Chapter 2: The Seventh Labour

His gloved hand hummed for a second or two, the magnetic layer meshed there with his armour humming in his hand with the impact of the solid round still ringing slightly in his ears, as he dropped his arm to his side, showing no outward signs of pain or vulnerability, his intent simple, to keep them believing that they were stronger and more invincible than they actually were inside these suits whilst they still could, to give them hope despite all the desperate carnage around them. Having laboured arduously to make them as death proof as possible in his creations and donning of the armoured carapaces they wore, in the time he’d been given and then some, he thought, as he picked up the severed arm belonging to the grenadier on the floor, wrenching his pistol from its fingers locked and still squeezing the trigger. Luckily rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet so he didn’t have to break each finger individually to get his weapon back. Even so, as he looked at the downed sleeper agent bleeding out on the floor he couldn’t help but see part of himself reflected there in her helplessness and her inability to take back even a modicum of control back over her own death let alone her life. Reaching into his utility belt he retrieved a small portable welding torch. It was something he reserved for “touch-ups” for their armour he expected to encounter on the field, as he lit the flame, it burned a bright blue, the smell of super heated air and metal filled the room, he forced the sleeper agent down to the floor with one hand pressed on her neck as he rested his weight on her body with a knee to her abdomen, applying the nerve killing edge of the flame to the severed stump of the arm.

Her screams and a smell like smoking meat filled the room, as nearby agents gagged and stepped back before even the medics that arrived could administer any kind of pain relief, the smell was unbearable and the sight even more so as she convulsed in pain under his hold, before he shifted her body around and did the same to her other limb that in been severed in the initial blast as the searing sound of burning meat made some throw up and others look away trying to maintain their composure in light of the alternative as the grenadier struggled, screaming wordlessly as she watched herself being disarmed in a very real way. When he was finished he deposited the small toolkit into one of the larger pouches of his utility belt along his hip, and gestured for a set of flexi-cuffs from one of the SWAT tactical members with his gloved hand, not looking away from her face for a second even as he bound her booted ankles, twice over making sure her freedom of mobility was at zero, before he gestured for the Op-meds to come forward and judge whether it would be wise to allow someone who’d suffered so much blood loss to be given anaesthetic in the event that it would kill her, as a result of blood pressure dropping too much, but he knew they had to keep her alive for now, even if it was only for the sake of their mission, and potential but probably fruitless interrogation later on.

“So essentially we need her calm and compliant whilst we transport her but without the risk of her harming anyone including herself, without the use of a drug agent?”, he asked them, as he remained unmoving, still pinning her abdomen down with his knee, as she began to struggle, her bodies best efforts to reduce her pain sensitivity miraculously at play as she squirmed despite full loss of mobility. The medics nodded sombrely, understanding the gravity of the situation and the need for caution. Max sighed, the sound muffled through his mask as he looked at Sarah, who was still crouching beside her, like a predatory crow of sorts waiting for its dinner to stop squirming long enough to land a bite herself. He looked down at the severed limb, knowing she knew what he was thinking with a tilt of her head mirroring a birds, absolutely knowing that she was smiling beneath her mask with a devilish grin, and through her inaction urging him to complete his little surgery of sorts. “Well, then”, he said as he turned towards the two medical team members they’d managed to secure around them in time “I hope you appreciate my “oldschool” approach”, he said as the grenadier launched herself at his armoured forearm, her teeth snapping on the vambrace there, as he picked up her severed arm at the wrist coolly, arcing it back over his shoulder with just enough force and torque behind his swing to connect with her head several times before her clenched jaw lost its grip in his armour, and she fell back to the floor at his feet, still conscious, but squirming before he landed the final blow that knocked her out that snapped her severed arm at the bicep. He dropped the remains near the feet of one of the medics “keep it handy, in case you need to re-administer some more “anaesthetic “, were a hardy breed as you can see, she can take it, might even welcome the irony that it took falling by her own hand to make her concede”, he said as he rose stiffly off his knee.

