All three of Nemo’s puppets paused, eyes transfixed on Mark’s position. Rith’s exposed humerus had already been overgrown by black crystals of chitin. “Bide your time,” Nemo said from each of their mouths. “Bide your time!” The three pounced, but Mark reacted just in time to put him out of their reach. The doorway to the lab buckled and bent from the impacts. “You will die, Warren!”
Another backward step into the confines of the lab. “And when I do, it shall have nothing to do with you, child of blasphemy.”
Nal flew at him. Mark dropped his center of mass and shifted to the side, but was a moment too late. Nal’s fist flew just above his collarbone, and an erupting chitin spike ripped through his shoulder. Mark cringed and bit back a shout of pain. Before the robed thing’s momentum could trample him, he threw both of his hands forward. Another burst of force blew Nal’s body away from him. Nal dug his hands into the metal floor as he flew back, decayed fingernails splitting apart as they ground the floor and deadened his momentum.
Mark hobbled back a step, one hand going to his torn shoulder. He cringed, pain radiating through his bones and setting his teeth on edge. The heat of the blood spilling out was nauseating. At once the Flames of Y’rokkrem were alive in his hand, and the pain in his shoulder transformed into a white-hot blaze that blurred his vision and washed away all outside perception. As soon as the wound had been burned shut, the Flames vanished. The pain in his knee reawakened, and his leg almost folded beneath him.
Ahead of him, Nemo observed his moment of weakness with a sadistic joy. He cackled, blood running from the corners of Nal’s torn mouth. “Do you understand now, Warren? Even gods bleed, and you are no different. You’re on your last legs. You’re falling apart, and I’ll have the honor of picking up the pieces! It’s over! Let it all melt around you, Warren!”
Rith vaulted over Nal, and Dyn slunk around his side. The two collapsed upon Mark in a pincer attack, but another spell of teleportation spirited him away as the wall and ground exploded under the combined force of their attacks. As soon as he emerged again from the dizzying wormhole, Mark threw his hands out in two orthogonal arcs. Twin air blades tore through the laboratory, cutting through the steel tables and wires just as easily as the Vant’therax’s flesh. Several fingers and tatters of yellow cloth were freed by the attack, and a fountain of blood followed. Arcs of electricity sprayed from bisected machinery and severed cables, haunting the room with wild sparks. Nemo’s screams echoed through the lab. Mark cringed and focused his energy on shutting off the nerves in his shoulder. Despite the pain, he found a grin.“Mayhap you would fight better if you did not gloat so much.” The teal light of the Flames again blossomed around his fist. You’d best hurry up, Annika, he thought. I don’t know how long I can keep fighting like this.
As Arthr, Ralph, and Annika walked down one of the radial hallways following the three mustard-yellow coats, Annika nudged Arthr in the ribs with her elbow. “Good work, by the way,” she said to him.
Arthr started at the unexpected praise. “H-huh? I didn’t even do anything, though.”
“You showed restraint. I saw that look in your eye back there. You hated that guy, and I was sure you were going to pull the trigger on that coat and turn everything into a bullet-storm. After what happened that night, I might have done the same thing. But you handled yourself well. I’m proud of you.”
“Y-yeah,” Arthr said, looking down. “Thanks.” Shame began to solidify in his chest. He hadn’t shown restraint. When he recognized the man that had taken Kara on the roof of their house, he had tried to pull the trigger. He had wrangled with his hatred and willed his finger to collapse upon the trigger. But he couldn’t. His muscles had just twitched in place, unable to carry out the murder he’d already committed in his mind. He’d failed Kara then, and as far as he was concerned he had failed her again now. This time, however, it was for the best. That he couldn’t force himself to pull the trigger, however, was a failure that he knew was going to haunt him. He was still weak.
