Ambassadors and Scorpions (Apocalypse Paused Book 4)

by Michael Todd

  “Now,” Wallace ordered.

  Everyone at the front of the column opened fire. Automatic rifle bullets and shotgun shells rocketed from flashing muzzles, and the first four of the locusts were blown apart. They screeched shrilly as they died in masses of sparks and blood. The last two tried to flee in opposite directions.

  “Cut ʼem down,” Wallace ordered. Three riflemen sprayed the one on the left and Gunnar decapitated the one on the right with his shotgun.

  “Ha,” Gunnar said. “A machine gun would still have been better.”

  “Secure our perimeter,” the sergeant instructed. A few of the troops fanned out to make sure there weren’t any more of the insects around—or anything else that might have laid a trap. There seemed not to be.

  “Good God,” Flemm said and shook his head.

  Blancheau had covered his ears against the noise and also sweated, trembled, and looked more than a little pale.

  “All right,” Wallace began, “I think that’s a wrap. Our allies have gotten a good look at the Zoo itself and an excellent demonstration of how well we deal with it. Now, let’s turn around and head back to safety.”

  “Yes…yes, please,” said Blancheau. “Zat will be good.”

  “No,” said Aade Graf. She stood in front of Wallace.

  He looked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “No, I want you to take us in deeper. Beyond the bridge.” She seemed unfazed by the skirmish and unintimidated by Wallace’s military authority. “There is clearly more here which we have not seen.”

  “Ambassador Graf,” Wallace said as his men looked at him and waited to see how he’d react. “That would not be a good idea. The deep jungle is no place for—”

  “Your commander, Hall, ordered you to show us what we need to see,” she continued, talking over top of him. “And in order to make a fair assessment, I need to see more than only the petting zoo. Show me the real Zoo.” The muscles around her jaw tightened. That, as well as her braid, reminded Wallace of Kemp.

  “I can’t disobey my orders,” Wallace said, “but I can advise you that every step we take beyond this point increases your chance of dying by about tenfold. The German people would be better off getting their ambassador back.”

  “Yes, yes!” Blancheau added.

  Graf said nothing. Wallace sighed, walked to the drawbridge, and operated the switch to lower it.

  Chapter Seven

  The sense of doom that had descended after they’d crossed the stream—not only on Wallace but, seemingly, on the entire team—was not helped in the least by the sudden failure of their radios and mapping equipment.

  “Oh, what the hell?” someone complained. “Sergeant, nothing is working!” It was true. They picked up little more than static on the radio and in one case, even dead silence. Their GPS system shifted continuously to random spots around the nearby Sahara and sometimes, pinpointed parts of the Zoo, seemingly by sheer chance. The mapping software they used was little better, now reduced to blotches of green that seemed to shift and squirm like the living vines of the jungle itself.

  “I know, soldier,” Wallace said. “This sometimes happens in the deeper parts of the Zoo. It’s not uncommon. On the path, it’s not as bad because of the lower density of Zoo plants. However, it seems like the last section of the path here past that new stream of ours is already almost overgrown again.”

  The trail was fainter and narrower, and the branches, vines, and creepers grew thicker to the sides and overhead. The jungle’s canopy had turned it into something almost like a dark tunnel.

  “Before he left,” Wallace went on, “Chris Lin theorized that it had to do with the plants—that they emitted something that messes with our long-range equipment and its signals. He was also fairly certain that the Zoo plants had some kind of pheromone or something that they used to signal each other of danger. From that, he drew the conclusion that they might also have some kind of bioelectric radio signal or something along those lines. I wasn’t able to get a full explanation.” Wallace had received fairly high scores on intelligence tests, but he wasn’t a scientist or an intellectual. Chris had been good at explaining things, but he’d been too busy most of the time to do so.

  As they entered the wilder and more hostile regions of the jungle, Wallace put himself on point, front and center, along with two other men. Augmented by his exoskeleton, he had a better chance to survive an ambush than most humans. Not to mention that he knew the Zoo better than most did, as well. Already, the trail had almost vanished into the wilderness.

