Shadowstrike Read online

  <‍Can’t do what?‍>

  “This.” He waved one hand, vaguely. “Running. Living out of these concrete boxes. Constantly moving round this bloody forest.”

  Cathal didn’t respond straight away. He breathed heavily, his exhalation warm and rancid. Brice was used to that, and the stench of death that clung to Cathal‌—‌ the stench that had filled this very hold-out as Ryann tried to figure out what to do, as Brice’s lattice cut out, then screwed with the hold-out’s power, as Tris grew angry, and Keelin started falling apart.

  Old friends. But where were they now? As far as he knew, Ryann and Keelin were on Metis, safe. But Tris had gone, taken by the shades. Cathal said there was no trace of him, but when Brice continued asking, Cathal snapped, and Brice stopped.

  Tris was just one more part of a life that no longer existed.

  “I need to get out,” he said.

  <‍Out? Where.‍>

  Brice turned. Somewhere, through those trees, was the cliff that surrounded the basin. If he strained his ears, he could almost hear the water cascading down the Tumbler, the huge waterfall that had dragged their Proteus into its grasp then spat it out like so much rubbish. And somewhere in that cliff was the cave, the one they’d entered when the warths attacked. The cave where Cathal had been bitten by a shade.

  But that shade had to come from somewhere. Monsters didn’t simply appear.

  And Brice needed to understand. He needed to know why his life had been destroyed.

  “To where it all started,” he said. He reached out, putting a hand on Cathal’s shoulder. “I need to find where the shades came from.”

  They asked her to stand, arms by her side. They told her to look straight ahead. Her Chief Supervisor, smaller than average, sweating, stood in front of her. Two assistants flanked him, with another couple behind. She’d already spotted the weapons on their hips.

  There would be more personnel beyond the door and that huge mirror of one-way glass.

  “State your assignation.”

  “Full title NuGamma Eksi. Code NG6. Familiar Kesia,” she recited.

  The Chief Supervisor nodded, and she noticed his blink, noticed the twitch in his trace as he made a note of her response somewhere in the system.

  She studied him further. Five point eight seven metres tall, heart-rate ninety-three beats per second. His adrenaline was raised, and she read other data that indicated a state of mild arousal. He wore a white lab coat that had been washed the previous day, but was already infused with his odour. The heels of his boots were worn, indicating that he tilted back on his feet too much. They were not dirty, though‌—‌there was no dirt in this room, or any other she had been in.

  At least, as far as she could recall.

  “And what are you?” He swallowed as he raised one eyebrow.

  What was she?

  She didn’t need a mirror to know that she was far taller than any of those present in the room. Her tough skin was grey, coated in a fine down that helped regulate her temperature. She had no hair, though, none on her whole body‌—‌and she knew, without looking, that she was naked.

  She took a moment to look inward. Her body was strong, and the blood that flowed through her veins and arteries was thick and rich with oxygen. White blood cells flowed too, and she mapped their movements, even though there was little for them to do at the moment. She had no injuries, and no weaknesses. Her bones were tough, her muscles fully-developed. Her whole body had been tweaked to provide maximum performance with minimal energy usage.

  She was perfect.

  “A NeoGen,” she said, and the Chief Supervisor exhaled.

  “Good,” he said. “Good.” He consulted a screen on the desk by his side, and even though it was angled away from her, she knew what it displayed‌—‌an image of herself on one side, and data on the other. Some of the data flickered, and that was because it was reading information in real time. There were sensors on the walls around her, picking up heat and light, both visible and otherwise, as well as sound. There were further sensors, but they were buried within her body. They fed information back to the system through the node in the back of her neck.

  She felt it, with her mind, and understood it. She also understood how she could control every aspect of her body, including exactly what data those sensors passed on.

  “Let’s try something more interesting.” The man smiled at this, and his eyes flickered to the left, to the mirror behind which his superiors were no doubt observing. “We need to ensure your body is all that it should be.” He glanced down at her, his heartbeat increasing as he reached her waist.

