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Chapter 7:
Wade sat bolt upright.
Allan's old shirt sailed clear across the room and landed in a heap moments before the sounds of screams and explosions reached his ears. It took him several moments to realize that he was no longer dreaming and even longer to find the door.
As sirens continued to bleat incessantly, firelight marred the night sky an ominous orange-red. As Wade stumbled into the open expanse of the compound the ground suddenly shook with the force of a nearby explosion, sending him stumbling to his knees.
This was no dream.
This was real.
A young soldier passed close to Wade, "What the hell is going on?" he asked, grabbing the man's uniform tightly and shaking him as he spoke.
The soldier blinked dazedly and tried in vain to respond. A moment before he spoke, the young man's eyes widened in horror and his whole body started shaking with fear. Wade could just make out the reflection of something large and swaying in the boy's wide eyes. With a look of sheer terror, the young man writhed free of Wade's grip and bolted away into the flowing crowd as fast as his legs could manage.
He started after the boy but stopped as a horrendous screeching sound filled the whole area. Wade tried to turn around but in vain - he was knocked sideways as the ground shook and gargantuan pieces of the nearby roof rained down landed just inches from his face. In the cold, silver roof metal Wade could see his own tattered reflection and the reflection of a large form looming high above.
Wade rolled slowly onto his back, his breath caught as his throat quickly constricted. There, towering over the compound was a behemoth of metal and slick black tendrils that shone bronze in the amber glow of the nearby carnage. Its body was a sick exaggeration of humanoid features except for the twisted appendages and gnarled tendrils that marked its form like fetid tree roots. Its hide was a patchwork of bronze interlacing metallic ligaments that were intricately designed and seemed to somehow shift and flow with each vast movement of the creature's towering body as though it was alive. All around Wade, streams of people poured and cascaded across the grounds like dirty water from a broken dam.
Wade's eyes clouded over as he stood now, rooted in place as people ran by. It all seemed so unreal. He looked to the old, familiar side building, his thoughts were primal and fragmented but something eventually fell into place.
The receiving and examination rooms.
"Allan," he whispered. He started across the compound, fighting desperately to get through the thronging crowd.
Sudden movement high above alerted the raven-haired young man. Turning to face the beast, Wade watched in horror as the monster reared back and let out a hideous, unimaginable scream that overwhelmed the din far below and stopped the human stampede in its tracks. Trained soldiers, civilians, everyone stopped, clutching their ears and frozen with fear. Explosions rocked the earth as a formation of low altitude speeder vessels flew overhead, lacing at the creature with a fury of pulse rounds. Wade stood transfixed as the ripple from the weapons distorted the night sky. With surprising speed the creature's huge arm launched forward like liquid toffee before it coalesced into a sharp blade, slicing through two of the vessels in one arcing swipe.
With its snout rippling and distorting as it howled victoriously, the bronze behemoth cast about for its next target. Wade covered his ringing ears and ran quickly into the nearby building and down the old, dingy corridor. Light fixtures and frayed wires swayed limply from the roof as he ran past.
"Allan!" he screamed, cupping his hands to his face. A steady flow of terrified and broken people still passed by the lone man struggling against the tide. In the distance, he could see streamers of sparks that cascaded from broken ceiling outlets like stunted firecrackers. With the far wall in ruins, Wade stumbled and slowly climbed his way through the wreckage. Barely recognisable bodies were strewn under the shadowed rubble haphazardly. Some people tried to move, to blindly call out, but Wade did not hear them as he climbed. In some recess of his mind, Wade was still sleeping, unwilling - or unable - to wake up. The stark reality of his shattered life lay just beyond the grasping fingers of his numb consciousness.
Turning the corner he could see the night sky through wrecked debris that once made up the spacious examination room. Scanning the wreckage, his eyes finally found what they were desperately searching for.
"Allan!" he cried, "Oh god!" He ran towards the prone form of his lover, stumbling as he went. Wade's heart nearly leaped free of his chest when he saw Allan pinned under a fallen piece of concrete, blood and soot marring the proud features.
"Allan?" he called. Placing one hand to the side of his lover's face as if it would shatter at the slightest contact. Wade's whole body shook as he knelt in the debris. He didn't know when the tears had started to flow, but soon his eyes stung and his vision was blurry. He tried to choke back the grief but a small howl still managed to escape his lips.
"Ugh..."
Wade's breath caught for a moment, "Oh god Allan," he choked, "I... I -"
"Wade?" Allan croaked, wincing as his eyes blinked back the heavy dust.
"Can you move?"
