by S. A. Lusher
The result was fantastically disgusting.
A thick, syrupy crimson liquid splashed across the floor and his boot. There was a loud squealing noise that abruptly cut off. Enzo made a face as he pulled his boot back. A sound of suction split the air as he peeled his boot off the floor, then scraped it along the metal a few times to get the thing's guts and gore off.
“Gross,” he muttered.
As he prepared to leave, Enzo noticed something. The corpse was missing all those crimson lines just beneath its skin. It made sense to him that this thing, this...Mutant Slug, was response for what had happened to the body. It must have gotten inside, taken over, made changes. The blood it bled was roughly similar to the stuff that had come from the corpse when Enzo had cut it. So at least he now knew how this had happened.
It was a relief. He'd been briefly concerned about blood-borne or airborne viruses that could mutate him similarly. Now all he had to worry about was not letting these Slugs down his throat...unless they started small and grew from within...He grunted, turned and took off. Still too many unknowns. He needed some fucking answers. He wanted to believe that the mystery woman would have at least given him information on how not to get infected, and the fact that she didn't meant that it was the obvious answer: the Slugs.
Or maybe she'd been too busy and had forgotten.
Enzo reemerged in the main containment room. Moving along the nearest row of them, he checked their numbers, which were stenciled onto the front of each one above the dim glow of their control panels. After a moment, he'd found seventeen. Enzo spent a moment checking its levels and confirmed that it was empty. An emergency maintenance hatch was built into the bottom of it, just beneath the control panel.
Enzo sighed and knelt, opening it up. The things he had to do just to get along sometimes...He pried it open and looked within. The chamber was clean on the inside, as though never used. An eerie red glow permeated from the interior. A maintenance light. He clambered into the chamber and closed the hatch behind him. As he did, the light shut off, encasing him in an impenetrable darkness. Sighing again, Enzo pondered his choices.
Leave it closed, and secure, and fumble in the darkness, or leave it open and himself vulnerable and be able to see?
Choices, choices.
Finally, he decided to take his chances and left the hatch open. The creepy light returned, illuminating a very minimal ladder built into the side of the chamber. He marched over to it, secured his gear and hurried up it. It wasn't long before he'd hit the top and discovered another hatch. Using his more powerful arm, he screwed it open and peered cautiously through the hole. There was nothing there but darkness.
Of course. What else? Enzo crawled through the hole. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the dim light that came from the meager glow behind him. He was in a small, square room. It was empty. He found another hatch in the floor and moved to it. He scuttled down another ladder and came to a small maintenance bay that ran the length of all the containment pods. He was behind them now, even deeper behind the scenes.
Lockers, work benches and crates occupied the area. Most of them looked like they'd never been used. He moved along the length of the room, heading for a door in the direction of the first locked down door he'd tried to get through. So, get through the next section, find the auxiliary generator and turn it on. Should be easy enough. Hopefully. This door, thankfully, was not locked. He opened it and came into a small antechamber.
There was just one more door to go through, so he went, getting his knife out now that he was upright and back in what was likely hostile territory. The doorway led to a corresponding corridor. Figuring out where he was, he looked to the left and saw the locked door. To the right, the corridor extended. Already, he could tell that this area of the underground was much larger. The corridor was crisscrossed with many more.
Fantastic. Not a wonderful environment to be in if there were people...or things, out for your blood. Enzo tried to open himself up to the area once more, but his shoulder was already bugging him again. He sighed, rolled his fake arm, listening to the soft whirl of servomechanisms. He needed a map, or some help.
Enzo activated the radio as he set off down the corridor, glancing in the offshoot hallways as he passed them.
“Hey, lady, I could use some help,” he said, his voice edged with irritability. He was in a bad mood and it was going worse.
