Chet had always thought rats were disgusting. Even looking over the fact that they excel in the most gob-smacking places, their anatomy seemed off. They resembled a pear and consisted of all the wrong juices.

These things were nothing like fruits.

The first rat, either the fastest or the closest, launched itself off its hind legs and opened its cavernous maw. Its tongue, forked and rubbery, slapped its eye as it hung out of its mouth. Absurdly, it reminded Chet of a tie swung over the shoulder of a running man.

Chet swore it happened in slow motion. Whether it was the inebriation or the adrenaline, he didn’t know. What he did know was that when the rat reached the edge of the hexagonal barrier, the humming devices kicked in. Sparks erupted in front of Chet, and the rat’s snout snapped shut. The monstrous beast bounced off the invisible barrier and landed on the concrete with a thud.

Cartoonishly, the rats skidded to a stop. A few of the meatier rats couldn’t stop in time and met the same fate. The severed tongue from the first rat twitched and slapped the concrete. A couple of the creatures cocked their heads at the thing.

’Drop all canisters,’ Gabe commanded.

Half a dozen gas canisters fell from the ceiling. Whatever stupor overtook the rats dissolved, and they swarmed him.

‘Fire. Avoid the bait.’

Time inverted, instead of being too slow, it moved too quickly. So much organic material collided with the electrical shield that sparks filled the majority of his vision. He knew he was afraid, but it felt like he was watching himself in the third person. Dissociation. Occasionally, rat pieces were forced through the shield. An ear. Tongues. Toes. Too many scales to count. Blood soaked his shoes.

Eventually, the sparks subsided. Covering the ground like a meaty carpet was the swarm of rats. Blood geysered from the bodies as the gunmen from above-fired lead into the bodies. A few bullets caught the rat’s trunk at the wrong angle and ricocheted off the scales. Chet found that interesting.

Gary’s voice buzzed in Chet’s left ear, ‘Good job team, looks like they’re slowing down. Let’s finish them off then begin to clea-’

A pained cry echoed off the walls of the warehouse. The light fixtures above flickered. Copper pipes slid off the piles of metal in the previously rat-infested corner. The largest pile of pipes in the far corner trembled. The pile rose and elongated, higher and higher, and the top scraped at least thirty feet.

“Guess we found Mommy,” Chet whispered.

The majority of its body, head-to-tail, was covered in twenty-inch scales. Unlike the smaller rats who were covered everywhere but the eyes, the belly was skin and fur. Hanging from the teats of the mother rat, swung newborn rat creatures. Naked and tiny. She fell to her front paws and approached the sea of corpses.

‘Holy shit,’ said an unknown voice in his ear. Probably one of the other team members that he didn’t meet.

‘I’ve got a Stardust bullet locked and loaded baby,’ Theo stated.

The mother rat scampered forward. Scampered probably wasn’t the right word because each step sounded like a bass drum. The mammoth creature crouched down and sniffed a dead rat.

Gary chimed in, ‘Hold the stardust, Theo.’

The mother gently, very gently, nudged its belly, like a parent trying to wake their kid. The mother rat mewled.

‘Pump lead, we want this thing identifiable,’ Gary said, his voice smitten with excitement.

Gunfire erupted, and sparks appeared on the mother-rats scales. She screeched and galloped forward like a rhinoceros, straight toward Chet. He threw himself to the ground, and syrupy blood squished against his cheek. But the mother-rat jumped over the barrier, and straight into the concrete column behind him.

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“Fuck!” screamed Juice from above, there was no need for an earpiece to hear him. Chet looked up, to see a body fall from the rafters. Juice hit the concrete and bounced. Once. Twice.

The mother rat peered at the body not ten feet away from her.

Juice pulled a pistol from his waistband and raised his mangled arm toward the mother rat.

“Somebody shoot,” Chet said softly. the words barely crawled out of his throat.

‘Hold still Juice, I’m getting Big Betsy,’ Gary said in the comms, calm as can be.

The mother rat approached. Juice fired an impotent bullet. It clanged harmlessly off the scales.

Chet pushed off the ground and patted his pockets. He ripped off the gas mask. His fingers clasped the glass. He grabbed the half-empty scent vial and flung it at the gigantic creature. However, it didn’t fly far. It didn’t even travel two feet. It hit the energized barrier and shattered. Putrid, burnt, fumes enveloped him. Like anti-vaxxers to a pyramid scheme, she sprinted toward him. Her paws clumsily squished and squashed her spawn.

