by S. A. Lusher
Others fell. He heard Eve laughing as she fired. He wondered if it was the first time in this whole conflict she'd really gotten the chance to mow the bastards down. Enzo finished off his magazine as the last Mutant fell.
“Having fun?” he asked as he reloaded.
“Yes! It's so nice to be able to just straight-up kill these fuckers. Most of my time is spent behind a terminal screen. I've rarely had to pull the trigger. Although during my time spent in this hellhole I've had to more than my whole life before this combined.”
“It's kind of fun, huh?” Lee asked as they kept going.
“Yes,” Eve replied. “At least, it is when it goes well.”
The tunnel seemed to go on forever. Occasionally, they passed side passageways that led away into an even deeper darkness. Enzo felt a chill pass through him as he stared down each of those tunnels. There was something basic and primal in the fear of the dark. Not the darkness itself, but of what the shadows held. A throwback to caveman days when absolutely anything could be out there, beyond the reach and safety of the warmth and comfort of the flames and the shelter of the cave. Only now, the monsters were real.
After what seemed like ages, the tunnel finally opened up into another cavern. This one wasn't too big. It was littered with the remnants of the long-forgotten mining setup. The flashlight beams reached out, probing tendrils of light searching the subterranean wastes for their escape. Finally, they all centered on it: a pitiful old lift, the shaft of which was carved right into the rock fifteen feet overhead. Enzo walked over to it and pointed his light directly up it. The beam went up and disappeared, showing no end in sight.
“Well, this is it,” he said.
“And that means we've got to fix it,” Lee said.
“We might not need to. There's a chance we can find a generator and get it running. This lift might be in disrepair, but it might just need power,” Eve said. She shined her light around the edges of the lift, then focused on a thick, black cable. “Come on.”
She began following it. Enzo and Lee went after her. They followed the cable, which was lashed to the floor with large shiny staples, into a side tunnel. It went on for a ways. There didn't seem to anything else in the tunnel with them. Enzo was hoping that all the other Altered were either busy building their little nests down below or up top for now. It was a nasty thing to hope, but it'd keep them out of his hair.
Finally, the cable ended in a generator. The device was dead, but they finally caught a lucky break. Someone had left behind a crate with a pair of power cells in it. Enzo and Eve quickly replaced the cells, which still functioned, while Lee watched their ass. Within five minutes, they had the generator up and running. The trio hurried back down the narrow corridor to the central chamber. Enzo did a quick sweep of the area, but nothing had found its way into the room while they'd been off repairing the generator.
So they'd managed to catch an actual lucky break.
Finally.
Enzo got onto the lift and fired it up. A few sparks popped out of the machinery, but otherwise it seemed to be in decent working order. Not without a little bit of trepidation, Lee and Eve stepped onboard as well.
“Going up,” Enzo muttered as he hit up button.
The lift began ascending.
Chapter 16
–Endgame–
The elevator came to a halt.
Enzo stepped out first, playing his light across the flat, gunmetal gray walls and stacks of crates. They'd come to a disused storage bay. There were no lights on, but nothing smelled of decay or the reek of the Altered.
“Looks clear,” he said, stepping deeper into the bay.
His footsteps echoed into the lonely darkness. All around him, he became aware of a growing white noise: the muffled shriek of arctic winds. Finally. They had, in fact, come to the surface. It felt like a breath of fresh air, even in this dusty old room. It was clear that Dark Operations had hid the secondary lift inside of an area they'd likely shut down. The lift itself was hidden behind stacks of crates that the trio had to navigate to find the way out. The narrow alcoves created by the stacks sent Enzo's instincts into overdrive.
It felt like there could be anything hidden in the gloom. He made himself calm down. There was a very good chance no Altered had made it here. Even if they did, he was sure he'd smell them. He'd become accustomed to the scent over the past several hours. No one spoke as they kept moving, listening for any other sounds above the winds and their own movements. After another moment, they finally came to the exit.