  “Sergeant,” the man to his left, a PFC named Powers, asked. “Where is it that the…queen lives?” Fortunately, he asked in a low enough voice that the foreign politicians probably hadn’t heard.

  “South-central part,” said Wallace. “Don’t worry, we will not be going there no matter what anyone says.” He himself didn’t even want to think about that place. Kemp, totally under the influence of the Zoo’s alien intelligence, had summoned a veritable army of locusts to brutally slaughter an entire platoon when Wallace had led the mission to apprehend her. Only he and Chris had survived.

  The sergeant wanted to focus on trailblazing, scouting for danger, and so forth, but his European guests, back in the safety of the column’s center, constantly tried to get his attention with “Sergeant?” and throat-clearing noises. He tried to ignore them at first but they grew more insistent, and he knew he’d run afoul of his mission parameters if he neglected them too much.

  “Corporal,” Wallace said to Gunnar, “lead that thing up here and take point. Keep us close to that stream you scouted two weeks ago. It’s a nice, easy landmark for us to follow until the end of this little safari. I need to answer some questions in the middle.”

  “Yessir,” Gunnar replied, and they all paused as he urged his Stallion forward. The troops made room for its armored body to take the lead.

  Wallace, meanwhile, fell back. It was an odd experience, walking alongside the Stallions whose smooth yet stiff, mechanical gait was so like his own. To his left was the one carrying Flemm. To his right, the one with Blancheau. Aade Graf walked between them, slightly to Wallace’s right.

  “Your people are good shots,” Graf said, “and their response time is very fast.”

  “Thank you, Ambassador,” Wallace replied.

  “You have said, however,” she went on, “that the Zoo keeps creating new creatures to attack you or old ones evolve at unnaturally fast rates. How do you prepare your people to deal with this type of situation?”

  “We train to be prepared for anything,” was all Wallace said. In a slightly lower voice, he added, “You seem very concerned with the specifics of how our military functions. Some of that sort of thing might be considered state secrets of the USA, so I may not be able to answer all your questions.” He looked at her as sternly as he could without actually glaring.

  “Oh, yes, I understand,” she replied. There was a faint undercurrent of…amusement? Or perhaps, just maybe, respect. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust her, but one way or another, he was relatively certain he’d given the correct answer.

  Still, he might have to report her behavior to Hall. Foreign politicos should not be that curious about American military procedures.

  “It is so hot!” Blancheau complained. “Is zere a…” He seemed to contemplate what words to use. “Mobile air conditioner? Zis place could use one very much.”

  Someone at the side cracked up but managed to transform it into a cough. Wallace glared in that direction. Then he looked up at Blancheau who sagged against the neck of the Stallion.

  “I’m sorry, Assemblyman,” he said, “but to lug a mobile air conditioner out here would be an unnecessary burden. Plus, I feel that our men should be able to fight even in intense heat.”

  “Barbaric,” Blancheau said. “Our scientists will soon have mobile cooling units for every man in a terrible place like this.”

  “Will every man also have their own cheese dispenser to go with that wi
ne?” someone said under their breath.

  “Quiet,” Wallace said but had to bite down on his own tongue as he said it. A large piece of cheese to shove in the Frenchman’s mouth would have been perfectly welcome right about then.

  “I suppose I must agree with Monsieur Blancheau,” Flemm chuckled. “We Britons are perhaps a bit spoiled by our mild climate. Americans seem to have the worst of both extremes.”

  “I’m from Kansas,” said Wallace, “where it’s almost this hot in the summer and cold and snowy in the winter, with severe weather fluctuations from day to day, or even hour to hour. Not to mention tornadoes.” He sighed. “You may have a point there.”

  “It’s too bad that your healthcare system still isn’t up to dealing with all the injuries and illnesses that must result from living in such a climate,” Flemm mused.

  “Wow,” Peppy said, “it would seem that the Marquis of Skyfall actually cares about our welfare. Truly we are blessed.”

