A Shrouded World (Book 7): Hvergelmir

by Tufo, Mark

  I was able to push its body up tight to the right and squeeze past; I was immediately met with another whistler body. As I tried to move it, I found this one was in worse shape than its predecessor. Its body seemed to be carved up like those spiraled potatoes you sometimes see at Thanksgiving when the host or hostess is trying to up the fancy factor. Every time I pushed against one part, another would flop down in its place. This was one time I was incredibly happy about the all-encompassing darkness. I did my best to slide past. As a reward for my effort, I had innumerable organs slather up my side, coating me in a plethora of viscera. Another body, another delay. The whistler at the end of the pack was making distance. I was going to lose him.

  I wasn’t big on desecrating the dead no matter who they were, but I was running out of options. I placed my barrel up against the body jam in front and started pulling the trigger. The whistler I was against exploded into parts; it was like I’d stuck an M-80 in a rotten pumpkin. If I were to weigh myself at that exact moment, odds were that I was carrying more whistler than human. After four shots, I stopped. I could hear the high-pitched whistling of one of them in extreme pain. It trailed off, but I couldn’t tell if it was because it was dragging itself further away or it had died. Either way, I was out of the fight. I could not get to it, not without more carcass destroying shots. And if I did chase it, it would hear me coming and set up its own ambush. No, this battle was over. Either it was dead and that was that, or it would get back and get help. But that was hours, if not days away, and I had to hope that whatever Bob had planned wouldn’t take that long.

  I started the process of turning around. I say “started” because I got stuck, and trying to do any more would tighten the wall’s grip upon me. I’d not realized the tunnel had narrowed so much, or maybe it was due to the sheer amount of tissue clogging the area; either way, I was going to need to back out. I wanted to get out of this hellhole as quickly as possible. I was crawling backward, and it was taking interminably long. Figured I was halfway back when I gave the turning around process another go, this time I was successful, and I had the bonus of seeing light. I was up on all fours and making as much time as I could. When I stuck my head out, an anxious Church was looking up at me.

  “Kill?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I think so. One might have got away.”

  “Kill.” He motioned with his hands for me to come out. I don’t care that it had more to do with my translator than Church’s lack of vocabulary; when something like the creature that he was says “kill” to you, it tends to make you nervous.

  “Where’s Bob?” I tossed my weapon down to him, which he deftly caught. It was strange seeing his enormous claw-hands work so dexterously. I’d seen enough monster movies with humans in monster get-up to know it was always the effect of the hands that left you wanting. There was just no way to properly manipulate the over-sized appendages with a regular-sized hand, and they always ended up looking like ham-fists, not able to do much more than bust through windows or break pre-sawed tables.

  Church put the weapon down, then raised his hands for me to follow. Tossing the rifle was one thing, but I didn’t have the room to jump free. The hole had been widened, and that made it easier, but I still had the machine to contend with. I had one hand on the lip of the hole, the other reaching out to touch the back of the machine. Pretty sure it was the slickness of whistler blood, but my front hand slipped, and I pitched headfirst, downward. I didn’t even have enough time to think how much this was going to suck. My hands and feet were looking for something to stop the rapid descent. It was Lieutenant Mayo that saved the day. Debra Winger, eat your heart out. He swung me around to release the momentum before setting me down.

  “Thank you,” I told him when I was firmly on my own two feet. He bent over and handed me my rifle. I was sorry for any doubt I'd harbored about him. There were three distinct times he could have killed me in the last minute alone. He could have shot me with the weapon I’d given him, just let me fall on my head, or crushed me when he had me in his embrace. It wasn’t Jack, but I’d take a stand-in. “Bob?”

