Chương 87: 2.28 A Stealthy Return

Hector's return to the cave was slower than his outbound trip, mostly because he had to climb his way out of the swampy palus ash woods. Without gravity on his side, his leaping progress from one tree to the next was tiresome work, each bound taking considerable effort. As a result, he had to pause frequently to rest. He'd lean against a tree, trying to remain perfectly still, while he watched for the predatory cranes.

Twice, he was spotted by the vicious birds, and twice he decided a fight wasn't the best move; he used his Shadow Stalk ability to escape. After that, he repeated its use liberally, traveling while cloaked in darkness. When his aura pool ran low, he crouched motionless against a tree and let it recover. By the time he regained the stony plains leading up to the mountain ridge, three hours had passed.

By then, the rift's day-night cycle was trending toward darkness and the creatures stirring on the vast, empty plain were starting to raise a din—howls, clicking growls, occasional barking coughs, and the gut-twisting calls of the hook titans, more felt than heard. Hector crouched there, listening and watching, and resolved to avoid fights if at all possible; every direction he looked held half a dozen threats.

He saw more than one reaper slinking along, dozens of lurkers, spine thrashers, flayer cats, and even the long, squirming shape of a pregnant stripe snake. At first, he wondered where all the prey animals were. How could so many predators coexist? Then he heard the hooting pipes of a downed spine-bag, and saw seven or eight different creatures working to rip it open, feasting on the undeveloped spine thrasher juveniles within.

The sight reinforced Hector's resolve to hurry and avoid conflict, so he focused on an outcropping in the distance—one large enough to conceal him—and then he activated Shadow Stalk and ran for it. The aura talent was uncanny in its ability to hide him; he ran within ten meters of a reaper and the thing didn't even glance at him. When he neared the outcropping, he checked his aura pool, saw he had enough to continue, and sprinted toward a different outcropping about thirty meters farther on.

Once he'd tucked himself in among the boulders, Hector held very still, waiting for his aura to regenerate. When Evie told him it was full, he repeated the same process. In that manner, he worked his way across the rocky plain, and when he reached the steep, sharp-edged mountains, he did the same thing, climbing toward the pass he'd crossed through before.

When he was halfway up, resting in the damp, chalky soil beneath a large, flat boulder that was planted in the slope as if thrown there, Evie interrupted his travels with an announcement: //The system is about to finish propagating the pathways for your corpus vivum improvements. It's likely to be debilitating for several minutes. // Guess I better hold still for a few, then. //It should be imminent. // Hector decided to check in on Paige.

He'd heard her speaking through their open comm channel to Mathews earlier, but had been too distracted to pay attention. He'd just taken note of her tone—relaxed—and then tuned it out.

"How are things looking?" It took her a few seconds to respond, but when she did, she didn't sound at ease.

"I, um, I think there's a problem."

"How so?" Hector's gaze shifted to his other comm channels, ready to reach out to Frederick if Paige's next words didn't sound right.

"I was reviewing drone footage, you know, of the areas I scanned today. Well, I got through that, and it occurred to me that maybe I'd find something new if I looked at the footage of the bomb—the, uh, drone attack."

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. Only thing is, a bunch of the footage was gone. Like, I couldn't find the bomb or the minutes leading up to it." Hector's scowl deepened.

"Who has access to the drone footage?"

"Just me and Bobby. Well, Mathews, but she'd have to log in through one of our tablets."

"And she's been out of it."

"Right. I mean, it's suspicious, isn't it? But what if Bobby erased it by accident? What if it's a corrupted—""You know it's not." Hector could tell from her tone.

"No, I suppose not. There are redundancies. The backups were altered, too, and, um, I had the AI perform an audit; it was Bobby." Before Hector could respond, she said, " Why, though?" Hector had felt some tightening in his fingers and toes; they were clenching, curling inward in a rather intense spasm.

While he'd listened to Paige, he'd been hoping the sensation would stop there, but it was spreading up his limbs, toward his torso, and he had a feeling his ability to talk or even really think was fast coming to a temporary end.

"Let me think about it," he said, his voice almost a wheeze as his stomach muscles contracted. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Are you okay?"

"Yep." It was all he could do to grunt the word. A few seconds later, he was a ball of spasms, curling in on himself as he heaved and gasped for air. If not for his helmet containing all the noise, he would have surely been reaper food. Hector had seen plenty of similar reactions in his old life, or he might have been worried. As it was, he knew the spasms would pass.

His aura system was making changes to his physiology—most of his previous boosts had been active aura abilities, and their propagation had mostly to do with aura pathways. Hector was almost certain his current discomfort resulted from the Enhanced Bone Density he'd purchased. //It's the Phase Pathways, too. The aura system has to prime your molecular structure to promote phase manipulation. Honestly, I'm impressed you're able to think so clearly. // Just… listen… for… trouble.

