The No Names

by Frank Albelo

  I looked around for the others, hoping for the best after seeing them engage the long limbed mutant. What I saw surprised me. It seemed like my reckless fighting style had been passed to the others; Delta stepped on the mutant’s back and, with Epsilon’s help, tore its head off completely with my wrench. The pipe wrench must have slid over to the others when the boney bastard knocked me down. Not only had the others torn the mutant’s head off, but it was bleeding from several places and one of its long arms was bent in a series of painful angles.

  I huffed my way over to the others as Delta and Beta helped Marvin to its feet. I retracted my helmet when the others did, all of us looking winded, but happy to have survived.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Epsilon said.

  You are not done.

  I turned to the direction I felt the mental pressure, finding the humanoid from earlier standing on B1. What I noticed next forced me to reevaluate our fighting prowess. The humanoid was holding a multi arm in one hand as well as two long limbed mutant in its clawed set of hands.

  The true monsters are coming.

  It tossed the bodies over the side, coming to land a few feet from us. The rest of the Digits turned, alarmed at the mutant that had caught them off guard, yet not murdered them.

  “There are more coming. Be ready.” The voice that came from the humanoid, clearly a mutated man, was as if three different people were harmonizing badly. I shuddered even more at its actual voice than its mental one, my skin crawling with every word.

  Before the others had a chance to respond to the mutant’s shocking entrance, roars even louder than my own came from the direction of the city’s forests. We all swiveled.

  Charging down the street were a pair of monstrosities. I had imagined that nothing could be more grotesque than the multi arm mutants or even the boney one, but the creatures coming towards us were amalgams of horror. One of them looked like an ape’s upper body had been stitched on a horse with spider legs sprouting from its equine back. The other was a blobulous mass of limbs that was rolling-crawling towards us on its dozens of limbs, an occasional human or canine face erupted from the flesh wall to snarl as it approached.

  I felt the painful howling in my mind, the connection between my earlier thoughts and the monstrosities evident. I spared a glance towards the humanoid standing calmly a few feet from the group.

  What are those? I thought.

  Experiments.

  Chapter 8: The Frozen

  The pressure from the horrors forced me to retreat into my own mind or risk another splitting blackout. I managed to shout at the other Digits and they rolled away almost instinctively. Seconds after we had moved, the humanoid having jumped up on to the nearby building, the experiments barreled into one of the buildings adjacent to B1.

  The stone where the ape-horse collided chipped away easily. The bulbous mass of arms didn’t stop and instead climbed up the side of the building, using its many clawed hands to keep hold.

  Take the horse based one. I will deal with the arm mass. I heard the humanoid’s thoughts.

  I knew we would not have much time. I instructed Marvin to repulsor jump into the experiment and attempt to drain it as much as possible. The full jump would drain the ATC of a lot of precious energy, but our survival was more imminent. The ATC shot forward while the spider legs on the back of the ape centaur were clearing debris off it.

  “Hit it with the rocks, I will try to get it to the ground. Delta do your best to keep the spider legs off of me!” I shouted as I ran for the mutant.

  “Alpha! What about the other two mutants!” I heard Gamma’s panicked voice over the comms.

  “The human looking one is on our side, at least for now! Worry about it lat- ugh!”

  While I had been speaking, one of the human-sized legs shot out from the creature knocking me to the ground. I heard grunting as the upper ape portion of the creature turned to look at us. I felt my muscles tense, then loosen as I shot into the air with my wrench. At the unofficial signal of my jump the others started launching rocks at the mutant. The creature was having trouble dealing with the rocks and the ATC that was laying on the ground, still attempting to drain it of blood. Capitalizing on that moment, when I got in range of one of its legs I darted under its horse body.

  The spider legs shot down to attempt to catch me, causing it to be hit by the rocks. It howled in protest, but it was cut short as I jabbed the back end of my pipe wrench right into the ribs of the horse. The metal easily penetrated the flesh, but the effectiveness of my blow weakened when the spider legs lifted the entire creature up. Only about two inches of the metal had made it inside, black and green blood spewing everywhere.

  Before the mutant could scurry far, I heard a solid battle cry over the comms. I turned my head from the bloody pool I was standing in to see Delta snap one of the spider legs on the joint. The whole beast lurched back onto its equine limbs when its spider legs could not hold it.

  “Go Alpha! I’ve got these for now!” said Delta as he swatted a pair of angry limbs.

  Stones continued to pelt the huge creature managing to keep the ape portion occupied. When I stabbed it again, several inches deeper, the ape leaned forward unnaturally and grabbed my head. The ape tossed me against the stone building and I heard at least a couple of my ribs crack on impact. I took a strangled breath as I looked onto the scene getting ready to unfold before me.