Gunshots echoed, but the mother rat either didn’t care or didn’t notice. Now faced with the approaching metallic monstrosity, Chet vowed never to make fun of a deer on the highway again.

He re-threw himself to the slick concrete as the mother rat slammed itself into the barrier. Its snout compressed against the shield and the trunk and bottom of the rat careened over Chet like a WWE wrestler reverse-suplexed the beast. Unfortunately, the barrier powered down. How did he know it powered down? Because the mother rat’s tail clipped him as it flew over.

Chet’s airborne adventure reached a quick conclusion as a concrete pillar caught him. The posterior side of his body crunched under the contact, forcing the air out of his lungs. He dryly gasped. Somewhere in the warehouse, a cannon went off. Something flew into the trunk of the mother rat, and for a split moment, the scales compressed, then the mother rat was gone.

The warehouse rumbled. Chet tried to focus, but the room spun. The floor displayed a path of ripped-out concrete that led to the mother rat embedded into the warehouse wall. A spiderweb of cracks emanated from the center.

’Hit.’

Chet glanced at Juice who was lying on his back, clutching his side. He gave Chet a thumbs up and mouthed ‘thank you’.

“Jobs not finished.”

Chet peered behind the pillar. On his belly, Gary squinted through the scope of a machine gun. A bandolier of ammunition hung from the gun.

‘Not possible. That was kinetic stardust. The amount of energy that was transferred onto that small amount of surface area would have put a hole through a small mountain. Its organs would be jelly, its limbs-’ Theo said.

The mother rat dislodged itself from the wall and dropped to the ground. It was missing its right hind leg. On the side that the bullet hit, the previously smooth metallic scales had caved in. On the other side, the scales had convexed. It was a miracle the thing was alive.

Theo stuttered on the comms, ‘That’s im-impossible.’

“Fuck impossible,’ Gary said as he opened fire.

Chet slammed his hands over his ears, and a barrage of fifty-caliber bullets exploded out of the barrel.

The mother rat limped forward. Slowly at first but gained speed. The bullets hit the beast's skull dead-on. However, the force behind each bullet didn’t ding off like the many previous ones. Chunks of snout flew off, and teeth shattered.

She reached the center of the warehouse, the other teammates opened fire as well. Smoke, like gunpowder, filled his lungs, making him cough.

The mother rat almost reached the columns where Juice and Chet resided. The right eye of the rat, the size of a basketball and menacing red, popped like a balloon and the rat careened off course. Juice’s scream was the last thing out of his mouth before the mutated rat smooshed him.

The gunfire ceased. Chet removed his hands from his ears. A whine tinged his hearing. The barrel end of the machine gun glowed molten. Chet turned away from the scene to hurl his guts out.

“Eliminated.”

Chet must have passed out because he awoke to an unfamiliar face shaking him awake. He was on his side and his head rested on his hand. His knee was forward, which stopped his body from rolling onto his stomach. Someone was shining a flashlight in his eyes.

“Sluggish pupil contraction… shit” The unfamiliar man murmured.

Chet’s eyelids threatened to close but the man placed something under his nose. Like a knife plunging into his sinuses, his eyes snapped open.

“Smelling salts.” He tapped Chet’s cheek, “Listen to me. Nod if you understand.”

Chet nodded.

“Do you know where you are?”

Chet surveyed the warehouse, “Bounty. Killed rats. I was the bait.”

He scowled, “Date?”

Chet told him.

“Listen you need to head to the hospital with me, you have some head trauma. Most likely a concussion, probably something worse.”

He paused; someone was yelling.

“I told you not to use the stardust! Do you even know how much one bullet costs? Much less the flack I’m going to get from the city for public disturbance and the cost of repair!”

Gary’s nose was pushed into the forehead of Theo, which was almost comical except for Juice’s crushed body under a massive rat behind them. The rest of the team, about five other guys excluding Gary, Theo, Chet, and the medic observed silently.

Theo poked Gary’s chest, “Public disturbance? Are you kidding me, Jerry is…” His voice cracked and he fell into the chest of Gary sobbing.

A mewl caught Chet’s attention.

Still attached to the teat of the mother rat was a single baby.