Now, when they were going the right way, they were walking slowly. They were afraid, that when they were not moving away from the exit, they had a bigger chance to be attacked. It was a few minutes since they had left the storage.
The lights went out, the hallway went dark. Oliver saw the door remained activated, his glasses were still showing him their position and signs. Nobody knew, what was going on, a voice with a perfect British accent was flowing through the hallway.
“Welcome, Earthlings. My name is Claritheres. I have just been nominated to be in control of this project, so I have to inform you about some changes in our organization. You have two options. Either you give up now and we will continue in our research or you resist and I will open all the aquaria in this complex. Those of you who will survive, will go back to your cells and if you behave, I won’t be torturing you a lot. Those of you, who die, will be useful, too. You have three minutes to decide, to give us a signal you give up. You can do it with one of the gloves you have. On its back side, there is a safety catch, if you shut it down and push all the buttons on the keyboard, the glove overloads and after a few seconds, it explodes. You should be able to do it even with your monkey heads. If you do it, I will send a group to take care of you.”
No one said a word. Oliver was nervous. Wait, I can help you. He felt a pressure in his eyes and screamed with pain.
“What’s wrong, Oliver?” Blurted Sophia out and switched on the light she put out of her bag. “Nothing, the Shadow tried to do something and my eyes started to hurt.” He opened his eyes and heard Sophia screaming. Darius aimed at his face with his gun.
Oliver didn’t understand what was happening. He was looking at them, he saw them clearly, Sophia was still lightening his face. He looked around and saw the lights weren’t shining, he was the only one, who saw everything. Well, almost everything. It was like during the nightfall. “Darius, have you gone nuts? Don’t aim at me.” “The last time someone was looking at me with eyes like these, he tried to kill us all! What, the fuck, was that, Oliver?!” It was clear, he wasn’t making fun and he was really scared. “What are you talking about? We haven’t got time for this, you heard that Grey. Listen, the Shadow has done something to me, I can see in the dark. I don’t know, how my eyes look like, but that’s all.” Apparently, he didn’t believe him. “Oliver, your eyes look like Ales’ before he attacked us, except for that his sclerae turned dark red and yours are black,” said Sophia and Oliver saw the fear in her eyes.
“Listen, this is the Shadow’s work, he did nothing to my head, we haven’t got time for this. I’ll tell him to make me normal again, so that you can see it’s still me.” Do it, just for a minute. Oliver felt the pain in his eyes again, but now he didn’t close them. He saw his sight changing and after a while he saw only the light Sophia was lightening him with. “So?” “They’re normal, but how do we know we can still trust you?” Yuna asked.
They heard something running behind them. Sophia turned around sharply, so as others did, and lighted the hallway with her flashlight. Oliver didn’t have to turn around, because everyone was turned to him, but the Shadow quickly gave him back his night sight. Two dogs were running along the hallway. At least that’s what he would call those creatures at first sight, but they were not even slightly alike normal dogs. Four huge fangs stuck out of their mouths, two on both sides and they also had a split tongue. Their bodies were covered with something that looked like scales, along their mid-back four tentacles were extending and the bottom of their bodies was covered with a black fur. They didn’t have any tail or eyes.
Oliver saw, that Sophia was trying to find them with her flashlight, because nobody else had a light. He squeezed himself through them, aimed and started shooting. The first dog got shot with his third shot. The second dog continued running and it appeared that he even sped up. Oliver tried to aim at him and saw the flashlight caught him. “WHAT THE FUCK IS…!” shouted Darius and started to shoot at the target Sophia was pointing on with her flashlight. The dog fell dead on the floor.
“See, Darius! We haven’t got time for this, let Oliver be, so far the Shadow and he has been helping us as they could! While we were arguing here, they released who knows what on us,” started to shout stressed Sophia.
“OK, calm down, you’re right,” soothed her Darius. “As first, we have to solve our light-problem. The hallways were so well-lightened, I didn’t even think of taking a flashlight. Have you got more of them?”
