Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

lockup door, rolling to one side tucked into a ball with her hands over her ears. The explosives all went off at once, painfully loud, and a great blast of fire and heated gasses came boiling out the lockup door, close enough to singe Ruby's clothes and hair. The ground shook beneath her as more explosives went off. She scrambled to her feet and ran as fast as her feet would carry her. Behind her, the entire row of lockup garages was a mass of flames, leaping high into the night, accompanied by a loud rumble of collapsing brickwork. Ruby didn't know how long it would take
    the Shub nanos to put the Wolfe back together again, or what he might look like afterward, but she was sure she wasn't curious enough to stick around and find out. It was a long time since she'd had to run from a fight, but survival was more important than honor, and besides, no one was paying her to kill Valentine Wolfe. Her job was to find Jack Random, and she'd already established he wasn't in the lockup. Ruby scowled as she ran. Random, allied with Shub? Was the whole universe going mad?
    Jack Random appeared deep in the shining metal bowels of Lionstone's old Palace, and immediately began to shudder violently at the cold. Extremes of temperature didn't normally bother him much these days, but the air here was bitter cold, barely above zero. The freezing air seared his lungs as he breathed it, and he could already feel hoarfrost forming on his bare face and hands. He pulled his cloak tightly about him, and gritted his teeth to stop them from chattering. His unsteady breath steamed thickly on the air before him. He looked around him, but there was only the featureless metal walls of an unremarkable corridor. He could have been anywhere in the Palace.
    "Lionstone?" he said loudly. "You still with me?"
    Of course, she said immediately, her voice cool and familiar in his ears.
    Welcome to my old home. Shub has teleported you as close to the hidden crypt as possible. Their abilities are limited here. There are strange powers at work in this place, old machineries still active in the crypt, even after all these centuries. Watch your step.
    "Now she tells me. Why is it so bloody cold here?"
    Parliament shut my Palace down, said Lionstone. You should remember. You authorized it. Said it was too vile a symbol to be allowed to endure, and should
    be systematically dismantled and destroyed at the first opportunity.
    Only you've all been so very busy recently, what with one thing and another, that no one ever got around to starting the job. They did shut down the generators, though, to save money. Shub has managed to restore some power, but only in this immediate vicinity. We don't want our little visit to be noticed, after all.
    "This job just gets better and better," said Random. "Talk to me, Lionstone; what can I expect to encounter, between here and the crypt?"
    The very best booby traps I could devise. I'll talk you through them as best I can. How to deal with the stasis field enveloping the crypt is entirely your problem. But you'd better find a way in, Jack, if you expect Shub to teleport you back out again.
    "Typical Shub. Never pass up a chance to make a threat, and prove you're in control of the situation. For supposedly sophisticated AIs, they can be surprisingly insecure at times. Now point me in the right direction, before I freeze solid."
    Walk ahead of you till the passage branches, then bear left. It's not far to the first nasty surprise.
    Random sniffed, and set off down the metal corridor. There was only a bare minimum of lighting after the passage branched, and shadows moved menacingly around him, possibly concealing all manner of things. The air was still and silent, the only sound the soft slapping of his boots against the smooth metal floor. Random moved lightly, not too fast and not too slow, ready to jump for his life at a moment's intuition. All his instincts were yelling at him that this was a trap, but he'd known that going in. He was betting his instincts and his skills against anything Lionstone's twisted mind could throw at him.
    The walls looked solid, the floor and ceiling too. Didn't mean a thing.
    Lionstone's little surprises would be as subtle and vicious as she had been.
    When she was still human. He felt the floor give just a little under his leading foot, and immediately threw himself forward, tucking his body into a roll that brought him straight back to his feet again. Behind him, long metal spikes had burst out of