Night_stalker wrote:Maybe It's a sign that the cause of the Chaos on the DROP is a disease, and the itching is a symptom...
"The" cause?
So far I count "Mist dementia" "Bioagents in the air" "bio-engineered killer things from an ancient war" "Insane AI constructed bioforms" and possibly even spaceships, sociopaths building traps, cannibals societies and probably bed bugs.
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
Night_stalker wrote:Well, seeing how it's been trapped on a station for CENTURIES with very little interaction with the outside world, who says the disease can't mutate?
You can say the same thing about the bed bugs.
So I stare wistfully at the Lightning for a couple of minutes. Two missiles, sharply raked razor-thin wings, a huge, pregnant belly full of fuel, and the two screamingly powerful engines that once rammed it from a cold start to a thousand miles per hour in under a minute. Life would be so much easier if our adverseries could be dealt with by supersonic death on wings - but alas, Human resources aren't so easily defeated.
Night_stalker wrote:Well, seeing how it's been trapped on a station for CENTURIES with very little interaction with the outside world, who says the disease can't mutate?
You can say the same thing about the bed bugs.
Bedbugs are vampiric at the best of times... think of what they've been biting! Gods above and below, can you IMAGINE what happens when you've got bed bugs that 'Are what they Eat'?
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Night_stalker wrote:Well, seeing how it's been trapped on a station for CENTURIES with very little interaction with the outside world, who says the disease can't mutate?
You can say the same thing about the bed bugs.
Bedbugs are vampiric at the best of times... think of what they've been biting! Gods above and below, can you IMAGINE what happens when you've got bed bugs that 'Are what they Eat'?
Night stalker wrote:You sure you haven't read any H.P. Lovecraft? Because I'm seeing parallel lines between this and some of his short stories, and I got to say, I'm worried.
Quite sure. The closest I've come is seeing a few scans from an issue of Planetary where he had a cameo.
The mighty tom wrote:So far I count "Mist dementia" "Bioagents in the air" "bio-engineered killer things from an ancient war" "Insane AI constructed bioforms" and possibly even spaceships, sociopaths building traps, cannibals societies and probably bed bugs.
Some of these are good guesses. Some.
Night stalker wrote:Well, seeing how it's been trapped on a station for CENTURIES with very little interaction with the outside world, who says the disease can't mutate?
It takes pieces. And puts them back together.
Lady Tevar wrote:Bedbugs are vampiric at the best of times... think of what they've been biting! Gods above and below, can you IMAGINE what happens when you've got bed bugs that 'Are what they Eat'?
Now you're cooking with gasoline.
Swindle1984 wrote:I'm gonna need a bigger can of Raid.
I recommend something in the 'liquid fire' category...
In this chapter, Calvin's story continues. He makes a new friend whilst keeping the old.
Coming up, Shannon and Abigail are given their mission briefing: lessons in necromancy to follow.
Chapter 34:
He wasn’t alone.
Really, that was obvious – he could hear them moving through the entire complex: feet thumping in the vents, sploshing against the flesh-moss. The wet, heavy sounds of their breathing. Calls and cries in the distance, movement on the tiers below him. That wasn’t it, though. Calvin would have liked to that say it was some finely-honed mercenary instinct that tipped him off. Or that he’d parsed some substance from the disorienting backscatter and confusing mishmash of sensor information that the station’s bulk and the infested atmosphere processor had made of his scans. Sadly, neither was the case.
Instead, he turned a corner and there she was.
Crouched on her haunches atop a pile of overgrown crates, the young woman was half-turned away from him. Her shirt and pants were filthy, both on the verge of disintegrating right off her body. Her hair hung down her back in stringy, matted clumps. It was possible that she was blonde. Her bare arms and legs were smudged with grime, and though she was of slight build, there was no mistaking the well-defined musculature of her limbs. He couldn’t see her hands; she was holding them away from him, against her chest.
She wore no shoes: her feet were dug into the flesh-moss. Smacking and crunching noises came from her mouth as she gnawed on something. At his approach, she froze for an instant, cocking her head and looking towards him, blood and drool running down her chin as she slurped back one of the ‘plant’ stalks, crimson fluid squishing from its stem. Her face was angular; unmarred by grime, her features would have been almost aristocratic. Her skin was patchy; darker in some places, paler in others.
The trooper raised his weapon warningly, but didn’t fire. She hadn’t moved on him.
Yet, a voice whispered in the back of his brain. Yet.
The stalk crunched in her teeth as the last of it disappeared into her mouth and curious eyes – the irises were green, but the sclera were a discoloured red – stared back at Calvin, though she remained on her perch. A tongue – long, but not beyond the scope of purely human oddities – lapped over her lips, cleaning up the blood that had spilled down her chin. After a moment, she spoke. “Are you alive?”
“Yeah,” Meyers managed to answer. “I’m alive.”
The noise she made next was almost indescribable, a breathy exhalation – was it a hiss? a growl? a purr? – of... what? What was the emotion that made her eyelids flutter, a slow ripple moving up her spine? “Alive,” she repeated. “Alive.” She cocked her head at him. “I want you,” she murmured. “It’s not what you think. I want to touch. To whisper, my mouth on you. It’s been so long since I saw someone else. I’ve been alone for so long, for ten days.” Her eyes half-closed and she let out a trembling breath as she undulated. “I need you. I need to touch you. I’m so alone. Please,” she mewed, stretching the syllables out into a lyrical invitation. “Will you have me?”
