Steele lunged into the room full of shuffling drones, uttering a guttural, feral roar. The barefooted test subjects issued their own hisses in return, and he let loose his claws. Every strike splattered the concrete floor with long streaks of brownish-red, and the more thoughtful of the beast’s two personas wondered if the blood in these things hadn’t been pumped by the heart in a while, if they even had hearts...
Three of the shamblers encroached from behind, their veiny fists slapping uselessly on the wall of muscle that was the beast’s back. A spinning paw swipe exploded their heads with its sheer force, spattering browned gray matter amidst crumbly, yellowed bone. Were these things built out of corpses? The bioweapon was losing his appetite at this rate, and as his bloodlust faded, his lucidity restored.
“Fuck this.” he growled, flicking the vile ichor from his hands and sprinting out of the darkened room. He emerged into a brightly lit hallway, so white it made him squint. Old memories of snow-shod battlefields replayed themselves in the recesses of his mind, and his lip curled in a scowl. He stomped down the hall, cognizant of a faint rattling the light fixtures overhead made with his every footfall.
The noise began to grate on him, and he started running on all fours, his behemoth form thundering through the hall like an avalanche of stygian rage until finally bursting through a pair of airlocks into a much broader corridor, large enough for four lanes of vehicle traffic. Armed guards shouted in panic as the dust began to clear, and the beast felt the sharp sting of several rifle bullets jabbing into his thick skin. Every hit was a log on his inner flame, and pushed him further over the edge. He snatched a rifle from the nearest guard’s hand, clubbing another in the head with it before tomahawk-throwing it, lodging the bayonet in the chest of a third with enough force to knock him on his back. An elevator dinged behind the beast, and from it, a larger security team equipped with stun batons rushed in, the heads of their clubs arcing noisily as they collided with the bioweapon’s legs and back. The voltage cascaded through him, oversized muscles spasming and forcing him to the ground. The men cockily continued their beatdown, as if this were some rioter they were showing who was boss.
Insulating tissues…
The men were briefly stunned by a loud, wet gushing sound emitting from their target, who spasmed in pain, jaw clenched and breathing heavily.
“You...Should’ve run.” the beast seethed through his canid teeth.
The security force resumed their attacks, finding their stun batons would no longer arc, simply thudding off the beast’s enormous chest as if striking a truck tire. His enormous hand clamped around the throat of the leading officer, and effortlessly crushed his spine and windpipe, before swinging the ragdolled corpse in a wide arc, bludgeoning the rest of the squad. The beast stood to all fours, beginning to shed biomass as he made a mad dash into the elevator. The excess muscle was almost instantly converted to a surplus of energy, and sharpened the beast’s senses.
He stood to a height not impossible for a normal human, just over 6’5, and pressed the topmost elevator button, hearing the muffled sounds of the security force groaning in pain and rolling on the floor.
Poor bastards.
The beastman wondered what the sods were being paid to guard a place like this, if they were paid at all. This was a neo-communist regime after all. Given a brief moment to relax and reflect, the beast caught his breath and leaned against the wall. He felt something jingle against his chest, and his hand discovered a pair of military dog tags. “Steele Van Der Weiss.” he read his own name engraved on one, upon the shiny chromed surface. The other was much older in design, with significant patina, though it too bore his name.
“We need to get home.” he said to himself, letting the tags fall back upon his chest on their chain.
“Auxiliary power levels critical” flashed a TV screen on the wall, the blocky text alternating between English and the Russian translation. Steele anxiously hoped he’d make it to the surface before the elevator gave out. He unslung the rifle from his back with hands much better suited to the scale of the weapon, and he proceeded to reload it with the only spare mag he’d scrounged off the dead guard.
The lights overhead flickered, dimmed, and eventually extinguished. The beast cursed under his breath as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness again, and he felt the elevator slow to a halt. He’d made eight floors of progress, but still had another 12 to go, judging by the buttons on the now dead panel that were glowing a second ago. Prying into the crack between the doors with his claws, Steele heaved the elevator open, crawling through the upper gap left from the elevator stopping between floors.
