Project Ignis

Tasper had his own plan and Hamish was going to force it out of him. Everything. Who those people were and who else the CIA might have embedded in the Project. That was a skirmish he witnessed. The Security calls to the Hephaestus, it was something serious. But as he threw himself into his van he didn't stop to ponder. He hit the ignition and sped back down the dirt track.

His sights filled with worry as he scanned the jungle ahead and to his right. The turn off to the Hephaestus facility was approaching to his left as the road started to sway right away from the cliff side. The jungle started to fill each flank with the thick undergrowth and vegetation. He started to feel uneasy as the sensation that someone or something was watching him started to creep.

And then a pile up ahead, three security Range Rovers had seized just beyond the junction to the computer and robotics facility. The route was blocked. “Fuck!” Hamish barked as he walloped the dashboard with a clenched fist. He felt trapped as he was forced to halt his approach. But he could see no one. He gripped his sub machine gun and slowly crept out of his Ford. He only had the one magazine, thirty rounds standard. He had used one round to kill Doctor Salam and a controlled burst of three rounds to breach the tank. Twenty six rounds left he counted.

The MI6 agent slowly started to pace towards the abandoned four wheelers. With his left hand he reached for his oxygen mask and head wear. He held his MP5 with his right hand while he supported it with the strap around his right shoulder. He pulled his head gear loose and tossed it to the side before moving his left hand back to his weapon. He approached slowly and cautiously. And then the sight of blood pooling just behind the first Range Rover halted. He raised his weapon. He could feel his heart beat, his breaths begin to deepen. He had to keep moving, he moved closer for a peak at what lay behind. A mangled body lay torn to shreds and drenched in blood beyond recognition. “Oh fuck,” Hamish gasped.

Then all of a sudden a crack and flash from nearby tree line threw him to cover behind the Discovery.

“Drop the weapon!” a French accent screamed. It was the same Security guard that was diverted by Tasper half an hour earlier.

“Why should I?!” Hamish roared in return.

The Frenchman didn't respond. Hamish hugged the first Discovery as he made his way to cover. He knew where the shot came from. Just further along the road to the right past the two other security vehicles. But he was starting to feel afraid. His breaths maintained a deep pant while he crouched to his knees and slid behind the tire of the four wheeler. He kept his weapon pointing to the exposed angle back towards his van. His hearing peaked in the flight or fight. But he froze solid. He listened. The jungle brushed and branches tweaked. The chirping of wildlife had became second to the noise of footsteps or branches snapping. And then, he heard it. An earthy clink. The same kind of noise a steel blade would make if you stabbed it down into the dirt. And then again, and then again. It was footsteps. Hamish’s eye's widened, it was coming from the track down to the Hephaestus.

He dropped and dragged himself under the Discovery. The deceased mutilated body on the other side blocked the view from the shooter. He gripped his own mouth in an attempt to conceal his gasps, his heart pounded. His sight turned back to the deceased. He saw the keys for the Range Rover swamped in the puddle of blood that enveloped the carcass. The beach route he realised, if he moved quickly he could still make it. The Range Rover he found himself under was already nosed in the new direction to flee.

But then the clanking of footsteps got even closer. The sound was now accompanied by a groggy hiss and a click. He couldn't turn his head to look. He squeezed his MP5 across his belly in anticipation. And then a stabbing squelch as blood spurted in his direction, the body had been pieced. And then another clunk, a gurgling hiss and a click. A razor sharp piece of steel splashed the pool of blood next to him. It resembled a sharp bladed stilt, and then it started to lower itself in his direction. He could see more of the sharp blade as it started to decline beneath the four wheeler. There were cables and wires attached. And then bone, the wires were connected to nerves, and then the skin. It was a gator’s.

Hamish’s fingers began to tense around the MP5's trigger, it's head was almost visible. It didn't seem alive or dead. But flesh mangled with machine. His trigger began to resist as it started to click. And then crack! It was the Frenchman. It reacted frantically and violently as each of it's four steel limbs burst into a frantic gallop towards the shooter. Now Hamish had his chance, he launched his grip and nabbed the keys protruding from the pool of blood.

The shots continued to fire quick and frantic from the tree line. He didn't turn to look as he threw himself from beneath the Discovery and into the driver seat. The shots seized with a horrifying scream. Hamish hit the ignition and catapulted himself forward down the track towards the Hephaestus. He gasped and inhaled as his sweat ran down his cheek. “What the actual fuck?!” he gasped out in terror.

