Soul Jacker

by Michael John Grist

  On that plain backdrop Ray is a hot orange silhouette driving forward through cold blue brush. In the clearing ahead the hot shapes of So, La and Far are huddled together, surrounded by a group of advancing blue and purple figures.

  My blood runs cold, as either So or La falls to the ground beneath the encircling horde. The other figure is standing and shooting QC particles in waves, each a tiny red blip on the screen.

  "They're waking up!" Doe shouts on mic, even as I see something purple loom at me out of the trees. I flick back to regular vision as one of the plastic soldiers comes charging toward me, his musket held forward with the bayonet sparkling in my suit lights. His face is normal but for the mouth, which is a black and chomping gash stretching down into his neck. There's blood stained from a bandaged wound in his head and he's almost upon me.

  I disassociate him with one blast of the QC but he doesn't blow apart like he should, he only staggers backward. I follow and drive the haft of my pistol into his solid plastic forehead with a thunk, followed by a suit-enhanced kick that sends him arcing back into the screen of trees.

  "The QCs are ineffective," I call on blood-mic as I run on, "use the suit exos."

  "Roger that," Ray shouts. Far's scream rings out louder now, then I burst through the trees into the clearing.

  There must be fifty plastic soldiers gathered in a rough circle around my chord. Their backs are to us, red coats and blue tunics intermingling like they've called a truce and are huddling for warmth. They're pressed against a pale red dome rising up in their midst, and I'm thankful that La had the sense to erect the lava shield we brought from the sublavic.

  The shield's red surface ripples like a film of oil on water, and I wonder how long the power supply can hold back the plastic soldiers. I start firing QC particles into their mass as fast as the pistol will charge.

  "Carve a path and we evac," I call out on blood-mic, "report!"

  Ray is already ahead of me and pulling at the soldiers with his bare hands, tossing them backward. "Carving," he calls back. "Do something about the ones I've cleared."

  "Roger that," I answer and stride up to one of them and unload a stream of QCs into its mouth. Even at this range though there is no dissociating effect; if anything its black mouth starts to chomp faster.

  Far screams again and I hear the breathy voice of So on blood-mic. "They have La. Get us out of here, Me!"

  I hurl the chomping soldier to the side, engaging exos to fling him far into the forest, but a part of me knows he'll come back. Ray throws more from the pack and I grab them few and toss them further, but it won't be enough; we need another way. Then Doe is by my side and unshouldering the bondless cannon, a heavy chunk of black metal that contains a compressed atomic accelerator.

  "Cut a path for Ray," I tell her. "I'll keep them out. Ray, keep doing what you're doing."

  Doe nods as she assembles the weapon and sets the tripod braces into the ground. Ray calls a grunting, "Roger," as he flings more soldiers aside.

  I pull out my grapnel and fire one hook into the nearest tree. It catches and I pull the line taut, then start to run, weaving around and between the soldiers as they rise back to their feet and make for Ray. They chomp their teeth at me and grab at my legs but I'm too fast, wrapping each one in the cord like a spider wrapping flies in its web.

  I enfold ten, perhaps fifteen before their collective drag begins to pull me with them. I cut and re-head the elasteel rope end then fire it back to the same tree with an automatic tracer. The hook locks in and begins to wind, and the entangled soldiers are jerked off their feet and dragged toward it, bundled tight to the tree.

  I turn to Doe and see she's set behind the cannon, aimed squarely at Ray's back buried three soldiers deep into their ranks. "We're coming," I rasp into blood-mic for So and Far, then to Doe I shout, "now."

  The percussive shock is nothing next to the recoil, as a golden spray of bondless atoms jets out of the accelerator cannon's funnel end. Doe is knocked flat on her back. The golden mist blasts over the crowd, quickly evaporating as the atoms slip off their sheaths of non-reactive gold and affix to the plastic backs of the soldiers, ripping chunks out of them in instant bond-destruction.

