Authors: Ben Bequer
“Zundergrub attacked us when you charged in,” Haha said, though his voice wasn’t localized anywhere near the remnants of his head. Servos complained and whirred as the animated metal pile tried to gain some mobility, but his only partially functional extremity was one of his arms. The rest of his body was shattered and crushed.
“He stabbed Cool, while his pets attacked me from behind. We were helpless.”
“Where is he?” I said in a voice so menacing that I almost scared myself. I felt a welling of anger and a twitch in my lips. My face turned into a scowl and my fists clenched so tightly it felt as if the bones of my hand would snap.
Mr. Haha pointed up the hill, and I started that way, but he extended his arm telescopically, with far more agility and speed than I would have expected and clasped my left wrist around the remnants of my old watch. His tendrils circled my arm and tore into my skin. I fought it, and Apogee stepped forward, thinking me under attack, but it was over in a second. Mr. Haha’s limbs collapsed in a dusty pile, and the robot was still.
Remaining on my wrist was a thin band of fibrous metal with a small block of twisted steel settled where the watch head would normally be. There was no movement, nor any sign of a power source, until it suddenly spoke.
“I hope you don’t mind if I catch a ride,” my wrist band called out with Mr. Haha’s voice. “Temporarily, of course.”
“What the hell?” Apogee cried out, holding my forearm and taking a closer look.
“Let’s not stand around and dilly dally,” Haha continued. “We have to stop Zundergrub.”
I looked down at my friend’s corpse, shook my head softly, and headed up the hill.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Dale” Apogee said, running next to me.
“I’m going to kill him,” I howled back, the tears now gone, replaced with a burgeoning rage that would only be fulfilled with Zundergrub shrieking for mercy.
Apogee kept looking back, keeping an eye out for approaching heroes.
“It’s not him I’m worried about,” she said.
I followed her gaze and saw a few heroes staying close, looking for an opportunity.
“They better not fuck with me now, so help me.”
“Dale,” she protested but her attention was suddenly drawn ahead and she came to a stop.
We came up a set of stairs, a few yards from the huge open gate, and a figure dropped from the sky between us and the entrance.
It was Nostromo.
“Are you ok?” he asked, seeing me, battered and bruised as I was.
“Zundergrub is going to betray Retcon,” Apogee said speaking for me at a moment where logic and reason failed me. I didn’t want to talk, or to explain a damned thing, I wanted to find Zundergrub and crush his skull in my hands.
Nostromo was confused, “I saw him run inside.”
“We have to stop him,” she continued.
He shook his head, and only then Apogee and I realized that he was injured himself, sprayed with his own blood from a gaping wound on his chest.
“I’ve closed my gate, and Apostle’s,” he said wistfully.
“Where is he? Zundergrub is far more powerful than we had imagined. We’ll need to warn Apostle and the others,” Madelyne started but paused herself when she saw Nostromo’s pained facial expression.
“We’re all that’s left,” he said choking on the last words. It was apparent that I wasn’t the only one who had lost a friend today.
Above us, the blue/white telluric energy billowed from the opening above the Retcon structure. It spread outward, per Dr. Retcon’s plan, and spilled across the horizon, like a warm blanket covering the Earth. Within minutes, it would cover the visible sky, within hours, the whole planet.
Then Nostromo’s expression changed. He looked up, seeing something we couldn’t; farther than we could, with his enhanced perception, and near god-like vision.
“She’s here,” he announced.
“What?”
He looked at me, forcing a smile. “Keep an eye on Alec, will you? He’s the last friend I have left.”
“Wait,” Apogee protested. “Who’s here? The alien is here?”
He looked back up, “We had expected it. We figured she would try to stop us.”
“Will the shield stop her?” I asked.
“Not yet. It’s not finished.”
He was silent and again gazed right at me.
