Fleshware Requiem Book 03

Yet more alerts as I opened my end of the airlock. Sure enough, Cox had partially jimmied the outer door with a several bars of metal, and now a loathsome tentacle was probing around, trying to find the hand-wheel to turn the lock. Instead, the thrashing protrusion found a stainless steel scalpel. Cox squealed like a three-throated oxen as his appendage was stabbed.

I spun the wheel completely, unlocking the door which I kicked outwards, to knock my foe off balance. Well, do or die now. My theories would be tested with my own life. Cox was momentarily staggered by the door slamming into him.

Wasting no time on pleasantries, I lunged fiercely with a blade to his one good eye. But Cox was a canny mutant; anticipating my target and twisting his head to the side; all I stabbed was the hardened ooze of cancerous tissue covering his already useless eye. Pushing mightily, his somewhat humanoid arm buffeted me with enough force to carry me across cargo pod four. I could only assume he'd sprouted extra muscles in addition to calciferous growths.

Ah, but that push was enough to knock me over near some of the gun crates! I tumbled across the tread-plate floor until I was close enough to fumble for the catches, yanking the containers open. I had no time to weigh the merits of the M-116 versus the AK-Ultra; I just grabbed something rifley and charged the barrel. Nice, bleeding-edge pulse-weapons.... that -

... were empty.

Of course, no one stores loaded guns. Duh.

But Cox began a hoarse, wheezing sound that might have been a laugh if given by an elephant-seal with emphysema.

In his one less-twisted humanoid arm was a long, deadly-looking Browning rifle, I could see the blue-white flicker of a pulse just waiting for a bullet. It did not have long to wait. I ducked behind the open lid of the gun crate as shots screamed towards me. He remembered how to use a gun. If I were a neuro-scientist, I might be far happier for him. But Cox seemed to have the only ammo in the room. I saw a smaller tentacle coiling protectively around a long, black clip.

I grit my teeth, thoughts racing as red-hot craters were gouged into the tread-plate beneath me. And yet... I noticed something encouraging. Cox's brain was intact enough that he might remember guns; the problem was -- guns grips were designed for human hands, not fused, paw-like mitten-appendages supported by tentacles. In fact, there were times when his vermiform tendrils failed to pull the trigger properly. But luckily, his particular gun has a marvelously high rate of fire. I was bathed in the scarlet shriek of the alarms as everything near me was under-lit by the molten glow of the pitted floor under me, but at last I saw my opening.

There was a split second where one burst of fire ended, and the slimy tentacle twitched in the wrong way to pull the trigger again. I hurtled the gun I did have at Cox's face as a distraction, and ran around to the side, where he'd have difficulty aiming at me through his asymmetrical body. There was a second airlock, presumably leading deeper into the bunker, and I ran for that, seemingly focused.

Of course, Cox would use one of his longer tentacles to try and entangle my legs, and the moment I felt the brush against me, I did not struggle to slip away, but rather I seized the appendage in HAZ-MAT suited hands and pulled myself forward. As he tried to reel me in, my mass went in the opposite direction he expected, and I was hurtling towards him faster than he could react. I kicked him powerfully in the head, and wrenched the Browning rifle from his paw-like grasp, rolling away as I readied myself to fire.

The blue-white muzzle-flashes were met with my smiles as I unleashed copper-alloy, magnetically-propelled destruction at the mutant; and my hands had no trouble at all. But he was a wily...erhh.... whatever he was now. And I only struck the base of his tentacle-nest twice before he leapt for cover behind a support pylon in the center of the room. He remembered what guns felt like too, it seemed. Still, purplish-gray blood-spatter proved the pain of his injuries. I made a strafing run aiming behind the pylon, peppering it with glowing pockmarks. Cox had eluded me, I rolled, thinking he had dodged behind me and unleashed yet another burst.

"Warning; shots fired in Cargo-pod Four. All Personnel remain in your safe zones."

Yeah, big surprise there. Taking out this puswad was up to mee -- yahhh!

A tentacle from above grasped my wrist. Dang, people never look up in these situations. Just not natural. But there were pipes of some sort running across the ceiling, where the cunning monstrosity scampered to escape my fire. I was able to squeeze off another useless burst before a mighty tendril wrenched the rifle away. Cox's blackened, fang-like maw contorted into a shape that a chewing-tobacco addicted shark might consider a smile. It seemed his vocal chords were too warped for human speech, but I got the sense he wanted to toy with me. No, definitely not a conventional zombie; he'd be chowing down as I struggled. But a tentacle fluttered up towards my composite mask as a black dribble of Toxoid-laden goo spluttered onto my HAZ-MAT covered chest.

