Slave Line (The Young Ancients) (43 page)

Tor shrugged and smiled. It was a bit of a mystery, but one easily enough solved. He'd just get each of the Ancients alone and ask some questions. After he dealt with the current hostage situation of course.

Or at least did his part.

"So, why me? I'm just a single person, not all that special really, don't you think? There are lots of people that can do what I can. Maybe better."

"Are there? You've rewritten the history of our world already Tor. If you die today the shape of everything will be altered forever. You've literally changed it all and you don't even realize it... look at the rivers. Those damned rivers! Those alone are enough, and who knows what else you might come up with?" The man stood suddenly, almost making Tor thumb the weapon to life under the table. The killer just turned and looked away, talking loudly, not sounding all that well balanced.

"The climate will shift again because of you, because no one told you not to reshape the world. Oh, I'm certain you mean well, but a forest in the center of Africa again? One in the middle of the wastelands of Noram? You think this won't influence the world? Just the water taken from the seas, the salt left behind, might shift the balance. You might have destroyed us all already and the others say nothing about it, do you know why?"

Tor had an idea on that one, if what was being said was accurate.

"The treaty?" It influenced everything they did after all.

"The treaty. Very good. You have been paying attention. Nothing in your life is as you think. It never was. Green and Gray made a mistake and Brown has been trying to correct it, using the Larval, the only thing he has that might be able to stop you. But he can't order us to kill you, not his little brother, so he left it to us to figure it out. It took time, but we've done it. We figured it out after Glost Serge triggered our secret programming. To save the world we have to kill you Torrance Baker. We'll never stop until you're dead. We can't. If we do the world dies. There is no other way. There never was, from the second you started to learn to warp the world to your will."

"Oh."

It wasn't what Tor had expected at all. He'd figured that this would be about the Cordes memories, not about him being the strange and insane fixation of a group of clones because of his building skills. Surely if the rivers were all that harmful Gray wouldn't have let them be used. Green either. He would have at least tried to talk Tor out of it. Even ordered him not to do it, or better, explained the whole thing. So that part probably wasn't real.

The man in front of him seemed to think it was though.

It was insane. Totally and completely.

"So, I guess you can let the innocent Austrans in that town go then? We can all just meet and fight it out somewhere safe? I have to let you know, just to be fair... I think you're not only wrong, but insane," Tor lifted his left hand to keep the man from speaking, "if I was the threat you think I am and the others know it, they would have told me already. Gotten me to change my ways, or even killed me. Brown has sworn under a Truth Amulet that he doesn't want me dead or harmed, more than once. He can't beat it yet either, though he thinks he can. So there are vast holes in what you're saying. Can you see that?"

With a crunch the last bit of the treat was gone and so was the remaining bit of sanity in the man's eyes.

"I can. But you see, we can't take that chance. You have to die. Now." He reached for something at his back, Tor didn't know what it was, but he wasn't waiting to find out either.

Firing the implosion weapon setting saved the lives of the people around them as the world tried to blow up and mainly failed. It made a crater in the gray smooth stone of the ground, but the imploder caught most of the force of the Larval bomb as it detonated. The man across from Tor died instantly, but no one else did, even as Tor's shield kicked on, protecting him from the force and bits of table that tried to destroy his body.

A feeling of horror ran through him though. Not that someone had tried to kill him, that just had him shaking and breathing hard. No, it was that those hostages would almost certainly be killed now. Tor couldn't even get to them in time to save them.

Crud.

A single person, a man in his twenties or so, wearing a green jumpsuit and having no hair on his head at all, stood with his device held out toward Tor. He looked panicked, but he kept doing whatever it was they did. Tor walked over to him slowly, since he was the only person left, a decently bad cut spreading blood from his forehead, dripping on to the mint green clothing below.

Before Tor could so much as hold out the healing amulet in his hand and explain, the man stammered at him.

"This... this is going out live. Everyone in Austra is watching this." He sounded scared, and Tor didn't blame him. He probably didn't know that the Assassin had exploded at all and thought that his weapon had done all of that. How could he explain?

He decided not to even try until the man was repaired.

"This is... for healing. You have a wound on your head and might be in shock." Tor handed it off, which got the man fixed in a few seconds. It wasn't a bad injury at least. The silver and black device was pointed at Tor again instantly.

"Why did you kill that Larval?
How
did you do it? Why meet here?"

"The Larval tried to kill me. The weapon I used kept his explosion from doing too much damage and my shield saved me. We wanted ice cream and this was far enough away from the place where the other forty-nine Larval are holding a town hostage to buy us some time. It seems that they're really after me though, so they can just meet me in battle and let those people go. They're not supposed to kill innocent Austrans, are they? No one gave orders for that, so they should redirect their efforts towards me personally, since they believe that I, personally, am their target. If they can they should use a communications device to get in touch with me here, so I know where to meet them for it." He wasn't going unarmed, that was for certain. As it was Tor wondered when the airstrike would get to the town of Queensland. The thought had to have occurred to Prime Minister Foley already.

Instead his left front pocket chirped at him, making him just a bit. That was fast. He answered it with a smile, knowing that everyone in the whole land was watching him do it. Not that he cared what they thought overly. He wasn't a hero after all. He was just a man in a bad situation. Let them see him shake in fear. Tor had a pretty good reason for it, didn't he?

The focus of a group of insane assassins built to be more than human.

That sounded fair. After all, he'd probably earned it by being... alive. Yep, the crime of existing. Really he should have guessed at that one earlier.

"This is Tor." He held the device up to his face and spoke loudly, like he'd seen other people doing. The voice that came back at him wasn't a Larval. It was Brown.

