Loki's Gambit, page 32
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
The raven on the ground flaps to the air. “We’ve wondered about that. Personally, I think, rawk rawk, Odin knows what Loki will do, but you are a mystery.”
The hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end but he tries to keep his voice light. “What will Loki do?”
The raven lands on the ground and bobs its head. “What he always does, and then we’ll catch him!”
At that point the other raven dives headlong onto the first and starts pecking at its head with a screech. “Huginn, you idiot!!!”
The two take off into the air, blathering in a Slavic sounding language the linguists at ADUO think may be related to Old Norse. Steve lets out a deep breath that isn’t quite relief. He walks on for a few more minutes, falling into step with other people on their way to work. He lets his mind empty and just focuses on traffic lights and his fellow pedestrians.
He’s only about a block away from ADUO when his cell rings. Pulling it out of his pocket he answers. “Rogers here.”
“Sir,” says Bryant. “I think we have a problem...”
“Wha—” says Steve, but then the ground beneath him trembles and from the sewer drain next to him comes a sound that makes his stomach drop. It sounds like a hiss, three octaves too low.
“We think something has infiltrated the tunnels,” says Bryant.
“I’m on my way,” Steve says, already breaking into a run.
Loki is sitting at his computer, a large coffee, assorted croissants, and little spheres of the Promethean netting no bigger than his palm on the desk next to him. Some of the spheres have the same sort of outgrowth that surrounds Cera, remnants of Loki’s experiments with the stuff.
Picking up a croissant, he tosses its paper wrapper onto one of the mutated spheres. There is a soft pop and the wrapper sinks out of existence.
He tilts his head. They make attractive little trash disposals. And they aren’t really dangerous at these small sizes. An infant could crush one and not be harmed. Too bad he can’t market them at upscale interior design studios.
“When are you going to get me? I hate being locked up!” Cera whines.
Loki rolls his eyes. Cera is as impatient as a child...or a human. “When I can get you out.”
Unfortunately, the sphere containing Cera needs considerably more force than an infant to break it. He’s looked at the feasibility of collapsing the Board of Trade on Cera’s sphere, but Cera isn’t quite at the epicenter of where impact would be—and the tunnel and building were reinforced post 9/11. If it did work—and Loki’s not sure it would, he’d still wind up with an enormous pile of rubble to plow through to retrieve her.
His jaw tenses. He has to get to her before the Vanir. They are coming. They have to be coming...and he can do nothing and go nowhere as long as the two gates to Vanaheim are unguarded.
He looks at his computer. It’s nearly 7:30, almost market opening time and he’s in the mood for some innocent distraction. The lack of progress with Cera is making him irritable. He starts opening his trading accounts when he feels the highrise apartment he is in start to sway.
He blinks.
“Something is down here,” says Cera, sounding more annoyed than frightened.
Closing his eyes, Loki sends an apparition of himself into the tunnels. A serpent with a head so big it nearly fills the tunnel opens its mouth and tries to swallow him—and of course meets only empty air. Finding his projection in the belly of the beast, Loki withdraws back to his apartment.
Let ADUO deal with it. “Don’t worry, Cera,” he says. “It can’t hurt you.”
“It is pretty,” says Cera.
“Hmmmmm,” says Loki looking at one of the little algorithms he created to help predict the movement of the Brazilian Real. He smiles. A sure thing. Time to make a quick million or so. He purchases some futures of said currency and is about to divest himself of said contracts when the power goes out.
Steve is standing ankle deep in water in the tunnel system beneath Chicago’s streets. The tunnels aren’t supposed to be wet. There must be a leak somewhere. He’s got one hand pressed to the headpiece in his ear, the other on his Glock. Several of the guys have their flashlights out, and there is also dim utility light behind him from one of the coal-loading platforms.
He and his team are beneath the intersection of LaSalle and Monroe, two blocks north of where the World Seed is, or as Loki calls it, Cera.
“Bryant,” Steve says into the headset at his ear. “Any sign?”
