In the Mouth of the Monster

Right as Justin entered the igloo for Pete, he was met with a stampede of everyone else. They ignored him and bolted for the outside. Fear filled their eyes. "RUN!" they cried.

Justin was too stubborn to comply. He made for the atrium door as everyone scampered past him, and pushed it open just a little to see for himself what made them so afraid. He peeked his head inside and was met with the most troubling sight:

Dozens of the little creatures crawling his way. Fast.

"Shit!"

Not even the time to turn away and run, Justin forcefully threw his own body backwards to clear the atrium doorway.

In a fraction of a second, he could make out with stunning detail their sharp-tipped limbs swiping forward as they scrambled for the light of day.

Justin fell backwards as planned, lashing out to the door's outer padlock tabs on the way down. The weight of his own body slammed the door shut. Now resting on the clay outside, his arms became painfully stretched as he held, but Justin wasn't letting go for anything.

Hands as vice grips, he held the protrusions and used their strength to pull himself up while catching his breath. He started to hear them, scratching against the metal on the other side. There he remained, forever if necessary. He wasn't letting those things out into the open, remembering how strong and swift they were. One of them was enough to counter the strength of four men in the right situation, he remembered. And they were blindingly fast; Justin whipped his head and glanced about, making sure none escaped the all-metal confines of the igloo. Justin could hear their insect-like appendages pinging against the metal hull as they roamed about, perhaps in frustration. Maybe they were intelligent enough to know they were yet again trapped. And the racket was considerably loud despite their small size.

Justin regained his breath. "Fuck!" he screamed absentmindedly. "Gimme something to lock this door!" Justin ordered as the others stood watch.

Ken burst into action, running around the immediate area looking for a wedge or a bar or something to hold the door closed. It needed to have excellent tensile strength or else it was just a novelty—one which none of them could afford. From what Ken had witnessed in the igloo, there was no outrunning them. A solution had to be permanent. Finally, he found a shovel leaning up against the North face of the structure. It was old and rusty and the wooden portion of it looked rotted almost to the core, but it was the only option for them. "Here!" he said, handing it to Justin.

Justin grabbed a hold of the door with one hand and slid the shovel through the padlock slot with the other. The bulk of the tool barely fit inside. But to everyone's relief, the metal portion of it was a fit. The material was only a mild steel stamping, but it would work at least for the time being. They could at least escape to find a more feasible way of dealing with the loosed creatures.

Justin gave the outer hull a swift kick with his boot in frustration and the creatures inside were encrazed by the sound. The metal walls teemed with scratches and more pinging that didn't die.

"Is Pete dead?" Chris asked.

"Dead or dying." Ken said, running a hand through his blonde hair rather roughly.

"Only one way to find out." Justin said with a grimace.

"We can't go back in there!" Chris said. "I saw those things literally lift Pete off the floor! They are too strong, and too many."

"Wait!" Ken said. "Where's the shotgun? Did anyone bring it outside with them?"

Everyone looked around and at one another.

No. No one brought it outside. They were too scared to even think. They simply fleed at the sight of the things pouring into the heater room.

"I'll take that as a no." Justin inferred.

"What are we gonna do?" Ken asked, wide-eyed.

"Those things have unlimited access to our igloo now." Justin said. "We can't go back inside unless we have a plan to kill them. We have to get to someone we know has firearms, otherwise we're never getting back inside and saving Pete."

"Um, I don't think anyone will lend us a weapon." Bill said matter 'o factly. Everyone cast their gaze to him. "I'm sorry to be the killjoy here, but have you ever issued anyone your weapon?"

"You gotta point." Justin admitted. "But Pete might still be alive, so we need to do something. The only way we're running away is if we're going to get a weapon and get our home back!"

"But he's most likely dead." Ken replied, his body stiffening in regret an instant later. "I'm sorry," he sighed, "but our only hope now is getting back our only place to live."

"Either way, we need a weapon, and quick." Justin asserted.

"What about the stockyards?" Chris asked. "Got any connections that can get you a quick deal?"

Justin snapped his finger and smiled at Chris. "You know…I just might. C'mon. Everyone, get ready to roll out."

Justin gunned the ATV at full throttle through the cold, dusty plains. He raced over smooth clay and talc-fine sugar sand and harsh moguls at top speed, Chris on the back hanging on with tensed hands. What was once a manageable glide through the lands was now altogether different at this irksome velocity. They were in a race against time. Who knew what those little creatures were doing to Pete by now? In all likelihood, he was probably dead.

