Mask of Humanity

Back in the living area, Nicolai ghosted through the corridors, listening for the sounds of the patrols. He ought to avoid them, because if he had an encounter he might try and fight them. It was a fight he was likely to lose.

But he wasn’t heading towards the Gauntlet, not yet. The torches told him he had over an hour before dark. A balance had been gradually shifting within him and at some point had tipped and he was no longer simply travelling. As he padded forwards, checked rooms, listened intently, and held his weapon tight; he was hunting.

The torches danced and time smeared. Creeping through one of the corridors, his ears perked when he made out voices ahead. The walls pulsed as though breathing, shadows spidering along them. The darkness extended tendrils through him and twisted.

In only moments he was peering around the corner, where he saw the typical scheme of the living quarters had altered. On one side of the corridor it opened up into stone stairs that started wide then narrowed as they rose to a short landing with a doorway in the middle. The remnants of a splintered wooden door were strewn across the stairs.

Filling the doorway was a large man hefting a greatsword and a woman with a bionic arm and an axe. There was another figure visible behind them. They were yelling down the stairs at the group below

Those lower down numbered seven, wearing the typical ragged clothing, scavenged armour, and ancient weapons. These were spread across the corridor with some of them pressing up the stairs, stances wary and aggressive. Among them Nicolai spotted a few with clear bionic enhancements. An overlong bionic arm. A woman with two bulging artificial legs. He even saw the upper portion of a spine-based neural-enhancer at the back of a man’s neck. He spotted a few identifying marks, took in the shapes and designs, and quickly worked out the makes and models of the augments. They were all cheap, low-grade level-1s; not all that much better than flesh and bone, but they still marked these people as the most dangerous he’d encountered in this place. His body tingled pleasantly at the thought.

‘Get back!’ yelled the big man at the top of the stairs, wafting his greatsword left and right, those below retreating slightly.

‘We don’t want to fight,’ said one of them, a tall man who was edging up the stairs—the man with the neural-enhancer. He held out a longsword, ready and wary, smart little eyes poking at the two above. ‘Put your weapons down. Hand over your Seeds. Then you can come back with us, join us.’

The woman with the bionic arm sneered down at him. ‘No chance.’

‘You sure you want to do this?’ Neural-enhancer smiled up at her and the big man, and there was a viciousness to that smile, a viciousness Nicolai recognised. Neural-enhancer edged a step higher up, just beginning to intrude on the big sword’s long reach but not quite, stance an invitation. Looking to draw a blow, make an opening. The rest of them pressed forward with neural-enhancer, moving like a pack of wolves.

The words continued, but they were fading from Nicolai’s hearing. Insignificant. None of them were looking in his direction. The darkness squirmed and he stepped out, raising the polearm high as he approached the first. A man with his back turned. A terrible mistake.

Nicolai snapped forwards, snake-lunge, the polearm writhing eagerly in his hands. He watched as it swam through the air and the hammer crunched through the back of the man’s skull with a glorious burst of blood and bone that sprayed across Nicolai’s face in a lovely warm slap. The warmth passed through his skin and into his soul and he felt vibrantly alive as the polearm drew him forward towards the next.

They had time to do no more than turn and the hammer was there to kiss them on the lips and send them to crash into the wall, bouncing off to land on the floor, broken.

Nicolai tumbled over them and a roar burst from his lips and hit the walls which echoed it, screaming with him as he hurled himself at the next in line, the polearm streaming behind.

This one got a blade up in time to intercept his swing but the power of it sent them stumbling back, off-balance at the worst time. Nicolai flowed after them, close and pressing like the tide as he twisted the polearm and the butt of it caught them in the face, crack, then his foot stomped through the side of their knee, snap, and they were falling, trying to get away, but he spun in a circle, a dancer on ice, and the polearm jumped at them and caught them in the neck and half-way tore their head off in a jagged tear of red flesh and white bone.

Nicolai reeled, laughing, and the world turned around him, hunting for the next. He saw all of them turning to him. The two at the top of the stairs retreating back, the rest coming forwards.

Two moved to fill the hallway before him. One was a man with a bionic arm and a rapier and the other a woman with a pair of bionic legs and an axe.

‘You’re a Raw,’ said rapier, showing his teeth in a sneer that made Nicolai draw his own lips back.

‘Fucking coward!’ snarled the other, raising her axe high. ‘You sneaking piece of shit!’

