Planet Hate

Kane checked the map again, running his hands across the creases to brush away the dusty sand that had blown across it. “Damn ville wasn’t on the map. Must have sprung up in the last eighteen months. But our next closest parallax point is fifty miles eastward,” he explained. “We’re looking at a heck of a trek, and we’d have to find a way across the Rio Grande.”

“The big villes have been vomiting out people for a while now, forcing little shitholes like this to crop up all over,” Rosalia told them both, pushing her dark hair out of her face as the wind snatched at it. “You Magistrate men seldom notice what’s going on in front of your eyes,” she added contemptuously.

Kane shot her a look before turning back to watch the people moving around in the ravine below them. Twenty-four buildings meant maybe seventy people in total, he guessed, could be more as a refugee settlement, but it seemed as if it had taken a while growing up. The structures certainly looked sturdy, perhaps it had been here for years—who could say?

Grant turned his eyes from the settlement below to Kane. “Let’s keep our heads down and act friendly to the locals,” he rumbled, pointing to the little town between the cliffs.

With that, the imposing ex-Mag pushed himself up, snagging the cloth knapsack sitting behind him in the dirt and hooking it over one of his massive shoulders before leading the way down the steep path that led to the gully. The others followed a moment later, but Rosalia stopped at the top of the path for a moment, peering behind her.

“Come on, stupid,” she huffed, irritation in her voice.

From close by, a dog came tromping out from behind a crop of drooping bushes, their leaves wizened from lack of water. The carcass of a cony lay behind the bushes, and the dog had been sniffing at it, wondering if it could still be eaten. The dog was a mongrel with mottled fur and a long snout, and Rosalia suspected that it had more than a hint of coyote in it. Most remarkably, it had the palest eyes that she had ever seen, their irises a creamy washed-out white like mozzarella cheese. She had “owned” the dog for seven months, finding the creature wandering alone out in the Californian desert. In all of that time, the woman had never given the animal a permanent name, hoping to avoid any attachment.

“Stupid mutt,” Rosalia cursed as the dog trotted along at her heels down the dust path. “Always thinking about your stomach.”

A dozen paces ahead, Grant was talking with Kane, polychrome sunglasses protecting their eyes as they walked into the sun, keeping their voices low.

“You look worried, old friend,” Grant observed as Kane fiddled with the Sin Eater pistol he habitually wore at his wrist.

Once the official side arm of the Magistrate Division, the Sin Eater was an automatic handblaster that folded in on itself to be stored in a bulky holster strapped just above the user’s wrist. Even at full extension, this remarkable pistol was less than fourteen inches in length, and it fired 9 mm rounds. The holsters reacted to a specific tensing of the wrist tendons, powering the pistol automatically into the gunman’s hand. The trigger had no guard; it had never been foreseen that any kind of safety features for the weapon would ever be required. Thus, if the user’s index finger was crooked at the time it reached his hand, the pistol would begin firing automatically. The absolute nature of this means of potential execution was a throwback to the high regard with which Magistrates were viewed in the villes—their judgment could never be wrong. Though no longer a Magistrate himself, Kane had retained his weapon from his days as one in Cobaltville, and he felt most comfortable with the weapon in hand.

Grant, too, had one of the remarkable blasters hidden beneath the sleeve of his Kevlar duster, though he carried other weapons, as well, secreted in the lining of the long coat. Primary among these, Grant carried his favored Copperhead close-assault subgun, tucked just out of sight.

Kane shrugged at Grant’s observation as the pair shuffled sideways along a narrow section of the steep pathway. “I just don’t like entering new places these days,” he said. “Seems things are getting more and more hostile.”

Then, as Kane spoke, his booted heel slid on a loose stone and he began to slip toward the edge of the path. “Whoa!”

Grant instantly reached out, grabbing his friend in a firm grip just above his left wrist. “No need to expect trouble,” Grant said as he pulled Kane back onto the path. “And I’ve always got your back if things do turn nasty.”

“Humph,” Kane grumbled. “We used to say the same thing to Baptiste—and look how that worked out.”

“We’ll find her, Kane,” Grant assured his partner. “If she’s out there, we’ll find her.”

