Warden 1

by Isaac Hooke

  Rhea couldn’t suppress a smile.

  She fired at the exposed eye and scored a hit. The creature screamed, causing those nearby to glance its way.

  One of them spotted her.

  Rhea decided it was time to take the high ground. She somersaulted onto a fallen tree trunk and leaped upward, holstering her pistol to grab on to a protruding branch. She swung upward, landing on an upper bough.

  The Werang plowed into the tree below her, and the impact nearly knocked her from her perch. She withdrew the pistol and aimed at her foe, but the creature was already slamming its thick shark head into the lower trunk again. The tree uprooted and began to topple over.

  Rhea leaped from her roost, aiming down at the eye below her, but the Werang tilted its head to the side before she could fire. She landed on the top of that head, and tentacles reached up to grab her.

  She leaped sideways, weaving her body between the angry appendages, narrowly avoiding contact. Momentum continued to torque her body around, so that she was facing the head once more as she fell. Her pistol arm swung toward the eye, and she squeezed the trigger.

  Yellow blood splattered from the wound, and the creature collapsed.

  Rhea returned to the dead branches once more, and followed along the trampled path, leaping from tree to tree. Her hood had long since fallen—she didn’t bother restoring it.

  Ahead, the Werangs had surrounded the cyborg, who was clambering toward the top of a particularly big tree. So far, the creatures had been unsuccessful in tearing it down. They’d certainly trimmed a lot of the lower branches, however. And a good portion of them continually assaulted the base, trying to shake him out. Another portion stalked on the sidelines, circling and glancing upward as they yipped and howled. They reminded her of some archival footage she’d seen on VidTube, of hungry hyenas who had forced a small cheetah into a tree, taken from a time when animals roamed the Outlands.

  Two of the Werangs were also scaling the boughs to directly pursue the man. They kept their eyes downcast for the most part, using their tentacles to feel out a path, and looking up only occasionally to judge where the cyborg was. It prevented the man from successfully shooting them down. He did strike at their feelers with his energy rifle, however, and that did slow the Werangs somewhat, because they momentarily retracted their appendages when struck.

  None of them had seen Rhea, of course—they were too distracted by their current prey. As such, Rhea was able to approach undetected, and closed with one of the Werangs that circled the base of the tree. Its back was to her, so she leaped onto its leg and climbed using fistfuls of fur.

  The creature started, then twisted its head and upper body sideways in an attempt to bite her off. She climbed faster, avoiding those jaws and the tentacles that lined it.

  A second Werang charged into that one, toothy maw snapping at Rhea. She swung upward, landing on the first’s back, and leaped out of the way. The first angrily snapped at the second, intimidating it, so that the intruding bioweapon backed away. Rhea was going to take a shot at the exposed eye when she spotted a third Werang stampeding in. It leaped, obviously hoping to clear the first Werang while snatching her off its back.

  She somersaulted into the air and avoided the snapping jaws of the newcomer. She arced back down, landing on the base of its neck at the same time the creature slammed into the first Werang: its hind-legs had failed to clear the bottommost creature, and had caught against the side.

  The first creature was unable to hold up the weight of the third and collapsed. The second meanwhile was coming in for another pass.

  Rhea took a running jump off the back of the third and landed on a nearby tree. An oak. She began climbing. The oak was only a few trees away from the cyborg’s. She wondered if the man had seen her yet—if he had, he showed no sign of it at the moment. She tried to check his public profile now that she was closer, but still got nothing. Had to be disabled.

  Maybe he’s a bandit after all.

  Well, it didn’t matter. She was committed. Even a bandit didn’t deserve to die this way.

  The tree shook below her, and she knew one of the Werangs had struck it. Not wanting to risk the tree uprooting, she pulled herself onto one of the upper boughs and leaped across to the next tree, which was almost as tall as the oak the man climbed. She doubted the Werangs would be able to uproot this one.

