“Then, if you have children with the two men you brought with you, the easier it will be for us to be a bonded unit that would be hard to overpower or commit genocide against.”
Holy hell. The Bugs wanted to become one with humans. They didn’t consider themselves parasites but integrable partners.
She aimed her pointed nail at me. “You will join me, willingly or not. Choose.”
35
Choose? I didn’t want either one. There had to be another choice. “How will my mom survive? The one Rasper I talked to said the human no longer exists once your kind has entered the body.”
“That is the flaw with plain humans. But your mom was special. And I am the queen. I am different than my kind. If I leave her willingly for a new host, I can let her live.” She tapped her pointed nail on her chin.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know my mom isn’t already gone?”
The queen entered my personal space. “You don’t. You’ll have to trust me.” She touched my right forearm. “Something I know you struggle with.”
I looked down at her hand, right where my rules had been. How did she know about what I had written to survive? I pulled my arm back.
“I want to see my friends first. I want to tell them what’s happening.” A plan was slowly starting to form, but I needed help.
“Fine.” She didn’t say anything else, but right after, two soldier-like guys brought Adam, Megan, and Taylor to where we were.
The Bugs paused their sphere shifting, then continued.
Megan ran to me and hugged me. “Val…”
“No touching,” the bigger soldier guy said, pulling Megan back. He made the three of them stand against a plain wall. He and the other guy stood next to them like guards.
“This is the queen.” I waved at her. “I know none of you knew me before the Great Discovery. But she has taken over my mom’s body.”
Megan gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Holy shit. You’re kidding, right?” Adam’s mouth hung open.
“I wish I was.” I glanced at Taylor.
He nodded. “Her mom was patient zero. She got stung back in Tikal and was the one that Zigotgen used to begin the Seed Plot Project.”
“How did she survive and not become a Rasper?” A look of disbelief flashed across Adam’s face.
“The one who stung her was weak. It had been locked away and separated from the rest of us. We are stronger together,” the queen said like it was an obvious fact.
My vision changed. I had a glimpse of myself from the other side of the room. Megan was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t know what. I blinked, and the queen came back into focus.
“You promise my mom will be back to normal if I choose to willingly accept you?” I maintained eye contact with the queen.
“Val, you can’t,” Adam cried out.
I turned to him. “I don’t have another option. I can’t let my mom die.” I tapped my left pocket ever so slightly.
“If you’re going to do this, I demand one last hug. Just in case.” Adam glared at the queen.
“Very well. Perhaps my connection with Val will help me understand why you humans are prey to your illogical emotions.” She waved at the soldier guys.
Adam pulled me into a hug from the left side. I shifted slightly. His right hand slipped into my pocket. The weight of the gun disappeared. His left hand moved up to my caress my chin. He pressed his lips against mine. His sleight of hand was spectacular. His lips were even better.
When we pulled apart, he whispered, “You can do this.”
He went back to where the others waited.
“Hey, Adam?” I tried to keep my voice even.
“Yeah?”
“Remember the time at that car shop and the dogs?” I stared at him.
He smiled. “Yeah. They were so cute weren’t they?”
“Maybe someday we can get a puppy.” I prayed he understood I was trying to tell him to shoot.
He nodded and slid his hand into his pocket. “Absolutely.”
“Okay enough. It’s time. Please sit. It will be easier for you that way.” The queen waved her hand at the rock.
I took a seat on the smooth black rock while keeping my right hand close to my pocket. “How does this work?”
She leaned over me. “I will release myself from your mother, then I will join you.”
“Will it hurt?” I stared into the eyes I had trusted and loved all my life. Was she still there? I had to do this. I had to save her regardless of her past mistakes.
“Not if you relax. Just stay still.” The queen closed her eyes for a second.
“Val, wait!” Megan cried.
The queen straightened up. “Enough. Restrain her. I need to focus.”
