by Naomi Lucas
“Still don’t know how to fly a ship,” Matt grumbled. “Please keep forgetting that small detail.”
“Manual’s under the console.” He flipped the controls on as the emergency hatch lifted open. An ocean of bruised clouds appeared just below them. The sounds of destruction bellowed violently now that there was no barrier between them and it. His pulse fluttered with misgivings. He turned to close the door.
“Stryker…”
“What?”
“Be careful, man, it looks like the devil’s beating his daughter out there.”
I’m coming, Norah Lee.
He flew into the roiling surge.
Chapter Three:
***
Norah’s body was wracked with shivers despite the humidity. She was all at once freezing and burning up; shaking and sweating and so full of misery that she wished death would just come and take her.
She wrenched her eyes closed, lying under the stiff fire blanket atop her lab bench, her makeshift bed.
The storm had raged for days, pouring its contents into the hole in the ceiling, inundating the already flooded lab with more water. The door couldn’t keep it out.
She had tried to climb the pipes and plaster but found neither foothold nor grip that wasn’t slick with moldy slime.
Exhaustion had overcome her after the first day. The adrenaline she had been filled with to survive, to get out of the building, or stay and hole up, had left her. Norah hated that her decision had been taken away.
She sat up and reached for her water supplies, popped the top of a biodegradable bottle open and drank it down. It tickled her throat causing another coughing fit.
She struggled to contain the noise but always failed in doing so. The horrible shrieks had lessened as the rain stopped hammering the world.
Robert’s corpse was in the hallway, rotting in the water.
Norah lifted her flashlight and peeled her blanket away as she climbed down from the bench. Her boots landed in several feet of luke-warm water.
It took her a minute to tamper down the disgust and to find her balance. The room liked to spin around her when she least expected it.
She stretched out her toes, alleviating some of the discomfort that came with trudging around in wet socks.
Norah pushed her way through the detritus and left the lab.
Her eyes landed on the body; she was thankful that the storm had covered up most of the rot. She lifted her gaze to the dark grey sky as tiny raindrops fell over her. That slid into her eyes and down her cheeks.
She pressed her palms against the barricade and pushed. Some of the stucco and wood shifted, but most of it broke off and fell into the water.
And created a murky pool of rehydrated plaster around her shins.
Well, at least I have some light.
Norah tried to ignore Robert’s bloated body and the bugs that began to accumulate around him now that the storm had passed. Her scientific mind wanted to test the water, wanted to document the state of his deterioration in it, wanted to capture and chronicle the bugs for her fellows; but she didn’t.
Instead, she went back and grabbed her emergency kit and supplies and tried to climb the slick slope to the roof.
Her booted feet made indentations that gave way, and though her hands gripped the jagged edges of the wall allowing her to get halfway up at an awkward angle, her muscles ultimately gave out and she slid back into the waste.
Again, Norah told herself.
Again.
When she’d failed a third time, the clouds had grown thicker in the sky and the rain had become heavier.
I am a human being. I am a smart woman. I won’t let this wreckage win. She kicked the cement.
She went back into her lab and pulled at her bench, but found that it was anchored to the wall and immovable. Undeterred, she found a discarded piece of glass and cut her fire blanket in half; she then spun each part into a cord and tied the ends together.
Her fingers trembled. Her body shook. All I want to do is sleep. Her hands were raw and wet. Norah steeled her nerves and made a noose.
When she was done, she looked at her handiwork and laughed.
“Well, if this doesn’t work…” A shriek sounded in the distance followed by a beat of thunder. “I can always reuse it.”
But when she looked back up at the sky, and the raindrops misted into a downpour, she knew her time was running out.
When there was water, there were shriekers. Norah named them for the only aspect she knew about them: their screams.
She went back to the barricade and tried to loop her rope over one of the pipes that were sticking out. It caught. She smiled. She pulled. It stuck.
Norah adjusted her supplies and climbed up the wall. Every small step filled her with a happiness that she couldn’t justify. Every half-foot was like winning the lottery, and for the first time in days, she believed that she might actually make it up the wall and survive.
Still several feet from the top, her body was already soaked to the bone, her muscles twitched, and sweat poured down her face.
Norah stretched her fingers to brush the ceiling just as her body began to fall apart around her. The fingers of her left hand hooked over the ledge. Tears filled her eyes and, try as she might, she couldn’t lift herself up and over the edge.
“Norah Lee?”
The voice came from above her just as a bolt of lightning shattered her last nerve. She clung to the rope with all her might.
She looked up into the eyes of a man, a thing, with half his face enclosed in metal. He reached down to grab her and she jerked away from his hand. Norah fell back with a cry, hitting the cloudy water below with a deafening splash.
In the next instant, she grabbed the gun from her belt and aimed it at the creature she was sure was a hallucination.
She slid back until she was within her lab once more and shielded her body behind the wall.
“I have a gun. I know how to use it!” She screamed at the illusion.
“Don’t. Please, I’m here to save you.” Hands appeared through the opening, palms out. “Don’t shoot, I’m here to help.”
