It looked like a sinister mockery of a face painting contest.
Stripes holstered a pistol and took a strange green device from a utility belt slung around his waist. He brandished it before him. It began to beep, emitting a quick tone. He looked at it curiously then tapped it against his thigh. He brandished it before him again. It made the same quick succession of beeps. Crow turned his attention to Stripes and then to the device. Stripes pointed at the corner and shrugged.
Liara couldn’t help but feel that device had just picked up her presence.
She didn’t stay to find out, she turned and bolted back down the corridor.
She rushed under the bridges and tried to consider her next step. The lift shaft? The AI core?
She felt inclined to retreat to the AI core, but it could easily become a trap of her own making. The only way out of the AI core would be back into the coolant bay. Two of the coolant systems had exploded as she was leaving, she doubted the others remained. It would surely mean the coolant bay would be destroyed. It would be impassable.
That was before she even contemplated the Progenmorph that was likely still lurking around.
As if on cue, just to worsen her entire dilemma, the entire spire vibrated and groaned.
So did she go for the lift shaft? Could she find a way to shake off the Fours following behind her?
A distinctly non-human shout preceded the firing of plasma coated bullets over her shoulder. She ducked instinctively as the gunfire passed over her. She glanced back. The Fours were charging forward with their guns aimed. She reached the elevator shaft as they passed under the first bridge. The alarms erupted and a metal barrier shot up between Liara and the Fours. She glanced back. It touched the ceiling. There was no climbing over that.
She didn’t think it would stop them for long though. She would need to descend via the lift shaft. She clambered through the hole the Tethu had burnt. There was a strange device attached to the rope, it looked like climbing gear. She threw herself at it. It had a trigger and as she squeezed it, it ascended. She suspected that might be helpful. She unhooked it from the rope and hooked it onto her body suit.
A blast that sounded like a shotgun made a sudden dent in the barrier. A second blast punctured a hole in it. They were going to tear their way through the barrier.
She wrapped her legs around the rope and began a controlled descent.
A few seconds later and the Fours were tearing their way through the barrier like it was made of paper.
She reached the bottom, landing on the top of the broken elevator. One of the panels on the car’s roof had been torn free and she could see inside. She didn’t get time to register what she saw.
Gunfire suddenly erupted in the lift shaft and rained down on her. She threw herself into the hole and out of the line of fire. She was grateful the Fours were such shit shots, but she wasn’t prepared to play Russian roulette with her chances. She had landed in a dried bloodbath. There was blood up every corner of the lift. The doors had been prised open and permitted entry into a dark and gloomy corridor on the residential floor. She turned and gasped.
A Four laid in the corner, its throat was missing. A large portion of its chest had been gouged with giant claws. In one hand it held a Hacker, in the other a bulky electronically item that looked like a laptop. The alien laptop was wired into a strange cylindrical tower that was pulsing with red lights.
Suddenly Liara understood who the insider was orchestrating the attack. It was a Four. She deduced the electronics were how it had disabled the system and initiated the attack. It was a great idea to stage the attack in the elevator, it was the perfect escape route. She wondered what went wrong…
Gunfire rained down on the roof of the lift. A stray bullet pierced the floor next to Liara’s barefoot. It made her jump and she quickly clambered out of the lift.
The idea that she was now retreating back into Progenmorph territory slid its way down her back like an ice cube. She rushed forward, aware that the Fours were noisily descending too. She turned right, lost her footing and fell through a hole in the floor.
She landed on her front, but the weakened flooring caved in and she tumbled once more.
The spire groaned around her. There was the distinct sound of something buckling and crumbling under the pressure. She picked herself up from a smooth rubbery floor. She was winded but she was alive.
She glanced upwards. She looked to have fell at least three floors.
Slowly she turned her attention back to her current whereabouts. She was in yet another dark and gloomy corridor of the residential block. Only a flickering light at the furthest stretch of the hallway offered any light and it was sporadic at best. What the light did illuminate chilled Liara to the core.
The floor and the walls were covered in fine silk threads. It glistened in the flickering light. It reminded Liara of a spider’s web. She looked to her feet, she was stood on it. It coated literally everywhere.
She lifted a foot, it was slightly sticky and it twanged back into place.
She wasn’t just in the Lion’s den, she was in its fucking bed.
She glanced behind her.
The mess of silk continued over every surface.
“Krahm…” She whispered.
There was no response.
She took a breath, she didn’t know what she’d stumbled into but she would have to get through it and find the stairwell. With any luck she could take the stairwell back up three levels and pass the Fours and escape.
She carefully crept forward.
It reminded her of the spider’s nest they’d stumbled on deep in the paradise lodged within Mt Kalaish. She heard her own voice echo in her memories. Urging her team to retreat.
There had been a roar too. The T-Rex, of course, now she remembered. It had appeared over the top of the mound. The events that transpired cost someone their life. She couldn’t remember her name but she remembered she’d placed her trust in the wrong person.
She traversed forwards and tried to wrestle with the tenuous memory.
Shannon. That was her name.
