Double Helix (5)

A red spider lily blooms across a sheet of black paper.

Sihyeon Yujin, a hole bored through her head, was spraying blood as she tumbled toward open space.

There's no way I'm letting her get away.

After finally bringing down such a formidable foe, it would be genuinely depressing to walk away with nothing to show for it. I stretched one of my upper arms toward her. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sawtooth tentacle shot out like an arrow loosed from a bowstring, coiling around her waist.

Bone cracked as her torso folded nearly in half, but it was a dead body either way. Paying it no mind, I reeled in her corpse.

｢Baby! Help me!｣

Oh, right.

No. 26 hadn't managed to hold on and was drifting away. Before she could float forever through the black abyss, I hastily snagged her with another arm.

A single slender tentacle, one I'd never seen before, was rising from her body.

I knew exactly what that tentacle was. And I knew what No. 26's true species was, too.

That's a problem for later.

First things first — we needed to get out of here.

[Zzzzt, don't let go.]

｢Okay.｣

Every section of the research ship had its own blast door. The place I stood now was the nest — the power section, packed with facilities tied to the ship's reactor. The blast door sealing off this section wasn't far away.

Carrying the corpse in one arm and No. 26 in the other, I walked to the door. I worked the terminal beside it with a small hand, and the blast door sealed shut with a hiss of escaping air. On the far side of the door, the faint wail of environmental maintenance alarms began to sound.

Well, this ship's finished.

There was a man-sized hole punched straight through the hull, and even the environmental systems could only keep the interior stable for so long. A human crew would have sealed off the breached section to stabilize things, but the only sailors left aboard were a handful of pirates — and they were hiding from me, refusing to come out, which meant they had no idea what was actually happening.

｢Baby's changing again.｣

Hm?

At her words I glanced down at my lower arm and saw the barbed bone launcher shifting. Four fingers sprouted from the muzzle, and the arm shrank back to the same length as the others. Beyond that, the crushing weight that had been compressing my whole body was gradually easing.

The psionium's effects had worn off.

Shame.

At least the withdrawal wasn't painful. With all the injuries I'd taken fighting Sihyeon, evolution's agony stacked on top of it might well have knocked me out cold.

Still, I got something far more important out of this.

The prize of a high-risk, high-return gamble was sitting right in front of me.

In the game, a Mega Corp ranker carried, on average, over a hundred genes. That might not sound like much, but every one of those genes came from rare creatures nearly impossible to encounter through ordinary means. Few in number, yes — but their value was anything but small.

Sihyeon Yujin was only upper-tier, short of ranker status, but her body was bound to hold a respectable stock of genes regardless.

Same rules as a sample ingestion, so three at most this time.

The difference was that none of them would be a dud. Honestly, I'd be happy with just one if it turned out to be the Galagon's Talon.

Well then — thanks for the meal.

Eat fast, then go deal with the cyborg in the ops room.

The moment I leaned in to bite —

｢I was eating the corpse.｣

｢When only the lower half remained, a massive energy blast swept over me.｣

｢I died.｣

The bomb!

Staring at the Predator Sense that had flared to life without warning, I finally remembered what I'd forgotten. The fight against the strong foe had pushed it out of my mind, but the timer on the bomb their boss had planted in the reactor was still running.

How much is left?

In the future Predator Sense showed me, the bomb went off while only Sihyeon's lower half remained uneaten. Finishing an adult male's corpse usually took me ten minutes, fifteen at the outside — and Sihyeon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a woman, smaller than a man, so she'd go down faster.

That left roughly five minutes.

Rush to the reactor now and disarm the bomb — or hurry up and abandon this ship.

I weighed the two options.

Not enough time to disarm it.

I'd defused plenty of bombs playing as Amorph, but an unfamiliar model would take time to crack. I'd finally bagged Sihyeon; I had no intention of gambling my life on another coin flip.

There was no time left to deliberate. Even now, the hands inside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the bomb were ticking relentlessly toward oblivion.

I made my decision.

We abandon the ship.

