Some time ago, at a non-disclosed Monolith Facility…
Norton drummed his fingers against his knees. His head was covered by a black sack and his ears were plugged by sound dampeners. So, all he could sense was his inner thoughts and a steel bench beneath him. A normal Tuesday.
The ship he was in jostled, and the bench ached his rear, but he didn’t pay it much mind. After this job, he’d finally apply to Star City University – one of the few places that still offered music degrees. What he’d do with a music degree in a world where the traditional music industry was dead? Who knew! But he’d at least have fun doing it. Maybe he’d teach or get a gig in the National Orchestra. His experience as a Federation officer would certainly help him get a job there because it made him look like a nationalist, which he wasn’t, but he’d take any advantage he could get. Whatever it was he did, there was no way he’d study something like business, despite his mom’s wishes. Sitting still, running numbers all day? Didn’t jive. Janitor was already boring enough, couldn’t live with himself if he stooped any lower in the machine.
Something patted his arm. A hand? His sound dampeners turned off – letting in the roar of the hover ship’s engine.
“Hey, mind if you stop humming?” A voice asked.
Norton cleared his throat. “Oh, s-yeah, my bad.” Then the dampeners were back up, and he was left to his own thoughts. Stop humming, my-
An automated voice buzzed in his dampeners. “Arriving at [redacted], prepare to deport this craft.”
Finally. Last job, here we g-
*****
“-eeze, what happened this time.” Norton gawked as the bag had been lifted and sound dampeners removed from his head.
Blaring alarms, scrambling drones, running soldiers – wasn’t the typical day he’d expected to show up to.
This was a Monolith facility of drab square structures surrounded in a bowl of a mountain, and something had gone very wrong here.
He called over his walkie, “Hey, Cass… please tell me I’m not supposed to be here yet.”
His supervisor patched in. “Sorry, Norton. There was an attack a few moments before you landed – but everything should be cleared now.”
“Should be?”
“I knew you’d worry. Relax, I’ve been informed that the attackers are gone. Just business as normal.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Cass had the audacity to say “Eh.” The shrugged shoulders of vocal noises. She said, “I didn’t think it’d be a problem.”
He was not pleased with the casual way she talked about this issue. He crept forward past a landing zone, and his eyes widened when he saw a ship with a giant meteor-sized hole in the side of it. Stretchers had been laid out with bodies on them.
“Cass,” he said.
“It’s not that bad, you’ve seen worse.”
Norton took a deep breath. Fair point. “So, what am I cleaning up this time?” He swiveled back to the ship he’d arrived in. He typed in a combination on the outer hull. A compartment hissed and popped out with all his gear – mops, buckets, brooms, extra strength trash bags, radiation suit, and four engineer class drones.
Cass said, “I guess some hacker got into the security systems there and let out several prisoners in the lower floors. Resulted in a firefight with enforcers. Blood stains, bullet casings, crumbled cement, miscellaneous biological residue – nothing unusual.”
Nothing unusual… Norton knew better at this point. He slipped on the radiation suit and fasted its seals.
“Don’t tell me you’re putting on your radiation suit.” Cass chuckled. She was grinding his nerves more than usual. In fact, this was the most relaxed she’d ever been. What was with her? What wasn’t she telling him?
“Biological residue,” he said.
“You don’t like that word?”
“I don’t like how you said it.”
“What? How did I say it?”
“Why are you so nonchalant today?”
“Why are you so tense?”
“Look, I just don’t want any surprises.”
“Oooh, I know what this is about. She didn’t look like her registration page, huh?”
Wait, “What!?”
“That Emily girl or whatever.”
Now it made sense. Now he was furious. “Woah, woah. That’s a major breach of privacy.”
“I guess it didn’t go well?”
“Wha- no… It was fine.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it.”
Norton’s mind wobbled. He didn’t know what to say. Cass had no right to look up his personal time. But part of him liked that someone else knew. He shook his head. If he didn’t get to work now, he’d be stuck there until sundown.
“Look, please don’t snoop on me,” he said as he activated a floating cart for carrying his tools.
Cass’s voice fell back into its normal professionalism. “As your supervisor, it’s my responsibility to make sure you are maintaining a Federation positive personal life… But I’ll try not to say anything about it next time.”
