“No,” she said, her voice hoarse. “No.”
Loren nodded. “He’s gone.”
A furry hand raised and then flopped onto the back of Loren’s neck.
“No,” Miz said again. “That’s not fair.”
“I know, honey,” said Loren, cradling Miz’s head. She did her best to smile through her tears. “But it’ll be OK. I promise. It’s all going to be OK.”
The Harvesters didn’t really go in for qualifications. Not in the traditional sense. No one Harvester was any more or less important than the others. At least, that’s what the important ones insisted, and the less important ones didn’t dare dispute it, for fear of finding out exactly how unimportant they actually were.
In many other species, the Harvester working in the lab would’ve been given a title like ‘doctor’ or ‘professor’. Despite his years of study and his quite remarkable knowledge of biology, the Harvester had no official title. To do so would be to set him apart from the others, and this simply would not do.
He was instead referred to by his name, Ma-kom. Or, increasingly, by his nickname, ‘that creepy bamston with the scalpel.’
The cyborg’s delivery had been an unexpected and welcome one. The possibilities afforded by an advanced healing factor were almost limitless. And not just in all the blindingly obvious ways the other Harvesters might be able to wrap their feeble brains around, he was talking complete biological overhaul. Infant gestation periods reduced to a matter of days. Organs grown for the galactic black market.
He’d spent years gene-splicing some of the most violently destructive entities in the galaxy, only for them to die or explode at crucial stages in their development. If he could isolate the healing factor, such failures would be a thing of the past. The only limits to his creations would be his imagination.
And he had such a vivid imagination.
He ran his elongated fingers across the plastic body bag, caressing its crinkles. The plastic was smoky and only semi-transparent, but the smears of blood were clearly visible on the inside, and they gave him a little shiver of excitement.
“I can’t wait to get started on you,” he whispered, kneading the corpse’s thigh through the plastic sheet. He sighed through his teeth. “But wait I must.”
Ma-kom turned crisply to the glass tub on the table behind him. “You first.”
The gelatinous green blob had become agitated when the cadaver was brought in and was now pressed against the inside of the glass, its bulbous eyes staring forlornly at the body in the bag.
Ma-kom rapped a knuckle against the glass. Splurt continued to stare past him at Cal, his blobby outline trembling.
“Look at me,” Ma-kom instructed. He knocked again. “At me.”
Splurt ignored him, much to the Harvester’s irritation.
“Very well,” he said, jamming a two-inch long rubber plug in each ear and then reaching into a pocket of his lab coat. “We’ll do it the hard way.”
Ma-kom took a phone-sized device from his pocket, waved it in front of the motionless Splurt, then jammed a finger against one of the buttons.
A piercing wail rose up from the table beneath Splurt’s tub, vibrating the glass and turning his almost-spherical body into a thrashing shapeless mass that flailed frantically inside the container, tendrils thwapping helplessly against the glass.
Ma-kom hummed quietly below his breath as he watched Splurt contorting in pain. The movements were quite mesmerizing, he thought. Relaxing, even.
He gave it another few seconds, then took his finger off the button. Silence fell. Splurt flopped down to the bottom of the tub, becoming a puddle of featureless goo.
After a moment, eyes formed inside the puddle. It rose, shakily, until it was vaguely egg-shaped, and cowered at the back of the tank. The eyes flicked over to the body again, but crept up to Ma-kom when the Harvester raised his controller device.
“There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?” said Ma-kom. “Just do what you are told, and we’re going to get on just fine.”
He leaned closer to the tub. His eyes emerged from his nasal cavities and pressed against the glass. “Disobey, and things will get very difficult.”
Splurt glanced past him, then snapped his focus back to Ma-kom. Splurt’s blobby body rippled, and Ma-kom gave a satisfied nod.
“Very good.”
Had he spoken ‘Splurt,’ however, Ma-kom would almost certainly have been less pleased. He would’ve understood that this particular ripple did not signal an acceptance of Splurt’s current predicament.