  Church started walking toward where I figure the other was. Of course, it was toward the electrical field, I mean, why wouldn’t it be? That was the key, it had to be, but what were we going to do about it? Shutting off a light switch wasn’t going to do the trick. As we got closer, the bolts got more brilliant; the miners above, at least I figured they were above, must have been in full swing, sending small, brilliant pieces of themselves into this macabre set-up. Lightning bolts crackled across the stone ceiling, seemingly in a random pattern before they pooled and traveled like an over flooded stream toward an outlet, in this case, an enormous, chrome-colored stalactite that ended abruptly in a sharp point. This was directed into a floating orb that was bigger than a tandem city bus, if said bus was crushed up and put into a spheroid shape. It was tough to gauge something of that size, as I’d never come across anything like it—well, maybe in a planetarium on a field trip many moons ago, but otherwise, no. What happened to the power once it entered the sphere, I could not even begin to guess. There was no apparent release of the stored energy, not one that I could see. I could, however, see the effect. As the whistler meat-bags traveled toward and then under, they would jolt as if they were, well, I guess, electrocuted. No need for an analogy in this particular instance.

  I was worried they would sit up and begin their march toward cosmic domination, but it seemed the process wasn’t quite complete, as they traveled onward. Who knows, maybe they were placed in barrels and aged like whiskey until they were ready. Bob was standing by the belt, near the ball. His eyes were swiveled up; couldn’t imagine what he could see except himself staring back. Didn’t think it was vanity, but who knows?

  “Milk!” he exclaimed. He must have seen us coming from the reflection. He sounded genuinely happy to see me, perhaps thinking I might not survive the firefight. I knew the deal, sometimes good people were lost in an effort for the broader mission to succeed.

  “Milk,” he repeated, but with a different message.

  “Shoot the orb? Really? Is that safe?”

  “Kill,” Church agreed.

  “I’m no grammar expert, lord knows, but an adverb, an adjective, a few of any of those fancy words from either of you would be great. Shit, I’d take a dangling participle, and I don’t even know what that is.” I put the rifle up to my shoulder.

  A deep grumbling came from Bob, and several hands popped free from his body in what can only be described as a halting gesture.

  “I’m taking it you didn’t mean for me to shoot it now?” I lowered the weapon.

  He pointed higher.

  “The hanging thing? Are you sure? Because, Bob, I don’t ever want to see you sprout a dozen arms again, man. That shit is beyond bizarre.”

  His head did not nod, but his eyes did.

  “Okay, I’m shooting the stalactite. We good?” No hands, I figured I was safe. Even so, I was still scared. It can’t ever be a good idea to introduce foreign bodies into a high-voltage component. The rifle bucked, the strange round came out, punched a neat hole in the side of my intended target. I winced, waiting for the fireworks I was positive were going to ensue.

  “Kill,” Church yelled triumphantly.

  I wasn’t so sure. In terms of climactic events, this rated right up there with a silent fart let go in an empty elevator.

  Bob waited a few moments before moving forward, things were happening, or lack of things. The belts were slowing down, and the ball, which had been some thirty feet in the air, was slowly descending. The party was over. It would seem that I’d cut off the power supply. Still, it looked like a wad of gum and a roll of duct tape would get this operation up and running again in no time. Bob shoved an entire section of conveyor away so that he could stand directly under the ball that was slowly making its way back to the earth.

  “Bob, what the hell are you doing?” Even if the ball was hollow, it had to weigh over a ton, maybe more. The
idea of Bob being compressed into a fruit roll-up was not appealing. I was moving to prevent him from doing just that when Church grabbed my shoulder.

  “Kill," he nodded.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” The ball was now no more than a foot from Bob’s head. As it lowered further, Bob’s head began to concave; whether Bob was forming to fit the ball or the ball was causing the deformation, I couldn’t tell. “Is he going to eat the ball? Is that possible?” No one replied to my queries.

