The elevator doors closed, sealing O’Neil and twelve other vault dwellers inside. They were armed with the first addition of modified weapons: stun batons which sparkled like a white flares, tasers which emitted bursts of static electricity, riot gear armour, shields and four assault rifles. O’Neil himself was armed with the first of the shock rifles which the mechanics had inspected for combat readiness, another of his men was armed with the second. That left one more in the workshop. Clara supposed they’d be the strongest thing they had against the shadow demon.
O’Neil’s face was stern. He gave Clara a curt nod as the doors pressed together in their centre, and the elevator shaft ran down.
In the workshop, Gary was deciding on who would make the cut for his combat teams. Not many of the survivors inspired much confidence in Clara, but their task was the easiest: guard the Admin Sec elevator shaft up to the surface and protect the civilians already rescued. Meanwhile, the engineers had spread their work across three worktops, dividing tasks amongst those who could help, creating a bootleg factory-line production of the modified shock weapons.
As Clara walked amongst them, her attention was stolen by Andy. He was flitting around the workshop, grabbing bits and bobs for the little project he was working on, talking animatedly with Gabriel over the radio. The communication line was intended for the mechanics, not him, but Clara knew better than to interrupt his flow. Perhaps he was onto something with those flammable canisters. Fishing through duffel bags of gear taken from the security stations above, Clara replaced the radio which Andy had taken, tuning it to the specific channel and placing it on the central worktop.
“-constant flame. I don’t want spurts.” Andy’s voice buzzed over the radio, echoing four-seconds later from where he stood across the workshop. “What should I fix it to?”
“Have you seen anything with a trigger?” Gabriel said over the channel. “A power washer, or a paint gun?”
“A paint gun…”
“More from low-sec,” someone shouted behind her. Clara excited the workshop into the adjoining tunnel, and watched as four bloodied and beaten survivors excited the elevator. Clara helped carry an elderly woman into the workshop, where others attended to them. The old woman’s grey hair was plastered with blood, one eye was swollen shut. She wobbled and swayed, mouth agape. Clara’s hand lingered on her shoulder, feeling the warmth of her body in her palm. A cold thought occurred to her: she doubted the old woman would make it out alive.
“Erm, Clara.” Gabriel’s voice pressed against her stupor.
Clara turned away from the survivors and lifted the radio tiredly to her ear. “Copy.”
“There’s a problem. My cameras went out. There’s only a few remaining in Habitation Sector, and none of them have a clear sight of the elevator.”
“Did you see anything before the camera cut off?”
“Flashing lights.”
Clara unclipped her second radio which she’d pilfered from the security stocks and radioed O’Neil. “What’s your situation?” The feed was quiet. Clara checked the radio’s dials, then realised they weren’t set to the channel she had thought. Perhaps they’d gotten knocked? What channel had they agreed on? Clara froze, then checked each of the handsets nine local channels one at a time, asking the question and waiting ten seconds for a response.
“-kill it but the flashlights aren’t enough.” O’Neil’s shouted down the feed, his voice punctuated by the sound of gunfire.
“Repeat that.”
“The thing’s evolving. We’re killing it how we can. More people heading your way.”
“Evolving how?” Clara asked, waiting by the elevator. When no response came, she transferred to her other radio and pressed the transmission button, but found she had nothing specific to ask Gabriel. Releasing the button, she stood in the tunnel, looking through the window into the workshop, listening to the muted sounds within. She watched people’s mouths moving, but due to the tight seal on the doors and windows, only a murmur reached her ears. A vent hummed quietly above her head, blowing cold air down her neck. Clara adjusted her ponytail underneath her cap, making sure her fringe was all tied up, and retied the laces on her boot. She remained kneeling, listening to her own breath. She could feel the two men posted outside the elevator staring at her, but she didn’t care. Her heart sank. Suddenly, she felt out of it, like none of this was real. Not exactly like a memory or a dream, just not real. It was as though she could see herself kneeling on that vault floor, shotgun slung over her shoulder beside her backpack.