They gathered by the door.
“So, what's the plan?” Enzo asked. A moment's silence passed. “I assume you have a plan.”
“I didn't really get a good look at the place when I came in. They just kind of hustled me through,” Lee replied.
“I've got something of an idea of where we are,” Eve replied. “So, there's three primary buildings. The first is the weather station itself, that's where the hangar is at. The second is the control tower, it's its own structure. The third is storage, where the primary elevator was. We shouldn't need to bother with that. I suggest we first make for the hangar in the primary building and see if there's any way off this rock.”
“Okay, but what about Fielding and the Alpha? I mean, I feel like we can kill Fielding...probably, without too much trouble. But what about the Alpha? We don't really have big guns or explosives or anything,” Enzo replied.
“That's a good point,” Lee murmured.
“Well...um...” Eve stopped speaking, falling deep into thought. Suddenly, her face lit up. “Okay! I've got it! When I was looking through the files in the Control Room, I saw that Dark Ops had a plan to destroy the storage area, so that they could have a cover to ship more building supplies into the underground while pretending to rebuild the warehouse. The official story would have been some leftover mining charges accidentally got set off. The mining charges are in the warehouse. So we use them to kill the Alpha.”
“How?” Lee asked.
“Lure the Alpha into the warehouse after wiring it to blow,” Enzo replied.
“Okay...you two, go secure the ship. I'm going to go set the charges,” Lee said.
Eve looked like she wanted to argue...probably to argue that Enzo should be the one to do it, but he spoke up instead. “Good luck.”
“Thanks. You too,” Lee replied.
They opened the door and stepped out into the snow.
The cold was an immediate and painful thing. They were in near whiteout conditions. A storm was raging, making the whole thing even more difficult.
“What's where?!” Lee called.
Three lines of poles, each with a brilliantly glowing aquamarine light set atop it, led away from the building. Eve pointed towards the rightmost one.
“That's storage!” she called. “Middle one's the tower! Left is where we want to go!”
“Let's get to it!” Enzo yelled, struggling to be heard over the shrieking winds.
Lee set off, disappearing before too long into the swirling white and gray snowstorm. Enzo shouldered his rifle and began kicking through the snow, Eve in tow behind him. They made slow, painful progress through the raging storm, following the line of light-poles. Enzo wondered if this plan was really going to work. Part of him wanted to just take the ship, (if there even was a ship), and leave the two of them behind.
It wasn't that he was a coward, he'd faced down insane odds more times than he cared to count. It was just that...he was tired. One thing a man learned as he got older and he was in the business of shooting or rescuing people, usually both in the same mission, it was that there was always going to be another fucking fire to put out. It didn't stop. It wasn't going to stop, ever. There would always be more situations, more psychos with guns threatening the innocent, more people to rescue, more people to kill, more, more, more...
When he'd walked away from Special Operations, he'd walked away from that life. From putting his own life on the line over and over again for people who
either didn't know or didn't care. What's worse, his job became less about making the galaxy a better place and more about covering some fucking bureaucrat’s or politician's ass. He'd gotten sick of it. So he left. The fact of the matter was, you had to look out for yourself.
Enzo Rains had looked out for himself for so long that it had become second nature. Which was, he thought, a hilarity. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome when being in the Marines, and doubly so for Spec Ops, was getting past the self-preservation instinct. You learned that you covered not just your own ass, but you covered everyone else's in your squad and the civilians or hostages or whoever you were trying to save or defend.
He'd done pretty good since leaving for looking after his own ass...but he'd never really completely reversed that hurdle. He'd never fully swung back the other direction. He still saved people if he could, he rarely left a man behind, even if the mission was bad. As they neared the main structure, Enzo made a decision. He'd stay, he'd help, he'd fight. Both Fielding and the Alpha were going to die, and if he could help it, both Eve and Lee were going to get off of this planet with him. Besides, he thought with a smile, maybe he could turn it into a three-way.
