Antenna Syndrome

by Alan Annand

  ~~~

  Major was still where I’d left him, now rolling a joint. He finished and tucked it behind his ear. I handed his Beretta back to him. He sniffed the barrel, checked the safety and holstered it.

  “Everything okay on the third floor?”

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” I sagged to the ground with my back against the wall.

  “Need a mental laxative?” Major tugged the joint from behind his ear, lit it with a long drag and offered it to me.

  “No, I’m good.” But I needed to chill. I took out my vaporizer and kept him company with a few puffs of KavaKat.

  I looked at my hands. The little finger on my right twitched like a dead roach’s leg. Yep, I had the heebie-jeebies. I flashed back to Buzz in the doorway just before he’d killed Boyle – hands clasped at his chest as if in prayer. I recalled a video clip of a praying mantis on the Discovery channel – its fore-claws folded in front of the body, then the lightning jerk-and-snatch to pull the victim into the cutting mandibles.

  The image gave me goose bumps. A humanoid praying mantis? Impossible. Then I thought of the giant hornets on Ronkonkoma Lake and Yamazaki’s talk of Globik building insects on a human scale. Could Buzz be half-man, half-insect? How did you kill something like that? I thought of all the bugs I’d swatted, tough as nails and tenaciously mobile even after dismemberment. I didn’t like the idea of a crazed praying-mantis-man tearing the walls down to get at me. I’d better start practicing my quick-draw with the Heckler & Koch.

  “What’s buggin’ you?” Major asked between puffs.

  I wasn’t big on sharing, but I was in a jam and needed a wingman. Between the cops and Buzz having shown up at my office, I felt like a raccoon running out of trees to climb.

  I gave Major the high-level account of my week. As I recapped the past few days, I realized the body count was getting up there: Walker, LeVeen, Boyle and Mundt. Not to mention Marielle gone AWOL and Myers hospitalized.

  “You need a dog for protection,” Major said, exhaling a cumulus cloud. He poked Werewolf with a foot. “He might look like shit, but he is this man’s best friend. Anybody messes with me, he’d tear their legs off.”

  Good to know. Werewolf yawned, revealing a wicked set of yellowed canines.

  I took another hit of KavaKat. As I exhaled I felt the tension billow out of me. I looked at Major and Werewolf with a sort of brotherly love. He was just a retired veteran with an old dog, but I felt completely safe with them.

  “Major, I’ve got a major bug problem.”

  “Not on your floor. We’ve got a ground level chemical barrier second-to-none. I know because I breathe that shit day and night.”

  “I don’t mean my office. I mean that clinic in Tribeca.” I told him about Yamazaki’s suspicions regarding Globik’s clandestine research and development program. And it wasn’t hypothetical. I told him about the giant hornets of Ronkonkoma Lake. And Buzz, the bodyguard who’d bitten off the gunman’s fist at the Media Centre. I didn’t want to scare him by telling him what had happened to Boyle and Mundt in my office.

  “Man, what are you smoking?” Major had a fit of hysterical laughter. “That’s crazy talk.”

  “I’m serious. Dr. Globik’s the next thing to a mad scientist. One of his receptionists looks like a hybrid that crawled out from under a rotten log. He’s paid off the Department of Building Inspections to keep them out of his clinic. My guess, it’s some kind of factory like Yamazaki destroyed once already – but now using leading-edge laminate printing to make larger-than-life insect parts for prosthetic patients.”

  “Get the fuck out of here. Who’d want a limb made from insects?”

  “People with no alternatives participate in experimental procedures. People with no medical insurance, people with no family to help, people who want to be whole again…”

  “That doesn’t fit your little runaway. Her daddy’s got money, and so does she. Why surrender herself to that risk?”

  “Why do people get metal studs through nose, ears, lips? Tattoos all over their faces? Horns implanted in their foreheads?”

  Major grimaced. “Because they’re freaks.”

  “Maybe she’s a freak too. Or maybe she’s just confused. Either way, I won’t get paid unless I find her.”

  “So find her and extract her. Her family can take it from there.”