Hamish didn't slow on his approach to the complex, despite not knowing where exactly the road would lead. It curved down a ridge towards the bottom of the cliff face. The gate into the computer and robotics complex was closed. The bodies of those consumed by the vapour lay in a crumbled mess around the facility that spread out onto the beachfront and beyond the gate. The Yielder gas had now dissipated and depleted with the fizzing of the lagoon.

But now he noticed others just past the gate and fence. They were wearing overalls marked red and yellow. The Hephaestus and Hera. They were checking the remains. A few stopped and turned as the undercover agent's acquired Range Rover raced past and curved right onto the sandy track along the beach. Their identity was mystery, they were unfazed by the crying of the alarms as they paced around checking the remains and gathering bodies. But Hamish didn't have time to ponder their reason or purpose.

But then the new construction half way along the beachfront that hugged the wall. It was marked with the two same colours, red and yellow. Hamish didn't stop, he just kept throttling forward. The sand spattered up the back of the Discovery as it walloped against the sloped road at the other side, the suspension rattled and clinked. The agent knew that the Hera was just up along the ridge. A safe path he hoped, a safe path for Laswald also.

And then the gate, it was closed. “Fuck!” Hamish hollered. It was a one way.

Then thump! The Discovery wracked straight into the gate, yet it didn't give way as the airbag inflated with the four wheelers sudden halt. Thick steal barriers embedded in concrete kept the fence and gate solid. Hamish came too, his nose was bleeding. He was disoriented. The front of the bonnet had twisted upward and shattered the Range Rovers front window. His right hand felt for his rucksack as he made sure he still had his weapon strapped over his right shoulder. He had to keep moving.

The door popped as Hamish slipped out onto the dirt road in front of the closed gate. He staggered and found his feet. And then another bang and crack. Bullets whizzed past his head as he threw himself back behind the Discovery. “Give me a fucking break!” he shouted as more security guards poured out from a yellow door ahead just beyond the fence.

The yard was different than the Medusas, concrete walls and steel kennel doors blocked the immediate flanking view through the steel fenced enclosure. The guards continued to spray in the Hamish’s direction. The hail of bullets ripped through the front of his wrecked vehicle and ricochet into the surrounding bush.

He gripped his MP5 and slapped it over the top of the Range Rover pointing in their direction. He blind fired. They were suppressed if only for a moment. Six rounds he counted as the guards leapt towards extra cover behind a concrete barrier. And then Hamish revealed himself for a brief second. A precise shot blew through the right shoulder of one of the defenders. Blood spattered their colleague as he dropped to the ground. There were three more he counted. With nineteen rounds left he had to make each shot count. And then crack, a fourth gunman fired. But not in Hamish's direction. Another guard dropped to the ground, dead. The last two turned in a panic. And then Hamish saw his opportunity. Another grip of his gun and a peak, he popped one of the guards in the neck. A red mist sprayed as they dropped dead. The last guard turned to fire at Hamish in his briefest moment of exposure as he lent around the Discovery. But then the mysterious gunner ended the guard with another round from a window above. The guards face exploded as the bullet entered through the back of his head and spattered over the concrete divider. They slumped forward, dead.

Hamish kept his gun ready at the window above. “Laswald?” he shouted.

The gate unlocked with a buzz and a clink. The weight of the Land Rover pried into the front of the gate heaved forward with an ear piercing screech as the gate rolled open. He entered cautiously with his gun still ready to fire. And then the Heras yellow doors slammed open again revealing agent Laswald clutching an M4 Carbine. She looked worn and tired, her clothes unwashed and tattered. Her hair and brows were washed with a black dye, it took Hamish by surprise. But it was definitely her, he knew the face. The button nose and freckles, and her eyes. Large oval and green. It was definitely agent Laswald.

“Why aren't you already on top of the wall?” Hamish asked as he loosened the grip of his sub machine gun.

Laswald pointed the gun at the deceased guards. “Why do you think?”

Hamish’s weapon swung from its strap as he let go completely. “Tasper told me you were dead, a Doctor Morlam. You pissed him off.”

“I would’ve been. But another Doctor at this facility saw my worth more than a new candidate. He battered her face in before handing the body over.” Laswald relayed as her firm demeanour started to crack as she looked away. “I had to lay low, I had to survive.”

Hamish paused, his brain raced for more question. But there were to many. But then his watch sounded an alarm. He gasped as he swung his rucksack from his back and zipped it open to have a look. “Fuck,” he blurted.

