Chương 4: Chapter 3: Dried Meat And Power-Boost Cigarette

Smoke curled through the dark corridor in thin, lazy spirals. The ember at the tip of John's cigarette flashed across his gaunt face with every drag. Beneath the broken emergency lights, he already looked half dead, sunken cheeks, cracked glasses, and one cybernetic eye flickering blue behind lenses stained with blood and dust. He hunched over an ancient control panel at the end of the corridor, stabbing at a screen that clearly hated him. The machine beeped, paused, then filled itself with red error text.

John stared at it for two seconds. Then he struck the console with his palm.

"Damn it." The panel whined like an injured animal and went dark. John ripped the neural cable from its port. Sparks scattered across the floor. He crushed his cigarette beneath one boot, pulled another from his coat, and lit it as though smoke might repair three centuries of neglected machinery. It did not. The corridor only grew harder to breathe in. Z-69 stood several paces behind him, still bare-chested.

The violet crystal embedded in his sternum gave off a slow pulse, its light dim beneath the suppressant moving through his body. His gaze shifted from the dead console to the floor. Cigarette butts. Thirteen. Possibly fourteen. He had already learned something useful about the old man: the more cigarettes John killed, the worse their situation probably was.

"What does that mean?" Z-69 asked. John exhaled toward the ceiling.

"It means every shortcut out of Floor Thirteen is sealed. Every emergency route back to Floor Nine is locked down. Every official exit is either dead, watched, or pretending to be both." He glanced over his shoulder.

"That leaves one option." Z-69 already knew.

"We go up."

"Through the Sanctuary," John confirmed. Somewhere behind them, metal groaned. The sound was distant, but not harmless. Z-69 turned toward it.

"What is above us?" John scratched his jaw, not because he lacked an answer, but because he was deciding how much truth they could survive.

"The Sanctuary is full of things that were dangerous before three hundred years made them worse. Some were experiments. Some were prisoners. Some were accidents." His cybernetic eye dimmed.

"Some were ideas that should have died on paper."

"You caused this." John pointed at him with the cigarette.

"Careful. You have been alive for less than an hour and already discovered the favorite hobby of every historian."

"What?"

"Blaming the old man." The corridor shook again. Dust sifted from the ceiling. John's expression flattened.

"Move. I would rather leave before one of my past mistakes hears us discussing it." The Sanctuary's internal elevator had survived quarantine, rust, dried blood, and several centuries of mechanical resentment. It had not survived well. Warning placards still clung to the frame. BIOHAZARD RADIATION SECURITY CLEARANCE REQUIRED AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY Some had been scratched out. Others were smeared with stains Z-69 did not need explained. John crouched beside the access panel.

His old joints cracked as a cable slid from the back of his neck and connected to the terminal. Code spilled across the screen.

"Almost…" His fingers twitched.

"Almost…" The panel clicked. Its status light turned green. The doors remained shut. John stared at them, then looked back at Z-69 with the expression of a man who had decided to outsource a problem.

"Well. Time for you to contribute, my divine undead master."

"Open it, Z-69." John said.

"No, you open it." Z-69 response. John raised what remained of his damaged mechanical arm. The limb sparked, and a loose cable twitched from the torn wrist.

"I would love to. Unfortunately, due to recent dietary complications, I am a little short-handed." Z-69 stared at him. John smiled.

"Unless you want me to kick it open with my remaining good leg, be useful." After a long second, Z-69 stepped forward. He pushed his fingers into the seam and pulled. Metal groaned. Rust cracked loose in orange flakes. Muscles tightened beneath corpse-pale skin, and the crystal in his chest brightened as power moved through him. The doors shifted by a few centimeters. Then stopped. Z-69 pulled harder. Nothing. The strength was inside him.

He could feel it beneath bone and dead tissue, waiting to break loose, but something smothered it before it reached his limbs. Caged. Throttled from within. His grip slipped.

"The suppressant." John nodded.

"Correct."

"You suppressed my strength."

"I suppressed your urge to turn every living thing nearby into dinner. Your strength was caught in the crossfire."

