by Michael Todd
The metal gauntlet shot out and seized the locust by its antennae. Its wings stopped flapping as fast, causing it to sink, and as it raised its claws to sever his arm, Wallace kicked it in the face. The exoskeleton hummed, and something crunched as the metal boot connected. The locust fell back, its head caved in and spewing blood, and Chris wove around it as it thrashed stupidly before collapsing to the jungle floor.
“Nice!” Chris exclaimed. He wished he could do the same. The memory of what these things had done to the other troops was still disturbingly fresh.
“Come on,” Wallace said, again grabbing Chris by the shoulder to shove him forward, “we need to move.”
Something behind them was pounding the ground beneath its feet…and getting closer.
With Wallace having shoved him ahead, the two of them were able to run side by side for a moment. And so it was that when they hit a steep ridge that had been totally disguised by a virtual net of intertwined leafy creepers, neither had an opportunity to see the other fall and stop themselves. They both fell at the same time.
“Shit!” Chris burst out.
The creepers clawed and dragged against them. Their impact got them through, but the things had bled off some of their momentum as they toppled over the ridge. Wallace clanked around in a broad circle once, then braced himself, his exoskeleton brute-forcing his body’s stability as he skidded down the lower two-thirds of the slope, leaving deep rutted grooves in the earth beneath his feet.
Chris, on the other hand, simply went into a roll. How to fall was one of the first things they’d taught him in Hapkido. He went limp and limber and allowed gravity to turn him over and over like a carpet about to be loaded in a truck, accepting the dizziness that would result as a lesser evil compared to the risk of breaking a limb if he tried to resist. He came to a stop at the bottom of the slope, but the world still spun. One of his hands flopped into something wet and slimy.
“Dammit!” Wallace grunted. “We’re at that fucking pond…”
Chris groaned and climbed to his hands and knees. Hapkido had also taught him a number of spinning kicks, so he was more resistant to dizziness than some people, but still.
“Come on,” Wallace said, helping him up, “we need to get around this and—”
Behind them came a high-pitched roar like a ragged yowl echoing up from the pits of hell. It was almost as loud as a hurricane-force wind. And in front of them came a buzzing and chittering sound as another locust floated down from the jungle’s understory, hovering in their path of escape around the bright green slime-covered pond.
“How do they manage this shit?” Chris marveled.
Wallace paused. The decision before them could not be made easily.
Bruce the cat-shark, perched on the ridge above them, leaped over the edge. A huge purplish-brown blur darkened the air over their heads, then he crashed with thunderous impact into the ground between them and the locust, tight between the pond to the left and the gentler side-slope of the ridge to the right.
“Back up?” Chris suggested, gesturing toward the ridge and trying not to panic.
“You couldn’t climb it,” Wallace said matter-of-factly in a low voice. He seemed oddly calm, even by his standards.
The locust came for them, only to more or less crash into Bruce. The cat-shark yowled in anger and pivoted back toward the insect, seizing it in a paw and pulling it closer. The locust, chittering and flailing its claws, shredded some of the flesh of the larger animal’s forelimbs and opened its mouth in rage. Bruce opened his mouth even wider, then his head shot forward and suddenly the top half of the locust no longer existed. The bottom half dropped into the pond, dispersing the foamy slime in a greenish cloud and floating in the blackish water. Bruce turned his head and spat out a great mass of greenish-black filth. The rows upon rows of teeth within his maw had reduced the locust’s head and thorax to a nearly liquid pulp.
Then he turned toward Chris and Wallace. His flat fish-eyes stared at them, and he growled.
“In situations like this,” Wallace said, still a picture of stony calm, “the natural reaction is one of three things: Fight, flight, or freeze. Freezing would be pointless; it only works with predators who are trying to incapacitate their prey so they can eat them later.”
Bruce took a step closer. Soft, graceful; tension boiled over his aerodynamic form.
“Uh, Wallace?” Chris breathed, backing up.
