**********************
Next morning, Niknak was awake and functioning with no recollection of what happened. He was already soaking wet when we woke up. "Eight mile swim." He said. "Lots of air holes. Follow lights. Many tunnels, no get lost."
"You said yesterday it was a short swim..." Callen grumbled "I'm not exactly what you call a good swimmer."
"Use ground." He stated. "Pull. No other way."
The other gremlins began plunging into the water one by one.
Callen looked at Ania and shook his head. "Man, Sadie and Tende are going to owe us for this. If I don't drown, of course." He waited for her to respond, but she wasn't paying attention. She was whispering to herself. She climbed into the water after the gremlins.
Callen swore. Even if he did manage to not drown he wouldn't have any of his electronics. Felix didn't mention anything about his wrist computer or goggles being waterproof. He assumed they would be considering the specs he started to design off of were for the field, but he wasn't exactly sure. He took a deep breath and went in after them. However, he didn't feel the water hit his skin or clothes. He stayed completely dry and felt something pull him forward.
He popped out of the water filled tunnel where Ania and the gremlins were waiting. As he came up, he felt the water on his clothes and his hair was wet. It was strange. He had gotten wet after he left the water.
Niknak motioned for them to follow. They continued moving. Callen checked his bag to find nothing in it got wet at all. He looked at Ania, who was smiling brightly. "Like that?" She whispered.
"What you do?" Callen whispered back.
"Nothing, but ask the undines for help." She grinned. "Oh, and they said your gear was waterproof..."
As the journey continued, Callen studied the gremlin soldiers. Sarge, Tuco, Nikolai, and Kusari worked together tactically covering the area ahead of them. Callen noted to himself that they moved at tactically advantageous moments without verbal commands in perfect unison, but only with each other. Niknak was an exception. Every movement he made was communicated vocally or via hand signals. There was some connection between the four soldiers, and Callen wondered how it worked. So, he decided to investigate further.
With his wrist computer, he noticed there were wireless communication signals between the four gremlin soldiers. It was fascinating, it was like they were communicating telepathically. The biology and the computer systems were extremely well integrated. Curiously, Niknak was excluded and that made Callen even more curious about how the gremlin's organic and inorganic parts worked in harmony.
"How deep are we?" Ania asked Kusari as they walked.
"Almost twenty stories." She answered.
"Wow," Callen said. "I had no idea any of this was physically possible. It's amazing that the city doesn't collapse on itself."
"There is always that risk," Kusari said. "But, we just sort of 'know' where to dig new tunnels and how to ensure things don't destroy the world above. There are also some sentient creatures who live down here that say that once you go deep enough the earth is soaked with powerful magic and you slip into another world."
"That sounds like crap," Callen said. But, the look he got from Ania told him it probably had some truth to it. She mouthed something about gnomes when Kusari wasn't looking. Callen shrugged.
Niknak stopped knelt down touched some of the muck on the old floor and sniffed the air. Everyone fell silent before Callen could ask any more questions. Niknak pointed towards the tunnel and made a few quick hand motions. "Bad, bad." He whispered. "Goblins know of secret way."
They were in an old partially collapsed old building that looked like it was partially filled in. Ania and Callen ducked behind the rusty remains of an old moldy brick wall. Ania switched off her flashlight. There was a tunnel ahead of them that looked like it was coming down the old stairway.
Using simple sign language, Niknak communicated that there were about ten of them.
The Special Forces gremlins seemed to blend into their surroundings and each of them prepared their weapons.
The smell of rotten eggs filled the subterranean passage. Carrying flickering torches and a variety of primitive weaponry, the goblins fanned out in a loose formation. If it weren't for their black and red blotched skin, they would look almost identical to a gremlin. However, goblins didn't possess any cybernetic modifications. The stronger looking goblins also had vicious horns growing out of their foreheads.
