Dark Angel Reverse Bang: "Trannies In the Mist" Part 3
Part 3
Satisfied for the moment, Alec flipped the phone open and hit the speaker button, moving it closer to White’s face.
“White?” a woman’s voice demanded, “You need to get back to base. We have a bigger problem than the transgenics at the moment.”
Alec’s eye brows went up at that, but he kept the knife steady on White’s throat.
The Familiar swallowed and said, “Moorehead. We had a situation that forced me to take cover in the warehouse along with the transgenics and civilians. I lost my back up. Otto was killed. No one is sure what is happening yet, but they suspect the transgenics and could easily be swayed to a riot to kill them.”
“I don’t care what the rabble do, or the transgenics. The chimeras have escaped.”
Under the fever flush, White blanched. “So they are real,” he muttered.
“Of course they are!” Moorehead snapped. “The Conclave just did not see fit to tell everyone about their existence. They are very real. And that meteor strike of last night destroyed the facility they were in. Now they are running wild in Seattle in this murk. And I want to have all my operatives where I can see them. Can you get out of the warehouse unseen?”
“I don’t think that’s wise,” White said, struggling to keep his voice even as Alec pressed the knife down a little harder. “I feel that my position is ideal. We are fortified, and have actually been attacked, but repelled them. I feel that I can start a riot that would not only cover my escape, but terminate the transgenics in the building as well, along with a number of the Ordinaries.” He paused and then said uncertainly, “Could this be the Coming? A force that would wipe the transgenics and the weaker elements away?”
Moorehead make a sound very like a growl. “I don’t know. It is possible. But the chimeras are not numerous enough to do the sort of damage we expected. Locally, yes, but not globally like we were promised. Perhaps this is just the beginning.” She sighed. “Stay at your location and report if any new developments arise. My information is incomplete; the fog is preventing accurate reports from both the news and the others of the Conclave in the field. Fe’nos tol.”
“Fe’nos tol.”
Alec snapped the phone shut and turned the knife from White’s throat to his eye, the tip pressing ever so lightly on the bottom lid. “Chimeras. What are they? Now.”
White pulled his lips back in a snarl and tried to spit at Alec, but the knife pressed just a little harder.
“I will take the eye,” Alec warned, voice low. “Messy, nasty, not as clean as I usually like to operate, but I’ll take it. And the other one, and then maybe your nose, until you talk.”
“Fine,” White said, a hint of laughter in his voice. “I doubt knowing will actually save you, anyway.”
What followed was one of the most surreal things Alec had ever heard, even with fact that he was a genetically enhanced super soldier whose closest friends who looked like a bloodhound and a lizard.
It turned out, the Breeding Cult had their own mythology that tangled with some more familiar mythology, and those myths were apparently more real than anyone thought. The Breeding Cult had started devising their super humans to combat against monsters, beasts known as chimeras.
Similar to the chimeras of Greek mythology, it had the body of a lion, a tail that of a snake, but instead of a goat’s head in its back, there were tentacles to reach out and drag the victim close. The Breeding Cult’s people had to be fast, strong, feel no pain, and be immune to the venom of the snake’s bite; their special ceremonial snakes had been bred to have similar qualities to the chimera’s bite - if you could survive that, you could survive the chimera.
No one beyond the higer-ups in the Council knew that there had been a small population of chimeras that had actually been developed and kept in a facility near Seattle. Until now. The Familiars should be able to deal with them with adequate warning, but anyone else was going to be destroyed.
When White finished speaking, Alec had to repress a shiver. Was it just coincidence that the shock wave from the meteor that let the monsters loose had tumbled that book about Greek mythology from his book shelf the night before? Or had it been some sort of sign? He wasn’t the superstitious type, but now he had to wonder. He pulled the knife away from White’s eye and then moved to cut the ropes binding his wrists and ankles.
Eyes narrowed, White watched every move.
Finished, Alec straightened and nodded towards White’s abandoned clothes. “Get dressed. We’re going to join everyone else and tell them what’s going on.”
“You honestly think they’ll believe it?” White sneered. “You’ll start a panic, or they’ll all get angry and attack you.”
“And you,” Alec replied. “’Cause I’m making you tell the story.”
White’s clothing, despite how Alec had split the seams to remove the, were mostly salvageable. In a few minutes, Alec pushed White to face the others at the front of the warehouse. There was some murmuring and hesitant movements.