“And,” Wallace went on, “all avenues of flight have been cut off. That leaves only one option.” He settled into something like a karate horse stance and balled his left hand within its gauntlet into a fist.
Chris burst out laughing. “Oh, ha-ha, yeah, sure,” he said. He didn’t even have his puny handgun anymore; Kemp had taken it back. “I mean, aren’t we at least supposed to get a healing item before an obvious boss battle? Some last minute power-up? A save point maybe, like—”
Bruce pounced.
Air compressed and things crashed. The purplish-brown blur collided with the greenish-gray blur as organic hissing and screeching met the whirring and humming of machinery. Chris staggered back from sudden chaos, trying not to fall into the pond. When he’d regained his balance, he realized quickly that this fight was well out of his league.
Wallace had seized Bruce by the throat with his natural hand and was squeezing it, trying to rip it out, but powerful muscles protected it. With his cybernetic forearm he was bracing himself against the cat-like monstrosity’s forepaw, bearing down on him, and with one armored leg raised he protected himself against the other paw. Somehow the exoskeleton had given him enough power to stop Bruce’s charge rather than simply being flattened by it, but in a contest of pure strength, the man would sooner or later prove no match for the beast.
Chris tried to think of what the hell he could do to help. Wallace was slowly being crushed toward the ground, then the mouthpiece unfolded from his headset and for a second Chris heard the magnified sound of Wallace drawing a deep breath.
“Aaaaaaarrrrgggh!” he shouted, the megaphone amplifying his voice to almost deafening levels, and he surged into the creature. Bruce, in shock, stumbled and Wallace pushed him back, then with his armored left fist, swung a fast, Topeka-style haymaker right into the side of the beast’s face.
Chris burst out laughing again, this time in triumph, as the cat-shark crumpled. It was back on its feet almost instantly, though, and it looked pissed.
“Take cover,” Wallace said.
Chris leaped aside. Just as he did so, Bruce pounced again, crashing into the ridge where Chris had just been. Wallace, meanwhile, had leaped almost all the way back up the ridge in a single whirring bound. He landed high enough to grab a root from one of the trees near the edge of the overhanging cliff and hung there.
Bruce ignored Chris, totally focused on the destruction of the enemy who could actually harm him. He pounced again, upward, and Wallace dropped at the same time. The power of his suit gave him extra momentum and he elbow-dropped right onto the creature’s skull while swooping his legs around to aim a kick at Bruce’s chest. Bruce fell aside in midair and slumped back against the ridge.
Wallace landed hard and his face showed the strain of it; veins bulged at his neck and forehead and muscles rippled around his jaw. No matter how powerful the suit was, the man within it was only human.
Then Bruce was upon him again, yowling and spitting like an enraged puma the size of a warhorse, the effect made even more terrifying by the unblinking stare of his cold, glassy shark’s eyes. Claws lashed out at astonishing speed and left long red lines along Wallace’s chest, shoulders, neck, and face.
“No!” Chris cried, but at least the cuts looked superficial. Wallace and Bruce became a tangle of thrashing limbs striking almost blindly and Chris froze, stupefied by this primal contest of one dangerous predator against another.
Then Wallace broke free and shot, rocket-like, into the understory, suddenly gripping a tree branch like a monkey. Bruce sprang up after him, snapping his
fanged jaws, only for Wallace to leap over to another branch. The cat-thing plunged downwards, writhing in frustration as the pond grew below it. Then the branch Wallace gripped snapped off.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, and fell in right behind his foe, each crashing into the pond in an explosion of lurid green.
Chris looked around for a long branch and found one near the foot of the slope. He picked it up and rushed to the pond, where Wallace, looking a bit like the fucking Swamp-Thing, was emerging from the slimy pool. A huge, equally slimy growling mass rose behind him.
“Wallace!” Chris called, extending the branch. Wallace grasped it and heaved himself up and out of the water. He turned just in time to catch Bruce’s snout against his gauntlet as the creature attacked again. Chris tripped on a root and fell backward.
