Camera drones buzzed frantically the curved outer wall of the bowl. The asphalt arched back from the lower surface of the bowl, like a tide. Puddles remained to feed tendrils reaching into the settlement. EMP charges fired down toward puddles. Asphalt cooled, hardened, but it didn’t recoil or retreat toward the greater mass.
A great howling roar bellowed from the main tendril before it smacked guns and fortifications into the pit bellow like a wrecking ball. The metal superstructure at the edge of the bowl splintered. Operators scrambled toward the center into greenhouses so as not to slide to their deaths.
“The attacks are getting slower,” Someone yelled, “It’s exhausting itself!”
“A line is clinging toward the central spire!?”
“It’s the main attack! Contact HQ! Tell them to fire anything within range at it!”
Cannons retracted from the spires. Guns pushed forward attached to EMP discharge units. Waves of electricity shot into the supporting strands holding the giant tendril pipe that reached a half kilometer to the central spire. The strands hardened but didn’t give. Not until machine gun bursts and cannon fire cut them loose from their improvised moorings. An EMP canister hit the asphalt pipe at the halfway point between the edge of the settlement wall and the central spire.
Pieces of black rock rained into the streets below. The severed pipe spewed boiling gunk from both sides as it attempted to reattach. New tendrils formed from holes in the rocky structure. They lashed as cannons and gun mounts in the residential towers. Auto turrets emptied their magazines into the vein. Bullets absorbed into the tarry film, then slung back at the gunners. Tendrils lashed into buildings, breaking glass, and opening gashes in the metal framing. Soldiers with shoulder mounted EMP launchers became red splats as they fell to street below.
More EMP blasts hit the giant tendril, cooling it as it refused to retreat. The pipe proved unable to reattach itself. It splattered apart in several sections, heavy pieces raining upon the streets below and crashing through the surface. The main body at the edge of the bowl finally pulled back. The tendril it supported disconnected with a loud crack and the sound of deactivated aggregate pouring over the city. The dead pipe smashed and splattered where ever it fell.
“We did it! We separated the source from the spire! Commence the scrubbing!”
-----
Boots stomped the dirt floor of the stairway. The scrubbers charged downward into the bowels of the bowl. Power brushes clung to their backs. Their belts lined with emp grenades hung heavily about their hips. Electrical dischargers that doubled as stun guns rested holstered at their sides. The yellow hazmat suits were crisp by base standards, with few signs of inky staining, and were tucked into their tan boots and glove. A full-face mask with a visor and respirator covered each member. The suits had a number on the back with the alpha call sign of the unit.
Down, down, down they went, floor after floor. So many metal doors had been busted open and so many turrets covered in gunk that they didn’t bother to count. They made certain to charge and chemically treat the long strand of gunk that laced the staircase as it wove downward over each landing. The stairs themselves were stained but intact. The vein pulsing along the ceiling didn’t attack. They tossed an EMP grenade down the steps every four flours. The pules of the vein slowed. Asphalt hardened to protect itself. It became brittle on the outside. The team took shovels and hammers to break it off the wall. Little globs of tar attempted to form tiny silhouettes that squirmed for the cracks or retreated to the shadows. Chemical laced electrical brushes rotated until the little globs stopped moving and their stains turned to brackish water.
The mangled doors to interior sub-level ten hung from strings of ropey tar in front of the elevator. The scrubbers blasted the strings with an electro-chemical spray. The goop hardened, crumbled, and the doors dropped against the tiles. The crumbling vein led to the primary power distribution center of the base. Six charred, crumbling, silhouettes hung framed against the walls. At the open door to the control room Nyx barely remained standing on uneven legs as her body half melted into the floor.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
A heavy boot fell to the front of his squad of ten. Five warriors positioned themselves on either side of their captain. Brushes went into their clips. The electrode discharge guns came out. The captain of the team stepped forward and pulled a prodding rod from belt. Pressing the release extended it until it poked the disintegrating form of what had looked like a young woman from the waist down. The lower half of a face with one eye on a stalk held on by a dripping spine extending from the melted lower waste. There were no shoulders or arms, as half the form had melted into a puddle. The creatures against the wall were firm as stone, dry, cool, and crumbling.
