Ceaseless (13 page)

“Do you guys know what's up with this guy?” he asked.

“No. All the briefing said was that we were apprehend someone in a suit of power armor. They gave us this gear and sent us off. They
did
, however, tell us he was extremely dangerous. What about you? You're supposed to be some kind of expert?”

Allan suppressed a hard laugh. “Yeah. Expert. I've been chasing this guy for hours now. So far the only thing I've seen that stops him are these weapons and-”

He shut up as a loud, wet snap echoed down the tunnels. It was immediately followed by a howling shriek of raw, unfiltered agony that could be heard both in the tunnels and over radio network. Somewhere he heard the distinct
zzt!
sound of electrical bolts being fired off in rapid succession, followed immediately by a second, third and four scream.

“Jesus,” Allan whispered.

Sanders immediately began to call for a report on what was going on, but all he received in response was a confused babble of voices.

“Find him! Take him out!” Sanders snapped, silencing the others.

“How many men do you have?” Allan asked as they pressed on.

“Thirty,” Sanders replied.

Another scream cut through the radio link and the tunnels. “Not anymore,” Allan murmured.

They made it down another tunnel and stopped abruptly, finding the aftermath of the killer's attack. Four men lay on the ground, their bodies broken, arms or heads ripped off by brute force. Immense amounts of blood splashed the walls, floor, even the ceiling.

“Holy fuck,” Sanders whispered.

Another scream tore across the comms network. Sanders straightened up and headed off in the direction of the scream, now jogging through the tunnels.

“Where is he?!” he snapped.

More confused responses. Allan was coming to realize that despite all their training, their gear, they hadn't planned this mission particularly well. And they probably didn't honestly expect to come up against something so utterly indestructible. As they plunged on through the darkness, following a path of destruction, trying to catch up with the killer, they could hear the sounds of death and destruction, screams and electric bolts firing.

Allan felt his pulse racing as they seemed to get closer and closer to the killer. The amount of bodies they were coming across was ridiculous and before long his boots were coated in a fine layer of blood. Before long, they stepped out into a cavern that suddenly opened up around them. Allan froze as a bolt of fear shot through him.

Across the day, standing in the middle of the small cavern, was the killer. He was holding a man in armor up by the neck, his feet dangling easily two feet off the floor. Allan was aware of movement one either side of them, he glanced left, then right, seeing small squads of more men. They were getting into positions, weapons raising...

Allan had just begun to raise his own weapon when they opened fire. He added his own weapon to the gunplay, emptying the magazine into the bastard. Dozens of the blue-white bolts slammed into the killer, covering him in his own brief electrical storm. Almost at once, everyone stopped firing, and all was silent in the cavern.

The killer was still standing.

As the men began reloading, preparing for the worst, he finally toppled over, crashing to the ground with a heavy thud.

Allan let out his breath in a long, slow sigh.

* * * * *

Outside again. He was standing in what was a makeshift operations area for the Spec Ops team that had been assembled and sent in. Really, it was little more than a semi-circle of large cargo trucks, a makeshift armory and a mobile workstation. Everything was lit in the powerful, stark glow of arc-lights attached to the top of the trucks, giving the area an otherworldly, bleak feel. Allan felt exhaustion consume him as he watched six of the men carry the killer's immense body towards the back of one of the trucks.

Around him, everyone was packing up. He'd wanted to tear the man's helmet off, look upon his face, and then empty a magazine into it. But Sanders and his men had been insistent: they had their orders, and they were following them. Allan felt betrayed. He'd been positive that Montgomery and the Spec Ops were there on a kill order.

He looked around and spied a figure with black armor fringed with gold and red. Montgomery. He felt a bolt of anger shoot through him, temporarily thrown off the lethargy that was threatening to overwhelm him.

He marched over to Montgomery. “You fucking lied to me.”

“Whoa, hold on there,
Sergeant
,” Montgomery replied, turning away from the workstation to look squarely at him.

“If you think I give a
shit
about ranks right now, you are
sorely
mistaken.”

“Fine. Listen, I know what you're thinking. We're not-”

Allan cut her off, feeling the fury building up, pouring out of him. “If you would have just let me take off his fucking helmet, we'd be
done
with this!”

“Gray...you don't understand. You
can't
take off his helmet,” Montgomery replied, her voice calm but firm.

Allan stopped, blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Trying to take off his armor would be like trying to take off your skin.”

Allan was silent for a long moment. He turned and watched the men loading the killer into the back of the truck. “What
is
he?”

Montgomery shook her head. “I don't know, not fully. We're still going through the files at Obsidian Station. The government found something, something old, and started doing research on it. We were sent to run security and keep an eye on the research, make sure it didn't get too crazy...only it never turned out like that. Blackwell was so fucking tight-lipped about it all that I don't even know what this thing is...except that it's not human, not in the way that you and I are. But there's obvious a
lot
more going on.”

“So how are you going to kill him?” Allan asked.

A handful of other Spec Ops troops came over and began breaking down the mobile workstation, bringing it in pieces back to another one of the trucks. Montgomery laughed. “We're going to hurl him into the sun.”

Allan blinked. “Holy shit.”

“Yep.”

“I...I need to come.”

“You need rest. You sound horrible and I imagine if you showed your face, you'd look like absolute shit,” Montgomery replied as they began making their way back to the trucks.

