Major Karnage

by Gord Zajac

  “Waterpark?” Sydney said. “What is this waterpark you speak of?”

  “The one we’re standin’ in,” Karnage said.

  “You must be mistaken,” Sydney said. “There is no waterpark.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? We’re standin’ right in the middle of it!”

  “Nope,” Sydney said. “Must be your imagination. The Dabney Corporation never built a waterpark. Especially one that failed catastrophically. Not here. Not anywhere. If they did, people would know about it. And they don’t. And that has nothing to do with the Dabney Corporation wiping their failures off the record books. Because the Dabney Corporation never makes a mistake. Never does anything wrong. Go ahead. Ask them. They’ll set you straight.”

  “Okay, I get it. Thank you, Madame Sarcasm.”

  “Are you sure?” Sydney said. “I could go on.”

  “I’m sure you could.”

  “This way, if you please.” The drone led them towards a cracked concrete building. A sagging fish-shaped sign read JOURNEY UNDER THE SEA. They entered the dark building, its cool concrete walls a relief from the harsh desert sun. The drone led them through a long grey tunnel, their only company the echo of their own footsteps. The tunnel walls changed from crumbling concrete to an arched corridor of scratched acrylic. Beyond the tunnel walls lay an entire alien world. Karnage recognized orange creeper hanging from a grey alien tree, its branches twitching like fingers. Giant purple ladybugs scuttled through the pinkstink undergrowth, hiding behind massive blue seed pods that swelled and exhaled plumes of yellow mist. Occasionally a drone appeared through the yellow gloom, repositioning a purple lady bug, or pruning a bit of creeper before disappearing back into the mist. They reminded Karnage of old women tending their gardens.

  The drone stroked the glass with a tendril. Its lens zoomed in towards the enclosure. “Such fine specimens. It’s taken me so long to develop this collection. To think it all started with just a few spore samples. They matched nothing in the records. They weren’t even carbon-based life forms. They were sulphur-based. At least, in the beginning. Then they did something marvellous. Something I still can’t quite explain. They became compatible with carbon-based life. You recall the Carpathian Flu epidemic?”

  “No,” Karnage said.

  “I do,” Sydney said. “It killed thousands. Took ’em years to come up with a vaccine.”

  “That wasn’t a vaccine,” the drone said. “It was a genetic modifier, designed to improve our compatibility with the spores. They were the cause of it, you know. Not the Carpathians.”

  “It’s always easier to blame Carpathia,” Karnage said.

  The drone bobbed, as if nodding. “Better to blame Carpathia than admit the truth: they were taking the first steps to adapting us to the alien DNA.”

  “I thought you said the squidbugs were adapting to us?” Karnage said.

  The drone nodded. “They were. And we, in turn, have been adapting to them.”

  Karnage gazed out into the misty alien landscape and scowled. “Evolution at work.”

  The drone’s lens flickered, as if blinking in surprise. “Oh no. There is nothing natural about these selections.” The drone turned towards the glass. “Look at these creatures. They have been adapted so perfectly to life on this planet. One establishes a foothold, subtly alters its environs, allowing the next in the chain to establish a foothold. Each successive creature becomes more and more complex, until . . .” The drone stared into the mist, adjusted its lens as if searching for something. “Now where is he?”

  A soft shadow was just barely visible through the gloom, shambling slowly. The drone tapped the glass excitedly. “Here, Fido. Come here.”

  The shadow stopped, as if listening, then drew back, and disappeared into the mist.

  It burst out of the fog, and slammed into the glass, scratching at it with its claws. It snarled and screeched, its skin flashing a deep crimson red.

  It was a squidbug.

  “This is my latest acquisition,” the drone said cheerily. “I only picked him up about a week ago. I’m hoping that he completes my collection. Admittedly, this collection still requires the horned worms and winged leviathans, but they’re simply far too large to keep in this enclosure. One must make sacrifices after all.”

