‘I think you need to be more on the ball,’ said Haggis, his voice harsh. ‘This ain’t the fucking time for a cigarette, Russian.’
Rekalavich pulled free his Techrim 11mm, cigarette balanced between his lips, smoke stinging his eyes. ‘Believe me, Haggis, I’ve been in much more dangerous situations than this and walked free—with a cigarette dangling from my lips. This is not exactly a Nex hive crawling with fucking specimens ... no, this time we got lucky, boys. This time it’s a simple infil followed by data recovery and a clean helicopter pick-up. No problems. No drama. Take a chill-pill, my little Scottish friend.’
Baze moved to stand in front of Rekalavich. ‘I think Haggis is right. This is not the time for relaxing and smoking. This is a dangerous place, especially when one of your team is a crazy Russian motherfucker.’
Rekalavich squinted up at the huge bearded man through his evil-smelling cigarette smoke and licked his lips thoughtfully. ‘Those are brave words, coming from such an obvious hero standing tall and proud before me. Question is, are you all hero or part stupid cunt?’
Baze reddened, and his fists clenched. And then something sounded, an alarm in all their minds—a
clack,
like the noise of stone against stone, followed by another
clack,
then another and another. The noises echoed down the corridor and the men carefully aimed their weapons at the far end of the long stretch of dim-lit yellow.
‘I thought all the Nex had gone,’ growled Haggis softly.
Rekalavich dropped his cigarette and jacked himself up off the floor, Techrim extended towards the sounds—which halted.
There came a scent of—
‘What’s that smell?’ whispered Oz.
Something moved on all fours at the end of the corridor like a huge black oil-smeared cat, its triangular head low to the floor as though it was scenting something. The Sleeper Nex was enormously muscled, spiralled patterns of skin blending with silver armour down its flanks. Then its copper eyes lifted, calmly and arrogantly surveying the small group of heavily armed men.
‘Shit,’ said Haggis.
The Sleeper Nex charged them, claws tearing through the floor panels in its urge to reach them and tear and rend and kill. The men opened fire, guns roaring as a hundred rounds flew down the corridor, smashing into the Sleeper Nex—which came pounding on, leaping from wall to floor to wall, dodging many bullets but also absorbing much of the scything metal. The group of men gripped their yammering guns in sweat-greased hands as the beast’s bright copper eyes came closer and closer ...
The Sleeper Nex stumbled, then pitched forward on its face mere inches from the group, sliding a little. It slumped, with a great deflating sigh, copper eyes still fixed on the men who stood, surrounded by a cordite smoke-mist, eyes wide, stunned.
‘Fuck!’ snapped Haggis.
‘Son of a bitch,’ panted Oz, slowly changing the magazine in his weapon with clicks that sounded loud in the sudden silence. ‘I thought the Nex had all gone. I thought we had this place to ourselves.’
‘They let us get in,’ said Baze softly. His gaze was still fixed on the end of the corridor.
‘What do you mean?’ hissed Haggis.
‘They let us get in,’ Baze repeated. ‘Then they close the doors behind us. It’s a trap, my little friend.’
‘No way,’ said Oz. But even as the words left his mouth there came more sounds of armoured claws up ahead—so many clattering
clacks
that it sounded like a river of insects flowing towards them. The men’s horrified stares fixed on the far end of the corridor.
The mass of Sleeper Nex charged, hammering forward on squat powerful legs towards the group of Spiral and REB men laid out like a three-course meal before them.
Oz started to count—three, seven, fifteen—but the Sleeper Nex kept coming, a dark black armoured flood that rushed towards the flashing muzzles of the men’s guns. They crashed against the group, claws slashing left and right, up and down, huge jaws snapping and biting and tearing. Blood flowed like a river across the floor, splashed in great arcs up the alloy doors and chunks of torn flesh skittered and rolled in all directions.
For a few moments the Sleeper Nex fed on the corpses of Oz and Haggis, Baze and Rekalavich, snouts dipping into shattered and bone-ringed chest cavities, ripping out hearts with strings of muscle and bone-ringed veins still attached, devouring them in swift gulps. Then burning copper eyes turned to the doors leading to the reactor chamber.
