The Primal Connection

by Alexander Dregon

  The feeling of wanting to sneer hit Terry so hard; he almost did before he realized it was Charlie’s emotion coming through. And right behind that, a wave of hatred so intense, it scared him. Seemed this Abshrd knew how to push buttons as well.

  Charlie spat back from Terry’s mind. “Mistakes you call them? Four thousand Chrliti in the Prime Hall attack? Two thousand at Gar leone. I can continue if you wish.”

  Abshrd seemed to draw back again, this time even longer. He seemed to be debating something.

  Terry and Decker both stood mute while they waited to see what came next.

  Terry finally decided it was time to try and find some answers.

  “How the hell do you talk to us? How the hell did you figure out what frequencies to use to reach into the human mind?”

  The voice of Abshrd cut through again. “I will be happy to explain if you will permit me. This is one of the things we have developed in the last few months.” He seemed to be extremely proud of his accomplishment.

  Charlie, meanwhile, was trying to decipher a strangeness that he was perceiving from the Chrliti broadcasting to him from somewhere close by. It was a strange feeling. It was an unfamiliar feeling but still recognizable. Charlie held his piece though. There was more going on here than what they knew. After a few seconds, he suddenly knew what it was that he was feeling. It was the presence of another Chrliti with Abshrd.

  Charlie cut through the ether again with the same vehemence he had before. “You have formed a conglomerate! I could not tell before, but now, I recognize it! How have you done this?”

  Again, the satisfied feeling came bursting through. “It was simply a matter of finding the correct human to inhabit. This one is an almost perfect omni field. Her only flaw is that her fields do not have the power to support all the Chrliti she hosts. Fortunately, we have found a way to augment her fields electronically. If you would be so good as to follow the aides, they will lead you to us and we can have, as you people are so fond of saying, a face-to-face talk.”

  Yeah, Terry thought if you can find something to call a face. He was still trying to wrap his head around the moment when Decker suddenly pointed to a corner of one of the buildings.

  “Heads up, Bridger! Looks like we got—”

  Even in the semi-darkness, Terry could see the color drain out of his companion’s face.

  “My God!” he shouted then paused to look at Terry, finally adding, “Chans’ zombies! These fuckers all look like Chans’ zombies! Look at their fucking eyes!”

  Terry looked at them critically. They were an eclectic group. The first two looked like college students, dressed in t-shirts emblazoned with the Chicago University Phoenix. Another looked as if she had just stepped out of Goldman Sachs. The others could be any point in between, each a different version. Their only similarity was the eyes. Blank and empty, they all looked like sharks circling prey. Unfocused yet attentive. Dull yet burning with intensity.

  The voice rang out again. “Do not be alarmed. They are only guides. Our position is relatively static due to our need for mechanical augmentation. Regrettably, our meeting will have to be on our turf, as it were.”

  Decker looked at the crowd forming around them. Several of them were carrying weapons of one sort or another, ranging from machetes to several AK-47s. How well they could use any of them was anybody’s guess, but the fact they were there gave both men pause.

  One of the students waved a medieval-looking sword at them, beckoning them to follow.

  Decker’s gun switched from one to the other vaguely, as though trying to decide which one was the least problem. The knives and swords were fearsome looking, but they required skill to be real trouble and none of those that had them looked as if they had any. In contrast, none of the ones carrying the assault rifles looked even remotely interested, but both men knew that was easily a front. And since they were the biggest threat, both men watched them closely, all the while trying not to appear to do so.

  Abshrd spoke again. “If you wish, you may keep your weapons. We have no fear of them. And I am also quite sure, you will find no target.”

  Decker and Terry looked at each other, unsure of what he meant. Still, Decker slid his gun into his belt and Terry simply left his alone, but he made sure that the Taser was primed and ready, just in case.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Terry slipped in behind Decker as the pair of them followed the student with the blade into the largest building on the lot, a three-story farmhouse. Once it had been the nerve center of the operation that had flourished here, as well as the home away from home for any that spent the night. He could see the barn to one side and several smaller buildings off in the distance, but this was the one their guide led them to unerringly. As they entered, Decker caught Terry’s eye and nodded upward. Terry followed his gaze to the wiring that led from the next largest building to the one they were entering. It was easy to see the wires were designed to carry far more than the standard current.

  Alerted, Terry noted that if he concentrated, he could hear a motor running in the distance. Knowing the wires to the area had been knocked down, he could only surmise their power needs were being met by generators. And from the look of the wiring they used, those needs were formidable.

  Decker stopped behind the kid, who motioned toward the door and then simply turned and walked away. Terry watched him go and wondered how he had wound up here. He looked like any of a thousand other kids on any of a hundred different campuses around the country. How he ended up as a part of this was beyond him.

  Charlie, meanwhile, had tried to penetrate the door to examine the room beyond. He had had no luck.

  Decker could sense the puzzlement emanating from him as he pushed his senses only to be repelled by whatever was behind the door.

