James Axler – Exile to Hell

After the first striking impression, Kane realized that the figure was wearing a black skullcap. Attached to it were night-vision goggles, a slightly modified version of the Mag-issue glasses. The antennae were a pair of infrared projectors.

Still, there was something about the figure’s movements, something a bit too mannered, too sharp, too graceful. It was wearing a tight bodysuit that looked as though it was made of gray foil. Because he saw no secondary feminine characteristics, he assumed the figure was male, although it could as easily have no particular sex at all. A plastic tube-shaped holster was strapped to his right thigh.

Kane watched the man examine sheaves of paper resting in an open crate, then drop them with a gesture that almost seemed like disgust. The pale hands were long, slender, with very delicate fingers.

As he gazed down, he realized the figure’s danceresque movements and general body shape were somewhat familiar. A chill went through him. They reminded him of Baron Cobalt’s. For an instant, he wondered insanely if the man below was indeed the baron, but he dismissed the notion immediately. The baron was slightly taller, a bit shorter in the leg.

A scutter and scuffle of fast-moving feet echoed up from the tunnel. When the man heard it, he gave a great leap back, his huge, goggled eyes staring upward. Then he whirled and darted toward the dark doorway. His fleetness of foot was astonishing.

Kane swore, swinging his body over the edge of the scaffold, hanging on to the planks and pipes. Grant, Domi and Brigid rushed up. Breathlessly Grant said, “Pollard’s on his way up.”

“Follow me.” Kane dropped down from the makeshift platform into the room. He stumbled when he landed, but he recovered his footing quickly and sprinted for the doorway on the far side of the room. Behind him, he heard his companions thumping down the staircase made of two-by-fours. Then Domi’s voice rose in a short, shrill cry.

Kane heeled to a halt, turning to see her careen down the steps. Because of the wavering light of Grant’s flashlight, the girl had made a misstep. Kane ran toward her, but before he reached her, she levered herself into a sitting position, probing at her rib cage.

Brigid stooped over her. “She’s all right,” she said tightly. “May’ve ruptured some intercostal cartilage.”

“Get her up,” Kane snapped, spinning around and running again. As soon as he entered the corridor, turning right at the T, he caught the whiff of death. The wooden door to the holding cell was ajar, and as he drew up to it he glanced in. All the bodies of the Dregs were riddled with circular punctures, obviously the result of automatic fire. Though flies had not gotten to them yet, putrefaction was well under way. He shoved the door shut, still in motion. He didn’t waste time trying to reason out why these bodies had been left but the others removed.

From the end of the corridor, he heard a sound, like the distant howling of a gale-force wind, overlaid with the faintest of mechanical hums. He caught a flash of silvery light and he increased his pace.

The gateway chamber door was sealed, but he grasped the metal handle, turned and pulled. A tingling discharge of static electricity rushed through him, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He heard his hair bristling against the lining of his helmet.

The six-sided chamber was empty except for the vaguest curling wisp of white mist. The metal hexagons on the floor and ceiling shimmered faintly, a shimmer that faded away even as he looked at it.

He was still looking at it when the others caught up to him. He didn’t have to say anything. Brigid made a wordless utterance of surprise and wonder, then grabbed the flashlight from Grant and played the beam over the arma-glass exterior and the interior.

“Why’d you take off like that?” Grant demanded.

“Someone was in here.”

“Who?”

“Maybe more like a what. He was wearing a night-vision headset and going through Reeth’s hard-copy records. I chased him into here.”

Grant looked around suspiciously. “Where is he, then?”