AntiBio 2: The Control War

by Jake Bible

  “Not that one,” Buntu says, grabbing Wallace and twisting the captain’s shoulder so she is forced to look in the direction Buntu is pointing. “This one.”

  Wallace stares at the mass of bodies that are lumbering at them from across the Sicklands. Hundreds of cooties lope close to the ground, pushing themselves on nothing but feral instinct as they catch sight of the prey ahead.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Wallace sighs. “We never stood a chance.”

  “We can make a stand right here,” Buntu says. “Dig into this hill and take out as many as possible before they reach us. Once they do reach us, we’ll set off splitter bombs. It’ll decimate them.”

  “And us,” Wallace says. “Which would be a great sacrifice if it made any difference. It won’t kill them all and there’s still the army over the hill. We need to find a way out of here and inside Control. This battlefield is lost. We should do what we can to help Ton and the others.”

  Buntu shakes her head. “We won’t make it,” she says. “Still too much of the Clean Guard between us and the dome. They’ll cut us down before we can get halfway there. Then we won’t have a decent sacrifice to brag about in Heaven.”

  “If we’re going that direction,” Wallace says. “Sometimes I have to wonder if we aren’t already doomed to Hell. This place sure looks like it.”

  The other operators look up at Wallace and she shakes her head.

  “Get ready,” Wallace says and stands. “We aren’t going to dig in like animals. We’re going to hold our heads up, push our shoulders back, and take this fight to those abominations. They are the animals out here, not us. We’re GenSOF and we will die like it!”

  “Hooyah!” the operators yell and scramble to their feet.

  Those with static weapons check their power levels, ignoring the meager amount of energy left. Those without static weapons pick up whatever rocks they can find on the ground. They bounce them in their hands, grip their edges, familiarize themselves with the heft and weight of the weapons.

  “Operators ready?” Wallace asks.

  “Ready!” they all shout.

  Buntu nods and slaps Wallace on the shoulder. “Ready. Lead the way, Captain.”

  Wallace gives her a pained smile then starts walking steadily and deliberately towards the oncoming mass of cooties. She grips a static baton in her hand that one of the other operators had given her. Her muscles tense in anticipation of snapping it into a rifle and firing every last shot, but she holds back and waits, knowing she has some time before her small force collides with the cootie horde.

  The operators fall in behind her, their pace matching hers perfectly. Wallace straightens her back and the others do the same. She rolls her head on her shoulders and the others do the same. She can feel the unity between them, the bond of brothers and sisters, ready for one last battle.

  After a few meters, Wallace begins to pick up the pace until she’s moving at a slow jog. Then the jog becomes a run and the run becomes a sprint until she is pumping every last bit of energy into her legs and making a mad dash at the cooties.

  It isn’t until she hears the roars from the operators following her that she realizes she is roaring as well. She snaps the baton into a rifle and starts firing. She doesn’t bother to put the weapon to her shoulder, knowing that the cootie horde is big enough that every shot she fires will find a mark.

  The space between the forces lessens and lessens until they come together in a cacophonous collision of roars and screaming, static blasts and rocks meeting skulls.

  Wallace empties her rifle into several cooties, smiling the whole time as the Sicklands things turn to vapor before her eyes. As soon as the weapon powers down, she whips it about and begins to club anything within reach. Bones shatter in her wake, heads burst open, ribs splinter, legs snap in half. She turns about, using her momentum to create as much force as possible and do as much damage as her tiring muscles will allow.

  A putrid fist catches her across the brow and she stumbles back then takes a kick to her belly. She recovers quickly and jams the butt of her rifle into the nose of a cootie, shattering its face. Wallace feels hands reaching for her from behind and she brings the barrel of her rifle back and over her shoulder. A screech tells her she has hit the mark and she glances back to see the barrel jammed through the eye of a cootie woman.

  A punch to her side makes her double over and her rifle is yanked from her grasp. She scrambles after it, her hands clawing at open air, but the rifle is lost as the cootie woman screeches and spins about, taking the weapon with her.

