Achilles' Heel, Part II: A Stab In The Dark

By C. Mage

                Lara checked her watch and adjusted the headset.  She turned on the radio.  "Flight 702 on approach, requesting clearance to land."

                "Flight 702, you are cleared to land on runway 12 East.  Please report to Customs upon arrival."

                "Roger that."  She adjusted her VOR and lowered her landing gear.  As she did so, she tried not to think about David, lying there in the hospital, dying from the wound he received from the spear.  Certainly he'd been wounded in the line of duty, not to mention in the course of their adventures...but this was different.  Unless she found the spear and the means to make the cure, David's condition would degrade to the point where not even his stubborn will would sustain him.

                Lara shook herself and forced herself to focus.  David won't gain any more time if I allow myself to be distracted.  She set the aircraft on the glide slope and took out her PDA.  She sighed gently.  The device was a gift from David on her birthday, the most advanced personal computer available. Wireless networking, cellular modem hookup, music and video player, expandable, good screen, all on an object barely bigger than a pack of cigarettes.  Of course, David had used one of the features before she'd received it, the ability to turn any picture into a wallpaper for the PDA's screen.  It took her an hour of reading before she could figure out how to switch the wallpaper with something more topical, like a picture of the Parthenon, from what had been on the screen before...a picture of David posing, naked and apparently excited by the idea of posing for Lara.  Of course, resetting the PDA's screen would've normally took her a few minutes to figure out, and twenty minutes more to find the right image for the wallpaper, but Lara wanted to make sure she could retrieve David's image later...in more private surroundings.

                She tapped the face with a fingernail and brought up her notes on the Oracle of Delphi.  Supposedly, the Oracle was ancient, drawing her power from vapors that rose from a stature in the Earth's crust.  She would breathe the vapors, go into a trance and then mutter words which the ones asking for information would then interpret.

                As Lara landed the plane, she didn't know that four men in a car outside the fence were watching her…and expecting her arrival.

Lara left Athens International Airport, shaking her head.  The last time she'd been there, the airport was more…quaint.  A few small gardens, a pleasant thoroughfare, polite attendants and efficient travelling from point to point.  Now, it was practically a mall.  Getting through Customs alone had been a problem; one of the officials recognized her from one of her more notorious exploits and practically searched her in every legal place they could…and she noted a couple of the men looking more than happy to explore the rest.  She smiled politely, told them in flawless Greek about how she'd prefer they follow Spartan relationships…with each other.  A few of the female officers smirked as Lara dressed in her jeans, T-shirt and jacket, putting on her boots.

Once outside, she saw Antony waiting for her.  The old Greek sat in his beaten-up old truck, nursing a drink from a canteen…likely a mixture of strawberry juice and orange juice, a drink Lara knew was Antony's favorite.  As she walked over, Antony looked up and smiled.  "About time you showed up.  Where to?"

                "It's a pleasure to see you too, Papa," she said, a pun based upon Antony's last name, Papopoulus.

                "Irresponsible and irreverent as usual, eh?" He went to the driver's side door and opened it.  "The question remains, Croft."

                "We're going to visit the Oracle, Antony...but first, I've got to do some shopping at Murigan's."

                "I hear the last time you 'shopped' there, you two didn't exactly part on good terms."

                "Oh, I'm sure he's forgotten all about that by now."

                "Lara Croft..."  Terrance Murigan smiled cruelly.  "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now."

                Lara looked at the seven men armed with automatic weapons, all pointed in her general direction.  She sighed.  "Honestly, Terrance..."

                The large man stood up laborously from behind his desk, leaning on a cane for support.  "Don't give me any excuses, Croft.  You shot me, you big-titted, Brit bitch!"

                "Don't tell me you took that personally."

                "Call me old-fashioned, Croft, but I always take attempts on my life personally."

                "Come now, Terrance, if I hadn't played the part of the wronged party in that deal, those men with the Sicilian accents might have received the wrong impression about where your loyalties lay...considering whom I was planning to visit after hours.  They might have thought you were directly involved with the subsequent theft of one of their belongings."

                "Get to the part where you tell me why you had to shoot me in the fucking leg!"

                "Don't tell me you haven't guessed by now.  After all, it would've been easier simply to shoot you in a more, shall we say, accessible region of your body.  So, by going for the target requiring greater skill, I relieved you of any guilt with your backers.  You should be grateful."

                "Dammit, Croft, talking to you makes my head hurt!"  Terrance turned and walked back behind his desk.  "I should shoot you, regardless.  Fewer headaches."

