Moss hunched over, back muscles convulsing in the cramped ductwork. His mouth was dry. His head throbbed, and his bladder felt like someone had pumped five gallons of piss into a two-gallon bag. He wanted to let it out. But the smell of warm urine was his enemy. Its stench would waft outward, beckoning his enemies. Both two and four legged. He had remained hidden in his self-imposed prison, waiting for a chance to escape as minutes stretched to hours. And during that time, his spinning mind had conjured every childhood nightmare of his youth. Now, those blood-soaked monstrosities circled his missing friends, like macabre vultures ready to pick their carcasses clean. And all the while, he had sat in fear, doing nothing to help them; nothing to reach them; nothing at all.
Staring through the narrow slits in the metal grate, Moss scanned the darkness. Had his chasers gone for good? He hadn't seen them in a long while. His hulking chasers had evaporated into the darkness like shadows in a midnight sky. And while he was glad the relentless pursuit had ended as abruptly as it began, without his tracker in hand, he couldn't escape the ominous feeling their sudden retreat was a clever ploy to get him to reveal himself.
The stifling heat baking the cramped ductwork felt thick and oppressive as Moss stared wide-eyed into the looming ductwork, imagining many orbless eyes staring back. The sound of his own staccato heartbeat pounded against the insides of his eardrums like far-off thunderclaps warning of the approach of trouble. He rocked back and forth, hands clenching his groin, considering crawling deeper into the ductwork, and taking a piss, but the goddamn raptors were everywhere.
He reached out with a jittery hand, touched the inside of the sharp grate and peered through the thin slits. A faint green dot flashed in the distance. I'm over here. I'm over here. The tracker called out, mocking him from the edge of sight. Its cold green glare burned into Moss's corneas. Come and get me. Come and get me. If you dare. He stared at it, thinking he might reach it. It wouldn't take long. Just 20 meters there and back. Moss looked around the compartment. He saw nothing. The infernal blinking dot laughed again. He didn't move. The sound of his own icy fear seeped through his veins, making the darkness shrink around him.
Moss slipped his fingertips through the metal slats of the grate. The sharp edges threatened to slice deep. He held his breath, leaned in close and placed an ear against the louvers. No sounds penetrated the black vale as the all-seeing eyes remained in the shadows. He drew in a slow, deep breath, held it and pushed outward with all his might. The grate shuddered in its frame, but refused to move. He pushed harder. The grate squeaked an angry refusal, and Moss grimaced. "Fuck," he whispered. During the adrenaline-fueled moments of his earlier retreat, Moss had slammed the bent cover into the square opening, wedging it in place. He drove his shoulder against the grate and heaved outward with all his might. The jammed grate groaned, popped out an inch, but remained fixed to its frame. A steady stream of expletives ran through his mind, threatening to break the silence and give him away.
The heavy ductwork behind Moss buckled, and his eyes bulged. Something large was in there with him. He was not alone. The heavy steel cover fell forward. Its sharp louvers bit into Moss's bare fingers. He groaned in pain. Slippery blood filled his palms as he lost his grip and the entire world tipped forward. He overbalanced, tipped forward, and the sharp grate sliced deep into his fingers as his forehead impacted the frame. He stopped on the edge of falling. Droplets of blood mixed with beads of sweat. The ductwork buckled again, and fear drained his bladder.
Moss teetered on the edge of falling out as an odd, out of place thought struck him. He was happy. Lockspur hadn't been there to see him piss himself.
Something large forced its way towards the opening, and Moss forced the cover back into its framework, drawing his sidearm. Something struck the cover, and he fired through the vent cover. A burst of brilliant flame followed by a scream of rage stole his senses. His ears rang with pain as the shrill blast transformed silence into chaos. Even if the raptor didn't get in, the gunshot resonated through the ship, blowing his cover. The time had come for him to move. There was no other choice. A second scream echoed through the ducts, and Moss jumped backwards. The entire room shuddered, and the raptor behind the grate screamed again. It wanted in. It wanted to feed.
A garbled squawk came from behind Moss, and he reeled when hearing the noise. The tracker's screen lit up. Moving dots filled the darkness. But even that threat could not erase the threat lurking in the dark ductwork. The raptor bashes the grate, bulging it inward, tearing it off and hurling it across the room like a frisbee. It sank into the thick steel wall like a knife sinking into butter. Massive claws entered the open vent hole, and frenzied voices pierced the darkness as he entered the compartment. Giant reptilian hands grabbed the frame, and the creature screamed as it struggled to get at its prey.
