Thud.
Thud.
The vibrations in the floor were tremendous. Shockwave after shockwave rumbled through the ground, up Eight's feet, and into her body, painting a picture of the movements and forces currently at play. While she couldn't see much in the dark, she could use her excellent intuition to map out the space around her.
Thud.
Using her heightened sense of feeling, she could perceive a large, hulking figure meandering toward her, a gargantuan, rotund creature roughly twenty feet tall and three thousand pounds heavy. A real monster. Behind its towering frame were several normal-sized Sanitized Octolings who had their flashlights turned on. Eight's eyes picked up on the beams of light dancing about, outlining the partial silhouette of an enhanced male Octoling. Its upper body was covered in rippling muscles, fat, and armor—the result of Octarian bioweapon research.
...Thud.
The way the Sanitized Octo Samurai was moving suggested that it lacked night vision and thus couldn't see anything—each step it took was too slow, too gentle, and too careful for something of its size. It was holding itself back.
Thud-clank.
WHAM.
HWOOOAAAAR!
But it was also aggravated by its inability to see anything. Upon getting close to one of the regular-sized, flashlight-wielding Greens, the Sanitized Octo Samurai raised a beefy fist and brought it down with blinding speed, roaring all the while. Flesh, body armor, and gun-mounted flashlight alike were crushed under its massive weight. The little Green didn't even have the time to scream as the giant began to punch the floor repeatedly.
CLANK WHAM WHAM CLANK WHAM—
Eight prayed that it didn't know where she was yet. Her fight-or-flight response was quickly moving away from fight and into flight. The idea of dealing with something that large was daunting, to say the least. It could kill her easily. She could die in the time it took to blink.
Still hiding behind the forklift, Eight took a deep breath as quietly as she could to calm herself. She examined her options. There were only three directions that she and Agent 3 could take, now that their way forward had been blocked off: backward, left, or right. Retracing their steps back through the hallway they had come from was the safest option, but it took them further away from Commander Tartar, who was undoubtedly deeper within the facility. More immediately pressing was the Sanitized Octo Samurai, which would have no trouble chasing prey down such a straight, wide-open passage. On the other hand, the left hallway on the other side of the forklift had some clutter that could get in the monster's way. But there was at least one Green in it—Eight could see its flashlight beam sweeping back and forth as it approached the intersection. She did not want to deal with both the Samurai and foot soldiers in this pitch-black darkness.
Agent 3 muttered something under her breath, interrupting Eight's thoughts. "What?" Eight whispered, shutting off her body's alarms. She felt the need to run, but the Octo Samurai hadn't pinpointed her whereabouts just yet. She could wait, and she wanted to hear what the NSS agent had to say.
The Inkling repeated herself, whispering words in her native tongue that Eight did not understand. Then, switching to the Octarian language, Agent 3 spoke, "Big muscle man."
Eight would have laughed, but her life was on the line. "You mean Octo Samurai," she corrected.
"I can kill one. Last year."
Thud.
"You've killed an Octo Samurai before?"
"Yes. Gun to head."
Thud.
Eight didn't doubt Agent 3. A bullet to the head killed most things, but the monster at her twelve o'clock wasn't a normal Octo Samurai. The normal version of this particular bio-weapon was already big, strong, and angry. This Sanitized freak was worse. It walked with more intention, with less wasted energy. And it was far stronger, hinting at the possibility of additional enhancements that Eight had absolutely no gauge on. She did not want to risk a fight with those variables at play.
Thud.
She turned and faced her three o'clock. The right hallway was their best option in the short-term. It betrayed no hints of danger, at least none that Eight could hear, see, or feel, and it would inconvenience the Sanitized Octo Samurai—the low ceiling and construction equipment made the right hallway a good escape route. They would flee to the right, Eight decided.
Thud.
"If that asshole charges us, we're dead," she hissed, pressing her back up against the forklift. "And I can't see anything. We need to get out of here."
"To where?" asked Agent 3.
Eight grabbed the Inkling's arm and wordlessly tugged in the direction of their three o'clock, feeling Agent 3 nod her head in agreement.
"I follow you," the NSS agent whispered in response.
Thud.
Bump-thud.
The Octo Samurai suddenly shifted its stance, a fact which did not escape Eight's keen perception. Agent 3 had whispered a touch too loudly, and Eight felt the monster's big legs turning to face the intruders, its body emanating a new sense of focus.
