by James Palmer
A young girl was playing in the shallows on the other side of the pond, when there was a loud crash and something huge rose up out of the deeps just a few feet away. It was big and bulbous, with two wide staring eyes and a mouth full of long needle teeth. It reminded Archer of pictures he’d seen of angler fish, only with two stumpy legs and two small arms ending in long talons. It stank of rotting fish and things that have been dead for a long time.
A few men resting on the bank saw the commotion and drew up spears that had been lying nearby, but they were too far away. Archer saw that he was closer, and started running toward the girl as fast as the water would let him.
The little girl turned toward the gaping mouth of the thing and screamed, the monster answering with its own burbling cry. Archer launched himself out of the deep water and splashed across the shallows, scooping the girl up just as the bulbous creature made ready to devour her.
The creature gave chase, moving incredibly fast on its short legs, a scythe-like tale swishing back and forth behind it as it came.
Archer dropped the girl into the arms of her mother, a young woman with a tangle of dirty blond hair who was reaching for her from the bank of the creek. Archer spun and faced his new enemy. Its inhuman eyes locked onto his, and Archer knew he was the thing’s new intended prey. Archer dashed sideways through the shallows, away from the crowd of people. A few spears flew through the air, one puncturing the thing’s jaw. Still it wouldn’t give up its pursuit.
Archer turned and ran, tripping over a fallen spear. He got his hands around the wet shaft of wood and spun around, the creature on top of him. His world filled with teeth and the stench of rotting fish. Archer squeezed his eyes shut, the spear held out in front of him as the creature came down on top of it, the spear tip piercing the fish-thing’s palate and meeting little resistance as it punctured the creature’s brain. It ceased its attack, impaled on the shaft of the spear, its appendages twitching spasmodically.
Archer opened his eyes and got up, releasing the spear, The monster lay there, its mouth open, bulbous eyes staring sightlessly.
The people raised a cry of triumph and relief. The man who had shoved him into the water earlier clapped him on the shoulder, smiling. “Broeve,” he seemed to say.
Archer smiled sheepishly. “Does that mean brave?”
“Broeve,” the man said again, nodding. He grinned, showing a mouth full of crooked, rotting teeth.
Archer stared at him dumbly, relieved to be alive, but still no closer to discovering where he was or how he got here. A calm descended on the scene, and the people simply went back to what they were doing before the attack, as if this sort of thing took place all the time. A few of the men began expertly cutting up the smelly fish-thing, no doubt for food. Archer staggered backward, a cold realization steeling over him. Whoever these people were, they were not actors or practical jokers hired by Arnie or the studio. And whatever this place was, it was not a movie set.
He looked up at the sky again, that too-close sun blaring down on them. There was something else strange about it. Archer had always had a good sense of direction, and he swore that the sun was moving west to east. But how was that possible?
A strange sound came from the jungle, and Archer could see the high treetops sway, but there was no breeze. The people noticed it too, staring fearfully into the dense brush as a titanic creature hove into view.
At first Archer thought it was another giant native to wherever this was, but the sun glinted off it like a diamond. The thing was made of metal. It looked like some giant armored bug, standing high off the ground on four long mechanical legs. Metal tentacles twirled at its sides, and its carapace was covered by a pair of large metal boxes with hatches on top of them, like some kind of hoppers. Two more came out of the jungle, and everyone dropped what they were doing and ran. One of the larger men angrily hurled a spear at the nearest of the three machines, but it bounced off harmlessly and disappeared into the pond.
The mechanical insects came out of the jungle near the creek in a flurry of motion, their titanic metal legs moving through the water effortlessly. In a moment their intent was obvious, as they began snatching people up with their tentacles and placing them in the hoppers on their backs. Jason Archer stood frozen in place, his legs refusing to function.
Chapter Four
The Flesh Harvesters
Archer was certain the machines hadn’t yet detected him, as he was farther away from the others and partially obscured by the carcass of the fish-thing. He continued trying to will his frozen legs to move as the things came closer, snatching up as many people as they could and shoving them into the hoppers on their backs.
The nearest machine turned its bulk toward him, and Archer knew he had been spotted. Finally his legs found the impetus to obey his brain, and he turned and ran, splashing for the embankment and the jungle beyond. A few of the others had already disappeared into the jungle; he was sure he could make his escape the same way. But the machines worked in unison, moving around, cutting off people’s chosen escape routes with their giant tripod legs. A woman slammed into one of them, staggered and fell. A tentacle deftly plucked her out of the water and dropped her into a hopper, the lid opening just as her body grew near, then slammed shut as soon as she was inside.
Jason Archer’s mind wanted to scream for sanity. There was nothing but madness all around, and for a moment he hoped he was drugged or locked in a padded cell…or dead. Anything but running for his life from a pair of giant robots collecting helpless people for some sinister, unknown purpose. He had made it up onto the embankment when a women fell off to his right, going to her knees in the churned up water. He twisted and went for her, helping her up before she tore herself away from him and ran up the opposite bank and into the jungle. He jerked around as a shadow loomed behind him. His heroics had given one of the machines time to cut off his own escape route, and in an instant he was hauled high into the air at horrific speed, the waiting hopper yawning open before him like a hungry mouth.
