by Gentry Race
She unfolded her helmet back into her neck. All around her were pieces of a Reformer she had probably once known. She glanced up and gave the man standing on the railing above a wary eye. It was her significant other, Edward Tang.
6
Between the walls of the dark crevasse stood the Triple T Tavern, its windows as dim as the absence of commotion present the night before. The possibility of those creatures getting up there was much more than slim—just a matter of time, Nathan suspected. He checked the mag on his gun, making sure it was fully loaded.
Switch was behind him and exuded a scared-as-shit expression, having never been to this place before. Nathan expected him to freak out at any moment. He walked to the wooden door, lowering his pistol and nudging the door open. The resultant creaking sound sent Switch into a panic.
“You know,” Nathan said, looking back in frustration, "this would be a lot easier if you were quiet.”
Switch nodded, gritting his teeth and pulling on strings of his wiry, dreadlocked hair as Nathan worked his way up into the slanted bar. Light from the door illuminated the posters of long-dead idols, flapping against the wall from the gust of wind they brought in with them.
The place was empty. Nathan strafed his way toward the bar, never taking his eyes off the room. Reaching over the counter, he pulled two mugs and slapped down the tap spigot, pouring two fresh pints. He handed one to Switch and gulped down the other frothy, intoxicating mixture.
“Gonna pour me one?” a voice said from behind them.
Nathan spun on his heel, spying the silhouetted frame of a man he immediately recognized as his brother.
“Well, look at this,” Nathan said, taking another drink. “The higher-ups decided to visit the condemned planet.”
Richter pulled a fluorescent, bar-shaped blue light from the side pocket of his pant leg. In the sudden light, Nathan could tell that his brother’s eyes were heavy and his mood was much more serious than the frivolous one he’d been trying to provoke. The strong blue of Richter’s light filled in the gimmicky objects around the room, casting them in a contrasting warmer hue that only heightened the neon colors from the distant past.
“We need to leave,” Richter said.
Nathan ignored his comment, turning his attention to his surroundings that he could now make out better. What had looked like black puddles and streaks flayed throughout the room—as if someone had flung an over-dipped paint brush around—were now revealed as blood.
Next to the puddles of blood, Nathan could see bodies—three of them.
“There was a goddamn massacre here,” said Switch.
The billiards table in the back of the room stood unused. Just beyond that, a set of plush chairs arched around the fireplace. It was obvious to Nathan that someone was sitting in the chair closest to him. He raised his fist, signaling for the others to stop.
Nathan approached the back of the chair, slowly cocking his head to get a better view. He stepped over one body that was wearing a blood-soaked apron. It was the bartender, his face missing as if it had been carved from bone. Poor guy.
Popping just over the top of the armchair, Nathan could see long, fine hair brushed back into a sleek look. The person sat lifelessly, head angled slightly and not making a move, as if she were catatonic. Nathan circled the small-framed figure. Her clothes were stained crimson, and she held a billiards stick.
Nathan thought it was Fery, but he couldn’t make out her features until he realized her face had been made over with a new one—the bartender’s. Her eyes were closed under the wrinkly cutouts she had hastily made in the now “wearable” face.
“Fery?” Nathan said slowly, trying not to vomit from the horror.
Her eyes flew open. Quick as lightning, she gripped the billiards stick tightly and swung it hard at Nathan’s face. He caught it without a moment to lose, snapping the stick in half.
“I told you, Daddy!” Fery yelled, lunging at Nathan. The wrinkled face fell to the floor. “Don’t touch me there!”
They both hit the ground. Her eyes were as red as the dried blood on her face. Richter and Switch each reached under an arm and pulled the tiny woman off Nathan. She kicked and screamed like a small child.
“TRUDI,” Richter called out, “how do we snap her out of it?”
“Slap her,” TRUDI said. “It’s the only way.”
“What?” Richter said. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not gonna hit a woman.”
“TRUDI?” Nathan said, getting to his feet. “You still use her?”
