Pandemonium

by Warren Fahy

  “When I’m pregnant, I can make my nants cover you,” Hender said.

  Abrams shook his head. “If I ever get out of here, this is gonna be a bestseller.”

  “Nah,” Bear said. “They’ll never believe it.”

  02:47:16

  Kuzu followed Maxim down the long stairway, and when they got to the bottom, the sel pushed Maxim through the car door and got in the other side.

  “Go back!”

  Maxim stepped on the gas, obeying the infernal voice as though it were his own will speaking for him.

  02:40:51

  Hender rubbed his fingers in Nell’s hair and stroked her neck, shoulders, and back with four of his hands, which secreted a mellow scent like wax and vanilla. Nell tried to remain calm as she felt the migration of microscopic animals flowing over her body as Hender rubbed the scent over her skin.

  “Whoa,” Abrams said softly.

  Nell felt the nants mesh together on her ears and right up to the edge of her lips and eyelids, gasping as her heart quickened, squeezing one of Hender’s wrists. She knew that each microscopic organism was attaching itself to the others around it, all of which were equipped with a circle of eyes on their backs and transmitting relays to millions of others with identical signals like ripples on water. She focused on regulating her breaths and slowing down her heart to manage the sensation of panic that was overwhelming her.

  “How do you feel, Nell?” Nastia asked.

  “Warm.” She exhaled. “Like I just took a niacin tablet.”

  “Are you OK, man?” Abrams asked.

  “Yes,” Nell breathed.

  “Good!” Nastia said, reaching out a hand to soothe her.

  “Don’t touch!” Hender trumpeted, grabbing Nastia’s wrist. “Nell can’t control them. They will attack you, Nastia. Don’t touch!”

  Nastia withdrew her hand.

  The others watched with growing impatience and incredulity as, for twenty minutes, Hender laid his hands on Nell. They began to suspect Hender’s motive for taking so much time when they saw that Nell’s skin refracted purple pixels of color at shifting angles as it was coated with microscopic creatures.

  “God, what are you doing to her?” Bear asked.

  Hender removed his hand from her and stood back. “Nell will be safe,” he said.

  “What about the rest of us?” Dima muttered.

  “You have armor,” Hender answered. “Now Nell does.”

  Nastia was suddenly terrified. “If we go out there, we’ll be slaughtered!” She looked at Nell. “It doesn’t matter if we have body armor! If one of those spigers comes along … Be honest with us, Hender! We can’t make it! You know there’s no way!”

  Hender pointed to the gate on the map spread out on the coffee table. “That is where we are going?”

  “Yes!” Nastia said.

  “And it is safe inside the farm?” Hender asked.

  “Yes.” Nell nodded.

  “We can make it there, Nastia,” Hender said. “The mule—” He pointed. “—send it the other way.”

  Abrams nodded. “Right. We’ll pack that big dead slug on top and light it up with some flares. We’ll send it down the street like a Fourth of July barbecue!”

  Hender nodded. “Very good, Abrams.”

  “Then what?” Nastia asked.

  “We run like hell in the other direction,” Dima said.

  “Yes, Dima,” said Hender.

  “All right,” said Abrams. “A two-hundred-yard dash is all we’ve got.”

  “Can we duck into buildings along the way?” Dima asked.

  “Nooo!” Hender’s woodwind voice intoned like a bassoon. “Moving is better!”

  “Then, how should we do this?” Bear asked.

  “We run in groups of two, looking forward and behind,” Nell said. “We change direction when the one behind tells us.”

  “Yes,” Hender agreed.

  “OK.” Abrams started clamping on his armor. “Suit up, fuckers!”

  Nell felt a rush as her entire epidermis seemed to itch and be scratched simultaneously, producing an overwhelming euphoria.

  “The farm should be lit now,” Galia said. “All the sectors should have power from independent turbines in the power plant.”

  They all looked at Maxim’s thin gray-haired assistant for a moment.

  “OK,” Abrams decided for all of them. “I guess we don’t have to worry about flashlights. But let’s take them anyway. Anything we need from the mule, I can carry on my back. Anything we don’t need, kiss it good-bye.”

