The Minotaurs of Maze World

by Eddie Patin

  But there’s something he’s not considering, Jason thought. "Faster to get the bodies there, sure, but we still have to skin them before heading to the Market, right? It seems like it’s the same to me. And cleaner—no body, no guts, and no need to go to the Wilderlands. Besides—the fridge is full!"

  The soldier stood, crossed his arms, and stared down at the body for a moment. Then he looked up at Gliath, who returned his gaze with no expression.

  "Do you have the power scalpel with you?" Riley asked his friend.

  "Yes, Ranaja," Gliath rumbled.

  "Okay," Riley said, scratching his beard. He looked back to Jason, then the body. "It’s a good point. Let’s try it. Can you skin it here, Gliath?"

  Gliath nodded and slung the railgun onto his back before reaching into his pouches for his tools.

  Jason and Riley took positions on either side of Gliath’s work while the leopardwere started skinning the body in the sand with the fancy scalpel and his kukri. As they kept their weapons trained on both ends of the canyon, Jason alternated between watching his firing lane, glancing up at the vast and mysterious sky city hanging in the yellow haze far above, and peering at the distant ridge where they could see the silhouette of Rush Watson’s camp.

  Gliath did excellent and efficient work and it wasn’t long before the leopardwere had produced a huge, shaggy sheet of minotaur hide, caked with sand and blood. The minotaur’s huge body looked strange lying on the canyon floor, dark and gleaming and missing its skin. It showed all of its thick, corded muscles, ligaments, and pale myofascial sheathing.

  He didn’t even have to gut it, Jason thought.

  As Jason focused on the garage coordinates with his OCS, Riley looked over his shoulder at the device’s screen. His presumed 'double-checking' distracted Jason until the soldier backed off.

  "Just making sure," Riley muttered.

  Jason opened a portal with a flutter and a snap. The resulting blazing orange light was like a brilliant fire under the yellow sky. Throughout the sputtering roar, Jason noticed Riley keeping a keen eye on the ridgelines around them. As soon as the scene smoothed out to reveal his empty garage floor through the whirling rim of sparks, Jason gestured to Gliath.

  "Okay, go ahead!" he shouted above the noise.

  The leopardwere tossed the folded up hide through, and Jason watched it land and partly unroll on the concrete. He looked at the OCS again just to make sure that the destination was indeed universe 934, then he released the rift as quickly as possible.

  Thrust into the relative quiet of Maze World again, Jason dropped the OCS back to his side, topped off the ammo in his rifle, then waited for Riley to move.

  "Good," Riley said. "That was quick and easy. Let’s go."

  Riley led the way toward Rush’s camp. Jason peered at the ridge and the shadow of the structure up there, but he didn’t see anyone. It was still early morning—maybe those two were out on the hunt. Time felt strange. Even though Jason knew that it was early morning—at least back on Earth—it already felt like they had been here for quite a while. He looked up at the weird, yellow sky, his eyes following along the lines and furrows dug through the cloud cover by the wind that shaped everything like lines of a maze. He couldn’t see the sun through the clouds. Hell—for all Jason knew, there might be two suns here...

  "How are we gonna get up?" Jason asked. Rush’s camp was high up on the ridge.

  The soldier led on toward the sandstone wall. There were crevices and nooks all over, cutting the once-vertical natural wall into a steep, eroded slope.

  "We climb here," Riley said, leaping up onto a knee-high ridge. "I’ll lead the way. Just pay attention to where I put my hands and feet..."

  Riley chosen path looked tough...

  Jason looked over the wall and immediately headed to an area that looked easier to climb. As he approached a shadowy crevice, a slippery, squelching sound caught his attention and he stopped.

  "Stop, Jason Leaper 934!" Gliath bellowed suddenly.

  Before Jason knew it, Riley had drawn his blaster like lightning from his hip—just like a movie gunslinger. Jason caught sight of a shimmer in the air right in front of him, then realized that he was looking at the crevice through something like a mass of water, or...

