Metamorphosis Alpha 2

by Craig Martelle

  **The vines are angry. Angry! I didn’t know they could feel anger! We should hurry. The roots of my trunk are still deep within the electric brains of a dozen metal monsters. I know that there is a command and control room behind this panel.**

  Daniil and Ouran quickly cleared away the rest of the vines, the bearoid ripping them off of the wall and Daniil moving them out of the way. The wall behind the vines was metal, and very, very old, but still shiny. It was the same material as the shells of the metal monsters. The tendrils had made some headway into the wall here and there, snaking through tiny joints and seams, but none had penetrated far into the surface. A door was revealed, with a panel beside it. The cover to the panel had come off with the vines, revealing a mass of wires and strange hieroglyphs beneath it.

  **Daniil, touch me to that panel, to those wires there.**

  Daniil removed the necklace and gingerly touched the seed to the panel. A soft glow came from the seed as tiny silver lines appeared on it, seemingly growing out from the point of contact. Daniil could feel the joy in the tree’s mind as it connected to… something. And he could feel the avaricious hunger coming from the Quiet Vines.

  A metallic tearing, grinding sound came from far beneath their feet. Then a BOOM, as though a great drum had been struck. The wall in front of them began to vibrate, and with a screech of un-oiled metal, the door slid open. About two handswidths.

  “Ouran, I think this is another one for you.”

  “Hmph.”

  The mighty bearoid stuck his shoulder into the gap and strained against the door. Slowly it screamed in protest, revealing a long dark hallway ahead. The walls and floor were made of the same metal, with a rubber mat down the center and strange fixtures along all the walls.

  Ouran stood up and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that? All that noise will have attracted the remaining raiders. And any of their friends that they’ve met up with since yesterday.”

  Daniil looked down at the pitch dark corridor. “Does anyone have a light? I think there was a lantern, but it’s back on the cart.”

  Ouran shook his head no.

  “Seed, do you think you can do that glowing thing again?”

  **I do not know. I’ll try.**

  They stepped into the corridor and slowly the seed lit up, silver illumination filling the space.

  “There’s nothing to hold on to, I don’t think I can close the door behind us,” said Ouran. He gestured towards the floor. “And look.”

  Tendrils of Quiet Vines had already crossed the threshold. Daniil looked askance at the probing rubbery tips, visibly creeping forward. “I didn’t sense them at all! I’ve never seen them move that quickly!”

  **They are hungry and angry and I can no longer sense them, either. They have shut me out. But there are answers ahead, I can feel it. Information that I am connected to but have never been able to unlock. Come, hurry, bring me there.**

  The corridor stretched on for a hundred yards or so. There were inscrutable signs on the walls and sealed side portals along the way, but other than dust the hallway was empty. They reached the end and found another door, twin to the one they’d entered through. Gently touching the seed to a panel on the side, this door slid open smoothly and quietly, accompanied by a chime.

  A light came on in the ceiling of the room inside, revealing a horror.

  The bodies of a man and a monster were locked together, mummified, long dead. The man must have been tall and broad, but other than a jumpsuit made out of an odd shiny material, there was not much left of him other than bones. The monster was ghastly. It had far too many heads and arms and teeth, with long scythes of bone where arms should have been. Adding to this horror, all of its parts seemed to have been human, pulled and stretched and reshaped by some unknown force into this hideous form. This wasn’t a mutant; this was an abomination.

  Apparently they had died in combat, the man’s skull pierced by a barbed lance of bone, the creature cut nearly in two by a blast from the mechanical weapon still held in the man’s hand.

  The room was large, bigger than the main room of most houses Daniil had seen, and there were tables and chairs ringing the walls. A shelf containing arcane tools filled nearly one entire wall, and a row of what looked like darkened windows filled another, a countertop covered in colored buttons just below them.

  **Take me there, to the windows, and place me in that small socket.**

  Daniil felt the mental direction, and found the socket in question. It was a round hole in the surface of the counter, inset slightly into the surface next to a large steel-gray colored square. He placed the seed on it, and immediately it grew even brighter. He felt the Circuit Tree’s mind disappear, muffled as though underwater.

