Hieronymus Blake

1. The Works

It was about breakfast time and Harry Blake was sitting in the barracks' mess hall, fully enjoying his daily standard bowlful of cereals – or what passed for them anyway. He didn't even react when the hydraulic door slowly hissed open.

"You comin'?" someone asked, standing halfway through the door frame.

Harry lifted his head slightly. "Nah," he uttered, still munching on the rock-hard flakes, "you handle it on your own." He went on munching. He looked again a few seconds afterward, noticing that the interloper had yet to leave. He gulped, his eyes still trained on the newly promoted Corporal. "'Cept if you're not up to it..."

The man stood straight and saluted. "I'm ready as hell."

"Well then just do it."

"Yes sir," and he left, the echoes of his footsteps echoing through the corridor as he trotted through it.

Hesitation, Harry thought. Typical among those fresh-out-of-the-academy cadets; and it was his first mission to boot. But the kid, although a bit clumsy, was bright; he would come out all right in the end. Most probably he would soon be going the hell out of this backwater world, to kick off some real assignment. They all did.

All the smart ones, at least, he observed to himself. How he had remained in this dump so long was beyond everyone – even him. But even though it was a dump, it was his, and he felt at home in some way.

Being through eating (although the bowl was only half empty), he rose from the silvery, metallic bench, and nonchalantly left the mess, leaving all his stuff on the table, – as everyone always did around here.

There was not much to do. One day the Confederacy had fallen, without warning. Being on a world as remote as this one, they had not had any information about it, except that the "Sons of Korhal" were the new heroes. It had left the local militia's soldiers with a lot of free time on their hands. Only one colony, no particularly violent inhabitants, – no major ones anyway, – and those so-called "liberators" dragging their feet coming. Besides, nobody wanted to fight. As the highest ranking officer, – a mere Captain, he noted inwardly, referring to the two small white bars on his shoulder, – he had assumed command; or rather, he had assumed taking care of whatever weird needs and fears the citizens could have in this hellhole. "Not much to do," he repeated aloud.

The elevators were bulky and rusty, but eventually they managed to lift him one floor up to the second one. The lights within flickered, but they always went steady again after a punch or two. Another drawback of the end of the Confederacy: no more spare parts coming, and no one motivated enough to make them.

The office's door was open, again. This time he did not even put his hand on his pistol's grip: he just strolled in. They had broken in so many times that he did not even count any more. The kids; the bad ones; civilians; tampering with reports and so on. Third-rate burglars to the core: not even worth worrying about.

Hieronymus was lying on the desk in the midst of the papers, fully stretched. He did not even shift an inch. Darn lazy cat, thought Harry smilingly. "Weren't you named after me, you'd've been evicted long ago..." he just said, while sitting and leaning back in his chair. He sighed – a long-drawn-out sigh at that – after having removed his gun and the straps holding it, and laying everything on the desk. Darn chair's all fucked up, he observed. It leant all the way back with no resistance whatsoever. He found himself sunk within it, staring at the ceiling, his legs hanging loosely in the air. "To hell with it," and he just closed his eyes, hoping to catch some Zs before any more trouble arose.

When Harry opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the cat, all curled up in his lap, purring slightly. It was nightfall, ambient light was gradually fading away. Rubbing his eyes, he groaned, feeling his feet all sluggish from lack of blood, and his back aching a bit. He reached out to hurl Hieronymus away, but pulled out at the last second. He knew it unconsciously: something was just wrong.

It was the cat that first gave it away. He could tell it had just awaken. It purred not as it typically did, but out of fear – or worry, at least – and it seemed to be watching out, alternately looking at the small window or the still open door. A distinct metallic sound occurred and echoed in the corridor, – as was usual, for the building's structure was under a lot of stress, especially since it wasn't appropriately taken care of lately, – but it echoed so long and so deeply, that both Harry and his cat noticed the unusual: the total absence of any other sound to cover it up.

"CAPTAIN BLAKE, COME IN!" his radio shrieked loudly, all of a sudden. Like lightning, Hieronymus leapt over the desk and ran away; very shortly thereafter it could not be heard any more. As for Harry, his legs jerked up reflexively, and both him and the chair collapsed backward. He rolled to the office's wall, upon which he collided loudly.

"Goddammit!" he uttered once back up. The com-link's red light on the radio still blinked, indicating that the transmission remained to be acknowledged. Glancing at its side, he noticed that, as he had thought, the volume was turned all the way up. That's the stuff! thought he, while tuning it down. "Hieronymus!" he called out, leaning in the corridor through the door frame, to which he had stepped. No answer.

He stared at the radio. The light was still blinking. "What is it, Portman" – that was the Corporal's name – "whose backyard did you mess up this time?" He noticed, by the by, that it was getting very dark, which wasn't normal. He looked at the ceiling and noticed, indeed, that all the lights were out. He turned the switch on and off a dozen time, before deciding that they really were out.

A new transmission came in, slightly scrambled by parasites – which meant, given the sound of it, that the local emitter had gone dark as well, and that the radios were transmitting with their own power. He heard Portman's voice, interspersed with his fellow comrades' voices.

"Sir, Over there! uh, we're at the power generator. And there's... What the hell... er... You'd better come down there and take a look—"

And it instantly cut out, as if the radio on the other side had stopped transmitting.

The door was opened mechanically. Standard Confederate Procedure: when power is out, you could still open the doors with a good-old-fashioned security key and the appropriate manpower. But he was alone, hence the five minutes it had needed him to turn the wheel linked to the door's hydraulics.

He was unarmed, aside from his sidearm, for you could not man Confederate standard-issued Gauss rifles without wearing an energetic armor, – it could tear your arms off, – and he neither had time to put one on (especially without help from the machinery, which was out of power), nor had the motivation to search all over the place for smaller machine guns. Besides, he had salvaged the last armor-piercing rounds left for his own use (and quite a number of them at that); he had seen them in action, and loved them.