An emergency broadcast began to blare from overhead speakers. “Attention Station 9 personnel. A class 6 specimen has broken containment. Lockdown has been initiated. Unarmed personnel are advised to shelter in place. Security teams must report to floor 18B. Be advised, specimen is-” the broadcast was cut by static, and the beast felt the ground shake seismically.
An actual earthquake?
Steele knelt down, trying to determine if it was something more localized. Indeed, it seemed to be coming from a few floors down, and his keen ears picked up on the sounds of distant gunfire and screams. Maybe the gutless drones he’d encountered were arranging an escape of their own…
Not one to pass up an opportunity, the beastman’s eyes scanned overhead signs, lit only by the glare of red klaxon emergency lights along the walls.
“Records.” he read aloud.
If he was going to make it out of here, he needed intel, and he needed it fast. Steele crept into the room, occupied by a single desk worker perched in front of a holographic monitor, wearing headphones and blissfully unaware of his presence. Steele grabbed hold of a fire extinguisher from the wall, sneaking up behind the worker.
“Sorry.” he muttered, smacking him upside the head with the bright red canister with a satisfying thunk and putting his lights out.
Steele shifted the snoring worker out of his seat and took it for himself. Analyzing pages of data about Fort New Constantine’s layout, he began to formulate an escape plan.
Steele’s lupine eyes poured over the pages.
“Too much to memorize. Not a lot of time.” he growled.
“You know, I can help with that.” a voice in his head said, deep and echoey as if it rang through a cathedral between Steele’s ears.
“Yeah, I know.” Steele sighed.
It’d been a long time since Steele’d had to rely on this voice, and he wasn’t eager to interrupt the cycle of independence. He knew what came after, inevitably. A thing he hated to do, and spent many sleepless nights thinking about.
“We don’t have a better choice.”
“Yeah. I know.” the voice retorted, mockingly.
Steele’s clawed hands slid back from the keyboard that was far too small for him, and he closed his eyes, relinquishing a little control over his psyche. When they reopened, their yellow tone was an amber-y orange, and scanned the screen with reptilian slits, absorbing every useful pathway up the dozens of floors to reach the surface. These eyes took note also of alternative routes, in case anything should dissuade using the quickest way out.
“Done.” Steele spoke, brows lowering.
He didn’t like when himself and this other half began to meld together like this. It felt like his tongue was moving on its own with those words, rather than a function of his own conscience. He stood straight from hunching over the human-sized desk, and set out.
He passed through a door into another stark white corridor, quietly hoping to himself it wasn’t connected to that assembly line of humanoid husks he’d encountered a few minutes ago. His other half growled in hungry disagreement.
“Lots of useful biomass there.”
“You must not have seen the same ones I saw. Not much meat on their bones to speak of, organs either. I don’t want to be picking dry bones out of my teeth. Plus, who knows what sort of chemicals are floating around in them.”
“Fine. The guards then. You owe me at least a snack.”
Steele didn’t have time to argue, and he couldn't really make an excuse not to kill more guards when he’d already been forced to to get out of the lower levels.
“Alright.” he acquiesced.
It wasn’t the killing part that bothered him so much as what his other half wanted, a good meal. A live, squirming, human meal still hot on the inside. The consumption of an entire human body would net Steele at least 100,000 calories, from which his bioengineered digestive tract could allocate energy and resources to accelerate his growth and re-attain the power and mass he’d lost shrinking through the vents earlier. It was grim, sure, but its utility couldn’t be understated. Steele pressed on through the sterile-looking halls, moving quietly but quickly, his padded feet making little noise on the cold rubberized floor. He took a second to zone in, and analyze his surroundings for what they were. He ran through the gamut of his senses. The ambient temperature was cold, the floor itself somewhat soft beneath his feet, the smell of bleach was back, but this sector wasn’t so brightly lit. Steele’s lupine ears flicked as he heard the sound of liquid bubbling, and noticed a red light pouring from a circular window in a door up ahead. He ducked inside, finding himself in a smaller lab strikingly similar to the one he’d awoken in. Contained within the vat was an enormous cocoon-like structure, gently bobbing in the vat of blood-red liquid which seemed to be leaking from the bottom.
