“I got this covered, boss,” Parker replied, tilting back in his chair and holding up the block. “I can have this whole place wired and ready in two minutes. If those things try to—”
Jakes crossed the space between him and the smaller man in three steps. Before parker could finish his sentence, Connor had grabbed him by the lapels of his vest and hauled him to his feet. Another two steps slammed the man against the wall. Parker yelped as his feet were lifted from the floor. Connor slid his left arm across Parker’s chest, holding him flat next to the exterior window. With his other hand, he pulled his pistol and pressed it against the man’s head. He had activated the energizer before entering the house, so he knew the barrel was hot. Parker screamed as Conner ground the gun into his cheek.
“Listen to me, you little psychopath,” Jakes hissed through clenched teeth. “You plant what I say when I say it. If I catch you blowing anything bigger than bubblegum bubbles, I will shove this gun through your head, turn it back around and then fire it. Do you understand?”
Wide-eyed, Parker tried to speak, but the gun was dislocating his jaw. Instead, he shook his head rapidly up and down. He dropped the square to the floor and kicked to be let free, then gasped as Jakes pushed his elbow into his shoulder and held him against the wall for another few seconds to make his point before stepping back, dropping him to the floor. Parker gagged as he fell to his knees. The pain of the wound in his leg almost made him cry out. Instead, he panted for air and looked up to his captain.
Before he could speak, a roar of sonic energy blasted through the wall. Parker was pushed back to the floor, covering his head with his hands. Jakes was thrown off his feet into the table. The walls vibrated as more plaster fell from the ceiling in chunks. Jakes held his hands over his ears, wishing he hadn’t taken the plugs out. The sound lasted for an eternity before quieting. Connor released his lungful of air before lowering his hands.
“Captain!” Mendel’s voice sounded distant to Connor’s ringing ears. “I think they found us. I mean, the rest of them I mean. I think we need to get out of this house right now before they bring it in on us.”
“No,” Jakes replied, shaking his head and reaching for the earplugs. “We can stay here. It’s probably the safest place we can be on this station.”
“Are you crazy?” Parker asked, getting to his feet with some difficulty. “You almost killed me! All I wanted to do was…”
“Shut up, Parker!” Mendel shouted. “If the captain wanted to kill you, he would have. Now get your plugs in and get ready for whatever we’re doing next.”
The three humans each stuffed the gooey substance in their ears, blocking most sound. Tuxor stepped into the room carrying the canisters and motioned for the team to follow. He still had to duck to keep from scraping his head, but the ceiling had stopped raining plaster. Connor noticed metal bands along the ceiling where wooden joists should have been. He nodded to the rest of the team and pointed to Mendel to show the man. Mendel was carrying Parker under his arm and dragging the man down the hall.
The hallway divided ahead as the stairs opened up to the left. Two flights carried the team up to the second floor. Jakes could feel the vibrations of the floor as the howlers’ cry picked up in intensity. He assumed more of the creatures had joined the other two. He realized it was what had happened to the crew of the station. The howlers must have stationed themselves outside of station control and blasted the room. The metal walls had amplified the ultrasonic enough to rupture the technicians from within. As Connor looked around, he was glad the walls of the house were not solid. The increased vibrations had, however, shaken enough of the wood loose to reveal the metal underneath. It confirmed his suspicions once and for all.
Take up stations at the windows, Jakes signaled to the other men. Shoot anything that moves.
Parker and Mendel moved to the windows. Mendel went down on one knee, punched his hand through the frosted glass, and braced the rifle on the window ledge. Parker pulled both his guns and stood by the other window, sneaking looks out the window. Connor turned to Tuxor and indicated him to drop the canisters. If he was right, they wouldn’t need them for a while anyway. He reached out and took Tuxor’s lower right hand and moved him to the wall. Finding a place where the rotted wood had already fallen away, he placed the hand against the bare metal. The amphibian nodded and closed his eyes.
