“Get on the ground now or I will shoot you!” demanded the policeman.
“You do what you have to do,” said the Neverman, pushing himself off of the wall and walking forward. “But I’m—”
His body jerked as he was struck in the shoulder by a bullet, then rapidly in the stomach, chest and leg by three more. Around him, brick shards exploded and glass shattered from the bullets that missed him.
“Ow,” said the Neverman, straightening up. The shots had destroyed the purple crystals wherever they had hit, revealing undamaged pale skin beneath. “I didn’t like that.”
The policemen scrambled to reload, and were just sending forth a fresh fusillade when a sudden shadow caused them to look upward. They barely had time to scurry backward before the giant, having taken a tremendous leap from the top of the two-story bank building, crashed onto their vehicle. The roof smashed all the way to the floor, shattering every window in a violent eruption of safety shards. Every door popped open, as did the trunk and the hood, and all four tires exploded.
The giant plunged both of her hands into the engine of the car and, with a roar, tore the entire block free of the vehicle. She flung it overhead at the first policeman, crushing his legs as he tried to scrabble away. The second officer was attempting to get to his feet when the giant wrapped her arm around the front bumper of the battered cruiser, hefted the entire thing into the air, and swung it like a gargantuan club. He was swept from his feet and dashed to the ground a half-dozen feet away. He landed like a rag doll, splayed bonelessly upon the asphalt. Blood pooled ominously beneath his body.
The second police cruiser arrived, only to be met by the crumpled hulk of the first being flung end-over-end directly at its windshield. The driver swerved to try to avoid the immense missile, but to no avail. He slalomed into a parked car and was then hit regardless. Steamed poured up from the car’s hood as various fluids puddled on the ground. Inside the car, the two police officers tugged futilely at their jammed doors.
The remaining Nevermen had exited the building, and were watching gleefully from the sidelines.
“Example made,” said the female Neverman who had delivered the speech. “Let’s go. Everyone?”
“Just leaving a parting gift,” said one, running her hands over the door frame. Purple crystals glittered in her wake, jutting out of the metal. “Okay, let’s go.”
Sirens rose, growing closer to the bank as the Nevermen walked to the edge of the parking lot. One of them gestured to the sewer drain. “Molt?”
The giantess reached down and delicately lifted the manhole cover, allowing the others to climb down into the sewer tunnels.
“You keep that money safe for me,” she rumbled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Lacuna flashed her a grin. “Absolutely. Be careful in the swamps! Don’t get too close to the Neverglades. Seed’s gonna be pissed, and you won’t have backup.”
“I’ll be safe,” said Molt. She carefully replaced the manhole cover and broke into a lumbering run, picking up speed as she went. By the time the next police car rounded the corner, she was thundering down a nearby street, leaving the bank far behind.
Back in the bank, the hostages stared through the windows with a mix of terror and anger. No one spoke until Molt had disappeared down the street, but as the sirens from the approaching police cars grew louder, one woman let out a snort of disgust.
“Yeah. They run when the cops arrive. Too afraid to take a chance with anyone who could fight back.”
She rose slowly off the ground, dusting herself off. There was a general murmur of agreement from the others in the room.
“Even with us,” a man chimed in, “they picked on the weakest. Did you see who they went after first? That poor old man over there.”
He gestured toward Emilio Wickers, currently being tended to by the security guard he’d been thrown into. Blood covered his face, but his eyes were open and his voice unwavering as he spoke.
“They’re weak,” declared Emilio. He grimaced and held his sides as he spoke, feeling his bones grate. “They’re bullies. They can’t stand to be stood up to. They go after those they think they can scare into submission.”
“I’m—I’m nah gonna take it,” slurred a voice from the floor. It was the man who Taunt had jumped on, whose face she had screamed her challenge into. With unfocused eyes and blood matting his hair, still he attempted to lever himself off of the ground. “Can’ comin here an’, an’ push people aroun’.”
