DINO EATER (18)

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Re: DINO EATER (8)

Post by Malchus »

Awesome repost, Shroom. The 13/Fidel duel is as cool as ever, as was Fidel incapacitating/killing all those Brazilian mercs.

Oh, and just because you'd do it( :P ): AMY-CHAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!

EDIT:
Shroom Man 777 wrote:My auntie got eaten by a giant flying squid.
:D :D :D Poor merc auntie.
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Re: DINO EATER (8)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The flickering firelight splayed out against the darkness of the night, a warm yellow-orange glow that danced and diffused intricate shadows on the camo-patterned tents and the surrounding trees. Someone threw a log into the fire, disrupting the hypnotic fire-trance and sending burning embers flying through the air.

The embers blew past Fidel’s face and once more, the dancing shadows and light played across his dirt-stained visage.

“Where… the hell… am I?” Fidel muttered groggily as he returned to the land of the living. He found himself leaning on a tree, his arms behind his back, wrists bound by handcuffs.

Someone walked up to him, his form silhouetted by the shifting light, his face shrouded in shadow. “You are in hell,” he said menacingly. “And I am the devil.”

Fidel was about to laugh when a fist broke his nose. He grunted in pain and tried to breathe through his mouth, spitting out blood that flowed down from his nose and over his lips.

“My name is Eduadro,” the man said before he backhanded Fidel’s face. “What’s your name?”

Fidel didn’t say anything. Instead, he focused his attention on the campfire behind the man, watched the flames dance, the embers fly as wind blew by. Another fist smashed his face. And another. Again and again, for minutes on end until Eduadro apparently hurt both his hands.

Fidel spat at the ground and grinned wickedly at his torturer, blood leaked from his mouth, his bloodstained teeth glowing in the firelight.

Eduadro kicked Fidel in the gut, twice, making Fidel retch. Before he could, Eduadro grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head back, so that his own vomit would spill over his face.

“Raulo says you called yourself Fidel Castro,” Eduadro mocked as Fidel gurgled in his own fluids. “Are you one of the communistas? Do you have any friends in the jungle, or were you just hiking all by your lonesome?”

He released his hold and Fidel gasped and coughed as his head lolled down. Before he could resume breathing, he received another blow, this time a face full of uppercut that jerked his head backwards and upwards, sending a spray of blood and spit fountaining out his mouth and nose.

“Raul was one of the guys in the camp you didn’t kill. You see, they were my amigos, and after what you did to them…” Eduadro paused for a while as he snapped Fidel’s nose back to its proper position, before breaking it again with his palm. He leaned forward, placing his face near Fidel’s. “I’m going to enjoy returning the favor.”

Fidel replied. By biting a bloody chunk of meat and skin off Eduadro’s cheek.

“You bitch!” Eduadro screamed as he staggered back and shielded his face. “I’m going to kill you!”

Fidel laughed. A loud and boisterous laugh that was reduced to chuckling and then snickering and then, finally, painful coughing, as Eduadro pulled out something hard and struck Fidel with it. Bits of torn skin were torn off Fidel’s face as Eduadro brutalized him for a few more minutes, just a little while longer. Then the mercenary torturer took a couple of breaks in between, and a couple of his friends took his place for a while before he returned with a field dressing on his face and resumed his work.

“This pistol is a good one,” Eduadro commented as he wiped bits of Fidel off his makeshift club, holding the .45’s silencer like a handle. “I saw the rest of your stuff too, they’re really fancy. I think I’m going to keep them. Do you think that white guy will let me keep them?”

Fidel spat something bloody out of his mouth, it landed on the dirt. It was a piece of Eduadro’s cheek. “I think you should keep that first,” Fidel smiled.

“You know, it doesn’t matter if you don’t tell us who you’re working for, where the rest of your friends are hiding in the jungle, what you’re doing here. We’re going to kill you anyway,” Eduadro sneered as he slammed the pistol-butt against the side of Fidel’s face, near his eye.

Fidel grunted in pain as he felt something dislodge from his eye socket in a way that pushed swelling, bruised meat against his eyeball. Another blow, and he felt the steel butt of his pistol once again smash against the side of his skull, sending a wave of pain and dizziness throughout his head, bypassing the cranium and going sharply into his brain.

Eduadro shoved the pistol into a pocket and unsheathed his machete. “I’m gonna take pleasure in gutting you, hombre.”

“Enough,” a voice from the back said and even in his brutalized state, Fidel could still make out that pale albinic visage emerging from the darkness. A black-armored gauntlet grabbed Eduadro’s hand, the one that held the machete, and gripped hard.

“Alright, alright!” Eduadro winced as he withdrew his blade and rubbed his wrist. “If you want a go at him, be my guest!”

“No,” the albino said. “Finish up with him, and then transfer him into a cell. Alive.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Eduadro nodded as the albino disappeared, back to wherever he came from. “You hear that, Mr. Castro? You’re one lucky bastard.”

Fidel felt the steel-toed boot slam up between his legs and the vicious pain that came with it. He closed his teary eyes, but didn’t scream.

His breathing was ragged and his head hung loosely, neck painful and tired and slacked. He tried to look at the fire, to concentrate his attention on the dancing flame and the floating embers, but he couldn’t. His eyes were too bruised to open. As his torturer, Eduadro, laughed aloud, and as his laughter was joined by those of the other mercenary spectators, Fidel could hear a silent noise that was beneath their sadistic merriments but steadily growing louder.

It sounded unlike a helicopter rotor; it was too silent and too different. The Major said there was a lot of air traffic coming into the jungle, helicopters. This wasn’t a helicopter. Turbofans, a VTOL aircraft.

Someone was coming.



The day was hot. It was noon and high above the cloudless sky, the sun bathed all in near-scorching light. They were all sweating like pigs, and to make matters worse, the sand was burning hot. Even with helmets and battle bandanas on, soldiers and civilians alike felt their heads fry, and even with combat boots, they could all feel the heat rising from underfoot like an oven roast.

Young private Fidel Castro was severely tempted to run away from the assembled formation and jump into the sea.

“…and so the gringos and the bourgeoisie want to bring down our country? I say let them come! Let them come! The men and women of Cuba, brave soldiers all, you my friends, will protect our homeland, our humble island, from those greedy capitalist pig dogs of America!” El Jefe, the Presidente,
Commandante Fidel Castro declared angrily and loudly, his voice heard by all despite the absence of microphones or speakers. For the fiftieth time in his hour-long speech, he angrily raised a fist to the air and then brought it down again mightily. “They have tried to assassinate me so many times that I have lost count, but I know that even if their treacheries succeed in killing me, you my brothers and sisters will continue on the great fight for freedom! The working class’ struggle against the exploitation and oppression of the West!

“The world is watching our humble island, Cuba, so small right beside the fat decadence of the United States of America! From Angola to Moscow to Zanzibar, they watch us as we bravely soldier on in our never-ending fight for equality, and our bravery inspires our allies in communist and socialist states all over the globe. Even in nations ruled by the capitalists, we bring hope to those who want to free themselves from their aristocratic masters! What you do everyday, the struggle of your families and your children, is proof that in the end, Cuba will triumph!”

Fidel clapped his hands along with the hundred or so wildly applauding soldiers and staff assembled before the President of Cuba, who stood atop the hood of the jeep in an imposing sight before the beachside Tesla coil that protected their base from any American treachery. In fact, Fidel realized, Fidel Castro looked probably taller than the tower of lightning itself.

After the applause died down, after the men were allowed to disperse to resume their duties, Fidel decided to go behind the barracks, where it was shady and closer to the beach and the breeze. He produced a cigarette and rummaged his pockets for some matches. He had none, but someone else handed him a light.

“Gracias,” Fidel nodded to the man in fatigues who held out the lighter. “Man, what a day. Who’d think El Jefe would come over to our little base and -” he stopped talking as recognition struck him. Immediately, the cigarette fell out of his mouth. “Wait… oh… shi-! I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you, sir!”

Fidel straightened up so fast that his spine hurt, and then he gave a parade-ground quality salute.

“Relax, boy,” Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, laughed at the young soldier’s awkwardness. “I’m just out for a smoke, just like you. I don’t have enough breath for another hour-long lecture, and while my generals are busy talking to those ‘Moscow-trained’ Tesla technicians, I decided to take a break. How about this heat, eh?”

After a short while, words finally entered Fidel’s mind and mouth. “Yes sir, it gets really hot this time of day. The men take their siestas in the barracks, but it gets so full and hot that the officers go out and rest on hammocks instead.”

Castro laughed and clapped the young Fidel on the shoulder. “Is that so? Then maybe we should get your base some air conditioning. What do you think?”

“I think that would be great, sir,” Fidel smiled. He was about to bend down to pick up his dropped cigarette when Castro stopped him.

“No,” Castro said, gently pushing Fidel back as he stepped on the cigarette. Fidel was worried, maybe the Commandante was testing him and he had failed, or maybe he had somehow offended the Presidente, but he grew even more confused when Castro produced a long brown cigar, which he gave to him. “Here, have a cigar.”

“Sir… thank you… sir!” once more, Fidel saluted the commander-in-chief of Cuba.

“So, what’s your name, soldier?” Castro said as he lit Fidel’s cigar.

“My name is Fidel Castro, sir.”

“Oh?”




Around the treeless patch of flattened ground, amidst the jungle canopy that went around the makeshift helipad, leaves and branches swayed violently as something suddenly emerged from the sky. It was large and dark, with a fuselage harshly angled to shroud itself from radar, and a hull devoid of any markings save for that of a stylized triangle over a wire frame globe: the EVIL corporate logo.

The air was filled with the faint noise of wingtip-mounted turbofans, sounding like a harshly whispering banshee’s wail, and as the hoverplane began touching down, the eerie noise only grew more prominent and audible, but for some reason not really louder, as the craft made its strangely gracile descent. Mere feet from the ground, segments of its underbelly revealed extending landing gear that snapped open, forming landing skis as the plane touched down. Dust and leaves were blown all over before the turbofans silenced, and then it became quiet.

The passenger cabin’s doors opened with a hiss, and from the bottom of the opening, metal stairs folded out to facilitate the exit of the craft’s passengers.

From the dimly lit interior of the hoverplane came a metallic foot that stomped hard on the aluminum stairway. The owner of the metal foot exited the craft, his form barely fitting through the doorway, cybernetic limbs whirring as he strode down the stairway and finally planted his feet on terra firma. His head surveyed what was before him, his intense gaze going from left to right like a lighthouse, the iris of his ocular implants contracting and then dilating to adjust to the low-light conditions.

Before him was a regiment of grey-suited EVIL henchmen, armed with grease guns and clad in hardhats, and with them was a cadre of mercenaries with an assortment of armaments. The latter were clearly discomforted at the sight of the cybernetic organism before them, which wasn’t helped by the fact that the cyborg had a very dangerous looking cannon for an arm.

In the middle of the henchmen and the mercs were the leaders of the Corporation’s secret jungle lair, standing from left to right: Donald Dennaro, Jacque Thornier, Natasha Dementieva, Oktavia Boyer, and Number 13.

The albino met the gaze of the cyborg’s blood red oculars with his own unnaturally cold cobalt blue eyes. At this standoff between the strange cyborg and their own boss, the Brazilian mercs grew apprehensive, and the safeties of various rifles were switched off while rocket propelled grenades were primed for ignition. Just in case.

Natasha stepped in front of 13 and looked the cyborg up. “Deadbolt… aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Not necessarily,” came a voice from behind the cyborg killing machine, and from the hoverplane, another figure emerged, an aging man dressed in expensive formal clothing. The cyborg stepped aside for him and he smiled. “Hello, Natasha.”

“Mr. Hunt,” Natasha nodded politely. “Welcome to the Amazon.”

The other leaders straightened up, and at their reactions, the henchmen and the mercs (who barely had a clue as to what was going on) followed suit, some of the latter even going so far as to salute the apparently high-ranking newcomers.

“At ease, gentlemen,” Mr. Marcus Elliot Hunt said pleasantly, addressing everyone. Once more, he smiled at Natasha and Number 13. “My aide, Mr. Deadbolt here, was recovered and salvaged from that tragedy over at the Atlantic last month.”

“When the British attacked one of our oil rig lairs,” Natasha noted.

“Yes, and since Deadbolt quite nearly gave his life defending our assets, and since he also signed up for the arch-henchman life insurance package, we reactivated him and gave him some upgrades for being such a model employee,” Hunt explained pleasantly. “Oh, and we brought company.”

“Company?” Number 13 asked, though it barely sounded like a question.

“Yes, I’ve recently employed a group of specialists for the Corporation. Maybe they can be of some use here,” Hunt answered.

Just then, the rear cargo doors of the hoverplane opened wide with a hiss. From the cavernous recesses of the plane’s interior came a group of five, four men and a woman. The Corporation’s Problem Solvers.

As they made their way down the ramp, Natasha looked at them curiously while 13 regarded them coldly. One of them wore a crimson black ninja outfit, while another was in an advanced skinsuit with a goggled spymask, the former had two sheathed swords strapped to his back while the latter was cradling a massive rifle. Another was unarmed and clad in a leather jacket and tattered jeans, he wore aviator sunglasses and chewed gum, and alongside him was the woman, she was carrying a large and heavy kitbag with one hand. Behind them was a much younger man wearing a baseball cap. 13 couldn’t help but snort ever so slightly.

“They might be of assistance to you,” Hunt offered. “The ninja is Arachnid, one of the world’s premier assassins. The man with the big gun is the Reckoner, a phenomenal marksman, a sniper prodigy. John Doe is the Slinger, a gunslinger who doesn’t need a gun, and Ms. Lilac is a proverbial femme fatale. And last but not the least, young Mr. Coleman here is a gifted boy with many special talents, or so I’ve heard.”

“Coincidently, we’ve captured an intruder just a short while ago, Mr. Hunt,” Dennaro butted in, trying to be helpful and trying to impress his boss. “13 was planning to interrogate him after your arrival.”

“In that case, I think it would be more convenient if we let Mr. Coleman do the interrogation while we get over to business, wouldn’t it? We have important things to discuss.”

13 nodded.

“The prisoner is held not too far from here,” Dennaro said, talking quickly. He pointed at a merc with a brown bandana. “You, take him to the prisoner.”

As the young man in the baseball cap was led by the merc with the brown bandana, Marcus Elliot Hunt turned to face Doctor Thornier. “Now Jacque, I believe you have some dinosaurs to show me.”



The room was damp and warm. The humidity was probably why they removed everything stored in it and locked Fidel inside it, turning the storeroom into a makeshift cell. There were two chairs and a table, all made out of stainless steel, but Fidel sat himself down the floor in a dark corner and licked his wounds.

Outside, he could hear the footsteps and footfalls of the guards. Two of them, one standing right outside the door, another pacing slightly further away.

Fidel tried to open his eyes, a painful process that took him several minutes. Each attempt was more painful than the last, until finally, Fidel stopped trying. One of his eyes, the right, could open, if just partially. The one to the left… it might need some field surgery if he planned on using both eyes any time soon. There was too much swelling, he was practically blind.

He tried not to concentrate on that, the fact that he couldn’t see anything but blurry light and shadows. He tried to stand, but sore muscles all over his body protested his every effort. He exhaled painfully, and collapsed back to his corner. Even breathing, a most basic task, was hard… the muscles of his torso were bruised and beaten, some ribs were probably broken as well, he could feel pain stabbing into the side of his chest.

His arms were cuffed behind his back. Steel handcuffs, he couldn’t break them, at least not without breaking his hands in turn. The next half hour was spent trying to pull his hands out of the cuffs, to wrench them free even if it meant damaging to his wrists and hands. He stopped when his wrist were starting to bleed.

That wouldn’t work, but Fidel knew what would. He couldn’t free his hands from the cuffs, but he could do something about his arms being behind his back. If his body was flexible enough, he could fold his legs and maneuver his hands under them and, ultimately, have his arms back in front of his body. He would still be cuffed, restrained, but it would improve his situation.

But then what? The cell was locked from the outside, there were guards posted, and he was barely in any condition to fight. He was blind, his whole body was a bloody pulp, he could barely breathe without hurting. He wasn’t even sure if he could walk right, or if he’d just end up staggering like a drunk, eventually falling face first to the ground. His nose was broken, he had to breathe from his mouth and with every breath, he tasted blood from inside him.

He coughed, felt pain jutting inwards from his side, he spat, coughed again and spat some more, lung spasms wracking, broken body hurting, breath ragged, sweat dripping…

Fidel had served Cuba’s Special Forces for a decade. Now that he was old and the Cold War was over, he was the last one serving, the last one standing. The others, there were no others. They didn’t retire or get commendations, they were dead and buried.

He couldn’t see anything.



From mounts on its torso came searchlights, beams of bright white light that swept from side to side. The massive predatory head, an amalgamation of steel and scale with mechanical eyes that glowed so slightly, glared at them with a cold reptilian intelligence, with its maw of titanium-reinforced teeth, hydraulic-enhanced jaws, and armored cables and joints opening wide as its nostrils flared.

Many of the watchers stepped backwards, including Natasha herself. She looked to her left and saw Dennaro slowly backing away, the smile on his face mixed with more than just a tinge of hesitation and fear. To her left, 13 was looking at the cyborg Allosaurian killing machine like how a person would consider a particularly impressive weapon – albeit one that was being pointed in an unsafe direction.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Doctor Jacque Thornier said. His face, Natasha could see, was filled with exquisite glee. Like a child with his first science project. He was directly in front of the cyborg Allosaurus, his back towards it so he could face his audience. “The dominant superpredator of the Jurassic Period outfitted with bleeding edge weaponry, the culmination of reptilian evolution and human technology!”

To punctuate this, the Allosaurus opened its cybernetic maw and let out a mighty roar, like that of a turbojet blasting out its afterburners. A gust of hot wind that smelled of sepsis and engine grease blew back those who hadn’t jumped in fright, forcing everyone to shield themselves from the bellow. As it roared for a good minute and a half, the Allosaurus stomped both its feet firmly into the ground, causing the earth to shake. And then, with a sound like that of a blade being unsheathed, a massive railgun extended from its dorsal weapons mount while shoulder cannons and rocket pods of all make and model rose out of strategic locations on its hyperalloy combat chassis, accompanied by all sorts of mechanical clicking, whining and whirring sounds.

“Gentlemen, behold!” Thornier declared, quoting the catchphrase of a certain mad scientist. “The dino-tech weapon that will bring the EVIL Corporation into the 21st century!”

There was laughter and applause.

“Impressive, most impressive,” Marcus Elliot Hunt clapped his hands as he walked forward towards Thornier and the dinosaur. The both of them casually stood before the massive cybernetic killing-machine and began to converse. “I’m glad that all those years of research and development weren’t a waste of corporate resources and monies, Thornier.”

With his arms spread, Doctor Thornier bowed gracefully.

“However, I’ve read Dennaro’s reports and your files extensively, and so I know very well the current operational status of all the Allosaur prototypes. They are quite a sight to behold firsthand, but I came here not for a project that has been monitored since it’s inception,” Hunt said for all of them to hear. “I came to inspect our more recent acquisitions.”

“The genetic material stol-” Dennaro, being a lawyer, quickly corrected himself. “Ah, I mean, liberated from GenInc. before the company’s tragic mishap.”

“Indeed,” Hunt nodded. “Delivered by the lovely Ms. Dementieva. I trust her services were quite satisfactory, Jacque?”

“Quite,” the scientist slicked his hair and adjusted his clothes. “Very well,” he said as he led the group to the mobile command-trailer that served as their makeshift tour bus. “We shall go to the laboratory.”
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: DINO EATER (9-10)

Post by Malchus »

So many good things making a comeback in this chapter: Fidel Castro, FACE EATER!; the Fidel meets the Fidel memory; the arrival of the problem solvers on site, and the whole "BEHOLD, OUR LATEST WEAPON!" scene for the benefit of Hunt and his entourage.

I eagerly await the rest of the reinstallments.
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Re: DINO EATER (9-10)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

It was the rainy season, thunder rumbled in the blackened sky as heavy raindrops poured down from the firmament to batter the canopy with audible force. The jungle was soaked and miserable as the downpour continued, stormy winds joining in to blow trees and branches out of shape.

“Welcome to Camp Mantanzas,” a scarred man with an eyepatch said. Arranged around him were men and women from all over the globe, revolutionaries from over ten countries – all huddled in groups and wearing raincoats. Palestinians, Colombians, Venezuelans, even a few from Ireland. There were also Cubans among them, of course. “Here, you will receive Vietnamese tactics training, which all of you will no doubt use to further your noble causes. However, your instructors here will teach you more than just Vietnamese tactics, we will teach you how to fight like a soldier.

“How to fight like a soldier… that is the only thing we can teach you. We can’t teach you how to think like a soldier, that is something you’ll have to learn by yourself, or die trying. We also can’t instill upon you the spirit of a soldier, but I’m sure most of you are already well motivated. So here today, we will be teaching you fighting techniques. Call me Major Muerte… you don’t need to know my real name, and I don’t need to know yours either.”

Everyone watched him carefully. “By fighting techniques, you probably expect firearms training. You are wrong. We will start from the fundamentals, and the fundamental fighting technique is not how to fire a gun. It’s hand-to-hand combat, the basis of all warfare,” he pointed at someone. “You there, come up here and fight me.”

Fidel got up and walked over to the Major.

“Try your best to kill me.”

Fidel drew his machete and lunged at the man.

“Pathetic.”

Fidel screamed in pain as the Major snapped his arm. He dropped the blade and fell face first into the cold mud.




The jeep bounced on the rocky road and landed on a puddle of mud, causing muck to spray all over the sides and the windshield.

“Ah puta,” cursed Eduadro, touching his bandaged cheek before turning on the windshield wipers. “Watch out for the mud.”

Ted Coleman grunted as he pulled out his baseball cap from his black coat and covered his raven black hair with it protectively.

“Nice hat,” the Brazilian merc pointed out, trying to get conversational.

Ted shrugged.

Eduadro struggled with the wheel, maneuvering the jeep to avoid other puddles and rocky bumps. Every time the car shook hard and he gritted his teeth, his cheek would hurt bad. “Anyway, we’re almost -”

“What’s his name?” Ted cut him off.

“What?”

“His name,” the young man repeated himself, regarding Eduardo curiously. “The captive.”

“He calls himself Fidel Castro,” Eduadro replied, avoiding the kid’s eyes and trying to keep his own on the road.

“And he bit the skin off your cheek?”

“Yes, the fucker did,” Eduadro growled. Then he laughed viciously. “But that kick I gave him after, it nearly turned him into Fidel Castrati!”

As the Brazilian laughed, Ted mused on the captive called Fidel Castro – and on the prospects of torturing him, body and mind. He lowered the front of his cap and smiled as its shadow covered his face.

Young Theodore Coleman was a man who had nothing, whose life was reduced to ashes when his father went mad and started setting things on fire with his mind. Nevertheless, Ted had managed to find way to live modestly – at the expense of other people’s lives, but still, he survived. He was gifted, and that gift was solely his, a talent he used to exploit other people, to make them hurt and make them bleed, leaving them for dead, just like how they had left him. They all had names and faces, wants and needs, but to him, they were all miserable little shits, and after he was through with them, they were all the same – covered in their own blood and excrement, fear lingering in their minds and hearts as their last breaths left their lungs.

He was young, and like all people of his age, he had to choose his destiny - his career. He had found employment, working for those who were like him, those who would exploit others for an easy buck. He found it agreeable, as human beings were all worthless specks, except for him of course. But because he was a gifted young man, these Corporates found him and presented him with an opportunity, a very lucrative one at that. And how could he refuse?

He would chance it, like any other young man his age trying to find a lot in life. If it went well, he would get a good job with the Corporation and be set for the rest of his life with a mutually profitable contract and a great health plan. If it didn’t, he could always go back to America, back to Crowtalon City.

He would rip through the thoughts out of this man called Fidel Castro, bleed his brains out with a clean cut, and if the Corporates liked his handiwork, then he would be set.

He smiled. He knew it would go well.

Eduadro stopped the jeep. “We’re-”

“Here,” Ted muttered as he opened the door and stepped out. He strode forward, towards the small concrete building, opened the door and entered.

“He’s with me,” Eduadro told the pair of guards who immediately brought their guns up to bear on the new arrivals. “He’ll be visiting our guest.”

The two henchmen smiled and nodded in understanding. They opened the thick metal door and walked into the cell. Eduadro and Ted followed them.

There, a mess of a man was sitting on the floor in the far corner of the room. He was shirtless, covered in sweat and dirt, his scarred chest heaving up and down, arms cuffed behind his back. There was a table and two chairs in the middle of the cell.

“Put him on the chair,” Ted uttered. “Leave us.”

They closed the door.

Ted removed his cap and placed his black overcoat on the empty chair. He smiled at the man called Fidel Castro.

“I am Ted Coleman…” he began, spreading his arms dramatically. “The Bloodsucker!”

The captive looked at him with bruised eyes, barely able to get them to open. He looked at the young man, up and down, and then he laughed. It was a sincere laugh, he chuckled and barked and coughed and hacked and spat and continued on laughing. It obviously came from deep down.

Ted Coleman scowled at the captive’s impudence. His hand reached into the air and curled into a fist.

Fidel Castro stopped laughing. He convulsed once, convulsed twice, and then vomited a pool of black blood onto the steel table in front of him. It obviously came from deep down.

“Let’s begin, shall we?” Ted Coleman said nonchalantly.



The jungle had encroached upon the exterior of the facility, its façade of glass and steel, marble and concrete, now not so different from some ancient ruin lost to the jungle – its intricate surface of Art Deco architecture now infringed upon by leaves, vines and lichen. However, its exterior was only that, a façade.

Inside, lab technicians supervised the functions of advanced medical machineries, from tiny centrifuges that spun vials of bioluminescent liquid, to refrigerators containing all sorts of genetic materials, to supercomputer consoles and holo-projectors.

“Pardon the rather… unkempt state of the facility’s exterior, sir,” head-engineer Oktavia Boyer apologized. “Some of the reclaimed facilities were completely refurbished, including Site A, which is the main lair where your lodgings are located. But the other sites… we decided to forgo superficial aesthetics and focus on our main projects.”

“That’s alright, Mrs. Boyer,” Mr. Hunt said with an understanding tone. “But when it is time for our client overlord, Mr. Parker, to have his lair, the place should be a little tidied up.”

“Of course,” she nodded.

“I will see to it personally,” Dennaro said, butting in. “Now, Jacque, show Mr. Hunt your latest creation.”

“Yes, indeed,” the scientist slicked his hair, adjusted his glasses, and then pressed a large blue button on a nearby console. “Behold, sir!”

There was a hiss as the wall of fogged glass behind Jacque Thornier gradually became transparent, revealing what was hidden behind it.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “What… is it?”

There, behind the glass wall and within a fluid-filled cylinder, was a fetal reptiloid form. Its eyes were closed solemnly, its cranium heavy and dome-like, its body slightly larger than that of an adult human’s. Its curled body made near-imperceptible movements that betrayed its living nature. Attached to its abdomen was a thick coiling tube that pulsed rhythmically – in sync with the ECG monitors that hung from the ceiling. That biomechanical umbilical cord was connected to the reptilian’s belly by a plug, and from that plug came sub-dermal wiring extending forth throughout the thing’s body, directly beneath the reptile’s pale translucent skin.

“It is a Pachycephalosaurus,” Thornier said, placing an open palm on the glass.

“A what?” Dennaro’s mouth was wider than it should’ve been. No doubt the fetal dinosaurian wasn’t what he was expecting to present to his superior. He looked at the dinosaur, then at Thornier, and then at Mr. Hunt.

“A Pachycephalosaurus,” Thornier repeated himself. “A bipedal herbivore of the Cretaceous period.”

“And why would we want herbivores?” Dennaro asked, confused by the fact that the fetal dinosaurian wasn’t some kind of man-eating carnosaurian killing machine. If Mr. Hunt was disappointed by that fact, then he would distance himself as best he could and have no part in Thornier’s failure -

“Because some of the shareholders were getting worried,” Mr. Hunt answered in place of Thornier. “Man-eating cyborg killing machines are always in high demand, whether they are weaponized dinosaurs or hyperintelligent sharks, but they’re rather expensive. Paying for our henchmen is costly enough.”

“Thank you, sir. A Pachycephalosaurus would be more affordable and maintainable than an Allosaurus. Its smaller frame also makes it more transportable,” Thornier spoke. “And yet, look at the skull. The Pachycephalosaurus engaged rivals and predators with its thick head, making it a resilient beast. And its bipedal build makes it compatible with the weapon-systems we’ve designed for the also-bipedal Allosaurs. All it needs is a little downsizing.”

Mr. Hunt smiled. “So for our clients who can’t afford cyborg superpredators, they can settle with these more affordable things.”

“You knew all about this, sir?” Dennaro inquired meekly, disheartened by his ruined surprise.

“Of course,” Hunt smiled and nodded.

Dennaro looked at Thornier, but the scientist ignored the corporate lawyer and went on pointing and explaining his creation’s features. “We’ve had some trouble with this one, though. Apparently the sample DNA obtained from GenInc.’s stock was… not entirely intact,” he glanced at Natasha. “But we fixed that, using the genetic material we found stored in Site A. Thankfully, we weren’t forced to resort to using frog DNA, not like GenInc. Also, as we did with our Allosaurs, we grew the Pachycephalosaurus in an artificial womb.”

“Why?” Natasha asked.

“When I read your papers, I’ve always wondered that, too,” Hunt agreed.

“Let me explain then. GenInc.’s method of recreating dinosaurs involved the use of ostrich eggs and, later on, artificial egg casings. And while they may have harvested almost all the salvageable dinosaur DNA on Earth, leaving almost nothing behind for us, hatching dinosaurs from ostrich eggs is still an inane proposition. Even using artificial eggs made out of special material would be a needlessly complicated procedure.

“An artificial womb, sir, is the true way to the future. It provides the dinosaurian embryo a controlled and stable environment that we can monitor. A technologically superior method that is also economically sound. And an artificial womb also allows us to administer growth-acceleration in a safe manner, see the advanced stage of growth of the Pachycehalosaurus?”

“Fascinating, but dinosaurs don’t hatch from wombs,” Natasha remarked.

“They hatch from eggs,” Thornier agreed. “And an egg is nothing but a disposable womb. In any case, Pachycephalosaurus was one of the few dinosaurs to give birth to offspring. If the paleontological research into the hip structures of the fossils are to be believed, in any case.”

“And when will this Pachycephalosaurus be… born?” Hunt asked.

“It will be out of the cylinder within the week, sir,” Thornier replied. He pressed another button and, once again, the cylinder was obscured. “And after a month of testing, we can move on to further developments. By the year’s end, I expect we will have enough fully-functional prototypes of at least eight species. Then, the higher echelons of the EVIL Corporation can choose which ones to put into mass production.”

“Good. And as usual, we expect your timely reports. Hrm…” Mr. Hunt mused, and then he turned to face the gathered EVIL officers. “Gentlemen, and ladies, I do believe its time for us to call it a night. Dennaro, would you show those of us who have just arrived to our lodgings?”

“Of course, sir,” Dennaro nodded. “Alright everyone, back to the command-trailer. Our quarters are located over at Site A, which is the safest and most comfortable of the refurbished lairs…”

As Dennaro prattled on and as most of the people began heading for the exits, Doctor Jacque Thornier walked over to Marcus Elliot Hunt and whispered: “Dennaro is a fool. I didn’t show you the real surprise yet, sir.”

“Oh?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, there is a time, and a place for everything, I believe. We’ll get to that later, after that intruder fellow has been disposed of. After a few things have been settled.”

“A most prudent decision, sir.”



The knife stabbed through his cranium and bored deep into the soft grayish interiors of his brain. The gleeful child twisted the knife, slowly, towards one direction and then to another. Fidel winced in pain, the horrible sensation of that cold metallic thing lancing within the confines of his skull, his eyes were open and rolling into the back of his skull, fluid pouring out of his tear ducts.

He couldn’t see the blade, but he could still feel its steel. Now he felt it melting into frigid tendrils, cold snake-like fingers that slithered into the threads of his mind.

He gritted his teeth and screamed, closing his eyes that were once locked into the eyes of that child. Then he slammed his own head down onto the table, face first into the puddle of sticky still-warm blood.

“You are a very persistent man,” Bloodsucker said, amused. “Why don’t you give up, give in, and all I’ll have to do next is kill you.”

Ted Coleman walked over to Fidel and grabbed his hair, and then pulled his face off the table and leveled it so that they were facing each other eye to eye.

Fidel growled. Blood leaked from his mouth and nostrils, and as Theodore Coleman locked eyes with him, once more that blade of cold steel sank into Fidel’s mind. He gritted his teeth and roared in frustration as he tried his best to put up a mental wall, whatever defense he could muster against the coming mental dissection.

“It is useless, Fidel,” Bloodsucker mocked, and then he grinned viciously. “Your mind is like an open book to me. And your mind, like your body, will be bled dry when I’m done with you.”



The jungle was a steaming hell, hot vapor coming out of the dark recesses like some toxic mist, highlighting the beams of sickly yellow light that stabbed through the canopy’s wounds. Animals cried and cawed, screeched and wailed, but these weren’t the sound of normal jungle fauna – these were the sounds of scavengers celebrating a feast.

As they neared the source, the normal miasma of the jungle gave way to an ever-growing stink that seeped from beneath the damp foliage. At first, it was barely noticeable, but as they got ever nearer, the smell grew ever more wretched. When the machete sliced through and parted the final few leaves, the full foulness of human decomposition struck them.

At the presence of the newcomers, crows and vultures and other carrion birds shrieked, the thousands of flies and insects that saturated the choking thick air like some plague continued on swarming, and a pair of leprous jungle dogs whined. Fidel kicked one of the dogs away and slashed at the air with his machete, sending the vultures flying and revealing their gruesome meal.

Fidel uttered something wordless, covering his nose and mouth as his eyes watered. “Who could’ve done this?”

“The Contras, no one else.”

“Someone help me cut them down.”

Fidel got as far away as possible, knelt down on the jungle floor and vomited the contents of his stomach out. As he got back up and turned around, he saw the naked and skinless corpses look back at him with bulging lidless eyes. Maggots and larvae insinuated themselves in the desecrated viscera and the dead faces, though hung upside down, looked like they were screaming, screaming so loud that their black tongues snaked out of their mouths.

“Fidel, get on the radio. Tell the villagers we’ve found the women… and the children.”




Reading the mind was like reading a book, someone once said. The mind was the summation of a person’s life, his memories and sensations, emotions and feelings. It was not unlike reading a story – a story that the mind wrote on as life continued. There were ways to defeat telepathy, Fidel was taught. What an interrogator was looking for in the mind’s storybook more often than not took up less than a page, often written in the last chapters of that ongoing story.

To defeat telepathy, one did not necessarily have to prevent the interrogator from reading the book of the mind. The interrogator could be distracted by showing him pages he did not want to read.



Ted Coleman struck Fidel hard, jerking his head back and causing blood to spurt out his nose. “You fucker,” Coleman hissed, the flavor of distasteful memories lingering in his own mind – those foreign feelings reminding him of his own pathetic existence. “You shit-eating spic!”

Fidel’s head hung loosely on one side, blood and saliva dribbled from his mouth.

“You don’t know what I can do to a man like you,” Ted threatened.

Fidel’s labored breathing stopped abruptly, replaced by a thick gurgling sound as pain wracked his lungs, but it wasn’t just pain, it was also the sensation of fluid seeping into his chest. His eyes shot open and he tried to speak, but it wasn’t words that came out of his mouth.

“Now, my persistent friend, if you won’t let me see what I want… then I will show you what real torture is.”



The Contra smiled at him and cupped his chin, holding his head up.

“He is a persistent one.”

He unsheathed his machete. Showed it to Fidel, showed it to the Americans who were watching.

“He has a strong body.”

Fidel was naked, tied to a tree. He tried not to look frightened, but he was afraid. Scared. His chest heaved up and down, to the beat of his fearful breathing.

“Don’t tell them anything, Fidel!” cried the man who was tied to the same tree, right behind him. “Not a word!”

“Are you ready?”

The Americans nodded.

The machete came down and Fidel closed his eyes. He heard the sick wet sound of the blade making its way through meat and bone, followed by the screaming, the crying. He screamed, he cried, but he wasn’t the only one.

Fidel opened his eyes and found himself intact.

The cries stopped.

“Fidel… don’t tell them…”

The machete came down again and Fidel screamed, screamed with his friend who was being disemboweled right behind him.

“Don’t say a word…”

Fidel wept as he felt warm liquid flow down, forming a pool on the dirty ground.

“Fidel! Not one word -”

He couldn’t see it, but he could hear every second of it. Until there was nothing left to hear.

He closed his eyes. He could neither see nor hear anything anymore. But he could feel the warm wetness at his feet, smell the stink of human blood mixing with his piss.

“Shall we do this one as well?”

“No, the information he knows would no doubt be incorrect. So even if he confessed from the torture, he wouldn’t compromise his superiors. Too bad his friend didn’t know that.”

“What do we do with him, then?”

“Kill him.”




Your mind is like an open book to me, Fidel.

“Then learn how to read.”

Fidel let out an animalistic scream. With both hands no longer behind his back, he grabbed the Bloodsucker’s face. Theodore Coleman screamed in surprise and fear, and both their screams merged into one bloodcurdling cry as Fidel slammed his torturer face into the table, smearing his face in the now-cold blood.

Fidel snarled, spittle flying from his split lips, and he punched Bloodsucker’s throat with both fists. The young man tried to resist, to struggle, but Fidel placed himself on top and wrung his hands around that thin throat.

“You want to see?!” Fidel roared as he slammed the back of Ted Coleman’s head against the steel table. “You want to see?!”

The Bloodsucker lunged at his assailant, a futile counterattack, he tried to pull out his sidearm, a Desert Eagle, but Fidel backhanded him hard.

“You want to see?!”

