Discarded

by Mark A. Ciccone

  Greg leapt onto the nearest higher object – one of the destroyed tanks – and propelled himself into a flying leap. Fred was spinning to face him as his sword came slashing down. He ducked aside rather than block, then stabbed at Greg’s head with his own weapon. Greg beat it aside, and leapt back to give himself room for a strike of his own. To his right, he saw Cayden advancing on Fred’s flank more slowly, waiting for his chance – or still not recovered from the earlier stab.

  Fred caught this, and shifted his stance, steely eyes flicking back and forth behind the silver lenses. Before any of the three men could make a move, there was a crinkle of glass from behind Fred. He twisted at the waist, blades dropping to block – but not fast enough. There was a sharp punching sound. The point of a sword tore out through his back, dead-centre and dripping. He let out a strange choking sound, standing stock-still in mid-swing.

  Panting grimly, Leah pushed him hard with one hand. Her sword slid out as he dropped onto a small pile of wreckage, weapons falling from nerveless fingers. Blood seeped copiously over his chest and pooled on the rubble beneath him. His eyes fixed on Cayden. He raised a hand toward the older Golem, in supplication or one last grab. Cayden didn’t make a move. Slowly, Fred’s eyes dimmed, staring into emptiness. His hand dropped limply to the floor, twitched once, then was still.

  Leah limped forward, fully out into the room. She coughed once, spitting a mouthful of red. ‘Finally,’ she croaked. Her teeth shone with blood, in a cold, exhausted grin. ‘Thought he’d never—’ She faltered at Greg’s look. ‘What?’ It was then she looked down at herself – and saw the two jagged glass shards, protruding from her left pectoral and waist, extending out her back. She looked up, more dumbfounded than frightened. ‘Shit.’ With no more than that, she crumpled to her knees.

  Greg was at her side before she’d finished falling. Cayden joined him half a second after, moving behind Leah and gripping her under the arms to keep her upright. She was still conscious, eyes shut tight and biting her lip against the pain. ‘Keep still. Just keep still,’ Greg half-babbled. It was all he could do to keep his hands steady; adrenaline and fear were running neck-and-neck. He brushed at the glass, and the wounds themselves; Leah flinched, though he’d kept his touch light. He’d seen his share of stabs, even treated a few, on the rare occasions he worked with a non-Golem team. This was worse – and he had no idea if her earlier cuts meant the anti-regen compound had seeped into her system. If it had, the wounds might not close no matter what he did – and probably would mean death if he pulled the shards out.

  He grabbed her wrist, checking her pulse while he scanned her arms. Cayden kept her steady, face grave. The gashes looked to be healing, but the blood and dust made it impossible to tell – although the clinger was taking its time, a bad sign. There was no pink froth around either shard wound, so the lung wasn’t punctured. He looked around, for a kit or even just a piece of relatively clean cloth. It was then he realised the sounds of battle had ceased – no smashing rubble or furniture, no grunts or shouts. The whole right-hand side of the room was practically covered in a dust cloud. His eyes smarted, making him squint, and reach for the hood of his clinger.

  A shadowed, hunched figure loomed out of the murk before his hand had reached halfway. As he shifted in front of Leah, knife raised, a second figure rose behind the first. After a heartbeat’s pause, it lunged forward, crashing into its rival. The two of them spun out of the cloud, hands gripped at each other’s shoulders like grappling wrestlers. Hunter’s teeth were gritted in a snarl of hatred; Garrett’s face was tight with effort, but devoid of emotion. Both men were caked in dirt and powdered concrete, making them look like aged statues. Filthy, crusted rags hung from their waists and shoulders. Bloody cuts and gashes – some paper cut-sized, many foot-long or more – decorated almost every inch of their bodies and faces.

  They strained at each other for a long, slow moment. Hunter’s stance began to slacken – then pitched forward in an almighty shove. The two old men tumbled to the floor, clawing and gasping. Chunks of debris spiralled in all directions wherever they rolled and struck. Something soft struck Greg in the face – a piece of cushion, maybe – though still hard enough to knock him off-balance. When he’d regained it, he saw Hunter rise, sitting astride the Doctor’s waist. Panting like an animal, he raised both fists high above his head, and brought them down with all his strength.

