Chapter 44: HUrry
The restraints held. Angelina’s wrists and ankles were locked to the wall behind her, thin blue lines of light pulsing with every beat of Ethan’s heart.
She tested the restraints once, pulling hard on them until the metal behind her creaked in protest. Then she stilled, her yellow eyes never leaving Ethan’s face.
Amanda had the kinetic gun trained on Ethan’s center mass the entire time. The emergency lighting painted everything the color of dried blood.
The outside of the shutters was not currently of any concern, as something very heavy was hitting the metal in a most persistent manner.
Dayan and Marcus were doubtless responsible for this, but it was not currently any of their business, as all three of them had better things to do with their time.
Ethan kept his hand near Spark as it was currently climbing up and down on Ethan’s shoulder, peering intently at Angelina with large, round eyes. It looked like a particularly interesting insect.
"Father," Spark whispered, too loud for a whisper. "Yellow woman stuck. Good?"
"For now."
Amanda spoke up from her end of the dimly lit vault, her voice echoing in the space. "You’ve managed to lock up a demigod in a compromised vault. All the extraction teams outside this corridor are extremely motivated right now. To fuck you up."
Ethan didn’t look at her. Instead he looked at Angelina. "You called me Uncle. Twice. Explain that before your friends finish cutting through the shutters."
Angelina’s lips curled upward in a smile, revealing blood-stained teeth within. "Zeus has many, many children," she said.
"More than the empire has legions. Most of them never come to any sort of power. Some are even actively forgotten.
But you, Ethan, were one of the children Zeus forgot. Until the lightning found you and brought you to our attention. And that, by the blood, makes us family. Distant, messy, and very, very dangerous."
"Father not messy. Father loud." Spark had taken to calling Ethan "Father" and often spoke to him in loud, very loud tones. This was not helpful.
"Hand over the fragment and I can still get you out of here alive. The eastern cell only wants the asset. They don’t care about the carrier once the bond is broken. You can still fix this. We can still fix this."
Ethan finally looked at her. He felt her storm sense. It was racing but steady, controlled rather than free form.
"Outside this little room, Amanda, the eastern cell is trying to break in, and I can tell you right now, they’re not trying to rescue us. They only want that fragment, and once they’ve gotten it, they’re going to break the bond and leave us here to rot.
Even I, a demigod, am just a tool to them, Ethan. That’s the revolutionary."
"Now, I know you’re not with the eastern cell, and I also know you’re not entirely from the empire. You’re a bit of a wild card, a few screws loose. You’re the kind of person who leaves transmitters in odd corners of offices, bugs them, and always carries a few extra guns. So who are you trying to protect here?"
Her mouth tightened. The kinetic gun didn’t waver.
Before Amanda could answer Ethan’s question about whose future she was trying to protect, a system window appeared at the edge of his vision.
[Optional Objective Progress: Angelina restrained, 1/1]
[Capture confirmed]
[Reward processing delayed, external divine signature interference]
[Warning: Hermes-lineage distress signal detected]
[Estimated arrival of secondary response: 4 minutes]
Hephaestus, bro, I thought you fixed the bug. But four minutes. Generous, by god standards.
Angelina burst out laughing at that. "Hear that? My father already knows. Hermes hates losing track of his toys. You’re about to have company that doesn’t care about shutters."
The device producing the restraints seemed to pulse with life, still charged after all this time. Ethan reached up and touched the circlet that had once been his father’s. It felt warm against his skin, almost hot.
"Spark, if she moves, hurt her, but keep her alive."
Spark’s tiny claws flexed once. "Yes, Father."
Amanda watched Ethan for a long moment, then her eyes flicked to Spark, perched on Ethan’s shoulder, and then returned to him. "You’re treating a fragment of divine wrath like a pet. That’s going to get you killed."
"Everything’s going to get me killed," Ethan said. "The only question is the order."
The next impact shook the shutters violently, and again a line of white light appeared at the seam. Whoever was on the other side of the door was using a very powerful cutting torch, or possibly something even worse.
