෴෴෴

Today.

Figures crept down the dimly lit corridor. They held to the deeper shadows, proceeding along the hallway in near silence. Lit only by the fading glow of emergency lights, the hallway loomed ahead like a yawning mouth. The group already knew that this mouth had teeth.

An incongruously dressed man led the group. His gray sweatpants blended with the shadows, his running shoes had reflective patches all over them, a purple t-shirt completed the outfit. Over the workout gear, he had a tactical armor vest and a thick equipment belt. He wore a large pistol with a fat oblong tube extending from the muzzle at his hip. Opposite the handgun was an equally oversized combat knife. Heavy armored gauntlets completed the unusual ensemble.

Several smaller forms followed close behind. In contrast to the odd clothing combinations presented by the man, the smaller figures were dressed identically in digital urban camo fatigues with similar vests and belts on. They each wore a helmet and carried a short carbine with unusually shaped wide structures around the barrel. The man walked with exaggerated care making an obvious effort to remain stealthy. The women behind him moved with easier, more practiced motions. A keen observer might have noticed that from time to time they silently blinked from one location to the next as though they had no need to pass through the space in between.

Raz raised his gauntlet with a closed fist. Hex recognized the arranged signal to hold position. One of her scanned the hallway behind. Raz pointed at a barely visible form pressed up against the wall up ahead. The closest Hex aspect appeared next to him. She stared into the gloom for several seconds, then pointed to her eyes and shook her head before shrugging.

[It is probable that you’re only able to see this opponent in these conditions due to your upgraded perceptual abilities.]

Yeah, I get it, but it doesn’t feel like an upgrade, it seems like what I can just normally see. Maybe if I get what we’re here for that will change.

He leaned toward the aspect standing beside him and cupped his hand so he whispered directly into her ear. “Forty feet ahead, left side of the corridor, against the wall, fifty pounds or so, medium dog sized but with big claws.”

She stiffened, and stared blindly into the darkness. After a few seconds she shook her head before leaning over to him. Her lips brushed his ear. “Still can't see it.”

Raz pointed to the door just ahead of them on the right. “That door isn’t all the way closed. Lets duck in there.”

She peered in the direction he was pointing and then shrugged and nodded. Raz slowly pushed the door open. The revealed room was slightly less gloomy than the hallway. She took advantage of the slight improvement in available light and began silently teleporting her aspects inside.

Raz grazed the side of the door frame with his foot stepping into the room. The tiny rasping sound was barely audible. Something in the room moved in response. He barely glimpsed a flash of motion in the shadows at the corner of the room and started to turn his head before the chimera leaped at him. Time seemed to slow down around him just enough for him to react to the attack. He took in a visual flash of its distended jaws, sharp but poorly aligned teeth, curved sharp claws, and a mix of patchy fur and mottled spots of diseased looking flesh.

[Energy: 95/100]

In the slow time, his muscles protested as he moved through air that felt like thick syrup and barely managed to get his gauntleted forearm into the path of the slavering jaw in time to block the bite. The chimera looked no larger than a housecat but slammed into him as though it weighed at least twice as much. Its clawed slashes at his torso with all four clawed feet skated off his armor plate onto the softer material lower down. Whether it was struggling to get a grip on him or simply trying to cut into him, he couldn’t tell.

[Energy: 93/100]

Raz flinched when the long claws cut and scratched from the middle of his chest down to his crotch. He slammed the arm with a chimera attached to his against the nearby door frame with a dull thunk.

[Energy: 91/100]

The impact stunned the chimera. Its body flopped bonelessly even as its bite on his gauntlet forearm remained firm. Raz spun around and whipped it against the floor. Bones crunched and popped, but still, the jaws held tight.

Several sharp pops accompanied by small holes appearing on the chimera joined the wet slapping sounds the chimera made as it smacked against the floor. “Behind you!” Hex called out.

Raz spun and instinctively lashed the dying chimera into the new arrival coming through the door. Blood splashed across his face and neck as he made solid contact and knocked the new arrival to the side.

[Alternative Upgrade Datastream detected, begin analysis? y/n. Warning, scanning corrupted lifeforms is highly dang—]

Yeah I heard you the first time.

Raz willed the dialog away and silenced it without a second thought.

This chimera was significantly larger than the cat sized monster with it’s jaw still clamped to his forearm. Raz estimated it to be the size of a golden retriever, but it had to weigh at least a hundred pounds. A tiny notification flashed off to the side of his HUD.

The larger chimera smacked against the far wall with a wet thud. It left several bloody streaks where it hit. The instant it hit the wall several more sharp cracks and small bloody explosions on the chimera showed the results of the Hex aspects providing fire support. The chimera staggered to its feet and coughed up a bloody chunk of flesh and then snarled at them.

