by Cole Anders
The man-thing slumped again Simon lifelessly, and just as he looked up to find Luke the sensation of flayed skin blasted through his arm. Ruined and bleeding out, Simon didn’t think he’d be able to survive long with that much blood gushing out. While rocking back to stand up he felt Luke grab his shoulder and pull him the rest of the way back to his own feet again.
The world sped up now, faster and faster, his arm blazing with pain, his ears ringing from reverb, Luke pulled him close and shouted, “I’m out of bullets, what about you?”
Simon responded, “I lost my last two, wasted when that thing bite down on me, what are we going to do!”
Luke looked up at the centipede nightmare on the platform. “I have a grenade Simon, which should be enough to do something to it.”
Simon was stunned, “A grenade! Where’d you get a grenade?”
“It was in my bag when we first arrived in front of the bank, I always have one mission so I didn’t even think to mention it to you earlier. But I’ve got it now.” And with that Luke looked back up to the centipede thing and began to approach it, Simon following suit.
“Mortal you are nothing to me, DIE!” The creature roared from each head in unison.
Strobing red lights began to flash from the center of its square face, in an instant Simon knew what was happening. Luke Screamed and turned his head slightly. The almost superhumanly quick reaction of closing his eyes and lifting his arm while turning his head kept him from being instantly killed right on the spot. But the Gorgon lamps completely incapacitated him and he dropped unconscious to the ground. Simon tried to catch him and keep him from falling hard onto the metal floor with little success. Kneeling there, he felt for the grenade in Luke’s coat pocket and found it. And stood back up.
“Your design is flawless mortal, once you are a part of me, the others won’t be able to stand against me, stand in awe before your God.” It hissed, in dozens of voices all in unison.
The great centipede thing moved with surprising swiftness, making its way down the stairs of the platform and crossing the gap between them. In an instant it towered over Simon, but he didn’t budge.
“I’ve got something for you.” Simon held up the grenade over his head, having already pulled the pin, his thumb on the lever.
The centipede thing froze the recoiled, “Throw it mortal, and despair at your futility if you must.” But this time, only a few of the heads spoke, most of them looked on in silent horror at the grenade in Simon’s hand.
Simon released the lever and held the grenade close to his chest. He doubted that it would do enough damage to kill that abomination, but it was clear that what it really wanted was Simon’s body.
“It’s my ability to resist the Gorgon effect that it wants, but I’m backed into a corner here and my best play now is to deny this thing it’s goal.” Thought Simon. He looked down at Luke and then closed his eyes, he knew where his loyalty laid. It was with everyone.
“NOOOO!” The creature screamed in a hundred voices.
Still rushing toward Simon, it reached out and clawed at the grenade in Simon’s hand. But Simon only held it tighter. Again, it clawed, and then kicked with the legs that hung down around Simon. Overwhelmed from every direction, and nearly bled out Simon lost both his footing and the grenade. Simon collapsed next to Luke and looked out across the chamber as the grenade bounced once, twice, then slipped down through the grating in the floor. An instant later, it exploded in a deafening roar that blew out Simon’s right ear drum. Simon turned and looked up at the mountain of manifested horror descending on him. Hands and mutilated faces groped over him, some biting him others licking him, beginning to lift him off the ground and enveloping him into its body, Simon felt his face pressed into its slimy pulsing flesh.
Simon’s face was buried in rotten flesh so he didn’t see it, but he heard and felt the second explosion that rocked the chamber, this one much deeper and more solid. The centipede dropped Simon save for a single hand around his leg. Instinctively Simon reach out, found Luke’s body and held it tight.
The various heads along the body of the organism whispered to each other.
“The reactor’s been breached.”
“The reactor.”
“The reactor.”
“We’ve got to escape.”
“I’ve got to escape, with him.”
“Run, use the iris, escape with him.”
The centipede creature rushed back toward the platform dragging Simon along with it, who was in turn dragging Luke. Just as it put its first appendage on the stairs leading onto the platform another conduit ruptured right below the center of the chamber, scalding the thing with boiling steam and slicing several limbs of with high pressure beams of super-heated water vapor, including the one holding onto Simon. As soon as he was let go Simon began crawling away from the platform, angled off away from Luke. He had a much better strategy now, he could destroy the base and that horror at the same time, if he could just keep away from it to keep it from transporting out of here with him. Simon’s crawl turned into a scramble then and lope. He looked back and saw that the thing had not pursued him like he thought it would. It had only taken a few steps after him then returned the platform control panels.
