by Jake Bible
Blank. The word triggered a thought in Billy’s overtaxed brain. “Blank! Look for the blank spot! Find the one place none of the sensors can penetrate! They’ll be there!”
“Good call, pardner,” Styles replied, immediately finding the dead spot in the sensor’s search. The Shop.
***
“She’s passed out again, Dr. Stilig,” Ms. Soslosky announced. “And her vital signs are weakening.”
“Weakening?” the Doctor asked, Heather’s liver in his hands for the fourth time that day. “Really?”
He set the slab of dark meat into a tray and stepped to the medical console, studying the information before him. “Hmmm, I wonder if as her body runs out of energy, the nanotech does also?”
“Should we let her rest?”
“No, no, we have too much work to do,” the Doctor answered coldly. “If she dies, she dies. We can try to resuscitate her at that point.”
“Won’t the Empress be upset?”
“When isn’t she upset?” the Doctor laughed as he cracked open Heather’s rib cage once more and began to remove her left lung. Again.
***
“Your man Zverev had better get this under control,” Mr. Plain growled. “If we lose the BTT then our plans will be severely set back.”
“Do not lecture me!” the Empress screamed. “I am the ruler of all of Russia and you are just a commoner! I will not be spoken to that way!”
“Get used to it, Your Highness,” Mr. Continental said. “What did you think was going to happen when we return Russia to its socialist hay day? Did you think you would keep your throne?”
“Of course! That was the plan, you idiot!” Natalya shrieked. “The people need a ruler! They need someone to lord over them and history has proven that commoners cannot do it effectively enough! They lose power eventually and the country, and the entire planet, devolves into chaos! The people need their Empress!”
The three men looked at each other gravely.
“That is unfortunate, Natalya,” Mr. Brown Eyes said, watching as the informal use of the Empress’s name nearly sent her into a fit. “We had assumed, and incorrectly as it turns out, that you understood you would be a figurehead in the transition, but once the dust had settled your title, and the throne itself, would no longer exist.”
“But, the people?” the Empress cried, feeling her world crumble about her.
“The people despise you,” Mr. Plain laughed. “They want nothing to do with you. Vasily was always their favorite and Alexander amused them. But you? You just plain terrify them all.”
“I believe the term they use is ‘bat shit crazy’,” Mr. Continental added.
The Empress stormed from the room shrieking, her hands pulling at her hair.
“Well, that should throw her off kilter for a while,” Mr. Brown Eyes said.
“She’s an egomaniacal idiot,” Mr. Plain said. “She has no idea what is going on beyond her own sheltered world.”
“True. By the time we are done, none of the monarchs will know what happened,” Mr. Continental added. “We’ll have almost total control of the world. It’s almost too easy.”
“Before we congratulate ourselves, let me contact Ms. Isely and see if any of her projects are ready for deployment,” Mr. Plain said. “Whether we have the BTT or not, we can’t be stopped now.”
***
“Where are we going?” Melissa shouted as she and Beth sprinted between the shredded walls of the connecting rooms, bullets ripping through wood, metal and plasterboard in their wake as the guards in the hallway desperately tried to gun them down.
“I have no idea!” Beth yelled over her shoulder. “Hopefully the right way!”
“You don’t know? Then why the fuck are we running this way?”
“Because it feels right!” Beth yelled as they came to the end of their improvised passageway and burst into a bend in the hallway. Melissa leapt towards Beth, covering her body with her own, shielding her from the rifle fire that exploded around them.
Beth closed her eyes and focused on all the BC in their area. “Hold on! Things are about to get shredded!”
Shards of BC ripped through the walls, ceiling and floor as Beth called it to her and Melissa. The guards positioned between the BC and the girls found themselves torn, sliced and minced into bloody pieces before the BC stopped in midair, melted, and created a protective dome around Beth and Melissa.
More rockets screamed towards the girls, but the explosions never touched them.
“They’re gonna blow their own fucking building up!” Melissa said. “And us in it!”