  Riley’s blaster snapped and hissed. Jason jumped in surprise when the crackling red bolt of energy—hot enough that it felt it like a wave of heat from an open oven on his face—flashed past him with a snap as it cut through the air! The superheated red light splashed into a weird, transparent area just a few feet ahead of Jason, and he saw the burning energy dissipate across the surface of a previously-nearly-invisible slime. The red heat rippled across the slime’s surface, singeing its ooze shell that smoked and filled the air with an odor of burning chemicals. Jason suddenly had a very close-up view of the slime’s transparent body. He noted with horror that the mass of nearly-clear goop showed countless striations through and through: fine straight lines and corners—the pattern of a maze as intricate as a network of tiny arteries and veins. The slime had a molecular pattern just like the leaves of the strange scrub oak!

  "Get back!" Riley cried.

  Jason stumbled several steps backwards just as he felt wind whip by his face. A slimy pseudopod streaked by him, shot out from the huge slime.

  Riley shot twice more and Jason scrambled away as the red laser beam burned into the creature two more times. The second shot penetrated deeper than the others into the creature, making its slippery ooze froth and boil out. Huge bubbles of the slime's body spit and scattered hot goo all over.

  "Holy shit!" Jason exclaimed, finally putting some good distance between himself and the burning slime.

  It had tentacles! Or—it shot out pseudopods anyway, like a sticky fishing line thrown out to catch a leaping trout.

  The huge ooze roiled out from the crevice—it was almost the size of a small car!—and it smoked and spit and started falling apart. Its jelly was blackened in areas, boiling in others, and clear liquid slime spilled out into the sand, immediately soaking into the ground and creating a God-awful, stinking mess. The odor make Jason think of burning super-glue.

  Riley shot it one more time. The brilliant red laser-bolt pierced the center of the huge blob and boiling ooze burst from several areas as the creature sizzled and sagged, losing its sack-like integrity and spreading slowly onto the ground like a gigantic, translucent melting marshmallow.

  Jason finally tore his eyes away from the spectacle and looked up at the soldier, who was reloading his pistol.

  "Follow me I said," Riley ordered, holstering his gun.

  Jason followed.

  The three of them carefully climbed the ridge, rifles slung on their backs. Jason paused at one point to put on his gloves. Just like the sandstone of Colorado, the chucks of the canyon’s purple wall bit into Jason’s palms and fingers, rough and gritty.

  It was so odd not seeing things like cacti and yucca plants—vegetation that seemingly should grow here. There was only the sparse grass, tough as nails. Of course, this place didn’t look much like home under a canary-yellow sky...

  Jason followed Riley’s path up the wall, grunting and trying not to slip on the purple sandstone, moving carefully with his boots scraping and crunching for purchase. Gliath followed Jason without effort, taking it easy. Jason was the slow one.

  In time, the three of them made it to the top of the ridge and Jason was relieved when the steep, gnarly combination of eroded slopes and sharp walls started leveling out. With a sigh of relief, Jason climbed up onto the broad hump that made the top of the ridge, then stood straight and clapped all of the dust and sand from his hands.

  Looking around, Jason was amazed. From up here, he could see many more corridors and their surrounding walls, all the same height; all uniform, though eroding. It was a freaking maze. The world really was a goddamn maze, and these sandstone walls—eroded by time and looking quite natural from below—were nothing more than forty-foot-tall walls of a massive maz
e of lines and corners and corridors, just like one in a freaking coloring book! The ground was just like the sky. The clouds were furrowed and lined just like a maze—just like the canyons! Everything from large to small followed the same maze-like pattern. It was amazing! Jason had seen maze lines inside the clear ooze of the slimes—barely visible by the naked eye. He'd beheld maze lines as veins in the leaves of the trees here.

  Truly a Maze World!

  And yet, the minotaurs were flesh and blood. Maybe Rush was right about them being brought here from another world. The monsters were transplants. They didn’t belong ... even though it seemed that they would fit right into a place like this, being—

  "Jason!" Riley snapped. "Pay attention! Come on!"

  Jason looked back at his friends and focused again on the world around him. He unslung his rifle and followed Riley and Gliath toward the camp along the top of a maze wall.

  They approached Rush’s camp at a careful pace.

  "Mines?" Gliath asked quietly with his deep voice.

  "No," Riley said. "I’m not detecting any mines. There’s—" The soldier paused and bent down, plucking up a shell casing of some kind from the ground. Riley looked at it, narrowed his eyes, then handed the casing back to Jason.

