Kingdom of Monsters

by John Lee Schneider

That, Kristie thought, did not look to last.

  She took the stairs – the upper floors were the likely location of any broadcast office. As she reached the top, she realized the lights were on.

  At that moment, the radio on her hip blared static.

  She heard her own voice say, “Hello? Anyone there?”

  Kristie looked up at an answering echo coming from the broadcast-office – a windowed-off cubicle.

  As she peered inside, mounted by the microphone was one of those little lizards.

  The thing hissed as it saw her, flaring small but very formidable claws.

  “Hello?” it said again in her voice, and leaped, its small sickle-claws outstretched, reaching for her eyes.

  Kristie dropped it out of the air with a single shot – it hit the floor, twitching at her feet.

  From the floor below, there was a loud creak as the main door started to give. Kristie stepped to the top of the stairs, holding her rifle ready.

  Her radio blared once more. This time it called her by name.

  “Kristie?” it said. “Kristie Morgan. If you're reading me, please pick up now.”

  Kristie blinked, hesitating, before grabbing up her radio.

  “Who the hell is this?” she demanded. “This better not be a goddamn lizard!”

  “My name's Tom,” came the reply. “And I'm not a goddamn lizard.”

  There was another buzz of static.

  “I'm in space,” Tom said.

  Chapter 25

  Tom knew Otto.

  Trapped in space for over a year, linked with every working satellite in space, and with little else to do, Tom had hacked a lot of files. Before the world had gone dark, or at least before the EITS had, he had broken down a lot of firewalls that were no longer being guarded, or even monitored anymore.

  Tom knew Professor Nolan Hinkle. He knew the top-secret history of Monster Island. He knew Shanna.

  And he knew Otto.

  An unimpressive beast, considered a failure, albeit a minor-experiment.

  Catastrophically underestimated on both counts.

  The sheer scope would be hard to accept if it wasn't laid out so graphically, and with such brutal simplicity, right in front of him.

  Screens and various open files were left open and organized like a child's playroom – the busiest toys laid out right in front for use.

  It all told its story as obvious as a dog's footprints leading to the empty hamburger tray on the counter.

  Otto was a parrot. He used the language and words in front of him. If you showed him math, he read math. If you showed him digital functions, he saw the basic binary codes. Tom imagined he would have been very good at counting cards in Vegas.

  There were at least three of the little bastards on the ISS with him. Possibly more.

  Quantum-level gremlins.

  It was at least helpful that they made no effort to hide their intent, or their work in progress, although probably hadn't anticipated the need in space. They even used all the standard military language and codes.

  Tom also found map-diagrams marked 'human-habitation', and 'Big Rex' – code-named directly from military files.

  A gremlin, alright.

  An ornery genocidal gremlin.

  Tom had periodically been repeating his mayday to General Rhodes. He knew his message had been received, and was likely going through relays, but now he finally received his first reply, from someone identifying as Lieutenant Hicks.

  Tom gave it to him in thirty words or less.

  There was a pause, before Hicks responded soberly.

  “I'll get you through to the General, sir,” he said.

  That had been ten minutes ago. Tom had spent it perusing Otto's little virtual dioramas, all of which stood every chance of being transformed into physical reality.

  One file contained a list of documented blooms over the last year, along with containment efforts. Nuke a bloom, burn a bud, pretty much summed up the strategy.

  Accompanying this response-list was an inventory of functional nuclear assets.

  Again, lined out like a kid's toy-set – a submarine, a single silo, and a single squadron of planes armed with a dozen missiles – two operational.

  Acting on a hunch, Tom checked the satellite cameras, and found most of them currently aimed right at the center of the Rockies – right at the Mount.

  The maps all diagrammed segments of this region, and Tom pulled back the satellite resolution to encompass the surrounding three states.

  That was the thing about the Food of the Gods – it generated tremendous energy within an organism, and it radiated out like excessive body heat.

  Early on, he had learned to decipher the ultra-violet signature, and how it differed from energy generated from natural sources like geothermal.

  When he scanned the targeted perimeter, the results stood out like florescence under a black-light – and sure enough, a pre-generated topography model popped up beside it, separating the geothermal from targeted areas highlighted in green.

  The radio blared again, and this time it was the voice of General Nathan Rhodes.

  “Major Corbett?”

  “Right here, sir.”

  “Son, it's awful good to hear from you. We'd pretty much given you up for lost. We've had our hands full. Things seem to be heating up again.”

  “That's no accident, sir,” Tom replied.

  Tom glanced at the screens.

  “I'm afraid you've got two problems, General,” Tom said. “The first is that I've just detected a very large bloom on satellite. It's one of the biggest on record, and it's headed your way.”

  Tom shut his eyes.

  “It's bait sir,” he said. “As of now, all your nuclear options are compromised.”

  Chapter 26

  Dr. Shriver placed the sound-proofed glass case over Otto's cage.

  Sally leaned in, watching the apparently oblivious little lizard blinking back, absorbing their words like a sponge.

  Lieutenant Hicks had rerouted Major Tom to the lab and Rhodes had him on speaker.

  The General was already pacing. If the Major's report was accurate, the Mount itself could be in trouble.