A sandy wind had arisen, causing him to cough several time while he trotted from the Barracks to the generator, – a good hundred yards. No one was in sight, but it wasn't unusual, considering that there weren't that many soldiers in the base. Two dozens, at most; and at least half of them always were guarding the colony on the other side of the hill, a little more than half a mile away. Most of the others, if not all, were probably with Portman.

Thankfully, the building's door was open; Harry darted in, hastily, coughing out the last remnants of the sand impairing his breathing. A sound caught his attention. Almost right away, he caught a glance of a light at the end of the corridor in front of him, and spotted a small flare on the metallic ground, which was the source of the low, humming noise.

Pistol drawn, he walked through as carefully as he could, paying close attention to every door, every corner, every dark spot. If there was one thing he had learned from his service in the Confederate army, it was to be careful when things felt weird – especially in a close-combat setting such as in that building.

Once at the flare, there were two directions: right and left. On the left was an elevator, on the floor of which another flare burned steadily. It had probably come back up automatically, he thought, not really knowledgeable about power generators' procedures (true to their reputation, Confederacy officials always imposed different procedures for each building, rendering it impossible for the average soldier to know all of them). Having glanced the other way and ascertained that there was no immediate danger, he stepped within, and pressed the button labeled "DOWN", since that specific elevator could only lead underground.

But it did not move. "Damn!" Harry voiced, as he remembered that the power cut also applied to elevators. He looked about him, and quickly noticed a trap, which he had to pry open. Then he used the maintenance ladder to go down, barely seeing anything but for the flare's glow.

Halfway through already, he could smell it: the distinctive scent that always lingered in the air after firing a Gauss rifle – even more striking in a confined space. Once down, he clutched on the pistol and held it at the ready. These doors were opened already, but it was pitch-black. Slowly, and noiselessly, he grabbed the flashlight attached to his belt, and held it alongside the gun, as he had been trained to do. He clicked it on.

He stared in open-mouthed awe at the scene.

Being through vomiting every single piece of his barely digested breakfast on the ground, Harry tried not to breathe too deeply, and inspected the room. The smell of death had was not yet clear, but the smell of blood, – and spilt insides, – sure as hell was. One one side, he did not even want to try to imagine what could have done that, let alone find out at his own expense; but on the other side, it was plainly clear that his tranquil life so far was completely, and utterly, finished for the time being.

Portman, or it looked like him enough anyway, lay in the midst of the carnage. Notwithstanding how much it disgusted Harry to look within the armor's helmet, his former comrade's face not being what it once was, he managed to distinguish the small yellow blinking light of his mission recorder, beside one of the visor's swivels. After having stepped to him and kneeled down to salvage the device, he froze dead in his tracks, spotting movement in the blackness ahead.

He remained motionless for at least a dozen seconds, not even pointing his gun where the sound had come from, still unsure of having really heard anything at all. Then, almost instantly, as he spotted what seemed like a pair of eyes fifteen feet ahead, he aimed his gun while at the same time clicking the safety off, and put his finger on the trigger.

No round was fired, though, for at the same time, he heard a distinct meow.

"Goddammit Harry, pull yourself together!" he whispered; he could feel his heart pounding like mad in his temples, and throughout his whole body. Tremblingly, he removed his finger from the trigger, and tried to catch his breath while Hieronymus approached, slowly but surely. "Sneaky bastard," he uttered to it, remembering how well it had learned to find its way throughout any building's ventilation or maintenance shafts. A drop of sweat formed on his forehead and ran down his face.

Then, the cat looked fixedly beyond him, and froze as well. Harry's heart seemed to instantly implode within his chest as he perceived the presence right behind him, his every sense boosted, his body pumped full with adrenalin. He jumped forward while pushing sideways so he could turn around in midair. It happened so fast that he could not see what it was that had jumped at him and missed him, – not to mention that he had dropped the flashlight, – but he had the time to shoot at it once. However, instead of penetrating, the bullet, meeting with the side of the target, simply ricocheted off it and lodged in the ground a number of feet away.

Upon touching the ground, Harry rolled, and found himself in a kneeled position, aiming straight at the... he didn't know what the hell it was that he was aiming at, but its side was fully lit by the flashlight; he could see it clearly. It had a tail, claws and razor-sharp teeth; it had two red, bloodthirsty eyes; it was pouncing at him!

He closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger so many times and so fast that he could see the flashes through his eyelids and was almost deafened. Shortly thereafter, he was crushed under the creature's body.

Only seconds later, although it seemed hours had gone by, he recovered from the shock. He was soaked in the thick fluids spurting out of the thing. He pushed it away and knelt, convulsing and vomiting again. "What the hell!" was what he wanted to say, but his lips were trembling and he could not even mouth a single word.

In no time he was out of the building, pistol in one hand, Hieronymus in the other. The latter hissed and jumped away, scratching Harry's hand by the by; it ran away. It would return anyway, as always. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, filling his lungs with purer air, washing away the blood's smell. When he opened them, he noticed that the barracks were blazing and slowly falling apart, as well as most of the base's buildings.

In the midst of the destruction, he stood alone, looking at the sky, for it was the only remaining place which still looked as it had always looked... aside from the smoke. Rain began to pour on him. He did not see them, – or hear them either, – but he could feel that more of those creatures were nearby.

Without thinking, he strolled toward the closest bunker; there were two in the area; it was one of the only undamaged structures. The door was wide open. He stepped in.

They had stored surplus in there in the past. Everything was still in place. First aid kits, flares, flashlights, guns of all shapes and sizes, a shitload of ammo, flamethrowers, concussion grenades...

The works.