Chapter 13 - One Last Push
(in which there is a mad dash through a corridor)
> "The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running."
> --John Greenleaf Whittier
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"What do you mean?" Iraklijs said.
Zkeh simply kept staring. The human felt the need to conceal Altair, but as soon as the feeling materialized the black gears faded and were replaced by simply a clear expanse. The multicolored gears did not return, and there was no chime or anything similar.
The chohjozra glanced at the crystal, then looked away. "I ssupposse we go now..."
Tsip ran their hand across the moving circles on the wall. As they did so, Iraklijs felt a faint yet excruciating tingling in his brain. His BCI's anti-distraction filters failed to kick in. "Stand down," he said, and the kseldani stopped.
Giil, meanwhile, seemed too shaken by it all to do anything but coil up and tuck her head into the spiral that was her snakelike body.
Nobody seemed to quite suspect anything about his altered state; even Zkeh was only mildly troubled. All they wanted was to leave, and the road to freedom was seemingly wide open now. That helped wash away all suspicions. Iraklijs used his eye-camera to take photos of the circles, and the group began moving, with a dissociated Tsip trailing behind even Giil.
CLANG!
Tsip's tail was already shortened before, in the corridors under the 'cliff'. Now it was all gone, squashed into teal goo that sprayed from between the closed-in walls behind them. If they had stood five centimeters back, their backpack (or backside) would have been crushed. The kseldani seemed to not even react.
"What the fuck!" Iraklijs yelled. "Are you okay?"
"Yes."
"...I suppose you went through worse."
Ekut and Zkeh glanced behind themselves. "...did any equipment get damaged?" she said.
"No."
"Move faster," Ekut said. "I think it only closes in after we--"
Zkeh turned to look at the wall, and his ear-fins splayed to the side. "It iss vibrating."
"RUN!" Ekut screamed, and the team followed. Zkeh used his tail-hand to scoop the slow Giil and Tsip onto his back, not caring that the cast on it cracked in the process, and sprinted forwards.
CLANG!
They narrowly avoided the next crush. Iraklijs ran quickly, with almost superhuman precision, if not superhuman speed. It was as if some kind of invisible thing washed away his tiredness, despite the fact that he was keeping a pace that would put any track-and-field runner to shame, while wearing a winter coat. Thankfully, his compatriots had bodyplans more built for short-term running.
Giil screamed something incoherent as Zkeh galloped forth. Then, Iraklijs remembered that he could have used his BCI to translate, instead of his datapad or Altair. It was surprisingly easy to forget one had a particular piece of technology when it was part of one.
"No! Fuck! By the Comet! Save us!"
Iraklijs also had a BCI-odometer.
...250 meters....
CLANG!
They could not think clearly, anymore. Their minds were fully occupied by running. Something seemed strange about the ground in the distance, unevenly lit by the nauseatingly swinging light of Altair. They did not slow down any. This was a good decision.
While Tsip kept themselves very composed, Giil panicked and flailed. She held onto Zkeh's neck as if she wanted to strangle him. The chohjozra seemingly paid no mind. Swamp-creatures were resilient to decreased oxygen intake.
...200 meters...
CLANG!
But of course, their stamina was not infinite. Iraklijs, for example, felt his body physically start to burn itself out. He was no professional sprinter. And yet, he pressed on. That same thing kept giving him the will to run. This could not be said about his companions; only a mundane sense of self-preservation gave them strength. And only Zkeh's strength, superior even by chohjozra standards, kept him from tiring out as he carried two people and tens of kilograms of provisions on his back.
Then they noticed that the strange stretch of floor coming up was, in fact, occupied by the same moving circles as the rest of the hallway. Except there, they were craters instead of bulges. Craters just big enough to catch feet.
...250 meters...
CLANG!
Those of Iraklijs were guided by the mysterious force to masterfully dodge the holes, barely slowing down, while those of Zkeh were short and plentiful and redundant enough to ignore any minuscule trippings.
But Ekut had only two. Not guided by anything, and not redundant. There was only so much that innate kaziil caution could do.
"KRANN!" she yelled as her leg slipped into a moving hole, breaking her hip with a sickening, gunshot-like pop. She let out a bloodcurdling scream as the walls to her sides began to vibrate, but then suddenly fell silent. She unholstered her grappling hook and tossed it as hard as she could, in the process dislocating her own shoulder.
It soared through the air, tumbling on two axes.
It hit Iraklijs on the top of the head, nearly throwing him off balance and into a hole. But he kept upright. The grappling hook bounced forwards, falling in front of his chest, and...
...was deftly caught by the human!
CLANNG!
He barely processed what happened when he heard a horrible crunching, cracking, and bursting sound alongside the clang. Iraklijs glanced behind himself, right in time to be hit in the face-mask and goggles by a spray of blood and bone fragments, and cloth scraps, and metal shards.
That was all that was left of Ekut Karo.
The shock and grief, however, was overridden by a burst of both adrenaline and influence, and Iraklijs put on a burst of speed. Yet nevertheless, he was tiring out.
