by Michael Todd
“Why not?” Kennedy asked. She seemed willing to hear Sal out, but unlike the six-legged gazelle that they’d run into before, this thing looked genuinely terrifying. She wanted to listen to her specialist, but she also had a duty to protect her squad. If it there was even a remote chance it would attack them, she definitely wanted to be the one to kill this new and improved nightmare.
“Well,” Sal said, “I assume from all your reactions that you haven’t encountered one of these things yet?”
“Of course not,” she answered and remained poised to fire.
“But it is, for all intents and purposes, a locust, and locusts aren’t carnivores.”
“It could still attack us for intruding on its territory,” Addams said.
“Locusts aren’t territorial. They’re solitary herbivores,” Sal said as he peered more closely at the creature. So far, it merely seemed inquisitive. “It’s also cold-blooded, which means it was attracted by the warmth from our heating lamps. Give it a few minutes to realize that it isn’t welcome here, and it’ll find some hole to sleep in until the sun comes up.”
Kennedy nodded and lowered her weapon. Cortez and Addams followed suit, but Lynch shook his head.
“Nah, fuck it,” he exclaimed and squeezed the trigger.
Even with the sergeant’s light, the double flash of the two shots blinded Sal for a few moments. He was close enough for his ears to ring as he ducked down and thought for a second that Lynch had actually fired at him. By the time his eyes and ears returned to normal, the locust lay on the ground with two large, smoking holes in its exoskeleton.
“What’s the matter with you?” Sal roared at the man, who merely shrugged and chuckled.
“I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I knew that some big ugly bug hung around our camp.”
“So, it’s better to kill a species that we haven’t encountered before than it is for you to lose sleep?” Sal growled. He felt genuine anger at this, and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was a symptom of him turning over that new leaf of his. It made him care more about his job and what he studied. Something hot burned in the back of his stomach, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to contain it.
Lynch grinned unrepentantly. “Apparently so.”
Sal was about to yell at the man, but he was cut off when Kennedy raised a hand.
“Shut up, the both of you,” she commanded, “and listen.”
They did as they were told, and he immediately noticed a difference. Where the jungle had previously been alive with a variety of sounds to the point of drowning everything else out, he could now hear absolutely nothing beyond the sigh of the wind in the trees. Somehow, even that seemed faded and softer.
Sal stared at the dead creature. Admittedly, his skin crawled at the sight of a massive insect with mandibles, antennae, and spikes on its feet that meant it could probably climb the Empire State Building. He had a certain phobia when it came to insects and arachnids. But even so, years of studying life and creatures had made it an impulse he could push away at the metaphorical push of a button. The horror at seeing a helpless creature gunned down couldn’t be shoved aside as easily.
“Shit,” Kennedy said. “Well, Jacobs, go to the critter and collect whatever you need to collect. Gather some samples or whatever. The rest of you, we should probably pack up camp and move to another site since there will be all manner of fun headed our way thanks to Lynch opening fire on what was probably a harmless if gigantic bug.”
“Nice going, Lynch,” Cortez growled and patted the man on the helmet as the three of them headed back to the camp. Kennedy stayed behind to watch over Sal as he collected his samples.
“You okay, Jacobs?” she asked when she noticed that he hadn’t moved from his spot for another thirty seconds.
“Yeah,” he said, a little louder than necessary since his ears were still ringing. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. Really. I’m simply not used to the senseless murder of defenseless animals yet. But I assume I’ll be well and truly…you know, used to it by the time this field trip comes to an end. So…yeah. That’s cool. I’ll do a quick dissection of the previously undocumented and new species that we just killed—”
“I get it,” Kennedy said and rolled her eyes. “I get it. We killed a defenseless little bug. Your heart is broken. You think we’re a bunch of heartless killing machines. Believe me, by the end of this trip, you’ll feel exactly the same. Now get to work. You can have your attack of conscience later once we’re not in a position to get eaten by animals that aren’t defenseless.”
