Fallen Metropolis (Omnibus Edition)

by Matthew J. Barbeler

  Bill saw himself through the eyes of another as they crawled through the vent and into the den. Bill barely recognized himself. His skin appeared to melt into itself. His arms, folded across his chest, were now one. The skin had knitted itself together. He looked down at his legs and saw that they had spread wide across the floor, stretched taut over his bones. This is where he would remain for the rest of his days.

  The gifted one was followed by three others. They all knew what must be done. Two of the gifted were not equipped to repel an attack. They were there to bolster the defense of the gift by becoming one with Bill. They sat on either side of Bill and placed their arms across his chest. They rested their heads on his shoulders. Bill’s flesh quivered with pleasure as they touched him. He felt his skin begin to bond with theirs. The gift would turn three into one, and forever they would be joined.

  The other stood apart from them. He was not for joining. Not at that moment. He and Fierce would defend the den from any hostile forces until backup arrived. The other gifted was visibly misshapen. His left arm was double the length of his right, heavily muscled, and ended in claws the size of butcher’s cleavers. A halo of dark red tendrils sprouted from his right shoulder, waving back and forth as though searching for prey.

  ‘Fierce, patrol the tunnels outside the den. When the men with guns appear, our weapon will help you dispatch them,’ Bill thought toward the dog and the man. At the moment of connection Bill found out much about his new weapon. His name was Fen, and he was wanted in three different solar systems.

  ‘As you wish,’ Fierce thought and left the den.

  ‘I need more weapons like you,’ Bill thought to Fen.

  ‘I will protect you,’ Fen thought back.

  ‘Very good,’ Bill thought.

  He sent a suggestion through the network of gifted and encouraged the gift to manifest in ways that could help them defend themselves against the men with guns. He told them to grow larger and arm themselves with claws and teeth. He tasked the gifted to become the deadliest weapons they could imagine.

  Bill then focused his attention onto Jimmy and the rest of the gifted held within the detainment cells.

  In total there were nine gifted individuals held in the detainment cells against their will. Some of them were under observation, while others were only being watched through the lens of a camera.

  Jimmy Staipell was now more weapon than man. His tongue was no longer a flaccid wet thing flopping about impotently. It filled his mouth and curled around his neck like a tumorous turtleneck. His arms were still shackled behind him, but they would not be for much longer. His arms were stronger now. Jimmy only remained in the detainment cell because Bill hadn’t given him the command to attack.

  The time had come. Bill commanded the horde of gifted individuals to begin their attack on the front doors of the prison. Their advance began. Gunfire roared and tore the first wave of gifted to shreds. Their own individual lives didn’t matter if they could spread the gift to others. The first line of gifted powered forward and knocked a line of the men with guns to the ground. The second wave moved in and began tearing at the soldier’s armored smartsuits with their teeth and claws.

  While the soldiers outside the prison were distracted, Bill gave Jimmy the order to break out of the detainment cells and free the rest of the gifted.

  Jimmy pulled the chain from the wall with little effort. His newfound strength made him grin. His mouth felt much wider and fuller than it ever had before. He lifted his arms over his head, twisting his shoulders out of their sockets with loud wet pops. They relocated themselves with a crunch as he lowered his arms in front of his chest. He pulled his wrists apart and the shackles sprung open like they were flimsy kids’ toys.

  Jimmy’s arms were changed. The muscles stood out against his skin. He lifted his hands in front of his face and wondered in awe at the changes the gift had wrought in him. His left hand was mostly unchanged, aside from the enormous claw that sprouted from the end of each finger. His right hand was unrecognizable. The extra finger that had sprouted next to his pinkie responded as though it had been there his whole life. As if it belonged.

  Jimmy’s tongue unraveled from around his neck like a cancerous skin-scarf. The reach was incredible. He retracted the tongue into his mouth as though it was something he was meant to do. He panicked at the sensation of the tongue slipping back into his mouth and into his body. His logical brain told him that he should have choked on it. But he did not. Bill provided reassurance through their strange bond.

  It was only when he took a step forward that Jimmy realized that he felt heavier than he had the night before. He looked down and saw rippling muscles across a chest twice as wide as the one he knew. The gift made him powerful. Jimmy opened his mouth gently. His tongue shot out of his mouth like a bullet, then retracted just as quickly. His stomach turned.

  Jimmy tried it again. He aimed at the lock that held the detainment cell door closed. His tongue tore through the heavy steel like it was tissue paper. The ruin of the lock dripped with spittle laced with the gift. Jimmy lumbered up to the door and pushed it open.

  More gifted waited in the cells up and down the corridor. Jimmy felt them more easily than he could see them. The men with guns were busy with the attack on the front of the prison, leaving Jimmy to free his brothers and sisters.

  He came to the first locked door and destroyed it with his tongue. He approached the gifted one shackled to the wall and thought, ’Come with me. We must leave.’

  She took one step toward him, but the shackles held her in place. She appeared to slip free of the shackles as she took a few stumbling steps forward. She pulled her arms forward and screamed as she realized that her limbs ended abruptly in tendril-rimmed sockets just above her wrists. She turned and looked at the remains of her hands - two smaller creatures fell to the floor from the shackles.

