In the levels above us is a barracks, housing hundreds of guards and Keepers we're desperately trying to avoid. We follow a set of stairs that lead up two levels and into a narrow and dimly lit corridor. The sound of a siren cuts the ominous silence. Low at first and building to an incredible whine, like one of those antique air raid jobs. A door up ahead swings open and my body tenses. Four Wardens come rushing out, straight at us. Krantz is just ahead and I’ve agreed to follow his lead, but I won't be taken down without a fight, that's for damn sure. They're getting closer now and I can hear them shouting. Sneak looks back and I'm sure she sees the steely look in my eyes and turns around at once. They’re only a few feet away, but I can already tell they’re focused beyond us. They rush past, the one in front still barking commands to the others moving with him. Something's going on outside and, judging by the anxious looks on the men we just passed, it isn't good.
-5-
That siren is still squalling when we make it through the first bulkhead. The room on the other side is stacked to the walls with computing machines.
Two men in long black cloaks are poring over reams of paper. A third crosses the room with a clipboard in his hands and a look of acute annoyance on his face. On his cloak are two red initials.
S.I.
Sotercity Intelligence. Shadowy types who get a kick out of poking around in people’s trash and looking for ‘threats against the public good,’ whatever that means.
He points up with the edge of his clipboard at some invisible point above us. “You should be at your stations, are you all deaf or just stupid?” Of course he's referring to the sirens that are giving me one hell of a headache, but all I wanna do is shove that clipboard down his throat.
Krantz speaks up. “We're on our way to the holding cells to retrieve prisoners for Prior Skuld.”
The man's hair is slicked back and he’s sporting a matching mustache that looks just as greasy. He's looking at my face now and his mouth tweaks into a sour expression.
“What happened to you?”
“Flamethrower accident,” I say without missing a beat.
The weasely man shakes his head. “Fine, fine, just don't touch any of the equipment on your way through.”
Krantz nods and we weave past tables covered with maps and booklets marked ‘top secret.’ On our left is an open door. I glance inside and gasp. They've got a Zee, jammed inside a glass tube with a tight metal bowl around his head. Wires dangle from the cap to a machine beside him. It's spitting out trails of ticker tape, like those old pictures you see of dusters checking stock market prices. Even from here I can see words printed on that length of paper. They’re listening in on the Zee signal.
I can’t believe my eyes. Oleg said The Keepers knew nothing about the Zees still being around. So then how long has this one been here? Could they have built a machine like this in the short time since Oleg's been back? A layer of dust covers the top of the glass dome and I realize that this has been here a while. But how can that be? Just then the Zee's eyes see me and its mouth starts moving a mile a minute, spitting out that ticker tape like ribbon candy. I wasn't expecting any of this and now the Zees know where I am and it’s only a matter a time before they come and find me.
-6-
The room falls away and Krantz tells us the holding cells aren't far off. I stop and tell him what I saw, what it means.
“Now do you believe what I told you about Skuld?” he asks.
I nod, but inside I'm still reeling; I mean, I knew Skuld was no good. Even a child could sense the guy's rotten inside.
“But how did they nab a Zee and bring him back here without anyone knowing about it?”
Krantz has a look on his face, like he doesn't want to say. “They didn't bring him here. They made him.”
My jaw falls open.
“They've got needles of the stuff, Azina. One little prick is all it takes.”
Even Sneak's eyes are wide and disbelieving.
“They're doing worse than that,” Krantz says, “far worse, and I can't fight off the inclination to go back and kill everyone in that listening post, the Zee included.”
Skuld’s men, grabbing innocent people off the streets and turning them into Zees before they know what’s hit them. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to stay hard and uncaring and now I’m turning into a mushy suck. That’s what I try and tell myself, but through the thick haze of anger I don't even realize I've turned and started heading back. Back to kill them all.
Krantz’ fingers close around my arm. I break free with ease, which surprises even me, considering Krantz is certainly no pushover. He grabs me again.