“No, I didn’t take them. This one I had in my pocket.” “Then we haven’t got a choice, we must go back.” “Darius, wait. We can’t go all. We are vulnerable. I can see, I’ll go by myself,” offered them Oliver. “No way! I don’t trust you that much. But you’re right, in that dark we’ll be like geese ready to be shot for someone with eyes like yours.” “And what if we hide somewhere?” asked Yuna. “Good, barricade yourselves in one of these rooms and Oliver and I will go to find a light,” suggested Darius.
“No…,” said Sophia, but Oliver interrupted her with opening the door right beside them. “Come on in, we’ll talk here.”
They all followed Sophia’s light. Inside, there was a small lab with one shelf and a few tables with some test tubes at them.
“Sophia, what did you want to say?” Darius asked. “That I’m going with Oliver. If only Lucas, Yuna and I stay here, we won’t have enough of physical strength if something happens. If I go with him, then Yuna will stay here with two men. Besides, I trust him more, than you do. I don’t think it’s a good idea letting him go with you through the darkness. What if you lose your nerves and you shoot the only person, who knows a way out, in the back? With what he knows from the Shadow, Oliver is our best chance to get out of here and I won’t let you blow his head off, when he naively shows you his back.” Darius frowned. “Fine, go, if you want to. We take these tables to the door and shoot through them every time we hear them open. We don’t need a light for that, hopefully, as those animals can’t open the door.” “Fine,” ended Sophia their conversation.
Oliver helped Lucas and Darius to put those heavy tables together, they built up a wall, that blocked the door and pushed it towards it. They agreed on a signal, so they didn’t get shot, when they come back. Oliver and Sophia stood behind the barricade and opened the door. Oliver checked the hallway and they stepped out. They heard the others drive the barricade to the wall. The door closed.
They were walking very carefully. They tried to move as quietly as possible and were listening everything around for a possible danger. Oliver saw well, but Sophia was nervous and was running with her flashlight all around the hallway. At one of the crossroads Oliver poked his head out into the hallway to see, if there was anything waiting for them, and saw more of those dog-creatures. They were sniffing around and bumping to one another. Oliver signed Sophia to go further. When she was walking along the hallway with her flashlight, the dogs turned around. They both rose their head to sniff the air. Oliver didn’t hesitate and shot one of them. Sophia, who also reacted in one second, killed the other one.
“Those dogs are blind, but that doesn’t have to count for all of the creatures, that run these hallways. I have just realized the light can easily give us away. I think going without it will be a better idea. When we’re under attack, you can light it up to see,” whispered Oliver.
“And how will I walk? You can see in this darkness, but, in fact, it’s pitch dark here.” “You have to trust me, I will lead the both of us. Hold my hand.”
Sophia looked at his stretched hand, turned off the light in her left hand and hung it on her wrist. They held hands and Oliver lead them. They continued very slowly, fortunately, they didn’t meet any danger so far. Once they walked around a pack of dogs, which was crossing the hallway. But Oliver quickly stopped Sophia and they waited. The Dogs didn’t scent them. For a few seconds they waited and then went on.
“Those dogs are perverted,” Sophia whispered. “Perverted? That’s good. Perverted dogs.”
They were walking along a long hallway without any crossroads, except for the one at its end, where was a storage, too. They were almost there, when they heard stamping behind them. Oliver turned around and saw a pack of three perverted dogs running towards them. He shot, but they were too near and were moving too quickly.
I will give you a physical chance to fight them, but it will burn the energy you haven’t got, so get them quickly. These were the words the Shadow sent to Oliver’s head in the moment the dogs jumped to get them. He didn’t hesitate, in a second he felt a huge power growing in his body, he jumped in front of Sophia so quickly, that he wouldn’t be able to do in an ordinary situation and ran against the perverted dogs. One of them bit into his arm, the second jumped right in front of him and went for Oliver’s chest. He remained standing still. Oliver hit the third one in his belly, while he was flying in the air. The dog flew away, hit the ceiling and fell on the ground. When it wanted to stand up, Sophia directed her flashlight on the place she heard him fell and shot it. Afterwards, she enlightened the dog on Oliver’s right arm and shot him, too. The third dog wanted to go around Oliver and jumped on her, but Oliver kicked it and the dog flew into the wall and Oliver hit him in his head. The scales on dog’s head rose up, so Oliver cut his hand when he smashed it. The dog didn’t survive it.