She thought about turning her hand over, and a second later, it obeyed her. There was grime under her fingernails and in the cracks on her palm. Calluses blotched her pale skin. A white scar cut through the flesh connecting her thumb and forefinger where she had cut herself with a knife trying to open a can of food years ago. Closing her fist, she compressed the energy within her palm. Glowing yellow light seeped through her fingers, hot like a stone plucked from a campfire. She felt the energy throng throughout her body, exciting the branches of her nervous system, breathing light into the recesses of her body. Clara closed her eyes again, clenching the light. She could do this. She could help them. She and Andy could make it out alive. They had to try.
The elevator door opened before her. Clara jumped up, ready to help carry the injured out. A young girl wailed over her mothers’ shoulder. The child’s face was twisted with such ruin of grief that Clara had not seen since the days of the cataclysm. “Daddy,” she screamed, over and over again, as her mother carried her into the workshop. Clara let them go, watching the doors close behind her, cutting the little girl's screams off, sealing them on the other side.
“I’ve spotted something in Life Support Sector.” Clara heard Gabriel’s voice distant over the radio. “People are moving into the stairwell.”
“How many?” Clara asked.
“It’s hard to see. I’ve adjusted the video’s exposure, but I can’t spot any details.”
“Rough numbers?”
“Five? Six?”
Clara switched radios, opening the channel to O’Neil. “You’ve got some people coming from Life Support Sector below, taking the stairs.”
Her radio crackled twice, conveying a confused smatter of sounds, like gravel being poured onto glass. The third time, O’Neil’s voice cut through the static. “Affirmative.”
The workshop doors activated with a hiss, opening the floodgates on distress within. Gary approached her, his expression the same diluted shock as before. “We’re ready.”
“Are the weapon mods done?”
Gary nodded mutely.
“You know your mission, right?”
He nodded again.
“What is it?”
Gary looked around, then pointed over his shoulder. “Escort them upstairs.”
“And guard the elevator,” Clara confirmed. She wondered if she had made the right choice in reinforcing Gary’s self-imposed leadership. Clearly, he was in over his head. But it was too late for that now. Clara glanced at his troupe through the window. Six men were dressed in riot-grade armour, bearing the modified batons and tasers. More beside them held flashlights, flares, and even laser pointers, for what good they might do. But at least they were armed. Gary and two others bore assault rifles. Among them was the young man with a blonde moustache, now splattered with crimson where Andy had headbutted him and broken his nose. The arch between his eyes had swelled purple, but it was minor injury compared to what some of the civilians had faced.
“Okay,” Clara said. “We’ll see you up there soon. Keep the radio active, channel four. Update me if anything changes.”
“Yeah,” Gary said, setting off towards the short elevator shaft which led upwards to the security stations in Admin Sec. The civilians gathered in the workshop trailed after him, carrying their injured, and their melancholy, with them. Within a minute, the room was quiet again. Clara re-entered the workshop and watched the engineers at work. One of them soldered hasty modifications onto the shock rifle while another fiddled with the electronics on a taser. Andy had stolen the third mechanic away to help him work on his own little project with the hazardous canister.
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Clara’s radio with O’Neil buzzed, but no one spoke. “Come in?” she said, looking around the room, waiting for a response. At the workbenches, a handful of vault dwellers remained, including the three revolutionary soldiers Clara had instructed to help earlier. They had since relinquished their assault rifles to members of the assault teams, and had busied themselves with jamming screwdrivers under protective casings, breaking safety seals, sorting through parts and gathering battery packs from non-dangerous devices. Two more men were on standby beside the main elevator shaft, however they were not yet armed with any of the modified weaponry. Everything had so far been given to the two teams on Level One and Three. Their floor was the last to receive arms, they were scavenging from the leftovers.
The radio buzzed again. Unlatching her radio with Gabriel, she asked, “What’s the situation downstairs?”
