The Search for Artemis

Chapter NINETEEN

A SIMPLE

GRAB-AND-GO

MISSION


The entire flight to Metis Labs was silent. No one spoke to each other. While staring into the darkness below, Landon imagined that everyone had a different reason for their personal solitude. Some were probably nervous about the mission, dreaming up all sorts of improbable scenarios and figuring out what they’d do should the situation arise. Others were more than likely preoccupied with problems outside the Pantheon, worrying about boys, girls or tests but mentally unaffected by the task at hand. He hoped the reason Dr. Brighton and Brock were not talking was because they were too busy concentrating on piloting.

No matter what the others were thinking about, Landon just concentrated on the world outside the Alpha Chariot, fighting to see anything amidst the shadow-covered mountains and forests. At one point, he saw an orange glow on the horizon and imagined a towering city whose street lamps, buildings, and cars created the massive aura. For a minute, Landon wondered if it might’ve been his old home. It would seem strange to most, but he almost missed the constant din of the big city that he used to hear even into the late hours of the night.

After about an hour and a half, the aircraft went into its active stealth mode, sealing the windows to complete its special undetectable casing. There was no confirmation of this, but when the metal stretched over the small glass hole he’d been looking out of, Landon figured they’d entered Metis Labs airspace.

Before he knew it, Landon felt the weightless sensation that came along with the hovering descent of the Alpha Chariot. Once they had landed, the harness holding Landon disengaged and disappeared back into the seat. Everyone began to stir and got up from their chairs. Dr. Brighton turned from the controls and walked toward the back of the aircraft. With his hand resting on the latch release, he looked back at his team of operatives, anxious to complete another mission.

“All right, team,” he said, “we’re just over two miles from Metis Labs. Remember, this is a simple grab-and-go mission. If all goes well, we’ll be back in the air in about two hours. No one do anything foolish.”

He pressed the button and the platform dropped from behind him, creating a ramp out of the rear of the Alpha Chariot and onto the squishy soil of the woodland clearing.

Landon was the first to disembark, stepping onto the dark ground and awaiting the rest of his team to join him. The air was humid, almost choking him, and the intense smell of pine and wet wood consumed his senses to the point he could almost taste the forest. Apart from the delicate rustling of branches, the woods were eerily silent and the bright moon shone overhead, casting a cool blue glow over them.

“Listen up,” Dr. Brighton continued once the entire team was standing at the ready in the clearing. “These woods are thick and extremely easy to get lost in, so stay close to one another and don’t go wandering off. And now would be a good time to turn on your comm. links.”

Everyone nodded and with a quick press to the ear, activated the communication device. Without another moment to lose, Dr. Brighton lifted his arm, hand extended upward, and then motioned forward toward the woods, signaling for the team to move out.

The woods were dark, so dark in fact that it was almost impossible to see anything more than a few feet in front of them. Dr. Brighton’s pace was fast, giving Landon no time to even process what was going on around him, but rather just remain reactionary, running as close behind Jeremiah Crane as he could and leaping over fallen logs and twigs just in the nick of time.

The forest floor made their movements almost imperceptible, the dampness of the late spring ground cushioning their feet as they trekked closer and closer to the research compound hidden away in the wilderness. If it weren’t for the steady breathing and the occasional brush of a stray, low-lying branch, Landon imagined they could have stalked a wild deer without it knowing they were on its trail.

Again lost in their heads and concentrating on keeping up with Dr. Brighton, the team fell silent as they blew past tree after tree and scaled and descended the uneven terrain of the woods. As they continued through the dark, Landon’s lungs were on fire and his mouth dry to the bone. He breathed heavily in an attempt to replenish the oxygen in his body. The air was thinner than to what he was accustomed. He’d experienced something like it when he first came to the Gymnasium, but judging by his forceful inhalations, he imagined they’d ascended to an altitude much higher than the one to which he was now conditioned.

