Zoey was practically ripping her hair out as she watched the room fill with a cloud of dust. The girl with the boots was dead, and the boy Zoey had to keep alive was barely hanging onto the ceiling. Everything was falling apart and all Zoey could do was watch as the cameras went out one by one. She hadn’t expected those two to win. She really hadn’t expected the girl to be capable of murder.
Oh well. Zoey thought. He’s still alive. As long as he’s still alive I still have a chance.
The Ape Boy shook a little as a bit of the ceiling crumbled beneath his claws. Zoey jumped a little in her seat, as she expected him to fall to his death. But he held on. This was it. This was Zoey’s chance. The boy was desperate, he was inches from death, he’ll take any out he can get. Zoey prepared herself. She let out a deep exhale and relaxed. She turned on the speaker next to the boy and forced herself to laugh.
“You’re having some trouble, aren’t you?” Zoey mocked him. He was completely silent. His white mask gave away no emotion. His eyes though. They darted at the nearest camera. He was paying attention, even if he wasn’t responding. “I can help you, you know. Those guns work on that dust just as well as anything else. I can send one of the guards in to help you. All you have to do is agree to Polybius’s terms.” Zoey said. She was willing to do it too. She was even excited to. Excited to end this all. She can have all the money she scored here and pay for college under a new name that Polybius will give her. She’ll finally be free.
But he ignored her again. His eyes showed nothing. Suddenly Zoey was filled with rage. “Do you ever get tired of everyone around you dying?” Zoey said. It would probably cost her the deal but she needed to let the anger out.
The boy dropped. Zoey panicked immediately. She couldn’t see through the dust. The cameras near the ground were attacked and covered in a thick layer of concrete. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was going to die down there. Even if he has a way to breathe in the suit, he’d die eventually. Zoey had to save him. She flipped her vision to a camera broadcasting from a prison cell. The creature that lay inside was a pitiful sight. It barely moved at all. Its muscles twitched as Zoey turned the speaker on.
“I’m letting you out. Save the kid or I swear you’ll never see the outside of that cell again.” Zoey commanded. Then she willed the cell door to unlock. Proxy slithered out in three camera frames. Zoey replayed it frame by frame to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. She checked the security camera in the lobby.
The people there were waking up. They were trying to break the windows to get out. She checked on the prison floor again. Proxy had found a guard’s suit and set off the nerve gun. The cloud of dust fell down like snow. She turned on the speaker.
“Good, now remove his suit and make your way to the elevator.” Zoey spoke with coldness in her voice. The creature used its tentacles to pry the suit off the boy without harming him. Proxy dragged him through the ankle-deep sea of dust. He leaned him against the wall at the back of the prison. For a brief moment he wrapped a tentacle around the boy’s throat.
Zoey set off an alarm and Proxy released his grip. She silenced it. Then Proxy slithered away from where Zoey could see, taking the suit with him. She switched back to the lobby and opened up the elevator doors throughout.
Groups of people huddled in and she closed the door when a sufficient number was inside. Then one at a time she set them to a random floor and cut the lights. Proxy knew what to do. A shiver went down Zoey’s spine as she heard the child move in the room beside her.
…
This is so unfair.
My body flew through the air like a baseball as I was struck across the face. The polymer tangle lashed me from the side of my jaw to the top of my cheek. I heard a whistling noise as it disturbed the air around my face. I rolled in the dust and landed on my side. I looked up when I stopped moving and I was rewarded with another strike. This one caught my throat and sent me sprawling backwards. I felt warmth spreading across my face.
Blood. The thought was accompanied by distant memories of salty fluid. Nosebleeds from when I was younger.
I tried not to move as I sunk beneath the dust. Maybe he wouldn’t attack me if he thought I was dead. The rigidity had started to leave my body. I could tense my muscles. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body. Everything was coming into focus. I crawled to my feet from the dust.
I think I caught it off guard. It wasn’t looking at me when I popped up. It was lashing out in Danny’s direction. However, it didn’t waste any time in turning its head back towards me. Its tentacles struck out. I threw myself away from where they were heading. I was slower than I was expecting to be and the tangle grazed the back of my ankle.
Polymer feels sharp at the edges. Mine doesn’t work that way. Is he copying the shape of the polymer, and the substance of the concrete?
When I fell again I watched it go back to striking at Danny. He was barely dodging the strikes himself. The fact that he was dodging them at all was nothing short of incredible. I crawled on my hands and knees until I was near the hallway Amy’s cell was in. Emily and Mar were already hiding there as well. I was careful not to step on any broken glass with my bare feet. Blood dripped from my face onto the ground.
“Where’s the suit?” Mar whispered anxiously.
I looked around the edge of the hallway. Danny had escaped, I don’t know how. Matter Chameleon was on all fours searching the room for us. His polymer bundles reached around him in all directions. Some of them dissolved from a solid into a dust form. I turned to look at Mar. She and Emily looked terrified.
“Don’t know. Wasn’t on me when I woke up.” I whispered, then turned back to watch Matter Chameleon some more.
“What is that thing?” Mar asked. Matter Chameleon was figuring out how to control the dust. His half fiber, half concrete tentacles still swiped the air around him.