The main structure appeared out of the mist. The door nearest to them had been forced open. Enzo approached it and peered into the room beyond. It was a small entrance chamber, one wall lined with lockers containing cold weather gear and not much else. A body lay slumped in the corner, a pool of blood beneath it.
“Fantastic,” Enzo muttered as he stepped inside. “We're clear, come on.”
Eve followed him in. They moved across the room to the only other door and opened it up, admitting them to a lengthy corridor. A handful of Mutants and Harvesters roamed the passageway, gathering up corpses.
“Shit,” Enzo muttered. “We're not going to be able to sneak into this one. You ready?”
“Yeah,” Eve replied. “We need to go left.”
“How far?”
“To the end, that big door at the end of the hallway.”
Enzo primed a grenade, stepped out and tossed it towards the largest cluster of enemies, then stepped back inside. As soon as the explosion sounded, he stepped back out and began rushing down the corridor. A half-dozen Mutants had been killed in the blast. Bits and pieces of them had been thrown all over the corridor. Even as Enzo saw this, he knew it was futile. They had to kill the Alpha, because the other Altered would just gather up the pieces and keep building their army. Right now, they needed intact bodies, but how long before they just started building their own out of spare parts? Then everyone would really be screwed.
He shot out of the chest of the nearest Mutant, turned his gun on a Harvester and put a three-round burst right down its gaping maw where, hopefully, it hit something vital. Beside him, Eve was firing as well. She'd been reduced to her pistol in all the chaos. Three more Mutants and a pair of Harvesters went down by the time they'd reached the door. Enzo spun and hastily reloaded while Eve went to the panel, kneeling in front of it.
“Can you open it?” he asked, slamming the fresh magazine home.
“Yes, give me a minute,” Eve replied.
Enzo laughed, shouldered the rifle and fired out another barrage of lead. A Mutant dropped as its chest popped open in a spray of gore. A dozen bad guys were strung out along the length of the central corridor, all coming for him now. They were swift and dexterous, dodging more often than not. Enzo emptied another magazine and took down only three more Harvesters. He quickly reloaded and kept up the rate of fire.
“Any day now!” he called.
“Got it!” Eve replied.
The door opened and the pair hurried through it. Eve quickly closed it behind them while Enzo scouted out the hangar they'd come to. The first thing that immediately jumped out at him was a ship. A transport that looked big enough to hold an FTL drive. Their ticket out of there. The second thing that jumped out at him was that the hangar was infested with Mutants and Harvesters. There was even an Ire thrown in for good measure.
“Fuck me,” Enzo muttered. He readied himself for more combat. “Eve, go to the ship, now. Find out if it works.”
“On it,” Eve replied, racing off towards the ship.
Enzo started things off by tossing two his limited supply of grenades towards the Ire, deciding to take out the biggest bad guy in the room first. Even as the grenades were flying through the air, he lined up the thing's twisted face and fired off a pair of three-round bursts. The Ire let out a roar and stumbled backwards. As it righted itself, the grenades landed at its feet and erupted in twin bursts. Enzo didn't wait to see if it was dead.
He kept firing.
Probably the only thing that was keeping him alive was the fact that none of the hostiles had the ability to fire back at him. They were all melee opponents and needed to be up in his face. As he opened up, squeezing the trigger again and again, taking down the Altered creatures as they rushed for him, he decided he was having a good time. His shoulder barely even hurt at all, despite the fact that the gun was rattling against it.
He emptied his current magazine, reloaded and then emptied that one as well. Enzo slapped a fresh one in, knowing that he didn't have infinite bullets. He tossed the rest of his grenades towards the largest cluster of Mutants that was steadily advancing on him and dove behind a stack of crates. As soon as the grenades went off, he popped back up and emptied another magazine taking down the remaining targets.
“How's it going in there?” he asked.
“Fine. Good. For the most part,” Eve replied.