“No. I
need
to come,” Allan replied firmly.

Montgomery frowned, considering it, then nodded. She pointed to one of the trucks. “Fine, but you get to ride with him.”

Allan watched her climb into one of the other trucks. He frowned, then shrugged mentally. He'd gotten his wish. As he climbed into the cabin of the truck holding the killer, nodding once to the man behind the wheel, he buckled up and considered the revelations that had been laid at his feet. He'd been right, the killer wasn't human.

But as the truck started up and began driving, Allan almost immediately fell asleep.

Chapter 11

–
All According To Plan
–

“Gray...you there? You sleeping?”

Allan snapped awake, ready to launch into action, hand already going for his rifle, which he'd settled in between legs. He glanced around. Packed-earth, sun-baked wastelands were still rolling by. It was still night, though the rain had settled down to a thin mist. A muted starlight drenched the area, struggling to break through the overcast skies. Allan checked his chronometer and saw that little over an hour had passed.

“Gray?”

“Yeah, I'm here.” It was Montgomery.

“My boys have been doing some more digging at Obsidian Station. We found some information that I thought you deserve to hear,”
she said.

“Okay.”

“The target was created based off of ancient technology. We already knew that. It seems like he was...grown.”

“A cloned body?” Allan asked. Cloning technology had long been around, though it was only used for growing new limbs, skin and vital organs. When the ability to grow a full clone had come about, there had been a frenzied uproar with everyone asking the hard questions of 'who was who?' and 'how can we tell the difference?' Luckily, the problem had solved itself pretty easily. No one had ever figured out how to make a clone, but not make it obvious that it was a clone. Allan wasn't too sure on the details, but he knew there was an incredibly simple scan that basically anyone could run that would reveal if the person in question was a clone with one hundred percent accuracy.

“No, not exactly. We're still trying to figure out how they did it, but it looks like the body and the armor were grown
together
. They're fused. But here's the extremely interesting bit. The technology they're using isn't Cyr.”

Silence for a long, long time. “There's another race?” Allan asked finally.

“It's looking that way. Even older than the Cyr. A lot older.”

“This is insane,” Allan muttered.

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“So where did his personality come from them?”

“What do you mean?”

“He talked to me. He taunted me. Carved a message into a metal wall for me. I've seen him do strange things. And...I guess, most importantly, where is he
going
?”

“Whoa, wait a minute. He
spoke
to you? And what do you mean, 'where is he going'?”

“When we first found him, he was about to kill me, but then he just stopped, turned and walked away. He's been walking in a straight line ever since.”

“This is...news. I don't know. We're still digging and-”

Allan stopped paying attention as he heard a sound behind him, coming from the cargo area of the truck. It was a dull but powerful thud. Someone began screaming. Allan glanced over at the driver, who looked back at him, fear dawning in his eyes.

The radio link erupted.
“He's coming awake!”

“We're hitting with the-”

“-uck, it's not working! He's-OH GOD!”

More thumps coming from the back.

“What the fuck is going on up there?!”
Montgomery demanded.

Allan grabbed his gun, but as he brought it up, a black-armored fist punched through the back of the cabin. It shot forward like a piston, grabbed the steering wheel and ripped it sideways, then tore it off completely. The truck swerved. Chaos consumed the cabin. Allan tried to get his gun into play but then the truck completely lost balance, going sideways and yet still maintaining its forward momentum. It began to roll violently.

Allan had a confusing vision of the killer's hand grabbing the driver's neck, then his head banged against the inside of his helmet so hard it made him dizzy. It happened twice more in rapid succession, then he had the feeling of flying through the air.

Then there was nothing.

* * * * *

Awake again.

Allan found himself wishing against all hope that he was at home in his bed. Instead, when he opened his eyes, he found himself staring up at a dull, cloud sky through a lens of light-enhanced, rain-beaded pain. Everything hurt. His head throbbed in blunt agony. Slowly, he sat up, propping himself up on the heels of his hand.

A highly, littered with bodies and burning debris, stretched out before him. He could hear no one and nothing but the lonely sound of soft rainfall and the whispering of the winds. Very slowly, like an old man, Allan stood. He gritted his teeth against the various aches and bolts of suffering that shot through his worn body.

His weapon was gone. He still had his pistol, but it would do shit-all against the killer, who had, without a doubt, survived the crash. Allan began moving through the wreckage, searching the bodies of Spec Ops soldiers who had been doing their duty, tossed into a situation beyond even their capabilities. Allan paused at every corpse he came to, paying a small amount of respect. He recovered a shock rifle and several magazines.

Even as he did this, he knew he didn't have much hope. The trip to Obsidian Station had taken a lot longer, and the killer had stayed under the entire time. He'd hardly been out an hour and he'd come up fists blazing. The tech was way beyond anything humanity had, so it was entirely within the realm of possibility that he'd built up some kind of immunity against the shock therapy. Hell, shooting him again might only make things worse.

But he couldn't just sit there and do nothing. After a long while of moving among the dead, Allan discovered two curiosities. The first was that he was still alive. Everyone here seemed to have been killed deliberately if they managed to survive the wreck, which had apparently taken out every single vehicle in the convoy. If this was the case, then why was he still alive? Probably the same reason he'd survived Obsidian Station: the killer wanted him alive. The killer wanted someone chasing him, someone hunting him.