SWNOVELS Chapter This is reality - 2
A perceived kilometre later, and equipped by Jim with a map of the zero level, it was then, and Kysaek’s unit secured an area identical to the large storage room of level five. But here there was total darkness and even the armour’s lamps could only catch a fraction of what was ahead.
Unlike the upper levels, however, there was no sign of battle here. No bodies, no destruction. But neither were there any survivors or indications that anyone was here at all.
So Kysaek tried the radio frequency. “This is Elaine Kysaek from level three - level zero please respond.” Her call was followed only by a low crackle with no reply and she tried again. “Hello? Is no one there?” she repeated and got the same result: silence and crackling. “That would have been too easy,” Kysaek sighed. “We’ll split up. You two take this side and we two take that side.” Her partner was a human she didn’t know. Thanks to the ID on the armour, however, she could playfully pick out the name. “Come on, Wung.”
Wung led the way. “Yes, ma’am.”
The fact that she wasn’t alone didn’t help Kysaek much, though. An eerie feeling gnawed at her and everything seemed creepy. It didn’t get any better for her when the initial area was behind her - on the contrary.
The warehouse gave way to a series of laboratories, where the first clear signs of chaos appeared: overturned pieces of furniture and technical equipment, bullet holes and strange scratch marks in the steel of the floor, the walls and even the ceiling. More striking, however, was the décor, which did not match any technology Kysaek was familiar with. She lived in a society of modern spacefaring civilisations, but the technology here seemed remote and abstract, as if it were not from this galaxy, and yet Kysaek knew it from somewhere. She was sure of that. But it was probably due to the circumstances that she couldn’t think of why it was so familiar to her.
Finely cut, unknown signs and red energy lines stretched across the surface of the objects. In safe glass boxes, rather silvery white spheres floated and flashed before her, and from some of the strange artefacts faint mists rose in an almost transparent green.
Then there were the thick tubes, much of which were broken and would have fit at least two people. The first were all empty, but in some there was still a dark blue slurry a foot high, running down the sides of the containers and forming puddles in the rooms. There were footprints in these, but the quantity and overlap made it impossible to classify them, and finally there was a tube, undamaged, at the end of a long row. Inside was a naked Davoc - or what could still be called a Davoc.
The humanoid ape lacked almost any fur, but the species’ distinctive snout was unmistakable. Its skin, however, was as pale as a corpse’s and its chest looked unnaturally pumped. It bristled with muscle, more than was usual for a stout Davoc, and was overgrown with tumours, which was even more apparent on the back and shoulders.
A completely misshapen Davoc was there before her, whom Kysaek looked at for a longer time. The face was still best preserved and she recognised him immediately, for it was the Davoc she had overpowered in the tunnels. “What have they done to him?” she murmured to herself. Kysaek just didn’t recognise the rest of it, but as she studied the red signatures several times and looked at the dead man, it hit her all the harder. She suddenly felt so stupid, because it was exactly the same thing she had noticed about the stolen body in the tunnels: that and everything else belonged to the technology of the First, which she knew from pictures and videos! “What kind of a kinky show is this?” she asked, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, her voice echoing in the corridors.
Suddenly there was a crash further ahead, and Kysaek and her hitherto silent companion raised their weapons in shock. Both cones of light from the lamps went rigidly ahead, without the success of a sighting. The two remained as silent as they could, and yet the tension was palpable and rising rapidly, for a strange, halting and distinctive breathing pierced the sinister silence. “Is anyone there?” shouted Kysaek offhandedly.
A vicious growl followed, from a throat that sounded slimy, and slowly, exceedingly slowly, a handful of pairs of red glowing eyes emerged from the shadows beside the cones of light and bare feet entered the illuminated area.
Wung swallowed. “I don’t think those are survivors!”
Kysaek cautiously backed away with him. “Oh yes!” she replied, at the sight of the pale skin on the legs from the shadows, and there was more.
The approaching bodies appeared human, with no sign of any sexual characteristics, and red veins dotted them, while whole patches of skin had been replaced with metal. Their cheeks were sunken and pitted, revealing fangs - or whatever lay there in their mouths. A true picture of horror.
The eyeballs were without irises or pupils and stared towards Kysaek before the three figures ran towards her without warning. “Stop!” she warned. That was in vain, however, and she fired with Wung at the charging mob, which easily took the first hits.
