Twenty minutes, thirteen seconds. That was how much time was left before the diversion started, and Ratcatcher let the numbers shine brightly on the inner side of her visor. Edward once again assailed her mind with a horrifying fear of spiders, and the girl chuckled, deciding to slap him after the mission. Jumail wiped out another group of shamblers and took up position near the armory. A portable bunker bomb was strapped to the Malformed's belly; when he gets a viscon of the fireworks, the place will go bye-bye. In theory. They hadn’t had a chance to investigate the insides of the armory, but judging by all the junk around, an Iternian bomb should level the place along with the crews and whatever armor was inside.
A desire to gorge on nuts came next, indicating that Elina had planted her own explosives. A longing for home followed, notifying everyone that Rowen had also finished building a fuel depot. So far, not perfect. They were going way ahead of schedule; Augustus gave them more than a generous time window, but going ahead of schedule could put them at risk if the Condemned found the bodies.
Calm yourself. The girl exhaled and stroked the back of the beetle with a finger, and the finger-snatcher tried to bite it, unable to even scratch the metal. Even if they found the corpses, the shamblers weren’t smart enough to raise the alarm. The town is too big; the Condemned are either at the Factory or at the bastions, and the rest are busy sleeping. Fine, everything is fine. Here comes the hardest part.
Zombies paced back and forth across the ruined airfield, accompanied by clanking harnesses—the walking machines of killing and maiming. A swollen body was held prisoner in each such machine, serving it for a brain. A long trail of melted stone lay in the space to the left of the tower. When the Steel Keep wandered through the town, its main energy beam cleaved both the airfield and the planes trying to take off. The wreckage had been removed and used, but the uneven surface made the area perfect for the harnesses to traverse on their piston-driven mechanical spider legs. Too risky to go through this area. And sneaking through the field was not ideal either.
She walked along the edge of the airfield, hiding behind the raised teeth of the ruins, and called up Birchshell's map. According to it, there was an underground mall somewhere around here. People often left the airport through it, buying stuff needed for camping, and came out around the water tower, right where cabs waited. The entrance to it was buried under a mountain of rubble, but Ratcatcher’s eyes picked up a wide crack in the ground, and a smile touched her lips. Tunnels!
The underground entrance was barely wider than her foot, but that was okay. The girl twisted her legs, slipped inside, and let the armor tighten around her body, expelling the excess air. Once through the narrow tunnel, she took the rifle and the mancatcher in her hands and moved her legs first into another tunnel, this time a horizontal one. Unlike back in Scrapyard, the ceiling of this tunnel was uneven, and more than once she had to shift her body to slip past a steel beam that spiked the passage. Annoyed at being ignored and finding its mandibles useless against her metal skin, her ‘buddy’ leapt off the shoulder and disappeared in the darkness. Ratcatcher wished it well.
It took some effort, but after four minutes of enlarging the tunnel with her body, Ratcatcher at last jumped off from the ceiling into a wide and somewhat dilapidated underground mall. She dropped low, allowing the sonic sensors of her armor to work their magic, sending out bursts of sound. When reflected off a solid surface, the sound bounced back. The computer then processed this information, mapping out an area not unlike the echolocation of bats.
The mall still stood. The company responsible for its construction had taken precautions against earthquakes, and even when the gigantic Steel Keep thundered on the surface above it, only a few corridors collapsed, leaving the main corridor of the middle level relatively open, except for huge piles of rubble lying across the way. Ratcatcher advanced, feeling Edward’s mind connecting with her own. She tried her best to send back a claustrophobic feeling of being stuck in a tunnel, her first amazement at traveling via a subway, and a sense of discovery. And a little bit of complacency. Elina and Rowen aren't stupid; they'll understand what she means.
Most of the shops here still had goods in them. Canned food, equipment for survival in the woods, tools for mountain hiking... And dead bodies, partially dried and eaten by cockroaches and other insects scurrying on the floor. The air recycling systems had long since stopped working, destroyed during the invasion, but the place was untouched. Chosen Prince’s minions didn’t know of it. So why can’t she hear any survivors or zombies shambling around?