  The ball kept going down, Bob kept compressing, his base getting wider by the second. The only distraction from watching this slow suicide by squishing was the bleating sound of an alarm and the dimming of the lights. It would seem that the whistlers had powered their entire operation upon the backs of their slaves. I don’t think this qualifies as a renewable energy source, not in the traditional manner, anyway. No lights and no clue—that was no way to be in trouble. By now, the giant ball was no more than three feet from the ground, a thin layer of Bob’s body came about halfway up the sphere. The base of him had spread out to accommodate the weight. He vaguely looked like a low-riding car with an enormous passenger compartment. The ball started to roll, and Bob’s body rippled like a bottom-dwelling, sea creature’s gills might. He was moving.

  “Milk.” His voice was strained, the message was not.

  “Run?” Where he went, we followed. He was going faster than he had a right to, under that load, anyway. He was like a freight train, pushing everything out of his path. Belts, bodies, equipment, it all went crashing away. It was all Church, and I could do to not be hit by the chaff as we followed. Bob was taking his ball and going home, and there was nothing that could stop him. I mean, unless he got to a doorway.

  Bob was rolling through newly formed whistlers; it sounded like a bowling ball shot through a cannon into mega bowling pins. The splintering of bones and bodies was deafening. We had been moving quickly; I was close to a full sprint, which, in turn, became a quick jog and straight to a walk. Church smacked my shoulder and turned, he had a gleam in his eye.

  “Kill.” And this time I was sure it was a literal translation, as he moved to get in front of Bob. They’d hashed out this part of the plan in the tunnel; how they’d managed that I wasn’t going to delve into. I followed Church. Bob’s eyes followed our progress.

  “You all right?” He didn’t answer, and that was an answer on its own. We’d transitioned into the next part of the factory, storage, and if I thought the fabricating portion was enormous, it paled in comparison. Hundreds of thousands of whistlers were hung on hooks at varying heights to make sure there was enough room to fit them all. From floor to ceiling, rows of them stretching to the limits of the eye.

  Hundreds of thousands might have been on the light side of reckoning. If they were waiting to be activated or whatever was done to turn them on, it was over. That wasn’t happening and maybe it couldn’t, now that Bob had the battery. I’d come to the determination that it was indeed the power supply, and as long as we had it, these things were staying where they were, unless the whistlers, like the vast population of humans, had a super-sized junk drawer that contained another that they could plug in. The only thing I could hope was that it was half-dead. That was usually the case with the ones in the drawer we had. For some unfathomable reason, my kids used to take the half-used batteries out of their gaming gear, grab new ones, and put the dead ones in the drawer next to the dry pens.

  Maybe the newly minted whistlers weren’t going to be part of the action, but the twenty heading our way seemed prepared to do what was necessary to get the process going again. This was like stealing honey from an active beehive, and the workers were pissed. Most of those coming our way had those piece of shit staplers, which was hardly above bringing a taser to a gunfight. A couple did have the USB upgrade, and those I targeted first. I slowed and quickly got to a knee; my shots needed to count. The whistlers, so intent on getting to us, had not yet raised their weapons. My heart was pounding—some from the exertion of running, but more significantly from the battle about to ensue.

  We’d finally taken our destiny into our own hands, and there was no chance I was going to relinquish it, not this soon. I fired, not sure how to account for bullet drop at two hundred yards. When the whistler I’d been aiming at was neatly cut in two with the top half falling over backward, I was confident that, at this range anyway, that wasn’t going to be a problem. Three more shots, I’d taken another two down. The whistlers were still running and not firing, they were so fixated on the ball, I seemed to be an after-thought. Then the truth of it walloped me in the noggin. They couldn’t shoot. There was no spare in a junk drawer or anywhere else. They needed this battery. That was part of it; as I was to learn shortly, that was far from the only part.