“I can see people in the middle of the room. They’ve moved through a canteen area. They’re shooting at things. I can’t see what, it’s too dark and blurry. They’re heading inside a small building. The cameras inside are labelled kitchens.”
“And the elevator?”
“There are flashes of light. Still not a good camera feed on it.”
“O’Neil, what’s your situation?” Clara said into the second radio. “Do you need relief?”
There was no response. Clara waited for three breaths, then approached Andy. “You ready to rock?”
“Yeah, give me a minute,” he said, turning to the mechanic. “Jam it in there.”
“Can it wait?” Clara said. “I think that shock rifle is ready to use.”
“Trust me, it won’t be as cool as this.”
Clara looked at the device they were working on. Strapped to Andy’s rucksack was a battery pack, from which a thick cable ran to a trigger activated welding torch. A snub-nosed spray gun intended for paint had been jury rigged with one of the flammable canisters Andy had found, tied together with duct-tape. “At least the shock rifle will work.”
“Have ye no faith?” Andy said.
The doors to the workshop opened. One of the men positioned in the tunnel outside called into the room. “More people coming.”
Clara strode over to the elevator, a sudden spike of anxiety fluttering her breath. Monsters and demons, she could handle any day, but seeing this much suffering was starting to take its toll. She took a deep breath. The elevator pinged.
The doors began to open, but the lights inside the chamber were dark. Suddenly, the bulbs above her head burst. The doors jammed half-open. The two men posted outside scrambled for the light. Clara’s radio buzzed, but all of her attention was focussed on the shape shifting inside the elevator. A bloated hand grasped the doorway and wrenched it open. Sharp bones jutted out of its fingertips like snapped branches. Black scar tissue pitted the skin of its arm, like a tattoo depicting a human-like face. Two black oval eyes, nostrils, and a gaping hole for a mouth stretched tight over bruised purple flesh, from which protruded a swollen black tongue.
Clara flung her shotgun around and started blasting. She emptied eight shells into the elevator while backing up. Each shot lit the chamber with a spasm of light, revealing a swollen abomination recoiling inside the pit. Once emptied, Clara reached for her sidearm, but found her holster empty once again. Clara stood her ground and gazed inside the elevator. The monster had shrank beneath her volley of fire. Black gore spattered the walls around the entryway. A thick, wet limb flopped onto the floor, inhumanly long and grotesquely misshapen. Streams of black shadow spiralled up its length, swimming in the darkness of the elevator chamber. Suddenly, it lurched forward, more limbs grasping at the ceiling and walls, climbing into the vault tunnel after her.
“‘Scuse me,” Andy said, stepping past her. The air filled with the smell of fuel as he sprayed the abomination with a stream of liquid, then lit the welding torch. Flames spread through the liquid stream, wreathing the monster in fire. It writhed, limbs flailing in the crackling heat, smoke filtering into the vents overhead. Andy chuckled, his voice rising and echoing over the inferno.
Clara began to reload her shotgun out of habit, then remembered her Augmention’s abilities. Clenching her fist, she grasped a dense electrical charge, the first step in activating her Thunderclap ability. But she had no intention of discharging it like a flashbang. What she needed was a grenade. Condensing the energy until she could barely hold it, Clara envisioned a powerful epicentre to the orb with a large pressurised aura around it. She wanted the neutral aura to act almost as a fuse, containing the energy at its centre just long enough that the orb could be thrown towards her target. Interlocking her fingers, she clenched her hands, pressing the charge into her stomach, tensing her biceps against the strain. Andy cackled like a madman beside her, drenching the monster in flames. Smoke filled the tunnel, obscuring her view, but she could sense it looming behind the veil. Whether the darkness of shadow touched, it grew in strength.
Bracing herself, Clara launched her orb towards the abomination. It lanced through the air like a missile, sinking beneath the demon’s malformed flesh, then exploded in a brilliant flash of light. A rain of half-cooked flesh pattered like rainfall as the beast thumped to the floor. Its long misshapen limbs twitched then went limp. Smoke stung her eyes. Clara crouched and prepared another Thunderclap grenade, but the demon was still. Vents in the ceiling activated, sucking the smoke out of the room. Clara felt her heart race. She licked her lips. “That’s not a shadow.”