  The ground seemed to shake with the impact. Garrett let out a choking gargle. His body convulsed, limbs flinging upwards, then went slack. Roaring now, Hunter swung again, and again. Greg stared, frozen. Puffs of dust rose, tinged with red. The third blow brought a dull crackling sound, like twigs splintering. Ribs, or maybe the sternum. One more blow would send fragments of bone into the heart and lungs – and ARC wasn’t a sure bet to help that.

  Time slowed to a crawl. Hunter’s arms rose again, fists fused together. As they passed behind his head, the ice shattered in Greg’s mind. The knife flipped around in his hand, tip of the blade between thumb and two fingers. He rose to his feet, with dreamy slowness. His arm came back, then whipped forward in a sudden rush of speed – or maybe it was the world returning to normal.

  The knife flashed across the intervening space. Hunter bellowed in pain. His swing halted, and he grabbed at his side, where the hilt of the knife now sprouted from between two ribs – instead of the neck, as Greg had intended. He lurched up, pulling the knife out with only a mild grimace. Snarling, he started toward the three of them, movements slow and jerky but gaining speed.

  Greg looked around for some other weapon: the new blade, a girder, a chunk of concrete. His eyes fell on something at his feet: a plastic bag, maybe a lab sample flung out from one of the destroyed labs. He started to look away – then stopped. He was still a little woozy, and the still-floating dust made his eyes smart, but…

  Cayden recognised the object sooner than he did. The older Golem pushed him aside with a swift jab of his elbow, and scooped up the bag, all in nearly the same motion. He stepped between them and Hunter, unarmed, the bag now open in the palm of one hand. The older man fixed on him. His smile ice-cold, he raised the bloodstained knife, and charged. Instead of dodging, or grabbing for a weapon, Cayden arced his arm back like a pitcher, and hurled the bag in a short, overhand throw.

  The bag struck Hunter in the upper chest, below his neck. The grey powder within exploded into a cloud. He staggered back, coughing harshly and waving an arm to clear it. When he finally regained control, he faced Cayden again. The powder had settled over almost his entire near-naked frame, making him look more statue-like than ever. Greg hardly dared breathe. If it was–

  Scowling, Hunter began to advance again. Cayden made no move to defend himself, hands at his sides. The older man hefted the knife, to stab or slash – and stopped. His hateful expression became more confused – then agonised. Some of the powder began to slough off, revealing the bare flesh of his chest and face – and the deep, spreading reddish circles as the ‘Tacitus’ ate its way through.

  Hunter began to scream, a steady, drawn-out sound that made even Greg wince. He didn’t look away, though – nothing would have made him. Still shrieking, Hunter fell to his knees. He writhed and twisted, in almost impossible contortions. The knife dropped from his hand as he clutched at his face, scrubbing and tearing at it. Bits of flesh broke off, landing on the floor with little grotesque splats. More inactive powder sprinkled away, showing more wounds. They spread with unbelievable speed over his entire body, exposing the reddish underside of the man’s flesh, going deeper to the muscle, sinew, tendons, even bone – and breaking every one of these apart. Greg kept watching, grimly satisfied.

  Bit by bit, Hunter’s screams died down to a steady heaving. With perhaps the last of his prodigious strength, he forced himself back up on his knees. His face was a shredded, gory mask. Dissolving flesh and tissue dangled in shreds, showing wrecked muscles, flaking bone – and a skeletal grin. He started to rise, hands clenched and reaching for Cayden. He
was dying even as he moved – he had to be – yet he didn’t falter. The older Golem showed no reaction. Greg’s mind screamed at him to grab a weapon, to finish it – or for him to do it himself. No part of his body responded; it was as though he were cemented to the floor.

  As Hunter got one leg under him, a clattering of rubble came from behind. He stopped, and made an awkward, ungainly turn. A hunched form came up from the ground, and stumbled out of the settling dust. Garrett’s face was almost obscured by blood and gashes – some healed, others still gaping. His chest was a solid purple-black colour, just beginning to fade; every move or jerk brought a grimace. Nevertheless, he shambled forward, dragging a long, thin object behind him – something that caught the light with a cold gleam.

