Chapter 19
Swarm
"Can't you go die in some obscure corner?" Wolf yelled, his back towards Anderson in the building's ravaged lobby.
" I'm afraid not," he replied, flicking back the magnum's safety.
" Don't you ever get tired of dying?" said Wolf, stalling. They just stood for a moment, staring each other down. You could practically here the classic theme from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly playing in the background. All they needed now was some tumbleweed. Anderson didn't need the gun. It was time for something else. He holstered his weapon and removed his sunglasses, letting the angelic blue eyes gaze out at Wolf. He composed himself and morphed. Snow white fur sprouted all over his body, and his features became absolutely canine.
The blue eyes stayed their brilliant color, gazing impassively at Wolf. He now fully resembled the Arctic Wolf that had given him his lupine DNA. Before Wolf could do anything, Anderson charged, pounding into him and throwing him clear through the remains of the lobby's back wall, propelling him across a cityblack and into a cement park between two apartment buildings. Anderson was there in a second, back in his human state and staring down at the bloodied Wolf. Palstic bags fluttered through the deserted park, clinging to tree branches like the carcasses of rotted black birds.
" I bet your wondering," said Anderson as Wolf picked himself up off the ground, " why I am without my trusted colleagues Agents Walker, Hall, and King." He continued, not waiting for an answer. " You see, Wolf, when I supposedly killed Fang in the Martinez household, I was directly disobeying orders. That in itself is something I never do. But I had an overwhelming urge to cause you pesky little children as much misery as possible. So, I was fired from Itex for disobeying orders. Afterward, I knew the rules, I knew what I was supposed to do but I didn't. I couldn't. I felt compelled to stay. Compelled to disobey. And now here I stand because of you, Wolf." Anderson stepped closer to Wolf. " Because of you, I am no longer an Agent of Itex, because of you I have changed. I am unplugged, a new man, so to speak, like you, apparently free." Mustering up as much sarcasm as humanly possible, Wolf spat,
" Congratulations."
" Thank you," Anderson replied with a smirk. " But, as you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we are here; it is not because we are free, we are here because we are not free. There is no escaping reason. No denying purpose because, as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist." Another Anderson appeared just behind Wolf's shoulder, continuing the dialougue. " It is purpose that connects us," said the new Anderson as more gathered around Wolf, like malignant black birds to a seed.
" It is purpose that pulls us."
" That guides us."
" That drives us."
" It is purpose that defines us."
" Purpose that binds us." Finally the first and original Anderson spoke again.
" We are here because of you, Wolf. We are here to take from you what you tried to take from us." Without warning the dreaded syringe was out and into Wolf's jugular. " Purpose." The essence of Anderson flowed into Wolf, engulfing him like a dreaded cancer. Stunned, Wolf looked down at the dark ooze that was beggining to cover him like a living entity. Wolf started to panic, fear clouding his eyes.
" Yes, that's it, it'll be over soon," said Anderson in a grotesque parody of a surgeon. Then Wolf seemed to compose himself. Focusing the entirety of his will, he slowly took hold of Anderson's syringe arm. The Anderson's all looked at each other, simultaneously experiencing the disbelief. The blackness spreading like liquid obsidian over Wolf stopped, uncertain as it's master, as Wolf summoned a final surge of strength. Shaking from the effort, he ripped the syringe from his neck. The connection severed, the darkness instantly evaporated. The other Andersons immediately attacked as Wolf retreated, panting, trying to regain his center, flipping back over the bench to catch his breath but the Andersons hurl at him, hands and fists attacking from every angle, stabbing and grabbing, groping for any hold as Wolf blocked, twisted and kicked like a dervish, desperate to keep them from connecting.
Across the park, a woman was carrying her groceries home after a tiring day at work. She turned and saw the massive fight, her face paralyzed in fear. Suddenly, her face blistered open, transforming into Agent Hall. He grabbed his gun just as another Anderson wrenched him around. " You?!" said Hall in disbelief.
" Yes. Me." Anderson jammed the syringe his chest and copied himself onto his former partner as easy as one could hit the copy and paste buttons on your PC. " Me. Me. Me," said Anderson, rembering those exact same words had been said to Fang when the first copy had been made. The sunglasses snapped into place on the copy. " Me too," said the Hall copy, laughng at the twisted inside joke. They run to join the swarm of Andersons that were tightening around Wolf, their numbers now doubled. Wolf thrashed at the surrounding frenzy like a man in a cloud of hornets. A crushing kick opened the space around him for a moment and heaving, Wolf uprooted a fence post. He whipped it around him like a crude irgaak, cutting huge swathes of Andersons away, metal ringing against bone. Anderson, the original, scanned the park from his postion, gritting his teeth.
" More," he hissed in a voice that was almost an exact impression of a hissing viper. Wolf spun around in time to see Andersons pouring from a nearby apartment building. Across the park, a man screamed as he tried to clamber up the fence surrounding a basketball court. Andersons hauled him back down, just as the the fence door next to them bursted open against another Anderson horde. The courtyard was overrun by the seemingly endless mob. Their relentless attacks began to overwhelm Wolf. Almost buried beneath Andersons, Wolf screamed with Herculean effort. He hurled himself upward, reaching for the freedom of the sky but the Andersons refuseed to let go. Together they rose, a twisted knot of bodies uncoiling as it bent up into the air as one entity. Several Andersons sliped off, but others leaped up to grab on. The last snatched onto the lowest Anderson's ankle as Wolf dragged his human chain skyward as he tried to fly away.
The Andersons clung to him, arms and legs wrapped like strangling vines around the trunk of a tree as their fingers dug, gouging, slowly sinking into his skin. Wolf tried to shake them loose, jack-knifing, suddenly reversing his direction as the ankle-holding Anderson is whip snapped free, thrown spinning through open space until they smashed into the glass wall of a skyscraper. Still, Wolf couldn't get free. The weight caused him to sink back to the park as the Anderson's piled onto him. Like a devil perched on his back, the Smith nearest his ear smiled.
"It is... inevitable.," he growled. Syringes sunk like vampire fangs into Wolf's neck. The blackness spread and enveloped his face, one eye covered as the other eye seems to go dead and his flight becomes a fall-- Plunging with his comet-tail of Smiths to the city below. Summoning up a last burst of strength, Wolf, propelled the comet tail of Anderson's into a Radio Shack. The chain of bodies smashed down, exploding through the roof. They fell into the center display, toppling stacks of screens. Wolf's eyes focused as the collision severed Anderson's connection and he leaped to his feet. Before the Anderson's could reach for him, he leaped into the air, soaring through the hole in the ceiling. The Anderson's stood, their image surreally filling up the monitors through the store's live camera feeds. A lone woman employee let out a shriek as the group of Anderson's plunged their syringes into her neck. The original and a handful of others, including Rayne, flew up after Wolf into an office building's top floor.
A/N: Sorry if the perspective is a little messed up, oh well. So now Wolf has flown into the top floor of this deserted office building, with some of Andersons and Rayne/Anderson in pursuit. There's going to be a long fall for someone in the next chapter. Dreamer knows who I mean. ; )