Hanson scrabbled to his feet for what felt like the thousandth time. His hands and knees were shredded and bloody, his breath rasping in his throat as he fought down tears and panted, trying to suck in more of the foul-tasting air.
The whisper-thin whirr of the lung mods filtering the air was lost beneath his ragged, panicked breathing. Above it all, barely audible over his hammering heart—which must be echoing off the walls by now—was the shuffle and clank of the specters as they closed on him again.
“No…” He whimpered, shaking his head and turning, hands desperately slapping the walls as he searched in the darkness for the way out.
He’d been mad, he must have been, agreeing to this! It wasn’t an initiation—sending people after the specters—it was madness!
A brief flare of light illuminated in his vision as the Keystone picked up a signal from overhead, and suddenly a woman stood by his side, glowing with health and overt sexual promise.
“Hey, handsome, come visit me at…”
“Fuck!” he half screamed, before waving his hand through the advert, his demand enough to cut off the image, but not before his shriek had drawn even more attention.
“Oh, gods…” He whined, shaking his head and swallowing hard, unable to understand how he’d been so fucking stupid to get into this situation. There wasn’t a better option…he knew that, but there had to be…there had to be a better option than…than this!
“You want a mod?” Jacker had asked him and the other three what felt like an eternity ago. He’d been sitting at the table in the chop shop somewhere that was probably a dozen levels higher by now.
“Listen. Ya’ll want into our shit, ’cos we gots the best mods. Ain’t nobody fuckin’ with the Reapers. But you?” He shook his head. “Ya need to earn it! Ah mean, seriously? Look at cha—not a real soldier among ya!” Jacker had scoffed, picking at his teeth with a fingernail, before shrugging, as if already giving up on them all.
Hanson and the others had shared a look, at once on the same side—we’re all in this together—and simultaneously looking for an advantage over the others, each one a competitor for the promised place in the Reapers street gang.
Hanson remembered his stomach quailing at the thought of what was to come, but he’d had no choice. He’d stood straighter, sneering at the others, trying his best to project confidence and determination, despite his lack of mods and his malnourished, weak body.
If he wanted to live? If he wanted to survive long enough to climb up the ladder out of the worst of the slums, he needed someone to watch his back. He needed to not be prey. He needed to be a predator.
The only way to do that in this city? Mods.
“Ain’t nobody gonna risk primo chrome on you, not ’til you prove yourself.” Jacker had nodded to the bench on the left, and the collection of hammers, knives, pipes, and a single, shitty old handgun laid on it. “Go on, pick whatcha want. Ya take it down into the dark, an’ ya bring me back somethin’. If it’s good? Maybe ya get to keep it. Hell, mebbie ah’ll even fit it maself.”
There’d been a scramble for the gun. The lucky shit who’d gotten it laughed at the others down the barrel as he’d threatened them with it.
Jacker laughed at him. “Only three slugs in ’der. Better make ’em count, boy,” he’d sneered.
The asshole with the gun went pale as he realized the target he’d just drawn on his own back. No longer was it a room full of individuals going down into the undercity. Now it was him…against them all.
The first thing that he’d done when they all got pushed into the undercity—the abandoned thousands of miles of tunnels, old metros, and lost passages under the living, breathing skin of Artem—was to put the gun to the head of the nearest of them. He took her knife, and ordered the rest to find him a mod, or he’d kill them, one by one.
They’d set off as a group, all of them watching one another’s backs, an uneasy alliance struck without words.
Him first, then we see.
That had been the deal they silently agreed to, and they’d stuck to it, climbing deeper and deeper. All of them in their filthy work overalls, the literal shit and worse of the undercity clinging to them as they clambered here and there, avoiding collapses and sealed-off sections.
Occasionally, rich fucks—or corpo scum—would seal off sections of the undercity, holding back the nightmares that lived down there long enough to make solid, defensible areas, then move in and set up factories.
Some made food, growing the various “schmeats” in great vats, flavoring them and selling them off in vending machines and restaurants alike.
Others set up literal mind-fucking hellholes. Places that, for minimum wage, the poor jacked in, and people got to ride along on their nerves as shit happened to them.