It stung to leave the cyborg in the ops room and the boss's genes unconsumed, but neither was worth dying over. Sihyeon Yujin's genes here were overwhelmingly better, and there would always be another chance to eat a cyborg.

The escape shuttle was docked at the runway. The runway sat at the exact opposite end of the ship from the reactor, a solid five minutes away through the corridors — which twisted and branched like a maze.

It was already too late to reach the shuttle through the hallways and launch it normally. But I knew a faster way.

I guess it's time to use that.

With No. 26 tucked against my chest, I sprinted for the nest in the cooling room. Once there, I snatched up the plasma launcher propped in the corner.

｢Ooh, shiny!｣

[Zzz, zzzzzz (Yes. Very shiny.)]

No. 26 shifted the color of her body to match the launcher's energy bolts, flushing a vivid green. She couldn't grasp the concept of a plasma launcher, but she clearly hadn't forgotten that people exploded every time the green light flashed.

The plasma launcher.

It resembled the ultimate endgame weapon from a classic FPS — over a meter long, north of fifty kilograms. Far too heavy for an ordinary person to fire by hand, which was why it normally sat on a mounted rig, but I had no need for one.

Not that I'm planning to shoot any people right now.

I carried the launcher into the corridor and took aim at the section of wall closest to the outer hull.

I worked the terminal mounted atop the launcher, and it began charging. No. 26, watching beside me, clambered up onto my shoulder.

Within seconds the charge was complete. I pulled the trigger.

A colossal recoil slammed through my arm as a green beam erupted from the muzzle. The annihilating lance of energy punched straight through the corridor wall and on through the outer hull beyond.

The huge breach in the ship sucked at us like a vacuum cleaner gulping air. I surrendered myself to the current and shot out into space along with the escaping atmosphere.

Before the distance grew too great, I fired a tentacle and latched onto the hull.

We were outside the ship now, but I knew exactly where the hangar lay.

Reeling myself in and landing atop the hull, I broke into a run toward my target.

｢Wow! This is so fun!｣

No. 26 squealed with delight at the endless night spread out before us. We were on a ship like a sheet of white paper floating on a black sea — no oxygen, no gravity, nothing at all.

A six-legged beast sprinting across the hull, a woman's corpse and a plasma launcher slung at its hip, a pink balloon riding on its shoulder.

It was the kind of surreal journey you'd expect from a hallucinogen trip, but it didn't last long.

In under two minutes I reached the hangar and fired up the plasma launcher. The green beam melted through the thick outer wall like a torch through ice.

Before the recoil could fling me away, I fired tentacles from both hands and anchored myself to the hull. The launcher, its duty done, tumbled off into space.

Good work.

It was a powerful weapon, but I couldn't bring myself to mourn it. There would be plenty more chances to acquire one. I crawled through the hole it had carved.

Inside the hangar, a maintained shipboard fighter and the escape shuttle came into view.

｢That was fun.｣

Carrying No. 26 — who had clearly taken a liking to bounding through vacuum — I approached the shuttle. Someone had meant to flee in a hurry, because its door hung open.

Well, saves me the trouble. Lucky.

[Zzzzt, zzzzzzz (Hold onto something.)]

｢Mm-hm.｣

It must have been built for senior officers or command staff, because the interior was downright luxurious. Leaving No. 26 to gawk at the ornate fittings, I settled into the pilot's seat.

Let's see here.

I'd flown Mega Corp's small spacecraft a number of times, and thankfully the shuttle's controls were nothing unusual.

Aside from my tail making the seat uncomfortable, that is.

I smashed the offending chair to pieces, thumbed through the switches on the console, and finished the pre-flight adjustments. The hangar door ground open, and lights flickered on down the runway.

Time to go.

I pulled back on the stick, and the shuttle shot forward like a bolt. Beyond what looked like reinforced glass, the view of cold metal walls gave way to an ink-black field studded with rainbow-hued stars.

The place where I had first set foot in this world.

Farewell, research ship — the bedrock of my growth and evolution.