On the most basic, fundamental level, it could be translated as a simple, “Hooray!” Or possibly a, “Yipee!” depending on how closely you looked.
Those with a clearer understanding of the language might have detected a deeper meaning, too. It was subtle, but if you knew what you were looking for, there was no mistaking it.
It translated loosely as: “You’re fonked, sunshine.”
And he was.
Ma-kom straightened and pulled the plugs from his ears. As he did, he heard the crackling of plastic, and a horrible thought suddenly occurred to him.
Just how good was this guy’s healing factor?
He turned to find the corpse grinning at him and waving. “Well, hey there, you,” it said.
It cracked its knuckles and lowered its voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Do us both a favor, will you?” it said. “Don’t scream.”
The corpse winked at him, its smile growing. “Not even if you really want to.”
Twenty-Two
Mech thudded along the passageway leading away from the lab, his legs carrying him along all on their own. His arms and chest were slick with blood. Cal’s blood. There was something wet and chunky on his foot, but he couldn’t bring himself to look.
Not that he could look, even if he’d wanted to. They’d ramped up power to the control chip, and now he was little more than an observer inside his own head. He could move his eyes, and he had successfully hurled an insult at the guards outside the lab door, but both took enormous amounts of effort. Soon, he would lose control completely. He wondered what would happen to his mind when he did. Would they take hold of that, too?
He could feel them in there now, in fact, rooting around in his head. He tried to fight them off, force them out, drive them away, but they wormed insistently through his brain, rummaging through his memories.
“Don’t fight us,” hissed the voice from his arm. “You’re ours now. Accept it.”
“F-fonk you,” Mech managed to reply.
The Harvester sniggered. The worm in his head squirmed with ever more determination.
“We’ll have you. All of you,” said the voice. “You can’t fight us forever. Sooner or later, you’ll give yourself fully to us. And then, you’ll be free. Free of these painful memories.”
An image of his foot slamming down on Cal’s back flashed to the forefront of Mech’s mind. He grunted and managed to drive it away, only for a picture of Cal’s lifeless torso swinging in Mech’s grip to replace it.
“N-no,” he croaked. “Don’t.”
He clanked on along the passageway, picture after picture of the fight with Cal flashing up before his eyes, almost as if it were happening all over again right there in front of him.
Cal’s nose exploding. Cal’s neck compressing. Cal’s chest collapsing. Cal dying. Cal dead.
The blood puddle. The trail of red as Mech had carried him to the lab. The look of glee on the face of the Harvester in the lab as he’d unfolded the body bag and Mech had dropped him unceremoniously inside.
Mech’s feet stopped.
No. Shizz. No.
Mech tried to focus on another image. Any image. Not the one that had currently frozen in front of his face. Not the one showing Cal’s body on the table, his wounds almost imperceptibly knitting themselves together.
He couldn’t let them see that one. He couldn’t let them know.
Too late.
Mech spu
n. His legs powering him back along the passageway, hydraulics hissing. He reached the lab door and shouldered straight through it, scattering the guards.
Cal stood in the middle of the room, his eyes wide, his mouth fixed in something that wasn’t quite a smile. Rain fell from the ceiling. Red rain. Lots and lots of red rain.
As Mech stared, something wet and knobbly dropped from one of the overhead lights and splatted to the floor. It landed beside what was unmistakably a Harvester’s arm, wrapped inside what was equally unmistakably the sleeve of a lab coat.
Cal cleared this throat gently. “Trust me,” he said. “You do not want to know.”
Mech raised his fists and took a step closer. From somewhere on his left came two very distinct sounds. The first was not unlike the sound of an extremely localized earthquake. The second, which followed just a moment later, was not dissimilar to a trumpet.
An enormous gray shape slammed into Mech, launching him across the room. He carved a neat trench through a couple of workbenches, before his momentum embedded him several inches into the wall.
Lights flickered in his on-board HUD. Diagnostic reports flooded his field of vision, many of them flashing red.
