Andrew woke up to the sound of sirens. His first reaction was grogginess as he got out of his bunk and slipped into his uniform. The blaring speakers were loud, yet felt quiet. Another day on the job.
He ran over to the truck where Gutierrez and Smith loaded the APEs and weapons. The CDR squad huddled inside, Gutierrez started the engine, and they drove back onto the road. All with that sleepy feeling of being warm and cold at the same time.
Sergeant Yang was on the radio as usual. “Command, this is CDR-4, we are enroute to the location.”
“CDR-4, this is command, reports have it of a demon ripping up an underground drug manufactory. Multiple police casualties were reported before they pulled out and called in.”
Smith chuckled as he listened in. “Of course the cops pussied out. They act all high and mighty because they have a cool TV show or two. But soon as a demon pulls up, poof! They’re nowhere to be found!”
Gutierrez laughed with his one-toothed smile. “If we were back in the ‘States, that’d only be the case for the gringo demons. Any darker, and they’d send the whole military. Oh, except for you, Singh.”
“Why not?” she asked as she slipped in a nicotine pouch. “I can commit crime.”
“For stealing textbooks?”
The Sergeant knocked on the metal wall to shut everyone up. They went quiet as she kept comms with command. “Command, are there any other details you can give us? Did the police try using the drone system for reconnaissance?”
“CDR-4, police higher claims that they weren’t able to get them running. Technical issues, apparently.”
For some reason, Andrew could smell Captain Jacob’s hands all over it. He wouldn’t be surprised if that higher echelon idiot was the whole reason the cops would stay put: he either wanted them under his command or completely by themselves. All he had to do was try to help the CDRs and, obviously, fail.
“Understood,” the Sergeant sighed. “CDR-4 out.”
***
The drug manufactory looked like a subterranean factory mouthed by a single entrance and exit. The tunnel inside almost looked like a hobbit hole except with armed police and SWAT watching it with high-grade weapons. “Make a hole for the CDRs!”
Andrew felt like a giant among men as his APE gave him a good couple inches over his police peers. They looked like little midgets that could only bow to his superior strength. Even his machinegun was bigger than their tiny rifles.
“Lookie here,” Gutierrez said on the internal system. “They got themselves an El Chapo.”
Arrested suspects were lined along the curb like a normal crime scene. But these boys were filled with more trauma than with guilt. The way they stared into the concrete was the same way a lot of the cops were staring—at least the ones that saw the unspeakable. “Whatever’s inside must be bad,” Singh grunted.
“Nah, I think it’s just our usual,” Smith replied. Being on the internal system, everyone was happy to freely speak. The only thing the cops could hear was silence. “For them, this was their first run in with a beast from hell. For us, it’s Thursday.”
And, of course, Kang was in the middle of his sermon. “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians chapter six, verse eleven.”
Perhaps their APEs, serving as the armor of God, would provide that righteous protection. As they prepared to enter, they saw the bodybags of the cops who weren’t so fortunate. It suddenly made Andrew feel bad for looking down on the police. While the CDRs were equipped with powerful APEs, the cops had nothing but flesh and kevlar.
“Command, this is CDR-4” the Sergeant relayed. “We’re going in.”
***
The team moved as one as they swept each room. From here, nothing was awry, other than the obvious drugs and crime. “These guys are sloppy,” Gutierrez chuckled. “I was never in the cartel, thank god, but these boys are messy.”
“I just didn’t know New Changan had a drug problem,” Andrew commented.
“Oh, they don’t,” Gutierrez replied, “and I guess it shows. See, if I was a cartel leader here, I’d import my drugs from other places. Issue here is that everything is so damned compact, a neighbor could easily notice the smell of cooking. So maybe I’d get my boys in Mexico to cook it up, which would be a superior brand by the way, and then I’d ship it over here.”
Smith chuckled. “Have you been thinking of this for a while?”
“No, just muscle memory from a Mexican,” Gutierrez joked.
They moved room by room with their weapons trained at every angle. It was the usual calm before chaos, since they knew that the demon was in here somewhere. It was just a matter of time until they bumped into them.
