The Minotaurs of Maze World

by Eddie Patin

  "You lie!" Ghrag replied. Riley could tell that the bugs were all laughing, but he could hardly hear their nasty sounds over the roar of the rift.

  "Is it the right garage?" Riley asked Jason.

  Jason looked down for an instant at the OCS, but stopped himself and set his jaw. "Yes!"

  "Then let’s go!"

  Jason nodded and stood stiffly. He carefully stepped through the rift back into universe 934. Riley followed, helping Gliath walk. Once they crossed through into the garage, Riley winced when he saw a small splash of red blood land on the concrete from Gliath’s chest.

  As soon as the three of them were through, carefully stepping around the minotaur hide that they'd thrown onto the floor before, Jason looked back at the roaring rift and let it close.

  The silence of the garage was shocking.

  "Gliath, are you okay?" Jason asked. "What can I do?"

  "Meat..." Gliath rumbled, holding the hole in his chest. Riley saw a constant, pulsating flow of dark blood push through his friend's black-furred fingers.

  Jason set his big slug gun down onto the stainless steel table next to them and immediately ran into the house, making straight for the kitchen.

  "Is it closing up, buddy?" Riley asked, not releasing his hold on his friend. He could practically feel Gliath’s pain and felt afraid for him, even though he’d seen the leopardwere far worse wounded in the past. The soldier knew that Gliath would regenerate just fine now that they were out of danger. Even now, the wound channel and damage caused by the massive hydrostatic shock would be healing up. Once Gliath had enough energy from eating, he’d be able to shift forms and heal up even faster. He’d be fine in a few minutes.

  Still, the idea of losing his Krulax buddy filled Riley with bubbling fear...

  "Yes, Ranaja. I will be fine. Need to eat."

  Just then, Jason returned with a grocery bag full of raw meat—minotaur or deer, Riley had no idea. The new guy gave the bag to Gliath and the leopardwere immediately set to guzzling down chunks of cool, red flesh.

  "Jason, get your rifle," Riley said.

  He did.

  "What’s the plan?"

  "Rift us back to the focus key area now. We’re going to take the war to them."

  Gliath paused, and both of them stared at Riley with wide eyes.

  "What?!" Jason asked, his brow furrowing in anger. "What the hell are you thinking? Gliath’s got to heal first, right?"

  "You and me, Jason Leaper."

  Riley knew that they could do it. He could take down the bugs that had stayed back at the base. It would be a while before Ghrag and—

  "You’re crazy!" Jason replied with a scoff. "No way!"

  "Do it, Jason!" Riley commanded. "Do it while there’s still time! Their forces are divided, don’t you see? Ghrag is back where we rifted away, several minutes from their camp—even with their flying. He’s got at least four more bugs with him. There have to just be a few left at the camp. Let’s fruk their shet up."

  "Why?!"

  "Because they killed Rush, Jason! And they tried to kill us! And they’re going to keep doing that again and again because those bugs are nasty frukers and that’s what they do! Just think—they had to steal those four hides that Rush harvested, right? My friend's hides are probably stashed back at their camp, right?"

  "We already have four hides!" Jason replied. "Let’s keep what we have and walk away!"

  "No!" Riley shouted. He wanted to scream at Jason that they needed to impress Skinner. They needed to get back into the good graces of the Bounty Boards. They needed their good reputation again! He needed Jason 113 again—things had to go back to the way they were! But Riley didn’t say what was flying through his head. Instead, he snapped, "They took Rush and Tommy’s hides. And they were gonna take ours! Now, we’ll beat 'em at their own game! Do it!"

  "Ranaja..." Gliath rumbled, taking a step forward, extending a bloody paw.

  The Krulax was worried.

  "It’s no problem, Gliath," Riley said. "Eat. Heal. We’ll take out the camp then open another rift up there when it's clear. You just watch for the rift opening up here again then come through to help us, okay?"

  "I do not like dividing, Ranaja..."

  Riley turned to Jason. "Open the rift, Jason! Let’s do it! Let’s get those ten hides!"

  Jason opened his mouth with angry eyes as if to argue, then looked down at his OCS and sighed. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the focus key to Maze World. After a few seconds of concentration, the rift opened. He was still opening his rifts in the center of the portable gate ring.