“What… what the fonk was that?” he groaned.
Cal rested an elbow on one of Splurt’s elongated ivory tusks.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said, grinning. “That was the elephant of surprise. And you, my robotic friend, are totally fonked.”
The two guards from outside rushed into the room. Splurt’s trunk became an elongated silver blade that cleaved them both neatly in two.
“Though not as fonked as those guys,” said Cal, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the door.
The blade became a trunk again. It wrapped around Mech, yanked him out of the wall, then smashed him repeatedly against the floor.
Cal stooped and rummaged in Ma-kom’s toolbox until he found a sturdy set of bolt cutters. He wasn’t quite sure what the Harvester used them for, and he didn’t really want to know. He had his own uses for them.
“Splurt, hold that fonk still,” he commanded, snapping the cutting edges together a few times to test them. “I think we’ll all agree that it’s only fair I get my own back.”
An alarm screamed through the mine, shaking pebbles from the walls as it bounced through the caves.
“What’s happening?” cried Garunk, jamming his hands over what passed for his ears. “What’s with the alarm?”
Loren glanced up at the ceiling, gave a little sob of relief, then jumped to her feet. She offered Miz a hand up and, to her surprise, Miz accepted.
“Wait,” Miz said, her brow furrowing. “Does this mean…?”
Loren nodded. “I think so. I don’t know. Not for sure. But I think so.”
The gas had almost cleared now, and they could make out dozens of armed Harvesters flooding through the chamber, kicking and shoving at any Nogems unlucky enough to get in their way.
The hole Cal had fallen through had been sealed with some sort of white foam, stopping any more of the insects escaping. Garunk gave it an experimental prod with his foot, and was relieved to find it had solidified.
“What now?” he asked.
Miz extended her claws. “Now, we go tear these shizznods apart. Right?”
“Wrong,” said Loren. “You can’t do anything with that collar.”
“Uh, yeah, I can,” Miz scowled. “Like, just watch me.”
She made it three or four good bounds toward the main chamber before the collar activated and she crashed to the ground, slid along it, then rolled to a stop.
Garunk glanced at Loren. “Is that what we were supposed to be watching?”
“No,” Loren sighed, breaking into a jog. “Come on, help me get her up.”
By the time they reached Mizette, she was already up on her hands and knees, gritting her teeth against the pain of four lights.
“Going to… pay… for this,” she grimaced, forcing herself up onto her feet.
“Miz, don’t,” said Loren.
Mizette took another step. Light five flickered on, constricting her muscles and forcing a howl of pain through her lips. Her tail drooped. Her fur stood on end.
She took another shaky step toward the main chamber, and the army of Harvesters assembling there.
Six lights.
Seven.
Something inside her head went pop, ejecting a spurt of blood from both nostrils. She staggered and fell, but Loren got a shoulder beneath her and grimaced as Miz’s weight landed on her.
“Garunk, help!” she hissed.
Garunk rushed over and hooked Mizette’s other arm over his shoulder, taking most of her weight.
“What do we do?” he asked, just a hint of his earlier excitement returning.
“Help me put her down,” Loren urged.
Garunk leaned forward and gasped. “What, like… Put her down down? Is it that bad?”
“No! On the floor,” Loren snapped.
“Oh. Right. Gotcha,” said Garunk. His sludgy face took on the suggestion of a smile. “Here, Loren. You know what this reminds me of?”
“Not now!” Loren barked. “Get her on the floor.”
“N-nn-nno,” Miz managed. She dragged a foot forward a faltering half-step.
Eight lights.
Nine.
Loren felt the scream as it rose through Mizette’s body. It was partly blocked by her teeth, which had clenched tightly together, but escaped through the gaps with enough force to temporarily drown out the alarm.
The tightness in Miz’s muscles seemed to double her weight, and they all fell to the floor in a heap. Loren rolled clear as Mizette’s claws lashed out, ripping and tearing at the air, the ground, and unfortunately, Garunk.
