Chapter 10

"But really, you do need to come with me. It's very dangerous in here." Blasto was looking around the chamber as if expecting another attack. Then he turned back to looking at Michelle and me. "Oh yeah! The gas. You gotta use these or his gas is gonna keep fucking with your heads." The Tinker reached into a pocket and pulled out a stack of thin transparent circles. He handed one to each of us. It was stretchy like a balloon.

"What is it?" I asked.

"No!" the little boy the creatures had been attacking cried out. "Don't believe him. He's trying to kill us all."

"What?" Michelle asked, bringing her shotgun to bear on the tentacled man. I'd read that Blasto was a wet tinker, similar to Nilbog, though somewhat under PRT control. I could easily see him having created these monsters. It was right in line with his past work.

"Hey!" the villain complained, gesturing for her to lower the weapon. "Don't be hasty. You can't …" suddenly he whipped a tentacle high in the air and half the boy vanished.

There was no blood or viscera. The boy didn't even react. It was like he was eclipsed.

"He's just a projection," Blasto said. "Almost none of this is real. You've been breathing a hallucinogenic gas since you entered the mine. It's fucking with you. That prick is using projectors to show what he wants you to see and the gas makes you believe them. These are air filters. Put it over your mouth and nose. It'll block his gas and stuff. The rest will burn out of you pretty quickly. But you have to hurry. Some of these things are real and he can send more."

I waved a hand through the boy. There was nothing there. "No! you can't believe Blasto," the projection objected. "These are his caves. He's trying to trick you."

"I'll go first," I told Michelle, ignoring the fake boy. "If I'm ok in five minutes, you can put yours on."

"Ok. I'll be watching," she replied.

I placed the circle over my face, and it sucked on like there was a vacuum. Suddenly I couldn't smell half the things I could before.

"Great. You do that but do it on the move." Blasto gestured towards the opening we had come in.

"Where are we going?" I asked as we started to follow him.

"Sovereign's right," the biotinker started. "This used to be my fallback position if I ever got pushed out of Boston. An old marble quarry with miles of cool, dry underground tunnels that no one was using. It seemed ideal. I stored some supplies, a few growing vats, and enough lab assistants to maintain them. Then this fucking psycho somehow found it and took over. He's a nutjob chemist from RPI named Adali. I looked him up. Had one bad day, then got chased out of New York for mind controlling his professor to get a better grade."

"He's a Master?" I asked.

"Don't really know. If he was a normal Master, like Heartbreaker, he shouldn't be able to affect my babies. I know he uses all sorts of chemicals. I just can't tell if he's a Tinker or something else."

"How are you feeling Taylor?" Michelle asked. She still had her shotgun trained on Blasto rather than searching the shadows for wandering threats.

"I seem to be ok," I replied. "It's probably safe to put on the filter."

She slowly complied, trying to keep her firearm pointed one-handed. I watched as her expression seemed to clear. She lowered the weapon.

"Knowing about this Sovereign guy is great," I said. "But you still haven't told us where you're going. The other guy's taken hostages. We need to get them out before he can do anything more to them. Then I can …"

"I know these tunnels. There's an armored airlock between the regular mine and my facility. That's probably where he's hiding the hostages. I can't get that door open on my own. You might be strong enough to open it. If we work together, I can get you to the door and you can get it open. Then we take him out or whatever, and free the hostages. You're happy and I have my Fallback back … he he he … back back. Baby's got back …"

I realized the guy was either currently baked or had done so much damage to his brain with self-medication that he had the attention span of a cocker spaniel on a sugar high.

"Focus, dude," Michelle snapped. "We're talking about my family. This isn't a joke."

"Right, right." He visibly pulled himself back on task. "Gotta get to the airlick ... I mean airLOCK."

I looked at Michelle and frowned. This guy was half out of it at least. Not the person I would normally follow in any situation, but I wasn't sure we had any other choice. If he was telling the truth, and if his memory wasn't so far gone that his information on the physical layout of the place was even half accurate, he still offered us a better chance to rescue the hostages than going on our own did.

"I think we have to," I said. "It might be a good idea for you to retrace our steps, get out, and try calling for help?"

"Not going to happen," Michelle growled. "We have no idea what's behind us now and my family's still somewhere ahead."

"Right," I conceded.

Blasto led us through the tunnels. The flaming torches turned out to be electric lights. There were no more giant fissures in the floor. And the random sounds had mostly disappeared. It was still as spooky place.

