Butcher Block Green

by Eric Kramer

  He hauled it over to the workbench beside Tes, and they worked next to each other, side by side, for hours. The work absorbed Sam, and he lost track of time until the sound of Tes stowing the repaired gun in the exoskeleton’s cargo backpack jolted him back to reality.

  The work on the suit’s power supply, which was right at the limit of his repair abilities, pulled him back in. The day passed into night. Sam was hunched over a power distribution module, checking his repairs, when he realized Tes was talking to him.

  “What did you say, Tes?”

  “I said, ‘Go to sleep.’ The ants have been coming at eight a.m. It is eleven. You need your eight hours.”

  “Tes, this is one time when I think we can…”

  “No. You have to sleep. I will finish the exoskeleton checks. It looks functional now,” said Tes.

  Sam knew better than to argue with her. Her perfect recall put him on the losing side every time. He stood, wincing at the soreness in his neck and arms.

  “Fine. After that, we’ll be ready. See you in the morning.”

  “Good night, Samuel.”

  Morning came too soon. Again, Sam was up before Tes’s alarm, and after being chastised for not sleeping for eight hours, he put on the exoskeleton, testing it out. The muscular fabric tensed and flexed like new. Sam maneuvered in it around the room, while Tes followed like a nervous parent.

  “Looks good. Battery is holding up under the load; I think the power redirection idea did the trick. Let’s move everything over to the hole and wait,” Sam said.

  Sam munched on a chocolate bar as he grabbed the heavy cargo backpack and, with the exoskeleton’s help, moved it over to the ants’ entrance, placing it by the mucous plug. Tes came behind him, bringing his goggles and the rifle.

  “Thanks for repairing that yesterday, Tes.”

  “It is functional. I reconsidered my position, and I have changed my mind. We should at least investigate this food source, in light of deficiencies here at the Alamo.”

  Below them, they heard a distant scrabbling sound emanating from beneath the plug.

  “They’re coming.”

  The membrane bulged, then ruptured in the middle, a pair of enormous pincers chewing through it. Sam watched as the ants removed the plug, appearing to eat it despite the acid vesicles. One by one they climbed out, until they were all standing uncomfortably close around the hole. Their smell was earthy, organic, much like the sponge from the nursing ants. The ants each carried another sealed bag of military rations in their pincers, which they deposited in a pile beside Sam. The leader hissed. After a moment, Tes hissed back.

  “I am telling her we want to follow. At least, I believe I am.”

  The ants stood silent, regarding them with their enormous eyes. A moment passed.

  “Tes, do you think maybe we should try to…”

  One of the smaller ones stepped forward and picked up Tes. Another did the same with him, squeezing him as it lifted him in the air. The exoskeleton responded, hardening under the grip, but the ant’s grip was gentle.

  Without the hint of a warning, the ants plunged back into the tunnel, into pitch black. Unable to see, Sam tried to put the goggles on, but the ants were moving with frightening speed, throwing him all over the place. It was all he could do just to hang on to the rifle and the goggles as they twisted and turned. Sam got the sensation he was missing the edges of the tunnel by mere inches, and fought hard to not to let his imagination run wild.

  I can’t take much of this … we’d better get there soon.

  Sound was muted by the earthen walls of the tunnel, with only the soft patter of the ants’ movement. An unknown amount of time passed, and Sam tried to relax into it, attempting to keep from tensing his body. They continued to move at breakneck speed, but Sam couldn’t tell if they were going up, down, left, or right. He had the sense they were in an enormous complex of tunnels. In his mind’s eye, he imagined a huge network underneath the entire city.

  They stopped, and Sam’s head snapped back from the sudden deceleration. Pitch black. A soft hiss, and Tes’s voice, pitched low, disturbed the quiet.

  “Post-human. I think there may be one in the tunnel.”