  Soldiers stagger, several drop, but not nearly as many as I'd expected. Ray leaps into the shallow breach protected by the ion-charge in his suit, and continues hurling bodies backward with his suit exos whining loudly. I follow with another grapnel trap hooked to another tree. I loop more soldiers in webbing until Ray's cleared a path up to the lava shield's edge, and we can just see the black-suited form of La lying underneath their feet.

  I fire the grapnel again and it bundles another batch of soldiers away, but still Ray can't quite reach La's body. She's too entwined amongst the soldiers' feet, and most of his efforts now are spent keeping the tunnel walls he's carved through their ranks from collapsing in on him.

  "Help, Me!" he calls, and the fear in his voice startles me.

  "Again," I shout to Doe, and dive into the breach as the second atomic blast peels out. The gold sprays like star dust and a few more bodies fall ahead and to either side, dropping across La's prone body.

  Ray darts in and snatches her up. "I've got her!" he shouts and starts back. A soldier in a blue tunic grabs at his knee but I drive it off with a firm kick. Together we force our way back down the tunnel of bodies as the plastic walls close in.

  Doe lets loose another blast with a curse, just enough to ease us free of their grasping arms. "It's doing less each time," she grunts as the wall of bodies reseals and turns on us. Far's cries have gotten weaker and the whuff of So's QC pistol cuts only intermittently through the buzz of the lava shield.

  We lurch to a stop beside Doe and Ray drops La at our side then turns to fight off the incoming stream of plastic soldiers. I look at La; it's obvious in a glance that she's in hideous shape. There are bayonet gouges in her midriff through which blood has leaked, though there's no way any normal blade could have gotten through the armor. There's a deeply cracked pockmark in her shoulder where a musket ball must have torn it away, like an impact crater, impossible for any normal projectile to do.

  "It's the … gravometric … bonds," La gulps as Doe leans over her prone body and runs her fingers across the wound, forcing the suit to seal over. She looks up at me desperately, blood spilling like engine oil from her lips. "They're just …more solid … than us."

  "Do something!" comes So's cry through blood-mic, and I turn to see the top arc of the lava shield sputtering. This too is impossible, something bayonets and musket fire should not be able to achieve in a million years, but it's happening before my eyes.

  More solid than we are. An idea comes and I leap on it.

  I toss my QC to the floor and scour the fake grass until I spot a fallen musket. Three steps and I pick it up, then I'm up alongside Ray and driving the bayonet into the chest of the nearest soldier.

  It goes in like I'm carving wet clay, deep in past the blade's edge and halfway up the musket barrel to spike out of the soldier's back and stab into the one behind.

  They both give a sigh, their chomping jaws stop, and they drop. I let go of the buried musket as they drag it down with them, staring for a moment in disbelief. Then I snatch both the muskets from their hands and toss the extra one to Ray.

  "Doe, keep the cannon coming," I shout, "So, get yourself a musket and use it; Ray, it's you and me out here."

  He nods, gold dust envelops us like a cloak, and side by side we stab a path into the midst of the soldiers, dropping them sighing to the ground and stepping on their fallen bodies. For long desperate minutes stabbing and slashing are all I do, through their backs and heads, across chests and faces. I stab them two and three at a time like skewered kebabs, slice them like meatloaf portions even as the flickering red shield ahead sputters, fades and dies.

  We burst through the final rank of soldiers and into the inner circle seconds after the shield cracks. So is there with a musket in her hand and fierce determination w
ritten over the desperation. Far is curled up with his hands over his eyes at the tree's base and all around us are the pressing ranks of the soldiers, advancing. Still there are too many and I know that they'll soon overwhelm us, like ants swarming a scorpion.

  Then So cranks one of the muskets and points it at the nearest soldier, depresses the trigger, and-

  CRACK

  The musket ball shears through the model soldiers like the QC should have, felling a handful in a straight line. She cranks it again, takes aim and nods at me. Better than bayonets.

  "Get a cannon, Doe," I call over blood-mic. "A real cannon."

  So's next shot cracks out and a half dozen more bodies fall and don't get up. I crank my own musket just like So, aim it at the nearest bulge in the mass of pressing plastic and fire. Soldiers tumble all in a line.