Normally, Justin would exude greater care in circumventing the small obstacles here and there—which became highly pronounced with greater and greater speed. And two skiers in tow were not only getting the full workout, they were also getting a face full of the Mongoose's filthy tread wake. They never skied at this speed before, never wanted to, but they managed to negotiate the harsh landscape with a little mind over matter. It was their luck that the Flower's effects hadn't occurred full force for the moment.

After a brutal session on the skiers' joints, they finally reached the outskirts of City 17—in record time. Not that anyone ever counted.

Justin blasted by the Admin district and plowed through the tunnel rapidly approaching, zooming into the yawning dark. Within a matter of seconds at that sustained velocity, the gate was at hand. After the necessary halt by the gate sentries, he was back at it again, speeding through the other half of the tunnel and skyrocketing up the final ramp into the inner sanctum with a few inches of air beneath. They landed at the foot of the courtyard with a firm bounce, Justin exuding no intent on slowing. The Mongoose's powerplant surged briefly and was churning back to top RPM in another instant after the suspension completely dampened out the oscillations.

The expansive vestibule was predictably empty of people and objects. Justin's eyes were glued to the Easterly front. He headed in that direction, spanning the entire courtyard in seconds and entering another downward grade in the pavement. They dove under the stout perimeter wall and the mighty spire disappeared from above. Justin kept on going until he had to slow for another entry control point deep inside the dark passage. The guards swiftly sent them through and the Mongoose and all its ferry emerged into the sought-after stock yard a moment later.

Light flooded once again. Rows upon columns of fenced-in squares were spread out before them, arranged in an orderly grid fashion beneath the clouds. The complex stretched at least one-hundred meters out. Housed inside each cage were shrink-wrapped pallets sitting over 2x4s of dunnage. Justin took his feet off the pegs and let them drag on the ground as he emerged from the entrance, the Mongoose now slowed to a crawl. He coasted down the main column, no turns or detours taken, his head pointed to the right as he scanned informative placards fastened to the chain-link in a line of storage units. Fold-out tables and plastic chairs and half-smoked butts littered the occasional aisle.

The various drop shipments of the day were landed with precision guidance some distance further out, where empty field met a final fortification. The unpackaged contents were moved a short distance to this staging area where they were placed on transportable pallets. It was then that Chris took notice of a structure equally as massive as the Lookout some distance behind them. Up ahead was an orbital tether towering above them to heights unseen. He assumed it had always been obscured due to it being directly inline with the Eastern Spire, not to mention it lied inside the heaviest patch of smog present in any direction.

It moved slowly like canted clotheslines of rustic villages he'd seen in some outer colony. Clove-hitch apparatuses jutted out from the main 'girder' like footpegs. Further and further up, Chris craned his neck skyward and caught sight of a few cargo containers anchored to these hitches, hauling toward the space elevator's highest point.

"You ever thought about escaping?" Chris asked of Justin. "Box yourselves inside one of those airtight containers and stowaway?"

Justin was searching for a specific location designated for firearms and/or ammunition, meandering through the maze with the ATV now at a crawling speed. He halted with a squeeze of the front brake lever and the slotted rotors gave a slight groan under the strong clamping force of hydraulically-assisted calipers.

"Are you dumb? You didn't think for one second that they'd already thought of that?"

"Well, has anyone ever tried it?"

"The first and only guy to do it was sent back down a week later."

"Well, at least he tried."

"...In several sections."

"Uh, what?"

"NMA hacked him up and sent his corpse down in a series of five or six containers. Get the message?"

Justin craned his neck and saw the cage was uncharacteristically low on supplies with only a single pallet standing a measly half-meter off the dunnage. He dismounted and stepped up to the locked, chain-link door and peered closer at the weatherproof display's readout:

C-17
LOT# 001
CAGE# 055
CARGO: SMALL ARMS & ANCILLARY HARDWARE
CONTENTS: (5) Bandolier, sets; (5) Belts, utility; (5) Combat Boots, pair; (3) Optical Sights, LASER; (30) Field Cleaning Kit, firearms; (20) Hex Key, drivers

Justin sighed and looked away. He glanced toward the field beyond.

Some of the workers Justin knew well were just getting off shift, walking his way from the drop zone. Even from this distance, he could tell they'd worked particularly hard this day, their boots and trousers heavily soiled, their hands limp and weary beneath their oil and clay-stained gloves. A few robotic loaders and a stolen Cyclops unit were all parked under a nearby awning, their fuel cells charging until the next drop. Unfortunate that they hadn't worked as hard to deliever any firearms today. But of course it wasn't their fault. They had no control over what arrived. Whatever dropped...dropped. Whenever it got here...it got here.