Sigh. The Federation cared too much about his life outside of work. Oh well, her promise to not say anything would have to work for now. No more time to waste.
Norton entered codes into the frames of the four drones. The robotic basketballs vibrated to life. He unlatched tethers that held them down, and their bodies hovered to his head level. Each was equipped with a portable flamethrower, various tool addons for grabbing light debris and maintenance, and underslung small caliber turrets – just in case.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The four drones had their nicknames written on their sides. Plant, Page, Jones, Bonham. Veterans of a time long before Norton’s.
“Alright, let’s get to it.” Norton hobbled forward; the four drones floating behind him in a line.
*****
Soldiers always made Norton uncomfortable. Not because he feared them, but because he could sense their fear. Maybe they didn’t show it in the traditional way – stressed breathing, nervous twitching – instead, he could always tell their trepidation by how little they talked and how close their fingers were to their triggers. In this case, here were three soldiers escorting him and his drones down the facility’s lift – each soldier’s fingertip a pinprick’s distance from being on the freaking death button of their rifles. Which, to Norton’s summation, meant that the situation was still going on. What it could be, his heart wouldn’t stop dancing over in anxiety.
He said, “Hey.”
The front soldier flinched.
Not a good sign.
He continued, “Everything good now?”
The soldier cleared his throat but didn’t look back to him. “A purifier swept through here – should be.”
Should be… there was that phrase again.
The lift settled, and the doors popped open.
This floor was bathed in red lights, as the alarm system hadn’t been turned off yet. Hundreds of glass cages lined the walls where prisoners thrashed and screamed. A walkway led to a security bunked a few hundred feet away.
The soldiers butted their rifles into their shoulders and spread on to the walkway. This was never the sign of things being cleared out. But if the soldiers were there, Norton was sure there was nothing to fear.
An officer greeted them at the end of the walkway. There were several puddles of blood, chipped concrete, and bullet shells lying around the place – just as Cass had promised.
“You the janitor?” The officer asked, a fresh red scar of three slashes across his face.
“Senior Federation Affliction Clean-Up Detail,” Norton corrected. Yes, that was basically a janitor, but he hated when other soldiers called him that. More often than not, they meant it to demean him. But he’d dealt with too many dead bodies and near-death encounters to be treated as something lesser.
The officer nodded. “Good. What’s with the suit?”
Norton did feel somewhat silly wearing it now that he’d seen what little he had to clean up, but he didn’t show it. Instead, he mustered up his senior officer voice. “Maintains protection from contaminants.”
“Hmph. Very well.” The officer stepped to the side. “A group of rebels attacked, and a couple Afflicted got loose in the process. Made a mess of us. We cleaned up most the guts though, so you shouldn’t have much a problem.”
Very thoughtful – genuinely so. Most soldiers were too squeamish to pick up the remains of Afflicted encounters. Perhaps the job would be easy as Cass said. Music career, here we come.
“Wait,” the officer twisted his head.
Wait? Wait, why?
A sharp hiss pierced through the blaring alarm.
The soldiers readied their guns. The officer unholstered a pistol at his hip.
Whaaat was going on?
The officer pulled Norton back. “Men, form a perimeter. One of those freaks are still fooling around!”
Oh, for the love of all things living, Norton did not want to be in the grasp of this guy. He’d seen another detail specialist get turned into a human body shield once – laser visioned right in half. That was not how he was going to go out.
He tore himself from the officer’s grip. Rip! His suit split at the forearm. He ignored it and ran for the cover of the security bunker. His hand swiped across his wrist computer, and his four drones lit up with red lights as they entered protection mode. They sped after him but were too slow – the threat was already ahead of him.
Flickering green eyes glistened within the bunker’s shadow.
Oh, man. If I get out of this, fine, I’ll do anything! I’ll honor my mom and go to business school. I take a boring non-rewarding job. Anything if it means I can survive!
“Up there!” Norton yelled and dove to the floor.
The green eyes were enveloped by a cloud of smoke and disappeared.
Norton pushed himself to his knees. Was that it?
“Argh!”
He flipped back.
A puff of black smoke whooshed around a soldier’s neck. He fell, clutching his throat as it seeped blood, wide gashes across it.
