S.T.Y.X. Humanhive (S.T.Y.X. Humanhive Book 1)

by Arthur Stone

  “It is indeed hard to read a gun’s side when you’re staring down its muzzle.”

  “Figured.”

  “They escalated things first, though, for no reason. They said I was ‘on their turf.’ Wait. I think one of them went by ‘Kettle.’”

  “What? Kettle ambushed you?” Nimbler looked startled. “What the hell was that goatfucker doing out here? No way his gang cleared out that store. I doubt they have a whole pair of balls among the four of them. But then again, nothing emboldens a man like opportunity, and clusters this affluent don’t drop in every day. Anything can happen along the Noose. Anywhere else there might be stuff? Don’t be shy. Tell me and I’ll be sure to say thank you.”

  “I wanted to get a gun too, but the store didn’t work out, so I came here. Since the government section of the city was just across the river, along with my home. But that part of the city was just gone. Instead, there was...”

  “Nothing. It was completely different, completely unfamiliar.”

  “Yeah. I had lived there for three years. But I failed to make it home yesterday, since I got stuck on the road like I did.”

  “Unlucky you. If you had escaped the sector before the reset, none of this would’ve happened. But you didn’t make it.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Your house didn’t get brought in. That area is in a different cluster, so your neighborhood went untouched. You’d have crashed on your couch with no idea that you barely dodged an interdimensional disaster.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Cluster. Cell. Piece of the honeycomb. Remember? The place we’re in now has no relation of geographical origin to what’s across the river. That’s another cluster, its contents brought in from a different location altogether. So you saw it?”

  “Yeah, from the riverbank.”

  “It’s an empty cluster. No city, just wilderness, maybe some scrappy little towns here and there. The only city neighborhoods brought in were on this side of the river. So tell me, was there anything else here like that store, but on this side of the water?”

  “Not that I remember. The richer part was across.”

  “Forget about the other side. There is no other side, not anymore, and you’ll never see your old home again. You’re Boiler now, and that’s that. But I guess you can’t help me, and that’s unfortunate.”

  “Sorry that I don’t spawn bullets like those things spawn spores.”

  “The day’s still young. You might be a doubler yet.”

  “...what?”

  “Forget it. I’ve overloaded your brain already. I’m still fired up from that raffler, but I’d like to grab some more treasure. We can’t just leave a fresh cluster sitting here still full of loot, now can we?”

  “There’s probably no luxury caviar to be found here. Plenty of stores around, sure, but I don’t know the area very well. Hmm. The best pharmacy in the city is just down the street, if you need medicine.”

  “Nope, like I just said, Boiler, immunes almost never get sick.”

  “So no infection can bother us?”

  “The parasite infects everyone in this place who doesn’t use respirators. It turns most of them into beasts, but it coexists peacefully with others. Have you ever seen a zombie movie where the zombies get pneumonia? Nope. In that way, real life here is like the movies. The zombies don’t get sick, and just like it does in them, the parasite in us destroys any and all competing illnesses.”

  “It kills bacteria?”

  “Even more than that, it can heal almost anything. We in the Hive don’t die from cancer or blood clots, or even old age. No, we die from claws, teeth, and bullets. Meaning the most important medical supplies are bandages and tourniquets, but those are everywhere and of little value. Painkillers are a decent grab, but even they won’t go for much. No, a pharmacy won’t do us much good.”

  “Well, then I’m out. Not sure what else to offer.”

  “Think! Like I said, we can’t leave a fresh cluster empty-handed. Do you know where we can get some recordings of the latest TV shows? Or even older stuff.”

  “Like a TV station office?”

  “Nah, not necessarily. Maybe a neighbor downloaded or recorded the last two seasons of Thrones? Sports games? Hell, even chess tournaments?”

  “Why would that matter?”

  “People still love watching TV. Or staring at recordings of TV from the old world, anyway. They remember their couch, their families. So there’s high demand for such things, since you can’t expect cable or Internet service here.”