                "You don't want to do that."

                "Explain your thinking to me, Croft."

                "I'm not here to see the sights, Terrance.  I'm here on business.  And if you're good, I'll see clear to giving you a piece.  For old time's sake."

                "What sort of business?"

                ''Looking for a cure for a rare disease.  If the disease becomes airborne, that cure will become useless, since the cure is effective only at the early stages of the disease."

                "And what has that have to do with the price of beer?"

                "Imagine, for a moment, a disease that causes the human body to stop healing.  No cellular reconstruction at all.  No body recovery at all."  Lara walked over to his desk and leaned over it.  She was quite aware this position showed off her cleavage, and equally aware of the effect it had on the older gun-runner.  "Now, imagine how much someone might pay for the cure."

                "So what are you saying?"

                "Help me with supplies and hardware and once I'm done with it, you'll get all rights to the cure.  No strings."

                Terrance considered.  "This is an actual disease, not just some bug?"

                "Check the records on a patient named David Connors at Oxford Medical in London."

                "Antonio, check it out."  He leaned back and looked at Lara steadily.  "If this is a scam, Croft, I'm sending you back to England in fifty zipper bags."

                "Such a sweet-talker you are.  Were I not a prude, I'd beg you to ravish me now, you beast, you," Lara said dryly.

                Antonio left the room and Lara sat down.  Ever the picture of calm, she smiled at Terrance.  "So...read any good books lately?"

                "No."

                "Any nice movies?"

                "Spare me."

                "Such novel conversation."

                Antonio came back into the room and whispered into Terrance's ear.  Terrance nodded.  Lara hid her anxiety well, having years of experience at staying cool under fire...or, in this case, impending fire.  After a few moments, Terrance looked at Lara.  "Seems they don't want to talk about his condition."

                "See what I mean?"

                "I don't follow."

                "Think they'd keep mum on his health if he had the flu?  Come now, Terrance, the man is dying.  Time is money."

                Terrance studied Lara carefully.  "And I get fifty percent of the income from the cure."

                "Draw up a contract.  If the disease becomes airborne, and the cure is needed, you get half.  One thing, though...if this man Connors dies, the deal's off.  This point is non-negotiable."

                "...very well."

                Wonder if I should tell him that the chances of David's affliction becoming airborne are practically nonexistent?  Lara smiled inwardly.  Let's not...why sour the negotiations when things are going so well?

                "I don't know why you're smiling, Lara."

                "Come now, don't tell me you don't approve of my taking advantage of an unrepentant criminal who regularly sells weapons to anyone with a bank account and a cause."

                "Present company excepted, of course."

                "Flatterer."  Lara turned back to her map. 

                "Lara, you still haven't told me why you're doing this."

                ''Yes, I have.  David needs..."

                "Yes, yes...I know what you said.  Now tell me the true reason.  Are you doing this out of love, or out of guilt?"

                Lara turned to Antony and looked at him levelly.  She opened her mouth to answer, but Antony interrupted her.  "Too late.  You had to consider your answer, and that means you are unsure."

                "You are not my father-confessor, Antony."

                "Truth.  But I am accompanying you on this endeavor, so if I am fated to die in this, I want to know why."

                Lara scoffed.  "If anyone is going to die in this, it's going to be me, and only me.  I'm heading to the island of Delphi, and it's little more than a tourist attraction now...for those who don't know better."

                "As I recall, they've already unearthed the temple of Apollo.  There's nothing there but the barest remnants of where the Oracle was."

                Lara smiled.  "I suspect there's more to it.  According to legend, he was one wily diety.  His offspring were known for their smarts.  I suspect he made getting to the Oracle a test, to weed out the riffraff and those with only a casual interest in finding her.  I picked up some scrolls while on holiday in Iraq..."

                "Iraq?!  Only you, Lara Croft, would consider an excursion into a war-torn country a 'holiday'."

                "Oh, tish-tosh.  You worry too much.  Besides, the arm re-knit.  In any case, I retrieved scrolls from the time of Xerxes II.  You remember him, of course?"

                "History was never my best subject."

                "He was one of the more illustrious visitors to the Oracle.  He came to her for advice about an upcoming war with Greece, and the Oracle said to him, 'If Xerxes attacks Greece, he will destroy a great nation!' Impressive, eh?"

                "Lara, that grin of yours tells me you found that humorous."