  Hunter stared, panting, heedless of the pain and dripping gore. The Doctor halted a foot away, staring back down at him, breathing in steady, measured gusts. Before Greg or any of the others could speak or act, his hand whipped up in a brutally short jab. The sword cane pierced Hunter’s forehead, dead centre between the eyes. The point sprouted from the back of his head, fragments of brain and bone hanging from its edge. Hunter made a low gasp, like he’d been shocked. His eyes crossed, following the blade to Garrett’s hand.

  Garrett tore the blade loose, letting the tip rest against the floor. Blood and brain matter trickled from the wound, into Hunter’s staring, empty eyes and mixing with the accelerating decay. He didn’t register it. Without a sound or gesture, he dropped. His head cracked open when it struck the ground, spilling more red and grey detritus – but the entire skull was already crumbling, as well. The rest of his body was breaking down even faster. In moments, there was nothing but a misshapen sludge of red and pink, all lightly dusted with a whitish powder. Soon, there would be almost nothing left.

  Garrett stared down at the grey-red mass at his feet, breath coming slower now, and more halting. When he turned to face the three Golems, there was the tiniest trace of triumph in his grim, bloodstained visage. His eyes, glowing a brighter blue than ever, found Cayden’s. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  Cayden bent his head in acknowledgement, still as impassive as ever. The Doctor took a step toward them. He’d hardly taken the next when his knees began to shake. He started to prop himself up with his sword – but his arms and shoulders were already trembling, too. In less than a breath, his entire frame was shaking, in rapid-fire jerks and spasms. ‘Doc?’ Leah whispered. She pulled out of Cayden’s grasp, got unsteadily to her feet and moved closer. Greg and Cayden were inches behind her.

  Still stolid, Garrett waved her back. Just then, his legs gave out, and he dropped against the wall. There was a crackle of something breaking in his skull, or neck. ‘Doc!’ Leah shouted. Ignoring the agony this had to bring, she grasped both shards and ripped them out, then rushed to the Doctor’s side, grabbing him by the shoulders. A massive tremor tore him free of her grip. His limbs jerked and spasmed wildly, wringing themselves in random, painful contortions. His head flailed back and forth like a rag doll’s, bouncing against the floor. His eyes rolled up, showing only white. His mouth opened and closed rapid-fire, letting out a bizarre, animal-like keening.

  Too shocked to do anything but gape at first, Greg pulled himself from this dismay, and knelt by Garrett’s side, trying to bring one hand beneath the Doctor’s head and stabilise his waist with the other. He knew almost nothing about seizures and their symptoms; maybe this was an episode? Leah, her face as scared and confused as his must be, tried to turn Garrett on his side, to aid his breathing. Cayden grabbed the Doctor’s ankles, just avoiding kicks to the face and chest.

  Finally, the spasms or whatever they were died down to intermittent, random spurts. The Doctor’s head rose. His face was contorted, frozen in a half-snarl as though by a stroke – but the eyes were refocused, and alert. ‘I’m sorry… for this,’ he managed to croak. ‘Came on… sooner than expected.’ The unfrozen part of his mouth turned up in a momentary bitter smile. ‘Bonus of growing old – with some changes.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Cayden demanded. His normally impassive look was gone, replaced by the same fear as theirs – and a deeper kind, below it. ‘Where’s the worst hit? What can we do?’

  Garrett let out a rasping chuckle, which ending in a choked cough. ‘Nothing… that hasn’t happened… before,’ he managed at last. ‘Wasn’t that bad, the first time. Must not have been anything serious enough.’ Another choking laugh. ‘Still left its mark, more ways than one – all thanks to me.’

  ‘What did?’ Greg pressed him. He kept the fear from his own voice, but only just. ‘What’s doing this?’

  The bitter humour left the Doctor’s mangled face. He tilted it in Greg’s direction. ‘Just like I said, before. Wasn’t going to let… anybody go through the ARC, and the tests. Not until I knew what it could do.’

  He took a long, deep breath, gathering himself. ‘First version – very first – had more add-ons. More ’roids, more compounds… to amp up strength and speed, when ARC kicked in. Thought they’d be permanent, or long lasting. Enough to get our people out of tight spots – or make them the demigods the Pentagon wanted.’

