Chapter 45: 2.26

Dominic knelt on the ground and tapped it thrice with his right hand; each time, a blue circle expanded into the size of a plate from the point his finger touched the floor. He waved his right hand, which was glowing a faint blue, and the circles followed his movement, gliding across the floor away from us. One zipped up the wall.

With his left hand, he tapped the floor again and summoned three more circles, these time red ones. The red circles stayed close to us, forming a line in front before disappearing into the ground. “I’ll keep the sink hole traps near,” he said.

“I’m going to transform,” Rob said. “Best be prepared since Essa wasn’t able to get a good look at him.”

“He’ll pass by my second familiar. Don't worry, I'll pay attention,” Vanessa said. “Do you need my diamond bracelet?”

“Save it. I have a few steel bars left.”

“Just tell me when you need it.”

“If possible, I don’t want to use it because that’s my gift to you.” Rob took off his belt and slung it over his shoulder like a sash. Attached to it were small packets. Rob retrieved a square item from one of the packets. It reminded me of weights used by divers to counteract buoyancy; I learned basic scuba diving when I went for a week-long vacation in Honolulu after I graduated from college—privilege, I know.

“He’s on his way here,” Vanessa said. “Definitely wearing a mask like ours. He didn’t notice my familiar. He can’t see in the dark…I think? He’s bumping into walls in parts where there's no light, terribly panicked.”

“What else?”

“Wait, my familiar is trying to keep up. He has a gun. A pistol.”

“Get behind me,” Rob said.

Vanessa put herself in front of me.

I drew the coat Vanessa gave me closer around my body. “I think I can already use my power to protect myself,” I said, knowing she would refuse.

“It’s fine, Rach. Rob can protect us.”

“Or I could use this.” I raised the gun I ‘borrowed’ from the guys I killed earlier. “I haven’t shot a gun before though.”

“Does that still have bullets?” Dominic said.

I shrugged because I didn’t know how to check. He instructed me how to do it and we found only two remaining bullets, as most of them were shot at me. But they didn’t need to know that. “I just need to make these two shots count,” I said, grinning with manufactured fake bravado. We're layering fakeness now.

“He’s near,” Vanessa said.

“I thought my new stretch suit would be enough.” Rob crushed the steel bar in his hand, or maybe absorbed it; it had disappeared. “But I need them to be even more stretchy,” he said, his voice becoming unnaturally deeper towards the end, as if a recording of his voice was played back in slow motion. He grew in size, filling in his clothes, stretching them until the tears expanded, his feet threatening to burst out of his shoes. He didn’t mutate into a monstrous figure; his body only became larger and more muscular, comparable to the massive strongmen that set world records in weightlifting. A steel coating covered his skin, creeping up his neck, covering his scalp and then his entire face.

“My familiar is right on his tail,” Vanessa said. “There’s blood on his clothes, and the way he’s walking, he either injured or blind in this darkness. Maybe both.”

Rob took a couple of steps, shaking the floor with his weight. “I’m going to dispose of him if he’s a threat to us.”

“Rob! Please don’t. He’s one of us.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“There he is.”

A set of frantic footsteps made us all tense up.

“Stop right there!” Rob said.

The man screamed in terror. He shot Rob. Vanessa gripped my arm tightly as the shooting continued. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off Rob, hitting the walls and floor, causing a few sparks. “Die! Die! You’re not going to take me!” He didn’t stop until we heard the awkward clicking of an empty gun.

“Calm down,” Vanessa loudly said, as if saying that in a stressful situation has actually worked in the history of mankind. A female voice, however, might calm down the man. “We’re on the same side.”

“Put the gun down,” said Rob.

The man got scared again when Rob spoke. He yelled, threw the empty gun at Rob—it didn’t even reach him—and ran back where he came from.

“He did put down his gun,” Dominic mused.

“Running away? Okay, he doesn’t have offensive powers. Catch him, Dom.”

“Got it.”

