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Convergence: Part 13b – Showdown
The street leaped and shuddered again, harder than before, as if earthquake shock waves passed beneath it. But it was no quake.
The agents flattened to the ground. Standing was impossible.
It was coming—not just a fragment, not just another spawn, but the largest part of it, perhaps the entire great bulk, surging toward the surface with unimaginable destructive power, rising like a god betrayed, bringing its unholy wrath and vengeance on those who had dared to strike at it, turning itself into an enormous mass of muscle fiber and pushing, pushing, until the macadam bulged and cracked.
Along the entire block of Skyline Road, an atonal symphony of destruction reached an ear-shattering crescendo: squealing, grinding, cracking, splitting sounds; the world itself coming asunder. The air was filled with dust that spurted up from widening fissures in the pavement.
The roadbed tilted with tremendous force. Chunks of it spewed into the air. Most were the size of gravel, but some were as large as a fist. A few were even larger than that, fifty- and hundred- and two-hundred-pound blocks of concrete, leaping five or ten feet into the air as the protean creature below formed relentlessly toward the surface.
The earth under Hammer lifted and fell with a crash. Lifted and fell again. Gravel-size debris rained down, thumping off his legs, snapping against his head, making Hammer wince.
A huge slab of concrete erupted from the left and was flung ten feet into the air. It hit Guppy. It slammed across his legs, breaking them, pinning Guppy. He howled in pain, howling so loudly that he could be heard above the roar of the disintegrating pavement.
Still, the shaking continued. The street heaved up higher. Ragged teeth of macadam concrete bit at the morning air.
A baseball-size missile of concrete, spat into the air by the protomatter’s volcanic exit from the storm drain, slammed back to the pavement, impacting two or three inches from Jim-Bean’s head. Then the ridge-forming pressure from below was suddenly widened. The street ceased shaking.
The sounds of destruction faded. Abruptly, the street began caving in. It made a tearing sound, and pieces broke loose along the fracture lines. Slabs tumbled into the emptiness below. Too much emptiness: it sounded as if things were falling into a chasm, not just a drain.
Then the entire hoved-up section pavement erupted with a thunderous roar, and Hammer found himself at the brink. The pit was ten feet across, at least fifty feet long.
He saw Guppy. His legs were pinned under a massive hunk of concrete. Worse than that—he was trapped on a precarious piece of roadbed that thrust over the rim of the hole, with no support beneath it. At any moment, it might crack loose and fall into the pit, taking him with it.
“Guppy!” shouted Hammer. “Hold on!”
The pit was at least thirty feet deep, probably a lot deeper in places; Hammer couldn’t gauge it accurately because there were many shadows along its fifty-foot length.
A crisp, cracking noise split the air. Guppy’s concrete perch shifted. It was going to break loose and tumble into the chasm.
Wham!
The pavement shifted and began to drop out from under Guppy. Hammer lunged and grabbed hold of Guppy’s collar just as the pavement beneath Guppy gave way. An eight-foot-long, four-foot-wide slab, slipped into the pit, carrying Guppy and Hammer with it. It didn’t crash to the bottom, but instead slid thirty feet to the base and came to rest against other rubble.
Guppy screamed in pain.
The spawn came for him. It exploded out of one of the tunnels that pecked the floor of the pit. A massive pseudopod of amorphous protoplasm rose ten feet into the air, quivered, dropped to the ground, broke off of the mother-body hiding below, and formed itself into an obscenely fat black spider the size of a pony. It was only twelve feet from Guppy, and it clambered through the shattered blocks of pavement, heading toward him with murderous intent.
“Shoot it!” shouted Hammer.
Jim-Bean took aim and fired. The dart plunged into the spider’s head. It stumbled backwards, wicked fangs gnashing in rage.
Hammer began climbing, dragging Guppy behind him. He dragged them both up to a flatter part of the pit. The spider’s huge black legs scrabbled for purchase on the ledge.