  “Bridger, what’s wrong with your friend? He seems like he’s...lost.”

  Charlie spoke up for himself. “Not lost, confused. I can normally detect much of what is going on in a room, up to a certain range, without having to have Terry enter it. This one, though, is a blank. I can detect nothing substantial beyond that door. It’s like I am being blocked. And whatever it is, it is deliberate.”

  Terry stared at the door. “You think this guy Abshrd is blocking you? How?”

  Charlie seemed to think about that for a moment. “The only thing I can think of is that he may have some advantage thanks to his conglomeration he has formed with others of our kind. Together, they may be able to block my probing. Or it could be a mechanical device of some kind. I cannot tell.”

  Decker looked at Terry and shrugged. “Okay, so we dance blind. Ain’t the first time.”

  Terry nodded, adding, “Yeah, let’s just hope this ain’t the last.”

  The words turned out to be prophetic as they stepped through the door and instantly doubled over as their heads pounded with what they could only imagine was a stroke like agony. Through the fog of pain, they could hear Charlie shouting at their attacker in their language. The words were lost, but the tone was unmistakable. Betrayal!

  Abshrd replied in English, as if to taunt his victims. “Fool! Did you think we would allow you in our presence unrestrained? With your host hobbled, we will absorb you and use your knowledge as we have others like you, then we will take these primitives to a new level. Under our control!”

  Charlie wanted to answer, but he was too busy trying to keep both of his charges from losing their minds to the pain, running up and down frequencies to find some way to neutralize the attack from Abshrd. It was slow, but it was all he could do. Decker and Terry had fallen to their knees and held their heads as the assault continued for what seemed a small eternity.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the barrage on their minds faltered, giving them time to shore themselves up against a second wave. In its stead, though, came a voice.

  Not as strong as Abshrd’s but from a similar vein. This one though, was at once familiar to both Terry and Charlie. Terry was the most surprised and th
e quickest to answer as he queried through gritted teeth, “Mir?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Charlie was a second slower but no less shocked by this latest twist. But in the next second, it got even stranger.

  There was a hurried exchange in the native language of the Chrliti, and then in English, Mir shouted, “Use those frequencies to combat his attack! Have your host try to get out of the room! The range he can do this at is limited! Once out of the room, you should be clear!”

  Abshrd had heard every word. And none of them had pleased him.

  “Mir, you traitorous little krvel! How you managed to find the power to do this is beyond me, but when I find you, I will take great pleasure in finding out before I send you screaming into the afterlife!”

  Mir’s response was classic human. “Up yours!”

  Abshrd’s reply was a growl attached to a spate of unintelligibility. It was clear, though, that he was again trying to restore his attack to its former fury. And despite the appearance of Mir, there was no guarantee that he would not succeed.

  Terry, however, had regained enough control of his mind finally to take note of the room. And his attacker. It was a jarring sight.

  In the middle of the room was what appeared to be a wheel chair with an elongated rear filled with what looked like a generator of some kind. Not a huge one but definitely a generator. The oddest part of that was that it seemed to be connected to the chair’s occupant through small wires at the wrists and the temples. But the thing that startled him was that occupant. It was Dr. Broche.

  Not the Dr. Broche from the pictures he had seen earlier. That woman looked to be in her fifties, yes, but that was a woman that was vital and healthy. This woman before him looked like she was waiting at death’s door and had been for some time. Her eyes were puffy and dull, while her mahogany skin looked ashen and dry, almost as if she was dehydrated to the point of desiccation. Even her muscles seemed shrunken, leaving the skin to hang off her atrophied limbs, giving her the appearance of it being too big for her.

  All this Terry noticed in just a couple of seconds as he stared at her through eyes squinted against the onslaught of pain. Noticed and deduced that this was the host of the being called Abshrd. And the tool being used to cause the pain he and Decker were in. And lastly, that he was not sure that he would be able to help this woman. Or what was left of her.

  For Decker, it was a reassurance to see her even though he too had no idea what had happened. And like Terry, he too wondered if there was anything that they could do to help her. Especially given the thing that inhabited her. At the moment, though, the most important thing was trying to figure out how to get away from the source of the pain.

  To that end, Mir was still trying to help.

  “Quickly, get out of the room! The range of this is small enough that should get you out of it! Be careful of the guides though. They are still out there, though I can’t detect them anymore. Abshrd must be shielding them from me.”

  “Perhaps,” Charlie cut in, anger tingeing his voice with an edge that bode bad things for Abshrd if he had hands to strangle him with, “but I do not think he has the power to block this even with his new toys!”

  To prove his point, Terry felt Charlie literally draw power out of him in a burst that he could feel slam into the being that they faced. At almost the same moment, he fairly shouted in Terry’s mind, “Take the door! Now!”

  Decker also heard the order and joined the attack on the door. Magnetically locked, it was a simple mechanism configured simply to keep the door closed. It had never been designed to stand up to two desperate men determined to escape. As a result, it flew open quickly at the first impact.