Raz planted his shoe on the midsection of the chimera locked on to his gauntlet and yanked. Several sharp cracking sounds followed by a screech of teeth on metal and his hand was free of the dead chimera’s jaws. The sound of broken shards of enamel hitting the floor reminded him of glass beads falling onto ceramic tile. Raz kicked the dead chimera out of his way.

The larger chimera wavered on its feet, but still had plenty of fight left in it. It let out a menacing loud hiss-bark at them. The Hex aspects put several more rounds into it before it sprung into motion. It spun and leaped at the nearest shooter. One of her aspects went down under the attacking chimera. Its jaws clamped down on the hand guard of her rifle.

“Hold on!” Raz shouted. The suppressed rifle fire from the rest of the aspects fell silent.

Raz activated a charging leap attack chain that took him across the room and slammed a fist into the creature.

[Energy: 89/100]

It seemed stunned for an instant, then screeched and released the rifle to attack him. In what had become a familiar move Raz took advantage of the slow time and offered up his gloved hand and wrist to the creature. It took the bait and clamped down on the gauntlet. It used its long claws to slash at Raz along the belly and down his ribs. The razor-sharp claws slashing across his torso felt like warm lines being drawn on his skin.

[Energy: 80/100]

His free fist slammed into the chimera’s head over and over.

[Energy: 79/100]

[Energy: 78/100]

[Energy: 76/100]

[Energy: 75/100]

The chimera showed its displeasure at being hit in the head with loud screeching and violent twisting motions. After being hit several times it seemed to give up on slashing at him. The burly creature pivoted its head and neck around and doubled down on biting his gauntlet.

Raz took advantage of the predictable moves to maneuver around the chimera until he could brace his knee against the back of its neck. He linked hands and pulled the creature’s head back as hard as he could. The chimera resisted his pull, defying his poor leverage with its powerful neck and shoulders.

In his peripheral vision he could see the Hex aspects getting positioned to assist if he could give them a clear shot.

It's too strong, I can’t do this with it fighting back!

There was no reply, but with a sharp buzz in his head, Raz suddenly knew just what to do. He relaxed the arm caught in its jaws, pushed his will and power into the free fist and delivered the best punch he could against the chimera’s head. The monster went limp and boneless.

[Energy: 65/100]

He took the opportunity and wrenched upward as hard as he could with both hands against his knee . His arms and back protested, muscles straining as the chimera’s neck abruptly gave way with a sickening pop. Its body went completely still, and Raz stood up, panting. He tried to wipe the blood off his face and neck and only succeeded in smearing it around. Another small notification update flashed at the edge of his vision.

“Holy shit I need to take a break for a minute. I’m wiped.” Raz engaged the energy flow procedural memory chain. As soon as the energy started to refill he dismissed the energy display.

“More cardio bitch!” Hex retorted with a smirk.

“Oh you’re never gonna let that one go are you?” he couldn't resist smiling at the inside joke.

“Not planning on it, no.”

He took in several deep breaths. “But seriously, it’s easy to forget how much of a workout real fighting is.”

Hex nodded as one of her selves closed and locked the door. “Fist fighting is hard work. I wish I could help more when they get in close. I can bring the rifle back for you any time.”

He nodded. “Hey no, I am totally cool with not experiencing friendly fire. You’re doing great at hitting them when they’re not right on me.”

He held up the heavy gauntlets and studied them for a few seconds. “The thing is, I feel like shooting them just wasn’t doing much. We put a lot of rounds into them and they just keep coming. How much ammo have we gone through? If you weren’t popping in with reloads all the time, we’d still be in that first room. These chimeras take way too much fire to put down that way.” He flexed his fingers and curled his hand into a fist. “Somehow, these seem to be doing the trick better than I would have expected.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, your special gloves of face smashing or whatever, I got it. I think I’ll stay with what I know.” she patted the side of her rifle.

He cocked his head to the side as though something had just occurred to him and laughed. “I guess it should be obvious now that I think about it, but looking back, I should have known something was up. Even for someone who wasn’t new to shooting, you always seemed just a bit too good when we went to the range. I was so busy being happy to find a girl that could keep up with me for competition training that I never questioned it.”

She just smiled and nodded.

Raz looked around at the room they’d ducked into when the first chimera spotted them and attacked.

The room was a long windowless rectangle. Looking at the far end of the room, he could see the room was more than large enough to back a loaded semi into. The big roll-up door and a standard door at the other end of the room, combined with faint oil stains on the concrete supported his guess. The room was full of pallets scattered around. The pallets had been stacked in some places, but most of them were arranged to nearly cover the floor, with small gaps between them.

