Timothy intensely watched the cluster of holes in the ground a dozen meters in front of him and had a stun gun at the ready. Landom casually walked by the holes, seemingly oblivious to the dangers they concealed.
The six holes were close together, the cluster stretching out for less than two meters. Even so, Timothy still missed his chance when suddenly a snake-like head poked out of one of the holes and shot a spike towards Landom. Before Timothy could even finish taking aim, the creature retreated and vanished from sight.
“Damn, what sneaky little critters!” He muttered and looked at Landom, “How are you? Did you get hit again?”
“This job sucks! Without my mutation I would be done once more. Our suits aren’t helping to stop these things at all.” Landom angrily cursed and pulled the long needle out of his palm, “Have you watched the old movies with the lightsaber wielding magicians?”
“Uhm.. no.” Timothy hesitantly shook his head, “I only know that the producers stopped after 20 movies before they had to admit that each one was worse than the one before and gave up the brand. While that was quite the significant event for the industry, I never had any interest in non-immersive movies from the old times.”
“You are missing out on at least a few good ones.” Landom said, “Anyways, they trained some of their students by shooting at them while they were blindfolded to hone their reflexes and connection to the magic. I’m feeling exactly like one of those students right now. Damn it.”
Timothy looked incredulously, not knowing how to respond at first.
“That sounds like a very dangerous training method. Also, you aren’t blindfolded… and I could name you more than 100 reliable scientific papers that are proving that the nature of our G-Anomalies has nothing to do with what is commonly described as magic.”
“Ugh… Forget it.” Landom sighed and stretched his back, “Let’s leave already. This thing won’t come back any time soon.”
Timothy, happy to change topic, hurried after him. They walked for about ten minutes through the forest, before stopping again.
“There is another nest.” Landom warned when he spotted the next cluster some distance away, “Do you have any better ideas than using me as bait? No offense, but your skill with weapons isn’t up for the task and I risk being infected every time.”
“Sorry.” Timothy mumbled but took out his datapad.
“I may have another idea. You probably won’t like it, but it might help us to finally catch one of these little beasts.”
“Spit it out!”
“We already discussed the abnormal status of this forest.”
“Yes, everything is too tidy. As if someone with a big vacuum and too much time was on a cleaning mission. We noticed that on our first trip already.” Landom agreed.
“Right. I have a theory.” Timothy said and opened some of his notes, “You see, not only is everything cleaned up on the ground, we also didn’t stumble into any local fauna.”
“Except for these mole-things…”
“Correct. From what I’ve learned, you met a Stalker last time that suicided in panic, right?”
“You think that these little buggers are killing everything that enters their territory? They aren’t really persistent in their attacks though. We are only getting attacked once per nest.”
“These beasts are hunters. They shoot their prey to either kill it on the spot or poison it to ensure death later. They aren’t used to intruders that can withstand their attacks.”
“That sounds plausible but isn’t completely new to us. We assumed something like that from the beginning.” Landom said in confusion.
“Then let us look at it from another perspective. Where are all the dead bodies?” Timothy guided him along, “I think we can safely assume that these beasts are the only remaining inhabitants of this area. While that isn’t unheard of, it is still rare to find such one-sided ecosystems. They have to eat, feed on anything they can find. Because of these creature’s small size, we have neglected this train of thoughts. But what if they are not only killing stuff, but also are responsible for deposing any dead beasts as well as any other biomatter they can find?”
“Like bushes, fallen branches from the trees and so on? They cannot take things the size of a Stalker into their small holes. They would have to feast above ground, but we never found anything hinting at that being the case. They would need time to clean up the bigger stuff, we would have found at least some partly eaten things by now.”
“Now you are on the right track!” Timothy cheered, “But you’re overseeing at least one ability that would allow them to clean up quickly enough to never stay on the surface for long.”
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“And that would be?” Landom asked skeptically.
“A surprise. First, we need you to get shot again but this time, you actually have to go down. Let them think they’ve got you and sent someone to, uhm, clean up.”
Landom carefully inspected the young researcher’s face, looking for any trace of jesting. When he was sure that Timothy really meant it, he sighed once more.
“You were right: I really don’t like it!”
***
“What to do? What to do?” Robin’s mind raced and his thoughts erratically shifted from one useless idea to the next.
“Is it a metal affinity G-Anomaly like Jim had or is it something based on magnetism? Doesn’t matter, first of all I need a better place to take cover.” He finally concluded, “The storeroom!”
At the end of the hallway, he passed the elevator that lacked energy and jumped onto the ladder embedded into the wall. As fast as possible he ascended the rungs and crawled through the hatch in the ceiling. After arriving in the hallway of the second level, he sprinted back towards the end of the Hubble, passing by the captain’s quarters and into the cramped storeroom.