After the attack, Oliver felt a loss of energy and felt totally exhausted. His head was spinning, and he had to lean on the wall, so he didn’t fall. I don’t think we will use this again. What was that? I infused in your body supporting substances, which improve the physical abilities of your body. Your metabolism is faster, it burned much more energy, not talking about the energy you needed to heal. I will stop the bleeding on your wounds, but, please, try to be more careful and not injure yourself. Yeah, like I am the one, who turned this whole place into a house of mutant creatures.
They found the storage. They closed the door and rested for a while. They were very nervous, moreover, Oliver was very exhausted. “We could have some time to rest here.” Oliver walked towards the boxes, sat down and opened them, although he needed to take a break. He never put his gun away. He saw Sophia doing the same. While they were searching the boxes over, Oliver got an idea. “When you argued with Darius, you said, unlike him, you do trust me. Don’t you worry about the voices I hear?” He wasn’t sure he really wanted to ask something like this, but he was so tired, he wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Are you asking me this, because you wonder whether you’re mentally OK? Yes, Oliver, I do trust you. Back in the Prague, you stood against guys, who were bigger and stronger than you, to protect me. Now you got out of a jail controlled by some creatures and instead of taking to your heels as soon as you could, you wanted to find all prisoners, including me, and take us to safety. I don’t know, what that Shadow is, but I am sure, you know it and, for some reason, you just don’t want to tell us. I know you didn’t tell us everything. In Prague, I saw how your brain works and I know you are not stupid. You helped Martin to win, you don’t let anyone control you. If you don’t want to talk about the Shadow, you don’t have to, just keep it for yourself, I won’t be persuading you. I want to know it, but you will tell me, when you want to, maybe when we get out of here.”
Oliver, as before, was surprised by Sophia’s speech. He wanted to explain her everything, but he couldn’t make himself do it. He was afraid, what would she think about him if she knew, that an alien was connected to him forever, so he tried to change the theme.
“Hm, Prague, seems so long ago. I wonder for how long have we been away.” “More than a month.” “Pardon?” “It won’t be longer.” “And how do you know that?” “I’m a woman.” Oliver was glad, she wasn’t enlightening him, because he felt his face burning. You don’t know how to behave, though you are a strategist. Shut up! Like you could understand it! It seems, there is some knowledge in your head I understand more than you do.
“You know, when they imprisoned us, I was so afraid,” continued Sophia. She had to see Oliver’s shame-pause. “Presumably, I would have cracked down after the first periods, but then I got your message. That one about Martin’s competition. Then I understood you would not give up and I could not, too. I didn’t know, whether you would make it, I doubted for a while, but the belief you are trying to make a plan, was calming me. While I focused on that, I didn’t go crazy. And you really made it, you didn’t disappoint me, so I trust you. When you say, the Shadow wants to help us, I do believe you.”
Oliver knew, if he didn’t say a word, Sophia wouldn’t take it personal, but he had to, he had to tell it to someone. “The Shadow is not a mysterious person helping us from outside. He is an alien, who can’t exist without being attached to another being. Not in the way people think existing means. When Darius and I escaped, the Greys drove us into a corner and almost caught us. The Shadow attached to me and saved us. That black substance on my hand is his body.”
“Now, I can’t get rid of him. We are physically connected and if he disconnects, I will die. In a way, he affects my body, that’s why he was able to heal me so fast, that’s why I can see in the dark and that’s why I can fight with those dogs. Without us, he can’t escape. The Greys performed experiments on him, just like they did them on us, but when we run away from here, I don’t know what will happen to me. The Shadow will be a part of me forever and I don’t know, how it will affect my life in the future.”
