by JM Guillen
“You’re being stupid.” I breathed the words more than I spoke them. “You’re crazy.” I whispered the words again. “That’s bedlam, and you know it.” Yet my eyes remained focused on my desire rather than yielding to my rational mind.
To break the spell, I gave my head another rough shake. No windows here. This was a dead-end, and I had no time to screw around with sealed doors or chugging machines. Leaving the heels and the gas mask behind me, I slipped out the door in my stolen clothes, hoping not to see the haunting eyes of the Naar’eth.
Please, please, don’t have gone this way! I prayed as I opened the door to the hall.
The Naar’eth was nowhere in sight. Thank God.
Relieved, I slipped into another shadowy room, still hoping for a window. If I were near the ground, I could climb out.
No luck. The room reeked of that same, low tide rot as the goo that covered me. More tall, metal, cylindrical vats filled it from wall to wall. Most were dark, but toward the back of the room, several shone with that oddly lime-green inner light. In the middle of the room was a murky, somewhat circular area on the floor, all but hidden in the gloom. A burbling sound like boiling liquid came from that direction.
I decided to let it be. Nothing good would come from poking at things in the darkness as Jax always cautioned.
At least it wasn’t as hot in here.
Yet.
If I weren’t paranoid—and today who could blame me?—it was getting warmer in here too.
Gotta keep on keepin’ on.
Creeping carefully around one of the cylinders, I noticed that it was nearly filled with the same thick gel. A shadowy form hovered within.
I peered inside, unable to quash my curiosity.
The base of the interior gave off the sickly green glow that was somewhat blocked by various tubes that rose up, spiraling around the indistinct form. I peered closer, pressing my forehead against the thick glass door.
A man!
He hung, suspended in the gel, surrounded by slender tubes that ran to his nose, ears, and mouth.
I jerked back, disgusted. Well, half-disgusted. A tiny, alien portion of my mind longed to float in the gel along with him.
“Ew! Ew, ew, ew, gross!” I stepped back trying to shake off the feeling.
I had been suspended in one of these vats. That repulsive longing left no doubt in my mind. I shuddered.
At a sudden noise behind me, I whirled. The light shifted as something passed near the still open door.
I was ready for anything.
Or so I thought.
3
A man stood there, backlit in the doorway. In his hands was the oddest crossbow I’d ever seen. Incredibly complex, its apparent controls encapsulated a small flat space not much bigger than a pack of cards that glowed faintly with an eerie blue light. For all its ungainly appearance, it did an excellent job of scaring the ever-loving piss out of me.
Again.
“God damn it.” I swore quietly to myself. How did I wind up in this carnival of the weird?
The man himself wore gray-camo combat fatigues, the kind with all sorts of straps and useful little pockets. This outfit also came with the stylish accessory of a chrome headpiece that simply floated at his temples with flickering blue lights.
This shit’s just not gonna stop, something tells me.
“H—hi,” I squeaked, waggling my fingers. I hoped he hadn’t seen me dressing.
I also hoped he hadn’t seen the naked Naar’eth.
Actually, I just really hoped that instead of shooting me, this very strange gentleman would just show me the way out of here.
I tried a smile.
He ignored me, turning to point his crossbow further down the corridor.
“Hey,” I tried again. “Um, excuse me? I know I’m usually invisible to men, but this is taking it kinda far, doncha think? Hel-lo?”
Nothing. Well, he may have frowned a bit harder, but it was hard to tell. Nonetheless, he sighted down the crossbow and fired a heavy metal bolt about two feet long into the middle of the floor.
“Ack!” I threw myself back and threw my hands up. Then, I found myself huddled in the doorway behind my very own impenetrable airwall.
Well, I assumed it was impenetrable, anyway. I had no idea what this clown was up to, but no one I had met today seemed to have altogether good intentions.
And then an angry spark blossomed in the middle of the air just above the bolt. It burned strawberry red and then faded to a furious crimson. With a brilliant flash of light, the hallway…
“What?” I stared, confused. Even then, my mind refused to process what I saw.
The hallway twisted and bent sideward. The crimson mote flashed with brilliance and exploded, burning nothingness as it widened to the size of the door behind me.
A woman stepped through.
“Just… what?” Stunned, I dropped my airwall. I couldn’t believe my eyes and the misty, solidified air served only to obscure my view.
Tall and thin, the woman was drop-dead gorgeous, the Nordic blonde bombshell of every teenage boy’s fantasy. Yet as I peered at her, a slow, crawling horror inched its way up my spine.
Something was… off about her eyes, something completely inhuman. Bleak and lifeless, when those black pits turned to me, I felt the very core of my being shudder and shrink from her chilling gaze.
I felt her peer into the depths of me, seeing every shameful thing I had ever done.
She stepped fully into the hallway, her fingers twitching almost mechanically. Her head spasmed to the side, and for a moment I thought the Naar’eth might be taking her.
But no, this was different. Though her mechanical jerks and twitches should never be replicated by an organic creature, I knew that she wasn’t the Naa’reth.
She was far, far worse.
Time slowed to a crawl.
Those black pits in her face sucked me in, drowning me in desolation and fear. She seemed to remove my every sense about myself, every memory that made me whole.
