Quake by Andy Remic

grim as realisation and horror sank in. Their friend was dead - and the ECubes had given them no warning.
    ‘I have a fucking bad feeling,’ rumbled Slater slowly.
    ‘It’s like when the QIII processor hacked the ECubes. You get that same sinking feeling? Like you’re naked? Vulnerable?’
    Slater nodded in the gloom, staring down at the crumpled grey-clad figure. ‘What’s over there?’
    ‘Well, he was sure running somewhere fast.’
    ‘You think there are more Nex?’
    ‘Maybe,’ said Jam grimly.
    They moved closer to the valley, dropping to their bellies as they neared the gash in the ground. ‘I can’t see anything,’ muttered Jam, and they crawled up to the edge to peer down into the deep narrow V, scattered with dark trees and large piles of rocks, below them.
    There was a distant log cabin, and Slater nudged Jam, pointing with his gun. In the gloom Jam could just make out a narrow bridge of thick wooden sleepers connecting both sides of the valley. Large rocks were clustered around the opposite bank: a perfect defensive location.
    Jam set his ECube to scan.
    He turned to Slater, confusion in his eyes. ‘The cabin and the bridge are not there,’ he said softly. ‘The ECube can’t see anything. It’s blind. What the fuck is going on?’
    Slater muttered something evil, and Jam turned back, staring down at the valley where nothing moved.
    ‘I’ll go back, check the Nex,’ said Slater.
    ‘Yeah. You do that.’
    Jam stared hard, trying to work out why the ECube couldn’t scan these simplest of objects before him. Was there some kind of natural screening? Some source of strange radiation or IR that was interfering with the complex electronic mechanics of Spiral’s premier agent device?
    A noise interrupted his thoughts - a low, metallic sound - and Jam whirled, eyes squinting into the darkness. He came up onto his knees, his SA1000 presented for action.
    ‘Slater?’ he hissed.
    Nothing. He could see nothing ...
    Climbing up to his feet, he crept forward towards the crumpled Nex. Then his adjusting eyes picked out the fallen figure of Slater and he dropped to a crouch, instantly freezing, scanning the surroundings. Fuck, screamed his brain as he checked his ECube.
    The tiny alloy machine was completely dead.
    Jam’s face tightened into a grimace.
    The SA1000 swung left, then right, as Jam’s sharp eyes scanned for enemies. Was Slater alive? Dead? A sniper’s silenced bullet? Jam dropped to his belly, and very slowly, using trees for cover, worked his way gradually towards his fallen friend.
    As he reached Slater, he hissed, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
    There was no response.
    Jam crept closer, and to his horror he saw that Slater’s throat had been cut. The big man’s neck sported a gaping crimson mouth. Blood had pooled in the leaves beneath his head and Jam felt his own heart rate kick up a gear with bursts of injected adrenalin as his fingers reached out and took Slater’s shotgun.
    ‘Somebody is going to fucking die,’ he growled, rising beside a wide tree for cover, his eyes glaring off into the gloom. He turned - and a huge black shape reared up in front of him, an incredibly sudden movement faster than a striking cobra—
    Jam gasped as something huge and hard slammed into his face.
    He remembered the rich scent of the soil, and the leaves.
    And then nothing.

CHAPTER 4

SEVERANCE
    T he snow fell heavily. Carter could feel it whipping coldly against his face as his body curled, cradling the woman as they slammed into the flower beds. Carter rolled, bouncing roughly, the woman’s scream suddenly halted as air was punched from her naked bruised frame ...
    Carter’s eyes shot open as the crevasse loomed before him - a huge frightening maw smashing towards him. His boots kicked out violently against the narrow trunk of a pine tree and heaved them both away, rolling with grunts to the paved path ... the crevasse roared past, rock grinding rock and spewing splinters, consuming the