by Michael Todd
Two of the creatures, he decided as he listened intently. They approached, passed the junction of the two tunnels, and stopped. Wallace remained utterly still and tried not even to breathe. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his brow. He was suddenly and awfully conscious of the faint electric humming made by his cybernetic brace. One of the creatures took a few steps forward with its many legs as though ready to peek into the other tunnel. Wallace looked to the side with his eyes but didn’t move his head and saw its claws protrude into the space. It had heard him. He felt sure of that. Somehow, he would have to kill them both without making any noise. Which was probably impossible.
The claws disappeared as the scorpion turned and moved back the way it had come. It seemingly rejoined its buddy and the two continued their creeping, chittering progression down the other tunnel, off to wherever the goddamn hell these things had to go.
Slowly and quietly, Wallace exhaled his long-held breath. Even his heartbeat seemed too loud, but he’d gotten past these two. He detached himself from the wall, turned left, and readied himself to proceed farther in the direction he’d been going.
He froze when a third scorpion stopped face to face with him.
It opened its mouth, presumably to squeak out an alarm. Before Wallace could even think, his reflex and training kicked in. A quick and overwhelming offense frequently stunned an opponent and confused them with its suddenness even as the attack itself defeated them. He charged.
Wallace jammed his metal-shod left fist directly into the scorpion’s mouth. Its octopus-like mouth tendrils were mostly smashed beneath the gauntlet, unable to free themselves to wrap around his arm, and its external jaws were immobilized. Wallace kept his fist where it was and swung to the creature’s side, inside the range at which it could clip him in two with its pincers, and stomped hard on the creature’s prehensile tail immediately below the stinger to pin it against the wall.
“Now, then,” Wallace gasped under his breath. Time to try the knife.
As the scorpion writhed in place and its considerable strength strained against him, the man brought his right hand up and stabbed it under the jaw in what corresponded in most creatures to the throat. At first, it seemed the blade barely sank in as it struck armor but then, it slipped directly into a soft spot. The monster thrashed harder and Wallace drove the knife in deeper. He wiggled it around and dragged back on it to cut and tear as much tissue as possible. He also drove his fist farther into the scorpion’s mouth in an effort to choke it.
Suddenly, it collapsed. He waited for a second or two, then confirmed that it was dead.
Wallace exhaled again. That shouldn’t have worked either, but it did. They’d been damn lucky so far.
The deeper he descended into the earth, the brighter the faint reddish light became. It was as ominous as all hell. In fact, hell was exactly what it reminded him of. There wasn’t much heat, however. If anything, it had gotten cooler and moister as he went deeper, like a root cellar.
And then, finally, he reached what had to be the central chamber, the heart of the hill that these creatures used as their fortress. The wide tunnel fell away around him and the space widened, brighter now and full of…things.
Wallace blinked and squinted. The things he saw everywhere down here weren’t scorpions. They almost looked like sculptures of some sort—idols carved for whatever primitive ritual arachnids might employ in a place of worship. He pushed to his feet and walked forward but tried not to look directly at the objects. In low-light conditions, one saw better out of the sides of one’s eyes.
They were plants and trees. He wasn’t sure he believed it, at first. It made no sense but there it was. Lush, cool, flowering plant life underground, where there was no sun. The trees seemed coated with a sap which was, he realized now, the source of the faint luminescence.
The Zoo never failed to amaze him. It wasn’t so much that the place broke the laws of Nature outright as that it hacked them, exploited malicious scripts in Nature’s code, and hired lawyers to find the loopholes in the contract Nature had signed with reality. These plants must have been fungal rather than photosynthetic. Were fungi even plants? Chris would know. Scientists were good with shit like that. All Wallace needed to know, though, was whether or not they were dangerous. And he had no goddamn idea.
He wiped his ichor-coated knife and sheathed it before he drew his rifle. This space was large enough that the scorpions might well attack in force, at which point he’d have to discard the pretense of being on a stealth mission. He looked around.