  Another punch to her side forces Wallace to her knees. She can feel something break inside her. It’s worse than just a rib and her entire abdomen and back turns to fire.

  A rotted boot comes at her face and she brings her hands up to block it, catching the boot by the sole and twisting as hard as she can. The foot inside the boot goes one way while the ankle at the top goes the other. The cootie attached to both screams and falls to the ground. Wallace doesn’t waste time and grabs up the hunk of barely sharpened metal the cootie was holding. She rakes the edge across the cootie’s throat then forces herself to stand up and turn towards the rest.

  All around her the cootie horde rages on. She watches as three operators are ripped apart, their legs and arms thrown into the air like celebratory party favors. Buntu is busy keeping four cooties at bay, but Wallace can see her tiring. She starts to move towards the sergeant, but finds herself falling as she is tackled about the waist.

  Her head hits the ground hard and her helmet comes loose. It’s picked up by a cootie and carried off in triumph like a hard won trophy instead of the lucky grab it is.

  The cootie that tackled her scrambles up over her body, pinning her to the ground. Hands grip the sides of her head and she feels pain in her neck as her head is pulled up then slammed down with enough force to fill her sight with stars and exploding light.

  Rotten cootie breath fills her nostrils as the man on her leans in laughing, so overjoyed at bashing her head against the ground that he can hardly contain it. He cackles and laughs with each slam of Wallace’s head while she struggles just to remain conscious.

  Her wits quickly fading, Wallace forces herself to focus and move her right hand to a pouch on her belt. She fumbles at a clasp and grabs out what is contained inside. The slick metal of the splitter bomb gives her small comfort, but in the shape she’s in she’ll take whatever comfort she can get.

  She moves her thumb as fast as possible to activate the splitter bomb, but one last slam of her head makes her muscles go weak and the device slips from her grasp. It slides onto the ground, clattering loud enough for the cootie on her to notice.

  The thing places a hand on her face and pushes itself up into a sitting position, its ass firmly planted on her belly. It reaches down and picks up the splitter bomb, turning it over and over in its hands.

  Before it can get a good look at it, the bomb is snatched away by another cootie and carried off into the horde. The cootie jumps up from Wallace and sprints after the thief, bellowing and hollering in its cootie gibberish.

  Wallace flips herself onto her stomach and starts to slowly crawl. She has no idea where she’s going, just hopes it’s in the direction she last saw Buntu. She makes it half a meter before all of her strength leaves her and she’s left to gasp and lie face down in the Sicklands dirt.

  Then the world turns white.

  Heat envelopes her and she feels her body lifted up by a heavy wind. She struggles to open her eyes and finds herself flipping end over end across the landscape. She screams, but the air is snatched from her lungs and all she feels is fire in her chest.

  Then the heat and light and wind are gone and she’s dropping fast. She gasps, taking in a welcome lungful of air then coughs as she tastes the unmistakable flavor of scorched flesh and burnt hair.

  She has no idea how long she lies there or if she’s awake the entire time. It could be minutes, it could be hours. Her sense of time and r
eason were lost in the explosion. After enough conscious time passes that she knows she’s not going to die right away, she attempts to sit up. She makes it onto an elbow and squints at the scene before her.

  A huge crater is a hundred meters away. Bodies litter the area around the crater, all in various states of annihilation. That’s when she realizes that she isn’t resting on the hard ground, but a blanket of dead cooties that were sent flying from the blast just like she was.

  She quickly, or quickly for her, rolls off the bodies and watches them closely waiting for one to stir and come at her. But none do. She looks about again, hoping to see a scrap of GenSOF armor or uniform, but all she sees are cootie rags.

  Then a far off sound gets her attention and she struggles to turn towards it.

  At least a full click away she sees what could be a transport. There is something behind the transport, but her traumatized vision can’t make out any details, so she just lies there, pain flowing through her in waves, and waits.