Amanda’s voice lowered. "Last chance to get out of here with your life, Ethan. I can still say I subdued you here, that with the fragment I can leave with the empire’s protection. That you can leave the revolution to burn, and you’ll be clean of it all."
Ethan stepped closer to Angelina instead, the blue of the restraints around her wrists reflecting off her yellow eyes.
"Watch," he said, quite quietly, looking at Spark on his shoulder.
He didn’t raise his voice. Instead he thought the word stay and looked at Spark on his shoulder.
The low hum of static usually given off by the creature was suddenly gone. For three long seconds nothing broke the silence of the corridor, and the heavy blows outside the shutters were the only sound that broke the stillness of that moment.
Spark had returned to life on his shoulder. He was patting Ethan’s neck with one of his hands. "Father loud inside. Good control."
Angelina’s smile finally cracked. Just a little.
Amanda’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Ethan saw Amanda aim her gun at him and immediately sprang into action.
The round was supposed to be kinetic and should have gone center mass, giving him a number of large, gaping holes. Instead it made a very neat hole through the wall just in front of him, at a point where his chest would have been if he hadn’t put all those points into Agility and slid along the corridor.
Amanda had fast reflexes for a human. The second shot went low, aiming for Ethan’s knee. But instead of piercing his flesh, the round penetrated the floor. Ethan’s free points rushed to aid his Agility-starved legs, and he slid across the floor. Blue sparks of energy erupted from his right forearm as he rolled.
For kinetic shooting you have to aim at the floor plates. That’s where the charges are.
This time, though, he wasn’t aiming at her. He was aiming at the floor plates between her and him.
The pulse had grown wider and stronger, shorting out more than just electronics. The emergency lighting above was now fluctuating wildly, and half the panels in the corridor had shorted out completely, plunging parts of it into blackness.
Amanda’s kinetic gun, however, was purely mechanical and still functioned, but her footing on the charged floor plates was precarious at best.
She stumbled. One step. That was enough.
As he advanced, Ethan brought his palm down on the heavy weapon wielded by Amanda, driving bone into the stock.
The gun crashed to the ground. Then, in the following instant, it sprang from her grip as she snatched for a knife in her belt. It had been so easy, of course, as he quickly twisted her wrist to lock her hand behind her back, pressing her face into the wall where the other woman, Angelina, was restrained.
"Ladies, as you see, you both stand no chance. So tell me, who are you with? The empire or the revolutionary? I want to confirm before I...do stuff."
Angelina looked back. "Well, I don’t mind. Incest runs in the family."
Ethan stared at her. "Okay...first of all, eww. And second of all, Miss Amanda."
Amanda also turned. "Me too. I don’t mind any bodily torture."
"....."
Ethan stayed quiet for a bit. It seemed both of his hostages were really not taking him seriously.
"You know what, nobody takes me seriously these days, but you won’t take him so lightly." He said, clicking the door open. Dayan and Marcus came in.
"Okay, move and you die. You speak and you die," Marcus muttered.
"Mar..." Amanda started.
Doom!
Marcus shot his blaster right at the side of her face. Silence fell.
"Speak until you are spoken to, bitch. Ethan, I think Rick and everyone else needs you," Marcus said.
"Roger," Ethan muttered. With quick steps, he was gone within seconds, so much so that even Marcus was shocked.
"He is really a demigod," Dayan muttered.
"Yeah, and a proper human. More human than both of us," Marcus said. "You hear that? You cunts!" he yelled at both Amanda and Angelina.
****
Meanwhile, he appeared like a lightning bolt before the vault. Rick and everyone else was there.
"What’s the update?" Ethan asked.
Rick didn’t bother to ask why he was so fast, as they were running out of time. "The passwords have changed, but for some reason, the empire hasn’t been notified of our actions."
"Yeah, we should already be swarming with soldiers if Chief Barry knew this base existed," another one muttered.
"That problem, we will face after. Now, only the safe matters. But how do we unlock it?"
"Father!" Spark exclaimed. "Me know. This my home."