It was a surreal image. He was solidifying bits of dust into his weird fiber concrete mix. He was using the lightweight nature of the fibers to carry it around in the dust. It would be sharp enough to shoot through someone. I was so focused on watching him that I forgot Mar had asked me a question. She tapped my shoulder to get my attention.
“Huh?” I asked.
“What is it?” She asked again.
Oh that’s right. They haven’t seen this one.
“Some sort of Matter Chameleon. Fought him on a bridge, the night I met that Platinum. Well, I didn’t fight him. Same difference.” I explained.
“What can it do?” Emily asked.
“What are you going to do?” Mar asked at the same time.
My eyes shot towards the Matter Chameleon as he moved his head slightly in our direction. We were talking loud enough for it to hear us. My heart skipped a beat as it stared in our direction. But it turned its head back as if it heard nothing and kept moving. I let out a sigh of relief. It began climbing up the walls on all fours to get a better vantage point.
“It’s deaf.” Emily said to no one in particular.
“Let’s test that. Could’ve been a fluke.” I said. For a second neither of them responded. When I cupped my hands over my mouth they both tried to grab me.
“Hey! Danny!” I hollered across the room. The creature continued climbing up the wall as if I had said nothing at all. Mar and Emily reluctantly let me go. “Whoever put it together must’ve thought that wasn’t worth including.” I added. Mar had a horrified look on her face.
“Is it some kind of robot?” Emily asked.
“No. There’s people bits there somewhere.” I answered. “It can copy and control whatever matter it’s touching. It can’t absorb what it touches, just mimic it, so it always has a finite amount of material. It can also apparently combine the traits of multiple kinds of matter.” I took a deep breath.
“Jacob!” I heard from near the door. It was Danny’s voice. “You idiot!” He shouted.
“Love you too, buddy!” I shouted back.
“That thing better be deaf!” Danny shouted. I checked to make sure it wasn’t tricking us. It was on the ceiling now. Its head turned one eighty degrees so it was watching the floor. It reminded me of some kind of creepy lizard. The polymer-concrete fibers slithered across its skull face.
“Focus.” Emily said authoritatively. “Any weaknesses?” She asked.
“Aim for the eye? That’s the best I’ve got.” I shrugged.
“Aim for the eye!” Mar shouted across the room at Danny.
“With what!?” Danny hollered back. I scooped up a fistful of cement dust off the ground outside the hallway. I pressed my fingers into a fist. I felt a popping sensation as the dust turned solid in my hand.
It attached itself to my skin where it could. It tickled like pop rocks. I repeated the process until I had a baseball sized chunk of concrete in my hand. I peeked back around the corner to see what the monster was doing. The wind left my throat as my feet left the ground. My hands instinctively went up to claw at the spiky bundle of fibers, wrapped around my throat. I looked up to catch the eyes of the metal face.
The Matter Chameleon had four spiky ‘tails’ jutting from it in different places. Dust emanated from him, and lightweight concrete fiber spikes floated within the dust, trained on me. Clear fluid was leaking beneath his eyepatch.
“Bi-” I struggled to breathe. He squeezed the tail harder. The darkness grew in the corner of my vision. I mustered all of my might into the word. “Billy.” I managed.
I dropped to the ground and went limp like a ragdoll. I think my neck was bleeding pretty badly. I looked at the rock I still had in my hand. It was attached to the skin. I could pull it off right now. But it was pointless. The Matter Chameleon was on the wall just staring at me. Its tails flipped and went about in all different directions erratically.
I couldn’t see what Mar and Emily were doing. For a moment the room was in complete silence. Everything was utterly still. Then the air around the Matter Chameleon started to shake. He vibrated and the air vibrated with him. He began forming strange looking structures on its back. Concrete loops fit into his spiky fur as he manipulated the air. Then the noise started. He was screaming.
A piercing whistling noise that was loud enough to shatter glass. My ears felt like they were being pushed to their limit. The air itself felt like a violent crashing sea as the Matter Chameleon shook and screamed. Hate burned beneath his porthole eyes and for the first time I felt pity for the creature. He was once a man and now he was a horrible man made nightmare.
And he’s like this because of me. The thought echoed through my mind as he lunged towards me in a single leap.
His claws were aimed at my throat, his tails looking to wrap around my limbs. He was halfway towards me when he was suddenly knocked off course by a loud bang smashing against his neck. Concrete crumbled as he was sent flying, not nearly far enough away.
I crawled away while I had the chance. I didn’t consider for a second what had happened, I just knew I needed to get away. I stood up and limped towards the door out of the prison block. I turned around to see if I was being followed, and saw Danny holding a rifle aimed at Matter Chameleon. It was one of the ones the guards were using against Cement Suit. He had shot him off course.
Matter Chameleon turned all of his attention towards Danny. He pulled the bullet out of his neck and he began to shake. The concrete spikes on his body began to morph into metal ones. Another loud bang. It happened so fast I barely had time to process what had happened. Matter Chameleon fell hard to the ground. His body going limp was accompanied by a popping sound and shattering glass. Danny had aimed for his eye.
Let’s hope he stays down this time.
