Mandibles

by Jeff Strand

  "What money?" asked Hack.

  "The eight million dollars that my employer delivered today, before things got out of control."

  "Cash?"

  "Of course cash. But money is of no consequence if you aren't alive to spend it!"

  "I don't know, I'll have to get back to you on that. Where's the money?"

  "Sir, you just don't understand -- "

  Hack jabbed him in the stomach with the barrel of the shotgun. "Shut up and tell me where the money is."

  Tyler pointed to the butterfly cage. "We hid it in there, where they wouldn't find it. But you can't go in there without proper protection; you'll contaminate the specimens."

  "Is that so?" asked Hack. He extended his hand toward Zachary. "Give me the card."

  "Sir, please! If you so much as cough in there you'll kill the butterflies and waste immeasurable hours of research, not to mention a significant financial -- "

  "Quiet!"

  "I don't even know the combination to the lock on the briefcase," Tyler insisted. "It will be useless to you."

  "I'll take that risk," Hack informed him, swiping the card through the reader. "You know, I used to pull the wings off butterflies when I was a kid. This might be kind of fun."

  "I've only just met you, and yet that barbaric revelation still doesn't surprise me."

  "Keep 'em covered," Hack said to Slash as the door popped open. He stepped inside, and Tyler immediately kicked the door shut behind him. Hack turned around, surprised.

  "It's a safety precaution," Tyler insisted, as Slash pushed past the others and approached the scientist. "Our specimens are too precious to just let them fly around free. I hope you realize that your friend is destroying a scientific breakthrough that may never be duplicated."

  Slash shrugged. "These things happen."

  * * * *

  Hack swatted butterflies out of his face as he walked toward the back of the cage. Eight million dollars. Whoever would have thought that it would turn out to be such a great day? Well worth getting shot, especially since Slash got shot up worse.

  There were so damn many butterflies that he couldn't even see how far back the cage went. He had to admit, they _were_ pretty cool. But he figured they'd be almost as cool dead as they were alive, so he coughed on purpose. Maybe he'd take one back as a souvenir.

  A butterfly landed on his arm. He shook it away, but another one took its place. He set down the shotgun and brushed it off.

  Yeah, they were just butterflies, but it was still kind of creepy.

  He reached the stone wall at the far end of the cage. It was hard to see the floor through the mass of butterflies, but it couldn't be that difficult to locate a briefcase, could it? With his luck, he'd probably trip over it and break his neck.

  Another butterfly landed on his arm. He raised his arm to his face and wondered how much this beautiful specimen would enjoy having its head crushed between his thumb and index finger.

  He moved his other hand to do just that, when the butterfly dipped its head down to his arm and bit him.

  Bit him? It felt like a chunk of flesh had been torn off. A thin trickle of blood ran down his arm as Hack grabbed the butterfly's body and crushed it in his hand.

  What the hell were they doing creating biting butterflies? Giant ants were one thing ... nobody liked them anyway ... but this was just plain _twisted_.

  He wiped the dead butterfly's mangled body off on the wall. Its mostly intact wings left a colorful streak on the stone. And suddenly it was as if one of the other butterflies had shouted "Attack!"

  They swarmed him.

  Within seconds Hack was covered by butterflies from head to toe. Completely blind, he staggered around, frantically trying to brush the butterflies off his body. As fast as he could brush them off, more replaced them.

  Then they started biting.

  And ripping.

  * * * *

  "What the hell is going on in there?" asked Slash.

  "I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," said Tyler. "They're only butterflies."

  Moni watched in shock as the butterflies stopped flying all over the cage and converged into one spot. Though she knew it was Hack under there, all she could see was a vaguely humanoid figure that looked like it had been constructed out of giant butterflies.

  Moni almost let out a giggle.

  Her urge to giggle stopped, though, when the figure reached out its arm as if pointing directly at her. A few drops of blood fell from the arm, followed by a small geyser of blood from the shoulder.

  "Get him out of there!" Slash demanded, his voice panicked.

  "I'm guessing you don't want those specimens out here where we are," Tyler said.

  And then blood started spraying in all directions. Hack started spinning in circles, arms beating at his head and chest, but the blood-drenched butterflies remained attached to him. As he spun, blood flew off his body like water from a rotating sprinkler system.

  Even though the psycho had murdered Dustin only a few minutes ago, Moni couldn't help but wish there was some way she could get him out of there.

  She was also relieved that the Plexiglas blocked out the sound of his screams.

  * * * *

  Hack fell to his knees. He was still blind, although now it wasn't just from the butterflies on his face but also his lack of eyes. He felt like the top few layers of skin had been ripped from his body, and had a good idea that the feeling was more literal than metaphorical.

