Chapter 9
I love dogs.
I hate dog. Dog meat. Doesn't matter that my taste buds are not involved, the creature's dying yelp fills my mouth with a bitter taste. The thing fills me with memories of food and licking my balls…
Sorry, big guy, I needed it.
The scrap yard dog is enough to heal me up completely, but I can tell how painfully close I remain to falling apart. I need to avoid trouble for the time being.
Dana. Where could she be? She was always in the old park, that's as safe a bet as any, but I need to get there from the residential district, which involves four checkpoints… Unless I get out of town, go around through the slums and get in from the east side, where I grew up.
And where everyone knows my face.
New plan! I'm going to just leave Baria. Get on a shuttle as Mathias, fly to wherever people go when they catch a ride out of here and leave this whole mess behind.
I need credits, a visa and a destination. This will take time, seeing as I want to keep a low profile. Surely I can find plenty of work in private businesses around the capital. Clearly I don't need to sleep, I can work around the clock and not bother renting a living space.
People still run around the city, I'm not enough of a threat for them to declare martial law. Good, I guess?
Come to think of it, I killed two people thus far… Four, including the bums. I'm slightly less lethal than the common cold.
I brought down a bloody smoke stack by just jumping off it. Why couldn't I get the best of that bitch? She never used physical strength, not directly… She couldn't react fast enough to counter my every moves, nobody is this fast…
She didn't need to be. What else was I going to do? I acted predictably, tried to fight her when she was ready for me, announced myself early when I caught her signaling reinforcements to step in, attacked with the tactical restraint of a pissed off wolverine.
She put herself in my shoes… I need to do the same.
Okay, I'm Olenk, I'm hurt, but I just defeated a tank in human form, what do I do?
Get stupid drunk. Not at a bar, somewhere private with people I trust and access to medical aid… The PDF HQ.
So, she won't be a problem for at least the next forty-eight hours. Then what?
Sort out this mess with the Royal Guard; can't win this unless everyone's on the same page. Set O'ran straight.
How does a Major set a governor straight? She doesn't… But she will, she gets her orders from higher up, otherwise she'd be trying to kill me too.
Damn… I know absolutely fekk-all about what's going on! Olenk has staff, intel people who know things, if I get to them…
No! Get credits and leave. We're not going to war!
Someone bumps into me from behind, a greying man with empty eyes and a deep frown on his face. He's hurrying to catch the bus, a dozen steps ahead. The driver sees him and waits.
I want to say something, but the eyes… They did something. This thing is a skakky copy of a human being. Smells wrong, moves wrong, but the only reason I notice at all is because part of me is smugly satisfied by how good my disguise is in comparison. I regain full control of my limbs an instant before the bus takes off with the freak in it.
I expect something to happen, the bus to explode, but nothing. They roll off and around the corner. I see the man, seated at the back, looking straight at me. This time, I do not get frozen in place and his squinty eyes widen for a moment, seemingly in anger more than surprise.
Now, peaceful… No faffing about. We can't… We're not in any shape… To…
KILL
Pavement rains all over the street, my feet digging into it like it's just a river of dough. I feel slow, but catch up to the bus in an instant, as though the thing was frozen in place. In a single bound, I'm on top and ripping my way in over where I last saw the strange man. The thin hull peels off like orange skin and people inside scream.
When I drop in, they all go silent but one, the stranger. His scream is that of a cornered animal, paralysing everyone in the bus, everyone but me. I'm like a badger immune to the cobra's venom.
The thing makes its way towards the front of the bus, not taking its eyes off me, howling its lungs off the whole way. I want to ask what it is, but the moment I open my mouth, it's for both my cheeks to tear open as well and a roar that would usually announce a typhoon leaps out of my throat.
The other freak goes deer in headlights, frozen still, and I make my way to him one step at a time. We shout at each other until I'm within arm's reach, when its clothes erupt with altogether too many arms and claws.
It throws itself at me, flailing and roaring, I do the same and we both fly out the windshield. I ride the dumb bastard like a surfboard on twenty meters of pavement and then backflips him into a parked truck.
Stunned, injured but still screaming, it scrambles out of the wrecked vehicle and limps away as fast as its missing leg and extra arms will allow.
I catch up in one jump and time it to land right on its good leg. It turns to mush under my heels. The thing roars in my face and I roar back. It's now scampering away with its insect-like limbs and two human arms. If it notices the stretching and tearing flesh of the leg I'm still pinning in place, it's taking the pain like a champ.
It rips free of the mangled limb and scurries off at a surprisingly quick pace, soon scaling the wall to a two stories residential building. I again catch up in a single jump, smacking into it with as much force as I can muster. We pass right through the wall and land in the living room of an empty apartment.
The thing can't scream anymore, I popped one of its lungs, but it wheezes pitifully and keeps trying to crawl away. I grab its gray hairs, pull its horrified face up near mine and go to ask what it is. A blood-curling screech escapes my still mutilated lips instead and I just bite off the top of its skull instead.
Yeah… No, this is creeping me out now, why are we torturing the thing?
I put it out of its misery the most humane way I can think of right now; stomp on its chest until its insides are mush. Then the tendrils shoot out to slurp up all that dead meat. No memories, no skills, just voices, whispers from a mind so vast it sees Baria as a grain of salt.
It's not coming, it's here, and it's calling for help… And help is on its way. If I don't silence it, everyone will die. I don't care about these people, but I will stop it.
The thought makes me shiver. Whatever these things are, I am delighted by the prospect of killing them.
