leaving the muscles exposed.
To his right, the second figure had a crack running through his tinted visor. Beneath it the skin seemed to rupture, the lidless eyes swiveling as he hunted for prey.
The face of the third Magistrate, the one with the demon child’s skull decorating his helmet, seemed to be oozing away, teeth and bone visible through the torn flesh of his chin, his lipless mouth drawn back in a cruel snarl.
And if the third had been like something from a nightmare, the fourth was infinitely worse. This one’s face was nothing more than blackness, a shining pool of dark in the shape of a skull.
The weapons of these Dark Magistrates blasted again, firing another burst of screaming bullets at the Cerberus exiles. As they came closer, the Cerberus warriors could hear a strange shrieking noise emanating through the streets, screeches and hums that seemed to cut off abruptly like badly edited audio tape.
“Are they...human?” Grant spit, still eying the eerie-looking Mags along the length of his Sin Eater.
“They’re...Magistrates,” Kane said in disbelief. “But they can’t be.”
“They are,” Brigid insisted, “and they’re getting closer.”
“You’re nuts, Baptiste,” Kane growled. “If they’re Magistrates, then where the hell are we?”
“‘Hell’ may be closer than you think, Kane,” Brigid chided ominously.
Beyond the blackened car chassis, the fearsome-looking Magistrates took another pace closer to their prey, their Soul Eater pistols bucking in their hands as they blasted in tandem.
* * *
“T HEY ’ RE OFF THE MAP ,” Beth Delaney blurted as Lakesh stood over her, staring at the computer screen.
Lakesh scanned the screen for a long moment, studying the map that was projected there. The map featured an overlay grid identifying the largest and most significant locations. That grid should also be showing the glowing report from the transponders of Kane, Grant and Brigid, three shining dots that could be tapped for additional data. But, as Delaney had stated, they were not there.
“What happened, exactly?” Lakesh asked, his gentle tone belying the rising fear he felt at the sudden disappearance of his colleagues. “Track back for me.”
Delaney shook her head, her blond hair brushing her shoulders. “I don’t know exactly,” she said, regretfully. “One moment, we were getting a strong transponder signal from each operative. The next time I looked—they’d gone.”
“So, where are they?” Lakesh demanded.
“I ran a systems check,” Delaney assured him. “It showed everything was intact. We can track our other transponder implants. It’s just Kane’s team that has disappeared.”
“That’s impossible,” Brewster Philboyd chipped in from where he had overheard the conversation from his own workstation just a few desks along. “Even if Kane and company were killed, we would still get a location signal. Their life signs would just be flat.”
Lakesh nodded, welcoming the talented astrophysicist’s opinion. Philboyd was a logical thinker and good with a mystery, he knew. “Unless their bodies were completely obliterated,” Lakesh suggested grimly.
“In that case, you should still be able to track back to the moment of death,” Philboyd insisted. “It would stand out as a sudden peak in the transponder signals, all three going at once.”
Considering this for a moment, Lakesh nodded, accepting Philboyd’s hypothesis. “Most likely. Then, what would you suggest has happened, Mr. Philboyd?” Lakesh encouraged.
“The transponders can be switched off,” the astrophysicist proposed, “but they are very hard to find. One would have to know what one was looking for to do that. Alternatively, the signal could be jammed somehow, but that would likely create a trace echo—a null zone that would be as obvious as if the transponders were still functioning.”
“What if it was a very wide null zone?” Lakesh asked.
Deep in thought now, Philboyd
To his right, the second figure had a crack running through his tinted visor. Beneath it the skin seemed to rupture, the lidless eyes swiveling as he hunted for prey.
The face of the third Magistrate, the one with the demon child’s skull decorating his helmet, seemed to be oozing away, teeth and bone visible through the torn flesh of his chin, his lipless mouth drawn back in a cruel snarl.
And if the third had been like something from a nightmare, the fourth was infinitely worse. This one’s face was nothing more than blackness, a shining pool of dark in the shape of a skull.
The weapons of these Dark Magistrates blasted again, firing another burst of screaming bullets at the Cerberus exiles. As they came closer, the Cerberus warriors could hear a strange shrieking noise emanating through the streets, screeches and hums that seemed to cut off abruptly like badly edited audio tape.
“Are they...human?” Grant spit, still eying the eerie-looking Mags along the length of his Sin Eater.
“They’re...Magistrates,” Kane said in disbelief. “But they can’t be.”
“They are,” Brigid insisted, “and they’re getting closer.”
“You’re nuts, Baptiste,” Kane growled. “If they’re Magistrates, then where the hell are we?”
“‘Hell’ may be closer than you think, Kane,” Brigid chided ominously.
Beyond the blackened car chassis, the fearsome-looking Magistrates took another pace closer to their prey, their Soul Eater pistols bucking in their hands as they blasted in tandem.
* * *
“T HEY ’ RE OFF THE MAP ,” Beth Delaney blurted as Lakesh stood over her, staring at the computer screen.
Lakesh scanned the screen for a long moment, studying the map that was projected there. The map featured an overlay grid identifying the largest and most significant locations. That grid should also be showing the glowing report from the transponders of Kane, Grant and Brigid, three shining dots that could be tapped for additional data. But, as Delaney had stated, they were not there.
“What happened, exactly?” Lakesh asked, his gentle tone belying the rising fear he felt at the sudden disappearance of his colleagues. “Track back for me.”
Delaney shook her head, her blond hair brushing her shoulders. “I don’t know exactly,” she said, regretfully. “One moment, we were getting a strong transponder signal from each operative. The next time I looked—they’d gone.”
“So, where are they?” Lakesh demanded.
“I ran a systems check,” Delaney assured him. “It showed everything was intact. We can track our other transponder implants. It’s just Kane’s team that has disappeared.”
“That’s impossible,” Brewster Philboyd chipped in from where he had overheard the conversation from his own workstation just a few desks along. “Even if Kane and company were killed, we would still get a location signal. Their life signs would just be flat.”
Lakesh nodded, welcoming the talented astrophysicist’s opinion. Philboyd was a logical thinker and good with a mystery, he knew. “Unless their bodies were completely obliterated,” Lakesh suggested grimly.
“In that case, you should still be able to track back to the moment of death,” Philboyd insisted. “It would stand out as a sudden peak in the transponder signals, all three going at once.”
Considering this for a moment, Lakesh nodded, accepting Philboyd’s hypothesis. “Most likely. Then, what would you suggest has happened, Mr. Philboyd?” Lakesh encouraged.
“The transponders can be switched off,” the astrophysicist proposed, “but they are very hard to find. One would have to know what one was looking for to do that. Alternatively, the signal could be jammed somehow, but that would likely create a trace echo—a null zone that would be as obvious as if the transponders were still functioning.”
“What if it was a very wide null zone?” Lakesh asked.
Deep in thought now, Philboyd
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