  Before she can recognize what is coming at her, the sound of boots on dirt forces her to look back the other way. Back towards the hill she had been hiding behind in what seems like a lifetime ago.

  The Clean Guard. Hundreds of them are standing on and by the hill, all looking at the crater and the bodies that litter the ground.

  Wallace freezes, hoping none of them see her, and waits. It doesn’t take her long to realize she is about to be in the middle of something big and there isn’t a damn thing she can do about it.

  51

  “Just get inside!” Red yells as he shoves Jersey and Tanya through the door and onto the landing. “We’ll hold them off!”

  Jersey stumbles forward then catches herself by the railing as she stares in wonder at the spiral staircase that leads down into the subterranean levels under Control. She glances at Tanya, whose expression is blank, then looks back at the stairs.

  “Are we back in the Burn?” she asks. “This is not what I expected to find in Control.”

  “Only area that isn’t surveilled by the AiSPs,” Tanya says. “It was designed this way so that Management could have privacy, even from those built to help us.”

  “But why does it look like a rundown warehouse basement?” Jersey asks as the two women hurry down the stairs, away from the battle raging in the corridor above them. “Could do with a little paint and dusting.”

  “No bots,” Tanya says. “The area is scan free and disconnected from the Control systems. A bot comes down here and it goes offline instantly.”

  “So Management are lazy slobs, is what you’re saying,” Jersey smirks.

  “Yes,” Tanya nods.

  A blast from above makes them both jump and Jersey has to grab onto Tanya’s arm to keep the woman from falling the rest of the way down the stairs. They find their footing and rush to the floor below, glad to be standing on level ground again.

  “Go! Go!” Ton yells as he and Nick come sprinting down the stairs, followed closely by Red and Blaze.

  An explosion at the top of the stairs sends small chunks of plaster and dust raining down on them all. Jersey looks up and seriously wonders if the ceiling will hold.

  “How many are still up there?” Jersey asks as Blaze runs up to her.

  “A lot,” Blaze says. “But we destroyed the way down. They’ll be digging through rubble for hours.”

  “We also destroyed the way out,” Red says, looking at Tanya. “Unless you know of another backdoor.”

  “Not to these levels,” Tanya says. “We are sealed in.”

  “Then let’s stop standing around,” Ton says. “Which way do we go?”

  “Follow me,” Tanya says. “We have two more levels to get through before we’ll find the Other.”

  “Why not just call him Caldicott?” Jersey asks.

  “Because he is no longer that man,” Tanya says. “I do not know what he has become, but I can say with certainty that he is not Maurice Caldicott.”

  “Doesn’t matter what he calls himself,” Red says. “He’s going to die either way.”

  “Did you see her up there?” Tanya asks as she leads them down a dark corridor that is streaked with water stains.

  “What?” Red asks.

  “Dr. Charter,” Tanya replies. “That was what is left of Control’s support personnel. Was she in amongst them?”

  “No,” Red says. “I didn’t see her.”

  “But you don’t know for sure,” Tanya states.

  “Why does it matter?” Red snaps.

  “Because I want to know if you are grieving or still hold hope,” Tanya replies. “They are two vastly different mental states. One could affect your performance as an operator and right now we need you at your best.”

  “Mom,” Blaze warns. “Knock it off.”

  “I am only assessing an important member of our group’s state of mind,” Tanya says. “Isn’t that what any squad leader would do?”

  “But you’re not a squad leader,” Blaze says. “So don’t act like you know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’d be surprised what I know and do not know, son,” Tanya says.

  The group continues walking down the dark corridor for a couple minutes before they get to two large, rolling steel doors. The handles of the doors are chained together, but not locked. Tanya stares at the chain for a few seconds before Jersey clears her throat.

  “Um, something we need to know?” Jersey asks.

  “I’m trying to remember if this chain is supposed to be here,” she replies. “And if it is, whether or not it should be locked.”

  “Hard to lock it from the inside,” Ton says.

  “Exactly,” Tanya nods.

