by Gord Zajac
CHAPTER THREE
Karnage walked down the dimly lit corridor. Giant doors lined either side. Soft green pulses of light flowed through the squiggles along the walls. Karnage felt like he was walking through Cookie’s forearms. The occasional line of white light would stop, bunch up into a hovering ball as he walked past it, then streak off again, lost in the green mass.
Karnage felt a strange tingle at the base of his neck. Suddenly he lost all feeling in his body and he fell to the ground. “Right, mate,” Sydney said. “Now we do it my way.”
“Captain, it’s me,” Karnage gasped. “Major Karnage.”
“I know who you are,” Sydney said. Karnage heard the familiar jangle of handcuffs.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“Arresting you,” Sydney replied, as she snapped the cuffs on Karnage’s wrists.
“Goddammit, Captain, this is neither the time nor the place! Look around you! Do you have any idea where we are?”
Sydney looked around. “Dimly lit corridor. Probably somewhere underground.”
“UNDERGROUND?!”
“We’ll find our way out, though, no worries.”
“Are you outta your mind?! We are deep inside an alien ship! Hurtling across space! Probably halfway across the damn galaxy by now!”
“Sounds like you’re the one out of your mind.” A finger touched Karnage’s neck, and he could move again. Sydney pulled him to his feet. She thrust a pinky in his face. “No funny business or I cart you out of here like a sack of potatoes.”
Sydney jerked Karnage forward. “For god’s sake, Captain, how can you not believe me? Didn’t you see that ship come hurtlin’ outta the sky? How the hell do you think we got here?!”
She frowned in reply. “I can’t remember, exactly. My head’s still fuzzy. I remember the sky went dark, like a freak thunderstorm or something—”
“That was no thunderstorm! That was a goddamn unidentified flying object of DEATH! It opened up one monkeyfucker of a death ray on us, and here we are!”
“Sounds like it’s not a very good death ray. Come on, keep moving. We need to find our way out of here.”
“This is a hell of a way to treat your rescuer! They had you all trussed up in a big hoverball thing. I had to break you out. I saved you from bein’ bottled up like . . . like a goddamn pickle in a mason jar!”
“A hoverball, huh? Then that proves it. We’re not on an alien spacecraft.”
“What?!”
“Come on, Major. Hoverballs? That’s not exactly alien technology. This probably has something to do with the Dabney Corporation. Probably some top secret operation. We just need to find somebody in charge—”
“Captain, did you miss the part where I told you they had you locked up?!”
Sydney stopped walking, and looked at Karnage. “You really think we’re on an alien spacecraft?”
“YES!”
Sydney looked around, and shook her head. “I’m not convinced.”
“Open your eyes, Captain! What the hell more proof do you need?”
“Some aliens would be a nice start.”
“Oh there are aliens, all right. I’ve seen ’em with my own eyes! They’re giant squidbuggy things with squiddy heads atop of buggy bodies with eyes like . . . like . . .”
“Like squidbugs?”
“NO! Like squiggles! Squiggly like the walls! Squiggly like the worms! Squiggly like the squiggles on Cookie’s arms! Goddammit, Captain, can’t you see the connection? Its all fallin’ into place. They got squiggly tentacles, too, and they shoot giant squiggly balls of electricity from their squiggly spears and . . . quit lookin’ at me like that! They’re here! I’ve seen ’em!”
“Where? Where are they? Where are these aliens?”
Karnage eyed every darkened corner suspiciously. “That’s just it. They could be anywhere. All around us. Ready to attack at any moment. Now get these cuffs off of me before they launch their squiggly squidbug attack!”
“They could be anywhere?”
“That’s right. Anywhere. Just lurking, waiting for the right moment to strike.”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where are they hiding? Why can’t we see them?”
Karnage leaned in close and hissed. “That’s cuz they’re invisible.”
“Invisible?”
“Yes!”
“And you’ve seen these invisible aliens?”
