Second Life of Mr. Hunt: Book 3: Failover

by Gerrit Overeem

  “We need to keep moving this way,” said Splicer, pointing to a pathway that inclined on the right to another tunnel system. “If I’m recalling this place correctly, it will bring us to the receiving bay,” said Splicer, heading up the pathway.

  The team followed her up the path into the next tunnel system. This one was made of the same crystal material, and it glowed brighter.

  As they neared the large wall blocking their path, it started to fade, and by the time they reached it, it was gone.

  “Glad that damn doorway is still working,” said Splicer, moving to the right side and peering down the left passage, while Gunny moved to the left side and peered down the right passage.

  “Clear,” said Splicer.

  “Clear,” said Gunny.

  Splicer waved her hand and led the team down the left passageway, and they continued moving deeper into the city.

  Chapter 24

  Scientific Horrors

  “Ouch,” yelled Kat, blinking her eyes and shaking her head. She felt like she was waking up after a long party. Her eyes hurt from the light and she was unable to shade them with her hands. Even trying to lift her head was an issue; it bobbled left and right.

  Pain shot through her left arm again, causing her to scream. She watched as a tall and thin, gray-robed individual moved a bloody scalpel away from her.

  Kat looked at her left arm. Her glove had been removed, and the Gravel arm that had been grafted on her was out there for the world to see. Blood slowly trickled down her forearm to pool on the table, and it clicked that he had just cut into her.

  She shook her head again and looked around the room. There were various lab tables with body parts in jars, chemical setups, and the smell of death. An empty case shaped like a humanoid that would be well over fifteen feet tall and massive was mounted on the wall on the other end of the room. A large mask and various hoses hung from inside the case.

  A table in front of her had a body on it covered by a cloth, and to her right side was an energy shield covering the length of a long wall. Behind the shielding was a large group of people. She tried to quickly count, but it had to be more than a hundred, and she recognized some of them from town.

  “Oh, good. You are awake,” said the robed man. “You were quite an unexpected surprise.”

  Kat’s face cringed and turned red.

  “You can concentrate as hard as you like to call out over your implanted communication device, but it will fail. In fact, the table restraints have the added bonus of disabling any internal tech.”

  She struggled again, this time contorting her entire body in an attempt to break free.

  “A feisty one, we have here,” said the robed man, looking down at her.

  Kat tugged harder on her restraints, but to no avail. She wanted to shoot an energy blast at him, but she could barely move her hands.

  “Please try not to injure yourself. You fascinate me, my dear specimen. You have a Gravel arm spliced on to you with perfection. Such a shame you hide it. Do you have full use of the arm?”

  Kat flipped him off.

  The man snickered. “Such fight in you. I recall a man who was stubborn like you. I am amazed. Who spliced the arm on?”

  “The Gravel, who do you think?”

  “That would make sense. They were an intelligent species. My race wanted them captured, but the foolish Woland killed them off instead. I cannot fully blame them, though. They no longer had us to guide them.”

  Four Woland guards moved up to take positions around the man.

  “Figured you would work with those creatures,” said Kat.

  “Work with? No, specimen. They work for me.”

  “I’m not your specimen. And what do you mean they work for you? The Woland conquer and kill. They would never bow to anyone.”

  The man grinned. “My apologies for the insult, Dr. Katalina Winslow.”

  Her face went pale and a look of confusion washed over her.

  “Expected reaction. I will save you the trouble of asking how I got your name. It was relatively easy to splice through your internal comm unit’s inferior encoding to retrieve owner information.”

  Kat went to say something, but he held up his hand to stop her.

  “Before you say anything, I must apologize for skipping formalities. My name is Uphir, and I must disagree, you are a fascinating individual, Kat. They call you Kat, correct?”

  “Let me out of here, and I’ll show you fascina—”

  She paused for a moment as the cobwebs in her head started to clear, and she recalled the name Uphir from the conversation with Vicki earlier.

  “The look on your face, Kat, tells me you’ve had a revelation of sorts.”

  “You’re…you’re the one we were warned about. You’re a Nilorian…This cannot be right…They’re all dead.”

  “I am honored you have heard of me and my people, but so wrong on our history. I will give you a brief lesson, starting with the Woland. When we found them, they were nothing more than a barbaric race that could barely create fire. We genetically enhanced them, gave them intelligence, weapons, and power. We are their masters. They know their place. Unlike the rest of the simpleminded worlds.”

  “And those simpleminded worlds destroyed yours.” Kat struggled again to no avail.

  Uphir started petting Kat’s hair like a submissive animal. She moved her head from side to side, but then he grabbed her hair tight and forced her head to the table. He leaned into the side of her face, his hot breath hitting her cheek.

  “You see, Kat, that is where history makes assumptions. Space is ever-expanding and is limitless. While your ancestors still thought your planet was flat, we were exploring galaxies. Our leader’s egos may have taken things to the extreme by blowing up the homeworlds, but we had other planets to retreat to and wait.”

