by Nick Ryder
There was vegetation that clung to the entrance, where the mountain met the door. Seedlings slipped into moisture pockets of dirt and took root. The clinging vines had thorns on tendrils that pulled at her hair the deeper they moved into the space.
A colossal vehicle sat unevenly on a large fully tiled floor. There were crates and wires and hoses. There was a hum of some far-off thing that was constant and unchanging in its volume.
“I think that’s an engine or something.” Wilbert touched something long and dull black on a countertop. “Active, too.” It had a wire attached to it, and when he turned it over, a collection of black plastic squares tumbled from one side. The squares had letters and numbers.
“Please don’t break any more of my things,” Cara whispered. It made sense to whisper. They knew there was a robot; it was possibly homicidal and lurking in the shadows. It paid to be cautious. But she grinned at Wilbert when he gave her a look of smugness. There were likely more of the long black plastic things around with lettered squares. He pointed to another on the counter. It was unbroken.
The sound of something twisting drew Cara’s immediate attention. She hefted the halberd in one hand and walked to the far corner of the large, lifeless room.
At the top edge of the space, like a nesting spider, she saw the smooth white rectangle as it spun and pointed at her. She waited. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew about guns. But the end of the thing didn’t shoot projectiles. It had a green light shimmering from under a full round glass piece. When Cara moved closer to the corner, narrowing her eyes at the steel tube, it narrowed one eye back at her. She found something to clamber on, leaning the pole against the wall as she got even closer to the moving thing. It had no voice. It appeared to shake its elongated head at her when she reached for it with both hands and pulled it from its nest. A long black tail trailed after it.
Back on the floor, Cara turned it over in her hands. There was a whirring from inside the rectangle before she pulled at the tail still stuck in the wall. When she cut the wire with the tip of the halberd the light at the end of the tube died, and the eye stopped winking at her.
She tossed it to Wilbert. He slipped it into the backpack he carried. Cara noticed most of the plastic lettered squares from the floor at his feet had disappeared, and the steel rectangle in the pack sounded like there were pieces of plastic clattering against it.
“Shhh…” she said.
Immediately, Cara took the halberd, pointed it in front of her. Most of the six-foot spear with a cleaver hovered in the direction of one of the long dark hallways.
There was a flicker in the darkness. Something blinked substantial russet orbs. There were three sets, pitched at different heights staring back at her from the shadows.
“We need to go, now!” she hissed and backed toward the door.
Wilbert managed to remove several more plastic keys and dropped another handful in the pack. He had a cup too that had World’s Greatest Boss stenciled on the side.
“What?” he managed. One of the things crept from the deep shadows. The front limbs had hands with small thumbs and very long black nails. The talons clicked on the tiled floor as Cara and Wilbert backed toward the door.
Another of the creatures managed to scramble over the collected rubble. It had a scaled tail with a circumference at the base of its hindquarters that was thicker than Cara’s thigh. The swishing tail was over three meters in length and looked lethal.
“They look like rats,” Wilbert said from the side of his mouth, attempting possibly the first ventriloquist act in the post-apocalyptic world. It failed because the twitching ears, the size of fan blades, zeroed in on the sound of his voice; even if his lips barely moved.
Cara sidestepped in front of Wilbert. He had the pack and a sword, but she didn’t think he’d pull the sword from the scabbard before the giant rat used his skull as a chew toy.
The point of the halberd stayed in direct line with the closest of the beasts at it slowly moved across the counter where Wilbert stood minutes before. The weapon had a practical design with a switchblade on one side of the front, like a lower ax. The main blade protruded from a full cut piece of steel meant for stabbing and parries. The end of the long edge turned into an ax head for cleaving fragments off giant mutant rats.
There was saliva forming on its muzzle, dripping to the counter and the floor when its front claws reached the end of the desk.
Wilbert backed up to the clutter by the hole in the doors. His heel slammed against the filing cabinet, and the aluminum wall of the cabinet clunked like a foot kicking a metal bucket. Cara ignored the noise and held the tip of the spear near the nose of the curious rodent of unusual size.
Another rat slunk along the wall and corner where she claimed the steel box. Wilbert crawled through the hole.
Cara didn’t want to turn her back on the thing. All three of the creatures had crossed the ample space. One of them perched on the top of the rusted vehicle. Its powerful rear claws scratched against the rim of the roof, and Cara knew it was about to leap.
She faked left as it reached for her. It sailed over her head and in the same heartbeat where she once stood, only strands of her hair tangled in its front claw. The thing slammed against the door. Cara rolled as it attempted to get up.
Something was sloshing on the floor, and the thing looked almost pale when it realized its intestines spilled over its rear claws before it fell over dead.
The dagger in Cara’s hand had the smallest trace of blood on its blade.
The other two rats looked bewildered, frightened, and finally enraged. All emotions at the same time, simultaneously, on both snarling faces, as clattering sharp claws danced on the tiles, hastily trying to get to Cara. She dodged left, further away from the door as another finally caught its naked pads against the tile and gained momentum.
