by Frank Albelo
“No need to look so down, Beta. Just yesterday we had nothing. At least if we meet any more of the mutants you can defend yourselves with more than rocks,” I said.
The youth didn’t look convinced, but he at least smiled weakly. There was not much else I could have said to encourage him. This place definitely had it out for him.
Unpacked and ready to go we collected the bodies. It took almost thirty minutes to get the bodies all stacked into a pile next to B1, but when I was about to start loading the mech, Epsilon stopped me.
“Ehmm, I think we should only bring a few,” he said, drawing everyone’s attention.
“There is no need to let the Captain know we are more than competent. With the weather as it is, I doubt his team has been able to scan for this place. We need to keep it a secret longer,” he continued.
The man’s reasoning was understandable. Weighing the options, I left the cat body and a pair of dog corpses. The three corpses would give four to six days if we rationed appropriately. Pushing the three bodies against the wall, we began our trek back up to the surface.
● ● ●
The whole trip was arduous, but uneventful. It took much longer to get to a snow drift closer to the base than from just from the moraine due to the hour long walk up the passage. Considering where the system star was in the sky, I knew we would have a bit of extra time after getting back to the moraine to work on our surface camp.
While B1 was much nicer, warmer and secure than our above ground base, our need to travel to the USG base for rations might mean we needed to use it as a layover point. We would also need to make frequent trips above ground for ice to melt into water and having a place to do that would be beneficial.
Once we had made it to the surface, I contemplated splitting our group now that we had better weapons. I hesitated long enough on the decision that everyone ended up heading to the base. It would have saved energy and time if we had been able to split our group, one for the delivery and one for working on the base, but I still felt insecure about our chances against the mutants.
This time, Gamma joined me as Marvin carried the mutt corpses to the base. Just like the first time we had made a corpse deliver, Starden stood in the holding area.
“Have more presents for me do you?” the man asked.
I felt my anger rise up at his voice; there was something that really rubbed me the wrong way about Starden, more so than his usual Named-to-Digit berating. Suppressing my emotions, I pointed at the three corpses on Marvin. With a quick command over the comms, the ATC moved forward and dumped the bodies at the bottom of the hill to the base.
“Hmmm, not seen many of these before. I assume you expect me to give you full rations for each of these things?” he said while gesturing to the dogs.
“That would be nice. There is also the matter of my question, Starden.” I tried to inject as much contempt into my voice as I could.
“Right, that whole business. Well, ask away.”
“Why did the other Digits mutate? What exactly is this ‘forceful mutation’ deal?”
“Let’s see, those are two questions now, but they are close enough to one another that I will answer them.” Starden wore one of his shit eating grins as he paused for dramatic effect. “We infected you all with a parasitic mutagen. If compatible… well, you know what happened. I guess you all got lucky.”
The man had the audacity to shrug. I felt my anger surge and I ran for the holding area, fully intent on destroying him. I heard screaming behind me through the throbbing blood rush in my ears. I bounded up the hill in four long strides, basically flying through the snow. Before I reached the fence, Starden had already called in one of his ATCs. The bulkier ATC used a repulsor jump from the ground and then in mid air to crash directly into me.
The wind got knocked out of me, and had it not been for the cushion of snow, I would have definitely broken some ribs. I stood weakly as the nearly ten-foot ATC hovered over me. I grabbed my wrench from my chest belt and swung with all my strength at the ATC’s knee joint.
The metal yielded with a screech, then snapped as the wiring and less resilient circuitry scattered in the snow. The behemoth ATC toppled to the ground, kneeling awkwardly. I rushed past it, doing my best to reach Starden. Anger and built-up frustrations pushing adrenaline through every fiber of my muscles. I felt my mouth twist into a malevolent smile as Starden’s grin faded into a expression of shock.
I wrapped my hands around the battery belt, hoping it would serve as enough insulation if the fence was electrified. As I got ready to try to jump it, I heard loud whirring beside me. I turned just in time to see the smaller, camouflaged ATC repulsor slam into my side. I tumbled end over end down the slope before I managed to jam my wrench into the snow.
When I attempted to stand, an ice cold mechanical hand wrapped around my throat. The ATC pressed my chest armor and my helmet retracted, oppressive cold buffeting my face.
“My! What a display! I was thinking nothing interesting happened in this winter wonderland,” I heard Starden say just outside my view to the right.
The ATC twisted my head to face him. I could see his grin had returned; he even graced me with his deep belly laugh.
“I am going to kill you, Starden! I am going to punch your stupid teeth into your skull, you shit bag!” I fought against the ATC, but it was slowly strengthening its grip on my throat. The world faded to black, and the last thing I heard was, “I sincerely doubt it.”
