Warrior- Integration Read online

  How long have I been on Luna? Have I been here before?

  I arrive back at the chemical pool I awoke in. There is a shaft leading up over it. I lean over and look up. The spiral cut rock rises into the distance where a metal hatch can faintly be seen; it’s probably how they dispose of bodies and where I came from. I can smell the faint traces of slightly fresher air from above. I can feel the vibrations of machinery and walking men in the complex above.

  My answers will be up there.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 5

  The rock is wet, and there are only the faint grooves that the cutter left so long ago. It’s going to be a tough climb. Still, I can either climb now or try it later when I’m weakened from hunger and cold. I cinch up the plastic around my body so I can climb with my arms and legs free.

  I jump up to catch the rim of the rock with my fingers. It’s useless; the grooves are too shallow for any grip, and the rock is slick. My grip gives way, and I slide and fall back into the stinging chemical pool under the shaft.

  The chemicals are freezing cold. I clamber back out of the pool and feel the fluid steam off of me, stealing my heat once more. Eventually, I’ll freeze. I cannot do this forever.

  I look into the scum-topped pool to see if there are any tools or items that might help my climb. If I had a rope, I could hammer in pitons, assuming I also found those. At this point I’d consider trying to climb with a rusty screwdriver. Nothing.

  The way out, the answers, are all up there. I need to get up there desperately. I need answers, and maybe a little justice. The need is like a fire.

  That fire burns through me as the monster wakes up again. My breath hisses through clenched teeth as I collapse, fighting the waves of pain. Then the convulsions take me as my muscles catch fire, and the skin on my fingers splits open. I don’t really know how long I lie on the rocky floor, convulsing and screaming. I do know that when it’s over, I am a changed man. Literally.

  I feel even lighter in the low gravity, as if I weigh nothing at all now. My hands are rough, like the world’s heaviest callouses. Are those claws coming out of my hands?

  What the hell is happening to me? What am I becoming? The monster struggles, trying to warp me and take me over. The struggle is primal; my will and sense of humanity against the ravening will of the thing. Bit by bit, I force it back down. I am a man, not that thing. I look at the claws on my hands. A man.

  I have to get out of this place and find out what they did to me.

  I leap at the shaft again. Now, my jump carries me way up, and the rock walls coast by. Once I hit the wall, I reach out for a grip and easily find it. My claws dig into the slightest cracks and fissures in the wall, and my rough hands easily hold fast to the stone. Matching talons on my feet secure me below. I find I can easily climb upward, and the scores of meters of rock seem to fly past as I rise. I’m not even winded when I reach the top.

  Soon, I’m under the metal hatch. It’s a simple metal pressure door like those found in thousands of tunnels all over Luna and the asteroids. Excess air pressure from either side will seal it, and a simple wheel mechanism locks it.

  I try the hatch. Locked, of course. The interface is a square of black plastic on the side of the wheel. I remember these. It appears that a simple code signal is transmitted to the locking mechanism, likely a magnetic latch that engages the rim. I’d need a code breaker to link in and get through, and an interface device, and a scrambler to interrupt any alarm that would generate. I don’t have any of those.

  So, I wait, hanging by the hatch, listening to the rumble of machinery above me and waiting for an opportunity.

  Soon, one comes. I hear an elevator descend, and someone begins to walk about on the floor above. He’s alone. Good. I become as still as stone.

  He takes his time moving about. Moving heavy objects, opening and closing hatches, and going from room to room. Pretty soon, he is above me, heading toward the hatch, dragging something heavy.

  The hatch opens, flooding the tunnel with blinding light.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 6

  The light blasting into the tunnel instantly destroys my night vision. I see only glaring white. It does not matter. I can still hear and feel the air move across my skin.

  The man drops a body into the pit. As it falls, I can smell the dead flesh and hear no breath or heartbeat. Long dead then. Too late to do any good for that one.