I became no one. Or, rather, I wasn’t anyone. I wasn’t a person. I was a thing. A thing that could be dissected and analyzed, the tiniest speck carefully considered by an inhuman, malicious intelligence greater than I could ever encompass.
Plunk, plunk, plunk. I could feel every jerk of her fingers like she was plucking strings in my soul. Each one struck a blow to my chest. I couldn’t move; I felt bound by strings, thousands upon thousands of wire strands that wrapped my limbs and restrained me from the slightest of movements while my every molecule was inspected.
She blinked, and the empty, hopeless sensation vanished.
“What the fuck?” I collapsed against the doorframe.
The man with the crossbow looked to the demon-woman. He nodded briefly as if she’d said something, but her lips hadn’t moved.
They need no words, whatever they are. The alien realization certainly rang true. I edged backward along the wall, hoping to slip away from them.
Then, I noticed that, while the woman-thing had measured my soul, a second man had stepped forth from the crimson fissure in the middle of the hallway.
In all, three of them regarded me.
Tall and dark skinned with well-muscled arms that spoke of hours of work, he would have fit into any military I could think of without issue. The man absolutely dripped with weaponry. Blades, guns, and little round grenades sprouted off his body like horrid fruits on a very knobby tree.
Whoever these silent monsters were, they meant business.
He also turned to the woman-thing, and the silence in the air positively dripped with unspoken words.
Then he rounded on me, his dead-fish eyes speared me as he sneered.
“Young lady.” His voice held nothing but cold. He sounded official in a way that made me wonder if I needed an attorney. “This location is on official lockdown due to suspected terrorist activity.” He glanced at the woman, whose head had twitched quite suddenly. “Your presence here makes you a p
erson of interest in our investigation.”
“I promise you, I am not interesting.” I held my hands up, both in surrender and in preparation for one of my barriers.
“You were engaged in Irrational activity when we first arrived.” The woman’s voice sounded as if it came from the bottom of a tomb. “We are therefore authorized—”
Authorized? I decided I didn’t care what they had planned. It couldn’t be healthy for me.
I bolted.
I sprinted back the way I’d come, aimed straight for the staircase. As I burst through the door, I hurled myself at the railing. I leapt, grasped the top bar, and vaulted over to the upper half of the first flight. Then I did it again and again, throwing everything I had into reaching the top of the second flight of stairs in the shortest possible amount of time.
Baxter and the guys would have been proud.
At least one of the mechanical strangers pursued me, albeit more traditionally. I heard the door slam into the wall, followed by their rapid footsteps yet no voices.
I wasn’t interested in a second discussion.
I flung myself through the door labeled Floor Three and into the now-expected hallway. Decidedly unexpected, a crowd of people in gasmasks bustled along the hall.
Toward me.
Naturally.
“Are you serious?” I wasn’t typically religious, but now I yelled at the ceiling, “This would be a nice time to get swooped away to some creepy-ass tea party by the way!”
I couldn’t count how many panicked men and women poured into the hallway from the various adjoining rooms. The unending multitude carried various unidentifiable mechanical doodads. And every single one of them wore an old, WWII-style gasmask, whether strapped on their faces or just hanging around their necks like the world’s bulkiest scarf.
What the hell is in the air that they aren’t supposed to breathe? It occurred to me that whatever it was, I probably shouldn’t stick my nose in it either, but I didn’t currently have a choice in the matter. I had no intention of going downstairs for the Naar’eth’s gas mask now, not with grenade man, crossbow man, and witchy-woman behind me.
Speaking of which… I risked a glance over my shoulder. Right on schedule, they pushed the door open just as I dove through the startled crowd.
Few people seemed to notice my intrusion.
“Assets!” a woman called.
“Facility! Incoming!” yelled a man. I
Those warnings from behind me quickly snapped everyone’s attention to the front.
Wide-eyed panic and heavy scowls suddenly sprouted over the crowd as I slipped and slid past the throngs clad in formal business wear.
As long as that guy doesn’t start throwing grenades in here, I should make it out! There’s no way three people can stand up to that angry mob. And angry they were. I felt their animosity rising as the crowd surged forward, fists clenched.
More than just fists. The air felt tight in places as if it were being squeezed in a huge vice. Strange, otherworldly whispers echoed around me, and hazy colors hung in the air around various individuals.
I couldn’t help but remember the witch-woman’s words:
You were engaging in Irrational activity.
Irrational. I pondered for a moment before realizing she had been referring to my airwall.
My… my special gift.
So that was what Lorne had done. I had suspected it before, but now it seemed obvious. He had taken something from me. What was it? Some kind of block? Something that held me back from accessing my own capabilities?
Whatever had happened, one thing seemed clear: I belonged more on the side of the freaky gas-mask crew than the demonic men-in-black.
4
A frigid wind whipped up from nowhere. With it, a young man with long hair rose off his feet to hover menacingly, supported by nothing. Clouds gathered around him. Scarlet lightning flashed, and my hair stood on end. Crackling snaps filled the already tumultuous hallway.
Guns of every shape and model sprouted like toadstools after a rain.