"We have to go down here," the Tinker pointed to a ramp. I took point. As we neared the bottom the electric lights went off. Michelle and I still had our flashlight on. Blasto had lights, some sort of bioluminescence probably, set into his hood. We were all shining them around, expecting some sort of attack.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!" there was a loud scream from the corridor in front of us. We all turned reflexively, and something dropped onto my head.

"What is it? Argh?" Michelle cried and fired her shotgun. I felt the pellets kick into my back.

I grabbed onto my attacker. It was one of the slimes creatures though if didn't feel like a dog. It felt like a heavy blanket or a big wet beach towel, though much heavier. It was covered in acid and its tentacles were trying to stab into my chest. I ripped at it, throwing it against the wall where it flattened and burst.

"Get it off of me!" Michelle screamed.

"Fuck, those are nasty," Blasto said as he popped the one at his feet with a dart from his pistol. He quickly darted the three others that had fallen, including the one on Michelle.

"Ugh, Thanks," she replied. "What the fuck was that!"

"I call it an aboleth slime. I got the idea from an old book." He sounded proud.

"That's all kinds of wrong." She looked at him. "How many of those dart guns do you have?"

"Four, no, six." He was patting his pockets with his tentacles. "Never know when you'll need spares."

"Well, I need one right now. I don't know if this thing will even hurt them." She held up the shotgun as she reloaded.

The Tinker considered for a moment, then handed one to Michelle. "The shotgun should work, but this is better. You've got twenty-four shots. Here's a reload. Let me show you how to …" He trailed off as the art student showed she could figure out the pistol's clip release. He turned to me. "How about you?"

I considered. "I think it is better I keep my hands free. I can try to keep their attention on me while you two snipe them."

Then I continued on another track. "What I want to know is why my negation field is not affecting these things. Can you feel it?"

"Sure, if I'm close enough," He giggled. "But I'm not trying to tinker anything right now, so it doesn't really matter. As for the babies … they're not parahumans. I may have used some parahuman DNA when making them – Acid Bath's I think – but they're my original creations. Most trump powers won't work on them."

"Great…" I muttered. This was not what I wanted to hear. No one had said there were powers out there I couldn't affect.

"Let's keep moving," Michelle suggested.

It was at the top of the next ramp we met the next attack. This one was much worse. A line of massive eight-foot-tall slimy humanoids with claws, tentacles, and stone clubs were rushing up the ramp towards us. Behind them were ranks of slime men like we had seen before. But these wore pieces or sometimes whole suits of medieval style armor. as soon as they saw us, they rushed.

We fell back to flat ground. Blasto and Michelle started shooting darts while I took three big steps forward and braced myself to meet the initial charge. Two of the hulks smashed into me. They were strong, rocking me back. But I was stronger and held my place. I even managed to wrench the stone club from one of the creatures. With that, I stepped back and swung like my father had taught me in T-Ball. The hulk splashed back on the following horde.

"The darts aren't working on the big ones!" Michelle called.

"Shit! He must have reprogrammed the vats, the fucker," Blasto cursed. His tentacles were fencing with two of the brutes – occupying their appendages while pushing them back from the two shooters. "Try the shotgun."

She dropped the pistol and snatched up the shotgun, which had been hanging strapped across her chest. Two loud blasts set one of the hulks on its slimy ass, but it was still trying to crawl towards them. A third blast splattered its head. "That works," she said, sounding relieved.

"The darts work on the skum," Blast said, popping two of the smaller slime men. "I'll concentrate on those."

While they were arguing weapons and targets, I was dancing the width of the passage, smashing anything that came in reach. Unfortunately, I wasn't escaping unscathed. Between their claws, whiplike tentacles, and clubs, the hulks were able to hurt me, though nothing that I wouldn't heal from as long as their slime didn't cause a weird infection. I really wish I hadn't thought of that. It was just the sort of thing Blasto might build into his crazy creations.

"Reloading!" Michelle called, stepping behind Blasto.

"Don't dawdle," he replied sharply. "It looks like he's cleaning out the reserve for this attack." He was using two of his own tentacles to reload a pistol while he was shooting with another.

He was right. The monsters just kept coming, pouring up the ramp like a reverse waterfall. "Hey Blasto, you got any grenades?" I shouted. They were crushed in together on the ramp. We could take out a lot if he had something to go boom.

"Um … Oh yeah!" he replied.

