Physics of the Crowbar

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The swarm met him at the bottom.

In ones and twos, the parasites were easy to ignore. They had a specific leap height and range and he'd long since mastered a swatting blow with the crowbar that would dispatch them mid-air. But the dozen or more skittering towards him sent shivers up his spine.

He sprayed the swarm with the automatic. So much for a quiet entrance; now everything in the loading dock knew he was here. Their ranks were thinned but they kept coming. They were so thin-skinned a bullet passed right through and didn't always stop them. It took a full-body blow, a crowbar or a boot, to destroy them outright.

Two leaped for him. He batted them down and a third latched onto his arm. He felt its claws through the gaps- like the knife, their needle claws slid through the carbon fiber joints and dug into skin. The pinpricks stung disproportionate to their size.

He crushed the parasite against a stack of crates, stomped on another and impaled one mid-leap for his face. He knocked it off the crowbar and felt one land with a thump and scratch on his back. It crawled for his neck and he backed into the wall. He felt the squish of its fat body between suit and cement. Then two jumped from the crates. One caught his shoulder and he grabbed it off; it bit down on the glove, jaws closing over his fingers. The other sailed past his head, landed and turned to leap again. He kicked it back and killed the one on his hand.

The last one circled him, looking for high ground, and as he tracked its movement he nearly missed the acid-spitter in the gap between two crates. It belched its payload at him and he flung himself to the side, remembering very well what that acid felt like. The parasite sprang while he was down and caught the collar of the suit. Its claws dug into his neck, just under the ear, and he felt the rasp of its jaws opening and the hot wet vapor of its innards. His methodical slaughter of the bugs became a sudden get it off get it off as he tore at the fleshy back. He got three fingers between its jaws and his skull and wrenched it off. The thing's claws were deep; it took skin and flesh with it, but it was off him. He slammed the crowbar through its body and watched the claws scrabble for escape until it died.

Blood trickled down his neck. Minor wounds, comparatively speaking. He shot the acid-spitter as it bloated itself for another attack and climbed to his feet. He was breathing hard, heart rate high, suit warning him of minor lacerations.

His ear throbbed where the parasite had torn it. Why a part of him as small and anatomically disposable as a bit of ear cartilage needed to hurt so horribly was beyond him; maybe a biologist would know. Or an anatomist or some other branch of wet science. He clamped his dirty glove over his ear, putting pressure on the gash, and moved on.

He swept the loading dock. The place was a shadowy maze of catwalks, shipping crates and plastic-wrapped palettes of chemicals. It smelled of metal, alien and benzene, and of gunsmoke. Blood splattered the floor and parallel red drag marks trailed off into the maze.

Something shifted. Black, liquid, fast.

Assassins.

His body twitched involuntarily, as if pursued by a wasp. Flesh memory. The impact of the sniper's bullet. The guard's face as the shot went through his skull. Freeman flattened himself against the crate, between crate and wall, the place with the least visual range but greatest safety.

Forward meant going through them. Killing them.

He slowed his breathing and focused on lowering his heart rate. Why couldn't they have been decent enough to kill the parasites, if they were going to lurk around Lambda's front door and wait for him?

They preferred high ground. They'd be trying to get into position to corner him. Two would be high. One would be low. Triangulation. He could break in two directions, so the snipers would be... there and there. He visualized the shipping containers. Double-stacked farther back, places shadowed but offering good vantage points. The third would flush him, ensure he didn't spend all day in his narrow little patch of safety.