Ted Coleman’s eyes watered as his windpipe was nearly crushed. He gasped for sweet air when the pressure was released, no doubt the guards had pulled off the captive and -

He was wrong. Fidel placed his hands on Bloodsucker’s temples and forced his thumbs into the young man’s eye sockets.

The Bloodsucker shrieked.

Fidel joined him as he pressed his thumbs deeper, gripped harder, slammed the struggling boy’s head against the steel in an attempt to smash his skull whilst trying to remove his eyeballs. Blood and spit dripped from his mouth and onto that screaming, crying, contorted face.

“No!” Ted screamed, fighting as the thumbs sank deeper into his eye sockets. He mustered whatever was left of his abilities, his talent, his special gift, all he could to save his life.

Fidel gritted his teeth as the blood in his veins and arteries flowed erratically, threatening to burst, to give him a hemorrhage, a stroke, threatening to spill out of his orifices. He could feel the pain but he ignored it. He stopped trying to gouge Bloodsucker’s eyeballs out and, instead, slammed the skull he held in his hands so hard against the table that the steel dented.

Fidel paused for a while… sat there on the table, still as blood leaked down his nostrils and his mouth, dripping and staining the unmoving body of his torturer. Fidel breathed. In and out.

“Time to get out of here.”



John and Bob were guarding the door to the prisoner’s cell. They weren’t Brazilian mercenaries, they were EVIL Corporation henchmen, garbed in jumpsuits and hardhats, armed with grease guns, equipped with all the benefits real EVIL employees enjoyed. John was standing by the cell doors, Bob was further off, so when they heard knocking on the thick metal doors, John was the one who opened the slit.

The interrogator was apparently thorough with his work, he was covered in blood. John shivered to think what he did to that prisoner.

John opened the door and Theodore Coleman fell to his knees.

“What the fuck?!” He reached for his weapon when the prisoner pulled it out of his hands and bludgeoned him with it. John fell to the floor, cross-eyed and concussed.

“John, what’s going on? Oh shit!” Bob ran for the alarm.

Fidel lunged at him, tackling him to the floor. He pulled out his sidearm and tried to get up, but a hard kick to the gut knocked the air out of him. Fidel placed himself over the downed henchman, using his cuffed hands to hold the man’s gun-hand away while positioning himself so that his knee would be pressing against the man’s throat, depriving him of breath. The man’s free arm tried to pull Fidel off, but eventually the limb got weaker and weaker until the man stopped moving.

Fidel searched them for handcuff keys but found nothing. He searched the cabinets but only found medical supplies and a poster. He kept the medical supplies.

That merc, the one with the brown bandana, Eduardo, he had his sidearm and half of his Subsistence suit, including the microbead radio. He was also the one who cuffed him.

Fidel growled. He had failed his mission, he had to call the Major and the Enrique brothers, request for pickup… but he didn’t have his radio.

First things first, he had to escape.



Natasha Dementieva was outside the Site A facility. Seeing that bizarre quasi-embryonic dinosaur made sleeping difficult for her, but there was another reason why she was out in the dark.

She inspected the steel crate that contained the package she had specifically requested. She opened it, inspected its contents, and closed it shut. Just in case.

She heard footsteps come from behind her, barely audible amidst the noise of chirping crickets, croaking frogs and other nocturnal creatures. She placed a hand on her hip holster and turned around.

“Good evening, Natasha,” Mr. Marcus Elliot Hunt greeted her.

She eased her stance. “Sir, what are you doing out here?”

“I had trouble sleeping,” he said as he neared her. “We have to talk, Natasha.”

“Sir?”

“There is a problem in the Corporation and finding people to trust nowadays… it’s difficult. Ferric, our boss, is especially worried.”

“I can understand, sir. Just last year, the Ordo Nosferatu tried a hostile takeover. No doubt they’ll try again.”

“It’s not just them, Natasha. Ferric and I are under the opinion that the Corporation’s special research projects, such as this one, are extremely threatened. But I know you are well aware of this, being one of our top field agents.”

Natasha nodded.

“When you were first employed by the Corporation, didn’t you start off in Human Resources?”

“I did, for two years I assessed and evaluated employees… what are you getting at, sir?”

“I was wondering if you could do some evaluations, assessments on the people around us,” Hunt stopped. “We’ll talk later.”

Number 13 approached the two of them, barely visible in his black armor, the only thing sticking out in the darkness was his pale pigmentless face.

“What is it?” Natasha asked.

“The base is in Alert Phase. The prisoner has escaped,” 13 announced, as plainly as though he were telling the time. “Apparently, he nearly killed one of the Problem Solvers. Mr. Hunt, it’s not safe for you to be outside, not with him on the loose.”

“He got Theodore? Tsk-tsk…” Mr. Hunt shook his head. “That’s a shame...”

“The mercenaries are being dispatched to hunt him down and security is being doubled,” 13 stated. “My Elites will stay to protect the facilities and ensure your security, sir.”

“They won’t be hunting the escapee?”

“They are unfamiliar with the jungle terrain, unlike the mercenaries.”

“In that case, then I will dispatch the rest of our Problem Solvers to hunt down this little menace,” Mr. Hunt offered.

“Agreed,” Number 13 replied. Of course, to him those ‘Problem Solvers’ were expendable.

As 13 went off to gather the Problem Solvers, Hunt turned to face Natasha.

“Do whatever it takes.”

“Understood, sir.”




[Re-edited. Hour is late. Will re-read this and 9-10 tomorrows for missed typoids. Please tells me if there is something humiliating there.]
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: DINO EATER (11)

Post by Malchus »

Well, I read through it and couldn't spot any more mistakes I didn't point out over MSN other than:
Fidel placed himself over the ailing henchman

Hm, "ailing" implies sickness. Not the word to use if referring to a physically-inflicted injury. I think “staggering” or “dazed” works in this sense.

Otherwise, it's a solid rewrite. i look forward to the rest.
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Re: DINO EATER (11)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Fidel screamed as he clutched his broken arm, but his screams turned to wet gurgles as a hard boot drove his face into the mud.

“Get up!” the old man shouted. “Get up and fight!”

Fidel roared and lashed at the man’s feet in an attempt to bring him down, but the Major avoided that. Instead, it was the steel-tip of his combat boot that struck Fidel in the temples.

“Pathetic! And your mother had the nerve to name you after the Commandante!”

Fidel tried to crawl away.

“Soldiers don’t crawl.”

Another kick.

“Soldiers stand.”

Another blow.

“Soldiers fight!”

The rain was hard; it battered Fidel as he struggled to get up. He could see the droplets falling down, how they hit the leaves and the ground.

“You want to learn how to fight like a soldier,” the Major spat. “But you don’t even have the spirit of a soldier.”

Fidel got up and roared as he snapped his broken arm back into place in one painful jerk.

“That’s it, Fidel. Don’t run, don’t crawl. Stand up and fight.”




Fidel ran into the jungle. It was early morning, with no light, no direction. He ran far, but to where he didn’t know. He staggered, his legs weak, breathing was labored and painful. Leaves and branches, vines and other forms of foliage whipped his naked skin as he brushed past the undergrowth.

The jungle was silent with his passing, jungle crickets and tree frogs, vampire bats and night owls, the creatures of the dark grew quiet. The wind became still.

Fidel entered a clearing in the jungle with neither foliage nor canopy.

He breathed, and the breath that left his lungs was cold, as warmth seemed to have left the jungle. He shivered and shuddered and staggered, and as the coldness passed him, he restrained himself from collapsing as a sudden searing hotness took over his body. Dilating blood vessels caused his skin to flush as though scalded, and his eyes watered, piercing pain stabbing him in his gut. He was thirsty.

His vision blurred and he fell onto a puddle of thick mud, and as he crawled, the cold muck began covering his exposed flesh – cooling his body, giving moisture to his lips.

There on the mud he rested for some time before his jungle fever subsided. Then, slowly, almost painfully, he dragged himself back up. Thirstily, he lapped up droplets of water that had accumulated on the leaves of trees and vines.

Once more, his legs buckled and he fell.

“Stand up…” he growled, holding onto a tree trunk with cuffed hands for support, as he brought himself back up to his feet. “…and fight.”

It began to rain. Tiny droplets slowly falling down to hit the leaves and the ground. Distant thunder rumbled in the clouds.



Eduardo led his team of four deep into the jungle. They were following the tracks left behind by the escapee, the prisoner. Eduardo placed a hand on his wounded cheek, caressing the recently-applied bandage.

There were four of them, him, Alejandro, Hugo and Chavez. But they weren’t alone.

There were other search teams, out to find the elusive Fidel Castro, either to capture or kill, it didn’t matter. Not to Eduardo it didn’t.

Eduardo was wearing the face-eating bastard’s camouflage outfit, or at least half of it, and was using the puta’s sidearm – a silenced Colt pistol he’d sell later, for a good price. He would be the one who’d kill Castro, and he was sure the gringos were going to reward him with a pay raise. After all, wasn’t he the one who captured him in the first place?

Eduardo crouched down and examined the tracks. They were hard to spot, almost impossible in the dark, but they had flashlights with red light. The red light still allowed them to see a bit in the dark, but from far away, people would have difficulty making out the light they made, unlike the case with normal lights.

“These tracks… they don’t make sense,” said Chavez.

“Why?”

“It looks like the man doesn’t know where he’s going… like he’s lost or something, going around in circles,” Chavez shrugged.

“Maybe he is lost,” said Hugo, the big Venezuelan crouched next to Eduardo.

“Half-naked and beaten to shit,” Alejandro muttered. “Of course he’s lost. He’s probably delirious, the jungle’s going to kill him first if we don’t. What do you think, Eduardo?”

“I think we’re close,” Eduardo said, bringing up his silenced Colt 1911 and a pair of goggles. “Turn off your red lights and take out your heatseekers.”

Thermal goggles in place, Eduardo ordered them to split into two groups.

“His tracks split to there and there, so we have to cover more ground. It’s starting to rain, we’ll lose him if we aren’t quick,” Eduardo explained. “Watch your backs… this guy is a sneaky motherfucker, but we have the advantage. He can’t see in the dark, we can and we can see his body heat too. Let’s make him bleed.”

They split up, each pair of mercs disappearing into the underbrush.



The mud was cold on Fidel’s skin. He was crouched low, his eyes darting from side to side. He saw something… a light, a flash, he wasn’t sure. It was dark, he couldn’t see shit with the rain and the shadow of the canopy. He wiped his mouth. If there was anyone in the jungle with him, he’d have to listen to the noise they made.



Hugo slashed at the wet leaves with his machete, carving out a path through the foliage large enough for his ample form. His other hand held a Galil, an Israeli rifle. Wrapped around his head were thermal goggles, the ones the EVIL Corporation gave to all their henchmen. They were probably very expensive, Hugo thought. Most of the mercs had to settle for the red lights, but Eduardo had gotten them the goggles.

It was like nightvision, but instead of greens, Hugo saw lots of differently-shaded blues and blacks, the occasional red and orange forms of jungle animals, mostly flying bats – vampire bats. Hugo didn’t like them, the doctors the gringos brought with them said that those little bloodsuckers had rabies…

Hugo stepped on something warm and wet. He saw it, a big red and orange mess on the ground. He pulled off his goggles and wiped his face to get a good look… it was a boar, a stuck pig. No, it wasn’t a stuck pig, it was bloody but Hugo couldn’t see any wounds. He was about to bend down to examine the thing further or call Chavez when…

Fidel smashed his skull with a rock.



“Huh? What was that?” Chavez uttered as he turned around. He swore he heard something, not just the sound of drizzling raindrops. He cautiously made his way to where the sound came from and found Hugo lying on the ground and not moving. “Hugo?!” he bent down to check if his friend was still alive… shallow breathing, barely alive… his skull was smashed open.

Chavez got up and brought his shotgun to bear. There, rustling leaves and branches, movement, but no heat signature. The motherfucker went there, ran deeper into the jungle after getting Hugo!

“Puta…” Chavez hissed as he began the pursuit and made his way deeper into the jungle, leaving Hugo behind. “I’ll find you… I’ll get you…”

Fidel emerged from the trees and crouched beside Hugo, he got the machete the big man had in his hands.

Silently, he ghosted Chavez.

Held the machete up.

The blade and the handcuffs reflected dim moonlight.

Brought the machete down the back of the man’s head.



Alejandro moved slowly and silently, ears sharp, goggled eyes scanning side to side, Kalashnikov held up and ready to fire. Stopped and crouched behind a tree, low and hard to see.

Nearby, Fidel leaned his back against another tree. Tightened his grip on the bloody machete.

Frogs started croaking.

The rain continued.



Eduardo was alone now. He held the silenced .45 tight, switched the safeties off, worked the slide.

Where was everyone?

He heard something moving, turned around, saw nothing.

Spun around and fired a whisper of a shot. Nothing.

He ripped off his thermal goggles, cheap mass-produced shit couldn’t see anything.

Scanned with his eyes, listened with his ears.

“Hugo?!”

“Chavez?!”

“Alejandro?!”

Something got inside his opened mouth, hit the back of his throat. He chocked and spat it out, whatever it was, into his hand.

It was a tiny frog, it croaked. Dim moonlight shined on its golden yellow scales.

“Shit...”

Eduardo held his neck and tried to continue speaking, but it was hard. Just like breathing. Just like standing. He fell to his knees, both hands on his neck, eyes bulging wide in surprise and fear as a dark figure emerged from the trees and approached him.

Eduardo keeled over and started foaming.

Fidel crouched beside him and examined the half of the Subsistence suit on Eduardo, checked if everything was intact. The pockets of the suit were still full, the first-aid kit, the rations, the NV-binoculars, motion detector. And the radio. The Subsistence suit was missing its tactical webbing though. That meant no ammo for the AKM with grenade launcher, which Fidel didn’t have. No semtex. No tranqs. No keys. Fidel glanced sideways at the paralyzed Eduardo’s face, his mouth was foaming, raindrops were hitting him, and his wide-open eyes were glaring at Fidel.

“I’m gonna get my stuff back,” Fidel said as he noticed Eduardo’s prominent brown bandana. “That’s a nice bandana-”

“Step away from him,” Alejandro said, stepping out of the underbrush just twenty feet away from Fidel, his Kalashnikov armed and aimed. “No sudden-”

In the darkness, he didn’t see the machete fly through the air, but he did feel it sink into his torso, right in the region where chest met the abdomen. Breathing was suddenly much harder. With a two-foot piece of sharpened steel lodged in his thoracic diaphragm, drawing breath was now impossible.

Blood dripped from the side of his mouth. He staggered back and squeezed the Kalashnikov’s trigger, sending a stream of full automatic lead flying everywhere as he struggled to pry the machete from his chest. One hand gripped the blade’s handle and pulled, the other tried to aim at Fidel and handle the rifle’s kicking recoil.

Leaves exploded, branches were ripped off, Fidel snatched a particularly large piece of wood and lunged at the impaled mercenary who continued to blast away at full automatic.

Fidel brought the thick branch up to protect himself, its top exploding into a shower of splinters as a bullet ripped through it, continued its path, and tore a bloody gash across the side of Fidel’s head.

Fidel gritted his teeth and used the branch to smash the Kalashnikov from the merc’s hand. Fidel then hammered the machete on its handle, driving the blade deeper into the merc’s chest cavity, and then, again with the branch, struck the man in the knee joint, snapping his leg like a twig. As the man fell forward, Fidel sidestepped him and smashed the back of his skull one last time with the branch.

Fidel discarded his stick and returned to the still-foaming Eduardo. Fidel was done searching the ½ Subsistence suit, now he searched the Brazilian’s pants. He found the keys in the back pocket.

“Free at last,” Fidel muttered as he threw the steel handcuffs at the paralyzed Eduardo’s face and began the process of reacquiring his gear. He holstered his silenced .45 and zipped on the top of his Subsistence suit, grabbed Alejandro’s Kalashnikov and all its ammo, and then, lastly, went back and remove Eduardo’s brown bandana. Fidel wore it tight to stop the bleeding from the wound on his head.

He looked down at Eduardo, who was now chocking in his own saliva.

“I think I’ll keep it.”



The command-trailer was a mobile hub for command and control, communications, computers and intelligence, C4I – the Corporation always placed logistics first and foremost. Right now, specialized henchmen in jumpsuits and hardhats were monitoring the computers and comm.-links that networked them with search teams, security squads, mercenaries and henchmen patrolling the bases and the jungle, sniper posts located on trees and in high-hides, surveillance equipment and autonomous platforms. Plasma screens and the occasional hologram gave the vehicle’s spacious interior a cold bluish glow.

The command-trailer was one of the many facilities higher-ranking Corporates could use for their personal purposes, and was therefore extremely secure. Multilayered tank-grade armor, transparent steel windows, concealed remote gun-mounts incorporating HMGs and target-seeking shotguns, a hybrid engine that allowed the trailer a disproportionate off-and-on-road top-speed, NBC protection, passive metahuman countermeasures, and other features made the trailer the safest place to be in the jungle. All within a reasonable price range.

Number 13 opened the hydraulic-assisted door and entered, wearing his black armor and holding a cup of coffee with a gauntleted hand. He went to a hardhat manning a comm.-console.

“Situation report.”

“Sir… he’s taken down a search team. Two KIAs, the other two in critical condition.”

“Status of the criticals?”

“One of them had his head cracked open, the other one has been poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” 13 raised an eyebrow.

“With a tree-frog, to the throat, sir.”

“Resourceful…” 13 said to himself.

“We’re re-routing search teams to the area, sir.”

“Contact the Problem-Solvers, direct them to the area as well. If he hasn’t gone far, they can still find him,” he took a sip of coffee. Normally, he would be in his sleep-cycle in his comfortable hyperbaric sensory-deprivation tank, but the circumstances required a change of schedule. The other higher-ups though, from Boyer to Thornier, were sound asleep. “Where is Coleman?”

The hardhat inputted some commands into his keyboard and listened with his earpiece. “At the infirmary, sir.”

“Send him out.”

“Sir, I don’t think he’s exactly in combat condition…” the henchman found himself the subject of 13’s piercing glaze and had second thoughts. “Uh… I’ll try contacting him, sir. Patching through to video-radio.”

They could hear Theodore Coleman in the speakers: “He made me bleed and I’ll kill him for it! I’ll show him, I’ll show him that I can see. I’ll make blood come out of every hole in his body! Let me at him!”

His eyes had a mad glint visible through the monitor.

“Go,” 13 commanded. He turned to the hardhat henchman. “Give him the directions.”

“Right, sir,” the henchman nodded. “I just hope his injuries aren’t too bad…”

“It doesn’t matter,” 13 said. Coleman was expendable, like the rest of them. He looked at the henchman coldly. “What is your name?”

The hardhat gulped. He tried to concentrate on the reports from his video-radio, avoiding the pigmentless arch-henchman’s dead eyes and trying to look busy. “I’m Jonathan, sir.”

Number 13 nodded.

“Um… sir, is there anything else I can do?”

“Yes,” Number 13 answered coldly. “Scan the radio channels, search for any and all frequencies we aren’t using. Ingoing and outgoing transmissions, everything.”

“Okay,” Jonathan replied, hastily tapping buttons on his console. “What are we looking for, sir?”

Number 13 gave him an impassive look. “If he’s escaped and re-acquired his equipment, he will attempt to re-establish contact with his superiors.”



Fidel smeared his chest with ointment, spreading it on the electrical burns and on the large splotches of dark purple flesh. The medical kit that came with the Subsistence suit had ointment, all-purpose medical cream that also served as local anesthetic, and styptic, titanium dioxide medication sticks that staunched cuts and left a nasty sting.

With the bandages he got from the Corporation’s supply cabinet, he dressed his wounds up and covered the burns.

Then he took off his new bandana, which went from brown to a vague dark color due to the blood coming out of the side of his head. Fidel wiped the excess blood off his temple and examined the deep gash with his fingers.

A styptic wouldn’t be enough to stop the bleeding, ointment couldn’t do anything, and he didn’t have enough bandages to wrap around his head. There wasn’t much disinfectant left… He’d have to conserve what little medical supplies he had, no doubt there were worse wounds to be had later…

Fidel took out a 7.62 x 39 mm cartridge, opened it, and sprinkled the cordite very carefully onto the side of his head.

Then he got a waterproofed match and lit it.

And ignited the powder, cauterizing wounded flesh.

He gritted his teeth but didn’t scream, not even as he smelled it. His closed his eyes.

He replaced the brown bandana, though it wasn’t brown anymore.

Then he checked his microbead radio, if it was still intact, and placed the earpiece into his ear, wrapped the microphone’s strap around his throat. He flicked it on and found the Major’s frequency.

“Major, this is Fidel… I’m still alive.”

“Fidel, what happened?! You were gone for hours, where were you? What’s your status?”

“I’m fine… I just got captured and tortured but I…”

“Did they get anything out of you?”

“No, I escaped before they could.”

“Fidel, your capture means that the mission has been compromised.”

“But I escaped, didn’t I?!”

“Yes you did, and that means you survived. But you’ve failed your mission, Fidel. There’s nothing more you can do. Contact the Enriques, get out of there.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll return to Cuba and figure something out…”

“Major, you know there are consequences if I fail the mission.”

“But what can you do, Fidel? Just by the sound of your voice, I can tell you’re nowhere near combat capable condition.”

“I’ve been through worse, Major. You know that.”

“Just get out of that godforsaken jungle, Fidel.”

“No. Major, soldiers stand up and fight.”

“…”

“Major?”

“Call the Enriques, Fidel.”

“I already told you, I’m not running away. I’m going to complete my mission!”

“Then call the Enriques and give them an approximation of where you were being held. If they know the lay of the land, then they can figure out the coordinates of the base and relay it to me. Then maybe I can figure out a way to support you.”

“Oh... right. Switching frequencies… now,” Fidel dialed down to the Enriques’ radio frequency. “Enrique, can you hear me? Are you still up there?”

No response.

“Enrique, it’s me, Fidel Castro. I need help right now.”

“Damn it, Enriques, answer me!”

“Fidel Castro,” a distorted and modulated artificial voice answered him.

“Who the hell is this?”

“Who I am is not important.”

“What? Where are the Enriques?!”

“Listen to me Castro. I will give you coordinates, meet me.”

“Meet you where? And when?”

“I will tell you when and where.”

“Who the hell are you? Are you the inside man?”

“Yes. Be advised, Problem-Solvers are on route to your last known location.”

“Problem-Solvers?”

“Specialized mercenaries, like your interrogator. There are five of them.”

“Right…”

“Contact me at this frequency. 144.13.”

“Wait, what do I call you?”

“Call me N.”

N hung up and Fidel called the Major.

“So, do you trust him?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t let your guard down, Fidel. Not even for a second. Meet him, but be extremely careful.”

“I will.”

“And don’t hesitate. If you suspect anything, kill him.”
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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Re: DINO EATER (12)

Post by Mobius 1 »

They could hear Theodore Coleman in the speakers: “He made me bleed and I’ll kill him for it! I’ll show him, I’ll show him that I can see. I’ll make blood come out of every hole in his body! Let me at him!”
Scrappy Dappy Doo! :) Anyway, I finally read through chapter 7 to 11 when you posted 12, so I just continued my binge. And, damn, it's good stuff. But it gets even better, as next we get Boss Fights!
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Re: DINO EATER (12)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

PREPARE YOURSELF!




Twilight now. The coming of dawn marked the beginning of a new day, but as the sun had yet emerged from the horizon, the jungle was still submerged in something that was less than darkness, but not quite daylight either.

Fidel listened. The jungle was alive, waking animals began making their morning calls. Birds cawed and hooted and chirped, filling the jungle with their calls and cries. From miles away, the yawns of lazy howler monkeys could be heard, their form of protest against the end of their peaceful slumber. Nocturnal creatures were now turning over for it was no longer their time, and so their sounds were replaced by new noises, so that no one would forget that the jungle never truly slept – that the jungle was always awake, always alive.

Fidel’s teeth crushed the rat’s bones and his canines sliced through its flesh. In the Amazon, the rodents had a varied but balanced diet that contributed to the… grain of their meat. He chewed it up, one hard bite crunching the rat’s skull like some cashew, and he ran his tongue over it all – the meat, the fluids, the viscera, even the fur. Savoring the taste. The jungle never let anything to waste, and neither did Fidel.

He swallowed the masticated mouse with a series of gulps and moved on to his second course – disc-shaped jungle fungus he found growing inside a felled tree trunk’s hollows, which was also the previous residence of a certain rodent. He was sitting on the felled tree right now, savoring the wretched taste of the mushrooms – it was like eating styrofoam.

Fidel unscrewed his canteen and took a sip to down it all and wash the taste out of his oral cavity. He placed the canteen back in its pouch and noticed the lonely can of rations in his other pocket. Its contents probably tasted leagues better than his course of mouse and mushrooms… but he didn’t want to eat it, at least not now. It would be just wasteful and uncalled for.

The essence of survival, Fidel reasoned to himself, was conservation. Sitting down while eating and drinking conserved energy, as did taking regular rests, and ammunition had to be spent carefully in the jungle, as well as battery power, for some of these things couldn’t be recovered or reused. Fidel would open that little tin can only when it was the right time. Right now, he would stick to skewering rodents with his survival knife (not his close-quarters combat knife – he carried more than one knife, for varied purposes).

Fidel tried the Enriques’ radio frequency again, but there was no response, just like before. Fidel contacted the Major, who was worried – with the Enriques incommunicado, Fidel just lost a vital means of navigation and exfiltration. The Major suggested contacting L, if that was possible.

“L… are you there?”

“Fidel, it’s you! Are you alright? I was worried… I had to wait for hours, your friends won’t let me out until you finished your ‘mission’. Please tell me you’re done Fidel…” she sounded tired, exhausted. If only she knew.

“I’m sorry, L, but this is far from over.”

There was a frustrated sigh. “Why? What are you doing in the jungle, anyway? I know you’re not really a conservationist, what’s going on?”

“L, I can’t tell you what’s going on. Just hang on, okay? I’m… still on the trail of that Allosaurus.”

“Fidel… don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not-”

Suddenly, the exhaustion was gone from her voice and in its place was an edge Fidel wasn’t expecting. “Fidel, do you know that I was one of the paleobiologists the US government consulted after the incident at Isla Norte? They asked me and Grant, since we actually got to visit the island once, about GenInc’s dinosaurs. We were just consultants and they practically interrogated us. Why? Because the dinosaurs ‘got loose’. That was their explanation, but I know there’s more to it than that.

What they told us was just like any other cover story they feed people whenever some rogue experiment’s escaped, or when they don’t want people to know the damage the last extraterrestrial attack did. I told them GenInc was creating altered dinosaurs. I told them that Lemonde, the CEO, bragged about getting the interests of some governments. Let me ask you, Mr. Fidel Castro, what would governments want with recreating and altering dinosaurs?”

“I honestly don’t know, L.”

“Please. Before GenInc was preoccupied with its dinosaur park, it was an all-purpose genetics and biotech company, it had branches on everything including a bioweapons division. They might’ve not told us what exactly happened on that island, why none of GenInc’s employees managed to come back home, but I think I have a pretty good picture of what’s going on, don’t you?”

Though she couldn’t see it, Fidel was nodding his head and muttering something unintelligible.

“And now you’re in the Amazon, asking me about dinosaur ‘weak-spots’ and vulnerabilities. I can’t leave my room because I have help you through radio like it’s some life-or-death matter. Then, for hours, you were incommunicado. This radio has a call button, you know. I tried giving you a few rings, but I couldn’t raise you,” she snorted. “There wasn’t even an answering machine…”

“Heh.”

“When they told me that a ‘conservationist’ needed a radio contact with ‘detailed information’ on dinosaurs just days after the US government asked me about GenInc’s runaway experiments, I knew something was up. So, let’s stop pretending, Mr. Castro.”

“Alright. But do me a favor, Ellie.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Call me Fidel.”



The mercenaries were spread out in search formation. Nightvision goggles were of no use with the coming of day and neither were flashlights, yet nonetheless the twilight ensured low-visibility conditions in the deep jungle underbrush – conditions that obscured and hindered the hunt.

The mercs fanned out, for shortly after they found Eduardo’s neutralized team, Castro’s trail had run cold and disappeared completely.

Multiple squads were assigned to the search to increase the odds of finding Fidel Castro, and to decrease his odds of survival. They maintained radio contact with the base, each squad having at least one radioman and each squad radioing in every few minutes – if a squad failed to make a routine transmission, then they would be presumed lost.

As they brushed through the rampant vines and bushes, the squads neared one of the Corporation’s ‘perimeter extenders’, a camouflaged tree platform made out of steel bars and railings, and the men posted to it shrugged. They saw no one pass through this way, they said.

The search party went on deeper into the jungle, splintering into units that were nonetheless composed of more men than a single squad.

They were wary in their search. Word had spread of their quarry’s unnatural ability to avoid detection, of how Eduardo’s squad had been felled by weaponless means. Of how Fidel Castro was shackled and restrained while dispatching the mercs with silent efficiency. Some of them had seen the squad leader, Eduardo, being hauled off in a stretcher, his face bloated and discolored, his mouth rimmed with froth.

Some of the men were superstitious and crossed themselves, others were having second thoughts about working for the Corporation despite the generous payments they would be sending back home to their families. A few were desperate city scum now regretting ever setting foot into the jungle. Most of them just wanted this to be over with.

They moved slowly and carefully, avoided making noise, silently placed themselves behind trees and other forms of cover and concealment. Their quarry had freed himself of his restraints and had relieved Eduardo’s squad of their gear, which meant that he now had weapons. That he could now strike at any time of his choosing.

They had to kill him first.

Like the rest, Mendoza had sheathed his machete and slowly crept through the bushes and vines, parting them with his hands. He had smeared his face with mud to conceal himself and carried on his back an RPK machinegun. He bent down to the ground to look for trails but found none. Slowly, he moved forward.

He was hesitant, a bit nervous, he looked to his side and saw a squadmate scanning the jungle with sharp eyes. Before becoming a mercenary, Mendoza was a government soldier and had heard stories about a man named Fidel Castro who helped those pesky communist rebels, and he laughed, thinking that they were talking about Cuba’s undying President. But now he knew.

He looked to his other side and saw the rest of his men, along with two other squads, silent in their careful progression through the jungle. There was a sound of rustling leaves and they all brought their weapons up to bear. A jungle parrot screeched as it flew off a branch high up in the trees, searching for breakfast perhaps, and the mercs collectively relaxed their trigger-fingers.

Someone laughed, someone else told him to shut up, and Mendoza shushed the both of them.

Mendoza wondered why that pale-skinned gringo didn’t send his little team of stormtroopers out. Probably thought they were worth more than ragtag latino mercs. But if that was so, then why were those other gringos sent out into the jungle as well? There was that guy in the cowboy boots…

Mendoza stopped when he noticed a torn vine hanging in front of him.

He held out a closed fist for all to see and the mercs became as still as the trees.

Slowly and carefully, Mendoza took the torn vine with his hands. It looked like it had been cut by a blade. He looked forward and saw none of the mercs ahead, and remembered that they weren’t using their machetes.

Then he saw something else, a broken branch, which told him that someone had just passed by recently. He looked down and saw what looked like a footprint in the mud.

Mendoza turned his head sideways. Puckering his lips, he made a high-pitched birdcall, a repeating tsi-tsi sound, catching the attention of the squad radioman. The radioman looked and Mendoza made a hand-signal that told him to call the base. Then, after another hand-gesture, the squad drew their weapons and moved out.

Mendoza tore off the cloth cover of his RPK machinegun and slapped on a drum magazine – one hundred rounds of 7.62 mm full metal jacketed death.

The hunt was on.



“Did you get all that, Major?” Fidel asked.

“Yes. We knew L once visited GenInc’s dinosaur park and acted as a consultant, but we never thought she knew this much.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. In fact, the more she knows, then the better she can help us. It’s not our fault if the Americans can’t keep a lid over their own dirty laundry, is it?”

“No, it’s not. Hrm…” Fidel got off the tree trunk he was sitting on, pulled the earpiece off his ear and crouched low. For several long seconds, he listened to the sounds of the jungle – the birds. Then he replaced his earpiece.

“Fidel, what’s wrong?”

“I just heard a Blackpoll Warbler…”

“Fidel, the Amazon is full of noisy birds. Are you hungry or something?”

“Those birds don’t migrate back to South America for another six months, Major. I’ll call you later.”



The mercenaries were crouched low, camouflage blending in with foliage, gun barrels sticking out of bushes, between leaves and branches, each gunman making sure to intersect his line of fire with another while covering all angles. The squads had spread out, forming a wall that would have ambushed their prey. Had he actually been there.

“We’ve lost him again,” Mendoza scowled, spitting the words out like a curse. The tracks they were following had abruptly ceased to exist and, once again, they had succeeded in failing to find their mark.

“It doesn’t make sense,” a merc in a balaclava shook his head. He was down on one knee, examining a vestige of a footprint. “It’s like the guy just disappeared.”

Miedra.” Mendoza sighed, turning on the safeties of his machinegun with a click.

“Someone should radio the base, tell them we lost him.”

“And have them think we’re idiotas? No way, José.”

“Then what do we tell them?”

“Just tell them we’re still on his trail.”

“But there is no trail.”

“Then we’ll have to look harder, won’t we? The man can’t just disappear without a trace… where the hell could he be hiding?”

“Maybe…” José trailed off. Slowly, he pointed to the trees and immediately Mendoza saw it too, a vine that was overstretched, hanging off a branch and ending just a few feet shy of the ground. “He’s using the trees.”

Mendoza turned off the safeties of his RPK and, as one, the mercenaries rose up to continue the pursuit.



Fidel waited for them to leave the motion detector’s range, counted the passing seconds, the passing breaths, waited for the tiny blips and dots to disappear one by one. He ignored the orange centipede as it crawled all the way up his backside, went over the rear of his neck, and then passed by his grimacing face.

Too close, Fidel thought. If that fake birdcall hadn’t given them away, the mercs would have been all over him – and he would’ve been dead.

In the battlefield, luck was often just as important as skill – survival often hinged upon the mistakes and failures of the enemy. But one should never rely upon the shortcomings of the enemy to survive, Fidel cautioned himself. That, in itself, was a grave mistake. In the battlefield, mistakes killed.

Fidel crawled out of the hollow tree trunk and crouched low.

He pulled out a map previously procured from Eduardo’s convulsing half-corpse, and a compass. N had given him coordinates – inconvenient coordinates that would take him hours to reach, factoring in the obstruction of the jungle and the evasion of enemy patrols. Maybe even a day.

There was no other choice though; he knew it and so too did the Major. In their heightened alert levels, the facilities would be impossible to infiltrate without assistance.

Fidel would have to detour around the patrolling search-squads…



“He’s not in the trees,” Mendoza said quietly to himself. He turned around to face José.

“What?”

“He’s not in the trees,” Mendoza repeated himself. “No broken branches, no trail, nothing except that vine that threw us off.”

“He’s a sneaky fucker…” José trailed off.

“Very sneaky,” Mendoza agreed. He raised a closed fist, signaling the search party to stop once more.

They stopped. Each squad was fanned out and divided into three-man teams spread over the underbrush, each man watching the other’s back as they advanced through the jungle. At Mendoza’s signal, everyone stopped moving. A few looked at him in confusion as he quietly rushed past them, going from the point of their formation to the rear. As he passed by the fire teams, pausing only to relay hand-signaled commands, so too did they alter their heading appropriately. José relayed the message on to the others and went over to the radioman.

With another hand-signal, the search party changed course. Men about-faced while a few remained to cover their flanks, the rear-guard themselves about-facing and moving out only when signaled by shoulder-taps. No longer advancing as one, the mercenaries formed smaller groups and disseminated. Some of them advanced as point squads, while others were slower in their movements, staying back to provide distant cover. The squads didn’t proceed in a straight line, but instead opted for curved divergent routes that would temporarily fan them out, before leading them to converge some distance later – reforming back into one unit. By fanning out they would cover more ground, but by converging later on, they could perform headcounts and ensure that they weren’t getting picked off one by one.

They were going to flank their quarry.



John Doe walked carelessly through the jungle, humming a tune in his head and trying not to get lost. He was looking at his tactical radar, which was chained on his belt like a fancy pocket watch, watching blips that represented the mercs fan out in a distinct pattern, as if they had actually found something – as if they actually had a clue as to where their mark was.

John yawned. He had spent the wee hours of the morning searching for some slippery spic and these mercs had spent the whole morning acting like they actually knew what they were doing, like as if they were on the verge of finding the guy, and their constant radioing was getting tiring. Three times now, they had found the mark’s trail, lost it, found it again and then lost it again – like some game of jungle fever hide-and-seek. John yawned. He was getting tired of the jungle, it was hot and miserable, the mud was messing up his (expensive) cowboy duds, and there was nothing to do but chase runaway prisoners and catch malaria. Why money-grubbing supervillains were out here tooling around in the jungle in the first place, he had no clue, but he didn’t really care. He wasn’t paid to think about things, he was paid to kill things.

That’s what he did, the only thing he did. He was a completely average-looking guy, he wasn’t tall or intimidating or anything, lacked any menacing scars and grotesque deformities whatsoever, and the folks back over at the orphanage even had the bright idea of giving him a mind-numbingly unimaginative name (John Doe was his real name). But underneath that utterly unremarkable exterior, though, he had a really nifty trick. In such a competitive job market, you had to have a nifty trick in order to stand out.

His trick: he was so good that he didn’t even need a gun. However the hell that worked (he never really bothered figuring it out).

He was just that damn good. So good that finding a good self-respecting job as an evil henchman for a bunch of megalomaniacs was, to him, just a matter of checking the classified ads and printing out a resume on a piece of bond paper.

Henchmanning at a posh volcano island lair in the Caribbean, that’s what he was looking forward to when he got himself employed. Beforehand, he just went by doing nifty tricks and blowing people’s brains out back in Crowtalon City, US of A, doing small-time jobs for anyone with a shiny penny. How in hell he ended up in a shithole jungle without any malaria medicine, he had no clue.