Another blast from the howlers shook the building. Connor moved closer to Parker, raising his weapon and taking a position on the other side of the window. The sound was muted, but powerful enough to make Jakes’ heart skip a beat. He felt the vibrations through the floor and up his legs. It made his bones hurt deep inside. Taking as deep a breath as he could, he turned to the window and looked out.
There were two more of the howlers standing knee deep in the mud. Each was of a similar build as the one they had met in the control room. There were subtle differences in the tattered clothing and size, but both were larger than Tuxor and each was pointing an open mouth at the front door of the house. A bright flash came from the other window as Mendel opened fire.
The howler closest to the house staggered as the high-powered round tore through its shoulder. A second round split its knee and the creature went down in the muck. It pushed itself up on one arm and looked back to the house. Dead white eyes made contact with Mendel. Jakes watched as the big man muttered something and pulled the trigger again. Yellow fluid erupted from the back of the creature’s head as the bullet entered the creature’s open mouth and out the back. The howler’s body spasm and fell face-first into the mud.
Mendel turned to Jakes and let out a silent whoop. The howler had gone down in three shots. It didn’t seem right according to what Jakes had already deduced. Parker stepped out from cover and looked down at the remaining creature. He raised both his pistols and pulled the triggers. Smaller rounds broke through the glass and impacted the other howler. The creature didn’t seem to notice as the bullets entered its chest and abdomen. After a few seconds, Parker stopped firing and looked at Jakes. He grinned and pushed a button on the gun.
Fire blossomed inside the creature as the explosive rounds detonated. The howler held its head up high and let out a scream that Jakes might have mistaken for pain. The fires tore the creature apart and it fell back to the swamp. The temporary light of the fire extinguished as the creature sank beneath the water.
Jakes watched as both the other men turned to each other and high-fived. He glanced over at Tuxor, who still had his hand against the wall. Not getting anything from him, Jakes turned back to the window. There was still movement outside and he leaned forward to see. His eyes were still adjusting to the darkness again, but he could make out movement in the swamp. There was a sudden bone-jarring sound just as he finally realized what he was seeing.
The howler Mendel had shot had stood back up on its uninjured leg. The other leg was bent at a crude angle, while its arm hung limply by its side. Its drawn, dead face was a hole, pointed up to the sky, and the thunderous sound was coming from within. The creature resumed a staggering walk towards the house and Conner raised his gun and fired. His plasma rounds curved even as they approached the creature. Vibrations from the sonic noise were deviating his bullets to either side, where they steamed as they entered the water. Jakes could see the plasma burning even as it sank into the swamp. The fire illuminated the area for a moment and Connor could see more motion in the water.
The other howler, dragging its lower body by a thin thread of metallic spinal column, had turned its own head upwards and emitted a scream. Parker and Mendel moved back to the window and stared open-mouthed at the sight of the destroyed creatures moving towards the house. From behind the first two, all three men spotted the remaining two howlers moving from the tree line across the water. There was something strange in the way these two moved. As the light of the plasma finally burned out, they could see that the creatures were walking on the water, not in it. Their feet were barely touching the liquid below. They were movin
g much quicker than the other two and caught up quickly. All four moved beneath the porch overhang and disappeared from view.
There was an eerie silence as the creatures moved out of view. Jakes got the feeling they were each taking a breath and evaluating the situation, but doubted they had that much capacity to think. He looked back to Tuxor, who was still communing with the wall. With no indication of any progress, he turned back to the other two men and indicated the door. All three moved towards the room entrance and took up positions, with Mendel holding his rifle and covering from the front. The big man moved through the door, moving the barrel of the gun back and forth quickly. Jakes and Parker stepped out behind him and covered his back.
There was an explosion of sound from below as the four howlers blasted the door from the hinge. Smoke and debris flew up the staircase, obscuring the view from above. Jakes moved around Mendel and ran to the head of the stairs. There was a turn at the first flight and he tried to see if any of the creatures had breached it. He could not make out any movement through the thick smoke, but knew there was something down there. In his estimation, only one of the creatures would be able to mount the stairs. The other three were too badly damaged to come up quickly. He readied himself for the gray face to come around the corner.