“Whatever this thing attempted to do, it failed,” the captain said, “Radio Geralt, let him know that power is still online. Let’s proceed with scrubbing.”
“Should be easy,” Came a softer voice, “The pulses from power generation fried these mothers.”
They split their formation for easy cleaning as the captain approached the barely moving white and black pasty silhouette that had become essentially a pair of legs with a spine. And even the legs were starting to crack. It took a step forward, moaned through the hanging half a face as the naked eye shifted its gaze. Teeth shifted counterclockwise behind black lips as they tried to rearrange themselves.
“Sorry fella, time to say good night.”
The charge ran through the half dead creature. It shuddered but nothing happened. He ran current through it again with EMP energy and the thing didn’t react. As weak as it looked, it should have been crumbling.
The mouth shifted, speaking in a deep and garbled voice yet like a parrot, “You’ve been played, you’ve been played, you’ve been played, you’ve been played...”
The captain peered into the control room. A blast of burning air heated his mask. The top half, everything above the height of the door bubbled with tar, as were the corners. The consoles squelched and oozed hot tar. The form in front of him pulsed, grew, took shape. Rope of tar merged up from the broken torso to cover the spine. Breasts pushed out as tar retreated from the cleavage to form a tight outfit. The neck pulled out and caught the head below the chin. A second eye stalk formed as red strands grew like fungus from the back of the neck. The face filled in, contorted, lips pushed down, nose popped out, eats seated in sockets, and inky black faded to a rosy skin tone. A red-haired woman with glowing red eyes faced the squad leader.
Thick shafts of tar pushed from her sides, shaped and forms into slender tar suit coated arms, wrists, hands. Her fingers pulled out together and sharpened into shimmering metallic claws as she grasped his suit and sliced it at the neck. Hot tar dripped from her fangs as she bit exposed skin and tore flesh. Spider-like fingers pierced the torso of the hazmat suit. Flesh boiled away and blackened, melted, dripped, glopped until only a silhouette remained in the yellow fabric. Boiling tar melted the suit.
“What!” someone screamed as pipes burst and boiling sludge began to coat them like oil.
The deactivated silhouettes burst their shells, absorbed the aggregate, and reliquefied. They rammed the other members of the team. Electric pulse gun clattered along the floor. Strands of sticky tar tunneled along the floor toward boots and caught them. The six Silhouettes tore open hazmat suits and slid inside the gaps to cook exposed flesh. One scrubber found herself backed into a corner as she watched her comrades pop into an inky slime mass in their suits. She sprayed chemicals and released a hostile electrical pulse but it did little to slow the approaching death.
The one other remaining member of the crew backed toward the door as he fired his EMP gun simply to slow down the advance of the mass spreading from the control room, “Samantha, we need to get out of here, let’s go!”
“I’m trapped,” she said, backing herself into a corner, “Go on without me. Warn the others that they’re attempting to harmonize the EMP fields!”
Nyx smiled at the two remaining combatants. The rest of their team already had joined the ranks of the silhouettes or were become such. Her eyes glowed brilliantly for a moment as the sludgy arms of what was once the captain waved outward. It went to charge forward, but Nyx whistled and it halted, then formed ranks behind her.
The advancing sludge pool corning Samantha stopped as well, so she tried to walk over it only for the sludge to stick her boot to the ground and advance up her leg. It burned through the hazmat suit as it absorbed skin. The young woman inside screamed. Then she stopped. Her face pulsed as black streaks formed on the skin behind the mask. Eyes bulged and veins darkened. She popped. Steam escaped from the neck and the seals of the visor as one last gurgle escaped her melting throat. The last man dropped his weapon as it ran out of charge and ran for the stairs.
Nyx stomped, flew forward, a rush of heated air passed him like a wind. Those hot glowing eyes glared from the entrance to the stairs. A blob of heated tar and a crew of silhouettes approached from behind. He felt something burn as it coiled around his knee. Nyx laughed.
“How dare you try to keep me from enjoying my precious big sisters.”