The shooting continued, following him closely, but the Active Skeleton he was wearing helped him leap away. Sam threw some hematic grenades in an attempt to blind his attackers. He knew that showering terrorists in that precious blood of his was unlikely to do much, but the only weapons he really had at hand were supposed to be for the BTs, so they would have to do. At least if he left any corpses here, he would have the tools on hand to deal with them before they had the chance to turn.
As the splatter of Sam’s blood blinded his pursuers, Sam ran at full speed for the snowfield.
The pain in his left knee had now completely disappeared as the Active Skeleton forced his legs to move whether they hurt or not.
An electromagnetic shot fired into the snow. MULEs used the same weaponry, so that meant these attackers must have been MULEs once. Having succumbed to their Porter Syndrome, they had transformed into Homo gestalts and were moving according to somebody else’s will. Sam threw himself into the shadow of the first boulder he found and caught his breath, but his attackers were already scanning the field and were soon moving in. Sam heard another voice. It belonged to a man equipped with different weaponry—an Odradek on his shoulder and a BB pod on his chest. He must have been the leader. If Sam could take him out then he might be able to escape.
Sam felt another cramp in his gut. Lou was terrified. Clutching the pod close with one hand, Sam stared at the apparent leader. The umbilical cord connecting the man to his pod was emitting a heat like it was aflame. This was the man who Lou was so scared of.
Once it had all clicked in Sam’s head, the man’s Odradek immediately burst to life, spinning wildly. At the same time, Lou began to scream. The man’s Odradek formed into a cross shape and pointed in Sam’s direction. It was like Sam and Lou were the BTs for once. Lou was twisting and turning inside the pod and kicking at its walls. Was Lou what they were after? The BB pod on the man’s chest began to emit a reddish-black light. It must have contained a BB. Did that mean that the BBs were resonating with one another?
The man screamed an indescribable sound once more and burst into a sprint. The four others followed behind, plowing their way through the snow. Sam forgot about Lou for the moment and fired his bola gun. The bindings, which were double-ended with counterweights, flew through the air and wrapped themselves around the legs of the man in front. As the man fell face-first into the snow, the electric shock emitted by the bola bindings should have knocked him out.
Sam set the output of his Active Skeleton legs to max and made another run for it. Jumping and dashing along the way, Sam aimed for the crevasse. It was like he wasn’t in his own body. He had no feeling in his legs at all. What if something was broken? He couldn’t stop now.
The Active Skeleton only had a little bit of power left, so Sam needed to put as much distance between himself and the men as possible before they gave out.
A belt of rocks came into view. The pinnacle-shaped boulders were around the same height as him and were huddled tightly together.
Sam’s pursuers had called off the chase for the time being. Sam could still see where they were and they were no longer running. That being said, they were still closing in at a steady pace. They must have been homing in on Lou to detect the pair.
Sam tried to take a step forward, but the Active Skeleton made a warning sound. The battery was completely depleted. As Sam released the legs, he was reminded of his own body weight and tried his hardest not to succumb to the pain in his knee. It felt like he was standing on a different planet. One with gravity several times stronger than Earth. Every step felt extraordinarily heavy compared to moments ago, and the distance he had tried so hard to put between him and Lou and their attackers was shrinking by the second. Sam dragged his heavy body, trying to convince himself with each passing inch not to panic.
As he got closer to the rocks, he saw that the boulders were shaped like spirals, almost as if they had been twisted out of the ground by giants. Or maybe they were more like trees that just looked boulder-like on the surface. In any case, it felt like he was entering a rock forest.
Sam felt a presence. Huddling behind a rock, he took a rope into his hand. It didn’t matter that it was supposed to be for packing cargo. If an assailant approached, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it on them, too. At least it would be more useful in close-quarter combat than any firearm would be.
Sam focused all his attention on the sounds around him and awaited the enemy. His and Lou’s pursuers would have a hard time spotting him in here. He noticed as the approaching footsteps seemed to falter. Sam half-rose from behind the rock and sprung behind one of the men. Clutching each end of the rope, Sam slipped it around the man’s neck, tightening the pressure on the man’s carotid artery. Unable to fight back, the man slumped into unconsciousness.
It looked like Lou was still afraid, but had calmed down a little compared to before. This was still far from over, though, and Sam began to worry about the relay equipment that he had left in place. Their attackers might choose to destroy the equipment over killing Sam if the latter proved too difficult. Sam needed to prepare for that possibility.
Several meters away, the man with the Odradek who Sam considered their leader, along with the two other attackers, were advancing back-to-back. Sam jumped out from behind the rock, exposing himself to the danger, and without a moment’s hesitation the men broke their battle formation and launched into an attack. As the bullets flew toward Sam, he shot back with his bola gun, sending bola bindings flying through the gaps between the rocks. He didn’t manage to take any of the men down, but one did get hit by the weight on the end of the bola bindings right in the pit of the stomach.
Now there were two men left in front of him. Bullets were whizzing past Sam as he threw another hematic grenade toward a boulder. He wasn’t throwing it for the effect of his blood but for the power of its blast. The boulder was tipped with a large, open red flower, and it was smashed into rubble by the explosion, showering the enemy with small pebbles mixed with Sam’s blood. The two men let out bestial screams as the blood rained down on them, and began shooting wildly in every direction. Sam shot his bola gun in the shadow of the rocks, sweeping one of the men off his feet as planned.
Now there was just one left. The man with the Odradek threw away his gun and charged. He had his electric spear in hand and was screaming inhuman screams. The tip of the spear gave off a white electrical charge. It was aimed straight for Sam. Sam hurled himself directly at the man’s chest.
Their shoulders crashed into one another and a sharp, numbing pain rushed up Sam’s neck. The attacker must have felt the same pain as he dropped his spear. But the man pulled back half a step and landed a kick right in Sam’s knee. The pain made Sam gasp. He lost his balance and began to fall. He reached his hands out to stop himself, but unable to reach anything, Sam simply fell onto his back. The air in his lungs had been completely knocked out and he couldn’t even groan in pain. The man kicked Sam in the side and sat on top of him. He squeezed down on Sam’s neck with one hand and grabbed a knife with the other. Sam couldn’t move a muscle and Lou began to shriek again.
The other man’s BB pod was right in front of Sam’s face.
The man was stronger than Sam had imagined. The man’s knees were like vices digging into Sam’s armpits. Sam’s ribs were making worrying noises. It felt like they were going to buckle any second. The man continued to strengthen his grip around Sam’s neck, until Sam could no longer breathe. He could feel the world becoming distant. He knew that if he couldn’t break free then he would go into cardiopulmonary arrest. Or at the very least, his tibia was going to shatter. Lou continued to scream.