Her entire body shook. “That’s impossible, no one is near Axone,” her voice wavered. “How?” Was he the creature that killed her team? Did he make those awful shrieks? “Who are you?” Despite her fever, she kept the gun leveled.
“My name is Stryker.” The rain picked up. “I intercepted your distress call.” The light beyond the clouds began to fade. “I tracked your signal.” Norah lowered her gun an inch. “We need to leave. Now.”
Her heart raced.
She wiped her nose against her shoulder. “You got my distress call?” she whispered, anxious, her tears coming back. “My distress call…”
“Yes. I’m going to come down there now, don’t shoot.”
Norah hiccupped, “Okay.” She didn’t lower her gun. If he comes down here I’ll have better aim. If he’s here to kill me like the others, I’ll go down fighting.
She really hoped he was telling her the truth but her finger remained on the trigger.
The sky was growing darker by the second and the dimly lit space that had been her home for days had become a living nightmare.
She had wanted to stay on Axone, she had wanted to continue her research, she had even dragged her feet in packing up her lab to prolong her time here. Now, she would do anything to get out and away from her cell. The place that had been her retreat was now a tourniquet around her heart. The pressure built. Her hands shook.
She heard a thump just before two feet, two legs appeared from the hole. They dropped down as a man who seemed too big to fit lowered himself through the crack.
A burst of lightning haloed him as rain cascaded down the powerful outline of his body, his arms gripped the edge of the broken ceiling.
Can I trust him? Norah had never felt so alone. He could rape me, torture me, kill me, and no one would know. She wasn’t alone. She had two guns.
A strong c
hest appeared, military grade with the fixtures of a dozen weapons strapped to it. Her fear grew with each second.
She didn’t know what scared her more: the situation she was in or placing a few seconds of hope on a stranger. The man landed in the hallway with a splash.
His eyes found her immediately and he raised empty hands, palms outward in submission. “See? That wasn’t so bad. If you would lower your gun–”
“No.”
“Okay, but if you insist on aiming it at me, it’s going to be rather difficult to get you out of here.” He stood there in the rain and didn’t make a move to come closer.
“Why are you here?” Norah hated that her voice shook.
“I intercepted your distress call.”
“No...why are you here?” she asked again.
The man lowered his arms. “I was flying through this sector on my way to meet a co-worker. I had just left planet 1-8815 with my acquisition.”
“Acquisition?”
“A creature from that planet was requested for study by the EPED. I was on my way to port to finish up a chore before heading back to Earth.”
“The EPED?” Norah almost sighed in relief. The Earthian Planetary Exploration Division funded the private organization she worked for. She almost choked on her hope. “I know them,” she whispered. “Do you have your card?”
She lifted her body out of the water as he slowly reached into his vest and produced it. She found her flashlight in her pack and illuminated it from her spot in the shadows. All she was able to make out was ‘Retriever’ before another shiver wracked her body and her eyesight blurred.
A monster hunter.
A Cyborg. He’s a Cyborg. She could choke on her distress.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, his voice low. It was as if he read her mind. “Lower the gun and let me help you.”
The light in her hand landed on his face...half his face. Time stopped as she tried to understand what she was looking at.
A thick metal piece covered everything from the bridge of his nose to his mouth, held in place by something she couldn’t see. It was dulled, old, and well-used, hammered to fit the contours of the man’s head with precision. Norah couldn’t help but think he was muzzled.
Like a wild animal.
The man stood erect, waiting for her to finish her gawking as if he was used to people reacting this when they see him.
She lowered her flashlight, feeling guilty and wished that she was better than the masses, but she wasn’t; just an average woman stationed out in deep space. She lowered her gun.
He took a heavy step toward her and she met him halfway. It took the last of her remaining courage.
Norah placed her pistol back in her belt before wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m choosing to trust you. I don’t know you.” She looked around the destroyed hallway, her eyes landing on Robert’s floating corpse. “I don’t have any more options.” The Cyborg turned and followed her gaze.
He went and flipped the body over and she had to look away. The smell was vile and it wafted it as new, rotting flesh came out of the water.
She gagged and held her nose. I can’t believe I got used to the smell. She didn’t want to think of the bugs that skittered about, or the ones that had been displaced. Wet socks and rain were the least of her problems. Her eyes fell back on the weaponized man.
She began to count the ones that she could see strapped to his body.
“You’re safe with me, Norah Lee,” he interjected. “I won’t hurt you.” Maybe he can read my thoughts.
She watched him, checking Robert’s body for wounds. He remembered her name. “Thank you.” Norah approached his side. “Robert died of head trauma or drowning, or both. When I woke up he was dead.”
“He didn’t suffer, at least not much.”
“How can you tell?”
The man continued to look at her dead friend. “I’ve seen a lot of bodies, a lot of dead...things. His face is frozen neutral, not a hint of pain, agony, or the stretch marks and wrinkles of terror. His soul was gone before he had a chance to realize it.” He turned toward her. “Want me to bury him?”