“Uh,” Richter said, still wrestling with the wild girl. “Now’s not the time.”
“Fuck you, Earl!” Fery screamed and kicked again.
Nathan walked up to her and slapped her, hard, in the face. He then caught her in his large arms as she dropped to the floor.
“Are you crazy?” Switch asked.
“What?” Nathan responded with a shrug. “TRUDI said it was the only way.”
The feisty, rainbow-haired, bloody-faced girl lay sprawled out on the pool table. Nathan noticed that her petite body was more muscular than the average girl, as if she was a super-toned dancer of some sort. Hell, she probably was. The tight white leggings that were imprinted with cats wearing bows proved her obsession with pop culture from centuries ago. Nathan blamed the stupid nostalgia bars popping up across the galaxy.
“Who’s gonna wake her?” Richter asked, stepping to the side of the table.
“Ain’t gonna be me,” Switch said from the other side. “I got the water and a sponge.”
“Fine,” Nathan said, moving around so he was above her head. He grabbed the water and said, “I’ll do it.”
Nathan sopped the sponge into the warm water and began wiping across Fery’s head. The dried blood dissolved, dripping down her face and making her look even crazier. She moved her head slightly, reacting to the warmth. Nathan saw her blue eyes opening just a bit.
“Fery,” Nathan said, “what happened here?”
She began shaking her head and wincing in the bright light.
“Fery,” Switch said, “it’s your bud, Switchy. Remember me? I helped your Beightol get his books.”
“Switch?” Fery said, wrestling with the word.
“I knew she’d remember me,” Switch said, getting excited. “Fery, what the hell happened here?”
Fery was quiet as she cycled through the events in her head. Nathan watched her eyes swivel around, taking in the bloodshed.
“We were attacked,” Fery said, raising up on her elbows.
“Was it an arachnid?” Switch asked hesitantly.
“Fuck no. I wish it was a fucking spider, sugar.”
“What attacked you?” Nathan interrupted.
“It was…” Fery paused and then said, “an Earl.”
“An Earl?” Nathan asked. “Like a duke or a knight?”
“No,” Fery said, “an asshole named Earl. My stepfather.”
“What?” Richter said in disbelief. “She’s lost it.”
“I’m telling the truth, honey,” she said, pulling herself up into a hunched-over position between her open legs. “My goddamn stepfather, Earl, showed up and beat the shit out of everyone. Started turning ‘em. Before I knew it, I was seeing two of him and then three.”
“How’d you survive?” Richter asked skeptically.
“I know his weakness,” Fery said, closing her legs. “And that’s when I gave it to him.”
“Told you she was a slut,” TRUDI said loudly over Richter’s comms.
“TRUDI!” Richter said, blushing. “She has a jealousy feature programmed into her.”
“Good old TRUDI,” Nathan said with a smile.
“Well, what did you give him?” Switch asked, obviously missing the subtext in her gestures.
“A fucking jagged pool stick to the neck, you dumb fucks!” Fery yelled, pointing to a body that had been penetrated by a billiard stick.
Nathan grabbed hold of her tiny shoulders, easing her movements and motioning
for Richter to ask her more.
“Hold on now, girl,” Richter said. “Why the hell did you have a face hanging on top of yours?”
“You don’t understand. I hated that son of a bitch. When I saw him come in, he started taking over, mimicking others… my drinking buddies,” Fery continued. “That’s when I beat the life from every one of ‘em. Look at what I did! I panicked, wanted to hide, blend in. So, I carved his fucking face and put it on top of mine. Maybe if more of them had come, Earl wouldn’t have seen me.”
Nathan nodded hesitantly as he eyed the bodies in the room. He’d heard of psycho-traumatic events changing people in heightened and stressful situations before, but nothing like this. The girl had literally lost it and started carving people’s faces from their bodies in order to “blend in.” Fucking psycho indeed. Despite the horror, there was one thing evident here—everyone was experiencing different terrors based on what they feared most.
