It was Meat that I saw first. It was easy to pick out his bulky form, as the SUV had bright headlights pointed this direction, assumedly to keep the Kelvins from looking directly at them and mounting resistance. Meat was trotting forward, a pistol in each fist, each arm scanning for any Kelvins that were not retreating, but not currently firing. Next came Paulie. A cigarette hanging from his lip, he sauntered forward after Meat, holding his rifle up in the air. Like Meat, he saw the Kelvins scattering and saw no reason to keep shooting.
Finally out of the gleam of the headlights came my brother, obvious by his lanky form, his long hair, and his katana. Few times had I ever been so relieved to get a rescue. As my brother came closer, I took in the goggles around his neck, the scar on his head, and the look of concern as he scanned the lot, looking for me. With the Kelvins pulled back, it was obvious where I was on the asphalt in a cloud of disbelief and smoke, so they noticed me quickly. Mikkel walked over to me, followed by the others. I still hadn't stood up yet and Ace sat next to me. I figured I earned a moment of rest and the enjoyment of the victory cigarette, even if I had pretty much been defeated before they showed up. I also used the cigarette to try to hide my emotions[15].
"Seems like you needed backup, kid," said Paulie.
"I did, I brought the dog," I said in retort, but my heart wasn't in it.
"Seriously, Szandor, what were you doing?" said Mikkel. "You could have gotten yourself killed."
"I'm happy you're okay too," I said, a little bitter and sour, but more embarrassed than anything else. It was hard to be truly bitter when you get your life saved by allies you didn't think were coming or even cared. You sure as hell can be embarrassed, though.
Mikkel sheathed his katana and stepped forward, offering me a hand to pull myself up. I looked at it for a long moment, on the one hand feeling like I didn't deserve it, on the other hand feeling a fight come on that seemed ridiculous in this situation. Why would I clash against him? Maybe he didn't have my back before, but he had come here now unasked and unexpected. There was nothing to be mad about. What was wrong with me? I suppressed that desire to fight and instead flicked my cigarette to the asphalt and grabbed his hand.
He pulled me up, and once I was standing, he continued his motion, pulling me in for a big hug, which was completely unexpected. And maybe, just maybe, I took a moment to not feel like a total asshole and someone who actually had people who cared about him.
"Of course I'm glad you're okay," Mikkel finally said, letting go of the hug and looking at me with concern. "Why wouldn't I be?"
I averted my gaze and scratched the back of my head. "So there's the part where there was this intervention to stop me from doing... probably things very much like what I'm doing right now. And I may have done some cursing, and I may have said some bad things to you. And I may have forgotten when I left that I was going to get disowned if I rejected the intervention. So maybe I've been feeling like I didn't have friends, who I've recently realized I might not have deserved in the first place."
"You're always like a lost puppy, kid," said Paulie. "Or a stray cat that nobody owns."
"The point is," I said, my lack of eye contact reaching epic levels as I stared at some of the Kelvin corpses I had created, "I'm sorry. There, I said it. I'm sorry. You guys were fucking right, I'm out of control. I totally admit that now. I have some problems, some shit I need to deal with. But the biggest thing is I need you. I need my friends. I don't need to be doing any of this. None of this... uh... uh..."
"John Wayne stuff," suggested Meat.
"Right! None of this John Wayne stuff is worth losing everyone," I said. "It's not worth losing my only family."
"Look, I'm sorry too," said Mikkel. "The whole intervention thing got out of hand. When Yasmin first had the idea, it sounded like just a wake up call, which I do think you needed. But she used the word intervention, and Carly said if it's an intervention, it needed to be done right. And she started doing it like the fancy drug addict interventions, which was far more than was needed. But Yasmin thought that was great and pushed Carly even farther into all that. So it went out of control. I had agreed that we needed to sit down and talk with you, I didn't agree that we needed to abandon you. I never wanted to do that. You're family. I'll always be your Big Brother, even when you're acting like an asshole. Especially when you're acting like an asshole."