The dim lights illuminated the big room that was stuffed with crates and technical equipment that mostly was brought by Timothy. Robin took cover in the middle, behind two big boxes full of refill canisters for the food-processor. He readied his weapon and observed the exit he came through. Behind him was another exit that would take him to the gym, but the door was closed; he would notice if the enemy opened it to attack his back.
While he waited for his pursuer to arrive, Robin took stock of his status.
“Just a minor injury that isn’t impeding my arm’s mobility. Five shots left, two clips to go…” He mused and felt for the magazines at his belt.
“Shit, where are my other clips?” He cursed when his hand couldn’t find them anywhere, “I must have lost them while running away. Fuck!”
He threw a quick glance around,but didn’t know which crate might contain more ammunition.
“What else could I use?” He muttered and fired off an Echo Pulse to get a better idea of his surroundings. Immediately, blue lines formed all over the walls and the ceiling, highlighting the few things that were powered by what little energy the emergency generator could provide.
“Nothing… great.” Robin angrily said and fired another Echo Pulse when the lines began to fade away. Then, he heard the steps of someone approaching from the open hallway and turned back to the room’s exit. The blue lines of his second pulse were still there and as such he barely noticed something that may be of use, before a figure appeared in the door.
“Mr. Tulward, is this really necessary? You’ve stood your ground and put up a much better fight than expected. But how about we both take a step back for now?” Mason said as he casually walked in. All around him, different kinds of metal plates were circling, from floor panels to the lids of some crates.
Robin’s answer were three well-aimed shots, fired in rapid succession. His enemy didn’t flinch however and moved before Robin had even pulled the trigger. The swirling metal plates instantly formed a dense wall and blocked all projectiles.
“You are kidding me…” Robin cursed and jumped up to take cover behind another crate. While he managed to lure Mason deeper into the room, his next two shots also were blocked.
His enemy retaliated by pushing aside the box in front of Robin. From another crate, the lid was lifted and a mixture of tools began to rise before they raced towards Robin like angry hornets. Most of them were blocked by his armor, but two screwdrivers still managed to penetrate his suit and sink into the flesh of his already injured arm.
Robin suppressed a scream and stumbled back while looking for a new cover. Suddenly, the frame of the shelf behind him began to bend and Robin had to jump forwards to not get caught.
“What the fuck…” He cursed angrily and hunkered down, “Time to try something crazy!”
Without hesitating any longer, he tapped into his mutation to manipulate the lights. As soon as the lights went out, he dropped the empty gun and took out a small knife, his last measure of defense.
“Interesting, how did you do that?” Mason asked with interest, not being disturbed by the sudden darkness at all, “I’ve read that your mutation is special somehow. But I thought that was only referring to your ability to interact with Æther. We can learn so much from studying you. Wouldn’t it be preferable if you were still alive while we conduct the tests? Maybe we can come to an agreement, I don’t think you would like it otherwise.”
While the man kept blabbering, Robin slowly circled around the crates in the darkness and closed in on him from the side. Just when he raised the knife to stab the man, something suddenly tugged at his weapon, nearly yanking it out of his hands.
“Pathetic!” Mason spat and stepped forward. With trained ease, he reached for Robin’s hand and disarmed him. In the next moment, Robin felt his own knife being rammed into his thigh and pain flooded his mind.
“Damn it…” Robin yelled and stumbled back. With clenched teeth and without touching the blade stuck in his flesh, he limped forward and out of the storeroom.
“This is just sad!” Mason mocked and slowly followed him.
After just a few steps, Robin finally succumbed to the pain and fell to the floor. He looked up defiantly, not willing to give up. His enemy stood in the door, shaking his head in disappointment.
“You should have stopped when you had at least some dignity left.” Mason said but Robin didn’t listen. He had the man exactly where he needed him to be and activated his mutation once more. Even while Mason continued his speech, Robin managed to find the sensor he was looking for and quickly bypassed the mechanism that otherwise would only be activated when a hull-breach was detected.
The next moment, a loud bang echoed through the whole ship when little, directed explosions in the door's frame catapulted the emergency shutter downwards to protect the rest of the ship from the assumed pressure loss.
Mason, standing directly in its way, was blasted to pieces. What remained was just a red cloud drifting through the air and a heavy pressure-lock stained in blood.
“Huhhh…” Robin had to blink a few times until his mind caught up to the fact that he finally had won. Wearily, he let go of the breath he had held since forever and flopped his head on the floor to rest. Only when he noticed that his whole body was wet, drenched in blood and meat paste, did he fully grasp what just had happened.
Ultimately, Robin rolled on his side and began to throw up without end.