Something about it felt familiar.

Bee? A little help?

[Processing combat data, please wait]

Raz didn’t wait, and instead went over to the freight door. It was shut, but not locked. Whatever sheared the latch pin had made it so this door could no longer be locked. The locking latch appeared to have been ripped through by what had to have been a massive transverse force. The sliver of light shining under the door cut into the darkness of the room.

Hex appeared on his left and whispered, “I thought you were taking a rest?”

He nodded but kept looking over the doors.

Another aspect appeared on his right.

Raz smirked at the new arrival, “Still trying to jump scare me?”

She shook her head. “Just trying to keep the noise down. We really shouldn’t be here.”

She looked him up and down critically. “That’s why you wear the armor by the way.” she pointed at his midsection.

Raz looked down at his shredded clothing below the armored vest. The pale gray lightly textured skin-tight armor suit was clearly visible where the parts of his shirt, and sweatpants had been sliced up by the chimeras. “I see what you mean.”

He ran his fingers along the thin shallow slices and divots marring the surface of the armor. “How long does this stuff last?”

Hex shrugged. “No idea really. I haven’t heard of one wearing out. Catastrophic damage makes it crumble to dust pretty much instantly. On the other hand, it’s self healing for minor damage. The guys at work call it the double bag. You normally wear ballistic armor on top of your clothing, and this underneath. It’s not much good against rifle bullets or other heavy impacts. It stops the projectile, but the impact trauma still happens. Generally, it’s the backup.”

“Did you say self healing? I guess I’m not up on armor technology, but I’ve never even heard of anything like this. What does something like this cost?”

She shook her head. “A lot. I don’t even know how much. The way they talked, it’s not even just about money. They come from this high end custom shop. I went there to pick mine up. The guy makes all sorts of cool gear, but if you want him to make anything for you, you have to trade money, materials, and services or favors.”

His brow furrowed as he looked at the slowly fading scratch lines. “That makes it sound even more special, or shady, or both. Do I want to know how you got it? I can’t help notice that you’re not wearing one.”

“You know how I said they’re next level expensive? Well, I can't think of a nice way to say it, so I’ll just say that while I doubt they would have put it so bluntly, the reality is, if one of my aspects dies, it’s not permanent.” she shrugged and looked away.

[Evasion detected]

Raz put his hand on her shoulder. “From what you were saying, dying is still very real for you. I don’t like you talking like you’re somehow expendable.”

She cocked her head to the side and pointedly looked at the other aspects in the room. “Gearing me up is already kind of expensive. I haven’t spent a lot of time on this end of the job until recently.”

[Partial Truth]

“Recently? What changed?” he asked.

She glanced around the room and then looked at him with a level gaze and then arched an eyebrow.

“Oh.” his eyes widened as he realized what she meant. “Oh ok, right. I didn’t realize you meant quite that recently.” he put a hand over his mouth and nodded.

She gave a sharp nod. “To get back to your question, let me put it this way.” She reached out and ran the tips of her slim fingers down the now smooth surface across the contours of his chest. “This particular suit was issued to someone who never used it. It turns out that not everyone can use them.”

[Partial Truth]

She stared into the middle distance for a moment. “Some people get tired out very fast when they put the suit on. Some kind of reaction with people’s abilities where they can't wear it, and use abilities at the same time. Anyway he won't miss it, and I don’t think this particular suit will be missed at all any time soon, if at all. I have a manual for you about caring for it back at my place. Just consider it completely irreplaceable and you won't be far off.”

[Social redirection attempt detected]

I might need to turn this setting back off. Having you announce every little social cue and maneuver is getting old already.

She sat down on a stack of pallets and patted the spot next to her while maintaining eye contact. “Let’s talk about something else.”

[She’s obviously hiding something.]

Gosh, ya think?

Raz took the hint and sat down next to her. “I still don’t get why they didn’t issue you this stuff. It sounds pretty damn nice. Hearing that kind of makes me mad. It’s just hard to believe they wouldn’t try to keep someone as valuable as you safe.”

She cleared her throat and then sighed explosively. “Motherf— I should have known you wouldn’t leave it alone. Ok fine, I did get issued one, and it got messed up when I tried to copy it.”

“Copy? How would that work?”

“I wear it, I make a new aspect, and try to create a new suit to be dressed in.”

“Hold up, you mean copy with your ability? You can do that? His tone was incredulous.

She looked away and nodded. “Sort of. I’d managed to do it a few times with clothing by accident. I got greedy and tried to do it on purpose. Left me with two suits, for about five seconds. Then it started to crumble and I was standing there naked with very expensive dust at my feet.”