Calvin didn’t move, though his left foot lifted, inching back a few centimeters. “I’d really rather not.”
“Red rover, red rover,” the woman singsonged, reaching an arm out towards him. “Why won’t you come over?”
The mercenary’s eyes widened as he pulled back a full step. Her hands! What the fuck? What the fuck is she? “Get away from me,” he growled, raising his assault cannon again.
She drew her arm back. “You’ll join us. Everyone does in the end. Red rover, red rover, they always come over.” She smiled, a mouthful of pink-strained teeth glinting back at him. “And I won’t be alone.” She slid to the deck, watching him hungrily, searching for any opening, any side of weakness. But Calvin held his ground, the barrel of his gun following each of her slight movements.
In his armour, he was all but invulnerable and the woman soon realized this. “When the blazing sun is gone,” she sang, backing down the gantry, finding her way into the shadows of an open doorway. “When the nothing shines upon... when you’ve no door to knock on... then the traveler in the dark will thank you for your little spark.” Before she disappeared into the darkness entirely, she pointed one finger at him. “Red rover, red rover.” No. No, she wasn’t pointing at him.
He was already moving, the brief whirr of Jane’s assault cannon spinning up sending an additional spike of panic-fuelled adrenalin stabbing through his body. The trooper dove into a jammed door’s archway a split-second before a burst of armour-piercing shells tore through the air. Calvin gritted his teeth, cursing himself for getting distracted. The sounds filling the atmospheric processor had hidden Godfrey’s approach just as the plethora of signals and blockage from the station itself had done the same. If he’d been paying attention, he might have picked up some clue, though.
Maybe.
She’d made up ground on him. Too damn fast.
“Calvin,” Jane called to him. “Over here. It’s time.”
“Don’t you have something else you could be doing?” Calvin shouted back.
“No.” In the vids, this was where the villain would punctuate their speech with another spray of fire, but the Ghost was – unfortunately – not nearly bugged enough waste ammunition like that. The troopers’ bullets would punch through thinner walls, but the bulkheads surrounding the processor were thick and heavy. The mercenaries’ anti-armour rounds might not go through. Then again, they might.
In any event, Jane didn’t seem willing to spend the ammo to see if she could pick Calvin off through the corner. He could hear her coming, squishing and crunching the flesh-moss under her heavy treads as she moved along the gantry towards his position. “What is this?” he demanded, trying to get her talking. “All this shit on the walls, growing everywhere.”
Her answer was succinct, if not terribly informative. “The spread.”
“Well, it’s an apt name,” he replied. This was no good; he was pinned in here like a rat. After that first barrage, Godfrey was holding her fire, waiting until she had a clear shot at him. He could try cutting through the doors, but it would certainly take several moments and require him to turn his back on Godfrey. Not the best plan.
Her footsteps were getting closer... but to fire on him, she’d have to expose herself as well, and at this range – barely a handful of meters, neither trooper’s armour would offer any protection from their weapons. He (or she) who fired first survived... and Godfrey was too damned fast for Calvin’s liking. He’d need to be faster.
Calvin raised his own weapon, waiting for the first glimpse of the Ghost’s pale armour. Come on... If he could startle her – he didn’t even need a hit, just get her off-balance for a half-second...
The footsteps grew closer.
Sweat beads curled down Calvin’s face and his gauntleted finger tapped against the cyclic cannon’s trigger. He felt the familiar rush of combat drugs entering his system, making his entire body sing. Everything seemed brighter, slower, more intense. Come on...
The footsteps stopped.
What?
shkkt-kzzz
Meyers’s eyes widened and he darted his head back, an instant too slow as the blinding glare of a disruptor cut across his vision as Jane slashed around the corner. The blade scored through his faceplate, burning across the bridge of his nose and searing his skin. If he’d been any slower, the blow would have sheared through the top of his head. Calvin swore and brought out his own disruptor as Godfrey swung around after him, over seven feet and seven hundred pounds of bulky armour moving like a dancer. It was only sheer luck that Calvin managed to deflect the next blow, another decapitating strike.
Jane let out a hissed exhalation as their blades sparked and shrieked against one another, impossible energies crackling and arcing. Her gun came around, the barrel pointing towards his gut...
Calvin pushed her cannon out of the way with his own, both troopers’ weapons now fully entangled with one another’s. “Why!” he hollered, the light of their disruptors gleaming painfully through his shut eyelids. “Goddamnit, Jane, we’re friends!” he didn’t know what else to say. The old plea was the only thing that came to mind. “Don’t do this! For God’s sake! You don’t have to do this!”
“No!” the woman shouted back. “No God, know fear! I won’t let it happen again!”
Somehow, he managed to push her off, staggering the Ghost back a few steps. She half-crouched, an armour-clad ogre eyeing the wretch that had defied it. “I won’t let it happen again,” she repeated. Calmer, lower in pitch. More in control of herself – more dangerous. “You didn’t see it. Men and women – friends – that you have to kill over and over. The ones that beg... you put it out of your mind. Animals to put down, infected livestock to burn. The ones that rage and froth, clawing at you until their fingers bleed, breaking their teeth on your armour... those are the hardest. You’d think it wouldn’t be. You’d think because they’re F2, you can find the distance your need.” Her voice was haunted, sick and shook with self-loathing. “You can’t.”
