Below Zero

by Dan Smith

  A swarm. He needed a swarm.

  But he didn’t get a swarm. Instead, the three Spiders appeared from the far end of the airstrip, horrifying and beautiful all at once. Huge and imposing, they moved quickly across the ice, like living, breathing beasts of metal and muscle. They covered the ground at amazing speed, bearing down on the soldiers.

  As they raced across the ice, the woman in black heard them or sensed them, Zak couldn’t know, but she turned, whipping her rifle round and firing without hesitation. The weapon kicked in her hands and Zak saw the muzzle flash. The other soldiers did the same, and as they opened fire, the operatives who had entered The Hub emerged back on to the ice, drawn by the sound of battle.

  Bullets thumped into the attacking Spiders. They cracked the composite, ricocheted from the steel, dented the aluminium and sank into the flesh. Each hit caused more damage than the last.

  Zak had no idea who the soldiers were, but what they had done to Sofia told him all he needed to know. They were not here to help, they were here to kill. And the machines he had once been so afraid of were now his only hope. He no longer saw them as monsters, but as his saviours.

  The Spiders reached the Osprey at the east side of the airstrip and began to close the distance between them and the soldiers. They only had to withstand a few more seconds of fire.

  They’re going to save us.

  The soldiers concentrated their attack, trying to force the Spiders back with a wall of bullets. The machines jerked and juddered under the impact, their progress slowing, but they were getting closer. They were gaining ground.

  The Ark is going to save us.

  Just a few more seconds and . . . the woman in black dropped her rifle and unslung the large weapon from her back. Bulky and deadly, Zak knew what it was. He’d played enough video games to recognize a grenade launcher when he saw one.

  The woman in black tucked the stock against her shoulder and fired.

  There was a short pause – less than a second – and the explosive detonated in front of the oncoming Spiders in a blast of ice and fire. The eruption shredded the muscular machines, blowing them into a thousand pieces. Their legs ripped away, their bodies shattered, and pieces of them tore across the ice in all directions. Burning fragments pounded the closest Osprey, like hellfire, and a second explosion erupted with a muted WHUMP! as the Osprey’s fuel tanks ignited in a huge ball of orange flames. The blast tore the aircraft in half, spinning it around on the landing strip as the fuel tanks beneath the second wing detonated. The air was filled with fire and smoke and heat as shrapnel blasted out in all directions. It thumped against the Storage building like heavy rain and Zak ducked as the reinforced glass shattered and sprayed fragments into the room.

  The machines that had taken so long to build, that had been given life by something ancient and pure, were torn to pieces in a few seconds. They were nothing but broken parts.

  And for Zak, all hope was lost.

  OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA

  NOW

  One end of the airstrip was ablaze. The Osprey was twisted like a broken toy, black smoke pouring from the wreckage, and there were huge potholes where the aircraft had exploded. But the soldiers didn’t waste a moment.

  Within a few seconds of the Spiders’ destruction, the woman in black was signalling to her people, issuing new commands. After a pause, one team split away and headed back into The Hub. The other soldiers fanned out across the airstrip as if they were protecting the remaining aircraft.

  Zak couldn’t breathe.

  Sofia was dead. There was no way out of Storage, and there was nothing he could use to defend himself. Not that he’d ever be able to defend himself against her.

  Outside, the woman in black raised the weapon to her shoulder and aimed it at Storage. Zak saw it clearly from where he was standing, and he knew exactly what it would do.

  In a few seconds he would be nothing.

  But as the woman in black prepared to incinerate the building, the ground began to tremble. At first it was a gentle sensation accompanied by a low rumble that made the woman pause and look back, but it was growing stronger. Louder.

  Storage shook, the contents of the shelves rattling as they had done when the aircraft were directly overhead. The ground moved beneath Zak’s boots and, outside, the woman in black side-stepped and put out her arms like a tightrope walker trying to keep balance.