“We're out of time?” Laswald asked.

Hamish pulled out his watch. It read forty-five minutes past one. “We'll still catch the sub if we move quickly,” he tried to assure. Knowing fine well that Sid was expecting him to be there by now.

The undercover CIA agent stepped forward and pulled out her unique key fob. “This way,” she said as she made her way towards a grated door in a concrete wall to her left. “This will take us to Heras front yard,” she continued.

The noise of an elephant trumpeting stirred Hamish in surprise. His head turned swiftly to the concrete kennels and walls in the opposing direction. “Did I just hear an elephant?” he asked.

Laswald inserted her key. “Surrogates for the woolly mammoths we were cloning,” she replied as the door panel blinked green.

Hamish’s eyes widened, “Were cloning?”

Laswald placed her index finger on the reader, both lights blinked. The gate clunked and she pushed it open. “Doctor Morlam requested them for his own research.”

Hamish moved closer behind her. “I saw something completely fucked up near the Hephaestus. Do you know what it could have been?”

Laswald stopped and turned to meet eyes with the MI6 agent. “I asked Doctor Morlam what he was doing with the clones we were giving him. All he told me is that had to prepare for the future.”

Hamish filled with a visible confusion. “It sounds to me the guys just a fucking sick psychopath.”

“I don't disagree with you,” the CIA agent responded as she lead the way through the grated door into the front of the facilities parking area.

They could see the wall looming ahead above a layer of jungle beyond the dirt road that lead to the junction that split back towards the Central. “We should be quick,” Hamish insisted.

“Then I suppose I'll drive. I saw the state you left the last one in,” Laswald joked as she waved him over to a parked pickup. It was Toyota labelled with the Heras colour.

Hamish smirked and jumped in the back. “Then I don't suppose you'd mind giving me that M4? Just encase we get into any trouble more on the way?”

Laswald returned Hamish's smile and tossed him the assault rifle. “Smart,” she said as she grabbed the standard issue security M9 pistol that she had wedged down her left waist. “I can still steer with one hand,” she continued as she unlocked the Toyota and fumbled in.

The main gate to the facility squealed open as Laswald hit the radio remote. And then she hit the ignition and fired up the engine into a rumble. They started moving. Laswald didn't look back, but Hamish kept his sights to the rear. The Toyota bounced over the concrete curb beneath the opening gate as the rattling fence shook the surrounding lush plant growth just beyond it.

The road seemed clear and Laswald already knew where to head to. A two minute drive at most. The pickup handled the dirt track better than his Ford did, but Hamish was only maintenance. Stuck within the restricted confines of the Medusa, where as Laswald had responsibilities in the branch of the Hera. She had a biologist doctorate and was about the same age as Hamish. Approached by the CIA for their own research. A perfect candidate for infiltrating the Project.

They saw the junction ahead, but then the glint of another Discovery caught the sun as it whizzed past towards the Central. And then another one followed. Laswald didn't stop. She gripped her pistol and maintained gear. “We've got more security ahead of us. They seem to be in a rush!” she cried out towards Hamish.

The MI6 agent looked over the front of the driver compartment. “The emergency protocol or Doctor Malem's research?!” he shouted.

“The protocol security can ignore!” Laswald hollered.

The Toyota skidded and brushed the trees as they swooped left around the junction. And then Hamish noticed two more of them, parked to their rear just before the bridge. It looked like an attempt to barricade. Four guards were letting off rounds, they cracked and popped. Hamish walloped the roof of the Toyota. “Stop!” he cried.

Laswald hit the breaks and the pickup skidded to a stand still. Hamish aimed the M4 but he still didn’t have his glasses on. Refusal to break his gaze took priority from a glance back into his rucksack. He could make out the guards, their feet were slowly starting to shimmer backwards. Their shots repeated quicker and quicker. Laswald peered behind her, her eyes widened. “Doctor Morlam’s research?”

And then a thud and a scrape. A roar as the Range Rovers were pushed backwards. The outline of the abominations made of flesh and machine feathered above the make shift barricade. But now there wasn't just one, but dozens. The guards screamed in terror and fell backwards. The sharp points speared downwards as the weight of the creatures impaled viciously. The screams turned to wails, and then a shrieking simmer turned into a bloody mess of silence.

Hamish opened fire with his M4. His fingers squeezed ferociously as the oncoming nightmare turned their attention to them. “Drive!” he screamed.

