Judgment Plague. James Axler

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      A voice came back over Brigid’s commtact a moment later, broadcast from the Cerberus redoubt many miles away in Montana. It was Brewster Philboyd, one of the operators who helped run the base, including its communications desk. “Any signs of damage?” he asked.

      “Negative,” Brigid confirmed. She was already eyeing the mat-trans using the powerful illumination of her xenon beam. The octagonal chamber took up fully one-third of the control room, featuring a sealed door like an airlock, and armaglass walls that could repel a bullet. The glass was tinted a muddy shade of brown, much like the water that had seeped into the redoubt. There were some scuff marks here and there, and the base was hidden beneath the murky water, but nothing looked broken, and the monitoring desks that served the mat-trans were undamaged.

      “Remote reports flagged a reengaging of the power cores,” Philboyd reminded Brigid, as if she of all people would ever need reminding.

      “Well, I can’t see any signs of...” She paused as Kane indicated something with the toe of his boot. It was hard to see with the swirl of dirty water masking it, but several panels at the base of the mat-trans chamber’s exterior had been pulled away, bent back with considerable force. The affected panels were located in line with the lone door. “What is that?” Brigid muttered.

      “Please repeat,” Philboyd responded.

      She ignored him, ducking down to get a closer look.

      “Seems like someone took a crowbar to it,” Kane said, tapping one of the bent grilles with his toe. “Went at it pretty hard, too—these things are built sturdy.”

      Brigid examined the submerged, damaged plate, reaching in and wiggling it a little this way and that. The water was ice-cold, smarting like a bite. The panel was a covering for the circuitry that controlled the functionality of the mat-trans, with a slatted section to allow for excess heat to be expelled in times of high traffic. The plate was made of burnished steel and was still connected—in a fashion—to the mat-trans chamber itself, albeit by just one rivet that was barely clinging to its drill hole. “Looks like someone’s tried to gain access,” Brigid summarized over the commtact link.

      “’Nother one here.” Kane indicated another panel around the side of the chamber’s base. This one had been removed entirely. “Got some marks here, too,” he added, shining the fierce beam of his flashlight on the armaglass beside the door.

      When Brigid looked she saw triple scrapes marking the surface, running quite low down—hip and knee level—both left and right of the door. The gashes looked like...

      “Claws,” she said, relaying the observation to Philboyd back at home base. “Someone’s definitely been trying to get inside.”

      “Or something,” Kane remarked poignantly.

      Cerberus was at the center of the mat-trans network, and its personnel monitored the system for any potential problems or threats. With the instantaneous nature of travel via its system, the mat-trans was, potentially, a very powerful resource to any group. However, it was largely unknown to the general public—and Cerberus intended to keep it that way. When a standard monitoring query had resulted in an error code response from this particular mat-trans unit, the CAT Alpha exploration team, made up of Kane, Grant and Brigid, had been sent to investigate. This unit was located about eighty miles east of Cobaltville, the old stomping ground of Kane and his partners. A mile underground and taking water from who knew where, it felt a long way from home.

      A new voice spoke over the linked commtacts as Brigid examined the indentations in the mat-trans wall. “Can you elaborate on that, dear Brigid?” It was Mohandas Lakesh Singh, popularly known as Lakesh, the leader of the Cerberus operation and a man with an incredible history with the mat-trans project. A theoretical physicist and cyberneticist, Lakesh had been born in the twentieth century, where his expertise had been applied to the original development of the mat-trans process. A combination of cryogenic hibernation and organ replacement had seen him emerge in the twenty-third century as the leader of what had begun as a covert rebellion against Baron Cobalt, but had ultimately developed into something even more noble—the Cerberus organization.

      Brigid ran her fingers along the indentations in the armaglass. “Regular relative placement, three score marks each time,” she said, thoughtfully. “These are claw marks.”

      Kane looked at her and nodded grimly. “Same thing I was thinking, Baptiste.”

      Lakesh sounded thoughtful as he spoke over their commtacts. “A wild animal would not have the intelligence to break into a redoubt, nor the motivation to try to access the mat-trans.”

      “Maybe no one broke in,” Kane said. “The place is waterlogged—could be a wall breach somewhere.”

      “But look, Kane,” Brigid interrupted. “The claw marks around the door, the removed panels—this is a deliberate attempt to gain entry into the mat-trans. And Lakesh is right—no wild animal would do that.”

      “Then it’s one that’s not so wild,” Kane retorted defiantly. “I swear, you brain-boxes and your logic—”

      Before he could finish the insult, Grant came stomping in from the corridor where he had been scouting, a worried look on his face. “Wake up, guys—there’s something alive out there.”

      “Something—?” Kane began, jogging across the room to the open door.

      Brigid activated her commtact and signed off. “Lakesh, Brewster, we’ll have to get back to you shortly. Looks like we may have a situation here.” She cut the communication before either man could reply.

      Kane and she followed Grant through the open door.

      * * *

      OUTSIDE, THE CORRIDOR was knee deep in water and its walls were streaked with mold. Its proportions were large, wide enough to drive a SandCat through without touching.

      “Down there,” Grant said, pointing to his left.

      Kane followed him, both men sloshing through the dark water, while Brigid followed more slowly.

      “What did you see?” Kane asked, keeping his voice low.

      “Can’t be sure,” Grant replied. “Looked big, though—either a leg or a tail moving just beneath the water. When it crossed into the circle of light it turned real fast and scooted back the way it came.”

      “So it’s not blind, then,” Kane reasoned. “Just shy.”

      “It could be whatever’s been tampering with the mat-trans,” Brigid proposed in a whisper.

      “Could be,” Kane agreed as the group continued making slow progress along the corridor.

      There was nothing there, just that knee-deep water and the mold, the sense of cold palpable all around them despite the environmental stability granted by their shadow suits.

      The Cerberus crew trudged onward, sloshing slowly through the murky waters. The light of their xenon beams lit the dark walls and cloudy depths.

      “I don’t like this,” Kane muttered, his nose twitching as he took the lead. Back in his days as a hard-contact magistrate, he had been known for his point-man sense, an indefinable ability to detect danger in what seemed to be the most harmless of situations. СКАЧАТЬ