Chapter 10 (Rough)

Erk finds the city beneath the city.

The light at the end of the drainage tunnel rushed toward me, and I rocketed out into a surprisingly large open space, maneuvering the bike by degrees past a dilapidated skeletal shell of a skyscraper.

As I brought the bike round the bend, I was shocked to see a sunken city stretching far into the distance, with a black skyline punctuated by everlight fixtures far above. At the centre of the city, an intense orange glowing drew my gaze. Though, the orange light source was incredibly luminous, it did not strain my eyes or inspire so much as a squint to look directly upon it.

A swelling urge to ride toward the light took root deep in my chest and I revved up the throttle to full burn. Almost as if responding to my acceleration, the orange light coalesced into a fine point of amber light at the centre of a huge craterous construction, engineered to a make whose utility I had never seen before. From my distant approach, it almost looked like an amphitheatre for a mesmerizing light show. But then again, the light was static and unchanging, calling out to me with a comforting lull that both chilled me to the core, and burned me with an urgency to investigate that strained the muscles of my neck with rigid anxiety.

The enormity of the crater's scale became apparent as I approached ever closer, slanting down while weaving through boxy highrises. The crater's perimeter skyline loomed ahead, appearing to be made up of monumental spires, and towering skyscrapers that barely obscured the crater-like structure. From the distant column, the crater's perimeter just teased the idea of an exterior building complex, but approaching by less than a block away revealed the perimeter was circled by a ring compound. The compound walls, guard towers, and gateways had all the workings of military functionality, offset by signs of general disuse and abandonment.

The tugging of the orange light amplified on approach. As I drew near, I realized at the centre of the crater was a ship, and I knew that the ship was in turn the source of the light. I could feel it, as certain and sharp as I experienced any other instinct, I could sense it with the utmost of clarity. And the closer I got, the more overwhelming that seeping, tugging feeling got.

Dropping elevation, I brought the bike down for a more intimate encounter with the edge of the crater, looking over the threshold and scanning my eyes abroad an expansive field network of wall dampeners. The vehicle slowed on command and carried me from street level past a broken gateway, and then another. I decelerated the bike even more, turning to circle the perimeter with the hover vehicle sputtering along at a silent and cautiously hesitant speed. Inching along the edge, I tried to make out the ship by pointlessly squinting my eyes, but could not see beyond the glow of intense light.

A familiar scent wafted briefly through the air, and I turned my nose up to take it in. Cavern blossom, I realized, and sniffed some more, curling my nostrils as a pungent chemical fume drifted into my nasal chamber with unapologetic offence. "Demolition fluid," I turned my nose with the disgusted realization, and moments later the whirring sonic boom from a railed projectile zipped past my head. A second near miss carved the air above my head as I ducked behind the dash of the bike. The HUD of the dashboard flared up with holo projected warnings of firearms discharge, etching the air with teal and violet data feeds that searched for purchase on my hidden away face.

The rail slugs continued to fire, and I tossed the Unitan gun's barrel over the dash, and inched over the stock to gaze down the telescopic holo sights. Without imaging goggles, the holo sights had limitations, but it was enough that I could see the two tech junkies firing long range rail guns from the edge of a ladder, and in my general direction. I slammed a fist on the kinetic dampener, and an outward thrusting energy field bubbled out from where the dampening unit was placed on my mag belt.

As the bubble expanded, I was taken aback by a startling jolt, and exhaled relief as the incoming slug slowed to a halt just before my forehead, and dropped harmlessly to the ground. I looked down at the slug, which spasmed with the expulsion of an electric charge.

"Stun bolt," I murmured, and looked down the sights once more. The holo scope immediately guessed my first target -- the closer of the two tech junkies, and automatically entered environmental compensation parameters. I pulled the trigger and my own stun slug found its mark, ricocheting with a rippling thud on the junkie's neck before bouncing once off of the ground and disappearing into obscurity with the second bounce. The junkie began to writhe as he fell over. I fired again, and the second mark went down in an identical fashion.

