Hi Folx, welcome back to Storytime! Last time, everything got all set up ready to begin the last run. This time, well, you didn’t think it was going to be that neat, did you?
The night slowly ran towards a new day, and finally all of the rebel cells were in place. Two had dropped out of contact, considered lost, but in all it was better than JAnice had expected. She and the others holding everyone together breathed a relieved sigh as the final static spurt came in, announcing the arrival of Team Scarlett to their post.
Janice nodded to one of the techs, who began compiling orders, shooting them off to the Handlers, who doublechecked and sent them out to their charges. Soon, the city inside the bubble was a hive of quiet movement.
But it wasn’t just the rebels moving. They may have taken control of the streets, but not without being seen. Both above and below moved the Watchers. The Unseed. Those the rebels didn’t even know to try and avoid. Their sole purpose to See, Record and Report.
As the routes of the rebels became clearer, Autax, hiding anxiety behind ruthless efficiency, snapped orders to the creatures that would pass them down, ever down through the ranks, mobilising everything in this stinking place to intercept, to close pincers and become walls, and stop the advance. With the rebels all on the move, a crushing blow was all that was needed, and Autax was ready.
But with the rising dawn…with the final orders given…with the last of Autax’s creatures beginning to act…there came a cracking sound in the air high above.
Everyone, rebels and creatures alike, stopped in their tracks. Forgetting stealth, every eye, every stalk, every sensor, turned to the sky.
The crack ran from one side of the otherwise invisible dome to the other, and as it widened a sickly green light washed out and down over everything below.
Another boom.
Another crack.
And as they met, creating an ever-larger square, long, greasy appendages began to reach out.
Wherever they met a solid object: a building; the ground; a person or creature, the grease crawled all over it, slowly dissolving what was there.
Buildings collapsed, burying at least as many beings as were touched directly.
The ground began to give way, as more and more dissolved beneath the shimmering grey grease, sending anything unable to move fast enough falling down into the sewers and caves below.
Autax looked up, even though it could see nothing through the ceiling, and closed its eyes.
“Get out,” it ordered calmly, and the room cleared.
Autax sealed all portals and locked the room down.
Taking a few deep breaths, it turned towards the heavy desk, where all of the information on the invasion was kept. The symbol of everything it was meant to do. The symbol of everything it had failed to do.
With a roar, Autax grasped the desk in both hands, lifted it, and hammered it into the floor, tearing it apart over and over, until it was barely more than splinters.
Panting, rage barely less than it was before, Autax sat in the mess and contemplated the things it knew the Managers might do to it when they were done.
Team Terra looked up in horror as the appendages began to snake down, dripping their oily acid around.
As the building next to them began to groan and collapse, the three of them ran, forgetting all protocol and training, forgetting the places they were supposed to retreat to, just desperate to escape.
But there was no escape. Everywhere they went, the world around them was melting away.
The three of them stopped dead a an appendage coiled down in front of them, a myriad of cilia reaching out to cover them in grease.
Their screams lasted mere moments, as their soft flesh and bones went the way of everything else.
The team back at the core site, Janice and the handlers and the techs and the other strategists, stared in speechless horror at the events happening outside, until one of the appendages fell onto the roof of their bunker with a heavy thud. The grease ate through their grassy cover and down onto their thick concrete and steel shell with ease, and all eyes turned to Janice.
She looked up, already thinking she could hear the stuff eating through the only protection they had.
“I think we ought to move to the secondary bunkers,” she said, gratified to hear her voice trembling only slightly. “New orders: anyone who can, use the nearest routes to reach the failsafe sites and make their way back to us. Take down anything in their way and rescue our own if they can, but don’t risk themselves. We’re losing enough without heroics.”
The techs made the messages fly, and in almost orderly fashion, the bunker was abandoned, the self-destruct almost as loud as the sky-opening booms from mere moments earlier.