  “They’re coming.” Ouran said calmly.

  A shriek echoed down the long hallway, then laughter, then the sound of clawed feet running.

  “We’re trapped in here!”

  Ouran seemed to chew on that thought for a moment. “Hmm… well, yes, but they can only come at us a few at a time. It’s a narrow hallway.”

  “And it’s worth it, right? If the Seed figures out how to stop the metal monsters or the raids, the Tree will know back home, it can tell everyone.”

  The giant bear-man chuckled. “Hmmph. You know, Daniil, you’re all right with that crossbow. But why don’t you take that laser rifle from the dead man and try it out? The lights in here work; maybe it still works, too.”

  Daniil felt his rising panic subside. “oooh! Yeah! Heck yeah!” He went over to the unfortunate man, staying as far away from the mummified corpse of the monster as possible, and carefully pried the rifle out of the man’s hands. The man was wearing a bright red and steel-gray bracelet. On impulse, Daniil took that too.

  He took up a position next to the door. Ouran ripped a chair out of the floor and flung it down the hallway, roaring a challenge. He grabbed another and held it in front of him with one hand, ready this time to bat away any javelins. Daniil took a deep breath and sighted along the barrel of the rifle. He had never fired one before, but he assumed the principles were similar to a crossbow’s. He exhaled, took aim at the leading mutant raider.

  For a moment, he thought it was not functioning. There was no recoil and almost no sound. But a bright flash of light lanced out from it striking the lead mutant square in the face. The creatures shrieked and scattered as much as the narrow hallway would allow, a few of them pausing to fire their weapons in return.

  A cold spidery thought-voice touched the back of his mind.

  **Daniil, there is so much. So much. Too much. I would have disappeared completely if I had not spent years mining through the security robots’ circuitry. You have to listen to me.**

  Ouran threw another metal chair at the mob, laughing as he did so. He looked like he was having fun. A few arrows and stray darts were flung back in return.

  **It’s the Quiet Vines. They disrupt the operations of the ship. That is their mutation. They absorb radiation, but they absorb inorganic energy of any kind. That’s why the agricultural robots and security robots have been attacking. They need to wipe out the vines. If they spread, they could endanger the entire ship, not just our level.**

  Daniil fired his rifle again, distracted, missing this time, despite the mass of creatures. “Ship? What are you talking about? Robots?”

  **Just listen. The vines have climbed the hull of the ship, following a major power conduit. They’re starting to spread to the sky, and they’ve burrowed into the maintenance level between floors. That’s where the raiders have come from. Our land is like a paradise to them, they have almost no food and there are poisons everywhere.**

  “There are other worlds above ours? You’re talking nonsense!”

  The mutants, hesitant to come within claws reach of the giant bearoid, summoned enough courage for a rush. The mass surged forward, led by a man-sized cockroach-rat with stinger-tipped tentacles in place of arms. Daniil fired twice in quick succession, not even bothering to pick a t
arget, and a javelin narrowly missed his head. Ouran grabbed the cockroach-rat with two hands and swung it like a flail, knocking the crowd back again.

  **None of the ship’s standard responses have worked. The vines are too disruptive. Agricultural robots simply shut down, security robots go mad. The ship doesn’t have a mind, not like yours or mine. It’s more like a series of plans. If one doesn’t work, it moves on to another. Modifying the security robots hasn’t worked, so it is attempting to find a lateral path to a solution. If the maintenance area becomes too toxic for the mutants, they’ll leave. They’re climbing down the vines, Daniil, they’re climbing down the vines. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, they’re climbing down the vines right now.**

  Ouran threw the unfortunate cockroach-rat into the attacking horde and stepped back for a moment, bleeding from a dozen small wounds. Daniil fired into the crowd, striking a three-legged catlike mutant, but when he pulled the trigger a sixth time, nothing happened.

  He dropped the rifle in disgust and turned to face the seed. “Well, what do you want me to do about it? The mutants are almost through the door!”

