Aloysius decelerated the bike quickly and swung into the driveway. Draco and Raze doubled back and turned in.
Every house in the neighborhood looked exactly the same, except for the color and slight differences in the front yards. Different shrub choices, different flowers growing in the gardens, and different stone statues for decoration.
Each house was double-story, not very wide, with identical bay windows facing the road. The curtains were drawn across the windows of the house Draco, Aloysius and Raze stood in front of, but the front door was ajar.
Pim grabbed Raze’s leg. “Please don’t go in there. There are probably monsters in there. Please don’t go in there! Please, please, please!”
Raze stooped down to Pim. “We don’t know that for sure. What if we leave someone in here and they need our help?”
“No, no, no! There’s no one here! We have to keep going!”
“Raze, wait out here with Pim. Al and I will go and take a look around inside,” Draco said.
“I thought you said I was the Captain!” Pim said as he stomped his foot.
“A Captain has a duty to ensure the safety of his crew,” Draco said. “Even if the Captain’s scared, they need to be brave and do what’s right.”
Pim thought about this for a moment. “Do you ever get scared?”
Draco nodded. “Yeah, I do. But then I do what needs to be done anyway.”
Pim folded his arms across his chest as Aloysius walked towards the front stoop.
Aloysius cracked the front door wide open and Draco looked inside. It looked just like any other house that might exist on any terrestrial human colony. The front door opened to the entryway, which then expanded into the living room. There was a staircase leading upstairs from the living room.
“What kind of movement are we talking about?” Draco asked.
“Organic. Sensors picked up movement in one of the upstairs windows.” Aloysius responded.
“I was worried you were going to say that.”
Aloysius began to climb the stairs as something upstairs moved.
“On your guard, Al.”
“Always, Captain.”
Aloysius continued up the stairs. The upstairs level was surprisingly dark. The beam of light from Draco’s flashlight was the only source of light in the house. They moved up the stairs slowly and stepped into a hallway.
Something moved again. The sound came from their left. There were three doorways on that side of the hallway. Two were open, and the third was closed. There was something coming from under the frame of the closed door. It wasn’t liquid, but it didn’t quite look solid either. It was somewhere in between, like congealed raspberry curd.
Aloysius motioned to that door frame and Draco nodded. Aloysius braced himself against the door frame and Draco kicked the door off its hinges.
He regretted it instantly.
The floor was covered in thick maroon ooze that seeped from a lump of gelatinous flesh in the middle of the floor. The outside of the ooze was covered in a filmy layer that reminded Draco of the skin of a frog. It was slightly translucent and revealed the flesh beneath the skin. The lump was almost as tall as the ceiling of the room. Four tendrils anchored it to the floor.
A muffled sound came from the lump of flesh. The ball of skin looked as though it was about to move. Shadows of moving muscles and sliding flesh shimmered under the top layer of skin. The ball began to pulsate and shudder.
“Captain, I believe it may be in our best interests to vacate this house immediately…”
“I think you might be right,” said Draco.
A split began to form in the skin of the fleshy lump. Watery blood-like liquid poured out of the wound. Through the crack, Draco saw something moving.
“What the hell do you think it is?” asked Draco.
“I believe this is an egg, or a cocoon, or whatever this biological entity’s equivalent is.”
The outside of the flesh cocoon was torn open from the inside by a large hand. Draco started backing away, but Aloysius was transfixed. He stood in the door frame and watched.
“Al, what are you doing? We need to go! Now!”
“Just a moment, Captain!”
“Now! That’s an order!”
Aloysius didn’t move. The creature inside the flesh cocoon bellowed as it used its four massive arms to tear the fleshy exterior of its gestating pod away.
“It’s... remarkable,” Aloysius said.
The creature looked at them both with all four of its eyes and screamed at him with its two mouths. The creature had taken the bodies of two people, a man and a woman, and had fused them together at their sides. They looked like they were biologically stitched together. The pair of arms on the outside of the creature’s frame had grown to monstrous size. From the height of the creature’s shoulder the arms could reach the ground. Each arm ended in a large hand with massive fingers. The two other arms, one feminine, one masculine, curled close to its chest. They looked as though they were growing into the creature’s malformed torso. Becoming a part of it.
The man and woman’s heads had begun to fuse together. Their mouths almost touched. They had almost become one single mouth. As the creature grunted with the effort of learning to stand on its four legs, Aloysius saw that both mouths were lined with jagged broken teeth just behind the row of natural human teeth.
“It’s a hunter,” Aloysius said to himself.
Draco grabbed him by the shoulder. “We need to go! Now!”
Together they ran down the hall, down the stairs and burst back out into the Residential District.
“What did you find in there?” Raze asked.
“Start your bike! Go now! Head towards the city! Go!” Draco bellowed as he ran to his bike and jumped on. He switched the ignition on and blasted out onto the street just as the creature burst through the front of the house after them.
Pim screamed.
“What the hell is that thing!?” Raze yelled as he followed Draco, with Aloysius following closely behind him.
