Harry and Kane spent the rest of the week training, as well as being visited by all their friends and family, except Amy, who was nine months pregnant now and ready to pop any day. Harry had managed to convince Kane to let him come on his next scavenging trip. At first Kane was hesitant, but the training over the last few days had proven that Harry was an extremely capable young man. He was barely a year younger than Kane had been when he joined the military, after all. Kane had a date with Rebecca at her place tonight, and a meeting with Mitchell tomorrow, but hopefully the next day, he could get resupplied and get Harry kitted up and in the system before they left on the scavenging run.
Kane and Harry had grown closer than ever before in the last few days, and Kane was actually looking forward to teaching Harry how to track and hunt. Meanwhile, they had both cleaned up and gotten back into their old routines. Kane had finally fixed his beard. He had decided not to go clean shaven anymore and was currently sporting a full goatee shot through with bolts of grey. Rebecca loved the fresh look and was excited to see him tonight. They were like teenagers again, and it saddened him to realize how much Miranda and he had grown apart due to her addiction leading up to her sudden death.
He got out of the shower and was getting dressed for his date with Rebecca when the doorbell rang.
“Harry! Can you get the door?” Kane called down the stairs.
He heard the door open, followed by excited muffled voices.
“Dad! The baby is coming!” Harry called.
Kane dropped the blazer he was looking at and darted down the stairs. He made it to the bottom to see Harry jumping up and down, trying to put on his shoes. Bill stood there stooped over so that his head did not hit the entryway chandelier, a big grin on his face, and he gestured for him to hustle. “Let’s go, Kane, hurry up!”
Harry finally got his shoes on while Kane scribbled a quick note and left it on the door for Rebecca. Though he knew she would understand, he still felt a twinge of guilt, but it couldn’t be helped. They rushed to the hospital then, dodging and weaving through traffic like madmen. When they finally arrived, Amy was already in the birthing room, so they sat out in the waiting room, trying to ignore the moans and cries. After a drink run an hour later, the desperate vocalizations reached a crescendo. Moments later, they heard the beautiful sound of a baby crying. Then the after-birth hustle and bustle began, and Sven peeked out with a broad grin on his face to give them a thumbs up.
“It’s a girl!” he said as he handed them pink cigars.
They all cheered, and Sven disappeared back into the birthing room. The others left the waiting room to go stalk the viewing room until they could catch a glance of the new baby girl. Twenty minutes later, the nurses laid the dolphin-grey-skinned newborn in her warming crib. Kane noticed the rich chocolate-colored hair that the baby had gotten from her father, curled adorably in thick locks on her head. They oohed and ahhed ridiculously for a few minutes, and the other people waiting there became a little less frightened of the three menacing men standing at the window.
Finally, they went back to the waiting room and got to visit with and congratulate the new parents for a few minutes before the nurse came in and said it was time to move them to another room. Visiting hours were almost over, so they all hugged and kissed the baby and her parents goodbye.
“Before we go though, I almost forgot: what’s the baby’s name?” Harry asked as they moved towards the door.
Amy looked at Sven, and he nodded with a sad smile. With tears in her eyes, she looked at Kane and then Harry. “Miranda,” she whispered.
Harry and Kane cried the whole way home.
. . . . .
Kane and Harry pulled into the scavenger compound at nine in the morning the next day for their meeting with Mitchell. Once they got the vehicle parked, they headed towards Mitchell’s office. Kane nodded at the people they passed, noting that he and Harry left a line of whispered questions in their wake. There was a lot of mystery surrounding Kane’s absence, but the animosity he sensed from his fellow scavengers did not make any sense to him.
Kane knocked on Mitchell’s door, but there was no answer, so he and Harry sat down in the chairs outside the office and waited.
The stares and glares grew in intensity as they sat there, and just as Kane was about to lose his temper, Mitchell appeared and greeted them cheerfully. They entered the office, and at once the smile vanished from Mitchell’s face as he looked at Kane somberly.
“Now that you are officially back from leave and back on duty, we have lots to discuss. I went through your vehicle after I parked it in the compound. I saw the rabbit and squirrel in the back seat and wanted to get you paid.”
Kane’s heart sank; he believed he knew what was coming next.