Around him Walter, Clara and the rest of the agents daring enough to gather around them and not throwing up from their overstrained nerves or shock, watched as he stood and resumed an active overwatch position facing the stairwell leading up. Sarah still in her crouched position was clapping madly. Whether at her partners follow through or the fact that he had taught them another valuable lesson about their altered condition, the harder they knew they were gonna’ lose the harder they fought back in response to avoid that outcome, which seemed to echo wordlessly to the gathered agents. “Don’t worry, she’ll regrow them back”, she said hinting at her teeth reduced to bleeding gums from the force of her bite. “We all do”, she said as she stood up, level with Clara and Walter, as she added “the canines and incisors all come back sharper for some reason though”, finishing with “they never fixed my slight overbite though, which is annoying, no matter how many times I break it from the sheer shock of concussive force or whathaveyou, I guess some things you can’t fix”, she said equally as dismissive, as she turned around and joined Max on his overwatch before he added over his shoulder “or are just to perfect to ever need to”, he added over his shoulder to her with a playful tone at odds with his sudden act of controlled violence, as Sarah said “aw”, before playfully punching his arm, as he feigned injury, claiming “careful I’m very sensitive there”, he said jokingly, as she proceeded to deliver a series of blurring punches to his arm lightly before she stopped and patted it saying “your such a softy, they should have made me the “beetle” class, I would have made and excellent tough guy”, she said as he riposted with “more like a “ladybug” class if I ever saw one”, she said a light chuckle echoing from his helmets filter like grizzly’s low rumble, before she added “take that back!”, just as playfully, as she aimed her pistol squarely at his “sensitive” arm before he relented, holding his hands up in defeat as he said “I’m sure you would have made a great beetle, probably even made it to “Hercules” rank faster than anyone, including me”, he said hurriedly the humour and playfulness not yet lost on his tone as she sheathed her weapon on her magnetic holster once more saying “damn right, I’d make and excellent killing machine in a set of power...”, she looked back over her should, as Max joined her, as he noticed she’d not finished her sentence for a reason as they looked back at the crowd of frankly nervous bordering on scared agents “don’t worry”, she added in a surprisingly soft and considerate tone as she said “it’s just workshop talk, after awhile you just need to step it up a notch, since you know the other guy can take it”, she added, with a slight giggle, “but just to be safe I never use the knife”, she said “that would just be careless”, she said with another giggle “after the first time”, he added playfully with a slight giggle of his own. “But don’t worry”, he said “it only gets worse from here, and if you need an icebreaker when you interrogate her”, he said indicating at the fallen grenadier being carried safely onto a makeshift carrier formed from a tables desktop carried between two of the medics, as they strapped her down in place with belts. “Ask her about the “Cultura Wars”, and watch her eye twitch and her jaw clench, it’ll do that to most of them”, he said with a roughness to the edge of his voice that quickly muted even Sarah’s enthusiasm, as she said “it’s a sensitive subject”, she added hinting not to ask anything more about it for now.

Both Clara an Walter knew not to dismiss their advice, and by instinct neither did any of the other agents there, as they organized themselves as quickly as they could, out of the buildings entire FBI working force of nearly fifty, they had a mere dozen left standing, the rest had been either killed by the sleepers, had gone into hiding or even become some of the very people they were fighting to survive in this conflict. The tension in the air was palpable; they made their way up the stairway, alert for traps of any kind, until they hit the next floor.

Floor twenty-two. “Can you smell that?”, Max asked in general to the agents, knowing Sarah could, at least in the way he meant as they stared out into the open floor plan, the desks here seemed hardly affected, the few bodies they saw, were strewn over them, had been quickly executed, compared to the sloppy kills and haphazard nightmares of bone, flesh and viscera some floors had been turned into even before Max and Sarah had cleared them out.

