“This is why the Doctor wasn’t worried about being outbid on the Apocalypse Door,” said Luther. “The sneaky bastard’s come early, to grab it for himself. Why is he so keen on this item, Eddie? Getting the Really Old Curiosity Shoppe people mad at you is never a good idea, if you like having your organs on the inside. They have a bad temper, a long reach, and they bear grudges for generations. What is this Apocalypse Door, that Doctor Delirium’s ready to risk everything to get his hands on it?”
“The clue’s probably in the question,” I said. “I’m guessing the Door is a lot more Apocalyptic than we’ve given it credit for. And the Doctor wants it because . . . he’s not getting any younger. All his great plans have come to nothing, mostly thanks to us, and his name has become a joke. He’s a delusional scientific mastermind, but he gets no respect. He’s fed up being laughed at, he’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.”
“Midlife crisis, in other words,” said Luther.
“Exactly. He has a scheme to rule the world, and all he needs to make it work is the Apocalypse Door.”
“A real scheme?” said Luther. “One that would actually work?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And if my arse had teeth it could play the banjo. A real plan? Come on, this is Doctor Delirium we’re talking about.”
“Even an idiot can get lucky, if he has a powerful enough weapon,” said Luther.
“There is that,” I said. “Hello, there he goes, up the back stairs to the top floor, and the auction site. At least he’s got enough sense to let his troops lead the way . . .”
The black-and-gold-clad mercenaries moved silently up the back stairs, moving with calm and sinister grace. They’d clearly rehearsed this. One man went ahead holding up a Hand of Glory, its dark magics defusing the few security spells in the stairway. Another soldier shut down the electronic surveillance systems with a small localised EMP. The Doctor gave every indication of actually having thought things through. Either that, or he’d hired someone who knew what he was doing. I knew which way I’d bet. The Doctor’s troops reached the top of the stairwell, and the man in the lead started packing plastique against the closed door. Doctor Delirium really wanted his Door. And didn’t care who got hurt in the process.
I sighed heavily, and told my torc to
˚
pull back its extension. The golden sunglasses ran quickly down my cheek, and back into the torc. The world seemed very grey, and very empty, without the Sight. I looked at Luther.
“We’re going to have to get personally involved,” I said. “A hands-on practical intervention, with no holds barred. If the Apocalypse Door really is as powerful as the Doctor clearly believes it to be . . . he can’t be allowed to have it.”
“Unfortunately, I have to agree,” said Luther. “It’s time to armour up and smite the ungodly with vim and vigour. But Eddie, please, let’s try and keep the collateral damage down to a minimum. I have to live in this town.”
“You suit yourself,” I said. “Personally, I plan to beat the shit out of anyone that doesn’t run away fast enough, throw the Doctor and his troops back through their own dimensional door, grab the Apocalypse Door and then leg it for the nearest horizon.”
“A workable plan,” said Luther. “And at least this way, we don’t have to face the bloody dragon.”
I subvocalised my activating Words, and my golden armour leapt out of my torc, insulating me from the world in a moment. I flexed my arms and breathed deeply, feeling strong and sure and more than ready to kick the arse of Evil and make it cry like a baby. Luther armoured up beside me, his golden form blazing brightly in the LA sun. For a moment he looked like the Oscar statue come to dangerous and vicious life, and then the armour shifted and stirred about his body, the strange matter flowing into new shapes and forms as he concentrated. The torc provides a basic suit of armour, like a second skin, and for centuries that was good enough for the Droods; but then a soldier from the distant future showed us how to reshape and personalise our armour, the better to strike terror into our enemies and suit our individual needs and capabilities. It takes a lot of concentration to make a new shape, and hold it, but we’re learning by doing.
Given the shape of Luther’s armour, it was clear he’d spent entirely too much time watching old
Transformers
cartoons. His armour was large and bulky, padded out with gun emplacements that might or might not actually do anything. I was ready to bet good money that his armour would revert to standard the moment the mayhem started, and he needed all his concentration for the fight. I still kept to the basic shape, just jazzing it up a little here and there. I favour the old knightly style, with hints of greaves and a breastplate. I still kept the featureless golden face mask. Nothing like a blank eyeless face to freak out the bad guys.
