Jason Jones In Flight

Jason Jones croaked out "Yes." His throat was sore from cold and dehydration. The old man from Canada, heavily armored and armed, began to cut away at the hardened slime encasing Jason's body with a small axe. As he cut, Jason asked, "Who are you?"

"We're rescuing you," the old man said, and continued to cut.

After half a minute of chopping, enough of the slime was gone for Jason to stand and move his limbs about more or less unencumbered. He rose to his feet, noticing sounds previously muffled by the slime over his ears: gunshots and explosions. They were coming closer. The old man gestured Jason Jones to the door, where he saw a half-dozen other people armored similarly to the old man. Each suit of armor was colored differently, and unlike the old man, they all bore a sword on their backs as well as carrying a harpoon-gun. Jason Jones, weak from captivity, walked with them through the Maker's lair. He wondered briefly if they were some trick of the Maker's, but dismissed the idea with the sounds of fighting so clearly audible.

Then the fighting came to Jason. What looked rather like a large, flying eel shot around a corner and at Jason's escort, followed by several others. Jason froze, but his companions did not fire at the eel-things, but rather settled into crouches and aimed their weapons toward the corner. A eye-creature appeared around the corner; one of the escorts fired on it, his harpoon disintegrating in mid-flight into a shower of fast moving metal shards, but the eye-creature ducked back too quickly. Then several creatures burst out from the ground all around Jason's rescuers, spitting out seven-armed monsters armed with rifles before sinking back into the earth.

The rescuers burst into action, firing their harpoon-guns before dropping them in favor of the swords on their backs. The armbeasts fought well - dodging harpoon-shot (though two of them dropped and most were injured), firing two rifles simultaneously at the rescuers as they charged and then grappling with them. (Astonishingly, most of the bullets fired at Jason's rescuers glanced off their armor.)

Jason looked about, trying to figure out what to do. He didn't feel his usual bloodlust - just confusion and an urgent need to do something. Two armbeasts fell to the ground, their cores mutilated by sword-blows, while a green-armored rescuer dropped to the ground, pinned in a seven-arm-lock by the Maker's creature. Eyebeasts scuttled all around on three legs, watching the battle. Jason picked up a fallen harpoon-gun and opened fire on the eyebeasts, hoping to blind the Maker. They ran for cover, and when Jason found the harpoon-gun clicking empty, he looked around and realized that the battle was over. The green-armored figure was dead; his neck lolled at an unnatural angle. Two of the others were carrying him, and the old man gestured for Jason to follow. He hurried to comply.

The tunnel in which Jason walked was filled with corpses. Butchered armbeasts (weapons lying at their sides), splattered eyebeasts, a dead floating eel (shot repeatedly), a four-foot-tall armored spider-thing... As they walked to what Jason hoped was the entrance (and indeed, the vines were thinning overhead - some of them apparently thinned by gunfire and explosives), Jason asked the old man, "Is this all of you?" He gestured to the party of brightly-colored warriors. The old man shook his head. "No. But the others are elsewhere, trying to cover our escape, or attacking the Maker himself." Jason guessed that he was referring to the flying eels, conspicuously absent after heading in the direction of the Maker's lair.

Then more enemies walked out of a branching tunnel - an envoy, accompanied by four spiked-ball monsters, six armbeasts (one of them armed with a harpoon gun), and a large number of eyebeasts, which spread out quickly. The envoy held his arm high, and the creatures stood motionless and unnaggressive. Looking at Jason, he asked, "Why are you following them? My enemies have nothing to offer to you but danger and pain in their suicidal cause." He looked toward the escorts. "And you. I have never understood why you spent so much effort resisting reality. Why do you wish to return me whence I came, when there is so much opportunity here?"

The armored rescuers waited politely for the envoy to finish speaking. One of them said, "You decieve," in perfect unaccented English, then opened fire. The rest followed suit. The envoy's escorting armbeasts dodged and returned fire, but the seven-foot tall spiked balls were shredded by shrapnel. The envoy collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, its purpose served.

Jason Jones picked up a fallen rifle and charged, firing as he went. (This was not very accurate.) The armbeasts paused and began firing on him; and, weakened from captivity, poor nutrition, and a few other factors, Jason Jones tripped and fell as two bullets hit him. (Also, his leg still hurt like the dickens from his last bullet wound.) The distraction helped his escorts hit a few more times - several armbeasts fell, shredded by harpoon-shrapnel. The rest retreated, and Jason gained his feet again wearily, limping as he walked.

The envoy looked up as Jason as he passed, animation returning. "Consider your actions. The choice is yours, for the next thirty days."

One of Jason's escorts drew his sword and embedded it in the envoy's chest. Bleeding, it continued: "Do not accept the superficial." Then the lights went out behind its eyes.

They were nearly at the exit when the Maker attacked again. Birds burst through the vines in a flock, flying directly through Jason's escorts. Jason felt something moist, and looked down to find worms, horribly, covering his flesh. He scraped them off frantically, their bites burning like acid. Gunfire broke out - he looked up to see more armbeasts, firing on the distracted party. Jason dove to the floor, still killing the horrible little worms. He heard little harpoon-fire, and feared for the worst.

Then someone cried out, "Duck!" and a ball of something blindingly bright shot over Jason's head. It hit the end of the corridor with explosive effect, annihlating most of the attackers and leaving a scorch mark ten feet wide. Jason got to his feet and ran, stumbling, to the end of the corridor. A man stood there, covered in very heavy clothing, dismantling a very big gun mounted on a tripod. Behind him a large force was firing into the tunnel and elsewhere, apparently fighting armbeasts and other of the Maker's creations. They were quite diverse - not so much in race as in species - but Jason had no time to examine them. Three trucks were waiting for them, engines running and steaming in the cold air. As Jason arrived, the other pulled back, making a fighting retreat into the trucks. Several fell, dead or dying, into the snow - the other jumped into the trucks, which began to move before the last of them were fully in.

Flocks of birds swept upward from the Maker's lair as the trucks fled. They were pursued briefly by arm-creatures, who exchanged fire with the rescuers before falling too far behind and disappearing from view. Snow fell on Jason's head, on his untreated wounds and the ichor and hardened slime still covering on him. Looking at the old man, in this moment of quiet, Jason Jones asked: "What do you want from me?"

"We want to go home," the old man replied.