Justin remounted the Mongoose and sped a short distance to the incoming flock, full throttle. Upon them, he nailed both sets of brakes and shut down the engine with a swift jab of the killswitch. Bill and Ken, on their skis, flew by and came to a stop five meters ahead of him from the abrupt change of inertia. Both skiers flared out and expertly stopped, but glanced back at Justin with disapproving glares. Justin paid no mind and held up a hand at his most trusted contact. It was Zebulan, a rather obese, slow-moving man who always worked as much as he could and much harder than anyone else, to which Justin never knew why or cared.

"Zeb."

The exhausted yard worker was practically huffing as he strolled over, less than enthusiastic to head in any direction other than home. "What's up, Reid?"

"Need a favor. Weapons crate has everything I don't need. If you come through on this one, I'll owe you."

"Spit it out."

"Need a gun. Preferably, a shotgun. If you can throw in a frag grenade, I'll pay you back with a double helping of smokes or liquor or whatever the next shift I got."

"You came at a bad time. I can't do guns right now. Not only did we just pack up for the day, but the manifests have had no guns for at least a week."

"Nothing in back-stock? The mezzanines?"

"Nope. I think we're set to receive some in a couple of days, though. Can it wait 'till then?"

Justin bit his lower lip. "No." he said absentmindedly. "No, it can't wait. But just set it aside for me anyway." Justin pedaled the Mongoose about to 180°, fired it up and sped back to the inner courtyard. "Thanks!" he said over his shoulder.

After a somber coast, he gradually came to a stop right in the middle of the giant, diamond-shaped vestibule outside the factory where they usually labored day after day. Justin stared up into the steel-grey sky for a moment. "So…anyone got any ideas?" he asked. "I'm only gonna ask once."

"I wish I knew what to do." Ken said, looking into the sky. "…Maybe we can just use the shovel on them? Splatter them into blood and guts?"

"How fast those things move...maybe." Justin said. "What about you, Bill?"

Bill simply shook his head. He was never really good at violence even if it was enacted upon a completely malevolent enemy. Even a non-human, malevolent enemy.

"Okay, then." Justin said. He fired up the Mongoose yet again and sped out away from the factory district.

Through the tunnel, into the Admin district and back onto the crumbling road, Justin halted one last time. There had to be some solution, something they overlooked, something obvious. He looked up and found himself facing the mine shaft where he first stumbled upon the Trumpet Flower. Strangely enough, the entrance was blocked off with boulders—or—rather it had collapsed by the look of it. Justin paid no mind to it nonetheless, for that mine was better off forgotten. He'd never venture there again. Smoking that plant had been among the worst of choices he'd ever made.

Just as he panned his sights away from that cursed cave, he realized where he had parked the Mongoose, where everyone currently stood.

The fork in the road.

He looked toward the horizon far beyond. Hazy, grim and bleak was the sight that way. He stared into it thoughtfully.

"What are you thinking?" Bill asked.

"We're going that way. We're going to get a gun."

Bill was a holy man, had been most of his life. His vocabulary was not known for being very colorful. He rarely uttered expletives; such words served little purpose other than to draw negative attention to one's self. But what Justin suggested, rather, ordered, warranted one little exception.

"Oh…shit."

No one said a word during the trip down the road never to be traveled.

Everyone knew perfectly well it was uncharted territory, yet none could fathom what the journey had planned for them. The flat, endless terrain eventually betrayed them. Barely visible now were the faint and blocky shapes of boulders scattered throughout the landscape ahead. Within a few moments at 45kph, they were navigating amid them. Many places to hide for potential adversaries. And anyone could hear them coming a kilometer away.

But over some time at a low-speed cruise, the lifeless world had a calming effect on their nerves. The wind pelted gently at their faces. The whine of the engine was lulling. But before any rider had the time to stray into dream, any harmony to be had in such a world was instantly stolen at the sight of a mass grave.

What once looked to be smaller boulders a moment ago weren't. Muddied, half-frozen corpses laid motionless, some stacked two or three high, almost perfectly preserved by a paper-thin frost layer. Even the faces were still in life-like condition after ten years. A sea of eyes remained wide open, and for more than a gravball field the fallen of The Unknown War bared truth of the planet's past unto passerbys. All but Chris had seen this sight before. Little had changed. The boy tried to look away but he couldn't. If the faces weren't so easily visible, he might've had another chance to preserve what innocence was left in him. But it was mostly the eyes—thousands of them.

"More history." Justin said as they rode past the scene.