  The humid heat did seem to have grown worse than usual. Wallace wondered if the appearance of the new streams had something to do with it. The Zoo must have synthesized even more water. Was it preparing for something?

  “Halt,” Wallace called. “Five-minute break. Corporal, scout our path ahead. We’ll go a little farther beyond this and then turn back.”

  “Yessir,” Gunnar replied.

  “Scout on foot, that is,” Wallace added. “To clarify.”

  Gunnar’s long face drooped with obvious disappointment. He brought his Stallion to a stop and swung off to pick his way forward into the jungle with his automatic shotgun in hand.

  Everyone stopped where they were and formed a loose perimeter around the three people they were escorting. Flemm hopped down from his four-legged go-kart with surprising agility. Wallace found himself wondering if the man was really so useless after all.

  Blancheau, on the other hand, fell.

  “Whoa!” exclaimed Private Falstaff as he grabbed for the politician but missed. Blancheau rolled down the Stallion’s haunch and crashed into Jimmy. She made a “gahh!” sound and stumbled against a tree. Blancheau, meanwhile, landed in a patch of mud.

  “Sir, are you okay?” a man asked as he helped the old Frenchman to his feet.

  Blancheau did not answer this question but instead, looked at Wallace. His crisp, expensive-looking outfit was stained and coated with greyish-brown mud, and more of the same was spattered across the jowls of his face. “Zis suit,” he said, “will be billed to your government.”

  “I’d suggest billing it to Director Hall, first,” said Wallace. “He’s rich.”

  “Sergeant,” said Graf’s voice. Wallace turned toward it and saw the woman crouched in a small patch of weeds and flowers beyond the Stallion that Falstaff and Blancheau had ridden on. He walked to her side.

  “Yes, Ambassador?” he said.

  “What is this flower?” she asked. She gestured toward a plant about a foot high with vibrant green stem and leaves but bright red-and-blue petals. A little bright blue liquid had pooled in the center its blossoms.

  “Do not touch that,” Wallace almost shouted. “It’s extremely dangerous.”

  Graf retracted her hand and stood slowly. “I see,” she replied. “How so?”

  “The blue liquid can be corrosive,” he said, “but more importantly, harming or disturbing that particular flower enrages the whole Zoo. If you were to pluck it, we’d have two hundred locusts on us within forty seconds.”

  “Incredible,” Graf mused. She stared intently at the flower.

  Wallace knew that the Research Department still wanted a sample of the goop plants, but acquiring one safely was more than a little difficult for the reasons he’d just explained to Graf. Plus, he shuddered to think what Dr. Kessler would do with it, anyway. Chris and Kemp had wanted to use the goop—the lifeblood of the Zoo itself—as a universal curative and elixir for longevity. Kessler would probably turn it into a neurotoxin that could be used to kill possums or something.

  The Sergeant returned to the center of the formation, where his men complained under their breaths about anything and everything. The now-dismounted Flemm bent forward and examined the Stallion he’d been riding and poked at it. “I say,” he said, “very good engineering. It makes more sense to move about on strong legs than on rubber feet, doesn’t it?”

  “Thanks,” Jimmy said.

  Gunnar suddenly appeared. He looked at Wallace and gestured with his head. The sergeant went over to him. “What is it, Corporal?” he asked.

  “Well, sir,” Gunnar replied, “it seems that the Zoo…well, her terrain’s changed even more rapidly than we…you know, expected.”

  Wallace didn’t like the sound of that.

  “The course of the stream we’ve followed has shifted. It didn’t lead where we expected. So, you know, we’re…uh, lost.”

  The sergeant put a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes.

  “What? What?” Blancheau sputtered.

  “Joy,” said Peppy.

  Chapter Eight

  Despite Blancheau’s constant complaining and second-guessing, the team, under Wallace’s minimal direction, managed to attempt the most obvious of all possible solutions to their predicament. They retraced their steps.

  “I’m sure I saw that vine on the way in,” Gunnar said and pointed at a single strand within a large curtain of vines that all looked exactly alike. “Yeahhh. I never forget an epidermis. I’d recognize that son of a bitch anywhere.”