  Delta was struggling to keep the spider limbs distracted while Marvin knocked and bled the horse’s limbs. The ape was starting to turn to the group, but well placed rocks stunned it momentarily as Beta flew all over the street collecting rocks for the others to keep throwing.

  The humanoid was ripping limbs out of the blob mutant with all four of its arms. The sway of body parts would have been mesmerizing if the huge creature wasn't all nasty flesh and crashing all over the place. A second after getting to my feet, I was knocked to the ground once again by the shuddering impact of its limbs on the ground. The humanoid dodged by a hair’s breadth. Running past me he grabbed my armored collar, tossing me in the direction of the Digits.

  Thanks asshole

  I thought at the mutant, struggling to stand once again. I could have sworn I heard a chuckle, but the mental pressure from the ape-centaur drew my attention. It had zeroed in on me thanks to my mental communication and it swatted Delta away. Marvin tried to capitalize on that slight distraction, but was buck kicked several feet back.

  I felt my anger returning, burning fire flowed through me. Without realizing, I retracted my helmet. The cold city air cleared my mind enough to retain control as I felt my features shift. I hunched lower to the ground and shot forward to the mutant. The familiar roar tore through me as my calves released like springs.

  I shoulder checked the ape portion of the monster in the chest, causing it to step back. I whipped my arm around its neck just in time to sink my armored fingers into flesh as it thrashed. With my left hand, I stabbed forward with the back end of my wrench. My superhuman strength allowed me to pierce through the mutant’s chest before it tossed me away again.

  I rolled on the ground until I felt two pairs of hands tried to catch me, all of us falling into a pile instead. I muttered a thanks to Beta and Zeta as I sprinted back to the mutant.

  I could feel my muscles tearing, the speed and strength I was demanding was way beyond even my mutating body. The ape portion was still howling, trying to get a grip on the pipe wrench that pierced through its chest. It baffled the mind that even after being stabbed through the primate chest and in the equine abdomen, releasing veritable amounts of blood, the thing was still fighting. I pushed past what I thought was possible. I was part mutant and a hacked together horror was trying to kill me and my friends, it was time to really embrace it.

  I felt my face and skin crawling, the size of my left hand grew until it was the size of my head. I flexed my hand, the armored plating now much more spread out as it clung to the suit fabric. I would have preferred not to rip my suit and ru
in it's heating abilities, but beggars aren't choosers. I had no real control over the mutations other than to pump emotions and commitment into my actions. I came up under the ape as it tried to grab me and toss me again; I was having none of that.

  I punched straight into its open palm.

  I felt one of my knuckles pop out of place, but I pressed forward exchanging quick fist blows. I felt my mind call to the deformity in front of me, an inaudible roar of defiance that caused the creature to hesitate slightly. Capitalizing on this, I knocked its arms aside with my right hand and punched my wrench with a mutated left.

  The pipe wrench dented slightly at the teeth, but it punched through the experiment. The ape clawed at its chest as blood dribbled down its jaw. When the ape body slumped forward, the horse-spider portion began to writhe frantically. Presumably, the brain of the ape was keeping the patchwork creature just below insanity.

  I felt ragged. After the punch to my wrench my left hand slowly started to shrink. I felt my hand go numb as the energy faded. I collapsed onto the ground, looking at the thrashing monster in fear. I could only imagine it charging forward, plowing right through me like a bad joust match. The five operational spider legs and horse legs stampeded in my direction. I weakly tried to put my arms up to block the blow, but Marvin whirled and repulsor jumped straight into the front part of the horse body.

  I saw the ATC’s needles lash out and stab the bleeding monster. While Marvin had bought me time, there was nothing more I could do to defend myself. I, however, didn’t have to defend myself. Just when the ATC crashed into the body of the mutant, Delta led a charge forward. Zeta and Epsilon were thrown back by the semi-sentient spider legs, but the others made it to the creature.

  They knocked away spider leg after spider leg until Delta was able to get a hit in. He stabbed the horse body with one of the metal lengths we had been able to collect. The metal was hollow and the moment it puncture the creature’s side, a black fountain showered the Digits. I watched as the spider legs swatted them away and tried to grab hold of the weapon.

  It took only about a minute for the enormous black puddle to stop growing and the spider-centaur-ape to settle onto to the ground. When the thrashing stopped, I saw Beta grabbing Delta’s club and pounding the ape head. I realized Beta really needed to talk about that behavior, but since it guaranteed the creature was dead I figured it was not a priority.

  The Digits were starting to cheer, but the mental pressure I felt drew my attention.

  Could use a hand. Would save me having to regrow a limb.

  I shifted as much as my ragdoll body allowed and saw the humanoid sprinting from building to building. Every time the limb blob had to switch direction to continue pursuing the mutant, it crashed into a building. The mutant was using this to his advantage since it would relieve the experiment of a few limbs with each pass.