  **OH! The door! Of course! I’ll close it!”

  With a hiss and a ‘ka-chung’ sound, the door slid shut and locked. Ouran stumbled backwards and sat down on the floor, hard. The cockroach-rat had managed to sting his hands and arms several times before being dispatched. Daniil resisted the urge to smash the seed in anger.

  **I’m so sorry, the both of you! I was overwhelmed, there is so much information here, this is only a small sliver of my mind and it is being stretched very thin.**

  “OK.” Panting, hands shaking from adrenaline, Daniil asked again. “What do you want me to do?”

  The wall of windows suddenly lit up, brightly. Each window showed a different scene. Views of the entrance to this underground hallway, roads, the forest, Fardock, other human settlements and seemingly random terrain features. All the views seemed to be looking down on the world, except for the large central window, which looked up at a massive horde of mutants carefully descending along a wide net-like mat of Quiet Vines. One of the windows showed the hallway outside, the howling mutants ineffectively pounding on the door to the room. Strange, thought Daniil, there’s no sound.

  **The agricultural parts of the computer mind have developed a custom defoliant, a chemical that only kills specific plants like the Quiet Vines, and flooded the fire suppression and precipitation systems with it. We can make it rain right now, we can launch the fire suppressors, we can kill all the Quiet Vines and stop this mutant assault before it gets any worse.**

  “An invasion from beyond the roof of the world.” Daniil sighed. “This is madness. I’m a gardener, what can I possibly have to do with this?”

  Ouran coughed raggedly and slouched.

  **You’re human, Daniil. Overriding important systems like fire suppression requires a human with specific access privileges. I can’t do it, you have to.**

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about!”

  **That bracelet you took from the dead security man, Daniil – that gives you access. Just put it on, touch it to the colored square and say override into this panel. I’ll do the rest.**

  “If I do that, it will kill all the quiet vines, everywhere? What about Fardock’s walls? Without the vines, our children will be born with awful mutations again. We’ll never survive.”

  **The vines also made the agricultural and security robots not function correctly. Things are much more stable now than they were in the beginning. There are farms and infrastructure and the robots will be able to help. It will be fine. You have to do this, now.**

  “But how do you know? How do you know?!?”

  **Daniil, right now I have access to information that is older than I am. Ten minutes ago I thought that my mind was as old as the world. Now I know that I was foolish and sheltered and so, so wrong. I know because I know, and I promise to explain it all to you, but you have to put on the bracelet NOW.**

  Almost in tears, Daniil slipped the colored band around his wrist. He touched it to the panel and said, “OK. I trust you. Override.”

  He sat down in the chair facing the brightly lit windows that looked down on everything he’d ever known. He could see his home through one – friends he’d known his whole life, familiar faces. He could also see the hundreds – hundreds and hundreds – of mutants that were slowly climbing down the vines. They looked as though they’d been preparing for some time. All were armed, most had ropes and hooks to aid with climbing. Some were helping each other, others were carrying bundles. A few looked like children.

  The room briefly vibrated and he heard the sound of running water.

  A light rain began to fall. Some of the mutants pulled hoods up to keep the wet out of their eyes, but nothing beyond that happened at first. Then, suddenly and all at once, the vines began to dissolve. They simply disintegrated, like tissue paper in water. Mutants grasped for handholds on vines that came apart under their hands, then they just fell. One after the other, then great crowds of them fell.

  Daniil looked away.

  The same thing was happening in Fardock. A light rain was falling, and the vines on the walls and buildings just… ceased to be. People seemed to be running about in a panic, but, no-one had been hurt as far as he could tell.

  Ouran coughed again, a glutinous hacking cough. Not wanting to stare at the screens any more, Daniil rushed to his side. Ouran did not look well. His eyes were rolling and a foamy froth was dripping from his mouth. “Oh, no, not you.”

  Ouran struggled to speak. “Hmph. Poison, I think.” He coughed again.

  “It worked, we stopped the mutants. We stopped them, Ouran.”

  “Hmph. We did well.” He coughed, this one going on and on and ending in a rattle. He slumped to the floor.