One of the bank employees held him gently to the ground by his shoulders. “It’s okay, man. Just stay still until the paramedics get here. Look, the cops are already here.” He gestured out the window to the uniformed officers running across the parking lot, but everyone’s gaze was instead drawn to the dead man crumpled limply in the remains of the vestibule window.
“No,” said Taunt’s victim, then repeated it more strongly. “No! If we sit here an’ do nothing, they’ll only come back. We nee’ to take the fight to them.” He swallowed thickly.
“Is everyone all right in there?” came the call from outside. The ex-hostages glanced out through the shattered glass, then exchanged looks with each other.
“We have injured people in here!” a woman near the door called back. “Broken bones, a concussion.” Her eyes flicked to the dead man briefly. “Worse.”
“Medical help is on the way. Are you safe?”
“Yes,” called the woman, but Emilio muttered, “Only until the Nevermen come back.”
Around the room, heads nodded. Their space had been violated. If they didn’t defend it, then their attackers were right: they were cowards. The uniform look of resolve each person wore denied this idea, though. They were no spineless slugs. They would prove it.
Seed would pay for what it had done.
The sun was low in the sky as the last car pulled off onto the muddy shoulder of the road. Marissa Abbey, one of the bank tellers, stepped out and surveyed the group of people gathered there. Everyone from the bank that morning was there, save for the man who had died. His name had been Bernard de Vries. She hadn’t known him well, although they’d worked in the same building for over a year. He hadn’t been a bad person. She just hadn’t bothered to get to know him. And now Seed had killed him, casually, like it was nothing.
Marissa was unsurprised to see that no one had stayed behind. The morning’s events had seethed through her mind like a poison all day. If she hadn’t come out here to scream defiance at Seed, she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself.
A few of the group had brought guns, and almost all were carrying plastic containers of various kinds. Marissa didn’t have to ask what was in them. She’d had the same idea. How do you get back at a thing that’s basically a landmass? You poison the land.
She opened the trunk of her car and hefted out a five-gallon jug of weed killer. She carried it awkwardly over to the group, who greeted her solemnly.
“You okay?” asked the security guard, Rajulio. His left arm was in a sling, but he carried a jug of bleach in his right hand and wore his pistol on his right hip. A large bruise spread from his forehead down the left side of his face, blackening one eye.
I’m better than Bernard, thought Marissa, but she said only, “Fine. I’m fine.”
“Then let’s go get this thing,” said the man Taunt had assaulted. His head was bandaged and he moved stiffly, but the fire that burned in his eyes was the most intense of any of them. He had a rifle slung across his back and a large unmarked blue plastic drum on a two-wheeled cart in front of him.
“Muriatic acid,” he said in response to Marissa’s questioning look. “That oughta get a rise out of him.”
He began to push the cart across the swampy ground, heading for the telltale purple shine through the greenery up ahead. The group followed him, fanning out slightly. Marissa eyed the cart jealously as she lugged her unwieldy jug, but seeing how the cart’s wheels sank into the soft soil, even if she’d had one it might have only been diff
erently difficult, not better.
They moved a hundred yards off the road, then two. Up ahead, a NO TRESPASSING sign came into view in the distance, only the large words in the middle readable. The group trudged on in determined silence.
The ground began to slope down slightly, making the going easier. Subtly, the sound of the grass underfoot began to change, shifting from a soft whisper to a crunching sound, like walking on shells. It was quiet at first, but slowly increased as they progressed forward. Marissa looked down when she noticed the sound, and saw that the grass underfoot was purple and stiff, cracking away into wicked-looking shards beneath their feet.
“The sign’s all the way over there. What’s it doing expanding out this far?” asked Rajulio in disgust. The group muttered its agreement. This was just one more indication that Seed needed to be put in its place.
Bugs buzzed around their heads in the humid evening air, seeking a fresh meal. Marissa swatted at one on her arm, then pulled her hand back in shock, swearing.
