Ashore, when their eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of the lighting, animal carcasses by the dozen littered the bare rock sides of the limestone cliffs.
Something was altering the air and, in his imagination, del Compo thought he heard the faint keening whine of nanoscale robots above the screech of the bats. Gonzalez was right…a bubble of noxious, deadly air was swelling up from this grotto and around the village of Apomosa, killing every living thing as it expanded outward.
A gas vent underground, perhaps? It had happened before, and killed thousands in Africa two centuries before. A new strain of virus, mutated or genetically altered to affect air molecules themselves….was that what BioShield had detected?
Or perhaps a baby reservoir of nanobots sown by unscrupulous ranchers and loggers, trying to clear another swath of Apo Island for future production.
The soldiers were already coughing and gagging and del Compo realized with a start that they’d have to vacate the area and come back with the right protective gear…and the Guardia Nacional as well. They didn’t have the equipment to fight this.
“Let’s go back!” del Compo decided, rubbing the temples of his head. He had a fierce headache splitting the back of his head, like needles being driven into his skull. “Downriver…head back to Afalamos!”
Montoya gave the order gratefully but before the two boats could turn about, the river water began foaming and bubbling between them, sending huge waves washing over the gunwales. Something thrashed just below the surface and as Corporal Fuentes bent over the rail to investigate, a pair of mottled green arms breached the surface and wrapped themselves around the soldier’s neck.
Instantly, Fuentes was pulled from the boat and into the midst of the foaming water!
“Fuentes! Uruguin!” Montoya stumbled as the creature bumped against the boat, rocking them sideways. The sergeant scrambled across the deck, fumbling for a weapon, a machete, a pulser, anything—
At the same time, more creatures breached the surface, snagging the second boat with their arms—tentacles—trunks…it was hard to see in all the foaming, thrashing water.
“Watch out!” yelled Texeira, as del Compo lost his balance, thudding heavily to the deck. He slid to the railing, as the boat tilted, just as a third creature reared up in a spray of water, and for a second, the profesor was face to face with the black button eyes of a demon from the depths of Hell itself.
It was taller than a man, but thinner, vaguely human in general shape, with a leathery head bristling with black fuzzy hair. Tiny slit eyes dripped or oozed black silt from the riverbed and below what passed for a neck, five or six arms or appendages flailed against the side of the boat with the ferocity of a crazed beast.
“Demonio!” yelled one of the soldiers. The crack of magpulser fire stitched a line of death across the chest of the demon and it fell back with keening whine, more black oozing from the gaping wound across the bony breastplate of its chest. It sank quickly beneath the water, even as del Compo scrambled to his feet.
All around and between the boats, the demonio had surged to the surface, thrashing and slamming against the two boats, pitching and tossing them as if they were small rafts. Soldiers stumbled and clung to whatever they could find. Fuentes was gone. He’d never surfaced. As del Compo watched, Uruguin took dead aim with a pulser at the face of one, trying to climb aboard the boat from the stern, and sliced a slash of black death across its bony head. It screeched and clawed at the air for a moment, then pitched backward into the river.
“There’s dozens of them!” Herrera yelled.
“We’re outnumbered!” someone else screamed.
Montoya was already ducking into the pilothouse, gunning the engine of his boat, while Gonzalez was nearly pulled from his perch along the starboard rail. Green mottled arms wrapped themselves around his legs and were pulling him inexorably toward the edge.
‘Help! HELP ME!!...”
Del Compo dove for the nearest thing he could find…a fire ax mounted on a bulkhead behind the pilothouse. He scrambled forward and swung with all his strength, striking the green arm with the ax edge.
Black fluid exploded in the air as he severed the arm from Gonzalez’ leg. From the side of the boat, a bony head appeared momentarily, its face scrunched up in pain, as it reached out for something else.
Again, del Compo swung the ax like a halberd and struck the creature on the side of the head, cleaving its skull with a sickening thud. It clawed the air, thrashed wildly, then slipped off the gunwales and slid beneath the water.
