Distortion Offensive by James Axler Page A

had been taken from her when she was five years old. Except Abigail had never existed; she had been a part of a false memory that had ensnared the Cerberus warriors within a hell cage called the Janus Trap. Abihad never existed, and yet she had awoken something within Brigid, triggered something that Brigid had only barely been aware of up until that moment.
    Balam looked at the beautiful redhead for a moment, a quizzical furrow appearing on his immense brow.
    Brigid shook her head, partly in response and partly to clear it of the morbid and pointless thoughts that teased her of Abigail, the girl who never was. “Would it be likely that the Ontic Library is simply breaking apart of its own accord?” she asked. “Perhaps through age?”
    â€œNever,” Balam told her. “The place has been accessed, most probably for the first time in many millennia, for it dates as far back as Anu himself.”
    Anu, Brigid knew, was the first of the Annunaki to visit Earth, a spiritual forefather to their invading race.
    â€œOnly an Annunaki would access this place, Brigid,” Balam told her with gravity. “No one else.”
    â€œNot even by accident?” Brigid asked.
    â€œNo,” Balam assured her. “The librarians would never allow that.”
    â€œLibrarians,” Brigid said with a knowing smile. She herself was a librarian by trade, which was to say an archivist in her days in Cobaltville.
    â€œYou’ll see,” Balam said, and the trace of a smile crossed his own pasty features. As Balam spoke those words, Brigid watched his expression alter slightly, wondering that she saw something in his oddly shaped face. She felt it was a glimmer of something not altogether kindly.

Chapter 7
    Inside the washroom, Lakesh ran his hands under the faucet, dampening them with water before splashing it over his face in an effort to revive himself. He really did feel tired, but wasn’t sure whether he was just imagining physical symptoms or was mentally exhausted.
    He was getting old; he recognized it from the last time, when he had reached almost 150 thanks to organ transplants and other medical magic. When Enlil, in his guise as Sam the Imperator, had granted Lakesh a nanobot-rich nutrient bath that revived a measure of his youth, Lakesh had never expected it to have hidden strings attached.
    â€œCurse me for a fool,” Lakesh muttered as he watched the water drain down his lined face in the washroom mirror before the basin.
    Everything that Enlil ever did had had strings attached. The man—creature?—was Machiavellian in his planning, every loss a win, every benefit a blight. And so it was proving this time, and Lakesh cursed himself once more for being surprised.
    Lakesh looked once more at the man in the mirror, the familiar lines around his eyes and over his forehead and at the corners of his mouth.
    â€œWhat now, old man?” he muttered, wiping the lastof the dripping water from his face with a paper towel from the dispenser beside the basin. “What now, you old, worn-out thing?”
    Â 
    W HEN HE RETURNED TO THE observation room, Lakesh found Donald Bry, Kane, Grant, Clem Bryant and Reba DeFore talking in muted tones among themselves as they waited for him. The tiny room felt cramped and warm with all those bodies in it, and Lakesh found himself backed up against the closing door. While the others spoke, Lakesh noted that oceanographer Clem was peering with some interest at the weird, alien figure of Balam through the one-way glass, a look of vexation on his usually calm features.
    â€œAre these the creatures?” Lakesh asked, indicating the bag in Grant’s hand as he held out his hands.
    â€œThis is them,” Grant growled, passing the bag to the Cerberus operational leader.
    Lakesh peered in the bag for a moment, before distracting Clem’s attention away from the alien figure sitting a few feet away on the other side of the reinforced glass