Is he really offering me that? Right now? Her face fell. “Where?” Where could they bury him? The body didn’t belong on Axone and they needed to move fast. The thunder sounded closer. Norah lifted her head and waited for a shriek. But it remained quiet. “Let’s put him on the table, so he’s at least out of the water.”
Norah yanked down her rope from the ceiling and unraveled the tattered, musty blanket. Her would-be savior lifted the body onto its pedestal and placed a coin in Robert’s eye. She covered him up.
She pulled her shirt over her nose and said her goodbyes. She had been tearing up so much that now, when she looked down at her friend’s body, they wouldn’t come. Norah swallowed and looked away. Her eyes caught on the stranger’s knives.
The mood changed.
“My name’s Stryker. We need to move.” The wind picked up to whistle through the crack in the ceiling. Norah nodded and followed him out of the lab. He grabbed her before she could disagree and lifted her above his head. “Crawl through.”
“Oh crap,” She saw her world spin around as she flailed for a hand-hold only to grab the top of Stryker’s head. “Okay.” She stretched up and clutched the edge of the crevasse while his hands cupped the bottom of her booted feet; he lifted her through the gap with ease. Her knees hit the concrete of the roof and she scurried around to help him.
Her pack came next, and she hugged it protectively as she was soaked to the bone by the downpour.
Stryker climbed up through the opening as if it was nothing; Norah was jealous of his ease.
He’s built to survive and I’m...not. She hated feeling weak, yet that’s exactly what she was. It doesn’t help that I’ve been stuck in a death-hole for days...she thought, not a little defensively.
He flicked his arm and a light attached to his bicep turned on. Only to offer his hand and help her to her feet. He then pulled a pack she hadn’t seen out from under a metal ventilation pipe.
Giant jungle trees surrounded them on all sides, lush with life, vibrant from the excess water. The only break in the foliage was where the research facility had been built.
“Where’s your ship?” she yelled over the wind.
“A half-hour from here. Take this!” He pulled out a plastic poncho and handed it to her. Norah wriggled into it gratefully.
The light continued to fade as the storm picked up. Stryker, a frighteningly large male, was decked out in more weapons than she had counted before, many that she didn’t even know the names of.
He caught her perusal with narrowed eyes, filled with a look that bordered on possessive. At the same time, his eyes held a promise–for what, she didn’t know, but she hoped it had to do with getting her out of the storm.
“What?” she prompted him.
“We need to get out of the storm!” His voice boomed from within his metal mask. “Follow me,” he demanded and turned to the ledge.
He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t kill me. He’s going to save me. Rain trickled down her cheeks as she let her last ember of hope flare. But it was lost in the precipitation.
Chapter Four:
***
Stryker couldn’t stop looking at the woman who’d voiced the call. It had replayed in his tech for the past day.
Just knowing that she was alive, that she had survived, filled him with so much relief that it shocked him. Why would he care for a stranger? Someone he had only met minutes ago? He couldn’t understand it or reasonably assess it. The logical side of him found nothing. And nothing was error.
He didn’t deal in error, he dealt in results. Those who hired him had a 100% guarantee. The EPED loved him and loved to hate him. Perfection is a double-edged sword.
Lightning flashed within Norah’s eyes, a bolt over her chocolate irises, giving her an amber look in spite of her bedraggled state.
His beast wanted to wrap
her up in its tail and study her until it was satisfied. To relish every hue and shade of her irises. But his beast wasn’t in charge and the storm was picking up strength.
“Follow me.” Stryker peered over the 12ft drop of the building. He heard her light footsteps approach from behind. He jumped off the ledge to a cry from the girl and when he turned and looked up, she was stricken, her face pinched in worry, squinting down at him. “It’s alright, Norah,” he said before she could berate him. “I can jump from much higher distances than this.”
He could hear her every movement, every thump of her heartbeat, every whimper and sigh.
“I know. I just haven’t seen one of your kind before. It’s unsettling,” she yelled over the wind.
“One of my kind?” He smiled up at her from under his mask, his hand waved at his body. “The epitome of greatness?” He tried to lighten the mood, keeping the danger at bay.
“A Cyborg.”
“Oh, right. That. I forget about that.” Stryker lifted his hands. “Jump down, I’ll catch you.” He ignored the rain in his eyes.
He needed to get them out of there, to get them out of the storm that was about to erupt like a volcano. The thunder screamed at him from miles away and was closing in fast. He didn’t like that it drowned out the unknown monsters of the forest.
Stryker still didn’t know what had happened to Norah and her fellows. She was brave, and stronger than most humans he knew. She knew when to listen to orders and when to be cautious; when to weigh her options.
She tossed her bag down first and he caught it with one hand, hooking it over his shoulder as he watched her teeter on the edge, afraid she was going to fall. Their eyes met and he nodded up at her.
“Jump.”
Norah fell into his arms like a broken angel, struck down by the elements, wholly in a situation she was not prepared for. He steadied her until her feet sunk into the muddy ground as her body slid down his.