HOMINES ET MONSTRA
SEENA
Out of the corner of her eye, Seena saw her brother protecting his girlfriend with his own body, but she knew she had bigger things to worry about. The gargant's iron-armored hand was flailing about the store, searching for them, and it was only a matter of time before it found someone.
Seena dove in the opposite direction of the trembling couple, towards the baseline with the guns. She had to hope that if nothing else, she could grab one of his weapons and maybe take out one of the iron-lord's eyes.
For his part, the man—Adam, she was pretty sure Simon had called him—was doing a much better job than five minutes ago. He seemed to know what he was doing, now that we were in the heat of battle and he didn't have to think as much.
He ran away from the gargant, heading for the back of the store, and vaulted over the counter separating the main store from the back rooms. He pointed a sub-machine gun in Seena's direction, and she winced, expecting to get killed by a hail of lead.
When he fired, however, he only hit the giant hand that had been about to crush her. The beast's iron skin kept it from actually being hurt by the attack, but it definitely gave it pause. She took the opportunity to scramble to the back as well, tugging the Dagonite and Zusa behind her.
She cursed herself for getting distracted watching Adam. She should have been paying more attention to her surroundings. She wasn't a soldier, as her Mal superiors kept reminding her, but she should have been better than she was. What if an angel burst into a class she was teaching, and the children were hurt because she wasn't paying attention?
There was another roar from the gargant, and Seena was yanked back to the present. This was her problem. All the buffs in the world wouldn't save her if she kept getting distracted.
She scampered over to the baseline. “Hi. I'm Seena. You are?”
He stared at her for a moment before answering. “Adam Anders. A friend of Yolanda's. And Laura's, actually.”
“Good. Great.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the rampaging monster. “She ever tell you how to deal with an iron-lord gargant?”
“No.” He checked an ammo pouch and cursed. “And I don't have anything with the punch to hurt it. Any better ideas?”
“We just have to exploit its weaknesses.”
He frowned. “Okay... and those are what, exactly?”
There was a muffled boom from the street outside. It sounded like something had exploded. A grenade? No, something bigger.
“Seena,” Adam said, grabbing her arm. “Focus. How do we kill it?”
Jelena slid up next to her, wincing in the light. She had lost her daygoggles at some point. Seena imagined the constantly shifting daylight as the gargant moved around was torturous. “We really don't have time to wait. Sooner or later, it's gonna get bored and find something else to kill.” She glanced at the creature and immediately regretted it, turning her eyes back to the dark rear of the store. “It's a miracle it's still here, really.”
“Yeah,” Adam muttered. “A miracle that's trying to kill us.” He holstered his shotgun, a massive thing that looked like it was designed for fighting tanks, but was of little use here. “What are those weaknesses you mentioned?”
Seena thought for a moment before speaking. “If it gets cold enough, it will break itself to pieces.”
He looked thoughtful. “Like ice cold?”
The Dagonite Seena had dragged along barked out a laugh. “More like liquid nitrogen cold.”
Adam rubbed his forehead. “Wonderful. I don't—” The gargant roared again as its thrashings managed to collapse part of the ceiling on its hand. It wouldn't actually hurt it, but it gave the others enough time to join them. “I don't suppose anyone has liquid nitrogen on hand?”
Pam plopped next to Seena casually, seemingly unconcerned about the amount of danger she was in. “Why should we even bother? Let the gargants run wild.”
Everyone stared at her.
She didn't seem to care. “Think about it. The monsters—all the monsters—fill a vital role in the city, by melting away weakness in the crucible of battle. Hell, the screamers are the same way. The weak get killed, and the strong—”
Every single gun in the room was suddenly pointed at her face.
“Stop talking,” Seena said, speaking for everyone. “Right now.”
Pam scowled and looked away, muttering something about how they were all sheep.
Seena lowered the gun slowly and took a deep breath. Damned Kongeegen. This was not the time for Social Darwinism. “Okay, so any chance anyone knows a place nearby that would have something cold enough? Actual liquid nitrogen would be best.”
The green-haired man nodded. “There's a Niflheim outpost down the street. They probably have something.”
