by S A Asthana
That’s when the rumbling started.
It was faint, but deep as if back in the Earth’s throat. Hurried glances in every direction revealed no immediate threat. Nonetheless, the sound continued. The air seemed to shift. An earthquake? The rumbling grew louder with each passing second until it couldn’t be ignored. It drowned out all other noises. The sound wasn’t coming from below the ground, but from above.
Something heavy fell nearby. Mud and lose intestines splattered into the air. Before any sense could be made of it another heavy object, this one larger than the first, crashed to the left, nearly missing Bastien. Sludge and a severed finger smacked into his face. The ceiling was coming down. Portions of it were crumbling, one section at a time
There was no time to think. Just run. He sprinted back towards the elevator, his boots slipping and sliding on guts. The cries of a woman rang out as a large concrete block crushed her.
Sunlight beamed onto tents and expanded inch by inch at first, then foot by foot a few seconds later, until it had illuminated the entire market. The ceiling was giving way to burnt bits of metal, the remains of the hangar. It buried half the market in an instant. The ground quaked violently, and corpses trembled as if coming back to life, their jaws chattering. Clouds of dust swelled until they filled the scene from ground to broken ceiling.
And then it stopped.
The rumbling came to an abrupt end like it had never happened in the first place. A blanket of quiet befell the market, punctured only by the muffled moans of the dying. Limbs, some with twitching fingers, stuck out from amongst the rubble. Marché Bastille was a graveyard.
Bastien remained crouched in the corner behind the elevator. He let out a long breath. Alive. Only the ceiling directly above him had remained intact. The chamber, much of it destroyed, now lay open to the elements. A large hole let in the afternoon sun along with a desert breeze. New Paris finally resembled the surface of Earth. Ruined, a bond between past and present.
Bastien coughed hard and brushed muck off his limbs. The rifle was still secure so there was that silver lining. Look for the positive in the negati – oh, to hell with it. There was no positive here—Parisians were dying and Belle was gone.
“Keep moving forward,” someone commanded in the distance. The voice sounded mechanical. “We enter at the East district tunnel.”
Cube. The robot loomed large on the other end of the market, still aflame as if it was a hellish demon. Three TopGunners moved on its right, their exteriors glinting in the sunlight. Alpha soldiers collected at their feet like red magnets attracted to metal, at least fifty of them. They were lining up, getting ready in an attack formation. It was all too familiar. Bastien had done those drills countless times.
There was a clear shot from where Bastien crouched. He brought his semi-automatic sight toward his head, the weapon’s butt stock pressed into the shoulder. Bastien pressed his bloodstained cheek against the stock and took an athletic stance, his feet spread shoulder-width apart. The scope’s crosshair was lined up with Cube’s head. Bastien just needed to squeeze the trigger, and if he could get three clean shots, there was a high degree of confidence Belle’s death could be avenged.
Ready, set, g—
Something moved in his peripheral vision like a ghostly specter. A green, tentacle-like finger crawled in through the ceiling’s hole. At first only one. Then, a few seconds later, ten more tendrils flowed into the market as if a supernatural waterfall. The poisonous fog on the surface, tall as a three-story building, was a translucent, foreboding giant. The winds blew it forward and downward, creeping inches at a time. Within another ten minutes it would ooze into the market and devour the place whole. Flesh, dead or alive, would be eaten by the fog. The worst-case scenario for New Paris was about to play out.
CHAPTER 25: MARIE
The distant sounds of warfare became louder by the second. Marie sat at the back of her elongated state chamber on a gilded chair, the Parisian throne, under a silken baldaquin. She hadn’t anticipated the war reaching this sanctuary. The likelihood of the enemy making it to her doorstep had never concerned her before. With the certainty of Sydneysiders now breaching this room, she bit her lip in anticipation.
Her eyes remained transfixed on the bolted entrance a hundred feet ahead. The gold plated double doors reflected the images of her soldiers in the hall. Gone were the rows of chairs and tables that once hosted sacrificial feasts. A hundred loups stood in rank and file instead. Ten snarling wolves, five lining the frontline and the other five rounding out the very back, were steadied by their riders. The animals hadn’t eaten in over a day, and it was apparent they were ready to rip flesh from bone. The stink of their fur covered all other scents.
