“Check your six, Fly,” said Arlene.
I looked behind me, across the room; sure enough, even more snot-spitting spinys.
My gratitude faded fast. I made out a dozen imps.
I started the donnybrook with a well-aimed shell; between their fireballs and our shotguns, we had one serious firelight. I thought the pillars would catch fire, so thick were the red flames and black smoke.
I killed two. Arlene killed three. The survivors were better than the previous imps at dodging behind the pillars, and even our shotgun extender mags were running dry. They forced us back into a corner, pinning us down. Mexican standoff time. I wanted to bail.
Then I pumped, and the slide locked! Nothing up my sleeve; nothing in my gun.
Now what?
Time to even the odds. Arlene was watching the imps, firing off a shot now and then, looking down at her mag window and frowning.
I reached inside my vest, pulled a hypodermic and studied it. Intravenous? No, intramuscular. Well, that was easier, at least. But could I actually do it? To myself? Jesus, what a dilemma.
For a moment it was like being back on Phobos. That needle bothered me more than flaming mucus in my face. Without question, the next scientific revolution should move beyond the need for needles. But more important, could I risk a heart attack if I had a bad reaction?
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’m a Marine! Semper fi, Mac. I gave myself the shot.
At first, nothing; then the stuff stimulated my adrenal glands; and in a minute I was filled with red rage! The world turned crimson and my breath was fire. My heart beat so fast that it spun in my chest like a gyroscope. I drew my bayonet from my webbing and bolted from the corner; if Arlene yelled after me, I didn’t hear it.
All that mattered was to kill, getting in tight and cutting the steak. Blood-rare—God, how I loved imp blood, thick as red ink from a shattered paint stick, communion wine splashing on the floors of eternity.
Every motion was a target to strike. Flesh was too easy. Bone was the real work, the blade sticking in the cartilage, the cracking and crunching inspiring me to greater efforts. I hardly noticed the blood splashing in my eyes. The world was already a red haze; liquid salt was trivial pain as I swung my blade in the center of adrenal agony.
The more I killed, the heavier the weight in my arms. But exhaustion spurred me to greater fury. I no longer saw the Chinese-mask faces of the imps, only a blur. Their claws rent my flesh, but we were too tight for them to use their best weapon.
Dimly I realized that I was bleeding from many wounds. That was fine with me. Blood kept me warm, theirs, mine, anyone’s . . . just so that I could continue to swing a blade and slay the bastards. Motion must be met with motion.
An imp exploded in front of me before I could even reach it. Only one imp left now.
“Fly!” A voice called my name, near at hand. I hadn’t expected any of these imps to speak, especially not in a high, almost feminine voice, calling my name. I was so surprised that I hesitated for a moment, blade poised over the last imp.
“Fly!”
My vision began to clear. My arm was a bar of lead, my chest a sharp pain, as the old heart slowed to merely fast. The fury slowly lifted from me like a thick, red, trideo theater curtain drawing back. The hazy shape before me grew solid and took on familiar features, Arlene’s features.
I was very glad that I hadn’t killed that last imp.
21
They’re all dead,” she reported. “Are you all right, Fly?”
“Thirsty,” I croaked. My own canteen had split open during the fight, spilling its contents. She shared water from her supplies.
“Better?” she asked.
I nodded, utterly spent.
I almost fell as she helped me out of the room. She set me down, held my arm. My mind still raced, but my body was exhausted.
Arlene made me rest twenty minutes, then reluctantly helped me up so we could move on.
We walked past the secure area, beyond the pillar room, and faced another closed door. It was hardly worth kicking. On the other side was a shimmering floor of the noxious slime, across which was a console with a blue key card. “Doesn’t look too promising,” Arlene said.
I was never optimistic where toxic goo was concerned; but my head was still flying from the adrenaline, a perfect recipe to make a volunteer.
“I’ll go,” I said. “I could use the exercise. Jogging is just what my heart needs right now.”
“You need to rest, Fly!”