If they were lucky enough to have a skill? A dancer, for example? They would dance to the music, and people born without rhythm could “ride” them and enjoy it as well, either live or a memory core.
For the vast majority, though? It wasn’t so noble.
For those with fuck all “marketable” skills, it was down to three tracks: violence, fucking, or “experiences.”
The orcs and half-orcs ruled in the violence tracks. Anyone who faced off against them got beaten to the point of death daily, and they were only lucky it was virtual, not real.
If you were ugly? Well, that’s fucking out of the window, unless you were unlucky enough to be in certain “specialty taste” groups.
That left “experience”’ for the vast majority. That or advertising, acting the part of backgrounds in whatever new shit the corpos wanted people in.
Basically, rich fucks jacked in to feel people’s terror, pain, and more as they were loaded into full reach-around VR, feeling everything from the cold of being abandoned to die on a mountaintop, to being dropped out of an arcology window to plummet to their deaths.
That this was all that was left to a load of people to earn their creds, and that they still wondered why people hated them, said all that anyone needed to know about the government and their corpo masters.
Hanson and the others kept going, stumbling along long-lost train tracks, climbing through access hatches that seemed like nothing, until, on the other side, they found rotting, rusted ladders that vanished beyond the range of their shitty dark-vision goggles.
Rats and worse crawled around down here. The occasional dried smear of blood marked the death of something small and defenseless when a predator found them.
Through it all, the four crept, trying to make no noise as they hunted, half in utter terror, watery bowels and all, and the other half in desperate hope, praying to the gods of blood and chrome that they’d find a broken-down specter dead by the side of the passage.
Hanson had heard that up north, and ’round the center of the city, nobody actually believed in the specters, that they thought they were a myth.
He wished that was true.
Living this close to the outer edge, he and his sister crammed into a tiny one-bed apartment literally against the outer defensive wall, he’d seen them. They all had.
The unquiet dead, shuffling along the streets, driven mad by their own mods, viruses that had torn through their firewalls and shredded their neural state. It erased their minds, breaking down what they’d been and leaving behind an unthinking, dead shell driven by hunger and need.
They were a cautionary tale to any gangbanger, as it was almost always their kind that ended up like this. Mod the wrong gear, chip something that was too high for you, something that was past your capabilities?
Or worse, use ’nites that were already corrupted to bond the mod? That got you this.
They saw the old ones sometimes, specters reduced to bone and metal, long dead and forced back into a terrible imitation of life, prowling the streets, hunting for ’nites—nanites that were pure and functional—or worse.
They were men and women who had modded themselves beyond their capacity to control them, mods that were too powerful or too corrupt for the user.
They’d been driven by a hunger, though—a hunger to mod themselves—and that lived on after death, the most basic drive brought back by whatever dark magic roamed the stack.
They hunted the living, tearing mods and flesh free with equal determination, ramming them into place, more often than not without any ’nites to form the bond between the user and the mod. The mod would sit there, an ocular enhancement rammed deep into the decaying skull of the specter, never again to be activated.
Never again, that was, unless some dumbass fool killed the specter and stripped it of its parts.
Some would still be good, uncorrupted. All they needed was to be cleaned, and a fresh set of good ’nites. That was the secret; fresh, pure ’nites could form a bond between anything, healing the flesh around the implant, bonding it to the user’s nervous system.
The risk was in chipping a shitty mod, one that was corrupted, or trying to use ’nites that weren’t pure.
That or, you know, trying to fucking harvest the fucking mod in the first place.
They’d searched for hours, doing loops though more and more of the collapsed and deeper areas, desperate to find something, anything, and to get back out without stirring up a swarm.
It’d not ended well. They’d turned a corner, exhausted, batteries low on all their gear, and one of them had walked straight into a specter. It’d been asleep, or on battery-saving mode or whatever they did, swaying on its feet, not even seeing the world around them, until they’d knocked it over.
It’d hit another in line, staggering it, and it’d slashed at the first with a bladed arm, waking more. In seconds, it’d spread; fury and hunger, as well as a desperate demand for the tech they all carried, raced through the specters as they woke to the hunt.