Lights began to shine through the dense forest from ahead, getting brighter and clearer with every step. Dr. Brighton stopped just before they broke through the tree line and crouched low to the forest floor. The rest of the Pantheon followed suit and hunched over behind their leader, awaiting their orders.

Metis Labs could now easily be seen before them. The complex was surrounded by a reinforced electrified fence with six guards patrolling the perimeter at all times. Standing high in the middle was the fifty-five-story cylindrical tower.

As Landon watched, he could see one of the patrol guards stop and look intently into the woods in their direction. Had the guard heard them approaching? Could he see them congregated behind the tree? But before long, the guard turned back and continued on his rounds.

“Echo,” Dr. Brighton whispered low enough so that the team could just discern what he was saying, “you’ll stay here and guide us through the complex. The rest of us, we’re going to need to move quickly and quietly.”

Everyone nodded in affirmation. Landon could feel his heart starting to beat a bit faster in his chest, just like it felt the moment before jumping off the high-dive.

“Hector, on my signal, take out the guard and bring him here. We’re going to need his access codes.”

“Gotcha,” Cortland answered as his attention turned away from the team and back at the fence. He stood tentatively, awaiting the next patrol to stroll past the area they were watching.

Peregrine whispered, “Here he comes,” and a minute later a muscular man in a dark suit walked into their line of sight.

Dr. Brighton gave the signal, and without blinking, Cortland bolted from the woods. The damp leaves swished under his feet as he took off toward his target. Landon watched nervously as Cortland raced across the grassy space between them and the guard. Cortland had his arms pulled behind him, forming a V shape as he leaned forward and sprinted with unbelievable speed.

The guard soon noticed Cortland racing toward him and reached for a weapon strapped to his side, but before he could pull it from its holster, Cortland made a quick motion of his arms, drawing them from behind and sweeping them forward. The telekinetic force emitted from his movement pushed the guard off his feet and caused him to collide with one of the fence’s support poles, knocking him unconscious.

Cortland ran up to the man, grabbed him by both wrists and dragged him back to the woods. When Landon got a closer look at the guard, a shiver ran through his entire body.

The motionless man wore a black suit, shiny black patent leather shoes, a crisp white shirt and a sleek black tie, and coming up from his collar was a coiled wire that reached up the side of his neck and disappeared into his ear. If it weren’t for his blonde hair, square head and clean-shaven, rigid jaw, Landon wouldn’t have recognized him. It was the same man that chased him through the city after his apocratusis.

Landon stepped back a few feet from the body, his scalp tingling and his suit feeling increasingly tighter. He closed his eyes and fought to regain his composure. He couldn’t let this affect the mission. People were counting on him, but he couldn’t deny that this discovery had shaken him.

Dr. Brighton examined the body and pat down the guard. He pulled a gun he found from the man’s holster and looked it over.

“Tranquilizer gun,” he said as he pulled a loaded round out of the firearm. Effectively disarming the weapon, Dr. Brighton tossed the gun aside but looked at the dart with more careful scrutiny.

It was small, no larger than a battery, with a sturdy metal casing protecting the vial of black poison inside and a thick one-inch needle with three small gripping prongs on the business end. Dr. Brighton then took the dart and jabbed it into the unconscious guard’s upper arm. The dart let out a hiss as it injected its contents into the man’s body. Basically pressing his nose against the man’s skin, Dr. Brighton took in a deep breath.

“Smells of vanilla . . . must be Morphium-12. If you get hit by one of these, you’ll be out cold in three seconds, and it will take quite a while to wear off. The needles look strong enough to penetrate our suits, so be careful.” Dr. Brighton stood back up and turned to Parker. “Okay, Atalanta, you’re up.”

She broke from the back of the group, stepped up to the unconscious guard, and lowered herself to her knees just above his head. Leaning down, she placed her hands firmly on the sides of his face and closed her eyes. Everyone stood silently still, watching her work, but Landon just stood there trying to understand what it was she was doing. He’d never seen or heard her do anything like this in training.

“What is she doing?” Landon asked Cortland out of the side of his mouth.

