by JM Guillen
I’d say we start heading down. I looked to Wyatt, still engrossed in the technological abomination.
Suddenly the giant man started, turning quickly as if he had heard something behind us.
The stasis field. Equations blipped across his oculus. It just tripped, Hoss. Someone tried to enter that room, only to realize they can’t.
I’d say it’s time to step lively then. I placed one hand on the small of Anya’s back. Come on. We have to go.
Engrossed in her work, she failed to realize the sudden gravity of our situation but sauntered forward under my guidance.
Wyatt in the lead, we made for the grated stairs.
Only the level we had come from had any light, and we left it on as we descended the stairwell. I wished for a moment I had thought to turn it out, but that seemed foolish. The time for secrecy had just slipped by us. Turning off a single light wouldn’t make a difference.
“There!” The word echoed from somewhere above us; I couldn’t tell how far.
We hurried downward, the only light to guide us the eerie cobalt sparkling of the Geopulse Pylon. I considered using the optics in my Crown, but I envisioned how brilliant the azure lightning would then appear and changed my mind. I couldn’t afford to be blinded in hopes of a little surer footing.
Each spark twinned with a shattered, warbling sound that set my teeth on edge as we escorted a distracted Anya down the stairwell.
Wyatt maintained an ever widening lead even as I moved Anya along as quickly as I could while she patched Rachel pertinent intel.
As we passed one of the landings and turned down another set of the twisting stairs, the door to the landing burst open.
A blond, crew-cut mercenary, who looked as if he had spent most of his spare time lifting trucks, kicked through the door and loudly chambered his weapon.
For what felt like forever, my eyes locked with his. A trace of a savage grin pulled at the edge of my lips. My scalp itched, a rabid, fierce thing. My heart beat like the drums of war.
Anya, keep going. I stepped between her and the big man just as he swung the barrel toward my position. Triggering the Adept, I leapt at him and swung my katana, literally bringing a sword to a gun-fight. A scarlet haze fell across my vision.
It did not end well.
His weapon barked, echoing in the darkness.
I felt the impacts in my arm and shoulder and, an instant later, seven more in my chest.
Blinking with surprise, I fell to the grating underfoot, snarling.
“No ya don’t.” Wyatt’s quip from the landing below came punctuated with a loud WHUF.
The metal grating let out a ringing sound as the spike sank home, then through one of the feet of the man who had shot me.
He screamed.
For a moment, I considered leaping at him, savage fury boiling in my mind.
But I hurt. I needed—
Rachel, can you kill my pain process?
Did you just get fucking shot? Rachel’s fury felt sharp, matched only by her horror. Do you even know how hard it is for me to try to log into Stone’s holotecture while he is tech adrift? Honestly, Bishop, I don’t need you making this any more impossible.
I rolled toward the steps in agony even though, once again, Facility body armor had saved my life. My bad. I groaned. If you can give me just a moment here, I can probably go back and save everyone’s ass.
I’ve killed it. I knew it before she even linked; the absence of pain felt blissful. I’m going to need you to inject more mecha soon. That is if you want me to be able to stop the bleeding in your arm.
Will comply. Wobbling, I pushed myself to my feet.
The man who had shot me screamed like a terrified toddler. While I had been busy receiving my scolding, the spike through his foot had pulsed a soft carmine. The light softened the grating until it sagged below him with all the tensile strength of warm taffy.
Had Wyatt changed the atomic structure of the metal?
Perhaps.
I had worked with Guthrie long enough to know the ridiculous kinds of shit that he pulled out of his ass.
The merc either didn’t have the time or the strength to move before the screeching sound of the weakened metal heralded his abrupt crash down to Wyatt’s level.
Are your systems green? I linked to Anya as I stood. I knew that if I used formal Facility terms she would find it simpler to reply as she worked.
All systems green. Her link felt so distant, as if Anya lay across the world. The fingers on her right hand still plucked and pulled at things I couldn’t see.
We’re moving. I ushered her down the stairs.