“They’re empty shells that remember all the right words, gibbering and screaming. What you kill isn’t a friend. It used to be. You want to see that one last time to know that something of the person you knew is still alive. But you hate yourself because it means you wouldn’t be killing an animal. You’re destroying any hope they have of coming back. What you kill... it was someone you knew, someone who was eaten alive by this place and left a husk of themselves. And over and over and over and over... kill. Burn. Tear. Cut. No friends.”
He blinked against the acrid smoke and foul odour wafting in through his torn helmet. His skin had already blistered, pus was starting to run down his face. “What happened to you?” he asked, almost plaintively.
“Veers brought it aboard,” Jane replied, both troopers starting to circle each other, blades drawn, fingers tight on their weapons. “He didn’t know. We didn’t know. Once we did, it was too late. Spreading. Eating and killing and fucking and bleeding. G Squad survived. Luck. Shelby trapped us, gave us a mission.” The woman raised her blade. “No one gets out. Contain the infection.” A beat. “You shouldn’t have come here, Calvin.”
Movement.
Blades clashed briefly before the combatants fell back, like duelists adhering to a code of honour and not soldiers probing for a weakness in their foe.
There was movement all around him, but Meyers couldn’t take his eyes off Godfrey. One instant would be all it would take. “I figured that out for myself, thanks.”
There was a slight twitch of the mad trooper’s helmet. “Not here, Calvin.” A low, unpleasant chuckle. “Well, that too. But you shouldn’t have come here. There are places, Calvin. Warm and wet, where there’s plenty of food. Places that biomass accumulates. The spread comes first, then the rest. Infecting, eating, building up. Then sometimes – sometimes, Calvin! – you get a Leviathan. Sounds in the deep, breathing. Branching out through vents and crawlspaces.”
A chill went up Meyer’s spine as he listened to the deep, rhythmic breathing coming from below. Or not so rhythmic... the pattern had changed. “You’re feeling talkative.”
Her pauldrons moved in a diluted shrug. “No one else around. The other Ghosts... they’ll follow their mission too, but they’re weakening. Can’t be trusted.”
A chill ran up Calvin’s spine – he’d forgotten all about the surviving Ghosts. If they had made it to the station... they were hunting his people, too.
Jane must have seen it in his eyes. “Can’t help them,” she whispered. “Not yours or mine. The eyes have opened.” Her head tilted; there was a slight change in the way she stood-
-disruptors sparked and screamed and again, Calvin was lucky to simply defend himself from the Ghost’s attack. He couldn’t stay on the defensive forever, sooner or later, she’d break through his guard...
“The eyes,” he said, trying to buy time, backing down the hall to where he’d come in. “Whose eyes?”
“They begged, did you know?” Jane’s voice went flat, almost lifeless as she stalked after him, surefooted and fluid. “The ones we left outside. Dozens of them, sealed outside Primal’s walls. “They pleaded and screamed, scratching at the doors until their fingers bled. Always scratching. You can hear it even when no one’s there.
“Some went silent as the Turned fed, dragging new flesh to the gardens. Others went silent when they came,” a note of horror entered her voice. “You haven’t seen them. You never do, not until it’s too late. A ripple, a glimmer. A flash and then someone else sinks beneath Acheron’s waves. I watched them. How them move, how they talk, how they kill. I heard them sing.”
The shuddering, monstrous breaths from below deepened, changed in pitch. In his peripheral vision, Calvin could see the feeding stalks retract back into their meaty substrate. “You know what happened here,” he continued, fingers tapping against the trigger grip of his assault cannon, keeping his other arm up in a guard. If he tried to raise his gun, she’d be on him. Keep her talking, wait for an opening... “Don’t you?”
“No,” the Ghost replied. “Only what Veers brought back. 47 has secrets deeper than Acheron.” She chuckled dryly at the joke. “I know F2. I know R3. But I don’t know I7. Some people know. They know.”
The gantry sagged under the troopers’ weight, ancient metal complaining as the growths holding it up made wet stretching noises, thinner threads popping and snapping. With both mercenaries upon it, the decrepit walkway was being tasked with supporting three-quarters of a ton of additional mass, and it was no longer capable of supporting them. Calvin took another cautious step back, the familiar crunch and squish of his feet crushing the insects nesting within the quivering growth. She’s going to kill you, the voice in the back of his head whispered. Going to cut you open like a fish on a hook. You can’t get away. You thought you had. But she was always there, always behind you.
There’s only one way out.
“Then tell me,” he kept talking, trying to drone out that voice. “Tell me what you do know.”
A beat. “No.” Her posture changed; very slightly, barely even noticeable.
Oh, shit.
She moved.
Calvin swore as she crashed against him, the force of the woman’s charge staggering him back. Her blade flashed again and again, shrieking when it encountered his own, scoring through his armour in places as she tried to take him apart, almost cutting his gun-arm off at the elbow and then nearly disemboweling him. He slashed back at her, but she swatted his blade aside, coming around with a vicious backhand.
Beneath them, the gantry shook and sagged, more ligaments, welds and bolts popping free.