Laswald gulped and hit the accelerator. Hamish retained constant fire as bits spattered and flicked from the creatures that were now moving at full pelt towards them. None of them dropped or seized to the agents spray of bullets. And then the M4 seized with a final click. The carbine was depleted of ammunition. “Fuck!” he shouted before reaching back for his MP5 he still had strapped around his shoulder. It still had eighteen rounds left he remembered.

The creatures were closing in. Hamish walloped the rear window in desperation to get the pickup to move faster. Laswald dropped a gear and the engine roared as they began to accelerate faster with the additional traction. One of the creature’s gallops turned into a vault. It threw itself quicker along the road and closed in on the back of the dirt washed Toyota. Hamish began to feel the chill of fear as it got closer and prepared itself to leap onto the moving vehicle.

The head was that of an alligator but mutilated and twisted. Its snout and lower jaw cut and removed. Wires and nerves, dangled and wrapped sharp razors that protruded from it's exposed throat. The eyes were still with death, the lids were removed. The abdomen was sliced apart, the intestines and organs scooped out. The spine was wrapped with wires, nerves and a plastic tubing that seemed to carry an unknown substance that wormed its way through the exposed muscle. It was connected to a computer liquid cooling pump that sat at the heart and wheezed with a steady clicking. More wires, nerves and arteries connected everything together. Steel plates and bolts were fused to the remaining skeleton. Both limbs were sliced at the middle joint and the skin peeled back to the bone. The familiar sharp stilts grafted to the limbs were longer at the front and raised the creature slightly upright. The tail was gone entirely.

It leapt towards the back of the pickup with a lunge to spear. Hamish squirmed backwards towards the drivers compartment window. He let out a gasp in a disturbed fright as the gator pierced the Toyota with a stabbing grip on its landing.

In the moment of sheer adrenaline, Hamish pointed his MP5 and shot a round at the synthetic pump in the middle of its chest. It blew open into pieces but didn't seize. It managed to get its rear stilts onto the moving vehicle and lunged a blade towards Hamish. He barely managed to dodge as it pieced into the empty passenger seat in the front compartment. He pulled up his sub machine gun a second time and shot it in the exposed spine. It burst into pieces as the back legs went limp and started to twitch. The gator receded its impaled limb and it drew it back for a direct spear thrust.

Hamish fired another shot but only pierced a loose bit of skin and flesh. The fluid being pumped from the artificial heart begin to seep from the exposed abdomen. Its muscles started to quiver as the long piece of steel metal started to fall under it's own weight. And then it stabbed. Hamish let out a loud grunt as it failed to pierce through the silver suit. And then the entire creature collapsed under the entirety of its own weight. It was no more, just a bundle of flesh and machine twitching uncontrollably.

Hamish gasped as he gave it a solid heave over the back of the pickup with his foot. But others were closing in. His glance moved back towards the incoming horde. He saw more than just gators. Other things, bigger things. Different shaped things. A storm of metal rattling with the exploited flesh.

Sixteen rounds left. He knew where to shoot. He fired. A cracked spine. Fifteen rounds left. He fired again. A fluid pump rupture. Fourteen rounds left. A shot again. A mutilated head burst open into a spray of flesh, gunk and cable. The first one collapsed to its front limbs. The second one slowed and then collapsed completely. The third veered and tripped over another.

Hamish turned and banged on the roof of the Toyota. “These things just wont give up!”

“Then think quick, because we're almost there!” Laswald cried out.

But then the CIA agent’s eyes widened. Another barricade of security Range Rovers blocked the route ahead. The structures of the Central facility peaked above the jungles canopy. They were trying to protect the complexes west gate.

Hamish froze, but only for a moment. The oncoming blockade and the nightmare to the rear were about to close their grip on the two of them. But then his intuition kicked in. “Swerve right into the jungle on my mark!” he commanded.

“What?!” Laswald squealed.

“We'll let those guards distract them! We're nearing the section of the wall!”

Laswald gulped as the roadblock quickly approached, but she scanned right and gripped her pistol. “Now might be good!”

The guards were shouting with threats to stop. But the speeding pickup only made their legs tremble with an urge to run. Laswald held her arm out of the window and started firing suppressive shots with her pistol. They returned fire as Laswald ducked her head down behind the dashboard for cover.

Hamish peaked around the Toyotas right side. They were only seconds away. “Ok, in three. Two, One. Turn!”