"F-fuck, I almost died back there."

Elchen shuddered as the memory of what had happened at the reactor washed over him.

By the time he'd dragged his half-paralyzed body to the reactor, the timer was down to two minutes exactly. He'd disarmed it with five seconds to spare. Any later, and he would have been blown apart by the very bomb he'd planted himself.

Those goddamn monsters…

On the way here, Elchen had thought — for the first time in his life — that he'd heard a ship screaming. A steel vessel over two hundred meters in diameter, being skewered by two tiny creatures less than a hundredth its size.

Elchen had never once considered himself weak, but those two were the exception.

And so he'd given up on killing them himself. Of course, that didn't mean he intended to let them be — he was, after all, rumored to be among the cruelest of the vicious Space Dogs.

"Khek-hek. Rot together, you little shits."

He'd set the bomb to auto-detonation mode and reset the timer to ten minutes. By the time he escaped in a shuttle, those monsters would be ghosts of space, drifting alongside the wreck of the ship.

That had been five minutes ago.

He was now nearly at the hangar.

Goddamn it. My legs are back, but my eyes…

Being a modified Hulk Mutant, he'd long since neutralized the poison — the problem was his destroyed heart. The loss of his secondary heart had damaged his brain, badly impairing his sight, hearing, and the rest of his senses.

Vision had failed him in the strangest way: he was now trapped in a state of extreme farsightedness. All he'd needed to do was press a few preset buttons, but he could barely see them — he'd nearly blown the bomb right then and there.

Anyway, with time running short, he hurried along. The ruckus from earlier had gone quiet now. One of the two had clearly been defeated.

Whoever won, the survivor won't be walking away unscathed either.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he heard the sound of wind blowing through space. He dismissed it as his ears playing tricks. As he kept walking, footsteps reached them.

Huh?

He'd assumed it was one of his men, but the figure emerging from the far end of the corridor was someone he never could have predicted.

"Eeek! A p-pirate?!"

"Well, look who it is. The captain himself."

Incredible as it seemed, the man was Yu Seong Samuel, captain of this very ship.

Elchen had assumed the man fled ages ago, and the captain's sudden appearance threw him off balance.

Yu Seong looked nothing like the description Garlic had given him. His hair hung in disheveled strands, dark circles shadowed his eyes, and a reek of alcohol rolled off him, as though he'd been drinking for hours.

Taking in his pitiful state, Elchen pieced together roughly what had happened and narrowed his eyes.

He meant to run for the shuttle from the start, but couldn't bear to abandon the ship, so he went into hiding instead.

There was no one among Mega Corp's elite who wasn't greedy, and the tendency only worsened the closer one stood to the Noble Capital. The Samuel family belonged to the Third Capital, Mega Corp's third-highest tier — a family that would choose money over their own lives.

And now that the ship's gone quiet, he came out to check on it, no doubt.

Yu Seong had no inkling that Elchen was reading his every thought. Trembling before the overwhelming presence, he fumbled a small object from his coat.

The moment Elchen recognized it as a pistol, he snorted.

"Ha. You gonna shoot me with that?"

"S-stay back! This is a plasma pistol!"

"Hey. Plasma, schmasma — why don't you switch off the safety first?"

"Wh-what? Th-the safety?"

As the flustered Yu Seong twisted the pistol around to check, Elchen lunged. The smaller man crumpled against his bulk, losing his grip on the pistol.

"Ha, way to scare a guy. You idiot — plasma pistols don't have safeties."

Only then did Yu Seong realize the pirate had been bluffing. Despair flooded his face.

Elchen picked up the pistol with a sneer. It had dropped to the floor earlier, and the existing crack in it had deepened considerably — but his farsightedness left him none the wiser.

"If I had the time, I'd skin you alive. Unfortunately, I'm in a hurry."

"Eeeek! S-spare me! I-I'll be your subordinate if you want! Your s-subordinate!"

"Don't need one. Off you go, then."

He pulled the trigger, and the pistol spat green light.

