others were following him. Not even Kim. JC stopped and looked back.
“Oh come on! This is definitely time for Go team go! ”
“Not even for a substantial raise and a stretch limo all my own,” said Happy. “I know my limitations. And they very definitely include squishy things.”
“Right,” said Melody. “I have a really bad feeling about this. I say we skip this floor and go straight up to face the New People. I could cope with New People. Strange, invisible, squishy things is something else entirely.”
“What is the matter with you people?” said JC. “Big Black Dogges with mouthfuls of huge jaggedy teeth didn’t even slow you down!”
“Don’t like strange squelchy things,” Kim said firmly. “Especially ones I can’t see.”
“Right,” said Happy.
“Damn right,” said Melody.
JC looked round suddenly. Something was moving about very near him. He spun round and round, glaring in every direction, and then, finally, he looked down. And said, “Oh shit.”
“What?” said Happy. “What?”
But JC was already sprinting back to join the group. He stumbled to a halt before them and put a hand on Melody’s and Happy’s shoulders to support himself while he got his breath back. His face was slack with shock. The others stared wildly back to where he’d been, but they still couldn’t see anything.
“Damn, JC,” said Melody. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move that fast before.”
“Should we be leaving?” said Happy, practical as ever.
“JC, talk to me, sweetie,” said Kim. “What was it? What did you see?”
“Should we be running?” said Happy. “JC, what did you see?”
“They’re coming,” said JC.
“What’s coming?” said Melody.
“We were looking in the wrong places,” said JC, straightening up and regaining his composure. He glared back the way he’d come. “We should have been looking down. At the floor.”
He pointed, and they all looked, just in time to see the first attackers hump and slide into view. The things were crawling across the floor, humping along like massively oversized worms or slugs, leaving long smeared trails of blood and filth and steaming acid behind them. They were red and purple and black, lumpy and distorted, though their basic shapes were still recognisable-and they were all much larger than they should have been. More of them came crawling across the walls, leaving streaky viscous trails behind them, and even more hung from the ceiling. Hundreds of modified, improved, augmented human organs, made strong and self-sufficient by the Bio Reactor and unknown energies, set loose to move independently, with implacable progress and intent.
They were all covered in networks of dark, pulsing veins, their outer membranes sweating strange acidic fluids. They heaved and pulsed, the size of heads or basketballs or dogs. But oversized and distorted as they were, they were still quite clearly hearts and lungs, kidneys and livers, and even tangles of living intestines. They had no eyes, no apparent sensory apparatus at all, but they obviously knew where JC and his team were, and they headed straight for them.
“You have got to be fucking kidding,” said Melody.
“Oh, that is gross,” said Happy. “Seriously gross, with a whole side order of disgusting. Human insides should stay on the inside, where they belong. But they’re still an improvement on the Frankenstein blobby thing I was expecting, I suppose. I mean, those things are wrong, on so many levels, but they’re not exactly dangerous, are they? Just big lumps of meat, humping across the floor. What are they going to do-hump our legs to death?”
“You don’t get it,” said JC. “When you’re up close like I was, you can sense what they’re thinking, what they want. Though it’s not so much thought-it’s more like brute, basic instinct, turned up to eleven. They want something from us…”
“What?” said Melody. “What does a living organ want?”
“They know they can’t survive for long like this,” said JC. “They were built to survive, but they’re not self- sufficient. So they want in, where it’s safe. Don’t you get it? They want to get inside us! ”
“I am leaving now,” said Happy. “Women and children should try and keep up.”
“Too late,” said Kim.
They all looked at her, and she pointed behind them. While they’d been discussing the situation, the living organs had quietly surrounded them. They were crawling across the walls and the windows, and hanging from the ceiling, and rows of the red and purple things had moved to block the way back to the exit doors. And all of them were slowly closing in on the group, with blind, unstoppable purpose.
“Now can I use my machine pistol?” said Melody.
“Be my guest,” said JC. “Go for it.”
The machine pistol was already in Melody’s hand. She smiled tightly as she opened fire on the living organs. Hearts and livers the size of heads exploded messily, spattering the surrounding organs with rich red blood. The membranous surfaces drank it all up thirstily. Melody raked her gun back and forth, blasting away organ after organ; and then she ran out of bullets. She looked at the gun and shook it angrily, like that might help. She swore briefly and looked at the others.
“You have used up a lot of ammo recently,” said Happy. “Dare I inquire whether you have any more? Only I think we really should- Oh shit! ”
“Don’t let it touch you!” yelled Kim, as Happy retreated quickly from a rapidly pulsing heart. “It could be really bad if it touches you!”
“Blunt-instrument time, people!” said JC, grabbing up a very large, very heavy microscope from a nearby table. The others quickly armed themselves with similar items, except for Kim, who drew up her legs and hovered, sitting in mid air. The living organs hunched up and launched themselves through the air at their targets. They flew at impossible speed, on the unseen wings of unknown energies. JC lashed out with his improvised weapon and caught a pulsating heart in mid air. His hands and arms vibrated painfully from the impact. It was like striking something really hard and solid, and he remembered that a heart is basically one big muscle. But the sheer impact smashed the oversized organ apart, scattering bloody pieces like a rain of offal. More organs launched themselves, and the group stood together, guarding each other’s backs, lashing out with their blunt instruments, sending blood and bloody pieces flying through the air every time they connected. It was hard work, every impact shaking the group to their bones, and they were soon sweating profusely and gasping for breath. And still the living organs came, driven by brute basic instinct to get back where they belonged, inside a human body. Happy cried out with disgust every time he hit something, and Kim moaned in terror as the things drew steadily closer.
An oversized liver, dark purple like a veined balloon, shot straight for Melody’s face. It came at her from an unexpected angle, and she only got an arm up in time to block it. The heavy organ clamped onto her arm, wrapping around it, and the sheer weight was almost enough to pull her over. The heavy muscles in the liver ground against her arm, trying to crawl up the arm to reach her face, her mouth. Melody dropped her weapon and grabbed at the organ with her hand. Her fingers skidded helplessly from the tough, leathery exterior. Secreted acids stung her palm and fingers.
“Don’t let it near your mouth!” yelled Kim. “It wants to crawl inside you!”
“I know!” yelled Melody.
She stopped grabbing at the liver, pulled back her head, and head-butted the ugly thing. The impact sent her staggering backwards, but the liver lost its grip on her arm and fell away. It hit the floor hard but didn’t break. Melody picked up the nearest chair and clubbed the organ to death.
Happy tried to stop the advancing organs with a telepathic blast, summoning all his mental strength to force an attack past the deadening oppression that weighed on his mind, but even his concentrated disbelief couldn’t affect things that had no minds, no sense of self, only the brute will to survive. A heart the size of a pit bull terrier came flying in out of nowhere and slammed against his chest, driving him back several steps. It clung to him, pulsing in rhythm to his own heart, sweating heavy acids as it tried to burn its way through his chest, to burn out his heart and replace it. Happy didn’t know whether he’d survive such a process and didn’t want to find out the hard way. The heart snuggled against his chest with horrid familiarity. It wanted in. It wanted to be in him. Happy tried to pry the thing loose, crying out with horror and disgust.
Kim floated this way and that, her face screwed up with indecision, not knowing what to do for the best. JC seemed to be holding his own, and Melody was doing bloody business with her chair. Happy seemed to be the most in trouble, so she dropped her feet to the floor again, strode forward, and grabbed at the heart on Happy’s chest
