“Emil? Can you hear me? I’m at sub-level 6. At least I think it is. There’s a big door here, steel I think. I don’t remember it from the specs. Could you check them?”
“Matthew, I can’t—“ the signal from Lodestar’s communicator crackled into static. “—should already be there, maybe he—“
“Damn prototypes,” Lodestar muttered. He raised the beam of his flashlight to regard the door again. Sublevel six, just like sublevels three through five, had been nothing but old abandoned office corridors. A couple areas, like the comm center, hinted at the fact that this had once been a secret government installation, but most of it had been surprisingly ordinary. Now this. The door was a perfect circle, like a bank vault. The retinal-scan panel to its right was dark and inert.
“DO YOU REQUIRE AID, LODESTAR?” boomed a voice from out of the darkness. Matthew yelped and crouched defensively, covering his head with his arms.
“DO NOT BE ALARMED BY MY APPEARANCE.”
“Great Scott, Empyrean. It’s not your appearance. It’s when you sneak up like that. I didn’t realize you were coming down here.”
“I WAS NOT ATTEMPTING TO BE STEALTHY, LODESTAR. I APOLOGIZE.”
“No, that’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Maybe you can help me with this door.” Lodestar pointed the flashlight at Empyrean, who was hovering a few feet above the floor. His grey skin shimmered oddly in the light.
“You got your hair cut.”
“I THOUGHT A MODERN STYLE MIGHT BE APPROPRIATE. IS IT SATISFACTORY?”
“Um . . . yeah. Great. So, do you know how to fix retinal scanners?”
“NEVER MIND THAT. I WILL GAIN US ENTRY.”
“OK, just be c—“
WHAM! Empyrean’s fist slammed into the door, denting it an inch. “GOOD DOOR,” said Empyrean. WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM!
The thooming noises echoes through the underground corridor. Lodestar retreated away from the door to stop his head from banging.
“Matthew? Are you there?”
Lodestar looked for a moment in surprise at the communicator on the back of his hand, then raised it. “Yeah, hi, Emil. Must have been something by the door causing the interference. Empyrean’s down here getting it open.”
“I don’t think that would be wise, Matthew. That sector wasn’t on the maps, and if that door is anything like the ones ImpactCorp has installed in the past, it’s hiding something nasty.”
“Got it, Emil. Thanks.” Lodestar lowered his hands. “Empyrean! Cut it out with the banging! Maybe we should get some backup in here before we –“
WHAM-THOOM!
Empyrean’s last punch finally broke through the door, and with a grunt of satisfaction, the alien grasped the sides of the hole and pulled outward. The room on the other side of the door was brightly lit, though Empyrean blocked Lodestar’s view. He heard a scuttling sound.
“FASCINATING,” said Empyrean.
Now Lodestar heard several scuttling sounds. “What’s in there, buddy?” he said.
“DO NOT BE ALARMED BY MY APP—augh!” Something yanked Empyrean in through the opening. Lodestar thought he caught a glimpse of a a metallic claw.
“Crikey,” muttered Lodestar. With a thought, his hands and forearms crackled with energy, and their durable skin-colored covering sprayed off in all directions. Underneath, they were green. He strode up to the opening in the circular door.
The room beyond was part holding chamber, part laboratory. A number of examination tables filled the center, all attached to medical equipment, most of which Lodestar didn’t recognize. One table had a huge welding laser mounted over it, however, and the other gear in that corner suggested a robotics workshop more than anything else. Along the walls were a dozen upright suspended-animation chambers with translucent faceplates. Most were closed, but the three on the left-hand wall weren’t.
Their recent occupants were gleefully attempting to rend Empyrean limb from limb, but finding it difficult. Lodestar at first took them for androids, because of the metallic sheen of their armor, faceplates, and long, telescoping tails. But on second glance he realized these formed more of a robotic exoskeleton over something very much alive – though not something he could immediately identify. They stood upright and moved and fought like humanoids, but their faces were immistakably those of rats. All three looked up from Empyrean’s unconscious form.
“Smaller, he is. Juicier too, yes?” one of them said. It had chipped a tooth trying to bite into Empyrean’s thigh.
“Where the heck did the Feds find you?” said Lodestar.
“Found us. Ah yes. Very funny. You die now.”
The creature launched itself at Lodestar, easily covering the fifteen feet or so between them. He had been worried about what would happen if they had all charged him at once. This was easy. He raised his right hand and projected a narrow channel of retrusion-force away from him, targeted at the creature’s torso. It reversed direction in mid-jump and slammed into the far wall.
