Salvage Merc One: The Daedalus System (20 page)

Twenty-One

Here’s the thing, I had no idea if the labyrinth was actually real or not, despite what Alya had been saying. Honest to Eight Million Gods. Sure, it seemed real, in an unreal way, but that didn’t mean foing crud. But, truth be told, as far as I really knew, I was asleep on my ship waiting for the backdoor wormhole portal to open, or maybe I had never left the SMC headquarters. That was how much I distrusted anything and everything my senses told me.

So, the idea of being stuck in a nightmare inside something that may not have even been real to begin with kind of messed with my mind in a way that even the other trials hadn’t. It sent me spiraling down into a very dark hole. My psyche went to a place that I hadn’t looked at since I was a kid. A terrifying place.

The box sat in the middle of the room, its hand crank jutting out like an unfinished arm with that small, red knob on the end taunting me. It said that all I had to do was turn the crank a few times, and the fun would begin. Oh, what? That didn’t do it. Maybe give it another crank. And another. And another.

How about a creepy tune to help you along? Monkey chases the weasel. Yeah. That tune. Nothing says wholesome, child-friendly fun like a song where a monkey chases a weasel around some bush so it can catch the weasel and kill it with its bare hands.

Oh, yeah, I’m talking about a jack-in-the-box.

Red and white box made of tin. Faded scenes on each side, something with happy clowns and smiling children. Except not so smiling. Screaming? Yep. Screaming. Why? Because the happy clowns had glowing laser knives that sizzled and sparked as the blood on their edges slowly smoldered into wafts of smoke.

“I’d like to wake up now,” I said as I stood there, my back against the wall of the small, dark room. “Hello? Not a fan of the child torture horror schtick. Hello? Labyrinth? I’d like to use my free pass now, please.”

I didn’t have a free pass, but it was worth a shot.

There was no answer from the labyrinth. Not directly. Instead, the hand crank began to crank on its own, sans hand. I sure as fo wasn’t touching it. My back was still firmly planted against the wall. I had zero intention of getting anywhere near that box.

The labyrinth had other ideas.

My feet began to slide, and I quickly realized that the wall behind me was slowly moving, pushing me to the center of the room, pushing me to where the self-cranking box sat. Pushing me towards my nightmare. Or one of my nightmares. We all have a multitude of fears and phobias, right? Right?

Around and around that mulberry bush the monkey and the weasel went. Over and over and over.

I pushed back against the wall, but there was no stopping it.

“Fine!” I shouted and stepped away from the wall. “You want me to do what? Pick up the box? Crank it until it pops open and I see the freakish clown head on a spring? Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll play your stupid game, you dumb labyrinth.”

I took a tentative step away from the wall, and it stopped moving. I leaned back once more just for a test, and the wall began to slide itself and me towards the ever-cranking box.

“Just checking,” I said and moved back away from the wall. It’s grinding came to a stop, and I took a deep breath. “One foot in front of the other.”

There it sat, self-cranking, that annoying music playing over and over and over. The box seemed so small when I was up against the wall, but as I got closer, that illusion changed. It was much bigger than I had originally thought. Maybe a meter square.

I took my steps carefully, my eyes locked onto the box. I waited for that crank to stop moving and the lid to snap open, whatever horror held inside free to rip me to shreds. But the lid stayed put. The box was waiting for me to do the honors, I was certain of that. You can’t be a terrifying hell toy without an audience. It’s in the terrifying hell toy nightmare rulebook or something.

Each step took me closer to the box, of course, but at the same time, it seemed to take me farther away. It was hard to comprehend. I’d get nearer, it’d get bigger, then slide just a hair out of reach. It became so frustrating, and the Eight Million Gods damned music wasn’t helping, that I started shouting at the thing to stay still.

It didn’t. It grew, it slid away, it continued to crank itself, the music never stopped. The music never stopped. The music never stopped.