  Church had a rifle similar to mine. It looked like a pop gun in his arms; he had to use the tip of his claw to pull the trigger. I noticed him stealing glances over at me; he didn’t have any idea what he was doing. It looked like firearms were an unknown quantity. Either the world he came from was technologically behind mine or, so far advanced that there was no longer a need for them. Either way, I envied him. I loved guns, no doubt about it, shooting targets, watching things explode, all great fun. Having to use them to defend yourself against all enemies, both foreign and domestic? Not so much. We didn’t have time for a lesson; I could only hope he picked up some good habits quick enough. I was doing damage to the rampaging whistlers, but they were moving fast and would be upon us within seconds. Still, no shots. How delicate was the damn thing that it couldn’t take a staple?

  As the whistlers got closer, Church became more effective. Difficult to miss, even if you don’t know what you’re doing, if they’re packed in close. We’d whittled down the initial assault, but I knew this was the opening salvo. I had no idea how many of them there were, nor what the odds of escape were, but they had to be low. Underdog material for sure. We’d taken care of those ahead, and Bob was once again under steam. I looked back at him. As my line of sight traveled farther down, I saw the small army of whistlers coming up from behind.

  “Fuck.” I got behind Bob and started laying down fire. Church stayed up front where more were likely to show. As long as they weren’t willing to shoot, this was where I was going to stay. I wondered whether they would ever become so desperate to stop us, that they would fire. And now that I’d started that ball rolling, pun intended, where were we going to go? Couldn’t imagine we were gonna be able to head off into the sunset. And anyway, once we got outside, we had to deal with the mechanized forces, and the pilots would have weapon systems that could lock onto individual targets. Church and I would be chum in a matter of seconds. The whistlers were doing their best to surround us, but their newborn brethren aging on hooks and the multitude of shots I was firing was making it difficult for them.

  Running backward and shooting was taking its toll on my ability to kill effectively and stay close to the relatively safe Bob and his sphere. It was Bob to the rescue again. I nearly tripped when I stepped down onto him, or part of him; the small platform he created took hold of my leg and kept me from falling, then it reformed into a square roughly the size of a section of a cement sidewalk. It was held up a few inches off the ground. Bob had made me a shooting platform. I thanked him before stepping up and turning back toward the whistlers and unleashing hell, one shot at a time. I was breaking bodies with my shooting, sometimes multiples as it would go through one and then another.

  I had not the slightest inkling of guilt. I was okay with introducing the entire race to their deity of choice while they did nothing to threaten me in return. It had to have been ten minutes when the glow of the ammo display turned from blue to purple; couldn’t be good. Hard to tell if I just passed halfway on the tank or was preparing to run on fumes. The only option was to keep firing until I couldn’t. The whistlers were doing all in their power to get close enough that they could tag me out with their guns. A hot breeze rippled up my spine, sending a fl
ush of heat across my back and arms. The light that had dimmed to the equivalent of a forty-watt bulb was now the burning brightness of this strange two sun world. We were outside and on that nightmarish ramp. This time, we were going down and against the current.

  The plodding, slave-bound aliens, who did not have the strength or desire to see where they were going, were unceremoniously shoved out of the way as Bob picked up some speed, now that we had gravity on our side. It didn’t take long for those below us to realize something was going on, and it was by far the best thing for them to get out of the way. It was the same level of pandemonium that had happened when I’d made it correctly through the seven gates going up. Except this time, they could run back down as well, and many were doing just that. The whistlers that had been following were being lost in the throng. We were like a purse snatcher in New Orleans, running straight into a Mardi Gras parade so the cops couldn’t find us. Sure, it would be tough to lose us because of the thirty-foot tall gleaming chrome ball, but otherwise, just like it.

  I was no longer shooting. In it for the ride now, I was thankful when Bob wrapped a thin tendril around my waist. It wasn’t quite like riding a bucking bronco, but as he tried to avoid bowling over aliens, there were enough impacts and swerves that the added standing-belt was appreciated. I caught glimpses of whistler guards trying to establish order, some firing staples into the crowd or slamming on their boxes. The staples worked; the boxes did not. Again, it had to be the missing battery. The aliens were doing nothing except trying to get away from everything; that worked out in our favor, but more could be done.