by Michael Todd
“What’s even the point of going in without a JLTV or an ATV?” Gunnar asked loudly in a ragged voice. “We won’t be able to mount a proper machine gun on anything. That’s like going into the kitchen to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and finding out that you have bread and jelly, but no fucking peanut butter and no butter knife. And why do we only have one of those plasma flamethrower things? Burning down the entire Zoo will take at least a week.”
“My parents didn’t even have the jelly,” Peppy sighed. “I wish I’d had a plasma flamethrower when I was a kid. Then I wouldn’t be here now, alive and forced to deal with the endless disappointments that always seem to come with being alive.” She paused. “It might have hurt, though.”
“Eeeew,” Gunnar said. “Peppy just said she wants to commit suicide with a flamethrower. What kind of sick fuck does that?” He swatted her shoulder but she didn’t react. “Get this woman away from me. She’s deep, deep into Section Eight territory.”
“Gunnar is angry because he thinks that without a mounted machine gun,” Peppy replied, “he has no chance of getting deep into anything.”
Wallace ignored them for now. In a moment, he would lay down the law but first, he wanted to do a quick head-count and double-check the supply stores that had been laid out for them. While he examined everything, he noticed they had an extra person.
“Can I help you?” Wallace asked, confronting her.
The woman looked up. She had milled around and passed within earshot of the troops—notably Gunnar and Peppy—with her hands clasped behind her back and seemed to have studied their supplies and the general layout of this part of the base.
“Yes, you can,” she said in a European accent of some sort—German, probably? She was tall for a woman, close to six foot, and most likely close to fifty although still quite athletic and rather attractive. Her dark-blonde hair was tied back in a braid not unlike the one Lt. Dr. Kemp used to wear, and she had dark-blue eyes. She wore light fatigues similar to the ones the US Army issued for jungle combat and good solid boots, as well. A light, broad hat hung at her back. “You can tell me who is in command of this unit.”
“I am,” Wallace replied. Once again, Hall essentially allowed him to operate above his rank. “May I see your clearance, please?”
“Director Hall will take care of that,” she replied as though the request he’d made was not particularly serious, “but at least you seem concerned about base security. Your soldiers do not, however, show very much…” She seemed to search for the right word. “Gravity.”
Her English was damn good, he had to admit. He was now almost positive that German had been her first language, but he couldn’t narrow the accent down beyond that. She might have been German or possibly Swiss or Austrian. He wasn’t sure he cared for her attitude, though.
“The men and women who serve under me are chosen for their skills and commitment,” Wallace retorted. “Even if one or two of them talk too much at base, they all perform admirably in the field.”
The woman’s stern face took on the slightest expression of dismissal and possibly exasperation. “That kind of talk,” she said and seemed to indicate Gunnar and Peppy, “is not befitting of good soldiers.”
He felt his teeth grind together. Before he could reply, however, a group of figures approached from the main door of the brig with Hall at its center. Wallace stiffened, turned to face the director, and awaited the group. “Sir,” he said.
“Ah, Sergeant Wallace,” Hall replied. With him were Lieutenant Danvers, Dr. Kessler, a couple of security grunts, and two men Wallace had never seen before. “We’re almost ready to go. I need to make the necessary introductions. I’m glad to see you’ve already met Ambassador Graf.”
The tall blonde woman, who had pivoted toward Hall when Wallace did, now turned back to the Sergeant. “Aade Graf,” she said. “Here on behalf of the people of Germany.” She offered her hand.
Wallace took it firmly and shook it good and hard. She had a strong grip. “Pleased to meet you, Ambassador Graf,” he said. “I’m Sergeant Erik Wallace.”
“Sergeant?” she asked.
“Wallace is a special case,” Hall replied. “We need him to do some of the work that would normally go to a commissioned officer but sadly can’t spare the time to send him back to the States for proper certification.”
“I see,” Graf said. She once more looked and sounded a little disdainful.