It snatched at Cara, screeching. She pulled the halberd to her chest and spun in the air like a corkscrew. She landed hard on her chest, banging her chin. But the rat didn’t attack her. The other was too shocked to move right away. There was a thing flopping on the tile, and the rat sat up on its hind legs to look at the bloody stump where its paw once sprouted. Three-legged; it made for a clumsy retreat. Before it got too far in the shadows, Cara arced the cleaver over her head, scraping the high ceiling, sending a shower of sparks as the ax head chopped, and embedded in the floor. There were two halves of rat on either side of the blade.
Cara moved toward the opening. She dove through the spilled rat guts and used the slick surface to speed her way out of the opportunity.
Outside Wilbert helped her to her feet.
“Is that from you?” he asked.
She smeared at the blood on her face and shouted, “Run!”
It was at that time Isaiah appeared near the wall of the entrance. He had Karl Holland and Troy Vaughn with him. They had their weapons ready, and as far as Cara could see, Isaiah had planned to ambush them.
The sight of Cara made them halt their progress. She had a fresh coating of crimson slime that covered her from chin to boot tip. Wilbert hung behind her as they moved away from the mouth of the steel doors. The trio had apparently not expected Cara to look like she’d bathed in blood before they attacked.
She kept backing up as the three red teammates stepped in front of the twisted steel.
Cara sidestepped in front of Wilbert. He’d managed to pull the sword, but he trembled so much it sounded like the thwack of a steel ruler against a wooden desk.
Cara wasn’t afraid of Isaiah but the young man was unpredictable. He tended to play dirty. But Cara didn’t mind Troy Vaughn. He was straightforward, had a sheep mentality, and looked up to Isaiah.
He had the unfortunate position, closest to the black hole of the doors when Isaiah backed Cara and Wilbert to the edge of the plateau.
Before the red team realized their predicament, it was too late. Troy dropped face first to the dirt and quickly slipped through the hole. The screams of Troy from inside the gapin
g black mouth were cut short with a whimper and a crunch from the teeth of one of the mutated rats. The high-pressure gallons of blood and chunks of body parts that exploded from the hole seemed a little over the top to Cara. But it was distracting Isaiah and Karl, covering both of them with fond memories and fleshy bits of their recently departed friend.
Cara and Wilbert darted for the slanted rock face and made their escape.
Chapter Eight
Whatever plans I originally conceived when it came to the fortification of the facility went right out the preverbal window the moment I saw the badass angel who strolled into the base. Only one of the rats returned to the laboratory. It looked nonplussed and tried to hide under a steel counter, coated in blood.
We didn’t know what happened, but I guessed it had something to do with inexperienced rodents meeting the sharp end of that halberd she held in her delicate hands.
I watched the footage from start to finish again. The moment I saw the beautiful girl enter the vehicle bay, right up until I got a perfect look down the front of her tartan before she climbed up to yank the camera off the wall, I was smitten. It did no good in my line of work to get involved in relationships. I was a career military man, and I didn’t see the point of marrying someone only to traipse all over the world, dragging a miserable bride from base to base. It never worked for a lot of my soldiers and many of my commanders.
“Are you watching that footage again?” Ego asked. But he already knew the answer.
I couldn’t look away from those gorgeous emerald eyes with sparkles of gold within the rings. Her face was a pure smooth mask of concentration and perspiration. Her cute nose and pouty lips were the last images before she yanked the cord from the wall.
“I’m analyzing the footage.”
“Is that what you call it?” Ego had monitored the rats hunt from the laboratory to the vehicle bay. There was some cunning, but mostly it was a primal curiosity that took the rats into their maiden battle.
She wore heavy makeup. Thick black outlines around her eyes. Her strawberry-blonde hair tied in a ponytail was luxurious. She had black gloves and silver gauntlets. The breastplate was maybe leather or rubber. It was molded to fit the contours of her breasts. She had an athletic hourglass shape and firm thighs. The boots were high and tight to her calves. The shorts under the vest were taut, outlining the fulness of her butt.
“What do you think happened to the other ones?” I asked Ego. We watched the hybrid rat try to claw its way through the bulkhead of the laboratory wall.
There was movement in the hallway leading to the vehicle bay. I turned to the camera in the corridor to see one of the automatons moving slowly away from the bay. There was a bucket in one of its claws. The bucket had coils of hose inside of it, and the tubes draped over its hard shell faceplate. There was a squeegee soaked in red paint.
“I believe it tried to clean the mess in the vehicle bay,” Ego said of the automaton with intestines in the bucket.
“She’s a killer,” I whispered. It was easy to do when most of the talking happened inside my brain. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Can I remind you,” Ego said with a tinge of irony, “we’re supposed to be admonishing the attempted breach, not praising the intruders in ostentatious gladiator attire.”
I couldn’t unsee what I saw. She was a profound glimmer of hope in the chaos of the world. The idea that she was out there made me want to double-down on building a better body for my brain.
For the moment, I had to settle for reruns of her entrance into the bay. Her appearance was surprising in the least. I suspected we had survivors out there, but my idea of dystopia didn’t include the visions of Amazon women wandering the wastelands. I didn’t take a lot of notice of the skinny African-American boy. He seemed relatively harmless, stealing computer keyboard keys.
