Everwinter: The Forerunner Archives (37 page)

"Bring them out!" the cold, calculating voice of Magis orders.

Altair feels himself lifted by two pairs of arms, dragged toward the entrance to the box. Then he's thrown out, a five foot drop to the ground. He lands on his feet b
ut crumbles to his knees, which take the brunt of the impact. Ursa falls next to him seconds later, flat on her face.

There's a commotion in the box, and Altair grins as he hears the furious voice of Glamis. "Bloody midgets!" he screams. Two shots go off. Glamis falls to the grou
nd moments after, a pair of fresh bullet wounds in his leg and arm. As before, it hardly seems to faze him.

Amazing
.

The three captives are all dragged to their knees before the gathering. Altair glances around quickly, counting fifteen soldiers in a ring around them. If Ativan's estimation of the population of this 'army' is correct, then they must have pulled in all their scouts from the surrounding area.

It's probably not every day they get to make such a show of an execution.

Magis shouts an order and his soldiers cock their weapons.

Speed shooters. Forerunner technology.

"Drink it in boys!" Magis announces. "It's not
every day we get to take out a bona fide Assassin! And this brute," he gestures to Glamis, "I think I'll have him stuffed and turned into a couch!" He laughs hysterically, and so do his comrades. Glamis bares his teeth. His skin is starting to glow brighter. Altair just shakes his head. It'll all be over in a few seconds.

He fixes Juno's face firmly in his mind.

Might as well die with a happy thought.

Run, Juno. Get out of here. Don't go to Everwinter. Live what little life is left to you
and–

"Do the brute first," M
agis orders, smiling at Glamis' defiant sneer.

"Do your worst, midgets!" Glamis snarls.

The last words he would ever say.

A dozen shooters go off, lodging at least a hundred bullets into the mutant's bulky body. Ursa screams as Glamis slumps to the ground, face in the dirt.

Magis laughs. "I have to admit, boys," he says. "I wasn't sure that thing could be killed!" The Grimms all laugh too. Magis gestures. "Okay, let's finish this." A dozen weapons cock and aim at both Ursa and Altair.

Altair takes the poor woman by the hand. "Close your eyes," he whispers, squeezing her fingers
tightly. They both do.

A shot goes off.

Altair feels nothing.

And Ursa hadn't cried out in pain...

"Bloody hells! Shoot him!"

Altair opens his eyes.
 

Immediately, he pushes himself and Ursa
flat to the ground. "Stay down!" he orders.

More shots go off, followed by screams of pain and a screech of pure, unadulterated rage.

Two Grimm soldiers fall dead to the ground.

Glamis!

The ground shakes as the hulking mutant stomps around, grabbing Grimm soldiers by the neck, squeezing until their heads loll sideways. Bullets slam into his body. Blood pours from the wounds. But he doesn't stop. By the time that the soldiers realize that they are the ones in danger here, ten of them are dead, rag dolls in the dirt.

"Run!" Magis calls. "Get the hells out
–" His words are choked off.

Altair looks up, seeing the skeletal man being held in the air by an arm that's a tree trunk by comparison. Glamis spits in his face. "Now you knows this thing not so easily killeds!" he growls. And with that, he slams Magis over his knee, snapping the man's back like dry kindling. Magis falls limply to the ground.

Altair pushes to his feet, sore but alive. He takes stock, his Assassin's eyes probing every square inch around them. There are no more soldiers. The few that survived have fled into the night. He steps toward Glamis and, as he does, the bulked out mutant collapses to one knee. He's literally leaking blood from everywhere, holes riddling his body.

"I'se... I'se just needs to lie down a moments," he says, falling hard on his side. His breathing is becoming labored.

Altair kneels before him. "Rest easy, friend," he says. "You've earned it." He hesitates. "You saved our lives, Glamis."

Glamis scoffs. ""Twas nothing midgets did not deserves. I... I... Tell Juno and Traylor that I loves them both very muches. It was nice to have friends again. I looks forwar
d to meeting the Doctors Agoma and Ragyle in Paradise."

"I will," Altair replies, finding his own emotions welling up. Behind him, he he
ars sobbing. He turns to see a nearly destroyed Ursa stumbling to her feet, coming toward them. She joins Altair on her knees next to Glamis and, when Altair turns back to the mutant who had saved them, there's no life left in his eyes.

Glamis is dead.

54.

"Someone's coming!" Traylor warns me.

I raise the shooter, six bullets already loaded in the chambers. Two dark silhouettes stumble out of the dark, seeming to hold one another afoot.

"It's Altair and Ursa!" I exclaim, lowering the weapon and slipping it into the waistband of my tunic bottoms.

"Where's Glamis?" Traylor asks, worry permeating his every word.

We rush over, storming across the flat crete surface of Ativan's former compound. The people who greet us are not the same ones who'd left us only hours before.

They're zombies.

Walking dead.

I don't have to ask it. I know
that Glamis is gone.

Traylor intuits the same, for he starts sobbing immediately. "Oh, Glamis!" he wails.
 

It's been a rough day for the little guy.
 

For all of us.

Altair and Ursa look like ground up cattle beef, Ursa the worst off. She looks like she's been doing experiments on herself again, or something. Dried blood cakes her face, some still seeping from cuts and gashes. Many of the boils on her face are burst open. Altair is roughed up too, but he's got nothing on the poor woman. 

"What happened?" I ask, grasping them both in a massively tight hug. They b
oth grunt in pain. "Oops, sorry!" I say sheepishly.

Ursa starts to sob uncontrollably. "Glamis saved us!" she blubbers. "I... It's my fault he's gone but..." She starts to wail.

