B00BKLL1XI EBOK (23 page)

“Do we have any idea what this substance might be?” asked Janice.

“Actually no, we really have no clue,” replied the reporter. “But it’s very strong stuff and it’s putting up a real fight.”

She paused, looking behind herself and turned around with false excitement. It was clear to anyone who cared that the only thing she wanted was to get out of there.

“We just received word that we were able to get a camera probe inside the building,” she announced. “Let’s take a look.”

The screen switched to a dark picture of the church’s cavernous atrium which lead to the many doors into the main arena. Every door was sealed shut by a web of black, gelatinous buffer gel. Every door except one...

Rather than torn off, the thick wooden door was opened enough to let a medium sized person through. An eerie silence hung over the dark, empty void of the entrance hall like a tangible item. With a soft whoosh, a dark shadow suddenly darted across the screen.

The broadcast immediately displayed modules with the reporter and Janice on top of the live view of the church’s dark atrium.

“Marie, do you know what that could be?” asked Janice.

“You mean the shadow we just saw?”

“Yes.”

“The police think that it’s a trick from the light hitting the black goop sealing all the doorways. Actually we’ve seen a couple of these shadows outside. They appear for an instant and then just vanish.”

While the eyes of the reporter and the anchor were clearly not up to the job, the eyes of the cyborgs knew what this shadow was. With alarm, they glanced at each other.

“Son of a...” started Ace.

“Fuck...” muttered Dot.

They stood in front of the TV naked, knowing full well that a grizzly scene would unfold at any moment but unsure what to do. Dot activated a holographic screen on which she tried the find the phone number or an e-mail for the studio. Unfortunately, she was stuck in a confusing loop of contact information designed to discourage calls to the station from anyone without a direct line to the anchors.

“It’s too late,” said Ace hollowly with terrifyingly confidence in his voice as he noticed another shadow within range of the reporter.

“If you’re just tuning in, we’re standing in the parking lot of the United Church of Revelation ran by Pastor Bradley Lombard and his ministry,” continued the oblivious reporter. “An estimated 30,000 or so worshippers gathered for Friday service. Today, June 17th being the anniversary of...”

She never got to finish her line.

The massive, shearing claws of a Shadow Spawn easily pierced through her soft flesh before she even knew it. As she realized that in just a few more seconds her life would be over, she looked down at a set of four razor sharp, black claws sticking out of her body, rivulets of blood running down to her feet. Her fright was frozen in virtually every muscle of her face as the spawn removed its claws, letting her body fall and cool into a corpse.

In the distance behind the reporter’s body, spawns attacked anything in range, flipping cars and tearing humans to shreds. Watching these scenes of carnage and destruction Ace wondered why it suddenly felt as if the device that acted as his heart sank with pain and pity.

The broadcast went blank. All that the holographic screen could display was a black screen with the message “please stand by” in red letters designed to look like a digital readout.

[ chapter _ 021 ]

The entire city was locked down. Every house, office and skyscraper was powered by emergency generators, their lights turned off and the windows reinforced by thick, tungsten carbon bars. The holographic monitors all over the city normally used to display ads or broadcast important news updates displayed only one word.

Lockdown.

It shone in red, digital letters with a font so big, the word took up virtually every pixel of the giant screens. The warning flashed at regular intervals, a sign to anyone suicidal enough to be outside to get into the nearest building, crouch down and wait for the disaster to pass by. In this dark city that coiled in on itself in terror, the screech of thousands of spawns echoed across the streets.

Just a few miles away from where the spawns were created, on a typical city street with high rises and skyscrapers along each side of the six lane road separated by two pairs of rails for bullet trains, the Nation’s war machines surrounded the small sea of spawns, firing all their weapons into the army of the undead. The spawns were smart, agile, and very determined. They took to the sides of buildings, trying to get at the OctoBots which fired at them from above. Slowly but surely, the spawns reached some of the robots, slashing through their thick armor and sending them in a free-fall to the empty ten lane road below. Most of the OctoBots survived the fall, though cracks in their armor were so deep, their vital circuits were exposed. The damaged robots were quickly lost in the sea of shearing claws.