Somehow Allan managed a weak smile, "I could move a whole lot better without this bastard sitting on me," he said, groaning.
Wade breathed freely for the first time since waking from the nightmare. "Hang in there," he said, bracing his legs on either side of the weight that pinned his lover, Wade gripped the nearest metal bar that stuck out of the concrete and tensed. His eyes closed, the terror from his dream flooded back in an instant. In that instant the feeling in his mind changed and formed into a nameless, faceless dread. A dread of losing the last thing, the last person he held dear.
The last thing to hold.
His eyes snapped open and his body responded with all of the strength that he could muster, his adrenaline flowing. Below him, he could hear Allan grunt and strain as he too tried to move the dead weight. Wade's core, his very bones, ached and screamed with the strain - screamed at him to stop.
"Arrgh!" Allan gasped as the broken slab of concrete was finally lifted from his body. "Ho boy," he breathed, free at last.
"Oh god, that looks deep," Wade said quietly, looking down at Allan's shoulder. The fabric of the once crisp uniform was now blotched with an earthy crimson.
Allan just grunted in pain.
The tears didn't stop. "Can you move?" Wade repeated between gulps of breath.
"...I don't think anything's broken," Allan said grasping his left shoulder tightly. "So much for our night to remember hey?" he said.
Wade moved close to Allan and supported the larger man's weight. "One way or other I'm sure we'll remember tonight," he said.
"If we live through it," Allan coughed, wincing in pain. A moment later an explosion rocked the examination room nearly sending both men sprawling.
"Suck it up soldier and move your ass!" Wade smiled. Allan's smile reached his tired and bloodshot eyes.
The two men got to their feet and slowly hobbled back the way Wade had come through earlier. The ground continued to shake intermittently making their footing treacherous.
Soon they passed back into the outside word, back into the surreal compound once more. Overhead a solitary speeder fell from the sky like a macabre falling star, it's engine trail sparking in desperation as it fell. As the shower of bright sparks cascaded over the pair like a brilliant and mournful rain Allan muttered, "You were right you know." In the distance, the explosion from the fallen ship slammed hard into their backs.
"It doesn't matter anymore love," Wade said finally after a pause. "We just need to get clear."
No sooner had he uttered those words than a guttural cry sounded high in the glowing night sky. The two men turned in time to watch the mechanical abomination's body elongate high into the sky like a pressurized fountain of molten bronze and for a moment time seemed to hang as the creature reached the zenith of its jump.
Tentacles of liquid metal tensed high in the air and seemed to shimmer in the firelight. Wade watched in horror as the tentacles became fused into a giant, razor sharp blade that plummeted to the ground once again.
Gripped by terror, both men turned and stumbled as quickly as they could towards the open fields just beyond the main compound.
They didn't make it clear in time.
Wade could feel the shockwave before it hit them, knocking the air from their lungs and sending both men flying high into the air, sailing far away from the monster and the remnants of their former little lives.
As Wade stopped rolling and came to his senses he could see the impact striations that now interlaced the ground below. His heart pounded and his eyes grew wide in realization. Faster than he had ever moved before, Wade was on his feet and trying desperately to get Allan moving once more. As they stumbled forward Wade looked back to see what was left of the main compound slowly start to sink into an ominously growing pit. As a nearby building sank, the other buildings that were left standing began to sway. One by one, each battered construction slowly toppled over and finally sank to its final resting place.
Below their feet, the lines of striations started to move and shift.
"Shit," Wade muttered.
Wade urged both of them forward at a dangerous pace, careless of the danger. The bits of ground around them were shaking and starting to sink.
"L...leave me," Allan gasped, his eyes were slow and unfocused with exertion and pain. "Damnit Wade," he nearly cried, "I... I love you."
Wade wasn't listening by that time, he could feel Allan's weight centre as he supported the larger man. Using his last moment of solid ground Wade twisted his hips and grabbed Allan's body firmly with both hands. He stepped to the side, his body screaming with strain, and using Allan's weight and momentum he launched his lover high into the air.
He waited for a moment to see Allan's body roll to a stop on solid ground beyond the blast radius.
That moment would cost him.
As the ground shattered under his feet, Wade stumbled. As he fell his feet soon found a large hard piece of earth as both of them fell backwards. Bracing against it, Wade leaped forward, his hands grasped onto a stray root as the rest of the large, uprooted tree hurtled dangerously towards him. Clasping the root he arched his spine so that he landed with a small flip on the lower portion of the trunk, his body screaming in pain from the aerial manoeuvre. Once more he launched himself skyward with all the strength he had left. His fingers just brushed the edge of the chasm, struggling to catch hold of solid ground once again, but he was too late; his timing had been off and his legs were just not strong enough.
