Achilles' Heel, Part IV: The Odyssey
By C. Mage
As the five sea-cycles homed in on Lara's position, she couldn't help but comment: "That's it. Next time I take a commission to find something in Greece, I'm calling in sick that year." She turned inland, only to find that, instead of a gently sloping beach, the terrain ahead was a fifty-foot stretch of sand leading to the edge of a steep cliff, more than three hundred feet high. To the sides was another seventy feet of beach, spotted with large rocks, tapering off against the cliff. Wonderful. Caught between a rock...and some hard cases. I go up the cliff and I'm a sitting duck. I go into the sea and I'm shot before I reach the drop-off. Those rocks will provide some cover, but that won't help in a firefight, especially since I'm unarmed. Think, Lara, think!
As the watercraft approached, she looked out into the water and noticed a pair of shimmering blobs on the surface near the edge of the beach. Lara grinned. What I need is an edge...a nice, sharp, painful edge...
The men saw her move behind some of the rocks to their right, gunning the engines as they got closer to shore. It took them a few minutes to hit the sand, and when they did, they immediately ran around the side of the rock where they saw Lara disappear. They fired bursts of ammunition only to slaughter empty air and silent sand.
"Be watchful," the leader said, scanning the beach, "she's around here somewhere. Spread out and find her. Find her and kill her." The men nodded and divided, three moving to the east beach, the others moving to the west. They primed their guns, on edge, whether from dedication to their Masters or fear of their target, none could tell. All of them had read dossiers on Lara Croft prior to their mission, and prepared themselves for anything.
The men moving to the west passed two sets of rocks, then turned a corner to see Lara Croft, hands behind her back, wearing a smile...and little else. The men stopped, stared, and lowered their weapons about three inches.
"Now, boys...don't you think you've seen enough?" Lara said, throwing her arms up as if to embrace them both. At that point, the two men realized three things.
First, Lara Croft was wearing something after all: gloves.
Second, she had thrown something at their faces.
And third, jellyfish tendrils react extraordinarily harshly with human skin, nostrils and eyes.
"Well, since you gentlemen have something new to occupy your time, you won't mind if I borrow these, do you?" Lara finished removing her gloves and reclaiming her wetsuit, shoes and waterproof bag, then picked up the Uzis and extra clips. Normally, the two men would've done more to stop her, but they had a new hobby: trying to claw their faces off.
Well, this equalizes things, doesn't it? She moved towards the watercraft on the beach, moving from rock to rock. After those screams, the others will be on their way presently...
Lara came out from behind a rock and bullets peppered the rock and sand around her. She spun away, but not before taking a bullet in her arm. Lara hissed and surveyed the damage. That'll leave a nice scar unless I get to a doctor and soon.
She took a quick look, her eyes picking out where the shooters were, then backed up against the rock, counting to ten, she poked her head out to draw their fire, pulled it back, then jumped to the side and first off a long burst from each Uzi. The thug to her left took all seven rounds from her left Uzi in the chest, having made the mistake of trying to get closer to her position without sufficient cover...like the Chrysler Building. The thug in the center pulled back for cover, but not before taking a round in the leg and one in the chest, completely ruining his afternoon.
Lara tucked her head down, rolling behind another large stone and pressing her back against the rock. "You realize, of course, that surrender may soon no longer be an option!"
The thug cursed at her in Greek and reloaded.
"My my, such language." Lara smiled. She was tired, sore in several places and bleeding, and she was having the time of her life. "Don't make me come over there and wash your mouth out!"
The shooter retreated, running back from stone to stone towards the Sea-Doo he'd used to get there. Lara chased after him, but remained cautious to make sure she didn't make herself vulnerable in her pursuit.
Her wary tactic, however, made it easy for the reckless thug to get to the watercraft first, pushing his out into the water and starting the motor.
In a compound halfway across Europe, three men watched the screen in front of them as it displayed a series of five small lights superimposed over a digital wireframe map. As one of the blips left the island, the figure in the middle turned to his companion to his left. "The Target has eliminated four of the agents."
"Immaterial. They were all designated as expendable. Terminate him."
Lara stopped as she reached the beach, the unknown thug already making serious speed away from the island. "Blast!" she swore as the man made his escape.