Hammer dropped Guppy and drew his pistols. He fired first one pistol, then the other, aiming at the spider’s legs.
The spider’s legs tore apart, transforming back into protomatter. Sores exploded across its body. Hammer fired more shots into its head and it fell back into the pit, reabsorbed into the protomatter spawn and infecting it further.
Hammer resumed climbing. Guppy was semi-conscious, which made it even harder.
The protomatter spawn surged up from underground, gushing out onto the floor of the pit. It looked like a tide of thick, congealed sewage; except for where it was stained by BIOSAN-4, it was darker than it had been before. It rippled, writhed, and churned more agitatedly than ever. The milky stain of infection was spreading visibly through the creature: Blisters formed, swelled, popped; ugly sores broke open and wept a watery blue fluid.
Hammer cleared the slope of the pit. He shoved Guppy over the edge and then clambered up after him.
Within only a few seconds, at least a ton of the amorphous flesh spewed out of the hole. All of it was afflicted with disease, and still it came, ever faster, a lava-like outpouring, a wild spouting of living, gelatinous tissue. Even more of the beast began to issue from another hole. The great oozing mass lapped across the rubble, formed pseudopods—shapeless, flailing arms—that rose into the air but quickly fell back in foaming, spasming seizures.
And then, from still other holes, there came a ghastly sound: the voices of a thousand men, women, children, and animals, all crying out in pain, horror, and bleak despair.
Three or four tons of amorphous tissue fountained into the pit, and more still was gushing forth, as if the bowels of the earth were emptying. The spawn’s flesh was shuddering, leaping, bursting with leprous lesions. It tried to bud other versions, but it was too weak or unstable to competently mimic anything; the half-realized animals and enormous insects either decomposed into a sludge that resembled pus or collapsed back into the pool of tissue beneath them.
The thing came toward Hammer nonetheless, coming in a quivering-churning frenzy; it flowed almost to the base of the slope, and sent its degenerating yet still powerful tentacles toward his heels.
Hammer turned, both Glocks out, but it was too late. Tendrils pulled at him with the strength of ten men, sucking him in like a squid capturing a shrimp. He was instantly surrounded, and suddenly Hammer understood how Beck and Henderson died.
The protomatter spawn had squeezed them to death by sucking them into its bulk, suffocating, bruising, without breaking a single bone. There wasn’t even the possibility of resisting. Every inch of space around Hammer was filled with protomatter, and it whispered in his ear that it would make him suffer in ways he could never imagine.
Then the pustule burst around him and he fell out, gasping. Hammer caught a glimpse of Jim-Bean, his air rifle still aimed at the thing, before he hit the ground.
An incredibly large, gelatinous lake of amorphous tissue lay at the bottom of the pit, pooling over and around the debris, but it was virtually inactive. A few human and animal forms still tried to rise up, but the thing was losing its talent for mimicry. The creatures were imperfect and sluggish. The spawn slowly disappeared under a layer of its own dead and decomposing tissue.
Jim-Bean stood over Hammer, the rifle hanging limply in his hand.
“Did we get it?” croaked Hammer. His entire body was one big bruise. It hurt to breath.
“Yeah,” said Jim-Bean. “We got it.”
“Guppy?” Hammer rolled over to look at Guppy. His rib cage moved up and down in shallow gasps.
“He’ll live,” said Jim-Bean. “His legs are busted up. I put a call in for a STREETSWEEP of this whole damn town. Backup should be here soon.”
“Now what do we do?” Hammer whispered, closing his eyes.
“Now?” Jim-Bean shrugged. There was no evidence of anything anymore. No evidence of Guppy’s slip-up. No evidence of Hammer’s executions. And most importantly, no evidence of the parasite that was coiled around Jim-Bean’s bones. He held up one of the blue vials of BIOSAN-4 to the sunlight. “Now we get back to work.”
Jim-Bean put the vial back in his pocket.
