The Cyber Chronicles Book III - The Core (16 page)

The donkeys
turned and trotted away. Tassin dug Dena out of the hay and yelled,
"Hold the donkeys!"

Gripping her
dagger, Tassin jumped down. The apparitions terrified her, but she
was determined to help Sabre. The ghouls raised their arms, and
yellow light spat from their fingers, making him stagger. Each time
he was hit, the cyber band flared red, and a spark shot from it.
Each time the reaction of the control unit was faster, and Sabre's
momentary incapacitation less. She ran towards a ghoul, her dagger
raised. It turned and lashed her with a brilliant filament of
light. Tassin screamed as incredible agony shot through her. Her
limbs jerked uncontrollably, sending her sprawling, and blood
flooded her mouth as she bit the inside if her cheek.

The
excruciating pain paralysed her, making her arc rigidly until she
thought her spine would snap. Sabre continued to hack at the
ghouls, unable to come to her aid. The yellow power crackled around
her, filling the air with static as it popped and banged into the
ground. It seemed like an eternity that she lay there, helpless,
waiting for a zombie to reach her and stamp out her life, but Sabre
kept them away. The agony eased, allowing her to gasp as her
muscles relaxed. The strange power trickled out of her into the
ground, leaving her in a cold sweat. She scrambled to her feet,
staggering sideways like a drunk.

Sabre shouted,
"Get back!"

The ghouls
converged on him while he hacked them down, and Tassin steadied
herself. More and more zombies appeared, lifting their arms to
attack Sabre with yellow fire. The cyber band flared constant red
now, and he fought the jerking of his limbs to swing the sword. As
the ghouls fell, the power drained out of them, leaving them
thrashing. Tassin staggered forward again, attacking a ghoul from
behind as it lashed out at Sabre with the strange power. Her dagger
sank into the rotten flesh, and the yellow power flashed up it. Her
muscles spasmed in uncontrollable jerks as the shock snapped
through her, and she collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been
cut.

Tears blurred
her vision, and again she lay helpless while the power coursed
through her. A zombie loomed over her, but a slashing silver sword
smashed it away in a spray of rotten flesh. Sabre stood over her,
keeping the ghouls at bay. She still held the dagger, and forced
herself to her feet again. The strange yellow light the zombies
used did not seem lethal, only painful. Sabre had cleared a space
around himself now. The ghouls tried to stay out of range of his
sword, sending their yellow fire flashing across the gap. Sabre
hacked down the last one near him and strode towards the others,
which shuffled back.

Gasping with
pain, Tassin blundered past him, intent on attacking another
zombie. Sabre's hand flashed out and gripped the back of her dress,
yanking her back.

"No! Get out
of here!"

Tassin landed
heavily on her rear, and anger surged through her in a molten tide.
With a snarl, she went after him when he advanced on the ghouls,
trying to dash past. Again he yanked her off her feet and hurled
her backwards. This time she sprawled painfully, scraping her
elbows. With a snarl of rage, she sprang up, giving him a wide
berth to attack a ghoul.

"Tassin,
no!"

Tassin flung
herself at a portly, middle-aged man, and her dagger sank into his
chest. Fire flashed up it, making her recoil with a shriek, her
legs giving way. Sabre's sword swished over her, and the portly
ghoul collapsed, his legs sliced through at the knee. Tassin
writhed, and Sabre stood over her again, keeping the ghouls at bay
with sweeps of his sword. Another lost its legs and fell, its
glowing eyes dimming.

Tassin
staggered to her feet, noticing dully that the world had Changed to
a forest of bleached, long-dead grey trees. Ankle deep water
sloshed around her feet, explaining the forest's demise. She took a
step, and found her leg embedded in a dead tree from the knee down.
Several zombies had suffered the same misfortune, their yellow glow
dimming as their power drained into the wood. Sabre leapt at the
remaining loose zombies, slicing through their legs.

As many as
Sabre cut down, more kept coming, their yellow fire concentrated on
him, though he hardly seemed to notice it now. He bared white teeth
in a grimace while he attacked, the cyber band brilliant red.
Flux-reality Changed, freeing Tassin, and an alien landscape of
blue bulbous growths amid whip-like fronds of red vegetation winked
into being.

