by M. E. Thorne
“I can detect the faint chemical trails all lifeforms leave in the air,” Marcella contributed.
“Amazing. Your myriad of capabilities makes you all uniquely suited to surviving and even thriving in this environment " Despite her words, Sabra frowned. “Every moment I spend with you, I come to see how wrong the Syndicate is in our attitude towards El Finito and its citizens.”
Tapping Gloria on the shoulder, I asked, “What can you hear?”
The bat-girl stood stock still, her ears twitching minutely. “People. At least two of them, maybe three? They’re pretty far away, but they’re definitely in the same building as us.”
A cold, fearful premonition formed in my guts, “Are they hybrids?”
“Can’t tell,” Spinny answered. She pressed a palm against the wall. “I can just tell they’re walking on two legs, no hooves or claws.”
“I can hear them talking,” Gloria said. “They’re voices are funny though, all muffled and staticky,”
Sabra gasped, hand to her mouth. “Like they’re talking through a radio?”
“Exactly!”
I glanced at Sabra. Even in the dark, I could tell she’d gone ashen. She’s thinking the same thing I am.
Gnasher snuck back in a few minutes later, teeth bared in anger and tail standing straight. “Syndicate troops are here and they are looting the place.”
“This sucks,” complained the first Syndicate soldier, speaking loudly through his suit’s speaker. “I didn’t sign up to carry mushy cardboard boxes and fight off dust bunnies.”
“It’s not so bad,” his comrade replied. “Just like before, Valash has promised us a cut of everything we carry back and ship off-planet. I’m already thinking of buying myself a new hot tub when we get back.”
The two continued to animatedly chat as they loaded an ancient dolly with boxes of electronics and paperwork. A third soldier stood watch further down the hall, an assault rifle in her hands.
We were listening from around the corner, pressed up against the wall.
“There are at least three other teams nearby,” Gnasher reported. “I can smell a bunch more to the south. They’re all armed. Most seem focused on grabbing everything they can get their greedy hands-on.”
Sabra gritted her teeth. “It sounds like Valash survived Nakamura-Ghosi Genetics, and is now ordering his troops to ransack everything possible.”
“One of them mentioned taking everything off-planet, which is disturbing as well,” Spinny added.
“Valash has his private ship parked at the Syndicate spaceport,” Sabra explained. “Before we left, he ordered the crew to prepare to take off at a moment’s notice so he could escape with whatever he managed to steal from Nakamura-Ghosi Genetics.”
“I hope he got away empty-handed,” Gloria fumed.
I ran a hand across my abdomen. We managed to escape with the real prize, though I’m not particularly happy having to carry it.
“If he’s ordering his troops to pillage this place. Likely, he didn’t find anything regarding Nakamura-Ghosi’s research on fertility and reproduction,” Sabra said. “He might view this facility as a second-place prize. Even with all his bribes and arm-bending, he can’t hope to hide his actions from the State and the Central Committee forever. He has a limited window to escape El Finito.”
“He’s going to steal as much as possible and make a run for it?” I asked.
“His masters at the SADB and the Central Committee will be furious at his failure,” she answered. “He needs to bring something back or he’s likely to be shipped off to a manual labor colony.”
“Serves him right,” Gnasher stated.
The others emphatically agreed.
“We cannot allow this to continue,” Marcella said.
“Right, we’ve got to kick their asses!” Gnasher vehemently responded.
I looked around the group. “I love you Gnasher, but I don’t like your odds fighting against a bunch of soldiers armed with guns and explosives. We’re probably outnumbered ten to one.”
Marcella drew Sabra over. “What can you tell me about the air filtration capabilities of their suits? What is their micron rating?”
“What the fuck is this thing?" The Syndicate soldier used the barrel of his gun to poke at the fungal growth that ran along the wall. “Never seen anything like it.”
“Hey, don’t touch that thing,” one of his squadmates complained. “Remember, this whole planet is designed to kill us.”
“Don’t be a pussy,” the curious soldier shot back. “We haven’t seen shit, no monsters or anything. Besides, our suits will protect us from anything funky."
“Tell that to Team One,” his squadmate replied, “the poor bastards that the boss took into the lab. Almost all of them died. Only the boss and a handful of them got out alive.”
“You better be sure the boss doesn’t hear you say that,” their leader warned.
“Yeah, besides, that doesn’t count. They would have been fine if that traitor hadn’t backstabbed them. Now we’re on this shitty scavenger hunt, trying to find more stuff to satisfy the guys on top." He gave a fungal bulb another hard poke. “Maybe we should bring back a sample of this crap for the eggheads?”