“GET US OUT OF HERE!” del Compo yelled at the top of his voice. Headache still pounded his own skull, though the demonio seemed unaffected. Texeira had made it to the pilothouse and was already turning them downriver, even as the engines rumbled to life.
But the water all around them was thick with the creatures.
“There must be hundreds!—“
“We’re surrounded--!”
Pulser fire stitched and ripped the air, as beams crisscrossed the small grotto. Del Compo saw two more demonio clambering aboard their own boat, as Texeira rammed the throttles forward. They clawed their way up onto the stern deck well and began crawling like huge, dripping spiders up the incline of the stairs. Twenty feet away, from the stern of Montoya’s boat, Corporal Quinones saw what was happening.
He took dead aim with his own weapon and let fly a magpulse at point blank range, burning off half the creature’s back and head.
It reared up in pain and lost balance, pitching sideways into the river, where it was promptly struck by the surging bow of the boat.
The second creature scuttled forward a few more feet, but this time del Compo and Gonzalez were ready, with fire ax and fathoming pole. As soon as the creature scuttled within range, they attacked.
Del Compo managed to sever two of its appendages by the time Gonzalez had clubbed the thing into a semi-conscious stupor. It slid back down the stairs and lodged in a seething heap in a corner of the deck well, oozing life. Neither man saw the ragged stumps where its tentacles had been hacked off…starting to regrow, starting to regenerate.
The other boat pulled alongside, with Quinones and Fuentes both taking dead aim at the still moving creature.
“WAIT!” yelled del Compo. “Don’t shoot…!”
“Are you loco, profesor…this thing is the devil itself!”
“Don’t shoot…” del Compo held up his heads. “Maybe we can tranquilize it, immobilize it. I want to take it back to the city. To my lab.”
The two Guardia soldiers looked at each other, each thinking the same thought. El profesor es loco… They shook their head, partially lowered their weapons.
“At least the air’s getting better, eh?” shouted Texeira from the pilothouse. He dropped the throttle and the boat slowed, with Montoya’s boat slackening off as well.
Soon the small flotilla was chugging downriver at a more managable ten knots. Montoya directed his pilot, Private Uruguin, to bring them alongside. When the boats were only a few feet apart, he leaped to the deck of the scientists’ boat and landed on all fours. He stood up and regarded the wounded demonio shaking and moaning in the deck well. A blurry cloud, like a horde of flies, buzzed around its severed stumps.
“We can’t take that thing back with us…too dangerous,” Montoya decided. He withdrew his own pulser sidearm and dialed it up to maximum, taking aim at its oozing head.
“Don’t shoot it,” del Compo pleaded. “Let’s restrain it, throw some netting over it. Gonzalez…you have serum in that kit of yours? Maybe we sedate it.”
“They already killed one of my men,” Montoya said. “I can’t take a chance.”
Del Compo jumped down from the catwalk and stood between Montoya and the creature. “I can. My job is to find out what’s happened at Apomosa. And what killed all the Xotetli. Something’s going on and it triggered BioShield. This…creature…may be part of the answer.”
Montoya was doubtful but he holstered his weapon and glared down
at the creature.
“It’s truly demonio, just like Herrera said. “Face of the devil, if you ask me. We should dump it in the river, where it belongs…where it came from.”
The same strange keening whine he had heard before now seemed louder, more insistent to del Compo. Is it my hearing? A burst eardrum? It came from the direction of the creature. Flies, he realized. Hordes of river flies…or mosquitoes. He didn’t see that both stumps were being steadily re-formed, below the swarm of insects.
“I’m not sure where it came from,” del Compo said.
“It didn’t seem affected by the bad air,” Gonzalez observed. “Not like we were.”
“I don’t know what happened back there, at Apomosa,” admitted del Compo. He found himself a perch and sat down wearily to study the creature. “But this…this thing… it has to be part of the answer…I’m sure of it.”