Nicolai grinned at them and his body trembled, the fire twining and writhing through him. He could feel the strength and speed of their artificial body parts, he knew the makes and models, he saw the solidness and sharpness of their weapons, the killing rage in their eye. The danger of it all pressed against him, a wonderful heat.

‘Come on!’ he roared at them as everything twisted inside of him, and he slammed his polearm into his shield. The metal voices erupted in their own clashing scream.

The rapier darted out and Nicolai brushed it aside as he stepped in, then the axe was coming for him and the rapier jabbed again but it came too slow, too slow to catch him as he ducked away, slippery like oil on the water.

Axe-woman snarled at him and her metal legs propelled her suddenly forward, the axe raised high. Nicolai felt a hint of his own eagerness from her but it was a candle to a bonfire and his retreat stopped as he twitched forwards, a fox hunting mice.

Her axe whistled down but he was ready for it, already close, the wooden haft slapping harmlessly into his shoulder. His body was tight like a spring, unfolding behind the polearm which spun out and caught her metal knee and broke it and took her legs out from under her, throwing her shrieking to the ground.

The rapier was back and it was angry now, catching him in the arm but there was no pain, only a rush of energy that fuelled the fire within him as he danced backwards.

The rapier man followed, eyes cold and crafty, lips drawn tight as his rapier poked and prod, held in a bionic arm which pumped like a drill, sharp tip screeching at Nicolai’s shield.

But machines are predictable and Nicolai twitched and bobbed and blocked, a fly dodging raindrops. He lunged forwards and caught the rapier with the polearm’s haft and the weapons were tied up between them and he pressed close, looping his arm tight around the bionic to keep it still, the man’s snarling visage inches from his own. Long, thin nose.

Nicolai’s mouth darted out and he caught the nose in a flash of snapping teeth. The man was howling and throwing frantic punches into the side of his head but to Nicolai it felt like no more than the pattering of a gentle rain. His mouth scissored tighter, a bear-trap snap, the flesh tearing between his teeth and there came an explosion of blood in his mouth and the satisfying crunch of cartilage. He twisted his head and ripped.

The man was screaming and screaming, clutching at his ruined face. Nicolai spat the nose out and threw the man into the wall then the polearm licked out and caved his face around the bloody hole where his nose had been, painting the wall red.

A red face bulged out of the bloodstain, grinning at him. ‘Look out,’ said the face, and he felt a heat from below. He lifted his foot in time to avoid an axe that sliced beneath. The woman on the ground was not yet dead, struggling with her broken legs, screaming and flailing, thrashing and wailing. The axe jerked in a crazed dance back towards him.

Nicolai caught the weapon with a kick below the head that sent it spinning away. He raised the polearm in both hands. ‘Quiet now,’ he hissed as his hammer crushed her head into bloody paste.

‘More!’ he bellowed, and laughed, and the fire roared through him as the next came forwards, already swinging. This man held a longsword that hummed towards him. It came in a great arc of steel that twisted the light around it, but Nicolai twitched aside, frog hopping, and the blade spun past and crashed into the wall.

Everything in him wanted to move forwards but the longsword was already coming back and the heat of danger was stronger than ever, the shadows and the blood whispering, take care, be patient. He knew this one, it was the man with the neural-enhancer which was active, speeding his body up beyond what was natural. The sword moved like the blades of a helicopter, driving Nicolai back, and back, crashing into his shield and harrying him.

The longsword came again and again, from every angle, determined to put him down. But Nicolai hopped and skipped and slipped away, and each step built the energy within him, growing, a forest fire spreading. All the while, the swordsman’s speed and energy was fading, the neural-enhancer rapidly exhausting his bodies reserves. His face, so determined and angry to begin with, grew increasingly desperate.

Nicolai matched his partner's steps, the dance slowing. The season of their fight had turned, summer into winter, life into death. Nicolai drew a deep, pleasant breath, energy thrumming through him. He smelt the sudden fear of the one standing before him. The swordsman gasped for breath and his longsword wavered. The neural-enhancer was spent. He went to take a step back, to retreat.

Nicolai lunged forwards and his first savage swing of the polearm caught the raised longsword and made it shriek then the next sent it wide and the man was stumbling, stumbling and swinging wildly but Nicolai caught the blade near the crossguard with the hammer and the blade was launched, singing its song of steel, to spin and dance away down the corridor.