Truth be told, he had a bad feeling about this. That kid Ted nearly had his eyes gouged out, or that’s what the mercs were saying. Poor kid.

“Heh,” John said to himself. “I’m not gonna end up like that, no way-” Then his earpiece microbead began beeping, prompting him to place a finger on his ear. “Hello?”

He heard the cold monotone of that albino. “Slinger, Number 13. Proceed to the following coordinates. The target has been acquired.”

“About damned time,” John Doe, the Slinger, exclaimed as he worked his hands and made clicking-cocking mechanical sounds with his mouth. “Click-click ka-chick-chick!”

As the hunt began, the sun slowly made its ascent over the horizon, casting golden beams of orange light that gently seeped through the canopy. The Slinger looked up and saw a flock of bright emerald birds resting on a tree branch, and as the sunlight glistened off their bright feathers, they started to sing.

Maybe the jungle wasn’t so bad after all.



Fidel placed three leaves in his mouth, underneath his tongue. After tasting them for a full minute and noting no reaction, which meant that they were safe to eat, he then chewed them up, swallowed them, and began picking more leaves of the same kind. With the recent rain and the coming of dawn, the leaves were moist with droplets of dew, making them ideal sources for quick sustenance.

After sucking the moisture out of a handful of leaves, Fidel chewed them thoroughly into green cud and swallowed. On a nearby tree trunk, a rare herbivorous monitor lizard greeted the rising sun with a throaty sound.

Startled, Fidel snapped his head towards the noise but relaxed after finding its source. The lizard flicked its tongue at Fidel and enthusiastically slapped its tail against the tree trunk in rapid-fire succession, making even more noise.

“Heh,” Fidel scoffed. He returned his attention back to the direction he was traversing but quickly shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare, the orange-yellow beams of dawnlight that stabbed through the wounded jungle canopy.

The burst of machinegun fire went through the jungle like a stream of steel scything through flimsy vegetation, the echoing gunfire silencing the morning chorus of birds while a stray bullet turned a particularly noisy lizard into a spray of tiny guts.

In the instant the lizard exploded, Fidel was already in the process of throwing himself onto the ground. He landed behind a convenient shrub-shrouded tree and reflexively drew his CQC knife and his silenced pistol, and began an immediate situation assessment – viewing his motion detector while trying to get a visual of his assailants.

Four mercenaries, one at the center-rear letting off suppressive fire with his RPK, two at the sides carefully advancing from the left and the right while pausing to fire off quick bursts, the fourth one far back with a radio.

Bullets hissed past Fidel’s tree cover, making snapping sounds as leaves were torn into bits and branches were pulverized into splinters. He could actually feel some of the bullets that landed into the trunk of his particular tree, felt the impact of three shots in rapid succession, exploding bark and splinters, and he could tell just from the vibrations how close the projectiles were to overpenetrating and finding their way into his torso. If they had armor-piercing bullets, it would’ve been all over. And if the two mercs got too close, the tree would soon lose its cover value entirely – they would know exactly where he was hiding, rather than just have a fix on his general location.

Fidel peeked, carefully.

“I see him!” the merc to (Fidel’s) left shouted and pointed. “Over there!”

“Behind that tree!” the one at the other left replied and fired.

The two of them went from shooting towards a general direction to shooting at their target’s tree-cover in particular.

Fidel fired three shots. The silenced pistol was but a whisper amidst the gunfire of three automatic rifles. The merc to the right fell with a sharp jerk, .45 rounds homing into the bright red bandana wrapped around his head.

The merc to the left turned to see his comrade jerk back sharply before crumpling to the mud. He screamed in disbelief as he saw the lingering red mist that came out of his friend’s skull, illuminated in the dawnlight. He was about to face the enemy and return fire when, three shots later, he joined his friend.

Mendoza, behind them at the center providing suppressive fire with his RPK, saw his two men fall in less than ten seconds. He was too far back to hear them point out the target’s location, so in a vain attempt to get their killer, he simply swept his machinegun from one side to the other, spraying all over the jungle and sending lead flying everywhere. The enemy had a silencer, his weapon didn’t make muzzle-flashes, so Mendoza couldn’t zero in on him. He ducked behind a tree just as a bullet whizzed past his head, he went prone on his belly and returned full-auto fire.

“We found him,” the radioman said urgently, pressing his walkie hard against his ear. “We’ve lost Lito and Tomas, but we’ve got him pinned down.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve relayed your location to HQ. We’re on our way, just pin him down. Don’t let him out of your sights, we’ll be there!”

Miedra!” Mendoza cursed as he felt the hard recoil against his shoulder, the feel of his machinegun kicking as it spewed out lead. He paused to catch a breath and to shout an expletive, which helped in firing automatic weapons. “Maricon!” he cried as he resumed firing in an act that violently deforested the radius of jungle immediately before him.

Shrubs and ferns were torn to pieces, their flimsy bodies uprooted and scattered all over, while the larger trees were stabbed full of holes and had their branches brutally amputated. Dust, from the gunfire and the spent casings, was picked up and the dirt and mud exploded by the bullets was sent flying. Eventually a small mound of spent casing formed near where Mendoza was lying down.

“Motherfucker!” Mendoza gasped in finality. He ceased firing and slowly got up to -

Then, from a mutilated tree, he saw something coming his way, something small and metallic that gleamed in the sunlight as it flew through the air in an arcing parabolic path. It landed near him and, instinctively, he cried out and threw himself as far away from it as possible. “Grenade!”



As the distant gunman leapt for dear life, Fidel got up and bolted. He pulled up his sleeve and toggled his camouflage index, forgoing the pre-set patterns and setting it to active chameleonic instead. He would be, literally, a chameleon. As he disappeared into the underbrush, the Subsistence suit turned into a living thing – its ‘skin’ blending and seemingly merging with the colors of the jungle.



Seconds passed. Mendoza was in the process of getting off his prone position when he had to unceremoniously leap out of the grenade’s possible blast radius. In that bad posture, he wasn’t really able to jump too far. But the grenade never exploded, and a confused Mendoza got up to find himself surrounded by backup. The cavalry.

The mercs had formed a ring formation, crouching low and covering every conceivable angle of attack –

“What the hell are you doing?!” Mendoza shouted, breaking whatever composure he had before.

José approached him. “Sir?”

“After him!” Mendoza roared.

As one, the mercs bolted into the bush, their coordinated hunt now devolving into a chase, like hounds after a fox.

As the squads disappeared into the underbrush, Mendoza cursed at himself and was about to pick up his RPK machinegun when he saw the deadly ‘grenade’ he had so narrowly avoided. An old and half-rusted unmarked can of rations.

Puta!” Mendoza screamed.

He shouldered his RPK and ran into the jungle.



The Subsistence Suit’s chameleon fabric synthesized the colors of the jungle with fluidic reflex, like a living liquid thing, merging with and emulating the different shades and shadows of the surrounding environs. Fidel could feel himself blending in with the very jungle, his skin tingling, sometimes growing numb, as the suit absorbed bioenergy to sustain its active camouflage – coalescing colors flowing like some perpetual canvas of cloth.

He couldn’t outrun his pursuers. They had sighted him, they were too near, and they were too many. Who knew how many squads were in the jungle, converging from different directions towards where they thought he was. In the battlefield, when combat was the last recourse and evasion the objective, if you couldn’t run then you had to hide.

He pressed himself hard against the tree trunk, wrapping his arms and legs around it, insinuating himself upon the rough bark as he willed his pursuers to not see him.

He would wait for them to come and pass. If not, then he would wait for them to come, and then he’d strike.



Quiet now. The shuffling sound of boots crunching the jungle floor’s compost heap of dead leaves and decaying plant matter. Labored breathing of panting mercs, exhausted by the chase. Whispers of squad-leaders communicating, radiomen muttering to their walkies. With the cessation of violence, the jungle once more resumed in its noisemaking. Birds sang, insects buzzed, tree apes howled over the distance, and water dripped. Heavy weapons were prepped. Bayonets were unsheathed.



“He’s hiding nearby,” Mendoza said silently. “Waiting for us to pass on.”



A bead of sweat, a tiny droplet glistening in the sunlight, landed on the ear of a seventeen year old from Peru who had joined the mercenaries in a bid to earn good money. The salty droplet splattered and he reflexively got off the tree he was leaning on, to turn his head upward and -



Fidel leapt off the tree like a panther pouncing upon its prey. He landed just before the merc who had spotted him, the merc who had just been leaning on the tree. Fidel’s third knife, actually bayonet stolen from a dead merc, was now affixed to the tip of the Kalashnikov’s barrel. With the momentum of descent, it easily speared through the merc’s neck, breaking through the collarbone and coming out the nape of his back.

A hard kick dislodged the bayonet from the merc’s throat and then Fidel went for the next one. The second merc turned around just in time to see his comrade hit the ground, but before he could even bring his weapon to bear, he felt cold steel tear through the flesh beneath his jaw, severing his carotid artery. The blood meant for his brain spurted out of that ugly gash and, just like that, he was dead.

Fidel had no time to spare. The fourth merc had seen him and was drawing his firearm, and the third merc, upon seeing the reaction of the fourth, was just about to make an about face. But before he could, Fidel rammed the bayonet straight through his spine, through the bone and deep into the abdomen. The merc looked down as a syrup-like mix of blood and bile poured down his mouth.

Fidel squeezed the trigger. The impaled mercenary danced like an epileptic as a full automatic fusillade of 7.62x39mm FMJs tore through his abdomen, overpenetrating his frame and violently exploding his internals outwards like visceral confetti. Despite this, the bullets were in no way altered or slowed in their trajectory and easily found their way into the fourth merc, less than ten feet away. The impaled merc danced and the fourth merc danced along, like jerky marionettes. A fifth mercenary, previously unseen, used the fourth as a human shield – just like Fidel with the one impaled on his rifle. With the still-standing dead men between them, the fifth merc reciprocated Fidel’s fusillade with his own automatic spray.

The deafening roar of gunfire that filled the air was accompanied by a fine red mist as neither Fidel nor the fifth merc ceased firing until their clips and magazines were fully emptied, and neither were willing to leave their gruesome covers, certainly not out of respect for the dead, to expose themselves to the other’s fire. Not until they both ran out of ammo and the two dead mercs finally ceased their jerking dance of death. The fifth merc ejected his spent magazine, which landed on the ground at the exact same moment as the two dead gunmen. Quickly, he pulled out a fresh clip and –

Leaving the Kalashnikov and the bayonet stuck on the impaled merc, Fidel went over to the fifth merc. Before the gunman could reload his weapon, Fidel summarily knifed him in the chest – sliding the steel blade between the ribs in an angle that went straight into his heart. Fidel retracted, withdrew and sheathed his CQC knife and then took the fifth merc’s weapon, reloading it for him.

Though the five mercs were dead, by now everyone else was well aware of what was going on. There were dozens of mercs spread over the jungle, some were too far away to be of any threat, but others were dangerously close.

Fidel got down to a crouch and went for cover as gunfire exploded the jungle foliage all around him and filled the air with the echoes of roaring reports. Bullets whizzed, hissed, popped and snapped, and Fidel winced as a few went past him too close for comfort, one of them even shearing off the fluttering tail end of his bandana. He threw himself behind the largest tree he could find and returned fire.

A group of three were trying to flank him from his 3 o’ clock and he fired a semi-automatic double tap. Vietnamese tactics training taught that engaging enemies with a weapon set to full-automatic was wasteful, inaccurate and inefficient, with an unacceptable hit probability – in a gun battle like this, Fidel had to be accurate and efficient, maximizing the killing potential of every round that exited his weapon’s barrel, ensuring that every movement he made was for the ultimate goal of survival. The first round tore through the meager cover, the second landed dead center in a man’s chest, keeling him over as the tiny gunshot wound spurted copious amounts of blood. One of the mercs knelt over the injured man and began hauling him away; the other began spraying indiscriminately at Fidel’s general direction. The follow-up punched two holes in his chest, one in each lung.

Next, a group of six came in at Fidel’s 9 o’ clock and he spun around, firing another double tap. The burst punctured through the leading man’s abdomen, not killing him outright but making him an eventual dead man nonetheless. The rounds overpenetrated and knocked down the man behind him, who was either in a flak vest or very lucky, as he would later recover and drag his friend, the screaming belly-bleeding point man in front of him, to a place where he could bleed out in peace. Fidel fired again, this time in single shots tuned in to the rhythm of his breathing – one shot per cycle. One shot went into a merc’s shoulder, the next through a neck, another into and out of a hip with a bloody explosion of fragmenting pelvic bone, then the next shots missed entirely – but the remainder of the group were already hitting the ground for cover, or hitting the ground because they were dead.

Then Fidel let out a short-spray, aimed at the next largest and nearest group of mercs shooting at him. It wasn’t precise or efficient or accurate, none of the rounds found their mark, but the more cautious mercs intent on staying alive were forced into cover as Fidel left his and ran as fast as humanly possible towards another tree. He had to establish distance, if they got too close, cover wouldn’t matter and they could just fill him with lead from all angles.

A well-aimed stream of lead, perhaps from a fixed or stationary machinegun, exploded the ground right behind Fidel, picking up a fountain of mud, dirt and decayed plant matter where his feet had just been a half-second ago. Fidel did a baseball slide that brought him behind another abnormally thick tree.

Fidel panted, breathed hard, in and out, in sync with the rhythmic machinegun rounds hammering his cover. He got down really low, on his belly, just as some of the rounds overpenetrated the sides of the trunk. He took a peek and fired another doubletap and he was rewarded by the sounds of screaming. The rounds had struck a man in the leg and as he bled out, two of his friends tried desperately to keep him alive. Fidel kept count, he replaced the magazine, slapped in a fresh clip and fired more two-shot bursts, carefully calculated to break up the merc’s formations. There were screams and yelps as Fidel aimed to injure, to cripple his hunters as best he could. Then he tried to move to another cover position before they could enclose him.



Mendoza gritted his teeth as he wrestled with the gun’s recoil, sending round after round in a torrent of steel at the pendejo, at that running chickenshit. He screamed as loudly as he could as the RPK buckled, kicking his shoulder, spitting out brass casings from its side. He laughed as dust and dirt was picked up by rounds just missing the puta, he couldn’t make it to his cover and now he was lying on the ground. Cornered.

Mendoza whistled sharply to a merc with aviator shades who was smoking a fat joint. The merc, whose name was Meralco, grinned his rotten yellow teeth and brought out a tube-shaped weapon.

Mercs gathered around Meralco in anticipation as his buddy slid the rocket-propelled grenade into the launcher, and they all winced and covered their ears when the rocket ignited. The RPG screamed a high-pitched wail and left behind a bluish contrail, streaking across the jungle and detonating in a blast of smoke-seared magenta.

“Whatcha gonna do now, puta?” Mendoza laughed. He turned to José and his squad mates, to tell the radioman to give HQ a final ‘status report’.



Fidel gritted his teeth, covered his ears and opened his mouth as the concussion and blast wave subsided. Dirt rained down on him, while dead leaves floated in the air, swaying in some invisible aerial current.

The sound returned to his ears with some ringing and he groaned. Sporadic gunfire whizzed by, aimed at his general direction, and he decided to stay down lest they realize he was still alive.

A tree had its base blown off by the RPG and it fell slowly, as if cut down by a lumberjack’s axe. It landed near Fidel, blocking him from the view of the mercs.



Mendoza saw the small metallic thing fly from where Fidel was, it arced down a parabolic angle and landed in a nearby bush.

”It’s a trick! It’s just another can of - ” Mendoza was shouting. And then he exploded.

At the sight of their leader getting blown into barely-recognizable shrapnel-encrusted bits along with some of their friends, the mercs gathered by Meralco wasted no time in loading another RPG into the launcher.

“Shit, Mendoza’s dead! Shit!” one of them cried out.

“Shoot the rocket, man. Blow the shitter up!”

“Shut up! He can’t shoot it if he doesn’t know where -”

“Fuck it!”

“We have to wait for… there!”



Almost groggily, Fidel got up to his feet and staggered. He shook the dirt off his head and turned to face the gathered mercs.

“Fire!” they screamed as one.

Fidel drew his sidearm and aimed.

The rocket motor ignited, blasting a tail of fire and smoke as it left the launcher with a violent shriek and streaked –

The .45 round slammed into the RPG’s impact fuse, detonating the rocket before it could even travel a meter’s distance.

The resounding explosion sent a plume of acrid black smoke and gouts of orange flame up into the air. As the dust settled, those who were not outright killed by the detonation were sprawled all over the jungle floor. The moans of those who were maimed and torn to pieces, screams of anguish over severed limbs, cries of pain. Those who suffered only minor cuts and wounds couldn’t carry on pursuing of their target and instead just tended to their dying comrades, making them comfortable.



Fidel staggered through the jungle, shaken but not quite stirred. If those mercs had any concern for their comrades, then they would abandon the chase to help as many of their injured as possible. Even squads composed of intact mercs wouldn’t carry on, they wouldn’t leave their dead behind to be claimed by the jungle.

It was close, Fidel thought. But no cigar.

He leaned on a tree to catch his breath, to reconnoiter his new surroundings and get a bearing on his location. Even if the mercs were going to pull off, others would no doubt be sent to find him – he would have to move quickly to put some distance while he still had a temporary reprieve.

The terrain was going to get uneven, the trees and foliage were already thinning out, the ground was rocky, and all around him were large stones, man-sized marble blocks partially covered in green mold, with their smoothened surfaces interrupted by lines seemingly carved into their surfaces. Fidel could just barely make out the sounds of flowing water, a nearby stream maybe. Flowing water usually smoothened rocks, wearing their surface down in time, though they usually didn’t carve symmetrical lines into stones.

Fidel consulted his map. The coordinates N gave him led to this general area, which in turn led uphill. The map also showed a small stream nearby. Fidel re-checked his compass, just to be sure he was heading the right way.

There was a narrow path covered in flat stones leading up the inclination. Fidel scowled. The footpath and the carved marble stones looked like ruins of some kind. Both the marble and the pathway were covered in mould, which meant that they hadn't been used for a long while.

Fidel decided to risk the path. The inclination was barely a hill and as soon as Fidel went over the top, the trek uphill became a half-slide downwards as the mold-encrusted ‘cobblestones’ of the pathway became slippery. Fidel ended up sliding on top of a carved block, this one much larger than the previous ones on the other side.

“Ruins,” Fidel muttered, finding himself in an area of flattened ground dotted by similarly large marble blocks, decayed edifices that once stood high before the jungle reclaimed what rightfully belonged to it, monuments to something now long since dead. Below, the ground was covered in loosely spaced cobblestones that formed a kind of courtyard. Because the ground had been cleared, the lack of shade prompted lesser vegetation like grass - usually rare in dark forests – to grow out of the gaps between the cobbles in an outpouring of verdant green. Without trees to cling to, tendrilous vines snaked across the decrepit yard, some of them finding purchase on the scattered marble blocks. Bisecting the courtyard was a crumbled wall, a heap of rubble and bricks and flowering blossoms mounding at its base, though parts of it still stood in defiance against nature’s will. Here and there were stone pillars, some leaning limply, others lying on the ground.

Nonetheless, this was still part of the jungle, and surrounding the courtyard’s clearing was the darkness of the underbrush and two streams running parallel on either side of the yard – forming a kind of natural moat. At the edges of the courtyard, the streams would overflow and water would seep between the outlying cobblestones. There in those shallows were tiny frogs and fishes, and some were scooped out of the water by swooping kingfishers.

From the crumbled mid-yard wall, a golden-yellow butterfly lifted off a flower petal and glided into the air, as if carried by the wind. Its wings fluttered and it flew high.

In the sky, the clouds that obscured the morning sun melted away, surrendering to the harsh light. Thus, the sun’s blistering radiance came down upon the courtyard clearing, touching the fluttering butterfly, and at this touch, the insect’s golden-yellow wings slowly wilted like a dying leaf, turning brown and then scattering into many small pieces. The butterfly died, and so too did the vines and grass on the courtyard. As one, they shriveled and turned light brown.

Then, Fidel grunted as he was struck by a hot wind, a harsh gust that carried clumps of dead dry grass across the courtyard, forming tumbleweeds. Whatever the hell was happening… Fidel prepared to equip his .45 and CQC knife while protecting his eyes from the flying dust.

“FIDEL!” someone shouted over the wind.

“Huh?!” Fidel scanned the ruins for the source of the voice.

There, standing on a pillar on the opposite side of the courtyard, was a man wearing a brown leather jacket and… cowboy boots. He opened his arms, spreading them apart in a gesture. Fidel could see no visible weapon on him…

“Who are you?” Fidel demanded.

“I’m John Doe, the Slinger!” he said with a cocky grin. “I’m here to kill you. And unlike that Bloodsucker kid, I’m actually gonna get the job done.”

“Hrm,” Fidel scowled, not liking the setup at all. “You’re unarmed.”

“Of course,” the jacketed wearing gunman said, before he spun around on a boot-heel, doing a 360 before stopping to spread his arms again. “I’m the Slinger, the gunslinger without a gun.” He pointed the index and middle fingers of one hand at Fidel and bent his thumb. His eyes locked with Fidel’s, and then he smiled. “Bang.”

Reflexively, Fidel hurled himself off the marble block he was standing on, curling himself into a ball. He landed on his back, and as he felt his spine scream in pain, he used the fall’s momentum to roll back onto his feet and then lunge forward into the cover of a felled pillar.

Fidel gritted his teeth, placed a hand on his sore back, and drew his weapons of choice – equipping his .45 and CQC knife.

That man, the Slinger, had no gun but Fidel could’ve sworn he felt a bullet just narrowly missing him in that half-second it took for him to leap off the stone block. Fidel knew he had just narrowly avoided getting his brains blown out the back of his head, but the man had no gun. He just pointed with his fingers and went…

“Bang!”

Shattered stone was sent flying; Fidel could feel a bullet striking the pillar. He could even make out the ping of the round ricocheting off the rock.

“Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!”

It didn’t make any sense!



John Doe grinned. Good way to start the fight, the guy actually didn’t pull a gun out on him while he was busy talking. John shrugged, he wasn’t usually talkative, but just this once… Well, if the positions were reversed, the Slinger sure as hell wouldn’t have wasted any time in plugging some noisy dick full of lead – albeit invisible lead. From an invisible gun.

“Bang!” John said for emphasis. Then he fired a couple more shots at where his mark was pinned down. “Bang! Bang!”

The Slinger flicked on his microbead radio.

“Number 13 here,” came the cold monotone of the albino arch-henchman.

“13, Slinger. I’ve found him,” John Doe reported. “I’m in some kind of ruin… anyway, I’ve got him in my sights.”

“Good. Engage him, shoot to kill.”

“Great. Tell Mister Hunt to ready my paycheck, here I come!” John exclaimed, leaping off the pillar as a flock of doves, or some kind of dove-like jungle birds, flew past him and his swirling jacket. “BOOM!”



Fidel saw the Slinger leap off the pillar, and was barely able to get his head down on time when a large chunk of pillar was pulverized by more ‘gunfire’. This time, the effect was like a shotgun blast, from what Fidel could tell, but the gunman didn’t even have a shotgun!

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Fidel growled. He peeked and the man was gone, probably changed position to advance on him – standing on top of a pillar for everyone to see was not tactically sound. Neither was letting an enemy talk on, Fidel snorted.

The guy was no longer in the line of sight, so Fidel took this opportunity to move to another cover, this time one of those large blocks.

Fidel panted. He checked his camouflage index, still set to chameleonic. Active camouflage used bioenergy, and that was draining his stamina. Fidel switched the camo into a pre-set one that blended well with the ruin’s environment, and then he assumed his CQC stance and carefully –

His earpiece was beeping. Fidel flicked on his radio.

“Fidel,” came the garbled artificially-modulated voice.

“N,” Fidel’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’m being attacked by -”

“The Slinger,” N interrupted. “He can shoot invisible bullets from an invisible gun.”

“What?!”

“He can shoot invisibullets from an invisible gun,” N repeated himself.

“No, that doesn’t…” Fidel groaned internally. “Alright. Okay. I understand. Anything else?”

“Be forewarned, other Problem-Solvers are also after you. Slinger is not the only one.”

“Thanks,” Fidel muttered as the transmission ceased, and then he said to himself: “Really useful.”

Fidel switched over to another frequency.

“Major.”

“Fidel, what’s going on?”

“I’m being engaged by a freak mercenary, someone called John Doe, the Slinger.”

The Major thought this over, and then replied: “Name doesn’t ring a bell. Must be someone new, or imported from America. A freak mercenary, you say? What are his… abilities?”

“Apparently he can shoot invisibullets from an invisible gun. I think… if he says ‘bang’, he shoots out handgun-caliber bullets. When he said ‘boom’, it was more like a shotgun blast.”

“Right.” though Fidel couldn’t see it, he could see Major nodding and taking what he just said at face-value.

“Well?” Fidel asked.

“I’ve never heard of a Slinger before, Fidel,” the Major said. “If he is new, then his only advantage over you might be just his powers, and if he’s not from around here, then he’s going to be unfamiliar with jungle terrain. Bang and boom, right?”

“Huh?”

“From what you’ve said, it seems like he has to say bang and boom to shoot his invisible bullets,” the Major thought out loud. “You might want to… counter it, so to speak.”

“Hmm…”

“In any case, he might have special abilities, but you’re not totally unequipped either,” the Major concluded. “Use your abilities, Fidel, and you’ll gain the upper hand. End the fight quickly and decisively.”

“Right,” Fidel nodded, and then killed the transmission.



Crouching low, Fidel carefully navigated between two rectangular blocks, leaning his back against the engraved mold-encrusted surface of the stones. It was all quiet, save for the wind and the flowing stream.

Slowly, he peeked over the corner and saw nothing.

Fidel made a silent dash for another one of those ruined blocks, this one with an uprooted pillar draped in dead brown vines leaning precariously on to it. Fidel got down to one knee and equipped his motion sensor.

There was a blip to the eight o’ clock. The sensor didn’t pick up the terrain, it only registered motion, so Fidel had to take another peek to correlate the blip and figure out where it actually was.

Standing behind a pillar.

Fidel slowly crept towards the pillar. The motion detector showed him getting ever closer to the blip.

Fidel stepped on a loose cobblestone, it made a slight noise and Fidel almost winced.

Fidel decided to strike, moving quickly and rounding the pillar, gripping both pistol and CQC knife, ready for the kill –



John Doe gazed at his tactical radar and saw, to his surprise, a sort of rippling. He had read the manual that came with the radar device and recalled that ripples were like blips, except ripples where when the radar detected other sensors being used in the area, sensors that were too primitive to mask their own emissions. At the center of that ripple would be…

In one quick motion, John hoisted himself on top of a marble block, pointed both hands forwards and went:

“BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!”



The rapid-fire spray sent countless of invisibullets whizzing past Fidel and he let out a yelp of surprise as he ran towards the nearest form of cover. Invisibullets rammed into him as he leapt behind a marble monument, knocking the air out of his lungs and bruising his already battered chest. Fortunately, the Subsistence suit incorporated light body armor, protecting Fidel from some forms of small-arms fire. Didn’t stop it from hurting like hell, though.



“BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!” the Slinger went on. The auto-fire invisibullets were pulverizing stone and picking up dirt into the air, forming dry clouds of obscuring dust.

Fidel compartmentalized the pain, stuck himself out of the block’s other corner and returned fire with his .45. Silencers were less than silent and made a sound that was still louder than a person saying ‘bang’, but an unsilenced gun was truly a loud thing and with the muzzle flash, would’ve made Fidel an easier target to hit. He didn’t have an invisible gun, but at least he had a sound suppressor.

The return fire succeeded in forcing the Slinger off his perch, but as before, midway through the air he let out a mighty: “BOOM!” then he panted, drew in breath, and carried on. “BOOM! Shack-a-lack-a! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”

Invisible buckshot filled the air, forcing Fidel down into cover as the Slinger too relocated to a new position.

When the invisi-shotgun blasts ended, Fidel opted to dash towards another location as well. Static positions were ill-advised in the battlefield.

Fidel glanced at his motion-sensor. It was useless the last time, gave a false reading, but now it showed a moving blip that corresponded with where he suspected the Slinger was.

John Doe glanced at his tactical radar, the soliton signals were picking up the signature of Fidel’s motion-sensor.

Fidel got on top of a half-sunken block of marble, spotted a fluttering jacket, and emptied the rest of his .45.

The Slinger leapt forward and spun midair, and as things seemingly slowed down, he realigned himself, aimed both hands and went: “BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!”

Fidel got behind cover as invisibullets whizzed overhead. Placing the knife between his teeth, he began to crawl.

“BOOM!” the Slinger shouted, invisible buckshot filling the air like shotgunners hunting quail.

He checked his tactical radar, the man wasn’t moving. Slinger knew he had tagged him, three in the chest, somehow he could count how much of his invisibullets hit. The ripple-blips were still.

Slinger cocked his hands with a ‘click-click’ and decided to launch some oppressive fire.

“BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!”

Gasped, breathed in and out. Ran forward.

“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! CHACK-CHACK! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-SHACK-A-LACK-A! BOOM! BOOM! BANG! BOOM! BOOM!”

Out of breath, mouth getting dry. Continued on.

“BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!”

John Doe leapt on top of the half-sunken block and found…

A motion-detector on the ground.

“Where the hell is he?”



“Shit,” Fidel cursed with the knife still between his teeth, realizing that he had just lost his motion detector. It was an expensive piece of equipment. Didn’t matter, he didn’t need any sensor to survive. In the battlefield…

Fidel got up to a crouch and saw Slinger just ten meters away. Fidel ejected his empty magazine and slid a new one in. There was a click as Fidel worked the slide, chambering a new round.

The Slinger heard, turned his head around, and met Fidel eye to eye.

Fidel brought his sidearm to bear as the Slinger leapt sideways. Things slowed down as Fidel squeezed the trigger in rapid succession, as the Slinger aimed his akimbo-invisiguns, as the ‘bangs’ and the ‘booms’ left his slow-moving lips and as spent brass casings were ejected from Fidel’s pistol.

In a swift motion, the Slinger rolled sideways and disappeared behind another ruin.

Fidel ejected the spent magazine, cautiously moved towards where the Slinger had just been, and found the motion detector. Found it right where the Slinger had stood mere seconds ago.

Motion detectors were active sensors, Fidel recalled. They detected motion by letting out pulses of sound, and those pulses could be detected as well.

Fide deactivated the device and unequipped it.

Now it’s going to be a fair fight, Fidel thought, and then the pillar right beside his head exploded in a shower of pulverized ancient masonry – shotgun-blasted by invisibuckshots.

Fidel hit the ground and got on his back, crawled using his feet to push his body backwards, and got behind the half-sunken marble block for cover. He took a quick peek, before the air was literally filled with a rain of invisible buckshots and exploding rock and pulverizing dry dead plants.

“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!” the Slinger shouted with all his might, pumping and blasting with an invisible shotgun. There, he stood atop a standing-segment of the wall that bisected the courtyard’s center. “BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!”

“Guy wants to shout,” Fidel growled as he unscrewed the silencer and got up to one knee. As the Slinger shouted and fired shotgun-blasts from each hand, Fidel took careful aim amidst the flying debris and buckshots and fired a double-tap. No shout or cry of ‘boom’ could match the echoing retort of the unsilenced .45 rounds, and Fidel grinned in satisfaction as the Slinger gave out a yelp of pain and fell off the wall like a sack of potatoes.

“Now it’s going to be a fair fight,” Fidel repeated himself. Now the hunter was the hunted, and the chase became the pursuit.

Fidel re-attached the silencer and carefully, but quickly, made his way to the wall.



The Slinger panted. He was running out of breath and blood trickled down from somewhere in his body. He cursed, his jacket was ruined. He took it off, found two holes, one at the sleeve and another at the side, looked down to his chest at the corresponding body part and saw that his shirt was bloodying up.

“Shit,” he cursed and staggered. “Jacket’s ruined.”

John Doe checked his tactical radar and noticed two things. Fidel had switched off his motion detector, the clever bastard. And his mouth was getting really dry.

He could hear a stream nearby. He was really thirsty.



After scouring the maze-like courtyard and finding nothing, Fidel decided to search the perimeter of the area instead. Silently, he made his way, careful not to step on the wet puddles where the water seeped amidst the cobblestones. Nearby, one of the streams bubbled and flowed, its surface glistening in the harsh sunlight.

Dragonflies buzzed over its surface, some of them hovering in place, others zipping from one place to the next.

Overhead, the clouds had once more obscured the jungle from the harsh sun.

The vines that laced a nearby marble pillar were no longer dry and dying and wilting, but once more looked alive.

Fidel saw the brown jacket and spared no hesitation, immediately firing three silent shots at the center mass before he even realized that the jacket was being worn by a small tree.

“Bang.”

A flash of white pain blinded Fidel as he felt the invisibullet’s impact his shoulder blade, the kinetic force jerking him to do a half-pirouette, sending his ass to the ground. He grunted in pain, his weapons fell beyond his reach.

The Slinger dawned over him, pointing an outstretched index and middle finger at his face.

“Why don’t you die?” the freak mercenary asked. Then, with finality: “Ba-”


Like a cobra, Fidel lunged at him in an explosion of ferocity. Fidel twisted Slinger’s hand, disarming him. The Slinger yelled in pain and then brought his other hand, also with two outstretched fingers, to Fidel’s temple. But before he could say anything, Fidel rammed his own hand into the Slinger’s open mouth, and he gripped the gunman’s tongue as hard as he could.

The Slinger tried to let off a shot, but he couldn’t. His remaining hand made feeble clicking noise, but couldn’t fire.

He tried to bite the hand that was in his mouth, sink his teeth in hard.

Fidel winced.

Click.

Click.


Fidel twisted, despite the thirty-odd teeth cutting into the flesh of his hand and fingers.

John Doe tried to scream, tried to bite harder, muffled cries choking in his throat, his free hand trying to pry that vice-like mandible claw off his mouth. He couldn’t, so he tried strangling Fidel, but couldn’t, and so he struck at the man’s face, clawed, tried to gouge the eyes. The muffled cries and screams that choked in his throat intensified, his eyes were wide open in fear and pain. He clawed at Fidel’s face, tried to gouge the eyes.

Fidel pulled hard.

There was a horrible wordless scream of pain and anguish as blood and spit spewed out of John Doe’s mouth, flowed out of the Slinger’s mouth so much like the water from that nearby stream. He screamed, tears coming out of his eyes, and he fell to his knees and looked up. Looked up at the man who had his tongue in his hand.

Fidel held that slippery bloody thing in his hand, regarded it with disgust, and threw it into the stream.

“Fetch."
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Re: DINO EATER (13)

Post by Mobius 1 »

This still marks as one of my favorite DINO EATER chapters, if only for the transition to boss fight and Inexplicable Ruins and falmboyant posturing.
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Re: DINO EATER (13)

Post by Malchus »

Awesome reposts again, Shroom. And I can't get over how damn awesome the Slinger versus Fidel Boss Battle is. Again, I reiterate, I want the Slinger's power!
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Re: DINO EATER (13)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The albinic visage of Number 13, normally utterly emotionless and devoid of color, was lit by the eerie glow of consoles, tele-screens and HD-holos, visually displayed data reflecting off the arch-henchman’s pigmentless facial features. The hardhat operating the console 13 was examining tried his best to maintain his professional composure, withholding the urge to squirm visibly in the presence of the albino’s silent rage.

There was a burst of static, followed by garbled muffled sounds, and then pained whimpering.

“Slinger,” the hardhat called out to the radio. “Respond.”

“What’s the matter?” another hardhat quipped as he passed by. “Cat got his tongue?”


At the glare of 13’s soulless blue eyes, the passing goon quickly made himself scarce.

“Slinger,” the operator-hardhat repeated himself. “What’s your status? Report.”

Number 13 straightened himself up and crossed his arms. The only response was more of the same incoherent blubbering cries of pain, which went on and on until, at 13’s silent command, Jonathan the henchman killed the transmission. The command trailer became quiet as, ever so subtly, the wafting aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled its interior, lingering in the self-contained and reprocessed atmosphere.

Number 13, still with his back straight and arms crossed, turned and found Marcus Elliot Hunt, clad in casual pastel attire and with a cup of steaming coffee in hand, walking towards him.

“13, have the Problem Solvers gotten rid of that interloping intruder yet?” the corporate man asked casually as he carefully took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “Too hot.”

“No,” 13 replied.

“And why not?” Mr. Hunt raised an eyebrow.

“The Slinger has been neutralized,” Number 13 said this like a forecaster telling the weather, or a man writing off an expendable asset.

Hunt shook his head slightly. “That spy, Fidel Castro was his name? He’s proving himself to be rather competent, and rather troublesome. He’s already taken down Theodore once… and now John Doe.” He blew the steam off his cup, trying to cool the hot liquid down. After a few seconds, he took another sip. “Hm, better. Inform the rest of the Problem Solvers that whoever gets the elusive Mr. Castro will be rewarded with an increase in his or her salary,” he pointed to the operator-hardhat. “You, what’s your name?”

“I’m Jonathan, sir,” the hardhat said hesitantly, adjusting his hardhat as he prepared to relay the orders.

“Make sure the frequency’s calibrated so that the mercs can listen in,” Hunt confided. “It might motivate some of them to work overtime.”

“Yes sir.”

“And please, do have someone recover John Doe. Find out what’s happened to him.”



John Doe clutched his bloodied mouth as a foul mix of blood and saliva poured out of it like water from a pitcher. He wiped the mess on his jacket, which was now totally smeared in blood and spit. He staggered weakly and then, after steadying himself against a tree, continued his run with partially renewed resolve.

It was a pain he had never felt before. He had been shot at, stabbed at, spat at with acid blood, clawed at with retractable claws, but never before had he –

- tripped on a root and hit the ground with his face.

He tried to crawl up, reaching for something that’d give him purchase. Just a few meters away, he could see the flowing stream – its currents carrying his severed tongue further downstream.