Moss leapt backwards, slipped on a puddle of his own piss, feet flying up over his head. He came down with a sick thud, glasses flickering out for a second. The pain in his forearm exploded out of his mouth in an angry expletive.
At that moment, the hatch on the other side of the compartment slammed open, hinges breaking free and the hatch spiraled to the floor with an enormous crash. The giant raptor clawing its way towards Moss pulled itself out of the twisted steel ductwork, facing an equally matched adversary.
Moss seized the opportunity to get away. He slid out of the opening and fast-crawled around the edge of the room. Neither of his busy dinner guests saw their meals moving off.
Something rolled under his belly, and he came up with a shotgun shell and let out a cry of relief. The titans turned to their escaping meal. Through the open hatch he had entered earlier, angry voices neared.
The tracker lay beneath the handrail, beeping and flashing. It drew the attention of one raptor. But the other had not lost its focus. The giant creature turned towards him, lowering its head to charge. Moss jumped out of the way at the last possible moment as the raptor bounced off the wall beside him. It screamed and shook off the impact. The creature turned to him, reared up to attack, and the second raptor yanked it away before it could steal its meal. Moss collected the loose shotgun shells, retrieved his discarded shotgun and pointed it at the fighting raptors and knew it was no good. They were too big.
A split second later, one raptor slashed the other, and the retreating raptor bounded past Lockspur, leapt onto the handrail, nearly wrenched it free, and bounded through the upper hatch.
He grabbed his tracker and ran back towards the raptor, stopping just in time to evade a wicked right slash. He couldn't tell if the raptor was hungry or just pissed off. It lunged at him again, getting hung up on the hanging handrail. One bolt was all that held the frame to the wall. Moss stood a few feet from the tips of the creature's claws and had an idea.
He reached into his cargo pocket, pulled out a hand grenade, tore off the lower edge of his t-shirt and wrapped it around the grenade. Then, he took out his combat knife and sliced open his hand. Blood soaked the cloth and drove the raptor into a frenzy. He tossed it through the hatch, leading towards his chasers, and the raptor followed.
Weapon fire, raptor screams and an explosion mixed in the next compartment. Moss used the cover to slip into the next compartment and raced out of tracker range.
____________________________________
Dahl stood in the battle's aftermath, eyeing Lady Hemmingford as the stench of spilled bowels and blood made her stomach roil and churn. Holy shit, she thought, staring at the melted raptor carcasses. Did that just happen? Did she just rise from a sea of guts?
"The obelisk is in danger." Lilith said, turning to Eve and Dahl with an expression that screamed, we need to go now. "If his minions seize the device, he can alter time streams at will."
"It's here," Eve said in disbelief. "I was told it's safe on Not Furya?"
"Obelisk?" Dahl asked. "What are you talking about?"
Lilith ignored Dahl, gawking at Eve. She shook her head in disbelief. "Even with the sight I gave, you seem to know nothing of what is happening here." Lilith squinted as if seeing Eve for the first time. "You are not the person you professed to be."
Dahl's mouth dropped open. "You did this to her?"
"No," Eve blared in Lilith's face. "She did not. And I never lied about who I am." She threw her hand up, preventing Lilith from responding, and added, "Although, I'm sure you are with those who did this to me."
Lilith laughed and rolled her eyes as if Eve were a child throwing a tantrum. "I believe what she meant to say is that they are with me. And for the record, I may not have been the one who did this to you, but you are a product of me and what I have done here. And they shall gather my children unto me, and all shall shake in fear. You are a shadow of what I shall become."
"Are you nuts?"
"It is a passage from the Furyan Scriptures. A recalling of the Old Mother's words to her followers."
Eve scoffed.
"Believe what you will. But soon, you will learn the truth of your lineage. I am your ancestor. And what lives within you is not a curse; it is a birthright. Your birthright. The birthright I created here today."
"Birthright," Eve bellowed. "This isn't a family heirloom handed down over generations. I'm a goddamn lab experiment. A freak of science." She held up her hands, and they became monstrous claws. "Look what they did to me."
Lilith stalked over to Eve as if readying to slap her in the face, and Eve threw up her hands in a warding-off gesture. Lilith brushed them aside, and Eve cringed away. Without warning, Lilith pulled her into a gentle embrace and said, "I am sorry, child. Sorry for the pain my selfish choices have caused you. Had I known the outcome of my actions, I might have chosen otherwise."