Jane swung around, going for his legs and Calvin rolled out of the way, coming up just in time to see her leap, the armour’s synthetic ‘muscles’ boosting the trooper into the air, her arm cocked back to deliver a vicious killing blow-
-Calvin threw his arm up, blocking Jane’s disruptor with his own, but the force of her strike numbed his arm-
-the impact was more than the gantry could stand: with a crunch of snapping metal and a scream of tearing alloys it fell out from beneath them-
-emergency grav fields failed to activate and Calvin and Jane were in free-fall, both troopers trying to hold on to the plummeting walkway, crashing awkwardly to the mezzanine below them-
-it shattered under the impact, deforming into a broken ‘V’ and sending the broken gantry into the depths, both troops scrabbling again for purchase at the sides as they too slid into oblivion, both failing and crashing down onto the next level-
-Jane hit the side of the walkway and before she could right herself, tumbled off it, following the broken section down into the darkness; Calvin clawed for a grip, but this gantry bowed and buckled in turn and his hands slipped, coming up with fistfuls of torn flesh-moss, but nothing else-
-and he was falling, arms and legs flailing as fear took over-
-he landed face-down on something soft and smelling of diseased flesh and chemicals-
-Calvin pushed himself back to his feet, already moving, aware that Jane would be about ready to gut him where he stood, but the killing blow never came.
He saw her; she was back on her feet, a grey patch in the darkness around him, lit by the actinic blue of her disruptor and whatever thin illumination the flickering lights on the ceiling far above provided. With his visor destroyed, Meyers had no blacklight vision; he snapped on his lume, catching the Ghost in a cone of light. She was frozen, a stillness he’d only seen when the strange ship had been above them. “Oh no,” he heard he whisper and he was torn between a sudden, fearful urge to know what she saw and the more pragmatic instinct of gunning her down and worrying about that later.
Then he saw it too.
Not just it. Them. Dozens of fleshy, bulbous pods like cocoons formed from skin. Maybe hundreds, they covered the walls, hung from bottoms of the lower walkways. Each was large enough to hold something man-sized, were it to curl up. The sound of breathing was all around him, massive pulsing breaths that drew cool air into the chamber, over the twitching pods...
...twitching.
“Oh no,” Calvin repeated Godfrey’s understatement. Whatever these things were... whatever was inside them... they was waking up. Not merely one or two, or a handful or a dozen. No. All of them. The troopers’ fall hadn’t gone unnoticed. Whatever had lain here was dormant no longer.
Up above, Calvin could hear the frantic beating of more leathery wings, agitated cries from the once-human things in the vents and, he thought, a distant voice saying ‘red rover, red rover’-
-a sharpened scythe-like blade jutted out through the skin of one of the pods, cutting it open from the inside, reeking fluid spilling onto the fleshy substrate below it. Something with red eyes, a too-wide mouth with too many teeth leered and gabbled wetly at Calvin as it pulled itself out of its cocoon.
He squeezed his cannon’s trigger and blew it and its chrysalis into a shivering collection of meat.
“No!” Jane shouted, spinning to face Calvin-
-and something awoke.
Leviathan.
It roared in a vast exhalation of breath that sent geysers of stinking air hurtling back up the chamber. Where was it? The sound was coming from all around them. There was motion-
-corded and bulging like a muscular vine, a massive tentacle slithered up from the floor, its pointed head swinging back and forth as glistening sense organs zeroed in on the source of the disturbance. Others, just as long and powerful wound along the walls like fat, writhing worms, tightening a net around the intruders who had so helpfully delivered themselves into its maw.
The tendril before Calvin peeled open like a four-petaled flower. Each lip of its fleshy mouth lined with bony hooks, half a dozen sinewy, grasping tongues slithering out from its esophagus. It shivered, trembling in hunger. Perhaps anger. Not that it mattered right at this moment.
All around them, more pods stirred to life as their occupants tore their way free, the disfigured remains of men, women and children pulling themselves to their feet, mindless hunger in their eyes as they moved towards the intruders, blades and claws and tentacles glistening wetly...
Calvin cast a quick look over at Jane. The screams and cries from above were getting louder. Closer. “Friends?” he asked.
Her helmet tilted towards him, a brief nod before the Ghost turned her attention back to the advancing wall of tormented flesh. “Friends.”
“Good to have you on the team, Godfrey,” Calvin said, finding himself smiling as he picked out his first target amongst the horde, a bulky monstrosity with four arms, each ending in three clawed fingers. “Let’s do this.”
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
Awesomesauce
So I stare wistfully at the Lightning for a couple of minutes. Two missiles, sharply raked razor-thin wings, a huge, pregnant belly full of fuel, and the two screamingly powerful engines that once rammed it from a cold start to a thousand miles per hour in under a minute. Life would be so much easier if our adverseries could be dealt with by supersonic death on wings - but alas, Human resources aren't so easily defeated.
Which is why, if you were in the mercenary company, your nickname would be Bullet Sponge.
So I stare wistfully at the Lightning for a couple of minutes. Two missiles, sharply raked razor-thin wings, a huge, pregnant belly full of fuel, and the two screamingly powerful engines that once rammed it from a cold start to a thousand miles per hour in under a minute. Life would be so much easier if our adverseries could be dealt with by supersonic death on wings - but alas, Human resources aren't so easily defeated.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
I probably would have killed myself long before this. Most likely the second I noticed that there was no escape. With all the ships that docked here over the centuries and the fact the place is still hidden, I would have put 2 and 2 together and put a bullet in my skull.
LadyTevar wrote:By all the gods, what on earth IS IT?
