Radioactive Evolution

by Richard Hummel

  I can do this, Jared. I must do this. It is my birthright, and I am willing to suffer some to see my family again.

  The conviction in her voice was palpable, and her strengthened resolve carried through her voice. They held each other’s gaze a moment longer before Jared looked away. He didn’t want Scarlet to see the tears brimming in his eyes. This meant a lot to Scarlet, and he wanted to be strong for her, but he knew it’d be difficult, and he wished there was something he could do to aide her in the journey. This was truly a trial by fire, and it’d take every ounce of strength she possessed to make it.

  Wiping his eyes, Jared set his pack down and pulled out all his rations. “Scarlet, please eat these. I’ll enter a hibernation state while you continue onward and won’t need to eat anything for a while. I can find a place to hide and barricade myself inside.”

  Quickly eating the rations, Scarlet turned around and rocketed down the tunnel, her steps fading into the distance. Jared stood for a moment longer, his emotions somersaulting as tears slid unbidden down his face.

  Be careful, Scarlet.

  I’ll return Jared, I promise!

  Scarlet’s voice echoed in his head as she disappeared from sight.

  Jared gazed after Scarlet and the path she took for a long time before shaking off the feeling of dread and concern for her safety. His thoughts gravitated to despair and hopelessness, no doubt a by-product of his past experiences, but he forced himself to think positively. Scarlet was one of the strongest, if not the strongest, being in the world.

  She’ll be fine, Jared repeated to himself, cementing it in his mind. Now he needed to find some place to hole up for the coming days.

  A few hours of searching revealed a formation of stalactites and stalagmites that formed a lattice of crisscrossing spikes suited to his purposes. Careful not to break anything, Jared slid his gear inside and wormed his way in after.

  Secure, he found a comfortable spot and broke off sections of the formations with his knife. Choosing parts of the stalactites that didn’t conceal him from view, he used the broken bits to stuff into the gap he’d used to access the hideaway.

  Confident that he’d picked a good spot, Jared practiced his meditation and mental abilities. With nothing else to do, he spent the next several days working to split his consciousness. By the end of day three, he could hold six separate threads in his active consciousness. It was a huge accomplishment, but he was also sitting in a meditative trance and doubted he’d be able to do anything like that while engaged in a battle, or some other task that required a higher level of concentration.

  Eight days after Scarlet departed, Jared felt the effects of no food, and while he had water dripping from the stalactites, it wasn’t enough to sustain him. It was time for him to activate Aestivation to lower his body temperature, slow his heart rate, and conserve energy. While preparing himself to hibernate, he re-arranged himself into a half laying position, shifting bits of debris around himself.

  He stopped moving, but the sound of small pieces of rubble shifting continued. Confused, Jared rotated his read, careful not to move his body and mask the sounds. The web of earthly spikes obscured most of his view, but after flipping to Heat Sight he saw several creatures milling about the cavern he’d staked as his own. Slowing his breathing, Jared did his best to remain inconspicuous, but it was too late. At least three creatures encircled his location, and Jared realized he’d need to take care of them.

  Slowly, Jared removed piece after piece from his makeshift door and gripped the hilt of his knife. The gap cleared, he raised himself into a crouch and lunged though the opening, spinning into a somersault, so that he faced his stalkers. No obstructions in front of him, Jared realized it was a small group of lizards, only these ones were different than any he’d previously encountered.

  Those he’d encountered thus far were silver with red heads and necks. These lizards were primarily green, with a smattering of yellow splotches across their body. These creatures also had five to six-foot-long tails with rows of short spikes along their length.

  Jared spun into action, taking the closest lizard to him. These were much faster than their red metallic cousins and he narrowly avoided a swipe of its spiked tail. Jumping the tail swipe, Jared lashed out at the creature’s lunging neck, severing it cleanly in two.

  The fight only lasted an instant, but already the other two lizards managed to circle him, closing from opposing sides. The lizards gave him no time to gain his footing. They lunged while he was still spinning from killing the previous attacker.