With arms flailing in vain, Wade dropped into the darkness.
In mid-fall, his one hand connected briefly with solid earth and in desperation he pulled himself forward, hands digging deeply into the wall as he fell. Nails, fingers, skin; everything screamed in pain as he clung to the side of the gaping hole, slowly coming to a halt. He tried desperately to call out, to call for help, but his lungs were burning with panic and strain.
Finally after agonizing moments of spasming pain his fingers gave way and he felt himself falling backwards once more. As his body yielded to gravity's embrace, something rough grazed his cheek. Reflexively his arms responded, clutching madly forward. It took his mind a few moments to realize that he was grasping a long chord of frayed rope, his body swinging out from the ragged cliff face.
Hanging on the rope, he heard a familiar voice call down, "We're pulling you clear Wade, hang on."
Within seconds he had cleared the dusty side of the gaping chasm and rolled onto solid ground, gasping desperately like a landed fish. He turned his head and looked up to find the face of a man he had once resented, once hated. "C... Corrigan," he said between gasps.
The old man smiled down at him with a gap tooth grin and eyes that shone like gold in the moonlight. "Expecting someone else, boy?" Wade could see Allan a few feet off, breathing heavy and leaning against a light transport unit. Allan still clutched his shoulder tightly.
Wade looked back at the devastation that he had once called home, "Was that the device your men found...?" he asked finally.
"We brought it back here," Corrigan said as he surveyed the destruction.
Before Wade had a chance to respond, Allan jumped in, "Damn thing was playing us Wade," he said.
"Fuckin' ploy," Corrigan spat on the ground, "Soon as our tech boys got it back here to run some tests, the damn thing sprang up and all hell broke loose." Wade could see something ominous behind the old man's eyes as his scruffy grey hair blew around in the evening air.
"Why didn't we have safeguards or... or precautions in place?" Wade asked, leaning against the transport vehicle. The rumbling in the shadowy crater grew louder.
Corrigan was silent for a moment before replying. "Seems the powers that be wanted the tech from this thing quickly and to hell with caution."
"Where the hell were you when this all went down anyway, Corrigan?" Wade asked, propping himself up to a sitting position.
"Easy Wade. He was still in the field," Allan winced.
Corrigan nodded, his eyes still shone brightly, "We were on our way to the other crash sites around the southern hemisphere."
"You mean...?"
The old man turned to fix Wade with a stern look, "I was talking with the chief technical officer when the attack happened here. I saw the whole damn thing." Corrigan's face tensed as he spoke, "Pulled back as soon as attack happened but," he paused, his eyes drinking deeply in the despairing depths of the expanding crater, "by the time I arrived it was over."
"What about the other crash sites?" Wade asked as he struggled to his feet, still shaken.
"We have multiple teams en route to greet our new friends," the burly old man smirked.
"They'd better bring some heavy fire power," Wade sighed, looking at his fingers that were still bleeding from his ordeal. Corrigan remained silent. He glanced over at his lover who was now propped up against the small transport unit, "Are you alright Allan?" he asked.
Nodding, Allan brushed small metal fragments from the deep gashes on his exposed shoulder, "Just got some crap in this cut from that machine when it came to life. I'll live."
Wade's stomach tightened for some reason as he watched his lover pick the metal from his wound. As the metal hit the ground he could swear he saw it contract and move slightly from the impact.
"What is it?" Corrigan asked gruffly.
"Nothing," Wade quickly replied. He looked back at the hole in the earth, a dim glow still visible from the fires. "Well, what now?" he asked. "Are they bringing in the big guns?"
Corrigan sighed, "No," he said finally. "They want to salvage as much of these things as possible."
"Typical," Wade spat, "What other good news do you have for us?"
"Hmm," the old man smirked, "Better pack light boys because all too soon we brave the abyss." As he spoke, all three men looked into the unfathomable darkness that was gathering far below.
"Perfect."
Author's note:
Well, here's your second taste of what they're up against. In the upcoming chapters when we once again delve into Wade's past, it gets so much more interesting ;) [at least to me it does haha]
I've been meaning to attach these for a while now... The two pics are slightly different variations on a character that we have yet to meet. (I'm still not sure which one is better =/) I hope you like 'em.
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/2117/infectedheartsmoonlighteb8.jpg http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/4674/infectedheartsmoonlightuo3.jpg
Enjoy,
-Gene