by Peter John
“What the fuck?” said Raúl, and I agreed with his sentiments exactly. This place gave me the creeps. There was also one glaring wound that could only be noticed upon closer inspection. The pinkie finger on his left hand had been severed. When Raúl showed the stump to me, we looked at each other knowing what it meant. This place would have to be destroyed completely if we were to keep him safe.
“We should detach him and get him out. You grab him while I cut the power, ” I said, moving to the large clump of cables leading out the window. The window sill presented the perfect chopping opportunity. As I sliced through the cables with my Katana, I was also checking outside to see how the battle was going. My eyes widened in shock as realization dawned on me. The moment my blade severed the conduits, as one, every Reaper on that battlefield fell.
I turned, wondering W.T.F. and was brought back to my senses when Mala began hacking and coughing. Raúl had pulled out his catheter and the feeding mechanism from his stomach and was now detaching him from the neck brace. He seemed groggy and disorientated.
“What?… where am I? Who are you?” were his first words before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed unconscious. I moved over to help Raúl, and we dragged him to the window. I had got the line out and was tying off one end to a server bank as the anchor. We then rigged up a makeshift harness, and I helped Raúl fast-rope first, after which we lowered Mala’s unconscious form with Raúl as a counterweight on the belay. My thoughts were whirling as I considered the implications. Raúl had not seen what I had seen. He did not know that it was Mala who had been controlling those Reapers. Perhaps not controlling, but maybe empowering them? I didn’t know what to think and Mala had reached the ground. By this time, Hugo and several Scalar Rebels had arrived. I thought about their man we had left in the other wing and after a quick call of “Wait” ran back to find him.
He was still groggy, but with a little help, I was able to drag his arse back to the egress point. I lowered him down and then fast-roped myself down. This all had taken less than ten minutes. In all, we had been mission active for almost half an hour. I still had to get to the Princess and plant the rest of the explosives and didn’t know if that was possible now with the collapse of the stairwell.
One step at a time, I admonished myself as I fast-roped down to join the others.
Hugo was all smiles. “Armpit you devil!” he exclaimed. “How did you do it?”
“Do what exactly?” I asked puzzled.
“I saw you in that window” he showed the window above where I had severed the cables. “One sweep of your arm and all the beasts dropped,” he stated, dramatically mimicking the sweep of my arm chopping the cables. Exuberance springing from his battle high.
“Oh, that? no, I just cut the power. The creatures must be linked to power.”
“What? These creatures are electrical? Haha… perhaps maybe you make a joke?”
“No, not at all. But I think it is worse. Mala was attached to a simulation leveling machine. When I cut the power supply, all the Reapers dropped on the spot.” This brought uncomfortable stares from both Captain Hugo and Raúl.
“What are you saying, Armpit?” said Raúl.
“You heard me. Mala was powering those Reaper bastards. You have to watch him. His finger is gone, maybe they were blackmailing him, anyway I have no idea what's going on here, but I have to finish the mission. We still have to blow the complex and recover the Princess. Before I go, tell me one thing though, did Stone allow you to help these guys?”
Hugo grinned, “Stone and I were discovered as we stood overwatch. The Rebels decided to use the same watchpoint as us and it would have been difficult to watch the mission with them so close without exposing ourselves, so Stone just stepped out and surprised them. One of them could speak English and he asked if we could join forces. They knew about us, of course. I then agreed to help. Since Charlie and John are on rearguard, I was the only logical choice, but now I have to return with Alfred.”
He stooped and picked up the unconscious naked man with seemingly no effort. It was like he hadn’t just been hacking Reapers apart a few minutes before and he made off to meet up with Stone and the others. He called back over his shoulder.
“Hurry Armpit, this mission is going well. We will wait you at the planned waypoint. Good luck!.”
The Scalar Rebels had been grateful to get their man back and now that their part of the mission was done, they wanted to get out of there. Hugo moved out too, and Raúl and I were alone again.
“Are you serious, man? Did Mala really control those Reapers? How can he be involved in all this?”
These questions I left unanswered as my own thoughts swirled. We turned back into the building and pressed into a run to the stairwell on the ground floor to see if we could still get access to the basement and caves beyond.
CHAPTER 34
Obstacles
Bits of rubble were piled up everywhere. The entire stairwell was clogged way out into the passage. There were remnants of an explosion here too, as my illumination spell lit up the flash burn on walls and ceilings. With all the luck going for us upstairs, things had been too good. Now, we had to face possible mission failure.
“One of those bags of goodness you put on the banister must have landed down here against the metal banister and exploded at the same time. No wonder the entire stairwell collapsed,” Raúl observed rhetorically. It was a mess. We both knew it. A one in a million chance and the coin had landed on its edge.