I reached to unsling my H16 and blow the box right the fo away, but I did not have an H16. I had two long, neon pink balloons twisted into a simulacrum of an H16, but no actual plasma carbine multi-weapon.

My hand instinctively slapped at my thigh for my KL09. The holster was there, but no heavy pistol. My hand cannon had become a banana.

So I did what any normal person would do in my situation, I peeled the banana, ate it, since I was foing hungry, tossed the empty peel at the box, grabbed up my balloon carbine, put the rubbery butt to my shoulder, and kept walking.

That’s what a normal person would do, right?

With the barrel of the balloon carbine pointed squarely at the box, I cleared my throat, mostly because of the banana remnants, but also because of the soul-filling terror that still had me in its grip, and said, “Time for the monkey to catch the weasel.”

Wasn’t my best line, but not bad considering the insane situation I was presented with.

The crank stopped cranking. I stopped walking. The box began to shudder.

“Huh,” I muttered. “Usually, it pops right out.”

What happened next wasn’t exactly what I expected. I was ready for that not so little anymore lid to snap open and the clown head on a spring to jump out and make horrible laughing noises as it bounced and bobbled. I was totally prepped for that to happen. I was going to make pew pew noises at the clown head and see if maybe the dream hell considered that lethal force.

But the lid didn’t snap open, and there was no clown head to pew pew at. Instead, a black goo began to ooze from around the lid’s seams. It seeped onto the floor, pooling down around the impotent box.

I took a couple steps closer. I couldn’t help myself, I was curious. It was always the clown head on a spring that wigged me out as a kid, so seeing black goo come out was sort of a relief.

Until the smell hit me.

“Oh, son of a gump,” I hissed and began to back away as fast as possible.

My back hit the wall, and I realized too late that the wall had been following me the whole time. Creeping closer and closer, making sure I was boxed in when the big reveal happened.

Clown head on a spring, even a possessed by the Seven Satans type, was infinitely better than what was oozing onto the ground around the box.

“B’flo’do,” I muttered. “Foing B’flo’do.”

The inbred cousin to the B’clo’nos, the B’flo’do were a feral race that drained anything, whether alive or machine, of its energy, leaving only desiccated husks or broken tech in their wake. B’flo’do sucked. Literally and figuratively.

I cocked the balloon carbine and stood my ground. Not that I had much choice since the wall behind me was only a centimeter from my back. But I liked to put on a confident front.

“Don’t even think about it!” I shouted as the black goo finished seeping from the box and began to take shape. It wasn’t much of a shape, just sort of less of a pool of gunk. “Stay right the fo where you are, B’flo’do scum!”

The B’flo’do scum did not stay right the fo where it was.

“Pew pew!” I yelled as it oozed its way towards me. “Pew pew!”

It was kind of sad, all the pew pews.

I threw the balloon carbine to the ground, a little disappointed that the labyrinth didn’t turn it into a real weapon at the last second. I thought I was getting the hang of the place’s insanity, but I guess not.

I began to circle the thing, keeping my eyes on it as I side-stepped to my right. No weapons, not even a blade strapped to my calf or tucked into my boot. An energy-sucking goo monster clocking me with every step. No doors to be seen anywhere in the freaky room. I was totally foed.

“What ya gonna do, slimeball?” I snapped at the thing. “Suck down all my Joe juice?”

Yeah, I grossed myself out saying that.

I kept moving, forcing the B’flo’do to shift and reconfigure its bulk. It hadn’t quite reformed into a full blob, so my constant movement gave me some advantage. They weren’t the brightest of species, not by a long shot, so any little bit I could do to keep it off balance was worth the effort.

At least until it got bored, shot a slimy tendril out at me and snagged me by my left ankle, yanking me off my feet in the blink of an eye. I hit the ground hard, the back of my head making a hollow thunk as it collided with what I discovered was some type of metal. It wasn’t carbon alloy like most everything, but a thin metal that made a warbling noise as the B’flo’do dragged me to its gaping maw. Yep, it had pulled itself together enough to create a gaping maw.

B’flo’do drool dripped from its lips, or what I assumed were lips by their general placement on the thing’s bulk, and the metal floor made a hollow ding with each drop. I smacked my hands against the floor as hard as I could, and the hollow ding became a loud thwang. There was nothing under the floor. I could tell by the sound. If I could figure out how to get through it then maybe I had a chance.

My left leg was caught, but my right one wasn’t. I lifted it high, hoping I had the leverage to do what I needed to do, then brought my foot down as hard and fast as possible. The heel of my boot clanged against the floor, and I saw with some relief that I had put quite the dent in the metal. It helped to have battle legs, which luckily were still attached and part of me, unlike my H16 and KL09. I guess integrated cybernetic tech was immune to crazy nightmare land rules.

I slammed my foot down again, harder, and drove my boot through the floor. Then I shoved my heel into the new hole and watched as the metal began to peel up, rolling itself into a tight tube as the B’flo’do dragged me closer. When I was near enough, I grabbed the edges of the hole and pulled with all of my strength, making a Joe space for me to fall into.

I didn’t think the plan through.

I was hanging there, the B’flo’do above me in the room, making some howling wailing moaning noise from its goo maw, and got a glance at my full situation.

I was in the middle of nowhere. Like true nowhere. There was nothing below me. Nothing. Not even darkness. It was like I was hanging in a literal void. There wasn’t the absence of light, there was only the absence of all. Existence didn’t exist.

The B’flo’do kept pulling, and my body kept widening the hole in the floor. I was like a hoe digging a row in a field. I didn’t want to be a hoe digging a row. I didn’t want to be anything except right the fo out of there.

The motion stopped, and I looked up, waiting for the B’flo’do to snatch me back into the room and swallow me whole then spit out the empty shell my body would become.

None of that happened.

The B’flo’do let out a strangled cry then a loud, pained screech.

The goo tendril gripping my ankle disappeared.

That was good in that I was no longer being dragged by a B’flo’do. It was bad because the B’flo’do was all that was keeping me from falling into the void.

I screamed. I’ll admit that.

A hand grabbed me by my ankle before I could fall too far. I looked up to see Alya’s face peering down at me.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey right back,” I replied. “Nice catch.”

“Bend and grab the edges,” Alya said. “I can’t pull you up.”

“Will do,” I said and was very glad that I’ve always been a stickler for keeping myself in shape.

Yeah, sure, I might drink a couple extra pitchers of beer a nigh than I should, which is something Scott has told me to not do, but I have never slacked on the physical fitness thing. And it was a very good thing, that not slacking.

I grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled. Alya took hold of my other ankle, and between the two of us, I was able to leverage my ass out of that void and back into the creepy jack in the box room.

As I stood up and checked myself over for any residual B’flo’do spooge, I quickly realized there was no jack in the box. The box was gone, any sign of the B’flo’do was gone, the wall was back in place. All that was left was Alya.

“Thanks,” I said and rubbed at the spot on my ankle where the B’flo’do had grabbed me.

Even though it was a battle leg, it still felt funky, like the stupid ooze monster had been able to suck some of the energy from that section of my cybernetics. It shouldn’t have been able to do that, but shouldn’t didn’t exactly apply anymore.

“You good?” Alya asked as I finally stood straight. She handed me my balloon carbine. “Here. You’re gonna need this.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s going to help,” I said and shook the balloon carbine at her. “I even tried pew pew noises.”

She stared at me for a second, looked at the balloon carbine, then looked back up at me.

“What?” she asked.

“While I’m as much of a fan of balloon art as the next Salvage Merc One, I’m just not convinced it’s the right weapon for me,” I said. She didn’t smile or laugh. I thought it was funny, but that’s just me.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she said. “Check your power levels and get ready. The last trial is about to begin.”