Well, it's New Year's day. No, I'm not doing another special. Frankly, I think one a year, maybe two is enough. Maybe you'll see a Halloween special next year for whatever story I'm working on primarily, but who knows. Hey creativity, you got a New Year's resolution?
Creativity: What is there to change in perfection?
Author: You say as you're attempting to fit ten donuts into your mouth?
Creativity: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Author: Whatever
I just want to say one thing. When I checked the traffic graph for this story today, it said that 247 people had read my story in three days. That's pretty terrific. I just want to say thanks again. Lets reach 100 in a single day soon!
It was gray out. The sky was gloomy, casting a dull color over the landscape. The group of hosts had been travelling for two weeks now, following the map to the indicated position. They were carrying rations and water to last them for several weeks, aided by the symbiote's strength enhancement. Will was especially helpful, able to haul much more than the rest of them. They were also carrying the gifts left to them by a party unknown.
By Ethan's estimate, they were roughly a two thirds, maybe three quarters. It was getting late, so they found a spot to bunk down that had reasonable shelter and started a fire before cooking some rehydrated meat for dinner. While they ate, Ethan kept examining the map, trying to figure out what they were making their way towards. The map had cities marked on them already and the circle wasn't near one. None of the runners had any idea of what might be waiting for them.
Once they were done their dinner, Ethan and Ana created a web barrier between several trees that lined the outside of their campsite, then everyone settled down to sleep. They all rested peacefully that night.
To say that Dr. Markus wasn't having a mental breakdown would be a bald faced lie. Both projects that she had proposed and spearheaded had gone completely awry and destroyed a good section of the base during the process. Today, she was being dragged before the council for a 'report' on the situation. That was code for 'she was about to float up shit creak in a canoe with no oars.'
She had occupied herself the last few weeks by trying to determine why the serum had suddenly produced the ghastly side effect in sturm. Thus far, the only answer she could pull from it was that something caused the symbiotic material in the serum to undergo a rapid and drastic mutation. However, what was more unsettling that the changes hadn't ceased. They were much slower in pace, but she could see the changes still happening. The green skin Sturm had developed was slowly morphing into something more akin to scales. The scales however, were fused together and were just as flexible as normal epidermis. It was truly baffling, and very disturbing. Sturm's mental state hadn't improved either. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse. She was hoping to plea to the council to allow her to attempt finding a cure for Sturm's condition, but she saw the chances of that to be very slim.
She hadn't noticed she was already at the council's meeting room until she almost walked face first into the door. She took a deep breath and steeled herself for the oncoming onslaught.
The report went about as much as she expected. She spoke very little and endured a berating on nearly every count of what happened, even on things that weren't her fault. She offered her plea to the council, who considered it, but not before informing her that both projects would be continuing. Just not under her supervision.
She grudgingly accepted this as her lot, until they told her who would be taking over the symbiote project.
"We will be assigning Dr. Hawthorne to your anti-symbiote project and we will be assigning Dr. Cathaway to your Gorgon 2.0 program."
Markus was incredulous.
"Council, I understand your decision to pull me from these projects, but for the love of all that remains sacred in this world, you cannot put Hawthorne in charge of this project! It can only end in disaster!"
The head of the council frowned at her.
"We've already had one disaster. Your crediblity is spent on this matter. We trust Hawthorne more than you right now. You let your fascination with those creatures outweigh your better judgement. The decision is final."
Dr. Markus nodded and acknowledged this through gritted teeth.
"May I ask the council what I will be assigned to next, if anything at all?"
"You are being moved to site beta to work on a tracking mechanism for your escaped pets. I'm sure that is something you won't be able to land us in deep trouble with."
Markus nodded and walked out of the room. She couldn't believe that the council was putting Hawthorne of all people in charge. She had worked with the man before. The moment he got his greasy hands on the project, he would create monsters of unspeakable horror that would destroy all they had built. The council had yet to tell her whether or not she would be allowed to attempt to treat Sturm, but she already knew the answer. The council had deliberately avoided it when she brought it up. They were going to let him rot in that cell.
"Well well, Emily! Fancy meeting you here!"
She recognized the voice instantly. Only one person could make the hairs on her neck stand on end the way that eerily smooth, oily voice could. She turned around to see Hawthorne standing there. His face was pale and his long, greasy hair hung down, slightly obscuring his eyes. He had round, horn-rimmed glasses and long, spindly fingers. His labcoat was impeccibly white and the odor of bleach seemed to hang in the air around him. She sometimes wondered if he washed himself with it. His thin, sallow lips were stretched in a triumphant smile.
"Hawthorne. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
His face couldn't look like he could internally gloat even more.
