Jack opened his eyes and the Pod’s lid hissed open. He tentatively stretched then again, more fully this time as he realized his limbs were no longer locked in. He climbed out of the Pod gingerly, his body felt good but… odd. He stretched his jaw, it felt full.
A squirt of crimson spit inadvertently shot out and landed on the table, it hissed as it melted through it and started its work on the floor. He bent down into a squat then stretched up with both hands, he twisted at the waist, he tested his body’s feel.
He felt a little awkward, like his Body had become… different. Bigger maybe. He felt more solid too, stronger, he gripped both hands into fists. He was a bit surprised to see his Gauntlet, he had kind of forgotten that he was even wearing it. Jack turned and withdrew the AI disk.
“Are you quite done trying to show off?”
The Trash SI chimed in, “In case your brain got scrambled in there, it’s a Death Cult not a nudist colony.”
Jack looked up, the two had been staring at him for he didn’t know how long, he looked down at his naked body, “Didn’t even notice.” The Trash SI tried to laser his groin but he was used to its sneak attacks by now.
“Quiet Trash,” Jack ran forward and kicked the head and watched it bounce and spin around the room.
“Took you long enough, I had to deal with this insane thing the whole time, what did you do in there?”
“Upgraded my Constitution Tier.”
“About time, so you won’t be dying on me again? Thank the ship I won’t have to carry you anymore.”
“Well, it’s still a long way to the Bridge, plenty of time to die.”
“Good observation Jack, very on-key for Death-Cult messiah.”
Jack gave Jonah an eye at that, “Hey Trash-SI, do you have any clothes here?”
“It’s Waste-SI you trash!” Jack went to protect his groin but he miscalled it as the beam cut a fairly deep furrow through his tricep. A burst of sparking electricity started to visibly close the wound.
“What use do you think a bodiless SI would have for clothes? Stupid question.”
Jack picked up the SI head, “Get the Skull.”
He shoved the SI into the Skull and placed it on his shoulder. It stabilized itself with its pseudo crab-legs as they bit painfully into his shoulder. As he walked to the door it screamed in his ear, “We better kill some crabs filth!”
A small grin came to Jack’s face as a tiny trickle of electricity repaired his nearly burst eardrum. Whatever else, at least this SI seemed to hate crabs as much as he did.
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Jack opened the door and Rattigan was waiting immediately outside of it, an almost sheepish look on his face. “Hear anything interesting there Rattigan?”
The Rat bowed and extended both of his hands, in them was a sword, black and wicked looking. Its handle was exquisitely crafted. Bands of tanned flesh and pieces of crab chitin alternated to create a solid-feeling grip. Jack took it out of Rattigan’s hands and looked closer at the blade itself.
The blade was a deep reflectionless black that curved in a slight crescent before it curved upward again with a slight angle backward and possessing a jagged, mean-looking edge. He tested it with his thumb and it drew blood just from the brief contact. Jack wiped the blood up and down the edge.
Time to turn back on the crazy. He wanted to sigh but crazy wouldn’t have sighed right at that moment, so he didn’t.
“Well done Rattigan.” He studied the ManRat now, its flesh was swollen and it seemed somewhat unsteady on its hind paws. “Enjoying my Blessing?”
“Yes, Honored BlackJack, I feel death grow inside me.”
Jack carved out a chunk of muscle from his bicep and held it out to the Death Champion, “You have eaten my blood which is death, now eat my flesh. We approach the End of Time, Death Champion.”
Rattigan hesitated, clearly the blood was an unpleasant experience the rat was still trying to process. The Skull Seer nodded awkwardly from its perch on Jack’s shoulder, “Eat it Rattigan.”
The ManRat quickly chewed and swallowed as Jack spent more electricity to regrow the muscle. It was costly but there was a method to his madness, ideally the mycelial growth that strengthened, and was interwoven through, Jack’s muscles would counteract the viral effects the rat was suffering from. He probably should have done that before he entered the Pod but it still should have some effect, hopefully.
Either way the Head Cultist had to die, Jack was sure about that. His brief spar with Rattigan could have gone either way, the Rat was dangerous but his blood was also weakening the Rat too quickly. They still had hybrids to fight.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Jonah’s brief moment of pleasure at seeing Jack annoyed with his nickname had dissipated in the face of several long hours of dealing with the Trash-SI, followed by a front row seat to naked calisthenics and finally having to witness Jack feed the ManRat his flesh. He hadn’t even known precisely how long he had been dodging that stupid SI since his portable was gone and his goggles.
“Take me to the War Room Rattigan. Also I need clothes.”
On top of that he wasn’t entirely sure that Jack hadn’t lost it again. Feeding the Rat his muscle tissue? He seemed to fit in the role of insane Rat Death messiah a bit too well.
Well, maybe he was just fitting in. Jonah thought that it might be wise to do that himself. A bit at least.
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Just before he entered the War Room, a ManRat had scurried up and presented some items of clothing to Jack. It was a black jumpsuit, all buckles, pockets, and random scraps of material hanging off of it. He looked like how he pictured a hobo did. It had a giant piece of black metal sculpted in the rough shape of a skull that went over his chest and shoulder pauldrons that were in the shape of skulls as well, but at least those prevented the SI’s little crab claws from digging into his shoulder flesh.