As one, the fifty Sleeper Nex shuffled together like a huge and chitinous insect swarm, their gleaming bodies smeared with Spiral blood, thrusting and slithering as their combined mass heaved forward. Slowly, the alloy doors started to buckle and groan. Within seconds there came a shower of sparks, and the doors bent inwards and fell crashing to the ground, revealing the green glow of the reactor chamber beyond.
The Sleeper Nex poured inside.
Jam and Sonia J exchanged a long, meaningful glance as sub-machine guns fired far below them, muffled by distance and the closed alloy doors. Sonia found her hands suddenly coated in sweat, which made holding the Uzi difficult.
The noise finally died. Somehow, the silence was worse.
‘You think that was the technician?’ asked Sonia, her words barely more than a whisper.
‘Take out the disk,’ said Jam. He moved across the lab, then leapt lightly up onto one of the wide benches. He seemed to be
sniffing,
his triangular head tilted to one side. Then his hugely powerful claws cocked the sub-machine gun—like a child’s toy in his grip—and he stared down, through the grilles and the beams, past the struts and cranes and lifts.
Sonia J ejected the storage disk within its tiny silver cube housing, and pushed it into the pocket of her black combats. Then she wiped her hands on her trousers and moved closer to Jam, who lifted a claw. ‘Wait,’ he hissed. He could sense them. The mass of Sleeper Nex. Hear their claws ...
Then he could
hear
the insects in his mind, burrowing into his soul. And he realised: they wanted their freedom. But more: they wanted him back. They wanted him to be Nex again ...
They wanted to flow through his veins.
Below, guns roared again and suddenly stuttered to a halt. There were several loud bangs and crashes—then silence for a moment.
Jam’s head tilted as he listened.
Below them there came a creak, and then a sudden frenzy of hammering as the alloy doors were pounded until they buckled and caved in. Sleeper Nex poured into the chamber, glistening black bodies reflecting the light of the nuclear reactor’s coolant in the gloom ...
Sonia gave a little sigh of horror, fear—and understanding.
They were trapped, and only Jam stood between her and a painful extinction. Jam leapt from the bench, claws gouging the alloy mesh floor.
Then he turned, and stared at Sonia.
His copper eyes narrowed as inside himself—
Inside—
Something
broke.
we see you () see you
you traitor () to our kind traitor
we see your acts () betrayer
() you be whole again () we be one again
() we be nex again
open the () door
we see you () see you feel you want you
we are () one
we are one again.
W
ater swirled in fierce currents around the dead submarine and it rocked violently as it dived, buffeted by incredible pressures. Inside, the three men were slammed savagely against a wall of thick pipes. Mongrel was still staring hard at Carter, mouth open to reveal many of his broken teeth. ‘You fucking killed us, you madman!’ he howled.
Carter pulled free a small black pad, then fixed his gaze calmly on Mongrel. ‘I need your help, not your fucking histrionics. The Viper can be handled by remote control. You understand?’
Mongrel looked around wildly. Then he slowly focused. ‘Remote?’
‘Watch.’
Carter initiated the ControlPad and it blinked at him with a tiny yellow light. Then the small LCD screen flickered on to show a low-resolution image of Sub-Bay 6 within the Sub-Core, replete with scorched rocket-blasted walls, buckled girders and dented galvanised walkways. Two patrolling Nex moved into view, heads scanning slowly from left to right.
Carter traced a pattern on the ControlPad and the Viper ZX responded instantly, engine firing with a sudden howl and burst of exhaust fumes. The Nex whirled, Steyr TMPs jerking up and bright copper eyes searching for an enemy.
But there was nobody there. They approached the Viper. Carter accelerated madly and the vehicle began to move. He eased it around in a tight arc and the Nex broke into a run, a low-res image of their sprinting bodies and masked faces looming across the screen as Carter hit the turbofans. The Viper leapt forward, smashing between the two Nex and sending them spinning aside. Panels folded up in a sheath to create a roof as the craft left the walkway and struck the black waters, diving instantly below the surface.