Laswald banked a hard right into the jungle. The right side of the roadblock clipped and walloped of the left side of the pickup. They plummeted into the dense foliage. It battered and spat up as the branches smacked and snapped of the front of the Totyotas windscreen and bumper.

The noise of cracking forest snapped with the cracks and screams of the guards and their gunshots. The road was now barely visible through the thick brush as Hamish turned back to pickups rear. But then he noticed. More than few of the gators followed. “Doesn't look like we're in the clear yet!” he shouted as he fired a round and popped a gators spinal cord.

The coming trees parted to the flanks as Laswald swerved and turned to weave a path towards their destination. The wall was fast approaching, and the ground was not as easy obstacle. A flock of the gators were more adept and were closing in for a pounce onto the pickup.

“I've only got eleven rounds left” Hamish cried out as he fired another shot at one of the creatures. “Ten rounds” he continued. And then another shot. “Nine rounds left.”

Laswald hit the brakes and swung the rear of the pickup round in a thudding skid that walloped into a tree just past a small clearing. Hamish fell backwards with the momentum and flopped of the Toyotas rear.

The CIA agent whipped her pistol in the direction of the gators and cracked rounds from the Toyotas passenger side window. She snapped repeatedly and quick. Four of them were reduced to a crawl as a spinal hit dropped them to their forward limbs. Three more still stormed forward.

Hamish bounced back to his feet and popped two of them in the head. They each dropped and rolled in a tangle of muscled steel trapped in a squirm of crazed animalistic blindness.

The last functioning gator pounced and shattered its steel limbs into the Toyota passenger side window. Laswald screamed in distress as each shot missed and scraped a critical hit of the exploited carcass in a dyer fright of panic.

Hamish vaulted over the side of pickup and braced himself against the thick foliage that clumped the jungle floor. The swing of his weapon towards the enemy thrashing into the pickup slowed as the hit of the deep jungle aroma wracked his senses with a riff of what smelt like infused diesel within the dry and sun-baked undergrowth.

But Laswalds screams for immediate assistance against the terrifying menace took the Scotsman's priorities as he reached for its aim and snapped two rounds into the gators spine and synthetic heart. It dropped, it squirmed and then it seized entirely.

Laswald burst out of the pickups driver side door and paced around the chiselled bumper laced with twigs and mud. Her strides moved with a sharp sting of attack towards the two malfunctioning blind flesh in a spite for ego. And then pop, she shot the heart. And then she cracked the other. The swerve of her pistol towards the spineless crawling was only met with an empty click. The magazine was empty, depleted. Unarmed.

Hamish found himself in trance at Laswald's fight to defend her pride. Her need to maintain power over the decrepit that would have ended her without his counter support. The CIA agent was snapping of rounds in a spot of raw untamed emotion. But then Hamish blinked and Laswald snatched his MP5 clean from his loosened grip. She held it steady and pushed the guns butt against her right breast. She fired. The remaining four gators that were dragging themselves closer across the jungle opening dropped with a simmer as the click and wheeze of their hearts popped into a mess of gunk and cable.

“Three rounds left,” Laswald said as she walloped the sub machine gun towards Hamish’s chest and back into his awaiting grip.

Hamish perked back to motion. “We best be quick,” he reminded as he waived and pointed the gun in the direction of a layer of deep foliage that smothered the grey concrete wall ahead.

The duo continued onwards. The scent of fuel still breezed around the brush. Laswald trigged also at the strange aroma that didn't seem to fit the natural atmosphere of a tropical forest. She shook it off as they reached the wave of brush at the other end of the jungle clearing.

They gunshots and screams from back at the road seized suddenly with a piercing wail and an ear cutting shriek. Both agents turned and as their eyes widened with a whitening expression that started to fill their faces. The things were now unoccupied, and the realisation started to kick both of their legs into frantic motion. And then the snapping that creaked from behind them boomed with a thunderous bang of steal breaking and crunching the jungle as more seemed to storm closer.

“Get behind me,” Hamish insisted as he turned and pointed his weapon in the direction of the oncoming roar of mangled abominations slicing their way closer.

Laswald gripped Hamish’s shoulder, both agents began to pace backwards slowly in the direction of the wall. Their eyes remained fixed on the thundering ahead. And then a storm. A tsunami of gators threw themselves through thick jungle foliage and crashed into a murderous gallop as they hit the opening. Branches and trees shuddered and fell underneath the wave of complete onslaught.

“Fucking run!” Hamish screamed in a burst of instinctual flight.

