by A. R. Crebs
The nurse outside the room called over the intercom a code red warning, advising everyone to evacuate the building. Aria stumbled to her feet, tremors shaking violently throughout the structure. A loud groan sounded from above and the quaking suddenly halted.
“What the hell was that?!” Troy cursed.
“Definitely a blast. I’m guessing explosive devices were set earlier from this afternoon’s attack.” The woman turned her head to the side, hearing a splintering crack from the wall behind her.
“Do you hear that?” Gavin whispered.
“Sounds like scratching.” Troy nodded. Suddenly, his eyes widened as he met Aria’s frightened stare. The scratching seemed similar to talons rustling against concrete.
“We have to get out of here now!” Aria turned to grab Dr. Camery just as the wall behind her fractured open, blasting outward and sending their bodies flying to the floor once again. A loud hum filled the room–a low buzzing that oscillated in beats against the hiss of the spraying fire extinguishers in the ceiling. Aria struggled to her hands and knees, trying to get a clear view of her comrades and the doctor through the smoky air. Her ears tingled as she listened to the multiple sounds of the crackling flames, faraway screams and shouts from the injured soldiers outside, and the soft, almost choking, noise coming from beside her.
“Dr. Camery?” Aria called out, reaching toward the dark silhouette in front of her. Her hands gripped the body, and then she jerked back as a loud screech sounded, and a face–a disgusting face with giant teeth and fleshy gums–growled and snapped its sharp jaws toward her. It was one of the creatures from the I.R.B., alive and well and apparently very angry. The thing leaped to the side and grabbed the frightened doctor, dragging his body backward into the hole in the wall.
“Troy!” Aria screamed, rising. Gripping her EM-36C, she hopped into the hole after the monster without a second thought.
“Shit! Did you see that?!” Gavin shouted.
“Yeah, I did! Come on!” Troy followed.
Gavin stopped him. “You mean we’re jumping through the hole, too?!”
“Do you have another way out?!” the soldier argued.
Gavin looked through the glass door. The hallway was engulfed in flame, blocking the men's path. It was either climb through the hole or burn to death in the tiny room.
“Lead the way, my man.” Gavin held out a hand.
With Troy taking the lead, they dropped through the hole, chasing after Aria and the beast that kidnapped the professor. Reaching for a thick supporting beam, Troy lightly gripped the edges and swiftly slid down the sides. He stared down into the darkness, hoping Aria was okay and that an ambush wasn’t waiting for him and Gavin when they reached the bottom.
“Double-time, Gavin!” Troy called out, the other man now a few meters behind.
“Hey! I’m a pilot, not a super-soldier!” Gavin whimpered, “I’m going to die. I’m going to die.”
Like luminous ball lightning, electric bursts shot from the sides of the walls through tiny, black containers, each one holding a pressure-sensitive maglev suspension system carefully hidden between each level of the superstructure. A low, foreboding rumble echoed from above the two men as high-pitched alarms sounded the code red alert.
“Shit! Those are the safety lines!” Troy shouted.
“What do you mean safety lines?!” Gavin cried.
“For the floors! The building is caving in on itself!” Troy exclaimed.
“Oh, my God! I’m going to die! I’m going to die!” the pilot continued his whimpering.
Another burst of electric current exploded near Troy’s hands, sending the man sideways and free-falling down the shaft. Slamming from side to side, he reached out, gripping the edge of one of the I-beams, and came to an abrupt halt as the strap to his shouldered weapon snagged itself on the corner of the metal girder, nearly dislocating his shoulder in the process.
“Shit! Troy’s going to die; we’re both going to die!” Gavin sobbed, slowly inching his way down the interior shaft.
“Gavin,” Troy groaned, lifting his gaze upward to look at his friend, “shut the f–” Bright orange bursts of flame blasted down the floors, heading directly toward the men. Gavin was still four levels above Troy. “Gavin!” he shouted.
“I know! I hear!” the pilot answered.
“No! We’ve got to drop!”
“What?!”
“We’ve got to drop! We’ve got to drop now!”
