by Eyal Kless
Ramm reacted first by shooting his power gun, but the energy dissipated into the transparent wall with no effect. “Fuck this,” he swore, and aimed his cannon at the wall.
But Narona managed to yank him away before he pulled the trigger, shouting, “Don’t give them an opening to get in.”
The Lizards continued their climb upwards. Other Lizards followed, many others, and when Bayne clamped a hand on Rafik’s shoulder, the boy was trembling with fear. There was no time for comfort, they had to run. By the time they reached the stairwell, they heard their CommTroll screaming, “They’ve breached the perimeter! They’re everywhere!”
There were shrieks of pain, and noises of hand-to-hand combat.
“What? How?” Ramm kept shouting.
Someone else answered over the Comm: “They came from underground. Tunnels. Must have been a large nest.” They heard several more explosions over the Comm as mines went off. The building shook.
Bayne and Narona exchanged looks of disbelief as Ramm ordered the crew to retreat.
Suddenly there was a terrible scream and the Comm went quiet. For a brief moment they stood still, then Ramm turned to Bayne. “Get him out of here. You know where to go once you do.” His voice was calm, resigned.
Bayne nodded and looked up. They could now hear hissing sounds from above.
“We’ll stall them here,” Ramm said, “then we’ll come to you.”
Bayne literally picked Rafik up and ran down the stairs. Three Lizards were already descending, and Rafik was stunned by their speed. Their jaws and talons looked lethal. Only Ramm’s firepower stopped the Lizards from reaching them. Green blood and red flesh sprayed their path, and Bayne almost lost his footing. Then they split up. Ramm and Narona took position and fired at the next floor while Bayne, holding Rafik by one hand and a gun in the other, raced down the stairs.
Rafik lost count of how many flights of stairs they ran down, but suddenly they were confronted by several Lizards that must have come from below. Bayne dropped Rafik’s hand and drew another pistol as he fired the other one. Rafik rolled, smashing his left elbow on a stair, but then he was up on his feet with his own gun in his hand, and he began firing at the charging Lizards, too. It was barely enough, but the two of them managed to kill them all.
From below, they heard the hissing and scratching of more Lizards coming. Bayne swore, sweat pouring down his face. He pushed Rafik roughly aside, tore off two power grenades from his belt, and threw them down the stairs, then turned and slapped a slab of explosives onto the wall, ignoring the carnage that his grenades were causing down below. Bits of green skin and flesh sprayed up, painting the walls red and green, as Bayne grabbed Rafik and backed away behind a corner.
He pushed Rafik to the floor and lay on top of him, covering the boy’s ears with his power gloves. A blast shook the building a few heartbeats later. When they rose and peeked around the corner, there was a huge gaping hole in the wall of the building. Bayne didn’t hesitate. He fiddled with the buttons of his power armour, picked Rafik up and put his arms around him, then dashed forward and took a flying leap through the hole.
The air blew away Rafik’s scream as the ground rushed towards them. Bayne turned in the air so his body would cushion Rafik. They tore through the roof of a building below.
Rafik must have lost consciousness, because he certainly didn’t remember them falling through another floor before hitting the ground. When he woke, his entire body was in pain. He coughed and moaned as a sharp pain in his ribs signalled that something was definitely broken. Three attempts later, he managed to get up and look around.
They were on the ground floor of a three-story building. Bayne was lying in a shallow crater a few yards from where Rafik stood. He was still. A pool of blood was slowly forming under him. Rafik shuffled towards Bayne. He could see the man’s jaw and nose were broken. There was a lot of blood, but he could hear shallow breathing.
Rafik tried but failed to turn Bayne over. He looked around for something to help, but as he did he suddenly saw patterns again, everywhere: colours and lights, shapes, particles of dust hanging in the air, and bullet-hole-shaped craters in the far wall. Fear and pain and desperation disappeared. All that mattered was the beauty of the shapes around him and how they fit together. Was this what Pikok saw?
A sharp, acidic smell forced Rafik back to reality.