  Sam took in a deep breath. Sure enough, entwined in the pungent, earthy smell of the tunnel was the distinct odor of rot. He heard a rustle—one of the ants moving away from the rest. Sam took the opportunity to slip on the helmet and twist the power wires together. The display flickered, glowed, then they started moving again, at the same frenetic pace.

  It took a minute for Sam to orient himself because everything in the image blended in together. They were beginning to dip into solid bedrock—he could see that much, which meant they were deep underground. There was one ant ahead; he could see Tes every once in a while as the ant holding her lifted its head to avoid an obstacle or duck below an underhang. Every few yards, the tunnel branched off—sometimes four or five times, heading in all directions, including up and down. The ants appeared to choose their path at random, continuing to fly down the tunnel.

  The clock in his goggles told him they’d been going for three hours, and had already traveled fifty-five miles; something he wouldn’t have thought possible if he couldn’t see their real-time speed.

  Without warning, the first ant stopped, antennae waving. After a moment, another ant appeared in the distant tunnel, its antennae waving in a counter-response. They approached until their antennae were almost entwined, feeling each other.

  The new ant turned, heading back in the direction it came, and the other two followed, moving more at a slower pace. The tunnel widened, until they emerged into an enormous chamber with fluid, pulsatile walls. Sam frowned, adjusted his goggles, then realized the walls were actually ants—innumerable ants, swarming inside the cavern. At an area towards the middle of the chamber, the ants seemed to be forced back by an invisible barrier, swarming all around it, but never crossing an unseen line. Sam became aware of the sound of ceaseless insectoid movement—legs, carapaces, and bodies crawling and scrabbling over one another. In the center lay the biggest ant Sam had ever seen: thirty or more feet long, with enormous gossamer wings.

  “The queen: I think she is hurt.” Tes’s voice was muffled.

  The ants approached the clearing, and Sam refocused the image. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew Tes was right. The queen was limp, and as they drew closer, Sam realized her legs were twitched weakly, as though convulsing. With each twitch, the rest of the ants moved, twitching in the same way, each time she did.

  They broke through the edge of the ant swarm, stepping into the clearing. The ant carrying Sam set him down in front of the queen.

  Complete silence cut off the rustling like a knife the moment his feet touched the ground, hitting Sam like a punch. He looked around, saw every ant frozen in place, watching him. More ants piled in, standing on top of other ants, filling in until the tunnel entrances were below the sea of bodies, leaving only a column of space around them and the queen.

  “Hive mind, Samuel. I think she is collecting herself to communicate.”

  The massed ants’ antennae waved, vibrating faster and faster, until a low, physical thrum filled the room. The queen moved, shifting herself, bringing her enormous head around to look at them. She opened her pincers and hissed. Immediately, the ants went silent. A moment passed, and Sam felt like they were waiting for something—a response.

  The queen hissed again.

  “She wants me to approach her, Samuel.”

  Tes moved in underneath the giant ant. The queen lowered her head, caressing Tes with an antenna. Tes went stiff, a single leg twitching, imitating the queen.

  “I have been looking for you. We have been looking for you. You are the last of your kind here. No others. We need you. Let me show.”

  The words poured out of Tes, as though they were being spoken by someone who didn’t know how to formulate words.

  “Let me show. I hurt. Our hive dies. You help. Our hive dies. Let
me show.”

  A nudge from behind pushed Sam forward. Another nudge came, and another, until he was standing next to Tes. He looked to see who’d pushed, but there was no one there. He unfastened his goggles, shoving them off and letting them drop before he realized, with a great deal of surprise, that he had no control over what he was doing. The queen’s other antenna came down, touching the center of his forehead.

  Sam blacked out, but he felt something holding him up. Visions flashed before him, sounds, smells, thoughts, all alien and incomprehensible. They crowded in, pushing at his own sense of self, until he was washed away in the torrent of what the queen was pumping into his mind.

  It was a mind-crushing blur of insanity, until, as though something had clicked into place, comprehension flooded through him and he changed.