“Kill it! Kill it!” the wounded creature howled. The other two, which had apparently made some progress getting into Empyrean’s arm, stood up and turned on Lodestar, grinning.
Thank goodness for vaulted ceilings. Lodestar’s left hand pushed downward, and he hovered into the air, out of their reach, but not their jumps. As the first once pounced, he junted sideways out of its way, and back the other way to avoid the second one.
Part of Lodestar wanted to stop and listen to the pleasant female voice on the loudspeaker that was saying something he couldn’t quite hear. But he had to turn his attention to the first rat-thing, which had pulled itself together and was pouncing at him yet again. This time Lodestar aimed his retrusion right for the sucker’s head, and pushed back, hard. It flipped over at least four times before crashing into the floor, out cold.
Numbers two and three were finally getting smart, though. They pounced in tandem, and Lodestar was only able to push one of them out of the way. It latched onto his leg and pulled them both to the ground, and then they were both on him, and Lodestar felt his shoulder go warm, right where one of them was biting down.
Not much time. In the back of his mind, Lodestar made a mental note: “Health insurance for an Abnormal team – how to make it work? Research feasibility of group policy from a major provider versus in-house providership. Also, still need a better term than ‘Abnormal.’” But the front of his mind was more concerned with the fact that he was about to die. His right arm was free, though, and he could just make out the tip of the industrial-strength welding laser over in the direction. He pulled at the tip, and the whole mechanism swiveled to face him and the rat-things. He didn’t have much of a chance to line things up properly, but rat-thing number two was eyeing his neck and slavering. He switched from pull to push, and aimed a tightly-focused channel at the big red “ON” button.
Red light, burning metal, sizzling fur, high-pithced howl. Rat-thing number two now had a hole in it and was lying on its side. The beam hovered twelve inches or so over Lodestar’s head. He felt himself being dragged out from under it by his shoulders. Then rat-thing number three straddled him, and smiled. “All mine now,” it rasped. Lodestar ordered his hand to point at it and push it away, but he had lost a lot of blood, and everything was very hazy. There was that nice female voice again. What was she saying?
The rat-thing opened its mouth, and Lodestar could see metallic teeth and an organic tongue. Its breath was pungent and oddly chemical, though not unpleasant.
“Please don’t,” he mumbled. “I like my face.”
CRUNCH-SPLURT!
Two big grey hands swung in from either side, squashing the rat-thing’s head like a melon. Sparks flew out amid the oozing innards, and the body crumpled to the ground. Empyrean stood there, grinning sheepishly.
“I APOLOGIZE FOR FALLING ASLEEP EARLIER,” he said.
“It’s not ‘falling asleep,’ Empyrean. You were knocked out.”
The big grey guy helped Lodestar to his feet.
“I WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN SHE GETS TO ‘ONE’?” said Empyrean.
“Who?” said Lodestar. Then he remembered. The voice. Without the din of battle, he could make it out.
“Ten . . . nine . . . clear all personnel . . . security breach unresolvable . . . five . . . four . . .”
“Out!” yelled Lodestar. Empyrean squeezed through the opening he had forced in the door, pulling Lodestar with him. Somehow Lodestar found enough strength to turn around and project a force field against the opening of the door. “Hold me steady,” he said.
The explosion erupted from somewhere inside the lab, and everything in it went up in a fireball. The field absorbed a good chunk of the kinetic energy, but not all of it, and none of the heat. Both of them went flying backwards, and Lodestar succumbed to oblivion.
Sweet, sweet Vicadin. That was what was keeping Lodestar on his feet four days later, against doctor’s orders. Still too much to do. He limped into Dr. Emil’s lab.
“Matthew,” said Emil, nodding. “Good timing. Are you here to ask what I think you’re here to ask?”
“I dunno,” said Lodestar. “I was wondering how the heck those rat-things managed to knock Empyrean out when they couldn’t even break his skin. And whether your tests turned anything up.”
“Indeed they have,” said Dr. Emil. “It was a gas. Probably supposed to keep him under for longer, but the initial effects were quite overwhelming.”
“I don’t get it. Why the heck didn’t they use it against me too? They’d have had us.”
“Because the gas was not designed to work against our species. Just Empyrean’s.”
“Wait – are you saying –“
“I must do many more tests to be sure of this, Matthew. But I agree that the implications are puzzling and possibly disturbing. The chief question you must ask yourself right now is this: will you tell him?”
Lodestar frowned, and though for a moment, staring at his toes. Then he looked up. “Yes,” he said. “But not yet.”