As if on cue, the watercraft did exactly that, a massive fireball enveloping the vehicle and flash-frying the rider.
Lara stared, then looked at the other Sea-Doos, resting innocently upon the sand. She opened up the compartment under the seat carefully. As the cushion rose, she saw a wire leading from the seat to an explosive device next to the motor. "Bloody hell...whoever these men work for, they must be saving a bundle by doing away with retirement benefits."
She looked towards the sea, then took out her pouch. She was no bomb disposal expert, but she was faced with either defusing the bomb somehow, or waiting for a boat to come along and pick her up.
And David didn't have that kind of time.
She looked over the bomb carefully. From what she knew from David's coaching, the bomb was too simple to add in such features as voltage monitors or motion triggers. It was rigged to go off if someone opened up the seat, so the bomb still had a few tricks up its sleeves. She took out a small battery from her flashlight, attached a pair of alligator clips to the positive and negative sides, then sorted out the wires going to the battery of the watercraft. She took a long, deep breath and attached the clips to the wires. She took out a set of wireclippers, made a short prayer, then cut the lead wire.
The three men watched the scope. The first turned to the others. "Is she still alive?"
The second answered, "If she is, she must be wounded, or biding her time."
The third inquired, "Has she discovered the bombs?"
"If she has, it is unlikely she would use them, for fear of activating them." The second smiled. "And she has no EOD training according to our records."
"Wait." The third pointed at the screen as one of the blips began to move away from the edge of the beach. "She apparently hasn't spotted the bombs."
"Good. Detonate them all. Make sure if anyone finds them, all they find is scrap."
The second man activated the ARM icon on the touchscreen and held a finger over the FIRE icon. "Goodbye, Lara Croft." He pressed the icon and the other four blips on the screen flared, then disappeared.
Lara turned as the Sea-Doo she was towing went up behind her. Even as far away as she was, she could still feel the heat blast scald her back. The other two watercraft and the bomb she'd left behind on the beach did likewise. She stopped for a moment to pull in the towline, and as she did so, she looked across the water to the west where her boat should have been. Antony…either you're dead, or you're going to be. She wound up the line, looking at the frayed end. But first, I have to find that spear. And I need you alive, Antony. You better be alive.
She drove the Sea-Doo away from the island, glad she had siphoned the tanks of the other watercraft. She had no idea just how far off course she was, so Lara figured she had a long ride ahead of her until she got her bearings once more.
Antony walked into his home and sat down in his easy chair, taking out his keys and wallet and putting them on the table. Debriefing with the Masters was always tiring, although he'd never admit it out loud. Not anywhere. He never knew just how many listening devices were around. As he sat down, he began to wonder if he should feel any remorse. Lara Croft was an old friend, but the Masters had a Great Design to change the world, bring about a new order, eradicate the chaos that had infected the Earth. He shook his head. Remorse was a failing his Masters kept trying to remove. Best to abandon it, lest it come back to haunt him later.
He laid back his head, closing his eyes as he reclined. He would've gone right to sleep, except for the cold sensation on his forehead. He reached up to rub it and his fingers found cold metal. His eyes opened.
"Wakey, wakey, Antony." Lara smiled cruelly as she pressed the barrel of the gun down on Antony's forehead. "Who paid you to sell me out?"
"Lara…Lara, you're alive…! When those men came after me, I feared the worst!" he exclaimed, trying to sound relieved.
"Let me tell you about the 'worst', Antony. The worst is having an old friend betray me."
"I did no such thing! I was being shot at…!"
"They must be horrible shots. Their vehicles were faster than your own cruiser, yet there isn't a single bullet hole in your boat." She pulled back the hammer. "They managed to wing me, though, and I'm slightly trimmer than a thirty-five foot boat. So I'm going to ask you again, Antony. Who paid you to sell me out?"
"I can't. You have no idea what they'll do to me if I tell you!"
"Perhaps not, but I can imagine what I'll do if you don't."
"It's already too late. They know you're here."
"You mean the little bugs around your house? Found them. I am surprised, the bugs are rather sophisticated and there were sixteen of them. Means you're high enough to know what's going on, but your people don't trust you. Can't imagine why. Now TALK."
"I can't! They'll know."
"Then tell me where the Spear is."
"What spear?"