In a moment of clarity, not unlike that of his fallen comrade, he cranked the grapple-gun's power setting to what looked to be the overdrive, then shot a magnetic plunger off into the distance of the corridor. A tiny clink signified its attachment. "Zkeh! Grab onto me! We can only reach it that way! 200 meters left! Don't ask, just hold my waist!"
SCHHHHHWING!
They soared up and forwards, being pulled straight down the corridor, and an unbearable lightness washed over Iraklijs' whole body as his leg muscles no longer needed to self-destruct in order to move. Or maybe that unbearable lightness was an oncoming blackout. This was definitely much faster of a reel-in than anything Ekut did. In fact, what was that cracking sound coming from the pistol's body? Or the little twangs? On another note, this was a good decision.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Everything went black.
...
Iraklijs was in an elevator. His coworkers were there with him. Tekatl, Lyiue, Blup, Rusty, Yangchen, even Spots and Ekut were somehow still alive alongside Zkeh and Tsip.
They chatted they hugged some of them even exchanged kisses and they laughed and they were happy
he exited the elevator into a pulsating gray web and the black sky and black void floor began pulsated red his face locked into a grin and his eyes bulged out and his skin became shiny and metallic and his companions walked out one by one no they were being crushed by the elevators doors they were all bisected tekatl lyiue blup rusty yangchen spots zkeh tsip and at the end his legs melted and he melted and he washappyandhelaughedtoo
I am sorry.
...
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He really was on an elevator, albeit one without walls. Four cords in the corners of the rectangular platform winched it upwards.
Also unlike in the dream, only Zkeh was with him, alongside Giil who was still latching onto his back and neck. Tsip was missing. Altair was still hanging from his wrist as a silent lantern.
And he could not feel his legs, though a quick rub with a glove verified that they were not made of metal.
"Oh, thank the million godss! You are alive!"
"...fuck. What the..." his ears still ringed. The silence, and the quietness of his heartbeat, seemed both oppressive and relieving now.
"Your sshot brought uss to the end of the corridor... there was a vertical sshaft... sseemingly without bottom... Tssip... lost their grip and fell off me... my tail hand wass too injured to catch them. I am ssorry..."
"Why didn't you go down?!"
"The grapple gun wass falling apart by then, Iraklijss..." Zkeh showed the tool to him. Its casing was cracked and its plunger was wobbly. "I felt it begin to fail in my handss... All I could do wass inch uss upwardss..."
Iraklijs wept. For Ekut and for Tsip, and for Spots. At least Altair was still fine as ever, and so was Zkeh and their rescue...
This was a good decision.
But he still cried his heart out...
...interrupted only by Zkeh's clawed hand wiping away his tears. "Look! We are in the ravine! The one you losst your firsst drone in!"
There indeed were several lines of fractally-grooved, eldritch monorail passing by them as the 'elevator' went up. Some of the geometrically-shaped, engraved pods swept uncomfortably close by. There were many hatches, both on the sides of the ravine and on its bottom, which was barely visible off the edge of the platform.
"But... there's a vaporizer... the green flash?" Iraklijs said.
Zkeh shrugged. "If we die, we die... too late to do anything but take a gamble..."
They closed their eyes, turned on their cameras, and waited.
...
...
The platform stopped. They were at the ledge where they first got locked in, by a door closing behind them. Small, rectangular, cold. Yet it felt so homely, so cozy, so familiar. It was exactly as they had left it.
Except the door was open now.
Iraklijs yelled happily and tried to stand up, but his legs refused to move beyond the basic movements. He simply knelt, but not for long, as Zkeh scooped the injured human onto his back. Giil immediately coiled her tail around him, for extra grip and protection.
Zkeh walked through the narrow corridor. His two riders looked around. The corridor was featureless as ever, but in the distance, the pinpoint lights of the vestibule glimmered. The silhouette of the Ducky, which they had left beside the staircase that lead out of the massive room and into the entrance corridor, was still undisturbed, far in the distance,
Iraklijs put on a trembling smile as they exited into the vestibule, passing by the crumpled 'barrel' they used to stop the metallic maw. There it was! The vaulted ceiling, the unusual structures jutting out of the Hilbert-curve floor, the other two doors gnashing. These paths would not be taken by this group anymore. Perhaps by others. Not by them.
"The barrel I tore off," Zkeh pointed, "grew back. Thiss iss not good..."
"Oh, whatever! The exit is there, the signal has a path! Let's go radio Yangchen if he is still there," Iraklijs said. These sentences came out unusually easily.
He pulled out his radio, and set it to the frequency of the rover's receiver.
There was a static. And not just any static, an ominous and pulsating kind, followed by a soft rumbling being heard from the ceiling. Some of the fractal patterns above began to shift and bulge. Undulating like a mythical wyrm, a set of metal cords emerged from the mass of metal, forming into interlocking, spiked rings.
The thing screamed mechanically, and spewed dull flames from its body.
