The Spider's Web (2)
"Son of a—! Stay with me!"
"Ugh, ughhh…."
"Shock in A3! Administering stimulant treatment!"
"Injecting now!"
A2 manipulated the terminal on A3's wrist. A hiss of escaping air came from the reinforced suit, and treatment fluid was pumped into the wearer's body. The condition of A3, who had been foaming at the mouth with his eyes rolled back moments before, eased slightly.
But it was only emergency care. The treatment fluid built into the reinforced suits carried only the bare minimum of life support and painkilling capability — its detoxifying function was sorely lacking.
They would have to finish the mission as fast as possible and get A3 to a doctor.
Their thoughts aligned; A1 and A2 exchanged a look.
"A1. Treatment administered to A3. Resuming the mission."
「This is Command. Authorized.」
Having reported up the chain, they rose from where A3 lay. Three comrades had died because of that damned monster's spawn. They wouldn't sleep right until they had the thing by the throat and tore its head off.
"A1. Requesting permission to inject combat enhancers for efficient suppression."
「…Authorized.」
The moment the order came down, A1 and A2 pressed the buttons on their terminals hard. Enhancer fluid surged in, and blood vessels bulged across their faces and necks.
The strength of a reinforced suit didn't lie solely in the built-in AI that assisted physical movement. One of its other features was a special solution that amplified a soldier's combat capabilities.
Low-grade suits carried painkillers; medium-grade suits carried two chemical solutions — a treatment agent that healed injuries and boosted natural recovery, and an enhancer that temporarily strengthened muscles and senses.
Inject a civilian with the enhancer and their physical abilities would rise to the point of punching a hole through a concrete wall. A soldier already wearing a reinforced suit? No comparison needed.
The price was a lethal side effect: permanent muscle loss once the enhancement wore off, and up to a week of crushing lethargy. That was why even soldiers avoided using the enhancer unless absolutely necessary — but the two men, their eyes already red with rage, couldn't have cared less about side effects.
"I'll kill that fucking bastard myself."
"I'm first."
Their orders had been to capture a mysterious dangerous organism alive. But the minds of the two men who had lost their comrades were filled with nothing but the urge to tear the creature apart with their bare hands.
Gritting their teeth, they walked along the corridor. Following the direction the thing had vanished, they spotted something unusual: a trail of melted floor, intermittent but unmistakably continuous, as if something had scorched the metal.
"Looks like the thing was wounded too."
"Unbelievable. Acid blood…. I honestly don't know what kind of monster we're dealing with here."
Realizing their enemy was no ordinary foe, the two pressed on after the melted trail, tension coiling tighter with every step. Before long, they understood that the real test was about to begin.
A low, narrow passage yawned before them — one a grown man could only traverse bent double at the waist.
"…Tight fit."
"What are your orders?"
"We go in."
They'd already injected the enhancers. Retreat wasn't an option anymore. The two soldiers wedged themselves into the passage.
Here they come.
Like prey snagged in a spider's web, my auxiliary organs caught the faint vibrations drifting through the air. An intruder had set foot inside my domain. Their heartbeats were far rougher and faster than an ordinary person's, and beastlike breaths heaved from their mouths, scattering into the stale air.
So they used the enhancers.
Medium-grade suits came with brutal side effects, so the enemy must be furious indeed. Not that it mattered. In this dank, maze-like space, the enhanced physical abilities the drug granted were almost useless.
Then let's begin.
I had lured the prey in. Now I needed a trap.
I tore my wound wide open and spilled a flood of blood across the floor. Acid blood pooled, and toxic gas came curling up from it in thick clouds. Beyond the vapor filling the passage, I could see the corridor beyond. As if melting through the ventilation ducts weren't enough, the acid blood had bored straight through the corridor's ceiling too, still hungrily widening the hole.
This should do it, right?
I tended to my wound and slipped away from the spot in a hurry, hiding my body in the darkness to wait for them.
Before long, they appeared. They were wearing the special helmets attached to their reinforced suits, and thanks to the gas-mask protection the helmets provided, they moved through the toxic-fog-choked passage without difficulty.