“So,” said Luther. “A traditionalist. This is the city of the future, Eddie. Only the very best will do here. Try and keep up.”
“Funny,” I said. “I was about to say the same to you.”
“
Oh shit,
” said Luther, abruptly.
Once again, he was staring up at the top of the hotel. I craned back my head and followed his gaze. Another dimensional doorway had opened up, hovering in the sky above the roof of the Magnificat. And this time, it was very much the real deal. A state-of-the-art, all-the-bells-and-whistles gateway; a perfect circle some hundred feet in diameter, with edges so sharply defined you could almost hear the air splitting as it hit them. I caught just a glimpse of a whole different sky through the circle, before it dropped down over the chained dragon. The Lampton Wyrm looked up, startled, its hideous gargoyle head rising up and up on its long neck, and the circle just sucked the dragon up off the roof and into itself. The circle then collapsed and disappeared, taking the dragon with it. All that remained on the roof was a short length of glowing chain.
“Happy as I am to see the dragon gone,” I said, “I find myself seriously disturbed. That . . . had to take a hell of a lot of power. Which means . . . someone else has come early to the auction.”
“Why does everything have to be so complicated?” said Luther, wistfully.
The dimensional gateway returned, just as large and twice as impressive, and a whole army of armed and armoured men fell out of it onto the hotel roof. They were all dressed in basic leathers and body armour, with no identifying patches or tags. They moved quickly to rehearsed positions on the roof, while a core group set up explosive charges.
“So, the Doctor goes in through the backdoor, and this bunch goes in through the roof,” said Luther. “Should be interesting . . . Any idea who these new boys are, Eddie?”
“Not a clue. No one should have been able to organise an operation this extensive without our knowing something in advance. I shall have some serious words with the family pre-cogs when I get back.”
“The new boys aren’t local,” said Luther. “Do we assume they are also here for the Apocalypse Door?”
“Would seem likely,” I said. “Though I really hate the idea that there are two sets of people who know more about it than we do.”
The new arrivals blew a hole right through the roof with a shaped charge, dropped a bunch of ropes through, and rappelled down into the top floor. And at pretty much the same time, Doctor Delirium’s plastique charge blew the stairwell door clean off its hinges, and they all charged through into the auction site. Both sides took one look at the other, and opened up with all guns blazing. Bullets filled the air, mowing down the auction’s security guards in a moment. The remote-control zombies were punched this way and that by the impact of the bullets, staggering back and forth, with dust and bone fragments erupting from their bullet-riddled bodies. One by one they went down as their legs were blasted out from under them, and they lay thrashing or crawling on the floor, ignored by both sides.
The two sets of soldiers dug in at opposite ends of the auction room, using overturned furniture and the shielded auction items for shelter. The firefight was doing a lot of structural damage, but there weren’t many bodies yet. Both sides were clearly professionals. The shooting gradually died down to occasional suppressional fire, as both sides considered what to do next. A remote control zombie rose up on one elbow, and denounced both sides with its dead voice. There was a single shot, and its head exploded.
“So much for our original plan,” said Luther. “What do we do now?”
“We go in,” I said. “We bestow beatings on one and all, take the guns away from both sides, and shut this nonsense down before it starts attracting attention. Then I will grab the Apocalypse Door and it’s head for the horizon time.”
“Shouldn’t we take some prisoners, ask some questions?” said Luther.
“If you must,” I said.
“I feel I should remind you, there are two private armies in there, going head to head with extensive firepower, explosives and nerve gas grenades,” said Luther. “You really want to just charge right in?”
“Two armies; one for each of us.”
Luther shook his head slowly. “There is such a thing as overconfidence, even for a Drood.”