"I understand... you want me to suffer; the way you did." I surmised. Cox emitted an excited grunt. I couldn't tell if it was an affirmative. "You wanna watch me scream as my nerves melt." It gave a lingering snarl that seemed rife with sensual ecstasy. "Yeah, fuck that." I had an arm free, and I tried to punch him, once. My bones creaked from a fruitless impact against a condensed layer of hardened tumors reinforced with rocky bone-spurs. There was a rattling sound that was definitely a laugh.

A tentacle slipped in, deeper between the layers of my mask. Cox wanted to feel my terror. He didn't seem to have any vital areas I could reach with my hand, dangling in the ophidian grasp of his worm-like appendages. He wanted to peel me a layer at a time. One of those layers contained my moistening chemical pellets. His jaundiced, perverse eye widened in eagerness to begin my pain-wracked introduction to the airborne world of the Toxoid.

Perhaps it was time I introduced him to the pain-wracked world of blindness.

I slipped my hand between the layers and picked a single hydroxide pellet, which I flicked into that big, yellow eye. Oooh, it seems to have lodged near a tear-duct.

My ear-drums ached from his howling. The stuff was highly caustic after all. I wasted no time as the tentacles released me. Cox also lost his grip on the ceiling pipes and writhed on the ground in surprise. Strange, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw him... put something in his mouth? Well, check on that later. Or never. I rolled to the Browning. Nothing tricksy, nothing elegant. Just bullets. So many bullets. So much purplish-gray infected blood. So many tentacle-fragments, and pieces of... hell, I had no idea what some of these gobbets of tissue were supposed to be. Cox was a freakish nightmare; who bent the rules of the zombie-handbook; still I decided to treat him with the same respect due his shambling, necrotizing brethren; which meant a full burst to the skull.

After that, I could only tighten the outer layers of my make-shift mask again, hoping it would be enough.

That, and wait.

But not for long.

A small, holoscreen popped up in the north end of the Cargo-pod, near the second set of Airlocks.

A pallid, disheveled man with a jowly face appeared, looking rather startled.

"Sergeant Salvador, y-your safe-zone - "

"Really wasn't going to be safe much longer. Before you ask, I have no memory of how I got here. Know my basic biography, but no clue how I got.... wherever this is. Except that you seem to be a Preserve outpost.

"That's correct, and I'm rather impressed that you were able to put together an effective filter on such short notice!"

"Trick I picked up last... erhhh... not sure how long ago it was."

"What's the last thing you remember?" interjected a weasely-face science-nerd type wearing crooked glasses, poking his face into the viewing area.

"A compound in St. Louis; I killed a rogue Pygmalion Doll. Didn't enjoy it; but the bitch was off her rocker. Not like I could get a repair center on the line and straighten her out." Both men frowned.

"Yeah, I remember them picking you up in St. Louis; the compound was run by a scientist who promised a Toxoid cure; but was in fact luring victims for neurological experiments."

"No... well, there were neurological experiments..." I argued. "But it was an unshackled A.I. running the place, she....it grew from a single Doll, then went Rampant." Jowls shook his head.

"Hmm... you're confused from your head injury."

"The scientist; you were one of his subjects;" Weasely interrupted. "We believe he wanted to manipulate your memory; a means of control. He had a neural transceiver in your cerebral cortex; but you were stable, and our doctors decided it wasn't worth the risk to try and remove -- until we had to."

"Your recent brain injury from the crash; subdural hematoma. The Doc had no choice but to attempt removing the device; even knowing that it might cause memory confusion; either that or certain death."

"The scientist probably owned a Doll he'd restored. That must have confused you." Weasely added. I shook my head; no... not after all that time, all those memories...

"No... I have a year's worth of memories of this robo-bitch, her scheming...half-truths... the way she... she.."

"Played tricks with your mind?"

I was afraid to say yes. But Jowls nodded.

"You've suffered through extensive engramatic manipulation; now that we've been able to remove the device, some confusion is inevitable." I frowned. Wondering. They said I was a Sergeant, in this life I didn't seem to remember. Would it make sense to trust a man with a gun if he'd been so radically mind-raped and still had some kind of control-device in his head? But I didn't want to say I couldn't be trusted. Was manpower really that precious?

