5th Column Comics: Gaia #4
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Xiphos Storage Space 'The Graveyard', Somewhere Under Indigo City
As I open my eyes I catch the glimpse of piles of scrap metal surrounded by steel cages, with the smell of almost a decades worth of filth assaulting my nostrils a second later. I know this place; it’s what the more mediocre members of Xiphos call ‘the Graveyard’, a place for storing materials for sterilisation. While normally I don’t partake in superstition the name seems apt, like the tons of steel and aluminium piled around me I too have been discarded. With a double handed push I get to my feet and stagger down the rows of emergency lighting towards the main walkway that runs through the middle of the ‘yard’.
As I head towards the surface I reminisce about what had led me here; I and a team of mercenaries had breached the city to extract Carrier DNA, only for the man I had admired, admittedly not from too far away, betrayed me. But how? How could Stallion be a Carrier and more worryingly how much did Scahill know about, not only my past, but the person whose identity I had stolen.
“Dr Eloise Clayton.” A mocking voice announces from the PA system mounted on the wall. “Or should I use your real name Terra? Oh I know you remember me, you only stole everything that was mine!!” The voice spits.
“Eloise? But I though…” I stammer. “The concentration of the dose I slipped you should have…”
“Have what? Killed me? I was lucky, Xiphos footed the bill for my treatment, even housed me right here in Indigo City. When I awakened I decided to get my revenge and Director Scahill, knowing my brilliance was all too happy to give me the tools to do it, just as long as I delivered results.” The voice mocks. “And now I have decided to return the favour, I have taken everything that made you Eloise Clayton, but don’t take my word for it, there’s a bathroom not to far away. Hell I’ll even point you to it.” She adds mockingly as illuminated arrows activate on the walkway, the tail leading to a small office suspended under the walkway.
Cautiously I follow the path like some diseased Dorothy trudging along the yellow brick road towards a run down Emerald City. As expected the door opens with no resistance, Eloise has been planning this for a decade, it would be sloppy if she just led me to a locked door. Slipping into the Security Office’s bathroom I position myself in front of the mirror and scream. Staring back at me is a face with skin as unblemished as porcelain, no sign of the scarring I had picked up. Desperately I hold out my hands to see eight fingers and two thumbs, the missing digits re-grown, I don’t even have to look to find out that my bust has returned.
“Now that’s the Terra I know.” Eloise mocks over the PA system. “Just another pretty face in the crowd. I can see you’re distraught about your appearance like any twenty one year old woman so I had someone leave you something on the main desk. Backing away from the ghost of my old self I head for the desk, knowing all too well that what has been left isn’t salvation even though it’s being made out to be. And low and behold on the desk is a scalpel, recently sterilized and brought down since it isn’t corroding like everything else. As I pick it up I get my order. “Use It!!” The voice hisses with malice.
I take one deep breath, then a second, I know what will happen if I apply the blade to my flesh, the titanium edge will strip the flesh from bone and so I plunge the scalpel into my hand, pain spider webbing up my body. With a scream I pull the knife out only to see the cut heal almost instantly without even leaving a scar.
“You like that?” Eloise purrs. “With that evidence we have a successful beta-test of the CR-Regen Formula. You see while you were left to play around with the blights, the rejects from the great crash I had the best subject of all to work on. And that was myself.”
“You’re a Carrier? How come nobody knew?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“They did, they just didn’t concern it with idiots like you.” Eloise informs me in a now infuriating smug voice. “Technically you’re a second generation Carrier too, you see by inserting the ‘Blight Immunity Gene and then dosing you with a variant of the gas that causes the mutation, your body became receptive to an enhanced evolutionary path. But I wouldn’t worry about that, in due time the accelerated regenerative effect will wear off leaving you powerless.”
“So that’s what happened to Stallion. I guess you used the same process on him only with a different variant of the gas. That and he’s getting a regular supply to keep him empowered” I state as I hear the computer controlled door to the walkway lock. “Could an idiot figure that out so quickly?”
“I not referring to that.” Eloise whispers. “But only an idiot would willingly enter a death trap such as that office. Even if they didn’t know about the demolition charges placed on the support beams.” She tells me as fiery blossoms of nitro-glycerine chew through the supports sending the office I’m in plummeting four stories to the very bottom of the ‘Graveyard’. Groaning I pull myself towards the cracked window, the broken bones in my legs resetting as my body perversely fixes itself.
“You shouldn’t have slipped me your mutant roofie!” I grunt as the emergency lighting around me flickers on.
“Shouldn’t I, assuming you survive the other beta-tests when you emerge you will face a world of enemies. You have no identity since you stole mine, no money since your money is now mine, no friends because in reality you are a rotten b***h.” Eloise lectures as I skirt around a massive stack of contaminated lab doors. There will be stairs up to the emergency exit but I’m sure they are booby trapped, it’s apparent that my captor doesn’t want me to escape. For almost five minutes all I can here is my footfalls, the metal contracting in the cold of the room and the occasional drip of condensation making it to the floor.
“Uh oh.” I hear Eloise comment.
“What now?!” I snap, the anguish of my voice masquerading my pleasure that something has gone wrong.
“I forgot that we threw something down there. Oh well I’m sure he’ll find you.” She states in a lazy, almost contented voice.
“He?” I ask, my voice dropping as I here the sound of claws scuttling along the floor and the drip of water becoming more prevalent. Turning I see something large and dark dart from behind me behind the nearest stack of scrap metal. I’ve seen this behaviour before almost a dozen times when I travelled the world, it’s animalistic and predatory and I am the prey. Almost on cue the lights go off, plunging me into the dark and causing me to hold onto the scalpel even tighter, as I back towards the illuminated security office only to see the predator dash past me, his massive form blocking the light, save for two glowing green pools of light.
“My name is Terra.” I state in a strong, almost convincing voice. “I’m a carrier just like you, we are the same.”
“You are a carrier?” The creature states in a west coast accent. “How fortunate that you have crossed my path.” He states as the light behind him dies.
“Can you help me?” I ask knowing that all I’m doing is buying time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness around me.
“Fortunate for me that is.” The creature adds, “All the meat dropped in here is dead and I Daddy Wrong Legs have been waiting for so long…”
“For what?” I ask as my eyes finally begin to make out shapes in the darkness. I get no answer from my feral companion, non with words anyway as he vanishes into the darkness. Luckily Eloise chooses to fill in the blanks for me.
“Why my dear, to hunt live prey.”
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