“You’ve always got to one-up me,” Andy said. He hooked the blowtorch onto his belt and drew his revolver, nudging one of the thing’s limbs with his boot. “Pretty, huh?”
“What is that thing?” Clara shook herself. She was starting to sound like the vault dwellers. Activating her radio, she tried to contact O’Neil, but the channel was dead. “Did you see that”? she asked Gabriel on the other radio.
“I did. Is it dead?”
“Are there more of them?” Clara asked. “Check the video feeds. Tell me if there’s more. Wait, where did this one come from? Habitation Sec?”
“I… How…” he stammered. “I don’t know. It’s dark down there.”
“Are there any survivors? Are there any lights on?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “There’s still at least one team fighting down there. Some lights are on in the gym and dorm rooms. There’s pockets of survivors, it seems. I only have access to five-percent of the cameras now.”
“We need to get down there,” Clara said. “Finish the evacuation.” Taking one last look at the smoking mess, Clara entered the workshop. Surprisingly, none of the survivors had fled. The three vault dwellers armed with assault rifles had been standing beside the window, watching the fight. She was grateful for their timidity–had they jumped in, they may have caught Andy and her in the crossfire. The engineers huddled behind one of the workbenches. One of the men clutched the shock rifle in his hands, jaw clenched shut. Everyone looked at Clara, waiting for her to say something.
“Who has family down there?” she asked.
The vault dwellers each responded mutely, nodding their heads.
“Arm yourselves. You.” She pointed at the engineer wielding the shock rifle. “Know how to use that?”
“I think so.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then stick by my side. Take point. Don’t fire it if anyone is standing in front of you. The rest of you, take the rear. We’re going down there to hold the elevator exit and get everyone else out.”
Her audience looked at one another, their expressions gaunt. “There’s people waiting for us to rescue them.” Clara clapped her hands. “Snap to.”
Is this a bad time to interrupt? The voice chimed inside her head. At first, Clara thought it had come from her radio, but then recognised the tone and remembered her artificial intelligence implant.
Turning her back to the room, under her breath she said “Go ahead.”
It seems you have quickly mastered the Thunderclap ability and developed its effects beyond its original parameters. I have been developing a programme alongside your experimentation, classification: Thunderlance. The programme is incomplete. Please continue to experiment with this ability, so that I can gather data and refine the code.
“Okay. What happens once you’ve finished?”
The Thunderlance ability will operate more optimally, with a reduction in charge time and increase in energy efficiency. However, this will require a recalibration at an Augmentation Master Console in order to install.
“Noted.”
Furthermore, recalibrate to avoid the change of DNA corruption.
Clara snorted. “Not worried about that right now.”
Chance of DNA corruption currently at one-percent.
“Alright,” Clara shook her head. “Be quiet.” She was starting to see how the AI voices always bugged Andy. Stepping out into the adjoining tunnel, she watched as Andy trounced about the fleshy wreck of the abomination, nudging its limbs with his boot, inspecting its corpse. It seemed to have a definable torso–a centre to its mass from which its limbs sprouted–currently lodged between the elevator doors, blocking their passage.
Picking her way through the wreckage Andy’s flamethrower and her Thudnerlance had caused, she flicked her wrist terminal onto the scanner which James had installed, and waved it around the elevator’s gory interior. “It’s not radiated,” she read. “That’s a relief. Ready to kill some more?”
“Sure, I think the elevator’s bust though.”
“There’s another elevator at the opposite end of Hydroponics,” Clara said, revising what O’Niel had informed her of the vault’s layout. “It leads to a kitchen area in Hab. We’ll use that to help evacuate the assault team, and anyone else we can.”
“You know what, I should never have doubted you.” Andy’s black fringe covered his chalk-white face, but Clara caught an evil grin beneath the veil. “This is fun.”