The soldier guy grabbed Megan’s arm, but she was ready. She spun and hit him in the head. Adam pulled the gun and sent two shots into the second guy’s forehead. Black blood spurted all over Taylor.
The first guy put Megan in a hostage hold. Adam aimed.
The queen pushed down on my shoulders. “Stay still.”
I reached into my pocket. Withdrew the syringe. With one quick movement, I used my teeth to pull the cap off and slammed the needle into her neck.
The queen cried out with the sound of a thousand voices. She looked down at me, her eyes now as red as hot lava. She then went limp and collapsed on top of me. I tried to push her off, but I couldn’t. Her hands clutched onto my biceps like vise grips. I bucked, and we rolled off the rock and slammed onto the floor. Pain radiated from my biceps as several of her fingernails sank into my skin. I held her under me. I was in control.
With one move, she flipped me over like I weighed nothing. Now she was on top, straddling me, pinning my arms to my sides.
“It is time.” She opened her mouth until it couldn’t go any further without ripping apart.
A blue glow appeared in the back of her throat. It grew larger, brighter as it moved toward me. A creature, different than the typical Bug, crossed her lips. It was the same size as the Bugs, but without the metal shell. Instead it was a glittery silver, almost translucent. It landed on my cheek.
Her grip released, and the body of my mom slumped on top of me. I spun to side, and the queen fell from my face. A small stinging sensation touched my hand. I swatted my arm back and forth trying to hit the queen. I looked down, only to find the syringe. I jumped up. Shit. Did it prick me? I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I searched the small area again. Nothing. The queen Bug had disappeared.
I turned to see Adam’s gun pointed at the soldier. It was a standoff as he had his nail jammed against Megan’s neck. Megan shifted her gaze between the two of us. She looked down and then stared at Adam.
“Like the barn,” I cried out, hoping they both knew what I was saying.
Megan instantly went limp as Adam fired. The soldier guy tried to tighten his grip, but she was quicker and slipped down. Adam’s shot hit the Rasper between the eyes. Black blood spattered them both.
“Where’s the queen?” Adam asked.
“Help my mom,” I yelled. Megan and Taylor grabbed her from the floor and dragged her behind the rock.
Adam walked to my side, then hesitated. “Val, it is still you?”
I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Sometimes I like our illogical emotions.”
Rollins crashed through part of the honeycombed wall. Bugs scattered, their colored spheres forgotten. “What’s happening? Where’s the queen? I have to save her.”
Adam met my gaze, then slipped the gun into my left hand.
“Are you one of them now?” I pointed the gun at Rollins’s chest. “Give me one reason not to kill you.” While my insides were shaking, I kept the gun and my voice steady.
“I’m not one of them.” Rollins took a step toward me.
“Then why do you want to save the queen?”
“It’s what I have to do.”
“Stop now, Rollins,
or I will shoot you. I swear.”
Rollins did as I commanded.
“Adam, grab the knife he has on his belt and check for other weapons.”
Rollins held his hands out. “Val, trust me.”
Adam reached for the knife hanging from Rollins’s belt. He grabbed it. Rollins kicked out and swept Adam’s legs out from under him. The knife fell to the ground.
That was it. He was against us. He wanted to save the queen, not us.
I fired. But nothing happened.
I pulled the trigger again. Nothing.
I slammed out the magazine. It was empty.
A whooshing noise filled the air. Hundreds of Bugs swarmed out of the honeycombs.
Adam and I were safe, but Taylor wasn’t. And Megan might or might not be. I spun around searching for the knife. In what seemed like slow motion, I found it, turned, and threw it at Rollins. He held up his arms to block his face. The knife cut his arm. Adam sprang and tackled him football style. They both hit the Bug-covered ground.
The screaming noise of hundreds of Bugs communicating assaulted my ears. Megan cried out and climbed onto the rock.
Taylor ran to Adam and Rollins. I ran to my mom. She was paler than before and lay still on the floor. I touched her neck. Nothing.