HWOOOOOOAAAR!
It roared, sweeping its forearms back and forth to clear a path. The beast knocked aside both debris from the explosion and normal-sized Greens, and Eight saw a gun-mounted flashlight sail through the air until it hit a wall.
Clang.
Thud THUD THUD THUD—
Eight pressed her Octo Shot to her chest and began sprinting.
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Natalie took off after the Octoling woman. With nothing to guide her but the hurried, thumping sound of footsteps, the little Inkling felt uneasy. She couldn't see anything in the dark. There was the very real danger of colliding with something hard or sharp. There was also the very real danger of getting scooped up by the big Octo Samurai, which was running after them on all fours.
Like that one unarmed Green, the monster galloped with its arms in front. Every time one of its huge appendages landed, the floor shook. It ran into the forklift that Nat had been crouching next to just seconds ago, tripping over the tall, skinny vehicle and knocking it over. Annoyed, the Samurai swatted the one-man truck away as if it weighed nothing, smashing it into the wall.
Nat then heard the Sanitized monster run headfirst into something sturdier—most likely the wall itself. The monster grunted in pain, steadied itself, then pivoted and began charging toward Eight again, whose footsteps were echoing back down the corridor. Hero Shot in hand, Nat continued running after Eight at full speed.
Suddenly, the footsteps in front of Natalie stopped. Before she could react, Eight opened fire. The Octo Shot's muzzle flash blinded Nat, as her eyes had been adjusted to the darkness, and her left ear nearly blew out after having already suffered damage from the Blaster. But she quickly registered the fact that Eight wasn't shooting at her. Bullets sailed to the left and over the top of Nat's head, landing on the Octo Samurai. The monster stumbled back, taking each gunshot like a slap to the face.
"Run faster!" the Octoling half-screamed, half-ordered as Nat passed by and vaulted over a wooden crate. Was that fear in Eight's voice?
Within seconds, Eight had taken the lead again. Nat, with both her eyes and ears rendered next to useless, could not keep up with the former lieutenant. Part of it was frustrating, because Nat could outrun everyone else she knew. Her competitive spirit was kicking in, and she wanted to be in front. But another part of it was kind of amazing. Eight was navigating these twisting, winding hallways without any light, maneuvering around fallen beams, stacks of boxes, and debris. It was as if the Octoling woman had natural night vision.
The big green science experiment wasn't letting up, either. It was slowly gaining on them. And just like the non-Sanitized Octo Samurai that Nat had dealt with a year ago, it absorbed bullets like a sponge. Only point-blank shots to the back of the head had been able to penetrate the thick hide and multi-layered muscles of last year's monster, and there was no reason to suspect that this Sanitized specimen was any different. At the end of the day, Eight's cheap Octo Shot would not be able to seriously hurt it. The former lieutenant was doing a good job keeping it at bay for the time being, but with every bullet, with every turn in the hallway, their pursuer simply got angrier and angrier.
Nat swerved right, narrowly missing a metal pillar as Eight put another three-round burst into the Samurai. Its behavior was quite predictable—it always seemed to charge straight until something stopped it. And there was plenty to stop it—unattended construction equipment, support pillars, and ceiling beams kept the big idiot's pace at a manageable level. Nat heard the Octo Samurai grunt in pain as more bullets struck its armored chest. Off balance, it toppled over and fell into a pile of timber.
She knew better than to bother looking back, because it got to its feet only seconds later. It began charging again, even angrier and even louder than before, and Nat could barely hear the brute approaching behind her. Each step it took boomed. Heavy, thundering echoes bounced off every wall, getting closer and closer, and furious, guttural roars filled the hallway. Combined with the all-encompassing darkness, they mounted a panic-inducing assault on the senses.
But Nat kept her cool. She always did. Losing control in a situation that demanded split-second decision-making would be potentially fatal. The more dangerous it got, Cap'n Cuttlefish had always said, the more important it was to remain calm. Never, ever panic.
Willing herself to stay focused, she blocked everything out of her mind except the current objective: keep up with Eight. Up ahead and around the bend, Nat could see light. Even in this dark, inactive corner of Kamabo Corporation, some of the rooms seemed to have their lights on, and Eight was apparently aiming for the closest one.
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Saturday, 12:25 a.m.
