“…She’s gone…” Krahm repeated.
“…Who?” Liara asked gritting her teeth. The coughs were harder to suppress and she was spluttering. She could taste blood in her mouth.
“…She was to be my mate…”
Liara felt a pang of sorrow from Krahm. A rapid succession of coughs brought her to the floor and couldn’t hold back. By the time she’d finished coughing there was a pair of blood clots on the bedroom floor. It felt disrespectful.
“It’s getting worse isn’t it…?”
Liara managed a small “yeah” but the urge to cough threatened to rear up.
She felt dizzy again. Dizzier than she had before.
It was a cruel and somewhat disturbing thought that occurred to her. 70%? Maybe even 65%? What she wouldn’t give for a health bar.
“In the bathroom, in the cabinet should be a green vial. Find that…”
She hoisted herself onto her weary legs. She found the cabinet, it was built into the grey walls of the bathroom. Wet-room felt more of an apt description. She noticed there was no toilet but she didn’t let herself think on it. She removed the green vial.
“Remove the cap,”
She did so. It revealed a hypodermic needle.
“Use it. Inject it into your thigh muscle…”
Liara would’ve normally hesitated but the room was beginning to spin around her. She stabbed it into her leg. She watched the green liquid disappear into her body. It was a pretty shade of green, like absinthe. A small memory unfolded of getting drunk on absinthe. She slumped to the floor and let this memory play.
She had been busy fundraising and some socialite had plied her with absinthe. She had been desperately drunk, more drunk than she had ever been in her life. She had spent the night in fits of giggles. She could remember finding everything funny, much to … What was his name? She suddenly realised she couldn’t remember his name. She could see his face. She could see his stern expression as she slopped around the hallway giggling like a wench. That handsome face that had desperately wanted to laugh at her but was too worried she was going to vomit on his carpet. She could remember his smell. Remember the soft feel of his skin. His piercing eyes. The way his hair grew in one particular direction and made him look like he’d spent hours in bed. What was his name?
It upset her a fraction. Why she couldn’t remember his name? He was such a big part of her life for so long and now she couldn’t remember his name…
The green chemical seemed to have a rapid effect, she could feel her body begin to tingle.
“Liara… We have a problem…”
The sound of her voice over the radio brought her back to the present. The sight of her handsome lover disappeared into the recesses of her mind.
“What?”
She was feeling remarkably reinvigorated. She pulled herself up.
“The group of Tethu have just arrived. They’re heading for the lift…”
The eye roll was instinctive.
“So now what do I do?”
“Wait it out… If they take the lift, then you can take it after…”
How very English… Why didn’t she just queue outside too…
Liara decided that it would be in her best interest to watch the proceedings from close. She didn’t want to spend the next moments in Krahm’s dead lover’s apartment.
“…Krahm… I’m sorry about… Your mate,” she felt she needed to acknowledge it aloud.
“…Thank you, but lets just concentrate on getting out…”
She could understand Krahm’s focus. She would’ve done exactly the same thing.
She stole back into the corridor.
The row of lights that illuminated the stretch of corridor she stood on all fizzled, dimmed and then went out. Being plunged into darkness was becoming a recurring habit.
“Liara… I’ve lost access. The spire’s losing power…”
This parcel of bad news felt predictable.
She sighed to herself and crept to the end of the corridor.
The six Tethu had a new recruit. A smaller, yet fatter, Tethu with yellow and green mottled patches. It was pressing some sort of doughy substance to the elevator door.
Pink Tethu was stood with its gun aimed down the corridor in Liara’s direction. Liara hadn’t been noticed and she didn‘t want to attract attention. Inky was fiddling with some device in its hands. After a few seconds the chubby Tethu patted Inky on the shoulder and all the Tethu suddenly pulled away. They pulled down the corner to the left and out of Liara’s view.
What exactly were they do-?