No. No. No.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
I had killed her.
36
I blocked everything out. All the Bugs squealing. The fight between the three guys. Megan crying above me.
All that mattered was my mom. I had failed again. I should have let the damn queen merge with me. I should have sacrificed myself. I shouldn’t have tried to be the hero. It was a role I obviously strived for but never achieved.
I let the tears go and dropped my head on my mom’s stomach. “I’m so sorry.” It felt like my body was releasing all the sadness, all the anger, all the sense of feeling afraid I had been trying to suppress since this all began.
“Val?” Adam’s gentle voice cut through my sorrow. The Bugs had stopped squealing. Megan had stopped crying. But my mom hadn’t started breathing.
I glanced up.
The Bugs had disappeared. Rollins walked over. There was a gash where I had cut him. But there wasn’t any blood. Not black blood of a Rasper. Not red blood of a human.
“I will kill you for siding with them, with them over us. I will—”
“Val,” Adam shouted, cutting me off. “Hear him out.”
“Why?” I wiped the away the tears that were running down my cheeks. Then Rollins’s forearm caught my eye. “What’s going on with your arm?”
Rollins grabbed his skin where it was cut and pulled it back. Metal and wires rested where bone and muscle should.
“You’re a robot like Carter?” It wasn’t possible.
“No. Not like Carter. I’m a hybrid. Part man. Part AI. I lost my right arm and leg from an IED blast in Afghanistan. Two of my team died in the attack, and the rest of us suffered life-threatening injuries. We were brought to the US hospital area. And a brilliant doctor named Morgenstern said she could save us. And she did before she decided to use us. She medevacked us out and brought us to Zigotgen. She saved us by replacing all our injured parts and organs with artificial ones. We were whole again. Except our bodies wanted to reject the new parts. She and her colleagues developed a pill that would stop us from rejecting the foreign pieces.” Rollins reached into his vest pocket and took out one of the little white pills I had seen the others take.
“So you’re immune to the sting? I remember her saying she wouldn’t vaccinate you before we got in the helicopters.”
“Turns out I don’t need one. The Bugs see me as a threat, but I guess they don’t think I’m human enough for them. And I wasn’t helping the Raspers. The director, as part of his take-control-of-the-world project, programmed my chip so I would want to save the queen, not kill her.”
“What does any of that matter? The queen has disappeared and my mom is dead.” This time I pushed the tears back and swallowed past the emotions swirling in my gut.
“You injected the serum into her, right?” Adam asked. He had wiped at the black blood so now it looked like mud caked on his face.
“Yeah, to get the queen out. I should have just let her inside me. Then my mom would be alive.” I wanted to crawl into a soft bed and hide under the blankets until the world righted itself.
“What if you give your mom the pill? Her body had worked with the queen inside. Then you injected the serum. She might have rejected the serum since the queen was still there.” Rollins held it out to me.
What if it was a trick? I had tried to kill him minutes ago. Now I was willing to accept his help. I was messed up.
I stood and took the pill he offered. “It’s worth a try.”
“Here’s some water.” Rollins removed a half-size water bottle from one of his many pockets.
“Adam, help me?”
He came to my mom’s side.
“Lift her up so she doesn’t choke.” My words sounded absurd to me. She was already dead. She couldn’t choke.
Adam held my mom’s torso in place in front of him. I opened her mouth, poured in some water, added the pill, then closed her mouth and rubbed her neck. Water dribbled out the sides of her mouth.
“Tilt her head back more,” Rollins said as he tucked his skin flap back in place.
Adam did as he said. Then we waited.
The only thing that changed was how fast my heart raced. It had to work.
“Wait. She’s breathing.” Adam felt for her pulse. “It’s slow, but it’s there.”
I grabbed her hand and noticed her pointed fingernail was back to normal and not a Rasper weapon. “She needs a doctor.”
“Carter is the only thing we have.” Taylor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He should have some data in his system.”
