Grunt Traitor

by Weston Ochse

  I turned around and stared back at Los Angeles. I could see the Hollywood hive far in the distance. What I’d give to take that sucker down. It was like a middle finger to everything we knew and loved.

  We made it to the Marshall Canyon Golf Course with relatively little action, except for running down a group of fungees who tried to win a game of chicken against a metal-enhanced American-made pickup truck. Then it was the back roads to Mount Baldy. The problem was that by the time we hit the golf course I couldn’t keep my hands and legs from twitching. I felt superheated in my suit and knew I was running a fever. Though I could no longer speak, my thoughts were working fine. My mind was clear.

  When the helicopter was inbound and I couldn’t get my body to stop spasming, Sandi said to me, “Fight this, Benjamin Carter Mason. Fight it like you’ve never fought anything in your life. It hasn’t won yet.”

  I looked at her and tried to tell her to fuck off, but nothing happened.

  Her face fell a moment, like she knew I couldn’t respond. Seeing her reaction made it even worse. Still, she persevered. She reached through the rear window and grabbed my suited shoulder. “When next I see you, it’s going to be so we can take down those fucking hives. Got it?”

  Got it! I wanted to scream, but my body and brain were locked in a battle against the spore and clearly had no time for mere words.

  The Blackhawk landed. Four soldiers in positive pressure suits exited the chopper. When Steve unlocked the back of the cage, they dragged me out. Then one of them put a black bag over my head. I felt myself being carried into the chopper, where they chained me to the deck, before it lifted off.

  It wasn’t that I let them do all of this. I had no choice. My body was no longer my own. I was effectively possessed. Michelle had been terribly afraid of possession; it had been her worst fear. Look at her now.

  And then it struck me.

  We’d argued about God. She believed in God and I didn’t. She’d even spent time in a convent to try and deal with her own PTSD.

  “Look at where we are,” I’d said. “The aliens attacked and took our planet. Do you think a God would allow that?”

  “Do not presume to know the will of God. For all you know, this could be the next Great Flood. It happened once. Why not again?”

  “How can you believe in God after all this?”

  “How can you not? Just because you can’t fathom why this happened doesn’t mean there isn’t a God. It doesn’t mean He doesn’t have a plan.”

  I think I’d actually laughed at her. “A plan. Fate. The idea that everything bad, everything good, everything periodhas been figured out ahead of time, is impossible to believe.” Even though I’d known I was making her angry, I hadn’t been able to stop myself. “That the Inquisition, the Black Plague, 9/11, pedophiles and the Cray are part of God’s plan is ludicrous.”

  I could still see her pitying expression as she’d said, “I didn’t say they were part of His plan, smartass. I said just because we don’t know what’s going on doesn’t mean Hedoesn’t have a plan. Is it all part of His plan? I don’t think so. Maybe events happen, then His plan goes into effect.” Then she’d stood. “Here’s what I’ve learned. Just because you don’t believe in God, it doesn’t mean He doesn’t believe in you.”

  Then she’d stepped quickly away. “What does that even mean?” I’d called after her.

  She’d flipped me off.

  “Not very God-like,” I’d shouted.

  Her single finger salute changed into a double-finger salute. Then she was gone.

  I’d been so full of myself back then, at the base of Kilimanjaro, so sure I was right and everyone else was wrong; particularly someone who wanted to believe in God. Now, re-living the words we’d exchanged, I saw what a self-assured ass I’d been.

  And I couldn’t help but note that God had had the last word, for here I was, as possessed as Michelle, no chance to get away, and destined to become a monster.

  I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all. So I did. I laughed loud, long and hard, even though the only audience I would ever have was me.

  It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

  William Shakespeare

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I AWOKE IN a cage in the center of a white room. My head turned, looking for what I didn’t know. I had zero control. Four cameras faced me, mounted on tripods. Against one wall were two long tables supporting computers. Scientific equipment lined the other walls. The inside of my cage was Spartan, to say the least. In one corner they’d affixed a water dispenser that looked like a giant sized version of the ones you see in hamster cages. Beside this was a bowl. Both were affixed to a small door that could open only from the outside. The floor held no bed or furniture. I fleetingly noticed that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Only an adult diaper kept me from being on complete display. Awesome. I’d gone from being The Hero of the Mound to The Lieutenant Who Poops In His Pants.

  I realized my head hurt. I wanted to reach up and feel it, but my arms refused to listen.

  The door of the white room opened and a bald older man wearing a white laboratory jacket entered.

  My body propelled itself forward toward the figure, until the cage stopped me, my head slamming into the bars.

  Yep. That was it. Ouch.

  I watched as my arms extended through the bars, fists wanting to bash.

  The figure approached and stayed just out of arm’s length. He held a clipboard and was making annotations. I tried to tell him I’d like a double cheeseburger with fries, but I couldn’t speak. He jotted something down then walked across the room to the computers. His nametag said Phillips.

  My head turned to follow him, and my arms shoved themselves through the cage towards him. This was going to get old real quick. I sure hoped they had a cure for this or had plans to kill me, because the sheer boredom of playing Let’s See What Mason Will Do Next was already old.