The street leaped and shuddered again, harder than before, as if earthquake shock waves passed beneath it. But it was no quake.
The agents flattened to the ground. Standing was impossible.
It was coming—not just a fragment, not just another spawn, but the largest part of it, perhaps the entire great bulk, surging toward the surface with unimaginable destructive power, rising like a god betrayed, bringing its unholy wrath and vengeance on those who had dared to strike at it, turning itself into an enormous mass of muscle fiber and pushing, pushing, until the macadam bulged and cracked.
Along the entire block of Skyline Road, an atonal symphony of destruction reached an ear-shattering crescendo: squealing, grinding, cracking, splitting sounds; the world itself coming asunder. The air was filled with dust that spurted up from widening fissures in the pavement.
The roadbed tilted with tremendous force. Chunks of it spewed into the air. Most were the size of gravel, but some were as large as a fist. A few were even larger than that, fifty- and hundred- and two-hundred-pound blocks of concrete, leaping five or ten feet into the air as the protean creature below formed relentlessly toward the surface.
The earth under Hammer lifted and fell with a crash. Lifted and fell again. Gravel-size debris rained down, thumping off his legs, snapping against his head, making Hammer wince.
A huge slab of concrete erupted from the left and was flung ten feet into the air. It hit Guppy. It slammed across his legs, breaking them, pinning Guppy. He howled in pain, howling so loudly that he could be heard above the roar of the disintegrating pavement.
Still, the shaking continued. The street heaved up higher. Ragged teeth of macadam concrete bit at the morning air.
A baseball-size missile of concrete, spat into the air by the protomatter’s volcanic exit from the storm drain, slammed back to the pavement, impacting two or three inches from Jim-Bean’s head. Then the ridge-forming pressure from below was suddenly widened. The street ceased shaking.
The sounds of destruction faded. Abruptly, the street began caving in. It made a tearing sound, and pieces broke loose along the fracture lines. Slabs tumbled into the emptiness below. Too much emptiness: it sounded as if things were falling into a chasm, not just a drain.
Then the entire hoved-up section pavement erupted with a thunderous roar, and Hammer found himself at the brink. The pit was ten feet across, at least fifty feet long.
He saw Guppy. His legs were pinned under a massive hunk of concrete. Worse than that—he was trapped on a precarious piece of roadbed that thrust over the rim of the hole, with no support beneath it. At any moment, it might crack loose and fall into the pit, taking him with it.
“Guppy!” shouted Hammer. “Hold on!”
The pit was at least thirty feet deep, probably a lot deeper in places; Hammer couldn’t gauge it accurately because there were many shadows along its fifty-foot length.
A crisp, cracking noise split the air. Guppy’s concrete perch shifted. It was going to break loose and tumble into the chasm.
Wham!
The pavement shifted and began to drop out from under Guppy. Hammer lunged and grabbed hold of Guppy’s collar just as the pavement beneath Guppy gave way. An eight-foot-long, four-foot-wide slab, slipped into the pit, carrying Guppy and Hammer with it. It didn’t crash to the bottom, but instead slid thirty feet to the base and came to rest against other rubble.
Guppy screamed in pain.
The spawn came for him. It exploded out of one of the tunnels that pecked the floor of the pit. A massive pseudopod of amorphous protoplasm rose ten feet into the air, quivered, dropped to the ground, broke off of the mother-body hiding below, and formed itself into an obscenely fat black spider the size of a pony. It was only twelve feet from Guppy, and it clambered through the shattered blocks of pavement, heading toward him with murderous intent.
“Shoot it!” shouted Hammer.
Jim-Bean took aim and fired. The dart plunged into the spider’s head. It stumbled backwards, wicked fangs gnashing in rage.
Hammer began climbing, dragging Guppy behind him. He dragged them both up to a flatter part of the pit. The spider’s huge black legs scrabbled for purchase on the ledge.