“What did you do to him?” one voice wondered.
“Sir, are you alright?”
“Transgenic monster,” one last person growled out before Clemente lifted his voice in an order for silence.
Alec prodded White in the ribs with the knife. The man winced and snarled but looked up at the crowd.
“There is something out there, in the mist,” he started.
A frustrated Sector Police officer barked a harsh laugh. “Tell us something we don’t know!”
“They’re creatures, animals, called chimeras,” White said evenly.
The crowd fell silent for a moment, before a derisive flutter of laughter floated up.
“Wait, is that a code name, or something, like Manticore?” Sketchy wondered.
Cindy hit him. “Shut up fool, and don’t add to the problem.”
“I was just wondering.”
The police officer called out again. “The only animals I see in here are those transgenics!”
A cry of agreement went up from the crowd, and Alec saw White smile grimly.
“Let’s get rid of the monsters that we know are real!” a man cried out, and grabbed a side arm from one of the National Guardsmen. The soldier made no move to take the weapon back and flipped the safety off his machine gun instead.
“Hey now!” Max shouted and sprang forward, her hands up and out in both a placating gesture and an order to halt. “We can’t do this! We have to work together to get past whatever’s out there!”
“Yeah?” the now armed rabble raiser hefted the pistol and pointed it at her. “How do we know that this isn’t some sort of trap you mutants set?”
“One of ours got ripped apart out in the mist, or did you miss that?” Alec demanded, fear and fury rising through his gut. It wouldn’t take much to push the nervous crowd to lynch mob mode.
“Strategic loss,” said a Guardsman. “Obviously a ruse to make us feel for you.”
Joshua growled and twitched forward. “Mole was a friend,” he snarled. “We don’t use friends like that!”
“You’re animals, you can’t understand friendship!”
“If we’re animals, you’re putting us to bay, and that’s going to be dangerous.” Alec took a step away from White and let his knife hand dangle by his side, long and loose.
“For you or for us?” the rabble raiser demanded.
Max lifted her hands again. “Calm down everyone!”
It was too late. The crowd surged forward.
But before anyone could make another move, window glass and the reinforcement over it exploded inward. Two windows, on opposite ends of the room, gaped open to the mist. A bubbling roar filled the air. Everyone, the transgenics included, instinctively ran away from the threats, and huddled in the center of the large room. The soldiers, police and transgenics sprang into action. They forced the unarmed and terrified civilians into the center of a circle and faced the threat with weapons readied.
For several long moments nothing happened. The mist curled and lapped at the edges of the broken windows, but the late afternoon sun did nothing to illuminate what was beyond them. Feet shuffled on the dusty concrete, fingers danced around triggers, eyes shifted from breach to breach. No one was willing to let their guard down, but no one could stand still.
Then, with a roar that was literally deafening in the echoing confines of the warehouse, a creature sprang through the window. Before it even had cleared the shattered glass still in the frame, there was a second roar and another beast in the other window.
They were huge, easily the size of well fed and mature lions, but with longer legs, increasing their height. They had heavy black manes and golden bodies of rough fur. Slavering jaws with massive fangs opened for another roar. The furred tail mutated after the first six inches into scales, and a snake writhed in place of a tail; flat reptilian eyes roved around the room as forked tongues sampled the air. But the most terrifying things were the six tentacles that sprang from the center of each monster’s back. Nearly twenty feet long, grey and lined with suckers like a squid’s, they flailed through the air, reaching for the next victim.
The chimeras hit the floor on silent feet and considered the huddled group of people for a heartbeat. And then the screaming started, followed by panicked shots. The terrified civilians darted back and forth, trying to move away from one beast only to dodge back from the second. Bullets zinged through the air, ricocheting off concrete and steel.
The confused crowd splintered, and within in seconds, people were snatched up by tentacles. The screams rose even higher and louder. There was a sudden snapping crunch as bodies were ripped apart.
“Fuck,” Alec swore. “Max, Joshua! Get to the right, group everyone and try to corner that thing! CeCe, with me! Same thing!”
They peeled off and sprang into the fray. Alec grabbed a submachine gun off the floor, ignoring the blood that splattered the grip and barrel. Sweeping it to his hip, he snapped off two quick shots at the nearest chimera. The bullets hit along the flank and sprayed greyish blood. But the chimera just shook its mane and roared in irritation. A tentacle snapped out at him. He ducked and dodged; his knife flashed out and slashed at it.