“It’s a hunter!” Aloysius said, “Just like the one we encountered in the ducts after we docked. It’s a creature whose entire purpose is to capture others to convert them into more of these fleshlings.”
Behind them, the hunter gained speed. It had learnt to use its new legs to lope after them with terrifying rapidity. It kept pace behind the bikes.
“There’s no way we could win against that thing in a fire fight. It’d be on us before we had the chance to line up a shot. We need to try and outrun it,” Aloysius said.
Draco looked back to see the hunter. It’s wasn’t just keeping up with them anymore. It was gaining on them. It used its monstrous arms to pull itself along the road at a blistering pace. It picked up chunks of asphalt and flung them towards the bikes as it galloped after them.
Draco swore to himself and desperately tried to think of a way they could deal with the creature.
“It’s trying to knock us off the bikes. Evasive maneuvers!” Draco said.
Al, Raze and Draco began to weave back and forth as they raced down the street. Suburban properties passed them on every side. Draco swore to himself again. They couldn’t go as fast ducking and weaving in between cars, and the hunter was creeping ever closer.
The creature shouldered the lightweight electric cars out of the way, hurling bits of bitumen and car parts at them as it ran.
Draco drew a pistol from his thigh holster and shot backwards towards the creature. It hit the hunter in the chest, but the monstrous thing didn’t slow down. It didn’t react. The bullet didn’t even hurt it.
Chapter Thirty-One
The MagLev carriage left the dim tunnel and raced out over the Residential District. In the distance to their left Jaxon, Vynce and Ava could see the beach front, and in front of them they could see the Metropolitan District, with Metro Tower rising from ground level to the top of the ship where the artificial sky ended.
Ava’s right arm ached. The itch had become almos
t unbearable. She wanted to pull her knife out, rip her smartsuit off, and dig around in her own arm with the blade until the itching stopped.
But the worst part was when her arm moved by itself. She could see her fingers clenching and relaxing of their own accord. Ava closed her eyes for a moment, but the sound of her arm moving around in her suit by itself was enough to jolt her eyes back open straight away.
She got up from her seat and grabbed Jaxon by the neck with the arm that she could control. “What’s happening to me?”
“Ava, just wait until we get to the medstation and we can get you fixed up, all right? There’s no point panicking.”
“My own fucking arm won’t do what I tell it to do. I can’t even feel it anymore, and it’s moving around by itself. I think I’ve earned the fucking right to panic.”
Jaxon sighed, and Vynce looked on silently.
“You’ve been infected,” Jaxon said.
She knew it, but Jaxon’s words made it real. She released her grip from his neck.
“So, what do we do from here?” Ava asked flatly. “Is there any way I survive?”
“Maybe. For now, all we can do is wait. We wait until we get to the medstation, and then we assess to see what the damage is. Once we know how bad it is, then we can choose how we go forward.”
“But I live, right? You said that we have a future. That you remember me, and someday I would remember you. Right?”
Vynce scoffed. “I don’t buy it. I think he’s full of shit. Time travel? Give me a fucking break. He’s just using this bullshit story to get in your pants.”
To Ava’s surprise, Jaxon lashed out and pushed Vynce back roughly with both hands.
“You had your shot with Ava before I ever met her,” Jaxon said. “You had your shot, and you blew it.”
Vynce launched himself forward and slammed into Jaxon, but it was like hitting a brick wall. Jaxon remained immovable.
“Cut this bullshit out! I’m not some prize to be won by either of you assholes! Vynce, I told you that it wasn’t going to happen, and you need to respect that. Sure, we fucked, but it’s never going to happen again. And you!” Ava rounded on Jaxon. “If you are from the future, you have to tell me that I survive this. If there is some kind of future there, you have to tell me that I get to meet you again.”
“Ava... You know I can’t guarantee any of that. Yes, I have memories with you. But the progression of events in time is such an unpredictable thing when you’re the one who’s travelling through it. I have memories of people who have never even existed. My actions have changed the course of history. Because of me, thousands of people who once lived long and happy lives never even existed in the first place. I can’t guarantee anything; except that I will do everything I can to save your life.”
Ava smirked and said, “Is this the part where you come out and pledge your undying love to me?”
“Not yet. Not in your timeline, anyway. In my timeline, that moment has been and gone,” Jaxon said.
Vynce groaned. “Tell me you’re not buying into this shit, Ava!”
“And what if I am?” Ava said. “What business is it of yours? I told you where we stand, and you need to respect that. I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but it’s no time for this grandstanding machismo bullshit!”
They passed by the Residential Station and sped on towards the Metropolitan Station. All three of them stood in silence.
Vynce turned away and looked ahead of the MagLev carriage. “Uh, guys, we might have a problem.”
“We’ve got plenty,” Ava said, then she turned to look in the direction Vynce pointed. A skyscraper from the Metropolitan District had fallen right onto the MagLev track. They were on a collision course with the destroyed skyscraper.
Jaxon swore, and Ava let out a resigned sigh.