  Nastia covered her face. “Oh, no! This is crazy!”

  “What’s crazy is a woman who hates rats studying sewers,” Dima said gently, putting his arm around her shoulders for a moment of reassurance.

  “I know,” she agreed, laughing tragically.

  “It’s OK,” Dima urged. “We can do this.”

  Nastia hugged him. “Spasiba.”

  “We’ve all got to watch each other’s backs now,” Abrams said. “Hender, you look after Nastia and Nell at the rear.”

  Hender nodded. “OK, Abrams!”

  “All right, let’s get to work.”

  01:49:48

  The magnesium flare in front of the building finally burned out, and the feeding frenzy that had gathered moved on now with the stream in the direction they were heading.

  Since they didn’t have helmets, Nell was given a walkie-talkie along with Hender so they could communicate with the others. She clipped hers to her vest as the others suited up. Abrams encased himself in his body armor and climbed into the buzzing exoskeleton.

  After embedding flares in the flesh of the ghost octopus, which they had lashed to the back of the mule, they walked the robot downstairs, lit the flares, and sent it out the door.

  Dima steered the robot with his dog whistle against the stream of traffic as it hit the street, and the headless machine trotted forward, drawing a vortex of attackers with it.

  They opened the door.

  “Remember,” Hender buzzed. “Keep moving! Change directions! Never stop!”

  “OK!” Abrams said. He handed Nell a field shovel. “Not a bad weapon,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She nodded, taking it.

  Then he leaped out the door, carrying a terrific load of gear on his bionic back as he bounded down the steps and turned left, jogging up the street. Battered and scarred, Talon-1 charged down the stairs behind him, following.

  01:48:08

  “Wait!” Geoffrey exclaimed. “What’s that?”

  Sasha had clicked on a camera view in front of their honeymoon condominium at the west end of the river. Just before she switched to another camera view, Geoffrey had noticed the front door of the apartment opening. She hit BACK.

  “There they are, Geoffrey!” Sasha shouted.

  “Oh, God,” Geoffrey said.

  01:48:01

  The sound of Henders Island came rushing back to Nell as the unforgettable howling drone filled her ears again. Only now was she grateful that Hender’s nants covered her flesh.

  Dima waited until Abrams had gone fifteen yards before opening the door and jumping down the stairs. He zigzagged from the sidewalk to the middle of the street and back again in five-second intervals per Hender’s direction.

  Fifteen paces behind him, Galia and Bear did exactly what Dima did. Bear even threw a chunk of ghost-flesh to each side as he zigged and zagged to throw off pursuers.

  Nastia, Nell, and Hender ran behind them, Hender’s fur camouflaging them from behind as he smacked leaping rats away with four arms moving in a blur.

  Nell felt like raw meat with her bare head exposed. She was sure the animals around her could smell her deep fear. With little else but a microscopic veneer defending her skin, it was inevitable that the first bug would strike her, a drill-worm that gashed her forehead. “Hender!” she shouted as blood trickled into her eyebrow.

  “It’s OK, Nell!” Hender piped behind her. “Keep running.”

 
Nell smelled the cilantro-like scent of the warning pheromone, which the drill-worm had sprayed after encountering the nants on her forehead. She was struck again, on her back, then again on her arm. This was it, she thought—in another instant, she would be the main course of a feeding frenzy.

  But the wasp and drill-worm that struck her both retreated, spraying her with repellent, and the feeding frenzy that she expected never came. The wounds on her arm and forehead seemed to heal even as the blood from the gashes disappeared.

  A big Henders rat vaulted through the air past Hender, Nastia, and Nell, who batted it away with the field shovel Abrams had given her.

  “Good,” Hender said. “Go left!”

  Nastia and Nell veered left as the eight-legged “rat” hit the street, only to be tackled by smaller rats and disk-ants as it skidded and rolled across the road in a growing ball of carnage.