“YES!”
“Are you seeing any right now?”
“No! They’re not actually invisible. It’s more like camouflage— goddammit, Captain, get these handcuffs off of me!”
“So far, Major, you have said nothing to make me want to do that.”
A squiggly squeal echoed in the distance. Sydney turned in its direction. “What the hell was that?”
“That,” Karnage replied, “was a squidbug.”
Sydney backed down the corridor. “It sounded like a worm.”
“They all sound like that,” Karnage said.
Sydney rounded on Karnage, her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “This is a military thing, isn’t it? That worm was some kind of superweapon, wasn’t it? Some mutated superweapon grown out of control—”
“Now who sounds ridiculous? Why can’t you accept the simple fact that this is aliens?”
Sydney looked around. She shook her head. “That’s just so crazy. I mean, this place doesn’t look that alien.”
Karnage did a doubletake. “What do you mean it doesn’t look alien?! What the hell do you want it to look like?”
Sydney shrugged. “I don’t know. Just more . . . alien.”
They heard another squiggly scream, much closer this time.
Karnage rounded on Sydney. “Captain, with all due respect, get these fuckin’ cuffs offa me!”
Sydney shook her head. “I’m not convinced. I have to see ’em for myself.”
“So we’re just gonna wait here until one of those squiggly bastards comes up and bites us in the ass! Jesus, Captain, what do I gotta do to prove it to you?”
As if on cue, a collection of white slivers of light shot through the walls and collected in a nodule by a door. The door spiralled open, and a squidbug that had been leaning on the door stumbled back and fell out. Other squidbugs sat inside, collected around an old car idling in the room. Bits of broken hoverball shell lay around it. The room was thick with grey smoke. A garden hose had been taped to the car’s exhaust, and a squidbug was sucking on the end of it. His eyes were crossed and purple polka-dots covered his skin. He passed the hose to the next squidbug who eagerly sucked on the end and turned a kind of chartreuse shade of plaid.
The squidbug that lay at Karnage’s and Sydney’s feet groggily stood and shook its head. It looked at Karnage and Sydney with crossed eyes. It worked hard at uncrossing its eyes and focused on Karnage and Sydney. It blinked slowly as its skin changed colour from green paisley to blue ripples. Its eyes suddenly went wide and its skin flowed to solid purple then dark red. It raised its mouth tentacles, exposing a clawed beak, and screeched at Sydney.
Sydney whipped her pistol from her belt and fired a shot of goober in the squidbug’s face. The alien’s head disappeared in an expanding ball of goober as it staggered back into the room. It crashed into the car, kicking the garden hose out of the exhaust. The other squidbugs finally looked up from the hose at their struggling companion. Gradually, they turned their attention to Karnage and Sydney and worked hard at uncrossing their eyes.
Karnage and Sydney backed away from the door.
“Is that enough empirical evidence for you, Captain?” Karnage said.
Sydney nodded. “That should just about do it.”
The squidbugs slowly rose to their feet as their eyes focused on Karnage and Sydney.
“How many rounds you got left in that goober gun?” Karnage said.
“Not enough,” Sydney said.
One of the squidbugs turned dark crimson. It reached down for a squig
gly spear lying on the floor.
“Only one thing left do,” Karnage said.
“What’s that?”
“Run!”
They raced down the corridor, the squidbugs stumbling after them. The aliens levelled their energy spears at Karnage and Sydney, and fired balls of energy at them. The balls went ridiculously wide, slamming into the floor and ceiling far behind them. One of the squidbugs tripped on his spear and accidentally shot himself. He vaporized instantly.
“These guys are the worst shots I’ve ever seen!” Sydney said.
“Quit bitching!” Karnage stumbled and nearly fell. “You picked a helluva time to come around! You know that?”
“Now who’s bitching?!”
“I am! And I got every right to! You know how hard it is to run in handcuffs?”
“How was I supposed to know there were aliens?”