Even the mighty Siege Machines barely made a dent in the flood of spawns surging towards them like a tsunami. On the edges of the spawn army, human-shaped blurs turned asphalt into shrapnel, delivering devastating blows to any spawn in sight, catapulting bloody, flaming limbs high into the air. In the middle of the street, where rails for the bullet trains crisscrossing the city were covered by spawn bodies, red, spiral waves of energy left deep gashes in the spawn battalions but those gashes were sealed with more spawns almost instantly.

Standing on top of a skyscraper in her military uniform with ten holographic screens surrounding her, Christine was trying to control the war machines intended to help Nelson, Ace and Dot thin out the bloodthirsty swarm. She pressed a button on one of the screens to see Steve appear in a video module.

“Steve, we need more firepower,” she requested.

On the bridge of a destroyer in near orbit, Steve aimed the fierce main cannon of his destroyer with great care. He counted down with anxiety, cold sweat running down his forehead.

“Firing main cannon in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...”

A shining star appeared in the sky above and the death beam of a destroyer hit exactly where Steve aimed it. The blast vaporized the spawns between a wide circle of the Nation’s war machines, sending chunks of burnt concrete raining down on the rest of the spawn army.

“Nice shooting,” complimented Christine while redirecting the robots under her command.

“Thanks,” Steve sighed with relief. “I’m gonna try for one more shot. The angle looks just right...”

“No! You’ll bring down a skyscraper and we don’t know who’s hiding where. Standby if we need fighters.”

“Got it.”

On the ground, amid the spawns, Ace hacked away with his dark blade, trying to figure out why he was fighting so many of them with no success. The spawns tore through his armored uniform, drawing synthetic blood from small scratches that barely had time to seal. At the edge of the spawn army, Dot and Nelson were also taking a good beating, their uniforms filthy with the blood of their innumerable victims. Neither her blade nor his guns seemed to stem the tide.

Entire squadrons of spawns were sent to be killed, jamming the robots’ guns with their bodies, leaving hundreds of spawns focused solely on Nelson, Dot and Ace. They were just moments away from tasting the blood of their first cyborg victims, surrounding Dot and Nelson, slashing at their throats.

As the two Children bumped into each other with their backs, the reality of what was about to happen finally sank in. Their robots had too many spawns to shoot, virtually all the other cyborg soldiers were still almost half an hour away from them, and these creatures, safe from the cover on which Nelson and Dot relied, would tear them limb from limb with their massive claws.

“Well...” started Nelson.

“Well?” asked Dot.

“I think this is it...”

“Yeah, the fat lady is warming up.”

Nelson readied his guns. Dot lifted her blade. The spawns in the squad around them attacked with a cacophony of screeching and the sickening sound of claws scratching against claws.

The spawns never finished their strike.

Just as they reached the apex of their jump, a circle with rotating runes around it ignited under Dot’s and Nelson’s feet with a blinding red light. An energy wave coming from above spun into the circle, forming a spiral cylinder of raw heat and electricity. The spiral held for only a few milliseconds before it collapsed in on itself, sending a blast wave across the street, melting the pavement and sending torn and mutilated spawns dozens of feet in the air.

The next thing Dot and Nelson felt was the rush of wind on their carbon skin, then the hard impact into solid concrete as they and Ace did a very ungraceful tumble and roll next to Christine.

“What was that?” asked Dot recovering from the fall.

“That was me...” said Ace laying on the rooftop with his sword stuck deep into the concrete next to him.

“Thanks Ace,” groaned Nelson rubbing his head. “I was already wondering who would be delivering the eulogy at our funerals.”

Ace jumped up and helped Dot get to her feet.

“Well we can’t let that happen now,” he winked.

Dot stumbled to her legs with a hiss of pain. Running down her right leg was a series of deep gashes. Even though the gashes slowly healed with her synthetic blood rebuilding the torn and broken skin, the injuries were still severe.

“Dot, are you all right?” asked Christine, momentarily taking her eye off the holographic control panel.