Hanson hadn’t even been the first to run. The fucker with the gun had fired off a single shot, hitting an ocular mod and sending a ricochet deeper into the tunnel. It’d woke them all, driving the few still in hibernation into a frenzy as they fell on the nearest poor asshole.
Then they’d rushed the rest of them, and Hanson and the others had run, splitting up as they frantically searched for the correct tunnels, the ladders and stairwells to the levels above, and the way out of the undercity.
Now, though, the tunnel he’d been following ended against a sloppily built brick wall covered in dim, spreading mold. Hanson skidded to a disbelieving halt, his mouth falling open in horror.
He squinted as he frantically searched, losing skin and fingernails to the wall as he pounded his fists against it, hunting for a way through.
“No…no…fuck me no!” He whimpered. The clanking and clicking of the swarm got louder behind him, never far away. They’d been chasing him for how long now? A day? Two?
His goggles were broken, flickering in and out as the power cell ran low and the connectors failed. The left lens was missing, the right spiderwebbed with cracks that sent bright pulses of light searing through his eye then guttered out, making it almost impossible to see where he was going.
He’d get a half second of an image, then blackness, then a surge of light that blinded him, giving him the choice between a horrific migraine or utter blindness.
“A ladder…” he cried. “I just need a ladder…” He spun around, squinting up at the roof of the tunnel, but finding nothing.
His weapon was lost, the pry bar left somewhere behind him in the warren of tunnels. This should have been the way out! This should have been…
They all looked alike, dripping water and oil, fungus and dead bodies, torn flesh and…and…the cracks!
He spun, having seen one only a few seconds before, and he panted, trying to make it out in the darkness of the old tunnel.
There!
It was a few meters ahead of the bend that he hid around, and the oncoming figures had to be nearing it. He sprinted for it, desperate to reach it before he was spotted. Fractured tiles, once part of a mosaic that gave directions in the distant past, hung shattered around the fracture, along with cobwebs and dirt. His breath whistled as he pushed himself to reach it before he was seen.
There were cracks in all the tunnel walls. Sometimes they were ways through from one tunnel to another, or out into a long buried and forgotten building. Businesses that had failed, or were lost when the nearby wall failed and monsters roamed until the army took them down. Hell, some were just cracks.
Shen had tried one, and it’d collapsed as she pushed through. Masses of stone and metal fell, pinning her. They’d all run, abandoning her as she screamed and begged for help. The specters barely slowed to feast on the fallen before giving chase again.
Well, it was Hanson’s only chance now, and he ran to the side of the tunnel, dropping into filthy knee-deep water and mud, splashing frantically as he went to his hands and knees. The water rose, going up to his chest as he forced his way into the crack.
It was narrow. Hell, he could barely fit into the crack sideways, but he shoved and wriggled, gritting his teeth and ignoring the hisses of indignation as something made its displeasure known.
Searing pain erupted from a bite to his shoulder, small but damn! He twisted and rammed his shoulder into the rock, dragging it as he moved deeper, feeling the crack and crumple of little bones or maybe carapace.
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Whatever had bitten him paid for it, but that pain! It was like someone had injected white-hot lead into him…But the fear of what had bitten him and the diseases it probably had was just another tiny ember beside the burning bonfire of his terror.
Seconds passed as he pushed as deep as he could, before he froze in disbelief. The pulsing light of his optics showed that there was nothing in the solid rock ahead but narrowing cracks, and twisting to look back out…
Movement.
Stumbling movement as bodies passed, the silence broken only by the clicks and whirrs of old mods.
Outgassing could be heard distantly as nearby pressure valves were released, and Hanson covered his mouth, staying as still as possible.
He’d heard about the pressure blow-off valves from down deeper, how they released into the tunnels; hell, he’d seen the constant mists on the lower levels of the slum, rising through grates to hide the wet, night-darkened streets of Artem.
Here, though?
It might just be his chance.
The specters used a combination of electromagnetism and heat vision to hunt, or so he’d been told. Well, the valves were blow-offs from the reactors under the city, and the gas was hot, hot enough to cook you, if you stood too close.
He might have a chance! If he was lucky? The outgassing would hide him yet!
