Mask of Humanity

Jo, alongside Perro and Azure, moved up and down the length of undead miners and guards.

The undead didn’t react as the three of them put the loops of rope that Nicolai had sent them over the undead’s heads. They tied each loop tight enough that it wouldn’t fit around the skull, a collar around the undeads neck-spine.

Each undead paused, staring with apparent confusion for a moment. They then turned away and resumed their job, except for one which was fixated on the sight of the rope extending away from it, rising to the wall above the undead, where the ropes hooked through spurs of rock made from cutting into the walls.

‘Alright,’ said Jo, moving to the middle of the room where there was a dangling rope, one which connected to all of the others.

‘You try it,’ she said to Azure, who stepped up, nodding, eager.

Azure was the lightest of them, so Jo wanted to see whether her weight would be enough. If not, she and Perro were ready to jump in if necessary, and if the trap failed, they had their maces ready and she’d reloaded her pistol. Nicolai had sent her fresh ammunition for it, to the extent she wasn’t worried about having to use it if necessary.

Azure grabbed the rope and dropped her body, lifting her legs, the whole weight of her body dragging down on the rope, which was looped through a hole above her.

There was a combined clatter as the loops jerked tight around every undead skull, and then a series of bony popping noises, as the heads came free.

All the undead fell to the ground, in messy piles of bone, while the skulls fell beside them.

There, the bones began to slowly creep back together, but Jo and the other two were ready.

One undead was spared this fate. It was the one who had been fixated on the rope, as it had reached out and grabbed the rope and pulled it off of its head as Azure began to pull.

Jo crushed its skull with her mace before it could do anything, then she and Azure dashed around, crushing the skulls on the ground with their maces, while Perro ran after them. He held the Soul Trap, which had been loaded with an Oma crystal to power it and now he swung it through the air, collecting the blue wisps released from the skeletons.

‘Overall, went pretty well,’ said Jo afterwards, smiling at the other two.

‘Just have to watch out for the odd slightly smarter one,’ said Perro, panting lightly.

‘So, who gets the souls?’ asked Azure, her eyes on the Soul Trap.

‘We split them,’ said Jo.

Jo and the others sat on the ground, the helmet between them, and each took their Seed out. Jo kept hers in a wrap around her forearm, Perro had his in a similar wrap, and Azure kept it in her mouth.

‘How you can keep it there?’ asked Perro, shaking his head as Azure spat her Seed onto her palm. ‘I did during the Trials but I haven’t since. Its too weird and distracting.’

Azure shrugged. ‘I got used to it in the Trials. It seems happy in my mouth. I don’t even notice it, now.’

Perro made a faintly disgusted face, which drew a frown from Azure, who spoke scathingly. ‘Hey, you know your idol Nicolai does the same thing, right?’

Perro’s face flushed. ‘He’s not my idol!’ the boy hissed.

Jo coughed to cover her laugh, looking away as she smirked. ‘Alright kids.’ She looked back and held the Soul Trap up, her Seed in her other hand. The Soul Trap shimmered with light, which came from a small pool of thick blue liquid. It let out a continuous faint hiss, as the chunk of Oma crystal they’d stuck under its top strap to touch the siphoning rune worked to absorb Oma and maintain the effect. ‘Let’s drop them in all at once, and they can split the wisps up themselves.’

The other two held their Seeds out, and on her nod, they all dropped them inside.

###

The helmet was placed on the ground. If any of the Seeds within had looked up they would have seen three faces crowded around and peering curiously down. But none of them did, because they were busy.

The three Seeds dove right into the liquid and began to drink, floating and crawling within, soaking it up. As they did so, they began to find themselves overfilled with Soul, out of balance.

A voice came from above, saying something, recognising the problem. One of the Seeds was soothed by the voice, recognising its owner. There came a flurry of activity around the helmet and then small pieces of Oma crystal were raining into the Soul Trap.

The Seeds grabbed onto the closest crystals and drank at the Oma within, then continued drinking at the Souls, in a state of utter bliss. But all too soon the lifegiving fuel they desired ran dry, and they pressed up against one another.

Now the Seeds eyed each other warily, recognising the competition, considering whether they ought to try and destroy the others and drink at their energies. But each Seed knew, in some way, that these were allies. Pieces of their friends.

The Seeds were collected and returned to their homes. They waved to one another as they went.

###

Jo and the others spent the rest of the day working on new traps. They built two more, all in the same area. She’d decided it was best that the traps be close enough they could all communicate over Local, which meant they had to be very close.

Local connection worked via exchange of radio transmissions between their personal BIS’s, and in the tunnels, those transmissions didn’t go far.

The main problem had been that of luring the undead to these traps, once completed.

But, Azure had solved that. While Jo and Perro had worked to build the traps, she’d gone off to study the undead. Jo had given fifty-fifty odds that the girl was just avoiding the actual work, which was quite difficult as it involved mining out holes in the areas where the mining work was in progress. They’d had to steal a cart which they used to stand on, so they could reach the higher parts of the walls where they wanted to string the ropes through.

The hardest was cutting the hole in the ceiling, each of which took over an hour of gradual, miserable work. Jo and Perro agreed it was not at all easy on the body to hold a heavy pick up and swing at the ceiling above.

By the time they were done on the last trap, Jo’s shoulders and arms had been aching. Seeing Azure return had both her and Perro eyeing the girl through narrowed eyes.

