David Golemon - Ripper

“I think the damn things are using the tubes to move around.”

The sergeant unzipped his body armor, lazily scratched his chest, and then looked from Everett to the tube and back again.

“Well, Cap’n, not knowing just what in the hell we have going on here is throwin’ a kink in my train of thought,” the old sergeant said as he reached out and felt the tube himself. His eyes widened and he pulled the nylon glove on his right hand free and then touched the tube. “Damn,” he hissed.

“What we have here is what amounts to a genetic, or viral, experiment gone bonkers Gunny. One that’s damn hard to kill,” Everett said.

“Okay,” the sergeant said with a wry look at his squad of men around him.

“From what I learned, they can’t last that long. The substance starts eating away at their brains if there was too much of the formula taken into their system. It was invented to be given out in light doses to soldiers to bolster their aggressiveness. It has properties that can open up the unused portions of a person’s brain.” Everett again felt the tube and realized that the movement inside was moving away from them, traveling farther down into the complex. “But that in and of itself starts a fast process of something akin to brain cancer.”

“Some kind of super trooper, huh?” the gunnery sergeant said with a grin and shake of his head.

“Something like that,” answered Everett.

“Sounds like something the army needs,” quipped the gunnery sergeant.

“Hey!” came a shouted protest from farther up the stairwell.

“It feels like the movement is heading down.”

“Yeah,” the gunnery sergeant said spitting a large stream of tobacco juice onto one of the steps, “but what about the fifteen other tubes inside the complex, Cap’n?”

Everett closed his eyes as the point the sergeant just made hit home.

“What kills these bastards, Cap’n?”

Everett looked around at his small band of men. “One hell of a lot of bullets,” he said in frustration, noticing that his words didn’t have a very good effect on his men. “Head shots men. They can’t very damn well function if they have no brain.”

The men started shaking their heads in response to the captain.

The gunnery sergeant pulled the magazine from his M-14 and inserted a full thirty rounds. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but we’re running low on ammo.”

“Yeah, and I don’t think we’re going to run into Sergeant Sanchez with his assault packages before we run into more of these monsters. We’re heading in the wrong direction to get more bullets. It’s either make it down to level ten and resupply at the security office, or make a run to the main armory on thirty-two.”

Before the gunnery sergeant could say anything, they were caught completely off-guard when a loud hollow-sounding bang came from the tube. A large dent appeared in the steel right where Everett had placed his hand. The men on the landing stepped back as another large dent appeared. The steel of the elevator tube was only an eighth of an inch thick and was standing up too well to the assault from the inside.

“Jesus,” the gunny said as he stood and backed away from the fifteen-foot-diameter elevator shaft. “Whatever that is has been waiting right there, probably hearing every word we were saying.”

“I think it’s time we start fighting back and get our asses to the armory,” Everett said as he checked the remaining rounds in his Beretta. “I want something a little heavier than this cap pistol.”

“Then may I suggest we beat feet the hell out of here?” the marine said as he waved the men farther up on the stairs to start back down.

“If they’re smart like the docs say, they may be able to cut us off. And if they’re real smart they will make it to the breaker boxes on each level. Smith will know we can’t fight in the dark without the right equipment.”

Suddenly the already-dim lighting in the stairwell went completely out, followed by the flash and start-up of the battery-powered floods on each level. They were now almost totally in the dark.

“Well, I guess they’re real smart, Cap’n.”

Everett turned away and motioned downward as his squad started a headlong flight back down the stairs and into the darkness below.

The man once known as Smith had stayed the longest inside the cloud of Perdition’s Fire. He had inhaled deeply knowing that he and his men were done for. In his mind-set he had quickly realized that he wouldn’t go down without a fight. Without regard to himself or his men, and needless to say the thought of the many lives inside the underground complex. He had been fully briefed by Hiram Vickers on the properties of Perdition’s Fire and knew exactly what it was he was in store for. He quickly figured he would rather go out this way than placing a bullet into his own head as the Black rules of engagement called for.

As he had inhaled the toxic mixture of Perdition’s Fire he felt the burning as the mist penetrated his eyes, nose, and throat. At first he couldn’t catch his breath while all around him his four men writhed on the floor, covered in fog. He felt the dreamlike sensation of actually floating off the floor but also had the wherewithal to realize he was still there, covered with the wetness of the mist. He had shaken his head when the effects started to take hold. He felt the bones in his body start to ache. The pain set in as the bones started their growth spurt, contracting the muscles around them like a vice grip. The marrow inside was reacting far faster than the tissue surrounding it. At the time he didn’t realize it, but the section of brain that had lain dormant his entire life started firing on all cylinders, sending endorphins through his system to help expand those body parts that it felt were the weakest.

Smith remembered rolling over onto his back in sheer agony as the formula coursed through his system. He felt his clothing expand until his arms burst through the material. He felt the crunching as bone met bone and cartilage was torn free from tissue. He felt his eyes bulge and his teeth separate. His body began to convulse even as his system started to heal itself. Even through the excruciating process Smith realized that Ambrose had not only hit on an aggressive formula of absolute mind control; he had hit on a miracle drug that made the expanded brain system produce chemicals that could heal, escalating the natural process of blood clotting and bone marrow production. All this because for the first time in human history the key to unlocking the unused portion of a human brain had been introduced by pure chance by expanding the brain cells in the operating portion of the mind. With the correct and lighter dosage, Smith would have realized without the severe pain he was going through that Ambrose had actually accomplished what he had started out to do. He would have created a soldier that not only was brighter, but could heal faster and take more punishment than a normal man would have been able to achieve on his own.

After the transformation was complete, there was the problem of clothing. His muscles and bodily tissue had expanded so much that his circulation was being cut off and robbed of blood by the tightness of his clothes and boots. He remembered ripping free the vest, most of his shirt, and the waistband of his pants. His massive hands had torn through the laces of his boots until he could feel the cold floor beneath him. As he had risen from the mist covering the clean room floor, he felt free for the first time in his life. His mind was seeing and understanding things he never realized possible. His vision was perfect. He could see shadows and knew that through the mist he could actually see his men around him. He felt so good he had to laugh at the newfound power he was feeling. He found he was near hysteria as his nose widened and flattened, expanding his nasal cavity to allow smells and odors to penetrate that he could never have smelled before.