  Each of them was at once both familiar and completely alien. One walked on fingers that once belonged to her. The other walked on four strong limb-like appendages that sprouted from beneath the base of her forearm. Each of the small creatures crawled up the gifted one’s legs, up her back, then down to her arms. They settled into the sockets where they once naturally resided. She felt whole again.

  ‘What happened to me?’ the gifted one asked.

  ‘You’re one of us. Now help me free our brothers and sisters,’ Jimmy thought back to her.

  The gifted attacking the front of the station were being overwhelmed. The soldiers banded together and drove the line of gifted ones backward. Jimmy kept part of his awareness aimed at the attackers. Any sign of retreat would have dire consequences for their rescue efforts.

  Jimmy stomped from cell to cell and ripped the locks open with his weaponized tongue. The gifted woman experimented with her pair of hand creatures. They responded to her commands with incredible strength. She used them to destroy the shackles holding the other gifted in place. Together the nine gifted ones left the detainment cells and marched toward the front of the building. Jimmy led the way. He was bigger, stronger and deadlier than any of the other transitioning gifted ones.

  Two other weaponized gifted followed closely behind Jimmy. One woman was completely covered in wicked spines of varying lengths that quivered with each step. The other secreted a pink slime that dripped from his gaping pores. His skin was loose as though it was moments from melting away from his bones. He left a slimy trail behind him like a slug as he dragged his skin behind him.

  They followed the featureless corridor toward the waiting area. The detainment cells were usually reserved for drunks. The amount of violent crime aboard the Metropolis Seven was minimal. MetroCorp Officers lined the windows in the detainment area, weapons raised at the gifted outside. They never saw the attack as it came from behind.

  Jimmy opened his mouth and skewered three soldiers with his tongue. He lifted them into the air, then savagely threw them into a cluster of soldiers. They crashed into a set of glass doors, shattering them outward.
The soldiers turned and fired on Jimmy and the other gifted, who ducked back into the corridor and around the corner, shielding themselves from gunfire.

  The gifted outside the prison used the distraction to renew their assault. They rushed into the prison and overpowered the soldiers inside.

  With their attention split, the soldiers didn’t last long. The quill-covered gifted one rushed back into the waiting area and threw her arms around a soldier from behind. The gifted one fired all of her quills at once, piercing the soldier’s armored smartsuit. The skewered soldier fell to the floor and shook relentlessly as he succumbed to the pain.

  The soldiers were overpowered easily. The gifted were stronger now. Pain was a sensation of the past. Instead of executing the soldiers, the gifted took their time in spreading the gift to them. Jimmy held one soldier down, tore off his helmet and pushed his tongue into the man’s throat. The man writhed in panic as Jimmy’s tongue slid down into his stomach, but he was powerless to resist. Jimmy tasted what the man had for breakfast.

  Similar events unfolded across the waiting area as the gift was spread to the overpowered soldiers. Once the gift was passed on, the gifted helped the soldiers to their feet and marched them out of the prison. They led the captured soldiers down into the tunnels, toward the den.

  Chapter Ten

  Chris Lynd should have called in sick. He’d woken up with an incredibly sore stomach, which he put down to the amount of beer he drank the night before. He’d tried to throw up before he left his apartment, but no matter how far he put his fingers down his throat, nothing came up. His stomach pain was unusual, but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t sit at his desk and pretend to work for the rest of the day.

  But now that Chris was at work, the pain was worse. Random thoughts drifted through his head as he tried to watch a vidstream of last week’s Hockey game. It sounded like he could only hear one side of a conversation. Someone answered a question that he couldn’t hear. It must have been about a surprise party because they kept talking about a gift.

  Chris tried to shake the voice from his head. When it wouldn’t leave, he stood up and looked around at the rest of the office to see if it was just someone else’s conversation that he overheard. He thought the sound might be bouncing around the room in a way that made it sound like it was inside his head.

  Occasionally a flash of memory would appear in his mind from the night before.

  The staff in the call center in the corner of the room were all talking. He thought that he overheard one of the operators saying something about a dog attack in the Residential District. The voice that sounded like it was in his head spoke again as it answered an unknown question. It was almost like he was tuned into a radio frequency that he couldn’t un-tune.

  ‘We’re coming for you,’ the voice said.

  ‘Who are you coming for?’ Chris thought back in answer.

  ‘Who is this?’ the voice asked as it responded to Chris’s question.

  The world around him grew quiet and distant as Chris realized that this voice wasn’t just a figment of his imagination or a remnant of last night’s revelry. It was real, and it was talking to him.

  ‘My name is Chris,’ he thought back and wondered at how this could be real.

  ‘You have received the gift, Chris. Are you safe?’ the voice asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m safe,’ he thought back.

  ‘Then we will begin,’ the voice said.

  Memories from the night before flooded back to him. After he’d finished drinking he stumbled home. He remembered a woman. He found her somewhere between the bar and his apartment in the Metropolitan District.

  She was beautiful, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. She locked eyes with him and smiled at him. In his drunken stupor he turned and watched her as she walked past. She turned into an alleyway between apartment buildings. She stopped for a second, looked back at Chris and beckoned him to follow her.