The jets released in the distance; the pressure changed in the tunnel as thousands of cubic feet of gasses were forced into the area. Distant squeals sounded as something living was caught too close to a valve and cooked.
The air filled with the hot metallic taste of copper and more, as something nearby had its blood blasted over the walls.
The swarm stood still, their optics whited out by the approaching clouds as more and more vapor was released, until the final valve, a dozen meters away, opened. Hanson fought not to scream as the temperature leapt upward with terrifying speed.
The clatter of collapsing bodies, the splash as something fell into the water outside his hiding hole…then the bleed off was over, as suddenly as it began.
He bit his lip, holding on. His skin was burning, but death literally stood outside. As the tunnel returned to a more manageable temperature, not to mention silence, Hanson sagged.
Minutes became hours as he stayed where he was, pressed against the back of the crack in the tunnel. Sounds filtered down from the city and distantly from the factories.
Hours slowly blurred, one running into another. At first, he fought against his bodily needs, but gave in when it became too much, adding more filth to the water he hid in, trying to contain the terror and shame.
His legs cramped and then went numb. Pain flowed through him from the contorted position he was in, but he forced himself to silence. The choice was that, or death.
The pain in his shoulder slowly died away, dulling, and he allowed himself a tiny spark of hope, as first one, then another of the swarm sunk back into hibernation.
Eventually, sounds rose distantly: a gunshot, then screams and two more shots. More screams. It was enough, though, as Hanson saw the effect the noises had on the swarm.
They weren’t overly concerned with the shots—just another regular sound of the city. But the screams? As soon as they rang out, the swarm awoke again, shuffling and clanking as they staggered around, some falling over, struggling back to their feet as they joined the hunt.
Inside of a minute, the last of them had hurried past. After two more, the sounds of their passage faded into the distant roar of the city.
He forced himself out, moving as slowly as he could, waiting on his goggles and searching the dead end, and finding…nothing.
It was abandoned.
They’d gone!
He sagged, still half hidden in the crack in the tunnel wall and up to his chest in water, before slowly hauling himself out. His legs were cramped and numb, making him drag them along the ground more than walk, forcing him to use his arms to “walk.”
The bottom of the filthy pool—it was too big to be a puddle, nearly a half a meter deep and dozens wide—was covered in mud and debris, and shattered stone. He struggled to keep his head above the water as his hands probed the muck ahead of him.
He felt little stones and broken glass under his fingers, whimpering as blood bloomed into the stagnant waters and then…metal attached to flesh!
He panicked, eyes widening in the darkness as he jerked his hand back, splashing and gasping, coughing as he went under, before frantically trying to be silent, spitting water and fuck knew what else out.
He was horrified, expecting to be attacked at any second as he forced his legs to work. More splashes rose as Hanson pushed himself to his feet, almost falling and stumbling to the edge of the water and out as his cramp-riddled legs twitched and sagged, almost dropping him to the ground.
He backed up against the far wall. His eyes darted from side to side, looking for a way out. Did he run back down the other tunnel? Was it too soon? Were the specters just around the corner?
His eyes locked on the water and stared fixedly, unable to look away as the ripples across the surface of the water shivered and danced, waiting, as the goggle’s optics flickered and rebooted.
Seconds passed, and yet…nothing.
Nothing left the water.
Glancing around to make sure there was nothing nearby, Hanson grabbed a large rock, ready to use it as a weapon, before slowly inching closer.
It couldn’t be, could it?
His luck wasn’t that good, right?
Slipping into the water, and reaching out with one foot, slowly feeling around, he found it after a few seconds, and kicked it, before jerking back, rock raised high, ready.
Nothing.
Crouching this time, the rock held awkwardly in his left hand, he reached out, fumbling around with his right.
There.
Fingers met soaked cloth, then soft flesh underneath. Unresponsive flesh. Moving his hand around slowly, he recognized a leg, then a foot, and he knew what he had to do.
He didn’t have long, and this was a chance like no other!
He set the rock down, seized the leg with both hands, and pulled, dragging the body of a bigger woman free of the pool, grabbing the rock again as soon as she was out.
He could barely make her out, the way his goggles flared and died, but…she wasn’t old. She’d not been down here that long, either. Judging from the state of her flesh, she’d been killed finally by the steam valve.
