by J. A. Huss
My stomach gets queasy breathing the filtered air so I disengage the visor and leave the faceplate open.
I watch Tier command Ashur's team up front briefly and his eyes are still glowing from the encounter with Gideon.
"Hey," Tier barks and Isten and I look over at him. "You two," he motions to us with a pointed gloved finger, "are to stay together during this mission. Do ya understand me, Isten?"
"Got it."
"Junco?"
"Whatever."
Then Tier looks over to Gideon. "I don't give a fuck who ya think ya work for, Gideon, if yer here to watch out for Junco, then ya'd better not let anything get past ya. If you come out of this and she doesn't, I'll kill ya dead in a way that you'll remember far into the nether."
Gideon doesn't respond. Not a twitch, not a grunt, not a head nod, not a blink. Just nothing.
Isten spins up our drive as I settle in and check to make sure I have easy aim through the scope. Arel is next to us, but Tier wanted Isten's 50 cal stowed, not mounted, so he's sporting a high-power projectile instead. No aim required, just spray in their general direction.
I double-check the ammo stores as Isten takes us up several meters. The hot exhaust shoots down towards the ground and bounces back up. Smells flow up over my exposed face and force me to recall past missions with the Rural Republic.
Up front Ashur signals and the blast doors begin to slide open. The Subjack tunnels are well-lit, you barely know you're underground except for the constant sound of water that seeps down the concrete walls. But that's not what waits for us on the other side of the barrier.
It's dark.
Not just dark, it's fucking dark.
And in my head I hear the hiss of the mutants outside the Ramah labs instead of the steady trickle of water and have to push down childhood training memories that still scare the shit out of me to this day. I close my visor and shiver at the thought of being one of the unwanted soldiers ahead of me. I'd rather puke in my helmet than go without enhanced night vision right now.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The scurrying begins immediately. You'd think that the sound of almost two dozen grav bikes would be enough to drown out the scuttle of small animals across the puddles, but not so. That shit comes through loud and clear.
If you're Isten, or Tier, or even Gideon, then the tunnels in front don't look too bad. I mean Ash and Mish, they're up there with the Unwanted, lighting the fucking place up for the navigators back here.
But if you're me, Arel, or Moju – well then, the fucking blackness that seeps out in the wake of our light is enough to make you paranoid. Monsters in the dark kind of paranoid. And the really fucked-up part is that it's not just mind games. There really are monsters in the dark.
I watch the small critters disrupt the sheen that covers the ground water as they slink back from our light, then grow some balls and creep forward as we speed off. If we keep up this pace we will be up to Runout by dark, which of course, is relative down here, but habits, right? It's not that far after all. Especially with the straight shot through the tunnels. Once we make it down to the Peaks, it's a couple hours away, tops.
We've been flying for less than ten minutes when the first attack comes. They're small, just little terrestrial bots that shoot weak streams of plasma. Not anything that can penetrate Aves armor, but the Unwanted take a few hits and are yelping like babies so I grab a plasma and start shooting bolts below the middle of our team. Everyone else riding shoot starts doing the same and in a few seconds they scurry back to wherever it was they came from.
I glance back at them as we continue forward and squint my eyes when I notice them exhibit a disturbing camaraderie, piling on top of the injured parties. I swallow and open my private 039 com. "We've got amalgabots."
Tier's voice comes over the exterior coms and repeats my warning and assigns duties to each shooter. "Just don't fucking hit my team back here, or I'll blow ya out of the air and leave your ass down here in hell. Clear?"
They are all very clear.
"First one's coming, I got it." Arel blasts out a spray and takes it down. It falls, but we all watch as the remaining pieces come back together and begin the reassembly process.
"My guess is that was the first victim we picked off, and with each hit it becomes a bigger and badder enemy, so let's wait until they are as close as possible before we hit them again."
Tier repeats my instructions over the exterior coms and the Unwanted begin to get nervous.
I watch in earnest, asking Sera to increase my night vision until she protests it will interfere with other operations, and wait for the new amalgamation to appear into my field.
But it doesn't.
I can hear the Unwanted on the external coms. They think this is a good sign, but when I look over at Moju he pops up his visor and shakes his head at me. I nod and look over at Arel. He smiles and my screen types out his message. Launchers ready.
We travel further into the MR tunnels and I watch with dread as malformed hands slip out from behind large cracks in the concrete walls, I hear the slight hiss of protest at our light in their world of blackness, and I feel their restraint.
If the amalgabot is still behind us, it's keeping a distance that is far outside my parameters, which, from what Sera tells me, are exceptional and far superior to anyone else's. Even Arel's – and he's stocked with so much aftermarket com shit, we could almost be twins.
"Halt!" Ashur's voice crackles over the external com. "Blast door isn't fully open ahead. Going ahead to scout. Cover me."
Braun stands up and aims over Ashur's head and Rikan does the same. They shower the door in white light and everyone winces at the intrusion. The doors are not closed, but they are not open either. It's clever really, the opening the creatures have left for us. Enough to pass through, maybe two or three abreast, but not enough to be prepared for an assault on the other side should someone be waiting.