“Hacking,” he answered, nonchalant. “We need the codes to get in, and like I told you, Atalanta has a knack for getting into people’s heads.”

“Hacking?” Landon mouthed to himself as his attention returned to Parker, who was still kneeling over the patrol guard.

“Got ’em,” Parker said as she rose back to her feet.

“The gate is about two hundred yards in that direction.” Peregrine pointed off to her right.

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Dr. Brighton said. “Stick to the tree line and move quietly. Echo, keep us updated, and we’ll be back soon.”

Brock led the team as they headed into the woods toward the entrance to the compound. Pulling up the rear, Landon gave Peregrine a quick tap on the shoulder before hop-stepping into a run to catch up to the others.

Landon passed between the trees with ease. The team’s brief respite was enough for him to catch his breath and regain his energy. So far the mission seemed to be going off without a hitch, and Landon was grateful for that. In the back of his mind, he was still a bit unsure of himself and of what role he was supposed to play in the successful completion of their objective.

The team stopped running once they reached a dirt road that cut through the forest. It led straight up to the compound’s gate—a large steel door in the center of the southern wall of the electrical fence.

Peregrine’s voice sounded in Landon’s earpiece. “There are two men guarding the gate. And watch out. . . . They have those Morphium-12 guns on them.”

Pressing his finger to his ear, Dr. Brighton returned, “Copy that.” Dr. Brighton then turned to the twins. “Castor and Pollux, take care of the guards.”

A frightening grin stretched across the twin’s faces simultaneously. After glancing at one another, they headed out of the tree line and sauntered up the dirt road. Landon couldn’t believe what they were doing. The guards quickly noticed them and drew their weapons, threatening to shoot if the twins came any closer.

In reply, the Cranes swept low to the ground in a crouched position and raised their arms in unison. The guards lifted off the ground, dangled in the air for a moment, and then were thrown backward. Unlike the first guard, these two were not lucky enough to miss the fence. When their backs connected with the electrified coils, Landon could hear a distinctive popping sound as thousands of volts shot through their bodies. Not even a moment later, the guards fell off the fence, lying face down on the wet grass.

Dr. Brighton turned to the rest of the team and signaled for them to move out. As they rushed to the gate, Peregrine’s voice returned over the comm. link.

“You need to hurry up. I think the other guards heard you.”

Keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of the other guards, Landon stepped out from the tree line. He moved toward the gate with a series of pivoted steps that allowed him to scan his surroundings as he rotated. Once he neared the others standing before the sealed gate, an odd, acrid smell of burned meat tinged with a strange metallic quality penetrated his senses. Landon noticed the thin stream of smoke coming off the backs of the guards lying beside the gate. Brock and Joshua dragged their limp bodies away from the fence and deposited them in the shadows of the trees. For a moment, Landon wondered if the guards were even alive.

Unlike Landon’s cautious approach, Parker walked casually from the cover of the forest to the access panel on the right of the gate and began to input the sequence of numbers necessary to unlock it. The loud clank of the gate’s lock disengaging drew Landon’s attention back to the mission. He watched intently as the well-oiled door slid open.

They had gained access to the compound without an issue, but they would now have to make their way inside the tower and up to the forty-seventh floor undetected. As Landon thought about this, he figured they’d only scratched the surface of the potential threats and dangers that awaited them. He wasn’t sure his nerves could handle the stress much longer.

“Coast should be clear all the way to the tower,” Peregrine added over the comm. link.

Even with the all clear from Echo, they moved into the grounds of the compound stealthily, keeping to the shadows and darting swiftly from one place of cover to another. When they reached the doors of the tower without difficulty, Landon began to feel somewhat relaxed.

Again Parker went straight for the keypad and began typing in the code to unlock the doors. After a small beep from the panel, the glass door made a soft hiss. Dr. Brighton grabbed the handle and pulled it open, ushering the team inside.