“Not if my imaginings are correct!” Beth replied. “This dome should hold against a nuke!”
“Great! But that doesn’t help us find Heather!”
“Is that who we are looking for?” Beth asked, crouching to watch the Shop guards begin to surround and approach the dome. “I wasn’t sure. I thought we were trying to get out of here!”
“And go where? They’ll hunt us down and kill us eventually, even with your freak skills! We need a plan! We need Heather!”
“How do you know she’s in here?”
Melissa grinned. “Like you said, ‘because it feels right’.”
Beth thought for a moment, trying to block out the continual sound of gunfire and ricochets. “Can you make a com?”
“Sure. That’s basic BC stuff, like back in Mr. Weber’s class,” Melissa answered. “Why? Heather won’t be able to hear us.”
“No, but Billy might,” Beth said. “More importantly Mr. Styles might and he has the way out.”
Melissa retracted the blades into her suit, focusing instead on a miniscule piece of BC in her closed fist, trying to remember the exact specifications for an American, closed-channel com. She opened her hand and looked at the com that had formed. “This better work!”
***
“Okay, I’ve got the bleeding stopped, but you need to stay put,” Billy said. “My med skills are less than adequate and I couldn’t work out all the slugs. You could have one sitting next to an artery. Wrong move and you become a bloody balloon!”
“Great…bedside…manner,” Alex quipped from the blood soaked seat he was reclined in. “Get me…something…for the…pain.”
“No can do, buddy,” Billy said. “I, um, went through the scab stock.”
“Fucking…junky,” Alex gasped. “Booze me, then.”
“Yeah, that’s not such a great idea,” Billy apologized. “The alcohol will thin your blood and could worsen any internal bleeding.”
“Thought…you stopped…the bleeding.”
“Junky, remember? You really want to trust my med skills?” Billy smiled, getting up and walking to the cockpit. “Stay put. I’ll see what the plan is and be right back.” He opened and closed the door quickly behind him, Styles having programmed everyone’s biometrics into the BTT’s security protocols. “We need help, Styles. Al is fucked. I think I only got half the bleeding stopped. He could be dead before the night is out.”
“Shit fuck,” Styles swore. “We’re above what they call the Shop, but fuck if I know how we can get in there and get them girls out. We start blasting and we could kill them all.”
The com buzzed once, stopped, buzzed again. The two men looked at each other.
“You gonna get that?” Styles asked Billy.
“Me? No one’s calling me. You get it,” Billy replied, holding his hands up.
Styles sighed. “This is Styles, who the fuck is this?”
“Thank God!” Melissa yelled. “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been calling and calling!!!”
“Who is this?!?” Styles shouted over the static that was nearly overwhelming the transmission.
“It’s Mel, you fucking overgrown cowboy!” she shouted. “We’re trapped in some fucking facility.” Mel stopped for a moment and Beth’s voice could be faintly heard. “Freak says it’s called The Shop. Whatever it’s fucking called we’re trying to find Heather, but we’re gonna need hel
p getting the fuck out of here!”
“Hold on! Don’t move! I’m going to push a scan to your location!” Styles shouted, as Billy watched helpless, unable to keep track of what was going on. Styles seemed not to do anything, but suddenly a holo appeared in the middle of the cockpit, showing the many levels of The Shop. A small blue dot began to blink on the third level below ground. “Okay, I was able to get a scan through. I see y’all. I have no idea where Heather is, though.”
“She’s a Ghost,” Billy said. “And she has that nano-shit in her. Look for the most fucked up signal you can find.”
Styles mentally adjusted the holo and found several fucked up signals three floors below the girls. “Okay, I can’t pinpoint her, but it looks like they keep all the special cases three floors down.”
“Special cases? What the fuck does that mean?” Melissa yelled.
“I don’t know, but there are quite a few messed up signatures down there, so watch yourselves,” Styles said. “We’ll be waiting up here. We’re in stealth mode, so they can’t see us, but it’s only a matter of time before they just start blasting randomly. Hurry.” The static became stronger until the signal was lost. “Shit. They’re gone.”