One of the fungal bulbs exploded into a cloud of spores that filled the hallway. The soldiers began yelling and complaining while their leader attempted to restore order.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she yelled. “The suits will handle it. Goddamnit, everyone listen to me!”
But it was too late. One by one the soldiers collapsed, falling like deadwood. They didn’t even have time to call for help. Their leader went last, coughing and sneezing as she fell.
“Damn, that’s impressive,” Gnasher commented as she carefully stepped forward. She grabbed a rifle from an unmoving soldier. “Are they dead?”
“Just asleep,” Marcella noted, crouching next to their leader, peering at her through her faceplate. “I can’t check their vitals through their suits, but they appear to be breathing normally.”
Spinny cautiously approached Gnasher, her eyes locked on the gun. “Darling, do you know how to use that?”
“Just enough to do this." She made a show of unloading the weapon and throwing away the clip. She then reached up and gave Spinny a quick kiss. “Don’t worry, I know you hate guns.”
“Shouldn’t we take them with us?” Gloria objected.
“Do you know how to use one?” I shrugged. “We’re better off using our brains and our skills. Even with a few pilfered guns, I don’t think we can just simply shoot our way out of any of this.”
“Discharging firearms would be inadvisable,” Marcella agreed. She touched the wall, and the fungal bloom withered and faded away. “It could attract unnecessary attention.”
“Still,” she looked stricken, “do you know how much collectors pay for these things?” She looked at me, “We sold that pistol you brought in for like a thousand credits!”
“Let’s stuff these goons in the breakroom and then take care of the rest of the looters,” I said, ignoring her and picking up an unconscious man.
Knowing that she was beaten, Gloria began moving the boxes off the dolly, stacking them against the wall. “What about the stuff they already stole?”
“I’d recommend leaving it here,” Marcella suggested. “Once you return to the Metrocomplex you can alert the State to dispatch a delving team to retrieve everything.”
“One down,” I grunted, hefting an unconscious man onto the dolly, “three to go.”
The other two squads of Syndicate soldiers went down as easily as the first. By the time we were done the break room was full of slumbering, white-clad bodies.
Gloria poked the one snoring the loudest with the broom handle. “What are we going to do with them?”
“They will be unconscious for the next two to three days,” Marcella said.
“The suits provide nutrition and hydration intravenously, so they should be fine,” Sabra carefully went through the
pockets and pouches of the squad leaders, retrieving anything useful they were carrying. “Here, look at this.”
She unfolded a piece of paper she had found, revealing a hand-drawn map of the Honormark facility and the surrounding parts of The Stacks. Someone had added a variety of annotations in grease pencil, indicating areas the soldiers had looted or found blockages. “Valash had his diggers keep maps of all the areas they excavated and the structures they found.”
Gnasher twisted the paper around. “They aren’t using computers or electronics?”
“The Syndicate automatically scans all electronic devices arriving or leaving El Finito, to prevent espionage or theft.” Sabra squinted at the map. “If you don’t want to be caught doing something immoral or illegal, you use paper and burn everything before you depart.”
“I’m taking notes for my future career,” Gloria chirped.
Sabra pointed to a corner of the map. “This looks like their rallying point.”
Gnasher held up the tablet, trying to orient the Bluehorns’ map with the paper one. “It’s a little hard to tell, but I think we’re several day's travel north of the Metrocomplex. If we push our luck and move quickly, we could be home the day after tomorrow.”
“So knock out the rest of the Syndicate goons, beat a hot trail home, and let the State sort it out?” I asked.
“Sounds like a plan,” Gnasher agreed. “Let’s hurry up and get out of here.”
The Syndicate was gathering in a large, central hall. A dried-up fountain and staid, corporate art dominated the space. Someone had connected a massive crystal chandelier to a portable generator, bathing the Syndicate soldiers in fractured, dusty light.
We peeked down at them from the top of a marble staircase.
There were dozens of them milling about. Most seemed to be focused at the far end of the hall, sorting through old boxes.
One particular soldier, his hazmat suit emblazoned with a red, cloth sash, was clearly in charge. His face was the same color as the fabric, and he was yelling constantly.
“Valash,” Sabra said, her voice full of venom.
I recognized him from our encounter in the Nakamura-Ghosi Genetics tank room. He had been leading the Syndicate soldiers who had inadvertently sent me tumbling into the chemical bath. “I’m surprised he got out of that place alive.”