Kane nodded. “Damn straight we will.”

Until recently Brigid Baptiste had been the third member of their field team, accompanying Kane and Grant on numerous adventures across the globe and beyond. Baptiste was a gifted archivist with remarkable talents. However, in a recent attack on the Cerberus redoubt—the headquarters from which Kane and his companions had operated—Baptiste had gone MIA. Despite their best efforts, her current whereabouts remained unknown.

The gradient of the path eased for the last thirty yards, and Kane had returned his Sin Eater to its hiding place beneath the right sleeve of his jacket by the time the trio reached its foot. They walked three abreast, with the dog skulking at Rosalia’s side as they made their way along the last part of the dusty roadway that led into the hamlet itself.

A single thoroughfare dominated the village, running parallel to the thin river. People dressed in light clothes were walking along that main street, a few youngsters paddling at the stream’s edge. A bearded man in simple clothes was leading a mule down the street, its back laden with two great baskets full of the leaves of some edible root crop or other. It seemed normal enough.

As they neared the closest of the buildings, the companions could hear the tink-tink-tink of a blacksmith at work. Kane turned and saw an open-fronted shed beside the single-story house. Inside a man worked at shaping a horseshoe that glowed white-hot at the end of his tongs. The man peered up from his work as the companions passed, eyes narrowing as he watched the strangers entering the village.

“By my reckoning,” Kane told his companions, keeping his voice low, “our parallax point should be in the northwest corner of this place.” He pointed. “Over by that storage silo, maybe?”

Parallax points were a crucial part of a system of instantaneous travel that was employed by the Cerberus rebels. The process itself involved a quantum inducer called an interphaser, which could fold space upon itself, granting its user immediate teleportation to another location, either on Earth or beyond. Though portable, the interphaser units could only be engaged in set locations. The units tapped into an ancient web of powerful, naturally occurring lines of energy stretching right across the globe, much like the ley lines of old. On Thunder Isle the Cerberus crew had discovered the Parallax Points program, which encoded all the vortex points. The interphaser relied on this program, and new vortex points were fed into the interphaser’s targeting computer.

Frequently the specific sites of interphase induction had become sacred in the eyes of primitive man. However, over time many of these parallax points had become forgotten or buried beneath the rise and fall of civilizations. As such, they often turned up in the most unlikely of locations.

The Cerberus organization had several of the portable interphase units. When they had evacuated their redoubt headquarters, Kane’s team had taken one of the units for ease of transport while they went undercover. Right now, Grant carried the foot-high unit in its protective case inside the rucksack on his back.

Rosalia’s dog whined plaintively as the companions continued to stride along the dusty street. It was a simple path marked out on the ground by the basic virtue of repeated usage. A woman in her thirties sat in a weather-beaten rocking chair outside the front door to one of the tumbledown shacks, her fingers moving deftly as she knitted a pair of baby booties. Grant acknowledged her with a dip of his head, touching his fingers to his brow for just a second.

“Things don’t feel right here, you guys,” Rosalia said, her voice a whisper.

Kane looked over to her and a lopsided smile touched at his lips. “Weren’t you the one who was complaining about we ex-Magistrates skulking around like frightened schoolgirls?”

In response, Rosalia showed him her teeth in a sarcastic imitation of a grin. “Just an observation, Magistrate Man,” she said, subtly stretching her arms out as if to yawn. “Don’t jump at shadows on my account.” As she did so, she shifted two hidden knives that were located beneath her sleeves.

With the open stream running to the right of them, Kane continued on, making his way toward the crop silo he had pointed out a few moments before. “Keep the interphaser to hand,” he instructed Grant out of the corner of his mouth. “I want to be on our way as soon as.”

They were heading for a meeting high on the Californian coast. A coded message had been piped through to Kane a few hours before from their old Cerberus leader, Lakesh, providing them with coordinates of a meeting point where he hoped to set up a temporary base.

As the three of them rounded the corner of the silo and a simple lean-to building that stood at its side, Kane spotted a small chunk in the sandy dirt at the external edge of the silo itself. It looked like an ancient mile marker, a little hunk of rounded stone sticking up about eighteen inches from the soil. The marker sat in the lee of the lean-to, obscured by the shadow that the tall silo cast.

