Operation Atlas Lion

by Addison Gunn

  THE RED SUN burned bright on the horizon, casting the corner of Third and 33rd in an orange hue so blinding, Miller had to shield his eyes with the crook of his arm, even with his gas mask on.

  The wasps in the area were thick, moving in swarms like clouds of scorching mist. Standing between two buildings to hide from the sun, Miller and Cobalt found themselves under siege by bugs. Miller had already been stung twice just standing there.

  Waving his arms defensively in front of his face, he walked down the alley toward the road to check for signs of the Archaeans. He was stung three more times.

  Just as the sun disappeared over the compactly stacked buildings, Miller caught sight of a herd of thug behemoths one block north. Samantha, in front of the pack, still wore her construction goggles and bandana. She dismounted and waved; Miller pushed his way through the cloud of wasps and went to her.

  “There’s a parking structure,” she said, pointing down 33rd Street, to the north side of the block. “Inside there’s an encampment. The truck is in there.”

  Miller eyed the street. It was an old commercial boulevard, complete with small businesses on the first floor, and tight apartments a few levels above. Halfway down the road a parking sign hung on a chipped red building with a stoop to the left. The windows of the building were completely obscured by tendrils of fungus blooms.

  “Is there another entrance?” he asked.

  Samantha shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. You’ll have to check.”

  Miller swatted a wasp from his sleeve, feeling the burn of its sting as it pierced his skin and scorched his blood stream. “Can we count on you to come with us?”

  “We can’t,” she said. “The pull of the Exiles is too strong for us to resist.”

  “How do I know you aren’t sending me into a trap?”

  She twitched, but kept her face neutral. “You contacted us, remember? The risks you take are your own.”

  Miller frowned. He didn’t like this in the slightest, but there was no turning back. This was their only chance of success, and given their supply situation, there wasn’t time to orchestrate another strategy.

  He stared at her a moment, contemplating. It was now or never.

  Leaving her there with minimal words, he made his way back to the others.

  Du Trieux, Hsiung, and Morland stood by ten of Lewis’s men in the alley between two buildings, beside an arched entry to an old café. The remaining ten men, along with the aging commander, had stayed behind at the base camp to keep an eye on the infamous cargo crate, which turned out not to be leaking after it had been checked with the Geiger.

  When Miller arrived back, the bulk of them looked to him for explanation.

  Morland was the first to speak. “Are they coming with us?”

  “No,” Miller said, taking up an M20-B flamethrower that rested against one of the walls. He handed the other to Morland, then slung the pressurized fuel pack onto his back.

  “Good,” Hsiung said, swiping a wasp from her sleeve. “At least I’ll know the bullets aren’t coming from behind us.”

  Miller snatched up the hose attached to the igniter on the flamethrower and tightened his grip. “Let’s do this.”

  The weapon, developed by Schaeffer-Yeager some five years ago, had been used—as far as Miller knew—for agricultural purposes. It was by some twist of luck that Lewis had managed to snatch a pair while he fought his way out of the compound.

  They’d have to be precise in using them. The two tanks—one cylinder of compressed nitrogen for propellant and the other filled with petrol, laced with a thickener—only allowed for a few seconds of burn at a time, since it guzzled fuel so rapidly.

  Miller only hoped it would be enough to scorch through the wasps and keep whatever else was brewing in the parking structure at bay long enough for them to jack the supply truck—leaving aside whether or not the truck had any fuel in it, or keys, for that matter. They’d have to figure that out as they went.

  Miller led the way toward the opening of the parking structure, Cobalt and the others trailing behind him. He activated the igniter’s wire coil in the nozzle and waited outside the entrance for the coil to heat.

  The garage loomed ahead, ominous and foreboding. It was dark inside, with large tendrils of fungus blooms spilling out the door and windows, creeping up and around the entry like tentacles of the kraken. The smell reached him all the way outside on the street—with a gas mask. He couldn’t imagine how bad it would smell inside.

  Just then, beside him, du Trieux popped a flare from her belt, burst the end and rolled it into the garage opening. A flurry of wasps audibly frenzied and buzzed—spilling out of the garage and swarming the soldiers in the street.