A multitude of wires and tubes ran from the base of the cocoon into the ceiling above.
Steele looked away from the vat, and peered at the monitors, displaying information in Russian. He deciphered enough to figure out the cocoon was the result of some sort of genetic experiment, and the blood it was suspended in was part of its feeding mechanism. The leak, he assumed, wasn't intentional. Perhaps the creature was trying to break out. Steele hummed, sympathetic. Would it be wrong to leave the creature here to suffer under the hand of these madmen? The answer came to him quickly. He checked his rifle again, making sure it was still loaded. Steele circled the cocoon, eyeing the weakest points on its surface. If this creature was as powerful as he suspected it could be given the tank's damage, it might even make a valuable ally. Steele backed away to a corner of the lab, raising the rifle and steadying his aim on the weakest point.
His finger curled around the trigger, his other hand steadying the barrel. His shot rang out, and the glass front of the case shattered, the creature within quickly beginning to claw its way out. Steele could hear gasps for air as the creature spilled onto the floor, huge wings soaked in blood and spasming as it coughed out streamers of crimson, laying face down. Steele lowered the rifle, and walked towards the fallen creature, reaching down to pick it up by the scruff of its neck. Its wings slowly folded themselves against its body, and its four-toed hands curled into fists as its eyes began to flicker open. Steele was surprised to find these weren't the red orbs of the thing's former self, but now a light, azure hue, staring up at him with what appeared to be fear and wonder, and most unmistakably, intelligence.
"Come with me, we're going to escape this hellish place." Steele said, offering a hand to help the creature up.
Its wings flexed, and it pushed off the ground, standing up shakily with Steele's hand as support. It stared at Steele in awe, then down at his hand, which it took in a different grip and shook. Steele was pleased to see not only intellect, but even manners.
"What...are you?" it croaked, struggling to get its voice under control after being deprived of air for however long.
"A fellow beast in need of an ally." Steele said, offering the Mothman the small laser pistol he'd looted off one of the guards.
The moth hybrid wasn't accustomed to violence, judging by how his hands gingerly took the weapon.
"My name is Steele, can you remember yours?" Steele asked.
The Mothman nodded slowly in response, gazing into his eyes with his own. He spoke again, his voice raspy and strained from the stress of being caught in that tank.
"I am Nix. I won't...I won't kill any more people..." he said.
Steele's other personality roared with laughter in his head.
"Well, luckily these are communists." Omega snickered.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"Honorable of you to think that way, but trust me when I say that our captors will not show the same courtesy. We fight until we stand in the sun's light. After that, you'll be free to never shed blood for the rest of your days, if you're lucky." Steele said, laying a hand on the Mothman's shoulder.
Nix tensed up for a moment before slumping in acceptance.
Steele's hand moved to the doorknob, and he cracked the door open. The moth hybrid and Steele cautiously peeked out into the hall. The place was empty, save for the occasional trail of blood on the floor. Steele's ears perked up, and his nose picked up on something. A scent, as faint as a whisper. He gestured with a finger to Nix that they should be silent, and follow. The two followed the scent, eventually leading them to an elevator, which opened at their approach.
Steele boarded first, then Nix.
"How did you...find me?" Nix asked.
"I had help." Steele replied.
Nix hummed softly, leaning against the wall. "You seem like a...good person." The Moth hybrid said, breaking the silence that had come between them.
Steele scoffed softly. "I try to be, but I'm not always. I've...eaten people, in desperate times." he admitted.
Nix shuddered, bringing his arms to nestle into the fluff of his torso. Four arms, Steele noted, two pairs stacked atop one another.
"That's..." Nyx started. "What was it like?" The Nyx asks, wrapping his wings around himself like a sort of poncho.
"Terrifying. It's an awful instinct meant to keep me alive and strong enough to fight when there's no other option." Steele said with shame apparent in his eyes, ears folded back.
Nix nodded solemnly.
"What will you do now?" he asked.
"Ultimately? I need to find a way off this planet, and return to my home world. What about you, Nix?"
"I...don't know. I don't have a place here. I think I'd like to come with you though." Nix said with a tone of longing and sadness in his voice.
