“Are you sure this is going to work?” Miles asked again, huffing along with the rest of the group as they ran towards the central labs.
“For the third time, no, I have no idea!” Chase shot back. “But we don’t exactly have a lot of options!”
Feet pounding as they abandoned stealth for speed, Chase focused his attention once more on that weird sense at the back of his mind. Echo had proposed a sort of mental split and illusion to keep Bright occupied as she came to retrieve them from their dorm, and as skeptical as Chase had been that it would hold up under scrutiny, so far it seemed to be going well. It helped that only Dr. Redmond had shown up to take them, as apparently it was far easier to only fool one mind, even if the others would have been far more simplistic. Still, Chase found the sensation of being in two places at once far less disorienting than he would have imagined.
It helped that he essentially just had to think of something and his illusionary double back in the dorm would say the words or perform the action. As much as he wanted to think of the sheer potential of such a technique once they got back to the world at large, he forced himself to focus on actually getting back first. There was still a long way to go yet.
Parasite drones and puppets appeared at the next intersection, but seemed to unconsciously move out of the way of the running group, and not just because they were being led by the large and muscular Tom. It was another guess, a gamble that had paid off. These laborers were designed for maximum efficiency, and that apparently included some anti-collision protocols. So long as they moved quickly and with authority, most groups they came across would part automatically.
“Stop!”
Most, but not all. Glancing back, Chase caught the eye of a tall, willowy older man pursuing them. Flanking him were a pair of scientists, an Indian man and a woman with long, dark hair flowing behind her like a cape. Bringing up the rear of their pursuers was someone Chase had hoped he would never have to see in any kind of conflict scenario: the giant security guard, Bobby. His lumbering steps seemed to eat up yards of distance at a time and send rumbles through the floor that Chase desperately hoped was just his overactive imagination.
“How much further, Tom?” Chase yelled.
“It’s just up here, come on!” Tom shouted back, turning to catch sight of their pursuers and picking up his own pace. “Hurry!”
“Easy for you to say, Mr. Athlete.” Chase heard Kayla mutter under her breath, but she and the rest of them all put on a little extra speed. When the alternative was being caught and infected, suddenly exercise motivation was a lot easier to come by. Chase would have to market this revolutionary new fitness plan when they got out: literally run for your life.
Tom apparently had reached the door he was looking for, as he threw it open and immediately pulled the lever set within. Red emergency lighting lit up on the ceiling as a shrill alarm filled the air, followed by the sprinklers all going off at once in a deluge of water.
“Jess, Kayla, now!” Chase shouted, but the two girls were already moving, shucking off their backpacks and tossing the contents at their pursuers even as the group turned to keep running. Bricks of powdered detergent and cleaning solution flew, mixing with the strong flow of the sprinklers to create a nightmare of suds and bubbles. A nightmare that quickly proved its worth as Bobby either couldn’t or wouldn’t slow down, his heavy trod stepping directly on a particularly sudsy spot and slipping out from under him. The huge man fell forward, taking down the two scientists as he did and tripping up the older man, who glared at the retreating group as they turned another corner and vanished out of his sight.
“They’ll be back, keep going!” Tom encouraged, and Chase poured more energy into his burning legs. “Left or right here?”
“Straight!” Kayla shouted. “Then the next left!”
Tom took those directions, barrelling through the intersection. Chase thought he recognized the general area they were in, and sure enough, he spied the three lines of pen that Kayla had marked on the wall earlier that day slowly washing off under the sprinkler’s attention. They skidded to a halt in front of the door Chase had been eavesdropping in front of earlier, but there was no convenient doorstop propping it open this time.
“I got this.” Jess said after jiggling the doorknob to confirm it was locked. She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and set to work, the rest of the group surrounding her and watching for anyone approaching. From the grunts and shouts of dismay they could hear, the slick suds were still serving their purpose in delaying their primary pursuit. As Chase heaved to catch his breath, he felt the connection with his illusionary double fade out of existence.
