"Deploy, pattern delta." The order was barked and the remaining seven men spun in perfect unison, the barrels of their weapons pointed outward in a protective circle around her.
"Guys, that's really not going to end well for any of you. Why don't you just let me have her and you'll get out of this just embarrassed, not injured."
"Do any of you have eyes on it?" The man who was giving the orders called out, his eyes never stopping their endless movement.
Then one was gone. He was there on second and gone the next, snatched as if he never existed, without a sound except for a short muffled squeak, and a sound like rushing wind.
"Where is it? I don't see it."
"Sir, no one sees it!"
Tamar's line of sight took her vision out into, and down the roadway. She could see hundreds of dead and rusting vehicles. Constricted to only where her eyes could pivot, she couldn't see very much more, and with her body completely without movement, she was beginning to feel claustrophobic inside it.
Then, out of the corner of her vision, she watched a black blur come to a stop. For only a split second, it came to full motionlessness and her heart stopped. On two legs, it stood like a man, if a man could survive being covered in thick black oil. With excruciating slowness, its head turned to look right at her and she wanted to scream. Her dream made flesh. Two glowing red eyes stared out from under a furrowed brow, both shining like red dwarf stars. It was gone again in an instant, its speed causing a miniature vortex behind it that carried away loose debris like sticks, paper, even small pebbles.
One by one, the men were picked off, each gone without a chance to even fight back. Tamar had to admire their fire discipline. None of them would fire until they had a target, and they weren't given one. Within forty seconds only one remained. The officer in charge stood facing nothing. His enemy had shone itself to have an advantage he and his man could not overcome. So he stood there, awaiting the inevitable.
"Come on you fucking bastard, come and finish it!" He screamed.
"Language, language. An officer should use a more refined vocabulary." The voice whispered from over his shoulder and he whirled, knowing he was already too late.
His rifle was stopped in mid-spin and locked in the grip of a vise. He tried to pull it free, only to have it yanked from his grasp and tossed away.
"Kill me, Rougarian, but we'll never stop fighting you, never." He brought his right hand up in what he knew was a futile show of defiance. It, too, was stopped and held in place by an invisible force.
Then, slowly, as if it had walked from behind a curtain, a figure shimmered into existence. It stood a little over six feet tall, its skin was cool black, and it looked at him from out of glowing red eyes. It held both of his fists still in what looked like a tentacle that danced out from its shoulder.
"You think I'm an alien, don't you? One of the creatures that did this," it waved a hand in an expansive circle. "No, I can assure you I'm not one of them." The voice was low and modulated, as if someone's voice had every ounce of emotion rung out of it.
"Then what are you? You might as well kill me now, because I won't help you. Just make it quick, like you did for my men."
"Your men, I didn't kill them. I just made sure there in no condition to give this young lady anymore difficulties. The same way I'm going to deal with you." A sharp snap later and the young officer had an extra bone below the knee in his right leg.
The man was dropped screaming to the ground, and the creature turned to Tamar.
"What the hell are you?" The officer screamed, clutching his leg with both hands.
"I'm something else." Kneeling, it scooped Tamar off the ground and walked from the road way. It left Captain Mark Haulis wondering what kind of new creature had arrived on earth this time.
If I could talk, I'd let you have an earful, you freak. No one carries me, no one. I can walk on my own, thank you very much, most of the time. Tamar fumed inside her own skull. The gas had disconnected the neural connections that bridged the gap between her brain and her body. All the signals from her brain stayed in her brain, instead of flowing to the rest of her body to tell it what to do. The gas would wear off in a few hours. At least it had on all the test subjects the General had used it on, at least Tamar hoped it would. She really didn't relish the thought of spending the rest of her life with a body, the consistence of a floppy noodle.
Her mind came back to the situation at hand, whatever this creature was, it sure didn't seem to have a problem carrying her. Then again, most men didn't. She weighed almost one hundred pounds fully clothed standing in a rain storm. Truth be told, she was so tiny no one ever gave her a second glance, which she guessed was the reason for her size. Seeing a woman of her size bench press five hundred pounds without straining a muscle or raising a sweat had a lot of people picking their chins off the collective floor but she had lifted a lot more than that while training for her escape, and many a target had underestimated her and paid the price.
Coming out of her memories, she realized they were both in front of one of the city's many ultra-scrappers. Building that stretched hundreds of stories into the sky, the tallest of them over a thousand. The thing that carried her had her in both of its arms, shoulders on one, the back of her knees over the other, so her vision was up side down, but she could still tell where they were. They were standing in front of the Hayworth Starmore, built forty years ago by the General's grandfather. It was six hundred and twenty-four stories tall and had rooms that some of the biggest names had stayed in. One of her targets had died on the three hundred and sixty first floor from an apparent heart attack, or at least that's what the medical examiner's report had said.
Now she was being taken back into the same building. But she wasn't sure how they were going to get anywhere inside. The initial alien attack had knocked the entire world power grid out in the span of a week. That was five years ago. There wouldn't be a single volt anywhere in the building. All the elevators would be useless to get them anywhere.