I heard sounds of struggle somewhere in the dark. Vanessa shone the light of her phone on the man. Thick tendrils, three of them to be exact, a mixture of earth, concrete, and ceramic from the tiles, erupted from the wall and floor, and entangled the man. There was a faint blue circle at the base of each tendril, the same circles Dominic summoned. The tendrils forced the man to the ground.

We approached him as he screamed hysterically, saying over and over not to kill him. “I don’t want to die, I have a family,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was getting into. I was forced. Please let me go.”

Rob condescendingly laughed in a guttural rumbling way. “That excuse will not work with the BID. You’re lucky we’re not them.”

“I’ll do the talking,” Vanessa said. “And I think you can already go back to human form to not scare the man.”

“What a waste of a steel bar,” muttered Rob.

“Hello,” Vanessa said. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Sta-stay back! I can kill you with my powers.”

Rob scoffed, “If you could, you would’ve already done it.”

“Shush,” Vanessa said. She crouched down and began her patented negotiation script. “I’m Vanessa Minnows, the niece of the Mayor. It’s fine if you don’t tell us your name.” I heard Rob inhaling sharply, but he stayed silent. “There’s no reason to be afraid. Like I said, we’re on the same side. We’re also trying to find the way out like you.”

“Uh…you can call me Frederick, can be just Fred. Er…sorry for shooting you. Sorry, yes.”

“Nice to meet you, Fred,” Vanessa said.

I said, “Hello, I’m Rachel. This is Dominic and this is Rob.” I took the initiative to introduce the other two as well so that I’d present myself as part of the group rather than some stray they picked up.

“We’re going to release you now, okay?”

The man, struggling against the immovable tendrils, pointed to Rob who had already returned to his original form. Dominic made the tendrils recede with another wave of his hand. Fred said, “I…I think I’ve seen you earlier. I recognize your mask and beard.” Rob tilted his head and pointed to himself. “You arrived with Raphael, yes? Raphael Bautista? The lawyer from Wilkens & Kingson?”

Rob lurched at the mention of the name. “Is he alive? Raphie…Raphael?” he said, grabbing the man’s shoulder.

“No. No…He-he was killed.”

“What?! He’s dead? That can’t be.”

“He is… I’m sorry. He's your friend, yes? We’re acquainted through work. I’m the EVP of a corporate client of Wilkens & Kingson, and Raphael’s one of the partners that handle our account. You seem to be close friends, no?”

“We are…we were...” Rob sat on the ground, his hand covering his face as he slowly shook his head. “I expected him to have already escaped because I saw him leave the arena before me. He also knew the way out. What happened?”

The Fred guy narrated to us what he went through from the time he fled when the BID agents attacked until we found him. He talked rapidly once he calmed down and realized he was safe with us. Apparently, that Raphael dude led a group of them, saying, like Rob did, that it wasn’t safe to use their usual exits because they would just get caught.

Their big group was divided when the sword-wielding BID agent caught up with them, no pun intended. Luck was on their side tonight, as was the case with all of us in this group, and they won the BID execution roulette—the agent went after other groups so they were able to escape with their lives. He didn’t know anything about the black tentacles of the Cocoon or the giant mutant snake running amok somewhere around here.

But their streak of good luck ended when they met, according to Fred, a ‘killer spider drone’.

“A spider drone?” Vanessa said.

“I believe he means a Skitter,” Rob said. “An armored combat drone that looks like a spider. Actually, it only has six legs, so not a spider. It’s about the size of, I would estimate, a large dog. I believe only the Bureau uses the Skitter. Right? Miss my-parents-work-at Greaves?”

“Yes,” I said, unfazed. “The police wouldn’t have Skitters because those are intended for killing instead of incapacitating people. They have weapons meant to combat Adumbrae.” I was trying to recall the stuff Mom said to me about combat drones. “Greaves don’t make combat drones, anyway. Only parts for them.”

Rob snorted, satisfied with my answer. “This Skitter killed your group, Fred? Including Raphie?”

