by Peter John
Without thinking or knowing quite what I was doing I ran forward and calling back as softly as I could, said, “Raúl, lay the explosives, I will be back.” then without hesitation, I jumped up beneath the elevator and caught-a-hold. The elevator lurched but continued up. Inwardly I was hoping that the Reapers would not notice the lurch from within. I need not have worried. The elevator continued up, and I held on, swinging precariously beneath. Holding on wasn’t difficult. I was strong, enhanced, and agile. The difficult part was reconciling why I had just done what I did? It was as if on an instinctual level I had acted. Like my mind had deduced things I had yet to fully acknowledge. My actions completely at odds with my tried and tested training.
The old elevator was more like a window washing elevator found on most skyscrapers and had plenty of protruding ridges below it I could clamp myself to. Which I did with relative ease. The elevator was gaining speed, and it was just passing the next floor, in which I saw nothing guarding the elevator entranceway. I swung off into the area beyond as the elevator continued to the top floor. I had just rolled to a halt when I heard shuffling coming from far in the dark cave I had just entered.
I was alone in my immediate vicinity, invisible, and had my aura dampened to the max. I figured if I left Raúl behind. It was one less person to worry about and he could do what he was supposed to do, namely lay the explosives. There was only one on this floor I was now on. The other two down below.
Nothing came to investigate any disturbance I may have caused when I leaped and rolled onto the floor, and I was starting to believe that we were still undiscovered and capable of getting ourselves out with the princess.
Where was she? According to the map, it was most likely that she was either on this floor or on the first floor. Both floors had lockable doors installed between caverns and atriums. We had found none of the Scalar prisoners who were also supposed to be here. And still no sign of a Reaper Officer. It was all rather strange and did nothing to calm the frayed nerves.
Deciding to be prudent, I tied off a line to the crossbar and lowered it through the elevator shaft to the floor below. Two support beams either side supported the braced crossbeam at the top of the entrance from the elevator shaft to the corridor beyond. There was a gap to the side where I tied the rope off, letting it dangle down the shaft, trusting to luck that it would not be discovered by the unobservant Reapers, who seemed to do little besides following serf-like behavior unless riled up for a fight. If I needed to escape quickly, it would be better if I was prepared.
The distance down to Raúl was easily ten meters and while I could jump down, it would guarantee a sprain at best, and broken bones at worse, especially landing on the uneven cavern floor of the dark elevator shaft.
Turning I took in my surroundings and noticed the passage made off at a slight curve into the murky gloom. The distance held what seemed to be artificial light, so this floor had electrical power. The first room to the right was just barely noticeable with the angle of the curve. I had inkling if the passage was clear further down unless I went forward, so I did.
As it turned out, there appeared to be no-one and nothing, and I crept on silent-booted feet, hugging the shadows, embracing the drain of Mana as my Invisibility and aura dampening spells did their work of obscuring my presence. From the map, I knew there were at least twenty rooms along this corridor and it was the most extensive of the mapped area.
Reaching the first door, I first listened and then when hearing nothing, tried to open it. The large wooden door moved easily and without pause. I entered the room. Inside lights stuttered on, triggered by the door opening. The cavernous room was about ten meters wide and deep. It appeared to be a storeroom. Shelves of equipment, bottles of chemicals, and stacks of containers lined the walls right up to the ceiling.
Towards the back of the room though, two containers caught my eye. One had a red LED light and another a green LED at the corner of their large box shapes. Moving closer, I found it had a see-through top, with crystal ice around its edges. I looked closer. Appalled to see that the entire freezer, because that’s what it was, had different items within, stacked and bar coded. I couldn’t read the labels, nor see into the containers. All of different sizes, but nothing bigger than hand size.
I had a pretty good guess what was inside those containers. This was a sick and twisted fucked up universe I thought to myself, but the crimes were all the same. Extortion, blackmail, and domination were traits I had sworn my whole life to fight against. I removed my backpack and prepared a nasty surprise for whoever collected an item from these freezers.
By the time I was back in the passage, the elevator was on its way down again with another load; I pressed on down the corridor to the next door. Time was running out, the assault on my mind was ever increasing and my Mana was depleting.
It wasn’t until the sixth door that I found the door locked. When I opened it with brute force, the Scalar man inside had little chance to cry out. They had strapped him down on a lab table like his pitiful moans and gasps. My superior intellect immediately supplied me with the information it had deduced from what I now saw. He had been sliced and diced, and parts of him were on side tables, neatly stacked and quartered. Each had a tube spewing cold gas into the package to keep its freshness. I retched and vomited on the floor. This man was being butchered piece by piece to supply sustenance to the Reaper population. His living flesh cut off in chunks and cryogenically frozen immediately. He was being kept alive as long as possible to ensure that they could harvest all of him, then they would feed the entire batch at once. I retched again. I had seen some fucked up shit before, but this was way off the charts.
I went up to him then and materialized so he could see me. His flinch and cry of fear was to be expected. He then surprised me by speaking. Soft words, full of hate and venom. The gurgle of phlegm in the back of his throat a testament to how precariously he clung to life.