“The white rabbit was your greatest find yet. I knew you would get at least fifty thousand for it, and I was incredibly happy for you. You did receive a few grand for the squirrel. But the rabbit was tagged with an isotope as property of the Bronx Quarantine Zone. The fallout from that discovery nearly cost me my job, and if you had stayed on leave for even a week longer, they would have broken your door down and dragged you to prison.
“I spoke to the president directly and told him that I know you’re not a poacher, but I could not explain how you had caught the rabbit. He agreed to let you stay out of jail, on one condition: you have to go into the BQZ and tell your story to the lead scientist in charge there, Dr. Angelino. She is a geneticist at the lab there and is also head of research and development for Newmerica. She used to be Thomas’s boss, until things got weird before the quarantine and he went the botanist route. That’s also why you might have noticed some malcontent aimed in your direction out there. They think you have been poaching all of the animals you have bought in”
Kane nodded and released the breath he had been holding. This wasn’t so bad. Maybe the president did not hate him after all. “I can do that. It won’t be too hard, and I’ll be driving right by there on my first run with Harry. Speaking of which, I want to get him signed on as an apprentice and get him kitted out officially.”
Mitchell beamed so hard that it looked like it hurt. “You’re letting him out of the basement for good? Why aren’t you concerned anymore?”
Kane realized that he had not filled Mitchell in on any of the recent developments. He hit the highlights as Mitchell’s eyes grew wide in shock.
“So you can steal other people’s mutations? How is that even possible?” Mitchell asked.
“I don’t think I can take just anyone’s. I think it’s just unusual circumstances with Harry.”
Mitchell nodded and removed a paper and five tokens from his drawer. “Fill this out, then go pick out your weapons and gear.”
Harry spent the next two hours trying out blades and guns. After much deliberation, he chose to spend one token on two Tecpatl push daggers, two tokens on two Khopesh swords, and the remaining two tokens on a Remington 700 CP. It had been modified heavily to fire semiauto .308 and looked like the bastard child of a pistol and a rifle. He and Kane spent a while arranging the sheaths and slings into a configuration that kept all of them accessible.
Harry practiced drawing all four blades for a few minutes, and a group of spectators began to grow around the menacing sight Harry portrayed. With the two daggers in his lower hands and the two swords in his upper hands, he spun through a series of movements Kane taught him that he had learned from his Rinzai Master, Daito. The gasps and whispers that followed made the scales on Harry’s face turn crimson, and his form faltered as he came to a sudden stop. Kane picked through a few of the conversations he could hear and had to agree with them: his son would decimate the competition in the combat arenas.
Satisfied with Harry’s selections, Kane nodded to his son. They turned from the practice area, and a path opened up through the spectators as they began to disperse. A few scornful looks were still shot in Kane’s direction, but he paid them no mind as they exited the compound and got in the SUV.
After a quick stop at Rebecca’s on the way out to apologize and reschedule their date for that weekend, Harry and Kane got back on the road and headed towards the BQZ. They mostly talked about nonsensical things and shared their excitement over Harry’s new cousin as the miles disappeared behind them.
Although one could see the wall around the BQZ for miles as it stretched from 95 all the way north to the city limits, it still disappeared behind all the buildings. On the east side of the BQZ was the prison, where the city threw all its convicted criminals, many of which eventually went full mutant. The monthly purge eliminated some of them, but sometimes the hordes inside got quite large. West of the Bronx River Parkway through the quarantine zone was the Zoo. The original zoo had merged with the botanical gardens, and eventually with Von Cortlandt Park as well. Dr. Angelino’s lab was located in what used to be Fordham University, where the entire campus now housed her and her colleagues so they could study all the beasts day and night. Dr. Angelino had many titles and degrees and the grudging respect of every scientific mind in the city.
They made it through the first check point. The walls along the parkway always made Kane feel like they were falling in on him as they loomed up on either side. As he got off at Fordham Road, the razor wire fences surrounding the exit were patrolled by over a dozen guards on the ground, as this was the only exit from the prison and the only entrance to the Zoo. When he drove up to the guard station, he saw that all the guards had their weapons trained on him and Harry. Kane grit his teeth in frustration, but he knew it was necessary, even if he did not like it.
One of the guards approached the vehicle, and Kane rolled down the window.
“Show me your hands, sir,” the guard said slowly.
