by JM Guillen
I gaped at it.
Baleful orange eyes with brilliant stripes of yellow radiating through them glared down in a malevolent mixture of horror and fury.
Its lips worked soundlessly, and another barrage of disgust pierced my head, complemented by the buzz of the purple mist off to the left of the door.
I aimed my disruptor at the aberration.
“Do we have a problem?” I snarled.
A combination of words, sensations, and ideas echoed through my memory.
Yes/do it/shoot/end! The accompanying tone swept through my mind. It held anticipation, loathing, and a dark joy that clung to the inside of my mind. Free/kill me/untangle/flee!
Less words than concepts, the messages had more in common with the Drażeri’s poetic images than the mental words my Crown generated, yet they contained the suggestions of words.
“I think I like you right where you are for now.”
I turned back to the door and the eminent invasion of giant bugs bent on my annihilation.
Ting! The door chimed in, as if agreeing with my appraisal.
Yet the creature’s angry buzz drew my attention back to it. The aberration bared its teeth in a superior snarl and sent a wave of liquid dark emotion my way. Sickening, nauseating, it bubbled in my mind like boiling cauldrons of vomit.
I had no idea how the creature did it. My Crown comm wasn’t active, but that didn’t seem to stop this thing from crawling into my brain. I felt it there, like a nest of serpents in my mind.
“Get. Out.” I squinted my eyes shut, trying to push with my mind.
Free/release/destroy/kill! A savage glee lurked behind the words, a lust for freedom that staggered.
Obviously, I couldn’t push this creature out of my mind. If I didn’t take control of the situation, and quickly, I’d have to fight Facility drones while this thing bubbled and whispered in my skull.
“You want to hang out, Slim?” I tried a grin, but it melted into a grimace. “That’s fine. You’re welcome to stay, but I apologize for my roommate.”
I switched my comm on. Facility integers rushed into my mind.
ThrEE… TEN… Ne-ine… fooourtEen… two-oo… Onnne…
The aberration threw its non-corporeal head back in a soundless howl just as a hissing sound issued from the door. With every iteration of those warbled numbers, I felt the creature cringe, as if it anticipated some kind of physical strike.
The creature’s presence waned in my mind, still there but lessened.
I took a breath. I could deal with the burbling numbers if it kept Slim from assaulting me with his telepathic mumbo-jumbo.
Ting! That one had a different timbre to it. I whipped my attention back that way to see a tiny red pinprick near the knob.
Tilting my head to one side, I took a step forward to get a better look. Heat poured from the door, a torrent of it that I felt from over three meters away.
“Oh fuck!” I jerked back in realization.
The busy little drones were melting the door with axiomatic spikes. Any second now, they would zip through the hole, and I would be fighting the three of them, all while Slim played dirges of horror in the depths of my mind.
Nothing for it.
I stood there, disruptor in one hand and katana in the other, and awaited inevitability.
10
“All right, Fido,” I muttered as I took four steps back. “You can come in the hou—”
I tripped, stumbling backward into a firm, curved surface directly behind me.
Immediately a slight mechanical whir began, and the apparatus swung into motion.
Bishop, Michael. Asset 108. A cobalt blue flash just at the edge of my vision accompanied each word. Current packet: ADEPT, disengaged. Current packet: SPECTRE, disengaged. Would you like to save neural structure from this iteration of Asset?
“What?”
It sounded exactly like the Cradle, and as soon as I recognized that, I began to recognize other similar features: the white metal, the chrome plate with incomprehensible obsidian markings, and the familiar dizzying sensation as the main body began to tilt me to a horizontal position.
But no Cradle had ever asked me about my neural structure.
“No!” I gasped out as I struggled to get out of this sudden trap. Then I realized what my negation actually met. I rephrased. “No changes!”
Why the hell hadn’t I gone into Morphological Ballistics instead of this fucking place?
Would you like to save neural structure from this iteration of Asset?
A mechanical belt slid over my midsection, binding my arms just above the elbows, holding me to the table.
“No changes!” I yelped as I slid out of the restraining belt and sat up.
Or I tried to.
I lifted my chest, crunched my stomach, and shoved at the table with my feet.
No. Stuck tight. The belt wrapping around my midsection had absolutely no give to it.
I toggled the Spectre, thinking to slip through the device only—
Nothing happened.
Of course, the first drone chose that moment to burst through the now basketball-sized hole they had melted in the door.
“Oh damn.” I struggled harder against the device.
I guess now I understood what the device meant when it stated SPECTRE, disengaged.
Glowing blobs of liquid metal dripped from the edges of the hole in the door and trailed from the wings of the drone as it glided toward me. It paused, just inside the room.
I had time for one good shot. Now, to make it count… I took aim.
The drone shifted its position and launched a missile. Apparently, the drones were no longer playing fuck-around either.
“Ah!” Eyes bulging, I pulled the trigger then lunged to my left—as far as the plasticized belt would allow.
The missile hit the table just where my head had been. An instant later the drone shattered into a rain of slivered metal.
“Ha!” I couldn’t help but gloat. When I turned toward the ephemeral form that still glared at me, I felt it at the edge of my mind, even though the repeating numbers seemed to hold it at bay. “You see, Slim, that’s how—”
My voice was silenced, cut off by the explosions.