John Doe rolled onto his back. Then, with tears in his eyes and bloody spit dribbling out of his mouth, he let out an incoherent scream, a cry of anguish and pain that echoed beyond the jungle canopy.



The Reckoner slipped carefully down the moss-covered cobblestones, keeping his rifle stable against his shoulder. He had considered the possibility of his target still being in the area, where the lack of undergrowth would make his ghillie suit stand out. This priority was weighed against his employers’ mention of additional rewards, as well as his desire to investigate the scream he had heard coming from the creek – it was definitely Slinger’s voice, as the Reckoner remembered from aboard the VTOL aircraft. But there was something… wrong about the timbre of it, outside the expected pain and panic.

Unknown factors meant anomalies disturbing snug and comfortable patterns of data, mental needles in cotton wool. The Reckoner felt the need to satisfy his curiosity, to learn new information and alleviate his growing sense of wrongness. And if he bumped into the target along the way, he did not rate his chances too poorly.

With that, he settled on taking a roundabout path towards the sound, weaving low and cautiously between the rocky ruins. The pillars and blocks were probably Incan, as the tattered cloth of his suit brushed against their rain-worn patterns, but he couldn’t tell. It was another niggling annoyance that he pushed to the back of his mind – yes, they were probably Incan because they were in South America, but he wasn’t sure. There were already too many things in the world he wasn’t sure about.

Sounds of struggling movement. The gurgling of water. The Reckoner turned a corner, rifle raised; and saw John Doe, covered in red, trying to claw himself upright. No signs of traps or hiding places. He flipped his tri-goggles briefly to infrared, noted the untidy splotches of warm blood that glowed fluorescent all over the place, but most importantly the cooling trail.

The Reckoner lowered his gun slightly and approached the ailing man. Back in the transport he remembered John Doe as an unremarkable man with features as unremarkable as his name, although, he reminded himself, it didn’t mean that he was entirely normal either. The power to shoot invisible bullets from invisible guns was something he spent a long time trying to square, and eventually placed alongside a large box of other conundrums.

But here John Doe had run into the target, Fidel Castro… and was still alive. John Doe was impossible to disarm, simple logic said. To neutralize his fighting capability, he would have to be either incapacitated by severe injury, or mutilated in some way…

John Doe noticed the Reckoner approaching and his mouth flapped open, spilling dark blood. His throat made sharp, inarticulate noises.

The Reckoner opened the radio channel to 13. “I have located the target’s trail. I have also made contact with Slinger. His tongue has been removed. Otherwise, he is fine. Instructions?”

The albino’s cold voice replied after a short pause, “This is the second Problem Solver who has been neutralized, and we have lost contact with the mercenary patrols. Do not pursue him alone. Relay your position to the other Problem Solvers. You will coordinate to track down Fidel Castro.”

*click*

The other Problems Solvers. They would be useful in hunting down the target, significantly improve the probability of success considering his extrapolated prowess. If it wasn’t for the fact that they were all so unpredictable, the Reckoner thought as John Doe staggered towards him for help. Invisible bullets. The woman filled with deceit. The sullen telepath. The nauseatingly insane one. He imagined himself working with them, trying to anticipating their responses while facing such a formidable opponent who demanded no mistakes – that thought was almost unbearable, like an ocean opening up beneath his feet.

Making little pleading noises, John Doe stumbled and pawed for his arm, and the Reckoner could feel the impact of each slick fingertip. A calculated shrug altered his posture slightly, so the mutilated man found no purchase and fell hard on the ground as the Reckoner started to jog after the heat signature of Fidel Castro’s footsteps. He ignored John Doe’s imploring eyes. The man had been driven irrational by pain and shock. He still had his legs. He could walk.



It was still morning, though the sun was quickly reaching that zenith in the sky that marked the noon. Fidel trudged on, perhaps carelessly with no more mercs trailing him, though there were still those ‘Problem Solvers’, no doubt the rest of them were also freak mercenaries with abilities as bizarre as shooting invisible bullets. From invisible guns.

Fidel grimaced. His chest was badly bruised, though his Subsistence suit had a layer of low-level body armor that prevented the invisibullets from penetrating, the impacts still left their marks. The fact that his torso had just recently recuperated from a point-blank shotgunning (with rocksalt) didn’t help either. At least, Fidel consoled himself, he didn’t have to do any survival viewing - prying out the invisibullets with his survival knife, suturing the wounds up, disinfecting and then wrap it up with bandages. He would’ve spent half the day trying to dig out the invisible bullets with his knife if not for his limited armor. Maybe the invisibullets were still on him, flattened, deformed and stuck on the Subsistence suit. He had no way to know.

Fidel trudged on, sticking to the shadows and avoiding the wounds in the canopy where the harsh sunlight bled in; though this time, he did it mostly to avoid the heat rather than to be stealthy.

The path uphill was becoming a steep incline. For a while, he had followed the stream where he had left Slinger, followed it upstream, which the map indicated would lead him to increasingly more irregular terrain. If he continued on directly, the straightest route being the shortest, he would end up at the rendezvous point by mid-afternoon. There was something else, too. His path would take him to an outpost where some of the merc patrols were garrisoned. Hopefully, it was well stocked.

The outpost itself was on the other side of the hill, at its base. While Fidel could’ve easily gone around the hill, sparing himself the trouble of navigating the incline, the hilltop was a perfect vantage point for reconnaissance. He finally reached the top and was about to pull out his binoculars when –

Hesitantly, he flicked on his radio.

“Major…”

“Fidel, what is it? Have you rendezvous with N yet?”

“No… I haven’t.”

“Then what is it? You know Fidel, even if our transmissions are heavily encoded, the enemy could still be listening in. Your position could be compromised if the enemy is able to triangulate your radio signals…”

“Major… I found the Enriques,” Fidel said. At the top of the hill was a massive tree, its thick branches spreading outwards and reaching up to the sky. It had no leaves because it was dead, though vines crept and slithered up along its bone-dry bark. Amidst its branches, so much like clawing fingers of black wood, was the wreckage of a rickety single-engine Cessna. Its wings had been ripped off with its tail rudder, and along the fuselage were vicious gashes that leaked fuel, bleeding wounds… torn open by claws. The cockpit’s windshield was broken open, with only jagged shards of glass remaining at the edges. Fidel dared to look at what was inside and found two identical corpses, with the flesh peeled off their bones.

“What’s their status?” the Major asked. “Fidel?”

“They’re dead.”

Overhead, the clouds grew dark.

Fidel climbed up and scavenged whatever he could from the wreckage, but he didn’t find much. A flare gun, an extra pair of binoculars and some maps were all he could rummage. The company of the Enriques was distinctly discomforting, since a day ago they were just merrily ferrying him on their rickety plane and now they were skeletonized corpses – and they were still grinning at him. Fidel didn’t stay too long in the plane, he kicked the door open and jumped out.

It began to rain. Light droplets hitting the plane’s aluminum hull, making soft pattering sounds. There was something underneath that sound though; Fidel could barely make it out. The sound of footfalls in the mud.

They were too close, so Fidel hid behind the tree and hoped they wouldn’t find him.



Mateo slung his rifle over his shoulders as he made his way up the hill. With the ground getting slippery and wet, he had to steady himself and plant his feet firmly with every single step. He didn’t want to slip and roll all the way down the hill. He nearly did though, when he stepped on a rock that had been loosened by the water.

“Hey, watch out!” Andre scolded, grabbing Mateo’s arm to steady him.

“Thanks,” Mateo said as he regained his footing and continued on upwards. It didn’t take long for them to find the crashed plane.

“Jesus… I wonder how long it’s been here,” Andre uttered. “I mean, if it’s been here all along, we would’ve noticed it, right?”

“Right.”

”And if it just got here…” Andre wondered. “How come none of us heard it crash? Mateo?”

“The flesh’s been peeled off their bones,” his friend observed, pointing to the cockpit.

“Christ…”

“They’ve been dead for a while,” Mateo continued. “So no one could’ve opened the door and gone out.”

He pointed at the opened door, and then at something on the ground. Andre scratched his head. “Whose footprints are these?”

Mateo circled the tree but found only more ambiguous footprints. “We’re not alone,” he muttered, unslinging his SVD sniper rifle.



Luis stood on the porch and took a deep breath, savoring the coolness of the light rain and noticing a slight rainbow arcing over the nearby hill. He and five others were manning a lonely outpost that served as a storehouse but had enough room for quite a few men. It had supplies for patrols that would spend days out in the jungle, canned food rations, guns and ammunition. In fact, it was rather well stocked, and Luis made sure of that. What contraband the guys couldn’t keep in the main installations, or didn’t want to share with the gringo goons with the silly plastic hats, they could procure from Luis.

He ran a smooth operation, part pawnshop and part barter economy, from tequila to tripwires. Despite his short stature and weak body, he was a go-to guy. And while the other mercs stationed in the outpost quickly rushed off to find the intruder, emboldened by the promise of rewards, Luis and his retinue was content to stay inside their own fortified castle and listen to the radio as the other guys were getting killed off.

Luis was thinking (because he was smart) and calculated that the now-deceased Meralco’s RPGs, which he kept in the storehouse, could be sold for quite a few cases of tequila.

The thought made him happy and made him want to relieve himself, so he walked over to the back of the building, where they had dug a hole for that explicit purpose.

The man previously manning the hole, Ramon, zipped his fly as he brushed past Luis.

“Did you leave the toilet seat up?” Luis joked.

“Heh. Just be careful, some Cuban might slit your throat while you take a piss,” Ramon retorted. “Have a safe shit.”

Luis snorted and held up his M4 carbine, complete with modular SOPMOD attachments. He grinned cockily. “I’ve got my safety right here, puta.”

Aside from that, the only way into their outpost was a dirt path being watched by their lookout, and electric fences surrounded the outpost. Besides fences, there were other surprises for anyone sneaking about in the bushes.

“Just don’t forget to flush.”

Luis laughed.



There was a dirt path leading down to the outpost, but Fidel didn’t take it. It was devoid of cover, anyone looking could spot anyone walking down the path from a hundred meters off.

Instead, Fidel went down low in the underbrush that surrounded the path. He took out his binoculars and began reconnoitering. The outpost was a modest building, its base was made out of rock or cement, it was probably built on one of those stone ruins, but he couldn’t tell. The building itself was made out of wood, mostly planks and plywood, while the roof was corrugated sheet metal. Surrounding it were electric fences, but it wasn’t gated – though walking past it undetected was going to be another matter entirely. He could make out movement around the outpost, not big enough to be a human, but large enough for a guard dog.

Fidel cursed inwardly and tried to see if he was downwind or not, then he zoomed in with his scopes and was astonished. Chickens, not guard dogs. Each one with a leg tied to a rope so they couldn’t get too far away from their little chicken houses and peck on the fences.

Fidel wondered… but it made sense. If ever the mercs in the outpost were short on supplies or wanted an omelet…

Then a merc came out from behind the building. For a second, the merc looked straight at Fidel - before walking over to the building’s porch and settling himself on a hammock.

Fidel breathed a sigh of relief.

After five minutes of stillness, he got on his belly and undulated downwards – barely moving his arms and legs and instead just sliding on the dead leaves that littered the jungle floor so densely. It was a smooth and silent motion, but also a slow and painstaking one. As he crept down that slippery slope, the sky gradually cleared up and the ceasing rain was replaced by bright sunlight.

Half an hour later, Fidel finally reached level ground. Slowly did he crawl, this time the thinning foliage forcing him to keep his belly off the ground, using his arms and knees to push himself forward. He would have to crawl on like this for dozens of meters in a stamina-consuming ordeal.

Low-lying leaves brushed past his face, smearing his face with dew-like precipitations leftover from the rain, dribbling down and accumulating on his moustache. He lapped the moisture with his tongue to quench his thirst. It didn’t take long for Fidel to be totally and completely soaked, and combined with the jungle humidity, things quickly became very uncomfortable.

With his right hand, Fidel wiped the moisture off his eyes, and then resumed crawling. He reached his hand forward and then stopped breathing.

There, just inches away from his sweating face, was a thin line, almost invisible but for the little pearl-like droplets of water that were on it. Fidel examined it very carefully. A thin wire, on one end it was tied to a plant’s firm root, on the other it was tied to the pin of a pineapple grenade that was half-buried in the ground. With one hand, he made sure that the grenade’s pin was secure, and with his other, he equipped his CQC knife and severed the tripwire. He collected the grenade and the wire, but nonetheless, he still couldn’t breathe easy.

Where there was one, there was many.

Fidel crept forward with renewed caution, placing his knife between his teeth in case of any more surprises.

In a nearby bush was a claymore, a rectangular piece of plastic filled with steel pellet-engrained explosive. This one was also linked to a tripwire, but it wasn’t alone. At the opposite end of the wire was a hand grenade, half-buried in the ground like the previous one. After Fidel collected the claymore, he dug out the grenade and examined it. Unlike the previous one, this wasn’t a frag, it was a CS grenade – teargas. Probably meant to blind whoever survived the blast, have them wander around and step on more boobytraps…

“Devious,” Fidel said to no one in particular. Carefully, he went about disarming them before checking if the munitions were safe, then he pocketed both the grenade and the claymore.

A dozen meters later, Fidel noticed a mound of soil that looked suspiciously like something had just been buried recently. Upon excavating it with his knife, he found an anti-personnel landmine – of the specific variant designed to detonate upon tampering.

Fidel wiped his face and exclaimed silently: “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Fidel shook his head. If there were any more of these up ahead… He began scooping handfuls of soil and smearing it onto his face and head. Then, slowly, he crawled his way to the dirt path, made sure no one was watching, and then crawled on the mine-less ground.

He activated his camouflage index and, once again, set it to active chameleonic. The Subsistence suit then blended seamlessly with the muddy path, and with the back of his head thoroughly smeared in dirt, Fidel was indistinguishable from the earth itself.



Luis pulled up his pants, zipped his zipper, and he washed his hands with alcohol. Then he took a sip from his hip flask, just to make himself feel better, and swore. It must’ve been something from breakfast, Luis reasoned to himself. Slinging his M4 SOPMOD over his shoulder, he slowly made his way to the front yard of the outpost.

A chicken clucked by his feet and, without any provocation whatsoever, he kicked it spitefully, sending it flying for more than thirteen seconds. He laughed and decided to go back indoors. It was nearly noon, the sun was getting hot. Maybe next time, he’d barter a heavy machinegun for an air-conditioner.

He passed by Ramon, who was sleeping on his hammock. Luis tapped the guy on the shoulder, making his hat fall off his face, and was just about to walk inside.

“You look dead tired,” Luis muttered as he bent down to pick Ramon’s hat up. “Here’s your-”

Ramon’s eyes were wide open and blood was dripping down from the side of his mouth. If the hat hadn’t fallen off his face, Luis would’ve never noticed that he was dead.

“Shit,” he hissed. He shouldered his M4 and turned off the safeties. “Got my safety right here…” he nervously reassured himself as he slowly opened the door and snuck in. “Shit… shit… shit!”

Scattered all over the floor were four bodies. Luis, despite his current mental state, couldn’t help but wonder how all of them were dispatched without his knowing it. Once again, he cursed – and this one was a very long one, involving Our Lady of Guadalupe.

He reached for his radio but stopped. If the intruder heard him calling for help, it would be over… Luis tightened his grip on his weapon. He had to take the initiative; the guy didn’t know what was coming. The building had two rooms, the first one had the bunks, the second one was where they kept all the supplies. Luis scowled, no one was going to get away with his stash. No one.



Fidel sifted through the supplies and felt like he was in some kind of store. There were canned food rations, toiletries and moist towelettes, ammunition, first aid kits, explosive ordnances… he made sure to pocket a few of the grenades, claymores and anti-personnel mines. There was an overabundance of AK-47s, so he got one and four additional clips – a hundred and fifty rounds in total. There was a tin of milk, which he pocketed, and a half-eaten bar of chocolate, which he finished. He stuffed the equipment he got into some tactical webbing, which, like everything else, didn’t belong to him.

He was about to take a swag off a tequila bottle when the door was smashed open.

“Freeze motherfucker!” the merc screamed, pointing the gun dead center at Fidel’s head.

Fidel winced, the weapon’s laser dot-sight was pointed directly at his eyes. The man lowered his aim to Fidel’s chest, relieving Fidel’s eyes and allowing him to see and assess the merc. Short and weak, nervous, jumpy, might pull the trigger at any second. The man was armed with an M4 carbine…

The blood-red laser dot hovered above the center of Fidel’s chest. Luis narrowed his eyes and said one word: “Die!”

*click*

Luis stared at his gun in abject horror just as Fidel drew his CQC knife and silenced .45. But before Fidel could strike, Luis threw his M4 SOPMOD away like a venomous snake.

“I’m unarmed!” he pleaded (because he was smart). “Please don’t kill me!”

Fidel was genuinely surprised by this.

“Please don’t-”

“Give me your radio!” Fidel barked. He pointed his pistol at the merc’s face, causing the man to flinch. To get his point across, Fidel fired a shot that reduced the door hinge beside the man’s head into splinters. “Now!”

Luis threw Fidel his walkie talkie. Fidel caught it and pocketed it.

“Go over to the corner and face the wall,” Fidel ordered. If he just left the guy as he was, or even if he restrained him, he could still run out and warn the two mercs at the hill. And sooner or later, if those two mercs at the hill didn’t find anything, and they won’t, they were still going to come back to the outpost anyway. Fidel had an idea. “Turn around.”

Luis turned around to face his captor. Then Fidel shot him in the foot. Luis fell to one knee and was in the process of howling in pain when Fidel nearly shoved the .45’s silencer into his mouth.

“W-what are you going to do to me?” Luis pleaded.

“Do you want to die?” Fidel asked casually.

“No!” Luis exclaimed. “Please-”

“Then shut up…” Fidel said as he picked a landmine off the table and tied it to a tripwire. Then he tied that tripwire firmly to a beam on the ceiling. “…and hold this.”

“Shit!” Luis cursed as he got up, nearly fell due to his bleeding foot, and then held the dangling mine with an outstretched hand while struggling to stand on one and a half foot/feet. “You crazy fuck! What the hell are you trying to do?”

“Keeping you in one place,” Fidel muttered as he gathered his things into his new tactical webbing and wore it while slinging his new AK-47 over his shoulder. “You have to hold that thing up high, make sure the wire isn’t tripped. You can’t move it anywhere without pulling the wire and you can’t reach up to cut the wire because you’re too short. You could pull it now and kill us both, but you don’t want to die.”

Luis cursed - and this one was even longer, involving Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Fatima.



Fidel made his exit, jogging on another dirt trail that led around the hill that was behind the outpost. He checked his watch and gave himself at best an hour before someone would know what had just happened. Probably less. If the merc didn’t stub his big toe and explode.

Speaking of explosions, as soon as the dirt trail ended, Fidel spared no time in scouring the area for hidden death traps, though he would ultimately find none.



Mateo and Andre entered the outpost to find five of their friends dead and Luis desperately clinging onto a landmine tied to the ceiling.

“What the hell is this?!” Andre exclaimed, grabbing a pair of pliers from the table and cutting the tripwire. “What the hell happened?”

“It was Fidel Castro!” Luis cried.

Mateo shook his head in disgust.

“Why didn’t you radio us?”

“I couldn’t…” Luis sputtered. “He had it… and…”

Mateo tapped Andre’s shoulder. “Come on, before he gets too far.”

“Aren’t you going to call for backup?” Luis asked feebly.

“And share the reward with the rest of you pricks?” Andre replied rhetorically. “No way. You were listening to the radio, you heard how Eduardo and Mendoza and all their guys got taken out. We’d have more luck working on our own.”

“But you can’t -”

“If you want to call for help,” Mendoza pointed his Dragunov at him. “Then go.”

“I don’t have a radio!”

“Then walk!” Andre spat. With Luis left behind, both sniper and spotter left the outpost and ran after their target.



Fidel panted. After painstakingly searching the jungle around him for mines, he found none and decided to move on. With the sun getting higher and higher, and the jungle getting hotter and hotter, he took a sip off his canteen and decided to take a rest.

A ten-minute break wouldn’t be too much to ask for, Fidel reasoned, having spent the entire day getting tortured, escaping lairs, evading patrols and engaging entire squads of mercs in mortal combat, not to mention the occasional freak mercenary. Fidel found a small ditch and simply crawled in and covered himself up in a natural blanket – a torn tree branch adorned with dead leaves.

It didn’t take long at all for the exhaustion to catch up to him. When a man pushes himself too hard, he gets tired and sometimes he doesn’t even know how far gone he is - even when he’s been recently half-exsanguinated by a psychotic telepath. Fidel closed his eyes and fell asleep.



When the trail ended, Andre and Mateo spared no time in locating a suitable sniping position. With the irregular terrain, they naturally opted for the high ground.

“Are you sure the place isn’t mined?” Andre asked as he took out his binoculars.

Mateo nodded as he attached the laser sight to his SVD. “We’ll take sniping positions on that ridge.”

It was the highest point in the whole area, and from that vantage point they could see everything.



Fidel woke up to the sound of snapping twigs and rustling leaves. He didn’t jolt upright or immediately get up on his feet, instead, he waited and listened. After five minutes of nothing, he pushed the tree branch off and got up, and then he realized that he had spent too much time sleeping.



“I see something… two o’ clock, down there. It’s him.”

Mateo regulated his breathing and slowly, ever so gently, brought his precision weapon to bear. He took a deep breath and then held his lungs empty as the crosshairs lined up, as the red-dot of the laser sight aligned itself…

“Fire… fire… fire.”

Mateo took the shot.



The laser beam was all but invisible, save for the glimmer of coherent red light that scythed through the thick and humid expanse of jungle between sniper and target. A fraction of a second was all it took for Fidel to notice it right before it painted his forehead red with light. Then, in that instant when the bullet was about to begin its nine hundred meter per second terminal flight, he collapsed down to one knee. He saw the muzzle flash, felt lead travel through that portion of space occupied by his head just a split second ago, and heard the crack of gunfire – Dragunov, SVD.

The muscles in his legs tightened, and then he ran as fast as he could as precision fire aimed at where he used to be, where he was, and where he was heading made whizzing, hissing and snapping noises - causing little explosions of dirt, mud and bark. Fidel lunged forward and twisted his body, hitting the wet mud with his side and messily skidding on it. He aimed his new AK-47 at the point of origin and fired off three clean bursts of three shots each just before his horizontal slide brought him behind an unsuitably decomposed tree. Whoever it was on the other side, he was persistent, firing two more shots that punched tiny holes through Fidel’s apparently rotten cover. Fidel gritted his teeth and wasted no time as he rummaged through the pockets of his newly acquired tactical webbing and equipped himself with a smoke grenade. He tossed it over the tree and waited as the area was sufficiently saturated with white smoke, till the circulating particulates reflected the no longer so invisible laser’s crimson path, saw the beam sweep to the far side as the sniper expended his ten-shot mag… Fidel bolted.

There was no way Fidel could engage them both (for a sniper was never without his spotter) from this distance with their superior position and superior range. He could run and just die tired… or do something unexpected. He knew that snipers changed firing positions after giving away their positions, and that every sniper plans secondary positions before every battle…

Fidel unequipped his AK-47, and drew his CQC knife and silenced .45.



Luis limped as fast as he could, sweating profusely as his AK-47 (he ditched his M4) dangled by its sling. He panted and gasped and hoped to hell that by this time tomorrow, there wouldn’t be any worms or maggots crawling over his wounded foot. He looked behind him, just to be absolutely sure that no one was sneaking up behind him. Then he looked forward and heard the sound of flowing water.

He clawed his way past several bushes and found the stream. All he had to do was follow its currents down and he’d inevitably run into one of the patrols.

Luis half-ran and half-jogged with faster resolve, not noticing the spilt blood on the cobblestones, nor the root protruding from between the stones.

He tripped and fell, landing on the ground with his face.

As he struggled to return to his feet, he looked up and beheld a dark figure looming above him, gazing at him with absolute contempt.

Luis staggered, trying to keep the weight off his ruined foot, and tried to avoid the terrible gaze of that freak…

Theodore Coleman, the Bloodsucker, smiled viciously as he heard the scared and injured man’s thoughts. His grin and his dark baleful eyes contrasted with the dried blood that ran down his face like ruined mascara.

“Where did he go?” he asked the staggering man. Where is Fidel Castro?

Luis tried to think, remembering the direction where Andre and Mateo went in their pursuit. He opened his mouth to speak –

“Thank you Luis,” Ted said, his tone dripping with insincere appreciation. Then his dark eyes pierced through Luis’ very being like a scalpel slowly making its way across the wrist, delicately cutting through tender flesh, savoring the cold steel as it severed the veins, letting the life flow out of them – slowly at first, but growing faster with each beat of the heart. Ted liked what he saw.

From his eyes, ears, nose and mouth, prodigious quantities of blood poured out of every hole in Luis’ body. Uncontrolled vasodilatation, rupturing, hemorrhages, and aneurysms ravaging his system of organs. Luis tried to speak, only to gurgle and choke in the fluids that filled his lungs. His eyes rolled back into his skull and he fell to his knees. Contractions wracked his dying body and he reached out desperately, grabbing his killer by the shirt in a final death grip.

The Bloodsucker dislodged the dying man with a hard kick, but the corpse wouldn’t let go and tore his shirt clean off, exposing his lean chest. But the young sadist didn’t mind, as his trench coat waved and fluttered in the nonexistent wind. He looked up and laughed, and then screamed in an unnatural voice that permeated the jungle.

“FIDEL!” his voice echoed. “It’s not over yet!”



Something sudden yet imperceptible frightened a flock of resting birds, prompting them to take flight off a nearby tree while filling the air with sharp screeches, distracting the Reckoner from his weapon. With efficient precision, he quickly re-examined his surroundings, viewing the many spectra of light with his tri-oculars while attuning his microphones to the various frequencies of sound. He couldn’t find a reason for the birds’ peculiar behavior, and he certainly wasn’t making enough sound to disturb them. Strange.

It galled him, being unable to quantify yet another ambiguous factor in this not-so-certain environ. This had quickly become a trend in this hateful jungle, with its excess in sounds and smells and small animals and concealing flora and everything in general. Every second he was here he could feel more and more skeins of data wriggle out of his grasp, bleeding into the chaos of the outside world. The jungle was a hell where his mathematics had abandoned him, leaving him to stumble about like any other human being, blind and deaf. But as much as the Reckoner hated to admit it, human was what he was, and his confusion just pointed out the incompleteness of his theories. And this was why he had signed up for this job in the first place, to put his theories to the greatest possible test. He flipped his tri-oculars off his eyes, revealing his faceless spymask, and continued the methodical maintenance of his weapon.

The Reckoner did not, could not, abide uncertainty, and though he could only do so much to ensure the predictable patterns of data in the world around him, it was still well within his means to ensure the precise processes of his own body and the exact calculated calibrations of his weapon. Moisture and dirt could damage or impede the functions of the many sensory apparatuses mounted on his rifle’s modular rails; there were physical factors that could jar delicate barometric equipment, while overexposure to heat could lull thermal readings to err by a fraction of a degree, an inaccuracy that was unacceptable.

The Reckoner pulled out a nanofabric cloth from one of his pockets and wiped the lenses of his scopes clean. Then he pocketed the cloth, flipped his tri-oculars back over his spymask, and once more covered himself in the false foliage of his water-cooled ghillie suit.

He shouldered his rifle and carried on.



The second sniping position was at the other side of the ridge, and though it wasn’t the highest vantage point, it nonetheless provided for a decent firing angle. With the ferns and shrubs serving as concealment, Andre and Mateo could snipe with discretion without immediately giving away their position.

Andre was leading the way, his submachine gun up and ready while his binoculars hanged from the strap around his neck. Behind him was Mateo, stalking silently, sweeping with his shouldered sniper rifle. They took great care to secure their position and knew full well that aside from traversing from one position to another, snipers were most vulnerable when, paradoxically, they were sniping.

Andre wasn’t just the spotter, he was also the one who watched both their backs. Aside from his submachine gun, he brought along a remote-detonated claymore to protect their flank.

There was a click. Mateo screamed as he grabbed Andre and -

The landmine detonated, blasting Mateo back and sending Andre flying up several meters into the air before scattering pieces of him all over the forest.

Andre’s charred remains landed with a thud. Mateo, despite the shell shock, the disorientation, and his bleeding eardrums, screamed as he staggered to grasp the body of his exploderized comrade. Andre was dead, Mateo finally realized, as he began groping around blindly for his weapon.

Mateo got up and slowly turned around to find Fidel Castro emerging the nearby bushes. Mateo let out an incoherent cry of rage and charged the Cuban assassin.



Fidel drew his CQC weapons but before he could fire off a shot, the sniper was on him. Faced with this, Fidel performed a simple takedown, locking the attacker’s arm with his gun and knife hands, and then spinning around and using the man’s own momentum against him, taking him down to the ground.

He honestly wasn’t expecting a shell shocked man who was bleeding from several shrapnel wounds to put up a fight, and he certainly wasn’t expecting the man to get right back up and go for more. But the man was undeterred and charged Fidel, forcing him to step backwards by just a few inches – nonetheless, the move surprised the sniper and put him off balance. He wasn’t the only one who was surprised though, when suddenly the back of his head exploded.

Despite being very dead, the former sniper took two more steps before falling into Fidel Castro’s surprised arms. “What the-?!”

With his face smeared in splattered blood and brains, Fidel had no time to think, no time to wait. He reacted instantaneously and released the standing corpse just as another part of it exploded, this time through the back, into the torso, and bursting out the chest in a bloody eruption of thoracic organs and ribcage.

Fidel was off long before the former sniper’s corpse hit the ground. He ran over the spotter’s exploded corpse and ran to the edge of the ridge. No hesitation, no thought, not a second’s consideration, he leapt and felt death narrowly miss the back of his own skull.

He curled himself into a ball to minimize the damage, but there wasn’t enough time. After smashing through several hard branches, Fidel landed with a loud thud and rolled all the way downhill, hitting rocks and rolling over shrubs and bushes until, dozens of meters later, his all-terrain descent finally ended with him sprawled over the jungle floor.

He gritted his teeth. It hurt like hell, but at least he was still alive and probably out of range.

“Bastard…” he hissed as he checked his body for fractures. Luckily, nothing was broken, as far as he could tell.

It was a sniper. Where he came from, Fidel didn’t know. Probably found his location and intercepted after hearing the landmine explode. Fidel cursed himself, of course the blast would give away his position, and what he was doing so close by instead of distancing himself from it…

There were other more important questions though. Particularly, who would shoot his own comrades to take out a target? Fidel scowled, it was probably one of those freak mercenaries. The absence of audible gunfire… it was probably from a silenced sniper rifle of some kind, or another freak with invisible bullets. It was probably the former, he concluded. Sniping with invisibullets from an invisible gun by saying ‘bang’ and ‘boom’ was highly unlikely unless they made scopes that could be screwed onto thumbs.

Fidel pulled something out of his back pocket - a Russian-made POMZ, a landmine on a wooden stake. He drove it into the ground, set it up with the tripwire, armed the fuse, and covered the thing with a handful of dead leaves.

If the sniper was going to come by to confirm his kill or look for tracks… he would be in for a surprise.

This wasn’t going to be just a battle of wits, Fidel knew this was going to be a battle of stamina – a war of attrition. He checked his camouflage index setting, got up and slowly moved out. AK-47 shouldered, he was careful to place himself under the cover and concealment of trees, going low and crouching behind foliage, using them as concealment. Rain would’ve been good though, Fidel thought, would’ve minimized visibility. Nonetheless, with his Subsistence suit blending more than adequately with the surroundings, he made damn sure he wasn’t going to be easy to find.

Looking up, he saw the sun blazing in the sky and evaporating the jungle’s precious moisture. It was high noon, perfect time for a shootout.

Fidel found an SVD – probably the dead sniper’s, probably got blown off the ridge by the landmine. He picked it up and examined it. The only damaged part was the loosely dangling laser sight, which was useless and would’ve given away his position anyway. The scope was a little off, but he righted it with a few adjustments and rubbed its lens with his dirty thumb – a clean lens could reflect light, which was even worse than a laser sight.

Fidel unequipped his AK-47 and shouldered the SVD. It had only one mag, the one in it, and that was worth only ten rounds. He had to make it count.



The execution of the strike was inherently flawed; the target had survived and was, most probably, relatively undamaged. But that fact was neither disturbing nor disappointing, in fact it was expected. Though the first shot was fired from an optimum position, the exact moment the shot was taken was far from opportune. It was a deliberate choice; the shot was taken at that struggling microsecond when factors were most unpredictable precisely to give the target a decent probability of survival. The first two rounds had cleanly overpenetrated the obstruction and could have killed the target then and there, but they didn’t, and in that instant, the target was already fleeing, and the third shot missed, plain and simple.

In layman’s terms, it was a warning shot.

Chance, that ultimate equalizer, was such a fascinating concept. It was one that came back to him again and again. How could a theory be tested without an uncontrolled variable? It could not, and that fact was the sole purpose of this exercise, this game, this experiment.

The world was not a closed system, neither was it a mechanically deterministic one. Beneath the deceptive veneer of design, order, and stability was an abyss of chaos and discord. Or, perhaps underneath all that entropic disharmony was an underlying mechanism with patterns that could eventually be deciphered and comprehended. Without sufficient knowledge, one could not be told from the other.

The Reckoner was on the move, shifting to another position. Even without foreknowledge of the area, he could calculate the vantage point provided by the slope’s hypotenuse, the angles of fire it could give him, and exactly what he could see and not see when he was up there, subtracted by the cover and concealment trees could provide him and the other party.

The target would be on the move as well. From what he could extrapolate from pre-engagement observations, the target could run but knew better. The target, Fidel Castro, knew that his odds were greater when in the offense, and so he would not flee, he would fight back – to the death, if need be.

The Reckoner had spent his entire life making sense of the world around him. It was an almost impossible task at first; the utter inability to think in the qualitative necessitated the quantification of every physical factor perceivable to the senses. To function and survive required the development of a system of input and output, the processing of fields and variables, parameters, values and signals. That system would grow to become equations and those equations would become a theory of everything.

The main problem was that the Reckoner still had insufficient data. There were blanks in his theory of everything, unacceptably huge blanks that echoed in the recesses of his mutated brain. He could process information at speeds beyond the synaptic capacities of most humans, but that same speed made the crash-stop of his calculations against the vast walls of ignorance all the more painful. To him, there was simply no alternative.

The Reckoner would complete his theory, he would understand the world around him, and then he would be finally at peace.

To do that, he had to put his equation to the ultimate test, to successfully anticipate the most unpredictable thing in the world – the human mind.

Thus, he hunted the deadliest game of all.

Man.



Fidel went around the ridge. It was a slow and unnerving process, requiring him to methodically examine all the high points from afar. Before he could even think of venturing forth from cover, whether he was crouched behind the tree, lying under a bush or in a hollowed out tree trunk, he had to scan every conceivable sniping position and potential hiding spot with his SVD, his binoculars, or with his naked eyes. He’d search from left to right, down diagonally, and then from left to right again in a Z-shaped search pattern.

Low ground was a disadvantageous position. Fidel had no vantage point whatsoever, and the odds of seeing and shooting first were not in his favor. Nonetheless, low ground also minimized his target profile and until he could get his bearings, he was going to keep his head low while establishing some more distance between him and his attacker.

Halfway to circumnavigating the ridge, Fidel found himself before a grassy field – a clearing twice that of a football field. The only way to cross it was to crawl all the way through, head held low. To simply run across would be suicide. He looked up, saw the blazing corona of the sun, panted, and wiped the evaporating sweat off his face. There was a rocky outcropping just before the field and he took refuge under its shade.

Fidel pulled out a canteen and took a sip of water, and then his earpiece began to beep. After putting his canteen away, he flicked his radio on.

“Fidel,” said the distorted voice. “Are you near the rendezvous point?”

“No, not yet. I’m gonna be a little delayed,” Fidel explained. “I’m a little busy…”

“One of the Problem Solvers?” N inquired.

“Yeah… a sniper.”

“The Reckoner.”

“The what?”

“The Reckoner. A prodigious marksman, a sniper savant. Be extremely cautious in engaging him.”

“Does he have a spotter?” Fidel asked.

“No.”

“Then that makes things more even then…” Fidel thought aloud. Mano a mano, a real shootout at high noon.

“No. The Reckoner is a mathematical genius, a metahuman with superbright abilities. He can outthink you, predict your every move. He’ll be two steps ahead of you.”

Fidel thought this over before replying with something the Major once said to him: “You can’t predict everything in the battlefield.”

“If I were you, I would evade him and head for the rendezvous, as soon as possible.”

“If I run, I’ll only die tired,” Fidel said, and that was a fact. He killed the transmission and changed to the Major’s frequency.



The Reckoner reached his second firing position on the foot of a forested hill. The field of fire available to him and the vegetation cover available to his target were all within his expectations. He hunkered down and propped his heavily modified PGM Ultima Ratio Hecate II against his legs, brushing nonexistent dirt off its light metal body and unusually thick barrel. He then removed the box magazine and carefully worked the bolt, ejecting the single saboted 7.62mm round from the chamber.

The chase was largely over, and now the Reckoner moved on to the next stage of his hunt. He expected that the target, Fidel Castro, had ceased his initial phase of panicked flight – a reaction to his opening shot that he had perfectly anticipated. An instinctive desire to put as much distance and obstacles between himself and his unknown assailant was the default reaction to such a situation, an automated reaction that military training only tempered. It was only now that the target would come to terms with the change in external factors surrounding him, and start to formulate a proper, tactical response. Now it would longer be a chase. It would be a game of spotting and stalking, of attrition and slow maneuvers.

The barrel of the Reckoner’s customized weapon was in reality designed to fire .50 caliber rounds. The larger bullets had the longer range that he preferred, but their recoil made firing the gun on the move dangerously inaccurate. Adequate enough for a short-ranged firefight, mayhaps, but the Reckoner demanded nothing less than absolute accuracy in his sniping work. Therefore, he preferred saboted 7.62mm rounds while on the move, but now that he had the chance, he will use his custom Hecate to its greatest potential. He snapped a magazine of .50 caliber Whisper rounds in place, the silent bullets complementing the massive sound suppressor integrated into the rifle’s barrel. He was not about to give out his position so quickly yet.