Mutated bed bugs
So I stare wistfully at the Lightning for a couple of minutes. Two missiles, sharply raked razor-thin wings, a huge, pregnant belly full of fuel, and the two screamingly powerful engines that once rammed it from a cold start to a thousand miles per hour in under a minute. Life would be so much easier if our adverseries could be dealt with by supersonic death on wings - but alas, Human resources aren't so easily defeated.
Darth Nostril wrote:Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
Awesomesauce
Take it and take it and take it and take it and take it all
Take it and take it and take it until you take us all
Smash it and crash it and thrash it and trash it
You know they're only toys
Try it you'll like it don't hide it don't fight it, just let it out
Steal and shoot it and kill it or take another route
Take it and take it and take it
You know they're only toys
Devour Devour
Suffocate your own empire
Devour Devour
It's your final hour
Devour Devour
Stolen like a foreign soul
Devour Devour
What a way to go
The Vortex Empire wrote:They can't possibly kill all of them. Not even with power armor. And even if they do, they'll be right back to trying to disembowel each other.
You have a remarkably astute grasp of the situation...
Lady Tevar wrote:By all the gods, what on earth IS IT?
A Leviathan. And a nesting area. Both are just little, though.
...well, relatively.
Midnight77 wrote:I probably would have killed myself long before this. Most likely the second I noticed that there was no escape. With all the ships that docked here over the centuries and the fact the place is still hidden, I would have put 2 and 2 together and put a bullet in my skull.
Aw, at least give it a couple days before you decide to go that route.
xt828 wrote:Good chapter, nice pacing. I'm still entertained by you not spelling out details like what exactly was wrong with missy's hands.
Thanks. And yeah, I decided to leave those as an unknown for the moment. We might not see 'missy' again, though it occurs to me there was another individual who seemed fond of rhymes and songs...
Ah well, who can say?
Night stalker wrote:I REALLY DON"T want to know. Knowing the author, it's probably something taken out of Lovecraft's nightmares.
No Lovecraft! Come back, one year! No soup for you!
In this chapter: secrets and lies. Shannon accepts the Watcher's terms - but not for his sake.
Coming up: An unfortunate series of events: Primal's fall.
Chapter 35:
“What do you mean, ‘bring her back’?”
The Watcher coughed wetly; he didn’t seem to have heard Shannon’s question. “Some days I think she was an archaeologist. Some days, she was a historian. Another day, she was a gambler down on her luck. One time, we were hired for a corporate expedition, paying a king’s ransom for the location. Another moment, and it was a survey mission and we came here by accident. Or maybe we were running from people she owed money to and played a hunch... the story is always different, but I know I loved her. I know I failed her... that never changes.”
He was still staring at the screen; the image had changed to a grainy black and white feed from one of the replacement cams. On it, the woman was staggering along some unknown hallway, one arm clutched against her chest, the other bracing herself on the wall as she all but dragged her right foot behind her. Her gait was wobbly and every few steps she paused, gasping for breath. She was only barely keeping herself on her feet. Her clothes were dark with bloodstains. “I failed her,” the Watcher repeated.
She fell, slumping to the ground, her eyes drifting over to the camera, staring up at it. Her lips moved soundlessly. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
“No,” the old man whimpered, unable to pull his eyes away from his beloved’s final moments. “No, don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. It’s mine. I failed you,” his voice cracked, his entire body shaking as decades of maddened grief took played out.
The woman’s chest rose and fell in short, desperate gasps, each one taking a little more effort. Her forehead was covered with sweat – she was feverish. Her body’s last, desperate attempt to burn out whatever infection was killing her. Burst capillaries leaked into her tear ducts and bloody tears dripped from her reddening eyes. Her head lolled to one side and her lips were still moving; she was talking to someone only she could see, forcing out rushed words in between each gasping breath. Apologizing, over and over. Begging to be forgiven. Telling her unseen companion that she loved him, to look out for himself. She tried to reach out to him, but she no longer had the strength to do so.
Her breathing grew weaker and her lips only quavered now – Shannon couldn’t read them any longer. There was no longer a difference between the woman’s pitiful gasps and whatever final secrets she was trying to divulge. Her chest pulsed once every few seconds. Then once every moment. Finally, not at all. Whatever air she had in her lungs rattled out as she sagged against the wall, her head rolling to one side, open eyes staring down at the deck.
The Watcher had turned away from the screen, shaking with anguish. “I failed,” was all he said.
Shannon put her hand on his shoulder, though her eyes never left the screen, waiting for what would – what had to – come next. It didn’t take long. But then, it hadn’t in the hangar.
The woman’s body began to twitch, her fingers and toes, arms and legs spasming uncontrollably as she flopped about, hands slapping at the deck as she awkwardly pushed herself back up to her feet, her mouth gaping open. She wavered on her feet, like a passenger aboard a rocking ocean liner. Beneath her skin, something was moving. Her jaw snapped shut, head twisting and turning as she looked about, searching for any potential threat or prey. Finding none, she ambled away into the darkness, another victim of DROP 47, restored to life in a sick mockery of both form and function.
Death wasn’t the end. Not in Acheron. It takes pieces. And puts them back together.
“What does she look like now?” Shannon asked. Don’t think about it. Not a person. A thing. A husk. No more hopes, no more dreams. Nothing. Remember that.
There was a long pause as the Watcher seemed to steel himself. “Here,” he whispered, adjusting the display, calling up a new file. “Two weeks after.”
