Death, for Soledad, had become monumental.
Bad time for it.
Vin: "Hold up."
Everyone held.
"Thought I heard…"
Soledad did a quick look around. The hallway was narrow, tight and poorly lit. Bad place to be when bullets started flying. Too hard to hit the target without hitting one of your own. Maybe, Soledad thought, that's just the way the freak wanted things.
Soledad: "We've got to move."
Vin, again: "Hold on."
"You feeling something?"
"No, but I—"
"You getting scared?"
"Hey," Yarborough said, voice soft.
"I thought I heard something, something moving. I don't want to run into a trap."
"What do you think we're standing in?"
Eddi gripped a little tighter on her HK.
"We move," Soledad said,"or we end up doing the freak's work for it."
"Hey," Yarborough said one more time.
They all turned and looked at Yarborough. They turned and looked and they saw disbelief in his eyes. And they saw what it was Yarborough could not believe. Shock numbing him, dumbing him down, made him point out what couldn't be missed.
"Look at that," Yarborough said, quiet, fading."There's some metal sticking out of my chest.
There was. There was the sheet metal of the hallway formed— having formed itself—into a long spike that punched Yarborough through the back, diminished none by his body armor, and kept on until it erupted from his chest. And like living, viscid fluid, the metal withdrew itself from Yarborough, returned to being nothing more than wall. A gaping wound the only evidence of the violence that had happened. No longer held in place, blood geysering from the tunnel in his body, Yarborough puddled to the ground.
Eddi was first to him, screaming his name.
Yarborough tried to reach up, touch her face. His limbs were feebled. His hand never made it."I didn't… didn't tell you…" Unable to focus, his eyes spun freely in their sockets. The hole in his chest wheezed as he worked to draw air."Never told you… God, I could go for Taco Bell…"
Yarborough's eyes finally locked on something a million miles away.
Dead.
Soledad gave one split second to something she'd just realized: She wasn't even sure of Yar's first name."Metal morpher," she barked.
The remaining two of the element kept low, did some quick looking around, Eddi staying close to Yarborough's body like she was standing honor guard.
Vin: "You see him?"
"He's probably tactile, uses the metal walls as a conductor. He could be anywhere."
"How does he know where we are?"
"The telepath, it's giving him a mental picture. We've got to get back to the wood part of the…"
Soledad trailed off, went quiet, listened to a sound getting louder. Drawing closer. Tickety-tick. The tickety-tick of metal tapping on metal.
From the far end of the hall, from the darkness, came engine blocks. Moving on their own. In-line 6s, V-6s, big block V-8s, a Hemi mutated, sprouting arachnid legs. They scurried along the walls and ceilings—hideous, hungry things—for what was left of Central MTac.
Eddi whipped around her HK and was the first to cut loose with live fire. Her response time: zero. Wasn't by accident she'd scored so high at the academy.
Good grades weren't much help against animated engine blocks. Bullets weren't much better. Dead on target, all they did was nothing but ping-ping off the living metal.
Fast as she could, Soledad ejected the clip from her piece and swapped it out with one marked in orange, set her piece for single fire. She took an extra split second to aim her shot, be sure of her shot. It's what Bo would've done.
She fired.
The bullet hit the lead-most… thing. The bullet was tipped with Semtex. The impact, the Semtex, lit an explosion that blew a fat chunk from the aberration. The thing made a noise that was as much the grinding of stressed metal as the shriek of a dying animal. The concussion of the blast kicked it backward into a second spider/engine. Both fell to the wood floor. No longer in contact with metal, no longer in contact with their master, they went back to being hunks of automotive hardware.
Soledad, stepping up and taking charge: "Move! Get to the wood part of the building."
Eddi: "We've gotta take his body!"
Another spider/engine scrambled fast along the wall for them.
Again Soledad fired. Again her aim was true. A third thing twisted and shattered, joined the other two motionless on the ground. The same dying cry echoed off down the hallway.
Soledad took Eddi by the shoulder, threw her in the direction she wanted the younger woman to go."Move!"
Eddi led the retreat with Vin right behind. Soledad had the rear, she had the most precarious position. She had the O'Dwyer and her bullets too.
Two more freak things came up fast, and they went down quick with one shot apiece. There was no extra ammo. One clip. Twenty-eight rounds. No shots to be wasted. None were. Each slug fired struck a target. Each target was obliterated. Hitting the mark, for Soledad, wasn't the problem. Problem was the things kept coming. Each a little nastier than the one previous.
Eddi reached a door, flung it open. Just beyond: axles and pistons and rocker bars. Mufflers and tailpipes hung from chains that stretched up to the ceiling. In the room there was nothing but toys for a metal-loving freak to play with. Nothing but tools for him to kill with.
"… Fuck…" Eddi yelled to the others: "No good!"
Vin said: "Keep going, down the hall."
Soledad said nothing. Soledad was up to her eyeballs in morphed engine blocks. Quick as they came she took aim, fired.
She fired…
Fired…
One of the things skittered up a wall, over the ceiling, positioned itself to attack from above. Soledad took the shot, aim off a little. The slug, the explosion, tore up part of the creature. Not all of it. The bulk of the beast, its momentum, kept it moving for Soledad; lifeless when it lost contact with the metal of the structure. Still deadly on its own, a few hundred pounds of projectile. Soledad took the impact in the chest, in the chestplate. Kept her from being crushed as the crippled engine rode her to the ground. The air got punched from her lungs, the gun from her hand. She was pinned tight and easy prey for the little creepies that she couldn't see, but could hear tickety-ticking for her. Her hand flailed for her piece. Her body squirmed trying to pull free of the dead weight.
Tickety-tick came the things.
Soledad gave up on the gun. Twisting, twisting, she snaked her right leg up…
Tickety-tick…
Getting a foot under the block, struggling for leverage…
The glint of light off approaching metal…
The shadow of six-legged mutated movement…
Soledad pushed off with her leg, kicked the block up and back, into one of the approaching things, stumbling it. Hurting from breast to thigh, Soledad rolled, grabbed up her gun, raised it up, fired. The hurt threw off her aim, but it wasn't so off that the slug, the contact explosion, didn't shred the engine and send it to the ground.
How many had she taken out? Nine? Twelve? Didn't matter. They kept coming. The metal-on-metal sound squealing from the dark. Soledad tried to stand. Her right hip wouldn't take the weight. Her left leg wouldn't help out. She was spent. Spent, and good as…
… Ian…
A hand on her vest yanked Soledad to her feet. Vin."Come on. Die now and I'll never get a date."
Weakly: "Fucker…"
Lurching, stumbling backward, Soledad fumbled her way up into a near-running position helped along by Vin at rear guard, firing his weapon, for all the nongood it did.