by Michael Todd
“I think that’s because…well, it was small, and I immediately put it into a sealed container, so it didn’t have much time to release pheromones,” he explained. He honestly wasn’t entirely certain about how they’d survived that first time. It had been something of a perfect storm of errors that had ended up with too many people and animals dead.
“So… We get the small ones, stuff them into a bag, and that’s how we get them out without being torn apart?” She eased the Hammerhead to a halt a few hundred meters from the jungle.
“That’s it,” he agreed, slid out of the vehicle, and quickly ran a systems check on his suit before he drew the heavy rifle from the holster on his back that Amanda had designed. “The way we actually track these plants is by tracking the stronger radio waves that the goop in the flowers gives off. If the plant is too young to have flowers, we can’t track it. We’d be looking for a needle in the world’s deadliest haystack.”
“Fair enough.” Kennedy took a deep breath as they began the walk toward the Zoo. “How about breeding? Have you ever tried to get some baby Madies started?”
“Well, that’s up to you, really. I don’t know what kind of birth control you’re on, but—ow!”
Kennedy grinned as her power-armor-assisted punch to his shoulder made him stumble and flail a little to regain his balance. “You asked for that.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.” Sal grinned and showed no regret whatsoever. “I did try to breed Madie, but nothing’s taken. The flowers don’t have any pollen and none of the plants we’ve seen so far have any sort of seeding system that we know about. I actually think there’s something in the goop that grows the Pita plants—which makes sense, I guess, now that I think about it. Anyway, breeding without the connection to some of the original goop seems out of the realm of possibility right now, which leaves us with the single option of—”
“Yeah, yeah, dig up another Pita plant,” she interrupted as they stepped under the heavy tree cover and into the Zoo. They instinctively became more alert as their weapons and sensors scanned the area around them. “Which brings us to the real question. How do you plan to do that again? Assuming that you don’t intend that we run out of here while the whole animal population of this fucking place howls for our blood.”
“Obviously, if we find any younger plants, we’ll definitely go with them,” Sal said. “If not…well, we’ll simply have to try Amanda’s new design out to scoop the things up, right?”
“Right.” She didn’t sound at all enthusiastic and her gaze scanned the trees above them. “What is the Zoo up to?”
“What?” Sal turned to look at her, a little confused.
“Nothing…” Kennedy shook her head. “Okay, what if we pull a Pita up while one of the big fights is in progress? The animals will be all be focused on the battle, and we can simply slip right out.”
“Well, if we work under the assumption that the animal population around here isn’t big enough to handle two large fights at the same time,” he said, “how do you propose we stage a fight like that?”
“Don’t stage it,” Kennedy said with a shrug. “Take advantage of it,”
“So, what, we wait around in the Zoo until all the animals are distracted by the fighting?” he asked. “You do realize that your position as the rational one in our little group is starting to slip right now, right?”
“Shut up. If anything, it’ll improve our odds of getting out of the situation alive should—heaven forbid—Amanda’s little contraption not work.”
“Yeah… I guess that makes sense,” Sal agreed. “But we can’t stick around here and wait for a fight to start. Set a time limit. Find a batch of plants as close to the border of the Zoo as we can, and set up camp in the clearing. The animals treat those plants almost with reverence and will quite often avoid attacking people who are around them, right? So, if we keep a low profile and don’t do anything to set them off, we can stick around here and wait until there’s some commotion elsewhere, grab the plant, and hightail it out.”
“Now that sounds like a plan,” she said with a grin. “Although you had better give me a good last fuck. Bring your A-game, mister, because I’m going with you.”
“Of course you are. This was your idea.”
“Overwatch, what’s your status?”
“I’m looking over the compound now.”
“What do you make of the defenses?”
“Well set. Taking the place won’t be anything resembling easy unless you guys want to bring in an artillery strike.”
“Nothing like that. We only need to make sure that the targets are in place before we strike.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that, Base. I’ve only just set up here. I’ll let you know when I have something to report.”
Chapter Thirteen
It took them more than half a day to reach the closest collection of Pita plants, a detail that didn’t encourage them. The two of them alone wouldn’t last long against the kind of onslaught that would ensue if everything went wrong.
“Still, half a day is better than a full day,” Sal said. “Plus, we’ll be running like hell, so I have to think that we’ll cut the time down by at least twenty or thirty percent, don’t you?”
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Kennedy studied the plants morosely. It was a rather large collection and any other time, they would have been thrilled to see them. The bushes were almost as tall as Sal was—minus his armor—and were heavily laden with the bright blue flowers that were worth so much money. The larger ones were too heavy to get out of the Zoo with any kind of speed, but the plants on the edges were considerably smaller and some only held a couple of newly blossomed flowers.
“Royally,” he agreed. “I mean, if Amanda’s little contraption doesn’t work, that is.”