  “I've got satellite confirmation,” Tom informed them, his voice echoing in the glass acoustics of the sealed lab. “About two-hundred miles west of your position.”

  Rhodes turned to Sally.

  “I want a roll-call report,” he said. “All our nuclear assets. Yesterday.”

  The sub was the first to report back – Captain Mason.

  “Standing-by on alert, sir.”

  Which meant prepped to assume launch depth, pending targeting and launch commands.

  “You got any tomfoolery out your way? Anything unusual at all?”

  There was a pause on the line. “No, sir.”

  Major Travis from the Northwest site was next, reporting that he'd had a convoy attacked, and picked up a couple of refugees.

  “However, sir,” Travis said, “we do seem to have a problem with lizards.”

  Rhodes had glanced in Sally's direction. Shriver nodded.

  “Hold that thought,” Rhodes replied to Travis, “I may need you on-deck.”

  He switched the line to hold. “Anything from Maelstrom?” he asked.

  Sally shook her head. “Nothing, sir.”

  Rhodes swore under his breath.

  “Get Hicks over there with a combat-unit. I want boots and eyes on the ground. Tell them to let me know the second they've got anything.”

  Dr. Shriver checked the coordinates Major Tom had provided. He looked somberly at Rhodes.

  “If we can't nuke it,” Shriver said, “the Mount is in range.”

  Rhodes rubbed his eyes.

  “We are still reacting,” Shriver said, “as if this were all just a disaster, and not the actions of a deliberate, intelligent enemy. Now, remaining population centers are being targeted. We have to recognize our opponent and learn how it operates.”

  “And,”
Rhodes added, “it just so happens that our one high-intelligence asset that could maybe help us out with that, is also down in the area. We can't nuke the place even if we could.”

  The General took a deep breath, his feet set, back deliberately straight, like a man about to lift a difficult weight.

  He turned to Sally.

  “How many people currently living in the facility?” he asked. “Last census? And how fast could we realistically get them out?”

  Sally blinked as she realized what she was being asked. Was Rhodes actually talking about abandoning the Mount?

  Under what kind of time-frame?

  That was not to beg the question of where would they evacuate to?

  Rhodes took Sally's aghast expression for his answer, turning instead to Shriver.

  “This site was built to withstand nuclear strikes,” Rhodes said. “What would be its chances against a ground-zero bloom?”

  “It's the nature of the beast,” Shriver replied. “No pun intended. Beyond the blast wave, a nuke is less physical impact and more heat and radiation. Besides being one-and-done. This would be more like being attacked by a living earthquake that would dig this structure out like bears splitting logs after termites.”

  Rhodes stood silent.

  “Sir?” Sally asked. “Should we... start to evacuate the Mount? As a precaution?”

  Rhodes let out a slow breath.

  “We are pretty limited on alternatives to the Mount, I'm afraid.”

  Rhodes looked down at the blinking lights, both Major Tom and Major Travis waiting on hold.

  Then his eyes settled on Otto, staring back soundlessly behind the glass cover.

  “If this is the enemy,” Rhodes asked, “can we get intelligence from it?”

  “They aren't like that,” Shriver said, shaking his head. “It would be like trying to shake down a remote drone.”

  The little creature's head cocked as it blinked back at them through the glass.

  What would it do, Sally wondered, when humans were all gone? Would it move on to something else?

  Rhodes nodded to Sally.

  “Route all my calls to my office,” he said, turning abruptly for the elevator. Sally jumped into immediate heel beside him.

  Shrinker's lab was giving her the creeps.

  She glanced back at Shriver, already bent over his screens, as the elevator door closed behind them.

  The good doctor was no doubt brainstorming on advisable protocol.

  Nuke a bloom, burn a bud, had been his. So was most of the Arc Project.

  Sally couldn't wait to hear what he came up with this time. It was certain he would be asked.

  For once grateful for the claustrophobic well of the elevator, Sally still shuddered as the sudden pull of gravity mimicked the sensation of being dragged back below.

  And speaking of the creeps, when they reached the command-level, they found a guest waiting for them.

  Standing with Corporal Stevens as an escort, was Michelle – who Sally personally found the scariest member of the Coven.

  Rather scarier, in fact, after her interrogation, and the deliberately obedient 'good-girl' act she'd affected since.

  Michelle had been in Rhodes' office more than once in the past two weeks.

  She eyed Sally challengingly, but had her obedient face on when she turned to Rhodes.

  “Got something for me, Miss?” Rhodes asked.

  Michelle nodded.

  “Lizards,” she said.

  Chapter 27

  Caesar was the philosopher among anthropoids.

  Brutus embraced the ape.

  As he led his troop through mountains, the rite of their passage shook the Earth.

  In some way, looking strictly through the short-term parameter of the alpha male, the Food of the Gods was almost a blessing.

  It was power. The very ground trembled at his steps; his roar was the gale wind of a god-beast.

  Beating his chest never felt so good – a war-drum to silence every creature on the mountain.

  Brutus was a smart ape, but still an ape first. He knew what value Caesar placed on being civilized. Brutus used his brains to be a better ape. He was already the biggest and the strongest, and he understood you didn't have to be the smartest, as long as you were smart enough to be in charge.