  She breathed in, tasting his trace. Yes. It was familiar. And with that familiarity came an image from her recent past‌—‌an image of herself on a soft slab, on her back, tubes and wires feeding from her body. Men and women worked around her, and he was one of them. He was always in the background, screen in hand, eyes flickering as his lattice and lenses manipulated information.

  Now, his eyes rose to her face, staring at a spot just by her ear, avoiding direct eye contact.

  “The suit is ready. If you would care to insert yourself.” He waved an arm to indicate a full-body suit of transparent material‌—‌if she concentrated, she was sure the exact chemical nature of it would come to her‌—‌that was open at the back, and connected to various pieces of machinery by wires.

  “Do you understand?”

  She nodded and climbed into the suit. One of the assistants stepped behind her and sealed the suit using the zips and tabs. The woman’s fingers shook, and her arms stretched because she stood too far back.

  They were scared of her, then.

  The Chief Supervisor tapped and swiped the screen, and pressure on her skin increased as the suit filled with a kind of liquid air, moisture suspended in gas, yielding but also firm. She was conscious of the liquid element coating her skin, and the gaseous part puffing the suit out. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.

  The pressure stabilised at precisely three atmospheres. Her body no longer touched the suit at all, and her feet were not on the ground.

  “Kesia, can you still hear me?”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but realised the suit and its contents would block any sound. Instead, she nodded.

  <‍If you need to communicate anything other than a simple yes or no, you can always suss.‍> The voice of the Chief Supervisor was more confident in her head than it had been in her ears. <‍You can still suss, I take it?‍>

  <‍Yes,‍> she responded. There was no need to expand.

  <‍Good. Okay. A question then‌—‌what do you believe the purpose of this suit is?‍>

  She moved an arm, pushing it through the heavy atmosphere, then brought a leg forward. The suit allowed movement, but it remained in the same spot in the room. She turned her head, following the cables to the desk, and noted how one of the assistants gazed down at a screen there.

  She understood. <‍To test me physically without the need for space, and to record all relevant data.‍>

  <‍Exactly.‍> He turned to the assistant by the desk. “Did you record the response time? Excellent. And a perfect answer.” He turned back. <‍So let’s start with a spot of running. Begin at whatever pace feels comfortable, but I want you to be sprinting within a couple of minutes. Just move your legs to begin.‍>

  Kesia did. Two paces in, and she increased her speed, the suit providing pressure while sliding across the floor so that she was soon sprinting without moving.

  The Chief Supervisor hadn’t stated any exact criteria‌—‌no time, or speed‌—‌so Kesia ran fast. She measured her paces, each one roughly one point five metres, and then she stretched with each step, increasing the distance by point zero five. She timed the paces, too, set her speed, then increased. Ten k per hour soon became twenty, then thirty.

  She settled into a rhythm at thirty-five, one she knew she could keep up for a couple of hours.

  The Chief Supervisor nodded, studying the data o
n his screen, and he seemed pleased. When he told her to stop, she did so in an instant, pushing her whole body against the inertia. It would be impossible to fall while bound up in the suit, but she knew her body would cope with a dead stop like that in reality too. The man jerked his head back, though, and Kesia knew she’d surprised him. But he recovered quickly.

  <‍Excellent. No signs of tiredness. No sweat, adrenal pumping only fractionally more than at rest. I’d guess you found that comfortable, yes?‍>

  <‍It was what it was.‍> She had followed his instructions. Comfort wasn’t a factor.

  <‍Okay. Let’s move on.‍>

  The tests continued. The suit simulated weights, and she pushed and pulled with every muscle in her body, individually and in groups. She was pleased with how strong her fingers were, and she experienced a yearning to put them to use‌—‌them, and her extended nails that were better described as talons.

  She knew that being in this suit would only test her so far. Even when the air/liquid combination acted as air bombarding her, or water pounding her, it was still not the real thing.