‘Neat,’ Mongrel acknowledged with a nod. Then he eased the half-conscious figure of Justus to the metal deck. ‘The Mongrel still not like this. It like a bad dream which never end.’
‘Just keep your shit together,’ growled Carter. The Viper ZX shot from the Sub-Core and accelerated down at an awesome rate. The tiny LCD screen was filled with nothing but black.
‘Mongrel, can you link the ECube to the Viper? Lock coordinates?’
‘I think so.’
‘Do it—now.’
Mongrel played with his ECube for a moment, then glanced up, a worried look on his battered face. ‘You want good news or bad news?’
‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Good news: Viper now home in on our location.’
‘Great!’
‘Bad news: so will three Nex submarines which follow it.’
‘Shit.’
‘My sentiments exactly.’
‘Can you get them on a visual?’
‘Negative, Carter. But I can track the sub coordinates on the ECube. It look like you losing them. Our little Viper, she hot stuff, eh? She leave them for dead ... wiggle her tasty arse and give them the finger as she disappear over the horizon.’
‘Yeah, but more than anything we need time to get from this floundering wreck into our little high-tech beauty.’ Carter accelerated the Viper harder, and it powered through the dark waters. Meanwhile the submarine groaned around them as it continued its terrible descent.
Within minutes the Viper caught up with them and the LCD screen showed a fuzzy visual. Using Mongrel’s carefully read and constantly updated coordinates, Carter guided the Viper over the portal which had allowed them entry to the submarine. In a careful manoeuvre, panels peeled back in sections and it connected with a pressurised
dang
—like a remora fish attaching itself to a shark.
‘Them other subs catching up now, Carter. They closing in real fast.’
Carter, jaw muscles clamped tight, spun the wheel and with a hiss the portal opened into the Viper’s narrow hull. They dragged the barely conscious Justus into the vessel’s interior, threw packs and guns into the sideways-slewing craft and closed the hatch behind them. Slowly, Carter peeled the Viper away from the stricken submarine. Then, in a sudden burst and rush of pressure that made their ears pop and heads pound, they were free of their host and drifting in the deep dark waters.
‘Missile alert. Two. Incoming,’ barked Mongrel.
‘Will it never fucking end?’ Carter slammed the heel of his hand against the accelerator and the Viper leapt forward, dived towards the sinking submarine and spun around the other vessel’s hull before shooting out and climbing madly through the dark waters for the far-distant surface.
Behind them the two missiles struck the recently vacated submarine, which glowed briefly, a white-hot crucible with a core of molten metal. Then it exploded into a billion metal shards with a dull underwater roar that sent blast waves pulsating out into the surrounding ocean. But the Viper was gone, heading for the surface and carrying inside it their captured prize.
The Viper surfaced just as a wild storm was abating under a flurry of towering black clouds. Carter peeled back the machine’s protective skin and it sat bobbing, a sleek and mean-looking vessel but now, apparently, nothing more than a speedboat. The hull hid the machine’s secrets well. Cold fresh air drifted across the three men as Carter and Mongrel made a full appraisal of Justus’s wounds with the aid of the ECube. Once satisfied that he was stable, Carter restarted the Viper and they flew across the rolling waves as Mongrel unpacked dried rations. All three men ate and drank in contemplative silence.
It was finally Justus who gathered the energy to speak.
‘Thank you,’ was all he could manage, for a while.
Carter glanced back, smiling. But his eyes were weary and filled with utter exhaustion. He nodded, as Mongrel passed him a chocolate bar, grunting—his own mouth was too full to speak.
Eventually, Carter said, ‘There is information that we seek.’
Justus nodded. ‘There always is, Papa Carter. I’m just glad there was reason to break me out of that hell. I thought I was going to die in there. I thought I would never see this—‘ he spread his hands and gazed up into a dark sky that went on for ever again.’