Viktor commanded the scene standing halfway between his Queen and the doors, his physical stature looming large over the others. He held the rifle in one hand—it appeared more a pistol than anything when dwarfed by his thick forearm. In the other hand he brandished a four-foot battle-ax. He held out its twelve-inch crescent blade as if marking the enemy outside the doors. Marie drew comfort from the weapons as well as the width of Viktor’s back. She cracked a satisfied grin.
A loud explosion reverberated beyond the doors, shaking the floor. The Sydneysiders were close. Marie adjusted herself on the throne, curling her legs into a cross-legged position, her bare limbs and torso covered only in war paint. Black stripes crisscrossed her milky skin, making her appear like a white tigress. Being nude was her preferred state for action. No clunky armor. Gods didn’t need fucking armor.
The double doors swung open when the bolts were shattered. Cracks raced across the supporting wall, chips of white paint falling free. As smoke and dust dissipated, a lone figure, one larger than any human, came into view. The TopGunner stood at the gaping entrance, its outline surrounded by darkness. Cannon barrels, their metal glinting brilliantly under the chamber’s electric chandelier, pointed out from atop the figure. This thing was massive—it would need to crouch just to enter the chamber despite the doorway being eight feet tall.
Or, maybe not. The wall crumbled, bringing down the double doors with it. Bricks crashed into a heap of cement and rubble, and two more figures, tall and foreboding as the first, came into view. Martian soldiers packed densely between them, the red of their uniforms visible through dancing clouds of dust. Each soldier pointed a gun forward. Standing to the left was Cube. The robot appeared to be the tip of the spear.
With her hands clenched into pasty white fists Marie roared. “Protect your goddess.” The rasp in her voice was laced with something foreign—doubt. It tasted bitter as an unexpected interloper. Her army snarled in reply, their guns thrust into the air.
The Martian soldiers, now numbering only thirty, shouted back, “For the High Council!” They crashed into the room, their heavy boots clapping against the glossy concrete floor like the boom of thunder.
Viktor took the first shot—he hurled the broad-ax at incredible speed, and the weapon smashed into one of the TopGunners stunning the entire Martian frontline into silence. The pod shattered, and shards of glass flew everywhere as the ax bore into the controller, splitting him in half from throat to crotch. The tank, that strange concoction of wires and metal, buckled at its knees and fell forward onto itself with a loud metallic clang.
Marie raised a fist in the air. “Bravo!” The doubt faded. How could it have ever been there in the first place? The Sydneysiders were going to lose to the Parisians.
Loups rushed forward, a barrage as haphazard as it was reckless. Some on the front lines were knocked to the ground by their comrades and trampled. In such a cramped space, even a well-coordinated army was more a mound of rodents than anything, with each soldier crawling and jumping over one another.
A blizzard of flesh-hungry bullets crisscrossed the hall. They sizzled before puncturing their marks. Jets of blood sprayed into the air and reddened the walls. Limbs exploded from torsos and spun wildly into the air. Severed heads, some with spines trailing out gap
ing throats, shot to the high ceiling as if ghoulish kites.
Three wolves pounced on a TopGunner, their shoulder muscles bulging like mountains. A frenzy of fangs and claws followed. The tank shook wild and bled its gears. Its glass pod cracked and shattered, and one of the wolves, the spindliest of the lot, reached in to lock its jaws around the controller’s throat. The second of the giants had been laid to waste.
The pungent scent of war assailed Marie’s nostrils like a wind loosed from the bowels of hell itself. Her heart punched hard at her chest, pushing her forward and off the throne. She stood with back straight and let out a shriek, the war cry of a banshee, as her six tentacles shot out of her back. They snaked around her like bodyguards, each one’s tip pointed forward. Soon her army, under Viktor’s expert command, would subdue the enemy and the Martians would finally know her worth. Crone would crawl to her feet like a dog and worship her.
A film of blood veiled the hall no more than thirty seconds into battle. Bodies lay atop bodies—heaping, messy piles of death. Walls of flesh grew higher by the second. It wouldn’t be long before one touched the ceiling.