Wung panicked. “Without me!” he said and ran headlong.
Hastily, Kysaek threw his head back. “Wung! Stay here!” she commanded, but the order was refused and she found herself facing the approaching monsters. As she had once learned in the military, she followed the mantra: Aim for the head! It helped and with each headshot one more monster crashed to the ground until they were all finished.
Now life was coming, but it was not a good life. From everywhere seemed to come the growls of the hideous monsters and one of the sounds was even more frightening, a cursed loud and animalistic roar. It sounded like an angry Hishek or even worse.
It moved Kysaek to follow Wung’s lead and she beat a quick retreat. “Jim? Jim, can you hear me?” she asked. Her partner’s voice, however, did not return. “Shit!” She lacked any sense of direction, despite the map. Running was taking too much of her concentration and this miserable darkness, which could only ever illuminate her for a moment, was adding to it. Everything looked the same there, and when she saw more labs, Kysaek realised she was completely wrong.
Death was in the air here and the devastation was enormous. Many of the victims on the ground looked as if they had been beaten, scratched and torn to death. Only a few had bullet wounds, while next to one door only the lower half of a Davoc sat, as the torso was nothing more than a crushed, disgusting stain of blood and guts on the wall.
The screams of the monsters penetrated to Kysaek’s marrow, but she collected herself to some extent and tried to find a way out of danger via the map. With the security protocols suspended, all paths were open to her and she discovered a way - a secondary supply unit, not far away and with a secret connection to the public sewage system. There was still one small problem, however, in the form of a half-closed door that could neither be closed nor opened. It was the key to the area with the longed-for escape point, and the footsteps and sounds of the monsters were steadily approaching.
Because of her equipment, it was difficult for Kysaek to get through the narrow gap and she had to do quite a bit of contorting, bending and pushing her legs through sideways one after the other. Her assault rifle got in the way and stalled her. It wouldn’t fit through with her. So Kysaek decided to drop it, and she was almost through the door after that. Only her leg was still missing when that was suddenly grabbed and she struggled against the powerful pull. The moaning sounds of the monsters were returned loudly by Kysaek. “Fuck off, you bastards!” She tugged and kicked out with her leg, constantly hitting something. A jerk later she escaped the grasp, but the figure’s arm followed her right through the gap, only to be cut off seconds later by the sudden closing of the door.
“If I get out of here, I quit!” breathed Kysaek heavily as she heard the click of a gun.
“STAY STILL!” a human woman yelled at her, having appeared out of nowhere. It was a PGIE guard, accompanied by another guard and a Talin in scientific garb.
Kysaek stretched her arms more to the side than in the air. “Woah, woah, woah!” she tried soothingly. “We’re on the same side!”
The targeting woman looked very panicked and her armour showed considerable wear and foreign blood. “I don’t care who you are! We just want to get out of here!”
“I’m certainly not stopping you, because I want to. How about we team up?”
“We? With you?” complained the Talin scientist, who was holding a pistol herself but shaking considerably. “You’ve startled the Runners! They’re coming here! Just because of them! They’re killing us!”
The term Runner did not interest Kysaek just then. “And your roar makes it better?” she countered, swallowing as the terrifying animalistic roar from before was expelled.
“Nubius, preserve me!” the Talin stammered. “It’s here!“She didn’t wait for Kysaek or the other guards and ran off.
The reason for this fear soon became apparent when a real monster of about four metres came out of the side corridors. Its trampling footsteps sent vibrations through the steel and made broken glass crack. The creature’s leg alone was the size of a full-grown tree trunk and the rest of its body was so wide that it almost filled the entire path. Two thick horns curved backwards and surrounded by a dozen smaller spikes protruded from its head, but unlike the normal monsters, this creature’s skin was jet black and appeared slimy. Only the glowing red part was the same.
Stiffly, Kysaek stumbled to the side, unable to form words or thoughts, so enormous was her fear.
The PGI elite guards, on the other hand, opened fire, but they did so more out of desperation than the will to win. “DIE!”
The shots made the behemoth roar again, only now the sound was much more intense. The many flaps of skin around its wide, x-shaped mouth pulled apart to reveal a sea of teeth. Then it charged, unimpressed by the attacks, which easily disappeared into the mass of its body. The behemoth was like a steam engine and waltzed mercilessly forward, making a quake out of the vibrations in the ground.
