[Moosh da Outlaw]

Or I could build a huge empire-state-building-sized monument of a huge Russian dwarf hamster out of your comments and dance around it in preperation for their dark harvest...

*shudder*

Enjoy.


---


It was late. Possibly four am, maybe five. Not that it mattered, anyway.

Nedd clamored up a tall stack of wooden crates, his blood-red eyes flickering slightly in the dark. Something ruffled in the dark and Nedd swung around, hissing like a taunted snake. Whatever it was ran off in sheer terror.
Nedd winced and warily felt his eye. The zig-zags across it were swollen and wet, and stung like a spider bite. Whenever he tried to open it a blinding pain filled his head, and his eye would crack and drip blood. He tried his best to ignore it, but something as degrading as losing an eye was hard to forget.

Once he had reached the crate’s pinnacle, Nedd sprang forward in a catlike motion, gripped the rafters with his powerful fingers, and hauled himself up without making a sound. The rafters stretched on all around the basement, making it a perfect hiding spot. He could pass right over a group of people and they’d never know he was there.

He moved stealthily across the platforms as though he had done it a thousand times, his feet splashing softly against the metal’s wet surface. He took a few turns and jumped across gaps in the grating, alert for danger the entire time. Eventually he came to a wide vent in the ceiling that had been torn forcefully from its hinges. He tilted his head to the side and examined it, making some quick calculations. Then, after what felt like hours, Nedd climbed back down to the basement floor. He looked satisfied. With a little more muscle he’d have no problem getting up the vent and into the room above, whatever room that could be.

He swung around suddenly, his good eye reduced to a slit. His night vision scanned the basement with almost daylight perception. A slog was nosing around a pile of bones, its tongue rolling in a docile manner. It spotted him and whined nervously, drool dripping from its mouth. Its jaw hung at an angle and its skin was a dark, lightly tanned color. It licked its snout curiously. Nedd stared. Where had he seen that slog before? He suddenly remembered, and said,

“Come here.”

The slog looked at him as though it had been slapped. Nedd repeated, this time with a no-nonsense voice,

“COME!”

The slog yawned, flashing its cream-colored mouth. The blotches in its skin rippled as it bent down to sniff the ground. Nedd sighed. What stupid name had they given that thing? Lugy? Lardy? Laddie?

“Lady.” he snapped. The slog yapped with glee and ran over, moving gingerly. Nedd could tell by the bruises on its sides that it had broken ribs, but it didn’t seem to notice. Nedd was slightly surprised; he thought he had killed that thing. Durc sure had acted like it was dead. Maybe he had been so traumatized that he didn’t bother to check for a pulse.

Lady sniffed his hand with her dilated nostrils. Nedd smiled broadly to himself. He could think of at least fifty things he could do with a slog that could track down whatever he wanted. He patted her gently on the head and she basked in his praise, her heavy panting echoing in the dark.



<~{.epidemic.}~>



Dan didn’t even know why he had bothered to show up to the guard tower the next morning. It was a complete waste of time; he knew that, either way, he would be fired. He had pointed a gun at his boss and threatened to shoot him, and for what? To save the life of a berserker who had tried to kill them? Dan wilted visibly. He couldn’t believe how badly he had messed up.

It could be worse. Red said, searching in his silver-armor suit. When he found what he was looking for (a bottle of aspirin, which he stole from a medicine cabinet) he continued, You could have once been a smart, clever, handsome intern....

Ian rolled his eyes.

... just hanging out and sorting chemicals like your supposed to, when suddenly a beaker explodes in your face, permanently turns your eyes red and—

Shut up. Dan grumbled harshly. I’m not in the mood to listen to you bitching about how horrible your life has been---

And instead of fixing your eyes, which would have been, like, freaking awesome, your boss sends you to work for the guard in a hellhole under the ship where a monster that was once a friend of yours is waiting to disembowel you and eat your insides like noodles. He finished his venting with a sigh. Dan looked away. Red might have been an easygoing, cool guy, but that didn’t stop him from complaining about his life once in a while, which often sent him into a spiraling depression.

The elevator jerked to a hault. The whiplash cracked Dan’s neck, and he winced. ‘Well that’s just fricking wonderful.’ He thought.

He glanced around quickly. The room was filled with about twenty other people. Everybody, like Dan, was wearing their shiny protective suits. Durc was saying something that sounded important, so Dan, Red, and Ian hurried over to listen.

“.... would be the left side,” he was advising, pacing back and forth for no reason in particular. “I stabbed its left eye, so chances are it would’ve gone blind by now. Be warned, cylonite victims are violent and extremely aggresive. Don’t mistake them for diseased, brain-dead losers either. They’re clever.”

