Drews was, oddly, a comforting presence. Sure, he lacked the physical ability to smile, and seemed annoyed with me most the time, but I knew that if it really did turn out that God hates me and Kazuma survived the blue pulse, Drews was the one human most able and willing to meet him in single combat. Each day I forced myself to approach the tall man, to make myself valuable to him — to barter for his protection.
The Director and her research staff distracted us with experiments — all with our consent and ability to call a stop. When it came to surgery, Veronica always opted to be unconscious for the duration, whereas I preferred local anesthesia. I watched my own skin, muscles, and tendons pulled aside, and learned more about my body than a human would ever need to know.
My favorite experiments were drug trials. We established that the needles disliked alcohol and opiates, enhanced the emotional effects of cannabis, and did scary-awesome things on amphetamines. It was these trials that eventually helped Veronica and I bond. We rolled on molly together, our bodies electrified with carefree energy. We cried together, and embraced.
For the first time in a long time, Vee and I were friends. Maybe Dr. Meers had planned it so. After all, it was she who first called us ‘sisters’.
Veronica dozed off as the sun set. On the other side of the door, the abandoned grocery store was utterly still and silent.
She stood on the edge of the eternity wood. She was all alone.
Such power radiated from inside the trees. She longed for it, was magnetized toward it — so she took a step forward, and another, and then she was inside the trees, moving deeper.
The ground opened beneath her, a narrow canyon. She clawed and grabbed at the soil, the underbrush, but gravity sucked her down. Then she was closed in, buried, pressed on from all sides. She screamed, but no one could hear her. No one would ever help her. This was the last small place she would ever see. She was forgotten. She would never be found.
She awoke to darkness — night had fallen outside. She was running a fever, her new body’s equivalent of a cold sweat.
She cried for a little while, because she was scared. Her stomach twisted at the idea of capture, of ‘containment’. She was a twenty-four-year-old in a twenty-three-year-old’s body. She longed for the world to just leave her alone already.
But she had a near-physical inability to leave me behind. Just the thought was like a hook in her heart, ripping and yanking.
“Think like Eden,” she whispered, forcibly calming herself with deep, sniffling breaths. “Goals. What are the goals.”
Physical survival. She got up, inspected the contents of her backpack, and after some thought, looted a few more bottles of water from the shelves. She also started thinking about camping gear and better clothes. There were a few places on Fortuna where she knew she could camp.
Observation. She needed to watch FOB Barlowe, the camp at the foot of the alien mountain, in case they sent out teams to hunt her on the other side. She’d also gain valuable information about Drews’ priorities, maybe spot chances to sabotage him or draw him out.
The Plan. Vee had no idea what the facility’s weak points may be or where I would be ‘contained’, but observation would cure that. Eventually, a rescue plan would form.
Shouldering her heavy backpack, she wandered alleys until she found an open portal.
Over the next days, she made multiple back-and-forth trips in order to stockpile potable water and find camping supplies. Next she gathered clothes for Earth February and alien spring. Each time she switched worlds, she risked not being near a portal when she desperately needed to be, or stepping through directly into danger or capture. Twice, she set off alarms in Gothic and only barely made it back to a portal in time.
Sometimes she felt reckless. She couldn’t help it. Despite her goals, her observations, her planning, she still had no idea what she was doing. Each time she crossed over, she could only pray she was one step closer to her sister.
As the days turned to weeks, her body accustomed itself to the quest — growing taller, fitter, quicker to hide and to fight by hand. By night, she was plagued not just by dreams of the wood, but of encountering soldiers, of slaughtering them. Each time, she awoke swearing to herself that she would never, except to save her own life or mine. It was high time the violence ended, and it would start with her.
In her nightmares, Drews chased her unceasingly, pausing only to empty his gun into her loved ones. She thought to herself that if she ever met him in combat, she may make an exception for that hateful, monstrous man.