Clara sniffed the air, the faint scent of gunpowder and the metallic tang of blood mixing with the sterile scent of the office environment, “something’s ... off”, she said, her hand tightening around her MP5’s grip, her eyes scanning the room as she took a step forward. The floor was clear, no sign of the enemy, no sounds of combat, it was eerily quiet, “Traps?” Walter added before both Sarah and Max nodded their heads in unison. “More than that, it’s a special form of garrotte wire, meshed polymer, laced with a toxin; it looks clear but its high-tensile strength is much more lethal. The sensors spread around multiple points send an active current through one demagnetized points simultaneously at high speed, the point races from one “sender” to one “receiver” that can also launch a sender dually. When enough points do this forming around its target it wraps it in a thin but dense garrotte like “web” and then it retracts it at high speed on pneumatic motors with their combined force to shred the target in the same way a pack of piranha shred a live bull, if it’s ever cocky enough to test their waters unwisely”, he said as both agents looked at him with a mix of awe and horror, as Sarah added “It’s something from the “Cultura Wars”, they would use several trees and place these “death webs” in things like natural foliage or even camouflaged them to match the bark or even the ground underfoot, you took a wrong step and several slices of you went one way and the rest if you were lucky pulled back instinctually in time to lose a limb or more before you noticed what was up. The only giveaway was how they often laced them in a paralytic poison in case they didn’t get all of you, so what was left couldn’t put up a fight, it belonged to the “Spider” class, they were creatures of habit for the most part, solitary agents, they could be used for espionage because they had both the patience and the follow-through to play the “long game” more carefully than others”, which made them infinitely deadly unless you learned to predict them.

Max nodded in agreement. “It might not even be motion activated”, he said as he asked “spit in the room, as far as you can, if your mouth isn’t understandably dry, it’ll give us an idea of the sophistication of the trap and what “grade” of operative were dealing with”, he said as Clara spat, the glob of spittle flying through the air before an active array of sinfully thin garrotte-like fibres flashed over the intruding globule of human saliva and snapped around it before it had a chance to hit the floor, before retreating seconds later into the opposite left and right walls along with the front facing ones’ on either side of the stairwell entrance. “My turn”, Max said as he holstered his weapons and pressed his hands into hidden, pressured, rectangular seams in the back of his helmet, as it quickly unfastened and extended outwards from his neck, as he lightly lifted it off his head and held it in the crook of his arm. Both Clara and Walter took notice again that he seemed almost too youthful to be believable in his role as an operative, let alone a killing machine, his skin although seemingly naturally deathly pale, was too unmarred by what should have been punishing bruises by now if what they’d heard from below and witnessed in the aftermath any indication of what he’d suffered through, been any indication of the punishment he’d gone through. Although upon closer inspection they did new sets of fresh scars he hadn’t possessed in the interrogation room below, already half vanished as thin, puckering lines marring his otherwise untouched pale skin.

He just looked on undaunted, yet haunted in a familiar almost personal way like he understood how insane the situation was but didn’t allow it to overtake his need to push through it, regardless how he felt. He spat his own thick globule of saliva into the room, making it a decent distance before twice as many poison laced garrotte threads snatched forwards to snap and cut it apart before retreating just as before when they were satisfied with the result. Sliding his helmet back on and sealing it firmly shut, Sarah let out a long whistle of appreciation for the traps advanced responses. “So your thinking...” she began “yeah, trapdoor, maybe even something worse, like a net-caster”, he said as he physically shivered, although in rage or disgust they couldn’t tell, as it could have been either from a lack of facial expression to go on. Before he turned his head and explained “their both specialists, but only one of them gives me the heebie jeebies”, he said as he physically shivered again. “Not the agents, the actual spider, the net-casters are ugly, alien bastards, the agents are just pricks with delusions of grandeur and an ego they somehow miraculously manage to not get caught in their own traps”, he said bitterly, as Sarah giggled stating with a raised index finger on her gloved hand “that’s not untrue”, she said before she quickly composed herself and added “most likely a “net-caster”, whose probably got his hands on your director and he probably has some level of relevant access to your server room that isn’t on anything as physical as an access card or simple key on his person, something he had to type in by hand from memory, which is probably why he set up this trap to buy himself some time whilst he works”, Max said. Sarah added “That and your director is probably bargaining for the lives of the agents they’ve captured along with him, in exchange for the password, code-phrase whathaveyou he has in his possession, which they’ve authenticated for themselves isn’t in any physical form they can exploit, which would account for the general lack of carnage here compared to what we’ve normally used to seeing”, she pointed out, noticing the general lack of human shaped blood smears on most of the furniture and walls. “They probably started executing people here as example of what would happen to the rest of the group if he didn’t give in as they dragged him further up”, Sarah said.