  Meanwhile, Abrams charged up the sidewalk in a straight line, deliberately drawing the attention of their pursuers. Henders rats and bugs slammed into him, but they did not succeed in denting the shell of his armor or toppling the hydraulic exoskeleton. A pony-sized spiger catapulted off its hind legs and tail, landing behind Abrams and striking his leg with one of its spikes, which sent a shock wave of pain through his calf. With its low center of gravity, the suit absorbed the blow, however, and Abrams wasn’t toppled as he turned to fire a fusillade of lead into both brains of the predator. Then he doubled back and kicked the beast to the other side of the road.

  Abrams was mauled by a storm of creatures.

  “Shit,” Dima said.

  “Let’s get in the game!” Bear said.

  “No worries,” Abrams said through the radio calmly. “I got it. My leg’s a little dinged, though.” He turned and charged ahead, swarmed with bugs.

  The headless mule, meanwhile, drew off half the traffic as it piled up behind them and turned back in the other direction and chased it against the flow. It sensed debris on the road and clambered over it, nimble as a mountain goat despite being bombarded by predators. Unable to knock the indomitable machine off course, the attacking creatures were further thwarted and provoked by the flares burning on its back. Henders rats leaped onto the slab of cooking meat and were wriggling wildly as they carved out mouthfuls of octopus flesh with razor-toothed jaws even as babies emerged from their sides to gorge themselves around the burning flares.

  The street curved north ahead as Abrams came to the first cross street that radiated from the central tower. One actuator was sticking, and his right leg dragged as a severed hose was bleeding out. He freed his right arm, even as his robotic arm continued to rise, and he flung a flashbang grenade like a quarterback in a high arc about thirty-five yards up the broad avenue, hoping to cause a traffic jam.

  The intense flash of the grenade lit up the buildings and a strip of the skyline above. The deafening pop stunned the Henders creatures for a moment before they became even more aggressive and attacked one another.

  “OK, guys,” Abrams called. “We got a good fight started up here! Now’s a good time to get past this street!”

  Dima pushed a button on the dog whistle to call the mule back before they lost sight of it behind them. He figured it couldn’t distract their pursuers if it was too far away. The robot came around the bend and cantered forward, its metallic body dripping with creatures like a beehive.

  A rat struck Nastia’s back with spikes that felt like bullets even though they were deflected by her Dragon Skin armor.

  Bear ran back and swatted the rat that clung to her back. It grabbed his hand, striking it with a piercing blow. Cursing in pain, Bear flung the animal to the ground in front of him and crushed it under his boot. “Fuck!” he yelled, pulling Nastia as he ran ahead.

  “Thanks!” Nastia said.

  “Don’t shout, Nastia,” Hender reminded her. Nastia ran ahead behind Bear as Nell followed, and Hender knocked leaping rats and flying wasps out of the air behind them.

  Abrams’s XOS suit wheezed as he drove forward up the last stretch. He tossed flares to the other side of the street as he had observed Kuzu do, but now, in the daylight, the ploy was less effective, judging by the storm of creatures still pursuing him. He pumped his bionic body forward through the thickening swarm that felt like a hailstorm impacting on his armor now. He noted that the cross street coming up on the right ended at an arch cut into the wall on his left. As he drew closer, he saw large red words stenciled on a door inside the arch:

  SEKTOP 5

  “We’re here!” Abrams said through the radio. He took a beating as a group of rats pummeled him, but his armor held up as he reached the farm’s gate.

  The entrance to Sector Five faced another avenue that stretched directly to the central tower. A flood of creatures came down this street now like rush hour New York, but they curved in front of Abrams to join the clockwise gyre of predators circling the city. Once more, Abrams freed his throwing arm and fished out an incendiary grenade. He lofted this one forty yards up the avenue, targeting a giant spiger coming down the middle of the road. The grenade ignited as it tumbled like a star through the air. Amazingly, the giant spiger leaped up like a tight end, opening its vertical jaws, and swallowed the blazing grenade, which lit up its head like a jack-o’-lantern as it exploded.

  The headless behemoth crashed on the road, sliding forward as its back legs still kicked under its second brain’s control.

  “Nice catch!” Abrams muttered.

  The ensuing feeding frenzy over the giant drew back the flow of creatures for the moment, and all of the predators attacking Abrams departed, sucked into the slaughter. Abrams used his dog whistle to drive Talon-1 after them now, firing its machine gun into the crowd. “Come on, guys!” he shouted as the bullets added to the beasts’ buffet.