  The Werangs below continued to crash into the base of the trunk. Some of them had begun to assault her tree as well. She ignored the shudders that passed through the bark, and hoped the roots were strong enough and deep enough to resist the blows.

  She was at eye level with one of the two Werangs that scaled the tree across from her. It had kept its head tilted downward to protect its sensitive sight organs from the man, but that head posture only placed its eye directly into her line of fire. Indeed, the creature was looking right at her.

  Grinning maliciously, Rhea raised her pistol and fired. The creature shut its eye lid just in time, and continued climbing, keeping the eye closed.

  Glancing up, she saw that the man had finally noticed her. But he spared her only a moment’s gaze before returning his attention to the scaling Werangs. He shot at their tentacles—all he could do really—but the bioweapons took the blows stoically, letting their tentacles recoil as they climbed ever higher. The man continued to clamber as well, and while the tree was tall, it wasn’t infinitely so. The cyborg man would soon run out of tree…

  Rhea pulled herself onto one of the bigger boughs, and slowly edged toward the precipice. She didn’t dare look down. She leaped.

  As she approached the head, those tentacles tried to snatch her up—apparently the Werang had been peeking from beneath its eyelid.

  She shot at the closest ones with her pistol, sending them shrinking back, and twisted her body at the same time to avoid the remaining appendages. She landed on the hairless face, close to the eye, and with her free hand squeezed the gray skin tightly for purchase.

  Tentacles still came at her, attempting to rip her off, and she was forced to shoot at them continually. More energy bolts started to come in from above, striking those tentacles, and she realized the cyborg was helping her.

  She stopped shooting at the tentacles, trusting the other cyborg to protect her, and holstered the pistol to make her way toward the eye, forming handholds by bunching up fistfuls of skin as she went.

  The Werang started frantically moving its head to and fro in an attempt to be rid of her but couldn’t shake her free.

  She positioned herself above the eyelid, so that her feet dangled down in front of it while she hung on with her scrunched fingers. The tentacles came in faster, but the cyborg managed to hold them all at bay, for now. But all it would take was one appendage to get through…

  She shoved the tips of both boots into the crevice formed between the upper and lower folds of skin that composed the eyelid. She pressed down hard with one boot, and with the other, she yanked upward. She strained, but after a moment managed to pry the eyelid open slightly. It was all she needed.

  She let go of the skin above her with her right hand, unholstered the pistol, and fired.

  The creature screamed as its eye exploded, and it let go of the tree.

  Rhea shoved off, holstered the pistol, and landed on the trunk. Looking down, she watched the heavy Werang break away several branches as it dropped to the ground far below. The other Werangs cleared away from the base, and the tree shuddered when the creature impacted.

  The bioweapon didn’t get up.

  Because the man had been concentrating his fire on those tentacles to protect Rhea, the second Werang had climbed the far side of the tree unhindered and was rapidly closing with him. He turned his attention to that one and unleashed his rifle, but it kept its head turned away and didn’t stop, regardless of how many times he shot each tentacle. The Werang could smell blood.

  Rhea frantically tried to relocate herself to the opposite side of the tree so she could get in a shot. Meanwhile,
the cyborg man climbed between rifle blasts, until the branches he sought for handholds began to break away above him. He could climb no further: the boughs were too weak to support his weight here.

  The Werang was within swiping distance, and it reached upward with a front paw to strike. Rhea watched it all via Gizmo’s feed in the upper right of her vision.

  The cyborg shoved off, vaulting toward the adjacent tree.

  The bioweapon swung its head, snapping at him as he passed by. Its head poked past the boughs above her.

  Rhea got the shot she was looking for.

  She unholstered the pistol, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.

  The creature screamed as its eye exploded, and it let go of the tree. It fell, writhing, breaking away branches all around it. Some of those branches plunged straight toward Rhea.

  She shoved off the trunk, leaping toward the same tree the cyborg had chosen. She holstered the pistol and grabbed onto a big branch as the Werang fell behind her, hitting the ground with a loud thud. Miraculously, it got up again.