He backed away from the chimera, shooting every few steps to keep it at bay. He heard CeCe barking orders to the police and Guardsmen. On the other end of the warehouse, the second chimera roared under a salvo of gunfire.
A hand fell on his shoulder and Alec glanced back to see CeCe and a line of determined and armed humans. The rest of the crowd was pressed together behind the defenders. Alec stepped back and joined with the line, lifting the gun to his shoulder.
“All right, give him hell!” CeCe shouted.
Assorted handguns and submachine guns barked out in a rattling thunder. The chimera staggered back but did not fall. CeCe barked another order, and they advanced several steps, still firing. A tentacle whipped out and snatched up a man from the end of line and slammed him against the wall. The man tumbled limp and broken to the floor.
Alec gritted his teeth and steadied the aim of the gun. He fired once, aiming for the chimera’s ear. He hit it. Brain matter and blood flew into the air. The chimera’s roar turned into a bubbling whistle, and it collapsed. Tentacles flapped about, and the snake writhed across the floor, mouth opening and closing rapidly.
“Nice shot!” Clemente called. He was several spots down the line from Alec.
Alec just bobbed his head once and spun towards the second chimera. “Max!” he bellowed. “Head shot! Take it out with a head shot!”
She turned at the sound of his voice, but she had refused to take a gun and was helpless. She turned to the man next to her, a sector policeman, and shouted the order at him. But it was obviously too shaken to do much; his gun jumped and twitched wildly as if he was trying to shoot the tentacles instead of the bulk of the creature.
Between the lines of soldiers, the crowd continued to panic. Mindless in terror, they staggered into the armed men, ruining their aim and distracting them.
The chimera seemed to sense that its partner had gone down, and it grew desperate. A roar rang through the air and the chimera sprang toward the line, tentacles writhing forward. A wild volley of shots filled the air with noise and lead. But the line faltered, and then broke. The mass of people turned and ran away, but the chimera bounded forward.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Alec snarled and ran away from the crowd and towards the wall. “CeCe, Clemente, we need to flank it, corner it!”
“Got it!” CeCe called back. She slapped shoulders as she ran by. “You, you, you! With me, we’re going to the right and behind! You and you, keep a covering fire!”
“How?” one of the men demanded as someone careened into him.
“Get past those idiots!” she screamed back.
Alec and Celemente managed to clear the crowd and started peppering the chimera with bullets. It snarled and changed course and twisted towards them, the lion’s jaw gaping and the tentacles whipping past their heads. Alec shifted the gun to one hand and pulled out his knife again. It ruined his ability to aim as well, but it kept the tentacles off him.
Just before the chimera got too close, CeCe’s group opened fire on the other flank. Max had joined them, using a length of pipe to keep the shooters free of tentacles. The chimera flinched and slowed, but did not turn. The snake, coiled over its back, suddenly lashed out. It went for the least threatening target: Max.
“Shit, watch out Max!” Alec shouted.
Max twisted to swing the pipe, but it slipped under her guard. Before it could strike her, CeCe blurred towards her and pushed her to the ground. The snake missed Max, but hit CeCe.
The venomous fangs sank into her shoulder, close to the neck. She screamed, choking on the sound as the poison spread and her throat swelled. With a gasping cry, she sank to the floor. A tentacle lashed out, caught her around the waist, and threw her against the wall. Alec heard her spine crack as she hit a support strut.
“No!” Max cried, scrambling towards CeCe’s body.
“Max, stay focused!” Alec bellowed, and staggered as someone ran into him. He looked up to see White, grinning as he slipped past the crowd and out the door. He disappeared into the mist.
For a moment, Alec felt only relief. White was gone, and out in the mist. But then a terrible thought hit him. If White was willing to take an exit out into the unknown, did he know more about the chimeras than he had let on?
“Shit,” he muttered, and then found Clemente. “Work with Max, and kill this damn thing! Head shots! I’m going after White!”
“White? Why?” Clemente demanded as he took aim at the chimera and shot a tuft of fur off the top of its mane.
“He might know something, and he’s too dangerous to let loose!”
“Too dangerous?!” Clemente’s voice echoed after him as he ran out the door.
