The Numbers

[Fehrant]

Now that they all had at least a name for which they could be called upon, the party moved on. The scientist took the lead, dodging the corpse-plastered ground that spread across the seemingly narrow hallway outside the sleeping chamber. There were two types of corpses, and each type none-too-surprisingly had a distinctive type of wound. The blue corpses -the creatures who oddly resembled a more animalistic, primitive version of a human being- had all been shot and killed by some for of laser. They had almost perfectly round holes across key parts of the body. The other type of corpses -regular staff of this complex judging by the robes- had been clawed and cut to ribbons by the easily identifiable mutated hands of the blue creatures. And by the looks of it, it had been like a pack of wolves against a flock of sheep.

The group advanced quiet in the eerie silence; while the situation was outside the norm, they still had to figure out many simple things that concerned their memory and identity. Number IV, though, kept "ooh"ing and "aah"ing at the battlefield's gruesome display.

"So..." He said breaking the silence. "What are these creatures?"

The scientist continued to lead the party, huffing all the way and showing to be out of shape, which came as none of a surprise for a man in this field, and at that age. No reply to the question came, however.

"I would like to know too," added Number II in his usually deep tone of voice.

Still, no reply.

Number IV sped up his pace approching the scientist closer. "Uh... hello? Earth to scientist. Earth to scientist. Do you copy? Over."

Number II's bushy eyebrows frowned, annoyed. Right as the hallway was about to end, he extended his massive arm, grabbed the scientist by the clothes, and he heaved him up like he weighted nothing.

"What... are you doing?!" Demanded the scientist. "We don't have time for..."

"Yeah, yeah," Number II cut him off. "We don't have time. You already told us. How about answering some questions, eh? I'm getting pissed off already."

The scientist sighed. "Ok, look, let me make it simple: you lot are not the only people with power. There are other people with power, and not all powers are the same. There's one particularly nasty character who has the power to turn dead human beings into the blue creatures you see here."

"That's plenty of dead people," commented Number I.

"Well, yes," conceded the scientist. "With the war, an everything going on outside it's natural to exp..."

"War?" Interjected once more Number II.

"Please, look, we don't have time for this. Let's get out of here and afterwards I'll..." The scientist tried to continue his sentence, but Number II roughed him in the air.

"No!" He cried. "The time's now. I'm tired of these games. And..."

Number V grabbed Number II's arm as if to calm him down, or stop him from roughing up the staff member further. "Put him down. Right now your question is irrelevant," she observed. "What you should be asking is: what are we facing?"

Number II seemed extremely aggravated to be told what to do at first, but then he put down the scientist and nodded. "Yeah, what can we expect? You better answer."

The scientist cleared his throat. "Well, you already seen the blue zombies. We might actually run into the, um... "necromancer" as well, but I highly doubt it. Then there's other people like you with powers who aren't exactly here to save us all, people who compose the staff of this place that hopefully won't mistake us for the enemy. Other than that... we might run into other nasty type of hellish fiends, but I believe we'll only find those on the surface."

"Surface?" Repeated Number II. "So right now we're underground?"

"That would be correct," asserted the scientist. "We're on Underground Level 2. We need to get to 0."

"Ok, let's go," said V.

The hallway ended and it opened into two different routes. The structure of the place looked all similar: metal floor, metal walls, metal ceiling, metal doors. All would normally look clean, except now it was tinted with red and violet blood. Some of the doors had been busted open, and some constantly keep trying to close but were hindered by corpses.

The scientist walked forward without stopping. V, however, after passing through one of the many doors, stopped abruptly.

"Wait," she exclaimed. "There's someone still alive here."

The door had been damaged and it looked about to fall off. V tried to open it, but it was solidly stuck.

"Let me," called Number II. He slapped the door with an open palm and it fell straight to the ground with a loud metallic sound. The scientist shook his head; apparently he disapproved of the noise.

"Nicely done, King Kong II," jested IV. Number II ignored the comment and went in.

Inside, the room was completely trashed. There were two beds, and a couple of furniture, but it was all completely ruined as if hit by something big. A figure moaned in pain in the dark. The light tube had been damaged and it blinked constantly, partially shedding light into half the room.