“Of all the luck” I crooned woefully. “Give me a minute. I need to check something.” I opened up my internal minimap and started to search for alternate routes. “There must be another entrance. Otherwise, we will have to dig our way in. There must be survivors down there. And remember we still have found no Reaper Officers.”
This brought a look from Raúl. He was still thinking about Mala.
“Don’t think like that man, it must be a coincidence or else they were just using his magic. There was no way he was controlling those things to attack us.” I stated, trying to ease his worried mind.
“How do you know that? He hadn’t been tortured. You saw it yourself, there wasn’t a scratch on him besides his missing finger and that had mostly healed. He was supposed to be all banged up, tortured and such.”
I shrugged. I didn’t have time for these mind games. “Let’s just focus on getting the Princess out, then we can solve all the other stuff. Mind on mission!… and… well, I think I have found us a way in.”
“What way in? We blocked this stairwell. I’m not moving all that rubble for the Princess that's for sure. They can stay buried down there. A veritable sacrifice.”
“Just trust me, Raúl. When have I been wrong?”
“Every time you open your mouth Armpit, that's why they call you Armpit right? Because you speak out your Armpit. It sounds to me like you are saying ‘here, hold my beer’.” Raúl was talking shit now; we both knew it. The tension was getting to both of us.
“Ah fuck it, like you say ‘HHF’, so where are we going?” he said as I led him down the wing leading to the right and into the second last door. I then began to unpack and reshape one of the explosives.
“No way man, that shit is crazy potent. What are you going to do? Loco puta! I’m not dying on this fucked up planet man. Have you lost your mind?”
“I thought SEAL’s never complain, but boy was I wrong.” I muttered to no one in particular. “Calm down, man! I’m only going to use a little. We have surplus, and outside this broken window against the cliff wall is an array of ducts that lead from down below, up to the cliff top. They are big enough for a Scalar to fit into, never mind a man, we should fit comfortably. If there is no man-hatch, then I will blow a hole. Nothing to worry about, okay?”
“Fucking loco, I really don’t wanna go down there. Fuck… let’s do it.” he then paused…. “Sorry man, I’m a little edgy, you know?”
I did know.
That psychic assault was at it again and it w
as taking its toll as we both struggled to come to terms with the fact that our target was out of reach for now.
After climbing through the window and making our way to the cliff face, we found the ducts, extending vertically from below and all the way to the top of the cliff. The pipes were vibrating slightly from some machinery, and I assumed that must be from the extraction fans at the top. Our luck held, and we found a service entrance door for all the seven vents. Probably one vent per level. I chose the vent leading down to the lowest level because I reasoned if the creatures we were about to face had someone in charge, they too would consider the vents to escape the catacombs below, then they would probably use the one on the highest level to escape, not the lowest. I definitely didn’t want to bump into a Reaper while in the forbidding dark vent pipe thingy.
The decent progressed without incident, Raúl took the lead in case things got tight, but the vent stayed the same size the whole way down, however, the angle of decent changed to about thirty degrees off vertical after two-thirds down and I assumed the levels within the caves were not directly underneath each other. It would be completely new territory. The blueprint map didn’t have any details of the caverns at all below the fourth level, although it showed seven sub-levels total. When the pipe did a horizontal bend, there was an access door at the elbow junction. I was glad of this as I didn’t want to have to use explosives to get out of the pipe. Raúl opened and stuck his head out far enough that he could see, then quickly exited from the vent. I followed suit, and we found ourselves in a dank cavern that seemed to glow a subtle blue color from some luminous moss or lichen scattered about on the cave walls.
There was not a sound except the vibration from the vent and dripping water from various crystalline stalactites and the gurgle of running water which led to a pool in the far corner. It seemed to be the lowest point in this cavern system and all moisture gravitated towards it. Of its depth, I had no idea. It was as dark and foreboding as the caverns above. The pipe continued along with the ceiling through the wall and presumably into the adjoining cavern. The air smelled of death, dankness, and musty mushrooms. We closed the manhole but did not bolt it and dropped down to ground level. There was a kind of fire escape ladder that could be extended, but we reasoned it would make too much noise if we used it. Both of us had activated our spells before we left the confines of the pipe and so we felt relatively safe from discovery. Now we had to scout and find the Princess without alerting whatever was in here. Easy peasy. Yeah right!
The adjoining cavern was equally deserted, but we began to get an idea of the inhabitants of this place. There were skeletal remains of all kinds of beasts. Broken, discarded rotten meat, limbs of Scalars, and haunches of other meat and the corpses of rodent and insectoid type creatures with huge bites out of them. Putrefying and rotten, with large piles of refuse and assorted garbage around it. The smell was powerful and reeked of death, rot and sewage.
This must be the refuse dump I thought to myself as we moved through, silent as ghostly specters witnessing what looked like the arse end of a Troll’s lair.