● ● ●
“Now, my dear.” Starden turned to look at Gamma. “Where were we? Ah, the supplies!”
Without so much as a second glance, the Captain set a command for his camouflage ATC. The mech jumped to the base, collected another metallic box and jumped back only a few feet from Gamma.
The young girl shook, terrified by the exchange she had seen. She had been scared when Alpha had rushed forward, but a strange hope had taken hold when he took down the giant ATC. That hope died quickly when the other mech attacked her leader and he was promptly knocked unconscious.
“Take him. I think he has learned his lesson.” The man activated his helmet and looked down at Gamma from his position inside the holding area. “And hopefully, so have all of you.”
Still shaking, Gamma loaded Alpha and the supply box onto Marvin. She quickly rushed away, but not before noticing someone watching from the end of the gangplank to the base. The armored individual looked to be examining one of the dead mutants, but the moment Gamma spotted him, his smooth black helm turned in her direction.
The young girl doubled her speed to match Marvin and join the others. The man stared after her, an evil grin hidden under his helmet.
Chapter 7: The Experiments
I came to as the others began making their way through the moraine. The rough passage through the rocks and boulders shook Marvin enough to wake me up. I must have made sounds over the comms, since the group stopped and turned to me. I felt as if I had been dropped from a ten story building. My arms felt like noodles as I tried to sit up and retract my helmet; someone had activated it after my fight with the ATCs.
At the thought of the ATCs and Starden, my burning anger returned and adrenaline coursed through my veins. I rolled off Marvin, landing on wobbly legs but refusing to be dead weight for the group. I’d been so close I could almost smell the fear on him. I wasn’t sure how I had been able to take down the large ATC considering the strength it showed after I had taken off its leg. This is not even considering the one that tackled me. There was definitely something strange was going with my body and it was totally inhuman.
Just as I was getting ready to address the group, I heard my name whispered.
Alpha.
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br /> I heard two voices. The first voice I had heard was entirely different from the emotionless one that told me about Masteries. I had just heard both and the first was distinct. I looked to the others, assuming they were concerned by my sudden activity, and tried to play off my confusion.
“I… I’m okay. Thank you all for lugging me around.” I looked down at the ground, not really able to meet their eyes after realizing how stupid my plan had been.
“It’s okay, Boss. It's not like we all don’t want a piece of that human scum,” Epsilon replied.
I took note of how much more confident the burly man had been since Beta and him met us at the moraine. I needed to know what everyone was capable of; the more time I spent on Dun Lund, the more I realized that working together was paramount. I patted the man’s shoulders and I saw approval from the others.
“We will take it easy on the way back. I think we should have enough time to make it to B1, if you wanted,” asked Zeta, a hint of concern in her voice.
“I can make it. We can stop for a bit at the surface base, if that's okay with everyone.” I had already been a burden on everyone, but I was glad they had taken the initiative to return to base.
There were no objections and we made our way through the moraine’s riff raff. I was really getting tired of the amount of rocks everywhere, but now that I wasn’t weighing down Marvin, we loaded him up with rocks to take back to B1.
It was not long into the trek that I became urgently hungry. I felt myself salivating as we continued forward and barely managed to contain myself until we broke for our meal before heading into the city. As everyone sat around and talked while eating their half rations, I ate my half ration and another whole ration. The burning hunger in my stomach turned into a simmer as the food digested. Without realizing it, I had excluded myself from the others, crouching at the edge of the camp.
My hands were shaking as I put down the extra stolen ration’s foil. A tendril of fear rose in my chest as I activated my helmet to attempt to mute my now panicked breathing.
Alpha…
I snapped around behind me. I checked behind the camp’s semi circle and over the rocks. The only sounds were the mild chatting of the others and the howl of the wind over the moraine. After what felt like tense hours, I felt a hand on my back.
I turned, wrench in hand, to find Beta cowering. I did my best to play off my aggressive stance, but the fear had been evident in the youth’s face.
“Hey, Beta. What’s going on?” I asked when I retracted my helmet.
Seemingly hesitant, he responded, “The others are ready to head down. We refilled Marvin with water too.”
“Good, good. I’ll be right there.”
I watched him walk away; he glanced back twice before joining the others.
Thankfully, Beta’s presence had shaken me from the tension of the meal. I wasn’t exactly hungry, but I could feel a nagging sensation in the pit of my stomach. I was even more concerned as I remembered what Starden had said about the parasitic mutagen. I was no biological engineer, but I knew about the dangers of mutations thanks to my work with Nuclelectric systems. I feared the mutagen had only taken longer to change me and I was hours if not days away from turning into the monsters we had been fighting.
Trying to move past my insecurities, I led the way into the passage. The others followed closely behind and we slowly picked up the pace. The fully lit passage and our weapons provided a safeguard against whatever we might encounter.