"But... then why haven't you called?" I asked. "Seriously, man, I've been feeling like I haven't had a friend in the world."
"What about the dog?" asked Meat, who had moved to scratch Ace behind the ears, putting Ace in doggie heaven.
"Ace is someone else's," I said. "I'm just keeping him company."
"The dog's the new Mikkel," said Paulie with a smile. "The plot twist is that the dog's the one in charge. Better hair, though."
"Fuck you, man," I said. "We're having a real conversation here. It's not like you guys returned my calls either."
"I told you to get your shit together," said Paulie, "not that you should never call for help when you actually needed it. I mean, shit, kid, I got you out of jail."
"Jail?" said Mikkel.
"We'll talk later about that," said Paulie. "There's the matter of my attorney fee." By his smile, I don't think he meant it, but you never know with Paulie.
"In my opinion, Szandor, you needed a break," said Meat. "Doesn't matter the other details, the end result was that you destroyed a gas station. Someone was hurt. That's pretty significant collateral damage. And it was on my watch, so I figured I needed to take a step back out of the situation and examine my own complicity. So I admit I didn't answer some of your calls."
"Accidentally! I only accidentally blew up the gas station, and that was only to stop a Spider hive!" I said. "But that's off topic. Mikkel, why didn't you call if you didn't disown me?"
"You didn't call either," said Mikkel with a shrug. "You left the intervention cursing and mad. I figured I'd give you a few days to cool down. Just a few days! I didn't think you'd immediately get involved in whatever this is," he said, gesturing to the bodies and the lot around us. "Brother, when you get in deep, you do it quickly."
"Do we even know what this all is?" said a familiar female voice. Delilah walked into our group, her P90 laying on her shoulder. I hadn't seen her since right before Jabberwock Jack put me in the hospital, but I did get her gift of whiskey. She was also a hunter of monsters. She was closer to my brother and I's age than Paulie and Meat, but she was still her thirties, like her partner Dixie that I had only met once. Delilah looked as I had remembered her: long brown hair, pretty, and always wearing camping and hunting gear that probably cost more than my rent. Her expression said she was bored with all this talking and emotions, but she seemed to wear that same expression often.
"You came too?" I said. Meat and Paulie we worked with semi-regularly, but I had only worked with Delilah twice and both on special jobs.
"I called in a favor," said Mikkel. "This sounded big and she was in the area."
"And I may be calling in that favor soon," said Delilah. She looked around at the bodies. "So what the hell was going on here?"
"Wait, you came in here all guns blazing without knowing what was going on?" I said. "I thought you guys didn't kill people - not that these guys actually are - and these look a lot like people."
"We fired our guns in the air and over their heads," said Meat. "We wanted them to disperse so we could get you and figure out what's going on. Speaking of firing..." Meat walked a little ways from us, reaching down to the ground to pick up some of his spent shells.
"How did you even know I was here then?" I asked. "How did you even know I was in trouble?"
"I got a weird call from Dickie," said Mikkel. "He got a call from you, then couldn't get you on the phone. Then he said he saw something on your funding site."
"Your Matreon video," said Paulie. "Kinda bleak stuff, kid."
"How did you see that?" I said.
"Oh, I'm one of your funders," said Paul
ie. "Five bucks a month to keep tabs on what you're doing and what you're showing people. Seems a worthwhile investment for intel."
I shook my head. "You're as bad as the 'surveillance state' you hate."
"But I'm not the government," said Paulie. "I'm a private citizen. It's different."
"This is not the time for that discussion," called Meat from where he was bent over grabbing shells.
"Right," said Paulie. "I saw your video and put together what you were saying, and we found you here. The other Kelvin automotive location was gone, so it seemed like you were here."
"I tried calling you on our way here," said Mikkel. "To stop you from doing something stupid."
"That call is what alerted them to me," I said with a frown.
"You didn't turn your ringer off? What is this, amateur hour?" said Paulie.
"Can we get to the point of this?" said Delilah. "I have stuff I'd rather do than sit in on guy's bowling night."
