Chapter 3: The Seventh Labour

His gloved hand hummed for a second or two, the magnetic layer meshed there with his armour vibrating softly in his hand with the impact of the solid round the echo of which was still ringing slightly in his ears, as he dropped his arm to his side, showing no outward signs of pain or vulnerability. His intent was 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. He laboured arduously to make his creations as unstoppable and effective as possible, including the armoured carapaces they wore and the weapons they wielded. 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 somehow. Luckily true 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 inability to take back even a modicum of control 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 having expected to encounter opportunities for it on the field. He lit the flame, it burned a bright blue, the smell of superheated air filled the room, as he forced the sleeper agent down to the floor with one hand pressed on the stump of what remained of her wriggling arm, as he rested his weight on her body with a knee on her abdomen, applying the nerve killing edge of the flame to the severed stump of the arm with what looked like a gruesome power of will behind his intention to see it through as he sealed the wound. He was no surgeon but understood that the agent’s healing ability would kick in faster than anything expected from a normal human being, regulating itself outside of the agent’s conscious control to stop the bleeding internally and reform her severed arteries to avoid things like infection, or severed veins failing to re-circulate blood effectively after he sealed her up. Given long enough her platelets would have gladly sealed themselves and done so without his help, only they would have probably regrown her whole arm too, which he wanted to avoid, at least for now.

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 around her body and did the same to her other limb that had been severed in the initial blast, as the searing sound and smell of burning meat made some throw up outright, and others look away trying to maintain their composure, as the grenadier struggled, screaming wordlessly as she watched herself being disarmed effectively in a very real, visceral 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 completely reduced to nothing, before he gestured for the Op-meds to come forward and began to deliberate 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 that could follow later on.

“So essentially your saying 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 the full loss of mobility. The medics nodded sombrely, understanding the gravity of the situation and the need for obvious caution. Max sighed, the sound muffled through his mask as he looked at Sarah, who was still crouching beside her, like a predatory crow waiting for its dinner to stop squirming like a worm 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 that of a bird, 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 medics “I hope you appreciate my “old school” approach”, he said as the grenadier launched herself at his armoured forearm, her teeth snapping on the vambrace there. Even as she did so he picked up her severed arm at the wrist coolly, arcing it back over his shoulder with just enough force behind his swing to connect with her head several times before her clenched jaw lost its grip in his armoured vambrace. She fell back to the floor on her back, still conscious, but squirming before he landed the final blow that knocked her out completely and at the same time snapped a chunk of her severed arm off at the bicep. He dropped the remains near the feet of the two medics “Keep it handy, in case you need to re-administer some more “anaesthetic” we’re 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 at last.

Around him, Walter, Clara, and the rest of the agents daring enough to gather around them and not throwing up from their overstrained nerves and 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 partner’s follow through or the fact that he had taught them another valuable lesson about their altered condition so effectively which was “the harder they know they’re gonna lose, the harder they’ll fight back in response to avoid that outcome”, she said, her words carrying effortlessly to the other agents in the room, though barely above a whisper. “Don’t worry, she’ll regrow them back”, she said hinting at her teeth reduced to bleeding, broken gums from the force of her bite as well as the two mutilated stumps. “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 “or maybe you’re just too 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. Sarah merely said “aw”, before playfully punching his arm, as he feigned injury, claiming “Careful I’m brittle by nature”, 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 an excellent tough guy”. He riposted with “more like a “Ladybug” class if I ever saw one” with a light chuckle echoing from his helmet’s filter like a grizzly’s low rumbling growl. Sarah immediately shouted “Take that back!” just as playfully, as she aimed her pistol squarely at his “brittle” arm before he relented, holding up his hands in a gesture of feigned defeat.

“I’m sure you would have made a great Beetle, probably even made it to “Breacher Captain” rank faster than anyone, including me”, he said hurriedly. His humour and playfulness were not yet devoid from his tone, as she sheathed her weapon on her magnetic holster once more saying “damn right, I’d make an excellent killing machine in a set of power...”, she looked back over her shoulder, as Max joined her gaze. Noticed she’d not finished her sentence, as they looked back at the crowd of frankly nervous bordering on scared agents “Don’t worry”, Sarah said in a surprisingly soft and considerate tone as she added “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”, 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. Before Max added playfully “Yeah, after the first time”, with a slight chuckle of his own, “but yeah 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 several agents, as they strapped her down in place with belts. “Ask her about the “Cultura Wars”, and watch for nervous twitches, jaw clenching, and overall anxiety, it’ll do that to most of them”, he said with a roughness in 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 and Walter knew not to dismiss their advice, and neither did any of the other agents there, as they organized themselves as quickly as they could. Out of the building’s entire FBI working force of nearly fifty, they had a mere dozen left standing that they’d recovered so far, 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 and had been quickly executed from the looks of it, with single, precise, fatal gunshot wounds to the head, leaving them to slump over their workstations. In comparison the earlier floors had been littered with sloppy and overeager kills, converting them into haphazard nightmare abattoirs of bone, flesh, and splattered viscera ripped from blown-open bodies.