“So, the thing, Ales was in control of, was something like the Shadow? A part of its breed?” “We don’t know that. The Shadow hasn’t got many memories. After his birth, he was banished from his breed for a treason. He rejected to overcome other beings, just like his breed does it, so they left him without a host on a distant planet. That’s where the Greys found him and took him here. Many of his information, he’s got from my knowledge.” “He sees inside your head? Could he posses you?” “Probably yes, he was talking about a mind battle, but I’m not sure. Even now, I can feel him learning from my memories, but I can block him off the memories I don’t want him to see. I don’t know how strong his mind really is, but I won’t let him fully control me as long as I can make it.” Sophia frowned. “You won’t let him do it under any circumstances, right?” Oliver couldn’t help himself, he had to smile. “No, ma’am.”
After several minutes, Sophia said, “I’ve got six flashlights, that will have to be enough. Can we go now?” She didn’t wait for an answer, stood up and reached for Oliver’s hand. She turned her flashlight off. Oliver didn’t protest, held her hand and led them back to the others.
While walking along the hallway, they didn’t dare to speak. Luckily, they didn’t have any troubles on their way back. Oliver knocked on the door the signal, they agreed on. He opened them and, just to be sure, he jumped behind the wall. Nobody shot on them, he heard the barricade moving. “Come on in, quickly!” Whispered Darius nervously.
Oliver didn’t understand, what made him so nervous. They went in quickly. The door closed, and they barricaded them again. “Did you have any problems?” Darius asked while Sophia was giving him a flashlight. “Perverted dogs, there’s many of them.” “Be glad, you didn’t meet the thing, that was passing us seconds ago. We felt its smell even through closed door and according to how everything was quaking, it must have been really huge. We even heard it eating the dogs’ cadavers. Going forward won’t be so easy like before. Oliver, you are our biggest advantage, you go first. The flashlights are great, but you can see the danger before we do.”
“Of course, I know, the problem is the light will draw even more danger to us. The majority of the time, Sophia followed me without her light, so that we don’t draw attention to us, but a group of this size is hard to lead by holding hands.”
“We have to do it, four people can’t walk in one line like ducks do, that would be a suicide. We wouldn’t have enough time to do anything, if something happens.” “OK, then let’s not waste time.”
They all switched on their flashlights and walked out of the room. Oliver saw only blood stains in the place dogs were shot and a puddle of translucent substance, that was very smelly. So, he supposed it was saliva. They were walking along the hallway very carefully.
Oliver saw them coming, but when he saw them, he panicked. Six spiders, big as German shepherds, were approaching them. They were walking along the ceiling, walls and floor as well. Their feet were like blades. As they were coming near, they were leaving long deep scratches behind them. Their bodies were covered with thorns.
Oliver hated spiders from the bottom of his heart and froze when he saw them. They were walking very silently, and the others didn’t still see them. Wake up! It can be too late, when they see them!
The Shadow brought him back and Oliver shouted. At that moment he aimed and shot, but as his hand was still shivering, he missed. The spiders were getting near and the others finally saw them. They all started shooting, two spiders fell, but one of them shot out a net and hit Darius’ hand. Right after that the spider died, but Darius couldn’t move his hand and three remained. The spiders were too close and thanks to that, it was easier to shot them. Sophia stayed calm, held the gun in both hands, aimed at the spider Yuna was enlightening and fired. Yuna enlightened another one and Sophia killed it. Meanwhile, Lucas shot several times into the last one.
When it was over, Darius wanted to free his hand, but he only made it worse. His gun was glued to his right hand, but when he wanted to get rid of it, his left hand went stuck in it, too.
“Fuck! It’s still sticky!” Sophia wanted to help him, but he stopped her. “Don’t! I don’t need us to be stuck together.” “Come here,” said Yuna, who was kneeling by one of the spiders and searching him over. He obeyed her. “Give me your hands.” Yuna was leading his hands slowly along one of the spider’s feet and was cutting the net with it as easily as a butter. When she freed his hands, she also cut away the gun from his hands very carefully. When his hands were separated, he stood up and turned to Oliver: “What happened, Oliver? Why didn’t you warn us? You must had seen them!”