  Hack had never outgrown the standard teenage feelings of invincibility, but he knew now that he was a dead man. Even if the butterflies were to suddenly fly away, which wasn't likely, he wouldn't want to live. Not like this.

  It was time to make peace.

  He'd never set foot in a church in his entire life, but now it was time to speak to the Lord for the first time.

  _Dear God_, he prayed, _if there really is eight million dollars around here, please don't let Slash get it_.

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX-*

  "Ten dollars says that hurt," said Tyler.

  "You sick freak!" Slash screamed. "I should blow your goddamn head off!"

  "Yes, you should," Tyler agreed. "You should also have been watching me more closely instead of fixating on the shredding of your friend."

  The gun dropped out of Slash's hand.

  "Feeling sleepy?" asked Tyler, holding up a hypodermic needle.

  Slash took a halfhearted swing at Tyler, and then collapsed. Tyler picked up his gun and dropped it into the pocket of his lab coat. "What a cretin."

  "Is he dead?" asked Moni.

  "No, merely dreaming. Let's put him someplace safe, shall we? He won't be out long." Tyler crouched down next to one of the dead men and pulled one of the red cards out of his pocket, then crossed over to the cage they'd found him in and waved the card over the reader. "He's not a very pleasant person, is he? Where did you pick him up?"

  "It's a long story," said Roberta.

  "Well, I'm pressed for time. If you'll be so kind as to take care of him, I have some urgent business that I must attend to."

  Tyler walked back into the waiting room. "I'll handle Slash," said Zachary. "The rest of you try to get some answers."

  Roberta, Moni, and Jack followed Tyler into the waiting room. Tyler glanced at the dead body, shook his head disapprovingly, and then went around behind the desk. He looked at the floor and frowned. "I'd hoped you were wrong about Saul. He's much better with the computer system than I am." Tyler sat down and began typing on the keyboard.

  "Listen," said Roberta, "my friend is outside. He got stung by one of the ants. Do you have anything that can counteract the venom?"

  "Yes, of course, but it's not convenient at the moment," said Tyler, his eyes never leaving the monitor.

  "But he's dying."

  "As are many people, I'm certain. And as will many, many more if I waste valuable time right now."

  "So how did the ants get loose?" asked Moni.

  "
They were always supposed to get loose, they just weren't supposed to get loose _yet_. But it went wrong. An old student of mine was supposed to show up today to be talked into joining the project, and we were all gathered here to make him an offer he couldn't refuse."

  "Was his name Dustin?" asked Roberta.

  "Dustin Abbott, yes. You know him?"

  "He's right outside," Roberta said, wiping some more blood from her face. "The guy who got eaten by the butterflies shot him."

  Tyler closed his eyes for a moment. "A pity. Anyway, things were said, blows were exchanged, shots were fired, and the first wave was released prematurely. Sloppy. Let me offer you a piece of advice: Never agree to work for madmen."

  "What do you mean, they were supposed to get loose?" asked Jack.

  "Sir, I'm much too busy to assist you with rudimentary English skills."

  "All right, jerk-off, I meant _why_ were they supposed to get loose?"

  "Saul, my employer, was very much into ... how shall I phrase this ... the complete destruction of humanity. He was not a people person. Obviously, the complete destruction of humanity was a trifle out of his reach, so he decided to attempt it on a smaller scale. I went along with it for the remarkably generous paycheck and the tremendous research budget, but my intent was always to put a stop to his plan before it could be enacted."

  "You're quite a guy," said Zachary, sourly.

  "We experimented with various insects, but _Solenopsis Wagneri_, or _Solenopsis Invicta_, was always the top priority. 'The Unconquered One.' What could be a more appropriate metaphor to end the corruption of humanity than fire ants? As Saul always said, 'Burn, baby, burn.'"

  Zachary entered the waiting room, letting the door close behind him. "He's sealed up nice and tight. I hope nobody minds that I kicked him a few times by accident."

  Tyler continued typing. "I hope I'm doing this right."

  "Doing what right?" Roberta asked.

  "Wave one is, as you've probably guessed, the release of millions of red fire ants into various parts of Tampa, ants that are approximately eight hundred percent larger than their non-enhanced relatives. Their creation involved both genetic experimentation and the development of an extremely interesting substance that we like to refer to as Hell, which a queen passes on to its offspring.

  "We constructed twenty-one nests, each capable of holding four or five times the number of ants produced by a standard colony. Running a few fairly complex set of sequences on this computer opens the storage facilities by remote control, and _voila_, wave one commences. Wave two, appropriately enough, involves much larger ants."

  "Ants the size of a rat," said Moni.

  Tyler turned away from the computer. "You saw them?"

  "A few of them, yeah. As well as the _really_ big ones."

  "Were you impressed?"

  "What, are you kidding me?"