  I grab the man’s hand, feeling the coarse weave of the gloves. He’s in one of those spacesuits I remember from my nightmare. He yells in surprise and tries to pull back, but his Lunar muscles are no match for my grip, and I easily pull him into the shaft.

  Still holding on, I slam him into the side of the tunnel and hear his breath exhale from the impact, but he’s still struggling. In the low gravity, I swing him back up through the hatch. Then I follow, kicking off of the rock wall to jump into the room above.

  The other man lands first, crashing into a shelf of canisters that fall in slow motion. Rolling to my feet, I hear him beginning to stand, breathing hard through his mask. I pivot and deliver a hard back kick to his face. My foot connects solidly, and the force of the blow smashes his face against the hard faceplate. I rotate back to a guard position as he collapses in slow motion. After a couple of breaths, it’s clear he is not getting up.

  My eyes adjust, and I can actually see what is around me. The light is a stark violet-white; likely some kind of UV-heavy disinfectant emitters. That also explains the heavy chemical scent up here, to catch and kill any stray bugs. What the hell is this place?

  Along the walls are two other hatches, including the one he came through. The floor, walls, and ceiling are all polished metal with a hardened coating. Metal shelving stocked with canisters lines the walls. There are a few lockers, and a small robotic cargo cart that he used to carry the body. My breath steams in the cold; I need to get some kind of covering soon.

  I waste little time stripping the fallen man out of his spacesuit and white coveralls underneath. He looks like a lot of Lunars—tall, thin, and pale, with hair cropped short—just add a broken nose. He’s taller and thinner than I am, but the baggy coveralls and spacesuit fit just fine. I wipe the blood off the diamond faceplate. The air hisses as I seal the suit. Now, whatever horrible thing I might have in me won’t spread when I leave.

  I find some medical adhesive tape in one of the lockers, and it bonds to his skin as I tie him up. Some disinfectant from one of the canisters splashed across his broken nose wakes him up.

  He starts to yell, and I hold my hand up. “Quiet.” He’s scared, eyes darting around the room.

  I’ve got so many questions, but not much time. I’ll have to stick with the basics—how to get out of here. “Look, I’m going to assume there’s a chance you are not one of the monsters torturing and killing people here. I’m going to ask you questions, and I’ll get answers, and you’ll live.”

  He glares back sullenly.

  “I need to know the codes to get out the doors and activate the elevators,” I say, trying to be patient.

  Still nothing; he’s stalling for time.

  I don’t have time. “Alright then, I’m going to assume you’re one of the scum up there working people over.” He struggles as I pick him up, but a punch to the gut quiets him down. Then he starts to squirm again as I hold him over the open hatch and the pit below.

  “I don’t have time to waste on murdering scum like you,” I say as I dangle him by one arm. “Tell me the codes, or you can join your victims below.” I give him a few shakes.

  That does it. I get the passwords and codes out of him. Hopefully, none of it is biometric, or I’m screwed. Still, these guys walk around in spacesuits, so I should have a little while before I’m recognized.

  Yes, I was tempted to drop him down the hole anyway. Instead, I get medical tape and swabs to close off his pie hole, and I shove him in a locker with a bar through the handle. His buddies can fetch him later.

  “
By the way,” I say to the locker, “I’ll be back if these codes don’t work.” I hear a muttering from the locker. “Any second thoughts?” No response. OK, then.

  “Jacobs” the patch on the suit says. So, it looks like I’ll be Jacobs.

  Time to go. I throw open the hatch he came from.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 7

  I walk through a nightmare land of horrors.

  I come to a room of frozen dead. Past frosted windows are the frozen horrors of what once were human beings. Warped and deformed, with extra limbs, segmented carapaces, strange eyes and hideous openings, all dripping with the black goop from my dreams. One figure was in the process of splitting in half, or was it two different people merging? Others are warped chimera, with weird mergings of everything in the animal kingdom and then some. What kind of Hell is this? Is this going to happen to me?