Billy looked out the windshield at the innocuous building below. “I hope Beth has more magic up her sleeve.”
***
“Fuck!” Melissa shouted. “I lost them!”
“Did he find Heather?” Beth asked, her eyes never leaving the guards.
“Yeah,” Melissa said. “We have to go down. This dome doesn’t happen to have a lift in it does it?”
“No, no lift, but I think I can work around that,” Beth answered. “Hang on.”
Beth closed her eyes and concentrated on all the surrounding BC she could feel, bringing it to her and the dome, creating a full bubble about the girls. At the same time she concentrated on the BC itself, trying to apply everything she had learned in basic physics, transforming the density of the BC into a much heavier substance.
Melissa laughed at the looks on the guards’ faces as the floor below them all began to groan from the extra weight. “They aren’t liking that!”
Several of the guards began to back away quickly, some even decided to flat out run as the others yelled after them.
“One more piece and we go down,” Beth smiled. “Hang on.”
“To what?” Melissa shouted. But she never got an answer, as Beth mentally dissolved the support structure beneath the bubble, sending them plummeting through the floor.
They slammed into the floor below, crushing two techs working on a repair project, sending flames shooting towards the hole above them and the other techs in the room running for the emergency exit.
“Two more to go,” Beth called out. Melissa struggled to get herself upright.
They fell again as Beth collapsed the structure in that floor. They landed in the middle of what looked like the guards’ locker room, startling several well-muscled men.
“Nice,” Melissa grinned, as all of the guards in the process of suiting up were too stunned to cover themselves. “Thanks, freak. I needed that.”
“Hold on. One more,” Beth said, grinning also.
The bubble fell one last time, landing in a large, dark room, the dimensions unknown as the room was nothing but shadow past three meters.
“Okay,” Melissa asked. “Where are we now?”
“Don’t know,” Beth said, trying to peer into the gloom about them.
Melissa looked up and waved at the couple of guards, still naked, curious enough to look over the edge of the hole. “Well, we need to get moving quickly. They aren’t going to gawk forever.”
Beth let one side of the bubble fall away and the girls stepped from it. “Let’s find the wall and follow it until we hit the exit.”
Several low growls and hisses made both girls freeze instantly. “That doesn’t sound good,” Melissa whispered. The growls turned into shrieks, and Beth and Melissa could see shapes rushing at them from the darkness. “Back in the bubble! Back in the bubble!” Melissa grabbed Beth and yanked her inside. “Seal it! Fucking seal it!”
Beth was able to get the opening closed just before several dozen badly mutilated and disfigured people slammed into the sides, their hands clawing and scratching at the surface, leaving bloody streaks and bits of grey flesh.
“Oh, that’s not good at all,” Melissa said, her mouth agape at the horrifying sight in front of them. “What the fuck are those things?”
“I think they were people at one time,” Beth answered.
“Well, they’re fucked up now,” Melissa stated. “And in our way. Can you put some guns on this bouncing ball of joy?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin, but I think I have a different idea. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?” Melissa asked, puzzled.
“Sorry to them for this,” Beth said as midway up the bubble a long continuous blade formed, slicing the creatures in half. Guts and offal spilled from the decayed and putrid torsos of the afflicted people, covering the ground with rotten organs and congealed blood and fluids.
“Oh, that’s just wrong,” Melissa gasped, covering her mouth, trying not to vomit.
“Which part? The guts and blood or the fact that they are all still moving?” Beth asked, her voice shaky and stunned as she reached out and grabbed onto Melissa’s arm. The two girls cringed as several of the creatures pulled their severed torsos towards the bubble, their grey-fleshed arms pulling them along leaving trails of black fluid behind them.
“Oh…fuck,” Melissa cursed quietly. “What do we do now?” Shouts from above drew their attention away from the grotesque spectacle and to the hole in the ceiling. A hole now surrounded by well armed guards, several of which held rocket launchers. “Are they going to try to blast us again?”