"I can control myself." John did not blink.

"No, you cannot." The answer struck harder than Z-69 expected because John spoke without anger or mockery. He said it like a result already proven. Z-69's fingers tightened against the steel. John stepped closer and lowered his voice.

"You woke up, killed an elite response unit in under thirty seconds, ate several of them, then chased me through the corridor and tried to chew through my arm because I smelled familiar." Z-69 said nothing.

"You do not control yourself yet," John continued.

"You occasionally aim the disaster in a convenient direction." Z-69 looked back at the elevator.

"Remove the suppressant."

"No."

"Then we are trapped."

"We are delayed."

"That is different language for the same problem." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. John's mouth twitched.

"Good. Your vocabulary survived." A metallic impact echoed from below. Then another. Something was moving through the ruined facility. Perhaps several things.

"How long before they reach us?" Z-69 asked. John listened for two seconds, then shrugged.

"Long enough for science."

"That is not a measurement."

"It is when I am the scientist." He searched his coat with his functioning hand. Wires, cracked tools, an injector, two dead batteries, a folded photograph, and a tiny vial of black liquid appeared between his fingers before vanishing again. At last, he produced a cigarette. It was different from the others. The paper was dark red, almost brown, with thin metallic rings around the filter. Chemical symbols covered one side in cramped handwriting. Z-69 studied it.

"That is a cigarette." John smiled.

"Yes, but this isn't just an ordinary cigarette." He raised it between two fingers.

"Power-Boost Cigarette, version one. Temporary neuromuscular output enhancer. Designed for emergency use by cybernetic personnel, Awakened soldiers, and idiots with more ambition than medical coverage."

"You made a stimulant cigarette."

"I was younger."

"You are old."

"I was less old." John reached into his coat again and removed something wrapped in silver-black foil. The smell reached Z-69 before the package opened. Salt. Burned edges. Dense protein. Meat. Not fresh. Not human. Still meat. Hunger surged through him so quickly that his vision narrowed. Saliva flooded his mouth. Something beneath the crystal clenched, and for one ugly moment, he wanted the package more than he wanted the elevator open. John noticed. His grin became deeply unethical.

"There it is."

"What is that?"

"High-energy preserved meat. Nutrient-dense, ugly as sin, and flavored like regret marinated in industrial salt."

"Give it to me."

"No." The answer was immediate. Z-69 went still. John raised one finger.

"Listen carefully. The suppressant is dampening your output. This cigarette will force a short spike through the blockage. The meat gives your crystal something to burn besides your own body." Z-69's gaze stayed on the foil.

"Eyes here, corpse master." He looked at John.

"When I light this, you inhale. When I throw the meat, you use the hunger and pull those doors apart. You do not attack me. You do not eat anything that screams. You do not turn this into an interpretive massacre."

"I understand."

"No, you do not. But you pretend well, and that is all we have." Another impact sounded below. Closer. John placed the cigarette between his lips and lit it. The tip burned red, then violet. Chemical smoke rolled into the corridor, sharp with copper and burned sugar. John took one shallow drag. His cybernetic eye flared, dark veins rose along his neck, and his spine straightened. For one second, he no longer looked fragile. Age stepped aside and revealed something harder beneath it. Then he doubled over coughing.

"Terrible," he rasped.

"Still terrible." He held out the cigarette. Z-69 took it. The crystal in his chest reacted the instant his fingers touched the metallic filter. He inhaled. Red smoke filled lungs that no longer needed air. For half a second, nothing happened. Then power struck. The crystal slammed once inside his chest. Veins rose beneath his skin as violet arcs snapped across his shoulders, ribs, and spine. Every muscle tightened until his joints began to shake. The suppressant held. Then cracked. Not completely. Enough.

John threw the foil-wrapped meat toward the elevator. Z-69's head snapped toward it. Hunger tore through the remaining restraint.

