“Circe? What’s going on.”
There was a burst of static that hurt his ears then from a tiny speaker imbedded in a wall console he heard her voice.
“This isn’t good! There’s a general system shutdown. The bunker is running on autonomous mode.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry Jake, I don’t know!” Circe seemed genuinely distressed.
Jake tried not to slip on the slick floor and yanked the cupboard that should have fresh clothes. Jammed. Not even the drawers would open.
“Sorry Jake, I have no control.”
He gritted his teeth. So much for platinum service. He was reminded of the first time he’d been reborn inside the bunker: cold, wet, naked. Here we go again.
Knotting a luxurious towel around his waist as he went, Jake exited the room to find the corridors black. Not just in twilight mode, but dark except for emergency illuminium strips like runners along the floor.
He had no time to lose. Taking off at a jog his first thought was to locate Owem and threaten him to commandeer his wrist-buddy. But every door he reached was offline. He couldn’t even enter the dormitory. He pounded the door in frustration.
Think, Jake.
There was one door he knew would open. When he’d first discovered the storage room in Delta module, he’d discovered a loose metal nut in the door runner that prevented it from closing entirely. Returning there he just managed to pry it open.
The inside was dim. A single emergency lamp above the doorframe. He ransacked the shelves and found a few useful items, including a meter-long prybar with a very sharp fire-axe blade on one end, a gas mask several plastic containers of chemicals. Sitting down be the best light near the door he opened his thoughts to the new skillset Circe had implanted in his mind and felt the flood of knowledge pour into him, almost overwhelming his ability to think.
Using the new skills Circe had imprinted into this cloned body, he mixed a few of them them together in the right proportions and finally tore several strips off his Egyptian cotton towel to wrap around a metal pole. Dousing it in a second batch of liquids he admired his handiwork a moment.
How to light them was another problem. He disassembled a portable drink warmer from a box and discovered it had a small rechargeable power cell with a minute charge left in it. He’d started the day with every technological advantage the 23rd century produced, and what good had it done him? Here he was trying to re-invent fire.
Jamming his new tools in a satchel he headed for the elevator.
If he’d been a normal human, with a neurotypical brain, he’d probably have been terrified to return up to the Bravo module on his third life in one day, but instead he just felt eager. Pissed off too, but eagerness was winning out. Ready to dole out some sweet, burning revenge.
Arriving at the elevator he stood and swore for a full minute. Of course, it was shut down.
He located the access maintenance panel and a few selective blows from the prybar let him tear it open. Scraping his skin, he climbed into the shaft, sandwiched between the massive freight car and the wall, managed to drag himself on top of the cabin and feel around in the dark until he found the pieces to his improvised lighter. With a little trial and error, he managed to generate a spark and ignited his torch. The firelight illuminated the bottom of the elevator shaft, but the top was hidden far above in darkness.
There was a ladder. Corroded, covered in a thin layer of slime and the bare metal rungs hurt the soles of his feet, but it was the only way up.
It was a painful process. Trying to carry the torch and have only one hand free for the ladder made him take it slow. Carefully. Circe could probably still revive him if he died, but how long until the cloning equipment went offline too?
His clone body operated like a machine. Reach, grab, step up. Don’t look down, don’t feel afraid. Just a monotonous task that had to be done. But even so, it was a long way up and he was exhausted by the time he reached the top of the shaft. He had to creep along a ledge six inches wide to navigate around the elevator shaft to the hatch. Thankfully it was easier to open from the inside.
But he didn’t emerge into the corridors of Bravo module itself. The hatch opened on a low-ceilinged space full of pipes and wiring conduits. Exploring with the torch he finally found some sort of overhead vent and pried it open. Tossing up his torch and prybar he had to jump and chin himself up – cloned muscles straining.
But from there he crawled out into the Bravo module. The torch was beginning to burn low, so he doused it in his home-made fuel and tried to ignore the toxic chemical smell. As it flared to life, he found himself outside the blast doors where the elevator had let him out on his last visit.