Steele glanced over at Nyx, pondering his words. He saw some fear and loneliness in those bright, insectoid eyes, puzzled by just how expressive they were until he noticed they had eyelids. Studying Nix's face further, he noticed mantis-like mouthparts hidden under the fuzzy veneer. This creature was an amalgam chimera, much like himself. By his voice, Nix was young, and Steele felt that he had a kind soul. Steele nodded.
"Alright. Stick by me and we'll find a way off this rock. Just gotta get out of this facility first." Steele said.
The elevator dinged, and they stepped out onto a long, dimly-lit hallway, leading into a lobby. Steele pushed his way through a pair of double doors leading to a long hall, Nix walking close by.
"See that?" Steele pointed to the trails of dirty bootprints on the floor, "Means we're not far from the surface." he continued.
Nix chuckled, spirits raised, though his hackles quickly went up as he seemed to hear something up ahead. It took a bit longer, but Steele's own ears picked up on the rapid clattering of footsteps coming down the hall. Steele acted quickly, opening a maintenance closet's door and ducking in, dragging his mothlike ally in behind him, closing it quietly moments before the double doors at the end of the hall burst open, and ten men in tan-colored uniforms ran by. Nix squinted with worry, staring up at Steele, who eventually met his gaze.
"I don't want to get in a gunfight any more than you do. We'll sneak out of here if we can, just gotta let the patrols pass by and we should go unnoticed." Steele said.
Nix nodded, but his face suddenly contorted into a cringing expression. "Ugh, it reeks in here. That's not you, is it?" Nix asked.
"Part of my bioengineered nature is I'm literally odorless. My creators saw to that." Steele said, sniffing the air.
A slight grin spread across his face as he spied a can of mothballs on a shelf in the corner. He pointed them out.
"It's those. C'mon, let's get out of here, patrol's gone." Steele said.
The two exited the side room and quietly moved down the hall. Around a bend, the two spied a pair of large, metallic double doors, guarded by two more security personnel, one of whom held a massive keycard scanner, likely meant to unlock the door from the inside. Staying out of the guards' line of sight around the bend, Steele went to draw his pistol, but before he could raise it, he felt a hand on his wrist. He looked over, seeing Nix holding it down. The slim-looking mothman was a lot stronger than he looked.
"I've got a quieter plan." Nix said.
Steele eyed his ally curiously, a slight grin crossing his lupine face. "Alright." he acquiesced, feeling strangely proud of Nix, partially just for being bold enough to stop him, and for already having a plan.
Clearly the kid was more tactical a thinker than he let on.
"Sounds like the guards are talking on the radio. Do you speak their language?" Nix asked.
Steele nodded affirmatively.
"How do you say: 'open the door please', in Russian?" Nix said.
Steele smirked at that one. "I'm not gonna ask why." he chuckled softly.
"I saw a box of uniforms back in the closet." Nix said, wings shifting around with excitement.
"Hate to tell you buddy, but we don't exactly look the part of your average NeoSoviet."
"Of course we don't." Nix scoffed. "But, a lot of what's down here is classified and compartmentalized, yeah? Maybe they'd let us pass if we speak their lingo and seem affable to their cause, very untoward to question things outside your station, you know." Nix explained.
Steele's brows raised. "You know the archetype well. If nothing else, maybe it gets us close enough to strike quietly." he said.
"Good, wait here and I'll see if I can find anything in your size." Nix slapped Steele's arm playfully.
Steele stayed put while his friend snuck back towards the closet. A minute or two passed, and Nix returned. The moth hybrid held up a bundle of cloth, a uniform in a matching color palette to the tan-colored guards. Steele unfolded the uniform, finding it to be several sizes too small. Nix looked disappointed.
"That was the biggest one they had back there." he said, tucking a red and tan officers' hat atop his insectoid head, which matched the color scheme of his fluffy setae rather well.
Steele sighed. "This'll cost me some strength, but I can get it to fit." he said.
Nix looked on curiously, tilting his head. Steele shut his eyes and focused, transferring the biomass of his body into energy, shrinking down rapidly until he stood only six foot nine, and weighed somewhere around 400 lbs. He donned the uniform, finding that it fit, if only barely.