Shrugging his shoulders, the creature that carried her took her in one arm and threw her across his shoulder. Tamar would have screamed had she been able as hundreds of black threads wrapped around her arms, legs and torso. Slowly, she was moved along and over its shoulder until she was securely strapped to its back, her head on its shoulders.
Only after she'd stopped moving did she realize where she was. It was climbing the outside of the building, straight up its side. They were over fifty stories above the ground and still moving upward. Its grip was such that when it reached upward for a handhold, its fingers molded the metal as if it were clay. It would then bring its feet up one at a time so it could take a hold with its other hand. That was how they ascended, right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot until they reached what Tamar had counted as the two hundred and ninth floor.
It crawled through one of the many broken windows and stood. Taking a quick glance around the room, it walked to the far side of the room, where Tamar was placed unceremoniously on the bed by the same tentacles that had been holding her to its back, face down. Turning quickly, she was turned over, whereupon she began to breathe again.
Looking up at it, she was startled to see, as it bent over to study her more closely, a very human set of eyes behind the pools of red. Its brow was furrowed in what looked like concern and for an instant, Tamar thought it could have been human. That idea was forced far from her thoughts when it turned, stalked back to the window, then stepped out into space and dropped from sight.
If you want to kill yourself, be my guest. The thought went through her head just as the day's activities caught up with her. She dropped into sleep with the suddenness that would have been the envy of any insomniac.
"Get what you need from it and let's get moving. That thing will only slow us down."
"She," Malachi emphasized the word. "Is not an, it. And no, I will not abandon her." He was talking to himself again, or to the computer that controlled his suits' basic functions, whatever. The conversation was taking place as he climbed the side of the same building he'd climbed before. Now, without a passenger, he was making much better time.
The wings the suit produced didn't give him flight in the true sense of the word. More like they provided him with the ability to guild over long distances if he could jump from a high enough vantage point. When he'd jumped from the window, he'd been able to travel at least fifteen miles before he spied what he'd been after. The remains of what once had been a shopping center. A quick trip inside to procure what they'd needed, and it was back to the sky scrapper. Then he'd been forced to make the climb again. Not that it was remotely difficult for him anymore. Whatever this thing was that had been bonded to his made feats such as this, as easy as a walk in the park.
The main problem he was facing at the moment was what he was going to do with the young lady he'd rescued. At the ripe old age of twenty two, he wasn't at all practiced in the art of interpersonal relations, especially when it came to those of the opposite sex. Give him a mission to extract a high valued target from enemy territory and he was as calm as a clam. Expect him to make small talk with a woman and he couldn't think straight. Given the fact that this was not exactly a normal woman, and he knew he was going to have to tread carefully.
What was that saying his father had always told him? "Treat any woman like a piece of glass. She's more fragile than she thinks, but can slit your throat if you're not careful."
He came out of his revelry as soon as he had crawled through the broken window and into the room he'd left the girl in. Instantly, his sensors were on full alert. She was not where he'd left her. But with that kind of injury to an arm, he thought it was very doubtful she could have gotten very far. That was until a black blur flew from his off to his left, straight at him.
Tamar had waited for what felt like forever, for whatever it was to return. Her arm was still giving her trouble, but that would have to wait. Right now, all she wanted to do was rip its throat out and be done with it. She'd find her own way out.
At last, she heard him crawl through the window and walk towards the bed. It stopped a single step from her kill zone and froze. From where she was perched near the ceiling, she needed him to take one more step and with only one arm to stay anchored with, she didn't have much time to wait.
"I thought you'd be smart enough to stay where I put you." Its voice cut through the silence, yet still it didn't move.
Finally she could take no more time and sprang. Claw flexed outward, arms outstretched. She sailed towards her target even though she couldn't see it. She burst through the narrow doorway and landed just in front of it, or where she thought it was. By the time she made it to the floor, it was no longer where it had been a few short seconds ago.
The next thing she knew, she had a black clad hand clamped around her throat. Lifted off the floor, she sank her claws into its arm and racked from shoulder to wrist. It didn't even flinch.
"That's enough of that." The stone cold voice brought her to a stop for an instant and before she knew what was happening, it dropped her, caught her again by the shoulder and knees and laid back onto the bed before she could move.
"You can't keep me here, you know that, right?" Tamar's voice was like ice.
"Yes, I can, but I'd rather not have to."
"The only way you'll keep me here is to kill me."
"Can you fly?"
"What do you mean, can I fly? What kind of question is that?"
"Can you fly?"
"No, I can't fly. No one can."
"Then you're not going anywhere. Stories seventy nine through eighty seven are gone, everything destroyed down to the steel members." It took a step forward, leaned down, and brought its face close to hers." So unless you can fly, you're not going anywhere." With that, it stood, walked towards the far wall, sat against it, and stared at her.
An hour later, it was still staring at her.
"Get some sleep."
"No." She would not sleep while that thing was still staring at her. What did it expect, that she'd drop her guard and let it have its way with her?
"Suit yourself, but if you don't rest, that arm will never heal right. You could lose some functionality if you don't."