Dan felt anger burning inside him. They were discussing tactics to kill Nedd, who had once been one of Dan’s only close friends, and they weren’t even referring to him as a ‘he.’ They kept calling him ‘it’, as though he were just an object in need of disposing of. Dan suddenly felt anger for himself overwhelming everything. Nedd was a monster! He deserved to be called an ‘it!’ He wasn’t Nedd anymore. Thinking that way made Dan feel unexpectedly sad, so he shook it off.
‘Don’t think about it... for odd’s sake, he’s not even Nedd anymore...’

“Remember to watch your backs.” Durc finished. “You never know what evil thing he’ll do to lure you in so he can tear you apart from the inside!” A slight sob followed.

Silence. Somebody in the back coughed, making the situation seem even more uncomfortable. Dan looked around.

‘For odd’s sake, it was a damn slog, buy a new one and get over it!’ He thought.

Durc suddently turned to Dan. Dan tensed, preparing for the worst.

“I have a special mission for you.” He said, though something about the way he said ‘special’ seemed to give the word the opposite meaning.

Dan hummed hopefully, Does that mean I’m not fired?

Durc knew what he was asking. “If it were my choice I’d have you fired and thrown forcefully off this ship in a heartbeat.” He said acidly, his teeth grinding slightly. “But, seeing as its not my choice, you’re staying. My supervisors have decided that, seeing as you used to be a colleague of Nedd and actually spoke with him in the basement, you would have a better chance of getting close enough to him to kill him.”
He turned around towards a closet where a slog could be seen rummaging around. Durc called in a musical tone, “Oh, Huuuuugoo~!”

The slog stomped out of the closet. Dan could’ve sworn he felt the ground shake. The slog was absolutely huge, with flabby, overlapping skin and teeth the size of Dan’s fist. Its snout ended in a shovel shape that was bigger than Lady’s had been, with wide nostrils. It trotted over obediently. Dan cringed. It smelled like an animal that had been hit by a bus and left out in the sun for a week.

“This is Hugo.” Durc said, clipping a leash around its fat neck. He handed the lead to Dan. “You’ll have to lead him into the basement.”

Dan jerked the leash. He instantly regretted it.

“Be gentle with him!” Durc whined. “He’s very sensitive---”

Hugo swung around, snarling and foaming like an angry bear. Red and Ian’s hands went instantly to their snoozis, but they didn’t fire. Hugo slammed Dan to the ground and dove forward as though to snap his head in half, when the rope jerked again. Durc held the leash, frowning.

“... and he’s a little temperamental.”

TEMPERAMENTAL? Dan shrieked, fumbling to stand. Durc shrugged.

“No skin off my bones.” He said simply. “But it will be for you if you keep messing with him, if you get my drift.”

Dan picked himself off. Hugo jerked forward, just to mess with him, and Dan flinched. Durc handed the leash back. Dan held it away from him as though it were a poisonous snake that could bite at any second.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” Durc said. Everybody leaned in eagerly. Durc pulled a large, metal object from a closet. It was a large cart with a huge box on top. The box was filled with little barrels covered in shimmering glass. “This is a strobe light. Its extremely bright, even for normal people.” He pointed to a ring around its outside. A tube wrapped around it, holding a metal coil in place. “Its been fitted so that it magnifies the ultraviolet rays twofold. Nobody with cylonite will bear to get near it. We have six of these lights. We’ll be dividing most of the guard into eight groups. Six of them will enter the basement with the lights on, each mapping the entire premises. If all goes to plan, they’ll flush out the monster into the main intersection. There will be two teams- one team who waits in the intersection to kill the damn thing, and the other team who guards every exit and attempts to sniper our target with these.” He held out a weapon that had been in his belt. It looked like a snoozi, only it was longer and thinner. Durc grinned. “They’re really cool. Anyway, after this is all done, we take the body, disinfect it, burn it, then disinfect the ashes. Questions?”

“What if it doesn’t work?” A slig asked. Durc rounded on him

“What the hell do you mean? This plan is flawless!” The slig looked as though he might object, but faltered at the last moment.

Durc finally said, “Suit up! Meet me in the intersection in exactly o-ten-hundred hours...”

“We’re already suited up.” A slig said.

“So what?”

“...we could go now, if you want.”

Durc checked his watch. “Fine, suckup.” He growled. He turned his attention back to the crowd.

“Meet me in the intersection...” he paused, “...right now!”

They marched off to do his bidding. Dan sighed. What a relief. He would get to keep his job, he wouldn’t be kicked off the ship, and—

Hugo bit his leg. Dan yelped and jumped back. He frowned, suddenly remembering that no matter what you did, there would always be somebody to ruin it. He sighed darkly.

‘Story of my life.’