  A second breath, even deeper. ‘But I didn’t know – couldn’t know – the strain.’ His arm, still twitching, lifted a few inches. ‘Everything wears out: muscle, bone, other tissue. Natural progression, or caused by outside stimuli.’ The smirk returned, for an instant. ‘ARC… certainly was outside. Every time the body repaired itself, and amped up in response… it was dying faster, in some other way.’ His hand lowered, resting on his once-bad leg, now still. ‘Nerve damage. Muscular degeneration. Bone decalcification. Anything could start failing, when strained by healing – and it did.’ He barked bleakly. ‘Dying by healing: the ultimate irony.’

  ‘No,’ Leah said, flatly. She seized Garrett’s arm. ‘Not happening. We’re not—’

  ‘Stop,’ Garrett interrupted. With one superhuman push of his legs, he brought himself to a half-seated position, propped up against one of the destroyed NeoMaters. ‘You need to go. Get back to the Sanctuary… away from here.’

  A new, steady beeping sounded, as though in agreement. Startled and alert, Greg looked up. The image on the Gaia screen had changed; it now showed only the Kitsap Peninsula, centred on the base itself. In the right-hand corner, to the southeast, the red dot appeared, coming closer. Patrick and Costa, he remembered, tardily. The storm must have lessened, giving them a clearer, slightly less hot flight – or they were hauling ass even faster. As he watched the image, a new window appeared at the top, showing a timer: 00:15:00:00.

  Startled, he looked to the Doctor, who was watching with a faint smile. ‘Thermobaric devices,’ he said, even more softly. ‘Several dozen, placed on every level, but concentrated here. Enough to incinerate everything classified… and collapse the whole Facility.’ A faint note of urgency rose. ‘Leave… now.’

  ‘But why?’ Greg demanded. He knew, of course, on a certain level – which didn’t stop him from asking. His voice was growing rougher – but he didn’t care. ‘They’re coming for us. They know what Hunter did, and why. They can get us out – get you out, to a hospital…’

  Garrett nodded. ‘They can, maybe. But D.C.—’ His face hardened. He cast a look around at their wrecked surroundings. ‘They can’t find this, intact – they can’t. They do, it starts all over again. A new Project. The kind Hunter wanted.’ A quiet, reflective look came over his contorted face. ‘Without any qualms, or sane restraints, and no chance to let them loose. As I did.’

  ‘Like the Pax,’ Leah said, softly. She studied the Doctor with a new, dubious respect. ‘It was supposed to be one restraint – but it never worked from the start. Because of you.’

  A twitch of Garrett’s chin: the only nod he could make. Greg found himself nodding as well. It fit – and yet there was more that didn’t. He leaned in. ‘What else?’ Part of him was shouting to be gone, to leave everything here behind, to be destroyed in whatever measure the timer controlled –
but he had to know this. ‘What other controls didn’t work?’

  Garrett’s eyes – now considerably dimmer – met his. The old man’s eyelids flitted halfway down, like he was going to sleep, or into a trance. His words came out in a low, croaking voice. ‘The inhibitors…’ He halted, swallowing back pain or blood. When he resumed, his tone was a hair stronger. ‘They weren’t only for… what I said.’

  ‘What were they for?’ Cayden asked. He was still less reverential than the two other Golems, but the directness made up for this.

  Garrett’s eyes, still half-lidded, rolled to each of them in turn. His enigmatic smile returned. ‘Not enough to create a supersoldier. You have to watch him grow, and channel that growth… or suppress it.’ The smile faded. ‘I saw the point, in this – but that didn’t stop my hating it, day and night, like all the others. So I vowed to change what I could… and see what could come out of it, when and if they faded from you.’ He coughed once more, spitting up more red. When he’d cleared the last of it, he met their eyes again. ‘Some kinds of growth are the hardest kinds. Can’t be channelled, so you bury them. Some involve memory; I told you as much. But the biggest one…’

  He faltered; not from pain or shame this time, or so Greg guessed. With one abrupt lunge, he slapped his hand on Greg’s. Fingers clasped tight, he dragged it to Leah’s. He smiled – or tried to – at their mutual confusion. ‘You had a small taste of it. Last night.’ A deep, shuddering breath; he was mastering every ounce of control he had. ‘What the people behind Golem feared, most of all. And what it could lead to, not long after.’