The bike's engine thrummed in response to the throttle, with wind swirling debris up from under the thrusters as I swiveled the bike and looked down the telescopic imaging matrix of the rifle, panning across the crater for more tech junkie activity. I stopped short and focused on a serpentine motion like peaking waves between rows of dampeners, a swelling crescent rolling fluid like with the reflective glint of precious stone or metals, and then it fell below, once more unseen.

I had a worrying concern that Jade was down there, and in trouble.

The bike kicked into gear and revved forward at my command, and I hunched forward bringing the bike down close to a catwalk. The engine roared and a hail of plasma fire shot past my ears, ricocheting off of the kinetic dampener's bubble field. I pulled up and swung the gun around to in the direction of the gunfire, which I traced back to two forms on another catwalk parallel to my own, but some hundred or so meters separated.

Plasma frag rounds burst against the dampening bubble, with the smart systems of their firearms working hard at finding a chink in the superior shielding. I fired the weapon haphazardly in their general direction -- I didn't need to hit them, just needed to get them off my back long enough to catch up with Jade.

Turning my attention back to where I had seen the disturbance moments earlier, another swelling motion, pulling back like a snake preparing to strike at prey. With narrowed eyelids and gritted teeth, I leaned forward into the bike's handles, wind buffeting my face, and whipping my soot-stained bangs up like cords lashing at my cheeks and forehead.

The creature drew nearer with my accelerating push, and hammered down on the brake pads, twisting the bike's handlebar, and leaping off of the vehicle, rolling back onto the nearby catwalk. The auditory grinding of the thrown bike making an impact on the creature's hide was soon cut short by the rippling bellow of the craft's igniting core. Propping myself up to look at the damage, I lifted myself up from my chest by the elbow and paused to the display of explosion shredding through a section of the creature's crystalline exoskeleton.

The creature slithered off, with sharp claws clamping into a power block as it heaved itself over and then back down into the space between rows of machinery.

I sprinted along the catwalk in the same direction that I saw the behemoth heading. Another tech junkie flew overhead with a jump jet burst, landing somewhere up ahead, near one of the many wall dampeners.

My heels pounded against the ground as the sound of a discharged rifle filled me with the knowledge that something bad was happening. Echoes from a whirlwind of commotion punctuated the air, followed by the man with the jump jets lifting off with another thrust, futile trying to break free of a tentacle that pulled down at each ankle. Two more tentacles wrapped around his arms from the recess below, suspending him puppet-like before the jagged head of a crystalline behemoth drew up its gaping jaws for a decisive chomp, and drop back down out of my sight.

I ran up closer, where I saw Jade standing on a platform next to the wall dampener the jet equipped junkie had just leapt from. The behemoth was preparing to strike at her for its next course.

I climbed onto the catwalk rail, and leapt through the air, graphene knife held out as far as I could reach.

"Jade!" I yelled down to get her attention, and she turned by a corner of her cheek as I crashed blade first against the creature's head.

The behemoth thrashed wildly, so I cartwheels and flipped into the recess below. Landing with feline acuity, I looked back with gaping lips, and immediately somersaulted forward to avoid a crash of the creature's talons against ground. I slashed the knife at one of its claws, and it inched back in annoyance, swiping again while I sidestepped.

"C'mon ugly!" I sprang against the wall as it made a third strike, this time through empty air. I kicked off of the wall's surface, and landed on the creature's swiping arm.

With predatory ferocity, the creature grabbed at me with its other arm as if I were an insectile pest. But again, the behemoth found only air as I crouched flat against its other limb, grabbing hold of the jagged imperfection of its crystalline skin while it tripped up over it's own legs.

The creature tumbled into a heap of itself, and I rolled off to hide between a dark chasm between two power blocks.