“Are you freaking nuts?!” Gavin strung together a few colorful choice words.
Additional explosions sounded as the flames erupted closer and closer. “Do it now, or you’re dead!” Groaning and struggling to lift his arm, Troy unbuckled his weapon’s strap, let go of the I-beam and dropped. He aimed his rifle and slowly counted the floors in his head.
“Shit! I’m dead either way!” Gavin watched the level above him rupture. “Always preferred to fly,” he moaned as he released the beam and fell after his friend into the darkness.
Troy loaded a fresh clip onto the side of his rifle and aimed carefully to fire two shots down the hole. Vivid, green fluorescents flooded at high velocity toward the bottom, exploding at the base of the shaft into a glowing pillow of ooze. Troy tucked his knees and rolled to his backside, dropped into the sludge, and instantaneously came to a halt on the bottom level of the Bio-Tech Military Corporation building. He pushed to the side, twisted to a crouching position, and fired again, setting another safety net just as Gavin dropped from the ceiling through the hole. The pilot’s screams were quickly muffled as he was engulfed in the green light, his hands covering his eyes.
“Gavin! Get to cover!” Troy shouted, rolling up and around to find Aria outdoors. He caught a glimpse of her military trench as she ran down the street, following after the creature and the captive doctor. Troy followed in pursuit, mentally calling out to her, “Right behind you.”
“It’s got the doctor. It’s heading into an alleyway,” she replied.
“Gotcha.”
Keeping his eye on his partner, Troy ran across the street, leaping over a downed soldier. Goosebumps covered the man’s flesh as he noticed the chaos consuming the entire city. Civilians and soldiers alike were firing weapons as the frightening creatures flooded the streets. Screams and shouts filled the air like raid sirens. Dust and charcoal-black smoke mixed with the brilliant orange flame that ate away at all the superstructures. Everything was going down: Bio-Tech and the surrounding corporations, along with the apartment complexes. And it all happened without warning. Troy’s boots slammed against the pavement, crunching against broken glass and water that flooded from the emergency hydrants. He rounded the corner, slowly catching up with Aria, and got knocked sideways. Reflexively rolling to the side, he slammed harshly into a nearby brick wall, causing him to see white. He shook his head as his vision slowly cleared to reveal the sight of one of the beasts leaping from the shadows beside a dumpster. It clamped its clawed hands over Troy’s shoulders, hissing and spitting as it bit downward toward his throat but met the metal of his rifle instead as the man braced for the impact. Fighting the monster, Troy eyeballed Aria a few meters away. She halted and turned, concern covering her suddenly pale features.
“Troy!” her voice called out to him.
“Get to Camery! I’ll catch up later!” he responded.
He saw her hesitate before she turned and entered the dark alleyway. Troy relaxed a bit, now able to focus fully on his current objective. The last thing he wanted was for the woman to watch a monster chew him to death.
Aria narrowed her eyes as she entered the darkness, her optical camera switching to night vision. Dr. Camery’s shouts sounded from a few meters away. She hurried past a couple garbage cans, sights locking onto her target as it aggressively scaled an apartment building wall, dragging the scientist behind it. Aria fired her weapon, releasing an EMP grenade. It smacked the backside of the creature, sending it into convulsions, and it carelessly dropped Dr. Camery two meters into a cr
umpled heap on the wet cement. Aria then opened fire, but the creature fluctuated, disappearing from sight. The woman continued her careful aim, twirling in a circle as she neared the downed scientist.
“Dr. Camery, are you okay?” she asked.
He groaned in response.
“Good, still alive.” She turned left and then right, looking down the side alleyways.
“Well, we wouldn’t have carried him all the way out here if we wanted to kill him,” a low, male voice sounded from behind the woman.
Quickly, Aria spun on her heel, aiming her rifle at a man leaning against a nearby wall. He stared at her with piercing blue eyes, eyes that matched the blue embers of his cigarette. Long raven hair covered the right side of his face, falling across his shoulder.
“You…you’re Euclid.” The woman tightened her grip on her weapon. She was answered by a deep and hollow laugh. It sent chills down her spine.