"I just wanted to wish you a safe flight to site beta! I've heard travel is becoming more difficult as of late. I also want to assure you that I will ensure that your hard work wasn't for naught."
Markus resisted the urge to gag. Hawthorne couldn't honestly think that he was fooling her did she. The last project Hawthorne had worked on was the prototype for the gorgon protocol. He only cared about results and reputation at any cost he deemed acceptable. That usually meant any cost that didn't detract from his reputation. She had heard about some of the downright cruel things he had done to people during his career. He had pushed through to human trials on untested formulae for skeletal enhancement and caused horrific deformities and downright suffering to his test subjects. She had observed one such test and witnessed the ribcage of a subject grow so big that it burst out of the poor soul's chest and grew spikes on the injection points! Needless to say, Hawthorne didn't care. after the subject was put out of his misery, Hawthorne ordered him thrown in the incinerator without a second thought!
She knew that once Hawthorne got her research, he would just make symbiotes with the intent to kill other ones as a method of saving time and getting the results the council wanted. She wanted to create symbiotes that obeyed the wearer without question. It seemed she had found success in three of her four attempts. the creature that Medusa leader had become referred to itself as 'we', so she could only assume that both creatures were acting in similar mindsets. Medusa had wanted to kill Ethan before his escape and made an attempt to do just that, so perhaps the symbiote cued in on that desire and prodded her to try again. Or maybe Medusa just had another go for the hell of it. Whatever the case, it was clear that at least AS-01 should not have been paired with Medusa leader.
Waking up from her tangent line of thinking by Hawthorne requesting she accompany him down to her former lab to ensure that the equipment was back in working order. She accepted, realizing that she had an possible opportunity to form a contingency plan for when Hawthorne's plans eventually put the world in danger.
The walk down was swift, mainly due to Markus, walking as fast as she dared to reach the lab as fast as possible. Once there, she pretended to make sure the equipment was as it was before, while secretly plugging in a drive to copy all the data stored within the lab's 'black box', which stored all data, be it formulae, schematics or otherwise. The drive had a special device inside that masked it from detection by the central nexus that read all communication between devices in the base. She removed the drive and pocketed it while guiding Hawthorne over to a large device with a glowing blue light in the center.
"When I first aquired the symbiote, I extracted some mass from it and used a protein gel to trigger a growth reaction. This device contains that same mass. It's a little low right now since I used the majority of it in my early experiments, but with enough protein gel, I suspect that it will regrow the mass in a timely manner."
While she explained the functionality of the machine to Hawthorne, she discreetly extracted a small amount of the mass into a cryotube the size of a pen that could right in nine different colours. She slipped it into her pocket with no one being the wiser, and finished her explanation before leaving with all haste. The transport was waiting for her, with her luggage and nessesary research for the assignment. Much to her surprise, the host of AS-04 was there to see her off. She pulled him aside and handed him a small device.
"I don't trust Hawthorne as far as a toddler could throw him. When his continuation of my research lands us all in hot water, use this to signal me."
He nodded and gave her a two fingered salute before walking back into the base. Markus boarded the ship and strapped herself in for a long ride.
Ana's eyes cracked open to see the sunrise just starting to reach over them. She sat up and had the symbiote pull away from her face so that she could rub her eyes. She stood up and saw that everyone else was still asleep. She moved around them carefully and slipped through the gap they had left in the barrier last night to stretch her legs a little. She hadn't really had much time to really enjoy her powers, sans the snowball fight they had on Christmas eve. She spent the next hour or so, leaping, flipping, performing elaborate aerial tumbling acts and generally giving herself a good workout.
When she went back the barrier, she saw everyone was just sitting up. After a few minutes of letting their brains come up to speed, they set about packing up and making breakfast. Today, they had mixed roots and other greens they had chanced upon, roasted on sticks. After they finished eating, they tore down the web barrier and threw snow over it to hide it before continuing on in the direction they had been heading in the previous day.
They travelled for a few more hours before they reached another city. They made straight line through it, taking caches of supplies as they went. They were almost out when the runners noticed something.
"Guys, have you seen any Rippers lately?"
The group shook their head. This seemed to put the runners in an uneasy state. Ana didn't seem to understand why. Marie answered promptly.
"Usually there's a small band of them in every city and they usually make a fair bit of noise. Not enough to draw in symbiotes, just enough that anyone within about a block or two can hear them. At least they normally are. They've been getting smarter recently and I don't like it. I've seen two groups that were tearing eachother apart one day, suddenly grouped together with another pack. It's really unsettling. The fact that the city seems so empty is also a cause for worry."
Ana suddenly understood the unease. The group continued on in silence. Soon, they saw something a tad bit strange. Ethan especially seemed uneased.
"I know those mountains."