“Better move, Liz,” I squeaked.
I tried to create an airwall that would move along with me, acting as a shield.
The wall formed ahead of me, and I took a step and a half before I crashed right into it.
Walls don’t move, idiot! I berated myself. Dammit. That would have been altogether too convenient.
Crimson fire erupted directly in front of me. It ripped a hole in space and allowed the grenade-festooned man to step forth.
“No, thank you!” I backpedaled hard and threw myself to my right, diving into a smooth roll that allowed me to zoom off in my original direction behind the walking armory.
I’d always been of the opinion that driving behind the traffic cop was safest; maybe, if I were lucky, that theory would work here too.
Oh, who am I kidding? Lucky? Today? Not hardly. I ran faster.
Behind me, sounds of violence rose to ear-splitting levels. Some morbid part of me wanted to turn and gawk, to find out exactly what transpired between the two groups. Horrible, pain-filled sounds chased after me. A small, selfish part of me wished that the fight was happening in front of me, just to clear my way through the throng.
As it was, the hallway took twice as long to cross from dodging latecomers to the fight.
A spear-shaped bolt of crackling, wailing, green light flew at my head. With a squeak, I threw a hand up over my head, raising an airwall as I jerked to the right. Chartreuse sparks skittered over my barrier, and the electric lance continued on unabated.
So I’d have to keep dodging people… and their Irrationality.
Where had these people been before today? I’d dearly like to know. Outside movie magic and comic books, I’d never even heard of people that could do such things, and now here was an entire building full of them!
Maybe I did need a superheroine name. No spandex though.
I dropped the airwall and created a second to my right just before an ever-enlarging, reflective woman barreled into it and bounced to the floor.
I left her sprawled on the carpet, shaking her magnificent head.
Plunk, plunk, plunk. The witch-woman with her strings!
I took two steps, and that disturbing hopeless sensation washed over me again, like I’d been bound by an inhuman spider. My head was drawn to the left. The Nordic witch stood in a clear area, staring at me with those Hell-pit eyes of hers, fingers twitching away.
I could feel every movement of her fingers reveal my deepest secrets to the world.
I shivered.
A whirling dervish of blood and shining silver knives slashed through the crowd toward her. The brown-skinned man lithely carved into the crowd, despite their theatrical defenses. Twin blades hovered around each hand and foot; they cast a silver glow that made the resulting blood-spurts as red as Snow White’s apple.
He moved like liquid poetry, faster than a swooping raven, his hands and feet a shining blur as he mowed his way through opponents as if they were paper dolls.
It was a slaughterhouse.
The other man had put away his odd-looking crossbow. Instead he held an odd-looking gun. Not that I had seen many guns in my lifetime, but this one seemed over-large and sported smooth, clean lines that might have done well on Star Trek the Next Generation. It reminded me of the big-ass gun that the first man I’d seen in this place had carried.
My eyes grew wide. Was this group with that trio of possible murderers?
With every passing second, my doubts shrunk smaller and smaller as Mr. Strong-But-Silent took aim and fired. A petite woman with short blue hair and a cloud of pixie sparkles flew across the room as if she’d been hit with a wrecking ball.
Why am I standing around providing color commentary? I slipped around two suits, poured on the speed, and slipped into the next room.
Definitely a mistake.
A blast of scorching heat nearly melted my face as soon as I opened the door, and my hand registered unbearable pain.
I jerked my hand from the doorknob and checked my palm. Pink but no blisters.
Then the door caught my eye. Its bubbled paint peeled from the steel as I watched.
I glanced over my shoulder. A flurry of blood-drenched chaos reigned supreme with loud, wailing screams; crackling, glowing cloud-bursts of Irrational forces; and chest-thumping, explosive gunshots.
I couldn’t go back. I had no choice. I had to move forward.
Edging into the room, I slid out of the borrowed jacket and looked for a lock on the blistered door.
Which didn’t exist. Perfect.
I turned back, searching for anything to block the door, but saw only vague outlines that loomed and lunged alternatively. The lights, dim as they had been everywhere else, flickered wildly here, providing a strobe that only the loudest dance clubs sported.
“Dammit.” A single step told me just how screwed I was. The floor, softened by the overpowering heat, sagged under my weight. I had to be directly above the room I’d woken in. Those incandescent spikes obviously kept on pumping out the heatwaves. The room was literally melting around me.
Close to the wall, I edged further into the room. The unpredictable strobing made details difficult to identify on anything, but this appeared to be a communal office area with several tacky cubicles spread out along the sides, reaching into the distance. The middle gaped open, making the room seem like a giant monster’s gaping jaws about to close on me.
I moved toward it. I’d had enough from real monsters today; the illusion of one no longer scared me.
Much anyway.
I stepped carefully toward the center of the room, straining to see if another door awaited me at the other end as it had downstairs. The floor sagged more and more with every step, slowing me to a crawl. Not ten paces into the room, I saw why: the little maze of cubicle-hell had split down the middle.
There was a giant hole in the floor.
As a matter of fact, more than one giant hole pierced the sagging floor, each one yawning progressively larger. Then the very center of the room collapsed into one big pit, gaping left to right, from one wall to the other.