  “That’s the plan, but I’m starting to worry about its execution. Globik seems to have surrounded himself with insects. If I encounter a major bug infestation during her extraction, I’ve got to deal with it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to be pursued by a swarm of giant hornets. Or anything with six legs. When it comes to exterminating, it’s them or me.”

  “Go in with a shotgun and shoot anything that skitters. After that, nothing cleans up like fire. Just be careful about collateral damage. You don’t want to get your ass sued off by the next-door neighbors.”

  “Got any DDT to spare?”

  “Only about twenty gallons.”

  He showed me the storeroom and the five-gallon jerry cans of DDT. He also had dozens of empty wine bottles. We found a funnel and some rags. Major started pouring four inches of DDT into each bottle. After he’d emptied one of the pesticide cans I took the empty across the street to Mr. Kim’s where I filled it with gasoline and bought a quart of motor oil.

  Back at Major’s, we topped up the bottles with gasoline, plugged them with oil-soaked rags and gave each a shake to mix the gas and DDT. Molotov cocktails for giant bugs.

  I set a case of bottles next to the back door. “Ready to rock and roll.”

  Major shook his head. “Rock stars only come out at night.”

  Chapter 48

  A full moon. From out in the city of restless millions came a growl of street traffic and wail of police sirens. Someone was on the run and someone was chasing him. It was a story as old as the hills, replayed daily on the streets, in movies and on TV, and in books we no longer turned to when life ceased to offer the excitement we thought it owed us.

  Major gave me a pump-action shotgun and a box of shells. He produced a pair of bandoliers that we loaded and clipped to our gunstocks to sling the shotguns from our shoulders. I brought my tote bag and an extra box of ammo for my pistol. Major hefted the case of Molotov cocktails and we crossed the street to Mr. Kim’s garage. Werewolf followed.

  “What is it?” Mr. Kim said when he buzzed us in. “Hyena?”

  “This is Werewolf.”

  “Where you take him?”

  “Hunting.”

  Mr. Kim stayed behind his desk, but hit the intercom and barked something in Korean. A few moments later, one of his sons pulled up to the entrance with my Charger. When he got out of the car and saw Werewolf, he backed away. I opened a door and Werewolf climbed into the back seat. Major and I loaded our gear into the trunk and we drove to Tribeca.

  En route I stopped at a cyber café and made a quick call to the Midtown precinct. I said a high-end escort named Tatiana Borodin had killed Ron LeVeen yesterday in his Delancey Street apartment, on behalf of her accomplice Jack Randall. I gave her address and the location of the pistol I’d hidden in the underground garage. Plus Jack’s address and the Tesla’s plates. Twenty-three seconds without giving the dispatcher a chance to ask questions. Face to face, a cop would have made me repeat it six ways to Sunday. They’d have to settle for a replay.

  I should have told them about a pair of dead detectives in Hell’s Kitchen, but I couldn’t risk invoking a warrant for a suspected cop-killer with my name and description. I had enough trouble already without the whole NYPD hunting me. With any luck, I might break the case tonight.

  It was eleven thirty when we got to Laight Street. No surprise the clinic lights were on, since it was likely a 24/7 operation of nefarious activity. I circled the block, found a parking spot with a view of the Laight/Collister corner, and we settled down to wait.

  Werewolf whined from the rear seat.

 
“Needs a piss,” Major said. “I’ll take him for a walk. Do a little recon while I’m at it.”

  “Be careful.” I told him about encountering EDGAR on the street after midnight.

  Major let Werewolf out. They walked down to Collister, Werewolf watering every pole en route, and turned the corner out of sight. I toggled binocular mode and scanned the clinic’s upper windows. No open curtains tonight.

  Major and Werewolf returned fifteen minutes later. We lowered the windows and smoked a couple of cigarettes, waiting till past midnight.

  “Time to lock and load,” Major said.

  I took a Gemtech suppressor from my tote bag and screwed it onto my Heckler & Koch. Major had his own suppressor for the Beretta.

