Shifties: Rising
#5 of Shifties
In the distant future, an ancient enemy rises.
Cause hey kid You got the heart without the ache Pretentious thieves Have you believe it's theirs to take -Dead Sara, "Weatherman"
Helmutt Einsbach, when he was in the military, had been trained to resist interrogation. Bamboo under the fingernails, starvation, intimidation, loud music, the soda technique, all would be met with his name, rank, serial number, and a number of scathing comments about his interrogators' mothers and sexual prowess. Sometimes he'd combine the last two.
Sergeant Einsbach was, nonetheless, seriously considering just shooting the guy in the back of his car.
"Can we just shoot him?" his partner stage-whispered from the shotgun seat. "Or at least put him on mute?"
"No, fellow officer Girard, that would put the prisoner in an unreasonable amount of jeopardy in the event of an emergency, since the biomonitor lawsuit." Without turning, he rapped on the partition. "They can't spit on us, they can't headbutt us, but they sure can try to talk our ears off."
"Funny thing," said the kid. "We tell them that they have a right to remain silent. We never tell them that they also have the right to yatter on at us for hours and hours."
"About that; you'll notice he never actually says anything incriminating. His jacket said so. I mean, we have the statement from the local cop who caught him and his girlfriend trying to con little old ladies out of their milk money, more than enough to get him a few years, but I don't think he's said a single word about that."
"Are you two ignoring me?" said Duval.
"Can we at least tell him to shut up?" Claudette groused.
"Nope. Because he would interpret that as 'don't say anything at all', and the Collar wouldn't let him make a peep even if his life or someone else's was in danger. We tell him to shut up for anything not important, that depends on what he thinks is important. It's like those old genie stories, where it gives you exactly what you asked for but not what you wanted. I've seen some of the guys sit down with six-pack and try and figure out a perfect command set, and they've never been able to get it down to less than fifteen minutes."
"How about 'stop whining'?"
"Any sort of complaint is, depending on where you stand, 'whining'. Even the life-threatening ones."
"Great. If we're going to cart these connards--" She stabbed at the computer on the dash in front of her -- "the two hours back to Central, I could use a drink."
"Funny you should say that," Hel said, as he pulled off the main road. "I need to pick up some gene beer from Doc Grau."
"Never met him. What's he like?"
"Genetically modifying crops without a license is illegal!" said Duval. "I'll tell your boss what you're doing!"
"Thanks for reminding me; he wants a six-pack. So that's...four in all."
They pulled off on the dusty, empty street near the outskirts of town, and the two cops got out.
"Hey, can you leave the window open?" said Varner.
"Sure, why not. Command: rear windows down six centimeters."
"Oh wow, a whole six centimeters. Wouldn't want to go to seven, we might be able to escape that way!" Duval snarked.
"Can you tell your partner to be quiet?"
Varner looked a bit embarrassed over Duval, like he was her bratty younger brother. "He doesn't take getting captured well."
"Not many people do." The corner of Hel's mouth twitched. "Try not to escape." He joined his partner.
"She's cute."
"I know what you're thinking, and it's all just an act. She's a conwoman, it's part of the job description."
"Or she's actually just nice."
"Yes, nice as con women go."
"Are you worried she's going to steal your precious bodily fluids?"
"I do not avoid conwomen, Girard, but I do deny them my wallet."
"Wait."
"What is it?"
Claudette was looking at the garage. "Is that...a biodiesel car?" she said, in the tones one might use to refer to a surprising museum exhibit.
"Yes."
"It runs on fuel, sarge."
"Sure does."
"Chemical fuel, sarge."
"Doc likes to be self-sufficient." Hel punched in the code on the knob, and the door unlocked with a beep. "Doc, you home? I'm here to confiscate all your..."
The room was empty.
Hel reached for his holster.
"What's wrong?"
"It's a vet thing," Hel murmured. Behind him, he could almost feel the younger cop bristling.
"Look, just because I'm a newbie -"
"Not that type of veteran."