Her clothes were shredded, and her head was caved in on one side, presumably what had finished her second life as she was fired off the grating over the valve and into the wall or ceiling. But the mods?
She had three! Three mods that he could see!
Her right hand was entirely cyber. Her chestplate was under her tattered clothes, meaning she’d had armoring done at the very least…maybe more? Organelle replacement?
The right leg was a full mod as well!
Hanson hugged himself, shaking in disbelief and shock. This was insane!
He didn’t know what had happened to her, not to drive her down here and turn her into a specter. A hack maybe? He shook his head. It didn’t matter.
None of it did.
She’d only been down here a few days or weeks. Her skin was still softish, and it hadn’t rotted. That meant there was probably no real contamination to the mods. Hell, she’d been literally steam-cleaned for him!
He let loose a giggle, then clapped his hands over his mouth, afraid. No. He had to think.
Someone like this wouldn’t have come down here without weapons, without gear.
Searching her body, he found ammo, two grenades, and a small knife, but that was it. The gun could be anywhere. The holster on her hip was ripped and full of mud, and even after a few minutes of desperate and careful searching, it wasn’t in the water.
It was infuriating that his goggles were so fucked. There could be a gun anywhere here, just out of sight, and he couldn’t find it! She didn’t even have a set of goggles on her!
He snarled, forcing her eyelids open, then digging in with the blade, shaking as he felt metal under the blade.
Ocular implants! He nodded and set to work, the blade a literal lifesaver as he removed her head whole, stripping her of mods as best he could.
The chest piece was locked down tight—he’d need the proper gear to take that—and she was too heavy, even after taking her flesh leg and arms off. He snarled at how selfish the bitch had been. She deserved this!
He rolled up her cybernetic leg, the hand, and her head in a makeshift rucksack from her clothes, leaving the rest of the body there.
Bitch hadn’t even had anything in her pockets.
Stumbling to his feet, Hanson sneered and kicked the scattered remains of the woman, then stifled a laugh, shaking as he set off, stumbling along, keeping as quiet as he could.
An hour…an hour more of wandering around it took, climbing two ladders and a—
He was sweating, he realized.
Damn, he was hot!
The tunnels had been cool when they’d come down, but now? It must have been the damn venting, making the tunnels insanely hot.
Two more turns in the tunnel, creeping along, and there…He froze, fear rising.
Just ahead was another specter, halfway down the next cross-tunnel, and right next to them—literally a meter or two behind them, as they swayed drunkenly, staring away into the distance—was the ladder he’d been searching for, marked with Jacker’s skull and crossed wrenches.
Hanson paused, waiting, then set the parts down oh so slowly, dragging the leg free and holding it by the ankle, sneaking up…step by step…and wham!
The specter collapsed, its neck breaking like a twig. The sound echoed around the tunnel.
Hanson stifled a scream, almost dropping the leg. His fucking shoulder! He’d jarred it, and the entire area around the bite suddenly felt insanely itchy. He tried reaching around to it, but just as his hand was about to touch it…the body before him moved.
The leg was up and swinging before he thought about it. The rest of the bundle clattered to the ground. The cybernetic limb arced over and over, pounding down into the twitching specter, its cheap level-one mods clacking as it tried to get back up.
He panted and cursed, swinging hard and fast. Sweat rolled down his face and body; sparks flew as metal met metal, smashing the bones of its skull in, before he sagged, staring at it, his rage spent.
Distant screams shocked him out of his fugue, and he jerked around, searching the tunnel.
He moved quickly, gathering up the head and hand, then hurried back, staring down at the old broken thing on the floor, and pausing.
Could he strip it?
He’d be a legend, that’s for sure. There were a good five or six mods on it—cheap ones, tier one, old and damaged—but if they could fix them? He’d never heard of anyone looting so much!
He’d start off with loads of mods! Hell, maybe he could sell the gang some?
A noise farther down the tunnel made him flinch. “Fuck it,” he whispered. Better to get out of the tunnels first. He could always come back, right? Get these mods chipped, and then come back, bring some actual weapons, and hunt the fuckers down!
He’d be someone then!
