Chapter 5: What Have I Become?

They say it’s all random, but I’m not so sure. Who’s hand really holds the scale that weighs one man’s life against another?

Why does my meal prescription designate a life of lab-grown meat, while the guy living on the waterfront, with his fancy suits and 4 child allotment gets the real deal?

I was allotted no children, and that still hurts. The least you could do is give me some real fucking steak!

I stared through the trees at the silhouette of the Drone. It was still a few hundred feet away, but damn did it close the distance fast. It must have heard my screaming.

Could I run? Hide? Fuck. I looked about desperately, causing the dead drone that remained clasped to my shoulder to swing like the world's saddest piñata.

I might be able to run, but how far? There was a chance I could hide, but who knew what kind of senses these flying bastards had. And what then? I glanced at the icons on my HUD. Crippled. Bleeding. And as I watched, my HP bar ticked a point lower. I wasn’t sure I’d survive deactivating my Predator perk, but I'd have to try if I wanted to heal using a Red Ball.

I eyed the onrushing drone. What if I killed it, and in doing so I earned another level up? My toes curled as tingles of remembered pleasure traveled through my body. I knew how fucked up that was, but still I wanted it terribly.

The music screamed on, a guitar solo soaring to new heights. I wondered if somehow it knew what I had to do.

My HP bar was down below 10%, so I’d only have one shot at this. If the drone struck me even once I’d be worse than dead. I’d be food.

I still had several drone corpses in my inventory, so I brought up my interface and retrieved one. It looked pitiful. Dropping the body to the dirt I knelt and pinned the torso beneath my knee, then I grabbed its serrated forelimb with my remaining hand, and with a surge I ripped it free.

As soon as I did a popup appeared in my HUD.

Achievement Unlocked: Improvised Weaponry.

The announcer lady started yapping, but I tuned her out. I didn’t have time for her bullshit.

The limb I had torn free looked remarkably like a crude dagger, but trailed connective tissue and dripped yellow slime. I flicked a glance at the oncoming drone and scrubbed some of the gore free on my trousers.

The drone was close, perhaps only a hundred feet away now. I stepped behind the nearest tree, angling myself so I was hidden, but the corpse dangling from my shoulder would still be visible.

These things, these Gosporian Drones weren’t thinking right. Maybe that was because they were just dumbasses, maybe it was because they didn’t have a queen to order them about. It didn’t matter, they were running on instinct. Mantids from my world weren’t picky about what they ate, I hoped these Gosporians were similarly omnivorous. I’d be fucked otherwise.

It burst through the trees, the uneven whirr of its wings audible even above the music. I watched through the tree trunk with my infra-vision, waiting for my moment and jiggled the dead drone attached to me. The attacking drone spotted the corpse of its fellow and without hesitation, launched itself, limbs outstretched and grasping. It slammed into the drone, tearing the thing free from my shoulder with a jet of blood as I howled in triumph.

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The drone bore the corpse to the ground, already eating its face. I grinned broad, took a step, raised my improvised dagger high, then staggered as blood-loss made my head spin.

My vision swam, full of dark sections and spots of light. My heart lurched like I was running on empty.

I swung the improvised weapon down with all my strength and it deflected off the smooth carapace of the body segment and stuck into the dirt. I dropped to a knee, head spinning and gasping for breath.

Blinking the spots away I expected to see the drone discarding its meal to end my miserable existence, but on it ate, utterly fucking oblivious.

I was fading fast, but reached out with the serrated forelimb to rest it against the things narrow neck. Then I took a deep breath and sawed the things head off like I was cutting a loaf of bread.

It twitched a few times during the process, but never stopped chewing.

I was spent and rolled to my back, looking up into the rotten fungus canopy and too green sky. This time the cheers really did drown out the music entirely. I hated it. Reminded me that those bastards were watching.

Please, please, fireworks, please.

My vision was fading to black.

Let the fireworks light up the darkness.

But they didn’t come.

And I lay there bleeding the last of my lifeblood into the dirt of a hateful, rotten hamburger smelling world.

Still, not bad for a zoo animal. I thought. Took some of the bastards with me.

I wasn’t afraid of dying, I realised, and that wasn’t right. These few hours had been some of the most real, most intense, most horrific of my short life.

The predator perk was still active, and in that moment I realised how it was affecting my mind. How it made me something I was never meant to be.

I had exchanged one implant for another.

My whole life had been spent being controlled by others. Told what to do, what to feel, how to live.

Obscene.

It was fucking obscene.

They should all die.

The aliens that did this to us, the humans that had done the same even before this all happened.

I should kill them all.

Should.

But won’t.

Can’t.

Nah, it was curtains for me.

I was laying on my side now and it felt like I was suspended, weightless in a sea of shadow.

Except for just one tiny sliver of vision left to me.

And it was all I could see.

A symbol, glowing hateful red in my HUD.

Hatchling Predator.

My eyes rolled slowly, the sliver of vision scrolling my HUD until I found the Inventory icon.

I clicked it.

What did I have to lose at this point?

What was pain compared to death?

I slammed down on Hatchling Predator and then a Red Ball just a fraction of a moment later.

And I burned.