  Two assistants came in. One was a pretty blonde who reminded me of a girl I’d spent the night with in an off-limits area by Fort Bragg, and the other was a redhead.

  On the off-limits list they’d had a notation that no one should go to ‘the trailer at the end of Pike Ferry Road.’ I’m not sure what they were thinking, but it was a menu for guys like me, and that was the first place I went. Turned out it was a low rent, soon-to-be-meth-den home for newly frocked hookers, only the girl who called herself Margret forgot to charge me. It had been fun and she’d been pretty hot, but I’d sweated the next few weeks, hoping that my pee wasn’t going to burn and I’d have to go to the Smoke Bomb Hill clinic to get a silver bullet. I’d never gotten Margret’s last name, but this fine young lady had a nametag which read Westlake.

  For a while I reveled in my newfound skills at observation. I suppose when you aren’t actively participating in what your body is doing, your mind compensates and allows you to notice more things. Like when Mr. Pink finally showed his ugly mug. I did my thing trying to get to him through the bars. He pointed at me and asked whether or not they’d found value in the specimens I’d brought back. I noted how tired he seemed.

  Exhausted, even.

  It’s funny how I’d always painted him as the bad guy. It was a classic grunt move. If there’s someone in charge of you making you do things you don’t want to, then pillory them. After all, they were out to get you. They didn’t know how awesome you were and refused to listen, so that’s why you were made to do KP eight days in a row. In fact, very little you do is your fault; it’s always the fault of the brainiac who thought up your mission.

  For a moment, as I watched Mr. Pink watching me, I felt empathy, but then he pointed at me. Someone said something I couldn’t make out that made him chuckle.

  Dude! Laughing at a guy when he’s down? Fucking classy.

  I wasn’t sure what he was laughing at but in the ensuing ten seconds I experienced something absolutely terrible. As I stood staring at them and unable to do anything I felt myself fill
my adult diaper in an awful back-bending butt-clenching exercise in adult poopage.

  Just fucking great.

  They ignored me for the most part. For a long time they worked at their stations. All the while I just stood there with a full diaper, unable to do anything but try and reach lamely through the bars. Then an MP came in with a rifle. He aimed it at my chest and fired.

  I felt the impact and looked down. I saw the dart about two seconds before everything went black.

  When I later woke, I realized that they’d changed me.

  They’d turned off all the lights, so I gathered it was night. The only thing I could see were the blinking red lights of the video cameras. I stood there, doing nothing, my body waiting. Eventually it moved over and sucked down some water. Then my face shoved itself into the food. I couldn’t see it but it tasted like a combination of cold noodles, lettuce and ground beef. It was both wonderful and disgusting at the same time.

  Seconds, minutes, hours later, someone came in and turned the light on.

  My body did what it always did and slammed into the bars as I reached for non-infected humans. The two women, Robinson and Westlake, turned on their computers and got to work. Phillips came in a time later. They spent all day doing something with blood samples.

  Then I pooped my pants.

  Then they shot me with a dart.

  Then all was dark.

  Awake, rinse, repeat.

  I’m not sure how many days passed with this routine, but at some point during that time I began to notice a buzz in the back of my mind, almost like I was hearing someone talk but just couldn’t make out the words. Then one day I began to understand.

  Possessed Girl calling Infected Asshole, come in.

  Possessed Girl calling Infected Asshole, come in.

  She repeated the sentence over and over, as if she were talking on a radio and waiting for me to hear her missive on the other end. Sometimes she changed the words around, calling me Infected Boy or Spore Man, but the message was essentially the same. She wanted to talk. So after about the nine-hundreth time she said it, I concentrated on a single thought.

  Infected Asshole calling Possessed Girl, I hear you Lima Charlie.

  Inside the room, the scientist and his techs continued to work. My hands were waggling though the bars. There was no way to tell them I was somehow communicating with my long-lost girlfriend who’d become one of Mr. Pink’s secret black box projects.

  So they got you.

  What could I say to that? What should I say? Of course they got me. Wait a minute... who was they?

  I tracked you to Los Angeles, but then lost you.

  Who is they?

  What?

  You said they got me. Who. Is. They?

  They have a name for themselves that I can’t translate. We’re calling them Hypocrealiacs, named after the order of fungi to which Cordyceps belongs. Have the mycelia begun to grow? Sensing my confusion, she added, The spikes?

  I can’t see my body.

  Then she was silent for a time. Later that night, after I’d been put to sleep, changed, then awoke, she returned as I stood waiting on something to capture my attention.

  Do you want to see yourself?

  How?

  I’ve accessed the feeds to the cameras. This is from earlier today.

  In the eerie quiet of the dark cell, I saw within my mind a hazy image of a man inside a cage. It was difficult to focus on the image in my mind and stare at the blinking red lights of the camera in front of me. The images bled into one other. Had I the ability, I would have closed my eyes to better concentrate. Still, I could see me in my diaper. My head had been shaved. Small mushrooms seemed to be growing out of my chest and neck. I looked pretty pathetic. I said as much.