                She smiled.  "Problem was, the Oracle didn't say which nation would be destroyed.  Xerxes attacked Greece in a massive naval campaign.  The Greeks trounced them thoroughly, drawing them into their harbor and then decimating the larger, slower ships.  Caused a serious crimp in the Persian Empire.  As I recall, from that day on, a servant was given the duty of saying to Xerxes, at every meal, 'Remember the Athenians!'  Rather rough luck."

                Antony watched her as she went over her "tools."  Twin Glock-19s, extended magazines.  Flares.  Climbing ropes, 1000-lb. test capacity.  Climbing pitons.  First-aid kit.  GPS box.  PDA with digital camera, voice-recognition software, and pre-loaded maps.  "Quite the hardware lover, aren't you?"

                "Always have the right tools for the job.  Besides..."  Lara smiled, holding up the PDA's screen so Antony could see the cards arranged on the screen.  "...should I become bored, there's always Bridge."

                Antony looked out over the waters of the Mediterranean.  "I still don't see why you have to swim in."

                "According to the scrolls of the Theban scholar, Melanthus, there's a tunnel under the island.  It was a natural cavern at sea level, then an earthquake dropped that section of the island below the water.  I suppose Poseidon wanted his own waterfront entrance.  I think I can get into the chambers below the island."

                "What are you hoping to find?"

                "Some sort of record of what the Oracle said, the recipe for the cure."  Lara put on the SCUBA tank and turned towards the sea.  "People didn't have the internet or computers back then, so they had to rely upon personal records to keep everything straight.  Personal journals, research, things like that.  I'm betting that the Oracle did the same."

                "And if she didn't?"

                "She did.  I know she did."  She'd better, the mysterious old cow...I didn't fly all the way to Greece to come home and tell David, "Sorry, luv, but you're going to die, but the good news is, I visited that old place in Athens where you got the omelette and things are going smashingly."   She put on her mask and turned back to Antony.  "I'll be back in an hour."

                "And if you're not back in an hour?"

                "Then wait another hour."  She fell backwards into the water and reoriented herself towards the island, diving deeper.

                Antony watched her go, then sighed and went to the radio, tuning it to another frequency and speaking into it.  "She's on her way to the Chambers of the Oracle."

                A reply came quickly.  "Stay there...there is a chance, however remote, that she might find the Cure.  If she does, kill her and bring her body, and the Cure, to us."

                "Yes, my Master."

                Lara dove towards the ocean floor and checked her depth, then compared it to the readings she'd received from the ultrasonic map of the bottom.  Let's see...if I'm not mistaken, the entrance should be close...I just hope the entrance is in passable condition.  I didn't bring enough explosives...

                She stopped as she came over a rise in the ocean floor.  Built into the side of the island was a perfectly preserved Grecian temple, showing no signs of destruction or erosion despite an earthquake and sliding into the sea, let alone almost two thousand years of watery neglect.  She swam closer, looking over the columns and the lack of debris.  It's almost perfectly preserved.  It's magnificent...how did it survive completely intact?  She took out her underwater digital camera and snapped some pictures, the powerful strobe illuminating the ruins.  As she put away the camera, however, she felt a rumbling and looked up as a pointed nose appeared, followed by a large, streamlined form.  The shark swam towardsher slowly, circling her as three other sharks came into view.

                Marvelous...just bloody marvelous.  She took out the speargun, a custom job with four barrels, each one with an spearhead designed to inject a powerful venom into whatever it hit.  Lara readied the gun, by now bored by the concept of voracious sea creatures.  Come on, gents...none of us are getting any younger...

                Suddenly, the sharks backed off, swimming towards deeper water.  Lara smiled, then stopped as she felt a rumbling around her.  She suddenly got the terrible feeling the sharks weren't leaving to meet an appointment on the far end of the ocean.  She turned around slowly.

                Rising from the ocean floor was a monstrous creature, ten tentacles spread from a bulbous body with two sickly-green eyes which looked at the adventuress with a malevolent light.  The kraken paused, glaring at the insolent creature that dared to disturb its rest.

                Lara gulped.  Right...looks like I don't have to worry about being bored anymore!

                For a few moments, adventuress and sea monster regarded each other.  Lara immediately realized that the creature was a guardian for the Temple.  If it had been a mindless beast, it would've attacked immediately, but it seemed simply content to stay between Lara and the entrance to the Temple.  As it floated there, Lara got a better look at the creature.  The tentacles had stingers attached to each tip, and the monster's beaked mouth was large enough to swallow Lara whole.  It's skin was dark, a mottled gray giving way to a dark blue color, but its eyes were red, burning with a cold hatred.