Ratcatcher found an answer halfway through her journey, alerted by a yellow light slicing through the pitch-black darkness engulfing the mall. She approached what looked to be a religious store carefully, her rifle in one hand and the weapon in the other. A thick iron door was closed by an electronic lock, and she used a locksmith to open it. Vasily gave them all one before the mission. This clever little device, which was about the length of a finger, could connect to another device using either ultra-thin automatic wires or a wireless link, bypassing security and granting access. Its rudimentary intelligence worked in sync with the armor's main computer through a secure channel that was protected from jamming by proximity.
The door whooshed away, and Ratcatcher saw another site of death. People had taken refuge here, hiding from the invaders. Canned food was placed on bowls, and sterile filters were placed on water bottles to prevent the sickness from poisoning them. Sleeping bags—half of them burned—were neatly arranged against one wall, and in another room, Ratcatcher saw closed sleeping bags with bodies inside. Someone was taking precautions and taking steps to survive for a long time. There were even gas masks, filters, and rebreathers in abundance.
But it didn’t help. Burned bodies lay on the floor, each with a hole in the back of their head. The last body sat beneath the sacred symbol of the Oath, a circle in the shape of a rising sun with smaller religious images of various faiths inscribed on its surface. The last body was half burned; a discharged energy pistol lay on the floor, and a single golden augmented socket, now blackened because of a fire, dimly glittered in the electric light. Out of curiosity, Ratcatcher stepped inside, checking the surroundings for any more clues. Her visor recorded everything, and it identified a half-burned garment on the sitting corpse as a priest's robe, and the victim as a male. Anything else was too difficult to guess; the flame had eaten the man's flesh almost to the bone.
She found the black book and opened it. It was a diary of sorts. In order to avoid detection by electronic detectors, the group gathered here and destroyed their terminals. One of them was a doctor, and it was her idea that saved their lives in the initial days. Together with the priest, the doctor made preparations to preserve food and water and to protect people from sickness.
The rest were uneventful records of fourteen days and how the priest kept the group together, helping panicked people endure the narrow confines of this store and keeping kids from losing hope by singing psalms and prayers together with them. Kids. Ratcatcher closed her eyes for a second and forced herself to continue reading. These people deserve to be remembered.
Something is prodding in the darkness. A sharp object broke through the wall, wounding Lucila in the shoulder. We kept our silence, and it left. She read. Prior to this, everything had been written in a detailed style with a calm hand. This writing was erratic; the letters were slightly uneven. And what followed wasn’t a proper recollection of events either, but a mere brief summary:
Lucila’s shoulder swelled. A group left to find medical supplies. We heard screams.
They circle around our hideout. There are growls and clicks all the time, and a pungent smell fills everything inside. We cannot leave. The children are afraid.
Lucia is with God now.
Cough. It is among us. Worse, we hear his voice. I thought it to be a mere superstition until I too heard him in my dreams. The devil masquerading for God.
Fiends are no longer coming, but we don’t dare leave. Can’t leave. Too weak. I can barely open an eyelid because of all the pus, and if not for a mechanical eye, I would’ve gone blind too. And his voice grows louder. Today I saw my hand moving on its own. He wants us. The devil could have killed us days ago, but he wants us to submit, body and soul. His lying words promise us a world of perfect order, a world without pain, but we see the monster for what he is.
Worms. There are worms in our bodies. This is not a hallucination; I can see them now, crawling under the skin. The young ones are crying in pain, and we are running out of painkillers. Our souls are safe, but our bodies won't last.
Roaches. And other insects. They come in despite the light, attracted by the rot. Williams tried to take his own life, but I talked him out of it. This sin won’t be on him.
We made the decision. The young ones don’t need to know; we still have enough sedative for the water. I will carry out the deed. The sin will be mine, and mine alone. God, save their souls and curse mine, for I cannot forgive myself for what I am about to do.
The rest of the pages were filled with names. Before ending his life, the priest had written down the names of every dead person, tourist and native alike, along with everything he knew about them. An intense nausea and dizziness had tormented the man's body and mind, but he persisted. She had no idea how hard it was for him to fill almost ten pages, but she made sure to record them all. These people deserved better.
Ratcatcher noticed a Planet’s symbol among the tapestry on the disk at the wall. Her faith was included in the amalgamation of beliefs accepted among the Oathtakers. Despite the tremors, the battle above, and the dismantling of the town, the holy symbol refused to fall on the dead man’s head.
