Chapter 28: Cold Similarities
(Providence battles new adversaries with eerily familiar powers…. )
Insufferable heat, check.
Army of sandy, undead Terracotta soldiers, check, check.
One fucking pissed off Rex battling in the middle of the Mongolian desert, triple check.
Providence had received an SOS from Interpol earlier, where Interpol was investigating the transportation of stolen Terracotta soldiers from China to Russia. Unfortunately, when Interpol secured the cargo freight and opened the hatch, the Terracotta soldiers came to life and started attacking them. Obviously far out of their scope and capabilities, they'd called Providence for urgent assistance.
Now here, the fight had barely started, but Rex was already exhausted, having punched through and decapitated all thirty-six of them, thrice. Yet they showed no sign of going down, limbs and gaping holes instantly refilling and reforming as if ancient, Chinese shaman magic was at work. It was as fruitless as hitting sand –oh wait, he literally was, punching through mounds of sands.
EVO-sand figures or nanites-infused sand as what Six reported to main control through the comm-links that connected everyone. Whatever they were, these sandy bastards refused to go down.
They were adept at solidifying themselves into hardened clay at a fraction of a second, thus able to deal solid hits whilst they engaged the officers in hand-and-leg combat. Yet at the same time, they could break down their form into millions of sand, becoming soft and malleable, so they were unhurt from blows delivered to them.
And they were getting more clever and skilled too, getting better at dodging hits and striking back. A dizzying dozen of fists would suddenly appear and strike Rex rapidly, too fast for him to block adequately. And though he struck back with giant gauntlets, they would disperse into the wind, completely untouched, then reform elsewhere to deal more damage. Others would stay in the same spot, tauntingly allowing Rex to hit them, but when his punches entered their body, they then hardened, causing him to get stuck in position whilst they struck back with the force of a sand bag.
Rex was bruising from the countless punches landed on him. It felt every inch of his bones were clacked, pain pounding from within with bitch-screaming intensity. Growling and howling in pain wasn't enough to express how badly he hurt. Even so, he was lucky he had nanite-reinforced defenses that hardened his body like metal, enough such that his bones held up against the powerful punches.
His not-so-robust teammates on the other hand, suffered under the crushing force of clay fists driven into their bodies with nearly twice the force of an average boxer. Six had growled at the three platoons to stay the hell out of punching range once he learnt their formidable strength. However, the bastards were literally shifty sand, collapsing like sand castle kicked over then reappearing elsewhere in a flash. The troops had to maintain quick reflexes and had to be extremely alert to always keep tabs on these jumping positions. But try as they might, their human limitation made them more susceptible to openings – several officers simply couldn't dodge in time. Rex lower jaw had become a pool bed strung tight with risen saliva from seeing several officers get their arms broken in contorted, bone-splitting fashion. In the back of his head, Rex was heaps thankful that Noah's platoon was not amongst the troops today, for this sandy demons were too much a handful to beat, and Rex sure as hell couldn't stomach it if he saw Noah's limbs get snapped the wrong way round.
At the front of his head, Rex was cursing himself of his inability. All of this could be avoided, if Rex was able to switch off the nanites, but he wasn't, which frustrated him further.
Needless to say, laser and electric type weapons were also useless against it, as was Providence's flamethrower. They were dealing with sand here, and the very element itself was sort of resistant to fire and electricity. If that was not bad enough, the photon barriers were inadequate to cage every particle of nanite-active sand in one shot. Since their bodies could break away into millions of grains, scattering along the wind and reform in short distances away, they were impossible to beat. Still, it was the only solution they could employ, hoping to gradually siphon the nanite-active sand bit by bit till they were eventually all collected. They employed the Sludge Bomb too, which helped to coagulate chunks of sand together, hardening them and reducing the volume of free-moving nanites-sand.
It was a bit slow and tedious, but gradually, the sandy climate began to calm down, the Terracotta soldiers having reduced to just half their figures.
But just when everyone thought the way to victory was secured, the remaining eighteen Terracotta suddenly burst simultaneously, millions of sand suddenly flying together to form a swirling vortex that began slim in the middle of their battlefield. That quickly expanded into a giant, sandy hurricane, girth increased in size as it grew taller, stretching towards the sky, giving the troops a good reason to scramble away and put a large distance between them. The windy momentum sucked up the desert sand and soil into itself, growing monstrously – then like a hungry beast, it picked the officers off the ground as if they weighed nothing but rag dolls.
Everything happened too fast for Providence to run far away enough – and anyway, in these barren valleys of nothing but cracked soil and sand, there was nowhere for them to run and hide and take cover. Rex was stricken to see his comrades picked off the ground and sucked into the whirlwind, one right after the other. He had initially had his feet materialized into a heavy ton of metal to keep himself grounded. But once he saw his comrades sucked into the windy beast, he released his anchors, opened up his jet pack and dived into the fray, hoping to catch them.