  The squidbug snarled and scratched at the glass, pounding at it with its fists. The tentacles around its mouth splayed out, revealing a sharp beak. It turned to bite and snap at the glass, its twin tongues slithering out, smearing slime across the glass.

  “I’ve never seen one so enraged,” Sydney said.

  “That’s because it has been cut off,” the drone said. “These creatures do not act of their own free will. There is a guiding force behind everything they do. They are analogous to workers and warriors in a giant ant colony. There is something—a queen of sorts—that guides the entire ecosystem. These creatures adapt and change to their environment almost instantly. They have been engineered by some sort of intelligence, and that intelligence continues to mold them as the infestation progresses.”

  “How?” Karnage said. “How do they do it?”

  The drone shot out a hologram of a rotating three-dimensional graph of gyrating squiggles. As Karnage saw it from different angles, he was reminded of the squiggles on Cookie’s arms.

  “The alien infestation uses ultra-violent transmissions,” the drone said.

  “Don’t you mean ultra-violet?” Sydney said.

  The hologram disappeared and the drone turned its lens towards Sydney. “Absolutely not. I meant ultra-violent. Ultraviolent transmissions are unique to this invasion. They are actively assaulting the electromagnetic spectrum, intermittently obliterating and inserting themselves between the extreme ultraviolet and super ultra-violet wavelengths. Theoretically, this should be impossible. And in practice, it often is. Yet this unique band consistently and continuously shows up in my data, usually in erratic oscillations measured in yoctosecond bursts. Millions of orders come in on each burst. One for each and every creature in the invasion, right down to the smallest bacterium.”

  The drone hovered down to Karnage’s shin and tapped on the metal band under his pants. “It is these very same transmissions which I am using to contain the genetic infection. The band gives off ultra-violent transmissions, ordering the exo-DNA to maintain itself in a holding pattern and await further instructions.”

  The drone hovered up and tapped on the acrylic ceiling. “I have similar shielding around the entire compound. I have reason to believe that these ultra-violent transmissions are two-way. This intelligence has been keeping tabs on every step of the invasion, right down to the mutation and division of individual cells.”

  It gazed longingly out into the mist. “I would love to see it up close. I find myself wondering what it would look like. We always speak of the human race as being made in God’s image. I’d love to see the god that made all this.”

  Karnage pressed his hands against the glass. He felt more helpless than ever. How were they going to stop this? If only we’d known about it sooner, he thought. If only—

  He turned to look at the drone. “How long have you known about this?”

  “Decades,” the drone said. “Not the full extent, of course. I didn’t fully realize the implications until—GRAAK!”

  The drone squawked as Karnage slammed it against the glass. His Sanity Patch buzzed. “Warning. Sanity Level upgraded to Peachy Keen. Please refrain—”

  “Why didn’t you tell anybody?! Why didn’t you try and do something about it?!”

  The drone’s tendrils flickered and stabbed at Karnage’s fist in agitation. Its voice stayed cheerful and bright. “I have been doing something,” it said. “I’ve been studying it quite extensively—”

  “You’ve been sittin’ back and lettin’ it get away with blue bloody murder!” Karnage slammed the drone against the wall again. His Sanity Patch crooned “Tangy Orange.” “They practically got us swallowed up whole, and all you can do
is sit here and study the fucking things?!”

  Pain stabbed into Karnage’s shoulder. His arm dropped, letting the drone go. The drone quickly flew up out of reach. Karnage saw Sydney’s pinky on his shoulder. She shot him a warning look. “That’s enough.”

  Karnage set his jaw. “What about you, Captain. Did you know about this?”

  “No,” she said. “He never told me.”

  “Why not?”

  Sydney dropped her eyes. “He was trying to protect me.”

  “Protect you from what?”

  “Perhaps you’ve glossed over the bit where I mentioned the genetic modifications handed out under the guise of vaccinations?” the drone said. “Where do you suppose they came from?”

  “The Dabney Corporation?” Karnage said.