With one hand, the Reckoner pulled the bolt back and pushed it forwards, feeling the first Whisper slide into the chamber. It was a movement he had repeated hundreds of thousands of times, drilling himself to mechanical perfection. The familiar jar traveling up his arm was a reminder that deep as he was in this jungle of chaos; at least one part of the universe was perfectly fine.

He shouldered his rifle, looking down the sights, making sure that everything else was lined up properly. He shifted his prone form slightly to find the optimal resting point of the stock, and then adjusted the scope and more esoteric sensors with precise and minute twists of knobs. A gentle brush of the finger, like dew landing on a quivering spider’s web, activated the directional microphone.

The Reckoner scanned the area with his sensorium.

Heat signatures and nigh-inaudible sounds gave his target away, and he settled himself accordingly. Between them was a grassy clearing, devoid of the trees and undergrowth that was a symptom of rainforests. Beyond that was a rocky outcropping, and behind the rocks was Fidel Castro, stationary.

He was where the Reckoner predicted he would be, but the outcrop was not. The ideal scenario of a clear shot was always spoiled by messy reality. There was his target caught in a temporary moment of vulnerability; stationary, communicating on his radio – the Reckoner’s instruments detected the encrypted signals and the faint echoes of speech – and soon to slip away, to begin his counterattack. The Reckoner must seize the initiative and shoot him first. But how?

The Reckoner’s brain entered a higher gear, bringing out the true extent of his metahuman powers. Countless imaginary bullets raked every vector of the near-perfect model of reality inside his mind, translating the trajectories into directions of aim and muscle movements. He pictured the warm bundle of probabilistic blurs where his target should be, dropping it into his ballistic calculations and searching for the one shot that would intersect with its dense center. The most efficient solution coalesced as the inside of his skull warmed slowly. The most efficient path between two points was a straight line.

The Reckoner didn’t kill people with guns. He killed them with mathematics.



“I only have a battered SVD with a bent sight and ten rounds,” Fidel reported.

The Major mulled this over before asking: “Weren’t you trained in countersniping?”

“I haven’t had much practice, Major. I was always better in CQC…”

“That you were. This Reckoner, he’s supposed to be some kind of ‘sniper savant’ who has no need for a spotter?”

“Yeah… that’s what N said. He’s supposed to be this superbright metahuman. I guess that beats invisible bullets…”

“Hrm, that means you probably don’t stand a chance in a conventional long-ranged shootout.”

“I know… he could’ve killed me then and there when I was grappling with that merc, but he didn’t. It’s like he’s playing with me, I don’t have any advantage whatsoever.”

“Fidel, try to think sideways. If this sniper savant is such a mathematical genius, then he’s probably not much of a creative type.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I’m trying to say is that you should use your imagination. If you can’t outthink him, then outwit him. Use guerilla warfare and unconventional tactics. If not, then try to outlast him. Your… condition allows you to last much longer out there in the field than any ordinary man. If you can tire him out, wait for him to slip up and make a mistake -”

“Major?”

The voice that replied to him was not the Major’s. It was an inhuman one, cold and unsympathetic, devoid of emotions yet seemingly satisfied. It said one thing:

“You’re dead.”


It came without warning, as silent as a whisper, the .50 high penetration bullet punching a clean hole right through the outcropping in an explosion of dirt and rock before it went through flesh and muscle.

Blood stained stone, splattered, dripped down onto the dirt to form tiny pools, some of the droplets even got on the grass.

One more inch would’ve decapitated him. The round had missed, or nearly missed, or grazed him at that delicate point where the side of the neck went down to meet the shoulder.

Fidel slumped as blood dribbled down his side, under his suit. A sticky feeling of warmth sliding down. The sudden rapidness, the totally unexpected vector of attack, he didn’t even have time to feel the pain. Dilated eyes narrowed into a renewed focus, that animalistic instinct to survive.



The round from his rifle drilled through the rock at head height and the Reckoner saw through his scope pixels of red among the explosion of gravel. A confirmed hit, and for an instant, he thought he saw a slumping figure slide across the tiny gap that the ruined rock afforded his field of vision. A kill, his instincts screamed. A headshot through the rock, just as planned -

Insufficient data.

Quickly, the Reckoner replaced the Whispers with his 7.62mm magazine, suppressing his anxiety with his usual precision. A quick look through the scope showed that his target was still slumped behind the rock. The subsonic speed of the .50 Whisper round, as well as the momentum the bullet expended to punch through the rock, meant that only a solid hit could guarantee death. He had to go and confirm his kill. The lives and deaths of several untested formulae relied on the result.

Raising his rifle again, the Reckoner got up and started to stalk across the grassy field, a straight approach that kept the outcrop between himself and the target. He hunched low to let his ghillie suit blend into the tall grass, taking care to make as little noise as possible. Gun first, he slowly approached the target's position.



Fidel was still, not a breath escaped his lips or nostrils. He could not see his attacker, if he moved to look out, or if he moved at all, he would be dead.

Silence. The quiet of the approaching end.

That deafening stillness was broken by the sound of rustling grass. The noise of an approaching reckoning.

Fidel moved.



Sudden motion. A round little object came over the rock towards him – the distinct shape of a fragmentation grenade, sailing slowly end-to-end. The Reckoner’s mind screamed into action, calculating the trajectory of the explosive and raising his rifle before another part of him could even acknowledge the surprise of his target’s survival. No time to peer through the scope, no time to brace and aim, just a precisely calculated shot born from pure predictive cognition. The grenade was tumbling as he thought, the bullet leaving the barrel before it had even stopped rising, the perfect converging lines in his mind –

The 7.62mm round detonated the fragmentation grenade in midair, exploding too far away from the Reckoner to do him any harm. Metal shrapnel spiraled into the trees and the grass, flocks of birds taking flight in alarm. Then the Reckoner realized that the first grenade was just a decoy. A second, smoother grenade on its own trajectory raced his receding tunnel vision, vanishing into the grass under his swerving rifle and replacing his field of vision with white light.

A flashbang grenade? No, the noise and the heat was wrong. It was a white phosphorus grenade, and its explosion had overwhelmed the infrared sensors in his tri-oculars. Temporarily blinded, the Reckoner deduced quickly that he was not in immediate threat. The WP had set the field of dry grass on fire – not on top of him, luckily – and in any case his water-cooled ghillie suit would protect him for a while. Blinking, one hand reached up to disable his infrared vision. He ducked even lower and slowly backpedaled until his vision returned, betting that his target would be using this opportunity to escape and not gun for him, relying on his disguise to keep him concealed before he recovered.

The world resolved back into a vision of smoke and fire, rendering both vision and IR detection useless.



Fidel ran low and fast, using the fire and the smoke as concealment to change his position and elude the aim of his assailant. In the battlefield, the still were the dead. Red flame and black smoke, the snapping sounds of dried foliage becoming tinder to be consumed by fire, the noise of screeching birds, everything obscured everything.

He knew that the man on the other side, the Reckoner, would be doing everything he could in his considerable arsenal of abilities to reacquire him in his sights. Fidel wiped the blood off the gash on his collar, a mark of how, just seconds ago, he was merely an inch away from death. The fire was spreading, ambiguous winds fueling the flames and spreading them outwards. Would the Reckoner assume he was hiding behind the fire, following it as it crept towards wherever the wind took it? Would the flame’s thermal bloom be enough to mask his body heat? Was the Reckoner even alive, or had the flames consumed him? Wishful thinking, Fidel discarded the thought as he crouched down and pulled off his bandana, wrapping it around his bloodied neck – like a scarf, or a noose.

Whoever or whatever the Reckoner was, Fidel had to assume that the man would not relent - ever. Fidel himself would never abandon his mission, no matter what happened; he was dedicated to his cause, loyal to the end. That drive was the one thing that kept him going, and if the Reckoner also had that single-minded tenacity… then he would never stop. Not until one of them was dead.

Fidel had a mission. He would not die here.

There, something flashed – an immaculate lens glistening in the harsh sunlight. Fidel shouldered his SVD, breathed in, breathed out, and aimed.

The birds, small and elusive slender-billed snipes, fell silent. Only the sound of snapping foliage and grass consumed by the flame could be heard.

The crack of gunfire echoed.

The snipes took to the air.



The Reckoner felt the bullet pass between the ragged folds of his ghillie suit, tearing off strands of mock foliage. He flinched and ducked instinctively, droplets of water from ruptured cooling capillaries bleeding from his disguise as he avoided statistically probable trajectories of fire. Somehow, his target had not only survived, but was now mounting an effective counterattack. The sheer improbability of this made his mind reel, his inner model of the world cracking and crumbling away into chaos and inexplicability. In which stage of his calculations did it all go wrong? Did he underestimate the density of South American rock? Did he underestimate his target’s aggression? Was there some factor present that he hadn’t even considered?

Speculation would have to wait, as the Reckoner now had a firefight in his hands. Fidel Castro’s shot had hit his profile but missed his body, the ghillie suit at least performing this service. It was either a miss due to a profile mess-up or due to visual distortion from the heat-haze of the bush fire, but the Reckoner would be foolish to rely on it happening a second time. Smoothly he recalled the sensation of the brushing bullet, triangulated it to the crack of his opponent’s rifle, swerved, and then - between a breath and a heartbeat – he fired.



Fidel was already moving when the 7.62mm dart silently tore a line of dried grass to shreds, the snap of ripping stalks and stems being the only evidence of return fire he could discern. He cursed, he swore he saw the shot hit, saw the Reckoner go down. How he was still alive… the man was certainly tenacious, deadly accurate too. Within seconds of going down, he was already returning fire, putting bullets too close for Fidel’s comfort.

Fidel moved, kept his head low as another shot ripped grass and blasted dirt of a frightening proximity to him. Yet the rounds were utterly silent, no crack of gunfire, no muzzle flash – he couldn’t trace them. He had no time to aim, the Reckoner was well camouflaged, and returning fire blindly would only allow the sniper savant to further triangulate his position.

Holding his SVD by the stock on one hand, he pulled out a grenade and bit off its pin – chipping his front teeth painfully as he did so.

A hard gust came out of nowhere, blowing through the field and swaying the grass, driving smoke and flame downwind from them. The fire was far away though, so was the smoke. The wind was bad, it was against Fidel’s heading, but he had no choice.

He released the grenade’s safety lever and threw it low and hard.

The grenade detonated, but it did not explode, instead it rolled towards the edge of the field and unleashed a thick trail of acrid smoke – CS gas. The wind was against the smoke’s advance and instead blew the caustic clouds back to the field – forming a columnar pathway of blinding gas.

Fidel did not breathe, he shielded his face with a hand, and without any hesitation whatsoever, he ran into the trail of smoke.



The Reckoner was downwind as well and as the teargas encroached upon the field, he fell back to avoid it – and to recollect and organize the torrents of new and conflicting data he had just received. Despite being unaffected by the gas, a part of him was nonetheless disoriented. The target’s survival, despite that perfect shot through the outcropping, it was improbable – no, it was chance. And how did Fidel Castro know where he was? The Reckoner knew his ghillie suit provided him a camouflage ratio of 90%. The fact that he had failed to observe and fire upon his target first told him of Fidel Castro’s dangerous ingenuity with his limited resources. Somehow, the target must have had a camouflage ratio exceeding the Reckoner’s own – 95%!

This was a dangerous situation; the Reckoner had to be careful. Extrapolation and estimation were becoming increasingly dangerous. He looked at the hole in his ghillie suit, where that round had just narrowly missed him, and then he knew that there were more things than his theory’s completion at stake – he was gambling his own life too. What caused that round to miss, how it tore through ghillie’s false foliage and missed instead of penetrating his skinsuit’s ballistic fiber and tumbling through his internal organs to end his life… it was chance.

The Reckoner could not abide by uncertainties, by factors beyond his control. Yet it was because of those same uncertainties that he was still alive… it vexed him, perplexed him, fascinated him and frightened him.

The abstract and unquantifiable had no place in the battlef- the experiment, the Reckoner reminded himself. He simply needed to get a better grip on the situation.

Surrounded by a ring of dying fire, wind lifting the embers into the air, with each footstep crushing dead and ashen plant life, the Reckoner strode to the rocky outcropping and saw the fist-sized hole. He walked around it, and there on that undamaged patch of soil were little pools of dried blood. Not enough blood for a significant injury.

With slight concern, the Reckoner briefly examined his rifle – perhaps his target’s constant elusion was due to some fault in equipment. He was recalibrating the thermal sensors mounted atop the scope when he saw in that immaculate lens a reflection of the sun as it was beginning to be eclipsed by dark clouds of rain.

Carefully, the Reckoner removed his tri-oculars from its head-mount, and then his spymask from his face. A thin stream of blood was trickling down one nostril, the side effect of temporarily overclocking his brain. Crimson droplets fell off his lip, one by one, and landed on the dirt, on the blood of wounded prey.

With two fingers, the Reckoner scooped a minute amount of the sticky crimson fluid. Ever so lightly, he placed his bloody fingertips softly on the clean lens and wiped a thin and delicate film of blood onto it, calculated to reduce reflectivity without sacrificing transparency, thus minimally affecting target acquisition.

The Reckoner wiped the rest of the blood from his face, replaced his spymask and tri-oculars, and then set about the process of reacquiring his target.



Fidel stabbed the ration can with his CQC knife, punching two tiny holes through its lid. Then he bent his head backwards and poured the contents onto his stinging bloodshot eyes, spilling cow’s milk all over his face. It was a quick fix, milk couldn’t stop the breathing difficulties caused by tear gas, but he had made sure none of the irritants got into his lungs anyway. He licked his milk-soaked moustache and drank what little was left in the can. Sometimes, survival viewing necessitated improvisation.

The SVD had nine rounds left.

Fidel had the initiative; he held the high ground, having escaped the Reckoner by literally running for the hills. With the advantageous position, he would be the one to dictate the terms of the battle. But he was certain that the Reckoner knew this as well, having already anticipated him, found him, and nearly killed him in two separate occasions. The prodigious marksman was a tenacious, cold and calculating assailant.

To win, Fidel had to defeat the sniper savant’s calculations. He had to do something unexpected.

Equipping his binoculars, he surveyed the top of the hill for optimum sniping positions. He would not choose the ones that gave him the best vantage points, for those spots would surely be the first to be scrutinized by the Reckoner’s scope.

Fidel began planting his remaining mines, claymores and frags as he went towards his chosen vantage point, carefully setting them up along the way. And even after his ordnance was expended, he didn’t stop and continued stringing tripwires on the trees. The terrain was irregular, with the sharp inclines, muddy ground and rocks obstructing most possible approaches, there were only so many ways to the top. Hopefully, he’d give the Reckoner a hard time with that.

Fidel continued his trek uphill and, when he was far enough from his makeshift minefield, he pulled out the flare gun he salvaged from the plane wreck.

A rumbling filled the air, the sound of distant thunder that heralded the coming rain. Heavy droplets fell from the sky and the downpour began.



Aside from the nosebleeds, the consequences of running on overclock was a temporarily heightened metabolism, significantly increasing his body's energy requirements. Thus within the Reckoner’s flexsuit - which was what he wore under the false foliage of his ghillie – was a bladder filled with liquid nutrients. The bladder was connected to a straw that ran under his spymask, up to the side of his mouth. With a simple movement of the lips, he pulled the straw into his mouth, bit onto it, and began drinking in the mixture of water, glucose, electrolytes, proteins, and other forms of liquid fuel for his brain.

A sudden hissing sound interrupted his drink, and instinctively he crouched down behind a rock for cover while simultaneously assessing the situation. The prolonged hiss did not sound like the discharge of any firearm he knew of, so he dared to peek and saw an orange-red projectile rocketing upwards to the sky. The Reckoner immediately knew what it was, a signal flare, and knew what caused it. Quickly, he triangulated the airborne pyrotechnic’s point of origin before it fizzled in the rain.

Fidel Castro, the target, was deliberately luring him into a trap. That was not a conjecture, that was a fact. It was an ambush, and given the time since their last engagement, Fidel would have no doubt laid traps along the most direct route – improvising landmines out of his remaining supply of grenades, extrapolating from his creative use of them in the previous engagement.

Nonetheless, the basic flaw in Castro's ambush was it gave away his general position, saving the Reckoner the time and energy of having to scour the hills and plains for his trail. He knew his supplies were limited, every use of his hyper-cognition costing him too much stamina to recover during the course of the hunt. The longer he languished in the jungle, the more the odds were stacked in favor of his target.

Granted, springing Fidel's trap had its own risks. But for now the numbers were still on the Reckoner's side.



Thunder and lightning. There was a flash and then an explosion in the sky that caused many tree apes to scream in fear and void themselves. The sound of heavy rainfall hitting the trees, rocks and ground, it was as if the very sky itself was being thrown down. Another flash of lightning, a long pause, and then the rumble of thunder. Then another flash, but there was barely a pause preceding the deafening blast as a tree atop the hill was felled – laid low as its highest branches were blown apart.

Fidel ignored it all. Water flowed down his mud-smeared face, which was pressed against the wooden stock of his SVD, one sharp eye absolutely focused on that lens. He was watching and waiting. The Reckoner would never trip his mines, he would go through the few un-mined paths, and those paths were under the gaze of Fidel’s scope.

He was not certain whether this plan would work. He hoped it would, hoped the Reckoner would anticipate the trap, but not the trap within the trap.

It was mid afternoon, but the clouds made it as dark as night. And with the rain… Fidel could barely see anything even with his scope.

He pressed himself tighter against the thick tree trunk. It provided him neither cover nor concealment in any form against the Reckoner, but he hoped to hell that –

There was a distant explosion, at first Fidel thought it was more thunder but the rising column of smoke told him that it was not. It was one of his mines, a grenade perhaps, or a claymore. Had the Reckoner blundered into one of his traps? No…

Another detonation echoed throughout the rain-ridden jungle.

Fidel swerved his rifle, magnified the scope… focused on the location of the blast, tried to acquire a target... No, the Reckoner wasn’t tripping the mines. He was shooting them.

Again, there was another explosion – this one much closer, close enough for him to tell that it was a claymore.

Was the Reckoner announcing his approach?

The next explosion was a more distant one but it was louder, two frag grenades stringed together, Fidel knew he planted it before the claymore that had blown previously…

With no idea where the Reckoner was coming from, and certain that he wasn’t using the predicted routes, Fidel had no choice but to turn on his motion-detector – and throw it as far away as he could.



At the end of the haphazard minefield was a clever ruse. The Reckoner examined it, but did not risk touching it or going anywhere near it. There, tied to a forking tree branch, was an AK-47. A halved binocular was tied to its top to make it look like a scope, and under the barrel was a damaged laser sight – it was still working, projecting a beam that showed itself in the rain. From afar, the contraption would have passed as a Dragunov for an untrained observer, the genuine item which would still be in the capable hands of his target. If he was down there, he would’ve moved in precaution to avoid the laser and blunder into Fidel’s view or, if he was caught by surprise under the beam, reflexively shoot down the decoy – and thus alerting Castro of his presence.

The Reckoner knew the minefield was a distraction, to force him into a route that would be under the scrutiny of Castro’s scope.

So the Reckoner did what was elementary and turned the minefield into his own distraction. Detonating the mines from afar would misdirect Castro’s attention, and that would allow him to make his way uphill unnoticed.

Even with his infrared scopes and directional microphone obscured by the rain and the wretched animals populating the jungle, he had a view of the trap that Fidel had laid out. Now it was just a simple matter of calculating where he was lying and waiting. The layout of the mines and claymores, the exact positioning of the laser… it narrowed down the possibilities.

But Fidel would’ve surely known by now that his trap had been compromised, and he would be on the move. Coupled with the fact that he had no idea where his assailant was, with the rain making visual contact difficult…

If the Reckoner had any true understanding of human emotion whatsoever, he would’ve smiled. The passive sharkskin sensors distributed throughout his flexsuit alerted him of a sonic-electronic signal it had detected along its peripheral range. From what he could ascertain, it was the distinct signature of a motion-detector.

He aimed his weapon towards where his sensors told him the signal would be and… found nothing. At first he thought that the jungle had finally taken its toll on his delicate instruments – all the physical shock, the humidity, the moisture...

Then, after he decided to magnify his scope to its highest possible resolution, he saw it. A compact motion-detector small enough to be carried in one hand.

Cleverly, Castro knew he would detect the motion-detector’s signal, so like all of his other decoys and distractions, he left it there… or threw it there.

The Reckoner began triangulating possible trajectories and angles, correlating them with probable points of origin, and then eliminated those that did not correspond with locations that provided good sniping positions relative to the landmines, the decoy laser sighted Kalashnikov, and the routes required to circumvent those distractions. In his mind the whole hill hovered and split into zones, every imaginary point of view scrutinized, each square meter labeled and false-colored, every feature and contour contextualized and databased...

As his brain worked on overclock, the Reckoner’s normally unimaginative and purely mathematical brain came up with an idea – it wasn’t a creative or original idea, but an idea nonetheless…



Fidel knew that the Reckoner had easily seen through his trap, and thus he created a new one out of the old one. In the battlefield, one had to adapt and evolve in order to survive – and flexibility necessitated the modification of resources and the expansion of plans.

Besides, if it worked on the Slinger (albeit unintentionally) then why not the Reckoner? It wasn’t as if John Doe could’ve told him about it…

He had thrown the motion detector long and far. The Reckoner would have had to move in to get close enough to find out what it was, and he would be waiting for when the Reckoner did. By then it would be too late.

But Fidel wouldn’t be waiting in the same place, though. Slowly, almost snakelike, he slithered down the slope behind his original position – once more using the dead leaves of the jungle floor, now further lubricated by mud and rainwater, to slide downwards without a sound.



The rain stopped. Slowly it withered down, turning into a pathetic drizzling precipitation before finally giving way to clear skies. It did not take long for the blazing sun to cause leftover rainwater to evaporate into a fine fog-like mist of humidity.



The Reckoner was lying prone and still. He clutched his weapon tightly, almost apprehensively. He was acutely aware of the degraded performance of his body, his quiscient muscles revealing a map of the toll of the hunt. This was a dangerous tactic; the numbers that were usually so clear to him were ambiguous now, lost like everything in the rain-shrouded jungle. But this was so close to the moment that his experiment would yield its results, and now he couldn't stop himself from taking shortcuts. Carefully, he monitored his camouflage ratio. He knew his target would come soon... and when that happened…



Fidel was crawling on his belly when he saw that all too familiar flash of an immaculate lens gleaming in the harsh sunlight. Slowly, Fidel placed his cheek against the smooth wooden stock of his SVD, placed his eye behind the scope’s lens, modulated his breathing as he lined it all up.

“Gotcha this time.”

A shot rang out and echoed throughout the silent emptiness of the jungle.

Followed by another.

And another.

Six rounds left.



This time, Fidel would make sure. Silently he made his way around his target, watching the unmoving body carefully, rifle shouldered and trigger finger ready for any sign of life. Should that freak mercenary somehow get back up…

He opted for an indirect path, and as he made his way closer, he lowered his rifle. Lying there was the Reckoner, in a prone position, surveying the vantage point with his rifle by his side. A fitting end.

But Fidel had to make sure.

He pulled the ghillie suit off to reveal a clump of moss and rocks shouldering the advanced heavily customized sniper rifle.

It was a trap!

Fidel spun around and raised his SVD.

Six rounds left.



The Reckoner emerged from the bushes behind Fidel and, in one motion rehearsed endlessly in his mind, drew his FN-Five SeveN handgun like lightning. He lined it up with deadly precision and fired one shot, aimed at the man’s heart.

The armor-piercing round tore through steel and wood and glass, obliterating the SVD and its scope, then it tore through fabric weaving, through the tactical webbing, and then…



Fidel screamed in wordless pain as the flashbang grenade in his breast pocket detonated and submerged him in a world of pain, blinding him, deafening him, and scorching his face and chest with an unimaginable heat. The blast ripped the webbing off him and threw him down the ledge.

He landed. No rounds left. He had lost the gun.

Blind and deaf, Fidel could nonetheless smell something burning… burning on him. No time to think or react, he just ran – bolted as fast as his legs could possibly take him, ignoring the leaves and branches slashing across his scalded face, not caring if he’d run straight into a tree or trip or fall down. Staggered once or twice, tried to right himself by spreading his arms as the blast that deafened him also scrambled the balance centers of his inner ears…

He could hear something. His own breathing. His own beating heart.

Flowing water.



As the Reckoner ran forward, he emptied his pistol’s twenty-round magazine, ejected the clip, loaded a new one, holstered the sidearm, and, in another single smooth motion, picked up his Ultima Ratio Hecate II sniper rifle by its sling, shouldered it, and began aiming.

His tri-oculars had adjusted for the unexpected detonation of that flashbang. No time to see how that factored into his theory. No, it was time to solve the equation that was Fidel Castro once and for all.

Infrared sensors turned the muddy greens of the jungle into a world of cool blues and blacks, warm red, yellows, and hot whites. The world of heat and thermal radiation. As his scopes zoomed in on the glowing figure that was staggering about, blind yet surprising agile, his microphones began amplifying sounds – heartbeats, pants and gasps, breaking branches…

From his oculars, three lasers beamed out and homed in on the target, and though the beams themselves were within the truly invisible infrared spectrum, the Reckoner could see them vectoring into a blood-red triangular targeting reticule.

Moving target or not, it locked on.

“QED,” the Reckoner whispered under his breath. Between his heartbeats, he fired the shot .



As he ran, his vision began returning to him. Just in time, he saw a tree and narrowly avoided it, dodging it with a staggering sidestep.

The steel-cored 7.62mm dart tore straight through the wood and bark. Fidel screamed as he felt it dig into the side of his back, where his kidney should be, before overpenetrating in a spurt of blood.

He collapsed, fell, but not on flat ground. He landed on a muddy slope and began sliding down with frightening speed, leaving behind a trail of blood.

Twigs and leaves and branches and roots whipped against his face and when they finally all cleared off -

“Oh shit!”

He fell off the cliff’s edge and fell screaming head first into the river.



His arms trembling, the Reckoner lowered the rifle. An abdomen hit, clean penetration, his target falling out of view before he could clear a second shot. Once again, chance had won the day. The hunt wasn't over yet.

The adrenaline started to drain from the Reckoner's system, and a blanket of fatigue was descending on his body. The pristine calculations in his mind were becoming slippery, slowly melting out of his grasp. Under his spymask, his face made a pained twitch as he willed himself to concentrate, and his lips reached automatically for the straw.

At least, he thought as his protesting legs lowered him down the bloody slope, he had finally managed to significantly injure his target. He peered down the cliff edge and looked along the raging river, trying to pick out traces of red. Currents could only carry the dead and wounded in one direction.



Fidel erupted out of the water, gasping and choking as he reached out for something to hold onto. He grabbed onto a tree root and pulled himself up a riverbank. Afterwards, he laid facedown on the mud and, having nearly drowned, began coughing out copious amounts of water.

After a minute of labored breathing, Fidel turned himself over and calmly surveyed his surroundings.

The current had brought him further downstream, dragging him down until the waters were calm, and only then did it allow him to drift towards the riverbank in peace. Somehow, the place seemed familiar…

Directly overhead was a flock of birds, a family of brightly colored parrots flying to the other side of the river. As Fidel propped himself up against a tree, he noticed a pack of giant otters playing in the water as a caiman watched on silently – like a crocodilian log with teeth. The afternoon sun glistened on the water’s surface - no longer was it at its midday peak, but nonetheless it surveyed all those below it from an oblique angle.

Fidel dragged himself further up until he escaped the mud and finally reached dry land.

Fidel unbuttoned and unzipped the top of his Subsistence suit and threw it aside, then he pulled a mirror out of his back pocket and began examining the clean hole in his backside. The round had entered in at an angle that had missed spine by inches, its path bringing it beneath the ribcage and into where his kidney was. Then it went out of his lateral side, making a very clean exit wound. There wasn’t any significant bleeding, and by some freak chance it didn’t hit any internal organs.

More than a decade ago, Fidel was among the thousands of Cuban soldiers shipped out to Angola to fight against the US-supported UNITA forces. There in the dark continent’s forsaken forests, Cuban reconnaissance units did battle against apartheid South African special forces. In one of the many ensuing battles, he was critically wounded and medivaced to a nearby field hospital. A piece of shrapnel had torn through his internal organs, and while they were able to save his guts, one of his kidneys had to go.

It was just a simple matter of disinfecting the wound and then bandaging it all up. In no time, it was over.

The Reckoner was still out there. Fidel knew that he was at his weakest and most vulnerable lying there on the riverbank. He had to find some form of cover or concealment… there, not too far away, was a burrow dug out by the giant river otters. It was large enough for him to crawl in, and so he dragged himself inside and rested in the shade.

It didn’t take him long to notice that he wasn’t alone. Deeper in the burrow, a group of otter pups looked at him curiously. The animals in this part of the jungle had probably never seen a human before, explaining their lack of fear…

Fidel grinned as a thought intruded his mind. “Hrm…”

Before he could complete the thought though, a beeping filled the recesses his water-filled ear canal. He flicked on his radio.

“This is N.”

“What is it?”

“Have you avoided the Reckoner?”

“Sort of… not really. But yeah.”

“Then do not delay any further. Meet me at the rendezvous point, the coordinates -”

“No,” Fidel said, shaking his head.

“What?”

“I said no,” Fidel repeated himself. “I’m not going to your rendezvous point or your coordinates. You are going to meet up with me at these coordinates I’m going to give you.”

There was a pause, no amount of artificial vocal modulation could hide the apparent surprise. And then: “What is your position?”

“I’m near a river… I got washed downstream,” Fidel said as he pulled out his map and compass, estimated his general location, and gave N a set of coordinates with a distance agreeable to the both of them. “Got it?”

“Affirmative. Don’t be late.”

“Right,” Fidel muttered as he killed the transmission. Before he could do anything though, another incoming call came in, announcing itself with more beeping. Fidel had no choice but to flick it on. “Major Muerte…”

“Fidel, what happened? Did you beat that sniper? For a while there I thought…”

“I thought so too, Major.”

“But you overcame him and persevered. Good job, now…”

“Actually, I didn’t. I got shot and fell into a river… then I nearly drowned, but I managed to drag myself ashore. Now I’m hiding in a hole. But I’m okay though, thanks for asking.”

“Hiding... hm…” this was the part when the Major was about to dispense useful advice. “In the Vietnam War, I had to deal with snipers. Once, there was a sniper on a hill with a heavy machinegun set on semiautomatic, I only had a bayonet with me as I went through the jungle to fall back. See, despite American orders, the South Vietnamese had unleashed this bioweapon… it resulted in the Cong of the Dead incident. So, to avoid the sniper and make my escape, I had to pretend to be a walking corpse. It wasn’t that hard really, the jungle was full of them. All I had to do was fool the sniper and…”

“Thanks for the advice Major,” Fidel replied as he rested his head on a rock beside one of the otter pups. “ But I think I’m going to take a short nap…” and with that, he killed his radio.



Twilight descended, forcing the Reckoner to rely on the infrared and night vision functions of his tri-oculars. He had been following the course of the river his target had fallen into over the irregular terrain of the jungle, clambering amidst vegetation and disturbing clouds of gnats. He had taken short rests between periods of intense tracking to conserve energy, as the hunt had long since exceeded the original parameters of his estimations. The baking heat was slowly abating with the fall of the sun, and that slowed the erosion of his stamina. But night’s low visibility posed a different set of problems he had to solve. This had to end quickly.

However, geographical analysis suggested that he might be nearing his quarry. The terrain was flattening out, the steep and rocky banks of the river giving way to more accessible boundaries of ferns and mud. If he could only start to get close to the water this far downriver, his target would only have the chance to drag himself out around here. The Reckoner paused slightly to check his rifle again – quickly and by touch alone. Everything correctly calibrated, he walked down the bank and started to scour for footprints, blood, any signs of human presence. The chirp of crickets almost drowned out the sound of the gentle current, and for once the Reckoner saw something long and scaly break the surface, the unmistakable sign of a crocodile. With his target already bleeding and suffering internal injuries, he wondered if Fidel Castro was alive at all, or was the only thing left of him a chewed corpse at the bottom of the river.

Under the darkening sky the Reckoner walked, each step bringing him deeper into this increasingly senseless enterprise. It couldn’t really be called regret, because that would imply some sort of alternative. It was not choice that brought the Reckoner into this, but the same unbreakable chain of causal factors that led him through his life, one stepping-stone after another revealing themselves to him out of the murk of the world, so hard to find yet so clear when looking back. There had been torturous paths and there had been dead ends, but there was nothing that was wrong, nothing that could be blamed. And just as he reduced chaos into order wherever he went, he was destined to tread in this heart of darkness and transcend it.

In the dimness the Reckoner saw another ridged shape ahead. He stopped and trained his rifle on it. Another crocodile, but what was it doing outside the water at night? Then he saw the object sprawling next to it, mud-splattered but recognizable. An unmistakable sign of his target, Fidel Castro’s camouflage suit. The crocodile’s head was buried under it, and both shapes were still. Was this it, then? Was the chaotic wilderness on his side for once?

The Reckoner walked closer. There was blood too, on the bank and on the garment. The crocodile showed no sign of noticing his approach, but he knew that crocodiles could stay still for days if they had to, waiting for the right moment to strike at its prey. But if the crocodile had just had its fill of the Cuban commando, it could have little appetite left for him. Nevertheless, the Reckoner formulated several anti-crocodile contingencies in his head just in case.

Soon he was close enough to not only see the ripped garment clearly, but also the absence of any body within. The Reckoner knew that Fidel Castro’s encounter with this beast must result in the death of at least one subject, but its potential outcome laid before him like a Gordian knot, so plainly in sight yet so incomprehensible. He mentally cursed the poor visibility around him, but the prospect of a loose end irked him more. The final result of this long experiment, the validity of his field theories, the very affirmation of his inner order was at stake in this very moment. What choice did he have, other than to carry this to its conclusion?

With the end of his barrel, he lifted the garment. The crocodile’s head was missing.

An intake of breath, a sharp gasp of surprise, then behind him, a massive crash of water.

A terrible shape pounced from the river, unleashing an animalistic, primordial roar through its massive jaws. It was another crocodile – no, standing up, it was a dinosaur – no, it was some chimerical manifestation of the wild, rising to repel humanity’s transgression into its darkest heart -

Waves of total confusion crashed through the Reckoner’s mind, submerging his consciousness in screaming darkness. The overloading sensory input dragged down his image processing, violating parameters and shattering attempts at quantification, the cognitive feedback ripping into his utterly rationalized reflexes…leaving him a human being. No, ignorant, panicked… something less. Only a tiny core of discipline remained, telling his body to turn around and raise his rifle as his mind watched in existential limbo.



Fidel roared as loud as he could as he stormed out of the water, half-naked, with bloodsucking leeches wriggling all over his bare chest, and with river reeds stringing a decapitated caiman head snugly on top of his own head. He screamed, at once a cry that was at once both inhuman and animalistic in fury, a cry that came out of both his mouth and the gaping toothed maw of his reptilian disguise. Then and there, as he exploded out of the uncomfortably cold river water, did he cast away that emasculating veneer of civilitude, becoming one with the jungle’s primordial savagery and embracing his evolutionary birthright.

He unsheathed his fighting blade and drew forth his pistol, water dripping out of its barrel for it no longer had its silencer.

Before his hunter could bring his weapon to bear, Fidel let out an unsilenced shot – echoing throughout the dying daylight, slamming into the Reckoner’s flexsuited torso. Two more shots, sending the Reckoner staggering and twitching backwards.

The reeling Reckoner nonetheless fired his misaligned weapon, yet the round narrowly missed Fidel’s head. Instead, it blew a hole through his crocodile cap, splattering reptilian brains all over trees and leaves, and sending it flying off his head.

Fidel was on him.

The first move disarmed the Reckoner, ripping the sniper rifle off his hands in a violent motion. Then Fidel slammed the butt of the gun against the Reckoner’s chin, and something broke audibly.

The Reckoner instinctively drew his sidearm but Fidel robbed the marksman of his other weapon too, a swift and efficient movement involving the forceful working-back of its slide, ejecting of its magazine, and its instantaneous disassembly. Then Fidel landed the final blow, stabbing the Reckoner in his heart.

The blade glanced off the flexsuit’s protective weave, and the Reckoner took the opportunity to make his frenzied counterattack, muffled screaming coming from beneath his spymask as he tackled the both of them to the ground. As they went down, Fidel went for another stab, this one ruthlessly aimed at the throat, but in their imbalanced rolling, Fidel ended up imbedding his blade into a tree-root instead.

Then it devolved into the two of them struggling over Fidel’s .45, with the Reckoner on top, insanely trying to pry the weapon off his fingers… Fidel could hear him hyperventilate underneath his spymask.

If he wanted the gun so badly, then he could have it. Fidel let go, and as the Reckoner tried to aim it at Fidel’s head, going for one final close-up headshot, Fidel grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it, sending them rolling around once more. The gun fell away into the mud.

There was no longer any math or order in this battle, it had degenerated into a mud-smeared brawl dictated by chance alone.

Fidel slammed his fist into the Reckoner’s faceless face, and then he grabbed the man’s concealed visage and ripped the tri-oculars and spymask off his face.

There, underneath that dehumanizing disguise was the face of a young man barely out of his twenties. Copious amounts of blood flowed out of his nostrils and his eyes had the glaze of madness in them.

The Reckoner pulled Fidel’s CQC knife off the ground and charged him, bringing the blade down in an overhead stab.

Fidel blocked it, grabbed the attacking arm, twisted it and drove the Reckoner down into an armlock. The Reckoner kept on fighting, trying to slip out of Fidel’s hold, spitting out blood and saliva furiously. Fidel released his armlock. And began strangling him.