“Not a single body,” Kang commented. “Even from a glance, I can tell the police didn’t grab every single one. That means we’re either dealing with a necromancer, or the demon has a way of hiding them.”
“Unless it ate them,” the Sergeant interrupted.
“Even then, it wouldn’t be as clean as this. We’d probably see skeletal remains, intestines, or at least gibs from messy eating. There’s hardly a drop of blood around here, with the exception being from retreating police.”
Now that Kang mentioned it, Andrew noticed the elongated blooddrops that went out the room. From his infrared, he could still see that they were warm. “There’s a few going deeper inside,” he noted. “Think we could follow them to the demon?”
Part of Andrew felt like saying his ideas aloud was stupid—especially since he still felt like a rookie. But he was surprised to hear nobody shoot down the idea.
“Sounds good,” the Sergeant said.
They followed the trail with Andrew leading the front. He felt a little pride for giving a good idea, even if it felt childish at heart. Still, he didn’t ruminate in it too long; it wasn’t the right time or place.
Professional vigor moved through his bones to suppress any fear. Maybe it was his training, or maybe his team, but Andrew was thinking about anything but the danger. What was he gonna eat for dinner? Was the pizza place still open?
Everyone else on the team probably had a similar state of dissociation. Things suck if they thought about how things sucked. Otherwise, they just had to think about how today was Thursday, and tomorrow was Friday.
“More blood,” Singh calmly remarked.
Andrew nodded as he kept serving as the pointman. The deeper they went, the more blood permeated the floors. First, it was piecemeal, like how there was one extra drop here or there. Then it gradually got worse.
“Holy shit… it’s a fucking river…” Smith muttered.
“It’s multiple bodies,” Kang said. “Some of the stains are fresh while others are dry. Whatever we’re dealing with, it’s still–”
Andrew stopped and raised his fist. Everyone shut their mouths as Andrew frantically blinked. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming something up, or if the sight before him was real. “Holy…”
Everyone was looking at the same sight of a demon munching on a pile of bodies. It was probably three times the size of an APE suit with a massive back armored with spikes. What was worse about the bodies wasn’t their mutilated shape; it was how they were organized.
They were lined up next to each other and eaten down to the bone. The demon had gone so far as to lick them down to a pure white. It looked less like an animal attack and more like a civilized beast munching down chicken legs. Well, human bodies in this case.
“Stay quiet,” the Sergeant whispered on the internal system. “Make a wedge.”
The CDRs moved in quiet steps. They made sure the sound of the snapping bones were louder than their moving suits. Andrew’s eyes were wide as he remained at the center of the formation.
“Kang, do you have the next prototype ready?”
“Sergeant?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Do you or do you not?”
Kang paused. “I have it.”
He unholstered a strange device the same size as his machinegun. It was almost coned at the front with batteries all over the back and sides. After a moment, Andrew finally recognized what it was.
“Fire on three… two…” the Sergeant muttered. “Now!”
Everyone opened fire and Kang blasted his device. It gave a blinding blast and a deafening shrill, which was thankfully shielded by the APEs. Lead rained from all directions at the demon—nothing in this world could’ve survived such an attack.
Demons are not of this world.
The demon thrashed about and smacked the Sergeant and Kang to the side. Even though it was blind and deaf, the beast was still throwing a hell of a fight. It even grabbed a nearby corpse and lobbed it at the rest of them.
“Get down!” Smith yelled.
They ducked. The body squelched onto the floor.
Gutierrez gave a mad laugh. “Mierda! The fucking demon is high on coke!”
Andrew looked to find the white residue pasted all over the horrid beast’s nose. Mouth and nose, since it probably dived into the piles as soon as it could. In all his time, he never thought he’d come face to face with a demon on drugs.
“Does the fucker even feel pain?!” Singh cried.
“Don’t complain!” Smith barked. “Cheng! Go check on Kang and the Sergeant! We’ll provide covering fire!”
Andrew dashed for their bodies as the other three kept their machinegun fire. “Throwing a flashbang!” Singh threw it at Mach Jesus before it blew right in the demon’s eyes. As the beast reeled back, Andrew could finally check on the other two.
“Sergeant! Kang! Are you two alright?”