Altair picks up where she left off. "Glamis' death was not in vain. The way is clear for us. We can continue to Everwinter."

I frown. "But I thought there was a whole
army
blocking the road."

Altair nods. "There
was
. Glamis killed them all."

Traylor's eyes go wide and my jaw drops. "He...
 He killed them
all
?"

"Yes," Altair replies. "They shot him, but he just kept going. Gods, if he wasn't the toughest mutant to ever live." Altair hesitates. "But in the end, he wasn't invincible."

"Where is he?" Traylor asks, his lower lip trembling. "You didn't just leave him out there, did you?"

Altair shakes his head. "We covered his body as best we could. As you can se
e, we weren't exactly in the best physical shape to bury him. We will rest here a spell. When we pass through again, we will give him a proper send off." Traylor seems to accept that, turning around to face the freshly turned dirt pile and pair of shovels behind us.

Ativan's grave.

The ground had been nearly frozen on top, but once we'd broken through the tough crust, the going was easier. We'd even erected a little wooden cross to mark it.

Altair frowns at the mound. "I take it things were not uneventful here either."

Traylor starts to say something, but I cut him off. "I killed him," I say. "Ativan was drunk. He had a shooting iron and..." My heart hitches, emotions swelling. The man had tried to force himself on me and yet, I still feel guilty about it. "I was able to get the shooter from him. I had no choice."

I glance at Traylor and I can tell he's feeling about as good as I am about this. Altair looks skeptical, but he doesn't press the issue; he knows there's more to it though.

"It's been a rough day for all of us," Altair says. "Why don't we head inside and soothe our wounds?"

"Not yet," Ursa suddenly speaks up, pulling away from Altair
for the first time since their return. "I have something I have to confess."

Altair's eyes go wide. "Ursa, I don't know if this is the best time..."

"No," Ursa disagrees, "On the contrary. I think it
is
the best time, Altair."

Altair huffs, relenting. "Go ahead then," he says.

We all face Ursa. "What is it?" I ask. At this point, there's really not much that can shock me anymore.

Ursa sighs then begins. "You know what caused the mutations, right?"

Traylor and I exchange a glance and we both nod. "Yeah," I say. "They were caused by an object Jude and I found on the beach back in Krakelyn. The Box. I've told you this before."

Ursa nods. "Yes. But, Juno, have you given any thought as to where that Box came from? Who built it?"

I pause, considering. "Yes and no," I reply. "I was told it came from Everwinter, a leftover from the time of the Forerunners when the people altered their genetic structure to better survive the harsh climate." I pause again. "I read about that in the Forerunner Archives." My friends all know about that book now.

Ursa shakes her head. "You are correct in that it came from Everwinter," she confirms, "but the Box, as you call it, is not an artifact of the Forerunners, Juno. It's much,
much
more recent."

"Okay," I say. "How do you know that?"

Ursa drops her eyes. "Because I built it," she says. "It was my invention."

I let that information sink in. I'm taken aback, for sure, but not really all that shocked. Ursa is a scientist; an inventor who tried to cure her own mutations by experimenting on herself. It really isn't all that much of a surprise that she's the one who built the Box. I don't blame her for it.

There's just one thing I don't get though.

"How did it end up in Krakelyn?" I ask, a million possible scenarios running through my head. Did Ursa put it there herself? Is that why she's acting so guiltily?

If not, it's a hells of a coincidence.

Ursa shakes her head. "That I do not know," s
he admits. "Last I saw the Box was when we decommissioned the lab in Everwinter. The Box, as you call it, was part of a larger machine, which was decommissioned too. I really don't know how it ended up in Eversummer and back in working order."

I look at Altair for his perspective on this, but he's stony.

As usual.

"Well, if you really
did decommission it, Ursa," I say, "then someone must have, um,
re
commissioned it. That's not your fault."

Ursa shakes her head. "You don't get it, Juno. Do you know why the Box did what it did when you opened it? Why it caused muta
tions on such a massive scale?"

I turn my gaze to Traylor and scowl. "Actually," I say, "it was my brother who opened it. I still wasn't sure what to do with it." Ursa nods, as if she'd just made a
connection. "Jude just touched it, and it gave him a rash on his face."

Ursa nods. "But the Final Judgment, the full scale mutation of the human race, didn't happen
until Traylor opened the Box completely, correct?”"

"That's right," I conf
irm. "We still don’t know why."

"Because, Juno," Ursa replies, shorin
g herself up for the big reveal, "when I created that Box, I used
your
DNA to encode the pulse that it gives off."

I look from si
de to side, unsure of what I’ve just been told. "M-my DNA?" I ask, completely skeptical. "But, what would you be doing with my–" I break off. Ursa has just bent over, untying the laces of her right boot and slipping it off. She slips her sock off too, revealing a human foot that looks relatively normal.

Except...

"No," I say, shaking my head. "It... It can't be!"

"What?" Traylor asks, looking back and forth between myself and Ursa's foot.

A foot that is missing a toenail on the second toe.

"You're supposed to be dead!" I scream, backing away now, growing hysterical.

"I know," Ursa replies, stepping forward to compensate. "All those years ago, when your Father had no choice but to have me Judged, he was devastated. Of course, he'd known about my defect for years, but his love for me forced him to live a lie. The day before I was to be Judged, he had the Deacons beat me to a bloody pulp. I was barely recognizable." Ursa hesitates. "Then he kidnapped a woman from the streets of Krakelyn. A transient. No one missed her. He beat her as well, then had the woman take my place at the Judgment. No one knew.