  His own troop hadn't exactly drawn the intellectual elite, as apes go. His first lieutenant was a pigment-challenged moose of a beast with the shaggy hair of a burgundy-tinted orangutan, whose big trick was when the humans had taught him to say his own name, croaking out of his not-yet-evolved vocal-cords, “Grape Ape. Grape Ape.”

  It was enough to make him second-smartest in the troop. Konga and Big Joe were both jealous, capable of only gagging chokes of staggered consonants.

  Brutus knew what Caesar thought. And Brutus could mostly care less what high-and-mighty Caesar thought.

  In light of current circumstances, however, it irritated the hell out of him to know Caesar would think him a fool.

  Brutus understood very well what had happened to him and his troop.

  He could see the glowing green in their eyes – Konga, Joe, and Grape Ape – all of them.

  It had happened under his watch.

  Despite Caesar's not-quite voiced opinion, Brutus was not stupid – they hadn't eaten any funny bushes or infected rodents.

  Whatever they had ingested had been saturated in the leaves.

  Brutus had known something was wrong almost right away, although he was not immediately alarmed. It was, in fact, euphoric, like munching on coca leaves, a euphoria that had lasted up until the moment when Grape Ape had first shuffled up, belching with overfed decadence, to where Brutus himself had fallen into a light doze with a mouthful, still chewed into a cud.

  And when he spotted Grape Ape's lazy, sated, glowing green eyes, he had spat the mouthful out into the dirt.

  It had actually been succulent – he was full, and actually wanted more.

  Over the course of the next day, the natural indigenous foliage they had been consuming seemed to have withered and died – although a new patch of growth seemed to be making progress on the ridge – something different, but modified to fit the climate, and thus, blending right in.

  Brutus knew what was to follow.

  His initial plan had actually been rather selfless – sort of a walk-into-the-woods-and-commune-with-the-Great-Spirit approach to what he knew would be a terminal end.

  Brutus had seen the effects of the Food of the Gods unleashed. He knew his troop's simple presence would soon be dangerous – to Caesar's tribe, to the ecosystem of the mountain itself – and so he spent the next three weeks leading his troops on walk-about.

  In the manner of an animal, it didn't occur to him to end his own life – the basic instinct of survival – but Brutus did intend to put a mountain range between them before the madness took hold.

  It had been three weeks, and the infection was far-advanced when he felt her for the first time.

  And while he did not know it, like Caesar himself, his first impression was that she was a presence that must have been there in his subconscious all along.

  His troop felt it too. He had led them on a mostly meandering path north, simply following the mountain peaks as they drifted north and east.

  And then one day they had felt her – flying overhead.

  A plane – a lone blinking light in a night sky. The troop had stopped and stared like children mesmerized by fireworks.

  In Brutus, there was a subtle change.

  He hadn't started out as the brightest of apes, but as his intellect deteriorated, under the corroding burn of the chemical, the sheer energy enhanced certain other senses, flooding circuits not yet adapted to the load, but would continue to channel this new power until they melted and burned.

  Now Grape Ape was trying to say her name, struggling with his primitive larynx.

  “Shaahh-Naahh.”

  It wasn't just him. They all felt it – a light, they'
d only been just aware of, like the warm background glow of the sun.

  Already a creature of impulse, Brutus had followed, and he had led his troop with him.

  And with his new awareness, he felt others who were drawn as well.

  Brutus was not like Congo – he hadn't been raised on an island of tyrannosaurs – there was no personal animosity.

  Yet, he could sense them, miles distant – burning, just as he was, with the Food of the Gods.

  Not natural enemies, but rivals from the genetic code.

  And clearly following the same star.

  Tyrannosaurs were the first creatures whose DNA was engineered with the purification element. Along with Congo himself.

  And, of course, Otto.

  Brutus knew that little bastard too, and he could smell the scaly little rat all over this.

  It seemed that nasty sinus sting had gotten worse just lately, even ambient.

  Coincidentally, it seemed to coincide with this newer, brighter light, as if in aggressive resistance.

  And didn't it seem like Shanna's light was like a balm for that vaporous acid burn?

  Brutus could feel her, just over the mountain. He knew she was hurt and that put speed in his stride, as if with the sudden concern over a long-forgotten loved one.

  His troop picked up the pace without urging, the thundering tons of their passage shaking the very mountains.

  Brutus could not quantify the urgency that prompted him, or even what he might be hoping for. Did he expect Shanna to just touch his head and make his impending madness go away? Or the pain that would inevitably follow as the infection finally spread?

  But Brutus had never been the type to overthink. And now, as the energy building within him began to distort his perceptions, to the point where it would gradually transform his world into an over-focused kaleidoscope of insanity, Brutus simply followed the star he'd been given.

  His troop followed him unquestioningly towards the light.

  A light that, just in recent weeks, had suddenly grown brighter.

  Chapter 28

  Jonah and Naomi had been sitting in the holding cell for nearly an hour as the base around them buzzed on high-alert. Jonah was beginning to think they'd been forgotten.