The attack came much sooner than Jakes expected. The howler took the steps two at a time, ducking in the small space until he came around the landing. Connor raised his pistol to fire but the howler was too close. The creature slammed into him, hard. He was thrown back into the wall, knocking loose more rotting wood. He sucked back breath, relieved to see he hadn’t dropped his weapon. The howler stepped onto the top step and braced itself. Thunderous waves of noise erupted from it as it directed its fury straight at Connor. He felt his ribs beginning to break just before the first rounds blasted it back.
Mendel was apparently screaming as he fired his rifle over and over into the creature. At this range, the armor piercing bullets went straight through it, leaving dark stains as the yellow fluid oozed out. It continued to roar at Jakes even as Parker fired smaller, non-explosive rounds. In the contained space, incendiary or detonating rounds would likely have killed all of them along with the creature. None of the weapons seemed to have any effect on the howler, and it stepped closer to Jakes. His head felt ready to split even as the sound grew more intense around him. He was drowning in sound and losing the battle. He wanted his last thought to be of Melaina, but he couldn’t focus through the pain.
Mendel swung his weapon hard against the creature’s hide, but the creature swung its arm wide, catching the big man and flinging him down the hall. Parker stepped back, trying to get out of the way of his flailing partner. The distraction lasted a few seconds and did not stop the sonic attack on Jakes. As Jakes began to lose consciousness, he tried to bring his gun up to fire but couldn’t. After all this, he thought, I get killed by a ghost. He tried to take a breath but failed as the sound seemed to come from far in his past to end his future.
Silence.
The suddenness of it made Connor believe he was dead. He blinked his eyes as his vision began to clear. A deep breath that he thought he would never take again filled his lungs, reminding him of the pain and proving he was alive. He wanted to shake his head, but was afraid of the pain he knew would be there. In the eternal seconds of that breath, he remembered why he was on the floor and looked up.
The howler was standing in front of him, still in the head-first position to blast out sound, but nothing was coming out. Its dead eyes blinked in uncomprehending confusion. Closing its mouth, it tried to stand up. Raising its arms, it advanced on Jakes. Not in any position to resist the inevitable impact, Connor tried to summon spit to throw at the monster and found his mouth was dry. He spat in its direction just as something stepped in between him and the monster. Blinking, Jakes saw a blue-green flash as Tuxor halted the creature in its tracks. He felt a roar of sound, this time coming from his friend, as the two titans grappled above him.
Tuxor set his feet and pushed back against the howler. The creature was bigger than the amphibian, but lacked its most powerful weapon. Tuxor had both of the howler’s arms in his upper hands and began to punch the creature with his lower arms. Jakes pulled the plug from one of his ears, not knowing if his ears worked anymore after the assault. He heard a low growl from the big alien even as he tore away at the monster in his arms. There was a screech of metal as one of his lower arms grasped the inside of the creature’s chest and pulled. Sparks and fluid blossomed from the creature’s chest as Tuxor ripped it apart.
Jakes could see the innards of the artificial monster as the amphibian tore away at its hide. One of his upper arms tore the howler’s arm loose and flung it away. The Karisien reached inside the shoulder socket and pulled, tearing away wires and tubes that spurted yellow fluid. In a final cry of rage, Tuxor released the other arm and reached for the howler’s head. He placed one of his powerful legs against the creature’s abdomen and pulled, ripping the head free of the body. The howler sparked and stepped backwards, reaching awkwardly for its missing head. Another step backward took it over the top step and backwards down the stairs.
Jakes heard the body crash against the landing and lie still. He had no idea where the others were, but he thought the destroyed one might stop them from coming up. Glancing down the hall to his team, he saw Parker helping Mendel to his feet. The big man was looking at his rifle closely to see if it had been damaged. Jakes looked back at Tuxor.