  “Does it matter?” Blaze asks. “We’re prepared to fight whatever is on the other side. Locked, unlocked, chained, unchained. Whoopty shit.”

  “A lovely phrase,” Tanya sighs. “One I did not teach you. I love how GenSOF has improved your vocabulary.”

  “I love how it’s hard to tell between your normal condescension and just plain sarcasm,” Blaze replies.

  “Be nice,” Tanya says.

  Then she pulls the chain free of the doors and sets it on the ground.

  “After you,” she says to Red.

  “Blaze, Nick,” Red says as he and Ton each grab a door handle.

  They pull and the doors slide open, revealing a wide open space, empty except for the five people standing in the middle of it. Well, four people standing and one sitting in a hover chair.

  “Welcome, Dr. Crouch,” a voice rasps. “The Other said you would be coming this way. It has been a long time since we’ve met face to face.”

  The space is barely lit, with only a small halogen bulb placed every few meters up at the top of the walls by the ceiling. The bad lighting keeps the five people in shadow, but it is easy to tell by Tanya’s body language that she knows exactly who is speaking.

  “Mona,” Tanya nods. “You sound slightly hoarse. Do you have a cold?”

  “I have more than that,” Dr. Mona DeBeers says, taking a few steps forward so her face, and body, are illuminated. “I have every cold.”

  The woman is nothing but oozing pustules and seeping sores. Every inch of her skin is leaking some type of fluid. Enough so that her uniform is stained through in places. DeBeers shuffles forward on swollen legs that stretch her uniform until it looks like it will burst. She winces with each step, but the obvious pain doesn’t slow her down.

  “If you’d taken my advice, you wouldn’t be in this state, Mona,” Tanya says. “You’d be—”

  “Useless! Pointless! Dead!” Dr. DeBeers shrieks. “The Other has no patience for extraneous distractions! I made the right choice! We all made the right choice!”

  The four other members of Management move slowly forward. All of them look like they are in great pain, even Dr. Lopez who is wedged into his hover chair, his normally large body looking even more bloated than before.

  “Oh my,” Tanya tsks. “Management has seen better day
s, that’s for sure.”

  “Your superior attitude is not welcome here,” Dr. Benz says. “You will prostrate yourself before the Other and show obedience or die.”

  “Oh, Richard, I have never prostrated myself before anyone. Not even in college,” Tanya laughs. “Do you think I will start now?”

  “You will start now if you want to live,” Dr. Sheffield says.

  “If you want to live!” Dr. Whittaker cries.

  Tanya sighs and shakes her head. “Always the follower, Gordon,” Tanya says to Dr. Whittaker. “No originality at all, even in death.”

  “I am very much alive,” Dr. Whittaker hisses. “More so than I have ever been before.”

  “No, dear, you are quite dead,” Tanya says. “Your bodies have already begun to rot. Haven’t you noticed? That bloating and those sores, not to mention the smell, tell me that the bacteria in your systems has already begun to respond to your necrotic tissues. The only reason you are thinking and talking is because you are linked to the Other.”

  This makes the scientists hesitate. Dr. Benz takes a step back, as do Drs. Whittaker and Sheffield. Dr. Lopez hovers in place, but his hands begin to shake over the chair’s controls. Only Dr. DeBeers stands her ground.

  “We were promised immortality, the same as the Other has achieved,” Dr. DeBeers says. “He never lies. His word is Truth.”

  “He always lies and his word is bullshit,” Tanya says. “Grow up, Mona. There is nothing special about you. Nothing special about any of you. You were all chosen for your skills and because your minds could easily be conditioned to work for Control. To work for me. Unfortunately, that meant your minds could be easily overpowered by the Other. Whether through a direct link or with invading bacteria. Either way, the bastard found my loophole and took this place as his own. Son of a bitch.”

  “Your mother has found her inner potty mouth,” Jersey grins.

  “Quiet!” Dr. DeBeers roars. “You will all be quiet!”