When he regained his feet, Wallace had put Bruce in a headlock and was trying to choke the creature, slowly maneuvering him around to break his neck or spine against his knee. The residual slime from the pond interfered with his grip, though, and then Bruce had reversed their positions; Wallace fell and the enormous beast again loomed over him, perfectly positioned to kill.
Chris lunged forward and poked at the creature’s eye with the branch. It looked up and flinched. The split second of distraction was all the time Wallace needed. His mechanized fist surged skyward in an uppercut, which connected with a crunch that, to Chris’ shock, actually sent Bruce flying backward to splay into an undignified sitting position, like a housecat lounging human-style on its ass.
Then Wallace was airborne again. His suit whirred as he descended, another punch aimed and ready. Bruce was trying to close his jaw; the previous blow had messed it up badly. Wallace’s fist crashed into the creature’s lower teeth and tongue and he screamed horribly as his jaw snapped, flapping uselessly like a broken mailbox lid, and then Wallace, snarling with bloodlust, piled into him with more punches, kicks, elbows, and knees.
Chris stared in a mixture of horror and exhilaration.
Bruce crumpled, and Wallace stomped and pounded his head, seizing it with both hands and dashing it against rocks and roots with the kind of effort and adrenaline-based strength a mother uses to lift a car off her child. Things crunched and splattered.
“He’s dead,” Chris called. “Jesus, Wallace, you got him. Holy shit, fuck, goddamn…”
Wallace stopped and looked up, his face calm but his eyes crazed with bloodlust. Then he stood up straight and took a deep breath, returning to humanity even as the red blood and green slime ran slowly down his face. Beneath his feet, the mangled ruin of the most powerful monster the Zoo had yet thrown at them ceased its final twitching.
“Right,” Wallace said. He gasped and wiped liquids from his brow.
“Ten out of ten,” Chris said, a bit giddy. They were alive, and they had won. Wallace had won, anyway, though at least Chris had helped. “Would watch again. You should do this shit on pay-to-view in a goddamn arena.”
“Thanks, Chris,” Wallace replied, “but we’re not in the clear yet. Come on. Kemp won’t stop until she sees our bodies at this point.”
They left. Alternating between a jog and a trot as Chris’ energy waxed and waned, they proceeded through the Zoo, soon reaching the trail, and then moving easily down it, alert but confident that they would make it. And they did. Nothing more challenged them; not today. Daylight was nearing its end, and the greenish shadows turned black as the blue sky turned red.
Without knowing exactly why they did, both men stopped a few hundred feet short of the portal behind foliage that led past the end of the trail, and out of the Zoo. Somehow they both sensed a need to talk before they returned to the world ruled by humankind.
“Again,” Chris said, turning to look at his friend, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Kemp in her current state is extremely dangerous.”
Wallace nodded. “It would have been nice if you’d trusted me,” he replied, “but I doubt things would have gone much better either way. She laid a trap, and we all walked right into it.” He closed his eyes and shook his head; losing his entire unit was a heavy burden to shoulder. “If she’s still alive, then she can’t continue to be. Not at this point. We can’t reason with her. We tried; there’s no reason left. The only part of her that’s still human is subordinated to these…things and their mission to destroy our world.”
“The Zoo put a growth on her back that drugs her,” Chris said. “You’re right—you can’t reason with a junkie who’s desperate for their next fix. But you can put them in detox and rehab; cure them. She can still be saved, Wallace.”
“The rest of the world comes first,” Wallace replied. “I’d like to have her back also, but she by herself is not a priority compared to humanity in general.”
They stood in silence for a moment, having hit an impasse. After everything they’d been through together, at some level their viewpoints and philosophies were irreconcilable. And both of them, somber and regretful, realized it now.
“I can’t go back to the base,” Chris said, shaking his head. “I may not be a total badass like you, but I can’t go back to following stupid petty orders issued by stupid petty men. Not when this place has so much potential, which we could realize so much more quickly if the suits would just listen to us. What Kemp was saying wasn’t totally wrong, even. With a few adjustments, we can use the Zoo to usher in a new, better age for our whole world. And Kemp, the real Kemp, should be there to see it. I know I can figure out a way. On my own.”