Bryant’s voice crackles back. “Negative.” He’s at the tunnel intersection of Clark and Adams, where an Internet substation and electrical power box went down minutes before. They’ve received reports of power going out all over Chicago’s downtown.
“Gonna be hard to find whatever it is down here,” says one of his agents spinning around, flashlight in one hand, M16 in the other.
Water ripples over Steve’s feet. He looks down. The little waves are coming from the west. He looks up. His guys are all standing to the north of him. Blood running cold, he says quietly, “Incoming, 9 o’clock! Take cover.”
Steve goes south and flattens himself against the wall; his boys go north, but one, Jones, the guy with the M16, turns and faces whatever is coming. Before he even has the M16 raised a nightmarish shadow that looks like a giant gaping snake’s maw streaks through the intersection.
Steve can’t see his agents anymore; there is just a solid wall of dark gray something between him and them.
Over his headset he hears, “Jones is down!” And then Steve hears Brett say, “That wall has scales...don’t see any feet or nothing. I think it’s a snake. Shouldn’t be able to go backwards.”
He thinks he might be sick.
A voice sounds by Steve’s other ear. “It’s a wyrm. And no, it can’t go backwards; you’re safe for now.”
Steve jumps. There is Loki, in his armor, arms crossed over his chest, a flare of light dancing just behind him. Narrowing his eyes, Loki says, “Of course, since you’re on a grid system all it has to do is make 3 right turns and then you’re not safe anymore.”
Steve’s mouth drops. “It just...”
“Ate someone, did it?” says Loki striding forward so he is just a foot next to the gently undulating scales. “They’ll do that.”
Turning back to Steve, he scowls. “Never trust a broker who doesn’t have a fully functional mobile-trading platform, Steven. In the end low commissions...Just. Are. Not. Worth. It.”
Steve’s brain draws a blank. And then his face goes hot. “Just tell me how to kill this thing!”
Loki runs his tongue over his teeth. “Try shooting it?”
Steve whips out his Glock and releases a whole clip. The scaly body twists and thrashes, the ground trembles, and something red trickles out. And then the scales resume their smooth slide. From the other side of the tunnel he hears the sound of more shots. The creature doesn’t even writhe.
Loki shakes his head. “That’s not going to work. I think you’ve just given it the equivalent of a bad paper cut.”
“Well, what will work!” Steve shouts.
“I’m thinking!” says Loki, crossing his arms over his chest, the scales still slipping by in the tunnel before them.
Bryant’s voice buzzes in Steve’s ear. “Agent Rogers?”
“Loki’s here,” says Steve. “I’m fine.”
“Normally,” says Loki, “a blow to the heart is how to deal with these things. Their scales in their abdomens are more delicate.”
“Did you hear that?” says Steve, pushing the headset against his ear.
“Yes,” says Bryant.
Shaking his head, Loki says, “But the tunnel is too tight. You’ll never be able get it to rear up high enough.”
“What about a goat carcass with explosives?” Steve says.
Loki turns to him, eyes wide, and looking vaguely excited. “Oh, that might be fun.” He squints one eye. “Of course, it would have to be a live goat....or goats...And it might get out of the tunnels before you have an opportunity to procure said goats. But then you could aim for the heart —”
There is a shriek from somewhere down the tunnel. Loki sighs.
“Who was that?” Steve shouts. The scales are still sliding by. How long is this damn thing?
“Check in!” says Bryant. A few seconds later, Bryant says, “Not one of ours.”
Steve closes his eyes. A civilian. Maybe a maintenance worker...His stomach falls.
“How do I kill it now?” says Steve, meeting Loki’s eyes.
Loki’s face is blank and unreadable for an instant. And then he gives Steve a tight smile. “Cera. We lead it to Cera and let her deal with it.”
“It will eat Cera?” says Steve.
“No,” says Loki. “But you and I will lure the snake to her. When it touches Cera, she’ll...” he tilts his head toward the scales. “Do what she does to everything else.”
Steve blinks. Everything else that touches Cera disappears. The hypothesis at ADUO is that anything that touches Cera’s Promethian containment sphere gets sucked into a vacuum. Where that vacuum leads is a source of contentious debate.