They seemed startled by the gas that had suddenly engulfed them, but they acted with the composure of seasoned soldiers. Advancing warily, never letting their guard slip, they eventually located the source of the gas.
Seeing the corridor's lights faintly illuminating the passage, one of the soldiers stepped forward.
"This is A1. A large hole has been opened in the ventilation duct. No trace of the target in the surrounding area. It appears to have descended into the corridor."
「This is Command. We'll sweep the corridor — give us your position.」
"We're near the agricultural zone—"
A1 focused on the comm. The other soldier examined the corridor beneath the floor.
Every one of them was distracted. This was my chance.
Crouched in the corner of the passage, I lunged out like a leopard after a gazelle. For something crawling on six legs, the cramped passage posed no obstacle at all.
"!"
A2, his senses honed razor-sharp by the enhancers, reacted instantly. His muzzle snapped toward my head and spat light.
The bolt of energy, flying at the speed of light, grazed the very tip of a tentacle at the back of my skull. I could see A2's confusion as his shot went wide.
Of course he missed. Why else would I have chosen such a cramped, awkward place for my battlefield?
hemmed in by the unfamiliar space, even his stance was subtly off. My dark-brown chitinous carapace, meanwhile, performed its camouflage flawlessly in this lightless gloom.
Disadvantageous for the enemy — and advantageous for me.
That was exactly why I had chosen this place as my hunting ground.
"Ghk?!"
He corrected his posture and aimed at me again. Fast enough — but I was already within arm's reach. Before his finger could squeeze the trigger, both the arms near my shoulders clamped around his head.
Had he sensed death itself? His dilated pupils were visible through the helmet's translucent visor.
Reinforced suits helped humans transcend their limits, but they couldn't protect every part of the body — not a spot like the neck, which demanded fluid, delicate movement. The moment I flexed my grip, A2's neck snapped as easily as a brittle twig.
"Uwaaaaagh!"
A1, a beat too late in registering me, screamed and raked me with laser fire. I hoisted the limp-necked A2 up as a shield.
The delicious smell of searing meat tickled the tips of my auxiliary organs. I hurled A2's charred corpse straight at A1.
"FUUUUUCK!"
He lost all reason and fired his laser rifle in a wild spray. At that range, several of the shots struck home in my body.
The pain was nothing to scoff at, and before I knew it, my fighting spirit was boiling over. The sharp dagger at the tip of my tail lashed out at him. It looked certain to sink into his shoulder — but the man was a veteran. His enhanced left arm batted my tail aside.
My tail slammed into the passage wall, its target lost, and he came leaping at me with a swinging fist.
I considered blocking with my combat arms, but he wore a reinforced suit — and worse, he'd injected the enhancer, sending his combat power skyrocketing. There was no reason to take a needless gamble.
I retreated a few strides to evade A1's fist, and his punch collided with empty wall. A clear fist-shaped dent remained in the hard alloy plate that formed the passage.
Stronger than I expected.
Even in the game, they hadn't been this tough.
Fighting him head-on like this is too costly.
I'd have to change tactics.
With one sweeping strike of my tail I forced him back, then fled. Laser rounds hailed down from behind, but every last one missed.
One enemy left.
I'd squeezed every usable trick dry. No ordinary deception was going to fool A1 now.
Behind me, I could hear him bellowing. He was fully enraged and on his guard — even an ambush might not pay off.
Ah. I've still got one thing left, don't I?
As I deliberated, a fine idea struck me.
The living beings my senses detected numbered exactly two.
A1, running wild — and A3, paralyzed.
A1, lost to his fury, was firing his laser at nothing in particular. While his mind was occupied elsewhere, I crawled toward where A3 lay.
Emerging from the narrow passage, the ceiling shot upward. Walking on two legs now, I spotted A3 lying in the middle of the corridor.
"Ugh… uuugh…."
A3, having received emergency treatment, had narrowly cheated death — but he looked far from well. The paralysis hadn't fully worn off, and he couldn't speak; all he could do was moan.
I approached from an angle outside his camera's field of view. When only a few meters remained between us, he became aware of my presence.
There was terror laced through his pained moans, so it was easy to tell the exact moment he noticed.