                That's what I hate about establishments with selective membership...getting past the doorman.  She watched the kraken, then swam off to the right.  The kraken followed, seeming to simply shift to the side, tentacles trailing behind it.  Lara swam down and to the left, moving at high speed, but the kraken moved just as rapidly.  Lara would've snarled if her mouth didn't have a mouthpiece in it.  So much for trying to get around it...looks like we'll have to be more direct.  The trick is, how do I do it without getting crushed?

                Lara considered, then hit upon an idea.  Of course, it would be reckless and foolhardy, but why change my tactics at this late date?  She swam back behind a section of rock on the ocean floor and wriggled out of her SCUBA gear.  Lara attached an explosive charge to the tank, securing it in place as she took her last few breaths from the tank.  As she drew her Glock, she thought, All I have to do is aim, blow the valve off the tank and let that thing chase it far enough away to blow it up...if the tank doesn't explode in my face or the shockwave from the explosion doesn't crush me like an insect. 

                Lara took a few last breaths, then pulled the trigger.

                The Glock went off and the bullet slowed in the water, but the speed was still fast enough to rip the valve open.  The tank rocketed out, leaving a thick trail of bubbles after it.  The kraken charged after it and Lara swam as hard as she could towards the entrance.  The kraken caught the tank, but just barely held on as it pulled the tank closer, examining it.  Lara swam until she saw the kraken trying to juggle the tank and move towards her at the same time. 

                Lara couldn't wait any longer and set off the charge, moving her body and stretching her arms and legs along the axis of her body.  The charge went off, causing a huge cloud of bubbles and ink and causing a shockwave that hurtled Lara towards the entrance.  She held her body as rigid as she dared, lest the shockwave cause her to bend in the currents in ways even her flexible form wasn't meant to handle.  She allowed some air to escape her lungs and swam towards the entrance to the temple, her lungs starting to burn.

                That's when she heard the shriek hammering her eardrums.  She looked back to see the kraken, or what was left of it, closing in on her.  It's speed was greatly reduced, considering it only had three complete tentacles left, but Lara knew that meant it would only take a few seconds longer to rend her limb from limb.  She swam faster, her lungs on fire as she entered the temple, scanning the area for any possible way out.  Three underwater passages stretched forward and to her sides.  Now which way? she thought, feeling her oxygen supply depleting and the kraken trying to muscle its way into the temple...and from the sound of the shifting stone, it was succeeding well. 

                Lara swam towards the right, moving into a smaller antechamber, then saw a passage leading to her left.  She swam through it, then heard a horrendous sound of stone shattering through the water.  Lara didn't look back and swam through the passage, her vision starting to blur.  This had better be take me somewhere with air in it...!

                She swam up, red edging in at the sides of her vision, seeing light up ahead.  Her lungs felt like Hephaestus' forge as she tried to get to the surface before her lungs collapsed...

                She broke the surface, gasping as her oxygen-starved lungs forced her to pause, grabbing the sides of a hole in the floor.  She stopped to catch her breath and that's when she felt the tentacle wrap around her leg.  She grabbed the side of the cistern with one hand, grabbing a concussion grenade from her vest and yanking on the pin with her teeth.  She dropped the grenade, then hung on with both hands.  The kraken was stronger, and she felt it pull her under the water again.

                The water churned for a moment, then the cistern became a geyser as the grenade went off, the shockwaves rebounding inside the temple walls from below.  Lara whooshed out of the cistern, flying up into the air and landing on the concrete, bits and pieces of kraken around her.  Lara coughed up a few pints of seawater and rolled onto her back, breathing ragged.

                "...Calamari, prepare with high explosives...serves 20,000..." Lara pulled herself to a sitting position and looked around, spitting to clear the taste of seawater from her mouth.  Nothing but darkness greeted her.  She pulled out a flare and fired it up, pulling herself to her feet, her ears still ringing.

                The chamber she'd surfaced in was huge, easily a few hundred feet long and more than a hundred feet wide.  She was amazed to find that the temple was untouched, even after centuries of salt air.  The marble columns were smooth, flawless, as well as the golden lamps that sat, unlit, but Lara suspected that the lamps were likely filled with oil, ready to be used.  The floor was glassy marble, and a gallery of statues lined the chamber, men and women looking proudly, almost imperiously at each other, eyes above looking upon Lara.  Each statue was twenty feet tall, something of an anomaly in Greek style, Lara noticed: Usually, the statues of the Greek gods were sculpted only slightly larger than human sized.  Apollo, Artermis, Hephaestus, Zeus, Athena...nice owl.  Hades, Demeter...yes, they're all here, even Hestia, goddess of the hearth.  Looks like all the gods were honored here.  Odd.  I always thought Apollo held sway over the resources of the Oracle.  She walked towards the massive double doors at the other end of the chamber.  As she walked, she became aware of other features of the chamber.