It was a dumb move of course, particularly since he neglected to create an air-flight mechanism or engine drive strong enough to oppose the herculean spinning. By the time he realized his mistake, he was dragged into the current like a helpless insect, the force impaling against his chest all but preventing him from releasing his screams of terror.
Hurry, Rex, get a hold of yourself. Come on buddies, become something, something that can oppose the spinning force.
Rex chanted inwardly whilst he struggled to control his nanites in the midst of the turbulence. However, his usual control didn't come easily. The outer wave of sand thrashing him about, chafing his skin, was full of active nanites that hindered his senses of his own inner nanite movement. It was especially disorienting to get a grip on things when he was hurtling round and round on a merry-go-round on speeds gone haywire.
In the middle of his struggling, the whirling winds suddenly died –or rather, he felt the swarm of outer nanite-sand cease its activity. He knew that instant, the hurricane has stopped, and was surprised how it stopped, but he didn't dwell on it. The fading air current still carried the sand a couple of yards in the air and would be a while before the sands would fall lifelessly. Humans, on the other hand, with no air resistance, would fall instantly.
Rex wasted no time. He was quick to zip across the sky on jet boosters at his feet and built a sort of basket-pit to extend above his shoulders, in order to catch about eleven odd guys falling from their great heights. Another ten he caught within giant palms of modified hands. After catching the last guy, Rex landed roughly with a clumsy running halt, kicking up splashes of loose top soil in his trail. Finally, he crashed to his knees, breathing ragged like the vortex had sucked his breath, and released his hold on the officers he rescued.
Palms sinking into the top soil, he panted heavily facing the ground, thoroughly exhausted and winded. His chest felt like it was about to burst, so still catching his breath, he was unable to formulate any expression of surprise when he sees a pair of boots stop before him and hears Caesar's voice.
"Mijo, are you doing alright?" Caesar went over to him and helped him up, brushing the sand off him.
Rex couldn't yet answer, still panting for breath, but was glad to see Caesar with worried brows, worried for him.
Then he noticed Caesar carrying a staff that looked oddly familiar. He raised a weak arm, pointing at it questioningly.
"Oh, this? Ah, this is the Nanite Disruptor that I believe Providence had confiscated from Hunter Cain during your mission at Kiev."
"- it – stopped –the – sandstorm?" Rex asked in between ragged breaths.
Caesar nodded, smiling.
"Pretty handy, isn't it? It's exactly what's needed to disrupt the active function of these nanite-embedded sand."
"Doctor Salazar," Six called from behind, dusting sand off his shoulders and hair as he came up to them, "I see you dropped in at the right moment. Thanks for the save."
"Oh, no problem at all."
Six notices the Nanite Disruptor as well and mentions his surprise that it was with Caesar instead of the weapons team. Caesar then explained Holiday had wanted him to look it over and study it. He went on marveling at the make and remarked it was extremely hard to create, even for himself. He jokingly remarked that if he had thought of this first instead of *Zag RS, Rex could have had a lot less trouble before.
Rex gave a weak laugh, while Six maintained a straight face, which was nothing new, since Six had nearly zero humor.
In any case, done talking, Caesar helped Rex up, then collected some samples of the nanite sand to study. Meechum came out their travel Pod as well for sample collection. The rest of the combat team meanwhile, were administering first aid to one another while waiting for pick up. Rex joined in helping whoever he could, but noticing Six casting constant glances at Caesar, he went over to Six and nudged him.
"Is there something on your mind about my brother?"
Six pushed his glasses up on his nose.
"Yea, just curious how he got here so fast."
"Well, did you forget? Their ship is able to travel at hyper speed."
"I know that, but how did he know to come exactly right on time when we need it?"
Rex frowned, getting where Six was getting it, but also perturbed why Six was being suspicious of his older brother.
"Isn't it because he has some kind of tracker that could read me, like all the time? That's what Providence does too. Besides, he must have gotten strange nanites readings of this area, in his system."
Six didn't reply, suddenly running off, bringing Rex to attention that Caesar and Meechum were leaving.
"Wait, doctor – the Nanite Disruptor – I believe I should take it into Providence's care," he shouted.
Caesar must be too far to hear, for he simply waved back and shut the door, and the Pod took off before Six could reach it.
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Returning to Providence base, Rex and team related their findings to Holiday. Rex was especially creeped out, noticing the similarity of the nanite infused sand of these Terracotta, to Van Kleiss's old power. It was only short of sucking the nanites from every other human and petrifying. Still, the way the sands moved so fluidly like they were alive, brought every memory of Rex's battle with the malicious mastermind. Sure, the Mongolian desert was no *Abysian soil, but that kind of manipulation of earth and sand looked right up his alley. Hence, Rex made the suggestion that this could be Van Kleiss's doing.