  I find a room of human organs floating in large, clear vats. Tubes and wires seem to keep them alive. I find slowly beating hearts, and blood vessels move in the tissues and organs. Thin, living threads lace through the organs, visibly moving as they grow into the flesh about them. Naked eyes seem to follow me as I leave the room.

  I enter a room filled with rows of coffin-like suspension tanks. Through the window of one, I can see a woman staring sightlessly back at nothingness. I check the others; most are occupied. The readouts indicate they are alive, but barely, in the freezing fluid. There are also life-tracks for the “symbiotic device,” indicating its growth patterns. God, they’ve all got it too.

  “I’m going to get you out of this place,” I whisper to the coffins. “I’ll find someone who can help you.”

  I look for weapons before I leave. Scalpels: always a classic. Medical tape: you never know when you’ll need it. A nice heavy bar: if it was good enough for cavemen, it’s good enough for me. Emergency oxygen re-breather: this is the moon, after all. Pen light laser: I wish I’d had one of these earlier. A spare tablet: to record evidence and maybe help with other things. A couple cans of antiseptic: if this stuff is in me, I don’t want it to spread.

  I make my way to the elevator. Time to find out if these codes work…

  I pause for a moment. Will the codes trigger an alarm? More importantly, what happens if I do escape? What if this horrible thing in me gets loose and does this to other people? I might die down here, and die badly, but I don’t want to unleash this monstrosity on the Lunar population.

  Then I think of the bodies in the pit, the way they were thrown away like garbage rather than human beings. I think about the nightmare rooms here, where the atrocities simply progress from one horror to another in an orderly process.

  If I don’t make it out and warn people, this will just keep happening. More and more people will go through this until this chamber of horrors is shut down. There is no real choice: I have to escape or die trying.

  Decision time. Time to find out if the codes open the elevator or end my little escape right now. I take a breath and key in the codes.

  The codes open the doors. I go inside and resist the urge to wave to the cameras. I hope the ones I see in the elevator are the only ones. For all I know, everything I’ve done so far has been recorded.

  I select the top floor. Up and out, away from the darkness and toward the light. No matter how long we spend in darkness, we humans will still seek the light.

  The panel indicates the floors as I rise. Medical waste and cold storage, power and life support, pharmacy and storage, labs and testing, containment cells, and …security.

  The elevator stops too soon, and the doors open on the security level.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 8

  I’m already jumping up as the doors roll open. The charged net mesh sails in under me, sparking against the metal walls. I hover too long in the low gravity, and the flashing lights from the suppression rounds blind me, while the dull roar from them is the last thing I will hear for hours. At least the spacesuit protects me from whatever gas is now filling the elevator. The suit helps me ride out the worst of it—the tough material absorbs the stun gelatin from exploding rounds and helps spread the concussive force of other weapons, keeping me awake but bruised, for the moment.

  The good news is that they apparently want to capture me alive. The bad news is that might be worse than death.

  I don’t wait to hit the floor—I push off the back wall and go sailing blindly into my opponents. How many? At least two, maybe a dozen. Maybe the tough material of the spacesuit will protect me from most of the non-lethal weapons.

  I hit some kind of barrier in the hall beyond and fall back to the floor. I spin and lash out, kicking and swinging, connecting with a few lucky blows. I roll to my feet to try to escape past the barricade. I need to buy time to recover, to see again and find my way out.

  I don’t get that time. The suit absorbs the electric charge of the stun baton, but I still feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Boosted guys, maybe? While I’m trying to parry the next blow, a kick knocks the wind out of me and sends me up against a wall.

  I’m still trying to get my bearings and catch my breath when they shoot me. The high velocity needles go right through the suit before dumping their electrical current. The world turns into bright, white fire. I don’t feel pain or heat; it’s way beyond that. I’m buoyed up by a dreamy, almost peaceful sensation of floating.