After a few minutes of walking, the yellow-coats led them to a wide elevator built into an otherwise nondescript section of wall. The leading bastard hit a switch beside the doors. There came a harsh buzzing, and the sheer panels began to slide open. A steel grate door guarded the deep lift. The coat known as Edgar made an impatient gesture at one of the men beside him, who produced a small key ring in response. The man fumbled with the lock to the cage for a moment, and the grate rattled open with a rusty sound that spoke of innumerable safety code violations.
“This goes all the way down,” Edgar said. “If memory serves, this should go right to the Vault. But before we go, I need to ask you something.”
Annika rolled her eyes. “Christ, there’s always a catch with you, isn’t there?”
“I want to know how you think we’re going to kill these fuckers. I shouldn’t have to mention that one of our groups unloaded—”
“—into one of those shits, and it walked away without a scratch,” Annika concluded in as gruff a voice as she could summon. “Yeah, I know. But what you haven’t told me is where those idiots unloaded. Let me guess, it was put in the place all you would-be war heroes were trained to shoot a target.”
Edgar was quiet. “They unloaded into the thing’s chest, from what I heard.”
“Well, there’s your problem, Einstein. You want to know the secret to dropping a bug in a robe? It’s simple as hell, and you’re going to be terribly embarrassed when you hear it. Get out your notebooks, students, because Ms. Crane’s class on common-sense warfare is in session. If you want to kill something—man, beast, or abomination—you shoot it in the head.”
Edgar and the other two men stared at her. Gradually, their expressions shifted to utter bewilderment and doubt.
“You’re fuckin’ shittin’ me,” Carl spat.
Ronald sputtered. “You’re . . . You’re telling me that all this time, we just had to . . . ” The revelation left their faces lifeless; as the implication of that Achilles’ heel became apparent, their eyes all began to glow with a confident determination. Hope was alive in them once more.
Annika nodded, and a sinister grin came over her. “Those things are tough, but one shot to the brain will put them out of their proverbial misery for good. Gauge made a joke of these kids, but all it took was a single cortex-buster to drop him.” She drew her Ruger and threw the cylinder open, giving it a dramatic spin for no reason other than solidifying their conviction and selling her lie. “Hope you’ve got good aim with those noisemakers, boys.”
The yellow light of the descending tunnels transitioned into a chilling blue as Spinneretta and Kara followed Cinnamon. At some point, they’d crossed a threshold that had changed the architecture of their surroundings. The dirty gleam of metal walls had been replaced by what looked like old ceramic tiles, once a pristine white, that were now beginning to fall into the first stages of disrepair and decay. The long halls with sparse but meaningful intersections had given way to T-junctions every fifty feet, which Cinnamon saw fit to duck around as fast as she could.
There was now little doubt in Spinneretta’s mind; this area had to be part of the same complex as the ruined halls they’d run through at San Solano. If that was true, then the breadth and scope of the complex had to be absolutely staggering. No. They were the same tunnels. That fact was confirmed by the low, hideous pulse that seemed to throb somewhere behind the walls, scraping against the front of her mind with each movement.
As they ran through another intersection, an old sign posted on the wall read Excavation 44-7, and the ominous phrase made her shiver. Memories of those standing stones unearthed within the exposed pit in one of the caves came back to her. Part of her mind flashed back to the pillars that littered the deserted landscape of Zigmhen. They were the same. They were identical. They were the ruins of something far older than the Golmont Corporation, far older than NIDUS.
Heart racing, disturbing implications running their plated fingers across her temp
les, she just kept running. She prayed they did not happen upon the blackened, hope-devouring gulf she’d been unfortunate enough to stumble upon before. After a few further minutes of ducking and turning through the halls of ruin, a heavy metal door came into view directly ahead. Cinnamon scampered up to the door and stopped. The Leng kitten raked her plated forelegs across its surface, making a high pitched clicking sound.
“What ish it, Shrinnamon?” Kara asked through the thinning layer of resin in her mouth. “Ish there shomethin’ inshide?”
Spinneretta looked about, growing nervous. The miasma of the abandoned halls was oppressive, and far off she could just make out a low droning, as of wind from some unseen source. And then there was that throbbing, that beating. She could feel it in her temples, in her neck, in her brain. It was closer now, inescapable. But after their journey through the complex, she had just about traded in all her curiosity for reason. “Kara, just grab the thing and let’s get out of here.”