  Even wearing his mask and STF vest, Miller felt panic rise. The stings pierced the seams of his armor plating with ease, cutting him twice in his left arm, once on his scalp, a half-dozen times on his legs.

  Soldiers all around him weren’t faring much better. A chorus of cursing and dramatic arm flailing erupted throughout the squad as they fought through the cloud of wasps. Finally, when Miller’s vision cleared and he’d become accustomed to the throbbing pain of the stings, he flooded the reservoir of the flamethrower and compressed the spring-loaded trigger, igniting the system.

  Flames burst from the weapon, burning the wasps in front of them and cooking the fungal blooms across the front wall of the garage. Fire crawled up the tendrils, burning hot and fast, and left charred husks of ash in its wake.

  Miller knew the fungus would burn out quickly. He had no intention of finding himself, or the others, trapped inside a burning inferno, especially if the truck proved to be a long way inside the parking structure.

  As the fire spread up and out across the building, the group advanced—swatting at wasps while compressing their ranks to four rows of three. Miller and Morland marched in front with the flamethrowers, burning a path ahead.

  The first floor of the parking structure had ten parking slots, mostly empty, and a ramp at the back that led down to the other levels. At first glance, the first floor appeared devoid of warm-blooded life.

  Three dead cars sat rusted in the first, fourth, and sixth spaces. They were almost entirely absorbed by fungal blooms, cascading from the fuel tanks. The tendrils had grown up and around the walls, ceiling, and floor of the garage, closing in the confined space—making it feel even more claustrophobic.

  And the place stank.

  Even through the gas mask’s outlet valve Miller smelled the putrid stench of burning blooms, and tasted the metallic toxins from the wasps that coursed through his body and swelled his tongue.

  The wasps, slightly abated by the fire, were easier to see and get through, although every few moments Miller felt a new sting pierce his skin.

  Passing the vehicles and making their way to the back of the first floor, they marched down the back ramp toward the lower level.

  There were five cars on this floor, also fully encased in a massive growths of fungal blooms—but still no truck. Here as well, the wasps polluted the air like a shifting haze.

  Miller and Morland lit up the room, burning a path, but they didn’t get more than a few meters into the second level before they heard squealing and stopped in their tracks.

  Behind them, a burning terror-jaw pounced on a soldier’s head near the rear of the group. Chaos erupted. Bullets rang through the air as more terror-jaws, fleeing the flames, attack the squad. There were at least five of them, ripping through the formation and scattering the soldiers like toys.

  Du Trieux and Hsiung, just behind Miller, twisted around to help shoot down the creatures while Morland and Miller burned forward, leading the way down.

  Three-quarters of the way through the second level, Morland stopped his advance, coughing violently, bent at the waist and heaving. He gasped and fought for air, his entire body rocking as he strained to catch his breath in the stench and flurry.

  Miller halted in place, the tip of his flamethrower momenta
rily cooling. “Morland?”

  The large man held up a finger as if to say, ‘One minute.’ Then, after a few more phlegm-filled coughs, he recovered, stood upright, and re-ignited his flamethrower. Pushing forward, Morland scorched a car packed with terror-jaw pups, frying the little beasts as they spilled out the window and attempted to gnaw on the soldier’s shins.

  Turning back to the task at hand, Miller burned a swarm of wasps in front of him and eyed the ramp at the back of the second level.

  A figure stood there, watching.

  Miller squinted through his mask, but didn’t hesitate long. The individual was human, or had once been. Now, she was blank-faced, seemingly unaware the room was in flames. She shuffled forward on limp legs, her arms bent at odd angles and her shoulders slumped to one side. She was barely upright. Wasps visibly crawled over her face and arms as if she were a living, moving hive.

  Miller lit the woman ablaze. As the flames blackened her clothes, caught her hair, and blistered her skin, she continued to approach. The wasps scattered like fireflies and singed out, sinking to the floor in wisps of ash.

