CHAPTER FIVE
VESPER
I walked along the path, studying the dark gray flagstones underfoot, the dense honeysuckle vines covering the metal walls, and the domed ceiling high above.
I couldn’t be certain, given the distance, but it looked like it was snowing even more heavily than before outside.
A strange, uncomfortable weight dropped over me, as though I could feel the cold, wet press of the snow despite the thick solar panels. I shivered and moved on.
The entry path shot straight into the maze, and I walked about a hundred feet before it branched off in three directions.
Each path looked the same, and I didn’t spot any obvious traps.
Two paths curved in opposite directions, but I needed to find Kyrion in the center, so I took the path that led straight ahead.
Despite my desire to find Kyrion as quickly as possible and score well on the time element, I moved slowly, stopping every few feet to look and listen and examine everything through the lens of my seer magic.
Nothing moved or stirred, and even the pink-star honeysuckle blossoms were frozen in place on their green vines.
The deeper I went into the maze, the more I noticed a soft, steady hiss that was just a little bit louder than the scraping of my boots on the flagstones.
I stopped, wondering if I had tripped a hidden trap, but everything was the same as before.
Flagstones underfoot, vines and walls on either side of the path, snow covering the domed ceiling high above.
I kept glancing around, and a tiny wink of silver caught my eye. Off to the left, a metal nozzle jutted out of the wall, almost completely hidden by the vines. The hissing grew louder, and white clouds spewed out of the nozzle.
I tensed, wondering if the clouds contained knockout gas or another hazard, but condensation quickly beaded on the honeysuckle blossoms, ran down the pink petals, and dripped onto the path. I exhaled. It was just water.
The nozzle spewed out more vapor clouds, which quickly drifted out and down and settled along the path.
Within seconds, the area in front of me was cloaked with dense white fog, making it hard to see what lay ahead.
The dampness added a sharp chill to the air, and I shivered, despite my tempered-silk clothes.
I lifted my hand and reached for Kyrion’s telekinesis to sweep the fog aside, but to my surprise, I couldn’t grasp his power.
Ever since I had rescued Kyrion from the Serpens Corp mercenaries, I had been able to use his abilities much more easily than before, although I still wasn’t nearly as precise, skilled, and powerful as he was.
But here in the maze, Kyrion seemed far, far away, like he was on a different planet.
His telekinesis was shrouded in the same fog that was covering everything in a white mist, and I couldn’t quite find it through the cool haze.
I felt like I was trapped in a dim, distant dream and struggling to wake up and find my way back to him.
I’d experienced this same sort of odd, muffled disconnect when Esmina Reston had injected Kyrion with chemicals that had disrupted our truebond when she kidnapped him from the Collier estate. Unease simmered in my stomach at the eerie similarity.
Instead of reaching blindly for Kyrion’s telekinesis through the mental fog, I focused on the bond itself.
The sticky little cobweb that was Kyrion’s presence in my mind, body, and heart was anchored firmly in place, and the threads were bristling with tension.
I was still connected to Kyrion, and our bond was as strong and solid as ever, no matter what tricks the white fog and psionic dampeners were playing on my senses.
Above my head, a soft whir sounded, and a black camera dropped down, swiveled around, and focused on me.
I looked directly into the lens. “You’re going to have to do better than a little fog.”
The red lights on the front remained bright and steady, staring at me like judgmental eyes. I snapped up my hand in a mock salute and walked on.
I eased along the path, once again looking and listening. If I were Jeffrey, the maze technician, I would use the fog to hide another, more challenging obstacle, since I couldn’t avoid a trap I couldn’t see.
But where would I place such a trap? The vine-covered walls on either side of the path were too obvious and still fairly easy to see, even with the fog.
I doubted the camera tracking my movements would detach itself from the ceiling and crash down on my head, so that left only one option: the ground.
I dropped my gaze to the flagstones, and an almost imperceptible shimmer of motion caught my eye a few feet ahead. I stopped, crouched down, and took a better look. Tiny droplets of water had beaded up and were slowly dripping from a thin filament strung at ankle height across the flagstones.
A trip wire. Clever. I wouldn’t have noticed it at all if not for the water condensation.