“May the Planet lead you to a happier afterlife.” Ratcatcher pressed her palms together and bowed, recycling a simple prayer. She wasn't overly religious; she attended prayers, sure, sure, but never obeyed fasting. It was custom for a believer to eat only bread and water on each of the ten Fridays in a year to never forget about the days of starvation caused by the Extinction and to cleanse the mind. Ratcatcher’s stomach rebelled against practicing this tradition with all its infernal fury. “And…” She hesitated. “If your god truly loves you, you are already forgotten, sir. And if not, to hell with him. The Planet will protect your souls.” She picked up the weapons off the counter and left the room.
She checked the timer and found that she still had over ten minutes left. Plenty of time, but no reason to halt. Ratcatcher broke into a stroll, passing through the silent stores and corridors, devoid of life. The eeriness of this situation dawned on her, making Ratcatcher understand for the first time in her life just how dangerous powers were. Her map ability? Nothing compared to the chaos wrought by a single madman who won a genetic lottery or something. What if Eugenia or Lightbringer turned evil one day? Could anyone, Normie or Abnormal, ever hope to stand against them?
There were different classes of Abnormals in the world. Iterna counted a person's individual power as well as their physical abilities to determine their rank. After all, what good is power if someone can neutralize you by killing you before you can use your ability? Take Lightbringer for example. Without the extensive genetic modifications, additional organs, and replacement bones, the reaction speed and destructive potential of his power made him an A-class. With enhancements, he became an S-class, capable of matching the likes of Ravager, a natural S-class in combat.
But there was a class above an S-class. Apocalypse Class. Abnormals who were born with the power to destroy an entire world, often by accident. The government kept the list of such individuals in secret, and the Three Great Powers worked closely together to find and limit such individuals. Some rumors claimed that the Redeemer was one of the Apocalypses, but Ratcatcher always found these rumors dumb. The Elite was strong and divine in her dedication, but god-like? Nah. She saw a video of Ravager stomping on Eugenia's face, creating a whole new canyon a mile wide. The Elite spent a whole month in emergency care afterwards and only regained full control over her fingers ten months later. If Eugenia were an Apocalypse Class, Iterna would be ruling everything by now.
Chosen Prince was an S-Class with a highly versatile power. In theory, no one had researched the man's upper limits, and the bastard used a mechanical suit in his last battle. His natural physical abilities were unknown. In preparation for the mission, Augustus showed the team videos from the siege of Stonehelm, recorded by a citizen at a time when Chosen Prince had personally joined the siege, angry at the inability of his forces to finish off the defenders.
A figure, wrapped to the waist in rich, sweat-soaked, regal purple robes and wearing a simple black bronze diadem crown on his temple, waded through the streets toward the palace. He was tall and thin like a victim of famine, his ribs nearly tearing the weak, pale skin covered with abscesses and boils. Chosen Prince’s face was hidden behind a thick fog. In one hand, he carried a sword glowing green; its point bit into the ground, and out of that stretching wound, green veins were spreading, creating cobwebs around the street and buildings’ walls. Moments later, those green lines exploded, leveling everything around the invader.
Laser beams died; their heat was stolen by the fog. Bullets, rockets, missiles, and grenades turned to rust and disintegrated in midair. Soldiers in biohazard suits choked on the foam that formed in their throats, their eyes bled. Nothing could impede his advance; almost no Abnormal had immunity to the walking pox. Almost. The video showed a member of an Insectoid Commune, a young man whose body was shaped like a six-legged bug the size of a combat tank and covered by thick brown carapace. A single swing of Chosen Prince’s blade sent the daring warrior flying; the sharp legs closed around the weapon's hilt, denying the monster further use of his archeotech sword. The intruder let go of his weapon, his sunken eyes fixed on the white palace ahead, where the governor prepared the final line of defense.
People were already speculating that the absence of this sword was what allowed Lord Steward to win. Augustus almost smiled when Carlos said this out loud and showed the video of the battle between the two. It was just a brief fragment, but no, Lord Steward or Chosen Prince had no need for any destructive potential. The swings of their arms tore the ground apart, flinging tanks aside with sheer air pressure. Regardless, the proud Insectoid Abnormal survived, Lord Steward restored his body, and the warrior was hailed as one of many heroes of that great battle.