Kamabo Co., Sector J08/F11
THUD THUD THUD THUD—
"This way!" Eight yelled at her partner as they slipped into a lit doorway. Eight squinted to shield her eyes from the uncomfortable brightness. Inside the room was a check-in desk, a metal turnstile, several benches, and a few plastic chairs. The ground had old carpeting on it rather than the concrete-and-dirt combination of the J Sector hallways, which felt very different under her feet.
They had reached a cable car station, she realized. The telltale rectangular rail ran just overhead. An exit was also nearby—a cool breeze and the scent of pine and cypress wafted in from her right. Eight could even see the stars, just past the station window and at the end of a short, forty-foot-long concrete tunnel.
THUD BAM!
Behind her, the Sanitized giant slammed directly into the wall, too large to fit through the doorway. Not one to give up, it bent down, wrapped its thick hands around the edges of the door frame, and began trying to rip the wall out. The entire room immediately buckled against the monster's efforts. The door frame started to give. Stone and plaster started crumbling around the two girls. The lights flickered on and off, barely staying connected to power.
The girls went in the only direction they could. Neither one doubted the Samurai's strength. Pushing through the station's exit, Eight quickly jumped off the raised platform where passengers normally boarded cable cars. Agent 3 followed close behind, and they hit the ground running, taking the rounded rail tunnel on foot. They could try to outmaneuver the Octo Samurai once they got outside the facility.
CRRRRACK.
HWOOOOOOOAAR!
After just a couple steps, Eight heard the Octo Samurai tear the station wall down with a scream. The opening the monster had created was wide enough to fit its body through, and it began squeezing itself through the cable car station, knocking over all the benches and chairs. It barreled through the station exit and tumbled unceremoniously off the platform, plopping down belly-first onto the concrete. Eight turned around and opened fire yet again while continuing to run down the tunnel.
She finally took a good look at her foe in the low light. As the Sanitized Octo Samurai rose to its full height, Eight got an eyeful of its rough, light-green skin. Cuts, bruises, and bloody bullet holes covered much of what its grey armored vest did not. Its towering, muscular frame almost hit the ceiling of the twenty-foot-wide tunnel, putting its head, which was topped with a ponytail in the same shade of blue as the little Greens' hair, right next to the overhead rail. Eight estimated that the monster's head was probably as big as the cable car she had ridden up, but the head appeared comically small next to the Samurai's meaty shoulders. The face was nothing pretty, either—black, beady eyes with lime-green sclera emphasized the monster's unnatural existence.
Blocking Eight's shots with a raised arm, the beast reached up and tore a section of the overhead rail out. Eight dove to her right, dodging the rest of the rail as it came crashing to the ground. Then, the monster took a swing at Eight, using the chunk of rail in its hands like a hammer. Eight stepped back, well out of reach of the makeshift weapon.
She squeezed off a single round at the Octo Samurai's face, sending it reeling backward, before she turned back toward the starry skies at the end of the tunnel. Back on a full sprint, Eight ran until she caught up with Agent 3, who was now on the other side of the fallen rail.
"Outside!" Eight yelled. "We can lose it outside!"
Agent 3 didn't bother acknowledging her at all, but Eight supposed that the Inkling had heard just fine. As they matched each other stride for stride, the monster behind them picked up its pace. Grasping the length of metal rail in both hands, the Octo Samurai trudged forward on legs that were far too short for its stature. It swung at Eight twice more, but both times she was too far away. Again, Eight turned around and sent another bullet into the monster's face, this time hitting one of its eyes. It shrieked in pain and dropped its weapon to cover its face.
Now angrier than ever before, the Sanitized freak picked up the length of rail and hurled it at its foes like a javelin. It rocketed past the intended targets. The chunk of metal sailed over Eight's head and out of the tunnel, disappearing over the edge. Back on all fours, the Samurai resumed galloping at a breakneck pace. It ran past Agent 3, completely ignoring the Inkling, and went straight for Eight. The tiny Octoling was the cause of all its pain and suffering.
THUD THUD THUD THUD—
Eight sprinted down the home stretch, pushing herself toward the end of the tunnel. The circular opening steadily grew wider in her vision as she got closer. The treeless night sky beckoned to her. She was so close. Just a few more steps, and she'd be outside, she thought. She'd get away from the monster. She remained so focused on escaping that she failed to recognize one important fact.
The tunnel was built into the side of a cliff.
"Eight!" Agent 3 screamed. "Stop!"
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