by Archer, Mia
Only the number didn’t go down no matter how long I stared at it and tried to make it go down through sheer force of will.
“Shit,” I said.
Fialux must’ve sensed something about my tone. She looked at me and there was worry etched on her face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“She’s using a teleporter to send those lizards from the edge of town out to some other planet,” I said. “I don’t know where the hell they’re going, I can’t get a read on the star patterns because there’s apparently no obvious sky, but…”
The signal cut off. The thing had gone through the portal and it was doing just fine, but it was as though…
Then it hit me what’d hit my probe. Of course. That lizard had one of those nasty tails swinging behind it, and it was definitely the kind of nasty tail that could do some serious damage. The thing must’ve hit my probe with a glancing blow right before it passed through to our side, and now that probe was no more even as the lizard stepped fully through to our end of the portal and bellowed.
“Fuck!” I said.
“Is this a problem?” Fialux asked.
I looked up at the giant lizard that was nothing but pure radioactive anger. It seemed to crackle with energy as it stared down at us. A strange energy that was the same kind of pink glow that had come from that ray Dr. Lana used on Fialux. It was enough to make me wonder if it was all connected somehow.
I couldn’t see how, but then again…
There was something very wrong about all of this. Something Dr. Lana was pulling that I didn’t quite understand yet. Thankfully when I couldn’t understand something I’d had great success in beating it out of people, and considering Dr. Lana’s ability to regenerate and her new seeming indestructibility if she had Fialux’s powers I could beat on her until the cows came home.
The lizard swiped at me. I dodged out of the way easily enough. Or, rather, it would be more accurate to say that my systems dodged me out of the way.
I was too busy looking at the readout on my wrist computer to worry overly much about a lizard trying to attack me. Even if it did look like it was a hell of a lot more powerful than your average lizard who attacked the city.
“Do you know anything about this CORVAC?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m not privy to all of her plans,” he said. “She cut me off when the robots did not work.”
I looked at him and grinned.
“Yeah, I bet that pissed you off that the giant robots didn’t work. I told you they weren’t an effective way to take over the city.”
“If you would pardon me mistress,” he said. “I think the fact that they…”
He trailed off as one of the lizard’s claws suddenly shot through him. Like we’re talking one moment his chest, that super armored chest that I had so much trouble punching through, was whole and shiny. The next moment there was a giant lizard arm run through him with a clawed lizard hand holding his sparking guts on the other side.
He looked down, and I could’ve sworn there was surprise registering on his face, and then it was all over.
He slumped down onto the lizard’s arm before we could finish yet another argument about the efficacy of giant robots. Though I did see a faint green glow in his eyes. He was still there. For a moment.
“I told you robots weren’t effective!” I shouted down at him.
I really hoped the electronic pathways leading from the sensors on that robot to wherever he was hiding his consciousness were still working well enough that he caught that final parting jab before his eyes went out.
Hey, the bucket of bolts might have saved my ass on a few occasions recently, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t above the occasional jab at him. That was the foundation of our old relationship, after all.
“What the hell,” Fialux said. “Those lizards aren’t supposed to be that powerful. You said…”
I held up my wrist computer. Though it was difficult for Fialux to get a good look at the display because the monster swiped again. This time both of our countermeasures kicked in pulling us away from one another. That was getting really annoying, but Fialux floated in close again as soon as the danger had passed.
“She’s managed to find a world that’s loaded with radiation and at the same time still somehow has an atmosphere that those lizards can breathe.”
It was going to take me way too long to run the analysis on that. I needed to rescue CORVAC and I needed to rescue him like yesterday so he could start running analysis on this stuff while I was out here in the city taking care of business.
“So what does that mean?” she asked, her words only slightly interrupted as our automatic countermeasures dodged out of the way again as the giant lizard played a frustrating game of giant lizard whack-a-mole. Thankfully it wasn’t fast enough to win that game.
“Think of it this way,” I said. “Those things usually grow all oversized when they’re exposed to low levels of radiation left over from waste from the Manhattan project on the outskirts of the city. It’s all really off the books and you wouldn’t even know it was there if it weren’t for the damn lizards being exposed and growing to a giant size. And now she’s sent some of those lizards to a world that’s being bombarded by the kind of radiation you’d expect to see falling from the sky in the black rain after a blast.”
She looked at me and she was clearly confused.
“Black rain? What are you even talking about? I’ve never heard of black rain before.”
I stared at her. Really it was more like I was staring at the terrible mismanagement of the education system in this country. I mean seriously. How could she not know what black rain was?
Though admittedly that was the sort of thing that a science geek such as yours truly would be more likely to know about.
“It’s the sort of nasty stuff that comes down after an atomic weapon is used,” I said. “At least after it’s used on a population center.”
“Right, and that’s bad?” she asked.
I sighed. Yeah, this was an indictment of the education system if I’d ever seen one.
