by John Shirley
Sarge let out one long low rumble, deep in his chest, which is as close as he ever got to expressing grief, and went to find a ladder.
In the wormhole chamber, Pinky was thinking about Sam. He’d always liked and respected her. He hoped she was going to get through this. He suspected few would.
A sudden motion from the monitor drew his attention back to the crisis at hand. He checked the squadron thumbnails. Sarge was now jogging down a corridor where the lights flickered on and off. Duke was looking at Sam—
Pinky scowled. Duke’s cam was squarely pointed toward Sam’s rear, as she worked over a table. Though the cam was on Duke’s chest, you could tell by the centeredness of the image that he was staring at her ass.
“What a dog,” Pinky muttered.
He looked at the other thumbnails—Portman’s guncam was pointing under the door of the bathroom stall…
And something was moving toward Portman’s stall. Moving toward that camera angle…something big. Moving slowly, in a careful way. The way an animal does—when it’s stalking prey.
Pinky stared—then found his voice, hitting the comm button. “Portman!” Pinky was yelling. “Holy shit, Portman, get out of the bathroom. Sarge! Portman! Can you hear me!”
No response. Portman had cut off all input from the others. Pinky could see what was going to happen to Portman and had no way to tell him about it.
In the lab bathroom, adjusting the equipment, Portman was feeling nervous about Destroyer. He’d heard him shouting to come out. Easy enough to ignore that. Then there was another noise from out there—something crashing around maybe. But he’d been listening to his headset, not really paying attention.
But finally it occurred to him that maybe Destroyer had been jumped by one of those things…
Fuck it. He was going to finish what he’d started, then he’d check on Destroyer. What he was trying to do here might well save Destroyer’s life.
Another moment’s adjustment, and he got the quantum-send connection he was looking for. He let out a relieved breath and hit SEND, transmitting his digitally recorded message home. He hoped.
The comm screen announced:
Transmission sent. Time until reception
2:56:18…17…6…
Fucking hell. Almost three hours before the message arrived through the Ark transfer.
Okay, so he’d get in trouble later, when the reinforcements showed up. Sarge might haul him up on charges for disobeying orders—but most likely he’d take care of it himself: beat the crap out of him. Maybe kick him out of the unit. So fucking what. He’d never belonged there anyway. They’d never really accepted him. Especially Sarge—who’d had to let him into the unit only because Portman’s uncle, in Marines Op, had pulled some strings. Fuck ’em. Let ’em punish him.
It was better than being dead.
Anyway, he had to get out of here and find Destroyer—even that stone-cold killer might need some backup…
Portman plugged his guncam cable back in, re-tuned his comm, immediately hearing Sarge calling to him:
“Portman—what’s your position…get out of the bathroom, repeat, get out of the bathroom!”
Portman swallowed. He dropped the earpiece from his ear.
“Portman, we’re tracking something—!” came Reaper’s voice, distant and staticky from the fallen earpiece.
He reached down and switched the comm off, not wanting whatever was hunting him to hear it jabbering.
Silence. And then a snuffling sound. A scrape, from outside the cubicle…
He opened his mouth to call out, to ask if it was Destroyer—and then thought better of it.
He knew damned well it wasn’t Destroyer.
Slowly, feeling the sweat start popping out on his forehead, holding his breath, Portman bent down and laid hold of his rifle, very slowly picked it up, trying to make no noise at all…but the strap scraped on the concrete floor.
Portman winced and looked into the breech—the weapon was unloaded. He fumbled in his pocket for a clip.
Something was definitely breathing out there. There was a sharp smell, and the sound of claws on the floor…
Portman tried to load the gun—and the clip fell from his shaking hands. It skidded with a rattle under the cubicle to his right.
Immediately, something large snorted in reaction, on the other side of the cubicle wall.
Trembling, Portman knelt and looked under the divider—there’s the clip. He couldn’t see anything else over there. Just the toilet and his ammo. He reached for the clip…couldn’t quite get it. He got down lower, the floor cold under his fingers, and squeezed partway under the divider, swiping at the clip…almost had it…But…he was stuck under the divider. Christ!