"Might," Dahl repeated.
"Perhaps?"
"What choices are those?" Eve demanded in a whisper that Dahl could not quite make out.
"Recent choices," Lilith answered, releasing Eve and gesturing for Dahl to approach.
"How could recent choices cause this?" she asked, gesturing at herself. "This happened weeks ago."
"I made a choice less than two hours ago that altered the entirety of our lineage, from beginning to end."
"Do people often ask you what you're talking about?" Dahl asked.
Lilith scowled and said, "Long ago, when the obelisk was first created, it needed a hiding place like no other. So we devised an ingenious plan to conceal it in the core of this facility until its awakening. Over the past thousand millennia, the raptors burrowed down, first exposing and then protecting the obelisk from all intruders."
"And why would they do that? They're mindless eating machines." Dahl asked.
"They did so because we programmed them to do so," Lilith answered, gesturing from the carcasses littering the floor. She gestured from herself to Eve, and added, "Like our sisters, scientists engineered us with purpose."
"These creatures are not our sisters," Eve replied.
"And there is much you still have to learn."
"And would be what, exactly?" Dahl asked.
"To protect the future of our species." Lilith began.
"Humanity," Dahl said.
Lilith laughed in Dahl's face. "Do any of us strike you as particularly human?"
"For some unknown reason none of my people could understand, the raptors came to revere and worship the stone. That was not part of their programming."
"Let me guess. You know why?"
"I have an idea." Lilith admitted. "Even these primitive beings — such as we made them — can sense the power of the obelisk. Its power resonates through them because it created them, not us."
"How can an inanimate object create anything?"
"Long term exposure to the radiation given off by the obelisk alters the mind and body. The energy beneath us does not kill. It transforms."
"Is that why the raptors are exhibiting human traits?"
"Not exactly. I am responsible for that." She held up her hand before either of her comrades could speak. "That is the terrible choice I made hours ago."
"Nice," Eve said, sarcasm dripping from her lips.
Lilith's head cocked to one side as if hearing something move in the dark, and an icy chill ran up Dahl's spine. Had Dahl not focused on Lilith, she may have missed the subtle movement. As it was, Dahl peered around the room, searching for whatever might have caught Lilith's attention. She saw nothing, but sensed an almost imperceptible change in the grainy green images filling her glasses, as if the room had shrunk and gone out of focus. It made her nauseous and off balance, as if the static compartment around her had misaligned with reality.
Lilith stood, eyes moving from Eve, the giant hole in the compartment. When Lilith's eyes returned, Eve nodded her understanding using only the up and down motion of her eyes.
Dahl saw the disturbances before realizing what they were. There were 6 or 7 rectangular distortions beneath the hatch she had taken refuge behind earlier. They looked like TV monitors, projecting a blank image of the scenes behind them. The distortions crept closer.
Lilith screamed, "MOVE!" The distortions dropped away, revealing a contingent of burly armed assailants readying their weapons to attack.
Dahl felt something enormous crash into her back and rose into the air, sailing spread-eagle towards the opening in the wall. Something large and black and half raptor, half cheetah ran beneath her. It was a long and sleek body keeping pace with her arcing fall. As she plummeted towards the floor, she landed on its back.
Weapon's fire rang out in the dark, and the sound of tearing metal pierced Dahl's eardrums. The creature beneath her screamed in agony. Spindly tendrils burst from its sides, wrapping around her body, pinning her to the creature's back. It rocketed forward through the cavernous opening left by the earlier raptor so fast Dahl left her breath in the adjacent compartment. When the maelstrom faded behind her, the creature slowed to a hobbling gait, took a few more off-balance steps, and fell on its belly. The impact knocked the tendrils loose, pitching Dahl high and away. She landed with an unceremonious thump, rubbing her backside. The cat-like creature clawed its way into a nearby corner, howling in agony, and transformed into Eve.
A rifle blast had blown away Eve's right calf. It was a miracle either of them had survived the attack. Eve writhed as the exposed bone covered itself with a bloody tissue. A process Dahl could tell from Eve's tortured expression was beyond painful. She knelt down, already knowing she shouldn't, and took Eve's hand. Eve's grip felt like Dahl's hand was in a closing vise. Eve saw her expression, lessened her grip and mouthed, thank you. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Gunfire rang out in the distance, and she considered going back to help Lilith. But without knowing how far Eve had run and not having any weapons, Dahl was defenseless against armed attackers. She remained there, realizing that until Eve's healing was complete, they weren't going anywhere.