“How about because I fuckin’ well told you?”
“I make it a point never to trust anybody in handcuffs.”
A crackling ball of green energy flew over their heads.
“Maybe you should rethink that policy!”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
They rounded a corner, and came face to face with a sealed door. “How do you open this thing?” Sydney said.
Karnage motioned with his head at the nodules beside the door. “It has something to do with this.”
Sydney pressed it and punched it, but nothing happened. “How does it work?”
“I don’t know. I just pushed it, and it worked.”
“It’s not working now.”
“I can see that.”
Energy blasts shot wildly down the corridor, some of them disturbingly close.
“Goddammit, we have to do something!”
Karnage kicked the nodule. “Open up, you stupid monkeyfucker!” White light burst out of the nodule and flowed into the floor. The Sanity Patch crooned “Coral Essence” as the floor spiralled open beneath them.
They fell into the bowels of the ship.
CHAPTER FOUR
Karnage plummeted through twisting pipes, slid through long chutes, and spiralled through giant drains, liquid flowing all around him. An occasional burst of white light shot down the tunnel in front of him, opening up new chutes while sealing off others, redirecting his course as he alternately slid and fell deeper into the squidbug ship.
The tunnel finally gave way to open air, and he fell through the pitch black and landed with a splash into liquid. It stung his eyes and tasted like toxic sludge. He tried to kick his way to the surface. The handcuffs holding his arms behind his back did nothing to help.
He wasn’t sure if he was swimming up to the surface or down into the depths. He just kept kicking, hoping eventually he’d reach the top. He felt something grab his collar and pull him sideways. His head broke the surface and he gasped for air.
Karnage could feel Sydney pulling again as she swam towards a circle of white light shining in the distance. It illuminated a halfopen grate in the wall, just above the water level. A particularly large wave slapped her full in the mouth.
She spat out a mouthful of foul liquid. “Christ, this stuff tastes awful!”
“Just keep swimming.” Karnage did his best to kick and help propel them forward.
It was much farther away than it looked. The white ring slowly grew in size, from a man-sized hole to something that would accommodate a jumbo jet. Exhausted, Sydney pulled them through the grate onto its dry smooth surface. They lay there a moment, catching their breath. Finally, Sydney spoke. “There really are aliens, aren’t there?”
“Not just aliens,” Karnage said. “Squidbugs.”
Sydney looked out at the giant vat of liquid. “What the hell do we do now?”
“First,” Karnage twisted his back towards Sydney, “you can take off these handcuffs.”
“Right,” she said. “Sorry.”
Karnage heard her fumble in her pockets. “Shit,” she said.
“What?”
“I can’t find the key. I must have dropped it.” She ran her hands along the base of the tunnel, then looked with dread out at the liquid. She looked back at Karnage.
He ground his teeth. “This is great. No, this is beyond great. Fantastic! How the hell am I gonna defend myself against a squidbug attack?”
“Maybe you can kick ’em to death.”
“Can’t you just poke the cuffs with a toe or something and snap ’em off?”
Sydney shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“No,” Karnage said. “Of course not.”
“Come on.” Sydney helped Karnage to his feet. “Maybe we can find something at the end of this tunnel.”
Karnage looked down into the darkness. “Where does it go?”
“It goes that way. Come on.”
They walked down the shaft for what felt like hours. Karnage rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms. They were starting to get sore. He tried glowering at Sydney’s back to make himself feel better. It didn’t help.
The tunnel slowly slanted upward. It ended at a bend that took it straight up a few feet before ending at a giant sealed grate. Nothing but darkness was visible beyond the grate.
A set of rungs led up to the grate. Sydney climbed up and tried to lift it. It didn’t budge. She looked around the edges. “Maybe there’s a nodule thing we can hit.”
“I don’t see one,” Karnage commented.
“Keep looking.”
“What’s that?”
