The Esoteric Design Page 4

  “Whoa! Hey! Hey!” Troy grabbed the woman’s shoulder. She pulled the trigger once more and glanced at the man behind her. “Overkill….” He sighed.

  “They said to kill it. I was making sure it was dead.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’s dead!” Troy made a face of disgust. “It looks nastier now than it did before.”

  “Have you ever seen a horror film? If I had my way, I’d blast a couple more mags into it and then shoot it with a couple grenades.” Aria glared at the beast beside her feet. She kicked it as hard as she could and aimed. Nothing. It didn’t move.

  “Aria!” Troy grabbed her shoulders and gently scooted her away from the alien. “It’s dead.” He kneeled beside the thing, looking at its face–at least what was left of it. “Fugly…” he said, flaring a nostril.

  Aria’s eyes fell to the victim who had previously been screaming. If she had hurried, she could have maybe saved his life. He looked like the rest of the soldiers, mangled and torn up. No lasers or shrapnel or bullets, just claws.

  ‘Monstrous claws.’

  She glanced at the man’s clothing and ID badge and took a deep breath. It was Average Joe from the security video.

  “We better hurry in case there are more of them. Troy, gather that thing up. I’ll grab the core crystal drive,” Aria ordered. “Hopefully it’s not all ruined.”

  Troy nodded in response, tugging at the pack which was buckled to the side of his belt and pant leg.

  Aria slowly stepped over the downed human; a hand snatched at her boot. She turned and aimed her weapon, ready to shoot.

  “No, no,” the man gasped, choking on his own blood. “Not…not aliens!” He scratched at her. “Get out.”

  “Watch out!” Troy stood aiming.

  “It’s okay,” Aria murmured to Troy, holding out a hand to stop him.

  “We can’t be too cautious! He could be turning into a zombie for all we know!” Troy licked his lips, panting nervously.

  “Troy….” Aria rolled her eyes. “Notice him from the video?”

  “Oh, hey, it’s that guy who spilled coffee on himself,” he said stupidly.

  “They…it happened so fast,” the man sputtered, blood seeping from the massive cuts to his throat and collar bone. “Take it! You must. Small satchel.” His hand plopped to the floor over his head, pointing at a small black bag. “They don’t…don’t like it.”

  A shriek interrupted the panicked conversation, sounding from down the hall.

  “Oh, shit!” Aria aimed her weapon at the doorway as she sidestepped toward the core crystal drive on the supercomputer. She pulled the system from the main unit. It glittered with pulsating light, revealing tiny dots and lines decorating the inside. Downloading everything would take entirely way too long. “Troy! Put this in your bag!” She tossed the large item to the man.

  “You’re taking the whole thing?!” Troy opened his sack and shook his head. “No room, Aria!”

  “No time, Troy! Make room!” Aria watched the shadows bouncing off the wall in the hall. She shot a grenade, the electromagnetic pulse burst down the corridor, causing quite a few screeches. It sounded as if there were at least three more coming from that direction.

  As Troy dumped valuable supplies and ammunition onto the ground, Aria listened to the scratching on the walls and ceiling. The things were everywhere. “Troy,” she called out nervously.

  “I hear,” he answered quickly, wrapping the dead creature in a black tarp. He clumsily strapped it closed and headed for the opposite doorway.

  “Hold on, we’ll get you out of…here.” Aria looked down at Average Joe. He was looking rather dead with his pale skin, glossy eyes, and puddle of blood around him.

  “Aria!” Troy shouted. He dropped the makeshift body bag and spun, raising his weapon. “No way out!”

  Aria looked all around; the creatures had them surrounded. They were in all the doorways. She felt the same chill from before, seeing at least a dozen lining the halls. They were massive. Tall and lanky, the creatures looked pure evil. Troy stared into the dark eyes of one that blocked his exit only a couple meters away. It took one step forward, and Troy began shooting. It was like a gun firing for the start of a race. In a frenzy, all the monsters leaped onto the tables; some took to the walls, gripping with their talons, and tore after Aria and Troy, pushing the two into the center. The militants pulled their triggers, firing clip after clip into the monsters. Aria was lucky; previously shooting the EMP grenade down the hall had left some of the monsters vulnerable.

  “Duck!” she shouted. Troy crouched, reloading as Aria spun and blasted an EMPG into the pile of approaching monsters. She gasped as she noticed how many were continuing to roll in.

  ‘We’re going to die.…’ Her eyes widened. She turned again, shooting her own wall of giants. The two militants stumbled, hitting their backs against each other.

  “I need more ammo,” Aria gasped.

  “Me too.” Troy felt her tremble against him. “Tossed it all to make room for the crystal drive.”

  “Damn it.” She fired her last EMPG at the crowd. “Got your grenades?”

  “Across the room, by the body bag,” Troy whispered.

  “Can you get me there?” she asked, watching the monsters slowly approach her. Some crawled on all fours like animals while others slowly walked upright toward the woman as if they were human. Aria watched, frozen, as one being raised a palm toward her face.

  “Crouch, run as fast as you can; go one o’clock, and it’s to the left of the body,” Troy advised. One monstrous finger lifted, grazing Aria’s cheek. “Go!” he shouted.