Wallace nodded. He touched his headpiece, perhaps to shut off the function that recorded the audio around him. “I will not lie to my superiors,” he said, “but I can present the facts in a way that suggests you simply slipped away rather than making an active decision to desert the mission.”
“Thanks,” Chris said. “I suppose I could go through the Chinese gate at Wall 01 here; I speak barely-passable Mandarin. Wait, no–they’d just throw me in a cell until I gave them all our intel. I’m not betraying the good ol’ USA.”
“Head west, to the British gate,” Wallace suggested. “Just say we got separated.”
Chris decided that would be a good idea. He extended a hand. Wallace took it, and their eyes met.
“Goodbye,” Chris said.
21
Chris sighed as he pushed his way through the crowded market. Somehow, this was exactly the way he’d imagined Cairo would be. Noise and bodies—men in white robes, women in veils, barefoot children—were everywhere, and the smells were both fascinating and pungent. A city this ancient wouldn’t change that much across the centuries.
His destination was a small out-of-the-way restaurant; humble, but it had gotten pretty good reviews. And he was getting hungry. It lay just inside a dark, dusty alley, within a building of white plaster over mud-brick and sandstone that probably dated back to the Rashidun Caliphate.
Pushing through the curtain that served as a door, Chris looked around. He was somehow unsurprised that the place looked like that tavern in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy went to meet Belloq after Marion’s death-fake out, albeit slightly cleaner and more modern. Hipsters would love it.
Sitting at a table big enough for two people max off in a darkened corner to the right was a small, lithe woman with short blonde hair. Chris glanced at her, then, looking casual, strolled over and pulled up a chair.
“So yeah,” he said. “Hi, again. Can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”
“Hi back,” she replied. “You’d be amazed at what people do when they care enough about something. Besides, I knew you didn’t mean what you said about me before…”
Chris wasn’t sure if she was referring to his implied usage of at least three highly offensive terms or that he’d told Pike’s team they might as well shoot her on sight. Either way, it was nice to see her again. She had that effect on him, he supposed.
More importantly, though, she had things like “skills” and “connections.”
A waiter came up, and Chris ordered coffee
and falafel. He’d always wanted to get authentic falafel in its native region; if he recalled correctly, it had been invented in Egypt. The woman ordered the same.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Chris said. “You pretty much know what I want. Your abilities and your experience both in the Zoo and out, and your new pals, all under my, uh, expert guidance. Christ, I’m pretty sure I’m the only three-time survivor of that fucking place…”
The waiter brought their coffee. Chris thanked him and took a sip. The Arabs made this stuff very strong and very good. He was glad they were meeting here instead of in a fast-food place or some shit.
“I accept your terms, at least the generalities,” the woman agreed. Her voice carried a trace of some non-American accent, but she masked it too well to identify. “The specifics might be open to negotiation. But, I mean, negotiation is fun…”
“You do seem to love having fun,” Chris muttered.
“My team and I will be at your disposal to do whatever you need, provided you don’t specifically order us all to do something obviously suicidal.” She laughed, as though this were funny. “Of course, first I kinda want to know how you plan to pay for all this. Your company is charming, I guess, but not quite enough…”
Chris produced his bag and drew out a vividly red overripe fruit. “This should more than suffice,” he said. “I don’t need to tell you where I got it.”
She smiled, and the two of them shook hands. “I trust you,” she said.
Chris sighed. “Well, that makes one of us.”
Epilogue
Wallace stood, ramrod straight, his hands folded behind his back, his crisp dress uniform clashing with the metal of his exoskeleton. He scarcely looked like the same man who had been covered head to toe in blood, dirt, and pond-scum not so terribly long ago. There were still vivid pink lines running down his lower face and neck, though. And even after he’d cleaned up, this office—formerly Kemp’s—did not suit him.