Observation Deck, Core Facility, One Hundred and Thirty-Two Kilometers Below

Lumiara, Survivor’s Refuge

4454.3.5 Interstellar

Janus’s left shoulder ached from where the exceptionalist’s round had struck him. The fabric around his shoulder had stiffened on impact, twisting Janus around and making him fall while the team pushed forward under Lira’s control.

Janus had gotten back up and retrieved his weapon, jogging back up to the group to find the last cyborg cornered with most of its arms and legs shot off. And it was charred.

Fury sat nearby with the captain, looking pleased with herself, and the captain sported a few cuts, but otherwise looked to be in similar good humor.

“Is it alive?” Janus asked.

“I think so,” Syn said.

Janus nodded. “Leave two people to watch it. The rest of us need to press on.”

“You got it, boss,” Mick said, although he was, as usual, putting a brave face on things.

After leaving those two behind, there were ten whole and functional aspirants left.

Against Janus’s instructions, the other Irkallans and some of the compartmentalists had moved in behind them to aid the wounded and smash what was left of the cyborgs. Janus had left those two guards as much to protect the Irkallans from it as to protect it from the Irkallans. Only two of the exceptionalist contingent remained intact, now: Nikandros and Ryler.

Janus planned to put an end to at least one of them.

“You know how dangerous Nikandros is, don’t you?” the captain said.

“That’s what I’ve been led to believe,” Janus said. “How much trouble are we in?”

“Enough that, if we had enough room for everyone on the subs, I’d strongly suggest loading everyone up and running.”

“Good to know.”

As they approached the waypoint Nikandros had sent them, a room labeled Forward Observatory, the architect’s voice sounded from all around them.

“Congratulations, Aspirants,” Nikandros’s disembodied voice said. “You’ve come so far from your primitive world.”

Janus swallowed. It was as if the air around them was forming the sounds through vibration. He didn’t want to think about want that meant.

“This feels like a Beta Station situation,” Syn said.

“I really wish you hadn’t said that,” Janus answered.

The door to the observatory opened, making them all squint against the light.

Two silhouettes stood, waiting for them, backed by the pale white light of the sun under the sea.

“I’ve been waiting centuries for this moment,” Nikandros said.

The architect of the exceptionalist faction looked grimly poised, backlit by the shimmering white light. The submerged sun made his robes partially translucent, exposing what appeared to be more alloyed skeleton than man, with a strange thickening of the arms. His carbide mask appeared more macabre than ever, and even his stance was slightly hunched as if a weight had come to rest on his shoulders.

Ryler stood to Nikandros’s left, close but not quite within reach.

“It’s over, Nikandros,” Syn said.

“It almost is,” the cult architect said as the aspirants entered the room. “There are ten of you left. Insufficient for the task you have in mind, I’m afraid.”

“Twelve,” the captain said, and Fury hissed in agreement.

“Apostate,” Nikandros said, rotating his head to focus on the captain. “Out of my great respect for your centuries of knowledge, I will allow you to live.”

Rage flared in the Apostate’s features.

“What do you want, Nikandros?” Janus asked.

“I want to collar you, outlier,” the architect said. “I want to loose you on this pathetic remnant of compartmentalist power, and then I will give you the reward I promised. Safety. Peace. For you, and your family.”

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“He really does sound like a holo villain,” Mick said.

Janus chuckled. “Well, he’s not getting what he wants today. Come on, team. We’re heading back to the ships.”

Nikandros raised a skeletal finger and tilted his head slightly.

A few moments later, a faint tremor ran throughout the hull.

“What was that?” Janus asked out loud and over the comm. “Lee?”

“It was the ships, Janus,” Lee answered. “He scuttled the ships.”

Janus’s eyes widened, and he looked back at Nikandros.

“I know. It’s a shame you weren’t able to convince the ronin to join you.” Nikandros said. “It’s a shame you didn’t try.”

Janus swallowed bitter bile. There had been over thirty men and women on those ships.

“There are over three hundred compartmentalist researchers on this base, and there are nearly half that many Irkallans,” Nikandros said, and while his mask was blank, Janus thought that he could hear the deranged cultist smile. “Four hundred and seventy-six, including post-humans. The extended life-support capacity of this vessel is closer to three hundred. You are going to have to choose.”

Lira put a hand on his shoulder. “Janus?”

Janus’s hands tightened on his rifle.

“Save your bullets for the researchers, Janus,” Nikandros said. “It’s a choice between your family and the people who operated the Oracle for hundreds of years. You have never been closer to your oppressors.”

“Janus!” Lira hissed.

“Who do you think discovered Prometheus Base’s activities, Janus?” Nikandros asked. “They told Architect Lindgren the experiment was about to fail. They’re still alive. Still within reach.”