Struggling up the ladder, barely able to carry it all, and trying to ignore the liquids that were running out of the head and onto his chest, Hanson grinned. Even the flare of the light and the sudden blindness that followed wasn’t enough to ruin his beautiful fantasies.
When he reached the top of the ladder, he braced himself and keyed the code in that Jacker had given him: 80085. Stupid using a code rather than “knocking” on it with his Keystone, but the old fart had laughed when he gave them it, insisting. He’d even made them repeat it back again and again. And now, as he punched the softly glowing numbers on the grimy keypad, each one flaring as it was hit, the readout flashed…
He blinked, confused. Had it almost made a word?
It was gone just as fast, and the hatch slid open, making him sag with relief, before climbing higher.
The next stage, he’d been warned, might take awhile, but he could rest, sit on the hatch below, once it was closed, locking down.
He repeated the code, and it flashed red.
Locked.
He tried the lower pad as well, to see if it opened it back up, and it didn’t.
He was locked in.
“Just in case we’re asleep, and you bring back friends.” Jacker had explained there was an alarm on it, and that he’d come to the hatch as soon as he could with medics and backup.
A handful of minutes later, a small screen in the wall flickered to life. Hanson squinted, covering his eyes at the bright light as he saw Jacker’s face.
“What ya want?” came the gruff question. “Ya run and hide? Ya ain’t getting back in here unless—” Jacker cut off as Hanson wearily lifted the leg to show him, getting a grudging grunt, then a clearly forced smile. “Well, that’s diff’rent, boy! Ah’m comin’.”
Hanson sagged against the rungs of the ladder, not trusting the hatch to hold him. He panted in relief, wrung out. The adrenaline crash now that he knew he was safe made him shake constantly, and even here, the heat was insane.
He couldn’t stop shaking. His left hand quivered, like it was going to go into cramp. And the shoulder? It was itching like crazy!
If he dared to let go of the ladder for even a second, he’d have writhed the skin off. He didn’t, though, as a sudden cold hit him, making him shiver like his balls had been dipped in nitrous.
The hatch above him slid open with a whoosh. A bright light of a flashlight shone down on him, even as two gun barrels made themselves clear as well.
Hanson flinched from the sudden combination, and almost fell off the ladder, before catching himself and clinging to it desperately.
“What’s up with him?” a gruff, deeper voice grated, and Jacker shrugged.
“Who cares, boss?” he replied. “Hey, kid, the mods! Whatcha got?”
“A…a leg…” he mumbled, teeth chattering. “An…d a head…”
“Two?” Jacker squinted. “You look like shit, kid…What’s up?”
“Cold,” he mumbled, flinching as another flashlight was turned on and shone over his face and upper body. “S-so cold…”
“Yeah,” the second figure said after a few seconds, shifting around and pointing his flashlight at Hanson’s face, making him squint and shield his eyes. “Real cold today…”
“Cold? It’s—” Jacker muttered, only to shut up as the other figure cut him off.
“Pass up the mods, then we’ll help you up, kid…Handsome, right?”
“Han…Hanson,” he corrected wearily, suddenly barely able to cling to the ladder. “There’s another…a specter down…there.” He fumbled, passing the leg up, seeing the chrome and black lacquered leg clearly for the first time as it was grabbed and tugged free of his hands.
“Military grade. Tier three or higher. Nice.” The second voice grunted. “Fetch a nice set of creds, that.”
“What else ya got?” Jacker asked, and for the first time, Hanson felt something other than relief. “C’mon, boy, hand it up.”
“I…” he mumbled, shaking, and fumbling the hand free, only to drop it. The clang of the metal hand hitting the hatch rang out in the tight space.
“Fuckin’ fool!” Jacker snapped. “Get it! An’ gimme that head!”
“I…” Hanson tried to speak, before hissing as a sudden jolt of pain tore through him. His left shoulder spasmed. “Help!” He whimpered, shaking his head, as he tried to climb up, managing two rungs before he came to an abrupt stop. “I need help!”
“Gimme the fuckin’ head!” Jacker growled, the barrel of the gun that was jammed against the broken glass of his goggles all that Hanson could see suddenly. “Last chance, fool!”