Peering out into the main row through a crack of light between the blocks, I took the gun strap off of my shoulder, holding the gun loosely in my left hand while keeping the small knife in my right. The behemoth upturned itself from where it had crashed onto its shoulder and was now looking anxiously further just a few feet down the row, its body jerking past me by an arms length with each turn of its head. Then without warning, something caught its attention and it turned to crawl lizardly over the blocks.

Weary with caution and anxiety, I peeked around the corner, stepping out into the more open space between rows of dampeners. I noticed further up the row were a series of small crystalline husks, either recently ruptured, or rapidly pulsating with alternating dusk-purple or blood-red hues. One husk took on a rhythm akin to an inflating balloon, before releasing a slight squelching his, and flapping open as if a flower in bloom.

Four needle point crystal appendages, skyblue at the tip and ascending to deep sapphires further up the crystalline legs hoisted a jagged ovular body up over the flap of the husk. The crystalline creature wriggled two mandibles bordering an insectoid gap for a mouth, blinking it's four highly reflective eyes at their first exposure to light. Tautening its limbs for stability, the creature straightened itself, skittering a few times, before easing into a neutral stance. The almost white eyes with a hint of blue flocking focused with clarity as the creature rested gaze down the pathway and directed steadily on my position.

A second squelching his drummed up from a second popping husk, accompanied shortly by the rhythmic chitter of more of the needle-appendaged hatchlings filing into the pathway to join my recently awaken misfortune.

"S**t," I groaned, tightening my left hand around the grip of the gun, and letting stun bolts loose at the first crystalline crab. Three shots pelted it hard, cracking of chunks in the shell before a fourth round found its way into the creatures mouth slit. The crab stumbled backward, struggling to keep stable, and flailing its mandibles as a helpless expression of extreme pain. The creature stumbled back with a smoldering excretion of navy blood from its gaping slit, and collapsed forward with a heave, falling into a diagnostic, motionless, still-eyed slump.

The scratching of needlepoint legs fell briefly silent, as the remaining creatures looked back and forth between the fallen crab and myself. A telltale squelch broke through the still air, beginning a bitter chorus from each of the trembling furious crabs. They charged toward me in synchronous file, and I unleashed the rail gun's chamber.

Mottled chunks broke off as each slug found purchase, one particularly eager round knocking a carapace monster off of its footing as it cracked against its splintered eye. Another creature leapt at me from a few feet away, and I spun by backside, bringing Jade's small knife up to slash it through the underbelly of its shell. A streak of the navy-hued goop curtained out from its incised soft spot, following the trail set in by the knife. I turned my head by a section in time to see another of the creatures caught in a gliding bound toward my face, bringing the gun up in time for a point blank punch to the abdomen.

The bolt took root deep in the shell, not fatal, but enough to blast the creature upward and back toward the recently hatched crabs, crawling out of newly matured husks. And then another leaping creature found its way onto my belly, wrapping legs around and preparing to dig its mandibles in for a guttural feast. I slashed the knife down a cross its mouth, partitioning one of the mandibles and cleaving a line across its vertical food hole. The creature shook off of me, and rolled back across the ground in an adequate display of pain as the blue liquid gushed from its injuries. I straightened the barrel of the gun out with the fleshy opening of its mouth and pulled the trigger to beckon a spray of blue in the immediate vicinity of the creature's head.

A mass of the creatures approached with hesitant uncertainty, and I responded with a step back and squaring of my shoulders. I started a head count of the remaining crabs, but stopped short when an energized shockwave interrupted.

The attention of the creatures was also diverted, as they turned to the source of the shockwave, and began skittering up a power block and away from me. And then another shockwave forced me to take stock of the rippling air. Kinetic bubble… I thought, recalling the short circuiting of the dampening block at the tech den.

The shockwaves sent me sprinting in the opposite direction, and the force of the explosion sent me flying through the air. The temporal space around me seemed to slow with the shocking jolt of adrenal-hormones through my arteries, and a buffeting whirlwind picked up metallic debris all around me.

Then I was flattened by something heavy, and the next thing I remember is was a familiar voice calling my name. "Erk," she whispered. "Time to get up. Now."