The Search for Artemis - By P. D. Griffith Page 0,119

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