  Jason took and examined the spent shell. It was a little like a shotgun’s but split along the sides. Was it just like the casings they’d found yesterday left by the Nothrix?

  "Nothrix?" Jason asked quietly.

  Riley called out ahead. "Rush? Tommy? Are you guys here?" He paused.

  "Are they out hunting, do you think?" Jason asked, stopping behind him.

  "Come on," Riley said, leading them forward again. As they approached the camp, Jason noticed Riley constantly scanning the ground before their path. He called out again. "Rush! Tommy! It’s Riley Wyatt. Are you guys inside?"

  Up ahead was a simple canvass tent perched on the corner of a sandstone maze wall. It was a lot like the kind that Jason had seen hunters use back on Earth—especially the ones who hunted on horses. It was a serious tent; nothing flimsy or made of nylon. There were crates stacked around the outside. One of them was left open. Multiple six-foot-long stakes had been pounded into the ground in several areas in and around the camp up on the wall, each topped with what looked like an electronic torch from a sci-fi game. There was something that looked like a generator near the entrance of the tent—currently quiet—and the door-flap had been left open...

  "It looks like they’re home..." Jason whispered, trying to ignore the uneasy dread building up in his guts.

  Riley pulled his blaster, cast a quick glance back to Jason and Gliath, then approached and ducked into the entrance. He looked inside...

  The soldier stood back out again—quickly looking away—and sighed.

  "Shet..." he said.

  "What?"

  Riley stepped away from the tent entrance and walked slowly over to the edge of the ridge, looking out over the maze below, shaking his head.

  Jason’s heartbeat quickened. He approached on shaky knees to see for himself. Pulling the Rigby’s butt stock into his shoulder, Jason walked up to the entrance, then—once he’d built up enough courage—he looked inside...

  There were two bodies among bed cots and bags and belongings. The nearest body—dressed in the same clothing and armor that Jason remembered Rush Watson wearing the day before—lay prone on the floor of the tent, partially propped up onto one cot-like bed. Jason couldn’t be sure that it was Rush—he figured that it was because of the armor—because the man's head was nothing but a gleaming, white skull with a big, black hole in its cranium. With a jolt of cold fear, Jason realized that Rush’s skull and neck and part of his upper body was completely enveloped in the glistening and nearly-invisible form of a small slime...

  Chapter 19

  The interior of the hunting tent was dim from the low light filtering in through the half-unfurled canvass windows. The murky yellow brilliance of Maze World flooded in through the opening that Jason made by leaning inside, but it wasn't enough.

  With a trembling hand, Jason reached for the flashlight he kept on his belt and clicked it on, introducing white light into the yellow world and the inside of Rush Watson’s shelter. He put the LED spot onto Rush’s gleaming white skull and vertebra—Jason couldn’t help it; he had to take a closer look.

  The older hunter’s skull had been smashed open by a shot of some kind—a Nothrix railgun most likely since Riley had found that shell casing—and Rush's head was completely stripped of its flesh and sinews, skin, hair, eyeballs and tongue, all the way down his neck to somewhere inside his shirt and dark-brown Merc armor. Jason remembered that the man was previously wearing some sort of coif—like the padding a pilot would wear under a helmet—and now saw the headgear cast forgotten on the bed near Rush’s skull, torn and bloody as if thrown off by a shot to the head.

  A slime the size of a small dog was suckling at Rush’s bones; a clear blob glistening in the white light, clumped around the hunter’s skeletal head and neck like some sort of space-suit bubble. In Jason’s LED, he could see the maze-like striations in its jelly shining clearly back at him. He could also see barely-visible clouds of pink and red dispersed throughout the mostly-transparent bulk of the creature.

  The second body lying on its stomach and face on the tent's floor must have been Tommy Whisper, the younger hunter. As Jason shined his flashlight over the body, he saw a rifle on the man’s back, a pistol of some kind in his dead, gloved hand, and another larger slime going to work on the poor bastard's head.

  Jason’s LED glittered and reflecting on something wet, and he spotted another slime sitting idle under one of the cots like a huge, clear water balloon the size of a big pillow.

