of legs waiting for me on that ship.”
AILIOS
Luthis was pacing back and forth in the tight corridor under the surface of Timor, his helmet’s lights beamed from wall to wall. It was almost annoying. “I can’t believe she left us here to die,” he said.
Ailios exhaled. He heard this for the fifth time, maybe. “I told you she didn’t leave us,” he said. He was sitting on the floor. His full attention was down at the tip of his finger which played with a gray pebble, rolling it from side to side. “She said she’ll come back.”
“Yeah,” said Luthis, “the last girl that said that to me was found dead couple of days later, killed by damn Cyons.”
“Olivia is a tough one. If she said she’ll come back, she’ll come back.” Even Ailios started to doubt that. Olivia was gone for more than an hour. Something was definitely wrong. But Ailios was a team leader. He had to keep their spirits high.
Luthis stopped moving and leaned back against the wall, right across from Ailios. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. Just relax, she’ll be here.”
Luthis scoffed. “She better be.” He slid his hand into his leg pocket, groped a little, and took out his metal ball. He then let it hover above his blue glove. At the same time Faragar came down the stairs from the surface.
“Give the man a break,” he said to Luthis.
“Any sign of her?” Ailios asked. Faragar shook his head. Ailios shrugged inside his suit. “Then a prayer might not be a bad idea this time.”
Luthis cocked his head to the side and made a grimace. “Ha-ha. You are a funny guy, Ailios, aren’t you?”
“Some say I am. But a prayer might honestly help us this time. We are in an ancient temple, are we not?”
The ball dropped into the mover’s hand. It seemed to get smaller as he squeezed. “You are not a funny guy,” he said with voice as cold as his eyes that stared behind the visor. Ailios knew that look. He’d seen it before the mission.
“Faragar would disagree, wouldn’t you, Faragar?”
“You are a funny guy,” said Faragar.
“Thank you, Faragar. See? Some say I am funny.”
Luthis didn’t say anything for a moment. His cold stare seemed to melt away from that smoldering face of his. It slowly turned his eyes ablaze. So did the ball in his grip.
“Seriously, Luthis, you need to relax.”
“Relax?”
“And smile more often. Who knows, you might even get a decent girl to like you one day.” If she’s blind.
“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not, I’m just saying.” Ailios turned to Faragar. “He should smile more often, wouldn’t you agree–?”
Luthis hurled the ball. Ailios’s peripheral vision caught a fist-sized metal getting larger and larger until it became as large and ominous as Palatine on the outside. Ailios moved his head aside just in time to avoid getting his visor smashed. A burst of metal and concrete showered the back of his helmet as the ball exploded into the wall behind him.
The bloody mover had now crossed the line. Ailios sprang to his feet, his hands curled into fists. “You son of a–” he muttered as he closed the distance.
“Wait!” said Luthis. “Look!” His finger pointed behind Ailios. Ailios didn’t bother to turn. He was determined to beat the mover genes out of this back-stabbing criminal. “Ailios, I’m serious – behind you!”
Ailios jumped at him and pushed him behind. The back of his helmet thumped on the metal wall, and it thumped again, and again. Ailios even did a headbutt, momentarily forgetting that both men had helmets. For a moment Ailios’s vision blackened. Luthis used that split second to push his attacker away. Before Ailios knew what happened, he was levitating over the floor, his feet groping for hard ground.
Luthis had his right hand up, holding his team leader suspended while with his left he rubbed the back of his helmet. “No, you’re not a funny guy, Ailios – you’re an egoistic self-satisfied bastard, is what you are.”
“I’ll show you who’s the bastard, you genetic piece of trash!”
“So you don’t deny that you’re an egoistic self-satisfied–”
“This is the last time you try to kill me!”
“I wanted to scare you, fool! Don’t you think I could’ve smashed your brain inside your skull if I wanted to?”
“You wanted to drop that pillar on me!”
“I wanted to push it back and open that damn door before you did! That prayer thing pissed me off!”
“Get me down and fight like a man!” shouted Ailios, his hands and feet waving.
Luthis shook his head. “I can hold you like this as long as I want.”
“Bullshit!”
“Well, until we run out of air, anyway. Now, take a deep breath and calm down.”
Ailios wanted to smash that ugly head of his on the wall, but somehow he felt his composure getting back. He then heard Faragar chortle. He was having fun, it seemed.
“There!” Luthis pointed his finger behind Ailios. With his right hand he started to turn him to see.
Ailios’s eyes opened wide. His breath caught in his throat. “Ifrin’s rivers burn me alive…”
“See!” said Luthis as he brought Ailios down.
Ailios didn’t bother to turn back, to say a word or two about the things he saw. He just walked forward, hypnotized. He dropped on his knees once he was close enough. His fingers trailed the edges on the wall that was now cracked open, a hole large enough to get his head through. His hands caught the fringes almost by themselves and they pulled, taking chunks with them. “Faragar, help me with this.” Ailios felt the huge hand of Faragar push him aside, and then he watched Faragar hurl his fist at the wall. The wall crumbled down in a quick cascade, raising clouds of dust. As the clouds slowly settled down, a black hole gaped at them.
“No bloody way,” Ailios mumbled. He looked back. Luthis stood akimbo.