“Well, a reality check,” Richter said. “It wasn’t your stepdad; it was the bartender.”
“I think she’s telling the truth,” Nathan finally said. “Whatever Rockheed dreamt up down here, it's somehow turning men into monsters.”
“What are you talking about?” Richter asked.
“When I was attacked at my bunker, Switch and another man were being chased by what they said looked like a giant arachnid or snake, but I didn’t see that in both eyes. In one eye I saw a suited man, and in the other I saw a giant, rabid wolf.”
“You’re kidding me, Nathan,” Richter said, “You’ve been afraid of dogs ever since you got bitten by one as a kid.”
“That’s it, you see,” Nathan said. “These suits, they can manifest weapons, right? But what if something went wrong and they started using our goddamn psyche, creating what we most dread from personal experience?”
“The suits can manifest stabbing weapons at the most, Nathan,” Richter said, looking at Switch, Fery, and then his brother. “But you could be right. I was briefed about Sasha Hastings’ work and how she was on the verge of creating something of that nature, something linked to the psyche. Who knows what else Rockheed has been lying about?”
“It's those fucking suits, man,” Switch said.
Hearing Sasha’s name seemed to ease Nathan’s fears a little, but at the same time it put him on edge as he brought to mind what she could possibly be going through in the Reform Facility. He needed to act fast if he wanted to save her.
“Fery, we need your help,” Nathan said, now looking at his brother across the table. “Can you show me the way to the HOLE?”
“I bet that’s not the first time she’s heard that,” TRUDI said.
Nathan shot Richter a cold look, warning him to turn down his comms. “TRUDI, that’s enough.”
“No,” Richter said firmly. “I came down here to get you, Nathan. They’re gonna light this planet up in T minus three and a half hours. We need to leave.”
“I ain’t leaving without Sasha,” Nathan said, staring dead into his brother’s eyes. “You know this.”
Fery untucked her head from her knees. Thick black mascara ran down each cheek, and she wiped it away, smearing it even further across her face and making her look like a clown in the rain.
“Switch,” Fery asked, “do you think my Daddy Beightol’s alive?”
Nathan shot Switch a look, coaching his response to the positive side.
“Yes,” Switch said.
“Fine,” Fery said. “We do it my way.”
Fery shot off the pool table and grabbed Switch in a sensual bear hug. His face turned red, and he winced as she kissed him on the cheek. Nathan could see this girl was bat-shit crazy and had daddy issues written all over her, but right now she was the one calling the shots.
7
Sasha Hastings stood among the carnage in the pit, watching a team she wasn’t familiar with, except for Edward Tang. Their attire was similar to Commander Richter’s Cryonauts but was missing the formal insignia of the Space Force Marine sector.
“What the hell is happening down here, Sasha?” Tang said, his eyebrows more stern than friendly.
“Is…” Hastings asked hesitantly. “Is… General Graham still alive?”
“No,” Tang said.
Hastings rose to her feet. Her suit, feeling like a second skin, was wrapped tightly around her body, save for the paneled corners and ports that jutted out. She broke past the group and walked to the locked door. Lifting her arm, she voxelized the long, double-edged blade again and jammed it through the handle.
The door broke free.
“The whole project is compromised,” Hastings said. “I think the Æther from the seed is causing rogue mutations. We need to find who’s left in the HOLEs and unplug them from the source.”
“How?” Tang asked. “Wait, isn’t Æther a drug?”
“It is, but the seeds we manipulated show similarities. I’m thinking Æther and the seeds come from the same source.”
“Sasha,” Tang said, stepping closer to Hastings and placing a hand on her shoulder, “I have to tell you something. Fox has pulled the trigger on the cleanse protocol. The surface is going to be under nuclear fire in three hours.”
She wasn’t surprised. Fox had told her that if any hiccups occurred with experimentation, he’d bury her with her research. She didn’t care. What she was trying to achieve was worth the risk, as well as the potential sacrifice.
“Well then, we’d better hurry,” Hastings said.