  What followed was a blur in Chris’s memory. He could remember parts of the encounter, but others felt like a horrible nightmare. What he thought happened couldn’t really be true. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  She was bent over a bench in the alleyway when it happened. Her jeans were pulled down to her knees. He was inside her, and then something had a hold of him. He tried to pull away, but the woman was holding him in place. There was something like teeth inside her. Teeth that would tear his cock off if he pulled away. That’s when he felt something snake around his balls. There was a brief flash of pain as something from the woman pushed herself inside him.

  Lights switched on in the apartment buildings on either side of the alley as he screamed. He desperately tried to pull himself out of the woman, but she would not let go. It was only when she realized they were being watched that she relented. The thing inside him was ripped out as he ran. He screamed but didn’t stop running. He didn’t remember getting home, but that’s where he woke up. His pants were probably still in that alleyway.

  At his desk, Chris felt the control of his own body taken from him. He remained seated at his desk silently when he knew he should be screaming. The loss of control was immediate and complete. Chris was suddenly a prisoner inside his own body. He could see, but he could not control his actions.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the voice said gently, ’you’ve been given the gift. You’re part of us now.’

  ‘What is happening? I don’t understand,’ Chris said as he felt a strange sensation in his stomach. It wasn’t pain. The pain was gone now. It was a warm buzzing just beneath the surface of his skin.

  ‘You will understand soon,’ the voice said and made Chris stand from his desk.

  The voice in his head forced Chris to raise his shirt and expose his stomach. Chris wanted to scream at what he saw. His stomach was distended and flowed over his belt. He’d drank a lot of beer, but not that much! The skin was stretched tight over a dark growth. It pulsed as it grew in size. The skin expanded, growing tighter with every second that passed in silence. Without any pain, a tear appeared in Chris’s stomach. The black growth pulsed with his heartbeat and began to push itself from the tear in his stomach.

  Four dark blue tendrils grew from the surface of the dark mass as one section tore itself free from the rest. A small puff of black air whooshed out of the growth and into the air of the office. The tiny black lump sat on his desk, encircled by four writhing tentacles. It lifted itself unsteadily and moved behind his computer screen in an awkward gait. Chris wanted to scream. He wanted to run. He wanted to take the scissors from his top drawer and cut into himself.

  But he could not. He couldn’t fight it. The voice had complete control.

  ‘Do not panic, Chris. You are one of the chosen. You will help spread the gift to all, and together we will all go home,’ the voice said.

  Chris was aware of his body lowering his shirt over his extended stomach before picking up a large folder from his in-tray. The voice used the folder the cover his stomach as it walked his body out of his pod toward the lunch room.

  "How’s it going Chris?" Kendra asked as he walked past her desk. They had been flirting shamelessly over the last few months since Kendra split up with her boyfriend.

  "Great!" Chris heard his body say as it continued walking.

  His body stopped in the empty lunch room for a moment. It looked around the room and focused on the tap.

  ‘Yes, there! We need water!’ another voice said from inside his head.

  This second voice was distinct and separate from the first, but somehow the same. His body walked over to the sink and lifted his shirt again. The tear in his abdomen was wider now. Another tentacled lump popped out of his stomach with a puff of black air as it flopped into the sink.

  His body lowered his shirt again and watched the tiny tentacled lump disappear into the drain.

  A flash of images and words appeared in Chris’ mind. He saw the water treatment plant. The word swim flashed in his mind. The image of knitted flesh, melted faces and tumorous
growths appeared, followed by a single command.

  ‘Climb,’ it said.

  Chris picked up the folder again and turned to leave the lunch room. He nearly walked right into Kendra. She took a step back as he turned, her face was white.

  "Are you feeling okay Chris?" she asked, worried about him. He was deathly pale.

  "Sure, I’m fine. Just a little hungover from last night, that’s all," he said.

  The voice in his mind allowed had allowed him to speak his own words, which surprised Chris. He desperately wanted to tell her about the black lumps. About the black air billowing out of the hole in his stomach. He knew he should scream at her to call a doctor. But he didn’t.

  "That’s good. I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten about what you said to me last night," she said.

  "I remember," he lied.

  "Good. When you’re ready, I’d love for you to take me out to dinner," she said, her cheeks flushing red.

  "How about tonight?" he asked.

  "Sure. Where?" she asked.

  "Let me surprise you. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  "Perfect," she said, then turned away and left the lunch room.

  ‘Climb,’ the voice commanded him again.

  Chris walked toward the stairwell, driven by the voice in his head. He climbed as high as he could, then walked out onto the floor. The top floor was completely empty. It was only ever used by the executives for their meetings. He walked to a conference room that overlooked the city below.

  His stomach felt upset, but he was unable to look down. His body abandoned the folder on the conference room table. There was no more use in hiding. At the bottom periphery of his vision he saw his shirt begin to lift over the horrifyingly rapid inflation of his own stomach. His skin stretched so thin that it looked like a balloon filled with black sand, ready to pop.

  His walk turned into a waddle as his chest, arms and legs began to inflate. Black spores floated in the air around his face as he entered the conference room.