“Wow, he looks like a complete asshole,” Gnasher observed. “That mustache doesn’t suit him at all.”
We saw that Valash had established a small outpost. There was a medical triage area, a small supply depot, and even a portable laboratory set up in the lobby. Sandbags had been piled near the double doors at the far end of the room.
“Got any ideas?” I asked Gnasher.
She drew us a couple of meters away and then looked at Marcella. “Can we use the spore trick again?”
“It will take approximately five minutes for the spores to reach a suitable concentration in a space of that size,” the slug-woman replied. “It is very likely they would spot the fungal bulbs before then.”
“Can we just avoid them?” Gloria peeked at them again, “ sneak around them and head home?”
“You were all gung-ho about taking their guns and kicking their asses earlier,” Gnasher responded.
“That’s before I saw the soldiers armed with flamethrowers,” she shivered.
Marcella nodded. “Those are problematic as well. They can easily burn away any spores, and their suits protect them from most quick-acting chemical agents I can produce.”
“Unfortunately, they’re guarding the only exit,” Gnasher pulled out the paper map. “All the others are collapsed or blocked. If we want to get out of here, we need to go through them.”
I sat back against the wall and thought for a moment. “Sabra, most of those soldiers think we’re savage monsters, right? That this whole planet is covered in things just waiting to kill them?”
“Yes,” she sadly responded. “I’m only starting to realize how wrong we all are.”
I tapped my chin, thinking. “I’m usually not one to play into stereotypes and misconceptions, but how about we exploit their fears and give them something to be really scared about?”
I checked over our preparations. Gnasher and Sabra hid just below the banister, stacks of grenades next to them. The Syndicate patrols we had subdued had been carrying a wide variety of smoke grenades and flashbangs, which we fully intended to make use of.
Gnasher held the only lethal explosive we’d need.
Spinny and Marcella had been back in the hallways, preparing additional traps. Gloria waited next to me, a bandolier of grenades hanging over her shoulder. All of us had damp rags wrapped around our necks, ready to be pulled up at a moment’s notice.
Someone yelled from below. “Where the hell are the patrols! They were supposed to be back twenty minutes ago!”
“Valash knows something is wrong." Sabra looked over the railing, watching the activity below.
I looked over my shoulder. “Spinny, are you ready? Are you sure you can do this?”
She came forward, covered in a hastily woven silk robe that flowed out like ghostly wings. Her sack-like mask was pulled back and resting on her forehead. Someone had crafted a pair of demonic-looking horns out of poster board and stuck them onto the back of the mask.
She looked tense, nervous, but determined. I knew skittering above an armed mob was probably her greatest nightmare. Her bravery was inspiring.
“I’m ready,” she said, her voice trembling. “I could do this with my legs and arms tied behind my back.”
“I know you can,” I gave her a thumbs-up as she pulled the mask on. “The horns are a nice touch,”
Gnasher blew her a kiss, then stood up, hurled the grenade, and quickly ducked back down. We all put our hands over our ears.
The Syndicate’s generator exploded a second later. A chorus of scared screams was followed by a few panicked bursts of gunfire.
Each of us covered our faces with the rags, grabbed a smoke grenade, and threw them into the dark. The room below quickly filled with thick, gray smog.
Lights stabbed through the gloom as Valash tried to regain control of his soldiers. Silently, Spinny scurried up the walls while Gloria launched herself over the balcony. I held my breath, knowing that they had the most dangerous roles in my crazy plan.
“Fuck, there’s something up there!” screamed a horrified soldier when his light cast Spinny’s spectral shadow against the ceiling. Flashbangs began raining down and exploding, sending soldiers reeling as they were hit by blasts of blinding light.
More panicked gunfire erupted. The chandelier was scorched and ignited by gouts fire from a flamethrower.
I hope they’re both okay!
“If one more idiot fires without orders, I’ll kill you myself,” Valash screamed.
We tossed the second round of smoke grenades and flashbangs. The distractions went off, spreading noxious clouds and brilliant sparks. The soldiers began to scream in fear as more shadows appeared and disappeared over their heads. Several of them vanished, screaming in horror as something lashed down from the ceiling and snared them. The last thing their comrades saw was their kicking legs as they were hauled away.
Gnasher retreated a few meters into the hallway, took a deep breath, and then let out an ear-splitting roar. For a split second, I felt the primal kind of fear cavemen must have experienced when they heard a saber tooth tiger hunting them down.