“So what now?”, Walter said as he looked towards them understandably for a solution. “Can you...”, as he made a chopping motion of his right hand on the flat palm of his left as he gestured towards her oversized dagger before she quickly replied “they probably wouldn’t be able to cut through my blade so they’d probably just chop through my wrist instead and disable me. Plus anything like an explosive is unpredictable, they tried that in the Cultura wars, some traps were designed to throw them back believe it or not, reversing the momentum of the projectile and returning in the owner’s general direction for a game of hot potato, it was a messy conflict, to say the least. I mean if we had a flamethrower I’d say hang back in case some of the high tension wires snap and hitting someone in the face and we’d be done. Generally you’d just avoid these things once you sense them and worked your way around, but this...”, she said as she looked into the room of invisible death waiting to spring on her or anyone willing to take that careless first step, with no other way forwards.

“Bullets might make it through, but it would give our position away and even though were stocked, we have no idea what’s in the next floor. We don’t want to be in short supply by then, but the only other alternative is messy and probably something no one here would agree upon”, Max said as he looked towards Sarah, knowing she probably had a similar idea in mind as she nodded slightly.

Clara looked at them, her eyes narrowed, “What other alternative?”, she asked, her voice betraying a hint of urgency. “It’s ... you’d have to make everyone agree seeing as it’s gonna’ tank morale even lower than it is now if you can believe that, considering the state of things”, he said “yeah”, Sarah added “if it were just Max and me in here we wouldn’t hesitate for the sake of progress over...”hurt feelings”, to put it lightly”, she said trying to sugar coat it, but failing slightly she thought by the confused looks on their face, at what she thought was an obvious solution to their problem, before Walter asked “what alternative?”, as they both said “bodies”, in unison before Max said “dead ones”, and Sarah added “like your friends, downstairs”, and Max said “so we can essentially choke the virtual meatgrinder were otherwise walking into”, as Sarah said “so we can either drain the batteries on the motors or chop down the high tension wires, whilst their busy stripping the corpses for meat”, and Max finished with “we can even start by throwing in the dead sleeper agents first, see if their enough before we throw in anyone other friendlies”, as they both let the gruesome but terrifyingly practical plan sink in.

The room was silent for a few seconds before Clara spoke again, “You can’t be serious”, she said, her voice wavering slightly as she looked around at the agents and officers around her. “Do you know what you’re asking of us?”, she added with a slight tremble of disbelief in her voice. Max and Sarah looked at each other for a second before Sarah said “It’s a good plan, but it’s not one anyone’s gonna’ be happy with, but it’s one that’ll work, and we won’t have to risk anyone else getting hurt or worse, because of it”, she said calmly, as Max nodded his agreement. “But we can’t force anyone to do it, I mean you’d literally be throwing in the corpses of your friends and fellow co-workers even the dead sleeper agents, who’d go in first after we made sure they’d been stripped of any explosives, ammo and armour if they haven’t already been, for obvious reasons concerning flying shrapnel”, he said.