Hanson passed the head up, his hand shaking so badly he nearly dropped it, and it was torn free, passed up to the other figure, as the barrel was pushed harder against his face.
“Now the hand, and anythin’ else you got!”
“You said…you would let me join!” he forced out, as his world came crashing down around him.
“Gimme the hand, fool, or I swear ah’ll shoot ya in the fuckin’ face!” Jacker snarled.
It was all suddenly clear to Hanson, as he clambered down to the bottom of the tube, reaching out with a shaking hand to pick up the gleaming black metal hand, pressing it to his chest and struggling back up the ladder.
“That’s it…Shit, mil-tech as well. What you think she had in her?” the second voice asked as he passed the hand over. “Hey, asshole! She have anything else?”
“Chest…” He coughed, nodding, and climbed back up, forcing a smile as he reached the last few rungs, only to be stopped by Jacker’s gun again.
“Go get it,” he ordered, and Hanson shook his head.
“I can’t…” He whimpered. “I’m hurt, and…”
“You want into the gang? You want this shit? You need to earn it, motherfucker.”
“Please,” he whispered. “My shoulder…”
The other figure was there in a second. A scanner held out a bright light as he was examined, before a snort of disgust.
“Draukka.”
“Spiders? And you brought them here?” Jacker snarled, jamming the gun into his goggles, shattering the last of the glass and making Hanson scream as it cut into him.
He grabbed at his eye, or tried to. His right hand made it, but the left spasmed and fell to his side, twisting as something wet poured down his back, making him shake uncontrollably.
“Close it and get rid of him! Shit, fuckin’ draukka!”
“You dumb fuck!”
Jacker kicked him in the chest, driving him back down into the tube.
He fell, hitting the bottom hatch with a crash and a splat as something burst below him.
His right eye full of glass, blood leaking from the shredded flesh, Hanson whimpered, looking up. Barely able to focus, he saw the disgusted and furious face of a massive orc standing next to Jacker. Their flashlights blinked off, and they dragged a barrel close…then Jacker poured something down atop him.
It splashed and stung, covering him and making him scream as he recognized the smell.
Korn syrup, it smelled like, but its clear golden hue sparkled as the grains suspended in it caught the light. That made the difference between the syrup and what this was, really clear.
Korn fuel.
“No…no, please!” he cried out. “I did it! I did what you asked!”
“Dumb fuck,” the orc growled. “Even if you’d not brought draukka back here, you think I’d waste good 'nites on you? You were always just a rat! We send dozens like you down every day!”
The awful certainty that he was going to die rose as Hanson saw the grin on Jacker’s face. The rest of the barrel was dropped in toward him; the hatch below him opened up just as the container slammed into his stomach.
Hanson fell, arms windmilling and legs thrashing until he landed on the old railway tracks below with a crunch of breaking bones.
His scream cut off. The sound became a wheeze as broken ribs punctured his lungs. His left arm flopped weakly, but uncontrollably, before his face. He stared in horror, seeing the tiny bump that crept along under the skin of his left forearm.
“Drau…kka…” he whispered in shock, finally recognizing the burrowing spider as something from the tales. They laid their eggs in you, and they ate as they grew, numbing your body as they spread, consuming everything.
“Ple…ase…” he managed, staring up at the distant light overhead, as the orc casually thumbed something to life and tossed it down to him, even as the hatch closed and darkness fell.
The incendiary grenade landed on the barrel and bounced, flying off to the side and rolling several feet into the darkness before activating.
A sudden vivid magnesium flare of light lit the tunnel, bathing the broken form of Hanson in reflected brightness…as well as the silent, clanking forms of the specters that closed on him.
“No…NOOOOOOO!” he screamed, as claws and hands, hooks and tattered bone tore into him, tearing gobbets free, even as the incendiary set light to some of the figures.
They would bump into others; the flames spread until they finally met the home-made rocket fuel. It filled the tunnel with a ferocious fire that killed everything, making the building above shake, driving the gang out for several hours as they waited to see whether it’d collapse or not.
All of that came as little consolation to Hanson, though, his last sight being of glass teeth and mechanical mandibles opening wide to close over his face.