by Frank Albelo
With that amount of strength, jumping out of Autophagy would kill me and leave me weakened. I looked around frantically, hoping to see an out from the strain escaping my bindings had left me. With cold realization, my eyes landed on the metal doors on the far wall of the room. With more than my fair share of disgust, I closed my eyes and walked over.
I was indeed correct as the first three of the little doors I opened held two mutated dogs and the ape chest of the experiment we had defeated. I tamped down the bile that was rising in my throat.
The world fell out of focus once again and I watched myself devour the mutated dogs in the blink of an eye. The cold slimy blood coated my arms and face as I used my claws to shred the meat off the carcass. I was immensely thankful for the lack of taste and nausea entering the Override provided me, otherwise eating the dogs would have been even more traumatizing.
After I moved on from the second dog to the ape, I heard footsteps outside the doorway that lead to the lab. Brief moments later, a man in his early thirties popped his head in.
“We are all evacuating! The Pendett has a lock on—” The message the man had died in his throat. As my Overmind controlled body looked the man dead in the eye, I saw him blanch. A chunk of ape flesh slid down my chin and splattered on the ground around me. Before I was able to deactivate the Override, I had already closed the distance in a breath and pinned the messenger to the back wall of the hallway. The metal sheeting of the base hallway bent under the force of my blow and my arm pierced all the way through the man’s abdomen.
With a mental lasso, I recalled my control over my body, but it was already too late for the man. A weak gasp escaped his lips as he slid down the wall when I retracted my arm. I wanted to be sick. While I had no qualms about murdering the cruel, I had tossed out my morals along with that nuclelectric bomb back in New Dust, the man had been trying to help. The metal taste of blood lingering in my mouth and throat was also not helping. Cycling my Hyperburn to try to clear my head, I reached out to the Overmind.
While I had activated Override, the Overmind must have deactivated Autophagy. I felt like a used washcloth. Someone had scrubbed down an entire house, wrung me out to dry, then repeated the entire process several more times. I slumped on the wall across from the man I had just killed and looked off into the distance. There were several moments of silence before another explosion rocked the whole building again and the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. The thumping shook me out of my stupor and I cleaned off as much blood as I could as I started wandering around the hallways of the base.
I needed to find Craft, or maybe whatever was causing those in the base to panic. When I rounded a series of hallways, always taking the right hand turn, I came upon a horror scene. There were limbs and guts sprayed all along the walls of the hallway I had turned down.
I slowed my jog to a crouched walk and eyed everything warily. The gore and dismemberment only increased the deeper I moved down the hallway. Based on the number of arms, I could only guess over a dozen people had been put through the blender in the small space. The scent of blood was almost overwhelming, but my recent experience with the Override had numbed my senses somewhat. I saw a series of signs posted on the wall and when I cleared the blood and bits that covered it, it showed I was headed for the mess hall.
Entering the mess hall, I immediately called on my mutations but held off on activating Autophagy. Four multi limbed mutants stood dismembering who I assumed were the residents of the base while one of the slimy mutants I had encountered looked to be cleaning a spot of the bloody ground with his arms. The long tables that had served the eating area were thrown all around in disarray, some pinning people and limbs which had then led them to be torn up by the maddened Calforn. I held my breath as the mutants continued their harrying dance. As I strained to see in the half dead lights of the mess hall, I spotted a pair of people huddled against the back wall.
One of the multi armed mutants finished its work and began looking around for more flesh to tear into when one of the pair whimpered. As moths drawn to a flame, the other mutants pivoted to face the survivors.
I cursed under my breath and before I had a chance to think leapt into the room. I managed to punch a hole through the slime mutant before he could excrete more of his defensive ooze. With its bubbling wail, the mutant called me to the attention of the multi armed ones. Shrieking and the sound of too many feet rushed in my direction. Two of the mutants climbed over a downed table and dove for me. I retaliated by bringing up my mutated left and swatting one to the ground, using its momentum to crush its skull. The other mutant that had jumped grabbed a hold of my body and I felt teeth sink into my exposed shoulder.
A roar ripped through my throat as the now familiar itching sensation crawled up my arm. While blood had begun to flow down my chest as I wrestled the multi armed mutant, bone plating began to grow out of my arm. I concentrated on the sensation and pushed as I had when I tried to free myself from my bindings. The thin bone plating on my shoulders extended, piercing the mutant in the mouth.
A hollow wail escaped its mouth as my bone outcrop stuck out from the roof of its bloody maw. Not waiting for it to recover, I uppercutted it with my mutated fist. The bone shard bruised my fist but I drove it like a nail on the alien’s coffin. The mutant shuddered once and fell dead.
I turned to see the other mutant had opted for the weaker prey and had begun making its way through the debris and gore to the pair. I concentrated on my hands and my claws extended just over an inch in length. With a primal shout I mutated my legs and crossed the distance in a second before my mutation had even completed, but the shift had given me enough momentum.
