by James Maxey
Dr. Cheetah was halfway across the lobby, running on all fours. He spun and called to them, "Hurry! The whole building may collapse upon us if this continues much longer. This structure was built to withstand typhoons, but the designers never planned for an earthquake. They simply can't happen here!"
Pit and Sunday ran, following the doctor deeper into the building, weaving through a stream of chimps heading in the opposite direction.
They followed Dr. Cheetah around a corner and found him shaking the handle of an office door.
"It's locked," he cried.
"I'm on it," said Pit. Then, even though he was barefoot, he ran at the door and put his full weight into a kick. The door splintered at the lock and swung open.
"Ow, ow, ow," Pit said, hopping. It felt like he'd cracked every bone south of his knee.
"Why didn't you use your powers?" Sunday asked.
"Aw, this way was more cowboy," Pit said with a grin.
"It was rather manly," she said approvingly.
Except for the fact that the desk was only two feet tall, the office looked like it could have belonged to a used car salesman, just a modest box of a room barely big enough for the three of them.
"This isn't a very fancy office for your top oncologist," said Sunday.
"We spend very little time in our offices," said Dr. Cheetah. His voice was nearly drowned out as the building groaned.
"That was ominous," said Sunday.
"We should leave the premises," said Dr. Cheetah. "The value of interrogating my colleague no longer exceeds the value of the risk."
"You go on," said Sunday. "We'll keep searching."
"But where will you even begin?" he asked.
"I'm thinking this secret door is a good place to start," she said, moving behind the desk.
Pit squinted. The lights were flickering, but Sunday might be onto something. The pastel green drywall behind the desk was cracked in a rectangle four feet tall and three feet wide. It looked like a panel that had fit perfectly flush until the twisting of the building had set if slightly ajar in the concealed frame.
Sunday pushed on it. When it didn't open, she leaned back and kicked it. The door bounced back after the blow. She pulled it open and revealed a shaft with a ladder heading down.
She crouched and hopped on. Pit followed, looking back. Dr. Cheetah stood in the doorway.
"The danger . . ." he murmured.
"You got no reason to get yourself killed," said Pit. "Get out of here."
Dr. Cheetah hung his head shamefully as he slinked back through the door.
The shaft was dark, lit only by the flickering light from the room above. The air in the shaft was cool and dank, smelling of damp concrete. The light grew dimmer and dimmer as they descended.
"I've found the bottom," Sunday announced.
Pit stopped. Her voice was so close, he was worried he might accidentally step on her.
"There's a door," she said. "Steel. We're not kicking this one down."
"Step aside," he said. "I can---"
"I'm not a cripple," she said. There was a sudden flash. Pit squeezed his eyes shut from the painful intensity. There was a hiss, followed by sharp, sour metallic smoke. Pit coughed and peeked downward. Sunday's right hand was glowing as she cut around the lock of the steel door. With a clatter, the handle fell out on the other side. Sunday pushed the door open. Pit dropped down.
The light around Sunday's hand faded. She frowned as she looked around the room. With her other hand, she rubbed her wrist.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"It's just all this ladder climbing and door kicking," she said. "Flying all these years has made me a little soft."
The room beyond reminded Pit of a parking garage, a vast space filled with pillars sandwiched between two slabs of concrete. Only, instead of cars, the room was packed with row after row of video game consoles and what looked to be at least a hundred refrigerators. If they were refrigerators. They were taller than normal, and seemed to be made entirely of dark glass. In the dim light, Pit couldn't make out the contents.
"The good news is, when the hospital collapses down on us, we won't feel any pain," said Sunday, eying the concrete slap above them.
However, Pit noted that the shaking and vibrations had calmed down considerably. Whatever force had set the building in motion seemed to be dying off. Either that, or the building above ground just shook more than the building below ground.
Sunday jumped as a noise came from the doorway to the ladder. Pit stepped in front of her, ready for whatever came out of the door.
It was Dr. Cheetah. "Sorry if I startled you," the chimp said, softly. "I was halfway outside when I changed my mind."