  Miller watched in mounting horror—bile rising in the back of his throat. Eventually, the Exile dropped to her knees and face-planted on the garage floor. It sickened Miller when he felt a rush of relief, but the sentiment didn’t last.

  More Exiles appeared behind her, five of them, drawn to the noise. They advanced up the ramp, straight for the squad. With terror-jaws at their back and Exiles at their front, Miller’s squad had to act fast.

  Morland shifted to the right and lit up the Exiles, while Miller concentrated on the left of the pack. Like a fiery wave, the burning people continued their slow, mindless approach, inching toward the squad and threatening to set the entirety of the garage ablaze.

  Unlike the fungal blooms, which charred quickly, the humans were taking longer to burn out, spreading the fire to the ceiling and the parked vehicles, raging out of control.

  Soon, having gotten the terror-jaws under control, the soldiers behind Miller stepped to the sides and opened fire on the burning humans, dropping the Exiles like fiery sacks of bones.

  Miller stepped over the blazing corpses and made his way toward the ramp down to the third level. He spotted more Exiles ambling toward them from below, a half-dozen or so. Three of them were covered from head to toe in wasps, like the one they’d seen above.

  Miller set the lot ablaze, then stepped aside for Hsiung and du Trieux to shoot the walkers down.

  They stepped past the bodies onto the third level. On the left, parked in one of the bays, sat a Schaeffer-Yeager supply truck, partially consumed by fungus—with a gaping hole on the side clovered over with blooms.

  Miller went to the truck and quickly burnt away as many of the blooms as he dared, then dropped the flamethrower hose and started ripping the rest off by hand.

  Beside him, Morland did the same, his cough returning in force. Several times he had to stop—bent over, gasping for air, barking like a dog—but each time Morland regained himself and went back to work. As they laboured, the remaining squad cleared out the Exiles.

  Just as Miller pulled a chunk of fungus off the truck’s driver’s side door and wrenched it open, Morland dropped to one knee, a hand on his mask as he choked and hacked.

  “Morland—no!” Miller shouted, but it was too late.

  Morland ripped off his mask, coughed wetly, then spat a bloody chunk of phlegm to the cement floor. He was immediately swarmed with wasps. Up and across his face, into his mouth and up his nose—the wasps blanketed Morland’s upper body in a flash.

  A bellow erupted from Miller’s chest as he ran to his friend and swatted at the insects, wiping them away with his hands and ignoring the innumerable stings piercing his gloves.

  Morland’s screams echoed throughout the garage, bringing du Trieux and Hsiung to his side. All three worked to clear the bugs off the man as he collapsed onto all fours and shrieked holy hell.

  In the meantime, the remaining soldiers finished clearing the blooms from the supply truck. By the time Miller and the others had cleared the wasps from Morland’s face and gotten his mask back on, the truck was ready to move.

  Miller almost yelped with joy when he heard the motor roar to life. With Hsiung at the wheel, du Trieux, Miller, and the other soldiers threw Morland’s flailing body into the back of the truck, and with a grind of the transmission and a burst of gasoline, the truck slammed into reverse, then lurched up the ramp. Crunching over the burning corpses of the Exiles, they burst through the remaining floors of the parking garage, and shot out of the front entrance like a bat out of hell.

  Outside, on 33rd Street, the soldiers gripping the sides of the truck jumped off to cover the entrance of the garage, waiting for stragglers.

  “Right! Turn right!” Miller shouted to Hsiung.

  Without hesitation, Hsiung shifted the truck and barrelled down 33rd, toward the intersection at Third, where Samantha and the Archaeans waited with their thug behemoth mounts.

  Hsiung slammed on the brakes a mere meter from the pack.

  Outside the truck, the wasps were dense in the air, swirling and swooping like the funnel of a tornado, spun into a frenzy by the chaos inside the parking structure.

  The behemoths reared back, moving away from the truck.

  Without thought, and with Morland’s shrieks of agony spurring him on, Miller threw open the back of the truck and jumped out the vehicle. He ran straight toward Samantha and the retreating thugs.

  “Sam! One of my men! The wasps!”