  Uphir released Kat’s hair and moved away. Her face cringed as she moved her head around to try and stretch her neck out.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I enjoy watching the fear grow in your eyes, Kat.”

  “You’re mad…you’re insane. Why take these innocent people?”

  “Finally, an inquisitive question, Kat.”

  Her face boiled red every time Uphir said her name.

  “You see, I was the leader of the science sect of my species. I was away when the foolish decision was made to destroy our homeworld. My sect was close to figuring out teleportation technology. They tried to use the prototype to get off the planet, but it failed, and their energy signatures got trapped in a spacial energy cloud.”

  Kat rolled her eyes. “There is no way that’s possible. That happened so long ago. You can’t have survived all this time. It’s not—”

  “And there it is. The simpleminded brain of an inferior species ruling out ideas they cannot comprehend. You see, Kat, once you master your genetics, you can live forever.”

  “This is ridiculous. This can’t be happening. Let these people go, and I—”

  “I am afraid I cannot do that. These beings will help bring back the greatest scientific minds that ever lived. Through rumors and stories, I tracked down the energy cloud and this great planet. A civilization that was part crystal, who had mastered time and space. They could teleport across dimensions, but it would only work for them. Through trial and many errors, I found I could splice the DNA from the crystalline race with humanoids and use them as anchors. All it took was a few centuries of drinking some juice and letting evolution take its course.

  “Then a few modifications here and there, and I could use the teleportation equipment to break these humanoids down to their basic energy signature and use that energy to reform my people from the cloud.”

  “What happens to the people?”

  “They die, of course, Kat.”

  She tugged on her arms wit
h all her might, but it was no use.

  “Please try not to hurt the arm, Kat. I really want to get an in-depth look at its workings—and you. Especially the odd way your body seems to generate energy. It’s really piqued my curiosity, and I’m excited that it challenged me, but I’ve been able to disable that part of you as well. “

  “If I get out of here, I’ll—”

  “Kat, my dear,” Uphir said with a snicker, “you are not getting out of here.”

  Uphir waved his hand and talked to the Woland guards. With all her implants and energy manipulation disabled, she couldn’t decipher the language or blast her way out. She lifted her head up to look around the room. One of the guards walked over and lifted the body covered in the sheet over its shoulder.

  Kat’s face went pale when the body’s head slipped out. It was Commander Tucket’s brother Jessup, and she knew the look of death. She plopped her head on the table as Uphir left the room with three guards and Jessup’s body, leaving one guard behind, who immediately started patrolling.

  She focused on the people behind the security shield. She couldn’t hear them, but she could see the despair in their faces, and some appeared as if they had been there a long time and were close to death. The childhood memories of Woland slaughtering the people she knew echoed in her mind.

  Tears started to roll down her cheeks. They had failed to save Jessup, and now she was in serious trouble. She closed her eyes…Ryan, please don’t leave me here.

  

  Ryan and the soldiers moved deeper into the network of crystal tunnels, which bore the scars of the past war. Huge cracks had formed in the walls and pieces of the ceiling had fallen. Fiber-like threads that looked like nerve endings floated in a slight breeze from blown-out sections of the dimly lit crystal walls.

  “The Woland bombed the crap out of the place,” said Gunny. “Surprised it’s still standin’.”

  Splicer stopped the team in front of a smooth area on a cracked wall at a t-intersection.

  “Why have we stopped?” ask Saasha.

  Splicer moved her hand over a darker crystal on the wall, and a large virtual screen flickered to life.

  “Holy hell in a handbasket,” said Ryan.

  “You can say that again, son,” said Gunny. “Splicer, what the hell are we looking at?”

  “This is where the bay controller could look down and monitor or direct activities in the area behind this wall. Back in the day, the receiving bay was filled with equipment and injured troops.”

  Splicer moved forward and began pointing out important locations on the screen.

  “The large opening on the other side led to an area where ships could land and another area that was off-limits to us. The opening on the right-side wall leads to the power relay room and paths going directly to the main part of the city. The door on the left side of the receiving bay was another large storage area.”

  The team took in the details of the large receiving bay. About a hundred tables were lined up, with a body lying on each table. Above each of them were three clear crystal containers and a glowing green pyramid device hanging a few inches from the body’s chest. One of the containers had some type of hose running up a beam into the darkness, and a hovering board floated to the right of each table.

  Saasha moved closer to examine things in more detail, as did Ryan.

  “Hold on,” said Splicer. She moved her hands over a section and zoomed in on one of the tables, forming a separate screen in front of Saasha.

  “I see movement on the left side,” said Ryan.

  Splicer zoomed in on the virtual screen, which was slow to render the image.

  “Hey, look at this,” said Ryan, pointing at the screen. “Some guy has gone all medieval in a gray robe and—”

  “Well, look who is escorting the guy…Woland,” said Gunny, grinning.

  As they were examining the screens, the power suddenly dimmed and the place shook. The team waved their hands to clear the falling ceiling dust from their faces.