"Man, I haven't been bowling in forever..." said Meat.
"Killian's Lanes in the Ville is 24-hour," said Paulie.
"Can we get to the fucking point?" insisted Delilah.
"Ok, so, like, these guys -" I started.
"The dead ones?" said Delilah.
"All of them," I said. "They're not people, they're monsters! Clones!"
"Clones?" said Delilah with great disbelief.
"No, look!" I said, finding some of the angry Kelvin corpses and turning them face up. "This dude! And over here, the same dude! And another, and another!"
"I'll admit that it's all very strange... and gory," said Meat. "But while you definitely believe they're monsters... and have taken appropriate action, sadly... that doesn't convince the rest of us."
"Yeah, I know," I said. "The clone thing itself is a hard angle. And I haven't quite figured it all out, how this all works. But this, this you need to see." I walked over to Ace, who through this whole time had sat patiently around a bunch of people he didn't know. He was clearly a hunter's dog though - patient when not needed, lethal when needed. I turned over the body of the strange mutated Kelvin. I had no idea if I had killed him or not, but I had kept his head intact enough. There was a bloody bruise on his forehead and pieces of the Spider legs had broken off, but that did nothing to detract from his hideous abomination qualities.
"What the fuck is that?" said Mikkel.
"I know, right?" I said proudly. "Welcome to my madness, everyone. I'm so glad to not be alone in this."
"But what are they?" said Meat.
"I still don't know that," I said. "They're all clones of this one dude, David Kelvin. He used to work for MT as a scientist, then a test subject. He, uh, disappeared when the Clark Building shit went down. And it's one of these clones that had its head explode in Cobalt."
"No shit?" said Paulie with renewed interest in the body.
"He looks like a Spider," said Delilah.
"I don't know how it works," I said, "but he's gotta be like, half-Spider or something. A quarter Spider? These clones are like... his Spiders or something."
"It's something to check out," said Meat. "But we shouldn't linger here. This might be the Husks and police response time poor, but we discharged some firearms. They will be coming eventually."
"We can't go yet," I said. "I'm sure this is their lair. And they've been after me, watching the trains and shit. I need to finish this so they don't jump me on the street. I'm here because I had no choice. Not because I had a death wish. Mostly not because I had a death wish, at least."
"I leave you alone for a few days, and you're suddenly wanted by a major organization of monsters," said Mikkel. "It's like you're a magnet for trouble."
"It's even worse than that, but I'm not even going to get into the Family right now," I said. At the moment, I didn't think anything about my friends' reactions. In recollection, I think that Meat and Paulie shared a look when I said this, but I'm not positive. "But I swear I didn't pick this fight, it just happened."
"Then what do you suggest we do?" said Mikkel. "Time is running short, like Meat said."
"This is the place, it's gotta be. Look at those trailers," I said pointing to the truck trailers in the corner. Each had the Kelvin Automotive logo on it. Two were missing, which may or may not have been a concern, I wasn't sure. "The truck we found up in Cobalt had this logo," I said specifically to Meat. "It was one of these. I'm sure that this is the base of operations for... whatever the hell this is. We're already here. Let's just scout the main dealership building. If it's nothing, then we beat a hasty retreat. But if there's something in there, we need to deal with it and I'm not gonna lie and say I'm unhappy that you all brought guns."
"I estimate at least a half an hour response time for police unless they had a unit in the area," said Paulie. "Of which we have just spent ten minutes."
"I'm backing my brother on this one," said Mikkel. "Let's check it out and get out of here."
"I'm in favor of just doing it rather than wasting more time discussing it," said Delilah.
"Agreed," said Meat. "Let's see what's in this place."
The interior of Kelvin Automotive looked like a refugee camp. The front showroom area was full of sleeping bags lined up for maximum efficiency; there was not even a foot of space between each bag, which would have been uncomfortable sleeping for me. There were a few racks of clothing which were mostly empty. There was an area where there was a massive pallet of water bottles and a large bin for empty ones. There was also a table that held lots of bowls and dozens of boxes of the same cereal.