Along one of the opposite walls was a row of objects that, at first, looked like stones or short stubby plants—like baby cacti or something—but definitely weren’t. On closer examination, he saw that they were human heads, sticking up out of the ground and still attached to buried human bodies. The skin on the back of Wallace’s neck crawled and went cold. Still, this was what he’d come here to find. He crept toward them.
As he moved closer, the floor area widened and sloped downward off to his side. In that direction lay an even bigger and more open area, where a veritable army of scorpions was resting.
Damn.
Two of the buried heads showed signs of movement. They squirmed a little and blinked. Faint light glinted off open eyes, then vanished as the eyes closed. That, at least, was encouraging. Wallace crept closer.
Gunnar, to the best of his ability, nodded a greeting. Flemm simply stared.
In the softest voice he was physically capable of, Wallace said, “Sit tight. I’ll get you guys out.” When he looked at them more closely, Wallace saw two things of interest. One was that a sand-covered radio lay near Gunnar’s head and that the man had managed to free a hand enough to at least press the button on the device, even if he’d been unable to dig himself out.
The other thing was that both were very pale, with veins that stood out and were too dark relative to the skin around them. Patchy, spiderweb-like roots from the nearest fungal trees had penetrated the ground right beside the two humans.
There were also other people—drained, emaciated, and very much dead—buried nearby. There, unmistakable in the desiccated, stretched grimace of death, Powers’ shriveled eyes stared sightlessly ahead. The trees growing next to the corpses looked especially full and healthy.
“These poor trees,” Gunnar said in a very soft whisper. “Must be sick, yessir. They’re using us as IV tubes, basically. Or fertilizer. I am deeply insulted to be treated like manure by a bunch of fucking arachnids.”
“Shut up, Åkerlund,” Wallace whispered back. He used his knife to cut the spidery roots behind Gunnar’s head which, he guessed, were gradually draining the man’s bodily fluids. He began to dig him out, starting by freeing the arm attached to the already-mostly-free hand. Once the sandy soil had been scooped away from Gunnar’s arm and chest, the man was able to help dig himself out. “Finish on your own,” Wallace said. He poured a little water from his canteen into Gunnar’s mouth to re-energize him. “I’ll free Flemm.”
“About bloody time,” the man whispered. Wallace ignored this remark. He tried to think of the man not as the traitor he was but simply as the object of his mission—which he also was. He worked quickly and quietly. Off to the side and down the slope, the scorpions’ dormitory area was largely still and silent. A couple of the creatures moved very sluggishly, but they seemed to be in a torpid, almost hibernatory state, like sleepwalkers. They would probably pose no threat as long as nothing too loud or scary happened to wake them up.
Gunnar finished digging himself out and was in the process of climbing out of his hole when Wallace freed Flemm’s arms and chest. He gave the Englishman a drink of water, too. “Brandy would be better,” the man remarked.
“No, it wouldn’t,” said Wallace. “You’ve lost blood and need hydration.”
“No sense of humor. Fucking Yanks,” Flemm said. Wallace couldn’t help but notice that the man’s upper-class accent seemed to have all but vanished, replaced by a rougher, more soc
cer-hooligan-like cadence. Perhaps his claim to be an English royal was bullshit, after all.
He gripped under the man’s arms and pulled him straight upward. There was still a lot of sand and dirt in the way, but Wallace’s strength in his technologically-augmented legs provided sufficient traction for the task. Flemm emerged from a slight whirlpool of sand not unlike the ones created by the scorpions themselves.
“All right, follow me,” the sergeant said.
“Sure,” Gunnar responded as the three of them crept slowly upward through the paradisiacal alien garden. The walls closed in and hid them from the immediate sight of the resting scorpions, and the big tunnel loomed ahead. “I’m tired of hanging around all these arachnids. Did I mention that I hate arachnids? If not, I hate arachnids. They should put all of them on a boat, sail it out into the ocean, and then sink it. Final solution to the arachnid problem. Did I say that out loud?”
“I could do something,” Flemm said coldly, “that would stop you from saying anything out loud ever again.”