Before Norton could react, another cloud of smoke exploded at the face of a second soldier. Red squirted from his eyes. He stumbled back and flipped over the side of the walkway rails. His scream ended by a thud.
The officer yelled, “This cursed thing! It’s come back to finish the job!” He let off rounds indiscriminately as the cloud bounced from place to place.
So freaking fast. A flick of something popped out. Was that a… tail?
Norton’s mind raced, he had to get out of here. His drones spun around in circles. This thing was moving too fast for them to lock on with their guns.
But flamethrowers might work.
He swiped his wrist computer for the command, incinerate. “Get down!” He shouted.
But another puff of smoke was on the third soldier, a grouping of slashes raking him from throat to forehead. He fell to the floor lifeless.
Now it was just Norton, the Officer, and the drones.
Plant, Page, Jones, and Bonham deployed their flamethrower detachments and spewed blazing petrol in wide arcs through the air.
The officer collapsed underneath their fire, shielding his face.
Norton crawled over to him. “You ok?”
The officer nodded.
“Ok, we need to make it to the lift. Come on, the drones only have so much fuel.”
Norton pulled himself across the floor as fast as he could, the drones spinning with fire above him, and the officer clawing after him.
A fuel gauge on Norton’s wrist computer displayed the depreciating amounts of fuel each drone had. Already down to 30% capacity. They were not meant to sustain fire for this long.
Faster, Norton tugged himself forward across the grated surface of the walkway, careful not to snag his feet as he crawled. He was almost to the lift, just another yard or so.
“Confound it!” The officer yelped.
Norton looked back.
The officer’s holster snagged in the grating, and he was trying to pull it out.
“Unclip it,” Norton shouted back.
The drones continued in the air above Norton – and away from the officer.
“Quick!”
That horrifying black smoke plumed around the officer’s neck and was gone again before Norton had registered the gurgling and slashing.
He had to press on. He glanced the fuel gauge.
10%.
He threw out his arms.
9%.
He leap-frogged forward.
8%.
He stumbled.
7%.
He rolled to a crouch.
6%.
The lift was so freaking close. But not 5% close.
“Screw it!” He pushed himself up.
4%.
The drones adjusted their altitude so not to singe him.
He hobbled.
3%.
Right foot, left foot, right foot.
2%.
He lunged.
He tumbled into the lift.
1%.
He swiped his keycard against a scanner and pressed his face against it. It beeped green, and the doors shunted closed.
0%.
“Woohoo! Yes! Freaking yes!” Norton collapsed to the floor of the elevator. He’d left the drones down there, but he could reclaim them later. He grabbed his walkie and rasped, “Cass?”
“Norton, everything going well?”
“I need a pay raise. In fact, I think I’m putting in my two weeks.” He slid himself up against the lift wall.
“What? What happened?”
He shook his head. Took what deep breaths he could. “Too much, Cass. Too much. You know, I made a promise to the divine that I’d go to business school in exchange for my life. But screw that. I deserve to be happy. I’m going to music school.”
“Mrow.”
Norton’s heart skipped. He twisted his head.
A black cat sat on its hind legs, green eyes piercing Norton’s soul. It batted at a flappy piece of fabric where his suit had been ripped.
Norton gulped. He dared not move.
The cat hopped into his lap and looked up into his face. Actually, not really at his face, more so cocking its head side to side as it saw something. Its own reflection in the radiation helmet?
Ding.
The cat scooted back, its hair raised, and teeth bared.
Norton had made it to the first floor. He found his voice. “It-it’s ok. It’s just the elevator… little guy.”
The cat steadied itself. “Mrow.”
How’d a cat get in here? He reached out to pet it.
Poof!
Norton yanked back.
The cat was gone in a cloud of black smoke.
Norton spun around on all fours, trying to see where the demon cat had gone. Then out of his peripherals, he saw it. Poofing across the tops of ships, and buildings, and out across the mountains – that freaky shadowy feline escaped into the world.
In the excitement, Norton hadn’t noticed that Cass was shouting his name.
“Norton? Sending in back up.”
“Wait,” he said. “I’m ok…”
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “Cass. I need a drink.”
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