But there was nothing. No response. He sighed and let his hand drop, leaving the radio on. What he wouldn't give for a fucking gun. Even a pistol would be fantastic. He'd fought melee, unarmed and with knives, before, and it just wasn't all that fun. Maybe for the first half decade of his life as a career mercenary, but eventually he just got tired of it. For the most part. Occasionally, he felt the thrill of close quarters combat.
Enzo pressed on. The offshoots all seemed to lead to short corridors that ended in doorways. What had she said this section was? A refinery? What were they refining down here? Where the hell was he, anyway? Up ahead, the corridor terminated in another door. Enzo slowed as he approached it. He hit the access button and watched it grind open. Like before, he stuck to the side, largely hidden from view, so that he could study the room beyond. Something was moving in there. The same low gray light lit the room, which was a broad, two-tiered room of equipment, workstations and catwalks. The shuffling sound was coming near the middle of the room, where another one of the Mutants was roaming around aimlessly.
Enzo gripped his knife and stood up. Passing through the doorway, he quickly approached the Mutant, knife in an attack position. This one appeared to be a technician of some kind, a pallid man in a ripped blue jumpsuit. His back was exposed. As he came closer, Enzo rushed forward and buried the blade deep in the Mutant's back. The thing let out a wretched shriek that echoed through the dark room. Enzo put a hand on its shoulder, pulled the blade out and plunged it in again, and again, and twice more. Blood flew on the air, on his hand, his fake arm.
The Mutant pitched forward. Enzo fell back and waited a moment. Nothing happened. He glanced around. He was still alone down here. His eyes fell on a workstation and, flicking a quick glance back at the immobile corpse, he turned and made his way over to it. It took a little bit, but the workstation booted up, though it was running on reserve power. He only needed it for a moment though. After a little bit, he had what he was looking for.
A map of the area, though only of this level. One thing that made him balk slightly at the reality of getting to the surface of whatever planet he was on, he was convinced he was on a planet, and getting the hell out of here was the fact that this was marked as Level Nine. That must mean he was pretty far down. Who knew what was waiting for him on those other eight levels? Or topside? His experiences thus far didn't inspire confidence.
He took a moment to study the layout on the screen, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the body. It still hadn't moved. He finally got a good idea of the area. The good news was that he wasn't far from the auxiliary generator. The bad news was, well...pretty much everything else. Enzo sighed, frustrated at his situation and the way his shoulder throbbed on a low frequency of pain, buried deep in the muscle.
Busy, he needed to keep busy, keep going.
He turned from the workstation and moved back to the corpse he'd produced. It hadn't moved an inch. Which meant that he must have succeeded in his attempted goal: kill the Slug within the body. Unless, of course, this hadn't been a Mutant...Enzo bit his lip. He hadn't actually got a look at the guy. Although everything from his torn jumpsuit to his posture to the way he smelled had said he was a Mutant. Not to mention that shriek.
Reaching out, he grabbed the corpse by the shoulder and rolled it onto his back. He felt some relief as he spied the already immediately obvious telltales of the mutation: claws, red lines, creepy eyes. Good. He spent a moment checking over the corpse, hunting its pockets, hoping to find something useful, but there was nothing. He stood and moved down the length of the huge room he'd come to. The auxiliar
y generator area was just beyond it, through another antechamber that could be accessed along the right side of the room. Which was good, Enzo was getting tired of this ugly place. He hoped that whatever the hell Level Eight had was at least brighter.
He finished crossing what must have been the monitoring room for the refinery, came to the appropriate door and opened it up. Beyond...the blessed auxiliary generator bay. He passed through a small transitional room, peered down a dark side corridor that, according to map, led to a small room he didn't know the purpose of, and approached the generator itself. It was a dim assemblage of technology and equipment, silent and inert. As he came to stand before it, Enzo realized that he didn't really know how to turn it on.
Frowning, he began to study the exterior of the generator in the dim light. Before long, he'd discovered instructions printed on the side, right next to the control panel. He read step one and then heaved a world-weary sigh. The generator couldn't just be turned on, it had to be primed...which was apparently the reason for the existence of the smaller room he'd passed earlier. Enzo about-faced and hurried to the primer room.