"We look good." Steele says with a bit of a chuckle in his voice. "Ready for that bit of language?" Steele asked.
Nix nodded, and after an impromptu lesson in Russian and some psyching each other up, the two turned the corner, walking confidently up to the guards, who looked up in alarm at the sudden presence of the duo.
"Na chto ty smotrish', soldat?" ("What are you looking at, soldier?") Steele said, voice low and irritable-sounding.
"Razve vy ne uznaete vyshestojashhego oficera, kogda vidite ego!? Vpustite nas nemedlenno!" ("Don't you know your superior officer when you see him!? Let us in immediately!") Nix said immediately after, making angry hand gestures at the two guards, who clearly didn't quite know what was going on.
The one holding the keycard scanner walked towards them hesitantly, but the one nearer the door stepped in front of him. The first guard shrugged and went back to his post, the other looking at Steele and Nix and gesturing with his hand to go through the door. "Prinosim svoi izvinenija, gospoda. Prodolzhajte." ("We apologize, gentlemen. Keep going.") the guard said.
The duo stepped through, walking tall and proud to really sell their imitation officer's status. The guards' voices went down an octave as they whispered to each other. Steele smirked, hearing one mention to the other that he "wasn't paid enough to ask what the hell those were."
They walked through the checkpoint without incident, and once they were out of sight of the guards, Steele and Nix exchanged a hyped glance, both of them shocked that their plan had worked so well. Steele smiled, then ruffled Nix's hat. Nix giggled, and they both chuckled together, enjoying this brief moment of levity.
Steele and Nix continued through the corridor.
"We may have slipped past a couple door guards, but the minute a real officer sees us, we're gonna need a backup plan. Eventually someone's bound to see through our disguise." Steele said.
"I know." Nix sighed, carefully pulling the laser pistol Steele'd given him from the waistband of his uniform pants.
"I guess you should tell me how to use this thing." Nix said, handing it to Steele.
Steele examined the weapon for a moment, his thumb flicking a latch on the side up and down a few times.
"That's the safety. Up for safe, down for shoot." Steele explained, repeating the gesture so Nix could watch.
Nix mimed all four of his hands doing the gesture.
"Alright, what else?" Nix asked, his antennae flicking idly.
"There's a notch at the rear, and a post up front, align the post between the wings of the notch, and press the trigger once your target's right in the middle of your sight picture. Lasers like this might take a few shots to bring someone down." Steele explained, thumbing open the flap holster on Nix's belt and tucking the pistol into it. "When the fight's over, keep it in there." Steele said.
Nix nodded, and practiced drawing and reholstering a few times. Steele took the lead, listening for any noises that would suggest another guard or patrol nearby. After a few minutes of travel, he found a stairwell leading upwards, and they ascended it, reaching a floor marked as the 23rd. The stairwell opened into a dimly lit hallway, where two guards stood. Steele groaned in frustration, slinking back behind the wall with Nix. Steele's stomach growled, reminding him of Omega's desires. Nix's keen moth ears heard the growl, and he narrowed his eyes.
"Other side feeling a little tempted?" Nix asked.
"Yeah. We kinda made a deal a minute before I ran into you." Steele said, looking a little guilty.
"Gotta be a cafeteria somewhere in this place." Nix replied. "Hold off a little longer, and maybe we'll run into it before you do anything rash." he added.
Steele nodded. "I can stave it for a while more, but I...get kinda cranky when I'm hungry."
Nix rolled his eyes.
"Let's just get past these two first." Steele pounded a fist into his hand, signaling that they should use melee tactics.
Nix pulled his pistol from its holster, holding it by the barrel and charging around the corner, whacking one guard over the head with it. The other guard gasped in alarm as Steele loped out to Nix's flank, grabbing the second guard's shoulders and planting his knee in the guard's gut, making him drop the weapon he'd been holding. The guard collapsed to the ground, wheezing for air, while the first one fell to the floor, concussed from Nix's pistol whip. Steele slapped the kneeling second guard with one of his massive hands, knocking him out with a theatrical smack sound, while Nix clocked the first one upside the head one more time with the butt of the pistol, just for good measure. The two stood tall and proud, keeping their heads held high, moving past the knocked out guards and into the hallway.