She was the one who had been betrayed.
Machine gun fire echoed in her mind.
The T-Rex’s roar thundered in her ears.
Remembering the T-Rex’s pursuit wasn’t a particularly good idea she realised, as she headed deeper into the nest. She forcefully shook the thoughts away. She headed left, trying to orient herself. No apartment door opened at her approach. The power had begun to fail in this quarter. The main lights were out and only emergency ones remained.
The spire was beginning to crumble…
She reached the wall and found the stairwell was barricaded with a thick wall of web.
Had the Progenmorph done this? She couldn’t think of anything else, yet it seemed so unlikely. So uncharacteristic. When had it had the chance to construct this nest?
There was no way she was going to get through this barrier. She turned back.
The silence felt pregnant and eerie, so when a human whimper pierced it she immediately noticed.
It came again. A little soft whimper, like a muted call in the middle of a bad dream.
She hesitated.
She surveyed the rest of the corridor around her.
This floor was smaller. Or was it?
She was disorientated.
That little whimper echoed from her left.
The sensible bones in her body told her to head right. Her heart, and her foolhardy curiosity, told her to go left. Curiosity killed the cat… Hadn’t curiosity got her in this mess in the first place? She realised that her curiosity for the unknown had brought her to this exact moment. If she’d never had discovered the bio dome underneath Mt Kailash, then she would never have discovered the aliens which ruined her life. She would never have been cloned, she would - she stopped. If she’d never have been cloned, she wouldn’t exist. How quickly Liara forgot she wasn’t the real Liara.
She headed right. As tempting as that human sound was, s
he was going to be sensible for once. She rounded the corner, straining to see in the near-dark. It lead to nothing of note. Just another long dark corridor covered in more silk. She idly traced a path of web up into the vents. It seemed the Progenmorph was indeed responsible for it.
What was the point of the web network?
She followed the corridor and found herself underneath the hole she’d fallen through.
She had come back on herself in a circuit.
She could faintly hear clicking as she contemplated climbing up the way she fell. The Fours were hot on her trail. Were they considering the means to follow her down here?
Shit.
She headed forward, taking the alternative path from her previous route, and rounded the next corner. There was a large open door on the outer wall. This wasn’t like the other floors. This floor housed only a few apartments, majority of it was taken up by this room before her.
The human whimper drifted from inside.
Double shit.
Against her best judgement, she was going to have to venture inside.
She took a breath and crept in.
It was illuminated by a few remaining dim lights hanging from a tall domed ceiling.
The network of web intensified and covered every inch of this great room.
A thin web spanned a giant recess in the floor.
The gloom left majority of the room in dark patches.
The furthest wall appeared to be shutters, large expansive shutters. There was overturned decking chairs and tables around the recess in the floor. It was cold tile underfoot.
It suddenly dawned on Liara she was looking at a swimming pool.
“H-h-h-help,” came a distinctly human whisper.
Fear washed over Liara, its icy touch combed all her hairs erect on her arms. The sound was unmistakably human… But who was it? She was the only human aboard the spire…
She crept closer to the pool. It may have been empty of water but it was filled with more webbing. Strange clear slime caught her eye. It shone a little like slug trails. There was figures beneath the sheet of web that covered the empty pool. She could just see the faint outlines in the gloom.
“…N-N-n…”
Liara prised an opening into the thicket of web. It yielded like chewing gum, stretching and sticking till finally snapping. She craned her head inside.
There was several Tethu entombed in slime, glued to the walls. They were motionless. Were they dead? She couldn’t see the human. She wasn’t sure how to feel about there being another human. Who was it? Was it even human? The Tethu had conquered English after all, why was she so sure?
There was a thud outside in the corridor and suddenly the Fours were close.
“Fuck!” she hissed.
She glanced around the abandoned nest and couldn’t see a single hiding spot.
She dropped in amongst the entombed Tethu. The network of web was much thicker and more concentrated in the pool. Shiny slime trails extended from the cocooned aliens. It took a few moments but her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She crept forward, heading towards the deeper end.
The Fours were noisily sweeping the corridor outside.
A familiar Tethu caught her eye. It was the pink Tethu who’d been paralysed. She recognised the braid. She was glued to the wall, encased in the clear slime. Her head was bowed, her whole body was imprisoned in the slime and pressed against the wall of the pool. Why had the Progenmorph brought her down here?
Was her stomach swollen? Liara wasn’t sure if it was an optical illusion or her stomach was distended and swollen. She got a closer look.
The Tethu was breathing. She could hear her breathing ever so softly.
She was alive and cocooned.
But why?
“…nya,”
The voice came from deeper in the nest.
Liara backed away from the Tethu.
There was several Tethu down here, all plastered to the wall in the same fashion.
The way they shined reminded Liara of Mermaid’s purses. Shark’s eggs. It felt apt, the Tethu seemed to stem from oceanic based life forms. She reminded her self that the Progenmorph was a mutation of a Tethu. The Xeed had been an accelerant, which meant it was a mutant. There was some new uncharted DNA mixed in with the alien‘s biology. She had no idea how the Tethu reproduced but she suspected this was just a mutated version of the same thing.