An explosion shook the entire floor and violently burst in Liara’s ears. Blue flames rolled down the corridor and dispensed chunks of molten metal. Smoke, fire and sulphur poured up to the ceiling. Liara couldn’t hear for a throbbing ringing in her ears.
They had blown the elevator doors off and taken a large chunk of the wall too. The elevator shaft was now accessible. Where was the lift?
A bloodcurdling scream managed to cut through the tinnitus in Liara’s ears. It made her blood run ice cold. She suddenly knew something was very wrong.
She spied around the corner. Nothing.
Then the sound of gunfire.
Two lots of gunfire.
Then the sound of something she didn’t recognise. It sounded like an elephant being strangled. It was high pitched and mangled.
There was a whoosh of fire and then another burst of gunfire. It was the Tethu, they were attacking. Attacking what?!
She decided to not be sat around waiting to find out what. She pushed forward.
A blur of motion made her jump. The Inky Tethu slammed against the wall after being flung from the corner. It landed with a bone-crunching slam. Within seconds there was the sound of whale songs, clicks and covering fire. Liara was just hesitating whether to continue forward or not when it appeared.
Seeing it returned in the flesh made her heart sink all the way down to her frozen stomach. It was still alive. It stalked forward, taking deliberate steps as it closed in on the Inky Tethu. With a sudden and violent snap, it lunged its jaw forward and tore its throat out. There was a sickening slurping noise as the Progenmorph lifted its head back to swallow this flesh.
Liara crouched down and began to back up. Her senses were going haywire, her heart was beginning to hammer in her chest.
The fucking thing was back!
Where had it been hiding? How had it escaped the research module?
Was it a different one? The questions made Liara think of Krahm and then suddenly of her radio. She had to relinquish grip of the hacker as she leant back to slide the volume down.
The Progenmorph lifted its head once more, emitting an ear piecing shriek.
Liara abandoned the hacker and quickly threw herself back around the corner.
She gritted her teeth and braced for its arrival but it never came. It remained in front of the lift shaft. Warily she poked her head around the corner. Its deathly face was pointing in her direction, its eyeless gaze staring directly at her. It was clicking, tilting its head slightly to the left and fright as it did so.
The moment stretched out and a cold sweat broke across Liara. What the hell was it doing?
Then, after a few more moments of deliberation, it slowly stepped in her direction.
She didn’t need a further incentive to move, she backed up and silently began to head down the corridor away from it. She made it half way and she glanced back. It had arrived at the junction and stopped, clicking furiously while it tilted its head a little. Liara turned her attention forward and quietly, yet as quickly as she could manage, walked forward. She could feel her blood pressure escalating and her temple beginning to throb in the pressure.
She glanced back, inches from the junction, it was slowly stalking after her.
She walked into a Tethu, bodies colliding blindly. The grunt of surprise and commotion of their alarm, made it shriek and the two of them heard its thunderous approach. Liara spun around the
Tethu, backing away from it and placing it between her and the approaching Progenmorph. The Tethu had no weapon, only a cumbersome satchel stuffed to the gills with junk. It didn’t stand a chance.
Liara got a front seat view of the Progenmorph tearing the Tethu’s face off. The beard of tentacles lifted up and revealing a wicked mouthful of long black teeth. The teeth sank into the Tethu’s face like it was butter and tore half of it away. It then tossed its head up and pulled the flesh to the back of its throat with a slimy red tongue. Now Liara understood what made that sickening slurping sound. It churned her frozen stomach. The Tethu dropped dead with a thump on the floor.
Liara wanted to scream. Wanted to empty her lungs in a single pitch of terror but she managed to clamp it down. Instead she backed up against the wall and began steadily retreating.
The monster lowered its head. The hollow eyes turned to Liara but it didn’t pounce. Liara felt her soul drop through her ass. It felt like a death moment for sure.
Gunfire erupted. Plasma coated bullets tore from the side and peppered into the Progenmorph’s bony abdomen. The bullets tore neat holes straight through its body, yet it wasn’t affected. It turned to its aggressor, emitting that bone-shaking shriek and lunged forward. Liara noticed to her horror that the holes had closed. This creature had healed itself in a split second. It was invincible.