  As soon as the two men cleared the door, the pain dropped to almost nothing, proving Mir’s point. A moment later, his second prediction came true as well, as Abshrd’s minions converged rapidly, eyes still blank but now burning with a fury that showed there was still intelligence behind them, even if it was controlled. And that intelligence was apparently demanding their destruction.

  The same student that had led them to the room where they had been attacked led the charge, swinging the blade he had been carrying with enthusiasm if not skill. Had he been faster or better with it, he might have gotten one of them, but his attack was centered low, to incapacitate rather than to kill.

  As it was, Terry snapped a kick at his head that slammed him back into a wall.

  Decker, meanwhile, slammed a massive fist into the side of the head of a second student who moved up to aid the first. The effect was basically the same.

  Mir’s voice rang out then with a shout, “Leave here now! The others are still nearby with better weapons! I still cannot detect them, but I know they are close!”

  As soon as the words finished forming, a large female stepped around the corner, a machete in hand.

  Terry sidled off to the left while Decker slid to the right, giving her two targets to choose between.

  The woman hesitated, her muddled mind trying to find a solution to the moves.

  Decker feinted an attack, and as she turned to counter it, Terry grabbed her arm and drove his fist into her jaw. She sagged to the floor, unconscious before she landed.

  Terry took the machete and immediately noticed the weight of the thing. It seemed to be concentrated on the edge, giving the blade an unwieldy feel. He had no time to figure out why, because he could hear racing footsteps coming down the hall.

  Charlie was suddenly active in his mind.

  “The hall is clear in the other direction as far as I can tell. Move quickly!”

  Terry wanted to repeat the directions to Decker but realized that he had heard the command as well. Apparently, the field that had allowed Abshrd to be heard was still in effect. The two men ran down the hall away from their new attackers.

  Mir gave them one more aid.

  “These halls don’t have much in working surveillance. They cannibalized them to get the others working. They will have to search manually down here.”

  “Then, we’ve got one more thing on our side!”

  As he spoke, Decker seemed to struggle to remember something then stopped in front of another door. “Here!” he said suddenly. “In here!”

  Terry wanted to shout that they needed to run, to get further away, but Decker was already opening the door and motioning him inside. The hallway was clear, but Terry wondered what good it would do to hide here, so close to where Abshrd had attacked them.

  Once inside, Terry turned to Decker, who was moving cartons in the back as if he was trying to build a wall in front of them to hide behind. Instead, though, he reached for a panel and felt around the edge. Suddenly smiling, he pulled a small lever and yanked at the panel. It snapped away from the wall, revealing a darkened tunnel behind it. Decker bent and stepped through without hesitation.

  After a moment, Terry followed. Once inside, he watched Decker replace the panel quickly, throwing the same lever and leaving the panel looking as if nothing had happened.

  Producing a flashlight from his pocket, Decker checked in both directions, decided on the right side for their escape and began moving down the hall, Terry following quickly. A few seconds later, they turned down a second corridor and into a hub of sorts that had several tunnels connected to it. Decker grinned as he pulled out his cell phone and turned on the lantern feature to let them see each other.

  Terry was astounded. And he let Decker know.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Decker smiled in the dim light. “Safety tunnels. Some of the guys that Dr. Broche brought here to try and help were last-chance types. So these were put through the buildings in case something went wrong and they needed a way out. Kinda like a panic room but with a lot more ways in.”

  Terry was impressed. And worried. “If that thing is in control of her mind, don’t you think it’ll know about these tunnels, too?”

  Decker smiled even broader as he shook his head. “She never knew! She trusted these guys she
brought here. People who were afraid for her and of the kids she brought here did this. Story was that she never went anywhere without one of us being close enough to yank her into one of the tunnels if something happened.”

  Terry was suddenly curious. “Us?”

  Decker’s smiled faded replaced with a smirk. “How do you think I knew so much about this place? It was my first job for the city before she lost her standing with this place. I was one of the security guards here. She was the one that gave me the job.”

  Terry nodded. At least that was an explanation for why Decker was so protective of the doctor. “So what now?”

  “Now, we find our way out and get some help. This shit is way too big for us! We gotta get—”

  “NO!”

  The voice had rung out in both of their minds so loudly that Terry felt as though it was vibrating inside his skull. It was so loud that it took him a second to realize it wasn’t Charlie but Mir talking, which led to another question.

  “Mir, where the hell are you?”

  A silence ensued for several seconds as Mir contemplated his answer. Or rather how to say it. Finally, he began haltingly.

  “You must understand, I had no choice. Once Abshrd incorporated me into his conglomerate, he held me as he did the others by limiting the energy I could receive. I could not break free. Once the two of you showed up, I managed to gather enough energy to tear myself away and make a leap. I was barely able to make it. The only reason I was able to was that he was concentrating on his attack of you two so hard, he failed to detect my escape. I-I had no other option. I had to get away from him! So, I managed to jump into you, Mr. Decker.”

  Decker frowned as he understood what Mir was saying.