Kara, however, ran her hand over the creature’s back and studied its enamored clicking. “Do you wan’ go inshide?”
“For God’s sake, Kara, we don’t have time for this! Mark and the others could be in serious trouble right now, not to mention—”
Ignoring her protests, Kara laid her hand across the infrared sensor at the side of the door. The door beeped, and a mechanical hiss seeped from the center. The metal door slid open, and the Leng cat raced inside.
“No, please!” cried a voice from within the room.
At once, Spinneretta’s insides froze. It was not the facsimile of the Vant’therax’s speech—it was a human voice. Curiosity reignited, she followed Kara inside. As her eyes adjusted to the even dimmer lighting of the room, she found that it was a cramped metal chamber packed with machines and electrical equipment. Two other mechanical doors were situated along the walls. From the floor—which seemed to be made out of metal grating—a long, coiled chain led to a man. He was crouched upon the ground, wrists bound in irons.
“No, please, go away!” the man said, raising his shackled hands in defense. “I swear it wasn’t me! I told you that, didn’t I!?”
Spinneretta paused, unwilling to breathe the musty air. “H-hello?”
The man started at the sound of her voice and grew quiet. He slid back a little and peeked out over his raised arms. His face was worn well beyond the middle age it masked. Dark bags hung below his eyes, and a haggard gray beard wrapped his jawline. And as his eyes fell upon Spinneretta and Kara, they grew wide but somehow calmer. His lips began to tremble. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “It’s you.”
Chapter 38
The Eleventh Project
Spinneretta and Kara stood in the dim lighting of the cramped room, staring at the man crouched upon the floor. Spinneretta was silent for a moment before she choked out the question. “What are you doing here?”
He gave her a confused look. “I’m . . . I work here. I’m a scientist.”
“A scientist?” She was at once on edge. “For NIDUS?”
“NIDUS? Afraid I have not heard of that one. I work for Stonefield Genetics.”
She looked about, feeling a draft from the poorly maintained ventilation system. Stonefield Genetics. Sounded like another puppet firm. “Are you alone?” she asked.
He lowered his eyes to the coiled pile of chain on the floor. “In more ways than one. I think I’m the last one, now. Ever since a few weeks ago, people have been disappearing.”
“Disappearing?” A chill raced up her spine. “What happened? You can’t really be the only one here, can you?”
He looked about, nervous. “Well, when Mr. Clearwater died, many of us were hopeful that our contracts would be fulfilled and we could finally leave. But everyone who tried to leave was gunned down or worse. The robed ones left me alive to care for this lab, and as far as I know I’m the only one who was so lucky.”
Spinneretta looked him over and judged the despair in his eyes to be genuine. But more important than that despair was what the man had first said when he’d seen them. “Do you know who we are?” she asked him.
He nodded again with a forlorn look. “Of course. You’re Arachne. And she’s Nexara,” he said, jerking his head toward Kara, who had become more interested in another of the metal doors.
Kara had spat out the remaining web-precursor and was now playing with the end of her silken strand. She stood there, watching the Leng kitten bat at the door with its forelegs. “Hey, what’s in here?” she asked. “I think Cinnamon wants whatever’s inside.”
“That’s the lab,” he said. His whole body shuddered as his gaze fell upon the creature at the girl’s feet. “My Lord, where did you come across a juvenile quoll? I thought they’d all been put down.”
You know about the Leng cats? Spinneretta thought. “Uhh. Accounting error, I guess.”
The scientist nodded a little, as though he hadn’t really heard her. After a moment, he turned his gaze back to Spinneretta and raised his bound hands toward her. “At any rate, you have to get me out of here. Please, take these chains off me.”