He was left lying on a tangle of bodies that twisted him off of them. He sprawled against the cold metal, his eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom. Seven pairs of eyes stare at him in the darkness. Eyes filled with fear. The inside of the hopper smelled of machine lubricant, wet animal hide, and sweat as the humidity clamped down on him like a vice. He tried to leap up to touch the hopper’s great lid, perhaps push it open, but it was no use. He slid down again, stepping on someone’s foot and getting a kick to the shin for his trouble. He watched the others in the furtive light that filtered in from around the hopper’s lid. The fear in their eyes gave way to a kind of resignation. Did they know what was going to happen to them? Archer wished one of them spoke English. He lay back against the hopper’s slanted wall and felt the vibrations of the strange machine as it walked back to wherever it had come from, taking Archer and his strange new companions with it. He heard and felt tree limbs brush the thing’s carapace. They were moving back into the jungle to who knows where, and Archer wished he was dreaming so he could wake up from this nightmare. At one point he dozed, the hot confines of the hopper making him drowsy.
Archer didn’t know how long he slept, but when he came to his senses they were out of jungle, as tall trees no longer slapped the machine’s carapace, and it felt as if they were now moving uphill.
A few moments later, some quality of the light bleeding in around the hopper’s lid changed, as if it was now diffused through some other material. Archer listened. Yes. They were now in an enclosed space. The sound and feel of the titan’s footfalls changed from a dull thump to a sharp clang like that of metal on metal.
The machine stopped, and the hopper began to turn on its side. Bodies shifted, falling up against him, pinning him to the inner wall of the hopper. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Then he tumbled into open air and blinding light.
Chapter Five
The Fighting Pits of Venus
Jason Archer tumbled out onto cool, rough stone,
a pile of bodies on top of him. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. The light was blinding compared to the gloom of the hopper’s interior, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sudden change. One by one the bodies were pulled off of him, allowing him to stand. They were in a circular room with three rectangular openings. Guards in gleaming golden armor stood near each portal, putting Archer in mind of Roman soldiers, their visored faces staring straight ahead, cold distaste etched on their hard features. They wore strange looking sidearms, and held in their hands some sort of truncheon or wand. More similarly clad guards spilled from the center opening, grabbing up people before they could fully get their bearings. Some of the guards touched their captives with their wands, causing the frightened, disoriented people to double over in pain.
“Hey!” said Archer. “What gives? Who are you people?”
A guard stepped forward with his wand, jamming it into Archer’s stomach. A pain like he’d never felt before shot through him like a lighting bolt. It was as if every nerve ending in his body was suddenly and simultaneously on fire, and he fell to the floor.
As the pain slowly subsided, Archer watched as the guards went through the collection of people from the hoppers on all three machines, which numbered about fifteen or twenty, and quickly separated them into groups based on some criteria Archer couldn’t discern.
“Serva,” said a guard, and shoved a young woman against the wall with two skinny bearded men. He grabbed up Archer and said “foeter,” before shoving him up against the opposite wall next to the taller, broader of the group. He recognized a few of the men there as the spear-throwers from the fish-thing’s attack.
“What are you saying?” said Archer, his voice pleading. “I don’t understand.”
The guards did not answer as they went about their bizarre sorting. Finally, when everyone was in one of two groups, they were each marched through a separate entrance. Women cried at being separated from their mates, and Archer had the sinking feeling that none of them would see their loved ones again.
The door Archer was ushered through went down a windowless hallway lit by strange phosphorescent panels. It soon became a ramp that went down and down. Eventually the lighting ceased, and the walls became cold, rough stone of a type Archer had never seen before. It looked like black volcanic rock. The tunnel opened out into a wide, low-ceilinged alcove, the floor of which was covered with hay. It smelled of blood and body odor. Light spilled in from archways cut into the black rock off to Archer’s right, and he heard the sound of many voices talking at once excitedly.
“What is this place?” he asked one of the guards, but got an elbow to the back for his trouble. One by one Archer’s traveling companions were shoved into little hay-stuffed alcoves until only Archer and one other man remained. He was tall, rail thin, and had long hair and a thick brown beard. There was hard cast to this flinty eyes that made Archer wary of him.
“Foet!” said one of the guards as he rammed his wand into the man’s side. He came close to toppling over, his mouth a rictus of pain. The guard pointed toward one of the archways and Archer knew he wanted them to go outside for some reason. He saw no harm in humoring them, so he obeyed, the taller man getting shoved out behind him.
Outside it was oppressively hot. The humidity of the jungle had given way to a dry, baking heat. Archer felt as if he were trapped in a great oven. The air seemed to have a darker tint to it than the sky over the jungle had, like he was viewing the sun through a dirty window. But what could account for this effect he had no clue.
They were standing in a large circular pit. People in white or red robes crowded the top of the pit, shouting down into it in that same strange language that Archer couldn’t place, let alone understand, save for that one word: Foet. It was repeated over and over again, and slowly the realization dawned on Jason Archer just what it was they wanted him to do.
