by Gord Zajac
The squidbug took a long drag on its cigarette, and levelled its spear at the sergeant. The sergeant had just enough time to raise his rifle before he disappeared in a ball of crackling green light.
More squidbugs shimmered into existence around the platform, surrounding the Dabneycops and the fugitives. Shouts and screams filled the air as the refugees ran in all directions. Squidbugs and Dabneycops aimed their weapons at each other and started firing. The air was soon thick with green energy balls and pink goobers shooting across the platform.
“Let’s get the hell out of here before we’re spotted.” Karnage and Sydney moved away from the chaos, retracing their steps down the corridor.
A pipe floated in the middle of the subway tunnel in front of them. A squidbug flowed into existence around it. It aimed its crackling energy spear at them. Sydney drew her goober pistol and fired. She caught the squidbug in the face, throwing it backwards. Its shot went wide, green energy vaporizing a large scoop out of the ceiling. Something groaned in the crater and bits of concrete and metal dropped around them.
“Quick! Through here!” Sydney led Karnage up a set of concrete steps. The groaning overhead turned to cracking, and increasingly bigger chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling. Sydney pulled on the door. “It’s locked!” Karnage aimed his pistol up at the knob and shot it off. His Sanity Patch crooned “Frothy Cream” as they dove through the door. The ceiling gave a final creak and came crashing down behind them.
CHAPTER THREE
Karnage and Sydney lay coughing in a heap on the floor. The dust slowly settled around them.
“You all right?” Karnage asked.
Sydney nodded. “I think so.”
They got up and looked at the doorway behind them which had disappeared, replaced with a twisted pile of metal and concrete.
“Guess we’re not goin’ back that way,” Karnage said.
Sydney looked down the other end of the hatchway. Pipes ran along the walls. “Looks like a maintenance tunnel,” she said. “Hopefully it comes out somewhere on the other end.”
“Hopefully? You mean you don’t know where this goes?”
“It should come around to another platform or tunnel.”
“It should?”
“Yeah.” She pointed at the mangled mess behind them. “So long as it doesn’t end like that.”
They followed the tunnel deep into the darkness. It ended at another maintenance hatch. They opened it, and found themselves in another subway tunnel. The air was thick with toxic yellow mist. Creeper hung from the ceiling in long draping strands. The floor of the tunnel was thick with pinkstink, and Karnage caught a glimpse of the back of a purple ladybug burrowing into the undergrowth.
Sydney brushed the creeper aside and read a set of numbers on the wall. “88-01,” she said. “We’re near the city’s core. We’re on the wrong side of it, though.”
“What do you mean, wrong side?”
“The city’s built around the mountain, so the core is spread around the base. It’s going to take some time to get to the other side.”
They felt the ground shake and rumble as if a subway train was approaching. They scrambled back through the maintenance hatch as a train of horned worms rumbled past, squiggling and screeching as they went.
They waited for the shaking and screeching to fade to nothing before peeking back out.
“What the hell is going on down here?” Sydney exclaimed.
“Only one way to find out.” Karnage stepped out and looked down both ends of the tunnel. Light seemed to be coming from a junction near the north end. “What’s down that way?”
“Nothing,” Sydney said. “It’s a dead end.”
“Doesn’t look so dead to me. There’s light coming from down there.”
“There shouldn’t be. That would lead straight into the mountain. There’s nowhere for the track to go.”
“But it’s goin’ somewhere. Let’s find out where.”
They pressed themselves against the wall of the tunnel, following it towards the light. They kept an eye out for maintenance hatches in case another train of worms came down the tunnel.
The air grew thicker with yellow mist, stinging eyes and offending nostrils. Karnage heard Sydney cough and gasp behind him.
The tunnel ended at a thick canopy of creeper. Bright shafts of light poked through. Karnage and Sydney parted the creeper and walked through.
They were in a wide clearing. Sheer rock walls scaled up behind them. The ground was covered in pinkstink. Grey trees grew up from the underbrush, their bare branches laden with orange creeper. Giant pods expelling yellow mist covered the ground. Karnage felt like they had walked into Uncle’s squidbug terrarium.