Ignoring the
alien vegetation imbedded in her legs, Tassin ran to one of the
zombies that had been trapped in a tree and lacked the yellow glow.
She hamstrung it with her dagger, and it collapsed. The red fronds
snared another ghoul, whipped around it and tried to tear it apart
while they fought over it. Tassin shuddered away from the fronds
near her as the rotten corpse parted. Its pieces were fed to the
bulbous growths, which opened toothless maws to accept the food
like hungry chicks.

A lash of fire
hit her, and she fell with a shriek, writhing while the pain
drained away with the light. She struggled to her feet once more as
Sabre ran after the retreating zombies. He ignored the yellow fire
they poured into him, his sword sweeping through their legs. The
fronds grabbed many who stumbled near them, dismembered them and
stuffed them into the waiting blue mouths. Determined to help in
spite of the agony that coursed through her, Tassin staggered
towards a faded ghoul, hamstringing it. As the undead woman
collapsed, she lashed out with a decayed fist, hitting Tassin in
the face. She fell backwards and landed hard, her head striking a
rock that had materialised instants before.

Flux-reality
Changed again, and a world of stone replaced the predatory plants.
The vegetation protruding from her legs vanished with the previous
reality, but she hardly noticed. Momentarily stunned, she struggled
to get up, the world spinning. As she regained her wobbly legs,
another lash of yellow power struck her, sending her sprawling
again. This time she lay gasping, sobs of pain racking her. She
ached with a vengeful throbbing, and her limbs jerked as the power
fizzed through her muscles. Her hands clawed at the dirt of a new
world, seeking release from the pain. This time it persisted,
holding her in an iron grip of agony. A red haze clouded her vision
as she fought to breathe, her lungs locked by the rigidity that
ruled her muscles.

The sounds of
battle behind her ceased, and moments later Sabre knelt beside her.
He dropped the sword and lifted her off the stony ground.

"You stupid
little..." His jaw clenched. "You've absorbed too much, hold
still."

Tassin gripped
his arms, the agony in her bones causing tears to run down her
cheeks. Sabre laid a cool hand on her forehead, and the already
bright brow band flared. The pain flowed out of her, as it had done
into the ground before, but now it streamed into Sabre. She relaxed
when the agony diminished, her frantic gasps subsiding to deep
breaths. He watched her with intense silver eyes, and she forced a
tremulous smile.

"Better?"

She nodded.
"How did you do that?"

He glanced
around. "The control unit does it. The power they're using attacks
the bones, since they're a metal; calcium. Water conducts it, so it
goes through the body fast. But it earths to metal, like
electricity, so when you fell, most of it went into the ground. But
some of it remained behind, and if there isn't much metal in the
ground, it leaks out more slowly."

His eyes
flicked down to her. Droplets of sweat ran down his cheeks and
gathered on his chin. "Every zap you got made it worse, and that
last one almost killed you. With me, it went straight into the
barrinium on my bones, and from there, to the cyber. As soon as the
cyber had analysed it, it was able to disperse it quickly. Painful,
but for me, not fatal. Although the scanners don't work in here,
the cyber is still active. When I touched you, the power was drawn
into me, due to my high metal content."

With a slight
smile, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, studied his wet hand,
and rubbed it on his trousers. "I never wanted any of this." He
gestured. "I never asked to be a warrior, to fight and kill, but it
seems I'm well equipped for it. You, on the other hand, have a
choice, and you're making the wrong one. You could be killed. Your
life is precious; you're a free person, you can do what you want,
yet you're trying so hard to get killed."

"I am not! I
was trying to help you."

"Yeah, I know.
But you're not a warrior, no matter how much you say you are, no
matter how hard you try. I wish you'd stay out of it. Even more, I
wish you'd go home and marry a prince, have lots of babies, and be
happy."

Tassin stared
at him, longing to tell him that she would rather die by his side
than be parted from him, but the words would not come. The intense
sadness and fatigue on his sensitive face deepened the pain within
her. The alien band on his forehead flashed, mocking her with its
reminder that he belonged to another, alien world, far beyond her
reach.

She looked
away. "Well, I won't."