Grimacing with discomfort he forced himself a little farther—almost laughing at the ludicrousness of his position.
Don’t you fucking laugh, he told himself. You’re on the edge of hysteria. Stay fucking frosty. Almost got the damn thing.
Then he heard the creature again. Snort. The click-click of claws…
Where was that clip? There! Got it. He writhed back into his stall, sat up, pressed the clip in place as quietly as possible, and stood. He took a breath, dizzy from holding it, and slowly pressed the door open with the muzzle of his gun, inching out to look into the bathroom, finger on the trigger, ready to blow the thing’s head off.
Only, it wasn’t there. What the fuck?
Dust sprinkled down, into Portman’s hair. He didn’t think much of it for a second—then realized…
The ceiling overhead was shaking. He looked up…
A kind of fatalistic paralysis gripped him. He knew. He just knew, somehow—it was too late. He could run—he stood and prepared to run—but even as he did it, he knew.
And that’s when a huge-taloned rawboned hand smashed down through the ceiling from above, making ceiling tiles and insulation tumble down—as it reached for him.
“Aw shit…” Portman muttered. His last coherent words in this life.
After that, there was only screaming—as the massive arm encircled him, plucked him up into midair. The comm unit fell, his gun with it—he grabbed at his knife, as the thing hauled him upward, into the shadows of the crawl space, Portman jerking the blade from its scabbard, slashing at the brawny, scabrous arm.
His knife had no effect—and then that big arm pulled him up into the ceiling.
Still at the comm console in the wormhole center, Pinky slammed a fist against his wheelchair in frustration as he watched on the guncam—Portman’s weapon was leaning against the toilet, pointing upward—as Portman was yanked into that crawl space, vanishing for a few seconds only to be lowered by the ankles, smashed back and forth in the stall, battered from wall to wall like the clapper in a frantically tolling bell—blood splashing, his screaming was the bell’s ringing.
Pinky swore under his breath. It was bad enough being trapped in this cyborgian wheelchair the rest of his life—but watching as other people were torn to pieces, one after the other…
Portman’s screaming came over the comm in filtered distortion, muffled but somehow all the more awful for it.
Then Portman was jerked bodily upward one more time, vanishing entirely into the darkness of the hole in the ceiling.
The image shuddered with a vibration—then went dark as Portman’s blood rained down on the guncamera’s lens.
Reaper and the Kid rushed into the lab’s bathroom, firing as they went, the Kid letting go with both autopistols, Reaper chewing the ceiling up with his machine gun. Knowing damn well that Portman was dead—and all they could do was avenge a fellow Marine.
They paused—not sure if they’d had any effect.
And then Sarge pushed in between them, shouldering them aside.
“Step back,” he said.
And he let go with the new gun he’d brought from the weapon’s lab: the BFG.
They stepped hastily back as Sarge’s weapon emitted a multicolored fireball that engulfed the st
alls, the ceiling, the bloody remains of Portman, and the creature that’d killed him, all of it merged into a puddle of molten metal and smoking flesh.
Sarge lowered the gun. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing but a crater that encompassed floor, wall, and a big section of the ceiling.
“Did we get him?” the Kid asked, somewhat ridiculously. No one bothered to answer him. “We must have, huh?”
Reaper looked at the barrel-shaped gun in Sarge’s hands. “What the hell is that?”
“BFG,” Sarge responded, calmly, patting the gun affectionately.
“What’s a BFG?”
Sarge smiled thinly. “Big Fucking Gun.”
Reaper could only nod.
Duke was watching Sam work on the imp trapped in the nanowall, amazed to see her start an IV on the thing. A section of the nanowall opened, to one side of the creature, not disturbing its immuration, and Sarge came in, walking backward, dragging Destroyer’s body. Reaper came after him, dragging another of those unsettling lumpy ponchos, this one containing pieces of Portman, mingled with the monster that’d killed him, like ingredients mixed in a casserole.