  Once the vision into Maze World smoothed out, Riley looked up to Gliath again, who stood watching and quickly eating raw meat.

  "I will watch, Ranaja."

  Riley nodded then looked over at Jason. "Come on."

  Tightening the strap on his Gauss rifle, Riley unslung his Marlin 1895sbl lever action rifle. He cycled the action, loading a .45-70 government round, then he topped off the mag tube from the cartridges hooked into his sling. He stepped through.

  The moment Riley touched down into the yellow atmosphere at the same familiar spot next to the ruins of the old metal gate, his HUD started picking up life signs around him and he assigned them all to hostile.

  As Jason stepped through behind Riley and collapsed the rift, Riley immediately gestured for Jason to run toward the ruins.

  "Get to cover! Hide behind the metal parts!"

  Jason looked shocked for a moment but immediately lowered his head and made a run for the ruins.

  As soon as the rift snuffed out, killing the dramatic roar of their entrance, the nearest two bugs started firing at the two of them. There were the cracks of two rounds of railgun slugs heading Riley’s way. The soldier pushed his augments to move his body as fast as it could go, diving and rolling to a stop behind a fallen sandstone boulder. As soon as his equilibrium stabilized again—0.78 seconds later—Riley was up on one knee with the Marlin rifle against his shoulder and lining up the peep sights on a Nothrix that was sixty yards away, up the canyon and half-way up the eroded wall to the ridge.

  Riley fired with an immense boom and considerably more recoil than his Gauss rifle ever offered. The soldier couldn’t help but smile when he smelled burned gunpowder and saw the Nothrix up ahead explode! The bastard’s flabby head popped off and its spine disintegrated just above the equivalent of a collarbone. Bits of shell and bug-meat flew everywhere in shadow against the yellow sky. The headless bug dropped its railgun and collapsed, sliding down the wall.

  At the same time, another railgun shot split the air and Riley saw the round coming straight at him, shimmering through the yellow atmosphere.

  He knew that he didn’t have time to react...

  Shet.

  But fate smiled upon Riley a second time, it seemed. The round passed harmlessly through his right shoulder. He felt it shimmer through his pectoral like a touch from beyond the grave—like a blast of icy water—then the slug was gone, smashing into the sandstone somewhere behind him.

  The phase belt saved him again.

  Fruk. He was getting careless.

  The second Nothrix clicked and hissed in the distance, concealed by a tree growing out of the sandstone wall, no doubt wondering why the shet its shot didn’t hit him.

  Riley knew exactly where the Nothrix was because of his implants. He calculated correctly that the .45-70 round would penetrate the brush just fine. After cycling the action, he put his front sight on the trembling triangle in his HUD—the bug hiding in a scrub oak—and fired.

  The Nothrix splattered against the sandstone and its ruined body rolled down to the canyon floor.

  Riley cycled the action again and scanned the area rapidly to see if any more bugs were coming. One more target appeared up on the wall overlooking their position. He could see the approaching bug before it reached the edge of the cliff—his HUD superimposed a red triangle that was steadily approaching...

  Shifting his aim up at the wal
l, the instant the Nothrix looked over the side, Riley blew its head off, then cycled the lever again. Click-click.

  "Come on!" he shouted at Jason, shoving three more of the stout 305-grain Xtreme Penetrator rounds into the tube.

  Fruk, Riley thought with a grin. I love this Earth slug gun!

  Chapter 21

  Jason emerged from hiding like a rabbit looking around with wide eyes.

  He gasped as a large shape plummeted down from the canyon wall above them, tumbling end over end through the yellow sky until it splattered onto the sand halfway between Jason and Riley. An instant later, the fallen bug's railgun clattered to the canyon floor near its burst body.

  Jason immediately aimed his Rigby at the disgusting corpse then sighed with a sense of revulsion. It was obviously dead. The exoskeleton-covered arms and legs were twisted like broken sticks, and its body had split open in some areas from the fall. Those strange, fleshy wings that looked like plump ferns were splayed out around it, and the Nothrix's head was gone. Dark bug guts were oozing out into the sand from its sides.

  "Is that it?" Jason asked, lowering the muzzle of his rifle. "Any more?"