  Glancing up, she saw the cyborg precariously perched on the thin upper branches overhead. The man took a step, and the branch he stood upon broke.

  Rhea reached out and grabbed his ankle as he plunged past. But the branch she had been holding onto with her other hand broke away, unable to handle the added weight and momentum.

  Rhea tried to latch onto different branches on the way down, but they all broke away. The cyborg lashed about with his tail, trying to find purchase as well, but he, too, had no luck.

  Another Werang was climbing this tree, and it wasn’t far below them. Those jaws opened eagerly to accept the free meal.

  Finally, their downward motion was arrested when the cyborg wrapped its tail around a branch that could hold their combined weight. They hung there, hovering above the bioweapon, with Rhea dangling from the man’s ankle.

  The Werang continued to approach. It kept its head angled down and to the side, hiding its eyes from them, and climbing with the aid of its tentacles.

  Rhea withdrew her pistol and opened fire with the cyborg, and together they struck at the feeler tentacles. Those appendages withdrew of course, but that didn’t stop the forelegs from carrying the beast ever higher. Rhea and the man would be within swiping distance of those forelegs in moments.

  She had hoped her luck would last a little longer, but it looked like it had finally run out.

  15

  Rhea stared at that gaping maw, and those forelegs, prepared to leap aside for the swipe that was surely coming. No doubt the man above her was similarly readying himself.

  But then shots came in from the side. They struck the creature on the right side of the head, but must have missed the eye, because it did not squeal, nor otherwise let go of the tree.

  Will and Horatio.

  The creature turned its head toward the source of the attacks, keeping its eyes hidden. Rhea glanced in the same direction, and spotted her friends perched atop one of the silos.

  The energy bolts continued to come in, assaulting the Werang, which kept its head bowed as it took the blows. One of the bioweapons on the ground followed those energy bolts, racing across the rocky terrain toward the silos.

  Will and Horatio diverted their attacks and tried to bring down the incoming Werang.

  The bioweapon closed its eyes and issued a strange, cyclic call as it approached.

  The bigger Werangs darted en masse around the sides of the farmhouse. Apparently, feeding was now done. They raced toward the silos to join the runt.

  Oh, crap, Will sent.

  Meanwhile, since Will and Horatio were no longer shooting at it, the Werang on the tree had resumed climbing.

  Rhea had an idea.

  She aimed at the boughs that were holding up those limbs and fired repeatedly. The cyborg, understanding what she was doing, switched his aim from the Werang to the boughs as well.

  The energy bolts melted through the branches, causing them to fail beneath the weight of the creature. The Werang’s forelegs lost their hold, and it clawed at empty air, trying to find purchase. It fell backward, grabbing onto branches lower down.

  Rhea and the cyborg shot those boughs, too, but the creature was already clambering to the other side of the tree, and out of their view.

  Rhea scaled the cyborg’s leg and swung onto a branch nearby. The man pulled himself onto a bough as well and started to make for the far side of the tree.

  Rhea meanwhile, glanced at Will and Horatio. Her friends had switched to the top of a different silo—the one they had been standing on, along with the second beside it, had been crumpled by the huge Werangs that had rounded the farmhouse. Those creatures had the last silo surrounded, and were preparing to pounce…

  Rhea’s artificial vocal cords were more akin to loudspeakers than anything human and could be used to produce a variety of different sounds. On a whim, she decided to mimic the cyclic call she had heard moments before, which the runt had used to summon the bigger bioweapons.

  It didn’t work.

  She spotted the blur of an incoming foreleg in the corner of her eye, and let go of the branch she held, dropping down. The boughs above her snapped as the Werang’s limb struck.

  She swung down, and pointed her pistol upward at the exposed head, but the Werang had its eyes closed.

  The cyborg leaped onto its back and latched onto the fur well away from the reach of the head tentacles. It shook its body, trying to get rid of him, momentarily forgetting Rhea.