And Alec plunged into another world. The mist swallowed him within a few steps, and the warehouse disappeared from sight. He could still hear the continued battle inside, but it was muffled, as if under water.
All he could see was white and shades of grey. The mist bled into to the ground under his feet and pulsed around him, like the heartbeat of some great monster. Or the combined pulses of hundreds of smaller creatures. It brushed cold and damp across his face, neck and hands, raising goose bumps and shivers.
“What the hell is this mist?” he breathed as he slowed to a cautious walk.
“Damned useful, I’d say,” White drawled from… somewhere.
Alec spun around to find where the voice had come from, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. He had no idea where White might be, where he could launch an attack from. His mouth went dry, and his eyes widened, darting about and struggling to stare through the fog. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t properly hear anything, and smell wasn’t exactly high on his list of strengths. And there was no way for him to know if there were more chimeras out there.
Then he took a deep breath and forced his breathing to a steady pace. If he couldn’t see, then neither could White. And he couldn’t make it easier for the Familiar by panicking.
He took another deep breath and focused on what he could see and hear, instead of what he couldn’t. “Why don’t you just come out and face me like a man, White?” Alec taunted. “Or are you too afraid?” He went utterly still, waiting for White’s response.
Though the mist, Alec heard the faint crunch of gravel underfoot, the almost silent whisper of cloth. White’s voice drifted through as well, traveling with the movement; he wasn’t standing still, he was circling, closing in.
“You’re not human, I don’t see why I should give you the privilege.”
“And you’re so much more human than me,” Alec scoffed. “You ran off and left everyone in the warehouse.” He turned in a tight circle, trying to stay with White.
White voice faded a little and the scuffed gravel noise increased. “So did you.”
“Ah, but we’ve established, I’m not human.”
“And so you shall be put down like the scum you are,” White whispered, knowing Alec could hear him.
There was the faint, metallic click of a gun being cocked, and Alec threw himself to the side and down. Even as he moved, he frantically hoped his calculation of White’s position had been right.
It hadn’t been. Or at least not entirely. The bullet hissed out of the mist and connected with his left shoulder even as he tumbled. It was a clean in and out, but that arm had been shot once that day already, and gunshots always hurt. A pained cry ripped out of his throat and he slammed into the pavement; minor hurts flared up across his palms and knees only to be forgotten as the bullet wound throbbed.
Alec gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand. He still had his own gun, and the knife. Left arm clamped against his side and useless in pain, he struggled to his feet and readjusted his grip on the gun.
A cruel chuckle floated out of the fog. “Got you.”
“Fucking bad shot, you know,” Alec said through clenched teeth. “Thought you said you were going to put me down.” Under his own panted breath, he heard White move, and zeroed in on the area.
“I never said I’d do it quickly.”
Alec didn’t even bother with a retort; he just lifted the gun and fired at where he heard White.
As the gunshot faded, a breath of movement brushed across Alec’s neck, and White whispered, “You’re going have to do better than that.” And he brought the barrel of his gun down across the back of Alec’s skull.
But that breath of warning had been all Alec needed, and he dodged to the other side. The gun caught his head, slicing the skin and making him stagger to one knee and a hand, but he didn’t go down all the way. Panting in pain and fear, he scrambled away, feeling the wind of another missed blow brush across his hair. And then the mist enveloped him again.
“You honestly think you can hide from me in the mist?” White laughed. “You may think it keeps me from seeing you, but it also keeps me out of your sight.”
“I’m not the one with the monologues!” Alec straightened and steadied his breathing before taking several quiet steps further into the mist. No reason to make himself an easy target.
For several long moments, there was no sound apart from Alec’s thudding heartbeat and his ragged breaths. Even the sounds from the battle in the warehouse seemed to have been swallowed by the mist. Then there was the telltale crunch of gravel behind him.
He spun, right arm and gun raised like a shield while his wounded left arm slashed with the knife. The blade sliced through thin air as White anticipated the move and twisted out of the way. The butt of his pistol hit Alec’s temple with a dull thud.
Pain, bright red edged with white, drove Alec to the ground. He sprawled across the pavement, breath knocked from his lungs. Darkness crept in around the edges of his vision, but he did not pass out. White loomed over him, a satisfied smirk twisting his lips. He casually wiped off the blood that had smeared across the handle of his gun and then chambered another round.
“Finally. I’m going to put you down like the dog you are, 494.” He leveled the gun at Alec’s head.