There were a lot of skulls now that he was looking at it closer. He sliced off the right forearm sleeve to accommodate his gauntlet and the other one had a solid bar of the same black metal of his cocoon. The whole thing looked to be an overly complicated mess but it was still probably better than running around naked.
The ‘War Room’ could barely be called that, its primary feature was a large map that dominated the far wall and all the rat-sized seats and platforms formed a semi-circle around it. Jack steadily walked through the room as ManRats and rats scrambled to get out of his way.
Jack looked at the map of the Waste Disposal section. Even without knowing the measurements or scale of the map he could tell it was huge. Truly massive. There was a light black, almost gray, shading over massive swathes of it, those were apparently crab-infested sections and a red shading that represented the Rat-line. The Crabs had the entirety of the Cryo section and two large pockets near the bottom by the Engine Department. The Cryo-Door was somewhat across from them, on the left side near the bottom-middle of the map and it was surrounded by black-gray shading, it was deep in the Crab’s territory.
The smaller crab zones around the ‘Engine Department’ had arrows that moved toward the red ‘rat’ shaded positions. The Cargo Bay directly north of their position had some sort of obfuscating effect on it and was heavily shaded in a dull dark gray. Apparently that was the domain of the ‘dark ones’. They really needed more colors than shades of black and, from what he assumed, was red coloring made from blood.
The entire top of the map, where Jack had been expecting to see the Bridge section, was shaded in near complete black. He asked about that section but the ‘Commander’ Rats that were around him shook their heads, no Rat had ever returned from that far North, not for a very very long time.
In his questions Jack found out that it was not regarded as ‘death’ but as ‘oblivion’. He was still tempted to check it out but that was if he had the opportunity to get that far up.
He finally found his goal, it had taken him a moment as they spelled ‘Arcology’ as “Arkhology’. Then he found his target, the Arkhology Door and when he saw where it was marked, he didn’t think it was going to be a clean escape. It was also uncomfortably close to the ‘oblivion zone’ in the far North.
He could punch through to the CryoDoor then swing north to the ArkDoor, that might work. They’d be neck deep in crabs at that point but he was thinking that the Rats could keep them busy while his group absconded north.
The unknowns brought further considerations however. How many crabs would still be up that way? Would they all come down to the CryoDoor? Maybe he could start a large enough battle there to bring together a nice big apocalyptic battle and get it over with. Or if it went badly he could escape during the chaos. Their force would be pincered by both the crabs in the south and the crabs in the north. It would mean that he'd had even less time to make it to the ArkDoor
The question was how to get a battle big enough to create that chaos and could the three of them and the SI make it through however many crabs still remained north? It kept coming back to the same question, how many crabs were there? He asked, there were apparently nearly the same amounts of Rats and crabs. The Rats had once outnumbered the crabs but their first big battle had changed that.
The Rats had been in one pitched battle against the crabs when they first reappeared but that had been a massacre with the addition of the hybrid’s power. If he left the Rats to the battle would they lose? Likely. Would the crabs follow him through the entire ship after killing the Rats? He might need the Rat support and he might need to give the Rats support. All of these factors entered and collated themselves in his mind as it whirled and calculated.
Jack looked around to get some input and he started with the Rats. The answers were predictable. Now that they had their messiah they 'knew' defeat was impossible. Besides, death held no meaning to them. No, for better or worse, it held a positive meaning to them.
Time to get some Human perspective. He saw Jonah with a grumpy look on his face but no Leanne, ship-damn it, where was Leanne?
“Where’s Leanne?”
Jonah shook his head, “She was tracking Tule, remember?”
Jack didn’t really remember but he nodded slightly anyways, “Of course, she isn’t back yet though? Have any of your Rats seen her?” The last part was directed at Rattigan who… was already looking significantly better. That was… concerningly quick.
Rattigan bowed slightly, “These ones have not located honored companion, BlackJack. Possibility that she was captured or deep in crab territory.”
“Where are the abominations located?” Jack figured that word would work with this crowd for describing the hybrids. It did.
The rats collectively shook their heads, “Apologies BlackJack the ‘cursed three’ frequently move their positions.”
Jack turned to Jonah, “You said something about being able to track Leanne, correct?”
“If I had my portable.”
“Someone bring my companion-in-death to…”
Jonah eyed him at ‘companion-in-death’ but Jack ignored that. If he was going to be a doomed messiah then Jonah could share that fate right alongside him.
“If there is electronic scrap I should be able to rebuild something that can pick up the signal. With the tunnels’ makeup it’s impossible to predict how close we will have to be though.”
Jack nodded and a ManRat left with Jonah in tow. He turned back to the map. That changed the math completely, and not in a good way. Dammit Leanne.
He was tempted to leave her but he still did owe her one for bailing him out in the BioPrison. As well, if the Clan was still alive he might need their help further on and coming back with Leanne alive would be a huge positive. Again, if they were still alive themselves. As his eyes flashed back and forth over the map, it was quickly becoming clear that there was only one course of action that he settled on again and again.