"Someone really likes their Cheerios," said Mikkel.
"They need to eat and drink," I said. "But I guess they don't eat well."
"If they're just a big collective, eating could just be a necessary evil," said Paulie.
There were no Kelvins in the showroom. They had all cleared off. I was disappointed. Had they escaped to cause us trouble another day? I would have rathered we got them all at once.
Past the showroom were cubicle offices, originally intended for sales staff to get papers signed, but in this case they were full of more cereal, more water, and spare sleeping bags. Beyond that was the area in a car dealership typically reserved for car prep, car repairs, and the like. As far as I could tell, it would be the last area in the building we hadn't checked. I hoped what we needed was beyond those doors.
The large room beyond was definitely the lair of this monster party. The first thing I noticed were seven huge mounds that were familiar. Red and made of a clay-like substance, these looked like Spider hives. They were easily twice as big as normal Spider hives and they were clustered around a central item - a glass coffin. Attached to a number of wires and cables, it was a clear box about seven feet long. It was filled with smoky yellow fluid. From this distance, I could just vaguely make out the shadow of a body.
"This shit is messed up," said Mikkel.
We heard a familiar clacking sound that put us on edge, but this was louder than we had ever heard it. From the left side of the room, a Spider walked down the wall. But this was no Spider we knew. Rather than being small, this Spider was perhaps six feet from front to back, making it a massive insect about the size of one of us. It was a beige color, pale like the tint had been stripped out of it. We watched as it walked down the wall onto the floor. We all readied our weapons, but we all paused in disgust at the other strange feature: its face.
The head of David Kelvin had sprouted from the front of the Spider like the ghastliest hood ornament ever. The head was bald and scarred, but it was obviously Kelvin. The expression it wore was that of a grimace, as if suffering from the effort to remain human when attached to that horrible insect body.
"Since it seems you won't leave, would you care to tell me what do you want?" said this Kelvin. The voice was slightly slurred, the undertone of a hiss. It also seemed like there was some strain to say it, sweat coming off the brow of its head.
None of us responded at first, because what do you say to a gian
t talking insect? It's not even something you expect. It doesn't matter if the insect has a human head. In fact, it's worse when it has the head. Until the moment it opens its mouth and tries to talk to you as if you're kids on its lawn, you're not expecting it to say anything. So when it does, you have that moment of shock and disgust that leaves you speechless. Ace barked at it, having more voice than the rest of us.
"What exactly are you?" asked Paulie.
"Do we really need to dignify it with conversation?" I said. "Let's just kill it already!"
"We don't know its intentions," said Paulie.
"Would that change our minds?" said Meat. "We kill monsters. We don't talk to them."
"We never have monsters try to talk to us," said Mikkel. "Maybe we'd learn something."
"Revenants try to talk to us," I suggested. "Or at least talk to mock us."
"Point taken," said Mikkel. "Kill it."
"Exactly! And I know its intention," I said. "It's been trying to kill me. Every damn David Kelvin has." Ace barked in agreement.
"We respond to threats," said the hiss voice of Kelvin.
"I don't buy that," I said. "You gave the order to kill me in the Night Market."
"After you had killed three workers!" argued the Spider we were not killing for some reason. "Though admittedly one was lost and unpredictable. You still killed the others. You were a threat."
"What about the truck? What about the truck?" I said insistently. "There was a Spider hive in the truck! Where were you taking it?" I was annoyed at having to justify my antagonism to a giant Spider with some kind of hive mind and a human head stapled on, so my anger and distaste were coming out in my words.
"We were using that to expand ourselves," said the Spider. "To increase the collective David Kelvin."
"But how did you get this way and what do you want?" said Paulie.
"What we want is simple, we want to change -"
The Spider didn't finish its sentence because of the gunshot and the red spot that bloomed in the middle of its forehead. We all turned to look at Delilah, holding her P90 still aimed at the big Spider in case there was more life in it. But the Spider slumped, its legs giving out and its body falling to the floor.
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