“It’s been nice to know you,” Nostromo said, and before I could reach out to grab him, to stop him from the madness I saw in his heart, he shot up in the air, leaving a purple trail of energy, arcing across the sky so fast that none of the flying heroes, or defensive craft could even respond. He was a beautiful streak of energy, headed for an encounter with a force he couldn’t defeat, a power that dwarfed his own.
A man with more courage, I have yet to meet.
“Come on,” Apogee shouted, and grabbed my arm to wake me from my momentary reverie. Apogee half dragged me the last few yards to the gate, when I saw a flash of red from a distant rooftop, Sharpshooter, taking aim at me again with his deadly rifle.
“Careful!” I said, turning and rushing towards the door, but inside was Dr. Zundergrub, a grim expression on his face, his eyes two twisted pools of black tendrils as he unleashed his power. But he wasn’t directing it at us, so much as through us, and shooting a glance back, I saw a shroud of Zundergrub’s black, inky power swirling around Sharpshooter’s head, as the doctor exerting his will on the sniper.
I was expecting a bullet to take me out, but instead the red targeting designator whizzed past me, to something beyond Zundergrub; the brightly lit Telluric Device. Zundergrub smiled as I rushed to grab him, but he was moving already, and the bullet fired. I didn’t hear the crack of the shot for another second, but I saw its victim. Near Doctor Retcon, his daughter’s back exploded with crimson, and she collapsed on the floor in a heap.
I roared in a charge, almost getting to Zundergrub when he slipped into a shadow, disappearing from sight for the moment, leaving me with handful of empty air.
I ran towards Retcon, who was reaching for his fallen child, a look of disbelief crossing his face.
Retcon knelt at his daughter’s side, rolling her over and revealing the horrible, gory wound on her chest. Her face was still and peaceful, but for a slight trickle of blood from her nose. Sharpshooter’s bullet had killed her instantly.
“It was Zundergrub,” I started but Retcon’s face was a mask of horror, speckled with his child’s lifeblood. He wept, his open eyes spilling tears and gazing into mine. Dr. Retcon looked down at his daughter’s corpse, and back at me, crying softly, and then shook his head as he tenderly closed her eyelids. His hand settled on her forehead and his tears spilled on her face.
“My baby,” he whimpered.
“We’ve been betrayed,” I pleaded, but I saw a strange look slowly forming on his face, the same madness crossing over him that had enveloped me moments earlier, a rage that nothing could slake or stem. Nothing could satisfy the murderous power that welled inside him. His face grew stern, clenched, and he regarded me again.
“They want a monster,” he snarled. “Then I shall give them one.”
He stood and turned back to his machine, the robots oblivious to the drama unfolding behind them. I reached over and grabbed his shoulder.
“You have to listen to me. This is what Zundergrub wants,” but he turned and struck me so fast all I saw was a blur. I flew through the sky, crashing into the tough concrete walls, almost fifty feet away, and sliding to the ground, covered in bits of the wall.
“THEY WANT A MONSTER AND I SHALL GIVE THEM ONE!” He howled madly, and then switched the device. The energy spilling upward suddenly stopped, reversed, and fired down at the ground. The floors of the structure, of Hashima Island were nothing compared to the channeled power of the Telluric energy of the Retcon device. Raw energy poured down onto the face of the planet, speeded along by the forces of gravity. Retcon himself stepped into the device and fed his rage and power into the device.
Instead of saving the planet, he now intended to destroy it.
I looked at Apogee, who was in tears herself.
“Dale,” she cried. “We have to stop him!”
But before I could do anything, even scream a desperate warning, Zundergrub appeared again, standing right behind Apogee with Shivver’s dagger raised high.
Chapter 29
I screamed her name as Zundergrub stabbed deep into her back. Apogee grimaced, her body twisting unnaturally, and fell to her knees. He cackled with delight and held up Shivver’s bloody knife, letting me see the weapon coated with her blood. She reached to grab Zundergrub, but he was gone, swallowed again by the shadows.