“Heads up! Bright knows we’re here!” Chase informed them, feeling a sweat that had nothing to do with his physical exertion break out on the back of his neck. It felt like the gaze of a predator had just passed over him, an absolutely malevolent creature that wanted nothing more than to see him broken and bleeding before it. He had been instructing his double to be provocative and keep Bright off-balance, and played even more into his impulsiveness than usual. He was wondering now if that was a mistake. Bright wouldn’t stop until they had followed through on their threats, and he liked his entrails exactly where they were, thank you very much.
Still, Bright hasn’t shown the ability to jump hosts and I doubt they’d want to abandon Dr. Redmond even if they could. It would get them close enough to intervene quickly now, but those two are a match made in hell and I doubt they would risk it. We just need to stay the course and hope that somehow this all works out. It’s only guesswork from here on out.
Chase was broken out of his musing by a solid click and a triumphant Jess rising back to her feet. She shot him a smile, and Chase couldn’t help but return it. He knew his limitations; he wasn’t the kind of guy who could fight for nebulous concepts like honor or glory or even big questions like the fate of the world, but he could absolutely fight to keep a smile on that face. Those other things would just have to sort themselves out along the way.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The group quickly filed into the room, Ellie immediately zeroing in on the bizarre pile of electronics taking up most of the desk space. Chase recognized parts of the same mini radar gun he’d taken from the supply closet, haphazardly wired together with two laptop computers and what he was pretty sure was a toaster. The uncertainty stemmed from the fact that in Chase’s experience, toasters didn’t have ethernet cables sticking out of them at all angles and they definitely didn’t glow a sickly green from the heating coils. Thankfully, this room had been spared from the common area sprinklers they’d set off before. Chase would hate to see what an unstable amalgam of technology and alien magic looked like when it shorted out.
“We’ve got maybe five minutes before we need to move on.” Tom said, slamming the door shut behind them. “Probably less.”
“Understood.” Ellie replied, her eyes never leaving the machine. Miles stepped up alongside her, while Kayla and Jess shucked off their backpacks and joined Chase in catching their breath as Tom guarded the door.
“You have any supplies left?” Chase asked, motioning to the backpacks.
Kayla flipped hers upside down, only a bit of powder falling out onto the floor. Jess pulled out a spare bedsheet, knotted like the classic prison break makeshift rope. Chase nodded. He hadn’t been expecting any of the cleaning supplies to survive their distraction play, if only because it would be much less effective trying to use it a second time so there was no sense holding anything back. The drones might not be able to learn, but Bright and their lieutenants certainly could.
A sound like a static shock on steroids snapped Chase’s attention back to Miles and Ellie, the former of which was shaking out his hand and muttering in obvious pain. Ellie continued poking away at one of the three keyboards the machine had attached to it, furrowing her brow as she tried to decipher something on one of the five monitors. Chase knew they were in way over their heads trying to glean anything useful from whatever Bright had made, but he also knew that the rest of them would be even more lost and would immediately resort to smashing the thing. That would probably still happen, but if it was going to blow up or doom them all when it did, it would be nice to have some warning.
Chase pulled the pocket watch out of his pocket and glanced down at it. 12:41, it read back to him. Only fifteen minutes had passed since the beginning of the blank 34, less than half of it gone. It certainly didn’t feel that way. His and Echo’s plan relied on Bright being distracted for as long as possible, and he couldn’t even manage to stall them for half of it. On the plus side, now all of Echo’s attention could be focused on syncing the group’s time with the dilation rate of Bright’s so-called maintenance interval, the only thing that was letting them move around freely. On the minus side, the element of surprise was gone and Bright would be expecting more illusion-based tricks. Chase did not want to have to fight the creepy alien parasite conqueror head-on, even without an army at their back. And after pissing them off so thoroughly, Chase doubted they’d come alone. Conquerors never did.