I sheared a pair of limbs off the mutant’s back and before it could fully turn I drove my claws into its right ear. I felt the slightest amount of resistance before two claws ended up in gray matter.
Shaking off the corpse from my hand, I flicked the gore to the ground. A moment of silence passed as I gulped down air. The fire burning through my veins called out and I realized I was outside of the laboratory.
“KOMA!” I both shouted it out to the air and with my mind.
<...>
This time, the walls of the mess hall only offered minor resistance as my mind sent out a radar wave with my message. I heard the pair whimper audibly as the force of my words reverberated through the base. I had to admit that it was not the stealthiest of approaches, but something was happening.
I had a hunch another mad scientist had made good on his plan.
As my mind continued to extend out from the base I felt the presence of several other mutants relatively close, but the amount of walls and empty spaces messed with my direct perception of where they were on the base. The pair of survivors remained deadly still as I stood still and opened my mind.
A few seconds of complete silence later, I heard a much needed reply. Alpha? We are here! Epsilon forced an earthquake according to the Carrier machine. There is an ice rift opening, but mutants are spill — There was a tense moment of silence as I waited with my eyes closed.
Mutants are spilling out! I am managing with the Digits’ help but I can see more of the Official’s machines coming.
I’m on my way! Hold out, I think I can get outside quickly. I responded before turning and striding to the survivors.
Chapter 18: Storming Shards
The survivors were more than willing to cooperate with my request. The pair, a Named man and woman, were scientist in the base. They rambled on about their work analyzing the local wildlife and how it was providing breakthroughs back on Earth. I only half listened to their rambling, but I gathered they didn’t know about the experimentation on Digits or where the ‘local wildlife’ really was coming from. They didn’t ask about my mutations and I didn’t elaborate. Not two minutes later we were in an ai
rlock type room with several helmets with interlocking plates hanging from the walls. I quickly recognized the armor plating and sleek material of the suits we had been thrown from the atmosphere in.
I gingerly replaced the tattered scraps and plates of my armor that remained. Without missing a beat, I activated the compass and heating functions of the suit. I expected the suit to tear and rip at the first instance of combat, but not having to cycle and burn energy on keeping warm on the snowscape of the moon was beneficial. Urging the pair to equip the suits, I peered out of the circular porthole of the door that led outside. Even as I lifted my head to look through the opening, another explosion rocked the base.
Glancing behind me, I saw the scientists drop to their knees. At my questioning look they elaborated. “Some of the chemicals we have been using to power the energy extraction were more unstable. Nothing as reckless as nuclelectric energy, but they are combustible by nature.” Ignoring the comment about recklessness and Nuclelectric, I turned back to the window.
What I saw was a chaotic battlefield of machines, humans and mutants that sent a chill down my spine despite the armor.
In the far distance I could see huge spires of ice that had broken through the surface and pushed each other apart. Around each of the spires were clusters of humans pointing rifles at the incoming hordes of mutants while ATCs held the front lines. There was one group of soldiers standing around one man over to the edge of the window’s field of view but they all seemed to be standing still. My breath caught in my throat; I scanned the torn up area around the base’s southern side until I spotted a lone snowdrift that sat a couple hundred feet from the edge of the crack that had formed in the ice. Amidst the destruction and mayhem a group of people and a single robot stood against a wave of naked mutants.
“Marvin!”
I ripped the handle from the exit clear off and had to spend a second fiddling with it to get it open. The cutting winds of Dun Lund swept through the doorway but I almost welcomed it to the sweating tension of Craft’s laboratory. Huffing it, I ran for the mech while the scientist did their best to convince me to stay inside the base until there was a further evacuation announcement. I ignored their shouting, most of it drifting away with the wind, until I heard them shuffling after me. I slowed my jog slightly to allow them to catch up.
I could see the rifles were having little to no effect on the mutants as the first group was overwhelmed. The second group of humans was slightly more successful as they used their comrades’ sacrifice to pelt the mutants. There were two hulking ATCs and three stealthy ones dashing around the field picking off mutants that separated from the small horde. By my estimation there were thirty or so mutants actively fighting around the USG base, quick sweeps of my head told me that another fifteen or so had already been killed off.
Koma! Incoming. Hot in from the base, got two scientist trailing me, not enemies. I heard a grunt of affirmation over our mental connection just as I reached the snowdrift. I slid into cover and the scientists followed a few seconds after.
Epsilon was crouched over one of the ration boxes, our spare batteries filling the inside of the container. I tapped the man on the shoulder and he nearly jumped over the snowdrift. On instinct he had already begun swinging his makeshift metal club, but I easily caught it with my left. I retracted my helmet and it took a moment for the savvy Digit to realize who had arrived.