“Ready or not,” he said to the darkness and headed out, bare feet on the dirt of the corridor floor.
The darkened, reeking and ruined corridors passed by as he set a steady pace, following his memories and instinct instead of relying on the wrist-buddy’s map.
First stop: say hello to his old self.
He followed his own trail, through the fearthrower zone, and avoided any curious exploring of lockers all the way to the cavernous warehouse with the headfruit spiders. This time he kept to the walls and circled the chamber, but even so the torchlight attracted them. Luckily, when he waved the flames at any of the tendrils that unravelled down from above and they crisped and recoiled. As the main entrance came into view at the edge of his torchlight he broke into a run. Had the sudden, horrible certainty that someone would have taken his body while he wasn’t looking.
But as he approached, he found the bloodied torso was still there. And a shiver rode his flesh.
Standing over his own truncated body felt like returning to the scene of a crime. For a long moment he could only stand and stare at the bloody carnage of his upper torso, neatly bisected by the blast doors, looking up at him with a final expression not of pain or fear, but frustration. Like dying this horribly had been as inconvenient as missing a bus.
Of all the times he’d died this was the first time Jake had ever actually witnessed his old, deceased, body while in the new one. The creeping horror of it started slow, then almost took control. Who was he, really? Was he still this Jake Mortimer? Or was that Jake dead? Was he actually immortal, or was he just the latest in a line of copies? He’d never given much thought to the concept of the ‘soul’ before, but now he wondered, was the soul the sum of all his thoughts and memories, or was it somehow tied to inside that flesh and bone of his body?
Slowly, the stabilizing hormones of his cloned brain began to win the fight against existential dread and Jake found himself filled with purpose again. What did it matter if he had a soul? He was the same Jake as far as everyone else was concerned. And those mutant fucks who thought they’d killed him were in for one hell of a surprise when he got back. Time to get started on that revenge.
“You look like ten miles of bad road,” he told his corpse, kneeling in the pool of blood next to it.
Using the prybar he got to work and managed to free the upper part of his body. The hazmat suit was useless tatters, and the revolver had been crushed beyond recognition in the doors, but the chest and shoulder-plates of the splat armor were fine, if gore-covered. He also salvaged the X-26 stunner and the monomolecular machete he’d worn in a back sheath. Lastly removed the wrist-buddy from his cold, dead hand.
“Oh hai! You’re back!” the wrist-buddy chirped. “How did closing the doors work out?”
Jake couldn’t decide if the micro-computer was capable of sarcasm.
“Fine.”
“Can we go to Alpha module now?”
“No. We have a new mission. Locate me the Bravo module small arms locker.”
“Sure thing, friend!” and the holographic map lit up.
“That’s not the small arms locker. That’s the route to Alpha module,” Jake said.
“Is it? Oh, sorry, the doors must have damaged me slightly.”
“Maybe I should just re
cycle you and get another, spare wrist-buddy,” Jake said dangerously.
“Oh, nope, here it is! I found the right route to the small arms locker.”
“I thought you might.”
***
Jake took extra care when he returned to the parts of the module that were littered with traps by whatever sparkly monster used the area as a hunting ground. He felt a nervous crawling on his spine finally vanish when the redlit scarecrows appeared in the hallway ahead. He dropped the torch to sputter on the floor. Slipping on the gas mask, Jake paused to retrieve his improvised explosive device and silently crept up the tunnel on bare feet to the last place he’d been killed that day.
He froze, hearing movement in one of the nearer chambers, and his enhanced fight or flight reflexes propelled him into action without hesitation. He sprinted silently to the door and as the figure emerged Jake slammed the prybar like a battle-ax into the hollow of its throat.
It was one of the neanderthal gorilla-men with the tiny eyes, and it stared at Jake in surprise, tried to cry out, and only spluttered blood. The prybar was stuck as Jake tried to retrieve it. Cursing, he left it there and drew the machete. As the man stumbled, still upright but unable to breathe and going into shock, Jake drove the monomolecular blade into his chest.
