The Quantum Prophecy - Ryan Matthew Harker (best management books of all time TXT) 📗

sentence or three in her direction, and then resume pacing as she struggled to answer his tirade in a calming manner.
“Betrayed!” he wailed. “And by one of my most trusted friends!”
“His reasons are his own, my lord,” she spoke softly. “He has not effaced this act through maliciousness.”
“Be that as it may,” the king retorted. “I am still ruler of these realms.”
“And I am sure Lord Jeshux is still loyal to you as such,” Mega’N soothed.
Zakeriah spun to face his queen. “Bah! He is no lord and loyalty, for its worth, has been proven.”
“My Lord,” Mega’N was calm. “I do not wish to take sides in this manner but Jeshux logic proves a point…”
“It proves nothing!” the king roared.
Seemingly serene the queen’s face did nothing to betray her thoughts. My what a reversal of roles this is, she mused, normally I am the unreasonable buffoon.
Aloud she continued as if Zakeriah had not interrupted her, “How could the Chosen Ones have fulfilled the prophecy with you keeping them under lock and key?”
He spun to face her again. “Providence,” the king spoke. “The will of the prophecy would have shown us the path.”
Ah ha! Queen Mega’N smiled inwardly. Here is the opportunity that I have been awaiting. “My lord,” she smiled her sweetest smile. “Wouldn’t it seem that this is exactly what has happened? Are our feet not treading the very path which you were seeking?”
At this the king stopped his restless pacing but this time he did not turn.
“My lord?” Mega’N inquired gently. “Can you not trust fate?”
The proud king turned to his beautiful wife, his Queen, and there were tears in his eyes. One single drop rolled down each cheek as he knelt before her and took her hands in his before speaking, “I am going to increase the search teams tenfold.”
This was not the response Mega’N had anticipated. “Ten fold! But Zakeriah, why?”
And then the king smiled and the light of sanity was returned to his eyes. “Because, my wife, Lord Jeshux may need my help before this war is over and I cannot give it to him if I don’t know where he is.”
The queen sighed with relief and hugged her husband tightly. “Oh my lord, I knew you would see reason!” she cried.
“Yes, my love. Let us hope that I may repair the damage that I have wrought.”