  “Out of luck again. All of my neighbors used streaming services, I think. Plus, home wasn’t even on this side.”

  “Hmm. What about a porn video stand?”

  “What?”

  “Homeschooled or something? You know, pornography. Naked women engaging in assorted non-academic activities.”

  “Yeah, I’m just a little surprised. Porn video stands? Do those even exist? In this town, you’d have to go to adult bookstores for that, and the only one I knew of here was across the river.”

  “Maybe some magazines, then. Plenty of fans of Playboy and such things around. There’s steady demand for anything novel along those lines, if you catch my drift. Where can you get that?”

  “Easy. Head north and you’ll find it in the gas stations.”

  “Alright, off we go. We’ll pick up some gems for these, uh, niche markets, then we’ll beat it out of the city. And you’ll show me on my map where that gun store is. For later, in case I end up here after the next clusterfuck. Now, show me those stores.”

  Chapter 7

  Nimbler moved through the city with a remarkable lack of walking. Much more common were dashing, crouching, taking cover, freezing in place, listening, looking around, and even staring at a single place for a long time. His binoculars came out now and then, but his eyes spent more of the trip naked than not.

  Boiler, meanwhile, was realizing how fortunate he really was. These hide and seek maneuvers, so essential in this place, had been entirely forgone by his morning self. Yet he was still alive, in a place where only the cautious survived.

  Nimbler stopped at one particular spot for a long time, peering around the corner, then whispered, “Follow me.”

  Boiler obeyed, entering an apartment building with his partner. The security gate, unpowered, swung open without force. “What are we doing here, Nimbler?”

  “Nothing yet. Let’s wait on those steps.”

  “OK, well, what are we hiding from?”

  “There’s a biter out there.”

  “Like those rafflers of yours?”

  “A little worse.”

  “More dangerous, you mean?”

  “Go compare, if you’d like.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. They got the same crap inside them?”

  “Crap? What crap?”

  “Uh, peas or spores or whatever.”

  “It’s not crap, kid. It’s what we living beings need more than anything. A mature biter’ll give you as many as five spores, and they’re much more likely to have peas than rafflers are. Take out a few of them and you can count on getting at least one or two peas.”

  “Is ‘biter’ the official name?”

  “This place is actually pretty simple, Boiler, even when it seems complicated to a newbie like you. Infecteds grow. They mature. As they do, their appearance changes, and we have dozens of names for each stage they hit. But fresh infecteds are always empty, no spores, so we just call them empties. There are different kinds, sure—sliders, amblers, jumpers—but everybody knows what you mean by ‘empties.’ Next up the chain are stronger creatures, our main source of spores. Sporites, as a class. The weakest and most common of them is the runner. He’s got a spore sac, yeah, but usually no spores inside. The raffler and trampler are higher classes of sporites. They can even carry peas, though not often. That class matures into the ‘peapods,’ our main source of peas, as I’m sure their name betrays. They’ve alwa
ys got peas in them, or almost always. A biter is an early-stage peapod. Not the most dangerous—a manmincer is a hundred times worse—but they’re almost always carrying a pea, and three or four if you’re lucky. So there you go: empties, sporites, and peapods. Those mature into the elites, the pearlmakers, but nobody classifies that lot into anything but one big group.”

  “Are peas worth a lot?”

  “Huh? Of course, that should be obvious.”

  “So how much ammo, say nine-millimeter ammo, could you buy for a pea?”

  “Depends on the stable you’re in.”

  “On average.”

  “Twenty rounds, from the greediest dealer. Some places more, some places less.”

  “So you shoot this thing in the head and collect your loot. Even if you have to shoot it five or ten times, you break even. Plus spores, which are your basic currency. How much will the porn magazines get you?”

  “Almost nothing. I can see what you’re driving at. You want to know why I’d go after porn magazines rather than drop biters and other peapods left and right and trade in their peas.”