Sal nodded. She had a point, but it didn’t make him any happier about it. He pulled a scalpel and pincers from his pouch and moved to the dead bug. He knelt beside it, and the first thing he noticed was that the critter’s blood was the same color blue as the goop he’d seen in the video. Not only that, but it also glowed in the dark.
“That’s actually pretty cool,” he muttered and used a syringe to collect a sample of the blood.
“What’s that?” Kennedy asked.
“Nothing,” he replied and stored the blood. Like most insects, this one had a skeleton that worked as its armor as well, and the exoskeleton was thinner than what most insects would have by comparison. It looked as if it was denser, too, and heavier than it first appeared. He cut a sample and put it in a bag that was quickly vacuum-sealed.
“I’m switching the light off, Jacobs,” Kennedy said suddenly.
“What?” he asked, but she didn’t answer. The light disappeared and forced him to revert his helmet to night vision. He frowned and focused on something alarming. It could be nothing or simply an extra-large gust of wind. Deserts the size of the Sahara had sandstorms all the time, right?
The problem was if that wasn’t a sandstorm, why did it seem like there was something really large headed their way?
“Collect what you can and let’s move,” Kennedy instructed, clearly antsy, and this time, Sal didn’t question her. He took a couple more samples from the body and sealed them, stood quickly, and adjusted his helmet. He still felt bad for the critter that had simply come because it was curious about the heat, but he would have to mourn it later. That meant he would have to be around to mourn it later.
That seemed like an acceptable compromise. Sal arranged his samples inside the pouch he’d brought. He’d have to examine them later, but for now, they had to leave.
Kennedy kept her gun trained on the jungle as she and Sal headed toward the campsite. They could hear steps following from farther away now, and Sal felt more and more like something watched them. He couldn’t shake it, and he could tell that Kennedy felt the same. She looked focused, rather than nervous, but he sensed tension from her. He didn’t blame her. Being unable to see whatever it was that might attack them was as unnerving as hell.
He patted her shoulder once they reached the campsite to signal her without distracting her from what approached. His own motion sensors went crazy. It could be something really huge or a swarm of somethings, but he still couldn’t tell what it was. It wasn’t that far from the campsite either.
Kennedy jogged, with Sal right behind her, to see what progress the other three had made. It had gone quickly. The shelters were down, and the heat plates were almost finished. Wisely, they had left the sensor ring for last since they didn’t want anything to sneak up on them while they worked.
“What’s the situation?” Lynch asked, and the others listened in.
“We have something incoming,” Kennedy answered tersely and pitched in to help.
“Something?” Cortez asked.
“Something.” Sal nodded. “It could be many smaller somethings or one very big something, but it’s too dark to tell. I still suggest that we get the fuck out of Dodge.”
Kennedy nodded agreement. Sal was surprised by the reaction and the rest of the squad were too, but now wasn’t the time to address it. They needed to hurry.
Since they had to pack quickly, they had no time to put everything in its proper place. While all the packs w
ere full, Sal found himself carrying some of the spikes with the motion detectors pinned to them. He didn’t complain.
A tense silence hung between them as they pushed through the jungle again. Everyone was fully armed and armored, and the gunners held their weapons at the ready. The feeling of being watched had spread to the rest of the squad, and no one felt inclined to break the silence. Sal knew that everyone thought back to where they’d left the locust corpse. He knew they might not think about it as he did but it was no secret that they all thought about what might be coming. They didn’t want to get into a fight with the Zoo fauna when they could barely make out the trees around them.
“Here’s fine,” Kennedy declared once they’d walked a few hundred yards. They were still uncomfortably close to their old campsite but didn’t want to deviate too far from their original course in the middle of the night and stumble onto something infinitely worse.