The point spends a good fifteen minutes checking the door and with each passing second I get a little more worried about what's coming up behind us. Arel and Moju are both standing in anticipation.
Finally Tier gives the go-ahead and we squeeze through the doors, Ashur and Mish first. There's nothing waiting for us on the other side and once again, the Unwanted take this as a good sign.
Not me.
I've learned to be cynical with the best of them. Lucky breaks are bad omens in my line of work. You don't want to be on the wrong side of Luck, you might as well be on the wrong side of Death because you don't want to owe that Luck bastard anything. Luck fucking sucks. You take competence every time. Every motherfucking time because luck is never good.
It always asks for something in return.
We pick up the pace from there and push the bikes to respectable cruising speed to dampen down the feeling that we're being followed.
Of course, we are being followed. I saw the fucker as it slipped through the blast door behind us. But I don't tell anyone. I know Moju and Arel both saw it too and we are the only ones who matter right now.
Sera has a map up on one corner of my vision screen, plus the coordinates on the helmet screen that Tier is projecting, and I'm starting to feel a little claustrophobic when the hissing takes on a new level.
"We've got company," Arel whispers on the internal coms. I turn a little in my seat to see how the Unwanted are taking it, but before I can make a decision either way the amalgabot attacks from behind.
Arel and Moju launch grenades at the same time and take the fucker out in one swoop, but I dial in the vision enhancement and watch as it pulls itself back together, and almost like a mother gathering her children, it asks the smaller bots around it to come into the fold.
"More up front." Ash's voice is calm, but Braun's response is massive. He's shooting rockets, not grenades, and it takes some skill for Ash to compensate for the recoil that reverberates down Braun's body and transfers into the bike.
"Spread out and line up, take out the front with massiv
e offense, and once we start moving do not fucking stop. Junco, if you find anyone lagging behind, shoot them in the head for being worthless."
I smile at Tier's threats to keep the Unwanted in line, but snap off a curt yes, sir over the external coms.
Braun sprays a stream of liquid fire and the screams signal the start of the first battle. Rapid fire from projectiles begins while I pick off one sensor at a time from each amalgabot. They don't go down and they don't reassemble into anything else so it must be safe to hit them in the sensors as long as we don't blow them up. Sera, tell Arel and Moju tactical strikes only, hit sensors to stop them from reassembling. I watch the letters type over the screens and then the firepower coming from Moju and Arel dampens down and is exchanged for single rifle shots.
We begin to accelerate and the bike jerks forward just as I snap off another shot with Big Boy. I blast my target's top two cylinders completely off and it falls. "Shit, I downed one." I watch, desperately trying to see what it turns into, but we move away too fast. Braun and Rikan are still blasting liquid fire out in front and everyone else is picking them off from below or against the walls.
We fly and we don't fucking stop. And no one lags behind.
The next blast door is also partially closed and we are only about a mile from the intersection that will split the tunnel and allow us to take it up into the mountains when the children appear.
"Holy fucking shit! They got mutant avians down here!" I scream it over the externals before I can stop myself and people start freaking out.
Tier's voice takes over. "They fly so do not fucking hit my team or I will rip yer heads off, ya hear me, Subs? You aim up or you aim down, you do not aim at us."
They don't fly right away though.
They peek out as we pass and stay on the ground, maybe the headlights stop them, or maybe the noise of the bikes, maybe their own internal sense of self-preservation.
But anyway, they don't fly.
They just follow.
"We got company behind, guys. The sewer rats are on our tail."
I watch Moj and Arel switch back to launchers. Chances are biological enemies don't self-replicate, so we can splatter them all over the fucking dank wet ground.
The things hang back, following us, but they must be out ahead as well because the guys in front are busy clearing the way with liquid fire. After a few minutes the frontal assault stops completely and I hear Braun come online. "Where the fuck did they all go?"
That's not something you want to hear in battle.
The avian muties fly up in a flurry and plasma fire crackles from the barrel of every Unwanted Sub's rifle in unison. To their credit, they only shoot up and down. I rapid-fire into the throngs and briefly consider taking out my SEAR and flying up to chop them to pieces. Sera and Isten are both in my head simultaneously screaming no at me, and then, just as fast as the muties appeared, they are gone.
Four Subs are lying motionless on the ground, their grav bikes smoking and drives whining, and just as I wonder whether or not we should check on them, mechanical legs clack along the ground and whisk their bodies away into previously unnoticed crevices where the wall meets the floor.
"Forward, now." Tier barks out the orders and we lurch forward once again.
"Fuck it, you guys, I'm gonna pick off everything I see back here, OK?"
I hear a crackled sigh as Moju answers first. "Better play it safe. I agree."
Arel's response is a succession of rapid plasma-cannon bolts that sets the thick oily sheen on the surface of the tunnel on fire. An inhuman wailing wells up and I have an almost uncontrollable urge to vomit.
Isten reads me. "Breathe, Junco. Do not remove that helmet."
I push it down. "Yeah, OK. I got it."
We move forward and I watch on my helmet map as the blip that signals the turnoff up the mountain moves closer and closer. There is chatter on the Subs' coms and I look down at what they're talking about.
The floor is moving.