The lead goblin carried a stop sign for a shield that was wrapped in barbed wire with bits of flesh stuck to it. He carried some sort of club built of a metal pole and cement block in its other hand. He was dressed in tattered clothes and a t-shirt with the same kitty cartoon on it that was on Ania's messenger bag.
He walked about three yards from the tunnel and stopped. It growled loudly like an angry dog and more of them began fanning out over the abandoned station. There were ten of them and they were armed as well with a variety of weapons ranging from knives and clubs to simple one-shot pistols, crossbows, and poorly maintained assault rifles.
The air grew heavy and Callen's goggles showed him the concentration of sulfur compounds in the air was extremely high. He watched the gremlins with his hand on his gun as they slowly moved through the station towards the entrance of a different tunnel watching for the slightest movement.
The goblin with the stop sign shield stopped and sniffed the air. He made a low growl and headed towards the new tunnel with the rest of the goblins.
As the last goblin moved into a new tunnel, Niknak began to edge along the wall towards them. He stopped inches from the mouth of the tunnel, pulled the shiniest of his knives out and used it to peak around the corner. He made a few motions with his other hand and the squad relaxed.
"Goblin patrol," Niknak whispered as the gremlins gathered around Callen and Ania. "From tunnel, we going, bad, bad." He sheathed the shiny knife. "Close."
"What does he mean?" Callen asked.
"Goblin camps always have short range patrols to protect the main camp from threats. Did you notice the lack of supplies besides weapons?"
Callen nodded.
"Patrols tight now," Niknak said. "We go towards surface to avoid. Then go deep and enter Forgeholm through different tunnels. Safer."
"We must be cautious, but if there is a problem, I will terminate them," Sarge said. Without words he, Tuco, and Nikolai headed towards the tunnel that the goblins exited through.
"Goblins backtrack. Bad, bad. Move quick." Niknak ran ahead of the other three.
Sarge and Nikolai flanked Niknak while Tuco took up the rear. Kusari stayed close to the siblings.
"You ever fight goblins before?" Ania asked.
"Yes, every gremlin has at least once. Sarge, Tuco, and Nikolai have years of combat experience against them." Kusari stated.
"What about you?" Callen asked.
"I have only fought goblins twice. Once on an extraction mission, and once on an ambush. That's why I was late to meet you. I had some pending repairs that had to be done. But, goblins fight more viciously than cornered rabid starving pit bulls."
"But I thought you were part of this experienced group of elite warriors..." Ania stated as they followed her towards the tunnel.
"Well, yeah...I am, but I'm a new recruit. So, my field experience is quite a bit less than the others, but I'm damn good. I was designed to be perfect at hand to hand fighting. The only gremlin that is stronger than me is Sarge and the only faster one is Niknak. So, you have our best and nothing to worry about."
"I've got a bad..." Callen started to say as an arrow whizzed by his head and a second hit Tuco's shoulder. Sarge swore and opened fire, as did Nikolai. Tuco cursed in Spanish and pulled the arrow out and joined his squad picking off goblins.
"They circled around," Kusari yelled, pullin
g her submachine gun.
In a flash, Niknak was face to face with the stop sign goblin. His movements reminded Callen of how his mother moved when she fought the metal demons. He was quick, precise and efficient. His blades floated in his hands making graceful, yet powerful, strikes against the goblin's vitals, but it wasn't going down easy.
Callen pulled his pistol and from the cover of the tunnel, he looked for a target. There were three taking cover in another tunnel firing with pipe rifles and crossbows. A fourth was injured and a fifth had taken a hit from Tuco through the forehead and two fighting Niknak. There were only six of them. Callen spun around as he realized there were four unaccounted for.
Next to Callen, Ania ducked and Kusari took the first step towards the battle, but Callen grabbed her arm. "We're being flanked!" he shouted.
As if on cue, a battle cry echoed up the tunnel behind us as the other four goblins, armed with melee weapons, charged up the tunnel behind them.