Working quickly, they set out the motion sensors first and, with less urgency, erected the shelters again. They avoided the heating lamps. There wasn’t much need for them as it was already late. Everyone was tired and grumpy and wanted a good night’s sleep before their hike in the morning.
As they set their new camp up, the sense of urgency faded and the conversation resumed.
Cortez was the first to speak. “You had to shoot it, Lynch. You couldn’t let a big fucking insect simply walk away.”
“Well,” Lynch said, “I had to draw first blood. Let the Zoo know who’s boss.”
“Yeah,” Sal growled. “All insects across the world will tremble in terror at the name of Lynch, the man who shoots locusts because they give him the night frights.”
“Hey,” Lynch said, “are you telling me that your nightmares haven’t been populated by the occasional spider, Jacobs?”
“It was a fucking grasshopper,” Sal snapped. “You shot something that literally eats grass.”
“I don’t know,” Addams growled. “I’d be pretty pissed if someone ate all my grass.”
Cortez chuckled, and the situation defused, but Sal could still feel his blood boil. Why did he feel this way? It couldn’t only be about the locust. It wasn’t even about him turning over that new leaf of his. He felt genuinely angry—fighting mad, actually. He wanted to punch Lynch’s smug face. Sal realized that there was no way that this would end well for him, but the impulse was there.
Maybe, he reasoned, it was because he had been filled with a sense of wonder at the opportunity to walk in this new forest with all these new plants and animals. Perhaps it had raised an inkling of hope that since this place was alien, there was bound to be a change in the way people acted.
What he was mad at Lynch about was that he’d quashed the sense of wonder—or shot it, rather.
There was also the small matter of having to move their campsite, but that was less important.
By the time they’d all retired for the night, Sal didn’t feel much like sleeping. Instead, he used the time to run some tests on the blood and armor samples that had been collected. He started with a pH balance test for the blood, quickly followed by a chemical test that would ascertain if it contained any of the goop. It didn’t take much time but being able to run them without the company of the gunners allowed him to relax. There was something familiar and comforting in doing simple lab work, he realized. Sal had never thought that he’d miss it.
The chemical test would take ten hours to deliver any conclusive results, so he moved on to the armor that he’d collected from the beastie. He’d taken the time to collect a piece that hadn’t been shot so he wouldn’t have to account for the damage caused by the bullet. It was from the creature’s thorax, where the armor was supposedly the thickest in most of the species.
Sal chuckled. This was the first of this particular breed that they had encountered, and they behaved like they thought there was a host of specimens to collect from. For all they knew, they might have killed the only one of its kind.
Yeah, Lynch could go down in history as the man who erased an entire species from existence. The goop could come up with more of them, though, right? Wasn’t that how it operated?
He clipped a piece of the armor off and applied the same chemical test to it since it was the first test that the guidebook suggested field specialists run. He also ran an endurance test and placed another clipping into a test vial with a small amount of sulfuric acid.
That done, he sealed the rest of his specimens and lay on his sleeping mat. He didn’t have the material needed to run more thorough tests, so he’d have to wait until they returned to the Staging Area.
Sleep was probably a good idea, but as he lay down, he heard soft snoring from one of the tents. Beyond that, he thought he heard what he imagined was the sound of massive jaws tearing into the corpse of a giant locust. Thoughts about this ravenous creature still nursing a serious case of the munchies and able to follow their trail and descend on them kept him awake for a little while longer. Eventually, Sal felt the tug of sleep, and he closed his eyes.
Chapter Ten
It felt like he’d barely closed his eyes when he heard movement outside his tent. He scrambled out of bed and looked around in a cold sweat. His first thought was that the creature had somehow found them and was seconds away from devouring the whole group.
When he managed to focus, he saw a faint light through the thin material of his shelter. Sal cursed softly when he felt the ache from the day before. He hadn’t been very active before, he realized.
Holy shit, he realized. That was now his previous life. He looked at the walls of his shelter. It was a tiny little thing, barely high enough for him to sit upright.