  "That’s all of em right here. Grab that railgun and follow me. We’re heading up the ridge."

  "The...? But I don’t know how to use it!"

  Riley laughed and smirked, scanning the walls around them. "Don’t try to use it, Jason. Those guns are shet. They're garbage. But we can sell em."

  "Okay..."

  The soldier started away into a jog, agile on his feet and close to the canyon wall, keeping an eye on the Nothrix Reaper camp up ahead. Jason followed him, nowhere near as nimble, stopping to pick up the dropped gun along the way. His first feeling upon picking up the alien railgun was loathing—he couldn’t stand that fact that the bug’s fingers were all over it. Something about that really grossed Jason out. Pausing to look the weapon over, Jason immediately determined to avoid trying to understand it. He could stay ignorant for now. It was like some kind of pipe rifle ... single shot maybe? On the back was something that might have been a big capacitor, and there were strange fins running along the long barrel all the way to the muzzle. Crudely bolted onto the side of the weapon was a shell-holder—a lot like the ones attached to the receivers of Earth shotguns—and Jason saw three long, weird cartridges held in there; very different than anything he'd seen, but most-similar to super-long shotgun shells with no brass or primers.

  Jason wondered suddenly why Riley’s ammo was nothing more than simple metal bolts; why these railgun rounds had plastic casing. Weren’t railguns and coil guns basically the same thing?

  "Let’s go, Jason!" Riley called from up ahead. Then, "Shet! Two more!"

  As Jason stood near the splattered body, the soldier gestured for him to rush to the wall.

  He did.

  Riley stood, balanced precariously partway up the canyon wall on a sandstone ledge, close to the cliff and staring up at the eroded edge. He was just ... staring at the solid sandstone as if he could see right through it!

  "What...?" Jason muttered then stopped when the soldier hushed him violently from afar with the move of one hand.

  Then Riley looked down, eyes darting around him—Jason could see the wheels quickly turning in his mind—then picked up a piece of sandstone the size of his fist. After waiting for a few tense moments as Jason almost held his breath, Riley suddenly hurled the rock far up the canyon corridor in the direction of their first minotaur kill...

  Jason heard the stone hit with a clatter. It knocked around some loose gravel and sand and made a small bit of noise farther up canyon.

  He opened his mouth to ask Riley what the hell he was doing, but stopped himself...

  Two forms silhouetted against the canary-yellow sky suddenly appeared up on the cliff above Riley. Jason instantly recognized them from their posture and wings as more Nothrix. Their long railguns were casually pointed in the direction of Riley’s thrown rock—ah, it was a diversion—and they maneuvered quietly in that direction as if to aim and wait...

  The bugs evidently thought that they were setting up an ambush.

  Riley moved silently and as quick a snake under them, pulling his blaster with one fluid motion and immediately firing at the first.

  The red laserfire was bright and angry in the yellow light of Maze World and the pistol made a lot less noise than Jason expected. There was a strange snap as the bolt sliced through the air. The Nothrix that was hit screamed with an ugly, farting sound as its torso popped three times with three expanding bursts of steam, chunks of flesh, and smoke—faster than a machinegun; a quicker staccato than Riley's Gauss rifle burst-fire. In the next instant, the creature was on fire and toppled over the edge just as Riley was adjusting his aim to the second Reaper...

  The next bug let out two surprised clicks then Riley fired again. Just like with the first Nothrix, the soldier hit his target dead-on and the momentary flaring beam of red light created three nearly-instantaneous bursts of steam and fire on its fleshy body. If Jason wasn’t watching so closely, he would have thought that it was a single, brilliant beam, but it seemed that Riley’s blaster was some kind of pulse weapon. The creature flailed, crying out with its flapping throat. It dropped its rifle over the edge, thrust out its wings as if to catch itself from falling, but then went limp and tumbled off of the wall.

  Both bugs—smoking and on fire—plummeted down the eroded sandstone wall of the canyon around Riley, tumbling down the various steep ledges and smoothed outcroppings until settling into the sand on the canyon floor as smoldering, soft heaps.

  "Grab their rifles, too!" Riley commanded. The soldier reached into the side of one boot and pulled out a fresh energy cell for his blaster. He swapped mags, stuffing the partially-depleted cell down into his boot-charger. He holstered the blaster and raised his Marlin once again.