  The screen flickered for a bit and returned. Everything was darker from the unknown power drain. Then a green light-beam shot down from the pyramid device over each table and encased the bodies in green light. The team watched in horror as the bodies slowly dissolved. One of the crystal containers above them filled with a green mist, as another crystal container filled with a purple mist. Before anyone could say anything, both containers emptied into the third crystal container. The green and purple mist swirled together to form a blackish-brown mist. Then in unison, a black beam shot down onto each table to form new bodies.

  The newly formed bodies were long and lanky, grayish, and covered with sparkling crystal flakes. Long arms extended down their sides, and their hands had fingers double the length of a normal human. The faces were the most unique Ryan had ever seen. Large heads extended back and curved downward, making their faces seem small.

  Some gray forms moved as if recovering from a long slumber, while others flailed around in a seizure. These flailing forms appeared to be a mutated merger of the first body and the new one. Multiple heads, eyes, arms, and other body parts protruded where they shouldn’t have been.

  Ryan could not hear the mutated forms, but he assumed they were screaming based on how their mouths moved. These abominations did not last long; a red beam shot down from the pyramid, disintegrating the inhuman creatures.

  The tables flipped to the right, dropping the gray creatures onto the hovering board next to it. The board floated away, a new one floated up to replace it, then all the tables rotated to reveal another person secured to it. The lights emanating from the walls glowed bright again, and a low hum began echoing through the facility as the pyramid crystal above the bodies started to slowly fill up with green energy.

  “My God, what the hell are they doing?” asked Ryan.

  “I think they are creating some sort of mutant,” said Splicer.

  “No, they’re not mutants,” said Saasha. “I know from my studies that those new forms are Nilorians, and somehow, they are using other people to bring back a dead race.”

  “You’re damn loco. Nilorians have been dead a long time,” said Gunny.

  “I don’t care who they are,” said Ryan. “We have to stop this madness. Those are the townspeople down there, and in a few hours, no one will be left.”

  Everyone stared at the virtual screen until Splicer broke the silence. “We blow the damn place up.”

  Everyone turned to stare at her.

  “What do you have in mind, Corporal?” said Gunny.

  “Take out the power relays. The tunnel to our right leads down to the right side of the receiving bay. All I gotta do is sneak through the bay to the tunnel and blow out the power. The place is already barely holding together. While I’m doing that, Mr. Hunt can find his friend and the remaining townspeople.”

  “I’ll go with Splicer,” said Saasha.

  Gunny nodded at her. “Mr. Hunt and I will go in the other direction and check out that room on the left, then head to the large open doors on the other side.”

  “This might actually work. Once I find Kat and free the townspeople, we’ll meet back here and get out,” said Ryan.

  Saasha pulled her arm from behind her to reveal blood on her hand. “Unfortunately, Mr. Hunt, this is a one-way mission. Our wounds are starting to come back.”

  Ryan looked at her hand and then at her eyes, but she interrupted him before he could speak.

  “Don’t be sad for us. We appreciate the chance you’ve given us to do one last good deed.”

  “Enough talkin’. Let’s move,” said Gunny.

  Saasha pulled out her ornate pistol and handed it to Ryan. “Please take this. It was handed down to me by my teacher and mentor. I have a feeling it will serve you better.”

  “But what if you run into anything?”

  Saasha
pulled out her long knife. “I have this.” She patted him on the shoulder, smiled, and headed off with Splicer.

  Ryan watched the women disappear down the tunnel and turned to Gunny. Fresh blood oozed out the front of Gunny’s ripped shirt.

  “Don’t look at me like that, son. I’m not dead yet.”

  Ryan nodded, and both men took off down the tunnel.

  

  Rainmaker moaned and shook off his daze. He had no idea how long he had been out, but his body hurt and he could smell his burnt flesh.

  He carefully pushed himself to his knees and surveyed the carnage. Small fires were scattered around him. One eye was blurry, but he saw nothing else moving around him, which was a good sign. Reaching out, he grabbed on to a piece of crystal jutting out of the wall and cringed as he pulled himself up.

  Leaning against the cool wall, his face squirmed as he touched the burning flesh on his cheeks and arms. It hurt, but with the way he was beginning to feel, his end was getting near. He looked around, distraught, and sighed. He had known combat would be the death of him but had always hoped he would not pass alone.

  A sparking light caused him to perk his head up, and he noticed the outline of storage crates further down the tunnel the creatures had come from.

  Pushing off the wall, he hobbled over to them. Additional metal crates were scattered around the area. A long rectangular crate with a larger square crate under it caught his eye.

  He slumped down next to the longer one and opened it. The crate unsealed with a woosh and revealed a handheld Gatling cannon. Smiling, he quickly unsealed the other to reveal the backpack that fed high-impact explosive rounds into the cannon.

  Without hesitation, he loaded the handheld weapon of death and pulled out the circular belt and harness.

  Rainmaker placed the harness on and attached the cannon to the swivel belt around him. He turned to the distant tunnel opening and hobbled quickly after his teammates.