  01:46:03

  “Open the door, Sasha.”

  “I’m trying, Geoffrey! OK?”

  “That’s good, honey. Just keep trying.”

  “I am! Jeesh!”

  01:45:51

  Abrams reached the gate and then called Talon-1 back. “There’s a keypad lock! What’s the code, damn it!”

  Galia yelled, “Punch in 00009999!”

  Abrams focused one clumsy, armored finger on punching the keypad next to the gate. But even as he realized he had missed a button halfway through the code, the gate started sliding open, and he and Dima slipped through the crack. Abrams pulled Talon-1 through the door and pressed the button on the controls inside to close it. The controls responded readily and he stopped the lead-lined gate an inch from sealing. “Holler and we’ll let you in!” Abrams said, peering through the crack and glancing at Dima. He noticed a giant antique light switch next to the modern door controls.

  Nell could hear the herky-jerky buzz of the Big Dog’s motors as it rounded the corner behind them. The mechanical mule was now a writhing mass of wasps and drill-worms as it kicked down the road like a colt. A spiger rounded the corner, skidding sideways as it stretched its head forward and swallowed the mule whole in its giant snapping jaws.

  After a moment, the gigantic spiger spewed the machine onto the street, where it kept kicking on its side. Then, swiveling its head like a tank turret, the spiger searched for a new target, and its frill pulsed with waving light as it fixed its gaze on Bear.

  Hender saw it pull forward with its four front legs and shove off its massive rear legs and tail. As it soared through the air, raising its spiked forearms high, Hender shouted, “Bear, turn left!” and leaped over Nastia and Nell. “Keep moving!” he yelled down at them as he landed on the soaring spiger’s back.

  The spiger struck the street to the right of Bear, who had just scrambled far enough to the side to avoid being crushed, and Hender stabbed two of its three rear eyes in the same moment that he jumped into the air and then plunged another knife into one of its two front eyes. His legs burned as the spiger’s nants engaged in battle with his own and he leaped off the creature’s back, hooking his tail on the lamppost overhanging
the spiger. “Run, Bear!” he shouted like a steam whistle as he spun round the lamppost in a tightening spiral.

  The big man raced toward the left side of the street as Abrams opened the gate for him and shouted, “Hurry!”

  Bear jumped through and Abrams closed the gate, leaving only a crack for radio signals.

  Hender launched off the lamppost and landed on the back of the half-blinded spiger.

  The beast honked and bucked in front of the gate to the farm, trying to scratch him off with slashing legs. Hender gripped its neon-striped back as he reached out two arms to pierce both its remaining eyes, planted a final knife in the center of its posterior brain with the expertise of a matador. Before Hender sprang off the disabled giant, some of its symbiants had already sensed its demise and changed allegiance, leaping into Hender’s fur.

  Nell sprinted beside Nastia as they made their final run against the western wall. “Another spiger’s behind us,” Nell said calmly, masking her fear.

  Nastia looked back and hyperventilated. “Oh, God.” The red spiger came around the corner behind them, even larger than the one it had been hunting. It seemed to spot the wounded giant beside them and lock on. As the hulking invertebrate prepared to spring, rats and swarms gathered around it, ready to share in its spoils.

  “It’s coming!” Nastia screamed, seeing it on her visor.

  “I don’t think it sees us yet,” Nell said. “It’s going after the spiger!”

  They were only thirty-five yards from the gate. “Change directions when I say! OK?” Nell said.

  “OK,” said Nastia.

  “Two heads are better than one,” Nell said. “Tell me when it’s coming!”

  Nastia saw the spiger in the rearview window of her visor. “Just go straight,” she said as she saw the giant flying toward them. “OK, go right!”

  They cut right toward the other sidewalk as the predator landed where they had just been.

  “Keep going!” Nell yelled, running at full speed as she crossed in front of the beast that was gathering itself for another leap.

  Nell pulled an incendiary grenade Abrams had given her from a pouch on her jersey and found the firing pin by touch as she ran. The spiger leaped diagonally up the street toward them.