Callen's goggles lit up with all the targeting data and he fired. The pistol kicked slightly spitting each round towards his target. The creature tried to dodge, but he wasn't quick enough. The bullets tore through his black and red skin spraying yellow blood against the decrepit tunnel wall. The last round ripped into his eye dropping the creature to the ground.
Callen began to reload. He was expecting himself to panic as he placed each round into the cylinder as the sound of their footsteps told him they were on him. To his surprise there was no panic, only focus. Focus just like his mother when she fought the metallic demon. For that very moment, he felt like he was her son, as tough as nails, and not some rotting boy. He reveled in it.
Ania screamed and fumbled with her rifle, but Kusari exploded into action to protect her from a pair of approaching goblins. Her weapon chattered as she pulled her sword with her other hand. The closest goblin went down, but the next used his ally as a shield. He quickly closed the gap when Kusari was forced to reload.
She dropped her gun and defended with her sword. However, her graceful slices gave way to the goblin's powerful sweeping strikes with the giant pipe wrench. It swung hard smashing her weapon back into her body dropping her to her knee. She pushed off and thrust her sword into its stomach through a weak spot in his makeshift armor. The goblin grunted and raised the wrench again completely ignoring the sword.
Kusari tried to pull back, but the sword was stuck. The goblin's wrench came down hard on her head dropping her to the ground. Sparks erupted from one of her eyes as she fell. The goblin looked at Callen and stepped on Kusari's skull. She screamed and it kicked her with its back foot sending her rolling down the steep tunnel.
Callen snapped the cylinder in place and brought the gun up just as the goblin charged. It brought the pipe wrench up just as he pulled the trigger. The first shot hit the goblin’s shoulder destroying any chance of its attack having any power. The second went right through his mouth. It fell backward down the steep tunnel after Kusari.
The fourth goblin was on him before Callen even had a chance to aim. It swung his fire axe for Callen's head. He dropped to the ground and rolled as a second strike sparked against the rock floor. Callen fumbled for his knife, but he wasn't fast enough.
The Goblin raised his axe, but gasped before delivering the final blow. Yellow blood poured from its nostrils. The creature slumped to the ground before Callen as Ania pulled out her knife from the back of its skull.
"Nice one, sis," Callen said giving her a half grin. Her gun was lying on the ground.
"Gun didn't fire." She said as she looked down the hall. "Kusari..."
They ran after Kusari. Not knowing what was waiting of them, Callen wished his mother had taught him to use his pistol and knife at the same time. That might be useful if there were more of them. "Note to self: learn close quarters battle martial arts, provided I survive this." He muttered.
About halfway down the inclined tunnel, they found Kusari barely conscious.
"She is alive," Ania stated. "We have to do something!"
Callen knelt down and did his best to assess Kusari's wounds. Her skin was torn revealing badly dented metal pieces and a slightly cracked bone skull. It looked to him like her electronics were the most badly damaged, but he wasn't sure.
From the tunnel where the rest of the Gremlins were fighting came the sound of a train. Once it passed, sounds of battle were gone. "The last ones ran like babies when the train cut them off!" Sarge said a few moments later, as he approached with Tuco and Nikolai following. "But they will be back with more!"
"Where is Niknak?" Ania asked.
"Tracking them," Sarge said. "Though, train was long...not much chance of catching up.”
Tuco pushed the bolt through his shoulder as Nikolai knelt down beside Callen and flipped open his bag. There were all sorts of bandages, surgical gear, metal parts, welding supplies, circuit boards, and spools of wire. He pulled a syringe, filled it with some strange unmarked liquid, and shoved it into Kusari. "You know, for the pain!" He said in his thick Russian accent. He then began to whistle as he began to cut her head open. He popped open a panel on her head.
"Stop! What are you doing?" Callen asked. Inside, Callen could see a mesh of organic brain, a few complicated electronics, and some strange black leather-like webbing that looked out of place.