Kane put his hands on the steering wheel and told Harry to put his on the dash. Lowering his weapon, the guard swiftly glanced around the vehicle and the back seat. “I need to see your license,” he continued once he was satisfied. Kane slowly withdrew his scavenger license from his wallet and handed it to the guard. “Kane Blackburn. The doc is expecting you in the Zoo,” the guard said, with an almost imperceptible grin that set Kane’s teeth on edge. He handed Kane back his license and waved him through. The other guards never stopped following them with their rifles.
Kane let the tension flow out of him as the massive vault door closed behind him. He drove through the secondary gate under the steely gaze of the four guards posted there, then they finally began the drive to Fordham Lab. The path went underground a few times, but there was always a double electric fence on both sides. It was an open zoo with only a few areas cut off from the free-roaming animals. Everything in here basically lived like it did in the wild, with the animals hunting and surviving on their own and only occasionally being taken to the lab for closer study.
Most of the buildings had been bulldozed many years ago, leaving giant mountains of concrete, asphalt, brick, and debris scattered all over the place. Nature had taken over rapidly in their wake. Kane looked out his window at a vast grassy plain with plentiful trees and scattered ivy-covered manmade mountains. He saw elephants, giraffes, and many other animals wandering around the huge expanse, and he was blown away at the hundreds of species that coexisted in this part of the Zoo. He knew that the area around the lab was devoid of predators, and he wondered what the other zones looked like.
As he slowly approached the old university, the massive guards patrolling the grounds wore daunting suits of customized body armor. He steered the SUV into the parking lot, then they entered the main building. It was an explosion of activity inside. Kane wasn’t sure exactly where they were going, and he knew that the eccentricity of the scientists was going to make getting answers out of them nearly impossible. His fears were confirmed when he stopped a few of them, and they barely looked up from what they were doing to even acknowledge his presence. Finally, he got lucky with the sixth person he stopped; the ferret-tree-frog-lady looked at him with wide eyes and pointed him in the right direction. Once he found the designated office and knocked on the door, a sharp voice from inside bade him to enter. They stepped inside, and Harry let slip a gasp at the woman they found there.
“Hello, Dr. Angelino,” Kane said.
Kane examined the massive spider-woman whose human torso sprouted from the spot where a spider’s head would be. She had to be a Purist. An onyx-like, chitinous exoskeleton covered every visible piece of her body. Like Harry, she had four arms, accommodated by a custom lab coat, and her six red eyes locked onto his son with intense curiosity. She was extremely beautiful, despite her overwhelmingly arachnid characteristics. Her full, ruby-red lips stood out against her dark grey skin as they stretched into a seductive smile.
Finally, she glanced at Kane. “You must be Kane. But who is this lovely young specimen?”
Kane coughed. “This is my son, Harry. We were actually going out on a scavenger run when Mitchell told us we needed to stop by here and explain what happened with the white rabbit.”
“I’m afraid it’s going to require more than a simple explanation. We need a thoroughly detailed report of that entire run. You did not have the proper permits to be in that area, and even though Mitchell said you were on a secret mission there, it does not excuse the lack of a paper trail. A lot of people have gone missing around there, from what I’ve heard. And not only did you not have permission to be in that area, but you also apparently let your son come with you on this supposedly ‘secret’ mission,” she said with disdain.
Kane swallowed hard as the seriousness of the situation dawned on him. This was going downhill fast. If he did not convince her that he was not a poacher soon, he would probably wind up locked up on the other side of the quarantine zone—in which case he did not think Harry would ever make it home, given the way Dr. Angelino was eyeing his son.
“Doctor, it sounds worse than it actually is. If you’ll just give me some of your valuable time, I will be happy to explain,” Kane began, but he realized instantly that she was not listening to him.
“How many animals have you consumed, young man?” she asked Harry. “I see snake, cat, spider, and based on the prominence of your leg muscles, at least one more.” Examining him closely, she did not give him a chance to respond. “Snakes and cats alone are going for a fortune on the market at the moment, so those are probably older mutations. The fact that you have four at such an immature age makes me wonder what your progenitors were thinking. I wonder…” Her words got quieter and quieter until she was inaudible, but her lips continued to move as she tapped her chin in deep contemplation.
Kane was about to get her attention when he heard the gentle scuffing of many booted feet out in the hallway. Becoming fully alert, he tensed, which broke Dr. Angelino out of her trance as she noted his posture.