“You were right, Captain,” Tuxor said to his friend, wiping yellow fluid from his shoulder. “They are all machines.”
“What … what did the twins do?” Jakes asked, trying to breathe through the pain. “Can you turn them off?”
“No sir, not from here.”
“Then what?”
Tuxor turned back to his captain and knelt in the cramped hallway, examining Connor for any broken bones or eternal bleeding. Finding none, he reached down and helped the captain to his feet. Jakes felt like he had been slammed through a bulkhead a few times, but he could stand on unsteady legs. Tuxor looked back to the staircase again and showed the equivalent of a smile on his wide face.
“When the twins couldn’t control its movements, they did what anyone would do,” he explained. “They hit the mute button.”
9
“Let me explain it this way. If any man in this universe other than Connor Jakes had told me this story, I would have had him locked in the brig for observation. With him, you just listen, nod and accept what he tells you.”
Ronald Chang
Memoirs
Connor sighed as he heard the muted explosion from below. Parker, the only human member of the team not suffering with broken ribs, volunteered to scout the downstairs space. Had Jakes been more clear-headed, he would have thought the matter through, but the pain and fugue of battle made him give his assent. Parker limped down the stairs and out of view before Connor had a chance to reconsider. There had been silence for the first few moments and then the inevitable sound of pursuit. Remembering the man’s leg injury, Connor tried to get down the stairs, but a restraining hand from Tuxor held him at the top step. Connor wanted to object, but knew in his heart what the result would be.
“I got’em, boss!” Parker called from below as the dust settled. “Stupid howlers thought they had me cornered but I had ‘em right where I wanted.”
“Where’s that?” Mendel shouted down the stairwell.
“In pieces all over the dining room table,” came the reply with a laugh. “Come on down, guys. Both of’m went boom. It would’ve been quicker, but you made me drop my detonator when you were tossin’ me around down here.”
Jakes held the banister railing as he stepped carefully down the stairs. Tuxor followed, carrying the empty canister for the twins, with Mendel behind, dragging his rifle. The gun had been damaged in the battle and the big man seemed to be mooning over its loss. Jakes stepped over the still sparking remains of the first howler and down to the f
irst floor. Parker was waiting in the hall with a smile. Part of the hair on the left side of his face was smoking, but he seemed in good spirits.
Did ya see that?” Parker said, raising his hand and pointing to the smoking ruin of the dining room. “Two-for one time right here!”
“There were three of them, Parker,” Jakes said, brushing past the smaller man and towards the door.
“Three? Oh yeah. I don’t know what happened to the other one. These two chased me here.”
“Are they really dead?” Mendel asked, looking into the room.
“They were never alive to begin with, Eli,” Jakes replied, turning to face the big man. “They’re robots or something. Created by the technicians for someone’s enjoyment.”
“Robots who kill people for their own enjoyment? That’s messed up, boss,” Parker said, brushing down the smoldering hair. “Why would anyone do this?”
“They did not do this to themselves,” Tuxor said with his deep baritone. “The program is running as requested, but there was an error.”
“Pretty big error.”
“This whole complex was created by someone for entertainment, though I don’t think the howlers were supposed to get out,” Jakes said, stepping out to the porch. “I bet we find more of those things.”
“That is true, Captain,” Tuxor said, stepping behind Connor and setting the canisters down. “The twins found a program bug which has created many of the automorphs.”
“Automorphs?” Parker asked.
“The howlers are a computerized autonomous system that self-creates per the required program,” Tuxor replied. “They can change as the environment adjusts, per their programming.”
A stream of amber liquid erupted from the doorframe as Mendel stepped outside. Tuxor opened the canister seal and the twins returned to their individual containers. After twisting the caps back on, Tuxor held the glass in his upper hands and waited for a vibration. In a few moments, he let out a deep boom and set the tubes back down.
The Adventures of Connor Jakes: Masks (The War for Terra Book 1) Page 7