"Tor! We finished the Nano complex, but the town is empty. Of Larval I mean, the citizens are all fine. No one was hurt beyond a few bruises and one broken arm on a young boy that fought back. He's off to hospital already. The others seem to be headed your way. I'd guess they'll be there in about twenty minutes? We're coming. Hang in there." He had a breathless sound to his voice, like he was running while he spoke. Hopefully they weren't trying to take the distance on foot. That wouldn't be helpful at all.

"Um, Denno?"

"Yes?"

"You... do know that I'm not the "Great Unknown Factor" or whatever, right?"

There was silence for a few seconds with only heavy breathing coming across and a rustling noise that was probably someone getting into a vehicle. Tor heard Trice yell something in the background. It was her voice but he couldn't make it out.

"Of course you aren't. Who said that? The Great Unknown Factor is just a mental exercise, a way of trying to prepare for things that you otherwise might not have thought of. You know, like "the forth thing"? My way, your way, the other guys way and the thing no one has thought of yet?"

Tor felt a little better, figuring that Denno wouldn't have lied about it if he really thought Tor was this factor. It would be easiest to just talk to him about it all, wouldn't it?

"Well, apparently your Larval Army thinks that I'm that thing no one has thought of yet, and wants to kill me over it. If I was told correctly the idea is that they know you can't order me killed directly, so have just provided them with enough secret information to get the job done. A bit inconvenient over all. I mean, great for collecting them away from the civilians and freeing that town. I can go with that, but there's what... Over thirteen hundred of them missing? Out of touch with you even, so you can't just tell them to change their minds. All of them coming for me. Oh... just to confirm, they're also all Cordes. So add that bit of crazy to the sauce." Oddly enough Tor didn't feel bitter about it. He probably should have, but that wouldn't help now, would it?

"Tor..." Denno stopped talking and the voice changed after a few seconds of rustling.

 To Burks. His grandfather.

"Tor... If that's the case you have to run. Even you can't take an army of those things, not alone. Run and don't talk to anyone you know. I... There's no time. Meet me in the Capital city two hundred years from now. Denno and I will handle this. It isn't your mess. I'm so sorry... You... can't go home. They know to find you there."

No doubt. That would also mean it was the best place to set things up to pick the Assassins off one by one. Fourteen hundred of them. It was too dangerous to go back though. At least to his home or school. Not just for him, but for everyone he knew and loved. Cordes had memories of having done something like that once. Leaving everything to protect others. It hadn't been fun for him either.

"Right. I can't say where I'm going. I'll work on the propulsion for the space craft and deliver the results to... someone. If I can do it alone. I have something to do first, before I vanish. Two things really."

One was a message to Noram, so that everyone would know what was happening and why he wasn't there anymore. The second was making sure that he was only going up against Thirteen hundred and fifty of these things coming at him from the night. Not fourteen hundred.

Well, and making sure they didn't kill all the people in the buildings here. He needed to get out of town, visibly.

"I'm moving this due north of the city here. About five miles I think. Meet us there?" If he was still in the area when they got there. Or still alive.

"Right, headed there now." The line went dead with a little click.

Tor pulled out the amulets around his neck and found the third one he almost never used. It had an emergency shelter on it, a water pump and purifier and some odds and ends just in case he ever got stuck away from his gear. Like a communications device. It only called one place though, so just had the one sigil. For the Capital. He hit the blue glowing word and waited, wondering if it would be noticed in time. He left it on as he set up his Fast Carriage and headed toward the place he planned to fight, making his craft change as it flew to glow a very brilliant orange. It was the color of Alice's pack, just in case she needed to know where he was going. He didn't see her, not even from the air.

Then Tor hovered in place, about two hundred feet up, glowing like a setting sun in the night.

"Tor?" This voice was deep and powerful sounding. Commanding, but not unfriendly. Richard Cordes, the King of Noram.

His friend. It was an odd thing, but it wasn't just him he realized. The man actually treated him that way, as young and no doubt vexing as he sometimes had been.

"Rich, I don't have a lot of time. Ah..." Where to begin? There wasn't a lot of time for this at all, was there? Minutes at most.

"OK... I have about fifty Larval assassins coming to kill me right now. These are only the distraction, the rest of them, well over a thousand, have spread and apparently think their only goal in existence is killing me. I have to vanish. If I live through this here I mean. I'm hoping to get them to try and chase me, maybe kill as many of them as I can. I won't be in touch again. Not directly. Not until there are no more Larvals left. It could take a while." Tor was proud of how he sounded, not like a cowering little boy at all hardly.

"I see. Why? Do you know?"

"Yes, but I'll let you get that from Green or Brown. I don't have time. Could you do something for me?"

There wasn't even a bit of hesitation at all.

"Anything. What do you need? I can scramble the army within a day to almost any location in Noram, we could set up a trap? Or if you need..."

Tor didn't let him finish.

"To uncontrolled. The Assassins probably won't fall for something that simple, unfortunately. No. I need you to take the funds from my kingdom account and make sure Alphonse has control over them. Ali is going to be busy, but make sure she's protected? I told her to learn building and take over if I didn't come back, so don't be surprised when she does it. I think I've been underestimating her pretty badly. Anyway, I... Tell everyone that I love them and that I'm safe, just trying to deal with this. It isn't a secret, so just announce what's happening and that it's a personal issue for me, a family problem, not an Austran attack. That part is important. This is between me and them, not Noram and Austra. Even if I die. As far as I can tell no one ordered this at all, it's just a set of mistakes. But... if I'm around anyone that can be used as a hostage they might take them, so you know, shields all the time and stay armed. Plus..." This part was awkward, but had to be said. Some things were too important to forget.