“When my children told me of the stranger, I was furious that he was still alive, and I used a considerable amount of resources trying to track him down. But all of my searching hit a dead end, so we were forced to stop looking,” Dr. Angelino said—and as that final piece of information clicked into place, Kane finally connected all of the dots. She smiled. “Did you figure it out already? Well, you’re smarter than I gave you credit for. I do have to thank you for bringing this wonderful specimen with you, however. I think young Harry and I are going to have lots of fun for quite some time.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“You are the mother of the parking garage children,” Kane stated flatly, hands inching slowly towards his weapons.
“Ah-ah-ahhh,” she said in a singsong voice with a shake of her head, deftly drawing two pistols from hidden holsters underneath her lab coat. “Got it in one! I am glad you finally found the rabbit we placed in your path. We heard you’re quite the procurer of rare organisms, but all the ones we scattered for you to find never seemed to get your attention. Then, when we were forced to wait months for you to even leave the house, we began to think you had discovered our ploy and fled the city. Thankfully though, you were dumb enough to fall into this trap,” she said excitedly, clapping gleefully with her free hands.
They stood like that for a few moments as the smile on her face grew. Suddenly she whistled, and the door behind them burst open as guards began to stream in. “Take young Harry here to my lab. We have much to discuss. The other one, though … you can throw him over the wall of Zone Three. He will be a wonderful little snack for my new babies.”
“Why are you doing this?” Kane shouted as the guards seized him roughly.
“We can’t let people find out about all of our children. It would ruin my husband—or at the very least, shed too much light on everything that has been going on here. Ta-ta, Kane,” she said as she followed the group of guards escorting Harry out the door.
“Hang on, son, I’ll come back for you!” Kane cried as they dragged him from the room.
They pulled Harry out of sight around a corner, struggling in vain as they dragged Kane from the building. They forced him out the front door and threw him roughly into the back of a waiting pickup truck. Two men climbed in, flanking him, and two more got into the front before the truck began to move. They had taken his pistol, bowie knife, and katana, and he had left his rifle and shotgun in the SUV. They had not, however, taken the knives in his boots, but he was waiting for the right moment before he made his move.
They bumped around for a while, and as they began to slow, Kane knew he was running out of time. They were awfully close to the electric fence; he could hear the whining current even over the rumble of the truck. When they hit a large bump in the road, he let himself fall into the truck bed, then rolled over onto his back and kicked out towards the guard sitting on the closest side, sending him flying into the electric fence with a horrific scream. The high voltage pitched the man limply to the ground. Kane promptly buried one of his knives in the remaining guard’s chest and staggered to his feet as the truck slammed on the brakes.
He had just leapt out of the truck when a bullet whizzed by his ear, and he heard the retort of a rifle. Raising his hands, he slowly pivoted around as the guy in the passenger seat aimed his rifle at Kane’s chest. The driver got out of the truck and approached the tailgate. He motioned for Kane to get down, and as Kane slumped to the ground, the guard nailed him on the side of the head with the butt of his rifle. Collapsing to his knees, Kane tried to stand back up, but the second blow made his head explode into pain and darkness.
Awakening to the sound of squealing tires, he jerked up to see the truck peeling off through a gate without him. A horn blared loudly as the gate swung shut, then the hum of electricity filled the air again. Clearly, he was now in Zone Three. Slowly he got to his feet and surveyed the thirty-foot-tall electric fence, looking left and right. He doubted they had left any trees growing close to the fence, but he had no better ideas. Taking off at a run, he stayed close to the fence just in case he discovered a way over. He ran for a long time, to no avail, finally deciding that he was just wasting time and energy. So, he sat down instead and went into his zen state to see if he could sense anything.
For a long time, he sat there and sensed many beasts around him, most of which had a sick, twisted aura. But what he found did not seem as bad as the doctor had made it out to be. She must not think very highly of him if she truly believed that what he sensed around him was capable of taking him out. He was glad that Chuck was wrong about them knowing he was an Offloader; he still had that trick up his sleeve. Realizing he could probably dig under the fence, he had to rely heavily on his animal instincts to find a creature with the necessary excavating skills.
Sensing something in an underground den somewhere to the north, he started off in that direction. With only his last remaining knife in his other boot, he would have to be careful, but he was confident in his abilities. Kane reached down and unsheathed the blade, flipping it a few times in his hands to make his fingers more nimble. He pushed out his menacing aura to keep any beasts out of his way, and after a while, he was drawing close to the underground threat. A few mutants were testing the edge of his aura, and he could actually see some of them stalking him from a distance. He hoped he would not have to spill any of the underground creature’s blood, sure that the smell of it would draw in many of these surrounding monstrosities, menacing aura be damned.