  Jared threw himself backward, avoiding another tail swipe only for the third to slice into his calf.

  Jared yelled in pain, performing a backward somersault to come up facing them. This fight didn’t go as smooth as his past encounter, and it was everything he could do just to avoid their attacks. Jumping over the head of one, Jared landed between them, but his leg gave out, and he fell to one side.

  The unexpected stumble was the only thing that saved him as the lizard he’d jumped over spun with its claws outstretched and slashed the air he’d just occupied. Using the opportunity of the lizard over-extending itself, Jared plunged his knives into its knee joints and rolled out of the way as another tail slash smashed into the ground.

  One of the lizards temporarily out of the fight, Jared backpedaled to give him some room to face his remaining opponent. It raced after him, sensing the weakness in his leg. Jared pushed through the line of fire shooting up his leg and stepped into the attacking lizard. He knocked it off balance, catching its bite on one of his blades. Using his free hand, he slammed the knife into its chest three times, riding the creature to the ground. It lay unmoving, and Jared panted from the exertion.

  Hobbling over to the handicapped lizard, Jared drove the daggers into its eyes to end the fight. He slumped against a cluster of stalagmites and rolled his pant leg up. An angry red cut showed where the lizard’s tail had pierced his flesh. It was a very shallow cut, but it pulsed in tune with his racing heart and looked infected. His improved Natural Armor had prevented a more serious injury, but he didn’t know why it hurt so badly.

  Jared crawled to the dead lizards, using the opportunity to both absorb the nanites and inspect the tail. A thick orange fluid coated the lizard’s body and spikes. The same color as the remnants around the cut on his leg.

  Poison, thought Jared.

  His nanites should take care of it, but in the meantime, it was painful, and he hoped his attackers didn’t have more of their kind nearby.

  Picking up his gear, Jared limped up the tunnel. The dead carcasses would draw attention from other creatures, and he didn’t want to be around when that happened, especially with an injury that prevented mobility.

  Another hour of searching, Jared found another natural formation he used as a barricade. This one wasn’t fully enclosed, but he needed to rest and recover. As best he could, Jared broke sections of rock off to pile around him, going so far as to break off a few longer stalactites to lay over top of him, concealing him from above.

  Going back to his previous plans, Jared activated Aestivation. When he activated the ability, nothing happened immediately, but his body became sluggish and his eyes heavy. Slowly, his body relaxed into the depression he’d settled into and his breathing slowed down.

  Time passed incredibly quickly in this state, and several days passed in swift succession. If not for a scraping sound that increased in volume, he could’ve easily maintained that state until Scarlet returned.

  Jared activated Hyper-Cognition, and his reality returned to normal, if not slightly slower.

  The scraping sound that drew him from his hibernation grew ever closer. Jared listened for a time, trying to decide if he should cancel the ability and return his body to a waking state. If these creatures found his hiding place, he was completely and utterly defenseless.

  Deciding it was much too risky
to remain in hibernation, Jared canceled the ability. Slowly his body returned to normal, and he massaged his limbs to get his blood circulating. Shortly after his body returned to normal, he felt a hollow pang in his gut signaling the need to eat. His lips and tongue were parched, and he worked his jaw to return moisture to them.

  Whatever it was that woke him sounded right on top of him. Jared didn’t dare to breathe, or he’d give himself away.

  He needn’t have worried about the creature finding him since a moment later, a stalactite shattered as a cylindrical form penetrated the small space.

  “What the—” Jared yelled.

  He kicked away the debris piled on top of himself, grabbed his pack, and launched himself several yards away. He hit the ground in a roll and came up on his feet, running in the opposite direction. Glancing behind him, Jared saw half a dozen strange, wriggling cylinders covered in rocks.

  Worms? Jared wondered.

  He whipped his phase pistol out and fired a found at the creature. The energy beam hit the rock, fizzled, and died leaving nary a scorch mark on it.