“I’m honored to have you remember me, Aria.” Her name rolled off his tongue, sounding much more foreign than she was used to.
A low vibration shook the ground, causing the woman to fall to her side as a deafening blast erupted. From above the rooftops, Aria could see Bio-Tech going down in flames. The floors quickly smothered one another as the superstructure folded in on itself. The building tilted, craning closer and closer toward the area Aria was in, giving an unnatural groan as it destructively shattered into pieces. Massive amounts of glass and metal tumbled across the surrounding buildings in a monstrous crash. An enormous amount of debris broke from the side of the building, plummeting down the sides of the apartments toward the military woman. Aria watched in fear as the heap fell ever closer to smash her unrecognizably into the concrete. But, before it could hit, and much to the woman’s shocking relief, the rubble came to an abrupt halt. She stared in disbelief at her own reflection in the shattered glass only a couple meters above her.
“Can’t let you die yet,” Euclid chuckled from beside the woman. He held his palm into the air as if subconsciously holding the weighted mass above the woman.
“Who, who are you?” Aria gaped at the stranger, her face sickly in color.
“I believe you already know my name.” The dark man smirked.
“Are you the one responsible for all of this?”
He laughed again, waiting a moment before answering, “Not entirely.”
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Her voice shook along with her hands as she tried to grip her weapon. She could shoot the man and ask questions later. Yet, fifty tons of debris were hovering above her at his command, sparkling in the orange iridescent firelight.
“Aria!” Troy’s voice sounded from the edge of the alleyway. He quickly neared the two, his rifle aimed at Euclid. “Who the hell are you?”
Euclid simply smiled at the helpless woman before him, ignoring the intruding soldier. “You’ll find your answers somewhere else.”
“Where?” Aria asked despite feeling she already knew the answer.
Her jade-green eyes locked onto the inhuman cerulean of Euclid’s. “Ives,” he plainly stated.
A low hum sounded from the man as his raised hand folded into a fist. He frowned, and the debris over Aria shook and rattled, bursting into nothing more than a thick cloud of dust. She curled into a ball, protecting herself, listening to the soft rumble of the man’s laughter in her ears until everything fell into silence.
“Are you alright?” Troy rushed to the woman’s side, wiping the thick dust from her hair and clothes.
Aria wiped at her face, opening her eyes slowly. Euclid was gone.
“Who was that?” Troy breathed heavily. His shoulders were gashed up pretty bad, blood soaking his uniform. His expression was pained as he sat down and lifted his arm to rest on the woman’s shoulder. Sweat mixed with the black soot on his face, dripping to his chin.
“Euclid. I saw him this morning on the elevator,” Aria replied.
“Is he behind all this?”
“I don’t know, but judging by his unnatural abilities, he’s definitely a key player.” The woman rose to her feet and helped Troy to his. She balanced herself against the injured man. “Dr. Camery!” She turned and sighed aloud. The doctor was safe, pressing against the wall of the building as he stared upwards at the burning conglomerate that once housed his life’s work.
“What the hell’s going on?” Troy asked.
“Not sure, but I feel like I’m in the middle of someone’s game.” Aria narrowed her gaze.
She didn’t know whose game she was involved in nor why. All she knew was that she had more questions than answers and she needed answers. Euclid, however, had confirmed her assumptions, which meant she and Troy had to go to Ives.
"Gavin’s Portrait"
Chapter 6
Bio-Tech Military Corporation, covered in black smoke and with twinkling broken panes of glass, was left virtually destroyed. Everything from the 70th floor and above had been either flattened or split off, the safety lines finally capturing the weight and stabilizing the building’s structure below. An eerie red glow haunted the building as the emergency lights spiraled in alert, reflecting through the windows and cracks. Sirens blared in deathly alarm as the air was filled with the frightening screams of civilians wounded in the streets. Water rained from the sky, actually from the extinguisher systems of the nearby destroyed buildings and street hydrants. Thundering bellows moaned from the tittering Bio-Tech Military Corporation’s upper floors that had crashed into the side of a neighboring conglomerate. The sight was devastating.