“Cera’s strong enough to handle this thing?” says Steve, backing away from the wall of shimmering scales.
Giving Steve a wicked, toothy smile, Loki says, “Oh, yes.” Turning southwards, he shouts. “Come!”
Swallowing, Steve follows Loki and the ball of light just before him. They turn eastward on Adams and run two more blocks when Loki stops, turns northward and shouts, “Mr. Slithers! Come and get us!” He turns to Steve and starts to hop. “Start jumping up and down. It should be attracted to my light, but it will feel your vibrations, too.”
Steve follows Loki’s motions without thinking, although all he sees to the north is empty tunnel.
Only moments later, he’s soaked through from water in the tunnel splashing beneath his feet.
He’s telling Bryant where he is when he sees a glint at the end of the tunnel beyond Loki’s light.
“Here comes, Baby,” says Loki.
Steve freezes. A snake head taller and wider than him is moving down the tunnel. It’s been a long time since Steve has been frozen in terror. This has to be just a nightmare...if he just wills it to end...
“Run!” says Loki, backing up. Steve blinks at the ginger-haired alien and remembers nightmares are real now.
Steve follows Loki as he tears down the Dearborn street tunnel, and then west down the Jackson tunnel toward Cera. Cera is sitting on a raised coal platform above the actual tunnel proper, lit from within with eerie blue light. The Promethean containment sphere around it is now just under 20 centimeters from touching the ceiling at the center of the platform. It’s still growing, but only at a pace of a few millimeters a day now. The guys in tech say they’ve only got a few weeks before they have to worry about it touching the ceiling. And then what no one knows. It isn’t sucking the ground beneath it away...
In front of him, Loki, jumps the half meter wall up to the platform; Steve follows. Steve is closer to the tunnel, Loki is closer to the wall. Loki turns. Steve spins around next to him. The opening to the tunnel they just emerged from is about 20 meters away. He can’t see the snake from where he stands, but he knows it’s coming. He sees the gentle waves in the puddles at the bottom of the tunnel and the absolute pitch black of the tunnel where the reptile’s body blocks all utility lights.
“When it strikes,” says Loki, “dive.” He nods with his head toward the edge of the platform and the wet tunnel shaft about a meter to Steve’s left. “And then grab hold of the ladder on the far wall, lest you be pulled into the vacuum of the In-Between.”
Steve looks over to Loki. “In-Between?”
Loki doesn’t answer, just keeps his eyes focused on the tunnel opening.
Steve hears a hiss, and turns his head. It’s too late at that moment to reflect on the wisdom of following the plan given to him by the so-called God of Mischief.
The head of the wyrm-snake-monster emerges from the tunnel. It has yellow eyes with round pupils set into the gray-green scales of its face. It slides its head up onto the platform, its long gray body still stretched out into the tunnel.
Steve takes a breath. Something long and pink flicks from the wyrm’s mouth to just a meter before Steve’s feet. He almost runs, but Loki says calmly, “Wait for it.” And mutters. “Damnable thing cost me a lot of money, now it’s going to die...”
Loki is here. If he can do this, Steve can do this—he has to do this....
The snake’s head draws back. There is a flash of white that later Steve will piece together is a bit of its underside.
“Now!” says Loki. Steve dives from the platform into the tunnel. There is a rush of air and his hands are hitting a puddle, fetid water is splashing into his mouth, and air whooshes over his head.
“Get to the ladder! Hold on!” screams Loki. Steve crawls toward the ladder on the wall, and air rushes past him, nearly knocking him over. He glances back for a moment and see the wyrm’s mouth is stretched over the Promethean Sphere. For a moment Steve wishes the snake would devour it, and take the thing to the In-Between-vacuum-wherever. But then he feels air rushing faster and sees the snake’s coils writhe as its head begins to vanish, the containment sphere and Cera remaining firmly in place. Cursing, Steve crawls forward, pulls himself upright, face to the wall, and wraps both arms around the ladder.
