“You’ve learned some new skills since I saw you last.”
“Yeah. It’s a long story.”
“That’s fine. I’m sure I’ll like it.”
My earpiece buzzed again. “What’s going on down there?” It was Viys’k. Crap. In our rush to escape, we had forgotten to clue her in on what was going on.
“Genesis is here. He’s flooding the corridor with kodadt and they’ve been experimented on.”
“Experimented on how?”
“I can answer that!” Jyra offered. “It’s a basic molecular integration of artificial fuel cells and energy synthesis created to fuse flawlessly into the organic systems already present in the subjects!”
“Did you get all of that?” I asked.
“Yeah. But only about half of it made sense.”
“That’s more than I got.”
“Steady, we’re almost there,” Angel whispered, which was almost impossible to hear between all the roars peppering the hall.
Like a macabre sort of chorus line, rabid kodadt were piling into the hall ahead of us as well as behind. I was sure that my friends were all about to be tattered into Alien Mache, but then I saw a glimmer of hope ahead.
There was an end to the doors, and to the corresponding flood of biconically engineered monsters. Was this what Angel was talking about?
God, I hoped so.
Run all you want, little children. This is your end.
“You know, you’ve said that before, and you haven’t been right yet.”
Lucky flukes.
“Aw, come on, furiendo.” I turned back to him, flashing him the most blinding smile I could while pushing a wall of energy out in from of me. “If there’s one thing both you and I know, it’s that there no such thing as chance.”
First, one kodadt hit the field, and then the other. Just like when I had done it back on the abandoned station, my head throbbed and my brain started packing its bags to leave my body entirely.
But I wasn’t the same as last time. I wasn’t the scared, panicked girl without a clue what was going on, being batted this way and that by a universe that was not my home.
No, I was Verdandi of earth, most the Council’s most wanted fugitive, freer of the kodadt and rescuer to the smartest woman this side of the dimensional wall. I was a warrior. I was relentless. And I would not be cowed by a homicidal maniac without a physical form.
I heard metal sliding down in a rhythmic pattern behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that my friends had indeed made it past the line Angel had been eyeing and a fire door was now sliding down from the room. How fascinating. I never thought Genesis was one for safety precautions. Maybe the crew that built this were particularly insistent about their safety?
It was an odd thing to be distracted by, but it kept my mind off the thunderous pain in my skull as the rabid kodadt bashed and clawed at the forcefield I was projecting. I felt it wibble and wobble, becoming patchy and allowing more and more limbs or jaws to get through.
“Andi, now!”
I let it drop and leapt backwards from the wave of kodadt that went stumbling at the sudden loss of opposition. I never spun on my heel and sprinted so fast in my life as I did in that moment, trying to outrace the horde of ravenous, rabid creatures at my back.
The floor flashed under me, but it didn’t seem to be enough. The door was sliding down mercilessly, completely unwavering in its decent. It was already below my head. And then my shoulders. And then my middle.
Finally, I was an armlength or two away, but I didn’t have time to crawl under. So, with a breathy prayer, I dove under the door and slid on my hip like a regular action movie star.
One thing the movies didn’t warn me about well enough was the massive fabric-burn I got from that move. The second thing was that when my momentum finally died and I heard the door slam shut, I couldn’t tell if I had gotten all the way through or not. It took a solid breath for me to realize that I was safe, and I sat up, leaning against the thick metal to laugh.
“All right, now that was pretty cool,” Janix said. I went to send him of a flirty smirk, but that smile vanished as something slammed into the wall behind me. Almost instantly, I was thrown forward all the ways onto my knees.
I scrambled to my feet, looking at the terrifyingly shaped dent in the metal partition that I had been leaning against. As shocked as I was by it, this was all strangely familiar. I felt like I had been here before, making these same choices.
A set of claws pierced through the thick metal and my heart skipped a beat in time with my stomach. Right, we should probably run now.
I turned and bolted forward, the rest of my crew right there along with me. Jyra was doing amazing for being cooped up in this place for goodness knows how long. It made me wonder if she ran some sort of cardio unit in that circle of a room?
Man, a few months ago, I never would have been able to do this. If I ever made it back to earth, I had an excellent work out plan available for anyone who liked unnecessary amounts of danger. I was beginning to feel like I finally fit the amazon moniker that so many people had given me over the years. Hopefully, I would survive long enough to show it off.
We sprinted through hallway, after hallway, and the critical side of my mind began to wonder if any of us knew where we were going. Where was Viys’k? Where was the exit? What was our game plan?
My answer came in the form of us being confronted by another solid door.
“I think I can override the fire protocol on this,” Angel barked as she rushed to a panel at the side of the entrance. “Janix, you’ve still got your gun, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good, cover me. I don’t know how long this is going to take.” She pulled another one of her gizmos from her belt and hooked it up to the square. A look of utter concentration on her face, she started punching in something.
Wait.
I knew this.
I knew what was happening.
“STOP!” I screamed, dive tackling the much smaller half-skin so we went skidding across the floor.