"Britney Spears. What Spear do you think I'm talking about? The Spear of Achilles. Antony, out of respect for all the years you've helped me out, I'm going to cut you a break. Instead of shooting you in the head first, I'm going to shoot you in the privates."
"WAIT! Wait!!"
Lara's mouth turned from a wicked smile to an angry wall of teeth barely covered by twisted lips. "I'm going to count to five." She aimed the gun between his legs. "Five!"
"IT'S AT THE CENTER!!" Antony shrieked.
"The Center?"
"It's in the Aegean Isles. There's…there's an underwater base where they conduct tests…"
"Keep talking, Antony. Where is it exactly?"
Antony began to blubber as he told her how to find it, giving her coordinates and underwater landmarks. As he did so, he hoped that Lara was right and that all the bugs were deactivated. He didn't want to know what the Masters would do if they found out what he told Lara.
"Congratulations, Antony. You get to live AND be able to father children." She pulled the gun away and backed towards the door. "If I ever see you again, I will kill you. Understand me?"
Antony nodded and watched her leave. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God."
*Don't be too grateful just yet,* said a voice in his skull.
"What...?!" he asked, jerking upright and looking around.
*Do you know what a mastoid implant is, Antony? It's a rather sophisticated voice transmitter at the base of your lower jaw that transmits every single word you say...to us.*
"Masters, I...!!"
*Spare us your attempts to plead for your life, Antony. You were kept alive only long enough to tell Miss Croft where to find the base, where she will meet the end of her career. You have now outlived hyour usefulness to us.*
Antony went to his knees. "Please, forgive me..." he said in a hoarse croak.
*Forgiveness is an overrated virtue. Antony...you're fired.*
Antony didn't even have time to get a quick prayer out before the second implant, a tiny shaped charge inside the cranium itself, turned his brain to oatmeal, causing some to project from his ears and nose. He fell forward into darkness.
Back in the Center, one of the Masters, a woman named Electra, turned to another console. "Bring the Base to Yellow Alert. We're going to have company soon." She smiled. She'd been looking forward to testing the Center's defense systems, and now she had the perfect crash test dummy.
Emphasis on the word crash.
Lara, however, had no desire to end up as some facility's punching bag. If Antony and his friends were any indication, she was dealing with some seriously ruthless people, not to mention well-funded people. Underwater bases made for very solitary places. That meant these people would not skimp on security, and they'll probably include some natural security as well, Lara thought as she sipped her coffee. The yacht was one of her best-kept secrets. She kept a small fleet of them, purchased under different aliases through dummy sales. David knew every trick in the book, a knack he'd picked up from a couple of friends of his that used to be accountants from criminal organizations. With his help, and some re-working of the internal structures, the yachts were floating bases, able to deploy submersibles, anti-detection buoys and other tricks from hatches built below the boat's water line. David liked to refer to them in communications as "icebergs".
Lara smiled at the memory. As she emptied her cup, thinking about David brought back memories of Michael, and that sobered her. It had been a few years, but she still remembered his face when they had adventured in Europe...
"Lara, they're closing in on us!" Michael exclaimed. "Any ideas?"
"We just have to get across the roofs. There's a fire escape down to the street level and we can lose ourselves in the crowd at the carnival."
"How can people party in this kind of weather? It's raining!" Michael shook his head in disbelief.
"Less talk, more run!" Lara ran across the roof and leaped across the gap. As she landed, she felt her feet slip out from under her. As her feet slipped off the incline, she grabbed at anything she could, her hands finding the edge and hanging on. "Michael!"
Michael turned as he landed, lying flat to keep from slipping off himself. "Lara, hang on!"
She tried to pull herself up, but her grip was slipping fast. "I'm trying!"
Michael stood up carefully, moving over to her and bracing his feet against the lip of the roof. He reached down to her. "Grab my hand!"
Lara reached out, almost flailing her arm to reach him. As she stretched her left hand to him, she felt her right hand slipping. "Michael!!"
Then she felt his grip around her arm, pulling her up easily. As she moved up onto her front, she sighed in relief. "Thank you, Michael...don't know what I'd do without..."
That's when she felt Michael lying on top of her, felt him tremble on top of her, then she heard the rapid succession of pops. She twisted her head around to see their two pursuers cresting the top of a roof. She drew her Uzi and fired, no longer concerned how many reinforcements were behind the two men. Lead raked the air and ripped the two pursuers apart.