Jake levered downward on the machete, like a giant paper-cutter, and sliced through bone and organs like buttered toast. He opened half the man’s body cavity with an explosion of blood and entrails, splashing everywhere like he’d just dumped a bucket of fish chum. The mutant cannibal flopped forward, already dead.
Jake had to put one foot on the man’s neck to try and pull the pybar loose but gave up and instead retrieved the gun the gorilla had carried in a crude leather holster.
He examined the pistol a moment, curious where it had come from. It looked Nevermore standard issue – like their slugthrowing guns seemed chambered for 10mm – but instead of the familiar bird logo on the weapon there was a starburst inside a cone-shape stamped into the barrel and the name AURICOM TLGY. Jake assumed it was the manufacturer.
The firearm had seen far better days, and most of the blued finish was worn off, revealing the raw plastec beneath, and when he checked the action it seemed to stick in the open part of the cycle until he wacked it with the heel of his hand. Great. He’d stick with the machete.
He approached the former small arms locker and it was still hellishly lit with red glow. There were voices inside. Human voices. Chanting. Jake grinned in savage anticipation, struck a spark from the battery pack taped on the side of his bomb, and set the wick alight. Never exposing himself he lobbed the whole thing underarm through the door, waiting in the hall.
There was a fwump-whoom! as the improvised gas grenade went off, and in moments a massive cloud of yellow smoke poured out of the open doorway. Yells, gagging sounds and an angry howl followed. He had to hand it to Circe, she had given him the perfect skillset for making garage tear-gas.
When the first cannibal mutant came out Jake saw it was the one holding with weird metal rod that had blown his arm off. A single downward machete chop removed that arm at the shoulder and the mutant gave a yawping cry, blinking and spitting. He lunged, still thinking he had an arm, and staggered to a halt seeing it was missing. Jake went for the skull next. Hit with a dull thock like chopping wood.
But the blade lodged halfway through the thick skull and as the mutant cannibal staggered and went down – dead before he hit the ground – he wrenched the blade from Jake’s hand.
Fuck!
Options. He’d been hoping to chop these guys to bits by hand, but he’d have to make do. Jake drew the X-26 in one hand, the newly acquired pistol in the other, and waited.
Another one of the big mutants came out, coughing out bits of its lungs. The stunbeamer flashed and the invisible beam punched that one’s shit out like he’d been clubbed across the bridge of the nose. Total knock-out. But almost immediately following was the little guy with the orange-peel skin, and the X-26 was still whining as it recharged for the next shot.
Jake snap-fired the well-worn slugthrower and with a crack it fired true.
But then, impossibly, the bullet slowed to almost a halt. He watched as the slug lazily float across the room. It couldn’t be possible that time had slowed, it was simply kinetic energy seemed to be on holiday. What sort of technology was doing this?
The robed mutant slowly pirouetted to the side, like he was fighting against a watery current and used his robe like wings to swim out of the way of the bullet as it sailed past him. And for some reason the veins in the man’s neck were glowing green.
Then Jacob was aware of some powerful stabbing pain, not from physical force but like a knife of thoughts inside his head. He struggled to mentally push it away, but it was like swiping at smoke. Savage pain blossomed inside his skull. A violent nosebleed accompanied the brutal headache, splattering the inside of his facemask.
He had no idea of the orange bastard was somehow doing this, but he seemed like a good place to start. There were a limited number of reasons it felt like something was reaching into his head and frying his brain cells.
Jacob propelled himself backwards, like running underwater, and struggled to aim the now-charged X26 at the fucking impossible wizard in the robe. That’s how he discovered whatever kinetic-energy damping field he was inside had a limited area.
He was suddenly falling backwards, gravity and air having recovered their natural properties, and he aimed and fired the stunner, which seemed to have no problem penetrating the slowness field. The wizard flinched and buckled, falling slowly, still held up in the strange, invisible molasses.
The savage headache ended.