"You know what you're supposed to do if someone sees through the disguise?" Steele asked.
"Yeah, shoot them." Nix replied, earning a chuckle from Steele.
"Glad your reservations are fading a little." the beastman said.
This floor appeared to be utterly vacant, and the duo could both smell the scent of food nearby. Nix realized he was feeling a little famished himself, and the two agreed wordlessly to head that way, picking up the pace and quietly stalking down the hall. Eventually they came upon a set of double doors labeled "Mess Hall." Steele smirked, feeling his mouth begin to water as they opened the doors, stepping inside.
The two were immediately greeted with the sounds of chairs sliding against the floor, and the faces of several dozen soldiers pointing pistols and rifles at them. Steele and Nix stopped in their tracks, and Steele slowly raised his hands, with Nix doing the same. The guards yelled in Russian, and Steele knew he wasn't about to get out of this by the tone of their voices. A guard yelled something else, and the others all lowered their weapons. A high-ranking officer stepped out of the crowd, eyeing Steele and Nix with mild curiosity.
"You are escaped test subjects, yes?" the officer said in English.
Steele and Nix exchanged a glance, before each one nodded to the officer.
"But not mindless. Quite smart, even. Smart enough to don uniforms and try to blend in, da?" the officer said, looking back at his men with a grin as a few of them laughed. "You don't exactly blend well." the officer continued. "But, you need not to worry. The security of my station is compromised, and for my failures I am to be executed by the NPCA as soon as I exit the site. I...have other plans. These men are loyal to me, not to the Party. We intend to break out as a unit, and commandeer escape trucks from the uppermost levels." the officer explained. "The NPCA would like it very much if I killed both of you, but they would not like it enough to spare me their punishment." the officer said, grabbing a bottle of vodka from the table. "Thus, you and us, we are in the same boat. Cheers." he said, popping the cork of the bottle and pouring three glasses, taking a sip from one of them. "Tell me your names, gentlemen." he said.
"Steele." Steele said.
"Nix." Nix followed.
"Nix and Steele, I am General Simonov. Come, sit, we must plot an escape." the general said, motioning to the seats across from himself at the lunch table.
Nix and Steele moved over to the table and took a seat, and the general's men grabbed their own plates and resumed eating, one of them sliding Nix and Steele each a tray of lasagna, which they both promptly dug into. The general glanced at the duo, studying their inhuman features for a few moments. He withdrew the vodka glass nearest Vix, pouring it back into the bottle and shouting something in Russian over his shoulder. A moment later, a soldier brought him a bottle of water, which he refilled Nix's glass with.
"Toxic to insects. A little less toxic to mammals." Simonov explained, sliding over the water glass, which Nix caught, a slender proboscis emerging from his mouth and sipping from it like a straw.
Steele took a gulp of vodka, pleasantly surprised by the taste as his brows raised.
"Weak vodka, da? No bite to it. One of many crimes of our 'superiors.' Now, I will give you all the information you need to make it off this station alive, but before I do, I want to ask you something." Simonov said, looking between the two. "How did you two escape from our laboratories? The rest of my men have not."
"There were other things down there that probably had something to do with that." Steele said, remembering the terrifying assembly line of zombie-like husks. "Mass-produced drones of some kind, they went rogue and flooded the lower levels." Steele added.
The General looked disheartened at that revelation.
"Blyat..." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "'The Workers', as they'd called them. Meant to be subservient to humans but smart enough to do our bidding. Built on a hive mind. They will spread through the facility rapidly." General Simonov said.
He stood, shouting commands to his men, who grew concerned expressions and begin to pack up their gear and prepare to leave.
"How long has it been since you saw them?" Simonov asked Steele.
"An hour and a half at most." Steele replied, standing up from the table.
Nix got to his feet as well, looking at the rushing soldiers with worry in his eyes. He hadn't seen what Steele had, but the reaction of the troops was unsettling by itself.
"We don't have much time then." the general said, standing up and retrieving his helmet and rifle from beneath the table.