by Rohan Healy
“Keep an eye out, boys,” said Adam as they walked, “there's a whole lotta nasty creatures out here that'll take a bite out of you if they get the chance.” Maxen and Miles remained alert throughout the journey, the dense bush and tall grass provided excellent cover for potential predators, Maxen kept his arm in its cannon form the entire way, ready to blast apart any wild animal that might spring at them, and Miles held tight to his fully loaded revolver. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this, so green and full of life!’
It was about ten minutes before the Wilhelm station's tower came into view in the distance and Miles realized just how tall it really was. It was different from the ones that were shown on the screen in the Talos shuttle and looked almost like a radio tower with huge steel girders supporting the open elevator shaft that ran through the centre and five thick metal pipes leading all the way to the top. ‘It must be a different model, or maybe the shiny outer covering has been torn off and used as scrap metal over the years.’
Circling around the peak of the tower were a large number of the flying creatures that Miles had seen in the skies since entering the distorted Chimerium field.
“Fuck me!” shouted Maxen, “that's gonna be one bastard of a climb, you up for it?” he added, turning to Miles with an excited, childlike expression on his face.
“I'm not turning back now, we have to do this for Lucy,” Miles replied as he looked on at the tower in the distance, his heart fluttering at the sight. ‘Come on Miles, for Lucy, and for Adam and Miriam.”
They began walking once more and as they drew closer to their destination the lush green plant life around them continued to thicken until they were trekking through the heart of a dense green jungle. They had since lost sight of the tower which was shrouded by the canopy over their heads, their vision occupied now by giant trees and other large plants that came in wild reds and deep blues as well as the lush green of the treetops. Long snakes with exquisite patterns curled around the thick trunks hissing at the party of travellers as they made their way. Bizarre looking blue-faced monkeys could be seen swinging through the branches at high speed, then spreading their arms and gliding through the air gracefully thanks to thick skin flaps between their arms and legs. The jungle was loud too, alive with the sounds of a thousand different animal, bird and insect species. Miles took in the sights and sounds, although somewhat afraid of the wildlife he was enjoying the change of scenery from the desolate red deserts that he’d inhabited for the past number of weeks. And although deep in the muggy rain forest and unable to see the station, the men were not lost as Adam's trail was still visible beneath their feat.
“How much further now?” asked Miles panting, after about an hour and forty minutes into the trip.
“Not too far, the station should be comin' back into view soon,” replied Adam. The heat and humidity was beginning to get to Miles and he took a sip of water from a canteen that Adam provided before screwing the lid back on and returning it to his left hip. Artificial sunlight shone through gaps in the natural jungle canopy high above the ground and every so often, thrashwings could be seen speeding past above the trees. They had been fortunate so far with regard to the faulty tower. It had set itself to various daylight hours during their trip, only jumping to pitch black once, and even then only for a minute or so. Miles began to hear terrifying screeches ahead which he quickly realized must have been the sound of the nesting thrashwings. This meant that they were close.
“Hear that?” Adam said as he stopped to listen.
“Yeah, sounds like a bunch of pissed off birds,” replied Maxen as he leaned against a tree and took a drink from his canteen.
“Not pissed off,” said Adam, looking up at the sky, “hungry.”
Adam took a moment to examine their surroundings before speaking again.
“Let's keep moving, we're almost there.” Miles and Maxen complied and they were on their way once again. After only a few more minutes of walking the jungle began to open up into a large steppe and the Wilhelm station came into full view about three hundred meters from where Miles, Maxen and Adam were standing. Miles tugged at his sweat soaked shirt and basked in the cool breeze that swept up off the grassy plains. ‘Thank God we’re out of that damn sauna, I don’t know how much more of that I could have taken!’ The lower part of the station consisted of three large, dome-like structures which appeared to be made out of a sturdy steel. The once bright silver colour of the domes had faded with age and thick vines now covered most of the structure. The tower was even more intimidating up close and Miles could now see that there was a large hole in the peak structure which was likely where the thrashwings had made their nest.