She was still recognizable as a woman, identifiable as the person she had once been. That was all you could say. Still dressed in the tatters of her clothes, the new Turned limped down the corridor; the right side of her body had mutated faster than the right. She was favouring her right side before. That must have been where she was... what? Bitten? Stung? The woman’s left side had started to alter, but not to the same extent as her right. I wish I knew what that meant. Does it mean the infection takes time to re-work a host’s tissues? Or is it just this one host? If there something about her biology that slowed it? Would it increase with more frequent feeding? Too many questions and not enough answers.
Shannon frowned, casting a worried glance at Abigail’s bandages. When she got an oppurtunity, she’d have to thoroughly check over both Hutchins and Hernandez. The Masks’ sentries had cleared them, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Questions, but no answers.
Turning back to the screen, Shannon looked over the changes that the infection had wrought to the Watcher’s lover. She couldn’t see much, since the woman’s clothes were – more or less – still intact. Her hair had all but fallen out on the right side of her head, the skin had split in places and was sagging in others. Her right arm... the palm had split open and a carpal bone – the capitate or lunate – had speared through, extending out into a wicked spike. Her right leg was bulkier than her left, explaining her limp and the seams of her pant legs had burst where grotesque muscles and chitinous plates had strained the fabric to breaking. Her chest was bulging and asymmetrical where her natural curves were supplanted by grotesque growths.
Her shoulders were hunched and her head hung forward like a vulture. Her lower jaw had split in two, each half distended and hanging agape, covered in teeth and curved, fang-like protrusions of bone.
Shannon suppressed a shudder. Whatever this recombinator was, it was as aggressive an infection as she’d ever seen. It didn’t just use pre-existing organs and tissues; it actively and extensively modified its hosts’ structure, incorporating traits from other organisms in the process. It couldn’t be natural. No, it was something that had been engineered in one of the labs here on the station. Another twisted Imperial weapon. It had to be. There was no way something this complex could have occurred in nature, no one else who would have created something this monstrous.
She hoped.
As the once-human thing moved, Shannon could see the glint of metal around its neck – some kind of pendant.
“A year after,” the Watcher said, switching the view again.
The infection had completely taken over. The carpal bone was longer now, a triangular blade that would open wounds and prevent them from closing. It wasn’t that much bigger, but it could still make a passable dagger, particularly since it seemed to be that darkened, reinforced bone that cropped up in many of the hunter-type mutations. It wasn’t a smooth blade either – there were barbs and serrations in the bone’s three edges.
Its... her... left hand was similar, though this deformed bone was a little longer, a little thinner. More like the scythes of other hunter forms, but not as large – and, it too, was serrated along the single cutting edge. Long, clutching fingers lay at rest against the carpal blades, fingernails extended into short, hooked talons.
Her teeth had extended, growing to half the length of Shannon’s index finger, her paired lower jaws powerfully muscled, spiny extensions of bone sliding into sockets on the opposing jaw so that the once-human thing’s mouth fit together, almost appearing normal. If you ignored the telltale seam in the skin... and everything else about this awful thing that had once been a woman.
Short, thick blades had grown out of her elbows and her feet had splayed out – the toes were more suitable for providing traction, or gripping substrate as the Turned pulled itself through cramped maintenance tunnels and air ducts.
Legs were powerful; like canines or humanity’s own ancestors, this wasn’t a stalk-and-leap predator. If it could do so, it would – but it was an endurance hunter, something that would follow its prey until they tired, until they could no longer run. Then it would be upon them, driving its carpal blades into the prey’s flesh, savaging their insides with those ugly serrated bones, holding on with its powerful hooked hands, while the Turned’s teeth ripped and tore.
“Bring her back,” the Watcher implored, his voice shaking. “Bring her back to me.”
~
Something screamed in an awful, gargling cry as it flung itself at him. Calvin didn’t even register the full extent of the horror before he turned and fired, spraying his attacker into gobbets of meat that splashed against his armour. There was no time to enjoy the victory; another of those things was there.
And another. Another.
Out of the corner of his broken visor, he could see Godfrey. The woman was a red and grey blur, a shifting form caught in the yellow flickers of nonstop muzzle flashes and the shifting gleam of her disruptor. Unceasing snarls and cracks filled the air as her cannon’s barrel cycled, almost drowning out the shrill of her blade as it cut through flesh and bone, cauterized limbs dropping uselessly to ground.
All around them, the Leviathan roared. Its tentacles pounded the ground in fury, whipping back and forth as they sought a breach in the melee to try and seize one of the troopers.
Something else grabbed Calvin’s gun arm, hauling itself up to his face, a mouth full of gnashing teeth looming before him. He swung his disruptor and removed its head from its shoulders. The monster fell, releasing his limb as it beat out a frantic, blind tattoo. There was another to take its place, an endless swarming tide of twisted flesh and gibbering faces that even the trooper’s firepower couldn’t keep back forever. His armour was scarred, furrowed by metal-hard talons driven by inhuman strength. He swung his elbow around, caving in the face of something clawing at his back. This wasn’t working. There were too many, coming from too many angles.
A stairwell leading up from this hellish pit was tantalizing close, but it was warded by a pair of the Leviathan’s massive appendages, and more of the things were pouring through it.
“Fall back!” he heard someone shouting, but didn’t know if it was him, or Jane. “Fall back to the processor – we need a chokepoint!”
Calvin was already moving. He didn’t need to look back to know Jane was behind him: he could feel the woman’s presence, feel the familiar pressure behind his eyes. And even surrounded by a legion of monsters, some small part of his mind was still whispering that he needed to kill her.