“K…k..kill me!” he gurgled in Scalar and then spat, the mucous fluids still clinging to his lips and cheek. “You have what you wanted, now kill me, my children wait for me beyond the veil, I can hear their voices…” he coughed then with a dip into his resolve, screamed,: “Kill meeeee!”.
The wailing continued, and I gritted my teeth. This man had been through enough. His muscles had been harvested, and I assumed that if he was dead, the flesh that was harvested from him would then be worthless to the horde. I conjured my blade and severed his head. It was not done easily, though it was done quickly. The horror of this place, of the foe we fought, was sinking in. I did not want creatures who could do this on our planet. I also realized that this was the first killing I had done directly in many years.
The explosion wiping out the Zombies upstairs was separate. Something distant. My mind could easily dissociate from owning the horror inflicted on such an enemy in such a way, but here was a decent man by all accounts. An innocent victim, possibly a courageous soldier. He was someone who had been something good, and I had barely paused in ending his life. Instinctively I knew the magic I had, the potions, spells, all of those things didn’t matter in the face of this Scalar man’s injuries. I wanted to honor him and instead, I had killed him. How do you reconcile something like that?
Realizing I was becoming distracted with an old soldiers’ dilemma, I let it go, and focused once again on the moment. HHF and move on I told myself. The machine to which they attached him began to beep ominously, and I started cutting cables. It eventually stopped and I could move out of there. Before I left the room however, I placed the last of my packed explosives around the support column rising out of the centre of the room. I left the det’s, poised and ready next to it. I would only have to press the red button and insert it into the foul smelling putty to ensure the above building would collapse after a slow count to a hundred.
Re-spelling invisibility I followed the doors down the corridor. Each with equally disturbing and disgusting contents. Fortunately, no-one else was alive within them.
It was then that I came across the cells. This area, at the far end of the corridor had much studier doors and inside I could hear whispers, sobs and in some cases, crying.
I could not kick these doors in, no matter how augmented I was. Maybe Hugo could do it, but I wasn’t him by any means. At least not yet. So I used a tactic from Earth. I rattled the door madly and gave everyone within a chance to clear back from the door. Then I placed a small pebble of the explosive putty within the keyhole and standing well back, sent an arc of electricity. At the same time I extended my will to create a barrier, encompassing the entire passage. Separating myself from the explosion and hopefully deflecting the noise from passing me down the passage to those above.
A loud crack and the bolt flew off. The door as it buckled from the unnatural forces broke lengthwise. The cries and screams inside were to be expected and once I kicked away the remaining shards, found a room full of fearful Scalar. They could not see me, but were jittery, and I left them immediately to go to the next door. It was only on the final door that I hit gold.
The Princess! She was sitting sedately in a sparse room, her back to the wall. A white sheet covered her modestly, and one end was bunched up upon the stump of where her left hand used to be; It had a dark crust of blood. Her face was pale and drawn. Her hair bedraggled and her slim athletic features seemed wasted. The rest was hidden beneath the sheet. When I appeared before her, she seemed unimpressed.
“What do you want?” she intoned in Elven. What? I could understand Elven now too? This internal computer AI implant tech was giving me a serious advantage. The amount of times I had wanted to know a local dialect or language during my missions on Earth was uncountable. How great it would have been to know Pashtu, Urdu, Dari or any other of the myriad of languages from the various places I had been. Relying on a local Terp had presented a lot of problems. Now it seemed I had every language at my fingertip, or rather my tongue tip.
“Come Princess Adrianna, your father has sent me. We must get out of here! Come quick!” My urgent plea was not wasted. She reacted immediately, however, it wasn’t the way I expected. She launched herself at me, and with a roundhouse flying kick nearly took my head off. If it wasn’t for my reactions and agility and what seemed like an echo of a warning from deep inside my head, she would have caught me flatfooted. As it was, the kick shaved my brow, and I immediately did a back roll, gaining both distance and space from her. I did not understand why she wanted to hurt me, but she had to stop this now.
“What are you doing? I am here to help you! Your father sent me,” I said, exasperated. I was in the passage and she still in her cell. The other cells I had opened before were still as I left them. Not a single Scalar had come out, and I had freed more than a hundred of them. Why were they still waiting in their cells?
“I don’t have a Father!” she screamed, spittle flying in her fury “he has betrayed our people, he has betrayed me, don’t talk about my father!”
I knew the Princess was headstrong from Horatio, but I did not understand the vitriol between her and her father. It didn’t matter though. I needed her to shut up and to come with me. I hit her with a silence spell and then getting in close I subdued her small and agile form. She didn’t have much fight in her and appeared to have some kind of collar around her neck. I slumped her over my shoulder and ran for the exit point. I called into each room as I passed, “If you want to be free, follow me.”
I didn’t look back and ran for the elevator shaft. She kicked and clawed at me the whole way. I had no time for it. We had to escape and we could sort out all the other stuff later.