Oliver was still shivering. “I’m sorry, Darius, I am totally scared of spiders and it was a big shock for me. The Shadow woke me up, it won’t happen again.” At least that’s what he hoped.
Stamping and sighing was coming from the hall before them. Oliver saw a pack of perverted dogs running towards them. “Their coming!”
There was too many of them, they were shooting, but the dogs were still coming near, and they couldn’t stop them. When they were almost by them, a deafening roar came from their behind. The hallway started to quake. The dogs stopped and started to run away. Oliver looked behind but didn’t see anything. “That’s no good, we’ve got to hurry up! The shooting draws too much attention to us!”
Nobody argued, they didn’t want to meet that thing, which scared the dogs and made them run away. They were walking for about an hour, met some dogs, but not a big pack. “I’m afraid we won’t have enough ammo.” Said Darius, when he was loading his gun for the third time with ammos, he had in his pocket.
“We shouldn’t be far now,” calmed him Oliver. “A long hallway and the control room should be after the next turn.”
They continued slowly. Few meters before the turn they heard the sound of running animals and they prepared for another fight. They waited. Suddenly, the sound stopped. No one moved, they all were nervous. “What happened?” whispered Yuna nervously. When they were waiting for a minute, Oliver decided to look there. “Wait here and cover me,” he whispered and slowly walked forward. At the corner, he looked out and couldn’t believe his eyes. He quickly hid, backed up and didn’t look around. “We have to vanish! We’ll find another way out. Quick!” Oliver whispered when he got to them.
“Why? What is there?” Although Darius obeyed him and was walking away from the where they came, he was curious. “Spiders. A whole bunch of spiders, the whole hallway is covered with nets. If someone can’t see well, he doesn’t stand a chance. Something was caught on the other side of the net, probably the thing that was running towards us. It’s already covered in their nets. I’m afraid, they’d go for the light.” While explaining it, he was still looking back. Seemingly, Oliver was feeling very self-conscious. Suddenly, Lucas screamed. A spider from the ceiling landed on his head and was cutting his shoulders with its feet. Darius jumped to him and shot the spider from immediate vicinity. Sooner than they could realize, scratchy sounds came from their back and spiders were running at them. “RUN!”
They all took to their heels and ran. Darius was helping Lucas, who was still concussed and bleeding. They ran as fast as they could, but after a while they were tired, and the spiders were gaining on them. “They will get us!” shouted Sophia. “There’s too many of them, we can’t shoot them all!” Yuna answered. Then Oliver got an idea. He tore his glove down from his belt, he had it there so that he didn’t need to hold it in his hand and found the safety catch. “When I throw it, run for your lives!” He pushed the buttons on the glove and threw it behind them. They all started to run. After a few seconds, the hallway quaked, and the shock wave knocked them down. The dust was everywhere.
Oliver stood up as the first. “Is everyone OK?” He saw them getting up. “Shocked, but OK,” said Darius. “We have to get out of here quick. We won’t get away with this.”
“We have to heal Lucas first, or he’ll bleed to death.” Yuna stopped them. “And I’ll have a cup of tea and cookies, too,” burbled Lucas, who was hurt the most. Bloody cut wounds were all over his neck and shoulders. Yuna went to him and tore his shirt off. She made bandages from it. “Oh, come on, honey, we’re not that far in our relation.”
“There’s no time for your jokes, Lucas, shut up and let her help you. Oliver is right, we have to be moving.” Darius added. Lucas didn’t protest and after a few minutes, they were on their way again. They walked as fast as they could, they didn’t want to run so that they didn’t get into another situation like the one before.
The way, they had to choose, was long, everybody thought they had been walking forever, but Oliver was leading them with no hesitation. Once again, a huge roar came from their behind, from the place, they ran away from. They all quicken their steps nervously.
