They found a measure of sanctuary in the lee of a ruined hover-barge which lay half-buried beneath a mound of industrial slag. The interior was a cramped and narrow space that smelled of ancient oil and the stagnant dampness of the wastes. Above them the corrosive rain maintained a constant rhythmic roar against the metal hull and it served to drown out the predatory whispers of the Wilds.
Mike leaned his back against the cold wall and felt the adrenaline crash settle into the marrow of his bones as a persistent ache. A terrible hunger began to gnaw at his insides once more. His new adrenaline glands were demanding a heavy price for the power they had provided and his body had become a black hole for energy. He had already consumed the rubbery remains of the insects while they traveled but it was not enough. Every breath of the radioactive fog seemed to stoke the furnace of his metabolism until he felt he might be consumed from the inside out.
Grim sat before him in a sliver of grey light that filtered through a jagged crack in the barge. The rat was restless and his tail whipped against the floor with a nervous energy that set Mike's teeth on edge. He did not sleep or clean his whiskers. Instead he paced the small area with a gaze so intense it felt like a physical weight against the skin. It was more than simple hunger. It was a primal and desperate need for something more.
Reaching into a shredded pocket Mike produced the growth he had carved from the Alpha Wolf. It was a calcified tumor roughly three inches in diameter and it felt as hard as a river stone in his hand. The mass was a dark and bruised red that seemed to pulse with an internal heat of its own. To a normal man the radiation bleeding from the object would have resulted in agonizing burns but to Mike it only felt like holding a living heart. This was the concentrated essence of the beast and it was a collection of pure evolutionary mass.
Mike whispered for the creature to eat and rolled the stone-like mass across the floor. Grim did not hesitate. He threw himself at the offering and his teeth made a sound like crushing walnuts as he broke the calcified shell. He swallowed the entirety of the tumor in three large gulps. The reaction was immediate and terrifying. A high-pitched shriek of pure agony escaped the rat and it was a sound that seemed to cut through Mike's very soul. Grim fell onto his side and his spine bowed in an unnatural arch that threatened to snap his small frame.
Steam rose from the fur of the rat as a feverish heat radiated from his body. Mike watched with a mixture of fear and fascination as the anatomy of his companion began to tear itself apart. There were sounds of snapping and cracking as bones were broken and forged anew into something thicker and more dangerous. The jaw of the creature unhinged and new muscle fibers wove themselves together with a methodical and bloody precision. Patches of fur fell away in clumps to reveal a hide that was grey and taut as a drum.
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When the spasms finally subsided Grim stood on four legs once more. He had grown to the size of a large house cat and his muscles were compact blocks beneath his new hide. The scar where his ear had once been looked meaner and more prominent against his brutal head. He shook himself and sent a cloud of dust into the air before turning to look at his master. It was then that the air began to shimmer with an unnatural red light.
Mike looked down at his own palms. The barbs from the Scuttle-Crawler had left shallow grooves in his skin but they were already sealing shut with a thick and greyish fluid. He was changing. The boy who had spent his days hunched over delicate copper wires and clogged filters in Sector 4 would not recognize the man standing in this caustic rain. Back then he had fixed things to make life a little more bearable for his neighbors. He had mended what was broken. Now it felt as if he were breaking everything he touched until it grew into a shape that was jagged and lethal.
He looked at Grim and felt a heavy pang of something that resembled grief. He had taken a small creature that lived by its wits and its ability to hide and he had turned it into a heavy-set predator. The rat had not asked for the wolf’s heart or the agonizing reconstruction of its own bones. Mike had made that choice for him. He had forced a thousand years of evolution into the span of a few heartbeats and the cost was written in the raw and red meat that still pulsed beneath the rat’s new fur. It was a terrible mercy to grant a friend. In this dying world being small was a death sentence and being a monster was the only way to keep breathing.
The status screen above Grim’s head was a brand. It was a sign that the rat had been pulled into the same machinery that was grinding Mike’s own humanity into dust. Mike reached out and felt the bone spur resting beneath the skin of his forearm. It felt as natural as a finger now and that realization frightened him more than the creatures in the fog. He was no longer just a survivor. He was a designer of horrors.
He adjusted the strap of his pack and felt the weight of the Wilds pressing down on his shoulders. The road ahead would require more than just strength and it would likely ask for more of his soul than he had left to give. He looked at the massive rat and saw a partner where there had once been only a pet. They were both victims of the same hunger and they would both have to live with what they were becoming. Mike turned his face toward the wind and let the stinging rain wash the yellow blood from his clothes. He did not know if they were still the "good men" he had once hoped they could be but they were alive. In the end that was the only thing the System cared about. They stepped forward together and the darkness swallowed them whole.
