Signs of Humanity Chapter 10 - Sign 3
Signs of Humanity Chapter 10 - Sign 3
Sign 3
"It's just down here" Marcus' mouth was dry, his hands shaking hoping his backup wasn't going to leave him high and dry. Luckily it didn't seem like either Jericho or Lilith paid him much attention, they rightfully assumed at this point Marcus wasn't any threat, he had never been someone you would call brave. Even with this new stronger body, he knew he didn't have the instinct to fight. No, his way was to grovel and scheme looking for the little cracks he could squeeze through to live another day.
"So, it's in here, finally" Jericho said under his breath. The thing that had brought him all this way, was now within his reach. Soon he could be free from the last chain Seon had bound him with.
"This better not have been a trick" Jericho shot an intimidating glance at Marcus who recoiled instantly.
"No never, I'm your prisoner, after all, I wouldn't dare throw my life away on something small like this" Marcus quickly reasoned subconsciously looking down the hallways.
Jericho caught this but didn't draw attention to it, sniffing the air he couldn't pick up any new smells as far as he could tell, nothing else was around them.
"Lilith, how do you feel?" Jericho asked out of the blue.
"Huh... I'm fine, just a little cold. Why are you asking?" Lilith snapped out of some deep thought as to why a natural stone cave could have square tunnels, now confused by Jericho's out-of-nowhere question.
Jericho paused for a second "No reason, just getting a sense for things. Here's how we are going to play this I'm going to head inside the store room, you and our friend here are going to wait outside".
"What? Why?" They both said in unison.
"Because I don't trust you Marcus, but I trust Lilith to keep you in line" Jericho reached into his bag and pulling out the small pistol and handed it to Lilith.
"Ok Lilith while I'm in there you make sure he doesn't move from this spot. If he does, you shoot him, if you see anything suspicious you also fire the gun. I don't care if it's at the thing or if it's at Marcus or the wall just make sure to pull the trigger, ok?"
"Wait why me?" Marcus shook his head in confusion.
Glaring at Marcus "Shooting Marcus is the best option, you good with that?"
"Yes" without hesitation Lilith took the gun, checking it to make sure it was good to fire and readied herself. "Promise you won't take too long".
"I'll be back in 2 seconds" he smiled at her as he turned to open the door.
"If anything goes wrong here, I'll have your head Marcus" Jericho muttered as he grabbed the door handle.
"Of course not, I would never" a huge gulp rang out from Marcus in the hallway.
Jericho slowly opened the door to the store room, the tension between the three was so thick it was making it hard to breathe.
As the door slowly creaked open it revealed, nothing. No traps, no Gen Xs, no Golam, no nothing. Jericho sighed with relief, while Marcus trembled in fear. Looking back at Lilith, Jericho nodded with a smile then glanced a suspicious eye at Marcus.
Marcus tried to summon a reassuring smile "See, I told you, no traps."
"Right" Jericho turned away and headed into the room. The inside was similar to the other rooms he had seen in the Helix Towers, walls stained with mould, ceiling beginning to collapse, light fixtures barely functioning while at the same time buzzing with that annoying fluorescent light scream.
What made this room different were the rows of these identical wooden shelves of small draws filling it. Some had fallen over, collapsing under years of rot. All this decay didn't help the smell, there was a variety of sticky multi-coloured spots on the ground which filled the room with a horrific staleness that mixed with the over baring smell of mildew.
Was the thing that was meant to save his life really in a toxic waste dump like this? Having no better option Jericho began to search the draws. They only stood about shoulder height but the draws were small and narrow and could hold a surprising number of things.
One draw he opened contained a collection of bizarre metal instruments Jericho had never seen before. Another, rows upon rows of small test tubes. With another labelled Narcotics, which was empty.
Luckily the front of the draws had labels that read out odd words he had never read before, but they all seemed to be in alphabetical order so with any luck he would only need to search the A's and C's. As luck would continue to occur that was in the section that was not falling apart.
After a few minutes of digging through the draws and ploughing through all the ones in the A section. He had rushed on to the C section, finding one simply labelled 'Cures'. Ripping it open his heart skipped a beat as the draw was mostly empty excluding a single metal box in the first partition labelled 'All'.
Pulling it out, hands shaking he opened the box, inside was a fat circular jar with a rather large and thick needle sticking out of the bottom. The liquid in the jar was bright red and rather thick, it moved around slowly in the jar as he picked it up.
The instructions on the inside of the lid of the box read:
Step One, remove the protective cap from the needle.
Step Two, insert the needle into the patient's abdomen until the guard on the syringe makes contact with the skin.
(If the release button goes inside the patient, you have gone too far remove it and try again)
Step Three, press the release button, this will activate a pressure valve to force the liquid into the patient at a rather high speed. This will cause some discomfort so it is recommended that you anaesthetise before the injection.
Warning if the liquid has turned black do not use it.
Side effects after the injection the patient may experience are; extreme bouts of rage, hallucinations and a short coma that could last up to 3 days. It is recommended that the patient is isolated until they have recovered from the All Cure.