The patterns disappeared and the room changed back. Instead of flowing symbols, Rafik saw a Lizard. It stepped into the room from an open doorway and immediately focused its attention on him. Rafik’s hand darted to his holster, but it was empty. He saw Bayne’s gun not far away from where he stood. As his body rushed forward he somehow knew it would take him nine steps to reach the gun; he would have to bend down, pick it up, release the safety catch, aim and fire, and pray to the Prophet Reborn that the gun hadn’t broken from the impact of the fall. The Lizard began moving as well, running directly at Rafik.
By the time Rafik turned and raised the gun, it was too late. His body was picked up and slammed to the floor, the gun torn from his hand. As he hit the ground, Rafik knew he was about to die. He felt the Lizard’s weight on him. His eyes were shut, but he knew the Lizard held him down with one muscular limb while its claw was on its way down in a powerful slash that would tear his face apart. Rafik’s arm flew up, instinctively protecting his head. The blow should have torn through his puny limb and smashed his skull, but it never landed. Rafik opened his eyes.
He was still pinned under the weight of the Lizard, but instead of tearing Rafik apart it was looking down at the boy’s spread hand. Rafik saw the creature’s bright green pupils focusing on his spread fingers.
The first shot slammed into the Lizard’s midsection, propelling the creature sideways. Hot green gunk sprayed Rafik’s upper body. The second shot hit the Lizard’s shoulder. Rafik turned his head and saw Bayne half raised on the ground and holding his second gun. Bayne pressed the trigger again just as the Lizard charged towards the warrior, but the gun jammed. The third shot came from a different direction and blew the Lizard’s head off. For a moment all Rafik could do was gasp for air and cover his ears.
Narona lowered her sniper rifle and stepped into the room. In a heartbeat she was next to Rafik, checking him for damage. The other Keenans came in behind her. Bayne collapsed on the ground. Rafik suddenly felt sapped of strength, and he lay down on the cool floor. Moments later he was picked up by a Keenan Troll. Soon after, everything went black.
46
“I t-t-told you they wouldn’t hu-hu-hurt you,” Pikok’s eyes shone with pride.
Rafik shook his head. “I don’t know. It happened so fast, I’m not sure . . .”
“Lizards don’t hurt Puzzlers,” the thin man said, rubbing his hands in a show of satisfaction. His speech seemed to be getting better every time he spoke to Rafik.
“So why are they hurting everyone else?”
“Lizards don’t hurt Puzzlers,” Pikok repeated, as if that explained everything. Then he bent down and resumed scratching a symbol into the wall.
Pikok visited every day when Rafik was at the Menders, but he refused to teach him any new puzzles or techniques. The day Rafik was carried into the Hive, Pikok took one look at the boy’s haggard face and clapped his hands in joy, even as the torn bodies of several Lizards were lowered from the two remaining vehicles.
“You are Puzzler now,” he shouted at Rafik several times, before being shooed away by the Keenans.
“You do not need Pikok,” he said when they met again, a few days later.
“Of course I need you. That puzzle—” Rafik shuddered “—it did something to me. I thought I was going to die.”
“But you didn’t,” Pikok concluded matter-of-factly, “and now you are a real Puzzler.”
“Are the puzzle locks of the City within the Mountain as dangerous?” Rafik asked.
But Pikok’s answers never satisfied Rafik’s curiosity. “Some harder, some easier. You are a Puzzler now,” was the
best he got from the man.
Pikok was a Sabarra purchase, the oldest Puzzler at the outpost. He’d lived in the Hive for almost ten years. He was barely able to take care of himself and was considered insane. Rafik heard that the old Sabarra crew commander kept him caged for two years, hauling him from node to node, and when a second Puzzler was purchased by the guild they let Pikok go. They didn’t use him for their deep runs anymore, and they even stopped hiring him out to independent crews, partly because he tended to run straight at any Lizard they encountered, waving his hands in the air and shouting, “Take me! Take me!”
The only job still fit for Pikok was opening the Hive’s main node and an occasional puzzle box that crews brought back as loot. The other Puzzlers, three men and a woman, were usually on a run or recuperating. For reasons Rafik could not understand, the other Puzzlers kept their distance from him, so Pikok was the only person he could talk to, that is, on the rare occasion when the older Puzzler was not scratching symbols onto darkened walls.
