of the New Londoners was a gift from whatever gods there might be. Win, lose or draw, the survivors from the battle would flee back to the thorpe, spreading the disease around the British Isles even faster than the fleeing Celts would have. The pestilence would take hold firmly. Boldt knew from his spies that New London was a port city. The plague would have a good chance of establishing itself in a number of areas before anyone even knew it was among them.
“Sound the general alarm,” Boldt commanded, “and open the cryo vault.”
A harsh Klaxon siren suddenly rent the air in great whoops. The Celtic prince walked forward and stepped through the passageway that appeared in front of him. The tunnel was long and narrow, lighted by the glowing fungus pods. He went into it.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127