That's when she felt Michael slipping off the roof. Her eyes went wide as she tried to turn to grab him, but the very action pushed Michael away even more. She reached for him, grabbed for him, missed...watching him slide off the building. Then his head came up as his chin touched the roof.
Lara looked into Michael's eyes and saw nothing there. Then he slipped off the roof...
He hadn't even made a sound as he fell. She'd abandoned that adventure, leaving the knowledge of the location of Rembrandt's lost art to the ages, and went home. She had been devastated, crushed. It had taken weeks of therapy for her to even leave the house, much less resume her adventurous habits. It wasn't easy; many of her rivals thought Lara had finally lost it.
It took the challenge of a lost chalice to get her back on her feet, and meeting David helped her to ease the pain. It was easy to forget, with David's easy laugh, his relentless desire to live, his playfulness, and him being a crack shot didn't hurt in the least.
Then came the day when she realized she was falling in love with him. The thought should've made her happy, but it made her worried instead. Before, it was easy, if something happened, there was nothing truly tying them together, and they could've parted ways easily...at least, Lara thought so. But she knew David. David wanted her to be his wife, and she knew that if she lost David, it would bring back all the pain and loss she'd felt when Michael died. Perhaps, even deeper, more painful. She still had nightmares about Michael's death. In those dreams, she was standing before Michael's secret grave, unable to move as the grave collapsed and Michael's rotting corpse rose from the hole, pointing his skeletal finger at her accusingly. "It should've been you...you let me die..."
Lara always woke from those dreams, cold sweat bathing her. She never told David about those dreams, but she had a feeling that David sensed something was up, but he never asked why.
So, every time she heard David warm up to the idea of discussing marriage, Lara knew how to change the subject, distract him. But he was becoming harder to placate recently. As much as the idea appalled her, she realized that she actually felt a sense of relief while David was in the hospital, dying. She even found herself wondering if it would be so bad if David did die...
She had to shake herself mentally after thoughts like those. I am not going to let David die...why, the very idea!! Lara opened up her laptop, narrowing her eyes as she checked the sonar. "I'm not going to let that happen again...I am not going to be the cause of David's death...!"
The sonar signaled her, showing her a topographical map of the sea bottom. She smiled as she saw a shallow dome at the hub of eight smaller domes. The base was the size of a football stadium, and there was other movement in the sea around the base. She brought the submersible to the ocean floor, hiding its profile amid rocks and other ground clutter to fool sonar. "Right. Let's see. My, someone certainly went for the full option package with this base of operations. I wonder if one gets a discount on construction costs when buying options like ultrasonic tremblers, motion detectors and…" Her eyes widened slightly as she caught wind of electronic signals coming from groups of sharks that circled the base relentlessly. "…biologicals. Someone obviously doesn't want the neighborhood children to play on their front lawn."
She sat back in her chair, mindful of the air supply. "The sharks are likely there to seek out enemies by scent. There's so much metal in the area that my pod hasn't set off their little noses, but it's likely that as soon as my own smell comes within range, I'll be fish food." She tucked her braid under the hood of her wetsuit and opened up a case, picking up a bottle. "Fortunately, a woman of my breeding knows when not to offend." She smiled and sprayed a rather foul-smelling oil on her wetsuit. "A little 'Eau de Great White' and I'll be able to mingle with the rest of the party easily. Or at least until I get inside." She picked up her wet-bag and airgun and made her way to the airlock. As the small chamber filled with water, Lara popped the mouthpiece of the sea-lung into her mouth. The sea-lung was a new development in underwater exploration. Instead of an actual tank of portable atmosphere, the sea-lung was developed by the CIA as a means to prolong underwater operations by enabling the user to actual draw oxygen from the water itself by drawing the water through a series of membranes and pressurized chambers. Of course, the wearer looked like she was holding a squid in her mouth, but what the sea-lung lacked in aesthetics, it more than made up for it by losing cumbersome SCUBA tanks, enabling Lara to carry more necessary gear. Still leaves the oddest taste in my mouth, Lara thought as she swam closer to the base, and it's damnably uncomfortable. I'm going to have to talk to Director Channing about that when I talk to him next.