Sucking in a painful breath, Alec offered a rictus grin up at White. “Feline DNA. Not canine.” He tried to gather his muscles to move, but they refused to obey him properly.
White’s smirk changed to a snarl. “Scum.” He pulled the trigger.
Before Alec could move, a grey tentacle swooped out of the mist, grabbed White around the waist, and hauled him into the air. The bullet snapped into the pavement next to Alec’s head, lead fragments and bits of stone slicing into his face.
White screamed in pain and terror as a second tentacle appeared, latched around his legs, and pulled. Another tentacle snapped around his right arm and twisted.
Still breathless and blinking blood from the fresh wounds on his face, Alec could do nothing but watch as White suddenly ripped into three pieces. Blood and gore sprayed across the pavement, and Alec swore it painted the mist itself red for a moment. Then, with a triumphant roar, the chimera withdrew the tentacles and its grisly trophy into the mist and disappeared.
“Fire!” a deep voice bellowed. There was a roar of gun fire, and a pained growl from the chimera before a heavy thump against the ground.
Alec finally managed a lungful of air and sat up. The sound of boots on pavement and worried voices echoed through the mist. He lifted his own gun and tried to keep his left arm stable as he got to his feet. It sounded like a rescue effort, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe his rattled brain was making stuff up.
“Alec? Alec, where are you, you royal pain in my ass?” Max’s voice called out.
“Nope, not makin’ stuff up,” he muttered. “Over here!”
The scuffing of boots he had heard changed directions, and Max stepped out of the mist. Her hair was in disarray, and there was blood on her boots and spattered on her dark jeans, but otherwise she looked unharmed. She spotted him and barely managed to cover her relief under a shield of annoyance.
“What the hell were you thinking, running out like that?” she demanded.
“Uh… I wasn’t?” he hazarded. “That’s what you want to hear, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just shut up.”
He scrubbed some blood away from his eye, where it was welling from a cut over his eyebrow. “You kill the chimera in the warehouse?”
“No, we threw it a party,” she snapped back. “And the one out here, too. Enjoy your nap?”
“It was wonderful.”
While they had been sniping at each other, the remaining crowd joined them, pressing out of the mist.
Clemente and Joshua worked their way to the front of the crowd. The detective looked like he was edging on hysteria, but Joshua simply looked tired.
“We got a plan, Little Fella?” Joshua asked Max. He moved over to Alec’ side. “Medium Fella okay?”
Alec grunted. “I’m always alright.” But he didn’t pull away when Joshua ripped a part of his shirt and wrapped it around his wounded shoulder.
“Well, we know what these monsters are, and what they do,” Max started.
“But we have no idea how many there are, and we can’t see them through the mist,” Clemente pointed out.
Alec frowned and looked at the crowd in the mist. “We can’t stay out here. I vote we head for TC. There’s shelter, electricity, and backup there.”
Max considered the idea but Clemente didn’t look thrilled. Alec tossed his good arm in the air in frustration.
“Anyone else have a better idea?” he demanded.
“I just want to get home,” a woman said. “My kids are still at home. It’s only a few blocks from here…”
“I’m not going to that freak city. There’s supposed to be nuclear waste there!”
“You guys have guns there? That’s where I’m going!”
Before the noise level could get too high and attract more chimeras, Alec bellowed, “Quiet!” As every gaze focused on him, he continued, “All of you who want to come to TC with us, let’s go. The rest of you - good luck.”
He took off into the mist, trusting that at least Max and Joshua would follow him. There was some quiet shuffling as the rest of the crowd dispersed. And then Joshua appeared next to him, and Max stepped out of the mist on the other side. Original Cindy and Sketchy weren’t far behind. Clemente and a handful of SPD officers and a few civilians caught up.
The mist swallowed the little band; it peeled back one step at a time to reveal what was next only a moment before it was visible. It was harder to hear if anything was coming, Alec realized, with the small crowd surrounding him. And the chimeras had been hard enough to hear to begin with.
Shadows moved through the mist, and there was a low, pulsing growl from some unknown point. Alec heard a collective intake of panicked breath and the steady march of feet on pavement became erratic. A bleak thought flickered through Alec’s mind. If they didn’t make it to TC, if the chimeras got them, no one would know. Only the mist would know.
He clenched his jaw and pressed on, the rest of the group trailing after.
Fin.