As he came to the door at the end, which was partially opened, he hesitated. Partially opened doors were never a good thing, especially in an age where that was difficult to do due to the fact that doors slid into the walls and basically only had two comfortable positions: open or close. Something seemed to move beyond the half-open door and a curiously bright light was spilling out of it. Enzo held his knife in a defensive stance, readying himself.
He peered in through the open space and spied a pair of Mutants shuffling around inside. One of them must have dropped the flashlight that was turned on, lying on the ground and facing the doorway, providing the odd light. Enzo let out a short whistle, garnering their attention. The pair of evil things turned to face him and, letting out their awkward sounds that might have been anger, began making for him, arms outstretched.
Enzo let the first one come up to him, falling back a step. It was possible to get through the doorway, but not easy. As he expected, the slow-moving Mutant became momentarily stuck. Enzo leaped forward and drove the blade into the bulge in its chest. The Mutant let out a brief shriek, then lost all of its mobility. It collapsed into a heap half-in, half-out of the doorway. Enzo prepared to kill the second one.
It was closer than he'd thought. His arm was still extended from pulling the blade out. The Mutant took a swipe at him and grabbed his right arm. It yanked him forward, throwing him off balance, and took a swipe at him with its other hand. He managed to pull his head back far enough to prevent serious damage, but the tips of the claws raked against his cheek, splitting the flesh and sending an explosion of fiery pain across his face.
Enzo let out a small bark of anguish and ripped his arm free. He drove the blade into the chest of the second Mutant. He screamed something inarticulate, overwhelming the sound of the Mutant's shriek as the blade dug into its flesh, then brought the knife out and plunged it in once more. Again and again, nearly a dozen times, fury rolling through him, hot and liquid. As control reasserted itself, Enzo stood up, feeling the blood running down his face. He took a moment to unclip the medical kit from his belt, open it and pull out the appropriate materials.
He cleansed the wound, hissing slightly at the pain that brought, then bandaged it. There was a part of him that relished the pain. He'd learned early on that he could sort of redirect the agony of his shoulder to other parts of his body...if they hurt. It was kind of like that old joke about someone complaining about their headache, then someone stomps on their foot and they ask 'What'd you do that for?!' And the other person says, 'Well, now your head doesn't hurt anymore, does it!?' Already, the pain in his shoulder was abating.
He finished up, reattached the medkit and stood.
Something dropped from the ceiling on his shoulder and immediately slithered around his neck. It was sickly hot and slightly wet and slimy. Enzo knew immediately that it was a Slug. It coiled around his throat with most of its body. He spied the head of it come into his field of vision and immediately dive for his mouth while simultaneously tightening its hold on his neck. Enzo opened his mouth for air involuntarily.
It dove in.
He let out a hoarse, muffled scream as he felt the awful, slimy thing slither towards his throat. Reacting quickly, knowing that he didn't have a lot of time, Enzo dropped the knife, reached up and grabbed the thing. Digging his fingers in, getting a good grip, he tore the thing out of his throat and off his neck.
The Slug shrieked as it was denied its new home. He threw it onto the ground and stomped on it hard, spraying its guts in a wide radius. Enzo had no time to enjoy his victory. He stumbled across the room, managing to put his arms up against a nearby wall, he hung his head and vomited. Or tried to. There was nothing in his stomach, so he dry-heaved until the feeling of disgust was reduced to a tolerable enough level.
Enzo spent a few minutes coughing and spitting. The taste was absolutely godforsaken. It reminded him of a mixture of very old coffee grounds, rotten meat and microwaved sauerkraut. Just thinking about it made him want to puke again. Unfortunately, he had nothing to wash his mouth out with. Enzo spat a few more times, grabbed his knife, then marched over to the primer. He read the instructions and activated it, then headed back out to the auxiliary generator. He finished the process and, within moments, had it up and running.
