Containment measures, p.3
Containment Measures, page 3
part #2 of The Immortium Series
“THERE, THERE THEY ARE!” He said joyfully.
He tried his best to refrain from his red eye lenses from dropping, even if he was wearing sunglasses, the sun glare might make it worse. He looked over at Anna. “Well? How much do you weigh?”
“I don’t know, it's not like we have scales readily available out here.”
Xairin huffed. “Fine.”
She hadn’t seen his wings yet. Xairin wasn’t shy about allowing them to unfold out of the slits around his shoulder blades. Thankfully the cuts he made in his shirt were holding up to the length he had sliced. Once they were fully elongated, Anna seemed to squirm. “You have wings too?”
He gave them a few flaps. He managed to hover off the ground, six feet or so. He was testing himself. After dropping back down. He looked at the woman. “Can I carry you and test this out?”
Anna wasn’t having it. Sure, she needed his help to stay alive, but she was dreadfully fearful of heights. There was no way she was doing this and if having a say-so was an option, she was going to voice that answer. She stuttered again. “No… This is where you and I go separate ways.”
“Are you serious?” He asked
“ABSOLUTELY. I’m not flying with you. You go do your thing, and now I’m off to do mine!”
_____
Madison Avenue
Lana and her team had arrived on Madison Avenue. She looked up at the aged sign still standing after all this time. It's white letters still readable.
She wasn’t wearing her helmet like the rest of her team did. She needed to have her senses unburdened by the mask. She was sniffing, trying to get a scent of anything around her that might be either dangerous, or survivors that needed escorted out of the hot zone. Her main priority was to find that roost, destroy it, find Xairin, and kill any Immoritum in the hot zone that she could verify as ghoul progenitors. She had her work cut out for her.
The short trek they had taken, had already yielded some fruit. They found a man that was eating dead bodies. He wasn’t a ghoul, but a creature that left Lana feeling a little nervous. A wererat. She decided to kill him without question, given he was acting like a cannibal. When she did, a report across her radio confirmed more ghouls dropping dead.
In the distance, a little over three hundred yards, after they took a right-hand turn, Lana stopped. She hunkered down slowly while making a fist with her left hand to signal to her squad. They each saw what she was looking at. So, did Parker.
They saw the ghouls that Xairin had dispatched. They saw the ghoul impaled by the manhole cover Xairin had slung. What truly caught their eye, wasn’t the corpses running around, it was what was eating them. What made the man she had killed?
A rat, a large rat near the size of a tiger was gnawing on the remains of the ghoul that the manhole cover had crushed into a wall. It was well known to Immortium, that wererats were immune to some things, such as they could easily devour another Immortium without a conflict in blood absorption. This however wasn’t a wererat, it was what made them…
The creature’s face was largely exaggerated due to the Aeon Strain’s power. It was missing hair from its transformation. The flat teeth in its mouth, had sharpened into daggers, much like that of a saber-toothed cat in which its front incisors had been replaced by the deadly blood stained weapons. The giant rat paid them no mind.
A second rat came out of the sewer opening. It sniffed the air, unconcerned with Lana and her troops. It went for another ghoul Xairin had killed.
Parker walked up slowly to Lana. “What's the big deal? Let's blast them!”
Lana whispered. “Shut up you idiot. Wererats are hard enough to dispatch once they have a little practice at surviving. I’ve never tried to kill what made them.”
Parker huffed. “We’re immortal.”
Lana rolled her eyes. “One bite from one of those things and you won’t be. Now follow my lead.”
A man with his helmet still on, spoke softly to Parker. “If we have the things that made wererats running around the city then it's hard to tell how many scavs have been bitten by those things.”
Lana scoffed. “Great, more creatures to contain.”
A woman in the squad whispered. “Miss Rutherford’s report already indicated a wererat ghoul was on the bridge.”
Parker scratched his head. “What’s the big deal? We have silver ammunition, right? Laser pistols and rifles? We vaporize their heads and be done with it.”
The man crouched next to Parker took off his helmet. He was young, he looked like a teenager. He had sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and a smirk across his face. Agent Neal tried his best not to flog the inexperienced vamp. “Wererats are extremely agile hunters. The things that made them surly are just as agile if not more so. They would sense your projectiles coming before they could even impact. To kill a wererat, you have to anticipate where they are about to pounce, not where they are… As for these things… Who the hell knows.”
Parker rolled his eyes.
Lana kept her position. She knew that wererats were very sensitive to sounds, and vibration, not to mention their ability to leap great distances made them difficult to deal with. If just one of her team members fired too soon, the two bear sized rats would scatter, or attack. She had to do something.
She looked over at a woman with her helmet still snug. She slowly placed her hand on the sniper’s shoulder. “Krista, I want you to get ready. Treat them like thropes. I will prep up the kill.”
Lana pulled out both of her handguns from their hostlers. She was going to attempt to shoot both creatures in the head. It was up to Krista to anticipate where they would run too once they sensed the incoming damage. They had to be killed, not for just obviously being in their way, but also to contain the threat. Any creature spawned directly from the fallout had to be slain, otherwise new Immortium would continue to emerge.