Ratcatcher came to the bridge close to the exit point. This bridge ran over another part of the mall, along with elevators and stairs leading up and down. The upper part of the mall had collapsed, partially breaking the bridge with the heavy debris. The elevators were out of service, but the middle section of this mall, along with the lower section, still maintained structural integrity. Ratcatcher was about to cross the bridge and begin climbing up when stones to her left suddenly exploded, and a snarling figure leapt from its hiding place in the rubble. Overheated projectiles met the creature head-on; Ratcatcher fired the rifle in burst mode, sending three rounds at once. The first pierced a steel helmet-covered head. The other two left a gaping hole in the chest, knocking the corpse to the side, and smoke billowed from the craters in the rusty armor.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Growls filled the underground mall, and more creatures broke through the walls and climbed up to the bridge from the darkness below. Ratcatcher cursed, taking aim. I should have used echolocation non-stop! Idiot, fool, moronic cretin! Augustus will condemn me to eternal cleaning duty, and he'll be right! She fired, knocking back a creature, and retreated to a wall to protect her back. Clearly, I am better as a janitor than an explorator!
The beings who assaulted her were animals, dogs, and the like; their fur coats fell off their bodies; foam mixed with greenish blood oozed from their gaping mouths and evaporated on the ground. They advanced, accompanied by the clatter of rusty metal grafted to poor, ruined bodies. She shot a small boar between its lifeless eyes, killing the tormented thing. Steel needles coated in an unknown poison took the place of its tusks. The dogs’ claws were torn out, and dirty steel claws were tapped at the ground. The skin on their limbs was cut open in several places, and the muscles and tendons inside were strengthened by the machines. This cyberization wasn't done with the greatest of care for the subjects; their fleshy parts rotted, exposing parts of their skulls, and the lack of sustenance after being locked underground for so long helped to further decay the bodies.
And yet they attacked without halt, these living corpses, the hunting beasts of Chosen Prince, unleashed in the wake of his army's advance to kill or infect anyone who tried to hide or offer resistance behind the front lines. Ratcatcher kept her cool, killing one beast after another before they could reach her. A dozen? Nothing to worry about. She has already killed six. They could bounce off the wall all they wanted; she was stronger and faster!
Her Inferno-rifle fell, beaten aside by a long saw chain coming out of darkness. The chain ricocheted off the rifle, and Ratcatcher jerked her head aside, evading it. The chain struck her shoulder, birthing sparks. Through the cameras of her armor, the girl saw how the saw chain hit the wall behind her, piercing the stone and coming out, leaving a wet trace in its path.
She refused to panic, facing the remaining beasts head-on. The first dog lunged at her, its jaws agape. Ratcatcher dove under it, caught it with the blades of her mancatcher, and sliced the body in half. Writhing white worms and stinking entrails slammed against the wall, but she was already behind the other two bouncing beasts. A flick of her wrist unleashed an armor-piercing dart out of the bracelet embraced by the nanomachine suit. It took away a boar’s leg, causing its once-large snout to crash against the floor. She almost caught the other beast between the mancatcher’s crescent blades when the saw chains emerged from the darkness—three of them.
This time she was forced to block them with the shaft of her weapon, retreating back to the wall and kneeing the approaching dog away with enough force to leave a dent in its metal head. The chains came from the mouth of a large insect, the size of a calf. It stood on four legs, sitting on a lamb post, holding two installed curved blades at a ready. Rot had partially eaten away the creature's wing casing, exposing internal mechanisms that were shifting and grinding. It sucked in back the saw chains, closing four mandibles that served the oversized insect as a mouth.
It was about to spit out the chains again when the finger-snatcher bug crawled onto the bridge and spread its wings. The brave insect flew straight into the open mouth of its foe, and the larger insect stopped chewing on the finger-snatcher. Ratcatcher seized the opportunity and lunged forward, cratering the fallen boar's head with one step. She ended the dog with a single swing of the mancatcher, separating its head in two.
The large insect still sat, its blades relaxed. If it weren't for the moving machinery visible through the exposed parts of its body, Ratcatcher might have mistaken it for some kind of gargoyle. She raised a hand and fired an armor-piercing shot, breaking the creature’s head in two. Its body fell in the darkness below, and the explorator-in-training hurried to retrieve her rifle and collect the dart out of the dead body.
Ratcatcher glanced off the bridge at the lower levels of the mall. The Oathtakers favored an old-fashioned design. Though built to all modern safety codes, instead of electronic lighting, the engineers placed lamp posts across the mall's main street, stylizing the stores and the street itself to resemble a paved sidewalk. The dead insect body now lay on the ground among the broken lamp posts, its back cracking the pavement and pushing out some stones.