My kinetic disruptor had blasted the drone into ten-thousand tiny pieces. Within those tiny pieces lay several dozen of the drone’s darts, which had previously been armed and aimed at my face. Instead, due to my amazing aim and awesome skills, the miniature armament rained down on the floor. There, it set off a flaming firework tent’s worth of dazzling, impossible effects.
“Oooh boy.”
I pulled my feet up, rolling into as much of a protective ball as possible.
All across the floor, silvery stasis fields bubbled while sparkling orange and blue Tasers fizzed. More traditional projectiles detonated, leaving small, pocked holes in the tile, while crystalline structures erupted from that same floor, with blue electrical sparks dancing along their edges. The very air rippled like water, and the nearest table leg softened, the steel support bending like boiled spaghetti.
While I lay there, strapped and helpless.
“Ahhhh!”
The table groaned and buckled, becoming a slick ramp into that many-colored hell. As I slid, the woman still chanted maddening numerics in my mind.
I scrambled, shoved with my feet, and writhed against the restraint. Twisting my wrist, I tried aiming the disruptor at the belt, right where it inserted into the table edge, but kept finding the barrel pointed at myself.
Never a healthy position.
The bottom edge of the table hit the floor with a boom muffled by a symphony of effects: buzzes, bubblings, pings, and the hum of stasis fields echoing around the room.
Then, the restraint table began to melt into a silvery puddle, bringing me ever closer to the dangerous soup of broken physics.
“No, no, no, nooo!” I slid down, out of control.
Smug satisfaction washed over me from the right side of th
e room where the aberration gloated.
Click.
Somehow the small sound made it through the cacophony and caught my attention. I couldn’t help but grin as I realized what that sound meant.
Finally, a bit of luck.
Whoomp! Rivulets of Rationality coursed around me, negating Irrational mind-fuckery and Facility hyper-tech, all in one fell swoop.
The now-destroyed drone had armed a dampening grenade, it seemed. The device hadn’t fired immediately, but now that it had…
The mechanical hum from the Cradle-like mechanism stuttered for a moment, and the restraining belt slid away. Though scorched, the floor under my feet felt solid.
Physics had stabilized.
“Ha!” I caroled and turned to sneer back at the trapped aberration. “How do you like th—?”
A psychic hammer of rage and frustration struck me squarely in the face even as I celebrated. The creature’s brilliant orange eyes flashed at me, burning with colors I didn’t know. The striations whirled softly, sucking my gaze in, becoming brighter and brighter until nothing else could overcome their draw.
It mocked me somehow.
For a moment my head swam with a maddening vertigo, and I had the strangest sensation of déjà vu. In the same instant, the world seemed to melt around me, only to reform, snapping back to its original shape.
Pulled. I felt like taffy, stretched thin. Then I snapped sideward from the world, in some direction I couldn’t comprehend.
I found myself staring up at the rods of crystal and copper that held the violet mist. They pulsed softly with amber-colored light.
“What the fuck are you doing, Slim?”
I raised my weapons and took four steps back, trying to remember where I’d seen such a creature before. Focused on him, I tripped, throwing my back into a firm, curved surface directly behind me.
Immediately a slight mechanical whir began and the apparatus I’d bumped into swung into motion.
Bishop, Michael. Asset 108. A cobalt blue flash just at the edge of my vision accompanied each word. Current packet: ADEPT, disengaged. Current packet: SPECTRE, disengaged. Upgrades to this iteration of Asset will require a complete resequencing of neural pathways.
What?
It sounded exactly like the Cradle, and as soon as I recognized that, I began to recognize other similar features: the stark white metal, the incomprehensible obsidian markings on the chrome plate, and the familiar dizzy feel as the main body shifted, tilting me to a horizontal position.
But no Cradle had ever mentioned resequencing neural pathways.
“No!” I gasped out as I struggled to get out of this sudden trap. “No changes!”
Why the hell hadn’t I—wait.
I blinked, taken aback.
This all seemed familiar somehow. I looked down and to one side, just as a mechanical belt slid over my midsection. I just managed to move my left hand in time to avoid its capture, almost as if I had known what would happen.
Would you like to save neural structure from this iteration of Asset?
Why is this so familiar? I wondered as I lifted my chest, crunched my stomach, and shoved at the table with my feet, doing my best to escape the restraining device.
It didn’t budge.
This is Michael Bishop, Asset 108. My access code is iota-six-three. Disengage device.
A dull click sounded in my Crown. IMPROPER COMMAND SEQUENCE.
I growled and began to pull at the device with my free left hand. When that didn’t seem to do anything, I gave up, and engaged the Spectre.
Nothing happened.
The first drone burst through a basketball-sized hole in the door. Blobs of glowing liquid metal dripped from the hole and trailed from the drone’s wings as it glided toward me. It brandished an impressive array of tiny missiles even as a second drone nosed its way through the hole.
“Fuck!”