  She glanced at the feed from Gizmo, and saw that Will and Horatio were latched onto Werangs in a similar manner. Other creatures kept trying to snatch them off their upper backs, forcing Will and Horatio to constantly roll around in the fur.

  Unexpectedly, the runts at the base of the tree began stampeded away into the forest, abandoning their companions. The runt on the tree quickly slid down, and when it reached the bottom, it too hastened from the scene. The cyborg dropped to the ground before it could take him very far.

  The other, bigger Werangs continued trying to pry Will and Horatio from the backs of their brethren, until Rhea heard a rumbling sound. The tree began to shake.

  Glancing to the north, she saw a dust cloud hovering above the treetops, and slowly growing closer.

  Uh, we have company of some kind, Rhea sent to Will and Horatio.

  The cyborg leaped onto the big oak next to hers and began to climb frantically. Rhea decided to put some further distance between herself and the ground as well.

  The bigger Werangs began to pick up on the vibrations, and they too started dashing away into the west. Will and Horatio’s mounts were the last to depart. Horatio hopped down right away, but Will had to slowly clamber down the furry flank; when the creature reached the treeline, he leaped onto a nearby bough. Horatio followed soon thereafter and scaled into an adjacent tree.

  Rhea reached the height limit of her current tree: the branches higher up were unable to hold her weight. So she held herself in place and watched as the dust cloud rapidly approached below.

  The rumbling sound grew in volume, until it was all consuming. The cloud of dust swept over her like a mist, and in its dark confines, she caught glimpses of body parts: giant tentacles, snakelike heads, claws the size of human bodies.

  These aren’t Werangs… Rhea sent. Nor Kargs, or Tasins.

  No, they’re not, Will agreed. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

  Nor have I, Horatio transmitted. And I’ve studied every creature in the Net archives.

  Maybe it’s a new bioweapon, developed by one of those rogue nations you mentioned? Rhea suggested.

  Could be, Will said.

  I would like to see one of them in its entirety, Horatio said. Unobscured by that “dust.”

  It’s not natural, is it? Rhea said. That cloud?

  No, Horatio said. While there’s enough loose soil here to produce such a cloud, it should be trailing them, not concealing them entirely.

  Rhea nodded. T
hat’s what I thought.

  And then, just like that, the cloud passed. It receded to the south, vanishing as quickly as it had come.

  Well, that’s something else to watch for, Will sent.

  Passing clouds of dust that harbor a new type of bioweapon? Rhea asked. A creature that scares away even Werangs?

  Yep, Will transmitted. Now then, how about we go and meet your new friend?

  Rhea glanced at the cyborg, who yet clung to the treetop beside hers.

  Rhea leaped from branch to branch, jumping three stories at a time, until she landed on the ground. One of her knee servos buzzed in complaint after the final impact; thankfully she felt no change in motor function, and the humming noise quickly went away.

  “Careful,” Will said, coming alongside her. “Try to make that body of yours last until the next settlement, at least. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to get there, only to have to spend all your earnings on repairs. Leaving you with the same amount of debt.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Rhea agreed. She raised her hood and pulled it close to hide her face.

  Horatio joined them, and together the three of them approached the dead oak the other cyborg was climbing down. The man had holstered the rifle on his back so that only the stock protruded; meanwhile Rhea and her companions kept their weapons at the ready, though lowered.

  The trio halted several meters from the base, and glanced up, waiting. As she watched the man slowly descend from branch to branch, using his tail as a fifth limb along with his arms and legs, Rhea thought he was trying to hide his strength—she had seen him jumping between trees with relative ease earlier, after all. She thought him fully capable of descending as quickly as she had but said nothing.

  “Gonna be a long wait,” Will commented.

  “It’s certainly a big tree,” Horatio agreed.

  “You might want to pick it up a little!” Will called to the man. “The Werangs will be back!”

  The man did increase his pace, but he still seemed like he was trying to conceal his strength—he never lowered himself more than one branch at a time.