Hall turned to the two strange men. Wallace, who now felt rather disdainful himself, noticed that neither of them looked even remotely prepared to enter the Zoo.
“This,” Hall said as he turned to the first, “is Claude Blancheau, representing France. He is a deputy in the National Assembly, comparable to our Congress.”
Blancheau was at least sixty and looked as though he’d spent most of the last ten years sipping sugary drinks on a beach on the Riviera but without ever actually swimming. That would have required physical exertion. He wore a grey suit that looked stiff and crisp in contrast to his soft, sagging body. His hair was mostly white, although his mustache was mostly black.
“Good day,” he said, sounding bored. “I am most confident zat we will make very good scientific advancements after today.” He looked around aimlessly and didn’t offer his hand. Wallace greeted him, nonetheless.
“This,” Hall went on and indicated the second man, “is Richard Flemm, a former Member of the British Parliament here on special assignment.”
Flemm was about the same age as Graf, not quite as physically fit as her but certainly in better shape than Blancheau. The man was on the short side, stocky, and balding, with large, round green eyes and a bulbous nose. He looked like he had picked his outfit out of an old safari catalog in the hope of specifically identifying himself to everyone he met in Africa as a tourist.
“Hello,” he said and extended a hand. Wallace took it. The grip was soft, and the man’s palm was covered with sweat. “Quite a setup you’ve got here, isn’t it?” He spoke with a posh British accent. “I’m also the current Baronet of Birkin, near Nottingham, by the way. Aristocracy isn’t fashionable anymore, I’m afraid, but it does mean that I may be able to put in a good word for you in some of Britain’s higher circles.”
“Good to know,” said Wallace, “and nice to meet you.”
“Now, then,” Hall went on, “assemble your team.”
The sergeant rounded up the last of the stragglers and ordered them to attention. He wished—especially with Graf watching—that they’d already been at attention, but at least they snapped to it quickly and looked good now that they knew it was crunch time. In addition to Gunnar and Peppy, he’d also requested Corporal Glassner, a medic with Zoo experience, Sergeant Hennessy, who was well-respected throughout the base, and Private Falstaff and Private First-Class Akiwe, who were basically rookies but seemed capable enough, having served under Wallace before. Their most recent assignment had been yesterday during the drawbridge affair.
“The mission, Sergeant Wallace, is simple,” Hall said, although he spoke in such a way that the entire unit could hear. “Take these men and women into the Zoo, let them see the place with their own eyes, show them how we operate in there, and then return. That is all. Their safety is your top priority.”
“Yes, sir,” Wallace said. He repeated this to his team. “Everybody understand?”
“Yes, sir,” they replied.
Marla Kessler suddenly insinuated herself and stepped between Wallace and his men. “Oh, while you’re out there,” she said, “I want you to test this. On full strength. If you can get me a live sample, so much the better.” She smiled and handed him one of her tasers.
Wallace looked at it with barely-concealed distaste. Nevertheless, he accepted it and clipped it to his belt, conscious that Hall was watching. Kessler, for all that she liked to boss everyone else around at the base, reacted like a well-trained dog to anything he so much as suggested, which made him think that the director must have approved of her tase
r-related shenanigans. Whatever. He could always say he hadn’t gotten the chance.
“One last thing…” Hall said.
From behind him, Audrey “Jimmy” James appeared. She was small enough to have been completely hidden.
“Okay, guys.” She sounded excited and obviously tried not to smile. “Remember what I said about having a surprise for you? So yeah. Here it is.” She moved to the large mass under the even-larger tarp and pulled it off. “Ta-daaa.”
Wallace actually recoiled in sheer surprise. Beneath the tarp were three big-ass mechanical quadrupeds.