  “Crap.”

  Holstering the phase pistol, he brought out his trusted Colt and fired a round at the lead worm. A large chunk blew off, and the worm thrashed around, knocking a couple others out of the way. When it thrashed, Jared saw a round maw ringed by several rows of razor-sharp teeth. An image of the large Godzilla worm flashed in his mind as he evaded the living rocks.

  Firing a second shot into its open mouth, the worm exploded outward in a spray of rock and chunks of white flesh. He dove behind an outcropping as the pieces of rock smacked into the boulder he hid behind. Stepping from cover, he fired two more rounds into the advancing worms and blew another one apart when it reared back.

  Well, at least they’re not smart.

  Standing his ground, Jared fired two more rounds before his Colt ran out of ammo. Jared flipped open his pack, grabbed a box of ammo and then sprinted to the other side of the tunnel. He flicked his revolver to the side, ejecting the cylinder. With practiced hands he dropped the spent shells into his open palm, pocketed them, and rapidly reloaded the bullets.

  Flicking his wrist in the opposite direction, the cylinder slid into place, and he spun it until the chamber locked into place. Feeling more confident about his situation and the ease with which he’d dispatched the first few worms, Jared rapidly destroyed the remaining rock worms with well-placed shots. The echoing explosions from his revolver functioned as a homing beacon for any creatures in the vicinity. Jared did not want to be around when they arrived. Quickly walking over to the destroyed worms, Jared absorbed the nanites, grabbed several chunks of the meat and sprinted up the tunnel.

  Ten minutes later he slowed to a trot, then walk, and finally needed to sit down. The deficit of nutrients sapped his energy reserves, and his throat burned from lack of moisture.

  Eyeing the chunks of white meat suspiciously, Jared cut a small piece from it and popped it into his mouth. It had a tough, sinewy consistency. The only saving grace of this experiment was the complete lack of smell. If it’d smelled anything like the massive worm they’d killed before, there’s no way he’d even think of trying a raw piece of flesh.

  But, here he was chewing through the membrane-textured flesh. Thankfully, it had no flavor or weird juices.

  Jared chewed the piece thoughtfully. Hopefully there were no side effects from eating the meat raw, but at least now he wouldn’t go hungry, and he’d recover enough strength to hold out for Scarlet.

  He didn’t know if entering hibernation again was the best course of action, especially considering these things zeroed in on him with no hesitation. He didn’t know how they’d found him, but if they did, then it stood to reason that other denizens of the underground could too.

  Turning the options over in his mind, Jared chose to stay awake. He had food, so there was no reason for him to conserve his strength. The only concern he had now being the possibility of attracting other creatures with the dead worms and the noise he’d made shooting his Colt.

  Again, Jared found himself walking back up the tunnel looking for a place to wait for Scarlet. He settled into an alcove half a mile from the battle, pulled out his pistols, and settled in to wait. He planned to be ready for any further encounters.

  He passed the time working on his mental abilities, but quickly grew bored after days on end with nothing to do, nothing to see, no one to talk to, and his food ran low.

  Shortly after his battle with the worms, he’d heard noises down the tunnel and suspected creatures were eating his kills, though, they didn’t travel in his direction. Part of him wished for another encounter just to pass the time, but when he though back to the poison that ate at his leg for an entire day, he checked those thoughts and went back to his mental exercises.

  He was in the middle of splitting his fourth active thought when he heard a soft scraping noise up the tunnel. Admonishing himself for letting the distraction screw with him, he split the threads again and let one portion of his mind focus on what distracted at him. Assuming it was more worms, Jared would focus on maintaining the active threads while confronting them. He needed to practice, and these worms presented a great opportunity because they weren’t all that fast or intelligent.

  Jared decided to confront whatever was in the tunnel instead of letting them creep up and surprise him again. What he saw made his blood run cold. Jared turned into a statue, not daring to move a muscle. Not daring to breathe.

