Chapter 35
People might think this paradise? JI scanned the large room. Above bulged an almost room-wide dome of transparent material, divided by thick supporting spokes. Weather and whatever had been blown in by the wind had deposited dirt and leaves up there. A few vines had wriggled across. The leaves might be from them. Remarkably, after more than a hundred years, there was not a single crack in the dome. Despite a rim of heavy black clouds above, sunlight shone through and illuminated this room.
A bed with a dark covering dominated. Storage closets and cupboards and old chairs stood here and there.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
JI stepped in. Nothing dead in here. This was good. Nothing alive either. The wickedness was not here. Another set of golden doors waited at the opposite wall. It must be there. It was close. He could feel it breathing, waiting. A thing that preyed on others. It knew him also.
He was sure it would not find him tasty. He walked to the doors, slowly, wary of weak spots in the old floor, but there were none. He flung open the doors.
“Behold. I am here!” Shakespeare eat your heart out.
A still pool of green water stretched before him. He recalled that people liked to swim, so this must have been for leisure.
Another dome lit this room. Alas, it was cracked, though only one section was affected. The water filling the pool must be due to the missing pane and the heavy rains the region suffered.
The pool moved not, though vines grew here and had dipped into the pool, leaves popping above the surface as if they peeked at him. Seeds, he surmised. Seeds must come in through the dome. A few other plants flourished around the periphery of the pool.
He completed his survey and beamed at the creature at the far end, across the green water. It waited so patiently.
Such a clever, wicked thing. A mechling metal skull sat glued atop the skull of an organic creature. JI rifled through his defunct memories of the creatures of Aerthe and found nothing suitable. Gaps, so many gaps in his memories.
Sloped nose, white fur, teeth along the sides, four pairs of legs. A wolf? A Shakespearean Earth word but he loved it. “Shall I call you wolf? Or spider?”
The number of legs would confuse a Shakespeare. This thing had eight.
It growled in his mind, and he saw the dichotomy, the split, and the way it might have been done. Whatever intelligence the mechling had once attained, it had sunk beneath the animal veil of thoughts.
Like the vine in the pool.
Glub. Glub.
His head chose that moment to schizz, as he termed it. The world shook abruptly, blurred.
He recovered.
JI took a step or three to the left, planning to meet this thing. It couldn’t bite him. He was metal.
It fed upon the local animals and somehow it had stayed alive over the many years. It adopted. It adapted. The bodies? How?
But as he stepped, he stepped on metal, and he saw the bodies. Not animal. Mechling. Split and gutted. The insides open. This mechling wolf-spider had eaten mechlings? How?
If it ate mechlings, could it eat him?
Insufficient data. Then JI looked at this as a human might. Maybe it could.
The mech spider-wolf was gathering its legs as if to leap. Trajectory, assuming X strength and angle Y and V velocity from muscle mass...therefore...
Perhaps he should run.
He turned and ran, and found Ari standing behind him.
He’d missed hearing her creep up, but he didn’t miss her body. She bounced off him as he barged and she landed in the pool with a splash, then she sank. Her eyes vanished though her thrashing hands still broke the surface. The water was ugly, JI decided.
A weight landed on his back. Teeth tore at his armored brain links that fed into his mechlings, going unerringly for his weakest place. Perhaps it had understood his thoughts more than he’d calculated?
In seconds, it would breach him there, and kill him? He knew its aim as the first piece of armor snapped away and a piece, a finger, a tentacle of mech-spider-wolf inveigled its way into him.
It wanted his brain, the dirty thing. Roaring, he spun. Saving Ari. Saving me. Which? JI almost froze.
Until he saw the flash and splash as Sawyer dove past and into the pool.
Now it was him versus the mad mech spider...and two jaggs.
Arthur and Martha joined the fight, chewing and ripping at his enemy’s legs.
Hah! Now he knew he’d win!
If only Ari would survive all would be well. Especially once he analyzed how this creepy creature had done what it did to brains.
Because, the one thing he’d seen as it leaped upon him was that it possessed a...cock. A wolf cock, but still it was cock.
Fun times ahead, once he figured this out. Surely he could do what a mere mechling could do?
How long could people survive beneath water?
It began to rain, water thundering against the glass, drips cascading to the pool to the floor, pattering off the creature as it flailed teeth and claw against him. He held the mech-spider wolf’s lower body away from him and the jaggs did what they did best – they killed and killed.
It had severed some brain strands and his neurosensory systems were screaming but...he
Could...
Do this.
I’m fine, he sent to Sawyer. I’m fine. And he staggered to the doors, trailing jaggs, leaking sensations, memories sliding.
He just needed somewhere...
Quiet.
He thought, as he walked through a veil of water.