Janus’s heart pounded in his ears.

Kill the cultists. Save his family. He’d already made the choice before.

He heard the screams in his nightmares.

He couldn’t make that choice again.

He raised the rifle and pulled the trigger.

Nikandros seemed to sway around his rifle sights, and then the architect was moving faster than Janus could turn. He slammed into one of the aspirants, smashing the woman into the rear wall of the observatory with a crunch.

Janus’s rifle was still swinging around.

Nikandros spun and seemed to float across Janus’s sights. He pulled the trigger, realizing too late that it was just the architect’s flung robes, and that the murderous robot was halfway across the room, snapping an aspirant’s head back with a rising mechanical knee.

The floating robe fell away, revealing Janus had shot Syn.

Surprise.

Guilt.

Horror.

Nikandros was in perpetual motion, slamming another aspirant face-first into a wall with a crunch.

He twisted aside as Mick fired, then jumped, spinning as he turned, a final kick sending Mick’s weapon flying.

Mick punched with his cybernetic arm, but Nikandros was already moving. His leg caught Fury in the ribs.

The jungle dragon slammed into the glass and fell limp.

The captain stepped in to protect her, and he was struck so hard his neck cracked and he collapsed onto the floor.

No, no, no! Janus thought, trying to bring his weapon to bear.

Lira fired, the first to hit the architect, while Mick fought him cybernetic hand to cybernetic hand and used his broken rifle as a club.

Crack! Mick went down as Nikandros’s arms split into two sets of arms, and two reinforced fists slammed into Mick’s biological side.

Lira shouted and raised her weapon to fire again, but Nikandros was already within reach. He picked her up by the throat and put her flailing body between himself and Janus, using his extra left hand to rip the weapon from her hands and throw it sliding across the room.

Ryler hadn’t moved, untouched by the battle.

The only aspirants left standing were Janus and the four who had not yet entered the room.

“Choose, Janus,” Nikandros said. “Most of the people here are still alive. Could be alive. If you save them now. Even the captain might recover. You just have to walk out of here and choose.”

“Choose what?”

“Who gets to live, and who has to die.”

Lira’s face was contorted by pain, and her legs kicked weakly.

“I won’t,” Janus said, so quietly it was almost to himself.

“Choose!” Nikandros said, finally getting angry. “Do you really think this will be the end of your choices, Janus? The compartmentalists used the Oracle to keep humanity stagnant for nine centuries! We’re going to wake them all up!”

He’s insane, Janus thought.

“And awakening will come through pain,” Nikandros said.

He gripped Lira’s left forearm and her right knee with his free hands and he squeezed with mechanical strength. Lira shrieked in pain and thrashed wildly as skin tore, cartilage crunched, and bones broke.

Janus dropped to his knees.

“Choose, damn you! I didn’t bring you all this way to—”

Nikandros’s speech stuttered, and he dropped Lira who smacked loudly against the deck.

Ryler stood behind Nikandros, a connector running from his chest to Nikandros’s neck, the librarian’s eyes glowing gold.

He smiled at Janus, finally, the carefree expression of his old friend. “Sorry it took so long,” Ryler said. “I had to wait until the perfect—”

With a drawn out and strobed scream of rage, Nikandros turned and plunged his fingers into Ryler’s chest, shoving his arm in up to the elbow.

Ryler Abraxxis died.

No… Janus said.

Nikandros jerked his arm out of Ryler’s corpse. His movements were jerky, uncoordinated. Golden light flickered in the pits of the mask’s eyes.

And he laughed. It was the most evil sound Janus had ever heard, like the exhalation of a corpse through spasming vocal cords.

Janus fired his weapon, and Nikandros staggered back.

He fired again. Round after round. As fast as he could while keeping the weapon on target. With each shot, a spark, or a broken piece of alloy. Nikandros lifted three of his arms as shields, and then Janus’s weapon clicked empty.

Nikandros spread his fingers and looked at him gleefully past the shattered upper right quadrant of his broken mask.

Clang! Mick’s cybernetic fist slammed into the Cult cyborg from the side, and the remaining four aspirants entered the room, weapons raised.

“Tend to the wounded!” Janus said, reloading.

Nikandros slammed back into the bulkhead, and Mick followed up with another strike.

Nikandros caught it with two hands, raising a free fist to hit Mick like he had earlier.

Janus fired.

“Watch it!” Mick said, stumbling back.

Janus moved forward, methodically emptying his magazine into Nikandros. The damaged cyborg shuddered and twitched, trying to lunge at him like a man fighting the wind, until one shot tore off a section of his armored skull and he fell back into the corner and went still.

“Is he dead?” Mick asked.

“Don’t care,” Janus said, reloading. “I’ll cover you. Tear that thing apart.”