“Boss! We came looking for you. Nice rags, been shopping recently? Anyhow, I managed to get the repulsors working, all I had to do was quickly replace the…” The man drifted off as he remembered they were in the moon’s equivalent of a battlefield and then noticed the scientists behind me.
“Uh, you know you got some followers, no?” he asked, waving his club in the face of the closest Named.
“They are with us for now. They’ll behave, right?” I looked over my shoulder in time to see their expressions shift to horror and they nodded fervently. “Epsilon, I need you to catch me up. Bad news and good news.”
“Well, the worst thing is that most of the others are on the other side of the ice crack Marvin formed. He is also running quite low, hasn’t responded to any voice commands, almost like he is stuck in cart mode. Only Beta and Gamma are here on this side, I put them waiting back a ways so they would not get caught up.”
“Good, now what’s the good news? That sounded like pretty shit news”
“I got the rift working, there have been explosions all over the base which seemed to have called every mutant in the vicinity. The Officers are holding, but if we want to get rid of them we can push from the other side with the majority of the group.”
I caught on what his plan was. If we could use the distraction of the mutant horde, then getting rid of the humans by hitting them when least expecting would be best. I asked the man where the two youths were and rushed to retrieve them. Both of them were ecstatic about my return, but I waved them off and brought them back to the snowdrift carried under my arms. I could hear the sound of conventional gunfire kicking it up a notch behind the snow drift.
I already knew what I had to do, but I whispered next to Beta. “I need you and Epsilon to watch these two. I don’t think they will be a problem, but I need you to make sure they aren’t. I am going to try to put an end to this stalemate.”
The youth pressed his lip into a grim line and nodded. I felt a pang of guilt for forcing the responsibility on him, but his surprising adaptability in combat and quick thinking had covered the Digits more times than I could count. I clapped his shoulder and nodded at Gamma and Epsilon before tearing across the snow to the rift.
The earthquake had formed a nealy ten foot wide gap in the ice, but with a swell of my enhanced muscles and inverted leg mutation I was sailing through the air. I skidded to a halt five feet from the lip where I heard ice chunks tinkling as they fell into the crevasse. With razor sharp focus I turned and headed for the group.
Zeta was the first I notice as she held a gray colored dog at bay while Dana pounded it with her makeshift spear. One of the tentacles threatened to slash at Zeta’s arm, but I ran past and severed the limb. The ladies had it under control. Conserve energy. That driving thought was all I could think of as I made my way through the snow. The group was all engaged with a variety of mutants, two of which I had not seen at all as they reared hulking arms in wild circles. The mutants were outnumbered with all the other Digits, but my fellow Calforn was holding the more deadly of the mutants back. I quickly reoriented to help Koma who was fending off the hulking mutants with slashes from his three fully functioning arms.
Focusing and enlarging my right fist I snapped the wrist of one of the mutant. Koma must have sensed my arrival as he focused entirely on his opponent. The nimbler Calforn crouched down, using his extra arm for support as he kicked low and swept the mutant off his feet. The next instant he pushed off his support arm and was tearing out its throat. I felt a tingling on my cheek and turned just in time to see my mutant’s limb soaring towards me. Without the burning fire of Autophagy I was only able to partially dodge, the impact hitting my shoulder instead of my head.
The force of the blow was similar to the shockwave my Nuclelectric bomb had sent out. I spun quickly through the air, my vision swimming as the white of the snow and the haze of the atmosphere traded positions several times in a second. Groaning, I felt another tingling and threw myself fully into the dodge. My legs coiled and I skidded through the snow. Before I was able to find my feet, the mutant was on me again, but I remained on the ground and shifted my legs back to human. As the mutant built up momentum, I brought my knees up to my chest. It was a risky play, but the damage the mutants could cause pushed me to deal with them quickly.
It worked. The hulking mutant tried to barrel over me and drive a chest sized fist into me, but he rammed onto my feet. Some of my claws snapped, having been holding me in place, but they held long enough for me to extend my legs… and launch the mutant straight into the crevasse behind me.
The pain fro
m my shoulder was wailing, but I stamped it down by focusing it. I felt the muscles around it and the grinding fractures began to knit themselves, albeit slowly. I lumbered to my feet and noticed that Koma was helping the Digits out of their engagements. The Calforn was breathing heavy, which meant he was pushing himself beyond normal means. He didn’t have my Autophagy, in fact as far as I knew he had no other skills than the ability to communicate mentally. The extra arms were a plus also. Pushing forward I arrived a second after the skirmish was over.
The Digits were all panting like thirsty dogs, their breaths leaving hot smoky clouds around them. It was only after a second that I realized that only my original group had heat recirculators. The survivors wore thick, partly raw hides over their clothes to stave off the cold. I mentally applauded their ingenuity, but turned serious as the sound of gunfire drifted back around the ice spires.