"Why'd you come back?" asked Sunday.
"When I represented Pangea as a diplomat, I had to monitor human media for what was said about our nation. It galled me to hear radio talk show hosts say that chimps could never display traits such as love, or honor, or courage, since these were purely the reserve of humans. As I was running from danger while you were pressing on in search of truth, these words were like burrs digging into my pride. I can't live with myself if I think that two mere humans have displayed greater bravery than I have."
"What if it's just greater stupidity?" asked Sunday.
Dr. Cheetah shrugged. "Let's move forward," he said.
They walked toward the nearest refrigerator with Dr. Cheetah in the lead. Suddenly, a row of green lights lit up on the ceiling in front of him. He swung forward in his four limbed gate. With a barely perceptible hiss, the front half of his body vanished in a display of bubbling lights. His belly fell to the ground leaving his rear end sticking up. Bright red blood poured out of him. Where it flowed forward, it turned into bright sparks and vanished. A line beyond which nothing could pass was clearly demarked.
Pit looked around. They were now standing inside of a ten-foot square marked by the green ceiling lights.
"How regrettable," said a voice to their left. Dr. Trog stood there with his hands behind his back, just on the other side of the green line. Unlike when they'd seen him last, he was wearing clothes. He wore what looked like a lead apron, the sort x-ray technicians might wear. And, he sported a wide black belt, similar to the one Ap had worn. He was gazing at the remains of Dr. Cheetah with a look of genuine sorrow. He sighed. "I suppose it was a bit fantastic of me to think I could accomplish this without the death of at least a few chimpanzees. And, if someone had to die, he was a worthy candidate. Pangea will be better off with one less human sympathizer."
"What did you do to him?" Sunday growled, letting her right hand flare up.
"Be careful, human," said Dr. Trog. "You'll lose that hand if you aren't careful. From the data I've gathered, the degradation of your physical structure accelerates with each use of your powers. Every time the wormholes damage your cells, they produce further mutant cells that generate defective wormholes."
"I'll take my chances," said Sunday.
"As you wish," said Dr. Trog, gazing up at the green square above them. "The lights on the ceiling are scanners for a teleportation beam. At least, the portion of the teleportation beam that tears matter apart. Alas, I have not installed the sensors needed to capture the data to restore my colleague. These beams are purely for destruction, meant to finish off unwelcome visitors."
Dr. Trog turned away, waddling toward a computer monitor and keyboard hooked into the networked game systems. "Curiously, I didn't design it to serve as a cage, and yet it seems as if it will serve that function perfectly."
"You made the regeneration ray, didn't you?" Sunday asked.
Pit took this as a cue. He reached into his mouth and produced the weapon once more.
"Of course I made the ray," said the chimp as he turned the monitor on. "But I wouldn't waste time training it on poor Cheetah. His brain is gone. You could build a new body based on his DNA, but it would be a soulless, mindless copy."
"Why did you build this ray?" asked Sunday. "Was this an e
laborate plot to kill me? What had I possibly done to harm you?"
Trog bared his teeth and hooted. "You flatter yourself to think I gave even a moment's thought to your fate. No, my interest in teleportation technology long predates you. I was aware that Rex Monday had once designed and tested a teleportation belt that proved more effective at tearing matter apart than it did in putting it back together. I coveted the technology. The small size of Pangea's population makes us vulnerable. But imagine how feared we'd be if the robots we employ for our defense were armed with disintegration beams!"
"So when you downloaded my father's data, you learned how to duplicate the technology."
"Even better!" said Trog, sounding delighted. "I had some data, true, and had made significant breakthroughs. I have no doubt that, in five years, I would have perfected the device. But then, to my astonishment, the original source code and schematics for the belt were posted on the internet!" He patted the belt he wore. "I've adopted an online persona of a young human female named Code4U and have been corresponding with the clueless Johnny Appleton to perfect the technology. I wrote his preferred Restore Mode code. It was a simple matter to transfer the technology to the gun you bear."