“That’s bad,” I said. “At least it’s bad if you have the kind of living tissue that doesn’t stand up all that well to radiation.”
“Huh,” she said. “I guess I never thought of it like that.”
“Right,” I said. “Because you never had to think about anything hurting you. Must be nice.”
“It was while it lasted,” she said.
It was at that moment that one of the claws brushed so close to me that I had to actually start paying attention to what was going on around me. Like we’re talking I could feel the breeze as it flew past, and I was pretty sure I heard a buzzing that sounded like when you stand too close to a high tension wire.
Not a fun experience. We’d been having this entire conversation jerking back and forth through the air as the countermeasures did their thing.
“We should probably do something about this,” I said.
Only I heard a cackling. Not the kind of sound I liked to hear. I looked over and saw none other than Dr. Lana standing next to that portal, and she seemed to be glowing with the same pink glow that surrounded the lizard.
What the hell was going on here?
“Um, admittedly I was new to this whole hero thing when I started fighting you and I’m not as up to speed on what’s good and what’s bad in a fight,” Fialux said. “But that can’t be good that she’s standing there laughing like that.”
“No,” I growled. “That’s not good. At all.”
25
Hate Being Right
Dr. Lana looked down and pointed an accusing finger at us. Not the sort of thing you wanted to see in someone facing you down and threatening to destroy you.
At least she had delusions of trying to destroy me.
“Hey bitch!” I shouted, ready to mix it up just a little. “So are you forgetting the part where I’ve kicked your ass every time we’ve gone toe to toe wi
th each other?”
From the way she glared at me she clearly hadn’t forgotten all the times I’d kicked her ass when we’d gone toe to toe lately. In her current addled state I suddenly thought about how it might not be a great idea to poke at the crazy lady.
It was one of the first things you learned in this business. If there was an enemy out there who was just a little unhinged then it was a good fucking idea to keep away from the person with potential super powers who was going off the deep end.
Only this time around I had no choice. I sighed. There was nothing for it but to get down to business.
The only problem was she’d obviously decided to get down to business first. One moment she was floating in front of that stupid pink portal thing and the next she was flying right at me. Faster than a speeding…
Well I think you know where I’m going with this.
I had just long enough to sigh. I thought back to a fateful morning not all that long ago when I’d gone out to rob a bank because I thought things were starting to get boring. I’d obviously been getting a little too cocky, and now I was paying the price.
Damn it.
The hit didn’t feel all that great. We’re talking it was the kind of hit that was so powerful that the shields went up and the inertial dampeners kicked into gear and it still rattled my teeth.
Damn that hurt!
“Natalie!” Fialux shouted, forgetting herself and using my real name which I wasn’t happy about.
I slammed into the ground and was greeted with the oh-so-familiarly-annoying sight of all my indicators going red. Only for a moment, but like a video game I’d played over and over again I knew how this was going to go.
It started with a little bit of recharging. Then a lot of recharging. And eventually I was laid bare and fucked, and not in the good way that I preferred when I was with Fialux.
“That fucking hurt!” I shouted.
I scrambled to my knees, and then forced myself to my feet. If there was one thing I wasn’t going to do around this bitch it was getting down on my knees and groveling like she was better than me. I even gave her a one-fingered salute just to be on the safe side.
“Is that all you can think to do Night Terror?” she asked, throwing her head back for a good old fashioned villainous laugh.
I missed doing a good old fashioned villainous laugh. If there was one thing this was teaching me it was that I missed a lot about my old life as a villain.
I’d been confused lately. I’d been on the straight and narrow. I missed going out and blasting things. Fucking shit up. And I figured it was time to do some of that old fashioned stuff with Dr. Lana. Fialux seemed surprisingly okay with me letting loose with Dr. Lana in particular.
Only I didn’t get a chance to. No, one moment Dr. Lana was hovering over me with her head thrown back in a good laugh, and the next she was flying to the side and slammed into a building with Fialux attached to her.
I winced. An Art Deco building, of course, and the facade came crumbling down. Fialux didn’t have the same appreciation for architecture that I did. Oops.
There weren’t any people down below, at least. That was one saving grace.
Dr. Lana floated out from the building. She looked a little dazed. That was odd. Usually when I threw Fialux into buildings she wasn’t happy about it, but she also didn’t look like she was having trouble keeping it together. Even now she was climbing out of the Dr. Lana shaped hole and didn’t look that bad.
Thanks to my tech.
The question was what the hell was going on with Dr. Lana? She had some scrapes and bruises, but as I watched those healed up.
About par for the course, really. I wasn’t even surprised to see her patching herself up at this point.
Dr. Lana threw her head back and laughed again. That was getting really annoying. So instead of responding with my words I pulled up my wrist blaster and let loose with a few well timed shots. One of which landed right in her mouth and sent her twirling ass over head several times before she slammed into a wall again.
Fialux was on her. I smiled. It was gratifying to see all that training finally being put to some good use. Her fist came down on Dr. Lana several times and landed with sickening crunches.