A couple of seconds later a pod of some sort flew over my head and into the enclosed ramp. It hit the ceiling, stuck there, then burst, spraying a powder over the oncoming horde. They started writhing and shrinking. Three seconds later a second flash came from the pod. This time burning material fluttered down. When it touched the partially desiccated monsters, they burst into blue flame. The heat of the inferno drove me back several steps.

I quickly finished off the creatures in the main passage.

"Why didn't you do that sooner?" Michelle yelled.

"Uh … I guess her negation field is fucking with me more than I thought. I forgot I had that."

"Got any more surprises?" I asked.

"I don't think so." He said, pondering. "Oh! I've got some wipes that will neutralize the acid in their slime if you need any. That stuff is great, it really rots the wounds."

When I realized he was praising the acid not the neutralizer, I just held out my hand, as did Michelle. After a couple of quick, fully clothed sponge baths, we were both feeling a little better. We also used the time to bandage the few wounds the militarized art chick had taken in the fight.

"We're almost there," Blasto reassured us as we descended in near darkness. "The airlock is not far past the bottom of the ramp. That was probably most of the skum and hulks. And the pheromone spray should keep any hounds or slimes away from you. There shouldn't be much danger left."

"Pheromone spray?" Michelle asked lowly.

"Yeah, that stuff I gave you back …" He looked at our faces. "Fuck, did I forget to … ok, here." He pulled a spray bottle out of a pocket. "Just spritz yourself down with these and the small babies shouldn't even notice you. Sort of a chemical IFF built into their genome. No way Sovereign has been able to program it out … I don't think anyway."

I grabbed it and tried a test squirt on my left arm. It didn't eat away the skin, so I sprayed it all over. Michelle did the same test then dowsed herself.

"I need those back," the Tinker said when I started to pocket my bottle. "You know, just in case. You being Protectorate and everything."

I sighed and handed it back. I figured this was like an Endbringer Truce situation. We needed each other. I was still planning on telling the PRT science team about this when I got back.

"It's in that last chamber," Blasto said, pointing to a dark entrance way at the end of the passage. "He knows we're coming, so he'll be ready for us with whatever else he has. We'll need to clear the room before we can try to get the door open … open the door … Let my love open the door …" He started singing, then there was a beeping in his hood, and he seemed to refocus.

"Oh! I've got an idea." The Tinker pulled another item out of a pocket. He sprayed it with a small bottle, and it opened like a flower. It was a small eye with wings. Blasto held up his wrist and we could see there was a small video screen which was showing the feed from the flying eye. "Right. Let's see what's behind door number one!"

We watched closely as the drone entered the chamber. Almost instantly its feed winked off. Blasto quickly rewound and froze the last image.

"That's a lot of slime," Michelle snarled. The image showed a large chamber filled with dozens, maybe hundreds of aboleth slimes and slime dogs. We couldn't see any sign of an airlock door.

"Like I said, no worries. We're protected from them." He quickly sprayed us all again. "And the darts work fine on them. As a backup. Just in case, you know."

"Are you sure …" I began, trying one last time to convince Michelle to stay back.

"Come on, let's go." She had the pistol in one hand and her flashlight and dart reload in the other.

"Yeahboyeee!" Blasto squealed.

I sighed and hefted my club. Why did I feel like the real cavewoman on the team?

We stalked towards the opening. As we approached our lights showed the masses of monsters. I stepped through the opening, expecting all the slime to jump on me. But they didn't attack, they barely moved.

I looked back over my shoulder and shrugged.

"It's like I said. They'll ignore us," Blasto said, lowering his pistol and walking forward more confidently. "Let's get that door open."

I threw my arm out stopping him. "I'm first. Just in case, you know."

He stepped back.

The creatures did ignore us as we made our way towards the back of the room. Then the lights came on and the airlock was plainly visible. But so was the twelve-foot tall, slime monster with more tenacles and eyes than anything outside an old Japanese cartoon should have. It was obviously guarding the door.

Several of its eyes focused on me, and several of its limbs pointed my way. Then the thing let out a gargling, yet almost intelligible, "Aaattttaqqq!"

That got the rest of the room's attention and the fight was on.

"Bonssssaaaiiiii!" Blasto cried as he opened up with three pistols – one in either hand and another held in a pair of tentacles. Michelle tried to stay behind him and fired almost mechanically, servicing slimy green target after slimy green target. I think she might have a future in the PRT.