She stopped and looked up as the sharks glided overhead, each one at least twenty feet long. There was a pair that was bigger than the others, each not less than forty feet long. Those must be the alphas of the group. Not even I have a wall big enough to mount those trophies. Lara waited, but the oil seemed to have done its work well. The sharks were not more than sixty feet above her and they didn't even pause in their patrol. She would've smiled if she hadn't been wearing the sea-lung. Good. Now, time to get to work.
She spent the next hour placing limpet mines over the structural supports of the base, each one capable of delivering a powerful explosive punch. And with the charges designed to focus the explosive force in one direction, against their targets, the mines would easily cause enough damage to the supports to allow the pressure of trillions of gallons of water to do the rest. And to make sure they weren't found, she'd colored the mines the same shade of the dull gray of the metal outside the base, and set up a passive receiving radio trigger, to keep the mines from being found by trying to trace their signal. Once placed, they were invisible. Of course, now I have to get inside, and God only knows what's waiting inside. If it weren't for the Spear inside, I'd blow the dome right now and watch the ocean crush it like an aluminum can for what they did to Dave.
Lara stopped as she realized how venomous that thought had been. Can't allow myself to be distracted like that. My emotions will kill me faster than one of those sharks if I let myself be led astray. Finish the job and find the Spear. When Dave is up and around, then I can put my attentions into revenge. I'll even let Dave help. After all, what sort of couple would we be if we didn't look for opportunities to do things together?
She nodded, then swam along the dome towards one of the hatches along the upper edge.
The Matron looked up from her resting place in the main hall. Construction was moving along smoothly. The Gamma Hive was nearly complete, and the bio-mechanical computer systems were integrating nicely. The defenses were in place, and once the final amenities for the Masters' Chambers was complete, the base would be one-hundred-percent online.
One of the techs overseeing the project came in. Her female form designated her as one of the managerial caste. "Matron, we have a breach. One of the hatches for the water filtration system has opened and closed outside of scheduled operations."
It's about time, Ms. Croft. "How long ago?"
"Two minutes."
"Good. I hated having to hold back the guards. Instruct the technicians to clear the halls and chambers and return to their resting places, but quietly. No announcements over the public address system. Once that is done, release the Soldiers, but do not have her mangled. I wish her body intact. With it, we can turn her, perhaps even make her a Queen. After all, she seems built for it. And with her resources available to us, we can use them to gain even more power. The Masters would reward us well if we were able to bring them into our world completely ahead of schedule."
"Your will be done, Matron."
Lara crawled out of the muck of the water treatment pool, glad her wetsuit was a full-body type, but wishing that it fully covered her face. The green scum stung where it touched her cheeks, and as she washed herself off in one of the pools of fresh water, she realized that the slime had actually eaten away at the sea-lung and was still trying to consume it. She tossed it to the ground in disgust and cleaned her face thoroughly. Whatever it was, the stinging sensation didn't last long and the reflective surface of her mask told her that there was no damage to her skin. She gathered a sample of the substance for future examination, then looked around at the chamber she was in.
The chamber was sizable, easily a hundred feet wide, and nearly every inch of the hexagonal room was covered in vats of water, half steeped in the green slime she'd encountered, the other half filled with crystal clear water. She also noted feeling slightly high, and she recalled the feeling from her many times in the hospital. Oxygen…the oxygen in here is highly concentrated. Must be a result of the purification process. Remarkable…but highly flammable. She made her way to the main door and opened it slowly, feeling air rush at her back as the water purifying chamber equalized the air pressure with the rest of the base.
However, the rest of the base did not exactly resemble the chamber Lara had seen first.
Instead of steel and glass, the interior of the base was covered, floor, walls and ceiling, in a light gray resinous compound. She closed the door behind her and looked around, touching the wall to her left with a gloved hand. Very odd…what sort of material is this? It doesn't look like any foam or plastic compound I've ever seen before. It appears…organic.
At that point, Lara was forced to consider what sort of creature could secrete a compound like this, as well as how large and how many there would have to be to be able to make this much. Her fears were vindicated as she heard chittering coming from up ahead, and saw shadows moving in the dark.
Oh, bollocks…I'm in a sodding undersea ant farm!!
TO BE CONTINUED…