That was thoughtful of her. I appreciated her sentiments as I evaded her grasp and stepped into the gunk, my boots making shunk-shoosh sounds, slowing me down and eating bit by bit through the thick soles. Then I stepped on something hard and felt it shift under me. Heavy machine sounds came up through the slime, followed by something more substantial. A section of floor rose through the toxin.
Staggering was not a good idea. I didn’t want to fall down in this. I regained my footing as I saw a wire-mesh platform rising to match a set of blue-paneled lights directly overhead. I was just about to take steps when Arlene brushed past, turned, and stepped to the right to follow the path that was under those lights.
As she ran out of the pathway an odd thing happened. More wire mesh rose to meet her footsteps, corresponding to the lights above, winking like the stars I hoped I would live long enough to see again. I followed her. A major improvement over the normal way of crossing the slimelands—did any other spills have such shortcuts installed, I wondered?
When we reached the “island” on the other side of the green ocean, Arlene said, “You may have something with that rats-in-the-maze idea.”
“No human would design this, except maybe a game show host.”
“Game is right. I wonder if the entire moon has been reworked?” She reached over and grabbed the blue key card.
We found a door with pretty, blue trim; the key card popped it open. Inside, I whooped with pleasure to see my old buddy, the rocket launcher, with lots of little battery rockets as well as another AB-10 machine pistol.
The body of an imp lay in a corner. “Think that one died of natural causes?” Arlene asked.
“Unnatural more likely.”
“Say,” she said, “if imps are smart enough to talk, why don’t they use weapons?”
It was a good question . . . one of many that had started to gnaw at me. “Maybe because it wouldn’t be fair,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Arlene’s eyebrows shot skyward. “I must have misheard; it sounded like you said they don’t use weapons because it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Let me rephrase . . . it would be a fair test of our defensive ability. The mastermind—whoever, whatever—wouldn’t learn much except what we look like when we die . . . and God knows, it already knows that well enough.”
After a moment of silent thought, Arlene whispered, “I don’t like it, Fly; it makes me feel like we’re being watched.”
“You think I’m paranoid?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t agree; I don’t like the implications, that the whole invasion of the Martian moons is just practice, a war game, just the prelude to . . .”
“To what?”
“We’d damn well better find out, Flynn Taggart.”
Arlene took the AB-10. I took the sweet darling that could kill minotaurs and open doors.
We didn’t run into any trouble on our way to the other lift on this level; it was clearly marked on the video map. Maybe that was because there was so much trouble in the refinery. There must be a Law of Conservation of Tsouris. But the buttons for all levels below the next were inoperative. It was a local shuttle only. Arlene made triumphant noises, but I reminded her that we never did have a bet on.
Only way out is down, I repeated, and pressed the button. Whatever Arlene said, I still thought my primary duty was to get her the hell out of hell; but at the moment, her path and my path were the same: we both needed to burn deeper into the nightmare.
“I don�
�t like the look of this place,” said Arlene as we stepped from the lift into a vine-covered hallway.
“What’s not to like? Rows of skulls, walls covered with squirming, writhing, fleshy ivy . . . should be like high school by now.”
We gave the tendrils a wide berth; they looked like they might loop around our throats and strangle the life from us.
“Fly,” Arlene whispered, “I see another lift right through there.” She pointed to the left, at a gap in the ivy on that side where I suddenly realized there was no wall—only the squirming expanse of “plant” life.
“Uh-oh,” I said. There was more on the other side than a room with a lift in it. There were our old friends, the demons . . . imps, too.
We dropped back from the window while the imps began to hiss and heave flaming spitwads. Then my pal Arlene froze my marrow with a professionally calm voice in my ear: “Fly, I think we’re going to need the rocket launcher, too.”
I was already getting ready to rock ’n’ roll when I turned to see a pair of giant, floating pumpkins trapped in a cage ahead of us. I could have sworn that spot was empty when we first came in here! Maybe the cage had been lowered just now.