  “Oh, Scarlet, please hurry,” pleaded Jared.

  A veritable army of lizards stalked toward him. They crowded the tunnel, climbed the walls, and clung to the ceiling.

  Slowly, so as not to attract a lot of attention, Jared lowered his pack to the ground and fished out his second phase pistol. He double-checked that both batteries had near full capacity. He then reloaded his Colt and re-holstered it. Last, he pulled out a couple pistols he’d brought with him and checked their magazines, tucking them into his pants.

  Jared reached an ultimatum. He could run the other way, back down the tunnel towards extreme heat and hope they gave up and he didn’t run into yet more enemies. Or, he could take the offensive. If he could get past the horde, he’d have a clear shot for the surface.

  Scarlet and her brothers would make short work of these lizards, but Jared either needed to find a way out, or survive long enough for Scarlet to return. It’d been two weeks since she left, but Jared knew she was fine. She had to be.

  Running back down the tunnel was not an option. There was only one way to go. Up, through the sea of lizards.

  Before they surrounded him, Jared centered his thoughts, splitting his conscious in two. Each half independently controlled one of his arms. He plotted the most direct path through the mass of bodies and charged.

  Jared became a death personified as his split consciousness allowed him to fire with deadly precision. Every pull of the trigger sent a round of super-heated phase matter into the head or heart of encroaching enemies. Those nearest him didn’t stand a chance. His dance with death stretched into seconds and then minutes as Jared waited for a break in the bodies to charge toward freedom.

  No matter how many lizards he felled, there didn’t seem an end. It was all he could do to keep them at bay. If he didn’t find a way through the lizard-choked corridor, he wouldn’t survive. His phase pistols would overheat, or he’d run out of charges. Either way, he needed a solution.

  Risky though it was, Jared split his thoughts again. His left and right arms moved on auto-pilot while the bulk of his processing power worked on a way out.

  Trying and failing to break through multiple times, the cuts and puncture wounds on his body took a toll, slowing him down. As fast as he was killing the lizards, new, fresh lizards took their place the moment the old ones died. Somehow, he needed to prevent that from happening.

  Leaping backward, Jared sprinted awa
y, giving himself time to stow his pistols and dual-wield his knives.

  A plan formed in his mind that required the lizards to remain alive but injured. They would impede those around them and allow him to use his superior speed and agility to work his way through the crowd to the other side.

  He contemplated doing this with the pistols but didn’t think it’d be as effective. With pistols, he could only dish out damage in a singular point in front of the weapon. With his blades, he could weave a web of death through the creatures.

  He cancelled the third thread to focus on his knives. He needed to cause mayhem and create a barrier of lizard flesh around him to minimize their reach and the number that could get to him at once.

  Jared sprang into motion, jumping into a gap between two lizards. He dropped into a crouch and hamstrung both at the knees. They fell backward, tangling with the creatures on either side and behind.

  In the same movement, he used the crouched position to launch himself in the air using Maximum Muscle. He was careful not to exert himself fully, so he didn’t tear a muscle like the last time. As he launched into the sky, several of the creatures detached from the ceiling to drop on him. Before they could react to his move, he punched out with both knives into their skulls, instantly ending their lives.

  Dropping back to the ground, Jared snap-kicked the legs from the lizards on either side, sending them cartwheeling back into their kin. Like bowling pins, it cleared a path to either side. Capitalizing on the moment of reprieve, he dove to the side and sprinted several feet before sidestepping a swiping claw and sliding to his knees to avoid a lizard springing at him.

  As it passed over his head, he sank his dagger into its gut and disemboweled it as it collided with those he’d just sidestepped. A small bubble formed around him as every creature within reach was dead, maimed, or disoriented. Before any of them could recover, Jared activated Hyper-Cognition. The world ground to a halt. A slight pressure on his mind reminded him of the consequences for over-extending his mental abilities.