This is for the buddy and Lucia, whoever she was, asshole. Ratcatcher thought fiercely and noticed cockroaches and other insects rushing to feast on a new corpse. She gulped in disgust at the sight of a living carpet covering the corpse and moved on, intending to leave this horror scene as soon as possible.
She checked her map, pinpointed the tower’s entrance above, and surveyed the ceiling. Like everywhere, there were cracks, some wider and some smaller. Instead of guessing, Ratcatcher made her armor emit another burst of sound. A grin touched her lips at the discovery of a tunnel leading straight up, and she jumped up, grabbing the crack’s edges. Climbing up was harder than descending; she had to drag the weapons after herself with the tail to fit inside the crack without a need for widening and risking causing a ruckus.
The tunnel led her to the front of the Ascension Tower, and as she climbed out of the hole, she saw an open bunker to the left of the massive gates and two figures coming out of the bunker's door. The first figure was a shambling mess, a man by appearance. A receding mop of pale hair covered the swollen flesh of his head. The soldier moved with effort, sucking in air with wet breaths and holding a palm to his chest in a desperate attempt to quell the throbbing pain. Ratcatcher's enhanced hearing picked up the loud booms of his heart even from here. The man was infected and on the verge of becoming a shambler. In a day, two at the most, his personality would be erased forever, leaving only obedience. Without Chosen Prince to control his power, it turned on his former servants.
His companion was a muscular woman in a proper power armor. Unlike the man, whose gear was a mess of exposed wires, broken hydraulics, and bulging plates, her own armor was brutish and bore scars, but it worked. She wore a pale, torn cape that spilled out from under the sizeable pauldrons, and her helmet was strapped to her hip, next to a rifle. Crimson light shone from inside the neck guard, illuminating a pale face with sunken cheeks and black pox marks. The armor itself was a mixture of green and gray, with no visible markings.
Ratcatcher climbed out of the hole, hearing how the woman offered a cig to the sick man. Humans. Still alive. The armor warned her of an elevated heartbeat and offered a sedative to combat the panic. She ignored the suggestion. Humans. Before her and the target, there is no way she could circle around them and open those massive doors without alerting those two. The choice was clear, but... Killing humans?
These are the bastards who killed the people here! The reasoning seemed weak to her. Yes, both of them were war criminals at the very least; there were no innocents among the Condemned. And yet she could not bring herself to end their lives.
Then I won’t. Ratcatcher stopped wasting time, aimed, and fired a sleeping dark at the man in an open crack to the left of his crippled backpack. The needle’s tip sliced through the metal and cloth in its path and buried itself in the folds of flesh, releasing the sleep poison into his bloodstream.
His body started falling, and the woman began to reach for her weapon, retreating to the bunker without a hint of panic. But Ratcatcher was already on top of her; she stormed off, leaving footprints in the stone and her weapons behind. It took a few moments for the sleep dart to reload, and the girl took no chances. She leapt at the woman from behind, knocking her to her knees with a double kick to the back of her legs. Slipping her arms under the soldier's armpits, preventing her from reaching her weapons or helmet, Ratcatcher wrapped one hand around the woman's neck, placed the other over her mouth, and leaned back on the ground. The force of her grab dislocated the victim's shoulders and broke the armor around the woman's armpits, making it a bit easier to keep her away from reaching the weapons.
The Condemned, like the Oathtakers, used power armor of varying quality. The woman's was of an older quality, an ancient beast capable of providing adequate protection and increasing the user's strength and speed by eight to nine times. But at the end of the day, the soldier was a Normie, and Ratcatcher was an Abnormal. The soldier thrashed, struggling to gasp for air, and found herself incapable of breaking hold. In their struggle, Ratcatcher felt the same terror as her victim.
Augustus taught them how to choke out a person without killing them. He even allowed them to practice on him to show the difference between a Normie and an Abnormal. Besides that, her armor's systems meticulously tracked her opponent's vital signs to make sure she wouldn't fool Ratcatcher. But the feeling of a human body struggling on top of your body, the rustling of the soldier’s cape and whining of the power armor’s joints, along with hearing muffled screams and the desperation of muscles moving beneath the iron grip, scared Ratcatcher to death. A single wrong move, a single urge to kill, and she could’ve broken the woman's windpipe with the same ease as a normal person would break a straw.
“Sleep already,” Ratcatcher hissed. “I won’t kill you."