“You moron,” the Dagonite said. “There are gargants attacking and you didn't think to mention that there were frost giants nearby?”
The man shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah. I'm not even supposed to know about it. What's the big deal? I didn't realize they could help until now.”
“No use crying over spilled milk,” Adam said, checking his sub-machine gun. “If these guys are anything like an ogre I know, they'll have lots more than just liquid nitrogen on hand. We just need to get there fast enough so that there's something left to save.”
Simon finally spoke up. “We can't all go. Some of us need to keep the iron-lord distracted.”
“I'll go,” Veda said instantly. “I have some friends in the Nifs. I might be able to help.”
“And me, obviously,” Adam added.
Seena nodded. “I'll go too, in case we need nighteyes. That should be enough.”
“Me too,” Jelena volunteered.
“No!” nearly everyone shouted at once.
Jelena glanced around. “Nights, why not?”
Adam, bless his crazy little heart, managed to come up with a plausible lie before awkward silence fell. “Because if they have some lights to knock out vampires, this way we'll only need to carry one back instead of two.” He shrugged. “Of course, you can still come if you want, but we'll probably end up leaving you there.”
Jelena seemed to accept that. Good thing, too. They couldn't have the fey watching through her eyes at a time like this.
“We should hurry,” Veda said, glancing at the gargant in their path. “It's going to pry the roof off sooner or later.”
Adam nodded. “Agreed. Everyone else, hide deeper in the store. There's probably a back exit you can escape through if things get really bad. Let's go. Uh...” He paused. “Green-hair—”
“My name is Eric.”
Adam didn't miss a beat. “You're right behind me. Stay close. The kemo and Seena are next. Everyone good?” We nodded. “Good, let's go.”
Adam led the way, keeping his gun trained on the gargant's searching hand like a pro. The rest of them followed a bit hesitantly. After all, Veda didn't have any weapons, while Eric and Seena only had pistols.
Getting out was easier than Seena expected. Avoiding the hand wasn't too hard, and the shattered storefront meant they didn't have to use one small exit. They just had to slip out the corner when the beast wasn't looking.
The second they were outside, Eric pointed down the street, and the group ran off. Behind them, their friends were still keeping the iron-lord occupied, and farther back the blind-rammer was still rooting around for something or other.
In front of them turned out to be a bigger problem. Although the street was empty since all the civilians had fled, they had left behind haphazardly-parked cars and a few burning wrecks. It would be impossible to get through it all quickly.
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“Always the same,” Adam muttered under his breath. “One day I'll find a disaster where everyone has parked carefully out of the way.”
Seena raised an eyebrow under her daygoggles. “Seen a lot of monster attacks recently?”
He ignored her. “We need to head to the rooftops. It will be faster that way.”
Eric blanched. “I—I'm not good with heights. There's an alley we can—”
Veda snorted impressively. Although it didn't look like it from the outside, her nostrils were enhanced to give her sense of smell a boost, so when she wanted to, she could make a lot of noise. “Use the alleys, when there are fey around? Come on, you know they'll have monsters swarming down there. I'm with the baseline. Let's go up.”
Eric looked around nervously. “Maybe I could just tell you the way, and you could—”
But Seena had had enough of this. People were dying. Acrophobia was the least of their problems right now. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him towards the closest 'scraper built with kemo's handholds. This was kemo territory, so most of them were built to make climbing as easy as possible. None of the group had claws, of course, but they would be able to scramble up. Each handhold was a few inches deep and wide. More than enough.
As Adam holstered his guns, Seena clambered up, going as fast as she could while still being careful. Which was actually pretty fast, despite her inexperience. The handholds made it only a little bit harder than using a ladder.
Even with Eric protesting the entire way up, it didn't take more than ten minutes to go up thirty floors. Adam scanned the empty roof, then nodded.
“Good. I was half expecting an ambush. Eric, which way?”
But Eric was lying near the edge of the roof, gasping. He couldn't hear them.
Veda's furry ears twitched. “You know, maybe it wasn't the best of ideas to drag him up here...”