“Yes. I’m the only one who escaped. I was hit by a large round but I was able to regenerate.” Fred unbuttoned the lower half of his torn shirt that was soaked in blood to give us a better look of his healing wound. “Blessed to have survived, yes?”

“That’s a terrible looking wound you have there. You were able to heal it that fast?”

Fred had a conflicted expression on his face. “My power is transforming into…something horrendous. I normally don’t do it, I’d rather not do it, but when I use my power, my healing abilities are top tier. I only partially transformed to heal, and then reversed it.” He shuddered. “I don’t like using my power. No, not at all.”

“I can understand,” said Vanessa.

“What do we do now?” Dominic said. “We can’t stay here. If there are BID drones in the tunnels then there would be many agents and police around here too.”

“Not necessarily,” Rob said. “They should’ve pulled out their troops after the quake. I’m sure the area above us is devastated by the explosion, and it would be unwise for them to risk continuing to send people down here. Not to mention they would have many casualties among their ranks. Fred, have you seen any agents or police?”

“None at all.”

“If there are police or agents trapped down here after the quake, they would be few in number and focused on getting out first. The Skitters on the other hand…”

“Where do we go? There?” Dominic said jabbing his thumb back.

“Yes!” Fred said. “There must be an exit there, no?”

Rob was looking at the map on his phone. “You met the Skitters somewhere ahead of us, which means they entered the tunnels in that area. Maybe even further on. Which also means the police ring is wider out than we’ve imagined. They probably already started to search possible exits even before they started their operation. Damn it. How did Mark not get wind of this from his police connections?”

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“We should go in the other direction, yes?”

Rob shook his head. “There’s no other direction.” He faced Fred. “I’ve already explained this to them that if we do find an exit back there, we will be inside the ring of the police. Whether above or below, we’re only crawling deeper in the cage if we go back.” Addressing all of us, he said, “The best choice is to make it past through the Skitters and any cops or agents deployed there. Our biggest asset are Essa’s pets—familiars, sorry Essa dear. We can avoid danger with them.”

“And if we can’t?”

“Can we win in a fight against a Skitter?” Vanessa said. “I…I’ll try to use my mouth familiars if really needed.”

“We have to win,” Rob grimly said. “If you’re comfortable with using your mouth familiars, then go ahead Essa dear. But if not, then better don’t. Our biggest disadvantage is we don’t have any actual combat experience using our powers.”

While they were discussing, I placed the gun I was carrying on the ground and tore the bottom part of the coat Vanessa gave me. All of them turned to me upon hearing the ripping sound. “Drones means cameras,” I said. I folded the piece of cloth, covered my mouth with it, securing it with a knot behind my head. “Sorry, Vanessa for tearing this. Or maybe Dominic. I think this is yours? You guys should also wear your masks again.” I tore another long piece off the coat and tied it around my waist so that the coat wouldn’t flap around when I would need to run later.

“Can you also give me something to use as a belt?” Rob said. I ripped a few strands of the coat and gave them to him. “I’m not going to wear my belt again so I could quickly transform without impediment later. But my damn pants keep falling down.”

Dominic frowned. “Anyone else wants a piece of my coat?”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Vanessa said, elbowing him in a way that I guessed was supposed to be playful but only ended up being awkward.

“Let’s get out of here first before making any shopping plans,” I said.

“You can come with us shopping when we get out.”

“Sure. That would be fun.”

We set off in a hurry. Vanessa was practically carrying me while running. Rob also asked her to send more of her familiars to scout ahead of us; it was gross seeing them coming out of the sockets on her arm, like gigantic zits getting popped. She was blinking rapidly, having a hard time checking the view of each of her familiars while keeping up with the group. A couple of times we nearly ran into walls. She even stumbled over an exposed pipe, almost falling face first on the floor if I didn’t stop her. I decided to help out with the running instead of being a useless sack of potatoes being dragged.

“You’re already fine, Rachel?” she said, noticing I was leading her instead of the other way around.

“I can manage,” I said with a wince for added believability. “We do heal pretty fast.”