“Ow. Ow. Ow,” Garunk protested, as Mizette cleaved three deep trenches in his muddy flesh. “Sharp, sharp!”
He slid away from her and smeared the wounds shut. “That could’ve been nasty,” he said, but Loren wasn’t listening.
She waited until the closest of Miz’s arms lashed out, then ducked under it and made a grab for the collar. There had to be some sort of clasp somewhere. Some way of removing it.
“It’s a sealed unit,” Loren groaned, studying the thing. “There’s no join. It’s a solid piece of metal.”
“And that’s bad?” said Garunk.
“Yes! It means I can’t open it,” Loren said.
Garunk nodded. “You know what this reminds me of?”
Loren clenched her fists. “I swear to Kroysh, if you say ‘the Academy’…”
Garunk shifted uncomfortably. “Uh, actually, I was going to say it reminded me of earlier, when you guys were all energy-bonded to the wall, and I was going to free you. Remember? Loren? Loren. Loren? Remember?”
“Yes!” Loren hissed. “Yes, I remember!” She struggled with the collar again, then ran her hands through her hair in frustration. “I don’t know what to do. Miz, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”
Garunk glanced down at his feet. “You know what I was thinking? When I was standing there with the pickaxe? You know what was going through my mind?”
Loren dodged another of Miz’s frenzied claw swipes and placed a hand on her head, trying to soothe her.
“Loren?”
“No, Garunk, I don’t know,” Loren snapped. She sighed. “I mean… No. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking, I wish I was more like you,” Garunk said.
Loren looked up. “What?”
“I thought, ‘Garunk, old pal’—because that’s what I call myself. I thought, ‘Garunk, old pal, you are going to mess this up. You’re going to kill these nice people,’” he said. “And I wished, more than anything, that I was more like you, because you never messed up. You know, back at the…” He recalled the look on Loren’s face a moment before. “Back in the day. You always knew what to do. You were the one who made the tough decisions. You were the one who always got the job done.”
“No, I di
dn’t,” said Loren. “I messed up all the time.”
Garunk shrugged. “Maybe it felt that way to you. But to the rest of us? To me? You were the best.”
Miz snorted. Loren couldn’t tell if it was an involuntary pain response or if she’d somehow mustered the strength to do it on purpose.
“I didn’t quit Zertex,” Garunk said, lowering his head. “They kicked me out. Told me I wasn’t good enough. And, I guess they were right. But you? You’re Teela Fonking Loren. You’re the best at what you do. And right now, what you need to do, is help your friend.”
Loren looked down at the collar on Miz’s neck. She looked back at Garunk. Her hand raised. A finger extended, pointing to something propped up against the wall.
“Garunk,” she said. “Shut the fonk up. And get me that pickaxe.”
Twenty-Three
Over a hundred Harvesters stood assembled in the main cavern. The clattering of feet from along the passageway suggested the same again were hurrying to join them.
They were more heavily armed than usual. While a few held the glowing whips, most were weighed down by chest-mounted blaster cannons that were hooked over their shoulder and fastened by straps around their waists. There were handles on either side of the weapons, and the Harvesters held them like an accordion player might hold an accordion, albeit with marginally less self-loathing or malicious intent.
One of the Harvesters—not the leader, exactly, because they didn’t believe in leaders, but one who was very much in charge, and anyone who disagreed had better have a high fonking pain threshold, that’s all he could say—had just begun to bark out some commands when something large, furry, and exquisitely angry exploded through the ranks of soldiers, cleaving and ripping and biting at anyone within reach. And it was making a point, it seemed, of ensuring everyone got their turn at being in reach.
The screaming followed a few seconds later. They weren’t screams of pain, as anyone who had come in direct contact with the furious mass of furry muscle was already several steps beyond having the capability to emit sound. They were screams of panic. Howls of fear. Great, guttural snorts of, ‘Oh, shizz!’
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