90_Minutes_to_Live (22 page)

“It doesn’t,” she answered. “We left our scraper when the power plant sank into the lava fields.”

Odin’s snowy brows furrowed thoughtfully. “The power plant, you say?”

He sounded confused but Colton wasn’t buying it. As she spoke there’d been spark of recognition in the old man’s dead eyes.

“You already knew about the power plant,” Colton said.

Odin just looked at him.

“Do you know about the Gate too? Is it really a machine that can take us out of the city?” he pressed.

Odin’s smile vanished. “Go home Colton. Take the skyper with you.”

The ground trembled, sending gravel and rock pattering down from Wall.

“You’re lying,” Colton stressed, in a voice like beaten iron. “Who are you? Why do you guard the Gate? You owe me the truth!”

“I owe you nothing!” Odin roared. “I...I…” his face twisted as if he was in pain and then he suddenly laughed. “The ancients—how I hate them. Since you ask me a question directly, I am compelled to answer truthfully,” he smiled but the expression was thick with malice. “Do you think I wanted to teach every miserable orphan I encountered the last three hundred years? Do you suppose, gifted as I am with near immortality, I would choose to live in this wretched city?” he tapped the key beneath his beard. “I
possess
the means of escape but I
cannot
leave. I am cursed by the very technology that prolongs my life, cursed to remain and aid any survivors I find in ruins.”

Lina’s hand tightened on Colton’s shoulder.

“He’s a ky-borg,” she whispered. She sounded shocked and afraid. “Colton, he’s a ky-borg.”

Colton stepped back from the old man. “A what?”

“A ky-borg,” she repeated, “a machine-man created by the ancients.”

“More machine than man,” Odin gave Lina a mocking bow. “It appears the skypers remember something of the old days.”

Anger welled up in Colton like molten stone. “I fought to survive every day of my life, I lost my den, all because you said the world outside this Gate was dead.”

“You were supposed to bring us to the Gate,” Lina said. “The ancients left you here to help the survivors.”

 “That was their intention,” Odin admitted “but their programming doesn’t compel it, only that I aid those I find alive and protect myself from damage. They made sure I couldn’t even kill myself,” he cocked a bushy eyebrow. “And I have aided many. I’ve shown hundreds how to survive in the desolation. Do you think I would allow
any
to leave here when I cannot? No. We shall face doom
together
. And doom will be coming soon, my old pupil. The clouds are thickening. If I had to guess, I’d say this cesspit will be a nothing but ash and fire in about ninety minutes.”

“I’ve heard enough.” Colton jerked his spear from the ground. “Give us the key old man. Or we’ll take it from you.”

“You forget to whom you are speaking. You forget where you are.”

Colton’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You think your pups can stop us?”

“I’ve had no students for some time,” Odin said. “The reavers have seen to that. I entertain a different sort these days—castoffs, murderers and thieves—those whose allegiance is easily bought with the promise of food.”

Odin waved his hand in a tight circle. A score of bowmen rose from the rocks, arrows drawn to cheek. An equal number of spearman broke cover as well, jogging into the clearing and quickly surrounding Colton and Lina.

“I gave you a chance to leave but you wouldn’t listen.”

Colton readied his spear. Lina drew her knife.

Thunder rumbled, and several spearmen shot apprehensive glances at the darkening sky.

Lightning flashed and flames exploded in the sky, painting the clearing in ominous red and yellows. A worlhound howled nearby, as if calling out in greeting to the emerging storm.

“Last chance,” Colton said to Odin. “Give us the key or die.”

The ground trembled. And waves of fire and rocks began lashing the World Wall in a burning cascade.

The spearmen shifted their feet nervously but a glare from Odin held them in place. His craggily face was demonic in the firelight. “Kill them.”

Before the spearman could act, a piercing howl drew all eyes to the Maze. A split-second later, Rags burst the glassy passage from where Colton and Lina had emerged.