The burrow he came across was much bigger than Kane had expected. Most burrowing critters were relatively small, but the four-foot-wide hole gaping before him meant that whatever had dug it was unusually large. Sensing it burrowing briskly beneath him, he followed it above ground until he found an old manhole and popped the lid to peer inside. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he jerked back from the opening. There was no way that what he had seen was possible; his eyes must be playing tricks on him. It looked like an Amazonian giant centipede, at least eight feet long, its segmented body and mass of legs grotesquely following the head and claws of a huge golden mole. Dr. Angelino must be breeding and genetically modifying select animals to get monsters of this size. He did not think he could defeat the thing with only his knife, so he would either have to get extremely lucky or try to somehow extract the creature, the latter of which seemed more likely.
He waited for it to pass below the manhole again, then he dove down onto its back. Before he had even laid his hands on the beast, the back half of the centipede came off the ground, punching into his back like the strike of a scorpion. The tail pincers closed around him tightly, spearing deep into his skin. Lifting him off of its back, the creature flung him into the wall. Kane gasped for air as he felt at least two ribs break, and he immediately switched to another tactic. Fighting past the pain, he dove back into his zen state, locking eyes with the mole as it revolved to face him.
Clearing his mind, Kane tried desperately to connect with the beast as it slowed its advance on him. He sensed the pain and turmoil it had been put through, but he did not think he would be able to get through to the creature before it finished him off. Dialing his aura back all the way, he tried to show the mole he meant no harm. Sadly, its instincts were too strong; Kane finally lost the fight. Lunging at him, it clamped down on his tender stomach, sinking its teeth into his flesh.
Kane slammed his hands down onto the monstrosity before it could eviscerate him as he forcefully tore the mole from the mind of the creature. It was cruel, but he had no choice. The remaining centipede thrashed forcefully before it crumpled to the ground, lifeless, unable to withstand the tremendous strain from the mental schism.
Despite his efforts, Kane was losing too much blood. He snapped himself back into his own mind. The giant mole was in there all right, rampaging through his mindscape, trying to smash his other animals to pieces. Bashing open the snapping turtle’s cage, it then crushed the turtle as well, which exploded into white light as the massive shovel-like foot came down.
Kane cried out and was beginning to panic when the turtle reformed a few feet away. The rat cage went next, but he was able to grab the rat, holding it to his chest as he backed away from the rampaging mole. He did not think he could summon a cage big enough to contain it yet, but he knew he had to try. He knew it would smash out of the cage if he did not do it right, so he began by making larger cages, like he had done to capture the turtle. Unfortunately, he quickly ran out of energy after the second cage, and the mole began ramming into the interior cage.
The rat scratched at his palm, and Kane looked down to find it looking at him expectantly. It grabbed his fingers and heaved them towards itself. At the rat’s insistence, he obliged, squeezing tighter. He felt like he was going to crush it, but the rat was still pulling on his fingers. Trusting the rat, he finally crushed with his fingers. The explosion blew his hand open, and the swirling light spun around his head a few times before slamming into his forehead. Kane flew backwards as the light streamed into him, feeling new energy coursing through him. Then his eyes flew open, and he rapidly constructed another cage. He shrunk the cages down until the mole was smashed inside and could not move, but it kept making weird noises and glaring at him through the bars. He knew that if he wanted to take its abilities, he would have to get closer.
He glanced around for his other animals. The praying mantis was sitting on the apex of the turtle’s shell, and the gecko was cowering behind its foot. They did not seem to be hurt. He looked around to see if the rat had reformed yet. This would not have happened if you would have just given me my wings back, he scolded the praying mantis. It shook its head from side to side as he continued looking for the rat. It was nowhere to be seen, and he was beginning to get worried when the praying mantis flew over, landed on top of his head, and poked him in the forehead with its scythe-like appendage.
“It’s in my head?” Kane asked out loud.
The praying mantis nodded, poking him harder in the forehead before darting back over to land on the shell of the turtle. Kane’s eyes widened in surprise and recognition as the movements of the praying mantis evoked memories of Master Tieng doing the same thing, but with his rock instead of the shell.
“Master Tieng?”
The praying mantis did not move or show any sign that it had heard him.