Kang went into a coughing fit, which at least indicated that he was breathing. Andrew was able to help Kang to his feet. But the Sergeant was still lifelessly laying on the ground. “Sergeant!”
“She’s alright,” Kang wheezed. “Her system indicates that she’s still alive.”
“Good!” Andrew yelled. Caught in the moment, all those distracting thoughts vanished as he thought only of the Sergeant and the team. “Get back with the others! I’ll get her up!”
Kang limped back as Andrew tried lifting the Sergeant up. “Come on!” he grunted. “I know you’re in there!” He smacked her helmet a few times. It took the third smack to actually wake her.
“Fuck!” she yelled. “Cheng! What happened?! Where’s the team?!”
It was nice to see that her first question was regarding the team. “They’re fine! We just gotta get back to–”
Andrew was slammed to the side as the demon regained its bearings. It used the moment to grab the Sergeant with one hand. The way it was standing looked less like a beast, and more like a murderer. It was a monster that enjoyed its carnage.
“Sh-Shit!” Singh yelled. She threw another flash.
The demon caught it. The explosion harmlessly blew off in its massive fist. Even as bullets flew its way, hardly strong enough to bite through the tough skin, the demon gave a sickening smile at the woman in its hands. The APE suit might as well be a tin can around fresh meat.
The demon charged deeper into the tunnels. Trusses fell behind its wake in a rumbling explosion of dirt. No one was hurt, but the way towards the demon was blocked. “Fucking puto!” Gutierrez yelled. “That fat motherfucker still has the Sar’nt! We need to chase after him! Now!”
But as they looked at each other, they realized the ferocity was there, but the energy wasn’t. Smith gave a deep look at his teammate. “Guti’. We just unloaded hundreds of rounds at the fucker, and he didn’t even flinch. Our suits are starting to get into danger territory for shutting down, and I still need to reload.”
Gutierrez snarled out of pure anger. It was the first time Andrew had ever seen him express an emotion outside of cynical joy. “What the fuck are you saying? That we should abandon our Sar’nt because it’s starting to get hard? This woman would push mountains to save each of us, and you can hardly get over the fear of a low-power suit?”
“No.” Smith opened his machinegun and inserted a new belt. He quickly glanced at Kang, saw that he was healthy enough, then looked back at Gutierrez. “I just said I needed to reload.”
***
The team heaved the rubble out of their way as Kang served as the injured but reliable foreman. “Stability looks good,” he said. “Make sure to keep digging away from the supports. We can’t bury ourselves before we rescue the Sergeant.”
It must’ve taken half-an-hour, even with the combined energy of multiple APEs. It didn’t take long for Andrew to hear that dreaded message.
Warning: suit at 10% power. Switching to low-power mode.
It was just as bad as Singh had warned. If he felt invincible with a well-charged suit, he now felt as vincible as a knight without armor. His body felt strangely naked as it returned much of the strength back to his physical body. That included the digging, and that included the aftermath.
“Battery check!” Kang ordered. “Everyone give me a percent!”
“I’m at 8,” Singh said after spitting.
“5,” Gutierrez said.
“7,” said Smith.
“6,” Andrew replied.
“Sounds good,” Kang answered. “I’m at 15 percent. When we find the Sergeant, I’ll race her back to the surface for recovery. The rest of you can hopefully provide some covering fire as we get another CDR over here.”
“You called for backup?” Andrew asked.
“Of course. We might lose a team leader.”
Those words suddenly felt heavy as the team trudged onwards. Beyond the mass of steel and wire over Andrew’s body was that underlying fear of losing the Sergeant. By God, he hoped for anything but losing the Sergeant. At that point, he may as well lose his own mother or father.
“Follow the blood!” Kang repeated. “Follow the–”
He was interrupted by the distinct sound of grunting and yelling. One was the obvious sound of a demon gone mad—it was as deafening as a bleating donkey and a lion behind a loudspeaker—while the other sound was a grunt or two through a microphone.
“She’s on our comms!” Singh cried. “That’s her!”
They rushed through to find the Sergeant in a hand-to-hand fight with the demon. More bodies were lined along the walls, but with a different look than earlier. Instead of being dressed like a cop or a common crook, they were wearing a uniform the squad didn’t miss. “Cultists?”