"Well, how long ago was I at the St. Louis compound?"

"One year ago." Weasely replied.

So bizarre; still -- to just lose a whole year like that; there would have to be an extraordinary explanation. Unless they were just lying to my face.

"Sooo... I'm a Sergeant," It was a lot to wrap my head around.

" Technical Sergeant, 7th Retrieval and Escort Platoon," Jowls supplied. "More ration-credits than us lowly lab-techs, but not as risky as Death's Head squad."

"L-lot of respect. You even have a .. a.. w-wife!" Weasely exclaimed, as if I was the first man in human history to have achieved such a milestone.

"Drawing a blank. I hope she's hot." I shook my head helplessly.

"Hah, no idea how lucky you are, tough-guy." Jowls responded with a wry smile.

"Never gonna happen for guys like us," Weasely predicted.

"Huh, well you don't seem like the gay type, I'm sure there's someone for everyone." I added with a shrug.

"Wow, he really doesn't remember?" Jowls asked his companion.

"Guess not; the Preserve was never really intended as a colony, it wasn't planned. So the gender ratios are way off."

"Ten men for every woman; plus eugenic controls on who breeds when with whom."

"Wow... that little tidbit never showed up on shortwave. That might have really influenced my old crew." If they even existed. But then I saw her. She wore a white lab-coat and was pulling on a bar-handled switch. White mists began to circulate through Cargo-pod four. I noticed beige foam gushing from the walls as if to shore up a weak seal.

The woman was voluptuous, but had tightly wrapped hair of a ice-white color. My eyes widened.

"Well, there's a woman for you right there; she m-married?" I ventured tentatively.

"Who? No, there are no women here; against the rules - this counts as hazardous duty." Jowls argued.

"What do you mean, she's right behind you!" The white-haired women tapped a holo-screen, then made a note on a clipboard before moving out of camera view. Weasely rolled his eyes even as she walked away behind him.

"I've been posted here for three months; I think I would have noticed if there was a woman EN-EEE-where near here."

"Heh, I wish." Jowls agreed. "Just that brain injury talking." Was it a delusion? She seemed so real... She appeared again, sat down her clipboard on a table behind the pair, then pushed another bar-lever upwards; as a differently colored chemical spritzed into Cargo-pod four.

"Look! She's activating decon protocols! These mists spraying, that foam used on a weak part of the wall!"

"What, our decon is automated." Jowls replied.

"Yeah, back to sickbay. You've had a busy day." I frowned, my mood souring. I had seen someone as real as them, moving around objects in the real world. She was identical to the femmebot I had killed -- whenever it really was. The artificial woman whom I hated, and craved in equal measure.

"Cut the crap, put her on."

"Put who on?" the nerd with the crooked glasses asked.

"Stop yanking my chain, I can believe that a girl that hot might think she was out of your guys' league, but you can at least get her to reject me to my face."

"Wow, she sounds like a real looker; sure wish she was real." The pale, jowly man reflected. "Well, after you've had some rest, we can - "

"Attention all Personnel. Class III Contamination has been resolved. Now reading Class II Contamination Event. Remain in your save-zones." announced the intercom speaker.

Yup.

The foam coating at the far-corner of the Cargo-pod. It was bulging; as if someone -- something was struggling to push through it. The Horde. Good-ol' fashioned zombies by the hundreds, and then thousands. I was almost starting to miss them. Almost.

I checked my Browning. Barely fifty rounds. There was a chance; roving zombies, under these conditions could usually be slaughtered in great enough numbers that their own bodies would clog up choke-points, like the narrow corner of the Cargo-pod that had been weakened. Usually. But I would have to wait for my moment, that sealant gel would hold for another few seconds, I couldn't afford to waste ammo shooting through it.

This room was a losing proposition; the crates wouldn't stop a teeming horde from dragging me down and devouring me alive; nor would the central pylon. There were two more Airlocks; one of them had an encrypted quarantine lock-out, but the second was available: that would have to be my fallback position. Wait... hadn't there been another clip, Cox had it. I tentatively lifted my gaze to the bloodied mess. I had seen him swallow something. None of the tentacles still held the clip I remember. Had he known there was a legion of Living Dead outside; and that the rifle would lack the ammo to stop them? A final revenge?

