The Beast of Eridu by Richard Fox & Scott Moon

Author:Richard Fox & Scott Moon [Fox, Richard & Moon, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triplane Press
Published: 2018-11-24T22:00:00+00:00

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A thousand thoughts ran through Hoffman's mind as he left the briefing area and entered a smaller side room. The technical expert proved to be a small Asian woman with a metal brace on her right arm. He tried not to stare as the prosthetic moved the weakened limb for her. A bright pucker of scar tissue at the base of her skull caught his attention.

"Hello, Lieutenant,” she said with a half-smile. “I’m Dr. Masako. Well, I’m still a resident, but it’s easier than saying Junior Doc Masako. Or Almost Doc Masako. Patients don’t like being treated by someone still on probation.”

"Thomas Hoffman, good to meet you," he said, proffering his hand and immediately regretting it.

The brace on her arm creaked as the metal exoskeleton jerked her arm forward. He shook a clammy hand, one that did not grasp his in return.

“Sorry,” Hoffman said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Locals don’t shake,” she said, and her arm swung back down to her side. “It’s fine. Need all the practice I can get for the neural shunts in between power lockdowns.”

“Shunts?” Hoffman raised an eyebrow. “I thought that tech was obsolete.”

“It is, unless you burn out a section of your nervous system.” She touched the scar at the base of her skull with her other hand. “Armor. Almost. Managed to get my plugs and walk on Mars, then my body rejected the implant in a spectacular fashion. I tell myself I was lucky, could’ve redlined and spent my last days as a vegetable.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Hoffman said.

She reached out and back with her braced arm. “Few more months and the shunts will have remapped the pathways. Then I can get a transplant. Or that was the plan until the Beast showed up and screwed up my sync time.”

“Then let us get on with the hunt,” Steuben said.

“Oh, wow…you’re scarier in person than Yarrow let on,” Masako said. “Thought you’d be taller after seeing you in that movie.”

Steuben let out a low growl and Hoffman held up a hand to signal her to drop the topic.

Masako laughed nervously and swept a hand over a table filled with matte-black equipment. “Take a look, yes? What you see here are cameras. Did you know you can capture high-resolution images using light-sensitive film? No digitization or electricity needed. Strictly windup.”

"It’s like the early twentieth century around here,” Hoffman answered. “Before Edison.”

"It's our analog solution to getting a picture of the Beast. The colonel has people setting them up around the city. Your team will need to know how to operate them. Watch closely," she said.

He stepped to the table and put his hands on it, directing all his attention to her lesson. Her soft voice made him wonder how she’d managed to get so far into the armor program before washing out. A decent bedside manner wasn’t a trait he imagined for the brutal soldiers plugged into killing machines.

“This is the latch. Undo it, open it, and look here. Don’t pull the film out to look at it or you’ll ruin it.

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