Had Elchen not lost his heart, he might have noticed something was wrong with the weapon. Even a moment's caution — say, holstering it and walking straight to the hangar instead of trying to kill Yu Seong — and he would have survived.

Arrogance, and cruelty.

Because of those flaws, he made the wrong choice twice in a row.

A plasma pistol was a plasma weapon compressed to its absolute extreme — its durability had never been anything to boast about. It had already cracked once when a monster slammed it to the floor, and the additional shock just now had pushed it far past its limits.

The result: the barrel shattered before the charged plasma energy could even clear the muzzle, and the energy with nowhere left to go detonated on the spot.

The remains of Elchen, his entire upper half gone, toppled lifelessly to the floor.

Yu Seong stared blankly down at the pirate's corpse. His face began to twist, little by little. And then he started laughing like a madman.

"Huh? H-hah, hahahaha!"

He thought to himself: he'd been right all along.

Yu Seong had never abandoned the ship. Not truly. He'd meant to slip away in the shuttle while his soldiers bought him time. But once he'd actually boarded the thing, regret had seized him.

This research ship had cost anything but pocket change. It was worth less than his own life, sure, but surely it wouldn't hurt to wait just a little longer.

The soldiers might actually kill the monsters. Or a passing ship might come to the rescue.

In truth, terror had driven Yu Seong far past the edge of sanity — but the mad never doubt their own sanity. He'd genuinely believed himself the very picture of rational judgment.

And so, having driven his soldiers to their deaths, he waited aboard the shuttle, draining the liquor stocked inside — clinging to the hollow faith that someone would come save him.

Then a miracle occurred. The screaming and shuddering within the ship simply stopped.

Torn between leaving and staying, he finally made up his mind and stepped outside.

And thus Yu Seong Samuel survived.

Through the monsters' assault, through the pirates' siege — he had endured to the very end.

The great scion of Titan, the eldest son of the Samuel family, felt his chest swell with pride and threw both arms wide.

"I am invincible!"

In that instant, the white light blossoming from the reactor swallowed him whole.

Well, oops.

｢Waaah! Baby!｣

[Zzzzt (Calm down.)]

The reactor must have finally blown, because a monstrous shockwave rocked the shuttle. I adjusted the controls in time with the shrill of its alarms, and — evidence that my handiwork had paid off — the warnings faded and the shuttle steadied.

[Zzzzt (You okay?)]

I turned to find No. 26 unconscious, having smacked into the wall. It was nothing life-threatening, so I laid her out on the bed inside the shuttle.

What the—? Someone's been drinking in here.

I kicked the bottles rolling around the floor out of the way and tidied up the interior.

I needed the place spotless, after all — I had a meal to catch up on.

There, shoved in the corner, lay Sihyeon Yujin's corpse. The time to eat it had finally come.

I set the shuttle to autopilot, retrieved her body, tore off one of her plump legs, and took a huge bite.

…

I had eaten hundreds of creatures by now, which meant I had a decent feel for which ones promised a good meal.

The most delicious thing I'd ever tasted was Kisaragi Yujin. She'd had the clean, meticulously balanced flavor of a high-end Korean course dinner.

Gene modification, probably. So I'd assumed this Sihyeon Yujin would be similar.

But I'd been wrong.

I'll say this flatly: Sihyeon Yujin was delicious enough to rank at the very top of everything I had eaten — and everything I ever would.

…Maybe I should pay a visit to Earth someday.

I'd planned to be a long, long way off before ever going to the Mega Corp capital, but one bite of Sihyeon Yujin's flesh and my resolve was wavering.

I shook my head and took another bite.

It was strange. Usually the first bite is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the best, but with her it was the opposite. The more I ate, the deeper I chewed, the more the umami came flooding out.

There was no one here but me and the unconscious No. 26. Nobody existed to interrupt my meal. I savored her at my leisure, the way one lingers over an expensive French tasting course.

Just as that seemingly eternal happiness drew to its close, a translucent window announced the end of the feast.