"So probably shouldn't take it right this second" smiling he put the box in his bag and turned to head back to the door.
As Jericho did, shots outside the room rang out and Marcus stumbled through the door grasping his left arm as blood poured out of it.
For a second their eyes met, the look of fear on Marcus' face was clear, as was the rage on Jericho's. But before he could act, Jericho felt this overwhelming intensity creep up from behind him.
Suddenly the wall next to him blew apart as a large meaty, 3 thumb hand ripped it open. The smell hit him like a ton of bricks, not only was that hulking healer brute back and with Marcus standing in the only exit to the room. There was another stench on the air Jericho could pick up on just outside the door meaning there were at least 3 brutes he and Lilith had to deal with.
Wasting no time as Golam reached for him, Jericho quickly pulled the knife from his bag and slashed Golam across his open palm. Recoiling from the intense pain he opened a clear path for Jericho.
"Lilith!" He yelled as he jumped on the top of the shelves and ran across the tops of decaying fixtures. They snapped, bent and came crashing down under his feet, but it didn't affect Jericho, he was moving too fast for it to matter.
As he reached the door and Marcus, who looked away and covered his face with his arms. Instead of attacking, Jericho opted to instead use Marcus to change direction. Planting his foot on the thing’s long forearms, Jericho pushed off and dived through the open door.
"Lilli..." Jericho's words caught in his throat, "...th" with the rest forced out along with his breath, as a large black tail hit his chest knocking the wind out of him.
It seemed Marcus had grown a spine in the last few seconds, or rather he was more afraid of Olsen, than Jericho. Whichever it was all Jericho could think, as the tail wrapped around him pulling him back into the room was "Should have stabbed him... I still could".
Jericho plunged the knife into Marcus's tail and ripped it sideways cutting him so deep that it almost cut it in two.
With a yell Marcus spun on his feet building up momentum and tossed Jericho across the room slamming him into a heap of destroyed shelves. Before Jericho could regain his composure a large hand from above came down to pulled him up by the neck.
Golem had recovered from the pain of the last attack and was upon Jericho. Jericho quickly slammed the knife again into Golem's hand, but the handle bounced harmlessly off his skin. "Damn it," Jericho thought as he looked at the broken knife in his hand, the blade had snapped off in Marcus's tail when he was thrown across the room.
"You put up a good fight for a heathen", grumbled Golem, as he pulled Jericho into an embrace so tight it was pushing the air out of his lungs. Because of Golem's immense size Jericho's feet were dangling off the ground not giving him anyway to struggle out of the suffocating embrace. At this point knowing there was no other choice Jericho prepared himself to use his abilities but stopped when an odd voice began to call out.
"Golem don't kill the poor boy, let me get a look at the one who came so far to see me." As the voice spoke Jericho could feel Golem's grip on him weaken somewhat, allowing him to get some breath back.
"Who's out there, what did you do to Lilith?" Question Jericho as he tried vainly to squeeze out of the monster's grip.
"Your friend is safe don't worry" the voice was strange like two people trying to speak at once, one monstrous grumble the other a more calm, cold female voice. "As for me, why I'm the Mother Tree you came to worship, or so you say?"
Through the doorway stepped a bloated creature whose body bulged with random large, semi-transparent half-spheres filled with a pus-like liquid. They seemed to expand and contract randomly and moved around the creature's bloated body, gliding along the flesh. Its head, thumb-shaped, rose from its neckless torso, with sunken blue eyes and a wide grin that spread from earless hole to earless hole.
Struggling in Golem’s tight grip, Jericho shouted "Where is Lilith! If you did anything to her..."
Cutting him off the creature reassured Jericho "Oh? The treasure you had with you? Not to worry I'm taking very good care of her. In fact, she is just taking a short nap at the moment so keep it down if you could."
As the creature spoke, a large bloated sphere glided from around its back to settle in the middle of its chest. Peeking out of the mass was the top of Lilith's head, exposing her from just above her mouth, she had her eyes closed and was not moving.
"What did you do to her!?" Jericho barked disturbed by the sight.
"No need to yell, she is quite safe, after all, I want her in one-piece. But while I have you, I want to find out a little more about you, I mean you're someone brave enough to come all the way here". The creature drawled condescendingly.
"I'm not here for your amusement, Olsen, isn't it? I knew you could worm your way into people's minds but I didn't think you could puppet them. Guess you've become quite the talented mutant now?" Jericho laughed at the hypocrisy of a Seon member becoming so well adept as a Psychic.
The creature's eye twitched slightly, but then its grin widened disturbingly. "Golem! Hold him a little tighter could you" the grip around his stomach tightened pushing the air out of him once again.
"Fuck you" Jericho wheezed.
"Who have you been speaking to? To know that name, it must have been that wretch Sam that escaped from me." Olsen waddled her puppet body closer.
"Never heard of a Sam, sorry, it's just been me and her" Jericho's eyes focused on Lilith's unconscious head.