The giant ameboid opened its attack with a spray of acid. I dodged some of it, but the portion that got on my skin burned much worse than the previous acids. It could also whip its appendages much further than even the hulks, and there were more of them. I was slapped by two but managed to interpose the club in front of the two that were stabbing for me.

"Oh yeah …" Blasto called over the din of battle. "Don't let that fucker stab you. Baby's got some bitchen drugs in those pseudopods."

Great, now he remembers. I jumped up over three more tentacles spearing towards me. I managed to land on one, pulping it. The creature withdrew the wounded limb and produced another.

"Got any more firebombs?" I yelled.

"All out," he replied.

I heard the boom of the shotgun as Michelle sent a few blasts towards the big mother. They seemed to do some damage, but she had to switch back to the pistol quickly as the smaller slimes started closing in.

I realized I needed to close in to do any damage. Looking down, I saw an aboleth slime at my feet. I thrust my left arm into it, grabbing for anything solid. It was like trying to grip fish guts, but I managed to pick it up and use it as a shield while I charged the giant monster.

I swung my club, targeting the creature's eyes. If it had a brain, it was probably near the eyes. Every time the thing jabbed or flailed with a needle-tipped tentacle, I had to either block with my makeshift shield or parry with my club. I needed another hand to grab and rip the arms out, but dropping the shield seemed like a really bad idea.

We were stuck in a stalemate until it sprayed acid again. I blocked, but the caustic spew quickly began to melt the slime off my arm. There were no more around that I could pick up. The creature reared up to its full height, towering almost twice my size, and pushed out a half dozen tentacles. I was spinning my club in front of me almost like a baton, hoping to use it to block the inevitable attack. Then a fusillade of darts and shot erupted from behind me.

The attacks froze the slime king for a second. I launched the club towards its apparent head and dove forward, my hands pressed palms together to form a spear and trust it into the abomination's body. I easily pierced its gelatinous flesh, and my hands started burning. Gritting my teeth, I pressed in until I was shoulder deep. Then with a roar of fury and pain I wrenched my arms open, tearing the beast apart.

The two halves shuddered on the marble floor for several second before quivering and loosing cohesion.

"You're fucking insane!" I yelled as I turned on the monstrosity's creator. "What goes on in your mind?"

"Oh, no, no, you see. Like I said, I got these guys out of a book." He grinned, showing real madness. "My original work is much weirder."

"Wipes, Sicko." Michelle interrupted. "We need all your wipes."

The man looked at my red and blistered arms and nodded. "Right. Yeah. Here you go."

My friend helped wipe me down and whatever was in the magical sheets was like aloe on sunburn, but more powerful. "Now we have to get through the door," I said.

I sat and healed while Blasto tried to hack the electric panel. Then I got up and tried turning the large handle in the middle. The door was built like a cross between a submarine hatch and a bank vault door. The eight bolts locking the door in place could be moved electronically or manually. But apparently the system could override the manual mechanism.

I struggled to turn the wheel, only to sheer off one of the bolts and tear the wheel off the door. Then I tried bending one of the bolt rods, but it was too strong. Tugging at the door to pull the whole thing out of the wall also achieved nothing.

I stopped and looked around, trying to think of another way. Strength against strength is not always the answer. The horrid smell of the decaying slime monsters caught my attention now that I was not concentrating on a task. Looking at the green miasma slowly etching into the marble gave me an idea.

"Blasto, is there any way you can collect and concentrate some of this acid to use on the bolts?" I asked, getting his attention. "If it can weaken them at least somewhat, I might be able to force a solution."

"Um … could you … like … go stand in the corridor for a few minutes," he said. "I can't really think straight when you're around. Not because I'm into you or anything. Not that there's anything wrong with you, but you're way too young for me. And too tall. Not that I've thought about it, I mean. Anyway. Over there?"

"Yeah," I agreed.

Twenty minutes later, the tinker had whipped up a concoction that he applied to the bolts with his tentacles. Both the bolts and the tentacles started melting as soon as they touched the acid. After another five minutes the metal of the bolts stopped smoking. I grabbed one and bracing with one foot on the door I bent the bar enough to disengage the bolt. Four more times and I was able to slowly pull the door open.

There was, of course, an identical door blocking the other side of the airlock. As I approached the door a screen on the wall turned on, displaying a man in internally-lit baroque armor. The same guy that was driving the bus. He was facing the camera, but his mask hid any expression.

"Before you continue your labor, I would parley a moment." The voice was electronically distorted.

"You fucking fuck! You took my shit! I'm gonna …" I quick muzzled Blasto.