One day, after spending time in the underground hall with Pikok, and frustrated by the man’s lack of response, Rafik found his way through the columns back to the door and solved the puzzle lock to let himself out. It was much easier now, and he took a little pride in admitting that to himself.
Rafik began climbing back the long way to the surface. He was walking slowly and stopping every so often to rest. Since they’d gotten back, he’d been feeling gloomy. His days were full of dark thoughts. He spent half his nights awake, reliving the violence. When he finally succumbed to sleep he would find himself in front of the Great Puzzle, which quickly turned into a prison. No matter what he did, he could not stop the walls from closing in on him, and just as he was about to die, he would find himself in front of the man with the melted face. That was the moment Rafik would bolt up in his cot with a startled cry.
The day after the Keenans came back, Lizards attacked the Hive. And these attacks had continued almost every day since. Usually killing Lizards was an easy enough matter, especially for veteran Trolls in fortified positions and possessing superior fire power, yet the ferocity of the attacks, the unusual number of Lizards, and the fact that they attacked from a different direction each time took its toll both in casualties and morale. Six Trolls had died in combat, with several dozen wounded. A whole crew of newbies who went out on a Lizard popping mission shortly after the first attack didn’t return. The Lizard casualties were in the hundreds; their bodies littered the outside perimeter of the Hive. Trolls joked that at least there would be no shortage of Skint in the near future, but tensions ran high.
The Keenans had lost Gronn, the crew’s CommTroll, and Irdina, with three more crew members wounded. Two Keenans came to blows one morning over a power clip, and only Narona’s calming effect stopped Ramm from shooting them both.
Bayne was still on the mend. Rafik lay on a cot next to him as they applied Tarakan salves and used healing artifacts on Rafik’s cracked rib cage. Ramm made sure they treated Rafik first, and paid in hard coin for it, but Bayne’s injuries were far worse. Despite the fact that the place stank of freshly brewed Skint, Rafik made a point of visiting Bayne every day, but he was either asleep or in a foul mood. One morning he heard Vincha’s voice and stayed back, eavesdropping from behind a corner.
From the conversation he learned that Ramm’s report was very different from what actually occurred.
“That piece of molded metal.” Bayne’s voice was full of bile. “He actually blamed Irdina and Gronn for not detecting the Lizards. Since they’re both conveniently dead, there’s no one to challenge his account.”
“No one except you.” Vincha lowered her voice. “But Trolls are talking. That’s how I heard what happened.”
Bayne shook his head. “That idiot is going to get us all killed. Half the time he’s out of his mind on Skint—and that’s when he’s at his best, believe me.”
“Still, you shouldn’t have confronted him like that when he came to see you.” Vincha glanced around, but somehow missed Rafik lurking in the shadows. “He could have killed you. He’s probably going to try to do just that at some point.”
Bayne sighed. “I know, I know. When he accused me of faking injury to get out of the crew’s housekeeping duties I lost my temper. It was a dumb move.”
“Not as dumb as jumping with the kid from the fifth floor. Rust, Bayne,” she chuckled, “Trolls are going to drink to this one for a long time. Not to mention the newbies who will try to imitate this move, I hear they already have a name for it—the Bayne.”
“I was low on ammo, and they were coming.” From where he was hiding, Rafik could see Bayne shaking his head slowly, his hand touching his mending jaw. Still, he had a small smile on his face. “You should have seen him, Vincha. Frightened like a field bunny, but still functioning. He reminded me of my little brother, Kane, when we were kids . . . anyways, I knew Narona would come and get us. What? Don’t look at me like that. I know she can be a bitch, but she is rock solid in a fight. She would be a good crew commander . . .” Bayne took a deep breath and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. If Ramm keeps going on like that we are all going to be Lizard chowder.” He hesitated briefly and looked up at Vincha. “This whole shit storm made me think . . .”
“About what?”
“About cashing it in. Buying my contract back. I’m leaving the crew soon. As soon as I’m on my feet.”
Vincha snorted. “You still have sixteen months to plan your retirement.”