And then, one day, she crossed over into Earth’s cold evening and found herself in the middle of a forest. With a sinking heart, she hiked to the nearest road and confirmed her worst suspicion: she was outside the city, outside even the outer fence. The portals were spreading.
Still, it was high time she did some scouting outside the city limits, maybe gain some new information or weapons. She was much less likely to be spotted out here, but she decided to hedge her bets; as she walked up the road, she changed her face and features until she was sure no one would recognize her.
Her backpack was heavy with water and clothes and the hammer. She hadn’t slept indoors in a month. A mile down the road, as it was getting dark, she passed faded signs directing traffic to a FEMA shelter site.
But Lucas knows none of this.
“Io,” he insists. “Your sister.”
I blink at him. “I’m an only child.”
“What?” A horrifying idea dawns on him. “Are there more of you trapped here?”
“No way. I would know.” I shake my head. “What’s she look like?”
“Black hair—”
My heart jumps into my throat. “Asian? Japanese? And really tall?”
“What? No! She’s black, our height. Although, she said she hasn’t always been black. She changed her—”
“Ohhhh, God, please don’t let it be him in disguise.” I feel sick. I put a hand to my mouth to hold back the inevitable retch of fear. “I survived the pulse, so maybe he did, too—”
“Stop, stop! Io wants to save you. She said, uhh . . .” He racks his brain. “You were captured when the old Director died, and she regrets leaving you behind—”
Fear and paranoia flood out of me, replaced with exhausted relief. “Vee!” I cry, stepping closer to him in the water. “You’re working with Vee! Veronica! We’re not sisters, but— Oh my God, she called me her sister?” Tears, precious water, stream down my face. “I can’t believe she got a cop to help! From FEMA! Where is she? Can you take me to her?”
He grips my arm to help steady my shivering legs. “I’d love nothing more. Can you walk?”
I hesitate, embarrassed. “My legs are still reconstituting.”
“Put your arms around my neck.” He gets my left arm over his shoulder, then reaches down and hooks his wrist under my bone-and-tendon knees. With ease, he lifts me into his arms.
“This is real super feminist,” I mumble as he starts toward the door.
“Everyone needs to be carried once in a while. I’m Lucas. Didn’t catch your n—”
We reach the threshold and behold a corridor filled with writhing, fighting needle monsters.
“—Fuck! Dozens of them!” he whispers furiously, ducking back behind the metal door frame.
I’m a bit shell-shocked, myself. “This is going to be tough. You have a gun, right?”
“I have maybe five bullets left!” He glances down at me. “Please tell me you’re really as dangerous as the big metal door would suggest.”
Hmm.
Well, now that he mentions it . . .
“Am I heavy? To you?” I ask.
“This is no time to worry about your weight!”
“No, serious question.”
“Uh, I . . . No, you’re very light.” With a slight flex of his shoulders, he moves me up and down. “Why?”
He’s muscular, and only an inch or two taller than my own 5’6. I doubt he’s lying; he looks li
ke he could carry ten of me on his back.
He’ll probably survive what I’m planning.
“Set me down, then let me climb onto your back.” When he gives me an odd look, I add, “Needle person stuff.”
He puts me back on my wobbly feet, then crouches down so I can climb up. His back is warm against my chest, his grip on each knee unintentionally intimate. Part of me instantly regrets this idea.
I rest my chin on his left shoulder and make sure I can see ahead. Then I heave one arm over his right shoulder and brace that hand against his chest; the other arm, I wrap around his side, under his armpit. I link my hands, which requires no small amount of stretching and joint-popping. Lucas endures these adjustments with increasing anxiety.
I bring my feet together and steel myself. “My name is Eden Green. Now, I’m going to get you out of here alive, but in order to do so, I need you to not panic.”
“What?”
I begin to engulf his body.
He immediately panics.