I stood up, moved forward, and stepped over the trip wire. I gingerly put my feet down on the other side, then waited. If I were Jeffrey, I would have rigged this area too, and I half expected the flagstone to depress under my boots.
A second passed. Then three . . . five . . . ten . . .
Nothing happened, and my breath escaped in a relieved rush.
Apparently, Jeffrey wasn’t as clever, devious, and diabolical as I was.
Despite my nerves, disappointment flickered through me.
I might hate losing, but it was no fun winning when things were this easy.
I wanted the satisfaction of conquering a true challenge, of being, well, the best.
I moved forward. Up ahead, a couple of flagstones were cracked, like something large and heavy had slammed into them. Strange. I skirted around the broken chunks of stone, and my elbow brushed up against the honeysuckle vines on the right side of the path.
Click.
Something activated inside the greenery. I stopped and glanced around, wondering what trap I had just tripped.
Up ahead, a figure appeared on the path, heading in this direction. I squinted through the dense clouds of fog, trying to make out who it was.
Kyrion? I called out telepathically.
No answer. The figure came closer, but instead of morphing into a recognizable person, it grew darker, as though it was congealing into a solid shadow.
Oversize green eyes snapped open, casting out shockingly bright glows.
The eyes loomed closer, and the surrounding white fog took on the same eerie green tinge.
A wide, strong body made of black polyplastic armor appeared and combined with the glowing eyes to give the figure a disjointed, insectoid shape. But this was no imaginary monster on a horror serial—it was a Black Scarab, one of the Techwave’s deadly automated troops.
My eyes widened, and my breath caught in my throat.
I stood there, frozen in place, but then my mind kicked back into gear, and determination burned through my shock.
I reached for the stormsword on my belt .
. . but my hand only sliced through empty air.
Drat. I’d forgotten that Siya had confiscated our weapons.
My gaze dropped to the ground, and I crouched down and snatched up a fist-size chunk from one of the broken flagstones.
I stood up and cocked my arm back. The stone wasn’t much of a weapon, and it wouldn’t even scratch the automated troop’s armor, but it was all I had to defend myself.
Any second, the Scarab was going to spot me through the fog and sprint in this direction, its heavy feet clanking with every step . . .
Wait. Black Scarabs weren’t exactly quiet, given their tall, hulking frames. Why wasn’t I already hearing its clanking footsteps? Suspicion filled me.
The Scarab kept coming, heading down the center of the path.
At this point, the machine was so close its eyes encased me in their eerie green glow, but instead of running away, I held my position off to the side of the path.
My fingers clenched even tighter around the broken stone, and I held my arm up and ready, just in case my suspicion was wrong.
The Scarab came closer still, and my gaze locked on the buglike facets in its eyes, which glittered like neon emeralds. I held my position and braced myself to fight . . .
The Black Scarab walked right past me. It took a few more silent steps, and then its form dissolved into nothingness as it crossed the trip wire on the path behind me.
I stood there, my arm still cocked back and the chunk of stone still clenched in my fingers. A second passed. Then three . . . five . . . ten . . .
Nothing happened. My hand plummeted to my side, and a low, shaky laugh escaped from my lips. The Black Scarab was just a hologram, just an illusion.
I laughed again. I’d been wrong before. Jeffrey was just as clever, devious, and diabolical as I was. He’d activated the Black Scarab hologram to make me panic, whirl around, and run straight into the trip wire I’d already spotted and avoided, thus triggering the accompanying trap after all.
I glanced up at the camera hovering overhead and gave it a respectful nod. “Well played.”
The red lights glowed steadily, but the camera lens opened and closed, almost as if Jeffrey was acknowledging my compliment from his perch in the control room.
I wiped the clammy sweat off my forehead, then studied the path up ahead. No more Black Scarab holograms appeared, although even more fog cloaked the area than before, intensifying the damp chill in the air.
I started to drop the stone, but then I thought better of it.
I might be trapped in the maze without any weapons, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t create my own weapons, just like when I rigged different blasters together to make one much more powerful device.
A fist-size rock wasn’t all that powerful, but it was better than nothing.
I slid the broken stone into my pocket and headed even deeper into the maze.