Lana slowly stood up. Being an Immortium, she was ambidextrous like each member belonging to the rest of the other immortal races. She had both guns aimed perfectly. She knew she would miss the shot if they were like wererats. It was up to Krista to make the kill.
The red headed mer took off her helmet. She made sure her curly hair was secured by a hair tie. She pulled out her rifle, allowed it to begin charging. Once the barrel finished glowing blue, she looked at Lana and nodded.
Lana fired both shots at the same time. The blue pulse from her laser pistols whizzed through the air. Both of the rats, their ears perked and wiggled. The one eating the remains of the ghoul from the manhole cover just ducked and hissed. The second one leaped, clinging to the side of a building near its awning. Krista’s shot missed both…
Both rats didn’t want to hide. They hissed and stood up like a grizzly bear. They both went into a full sprint, both aimed at the Lana and her group. They showed no fear.
“OH SHIT!” Lana said. “FIRE!”
Each under her command followed her lead. They opened fire upon the two rats running their way. Like wererats they were agile, far more agile. Not a single blast was hitting them. It was as if they were dancing in midair, each graceful leap, gave them one jump closer to the squad.
The rats made noises much like they would if they were small, though the sound was far more monstrous and louder. It signaled to the nest brewing beneath the city streets. Four more giant rats came out of the sewer opening faster than Parker could fire his laser rifle at them. Intelligence was brimming. They all could tell exactly what they were doing. “THEY'RE CALLING FOR REINFORCEMENTS!” He yelled.
One of Lana’s team members turned around and was going to run for it. Right as she was twenty feet away from the group, a second manhole cover burst into the air. A giant rat emerged, leaping at the frightened Mer. It's long sharp front teeth, took the woman’s head off with a single bite. It feasted…
Parker got lucky, he shot rapidly, hoping if he squeezed enough rounds, he would kill one. A stray blast exploded upon the shoulder of a rat coming his way. The stun was enough to allow a second shot, this one did the job, the rats head vanished.
Lana put her laser pistols back into their holsters and reached for her blades. She ran at a rat coming her way. She knew hand to hand combat would be harder for them to anticipate, though she wished she didn’t have to get this close. Two rats lost their heads with her whirling acrobatics.
The ground beneath the group became frail. The ground moved as if an earthquake was happening. A furry hand came bursting through the aged concrete and grasped Krista’s leg. A hole in the ground enlarged as the monster attached to the limb, began to pull her down. The redheaded Mer screamed for help. “JEFFERY!”
Agent Neal heard her screaming for him. He turned around. He couldn’t get a clear shot. It had her leg in its mouth. The only thing he could think to do was use his kukri and sever her leg. “YOU SON OF A BITCH!” She screamed.
Jeffery Neal pulled Krista back quickly, he had a clear shot. The hole gave little room for the beast in there to evade his attack. A blast right between the eyes, sent the thing falling into the darkness below.
Parker kept shooting. The scattered vermin were targeting other players in the game of Mer vs mouse... He managed to snipe another one. Lana did the rest. Meanwhile Jeffrey pulled Krista to a car and tied a tourniquet around her right leg, just above the knee. She was breathing hard…
“MY LEG, MY FUCKING LEG!” She squalled.
Agent Neal rolled his eyes. “YOU'LL GROW A NEW ONE, NOW PIPE DOWN!”
Krista’s eyes grew wide as a rat stood behind Jeffery. It swiped at his back, clawing him. He fell to the ground, shrieking. Its claws had ripped right through his body armor as if it was paper.
The rat hunkered down. Agent Neal flipped over onto his back. He quickly pulled his rifle but couldn't take the shot. He was having to use it to keep the rat off of him. The thing’s mouth was wrapped around the gun, with Jeff’s hands at each end, pushing it up. It was stronger than he had anticipated.
“SHOOT IT!” He cried.
Krista was sweating. He had managed to sever her limb before it's assimilation cells could act like a venom inside her body, but the pain from the missing extremity was tolling her. She did manage to pull her rifle out. She clicked it once, and fired, saving Jeff right as his rifle bent into a U shape.
Lana continued to slice and dice. Her skin was becoming blue, tougher, like a thick hide. Her eyes became pitch black, her teeth sharpened. She didn’t grow scales, like Parker anticipated, just a strong blue color, followed by becoming rough, like sandpaper. She grew claws from her webbed fingers. She traded them for the place of her blades. She began clawing and mauling the rats.
Her movements in this form allowed her to be faster. The crunching of her morphing could be heard from twenty feet away, easily as her bones shifted. Her boots burst open, as long webbed toes sunk their claws into the pavement to gain footing. Her boots simply fell off. She let out a shriek, a high-pitched roar that caused Parker to flinch. Her face was stretching as her cheeks allowed for a vicious looking predatory smile to emerge. She shrieked again. This time the rat in front of her paused for thought. It paid for its lack of movement.
Parker stood there with his jaw dropped. She still had her dark curly hair, but three slits along her throat had opened up, shark like gills. She turned around as the fin on her back burst through her armor. She hissed at him. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT?”