Before another crossroad Oliver stopped and showed the others to do the same. He looked out of the corner, but the hallway was empty. “The door at the end of this hallway is the control room. We need a plan.” “What do you suggest?” asked Darius. “What about dancing inside like Cancan dancers? That will surprise them for sure!” said Lucas with his mad laughter. They all ignored him. “I still don’t know, what or who that Claritheres is. According to what he did, that he released on us everything he could, we can assume he’s hiding inside. But I can’t imagine, what security measures he’s got in there. If he thinks we can’t read their signs, he also thinks we can’t open the door, which means, he’s got all his troops at the entrance and he’s just waiting, whether we get there, or the animals kill us. But if I’m wrong, we’ll walk into a trap,” summed up Oliver. “I don’t feel anything from the inside, but there are ways to block me.” That’s what Oliver was afraid of. In fact, they were blind.
“What do you suggest then? Should we separate?” Asked Yuna. That won’t help us. Going inside is the only way how we can open the door. And if only a half of us goes inside and they got caught, then the other half of us won’t survive, too. But we can’t give it up either. If we blow up the control room, we’re done. Seems, our only chance is to go inside and fight and hope, we will make it. Theoretically, if they start shooting at us, we can win the fight, thanks to their lack of skills.”
Again, the deafening roar flew through the hallway, but now, it was even closer. They all turned to that sound.
“I don’t think anyone will argue with you. Let’s go.” Ordered Darius as he a took a step. Oliver opened the door and ran in with the gun in his hand. The room was quite big, the tables on the left and right side were filling almost the whole room. In the middle of the room, between the tables, there was an empty space ended with the biggest table. On every single table, there was a screen and some control buttons. Oliver looked around the room and saw no Greys, except for the ugliest creature he had ever seen, which was sitting at the main table.
At first sight, it looked like a bad piece of a medical school exhibition. The creature’s body was alike human’s body, at least its upper part, that Oliver could see. But it didn’t have any skin, so all its muscles were exposed.
Its head was made of a lower jaw and the rest looked like an exposed human brain with eyes. Its eyes would look ordinary, if its sclera weren’t bloody red. Oliver didn’t waste a second, aimed and shot. The creature moved swiftly. Oliver missed.
“Oh, come on, you think I would let myself kill by some shaven monkeys.” Said the creature with cold voice using British accent. The lights turned on and the Greys, hiding behind tables, came out. They were aiming at them with their gloves and the prisoners knew, they were outnumbered…four against one. “Put down your guns, monkeys!”
Oliver felt the Shadow stopped the night vision in his eyes. But nobody wanted to put down his guns, every one of them was aiming at a different group of the Greys and one could cut the tension with a knife.
“Fine, so let’s play for a little while. You already know my name, but let me introduce myself once again, I am Claritheres and I am in control here. I don’t want you to live in an illusion, that you can escape from here. You can’t. But I want to talk to you, so until I won’t do that, none of my servants will shoot you, unless you provoke them.”
The creature stood up and started to walk around the table. When he got into Oliver’s visual angle, he saw the bottom part of his body. It had exposed muscles, just like its upper part had, it looked like human, but it didn’t have any genitals, its knees were bending in the wrong way and it had long claws instead of fingers.
“What do you want from us? What do you want?” Oliver wanted to prolong the time and find their way out of this situation. Don’t let him get near the others, he’s stronger than any other human. He’s too dangerous!
“I see you’re the one, who got connected to subject K2246. Tell me, did K 2246 tell you, who he is? Or do you believe, he is the little voice in your head, that is trying to help you get out of here?
Oliver tried to smile at him. “Don’t worry, the Shadows told me everything.” He wanted to continue in their dialog, because he still didn’t have a plan and he needed time.
“The Shadow?” Claritheres was taken aback and continued. “Actually, that doesn’t matter. The reason why you weren’t knocked out when you came in, was because I wanted to thank you. I really had a great time playing this game. If the Greys had told me about your escape earlier, it could had been even more fun, but as you see, they weren’t bred for fighting and they almost don’t have any tactical thinking. But they are good at science. The other thing is, that I want to show you, what will happen if you try to run away again! Of course, I will enjoy the torture of all of you. If you were not so stupid and waited, we would have set you all free, just like the hundreds of subjects before you were. But no, you had to make a mess here and now I will get punished by my bosses.” He stared at Oliver. “I suppose, you are the one, who caused all this. We will have a good time, when you are back in your rooms.” Don’t believe anything he tells you, he wants to manipulate you.