  Zak stumbled too, grabbing at the wall, trying to stay on his feet. Containers clattered. Supplies shifted and fell over. Cans rolled off the shelves. Mum and Dad and May bumped into the red-jackets as they swayed together, knees buckling, falling in a heap.

  An earthquake. The thought flashed through Zak’s head. Saved by an earthquake.

  Outside, a sharp crack split the air and Zak clung to the edge of the window, peering out at the soldiers who had dropped low to avoid falling over. The woman in black had her back to Storage now and was signalling orders. The rumbling was growing louder by the second, and The Hub was shifting from side to side. The ground beneath it rippled like the sea.

  No, not an earthquake. It’s them. They’re breaking through. They’re leaving. All they needed was more time. That was all they wanted. Time to protect themselves.

  Zak saw a huge, dark shadow appear on the ground under The Hub. He pulled himself closer to the gaping window and squinted against the cold. As he watched, there was a sharp CRACK! and a massive split opened in the ice beneath the Hub’s legs. Powdery snow cascaded into it like a waterfall dropping into eternity as it tore open from one end of the Outpost to the other, a vicious zigzag snaking in both directions, separating the ground right across the bowl of the landscape.

  The soldiers backed away towards Storage and watched as the crack grew like a lightning bolt tearing through the ice, heading right for The Chasm in the distance. The ground began to swell upwards. It bulged around the edges of the fissure, stretching and splitting apart. The Hub rose higher than the other modules, the tunnels creaking and groaning as they strained at the places where they connected to the buildings.

  Zak heard the shouts of the men inside as the modules separated, upended, and turned over on to their sides like they were cardboard boxes. The Control Module slipped backwards, hanging over the edge of the ravine until the weight of it became too much for its fixings and it broke away from the East Tunnel and slipped into the darkness. The Medical Station followed it, tearing away and collapsing into the abyss. Two or three seconds later there was a loud thump followed by a plume of powdery snow billowing upwards, rolling out across the landing strip and smothering the remaining soldiers. It forced its way in through the smashed window of the Storage building, exploding like a wet sneeze, coating everything in snow.

  When the cloud settled, most of Outpost Zero was gone. The Hub, the whole of the East Tunnel. The West Tunnel, too, had disappeared into the newly formed ravine – only one of the living quarters remained, lying on its side at the edge of the huge split in the ground, the walls crushed inwards. The Drone Bay was far away from its original position, upturned and blasted outwards by the swarm that was now exploding from the gaping hole in the ice.

  The size of it was overwhelming. Right across the length of the crevasse, as far as Zak could see, the swarm erupted from the ice like a rising curtain of shadow. Oil-slick colours shimmered through every part of it, dancing in time with the Aurora flickering in the sky over the mountains. It hummed with the clatter and buzz of countless wings, lifting further and further. Even when it was towering over the place where Outpost Zero had been, there was still no sign the swarm was close to having risen completely from its burial site, but it began to shift.

  Insects started moving towards the centre of the swarm, focusing themselves into a massive column of shifting colour, growing higher and higher, turning like a vortex, a never-ending swirl that dragged the remaining insects towards it until they were all together, rising high into the glowing sky.

  The only sound was the tremendous rattle of
billions of tiny wings.

  ‘An Ark.’ Zak didn’t even know he said it aloud. ‘It’s an Ark.’

  Lights blinked inside the dense column of insects, erratic at first, like a fluorescent tube light coming on, flickering, flickering, then moving with more confidence. Bright yellow streaks appeared as more and more of the insects illuminated the spots on their backs, and those which were alight began to spiral upwards within the main column. More and more of them followed, thickening the spirals, making an endless cord of movement along the length of the column.

  Zak couldn’t look away from it. The sheer size and perfection was mesmerizing. He recalled the images he had seen when he touched the thing in the cavern and he knew what it was. It was pure life. Everything anyone knew – or had ever known – had started here, with them, and they had been waiting billions of years until they were needed again. But they had been discovered. Uncovered. Disturbed and threatened. And now they needed to find somewhere new. Somewhere safe to wait until they were needed again. Until the life here on Earth had faded and gone, and new life was required.