The Progenmorph burst out of sight and the next thing Liara heard was the demise of its attacker. She stole her moment, turned and headed to the junction. If she navigated right from here, she would end up outside the elevator shaft. Or so she hoped, she felt a little disoriented and lost.
The lights dimmed overhead but didn’t cut out. Instead the corridor took on a gloomy half-light. She almost stumbled over the dead Tethu. It was the pink creature. Liara stepped over it and nearly screamed when the Tethu took hold of her ankle. It wasn’t dead. It was paralyzed but it wasn’t dead. The alien refused to relinquish grip on Liara’s ankle so she had to wrench it free. The alien looked desperate and clawed the air in protest. The dark beady eyes looked pleadingly and Liara had to turn away. The Tethu had suffered some irreparable injury, its legs were useless. It kept trying to pull itself backwards with its arms but the pain kept stopping it in its tracks. Liara had to bottle the sympathy, she had to ignore it. She couldn’t be slowed down. She had to keep focus.
A shriek alerted her to the fact the monster was hunting once more.
She headed for the lift shaft, kicking a gun with her feet as she did so. A quick stoop to collect it revealed it to be the pink Tehthu’s. She took a hold of it, one hand on the muzzle and the other on the trigger. A gun!
The Progenmorph appeared at the end of the corridor behind her, stalking its way into view. Its sinister steps inspired Liara’s legs to work just that fraction faster. She reached the shaft with an orchestra of drums pounding in her ears. There was no rope to climb! She glanced up, was that the lift? Shit! The lift was stuck several floors up! Krahm had been wrong.
A shriek made her jump and she turned her attention to another means of escape. She spied a vent nearby, tucked into the corner of the lift shaft. She could reach it if she climbed into the shaft and clambered along the wall. There looked to be a little lip that she could use to stand on. It would be narrow but it was doable.
The thud of the monster’s footsteps were approaching.
She was running out of time to decide.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
She clambered off the lip and clambered onto the tiny pipe she was going to use to cross to the vent. Her toes hung over the edge of the pipe and she felt the precariousness of the situation with every careful step. If she fell she was going to fall to a rather ugly demise of several floors to the bottom. She looked up, realising that looking downwards was doing her no favour.
She was almost at the corner, sliding along with her back to the wall when something tore into the shaft with her. She was caught off guard and screamed. She wobbled and had to throw herself into the corner. She wedged herself with outstretched arms and legs. The chubby Tethu was teetering at the lift shaft, clearly caught off guard by the lack of ropes to ascend with.
Its attention turned to a wide-eyed Liara nearly hyperventilating in the corner of the narrow shaft. It suddenly reached forward and groped for her arm. She snatched it back just in time. Annoyed the Tethu reached in further.
Liara tried to manoeuvre herself into the corner as much as she could but the shaft was narrow and its arms were long. It was trying to steal her weapon. She was damned if she was going to give it up. She’d spent a long time wanting a gun, now she had finally had one she’d kill before giving it up.
A shriek preceded the clawed hands that enveloped its temples. The Tethu was torn backwards into the corridor and the sound of flesh being torn free told Liara its fate. She could feel herself trembling.
She wanted to move, move towards the vent but her legs wouldn’t work. She was frozen. Rooted to the spot in fear.
The Progenmorph dropped the dead body and reappeared at the lift shaft. It started clicking as it craned its neck inside. The clicks reverberated all around the lift shaft and sounded like a clicker being deployed in a sound tunnel. Slowly its head titled to Liara.
She couldn’t deny it was homing in on her. It hissed as its head faced her, the tentacles of its beard rippled in anticipation.
“No!” She denied with a moan.
She pulled the trigger on the gun. It was inches away from being point-blank.