  There was a great thundering rumble from outside. Weeping, Daniil glanced at the screens to see if anything could be seen. It looked as though some of the great ancient trees of the old forest were collapsing, too. Their branches riddled with Quiet Vines, suddenly unbalanced, and full of holes, the defoliant was killing them, too. Slowly, almost with dignity, an ancient tree fell directly across the entrance to the corridor. Several other trees followed, then the window went dark.

  A psychic scream nearly knocked him out of his chair.

  **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! NO! IT’S BURNING! IT’S BURNING! I AM UNDONE!! NO!!**

  Clasping his hands to his head in pain, Daniil looked at the windows again. One of them showed a view of Fardock, and the Circuit Tree, perched on its mound of robot shells, crumbled into nothing.

  The seed went dim, and the windows all went gray too.

  Daniil sat in the chair for some time, feeling numb.

  He listened carefully – he could still hear the mutants outside, trapped in the hallway. The door was thick and metal and possibly impregnable, but the hideous mad creatures were still trying to pry it open. Daniil half wished them luck.

  He took the seed from the socket, moving to put the necklace on again. As soon as his skin made contact with the seed, though, he heard a tiny voice.

  **Daniil…**

  Blinking in surprise, Daniil exclaimed, “You’re still alive in there?”

  **Barely. I think I am. Some small sliver of me still is. I am diluted. I am diminished, but I am still here.**

  “I’m glad. I didn’t want to be trapped here alone.”

  **We are not trapped. I still remember much of what I learned from the computer brain.**

  “You know a way out of this room?”

  **This room is a way out. It is an elevator, a service and command station. You have an access bracelet, you can make the room itself move.**

  “Where does the room move to?”

  **The maintenance area between our floor and the next. Once it could have gone further, but there is damage to the mechanisms.**

  “Ha!” Daniil couldn’t help but express a humorless cynic’s laugh. “Of course that’s w
here it goes. Where else? That’s perfect. How does it do it?”

  **Touch your bracelet to the colored panel by the door and say up. That is a security and engineering bracelet, with it you can command many things on this ship.**

  “Alright, then.” He touched the bracelet to the panel. “Up. Please.”

  There was a jerk where the whole room rattled, then Daniil felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The opposite of falling; rising. Quickly. He collected his bag and crossed Ouran’s arms across his chest. The laser rifle was blinking red and apparently working again, so he slung that across his shoulder.

  After a few minutes the rising feeling stopped, and there was a quiet chime. The door opened.

  He raised the seed up in one hand overhead for light, gripped his crossbow tightly in the other, and stepped out into the darkness.

  The End

  Alex Bates

  Alex is a lifelong RPG enthusiast. At age six, his parents, knowing his love of dinosaurs, monsters, and books, bought him his first Dungeons and Dragons set, and he’s never looked back. Fairbanks, Alaska has been his home for most of his life, and it’s from there that he currently writes a webcomic set in a steampunk-y version of Oz and makes a range of Lost World-themed miniatures for tabletop gaming. Yes, it’s cold in the Alaskan winters, but his overflowing bookshelves serve as pretty good insulation. You can check out his range of miniatures and keep up with his other projects on his website, www.ForgeofIce.com.

  A Walk in the Black Forest

  By Craig J. Brain

  Part I.

  The audience with One-Eye, the village shaman went pretty much as Karl anticipated, he mused as he hung upside down, suspended on a pole between two villagers. Karl’s reverie was interrupted when a thorny fern brushed his face, eliciting a yowl of displeasure and causing him to squint from one eye. The villagers hadn’t been overly gentle, but had not been deliberately cruel either as they carried him. They were simply doing what the village shaman had told them to do.

  Karl recalled the events of the night before. He’d been summoned to meet with the shaman, which was a dubious honor for anyone who wasn’t a pureblood human, let alone for one of Karl’s kind. Karl was a mutant. In fact, Karl was a bipedal mutant cat that could talk and was great at hiding. He was popular with the children in the village who delighted in playing hide-and-seek with him. He was less popular with many of the adults, and especially Foran, the son of the Chief, who in Karl’s opinion, listened far too much to the village shaman.