Hammer dropped Guppy and drew his pistols. He fired first one pistol, then the other, aiming at the spider’s legs.
The spider’s legs tore apart, transforming back into protomatter. Sores exploded across its body. Hammer fired more shots into its head and it fell back into the pit, reabsorbed into the protomatter spawn and infecting it further.
Hammer resumed climbing. Guppy was semi-conscious, which made it even harder.
The protomatter spawn surged up from underground, gushing out onto the floor of the pit. It looked like a tide of thick, congealed sewage; except for where it was stained by BIOSAN-4, it was darker than it had been before. It rippled, writhed, and churned more agitatedly than ever. The milky stain of infection was spreading visibly through the creature: Blisters formed, swelled, popped; ugly sores broke open and wept a watery blue fluid.
Hammer cleared the slope of the pit. He shoved Guppy over the edge and then clambered up after him.
Within only a few seconds, at least a ton of the amorphous flesh spewed out of the hole. All of it was afflicted with disease, and still it came, ever faster, a lava-like outpouring, a wild spouting of living, gelatinous tissue. Even more of the beast began to issue from another hole. The great oozing mass lapped across the rubble, formed pseudopods—shapeless, flailing arms—that rose into the air but quickly fell back in foaming, spasming seizures.
And then, from still other holes, there came a ghastly sound: the voices of a thousand men, women, children, and animals, all crying out in pain, horror, and bleak despair.
Three or four tons of amorphous tissue fountained into the pit, and more still was gushing forth, as if the bowels of the earth were emptying. The spawn’s flesh was shuddering, leaping, bursting with leprous lesions. It tried to bud other versions, but it was too weak or unstable to competently mimic anything; the half-realized animals and enormous insects either decomposed into a sludge that resembled pus or collapsed back into the pool of tissue beneath them.
The thing came toward Hammer nonetheless, coming in a quivering-churning frenzy; it flowed almost to the base of the slope, and sent its degenerating yet still powerful tentacles toward his heels.
Hammer turned, both Glocks out, but it was too late. Tendrils pulled at him with the strength of ten men, sucking him in like a squid capturing a shrimp. He was instantly surrounded, and suddenly Hammer understood how Beck and Henderson died.
The protomatter spawn had squeezed them to death by sucking them into its bulk, suffocating, bruising, without breaking a single bone. There wasn’t even the possibility of resisting. Every inch of space around Hammer was filled with protomatter, and it whispered in his ear that it would make him suffer in ways he could never imagine.
Then the pustule burst around him and he fell out, gasping. Hammer caught a glimpse of Jim-Bean, his air rifle still aimed at the thing, before he hit the ground.
An incredibly large, gelatinous lake of amorphous tissue lay at the bottom of the pit, pooling over and around the debris, but it was virtually inactive. A few human and animal forms still tried to rise up, but the thing was losing its talent for mimicry. The creatures were imperfect and sluggish. The spawn slowly disappeared under a layer of its own dead and decomposing tissue.
Jim-Bean stood over Hammer, the rifle hanging limply in his hand.
“Did we get it?” croaked Hammer. His entire body was one big bruise. It hurt to breath.
“Yeah,” said Jim-Bean. “We got it.”
“Guppy?” Hammer rolled over to look at Guppy. His rib cage moved up and down in shallow gasps.
“He’ll live,” said Jim-Bean. “His legs are busted up. I put a call in for a STREETSWEEP of this whole damn town. Backup should be here soon.”
“Now what do we do?” Hammer whispered, closing his eyes.
“Now?” Jim-Bean shrugged. There was no evidence of anything anymore. No evidence of Guppy’s slip-up. No evidence of Hammer’s executions. And most importantly, no evidence of the parasite that was coiled around Jim-Bean’s bones. He held up one of the blue vials of BIOSAN-4 to the sunlight. “Now we get back to work.”
Jim-Bean put the vial back in his pocket.