  Sadly, it looked like the mass was only getting smaller in size, not any less deadly in terms of limbs. Turning to the others I spoke into my comms.

  “One more. Focus,” I croaked.

  The others snapped to the blob, each holding either rocks or spikes, preparing to attack it. There was no hesitation as the others launched all manner of weapons at the creature. From my half-prone position I saw the creature switch directions toward our group. At the sight of the giant thing everyone huddled to try to hold it off, Delta at the front of the group.

  Just as the creature was about to trample Delta into paste, the humanoid mutant managed to attack. The blob mutant shuddered as the humanoid tore a wide gash on its side. The mutant crashed on the ground and went still for a second. The humanoid, as well as the other Digits, seized the opportunity and hammered the large experiment. It quickly decreased in size, as if the others and the mutant were emptying a balloon.

  Once the blob was down, everyone was left panting. The minutes the combat took had drained me severely. When I tried to stand I coughed up black blood onto the ground, adding to the two massive pools that were near B1. I felt light headed as I crawled to where the others had collapsed. The muscles in my left arm were useless, but I could still grip the stone street with my right.

  Before I made it far, the humanoid picked me up with ease. My entire body screamed in protest at the motion, but I ground my teeth and endured. The walk to where the others were was short, but the speed of our mind conversation was astounding. Time felt syrupy while my mind barrier and the humanoid’s melded with no ill intentions at all.

  It seems you can capture more words. Good.

  I heard the voice of the man carrying me. My body felt useless. Pain was reaching deeper into me as time passed, so I focused my mind on communicating as much as possible.

  An explanation and a name would be helpful, I thought.

  Patience. I think introductions are in order soon anyway.

  The mutant seemed to be smirking as he held me over his shoulder. The Digits noticed the humanoid and held their weapons and stones warily. I spoke over the comms and told them to set down their weapons. When they did so, the mutant also placed me on the floor gently, taking a step back.

  “Hello. My name is Koma. I would like to reiterate that I mean you all no harm.” The unnatural voice sending shivers through me and probably the others since they took an involuntary step back.

  “I was once one of you. However, they changed me on the way here and well, you can see.”

  “How come you aren’t trying to eat us though?” I heard Beta say.

  Koma assured them that the other mutants were feral. He explained that while there is a majority that lose their minds, a few becoming like the long armed or boney mutants, there was a significantly smaller chance to become transformed to something close to the experiments.

  “I have not found out exactly how these... things are coming about. I’m sure it is related to that base on the surface, but those machines they have, like yours, are too strong.”

  After several minutes of explanations about how the creatures were being formed, the entire group became accustomed to Koma’s eerie voice. Some even went so far as to ask about the man’s additional limbs. It looked like Koma was trying to take everything in stride, but as the other Digits got more excited and the questions continued Koma’s clawed hands began to fidget nervously.

  “Alright everyone, I think we have had enough excitement for the day. I don’t know about you all, but I am starving!”

  I attempted to diffuse the situation. I was still barely able to prop myself up on my elbows, but the accelerated healing my mutations were allowing me was already in effect. The others looked disappointed, but when Koma assured them he would join them they were all for it. They were definitely a strange bunch, and I was almost certain that if I wasn't in a similar boat they would have already attacked the mutated human.

  Just like when joining the others, Koma easily lifted me to my feet and we all made our way back to B1.

  The adrenaline from the fight began to drain out of the others, their movements visibly sluggish. Beta in particular looked ready to keel over before we made it to the top floor. Koma looked around appreciatively, gently touching the stone walls and staring at the light panels of the ceiling.

  It was much easier to see the humanoid in the bright white light. After he set me down in one of the swiveling chairs, I observed him closely. He looked like a bizarre human-lizard hybrid, with an extra set of arms covered in brown-black scales. Those scales extended up his neck, to edge around his jaw and the ridge of his brow before transitioning into smooth light bronze skin, giving his face a distinctly reptilian cast.

  He was wearing nothing but a pair of dirty and torn jeans. While it must have been in the mid forties inside the underground city, he seemed to be unaffected by the cold. As the others sat down for a quick meal, I noticed Delta also sneaking glances at our guest. I nodded when he looked my way and he resumed his meal.

  I know you are staring. We’ll talk when they sleep.

  I heard Koma’s single tone voice in my
head. The man wasn’t even looking my way and was instead smiling and receiving a pair of ration packs from Zeta as she extracted them from Marvin. My thoughts were distracted for a moment as I did the math on our provisions. Considering we could not report the presence of another person to Starden, it would cut our supplies short. I also felt fear well up inside me as the thoughts of what had happened on the surface returned. I would also need to eat more. The mutations, healing and enhanced strength weren’t free; I could tell as much. I didn’t want to become some kind of feral monster and place the Digits in danger.

  Peace, brother.