Of course, every area contiguous to other cities was much the same. The coordinated, anarchistic efforts of Kaiser Sergei many years ago were far-reaching. Even if the mysterious warlord had any decency placed into his campaign against the oppressive rule of THI, he couldn't conceivably control his entire army, either. Hundreds of thousands died under his command, innocents included. Presently, no one knew exactly how influential the man was these days, which presented ever more danger.

Now, everyone had peeled eyes and perked ears, a heightened sense of perception. At one point or another in the journey, each of them thought the exact same thing: that the sound of the Mongoose riding through the plains seemed to paint a bull's-eye on them all. A factory in the distance had doubled in size since the departure from City 17, but there was no comfort to be had despite the returning signs of looming civilization. Not only was the mass grave a stark reminder of the bitter reality, but the new city was not their destination—the shanty town before it was. And it was suffocating with a rivaling amount of dust and manmade fallout in its own right. Visible from a great distance was the cloud reigning over it.

The human-boulders disappeared as they transitioned into the outskirts of this establishment. Now, there were small huts and pre-fabbed metal structures and adobe brick houses, perhaps erected with the aid of Traxus IX's own crust. At the town's edge, a horde of prostitutes in plaid skirts and fishnet stockings loitered about, most of them men. Chris glanced confusingly on at them until he saw a far more wretched sight: children, most of them no more than ten years of age toting guns and co-mingling with the scantily-clad elderlies, smiling ear to ear and playing in the dirt with one another. Chris winced at the sight of them as they sped past.

"Traxus Nine native-borns." Justin said. "First offspring of this place. The only existence they've ever known and they're all happy as clams. Ignorance is bliss, eh?"

Chris was fixated on the wretched sight over his shoulder, growing ever smaller as they rode by. "It's terrible."

Bill conveyed the gesture of the Trinity to the heavens above—Father, Son and Holy Spirit across his forehead and chest—as if the lifeless skies would grant him safety and comfort as they ventured further in.

They had officially entered Kaiser Sergei's realm.

The air was almost stifling as they progressed deeper into this exceptionally hideous domain, strange how the wavering heat around them prevailed over Traxus IX's super cooled atmosphere. Heavy industry was alive everywhere they turned. People labored in their various functions, be it in metal forges, tar and phosphate pits, or anything else that fueled heavy industry here. There was not a motionless person in sight. Many of them paused and did double takes at the Mongoose, now at a steady coast.

To Chris, it was uncanny how Justin could keep a straight face.

Perhaps equally remarkable was how Justin could pick apart the detailed layout of a town as they sped through each one, getting closer and closer to their final destination. Nothing had changed over the years ever since their Kaiser held the majority share over the criminal underworld, organizing, refining it. He created a free market in the purest sense by attempting takeover after takeover, streamlining the lessors' efforts. Here, just outside of City 17 lied Kaiser Sergei's heartland.

Just like the homogeny THI had erected over the years, so too had he. Every community, if one could call them such, was more or less made up of concentric rings, only visible by way of function and the type of characters that traversed each one. At the innermost circle of every town was the presiding warlord, the commanding presence of all that took place in their domain. The immediate outlying circle was the weapons cache, always within close proximity to the warlord and his bodyguards, and most certainly under their direct control...always within reach. The next circle surrounding all that was the drug and human trafficking ring, undoubtedly the largest of them all. Past that were the drones, the workers.

For as far as one could peer into one of the many villages, the view only worsened the deeper it went. Again and again, town after town. A recursion of felonious fractal-patterns. Nature's work.

"See how he arranges his societal hierarchies?" Justin asked Chris as he glanced over his shoulder at the boy.

"Who, Sergei?"

"Yeah. Look."

"Where would he be?" Chris asked, maintaining his eye contact on the world around him.

"At dead center. And you can be sure he knows we're coming."

"You're scaring me now. And how do you know that he knows?"

"Word travels fast in a small town, boy. Didn't anyone ever teach you that? Look again...all the people that have already seen us coming. We haven't yet slowed down so they know we're not here for kicks."

Chris' grasp over the back of the driver's seat began to weaken and tremble.

"Hang in there. This isn't as bad as it looks."

Chris relaxed his stance and sighed powerfully, maintaining rigid eye contact with all the sights now surrounding them as they rocketed toward the epicenter of all this raw debauchery.

"...Because it's about to get much worse."

"Thanks, Justin."

The boy looked back at Bill and Ken on the skis: they were holding up just fine themselves. There was no fear in their eyes or faces, but then Chris instantly remembered what had transpired after they ingested that powerful flower. Any or all of them could have been hallucinating for the entire journey, but they still had coordination and were upright.