Sydney tugged at Karnage’s arm. She was staring straight up. “Look,” she whispered, eyes wide.
They were at the bottom of a chasm. Sheer rock walls rose up on all sides, hemming them in. Tunnel entrances laced with orange creeper ran around the perimeter. The mountain had been hollowed out, and they were standing inside it. High above them, just visible through the yellow mist, green lights flickered across a black, panelled mass.
It was the squidbug mothership.
CHAPTER FOUR
Karnage grinned. “Perfect.”
“Perfect?” Sydney stared at him, her mouth agape. “I think this is a hell of a long way off from perfect! In fact, I don’t think you can get any further away from perfect than this! We have to get the hell out of here.”
“No,” Karnage said firmly. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“You can’t take on all these aliens by yourself.”
“I know that,” Karnage said. “I’m talkin’ about gatherin’ intel.
That’s why we’re here. To figure out what’s goin’ on. We wanted to know what the Dabney Corporation had to do with the squidbugs.
Now it’s lookin’ like they’ve got quite a bit to do with ’em.” He led them away from the tunnel and behind a creeper-laden boulder. Karnage peered out from behind the boulder, observing the squidbug invasion in action.
A line of trucks emerged from a tunnel entrance beside them. Dabby Tabby was painted on the side, jumping out of a blue container. Karnage pointed them out to Sydney. “What are those?”
“Automated sanitation trucks,” she said.
The trucks pulled up to a giant pile of debris in the middle of the clearing. They dumped their contents onto the pile and disappeared back into the tunnel. Squidbugs stood around the pile, sorting the debris into bins. One of the squidbugs picked up a plastic water bottle and covertly ate it. Another squidbug swatted the first, and pointed to the pile. The chastised squidbug bent down and resumed sorting.
A horned worm rumbled up to the pile. Its face was covered with a metal plate. A squidbug stood atop the worm, steering it by the horn. It lined the worm’s metal faceplate up with the nearest bin. The bin latched itself onto the metal plate, as if pulled by magnets. The squidbug steered the worm around and carried the bin to a massive smoking pit where it dumped the contents of the bin into the pit. Flames shot up from the pit’s depths.
“What the hell are they doing?” Sydney hissed.
“They’re suckin’ up our resources,” Karnage said. “Suckin’ the planet dry.” He watched the recycling trucks motor back through the creeper, and clenched his fist. “And the Dabney Corporation’s helpin’ ’em do it.”
“But why? What’s in it for them?”
“Let’s find old Stevie boy and ask him,” Karnage said. They heard a rustling behind them, turned, and saw a bright burning ember just visible through the trees. Green energy crackled along an invisible shaft as the air behind the trees started to shimmer.
“Run!”
Karnage and Sydney jumped clear just as an energy ball vaporized their boulder. Sydney rose up on one knee and fired a blast of goober, pinning the squidbug to the tree. Other squidbugs were racing towards them, their energy spears crackling. “Let’s go, Captain!”
Karnage ran t
owards the nearest tunnel opening. He ripped aside the creeper, surprising a squidbug in the middle of eating a D-Pad. Karnage punched it in what he hoped was its jaw. He didn’t hit bone, but the squidbug squealed and went down. His neck buzzed, and the Sanity Patch hit Lemon Breeze. The air behind him sizzled as an energy ball flew by.
“Keep moving, Major!” Sydney shouted.
Karnage raced down the corridor with Sydney close behind. They pushed through creeper as energy balls crackled behind them. A deep, jagged line of sound tore through the tunnel, nearly knocking them off their feet. The earth shook. Without looking back, Karnage knew that somewhere behind the veil of creeper there was a worm hurtling towards them.
“Over here!” Sydney pointed to a set of concrete steps poking out of the creeper. She raced up the stairs and pushed the vines aside, revealing a metal door. She pulled on the knob, and the hinges squeaked in protest. It opened a fraction of an inch. Karnage stuck his fingers through the opening, and together they yanked the door open. A green ball burned a tunnel through the creeper behind them. They caught a glimpse of squiggly crimson head as they ran through the door.