If it had been demons, we could have ignored them; but the bars were spaced far enough apart that the pumpkins had all the space they needed to fire their deadly ball-lightning.
There was no telling why these heads were locked up; but it meant no more security for us than caged machine gunners.
The air crackled above us; electrical discharge ran thousands of prickling little fingers down my head and back, and our hair stood at attention. Arlene looked like a Goosh Ball. Focusing my concentration on the single task of standing up and firing, I heard her shout, “I’ll take our nine!” referring to the maddened imps and demons to our left, at the “nine o’clock” position, ripping through the ivy.
We ducked as the fireballs seared the same area where the balls of lightning had played electric hairdresser. I wished the imps and pumpkins were only closer together, so that the fireballs and lightning balls might cross paths and wipe out both monster lines.
I nearly got my wish. Arlene opened up with the AB-10; when the imps returned fire, they hit their demon buddies . . . the rest was history. While demons swallowed imps, who did their best to give a horrible case of heartburn, I squeezed the firing ring, turning the pumpkin cage into an oven to bake pumpkin pie.
“Are you all right?” I asked. I could tell from the way she was shaking her head that she hadn’t been this close to the rocket explosions before.
“As soon as the phone stops ringing between my ears,” she answered.
“Pack a wallop, don’t they?”
I was still worrying about the giant blocks of flesh as we skirted the cage and entered an empty, gray room. “They used to use a lot of chambers around here to crush ore and refine the liquid,” Arlene explained. “Be careful . . . lots of dangerous equipment.” Indeed, I could hear some heavy machinery really earning its keep right nearby. But what?
No platforms or lifts, no rising staircases; then Arlene won the prize by looking straight overhead.
“Holy ore-crusher, Batman!” she yelped.
The damned ceiling was descending on us. Not too fast, but fast enough. “Didn’t I see this in a trideo?” I asked, edging back the way we’d come.
“It’s just too Edgar Allan poetic,” said Arlene.
We backed out before turning into grease spots. “Now what?”
“Hate to say it, Fly . . . but there ain’t no other way to book. There must be a door or something in there—if we can find it and pop it before they have to scrape us up with a spatula.”
The ceiling hit bottom, then rose again at the same stately pace. “We could hunt for another route past this garlic press,” she said hesitantly. “But I’m pretty sure this is the only direct route around to Sector Nine, where we were looking through the ivy window at the other lift. At least, that’s how I remember it from when I was posted here.
“Look, Fly, let me go in and hunt; I know what this place is like better than you.”
I hated the thought—Arlene under the crushing ceiling while I waited outside, “guarding”! But . . . she had a point.
Flashlight in one hand, Arlene ran to the opposite end of the room while the ceiling was still rising. She rubbed her palm gently across the smooth surface.
“How are you doing?” my voice was strong enough to call out.
“I can’t find any switches!” she called. Worried, I started pacing in front of the Poe chamber, a restless sentry. Arlene found nothing . . . but would you believe it? I triggered a motion sensor, causing a door to slide open near her. It was pure, dumb luck.
“Come on,” she shouted. The ceiling had reached the top and was descending again. I ducked my head like a halfback center-punching through the line and bolted across the room through the door—which had already begun to close as the ceiling fell.
The door led to the room I’d seen from above, with huge, fleshy cubes rising and falling, an alien mockery of the ore-crushers.
But the blocks weren’t just flesh; they were alive. Twenty-five pink, fleshy pumping platforms completely covering a room seemed more pointless than disgusting. They made high, whining sounds like newborn infants.
“What the hell are they?” I asked.
“Wonder if they can move out of those holes in the floor?”
“Christ,” I added, “what do they do?”
Arlene edged closer to one block. She squatted and rose with it, following it down and up. “This isn’t just random flesh, Fly; this is muscle tissue. Human muscle tissue.”
I approached another block. “This is a heart or liver or something.” I tracked along the edge of blocks. The last of the five blocks comprised convoluted ridges and furrows, folds in a grayish, spongy medium. “Unless my grandma’s been lying all these years,” I said, “them there’s brains, A.S.”