Justin gently swerved the Mongoose out the path of feral looking individuals obviously out looking for fights. Nothing seemed to faze him thus far in, a comfort to Chris. The worst seemed behind them now. The town had grown comfortably more silent and the air felt cooler as they left the bustling districts, with fewer and fewer denizens of this abominable nest meandering in and out of their way. But it was for a particular reason. They didn't belong here.

Up ahead of them lied a pre-fabbed building, just a large sheetmetal roof draped and riveted over its hidden support trusses. Subtle and not-so-subtle alterations distinguished it from the other structures of its kind further aft of them. The doors were wider, taller and looked sturdier at a passing glance. A double wall of sandbags was packed around the façade with defensive fighting positions dug in behind them, heavy machine gun turrets bristling outwards. Though currently unmanned, it was the only such place in this town with such fortification and firepower. This structure was prepared for a defensive battle, just the place a warlord would hunker down inside of.

"He'd be here, Chris." Justin smartly slowed. He chose a place to park a good walking distance away from the hideout and dismounted. Everyone else mirrored the move, slowly. Bill and Ken removed their skis and their overboots and slung them over their shoulders. They dared not leave it near the 'Goose, lest they wanted them to grow pairs of legs and walk away. Together, they approached the building, calmly, coolly. Two sentries held the front door on either side, milling about with mil-spec assault rifles carried loosely in their grasp. They suddenly focused on the group as soon as they were a stone's throw away.

The hideout had no windows, no doors along the sides. Maybe the rear was just the same. Before losing the angle of their sidelong approach, Justin could make out a small motor pool out back. Warthogs, Mongooses, and what looked to be the spare parts of an AV-14 attack Hornet were strewn out all over a wide patch of concrete. That portion of the view soon disappeared as they met the guards.

Justin held up a hand in greeting. The guards offered no reply, their current demeanor appearing severe as their overall character.

"Is the boss here?"

"Maybe. Who's asking?" One of them said. He was big and tall and wore Kevlar over his torso that protruded a slight amount over a fatty gut.

"My name is Reid and I want to talk business."

"Sergei don't need business from no travelers. Turn around and piss off."

The man hardened his stance, suggesting that unwanted visitors did well to walk away when told to.

"Before I go," Justin said, "do you value your job?"

The guards looked at one another. One of them shrugged and the larger one in front of Justin said, "I'm a fair man this fine day, so you have ten seconds to leave before I drop you." A succinct, metallic click announced to everyone that the weapon was just un-safed. "One…"

"Clearly you don't fully appreciate the opportunity the boss man has given you, entrusting his security to you."

"…Two."

"But don't get me wrong, you're doing a spectacular job at it. I just offered to trade with the most powerful man in all the plains and you clearly see that I'm of no use here just because I don't look like much."

"…Three."

"Is it just perception? Do I really appear so insignificant? Because I'm pretty sure myself that you know nothing of a real opportunity. I mean, if you asked me, I wouldn't have woke up one day and said to myself, man, I really want to be a security guard for the rest of my life."

"…Four!"

"You probably couldn't spot a deal if it ran up and smacked you in the asscheeks. Am I somewhat correct in saying this?"

"…Five." The guard bared gritted teeth.

Chris started to back away and head in the direction of the Mongoose.

"…Six."

"Uh…Justin." Bill said. "Why don't we just come back another time? It seems as though they don't want to be disturbed today."

"…Seven."

Justin remained firmly in place. "Ken, get back to the 'Goose."

"Okay." Ken said, backpedaling slowly.

"…Eight."

"But I have an offer Sergei cannot refuse. Don't you at least want to hear me out?"

"…Nine."

"You're gonna be sorry if you don't hear me out." Justin said, grinning.

The other guard watching all this was baffled at Justin's defiance, wondering if Reid would suddenly run away in the next second or try to make a move on them or do something else foolish. He racked a round into the chamber of his rifle nonetheless and prepared to hose Justin down with bullets on his leader's action.

"Well, since I've only got a second left, I'll just take the liberty of divulging what it is I have to offer."

"…Ten."

"I can give him City Seventeen."

There was a brief moment of hesitation, the sentries' muzzles pointed squarely at Justin's chest.

They looked at one another and the subordinate lowered his weapon. The higher ranking individual then pushed open the door to a dimly lit interior, fuming with a powerful mix of adrenaline, anger, and whatever synthetics were coursing through his veins.

Justin smiled for a moment at the two of them.

"Well, what do you know? Logic prevails today. Good job, soldier. Good job."

He glanced back and waved everyone along.