“First problem,” I said. “Our armour should get us through the hotel’s outer defences okay, but we are going to set off all kinds of alarms . . . The last thing we need is for the two sides to discover who’s coming, and team up against us.”
“Worry not,” said Luther. “I’ve got a basic can opener and alarm-suppressor that the Armourer sent through, just the other day. For testing. He thought I might find a use for it, given that LA has so many secrets to hide, and so many different ways of hiding them. It should open up the force shields and the magic screens, while shutting down the alarms. Notice my emphasis on the word
should.”
“The Armourer has always believed in the triumph of optimism over experience,” I said solemnly. “It’s not that his wonderful gadgets don’t work; it’s just that they will insist on working in unex pected ways. But you can’t complain, or he sulks. All right; let’s do it.”
“Lock and load,” said Luther. “And God help the guilty.”
“Native,” I said sadly. “Definitely native.”
We moved forward, two golden statues striding across the plaza towards the Magnificat Hotel. No one noticed a thing; we were both in full stealth mode, our torcs transmitting telepathic
You can’t see me!
commands to all the passersby. Luther pulled something that still looked half finished from inside his armour and pointed it at the hotel. Looking through my golden mask I could clearly See the hotel shields split and break and vanish, dismissed almost casually by the Armourer’s new toy. Luther and I kept going, the last remnants of the more stubborn shields clinging and dragging at our armour as we strode through them. They broke and fell away like cobwebs, thrown off by the sheer power inherent in the armour. Shaped curses and proximity mines detonated harmlessly, and howling ghosts burst like soap bubbles as we marched right through them. Spirit bottles shattered under the patio, releasing their demons, and they reared up to grasp at our golden legs. We just kept going, dragging them along with us, and they soon broke up and fell apart, too fragile to last long outside their bottles. Defence magics shattered and spattered against our golden chests in rainbow bursts of dispersing energies.
I kicked in the front door, shattered glass falling like hail on my shoulders, and led the way into the lobby. Two armed guards opened up on us with automatic weaponry. The bullets stitched across the front of our armour, which absorbed all the impact and then swallowed up the bullets. We worry about ricochets, these days. This rather upset the guards, who turned to run. I picked up the nearest table and threw it at them, and it slammed the two guards against the far wall like a flyswatter. Luther looked at me.
“Now that’s not fair. I never got to do anything.”
“You can have the next two. Where are the elevators?”
“At the back. But they’re all locked off, till the Grand Opening ceremony tomorrow. And you need a special key, to get you to the top floor. Watch and learn.”
He moved over to the main desk, located the main computer, and instead of powering it up and using the keyboard, he just stuck one golden fingertip against the monitor screen. Golden filaments spread out from the fingertip, spiderwebbing the screen.
“I’m accessing the hotel’s security protocols through its own operating systems,” said Luther, quite casually. “I’ve unlocked the elevators . . . shut down the alarm systems . . . and turned off all the CCTV cameras. We don’t want any record of our being here. The armour should render us electronically invisible, but this is LA—who knows what upgrades they’ve put in? Why take a chance you don’t have to, especially when we don’t know what the auction people have installed on the top floor?”
“You can operate a computer with your armour?” I said, genuinely impressed. “I didn’t know it could do that.”
“Have you ever tried? Just send a filament of strange matter into the computer, and let the armour do the rest. It is just an extension of our will, after all. It does what you tell it to do. I’ve used it as a contraceptive before now . . .”
I held up a hand. “Far too much information. Let’s go.”
Luther pulled his golden finger out, and we headed for the elevator doors at the rear of the lobby. They opened automatically as we approached, and once inside I jammed a golden finger into the lift controls, and concentrated on the top floor. The whole elevator shuddered, the doors slammed shut, and the elevator headed for the top floor like something was chasing it. When we got there the elevator’s doors flew open, as though it couldn’t wait to be rid of us. We stepped out, the doors slammed shut, and it headed for the ground floor again, at speed. I think I upset it. I stepped forward, Luther right beside me, and everyone in the world opened fire on us.