Cube burst through a mound of corpses, splattering limbs everywhere, and stormed to the throne. Its metal was charred and dents speckled the armor. The cyclopoid eye was only half lit. Warfare had taken its toll, but the robot remained operational.
Stopping short of the throne by ten feet, Cube held up a decapitated head. It was Viktor’s. The man who had just seconds ago inspired fierce confidence was now only a vestige of war. His head was a ball of soft, limp features battered to a pulp. Cube threw it to Marie’s feet. With her lips curled into a snarl she kicked it away.
“I told you to never come back again, Cube.” She took a step forward, shouting over the sounds of battle. “I said I would personally dismantle every screw in your body.” When Cube took another step, she said, “I guess you’re too dumb to follow directions.”
Cube wielded Viktor’s battle-ax in its left hand, the blade pointed at Marie. She took an animal stance on all fours. The tentacles straightened tall over her back and fanned out as if metal feathers to a peacock. Cube rushed her, but Marie managed to leap away. The ax missed her right leg and cut into the throne, chipping away pieces of gold and wood.
“D… on’t fi… ght me, Marie." Cube’s voice box was garbled. "I calculated you we...r..e behind the cra… sh. There have to be consequences for y…our action.” It pulled the ax free and pointed it forward to mark its prey again.
She smirked. “You cannot harm divinity, you ugly fuck.”
Cube flew forward again. Marie jumped but this time the crescent blade found some skin. It carved a line of blood across her torso. She landed on her knees, a sharp, burning pain swelling across her chest. Wounded, but not dead. Next time could be worse.
“We c…an make this easy or we c…an make this hard.”
The machine had managed to take out Hafiz, Viktor and Bastien. More needed to be done than simply dodging its attacks. Cube charged her, shaking the floor like an earthquake. This time Marie didn’t leap away. Instead, she flexed her back in a peculiar way. Two of her tentacles swiped at Cube, grazing its ankles with precision. The robot tripped and crashed with a loud thud amid a pile of rubble. There it lay still for several seconds, a trail of smoke fuming from its neck.
It’s dead!
Cube jumped up to its feet as if nothing had happened. Marie’s eyes widened with horror. If Cube wasn’t enough of a threat, there was now something bigger to worry about—a green fog brewed behind the robot. Its wisps crept into the hall and slithered forward like tentacles of a spectral octopus. Bulges of bright jade gave way to cavities of dark black.
A loup was first to fall. The fog surrounded his feet as if shackles, vaporizing them into a spray of red instantly, leaving behind only boots. He fell screaming, his legs now gory stumps. The devouring didn’t stop there. The man’s body turned a sickly green. Cracks splintered across his face, and flesh fell away in bits like chips of paint falling off walls. Next came the facial muscles and tendons, and finally the skeleton itself. Within the space of a few short breaths, the loup was gone. Evaporated. Eaten. Only the uniform and weapons remained, wrinkled, useless, and heaped on the floor.
Marie’s jaw gaped. Her worst nightmare had come true. All efforts to seal entrances and exits had been in vain. Her will to fight was shaken to the core. She was exhausted and it showed, her breathing heavy. Sweat glistened all over her reddened bare back. Her wound burned like a cut bathed in salt.
“I calculate your d-d-death in the next minute, stupid human.”
“We’ll see about that,” Marie growled between labored breaths. She assumed her battle posture once more, although it was a lethargic stance this time. One hundred and twenty pounds of divinity was ready to fight six hundred pounds of metal monstrosity to the death.
Cube limped like an injured ogre, its ankle damaged by the tentacle attack. Still, it broke into a flurry of punches. The swipes were fast, deadly enough to break bricks, but Marie managed to twist and bend around each. She took a hit to the shoulder and crashed on her side. Damn thing is quick. She didn’t have the energy to defend—she could barely lift an arm. Between the cut on her chest and the throbbing pain in her shoulder plus the fatigue, she had little left. Her tentacles were limp, splayed useless on the ground.
