Chapter 39 #2
My suit’s servos whined as I sprinted for the door. I bypassed the keypad, no time for hacking, and slammed my gauntlets into the seam. My suit hummed, channeling a focused kinetic blast.
BOOM.
The steel groaned, warped, and blew inward.
I dove through the smoke. It was thick and black, but my HUD flickered into night-vision mode, painting the world in green and gray. No smoke was going to blind me this time.
Inside, the silence was deafening. The air was thick with the scent of old dust. I checked my tracker. The signal was pulsing strong, a red beacon in the dark.
I’m coming, Mandie.
I sprinted down the corridor, my boots echoing on the metal grating. A scream echoed from the walls ahead.
I knew that voice.
The corridor ended in a massive, cavernous chamber lined with glowing, jagged crystals. In the center lay a collection of nightmares: a giant slab of rock covered in ancient scripture, a rusted sword, a crown that looked older than civilization itself.
Another giant door stood in my way. I blasted it open and ran inside.
And there she was.
Mandie was on her knees in the center of the room, hands shackled to the floor. Her eyes were wide, filled with terror and fatigue.
"You came," she whimpered, her voice thin with exhaustion.
"I told you," I said, dropping to my knees and shattering her restraints with a twist of my gauntlet. "I am never leaving you again."
She fell into my arms, trembling. "I am going to get you out of here."
Her grip on my suit was weak. "Victor... you have to stop him. Stop him before he gets the sixth item."
"We are here for you, not him."
I picked her up, turning toward the exit.
That turn put me face-to-face with my father.
Victor Scarpetta walked toward me slowly. His form was shifting, unstable, like smoke caught in a draft.
"You’re too late, Theodore," he said, his voice dripping with malice. "She’s mine now."
Rage, hot and white, blinded me. I didn't care about the plan. I didn't care about his powers. I charged.
Victor smirked, raised a hand, and a barrier of hard light snapped into existence between us.
"You can’t win," he taunted. "Not here. Not ever."
I didn’t waste breath on words. I lay Mandie down and poured every ounce of power my suit had left into my shoulder and hit the man at full speed.
The impact shattered the silence. The energy field cracked, spider-webbing under the force of my kinetic drive. I roared, pushing harder, alarms blaring in my ears.
It didn't faze him.
"I knew you would try to save her before you stopped me," Victor said, shaking his head. "Now you lose twice. Three times, if we count your mother."
"Fuck you!" I released a barrage of telekinetic bursts from my gloves, hammering the barrier, but it held.
He laughed. "That is your grand plan? Your little gizmos?"
My eyes darted around the room. Desperate. Searching. Then I noticed in the back there were antiques stacked in a hidden spot. I could see the tableau through the door in the next room.
They gave him his power. They had to hold power, too.
I reached out my arm, bypassing Victor entirely. Using the telekinesis in my gloves, I focused not on him, but on the giant rock slab of scripture so important to his ascension. I clenched my fist.
Crunch.
The ancient stone crumbled into dust.
Victor froze. His face twisted into pure horror. "You stupid shit! Do you know how old that is?"
He scrambled toward the debris, trying to scoop up the remains like they were puzzle pieces. His barrier flickered and died.
I didn't stop. I reached out again, telekinesis locking onto the ancient, rusted sword. I pulled it to me, spun it in the air, and threw it like a dart.
It buried itself in Victor's back.
He roared in pain, the sound shaking the entire room. The emergency sensors in my helmet screamed. Structural integrity failing beamed in my visor. The mountain was coming down.
There was only one objective.
Save Mandie.
The room shook violently, dust raining from the ceiling.
I lunged, grabbing Mandie’s arm. "We’re leaving!"
Victor was already recovering, pulling the sword from his back, his form solidifying into his aluminum form. His eyes glowed red with fury.
I didn't give him the chance to retaliate. I triggered the remote on my wrist. Outside, the cycle roared to life.
I scooped Mandie up and raced back through the corridor. The sounds of battle outside grew louder, the crash of stone, the hiss of steam, the roar of the dragon.
The team was holding the line. They were buying us seconds we couldn't afford to waste.
We burst into the open air. The storm was raging, rain slicking the rocks.
"We are almost out of here!" I shouted, carrying Mandie toward the bike.
She swung her leg over, wrapping her arms tight around my waist. I vaulted on in front of her, gunning the engine.
"Hold tight!"
The bike screamed as I engaged the thrusters. We shot into the sky, banking hard to avoid a blast of ice from the Ice Man. Below, I saw Gorath holding Brickslayer in a headlock, Riven dancing in the air with the dragon, and Pulsewave running circles around Conductor.
"Keystone Team, fall back!" I yelled over the comms. "The Oreo is secure! I repeat, the Oreo is secure!"
"Copy that, Boss!" Johnny’s voice crackled, breathless but triumphant.
As we punched through the cloud layer, leaving the Zagros Mountains behind, the adrenaline finally began to fade. A crushing weight settled in its place. Victor was closer to his goal than ever. He was stronger than ever.
But Mandie’s arms tightened around me, her face pressed against the broken plating of my suit.
We had a war to fight tomorrow. But today?
Today, she was safe. And that was all that mattered.