“What the hell!?” she sputtered, face reddening and her normally happy eyes brimming with absolute fury.
“She’s seen this,” Jyra answered, staring at the door. “There’s kodadt on the other side.” She paused, seeming to think for a moment and her eyes flicked to Janix. “You die,” she said. “It’s awful.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked, my dream rushing back to me in waves. Oh, God, I had really cut it close, hadn’t I? Why was I so dense?
“Never mind that,” Angel said. “How did you know that?”
“I dunno!” I snapped back. “I had a dream, back before any of this. Before I ever stepped foot in this universe. It started with me at the other door, and ended soon after this door. We all died… graphically.”
“I would prefer that we not do that part,” Janix said, looking between us three women nervously. “So, what’s the plan now? We can’t go forward, and we can’t go back.”
“Then let’s go up,” Jyra said. “There is a pipe running through the ceiling that cycles to the center of the machine, as well as the end of this floor where the elevator is. Normally it would be filled with ionic energy and completely lethal, but they haven’t been able to get the machine to work, so it should be safe.”
“What the hell are we waiting for?” Janix angled his gun and shot it a bit away from us. Sure enough, the blast revealed a transparent tube.
“It’s incredibly strong,” Jyra said. “It should take two to three more shots.”
“You got it.”
Well, he was certainly handling the impromptu kiss between the two of us quite well. I would have to talk to him, if we survived this.
…and if I figured out what the hell it meant for myself.
Four blasts later and he stopped long enough for the smoke to clear. There was a horrendous grating sound back from whence we came, and I risked a glance to see that the kodadt had fully ripped a hole
in the door and were beginning to squeeze through.
Another thump and metal scream, and I saw the door we had almost run into start to buckle.
“We need to get out of here now!”
“The tube is still too hot! We’ll scald ourselves.”
“Better burned that ripped to pieces.” I ran under and linked my fingers together to hand-basket boost my smaller companions up.
“Age before beauty,” Angel said, rushing up. I forced a short laugh, but I knew what she was doing; taking the first, experimental leap to see how hot the tube was.
Her responding yelp and the sizzle of flesh afterwards was not a good indicator.
“Ow.” She groaned. “It’s not the worst thing, but it’s not pleasant.”
“It’s probably better than losing an arm,” Janix said. “Now up you go, scientist friend.”
He gripped Jyra’s waist and – with the help of my basket hands – tossed her up and at an angle, so her upper half went mostly into the tube with only her legs dangling out. I could see smoke arising from where her clothes touched the lip, but Angel was able to pull her up and into safety in a jiffy.
We had less than seconds now, with two hordes of kodadt on either side of us. I lowered my hands down much further for Janix, and he gave me a look. “I’ve over four hundred pounds,” he said. “We mooreerie are dense folk.”
“And I’m genetically enhanced by a mutation of a plague that’s wiped out a tenth of your population. So get in my hand and get boosted before we’re ripped into tiny, not-four-hundred-pound pieces!”
He didn’t hesitate after that, and stepped up into my hands. We dipped together and then we both launched upwards.
He made it!
Unfortunately, though, his hands were what caught the lip of the hole. And although it had obviously cooled significantly in the time it took for the three of them to get up there, I could still hear the distinct sound of flesh heating up too quickly.
Yet, somehow, he managed to haul himself up, then quickly whipped around to lay on his belly and extend his arms to me.
“Come on, jump!”
“Nah, I thought I’d do a jig,” I snapped, crouching down then snapping my legs upward. I went sailing upwards and he caught me just as the kodadt clashed where I had just been.
As soon as I was hauled up, we went running down the tube as fast as we could. I had to bend almost in half awkwardly, but Janix and Angel were pelting along just fine. Sometimes being tall was a curse.
“So where do we go from here?”
“Up to a T, where we will go left.”
“And how do I get to that engine core you talked about?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you know how I spent all that time setting the reactors to combust? It’s not working.” Her wrist-comm lit up red several times. “Bastard must have reset the system when he realized I got into the fire protocols. So, I figure the last thing he would expect is for me to make one big boom and send this place sky high.”
“But wouldn’t that-” Jyra started.
“Yeah, it’s risky, but it’s worth it. Besides, we have a horde of rabid kodadt on our tails and a malevolent cloud that doesn’t want us to have a very good day. It’s not like we’ll have time to get the ship to come pick us up either without a little distraction. So, you guys go right and I will catch up to you.”
“But—”
“This isn’t a debate. You may have been in charge on your little research station, but this is my kingdom.”
“Very well, then, I understand. I assume you have a way to map out the path there beyond this point?”
The Captain pointed to her wrist. “I’ll manage fine.”
I looked between the two and I felt like I was missing all sorts of subtext. “I’m not sure I’m comfortab—”
“Conversation’s over.” We reached the fork and the Captain gave a little bow. “I’ll see you guys later. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” And then she was off.
I wanted to go after her, to argue with her or give her a hug, but I was already being pulled along by Janix. I couldn’t blame either him or Angel for their brevity, I could already hear the Kodadt scrambling one by one into the entrance we had blasted into the tube. Thankfully, their often massive size was a solid detriment to them following us.