Lucas started to laugh out loudly and screamed. “Don’t worry, we’ll spare you from that, I’m gonna make a hearthrug out of you!” He laughed again and continued screaming nonsense.
Claritheres tried to talk more loudly than Lucas, who was still telling him off. “You can’t kill me, as you are nothing more than shaven monkeys. Only our friend here with the subject K2246, could amuse me, if he was given a chance. Tell me, human, what did it tell you? Did it tell you, it helped us to kill the life on other planets? That it used to be one of us? Do you know, why we imprisoned it and performed experiments on it? Tell me, what is it whispering to you right now?” On the face of that creature something like smile appeared.
“It tells me to kill you.” Said Oliver in cold blood. The smile on Claritheres’ face was gone. If he had eyebrows, Oliver would say, he was frowning. “You can try it, my little monkey.”
“What if I tried it? I’ve got more fur, than they do, huh?!” Lucas was shouting and showed them his hairy chest. “Will you shave me, or will I shave you?!” Lucas was talking nonsense, and everyone was looking at him. Oliver used that to whisper to Darius, “I’ll take care of the ugly one, you´ll have to take care of the rest.” Darius agreed and while Lucas was messing around, he told the plan to them. I will help you as much as I can, but be careful, he’s very dangerous and your body reached its limits. When I start to give you the supporting substances, your eyes will turn black again and he’ll know you are going to attack him. I understand.
Oliver needed to rivet the Greys’ attention on him, so he made a step to Claritheres. “Do you want to have fun? What about getting to know each other a bit more?” He provoked. When he was about three meters from Claritheres, the Shadow released supporting substances into his body. His sight was much better, his body was light as a feather and just like the gun in his hand. With the speed, that nobody expected, Oliver aimed and fired a half of his gun’s magazine on Claritheres. Unfortunately, he was ready for it, he avoided being shot and went for Oliver. He knocked the gun from his hand and attacked him with his claws. Oliver stopped his hand and fought back. He hit his enemy into his head and was surprised, it wasn’t as soft as he awaited according to how it looked. They measured each other’s strength, traded punches, but none of them could gain the upper hand over the other one. Oliver only with his peripheral vision saw, that meanwhile he was fighting with Claritheres, the others were in an open gunfight. He didn’t saw behind himself, but he assumed the Greys are too busy as no one was shooting in their way.
Oliver gained the upper hand and started to beat his enemy into his head with all the strength he had. Though he did, what he could, he wasn’t able to knock Claritheres out or even seriously injure him. Claritheres fought back and cut him with his claws. After several attacks Oliver felt a long cutting wound on his chest. He felt something bad was happening with his body. He kicked his enemy, who afterwards fell on the floor. Oliver attacked him and wanted to crush his head, he held his hands and beat him several times with all his strength. Suddenly, he felt he was becoming weak. I’m sorry, Oliver, but I can’t do it anymore, it would kill you.
Although he felt weakness, he prepared to punch Claritheres again, but Claritheres stopped Oliver with one hand. He threw him off, jumped on his feet and picked Oliver up as if he didn’t weight a pound. He grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and held him like a live target. “OK, the party is over. Put down your weapons, you are outnumbered, and your ace has lost.”
But Claritheres wasn’t that right. While fighting with Oliver, he didn’t notice what was going on around them. Oliver was sweating and was exhausted, his whole body was shivering, but when he looked around, he realized none of the Greys was alive. Yuna and Lucas were lying on the floor likely knocked out, but Darius and Sophia were standing and aiming at Clartiheres.
“I don’t agree with you, my ugly friend.” Said Darius with danger in his voice. “Let him go or I will make a sieve out of you!” Oliver saw an empty magazine lying by Darius’ feet.