“Behold,” Jimmy said, “the Silver Stallions. Four autonomous legs instead of wheels. They are less susceptible to damage than rubber and have no weak undercarriage like the JLTVs—those frickin’ car-killer vines won’t stand a chance. They’re fast, they can navigate almost any type of terrain, and can carry a ton of cargo inside the—uh, posterior region.” She demonstrated by opening a trapdoor in the proverbial horse’s ass. Closing it, she went on, “I designed them specifically to get around all this crap the Zoo has thrown at you guys. They need someone to pilot them—it’s almost the same as driving a car or a go-kart, don’t worry—and unfortunately, their one real flaw is that they’re as heavy as all hell. If they get knocked over, there’s no way for them to get back up on their own, so you guys would have to haul them back up onto their feet.”
“Daaamn,” someone in the team said. Wallace, thinking of Graf, glared at all of them and everyone shut up.
He looked at Jimmy and his expression was far nicer than that which his troops received. “Very impressive,” he said. “I wish you’d told us earlier so we had time to pack the extra stuff we can put in them, but those should be helpful.” He almost smiled.
“I’m pretty proud of them,” she said and grinned more broadly. “They’re designed to be idiot-proof. Buuuut, I’ll go with you guys anyway just in case.”
Wallace requested an extra fifteen minutes to gather extra supplies and load them into the Stallions. Hall agreed to this but told him not to keep their guests waiting. Speaking of whom, Graf and Flemm watched the vehicles with interest while Blancheau pretended not to be impressed.
Soon, everything was ready. It would be another hot day. Back in the Temperate Zone, it was autumn now, but there in the southern Sahara, every day was summer.
“All right,” Wallace said, “time to move out.”
Chapter Six
They paused at the entrance to the Zoo—the beginning of the trail and the end of the desert immediately past Wall One.
“Good God,” Flemm said and shook his head. Blancheau stared. Even Graf seemed to have been affected by the sight.
They’d taken a fleet of JLTVs across the miles of mostly-empty sand that separated the bigger, outer wall from the inner. Wallace had ordered Falstaff and Akiwe, both good drivers, to pilot the Silver Stallions along with Jimmy herself on the third. Once they had a better idea of the machines’ capabilities, they could consider adding passengers to them. Each was big enough for three or four people.
As they’d neared Wall One, the jungle—so lush and vibrantly green amidst the searing waste of the North African desert—had loomed larger and closer. The three foreign passengers had all fallen silent as they approached and their focus grew more intent. Wallace was of two minds. Short expeditions into the Zoo were almost routine for him by now and yet his two longer expeditions had both been horrific ordeals. During both, entire units had died around him, while he himself had barely survived.
Now, they stood before the entry into the unnatural forest. Human activity had at least tamed this one pathway, which led most of the way into the Zoo’s dangerous center. Finding that the Stallions worked well, Blancheau and Flemm had mounted behind Falstaff and Akiwe, while Wallace had ordered Jimmy to walk so she could keep an eye on all three machines. The third he assigned to Gunnar and a rookie Private named Lorenzo. Everyone else was on foot.
“All right,” Wallace said, “we go in.”
The Zoo admitted them into its deep green shadows with what almost sounded like a deep sigh.
“It looks like a bloody old-growth forest,” Flemm remarked. “And yet you say it’s only been here a few months? Fascinating.”
“The Duke of Camelot seems to be enjoying himself,” Gunnar said quietly. “I mean, he’s English, though, so it’s only a matter of time before he turns a kind of bright pinkish-red color and then doesn’t turn tan.”
Blancheau, on the other hand, had begun to talk loudly and showed no signs of stopping. “Zis horse machine is very unstable in movement,” he said. “It is so crude, so little attention to comfort or beauty, Mon Dieu. Americans, you can, how you say, get ze job done, but only with brute force. Our scientists will create superior technology zat functions as good, better, but with air of real sophistication.”
“Can I punch that guy?” Jimmy asked under her breath. “I mean, I’m only a grease monkey. It’s not like I had a whole frickin’ lab full of engineers to work with.”
“You can punch him,” Peppy said, “if you want to start a war between the United States and France. Personally, I’d say go for it.”
“It’s okay, Jimmy,” said Gunnar. “I think he came down to Africa to wander around in Algeria and pretend that France still owned it and got lost or something.”