The chandelier glimmered to the right of Cube’s skull, making the looming robot appear to be a silhouette of death. Marie envisioned its hand curling into a large fist and driving down hard, cracking open her skull. No use fighting it now. She’d been defeated. It was over. The war, the city—everything. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Cube’s skull jerked violently. Before the sound waned, another ding echoed, this time at the robot’s neck. Tiny bits of metal burst away like sparkling stars. Cube was being shot. But by whom?
Bastien kneeled to the right with his rifle pointed. Cube turned to him, its neck now hanging limp. “St-stupid hu-human.”
A third shot severed Cube’s head from its body. The leviathan collapsed to the knees, its limbs wobbling like cables along a fallen bridge. Its eye flickered to space-black. Finally, it crashed onto its side with a loud thump. Motionless.
It was finished.
CHAPTER 26: BASTIEN
Bastien could just end Marie, right here, right now. Her legacy of horror would be over. Aim the rifle and press the trigger—that’s all it would take, His jaw clenched, and his grip firmed around the rifle. A sigh escaped his lips.
He couldn’t do it. He needed her to get him out of this hell. The fog had turned half the hall an ominous green. He kneeled next to her. Sounds of battle diminished as loups and Alphas alike gawked at the swirling fog ravaging the bodies of those who’d already perished in combat. The living fought for an exit, their faces grim. The entrance was blocked. They pushed their brethren in front as if to create a defensive wall. But it was no use. One by one, each succumbed to a grisly death. In another minute, Bastien and Marie would meet the same fate.
“How… how?” Marie blinked away sweat. Her left shoulder was black and blue, and she was drenched in blood. She looked beaten.
“Roof caved in the market. It’s over. New Paris is done. Now we need to escape.”
“It can’t be.” Marie struggled to her feet, her bare legs rubber bands, the stripes across them smeared. Gone was the white tigress, replaced by a blotched mess.
“We need an escape route. Tell me there’s one.”
“I am a God! This can’t happen to me,” she screeched. A final act of defiance.
“You can’t fight this.” Bastien pointed at the fog. “Now, focus — is there an escape?”
Marie gasped like she’d been punched. Her fists unclenched. She pointed at a trap door amongst shadows in the hall’s back end. Bastien slung Marie over the shoulder and carried her to the door. She was weak and her tentacles were withdrawn.
He swung the door open just as the fog consumed the throne. A tunnel—dark,
musty and carved from the earth—came into view. A mist dampened Bastien’s brow as he climbed down a ladder with Marie in tow. Sitting her into the dirt, he reached up and shut the door just as a green strand grasped for it. That should hold back the fog.
Lime swirls seeped in through the edges. The entrance wasn’t properly insulated.
“We have to keep moving.” Bastien peered ahead. The tunnel, narrow and low, lit by a sequence of light bulbs, stretched away forever. “Come on — get up.”
Marie didn’t comply. She was out cold. Damn. He didn’t know where the tunnel led. Only Marie did. Waiting for her to come around wasn’t an option — a green ghost was sliding its way down the tunnel walls, still hungry for flesh.
Bastien slung Marie over the shoulder again and broke into a sprint. Bulbs flew past them as he crossed meters in seconds. His muscles loosened and clenched with each step forward. The calf wound still burned after twenty-four hours of festering. If it wasn’t medicated soon, death by infection was as certain as death by the fog.
He covered a mile with haste. Silence crowded the tunnel, punctured by the tramp of his boots pounding dirt. Earthen aromas swept away body odor. They had a crunchy texture to them. Lightbulbs became less frequent. Darkness striped the tunnel now. Soon it would swallow the passage whole. Where does it lead?
“You saved my life,” Marie slurred. She was gaining consciousness. “Not even Hafiz or Viktor could protect me against Cube.” She sounded like someone else—someone who understood gratitude. Softness laced her words. This couldn’t be the Marie he’d known. It was as if Belle was back in his arms. “Thank you,” she whispered.
She didn’t know the truth—Cube’s demise had been Bastien’s revenge for Belle. That’s it. Marie was only kept alive for one thing. Escape.
“Where does this tunnel lead?” There was strain in his voice. Marie was light, sure, but felt twice her weight at the moment. He slowed to a jog.