I watch carefully and Sera jacks up my vision and enhances my helmet with maximum infrared before I can really get a handle on what it is.
"Uh, we have a problem, people." My voice crackles out over the interior coms.
"Speak, Junco." Tier's voice has a bit of strain. "Quickly. We've got problems up front too – the fucking blast door is closed."
I speak on the external coms. "Whatever you do, do not land. The floor is alive."
"Keep an eye on it, Juncs," Tier answers as he maneuvers himself and Arel up front to talk to Ashur.
What is it, Sera? I speak internally instead of on my vision screen so Isten can hear us.
Silence as we wait for her.
I'm just about to ask again when Gideon comes on the internal coms, startling me. "It's a beta sheet, nano-tech used to clean up the Peaks after the nuke. Yukichi creates them. It's not happy about the drives on the grav bikes."
"What the fuck is it doing down here?" Isten comes across calm, but I can feel his internal irritation at Gideon's intrusion into our private conversation.
"Who cares," Gideon answers before switching to the external coms. "Everyone hover at maximum height. Stay off the floor, it's stimulated by the small radiation signature on the grav bikes. Probably because of the two that crashed farther back."
"What kind of range does it have, Gid?" I look over at him with a worried expression as Isten takes us up higher.
"Sorry, Juncs. They can assemble as high as they need to go. But if you don't stimulate them, they tend to stay on the ground to conserve energy."
How does he know this? I ask Isten privately.
"I've worked with Yukichi on many occasions, Junco."
Isten's thoughts come through this time. What the fuck are you doing in our heads?
Gideon smiles at us before talking over the crackly com. "I'm tied to Junco, Isten. Was tied to her the day she was born. So, looks like you're not so fucking special after all, are you?"
Moju bursts out laughing and I put a hand up to Isten's face. "Not the time, Is. Really, not the time, OK?"
I look up front and the rest of the 039 is staring back at us. "Never mind this shit, Tier. Just get us the fuck out of this trap before those mutants come back or that goddamn curtain of evil rises up and kills us all."
They turn back and I watch Tier maneuver his bike so Arel can reach the data panels when he stands up.
Sera? Goddammit, Sera, answer me!
Junco, behave. Her voice in my head is admonishing. I'm busy with Arel now. You're not so special either.
This time Gideon laughs, but I have to actually put my hand on Isten's shoulder to keep him in his seat. "Stop, it's not important right now."
I hear the growling and my head snaps to look over my shoulder.
The pack is more than a dozen strong as they slink out into the ebbing light that leaks out behind us. If I had to bet my life on it, I'd have said that even that leftover light was enough to keep the nightdogs at bay.
I would've lost that bet.
The light doesn't bother them in the least. I grab the 50 cal and spin up the laser to pulse them in the eyes, but it has no effect.
"They're blind, Junco." Moju's voice comes over the internal coms. "We got blind nightdogs back here, guys. Anytime now would be great."
They pace below us, walking over the beta sheet thing with no consequences. We continue to hover and some of the Unwanted Subs get antsy and nervous when their bikes show signs of fatigue from staying in position. Our bikes are military grade, they can probably hover another hour or so before the stress becomes a problem, but the bikes the Subs are on are practically recreational. Only Gideon has the same quality as the 039.
"Hurry, Tier. The Subs aren't gonna be able to hover much longer."
I hear the whine of a blown motor just a fraction before the bike falls to the ground, splattering the soldiers and the bike into pieces from a height of at almost sixty feet. The Yukichi nano-tech wakes up and slithers like a wave across a pond
as it moves to engulf the invaders, the slight radiation signature of the drive just enough to spur it into action. This causes the nightdogs to scatter, but not before several are engulfed by the phagocytic tech.
The Subs start shooting before Tier can call them off and the Yukichi bucks up in defense as the plasma creates energy arcs across its surface. The remaining nightdogs, smelling the blood from the fallen Subs, slink in and begin fighting over the bodies.
I watch in horror as the two team members are ripped to pieces. The rest of the Subs begin spinning to keep their unsuitable bikes from overheating in the hover and the entire scene erupts into chaos as Sera and Arel open the blast doors.
The only thing that saves us is the extreme height of our hovering pattern, because on the other side of the door are dozens of mutant avians.
Even in the semi-light of the bike lamps I can see their gleaming rows of needle-like teeth as they come at us. The Subs swerve and retreat as we blast them from above.
The mutants and I come to a realization at the same time.
They figure out we're up high.
And I figure out that Lucan was wrong. These things are absolutely sentient.
They plotted to trap us behind this door and attack. And now I can almost hear their thoughts as they reorganize.
Blasts in the form of liquid fire, rapid fire, plasma, grenades and rockets are raining down on the little bat-winged bastards flying through the air and they scream and writhe as they burn, literally like demons in hell.
The heat is almost unbearable as the noise rings in my ears. Over the coms I hear Tier screaming to move forward into the next tunnel and Isten surges forward so fast I have to grab hold of his shoulders. We pass through as Braun and Rikan hold them off with rockets that blow a good portion of the tunnel down on top of the flitting mutants, and then Sera and Arel close the door behind us.
