Chapter 332
The lift groaned and creaked with every passing second. Old gears shrieked in protest, and the cables shuddered heavily as if trying to shake us off midway. Every creaking gears caused Burt’s of rust to drift down from the ceiling in lazy sprinkles. Oil could only go so far.
Mira brushed flakes off of her helmet with an annoyed flick. “Nova. Tetanus snow. As if this couldn’t get any worse.”
I didn’t look away from the flickering panel showing our descent and the status of the lift. “It’s just rust. Iron oxide. Not tetanus.”
”Wow.” Mira shot me a look. “Thank you for the educational correction while we plummet down a death shaft.”
Thankfully, although it looked bad, the lift seemed to be in a decent condition. “We aren’t plummeting. If anything, it's a calm descent.”
A cable popped loudly, causing the entire lift to shake and shudder violently. Mira grabbed onto the side of the lift tightly. “Calm, you said?”
“We still aren’t plummeting.” A second, more offended pop came from the cables of the lift. My elevator curse didn’t want to let me off that easily. “Yet.”
Thankfully, the lift didn’t collapse halfway through. I half expected it to, but we got down to the ground level without much more issue. Cold and stagnant air rushed into the small lift. I adjusted the thermal controls on my poncho and stepped out.
Mira followed me into a maintenance room full of machinery. Pale lights flickered at random overhead like something was draining the electricity. “Reminds me of the Underground.”
“Good memories down there.” I nudged her shoulder playfully and then moved for the door. After a few manipulations, I managed to get the lock undone and pop it open.
The space beyond the door was a massive tunnel. Emergency lights flashed all along the subterranean road, casting slices of light down it at odd intervals. The road itself was so wide it felt like we were standing next to an ancient, buried highway.
Saint’s voice came to us perfectly clear even down here. The Packheart Rings truly were useful. “I lost sight of you guys. There aren’t any Dragonflies down there outside of the one on Shiro.”
”That’s fine.” I adjusted said Dragonfly so it’d have a better vantage point. “Just move some in when you can.”
”I-I’m trying.” Luna’s voice sounded particularly heavy. “They’ve got runners watching signals. I-it took all my efforts to keep you two from being noticed.”
And I was very thankful for that. Luna was obviously quite a skilled runner to be able to fight off several corporate ones without being noticed. I doubt we could’ve even gotten through the warehouse without her. The motion sensors alone would’ve set off the alarm, not to mention the dozens of turrets and cameras scattered around. I probably would’ve been fine, but Mira definitely would’ve been exposed.
“So can you get some in or not?” Mira seemed to completely miss the subtlety of net running.
”I-I can, it’s just g-going to take a bit.” The girl sounded extremely stressed.
I tapped on Mira’s arm and shook my head. Thankfully, she seemed to get my message. My mikata moved in front of me, sweeping the space with her LMG. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
”The Underground?” Though this tunnel was much less claustrophobic. “C’mon, the transponder is that way.”
Mira’s boots crunched across the silent space, sounding particularly loud in my ears. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just give her Fox’s Paw, so I had to deal with it. Maybe once this was all over I could try to train her how to move quieter.
The concrete down here was cracked in places, though the road itself was well maintained and cleared of debris. Old signs hung on the walls, informing us of where we were in relation to the warehouse section above.
I checked my HUD. The faint blip of the transponder pulsed from just ahead. Kaynis, wherever he was, had moved at some point. His signal still came from down here, but he was well beyond the warehouse tower’s limits now.
Mira peered ahead into the darkness. The emergency lights didn’t go for much longer before vanishing into the darkness. “Why do I get the feeling he’s not going to be sitting out in the open with a welcome banner?”
“You want him to bake us a cake while he’s at it?” I strapped a flashlight to my rifle to help Mira’s visibility. “This guy’s smart.”
”Riiight, because smart people end up being hunted by mercs while a mutant outbreak occurs.” She shook her head and likewise turned on her flashlight.