  Sam grew thin, oozed out, felt himself connect with every ant in the chamber until his mind was her mind, spread across innumerable ant minds, each contributing to a small part of her consciousness. Still, his awareness spread, like a ripple in a pool, expanding outward until distance and numbers became abstract concepts. He became aware of her enormous pain.

  What…?

  At the edge of her consciousness, he felt parts of her winking out, sometimes a single one, other times in bunches. Each one felt like a tiny light going dark, and each time he felt her consciousness, her intelligence, dim an almost imperceptible shade more. An enormous draw sucked Sam’s mind towards that darkening area of herself. It enlarged, coming into focus, until he was there.

  But he didn’t know where there was. Once again a disorienting array of sights, sounds, and smells hit him, but he adapted much faster this time. Sam realized he was experiencing the sensation of dozens of ants all at once. His mind struggled to understand what he was viewing. As his mind started to tolerate the sensory overload, he began to see a liquid, moving view of an enormous post-human. It was much like the one that had almost got him, except he saw it from every angle, from the perspective of every ant surrounding it. The ants were in a pitched battle, throwing themselves at it, trying to tear it to pieces too small to reformulate.

  Instinctively, Sam knew that the ants were trying to prevent it from pushing into their territory, where a nursery lay vulnerable, only a few hundred yards away.

  The post-human ripped one of the ants in half, throwing the body in two different directions. Sam felt a small twinge of pain, then the queen ant’s presence dimmed again, as the ant died.

  The view shifted, pulling back, blowing up until Sam could feel and see through every ant in the colony. It was too much. He vomited, but he was too detached from himself to care as a dozen other similar battles being played out, like dark tumors in the network of the ant hive mind.

  Please help me.

  The words were plain as day, but given in a series of images and pheromones, touches, and postures.

  We are losing to it. It knows. It hungers for me. You are the last of your kind here. Your kind’s time is over. This is either our world or its world. You are the key. You are compatible. You can help. Please.

  Sam could see, through the eyes of ants spread through a network that spanned most of the globe, that she was right. He was the only human left alive.

  Except.

  Sam focused in on what felt like a blind spot, a lack of awareness in the hive mind. He frowned mentally, not understanding. He shifted his view, realizing that the queen was observing him.

  The random pieces clicked together. The blind spot was shaped like South America. The crazy stories of the man with the tiger tattoo came flooding back.

  What about there? Why aren’t you there?

  Sam felt the ant queen respond to the inquiry, but the emotion was alien.

  We cannot go in there. Neither can The Enemy.

  Frustrated, Sam tried again. What is in there? Are there humans?

  We cannot go in there. Neither can The Enemy. Will you help? Will you help?

  Sam hesitated, not knowing what help meant. The queen—the colony—waited. He felt her weaken once again. Sam knew there wasn’t a true choice anymore.

  Yes. I will help.

  With that, he was back in his own body. Sam felt his own physical limitations and lack of awareness compress him as immense claustrophobia overcame him. The room swam, and when he blacked out, this time, his consciousness went with him.

  *******

  “Wake up, Samuel.”

  The voice in his ear was familiar, although he couldn’t quite place it.

  “Wake up, Samuel.”

  Sam opened his eyes into blinding light. He jumped up, unsure of what happened. He was standing in a small room (no, a cave) packed with ten ants, all staring at him. At his feet, Tes looked up at him, a small floodlight aimed at his face, giving everything an unearthly quality.

  “Tes, where the heck are we?”

  “We left New Philadelphia territory, but I cannot say with any precision. A lot of weird interference. The ants are saying you are supposed to follow them.”

  As though they understood, the ants turned, leading them outside. The sun was pale and weak, filtering through the greasy atmosphere. Sam saw they had come out of a squat house, one in a row of decaying structures.

  “The ants say you are here to infect a post-human named New York.”

  “What?”

  “I’m just relaying their message. Sounds weird to me, too. Listen, Samuel. Whatever happens, I want you to be careful. I … you just need to stay safe, okay?”