Two and two suddenly added up. How drug dealers ended up in New Changan, why this mission was suspect to begin with, and the reason behind the demon’s strength. This wasn’t some medium-level threat: this was the Beast of Gluttony.
“Open fire on that fucker!” Kang ordered. “Don’t hit the Sergeant!”
Everyone fired controlled bursts at the demon’s back, which did little against its spiked armor. It was moments like these where Andrew wished they brought a comical railgun or thermite-thrower. He didn’t give a fuck about collateral damage, so long as he got his Sergeant out and killed this damned bastard.
Even then, it was still hard not to hit the Sergeant. A few shots missed and went her direction, but they fortunately pinged against her armor. It seemed that the only real distraction for the Beast of Gluttony was the Sergeant battling it hand to hand.
She kicked the beast in the stomach to no effect. It seemed to relish her futile effort, since it could sit back and smile. In the middle of the fight, it even used a nearby corpse to block a punch—before taking a huge bite from its torso. Andrew watched as any bullet wounds were simply regenerated.
Then, to the team’s horror, the beast decided to hit back.
He backhanded her in the face, causing the helmet to deform and the visor to cave. The team heard a scream from their comms—the Sergeant was in unimaginable pain as shrapnel banged inside. Even from Andrew’s view, he could see an exposed part of her face. Steel wires had stabbed into her left eye.
“Sergeant! We need to get you out of there!” Kang yelled.
“Good Christ! It’s gonna kill her!” Smith screamed.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Singh cried. “Kang! D-Do something!”
There was nothing else to do. He threw the DRD—the electric wire—which was only large enough to wrap around the demon’s leg. Even as it shocked the demon at full power, it just looked like it tickled.
“Dios mio… the fucker’s eaten so many bodies and snorted through so much coke, it might as well be invincible… it’s got the skin of… of a turtle!”
Out of nowhere, they heard laughter on the comms. They thought that something was possessed on it for a second, before they heard the strangely calming voice of a familiar woman. “Well…” the Sergeant muttered, “I guess you’re right… Gutierrez…”
Even though she was definitely on low-power, probably on the verge of powering down, the Sergeant found the energy to jump off a nearby ledge where she smacked something against the demon’s face. For a second, Andrew thought that things would be okay—even when he noticed her slight sluggishness in speed.
Then he watched the demon’s jaw bite down on her arm.
Its teeth went down to the elbow as it bit the forearm straight off. The Sergeant’s screams filled the room as the rest of the team helplessly watched the demon swallow the arm with gluttonous joy.
Bleeding detected in right arm, her APE whirred from the exposed helmet. Administering tourniquet.
Her screams went to a peak as the bleeding suddenly stopped. It came only in drips as the end of her suit tightened like a snake. “Ha…” she managed to mutter between her groans. “I hope you like the taste of thermite… you fat motherfucker…”
The Beast of Gluttony exploded from the inside. Hot gibs and thermite sprayed about like a piñata and a tank of nitro-glycerine mixed into one. From the amount of bodies it had eaten, Andrew wondered if the fire would be burning for days. Maybe even weeks.
But at the very least, it was dead. Thank God, it was dead.
***
CDR-4 crawled their way out of the tunnels with the wounded Sergeant in tow. Police and paramedics flooded inside, though with the same grimacing looks that the CDRs were used to. Frankly, that wasn’t what surprised them.
It was the looks from CDR-1 and CDR-2 that surprised them. They had both been called here, only to find that the job was complete at the near cost of Sergeant Yang. They looked at CDR-4 with that mutual feeling of empathetic pain.
“Good God,” Sergeant Bjorn muttered. “What the hell happened there?”
Sergeant Miyoshi helped pull Sergeant Yang out of her APE. It was a hard process, since she was balancing between consciousness and unconsciousness. Fortunately, the suit’s tourniquet stayed on as she was pulled onto a stretcher. “A brave soul,” he muttered. “I pray she gets well.”
The rest of CDR-4 watched their team leader get driven away by the paramedics. “Yeah…” Smith said. He spoke for the team as he said, “Me too.”