“Yecch.” We backed away. “All right . . . muscles, brains, some kind of organ meat—this suggest a pattern to you, Fly?”
“Several.” None of them pleasant.
“Are they farming meat, human flesh?”
“That’s the best-case scenario, Arlene.”
She looked at me with eyes widening. “And the worst-case?”
I smiled grimly. “They’re farming humans. They’re getting the hang of growing human cells because they’re trying to genetically engineer zombie-soldiers, better than the pathetic ones they have now.”
We watched the blocks rise and fall a couple more minutes. Then Arlene upspake. “Corporal?”
“Yes, PFC?”
“Permission to hose their research?”
“Permission enthusiastically granted. You have something in mind, Arlene?”
She did. There was a row of torches along the wall we’d entered by. We blew them out, then upended them, spilling the oil as we hopped from block to squishy block. At the far end, I let Arlene light the ceremonial cigarette lighter. It was her idea, after all.
We left the flesh blocks joyously in flame. I supposed the bone block would survive. Well, let the bastards animate skeletons, then!
We bolted down a corridor and turned the corner; there I halted in astonishment. Arlene plowed into me, then she too stared.
Fifteen demons had arranged themselves in a semicircle, backs to us, and they were grunting in unison, giving the impression of speech. Over to the right I noticed a barrel of the ooze.
“Have I ever told you about my barrel trick?” I whispered.
“Back up around the corner.” I followed her, then peered around, lined up my shot very carefully, and gently squeezed the trigger.
The world exploded. The heat blast pressed on my right eye and right hand as I pulled back. The explosion even drowned out the screams of the demons.
When the debris settled and the last piece of pink and red demon flesh flopped to the smooth floor, Arlene nodded. “Impressive,” she pronounced.
&n
bsp; Then we found out what the demons had been doing crowded into that semicircle. They had been worshiping.
Out of the smoke and flame strode a hell-prince . . . and it was as mad as its name. It burst through the wreckage, throwing pieces of demon and chunks of masonry in all directions, a state-of-the-art minotaur with one hell of a ’tude.
The hell-prince roared defiance and began firing deadly bolts at us from its wrist launchers.
22
Run!” I shouted as I started loading the rocket launcher. She wasn’t listening. Her AB-10 was rattling off hundreds of shots that harmlessly bounced off the hellion. Our only chance was the rocket launcher.
I fired off the first two rockets as I was dancing backward; the force knocked me into Arlene and sent us both sprawling. The AB-10 skidded across the floor, and Arlene went after it on hands and knees. An energy bolt flashed between us, searing my eyeballs for a moment. I didn’t care if I could see, so long as I could feel the smooth, metal surfaces of the little D-cell rockets and finish reloading. Just as I finished loading, my vision cleared; the eight-foot hell-prince bore down upon us, surrounded by smoke and stinking of brimstone.
I’d promised myself never, ever to fire off rockets this close to the target! But a good look at that green gorgon face with the ram’s horns was all I needed to reassess my position. I squeezed.
The third and fourth direct hits slowed the behemoth to a confused crawl; but still it stood. I could see again—but now I couldn’t hear.
Loading, fingers numb, I didn’t bother getting back to my feet; I fired from where I lay. I slid past Arlene, who had picked up her machine pistol and was aiming it.
She shielded her eyes and hugged the ground as rockets five and six pounded the same tough chest that had withstood the previous four.
I closed my eyes while sliding; the force of the sound took me like a physical wave, carrying me down the hall. The weight of Mars pressed on my eardrums as I rose groggily to my feet to reload the launcher. The Prince of Hell stood stock-still, eyeing me with a doleful expression.
I aimed and prepared to fire; but the monster made a loud, wheezing sound—a sigh?—and tumbled over, stiff as a statue, to impact directly on its face.
Knee-Deep in the Dead Page 15