A horde of reavers spilled out behind him.

The spearmen cried out and a flight of arrows flew down from the bowmen.

A reaver fell, an arrow through its skull. More took wounds but continued on, despite the metal shafts decorating their blistered flesh. In seconds reavers were among the bowmen, pouncing onto the men like spiders and tearing them apart. More of the mutants ran into the clearing, rushing toward those gathered at its center.

Odin’s spearmen swiveled to face the new threat and Colton saw his chance. His spear swept out, cutting two before they knew what was happening. Lina rammed her knife into a third and then the reavers were among them.

Colton blocked a gory axe from cleaving Lina’s skull, reversing his spear and impaling her attacker. A reaver rose up behind him and was brought down by Rags.

His dark hide bleeding from a score of cuts the worlhound snapped the mutant’s neck with a savage bite and then looked up at Colton.

“Did you have to bring so many?” Colton asked.

Rags grunted roughly.

“Just kidding,” Colton pushed Lina toward the worlhound. “Take her to the Gate, Rags. Protect her!”

She began to protest but his glare silenced her. “I can’t get the key if I have to worry about you Lina! Go! I’ll be right behind you!”

She nodded and turned, running for the slope, Rags close by her side.

Cutting down a reaver who tried to follow the girl, Colton searched the melee for Odin. A fist of flame splashed down on the rocks, engulfing reavers and men alike. Screams filled the air as fire ate to the bone and men and mutants cut and killed.

Lighting flashed and in the glare, a spear stabbed at Colton’s chest.

He pivoted aside, taking a glancing slash to his bicep before swinging up his spear to parry Odin’s next strike.

“You think reavers can save you?” asked Odin, stabbing at him again with inhuman speed. “You will die with them.”

Dancing aside, narrowly avoiding Odin’s weapon, “I’m not dead yet,” Colton growled, aiming a backhanded slash at the ky-borg’s eyes. “Let’s go.”

Odin defeated the slash with a blurring parry. “As you wish.”

The ky-borg rushed in, his spear whirling like a durosteel hurricane.

Spinning and dodging, Colton fought as never before. Despite his bravado a moment before, he realized in the first seconds of the duel he was in trouble. The ky-borg’s speed was phenomenal, inhuman. He could barely keep Odin’s metal tip from finding his heart, let alone launch a counterattack.

A reaver dove at them from the side. Compared to the lightning-fast ky-borg the mutant appeared to moving in slow motion. Colton cut it down almost negligently as he slid beneath Odin’s next attack.

Adrenalin pounded in Colton’s veins, making him nearly as fast as the machine-man. But it couldn’t last. Soon he would tire and slow. When that happened, he was dead.

Odin came in low, slashing at his legs.

Colton somersaulted back, landing in a crouch with spear extended defensively to prevent Odin from charging in for a quick kill.

Instead of pressing the attack however the ky-borg whirled his spear and laughed.

“I’d forgotten how much fun this is,” he said, paying no attention to the struggling group of reavers and spearmen behind him. “You’re good Colton. That you survived against me
this long
without augmentation is nothing short of remarkable. It’s a shame I have to kill you.”

“Yes,” Colton taunted him, his gaze flitting over Odin’s shoulder. “It’s too bad.”

With a warrior’s bellow, he charged three steps and threw his spear.

Odin moved like a quicksilver, bending his back at an impossible angle, laughing as the spear passed harmlessly over him.

“Foolish scavenger,” he mocked as he began to straighten.

Colton’s shoulder hit Odin’s chest like a battering ram, propelling the off-balance ky-borg into the tangled battle behind him. Two reavers immediately leapt upon the old man, clawing him further into the skirmish.

“Not so foolish,” Colton disagreed, lifting up the key he’d snatched from Odin’s neck. “Not anymore.”

Odin’s face purpled with rage. Stabbing a reaver through he flicked the mutant aside. “You think these wretches can stop me?”

