Tower-Two-Three
It was the Hive. She knew it was. It couldn't be, her fellow workers had argued. Ket IV was much too deep in Continent-Union space for the Hive to be here.
It had begun with a police notification to all citizens via the mandatory civ-comm each carried; return home. Remain calm. Maria had already been at her job: desk jockey at Tower Twenty-Three, generally shortened to T23. But when she had gone to the exit with a crows of other employees, a grim-faced police constable. The man had already sealed his transparent aluminium visor over his face and connected his rebreather to his suit filter. That was how she knew. The Hive was the only enemy of the Continent-Union to use biological weapons. And the bioweapons they used...
...they led to a fate worse than death.
While the other workers clustered nervously at the door, Maria backed away. Her ears heard a distant sound, like a muffled thunderclap. The policeman heard it too. His face hardened and he put his hand on his holster. The other slipped a baton into a firm grip.
“Get inside. Now. And shut that door!” He gestured with his baton and reluctantly the crowd began to disperse back into the office.
The supervisor, Mr Falle, spoke up. “Well, people, it's still work hours, so it's back to work! Those who don't work, don't get paid. I'm sure things will be back to normal soon, so no need to worry.”
Maria wondered whether he was trying to assure the workers or himself.
---
Tap. Tap.
The pen tapped on the desk again. Maria stared listlessly at the holo-screen, silently despising the sound. The woman in the cubicle next to hers tapped the pen again. Maria ground her teeth and dreamed of making the woman eat the damned pen.
Tap.
The lights went out.
A few shocked gasps rose from the maze of cubicles and office peons. A loud rumbling shook the office. With a deafening crack, Maria was thrown off her feet. Her skull cracked against a desk and darkness consumed her.
---
She woke to screams. A dull reddish light filtered through a vast hole in the office ceiling. The air seemed thin and grated on her lungs. Slowly she forced herself to her feet and groaned as her head pulsed with pain. Moaning, she allowed her head to slump back – and gasped with amazement. Some incredible munition had pierced from the very top of T23 and down for over a kilometre. Looking up, Maria saw the sky for the first time – a red screen shot through with dull white clouds like maggots on meat. She remained staring at the sky for a while, even when the screams died in a choking gurgle.
Suddenly she snapped back to reality. Swiftly she glanced around – nothing and no one else were moving. She realised she was wheezing for breath. Her head spun. Nothing around her was moving. The sharp retorts of explosions filtered strangely in the razor-sharp air. Holding onto furniture when she could for support, she stumbled across rubble and corpses. Maria felt her gorge rising, but did not dare stop to vomit. She thumbed a door release and it slid open in a burst of escaping gases. She clumsily stepped in and shut the door. Her lungs burning for proper air, she lunged for the door at the end of the hallway and slammed onto her face. As the door whispered open, blood gushed from her nose, and she let out a hysterical sound halfway between a giggle and a sob. The conditioned air from the remaining office filled her lungs, nectar at a precise 27 degrees Celsius.
Maria remained collapsed on the floor in the hallway for a long time. Eventually, she stirred. She tried to check her civ-comm, but the unit was damaged far beyond use. A jagged piece of shrapnel had embedded itself right in the holo-projector, piecing it through. She slid the useless device back in her pocket anyway. Carefully, she stepped over fallen papers as she padded down the empty halls of her workplace. Her heart rose in her chest as she saw the main door blown off it's hinges. The body of the policeman lay on top of the door, the back of the corpse charred and carbonised. It looked like he had died trying to claw his way in. Maria could hold it back no longer; her stomach bucked and emptied all over the nearest wall and her sensible, scuffed shoes.
Maria was ready to collapse in a heap and cry when she heard the footsteps. Irregular boots thudded their way towards her from outside the door. Maria nervously stepped towards the door, worry a tight knot in her emptied guts. Then the other man stepped through the door, and all Maria's fears were realised.
The man who had lumbered through the door could, in truth, be barely called a man. It was bare-chested, revealing mottled, cancerous skin and jagged chitinous plates that had formed on the wretched creature. Unnatural muscles flexed under the necrotic skin as it adjusted a grip on a chunky rifle. Thick tumours bulged on its forearms and temple. Bloodstained eyes glared insanely at Maria. It was a once a man. Now it was just a Hiveman.
Maria screamed and ran, hearing the monster burst into pursuit. Where its footsteps before had been slow and lumbering, it was now loping and deadly. The sight of prey had focused its shattered mind. Maria plunged in the female toilets, slamming a hand on the the door close button. A row of gleaming cubicles meet her gaze. She randomly chose one and locked the door, cowering. Desperately she looked around for a weapon. She had nothing! She had trapped herself! Idiot, idiot... The slight of smooth, clean aluminium mocked her with it's mundane uselessness. A thought filtered through, somehow, into her frantic mind and she fumbled for her civ-comm, panting with fright.
The door slammed open as the Hiveman entered the toilets. It paused for a moment, and she could hear the infernal breathing of the thing. It growled softly to itself, fragments of words and a bestial hatred. With warning it slammed into one of the cubicles. With a terrible crash the flimsy door was knocked off its hinges. Maria shuddered and let out a squeal as the civ-comm suddenly burst into life. The demonic howls of the Hiveman overmind roared from the radio, random words and voices cutting in and out at random. The twisted creature bellowed and lurched out of the empty cubicle, thudding along to stand in front of the thin barrier protecting Maria. The Hiveman's fist smashed a hole in the door and grasped the edge, heedless of jagged shards of wood. It slowly pulled the door from its hinges, savouring her fear. It leant forward into the cubicle and grinned, eyes wide with madness.
Maria swung her fist with all she had. The shrapnel that had crippled her civ-comm was tight in her grip, and the crude spike cut her hand even as it punctured the eyeball of the mutant monster in front of her. It let out a undulating cry and Maria hurled herself past the loathsome being, heedlessly launching herself away from the monster, awa-
It grabbed her arm and yanked her backwards. Maria screamed as her arm was brutally dislocated, cartilage crunching as it was yanked out of its socket. She thudded onto her back as the Hiveman loomed above her. It pulled on the arm, Maria being pulled upwards like meat on the butcher's hook. She cried out, tears running down over her face. Almost casually, the Hiveman spat a thick green slime onto her face and dropped her. She howled as her arm was jolted, but frantically watched the monster as it walked to the door – now lumbering again. It turned and regarded her with a curious expression on it's face, distorted by the ruptured eyeball. It grunted, and left. Maria wasn't sure, but she thought the expression on it's face was sympathy.
Maria tried to move, but found her shuddering limbs were no longer under her control. Her veins burned like acid as whatever was in the Hiveman spit soaked into her skin. Her arms and temple ignited with a terrible agony. Maria wept, for she realised what would come next.
---
In time, she ceased to scream with mere vocal chords. Instead, her voice joined the damned chorus of the Hivemen, as her flesh twisted and bulged, locking her in a fate far worse than death.
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Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 314308 times)