Adam carefully examined the situation from the edge of the jungle where the three were positioned, his eyes were closely watching the movements of the thrashwings. Miles and Maxen stayed silent, not wanting to disturb Adam who was in deep focus. ‘It looks like he really knows what he’s doing.’
A little over two minutes passed before Adam turned back to Miles and Maxen and spoke quietly on the edge of the jungle.
“Once we step out into the plains we’re on their turf and without the cover of the jungle we’ll be sitting ducks. Move fast but stay low, try and make it to that stream down there,” Adam pointed to a shallow stream that ran through the valley. “Thrashwings' vision ain’t so great so their sense of smell is vital to their hunting abilities, if we make it to the water, we should be able to throw 'em off.” Miles and Maxen both nodded and prepared for action.
“Alright,” said Adam, “stay close.” With that, the three of them began to quickly make their way through the grass and down to the flowing water, running as fast as they could. Miles could hear the screeching of the thrashwings growing louder. As he looked up, he saw more and more of them pouring out from the nest at the top of the Wilhelm station, they knew there was food nearby. Miles continued to sprint, terrified that at any moment, a thrashwing would swoop down and tear him apart. ‘Oh God, there’s too many of them, and they’re too fast!’ He stayed as close as possible to Adam and Maxen as they dashed towards the stream with the speed and determination of professional athletes. All three men leaped into the cold water with a great splash just as a thrashwing swooped, its talons only inches from Miles’ shoulders. Miles let out a sigh of relief as his head burst out of the water and he began to catch his breath, the thrashwings above suddenly seemed confused and disorientated as they lost track of the scent, spreading out further than before and flying around in a mad and uncoordinated fashion. The men took a moment to compose themselves and assess the situation.
“Those things are crazy!” Miles exclaimed as his heart beat furiously. He stared up at the searching thrashwings in awe, he could now see just how terrifying the creatures really were. They looked like giant, flying reptiles with long, razor sharp claws and the largest of them had a wingspan of about thirty five feet. They had what looked from a distance like thick fur on their backs but were in fact, according to Adam, thousands of deadly, needle like quills.
“You can't let your guard down around thrashwings,” Adam said in a surprisingly relaxed manner as though he’d been dealing with them for years. ‘How the hell do you get used to those things?!’
“So what's the plan now?” Maxen asked before splashing his face with water from the stream.
“Do you think you can hit a few from here?” replied Adam.
“Probably,” Maxen said shrugging and looking up at the beasts.
“Alright, try to take out as many as you can while we follow the water up as close as it'll take us to the station, just make sure you keep movin', never shoot twice from the same spot.”
“Got it,” Maxen nodded and began to take aim at one of the thrashwings. After a few seconds, he started charging his cannon, the five lights on his old arm had been replaced with a digital bar that filled with red light to indicate how charged the shot was. The weapon operated a lot faster than Miles remembered, taking only about two seconds to fully
charge, at which point a bright ball of blue energy shot from Maxen's arm and travelled quite a distance before making contact with a thrashwing and turning it into little more than a cloud of red mist, the projectile then continued to tear through the sky before eventually fading into the distance.
“Okay, move!” said Adam and the three of them began to make their way upstream, towards the station. The thrashwings' cries grew even louder now as they realised their pack was under some kind of threat and they began to swarm around in a panic like ginormous wasps. After a couple of meters, Maxen took another shot, this time hitting two of the flying creatures. It seemed that the thrashwings were still unaware of their attackers' position.
By the time the men had come as close to the Wilhelm station as the stream would take them, Maxen had blasted away almost a quarter of the thrashwings from the sky. It was another twenty meters or so from the stream to the station entrance.
“Alright,” said Adam, “there it is, I know the combination for the door and the water should still cover our scent for a few seconds but we have to move fast. Ready?”