”Everyone has bad days.”
”That’s one hell of a bad day.”
We welt silent and continued to walk through the darkness. After a few minutes, we passed by the remains of a security checkpoint down the road. Scattered crates and cement dividers were thrown up, and several guards lay dead. Scorch marks blackened the walls around it.
I moved over and crouched down over one of the fresh corpses. “Bullet wounds. Someone came through here.”
”Kaynis?”
”Probably.” I shifted to some of the scorch marks instead. “Not just him, though. Burn marks.”
Mira moved up beside me. “Explosives?”
“I wish.” I pointed toward the misshapen melting patterns. A bit further away, one of the guard’s limbs was half fused into the floor. “Acid.”
Mira shifted from foot to foot. ”Did Kaynis carry acid with him, Luna?”
“N-no?”
”That doesn’t bode well for us.” I stood back up and looked across the scene. There, offset from the corpses, were a few paw prints. “Might be biological. Some kind of creature or mutant.”
As much as I didn’t want it to be from some monster, we were in the middle of a mutant infestation. It’d just harm us in the long run if we looked over the fact it could be biological.
“Well… that’s great.” Mira swung her flashlight upward into the darkness. “Let’s keep moving.”
”Chek.”
The air grew colder as we pushed deeper into the tunnel system. Every so often, droplets of freezing cold water pinged from pipes along the ceiling and splattered to the floor. The pipes ran along the ceiling like veins, disappearing into a maintenance room.
Mira’s light flicked to the pipes when one of the drops fell on her nose. “If one of those bursts, I’m quitting.”
“You can’t quit.” I wasn’t paying her to begin with. Could this even be considered a job? Or was she technically a homeless slouch taking advantage of her dear friend?
“Watch me.” She smirked and continued walking. “I’ll get a nice, quiet job. Maybe accounting? I’d be amazing at that. Five brains would let me breeze through counting.”
I eyed here for a few moments, trying to figure out if she was being serious or not. “You wouldn’t last thirty minutes before punching someone.”
”Forty-five. I can be professional.” I didn’t respond to that, instead just staring at her. She sighed and shook her head. “Fine… thirty.”
Up ahead, something clattered in the darkness. It was a sharp, metallic sound that echoed down the tunnel. We froze, both locking back in with guns raised. The sound came again, this time sounding far closer to a skittering.
“Please tell me that’s a rat.” Mira whispered from my side.
”If rats were dog sized and had metal legs.” Whatever it was sounded heavy. I kept my eyes peeled for it, even flicking on Aetherial Perception to see if I could get a hint at its location. Nothing.
The deadly cold embrace of Insight flashed through me for the first time in a long while. I froze for a split second before throwing myself to the side in a desperate dodge.
A blur of matted fur, exposed bone, and metal grafts flew at me like a truck a beat later. The large creature’s eyes burned with a sickly red glow and its ugly, serrated teeth snapped shut a hair from my throat. I tripped backwards, rolling just as it continued past me, slamming into the wall.
”Fuck!” I scrambled to my feet just in time to see the massive rat skitter backward with unnerving speed and reorient itself in an instant. It hunched low, hackles rising sharply through its fur like jagged knives.
”That- why did I wish it was a rat?” Mira groaned and opened fire. A dozen shots slammed into the creature dead center.
The rat screeched, the sound so sharp it felt like glass tearing at my ears, and charged forward once more like the bullets were mere raindrops. I lifted my rifle just in time for it to slam into Mira’s legs, knocking her flat. Before she could recover, it scrambled up her chest and shredded through their armor like it was soft plastic. It’s jaw gaped wide, viscous acid pooling in it.
Just before it could bite down, I flared Fear the Reaper as brutally as I could and opened fire. The rat, startled by sudden fear, tossed itself to the side and vanished into the concrete.
Mira rolled away and clutched at her gouged armor. ”That armor was rated for rifle rounds!”
“Guess no one rated it against demon rats.” I looked around the darkness. “Careful! It’s got some kind of stealth tech.”