Jimmy snickered.
Wallace kept an eye on the Stallions in the same way that he kept an eye on his men—their formation, their discipline, and their alertness. Aside from Gunnar, Peppy, and Jimmy joking around to the side—of course—they were doing well. The mechanical horse-vehicles, incredible as it seemed, had shown no problems. They were actually quite simple in design and something about them reminded him of the cybernetic brace that he himself wore in order to move. Maybe that’s where Jimmy had gotten the idea.
“Audrey—Jimmy—your vehicles are working well, from the looks of it,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said and blushed. “That’s high praise coming from you. A couple of people said you were a Luddite in addition to being a hardass.”
Wallace bit his tongue to keep from smiling too hard. He didn’t want the troops to resent the fact that a civilian could not only get away with talking to him like that but even get a positive reaction for it. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said. “What is a ‘Luddite,’ though?”
“Oh, a person who doesn’t like technology,” Jimmy replied.
“Who the hell doesn’t like technology?” asked Glassner. “It’s done so much to help people—”
“It makes things more…complicated,” said Wallace. “But I don’t dislike it, exactly. I’m only able to walk right now because of it. I merely prefer that it be employed responsibly. Sometimes, it’s better not to invent something simply for the sake of inventing something, if you ask me. There are already plenty of other things that have worked well for hundreds of years.”
“You mean, like, not inventing nukes?” Glassner suggested.
“There is nothing wrong with nukes,” Gunnar interjected.
They continued down the path. Wallace pointed out one of the thick, green, squirming vines that hung nearby at one point—the ones that descended like giant snakes and could devour a man in a single gulp. They avoided it and otherwise, saw and heard nothing save a few faint rustlings, some flitting shadows, and the whispered breathing of the forest itself.
Wallace’s plan was to go to the drawbridge and back. It was less than a mile in, and it marked the end of the least-dangerous part of the Zoo. They’d be there soon and they could turn around and call this mission complete.
Blancheau and Flemm continued their commentary from atop their steel horses as the group progressed. Graf said nothing, but Wallace could tell that she observed all that occurred and listened to as much as possible.
A mass of metal in construction-yard yellow, black, and grey loomed in the green shade up ahead. The drawbridge.
“We only installed this yesterday,” Wallace t
old the politicians. “It had to be assembled on-site. It’s technically mobile, but all that really means is that it can be wheeled back and forth to different spots in the same area, which doesn’t do us much good unless the stream advances deeper into the Zoo and we need to push it forward to keep up.”
“What do you mean, the stream ‘advances?’” asked Graf. She seemed legitimately curious and even a little awed.
“The Zoo has some ability to…reshape itself,” the sergeant explained. “Our former director of research, Dr. Lin, had a theory that the Zoo is all basically one big organism with all the parts working together toward the same goal. I’m not a biologist or ecologist so I didn’t understand all the details, but that’s the gist of it.”
“Incredible!” Flemm said.
“Zis is basic natural science,” Blancheau scoffed. “We would have reached same conclusion very quickly and already produce beautiful gardens from it, as well as advances to medicine.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Wallace replied. He looked at Graf. She studied the drawbridge.
“It’s operated by a simple switch,” said Wallace, “although slightly too complicated for creatures of animal or even insect intelligence. We can lower it to go deeper in ourselves, if we need to, or raise it to cut anything else off and prevent it from reaching the wall.”
Something hissed and chittered and tension flared in seconds.
“Positions!” Wallace barked. He and his men immediately raised their guns, assumed fighting stances, and scanned the area.
About half a dozen locusts suddenly emerged from the underside of the drawbridge. Whether they had been trying to destroy it, lying in ambush, or simply happened to have been mating or eating down there when the humans stumbled onto them, Wallace did not know. “Hold your fire! Wait until you have a clear shot.”
Blancheau and Flemm both exclaimed something simultaneously as the blackish-green, almost human-sized insects clawed their way over the top of the mechanism, their claws grasping, wings beating, and fanged mouths opening and shutting.