Kane shook his head sadly and decided it was a stupid theory. Then he cleared his mind and focused on trying to pull the rat back out of his head. Darkness swiftly began to swim at the edges of his vision, and he grew dizzy enough that he had to sit down on the ground. He tried again, and the pain was overwhelming as he screwed his eyes shut in concentration. In a last-ditch effort, he mentally gripped the rat by the foot and began pulling it forcefully from his head. As the last bit of the rat left his mind, he passed out, oblivious to what had become of it.
. . . . .
He woke up some time later in the old sewer tunnel, and the intense headache that greeted him when he opened his eyes in the dim light almost made him cry out in pain. His head had landed awkwardly on a spool of old cable. He glanced at the manhole in the ceiling to see that daylight was leaching out of the sky, and nightfall was approaching rapidly. Leaping up to the lip of the manhole—the ladder rungs had rusted out—he heaved himself up and out.
Three massive monstrosities were stalking around the manhole, eyeing each other warily. Kane blew his aura out, and two of them cried out and retreated. But the last remaining behemoth was an abomination to behold. Its piglike snout twitched erratically between impressive boar tusks to either side. While its massive body that was visible looked more like a bear with its thick, grizzled coat of fur The boar-bear’s mutations did not stop there; the massive turtle shell covering its back was nothing compared to the giant scorpion tail bobbing behind it.
What has Dr. Angelino been up to in that lab of hers? Kane mused.
His ribs felt like they had healed, but the punctures from the centipede’s tail still felt sore. But he did not have time to contemplate this as the creature charged, forcing him to jump back down the manhole once again.
Kane sat on the bottom of the tunnel for over an hour as the grotesque mutant stalked around the hole, trying to dig its way to him. A massive angry eye would peer down at him occasionally, but that had ceased after he nailed it in the eyeball with a rock. The creature roared furiously and redoubled its efforts for a time, but now it was back to stalking around the manhole again.
Kane was about to call it a night when he had an idea. Unrolling the spool of cable his head had landed on earlier, he looped a massive noose onto one end, securing the other end to a massive rod of exposed rebar. Gathering up a bunch of trash and dried roots from the tunnel, he made ready for a big bonfire, but he did not light it yet. He waited until the monster was on the far end of its meandering path around the manhole, then he leapt back to the surface and hauled himself up.
The boar-bear charged him instantly, and he threw the heavy lasso around the thing’s head and jumped back down into the shaft. As the massive beast passed by overhead, he loosened the knot and let it slide to its midsection. Then he waited for the creature to pass over the hole again, removing all slack from the steel cable and looping a knot in it.
The monster jerked to a sudden stop, and the cable crimped itself and tightened down. Kane grabbed a rusty length of rebar, threaded it through the knot, and spun the rebar around. The cable began to tighten in on itself, causing the boar-bear to begin thrashing wildly as its movement was slowly restricted. It did not lock its legs in time, and it collapsed over the opening with a monstrous thud. Kane continued reeling in the cable until it was taut, then jabbed the rebar into a crack in the concrete wall of the tunnel, so the cable could not unwind.
He took his time making his next move as the creature became increasingly frantic above. He could not risk climbing up and stripping animals out of the monster; it might loosen the cable, and Kane doubted he would be able to capture it this way twice if it got loose. Sadly, it seemed his only option was to kill it. His knew his knife would not get through the hard turtle shell that protected its back and belly, so he lit the bonfire instead. The heat built quickly, and the horrible screams torn from the beast as it was cooked alive flipped Kane’s stomach. But no matter what, he had to do whatever it took to get back to his son, and nothing was going to stand in his way.
Steeling his nerves, he stoked the fire even hotter, beginning to worry that the slight cross breeze coming down the tunnel did not carry enough oxygen to sustain both Kane and the fire. Then the roars and wails above reached a crescendo, and the cable began to strain. Finally, Kane heard the turtle shell crack as the creature lost its mind and crushed itself to escape the agony of the flames. With a pitiful whimper, it drew its last breath, and Kane’s heart broke at the sound. But it could not be helped. Numb, he sat down to let the fire safely die down before he climbed up to dig his way out through the monster’s corpse.
In its exposure to the hellish heat, the turtle shell had become brittle, and Kane made quick albeit disgusting progress as the boiled insides of the carcass rained down into the tunnel. The cascade of blood and gore almost put out the smoldering embers, and the stench from below was unbearable as the viscera slowly burned. He voided his stomach then, losing count of the dry heaves that followed. After he’d spewed the dregs of his own bile down onto the dying coals, he was finally able to carve his way out through the remains.