~
Both women stared at the man in shock. Abigail found her voice first. “You... you want that thing back?”
The Watcher stared up in confusion for a moment, then made a noise between a chuckle and a sob. “No. No,” he shook his head. “Not what I meant. Apologies, moth. Apologies. Sometimes the words... they don’t always come out how they should. No, I don’t want what she became. I want what she was.” He tapped one skeletal finger against the screen. “What she was.”
Tattered bits of cloth still clung to the Turned’s body, where time and damage hadn’t be able to fully remove them. And around her neck, slowly being subsumed by her ruined flesh, was the necklace Shannon had seen before. She nodded in understanding. “You have an army,” she said. “Why couldn’t you send them?”
The Watcher’s lips twitched in a grateful smile, glad to have something else to discuss. “Not that easy,” he replied. “I don’t have that many. My lads aren’t actively hunted – no smell to track, no meat on their bones. But the sound draws them, movement alerts them. Infectors don’t bother, hunters are hit or miss. But guardians... the praetorians and soldiers... they notice. To send an army might even draw other attentions. To be successful, I’d have to sacrifice too many of my lads. I want her back. I do. But I can’t... not at the expense of the children. They need to be protected. I promised her that. Besides,” he hobbled back to his chair, catching his breath. “It’s not that easy.”
Shannon looked over at him. “Show me.”
Fingers tapped and clicked against keys, calling up a station schematic. It was a more complete version of the map Shannon had downloaded from the medical facility – camera locations were marked, sites of traps, preferred travel routes for the feral humans and the Turned. Sections where life support and environmental controls had failed were greyed out; the ferals’ colony was a brown splotch. The crew quarters with their flytrap were a ghostly red, as were several other sites in the North Arm. The young woman could only imagine what horrors lurked in those parts of the station.
Naturally, the map scrolled up to one of those sites; North Hydroponics. Deep in North Arm, closer to the station’s core than their own location. It was next to the atmospheric processor – not surprising, since the hydroponics sections weren’t just for providing food to the station’s inhabitants – their plants helped oxygenate the DROP’s atmosphere, taking a sizable burden off the mechanical air scrubbers and filtration systems. In effect, the hydroponics were 47’s lungs whilst the processors took the place of its heart, drawing stale, carbon dioxide-rich air through the verdant hydroponics and then back out into the station.
High-security areas and laboratories would, of course, have separate and wholly artificial life support systems both for safety (should an area need to be locked down and sealed off from the rest of the station) and to prevent contamination of the personnel and experiments both inside and out. A case in point was the Watcher’s own domain.
He was still talking, but Shannon wasn’t listening. Not completely; the lion’s share of her attention was focused on the map, etching each detail into her memory, comparing it to her own information. There are areas too badly damaged to access... her host’s earlier words played over in her mind.
A single bright red icon pulsed within the garden. “There she is,” the Watcher said, catching his guests’ attention. His dry, cracked lips turned upwards. “It’s not just a keepsake. But...”
Shannon saw it. “The entire section’s been sealed off.” Or at least, someone had made the attempt. Depressurized sections formed a barrier between the rest of the arm and the hydroponics section. Unfortunately, whoever had tried to isolate it hadn’t done a particularly thorough job; there were still pressurized sections connecting the atmosphere processing complex to hydroponics. More troublesome, if she was reading the map right, the air vents remained intact. “They didn’t know the Turned moved through the vents,” she concluded. “Or they didn’t have the time or ability to fully lock down the area.”
The Watcher shrugged. When he’d spoken before, his voice had changed. Almost imperceptibly, but it had. The Halo tucked that fact away as her eyes darted over the map. Yes. There. Something was missing from the schematic.
Rather, something had been removed.
“You know what getting that necklace will mean,” the young woman said. She didn’t look at him as an ugly truth crystallized in her stomach. “We’ll have to destroy what’s left of her.”
The Watcher nodded. “I know. It’s better that way. She can rest. She can rest.”
“We’ll have to re-enable the control links to that section if we want in,” Shannon continued, chewing on her lip. Her mind raced as she ran through possibilities. “There’s manual overrides at each closed section, but I don’t know if we want to trust those. The automatics might not be any better but, I guess we’ll have to see-”
“I guess so,” Abigail interrupted. “Corporal – a word?”
Shannon looked up, surprised. “Yes?”
The Darkknell glanced over at their companion. “In private, if you don’t mind.”
The redhaired woman’s brow creased in a frown and she looked over at the Watcher. “We’ll be right back.”
“Take your time.” Before they’d even left, the Watcher turned back to his screens, cursing and tapping at his keyboard.
~
They moved to the far side of the mezzanine and, after a quick look to make sure that there were no surveillance devices observing them, Abigail spoke. “Permission to speak freely.”
Shannon blinked; that formality was unlike the other woman. “Granted.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” The question wasn’t shouted; Abigail didn’t even raise her voice. “You’re actually considering this?”
“Why shouldn’t we?”
“Why? You’re asking why we shouldn’t head into Bug Central for a fucking necklace in order to help the asshole who turned us over to those fucking masked psychopaths? That’s what he did, Shannie. He could have let us through the hallway, then turned up the plating to keep them off us and then played nice. He didn’t. Probably didn’t even consider it. He’s bugged, Four. Just like the rest.”