The base floor of the Metis Labs facility was expansive and ethereal. At its center, a single circular wooden desk was placed, and moving outward in concentric rings was white marble flooring, then a ring of water, like a moat, filled with a copious amount of blooming water lilies. There were four small strips of marble bridging the water, connecting the inner circle to the outer one. The outer ring was also covered in stark white marble but was lined with a series of doors. There were two sets of elevators, one on the east and west sides of the circle, and a staircase at the north end.

As the team moved into the building and the doors closed behind them, crackling static filled Landon’s earpiece. “Pantheon . . . can’t see . . . ide. Something . . . blocking me . . . everything . . . blurry.” Peregrine’s voice broke in and out.

“Echo! Echo!” Cortland called over the comm. link. Nothing.

“They knew we were coming!” Dr. Brighton said.

Then a high-pitched squeal, like the feedback sound from a microphone placed too close to a speaker, sounded painfully through the earpiece causing everyone to hunch over and fights to remove the small device from inside their ears. The sound was piercing and left a lasting ring in Landon’s ear.

To this point, the operation had been a resounding success, but this new turn of events meant that the entire mission was in jeopardy. If Echo couldn’t sense the people inside the building, then they didn’t have anyone to guide them through unnoticed. They’d lost their eyes. How could her abilities be jammed like this? And if their comm. links were offline, they had no way of communicating should they get split up.

“How could they know we were coming?” Brock asked. He had to this point seemed unwaveringly fearless, but there was now a hint of worry in his voice.

The team circled in closer to their leader. “They must have coated the building in some ichorium compound that’s hindering Echo from seeing inside, but there is no way they could’ve known about her ability unless they’d been told we were coming,” Dr. Brighton explained softly so as not to alert security to their presence. “And they’ve obviously jammed our communicators.”

Just as he finished his explanation, an alarm sounded and scores of men dressed in black suits, each armed with the same tranquilizer gun, filed in through every door that led into the research facility’s expansive lobby. They must have been waiting to storm the intruders, laying low until the siren signaled their cue to attack.

As the guards enveloped them, Landon turned to his leader. “Zeus,” he said, concerned, “do we have a Plan B?” Landon could feel a thin layer of sweat form between his suit and his skin as he watched the massive number of security agents gather around.

“We didn’t, but I’ve got one now,” Dr. Brighton replied. “Hector and Apollo, make your way to the lab and get the research. Atalanta, give Hector the code.”

“But how do you expect us to get up there?” Landon interjected as Parker told Cortland the combination to the laboratory door. “They’re coming from everywhere!”

“That’s your job to figure out, Apollo,” Dr. Brighton returned. “We must complete the mission. The rest of us will stay here and deal with the guards. Hopefully we can keep them occupied, and they won’t go after you. Castor, Pollux,”—Zeus turned to the twins standing together to his right—“you two take the guards coming in from the east. Ares and Atalanta, the west. I’ll take care of the ones coming down the stairs.”

There was no time for second-guessing. The guards had surrounded them, weapons raised, their barrels aimed at them. Prompt execution of their new orders was now their only chance of fulfilling the mission without being captured. The issue was, Landon knew what his orders were, but he had no clue how he was going to carry them out.

In a fraction of a second, utter chaos ensued. The team tried to remain close in formation as the guard’s weapons discharged an onslaught of darts filled with the strong sedative.

Dr. Brighton raised his hands and engaged his abilities, causing the darts to freeze in midair mere feet from their intended targets, turn backward and then launch back at the unsuspecting guards. In less than a minute, numerous bodies of Metis Lab security agents were passed out on the floor, their own tranquilizers sticking out from numerous parts of their body.

Landon and Cortland broke from formation. Waving their hands to telekinetically deflect oncoming tranquilizer darts, they bolted across the marble floor, leapt over the watery ring and dived over the top of the front desk, gaining some cover behind its thick wooden panels.

“What do we do now?” Cortland asked as he ducked down to ensure that he wasn’t in the firing line of the agents’ weapons. They could hear thumps as needles collided with wood and the hiss as their poison released into the oak. The faint smell of vanilla permeated the air.