The ground shook as the Telluric energy broke through, tearing the foundations at the base of the Retcon building, revealing the twisted iron works and ripping through the rocky island below. More and more, the ground gave way beneath us, leaving a gaping maw to the center of the chamber. The floor was now an angled slide down to the crack, to a precipice down to the surface of the Earth. The Tesla device was held aloft by a spiderweb-like network of twisted and wrought metal that had avoided the punishing destruction of energy. Retcon himself was in the midst of the device, using his amazing powers to channel the energy downward, instead of protecting the planet from the alien species, he was destroying it with the very energy he had devised to save it.
Apogee lost her footing slipping on her blood, careening down towards her death. I dove and grabbed her, pulling her close. My right hand reaching for her back above the kidney and coming back caked with her blood. Her expression was strained and her back muscles twitched in complaint from the devastating injury.
I’m not a doctor, but I know quite a bit of human anatomy. Enough to know that the wound wasn’t instantly fatal, but the amount of blood she was losing was staggering. The stab had pierced her lung, collapsing it, and her breathing became rapid and nervous, which was actually a good sign with a punctured lung. I pulled her back, away from the crashed open pit and closer to the walls of the building, as the huge gate slammed closed. I saw Zundergrub standing at the console, only a few feet from us, still smiling.
“I want nothing to interrupt us,” he said, almost seductively and walked closer.
Apogee’s breathing was slowing, as was her pulse. There was so much blood. She wheezed, grabbing me as if I could provide more air.
“Mirage,” she gargled, her mouth moist with her own blood.
And Zundergrub still approached, riding a column of shadow-like tentacles that carried him aloft like an octopus over a coral bed
“I saw him before the explosion,” I told her laying her down gently.
“He can heal...” she coughed.
“He’s outside, Madelyne.”
Then the doctor was upon us and I stood to face him, standing between him and Apogee.
“No one will save her, Blackjack,” he spat lunging forward with speed I couldn’t believe. I hurled myself aside, but he didn’t relent, with a cross slash I back-pedaled from, then another surging stab that tore through my shirt.
I swung at him, but he dropped to the floor, disappearing into the shadows beneath him. Expecting him to come behind me, I was ready with a single punch to end the whole thing, but he shot back up from where he had disappeared and jabbed his dagger right at my face. I recoiled from the slash and felt the piercing agony as blood splashed down my face. My world exploded in white and crimson, but as I flinched, my arm caught Zundergrub across the face as he moved in to finish me. Flying back from the blow toward the gaping pit, he crashed into a twisted metal column, which saved him from a nasty fall.
I stumbled back, trying to stem the bleeding. He had caught me beside my right eye and the downward slash had opened up my cheek down to my jaw. Blood fountained from the wound, and my eye was blinded by all the crimson.
Zundergrub composed himself and moved away from the chasm behind him. He looked over at me, struggling with the heavy blood flow, and cackled, “Just a scratch, Blackjack. Next time I will cut your bloody throat.
My problem now was the blood that seeped was unabated. I couldn’t fight like this, and Zundergrub was only getting started. I had a chance if I got to him, if I could put my hands on him, but I had to stop the bleeding.
I reached down into my boot and dug into a compartment for a small vial of fluid. It was glop sealant I kept in the odd chance I would need to seal a doorway behind me. One of the dozens of trinkets and junk I carried “just in case.” I pulled the stopped on the 10cc vial and poured it on my wound, starting below the eye.
If the stab itself was a racking agony, almost too much to bear, this was a hundred times worse. The chemical was highly toxic causing pain enough to make a woman mid-labor empathize. I screamed and fell to my knees, but had no time to check if it had worked, Zundergrub was on me that very instant.
I could barely see, my vision stained with blood and tears of pain, but I didn’t wait for him to attack. I swung with all my might. He easily avoided the life-ending blow and slashed again, this time at my mid-section. But my punch, powerful as it was, was a feint for a quickly reversing backfist. Zundergrub’s dagger found a home, scraping my ribs and cutting into my thick belt, but he was forced to backpedal or lose his head, so the wound was but a scratch, a painful, blood-staining scratch.