  The woman didn’t hesitate. She ducked and turned, running right into the legs of another monster on the other side of Troy. She felt the man twirl with her, firing a SABO grenade. The familiar glide of the SABO blades sounded, and a few monstrous screams followed after that. Aria dodged the beings crowding around her. Her thumb sliding over the side button on her weapon, the empty EMPG magazine dropped to the floor. Aria jumped, sliding across the ground to the body bag. Multiple blasts erupted from Troy’s gun; blades spun across the room, slicing and cutting the creatures. The sound made the woman’s hair stand on end. Aria reached down and snapped up Troy’s grenade clip.

  “Grenade!” She slammed the rounds into the front slot of her rifle, aimed at the ceiling, and fired once. The blast shook the entire room. Her ears rang as all the monsters shrieked in deafening vocals. Unexpectedly, Aria was tugged up from off the floor. She heaved her rifle up under the creature’s jaw and fired, click. She was empty.

  “Whoa....” Troy tensed up. “You could’ve just blown off my head.” He looked at her with caution. Aria stared into Troy’s eyes; a look of surprise covered her features. In all her life, she had never once made such a rookie mistake. Her stomach suddenly felt very sour.

  Troy grabbed the strap of the body bag and tugged it toward the center of the office under the massive new hole Aria had created. He lifted his weapon and shot a single flare into the sky, signaling for help as Aria fired the rest of the grenades into the corners of the room, monsters shrieking and screaming. She ejected the grenade clip once again and slammed in her incendiaries, her fingers not moving fast enough. Troy busied himself with strapping the woman to him, their hips slamming together.

  In seconds, the Hawk was over the top of them. The familiar black rope dropped heavily beside their feet.

  Aria’s eyes fell to the satchel on the ground, the item Average Joe had told her to take. Her dirtied fingers lowered and snatched it up. Pocketing the item, she shot another grenade. The hiss of the air-fuel filled up the room. Troy hastily clipped the body bag to the rope, and then he worked on his and Aria’s buckle as he gave the line a sharp tug, signaling for a pickup. Before he could even finish, they were lifting into the air, being yanked away from the fiery hell. He watched as the flames flowed up and out toward their feet. Aria shot again, waited a second, and fired once more. Despite the heat, goosebumps covered the soldier
s’ arms. They could hear the creatures scream, but it wasn’t the screams that disturbed them, it was the fact that the monsters kept coming, crawling out onto the roof of the facility. They were on fire but didn’t even seem fazed by it.

  “See…that didn’t kill them,” Aria murmured.

  “You could’ve shot me.” Troy looked down at the woman strapped to him.

  She gazed up at him, a terrible look in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  “God! You could have killed me!” He stressed the last couple words.

  “Shut up, Troy!” Aria yelled. He chuckled at her. The vibration in his chest calmed the woman’s nerves. “You’re an ass.”

  “I’m not an ass. I didn’t try to kill you.”

  The rope tugged Aria and Troy back to the Hawk 90. The two quickly gathered the body bag, setting it on the opposite side of the copter, and returned to their seats. Troy aimed his weapon at the dead being. His eyes narrowed as he waited for the body to move. A loud racket shook them as the helicopter dropped, the blades breaking apart and gliding back into the wings as the sides of the jet returned, the doors of the cabin safely enclosing around the pair.

  “What the hell was that?!” Gavin called out. In a flash, he was dashing out of the cockpit, his untied military boots thudding against the metal. He gaped at the mangled head of the captured creature in the plastic tarp and stopped dead in his tracks. “Whoa!”

  “Gavin?!” Aria and Troy both shouted.

  “Autopilot! I’ll go back in a second!” He raised his hands defensively. “What the hell is that?”

  “Freaking aliens!” Troy said as he squeezed the bridge of his nose. Aria rolled her eyes in response.

  “No way!” Gavin’s mouth dropped open.

  “No,” Aria sighed irritably.

  “Aw, come on, Aria. You saw them. What the hell were they then?” Troy dropped his hand as he slouched tiredly in his chair.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Aria fiddled with the black satchel in her hands. “If they were aliens, then where were their UFOs? Why didn’t the satellites detect anything?”

  “Cause they were fried from the blast!” Troy argued.

  “That would have happened after they were on the planet.” Aria glared.

  “Maybe a blast occurred from space to put it out, and then those aliens teleported onto the planet,” Gavin suggested.

  “I dunno. I mean, that is a huge assumption. Why would aliens suddenly appear and destroy this base? How’d they know it was here and what it was?” Aria frowned.

  “This place has all the info you can ever imagine! War strategies and history! Aria, if they can get all of this information, then they’d know everything about our military and how we fight.” Troy patted the crystal drive.

  “Can’t they gather that from the satellites, too since they have backup crystal drives?” Aria argued.

  “Aliens!” Troy pointed a finger at the woman. “ALIENS!”

  “God! You’re such a child!” she fumed.

  “She tried to kill me!” Troy moved his finger to point at himself. He stared gravely at Gavin. “She almost blew my head off.”

  “I’m not getting in the middle of one of your fights.” The pilot quickly stepped back.

