Jonathan Bond - The Terminus experiment

Rachel had seen something like this once. It was supposed to give the person a three-sixty view of the world. They hadn’t been very popular. because most people couldn’t adjust to having that much visual field. Just above the viewing bar, to the side of the metal plate, the ork had the words “NUMBER ONE” tattooed into the skin of its forehead.

All these things she could have dealt with. She had seen body mods before, though these were clumsier and more obvious. No, the thing that made her body seize upon her was the ork’s mouth.

The mouth was filled with needle teeth that didn’t quite mesh. They had broken off in places and some of the splinters jutted through the dead flesh of the ork’s lips.

“Down! Now!”

It was Sin, right behind Rachel. Then Sin’s hand was on her shoulder, gripping with a strength Rachel wouldn’t have dreamed, shoving her violently to the floor.

Above her head, she heard two soft twangs, and watched as the ork developed dual feathered hafts in its throat.

The thing let out a strangled cry, and turned a half-circle to stumble into the frame of the round door. It landed on its right side, mechanical leg peddling against empty air while its flesh leg twitched uncontrollably.

More twangs followed the first, and as two more crossbow bolts buried themselves in the things body, the twitching of the flesh leg stilled. Even so, the chrome leg spasmed twice more before it finally jerked once and then dropped. As if someone had just cut the power.

Sinunu’s hand was still on Rachel’s shoulder as Flak’s huge form did a low, curled vault over her, landed on one foot, and spun to the side of the doorway, the Vindicator going into its warm-up whine as he jammed it through the circular opening.

“Twelve o’clock clear.” Flak voice was soft.

“Six clear.” It was Truxa’s voice from somewhere behind Rachel.

“You solid?” Sinunu touched the side of Rachel’s face, pulling her gaze from the downed monstrosity in front of her. “I said, ‘you solid?’ ”

Rachel nodded.

“Package secure,” said Sinunu.

Rachel pushed Sinunu’s hand off her shoulder and stood. She wasn’t exactly proud of her reaction to the situation, but she wasn’t going to be called a “package” if she could help it.

From just behind her, she could hear Truxa say, “I didn’t think it was possible. There’s no way that thing should be able to exist.” The wonder and fear in her voice made Rachel feel just a bit better about how she’d reacted.

Over the headset they’d given her, she heard Flak say, “Talk to me, Sandman. What the hell was that all about?”

There was a pause, then, “Whoever’s helping us out has gone to a lot of sweat pulling this particular room off-line. I didn’t notice, because they covered their tracks pretty well. It looks like they didn’t want anyone finding out that the decon tanks shut down just as your newly dead pal came through them. Sony. I’d just noticed myself when he surprised you.”

Flak took a moment to look down at the dead ork. “That’s some seriously sad cyber. Looks like a wind-up toy.”

It was Sandman who responded. “Actually, if that’s Number One, he’s got some SOTA cyber, but from what I can see, they had to make mods to his wetware. Actually, from the schematics I just pulled up. your dead boy is brainfry. They got a direct neural digitizer hooked up to his network. He only responds to specific verbal stimulation. In fact, my guess is that if you’d all just held real still, he would have walked right past you.”

“All right, enough about our pal. Two questions, any more like him between here and our objective? And how we doing on time?”

“Good news is you got nothing between you and our boy. Bad news is that I got some minor activity on the home front here. Everything just went on red alert. I think you got about eleven minutes until your position is completely compromised.”

“All right, boys and girls,” Flak grunted. “Time to hump and earn our pay.” With one hand, he lifted the ork’s body and shoved it under the bench next to the lockers, then covered it with a biohazard suit. it wouldn’t fool anybody who actually entered the room, but it might keep from alerting someone merely walking past.

The rest of the team were taking up their positions again. but Rachel felt Sinunu’s hand on her arm. She turned to face the pink eyes beaming out of her balaclava hood. “Next time, don’t move unless I tell you to,” Sinunu said. “Barging straight into a room like that might have gotten you killed, and I got a deal with a certain someone to try and bring you back alive. Got that?”

Rachel swallowed her response and nodded.

“Good. At my left shoulder, one pace back.” Sinunu held Rachel’s eyes for a moment. “You got a gun?”

Rachel nodded again, then pulled out her Seco LD-120.

Sinunu snorted, then reached down to her ankle. She drew a much larger, squared-off pistol from a velcroed holster. “Seco makes a good weapon, but it tends to jam if it runs too hot, and the load is way too light for what we got going on here. Here, take my Manhunter, It’s got sixteen shots, and the safety is here. But I don’t want you firing it unless things get out of control, and then, I don’t want you firing it anywhere near me. Understand?”

Rachel shook her head to show she didn’t. “Then why are you giving it to me?”

Those pink eyes seemed to bore into her for a second. “’Cause if I’d just seen what you saw and didn’t have a real weapon, I think I’d have lost it. Just be careful with it.”

Rachel nodded and pulled the weapon, popped the clip to check her rounds, and then reholstered it. She velcroed the pistol to the small of her back, where it would be out of the way, but within easy reach.

Sinunu nodded in approval.

“All right, ladies,” said Flak, who had finished stowing the body of Number One, “hate to bust this up, but we’re flying to beat the clock.” He handed the four crossbow quarrels back to Sinunu.

“You might want to be careful of the blood on those.” He turned and looked at the covered body of Number One. “There’s no telling what kind of monster made that thing, or what nasty ingredients went into the soup, if you know what I mean.”

Sinunu nodded at him, then turned and gave Rachel a wink. “Papa Flak, just looking out for me.”

As they moved through the round door into an entirely white chamber, Rachel watched Sinunu wipe the black fluid from the ends of the bolts, then reload them into her crossbow. The room they came into was almost five meters in length by three meters wide, with a line of nozzles ringing it.

At the far end was a small corrugated steel platform with handrails. Big enough to hold all of them, it ran on shiny plastic pulleys up into the ceiling.

“This is it,” said Sandman over the tacticom. That platform should lead right to the money boy’s room. Be on the alert. Once you hit the room, it’s ringed with windows, so some dirty peeper could be watching you without my knowing It.”

“What?” Flak growled. “You can’t get a trid feed of the room above?”

“Sorry, Flakman. Somebody did a digital loop, and I don’t want to interrupt it. If it’s our insider, then he’s done it to cover his own tracks. If it’s not, well, you’ll know in just a minute.”

Flak grunted. “Thanks a lot.”

He turned to the group. “Okay, it’s showtime. Everybody keep it tight. Sin, give the package body-cover if necessary. You’ll have the ground level one-eighty. Trux, you’ll take the sky one-eighty.” He pulled out a modified Predator II from a holster at his belt. The big gun looked tiny in his grip. “I’ll take both ground level and skyward zero. Let’s move.”