by Jesse Jones
#
Whatever the Americans dumped into their stimulant mix, it wasn't as potent as Zhiang's; McDougal and Brick were barely able to scrabble up onto the penultimate platform. Luckily, every man railroaded into Fallen Angel had passed exhausting batteries of physical tests in addition to their mental and psychological examinations. Flexing his own gloved hands and watching the final platform zip by in a white blur, Zhiang considered dumping what little remained of his supplies—a day's rations, some ammo, mines, and his stims—but nothing was expendable if he wanted at least a chance of succeeding at the reason they were all here.
"What is even up there?" McDougal asked as he bent over, hands on knees, laboring to catch his breath. "I can't see any doorways or exits."
"You're welcome to go back the way we came," Black said, well, blackly.
"Cheery chap," McDougal muttered in a bad faux-British accent.
"Enough chatter," Zhiang soothed, stepping between them to cut off a brewing argument. Training could only take a man through so much.
"We'll just have to see what's up there," Brick added, stretching and eyeing the platform. Every time it knifed past, it overlapped at the most about a quarter of the ten-meter-wide white disc they rode on, skimming a meter above it. A difficult jump in the best of times, but they were all exhausted. Just fifty meters below, Zhiang had been forced to drill himself with a second flood of stimulants; dangerous, since not barely an hour had passed since the first and the doctors advised no more than one dose a month.
"Why bother," Black grunted, straightening up and walking over to the far edge of the platform to look down over it. "They're just toying with us. We're never going to make it to whatever part of this bloody thing we need to blow."
Below them, the lower third of the cylindrical chamber was now completely devoid of platforms; their suits would keep them alive no more than a hundred meters below where they stood. Everyone was staring nervously at Black, who glanced over his shoulder at them and smirked, his eyes glinting with unsettling emotions best left a mystery.
"No worries," He muttered, turning his back on the precipice and stepping towards them.
Click.
With a sudden, jarring thud, everyone was tossed off their feet and sent rolling.
"The hell!" McDougal cursed, grabbing Zhiang's leg as they slid past each other, their opposite momentums arresting them near the rotating disc's center, while Brick managed to prop himself with his rifle before skidding more than a meter. Everyone whipped around, eyes wide, to try and find Black, so perilously close to the platform's edge.
"Relax," The British airman muttered from where he had fallen back onto his haunches, now seated firmly near the platform edge but in no danger. "I'm not about to check out while those bastards sit around laughing."
Blurred white slammed into Black's temple with enough force to dent his red-striped-blue ferramic helmet like a tin can hit with a hatchet, his tinted faceplate going red as his body was flung rag-doll fashion into open air. Tumbling down the room's height, he caromed off other platforms that spun past, finally dropping onto one almost two hundred meters down. He lay there in the zone of killing heat, body spinning as the platform beneath him rotated and face down in a spreading pond of a blood. With gut-clenching rapidity, the spilled blood was baked dry by the ambient heat.
"Black! Black!" Zhiang called into the radio, but he received no reply. He wished that surprised him, but all the soldier's diagnostic feeds had flatlined at the moment of impact.
"They reversed the rotation," Brick spat as he steadied himself in a kneeling squat, making sure he was well away from the edges of the platform.
Click.
They were all braced now, so when the platform shuddered and reversed again, none of them were thrown down. Looking at each other, they were all in silent agreement.
Those alien bastards.
"I'm going to try it," Brick said, eyeing the platform as its opposing orbit took it around the room, deceptively serene when viewed a quarter kilometer away.
"Be careful," Was the only advice Zhiang had to give.
No one could find breath when Brick launched himself, body tight and all limbs raised high enough to avoid the platform's rushing edge. He struck the top and rolled and rolled, arresting himself just as his booted feet went flying over the edge, dangling in open air. It was moving so fast that he couldn't get all the way to his feet, instead keeping his hands and knees spread wide as he rose up slightly.
"I'm on," He wheezed into his radio, "But watch out for the landing. I'm going to have a Hershey's-shaped dent in my ribs when this is over." As he spoke, he rubbed one of the small food packages strapped to his chest.
"I'll take it next," Zhiang said as he came up into a crouch and watched the spinning disc.
"Well, hurry it up," McDougal cut in, "'cause it's getting hotter faster now."
A quick glance showed Zhiang that the temperature had jumped ten degrees in the time that it previously would have taken for five. He spiced the airwaves with some choice Mandarin profanity.
Still, the majority of his mind was on the matter at hand, so when the platform slashed close, he was up and over in finest fashion, executing a far more graceful landing than Brick had pulled off. Coming up on to his knees, a bit of something his brother-in-law in the PLA Navy had once shown him came to mind. Slowly and carefully, he rose into a tentative crouch, the fronts of his feet angled inward and his weight distributed as evenly as he could manage while he tightened the muscles of his stomach. Surprisingly, he actually did feel a great deal more balanced than on earlier platforms, despite the swifter pace.
"You're next, McDougal," Zhiang radioed and the American flashed a thumbs-up of acknowledgement as he made his way to the same spot Zhiang had jumped from.
"You can do it," Brick added by way of encouragement.
"Three," They heard McDougal count as they watched the platforms nearing eclipse. "Two. One!"
Click.
Even as McDougal leapt, there was the now-familiar shudder as the platforms sawed violently and proceeded to spin apart on newly-opposing tangents. Zhiang and Brick were both already airborne, however, arms stretched out. The Marine was too far to make it, but one of Zhiang's hands managed to close around the wrist of one of McDougal's questing arms as the other soldier hung suspended in the air for an eternal instant. As was becoming increasingly common as the mission ground on, they all swapped obscenities in native tongues and accents—McDougal as he dangled in empty, heat-warped air; Zhiang as the American's weight threatened to pull his shoulder out of socket; Brick as he scrabbled on all fours to toss himself down next to Zhiang and seize McDougal's other hand.
"Either you bastards let go, I'ma kill you!" McDougal shouted as the other two hauled back, dragging the kicking American's chest level to the surface.
"Only way I'd be scared of your fat ass," Brick grunted between heaves, "Is if I were a cheeseburger."
With a last, straining pull accompanied by a chorus of shouts and groans, the trio spilled over backwards onto the platform, gasping from the exertion. Lying there, they all stared a little helplessly at the blank chamber ceiling above them, else glanced at the swiftly rising digits on their H.U.D. thermal readouts.
"Well, we beat level one of their stupid game," McDougal muttered after a few moments, pulling himself up into a sitting position. "So what the hell comes next?"
"That," Brick said, scrambling up quickly as he gestured towards a section of the wall they were spinning towards.
In an otherwise perfectly smooth, white surface, they could make out the near-invisible outline of a sealed archway. Before their eyes, it hissed softly and the obstruction slid down, revealing a familiar and—after the events of the room—welcome hallway.
"They don't expect us to jump into that, do they?" McDougal muttered in exasperation.
Click.
They all braced themselves, but it seemed the only effect of the sound t
his time was their platform slowing, both in rotation and orbit, before finally coming to rest directly in front of the door. Looking from one to another, they shrugged.
"I suppose not," Zhiang sighed. It was a small blessing, after the room had eaten half their number. Still, they were trained and dedicated and no one was making it out of this alive anyway; they had a mission to be about.
"You're still the boss," McDougal said, with a faux-generous wave towards the doorway. "So boss on."