I flew closer. Sickening crunches weren’t the sort of thing I’d expect from someone who had invulnerability.
I smiled. That smile turned to a laugh of my own. A laugh that started to sound downright villainous which wasn’t what I’d been going for considering all the confusion I’d been feeling about the whole hero versus villain thing.
Still, I couldn’t help but laugh just a little in this case. It looked like once again Dr. Lana had managed to do something revolutionary, but she’d managed to do it in a halfassed way that didn’t quite hit the goal she’d been going for.
She had Fialux’s powers, but obviously they were wearing off or not working perfectly. I could work with that.
The only problem with my sudden revelation that Dr. Lana might be a paper tiger? The giant claw that came at me. Two sets of giant claws, to be exact. Two sets of giant claws that clapped together around me and suddenly I found myself wedged in a smelly radioactive lizard sandwich.
And yes, that feels and smells about as great as it sounds. Let me paint a mental picture. Imagine taking a field trip out to a farm or something. Imagine that smell. The animal stink when walking into a barn for the first time. Think about the smug look on the tour guide’s face as a good old boy watches a bunch of city kids being confronted with the lovely smells of rural life for the first time.
Now imagine all of that being ground into your nose up close and personal, only there was also a touch of wet dog and a sort of metallic smell that I could only assume was the radiation powering the thing rubbing off just a little and hitting my body.
I was going to have to spend some time in a medbay when this was all said and done getting rid of some of that radiation. Damn it.
Everything went almost into the red again. Almost, but not quite. That wasn’t good. I’d faced down a few of these things before and while they could pack a punch, they shouldn’t be able to pack enough of a punch to send my readouts nearly into the red.
Same plan. Bigger monster. That radiation on that strange new world was making these things bigger. Stronger.
Nastier. Both in smell and disposition.
“I fucking hate being right,” I growled.
I tried pressing against the thing and its hands started to separate. Then I realized that the hands were separating a lot faster than I could account for if, say, I was using most of the strength augments available to my suit to try and push against the raw power of a giant irradiated lizard who was doing its best to squash me like a fly in its palm.
The unfortunate reason for the lizard pulling its scaly paws apart became apparent as I was hit with a stink that was even worse than the metallic barnyard smell.
I felt something steaming my hair. Let out a couple of choice curses because I spent a lot of time trying to make my hair look good while I was out, it’d become something of an obsession of mine since seeing how Fialux stayed perfectly coiffed during our fights, and now this fucking lizard was giving me a radiation steam with its breath?
I figured I should be more worried about the fact that it was breathing its stink breath down on me as it opened its mouth to devour me, but honestly there were so many other ways that I’d nearly died over my career that being devoured by a giant irradiated lizard barely made it into the top ten.
It certainly wasn’t as worrying as my hair looking less than perfect while I fought these fuckers off.
I fired off a couple of blasts at the thing for good measure, though. It’s not like I thought the blasts were going to do a damn thing against the fucker, but I figured it was like swatting the world’s biggest dog on the nose with a giant newspaper or something.
I don’t think anyone intended to actually hurt a dog when they swatted it on the nose with a newspaper. They were just
trying to get the smelly beast’s attention. I was doing the same thing here, only things were ratcheted up to eleven and then some because this was a giant irradiated lizard and the closer I got to its gaping maw the more I could see little sparks of energy dancing around in front of said gaping maw.
In a way that was more terrifying than the teeth threatening to chow down on yours truly.
Giant teeth clamping down on me were pretty terrifying. Don’t get me wrong on that score. I felt the same terror that every creature that’d evolved from something that regularly had to worry about another creature chomping down on its ass ever had.
It’s just that I knew I could probably take whatever bite pressure this thing was offering between my shields and my suit augments. It wasn’t going to be pretty and it would probably stink and be unpleasant, but I’d come through on the other side.
Pun totally intended on that one. I’ll let you sit with that lovely image for a moment.
But the crackling energy at the thing’s mouth? That was a friendly reminder that this motherfucker was nuclear, and nuclear in a way that the others weren’t. It was packing the punch of an angry lizard that had been irradiated on a strange new world and it was pissed about it.
I didn’t even bother glancing at the rads readout in my heads up display because I didn’t want to think about all the cells in my body being killed.
It was going to be a real bitch doing a refresh after all this was said and done. Thank science for all the work I’d done creating the medbays.
The shots hit the thing and glanced off of it. Nothing. No effect whatsoever. Damn it. Usually a blast did something, but this fucker was too strong.
The thing’s maw moved closer. Its breath was… Not pleasant. Let’s leave it at that. I’m talking imagine the most disgusting pile of refuse you’ve ever thought of, throw on about a million discarded rotting eggs, and then for a bit of garnish add on the memory of the worst time you’ve ever had on a toilet after eating something questionably spicy at a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant and you have something that might be one one-hundredth of the smell I was being assaulted with in that moment.