“How about that, team leader?” he said and gave a hand to Ailios. He brought him back up, the old-fashioned way. “Maybe we will find something after all, so we can get rid of the damned Cyon inside the bag.”
Faragar pulled the bag up and flung it over his shoulder. “Not unless team leader gives the order,” he said.
Luthis scoffed. “Whatever.”
All three were now inside the new corridor, stepping cautiously over a metal floor.
Ailios may have been the only man who had sneaked in so many temples. He knew their secrets better than the priests on Talam did. He knew every entrance and exit there was to know, every chamber worth checking out. He knew the underground passageways like the lines of his palm. But he never imagined that there might be hidden corridors sealed off within the walls. He never thought about it. And now it brought a whole new perspective for him. Gods, how many treasures have I missed? But that was irrelevant now. They had to find a clue, or this mission would end sooner than he had hoped.
Luthis turned his head from side to side, moving the lights on his helmet with it. They helped Ailios catch a glimpse of stenciled symbols faded by age, none of which he could recognize.
“What do you think we might find here?” Luthis asked.
Relics, I hope, Ailios thought. He said, “Another clue would be nice.”
“Do you think we’ll find hidden treasures?”
“Maybe,” said Ailios. “But if you think about gold then you’ll be unpleasantly surprised.”
Luthis turned his beaming lights toward Ailios. Ailios squinted. “Why’s that?” asked the mover.
Ailios raised his hand toward the lights. “Because the ancients kept technology and weapons in their temples, not gold.” He looked away. “Their valuables were hidden in underground vaults on Talam. Far away from here.”
Luthis turned his head back at the walls and then ahead. “Then why didn’t you choose a vault on Talam instead of this damned place?”
Why indeed? thought Ailios, but even a piece of technology to the right m
an was worth a fortune. Ailios knew that better than others.
The corridor was starting to lighten up as they neared the end. A muffled green light like a divine aura radiated from a small circle in the middle of a wall some twenty meters ahead. Can it be gods dwelling here? Ailios shook that foolish thought.
“Keep your voices down,” Ailios said.
“Why? There’s no one here,” said Luthis.
Ailios grabbed him by his shoulder and turned him, his finger stabbed straight ahead. “Are you blind? Don’t you see the light over there?”
“So?”
“Just to remind you we came here through a bloody wall. Now if there is a light source emanating from there, then maybe we are not alone. And if we are not alone, then whoever is down here doesn’t want to be found.” Gods, he’s an imbecile.
Luthis shrugged. Thankfully though, he kept his voice down.
Once they reached the light source, Ailios realized the green light was coming from a tiny window on a metal door. All three looked around but found no buttons or anything they might use to make it open. Ailios then moved aside and showed the door to Luthis. “If you please,” he said.
“What, you want me to pray again?”
“I hope there will be no need. My ears still hurt.”
Luthis gave him a long cold stare.
“Just open the damned door.”
The mover scoffed and raised his hand. Not a second later the metal door started sliding up. A whoosh of air pushed them few steps back and nearly dropped them.
This thing has a bloody atmosphere! Ailios struggled to keep his balance leaning forward.
The door seemed to be stuck halfway or Luthis couldn’t push it higher than it was, so both Ailios and Faragar crawled inside. Faragar held the door for the mover to get in and then he let it drop back.
“Gods,” gasped Luthis, tapping some dust off his suit. He looked ahead and froze. His mouth opened and then closed. His hand pointed behind Ailios. “What in the name of Segomo is that?”
Ailios turned. Thousands of rows of tanks filled with green liquid and human bodies, stood side by side. Tubes and wires came down into the tanks. One of them ended in the mouth of the submerged, another in the nose, and tens of others throughout the head and body.
“I think we found the answer to their reproduction,” said Ailios. Too bad, he thought. I was hoping it involved women.
Faragar grabbed his helmet and turned to the side until the locker rings clicked.
“Don’t–” Ailios said, but then Faragar took off his helmet and took a deep breath. Luthis removed his helmet next, and when Ailios saw that they didn’t asphyxiate, he did the same. It turned out the air was good, but it left a funny taste in the back of his throat.
Faragar dropped his helmet and walked to the closest tank. His hand touched the glass.
“It’s … human,” he said.
And a damn big one, thought Ailios. He went closer to the tank and stared at the man inside. “Not exactly human,” he said. “Look.” His finger pointed at the feet inside the tank. The man inside had an almost transparent skin, covering human organs and a metal skeleton. Faragar growled at the sight of it. Ailios then noticed how the skin was slowly turning opaque.
“So the major was right,” said Luthis. “They do reproduce quickly.”
“If they needed twenty-four hours to fully grow, then this one here is twenty-two hours old, I’d say,” said Ailios.
“Unbelievable,” mumbled Luthis.
The three of them started walking between tanks and stared in amazement at the people inside. Some of them twitched, Ailios noticed, others moved their eyes under their lids, almost as if they were dreaming.
The further they went, the younger the people became. At the end they halted.
Luthis touched the tank. “Is this…?”
“…a baby,” Faragar said. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“None of us has,” said Ailios. The baby was a tiny thing. Its entire skin was transparent. They could clearly see its little organs forming and its metal bones lengthening. An abomination it was, but a cute little