The man staggered back a step, an attempt at escape. Nicolai moved like the wind and the hammer crashed into the man’s side with the crack of snapping ribs and threw him into the wall which knocked him to the ground, the shadows dancing around him.

The man writhed, mouth open. ‘Marion,’ he choked, turning to look down the hall. ‘Run!’ The word made it out just before the hammer broke his head and spread his brains over the floor.

‘Don’t you run, Marion,’ Nicolai hissed, stepping over the dead towards the last of them, a young man who stood frozen. The youth stumbled, turned, and sprinted away before skidding to a stop, staring at a group of people who’d descended to fill the hallway behind him. Those from up above, come down to play. Nicolai grinned at them as he crept forwards, fingering his polearm, but there was something wrong.

‘Come on,’ said the big man to the youth, and they all started running.

‘No!’ Nicolai frothed, taking another step forwards, but his legs were weakening. The shadows snarled and the blood roared, all of it calling him onwards, but the fire within him was dying. His lips drew back in a snarl as he took another step but his lungs were burning and he wobbled and sunk to one knee, gasping and spitting. The dark within him writhed and twisted and screamed at his body as it saw them getting further and further away.

New energy flooded into him from somewhere and he jerked himself upright, taking another step forward even as his legs shook. A scream of rage burst out of him to crash and bounce off the blurring walls. For a moment, his legs firmed. The embers of the dying fire began to blaze.

They turned a corner and were gone.

His hands grew limp and the polearm fell.

‘Hunh, huhh.’ Nicolai joined it, falling to his hands and knees as he gasped and sputtered, saliva drooling from between his lips, his legs and arms burning with exertion. He was full up with an endless thirst, his throat sandpaper dry. The world spun madly around him for a moment then the fire finally floundered, died, and he regained control.

Nicolai sunk back onto his folded legs. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to steady his breathing. For a time all he could do was sit there and pant for breath. He looked around at the bodies and the blood and saw that the torch was burning low, a dull orange, almost red.

There was a puncture on the back of his forearm. Minor. No issue. He wasn’t injured, just exhausted. He found his polearm and used it to help himself rise, then he looked to the torch and considered the time and the risk. He moved as rapidly between the corpses as he could manage, fishing for valuables, digging for Seeds but finding none.

This led to a moment of confusion and frustration, his search growing increasingly frantic. Not a single Seed? He peered into someone’s mouth, scooped the blood out hopefully. Nothing. Maybe it went down their throat. The dagger sliced the corpses neck open and Nicolai’s fingers burrowed into the flesh, searching. Nothing! But why? How was it that all of these people had lost their Seeds?

He forced himself to move on from the matter. For whatever reason, none of them had a Seed. He only had about to thirty minutes to get back to his safe-place, and most of that would be spent reaching the Gauntlet. Take what you can and go.

He found two serviceable daggers and he claimed the rapier and the longsword, too, as they were decent weapons and good alternatives to his polearm. The rapier especially seemed of quite fine make, light, balanced, and in mint condition. It even came with a sheath, which he stripped from the original owner. He considered cutting free the bionics from the dead, as such things were valuable, but that would take too long and he could only carry so much.

Having taken everything he thought worth taking, Nicolai scurried away from the dead. As he moved through the corridors he found that they were shrinking, and then he was surrounded, hemmed in, the walls staring at him full of accusation while the shadows twined over them, slow and sated.

‘What?’ he snarled, but he knew what. He’d lost himself back there. A little. Be honest. Okay, quite a lot more than a little. His lips drew back in a grimace as the bloody memories reached through him. Not good, not good at all.

But he couldn’t deny the satisfaction the shadows displayed in their slow writhing, the satisfaction that burned through his veins.

It had been a good fight.

He’d won.

They’d deserved to die.

Right? Probably. Hopefully. As the memories pressed closer he found that he was uncertain. He hadn’t done his due diligence. He was meant to make sure people were deserving of death before he killed them.

That was the human thing to do, wasn’t it?

Had those people been deserving? He tried to recall what he’d seen before his assault. They’d been pressing up the stairs, towards the other group. In his memories their threatening nature was obvious. Could he trust those memories? I have to, he decided. Violence had been imminent, even without him. That other group had gotten away, as a result of his actions. So… he’d done good?

Something told him the answer was no. But perhaps… perhaps he hadn’t done bad.