Walter, his jaw clenched, looked at the floor, processing the information before finally nodded, “Okay, I understand, it’s a necessary evil, but we can’t do it without their consent”, he said, pointing to the rest of the team, as Clara nodded in solemn agreement, “We’ll explain it to them, but they have to be willing”, she added. “Sure, but I would do it quickly, “Spiders” are known for their patience and “net-caster” is no exception, when they have their prey in hand, then it’s like a switch goes off and they go full apex predator on them, she said frankly. “Honestly if they weren’t known to be such elitist jerks as a majority of them are I wouldn’t mind being one ... maybe”, he said with some hesitation. Before he looked over at Sarah then corrected himself by saying “no I’d mind, even the “nice guys” in their group are soulless A-holes, their just easy to hate and harder to kill than most”, he added with a hint of bitterness Sarah shared with an understanding nod “Yep, in other words their famous douchebags who “camp” or “farm” their prospective kills, no skill, no honour, especially amongst themselves”, she stated flatly.

They turned to address the group, explaining the situation and the risks, laying out the grim alternative before them. The agents murmured among themselves, exchanging glances filled with dread and disbelief. Some of the tougher agents nodded sombrely, recognizing the necessity of the plan, while others visibly struggled with the concept. Clara took charge, her voice firm yet gentle, “This is a choice we have to make together. If we don’t act, we’re walking into a slaughterhouse. We need to move quickly, so think hard and speak up if you’re willing to take part in this ... sacrifice for the greater good”, she said, her voice cracking slightly as she tried to maintain her professional composure.

A few agents stepped forward, volunteering to handle the macabre task. They approached Max and Sarah with a mix of determination and resignation, knowing that if it meant saving lives, they would do what had to be done. The duo nodded in silent thanks, understanding the gravity of their decision. “We’ll strip the armour and weapons first, then toss them in, one at a time, we’ll strain the pneumatic motors to straining point, giving them more than they can take forcing them to overstress and hopefully snap or waste their batteries trying, if we can slow them down long enough to cut them down manually, we’ll take the chance, rather than risk more bodies”, Max instructed, his voice steady despite the horror of the situation. The group set to work, moving efficiently and with purpose. As the first sleeper agent’s body was thrown into the room, the garrotte wires whipped through the air, cutting through the air with a sickening sound, quickly followed by the sound like metal blades being scabbarded.

Between Max and Sarah they threw the second one in before the wires had a chance to fully retract, the sound of sizzling meat filled the air an unrecognisable body parts from the first body had seemed to burst from the whole of into separate pieces now scattered haphazardly over the floor, before the second body rushed through the air and the wires shot out once more, wrapping themselves around the second body with a sound like a spring-operated snare trap snapping into place. The smell was unbearable but necessary as Clara watched with a grimace as the bodies were thrown in one by one, their armour and weapons piled up at the entrance to the stairwell below, as Sarah and Max moving with a precision and urgency that was almost mechanical. It was clear to Clara and Walter that they’d done this before, and it was equally clear to them that they never wanted to get on the wrong side opposing them, as they hoisted a third one before they heard the first squeals of mechanical failure, as one of the wires snapped with a sound like a guitar string breaking. The forth body, with a heavy build flew through the air like a meaty cannonball, as the added strain of his weight requiring more garrotte cables to effectively “catch” him, was the straw that broke the camel’s back as the entire network of cables began to whine in protest all at once. The forth body finally held them all in place long enough Sarah to snap forwards, and slice through what only looked like a few cables until she stepped back and they threw in the next body. This one attracted allot less wires and she stepped forwards again, slicing through the last of them before they had the chance to pull back.

In total five corpses, all former SWAT team members turned sleeper agents had been thrown in. Stripped of even their armoured tactical gear to reduce the chances of flying shrapnel in the form of shredded ceramic polymer plating, had left them completely vulnerable and utterly lifeless. The tension grew as they waited for any signs of movement from the garrotte wires, the smell of burning wire insulation and cauterized flesh was thick in the air due to the torque and tensile strength needed to slice apart not just one body but several one after the other at unheard of speeds, as Clara and Walter felt sick to their stomachs but knew it was for the best. The group watched in a mix of horror and fascination as the cables, now overburdened, slowly started to give way, the pneumatic motors in the walls straining with a sound akin to a dying animal before giving a final wheeze of protest and going still. The room was quiet, except for the sound of the wires cooling and the occasional drip of blood from the bodies. “We need to test it, just in case”, Max said, snatching a dismembered limb, that had dropped nearby and launching it the full the length of the trap filling half the room, nothing. No reaction. He did it again once he crossed the threshold, into the second half near the stairwell and received the attention of a fresh garrotte trap in place, mirroring the one they’d already gone through, as he waved the group in to prepare five more bodies along with what they should salvage from the cables Sarah began hacking through, that were locked in position and effectively disabled, and that they should avoid can scattered wires on the floor, slick with traces of paralytic poison, as they tried to brush aside as many as they possibly could before moving forwards.