“Five’ll get you ten that that’s our parallax point,” Kane stated, indicating the marker stone half-buried in the ground.

As Kane spoke, a figure appeared from the far side of the silo fifteen feet away, striding into view before halting, his eyes locked on Kane and his teammates. The man was tall and wore a rough-hewn robe made of a dirty brown material that covered him from neck down to his ankles like a cassock. The robe featured a voluminous hood that the man had pulled up over his head, hiding his features in shadow so that only his eyes glinted in the fierce morning sunlight. His right fist was held loosely clenched at his side, and Kane could tell immediately that the hooded stranger was clutching something within that balled fist. The man’s fustian robe featured a red badge pinned to the left breast, and the insignia flashed as it caught the sun’s rays.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” the robed figure asked, challenge in his tone.

“We’re just passing through, friend,” Kane stated, feeling a disquieting roiling in his stomach.

Beneath the hood, the man closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out with uncanny senses. Kane and his companions watched as the strange figure shook his head infinitesimally as if confused by what he could feel. “Cannot…” the man muttered before opening his eyes once more. “This is a sanctified town, sirs,” the man said in an authoritative tone. “Are you faithful?”

Kane stared at the robed man in disbelief. “I…I…” How could he possibly answer that question?

“I suspected as much,” the robed man stated, his tone rising in fury. “Mr. Kane, is it not?”

Kane became aware that figures were massing behind him. Where moments before they had seemed to be wary of the strangers but simply going about their workaday lives, now the townsfolk appeared to be closing in, subtly blocking the street and hemming the Cerberus teammates in at the alleyway between the silo and the one-story lean-to beside it.

Kane took a steadying breath. “You seem to know me, but I don’t think I caught your name,” he told the robed figure at the farther end of the silo.

The hooded man nodded once in acknowledgment. “I am stone,” he stated.

Kane had heard the phrase before. It was something of a battle chant for an expanding class of warriors who fought in the name of a sinister being called Ullikummis. In speaking the phrase, the hooded figure had not merely confirmed his allegiance, but he had also entered a meditative state whereby his physical attributes would change.

Kane’s eyes darted to the subtle movement as the man unclenched his right fist and a simple cord of leather with a cuplike design at the farthest extension of its loop sagged from his hand.

“And you are an enemy of stone,” the hooded figure said. Even as he spoke, the leather cup whirled around the man’s arm as he launched a cluster of lethal projectiles at Kane and his teammates.

Chapter 2

“Get down!” Kane shouted as he dived out of the path of the hurtling missiles.

A handful of sharpened pebbles had been flung from the simple slingshot that the robed man had hidden in his fist, and the rocks picked up speed as they whipped through the fifteen-foot distance separating the man and Kane’s team. The stones cut through the air and, by the time they reached the space where Kane had been standing, the half dozen pebbles had taken on a lethal velocity similar to bullets fired from a gun. The projectiles had been aimed at Kane’s face, but by then Kane had dropped out of their path, his left palm slapping against the dirt even as he called his Sin Eater pistol to his right hand with a practiced flinch of his wrist tendons.

To either side of the dark-haired ex-Mag, Grant and Rosalia also flung themselves out of the path of those vicious rocks, and Grant snarled as one of them clipped against the swishing tail of his Kevlar-lined duster as it leaped high in the air.

Across from Grant, Rosalia kicked out as she ran at the high, curving wall of the silo. Suddenly she was running up the side of the silo, her skirt tearing as she kicked out again and flipped herself high into the air, over the path of the hurtling stones and onto the low roof of the lean-to beside it, her back to the man in the robes. She landed with catlike grace, looking out at the gathering crowd on the main street, two short blades appearing in her hands from their hiding places in the ragged sleeves of her denim jacket.

As Rosalia landed, Kane’s index finger tightened on the Sin Eater and a stream of 9 mm bullets cut through the air toward their mysterious attacker. The red badge at the robed man’s breast caught the light once more as the bullets streamed toward him. Kane realized what the badge meant: it was a symbol of authority, a mockery of the Magistrate badge that he and Grant had worn when they were in service.