Jaxon smashed the glass to the emergency brake and pulled it as hard as he could. The carriage began to slow, but nowhere near as quickly as they needed it to. There was no way they would slow down enough to survive the impact with the fallen skyscraper.
Chapter Thirty-Two
On board the Icarus Arak Nara engaged the electromagnetic pulse.
The Icarus immediately shut down. The lights went out, the door locks disengaged, and the engines cut out entirely. A shielded emergency module within the heart of the Icarus flicked to life and began to reboot the Icarus’s operating systems, but it would take a while before anything came back online. The engines wouldn’t come back online for some time, and that was only if the EMP didn’t completely destroy the ignition primers.
On the bridge of the Icarus Veck Simms crumpled to the ground. His hands loosened from around Rhken’s neck, and she stumbled backwards in an attempt to keep her balance as the maniac fell to the floor.
Rhken’s father and sister rushed into the bridge.
On board the Metropolis Seven, the lights started to go out.
Ava, Vynce and Jaxon were braced for impact with the toppled skyscraper when they saw a wave of darkness washed over the city. The lights of the city began to switch off building by building in a rolling blackout. Even the artificial sun winked out, which threw the entire cityscape into darkness.
“Grab onto something, quick!” Jaxon yelled as he braced himself between two rows of seats.
Ava held on as tight as she could with her left hand, but she still couldn’t feel her right. Vynce was still standing when the power cut out to the MagLev system. The entire carriage plummeted to the ground.
The light of the city went black in front of Draco. The hunter was still gaining on them and if the lights continued going out they would have to navigate debris-strewn streets in complete darkness. Draco had no idea what kind of low-light or night vision the hunter had. If it couldn’t see them, it couldn’t chase them.
The blackout rolled closer. The artificial sun above them was extinguished, and only the lights on the sides of the road illuminated their path. Soon they too started to wink out. When the blackout line reached Draco, Raze and Al, their bikes immediately powered down.
Draco was thrown from the seat of his bike. The powered component of his suit had been disabled, which meant that he had no access to his enhanced low-light vision. Something slammed into his back and threw him forward into the darkness.
Draco staggered back to his feet. Something had knocked out his suit’s systems. It had to have been an EMP because the arc reactor that his suit ran on was completely self-powering. It would reboot in just a few moments, but while it did so he was without most of the defensive capabilities controlled by his suit.
Without the muscle augmentation activated, it felt as though he was walking through quicksand.
Draco heard someone getting to their feet from his left.
“Captain! Captain!? Are you all right? I think I hit you!” Raze yelled.
“I’m fine but shut the hell up until our smartsuits come back online. That thing will be able to hear you!”
Raze shut his mouth as soon as Draco reminded him of the immediate danger.
Aloysius had been travelling with them, and Draco didn’t know for sure what would happen if a Child of iNet was hit by an EMP. All Draco could be sure of was that both he and Raze were alive and standing.
The kid. What happened to the kid?
The hunter plodded around heavily in the darkness. Its footfalls could be felt just as much as they could be heard. It was too close. Draco stepped away from the source of the impact tremors as quickly and quietly as his suit would allow. The Hunter’s low-light vision mustn’t be very good. If it was, it would have seized Draco and Raze already and torn them to shreds.
It was then that Pim started crying.
The hunter heard it and thundered along the asphalt towards to sobbing child.
Back on the Icarus, the emergency lighting on the Icarus had begun to come online. The blue lighting washed the bridge in its glow. Rhken watched in a state of numb shock as her father rushed over to her and took her in his arms.
/> “Rhken, are you all right? Did he hurt you?” he asked.
“I’m okay,” she said. She buried her head into her father’s shoulder, and then the tears came for real. Veck’s corpse was on the ground behind them. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. She wanted to collapse, but her father held her steady.
“Did he hurt you, honey?” he asked again.
“Is he... Is he dead?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But if he’s not, he soon will be.”
Rhken closed her eyes and fell into her father’s embrace. After a few moments they parted. Rhken opened her eyes and saw something that couldn’t possibly be.
Veck Simms stood behind her father. One of his cybernetic hands grabbed Reban’s hair and pulled her from the ground. She screamed, but Veck did not relent.
“Do you really think I’d be stupid enough not to shield my internal systems against an EMP? You’re an idiot, old man. And now your pretty little girl is going to pay for it.”
On the Metropolis Seven, Ava tried to get her bearings. The MagLev carriage had slammed into the ground at speed, and there was something pinning her to the ground. It felt like a slab of metal. Her right forearm was a ghost now, but her elbow had also started to itch and burn. Whatever was growing inside her suit was spreading upwards.
Ava pushed against the metal slab with her good hand. It didn’t move. If she could use her other hand she might be able to get out from underneath, but not like this. There wasn’t even enough room to engage her buster pod and smash her way out of the debris.
There was other movement in the carriage, but Ava couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Her low-light vision was dead, which means that something killed the MagLev carriage, and took out all of their suit functions.
“Who is that? Jaxon? Vynce?”
“Ava, where are you?” Vynce yelled.
“I’m over here. Follow my voice! There’s something on top of me. I can’t get free.”
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