"Who's... who's... there?" Asked a weak voice and coughed.

A simple question, but at the moment a difficult one for mostly everyone, except the scientist, who waded his way to the front, and replied, "Hans, is that you?"

"Professor... Horowitz. Yes," he coughed, "...it's me."

The professor took out a lantern and turned it on. A boy laid against a wall, sitting on a huge pool of his own blood. He had a heavy wound in the chest, and didn't look like he was going to make it.

Number III gasped and turned her face away.

"Professor," the dying boy said. "You're not safe... here. Right before... right before I ate the radio, I heard a large horde is... coming up.From the stairs. Take... the... elevator."

Number IV sneered. "Ate the radio?"

"Here," continued the boy. "Let me give you the radio back... again. But you'll have to... get batteries, sorry..." The boy extended a trembling arm and opened his palm as if awaiting an object to be placed upon it. From the very center of it, scraps of metal started to form like crawling ants, and from inside out a communications device resembling a walkie-talkie took shape. When the device had finally take shape, the arm gave out, and it fell to the ground. The boy gradually slid towards the pool of his own blood, his life finally giving out. On his damaged arm, a bar code was tattooed. Beneath the bar code there was a number: A196.

The scientist took the radio, and stood up, unfazed by the death of this person he apparently knew. "Let's go, we haven't got time to... "

Several footsteps run across the metal floor of the complex. Shrieks, almost animalistic filled the hallway.

V heard it too. In the eye of her mind she didn't see whatever was causing the noise but something inside of her told her she could, if she wanted. She took a deep breath, slowly releasing it. She calmed her mind and body, and placed two fingers of each hand on the sides of her head. She felt it, the power bubbling somewhere in her mind. It just needed a little push. It slowly emerged, slowly... slowly...

And suddenly the lid opened. The world expanded. It still had no colors, all blue and black shades and outlines, but the radius of her "vision" -if such a thing could indeed be labelled that- expanded as fast as a bomb. It not only expanded sideways, but also up and down. Creatures came into sight, but just as quickly other people on lower and upper floors appeared. Some were heading to specific locations. Others were fighting. Powers. Different powers. More zombies. More. And survivors. A few. The layout of the building kept expanding, and she couldn't stop it. All this information flowed into her head all nonstop. Ducts. Doors. Beds. Furniture. Computers. Tiles. The small crevices in those tiles. Their wear. It came in vivid detail. She could see all. All. She didn't have eyes on the front, or on the back---she was an eye.

She gasped for air, started trembling. The map kept expanding, and expanding. It went underneath the building, tracing mere grains of earth and sand. It went above, revealing a city deep in ruins. More zombies. More. People. She fell to the ground, convulsing. Number II and Number IV held her body. Her head felt like it was going to explode. And suddenly, the map stopped drawing itself. It slowly drew back. V breathed more easily.

The world returned to her once more, to the present situation. "They are coming," warned Number I in her shrieky voice. "They are coming!"

"To the elevator!" shouted the scientist.

Number V could clearly see them. They approached from several locations. They wouldn't be able to reach the elevator without crossing paths with these beasts. The map continued to slowly give away. A face slowly started to vanish. She knew this face. It was a young man's. It had a scar between his eyes. She knew this man. She... she knew him. The map receded, and so did the face. But in her mind, the face stayed.

First floor. I must get to the first floor.

V got up. "Quick, we have to get to the elavator," repeated Number II.

"They are already here," announced V matter-of-factly. "They are coming both this way," she pointed to the front, "and that way," she pointed backwards. "A fight is unavoidable. The thinner ranks are not towards the elevator; it's the other way, towards the stairs."

Number V left II dumbfounded and walked out of the room. She walked intent towards one of the ends of the hallway, blue zombies already looming. Far behind her, at the other end of the hallway, more creatures appeared. There was no escape. They were boxed in, and the only shelter was the closed rooms that laid at either side of the hallway.