Aria stared at the top floor of the building, now seemingly smashed into oblivion. Water droplets lined her cheeks, mixing with the grey ash into muddy pools. Only an hour ago she was on the top floor speaking with the President. If she and the others had waited any longer would they have made it out alive? Her thoughts trailed to James Clarke.
“I’m sure he made it out alright,” Troy reassured the woman as if reading her thoughts. He, too, stared at the destruction in awe. It was like a nightmare. The feeling hadn’t entirely set in yet. Never in his life would he have imagined something like this would happen to Bio-Tech, one of the richest, most influential corporations in the entire world, and it was smothered so easily.
“I’m surprised the safety lines held up so well,” Dr. Camery spoke up, his snobbish tone returned.
“So well?” Gavin glared at the doctor. “Do you not see this? All of this?!” He waved his hands out at the sight. “This is not well! This is a total disaster!”
“It could be worse, there could be nothing left. The safety lines at least kept part of the building intact,” Camery retorted.
“Easy for you to say, the laboratories were located on the lower floors.” Aria fed the man a nasty stare.
“All that Bio-Tech is. We’re lucky to still have the laboratories,” Camery replied.
“All that Bio-Tech is?” This time Troy had to have his say. “And what about the soldiers, huh? What about the hospital? All those that were on training grounds? What about them?! I say that today Bio-Tech has gone down in flames! Screw your laboratory! It’s nothing without the rest of the military!”
The soft rumble of a helicopter sounded in the distance, noisily cutting off the group’s heated argument. Floodlights flashed overhead, illuminating the four. Slowly, the vehicle descended toward them, the landing skid crunching against concrete and shards of glass.
“James,” Aria murmured before rushing to the cabin door, hair and jacket moving violently in the aircraft’s breeze.
“Aria! Get inside!” James Clarke opened the entry for the woman. “I was so worried.” He pulled her inside with shaking hands. His hair was a disheveled mess, the peppered-grey matching his soot-covered suit, and his chocolate-brown eyes were wide with worry. His hand patted the seat beside him for her to sit. Troy and the other two men followed in after the woman.
“I was hoping you would have enough time to make it to the roof,” Aria responded, her worry-wrinkle
d expression finally relaxing as she noticed the pilot, Grayson. Of course, Grayson was able to get the President to safety. He was the best at his job and never failed to keep an eye on James. She gave a small smile to the somber man as he looked over his shoulder at the occupants.
“I had more than enough time to watch my tower fall.” Clarke stared numbly through the small cabin window, firelight played against his irises. “I suppose not all is lost. It will take months to rebuild. The labs are still intact, but we’ve lost too many lives. I can’t even imagine the numbers….” He held the bridge of his nose. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
The compartment was silent save for the running propellers. After a moment, the President regained composure, making eye contact with the doctor. Camery also had a worn and weathered look to his features.
“I see you were able to find the professor before the explosion.” Clarke’s tone was flat.
“Yes, indeed. If it weren't for them, I probably wouldn’t be alive.” Camery swallowed thickly, glancing in Aria’s direction. “I owe her my life, I suppose.”
Aria scoffed. “I want to know why you were the one that was kidnapped, Dr. Camery.”
“Kidnapped?” the President questioned.
“We were interrogating him when the first explosion took place. The wall in the infirmary opened up, and Camery was grabbed by one of those monsters we found at the I.R.B. He was dragged into the skeleton of the Corporation. We had to follow in pursuit. Once outside the compound, Camery was taken into an alleyway where he was suddenly released, and I had an encounter with the man who goes by the name Euclid.”
“Is this the man you were hoping to find in the ID Scan?”
“Yes. It was the same man I saw on the elevator this morning right before the attacks took place on the 160th floor.” Aria narrowed her eyes at the doctor. “I have reason to believe that Dr. Camery is somehow involved with these creatures and this man, Euclid. Whether directly or indirectly is still unknown, but I would like to have your permission to investigate further.”