Jacob hit the floor and real, physical pain was a relief. He dragged off the bloodied gas mask hood so he could see and was assaulted by the chemical smoke-filled air stinging his eyes. He stuffed the mask back on and scrambled backwards away from the room and into the hallway. He didn’t stop until he put his back up against the far wall and kept both guns trained on the doorway, watching the unconscious wizard finally settle to the ground like dandelion fluff.
“Sonofabitch,” he shouted.
***
Jacob holstered the X26 and tossed a handful of floor dirt into the hall, watching it hang like flies in honey, until finally gravity returned to normal and everything dropped to the ground. He knew whatever localized gravitic anomaly that – thing – had caused was gone.
Despite the sudden, deadly contest, his heart remained beating calmly, his breathing normal. Which was as not-normal as you could get. He’d have to congratulate whatever long-dead scientist had created all those combat mods he’d received in the biogenetic chamber: the counter-shock endorphins and modified fight or flight reaction sure seemed to be working.
“Milan? Milan!” he yelled into the smoky room.
The bomb was burned out, but the smoke still hanging heavy, so he kept the gas mask on while he went through the room. It was exactly like he’d seen it before, except now there was a freshly butchered human corpse slow-roasting on a brazier grill, chopped into limbs and ribs, with a bucket of internal organs nearby.
And sitting on the altar, death grin on its face, was his own severed head.
“Godfuckingdammit!” Jake yelled. “You fuckers are eating me?”
The room wasn’t that big and after a quick count of limbs he knew it wasn’t two bodies; Milan was still missing. Storming back into the hall he kicked the unconscious form of the wizard in the midsection. Not even a flinch. He checked for a pulse with the wrist-buddy. Still alive.
He needed answers, and the wizard was the only mutant left to give them. The X-26 had a standard effectiveness of anywhere from five to ten minutes, according to the specs in the manual. So while he was waiting, He idly speculated what type of device could stop kinetic energy and also bruise his brain from inside his skull. Maybe one of them had a special gun.
Very cautiously he disarmed the trio. Even the one obviously spill
ing brains from a machete cut. They were appallingly well armed, including a full-size battle-ax of some kind. The head of the axe was clearly a scavenged bit of metal, ground-down to use as a weapon and lashed onto the haft with leather thongs. They had a large collection of knives and daggers – some similarly salvaged bits of metal and others repurposed blades like a butcher’s or camping knife. One was even a fancy Solingen chef’s knife.
Jacob had found a pouch of plastic zipties from the storage room; probably intended for tying up bundles of wires. They worked just fine as disposable handcuffs. There was certainly some 23rd century powered magnetic cuffs available, but Jake distrusted all the new gadgetry from the future and was happier with a solution that didn’t require batteries.
The thought reminded him how Cool Breeze was somehow offline, and potentially broken, by whatever was in Alpha module. For a moment he felt guilt that he wasn’t doing more to find out what had happened to the artificial Intelligence that ran the bunker.
But there was no fucking way he was leaving Milan alive with these savages.
He used several zipties to secure each of the stunned targets and began to strip them naked, looking for hidden weapons. The robed one revealed Jake’s acid revolver and ammo belt and what looked a lot like a skinning knife with a gut hook. Fucker. He kicked him in the balls for good measure.
Anatomically speaking the orange-skinned man was more or less human. Proportions were off, and he had six toes on each foot, but otherwise normal. Jake attached him to the gutted remains of the metal shelves and set to work on the bigger one.
That one was armored and had some sort of home-made scale mail made out of a leather jacket sewn with metal discs. Untoggling the armor and pulling it off revealed that the guard was definitely a she, not a he. He found a half-dozen knives and shivs concealed on her person and Jake had to keep disrobing her to look for more until she was completely naked.
She was a remarkable specimen. Easily his height, and made out of bulky muscle like the biggest female bodybuilder you’d ever seen. Unlike most bodybuilders she had breasts though; big, heavy globes that Jake couldn’t help but admire a little. Her skin was pale where the armor covered her, and freckled where it wasn’t. And judging by the carpet matching the drapes she was a natural redhead.
The Apocalypse Watch Page 6