That’s when he realized the keening buzz he’d been hearing for the last hour wasn’t flies at all.
Solnet Omnivision Video Post
@anika.radovich.solnet worldview
July 30, 2115
1200 hours
SOLNET Special Report
“Dante’s New Inferno?”
Anika Radovich reports from Haikou, Hainan Island, China on breaking news that a new underwater menace has just been discovered in the South China Sea, not far from Hainan Island. She interviews Dr. Li Kejiang, marine biologist from the Guangzhou Institute for Marine Biology….
“Dr. Li, I want to thank you for taking time to be with our viewers today.”
Li, white-haired and somewhat frail, sips steaming hot tea from a cup, smiles enigmatically through a wreath of steam. “My pleasure, Ms. Radovich. I trust our Chinese hospitality has been acceptable for you?”
“Yes, Dr. Li…it’s all been very nice. Dr. Li, I’d like to start with some disturbing reports Solnet has been getting from various sources here in China and the Pacific Rim…reports that some kind of major discovery has been made in the South China Sea…on the seabed.”
Li’s smile fades abruptly. “Yes, I’ve seen these reports. I want to be careful and precise in what I say and the way I describe this.”
“What can you tell our Solnet viewers, Dr. Li?”
“Well, as you and your viewers know, there have been some…shall we say incidents…between elements of the Sea People and forces of the PLA Navy. These incidents stem from the indisputable fact that some factions of the Sea People are attempting to build an illegal base of operations in our southern seas…the Nan Zhongguo Hai, as we say. Our forces have engaged each other…there’s no hiding that.”
“Have there been casualties, Dr. Li? Major destruction? Solnet is receiving reports from the UN, from BioShield and various scientists, that an unusual number of seismic tremors and earthquakes have developed in the region.”
“This is all true,” Li admits. “I can report to you that our PLA Navy and our oceanographic people have detected some unusual structures on the seabed. These are in the vicinity of the Reed Banks…these small reefs and atolls are, of course, Chinese territory, so naturally we are sensitive to any illegal activity in this area.”
“What kind of structures?”
“We’re investigating that now, Ms. Radovich. Our people are also detecting an increased level of thermal and electromagnetic emissions, around this structure. Such emissions are consistent with a localized source, some kind of reservoir, of nanoscale, or at least, very small robotic elements. Nanobots, if you like.”
“Nanobots? Are you sure of this? Solnet is even now investigating reports of increased nanobotic activity in a number of locations around the western Pac Rim.”
Li smiles enigmatically. “Well, it’s well known that we here in China are one of the world’s leading nations when it comes to research and development in nanobot technology.”
“Then this is one of your projects, at the Reed Banks?”
“That is not something I can confirm or deny, at this time. We are still investigating the phenomena.”
“Dr. Li, is this discovery…this structure you talk about and the nanobotic activity nearby…is this in anyway responsible for the tremors, the climatic upheavals we’re hearing about…unusual vortexes and waterspouts in the ocean, increased storm activity, zones of toxic air? Just the other day, reports came in from our Manila bureau of poisonous clouds enveloping some islands to the west of the Philippines.”
“Yes, I heard these same reports. We really can’t say, Ms. Radovich, at the moment.” Li knows perfectly well that the PLA Navy is intensively exploring what was happening at Reed Banks and there were all kind of theories…even wild speculation…about the phenomenon. “The best I can offer you is that our people are looking into the phenomenon from many angles and as soon as we have something to report, we’ll let our public authorities put that out.”
“Then there’s no truth to the rumors that your Navy has discovered some kind of time machine, run by aliens, on the sea bed and that you’re cooperating with them to learn how it works?”