  “Precisely,” the drone squealed with glee. “You’re not quite as dumb as you look, Major.” It was feeling braver now that it was out of Karnage’s reach. “Until I could understand the full extent of the infestation, I did not want to endanger young Sydney. I am her guardian after all. Perhaps that was an error in judgement on my part, but what else could I have done?”

  Karnage set his jaw. He shot the drone a dangerous look. “Plenty.”

  “I beg to disagree.”

  “Beg all you like. You still chickened out!”

  “Let it go,” Sydney said.

  “No, I’m not going to let it go.” Karnage turned towards the drone, and stabbed a finger at it. The drone drew itself up against the glass. “I want to meet that fucker face-to-face. Let him tell me man-to-man why he didn’t have the guts to do something about this. No more of this hiding shit, Unk. You hear me?!”

  “No,” Sydney said. “You can’t.”

  “Why? You afraid I’m gonna hit him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re goddamn right I will!” The Sanity Patch crooned “Sharp Cheddar” as Karnage rounded on the drone. “Come on, you coward! Show yourself!”

  Sydney brandished her pinkies. “You’ll have to go through me first.”

  Karnage cracked his knuckles. “Fine by me.”

  “No!” The drone dropped down between Sydney and Karnage. “No violence. Not on my account.” It focused its lens on Karnage’s face. “You wish to see me face-to-face?”

  “I do.”

  The drone nodded. “Very well.”

  “Uncle, no!”

  The drone turned to Sydney. “The major is right. I owe him an explanation. I owe it to the world. I have hidden away long enough.” The drone drifted down the tunnel, calling, “This way, please.” Sydney glared at Karnage. “If you hurt him, I will kill you.” She turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The drone led them through the terrarium. The tunnel curved around and came back up into a concrete structure. The drone stopped right before the exit in front of a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. They passed through, and down a flight of stairs into a maintenance hall. Rust-streaked pipes lined the wall of the narrow corridor. A few aging fluorescents flickered inside their steel mesh cages above them, providing spotty lighting. The floor was cracked and stained. The concrete had crumbled away in places, showing rusted reinforcing rods.

  The corridor came to an end in front of a dented metal door marked KILLER WHALE TANK. The drone opened the door, and soft blue light poured through the frame. They walked through.

  The room was filled with a giant inverted dome made entirely of acrylic. The tank held a dark pulsing mass. Giant rusted pipes ran down the sides of the tank and into the floor. Pools of water lay on the floor. The room was filled with drones, adjusting valves and manning small digital consoles. Wires spread from the consoles into the tank.

  “There I am, Major.” A drone dropped down in front of him and pointed towards the tank. “Do with me what you will.”

  Karnage moved closer, squinting his eyes. The pulsing mass was composed of coils of grey flesh as thick as his forearm, looped endlessly together, packed tightly within the dome. As he drew closer, he saw a small shadow hanging from the base of the dome.

  It was a body, curled in on itself, hanging from the dome by its head. A band of gleaming metal attached its head to the base of the dome. Its pale skin was translucent. The limbs were shrivelled, pulled up against the swollen torso. It wore a nothing but a thin sleeveless shroud, lines of purple, blue, and green visible on the skin.

  As Karnage drew closer, he saw the band cut across the body’s head just above the eyes. It was missing the top half of its skull. Karnage looked up at the tangles of grey coils that filled the tank. It was as if they had spilled out of the head, and were now pulsing inside the giant tank. That’s his brain.

  Its face was drawn and tight, eyes closed, the pale lids tattooed with tiny purple capillaries. The face pinched tighter as the eyes struggled to open. The pink pupils drifted towards Karnage and tried to focus while its tiny lips curled slightly at the corners.

  The drone beside Karnage turned to him. “Now do you understand?”

  The smile dropped from the lips, replaced by a painful grimace. The eyes unfocused and the eyelids closed.

  “No,” Karnage said.

  “Of course you don’t,” the drone said. “Nor would anyone else. It is too different. Too . . . alien. And so I stay hidden. Protected.”

  Karnage looked up at the pulsing mass of brain. “How . . . ?”