The look of despair in his eyes froze her lungs. “R-right.” She bent over and explored the chains with her fingers. The chains were littered all around the room. They must have measured at least a hundred feet in length. A light padlock held the loose loops in place at one end. The rest of its length was doubled up, and as she followed its length with her eyes she saw the end wrapped about a heavy metal ring set into the floor.
“Come on, please,” he said. “I know you can break these chains.”
She paused, deep in thought. Her stomach quivered. “No.”
His eyes bulged a little. “What?”
She made an effort to steady her breathing. “You know who we are. And you know that I could break the chains if I wanted to. What else do you know about us? I want information in return for your freedom.”
“Listen, please, I just want to leave. I don’t want to think about any of this anymore. I’ve been through enough already. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but get my chains off of me and you can go ahead with whatever you’re here to do, and we won’t bother each other ever again. What do you say? Please?” His eyes seem to swell in the light.
Spinneretta bit her lip, suppressing all the empathy she felt for him. “Well, you clearly don’t want to leave that badly if you won’t answer a few questions in payment.”
The man hesitated. After a moment, he began to shake his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Spinneretta dropped the length of chain. A harsh rattling rang as it crashed to the floor. “Then get your own damn chains off.” She turned and started toward the exit. “Come on, Kara, we don’t have time for this. We need to get out of here.”
“Wait!” the man cried. “Okay, okay, wait, don’t leave me here. I’ll talk. Just, please, don’t leave me here.”
She turned back to him and considered him with a skeptical glare. She was thankful he’d acquiesced; the guilt of leaving him to his fate would have eaten her alive. “That’s more like it. First off, what’s your name?”
He took a shaky breath. “Harold Wiser.”
“Alright, Harold. So, we’ve established that you know who we are.”
“Of course, I do. We all knew who you were. Yours was the first, and so far only, project to be carried through to completion within acceptable margins.” He frowned. “How I used to wish I could take credit for being on the team responsible for it.”
Project. Acceptable margins. The jargon seemed to confirm what she’d already accepted as fact: that they had somehow been manufactured. A breath died in her lungs. She nearly stopped herself from speaking her request. “Then I want you to tell us about where we come from. How we were made.” She detested the taste of that verb. It made her feel so artificial, unnatural. Her spider legs, bent about her frame, tingled in agreement.
“You do not know? It is really quite a fascinating subject, though my understanding of the Fifth Proj
ect is imperfect. The project revolved around the idea that, since no genetic hybrid born from the Original’s material had any viability, an increased ratio of viable genetic material was required. The scrapped Third Project’s results were reanalyzed, and the Fifth Team engineered what they called a catalyst parasite.” He paused, apprehensive. “Are you following? Do you want me to continue?”
The phrase catalyst parasite made her shudder. Though she had no idea what he was talking about, she had little reason to doubt the sincerity in his voice. She nodded and bade him on.
“Right. So, the catalyst parasite. Part parasite, part organ, right? It was engineered in such a way that it was able to store and replicate genetic material within its body. It was meant to become an accessory to the male reproductive tract. Through horizontal gene transfer, it could splice external genes with its own source material, and at arbitrary loci at that. The intention, of course, being that the host’s own genetic material would become a vessel through which a portion of the Original’s could be delivered.”
She was going to interrupt the man and ask for a more detailed explanation about whatever nonsense he was going on about, but then she remembered her mother’s delirious-sounding explanation of what had triggered Ralph’s mental affliction in Eugene. She remembered the ultrasound image. Catalyst parasite. Male reproductive tract. Horizontal gene transfer.
“Assuming their assessment was correct,” Harold said, “then obviously you and your siblings must have two biological fathers: the Original, and the host of the catalyst.”
A gelatinous horror congealed in her chest. “Two . . . ? Original?”
He nodded. “Whatever that Original may be. Never seen it myself, but some other scientists said that they keep it stored in a metal cylinder somewhere below. Its blood is, in many ways, the holy grail of genetic science. Perfectly, artfully formed, half human and half spider. Wherever it came from, it is truly miraculous.”
Helixweaver (The Warren Brood Book 2) Page 46