"Oh." Claudette looked around. "Does the doc normally leave his teacup in pieces on the floor?"
"Not usually, no."
The young woman looked around. A beekeeper's veil and smoker were sitting on a shelf. The latter wasn't a composite plastic, but simple rough metal. Clearly, the doc favored doing things the old fashioned way. A clear door led into the greenhouse.
Hel closed and locked the door to the greenhouse, and they quickly cleared the small house, returning to the desk with the smashed teacup.
"Where's your friend?"
"Good question." Hel drew on a pair of gloves. "And why -" he tapped the empty bottle on the desk "- was he drinking so heavily?" He tapped the space bar on the computer's keyboard, and it came out of sleep and began to play a video.
"Good morning," said the white-haired man who appeared on the screen. "If you are reading this, I am probably dead or worse. Or arrested, in which case this is valuable evidence which will wipe itself in five seconds."
There was a pause.
"Just kidding. My name is Doctor Grau. I used to be a professor of biology, until I was - until I retired." A head tilt. "I like to keep my hand in. Helmutt, if you're seeing this, I left the beer in the fridge." His eyes looked haunted. "And old friend...I am sorry."
Apparently, the good Doctor had somehow acquired some unusual genetic samples. He was cagey on how, but he had integrated them into several farmers stock around town, as well as a few stray animals. "Large sample size, you see." This had changed the animals, mutated them somehow. And when humans were exposed to any fluid capable of carrying the virus, strange things happened to them too. Videos were enclosed -
The tape ended at that point. No explanation of why the cup was knocked over, or for the drinking. Or where everyone in town was.
"Doc, you Dumkopf," Hel muttered. +++++ "What's that noise?" Romy hissed.
"A tumbleweed. A scary, scary tumbleweed." Jan didn't open her eyes, or lean forward.
"No, I'm serious! There's something out there!"
Jan rolled her eyes, under her closed lids. "Maybe it's a tiger."
"A tiger? They have tigers around here?"
Jan tuned her...professional partner out, and tried to get some relaxation. Right up until something brushed the back of the car.
"What the -" She turned around just in time to catch a tail vanishing in the rear window, and both she and her partner flinched as footsteps sounded on the roof.
"Okay, maybe there is something going on."
"Told you!"
"Okay, we need to get help."
Jan put her mouth to the crack in the window. "There's a -, uh, big cat or something on the ro-"
Then the thing on the roof stuck something in her mouth.
+++++
Claudette pointed at the screen. "Did he just say he did what I think he did? Did he just say that he -"
"Yes."
"And that -"
"Yes." Hel rubbed his face with his hands. "We need more info."
"We don't need to watch some stupid videos, we need to get out of town!"
"That's just what they want."
"What?"
"The whole town is empty. Which means that they're either changed or taken. If they're changed, they couldn't get in here until I opened the door, and they can't let us leave."
"We can just lock the place up behind us and - Wait, how do you even know 'they' are hostile?"
Einsbach's eyes went distant, perhaps looking into his past, seeing some disputed barricade. "Always a safe assumption. At the very least, we need to stay here long enough to finish uploading the data."
"Can't we just unplug everything and shove it in the trunk?"
"That would be a good idea, if Grau was less paranoid and hadn't put a mercury switch in there. Neither of us has bomb experience, and the nearest bomb squad is in -"
"Wait, how does a biologist know how to use a mercury trigger?"
"That's classified. Luckily, Doc never realized that he had left the internet connection unsecured, and I never told him, just in case of something like this. We need to get the prisoners in here, and -"
The phone on his hip buzzed.
"Hang on, Duval," said Hel as he ripped it out of the holster. "I'll get you a lollipop la - uh-oh."
Duval's indicator was yellow. Varner's was bright red. +++++ Varner had recoiled as the thing entered her mouth, spilling some sort of sticky fluid. Fluid with a familiar taste and texture. She had suddenly realized that the thing on the roof might just be some freak in a suit -
But no, the feet that had been scrabbling for purchase on the window were either real, or the best mascot costume she had ever seen. Weird feet, too; they looked like a cross between human feet and a cat's. And the pink thing that had been sticking through the window was either surgically altered - which wasn't out of the realm of possibility - or all natural.