Distracted by the bizarre sensation of déja vu, I’d nearly paid with my life. I lunged to my left—as far as the plasticized belt would allow—and the drone’s first shot hit the table just where my head had been. Then I aimed the disruptor in my left hand squarely at the insectine drone.
A second later the drone exploded into a rain of half-melted plastic and twisted metal bits as I tagged it squarely. Of course, not everything that fell was twisted metal. Dozens of the tiny, armed darts also fell. They hit the floor and set off a warzone’s worth of shattered physics and bubbling reality.
“Get your head in the game, Bishop,” I scolded myself as I pulled my feet up, rolling into as much of a protective ball as possible.
Brilliant, silver stasis fields popped up like mushrooms, while sunset-colored Tasers fizzed and explosive projectiles detonated around them. The very air rippled like a cascading river, and the table legs softened under me, the steel supports sagging toward the floor.
The entire time, the recording of the woman’s voice warbled in my mind, providing an unnatural soundtrack to this comedy of errors.
“Oh, oh n—!” The table groaned and buckled and I began to slip down a ramp into that pit where physics was making a hell of an argument against itself.
I scrambled, shoved with my feet, and writhed against the restraining device. I kept trying to work my second hand free when the obvious suddenly occurred to me.
“Idiot.”
I reached into one of the pouches on my vest, where I still had a couple dampening grenades. I wrapped my fingers around the cool object and pushed the button.
Whoomp! Ripples of Rationality waivered through the room, and the parade of strangeness died at my feet. At the same moment, the axioms bent by the Facility in their pseudo-Cradle realigned, and the cobalt light died.
The belt released me.
I couldn’t help but grin as I hopped down. I turned to look at the aberration, which still glared at me with its hateful, shifting eyes.
“And that, Slim, is taking care of business.”
Nothing but raw hatred and fury met my gaze. The solid emotion hit me like a sharp cinderblock slamming into my stomach. Hopeless terror wove through it all, the feeling of a very small man staring into an abyss of endless, ragged time.
“What is with you?”
I looked from the creature back to the copper and crystalline rods that seemed to hold it in place.
Free/kill/release. Softer than they had been previously, I could scarcely hear the words through the chanting numerals of the recording that still marched through my mind, senseless and strange.
“If I kill you, you’re free?” Free from what? Why would Facility be holding an aberration here?
A thought occurred to me as I remembered the plaque on the door of this room. Every time the creature had torn into me with visions and horror, there had been an undeniable sensation of the vast emptiness of time.
“Quantum Chronodynamics.” I looked into the creature’s eyes and winced at the burning eternity there. “It’s time. Something about the flow of time.”
Free/kill physicality/shackle. That fury struck me again.
Brilliant orange eyes flashed at me, their striations whirling softly, sucking my gaze in, becoming brighter and brighter until nothing could overcome their draw. Vast emptiness overwhelmed me as the world seemed to melt around me, running in strands of infinite spirals.
Startled, I raised my weapons and took four steps back…
…and tripped, throwing my back into a firm, curved surface directly behind me.
Immediately a slight mechanical whir began, and the apparatus swung into motion.
Current packet: ADEPT, disengaged. Current packet: SPECTRE, disengaged. WARNING. Equipping a quantum packet on this iteration of Asset could lead to genetic drift and temporal splicing.
What?
It sounded exactly like the Cradle.
In fact, it also had the Cradle’s white metal and its chrome plate with incomprehensible obsidian markings.
Familiarity slammed through me as the main body of the mechan
ism began to tilt backward to a horizontal position. I had been here before. I knew it.
I couldn’t get trapped again.
“No!” I yelped as I slid down to crouch on the floor. “No changes!”
A mechanical belt slid across the table, just where my midsection had been. It connected with a solid, metallic thunk.
I ignored the mechanism, instead turning to aim my disruptor squarely at the center of the door.
“Come on, you bastard.”
The drone burst through a basketball-sized hole in the door.
Glowing blobs of liquid metal dripped from the edges of the hole and trailed from the wings of the drone as it glided above me. An impressive array of tiny missiles dangled from its sides, and I rapidly altered the field of my disruptor, calibrating to the necessary diameter. I fired once and missed, but the second shot struck center mass.
The drone and its array of weaponry disintegrated with one shot.
Without hesitation I rolled to the right and up to my feet. Next to the door, katana upraised, I readied for the second drone to come sweeping in.
It didn’t.
Firing through the hole in the door, the damned thing shot at my feet without so much as poking its nose in.
I danced away, dexterously avoiding the silvery domes that peppered the floor like toadstools after a rain. Granted, these mushroomed to a fraction of the stasis fields Wyatt typically created, but I knew I didn’t want my foot caught in one.
Raw hatred crashed over me like a wave.
I glanced over my shoulder to find the aberration seething at me, brilliant orange eyes blazing. Its pupils began to whirl.
Dizzy, I put one hand out to steady myself and glanced down at the floor to make certain I had clear footing.
The glare of hatred took on a tinge of impatience…
How could this aberration project emotion at me with my comm off? The Facility should put it in a secure cage for further study.
A cage.
Of course this qualified. The trapped creature had been held in a secure—formerly secure—Facility location. It shouldn’t have been able to twitch, much less project this much raw emotion at me.