A couple minutes more of running and we approached the place where Fred said his group were killed by the Skitter. Rob did that annoying military hand signal thing again to make us halt. “According to my map,” he said, “it’s supposed to be a generator room to power the bunkers.”

“Are we going inside there?” Fred asked. “There’s no other way, no?”

“If we avoid the generator room, we’ll need to take a roundabout way that will waste a lot of time. Plus, I have to do something inside.”

“What’s that?”

Rob didn’t answer Fred but instead talked to Vanessa. “Essa dear, there’s going to be multiple paths branching from inside here. Send your familiars down the ones I point to.”

We entered through massive steel double doors that were ajar about a foot or two, just enough for us to squeeze by. Total darkness greeted us—excluding for Vanessa and Rob. Sensing that I held her hand tighter, Vanessa raised her phone to try and brighten up the room the place, but it was too wide, even wider than the auditorium at Cresthorne. Dominic also turned on his tiny flashlight but it barely did anything, only revealing the steel stairs descending into the darkness.

“Is there a light switch somewhere?” I said.

“No, this room doesn’t have power,” Rob said. “This was never operational. The electricity for this place, which is only for the lights along the corridors, are because of the connections made by Mark since he uses the tunnels.”

Fred was shaking as he went down the stairs. “After we first met the Skitter, and it killed a few of us, we hid inside here. I didn’t want to hide, but I was shot so I had to take time to heal. The Skitter eventually found this place.”

“So, you ran away while the Skitter killed your companions?” Rob said through gritted teeth.

“You’re angry with me because I ran away as your friend died, yes? There’s nothing I could do, no?”

Rob spat on the ground but sensibly chose to let the matter go. He instructed Vanessa where to send her eyeball pets. I couldn’t see the places Rob was pointing to, but I supposed there were exits there. “We need to find the exit to Section 21,” he said. “Have your familiars look at the labels. It’s hard to decipher where it is just from this map on my phone.” He motioned to borrow Dominic’s flashlight, which he then gave to Fred. “Now, can you lead us to Raphie’s body?”

We found the body of Rob’s friend lodged in between two large metal tanks. Given the canisters this Raphael guy hid behind were riddled with bullet holes the size of pepperoni slices, the body unsurprisingly didn’t fare very well at all. As Rob pulled out the body, he told Vanessa to turn away to not see the messed-up corpse. I didn’t look away. I was too tired to feel disgusted.

“His spine was hit, yes?” Fred said. “What are you going to do with his body?”

Rob rummaged through the clothes of his friend. “I’m going to take everything that could identify him.”

“Huh? Why?” Dominic said. “We should go.”

“This is the least I could do for him. The police will surely search this place and recover their bodies. And it’s going to be easy to find out who Raphie is.” Rob held up a business card. “See?” After thoroughly removing the contents of Raphie's pockets he moved on to ripping out the tags on the clothes. “Just to make things harder,” he explained. Then he laid out the corpse flat on the ground, with its hands extended to the sides.

“We can’t bring him with us. There's a chance we'll have to fight for our lives and we can't carry-”

“I know,” Rob said as he transformed. “I would've been more assured if I could burn his body.” With his massive fists, he dug up a chunk of the concrete floor and absorbed it through his palms. His body was coated with concrete. “But this is the next best thing.” He raised his fists and smashed it down on Raphie’s head.

Vanessa, who was peeking between the fingers of her hand, screamed, her voice echoed in the desolate room like a banshee’s wail.

“Essa, don't look!” Rob turned his friend’s head into minced meat. He also slammed the corpse’s hands, flattening them on the ground. He turned to us, getting smaller, reverting to human form. “On the off chance that I die down here in this shit hole, I would appreciate very much that I be extended the same courtesy. I promise to do likewise with your body...if I can. Take anything that could identify us then make sure to smash the skull, no dental records and all that, and the hands, so no finger prints. They couldn’t identify us with DNA because any DNA records we might have on the government database are from before our trip to the Red Island.”