“Maybe I want to cash it in before.”
“You don’t have the coin, especially with what you had to pay the Menders.”
“What if I don’t cash out? What if I just leave?”
“What, go rogue? Rust, Bayne, no other outfit will employ a contract breaker, and even as an independent, Ramm won’t let you stay here in the outpost. He is more cunning than you think. I still don’t understand how he got Doro in such an exposed position—” Vincha stopped talking.
“We could find someone else . . .”
Vincha looked around nervously and Rafik ducked behind the wall. For a moment he was sure she’d seen him, but she continued to talk to Bayne in a hushed voice. “I know you’re upset about what happened, but I don’t see any other option but to mend your metal and wait.”
When Rafik peeked again he saw Bayne take the CommWoman’s hand.
“Vincha, this injury, not my first and probably not my last, made me think real good about things. I know I’m not . . . Doro . . . I know, but . . .” He hesitated only a little before saying, “He’s gone, and I’m here now, and I have a plan, and I need you to trust me. It’s something that would take me out of Ramm’s sight and give you another option, too.”
Vincha didn’t pull her hand free, but she took a deep breath and shook her head. “I still don’t see your other option.”
“Nakamura,” Bayne said in a hushed tone. This time she did pull back, but Bayne leaned forward and persisted, “Listen to me. He’s more than just a rumour. This guy exists. I’ve been gathering information about him. There are dozens of reports of sightings by veteran crews, especially southwest, beyond the bridge.”
“You tore out your wires in that fall, Bayne.”
“Three years in the wild, without walls, guards, or protection, and no one from the Hive manages to get close to the guy. Then there was that crew, the Slashers, remember them? They just vanished . . . on the southwest—”
“Lizards, most likely, Bayne—”
“Vanished without a trace, Vincha. No distress call, no bodies, no tech remains, nothing. I am telling you, this Nakamura has been leading a crew for three years, and he’s outsmarting two hundred armed Trolls and who knows how many Lizards.”
Vincha kept shaking her head. “First of all,” she said, counting on her fingers, “we are being attacked almost every day now, and who knows how many thousands of Lizards are out there? Second, even if we survive the trip to the southwest, how are we going to find this guy and stop him from s
hooting us on sight?”
“I’m sure Nakamura would love two extra pairs of capable hands, especially if we bring him a present.”
“What kind of . . . You’re not rusting serious.”
“Why not? Is it better to leave the boy here to be killed by that Skinthead? Listen to me, I have it all figured out.” Bayne reached into his pocket and brought out something Rafik could not see. He gave it to Vincha. “This is a—”
“I can see what it is,” Vincha snapped.
But Bayne persisted. “Shut up, Vincha, I don’t have much time before the Mender comes back. Gronn gave me this—he was thinking about bolting, too. He came across it by accident. It was cleverly hidden and it took him ages to figure out, but he told me there was no way this transmitter just fell from a Troll’s pocket, Gronn was certain this is paired with another somewhere to the southwest, and that someone from here hid it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know, could be anyone, but it’s reasonable to assume that Nakamura has spies operating within the Hive. I could bring this to Brain, of course, but I have a better plan. All we have to do is grab the Puzzler, head to the bridge, and stay low for a while. If you could reverse the code, or whatever Gronn said he could do, then we could track to the paired transmitter and—”
“Stop it, Bayne, it’s a suicide mission. Besides, why do you think I want to get out of here?”
Rafik couldn’t see the warrior’s eyes, but when he spoke again his voice was gentle. “Have you measured the amount of Skint you’ve been inhaling lately? Most of the time you’re powdered up . . .”
“I don’t see the relevance,” Vincha protested
Bayne pulled himself up to his elbows. “. . . And I’m probably the only Troll in the Hive you haven’t fucked since Doro died.”
Vincha clenched her fists.
To his credit, Bayne was quick enough to apologize. “Sorry. That was below the belt,” he said. “It’s none of my business what you do and who you do it with.” He sighed and slumped back onto the bed. “But I think you’re unhappy here. Think about it. Can you handle another season in the Hive? I know I won’t survive Ramm. So this is as good a chance as we get.”