The first thing the Reckoner’s mind noticed as it rose out of the darkness was dizziness, indicating a lack of oxygen to his brain; several spots of intense pain on his body, probably caused by bullet hits, and the immobility of his body, due to being physically restrained by someone.

“What?” he blurted, but the word only reached as far as his throat. This was caused by the stranglehold around his neck impeding his movement and oxygen supply, and most certainly causing the dizziness as well. He was not exactly aware of what had happened during the last few seconds, due to something happening so far outside his expectations that his overly rational mind went into shock. But now his mind was back in functioning shape, it was obviously that he was on the losing side of a melee engagement.

He tried to piece together what happened during the blank, the brief lost moment when surprise had evolved into total defeat. He gathered the memory fragments of those last few seconds, the headless crocodile, the ripped suit – yes, it was inconceivable, but his present predicament made it undeniable. Fidel Castro has not only survived his shot. He had fought and killed a crocodile, then he had successfully ambushed him in close-quarters-combat while wearing its head like a hat. The Reckoner could not even begin to imagine how his target had conceived of such a plan.

Nevertheless, the plan had succeeded in neutralizing himself, and the Reckoner had no idea why.

However, the Reckoner knew this: when his predictions did not match the facts, it was his theories that were wrong, not the world. The experiment this time had failed utterly, placing into jeopardy not only significant parts of his human-behavior theorems but his very life, the experimenter’s. There was no longer any point in salvaging this enterprise. The highest priority now was to preserve himself, so he would have the chance and the time to revise his theories, correct his mistakes.

Conundrum: Fidel Castro has put him under a stranglehold. He had the power of life and death over him. Reasoning was unlikely to work, especially when he couldn’t presently talk. What other solution was there? He remembered The Slinger’s bloody mouth, the wordless cries…

That was how it was done, then.

He flailed, he heaved, he tore at Fidel’s indomitable arm. Then slowly, he let all the energy drain out of his body, an easy task considering his present state of fatigue. Finally, his head lolled lifelessly in his target’s arms, and he feigned stillness.

The Reckoner knew from his observations that Fidel Castro often refused to kill, even if it would be far more expedient to do so. The problem was in invoking this unusual tendency which he did not show against all his opponents. And the best way to make him select this choice was to deny him the choice entirely.



Stamina kill. The body went still and limp - the Reckoner was either dead or unconscious. Either way, it suited Fidel just fine. He rummaged whatever he could from the Reckoner, but the only things he opted to keep were the man’s tri-oculars and sniper rifle. It was quite a weapon, so customized that Fidel wasn’t sure what make or model it was, though even if he couldn’t figure out anything but its most basic functions, it would still suit him just fine. As he slung it over his shoulders, he noted its excellent weight distribution.

Fidel then recovered his CQC knife and .45, and as he screwed the silencer back on, he looked back at the unmoving body of the Reckoner. If the man was still alive, he’d wake up with quite a headache… he’d have trouble finding his gear. Without his scopes and his gun, would he still continue the pursuit?

It didn’t matter, Fidel still had a rendezvous to keep.



Within the interiors of the landing craft, a shadowy figure brooded as she made telepathic commune with her sisters – wrapping her leathery wings around herself like a cloak of darkness. Enter.

A figure entered the chamber, his silent and gracefully bird-like gait betraying his lumbering size. Despite the absence of light, one could make out his pale skin and blue eyes, almost glowing in the dark – the superior product of the manipulation and combination of dinosaurian and Aryan genes.

Speak.

“The compsognathid scouts have mapped out the full extent of the facilities. The humans are heavily armed, they will resist.”

They will be slaughtered.

“It will be a hard battle, but yes, we will triumph,” Adolph the Aryanosaur confirmed. “The stratagem will be a success – they will not expect a simultaneous strike on all points. Their forces are unequally distributed, while their strong points can mount a formidable defense, they must concentrate the totality of their forces into a single cohesive front to hold against what we will unleash upon them. We will concentrate our attack on that strong point, attacking their primary positions with our own primary forces. At the same time, our secondary forces will systematically exterminate their dispersed units.”

Good. I will lead the main attack.

“Of course,” Adolph nodded. “I will go now to prepare my brothers.”

The Aryanosaur left, leaving the Matriarch Aggressive alone in her chamber. Then she reared up, spreading her wings like some great archosaurian bat, and resumed her telepathic commune with her sisters.

The half-human mongrel certainly has his uses, Aggressive thought-spoke. The plan will commence. After we have purged this miserable jungle of the humans, we will acquire what we seek. I hope, Methodical, that your pet has not led us on a fool’s errand.

From an underwater lair thousands of miles away, the Matriarch in question replied with her own thought-voice: And I hope, Aggressive, that you will maintain discretion and a low casualty-count on our side.

I can only assure you, Methodical, that by the end of this battle, this pitiful place will be wiped clean of the human scourge. For New Pangaea!

For New Pangaea.
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Re: DINO EATER (13)

Post by Mobius 1 »

One of greatest OZ chapters ever, as we have all noted. :)
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Re: DINO EATER (13)

Post by Malchus »

Oh. Hells. YESZ!!!!

One of the most DINO EATER badass boss battles has arrived on O1. I weep manly tears of joy.
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Re: DINO EATER (14)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Just edited the thread title since FIDEL vs. RECKONER is the 14th chapter.

And now a world from our sponsors:

Check out FIDEL SOUP, the latest in CapCap dickery! With MOAR dicks! :mrgreen:
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Re: DINO EATER (14)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

It was a cold and silent night. All around the prefabricated EVIL lair and the derelict facilities were hardhat henchmen and mercenary guerillas tending their posts, and beyond the teslalectric fences and automated defenses that demarcated the encroaching jungle were sentries perched atop high-hideouts, sweeping the underbrush below them with laser-sighted precision weaponry.

There were no stars in the night sky above the employees of EVIL, for though the jungle canopy and the underbrush had been cleared off, a new shroud had been erected, a tent-like marquee composed of stealth-fabric to obscure the machinations beneath it from any scrutinizing eyes in the sky.

The derelicts themselves were buildings of archaic construct, a mix of steel and glass and ferrocrete fashioned in anachronistic designs. However, that was unimportant in the greater scheme of things, for the corporation in its extensive real-estate dealings had far more aesthetic properties in its disposal – such as volcano lairs in the Caribbean and Nordic ice fortresses. Rather, it was the content held within the buildings’ vaults, hermetically sealed and preserved, that so tempted the scientists of EVIL’s research and development department. And in turn, it was the potential profits resulting from such a rediscovery that so enticed the shareholders and decision-makers of the great multinational monopolizer of menace that was the EVIL Corporation.

At the figurative center of the lair was a tent. Though there were many encampments pitched to provide the henchmen and South American mercenaries with quick but comfortable housing, this particular tent was different. It was much larger than the others, composed of protective nanosilk fabric on a titanium-alloy frame, with a barricade of ablative sandbags for protection, and a squad of black-armored EVIL Elites surrounding it like some Praetorian guard.

But like the antiquated complex, the tent itself was irrelevant. What was inside the tent, though…



Donald Dennaro savored the last of the exquisite liquid with a silent slurp. He noted with pleasure that it had a very thick, sticky and slippery texture, and while the shredded shark’s fin itself had little in the way of taste, it was the boiled cartilage’s ability to absorb the rich flavors of the other constituents that made it such a delicacy. That, and the fact that the primary ingredient was obtained by slaughtering a rare oceanic predator and removing its fins before throwing the rest of it back into the sea, and then shipping it halfway across the globe all just to appease the appetites of one Marcus Elliot Hunt…

It was just decadent. And one day, Dennaro hoped that he too would enjoy the same wanton luxuries. If he did things right, of course.

He decided to try the Giant Squid Sashimi. It was the highlight of the meal, after all. Far rarer than the severed appendages of a Carcharodon carcharias, the Great White Shark; and more expensive than the half-eaten Beluga caviar in their spoons made out of mother of pearl or the Foie gras, liver from an Etruscan swan force-fed stem cells for twelve consecutive days, put together. Though the procurement of the giant squid meat was undoubtedly a great secret, Dennaro knew that its preparation involved a special weeklong marinating to remove the ammonia from the cephalopodic flesh.

With ivory chopsticks, he picked up one of the inch-wide slices, put it in his mouth, chewed it, and considered its peculiar taste. For Dennaro, an apt description of the flavor was difficult. He had never tried such a dish before and, for all he knew, they were the first persons on Earth since long-since forgotten times to have tried Giant Squid Sashimi. All he knew was that he wanted some more.

“Donald,” began Marcus Elliot Hunt. The corporate bigwig was seated across the table, a glass of blood-red wine in hand. He took a sip and regarded at the lawyer. “I’m glad you could spare the time to have dinner with me.”

“Of course, sir,” Dennaro replied coolly. “As satisfied as I am with my duties here in the jungle, I certainly couldn’t back down from your invitation…” he took a sip of the wine. “Is this 1985 Chateau Lafite?”

“The very same,” Marcus nodded. “How is it?”

“Exquisite.”

“Though I hope the wine doesn’t overshadow the giant squid sashimi,” Marcus noted. With his other hand, he stabbed a piece of squid with a fork and placed it in his mouth.

“Certainly not. The sashimi is excellent; I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything else quite like it…”

Marcus smiled. “Either way, I didn’t bring you here to discuss the particulars of the culinary masterpieces I’ve commissioned.”

“Of course not, sir.”

“And neither will I mince words,” the old man continued.

Dennaro wondered where the man was going at and decided that the best way to find out was to be direct. “Then why did you bring me here, sir?”

“Donald, what would be your evaluation of the EVIL Corporation’s current performance?”

“To be honest sir…” Dennaro trailed off, considering his next words carefully. “I think we could be doing better.”

“Oh?” Marcus feigned surprise. “Please do expound on that.”

“Well, sir, there have been many factors inhibiting the continued growth of the EVIL Corporation throughout its long history of international crime and extortion, chief among them being the efforts of global intelligence agencies and their international men of mystery,” Dennaro stated the obvious to humor his superior. Ever since its inception, the EVIL Corporation has been the bane of intelligence organizations worldwide. Because of the corporation’s frequently morally reprehensible actions, it has had as much friends as it had enemies – and those definitions often changed with the ever-interesting times.

Dennaro continued: “There’s also the proliferation of metahuman vigilantism. There’s nothing heroic about getting in the way of good business… We’ve tried bribing politicians to pass anti-mutite legislation, but ultimately, we had to get our own superpowered freaks and some of our shareholders weren’t so keen on that decision – although you yourself, sir, argued for the recruitment of freak mercenaries.

“And then there’s the very nature of the business itself. It’s really more like an everlasting game of high-stakes poker – every venture is a gamble, every roll of the dice a potential disaster. The Corporation has barely been able to balance the profits it’s earned from successfully blackmailing nations with the losses it’s incurred from every self-destructed volcano lair or demolished earthquake-machine. That’s why the corporation is shifting from its traditional Global Extortion packages to more long-term plans that don’t cater to clients who are power-crazed madmen, but instead provide continuous services to saner but just-as-sinister Machiavellian megalomaniacs who know how to bide their time in hatching their schemes.”

Dennaro paused to catch his breath and was about to continue his spiel when Marcus Hunt stopped him with a slight gesture of the hand. “That’s enough.”

“Sir?” uncertainty gripped Dennaro. Some of the higher-ups in the EVIL Corporation have been known to dispose of incompetent employees via hidden trap doors that led to incinerators, or piranha pools, or other unsavory but exotic ends. Dennaro couldn’t help but check for any hidden panels underneath his seat as he did not want to meet an unsavory but exotic end in a tank full of mutant lobsters.

“It’s good to know that while you can be an insufferable brownnoser at times, you at least know the reality the Corporation has to deal with,” Marcus Elliot Hunt smiled, and this time Dennaro could finally breathe easy. “And the wine does overshadow the giant squid sashimi.”

Before Dennaro could say anything, Hunt continued speaking, beginning with an exposition of the Corporation and other things: “When the illustrious Ferric Fourfingers founded our corporation, it was a much simpler time. There were less… superhumans with delusions of grandeur, to put it frankly. The only threat to the Corporation was from those who you so aptly described as ‘international men of mystery’. Ferric could and did deal with the world’s intelligence agencies; it was all in the name of good business, after all. During the Cold War, both sides had the right sense to hire the Corporation’s services for ‘plausibly deniable contracts’ and Ferric played them for every penny they had. As the years went by, he gradually accumulated an unknowable sum of money for himself and the Corporation.

“But all good things come to an end and we were barely able to adapt in the ensuing chaos. Ferric, after his years of bold and innovative leadership, retired – trading his career of villainy for philanthropy, using his accumulated assets for the betterment of Third World shitholes everywhere. It did win the corporation PR-points and now we get lots of clientele who happen to be despots from the developing world. Nonetheless, the rest of the planet has apparently grown tired of our blatant shenanigans.

“The EVIL Corporation used to be the foremost marketer of menace. We once had a monopoly over the world market but now we’re playing second-fiddle to defense contractors and megacorporations like Saintly Concerns, Vagrant Arms, and their pet PMCs,” Marcus sighed and gulped the last of his wine. “And that is why we are here, Donald. We are here to discuss the future of the EVIL Corporation.”

“The future, sir?” was all what Dennaro could utter. By now he was totally uncertain as to what exactly was going on. Was it a test? That was his first assumption when they had dumped him, a corporate lawyer, into the middle of the jungle in some top-secret R&D facility under the false pretenses of ‘ensuring the legality’ of ‘acquiring’ dispossessed real-estate. Real estate that he could only guess was the site of some mad scientist’s long gone experiment. Prior to this dead-end assignment, he had the notion of ascending the ranks of the Corporation, going from a mere legal consultant to a full-blown power broker. Which was why, as Marcus so perceptively observed, he was acting like a total obsequious ass. Thus, he had to be very careful. Trapdoors and mutant lobsters. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Donald, the EVIL Corporation is beset by threats from all sides – from without and from within.”

“Corporate espionage…” Dennaro trailed off. “So that’s why the Corporation chose to put this R&D operation in the middle of the jungle…”

“Yes,” Marcus said. “And, believe it or not, these abandoned facilities are actually of some importance to the corporation and its greater plan.”

“Indeed?” Dennaro knew that from a financial standpoint, the only benefit of the abandoned facilities was that the Corporation didn’t have to invest more resources in setting up anything permanent, as it could make do with merely renovating the preexisting structures and setting up some prefabs. “I find that hard to believe, sir. While the real estate is in remarkably good condition despite being nearly swallowed by the jungle, even with the equipment still intact, this facility was still abandoned decades ago. It’s positively ancient.”

“Ah, but you should realize, Donald, that appearances can be deceiving. In our line of work, they almost certainly are,” Marcus stated. “Donald. We’ve taken over some long gone madman’s abandoned laboratory and it is in fact a very extensive scientific facility intentionally obscured in the darkest heart of the jungle. The Corporation is in a very bad way, as you and I have so eloquently elaborated in our little dinnertime exposition, and it is the opinion of our shareholders that we might uncover a much-needed technological edge from these forsaken laboratories.

“If we can harness whatever arcane discovery that drove away the past proprietor of this place, while simultaneously developing an entire legion of cyborg dinosaurs, and proliferating both to ferment Third World upheavals that will inevitably fill our pockets with copious amounts of money…”

Dennaro nodded as sudden realization struck him. The Corporation was desperate for a bleeding edge in the increasingly competitive market, aside from this venture, they were also investing heavily on other avenues of R&D. Underneath the deep blue sea, there were laboratories breeding hyperintelligent sharks for weaponization, while in the frostbitten wastes of Antarctica were outposts excavating extraterrestrial remains and Pre-Cambrian artifacts. Whichever team of EVIL mad scientists, executives and lawyers struck gold first… “If we are successful, then the profits will surely put us back on top!”

“Yes, and now that you are aware of this venture’s utter importance to the Corporation, then you know that we must guard it very selfishly,” Marcus said conspiratorially. “Be aware that the Corporation’s enemies will do whatever they can to usurp what is ours. Even the goddamned communists are at it! With that Cuban snake slithering around in the jungle, taking down our boys, nothing is safe…

“And we also can’t forget about our rivals, corporate spies might take advantage of our beleaguered state and if they get to him, I doubt our Doctor Thornier can keep his mouth shut or his files closed… he is a mad scientist after all, not exactly a professional – when pushed, he’ll go for the highest bidder.” Marcus leaned towards Donald and locked eyes with him. “This is why I need to know if you can be trusted, Donald. If I can trust you to protect the Corporation.”

“You can trust me, sir.”

“Good,” Marcus relaxed visibly and leaned back on his chair as a hardhat-clad henchman entered the tent. The henchman served two plates of moist and delicious-looking chocolate cake. “Now, how about some dessert?”



The nighttime wind was a mild and pleasant sensation - coming in a cool and gentle breeze that blew over her uncovered face and disturbed her strawberry blonde hair just so slightly. She brushed a stray lock aside before taking a bite of the strange jungle fruit she held in her hand, savoring its sweet yet sour flavor and the refreshing moistness of its meat. It tasted like an unripe mango, but it wasn’t.

Her appetite sated for the moment, she decided to linger for a while, sweltering idly on a thick and outstretched tree branch and letting her legs dangle, savoring whatever enjoyment she could out of the cool jungle wind and the hushed nocturnal ambience.

It had been a long while since her last time here. She had almost forgotten how it was in the jungle, the cloying wilderness forsaken by the reach of daylight, so far away from the eyes of civilization, leaving only darkness and silence through the night. She sighed.

It was years ago, and back then, she was just an expendable asset, a young and loyal one at that. She wanted to serve her country, wanted to excel, to succeed in places few would dare to tread – to wash the distaste of mediocrity out of her mouth. While the initial rush wore off, she was still loyal to the end, perfectly willing to do whatever was asked of her. Often, these things were of questionable nature, and she was quick to realize that… But no, she didn’t grow cynical or bitter or jaded. She was proud of her proficiency, proud of her abilities, and though she was fully aware of the implications of her acts… she just didn’t care.

She was good at what she did, and she liked it, but sometimes, being good just wasn’t enough.

Though that fateful mistake wasn’t entirely hers, she was still amongst those disowned and sacrificed in the name of convenience, asked to pay not with her life, but with her honor. The Company got what it wanted and emerged unscathed, while she lost the career that she only belatedly realized was her life. A final act of loyalty – that was how she had thought of it then, how she accepted it. Only she hadn’t.

Now, years later, she had returned to the jungle, and it welcomed her back with open arms that led into its darkest heart. She remembered her first time, her initiation, how she sensed that palpable taste of fear and disgust, that lingering aroma of death. How she watched and, after a while, was so kindly asked to join in, to participate, to partake. Whatever innocence she had left was lost then, and so she consigned herself to this forsaken place.

Welcome to the jungle.

She shook her head – this time she had no misplaced convictions regarding her homeland or national security, no naiveté to exploit, she was in it for the money, and her loyalties were only to herself. They paid good cash for people with her experience, her talents.

Here again.

After some time passed by, she decided to get up. In her other hand was a helmet in the form of a gasmask, with two massive, bulging, milky lenses to see out of, the face narrowing down in an inverted triangle to end in a rebreather protected by chitinous plates. In one smooth motion, she put it on and her face became a dead-eyed insectile visage. A hissing noise came from the collar as her armor hermetically sealed itself.

Amy Gardener. Alias Mya Lilac, the Problem Solver. Orchid Mantis.

She surveyed the darkness of the jungle with the compound eyes of her multifaceted lenses and saw everything. Advanced image intensification turned blackest night into brightest day while enhancers artificially colored and augmented the night vision’s monochromatic view, and infrared thermographics highlighted the warmth of living things of all shapes, forms and sizes. Tiny red-white and yellow forms fluttered above and below the canopy, vampire bats out for dinner, while many more were clustered amidst the trees and ground, sleeping birds and mammals huddled in fear for the sanctity of their bodily fluids.

From her vantage point atop the tree, she scanned her environs, looking from side to side, before turning around and –

She paused. The unmistakable heat signature of a human being emerged from the cool blue-black jungle foliage not too far from her position. Even in the low-light conditions, she could not take any chances of being seen. Secrecy and stealth were the ways of her previous life in the Company, and though it had been years since then, lessons learned could never be unlearnt. Sparing no time, she activated her thermoptic camouflage and became one with the jungle.

Invisibly, she regarded the man below her.

A fellow Problem Solver? Two of them were down, though two others – herself excluded - were still around. Was it one of them? No, it wasn’t. It was him.

She activated her tactical microbead radio.

“Whistleblower. This is Mantis. Do you read me?”

“Yes,” replied the encrypted voice. “What is your status?”

“I’m en route to the objective,” she replied, deactivating the safeties of her weapon with a silent click as she watched him scurry about obliviously in the underbrush. “But I’ve found something else…”

“Yes?”

“The Cuban, Fidel.”

“Have you made contact?”

“No. Shall I engage him?”

“Negative. His presence is irrelevant. Continue with your infiltration and proceed to your objective.”

“Affirmative,” Amy nodded, with just a slight trace of disappointment in her voice. As the transmission ended, she reactivated her weapon’s safeties and watched him go. “Maybe next time.”



He held the sniper rifle at the ready, emerging from behind the trees with his weapon first, sweeping it from side to side as he scanned his surroundings with the tri-oculars’ night scopes. He gripped his weapon tensely; aiming it at every sign movement or sound he could see or hear – aiming at the shifting shadows, at the treetops, at every probable firing angle. After a brief moment, his shoulders sagged as he exhaled sharply, and then he breathed in, gulping down the cool nighttime air. He needed a place to rest, needed it badly. The consecutive battles had taken their toll on him and now he was exhausted and tired, battered and wounded. Even he had limits to his endurance, limits to how far he could push himself before crashing.

Fidel Castro removed the tri-oculars from his face, detaching it from its headband mounting and letting it dangle by the strap around his neck. Also around his neck was his bandana, wrapped like a scarf to bandage the wound inflicted by a near miss from the Reckoner. He was lucky it was just a flesh wound.

On the other hand, the shot that had found its way through his posterior torso was definitely not just a flesh wound. Though it had missed a nonexistent organ, a kidney removed due to past injuries, there were still two holes in his body - one where the bullet went in, and another where it went out.

He unbuttoned and unzipped the top of his Subsistence Suit, taking it off and letting it hang on the branch of a nearby tree, where the chameleonic camouflage became indistinguishable from the vegetation. Fidel looked at his side, at that part where the chest and abdomen met, right below the ribs. Because of the angle of entry, the exit wound was located at the lateral side of his abdomen, while the entry wound was at the posterior side. Aside from their positioning, their formation also meant that suturing was out of the option. Luckily, he had a roll of tape and some field dressing, so all he did was dress the injury before using the field dressing’s plastic wrapper to make a tight seal. It was a simple survival viewing technique used in case of chest wounds to prevent a pneumothorax, a collapsed lung caused by the accumulation of air in the chest cavity, but it was also useful in waterproofing other wounds. He had to, since he had planned on ambushing the Reckoner immediately after administering first aid, and his cunning plan necessitated hiding half-naked in the river’s shallows before trick-or-treating the sniper savant while wearing a severed caiman head…

Fidel laughed, in spite of everything. How that particular strategem worked, he had no idea. The only flaw he could see with that plan was that now, his chest was almost entirely covered in leeches – wriggly bloodsucking little water-maggots that bit through his skin and pumped anti-coagulants into him to better drink his bodily fluids.

“Ugh. Disgusting,” Fidel spat. In times like this, there was only one he could do. He sifted through what was left of his inventory, he didn’t have much after the Reckoner shot that flashbang grenade in his breastpocket – detonating it and blasting his tactical webbing off him – but still. “Here we go.”

He produced a pack of cigarettes from a waterproof pocket, it was the pack his contacts, the Enriques, had given him back on the Cessna, before the mission proper began. Before they were killed and stripped to the bone by something inhuman and left to rot in the coffin of their plane’s wreckage… From another pocket, Fidel pulled out a metal lighter. It was something he got from ransacking the paralyzed half-corpse of Eduardo, the merc who swallowed the poison frog, the merc whose brown bandana Fidel now had around his neck.

Between the affable Enrique brothers and that pendejo Eduardo, the past few hours had seen dozens of men killed and maimed, most of them by his hand. Fidel shook his head, perhaps in disbelief, perhaps in gratitude, at the fact that he was still standing. Still alive.

It was the jungle, and he knew that ‘deserve’ had nothing to do with it…

He ripped the filter off, lit the cigarette and took a long drag. Then, with his thumb and index finger, he pulled the cigarette off his mouth and exhaled, watching the bluish smoke flow out of his mouth and nostrils. Without looking, he placed the glowing tip of the cigarette against a particularly fat leech contentedly sucking on his arm, causing it to regurgitate its stomach contents and quickly detach. Fidel winced as some of the cigarette’s hot ash fell on his skin.



Silently, she made her way through the jungle’s dense underbrush. It was a strange yet eerily familiar place; it was foreign… yet nonetheless registered with her instincts. Almost as if like she had been here long ago.

She darted, between twigs and branches, underneath leaves and ferns, leaping above roots, sulking about in the shadows, scurrying quickly as she went by.

She was as quiet as she was fast. Her camouflage, like that of a chameleon’s, blended her perfectly well with her surroundings. With the darkness of the night she was, for all points and purposes, invisible.

Her mind was focused solely on the objective given to her. She had coordinates, and her sense of direction was practically magnetically attuned to them. With her sensors she could perceive the world around her in ways no natural creature could. Dark and light, hot and cold, sounds and echoes in the night, the scent of molecules drifting in the air ‘read’ by olfactory processors – all blended into one cohesive compound and composite view of the world.

She maintained communications, transmitting via fiber-optic lines that ended in a tiny antennae that trailed behind her like a tail. Every so often, her ‘line’ would send a pulse of encrypted information, data that contained telemetry gathered by her sensors. Whenever she did, she paused to aim her antennae up in a proper angle, to get the most signal coverage possible. Then she would wait for a second, to receive a response, before continuing.

The latest incoming data packet was decrypted and presented a mental map outlining new coordinates, directions that would bring her to reverse her course. And so she did, turning around to head off to the rendezvous point…

But then her sensors briefly caught glance of an aberrant heat signature. A tiny speck of burning warmth. It caught her attention, and as she focused on it, her other scanners also noted strange chemicals, toxic substances, wafting about in the air currents.

Curiosity got the better of her and so she approached this strange phenomenon. She was very careful, focusing her sensory array at the unknown thing in front of her, thoroughly attuning herself to it.

When she heard the sound of a breaking twig and felt the disturbed air of movement, it was too late. The next sensations engulfed her in pain as she heard her own spine snap and felt sharp teeth dig into her flesh.



The wriggling creature went limp in Fidel’s grip, and he immediately bit off a great chunk of its flesh. He was hungry, he wanted dinner.

“Hrm…” he muttered, chewing on the mouthful of meat while trying to discern what it was he was masticating. It tasted a little bit like chicken, the meat was lean, with no fat, and had a similar grain to – something hard and sharp that wasn’t bone, which rewarded him with a painful jolt of electricity that stabbed deep down into the roots of his teeth, causing his jaws to clench and his face to warp into a shock-spasm grimace.

He spat it out – whatever the hell it was – and moaned in pain, placing his hand on his jaw like a root canal recipient. His mouth was numb and the profanities he sputtered were inarticulate.

“That was horrible!” he finally managed to say, wiping the spit off his mouth. “What kind of jungle chicken was that?!”

He contemplated throwing the damn thing as far away as he could, but curiosity got the better of him and so he held his dead dinner up by its neck, letting its lifeless body dangle.

“What the…”

He flicked on his radio and called the Major.
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Re: DINO EATER (15)

Post by Malchus »

I still feel sorry for the poor, Fidel-bitten compy. But I rejoice at the return of another chapter.

Oh, and just because the near-tropish scope of the phenomenon demands its mention: AMY!!!
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Re: DINO EATER (15)

Post by Mobius 1 »

Psh, I'm waiting for Bloodsucker to be stepped on. :)
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Re: DINO EATER (15)

Post by Malchus »

Mobius 1 wrote:Psh, I'm waiting for Bloodsucker to be stepped on. :)
Well, yeah, that's a given. :)
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Re: DINO EATER (15)

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“Major Muerte, this is Fidel. Do you read me?”

“Loud and clear. Have you rendezvoused with N yet?”

“No… but I did bump into someone else.”

“Hm? Who is it?”

“‘It’ is a small dinosaur, one as big as a chicken,” Fidel answered as he sat down and placed the dino-corpse on his lap to examine it more thoroughly.

“I see.” the Major replied knowingly. “Did you…”

“Yeah,” Fidel cut him off, knowing what was coming. “Apparently it’s been cyberized, with mechanical components everywhere… it’s even got wiring inside of it.”

“Interesting. Do you think it’s another one of the EVIL Corporation’s projects?”

“Probably… could be the Uprising’s, but I haven’t seen them setting up any lairs in the middle of the jungle,” Fidel replied. “Anyway, this little lizard’s cybernetics are quite extensive. Its got sensors implanted on its head, tiny hydraulics bracing its arms and legs, and a miniaturized communication’s array on its tail. Smaller than my microbead radio, probably more advanced… though that’s not saying much. I don’t think it’s armed, but it did have good camouflage.”

“Hrm, you should talk to L about this.”

“Yeah… I should. I chatted with her a while ago, after I dealt with the Reckoner,” Fidel said. “But when I found this thing, I thought it was best to run it by you first.”

“That’s good, but I’m not exactly a paleontologist and I’ve never taught counter-dinosaur tactics in Camp Mantanzas,” the Major commented dryly. “I guess that makes you a pioneer in this new field of warfare, eh Fidel?”

“Right. I’ll be sure to impart my battlefield experience to the next generation of elite Cuban soldiers as soon as I get back to Camp Mantanzas,” Fidel replied half-seriously. “I wonder if L knows anything about cybernetics…”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“That’s a good idea. Hang on,” Fidel switched frequencies. “L?”

“Still here,” the familiar female voice replied. “How are things on your end, Fidel?”

“I found a dinosaur.”

“Another Allosaurus?”

“No… it’s a smaller one.”

“Oh?”

“It was so small that I thought it was a chicken or some kind of jungle bird, so I tried to eat it.”

“You what?!” in that instant, the calm and gentle yet tired-sounding quality of her voice was replaced by absolute shock and disgust.

“Yeah.”

“That’s… that’s…” Fidel could hear her slap her forehead over the radio.

“It did taste like chicken… before I bit on one of its cybernetic parts and burned my tongue. I guess your friend Dr. Grant was right all along about that link between birds and dinosaurs.”

“So you were listening to me,” Dr. Ellie Settler sounded pleasantly surprised yet frustrated at the same time. In a prior one-sided radio conversation, she had talked to him about everything from visiting the dinosaur park in Isla Norte and seeing GenInc.’s creations firsthand, to the latest theories in paleontology and excavating fossils in Montana. “But that still doesn’t excuse you from… preying on that poor hapless animal.”

“It was far from hapless, L. Besides, it had excellent camouflage. I barely saw it even when it was less than two feet away from me.”

“As small as a chicken… was it like a chameleon?”

“Come to think about it, yeah. It was hard to spot since it blended with its surroundings a bit like my Subsis-” Fidel stopped himself. In these circumstances, the mission allowed for certain information regarding the ‘dinosaur-situation’ to be disclosed since L was their ‘conscripted’ dinosaur specialist, but nonetheless Fidel had to watch what he divulged. He was still on a top-secret mission, and she was working for them solely on a need-to-know basis. He didn’t want to trouble her with information she didn’t need to know, it would’ve been inconsiderate of him, to say the least…

“Compsognathus,” she said brightly, interrupting his line of thought.

“What?”

“Compsognathus,” she repeated herself. “A small bipedal carnivorous dinosaur from the late Jurassic Period. It‘s famous for being a nearly complete specimen, preserved almost perfectly in limestone. It was discovered in Germany not long before the Archaeopteryx, a creature many consider one of the first birds. The anatomical similarities between Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx are so evident that… that it’s not surprising you mistook it for a chicken. Fidel?”

“Still here,” Fidel smirked.

“I’m sorry, Fidel. I just get carried away sometimes.”

“It’s alright. Is this… Compy one of GenInc’s?”

“Actually, it is. The fact that Compsognathus had chameleonic skin was unexpected, Neil and I were really quite surprised. We were expecting them to be covered in feathers or something.”

“Why?”

“The prevalent theory was that dinosaurs like Compsognathus had feathers since they were closely related to birds. It would’ve kept them warm, and we also found evidence of feathers in fossilized dinosaurs similar to Compsognathus. We asked the geneticists about it and…”

“And?”

“…I think they were genetically altering the dinosaurs. Mutating them.”

“Mutant dinosaurs,” Fidel sighed. He was glad he didn’t’ swallow any of that Compy. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“Ian, Doctor Goldblum, thought that it was part of GenInc’s bioweapons research project,” L continued. “Back then, I thought he was just being obtuse. But in light of recent events… I guess he wasn’t so far off.”

“Who’s Ian Goldblum? Another paleontologist?”

“Oh, he’s a mathematician specializing in chaos theory.”

“Hmm…” Fidel wondered why they needed a mathematician in a dinosaur park, but that was really the least of his concerns. “About those mutated dinosaurs. Were there any more… aberrant forms?”

“Remember those velociraptors we talked about?”

“They got pumped so full of steroidified growth hormones that they became hyperaggressive, right?”

“Yup. GenInc. also had another therapod that was altered to have chameleonic skin. Carnotaurus. A distant relative of the Allosaurus, not quite as big, but still a large predatory dinosaur.”

“Hm…” Fidel wondered. “L, how long does it take to create a fully grown dinosaur?”

“At least a month.”

“So if they were using the GenInc. genetic material they got a week ago…”

They? Who are you talking about…?”

“Nevermind.”

“Oh, right. Anyway, it would take you at least a month and that’s with the use of advanced growth enhancement techniques,” L stated. “And even then, it’s not exactly advisable…”

“Why?”

“Growth enhancement involves accelerating the rate of cellular division in a developing fetus or embryo, and that’s a very dangerous process. If you don’t do it right, you can end up killing your pocket-dinosaur with cancer,” she answered. “And even if you do do it right, you’re still going to end up with potential physical and behavioral instabilities developing down the road after your dinosaur’s hatched, causing a drastic decrease in lifespan. It’s not very profitable, you’d end up having to buy a new dinosaur after a while.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I talked to the geneticists a lot. You know, typical scientist chit-chat, not that you’d be interested about it…” she went on. “There was this guy, Ned - ”

“Ned?” Fidel remembered him, that fat scientist he was supposed to extract from Isla Norte. The man with the ‘can of whipped cream’ that concealed something the Intelligence Directorate so badly wanted… too bad the velociraptors gobbled him up. Or did they?

“Yeah, you know him?”

“…No.”

“Right. Anyway, he told me that GenInc’s CEO, Don Lemonde, was thinking of just selling his dinosaurs to zoos all over the world. It would’ve spared him the trouble of building a park of his own in the Caribbean. Of course, if he went through with that plan, GenInc. would’ve used growth enhancement to make the dinosaur production lines go faster. And with their shortened lifespan, the dinosaurs would require periodic replacement, which big zoos like San Diego could afford. It’d be like… consumer-dinosaurs.”

“Selling dinosaurs for profit, with planned obsolescence to keep the demand up, clever capitalists,” Fidel muttered, knowing that the situation would be no different if the dinosaurs were weaponized and if the zoos were replaced with Third World insurgencies. The same thing happened when the Americans proliferated walking tanks back in the Cold War. “Hrm…”

He thought the situation over. There was a GenInc-spec cyborg dinosaur skittering around the jungle, performing covert reconnaissance, at least until he snapped its neck and bit off a chunk of it. Now, if the EVIL Corporation needed at least a month to create a dinosaur with GenInc’s data…

“L, thanks for all the help. I’m gonna have to switch frequencies now. Keep in touch, okay?”

“Okay.”

Fidel switched over to the Major. “You got all that?”

“Yes,” the Major replied. “Sounds like the EVIL Corporation is picking up right where GenInc. left off. What do you think?”

“I think we’re in big trouble,” Fidel answered tersely. “I think the Dinosaur Uprising is -”

He stopped as a sudden wave of unease crept up his body, slithering into his innards to fill his insides with a metallic coldness. His body shivered involuntarily.

“Fidel?” the voice from his earpiece microbead was almost inaudible. “What’s going on?”

The jungle was cool at night, but this was an abnormal chill. Yet Fidel’s body continued to perspire heavily, as if stricken by jungle fever. A sick sensation filled his stomach, writhing inside him.

“Fidel, respond! Fidel!” the Major’s voice was drowned out now, as the coldness was joined by a new sensation. Hushed sounds that came from behind the trees, from beneath the underbrush, from somewhere he couldn’t quite see, almost intelligible but not quite, echoing in the stillness of the night air. He wasn’t sure if he was actually hearing it, or if it was something seeping into his mind. It sounded like…

Whispers.

“FIDEL!”

In one quick motion, Fidel got up and placed his Subsistence Suit back on, zipping it shut even as the innumerable leeches continued to infest his flesh. He grabbed the Reckoner’s rifle, the Ultima Ratio Hecate II, worked the bolt and chambered a .50 caliber round. Then he donned the tri-oculars, and night became green day.

“Major, I’m not alone.” Fidel said before he killed his radio.



In the night air, the fireflies were like a constellation of little green lights, forming an intricately starlit dance that brought illumination to a place now so well hidden in shadows. Like real stars, they hovered up high, where they could be seen but not reached, and like the stars they watched dispassionately as their light was drowned out by the jungle’s darkest heart.



A lone figure clad in fluttering black cloth stalked his way through the shadows of the night. Silently, swiftly, like a wraith. A feral grin was etched across his face that, with his wide bloodshot eyes, gave him a crazed thirsting look. He was like a wild dog, one that had smelled the blood of wounded, bleeding prey.