He emerged soaked in blood and gore from head to toe after extricating himself from the thing’s chest. As he collapsed to his hands and knees, sucking in gasping lungfuls of air, his dry heaves slowly subsided. Rolling over onto his back, he stared up at the night sky, sorely relieved to be free of that pit of filth and death at last. Then he blasted out his aura, just in case.
A loud yip right next to his head made him bolt upright, and a beast that had apparently been about to chomp down on his face shot off into the darkness. After a hundred yards or so, it stopped, and he could see the moonlight reflecting in its eyes as it watched him. Kane shuddered at the nearness his own death had possibly been. He was quickly changing his mind about Zone Three; the creatures here were much more formidable than he had originally speculated.
He needed to get back on the move, but he did not know how much longer he could go without any rest. Straining his senses to the max, he was able to feel and hear the steady thrum of electricity from the fence. Grating his teeth, Kane got to his feet and stumbled in that direction. He kept his auric blast going full force as he slowly made his way to the fence. It took a while, and his feet were dragging as it came into view. Plopping down near the fence, he looked around idly, trying to get his exhausted mind to work through the problem that was currently stalling his progress.
Kane shimmied closer to the fence and slipped into his zen state. The mole was not moving in its cage when he summoned his astral body, but it began thrashing and rumbling at his approach. This was a new experience; he did not know exactly how to take its abilities, because that normally happened during consumption. Approaching the cage, he put his hands through the bars and placed them on the animal’s haunch. It tried to jerk away from him, but it had nowhere to go, so it continued rumbling at him in helpless fury. It was clear that its mind was fractured; he doubted he would be able to get anything from it without spending a lot of time here. He did not want to destroy the mole in the process, but his time and energy were running out. Gnashing his teeth, he asked for forgiveness as he sucked in a deep breath, preparing to rip it out forcefully. Just as he was about to start, a small hand fell on his shoulder. Jerking violently, he rolled away.
Kane’s jaw felt like it hit the floor when he stood back up to see what had touched him. It was Tommy, the rat-boy he had fought so long ago, and he was staring at Kane intently, his head cocked sideways in amusement.
“There is a better way to do this, Kane. I’ve learned much during my time in here, and I think I can get through to him and help you connect, if you’ll let me try something.”
Kane nodded dumbly. Slowly Tommy approached and put a pale white glowing hand on both Kane and the mole. There was a flash of light, and the mole stilled, shrinking down to half its size. Kane looked on in awe as the silvery radiance surrounded the mole, and it slowly disintegrated. A glowing ball of white light hovered in its place for a few moments before flowing languidly into Tommy. Tommy’s hands became the paddle-sized shovels of a mole, and he flexed his menacing new claws. Looking at Kane, he closed his eyes as Kane continued watching him. The claws slowly transformed back into fingers.
Tommy opened his eyes again. “Moles are a distant cousin to rats,” he said simply, swaying on his feet. Then he sat down on the ground, and Kane knelt beside him.
“I am so confused,” Kane said as he looked at Tommy’s weary face.
“Now isn’t the time, mister. This lesson was a freebie because your son is in danger, but the rest will be much harder,” Tommy said as he lay down on his back.
“The rest of what?” Kane asked, but he knew he would get no answer as Tommy slipped into slumber.
When he came out of his zen state, he found that he had the massive paddle-like appendages of a mole now as well, so he got busy digging. He made a hole four foot wide and eight feet deep, then dug towards the fence. The wall of concrete below the surface was still there even at this depth. He tried digging straight down, but the dirt just kept falling in on top of him. Lesson learned. Reemerging from the hole, he started over further back and went at an angle. This time he was ten feet deep when he hit the wall. Shifting left, he followed along it, still digging down at a slight angle.
He was nearing a depth of fifteen feet when he began to worry. The air felt like it was getting thinner. He knew he was going to have to start over and excavate even wider to get some better airflow, but he wanted to try digging a few more feet. At eighteen feet down, his perseverance paid off when he found the bottom of the wall. He dug under it and angled up, filling in the tunnel behind him in the process. At last, he broke the surface, gasping in lungfuls of air for the second time that night as he passed out from sheer exhaustion.