With a deft roll, the guard managed to dive under the attacker, but her partner was not so lucky. He was hurled through the air and smashed against the nearest wall by a far-reaching blow, the sound of which could be heard breaking every bone.
It was the drumbeat that brought the paralysed Kysaek to her senses. She got into the fight and had an easy time attacking the monster’s back with her pistol and prismatic energy, but it remained completely useless. Every time a hit was made, it was not only intercepted by the body - the tissue regenerated in a flash and appeared like a mixture of flesh and cables. So Kysaek’s courage vanished as soon as it was there, and even a helping grenade from the Talin guardian, which produced a glare of stabbing flame, had no appreciable effect on the monster.
Instead, a tentacle sprang from the fire and knocked the alien guardian to the ground, wrapped around her and dragged the Talin into the receding flames. The source of the tentacle was the monster’s palm, where the body extension disappeared and the creature’s powerful fingers wrapped around the guard’s legs. The hanging and wildly swinging prey struggled, but for the monster it was more of a game. It stared at the guard and at the same time a huge spike grew out of its free hand. The monster drove it through the chest of its prey and stifled its burgeoning panicked scream before effortlessly tearing the guard in two.
For Kysaek, it was enough. She could take no more and ran to where the monster had come from before. She figured that was the safest way because the passage to the sewers there was just wide enough for herself. Before Kysaek reached the escape point, however, the monster audibly took up pursuit and clumsily crashed around the corner behind her.
There, the creature lay half-crouched at first and had to scramble to her feet. Clearly she was not agile and took some time to pick up speed. That was its weakness. But with every second the monster grew faster and caught up threateningly.
At the last moment, Kysaek made it into the alcove leading to the sewer exit before the mass of her pursuer slammed against the resistant steel surface, but that did not make her safe. Several of the creature’s tentacles slid blindly into the narrow passageway at once, searching and striking for its next prey, but narrowly missing Kysaek.
Thanks to a hasty duck and a ladder to the depths, Kysaek was not caught and stood before the longed-for door to the sewers.
Long after, as Kysaek staggered through the corridors of the sewer, exhausted by everything, she heard her pursuer ramming relentlessly against the wall. He roared and a strange sound, a vomiting and burning or even steaming, mingled with it.
But even the rumbling eventually died away, and when Kysaek reached a distribution chamber, she allowed herself a much-needed breather. What was going on? She could not yet grasp or make sense of it all. In just a few hours, events had transpired and PGI - yes, PGI! - was clearly experimenting with the technology of the First. That technology that was used for the worst war in galactic history, and Kysaek was nothing more than a protector, an aide, in an effort to extract profits or other, shady things from that horror. No one would forgive her for that, or the others, ignorance or not, and knowing that made Kysaek especially angry. Phonor told her that all the SCs and staff knew about level zero and the oh-so-correct old soldier was nothing but a rotten pig. She would never have thought that of him, despite her dislike of him. For the moment, though, Kysaek had to forget that and just follow one priority - get out of here, far away from here, to some safe hiding place.
This plan did not take place, however, for suddenly a large group of PGIE soldiers surrounded the distributor and pointed their weapons at the fugitive. “Don’t move!”
Kysaek lacked all patience and will to go through with all this any longer. “I’m with you!” she defended herself. What else could she do? One climax followed the next and her stamina was at an end.
“We’ll see,” said the obvious leader of the group. “Things are under control upstairs and we’ve already killed two terrorists disguised as guards.”
“We don’t have time for this!” implored Kysaek, recounting her encounter. “I’ve got a huge beast on my ass, guaranteed to be pumped full of stimulants or some such stuff. We’ve got to get out of here! It’ll kill us all!”
The leader didn’t believe it. “Go ahead and talk,” she said, apparently getting a radio call in after she turned ice cold. “Plant A will be cleared with a neutron wave in five minutes. The assault order on all units has been countermanded. We are at the edge of the effective radius and are to eliminate all witnesses from level zero before retreating!”