“The only thing!” I shout as I meld my hands and feet together, securing myself to him despite his thrashing. “The only thing you need to worry about is overheating! I have a core temperature of 104°, and the one other time I tried this—”
“What is ‘this’?” he shouts, distracted from the dangerous extradimensional monsters writhing just outside. “What the fuck are you doing to me?”
“I call it ‘backpacking’!” Within the cover of his borrowed jacket, I begin to spread myself thin. My already-emaciated arms go flat against his chest, forearm bones hardening and armoring themselves over his heart and lungs.
I start to do the same with my legs, but he’s struggling and wriggling far too much. “Will you fucking chill?” I demand. My cheeks grow thin as spare water is relocated. “Lucas, I would appreciate it if you would please stand still, please. I’m trying not to tickle—”
“If you’re eating me, I swear to God, I will let Drews have you!”
“I’m not eating you! I hate food, especially meat! I only drink water, for Chrissake! Just . . . Just think of it as body armor! Only, it’s living, it can think, and it is extremely invested in getting you out of here!”
He raises a shaking arm and reluctantly watches me spread flesh down it. “If this is so great, why didn’t Io offer to do this when we could have used it?”
“She never figured out how, just like I never figured out how to completely change gender — and apparently race — like she can. The needles bring out different talents.” With a carefully directed thought, I align all surface needles below my neck in a special pattern Vee designed. My skin becomes blade-proof, blow-resistant — and smooth, jet-black. I can finally shake the hideous embarrassment of my (now skeletal) nakedness under Lucas’ jacket.
Most of his torso, arms, and legs are covered; I don’t have enough mass to spread myself over his entire body. Besides, I’d cook this poor bastard like an egg. Speaking of which: “Am I too warm?”
He carefully adjusts a band of flesh that stretches across his chest. “Like hot sunlight. I’ll live. What can you block?”
“Blades and bullets. Limited blow- and crush-prevention. I’ll explain the mechanics later. Can you walk?”
He sloshes forward in the water experimentally. “Like I’m wrapped in heavy elastic, but yeah.” He frowns down at his hand — at the new and melded hook of smooth obsidian that covers it like a gauntlet. He flexes his arm, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Woah. I feel like I could lift a ton.”
“I’m mimicking your movements smoothly enough to both augment and guide you. Increased strength is one of the many perks. I also might be able to help you sprint slightly faster, because it’s a repetitive motion. But during combat, my reaction time will only be as good as yours. Do cops get training in unarmed combat?”
“I have a brown belt.”
“. . . is that good?”
“. . . it’s the second-highest one,” he admits, reluctantly smug.
“Nice. Now, that said, if it’s all ‘use their weight against them’ crap, I’ll tell you right now: Does not work on non-humanoids. So please tell me you learned lots of punches and kicks.”
“It’s karate.”
“We just became best friends. You ready to rock?”
He shudders under me, a delicious feeling that I’m promptly ashamed to have shared in. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Nah, it’ll be fun. And even if you die, at least no one can put you in a tank forever!”
He rolls his eyes, squares his shoulders. “This is my life now,” he mutters, and returns to the doorway. His step over the threshold is painfully awkward; we’re still getting used to each other.
The needle monsters writhe in disoriented packs, attacking each other. There’s a meld of species, some of which I might not be familiar with.
But closest to us stands a juvenile carnigiraffa, its huge body nearly filling the narrow corridor. At the end of its long, black neck, its lamprey mouth is like a many-hook-toothed eye staring silently at us.
Lucas’ body goes rigid with fear. (This feels very interesting.) I subtly urge him to march forward. “Brain is in their chest. We haven’t practiced punching yet, so I’m going to try spears. We need to get within range before it—”
It belches a nausea-inducing sound. I am blissfully unaffected, but in this confined space, Lucas immediately swoons forehead-first toward the closest wall. With a force of effort, I splint his legs rigid and keep him stumbling forward. The puppeteering only worsens Lucas’ illness; he lets out a croak and almost passes out.