“Destroyer!” Duke blurted, running to Destroyer’s body.
Sarge noticed Duke’s emotional reaction. He’d known Duke and Destroyer had grown up together. But he didn’t like sentiment getting in the way of focus—Duke had better get frosty, and fast.
“Portman, too,” Reaper said.
“What the fuck’s that?” Sarge asked, looking at the gore on the observation window.
“Goat,” Sam said. “He killed himself.”
Sarge gave her a chill, skeptical look. “What do you mean he killed himself? He was already dead.”
Duke was standing over Destroyer, wracked with sobs but not shedding any tears—the sobs were silent. He wouldn’t let them out. But his body shook with wave after wave of them.
Sam went to Duke, pushed him out of the way, hunkered to check Destroyer’s neck—she was looking for the telltale neck wound that seemed to presage infection. But Destroyer’s neck was one of the few parts of his body that wasn’t lacerated, burned, or broken.
Reaper pointed to the poncho where bits of Portman were mixed up with the thing that had killed him. “That’s all that’s left of the thing we were chasing. And we found two more dead scientists in the dig. Clay and a balding guy with glasses.”
“An imp…” Sam said, glancing at the poncho.
“A what?”
“Imps. Just a scientist’s urge for classifying—what isn’t classifiable.” She looked over at the imp on the gurney, muttered, “Dr. Thurman…”
Suddenly feeling exhausted, she sat on the floor, knees drawn up, rubbing her eyes. Trying to think. “Did you check their necks?”
Reaper’s look said it for him: Their necks? Why their necks?
“Were there wounds on their necks?” she persisted, sounding like a weary teacher with a dense student.
“They were dead, all right?” Reaper replied, irritated with her supercilious tone. It was back to the condescending Sister Scientist again. “We were in a firefight; we weren’t conducting a goddamn field study.”
Sarge ran a hand over his head, struggling, like Sam, to collect his thoughts. There were just too many X factors here to organize into one clear picture. “We came here to find six scientists—anyway, the six big shots in the facility. We got four known dead and Willits is probably KIA down in that sewer. So all we’re missing is Carmack.”
They all thought about that a moment. Remembering that Carmack had vanished from his gurney—after he’d seemed dead. Then Goat had gone living-dead. Was Carmack where Goat had just managed to keep from going?
Sarge turned to Duke. “Carmack shown up yet?”
Duke pointed at the imp trapped in the door. Drooling, barely alive. “Oh he’s shown up all right.”
The others stared, not getting it. Maybe not wanting to.
“Look at the left ear,” Sam said.
Sarge went over to the trapped creature—close enough for a good look, but not too close.
He stared at its head. It was missing an ear—like it had been crudely carved off. Just the way Carmack had ripped away his own ear in his madness, when they’d caught him in that dead-end corridor…
“Son of a bitch,” Sarge murmured.
Sam pointed at the imp cadaver she’d been dissecting. “I think that one is Dr. Willits. I’m going to run the DNA, check it against his med records.”
Sarge turned to her and voiced what all the men in the room were thinking:
“What the fuck were you people working on up here?”
Twelve
SAMANTHA DIDN’T ANSWER immediately. She only had suspicions, after all. She couldn’t be sure…
They waited.
Finally, she said, “In my part of the facility, we analyzed bones—and artifacts.” She nodded toward the imp. “We weren’t doing anything like this.”
They weren’t going to let her off the hook. Sarge gestured toward the thing that had been Carmack. “What the hell is that?”
Sam sighed. “It must be a genetic mutation. Maybe caused by something environmental or viral. I just need time to figure it out, see if there’s a way to stop it, reverse the condition…”
Sarge shook his head, looking at the other imp struggling in the nanowall. “Carmack’s condition is irreversible.”
Reaper looked at him. There was a particular flatness in Sarge’s eyes. Reaper had seen it in him before. Sarge had made up his mind. When Sarge got like that, the shit came down hard.
Sarge stepped closer to the imp.