"Meat." The word came out wrong, too low, too deep, dragged from somewhere beneath speech. He drove both hands into the seam between the doors. This time, the metal screamed. His claws sank into steel. The doors bent, the frame warped, and violet current raced down both arms. One locking bolt snapped. The left door buckled inward. Then his right forearm broke. The crack traveled through the corridor. Z-69 did not release his grip. His left forearm fractured next.

The bones shifted beneath his skin, but the crystal continued forcing power through the ruined structure. John backed away.

"Note to self," he muttered.

"Version two needs a lower dose." Z-69 pulled again. With one final heave, he tore both elevator doors free and hurled them across the corridor. They struck the floor hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Then his body failed. He collapsed backward with both arms bent at angles no human limb should hold. Smoke rose from the broken joints. The foil package lay within reach. Z-69 seized it, tore it open with his teeth, and bit into the preserved meat.

He chewed once, then lay staring at the ceiling while the chemical rush burned out of him. A long silence followed.

"This meat is too burned," he said at last. John looked down at him.

"Do you have another?" The old man took a slow drag from his ordinary cigarette, then removed a small recorder from his coat. His voice became clinical.

"Power-Boost Cigarette, version one. Temporary increase in muscle output: approximately one hundred percent. Effective window: ten seconds. Side effects include catastrophic structural damage, immediate exhaustion, severe hunger amplification, and increased food fixation." He considered the result.

"Formula scales excessively with abnormal physiology. Future testing requires either skeletal reinforcement…" His gaze dropped to Z-69's arms.

"…or greater distance from the subject." He switched off the recorder. Then John bent down, picked up the half of the meat Z-69 had not eaten, brushed off the dust, and returned it to his coat. Z-69 stared at him.

"You took my meat."

"Yes."

"I want more."

"I brought one piece."

"That is poor preparation." John pointed his cigarette at him.

"I resurrected you less than an hour ago. Forgive me for not packing a picnic basket." Z-69's eyes shifted toward John's coat. John's smile vanished.

"No."

"I am hungry."

"You are always hungry."

"I was not always hungry." The words came out flat and simple. Yet the corridor changed around them. For a moment, John did not look sarcastic or clever. He only looked old.

"Yeah," he said quietly.

"I know." A wet scraping sound followed the next impact below. John looked into the darkness.

"We need to move." Z-69 examined his broken arms.

"That will be difficult."

"You regenerate."

"Slowly."

"You tore open an elevator with broken bones because I threw jerky. I believe in your ability to suffer efficiently." Z-69 considered the statement.

"Acceptable."

"Disturbing answer. Get inside." Some time later, Z-69 sat against the wall of the opened elevator car and watched his body repair itself. His arms no longer hurt. That should have disturbed him more. Warmth spread from the violet crystal through muscle, nerves, and shattered bone—a second circulatory system made of light. Beneath his pale skin, both forearms shifted back into alignment and slowly knitted together. The process was grotesque. It was also fascinating. Most importantly, it was his.

By the time he could flex his fingers again, the worst of the fractures had closed. The healing had consumed nearly everything the meat and cigarette had given him. He felt hollow. Hungry again, but in a quieter way. Not the screaming hunger that had seized him at the smell of meat. This was patient. Cold. Capable of waiting until restraint became inconvenient. That was worse. At the control panel, John studied the elevator's destination list.

1 — ACCESS HALL 2 — CONTAINMENT RING A 3 — CONTAINMENT RING B 4 — NULL VOID 5 — CHAMBER Z His finger hovered over 4 — NULL VOID. Then moved away.

"We are not going through Sublevel Four," John said.

"Why?" John took longer than usual to answer.

"That place does not obey reality properly anymore. Space folds in the wrong direction. Time slips. Cause and effect become creative. The last team that entered came back speaking backward while aging in reverse." He took another drag.

"It took three days for them to stop existing."

"You are afraid of it."

"No." John pressed the control for Sublevel Two.

"I have enough experience to respect a place where logic goes to die." He did not look at Sublevel Three.

"We avoid Containment Ring B as well. Class-A experiments. Living weapons. Sentient failures. I would rather deal with hungry abominations than intelligent ones."

"That says a great deal about your standards."