                For starters, the water she dripped from her body seemed to vanish as soon as it hit the floor.  Second, the light from the flare was magnified, growing in lumens gradually until the light in the chamber was almost daylight.  Lara heard the sputter of the flare as it gave out and she threw it away.  As she reached for the flare, she stopped as she realized that she was looking at where the flares were strapped to her hip.  She could see them clearly.

                Lara looked up.  The lamps hanging from the walls were unlit, the flare was comletely out, yet there was an abundance of light inside the subterranean chamber.  Curiouser and curiouser... she thought as she stopped in front of the doors.  The doors had no apparent locks or bars, but they were made of gold and stood at least thirty feet high.  "Now then...should I knock, or just let myself in?"  She reached up to knock on the door.

                "WHO COMES TO ASK AUDIENCE OF THE ORACLE OF DELPHI?"

                Lara started, jumping back in surprise at the sound of the voice booming from the doors.  She cleared her throat.  "Lara Croft."

                "THROUGH ME YOU ENTER THE PRESENCE OF APOLLO, AND MUST DEMONSTRATE YOURSELF WORTHY BY PASSING THE THREE TESTS."

                "What tests?" she asked, resistng the urge to go for her weapons, suspecting a trap.

                "THE TEST OF MIND, THE TEST OF BODY AND THE TEST OF SOUL.  THOSE WHO ARE FOUND WANTING WILL BE DENIED THE ORACLE'S PRESENCE."

                "Seems a bit selective...did you have these tests for those wanting to see the Oracle hundreds of years ago?"

                Lara wasn't expecting an answer, but she got one anyways. "DO YOU REALIZE HOW BORING IT IS TO WAIT HUNDREDS OF YEARS FOR PEOPLE WITH INTELLIGENT QUESTIONS?"

                Lara stared.  I don't believe it...I'm getting straight lines from the architecture!  "Well, having a hundred-ton monster at the door does tend to discourage tourists."

                "OF COURSE.  THE GIFT OF PROHPECY IS NOT FOR THOSE WANTING TO KNOW WHO WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES AND WISH TO KNOW THE POINT SPREAD."

                Lara's jaw dropped.  "How do you know about that?"

                "IS THAT YOUR QUESTION OF THE ORACLE?"

                "No!" Lara said quickly.

                "GOOD."

                If I didn't know better, I'd say this overgrown pet door was having a laugh at my expense!  "I hate to be insistent, but I'm in a terrible rush."

                "VERY WELL, LARA CROFT.  ENTER THROUGH ME AND FACE THE FIRST OF YOUR TESTS."  The doors opened slowly, revealing a dark chamber beyond.  As she walked towards the door, a thought struck her.  "One question...of you, not the Oracle.  Are you some sort of guardian, creating the tests anew everytime someone else comes to visit the Oracle?"

                "NO.  I AM SIMPLY A DOOR, EMPOWERED TO SPEAK WHEN I WAS INSTRUCTED TO BY THE ORACLE."

                Lara stopped.  "You mean you're not intelligent?"

                "CORRECT."

                "Then how were you able to respond to me?"

                "I DID NOT RESPOND.  I WAS INSTRUCTED TO SAY THESE WORDS WHEN THE PROPER TIME CAME TO PASS."

                "Then you knew that I would be here, what I would do, what I would say?"

                "NO.  THE ORACLE DID, AND SHE INSTRUCTED ME TO RESPOND IN THIS WAY."

                "When?"

                "ALMOST TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO."

                Lara's mind suddenly slipped from first to neutral.  "The Oracle....knew then...what would happen now?"

                "YES.  ONE MORE MESSAGE: THE KRAKEN WILL HEAL FROM THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE GRENADE."

                Lara shook herself and took a deep breath, walking into the chamber trying not to think about the implications of what was said.  As the doors closed slowly behind her, she turned back and called, "I suppose it would be no use to ask you to wish me good luck, then?"

                "GOOD LUCK.  YOU'LL NEED IT."

                Lara faced the darkness and the doors closed behind her.

                TO BE CONTINUED...