  Two hours and eighteen minutes from the time Kesia stepped into the suit, the Chief Supervisor swiped his screen and the suit deflated, the air rushing out and the moisture pooling at her feet, a minuscule tube syphoning it off. There was a blast of heat, and Kesia was dry.

  The assistant unfastened her, and Kesia stepped out. Once again, the Chief Supervisor glanced at her and then averted his gaze, preferring to stare at his screen.

  “So, how do you feel?”

  “Good.” She could have explained in more detail, but she’d only be repeating the readings that were no doubt currently passing from the assistant’s screen to her Chief Supervisor’s lenses.

  “Good.” He repeated that word, maybe because he was happy with what Kesia had just been through, or maybe because he wasn’t sure what else to say. He tapped the screen a few more times, then stood and motioned to the door behind her. “We’re ready to move on to the next stage. The suit’s fine for basic readings, but we won’t know what you’re really capable of until we observe you in combat.”

  Murdoch watched far too intently as Ryann stripped off the hazard suit, and it was a battle to face him with her arms by her sides. He’d leered, then told her to follow. With the door behind her sealed, there was no option for Ryann but to do as he instructed.

  The walls were white, the ceiling filled with light panels that glowed a soft orange, and the floor was grey and‌—‌surprisingly‌—‌warm under her bare feet. But there was nothing to indicate where she was. The doors they passed had viewing panels, but all were clouded. Each door had a two-digit number stencilled in black, although the numbers were in no sequence Ryann could fathom.

  Murdoch stopped at door 16 and opened it. He stepped through, not even glancing back to check that Ryann was still following.

  The room behind the door reminded Ryann of the viewing rooms in quarantine, back on Haven, and for a moment her mind threw up an image of Cathal, covered by a sheet, his face black leather and his jaw a fang-filled snout. Ryann shuddered.

  Murdoch stepped to the glass that covered the far wall of this room, beckoning Ryann to join him.

  The lights on the far side were off, and Ryann instinctively pulled up lenses, the image in her eyes taking on that familiar ghostly green tinge.

  She looked down into a large room that reminded her of a games auditorium. There were even seats folded back against the opposite wall. The floor was clean and smooth, with no markings, and there were double doors at each end. Scanning up the walls, Ryann saw patches of glass, presumably observation rooms similar to this one, or maybe they were private boxes for watching sport.

  But Ryann was sure Murdoch hadn’t dragged her here to watch games.

  “How are things, Harris?” he asked, his tone nonchalant. When she didn’t respond‌—‌didn’t even look at him, apart from in the window’s reflection‌—‌he continued. “Believe it or not, I don’t relish the thought of you suffering. You’ve been through more than enough already.”

  “Then let me go.”

  He smiled. “If I could, I would. But after what happened, we cannot risk contamination. We have to think of the thousands of others aboard Metis.”

  “And yet you walk free.”

  It surprised her how she could talk, and how she could keep her voice level. She took a breath in deep, held it for a few seconds before exhaling.

  “You think I’m free? Maybe I’m not as restricted by quarantine as you, but my role puts me under a great deal of pressure. Responsibility is its own form of containment. But maybe you can start to appreciate that, Harris, after the position you found yourself in on Haven.”

  “You mean when you tried to kill us?” she said through clenched teeth.

  He sighed. “We got off on the wrong foot, Harris. The operation on Haven was a mess, I know. In hindsight, allowing my colleague to oversee things was not the best move we could have made. I should have stepped in and pulled rank, and I am truly sorry that you had to suffer through his‌…‌ill-advised decisions.”

  The words dripped like poison into her mind, but Ryann found herself strangely accepting that Murdoch had been in command, and that Daman had been his inferior. It didn’t excuse what happened, of course, and she still hated Murdoch with a vengeance. But this was just one more level of deception from the company, just one more lie from Kaiahive.

  “But I didn’t bring you here to talk internal politics, Harris. No, I want to show you something. I believe it will help make things clear.” He nodded towards the glass, and the grey room flooded with light.