Lilith jumped around the compartment like a stray bullet bouncing from wall to wall. She dodged rifle blasts, one after another, until realizing her attackers were not trying to hit her, but force her into a back corner. By the time the thought dawned on her, it was already too late. They had cornered like a rat in a trap.
She stood with her back pressed against the wall. Seven heavily armed Necromongers stood feet away, looking over their sights. Some smiled; some sneered. So this is what it feels like to stand in front of a firing squad, she thought.
Her eyes were solid orbs of chrome, and even though her attackers could not tell which way she was looking, they suspected she was eyeing the upside-down handrails hanging over their heads.
"I should thank you," Msg. Avenesque said, cocking his head to the side as if studying her like a butterfly he was about to pin to a piece of corkboard. "You have done me a great service. When I bring your head back to the Lord Marshal, he will make me the new high regent."
She spat at his feet. The ground bubbled and smoked beneath the slimy gob, and two men stepped back. Avenesque reeled on them with an expression that said, one more step and you'll both join this bitch in death.
Saliva dripped from Lilith's serrated teeth as she hissed in a savage rage. Her inhuman form coiled in on itself, readying to pounce on the nearest target, but none of her assailants paid her terrifying form the slightest attention. Her face morphed into a near-human mask carved of shining onyx. She squinted, sarcasm distorting her expression, and said, "How unfortunate that your pathetic master squanders such potential." She offered him a pouty expression that gave way to a malevolent smile and added, "Sadly, that is one of his many shortcomings."
"You bitch."
She shrugged and said, "Better a bitch than a gutless bootlicker."
Msg. Avenesque raised his hand, signaling his men to get ready to fire. Lilith did not escape. She turned as if trying to shield her chest. Avenesque laughed and said, "You can't hide from what's coming this time, bitch." When she did not beg for her life, he asked, "Any last words?"
She turned with an all-knowing grin and said, "Goodbye." A split second later, Lilith dove forward, crashing through a large vent cover, and bounded out of sight as a wave of gravity rifle fire chased her into the darkness. She came to a junction and made a violent right, heading towards the front of the wreckage as a tearing pain grabbed her by the tail. The gravity rifle fire had caught up to her, erasing the last 2-feet of her bony tail. She screamed, more in disbelief than pain.
To her surprise, the contingent of burly men crawled through the cramped ductwork behind her. Her first instinct was to go back and attack them. She imagined the horror on their faces when she tore them apart in the confines of the narrow ductwork. But even though she was long and lean, in cramped spaces she was vulnerable.
Lilith backed against the duct, and a wave of searing pain shot up her tail, burning into her spine. It made the darkness swirl and her stomach flip-flop. She looked down at the bleeding stump that used to be a tail and reconsidered a plan that would have her charging straight into the muzzles of a trained Necromonger hit squad. One shot is all it would take to make her face look like her tail. And while she knew her tail would grow back, she wasn't keen to learn if her head would. Even she didn't know if her body could take that kind of punishment. Everything has a limit.
Lilith turned away from the oncoming noise, squinting in anger as she made her way in the direction Eve had run off with Dahl.
____________________________________
A faint sound drifted through another open hatch, and Moss's eyes went wide. He leapt up, grabbing the upside-down handrail and hauled himself up. In the distance, a frantic woman's voice thundered. Moss wasn't certain of much, but he was sure of two things. Whoever his pursuers were, they were men, and Dahl was the only woman for a billion miles in any direction. It had to be her.
He burst through the hatch, forgetting that two raptors were supposed to be waiting for him on the other side, and dropped off the handrail. He fell hard on his backside in an oozing mass of exploding raptor guts and thought the men chasing him went this way. But that was wrong. He had just left a nasty surprise seconds before. Then an altogether unwanted, a realization struck him. There is more than one team.
At that moment, an eardrum-bursting roar of agony came to him as Dahl screamed in pain. Moss ran, not caring about the noise he made, the hordes of raptors that might be nearby or anything else other than getting to her while she was still alive.
He ran up a mountain of debris, dove through the open hatch at the top, and saw Dahl in the clutches of a ghastly beast. He hit the ground, rolled into a crouch, and jumped up, ready to blow the creature's head off. Then it happened. Something struck him in the face, and a million tiny flitting stars filled the darkness. For a fleeting moment, he thought he'd never seen anything so beautiful. Each pinpoint of light looked like a tiny firefly gliding on the cool night air. Then, the building pain in his skull pulled him down as someone screamed his name.