I can hear the giraffe gathering breath to roar again. Repeated exposure could put my ride into a coma. I force his legs into a run. “Stay with me!” I cry out, sharpening my forearm-covers into long blades. “Take over whenever you can and I’ll back you up! Disable its mouth, sever its neck, crush or stab its brain!”
Just as the giraffe curls back its teeth to roar, I push us into a full sprint, raise an arm, and bring it down across the lamprey mouth.
This might be a good time to mention that I have no combat training and have gained nothing from all attempts to teach it to me. I’m not a warrior princess like Vee; I’m a biology nerd with a body made of needles. Which is why this first strike almost gets us killed.
The mouth, though injured, wraps around Lucas’ front and sides. My armor-skin blocks its teeth, but they grip. The giraffe gives us a violent shake, then throws us into the wall—
I blink woozily. I think I’ve been out for about eight seconds. On the bright side, my back and head probably protected Lucas from brain damage.
He’s on his feet, his movements becoming more sure — he’s fought off the effects of the scream. I realize with faint satisfaction that even when I was unconscious, my mini-brains and elastic responses kept up the hard work. He’s using quick darts and feints to approach and intimidate the lamprey head. Every smooth, practiced movement of his body generates an identical but amplified response in my own. After a few conscious adjustments, I bring us into perfect sync.
For half a moment, it’s Drews’ upper body I’m wrapped around — he’s too tall and muscular for full coverage. An old punching bag hangs in front of us, and he strikes it with ferocity born of practice and experience. It’s a good hit, and lands true — but it is my augmentation that bursts the bag at its seam.
I hear Vee ‘whoop!’ in the observation room. Even the Director lets out an appreciative whistle, and she and Vee exchange a look.
“Unnatural,” Drews spits, wiping at the sweat pouring off his forehead. “Get off me.”
“What?” I’m crushed; we’ve only completed two out of the six experiments I designed to test the—
The giraffe lies dead at our feet, its neck severed and chest-housed brain stabbed with forearm-armor-producing spears.
Lucas’ chest heaves against my stretched armor-tendrils. “Eden?” Lucas gasps. “Still . . . there?”
“Yeah.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a
second and focus on the feeling of his body against mine. “Is this working for you?”
He flexes the brace of pure onyx that protects his right hand, balls it into a fist, and experimentally punches a hole in the cinder block wall. By the time the blow connects, the skin covering his knuckles has turned to stone, and has braced itself around his fingers like a boxing glove. With a crack, he leaves a hole the size of his fist.
Then he stares at it, shocked.
Now he’ll beg me to climb down off him. He’ll cite heat sickness, and when I offer to design workarounds to release extra heat, he’ll call me ‘it’ and remind me that I should have died in the blue pulse. As if I don’t go to sleep thinking the same thing every single n—
“This is amazing!” Lucas blurts, and repeats the punch but with his other hand, leaving an identical dent next to the first.
A warm feeling kindles in my heart. I’m not really sure what it is.
Lucas already has his eye on the next set of monsters — a writhing mass of Perforopoda swastika that has all but engulfed the body of an extremely unlucky herbivore. I sense his disgust at the feeding ritual, which whips me right out of my copacetic mood — because these creatures are fascinating.
“Their entire bodies are randomly covered in small mouths, in amid the dermal denticles and nano-hooks.” I point with my chin. “So to feed, they bathe in their prey’s vitals. See, that clump are already digging through to the digestive organs—”
“Their little blood-bath is blocking the way,” he points out, irritated. “No handy ventilation shaft. I don’t suppose you can crawl along the ceiling.”
“I mean, I could try, using hooks of some kind, but one wrong move and we fall into Alien People Juicer. And we will blend.”
He steps back from the carnage, using his heel to clear a narrow path in the dead giraffe’s needles. “Could take a running jump. Or, if you can make one of those spears really long, I could pole-vault.”
“Hang on, you know karate and you’re a pole-vaulter?”
New Night (Gothic Book 2) Page 18