A flashing pinprick of white light shot across the grate. The edges of the grate glowed, and it lifted and slid open.
“Nice work,” Karnage said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Worry about the who and the why later. Help me up.”
Sydney helped Karnage up the rungs, and the two of them pulled themselves through the open grate. Karnage felt like a rat crawling out of a drain. Every movement echoed through the cavernous darkness. The only light in the room was the ring of white light around the grate. All that it illuminated was Karnage and Sydney and a soft circle of grey floor.
The ring of light pulled itself from the edges of the grate, and pooled into a puddle under their feet. It shot a squiggling luminescent tendril forward and formed a second puddle just a few feet ahead of them. A third tentacle shot out of the second pool, forming a third, and then a fourth formed out of the third. The pools propagated themselves off into the distance until they were barely visible at the edge of a black horizon, ghostly white lily pads in the dark, quivering and fidgeting.
“That looks like a path,” Sydney said.
“I know,” Karnage replied.
“Think we should follow it?”
Karnage shook his head. “Fuck no.”
“Me neither.”
The lily pad beneath their feet flickered for a moment, then winked out.
“Is that supposed to be a hint?” Sydney asked.
“If it was,” Karnage said, “I’m not listening.”
The next nearest lily pad winked out. Then the next and the next in a chain reaction of winks that looked like a long line of eyes closing in a Rockettes-style routine. Finally, only one tiny pinpoint of light flickered in the distance.
“I think they really want us to follow the path,” Sydney said.
“Well, they can go fuck themselves.” He looked up into the dark. “I’m not gonna be led around like a rat in a trap! You hear me?!”
The pinprick of light shot off angry squiggling lines in all directions, stretching from horizon to horizon. Then, impossibly, the lines turned sharply upward and shot up walls the height of cliffs. They disappeared behind dark rounded masses above them, and spanned out, soaking the walls in a grey luminous glow.
Karnage and Sydney stared up at the dark mounds high above. White light flashed and popped from bulbous mound to bulbous mound. Suddenly, the mounds twitched, and the entire ceiling slowly lowered towards them.
“Back
through the grate!” Karnage shouted. But it was too late. The grate had slammed shut behind them.
They looked up and watched as the ceiling slowly moved down.
As the ceiling grew closer they saw it was composed of thousands of translucent spheres of varying sizes. Dark shapes bobbed within them. The spheres stopped lowering just inches above their heads. The sudden stop forced the dark shapes to float down against the bottom of their spheres. A human face appeared. It was a man with his knees hugged to his chest, sleeping peacefully. He bobbed back up and disappeared into the mists of the sphere.
“They’re human,” Karnage said.
“Not all of them.” Sydney reached up and grabbed a sphere the size of a basketball. She pulled it down. Its curled dark shape bobbed down and up, a tail clearly drifting from its back. “This one’s got a cat in it.” Sydney let the ball go, and it pushed up into the mass, forcing the other spheres to make room. The spheres rippled and bobbed out.
There was a faint rumbling, and suddenly the spheres parted to make room for one the length of a bus. It pushed itself well down through the mass, forcing Karnage and Sydney to drop to the floor. The sphere slowed to a stop inches above their heads, and moved back up again. The enormous black shape within pushed at the curve of glass for an instant, before the sphere and its contents disappeared back up into the ocean of spheres. Karnage and Sydney looked at each other in shock.
“Was that . . . a whale?” Karnage said.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t see it if you will.”
They tentatively stood. Karnage looked at the millions of spheres floating above them. “What do you think? Two of everything? Maybe more?”
Sydney shook her head. “What the hell is this?”
“Maybe it’s their larder.”
The spheres began to rise. The grey lights flickered out of them and moved back into the walls. The lights in the walls narrowed into tight lines and pulled back down into the floor where they collected in a pool of light under Karnage’s and Sydney’s feet. The room descended into darkness, but Karnage kept staring up, thinking of the millions of spheres hovering above him.