Slater shrugged, eyes concerned.
“Honestly, I feel fine.”
“Oh.” Jen’s voice was small, constricted, from a few yards ahead. “Oh no.”
Aston and Slater turned to see what had caught her attention and saw her looking into the main lounge of the complex, one hand covering her mouth.
They joined her and saw the cause of her shock. The room was littered with body parts, and soaked in blood. A huge hole gaped in the far wall, and several streaks of blood went through it like bodies had been dragged that way.
Aston pointed. “More uniforms and weapons. Some more of Larsen’s cohorts, I expect.”
Slater nodded. “Looks like it. Three maybe? I don’t know, I never was a fan of jigsaw puzzles.”
Aston laughed, grateful for the break in tension. “Me either. Looks like the entire base staff are in here, too. I guess the mantics came topside for a while.”
“I guess that’s proof they can tolerate any brightness with enough time,” Jen said.
“I guess so. Let’s just hope they won’t be coming back again. Hopefully, everything down there had been shut off by the caverns collapsing.”
“Let’s call for help quickly though,” Slater said. “And wait somewhere far from here.”
“How do we explain all this?” Jen asked.
Aston pursed his lips, thinking about that. “I think it’s best if we don’t try to. We got lost down there, separated from the others. We heard sounds of fighting, but couldn’t find anyone. When we finally got back to the surface, we found all this. We have no idea what happened.”
“They won’t be happy with an answer like that.”
Aston shrugged.
They found an office and a control center and got a distress call out to SynGreene. Arthur Greene himself, after the most cursory of explanations, promised to airlift them within hours. “Maybe it’s best,” he said, voice heavy with resignation, “if we abandon the entire project. At least for now. Who the bloody hell sabotaged my expedition? Don’t worry, I’ll find out and there’ll be hell to pay! Meanwhile, I’ll get you back to civilization and you’ll be paid. I’m so sorry for what’s happened. Can I rely on your… discretion?”
“Sure,” Aston said. “You pay us well enough and we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.”
“Thank you.”
All three were relieved, though guilty to some degree.
“I have to explain the deaths of Jeff and Marla,” Slater said, her expression pained. “I can’t just ignore it all.”
“I know,” Aston said. “But I wanted to make sure Arthur had no qualms about getting us out. Once we’re back in the civilized world we’ll demand his help in dealing with all the fallout.”
“If nothing else, I want him to pay some compensation to their families.”
“Fair enough.”
They decamped to another lounge area, far from the carnage they had discovered, and found supplies. Real food, ice cold sodas, fresh fruit. It was like a cornucopia from heaven.
While they ate, Aston described his experiences. The result of eating the fish and what had happened out over the Jade Sea.
Once he’d finished, Slater said, “So you’re really okay?”
“I’m not suffering any ill effects from the connection to the Overlord, if that’s what you mean,” Aston said. “At least, none I’m aware of. But I really don’t understand exactly what happened.”
“I have a theory,” Jen said, chewing thoughtfully on an apple. “It’s akin to the hive minds you see in nature. In bees, for example.”
“I was thinking of something similar,” Aston said. “Zombie ants. But this thing is so complex, so powerful.”
“It can’t be that simple,” Slater objected. “What Aston described sounds more like telepathy or something.”
“All brain activity is a combination of chemical reactions and electrical impulses,” Jen said. “What we really know about that stuff is incredibly limited. Perhaps the Overlord exudes energy on a wavelength the greenium allows people to receive? Once it’s in the blood, therefore in the brain, it acts as a biological transmitter and receiver.” She gave a crooked grin, shrugged. “It’s just a theory. Whatever the phenomenon, it’s clearly very real.”
Slater shook her head, not happy with the explanations but not offering any alternatives. Aston thought Jen Galicia's ideas were as good as any. But it didn’t really matter. The overriding memory he had of the whole thing was the Overlord’s powerful, all-encompassing loneliness. It tore at him. Hopefully the collapse of everything down there would be an end to it. In the long run, he thought that was maybe for the best. All things should eventually die.
“Anyway,” Slater said. “As long as you’re okay.”
“I think the effect must wear off. Perhaps you need to keep consuming it to stay attached? Long-term effects would be bad, I think. But I’m fine.”
“Makes sense,” Jen said. “I guess your body has processed it out by now.”
Slater leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Well, with any luck it’s all over. Help should be here in a few hours. Let’s try to sleep in the meantime. I feel like I haven’t slept for a week.”
“Should we take watches?”
Aston looked around the small lounge room they were in. “Only one way in,” he said, pointing at the door. He dragged a small table over to block it, then put a few water glasses and jugs on top. “We’ll hear it if that goes over.”
They each stretched out on a sofa, the comfort incredible after so long with nothing but cold rock beneath them.
“I’m glad it’s all finally over,” Slater said.
“Yeah. I need a holiday,” Aston agreed. “No more adventures for a while.”
They fell quiet, Jen and Slater quickly dropping into deep sleep. Aston lay there thinking about the Overlord, wondering how long it had existed. What it really was. If it was finally over. As he drifted off, blackness stealing in from the edges of his mind, he heard a distant whispered word in his mind.
“Asssttoooooonnnn…”
Books by David Wood
Dourado
Cibola
Quest
Icefall
Buccaneer
Atlantis
Ark
Xibalba
Loch
Solomon Key
Freedom
Hell Ship
Splashdown
Dead Ice
Liberty
Electra
Amber
Justice
Treasure of the Dead
Oracle
Changeling
Exile
Primitive
The Book of Bones
Blood Codex
Anubis Key
Arena of Souls
Track of the Beast (forthcoming)
Destiny
Mystic
Primordial
Overlord
Into the Woods (with David S. Wood)
Callsign: Queen (with Jeremy Robinson)
Dark Rite (with Alan Baxter)
The Silver Serpent
Keeper of the Mists
The Gates of Iron
The Impostor Prince (with Ryan A. Span)
Neptune’s Key
The Zombie-Driven Life
You Suck
Books by Alan Baxter