  “Yeah. I guess you don’t have a machine gun or rifle but a crossbow, so you’d have to get close. Too close.”

  “You can pick up a machine gun anywhere for free, or close to it. Ammo’s your real problem. But you’re wrong about one key point.”

  “What point?”

  “Thinking that a hunt like that would mean easy profit, even if you weren’t the best shot.”

  “Why?”

  “Infecteds have better senses of smell and hearing, so any shot you take will bring them in from every corner of town. The empties might not react too quickly, but for the bigger beasts it’s like you’re ringing a moon-sized lunch bell. You’ll never get the beast de-peaed by the time they rush you from all around. Plus, a good hole in the head or torso can take out a basic-level empty, but the stronger forms can survive even machine gun fire. They have incredible fortitude, natural armor, and elevated cunning and reaction speed. So you can hunt them, but only with extreme caution, and never, ever in a city with a cluster that just reset, or else you’ll have the whole neighborhood on you in nothing flat.”

  “How about a whole group? Like Kettle’s.”

  “Kettle came and snatched whatever was out in the open then ran off. He’s not a real marauder, just a cowardly opportunist, and he won’t last long.”

  “But what if you got a serious group together?”

  “That does happen. They can make some good money, too. But then one day the rat-a-tat of their machine guns draws, not a couple of tramplers, but an elite pearlmaker, plus a couple of mature manmincers. And the hunting party becomes prey.”

  “My, doesn’t this place sound fun.”

  “No boredom here, that’s for sure. Oh, by the way, one quick economy lesson. A raffler is a sporite. It’s not too often you find peas in them, and you’ll have to take down about fifteen to find one pea, on average. With the higher-level sporites, your chances are about double that, but they’re still slim. Getting peas usually means finding peapods, and they’re much stronger. Really tough to bring down. There are even peapods who are so powerful, you can never be sure who’s hunting whom. They often stick close to elites, too, and few humans would dare take on an elite without at least a tank on their side. Alright, enough chat, let’s go.”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know that? You can’t see out there from in here.”

  “He was eating an empty. They do that when they get hungry to stand it. He’ll have taken a few bites and then decided to look for something tastier, so he’s gone. No point in staying. If you ever run into a half-eaten corpse, it was almost definitely an infected. Immunes get stripped down to the bone in seconds.”

  “Sounds like you know their habits well.”

  “I’ve been looting clusters for more than a year now. Unofficial statistics say that ninety percent of immunes don’t make it past day six; even a week is a decent track record. Newcomers are too naive, make too much noise and too many mistakes to survive. Just don’t expect me to go to any great lengths to drag you through the honeymoon period. We don’t live by charity here. If things get hot, I’ll abandon you without even bothering to say I’m sorry, my natural courtesy aside.”

  “Got it.”

  * * *

  Nimbler hastily stuffed the magazines into his pack, interjecting brief commentary.

  “Hmm, this’ll do. But this won’t. Wheelbarrows, yachts, only a few girls, and all dolled up in dresses. And who the hell in this dead-end town wanted magazines about yachts and nice cars? What’s that? Yeah, I guess there was demand for it. Cadillacs in our dreams kind of thing. Sometimes, you know, I think this new world makes more sense than the old one. This one...”

  “I think somebody just ran by. Looked human.”

  Nimbler snapped, his voice sacrificing volume for intensity. “Where?”

  “Further down the road. Near the corner.”

  “That’s pretty far. You sure it was human?”

  “Well, it sure wasn’t a raffler. Had its clothes on, and a normal physique.”

  “Maybe one of the empties managed to mature into a runner. This is a fast cluster, so everything here happens quickly.”

  “Are runners dangerous?”

  “Not especially. They look like ordinary empties but move a lot more quickly. They are strong, though. No sense getting in a tangle with them unnecessarily, or their growing nails can tear you up good.”

  “So the more these things eat, the more they mature?”