“I’ll be fine,” replied Dot. “But they tore up my leg.”

“Stay here,” commanded Ace. “You’re too injured to fight.”

He turned to Nelson who just got back to his feet.

“Nelson, there has to be a space probe to control the spawns. We need to find it and kill it.”

“Done,” nodded Nelson and headed inside the building to get out of the combat zone and run to the nearest spaceport.

“Christine,” continued Ace, “you and Dot cover me.”

He clenched his left hand into a fist and paused as he felt an odd, sticky wetness on his palm. Setting his sights down, he noticed small drops of blood dripping from his claws.

“What are those things?” asked Christine.

“Shadow Spawns. Living things metabolized into a crude attack machine. I’m not quite sure where they came from, but I have a good idea...” replied Ace.

Dot hobbled towards Ace and took his bloody claw. She licked the blood from the tip as if tasting it.

“Yeah, it’s definitely human blood,” she frowned.

“You’re kidding,” Christine’s face turned pale.

“Afraid not,” said Ace. “The Dark Gods sent someone or something that cut up Pastor Lombard’s congregation and reanimated the cadavers.”

“Pastor Lombard?” asked Christine. “You mean that guy who’s book you shredded on TV?”

“That’s him.”

Dot let out a frustrated groan.

“Oh this is going to look so very bad...” she sighed.

“We’ll worry about that later,” interrupted Ace. “Right now, we have a spawn attack to survive. Cover me.”

He yanked his sword out of the roof and jumped onto the ledge, ready to reenter the fray below. With a playful wink directed at the ladies, Ace warped out of focus. Dot sat down next to Christine and moved several holographic control panels close to her, touching them as if they were solid objects.

“If you don’t mind...” she sighed, clearly disappointed that as of this moment, she wouldn’t be able to get into the battle personally.

“Be my guest,” nodded Christine.

Carefully coordinating the robotic ground troops, they started to squeeze the spawns into concentrated pockets where the battalions of these undead creatures would be at least somewhat manageable.

Ace descended on the spawns in the streets with his body and sword ablaze. Surging with power, he unleashed his supercharged red wave of churning energy, burning and distorting the pavement. A hundred spawns were thrown back in just one strike, but the horde just kept coming at him. These creatures didn’t feel pain or fear. All they felt was a terrifying bloodlust.

He fought them with his blade, his claws and even his venomous fangs, pumping a corrosive poison deep into the bodies of aggressive spawns that got too close. The venom he injected dissolved organic tissues and paralyzed the nervous system by turning every chemical receptor in the victims’ nerve cells into mush. Soon, dozens of dying spawns lay twitching in the street, their bodies burning with the alien toxin running through their vital organs. Many of the poisoned were trampled in the battle, their corpses kicked around like rag dolls.

As the Nation’s ground forces squeezed in the throng of zombies unleashed by Mai, the fight began getting easier and easier. Sheer numbers couldn’t compete with cold, merciless precision, but there was still a long way to go, especially for Ace who was stuck in the middle of the spawn army, slashing and biting spawn after spawn with calm, steady, well-practiced motions.

In the darkness of night, the fine features of his face faded away. His glowing eyes and runes gave him a truly alien, supernatural appearance as his menacing mouth armed with white, reflective teeth and a pair of vicious, toxic fangs completed the terrifying image. As he fought, the burgundy blood drawn from the spawns dripped off his blade, his claws, and his gleaming fangs.

Finally, he heard a welcome sound. The Nation’s brigade sent to surround and control the spawns, was now making their way up the street. The tens of thousands of spawns became no more than several hundred. No longer concerned with saving up his power, Ace unleashed another devastating spiral of raw energy that launched almost every spawn around him directly into the firing range of the Nation’s robots and other cyborgs. The few spawns left alive turned to flee with a hollow, tired screech.

OctoBots on the walls and rooftops, ultra-fast rovers that rolled over the dead and dying with a sickening sound, dismembered those trying to flee with lasers, and massive Siege Machines decimated the remnants of the spawn army. On the rooftop, Christine and Dot were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.