Liara began to consider everything she’d learnt about the Progenmorph. It had exhibited an insatiable hunger, perhaps because its metabolism was too fast? She thought of the way it slurped down the flesh. Her stomach rolled over.
Its sense of hearing had been exceptional, it had hunted via echolocation. The evolutionary accelerant had amplified its hearing at the sacrifice of its sight. The idea of the creature not having this exploitable weakness was unthinkable. She recalled the bullet wounds healing almost instantly, it had an advanced healing system but it was also probably driving up its metabolism. As deadly as this creature was, it was surprisingly fragile. It would no doubt die out before long. If she survived long enough to see it.
She thought of the species of butterflies and moths that lived for only a few days before expiring.
It struck a new light on the bodies plastered to the wall.
Was it reproducing?
The realisation hit her in the gut. The bodies; they were hosts for its offspring.
It had instinctively collected females so it could reproduce.
Suddenly the nest around her felt like the worst place to be in the entire universe.
It was bound to be here, and if it wasn’t… it would be soon. The network of silk must’ve been the equivalent of its alarm network. She pictured the Progenmorph awaiting her at the centre of the web like a spider.
“…N…”
She turned and considered going back. She really shouldn’t be here. But the Fours… They would kill her on sight. They had pushed her into a corner…
She didn’t know what to do.
Perhaps there would be a way to climb out of the nest at the other end? It was her only option. Retreating the way she came would only put directly in the Fours’ path.
She crept down the slope and weaved through a dense wall of web. This was the heart of the nest.
Only a little light made it past the thicket overhead and it cast an ominous atmosphere. In the middle of the nest, on a platform of hardened resin and web laid a human with her face turned away from Liara. On the furthest wall was a dark shadow where the all the strands of web originated from. She felt she was looking at the creature’s bed. It was epicentre of the network of silk. She couldn’t see anything in the shadowy recess, she didn’t know whether that bode well or not. Was it better it wasn’t around or better that it was in view? It felt like picking the better of two evils…
The human whimpered. She was bound by the wrists and ankles. Chained with long stretches of web unlike the other victims who were encased in the slime. She was naked, her pale milky skin glowed softly in the faint light. Lacerations lined her arms and legs, they looked like cuts from glass. Her long brown hair cascaded off the platform. She was like looking at sleeping beauty through the lens of a pervert.
She was pregnant; her belly swollen and distorted.
Liara slowly approached, her breath catching in her throat.
The girl’s face turned to Liara as a strange shape shifted beneath the skin of her stomach. It looked like a pair of clawed hands had pressed out against the skin.
Liara couldn’t be shocked, she’d expected it the moment she realised the hostage was a girl. The look on her clone’s face brought tears to Liara’s eyes. The clone was scared, her eyes were dark and wide. She mouthed a silent call of pain and flopped her head back in defeat.
Liara closed in, her face scrunched up as she fought the urge to cry.
Her heart broke. Again she had to witness her own violation. The first time had been the Fours using a clone as a surrogate for their progeny. This time, an
alien monstrosity had done the same thing to her.
But why was her clone here? It didn’t make sense. Why had they brought Liara and a clone back to the spire? Why? She felt like Krahm hadn’t been entirely honest with her. She crouched by her clone and pressed a hand to her cheek.
The clone’s eyes rolled at the feel of another human’s touch.
Liara couldn’t even begin to imagine how she felt. How confused she must be to see herself approach; to see her own reflection approach her in the middle of a strange nightmare…
Or how scared she must be…
She’d not know anything but this. This was the sum total of her life… The Progenmorph would’ve been just another alien. Another alien who raped her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
“I’m so sorry,” Liara whispered. She smoothed a stray hair from her clone’s brow.
Her heart was in tiny pieces at the bottom of her chest.
Why was this happening again? When did this nightmare end?
When would the continued violations stop?
A tear broke free and Liara wiped it away.
The clone’s expression softened, she looked sad. Sad that her sister was crying.
“I’m so sorry…” Liara whispered to her.
A boom of gunfire announced the Fours arrival. Liara threw herself backwards and up against the wall. Her hands went up and she surrendered. The Fours stepped into the room, tugging broken branches of hardened web out of their path. Stripes was holding the device and it beeped erratically. Liara suspected the device was a tracker and it was reading two signals, hence the echo of beeps. The alien looked from Liara and then to the clone tied to the platform. He looked surprised. Crow was doing the same.
He stepped towards the clone and eyed her over carefully. His hand pressed gently on the swollen stomach. Something moved beneath his touch and he yanked it back sharply.
His clicks echoed in the nest.
Waves stepped forward. He appeared to be brandishing the powerful gun, it was triple barrelled and he held it in two hands. He looked the clone over and then gave his opinion to Crow.
Panda came up from the rear. He tugged a device from his utility belt. He then proceeded to activate it. It emitted a strong blue laser. He used it to sweep the clone.
Progenitor Page 12