With a
resigned sigh he helped her to sit up, and she looked around as
another Change came. A pleasant world of green grass and forests
winked into being, distant huts trailing wisps of smoke into a blue
sky. The ghouls had vanished, even the legless ones.

"Where did
they go?" she asked.

"Seems they'd
had enough. They couldn't kill me with that power, so the Core is
probably having a good think now." The red lights on the control
unit dimmed, and Sabre settled more comfortably on the ground,
wiping the fouled sword blade on the grass.

"I think I
know what the Core is. The power that the ghouls were using is the
same sort that's used in modern power stations to light cities and
run cars. Normally it's pretty harmless; it only kills when highly
concentrated.

"Long ago,
they used something called electricity, but then they discovered
this stuff, which is called neosin. It's all around us, easily
drawn in by compilers and stored in special crystals. It's far more
efficient than electricity; it doesn't need to be generated, and it
can be stored forever."

Sabre rose and
went over to the cart. Dena had succeeded in hanging onto the
donkeys and leading them back. He led the animals over to Tassin
and took a water skin and some food from the cart. Dena squatted
next to him when he settled on the ground, gazing at him with wide,
admiring eyes.

Sabre shot her
a smile and winked while he sipped some water, then continued, "I
think the Core is an ancient power crystal. Somehow, it's been
mutated by the radioactivity that was released during the
holocaust. Crystals grow, and they have some strange properties.
This one has become intelligent, after a fashion. A truly alien
intelligence, one we can't understand. It wants to grow larger
still, and I'd guess that the Death Zone is meant to protect it. It
probably sees us, its original masters, as a threat, and it's
trying to wipe us out."

Tassin tried
to quell the trembling that was spreading through her.

Sabre chewed
some meat. "It has a problem now. It's found that it can't kill me
with the neosin, at least, not in such small amounts, but the
concentration in the crystal itself must be enormous. But I have an
ally." He tapped the brow band. "No doubt the computer is working
on the problem too, since it can read my thoughts, and knows my
speculations. It should be figuring out a way to disperse vast
amounts of that stuff."

Tassin clasped
her knees as an uncontrollable shaking grew in her muscles. Sabre
leant over and pulled her arms away, chafing her hands.

"Relax, it's
just shock."

Holding her
wrist with one hand, he rubbed the tense muscles of her shoulders
and neck. Tingling shot through her at his touch, making her
shiver. Gradually her tension leaked away, and he stopped, much to
her chagrin, and patted Dena on the head. The child grinned at him,
her eyes filled with adoration. The Flux-reality had Changed again,
this time to a rolling golden pampas under a vermilion sky streaked
with amber clouds. Sabre stood and pulled Tassin to her feet, then
turned to her, holding her wrist. His brows gathered together, and
his eyes were flinty.

"By the way,
if you ever do anything so stupid again, I'll put you over my knee
and paddle your backside, understand?"

Tassin's mouth
dropped open. "I was trying to help you!"

"Then stop it.
I don't want you to get killed."

"I got two of
them!"

"Tassin, you
may be used to getting your own way, and having people fall over
each other to do your bidding, but I'm trying to keep you alive, so
don't make my job any harder."

"You would not
dare to... to...."

"Paddle your
backside? You bet I would. What could you do about it?" He folded
his arms. Fresh blood seeped through the bandages on his forearms,
and the ghouls' fire had reddened his chest. She glared at him,
unable to think of anything. He smiled and walked back to the cart.
By the time they reached it, the world had Changed to one of
strange clumps of vine-laden black trees growing between purple
creepers sprinkled with pink flowers.

Dena looked up
at Sabre. "Are the monsters gone?"

He tousled her
hair. "For now. At least you have the sense to stay out of the way,
huh?"

Tassin shot
him a dirty look, and Dena shrugged. "Not my fight."

Dena scrambled
onto the cart, and they headed towards the Core again. They
travelled through two Changes, one tame, the other quite nasty: a
world of steaming sludge lighted by two red suns. A strange belt of
mist became visible ahead, obscuring the distant trees of the next
world, one filled with bright blue butterflies and tracts of sombre
forest. The mist seemed out of place, like a cloud that had settled
on the ground. When the Flux-reality Changed, the mist
remained.