Jan had been staring at the barbed, feline dick sticking through the crack in the window, her blood beating like a kettledrum in her ears, when Einsbach stepped outside and opened fire.
As the thing fell from the window, it shot its load, blowing a dark fluid across the interior of the car. Jan turned away, and the gobbets landed on her short-cropped dark hair, her neck. She swallowed in shock -
That stuff had still been in her mouth, hadn't it?
The world went blurry for an instant, and Jan gasped a little at the tight, heavy feeling in her gut.
"Boss?" Romy said, as though from a very long way away.
That cop and his partner were covering the fallen creature from two angles, just like the playbook. Jan shook her head, but her mind refused to clear. As she stared at the sergeant - broad chest, strong arms - only one thought ran through her mind.
Was he a screamer?
Jan thought about it.
He looked like the type that liked to be on top, but that didn't prove much. In her line of work she had met plenty of powerful men and women who were bottoms specifically because they had so much responsibility in their day jobs. And besides, she didn't like the image of her bent over the hood of the car. What really made the fire in her bowels grow was the image of Einsbach pressed down while she thrust into him. Maybe she'd have him wearing the handcuffs.
Pity about her not having a dick.
She stretched, much like a cat.
Okay, what about the girl? Insecure, inexperienced. Maybe she needed someone to take the lead. Maybe not a screamer. She'd whimper, wouldn't she? Those little gasps, she'd bite her lip as the heat washed over her -
"J-Jan?" The smaller man whispered. "What happened to your eyes?"
She looked at her partner with eyes that were getting more and more yellow by the second.
Now Romy.
Romy looked like a screamer.
Jan began to purr.
+++++
Sarge kicked the body of the strange thing. "I think we've found one of Doc's lab rats."
"Lab cats, more like," Claudette said.
The thing on the ground was definetely not human, and not exactly a cat either. It looked like a smallish woman who had a giant cat's head, paws, fur, and tail grafted to her like some cruel joke. And something else.
Her dick still stood, twitching in time with the rest of her dying body, the occasional spurt of whatever-it-was. They could see the veins beating, like the world's weirdest metronome.
"Boss?" Claudette said, somehow managing to keep her voice reasonably steady, "Tell me this is just some guy in a costume."
Duval screamed.
He was trying to hold off Varner, kicking at her with both feet, and she was making these playful little swipes at him, dodging them easily.
She seemed to be swelling somehow, her shoulders growing broader as they watched. There was something going on with her head too, and as she used her mouth to catch one of Duval's shoes and pull it off, the cops could see her teeth were sharper.
"We need to get him out!" Einsbach yelled. "Get to his door!"
"What are you doing?" Claudette asked as Hel ran to the far side of the car.
He leaned toward the crack in the window. "Hey! Hey kitty!"
Varner froze. Her shoulders were straining the limits of her clothes, and Hel could see tension ripple across her back. She turned around, slowly, like a cat realizing that a bird had landed nearby.
"Look, I know we got off to a bad start, but I think that you feel the same way about me as I do about you." He made a gesture at his partner over the roof of the car.
Jan gave a feline sort of smile, and slinked across the seat. Behind her, Claudette opened the door, wrapped one arm around his chest and another over his mouth, and started to pull him out of the car. A few more seconds, he needed just a few more seconds.
"I have to say, the yellow eyes really suit you. And the, uh, stripes." It occurred to Einsbach that he had, in fact, used worse pickup lines.
Claudette had Duval out of the car. She kicked the door shut, and began to strip him of any clothing that might've been contaminated. She had even put on gloves when he wasn't looking. Good girl.
"Oh, you don't have to - oh. Ohh. Command: window up, doors locked."
"What's she doing?"
"You..you don't want to know."
There was a slight squeak.
"Was...that there before?"