“Fuck my life,” he mumbled and dragged himself clear of the shelter. He’d left his toiletries in his little apartment at the staging area along with the rest of his luggage. Their water supply was probably rationed to the point where showers were not allowed and shaving even less so.
He wouldn’t have a good day and slowly came to terms with that. At some point, he might even make peace with it. He scratched at the bristle on his cheeks and scowled at his surroundings.
Kennedy and Cortez were already up and about. A couple of the heating lamps were out, and he could smell the refreshing aroma of coffee. Sal hadn’t always liked coffee, but as someone who preferred to stay up all night rather than wake early in the morning, he had learned to endure it and, to some extent, even enjoy it.
“Morning, sunshine,” Kennedy greeted him, and Cortez offered a grunt as he held his hands over the heating lamp. Lynch and Addams were still sleeping, apparently.
“Morning,” he responded grumpily and included them in his scowl. “What time do we leave?”
Kennedy checked her watch. “About thirty minutes. We don’t want to leave too early in the morning and risk running into the desperate stragglers.”
Sal nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see what’s left of the locust thing and if I can grab a few more samples.”
She nodded. “Coffee first. Samples later.”
The coffee was strong, and since sugar was an unnecessary addition, Sal simply took a few minutes to quietly sip the thick, strong, bitter bean-juice of life. Not only did it bring him back from the dead, he’d reasoned once to a colleague, but it also kept him from killing people.
Considering that the colleague had been a fellow master’s student almost six years older than him, the man had agreed enthusiastically.
Once the coffee pot was empty, Sal stood. “I’m going back to the old campsite. You guys can either wait for me here or send someone with me.” He wrestled with his suit, still unfamiliar with the process.
Kennedy sighed. “Cortez, can you go with him? I need to at least try to contact Davis before we move.”
Cortez nodded. “Sure thing, boss.” He pulled his suit on too, and since he had a lot more experience than Sal did, he was finished a few seconds before the specialist. The soldier grinned, winked, and took point as he attached his rifle to the steel a
rm of his suit.
“So,” Sal asked once they were on their way, “how long have you taken part in these operations?”
Cortez shrugged. “About five, six months. Why?”
Sal shook his head. “I wondered about Kennedy. She’s been here the longest of the squad?”
Cortez nodded. “There’s a lot of turnover in our business, but she’s the one who’s stuck it out the longest. She’s run these ops for about nine months. The only one who’s been here longer is Davis. He was actually one of the first boots on the ground. They originally called in a group of special forces. The rest of his teams died or were injured in the line, and the pieces have switched out until he got us. I’d give us a couple of weeks before we see some new faces again.”
Sal pointed at his own face. “You already do.”
Cortez smirked. “You’re a specialist, so you don’t count. We get a new one every couple of weeks.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” he said.
“I don’t mean it like that,” Cortez said. “Specialist casualties are some of the lowest in the business since you guys aren’t supposed to fight. By the time the business end of a fight gets to you, the rest of us will already be down.”
“Still comforting,” Sal retorted and picked his way through the jungle. “I mean, the last guy, the one before me—”
“He got stupid and ran into a firefight to get his samples out. He panicked.” Cortez shook his head. “I haven’t seen how cool your head is in a fight, but I can always hope that we got one of the good ones.”
“What happens to the ones who don’t lose their head—or get their heads chewed off?” Sal asked.
“Oh, they get shipped out.” Cortez shrugged. “They have more flexible contracts than us gunners, so when they have the opportunity, they get the hell out of Dodge or they are transferred to the egghead squad.” Sal gave him an odd look. “You know…the ones working in the labs in the staging area.”
Sal nodded. “What kind of money do those guys make?”
Cortez shrugged. “It depends on their contracts. Some work for the military, like you, and live off bounties, like us. The rest are sent in as consultants from some third-party company or whatever. Those guys are paid ‘live on your own island’ dough, man.”