“It’s not necessarily irreversible,” Sam said, watching Sarge closely, “he’s still alive. Perhaps we could replicate hyperplasia, create antioncogenes…”
“It’s irreversible,” Sarge repeated, with icy conviction. And he drew a pistol, shoved it under the imp’s chin…
“No!” Sam said.
The imp’s eyes opened, one after the other, three and four and five and six eyes looking at him—then Sarge pulled the trigger.
Blew its brains out. Black blood and gray matter fountained, slopping onto the nanowall, instantly running off—none of it clinging—to puddle on the floor.
Sarge hadn’t only killed an “it” Reaper knew—he’d killed Dr. Carmack, too. Whatever was left of Carmack had been trapped in that thing’s skull. But Sarge was doing the man a favor, Reaper decided. There just wasn’t going to be time to “reverse the process.”
“…Because,” Sarge continued, his voice even and casual, “Carmack’s condition is that he’s dead.”
Sam stared, stunned by the summary execution.
“Kid,” Sarge said, methodically checking the load on his pistol and turning to what remained of the squadron, “go back to the dig and make sure those other dead scientists are really dead.”
The Kid looked at Sarge, at the dead imp, swallowed, then went in a hurry to follow orders.
“I’ve lost four soldiers,” Sarge said, turning to Sam, advancing on her. “What are you people experimenting with up here?”
Sam merely stood there in stunned silence.
“I’m not going to ask you again,” Sarge threatened.
“I told you, this is an archaeological research center.”
Reaper watched them closely. Was Sarge going to harm his sister? Wasn’t that implied, somehow? If that’s what Sarge had in mind, he had figured John Grimm’s loyalties all wrong.
“You think I’m lying to you?” she said, looking at Sarge, her face white with shock, her eyes hot with anger, her voice sharp. “You think I’m hiding something. I’m telling the truth.” She turned to Reaper. “I’m telling the truth, John.”
Reaper was pretty sure she hadn’t lied—not exactly. But had she held something back? He looked at her uneasily. “What’s on the hard drives?” he asked, at last.
She blinked. “What?”
“What’s on the MICDIs, Sam? What were you downloading? Wh
at were you sent in to protect?”
She chewed her lower lip. “It’s just research data.”
Reaper glanced at the imp. What remained of it was slumped like a question mark in the nanowall. “Research into what?” he asked.
Exploitation of Mineral Wealth, Water,
Oil, Oxygen, Plant Life, Coal—
The words appeared on the computer screen in Carmack’s lab as Reaper and Sam—with Sarge and Duke watching—fast-forwarded through MICDIs.
—Agriculture, Livestock, and other animal assets…
Reaper looked at the door to the bathroom—the room Sarge had cratered with the BFG. He had hard-core misgivings about being back in Carmack’s lab, especially with Sam along. They shouldn’t be here. A few steps away, Portman had been smashed to pieces. And a few yards more was the pit where Destroyer had been killed. The imps, whatever else was scuttling around the facility—the things might be anywhere. But right close to here seemed a good bet…
Duke kept an eye on the main door to the corridor; Reaper and Sarge tried to keep a watch on the rest of the room, between checking the computer—but how did you stand sentry against things that could pop out of the ceilings and floors?
He looked at the console as he heard Carmack’s voice: “—test rats have evidenced increased musculature, endurance, ability to—”
Sam shook her head and Reaper reached over, hit EJECT, scanned for something more recent. There was an image of Carmack, looking a bit older—or more worn-out. Like a guy who hadn’t been sleeping for days.
“—skeletal development, stimulation of the rhesus’s metabolic systems…”
Nope. Reaper ejected the MICDI, they popped in another.
”—subject was injected with study agent at 00.03. DS solution used with 10 micrograms IV bolus—”
“Here we go,” Reaper muttered.
The digital video cut to a new image, poorly framed from a fixed camera mount above, maybe on a ceiling. Some poor sap on a gurney. Most prominent in the image was a naked arm, bar code tattooed on the forearm, and part of the man’s torso. The video—about as clinically cheap as you could get—was stamped: