Part Three - Chapter 11

I dozed off for some time, but couldn’t really fall asleep, my body didn’t allow it. A dull pain returned to my chest, I couldn’t turn to lie on a side because of it. Finally I was tired of this. I threw the blanket onto the floor, intending to get dressed and return to the water. But the thing I saw made me freeze with bewilderment and fear.

On the inner side of the blanket there was now a huge bloody stain, and I had no doubt about its origin. The bandage on my chest was long since soaked through, though it shouldn’t have, drops of blood were sliding along it onto the bed. The wound continued bleeding �" not too intensely, but without stopping.

I didn’t expect this to happen. Usually any trauma healed on me rather quickly, much quicker than on a human, no problems with the blood stopping either. Otherwise I wouldn’t have survived those six months in a cell! I couldn’t find any reason for the thing that was happening to me. I was confident in one simple fact: I wouldn’t handle this alone. I had no idea what to do!

What other options did I have? Only ask for help. I was scared of Lita’s reaction to this, because I basically broke one of the most important prohibitions. But I had to take that risk… The alternative was worse than her wrath!

I checked the human presence on the ship and sensed my watcher on the lower floor. Apart from us, nobody was aboard at the moment, Yulia and Oscar disappeared somewhere. That was actually in my favor.

I walked to the door, fighting the exhaustion that overfilled me at the moment. It was embarrassing �" to become that weak because of a mere scratch!

I opened the door, but didn’t move out, because I knew I’d mark my way with bloody stains on the carpet. I just called her �" not too loud, so only she could hear me.

“Lita!”

I rarely called her by the name. Somehow it didn’t seem right to me, it broke the distance she kept between us. So I generally avoided addressing her like this, but now I had no choice.

She heard me and answered at once:

“Rey? Is something wrong?”

She was surprised, and I knew why. The light that filled the ship meant that the sun was still high. At that time I was supposed to be working in the lake, not fooling around here. And she doesn’t even know half of the truth yet!

“I… I need your help.”

There were footsteps, and then I saw her at the other end of the hallway, her silhouette dark because of the sun shining behind her back. At that moment she noticed I was without my armor, my chest covered in blood. I realized I still didn’t have any clothes on belatedly, so I hurried back to pull on at least the lower part of my uniform.

“Rey! What happened to you?!” she gasped.

She stepped over the threshold, but didn’t dare to approach me. What could I answer? That I accidentally fell on my own tail? Or that I was attacked by an overgrown mosquito? No, if I wanted her to help me, I had to tell her the truth.

“I removed the detector.”

It took her a couple of minutes to fully realize the sense of my words. Fear in her gray eyes was changed with anger.

“You… did… what?!” she crossed the remaining distance in a second and pushed me back. I don’t think she meant to hurt me, it was just an emotional gesture.

But there was pain. At some other time I wouldn’t even notice such a push, my watcher’s strength was insufficient for hurting me. And now she managed to hit the bleeding wound. I doubled over silently, I couldn’t make a sound at the moment.

Lita looked at me in shock, then her gaze traveled to her hands, now covered in my blood. She cursed with the words I’d never heard before.

“Lay down! Fast! Damn, you’re such an idiot!”

I couldn’t argue with that at the moment �" everything pointed at her being right. Instead I just lay on the bed and waited for what she’d do next. I heard her lock the door and start to search for something on the shelves frantically. Finally she returned to me with a white box in her hands.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“I took the detector out,” I repeated quietly. “It’s in the bathroom.»

She stopped in mid-motion and gave me a hurt look:

“But why? I… I trusted my life to you! Why couldn’t you do the same?”

“It’s not like this, I swear! At that moment I didn’t think of you, I’ve never… never connected you to those bombs. I didn’t want others to control me… Anton, Leo’s watcher, other watchers �" them. I’m not a puppet! I trust you, because… You are like Dr. Strelov. He treated me the way you do.”

That was all I could tell her. I was tired and affected by the loss of blood and my skin was going dry.

She looked me in the eyes as if she hoped to see something important there, some ultimate truth that could guarantee my sincerity. I wasn’t sure whether she got what she wanted, but those gray eyes became softer.

“You’re an idiot, honestly. You didn’t get your freedom, you just brought more trouble upon our heads, do you realize that? There’s another bomb in you, and you’ll never get it out, you can trust me on that. And for this… this act can get you killed, it’s considered to be one of the worst crimes a beast can commit. Do you know what it means for us?”

Not only for me, but for us? Now that was curious!

“Not really.”

“Just as I suspected! It means we’ll have to keep that little surgery of yours secret. I’m still not sure how I’m going to do this, but I have to. They won’t forgive this. They’ll just give you back to Anton without any doubt! You’re lucky that I have a degree in medicine, no need to search for a doctor. Stay still!”

As if before that command I’ve been trying to roll around the room!

She got a syringe out of the box and filled it with some medicine from a glass ampoule. She took my bandage off, and the thing she saw made her shake her head in discontent.

“What did you use?”

“My tail,” I was blushing profusely now.

“I should just cut your stupid tail off for this! That was a bright idea all right! Now I have to cut the torn skin off and make some stitches. You’re lucky I have some painkillers here!”

I barely felt the shot she made, but the pain began to fade rapidly. I gave a sigh of relief.

“What, feeling better?” she smirked, looking through the box. “How could you do this to yourself? It’s my fault too �" I chose a “special” one! Now I’ll just suffer the consequence! Would Cerberus ever cause such trouble? Never! And Leo? Same thing, though he’s dumb as a log. And you? What’s the use of your intelligence if it brings nothing but trouble!”

“Woe from wit,” I grumbled.

She was clearly in no mood for droll replies:

“Just shut it! You owe me for this!”

I wanted to say that her species owed me much more, but decided it was a wrong moment for such claims. Lita was right, she didn’t have to sit here and help me. She was saving my life �" not through her medical aid, because my wound was by no means lethal, but through her future silence.

Her movements were fast and experienced, she obviously knew what she was going. She cut my skin with a small shiny scalpel �" my tail left my chest torn in rags. Then she got out a medical needle and some cruel threads.

While she was treating my wound, I was looking at her and my head was filled with dozens of questions. I wasn’t sure whether it was okay to ask them. I chose the one she was most likely to answer and said:

“I’ve been curious for some time… what’s ‘First Family’?”

Okay, I was a bit worried she’d remember that I’d been eavesdropping, but Lita took my knowledge as something natural.

“So while I’m stitching you up, you decided to entertain yourself with small talk?” she replied gloomily. “First Family was Dr. Strelov’s greatest mistake. Not including you.”

I decided to postpone getting offended with her words till the moment she wouldn’t be saving my life.

“Quiet, huh?” Lita looked me in the eyes for a brief moment. “About time. Since you decided to become a good boy, I suppose I can tell you a couple of things. As you know, the Line One beasts work alone, with a human watcher being their constant companion. It’s a single team. If such teams are united, it’s always for certain missions only, just like your collaboration with Oscar.”

I only scorned at this: me and Oscar were far from being a real team.

“Well, Dr. Strelov decided to check whether the effectiveness of work would improve if the beasts went on their missions in teams all the time,” Lita continued. “He gave the project five beasts at once, from what I know, they were related in some way. They were unusual too �" something between you and the Line One beasts. They were smarter than the rest of the Line and even learned to talk normally, though at that they weren’t nearly as good as you.”

“Did they have a single watcher?”

“No, there were five of them. But all five worked with the whole group at once, it wasn’t like each watcher had a separate beast to look after. I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes in that situation. Things were going fine at first, their results were great. But at some point they wanted their freedom back �" just like you did. During a relatively simple mission in the Atlantic Ocean they mutinied. It turned out that all of them removed their detectors in advance �" back then, each beast had only one detector. At that day they killed all humans who were beside them. One of the watchers managed to inform the Headquarters about this before he died, and the First Family was destroyed with a missile. Their story changed the attitude towards beasts. I think that the First Family failure is to blame for the hostility many people feel towards you. I believe that was one of the main reasons you weren’t accepted into the Fund after Dr. Strelov had died. You were as strange as the First Family, so the Council decided it was safer to put you into the cell instead. I used to think it was wrong, that you shouldn’t pay for the First Family’s sins. But I doubt it now �" after what you’ve done. I’ve finished, I’ll clean the blood now and find a suitable bandage for you.”

She was going to get up, but I caught her wrist and raised myself on my elbow, though it cost me a lot of energy.

“That’s not why I removed the detector,” I told her. “I’ll never attack you, I swear.”

She only smiled at that �" without irony, but with some strange bitterness.

“Let go of me. And as for your promises… Time will tell how sincere your words are. I won’t be able to trust you as much as I did anymore. Have some rest, then return into the water. Or else Yulia will worry that her precious pet gets too tired because of you!”

Lita went into the shower room, I could hear the water running there. I lay without movement, overwhelmed by the pain inside my chest. I knew it wasn’t caused by the wound this time.

***

“Everybody, here! Now!”

I was heading to the hatch when I heard Yulia’s voice. She was in her room, and Lita was hurrying there now. I wasn’t sure the invitation was directed at me too, but I decided to check in on the spot. An invitation issued in screaming is always worth checking! 

I was the last to reach her room. The picture I saw there made me whistle is puzzlement, though making such a sound is not so easy with my scales out.

Oscar was sitting on the bed; he looked worn out and tired. His light armor was stained in dirt and some reddish liquid that reminded me of blood but had a very weird smell to it. I could bet that it wasn’t his blood!

But what truly captivated me was the thing in his hands. It was a living creature �" not too big, about the size of his palm. Its body was almost completely hidden by a thick black shell decorated with a couple of spikes. No wonder we didn’t find them in the darkness, this thing looked just like a rock from above!

However, rocks didn’t have such legs �" long, twisted, with a claw at the end of each of them. They were constantly moving, and sometimes a snout appeared from inside the shell. It was long, most of it occupied by a mouth full of sharp needle-like fangs. Two tiny eyes were shining above the mouth. The creature was hissing and trying to break free, it looked like it was suffocating in open air.

“There’s our predator,” Yulia wrinkled her nose.

“I can see that,” my watcher came closer. The creature tried to get her with its claws, but it was still too far. However, even in its current state it managed to try and attack her! That’s what really mattered. “Where did Oscar find it?”

“If I understood him correctly, they swam to him when he returned to the hatch, and before that they were circling around the ship. I don’t even want to think about it! I don’t get it, why did they appear all of a sudden, and even came here! After days of hiding from us, it doesn’t make any sense!”

She didn’t understand it �" and I did. Those creatures knew we were hunting them, they sensed we were bigger predators, so they hid from us wisely. That’s how things work in nature, everybody wants to survive. There was only one factor that could make them drop that disguise and attack us so bluntly…

And I was the one to blame for it. But before accepting the blame, I needed to make sure I was right.

“Does the drain from the shower go straight into the reservoir?” I asked.

The watchers looked at me simultaneously, as if they’d just noticed I was there. Really, my size makes all those “let’s pretend we don’t see him” games ridiculous!

“Look at who’s here!” Yulia winked at me. “Mister Lazy Bones himself has finally decided to show up!”

“Show up and steal that show,” I replied. “I’m most likely the thing that brought them here. So where does the drain go?”

“Partly into the reservoir after passing through the filters, why?”

“Yesterday I…. cut myself accidentally. There was a lot of blood, and it went down the drain. And they appeared. Am I the only one who sees the connection? I believe that’s why they attack only certain people �" they’re attracted by blood.”

“That’s possible,” Lita nodded. She was smart enough not to comment on the “cut myself” thing, though her eyes were quite expressive. “The guy who had his legs amputated… He said that at first it felt like he stepped on a piece of glass, and then he realized he was bitten. Maybe there was no mistake �" he actually cut himself on the glass first, and that made him their prey.”

If they went on the bigger predator so boldly, I believe blood had a very strong effect on them. It’s their weakness and advantage at the same time, because the opponent who fights you in rage is the hardest to bring down.

“Then why did they attack Oscar?” Yulia was clearly confused.

“Because they couldn’t find the source of blood and they were angry,” I explained. This part fit my rage theory perfectly. “I don’t think all creatures came here. He killed those who attacked him, but there’s more outside.”

“And what do we do now?” Oscar’s watcher asked.

“You? Nothing. I’ll take care of it.”

“Not alone, Oscar will help you.”

I knew she’d say that. I couldn’t accept that option.

“No. He’s tired, and in such condition he won’t be able to help me, he’ll need protection himself. Besides, the ship still attracts them, I believe there might be some blood left in the drain. They may try to get inside. If that happens, I want Oscar to be here to take care of you. I’ll be fine alone, if they didn’t crush his armor, they won’t break through mine!”

I didn’t mention the most important reason of my departure: until my wound healed, I was a living magnet for them. They’d find me anywhere, it was too dangerous for me to remain beside humans.

Yulia stayed with Oscar in her room, and Lita walked me to the hatch.

“Rey, are you sure about this?”

She sounded like she was really worried. But that was probably my optimism speaking, she was still too angry for the detector accident to be worried.

“Absolutely. I’ll be back soon.”

I entered the water smoothly to save Lita from splashes.

Up in the sky the sun was starting to set, but there was still enough light left for me. I studied the ship, but hadn’t found a single creature attached to it. I did find many broken shells at the reservoir bottom though, Oscar did a great job �" more than a dozen of them here! Maybe that was the whole pack?

No. Quite unlikely. Things are never that easy.

I needed to know where they came from. I couldn’t sense them while they were hiding somewhere without movement. I had to make them take action. And there was only one way for that, unpleasant but very likely to succeed.

I took a deep breath and hit the armor on my chest with my tail. The wound immediately answered in a sharp sting of pain, blood started leaking through my scales. It was filling the water in translucent clouds, like smoke around me. The underwater flow caught it and carried it along. It wouldn’t stay unnoticed. And once they sense it, there would be no choice left for them.

Nothing had been happening for a while, and I almost believed Oscar got them all when I finally felt them. They were rather far, but moving to me fast. I swam forward to meet them, I didn’t want the fight to happen that close to the ship.

I knew how they’d appear: shadows in the water. There was nothing to be afraid of, yet the fear was there. The influence of the nightmare that Lita managed to chase away for one night was not that easy to defeat. No other dream had ever had such effect on me. In my dreams, I often saw days when I was locked in the cell, the torture I endured, the moment my legs were broken �" it was part of my memory that I had to live with. And still I wasn’t scared of Anton. Actually, it was he who feared me now! But Anton was just a human; the shadows were my enemies.

And then I saw them, and my fear was gone. They were approaching me from different sides, but they were just small spots in the abyssal darkness. A huge shadow devoured me in my nightmare. They were moving in sharp pushes, while my killer was impassive. Their tiny eyes were burning with hunger and lust for blood from the depth of their shells. I saw nothing in the eyes of the giant monster.

Back in my dream, I knew I would lose and die. It wasn’t like this now, not even close!

We met in the middle of the reservoir, far from the beaches and the ship. I suspected the water would start to move on the surface above us and just hoped that humans had enough presence of mind to stay away. Otherwise even I wouldn’t be able to protect them.

The creatures were numerous, they stack around me, clinging to my scales with their claws. Their fangs were scratching my armor, unable to actually crack it. But the additional weight on my tail prevented me from moving it, and I started to drown slowly. The last thing I needed was to be trapped at the bottom! My knowledge of these creatures was very poor, I had no idea what they’d be able to do once they got the support of the ground under their multiple feet.