"Are the hostages alive?" I demanded.

"They are for as long as we talk, and perhaps, if we reach an accord, for a little longer still," he replied.

"Accord!" Blasto said sliding away from my hand. "Are you working with him. I should have known. He never lets me have anything. No peace. No marching forests. No …" Michelle pulled the Tinker out of the airlock.

"What do you want?" I asked. According to PRT PR, we never negotiated with terrorists. But that was bullshit. The police always tried to negotiate with hostage takers. There were fulltime law enforcement specialist dedicated to that very task. They often brought such situations to a bloodless conclusion. It was only after such negotiations failed that strike teams like mine were sent in. I knew negotiations were a thing, but I'd had no training in how it was done. And the only hostage situation I'd been involved in was the one in Vermont where the negotiator and the "perp" didn't even speak the same language.

"Good. Very good." I thought I could hear the smug smile behind his mask. "Given your capabilities and resources, I have no doubt you will be able to open this door, eventually. But during that time my minions – and do not be misled into thinking I have no more minions at my disposal – as I was saying, while you were so engaged my minions would be ending the lives of all the hostages in most unsightly ways."

"No!" Michelle called. I motioned for her to stay where she was.

"What is your alternative proposal?" I asked. I knew if he was telling the truth, he had the upper hand. Even if he was lying the mere possibility he wasn't still gave him the upper hand.

"I wish to leave this place. I will open the inner door in ten minutes. At that time, I will set my remaining minions the task of killing the hostages. You will have the choice of either pursuing me, though you will not know where I am or where I am going, or defeating the remainder of my minions and saving the innocent people. If you save the hostages, you will need to lead them out of the mine before the self-destruct charges that Blasto so thoughtfully provided bury you all in this most ironic of gravesites."

"There is no need to threaten the hostages. Just open the door and go. Siccing your minions on them or blowing the mines up only increase the eventual charges you'll have to face. Just walking away is the best thing for you, that or giving up to the Protectorate and explaining the circumstances that drove you to this."

"I know. I am just curious to see how you will choose. You intrigue me."

"But …"

"This is not a negotiation. The door opens in ten minutes. Think carefully." The screen went dark.

"Can you stop the self-destruct?" I stepped out to ask Blasto.

"Sure … I mean probably … unless he's reset the codes or something." He winced and shrugged his shoulders.

"Ok I need you to map out the quickest route from here to a surface exit," I ordered. "Do you have any paper?"

"No, man. I smoked the last of it," he giggled.

"Here," Michelle had a small notepad and a couple of pens.

"Please work on making as many copies as you can in the next few minutes," I said. "We can pass them out to the hostages in case we get split up."

As he started drawing, I continued," Once we're in. You try disarming the self-destruct. If you can't, then you're leading the retreat. And you're going with him in case there's trouble." I pointed to Michelle. "I'll bring up the rear to make sure no one is left behind. Got it."

Time quickly counted down. "Any idea what minions he's talking about?" I asked the Tinker.

"Only thing that was here that we haven't seen are the lab assistants. But they're not bred to be hostile. I don't see how he'd get them to attack without redesigning their genome."

I thought I'd heard that before. "What do they look like?"

He giggled. "They're mushrooms, dude. Shroom dudes about yeah high." He held his hand varying between his height and Michelle's. "Useful, but not a … heh … mean bone … he he … in their body … he he he … Get it? They got no bones!" He started cackling.

"Great," Michelle deadpanned. "I feel really good about this."

"Get ready," I said as the door started cycling. I just hoped this loon would keep his word.

The next thirty minutes were both terrifying and anti-climactic. The 'Shroom dudes were like rabid kittens. They tried to be scary, but they were a little too cute to pull it off. They still forced us to kill them all before we could move the hostages safely.

Michelle's family was unharmed and happy to see her. She immediately handed her father the shotgun but kept Blasto's pistol and badgered him until he gave her two spare clips. The tinker was unable to stop the self-destruct countdown so we quickly departed the facility. I did manage to snag a tablet that someone had left in a lab.

Herding a dozen and a half-frightened people through dark mineshafts at speed was more difficult than it sounds. Luckily, the passageways were wide and smooth with no tight places. Once we hit the surface, Blasto dropped a smoke bomb and disappeared into the forest. Several minutes after we had gotten out, and Mr. Washko had gotten the bus started, there was a rumbling quake and smoke blasted out of the mine opening.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

I wish.