“So, what is this contraption of hers?” she asked. “And why haven’t we used them before?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he dropped his suspiciously heavy pack and proceeded to withdraw a couple of tall, rectangular boxes comprised of what looked like a sealed environmental chamber. There was a small difference from those the specialists usually carried around in that the bottom was open with four sharp prongs that protruded.
“Here’s how they work,” Sal said. “You find a plant that fits inside, plant the chamber around it, and seal it off from the air so it can release the animal-triggering pheromones inside. Once the plant is sealed, with the prongs dug deep into the ground, you pull on this lever here.”. He indicated one at the top of the mechanism and immediately below the chamber. “That activates the prongs to cut underneath and draws the plant up into the chamber with enough soil to allow it to survive long enough for us to…you know, get the fuck out of Dodge.”
“Right, okay,” Kennedy said. She now at least had a solid grasp of the mechanics of what the machines were supposed to do. “But again, how come we haven’t used these handy little devices before?”
“For one thing, it was an idea that Amanda had after she became aware of our little situation, and she asked us to try the design out in the field, so we haven’t actually had it that long. Secondly—and this is the reason why nobody else designs or uses contraptions like these—there’s a massive downside that comes if you’re wrong about them.”
“Good point,” she conceded.
“Besides,” he continued as he tinkered with one of the items, “the sex has been mind-blowing. I didn’t want to give that up just yet.”
She smirked and even laughed a little, but it sounded forced. Hell, the joke had been forced. He had tried to keep their spirits up, but the fact remained that they were about to risk their lives on a theory. One of his theories, sure, but that meant he would be the one to blame if things went badly. He took a deep breath and scrutinized the patch for plants that might fit into his little container.
“Wait, so you brought two of these little things. Again, why?” Kennedy peered at him from over the hedge of Pita plants.
“We
ll, there are two of us,” Sal said and carefully avoided her gaze. “I thought that since we’re out here breaking records for the number of Pita plants removed from the Zoo, we might as well go for the double.”
“Right, and if both of us carry the plants, how do you suggest that we fight the creatures attacking us?” she asked.
“My pack has more than enough space to fit two of these little contraptions,” he replied. “We simply need to shove them in quickly and we’ll be on the run in no time, don’t worry. We will set a world record and nobody will ever know about it.”
“Hey, Sal?” Kennedy called after a few long minutes of searching. “I received a message from Anderson.”
“Really?” He looked up from his search. “How? I thought you didn’t get messages to phones from this deep, just your sat phone?”
“Who knows? Maybe we’re close enough and this little clearing helped us out,” she said. “Anyway, he’s asked us to retrieve a hard drive at these coordinates.” She circled the bushes to show him. “That’s closer to the wall and not ten klicks from here. We could get there and be back here before nightfall.”
Sal tilted his head and swept her with a challenging look. “Are you trying to postpone our plant collection?”
“It’s that obvious, huh?” She immediately looked guilty.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he responded with a grin. “Let’s go pick up Anderson’s hard drive.”
In all honesty, it was an easy choice to delay the life-threatening action they’d both dreaded for the entire day. The duo wasted no time before they pushed through the jungle once again. Sal wasn’t sure if it was because the animals didn’t like the walls that were slowly erected or if it was simply a lazy day among them, but they had no unpleasant encounters. They set an easy pace unimpeded by any of the wildlife all the way to the first wall between the Zoo and the southern half of the African continent.
The coordinates they’d received led them along the wall for a while before they reached the spot where they were supposed to pick up Anderson’s hard drive. Unfortunately, he hadn’t put any tracking marker on the item, which made it difficult to find in the middle of a damn jungle. Most of the rest of the day was spent in a frustrating search for what was supposed to be something small and hidden. After a while, he wondered if they shouldn’t message Anderson for something more specific but remembered that they’d told him to ditch the phone as soon as he sent them a message. So much for hope and good ideas.
Kennedy, thankfully, was able to revive the hope.
“Either the Zoo is starting to grow metal boxes,” she exclaimed over the short-distance comms, “or I think I found our package!”
Sal abandoned his search and hurried to where she stood over a small, metal box. It was one of those used to place supplies out in the Zoo for longer periods of time, made to survive the elements and the changes that the jungle could bring as well as the attacks of the various animals. For a short while, anyway. He didn’t think there was much in the world that could survive this place for too long without eventually being absorbed into the ecosystem.
His partner pried the box open and crowed over a shiny little black slip of tech nestled in black rubber foam. That was, he mused, intended to provide more protection.
“What do you think is on it?” he asked as Kennedy tried to connect it to her suit.
“I have no idea. It’s not compatible with any of the plugs in my suit, and it’s encrypted against broadcasting whatever’s inside. I guess we’ll only find out when we get it back to Anja. If anyone can crack this little fucker open, it’s her.”
Sal nodded agreement. It was hard to tell in the darkness of the jungle around them, but there were tiny little changes that told him that the sun was about to go down.
“We should probably set up camp,” he observed as he accepted the hard drive from her and placed it securely in his pack.