He checked the map again and suddenly felt as though his heart was being squeezed by his ribcage. Marie and Will looked at eachother before realizing what was going on.
"That's the old safe haven. Why would the map be guiding us there?"
They kept going until they reached a large opening that had long been barred by the remains of a rockslide. They climbed over it and made made their way through. There were telltale signs that the mountains had once been inhabitated. There were old tools, scratches on the trees, even the odd skeleton or two. They eventually bunked down in one area and set up a fire. Ethan kept looking at the map.
"Why back here? Why do we need to come here?"
He held the map behind the fire for a better look. His eyes widened with shock.
"Hey! Guys, you need to see this!"
by the light of the fire, they were able to make out patterns written in invisible ink. There was a cave with a drawn symbol over it. the symbol was a triangle with the right side being drawn thicker than the other two.
"We need to find the cave with this symbol over it!"
They immediately started searching. They searched for close to two hours before Ethan found something at an altitude that was in the danger zone for anyone without proper equipment or a symbiote. They found the symbol carved on a rockface. Ethan started examining it and to their surprise, it swung open, revealing a numerical keypad. They tried all sorts of combinations, but they couldn't open it.
They were about to give up when Ana had a stroke of genius. She typed in the combination: 2, and to their surprise, and Ana's triumphant smile, the rock face slid open to reveal a secret path. They looked at eachother then proceded inside, their symbiotic night vision revealing the path.
"How did you know the combination?" Will asked. Ana smiled under her mask.
"That symbol is an old letter that is also a word. It's pronounced theta. So, I guessed that the combination would be the numbers that corrisponded to the letters that make up theta."
They kept walking and eventually reached an old elevator. The thing didn't want to move, so Ethan just tore it open and cut the cable, letting it fall down to the bottom of the shaft. They could walk on walls anyway. They made their way down to the fourth floor, following the power cables that ran along the outside of the elevator shaft, and tracked them down to a large breaker panel. Ana flipped the breakers into the 'on' position, causing the old lights to flicker back to life. That's when Ana noticed something.
She hadn't payed much mind to it originally, but she had seen a logo on the base's staff when she made her break-in. It was a dark blue disk with a black rim around it with a grey human silhouette with the alpha symbol. This one had the same symbol, except that instead of alpha, it had the theta symbol.
"Guys, I think this place is a base like the one you guys broke out of."
The others seemed to agree, but that didn't explain why it was abandoned. They retraced their steps and made their way up to the third floor. They explored the place cautiously. There were lots of scratches and scoring on the walls. All evidence of a fight, and a particularly violent one. Eventually they found a security room. The screens were lit up, but several of them were displaying static. Ana sat down at the chair and began scrolling through the security recordings. Eventually she got to the last recording. What they saw chilled them to the bone. unhosted symbiotes were surging through the facility, washing over people and dragging them along in the flood. One of the external cameras showed the symbiotes breaking out of them mountain, raining down from the rockface. Ana moved back and found how the symbiotes got in there.
There was a large lab with lots of tubes, each containing several symbiotes. They were performing experiments of some sort, until one group of symbiotes started to rapidly expand until the tube began cracking, before it exploded in a shower of glass. The swarm of symbiotes immediately began latching onto whatever living organism they could find, aside from eachother, and started breaking open the rest of the tubes.
The group looked at eachother before turning to Ethan, who was staring at the screen numbly. His hand was trembling before balling into a fist.
"Those arrogant, pig-headed, idiots did this. They killed all those people."
He walked out and stopped in front of the logo. They watched as his arm turned into a two foot long blade and sunk it through the symbol with a bellow of rage. He left the blade imbedded in there for a few moments before slumping over. The three others watched as he pulled the blade from the wall, very numbly. The rest of the group walked over and put a hand each on his shoulder. He looked at them all and returned his gaze back to the ground.
"Is that why we were supposed to come here? To find out why all those symbiotes appeared here and killed of my parents and hundreds of others?"
Ana shook her head.
"I don't think so. Lets keep looking around. Maybe there's something else to find."
Ethan nodded and joined the group. On the plus side, this base didn't seem to be as large as the previous one. They searched each floor and worked their way down. They actually found a storage area full of food as well as an area for agriculture! They worked for a couple of hours before Ana called everyone.
"Guys, you aren't going to believe what I found!"
Cliffhanger! I hope everyone likes where the story is going! So, what are the opinions of Hawthorne? I find it more interesting to write the sections for Markus than the goo crew I've been putting together.
Creativity: Hey boss, where's the workout room again?
Author: Second floor, left of studio 2000.
So, we're approaching 4500 views as of this writing andI think we can push for 5000 by next week. It looks to me like the story might take a little longer to finish than I anticipated. Who knows, maybe we'll actually make it to the 100k words mark!
See ya next week!