I moved my tail sharply, throwing part of those creeps off of me. They moved back at me, one of the shells hit me on the chest painfully, my bleeding renewed. It fueled their rage, they were throwing themselves at me with the passion I never expected from the likes of them.

And they continued to push me down. I crushed a couple of the little freaks by now, some of them were cut by my spikes, but that didn’t help much. There were too many of them. I tried to emerge desperately, but they were falling right on me like the rocks they reminded me of. At such rate they had good chances of knocking me unconscious, and if that happened… I remembered the skeleton I found at the bottom of the reservoir all too well.

The old fear was returning. Just like in my nightmare, I was surrounded by darkness, I was alone, defenseless!

Refusing to surrender to that fear, I darted upwards with all my might; and something happened. It was just like during my fight with Leo, when he caught me and tried to break me. I felt like a flash of fire went through my body, everything became white for a moment, and the creatures moved away from me with a loud hiss. Some of them started to drown, and, to my great confusion, I realized they were dead. I killed them… but how?!

I had no time to think about it, because the others were swimming at me again. I wasn’t going to let them surround me anymore! I whirled around in circles, knowing that I was creating a whirlpool on the surface. They were attacking all the time, but my non-stop movement prevented them from clinging to me, their claws were sliding off my armor. Every time they missed, I tried to get them with my tail and claws, I heard their shells break with a sickening sound.

When I finished, the water around me was dark with their turbid blood. I looked around to make sure there wasn’t a single creature left alive. Then I swam in the direction from which they came.

I’d visited that part of the reservoir before, but didn’t notice anything suspicious then. Humans rarely went there, the bank was a dump of fallen trees and garbage. The picture at the bottom was pretty much the same, so I didn’t like going here.

I had to move carefully and slowly not to hit one of the piles of trash. It couldn’t really hurt me, but I didn’t feel like getting tangled in barbered wire beside those creatures’ nest!

None of them showed up on my way, and I wasn’t going to attract them anymore, my head was spinning from the loss of blood. Shallow waters with lots of garbage were not a good fighting place for me, it shifted the odds to the creatures’ favor!

I studied every log and every pile that I saw, but I hadn’t found anything special. Searching through another dump, I finally noticed some bubbles in water. They were coming from something that looked like a hill of mud by the very bank.

I swam closer and stretched my hand to clear the mud of my way. At that moment another creature attacked me, and it was much larger than the ones from before. I pulled back; an unfortunate movement that resulted in me banging my tail on a rusty metal plate. This angered me, I tore the creature into halves and continued my investigation.

The hill of mud turned out to be a pipe leading somewhere. I could feel the flow moving in there, so no dead end option. I also sensed the presence of living creatures inside of it �" about forty of them were coming my way. They knew I was here, they had probably sensed me kill their guard!

I didn’t expect that to happen. They had every advantage here, it was their territory! They could defeat me. Even if I took Oscar with me, it wouldn’t really help. I was doomed to fail.

So I wasn’t going to let this fight happen. Instead I tore that rusty plate from the bottom and blocked the pipe with it. And about time �"soon I could hear their claws screeching on the metal. That should hold them for a while! Just to be on the safe side, I fortified the plate with pieces of metal pipes and rocks, and only then I swam back.

Sooner or later they’d break through this block, no doubt about that. I had to inform the watchers of this and let them decide. We never expected the number of those predators to be that great! The fact we couldn’t find them at once made us believe is was a small pack. And yet, they just weren’t here, they were hiding in some place where this pipe led to!

It was obvious that the beaches would have to be closed now, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. The creatures had to be destroyed, me and Oscar weren’t enough for this �" I couldn’t tell how many of them were waiting at another end of the pipe.

The watchers would have to call other beasts here. Two or better three, and then we’d do it. Sure, I can always play the lone hero, but in this particular situation humans can get hurt. I wasn’t ready to risk their lives.

I just wondered whether calling other teams for help equaled a failed mission…