“I'm ready,” Miles nodded as he prepared for another sprint.
“LET’S DO THIS!” cried Maxen pulling himself out of the stream and onto dry land. The three men once more ran as fast as they could, this time, towards the entrance of the Wilhelm station. Halfway between the stream and the large double doors of the station, Miles noticed that the thrashwings had again picked up their scent and began swooping down from above. They reached the door. Adam rushed to the terminal at the side and began entering the access code. Maxen had his back to the door and his arm pointed out at the raging thrashwings in case any of them got too close.
“C’mon man, hurry that shit up!” Maxen shouted.
“Just give me a second,” replied Adam calmly as the flying monsters approached.
“And…it's open!” Adam shouted and Miles grabbed one of the thick steel doors and pulled it as hard as he could until it slid open. “Come on!” he yelled, Maxen and Adam rushed inside and Miles quickly ducked in the door as well, closing it behind them. The sound of rabid thrashwings could be heard as they clawed fruitlessly at the thick steel door. ‘That was fucking close’ Miles thought as he doubled over, gasping for breath with his hands on his knees. The interior of the dome structure was filled with old computer terminals and was intermittently illuminated by a flashing red light. One of the terminals displayed an error message as it showed a three dimensional model of an elevator, another of the monitors was showing a similar error, this time displaying the tower's expulsion mechanism. There were two doors, one on either side of the structure, leading to the other two domes. From the diagram Miles studied back at the house, he knew that only one of the domes, the largest of the three, allowed access to the elevator. After taking a moment to recover from all the running, Adam led the way towards the door on the right which was locked via a keypad system much like the one at the entrance. Adam entered another four digit code, after which a loud rattling sound could be heard followed by a satisfying click. Adam pulled the door open and gestured for Miles and Maxen to follow him inside.
“Well, there it is,” said Adam, pointing at the elevator door in the centre of the wall on the opposite side of the room they had just entered. The second room resembled the first only it was a little bigger and with more terminals displaying yet more error messages. Miles rushed over to the elevator to examine it.
“Maxen, I think I'm going to need your help with this,” he said after he found that the door was jammed.
“What do ya need me to do?” Maxen asked, walking over to join Miles near the elevator door.
“Well...” Miles simply gestured towards the unmoving elevator door and Maxen knew what needed to be done.
“Heh, leave it to me,” chuckled Maxen as he returned his mechanical arm to its primary form. He extended his robotic fingers, pulled back his arm and thrust them into the centre of the door, forcing his hand between the two sides, he then placed his organic hand on the wall beside the elevator, widened his stance and began to pull open the heavy steel door. It shifted slowly at first but after a few seconds, Maxen gave it one last heave and pulled the malfunctioning door open with such force that he made a deep dent in the frame of the elevator. As Maxen finished attending to the door situation, Miles began double checking the supplies in the backpack that he had been carrying. Two long ropes with grappling hooks securely attached to the ends, harnesses to fasten the ropes to Miles and Maxen, a box of various tools that might be necessary to repair the malfunctioning mechanism at the peak and two heavy steel boxes with leather straps attached to them which Adam had explained were advanced, compact parachutes that he had designed himself. Maxen took a step inside the unlit elevator and looked up at the service hatch.
“Alright, when we're ready, I'll bust that hatch open,” he said, returning to the main room to prepare for the ascent with Miles.
“Hope you boys can handle this,” Adam anticipated as he pulled two radios from his small satchel. “I'll wait down here, radio me when you reach the top and I'll guide you through the repairs,” he handed Miles one of the two radios and explained to him and Maxen how they work. These were a long obsolete method of communication on Carthage but Miles had seen them in plenty of old films so he had a pretty good understanding of how to use them.
“Anything else we should know about?” Miles asked as he took the radio from Adam and tucked it under his belt.