“Wait a minute,” he said, spinning around toward the arch just as a fist crashed into his face. He staggered backward, almost falling onto the sandy ground.
It was the tall thin man who had delivered the blow, and the crowd shouted even louder now.
Archer touched his lip with his tongue, tasting blood. “Listen, big fella. I don’t want to fight you. We need to—”
Another right hook, this one barely missing Archer as he twisted out of the way. He held up his hands in a placating gesture, but it was no good. There was blood-lust in the man’s eyes as he came at Archer, reaching down to pluck something out of the dust. It had a long wooden handle, and the tip was covered in crude spikes.
Archer looked around. The ground was littered with similar implements, many of them worn from much use and stained dark with old blood.
The man swung it like a baseball bat, testing its heft before coming at Archer with renewed vigor.
He dodged the man’s clumsy swing, looking toward the archway where he’d entered this pit of death. It was now closed off by an iron gate. The shouting from above was giving him a headache. He glanced toward the tumult for an instant and saw strange-looking money changing hands. They were betting on the fight! “This is barbaric,” he muttered. “What kind of a place is this?”
In his panic, Archer realized too late that he had allowed his opponent to pin him against the circular stone wall of the pit. He swung again, this time Archer ducking as the piked bat struck the wall. Archer launched himself into the man’s midsection then, causing him to drop the weapon and land on his back in the dust. His anger getting the better of him, Archer began punching the man repeatedly, the crowd cheering him on.
Archer stopped when the man’s face was a bloody mess. He was still conscious, but just barely. The roaring of the crowd reached a crescendo, screaming at him in that alien tongue. He didn’t have to be fluent in their language to know what they wanted of him. Archer stood and stepped away from the man as half the crowed booed him.
One of the guards said something, holding out a cruel weapon he’d picked out of the dust. After a long moment Archer took it and tossed it to the ground. He would not give in to the crowd’s blood-lust. He would not kill this innocent man for their sport.
A deep voice boomed in that strange language, and the roaring of the crowd ceased. Archer looked up to see a broad, muscular man wearing blue and white robes standing there, his arms outstretched. He had the same bald head and hairless features as the men that had accosted him and the strange woman in the alley. Perhaps he was a referee of sorts, announcing Archer as the victor.
The crowd cheered then, but a woman’s voice rose above the din. “Foeter et mi!” the voice said.
Archer followed the gaze of the crowd halfway up a tall white tower that rose high into the sky near the pit. A woman stood on a balcony that opened out of the tower’s side like a bird’s mouth. The woman was pointing directly at Archer. She wore flowing golden robes, and her hair fell in brown ringlets down to her shoulders. But Archer recognized her. She was the woman from the club, the same woman he’d tried to help in the alley.
Guards rushed the pit through the now open archways, grabbing Archer’s defeated opponent by the arms and dragging him toward the other side of the pit.
“Hey,” Archer called. “What are you doing? That man needs medical attention.”
Archer’s eyes widened as one of the guards reached toward his belt and brought out a wicked looking knife before going for the man’s throat.
“No!”
Archer lunged at the guards, but they were ready for him. Many hands overpowered him, and he watched in helpless horror as the knife-wielding guard neatly slit his fallen opponent’s throat.
Anger renewed Archer’s strength, and he pushed back against the guards, tossing one of them to the ground. Something hot touches the back of his neck, and pain lances through his entire body. Then Jason Archer knew no more.
Chapter Six
A Lady of Cadmium
Slowly, laboriously, Jason Archer opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he was sti
ll alive, although part of him had been hoping for the alternative. The second thing he noticed was that he was naked and lying on a large soft bed covered in pillows and silken fabrics. He sat up, his muscles burning in protest, then planted his feet on a cool marble floor. The room he was in was large and well-appointed, with lots of gold trim and a large window that let in that same dirty sunlight he had noticed earlier in the pit. As he rubbed his eyes and wondered what new hell he’d wandered into, a beautiful young woman came in. She wore a diaphanous blue robe and had long golden hair. She walked to the far wall and waved her hand over a metal plate, causing water to pour from a spout set in the wall and fill a basin. She hadn’t yet noticed him sitting there.
Jason stretched, groaning. The girl’s head snapped in his direction, a frightened look on her face. She turned and ran through an archway and into another room.
“Hey, wait,” Jason called. But it was too late. After a few minutes, he heard muffled female voices talking excitedly from that other room. He even thought he heard giggling. After what seemed like an eternity, the woman he’d seen on the balcony entered, followed closely by the girl he’d seen earlier as well as two more.
Jason self-consciously grabbed a pillow and placed it over his midsection as the woman drew closer. She smiled and said something in that alien language.
“What the hell is going on here?” said Archer. “How did I get here? Who are you? Why doesn’t anyone speak English?”
The woman turned and said something to one of the girls. She came forward, holding a silver tray with a cylindrical object resting on it. The other young women knelt before him and started washing his arms and legs, ministering to small cuts and abrasions he hadn’t even noticed he’d sustained.