“It stung me!”
Something glittered on one finger of the hand she’d used to swat the bug. Marissa scraped away the dead bug and discovered a tiny splinter of purple crystal driven into her skin, surrounded by a bead of blood. Using her fingernails, she carefully extracted it and tossed it to the ground.
“It’s got bugs?” asked Rajulio, shaking his head. “Gross.”
A dozen yards ahead, the slope they’d been descending bottomed out into a swampy pool. By unspoken consensus, the group began to ready their containers of poisons. It might be more of a symbolic gesture than anything else, but Seed would know that it had been struck here. It would know that it was not invulnerable, that the fight could be brought to it.
“This,” said their leader, unstoppering the drum of acid, “will teach you to—”
His message of defiance cut off abruptly as, without warning, a gem-encrusted alligator head broke the surface of the water, seized him by his right ankle, and pulled. The man fell heavily onto his back, shattering crystal grass beneath him and cracking his damaged skull onto the ground. He lay there for a split-second before the alligator yanked again and dragged him into the water. He disappeared into thrashing foam without even time to shout.
The rest of the group stared in shock. Another alligator head broke the surface, the beast bellying up onto the ground at their feet, and the group splintered into chaos. Rajulio dropped his bleach, pulled his pistol and started firing, but the bullets whined harmlessly off of the alligator’s enhanced hide. It whipped toward him, roaring, and he fired two shots into its open mouth as he backed away.
Several people tried to run. As they did so, they discovered that the slight slope that had made it easier to get here made it much harder to leave. This was especially true because all of the crystalline grass was pointed down the slope, meaning that as they attempted to run up it, they stepped directly onto the dagger-like points. Cries sounded out behind Marissa as people ran, tripped, and had their hands cut to ribbons as they landed on the razor-sharp grass.
Those who managed to scramble higher despite the terrain were viciously dive-bombed by birds, beaks pecking for their eyes and winged bodies bludgeoning them painfully about the ears and face. The bladed grass caught them as they fell, tearing strips from their clothes and the flesh underneath as they rolled back downhill.
Marissa, screaming her defiance, uncapped her jug of weed killer and swore as she realized it had a safety seal beneath the cap. She scrabbled furiously at it with her nails before finally giving up and simply bashing the jug directly onto the ground. The grass stabbed a hundred holes through the plastic, and weed killer spurted everywhere. Marissa raised it overhead and triumphantly hurled it into the swamp. It disappeared into the thickening mists with a splash.
She turned to look for Rajulio, but saw only a bloody smear on the ground where he had been. The slope was littered with the bodies of the fallen, most of them unmoving. The birds were still diving at those who did move, raking any exposed flesh with their tiny claws. Marissa began to make her way up the slope to try to save one of her compatriots from the birds’ attacks.
Suddenly, a tentacle thicker than her waist lashed out of the mist behind her. It wrapped twice around her body, pinning her arms to her sides and trapping her mouth and nose behind a thick, mucousy seal. Marissa tried to scream, but could not even part her lips enough to manage that. The tentacle whipped backward fast enough to break her back, tearing her away into the mist. Her last sight as the world faded to black was of her car, far away at the top of a gentle hill, glinting in the setting sun.
Seed was enraged. This last indignity was beyond what it could bear. The people had been warned, and they had chosen to reply with further violence. The time for negotiation was over. It was time to send the Emissary.
XIII
“Nearby, not knowing that he’d already failed….”
Mat poured himself and his compatriot Dana each a glass of water from the carafe. The room they sat in was comfortable, with three armchairs set around a coffee table for their meeting. It was far removed from the formal conference tables Mat was more used to meeting around, and he vastly preferred the atmosphere. Even sitting across from a purple-tinged man with crystals bursting through his skin, Mat felt more at ease than he often did among his fellow bureaucrats.