“Yeah,” said Adam, taking a seat on one of the rotating chairs that sat by each terminal, “watch out for the queen.” Those last ominous words from Adam made Miles stop what he was doing and gulp, his face turned pale and his heart began to pound rapidly. ‘The queen? You tell us that now?! I’m not even going to ask, somehow I think we’ll know her when we see her.’ Bracing himself, he finished strapping the harness to his torso while Maxen did the same.
“We ready?” Maxen asked. Miles looked at his equipment once more, making absolutely sure that he had everything before replying nervously, “I-I guess so.”
Maxen stepped back inside the elevator, this time followed by Miles. He attempted to lift the service hatch but finding it lodged in place he pulled back his steel arm and threw a powerful punch straight up at the hatch causing the heavy lid to shoot several feet up the elevator shaft. Both Maxen and Miles took a step back in case the lid of the hatch came crashing back down in to the elevator but upon hearing it land hard on the elevator roof Maxen took another look at the now open service hatch before pulling himself up. Miles followed, and soon they were both standing on the roof of the elevator, inside the exposed shaft of the Wilhelm station's four hundred and eighty seven meter high tower. Miles looked up at the climb ahead, the cables of the elevator looked to have been severed roughly one hundred and fifty meters up, clearly the work of one of the highly destructive thrashwings, as there was a large hole in the chain link covering beside the damaged cables.
“Well, this is gonna be fun,” Maxen said with a hint of sarcasm, “guess we should get to it then,” he added, taking hold of his rope around thirty inches from the grappling hook and beginning to swing it in a circular motion. Miles waited for Maxen to throw his grapple before attempting it himself. After picking up enough momentum, Maxen released the rope and sent the grappling hook soaring up the shaft of the elevator and then becoming lodged on one of the many steel girders above, he tugged it hard, making sure it was secure, and began to scale the side of the shaft. Miles prepared to throw his hook as the thrashwings were once again alerted to the presence of the two men. He tried his best to copy Maxen's technique, swinging the rope around before tossing it as hard as he could into the air. The hook reached nearly half the height of Maxen's before failing to latch onto anything and falling back down the shaft. Miles began to panic as the heavy grappling hook plummeted back towards them.
“Maxen watch ou...” Before Miles could finish the sentence, he heard the loud sound of metal against metal and look
ed over to see Maxen's mechanical hand wrapped tightly around the hook.
“You really should be more careful Miles,” said Maxen with a look halfway between irritation and amusement at Miles' embarrassing failure before launching the hook up the elevator shaft himself, this time fastening it successfully to a girder on the opposite side.
“Thanks...” Miles said, almost blushing. ‘Show off…’ After testing the rope, Miles began to ascend the elevator shaft opposite Maxen as the tower shook and the chain link covering rattled with the impact of thrashwings high above. Miles could already feel his arms beginning to grow tired upon reaching the top of the first throw. He and Maxen decided to rest for a couple of minutes on a horizontal girder before continuing onward. There didn't appear to be any immediate danger from the thrashwings but the sound of them pounding against the tower a hundred meters up was still unnerving.
“Okay, let's keep moving,” suggested Miles after taking another drink from his canteen which was now half empty. Maxen nodded and took his grappling hook from the girder beside him and skilfully tossed it up the elevator shaft once again. Miles was more careful with his throw this time, clinging tight to the large girder with his left hand and using his right to retrieve the hook, he gave a quick look back to Maxen who was watching him cautiously. Miles took a moment to focus before throwing the heavy steel hook up a second time, he watched anxiously as the grapple continued to rise before successfully catching between a girder and the outer covering of the shaft.
“Hah, I did it!” he celebrated, looking over at Maxen with a sense of pride.
“Hmm, not bad,” Maxen acknowledged, mildly impressed before scaling the side of the shaft once more. Miles' hook had only travelled about four meters up the tower but at least it had latched on properly this time.
Almost an hour had passed since the two men began their ascent and they had only just passed the severed elevator cables. The thrashwings were beginning to become more aware of their presence and were circling around the elevator shaft, screeching menacingly.