  As long as it doesn’t go to your brain, you can live like this for quite some time.

  I didn’t need to ask what happened if it got to my brain. It seemed pretty obvious.

  How do you know so much about them?

  We’ve come a long way from just being able to interfere with the Sirens. Using the same frequency mapping, we can distinguish what frequency the Hypocrealiacs are using in their vectors.

  Can you use small words? Remember, I’m just a dumb grunt.

  There was a pause. She’d once responded to this by saying, Yeah, but you’re my dumb grunt. But that was back when we’d actually owned our own bodies, before—

  You still own your body. They’re working to get you cleared and might just be close—

  Did you just read my mind? How can you do that?

  Only when we’re talking. When you concentrate on what you want to say to me and then think something, you tend to do it the same way.

  How is this possible?

  Before when you thought I was messing with your dreams, remember?

  Yes.

  I was. The theta waves you use when you’re waking broadcast between four to seven hertz. I can tap into it because of what I am. But now that you’re infected with Ophiocordyceps invasionalis, I can interact with you at 40 hertz, which is in the top end of your beta waves.

  So it makes me like a UAV.

  More like a manned-pedestrian vehicle, but that’s the idea. We have a range issue though.

  Is that why they have Thompson in West Covina? To do what you do here?

  When she next spoke, it was the middle of the day and I was trying to kill Ohirra. Or at least I would have, had the bars not been in the way. Still, she stared at me just out of reach, pity in her eyes. It was the first time I’d seen her since before the mission. She mouthed the words, I’m sorry. Clearly she knew I was behind those crazy eyes and could see. I mouthed it’s okay in return, only I didn’t because I couldn’t.

  When she left, Michelle returned, as if she’d been politely waiting. I’d no doubt that she had.

  How’d you know about Thompson?

  He contacted me using my theta waves when I was on mission, only I thought it was just a dream. He’s in Los Angeles, isn’t he? Is he just like you?

  He’s the new model—Generation II. I need an electronic grid to emulate an antenna so I can receive and transmit super low frequencies. He can piggy back off other transmission devices like walkie talkies and FM radios and satellite receiver-transmitters.

  Is he okay?

  Is he okay? Am I okay? This is how we chose to fight.

  Only you asked me to kill you.

  That I did. And you refused.

  I should have done it.

  You don’t have it in you. You’re a hero, not a killer.

  I killed my own men.

  You didn’t kill them. The enemy killed them.

  Isn’t that the same?

  Only if you’re feeling sorry for yourself.

  Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DAYS PASSED, MAYBE weeks or months; I had no way of knowing. The team had started wearing positive pressure suits. I guess my fungal growths were getting pretty gnarly.

  One day they introduced me to one of my own. They brought him up to the cage. I reached for them, but not him. He had a red halo around his fungi. They shot me with a dart.

  When I awoke, he was in the cage with me. I ignored him and he ignored me. Was this what it was like to be in a zombie horde? I knew that two didn’t make a horde, but our total ambivalence towards each other and our violent reactions towards living, non-infected humans had to be similar.

  We stood there.

  We reacted to the non-infected.

  We pooped our diapers.

  Then they shot us with darts.

  Oh the joys of my existence. At least Michelle and I were talking. She was hopeful that they might find a cure. They’d been exchanging notes with other OMBRA locations. The black alien vine was evidently coming out of every existing hive, as were the needle moths which were both pollinators and protectors. OMBRA was becoming aware o
f the dual nature of each of the alien species used in the invasion. Each invader had at least two abilities.

  For the Sirens, it was to conduct reconnaissance and report back.

  For the Cray it was to knock out the world’s power grid and establish a foothold using their hives.

  For the black alien vine it was to spread the fungus and destroy the cities.

  For the needle moth it was to pollinate and protect the vine so it could continue destroying the cities and hosting the fungus.

  And for alien fungus it was to infect every living thing and rid the planet of its hosts and... what? Then it dawned on me. When I next spoke with Michelle, I asked her.

  The aliens... the Hypocrealiacs, they can use the infected too, can’t they? They can be their eyes and ears.

  You figured it out faster than OMBRA did.

  It’s why I’m in a room with no windows. It’s why they put a black bag over my head.

  We don’t want them to know what we’re planning.

  But can’t they hear us, like right now?

  No, we don’t think so. They seem to process things differently. I can key into their communications and it’s more light and numbers than any recognizable language.

  We talked about our lives in the Army before the Turn, when our enemies were merely people with different belief systems.

  Days or weeks later, Mr. Pink finally showed himself again. He had Malrimple in tow. They wore positive pressure suits much like the ones the others were wearing. I had the feeling something important was about to happen.

  Mr. Pink didn’t let me down. He spoke to me even as we tried to get him through the bars. “We think we have a possible cure. It’s mostly worked on the dogs and cats we’ve tried it on, although I’m told that the morphology of the fungus that infects humans is slightly different from the fungus that infects animals.”