There Wyatt Guthrie literally beat a man with his own gun.
It was fascinating, in a brutal kind of way.
Good to see you, Hoss. Wyatt had the tangler in his right hand but had somehow taken the man’s semi-automatic rifle in the scuffle. He swung it again and again, connecting the heavy metal stock of the weapon to the man’s shocked face. I heard the crunch of bone and saw the splendor of his blood.
Eventually, the soldier fell still.
I scratched my shoulder and down my arm. Out of nowhere, it felt as if I had taken a roll in poison ivy.
“Stop!” some idiot yelled from above us. He had clearly failed soldier school if he thought it would be wise to alert the Assets to his presence.
With the Adept still active, I easily drew my disruptor, aimed, and fired into the man’s face, all before he could wish he’d listened to his guidance counselor. The front of his skull collapsed inward, and he stumbled backward.
I wanted to laugh at this, felt an almost erotic thrill at his death.
Shadows gathered around me, a darkness the eye couldn’t see.
We need to move. Wyatt linked. With a WHUF, he sent a spike into the grating just next to the door. I’ll leave a stasis trigger, but they know we’re here.
I sure do wish we had a window to jump out, I linked as I ushered Anya along. Notice how I’m apparently not terrified of being up this high?
Don’t need a window. There’s only a railing. I felt the wry dare in Wyatt’s link.
Just as I prepared my retort, shadow-wrought madness leapt from the darkness, all claws and tooth-ridden maw.
What—?
I stood there like an idiot while, the emaciated aberration from the statuette upstairs, which appeared from fucking nowhere, screamed words that bent and burned my mind. Its four arms reached for me, its eyes a solid depth of black insanity.
Violet and viridian light pulsed behind the world.
Rationality spiking! Anya’s cry came the instant I saw the creature—a touch later than usual. We are at Negative eight… Now nine!
What. The. Fuck is that? Wyatt aimed the tangler, and I heard the wild tap of his fingers preparing to unmake the laws of the world.
Um… statue! I didn’t exactly have time to explain where I’d seen the abomination; the creature barreled into me, all sinew, rot, fetid breath, and animal musk.
It was fury. It was hunger given form.
Just like its statuette, shattered in the sleeping chambers of one Mr. Katsuo Fukui, it had four gangly arms, claws fully fifteen centimeters long, and a head that looked like worn, mangy flesh wrapped around a canine skull.
Hitting me like a rancid dump truck, the creature caught me completely off-balance. I careened backward, hit the edge of the landing’s metal railing and flipped straight over.
Gracefully, I kept from shitting myself.
My katana forgotten, I screamed as I singlehandedly caught the railing I’d just vaulted. My weapon clanged as it struck one of the railings below me.
Losing weapons just seemed my lot today.
Hoss! I heard the tale-tell WHUF of the Artisan cooking something up, but I had no idea what.
I am not okay! I reached for one of the other metal bars that made up the guardrail, desperate to not plummet into the lightning-wreathed abyss.
As I grasped the bar, the creature leaned down
over me. Its thick, animal scent hit me in the face like a hammer.
Fuck, did it need a shower.
It sniffed at me, taking deeper and deeper breaths of my aroma. It relished my scent, as if I were a delicacy to be savored.
My blood. The thought came like a tremble in the deep places of my body.
It had caught the scent of my blood, freely running down the arm grasping the guardrail.
As I watched with horror, one of its two long and slender tongues flicked out of its mouth and wrapped around my arm, tasting my blood.
With a flash, I remembered the statuette holding a man over its head and draining him of blood. I saw the small plate in front of the statue, covered in a dried, dark liquid.
And…
And I remembered how the shattered icon had already tasted my blood; a shard had sliced my cheek when the thing burst.
“Oh! Oh, God!”
Its tongue slurped up rivulets of my scarlet warmth, pulling it into its mouth like a dog drinking water. Once, twice…
“That is so not cool!”