It was a steam tunnel.
They ran blindly down the corridor. They could hear the clattering of squidbug claws on the concrete, and on the giant pipe running beside them. Karnage looked down at the pipe, and watched the stencilled words fly by on its surface as he ran. The words flew by in sync with the squidbug’s clattering: caution-steam-hot-cautionsteam-hot-caution-steam-hot.
Karnage looked at Sydney’s back through the gloom getting smaller and smaller. She was pulling ahead. Karnage was starting to slow. His muscles burned; he wasn’t as young as he used to be. He heard the squidbugs getting closer behind them, their claws clacking along the pipe: caution-steam-hot-caution-steam-hot-caution-steamhot. Sydney turned. “Come on, Major! You can do it!” Karnage shook his head. His shoulder was starting to ache. He stopped and caught his breath. The clacking along the pipe grew louder: caution-steam-hot-caution-steam-hot-caution-steam-hot. Sydney stopped running. “What are you stopping for? Come on, let’s go!”
Karnage shook his head. “I can’t.” He drew his pistol.
“Don’t be an idiot, Major,” Sydney shouted. “You can’t take them on by yourself!”
“I’m not.” Karnage emptied the gun into the steam pipe, ripping open a wide gaping hole. Fountains of steam shot into the corridor, billowing towards him. Karnage turned and ran. His Sanity Patch buzzed incessantly as the steam burned the back of his neck. He heard loud squiggly cries of pain behind him. There was a faint whiff of steamed calamari in the air, and the rhythmic clacking on the pipe stopped.
CHAPTER FIVE
The steam tunnel joined with a narrow maintenance shaft that Karnage could barely fit in. Thick cables marked HIGH VOLTAGE hummed inches from his face. As they shuffled along, the Sanity Patch downgraded from Strawberry Shortcake all the way down to Citrus Blast. Karnage hadn’t realized how close he had come to blowing his own head off. So much for thinking.
They finally came out into a dimly lit maintenance room. Karnage leaned against the wall and slid down. He looked at the empty pistol in his hands and tossed it away in disgust.
“What’s up?” Sydney said.
Karnage stared at the discarded pistol lying on the floor. “It didn’t work.”
“What didn’t work?”
“All of Uncle’s training. At this rate I’m still gonna blow my head off before I make any headway.”
“It didn’t work because you weren’t thinking,” Sydney said. “You were reacting. And under the circumstances, I think that was the way to go.”
Karnage ran his fingers through his hair. “I came this close to runnin’ out of Sanity Levels. I almost . . .” He moved to throw a punch in the air and stopped himself.
Sydney crouched down beside him and gently took his clenched fist. She uncurled his fingers and clasped his palm in her hands. She looked into his eyes. “You haven’t been doing this long enough for it to be automatic yet. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just try and focus on your long-term goals. It’s like learning to ride a bike. You’ve been able to get up a few times now, but you’re still gonna fall off now and again.”
“If I fall off much more than that then I’m gonna lose my head.”
“Then it’s a good thing there’s two of us down here, isn’t it? Why don’t you let me be the brawn for awhile, and you can play at being the brains. Okay?”
You’ve just gotta use your head. Karnage nodded. “Okay.”
Sydney playfully slapped him on the cheek and stood up. “Right, now what say we figure out where we are?”
They opened the door of the maintenance room and found themselves in a wide hall. The marble floor gleamed. Extravagant chandeliers hung from the ceiling. A giant statue stood in the centre of the room of Galt Dabney holding the hand of Dabby Tabby. Great slabs of marble jutted from the walls, an engraved plaque stamped on each.
“What is this place?” Karnage said.
Sydney looked around, her eyes wide. “I’d heard the rumours, but I never thought . . .”
“What?” Karnage asked. “What is it?”
She turned her eyes back to Karnage. “It’s The Vault.”
“What’s ‘The Vault’?”
“The official Dabney archives.” She eyed the slabs lining the walls. “And crypt.”