It detached and began falling. This was the thing that attacked them early in the day, in the corridor. But this time, they were not in shape to escape it. Zkeh instinctually darted for the staircase, his tired legs struggling to carry the load on his back. The screaming, grinding guardian approached them like a racing motorcycle, if motorcycles had a dozen wheels.
The grinding, gnashing, rolling abomination was faster then, and it sure was even faster now. Nevertheless, Zkeh managed to dash up the stairs, smashing his talons against the tiny but hard steps. They passed by the Ducky when the beast began rolling upstairs. It was perhaps ten meters away. Iraklijs' life flashed through his eyes, and he returned to tears.
The sensation of something scaly uncoiling from around his body jolted him from his panic. In the process, he felt Altair's lantern-harness be yanked free from his wrist and clatter to the floor. A pounding terror filled his head, but the familiar light was already fading, both due to Zkeh continuing to blindly run and his own mind becoming cloudy.
This was...
Giil jumped off Zkeh's back, accidentally tearing Altair from Iraklijs' grasp, and rushed towards the Ducky, perching upon its control panel. Right as the beast finished its swift climb, she found the big red 'FIRE' button on the joystick.
BZAAAP... ZZAAAAAAAP!
Was the last thing Iraklijs heard before blacking out again, accompanied by a blue flash resonating through his very eyeballs.
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Epilogue
> "It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over."
> --Paulo Coelho
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Oct 28 2234
"Can they still... spread?" the unfamiliar woman said. The blurry black blot coalesced into a dress that covered a relatively small amount of reddish-brown skin. Yet it was still blurry, as if viewed through particularly smudged glasses. Nothing made sense. Who was he?
The blanket had a pattern of aperiodic polygons, mostly appearing as jagged black lines on a white field. It was soft. The viewscreen on the far wall, mounted around eye level, showed some kind of not-quite-Earthlike planet. Everything around was sleek and almost crystalline in nature, lit with a warm light. Holographic displays of shifting flamelike shapes danced in the corners.
"No, they cannot," the unfamiliar Chimera said. He was a taur, with purely white smooth skin and a Y-shaped head. Fractal patterns covered his body. His voice was tiny and high-pitched. "In fact, it appears that the self-replication abilities of the infectious nanobots were severely hampered by some factor or several. We theorize that some kind of control unit was required. Perhaps the 'unit' was the facility itself, but given the Silent Empire's technology it was likely much smaller, and followed them, somehow--"
"Cut to the chase. Is he healthy now?"
"Yes. This hampering is the reason the treatment was done in only a few human months," the alien said. "Several injections of hunter-killer nanobots were enough, as opposed to a whole nanoimmune system installation. This technology is still young, remember, and in fact I do not even believe that you humans have it yet. Treat this as a gift from our harmonious collective."
The door at the other end of the medbay opened, diagonally upwards. An unfamiliar chohjozra walked in. "Is he alive? Have you recovered Altair yet?"
Altair.
Altair.
Altair.
The name echoed through Iraklijs' mind, and the haze was gone as memories of the longest day in his life flooded in. The woman was his wife, Oksana. The Chimera was his coworker, Lyiue. The chohjozra was his savior, Zkeh. He threw off the blanket and jumped off the bed to hug his wife.
"Oksana! You're here! Where are we?" he cried tears of joy as they embraced.
"A Chimera medical ship... I can't pronounce the name. Lyiue apparently works for this group as a nanotech researcher," she said as she planted a kiss on his cheek.
Zkeh wrapped his now-healed tail-hand around them. Lyiue gently caressed Iraklijs' shoulders with his slim, long-fingered arms. "We did not," the Chimera said. "In fact, the crystal was not in the corridor when Yangchen went in to recover you, Zkeh, and Giil."
Iraklijs frowned, and another tear, this time of sadness, rolled down his cheek. "I... I guess that's how we lose friends. I did not expect it for Spots, or Ekut, or Tsip... though I remember something seemingly twisting Altair from the inside when I entered that room. But I did not realize at the time. I guess that whole mission was a bad decision. Speaking of Giil, where is she? Did she make it?"
Zkeh hissed. "Don't ssay that... we brought back sso many ssampless... yess, a lot perisshed with Ekut, but we have sso many invaluable fluidss and powderss collected... including the nanobots that were in our ssysstemss... they're in vialss under a dozen lockss now, for future sstudy... Giil iss sstill undergoing treatment, in the next room over, Lyiue ssays her ssystem was ssaturated with them. But sshe is alive and well, asside from mental damage and lingering ssymptomss of radiation ssickness... sshe did not orient the sshield well enough."
"When she wakes, I want to thank her so much. Not just for the shot, but for prying Altair off me. That mysterious force... it was the facility merging with me. Trying to get into me and tempt me," he said. His wife looked at him like he lost his mind.
The door slid open again. Yangchen and Tekatl entered, both of them smiling and waving.
Iraklijs ran his fingers through his hair. It was very sparse now. Ah, at least his legs worked again-- better than before, in fact-- and the metal they were made of felt much cozier than that fractal alloy he dreamed of.
That adventure was not to be his last, he silently decided.
THE END