Wednesday, February 24, 2016

In Transit Monsters 41 (A Story of the Hecate Project)

#InTransitMonsters is a #firstdraft #novel about Technology as Messiah.  Humanity is about to fall, and is forced to create monsters to save itself.  Can these giant monsters succeed, or will humanity's old ambitions damn the species to extinction?  A bit of a shorter entry, but better than none I guess.

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Foxtrot (H plus 6 Days)

I grunted as my aetherskipping put me back underneath Fontana.  The dark caverns greeted me.  Thunder echoed from my transit.

I'd almost hit my head on the way in.  Kneeling down, I opened both my hands.  Glowing dust fell onto the ground around me.

"C'mon..."  I waited for the goetic-whatever of Whiskey's to take.

Then my BrainSys clicked.  The motes illuminated the sewers around me.  I prepared to move forward, as the blue motes had expanded my perception.  Each mote created a network of glowing blue lines.  My BrainSys followed them.  They formed a grid before me.

I moved.

I had argued with Charlie for days to be given something to do.  A mission.  I didn't hesitate to get on with it.

The sewers and caverns under Fontana were big.  Concrete and steel labyrinthes meant to support the city above.  We had plenty of maps of them.  Enough we didn't need to have to reconnitor.  But Charlie insisted on it.

Even if it seemed like a boring waste to me, I still agreed to it.

I looked down over a ledge.  A series of broken, ruined tunnels opened before me.  But half the tunnels were wrong.  I noticed it, even in the odd enhanced light of the goetic motes.

Tentacles grew in and out every inch of the ceiling.  They pulsed.  Like roots.  Tiny Enemy spawn crawled all over each tentacle.

But the Enemy didn't seem to take notice of me.  The tentacles pulsated and grew.  Dog-sized spawn moved toward where I'd first transited into the sewers.

They had sensed me.  They moved toward where I'd transited.

That didn't confirm anything.

I ran down the tunnels, following the path of tentacles.  Yard by yard, they grew larger.  I came across sewer spawn.  They ate the concrete and the steel that held up Fontana.  Even running, I could see how methodical they were.  I jumped over centipede-shaped, hissing aliens, here and there.

I ran as fast as I could, going further down.  They clawed out anything artificial.  Slowly, munching on them.  Sewer Spawn suckled on cement underneath.

Then I reached it.

Deep under Fontana had been it's artificial heart.  A massive water processing plant.  As big as any building.  It should've appeared like a underground lake, latticed like some spider's web.  I didn't enter that.

I nearly fell down into it.  I stopped, staring down at it.  A morass of tentacles floated in the water.  Thousands of black eyes covered it.  I shivered.  Instead of a three or four story building, the cavern housed a monster the same size.

Its eyes looked at me.  No.  They weren't eyes.  They were spawn of some kind.

My arms then felt the slimy grasp of tentacles.  I shivered.  Then I aetherskipped back.

I'd gotten our information.  The Enemy had been replacing parts of Fontana with its own giant things.  If I could vomit, I would have.

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