The chimp began to type with both his hands and feet. He kept talking. "Among your father's data, I found the dates and locations he was to use to contact you. I had quite a bit of information about your abilities from your father's notes, but craved further data. The possibility of weaponizing your wormhole generation was too tempting to ignore. The regeneration ray has recorded your genetic make up in detail and transmitted it to me. Now, you will be pleased to know, your physical form is effectively immortal. I need merely provide the raw materials in the form of a dead pig and my teleportation beam can build a carbon copy of you. A soulless, mindless copy, to be certain. But also a copy in full possession of your powers."
He glanced at Pit Geek. "Your mate, alas, was not as interesting. Whatever the source of his curious consumption and regenerative abilities may be, it does not seem to spring from his DNA."
Pit looked down at the concrete floor. It wasn't sparking. The disintegration beam was apparently calibrated to stop at this point. Could he eat a tunnel out of here?
Sunday asked. "So you can duplicate me. But my duplicates would have the same flaws that I have now. Their powers would kill them."
"True," said Trog. "Fortunately, they will only need to use them once."
With a click, lights inside the glass refrigerators lit up all at once. In every direction, they faced the horror of Sunday's nude, decapitated body, the head replaced by a small bank of webcams.
"I now command my own legion of Burn Babies!"
"Baby Burn," Sunday corrected him.
Trog paid her no mind. "I told myself I was building these purely for deterrence, but in truth, I always knew the day would come when I would unleash these on the earth's largest human cities." He tapped a few more buttons. "When these have accomplished their mission, Pangea will be the dominant world power! It shall be humans who live as animals in the forest!"
"I've never had the power to blow up a whole city," said Sunday. "You'll kill some people, sure, but then the armies of the world will strike back! You think a hundred headless copies of me are stronger than even a single nuke dropped on this place?"
"Most definitely. You've never unleashed your full power because your fears hold you back. My army has no such fears." With a tap of the button, robotic arms moved inside the containers and brought a syringe to the arm of each duplicate. With a jab, dark blue fluid flowed into the bodies."
"This is pure adrenaline," said Trog. "It will prime their cells for the fullest release of power. The cities of the earth shall be reduced to ashes!"
"Don't do this!" screamed Sunday. "The humans haven't attacked you. They've done nothing to deserve destruction!"
"Have you not felt the ground shaking?" asked Trog. "We're currently under attack. The Covenant member called Servant seems to be dragging us into US waters. The navy of the United States no doubt prepares to fend off our incursion even now. The truth of how our nation wound up moving across the open sea will almost certainly never be reported by human media."
"The Covenant doesn't want war with Pangea," said Sunday. "They want us! You can stop all this destruction simply by turning us over to them!"
"She's right," said Pit, his shoulders sagging. "It is us they want. We should have known we couldn't just run away."
"I assume this is a trick of some sort," said Trog. "The two of you have never shown the least bit of remorse for your crimes." He pressed a button. The glass doors slid open. "But, if it was a sincere offer it's too late. Perhaps you've doomed mankind by coming to Pangea. If this is so---" he looked at them with a twinkle in his eye "---I'll see that statues are erected in your honor."
The women throughout the basement began to glow. Waves of heat washed across the cement floor. In unison, they all began to march out of a steel door."
Trog stood up from the terminal and came to the edge of the green line. "Now I face the question of your disposal. I doubt you will voluntarily walk into the disintegration beam."
"Probably not," said Pit.
"And the second I leave to deal with Servant, you'll simply chew through the floor and escape," said Trog. "This would not be optimal."
"Aw, we ain't going nowhere," said Pit. "What do we care if you blow up the world? We're terrorists! Good riddance, I say."
"Has anyone ever told you that you are a terrible actor?"
Pit grimaced. Being a terrible actor had been the origin of every problem he'd had since 1938.
"Fortunately for me," said Trog, tapping a few buttons on his belt. "The grid array is mobile."
More of Dr. Cheetah's body vanished as the green lines on the ceiling closed in on one another.
Sunday turned to Pit. "Just one last time to do this, I guess."
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Had to punch a new hole in my belt today. Just used a nail I found stuck in a two by four. I was skinny when I got here, but I'm now four belt-hole's thinner.