  “Yeah. The luckiest ones will become elites in time. They’re still beasts, sure, but also cunning killers. Infecteds need so much food that they mostly eat each other to get enough. After all, there are too few of us to live on. One in two or three hundred are immune, at most, and that’s slim pickings for a horde. Cows, sheep, pigs, and pets provide a lot more sustenance for them. Pigs can get infected, by the way, especially wild boar.

  “Really?”

  “Plant-eaters can’t be infected, but carnivores and omnivores can. I don’t know what percentage of animals are immune, but a huge number of dogs, wolves, and bears become empties. I even saw a tiger ghoul once, nearby. There’s a zoo that keeps dropping in inside this one cluster, time and time again. You never know what you’ll encounter in this world.”

  “What do you mean, ‘time and time again?’”

  “Not long ago, you asked me why, back in that world where no one knew your name was Boiler, nobody ever saw a piece of a city vanish along with all its inhabitants. Have you ever heard of the multiverse theory? We very well might be clones of our earlier selves, which is where the superstition arose that using your old name brings you fatally bad luck.” He stopped mid-thought. “Now this is the kind of stuff I’m looking for! Help me find more of these. This is gold, and they’ll pay gold for it. Its pages will be stuck closed before the first night passes!

  Boiler refused to let him change the subject. “The multiverse? That’s just a stupid theory.”

  “Glad you’ve come, then, to teach us the truth of the world. But actually, that attitude might get you far. Plenty of people here don’t give the multiverse a moment’s consideration from the day they come in to the day they die. And some of them end up living pretty well. Too much knowledge can be the strongest source of grief.”

  Nimbler turned back to the magazines. “Here. See this babe with the hot tits on the cover here? Imagine, if you would, a world the same as this one, with the very same store. Everything in it, identical. And on this cover, each and every detail is exactly the same, except that her tits are one size smaller. That’s the only difference in that universe. In another world, they’re one size bigger—making that universe’s version of me just the tiniest bit less happy. I don’t like them too big. Anyway, in a third universe, these panties are black instead of white. And so on and so forth, a trillion different variations of the cover of this
single magazine, and a trillion different magazines available, in a trillion different kiosks, in a trillion different city blocks...”

  “I know well enough what the multiverse theory is, without the analogies.”

  “Alright, then back to our original question. So a recluster happened in the world where that zoo is located, and the animals inside were brought here, along with their cages and pens and all. Then a little while later, in another world, the same exact event occurred. Your city, Boiler—or this part of it, at least—has been brought here so many times no one can keep count. Most of those caught in this situation becomes true fishers of men, running after each other with open arms, eagerly devouring one another with unholy kisses. They eat, and grow, and eat some more, and grow some more. Almost all the creatures end up as food, so eventually you have a few mighty beasts and virtually no empties. Then a week later—or a month, or even six months—it all repeats. That’s life in the Hive, a cycle of endless resets and beast feasts.”

  “What happens if you stay in a cluster when it resets? Will it send you back?”

  “No. Instead, you’ll experience knockout.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “It is, Boiler. Bad enough to either kill you or make you a mindless fool. Either way, not a happy event.”

  The sun had passed its zenith, and Nimbler decided their adventure had, too. “Let’s get out of here. Loot is good, but you’ve got to know when to stop.”

  “Are you on foot because you’re afraid of the sound a vehicle makes?”

  “If you want to live, you’ll be afraid of it, too. Courageous men never last more than a few months here. Come on, let’s move over there, where the view is better.”

  “There’s a park beyond this block. Not many trees since they thinned it out recently, so we’ll end up out in the open.”

  “Alright, well, you’re the local. You lead the way.”

  “Where are we heading?”

  “Towards the river, near where we met, but not in the exact same spot. Upriver a bit. I need to get to the highest building in town, maybe something with a spire on top, but we shouldn’t move along the riverbank. When you’re in the Hive, you never, ever backtrack.”