  Distantly, I’m aware of them clubbing me to the ground, and my blinded vision flashes with light in time with the falling truncheons. I tell my body to move, to fight. Nothing. I’m utterly paralyzed while they pile on top of me, slamming me up against the wall. I barely feel the punches, but I’m sure I will later.

  They rip the suit off, and I fall to the floor. My vision is recovering, and I can now see a number of blurs and shadows moving about. Some kind of burning chemical sprays into my face and my vision goes away again along with any calm sensation. Remember pain? It’s back with a vengeance.

  I scream and roar, easily throwing off the men in the light gravity. I swing blindly in rage, tearing with claws and lashing out with kicks. Free once more, I stand in a universe of darkness and pain.

  How many times did they shoot me? I lost count after three. I’m down again, in an almost total white-out of electric current. Move. Move! MOVE! I have to move! Nothing is happening. I feel the monster waking up inside me, but all that does is mess me up more.

  Clubs, fists, and boots rain down on me, along with fresh jolts of current and spray, but it’s like it’s all happening to someone else. I’m floating way up high, above the whole thing. Gee, they sure are being a bunch of dicks to that guy down there.

  Security straps wrap about me, tightening around my limbs as they automatically contract, cutting off blood flow and cutting skin. Looks like I’m not going anywhere for a while. Someone shoots me up with a hypo, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t medicine approved by my doctor.

  Sure enough, the world goes black again.

  * * * * *

  Part Two: The Laboratory

  Chapter 9

  Memories come flooding into the darkness, bringing back things best forgotten. I’m back in the lab, reliving this again. I don’t want to. I want to forget, to return to the darkness.

  The sign above me reads, “Test Room 12.”

  I’m strapped to an examination table in the cold, utterly helpless, but that isn’t the real problem.

  I’ve got all the needles in the world going into me. I’ve got old favorites like plasma, IV nutrition, and a few cylinders of God-only-knows what drugs going into me. The whole chemical cocktail makes me woozy and delirious. I can’t move; I can’t even speak. But, that’s not the worst of it.

  The real problem is the eight long needles extending from robotic arms toward me like lances. Each needle runs to a cylinder of black fluid. I don’t know what’s in those cylinders, but I know I don’t want it.

  “Initiate the symbiont,” a cold voice orders over a speaker.

  Beyond the me
d bot I can see a clear wall. Outlined are a number of people, watching and taking notes, like it’s nothing. It’s just another show to them. What do you suppose will happen to this poor bastard when we do this? Let’s find out.

  I try to move against the restraints, but I can’t get my muscles to listen to me. I want to scream at them, to spit at the window. Nothing.

  The robotic arms extend toward me, and the steel lances stab into my abdomen and chest. I can feel them digging deeper into my vital organs, but I can’t so much as twitch. The cylinders compress and the black fluid pours into me.

  Oh, God, no.

  It’s cold, and it burns like fire. I can’t move or scream as the burning alien fluid spreads throughout my body. I can see my veins blacken and swell. Fire spreads throughout my body.

  All my attention is drawn to the last needle heading straight for my forehead. It’s a big bastard, and looks able to punch clean through my skull. I try to move my head aside, even tense my neck. Nothing. The needle goes out of focus and splits in two as it approaches. I feel a brief sensation of cold metal between my eyes.

  CRUNCH!

  The needle slams home, shaking my head and filling my world with a cold, icy, silver pain. Everything starts to go crazy. Images, sounds, and scents fly past me, all unconnected to one another. A gorgeous woman. A symphony. Piping hot pie. The world goes away as each impression flashes past faster and faster. They begin to blend together and merge, mixing in insane swirls of impossibility. I see a dog-headed cow, pine-scented lava flows in a river, and then I fall into an exploding star. Soon, they aren’t even sensible images anymore, just a mad chaos of color, light, sound, and scent, shifting and changing randomly.