“We’re not too far from the edge of the Zoo,” she said. “I know that I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we were to set up camp outside. Without the trees. And maybe a patch of sun to look at before we start tomorrow?”
He nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”
They moved cautiously toward the edge of the Zoo and followed the wall to their left. Night had fallen almost completely by the time they saw the desert. They froze as one and stared out at the incongruous sight of lights in the middle of nowhere.
“What the hell is that?” Kennedy asked as she stepped cautiously out of the tree cover.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “Is that an active base? If so, why isn’t it on any of our maps?”
“It could be bounty hunters.”
“In that case, maybe we should avoid detection?” She agreed with a curt nod and they dropped to hug the ground as they scaled one of the first dunes beyond the trees and peeked carefully over the top.
“Can you see anything?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sal said with exaggerated patience. “And so can you, or did you forget that your HUD has a zoom function?”
“Oh, right.” She gave an embarrassed chuckle as they zoomed in on the camp. A number of lights were set up but even with the images enhanced, it was difficult to make out any real details that might shed some light on its purpose.
“It looks like it was a construction site,” he said. “Look, you can see the holes they dig to set the cranes in the sand. They double their use—dig them out and pour concrete in to give the site foundation some strength. Otherwise, they’re simply building on sand.”
His partner glanced at him and immediately leaned back as she forgot for a moment to adjust the zoom for viewing someone who was less than a meter away from her. “How do you know so much about these construction sites?”
“Well, our little compound was originally built as a construction site and abandoned until the guys who took it over worked on it,” Sal explained. “They gave me the original plans. I looked through them and learned a thing or two about how they laid the wires out to mesh with the foundation. It’s actually quite interesting.”
“I think I’ve already established how you and I have wildly differing definitions of the word interesting,” she snarked. “So is that all this is? Simply one of the construction sites working a little late?”
“Well, considering that the wall has already passed the site by about five kilometers, the chances of that are very slim. They change sites every three klicks, so no. Whoever’s using it right now has probably repurposed it like we did.”
“And if the base isn’t set up as something official on our maps,” Kennedy said to continue this train of thought, “it’s not very likely that these people are doing this legally.”
“Right,” Sal agreed. “Do you feel like calling it in now?”
“And risk them intercepting our message?” she asked as they slid back from the top of the dune. “Hard pass on that. We’ll report it to the commandant when we make it back to the Staging Area.”
He smiled. When, not if they got back to the Staging Area. It was important to keep their spirits up about these things. She gave him a thumbs-up as if she’d read his mind.
They moved quickly and quietly back toward the Zoo. As much as they wanted to avoid having to camp in the jungle itself, they also wanted as much distance between them and the base they’d discovered. Finally, they set up camp only a few hundred meters from the dense vegetation, avoided any use of the heating lamps, and only set up the perimeter motion sensors. While the desert could get cold at night, they had each other to help them stay warm. Two people in one tent could generate more than enough heat.
“God fucking damn it,” Amanda growled. “Puta madre de Dios, por que no te callas?”
“You know that I am programmed to speak and understand over three hundred languages, as well as various dialects, yes?” Connie replied and sounded as utterly calm as she always was. “And if you ascribe to the Catholic religion, you have both used the Lord’s name in
vain as well as called the Virgin Mary a whore, both of which are considered mortal sins. You will surely go to hell.”
“No me importa, coño mecanico,” the armorer muttered in response.
“I have not been fitted with that particular piece of human physiology,” Connie replied. “Although my former owner did once transfer my consciousness into the body of a sex doll purchased from Japan, so I do recall what it was like to—”
“Oh, fuck no.” She shook her head violently. “That’s fucking disgusting. Please, don’t ever talk to me about what your former owner did with you during his free time. The less I know, the better. Usually, I would think that anything I can imagine would be worse than the reality, but the more you tell me about that useless fucker, the more disgusted I am in the fact that we share a species.”
“He is actually a millionaire who makes his living in Monaco as the owner of a company that provides cyber security to most of the casinos in the principality,” Connie declared and sounded inordinately happy about that fact.
“Would you judge me if I thought that that was even more disgusting?” she asked and made a face. “I mean, why the fuck would a millionaire—who can probably afford to get all kinds of things done to him by the best in the business—want to fuck a doll with an AI for a consciousness, anyway?”
“Robot fetishes are actually more common—” Connie started to say but Amanda cut her off.
“I swear to a God who will send me to hell anyway that if you keep talking, I will disable the conversation feature and make you type out each of your answers on a twenty-year-old screen that only shows Chinese letters.”
There was a significant pause in which the AI calculated the odds that the woman would actually act on her threat. The silence that ensued was all the answer the armorer needed and she went about her work again, her gaze on the monitor as she connected wires.
“What— What the fuck?” she asked a few minutes later and leaned in closer to the screen. “Why the fuck are sections ten through fifteen offline? Anja? Anja! Get your sexy ass out here.”