“I want to tell you if I can tear you away from your viewing habits. Our first human brain trial is ready.”
I selected a random brain. All the containers had serial numbers. No names, no identification that gave personality. I hoped the one I picked wasn’t Cassie; not for an experiment. But she was a soldier, and another lease on life gave me a new appreciation for what I lost. I hoped a new body, albeit, on four legs, was better than not having any limbs at all.
The automatons assisted in the transplant from the canister to the skull of the lead rat. It was up to hours of nanosurgery to attach all the complicated bits to the coils of brain meat. At least, that’s the way I saw it.
All the while, Ego monitored the nanobots on their level, and I replayed the footage of the angel again and again. The last primary creature from the past slumbered in its regeneration tube.
She woke with a yawn and a shudder. The transition between realizing she was no longer trapped in her nightmares looked painful.
I remember reading something about symmetry and facial attraction. It had something to do with genetic qualities and phenotypes. Humans subconsciously use a balance to rate attractiveness. It’s something to do with the primal core of our being.
I saw the warrior from the wasteland as a G.I.L.F., a girl, innovative, lucky, and fetching. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I think Ego may have turned down the sensitivity on my libido without my permission; just to silence that persistent male clamoring. She was stunning and fierce. Her symmetry was sublime.
If Ego’s nanobots intended to make the rat queen something of a stunner, then they succeeded. It wasn’t the fact she had the sleek elegance of a rat. There was a beauty to the rat’s genetic makeup that allowed it to flourish in a relatively unchanged state of being for a few million years. Once evolution got something right, it didn’t change it.
Adding that beauty to the human form was definitely a success.
The skull wasn’t as different as I’d expected. She had long whiskers and teeth sharper than any human, but they were a full set of teeth, not just four like the large rats I’d made. She had no snout, just a small, pointy nose. The large eyes were Caribbean blue, shimmering with tears. There were long lashes around the dinner plate sized eyes. Every time she blinked the lashes tangled and combed against the other hairs. Her fur was a soft iridescent gray, but only framed her face rather than covering it. Her tail was very long, longer than her petite frame I was sure.
And her frame was definitely female. She was naked, revealing huge breasts on her small body and a patch of darker fur between her legs.
No amount of turning my libido down was going to stop me noticing that.
She curled into a ball, sobbing.
Ego looked pleased. “She has strong stats,” he said, inside our head rather than aloud. “Very good dexterity and high intelligence.”
“Hello?” I started gently.
The sound of my voice inside the room made her lunge away from her gestation tube. Her strong legs pushed her several feet. She might be small, but she wasn’t weak. Her hands were that of a human-rat hybrid, just like the rest of her. She had eight fingers and two thumbs, but her nails were sharpened to deadly points and they scraped the tiled floor, leaving deep trails. Panting, she looked around for the source of the voice.
“I know it’s weird.” It was the best I could do at the time. But I wasn’t someone who thought about what to say to the monster when it woke from the doctor’s slab. “But I need you to relax. You’re okay now.”
She worked her jaw. Opening and closing her mouth. Her tongue slid along the white teeth and it looked human. The rat queen clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth.
“Master?” she said softly.
A raw bolt of desire shot through me at that.
“I made a few adjustments to make sure there would be obedience rather than rebellion from the test subject,” Ego said, keeping his thoughts inside my mind rather than allowing her to hear them. “I may have taken it a little too far.”
I was inclined to disagree.
Still, I said, “Solomon. Sol. That’s my name. That’s fine.” I would have ru
bbed the back of my neck nervously if I’d had a body.
Still crouched against the floor, she lifted her hands and turned them over and back again to look at them. “Where?” she whispered.
“You’re in a military outpost in the desert.”
She looked around the room. There was nothing rat-like in her movements, but she didn’t quite turn like a human either.
“How do you feel?” I ventured.
She counted her fingers. They were very long and thin. Her fur ended near her wrist revealing tight, pale skin.
“I feel like I’m not quite myself.” The voice was as feminine as her face. It was soft and quiet.
“I know how you feel,” I agreed.
She looked around the laboratory trying to pinpoint me. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the same place that you were stuck for the last twenty years.”
“What?” She sat up, legs curled underneath herself and trying to get used to the tail as it rolled and twitched. The position squished her boobs together, and I made no attempt to look away. Ego was probably shaking his non-existent head at me.
Then she tried to stand. Her legs were the long legs of a human, but covered in fur all the way down to her feet. The feet looked human, too. She was barely five foot, but her body was powerful, I could tell just by her movements.
“You’ve been sleeping,” was all I could think to say. “The base is equipped with safety protocols that allowed us to live.”
“So, I’m not dreaming?” She tried to move like a human, one foot in front of the other, but her balance was off because of the tail. She steadied herself against the wall, whiskers twitching and tail bashing against the metal.
“I know I should be freaking out right now, but I don’t feel the need to panic or scream.”
“You’ve been genetically preconditioned to feel comfortable within your new body,” said Ego out loud.
“What was that, mast—Sol?” she asked.
“That’s Ego,” I replied.
“It sounds like a happy blender trying to fornicate with a microwave oven,” she said.