They did. They turned and threw their strides into an almighty bolt. The gators vaulted with precision and strike. There was no way they could outrun, but the base of the wall was in sight. They were nearly there as a manhole in the side welcomed with a lure, a passage through darkness to escape the hell they were scrambling to flee from.

Then an exposed root tripped Laswald to the ground causing her to fall forward with a sweep of the jungle floor. Leaves, branches and dried dirt sputtered as she skidded to a terrifying halt.

Hamish in a ditch to save her reached for a jungle branch to counter his enormous momentum moving forward. With a spin and a dive, he reached with his left arm and gripped his trigger with his right. He cracked a shot in Laswald’s defence as he hoisted her to his waist side. The bullet missed as it whizzed and rattled the jungle canopy.

Both agents then realised in a final fearful gasp that they hadn't made it. They were about to die. But then Laswald’s eyes widened as her glance shifted upwards through the jungle canopy in a breaking moment of awe. A flare glowed as it strafed gracefully over their heads from the summit of the towering wall. Her head followed as the light glistened of a tear that started to roll down her cheek. It beaconed safety as the stabbing of sharpened stilts tore up the jungles dense under foliage as the nightmare’s threw themselves towards the duo. And then it struck. The ground let out a flashing roar of ignition as a blanket of flame blew upwards and blasted the canopy into a wave that enveloped instantly around them.

Hamish jolted back as a rush of hot air swept into them. The creatures buckled under the temperature and clenched backwards in the instinct of flesh. The two agents braced and supported each other as they turned their back to the raging inferno. But it was quickly becoming too much as Hamish attempted to shield Laswald with his fire resistant uniform. He had removed his head wear at the junction to the Hephaestus, but now wished that he hadn't. His long hair that waved down the back of his head did nothing to block the blaze as it crackled and roared closer behind them.

“Quickly! Into the tunnel!” Hamish hollered, practically lifting Laswald with a throwing stride towards their escape.

The flames grew and stung as the jungle gave way above, showering embers of smouldering leaves and foliage onto the fleeing agents. Smoke poured upwards and grasped the skies light with darkness. Only the yellow and orange haze of the surrounding rumble of fire gave them any direction.

Laswald cried and wailed as the flames nipped and stung her exposed skin. But they had arrived, a metal cover had been removed exposing a cylindrical tunnel into the concrete behemoth. The fleeing CIA agent crawled through first as Hamish attempted to shield her rear. The tunnel took a turn upwards sharply, there were ladders. Hamish dived in headfirst as Laswald started to pull herself up the shaded interior. A down draft relieved as the cooler air swept the smell of the ocean over them.

A light pierced downwards from directly above, it was the summit of the wall. They knew Tasper and Sid must still be there waiting, it relieved Hamish as he finally let a subtle smile crack the edge of his mouth. The flare made that obvious, it had to have been Tasper he thought. A way to cover the retreat. A fail safe he must have planned. It was the reason he gave him the silver suit.

Laswald remained quiet on her ascent towards the light above. Only the gasps for a satisfying breath echoed within the light stung dark passage. Hamish kept an eye on her quivering burnt limbs with a tension of worry for his fellow agent. But his attention was stolen by the thudding of a third person clambering onto the ladders below. He stopped and looked. It wasn't a gator, he sighed in relief. But then the clanging of metal, a thud and then a clink.

“Sid? Tasper?” the MI6 agent quizzed with a worried glance back down below his nestled feet on the ladders iron rungs.

He shifted his glance back towards Laswald as she reached the top of the vertical tunnel. Her hand stretched upwards into the falling light above and into an arm that plucked her over the top. She was safe, she was on the top. He could see more light. But then the familiar unsettling rhythm of a wheeze followed by a rotting click moved Hamish to peer downward again towards the mysterious stranger lifting themselves out of the darkness. The rays of light parted around the fleeing agent and what he could see sent a shivering sting of terror straight through him.

A skull wrapped in muscle, flesh, wires, and fused metal stared straight up at the agent. Exposed cables and nerves protruded from each side of the dead eyes that wrapped downward and around sharp blades and rusty metal that stuck out of its throat in place of a missing jaw. It reached with its deformed arms as it scaled the ladder with exposed sharpened steel instead of bone. Wires, cables, nerves, metal and bone peered through the mutilated flesh and skin. Cables and wires mangled with veins and muscle clicked with the synthetic heart. It was seared and burnt, but still functioning. It didn't waiver to the fire like the gators did. And with its sights set on Hamish, it pried its machined dead carcass upwards towards their route of escape.