Our ear pieces buzzed again. “Where the hell are you guys?”
“Currently racing for our lives.”
“Oh, you’re still on that?”
“Yes, we’re still on that,” I snapped. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing exciting, comparatively speaking. I stole another ship for us so we wouldn’t have to risk having Angel’s whole ship come down. Although I guess it’s not really stealing since it was abandoned.”
“We can argue about the semantics later,” I said. “Jyra says we’ll be coming out by the employee lift down here. Any chance you know where that is?”
“Um… I think so? I might have scoped that out when the workers were all rushing out of here.”
“Good. Meet us there and then Angel will join up with us.”
“Actually, there is a different escape hatch in the core,” Jyra added helpfully. Well, not helpful to me, but I was sure Angel appreciated it. “We would do well to take off in the ship and move to the outside of the facility where she will come out.”
“Yeah, that’s an excellent idea,” Angel said over the comms. “Because I wasn’t too hip to fighting past all the kodadt who are currently trying to squeeze their ample hips through here.”
“Technically it’s their shoulders that are often the br—”
“She’s being funny, Jyra,” I murmured as we raced along.
“Ah, yes. That makes much more sense as Kodadt’s pelvic alignment doesn’t allow for hips as we understand them.”
“Wait, Angel isn’t with you?” Viys’k said, bringing us back to the conversation.
“Nope,” the Captain answered. “I’m still working on blowing this place the hell up.”
“Goodie. I like that plan. Catch you guys in a minute if the kodadt don’t get you first.”
“I don’t know if I appreciate your sense of humor lately.”
“Too bad for you then.”
The line clicked off, leaving us alone as we rushed down the tube. My lower back was killing me from how I was hunched over, but I kept on. I could worry about my incoming scoliosis later. …that was a thing that could happen, right? Or was I thinking of osteoporosis? For being a human, I had a terrible understanding of my own anatomy.
The sound of gnashing teeth and grunting began to fill the tube and I turned to see the first Kodadt reach the fork where our party had, well, parted. How often had we ended up in this situation? Running for our lives in a confined space while one of the mutated space monsters were baring down on our heels? It was beginning to become old hat, if running for your life could ever be considered mundane.
“Stop!” Jyra said as we reached another corner. The remaining two of us killed our momentum, and she pointed to the curve of the tube. “This is our exit point. If you shoot downward, you should be able to penetrate both this and the ceiling below it in five shots.”
“All right then, stand back.”
Jyra and I complied, then the smuggler took his mark several feet away from us. At the first shot, the tube filled with a thick, viscous smoke that made my lungs burn. I started coughing up a storm, but Jyra and Janix continued on like all was usual as he shot again.
Next was the smell.
It had all the acidity of burning plastic, and all the headache inducing of burning hair. My stomach rolled and suddenly I found my earlier shenanigans catching up to me, and I leaned to the side to upchuck thick, goopy blackness once again.
“Andi!” Jyra yelped. “Andi, are you all right? Mooreerie friend, something is wrong with Andi!”
The smuggler remained quiet and fired another shot. “It’s Janix, and don’t worry.” Another shot. “That�
��s just a thing she does.”
I managed to nod along and Jyra looked like she calmed, but only a little.
All of this happened in less than a minute, but time was doing that weird stretching thing again where an impossible number of events and stimuli were cramming themselves into a few second’s breath.
And yet another shot. “I think that was the last one,” Janix said, stepping to the side. “Keep your arms tight to your body and try to roll forward when you hit the ground.”
“Thank you. I would also prefer to avoid more burns,” Jyra said, stepping forward with authority before disappearing into the smoke.
I had to hand it to the woman. She had been kept prisoner and psychologically tortured by an enemy that was responsible for the deaths of millions, yet she still had enough of a head on her shoulders to follow directions and escape like a proper fugitive. Hell, she was reacting much better than I had during my first sprint for my life.
“I have landed!” her voice came up barely through the tube.
“Your turn,” Janix said.
“Promise you’ll come down after me? No heroic sacrifices to hold off the horde and buy us time?”
“Please, I’m far too selfish for anything like that. I thought you knew me.” I laughed, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
“See you soon,” I promised before walking into the thinning smoke.
I felt the hole before I saw it, the heat rolling like waves over my feet and then my face. Then, the glowing red ring. Geez, Janix wasn’t kidding about needing to keep my arms at my sides.
Normally I would take a deep breath and leap, but my lungs refused to draw in any more of the toxic air. So with a bit of a shrug, I jumped over the edge and went falling downwards.
I hit sooner than I thought I would, and felt myself pitching forward. Remembering what Janix had warned me of, I tucked my shoulder forward to roll and ended up doing a haphazard sort of somersault that landed me on my back. Jyra helped me up and we ended just a breath away from each other, looking into each other’s eyes right as another heavy thump sounded behind me.
The Discovery' (Alternate Dimensions Book 4) Page 7