"No!" Nikolai answered as he continued cutting until he found four metal bolts covered by flesh attaching a metal plate to bone. He opened the metal plate with a screwdriver revealing a mess of wires hanging from a computer chip that ran into an organic brain mass. "Need to see inside. CPU and organic interface might be damaged. Need instant repair." He pulled some strange looking camera like tool and took a snapshot of the wire-computer chip-brain mass.
"Shouldn't this be sterile?" Callen asked.
"No need. Gremlins are tough." He stated as he plugged some sort of connector into the computer chip. A device in his backpack beeped and he swore. "I could fix biology, no fix this!" He roared and took a deep swig of his clear non-water liquid. "She is dead! I not salvage doctor! Glitch our field salvage doctor!" He looked at Callen angrily. "You injured Glitch! Glitch no here because you damage! You kill Kusari! Stupid American!"
"He attacked me in my room!" Callen yelled.
"Stupid American cowboy!" Nikolai roared. "You should allow yourself get kidnap like others!"
Kusari twitched catching Callen's attention. One eye was busted and the other was blinking slower and slower. Nikolai was right. She was dying. Something clicked when Callen noticed a USP port in her electronic arm. He pulled his USB cable from his bag and connected her to his wrist computer. He loaded up the Mavis command program and made some quick gut guided decisions to modify the program to the current situation.
He felt his mind and the computer meld, and it felt like it had happened before. The computer responded seamlessly and faster than he could tap the buttons. Within seconds, his diagnostic program had discovered the problem. The system was jolted hard causing a power surge that interrupted her subroutines that controlled her vital organs and destroyed some of her circuitry. He rewrote her command firmware. "Sew her up!" Callen ordered. "Now."
"She is dead! No point!" Nikolai fumed.
"Do it!" Callen ordered. His computer flashed something about closing her skull. "I can't bring her back with her brain open to air!" Nikolai started to object again, but the he started sewing. He had only a few more seconds to reroute the command protocols and reboot the computer part of her brain before the organics were permanently damaged. His eyes scanned over the lines of code and it all just made sense to him. "Close her up, now!" Callen ordered. As he tightened the last bolt, Callen activated the program. Her heart stopped and the last of her breathing faded. Her blinking eye stopped.
"See, what I tell you, she is dead. D. E. A. D. dead. Stupid American!" Nikolai scoffed. "You waste
our time on a dead girl!"
"Patience. You...stupid...wanna be Russian." Callen growled. A second later, Kusari gasped for breath and a pink light glowed briefly beneath her organic eye. "Welcome back, Kusari," Callen said with a sigh of relief.
"How did you know how to do that?" Amazement was woven into Nikolai's faux Russian accent.
"I've always been good with hardware," Callen explained. "There was minimal biological damage, but as I worked, something just clicked..." He glanced at his sister. She had a look on her face that told him she noticed something, perhaps related to her ability to see colors that she wanted to mention in private. So, Callen didn't ask. It only made him wonder about how and why something happened. Working on Kusari felt natural, like the realm of binary code and bio-electricity responded to him like clay would respond to the hands of a sculptor.
"Ah, you must have the Forger's gifts within you," Sarge said. "You possess divine hands. He was right to send you to save us!"
Niknak returned. The last Goblins had gotten away because of a second subway car. There would definitely be more if they didn't get moving. However, Kusari still wasn't in any condition to move.
"Leave behind," Niknak said. "Baggage slow down."
"We need her." Callen insisted. "We are marching into a city full of demons for some prophecy that you babbled out of your mouth! We need all the help we can get."
"No need!" he growled. "Bad."
"I am not bad," Callen said. "Bad is leaving her behind when if I had just a few hours I could fix her."
Niknak shook his head in frustration.
"We need short break." Nikolai said. "Then get moving."
"Take us to a safe spot," Sarge said. "You can then plan a safer route."
Niknak let out a low growl but finally shook his head in agreement.