“You will not fire on your own breed, you can’t open the door without him, thus you won’t be risking losing him. Moreover, I am not blind, and I can see the magazine by your feet. On the other hand, I don’t need him alive. If you don’t put your guns down, I will break his neck and then yours, too! If you put them down, you will go back to your cells, I will enjoy your torturing and if you behave, maybe you will get a reward.”
Oliver was listening to them and got a great idea. While Claritheres was delivering his speech, Oliver slowly reached for a taser he had in his pocket. He put it out, pushed the button and thrust it in his leg. The effect wasn’t as big as Oliver hoped. “That burns, you rotten animal!” He grabbed Oliver’s hand and ripped the taser out of it. A shot came out and Oliver fell to the ground. Shocked Claritheres held his wounded leg and realized nothing was covering him, but it was too late. Sophia and Darius fired on him, Oliver saw even Lucas, who was still lying on the floor, woke up and started to fire with them. It was only a few seconds, but to Oliver it seemed, that the sound of the gunfire was filling the room endlessly.
When it stopped, Darius came to the creature. “I had another one, you idiot.” He kicked him. “Looks like he’s dead.” He gave Oliver a hand. “That taser was a great idea, too bad it didn’t work. Your girlfriend is a real sharp-shooter, she’s got a good shot, I wouldn’t take the risk to shoot through you.” He turned to Sophia. “You should try it in competitions or I can give you a job, if you want.”
“Thank you, Darius, but I don’t think, that in the competitions they shoot ugly monsters, who want to kill your friends and the focus of your activities doesn’t bring that, too.”
Darius was still standing over Oliver. “Can you stand up?” “I can, probably, but I don’t know whether I can walk. That fight sucked all my energy.” “Don’t worry, we’ll help you, we need you to open that door.” Darius and Lucas lifted Oliver up and brought him to the computer. His head started to ache, and he thought, it is going to blow up, but he started to work.
It took about fifteen minutes, but Oliver didn’t feel better. “I’ve got it! It seems we need a kind of an authorization from the head of this base. We need a retinal scan.”
“That will be the retina of our dead friend, right?” Said Yuna, who woke up a few minutes ago. She was kneeling by dead Claritheres and was looking at him. “Hopefully.”
Lucas and Darius grabbed the cadaver and dragged it to the computer. Only now Oliver saw some membranous wings on his back. He launched the right program and a device was ejected. They put the head before the scanner and opened his eye. Several confirmation windows appeared on the screen.
“It seems, it worked. I will make the door stay open half an hour. The distance isn’t more than ten minutes, max. fifteen with my condition. Then they close and the emergency system, which destroys this base, will be launched. I don’t know how much time we will have then. I don’t want anything to get out of here. If we’re still on the Earth, I have no idea what those things could do.”
“How’s it possible to set the time of base destruction? Isn’t that stupid? If anyone attacked the base, he would have the chance to stop the destruction,” asked Yuna.
“That’s right, but on the other hand, the timer gives the whole personnel time to be evacuated,” answered Oliver. “But we haven’t got time to talk, I want you to help me with one more thing.” He stood up slowly and supporting himself by chairs as he walked towards the corner of the room, where several computers, that looked alike his own computer set, were laid.
“That blue one should be the main server. I need you to help me to open it. If I’ve got the chance, I want to have more information about this place.” “Oliver, we haven’t got time for that.” Darius was angry. “Darius, please, it will be a second only.”
Darius frowned, grabbed the case, ripped out all its cables, laid it and kicked it several times. One of its sides flew away and exposed the core of the computer. Everything looked just the way Oliver was accustomed to. He took out its hard disc and some other components and put them in his backpack.
He tried to stand up, so they could hit the road, but he lost his balance and almost fell. Sophia reacted in a second and caught him. “Yuna and I will carry him, you two go as first, you’ll cover us.” Ordered Sophia and gave her secondary weapon to Darius. Yuna did the same with hers and gave it to Lucas.