A little over an hour passed before we made it back to B1. The downhill sloping of the passage made it much easier than earlier in the day. The light was beginning to fade as the star crossed beyond the horizon the ice ceiling provided.
By my estimate we had enough time to loot another building near B1, so I had Beta and Gamma run up to B1 with Marvin to drop off our full supply box. We had left the other box at the surface camp, snug between two of the support boulders, to act as a chest in case we wanted to store something there.
I scanned the nearby buildings and their adjacent alleys closely. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with my mind or hunger, but I was not going to be caught off guard.
It only took a few minutes for the young Digits to return. We emptied Marvin of everything but rations and a few rocks so we could collect more. I was trying to stockpile rocks since I didn’t like our odds if we only engaged mutants at close range. I would have killed for a rail rifle.
The next building we searched through was directly adjacent to B1. This five tier building was sealed with a metallic door at the first floor level. While the lock was a bit more difficult for Zeta to unlock, having to use a bit of wrench power, we encountered no problems. On the third tier we did have some issues.
After clearing the second floor, we realized that the building had disproportionately more, as well as larger, windows than B1 or any of the other buildings we had looted. While it made our search easier since we were not reliant on Marvin’s light, a tingling in my spine made me hesitant to proceed.
It turned out I was right to be hesitant.
The moment we all crossed the threshold of the stairs, four dogs and three cat mutants launched themselves at us through the windows. I hadn’t seen any of them on the outside of the building, so they had either followed us or been hiding on the roof. I was not so much concerned by where they had come from, but with dealing with their assault.
Thankfully, due to my paranoia I had kept everyone close as the creatures shattered the outside windows. I quickly commanded Marvin to pin and dry one of the mutant dogs closest to the group. Before I could direct Delta, he was already engaged with two of the speedy cats and Beta with the third.
Epsilon joined Delta in trying to rip the multi-limbed cats from the older man while Zeta and Gamma attacked the other cat. The remaining three dogs tried to join the fray, jumping over Marvin, but I was there to meet them. I twirled my wrench in my right hand, knocking away a pair of clawed limbs, while I grabbed one of them with my left. I felt the muscles in my arm swell as I pulled and twisted.
The dog I had grabbed with my left hand crashed into the third who was attempting to get behind me. While it temporarily stunned those two, the one I had been keeping at bay with my wrench seized on my slight distraction. It knocked my wrench down to the ground with a combined hit from its five flailing limbs and latched on with unhinged jaws. I could feel my armor grating, attempting to fight the spectacularly uncanine strength of the bite. A few of the teeth found purchase in the gaps of the forearm armor and burning stings shot through my arm.
I gritted my own teeth, using my free hand to chop at the dog’s nose. The teeth dug deeper into my arm briefly but then let up enough for me to yank my arm away. I kicked up into the dog’s chin, severing the spine with my powerful armored kick. I didn’t have enough time to celebrate my victory as I heard the other two dogs growling, surely about to pounce.
“Marvin! Jump on those two!” I heard the whirling only for a second as the ATC shot past me. Hoping the mech would be able to handle the pair of mutants, I searched for the Digits.
I could see Beta, Gamma and Zeta had managed to grab their cat’s four clawed limbs as Beta stabbed it with one of the wooden spikes we had made.
Delta and Epsilon were not having as much luck. While the pair had relatively strong bodies, the pair of cats were rushing around them dodging Delta’s wooden club and Epsilon’s spike. I sprinted as fast as I could across the room and managed to catch one of the cats by surprise.
I punted the cat straight into the wall, turning it into a stain and a puddle. Only having to deal with dodging one set of limbs, Delta was able to swat and break two of them while Epsilon pounced on the remaining two. The Digit used its weight to pin the smaller creature to the ground even as it tried to claw his eyes out, leaving a pair of grooves on the left side of his helmet. Once Delta was able to get a swing back on his club, he brought it down on the cat’s h
ead flattening it to the ground.
I panted heavily in my helmet, scanning the tier for any other mutants. The others had managed to kill their cat and had rushed to back up Marvin. They had managed to keep the dog that the ATC wasn’t draining stunned by hitting it with our large repository of rocks. Even as I watched, the ATC pulled its needles from the dog it was draining and pinned the other under its weight.
The still functioning limb of the dog that had been getting stoned tried to toppled the mech, but it grew visibly weaker and limp as it was drained for power.
A few seconds later, silence reigned in the building. I kept glancing from window to window, searching for more ambushing mutants but none came even after several minutes of stillness. The silence was broken when Beta and Delta both plopped to the ground against each other.
“Why is it always me?” The youth shuddered as he appeared to be lost in thought.