  “You don’t have to come in,” I said. “You can take the car and circle the block, give me a call if you see any threats. We may have to scramble out of here in a hurry.”

  “Sit on my ass while you see all the action? Fuck that,” Major said. “You want someone to have your back, I’ll be right there, five steps behind you.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “And you won’t forget me on payday.” He gave me a meaningful look.

  “You know I’m good for it.”

  “So let’s go squash some bugs. Try not to get stung doing it.”

  “Take an EpiPen.” I took one from my tote bag and gave it to him.

  He slipped it into his shirt pocket. “What about you?”

  “I’ve got one.”

  I got my burglar’s tools from the trunk and put them in my tote bag. I had just one set of car keys, so in case only Major made it out, I left the car unlocked and the keys under the driver’s seat. With Werewolf inside, no one would mess with the car.

  We walked down Collister, shotguns held against our legs. As I’d seen the other night, the clinic had no doors or windows at street level. We turned the corner onto Hubert. There were two loading docks with accordion steel doors above narrow platforms. Between them was a regular door with a steel staircase to the ground. Above, a wall-mounted floodlight illuminated the street. A camera monitored the loading area.

  We went fifty yards down the street, and returned flush against the wall. The camera was stationary and mounted on a pivot. I mounted the stairs, flattened myself against the door and used the shotgun to nudge the camera’s line of sight thirty degrees into the street. A risky move but no other option.

  We waited fifteen minutes. Maybe the camera didn’t work in the first place. Maybe nobody was watching the security monitors. Maybe the security firm that held the contract took forever to dispatch a vehicle. Maybe it was just our lucky night.

  I took out my lock-picking tools. It wasn’t a simple lock and it took me ten minutes to get it open. Major followed and closed the door behind us. Our flashlights revealed a loading bay, empty except for a few wooden pallets. I inspected the doorjamb. No security sensors. Nothing here worth stealing, or was there some other security? Fearing something lurking in the dark, I took out my pistol.

  We passed through a door at the rear of the loading bay. From a landing, a flight of stairs went up, another down. We descended into the basement and entered a laboratory on the scale of a government-funded institution.

  We walked down aisles of apparatus, shining our lights over oscilloscopes, electron microscopes, dosimeters and other equipment I couldn’t name. An observation window looked into an operating room with oxygen unit, monitoring devices and racks of surgical equipment.

  Another room contained what looked like a giant phone booth lying on its side. We entered the room for a closer look. The booth contained a stainless steel tray at the lower level, above which were positioned four robotic arms with multiple spray heads. On a rack outside the chamber were dozens of gel cartridges with tubes feeding into the unit. A control station with keyboard and screen bore the logo BioClone 1.8.

  The name rang a bell. I remembered what Dr. Yamazaki at NYU had said about Globik’s potential to use 3-D printing to build larger-than-life insects using raw material – brain, optic, muscle, cartilage, exoskeleton cells – extracted from existing bugs to provide the palette for a new creation.

  The technology in this facility was impressive. Given everything we’d seen thus far, I reckoned there were a few million dollars worth of scientific equipment here. Where’d Globik get the money for this lab? Was the bionic limbs business that good?

  We backed out of the room and continued our recon. Refrigeration units spanned one wall. Blood plasma, toxins and cultures in one. Thousands of frozen insects, separately sealed in plastic canisters, in the next two units. Similar thing in the next few units, except the insects were fewer but larger – beetles and ants as big as mice, butterflies and moths the size of sparrows, a pair of hornets as big as my fist.

  The last refrigeration unit held huge insect parts blown up to human scale. Hard-shelled limbs with spurs on the joints, and claws where hands or feet should have been. Eyeballs the size of plums, thousands of tiny facets glinting beneath my flashlight’s beam. Dagger-like stingers attached to sacs of venom.

  Major and I exchanged glances. I saw shock, awe and horror all mirrored in his face.

  I turned away from the fridge in disgust. Globik was grafting enhanced insect parts onto humans? Or vice versa? I was familiar with bugs, but this was horrifying. I shuddered to think of such creatures set loose in our world.