“Azina. What's more important, killing a bunch of Keeper spooks or freeing your friends? There'll be time later to make things right, I promise you.”
I take a deep breath and feel my blood pressure begin to stabilize. He's right, of course and for a moment I'm just thankful my eyes didn't start glowing.
-7-
Up ahead is another bulkhead with the letters BRIG stenciled in bold red letters. A single Keeper stands guard outside. But this isn't a Warden, not that it will matter much in the end. Krantz approaches him. The guard's on edge. The alarm’s got them all on edge.
“We're here to escort prisoners Oleg, Ret and Bron to see Prior Skuld.”
The guard spins the door wheel and swings it open. The place smells of sweat and piss. Rooms are on either side of us and in the distance are a series of jail cells. I can hear a man screaming and I hope – for their sake – it isn't one of ours. We reach the cell block and find another guard, seated at a desk to our right. This one’s nose is all bandaged up and bent outa shape, like someone took a metal pipe to his face.
Krantz gives him the same spiel he gave the guard at the door, but it doesn't look like he's buying it and suddenly I’m calculating how quickly I can grab the Katana stuffed under my robe and bring it down on this drone’s head. Out of the corner of my eye I see a cell with the bars all bent out of shape. It's dark in there, but there's a large figure inside and I'm sure it's Bron. Next door, a face peers through the bars. It's Ret. His face is bruised, and filled with defiance.
More echoing screams and this time I know now it isn't coming from Bron or Ret.
The guard rises.
“You lot stay here while I run this past the supervisor. He's in with the old man now, or what's left of him.”
And suddenly I've had enough of this charade. The guard turns and I reach for my blade. He hears me coming up behind him, and as he turns to tell me to wait at the desk the edge of my sword splits the top of his skull and doesn’t stop until it hits his jawbone. He blinks once and then withers like a dead leaf.
The one who let us in is walking back to his post at the brig entrance. I fling my six inch blade and catch him just above the neck.
I can hear Krantz behind me, telling me this isn't the way, but I won't sit back and play games while my friends are being killed. The screaming’s coming from a room two doors down. The metal booms as I bang against the door with my fist. A second later the screaming stops and a bored looking man in overalls opens up. He gets it right in the throat. I pull out and he falls, gurgling. The supervisor rises, hands up, palms out. I can see it all over his ugly face. He wants to say, “Who are you and what is the meaning of this?” I know the type, but he doesn't. Beside him, Oleg's strapped to the wall with thick chains. His robe's been torn open and wires trail from his nipples and the lobes of his ears to a battery on a nearby table.
-8-
“Fast or slow?” I ask the supervisor. My voice is calm and it’s taking everything I’ve got to keep it steady. The man’s name is embroidered on the breast of his uniform. Hankel. Just a regular jailhouse drone with a sadistic side.
“I was following orders.”
“I’m sure you were. Now I'm gonna ask you one more...”
“Fast,” he says before I can finish. I swing the Katana in a wide, sweeping angle from right to left. Instinctively, he raises
his hand to block the move and I watch as his fingers fall away, one by one, a split second before I see the thin red line stretching across his forehead. He’s stares at me, mouth flapping open like a giant fish, for the length of time it takes to bring the sword back to my side. But staring or not, I know he's already dead.
There's a strange cracking sound as the back of his head hits the wall on his way down. He's damn lucky we're in a hurry.
Sneak pulls the wires off Oleg's ears and chest. The skin there is charred and, for a moment, I regret giving Hankel the easy way out. Krantz grabs the keys from the supervisor’s corpse and heads off to free Bron and Ret.
Krantz is pissed. “I told you I didn't want any unnecessary bloodshed.”
“Trust me,” I say. “That was necessary.” But I can already feel the guilt settling in. I mean, killing Zees is one thing, but nothing ever really prepares you for that septic feeling you get after turning a man's head into a salad bowl.