A blue zombie took the lead, and lunged towards V, but she struck him down with a timely chop to his face. The creature got up, and jumped on her back, but she kicked it without even turning. The kick again extremely precise smashed the zombie's face. She could see everything. She had no blind spots.

Yanking a steel pipe laying amidst wall debris without even turning her head to face it, she rushed headlong into the fray. The stairs to the other floors were just past this mob.

[Ecnasaeflam]

Already...?

I remember being disgusted. With everything. Wasteful.

His head hurt, it ****ing hurt. He was standing, walking. Bright lights. Dimness. What was going on? Then there was the violence, the lift of the scientist, the questions. #VII didn't care anymore. He just didn't. This guy wasn't any better than the rest, and #VII was disgusted. He simply walked past the scene, waiting for the rest as he scanned the corridors. Something was going on with his hands, and he didn't quite understand it.

The skin around his knuckles was bubbling up fluidly, like something were crawling underneath there. It etched its way down his fingers, and then back up, along his forearms. Shuddering, #VII looked away from his arms, folding them one over another and waiting impatiently.

Why the **** can't they just listen to the guy so we can get out of here?

Uneven temper, it was a Ginger thing.

The next thing he knew, #VII was against the wall, head slammed forcefully there as he dropped ot his knees, one hand against the wall, the other at his feet. He was swearing loudly.

Bright lights hit his eyes, and he was somewhere else. Everything was hazy. It was a birthday party, he was staring at a cake. It had nine candles. The frosting was imperfect, and surrounding him wasn't some happy home, but monsters? It had to be ogres. Crooked teeth and scrunched up faces, eyes too-close together. They were all laughing and yelling.... and then it was gone.

[Acheron]

IX did not care much that the group was moving slower than he would have liked. He took in everything that the scientist had to say when they were in the first room, powers, creatures, everything that seemed important to the situation. What struck him as most important though, was figuring out who was who and what they could do. The scientist spoke about powers, but nobody's had come out yet or had been clearly obvious. Once everyone had finally woken up, given themselves numbers and become oriented for the most part, the group starting moving along.

He made sure to stay close to the front of the group. Greeting them as soon as they left the room were the corpses of those who had come before them, apparently just workers in this building. It wasn't like he stopped to analyze every inch of the bodies, but as he walked past, IX made a note of this injuries. What arteries had been severed, damaged nerves, organ failure. While clearly the victims had all died from massive blood loss from their wounds, IX was almost certain that he could tell anyone exactly how with enough time.

Such knowledge....Where do I know this from?

There wasn't any time to brood about that though, as the group continued on. He listened in as the scientist was interrogated, rather harshly at first, by the one who seemed to have an abundance of strength. While he took in everything that the man said and things that were being spoken around him, something started to feel different within himself. Everywhere he looked, on the floor, the ceiling, was metal. That wasn't unusual, but what was, was the control he felt over it.

All of this metal...Mine to control. Why? Was I able to do this before I was sleeping? I can't remember....But...

But he had lost track of time. Once he snapped out of the trance he had imposed on himself, he realized what was going on. He had followed the group into one room, while out in the hallway, they were surrounded on both sides by the zombies that they were supposed to be avoiding. While it seemed like the rest of the group was still in the room, possibly talking, possibly trying to figure out what was going on, he took a few steps out into the hallway.

While the girl was already down at the opposite end, IX faced the end of the hallway where the elevators were. The crowd of zombies was still far enough from them, if they took down the ones on the other side of the hallway, they might be able to avoid the other group. Yet IX didn't want to take chances on something that might or could happen. He didn't know for certain what was going to happen, but for a lack of something better to do, he stood his ground in the hallway.

Facing the crowd of zombies gathered down the hall, he extended his right hand and opened his palm from the fist it had been previously. The metal doors in front of the zombies slammed shut, they slammed with a force that had never been used on them before. The metal panels from the ceiling and the floor flew up, hovering in the air, then attached themselves to the doors blocking the zombies. Steel pipes punched through the walls in front of the doors, forming another line of defense. Needless for any of them to say, IX had made the threat a singular one now.

"Well...That's one way to get it done...", he smirked at little bit once he could see what he had done in it's finality.