  “It is highly likely,” Peppy added, in her depressed monotone, “that it recognizes you too, Gunnar. Every night in its nightmares, it sees your face looming up behind it in a hallway that stretches longer and longer the harder it tries to get away. What did you do to the poor thing? Where on its body did you touch it? Show us on the piece of fuzzy green rope we’re using as a vine-doll.”

  Jimmy, who walked alongside Peppy, turned to Sergeant Hennessy. “Is something going on between these two?” she asked. “Like a marriage proposal or something? I would have made something for them if I knew this was an engagement party.”

  “Quiet, please, everyone,” Wallace said. “We need to concentrate on finding our way back to the trail.”

  “At least our commander is funnier than I am,” said Peppy. “I have no sense of humor at all.”

  “It’s true,” Gunnar agreed. “She doesn’t. At least I have the decency to laugh when things get shot with powerful firearms. She isn’t amused even by that.”

  Wallace sighed.

  As impressive as Jimmy’s Silver Stallions were, they did have one disadvantage in the jungle—they left far less of an obvious trail than the JLTVs did. The slight disturbance in the vegetation made by one of their metal legs could as easily have been created by the leg of a large kangarat or catshark. Tire treads, by contrast, were hard to mistake. Wallace, Gunnar, and the rest of the troops could only guess exactly where the hell they were going.

  “Was there a fork in the stream at this point earlier?” Glassner, the medic, asked. He was a tall, fair-haired, friendly sort of guy, not too bad with a gun and even better with his specialization. Wallace was glad the base had been able to spare him.

  “You should have made a note of this,” said Aade Graf. “Soldiers cannot rely too much on technology for directions. You should develop an instinct for such things.”

  “I will relay the message to my CO,” Wallace said. “Corporal Åkerlund, jog ahead a little and tell me if you recognize any more of the vines.”

  “Yessir,” said Gunnar, “but I’m not sure it will matter, seeing as I’m now pretty sure the stream was on our right when we were on our way in. It’s…also on our right now. Except we’re going in the opposite direction, so, you know…”

  “Oh, dear,” said Flemm.

  “Zis is ridiculous,” Blancheau grated. “We are in a forest zat is not bigger zan a city park. Can we not simply go in one direction until we are free from zis place?”

&n
bsp; “It’s not a park, Assemblyman,” Wallace replied. “If we do that, we risk blundering into a nest of kangarats, or we might run afoul of the Zoo’s…headquarters. That would be very bad.”

  “We are in the northeast part, are we not?” Graf suggested.

  “Yes,” Wallace replied, “but that narrows it down less than you might think. The Zoo changes very rapidly.”

  They pressed on. Wallace knew they were lost, but there wasn’t much he could do. He ordered the troops to try their radios and mapping devices again, but they were still hopelessly compromised by the Zoo’s passive defenses. He was about to order someone to shoot off a distress flare when the trees ahead of them, quite unexpectedly, grew thinner and admitted the bright noontime sunlight.

  “Sand!” someone exclaimed. “Holy shit, we made it out already!”

  “That’s not possible, dipshit,” PFC Akiwe said. “We’re too deep in to be out already.”

  “Well, then how do you explain—”

  “Shut up,” Wallace said. “I’ll examine it. Åkerlund, Powers, come with me.”

  “Yaay,” said Gunnar.

  The three of them pushed ahead and emerged beyond the edge of the tree line into a broad, empty expanse of sand under the clear blue sky and the blazing white-golden sun. It looked like they were back in the desert…at first.

  “It’s not a very large area,” Wallace said. “And I can see trees on the other side and ringed around the sides. This has to be some sort of barren area within the interior of the Zoo itself. It must have appeared only recently.” He turned and motioned the rest of the team to move forward but to stop near the edge of the trees.

  “Why is there no plant life here?” Private Falstaff asked. “Like, everything else around it is lush and fertile as hell, but this one area is dead and empty.”

  “Good question,” said Sergeant Hennessy.