"No, I do not think so."
Varner had grown a dick. Largish one, too. Hel was feeling increasingly like a character in one of those obscure cartoons.
"What was that thing?!" Romy yelled. "What's going on?"
"Why couldn't it have been the whiny one?" Claudette muttered.
"Girard," Hel said, just like her dad used to say "Claudette".
The younger cop subsided.
"Wait, so that thing...did something to Jan, and then Jan turned into that thing, and tried to do something to me -" His breathing shallowed, quickened, and he crouched, holding his head in his hands. "Ugghh..."
"Think they got the Doc?" Claudette asked.
From the car came the sound of squeaking. Claudette refused to look directly at it.
"I don't know, maybe" said the older cop. His eyes were flicking around the area, his neck a cord of tension. His trigger finger was tapping the guard of his gun.
Varner had somehow curled up on the filthy seat and gone to sleep.
Claudette stared at her. Then at the two needlers clipped to the frame the partition was built around. The partition that had doubtless never been rated for shemale tiger-things. The two needlers that were the only long guns they had.
"Permission to say we are proper screwed, sir?"
"One, denied. Two, it's boss. Three, watch our little recidivist while I call base."
"Excuse me," said Duval. "Am I to understand that you have a plan that doesn't involve getting out of town as soon as possible?"
"Sure, Duval," the kid snapped. "We can just hop in the car and drive off. I call shotgun."
"Duval: Shut up for the duration of this call, unless there is some sort of emergency." Hel reached for his radio.
"County Central, come in."
"Einsbach, you are five by five. Go ahead." said some competent-sounding woman Claudette had never met.
Hel took a deep breath. "We have a bio-incident."
A brief silence. "Say again, Einsbach?"
"There is a major biological contamination incident, centered on my location."
"Does it have anything to do with Doctor Grau?"
"Yeah, but it doesn't have anything to do with Franz's beer."
"Very funny. "
"The virus is extremely virulent, and seems to be transferred by, uh, fluids. It crosses the species barrier...or obliterates it entirely. Look, just get a team out here. A big team. I figure this could have spread pretty far."
"Hang on...the captain says we're going to need something substantial before we start beating the bushes."
"Good point. Girard, do you know how to asynchronously uplink a computer to Central?"
"Quoi?"
"Didn't think so. I'll be inside."
And off he went. He closed the door behind him.
She looked at the snivelling man rocking gently on the ground, and sighed. Not what she had expected for her day. First some crazy old man breaks the laws of physics, then she lost one of her prisoners.
Funny thing about standing in a town with no one around that might have some mutant freak under every rock, around every corner; it made you think that even the slightest noise was some sort of creature creeping closer. Closer.
Okay, if these creatures were contagious, why had assault by a cat-thing turned Varner into a tiger? And why were they all hermaphrodites? Weren't hermaphrodites usually infertile?
She had to pee.
+++++
"Is it that bad, Hel?'
"Do you know anything about the Ursa Minor incident?"
"No."
"Exactly."
+++++
Okay. That girl was around the corner of the house, so she couldn't see him. If he could just figure out some loophole in "stay here until I get back", he could sneak away, find a car, and vanish. Even if they caught him later, his lawyer could say he thought his life was in imminent danger.
He looked at Jan, shuddered.
Which it was.
So, okay, there was the plan. Get away, jack a car, get farther away from this hole. Perfect.
Something struck his neck, and he swatted at it. Funny thing; in the Old Days, a suspect - alleged suspect - would actually have their hands bound, and find it nearly impossible to do something as simple as scratch a sting.
Wait, there was the loophole. She hadn't said where "here" was. Perfect.
He started to walk away.
Why did the sting feel so hot? +++++ A few seconds later, Einsbach moved out of the house at just below a run, his weapon already out. Claudette, it seemed, was having trouble coming to grips with the matter. She was raising her gun, dropping it, pointing it at Duval. Or what had been Duval.
"I told you to watch him!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Like this," Einsbach growled.