Almost completely bald. When I got here, I still had some dark hair in my beard, but now it's all gone white. I found a little round mirror on a stand, the kind you use for shaving. I look like someone's grandfather.
Spend most of my days sleeping.
Haven't eaten in a long time.
Funny, given that I'm surrounded by meat. Hundreds of severed human hands, some arms, a few feet, over a dozen heads. Still look as fresh as the day they got here.
I've collected them as I found them. One body, I pieced back together, like the world's grossest jigsaw puzzle. If memory serves, he was a lawyer from Kansas City.
Some people say we taste like chicken.
I don't guess I'll find out.
I might be a man-eater, but I ain't no cannibal.
Chapter Fifteen
* * *
BOOM BOOM BOOM
SUNDAY'S KISS LASTED barely a second. She pulled her lips from his mouth and pressed them to Pit's ears. "Close your eyes and duck," she whispered.
Pit ducked, covering his head, as Sunday pointed her hands straight up. Her fingers almost brushed the low ceiling.
The green beam reached the tips of Pit's knees as he squatted, his hands over his head. The fabric of his jeans vaporized as the advancing light reached him.
There was a whoosh and heat washed over him, singeing his hair. There was a sound like every kernel of popcorn in the world firing off in the space of a second. Flakes and fragments of concrete rained down onto him. The green light fizzled out as it cut a raw hole in his right kneecap the size of a quarter.
He stood up. Sunday was on fire from the tits up.
He said, his voice cracking, "You'll---"
"Hush," she said. "It only hurts when I turn my powers off. That's never going to happen."
Dr. Trog looked unflustered by Sunday's destruction of his disintegration
grid. He calmly reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a gun the size of a derringer that looked like a miniature version of the regeneration ray. A red targeting light cut through all the dust in the air to land on Sunday's left breast. Pit shoved Sunday and jumped toward the chimp as Trog pulled the trigger. The beam took off most of his right ear and a chunk of his shoulder before he opened his mouth and swallowed the ape's hand, gun and all, to the mid point of his forearm. With his remaining arm Dr. Trog punched Pit in the cheek. Pit was knocked to the ground, stars in front of his eyes. He spat out a molar as he tried to rise. Then he fell once more, his head still spinning. The chimp punched like he had a horseshoe hidden in his glove, if he'd been wearing a glove.
Fortunately, the ape didn't press his attack. Instead, he ran with inhuman speed, shouting, "Regeneration Mode!" as he veered suddenly to hide behind a concrete pillar. A ball of glowing white plasma hit the ground where he'd just stood, sizzling away, leaving a black scorch mark.
Even though she'd missed, Sunday's splattering plasma must have caught Dr. Trog at least a little, since the chimp gasped in pain as the smell of burnt fur polluted the air.
"Foam Mode!" the chimp screeched from behind the pillar.
Then, Dr. Trog whipped back around the column, the shaving cream like substance bubbling from his skin. He vomited a torrent of the goop at Sunday, forcefully enough that she was knocked from her feet like she'd been hit with a water hose.
The chimp leapt upon her and thrust his long canine teeth toward her throat. She twisted at the last possible second and he sank his teeth into the meat of her shoulder rather than into her jugular vein.
Sunday screamed, blowing the foam that covered her lips into the air in a spray of white bubbles. Pit rose to his hands and knees, blood trickling from his mouth. He reached for the chimp in a motion that was half lunge, half fall. He grabbed the ape's foamy right ankle.
An inhuman growl tore from Pit's throat as he summoned every bit of strength he had left to yank the ape off of Sunday. Fortunately, the foam provided lubrication, helping slide the super-intelligent chimp off. Dr. Trog rolled to his back and opened his foaming jaws, pink with Sunday's blood, inhaling to shout another command. Pit shoved the monkey's foot toward his jaws, and took the ape's leg off all the way up to the hip. Blood spurted from the severed limb as the ape screamed. Pit decided to add insult to the injury by delivering a sold punch to the ape's testicles.