The snake is being sucked forward. It’s ridiculous, but it reminds Steve of the automatic wind of a vacuum cleaner cord—a vacuum cleaner cord that is thrashing and is nearly 7 feet tall. As the wyrm disappears equipment from the platform and bits of trash from the tunnel get sucked forward into the...whatever.
Loki is standing right in front of him. Steve feels increasing force pulling him toward the sphere. Loki can’t possibly withstand it.
On instinct Steve reaches out. “Loki!” His voice is almost drowned out by the sound of air whooshing past him. His hand would have landed on Loki’s shoulder but it passes through empty air. Loki looks down at its path and then up to Steve.
Steve’s mouth drops. Of course. Loki was never here, never in danger. As that thought runs through him, he is ripped from the ladder. He lands in the puddle again, but this time he feels himself being lifted from the ground. Closing his eyes, he searches blindly in the water, trying to find anything beneath his fingers to grab hold of.
And suddenly something comes down on him, something solid and cold encasing his whole body. Is he gone—beyond...wherever? There is the sound of more air rushing past him and then there is a loud crack. The air stops moving. Suddenly, over the sound of his own labored breathing he hears Bryant shouting through his headset.
Steve shivers. He’s so very cold. And there is pressure on his back and sides. He opens his eyes, tries to move, and then realizes the puddle he was lying in has frozen solid and he’s frozen in it.
Loki is standing above him. “Thank you,” he says.
Steve stares at him uncomprehending and then Loki says, “Sometimes it is the thought that counts, Steven.”
As Bryant and the other agents race into the intersection he smiles tightly. “Now get surveillance on those locations I mentioned.”
And then he disappears.
ADUO’s offices are a little dark the next morning when Amy comes to work. It takes her a few minutes to realize they’re running on emergency power. The rain must have damaged some power lines. She sits down at her computer and opens a browser. The T1 line is still up. She smiles. That’s all that matters.
ADUO headquarters has changed a lot in the few weeks since Steve has been in charge. There are a lot of deliveries of new equipment, and a lot more employees. As Amy sits at her desk researching the hypothesis she formed the night before, a man who is the new department physicist goes by, then a woman who is an astronomer, and a doctor and two nurses who are setting up a trauma center on the floor above the main office. Apparently ADUO is worried about having to explain troll wounds to doctors at the local hospital.
She peers around her monitor. She can hear Laura Stogdill, the department’s legal counsel, yelling over her phone through her office door. But where are the new agents she pegged as more muscle than brain? And where are Steve, Brett, Bryant and Hernandez? She checks her email. There is nothing about Steve being late.
Shrugging to herself, she goes back to her internet searches. It’s nearly 10 a.m. when Agent Bryant comes over to her desk. He is wet, and dirty, and smells funny. He also looks a little pale. He’s carrying what looks like Steve’s gym bag. Leaning on the reception desk he says, “Meet Steve in the trauma center in 15 minutes for debriefing.”
“Trauma center?” says Amy. “What happened?”
Walking away from the desk he says, “Ask your friend.”
Amy’s brow furrows. “Which friend?”
Bryant grunts and disappears down the hallway. 15 minutes later Amy is in the trauma center. She can’t see Steve, but from behind a curtain divider at the end of the room she can hear him.
“With all due respect, Sir, I made an executive decision.”
There is a pause, and then Steve’s voice again. “There was no reason to believe Loki would want to destroy Cera—the World Seed.”
There is another long pause and then, “One of our agents is dead, and we’ve got reports of a maintenance worker and several homeless people missing. Frankly, I am not particularly sorry that the football-field-long snake responsible isn’t still around for scientific inquiry!”
Amy jumps and her eyes go wide.
There are a few noncommittal grunts. She thinks she hears a phone snapping shut. And then Steve’s voice, “Where is Lewis?”
Stepping toward the curtains, Amy clears her throat.
The curtain divider is pulled away by Hernandez, and there is Steve sitting on a bed in a tight gray t-shirt that says Marines, loose pants, and gym shoes. His workout gear, Amy realizes. He looks a lot better than the guys standing around him in dirty wet suits.
Hernandez checks a magic detector and says, “Clear.”
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