A heavy footstep from the bunker’s door broke her concentration. A shambler stepped from inside, his necrotic lips uttering a groan. His dead eyes locked on the struggling pair, and the corpse raised the machine gun, forcing the half-unconscious soldier to make one last desperate attempt to break free. Apparently, their allies did not care about the friendly fire.
The zombie’s face disappeared, and Ratcatcher smiled, receiving a sense of strain, excitement, worry, and exhaustion from Edward. You’re a real slave driver, you know? The boy said it through emotions. Rail guns were unwieldy beasts. Their size alone was longer than that of the two young snipers combined, making it a pain to carry around. And most models of portable rail guns had enough force in their recoil to break even an Abnormal's bones. Through good old-fashioned industrial espionage, Iternian spies learned that the Reclaimers were experimenting with compact models of energy-based rail guns, ones that used a magnetic force to propel a weightless energy projectile, and even that weapon had shattered the arms of test users.
Iternian sniper rail guns were different. They still fired regular fist-sized projectiles at Mach 50. But the built-in energy shields absorbed the brunt of the impact, protecting the snipers from harm. And the customized aerodynamic properties of the ammunition itself allowed it to travel long distances silently. The only sound from Edward's shot was the cracking of the stone outside the main gates as the bullet buried itself in the concrete, traveling meters and meters down. In previous wars, such weapons were used to snipe enemy officers in cover to take down a Wolfkin shaman. Eddie and Esmi must’ve felt embarrassed at the need to waste this ammo on a shambler.
The struggle stopped, and Ratcatcher let go of the unconscious soldier. She dragged both the half-shambler and the woman into the bunker and laid them on their stomachs, turning their heads to the side so they wouldn't choke on their bile. Then she tore the cables of the woman’s energy backpack, depowering the entire suit and entombing the opponent in her own armor. The trainee then used those cables to bind the man and inject both captives with a universal antibiotic. The smallpox spots on the woman's skin faded a bit; the disease ravaging her body should recede. The other was less fortunate; nothing short of full medical intervention could save his life. But his heartbeat was getting a little more normal, so at least he has a small chance of living long enough for that to happen now.
The trainee wasn’t sure why she cared. These people deserved to die; they deserved to have their heads popped by a steel boot, their hearts torn, and their existence erased. The dead people in the mall, the carcasses of the poor animals roaming around, the shamblers, every dead person, every injury, every disease spread—these scum had at the very least a small hand in it. Ratcatcher felt such burning hatred just from looking at their sleeping bodies. Never, even when she faced Eight, had she felt such rage and such an urge to kill. Augustus would understand, Torosian would approve, and Mom and Dad would be puzzled as to why she took so long to take the lives of these... these parasites.
But deep down, another voice, a mix of her own, Liam’s, Nadya's, and Eugenia's, kept asking the same question. Does their cruelty excuse your own? Is this the kind of person you want to become?
Nope. Ratcatcher answered her own question. I won’t take a life unless I have absolutely no other choice. These two plague-lovers? If they enjoy disease so much, they can rot in prison for the rest of their lives. Our fight is over.
Ratcatcher came outside, hid the corpse, and turned around, startled by the loud sound.
“Eliza! It’s me,” Elina said, hiding behind a bunker’s corner.
Ratcatcher exhaled and lowered the rifle. The other girl joined her, also holding the shotgun in her hands, barrel aside. They said nothing at first, allowing the armors to check each other for any wounds and cuts. Once the examination was over and their identities were confirmed, they clasped hands.
“Sorry,” Ratcatcher said. “Nerves.”
“Tell me about it!” Elina chuckled. “I had to squeeze my ass through fourteen narrow passages and almost had my face eaten by an animatronic dog and, in general, freaking the hell out,” the girl admitted weakness without a bother. “You ok?” she asked, nodding at Ratcatcher’s shoulder.
“Eh?” Only now did she notice a long gash in her armor from the saw chain. The alloy formed by the nanomachines held, and the damaged surface had become almost liquid as the damaged suit repaired itself. “Yeah, met something really freaky along the way.”
“I gathered this much; Edward relayed to me a fear of a minotaur in the dark.” Elina’s visor became transparent for a moment, and she rolled her eyes. “I respect him and all, but his antics are starting to irk me.”
“Oh, come on, give the poor guy a break,” Ratcatcher giggled. “His head is probably splitting.”