The supervisor has the keys to Oleg's shackles and we free him and sit the old guy down. He doesn't look good.
“Oleg,” I say.
His eyes are glassy. His face is a canvas of sweat and streaks of dried blood.
Bron and Ret enter the room, followed by Sneak. I grab Ret and squeeze him tight.
“I thought you were dead,” he says. He holds me at arm’s length and tries to wink, but his eye is too swollen. Seeing him up close now, I realize what truly made me snap.
“Thought you were dead too,” I say.
Bron's looking at me funny and you don't need to be the sharpest blade to figure out he sees my face and isn't quite sure what to make of it. The change had already started in the complex, but who has time to notice the little things when you’re being hunted by an army of Zees?
I reach out to him, but his arms remain lifeless at his sides.
“Bron, don't be like this,” I say, unable to stop the feeling growing inside: that I've become some kind of monster.
Ret lifts one of Bron's arms and lets it fall. “It isn't you, Azina. Those assholes switched them off when Bron tried to redecorate the bars of his cell.”
“But I'll bet they didn't count on me using my head.” There's a patch of dried blood on his forehead where he must have broken that guard's nose. Bron is smiling and I can see one of his brown teeth is missing. Oh boy, coming here didn't do much to improve anyone’s good looks.
There's a low humming noise and Bron's fingers begin to twitch. Sneak's behind him, closing the access panel between his shoulder blades. He lifts one of his gleaming arms and balls his fingers into a tight fist. The fist opens and he holds it out to me. I slide my hand into his and feel a chill run through my body from the cold steel.
“Thank you,” he says.
I blink stupidly for a second. I've never heard Bron thank anyone for anything. He never even felt indebted to his mother for giving birth to him, even though squeezing out an eighteen pound baby Bron nearly killed her.
-9-
“If we're done with all the hugging and kissing,” Krantz snaps, “we need to get a move on.”
He's right and it isn't just the wail from that siren shrieking overhead that brings his point home. We've got to get these guys back to safety.
Bron bends down and scoops Oleg into his arms. The old guy's head flops back and forth and I'm certain he won't last much longer.
We stash the bodies in the makeshift torture chamber and head out.
Two levels down and we’re just about to reach the S.I. listening post when I feel my body being thrust forward and I know right away it's got nothing to do with anyone behind me.
I turn to Ret and the dim pool of light makes his battered face look like some kind of creature’s.
“We've got a problem,” I say.
Ret stares back with a puzzled look, but there's no time to explain how I know when Zees are close. I pull open the door and I'm assaulted at once by the smell of blood. It's been sprayed all over the walls as if someone nicked a jugular and spun in circles like one of those old fashioned sprinkler systems Dusters were so fond of. Then I see what's caused it. One of the technicians is behind a metal table. All I can see are his legs and they're twitching madly. We swing around and the sight startles me. There's a Zee trying to bite through his skull. The man's throat's been torn clean out. Right beside the body is a blood-soaked clipboard. The Zee glares up from his kill and I see past the dark leathery skin covering his face and recognize the same testy little man who approached us as we entered the listening post. He hisses through a mouthful of blood and blackened teeth. He's about to spring. The muscles in his body tense and then release. He's halfway through the air when Bron's hand arcs down, shattering his skull and sending his mangled Zee body crashing to the ground. Bron doesn't have a stitch of ammo on him, but it's just as well. The last thing we need are those big guns of his drawing any more attention. But something else is growing more certain within me. That Zee seemed to be coming directly for me. Back in the complex, as the chemical began creeping up my leg, they had largely ignored me. Things seem different now. Then the truth settles over me like a suffocating gas. The Hive leader is in the city and he’s come to get me back.
-10-
Two other bodies litter the ground, but that Zee is still in his glass tube so it couldn't have been him that started this massacre. Bron sees the Zee attached to the metal cap and ticker tape machine for the first time and laughs. “What's he supposed to be doing? Getting a perm?” He shatters the glass and crushes the Zee’s head.