“Well, too late now,” Adam said. He grabbed Eric by his disheveled collar. “Up and at 'em, buddy. Which way is the outpost?”
Eric raised a trembling arm, pointing farther away from the rampaging gargants. As if on a signal, there was a great roar from behind them. Seena turned to see the iron-lord thrashing in a cloud of dust as more of the 'scraper their friends were hiding in collapsed.
“We don't have much time,” Seena said. “We need to go now.”
“One second,” Adam promised. “Eric, what's the address of the outpost?”
“Th-three seven two one. Should be the second-to-last building on this side of the street. The entire 'scraper is theirs.”
Adam patted him on the shoulder. “That's all we need. Stay put, we'll be back soon.”
If Eric responded, they didn't hear it. Adam bounded off, and it was all Veda and Seena could do to keep up. Not bad for a baseline.
If this wasn't kemo territory, their rooftop flight would have been significantly slower. However, for most of their subcultures running on roofs was only slightly less common than running along the streets, so most buildings were designed to accommodate that. Zip lines, simple bridges... all sorts of nifty little things sped us on their way. Besides, they didn't have all that far to go, really. Five jumps later, they landed on the roof of the second-to-last 'scraper before the street.
Seena glanced at the street address helpfully painted on a small sign near the edge. “This is it. Should we climb down to street level, or just use the stairs?”
Adam thought for a moment. “Stairs. Less chance the fey are watching up here, and the giants probably won't be able to ambush us from this direction. At least, not before we've had a chance to explain ourselves.” He nodded at the stairwell in the middle of the roof, protected by a large metal door. “Can one of you girls pick that?”
Veda sauntered over to the door, removing a lockpick set from her pocket. Seena had left hers at home, so she didn't bother trying to do it herself. The alarm would sound once Veda started, of course, but hopefully they'd still have time to explain themselves before the Nifs started shooting.
“You going to be fine with just that?” Adam asked as they waited. He pointed at Pam's pistol, which Seena had taken with her. “You probably need a higher caliber for giants.”
She shrugged. “Hopefully, we won't need to shoot at all.”
He laughed heartily, then stopped when he noticed she wasn't joining in. “Wait, you're serious?”
She frowned. “Yeah, of course. There's a fey attack nearby, I'm sure the Nifs will see reason.”
He snorted and checked his sub-machine gun. “This is the same city where people were perfectly willing to fight a civil war while a zombie apocalypse dropped on their heads. Somehow, I don't think a couple gargants will be enough to convince these guys we need to work together.”
“We'll find out soon enough,” Veda called. They looked over to see that she had gotten the door open. “They'll be here soon.” She stood to the side, to let them go first. Made sense, since she wasn't armed.
Adam brushed past her, gun raised, with Seena close behind. A few seconds after she entered the stairwell, she heard Veda's feet behind her, and then the door closed.
It was dark enough so that she couldn't see with her daygoggles on. As they exited the stairwell she moved them to her forehead, making it seem like the entire room was lit as bright as day. Her eyes watered a little, and she blinked to clear them, but they slowly adjusted. The room wasn't very big, and was empty except for what looked like the remains of an unmanned barricade oriented towards the stairs they had just exited.
Adam noticed Seena's discomfort. “I can see well enough. You might want to leave the goggles on.”
She shook her head. “No, we'll need the advantage. Besides, I'd be basically blind with them on.”
“I think you're blind enough without them.”
Adam instantly turned his gun on the man who had spoken: A small Mexican boy with angry eyes, nonchalantly standing in the doorway to the next room. It took Seena a second to recognize him.
“Kevin?” she said. She motioned for Adam to lower his gun. He did so grudgingly. “What are you doing here?”
Kevin shrugged as he holstered his Raaze on his hip. “Seemed like a good spot to hide. You?”
“Looking for something to stop those gargants outside.”
“Isn't there a gun shop nearby?” a friendly voice from behind Kevin said. The smaller man stepped aside, and Steve walked through the doorway. Seena's brain did a double take. What was he doing here? Was he a giant? He was almost big enough, but she had always assumed he was baseline.
Veda answered. “It's a blind-rammer and an iron-lord. It's gonna take a bit more than a couple god slayers.”