  “Okay, I will.” Tes’s tone unnerved Sam more than their strange situation.

  One of the ants stepped forward. She was a huge specimen, her eyes level with Sam’s. In her pincers was a small moving piece of meat. Sam recoiled.

  “What is that?! Why does she have that chunk of a post-human?”

  Before he could react, the ant moved forward, pressing the piece of moving tissue onto his neck. Sam jumped back, reaching up, but he was too slow. The disgusting filth buried into his skin, burrowing bony hooks deep into his neck. He tried pulling it off, but the thing sent gouts of pain shooting down his spine every time he touched it.

  “TES? WHAT IS THIS?? TELL THEM TO TAKE IT OFF!!”

  “I’m sorry, Samuel … They didn’t tell me about that. Wait … okay, they say you need that so New York does not detect you.”

  “What the heck is New York?”

  One of the ants hissed, then turned, going around a corner.

  “It says to follow,” Tes said.

  “I don’t like this.”

  Feeling like he didn’t have a choice, Sam followed Tes around the house.

  Shock.

  Complete, overwhelming, shock.

  Sam fell to his knees.

  Off in the distance, about half a mile away, towering over everything and reaching into the clouds, was a giant wall of flesh, extending as far as the eye could see. Even from where he was, Sam saw countless individual humans fused into it, heard the faint screams of countless throats. Drops of the thing peeled off like beads of sweat, tumbling down and reforming into the creatures Sam had seen going through the streets of New Philadelphia for decades.

  “What … what is that, Tes?”

  “I think that’s New York.”

  “This … that thing is alive?”

  “More than that. Aware. The queen gave me access to sensory databases for the last twenty years … every sensor for the entire city-state. While we were in that chamber, I watched it all. Watched it congeal. Over time, every post-human scrap has been collecting here, creating a kind of anti-consciousness to what the ants have. They are two intelligences, Samuel, fighting for control of the new Earth. The winner inherits it; the loser goes extinct. And the post-humans are winning.”

  “So what does that mean, Tes? What do they want me to do?”

  “They want you to fuse with it, Samuel. The queen, when she touched you, she changed something about you. You’re a host, a Trojan horse carrying something that she wants to infect New York
with.”

  “If I do this, there isn’t any coming back, is there?”

  “No, Samuel.”

  A billion reasons he should refuse flooded into Sam’s mind, screaming for his attention. Sam paused, and remembered the ants’ desperate helplessness as their consciousness weakened in the face of the continual post-human onslaught. Genocide, one that only he could prevent.

  “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  The ants stirred, sensing his response.

  “Under one condition.”

  They paused. Sam turned, facing them.

  “I want you to take Tes to the edge of that blind spot in your awareness. To South America. I want you to leave her at the border … take her as far as you can. There are humans there. I don’t care what you say, I know some of us survived. AIs need social interaction, or they go insane, and she will find someone there, someone who will be her companion.”

  The ants hissed, one after the other.

  “They agree. I’m not doing that, though, Sam. I’m going with you. Into New York.”

  “You know you can’t, Tes. Don’t kid yourself. Let them take you. Find someone new. Keep yourself sane, so there is a record of all this.”

  Tes stayed quiet, her black spider’s body drawn inward like a small child with her knees pulled to their chest.

  “I don’t like this, Sam.” Sam noticed she’d stopped calling him Samuel. Somehow, that wasn’t making things easier.

  “I don’t either, Tes. But I like the post-humans even less. No more talking. Let’s do this, or I will chicken out.”

  Sam unhooked the backpack from the exoskeleton, letting it fall to the ground. Turning to the ants, he stared into their multifaceted eyes, trying to get past their alien features to the consciousness behind them. Emotion choked him, making his throat ache.

  “You take her. You make sure she finds someone.” He was going to say more, but couldn’t. He had always been terrible with goodbyes, and was even worse now that it had been a couple decades since the last.

  Feeling awkward, Sam turned, taking a step towards the mass in the distance.

  “Sam…”