“I guess we know now why that siren's blaring,” Ret says.
“I tried to warn them,” says Bron from the other room as he wipes his hands on a lab coat. “Tried to tell them something big was on its way, but they wouldn't listen.”
“They didn't need to listen,” Krantz says, “because they already knew.” I remember the refugees lined up before the eastern gate and how on edge the guards were. Krantz may be right, but I’m still not sure what it all means.
Back through the stench of the pig farm and into the sewers. We make it to Krantz’ hideout without seeing another soul, Zee or otherwise, but I only really feel safe once the door is locked tightly behind us.
Bron lays Oleg on one of the bunks and I quickly see that we’re not alone. Two men in red robes sit at a nearby table, looking listless and shell shocked. The larger of the two is thick and muscular and has a long scar running down his face. It’s an old wound, the skin around it puffy and cauterized. His face is smeared with blood and I'm sure none of it is his. The one beside him looks far more frail with a head of hair so blonde it’s almost white. He has soft, rounded features – a child's face – and he's mumbling to himself, the way new recruits often do after their first kill. Krantz points to the one with the scar.
“This is Gunnar. The one beside him with the snow-colored hair is Vasser. Where are the others?” Krantz asks them, and the concern in his voice is obvious. Gunnar looks up from the drink in his trembling hands, his eyes taking their time to focus. “If they're not here, then they're probably dead.” Gunnar’s eyes find my face and he springs to his feet. “You let one of them in,” he screams and raises his rifle like he means to put a few dozen rounds between my eyes. His barrel’s nearly on target when Bron grabs the end and turns it into a pretzel.
“Stand down,” Krantz shouts to Gunnar.
I wave my hand to tell him that no harm is done. I'm more worried Bron's going to put the man's head in a vise and it’s quickly becoming clear we're going to need everyone we can get.
“Don’t hold it against him,” I tell Krantz. “A few days ago I would have done the same.”
“If you're not a Zee, then what are you?” Gunnar asks. His voice is cold.
“I'm not sure,” I say.
He goes to take a sip of his drink and stops. “Well, your friends are outside the city walls. Thousands of them. I’d say no more than a handful managed to get in and look at the chaos they managed to cause. I'm not even su
re how they got in. Refugees have been streaming into the city all day with wild stories of monsters coming down from Mount Kepler. And most of The Keepers have been running around trying to pretend like everything was business as usual, even the few of us embedded in the ranks, but anyone with a brain could tell something was very wrong. Wasn't long after that we saw a dust cloud appear on the horizon, maybe ten clicks out. Something big headed this way. Turned out to be those things. Thousands of them.”
The more I hear, the more the pieces start falling into place. All those Zees that had chased Bron, Oleg and Ret from the complex must have veered off once they were free. No Man's Land is a rough and unforgiving landscape, but even so, thousands have fled an overcrowded Sotercity to strike out on their own. Small communities struggling to stay alive in the harshest conditions. And how many of them are now Zees, clawing at those same city walls they so desperately wanted to leave?
Gunnar swallows hard. “They closed the gate on women and children. I lost count how many. Right before those things arrived in force.” He paused and buried his face in his hands. “I'll never forget those screams.”
-11-
I hear Oleg begin to stir behind me. Ret's by his side.
I kneel beside them. “Will he be okay?”
“He'll live,” Ret says. “He’s just dehydrated and in plenty of pain.”
Oleg opens his eyes and I can see Ret's right about the pain.
“We've given you something that should take the edge off,” Ret offers.
Oleg tries to wave us away. “I need that edge,” he growls. “Need a clear head. If it’s not already too late.”
“We know,” I say and fill him in on the Zees ravaging the countryside and their numbers swelling. “We don’t think more than a handful got into the city. So far, the walls are holding.”
Hive II Page 2