“And I’ll buy him a treat for the troubles. Two treats, even. But if he dares send me another surge of arachnophobia, I am kicking him in the ass once we get out.”
“Hey, it’s not his fault for not being able to send thoughts,” Ratcatcher argued, and Elina sighed, darkening her visor again.
A noise from above made both girls hide inside the bunker. But it ended up being Rowen, who had been guided to their location by Edward's clues. The teenager flew down, took several long breaths to recover, and allowed his teammates’ armors to check him.
“Tell the truth; I am sick of this night already. Hope Jumail is having fun. Together?” he asked.
“Together,” Ratcatcher responded, and they marched toward the tower.
****
It is time. Augustus marched toward the section of the wall, huddled in his torn cloak and holding a walking stick with a shaking hand. He didn’t bother to inquire Edward about the team’s position, trusting in their skills. These zombies and whatever else filth had gathered in the back of the town could hardly hold a candle to any of his students, much less to Rowen or Jumail.
He concentrated only on the task at hand. The explorator feigned weakness, coming closer to the section of the wall where the defensive weapons would have difficulty tracking him. No sane guard would waste an artillery round on what looked like a hunchbacked old man, but Augustus refused to take any chances. The Condemned were mad dogs in need of being put down. And mad dogs were capable of anything.
“Come out!” he screamed. His voice changed to that of a feeble old man through the modulators of his armor; the living battleplate compressed to hide his size. “Monsters! Rapists! Fiends! Come and face me!
“Who’s that?” shouted a guard in dull, green power armor. Wires were exposed at the joint of the battleplate, which desperately needed repair; the helm was a patchwork of an assembled battle helmet with added lenses from a real armor. The Condemned moved with a loud noise; its power generator spewed sparks into the air. And yet this shithead commanded a squad of fifty shamblers who assembled at the wall and pointed projectors at the wrapped in the dirty cloak Augustus.
“An old man,” said another guard, her hoarse voice interrupted by a violent cough. “Shoot the bastard.”
Two. Augustus clenched his stick and prepared to finish these fools. He had hoped for an officer of some sort, but these too would suffice to incite the rest of the rabble to come after him.
“Halt,” a cold echoing voice stopped the Condemned and the zombies. More and more figures appeared at the bastion, gazing down at the figure below. Two dozen Condemned gathered and spread out, allowing a figure wrapped in a torn black cloak to step inside. An iron mask was visible beneath the cloak, and twin eyes burned with orange light. “How did you get through the minefield, old man?” the figure asked, his voice increased tenfold by the helmet’s dynamics.
“You took her!” Augustus cried out, stamping his stick on the ground. The bastard on the wall spoke loudly on purpose, rousing the rest of the garrison. Not the worst result. “Twelve years…” he continued in a trembling voice, “that’s how old she was, you whoresons! She loved to dance so much... Full of life, her smile meant everything to me! And you took her, kicked me aside, and made me watch as your beasts tore her apart! No more! Come out and face me, cowards!”
“Can I shoot him already?” the second guard asked in a bored voice.
“Piss off, old man,” the first guard said in a tired voice. “You’re in no shape to oppose us.”
“Idiots,” said the officer in the black coat. “An old wreck made it through the minefield and somehow survived the invasion? You need a better bedtime story, peon.” His guards moved, taking aim at Augustus. “He is wasting our time. Who are you, really? Answer or die.”
Clever boy. Augustus straightened and threw the spinning weapon at the officer, aiming to slice through the bastard’s neck and the necks of the nearby soldiers. Gunfire made the explorator jump back, evading shots in the air and mines on the ground, while the officer’s dark cloak ripped open to reveal a hand holding a machine gun. Another hand came up and slashed aside the blade with the flat of a large, double-bladed axe.
Augustus’ cloak fell from his shoulders, and he did two somersaults backwards, dodging the bullets that left several dozen small craters in the ground. He landed with his back to the wall and was preparing to run when the roar of an engine caught his attention. A section of the wall moved into the ground, revealing an oversized armored vehicle with two turrets mounted on top. At the front of the vehicle was a cylindrical rotating device whose sharp teeth moved in a blur, lifting dirt and breaking rocks in the vehicle’s path.
“An acceptable choice,” the officer said, and jumped off the wall, landing on top of the vehicle’s tower. And more and more smaller vehicles appeared at the entrance.