“Ohhh, your wife must be an arachnid,” Gunnar apologized. “Gosh. Sorry.”
“Did you threaten my friend?” Wallace asked and stopped to turn and look at the Englishman. “I am under orders to protect your life, but I am entirely aware of why you’re really here, Flemm. There’s a chance I might decide to fail in my mission.”
The man, small and unassuming-looking though he was, stared back at him. He didn’t seem particularly afraid. He was either incredibly stupid or one hell of a badass spy.
“You already failed at everything else,” Flemm snorted. “You won’t fail intentionally, though, mate. I read your file. You’re the type of arsehole who lets everyone else load their shite on his back, like a pack horse, and keeps saying ‘sir, yes, sir.’ But your friends keep dropping like flies anyw—”
Wallace’s hand dropped to his belt, where Dr. Marla Kessler’s new taser had hung—unused and unloved—for far too long now. Suddenly, it was aimed at Flemm, and just as suddenly, it saw action in combat. The business end leaped out and found its mark in the man’s armpit. Blue electricity crackled, the taser buzzed, and the Englishman’s spiel transformed into a spluttering sound as drool leaked out of his mouth. His eyes bulged, his hair stood on end, his eyebrows blackened, and his whole body vibrated in a distinctly unwholesome fashion. He fell straight back and landed on the ground with a thud, like a tipped-over statue.
“What do you know?” Wallace said. “These things do have some useful applications, after all.” He spun the taser around his finger and re-holstered it on his belt in one smooth motion.
“I never saw that happen,” Gunnar reassured his commander.
Unfortunately, however, something else seemed to have heard it happen. A chorus of loathsome squeaks and chitters echoed up and around the corner, followed by the swish and clack of hundreds of legs that brushed against each other, tread sand, and moved toward them.
“Shit!” Wallace cursed. He tossed his rifle to Gunnar, who caught it with look of deep satisfaction on his face. The sergeant bent and scooped up the unconscious Flemm and threw him over his shoulder. “That way,” he said and indicated the tunnel he’d entered through.
Gunnar ran quickly ahead into the tunnel and scouted for scorpions, and Wallace followed. “Keep going straight,” Wallace said.
The bug-swarming sounds of a hundred giant scorpions behind them grew louder, almost overwhelming in the confined underground space. The horde had sprung into action almost immediately and had already gained on them. This was their environment. It wasn’t made for humans’ ease of movement.
“I should probably be in the rear, sir,” Gunnar suggested.
“Fine,” Wallace said. He ran ahead of the corporal, who fell back and fired a few bursts of his rifle through the tunnel toward their pursuers. Then, as Wallace tried to find the easiest path back to the surface, he heard Gunnar pull the pins of not one, but two grenades and lob them down the slope into the central cavern.
“That best not cause a cave-in on us,” Wallace said. “Now run!”
They sprinted forward and missed their chance to duck into the narrow tunnel Wallace had used initially. Instead, they moved down a wider side-tunnel that he could only hope would lead them the hell out. Behind them, two explosions boomed in quick succession. The earth shook, and a shower of sand and rock fell on their heads. Thankfully, the expected avalanche stopped after only a moment. The whole tunnel system hadn’t collapsed, at least not yet.
“Go,” the sergeant said. His ears rang but he thought he could hear more scorpions approach from the side tunnels. As they pressed on, he glimpsed them closing in behind them again. Worse, they circled around the sides through interlocking tunnels to gradually flank them. “This is not good,” he grunted. Carrying Flemm, he wouldn’t even be able to fight effectively.
Gunnar, who had the gun, ran ahead a short way and immediately ran back. “Daylight! Ha!” he said. Wallace sprinted toward him as six or seven scorpions emerged on both sides from the earthen walls themselves. The creatures—those that hadn’t died in the grenade blasts—were maddened now and had dug through their own tunnel system to intercept and kill the intruders.
The soldier sprinted about as fast as Wallace had ever seen him move, and he was right behind. A circle of light appeared ahead. Squinting in advance, they scrambled up and out and felt the rush of exhilaration that told them they would make it.