Jess’s hand on his shoulder shook Chase out of his musing, and she bobbed her head toward Miles and Ellie. Chase gave her a nod and a tight smile before checking his watch once more. It was time to wrap up here.
“Okay, one minute left. Ellie, find anything?” Chase asked.
She shook her head. “There are many things it could be. I cannot say for certain which it is.”
“Fair. Agree with that, Miles?”
Miles was poking the gold pen that was Echo’s physical link to him into the green glowing toaster coils and completely ignored Chase’s question. Which, a second later, Chase judged to be fair, as the entire glow peeled off the coils and stuck to the end of the pen like some kind of ribbon. Miles jerked back, the light flying up and leaving a glowing line on the ceiling. The whole group stared, then turned their attention back to a sheepish looking Miles, now much more carefully holding the pen out to the side.
“Oh… kay. That’s a thing, sure, why not? What possessed you to do that?” Chase asked.
Miles gave a shaky half-shrug. “When else was I going to get the chance?”
“I don’t think YOLO is part of the scientific method, Miles.” Kayla chided.
“Good thing we’re well beyond science, then.” He shot back.
Chase clapped his hands and the group focused on him again. “No time for this now! Miles, can you handle that light-whip while running?” Miles nodded. “Good. Now the big question: do we destroy this thing before we go?”
Chase felt a wave of malevolence unlike anything he’d ever felt before wash over him, involuntarily feeling his eyes going wide and his breath coming in short spurts. Through his racing pulse and the absolute certainty that he was going to die, he managed to drag a finger across his throat and point to Tom. The larger man looked momentarily confused before his expression firmed into a steely resolve. He picked up a chair pushed to the corner of the room and heaved a swing with all his weight behind it at the bizarre machine. The sound of shattering electronics and metallic clangs almost completely drowned out the scream of rage and horror that didn’t physically sound but seemed to violently birth itself into existence inside Chase’s head. Almost.
If not for the severe disorientation he’d experienced several times in the dreamscape, Chase wasn’t sure if he would have stayed conscious as he felt entirely too much from that mental sound blast. It bounced off the inside of his skull, seeming to multiply with each collision and leaving behind a glossy residue of promised vengeance. The taste of copper and blood emanated from where his right knee should have been, and coarse sandpaper grated at the insides of his eyeballs. It was over in an instant, and that instant had lasted five years too long.
Chase came back into awareness panting, staring into Jess’s deep brown eyes as her hands held his head steady, one on each cheek. The depth of concern contained in those eyes let him know that it had been almost as bad seeing it from the outside as it had been to experience it. That, or Jess cared about him a lot more than he dared to hope. Both, probably. Both was good.
“Come on, come on, stay with us, can’t lose you now.” Jess was murmuring under her breath, and Chase raised his right hand to place over her left on his right cheek. A tiny smile bloomed on her face, still clearly concerned but trying to fight it, to give him an anchor back to the physical world.
“Thank you.” He said earnestly. “How much time did we lose?”
“Enough that we can hear them coming!” Kayla shouted from near the door. “So if you’re done having mystery seizures, we really gotta bail!”
Chase lurched upward, caught himself with Jess’s help, then staggered toward the door where the others were waiting. Luckily, each step seemed to even out his reactions and the sensation of feeling like his left elbow was actually a particularly twisty bit of barbed wire was fading into a disturbing memory. The bad news was that Kayla was definitely right, and the sound of pounding feet was rapidly becoming louder from the right.
“Miles.” Chase rasped out. “Stay towards the back. Maybe that light-whip will keep them back. Now let’s go!”
The group needed no further encouragement as they once more took off through the lab corridors, trying to stay one step ahead of a conceptual parasite hell bent on conquest. Too late, Chase questioned why the approach from only one side was so obvious. Too late, Chase considered what an experienced conqueror and strategist would try to do to put saboteurs off-guard. Too late, Chase saw the telltale green glow from around the next corner.
Too late.