  "Oh my God!" Jason cried. "They’re dead! There are slimes..." He trailed off, imagining the blobby creatures slowly dissolving the flesh of his own body—of his hand if he hadn’t removed it in time. Jason could imagine the hair and skin melting away being consumed on a molecular level, followed by muscles and tendons. He imagined seeing the bones of his hand, and how insane the burning of it would be...

  "Gliath, keep an eye on—" Riley started to say from just outside.

  Jason interrupted. "Hey, I thought these guys had some sort of ... resonance generator or something! Wasn’t that supposed to keep the slimes away?!"

  "Yeah," Riley said, pulling Jason out of the doorway of the tent back into the vivid glow of the canary-yellow sky. He put his flashlight away. The soldier scanned all around them, his eyes sliding like knives over the many wall-top ridges above the canyon-maze. "They did. It’s off. The slimes didn’t kill them. The Nothrix did. The slimes are just eating their bodies..."

  "Nothing on the wind, Ranaja," Gliath rumbled. "Perhaps another beast down below ... about two hundred yards..."

  "Keep your rifle trained on the direction of the Nothrix camp, Gliath," Riley said. "Keep an eye out for—"

  "You think it’s the Reapers?!" Jason asked. "Rush had a hole in his head! You think they shot him?"

  "Definitely," Riley replied, checking the controls of his Gauss rifle. Jason didn’t recognize anything like a safety on the flashy, sci-fi-looking weapon, but he figured that Riley was just compulsively making sure that his rifle was good to go. Jason did the same thing sometimes with his own guns.

  Just then, there was a sharp crack through the air passing over them, followed by a vicious, high-pitched buzzing sound that made Jason think of an angry bee.

  "Contact!" Gliath bellowed, dropping prone to the eroded top of the ridge, his big black body looking like an ink-blot amidst the purple-grey sandstone. "Three Nothrix from their camp!" As soon as the leopardwere was on the ground, he fired his railgun, which produced a chunky metallic sound. The air split almost immediately after as the heavy slug boomed when it broke the sound barrier.

  "Get down, Jason!" Riley cried, leaping for the cover of Rush’s crates outside the tent. "Get out of sight!"

  Jason suddenly realized th
at if those Nothrix railguns could penetrate a minotaur’s skull, they could sure penetrate anything else up here at Rush’s campsite. Their cover was shit.

  There were two more cracks in the air and Jason figured that the angry buzzing he heard over his head must have been the railgun rounds zipping past them at hypersonic speeds.

  Shit.

  Looking at the tent, Jason noticed some holes in the canvass walls that weren’t there before.

  As quickly as he could without just dropping flat onto his belly—instinct made him take his time because of years of taking it easy on a bad knee—Jason lowered himself to a prone position. He ignored the stuff on his belt and the OCS at his side stabbing into his body and shuffled to the side to put swaths of tent fabric in between him and the distant threat...

  God damn it, he thought. Concealment was better than nothing, but if those bugs aimed at the right spot, he’d be skewered for sure!

  Jason looked up and watched Riley. The soldier was crouched carefully behind some stacked synthetic crates the size of foot lockers, aiming his Gauss rifle and popping off three rounds at a time. The air lit up with cracks and pops of supersonic rounds flying back and forth. Jason heard another whizz pass by not far overhead. There was another boom of Gliath’s big railgun launching a powerful slug.

  "You got him!" Riley exclaimed. "Three more! I detect ... two more approaching from behind them."

  "Riley, we can’t stay here!" Jason shouted. "There’s no real cover!"

  "That’s true!" the soldier replied, taking careful shots in three-round bursts. "Another down! Let’s get the fruk out of here—Gliath get that one on your left!"

  Two more shots flew by. Jason heard the thwack of the tent being pierced two feet over his head. One of the crates Riley was hiding behind suddenly sundered on its right side in a shattering explosion of plastic and aluminum pieces.

  "Shit!" Jason cried, releasing his rifle and throwing his hands over his head.

  "Take it out, Gliath!" Riley shouted, pointing at an attacker that Jason couldn't see. "Then come on!" The soldier turned, grabbed Jason by one backpack strap, and gave him a tug upward. "Let’s go! Down the ridge—same way we came!"