“Uh,” Landon replied. He was in a mild state of panic. Being thrust into such dire circumstances was something he could never have prepared for, and now the mission’s success rested on his and Cortland’s shoulders. He took a few deep breaths and tried to pull himself away from the chaos around him, if even for a moment.

Coming back, Landon started to search for a possible route to get out of the lobby and up to the lab. He pushed his back against the desk, raised his body up just enough to peek over the counter and assessed their options. What he saw was both great and terrible.

The remaining members of the Pantheon were now all separated, each taking on a force of guards. Metis Labs had an army of men protecting it. Countless more suited men emerged from the doorways and joined the battle ensuing inside. Bodies littered the floor, and more and more joined them as Dr. Brighton, Brock and the others redirected the oncoming darts. Others were being telekinetically tossed around the lobby, colliding with the walls or falling into the pool of water lilies.

“We’re going to have to find some other way of getting up there,” Landon said. “The stairs and elevators are blocked.”

“What other way is there?” Cortland asked, but Landon didn’t respond. He was simply staring up the central shaft of the building. Cortland followed suit. The Metis Labs facility was designed to allow for a massive amount of natural light to illuminate its interior. As such, they constructed it with a large empty space running up the center of every floor—a well of light. “No! No way!” Cortland said as Landon got an unnerving glint in his eye.

“I don’t see any other option.” What Landon was planning was reckless. He knew it was possible, but it required a level of training and concentration that made it very difficult, not to mention extremely dangerous. “If I carry us, and you focus on deflecting any tranq darts, I think we can do it.”

“Are you nuts? You know if you lose focus for a second, we’re dead!”

“I know, but there’s no other way. Are you with me?” Landon put out his fist. He didn’t know what was fueling his confidence, but he knew in his core that he could do it.

Reluctantly, Cortland returned the gesture and tapped Landon’s fist with his own; he was on board.

“Here we go,” Landon said just before shutting his eyes to focus and concentrate. He slowed his breathing and began to feel the usual heat of his abilities flare up from his core. A moment later, Landon closed his powers around Cortland and himself and willed them skyward.

It wasn’t long until they were rising into the air and floating up through the empty tube at the center of the building’s interior. They were flying; well technically, Landon was telekinetically transporting them through the air, and with every passing second, their speed of ascent increased. They’d be on the forty-seventh floor in no time.

• • • • •

Once Landon had moved them to the inner-balcony of the laboratory’s floor and released his telekinetic grip, Cortland let out a heavy sigh. Upon their initial ascent, Cortland felt a strange sensation, like something was constricting his torso and keeping his chest from expanding. From then on, he held his breath for most of the nerve-wracking journey; if Landon dropped them, there would be nothing between them and a swift drop to their death.

Sticking to their plan, though, he worked to keep all incoming darts from connecting with either of them. There was definitely one close call. While stopping a wave of darts fired at his partner, Cortland felt one pass through his hair dangerously close to his neck.

Luckily, after they reached the tenth floor, they were out of firing range and Cortland could focus his energy solely on his fear of plummeting to his demise.

Landon was hunched over on his hands and knees on the balcony floor, panting. Muscles all over his body were noticeably convulsing and twitching. The mental and physical energy required to lift even one person ten feet into the air for any sustained period of time was exhausting. To carry two people forty-seven stories without breaking concentration was unbelievable.

“That was rather impressive,” an unexpected voice said. Cortland looked up in the direction of the foreign voice. A girl stood in the edge of the shadows right in their path to the laboratory. She was slender, dressed all in black and had a high cylindrical collar that covered the lower half of her face. Her hair was pulled back, and her eyes were trained on him. “But I can’t let you get what you came for. You won’t be making it to the lab while I’m around.”

Landon was still crouched on the floor, seemingly unaware of the situation he had just dropped them into. Cortland kept his eyes on the girl as he straightened up and turned to face her. He could hear his heart pounding in his chest and feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. They had run straight into the person they had been hunting for months.

“Artemis,” Cortland whispered to himself.