Kane was moving for cover as he unleashed that flurry of bullets, but he watched as the robed man held up his free hand. The bullets struck against the man’s outstretched arm but incredibly—impossibly—the man let out no sound of pain; he just stood there, jaw set as four bullets cut through the hemp sleeve of his robe and rattled against his flesh. His other arm arced behind him and he launched a second salvo of stones from his slingshot as Kane’s admirable figure disappeared behind the wall of the lean-to.

Kane looked down for a moment as he almost tripped over something. Rosalia’s mongrel was there, lips peeled back in a fearsome snarl as it looked at the approaching crowd of townsfolk. A bearded man wielding a claw hammer was leading the charge at the strangers, drawing the hammer back in a vicious arc. The dog jumped then, jaw snagging around the man’s arm and pulling him to the ground in a cloud of disturbed earth.

Grant meanwhile had spun to his right, slapping his back against the curved wall of the silo as the bullet-like stones cut toward his companions. They had met these hooded figures before, and Grant knew that they could be tenacious opponents. They’d need something with a little more stopping power than the Sin Eater, and Grant had just the thing. While stones clashed against the clay wall of the silo and the sound of Kane’s bullets cut through the air, Grant had reached into his long coat and pulled loose the Copperhead assault subgun from its hiding place strapped to the lining of the coat. The barrel of the subgun was almost two feet long. The grip and trigger of the gun were placed in front of the breech in the bullpup design, allowing the gun to be used single-handed. An optical, image-intensified scope coupled with a laser autotargeter were mounted on top of the frame. The Copperhead possessed a 700-round-per- minute rate of fire and was equipped with an extended magazine holding thirty-five 4.85 mm steel-jacketed rounds. Besides the Sin Eater, the Copperhead was Grant’s favored field weapon, thanks to ease of use and the sheer level of destruction it could create in short measure.

Gun in hand, Grant dodged from cover and unleashed a firestorm of shots at the robed figure at the far end of the alley between the buildings. The hooded figure staggered for a moment under that vicious assault, before finally toppling backward into the silo wall. Grant depressed the trigger again, unleashing a second burst of fire as the robed figure began to pull himself up off the ground.

“Stay the hell down,” Grant said as the Copperhead drilled another burst of lead into the robed assailant.

Just a few feet away, Kane was moving among the mob beside the lean-to when Rosalia’s voice rang out.

“Kane, watch your six!”

Kane dodged and turned even as something whizzed through the air toward his head. The object glowed white and orange as it cut the air, missing Kane’s head by the narrowest of margins. Heart thudding against his rib cage, Kane glanced behind him where the projectile clanged against the wall of the lean-to—it was a horseshoe, red-hot and launched with a flick of the blacksmith’s tongs. The burning-hot horseshoe left a smoking indentation in the wooden wall even as it tumbled to the ground.

Overhead, Rosalia leaped from the roof of the lean-to like some graceful bird of prey, knives slashing the air as she dived at the blacksmith. With a vicious sweep of a blade, Rosalia cut through the man’s throat in an explosion of blood as she barreled into him. The blacksmith let out a howl of pain as he toppled backward under the weight of the hurtling woman, but his scream was cut short as the knife sliced through his vocal cords.

Then the blacksmith slammed against the hard-packed soil of the roadway and Rosalia used her momentum to leap away, bringing her knives up to face their next challenger. Her mongrel hound was already at her side, letting out a savage bark as the townsfolk crowded around them. The townspeople had armed themselves with makeshift weapons, sticks and loose bricks, here a large ax made for chopping logs.

Rosalia smiled. “Come on, then,” she goaded, “let’s see what you’re made of.”