The creature drew closer, its eyes glittering with obsidian madness. It kept drinking, those eyes boring into me with a terrifying promise.
Then it screamed, a howl of agony and rage. It whirled about, lunging for Wyatt I presumed.
WHUF. WHUF.
I tried pulling myself up again but had absolutely no luck doing so. The fact remained that while Rachel could affect how I perceived pain, I had serious injuries. In fact, the numbness faded with time, and now my left arm burned, a blaze of agony.
Rachel?
Not now, Bishop. Her link came matter-of-fact and not at all annoyed. Her lack of ire more than anything, convinced me that Rachel must be truly busy.
Damn. I couldn’t even stop the bleeding myself; all my mecha were tasked. I knew how to access the allotment panel of course, but I sucked at it.
I needed her.
Rachel?
My resources are spent in Stone’s holotecture. Unless you’re on death’s door right now, I don’t think I can help you.
Understood.
I glanced down into the abyss, wondering if Rachel would think that this qualified as death’s door. Thing was, if I had followed her advice to add more viral mecha, I would not be bleeding now.
Then, Wyatt might not currently be fighting a creature that hungered for my blood.
The creature screamed again, and Wyatt spat words that I didn’t think were Facility standard lingo.
I tried reaching for the next bar again, but there simply no way in hell I could use my wounded arm to pull myself up to the landing.
“Well, then.”
I glanced downward, mentally wincing at the idea. The next landing looked to be about five meters down. If I lowered myself just a meter or so, the landing wouldn’t be too rough. Maybe I could ladder crawl my way down the railings, then I could kick on the Adept and swing down. I would be below my cadre, a much preferred fate to falling into the darkened chasm.
“They’re above us!” The echoing cry came from below. Brilliant white light shone from one of the landings, almost blinding in the blue-tinged darkness. Boots pounded on metal gratings, the sound echoing around me.
Well, fuck.
Slowly, I eased myself down the bars, kicking the Adept on as I went.
The creature screamed again, and I hoped that Wyatt could use his spikes somehow to push the thing out of Rationality.
In the face of grim death itself, I dangled from the railing, gripping the bottom rung. As the pounding of boots on metal grating grew louder, I swung twice and then launched to the landing below.
Fortunately, the Adept stuck the landing with preternatural grace.
I doubt I could have made it without the packet. Even though I landed in what must have been a completely badass-looking crouch, I felt that landing. Being shot had obviously left fresh bruises over my old ones, and my ribs ached like a motherfucker.
“There!” The cry came from below, along with the sound of several guns firing and the resulting ricochets.
Hoss? Wyatt’s link sounded frantic.
Before I could respond, I saw the outline of the many-armed canine aberration in the shadows on the stairs.
The blue lightning flashed, and in the flickering light I saw the shining emptiness of its eyes.
“Oh, damn.” I backed away from the creature slowly, reaching for my holstered disruptor. “Good boy. Sit.”
The creature growled, a rumbling deep in its chest. Its eyes glazed over from the blood still dripping from my upper arm, as if mesmerized by the liquid warmth.
Less than three levels below me, I heard the heavy boots of Sadhana mercenaries pounding toward me.
I glanced down, trying to get a count.
Five. Maybe si—
Without even the courtesy of allowing me to finish counting all the ways I might die, the eldritch monstrosity lunged, jaws drooling as it roared, claws swiping for my face.
25
Shit-shit-shi—
The three meter tall aberration really committed to the attack, hurling its full deadly mass squarely at me.
The moment it leapt, I toggled the Spectre, my body drifting out of phase. The cool sensation I felt as the aberration stumbled wildly through me felt almost sweet.
With the Adept still geared, I spun as it passed through and toggled the Spectre off again. As the abomination flailed, I opened the focus on my remaining disruptor as wide as it would go and geared as much force as the weapon could handle.
Then, with no hesitation, I fired into the gangly creature’s upper mass.
Its shoulder rolled back as if pushed by an overly aggressive high school jock.
Shit.
I shot again in the same area.