“W-wa...⁈,” Kysaek only stammered as all the weapons around her charged. There was no way she could get out of here. No chance, no cover, no help. The happiness she thought had finally overtaken her turned into the complete opposite and she was about to close her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see it coming. Before she did, however, she saw dust trickling down in front of her nose and over the heads of her executioners it was the same, which is why the PGIE soldiers were distracted, and even more so when a muffled rumble went through the walls. It’s here!, Kysaek realised, and that’s when it happened.
A wall on the side shattered under the gigantic behemoth from the lab and swirled a mighty amount of dust into the manifold. “RAWRRRRR!” it chimed its arrival.
“New target!” shouted the PGIE leader. “Fire! Fire!”
The order did nothing for the two soldiers at the scene of the breach. One was simply trampled by the behemoth and the second killed with one blow.
Keeping her executioners’ focus on the terrible foe, Kysaek saw her chance and moved away, though she still took some impressions of the fight.
Unlike the labs, however, the situation here played out a lot differently. Some of the PGIE members looked frightened, but they kept their nerve and proceeded methodically.
The monster’s tentacles hit nothing, as the targets were very agile and some tentacles were shot unerringly, and the remains retreated into the hand. Grenades continued to have no effect, but the recoil was there for the behemoth and made it leap to where Kysaek had been standing before.
A soldier was grabbed and simply torn apart, bringing the squad leader to the next tactic. “Prismatics! Catch that thing!”
Four users of Prismatics were in the squad and enveloped nd the behemoth in the white energy, effectively paralysing it. It could not move significantly and otherwise just growled loudly.
One of the PGIE soldiers drew a plasma blade, a sword of Eldar steel with a fine, shimmering green underside that hummed as it swung and was so hot it sliced off the target’s thick arm like butter.
With that, however, he unleashed the monster’s fury and it cried out. “ROAWWR!” It demonstrated such raw power that it even broke the cripplingly powerful prismatic field of four users. As the arm rapidly regrew, it grabbed the sword wielder by the head and crushed him. A spike formed on the back of the monster’s hand and it shot it at the leader, right through her stomach.
The rest of the fight eluded Kysaek’s eyes, but she could hear more than well. The gunshots, the detonations, the death screams - all of it diminished with each passing moment until there was only the snorting of the monster.
Another annoyance entered Kysaek’s mind, however, when an automated warning pierced through the tunnels: “Neutron wave will start in one minute.” Kysaek was at her wits’ end. Her lungs were burning, her legs were slowly failing and there it was again, the behemoth. “The fucking beast is out to get me!” she gasped. A fork opened up in front of her. She was aware that paths in sewers could quickly end in dead ends or in front of blocked paths. Left, right, left, right, Kysaek weighed and simply took left. It was the wrong choice. At the end, only a wall with a barely discernible, rather shallow passageway waited and to the right there was a massive steel gate, too strong for Kysaek’s pistol. She lacked the strength for her prismatic skills, as well as the time, as the behemoth cut her off and hurtled towards the wall of the junction.
Out of desperation, Kysaek ran on to the dead end and gained some ground, but it didn’t stop the countdown. “Thirty seconds to neutron wave.”
The pursuer now needed more time to get back on its feet, shooting spikes at Kysaek from a distance first. One spike hit close to her feet, one flew over her and the third grazed her on the shoulder. In addition, Kysaek’s vision gradually blurred and the so-called second air was no longer with her. She was more on the tenth. The monster came closer and its shadow overtook Kysaek. Now she had no choice or yet - she could turn around and hope for a quick death, or she would try to slip through the narrow passage. If that didn’t work, she’d be dead too, but at least there was the absurd chance that the gap was large and the wall strong enough for her to escape and hopefully the neutron wave wouldn’t reach that far.
No, Kysaek still had a shred of will to live and was betting everything on this card. She dived head first into the rift and felt the wind of the errant monster hand behind her. Her back skittered fleetingly along the ceiling of the narrow passage, but she did not get stuck and the narrow gap went on for several metres under the concrete. Accordingly, she heard the heavy thud as the monster hit the massive bulwark above Kysaek. She was free as a bird, literally. The outflow ended up as a waterfall, and as it plummeted uncontrollably very far down, she could still hear the electric howl of neutron energy. The sewer from which she had escaped dissolved into a white column of light. The fucking monster is gone! That certainty arose in her before the end of her fall, before she disappeared into the dirty water.