Hamish’s hairs spiked on end as a blanket of white washed over him. An ocean of sweat swamped his uniform in a moment of paralysing shock that made his grip on the ladder rail brake with a wave of sudden exhaustion. His entire being trembled in a state of sheer terror as each breath became deeper and more unfulfilling. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Mutilated animals had a certain level of waiver within the human psyche. But another human in such a disturbing twisted state had peaked every experience Hamish had ever encountered before, even as a MI6 agent. It was clearly the work of a psychopath, and all indications lead to Doctor Morlam.

But despite what Hamish felt in the moment it was still rattling the ladder as it ferociously clambered upwards. He had to act. He gripped the trigger of his MP5 swinging from his right shoulder and pulled it with a shot of his jittering nerves. The echoing crack blew off a piece of skull and flesh as it grazed the abomination’s left cheek. It still didn't stop.

Hamish replaced his trembling grip on the railing and decided to bolt upwards. To out climb it. To reach the top. He started throwing himself, but his arms were tiring. It became impossible to lift them any further. And then Tasper yanked him by the arm pit and threw him onto the walls summit. He had finally made it.

“It's climbing the fucking ladders!” Hamish screamed out as he motioned himself away from the exposed manhole.

Tasper expression turned blank and pale as he swept up the manhole cover to shield. “Then shoot it again!” he barked.

“I’m on my last round!” Hamish replied in a frantic motion to get his rucksack of his back and into his trembling hands. “The Medusas gas. It'll work against the fucking muscle!” He knew as he plucked out the Irn Bru bottle.

It reached the top and as its head started to protrude from the depths within the wall. It threw its razor-sharp arms outwards with a gurgling wheeze and a metallic click. It gripped the rim and heaved itself up with its right limb while it swung for Hamish with its left. The Scotsman unscrewed the cap and poured the heavy gas from the plastic bottle. It washed over the exploited carcass. It worked. The muscle, veins and nerves fizzed with the rest of the biology as all of the water and moisture vaporised into a mist that continued to roll down it and into the dark tunnel. The meat dried and crumbled. The machinery had lost its use and failed with the rest of it. It slumped. Dead.

Tasper moved forward gingerly and kicked it back down the shaft before receding his foot with a disgusted quiver. He continued to slam the manhole cover over the opening before pinning it down with his knee. “Quick! Grab me the welder!” he shouted.

Hamish got his bearing and scanned the aging concrete stretch of summit around him. There were spoils of cable, rope and random junk dotted around radar and radio dishes that spired nearby. The military grade equipment stretched for miles along the horizon. Agent Laswald had perched herself against a dish as she cradled her burns and attempted to catch her breath. The screams of people and sirens roared and echoed in the distance as smoke poured and wafted upwards from the inferno below. But then he found it, the welding torch.

“Where's Sid?” Hamish asked as he tossed Tasper the welder. “Did he already jump?”

Tasper didn’t respond. His focus was the welder as he fired it up and started to seal the manhole shut. Hamish had another look around as the smoke veered in a different direction. There was a trench that ran straight along the middle, anti-aircraft guns were nested within.

“Why did you take your mask off? You're lucky you didn't get your faced burned off!” Tasper said with a mouthful of his left shoulder in a scolding squint as he fought to avoid the welding flame.

But this time Hamish didn't respond, he found Sid. Lying face down within the trench. He was unconscious, battered, and bloodied. “What the fuck,” the MI6 agent blurted.

But then he saw another individual, standing with a clenched fist of red. His eyes speared with a look of suspicion. A stare only an ally would point at you in a drunken feud. But still he stood with an eye of submission. It was the chef. The same one from the canteen that served them lunch only an hour before.

“What the fuck!” Hamish cried out in a firm slap of his MP5 with a sudden point towards the chef. “What the fuck are doing here? What the fuck did you do to him!?”

Laswald perked to Hamish’s howls and uproar. Her eyes turned and widened to the stranger that dug his foot into the cracked slabbed concrete. A blank face, a blank statue. “Tasper, who is that!” she shouted.

“Wow, wait! Wait!” Tasper gasped against the sound of the dropped welder thumping of the metal cover.

But Hamish didn't. He used his last round and shot the chef clean in the chest. He dropped dead. Tasper ran over and grabbed Hamish's shoulder. His face melted. “Shit,” he blurted.

