The Sowing

No sooner does she sound her warning than the floor erupts about a dozen yards away. Shards of metal fly. I catch a glimpse of those metallic-looking tentacles that seized Styles slithering through the opening, grasping for anything in their path—

The door panel shorts and the prison doors slide open with a gust of putrid air.

A pack of prisoners tumbles out, their faces twisted in confusion and terror.

I rip a fire hose from its wall socket and hoist Dru up the vent shaft, so she can secure it as a means for the escapees to climb out. But the sounds of the Fleshers approaching are getting too close and we decide to abandon the idea, opting instead to take the long way around, which leads to the doors of the hangar bay.

I grab hold of an emaciated youth. “This way to safety!”

Then we’re all dashing away from the Fleshers toward the hangar bay. Drusilla and I fire blast after blast behind us, trying to buy time. But those awful sounds keep getting louder, as those dark shapes flit through the smoke and flame in relentless pursuit.

We round the corner. The door leading into the hangar bay is wide open. Beyond it, I can hear the rumble of the Vulture’s engines waiting to take off. “Through there! There’s a transport!” I herd the prisoners through, and then Drusilla.

But I don’t follow.

Arrah, Corin, and Cage are standing by the boarding ramp, their faces anxious as the prisoners flee into the ship.

Drusilla whirls. “Spark! Why aren’t you—?”

I shake my head. “Someone has to seal the doors and buy you time.”

Digging into my pack, I pull out one of two tiny transceiver units, set both channels on the same frequency, and toss one to Drusilla. “Keep in touch.”

Arrah and Cage start running toward me. “Lucian! You get aboard that ship right now!” Arrah shouts.

I smile at them. “You did good. All of you. Now get them home.”

The door to the hangar slams closed behind me when I hit the release. Then I’m welding it shut with the blowtorch.

Just as I finish, a tentacle slams into the door just an inch from my head, denting the thick metal as if it were clay.

I whirl, just in time to see a massive shape emerging from the flame.

Clacketyclacketyclacketyclacketyclacketyclacketyclacketyclacketyclackety!

I dive and roll down the adjacent corridor, springing to my feet and running as fast as I ever have. Tentacles slam the floor behind me as I lead the Fleshers farther and farther away from the others.

From my friends.

The other side of the corridor is a dead end.

Containment Lab 5.

My heart races. This is it. The location that the computer back in Asclepius Valley mentioned. Right under the entries about Cole and Digory and the mysterious U.I.P. procedure. The place where the Establishment’s highly classified bio-weapon is being kept.

If I’m going to go out, I may as well take whatever it is with me rather than risk it getting into the hands—tentacles—

of the Fleshers.

Of course, the lab is locked.

Grabbing the torch, I start cutting away at the lock and almost have it open when a tentacle wraps around my leg and drags me from the door, slamming me into the ground and ripping my gun from my grasp.

The Flesher emerges from the smoke. It’s at least nine feet tall. The face is roughly humanoid, with bleached, hairless white skin and a bald head lined with throbbing veins. Instead of eyes, a dark, reflective strip is grafted into its flesh. Sinewy membranes cover the nose and mouth area, feeding into a twisted mass of wiring that’s coiled around its skull and protruding into its throat.

Metallic armor, simulating an exposed skeleton, covers its upper torso. These bones continuously shift, exposing appendages that seem to be individual tools. An amber light engulfs me from the tip of one, while a cutting blade whirs to life on another one.

While it has two bony arms that end in claws, as if the fingers have been surgically grafted together, metallic tentacles like the one grasping me now emerge from the bones of its forearms. Its legs have been grafted, mid-thigh, to a complex set of servo-motors and gears that allow it to alternately roll or climb, depending on the terrain.

Crash!

A blur comes through the door of the lab behind me, slamming into the Flesher.

It’s a young man, naked except for the remnants of a hospital gown. His muscles gleam in the firelight as he swings around to the Flesher’s back, wrapping one of his thick biceps around the thing’s throat as his thighs lock around its waist. The Flesher releases my leg as both tentacles lash around, striking at its attacker. But the youth’s head is a blur of long, scraggly hair as he whips his head out of the way, catching one of the tentacles in his hands.

I scramble to snatch up my gun, aiming it toward them, but it’s impossible to get a shot without risking the young man’s life.

Whir!

The cutter comes to life, reaching toward the youth’s throat, closer, closer… only an inch away…