“I know,” Shannon said quietly. She was careful to keep her back to the Watcher’s workroom. With such patchy systems, she’d be more surprised to find out the Watcher couldn’t read lips than the opposite. “He’s been affected by this place too, Three. He wants something from us. Something he’s not telling us. The way he looked at that map... there was a change in his expression, something different in his eyes. He’s frustrated, not just because he can’t lay his lover to rest.”
Abigail nodded. If the Watcher was faking his anguish over that woman’s death, he was a better actor than she’d ever seen. “So that story’s legit.”
“Yes. I’m sure of it,” Shannon mused. “His physical responses are too...” she tried to pick the right word to encompass all the tics in his speech patterns, the changes in his posture, heart rate and breathing. “...honest.” She didn’t look over her shoulder. “About that, at least.”
The older woman nodded. “Do we need a change of leadership here, then? I’d feel a lot better if we could put you on these systems. Even Lutzberg or Delphini.”
“No. Not yet.”
“Going on a bug hunt is a better option?”
“If we can bring him some peace, isn’t that worth it?” Shannon said, but her fingers signed something else entirely. He’s still watching. Tell you when free. She wanted to tell Abigail what she was thinking, what she was hoping to find. But this wasn’t the place. She couldn’t take the chance that their host would find out.
She didn’t want to be responsible for all these lives. She wanted to just throw up her hands and let Abigail or Louis do it. But they looked at her like everyone else did. They didn’t even know they were doing it, but they did. Hoping for ‘the Halo’ to do something. But she wasn’t like that. She was just one woman. One who was tired, sore and afraid. But I’ll do this. I’ll do it. I will. I have to.
She wanted to laugh; if she was right, she had done something for them. And all it took...
Abigail’s expression didn’t change. She’d always had the better poker face. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
Abigail nodded. “That’s good enough for me, then.”
~
The system obeyed, responding to its true masters’ touch, bringing the passenger car back to its point of origin. It slowed to a halt, the doors creaking open.
-sweat and blood-
Breathing vents opened, allowing an influx of scent-laden air in. Sweat and blood, yes. The adrenaline-fuelled flavours of fury and terror. The harsher aroma of panic-fuelled excretion. The acrid burnt-metal and ozone odours of recently fired weapons.
-they were here-
Sensory systems took in the compartment. Armoured hands and fingers touched the worn seats and stained carpeting where warm bodies had just recently lay. Fresh bloodstains had been pressed into the filthy, threadbare fabric, smeared against plastic and glass from where clothes, armour and skin had touched them. They’d fought, and fought well. One had lain against another here. A frightened one and a killer had sat here.
-slept here. And there. And there-
Terror, sweat and blood – and something else.
-prey-
A decision was made; others would track the remaining New Ones in the cairn’s infested arm. They would hunt the New Ones that had fled into the Watcher’s domain. If there was any trouble, they would summon more. There shouldn’t be, but the scent in the air... Without the scent of Ribbon flesh to overwhelm it, it was clearer. There was something in it... something different.
-open their bellies and spill their glistening entrails to the floor-
Different. Unknown. Threat. It could be nothing. In fact, it probably was. But they would not assume so. Not until they knew. And there was a very simple way to do that.
-stalk and kill-
~
“Have you finished?” the Watcher said without looking up, his attention once more focused on the many feeds the patchwork security grid showed him.
“Yes,” Shannon replied. “We’ll help you. But there’s a price for it. You’ll help us after we do it – and before.”
“Will I,” the man commented. “What is the cost for this help?”
Shannon raised her hand, ticking off points on her fingers. “This mission is going to be dangerous. The people we’re protecting – they won’t be coming with us. You’re going to keep them safe until we come back. If we don’t, you’ll still keep them safe. We’ll also need supplies. Additional ammunition, explosives, food. And three,” the young woman leaned forward, bracing her hands on the computer terminal. “You’re going to show me what happened to Primal.”
The Watcher stared back at her for a moment, then his cracked lips split into a smile. “Daughter of sin,” he rasped. “We have a deal.”
Shannon held out her hand. After a moment, the Watcher took it. She was careful not to squeeze too tightly, even more careful to keep her expression neutral. I know you’ll turn on us, she thought. And when you do, I know how to stop you.
Blade I thought this story was winding down with all the revelations that have been coming (And the rapidly thinning pool of protagonists) but you just introduced at least a final mission.
You really write epic length, great job!
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
It does look like the protagonists are all coming together. ALL of them, including our little mystery hunter.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
The mighty tom wrote:Blade I thought this story was winding down with all the revelations that have been coming (And the rapidly thinning pool of protagonists) but you just introduced at least a final mission.
You really write epic length, great job!
Glad you're enjoying the story so far. But it's not winding down quite yet. There's still a few things left to cover. For starters, the party will eventually find their way into the station's core. And there's a few mysteries that need to be revealed and a few [deleted] that need to happen.
Secrets, lies and betrayals still lie in wait, oh yes...
Lady Tevar wrote:It does look like the protagonists are all coming together.
It'll be a grand ol' time! They'll laugh and cry, swap stories. Play some party games like 'pin the tail on Unity', 'follow the leader screaming down the hall', 'pass the pineapple grenade'.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if most of the rest of DROP 47 was relatively intact and populated by fairly civilized people who were waiting for rescue and got bitterly disappointed every time a ship went to the North arm to dock?
"Why do they always go to the one fucked up part of the station?!"