An unhinged and ecstatic noise left him as he felt himself reach out through the darkness and calling to the night. And he felt the blackness melt into him, felt it blanket him in a lifeless embrace, felt himself flowing out, bleeding out and submerging into that silence where there was nothing to differentiate the emptiness inside him from the outside world. It was like being cut open, and he felt his eviscerated entrails slowly spill out to cover his surroundings with his own desecrated viscera, at once losing himself while insinuating himself against everything around him.

It was then that he felt a fleeting source of warmth, and he recoiled from it instantly, his face contorting into a twisted mask as that noise from his mouth turned into laughter. His voice echoed unnaturally through the nocturnal stillness as his laughter grew louder and louder and louder. Then Theodore Coleman – the Bloodsucker - finally declared: “There’s no place to run, Fidel! No place to hide!”

The hunt was on.

And like all good hunters, one of them made the other think that it was on the run.



Fidel positioned himself against the side of a tree with his rifle shouldered and got down to one knee. He flipped the tri-oculars off his face, placed his cheek on the rifle’s polymer stock, and looked into the scope. The complicated modifications made the rifle difficult for unfamiliar hands to use, but he had learned most of the weapon’s simpler functions in the short time he had it. A flick of a switch activated the telescopic sight’s image intensifier, as well as its other more esoteric sensory apparatuses. Then, by turning a knob, he began calibrating the directional microphone. A wire extended from the side of the scope, connected to a bud in his other ear.

With one eye closed, he gazed into the many different shades of green that composed the sniper scope’s digital depiction of the world, ignoring the incomprehensible alphanumeric data-displays and focusing solely on the targeting reticule and whatever fell under its crosshairs.

He controlled his breathing, inhaling slow and deep before exhaling a few seconds after, and listened intently.

With the directional microphone, he could pick up sounds normally imperceptible to the human ear, greatly aiding in target acquisition. But since an ear was already occupied by his microbead radio, he only wore only one of the microphone’s earpieces, limiting him to mono – which was neither stereo, nor surround sound. So he had to sweep the gun, and by extension the microphone, side-to-side. Not that it mattered, he still had to scan with his scope anyway since he didn’t have backup, no one with a pair of binoculars to be his spotter.

He gritted his teeth whenever he heard the sounds. They weren’t natural, he knew they weren’t even real. They weren’t carried by the wind, didn’t really come from behind the trees or from the shadows. But they came from all angles, from everywhere, from his sides, from in front of him, from behind him, maybe even from inside his head, he could even feel it in his flesh as they echoed and resounded. The noise assaulted him, disoriented him, disturbed his senses and caught him off-balance, maybe it would’ve frightened him if it wasn’t so goddamn annoying.

But that was the whole point of the thing, wasn’t it? It was psychological warfare. Just a sadistic little maricon playing Jedi mind games.

Fidel controlled his breathing. Inhaled slow and deep. Exhaled a few seconds later. Listened intently.

There.

Slowly, he pivoted his rifle to the left. Delicately, a little more to the left.

“I see you,” Fidel said silently. He lined the shot up until it was perfect, so the Hecate’s .50 Whisper would punch a fist-sized hole through the target’s chest. They weren’t so far apart, but only one of them was running around bare-chested save for a trenchcoat for everyone to see.

Fidel began squeezing the trigger, gently, delicately. Between a breath and a heartbeat.

Click

Puzzled, Fidel squeezed the trigger again, with similar results. Another click followed by another. Then he worked the bolt viciously and ejected the fat fifty-caliber round, chambered a fresh one in and squeezed again.

Click

Then it hit him. The same thing happened when he ‘borrowed’ the evil albino’s sidearm, right before he got his ass kicked because the gun suddenly didn’t work. The safeties were off, he had worked the slide and the bolt, chambered them with fresh rounds… but both weapons denied him.

They were ID guns, he realized as he reexamined his weapon. Then he cursed himself and replaced his tri-oculars, looking at where his target was.

Gone.



“I found you.”

The jungle’s nocturnal solitude was broken by the crack of gunfire and the unrestrained muzzle flash of full-automatic steel. Theodore Coleman – the Bloodsucker – began his pursuit, laughing all the way as his Uzi 9mm sent round after round after full metal jacketed round at his fleeing prey.

The hunter was now the hunted. The predator now the prey. The young sadist relished every moment, each palpable second that came and went by as he gave chase through the lightless jungle, his black heart beating in sync with every footfall, every shot fired, every ragged breath that escaped his cracked lips. With each fleeting glimpse he caught of his prey, he fired a staccato-like burst from his Uzi, merely pointing the gun towards the general direction with one hand, not even bothering to take aim.

“You can’t get away!” he mocked and laughed. “There’s no escape!”

He fired again and again as he went after the runaway Cuban. The flash of his gun was only source of light in that godforsaken place.

He laughed.

He laughed.



He cursed.

In a final act of betrayal, the Reckoner had almost indirectly caused his death. For that, Fidel threw the treacherous sniper rifle away, relieving himself of the burdensome weight and allowing him to run faster.

Behind him, he could hear the mad laughter of Coleman, his voice no longer resonating unnaturally, but now plainly audible, sounding like the barking of a leprous dog. It made him want to turn around and take pleasure in gutting the boy like a fish, but that train of thought was abruptly interrupted by the snap-hiss and crack of whizzing bullets, just so narrowly missing him and ripping nearby trees and foliage apart instead, exploding bark and branches, leaves and vines. For now, he focused on staying alive.

Fidel kept on running, letting the bastard laugh while he could. Foliage whipped his face as he ran in a zigzagging path, putting the trees behind him as cover, denying his pursuer any chance at a clean shot, going in a path that would disorient Coleman, playing with his unfamiliarity of the jungle’s terrain to establish distance.

Call it a tactical retreat.



Theodore threw the spent magazine away and slammed a fresh one in, wasting no time in resuming fire. The recoil made the gun jump in his hands, made it harder to control. He was actually aiming now, having folded the Uzi’s stock and using the butt as a foregrip to steady the weapon, and he struggled with to keep it leveled. He fired a rapid series of short sputtering bursts, quick but intermittent, controllable and precise – exploding random items of shrubbery within an increasingly closer proximity to Fidel’s fleeing form.

“You’re not getting away from me that easily,” he hissed, spittle flying out his mouth as a predatory grim splayed across his face. The flashes that came with every gunshot lit up his vicious visage, but it also infringed upon his natural night sight, forcing his eyes to readjust with each burst. Not that it mattered; he knew where Fidel was, his telepathic powers told him that -

Theodore Coleman – the Bloodsucker – gave a yelp of surprise as his foot tripped on a certain large sniper rifle discarded on the jungle floor. He fell, his face landing on the wet mud.

“SON OF A BITCH!” he shrieked as he lashed out blindly at Fidel’s fleeting silhouette. He reached out, not just clawing with his hands but also with his hate.

He closed his hand into a fist.



Fidel screamed as red-hot pain suddenly engulfed him. He staggered as he nearly lost himself, flailed feebly at the air, swiped at the branches in his way, looking for something to grab onto for support, to give him purchase. Inadvertently, his anguished screams disturbed a flock of creatures roosting up a tree, causing them to flock out and swarm him. They screeched spitefully as they flew past him, and those that got behind him shrieked as they suddenly detonated in a rather bloody spray of flying bat-bits and organs. The same thing happened to the leeches that had so thoroughly infested his backside, perforating him with a million needle-stabs of abject agony as they popped like oversized invertebrate zits.

But He didn’t stop. Not with his backside seeping with his own blood, not with his Subsistence suit smeared with the gore and exploderized remains of a dozen vampire bats. He hacked and coughed out something warm, but kept on going.

Kept on running.



Theodore followed.

Got up and continued right where he left off. He would not stop. Not until he had what he wanted. Not until he killed Fidel Castro. Or Fidel killed him. It made no difference, really.

He felt alive again.

“That’s it,” he said icily as he resumed his hunt. No longer running, just walking slowly, surely. Inevitably. “Run, Fidel. Run.”

He raised his weapon and fired. Felt the kickback of the recoil. The smell of hot brass and burning cordite.

“I’ll find you. Eventually, after you run out of blood. And then I’ll -”

A reply, silenced gunfire returning to him like whispers. Calmly, he avoided them, stepped out of their way as they whizzed past his head.

“And then I’ll kill you.”

A retort, soundless compared to his Uzi, without muzzle flash. One round ripped through the side of his arm, tearing his coat and cutting his flesh. His grimace turned into a smile.

“You’ll see, Fidel. It’ll be like show and tell.”

He continued walking, dodging incoming fire, swerving away, leaning to the side, narrowly evading them as he reciprocated in turn, scything with his submachinegun without halting his advance.

“Where are you?!”

He entered a clearing where the jungle floor turned into a shallow pond, a reflecting pool that mirrored the sky above, the fireflies that glowed as they hovered up high, and the moon that slowly emerged from its cover of clouds.

He made his way to the middle of the pond, the water seemingly undisturbed, minding neither his presence nor his movement.

Fidel emerged from the shadows, at the furthest edge of the pond and Theodore Coleman – the Bloodsucker – turned to face him.

“Die.”



A click, a muffled sound, and then another click as Fidel’s pistol locked open.

Theodore Coleman – the Bloodsucker – dropped his Uzi. Perplexed, he looked down and saw a tiny hole in his gut, only understanding its full implication when blood began to slowly ooze out of it. He crumpled into the water.



“You first,” Fidel growled. With a press of a button, he ejected the spent magazine and his pistol’s mechanism slid shut with a snap. He holstered his sidearm as there was nothing left to reload it with. He flicked on his radio. “Major.”

“Fidel, what happened? What’s your status?”

“I was ambushed by the Bloodsucker,” Fidel groaned as he wiped off a thin line of blood trailing down his nostrils.

“The torturer? The one who could read minds and manipulate blood?”

“Yeah…”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m not sure… by all means I should’ve been dead from internal hemorrhaging, but I think his powers only work when he’s focused, and when he’s not, the effects stop. Anyway, he’s dead, so that’s taken care of. I don’t like this, though. I think I’m being set up.”

“By N?”

“Maybe. He contacted me whenever I encountered one of those freak mercenaries, those Problem Solvers. But he didn’t leave a message when the Bloodsucker jumped me. I think it’s a trap.”

“Then what are you going to do next?”

“I’m going to spring it.”

Ripples began marring the pond’s serene surface; blurring its placid reflections as something disturbed the shallow water.

“Major… I think I’m going to have to call you back,” Fidel said as he noticed the vibrations and turned to its source…



Theodore Coleman – the Bloodsucker – laughed evilly as his form emerged from the water, rising unnaturally until he was upright. The blood that had been oozing from the gunshot wound in his gut was slowly flowing back into his body as he willed his mighty system of organs to reabsorb his precious bodily fluids. He giggled insanely as he pointed to Fidel, declaring with exquisite glee: “You can’t kill what you can’t understand, Fidel! I refuse to die!”

And with that, Theodore struck, lashing out with his hemokinesis and striking Fidel down! He could feel the pain searing the battered man, how parts of him ruptured due to the unnatural manipulation of his body’s blood, his veins dilating, blood starting to make their way out of his orifices.

Fidel Castro collapsed to his knees and Theodore’s grin became a grimace of pain as his own gut-wound spurted out blood and bile.

Theodore knew his hemokinesis was what prevented his own exsanguination, and should he squander his powers by draining Fidel’s lifeblood, then he would have nothing left to keep his own arteries from running dry.

It was a quandary he solved by pulling out his trusty Desert Eagle .44.



Fidel endured the pain as he felt his circulatory system literally vent its contents into the bloodworms latching onto his skin, to the point that he could feel the leeches swell into oversized pulsating spheres all over his body.

They popped, less like oversized invertebrate zits and more like a synchronized detonation of bloody bubble wrap, and Fidel screamed until it subsided and all he felt was a sick sticky wetness all over his body.

He knelt down, waiting for more.

But when no more came, he did not hesitate. He went for Coleman. With his knife.



Theodore fired and the Desert Eagle nearly broke his wrist.

Fidel felt the round zip mere inches from his face, ripping the tip of his fluttering bandana.

The second round was further off the mark, and the third one wasn’t even close.

Ted’s cackling laughter turned to screams of frustration as he sought to correct his mistake and aimed straight at Fidel’s face, right between the eyes. The Cuban was so close, it was impossible to miss.

He squeezed the trigger.

But the Cuban was so close that his hand was already on the gun’s white-hot barrel, gripping it so the slide would be forced back to spit out the chambered bullet.

Fidel let go and Ted got his gun back, just as its half-empty magazine dropped into the water. No magazine, no round chambered. Ted gibbered and was about to say something.

When Fidel brought the knife across his face.

Ted let out a horrible scream and brought both hands to obscure his face. “My face! You dirty Cuban spic! No one makes me bleed my own – urk!”

Fidel wrung his free hand around Theodore Coleman’s bloodsucking neck and slammed him down into the shallow water. No CQC, no more fancy judo, just plain old-fashioned human strangulation.

“You’re not like the others, are you?” with his other hand, Fidel brought the knife to less than an inch away from one of Coleman’s fear-widened eyeballs. “You just don’t know when to quit. I should put you down like a dog.”

Despite the strangulation, Theodore Coleman – the Bloodsucker - let out a scream of unmitigated horror and in his eyes, Fidel could see the reflection of a great and inhuman thing coming down to kill them all.

He left Coleman just in time, leaping out of the way as an enormous column-like foot landed with the sound of crunching bones and organs – and the screams stopped.
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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Re: DINO EATER (16)

Post by Malchus »

Now the transfer is complete. Yayness!

And happy now, Moby? You got your squished Bloodsucker back. :P
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Re: DINO EATER (16)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The earth trembled with the fall of its foot. Apatosaurus Ajax, a long-necked sauropod, towered above all its surroundings, far taller than the Amazon’s canopy or anything else amidst the procession that followed in its wake. It led the way, striding deliberately with the thunderous steps of its elephantine legs, and the whip-crack of its tail scything through the trees in an act of careless deforestation. Those that followed kept their distance as the sauropod lashed out with its appendage, its whiptail surpassing the speed of sound and felling trees with a sonic crack.

With their way cleared, the rest followed unimpeded, marching with mechanical purpose, a parade of saurian supremacy resplendent in its resurrected glory. Together and shoulder to shoulder, Rexes armed with rockets, missile-racks and the capacity to breathe out liquid fire stomped in unison with armored Triceratopses mounting microwave weapons on crowns of horns and howitzers on their backs, and crackling Spinosaurs with flesh-grafted Tesla blades flanked lumbering Stegosaurs with radiothermal warfare arrays integrated into their dorsal plates. Amidst them were numerous Troodont troopers and Cyberaptors – autonomous sentinels with shoulder-mounted cannons and staff weapons.

The smoldering stumps of felled trees lined their path, brunt bark still red and smoking, casting an eerie haze that refracted the artificial blood-light that came from hollow eyes. It was a Mesozoic March from Hell.



Adolph observed calmly with his cobalt-blue eyes. Detached, dispassionate and calm – a stoic demeanor befitting one of his hybrid heritage. He was an Albertosaurus whose Tyrannosaurid genes were infused with superhuman Aryan DNA courtesy of his mad Nazi creator, his ‘father’ the Theozoologist. Thus, he was an Aryannosaur, unique like his brothers and sisters. But it was he who was the most perfect, the smartest and the strongest – the inheritor of the dominant genes.

He and his kin were unlike the rest of the Uprising’s drone dinosaurs whose primitive minds were altered and enslaved by microchips, chemical infusions, and pterodactyl telepathy. Though those winged Matriarchs of the Uprising insinuated that he and his Aryannosaurs were impure mongrels and human-dinosaur hybrids, at least Adolph could watch the procession of mindless dinosaurian-drones with cold half-reptilian eyes that were his own.

Adolph’s thoughts were interrupted by a shadowy reptilian wraith perching itself atop the crown of a nearby Triceratops. Though the thing was a lesser creature than the Matriarch Aggressive who oversaw the operation, Adolph could not disregard it. For it was the Matron Contempt, though unlike its master, it was an it, not yet a she.

Aryannosaur, Contempt spoke to him with its mind.

Adolph turned his large predatory head to regard the creature that called him. “Ja?”

What are you doing? it asked coldly. Contemplating absently before the battle? The Matriarch orders you to assemble with the rest of your kind and prepare for combat, not to idle by. Though I wonder of what your thoughts are...

“My thoughts are my own, Contempt,” Adolph retorted as he looked straight into the Matron’s milky-white eyes and felt the thing’s attempts at his mentallic defenses. “And as long as they are my own, they will not betray me.”

So be it.

“I will ready my brothers for war. I trust you too have your own preparations to make with your peons. Take care in your menial instructions, Contempt. I will go now.”

Adolph hefted his weapon of choice, an oversized Maschinengewehr 42, with his hydraulic arms and strode on bird-like legs, moving with predatory grace as he sought his brothers-in-arms.

As he did so, the Matron Contempt took to the skies and circled the formation before landing atop the leading Apatosaurus, the pterosaur using the sauropod’s tiny head as pedestal. Then the Matron craned its head up and made a high-pitched shriek that broke into a sharp digitized noise as it melded with the minds of the Uprising’s dinosaurs.



He watched from downwind, out of range of their keen olfactories, though to be doubly sure he had smeared himself in mud to mask the scent of his blood. Blood that seeped out from where the leeches had detonated, like the one that had exploded rather painfully in the back of his mouth, swelling up to the size of a golf ball before popping betwixt his tonsils. It made his throat sore.

“Have you contacted L for information?” the Major asked him.

“Yeah,” Fidel replied. He replaced his tri-oculars with a pair of binoculars, before flipping the goggles back on. Even with the sheer size of that convoy of dinosaurs, he still couldn’t get a complete view from his vantage point, and he didn’t want to get too close. “Major, I still can’t get a complete view from my vantage point… and I don’t want to get too close.”

“Did you at least get a visual on their weaponry?”

“I did,” Fidel paused, the blood that leaked down his throat made talking a bit difficult. “The Rexes have missile racks, sort of like those on Hind gunships, and Katyushas on their backs. And the Triceratops have cannons and heatrays,” the latter was technology reverse-engineered by the British decades after the Invasion of 1898, the so-called War of the Worlds. “The Spinosaurs have electro-ion weaponry, and the Stegosaurs look like they’re carrying radiothermal ECM,” Russian mil-spec Tesla tech designed to counter the British rayguns. “But the biggest one, the Brontosaurus, it’s completely decked out in all kinds of weapons. Not to mention it’s clearing a road for the rest of them with its tail… it’s leading the way, heading for the EVIL facilities. This is going to get messy.”

“The Brontosaurus?”

“The Apatosaurus, I mean…” he corrected himself. L was lecturing him on the taxonomic inaccuracy of the Brontosaurus moniker and how the oversized lizard was actually an Apatosaurus before he told her to spare him the thesis and focus. To her credit, she was quick to understand the gravity of the situation… Fidel swallowed some more of the blood that seeped down the back of his throat from his nasal cavities, and wiped off some that had dried on his moustache. He was getting too well acquainted with that metallic taste…

“Fidel.”

“Major?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah…”

“Are you sure? Taking on those freak mercenaries one after another must have taken its toll on your body. Your condition will affect your ability to carry out your mission effectively and you must be prepared for the worst.” the Major began. “While your current priority is evasion and observation, you have to be ready to take on both the EVIL Corporation and the Dinosaur Uprising, just in case if all hell breaks loose, and we both know it will.”

“…” Fidel groaned. He knew another lecture on battlefield technique was coming up, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Fidel, tactical espionage action involves surveillance - the covert reconnaissance of enemy positions, assets, strengths and weak points. Watching the enemy is a bit like reading a book and eventually your eyes and your body will get tired – especially in your current state. Take a break and rest for a while, when you get back, you might end up finding something between the lines."

“Major, I don’t have any time for breaks, I still have to-”

“Meet up with N?”

Fidel nodded, even if the Major had no way of knowing his non-verbal response.

“Are you sure that’s the wisest course of action? A lot has happened since the last transmission.”

“I don’t know…” Fidel answered. “The situation’s changed radically… it might not be safe, N could be dead, or it could be an ambush. But it’s the only thing I’ve got. I can’t stay here, pretty soon I’ll have no where to run and no where to hide. I have no choice, I’ll have to take that chance.”

“Very well, I understand. But remember, the only rule in the battlefield is to survive. Do whatever you have to do and come back home alive, Fidel. Cuba needs both its Castros.”

“Don’t worry Major,” Fidel replied. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“Good. Rendezvous with N, extract whatever information you can get from him, especially on the Uprising. If possible, find an escape route. If not, then maintain a low profile until the whole thing is over, until you’re the last one left standing. You’re a survivor, Fidel. Do what you do best.”

“Understood,” Fidel stopped before he could kill the microbead radio. “Major...”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember why I was in Isla Norte?”

“Yes. You were sent to retrieve a package from one of our contacts… why?”

“Nothing. Nevermind.”



The High Hide was a prefab outpost built on top of the tall treetops of the jungle. It was a platform that was suspended by cables tied to a tree’s sturdy trunk and branches, allowing it to elevate or lower itself through a series of industrial winches. It was basically a paramilitary tree house made out of cheap lightweight aluminum and covered in camouflage mesh and netting – a jungle watchtower with enough room for two or three men and their weapons, their gear, and a small refrigerator filled with rations and refreshments.

Carl was one of the men posted on High Hide #0017G and he was doing his assigned duty of staring aimlessly at the jungle while lamenting the post given to him by Henchmen Resources. Despite the modest paycheck and the great dental plan, the job lacked the glamorous action of defending volcano lairs from besieging British commandos, and Carl longed for that kind of action greatly. The best he got was defending himself against the dangers of malaria and botflies, bugs which laid their eggs in human flesh so their larva could hatch out and enjoy a free meal, and to make matters worse…

“Hey, El Capitan, whatchu doin’ mang?” asked Frederico, clapping him on the shoulder. The man was one of the mercs Carl was supposed to be training. “There’s nothin’ out there… nobody’s seen that secret agent mang for hours.”

“Yeah…” Carl muttered. Alarms had been raised during the wee hours of the morning when a captive was reported to have escaped into the jungle. Carl didn’t even know they were holding captives, though word had spread out that the man was a Cuban agent sent to spy on them. That was a little surprising, usually it was the CIA or the MI6 who were so keen on knowing what the Corporation was up to… “I guess it’s time to raise the Hide. We’ve been hanging low for hours and we haven’t seen any sign of that man. I think they were chasing him to the other side of the jungle, anyway.”

“Si,” Frederico nodded.

“Right, I’ll work the winch,” Carl said as he walked over to the other side of the Hide, trading places with Frederico. “Okay, hold on to the rails, I’m gonna pull us up and-”

“Madre de Dios! El Capitan!”

Carl turned around and found himself looking at a screaming Frederico grasping desperately onto the rails as a huge thing tried to drag him down. It was a cyborg reptilian skull with hydraulic jaws crushing the entirety of Frederico’s lower body, the man was screaming incoherent profanities while simultaneously gurgling out a fountain of blood.

Some of Frederico’s fluids splattered on Carl’s face, prompting him to act and jerk the activation lever of the winch, kick-starting it and propelling the High Hide up a rapid ascent. The suddenness of this basically ripped Frederico into two as he grasped desperately onto the rails while the dinosaur bit hungrily onto him as the Hide rose quickly up the canopy.

Carl saw ½ Frederico let go of the rails, and the dead man mouthed out a silent scream as he fell.

Carl also fell, on his ass, and began muttering in shocked incomprehensibility. He knew the EVIL Corporation was doing experiments, just like that Dinosaur Park, that it was turning its own dinosaurs into even deadlier robotified killing machines. He also knew of how experiments, done by the EVIL Corporation and practically everyone else, often went horribly wrong – like those hyperintelligent sharks and military supercomputers…

He didn’t have any time to think. Still on his ass, he scrambled for the telephone. The High Hides had telephones, with lines that went all over and reached back to the main base. He picked it up and began dialing and… realized that there was no dial tone.

The phone was dead. The lines that went between the Hides and the bases were tough, so monkeys couldn’t chew on them or anything… they were hard to cut. Carl lifted the whole phone up and saw that the cord, not the line, was cut. Cordless.

He didn’t notice the significance of that, and instead grabbed a walkie talkie. All he got was static.

He did notice the significance of that, so he grabbed a flare gun. He got up, scrambled over to the side of the Hide, and pointed his gun up in the air.

He was too high for that Allosaurus, or that Stegoceratops, or whatever the hell it was, so it couldn’t just tiptoe and eat him like it did Frederico. To get him, the dinosaur would’ve had to chop the entire tree, or use one of its in-built grenade launchers or something. Carl didn’t know that the dinosaurs simply didn’t want to make noise, and that was why his phone was cut, why his radio wasn’t working, why there weren’t any explosions and why –

A camouflaged compsognathus leapt up from behind him and sunk its teeth into his neck.

Carl screamed, he struggled, and he fell over the rails.

He aimed the flare gun up and squeezed the trigger.

Then the Tyrannosaurus Rex ate him.

A burning ball of red light sailed into the air.



Matriarch.

The systematic elimination of human early-warning systems and outlying outposts has commenced.

Compsognathid scouts were deployed in advance to reconnoiter the enemy’s position and sabotage their communications infrastructure.

Radio jamming has been initiated.

The attack shall begin as planned.

By dawn, we shall have the objective.




With a splash, his foot landed in a wet hole in the ground, and he staggered as he tried to avoid falling down face first into the mud.

“Huh?”

He bent down to examine what nearly tripped him. His eyes had adjusted to the no-light conditions, and with the help of one hand touching and feeling the soil, and the collected water reflecting what little light there was, he could see that the hole wasn’t just a hole, but an imprint of a large foot with at least three clawed toes.

Fidel flicked on his radio.

“L, this is Fidel…”

There was no reply save for static.

He tried another frequency, the Major’s. Nothing.

“Jammed…”

It didn’t matter. He had seen the Uprising’s attack force, not all of it, but enough of it to know what was coming. They were jamming the airwaves, and were preparing for an all out war. The EVIL Corporates wouldn't even know what hit them, their almighty dollar help them…

Nonetheless, that foreknowledge wasn’t going to make what was to come any easier. He still had to rendezvous with N, extract whatever information there was to extract, and weather the oncoming storm. It would be much harder without ‘mission control’. The tiny radio and the earpiece stuck in his ear had saved his life countless times, helped him retain his sanity in the miserable steaming jungle, and made solo sneaking ops actually bearable.

Right now, he was really on his own.

He unsheathed his knife, his only remaining weapon, and soldiered on uphill. His emptied .45 was inside the holster on his thigh, and that was all he had. He wasn’t even using the Reckoner’s tri-oculars, in an attempt to conserve battery-life. If a patrol of cyberaptors ran into him in the dark…

He reassured himself by thinking the situation through. The dinosaurs were mobilizing and deploying, and if they assumed the EVIL Corporates knew nothing of their presence, and that was a wise assumption, then perhaps they would be lax in deploying a rear guard. Their infantry would not be left behind unnecessarily, but would be deployed together with the main force as they converged forward towards their primary objective.

Besides, if he needed his gun, then he would be as good as dead anyway.

In the battlefield, the ability to think and react to the situation with intact nerves and senses was more important than any physical weapon. As long as he could keep his head, Fidel had all the ammunition he needed.

Thus he maneuvered himself deftly, low and slow, scanning the angles of the jungle as best he could. He didn’t really need the tri-oculars to see in the dark, he still had natural nightvision and other means of navigating the pitch blackness. Sometimes, NV goggles could cause disorientation – older ones, the outdated models he was most familiar with, restricted depth perception – and concentrating on the grainy green images could take focus away from the other senses. Hearing and listening for the enemy was just as important as looking for him, if not more so in the jungle, as was smelling and being scented, which was why he was navigating downwind from the dinosaurs. L had told him of how the majority of a Tyrannosaurus rex’ fruit-sized brain was dedicated to the sense of smell.

Fidel heard a hissing noise and froze.

His heart nearly stopped. He was in a low position, crouched by some trees, as he looked up and saw the flare soar into the sky, lighting the place up with its red glow. He closed an eye, quickly adapting his sight to the sudden illumination, and opened it only when he decided to look away.

Maybe one of the mercenary patrols had spotted the Uprising, letting out the flare before the cyborg dinosaurs quickly took care of them. It didn’t really matter, but Fidel found himself hoping that the Corporates were warned by that single signal.

It would be easier to survive in the confusion of a pitched battle than in the one-sided slaughter of a human extermination.

The incoming call was as unexpected as the flare. Fidel flicked on his microbead.

“N.”

“Fidel. You are close,” it wasn’t a question, but a statement.

“Yeah… the airwaves are being jammed. If it wasn’t for our proximity, all you’d be getting out of me would be static,” Fidel replied.

“You certainly took your time, Fidel,” despite its distortion, there was discernable impatience in the voice.

“Just like in Isla Norte,” Fidel answered back.

No reply.

“I’ll be there,” he continued. “Just hold on to that package.”

“There isn’t much time,” that artificially modulated voice finally uttered. “You must hurry.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t keep you waiting.” Fidel killed his radio and smiled.



The cake was exquisite, smeared in the decadent oozing blackness of molten chocolate – so dark that light couldn’t escape its surface…

“Yet we were able to recover from the losses, sir?”

“The Atlantic fault-line facility was hardly irreplaceable, it was just a modified oil rig, and we were able to evacuate most of our valuable men despite the ongoing assault. The Elites were able to hold off the SBS commandos and Number 13 was able to kill one of the British agents. Sadly, we lost Doctor Hansgruber and were barely able to salvage Deadbolt. The facility had to be self-destructed. But, as they say, eggs and omelets… it’s all hush-hush, anyway. Those losses won’t be mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, you can be sure of that.”

“Of course, and I must say, sir, that this cake is extremely –”

The door opened and a chrome-plated cyborg stormed towards them, ignoring Donald Dennaro, the lawyer with a mouth full of cake. Instead, he fixed his gaze on Marcus, the man who ran the show.

“Deadbolt?”

“Sir,” the man-machine uttered, micro-servos whirring softly as they articulated his metal jaws. “We have a problem.”

“Indeed?” the older man neatly wiped his mouth with a serviette.

“Yes. Come with me.”



The high-definition holoscreen displayed the image crisply and clearly, with an obtusely quantified resolution of ten thousand metapixels per micron. The image in the holographic screen was of an overhead view of the jungle courtesy of an EVIL-Earth satellite, displaying the multiple derelict facilities now in the Corporation’s possession, along with the pre-fab outposts and infrastructure they had erected. The facilities were interspaced by vast expanses of jungle and as the image zoomed out the facilities became rather insignificant compared to the sheer size of the surrounding Amazon. The EVIL assets were tiny compared to the jungle, and the big red blips in it moving towards them. The big red blips had circular patterns radiating out of them.

“What are those big red blips?” Donald Dennaro asked. “The ones with circular patterns radiating out of - ”

“We have insufficient information,” answered Deadbolt, the loyal EVIL employee and cybernetic organism. “Our sensor and communication capabilities have been neutralized.”

“How can anyone do that without our knowing so?” Marcus asked. Though he was clearly perturbed, he nonetheless graciously accepted the cup of coffee offered by a hardhat-wearing henchman. “Thank you, Jonathan.”

“We have insufficient information,” Deadbolt repeated himself.

“Then how do we know what those are, then?” Dennaro continued to point at the big red blips.

“Sonar-seismic sensors,” a new voice entered the confines of the command trailer, female and accented. It was Oktavia Boyer, the EVIL engineering specialist. She too had a hardhat. “Sonar-seismic sensors are standard equipment for our volcano lairs, and we bring them along even when we’re nowhere near any volcanoes or fault lines, just to be sure. When our communications and sensors were blacked out, the sonar was the only thing we had left that worked.”

Marcus sipped his coffee and, once more, wiped his mouth with a serviette. “And what can you glean from this, Mrs. Boyer? Enlighten us, please.”

“The readings are hard to interpret, but we can tell that they are many, of considerable tonnage, and that they are coming for our facilities from multiple angles. We can’t phone or radio our other outposts, but we were able to warn them, nonetheless.”

“How?”

“Flares and smoke signals,” Oktavia replied dryly. “And Morse code. Short-range walkie-talkies can also function, to a limited extent, as long as they stay within visual range. We’re trying to jerry-rig some kind of comm. relay.”

“Have you alerted our henchmen and mercenaries of the situation?” Dennaro asked.

With a whir of actuators, Deadbolt turned to face him. “It is standard protocol for all EVIL security assets to mobilize and prepare for combat in case of a communications blackout.”

“It doesn’t take any protocol to know we’re going to be under attack soon,” Marcus said to himself. “Where is Number 13?”

“He is readying the Elites, the henchmen and the mercenaries,” the cyborg answered.

“Good, I knew I could count on him, at least.”

“There’s also one more thing…” Oktavia said unsurely.

“Yes?”

“The readings we’ve heard from the sonar… they sound like footsteps,” for emphasis, she pressed a button and the holoscreen’s map was replaced by the readings. They could hear a dull yet rhythmic noise, and that rhythm was represented by a graphic that resembled an electrocardiogram’s – with jagged lines that rose and fell in sync with the thundering booms of footfalls.

Sudden realization struck Marcus Elliot Hunt..

“It can’t be…”

“Sir?”

Marcus shook his head. “Have Number 13 redouble his efforts at preparing our forces. I want him ready to provide maximum resistance against whatever’s coming for us. Mrs. Boyer, are the emergency defense systems ready?”

“Yes sir, though are you suggesting that - ”

“We must evacuate.” Marcus announced.

“Acknowledged,” Deadbolt confirmed. “Sir, do you have any other commands?”

“We have to reach Doctor Thornier and activate his creations. All of them.”



Fidel crawled over the rim of the ravine, now a shallow gully, and finally found regular, leveled land.

As he paused to catch his breath, he noticed a Land Rover parked by a not-so-nearby tree. He wasn’t alone.

“N?”

“Fidel,” that familiar artificially modulated voice answered, from somewhere Fidel couldn’t pinpoint – though it definitely didn’t come from his earpiece.

“Alright, drop the act,” Fidel said between shallow breaths. “I think I know who you are.”

“Who do you think I am?”

“Ned. Somehow, you survived Isla Norte and those velociraptors,” Fidel answered. “Either the Corporates got you, and now you want out, or you’re with the Uprising.”

“Wrong,” N replied, though his voice was no longer artificially modulated. His voice had become her voice. “Not even remotely close, Fidel.”

She stalked out of the shadows, not far from the Land Rover, but closer to him than to the vehicle. Even in the darkness, he could see that she had dark eyes and raven black hair, contrasting with her fair complexion and blending with their nocturnal background. Her figure was clad in a sneaking suit – poly-aramid from the look of it.

“D,” Fidel spat. “Dementieva.”

“My first name’s Natasha. That’s what the letters stood for, Natasha Dementieva. A little unimaginative, I’m sure, but still… I managed to fool you,” she smiled slightly. “Hello, Fidel.”

Fidel wiped his scowling face with a muddy forearm.

“Surprised to see me?” Natasha asked.

“Yeah…” Fidel grumbled. “What the hell do you want?”

“Aw,” she pouted. “What’s wrong, Fidel? Did I break your heart?”

“More like a couple of my ribs.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” that amused smile returned. “I knew a round of rock salt wasn’t enough to put you down permanently. After all, you were so vigorous.

“What the hell do you want with me?” Fidel repeated himself.

“I need your help.”

He looked at her with a confused glare.

“I kept you alive for a reason, Fidel,” she explained. “I didn’t want you dead in Isla Norte and I don’t want you dead now. If I did, then you wouldn’t have made it this far – but I need you, because you’re a useful little instrument, if a bit blunt.”

Fidel began walking towards her. “But there’s nothing stopping me from -”

“Oh, but there is,” she wagged her pointing finger at him. “I’m your contact and I have what you need to complete your mission. If you kill me, or if you force me to… replace you with another instrument, then it’s game over. You’ll be stuck in this miserable little jungle until those overgrown lizards finish us all up systematically.”

“What do you want?” Fidel finally asked after a short silence.

“How’s your Commandante, Fidel?”

“What does he have to do with anything?”

“Indulge me.”

“President Fidel Castro is fine,” Fidel Castro answered tersely. He wasn’t certain of it, though. Before the mission, the Major had assured him of it, but still. “He dodged the assassin’s bullet.”

Natasha regarded him curiously before finally asking: “Do you know who pulled the trigger?”

“I don’t know. It could be the CIA, or those goddamned exiles, or both of them working together,” frustration filled Fidel’s voice. “What’s this got to do with anything? Do you know who -”

“I do. Another question, and an answer: Are you familiar with the name ‘Crimson Dawn’?”

“No.”

“Then you better listen -”

“No.” Fidel said. “You listen. I’ve had it with this bullshit- ”

“You better listen,” Natasha Dementieva repeated herself, this time pointing a silenced AKM with an underbarrel grenade launcher at his face. He recognized it as formerly belonging to him. “Shall I continue?”

“Please do.”

“This affair with the cyborg dinosaurs, in the greater scheme of things, it’s nothing,” she continued. “I don’t know what the deal is with this ‘Uprising’, but I know they won’t last. I mean, come on.”

“This whole thing is insane,” Fidel agreed as he tried to inch closer to her, to get within striking range. She pointed the AKM at him again and he backed away.

“Yes, it is. But they’re not our main concern,” Natasha winked conspiratorially at him. “Crimson Dawn is.”

“Crimson Dawn?”

“It’s a shadow organization, a cabal, a conspiracy, call it whatever you want. It was formed during the last days of the Cold War to perpetuate the cause of global communism despite the coming collapse of the USSR. Well, you know the drill. The collapse affected nations all over the world, nations like Cuba.”

“The Período especial en tiempo de paz… The Special Period in Peacetime.”