  "Wave three was abandoned because we couldn't keep a queen alive, so we only ended up with a few of the largest size of ants. Most of those were released, along with numerous wave two specimens, from the twenty-first warehouse, which was located next to those bastards at Lavin, Incorporated. My sister was one of their best employees. Mandatory staff reductions my ass."

  Tyler blinked, and then returned his attention to the computer. "Now, the first wave can be stopped. There's a chemical that reacts with the Hell in the ant's bodies and kills them. Quite dramatically, actually. We call it Heaven, naturally, even though to me the name seems a bit heavy-handed."

  "Well then let's get this stuff and go!" said Zachary.

  "We could do that, or you could kindly keep your mouth closed and listen to me. The Heaven we have on hand can easily be mixed with any common insecticide and sprayed over the city. Obviously there would have to be a more thorough house-to-house treatment afterward, but still, the problem is solvable. The dilemma is that the second wave of ants aren't receptive to Heaven in that form, and if they get out, the only solution will be to hunt them down individually. Considering that the six-story building attached to this structure is currently serving as the world's largest ant farm, that's quite a few ants to exterminate, don't you think?"

  "But you can keep them from getting out, right?" asked Moni.

  "That's what I'm trying to find out. Saul could have stopped the sequence in about ten seconds, but then again, he's the fool who started it in the first place." He cracked his knuckles. "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the second wave is scheduled to begin in less than fifteen minutes, so this is the moment of truth. If I've done everything correctly, the second wave will be averted, and I'll let you fine people deliver the Heaven to the necessary authorities to eliminate the first. If I haven't, the rest of our evening will take a rather substantial downward trajectory."

  He hit the "enter" key, and then stared at the screen for a long moment.

  Roberta stared at the screen as well, even though she had no idea what all of those numbers meant.

  "So did it work?" asked Moni.

  Tyler pushed back his chair and stood up. "Actually, no. I've made things a bit worse. Sorry about that."

  * * *

  *-CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN-*

  "We need to make some calls!" Zachary demanded. "We'll let somebody know what's going on, have them drop a bomb on it!"

  "Don't be ignorant," said Tyler. "You won't get a bomb anywhere close to this area in under fifteen minutes. You'd be lucky to be taken off hold in that amount of time."

  "Bullshit!" said Zachary. "They've got satellites up there that can read your license plate number, so they damn well have somethin' that can bomb a building!"

  "Then call the President. Be my guest."

  "No, he's right, that isn't a feasible option even if the phone lines weren't jammed," said Roberta. "What else can we do? Can't we just seal off the building?"

  Tyler shook his head. "Four sliding doors are going to open, two on the first level, two on the second. You couldn't possibly barricade it in time. And unless it were brick or metal, the ants would quickly get through anyway."

  "They won't all try to get out at once, though, will they?"

  "Actually, they will. A transmitter will be sending out signals as soon as the doors lift, sort of a call to battle. Have you heard about the recent attacks on humans by normal-sized ants? Those were tests."

  "Then what about that chemical, the Heaven?"

  "Like I said, it won't affect the second wave of ants except in its raw form, and we've only synthesized one canister of it. It would work like a smoke grenade, but it couldn't possibly cover more than one floor of the building. That leaves five-sixths of the ants. Barely an improvement."

  "Barely an improvement to you, but that's a lot of possible lives we could save," said Zachary. "And do you know for sure that it won't cover the whole building, or are you just guessin'?"

  "There's absolutely no way it will cover the entire building," said Tyler. "You'll be lucky if it covers one floor."

  "Still, that's a whole floor. Is there a way in the building?"

  Tyler nodded. "Yes, but you'd have to set off the canister immediately or the ants will be all over you."

  "I can deal with that," said Zachary. "Where's the canister?"

  "It's back in the lab where we keep our ... mistakes. But when I said that I'd made things worse, what I mean is that I accidentally unlocked all of the cages."

  "So the vampire butterflies are loose?"

  "Possibly."

  "You've got to be kiddin' me!" said Zachary. "What kind of idiotic setup is this? What's wrong with controllin' all this stuff with a simple button?"

  "The intent was to be able to control everything from anywhere in the world. Obviously my employer and his associates had no plans to be anywhere near Tampa when the ants were released, and as I've said, I'm not the computer expert here."

  "Fine. I'll get the chemicals. Where's the lab?"

  "After you go through the door at the end of the first hallway, you'll enter another hallway. It will be the second d
oor on your left. On a shelf in the lab you'll find two silver canisters. If you really are intending to enter the building, you'll need the smaller one. The larger one will be effective against the first wave."

  "Fine. Who's coming with me?"

  "I am," said Roberta.

  Zachary looked like he wanted to protest, but then nodded. "What about you?" he asked Tyler.