They followed the length of the hall to a set of gleaming golden doors. Galt Dabney’s face was etched into its surface. “This is it.” Sydney stroked the door in awe. “His final resting place. I wonder . . .” She pulled on the door.
“What are you doing?” Karnage said.
“I have to know,” she said. Her eyes gleamed. “I have to know if it’s true.”
She pulled the door open a crack and slipped inside. Her voice echoed from the other side. “They did it. I can’t believe it. They actually did it!”
“What?” Karnage said. “What did they do?”
“Come in and see.”
Karnage pushed through the door into the room. The walls were covered with shelves upon shelves of books. Circular stairways led up to long catwalks running the length of the room. Crystal chandeliers hung underneath the catwalks, casting the room in soft yellow light. The guard rails were decorated with Dabby Tabby faces constructed from wrought iron. Two arm chairs sat facing a giant screen set into a carved oak cabinet in the middle of the room. A polished glass case had been mounted on top of the cabinet.
Inside the case was the head of Galt Dabney.
“They did it,” Sydney said. “They actually went and did it.”
“Did what?” Karnage looked up at the head. “What did they do?”
The eyes of Galt Dabney opened, and the cataract-laden pupils drifted down at Karnage.
CHAPTER SIX
The screen below the head flickered to life, and a much healthier Galt Dabney appeared smiling on the screen.
“Hello, and welcome to the Dabney Family Archives. The geniuses at the Dabney Imagino Labs have worked their magic and given me the gift of everlasting life. Using the latest in cryopreservation technology, my mind and body will be specially preserved until such time that a cure can be found for whatever ails me. In the meantime, while I’m ‘cooling my heels,’ I will continue to lead the company with the help of this nifty little device here.”
The camera pulled out to show Galt standing beside the very oak cabinet and screen that Karnage and Sydney were now watching.
“Using this device, I’ll be able to answer any questions that you may have. Go ahead and ask me anything. I’ve created a library of pre-recorded answers that should cover the most commonly asked questions. Financial advice. Managerial tips. Old Dabney family recipes. Ask about my grandmother’s recipe for spiced peach jam: that’s a good one! And should you happen to ask a question I didn’t fully anticipate, this machine has full access to the Dabney Family Archives. That includes security footage of board meetings, company minutes,
old softball games, school plays, birthday parties . . . why just about anything you could imagine. So go ahead. Ask me anything, and I’ll do my best to answer with true Galt style.” Galt drew an imaginary pistol. “Bam, like that.” He winked.
The screen went blank.
Karnage and Sydney looked at each other. “Is this for real?” Karnage asked.
The screen blinked back on. It showed Galt Dabney’s face in a close-up. He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yes, yes. I assure you it’s all very real. There is nothing I won’t be able to answer. So go ahead. Ask me anything.”
“Maybe we should ask about the peach jam,” Sydney said.
“I got a better idea.” Karnage cleared his throat. “What do you know about the squidbug invasion?”
The screen stayed blank for a second. Galt’s cheery face appeared again. “Sorry, I didn’t quite understand your question. Can you please clarify the word—” The screen switched to black and white security footage of Karnage and Sydney standing in front of the screen. They heard Karnage say, “squidbug,” and the screen switched back to Galt’s smiling face.
Sydney cleared her throat. “He means ‘aliens.’”
“Okay, that’s better. Thanks.” The screen went blank again. Galt’s face came back. He clapped his hands. “Well, that’s a real cracker, isn’t it? I’m afraid I didn’t anticipate that question. But you haven’t stumped me yet. Give me a few moments to pull from the archives, and I’ll try to answer your question as best I can.”
The screen went blank. It stayed dark for a long time. Karnage looked behind them, and saw the security camera blinking down at him. He wondered who was watching it. He wondered if the machine was just stalling them until security could arrive.
Karnage was about to tell Sydney to take up defensive positions when the screen blinked on and Galt smiled down at them again. He rubbed his hands together. “Okay! That was a real corker of a question. Sorry it took me so long. I’ve done my best to put together a little video compilation that should clear everything up for you. Feel free to ask any follow-up questions when the film is done. So have a seat, relax, and enjoy the show. And, here we go!”