  “This will explain everything, will it?” Ryann’s voice sounded bitter, even to her.

  “It will go some way to clarifying things, yes.”

  “It will explain why we had no help in evacuating Haven? It will tell me why Daman shot some of the best people I know, and why you, his superior, stood by without lifting a finger? It will explain why over a hundred people died in Haven?”

  “If you allow it,” Murdoch said, his voice quiet and icy-sharp, “It will give you the answers you seek.”

  No, Ryann thought. It will give the answers you want me to accept, and nothing more. But there was no time to voice her thoughts. She assumed Murdoch had sussed, or given some other signal, because the doors to the left of the arena opened, and six shapes stumbled out.

  Ryann shivered as she saw their black, leather-like skin and their curved claws. At least through the glass she couldn’t smell them.

  “Shades,” she said, the enormity of what she was seeing hitting her. “You have shades on Metis.”

  “Of course. Surely you realised that Metis is, primarily, a research vessel. And research always required test subjects.”

  “But…” She didn’t know where to start. She’d seen those monsters suck the blood from too many people, people she cared about. Those things had turned Cathal into a monster. They’d torn Arela apart. They were ruthless killers, the stuff of nightmares.

  “We understand far more about them now than we did a few months ago, thanks in no small part to Haven. We have lights ready to shine sol on them should there be problems, and we have sharp-shooters standing by.” He tapped the glass with one finger, his nail striking it hard. “This is toughened, of course. We’re perfectly safe. And we have something else to combat them now.”

  The other door opened, and the wonderful yellow glow of sol flooded out. It touched one of the shades, and the creature recoiled, smoke rising from where the light caught its arm.

  And through the light came another creature. It walked upright, dressed in black trousers and a jacket, but its grey feet were uncovered, as was its bald, grey head. Two small, white eyes scanned the room, and its mouth cracked open to reveal fangs.

  It was a monster, but no more so than the shades. And if this was another product of the company, then Ryann knew it had once been a person.

  “Beautiful, isn’t
she.”

  Ryann turned to stare at Murdoch, and he held a hand up, palm towards her. “Don’t look like that! You’re a tracker with meditech training‌—‌look beyond the obvious. This glass doesn’t block lattice signals, so focus on her, and tell me what you really see.”

  Ryann balled a fist, digging her nails into the flesh of her palm. The pain gave her clarity, and she pushed with her lattice, out towards the thing in the arena, the thing bathed in sol.

  She felt its lattice, although it was like trying to keep hold of an ice-cube with thick gloves‌—‌her concentration was continually slipping from it. But she concentrated, and felt the thing.

  It was‌…‌happy was the wrong word. Maybe content. Or accepting. And it was not bothered by the shades.

  “Those things you call shades were‌…‌an early prototype, if you will. They had a certain brutish power, but none of the finesse we were seeking. And yes, in many ways they were a failure. But they showed us the potential. And when we analysed the data on those in Haven they had infected, our scientists had their eureka moment. I won’t bore you with the exact details‌—‌to be honest, I only understand a fraction of it myself. But our team made huge advances. And this incredible being is the result.”

  He smiled, like a proud father. Ryann followed his eyes, down to the beast.

  “Actually, she’s just one of the results. This is NuGamma Eksi, although she’s more often referred to as Kesia. The sixth of our new generation of creations. Only woke couple of days ago, but she’s flown through every test we’ve give her. We’re hoping she does equally well in this little scenario. I’ll patch you in.”

  Ryann didn’t have long to wonder what he meant, because she could suddenly hear his voice through her lattice.

  <‍NG6, do you hear me?‍>

  <‍Yes.‍> The voice was throaty and unemotional.

  <‍Do you see the six creatures before you?‍>

  <‍Of course.‍>

  <‍They’re scared of you.‍>

  <‍Yes.‍>

  <‍But they go wild when they smell blood. We need them to attack you, and for you to defend yourself. How will you make them come for you?‍>