"Why do you care what happens to me, anyway?" Tamar asked.
"Because where I come from, men defend woman, we don't abuse them."
"I don't need a man to defend me alright. I was doing perfectly fine on my own."
"Oh were you? I know that gas isn't out of your system all the way, but I didn't think it affected your mind. If I recall, when I got to you, you were drooling in the gravel with seven guys surrounding you, ready to take you somewhere you really didn't want to go. Am I close?"
"Yeah, but did you see what I did to the eighth guy?" Tamar retorted stubbornly.
"It's not what you do to the first guy that counts, it's what you're able to do to the last that determines the outcome of any fight." Malachi placed the back of his right hand on Tamar's forehead for an instant, then drew it back before she was able to connect with her claws.
"What are you doing?" She screamed, swatting at his hand.
"Taking your temperature, it's high by four degrees already. If we don't take care of that infection now, you might not survive."
"Fine with me, better than what they had planned for me." Tamar shoved herself down on the mattress, causing a cloud of dust to spray into the air.
"Well, I'd like to keep you alive for at least a bit more, if you don't mind."
"Ha," she snorted. "You're just like everyone else. Everyone wants something from me."
"Easy, little lady, all I want is information on these. What did officer Haulis call them, Rougarians?"
"What do you mean, information? Where have you been for the last five years, under a rock?" Tamar stared at him with incredulity.
"I've been away on business, lets put it that way. Don't try to change the subject. I need to drain and disinfect that arm or you'll lose it before another day's done."
"And just how are you going to do that? I don't recall passing any pharmacies on the way here. Or maybe I didn't see them because I was looking at the ground and couldn't see them."
"No, you're right, there were no pharmacies between where I rescued you and here." Malachi put emphasis on the word' rescue.
"You did not rescue me. You can get that fantasy out of your head."
"I picked up some supplies while I was out." Malachi reached towards the foot of the bed and pulled into Tamar's view, a small leather sack.
From the sack, she watched him pull several small bottles of clear liquid and some packages of what looked to have gauze in them. He then moved another larger bag into view, from which he removed three large bottles.
"That's water if you're curious. I can't have you dehydrating before I have to cut into you, now can I?"
Tamar kept her mouth shut and began to try to figure this thing out. The more it talked, the more she became convinced it was human and male. But he sure wasn't like any man she'd ever seen, let alone met. Why was he so worried about her? If he needed information, why not just force her to tell him what he needed and be done with it? She had no idea why he was trying to help her.
"Do you have a high pain tolerance?" The question took Tamar a few seconds to process.
"Yeah, why?"
"Because this is going to hurt, a lot. Now lay back and roll onto your felt side so I can get at the wound."
"No. It'll heal on its own. I heal fast." Tamar didn't trust this guy. Heck, she didn't know this guy. There was no way she was going to let him cut on her. She'd be better off doing it herself.
"Not from this, you won't. I have a feeling those dogs bites were made to be heavily infectious, am I right?"
Tamar stared up into those red glowing eyes and her heart did a flip. She'd seen them before. With everything that had happened, she hadn't had time to notice, but she had seen them. Beyond that, how did he know about the dog bites being so infectious? She shook her head and scowled.
"If you must know, those dogs were grown to hunt me and only me. So yes, their bites had been genetically engineered to cause massive infection in my blood stream, so what?"
"If I can help it, I will not let you die, that's what. Now, are you going to hold still for this or am I going to have to hold you down?"
"You and what army? If I don't want to stay here, your sorry ass isn't going to hold be down." She gritted her teeth while rolling onto her left side.
"Language! I have no idea what kind of education you received, but don't you know swearing is a sigh of an inferior education?"
"What are you talking about?" Tamar hissed. "Just get on with it before I change my mind."
"I found a few old morphine ampules. I could give you some if you'd like." Malachi asked hopefully.
"No, I am not going to be drugged anywhere near you, clear?"
"Crystal, now hold still. This may sting a bit."
Tamar had wondered where the knife he was going to use was going to come from. So when she realized he had already started, she was startled. Then the pain hit, and all other considerations were subjugated under it. After a few seconds, she bit her lower lip so hard she drew blood. She would not make a sound, not one. No matter how badly it hurt, she would not show weakness in front of this man. To show weakness was in invite betrayal and worse. Be strong and no one will ever take advantage of you.
"This infection is deeper than I thought. I'm going to have to go near the bone, okay?"
"Fine," she told him through gritted teeth. "Just get it done."
Fire exploded behind her eyes. Her entire body went rigid. Tamar had never felt anything like this in her life. It was as if her nervous system was being rubbed raw, then bathed in salt over and over again. Despair crept over her at the prospect that this would never end. Tears ran unbidden down her cheeks, against her best attempts to stop them. All at once a peace and stillness came over her and she sagged back against the old dust covered cushions.
He drugged you! Her brain screamed. I knew he couldn't be trusted, but ohhhhhh this feels good.
She dropped into unconsciousness even as her mind rebelled again at the thought of her being that vulnerable in front of someone she didn't know.
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