  I panned my flashlight around the lab. Its glare reflected off rows of beakers and tubes and shelves of bottled chemicals. I held the beam on two huge glass cisterns labeled C2H5OH. Ethyl alcohol. I could have used a drink, but I didn’t see any mix lying around.

  Major and I exchanged a few hushed words about tactics. I’d continue with a recon of the building while he went back to the car for the case of Molotovs. We went back upstairs together, him leaving via the loading bay, while I found a door onto the main floor. On my iFocals, I called up the floor plans I’d acquired from Globik yesterday.

  His office and reception area were at opposite ends of the ground floor, a conference room and kitchenette between. I took an EpiPen and left my tote bag under the receptionist’s desk. I climbed the stairs to the second floor whose hall lights were dimmed. At the rear of the building were several rooms, their doors locked. At the other end of the hall, light came from two partially-closed doors. I walked towards the front of the building, where stairs led to the third floor. I heard a one-sided conversation, someone on a phone, coming from one of the rooms.

  The voice sounded like Dr. Globik but he was speaking Russian and I didn’t understand a word. I toggled the instant translator on my iFocals and turned up the volume to listen. The translator wasn’t perfect, picking things up on the fly, but I got the gist of it.

  “Yes, all under control. Savage escaped but Buzz planted spiders in his nest. His next sleep there will be forever. Jordan is being silenced too. No more shouting about Russian bedbugs. I guard the brotherhood. He’ll be dead by noon tomorrow. Not tonight. My team operates best in daylight. This must look natural. Bizarre, but plausible. Police will rule it freak of nature. Yes, I keep you informed. Good night.”

  I heard Globik rise from his chair. I slipped past the half-closed door and took the carpeted stairway up three steps at a time. I’d just reached the third floor when something fell on me from above. It was all hairy arms and legs with the sinewy strength of a wrestler. My gun was snatched from its holster and flung away before I could get a hand on it. As I struggled to break the stranglehold on my neck, my leg was kicked out from beneath me and we went head over heels down the stairs.

  I lay stunned on the landing, amazed I hadn’t been concussed by the tumble downstairs. But the thing on my back still had its arms around my neck, choking the life out of me. Globik appeared upside-down at the fuzzy limits of my vision, and watched me as the lights slowly dimmed. I tried to gather my breath, to summon all the bravado at my disposal, to tell him he’d better hand over Marielle, to let us go before the police got involve
d. But as it turned out, I was all out of breath, if not bravado.

  I went out like a cheap match in the wind.

  FRIDAY

  Chapter 49

  I awoke strapped to a gurney in a large room. Heavy window blinds and a dim overhead light made it seem like I was underwater. On my right I saw a painting on an easel, a table with a jar of brushes and tubes of oils. I heard a door open, then a humming sound. A brunette with a pretty face approached the bed in a motorized wheelchair.

  “Marielle?”

  Her eyes widened. “How’d you know my name?”

  I told her I’d been hired by her half-sister Natalie to find her. How her astrologer had told me about Eddie Crabner. How that had led to his old roommate Ron LeVeen. I told her about the phony ransom demand and theft of her paintings. I questioned the company she was keeping.

  “Eddie’s changed,” she admitted. “He’s not the same guy who wrote me romantic emails. He’s insanely jealous. He mailed that spider to kill Joey. And his friend Buzz is a total freak.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Eddie’s just down the hall. I haven’t seen Buzz since the day they smuggled me out of the house.”

  “What time is it?”

  She looked at her watch. “Four AM.”

  I hoped Major was still alive. Why’d he leave me alone like this for four hours? “How come you’re up?”

  “My room’s just down the hall and the commotion woke me up. I waited until everyone else was asleep before coming to see you.”

  “You see my gun anywhere? Or my iFocals?”

  “I saw Globik take them away from you.”

  “Can you unfasten me?”

  There were straps at my chest, waist and knees. The buckles and hooks were all below the gurney where I couldn’t reach them. She went to work on them but it was a real struggle, with her in the chair and all.