A hot plume of blue fire erupted in a scorching stream. She had been braced for gunfire so the flames surprised her. She smothered its face in burning flames in one squeeze of the trigger. The creature squealed before it suddenly retreated.
There was a crescendo of thunderous footsteps and then a distinct rumbling as it threw itself into the vents in a hasty retreat.
The only noise in the lift shaft was the sound of Liara’s rapid breathing.
And that was how it remained for a long minute. Nothing but the sound of Liara’s sickly breathing and silence.
She took a moment longer, just to be sure, before she finally wrenched her body into action. She twisted and threw herself up at the vent. Her entrance was far from graceful but she made it inside. She slid forward, squirming on her stomach till her feet accompanied her in the vent.
“Krahm! I need your help!” She roared. The noise as she scrambled forward was deafening, the sound of metal being struck echoed around in every direction.
“Krahm?!” She shouted as she approached the junction.
Where the hell was he?
A distant shriek echoed somewhere far away in the vents.
There was no tell-tale sound of its approach but her nerves still frayed a little.
He was on mute! It suddenly occurred to her as she weighed up the left or right before her.
She groped behind, rolled the volume dial up.
“-ara? Liara can you hear me?”
“I hear you! I’m in the vents off the elevator shaft. The Progenmorph is alive!” She couldn’t have halted the panic in her voice if she’d have tried.
“Ok, ok, ok,” Krahm stammered.
A second shriek echoed and she tried to pinpoint it. It was useless; the acoustics perverted all sense of sound.
“Left. Take the left. Then follow it round…”
She began crawling left. The flamethrower made an awful clang on the metal duct with every step and she felt like she was drawing attention. She glanced behind her; nothing.
She rounded the approaching corner with the flamethrower cocked, just in case.
“Keep going till the second shaft, there should be a ladder. Climb that and head into the processing suite. From there, you’ll have to ascend to the coolant floor. From there you should be able to get into the AI core…”
Liara felt like she was about to go climbing through the inner machinations of the spire, like it was a private path through its organs and systems.
A shriek echoed behind her.
It was closer. The goddamned thing was hunting her in the vents.
She reached the second vertical shaft and righted herself. As her ascent on the ladder began she became aware of the thumping closing in. The monster was close. She climbed a little more and stopped, she tilted the flamethrower down and braced. The thumping turned into thunder and the creature was almost upon her. Her finger curled around the trigger, she was prepared to torch the goddamned thing. It bolted underneath her, clicking furiously as it did.
She tensed but the creature continued on its path and the sound of its hunt began to fade away. It was yet more evidence that this creature hunted with sound. She guessed that the close proximity of the vents actually suited it, it could build an extensive mental map of its surroundings. It was obviously why it chose to spend majority of its time in them. Time to climb. She tried to remain as quiet as she could as she completed the climb.
“You there yet?”
Krahm’s voice sounded like gunfire in the cramped shaft. She couldn’t afford the spare limb to turn the volume down. She hoisted herself up and into the processing suite.
“I’m there…” she announced scanning the room around her. It was filled with large industrial machines that hissed and groaned. They were large, bronze and dull. Several yards of pipes flowed in and out of all the machines. A little flicker of flames caught her attention. The entire room began to vibrate a little and she took cover under the nearest machine.
“Look for the yellow arrows, they’ll lead you to the coolant bay. Liara, you have to be careful in the coolant bay. No gunfire, one stray bullet or flame will ignite the canisters and-”
“-Blow me sky high,” she finished. The room finished vibrating and a machine in the corner groaned. It began to whistle and a long stream of steam popped a bolt free. Another machine groaned behind her. It was like a choir of injured animals.
“When you’re in the coolant bay, follow the blue arrows. It’ll lead you to the AI core. You’ll have to pass through the control suite, but just keep following the arrows…”
“Ok…” She slipped out from under the machine and homed in on the little yellow arrow pointing over a doorway. She ascended the small little steps and accessed the walkway that led between the tanks that fed the machines.
Progenitor Page 9