On Melissa’s last words, rockets shot through the hole, impacting with the BC bubble and exploding immediately. Several rockets shot past the bubble, vaporizing the wriggling corpses instantly.
“Problem solved,” Beth said. “Except for them upstairs.”
“Can you make this roll?” Melissa asked, cringing with each rocket explosion, her eyes fixed on a severed head, the jaws still moving up and down, up and down until it was consumed by fire.
Beth concentrated hard and the bubble started to rock back and forth, slowly at first then with more and more urgency. “Shove against that side!”
Melissa pushed against one side and Beth joined her, their weight adding to the momentum, and the bubble began to roll, crushing the few body parts that hadn’t been scorched into ash. The girls shoved and pumped their legs, gaining speed quickly until it was too much for them to handle and they were both caught up in the spinning. They rolled over each other until the bubble slammed to a halt against a far wall.
“Get off me!” Melissa shouted, shoving Beth’s ass out of her face. “You need a good scrub!”
“You’re not exactly roses, either!” Beth snapped back, opening the bubble and tumbling to the ground. “Come on!”
Beth ripped a hole in the wall and yanked Melissa to her feet, shoving her through the hole and into a brightly lit hallway. Alarms screeched shrilly as the girls sprinted down the hall, both praying they were going towards where Heather was being held.
Chapter Twenty
“The Shop has been breached and fires are being reported,” Ms. Solosky stated as she checked a readout on one of the monitors. “We need to evacuate.”
“Very well,” the Doctor responded. “I believe we have done all we can here.” He looked down at Heather’s still form, her heart having flatlined minutes earlier just after her body had reconstructed itself one last time. “Bring the sample canisters. We can’t leave those behind. They hold the nanotech in the flesh. Perfect carriers, really. The Empress should be pleased.”
“But Doctor, we have to evacuate,” Ms. Solosky exclaimed. “We can’t struggle with a sample cart.”
Dr. Stilig gripped a scalpel in his
right hand, his index finger running up and down the BC handle. “If you aren’t going to assist then there isn’t much point to you, is there?”
She watched the scalpel and quickly moved to the cart, activating the door and pushing it out into the hallway.
Dr. Stilig turned and stared at Heather for a moment. “So remarkable,” he said quietly. “Too bad you didn’t survive. I would have loved to ask a few questions.” He reached out and slowly stroked Heather’s matted, bloody hair. “So remarkable.”
Heather’s eyes shot open and her body began to thrash against the restraints.
“Holy mother of God…” Dr. Stilig exclaimed, crossing himself and backing away towards the door.
Heather hissed and growled, bloody foam flying from her mouth. Her entire body tensed as she fought against the straps holding her down, her eyes never leaving the doctor.
“What is it, Doctor?” Ms. Solosky asked, looking back inside the room, her hands flying to her mouth. “But she’s dead!”
“She’s like one of the afflicted we have been studying!” Dr. Stilig cried. “Oh, God! What have we done! She can regenerate! How can this happen!” He stumbled into his assistant, knocking them both out of the room and onto the hallway floor. “She must have been exposed at some point! We have to seal the room and purge it! We can’t let her escape!”
“Can’t let who escape?” Melissa’s voice asked coolly as she and Beth came down the hall towards the doctor and his assistant.
“Who are…?” the Doctor asked, getting to his feet and reaching for the door controls. BC shot from the wall and slapped his hand away creating a large gash that poured blood instantly. Heather’s growls grew into a crescendo of rage and hunger, as her eyes watched the blood drip onto the floor.
Ms. Solosky got to her feet, hands held out, and approached the girls. “You can’t go in there! She’s infected! She isn’t alive anymore! You have to run!”
Melissa answered the woman with a swift roundhouse kick to the face, slamming her head against the wall. As the woman slid into an unconscious heap, Melissa stepped past her and peered into the room.