Enzo stood and began to move towards the ship. “What do you mean? You sound nervous.”
“Well, the ship works. It has an FTL drive, but it's locked down. It'll take me some time to crack through the lock, but this is pretty specific, not normal. Someone did this, and I'm willing to be that that someone was-”
“Fielding,” he finished.
“Yes, so keep an eye out while I do this.”
“Got it.”
Enzo stopped moving towards the ship and turned around. He barely had time to gasp in shock as he found himself staring directly into Fielding's face. She was smirking at him, her mouth twisted into a grim curve.
“Enzo,” she said, then backhanded him casually.
Enzo screamed as he was picked up and thrown across the length of the hangar. He hit the ground and rolled several times. His rifle flew from his hands. Enzo groped for his pistol as he coughed violently, struggling for breath.
“Enzo! What's going on out there!?” Eve cried over the radio link.
Enzo struggled into a sitting position, tearing his pistol out. Fielding was standing right in front of him. She grabbed the barrel of the pistol and squeezed. Instantly the pistol was rendered useless. She ripped it from his grasp and tossed it aside, then reached down and wrapped her elongated fingers around his throat.
She lifted him easily a foot off the ground.
“This is definitely as much fun as they make it look in the movies,” Fielding said, grinning malignantly up into Enzo's no doubt red face as he kicked and struggled against her, gasping for breath. His lungs strained as the seconds passed.
In those seconds, he studied Fielding. The Director had changed. She was definitely taller, taller than him for sure, maybe even approaching seven feet now. What was left of her buzzed hair had fallen out, further highlighting how misshapen her head had become. Her eyes were larger, her pupils dilated until they nearly consumed the whole of the eye. Her mouth was larger, her teeth sharper, her skin paler. And the lines of red were everywhere.
“Goodbye,” she said, then she tossed him again.
Enzo cried out once more as he slammed into the ground, sure that something inside of him had been cracked, if not outright broken.
“Enzo, talk to me!”
“Fielding...” he wheezed, struggling to his feet. “She's here, now, killing me.”
“Shit...okay, fuck, get her to stand behind the engines of the ship and tell me whe
n she is and you aren't, got it?”
“Got it,” Enzo replied.
He knew he'd have to do this fast. The only thing that came to mind was the plan that was thrown together before he really had a chance to think it through. Fielding was nearly upon him again. He looked around. She'd tossed him right on point: he stood behind the engines. Enzo made a tight fist with his fake limb and, when Fielding came right up to him, reaching for him again with her long fingers, he punched her in the chest as hard as he could. Fielding gasped, her eyes bulging, and she stumbled to a halt.
“Now!” Enzo screamed, turning and sprinting away.
Immediately, he felt an immense heat at his back. He turned as he heard a high-pitched, keening wail of pain rise above the roaring of the flames from the engines firing. Almost as quickly they died, and when the flames fell away, there was nothing left but a burned stain on the floor. Enzo let out a slow breath, his chest hurting on top of his shoulder now. No, scratch that, fucking everything was hurting at this point.
“Did we win?” Eve asked.
“Yes,” Enzo replied. “You got her, she's dead. Thanks.”
“Welcome. Go check on Lee, I need more time to crack this lockout.”
“On it.”
Enzo took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. He was exhausted, thirsty, starving. He needed that trip to where the fuck he wanted to go more than ever now. Enzo jogged across the length of the hangar, putting the pain aside to the best of his ability. He found a side exit and opened it, peering out into the blinding snow. Nothing seemed to be waiting for him, so he set off towards the warehouse and kept his eye out for the Alpha.
“Lee,” he said, “how's it going?”
“Fine. I'm almost done setting the charges. What happened over there? I heard some shouting over the comms, but I think the storm's interfering.”
“Fielding, she nearly killed me, but we killed her. We found a ship, it's got FLT and we're in the process of getting it ready.”
“Fantastic news. I want the fuck off this planet.”