  For a moment, behind her bandana and goggles, Samantha looked high, her eyes rolling back into her head. Then she pounded against her skull with a fist and yelped at the pain. “What is that smell? What is that?”

  “Sam! The wasps are in his head!”

  Snapping out of it, Samantha looked to a woman behind and to her right, and held out her hands. The woman rummaged in a saddle bag draped across the back of the behemoth, and tossed a plastic zip packet to Samantha.

  “Show me!” she said, swinging her leg over the beast and sliding from her mount.

  He brought her around the back of the truck. Half pushing, half helping her inside, he followed her, slamming the door behind them.

  Inside, Morland lay sprawled on the truck floor, his feet toward the cab. Thrashing and screaming bloody murder as if he were still being besieged by the insects, he pounded his fists against his head, clawing his skull with his fingernails.

  Du Trieux and Hsiung were doing their best to keep him from gouging out his own eyes, holding back his arms from his face, but the two were no match for the sheer size of Morland’s arms, which flailed and whipped like the branches of a possessed tree.

  “What is that smell?” Samantha repeated. She inhaled sharply, ripping the bandana and goggles from her face. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she swayed on her feet.

  “Sam!” Miller shouted at her.

  Her mouth dropped open. A trickle of saliva dripped from the corner of her mouth. “That smell,” she mumbled.

  Gripping her by the shoulders, Miller shook her. “Sam!” he shouted into her face.

  Her head shot upright. She blinked rapidly a few times as if coming out of a trance. Her eyes lurched around the truck interior and rested on three metal barrels sitting at the front, near the cab. Then she focused on Morland, who continued to flap and yowl holy hell on the floor. If nothing else, Miller reflected, he was learning a few new British swear words.

  “Hold him down,” Samantha said. She opened the zip bag in her hands and pulled out a long length of plastic tubing. “Hold him!”

  Miller jumped into the fray, taking off his gas mask and straddling Morland across the chest. He buried his knees into the man’s shoulders to hold him down. It stopped him from bucking, giving du Trieux and Hsiung enough time to attach straps to his wrists. They looped the straps around support beams on either side of the walls and pulled his arms back and away.

  “What is s
he doing?” Hsiung asked, horrified.

  Samantha clambered over Morland and straddled his head. “Keep him still,” she said. She held the tubing in her hands, the tip pointed downward. It couldn’t have been more than a millimeter thick, but it looked long and ominous as she held it over Morland’s face.

  “What is she doing?” Hsiung asked again.

  “I’m saving him,” Samantha said. Then getting down and close to Morland’s face, she pressed the tubing into the corner of his right eye, and pushed it in.

  “What the fuck!” Morland shrieked.

  “Hold still,” Samantha said. “Look up. Don’t move your eye. This is important!” She tilted her head to one side and drew a deep breath. Steadying her hands, she pushed the tubing deeper into Morland’s eye. He shrieked but kept still.

  She met resistance and stopped pushing the tube, then reached around to the plastic bag and pulled out a clear plastic bottle. Sloshing inside the container was a thick orange liquid. She inserted the tip of the bottle into the other end of the tube, and squeezed, sending the fluid down the tube, and straight into Morland’s eye.

  The team watched, confounded.

  “Mon Dieu,” du Trieux breathed.

  “What is hell is that?” Hsiung asked.

  “Oil of orange extract,” Samantha said, squeezing the tube until it was empty. “The wasps hate it.”

  When the bottle was empty, she dropped it to the truck floor, then pulled with both her hands, inching the tubing out of Morland’s eye.

  “What the fuck! What the fuck!” he whispered.

  “When I say,” Samantha said, bending down and talking into his ear, “blink.”

  The tube came free. An orange glob of extract came out of his tear duct and collected in the corner of his eye.

  “Blink,” she said.

  Morland did. The extract dripped down the side of his nose, then cascaded down his cheek, dribbling onto the truck floor with a sick plop. He sniffed and coughed once, twice.

  “Hold still,” Samantha urged him.

  The pool of orange gloop in the corner of his eye was now mixed with blood in streaks of crimson.