Holiday's assistant, Amelia, refuted that, deducting that it would not make sense for Van Kleiss to put forth such a plan when he knew Cain had lost the Nanite Disruptor to them.
"Then, what if he didn't know about Cain? He wouldn't be part of The Rise, isn't it?" someone else questioned.
No one had clear answers. Not on who was behind this and what the motives were. In any case, they couldn't ascertain anything until the Science division runs tests on the nanite sand and come up with more leads.
Hence, the mission debrief ended on a page of unanswered questions, and more troubling news to come.
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"So, what do you think? Looks abit like your old powers, doesn't it?" Modifier asked, looking into a floating eyeball with wires attached to it.
"Quite impressive," the speech transmission came through a set of speakers that was separately wired, "I thought at first that the Modifier was only all brawn and no brains. I did not pen you to be a scientist."
The dark EVO gave a raspy, electronic-sounding laugh. The other party's tone was as proud and cocky as Modifier remembered – a two-timing bastard scientist who saw little of others whom he deemed were not equal to his intellect. But here now, Modifier had reached a position that could finally put that arrogant harpy to place.
"But this does not mean that you can decapitate my dog as you will. I still had use for his intellect. Though I suppose that gave us the excuse to get his immediate replacement, *Doctor Pete Volkov.
"Tsk, tsk, which was why I'd saved his brain."
Modifier decided to show the other party what it meant. The EVO fluidly picked up the glass container, that contained Brandon Moses' eyes, with one of the extended, squid-like tentacles connected at its back. Slowly turning the container a full round, Modifier showed off many humanoid robots working around the lab and Brandon's brain in a stasis jar with wires connected to it.
"As you can see, I've been able to control nanites and communicate with them far superior than you can, or Rex, for that matter."
There was a long pause and heavy breathing.
Modifier laughed quietly, no doubt that fact had dealt a huge blow to the conceited fellow.
"Interesting, you are able to create any advance tech you desire," finally, the other party remarked, and Modifier could just picture the ire in his face, "And yes, I did notice it since you had deactivated the Nanite bomb I implanted inside his brain. Perhaps I should have gotten Doctor Brandon to study you instead of Noface."
"Hah, that is needless to say. Noface's power is nothing."
"As is mine, compared to yours. Why then, keep up this charade of pleasant talk? Why don't you come and take me out? Unless, you think I could be of some use to you."
Modifier expected him to be sharp, catching the ball right away.
Choosing its words carefully, it continued.
"Obviously – I wouldn't keep competition by my side otherwise. And it is a fair enough transaction for you, since you know you can use my expertise. You've been paddling in the wrong pond and coming up without any fish for far too long."
Heavy silence hung from the other line, drawing impatience from Modifier.
Nonetheless, it was confident in its plan to succeed. Creating the nanite sand was just a demonstration to showcase Modifier's abilities. It was the bait to convince the other party and win him over. Months and years of trial and error was spent on altering Nanites that couldn't be shut down by Rex's Omega-1. The main shortfall was, it could only bond with inorganic materials, and of course, it wasn't completely invincible – it could still be broken down through other means, which Providence had proven twice – once to the *bombs at the oil rig and just recently, the nanite-sand deactivated in the presence of the Nanite Disruptor. To stand right at the very top, Modifier needed to strengthen these altered nanites and find a way to fuse them into its own, organic, intercellular body. Which was why, Modifier was desperate for help, needing this bio-scientist's expertise to work around the organic, cellular bonding problem.
"You know from our history," the man finally spoke, slowly and questioning, "that we are both used to throwing away our allies after we have no more use to them. Does this not concern you?"
"Of course not, it remains that we are still opponents of each other. Whoever attains their goal first, need not show mercy to the other."
A deep, oddly melodious laughter answered Modifier.
"My, my, we are certainly alike. Very well then, we shall see, what we can get out from each other. Just no hard feelings, if I dispose of you in the middle of it, if you prove to be useless to me."
"Of course, and don't mind me if I do the same to you," Modifier replied.
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Footnotes / Recap:
*Doctor Pete Volkov: From the cartoon. A Russian Providence scientist. He appeared in the space station episode in season 1.
*Zag RS: from the cartoon; an intelligent decontamination nanite computer software created by Caesar that went rouge.
*bombs at the oil rig: In chapter 4, Rex was unable to deactivate the nanite bombs at the foundation pillars of the oil rig, as the nanites had been skillfully altered, now revealed, by Modifier.
*Abysian soil: The lab explosion caused Van Kleiss to be bonded with Abysus and fused with nanites. At the beginning he uses this soil/ abysian fauna for his attacks and to stay alive.