  “A new military creation?” Aria suggested, ignoring her partner’s behavior.

  “Russite!” Troy and Gavin glanced at one another.

  “Possibly. You know about the biomechanical research. What if someone was cloning people and, I dunno, animals?” Aria shrugged.

  “That’d explain the nasty claws.” Troy nodded, wiggling his fingers.

  “And the Faze Shields.” Aria nodded with him. “Maybe someone’s leaked some of our scientific research, and another military is trying to copy it or create something new from it.”

  “Oh, good!” Gavin slapped his hands together. “Fireproof animal clones!”

  “Fireproof.” Troy pointed. “Aliens,” he paused, giving Aria a defiant look, “who stole our Faze Shields from the militants outside.”

  “Maybe Russite has an alliance with the aliens.” Gavin pondered.

  “Oh…and they’ll take over the world with their alien, military, crossbreed technology.” Troy shuddered.

  “Oh, like in that one game where–”

  “Or maybe they are something entirely different,” Aria interrupted.

  The two men looked down at the woman. She ran her hands over the item that was inside the satchel, feeling the grooves and ridges on the surface.

  “What is it, Aria?” Troy asked, suddenly a bit more serious.

  “He said to take it, that they were afraid of it.” Aria raised the silver decorative crucifix into the air for the two men to see. Along with the item, inside the bag, was one of the oldest texts known to mankind— the Bible.

  "The Brawler"

  Chapter 3

  “Well, what do you think, Dr. Camery?” Aria propped her body against one of the many medical tables inside the laboratory. She and Troy watched with interest as the fidgeting professor quickly sidestepped from his workstation toward the slab in the center of the room.

  The man was a wreck. It appeared Dr. Camery hadn’t shaved in weeks. His overgrown hair was a disheveled mess, matching the wrinkled look of his horribly ill-fitting and outdated clothes and brown loafers, revealing the older man’s actual age. Despite his sloppy appearance, however, Camery’s attitude was on the opposite end of the spectrum–superior and obsessed. He was a man of his work, not one to care about physical appearances as much as intellect.

  “Very interesting. I have only been able to do a few tests, but, so far, the results have been quite fascinating.” The fanatical doctor rushed to the side, gathering his digital document viewer from the cart next to his gruesome-looking medical utensils. Aria averted her eyes, feeling her stomach turn a bit.

  “Come take a look.” The doctor waved the two militants over to him.

  Aria shook her head. “I’ll pass.”

  Troy didn’t hesitate. He looked at the creature, making a strange face.

  Camery pulled back the flap of skin covering the creature’s chest. Aria nearly vomited on the spot; the underside of the flesh was covered with mucus, making a sickening slurp as it was pulled apart. “Two sets of lungs.” The doctor showed Troy. Aria raised a brow, now interested. “One set seems to operate just like ours, breathing oxygen. The other filters sulfurous gass.”

  “Sulfur?” Troy asked, covering his nose. “Is that why they smell like that?”

  “Most likely. You see, it’s also in their blood.” Dr. Camery showed Troy a chart on his viewer. Aria finally decided to join the two men, not taking more than a glance at the monster.

  “Sulfur in their bloodstream? How is that possible?” Troy handed the woman the digital screen, not being one who understood much science as opposed to science fiction. Show him the beast, and he’ll be happy; explain how it works, and he’ll shut off like a television or, rather, just change channels.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Their bone structure is also very peculiar.” Camery tapped on the large claws protruding from the fleshy hand. “The talons are made of metallic substances, Beryllium and bits of Cobalt mostly.”

  “Is that why the claws look like blades?” Troy poked one of the phalanges.

  “Precisely. They are nearly indestructible because of it. The bones, however, are made up of iron and platinum. This creature’s bone marrow is full of siderophile elements.” Troy gave him a questioning look. “It means ‘iron-loving.’ Iridium and gold have bonded with the iron-based bones. The body is also full of siderophile bacteria. The lab work revealed that the creature has Siderophilia or hemochromatosis,” Camery announced, his dark eyes glimmering with excitement.

  “Okay, you’ve lost me,” Troy sighed.

  Aria spoke up, “Iron poisoning, Troy. But the Siderophilia probably doesn’t faze them, does it?” She pulled a finger across the screen, scrolling to another page
on the report.

  “Not one bit. The tests indicate that it’s not a disease to these creatures; it’s something natural. It actually has the opposite effect. They need it to live and function.”

  “Bizarre,” she muttered.

  “Okay, so we basically have a metal-based organism.” Troy thought long and hard. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, you told me about how they seem fireproof.” The doctor turned away, grabbing a small torch next to the table. He fired up the device, an orange flame flickering noisily, and held it over the monster’s arm. Nothing happened.

  “Yeah! What’s up with that?” Troy exclaimed.

  “It seems its skin is highly resistant to heat.” Camery turned up the temperature, the flame glowing from orange to blue. After a moment, the skin started to burn; the sulfuric smell filled the air as blood dripped onto the floor. The creature jolted, the body shaking.

  “Hey!” Troy and Aria both reached for their weapons. The scientist held up his hand, halting them as he removed the torch.