A reaver bit into Odin’s arm. Pulling it close, he broke its neck with a hammering elbow. Tossing reavers and men alike aside, he moved inexorably toward Colton.

“They are nothing. Nothing!” he stormed. “You are dead!”

In reply, Colton pointed a finger toward the sky. “You first.”

Odin’s enraged demeanor changed to one of confusion and he looked up.

Fire splashed down from the sky, covering him and all those around him in liquid flame.

Shrieks filled the air but whether they came from the ky-borg or the reavers, Colton didn’t know or care.  He rushed for the Gate. Scorching fireballs struck the earth around him and he kept one eye on the heavens as he weaved through the flames.

The ground bucked; a crack split the earth before him, spilling thick magma like blood from a wound.

He leapt without slowing. Heat scorched his legs as he soared over the widening crevice. He tucked into a roll to break his fall and then sprang back up and kept running.

At the Gate ahead, Lina shouted encouragements and Rags howled, their voices barely heard over the sounds of the storm and breaking earth.

A wall of flame blistered Colton’s arm and face. Ignoring the pain he stumbled the last few steps up the slope.

“I thought you were dead,” Lina said. Her cheeks were wet with tears. “I thought he killed you.”

“He almost did. Old man was tougher than I thought,” he gasped.

A fountain of magma burst up from the Maze, spilling down among the corridors of durosteel and ferrocrete.

“It’s happening!” Lina shouted. “The city is sinking.”

“We’re not sticking around to watch!”

Finding the slot-like keyhole in the Gate’s surface, he jammed Odin’s key and heard a faint “click.”

“I hope you’re right about this Lina….”

The doors slid open, revealing an empty box-like room walled in the same golden metal as the Gate.

A woman’s voice, gracious and motherly, spoke from thin air. “Emergency elevator engaged. Please enter in an orderly fashion.”

Lina and Colton looked at one another, neither of them moving until the next tremor nearly knocked them from their feet.

“You heard her,” Colton said, pushing Lina through into the room. “Let’s go. You, too, Rags.”

The worlhound followed them inside and Colton began searching the featureless interior for some clue as to how to activate the lifting box. But the walls were bare.

“Great,” he said. “We’re in. Now, how are we supposed to make it go?”

“I don’t know.” Lina wrung her hangs anxiously. “I thought the key would do it.”

The maze erupted again, shooting magma high into the burning clouds and sending a twenty-foot wall of liquid rock racing toward the Gate.

Something chirped and the woman’s voice came again. “Are all passengers aboard?”

“Yes!” Lina and Colton shouted as one.

“Closing doors.”

Colton breathed a sigh of relief, and turned to Lina. “I think—ackk!”

A blacked arm shot between the doors, seizing Colton’s neck in white-hot fingers.

Lina screamed as a scarecrow of a man stuck his smoking head into the room, blocking the doors.

The doors stopped closing.

“Doors obstructed,” the woman’s voice intoned.

Heat vapor rising from his metallic skull, Odin lifted Colton into the air.

Colton fought against the sizzling hold as his neck blistered but he couldn’t break free.

“You are not leaving,” Odin hissed.

The fingers tightened on Colton’s windpipe and darkness began to close in around Odin’s grinning skull.

Rags’s growl was like approaching thunder.

There was a flash of scales and blazing golden eyes, and Colton was suddenly free. His legs buckled and he fell to the floor, landing hard on the unforgiving surface. The pain hardly registered and his gaze never wavering from Rags and Odin as they tumbled down the slope outside the Gate, tearing at each other as they approached the rushing wall of lava.

“Rags!”
Colton breathed. Tears stung his singed cheeks and he looked away a moment before the worlhound disappeared into the unforgiving flames. “Rags!”

The doors closed with a faint hiss and subtle motion touched Colton’s belly, taking a backseat to the grief in his soul. Lina hugged him, and he cried unashamedly.

Some minutes later she nudged him gently and pointed at their feet.