"Ugh — ughh! Uhhh!"
He tried desperately to signal his situation to Command, but his limbs were already paralyzed. He writhed like a grub fleeing an ant. I closed in on the terrified grub and pinned his back beneath my foot.
「Grrrrrrrr」
"Ugh! Ughh! Uhhh!"
I could see the fine hairs standing on end at the nape of A3's neck. His hair was already soaked through with cold sweat. He breathed in rough, ragged gasps, like a frightened animal keening for its life.
He was face-down, so I couldn't see his eyes — but no doubt they were shaking out of control.
As it happened, A3 had only ever been attacked from behind. So he had no idea what I looked like. Perhaps that was what frightened him all the more. The greatest terror of all, after all, is the terror of the unknown.
Not that it matters. He's dead either way.
I drove all four of my combat arms into his flank. There was no armor over that part of his body, and my hands sank easily into his flesh. Through the tips of the claws pinning his back, I felt him breathe his last.
Having killed A3 in a single stroke, I flexed the hands buried in his side. Seizing the long coils of his intestines with all four hands, I ripped them out in one brutal pull.
I hurriedly stuffed the organs dangling from my fists into my mouth, chewing and swallowing them roughly — no time to savor the taste — and went back to raking the organs out of the corpse.
Time was short. If I was going to use A3's body as a shield, I had to hollow it out first. On and on I went, scraping his insides clean.
That should be about enough.
When A3's weight had been cut roughly in half, I flipped his body over.
The camera lens gleamed red, almost welcomingly, as it focused on me. I crushed the camera and comm units attached to A3's body.
That would tell them A3 had come under attack.
I thrust my head into the hollow of A3's torso. Sticky blood and the warmth still lingering in the corpse wrapped around my entire body. My tail, which couldn't fit inside and trailed out behind me, I coiled up tight and tucked beneath the lower half of the corpse.
Before long, I heard A1's footsteps approaching from outside.
"A3! You okay?! Answer me!"
The dead do not speak. A3 — by now all but a mummy — kept his silence.
I felt him reach out. The other side was completely off its guard. They might believe A3 was dead, but never in a million years would they imagine what lurked inside his skin.
The moment we were close enough, my arm burst out through A3's abdomen. A1, one knee bent as he checked the dead man's pulse, took the attack head-on. My sharp claws raked across his thigh.
"Ghk?!"
He tried to rise, too late — because the paralytic neurotoxin that had crippled his lower body was already climbing higher.
His body toppled to the floor like a felled log. He flailed desperately to get up, but his central nervous system had long since been reduced to pulp. Like Troy fallen from the wooden horse smuggled inside its walls, A1 was being destroyed from the inside out.
"Ugh — ughh — uhhh!"
A1's whole body trembled. Was it shock — or the fate closing in on him?
Either way, his future was decided. Like prey caught in a spider's web, exactly one thing remained for him to do.
Wait for death.
I tore my way out of the corpse and licked the blood from my hands. A primal sweetness pierced through me, like syrup condensed from raw sugar.
I wanted to savor it longer, but there was still work to do. I approached the shuddering A1.
With the lower pair of arms jutting from my ribcage, I gripped his shoulder; with the upper pair, I peeled off his helmet. The face beneath was younger than I'd expected. But the scar by his eye marked him as a warrior who had clawed his way out of more battlefields than one.
Even such a battle-hardened hero seemed afraid of death. His face was a ruin of tears and snot.
My two upper arms wrapped around his head. Sensing what was coming, he squeezed his eyes shut. To honor his expectations, strength flowed into my hands. There was a sound like a tree uprooted in a typhoon as his neck slowly began to tear.
There was no scream. The neurotoxin granted him neither a cry nor the slightest movement. As he experienced the agony of having his neck torn out while still alive, his pupils whipped back and forth in wild desperation.
By the time the white of his cervical bone showed through the torn flesh, A1 was dead.
Lifting his head, tongue lolling out, I stared straight into the camera. No sound came through the comm channel — but I could feel it all the same.
They're terrified.
Judging that my message had been delivered well enough, I crushed the camera.
The web was never spun across the ventilation ducts alone.
Now it was their turn.