Steve frowned. Seena thought it was the first time she hadn't seen him smiling. “Blind-rammer... those are the gargant trackers, right? They hunt something down by scent? What are they looking for?”
Seena shrugged, which seemed to be enough of an answer for him. Who knew what the fey ever wanted?
“It's not important,” Adam said decisively. “We need to talk to whoever is in charge of this outpost. Get something that can kill the iron-lord, at least.”
Kevin nodded. “Fair enough. I know the Colossus in charge, I'll take you to him.” He headed back to the stairwell they had just exited and disappeared downstairs.
Seena was almost too surprised to follow. He knew the local warlord? It really seemed more logical to assume Steve.
Steve seemed to understand her confusion. As he walked over to the stairs, he shrugged, giving her a silly little grin. “Don't look at me. I just followed him here. I don't know anything about the place.”
Seena shook her head and followed the rest of the group down. There would be time for all that later.
Kevin led them down to the third floor from the bottom, where the Nifs seemed to have decided to make their stand. Seena had to put her daygoggles back on because of the light, but that was about the only problem. The giants parted to let them through, apparently trusting Kevin wasn't leading enemies into their base.
There weren't that many, maybe half a dozen. But all the giants were bare chested and heavily armed with weapons that looked too big for Seena to even lift. At first she was a bit surprised by their choice of clothing—or lack thereof—but then she noticed them sweating and realized what it was.
Nifs liked cold weather, and usually kept their bases at around freezing. However, this outpost had apparently been a secret, so they were forced to keep everything at normal temperature to avoid arousing suspicion. The cool room must have felt like a sauna to them.
Kevin glanced around, frowning. “Where's Eva?” he asked. “I need to talk to her about something.” He didn't seem to notice how much he was dwarfed by the giants.
The biggest one, a bearded man almost nine feet tall, shrugged and rested his shotgun on his shoulder. At least Seena thought it was a shotgun. It was big enough to be mistaken for a missile launcher. “She left the second the gargants attacked. Said she wasn't going to let them kill people.”
Kevin cursed under his breath. “Titan's testes. Of course she did. And why didn't she bring the rest of you? She couldn't believe she'd have a chance on her own.”
“She thought a half-dozen Nifs appearing in the middle of kemo territory would be suspicious.”
Seena frowned. “Makes sense. Whose domain is this, anyway?” While some of the domains were permanent, such as the skyscrapers belonging to the vampires or angels, most of them were fluid, and changed every few weeks as the subcultures gained and lost territory. This area was generally kemo, but other than that I didn't pay attention to who was in charge.
“Canes,” Kevin said. “Since a couple weeks ago.” He shrugged. “It's actually been pretty quiet over here. Nothing really worth fighting for, not with the screamers distracting everyone.”
Adam rubbed his forehead. “The politics and so on are interesting—really, they are—but we need weapons. You got some kind of...” He wiggled his hand back and forth. “Liquid nitrogen... thing?”
The giant snorted. “I wish. Nothing but basic air conditioning, and that died during the last attack. We do have some rocket launchers, but those aren't gonna be enough.”
Veda scratched her chin. “Maybe... depending on what kind of air conditioning setup you have, I might be able to rig something...”
Adam glanced at her in surprise. “Really? You can do that?”
Veda rolled her eyes. “Don't act so surprised. You don't know anything about me. I'm majoring in Military Engineering, and my main class this semester is Scavenging and Repair. If the air conditioner isn't enough, I'll build you a nuke out of a few sticks of gum.”
Adam took the joke in stride. “No nukes, please. We're trying to save the area, not level the entire city.” He nodded to the giant who had been speaking. “Honored Titan, please, show my friend to your air conditioner.”
The titan signaled to one of his men, who gently pulled Veda in the direction of the stairs. As they started going up, she turned back. “I'll also need some tools and those rocket launchers, if anyone wants me to do anything useful.”
Adam glanced at the titan, who nodded. He turned back to Veda. “It will be up in a minute. Just do your best.”
Veda grinned. “My best? Of course not. You already said no nukes.”