  Jason jumped into action, feeling awkward and not very thrilled about approaching the bodies of two burning bugs. He slung his Rigby rifle over his back and carried the railgun he’d already captured in one hand. It was fairly light.

  The wind was still flowing down the canyon in the same direction as yesterday: from up ahead where they'd killed their first minotaur, down toward the portal ruins. Because of the wind, the instant Jason fearfully realized that he was about to smell the smoldering Nothrix, he was hit with the pungent odor full in the face. Burning hair. Burning ... rubber? he thought, frowning fiercely. There was something terribly foul and organic—an odor that Jason imagined would come from a pile of dead flies set on fire.

  "Fucking gross!" he exclaimed, rushing up to where one rifle had landed in the sand. He held his breath, desperate to keep the stench out of his nose and throat, then saw another dropped rifle near the wall and ran for that one, too.

  "All clear for the moment, Jason. Come on—follow me up here!"

  "Do you think—ugh!" So gross. "You think Gliath’s healed up yet?"

  Jason picked up the third rifle and saw no others, so he started to climb, holding all three guns in his arms like they were a clutch of long ski poles. Riley ignored him and continued climbing the canyon wall, making his way gracefully up ledges and boulders of sandstone.

  "Let’s go! Hurry before fruking Ghrag gets back!"

  "Shit—okay!"

  Following as best as he could, Jason stumbled up along the ridges and ledges, trying to remember where Riley had stepped and staying to the same path. Once he leapt onto a big sandstone boulder that shifted under his weight then froze, caught his balance, and managed to avoid dislodging the chunk of rock.

  Before long, Jason was ambling up behind Riley, who was crouched with his rifle at the top of the eroded slope. They stared at the Nothrix camp in the distance, elevated up on a canyon ridge just like Rush's camp had been. All of the bugs' equipment was sprawled over a narrow section of maze-wall. There was a portable gate a lot like the one that Riley had set up in Jason’s garage. There were also many big, rectangular crates, a tent, and a bunch of—

/>   "Get down!" Riley hissed, looking back at Jason, who stood with his head high over the top of the endless maze of canyon walls.

  Jason ducked.

  "See any more?"

  "Yeah," Riley replied. "There’s one in camp there..." He pointed. "And another far along the wall over there..." He pointed to their right, following the nearly-endless ridgeline summit and stopping at a lumpy, black blip in shadow against the yellow sky. "See it?"

  Jason imagined shooting the bug with his Rigby.

  "You take one, I take the other?" he asked.

  "Yeah."

  Jason looked around quickly for a good spot to set up prone then laid down the three railguns. He pulled his Rigby off of his back.

  "How far is that one on the right do you think?" Jason asked. With just iron sights, it would be hard for him to hit something man-sized past ... maybe two hundred yards? Big game rifles like his father's weren't really intended to shoot much farther than that. The light in the yellow sky was weird, and the distant Nothrix was either crouching or sitting.

  "Two hundred and seventy yards," Riley replied with certainty.

  "Really?"

  The soldier nodded.

  Jason crawled up on the sandstone slope and got into a prone supported position. He looked down the sights.

  Yep. A black dot. He aimed and stared at the bug for what might have been a long time.

  He suddenly wished he had a scope.

  "Don’t worry," Riley said. "All you have to do is hit it somewhere. Those rounds of yours have a hell of a lot of energy. Even if you wound it, it’ll be really fruked up and I can finish it off after I take out the one in camp. Shet—that bug sure can't hit us from there. Just ... don’t miss."

  A jolt of adrenaline swept through Jason’s joints. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

  "Okay ... count of three?" Jason offered.

  "Nah," Riley replied with a smirk. "You shoot, and I’ll fire right after you do."

  Jason sighed.

  Why’d Riley want him to kill the far one anyway? He should shoot the closer one...

  Jason lined up his sights on the slumped black spot down the ridgeline, took several long breaths, and adjusted his legs and elbows until he was as comfortable as he was going to get. When he could keep the sights on the bug without straining anywhere in his body, Jason took a long, slow breath and let himself settle in. He adjusted his sights to aim a little high.