The man with the hammer brushed himself down as he regained his footing, snarling back at the dog that had felled him. Then he was rushing at Rosalia, brandishing the long-handled hammer like a club as he swung it at her head. Her dark eyes fixed on the hammer’s arc, Rosalia ducked, allowing the metal head to whisk through the air just inches above her head. Then her left arm snapped up, forearm meeting forearm and using the hammer wielder’s own momentum to knock him away. The bearded man staggered a little in place, surprised that this slender girl had struck him with such precision. As he did so, Rosalia spun on the spot, bringing her left leg up and around, delivering a beautifully executed roundhouse kick that ended when her foot connected with the man’s face. The bearded hammer man was flipped over by the force of Rosalia’s brutal blow, but she was already leaping away to face the next crowd member who dared attack the Cerberus companions. Rosalia’s confrontation with the hammer wielder had lasted all of three seconds, start to finish.

As Rosalia leaped, Kane rolled forward, Sin Eater raised as he assessed the threat level that the crowd posed. There were perhaps sixteen people here, with more rushing to join them from the buildings all around. These people were in the eerie grip of the false religion, the promised utopia that Ullikummis had drummed into his loyal subjects. It was as if they were brainwashed.

A broad-shouldered man came at Kane from his left, swinging a two-by-four plank from some nearby construction project. Though renowned for his combat sense, Kane almost didn’t see the man approach, ducking only at the very last second as his attacker lunged at him with the length of wood. The board hurtled overhead as Kane snapped off a quick burst from his blaster, sweeping his attacker’s legs out from under him. The man cried out in agony as he crashed into the soil, a bullet shattering his right kneecap. These outlanders were innocents mixed up in a sinister cult created by a being far more powerful than themselves, and Kane would rather not kill them if he didn’t have to.

Then Kane was standing, the black muzzle of the Sin Eater stretched out in front of him like a warning. “I’m asking all of you to back off,” he commanded, “so no one else gets hurt.”

“Enemy of stone,” one of the crowd facing Kane cried in reply. “Enemy Kane!”

That was the second time in less than three minutes that a stranger had called him by name, Kane realized. Whatever was going on with these cultists, they seemed to recognize him.

“When the hell did I become public enemy number one?” Kane muttered under his breath as the foremost members of the crowd rushed at him, their mismatched weapons raised. With a sigh of resignation, Kane began selecting targets and squeezing the trigger of the Sin Eater. Four perfectly placed rounds blew out the kneecaps of the nearest of the approaching crowd before they swarmed on Kane.

TO THE SIDE of the silo, Grant was having his own problems. He hurried along the alleyway between buildings toward the stone marker half buried in the dust. Two feet away, the hooded figure who had attacked them was lying on his back, limbs flailing like a bug where Grant’s shots had taken him down once more. Yet already the man seemed to be recovering. These cultists—“firewalkers” was one term that had been popularized among the Cerberus personnel—could miraculously change the density of their flesh in some way that Grant and his teammates had yet to fully comprehend. The trick required fierce concentration, and all of these firewalkers had to keep their minds still to reach the condition of stonelike flesh. One way to stop them retaining such a degree of meditation had been to use concentrated sound, which irritated the firewalkers so that they could not achieve proper concentration.

Grant shrugged out of his rucksack as he knelt by the stone block poking up out of the ground. Swiftly he undid the straps on the cloth backpack and reached inside, pulling out a metal pyramidal device of roughly one foot in height, its protective cloth sleeve dropping free and wrapping over itself as the wind dragged it a few feet across the ground. Grant ignored it, his attention fixed on the chrome pyramid itself. The metal was scuffed and marred from where it had been hurriedly stored, and Grant brushed dirt from its surface as he flipped down a control panel close to the base of the interphaser unit. Grant watched as the tiny display came to life, a series of lights flickering on in quick succession.

Suddenly, Grant saw movement from the corner of his eye and turned his head in time to see the robed man leap off the ground and spiral toward him like some vicious ballerino. Leaving the interphaser in place by the stone marker, Grant rolled aside, and the robed man’s kicking feet slapped against the ground where Grant’s hand had been just a second before.

From his crouched position on the ground, Grant swung the Copperhead up one-handed, the bullpup design ideal for such a move. But even as he depressed the trigger, his robed assailant shoved the muzzle aside with a violent flick of his wrist. Grant’s shots went wild, slamming against the grain silo and drilling through the brickwork with powdery little orange bursts of dried clay.