  They were life. They were hope. They were everything.

  The remaining soldiers stood on the ice with their heads back, watching the swarm become a huge sleek slab of black, with double spirals endlessly spinning upwards. It appeared to be solid now, defying all logic, simply floating above the gaping hole in the ice.

  Zak felt his connection to the hive – the Ark – grow stronger. He felt a billion minds merging with his own. It was gentle at first; the same darkening around his vision that he had felt many times already since coming here. But the intensity of it grew and grew until, with a jolt, white-hot pain filled his body. Zak put back his head and screamed as it raged through him. It fizzed and burned like a world on fire, leaping from one cell to the next, engulfing his body, and ripping into his mind with the agony of a world of thoughts and images.

  Somewhere beneath the pain and the sense of being utterly possessed, Zak had a thought of his own.

  I’m dying.

  But even as the idea formed, the pain stopped.

  It was as if it had never been there.

  Above the ice, the spirals within the column flickered and disappeared. Time had stopped. The small world of what was happening right there in that spot in Antarctica, the most isolated place on the planet, was holding its breath as it waited to see what the Ark was going to do next.

  Zak’s heart had time to beat three times before a stream of insects burst from the Ark as if it had grown a limb. Still connected to the main column, the limb rushed across the airstrip, over the heads of the soldiers, and burst though the Storage window.

  Zak flinched from it, turning his head and closing his eyes as the limb touched him, and insects swarmed over his body. They poured across him, finding gaps in his clothing, crawling in his hair, clattering in his ears, covering his face, smothering his mouth. He tried to move, to get away from them, but there were too many of them. Some began to shed their armour and force their way inside him. Through his ears and mouth and nose, suffocating him, and he knew he was going to—

  No. I’m not going to die. They’re not killing me. They’re making me whole.

  Zak relaxed and surrendered to the weirdest feeling he had ever experienced. The fleshy insects were inside his head, breaking down into their life-giving components. He felt them melting into his brain, their cells knitting together with his, becoming part of him. It was a soothing sensation, followed by a release of pressure, as if a splinter was being drawn out from inside him. And he knew what they were doing. They were taking away his illness. They were curing him.

  When the limb of insects withdrew, the floor around Zak was littered with the discarded remains of those that had crawled inside him. Those that had cured him. Outside, the Ark began to glow once more, spinning faster and faster until every insect illuminated itself at once, emitting a tremendous pulse of light that flashed outwards across the ice.

  Zak put his hands to his face and squeezed his eyes shut against the light that burned with incredible intensity. And then it was gone, leaving an image of the Ark burnt into his vision.

  As the image began to fade, Zak forced his eyes open and looked out at where Outpost Zero had been.

  The soldiers were now sprawled across the ice. Some lay like they had been frozen while making snow angels, others were bundled with their arms tucked under them. The woman in black was on her front, legs splayed as if she were a rag doll cast aside by a grumpy child.

  Zak turned his eyes to the sky, but there was nothing more to see. There was no sign of the swarm that had been buried beneath Outpost Zero.

  The Ark was gone. It had moved on, searching for a new place to hide and wait.

  OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA

  NOW

  Where there had once been a peaceful base, there was now a war zone. The ground was split in two, ragged and terrifying. Crumpled buildings were thrown aside like junk. Smoke filled the air, billowing from the burning aircraft, while flames licked at its carcass, casting an orange hue across the landing strip. The soldiers lay motionless in the snow. The ground was littered with torn metal and smouldering wreckage.

  At the back of Storage, lying in a heap with the other men, women and children from Outpost Zero, were Zak’s mum and dad. His sister, May.

  Please let them be OK. Please let them be OK.