Clara sniffed the air, the faint scent of smokeless gunpowder and the metallic tang of blood mixing with the sterile scent of the office environment, as a result of the bleach used by the custodian staff to clean the floors, along with something more something she couldn’t quite detect. “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, with 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 ahead of them. “More than that, it’s a special form of garrotte wire, made from a resistant polymer, laced with a toxin upon dispersal. It looks clear but its high-tensile strength is much more lethal than the typical metal, piano wire of fishing line their known for being made of. The wall-mounted launchers that’ll probably string them through the air at high speed are no larger than a small box, carrying sensors spread around multiple points and use active currents to power a “sender” port that they use to shoot a magnetized point out across the length of the designated trap area magnetically, to meet a “receiver” on the other end of its active “circuit”. The receiver can just as easily launch a “sender” back the same way or in another direction entirely to do the same. When enough points do this forming around its target, it wraps it in a thin but high tensile layer of garrotte-like cocoon. It then retracts it at high speed on pneumatic motors using the combined force of several launchers worth of wire to saw through the target, in the same way, a pack of piranha can shred a live bull if it’s ever cocky enough to test their waters unwisely”, he said.

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 the ground underfoot, you took a wrong step and several slices worth of you went one-way direction and the rest if you were lucky, pulled back instinctually in time to only lose a limb 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 here”, 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, it quickly unfastened and extended outwards from his neck, lightly lifting it off his head as 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 was any indication of what he’d suffered through, or the punishment in general he’d gone through along with Sarah. However, upon closer inspection, they did see new sets of fresh scars he hadn’t possessed earlier in the interrogation room below, already half vanished as thin, puckering lines only faintly marring his otherwise untouched pale skin.

He 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. 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 trap’s advanced responses. “So your thinking...” she began, Max, knowing she’d come to the same conclusion “Yeah, Trapdoor, maybe even something worse, like a Net-Caster”, he said as he physically shivered, although whether in rage or disgust, they couldn’t tell, as it could have been either from a lack of facial expression to go by. 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, little aliens who look like they’d swallow you whole if they were large enough. The agents are simply ruthless and unfeeling, their typical mindset suggests they think their invulnerable, with delusions of grandeur and an ego to match that 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. Quickly composed herself she added “most likely a “Net-Caster”, who’s probably got his hands on your director, because he probably has some level of relevant access to your server room, that isn’t on anything as physical as an access card or physical simple key of some kind on his person. Something he would have memorized and has to type in by hand, which is probably why the Caster set up this trap to buy himself some time whilst he works at it”.

“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 probably authenticated for themselves isn’t in any physical form they can exploit. It certainly accounts for the general lack of carnage here compared to what we’re normally used to seeing”, she pointed out, noticing the noticeable lack of blood smears on most of the furniture and walls. “They probably started executing people here as an example of what would happen to the rest of the group if he didn’t give in, as they dragged them further up”, Sarah said.

“So what now?”, Walter asked 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 just chop through my wrist instead and disable me. Plus anything like an explosive is also unpredictable, they tried that in the Cultura wars, some traps were designed to throw them right 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 hit someone in the face and we’d be done in like five minutes. Generally, you’d just avoid these things once you sense them and work your way around their designated kill zone, 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 to advance.