When his eyes opened, Dahl's dire expression of worry greeted him. His aching head lay in her lap. "I'm so sorry," she said, dabbing at his bloody face. "I thought you were one of those assholes with the weird rifles."
"He is an asshole," Eve snapped, stepping into his line of sight. "The dumbass was going to shoot me. I'd call that being an asshole."
"It's not his fault. He was just trying to protect me." Dahl said, wiping the sweat from his face.
"All I was doing was holding your hand. Is that a crime?"
Moss sat up, and the darkness swirled around him as nausea churned in his guts. "Who… who is she?" he asked, looking at Dahl for an answer. "Where'd that thing go?"
"Thing," Eve bellowed, and Moss flinched. "Sure. Sure, I'm a thing now. Right?" She stalked away, mumbling something about limited intellect, a lack of self-control, and killing anything that doesn't look like him. Eve reeled on them, gestured to her clothing and said, "He said this was like a suit of armor. He said it would protect me. He said I could take it off. But he lied. It doesn't come off. It just makes people hate me."
"I don't hate you." Dahl said. "And I'm not afraid of you. I was in the beginning, but that was before I knew you. But I'm not afraid now."
"Really?"
"Really," Dahl said, nudging Moss in the shoulder to chime in.
Moss looked at Eve, the compartment spinning around him in a slow, winding circle. His head thronged and pounded, and he was so over M6-117 and this bullshit mission. "Huh.. Sure. Sure. You're great."
Eve shook her head as if Moss were being dim-witted and enunciated every word. "It… was… me."
"What was you?" he asked.
"The thing you saw… was me," she said and transformed.
Moss stood up, squinted at her and said, "Key-riced. Another one." He turned to Dahl and asked, "Does this universe really need 2 Lilith's?"
"I'm not Lilith!" Eve blared, taken by surprise.
"You're a shifter," he said. "You're like Lilith."
"You knew," Dahl said. "All this time. You knew what she could do. And you didn't tell me?"
"Sure… cause Lockspur told everyone. And how did that work out for him?" he asked, staring her down. "Anyone close to Lilith finds out," he replied, turning to Eve with a suspicious look. "It's not something you can hide, is it? It sort of bubbles out when you get pissed or scared, or..." He smiled at Eve, and finished, "horny."
"Awkward," Dahl said.
"You do not know what it is like."
Something crashed inside the ductwork. The thundering sound pushed through the cover, and the trio turned to the ductwork in the corner. Eve picked up Moss's shotgun and pointed it towards the vent. He held out his sidearm, weapon shaking in his weak grip. Dahl took the weapon and said, "I should take this?" He offered her a nod and took out his knife, holding it in a shaky hand. Dahl laughed and said, "Just stay behind us, little buckaroo."
The vent cover flew across the room. It crashed into the adjacent wall, and a large black form spilled out, rolling to a stop. It stood up, turned to them and morphed into Lilith.
Moss stepped between Dahl and Lilith, walked towards Lilith and put his knife away. He stopped in front of her, threw his arms around her and kissed her.
Dahl turned to Eve with a raised brow. "Never saw that coming."
"He'll," Eve replied, "I didn't even know she was a woman."
"Funny," Lilith said, releasing Moss and frowning at them. She turned back to Moss, inspecting his bloody face with a disapproving grimace. "You look like shit. I told you to duck when you came into this compartment."
"I forgot most of what you told me before we left Sol Lucia," he said with an embarrassed shrug.
"You and Carlos. You never listen."
"Sorry. I thought you were just fucking with me."
"Oh, sweetie," she said, shaking her head in disappointment as she wiped the dried blood off his face. "Why do you all refuse to believe me when I tell you what comes next? I want only to keep you safe."
"That's not the whole truth." Eve whispered.
"I'm getting the impression this sort of thing happens a lot," Dahl whispered.
Lilith glared at them, and they glanced away. Then the sound of something trying to sneak through the narrow metal ductwork filled the compartment. "Persistent little bastards, you've got to give them that." Lilith said, walking to the vent to listen.
Moss drew his blade and held out the knife. "Thanks," she said, holding up a hand tipped with razor-sharp talons. "I have my own."
"What now?" he asked, looking into the vent.
"Stand and fight or get to the obelisk before they do. Either way, this ends in violence and blood."
Dahl heard him and realized she had given him a secret mission too.