“I’ll carry your mom. Guys, help Megan.” Rollins lifted my mom with ease.
Taylor went to help Megan, but she waved him away. “I’m okay. I can walk. This goo sucks.” She scrubbed her hands down her pant legs.
I grabbed the empty gun, picked up the orange sphere the queen had tapped, and followed them out of the honeycombed space. A maddening itch circled my wrist. I scratched at where I thought the needle had hit me when I rolled over the syringe. It might be a slight allergic reaction. If it got worse, I’d say something.
The place seemed eerily quiet. “Where did the Bugs and the soldier Raspers go?”
“If the queen disappeared, they might have followed her.” Rollins glanced around. “Or they’re hiding and waiting to attack us.”
“We need to get out of this hive hellhole,” Adam grumbled. “Let’s get the guns from the dead Rasper soldier guys.”
“Good thinking.”
We went back to where the Rasper soldiers had died. Adam and I grabbed their handguns. I was about to leave when I remembered the armband. I yanked it off the body and tucked it in my pocket.
I led our party through the tunnels without knowing where I was going. When we reached the first main area, I stopped. “This seems too easy.”
“Taylor, help me.” Rollins handed my mom off to Taylor, then from one of his vest’s many pockets, he removed three small boxes the size of garage door openers. “Adam put this one in that corner honeycomb. Val, put this one over there.”
“What are these?” I placed the object where he indicated.
“Explosives. This place has to go.” Rollins gave me a hard look.
He was a question to me. He was both trustworthy and not. But if he wanted to blow the place to bits, I was all for it.
We made it out of the Hive untouched by Bugs or Raspers. The trees still held the cocoons with flashing blue lights though.
“There you are. The Raspers downloaded my files, then left me here.” Carter hovered over the ground. “I stayed here because I can’t go down and they blocked me from being able to go inside.”
Rollins straightened like he heard
something. “No way.” Rollins tapped behind his ear. “Zombie? How?”
He took my mom back. Taylor and Adam managed to get Carter down the hill.
A black pod like the one we had crashed in landed about fifty feet from us. Zombie jumped out.
He greeted Rollins with the half hug, half backslap.
“We thought you were dead. Your comm and tracker didn’t work.”
Zombie touched his ear. “Yeah. When the Raspers reached the lab, the director hit me over the head. My comm wouldn’t work. Then he locked me in a closet.”
“How did you get here then?” Was he with us or against us?
“Kalis had left his comm open. I could hear everything you said but couldn’t respond. When the place started falling apart, the lock broke on the closet. I got out and raced to the Z. I spotted the stairs and saw you guys take off. I jumped into the other pod and got it in the air right before the entire place collapsed. I followed your trackers here, but lost them all but yours. Where are they?” Zombie glanced around like he expected the other soldiers to appear.
“We crash-landed. Kalis took a gearshift to the chest. Bowie was killed by a part of the roof.”
Zombie hit his closed fist against his chest. “Omega.”
“Omega,” Rollins echoed.
“Did you find the queen?”
“Yes. Then we lost her.” I was so pissed at myself. I shouldn’t have let her get away.
“Who’s this?” Zombie jabbed his chin toward my mom.
“Val’s mom. Long story. Will tell you later. Let’s get out of here.” Rollins headed to the pod.
Zombie helped Carter into the pod. We all climbed in after.
Rollins put my mom in a seat. “Carter, can you scan her for injuries?”
Carter scanned her and frowned. “She is no longer tied to the queen, but she needs time to deal with the loss. Kind of like recovery after having surgery and having an organ removed. Does that make sense?”
“She’ll be okay?” I held my breath.
Carter nodded. “Yes. She just needs time and rest.”
She was going to live. I was going to get my mom back. We needed to discuss what happened, but I had already forgiven her for lying to me. It didn’t matter now. We were back to together.
The Hive (Rasper Book 2) Page 22