“There will be another like you mortal, and I will have them and everyone else in time, I am endless.” Each head speaking together once more.
And with that, a shimmering sphere of light surrounded it and an instant later it vanished along with part of the platform and some of the floor plating below it. Another series of pipes burst, this time overhead, raining down pieces of metal debris larger than Simon was. He rushed back over to Luke and checked for a pulse, after a moment of he lifted his fingers off Luke’s wrist and went to climb the platform, but instead decided to check his carotid pulse in his neck as well. One second, two, the room was beginning to shake. But Simon felt a beat, then another one. That was good enough, he put everything he had into lifting Luke off the ground, but had to settle for dragging him arms and head first along the floor and up the stairs. The iris was still open, on the other side was some kind of facility like the one he was in now. Only it was well lit and had posters and carpeting. Down the hall, he could see a trail of bodies, some crushed others ripped apart, blood was smeared everywhere. Simon thought about trying to go there and help those people, but exposing himself to that thing again wouldn’t be a great idea, and he was so weakened by blood loss and compounding injuries that he’d doubted he could do anything but pass out on the floor, and he couldn’t leave Luke to die alone anyway. He looked over at the only display that was still powered, it showed a destination for the iris but it wasn’t in English and Simon didn’t recognize it. Another explosion deep below him rattled the chamber, and instantly Nerva clicked back into his ear.
“Simon, Luke! What’s happening, I’ve been trying to reach you for almost an hour, where are you?” Nerva’s voice was both relieved and full of nervous tension.
“Nerva, o my god, it’s good to hear your voice. Listen I don’t have time to explain, me and Luke are in big trouble here, what would the Flapjack coordinates be if we were traveling back to Firewall from where I am now.”
“I don’t understand. Are you saying you have access to another iris at your location? Wherever you are it’s bathed in radiation, and both of your vital signs are completely in critical condition. Simon, I’m surprised you’re actually conscious, you’ve lost a huge amount of blood.” Nerva’s voice had become frantic, almost buzzing.
“Nerva...the coordinates!” Simon sputtered, his legs beginning to tingle and go numb.
“From where you are now, 1223.5 - 3223.22 - 34356.332. The only number that must be perfect is the last one, it’s depth. That’ll put you in our medical bay.” Nerva was practically screaming in Simon’s ear.
Simon’s vision blurred, as he reached out to the keyboard he pressed a few numbers but, only got error beeps in return. He just swept his hand around the keyboard at random and in his dist
orted vision the screen changed to a mostly blank set of fields.
“1223 enter”
“3222 enter”
“34356.333333 no...332”
The monitor display changed to another message then.
“Encapsulate sequence? Y/N”
Simon hesitated, then reached up into his ear and removed the small pill like ear bud from his ear and tossed it through the iris into the unknown facility on the other side. The he reached up, and pressed the enter key once more.
The scene through the iris began to shift and fade. A familiar location came into view, examination room Simon had stood in when he was exposed to the Gorgon lamp for the first time, over to one side, Calvin and David stood with two sleek three legged and three armed robotic forms, both of which had unusual looking devices held at the ready.
For a moment, Simon looked down at Luke in desperation thinking there was no way to safely pulling him through the iris, never mind getting himself through it in one piece. Black spots started too clouded over his vision and his hands went numb. Simon collapsed to his knees and closed his eyes. The rupturing of pipes and conduit all around him was deafening.
Simon whispered to himself, “How did that thing do it, it was too big and slow for the iris so it created a bubble around itself and just teleported everything around it all at once.”
Simon couldn’t force his eyes back open but he could still reach the keyboard, he felt around what he hoped was the top row and struck a few keys near where the Y should be, then he felt his way over the enter key and pressed it, an act of total desperation.
Collapsing to the floor he saw through the squint of his eyes he could see there was brilliant white light all around him, Luke, and part of the workstation he had just used. There was a blinding flash then suddenly the room he was in dropped away and there was complete silence for a shear moment, then suddenly busy words from familiar voices. He felt hands all over him and at first, he began to panic thinking the destination hadn’t been changed after all. But he started to recognize the touch was not violent, and the voices he heard were David calling for blood packs, and Nerva’s voice calling out detailed vital signs for himself and for Luke. Simon could feel the injuries on his body, and he knew he might still slip away despite everything, but he couldn’t let that happen, he had far too much to tell them. And he also had unfinished business with a living nightmare.
Simon couldn’t allow himself to relax, even as he drifted into unconsciousness. Not yet.