The bright daylight hurt their eyes and disoriented them, although they stumbled forward anyway as their sight gradually returned.
“Goddamn,” Wallace breathed.
The three men were completely surrounded. They’d come out somewhere on the eastern side of the scorpion-hill near the edge of the jungle, and arachnids from other parts of the Zoo had all convened on this spot to form a ring of glossy, blackish-brown carapaces, snapping claws, and hovering stingers that dripped with venom.
There was also, however, a mechanical clomping sound. Wallace looked toward it. Peppy galloped toward them.
“Jesus, you guys suck,” she shouted. Another group of the arachnids trailed her but she managed to outpace them. She and Gunnar both fired at the nearest of the scorpions, and their slight hesitation combined with Peppy’s fast approach was all the time the humans needed. The Stallion passed right beside them and she slowed barely enough for them to clamber aboard.
“Jump!” Wallace ordered. He hoisted Gunnar up, then immediately swung on himself, holding Flemm all the while, before he unloaded the unconscious man in Gunnar’s lap.
“Thanks,” Gunnar said. “And oh, look, it’s Peppy. Just who I wanted to see.”
“Wallace brought me to punish you for getting captured,” she retorted.
She drove them toward the area where the scorpions were the thinnest, near the jungle to the northeast. They were surrounded on all sides but they might be able to break through there.
“Now that I’m out,” Wallace said to Peppy, “ignore what I said earlier about—never mind, I’ll do it.” He grabbed the plasma-thrower and flicked the switch, and a loud, deep, buzzing sound issued from the pack which was audible even amidst the cacophony of the scorpion army. “Hold course, straight ahead.”
“This ought to be good,” Gunnar said.
Wallace aimed ahead and fired. Blinding waves of burning white-violet plasma flowed out to melt and burst dozens of arachnids. The blast seared through their line and turned sand to glass and trees to ash. Creatures and air screamed together under the onslaught of intense heat. Wallace released the trigger, then pivoted and fired again to sweep the flame behind them and create a wide swathe of boiling glass in which charred and blasted scorpion carcasses began to dissolve or were preserved as the glass hardened. The rest of the horde scattered in all directions.
The forest closed around them and the mini-desert disappeared in their wake. “Don’t get us clotheslined by a damn tree,” Wallace said. “Slow down.”
“Wow, you must never have driven wi
th Peppy before,” Gunnar remarked. “I sure did miss her driving.”
“Shut up, Åkerlund,” Peppy said, even before the sergeant could. “Your punishment isn’t over yet.”
20
Wallace sat, once again, in the large, communal office that the various officers used to do their paperwork. After the mission to take the foreign diplomats on safari, he seemed to have an unusually large amount of forms to fill out. But that was okay. It wasn’t like he was tired or anything.
Really, though, he’d survived. Gunnar and Peppy had survived, and so had all three of the politicians he’d been charged to protect. It saddened and angered him that he’d lost seven people out of nineteen, but it could have been worse.
Seemingly, the instant he had finished with his red tape, the intercom crackled to life. “Sergeant Wallace,” said the voice of Hall’s secretary. “Director Hall will see you now.”
Wallace sighed. They had to be watching him on a hidden camera or something.
He tramped down the halls to Hall’s office, which for some reason, was located an inconvenient distance from the communal paperwork holding cell. On the plus side, when he arrived in the lobby this time, he did not have to wait. The old secretary waved him in to see the director almost the second he walked in.
Wallace closed the door behind him and faced his commander and boss.
“Sergeant,” Hall began. “Tell me how things went on your recent mission. The impression I’ve received is that it was at least an improvement over your last major expedition. The one where you failed to apprehend Kemp or even a few pieces of fruit.”
The sergeant stood with his hands behind his back, his chin up, and his eyes focused on a point slightly beyond and to the side of Hall’s face. “Affirmative, sir,” he replied at length. “Seven of my men died as a direct result of our guests being allowed to give the final orders, rather than myself,” he reported, “as well as due to intentional sabotage of our vehicles and equipment.”