Hector's thoughts were growing sluggish, and he had to concentrate to think from one word to the next. As soon as he finished the previous thought, in fact, his mind drifted into a void that, as far as he could tell, rapidly brightened to reveal a dusty road under a sunny sky. A rust-tinted plain stretched off to his right, and on his left, a woman with pale blonde hair strode, smiling up at him with bright gray eyes. Lemon.

"Do you think so?" she asked, her voice familiar, yet achingly distant.

"Think so?" Hector asked, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

"That I'll make enough?"

"For?" Lemon's open smile faded as her eyebrows tented up in concern.

"Are you okay?" When he stared, her eyes narrowed again.

"Don't tease me, Hector! I don't like relying on people, and I'm just starting to feel like…like—" Brilliant white light flooded Hector's eyes; a piercing, high-pitched ringing drowned out his hearing, and the smell of burning hair flooded his nostrils. He coughed and thrashed, and then—it was gone. He instantly fell still, blinking rapidly as he took in the scene outside his helmet. All he saw was the dark, stony expanse of the mountainside. All he heard were his own breaths. The scent of burning hair was gone.

"Evie?" he gasped. //Here. I took the liberty of muting your comms; you were crying out in your delirium. // How long? //48 minutes. Nothing seems to have sniffed out your hiding spot. This section of the slope is relatively untraveled by the rift creatures out there. // Hector shifted onto his stomach; at some point he'd rolled onto his back. He paused there, feeling his body, making himself aware of the full-body ache. My bones. //You'll recover rapidly, but you need nutrients. // When don't I?

He pushed himself into a crouch as he focused on Evie's report: //Potentia infusion into corpus vivum skeletal structure was successful. Aura bonds have been established at the molecular level, increasing density and flexibility. Further applications of potentia may strengthen this mechanism. Rest is recommended. Baseline caloric requirements have increased. Phase pathways have been established within this corpus vivum. These pathways remain nascent.

Matter-state transition abilities will exhibit limited effectiveness and may induce discomfort. //"How long until the level-up is done?" Hector was feeling raw and weak, and he knew he might pass out for a good long while if the level-up hit him before he got back to the cave. //I'd estimate four to six hours. You've been processing potentia faster than my algorithms have been predicting, so err on the side of caution. //"Thanks."

Hector squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, dragging a deep breath in through his nose and slowly exhaling. As he inhaled a normal breath, he listened. Nothing seemed to be close.

"Any word from Paige?" he asked as he climbed out from under the boulder. Something scraped on stone to his right, and he turned just in time to see a reaper notice him. The creature hissed, its legs bunched to leap, and Hector activated Shadow Stalk. He was already two meters away, gliding up the stony slope when the reaper landed atop the boulder with a skitter of razor-sharp claws. Hector ran; he could hear its frustrated hissing as it threw rocks aside, digging with its four arms.

Not long after that, a great thud shook the ground, and Hector turned to see the massive, flat boulder tumbling down the slope. Son of a bitch unearthed it. As for the reaper, it was still digging and scraping, and tasting the air with its long, purple-black tongue. The thing was persistent; Hector had to give it credit for that. While his Shadow Stalk was still active, he ran, putting more and more distance between himself and the furious creature.

The rest of the trip back to the cave was uneventful; he had to dodge a few more predators, but he made good time once he reached the top of the ridge. From there, it was downhill over ground that Evie had mapped with care. About a klick out from the cave, he paused. Evie, alter my location data; make it look like I paused to rest. After a while, have me start moving, but slowly.

The data he was sharing with the team was all voluntary; they hadn't installed any watchdog software in his data port, so Evie didn't have any trouble spoofing the information. Once she let him know it was done, Hector started moving again—much faster than she would report. When he reached the cave, he was cloaked in shadows, and he slipped past the auto-turrets, past the cave mouth, and then slowly, taking care not to stir a pebble, he slinked past Perry, who was on guard duty.

Once behind the big man, Hector turned and continued deeper, silently padding toward the polymer sheet that Paige and Bobby had hung over the tunnel. It wasn't that he was testing Perry or their security in general; he wanted to observe the people in the cave without anyone realizing he was back. Crouching where the sheet met the wall, he used the knife from his kit to cut the tiniest of holes in the material, just large enough to focus his helmet's primary cam through.

That done, he spoke into his comm channel with Paige.

"Well, Paige, how brave are you feeling?"

"Um, not very. Why?"

"I thought of a way to flush out the traitor—or, maybe traitors— in our group, but it might be a little dangerous." He watched as Paige's figure stiffened and she sat up straighter. She was leaning on the wall not far from where Mathews reclined. The commander's eyes were bandaged, but she was awake. Hector could tell because she occasionally used her less-injured arm to lift a bit of food to her lips, chewing methodically as she lay there.

"It's okay if you don't want to," he said when Paige continued to hesitate.

"N-no. I can do it. Just, um, shouldn't we wait until you get back?"

"That's the spirit," Hector said, hoping he wasn't about to get the woman killed.

"Listen, here's what you need to do…"