It winced and took a small step back.
Hmm. The beginning of a grin pulled at my lips as I recalibrated the disruptor. Grimly, I took aim and fired again and again.
As I fired, I stepped closer, each successful shot hitting the beast like a wrecking ball. It clutched its too-long arms around itself, as if for protection, but the disruptor tore into them, sending them flailing.
I lost count of my shots.
Finally, roaring with fury, the creature fell, fur over fangs, as it pitched over the edge of the railing.
I heard no sound of impact.
Hoss? Wyatt came down the stairwell behind me, just as four-arms fell. Is it dead?
Unlikely. Anya seemed attentive as she stepped down the stairs. Rationality pitched up sharply as it fell. As a creature of the astral tides, it likely drifted back into the gloaming.
I couldn’t ground the thing. Kept slipping away whenever I’d try. I felt Wyatt’s keen frustration. I think some ’Rat summoned it, just like with the razor-lady upstairs.
Yeah. I frowned, thinking.
A loud pop sounded directly below us.
I glanced down at a mercenary who, impossibly enough, looked to hold a small yellow flame directly in her hand. On her wrist was an odd device that I had a hard time seeing.
She gazed up at us, the light dancing on her pixie-like face. “Hey there.” She smiled winsomely.
“Um, hey?” I canted my head. “What’s your game?”
“Fish in a Barrel.” She extended her hand, and the fury of Irrational hell exploded from her. White, savage flames extended from her hand, up through the grated floor.
“Fuck!” Wyatt hurled himself backward, bowling Anya over and knocking them both into the stairs.
No such luck for me. Caught dead center in flames hot enough to melt the iron grates, I would have been baked in an instant if I hadn’t engaged the Spectre.
WHUF. WHUF. WHUF. Even in the midst of fury and flame, Wyatt managed to get spikes down.
Moments later, he and Anya stood in safety on the other side of a flame-repelling dome.
Hoss? Wyatt’s tone had genuine concern laced within it. What are you doing?
Something supremely stupid. I looked
down at the Sadhana security force, counting a second time.
Yes. Five waited below, letting fire-pixie roast us. No matter how I peered, there weren’t any others below that.
I usually like the sound of that. His tone sounded wary. Why don’t you come do stupid things with us? That packet can only take so much, you know.
I did know. The flame throwing girl put off a ridiculous amount of energy for the Spectre to handle. Less than fifteen seconds after she started, I felt pins and needles prickle their way into my skull.
Hoss?
I got it. To be honest, the sensation felt teeth-gratingly uncomfortable. The buzzing whine felt as if my skull pressed against a belt sander. When one added that to the sheer arctic cold the Spectre generated, all in the name of keeping me out of phase—
System analysis indicates trans-spectral pattern loss. Please disengage packet.
There.
The second to last system error message I remembered in Dhire Lith, a warning about accidently using the Gatekeeper to fracture space. This message felt softer, kinder than that one, coming through the Lattice and not relying upon Crown specifications alone.
Unfortunately, because of that Lattice connection, others received the message as well. Almost immediately, I felt the presence of Rachel Gardener blossom in my mind.
What the holy hell are you doing, Bishop? Her link held a unique alloy of horror, fury, and awe. You’re going to blow the Spectre!
Only for a moment. Can you keep me conscious?
What? You didn’t even give me more mecha to deal with your bleeding! The link rang shrill in my skull. I can’t even—!
A system message cut off her link, something that rarely happened.
System critical warning. Trans-spectral pattern loss expected in five seconds.
Keep me conscious! I linked the instant that the system went quiet. I’ll be in pain, but I’ll need to act for a few seconds!
Michael… That link belonged to Anya. I felt her confusion. What are you—?
I didn’t receive the rest.
My mind instantly burred, wrapped into a stinging, buzzing mass of tapioca that could barely stay awake and aware. I felt the moment the Spectre lost connectivity to the system, and in that instant, I became insubstantial to everything, including the grating at my feet.