Hamish snapped again and swung the butt of the gun into Tasper's jaw. He fell backwards. “First you tell me Laswald is dead and then you conspire against us!?” he roared in a fit of boiling rage. His face and expression filled with red, his brows squinted with a stabbing stare as an uncontrollable fury began to wash over the MI6 agent.

Tasper held up his palms in a show of submission. “Listen, I can explain. He worked for the Kremlin-,” then a sudden smack of Hamish's gun hushed him. Blood spurted out of his mouth and spat over the ground as he rolled with the thunderous pelt.

“I've had enough of your childish games!” Hamish continued as his right foot moved to wedge into Tasper’s neck.

Smoke and embers billowed and sparked from the inferno below. Tasper attempted to grip Hamish’s leg in a moment of panic induced desperation. The heat was starting to lift up along his back, the ledge was right behind him. A raging inferno, an eighty-foot drop. A most certain death. His face was fear, a silent beg for understanding.

Laswald picked herself up and vaulted in an attempt to prevent Hamish from striking again. “Hamish, stop!”

But Hamish resisted her plea. He didn’t listen. Any mercy refused as he slipped into his self-indulged anger that had to be seen through. He drew his foot back and threw an almighty strike. Laswald fell into Hamish’s back with her arms tugging. Her heave to drag him away. Anything in an attempt to prevent the agent’s execution. But it was too late. Tasper was gone. Walloped clean over the edge into the smouldering furnace of smoke below.

“Hamish, why!?” Laswald continued.

Hamish didn’t say a word. He only resisted her tug and glanced down to the depleted MP5 he gripped with a loosening palm. Then he threw over behind Tasper. And then a sigh, he turned and paced past Laswald. “Help me check to see if Sid is alright.”

“You just murdered Tasper!” Laswald cried out.

Hamish turned back sharply towards the CIA agent. “And what about your emotional outburst down there!” Hamish roared in return as he pointed his index finger down in a violent shake towards the smouldering fire below. “He betrayed us!”

Laswald shed another tear, her head waived with a wipe of her hand across her reddening eyes. Hamish waited for her to speak, but she didn't. He turned away and crouched next to the concrete rim of the trench. With a slip and a vault downwards he fumbled over towards Sid. He checked his pulse. He was still breathing.

“Help me get Sid over to the other side,” Hamish said as he gripped both arms in an attempt to hoist upwards.

Laswald skidded down and grabbed one of Sid's arms. They both heaved him upwards and over to the other ridge on the other side overlooking the expanse of Pacific ocean. The sight was freedom. An escape. The sunshine danced within the crisp splash and roll of the oceans deep blue rhythmic roar as it waved and crashed against the damming wall below.

An old cable had been wrapped and tied to the stem of a satellite dish that Hamish knew must have been prepared by Tasper. He had expected to dive the enormous height, but it was a welcomed answer to lowing the unconscious agent. They did and with a wrap of it around Sid and Laswald, Hamish gently lowered them to the churning water below. The noise of unsettling screams and sirens gently faded as he started to lower himself down the other side of the concrete behemoth.

Hamish had finally escaped the Projects parameters and with a touch of the ocean he braced Laswald with help to support Sid from sinking beneath. They gasped with the salts sting against their fiery wounds as they lay backwards. Laswald locked her right arm with Hamish's left as Sid rested on top of their grip. They then kicked vigorously and swept with their free arm. The water splashed and sputtered with each deep breath they drew to power themselves further from the wall.

Hamish glanced over to the main entrances dock to their far right as they paddled further away. He couldn’t see anyone, the front door was still sealed shut. Even without his glasses on he could see that there wasn't even a ferry or boat stationed at the jetty. Those that were still inside were trapped. At mercy to the released nightmare that had just swept behind them in a thunderous onslaught of machined flesh. But his mission was complete, and with another gasp as he drew in a breath for a kick against the sweeping waves a bucketing splash alerted the agents to their rear. The submarine arose from the depths and washed over them with a frothing white wash. They smiled and spat the taste of salt from their mouths as they clambered on board and heaved Sid with them.

Hamish lay backwards as he gasped happily and in relief. He was about to go home. Laswald joined him in he moment of pure euphoria with a hug and embrace. It was over. And then a hatch door walloped and thudded open. An American service man appeared. He checked and counted. “Where's Agent Tasper?” he questioned.

Hamish froze with a spike of his posture. He couldn’t explain, not right now. Not without a justifiable reason. He turned with a look of worry towards Laswald. Her look was that of trust. She responded “MIA.”