“Bullets will probably be too fast for the wire to track so they’ll likely make it through, but it would give away our position and we have no idea what’s on the next floor. We don’t want to lose any element of surprise we can retain and 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 both, her eyes narrowed, “What other alternative?” she asked, her voice betraying a hint of urgency. “It’s ... you’d have to make everyone agree to it, 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, thinking she was effectively hinting at their obvious plan before Walter asked “what alternative?” as they both said “bodies”, in unison. Max confirmed with “dead ones”, and Sarah added, “Like your friends, downstairs, it’ll choke the virtual meat grinder were otherwise be walking into”. “We can toss them in to either drain their power sources, likely internal batteries or chop down the high tension wires once their snagged on too many bodies and parts at once and aren’t able to retract themselves so easily, whatever comes first”, Sarah added. Max finished with “we can even start by throwing in the dead sleeper agents first, see if their enough before we throw in any 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 more than just a slight tremble of disbelief in her voice. Max and Sarah looked at each other for a second before turning back to them in unison as Sarah said “It’s a good plan, but it’s not one anyone’s gonna’ be happy with. But it’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 co-workers even the dead sleeper agents. They’d go in first like we said, 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 nodding, “Okay, I understand, it’s a necessary evil, but we can’t do it without their consent”, he said, gesturing toward the rest of the agents, 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. Even though Spiders are known for their patience and Net-Casters being no exception, once they have what they want, then it’s like a switch goes off and they go full apex predator on em”, 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”, Max said with some hesitation. Before he looked over at Sarah then corrected himself by saying “No I’d mind”, he admitted “Even the “nice guys” in their group are soulless A-holes sometimes. Their just easy to hate in general 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 if they have any, then toss them in, one at a time, It’ll strain the pneumatic motors to breaking point, giving them more than they can handle at once, forcing them to overstress and hopefully snap or drain their power cells trying, even holding them in place so they can’t retract will be good enough, to cut them down by hand”, 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, clear garrotte wires whipped through the air. They cut through it with a sickening metallic sound before they threw in the second one before the wires had a chance to fully retract.

The sound of raw meat being dissected filled the air, as unrecognizable body parts from the first body seemed to burst from the greater whole into smaller, separate pieces now scattered haphazardly over the floor. The next body was already rushing through the air before they had a chance to noticeably react to it as more wires shot out to meet it, wrapping themselves around it with a sound like sheathed swords leaving their scabbards as they sliced through the air, the majority of the wires covered in a coating of fresh blood. 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 either piled up at the entrance to the stairwell below if they were beyond in-situ repair or otherwise grimly passed around to equip those who lacked any already and had the stomach to use them. Sarah and Max moved with a precision and urgency that was almost mechanical, it was clear to Clara and Walter that they’d dealt with surreal and visceral situations like this before. It was also equally clear to them that they never wanted to get on the wrong side opposing them. As they hoisted the next body in they heard the first squeals of mechanical failure, as one of the wires snapped with a sound like guitar strings breaking. The fourth body, with a heavy build, flew through the air like a meaty cannonball. 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, when they ensnared him, holding them all in place long enough for Sarah to snap forwards, and slice through what only looked like a few cables at first, as she stepped back and they threw in the next body. This one attracted a lot fewer wires and she stepped forward again, slicing through another batch 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 their armoured tactical gear and weapons, to reduce their chances of turning into deadly, flying shrapnel in the form of shredded ceramic polymer plating for one, leaving them completely vulnerable to the lethal wires clutch. The tension grew as they waited for any signs of movement from the garrotte wires. The smell of raw flesh was thick in the air due to the coordination and tensile strength needed to slice apart not just one body but several, one after the other at unheard-of speeds. Clara and Walter felt sick to their stomachs but knew it was for the best, as the group looked on in a mix of horror and fascination as the cables, now overburdened, slowly started to give way. The pneumatic motors in the walls strained with a sound akin to a dying animal being given off by them before they heard a final metallic wheeze of protest and they went still. The room was quiet, except for the sound of the wires straining, suspended before them, and the occasional drip of blood from the bodies hanging overhead. “We need to test it, just in case”, Max said, snatching a dismembered limb, that had dropped nearby and launched it across the full length of the trap, filling half the room, with nothing. No reaction. He did it again once he crossed the threshold, into the second half of the open floor, filled with desks and cubicles. The leg he threw, received the full attention of a fresh garrotte trap in place near the opposite stairwell, mirroring the one they’d already disabled. He waved back to the group to prepare five more bodies along with what they could salvage from the cables; Sarah was already hacking through, with deft slices. They were advised to avoid scattered wires on the floor, slick with traces of paralytic poison, as they tried to brush aside as many as they possibly could on the ends of barrels and or anything they could use to push them aside carefully like a broken table leg, turned into makeshift blunt weapons.

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 looked like he wanted to gag, as the room filled with a sweet, metallic coppery scent, he knew all too well was the natural iron found in the blood. Clara felt her stomach churn but she knew she had to keep it together, she along with Walter were their group’s 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 they’re known as a particularly vicious breed of outcasts even amongst other brainwashed killers, which should give you an idea of what we’re hunting. 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 well-defined 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 mug shot alone. His ability to blend in, to play the part of a hapless victim over that of a calculating monster if need be is what allows him to operate so well as a solitary infiltrator in most cases”, he said flatly.