"It says even I know where to draw a line." The elevator shuddered and began to rise. Its cables groaned above them as though the shaft itself regretted the decision. Z-69 leaned against the wall and listened. The Sanctuary shifted around them. Not with ordinary decay. With awareness. Old sensors came alive inside the walls. Locks engaged and released without commands. Systems built to contain failure began waking after three centuries of silence. John noticed his expression.

"What?"

"Something is listening."

"Everything in the Sanctuary listens."

"This is different." John's hand moved toward the compact weapon beneath his coat.

"How?" Z-69 closed his eyes. Beyond the vibration of the elevator, beyond the weakened current in the walls, he sensed a rhythm. Slow. Faint. Not a heartbeat. The memory of one.

"It knows we are moving." The elevator stopped. The car jolted hard enough to throw John against the panel, then went dark. No main lights. No emergency lights. Only blackness. John sighed, not surprised so much as personally offended.

"Of course." Z-69 stood. His eyes adjusted quickly, pulling grainy shapes from the dark, the panel, the warped walls, John's outline, and the faint ember of his cigarette.

"We are trapped again?"

"For now."

"How long?" John ripped the control panel open and received a burst of sparks for the effort.

"That depends on whether the elevator failed…" He tore a cable loose.

"…or something above us decided it did not want visitors." After another moment, he stepped back.

"Forget it. We take the stairs."

"There are stairs?"

"There are always stairs. Engineers are pessimists with budgets."

"And monsters?" John smiled without humor.

"In this place? Also always." The corridor outside Containment Ring A pulsed with red emergency light, slow and rhythmic, like the heartbeat of something dying badly. Reinforced chambers lined both sides of the circular hall. Some remained sealed. Others hung open, their doors torn from the frames. Warning signs divided the ring into sections. B — BIO-MUTATIONS N — NEURAL DISTURBANCES U — UNCONTROLLED ANOMALIES Dark stains covered the floor. Some looked like blood. Others did not.

The air smelled of disinfectant, old chemicals, dried rot, and a faint sweetness that made Z-69's hunger stir again. John drew a compact discharge pistol from his coat. The weapon hummed softly as it charged.

"Stay left," he whispered.

"Avoid red-coded chambers. Do not touch anything that looks dead, alive, asleep, smiling, crying, or unusually clean."

"That covers most things."

"Correct." They moved. Their footsteps echoed too loudly. Z-69 flexed his repaired fingers. Strength had returned, though the suppressant still dragged at his muscles. The cigarette had left him exhausted and uncomfortably aware that his body could be forced beyond its limits if someone pulled the correct leash. He disliked knowing that. A door to their right had been torn open from the inside. Deep claw marks covered the frame. Z-69 touched one.

"Human?" John glanced at it.

"Originally." Z-69 withdrew his hand. Ahead, a broken speaker crackled and died. The red lights pulsed again, and the corridor seemed to breathe around them.

"Keep moving," John said. Then a voice drifted through the dark.

"La…" Soft. Childlike. Empty of anything human.

"La… la…" Both men stopped. Z-69's claws extended.

"Someone is singing." John tightened his grip on the pistol.

"That is a problem." A figure stepped into the far end of the hall. It was tall and too thin, its body stitched together from smooth patches of pale skin that had not belonged to the same person. Its face had no eyes or nose. Only a mouth cut obscenely wide across stretched flesh. The mouth contained rows of neat white teeth. Too neat. Too many. The creature tilted its head.

"You laughed, didn't you?" Its smile widened.

"I heard you laughing." Every combat instinct in Z-69's body rose at once. John seized his arm.

"Do not speak," he whispered.

"Do not breathe loudly. Do not move until I move." Z-69's jaw tightened.

"It cannot see," John continued.

"But it hears everything. Every step. Every heartbeat. Every stupid little sound you make." The creature tilted its head the other way and began to sing.

"Smile now…" One wet step.

"Come on…" Another.

"Smile…" Z-69 looked sideways at John.

"What now?" John took one slow drag from his cigarette, then let the smoke leave his mouth in a thin, controlled stream.

"Move slowly."