The lights flickered, died, then flared to life.
Enzo spat again and let out a sigh of relief. At least that was better. Off to his right was an elevator. He moved over to it and activated the radio again. Once more he called out to the mystery woman, once more he received no reply.
Sighing, Enzo stepped into the elevator and headed up.
Time to see what was on Level Eight.
Chapter 04
–Power Up–
The elevator rattled slightly as it ascended. Not the best thing to for frayed nerves. Enzo laughed grimly at the thought of dying here, now, in a shitty elevator, when there were so many other things out there in the galaxy that could kill him. In the moment of relative calm, an eye in this enigmatic storm, Enzo reached up and gently massaged his shoulder. It was hurting again. Or rather, it hadn't stopped really since the injection.
He frowned. How many times had he been in a shit situation made that much worse by his omnipresent shoulder ache? For now, it was a background murmur, a slow, pulsating burn deep in his muscles...muscles which didn't even exist anymore. At least not all of them. Half of what he was massaging was false skin over plastics and metals. He frowned deeper, staring down at his false limb. It was getting torn up.
At least it was all cosmetic. The flesh had been ripped clean away in several places now, and the metal showed through, but it was okay. It would take a lot more than some claws to do any serious damage. Still, even now, after almost three decades with the thing and a tendency towards violence, the sight unsettled him. Enzo sighed and let go of his arm, letting it back down. His fingers were still wrapped around the combat knife, unable to completely let go of it. There could be anything waiting for him beyond the elevator doors.
As he thought that, the lift settled into its metal nest, rising out of Level Nine and taking him to Eight. Whatever that might bring. Moving smoothly over to the right side of the lift, hidden from view of anyone or anything that might be beyond, he waited for the doors to open. A moment later they did. He heard nothing and, after another moment, peered cautiously out. There was a lobby beyond the doors, a small one, with a Mutant standing in it, its back to him. Enzo's eyes widened as he saw that it had what he wanted.
The Mutant was a former security guard and his pistol, sitting in its holster on his right hip, was still there. The latch was even undone. The butt of the gun was exposed, facing towards him, the Mutant still facing away.
What more invitation could he ask for?
He sheathed his knife.
Enzo grinned darkly as he slid quietly out of the elevator, crossed the short
distance between them and grabbed the gun. The Mutant made a warning sound. Gambling on his luck to hold out, he yanked the gun free of the holster, brought it up and pressed the barrel against the back of the smelly thing's head. He squeezed the trigger. His luck had indeed held out. The gun let off a satisfying pop! sound and the accompanying bright flash blinded Enzo for a moment. His was briefly stuck with the image of the Mutant's head snapping forward, blood and brains and bone fragments spewing out in a spectacular display of death.
He blinked a few times, watched the body slump to the floor. Enzo dropped into a crouch by the corpse and began patting it down to see if it had any other goodies hidden away in its pockets. His head snapped up, however, as he heard the unmistakeable sound of a door opening. Ahead of him, across the lobby, he spied first one, then two Mutants coming in through a doorway.
“Shit!” he snapped, snatching the pistol from where he'd set it on the ground.
They could open doors!?
He took aim and fired, taking the first one directly in the face. The bullet pierced its left eye and punched through its skull, turning the back of his head into a plume of crimson gore. The new corpse dropped immediately to the ground, but as he focused on the second one and squeezed the trigger, nothing happened.
The gun clicked empty.
“Fuck!” he snapped, dropping it and pulling his knife back out.
The Mutant rushed across the room, faster than any of the others he'd encountered so far, and took a swipe at him. Its claws raked across his security vest, tearing through some of it. Not enough to break his flesh. It was a what appeared to be a medic, a woman who wore a tattered and heavily stained white jumpsuit. Enzo plunged the blade into her chest three times in quick succession. He was rewarded with a spray of blood and an earsplitting shriek.