  “Decompressive craniectomy and extensive transcranial magnetic stimulation. Does that help you understand at all?”

  “Not really.”

  The drone nodded. “It would not. It is too foreign to you. Just as your ways are foreign to many. We are both very much alike. Outcasts. Incomprehensible to the outside world. Damaged in so many ways, and yet so very able in others. You owe your very life to my abilities. My research. My path. Perhaps your path will lead you to return that favour. Except . . .”

  “What?” Karnage said.

  “I accept my limitations, Major. And I have chosen to work within them.” The drone poked at Karnage’s bandaged shoulder. Blood was seeping through. “You would be wise to learn to do the same.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Karnage watched as a drone restitched his shoulder. He was sitting on a stool in the water tower in front of the oval windows. He peered through the grime-covered glass at the broken water park below. Somewhere beyond the sagging roller coasters and broken water slides lay the squidbugs. He turned to Sydney. “I’m a mess.”

  “You just tore out a few stitches,” Sydney said. “Uncle will have you stitched up again in no time.”

  Karnage shook his head. “It’s more than that. We were there. Right there. Starin’ them squidbugs square in the face. We could have ended it all right there. We could’ve . . .”

  “You don’t know what you could have done,” Sydney said.

  “I do,” Karnage said, “and it was nothing. I had my chance, and I blew it. Goddammit, how the fuck am I supposed to fight anything without blowin’ my head off?!”

  “What do you mean?” Sydney said.

  “He’s referring to the explosive device implanted in the base of his skull,” the drone said.

  Sydney did a double take. “What?!”

  Karnage looked at the drone. “How did you know about that?”

  The drone’s lens looked up at Karnage. “It’s rather hard to miss, isn’t it?” It tapped the LED screen of the patch. “Frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t brought it up before.”

  “I try not to think about it too much,” Karnage said.

  “Yes, and as a result you’ve come precariously close to blowing your head off on a large number of occasions.”

  “How do you know that?!”

  “It’s all recorded here in the device’s on-board computer. It was automatically scanned and downloaded when Sydney first brought you in. I must say, it is an amazing piece of technology. The gentleman who designed it is either a genius or a complete and utter madman.”

  “That sounds like Flaherty.”


  “Dr. Paul Flaherty? The neuroscientist?”

  “You knew him?”

  “I knew of him. He was involved in a number of horrifying scandals which left many of his patients either brain-dead or just plain dead. His theories were occasionally interesting, while his methods were . . . impractical, let’s say. I’m shocked to see that he finally achieved some measure of success.”

  “Depends on your definition of success,” Karnage said.

  “The fact you are still alive should be considered success enough.”

  “Can you remove it?” Sydney said.

  The drone zoomed its lens in on the device. “Any attempt to cut power to the device will cause it to detonate. Any attempt to improperly tamper with the device will also cause it to detonate.”

  “Sounds like I’m fucked,” Karnage said.

  “Not necessarily,” the drone said. “There are other options available to us outside of the surgical. Alternative therapies. We could take a more holistic approach.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Instead of tampering with the device,” the drone tapped Karnage’s head, “we tamper with the subject.”

  Karnage swatted it away. “What the hell do you mean tamper with the subject?! I’m not gonna let anybody carve up my brain!”

  “I assure you no carving would be required. All adjustments would be behavioural in nature, not surgical. The sensors respond to specific signals from the amygdala, hypothalamus, and to a lesser extent, the pituitary gland. It interprets these responses in order to determine the instinctual motivations of the subject. In effect, it is tied directly to your lizard brain. Remove the lizard brain from the equation, and the sensors will have nothing to respond to. No stimulus, no response. No earth-shattering kaboom.”

  “So how do I cut out my lizard brain?” Karnage asked.

  The drone tapped a tentacle against Karnage’s forehead. “By becoming attuned to your Eleventh Sense.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Of course we are all familiar with the five Primary Senses: Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch. But beyond that, there are a further three Secondary Senses from which the body draws from.