In the end three bodies and the remains from the last trap were needed, the traps themselves seemingly having studied their approach and adjusted as best they could. “Thirsty bloodsuckers, aren’t they?”, Walter said between moments he obviously looked like he wanted to gag, as the room filled with a sweet, metallic coppery scent, he knew all too well was actually the iron in blood. Max and Sarah worked in a rhythmic dance of death and dismemberment, each knowing exactly where to cut and place the bodies for maximum effect. Clara felt her stomach churn but she knew she had to keep it together, she along with Walter were their leaders for now and they couldn’t afford to show weakness. “The trap mirrors the mentality of its creator”, Sarah began “he wants you to break before you even take a step, it’s why their known as a particularly vicious breed of outcasts even amongst other brainwashed killers, which should give you an idea. His same strength though is his weakness, his ego makes him vulnerable in a way he probably perceives but will also dare you to exploit, just to test himself and his sense of superiority”, she said matter of factly. “Yep, more than likely a male, weighing no more than two-hundred pounds in extremes, muscular but not overly built, attractive but not overly so”, Max began “Their normally forgettable and generally unremarkable physically, to the point that if you ever saw his picture in the news report related to a murder you’d probably find it hard to believe he was a monster based on his mugshot and more likely the victim instead, which is one of his greatest assets, he can blend in with “normal” people, which makes him perfectly suited as an infiltrator”, he said flatly.

“Which means he probably knows were coming and probably doesn’t expect anything “clever” from a simple hornet and a beetle”, Sarah said. “Please thank the agents for their fortitude, I’ll scout ahead, and “test” for any more traps”, she said as she picked up a random dismembered limb scattered along the floor “advise them not to do anything with the bodies just yet, in case need more up ahead to “buffer” our way through more traps and that the paralytic is fast acting when exposed to air, so just leave them exposed like we did before for a little while before you handle anything, unless you’re wearing gloves”, she said before disappearing like a half-heard ghost gliding across the floor of a stinking abattoir and up the stone stairwell.

Clara took a deep breath, trying to keep the bile down as she watched Sarah vanish into the staircase. She turned to Max, “How do you do it?”, she asked, her voice tight. Max looked at her with an expression that was both sad and understanding hidden behind the mask. “Allot of people would assume we sleep on a bed of roses after the day is done”, he said to both agents, “I can tell you for a fact it’s more like a bed of corpses that don’t wake up until we fall asleep and it all comes rushing back into focus”, he said thoughtfully, “on my part ... it’s difficult to explain, it’s like a mixture of compartmentalization and a strict safety measure that was built in from stopping us from overproducing a certain amount of catecholamine, serotonin, amino acid, peptide, and opioid neurotransmitters, so we can neither break down nor can we refuse the reality of what were facing and keep moving. Don’t ask me how I know this for sure, it’s like when you teach yourself to tie your own shoelaces after watching your parents do it for you as a kid, part of it relies on how you absorb the information and the applied learning once you do it yourself, other parts feel more instinctual and less like something you could explain the mechanics of, in the same way how a species of bird know when to migrate from one continent to another during appropriate seasons of the year, to avoid unfavourable changes in climate in their natural habitats unless they have no alternative”, he said “if that makes sense”, he added, killing time until he received a radio transmission from Sarah either telling him to make their way up with the additional bodies or leave them behind to be recovered later.