Coldreach, A Sci-Fi Short

[1034 words extract]

 “Access denied,” the identification system chimed.

It’s hopeless, Jace Mircier thought, and slammed his fist against the steel sliding doors that blocked their escape from the inner chambers of the AI Training Facility.

The girl at his side jumped in surprise. Her stare lingered on the flashing display, then drifted to his knuckles. Analysing, learning.

Jace turned his head to look at her.

She would pass for a normal girl but for the fact that she did not have a hair on her body. No innocent locks or cascading waves of well-combed hair. No eyebrows to give form to her face. No strands even on her arms to make her seem marginally ordinary.

She turned her gaze to him, and her eyes held him.  Familiar, yet on a stranger’s face. 

Guilt and longing clawed at Jace's throat. The master access card granted to head researchers hung like a noose around his neck. They will know who I am if I use it, he thought. Jace held it up and ran his thumb over the engraved image. PostVita's logo, a circular snake swallowing its tail, pressed against his finger. He blew a long, steady breath to calm his rising pulse. 

The fall of heavy combat boots echoed down the corridors.

Jace's stomach turned.

"Sev," he cursed under his breath.

The approaching footsteps halted, and Sev’s voice rang out from some unseen corner, “Unit One, there. Unit Two, hold cover here. Unit Three, on me. Smoke ‘em out. Whoever this is, I want them alive enough for questioning. Even if it is short.” 

Jace could hear the malicious mirth behind the words.

A loud chemical hiss suddenly drowned out all other sounds. A thermal flare billowing smoke landed with a thud in front of them.

Jace's heart sank. He knew he'd have to swipe his access card. It was foolish to think he could sneak out of the facility with an asset without having his identity discovered. His hand moved up to yank the card from his neck, but the girl tugged on his sleeve and pointed to a plain white door, unmarked and without any new security systems.

“Utility room,” she said, too calmly.

“What? How—” Jace choked on the thickening smog. There was no time to worry or second-guess. They sprinted to the door. He didn’t bother to check if it was unlocked; he slammed his weight against it.

The door burst open with a loud splintering, leaving no possibility of hiding their trail. It led to a network of maintenance tunnels, its walls lined with rusted pipes that whistled and throbbed in the gloom.

Jace coughed as he breathed the stagnant air, saturated with the smell of metal, oil, and something faintly burning.

“Perfect,” Jace rasped. He sounded insane, even to himself, but he knew that Sev’s cybernetic eye couldn’t track their body heat in there. “Let’s go,” he pulled her in after him into the hallway.

The tunnels branched into a maze of intersecting paths. Buzzing aged yellow bulbs flickered overhead, casting just enough wan light to outline the looming walls through the gloom.

Jace pressed onwards through the depths, not driven by hope, but rather, sheer desperation.

The girl’s hand slipped from his sweaty grip.

He stopped and doubled over, hands braced against his knees. Each breath ragged and sharp in his chest, his sides aching from the exertion.

The child did not fare any better. She leaned against the damp cement wall and dropped down. Her hands trembled as she wiped the sweat from her face and scalp.

Jace paused to get his bearings. He realised in a mere instant that endless conduits stretched in every direction, and he knew with grim certainty that retracing their steps would be impossible.

 Jace spotted a rack of tubing that divided their passage from a neighbouring one. He wedged his fingers in between, creating a small opening. He squinted through the narrow spacing to examine the corridor next to them.

The feeble illumination from above scarcely pierced the dense vapour, throwing haunting shadows against the filthy surfaces. Ducts leaked overhead, their liquid falling in rhythmic drops.  A red dot appeared and shone through the gloom.

Jace felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“I see you,” came a voice from the shadows. Sev stepped into a patch of light and smiled.

Jace’s breath caught in his throat. His fingers, still wedged between the rubber hoses, felt numb. The red glowing lens from Sev’s cybernetic eye glared back at him, like it painted a target on Jace's soul.

Sev stepped closer, slow and deliberate, his footfalls echoing on the wet concrete.

Jace's eyes were locked on Sev, his mind blank except for a single command: run. He didn’t move. Couldn’t.

“I see you,” Sev said again, almost gently. The knife in his hand flicked upward and glinted in the light.

Jace imagined it sliding between his ribs.

Sev's other hand, his chrome cast cybernetic prosthetic one, whirred and clicked as hidden mechanisms arranged themselves.

Sev thrust and stabbed. The point gleamed a hair’s breadth from Jace’s stomach, stopped only by the mesh of cords on the rack. Sev clicked his tongue in disappointment.

“You know?” Sev said conversationally, “I was meant to be off today. Relaxing, drinking beer, playing poker. Bought myself a fat cigar. Then I get this call—” He twisted the knife in a slow circle. “ ‘An asset has been stolen,’ they reported. Ready for assimilation, too. Right. From. The nursery.” Sev yanked the knife upward with a violent jerk, splitting a thick coolant line. Fluid exploded outward, spilled on the floor as the hose writhed like a beheaded snake. Sev laughed, low and unbothered.

“But I don’t mind,” he said, eyes glinting. “This is fun too.” 

He slashed at the other tubes. Pipes burst, valves flew into the air, and the hallway turned into a tempest of gas and liquids.

Jace fled from the rack. He did not waste time getting the girl to her feet; he picked her up from the floor, held her tightly against his chest, and sprinted off.

“I see you,” Sev’s voice called hauntingly from behind. “I always do.”

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