“No, you don’t understand,” Tang said. “I have firm orders to retrieve any updated seed information, like these mutations you mentioned, and that’s it. No Reform inmates.”
Again, another thing Sasha expected. She’d have to play the game to get what she wanted. If she could pretend to take them to the seed information, she had a chance of seeing which Reform inmates had survived. That was the only way to see what had gone wrong.
“I understand,” Hastings said. “Come with me. I’ll show you the data.”
“Where?” Tang asked.
“Data is held within the suit of each user. We have to get to them.”
Hastings smiled, knowing Tang had no choice but to cooperate.
The large room housing the HOLE paddocks was vaulted and circular, with a console operating at its center. Hastings was familiar with the layout and the strength of the glass that held each Reform inmate chosen for experimentation, which triggered her dismay when she saw that five of the seven glass doors had been smashed and broken out.
She looked back at Tang and the security team that followed her, gesturing for them to take point. She then stepped to the closest paddock, trying to peer inside. The glass was riddled with so many scratch marks that it was hard to make anything out.
“Jesus,” Tang said. “What the hell was in there? A jaguar?”
“Close,” Hastings said, dialing in the panel next to the door. “Gladis Vixen, Vix for short. She’s a mute. Level One user, Blade Specialist.”
Hastings turned on the light. Inside, shreds of paper and what looked like personal items tumbled over each other like laundry in a dryer.
“Holy shit!” Tang said. “I would go insane in there.”
“Some do,” Hastings said.
Another slash etched its way across the glass door, and Hastings stopped the tumbling process. Coming closer to the hazy glass, she could make out a human form not too far away. It was Vix, her slender, muscular body somehow appearing graceful in the recognizable porthole suit with long blades coming from each arm.
Hastings made a welcoming gesture in American Sign Language.
Within the cell, lined with mixed martial arts posters of the nineteenth century, the girl had assumed a yoga-like pose. Her head was down, and short black hair was hanging over her face.
Vix lifted her head, and Hastings repeated the greeting now that she could see her almond-shaped eyes. She was covered in piercings—odd ones, the kind you don't take home and show mother. The look in her eyes was dark as
she stared back.
“What was her conviction?” Tang asked, taking a step back.
“Murder. Vix was an exotic dancer on an outer-rim mining planet. She gutted some smugglers after they tried to take her as a sex slave. They subdued her for a cycle and kept her under the ship where she made a shiv from loose parts. Mind you, she has extreme claustrophobia. You won’t see her wearing a helmet too often.”
“Jesus, it sounds like they had it coming. Why wasn’t it deemed self-defense?” Tang asked, noticing Vix’s graceful walk as she stood and came toward them. The balls of her feet landed smoothly with each step, making absolutely no sound. Every movement was fluid, as if she were dancing with each slow, deliberate step. She reminded him of a silent cat. Cautious. Curious. Agile.
“The gutted smugglers turned out to be nephews of investors…” Hastings said.
“Fucking politics,” Tang said.
“Plus, the way she skewered their bodies,” Hastings continued, “and left them hung at spaceports across the outer rim didn’t help either.”
“Fucking Christ,” Tang said. “And she has the seed data?”
Hastings nodded with a smile and signaled for the door to open.
From each of Vix’s forearms grew a long silver blade that extended down past her knees. Like a well-trained swordsman, she cut into the air with skillful swooping techniques, spinning on a firm, arched foot. She landed in a guarded stance just in front Hastings and Tang, scraping the left blade and causing a shower of sparks to rain down in their direction.
The soldiers took guard, raising their rifles in defense. Hastings reacted, pressing one palm against her other hand, and voxelized what looked like a holographic shield from the port. The sparks ricocheted off, bouncing into the surrounding room.
“That’s a neat trick,” Tang said, looking back at the team behind him.
“Don’t worry,” Hastings said and turned back, making another sign with her hands. “She wasn’t infected.”
“Let’s get the data from her,” Tang said.