Parker didn’t say a word.
Two others in her squad began shifting. Shark fins were a common trait in this group, along with the rough blue skin. Parker watched as their agile form gave them and advantage against the emerging mutant vermin.
Lana leaped onto the back of the last rat standing. She mauled at it like a vicious cat, until finally it stopped moving. She finished the rat off by reaching down and twisting its head off, tossing it to the side. “BEHEAD THEM NOW!” Her monstrous voice yelled.
Her team had been reduced to six in that attack. Assessing the damage, her body reverted to its human form right as she approached Jeff and Krista. She could see Krista trying her best to resist falling asleep. She knew she needed to rest, otherwise she wouldn't regrow a new leg. “DAMN!”
She pulled Agent Neal up, so he could sit and she could assess his back. His clawed back revealed his spinal cord and ribs. Thankfully Lana could see the fibers from the wound trying to pull back together like an invisible seamstress. “You'll be fine Neal. Signal for a retrieval team, get Krista back to river so she can heal, got it? And make sure they know we have more creatures to contain than just these bats. We need another strike team hunting down in these sewers, pronto!”
Agent Neal, nodded.
She brushed past Parker as she asserted herself with the others. “Lock and load people. We have a mission to finish.”
Parker seemed less than pleased.
_____
The Tower
Anna had left Xairin and was already well out of eyeshot by the time Xairin went airborne. He made three circles around the building, chattering his teeth each time so that he knew exactly what he was about to encounter, at least where people and bats were concerned. The place he was targeting must have been a penthouse at one time, some remnants of a few lavish beds remained, along with some ornate furniture and decor that had survived the rot of time. Other than that, some of the walls had caved in. What was left, had been used to wedge against the door to keep the bats out.
Xairin could see that his maker, the white bat was at the door, pushing against it and the people inside were grabbing anything they could to fight her with. He could tell, they knew the barricade wouldn’t hold the way their outlines were moving in his sonar’s vision.
Screams filled the open room, this only made the bat push harder. Finally, Xairin saw the perfect place to land, a busted-out section of glass was large enough to allow him to land perfectly. He glided right inside the opening, allowing his wings to retract. No sooner had he done so, a young woman with short dirty blonde hair stood in front of a small child. The look on her surprised face, faded into an expression of dedication. She had a gun, a handgun, and fired it at him. She shot him in the left arm. “DON'T SHOOT!” He yelled.
The woman shot again, shooting him in the chest this time. Xairin fell backwards. “I SAID DON'T SHOOT!”
His pain from the wounds caused him to hiss and pant like a dog. He felt the wound on his chest with his left hand, it concerned him more than his left arm did. He was distracted. He looked down at it and screamed. “THERE'S A HOLE IN MY FUCKING CHEST!” He grunted. “SON OF A BITCH!”
The bat kept pressing against the beam they had managed to secure in place by wedging it against the door, and a crack in the floor for support was starting to spread. The wood was starting to snap. “Gale we need that gun over here now!” A bearded man yelled.
The young woman that had shot Xairin turned around. “THERE'S ONE OF THOSE BAT PEOPLE OVER HERE!”
Xairin laid there holding his chest and looking at his dark blood on his hands. His chest was burning and stabbing with each breath he took. Finally, he protested. “STOP SHOOTING ME! I CAME TO HELP YOU, YOU STUPID SCAV!”
Xairin was pissed at being shot. He normally wouldn’t have insulted someone like that, but the bullet in his chest and arm dictated otherwise. He was panting.
A kid with a metal crowbar ran over to Xairin as Gale ran to the doorway. The kid swung downward at him, hitting Xairin in the chest right where the bullet had penetrated. Xairin screamed. “WHAT THE FUCK?!”
The kid swung six times, each swing, causing Xairin to spit up some of his darkened blood.
Xairin flipped over, the kid kept swinging as the young woman with the gun prepared to shoot at the door. The white bat’s snout burst along the side of the door as the beam broke. It growled, she fired.
The bat pulled back. The door slammed as they raced to secure it again. In the hallway, the bat made a whimpering noise much like an injured bear would. It was pawing at its face where the bullet had entered its snout at point blank range. She kept pawing at the wound frantically.
Meanwhile, the kid with a mean arm, kept swinging downward. Xairin was taking a beating until the bats whimpering noises distracted the teenager.
Xairin, in a momentary reprieve of the kid’s swings, forced his cells to vibrate, causing the bioelectrical surge over his body to bend light, rendering him invisible. He rolled out of the way of the kids next swing, causing the floor to crack when the kid hit the floor tiles.
The young teen screamed out. “HE'S INVISIBLE!” Hearing that kid’s announcement, Xairin released this group had dealt with vampires before, clearly, they were not as friendly as he was. Xairin quickly assessed, that the vampires they had met, likely had killed off some of their campmates. Otherwise the hostile greeting he encountered might not have happened. That or just flying in unannounced, after all, it's not every day humans see people with huge bat like wings. Xairin had to remember that for the future.