‘I hope you’ve managed to do something useful,’ said Jo leadingly.

Azure smirked at them. ‘Don’t worry. I’m an Informati. We’re good at this sort of thing.’ She turned the smirk onto Perro specifically.

Perro, Jo knew, was a Manual. It was typical for Informatis to have a bit of superiority to Manuals, but Perro just snorted.

‘So what did you find out, oh wise one?’ he asked.

‘They can sense Oma crystals, in some way. I did some experiments, collecting and putting crystals in places. They search ‘em out. That’s how they know where to mine.’ She grinned, proud. ‘All we need to do is get more crystals and put a stock in each of these areas we made the traps. That’ll make these areas extra attractive. I think it’ll end up with a new mining crew coming pretty regularly.’

Jo nodded, surprised, impressed. ‘Well done,’ she said, and meant it.

‘It’s what I do.’ Azure grinned bigger than ever.

###

After that, things went quickly. The traps worked well and in practise, the three found that they could often move to support one another as the undead didn’t come all at the same time to each trap.

There were a few issues, but Jo felt they’d gotten by without much issue.

They were on the third trip to the drone of the day, having just fed all of their Seeds quite a chunk (all were now up above thirty-percent), and were transporting a few bags worth of crystals.

Jo was thinking about Beth as she moved down the corridor, just ahead of the other two who were having a discussion about what type of Symbiote they wanted, once they’d completed their Seeds. Perro wanted to control water. Azure wanted to turn into a bird.

Beth had gotten that evil-looking fire centipede. Not what Jo would have chosen, but she supposed it matched up. Fire suited Beth. What would she choose, when the time came? She had no idea what her choices would be, but she was hoping for something that would help her move around faster. She liked the idea of it.

She heard a faint noise from beyond and her head raised, eyes focusing, then she came to a stop, freezing.

A woman had stepped out at the other end of the tunnel.

‘Help me, help me,’ moaned the woman, staggering weakly toward them. She had dark hair and pale skin and seemed in a bad state, moving as though drunk. She stumbled and fell to her hands and knees. A band flashed around her neck.

Jo stared at the woman, unmoving, whilst Perro and Azure came to cluster up behind her.

‘Shit, what’s wrong with her?’ muttered Azure

‘Should we help?’ Perro asked.

‘No,’ said Jo, frowning, thinking. She had a bad feeling about this.

‘Hey, help,’ said the woman, peering at them from behind her head. Her voice had gotten a little stronger.

Jo leaned down, putting her bag of crystals onto the ground, and reached for her pistol as she rose.

‘Don’t touch it!’ yelled a voice from behind, and she spun in place to see a man emerging from behind them. He was a scarred individual with ratty hair and a nasty grin on his face, and a band around his neck, too. He held a submachine gun in his hands, and was aiming right at Jo.

Shit. Jo’s lips drew back, and she tried to think of what to do. They’d been tricked. She had already activated her combat chip and it told her she could draw her pistol and shoot him twice in the chest in about a second. It also told her that this was unlikely to be fast enough to avoid being shot in turn, with the SMG already aimed at her.

‘Pull the pistol out, nice and slow, and drop it on the ground,’ said the man.

‘What do we do?’ asked Perro over Local, and she saw him and Azure staring at her, eyes round.

‘Put it down, bitch!’ yelled the woman, who had gotten to her feet, now, and was grinning at them. ‘If she doesn’t, shoot her.’ She sneered at Jo.

Gritting her teeth, Jo reached for her pistol.

‘Slow, now,’ barked the man. ‘Use just one finger and your thumb. You put any more on it and I’ll blast you, you and the kids.’

Jo recognised, due to how they were positioned, that if he shot at her he would risk shooting his friend, the woman. But the bullets would be going through her and the teenagers first.

Sighing, she gripped her pistol around the end of its grip with finger and thumb, pulled it out, and dropped it on the ground.

‘Good.’ The man grinned. ‘Now kick it over to her. And no funny business.’

Jo turned and kicked it over and the woman grabbed it from the ground, grinning too.

‘Shit, we got ‘em,’ said the woman, and cackled.

As Jo took in the captors, she was thinking that this was not a good pair to be caught by. There was a fiendish air to them. Shit, shit, shit.

‘We’ve been watching you,’ said the man, and he let out an ugly laugh. ‘Seen you from afar. What’s all that business with the drone? And where’d you get the gun? You with the Chosen?’

‘We’re not Chosen,’ spat Azure.

‘Then where’d you get the gun?’

Jo could feel Perro and Azure looking to her. She wasn’t sure what to do. Should she say they were part of a larger group? Would that make these people back off, or just cause more problems?

‘Should we tell them we’re part of a group?’ she asked the other two over Local, making sure to check their connection was secure, first. According to her Link software, it was.

‘I don’t know,’ said Perro.

‘Of course we should. These guys are gonna get fucking creamed the moment Nicolai and my dad find out about this. They got no idea who they’re fucking with!’

‘But that doesn’t h—‘ Jo began, but to her shock, Azure was already speaking.

‘We have the gun ‘cause we’re with a big group. A big group full of bad people.’

‘Shut up, Azure!’ she hissed over Local. ‘We haven’t decided!’

Azure ignored her. ‘If you screw with us, you’re gonna fucking die!’ the girl yelled, standing tall, glaring at the man with the gun pointed at them.