*****

The four mercenary spies sat in opposing corners of the damp subterranean cell they had been deposited in. They were cold, they were frustrated, but above all they were hungry.
“Where the hell is Tol and Donin?” Stick muttered for what seemed the thousandth time. “We’ve been stuck in here for at least three days!”
Hardim laughed hollowly. “Shut up Stick. You sound like you’ve never been in a situation like this before.”
“Just because I have the experience doesn’t mean I have to like it,” the skinny spy grumbled.
From outside their cell door came quiet sounds of a short skirmish. Stick jumped to his feet in sudden animation. “Finally!” he exclaimed gaily as the locks clicked and the door creaked open.
The four prisoners stumbled out squinting in the sudden light of the hallway. Tol and Donin stood before them grinning and handed each man their guns and a slab of what appeared to be beef. Two goblins lay dead on the floor at their feet.
“What the hell took so long?” Stick demanded around a mouthful of meat as he eyed the green devils.
“Eat on the run,” Donin told him. “We don’t have time to explain!”
Tol had already started down the passageway, his figure shifting to invisibility as he moved. The four men looked at Donin grimly and shrugged. They made sure their rifles were ready for action and started after their mute compadre.
The fleeing soldiers came quickly to a set of stairs. Taking them two at a time they reached the top and rounded a corner just in time to see a handful of goblins barreling towards them. An invisible Tol hurled through the bunch and they scattered, falling to all sides as the plasma rifles of the other men flared and cut them down. Then they were through and headed up another flight of stairs.
Electric lamps hung from the ceiling in the next hallway and blinked their wane light intermittently; casting the soldier’s shadows across the walls in strange, disjointed patterns as they fled. Behind them a closed door abruptly swung open and goblins began to pour into the hallway firing an assortment of projectile weapons into the dodging shadows. Stanfvorf spun around, dropped to one knee, and began to fire a volley of hot plasma at their attackers. Goblins screamed as the liquid fire burned into them but for every one that fell three more appeared to take its place. A bullet tore into Stanfvorf’s body, piercing his lung before continuing its journey into the wall. The man screamed and his voice gurgled as his lungs filled with blood but he kept pumping plasma into his enemies.
McIntovov appeared with Hardim and both men helped scatter goblins with their own weapons. Then each grabbed either side of Stanfvorf and the trio staggered away while a manic Stick covered them from a doorway at the hall’s end. Stanfvorf gurgled as he attempted to scream again as his left knee was blown out by one of the goblins and his saviors staggered under his full weight, barely getting him around the corner. Stick fired another couple of shots and then ducked around the corner himself.
Stanfvorf sat with his back to a wall while McIntovov tried to stop the flow of blood that was pumping from his chest but it was no use and Stanfvorf knew it.
Smiling a bloody grin he tried to shout, “I’m done for old friend! Leave me!” He only managed to cough up more blood and in no way made himself heard over Stick and Hardim’s cover fire. The dying man pulled a thermite grenade from Donin’s belt as he suddenly reappeared at his side.
Looking into the dying mans eyes McIntovov nodded gravely and signaled to Stick and Hardim. The two men glanced at him, then at their dying friend, fired a couple more rounds and turned and fled. McIntovov again looked into Stanfvorf’s eyes then he and a vanishing Donin also turned to make their escape.
The goblins came cautiously around the corner expecting an ambush. What they were not expecting was a blood spattered human with a mangled leg and a grenade.
Stanfvorf looked at the green skinned freaks with dimming eyes and coughed up a puddle of blood. Then the goblin in front of him widened his eyes in surprise and tried to order its confused brethren away as the human raised the grenade. The pin was already gone.
“Time to fry,” Stanfvorf gurgled and popped the priming latch.
There was a blinding flash of light and a heat as hot as the burning core of a sun. A tongue of flame burst down both passages from the corner of the hallway. The incendiary torch that was the thermite grenade annihilated any trace of Stanfvorf and the goblins nearest to him. Those further away were still burnt to a crisp, most beyond all recognition. The hallway became an impassable wreckage of burning rubble.
“Death’s head,” McIntovov shook his head as he ran feeling the barest touch from the great heat upon his back. “Poor Stanfvorf!”
But the enemy gave the big man no reprieve for his grief. The stricken team of escaped spies had been imprisoned under a neighboring building of the Empire State Building and as they burst from the set of double doors at the top of the last flight of stairs they suddenly found themselves in a ground floor foyer.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Hardim exclaimed as he flanked to the right.
Stick flanked to the left, his gun at the ready and his face grim. He and Stanfvorf had joined Jeshux mercenary force at the same time. Except for McIntovov they were the two oldest special ops spies. The loss of his friend had begun to sink in. It affected him deeply and erased his carefree nature. As the small team escaped the restricted confines of the building his face was set in a mask of hatred. Bloodlust welled up inside of him and he began itching for something to kill, anything. He did not have to wait long.
They banged through the turn style door of the main exit and staggered outside onto a wide sidewalk. The sun was shining down through the long corridors of tall buildings, brighter than any electric lamp. The men squinted at its intensity and tried to get their bearings. They were not given the chance.
The werewolves swarmed from the alleys on either side of them. Firing their weapons wildly into the slobbering horrors converging on them the soldiers took the only course available, the broad avenue directly ahead. They crossed it moving at an angle and ran for all they were worth into a darkened alley the sun had no way of penetrating. Trash and debris littered both sides almost a man’s height deep in places.
Trudging through the stinking refuse the men fired their rifles over their shoulders at the mindless animals and prayed fervently for the passage ahead to remain clear until they hit the open street. But no such luck was with them this time. As they got to within twelve feet of the alley’s end more of the shaggy gray beasts appeared and rushed toward them.
They had no choice, without stopping they tried to clear the way with a barrage of molten plasma but it did not seem like it would be enough. Suddenly a grenade blinked into existence and flew into the alley from the sunlit street beyond. It landed into the middle of the monstrous beasts and exploded sending bloody chunks of meat and unidentifiable body parts in every direction. A taloned paw larger than a grown man’s foot went sailing past McIntovov’s head as he ran.
“It’s Tol,” Donin’s disembodied voice intoned from somewhere in front of the three other men.
Then they were all in the street and the path was clear for the moment. Tol’s grenade had done its job. McIntovov signaled and the men made their way through the streets always moving in an southern direction. If they could get out of New York and into what used to be New Jersey McIntovov knew they would be okay. Luck, it seemed, was proving to be a fickle mistress.
The mercenaries turned right down a narrow one-way street and found themselves stumbling into the rear guard of a mixed goblin, werewolf force. They did not give their foes a chance to react as grenades were thrown and plasma fired before they beat a hasty retreat back around the corner.
“McIntovov!” Hardim cried out in warning.
The old spy turned as a shadow flickered in his peripheral vision. He was just in time to catch the full weight of a medium sized werewolf square on his chest. The animal was gray, like most werewolves but with streaks of brown and black shot through its fur. Baleful red eyes, sunk deep into the hollows of its skull, glared at McIntovov as he stumbled backward. Taking advantage of the brief opening the mighty creature latched onto the grizzled warriors left shoulder and tore out a huge chunk of flesh. McIntovov cried out in pain doubly intense as he landed with the weight of the werewolf on his left arm, which cracked the bones cleanly in two. Then as suddenly as it had appeared it was gone, blown free from atop its victim by a flurry of plasma.
Looking grim Hardim stood over his fallen companion. He reached out, grasped McIntovov’s good