Chapter 103 – Ballistic Realignment

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Cole muttered. He held it up to his eye and switched it round the first way again, just in case. Maybe it was like one of those thumb drives that were always wrong until you actually looked at the fuckin’ thing. But no such luck. His chest started to feel tighter. Holding his breath, he wrapped his fingers around the padlock, braced against the valve, and pulled. The lock scraped across the valve, but didn’t pop free, didn’t even bend. Even being several times stronger than an unenhanced human, a solid steel lock was still too much.

  He gasped and let go, shaking his fingers out. Another loud crack sounded from across the space from another of the serpent’s attempts to breach the control room.

  Ah, to hell with it.

  The meteoric rounds from his ability still burned inside his gun. Cole put the muzzle of his M4 up to the lock, flipped it from safe to semi and pulled the trigger. The enhanced bullet tore through the lock like it was made of tin, illuminating his little corner of the sublevel and announcing his presence to every monster in the place. He quickly cleared the remains of the lock and put his weight into the valve. It resisted at first, but once it started to move, it quickly slid to the flow position and Cole heard a pumping noise from within the generator. The indicator panel flashed.

  It was up to George and the rest of the engineers now. Howls and shrieks from across the bay warned Cole that his percussive locksmithing had not gone unnoticed. And if they were heading here, there was a good chance they could trash the LF generator trying to get him. With one final look at the screen and a short prayer that the smart people could get this thing under control, he sprinted away from the generator and let out a shrill whistle.

  “Hey mother fuckers, come get some!” he shouted. He switched on his weapon light as he ran, drawing the unwanted attention away from the critical generators. Formless, tentacled masses of eyes and razor-lined maws recoiled from the light but dragged themselves on regardless. Cole burned another charge to mark the sea of enemies and fired into the pack, watching his enhanced bullets tearing through the first rank, ricocheting between enemies like a laser split from a prism.

  And yet, a disturbing amount of the shambling creatures just didn’t care. These things were from a rough neighborhood, one that would give even a high-level Kicker pause. Limbs were severed, eyes were blown out of sockets, bones cracked and splintered. But they kept coming, including the massive, armored snake creature that coiled between the generators and reared up like a king cobra.

  Cole dodged out of the way as a hail of barbs sparked off aluminum housings and the steel safety rails beside him. He ducked behind a support column and angled his rifle around, firing up at the armored head of the gargantuan monster. The interior of the sub-level was the height of an aircraft hangar, and this thing was scratching the superstructure as it embedded a dozen more barbs in the pillar. Several of Cole’s shots struck it, each one a starburst of sparks as it met impenetrable plates of hardened carapace.

  Well, Cole didn’t have to beat it, just outrun it long enough for the eggheads to do their thing. They would reverse the polarity of the tachyon emitters, or whatever sci-fi bullshit DOR’s researchers did. Just as long as it worked, he could outrun a snake for a while. Even a fuckin’ big one.

  The serpentine monster smashed its head into the deck, shearing open the floating aluminum gantry of the generator service mezzanine and pulling its bulk out of sight below the deck plates. Cole stared. Well, that was fucked. He took off at a run as the sound of chitin against metal and concrete scratched its way towards him. The deck shuddered under his boots.

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  Just before the active portion of his Meteoric Leap faded, he used it to vault up to the catwalk circling the room. The armored serpent smashed up through the grating he’d just stood on, snapping down with the bite force of a hydraulic press and warping the metal in its jaws as though it were tin foil. Cole fired point blank at its face, hoping for a lucky hit in its eye—until he saw that it had about twelve of them arranged without any hint of order or symmetry.

  All of them were fixed on him. Cole ran down the length of the catwalk, pelted by stone chips as barbs buried themselves in the concrete around him. Half a mezzanine deck plate smashed into the catwalk ahead of him, and Cole slid to a stop before bolting the way he’d just come. Tentacled things were already climbing their way up the support struts to the catwalk, pulling themselves by barbed tentacles that reached towards him as he passed. Ahead, the snake clamped down on another section of the catwalk and tore it free of the wall, cutting off Cole’s retreat. He slid to a stop, almost slipping on the metal grating.

  “Fuck you!” Cole shouted at the snake, burning one of his last remaining charges and preparing to jump somewhere, anywhere, away from this fuckin’ snake.

  The snake opened its mouth as if to shout back, but what came out was a high, ear-piercing call that shook the room and forced Cole down to his knees. It wasn’t just sonic energy, either, it carried the feeling of LF power with it. The active ability charge Cole had been about to use, hell, all his ability charges, just drained away, leaving him completely zeroed out. As though the siren call had just blown every bit of stored energy out of his soul. Cole staggered to his feet. With shaking hands, he dropped the mag and slotted a new one. He shouted back at the thing, a wordless cry of limitless fury and disgust.

  If he didn’t know any better, he’d say those dozen eyes were gloating at him. The muscles behind its jaw tensed up, and it opened wide to reveal dozens of poisoned barbs ready to impale him with that swelling, rotting venom.

  A quality in the air changed, shifting like the cabin pressure of an airplane popping. The snake flinched, pulling back and shaking its head as though it were in pain. Cole looked to the control room, barely able to see the engineer slamming his palm against the already cracked glass. From the roof of the control room, several rifles opened up. All the remaining soldiers were shooting down into the creatures, now fumbling as if confused. Their rifles didn’t harm the snake, but they certainly made a hell of a racket that drew its attention.

  It staggered toward the light, noise, and bullets, slithering drunkenly across the deck. A moment later, Cole felt his enhancements wither and vanish, leaving nothing but an exhausted, unpowered human. He grunted and fell to the catwalk again, leaning against the remaining railing. Below, the creatures that had been climbing up to reach him fell away, shrieking like unlubricated engines. The enormous serpent thrashed, crushing one of the generators in its panic with a fountain of sparks and a cloud of steam.

  Through the thrashing, black flecks started to ablate off the creature. It dissolved as it writhed and twisted; melting to an onyx skeleton and a pile of organs that clattered to the deck before it, too, started to slowly melt away into black flecks. It couldn’t survive without a Lewis Field. Couldn’t even exist.

  Well, not like he could have killed it on his own. Not with an Army-issue M4 carbine. Maybe if he had his whole squad and they had their otherworld armaments. Maybe. Cole leaned his back against the cold cement wall and took a deep breath. At least he was alive. And as long as he was alive, he could grow stronger.

  Cheering echoed from the other end of the sub-level. The soldiers were coming out of the control room, hooting and celebrating still being alive. With a sigh, Cole eased himself up and climbed down from the catwalk, dropping into the water that was slowly being pumped out of the generator room. He made his way over to the rest of the lab’s QRF team.

  Rodriguez grinned as he saw him, jogging up and clapping him on the shoulder. “Man, that was some Superman shit. I never seen someone just take off like that. Good job.”

  “Thanks,” said Cole.

  Rodriguez turned and whistled at his squad. “Listen up! This ain’t done ‘til the facility is clear. We’re still Search and Rescue. Lab personnel might need help down here. We sweep the lower level for casualties, then move up. Oorah?”

  A chorus of “Ayes,” and “Oorah!” came back.

  Cole checked his magazine and fell in with the others.

  The work wasn’t done until it was done.