“Correct. The Dawn wants to re-create what was lost, and is trying to do so in Cuba as well. Your Commandante is, apparently, a very stubborn man. A bit like you, I suppose,” there was that smile again. “He didn’t go along with their plans, he didn’t want to be their tool, and so they tried to replace him with a more willing instrument. But apparently, your leader has had a lot of experience in dodging death.”

“And what does this have to do with -”

“Oh, you know what these shadowy conspiratorial cabals are all about.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

“They have enemies everywhere and they have their fingers inside it all, prying into all those hidden corners – trying to manipulate everyone who’s with or against them, all to suit their needs.”

“Just like you.”

“Just like me,” she said it like a teacher responding to a particularly dull student who finally figured out the answer to an obvious question. She was clearly enjoying herself. “The EVIL Corporation is the epitome of what the Dawn stands against, so we’re an obvious target for them.”

“And Cuba?”

“A blunt instrument like yourself.”

“The cyborg dinosaurs?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

“Great,” Fidel replied with all the tired sarcasm he could muster.

“They might be interested in cyborg dinosaur technology, for all it’s worth, though I for one don’t think it’s worth much at all… but as they say, knowledge is power.”

“Right.”

“Do you know who rescued you at Isla Norte, Fidel?” Natasha asked, though no doubt she already knew the answer. “The ones who came for you in the mini-sub, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Fidel answered. Then, in more of a sarcastic snort than a question, he asked: “Was it them?

“Yes it was. They have plans for you, Fidel. Which is why I have plans for you.”

She tossed the AKM at Fidel and he caught it with one hand. Carefully, he inspected the weapon and noted that while the 40mm grenade launcher tube was empty, the rifle itself had a fresh magazine with a round already chambered in.

“Thanks,” Fidel said graciously. Then he pointed the gun at D, Dementieva, Natasha, N, whoever the hell she was – and squeezed the trigger.

There was no muzzle flash, but silencers were never truly silent, so he could still hear the muffled sound of gunfire while feeling the recoil, and seeing the spent casing ejecting out the rifle’s side.

“Oh Fidel,” she shook her head disappointedly and sighed.

“Blanks,” Fidel muttered.

“Well,” Natasha shrugged indifferently. “I’m sure it was worth a try, anyway.”

“Where’s the rest of my gear?” Fidel knew she had obviously gone to some trouble to reacquire his gun, so maybe she had the rest of his things too.

“It’s in the Land R-”

The blast wave threw Fidel backwards, striking him like a bludgeoning to the head done by a freight train, and he landed hard on his ass. As he regained his senses, and as an uprooted tree returned to the earth, he noted a distinct noise… a rapidly repeating reptilian clicking.

Then it came again. He could see it, a snaking tendril of acrid black smoke, the contrail of some rocket-propelled projectile seemingly coming in at slow motion. He didn’t need to duck for cover now that he was on his ass, and he could see the dark trail terminating in a red-orange shaped detonation.

“Run!” Natasha shouted as she crawled back to her feet. “Get to the Rover!”

She didn’t need to say it twice, Fidel was already up and running for the Land Rover as fast as he could. She was way ahead of him, scrambling into the vehicle and hopping onto the driver’s seat as he clambered atop the back of the vehicle, grasping the roll cage like a jungle gym. In the back of the Land Rover, he found tactical webbing with AKM ammunition, grenades, Semtex, and everything else taken from him in his capture, tranqs included. He also found an M-60 machinegun mounted on the Rover’s back.

“Drive!” Fidel growled, sparing no time in donning his gear and manning the machinegun – working the bolt and chambering one of the belt-fed rounds.

The Land Rover came to life, diesel engine roaring, and it rolled out just in time – a black contrail streaking towards its previous position and detonating with a force that uprooted a nearby tree along with assorted shrubberies.

Fidel cursed as mud and dirt and splinters and bits of bark and burning bushes rained down on him. He scanned for the attacker, looking for the source of the rocket-grenades, but he couldn’t see shit.

“Hold on!” Natasha yelled.



It saw the world through enhanced oculars within hollowed sockets, and through an additional hexose of thermoscopic implantations. With these artificial eyes, it could see a monochromatic blood-red view of the world, filled with alphanumeric designations and reticules marking threat assessments and target acquisitions. The slaved-CPU component of its half-machine mind interpreted and translated the perceptions of its reptile brain’s remains, and relayed it to the psychic cybrains of its pterosaurian overlords.


+scanning: lowthreat targets acquired. engaging lowthreat targets+

+status: lowthreat targets escaping. commencing pursuit+

+receiving incoming transmission: pursuit joined. lowthreat targets deemed likely to be enemy recon element. cyberaptors will assist in terminating lowthreat targets with extreme prejudice+



Mutant scales changed color, hue and texture to match the environment’s – as though flesh was melding and melting into the darkness. That massive horned head, with its spider-like constellations of glowing red eyes, opened a gaping dagger-filled maw and let out a mighty roar.

The hunt was on.

Carnotaurus sastrei gave chase.
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on Sun Jul 13, 2008 5:25 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: DINO EATER (16)

Post by Malchus »

Well, no more typos or such I could spot that I hadn't pointed out to you over MSN.

And it's good that DINO EATER is now current. Makes me wanna get off my ass and get to work on the rest of my reposts.
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Re: DINO EATER (17)

Post by Mobius 1 »

I actually kinda liked the Bloodsucker second battle a lot. It was refreshing to see Fidel finally snap and go to beat someone to death instead of the (required) stamina kills (I know, I know. :) ). But now that we're up to date, I'm happy. That means Rail-Shooter with Carnotaurus!
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Re: DINO EATER (17)

Post by Peregrin »

Can't wait to see what happens next, but I admit it does not exactly help that I'm too tired right now to maintain an overview over what the fuck is happening.

WAIT a second! I know the TWEEST of this one... it will be revealed that it's actually all orchestrated by apes uprising to overthrow their human progeny! IT'S ALWAYS THE APES!
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: DINO EATER (17)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The diesel engine roared and sent the Land Rover tearing through the jungle undergrowth, rolling over unpaved earth and rending flora and fauna asunder with its wheels. Mud and pulped plants were smeared on the fender, and bugs and branches were smashed against the bulletproof windshield as the whole vehicle bucked like a steroidified bronco and reached the maximum unsafe speed for off-road travel.

The headlights were turned off as the driver steered the vehicle in a zigzagging route, evasive driving meant to avoid weapons fire and establish distance. In the backseat, her passenger was being assaulted by whipping plant life and bludgeoned by rocking roll cage, all while his bandana fluttered in the rushing air – and all while he aimed the vehicle’s mounted machinegun towards their rear.

For pursuing them relentlessly was Carnotaurus sastrei. It would not tire, nor would it stop, for its blood-lit eyes had burned its targets into its reptile brain. Though it was all but invisible in the night, it left an unmistakable wake – paying no heed to neither terrain nor obstacle as it smashed trees aside, and even uprooted some in casual acts of deforestation. It let out a guttural snarl as it prepared to unleash its payload of anti-armor weaponry.



He could see that formless, shapeless thing as it followed them, as it moved like a shifting shadow, a shadow with a roar that shook his very form. Suddenly, there were flashes as rocket-propelled grenades ignited and streaked towards them – lighting up the night as they came with indecent speed.

“RPGs!” Fidel warned as the projectiles shrieked past them, missing just barely as the Land Rover swerved to the side. The rockets exploded ahead of them, detonating trees, raining down burnt bark and scattered splinters.

“Return fire!” Natasha yelled from the driver’s seat. “Shoot back, damn it!”

Fidel didn’t need to be told twice, but he could barely see their pursuer – it had optic camouflage.

“I can barely see it!” he shouted back. “It has optic camouflage!”

“Just shoot something!” Natasha cried as another barrage blasted more of the jungle on their Land Rover.

Fidel gritted his teeth and peered down the space between the gun shields, lining up the iron sights of the M-60 machinegun and aiming at whatever the hell was after them. He tried to zero in on it, but with the Land Rover bouncing up and down the non-existent road, and with trees and foliage and vines whipping past him and obscuring everything in sight – their pursuer didn’t even need optic camouflage to be invisible.

Then there was a plume of smoke and fire as another wave of rockets was launched at them.

Fidel fired. The M-60 roared to life as muzzle flash and supersonic steel spewed out of its barrel, as it began ejecting spent casing and disintegrating ammunition belt, and as recoil rocked its ring mount. Tracers burned lines of light through the night, lancing towards their mark – but only a few found their target.

The incandescent magnesium-lit metal scorched shifting scales, burned through flesh, and pinged against the hyperalloy combat chassis beneath it. The Carnotaurus roared as part of it felt pain, as part of it reacted in anger – and as its machine intelligence reasserted itself and assessed the damage done to it. Tracers did work both ways, after all, and its targetters followed the path of illuminated lead back to its source.

“Incoming!” Fidel screamed – but it was too late. He let go of the machinegun and allowed himself to fall on his ass just as hot rocket exhaust washed over him. The blast shook the whole vehicle, and when his hearing returned, he could hear a faint moaning. “D? Natasha?”

He turned around and saw that the Land Rover’s windshield had been fractured into a spider web of broken glass.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Hold on!”

Fidel steadied himself and held on to the roll cage for dear life as Natasha floored the accelerator and propelled the Land Rover even faster – good old-fashioned internal combustion outrunning even the invisible predator’s hydraulic-reinforced legs.

“We’re losing it,” Fidel muttered, though he was far from certain. The surrounding undergrowth had given way to slick and slippery mud, which made maneuvering difficult, so he hoped to hell that they were out of rocket-range. The thing was still barely visible though, and as if to spite him, it launched another rocket straight at them.

Fidel was about to curse when the Land Rover jerked to the side, power-sliding on the wet ground as its driver pulled the handbrake and turned really hard – transferring the vehicle’s weight to the outside tires, locking the rear wheels and upsetting the adhesion between them and the non-existent road’s surface. Mud flew everywhere as the incoming rocket missed completely and ended up hitting the semi-solid ground – detonating in a sticky-sounding blast of earth and water.

As the Land Rover righted itself, Fidel realized how he had conducted his rendezvous with N while being completely covered in mud – and how he was still smeared in the stuff up to now. He also noticed how their vehicle was now facing in the direction of what he now knew was an optically camouflaged dinosaur armed with an automatic rocket launcher.

“Not good,” Natasha said as she worked the clutch and sent the Land Rover in reverse. Fidel clambered back up to the mounted M-60 as more rocket-grenades came for them, and as their vehicle moved to avoid being blown to pieces, he swiveled his weapon and resumed firing. Bullets notwithstanding, their attacker began to catch up on them, roaring in reptilian rage as the Land Rover once more continued its mud-spraying zigzagging evasion – though this time they were going in reverse. “Get down!”

Fidel ducked just as the Land Rover passed by an exceptionally thick tree with an outstretched trunk-like branch. Had he been a second too slow, it would have broken him like a thin stick-like twig.

The closing Carnotaurus did not mind this obstruction, at least not until both thick tree and rampaging reptile met head on – but even then, it was just a matter of overpowering the overgrown plant with its horned skull and pseudo-mechanical legs. The thick tree wouldn’t give way though, so the Carnotaurus had to make it explode.

With that done, it returned its attention to its escaping quarry… and found that they were gone.



In the brief time their attacker had struggled with the tree, the Land Rover found a patch of flattened earth, a dirt road. No longer off-road, the vehicle could now go faster and Natasha used it for all it was worth – establishing as much distance as she could. While their pursuer was no longer in sight, they could still hear it as it roared and stomped and smashed through as many trees as it could in a bid to find them and kill them. If she could have, she would have placed the entire jungle between them and whatever the hell it was.

She glanced at her rearview mirror.

“Still alive?”

“Yeah…” Fidel was slumped against the M-60 machinegun, one arm over its thick stock while the other wiped mud off his face. “That was some fancy driving, you’re pretty good.”

“I’m a very talented woman,” Natasha answered back with a tired smile. “Now… where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?”

“I don’t know…” Fidel muttered. “Crimson Dawn?”

“Yeah,” she snorted. “Well, that’s the least of our priorities now, isn’t it?”

“Then where are we going?”

“To the laboratories. Thornier’s facility will have everything we need.”

“Everything we need?”

“Yes,” Natasha adjusted her rearview mirror again. “And naturally, that’s where Mr. Hunt and everyone else will evacuate to when all hell breaks loose – and believe me, it already has.”

“Why?” Fidel asked.

“Because it’s where we keep our cyborg dinosaurs.”

“Right.”

“Then after that, it’s to Site B.”

“Site B?”

“It’s the final fallback point in the mountains and -”

There was a flash of light, and then a part of the Land Rover simply vanished in a blast of molten metal and burning rubber. The spare tire on the back half-vaporized by –

“Velociraptors!” Fidel shouted. Cyborg velociraptors, with their flesh carved out and replaced with black steel and tangled wiring.

They let out an inhuman cry as they tore through the bush to give chase – blasting away with their shoulder cannons, more strobe-flashes preceded by the snap hiss of teslalectric buildups. Lines of incandescentry stabbed through the darkness in a lethal lightshow as the cyborg velociraptors, Cyberaptors, came with an unnatural speed – long legs working with animalistic grace, bodies in sync with their rhythmic motions, straightened tails counterbalancing their shifting masses, their entire bodies working like pistons.

There were three of them, coming in a delta formation and firing for effect.

Fidel spared no time in working the M-60. He squeezed the trigger and in response to the superheated salvos, the machinegun’s retort was that of steel.

The pyrotechnic strontium-magnesium tracer scorched skin and scale. Its slow approach was an illusion, and as it came closer, it appeared to speed up considerably. Less than a blink of an eye later, five unlit rounds followed and dismembered the leading raptor – rounds ripping through flesh, blood and bone, igniting its power cell in an explosion of sparks. The Cyberaptor jerked back and collapsed – some parts of it still moving and kicking, muscles twitching and trying to continue the pursuit, while other components lost power and shut down entirely.

Tracers scythed through the darkness, a fleeting response soon silenced by more silver slivers of coagulated light.

One of the bolts came in at an angle, liquefying a portion of roll cage before splashing molten metal on Fidel’s gun shield, forcing him to duck and take cover. Another flash of strobe light later, and the gun shield itself was glowing red-hot and missing a sizeable chunk.

“Phased plasma,” Fidel uttered as he finally realized what the raptors were trying to kill them with.

“What was your first clue?” Natasha half-asked and half-shouted as she sent the Land Rover jinking and skidding and swerving to avoid the incoming blasts, violently manipulating the steering wheel for all it was worth. Every glancing blow from the raptors carved out glowing gashes all over the Land Rover’s bodywork – sending burning bits flying off – but the vehicle remained mostly intact as it twisted and turned and left behind a contrail of smoke from its still-burning spare tire. “And why aren’t you shooting back?!”

“I’m pinned down!” Fidel shouted back. In his experience, the gunner’s position was a very unsafe one, being a favorite target for everything from African child soldiers to Afghan Mujahadeens, to even – as he was now re-learning – cyborg velociraptors armed with high-tech weaponry. There was a saying common amongst gunners…

When the going gets tough, the tough get cyclic.

If he didn’t make himself a target, Fidel knew that the blasts would eventually turn the rest of their vehicle into something similar to their still-burning spare tire. So, he got up and got back to the M-60 – and with a shout, he resumed firing, the ensuing full-automatic fusillade deafening him from the sound of his own hoarse war cry.

The Cyberaptors had thought that they had eliminated the gunner, a designated primary threat, so when there was a resumption of return fire, they immediately ceased closing-in and went back to their evasive patterns – weaving between the tracers and the projected projectile trajectories, their in-brain computers telling them to avoid anything that might cause them damage. Cyberaptors were optimized for speed, to close in for the kill, and were thus lightweight, reduced armoring traded for more hydraulic servos in their legs. They couldn’t take damage, but they could certainly give it.

But when their targets could match them in speed and keep distance while returning fire, it complicated things. So, when a near-miss from a tracer caused a Cyberaptor’s eyeball to boil off its socket, their networked minds decided to greatly simplify matters.

Claws dug into ground to increase traction, and fuel cell power was diverted to cause a violent burst of speed – the Raptors leaving behind trails of picked-up dust as they closed in for the kill.

“Shit,” Fidel cursed. The M-60’s ceramic barrel was glowing white-hot. Old-fashioned metal barrels required replacements when overheated, and some M-60s came with asbestos muffin mittens for that purpose. But while the new ceramic barrels could cool off faster, he still had to cease fire before he could resume fire.

At the same time, the Cyberaptors’ 15-megawatt plasma cannons were infused with liquid nitrogen coolant. They could now resume firing, and so they did. The shoulder-guns hissed as teslalectric buildups prepared the weapons for initiation, electricity coursing through the compact barrels and -

Fidel ditched the steaming M-60 and got down as fast as humanly possible, before getting right back up and firing a burst from his AKM.

The rounds pinged off the armored shoulder of the nearest Cyberaptor. It did nothing to the shoulder-cannon itself, but coolant lines were severed and liquid nitrogen began hissing out of the raptor’s side. Not that it mattered, as the Cyberaptor went on undeterred and fired its weapon.

There was a snap-hiss and a flash of light, and then the sound of crackling and fizzling. Smoke started coming out of the shoulder-cannon.

Fidel spared no time, gunning for the other raptor with his successive burst. The Cyberaptor merely leapt to the side, avoiding the rounds entirely, and returned fire with its own weapon – but it hadn’t compensated for the sudden movement and it too missed entirely.

Fidel didn’t wait for the raptor to reacquire him, he fired one more burst and got down before the next plasma bolt burned through where his head was at just a half-second ago – searing nothing but air and hair.

Natasha glanced at her rearview mirror.

“They’re closing in on us,” she said. “Do something!”

“Like what?” Fidel spat back as he tried not to get thrown out of the violently-heaving Land Rover. Something that was hanging off the now-ruined roll cage fell off and landed on his chest, and upon a cursory glance, he realized that it was a satchel bag full of grenades. He picked one up and pulled its pin off. He didn’t grip the safety lever, and it came off with the pin as the striker rotated to detonate the primer.

“I think I left a satchel full of grenades in the back - ” Natasha was cut off as the Land Rover’s left-view mirror suddenly turned into steam, and as something behind the Land Rover went off with a loud bang.

Fidel had thrown the hand grenade at the last possible moment, once more catching the Cyberaptors off-guard. The grenade sailed through the air and was halfway from the ground - when it exploded and killed them.

One of them, at least.

The remaining Cyberaptor, scarred by shrapnel, with bleeding wounds and sparking mechanical components all over its robo-reptilian form, lunged – leaping over the Land Rover’s burning spare tire and clambering onto the roll cage. Damaged servos whined, and it hissed as it caught sight of Fidel – the blood-red ocular beneath its ruined eye narrowing to glare at him.

It fired its shoulder-cannon, but instead of casting plasma, it spewed out an ineffectual spray of sparks.

At this, the Cyberaptor snarled in irritation and decided to kill its prey the old-fashioned way. Its vibro-viscerator toe-claws began humming like electric carving knives while its hydraulic jaws gaped wide – displaying rows of serrated teeth. It came for Fidel, to bite his face off.

The shotgun blast sprayed depleted uranium pellets all over the Cyberaptor’s abdomen, perforating its tissues and ripping out its guts, of both the intestinal and electrical varieties. It wailed as the impact caused it to stagger back precariously, its belly-blasted hole trailing out wires and organs as it did so. As it tried to balance itself, Fidel got up and used the machinegun to make its head explode.

The decapitated Cyberaptor convulsed as the rest of its headless form was riddled with bullets and torn to bloody bits, with more than a few mechanical parts coming off as well, and then it fell off the Land Rover.

With the last velociraptor dead, Fidel turned around and found Natasha driving one handed, with her other hand holding a SPAS-12 shotgun over her shoulder. She had aimed her shot through the rearview mirror with convenient accuracy.

Fidel nodded an inaudible thanks and took the satchel bag of grenades, hanging it on to the ruined roll cage, back where he found it. Then he slumped over the M-60 and wiped his brow.

“Good job,” Natasha finally said. “I knew you were the right man for this kind of thing.”

“Heh…” if it weren’t for her driving, both of them would’ve been dead. Fidel had to give her that, at least… Natasha Dementieva - D, N, or whatever it was she called herself at the moment. “And this is why I’m in the middle of this mess?”

“Yes.” It was probably the most honest thing she had ever told him.

“And how do you figure in all this? Cyborg dinosaurs, EVIL Corporations, Crimson Dawn…”

“Remember that night at the beach? What did I say to you?” she asked, answering his question with one of her own.

“You said that if you told me anything, you’d have to kill me,” Fidel noticed that she still had her SPAS-12 shotgun pointed at his general direction. “But I’m too useful to you. You can’t just off me anytime soon, huh?”

“Right. So you better not disappoint me,” Natasha said as she placed her shotgun on her lap, for quick and easy access. “I’d hate to think that all of this was just a waste of time.”

“Informing the Intelligence Directorate of GenInc’s activities, contacting Ned, even helping organize the mission to Isla Norte… all just to snag me into this? That must’ve taken you a lot of work.”

“Sure did.”

“And you’re not even going to tell me about what I’m going to be used for?”

“Nope.”

For a short while, neither of them said anything, until they noticed a dim glow in the distance, hazy light emanating into the sky, the far away flickering of fire. Somewhere deeper in the jungle, something was burning – a lot of somethings.

“It’s already starting,” Natasha said. “If we can’t get there in time…”

“Then you better step on it,” Fidel said as he got up and checked the M-60. Despite everything, it was still firmly mounted on its ring mount, though it was almost out of ammunition.

Fidel was replacing the machinegun’s bullet box when the trees in front of the Land Rover parted like the Red Sea to give way to an all-too-familiar and all-too-horrible sight.

“Hell no.”

The Carnotaurus came for them.

And the Land Rover was heading straight for it.

Like before, Fidel could see that formless shapeless thing as it neared them – though now, it wasn’t so formless, nor was it so shapeless. It had form, large and lethal like any predator with automatic rocket launchers bolted onto it. It had shape, Fidel could see its head, its hydraulic jaws filled with rows of spike-like teeth, and its bull horns. He could also see six glowing red eyes unlike those of any natural creature’s.

There was no time to scream obscenities, as there were no words for the sight of that thing as it came down to end them.

The horned head smashed through crumple zones and shattered already-shattered bulletproof glass. Its teeth sank into steel and seat cushioning, and large chunks of car hood and bodywork and passenger-side chair filled its maw. But the driver of the mauled Land Rover didn’t slow down, not even with the Carnotaurus’ face right beside her, eating parts of her car. Natasha simply stomped on the accelerator and worked the steering wheel for all it was worth, while hoping that the airbag wouldn’t erupt out of it.

The Carnotaurus had a mouthful of Land Rover, but it wasn’t enough. With the sound of shredding steel, the vehicle broke free and tore through the dirt path, utterly mangled and mutilated, but still escaping partially intact. The Carnotaurus spat out its mouthful of Land Rover, turned around, and immediately resumed its pursuit. It would not lose them, not again.

Fidel turned away from the sight of the chasing dinosaur and looked at Natasha, who was still buckled safely on the driver’s seat and still driving the vehicle. He looked at what was left of the passenger’s side to her right – which was entirely gone, everything to the right of the handbrake along with what looked like half of the Land Rover’s front end. Most of the hood was torn off, revealing the V8 diesel engine, while the windshield and dashboard were also no longer present. All that was left was a mess of twisted metal.

Then he turned back to the pursuing Carnotaurus – remembering L’s definition of a large predatory dinosaur with optic camouflage.

It resumed firing its rocket-propelled grenades, and Fidel settled back into the old routine. He returned the favor with his machinegun.

The M-60 roared as it spat out muzzle flash and supersonic steel. Then it ran out of bullets.

“Shit!” Fidel spat. He had been reloading the M-60 when the dinosaur came out of the trees and made him spill the contents of the box magazine. Now, he had to open the machinegun’s receiver, pick up the fallen belt, and shove it into the loading port as fast as he could – all while everything around him exploded, and all while the Carnotaurus came closer and closer.

Despite everything, Fidel didn’t allow himself to panic. He calmly slapped the receiver cover shut, worked the slide to chamber a new round, and screamed as he emptied the contents of his machinegun right into the approaching dinosaur’s face.

It didn’t work. The Carnotaurus was already so close that it had ceased firing its rockets altogether – not because it was running out of them, but because it was once again getting ready to take a bite off the Land Rover, with an extra serving of Cuban commando.

The M-60’s rounds tore through scale and pinged off the hyperalloy underneath, tracers and armor-piercing bullets having no effect save for destroying a pair of the Carnotaurus’ six-eyes. Fidel was close enough to see black liquid oozing from the ruptured ocular implants, close enough to smell the cyborg dinosaur’s septic breath, and close enough to realize that it was only a matter of seconds before the Carnotaurus would lunge at the Land Rover.

The Carnotaurus lunged at the Land Rover.

Fidel abandoned the M-60 for the final time, hitting the Land Rover’s floor as everything above him was consumed by that terrible lizard. Roll cage and ring mount, machinegun and gun shield and ammunition box, everything above him was literally devoured. Masticated. Eaten.

The massive horned head and its six angry red eyes loomed. Within its jaws was a mess of metal with bits of roll cage hanging out. The M-60 and its bullet box were sticking out between its teeth, and the grenade satchel was also amidst the oral wreckage.

Fidel could see this, and so could Natasha. The dinosaur in her rearview mirror was definitely larger than it appeared.

One more go and the Carnotaurus would kill them all. Fidel had to think fast, and act even faster. In the battlefield, one was either quick or dead.

He looked around, the AKM was worth nothing, and at this range, grenades weren’t the smartest choice either. He had nothing else; there was nothing he could do to the Carnotaurus.

Except to burn it. With fire.

So he threw a can of petrol at the Carnotaurus, and the cyborg dinosaur readily accepted it. Its mouth, already filled with miscellaneous metals, bit on the fuel container and thrashed, spilling gasoline all over its head. Then Fidel got up and stood there before the beast, holding a road flare in one hand. He ignited it, lighting it up with a red glare, and then he threw it at the dinosaur’s fossil fuel-soaked face.

It unleashed a horrible roar as its pain receptors were overwhelmed, as its infrared hexoculars were made sightless, and as its face caught fire. Blinded and burning, the Carnotaurus thrashed its horned head wildly in a vain effort to remove the liquid flame, but it achieved nothing – except for striking the Land Rover and sending it careening off the dirt road.

The Land Rover came to an abrupt halt as it crashed, and the impact threw Fidel off the vehicle and into another tree. However, the sound of possibly fracturing bones was drowned out by that of ammunition cooking off and popping like firecrackers, sending stray bullets flying everywhere. Then the blast of the detonating grenade satchel silenced everything, including the Carnotaurus’ own feeble bellowing.



When he got back to his feet, Fidel checked himself for fractures and found that the only thing he might have broken was the AKM slung over his back. The rugged rifle had saved his spine from the tree.

Wearily, he surveyed the scene around him. The Land Rover was totally trashed, parts of its mangled form was bent around the tree it had collided with, while the bumper and the bullbar on it had been dislodged entirely. Steam was slowly rising out of its exposed engine, and the faint scent of leaking gasoline could be discerned – though whether it was coming from the crashed vehicle, or from somewhere else, Fidel wasn’t entirely sure.

Neither was he entirely sure if Natasha was still alive.

The scent of gasoline was stronger now. And along with it came the smell of burnt meat.

Fidel turned around and began backing away, slowly.

The Carnotaurus regarded him with its remaining red eyes. Most of its head was a burnt and blackened mess, with scales scorched and smoking. Charred flesh was peeling off the bone while the underlying hyperalloy sizzled and seared everything on it and around it. A full half of its face was ruined – bleeding blood and black liquid. Its glowing oculars narrowed at Fidel, glaring at him, identifying him as a target – as the one who had caused it damage and pain.

It roared.

And Fidel threw a grenade at its face.

The grenade detonated with a flash and a bang, and the Carnotaurus ducked its head to avoid the expected explosion. This time, however, it was not mangled by shrapnel, but blinded and deafened for a fleeting moment.

Fidel ran for his life.

He ran as fast as his legs could take him, as fast as his bruised body would allow him. He staggered and ran without any particular direction, but he didn’t need any to tell him where he needed to go. Without even looking back, he could tell that the Carnotaurus was behind him. He could hear it as it smashed trees aside in its single-minded pursuit. He could feel it as its multi-ton mass shook the ground, he didn’t know how close it was, but he didn’t even have to look over his shoulders. All he knew was that he had to get as far away as possible.

All he knew was that he had to survive.

Fidel checked his AKM, his grenades, and his Semtex.

Now was no longer the time for tactical espionage. Now was the time for action.



The Carnotaurus saw the world in a blood-red monochrome. But with the damage it had incurred, even its perceptions began to fail it. The monochromatic view flickered and the targeting reticules faltered despite attempts at compensation. Thermoscopes built into the hexoculars had been ruined when its face caught fire, and some of the ocular implants themselves had been destroyed by the subsequent grenade blasts.


+status: significant damage incurred. primary sensors compromised+

+initiative: reroute processing power to secondary olfactory apparatus+



Its nostrils flared wide open as it began inhaling copious amounts of air. Olfactory receptors at the roof of its nasal cavity sampled the scent molecules in the inhaled particulates, and the reptile’s in-brain computers began processing an entire world of smell.

It filtered the scent of gasoline and the smell of its own burnt flesh, systematically ignoring them and placing scrutiny on everything else it could perceive. It could smell sweat and blood, but subtle differences in chemical composition told its brain that these smells were not its own. That these smells were familiar for another reason…

The Carnotaurus swayed its mangled head side-to-side, gauging where the scent trail led to. With a growl, it lumbered on towards the most promising direction.


+ resume original directive: search and destroy+



He got down to a crouch and leaned his back on a nearby tree. He propped his gun on the exposed tree roots, and used both his hands to scoop moist soil from the ground. It wasn’t mud, but it would do.

Fidel smeared the damp dirt all over himself – covering his hair, his face, and even his moustache with the stuff. He pulled up his sleeves and rubbed some more of the grime on his forearms, smearing his new cuts and burns with it to conceal himself.

Despite the light of faraway fires permeating a dim glow through the jungle, Fidel chose to rely on his sense of hearing instead of his sight. He rested his head against the tree and closed his eyes, breathing in deep breaths.

He could hear himself, the dull sounds of his heart beating, and the noise of his lungs expanding and contracting with every breath. He could also hear distant gunfire, the echoes of cracking firearms, and the thundering rumble of explosions. Something big was going on out there, but whatever it was, Fidel had other problems…

He could hear the dull thud of heavy footsteps, even feel the subtle vibrations through the tree he was leaning on…

Fidel picked his AKM up, slid a 40mm grenade into its silenced underbarrel launcher, and slowly closed the tube, shutting it with an audible snap.



The Carnotaurus had its nose on the ground, sniffing like a bloodhound. Finally, it had found something. A trail of blood. Blood from its bleeding quarry.

More than that, there was a tattered piece of bloody cloth and –

The Carnotaurus lifted his head up. It had heard something, and immediately its in-brain CPU redirected processing power from its nose to its ears.


+status: search mode initiated. scanning area with olfactory and acoustic arrays+

+target acquired+

+initiative: terminate target with extreme prejudice+



The rotary drum magazines of its twin automatic grenade launchers began spinning, whirring and then clicking as they locked and loaded rocket-propelled rounds into the launch tubes.

The Carnotaurus growled, a guttural noise as its predatory instincts asserted themselves. It stalked forward, stomping its foot down hard on the single evidence of its prey, that tattered piece of bloody cloth and –


Fidel worked the detonator’s trigger.


A brick of Semtex was buried beneath Fidel’s bloody handkerchief, and when the signal came, the plastique spared no time in exploding. The blast sent soil into the air and scores of steel pellets, previously ingrained in the explosive itself, through the Carnotaurus’ three-clawed foot - turning it from an appendage of locomotion into a bloody hydraulically-augmented stump.

The Carnotaurus reared up to roar in reptilian rage when a 40mm grenade shot through the air in a parabolic arc and landed on its face. It detonated, a lesser explosion than that of the Semtex, but it was nonetheless effective in blowing a chunk off the dinosaur’s head. The Carnotaurus was now missing a horn and all of its face was now a mangled mess that bled blood and black liquid.

Fidel emerged from behind the tree and worked his grenade launcher, sliding it open and sending a spent 40mm casing flying out of the tube chamber. He slid another fat round in and closed the launcher shut with a snap.

The Carnotaurus was turning to face him while firing indiscriminately with its automatic grenade launchers and turning its immediate vicinity into a scene of multiple explosions that combined into a much larger and all-encompassing one – a storm of shrapnel and deafening noise.

Rockets shrieked past Fidel, leaving black contrails as they destroyed everything around him except himself. As if the rockets weren’t enough, the exploding trees themselves were very much like grenades as they sent stake-like splinters flying everywhere. Pieces of wood tried to impale Fidel through his limited body armor, but he ignored that and ran through the storm.

He threw himself to avoid a nearby blast, and as he landed, he went into a roll and got back semi-upright in a kneeling position. His weapon was still firmly in hand, and he countered the Carnotaurus’ barrage with a single well-placed round at one of the cyborg dinosaur’s weapons – crippling it.

However, the Carnotaurus’ remaining launcher sent an un-aimed rocket-propelled grenade straight at Fidel and, once more, he threw himself out of its path. The warhead struck a nearby tree instead, and the blast sent him flying like a rag doll into another tree.



The AKM was no longer on him when the blast wave threw him into a tree, and he could hear an unpleasant sound when his back met with bark. It hurt a lot.

Eventually, the explosions stopped, and Fidel laid there in pain. He sighed in relief when he found out that he could still move his legs, and groaned when he felt pain from the gunshot wound on his backside. It wasn’t bleeding, but still, with the trauma and the bruising... He moved to apply pressure on it while looking around with controlled panic. He knew it wasn’t over yet.

He found his AKM lying on the ground less than ten meters away from him, and he immediately began crawling for it.

The Carnotaurus’ remaining foot landed on the AKM, and the weapon disappeared underfoot with the sound of crumpling steel. The cyborg dinosaur limped on its good leg, staggering as it balanced itself and as its remaining auto-launcher cycled to reload more ammunition. Its head was an eyeless, practically faceless mess of mutilated flesh and bone, the underlying hyperalloy being only thing holding it all together.

Utterly blind and deaf, and probably dying, the Carnotaurus nonetheless carried on its mission parameters. The cranial injuries it had sustained were near-fatal to its reptile brain, but its CPU kept it alive – for the sole purpose of finishing its objectives.

Nostrils flared as it struggled to reacquire the scent of its target over the smell of its own burnt and decaying flesh.

It bent down and leaned forward, moving closer and closer to Fidel.

Until it was so near that both of them were now facing one another, with less than a meter between them.

The Carnotaurus growled as its automatic launcher chambered its last rocket-propelled grenade.

And Fidel struck. Unsheathing his CQC knife and stabbing it into the tip of the Carnotaurus’ snout, impaling the blade as deep as he could into the cyborg dinosaur’s skull. Before the Carnotaurus could react to this sudden stimuli, Fidel used the knife’s protruding handle as a kind of climbing piton, using its leverage to pull himself up in one quick motion.

He clambered atop of the Carnotaurus’ head before its machine intelligence could realize what had just happened, and he ran on top of the Carnotaurus as fast as he could, balancing himself on its back until the beast finally moved to throw him off.

Once more, Fidel landed on hard ground, but he didn’t stop. He crawled back to his feet and ran from the Carnotaurus, away from it and towards his AKM. He staggered and fell and clawed through mud and dirt as he pulled his half-buried dinosaur-stomped Kalashnikov out of the ground.

The rugged rifle was intact and, more importantly, so was its grenade launcher. Fidel slid the tube open, ejecting the spent casing as he did so, and shoved a new round in and snapped it shut.

The Carnotaurus turned around, but Fidel was faster. Before the beast could bring itself to bear, Fidel squeezed the oversized trigger and the silenced grenade launcher belched out its explosive projectile.

The Carnotaurus completed its turn just as the grenade struck the ankle above its remaining foot. The blast destroyed flesh and bone, and the strain of the multi-ton predator’s motion caused the steel of the ruined hydraulic supports to snap. The Carnotaurus’ leg broke and it fell on its side, its mass crushing its remaining auto-launcher.

But it wouldn’t stop. Despite its debilitating damage, despite its ruined legs, the Carnotaurus tried to move forward – its tiny forelimbs clawing while its footless legs struggled to bring itself back up to its no-longer-existent feet. All it achieved was a bizarre kind of feeble undulating motion.

Fidel slid the grenade launcher’s tube open and shoved a new round in.

The Carnotaurus roared at him in a final act of defiance.

And the 40mm grenade detonated in its mouth, blasting through its skull and destroying the remnants of its reptile brain and its CPU.

The Carnotaurus died. And its last vestigial hexocular finally ceased glowing.



He let out a relieved sigh and, for a while, just laid there on the ground with his gun across his chest.

After a while, he noticed that his microbead earpiece was vibrating. He flicked the radio on.

“Fidel,” came Natasha’s voice. It was distorted, not because of any voice modulation, but due to heavy interference – jamming from dinosaur ECM. “Are you still alive?”

“Yeah…” Fidel tried to get back up to his feet, but ended up falling back on his ass. “Pretty much.”

“What happened to the dinosaur? What’s your status?”

“I’m fine, it’s not.” he answered as he finally managed to get up. He flexed his torso and was rewarded by cricking noise from his still-intact spinal cord.

“Good.”

“I need a ride,” Fidel started walking towards the Carnotaurus’ felled corpse. “Can you pick me up?”

“I can’t. The Land Rover’s barely running and I’m already on the move. I couldn’t wait for you, not with everything going to hell.”

“Great. Now what?”

“I know this place, it’s a small outpost probably not too far from your location. You might find a ride there,” Natasha answered. “I’ll give you the directions.”

“Thanks,” Fidel killed his radio as he stopped before the Carnotaurus’ felled corpse.

He got his knife back.
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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