  Soon Ray, So and I are back-to-back in a triangle and shooting, with adrenaline buoying us on as we scythe straight lines through the soldiers, stepping in to drive our bayonets through any stragglers. Their numbers never seem to end though, and I'm tiring fast, then-

  BOOM

  The cannon-shot shakes the air like thunder, and abruptly half of the soldiers are blown to smithereens. A great gap appears in their ranks, and I see Doe through it with a fuse in her hand and a cannon at her side.

  "Amazing," she says on blood-mic.

  We shoot into the remaining half of soldiers until Doe levels most of them with another blast, then we pick off the remnants with bayonets; a massacre with no screams or blood.

  Afterward there is a curious absence of sound, beyond the ragged breathing of our chord and Far's quiet sobbing. I am sweat-slicked and exhausted, but the battle is over. We won.

  I turn to take in the scene. Far is still huddled by the tree, So, Ray and Doe have their HUDs off and are all steaming. So has a wild, fractured look in her eyes. Around us lies a mandala of dead plastic bodies like the layers of a Molten Core. Occasionally one of their black mouths chomps at the air.

  "Did we kill them all?" comes Ray's voice.

  A long eerie moment passes as we sweep the trees around us, waiting for more to emerge, but none do.

  The chord look to me. I am the captain and my job is to lead, so I blink away the uncertainty and start giving orders.

  "Doe help La. Ray, walk a patrol. Far, hang in there. Everybody take your shock-jacks." I hit the button for a shock-jack myself, releasing a stored flow of my own body's soothing chemicals, designed to counteract the numbing, sickening after-effects of combat. At once I feel the impact, becoming more relaxed and attuned to the world. My sense of smell returns and the fog in my hearing clears.

  The chord follow my orders, and Ray lifts a musket and starts for the tree-line perimeter, leaving only So.

  I turn to her. The wild look is still in her eyes. She was here when they seized La and dragged her underfoot. I walk over and take her by the hand, and I lead her to where Doe is working frantically to save La.

  Have I lost another tone in the chord already?

  G. LA

  Doe does everything she can.

  With their suits linked through an aortal tap Doe gives her own blood, plasma and shock-jacks to La, but as the seconds pass La draws less and less. Soon she is barely breathing, looking up at us and mouthing sounds none of us can make out. The suit knows there is no benefit to any further fluid transfer, because she is too far gone.

  Tears stream from So's eyes as the last breath wheezes out of La's lips.

  Then La is dead. Another chord member lost.

  "Rest," I say gently to So, "there was nothing you could do."

  She doesn't listen. Instead she starts working at the clasps of La's armor, unlatching them one by one. I lay a hand on hers and say, "We don't have to do this now," but she only draws away and keeps going.

  I let go. It's no time to pull rank. Instead I help, popping clasps down La's right side, and we lift off her chest-plate together.

  Her innards spill out onto the ground like hot soup. They have been liquefied, as though scrambled by a QC particle. I can see clear through to the bone-white shards of her spine embedded in the inner black casement of the suit. The hot smell of burned blood rises from the mess trickling through the fake grass around our knees, and So turns pale.

  I reach to her again but again she yanks away, her eyes hot and wet.

  "How could this happen?" she whispers. "How could bayonets do this, Me?"

  I have nothing to say, and this plainly scares her worse. So is normally quiet and restrained behind the twins, but now both of the twins are dead. She drops La's casement and lurches to her feet.

  "So," I call after her, but she staggers away. I watch as she moves amongst the dead model soldiers, plunging her musket bayonet through their chests and heads like it's a sharp cane sinking into cheese.

  Far is looking at me. He's squatted by the tree still, his eyes red-rimmed. I try to smile but he only turns away.

  SAVE FAR

  The mission pack said it, but I don't understand.

  I turn on blood-mic to the remains of my chord. "La is dead. I'm sorry for it. The bayonets disrupted her like a QC. Only the suit was holding her together." A pause. "Report."