Now Li is genuinely amused at the reporter’s words. Western journalists…really…he shakes his head and purses his lips with a grandfatherly cluck of disapproval. “Ms. Radovich, I’m a scientist. I deal in facts. I can confidently report that we have discovered no such thing, nothing quite so dramatic as that. Most likely, we’re either dealing with some kind of natural phenomenon, like the hydrothermal vents when they were first discovered. Or we’re dealing with someone illegally dumping reservoirs of active nanobots in this area, perhaps in an attempt to force China out of her territorial seas and disrupt our fishing operations and oil and gas exploration. That’s what is most likely. Anything else is just speculation and, quite frankly, science fiction.”
“Thank you, Dr. Li, for taking the time to be with us today.”
“My pleasure, Anika.”
Once the interview was over, Li said goodbye to the Solnet reporter and went hurriedly to his own office, overlooking the port of Haikou and the cantilevered span of the Century Bridge, where he poured himself a stiff drink of baijiu and sat down heavily in a chair, sweat beading up on his forehead.
Li supposed the interview had gone about as well as he could expect. He only hoped the Public Security Bureau found nothing in his words to arouse their suspicions.
The truth was that what the PLA Navy and the Guangzhou Institute had uncovered in recent days was surely one of the greatest discoveries ever made in the history of mankind.
And he also knew that the growing level of cooperation between the Chinese and the Ponkti in exploiting this discovery was way too explosive to ever let out.
The White House
Situation Room
Washington, D.C.
August 31, 2115
1030 hours
President LaTonya Kendrick fiddled with the bone hairpiece jingling at the ends of her black braided hair as she listened to the briefing being given by the SecDef. Jim Bergland hated going over the gruesome details of the UWAT assault on the Sea Peoples’ base near Bermuda but it had to be done.
“Total casualties are fourteen, Madame President, with four KIA across both teams. The Barracudas and the Tigersharks were basically shredded as effective forces. The Sea People had weapons and tactics we didn’t expect…” here, Bergland looked disgustedly over at General Kent Hartledge, the Director of National Intelligence, “—there seems to have been some gaps in our intelligence.’
Hartledge wasn’t one to take criticism of “my guys” lying down. “Just to be clear, Madame President, the Seomish are what we call a hard target. The environment alone makes capturing signals and surveillance extremely difficult. The targets have some kind of bubble screen that scrambles our sonar. Most other signals intelligence channels are useless in water. Frankly, they know a hell of a lot more about what happens to sound in water than we do.”
Kendrick stopped fiddling with her hair and sat up abruptly in her chair. Her elbows dropped firmly on the top o
f the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. Her brown eyes bore into Bergland and Hartledge.
“Gentlemen, I don’t like this at all. Not at all. You’re telling me we can’t even secure Site M-1, with all our weapons and technology…that we’re being defeated by a race of talking fish, or whatever the hell they are? This is just unacceptable. The news is full of stories about how the Russians and especially the Chinese are working out deals of their own with these animals. I can’t accept this at all. What are our options now?”
Bergland sniffed. “Limited, Madame President. We could try another op against their base. Of course, as the General will admit, the chances of being successful, of ‘bending’ them to our will as it were, seemed to have diminished. The Sea People seem to be effectively spreading their influence around the world’s oceans. I’ve seen the same stories as you…we’re not sure what the Chinese may have found or what they discussing with the Sea People.”
Hartledge consulted a slate, filled with up-to-the minute intel from satellites, drones, nanobotic swarms masquerading as flies, human spies and a variety of other sources. “The data we have on the Chinese, Madame President, support no conclusions as yet. We have signals intel from sources in and over the South China Sea, as well as sonar data from submarines in the area, that the Chinese, possibly allied with one faction of the Seomish, may have developed some unknown and very powerful ways of modifying the environment.”
Kendrick turned to the third person sitting before her in the Oval Office. Dr. Sheila Westerlund had been head of NOAA for only a year but it had been an eventful one, especially the last month. At this exact moment, she wished she were pretty much anywhere but here…I took one hell of a big pay cut to leave CU Boulder and the Lab to come to work in this meatgrinder, but she didn’t say that.
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