"Sergeant Salvador," The sagging faced lab tech insisted. "The odds are good that the Med-bay's last airlock will hold; you've got to go back inside." I glowered at the man. I was being sold a bill of goods. Was it possible my perception of reality was that fractured? If so, then my actions mattered little. But I chose to believe that what my eyes had seen -- twice -- had meaning. Which meant I couldn't trust my apparent Preserve colleagues; whom I had no memory of. It was too surreal.

The other room; check it -- see if there was anything else to give me an edge... It wasn't locked, I turned the hand-wheel and slipped inside. Ahhh... Launch-Control. It would take a moment but I... ooh.... sweet! By launch, they really meant ballistic missiles. Smaller ones; only a little higher than human height. One of the vehicles was out of the launch-tube, laying open. But within the rectangular room, I also found body-armor. Along the wall facing the Cargo-Pod; there were booths that contained muscle-boosting, sealed hard-suits! The scavenger's wet-dream! Forget gas-masks; this thing had its own air-supply and backup nanomolecular filtration! Bite-proof to boot. In this; one man could survive a brush with hundreds of Living Dead. Plus, Launch-Control could be locked from the inside, giving me a double-layer of protection from -- and here they come.

The sealant foam sprayed on the order of the woman who didn't exist could have kept the airborne toxoid at bay; but its unliving purveyors were not to be denied. The rubbery mass was torn away by festering hands. I did not wait to see the yellow of their eyes before I opened fire. If you can't get a head-shot, best to shoot their legs out. I tried not to let the ugliness register. I tried not to notice the mask of scabs that covered all but a bile-dripping tongue for the first. I reminded myself that the old man had died long before that horn of bone had grown through his throat. I tried not to marvel at the rotting nightmare that seemed to retain enough motor skills to grip its own leaking intestines as though it intended to use them as a lasso. I simply unleashed measured bursts with the best chance of penetrating a skull. There was a steely-minded blindness that a Survivor needed to cultivate. Compartmentalize the mind. I couldn't allow my emotions a foothold; because one of those emotions is disgust, not to mention despair.

I had to spatter heads and blow out necks with the mechanical dispassion that I so feared, except even fear was denied me. Only remorseless, murderous efficiency as the unliving charged. Their only emotion was that consuming hunger beyond reason, beyond madness. No awareness of their own bodies as I ravaged them with high-powered pulse-fire. Here and there, a shoulder exploded. One lurched as a stray shot blew out its sternum in a bony-bloody plume. They didn't even bother to look at the savage wounds.

Then it was over, or at least, I had achieved a momentary respite. You needed a flesh-levy, in choke-points like this. Soon, it was just too hard for new zombies to spill through the gap filled by their twice-dead brethren. I tried to pant through my heavy filter contrivance. But I had not won if any zombies were still moving. The activity would draw any that could sense the vibrations. It did not matter if that activity would result in their own bodily ruin. They would crawl over ten-thousand of their own dead on the off-chance that they would be the one who got to feed.

No, I could still hear movement from outside, and I had... damn... only eight shots left; and I'd tried to conserve. But my odds were good; I could seal myself behind intact airlocks and don the hard-suit. Now perhaps, it would be a good idea to wait for reinforcements.

But that was when an impact rocked the building. Launch-Control had a number of cameras, and as I began fitting fastenings that auto-tightened over my body, I frantically tapped a holo-panel that panned a camera around the bunker.

"Ahh.. Triple-shit." This wasn't simply a random pack of Living Dead. This was an official Enemy action. To the south of the bunker, between two rocky outcroppings there was a sleek, dark vehicle. I could tell right away that it didn't belong to the Preserve; or any of Earth's old nations. Once it had, but no longer.

The sleekly predatory Skimmer had replaced the old 20th helicopter, as a faster, more reliable, low-altitude aircraft. It hovered with an almost serene ease using mag-lev forces, with only minimal lip-service paid to conventional aerodynamics through a flattened tear-drop shape. My professional expertise eventually recognized this one as a U.S. Marine Corps. Comanche XT-37. With my native blood, I dimly registered that I should probably be offended. Maybe after the Apocalypse. But it no longer belonged to the Marines.

You could tell from the black plating the enemy wrapped their vehicles in. Some kind of carbon-composite titanium that I didn't totally understand. Of course, it wasn't controlled by the zombies; it was more an issue of it controlling them. I focused on the cockpit. Of course it was empty. That was something I had never understood; why even bother to leave it in? I wondered if leaving a cockpit in a pilotless vehicle was some kind of taunt, some back-handed insult that sent a signal concerning the Earth's future?