Red Island? Weren't we supposed to find out about that? I suppressed the urge to laugh. Look at me now. I don't have an idea what's going on anymore.

“This is such an extreme measure, no?” asked Fred.

“Extreme? Would you want to ruin your family’s life if the BID find your inhuman body?” Rob cleaned his hands on his friend’s shirt. “I have to tell Raphie’s wife to make up a story that he moved to, I don’t know, somewhere in the Caribbean.”

Vanessa screamed again, surprising us.

“Essa, calm down. It’s over already.”

“No! Not that.” Vanessa was hyperventilating.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Obviously not. Stupid question, Erind. “What’s wrong?”

She had her hand on her chest as she leaned on me for support. I held her and put on a concerned expression. “Something killed one of my familiars. It-it hurts…” Blood was flowing out of a slit on her arm.

“We should get out of here,” Dominic said. “Where did that familiar die?”

“Wait! I-I’m not sure,” She was blinking rapidly again. “Not sure which one died.”

“Essa, you have to be sure which one it is.”

“Is a Skitter coming here?” Fred said.

“This is the first time I’ve sent out this many familiars at the same time.” She was on the verge of tears. “Wait…wait…I’m checking.”

I rubbed her back. Was this correct? I didn’t know shit about comforting people. “Breath slowly.”

“That wa—” Vanessa stopped upon hearing a foreboding sound. We all heard it. Metal against metal, constant tittering, like something with numerous metallic legs was coming closer. 

“Everybody get down!” Rob yelled.

Without a second thought, I pulled Vanessa to the ground. A steady drone of thunder nearly made us deaf as streaks of light lit up the room. The floor vibrated from the bullets raining down on us. Rob, mid-way in his transformation, ripped out one of the metal tanks off the floor and threw it at the fucker above shooting at us. That something dropped down to our level. I looked up just as Fred turned the flashlight in the direction of our attacker.

It was a Skitter. I’ve only seen pictures of it, but I was sure it was the combat drone we were talking about.

Rob rushed in front of our group; metal pipes were in his fists. An armor of the same material as those pipes covered his body. The Skitter opened fire. It wasn't normal gunfire. The Skitter was ripping through Rob, the best way to combat Adumbrae regeneration.

“Arggh!” Rob roared as the bullets stripped away parts of his armor and flesh. He didn’t move away because we were right behind him. I bet it wasn’t me he was especially keen on saving. But he wasn’t going to last long, and we couldn’t run out from behind him because the Skitter would just change its target to us.

“Rob!” Dominic waved his left hand. Red circles zipped across the floor and positioned themselves under the Skitter. The front part of the Skitter sunk into the ground, and its line of fire was directed downward, saving Rob. “Everyone run! Rob get them away from here.” Dominic’s blue circles surrounded the Skitter sprouting tendrils from the ground. They got hold of its turret, pulling it away from our direction.

I helped Vanessa get up. “Don’t let your mask fall off,” I said, as I tightened my own mouth mask.

“Let’s go,” Rob said, easily scooping both of us. He draped Vanessa and me on each of his shoulders facing backwards. Dominic and Fred followed us. The Skitter has sunk halfway into the ground, red rings still underneath it. It kept on trying to point its guns towards us, but concrete tendrils held them facing another direction.

“Not that way,” Vanessa said, twisting her body to see where Rob was going. “My familiar was killed that way.”

“You mean that Skitter there is a different one?”

“Uh…yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

The Skitter deployed a smaller arm from its back. It was a laser cutter, which it used to cut through the floor around it. Another arm appeared with a rotating blade and proceeded to hack away at the tendrils. I raised my gun. What would a gun do against it? “It’s trying to free itself!” I said.

“Wait! I’m checking the map. It’s hard to use the phone with my fat fingers.”

“Just go already!” I said, pounding on Rob’s massive, metal covered back. “It’s going to start shooting again.”

After hesitating a moment, Rob chose the path Vanessa said was safe, even though it was far longer.

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