  Another pause holds as the others silently acknowledge this, then Ray's voice comes in, settled and calm, the shock-jack doing its job. "Nothing. There's nothing moving out here Me, just like it was before."

  I watch So; on her knees now and sawing at a soldier's neck like a block of wood. I flip blood-mic to my lieutenants only. "Talk to me about what all that was."

  "Defenses," Doe says sharply. "Something doesn't want us going any deeper."

  "Agreed," says Ray. "There's something in the air here, something not right. Maybe it's those bonds La was talking about. We're not supposed to be here."

  I watch as So cuts through the soldier's neck and lifts his head clear, dropping it to the side. She's frenzied; out of control. It's this place.

  "Nothing's bonded correctly," Doe goes on. "The longer we stay here the worse it'll get."

  They're both right. We are not meant to be here, and we need to get this mission done as soon as possible. I pull out the pack and flip to the next page.

  INFLITRATE THE INNER MAZE

  Beneath it there is a vaguely familiar schematic diagram, all lines and circles, which begins to fade at once. I catch a freeze-frame of it in my HUD and sling it to the others. Ray comes back to me quickly.

  "It's the design on your chest, Me. It's your insignia."

  I look down at the circular symbol printed bright yellow on my uniform front, and it does seem to match; a series of intricate concentric circles cut through with yellow oblongs, triangles and smaller circles, lined up like transistors on a circuit board.

  "It's a map," says Doe.

  The image slings back from her with a flashing red dot added, staked out to the right of the only entrance in the outer circle. "That's us," Doe says, "next to the Deathgate."

  I study the next ring in, but the line is unbroken. If we want to go deeper, it looks like we'll have to set another blast. I flip to the next page in the pack, but it's empty. Every page after that is empty, like some kind of joke.

  We're not supposed to be here. We can't go back. There's no time to waste.

  "We're moving now," I say sharply. "Ray, get Far and strip any equipment we might need from La's suit. Doe, figure some way to bring that cannon with us. Mount it to your suit if you can. I'll deal with So."

  They Roger it and start moving.

  I go to So, still at her grisly work; cutting off heads and stacking them in heaps.

  "We're going to bury La," I say.

  She slices through the current soldier's last stretch of neck, drops the head on another pile and turns to me. She's not crying any more. She's empty.

  "Tell me this is worth it, Me," she says. "Tell me something."

  I look into her black eyes and see the pain of this loss taking root, along with a kind of madness. Both La and Ti
gone is too much for her, and this place is biting into her deep.

  "It's worth it," I say, and pray to Ritry Goligh that I'm telling her the truth. "Believe in the chord, So. It's worth it."

  She stares at me a long moment, her knuckles turning white on the musket. "I'll kill you if you're lying."

  I nod. I'll welcome death at her hand, if that's true. "Let's bury La first."

  She bites her lip and nods.

  I rewrap La's suit. Doe and Ray gather in and Ray says a few words, though I'm sure he knows no more about La than I, or Doe, or even So herself. She was just another one of us, lost.

  We carry her together to the drop; she's so light. We clip her body into a traverse wire and reel it out until she's hanging beside the whitelight cluster above the open Deathgate. I say a silent thank you then cut the clasp.

  La's body falls down through the black shaft toward the lava. I lean over to watch as she tumbles in the hot updrafts, growing smaller. Soon she is the size of a dropped pebble, then a black speck of grit, then finally an infinitesimal spark in the Molten Core far below.

  "She's with her sister now," Doe says.

  So goes to Far and wraps her arm around him, pushing her face into the side of his head. For some reason this makes me want to cry too.

  Two down, five to go.

  H. MAZE

  We leave So behind.

  I know it may be a death sentence, but there is no choice. She is our expert in mapping, and already she's losing her mind. I need her as clear-headed as possible, and I don't think she can take another level deeper in.

  She accepts this with a sigh. "I'll die."

  "We're coming back," I promise her, though I know it may be another lie. "We're a chord. You be strong for us and we'll be strong for you."