He looked questioningly across the low table to Marc, raising the pitcher slightly. Marc shook his head.
“I am here to deliver a message and receive a reply,” he said, his thick, liquid voice slurring the words together. “I was not designed for the long-term. I do not take in sustenance.”
Dana raised her eyebrows. “You don’t eat?”
“It’s not necessary,” replied the Neverman. “Now. You have brought me here. Will you hear my demands, and make the necessary sacrifices?”
Dana frowned, but looked to Mat for guidance. Mat pictured himself moving ahead with the conversation and received no negative feelings from his augment, so he nodded.
“Obviously we’re not going to blindly agree to anything you propose, but the borders were put in place for both your protection and ours. It’s in our interests as well as yours to maintain them. If people are violating them, we’d like to help stop it.”
“Violating me,” said Marc. “My borders are more than an arbitrary designation. I see and feel within them. They are my body. Your people are intruding into my body.”
“I understand,” said Mat.
“I stress this point to make it clear that this is not some national dispute where the borders can be negotiated. There is no room for argument on this point. I occupy this space, and I will be left to my own autonomy. No further incursions will be tolerated.
“Here are my demands:
“I will be allowed to expand beyond the current space. I will occupy an area consisting of a further twelve square miles. I will show you the new borders on a map.
“I will create a no-man’s-land beyond that new expansion. It will be partially infused with my substance, so that I may alter the terrain as necessary to create a defensive position. You may also use this no-man’s-land to prevent intrusion. Signs, fences, cameras—these will all be allowed.
“You will deliver the following elements to me: twenty tons of iron. Three tons of copper. One ton of magnesium. These will be delivered to a spot I will name and dropped off. This will not be considered an incursion. The deliverers have a guarantee of safe passage.
“You will attend me once a month at a spot of my choosing to ensure that my new borders are being respected. You will hear any complaints I have, and work to fix them. This also will not be considered an incursion.
“Any circumstances, other than the ones I have outlined here, in which any person enters my borders will be considered an incursion, and I will respond with extreme prejudice. At a minimum, that person will die, and their body will not be released. I may retaliate further as I see fit. You will not respond to my retaliation as if it were
an unprovoked attack.
“These are my demands. Do you find them acceptable?”
Mat had been taking notes on a legal pad, and he now wrote a final line at the bottom and pushed the pad toward Dana. She glanced at it, saw his bulleted list summarizing each point, and read his note: Can we do all this?
Dana had produced the original cost-benefit analysis on Seed, in which she had determined how much it would cost to eradicate him versus allowing him to remain. Mat had brought her along as the person best suited to understand what Seed was asking for.
Although logically she understood his point, Dana felt frighteningly out of her depth. Her day-to-day life consisted of working in a cubicle, responding to emails and attending meetings about project milestones. She was in no way prepared to negotiate with what was, for all intents and purposes, an alien entity.
Mat was looking at her expectantly, though, and so she looked over his list again. The extra land was not likely to be a large concern, depending on exactly where it was. People had given Seed a wide berth for years, so there was no one to have to relocate anywhere near the Neverglades. Politically, it would be a bit of a mess, but far less so than the fiscal and environmental impact of trying to remove Seed.
The raw materials were interesting. Seed clearly intended to use them for something, but what? That was a point worth looking into, but for now, Dana could see no reason not to agree to it. The cost was negligible, and it wasn’t like they were turning over anything dangerous.
As for the monthly meetings, if Mat was willing to be at Seed’s beck and call, that was his business. The list was reasonable. Dana met Mat’s eyes, nodded slightly and slid the pad back over to him. She was relieved that it had been so straightforward.
“Your requests are reasonable,” Mat said. “We can agree to this. I have two requests to make in return, though.”
“State them,” said Marc.
“I’d like to be able to share the monthly meetings with people. Part of the problem is that you’re viewed as monstrous, inhuman. I’d like to change that perception.”
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