As it turned out, the lowest level consisted of only the two caverns, immediately after exiting the second cavern, the passage turned back on itself at a steep angle and we came across another opening on a higher level, this one illuminated by more of the blue glowing moss. There were machine implements, most of them broken and discarded where they lay. The equipment seemed technical as if used for research and mining. The blue lichen seemed to glow brighter as we neared and lessen in intensity as we left it behind. We found no one alive, nothing of note. It was as quiet as a grave except for the incessant psychic assault on my mind and the constant drip, drip of dropping moisture from the ceilings above.
Finally, on the third level from the bottom, we found signs of habitation. Large rooms, blankets were strewn about and various assortments of clothes. Sleeping pallets; broken and discarded, lay strewn about. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. We were ten minutes into the insertion and hadn’t come across anyone. Raúl gave me the sign that he was running below half on Mana and as we took a knee, I took over dampening his aura as he came out of invisibility to recharge. We didn’t want to take the chance of being caught low on the precious magic fuel when we made contact with whatever lurked in the dark places above.
The fourth level began to show more signs of habitation. We began to move more quickly. It was with a sigh of relief that we were moving into an area that I had mapped out in my head. The first four levels from the top entrance were in greyscale but at least we had an idea of what to expect in terms of infrastructure. According to the map, we were nearing one place where we had to put explosives. I indicated as such to Raúl as we saw the pillar from above extending down from the ceiling to the base of the cavern floor. A crucial support pillar that held the building above securely. The entire pillar was made of fabricated material and the glowing moss completely swamped it.
We found a second support pillar a few rows down.
Here the caverns had been mined. Doors separated them and as we moved further along it seemed as if nothing at all lived here except the ghosts of Christmas past.
Our movements were quick and economical. The psychic assault, however, never lessened and seemed to intensify. It was like a countdown. A countdown to the confrontation. A building of climactic tension that needed release and would be dictated by the circumstances of what we found.
Neither of us was looking forward to it, but stoically, doggedly, we persisted on our mission. The princess needed our help, and we trained to rescue princesses, even if it had never happened in my reality until now.
CHAPTER 35
The depths
The raised fist warned ‘Danger Close’, then changed to ‘Contact Front’ as I watched Raúl’s blurry invisible form move around the final corner on the fourth floor. We were at the last passage on sub-level four before the elevator shaft. Something had spiked Raúl’s warning but I could not see it yet even though I was only about two meters directly behind him and we had the Elevator shaft opening at our front.
I couldn’t see anything and the screaming psychic assault was voicing words I could understand. Not all of them, most were gibberish, but the sighs, moans, and screams from different voices bombarding my awareness were occasionally saying words like “Surrender! Give up now, succumb to us! Join ussss!” The words interspersed with static splurges and sibilant hisses and then to round it off there were long drawn out nails on chalkboard screeches, which all had me very truly on edge.
Raúl wasn’t as sensitive as me and said he could only hear a discomforting background distortion. To add to that I felt a creeping migraine which could only be the result of my recent upgrades or else the bad air down here was low in oxygen. I hardly ever got migraines, but this one was a humdinger. Even the blue glow from the moss seemed too bright to my sensitive eyes and caused them to water spontaneously. It wasn’t the best state to be in, but I had been through worse scrapes so I would persevere and we would achieve the objective.
I finally realized what Raúl was warning me about. The elevator was descending. I could hear the chug… chug… chug… as the gears churned to lower it down the shaft. The creaking cables that supported its weight twanged ominously, signifying a heavy load. It was a very rudimentary setup. Understandable considering we were in an area mined for research. That it had become a zombie hideout was a downer too.
We made for cover in one of the passage alcoves and stilled our racing hearts. Whatever was in there, we did not want it to discover us and give away our one advantage. In skirmishes, battles and wars around the world, the most precious of advantages was always by far, the one of surprise, so when you had it, you made it count.
Clang! The elevator reached our floor. Click, click, click, the panel door on the elevator slid open. Then pure silence echoed about the place and swept down the corridor. Not even a drop of water deigned to disturb it. Until, after what seemed an impossible pause, the creature s
tepped forward. A resounding thud of its tread. Then a quick thud, thud, not unlike my heartbeat. Then the silence swept out again. I tentatively adjusted myself so I could look out the alcove and down the corridor to see what had just walked through the door. To my astonishment, another crash resounded through the area, plumes of dust obscuring my view and small pieces of rubble spread out from the door. As it settled, I saw the elevator was full of rubble and someone or something behind it was pushing and shoving the broken shards of concrete out. The first noises had been the rubble toppling out. So not a monster then, just a delivery of rubble. I sighed in relief and moved over so Raúl could also see. Once the rubble chunks were deposited outside the elevator, the two Reapers within, autonomous in their actions adjusted the internal lever and the doors began to close. Clang, clang, clang, the door forced errant rubble away, the screeching door worked itself closed. Then suddenly the lift began to move up.