Always the teacher.
High grip, slight sideways cant. Weak hand gripping the front of the weapon at a right angle. Excellent for recoil control and CQC, poor for long-range.
Just like they taught me.
The hi-power rounds hurt his wrist, and the fourth hit Duval up near the shoulder, turning it into a bloody mess. Matched his head.
As the blood stopped singing in his ears, the world slowed down, and Einsbach tried not to think about -
"Wow."
He turned to his partner. The kid was standing there, with her jaw swinging. She realized that he was watching, looked at him, then flushed and pulled her finger out of the guard before she blew her own foot off.
He couldn't really blame her. He was surprised she could even keep her grip on her weapon. She swiped at her face with the back of her left hand, then again, angrily, then she turned away, her shoulders shaking.
He gave her a second, while he looked at the body. Judging by the carapace and the encroaching yellow and black, Duval had been turning into a bee. He also seemed a little more...compact, somehow, as if the change had been squashing him.
Claudette turned back to her senior. "I...I'm sorry. I had to take a leak. I figured he'd yell if he saw anything, and it would only take a second..."
Hel looked into the distance for a second or two, then sighed. "There wasn't anything you could do, and you couldn't have seen bees coming. Besides, if you had peed where he could see you, then he would've just catcalled the whole time. Told all the other prisoners in lockup."
Some part of Claudette wanted to giggle. Another part still tried to hold her throat shut. "I could've used the collar--"
"Yeah, about that. Just give me a second and... command: Varner: wave."
The thing in the car didn't even break stride.
"Why didn't it--"
"They're not human anymore, Girard. Remember that. Don't hesitate to take them down."
She nodded, wiped her hand across her nose. "Yessir--yes, Sarge."
He smiled. "Good girl. Now first we need to for up. If we can get Doc's garage open, we can get the car in there on autopilot. Understand?"
She nodded a little too hard.
The creature hit him from the side, and by the time he had finished wondering where it had come from he had already dumped half a dozen rounds into it. Expander rounds at contact range were remarkably effective, but they had some drawbacks, and the dog-thing continued to snap at him for a second or two after it was technically dead.
"Hel!"
"It's down! Get this thing off me."
"Are you hurt?"
Einsbach held out his hand. There was a shard of bone lodged in it, blood running down -
"I don't -" Claudette said numbly. "I don't understand."
"That's the thing about expanders," Einsbach said. "Bone fragments. If you're close enough, they can bounce right into you. Wouldn't be a problem with normal folks, but -" He smiled. "Well, you know."
Claudette had never seen him smile. It didn't look right on him.
"Maybe it didn't take."
Sarge opened his shirt. His nipples had already swollen, with small mounds underneath. Two more spots were darkening underneath.
Hel offered her his weapon. "Make it a clean shot."
"What?"
"I want you to kill me."
"What? No! I can't!"
"I'm an experienced soldier with knowledge of how to fight things like this. Ursa Minor, Remedies, a dozen other battlefields that don't exist. Which means I can tell them how humanity is going to fight back. We can't let them get that intelligence."
"Them? Them who?"
"I think you know," he said gently.
"No. Not happening."
"You have to, Girard."
"No -"
"Claudette."
She stops.
"Do it."
+++++
The young woman is crying as she stumbles into Grau's house, and seals the doors behind her. She places the spare gun on the table, then collapses into the chair. After a while, she thinks to contact Country Central, and they tell her to sit tight and wait for evac. They also tell her that if the house was compromised before the upload finishes, she was to more valuable than the data. She nods, even though they can't see her, terminates the call, and looks around the room, her eyes red-rimmed and dry now. The smoker. Some books. Hooks with keys on them. A large photo. A lily in a vase -
Wait.
Keys.
The garage.
Come to think of it, thinks Claudette Girard as she reaches for them, maybe Duval had actually been right about something for once in his lowlife; it was time for her to get out of town.
ENDF
"Shifties Rising" by Eulaie "Nequ" Quentin 2012 CC By-SA-NC