  Fearing the worst but hoping for the best, Zak scrambled across toppled shelving units, scattering supplies in his rush to reach his family. He went to May first, despairing when he saw her skin drained of colour, her black hair dusted with broken glass and powdery snow. Her eyes were shut, and for one unimaginable moment Zak thought she was dead – that they were all dead. He dropped to his knees and put his ear to her chest. With a wash of relief, he heard the faint drum of her heart.

  Du-dum. Du-dum. Du-dum.

  It was quiet but it was definitely there.

  Thank you. He sat back and turned his eyes to the ceiling as he let out his breath.

  Zak moved to check on Mum and Dad, relieved that both were in the same state as his sister – their eyes were closed and they were unconscious, but they had heartbeats.

  ‘Mmm.’ The groan startled him and he sat back in surprise.

  ‘May?’ When she didn’t respond, Zak shook her gently, but the best she could manage was another quiet groan. He sat with her for a while, but she didn’t stir again. And as he sat, his mind drifted to the world outside Storage. The soldiers.

  He left May’s side and went back to the shattered window to look at the soldiers lying sprawled in the snow. He had no idea when they would wake up, but he was sure that when they did, they would be just as dangerous as before.

  His family was alive. They had survived this ordeal, and he couldn’t let anything else happen to them. Those soldiers were the biggest threat now. He had to deal with them. Disarm them.

  Climbing back through the debris, he went to the door and slammed his fist on the button. Before it was even halfway open, he pushed through and hurried out. At the bottom of the steps, he stopped and looked down to where Sofia lay.

  There were no lights – when Outpost Zero disappeared, the power module and its generators had disappeared with it – but the Aurora still rippled in the sky, and the glow of a million stars reflected from the empty insect coverings that lay on the ice around Sofia. She was surrounded by them, just as he had been after the insects had come to him in Storage. Had they come to Sofia too? Had they fixed her too?

  Zak knelt beside her and dared to hope for the impossible. He hesitated, afraid to be wrong, and put his hands under her side to turn her over.

  He put his ear to her chest and heard the best music in the world.

  She was breathing. Sofia was alive. The insects had cured him, and they had given her life.

  Zak half carried, half dragged Sofia up the stairs and into the relative warmth of Storage. He checked her heartbeat again, to be sure, and went back outside
to hurry across the ice. Heading straight for the woman in black, he tugged the pistol from her holster and threw it as far away as he could. It disappeared into the snow with a crump. The grenade launcher was still clasped in her grip, so Zak forced her fingers apart and prised it from her. He slung it over his shoulder and took it with him as he jogged out towards the next body lying in the snow. Knowing they might wake at any time, Zak scrambled to free the operative of his weapons and continued on to the next soldier.

  He went from one to another, and when he had relieved them all of their weapons, he stumbled towards the ravine left by the insects. He inched as close to the edge as he dared, and dropped the rifles, one by one, into the abyss.

  What now?

  Turning around, Zak looked across the landing strip at Storage, and understood why the insects had controlled the people from Outpost Zero. It had been to keep them safe. They had known what would happen when they finally erupted from the ice. Storage was the only building that was untouched. Everything else was either gone or destroyed; the Hub, the Medical Station, Control—

  No comms. The thought jolted through him. They had no way to contact the outside world. Zak was certain that if the base had still been standing, the communications would have returned to normal now the insects were gone, but the base wasn’t still standing. Any chance they had of contacting the outside world had disappeared into the bottomless pit that had opened in the ice.

  Zak scanned the area, and his gaze came to rest on the second Osprey sitting on the landing strip.

  That would be their escape. There was no other way out of here. Dima would have to fly it.

  With the idea set firmly in his mind, Zak broke into a run, crossing the landing strip as fast as he could. He was exhausted, desperate for each breath, but the thought of taking his family to safety, and leaving this place far behind, kept him going. He could even picture it in his mind; waking them up, everybody climbing into the back of the aircraft and flying away. This was it, they were finally going to—