"Not that it matters, I'll be leaving this place soon anyway. Sam can have this horrid hole for all I care. But what to do with you I wonder? You came here for that All Cure, what will you do now that you have it? It's yours now, so I guess you'll want to leave, yes?" Olsen was now, disturbingly close to Jericho's face the rancid smell of this thing's breath was bombarding his nose.
Snapping back quickly Jericho roared "I'm not leaving without her, so you better..."
"Or you'll do what? You are hardly in a place to make threats, I'm not even really here, cut any of these pawns down and I'll just summon more. Besides I know you can't use your abilities otherwise you would have done so already." Jericho, destroyed by Olsen's words looked down in defeat.
"I was going to let you leave as a little thank you. Having Subject 24 running around free would have been a pain for the rest of Seon to deal with, making a nice little distraction for me to move around unnoticed. But I can get the same effect by setting my Gen X army on them. So, I think for your little outburst I'll have Golem kill you instead." Olsen paused waiting to hear Jericho beg for his life, it would be so satisfying to hear Subject 24 grovel to her, oh it would be a testament to her ego to have such a reformation of her power.
"I won't beg, you can kill me if you think you're strong enough" Jericho spat back in defiance.
Disappointed Olsen mumbled, "Very well, Golem if you would." Nodding to the hulking mass that began to tighten its grip.
As his vision began to darken Jericho struggled to fight back. He tried to create spikes to shoot from his back and impale his captor. He Tried to create sharp edges that ran down the length of his arms to cut free of the fleshy tree trunks crushing him. He even struggled to activate his Release, all in vain, he didn't have the strength to summon any of them and his body hadn't the will to act.
"Golam Stop! Wait, Mother!" Marcus yelled before throwing himself to the ground clutching his head in pain.
"You dare give Golam orders without my say-so!" Olsen bellowed out at Marcus turning on him, grabbing him around the neck and hoisting him off the ground.
"Mother wait, let me explain, I only wish to help you" he begged and grasp desperately at the hand around his throat.
Dropping him to the ground but not releasing her hold on his mind Olsen threatened "If this is one of your little scams, I will not hesitate to have you torn to shreds".
"No, no never, but you said it yourself you were hoping to use Jer... I mean Subject 24 as a distraction to escape Seon's notice as you left the Helix Towers. Well, I just wanted to suggest that we can still use him". Marcus begged, holding his breath waiting for Olsen's response. He breathed a sigh of relief as the pressure in his skull disappeared.
"How do you recommend we go about that, Marcus?" Olsen prodded.
"Well simply, since he has proven to be uncooperative, why don't you replace him with someone who is? That way you don't have to waste anymore of your followers to escape into the outside world". He elaborated as he scrambling to his feet.
Marcus slapped his hand on his chest and spouted "put me in his body and I will act as the decoy for you".
Olsen laughed "Oh Marcus, this is why I left you with far more of yourself than I did with the others. Your drive to grab for power always amused me in the lab, especially at the detriment to your dignity".
Looking a little dejected Marcus was confused by the statement "what do you mean?"
"Marcus, I'm always in your mind, I hear everything you think, every time you bitched and complained, thought of killing me, thought of escape, every little cruel and vindictive thought". She mocked.
"Mother, no I..." Marcus stumbled backwards stuttering as his heart pounded in his chest.
"Oh, don't worry Marcus, you do make a fair point and I agree you would be a better decoy as Subject 24. I will give you what you desire." Olsen reassured Marcus with a mischievous smile that unsettled Marcus, what had he just signed up for?
"You truly are a rat, aren't you?" came a small struggling voice behind Marcus. Jericho was now glaring at Marcus, "Don't think it will be so simple, I'm not just going to hand myself over so easily".
"Oh, you won't have much of a say I'm afraid" Olsen nodded to Golam as he began to crush the air from Jericho once again.
It was now or never summoning all his strength forcing his body to spit out as much adrenalin as he could Jericho finally got his Release to activate. But as soon as his vision sharpened it went dark. His body became heavy and he could feel himself slipping away.
"Marcus... I will stab you next time..." Jericho whispered as he finally passed out.
Marcus's voice shook, afraid of that last remark from Jericho. "He will be restrained right?".
"It won't matter he won't be in any position to fight when he wakes next" Olsen turned to leave the room, "Come with me Marcus, we have some preparation to make, I also have some questions to ask this one about her body." Olsen looked down at Lilith's sleeping face with a greedy grin. "Golam take 24 to a holding cell. I'll ask for him shortly".
Golam stood silently looking at Jericho, not acknowledging Olsen's demands. "Golam! Are you listening!?" the voice now booming both inside and outside his head.
"Yes, Mother..." Turning and leaving through the hole in the wall he created without a sound.
"Perhaps I made that one too dumb." Olsen said as she and Marcus watched Golam leave.
"What is he thinking about?" Marcus asked.
"Just nonsense about, how this is a holy place and how we shouldn't leave, I overdid it with the religious devotion early on. No matter he can be made to follow orders".
Marcus laughed nervously "Right, but you wouldn't do that to me, would you, Mother?"
Olsen didn't acknowledge the question as she turned to leave; Marcus's heart began to race again.