Reaching the elevator, I lowered her down the rope first. She was catatonic now, her anger had run its course, and she followed instructions without pause. Raúl was waiting at the bottom and helped her unharness. I was about to go down too when I heard the elevator above begin to descend. Looking back, I saw the stream of Scalar behind me.
Watching me fearfully. I sighed and beckoned them to come, lowering as many as I could before the elevator reached us. The slow clang, clang, clang as it descended was like a drum roll, hastening our movements as it drew nearer and when it reached the floor above it stopped. That was new.
A sudden and severe wave of nausea swept over me. The psychic assault seemed to have quadrupled in severity. Without knowing how I knew, I just knew that the elevator had just picked up a Reaper Officer, and the drum roll began anew, the elevator starting its descent.
I motioned for them all to go, go, go… but knew in my heart that there wasn’t enough time. Even with four arms and amazing strength, this batch of washed out Scalar peasants would not get out in time. Clang, clang clang, the elevator began to slow, dropping inexorably downwards. I had a chance, a small chance, a bare moment to jump before it arrived, but I would leave these poor people to die, to be carved up, to be fodder for these Reapers. That wasn’t who I was or what I represented. I just couldn’t do it. I signaled urgently to Raúl’s upturned face as he looked up the elevator shaft. He was helping an elderly Scalar prisoner down the last few meters of the shaft.
“Exit with the main target now! I will catch up if I can.” I used hand signals so as not to betray my presence. Raúl’s urgent gestures for me to come down now fell on deaf ears. I signaled “Go!” and stepped back as the main carriage of the descending elevator reached my level. I saw panic and resignation in his eyes and then, still looking up, his eye contact smoldering with fierce pride, he saluted me and I heard his final whisper “HHF”. It was the last time I heard or saw Raúl for a very long time.
I turned and said one word in the Scalar language as urgently and loudly as I dared. “RUN!”
The ten odd Scalar that were left, looked at me for a second then as one, they turned and ran back towards their cells, some wailing, some in silent disappointment. I wasn’t far behind and soon caught up. I engaged my invisibility spell and made straight for the curving corridor, assisting those stragglers who themselves were caught in two minds. The elevator behind had come to a stop, and I needed to get to cover before all hell broke loose. I could hear the door clicking open and I was just around the corner, away from direct view when I felt the air warp behind me and a dark bolt of magical energy splattered against the rearmost scalar. His body seemed to melt then disintegrate into a sickening cloud of vapor and particles, which unceremoniously cascaded to the floor. His sharp cry and twisted expression gave me a sign of the pain he must have felt as every molecule in his body separated.
I turned into the next doorway, not wanting the same fate to befall me. Whoever had cast that dark magic had skills. It was an empty room, and didn’t even have furniture I could hide behind. Why had I chosen this room? I admonished myself. It was too late now. I was committed.
Trapped, confused. The headache screaming and my heart beating like a runaway train. Whoever had fired that shadow blast was extremely powerful, and I had no other choice but to stand and fight. Hopefully, whatever the creature was, I would surprise it. Surprise was my only serious weapon in what I knew would be a very unequal fight.
The running and screaming prisoners had receded into the distance down the passage, and I heard the new threat almost immediately. A torrent of five or six zombie Reapers rushed past the doorway. Like a pack of dogs unleashed on their prey, they howled and drooled as they closed in for the kill. Intent on catching those poor wretches running ahead of them. I wanted to help, I wanted to fight something face-to-face, something tangible. I needed to feel my blade slice and dice the enemy but my inner voice told me to stay and
await my chance. The only way to win this was to cut the head off the snake. I had to be patient.
It was then that I heard the voice. The psychic assault was very intense now. The words that had been muffled before now began to make sense. I began to understand.
“Give up, you have nowhere to run, inevitable, you fall into my hands. Preordained. You are here, I can sense you. Drop your defenses or I will make the others suffer. I know you are here, you were sent to me, I will shape you. Give up.” and so it went on. The language was English, the sentiment supremely confident and the pressure on my mind unbearable. I felt lost, hopeless, helpless. If ever there was a time to pray, this was it.
Even Spec Ops get scared. Our main talent is channeling the fear into something useful, something proactive. The problem was, I had nothing. It was hopeless.
The voice jerked me out of my self-flagellation“I know you Petros Arkansas, I will save you. Let go, come out and let me see you.” The insidious voice almost got through when it mentioned my name. Inwardly I shored up my defense. Names had power. Fortunately, I had not used my real name for more than twenty years. That name was buried and almost forgotten in my role of assuming my new identity. I had embraced my new life, but I had never disclosed nor divulged my true name to anyone. These thoughts and many more kept me sufficiently distracted from the assault on my mind, until I heard the screams, as the Zombies tore into the helpless Scalar prisoners. I realized that most of those who were now bitten would themselves become Zombies, and despite that, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the surprise I would bring to the Reaper Officer. Then their sacrifice would not be in vain. If I ended him, then the undead could go back to being properly dead.