For a few tense moments, the rat simply watched us from wherever it was hiding. Then another pulse of Insight hit me. I threw myself backward with Burst Step, firing with wild abandon toward my recently vacated location. The rat slammed into the ground, tanking a dozen shots, and then shifted targets to Mira.
Mira whirled back toward it, firing point-blank into its chest with her LMG. The rat twisted unnaturally, bones and metal grafts creaking violently. The bullets, instead of hitting its chest, hit its side harmlessly. It lunged forward to bite down on her—
And flew right through her as Mira went incorporeal for a brief moment. “Our guns aren’t doing anything!”
”I noticed!” I hit the mag release, carelessly dropping the empty one to the ground. I went for my Blaze rounds and slammed the new mag home. Hopefully, these ones would have a little more punch. “What the hell is this thing?”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to test it. The rat was on me once more. A cold, burning bite wrapped around my throat just before I ducked backward. The rat still managed to get ahold of my arm, biting down fiercely into the metal. The brace shrieked and groaned under the pressure, denting inward. That was the least of my issues as acid poured into the metal, causing my flesh to sizzle where it made contact.
I slammed my other fist forward, shock gauntlet whirling with might. I doubled down with my Kinetic ability, sending arcs of electricity through the rat. They had the opposite effect of what I wanted, causing it to just clamp down even harder on my arm. Fear the Reaper didn’t even cause a reaction the second time around.
”Argh!” I cried out and flicked on Cold-Blooded to keep the pain from affecting me too much. The next moment, I slammed a knife into its open eye socket.
The creature winced and wenched me toward the shadows, metal limbs clawing into the floor for traction like a wolf trying to pull a deer carcass. My arm twisted and I felt something in it snap through the cold surges keeping me calm.
“No you don’t!” Mira came to my rescue and slammed into the side of the rat with a brutal drop kick. The full might of her Shift ExoCore struck the knife, sending it deep into the thing’s head. Bones cracked, and the creature recoiled, releasing my arm with a disgusting hiss.
I stumbled back and ripped the shock gauntlet and armor on my left arm off, getting rid of most of the acid along with my protection. A bit of it still remained, sizzling uncomfortably against my nerves. My left arm, until I could sleep, was totally useless.
Mira grabbed the rat by the tail. The thick appendage, half embedded with metal like some demented armor, wiggled in her grip. She swung it, slamming the rat into the tunnel wall. The cement cracked brutally all around the impact, but the rat didn’t.
It swung out a paw mid-air, managing to clamp onto Mira’s arm and pulling her along with it. She roared and tried to wrench it off, but the rat just shook violently and dug its claws in even further.
I drew a knife and charged it with electricity. Without time to second guess my poor decision making, I jumped onto the large rat’s back and slammed the blade down into its other eye.
The mutant creature trashed, screeched, and slammed me against the wall. Everyone bone in my body groaned in protest, but still I held and pulled the knife deeper in hopes of hitting something vital.
Mira staggered away and picked up my discarded rifle. She charged forward and pried the creature’s jaws open. It fought wildly, though I interrupted each attempt with jolts of electricity, causing the thing to convulse.
I threw myself off just in time. Mira stuffed the barrel down its maw and held the trigger down. Fire erupted from the rat’s mouth, and it staggered sideways, using brute strength to hurl both of us off of it. I slammed into the ground hard, blood drenched knife flying from my grip.
The blinded rat dragged itself away, bleeding and puking up flaming organs. It didn’t slow for even a moment, though. Instead, it evolved. Bone plating grew from its fur, and several new eyes forced their way out of its skull, staring at us with hatred.
”Oh… good.” I groaned and tried to come up with a plan. “It had a second wind.”
”That’s so not fair!” Mira cried out and pushed herself to her feet.
For a moment, all three of us just stood there, watching each other. And then the rat lunged forward into a final, brutal charge.
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AN: Thank you so much for the reviews!