Paradise Falls

by Jim Spencer

‘Walrus.’ Cordell answered simply. The walrus were the other species that had evolved beyond what humans were expecting. After the water had disappeared underground, most of the fish species had died away within a few days, creating a great gaseous residue, hence why they used phosphine as their fuel. This large whale had not died away though. They knew that this creature could survive without water, but no one expected it to thrive. After a few years, reports of a great white attacking soldiers came out. Initially thought of as an attack, they soon realised it was a territorial threat. They eventually found that the walrus as they now called them, lived underground and came up to take the vegetation that grew in the sand bottoms of the ocean.

  It was decided that they should be left to their own devices and allowed to thrive, besides they helped to keep the number of Nargus down to a minimum, because they were more concerned with them than the humans, so it worked in their favour. At least until recently. One of the reasons the Nargus were attacking more was because the walrus were slowly being eradicated. They were endangered to start off with. Now they delved in the ground, only ever coming up when feeling threatened or being attacked.

  ‘I think we’re close to its territory,’ Cordell informed his captain.

  ‘Yes, we’ll move off later today,’ the captain informed him

  ‘Thank you, Lloyd,’ Cordell answered. Arion made a mental note of the name for future reference. The captain glared at him as he made his way back. Clearly he hadn’t forgotten the previous day. Arion had an idea.

  ‘Hey Cordell, have you tried growing food outside before?’

  ‘No, it’s impossible now. What with no water.’

  ‘I wonder if I can make it grow using the GOD particle.’

  Cordell was silent for a moment, before answering,

  ‘That would be a bit crazy.’

  ‘It’s worth a try though,’ Arion suggested.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose. We’ll probably be leaving in about three hours, so best if you try this experiment in the next hour or so. Oh, and let me know, I’d hate to miss it.’

  ‘Will do,’ Arion answered, making his way back to his little den and freshening up. After his tinned breakfast, he made his way out with his equipment, although in theory he could simply use one of these pieces of equipment for the operation, but he had no idea of the range. Besides, this way he could keep it in control within a certain vicinity.

  He aimed his machinery at the sand dune in front of him. The machine shook after a moment and in front of him, a crack had formed. Somewhat disappointed, he looked down and found nothing. He wasn’t sure whether something had happened or not, but decided to cover up the area, just in case. Figuring he would get back to check on it later, he went to Cordell and told him what happened,

  ‘That’s a shame. I guess some parts of the world are just too rotten to do anything on.’

  ‘Or it could take a couple of more days before something happens. It’s not an exact science I’m afraid. I mean, I’m the only one who knows of this, and I’m still working things out.’

  The ground shook more noticeably this time. For a few seconds it stopped, but then carried on. Cordell and the rest made their way out and found what looked like a giant worm making its way through the ground. Arion knew it was a walrus, but he had never seen one before. Frozen to the spot, the rest got out their guns and made a circle around the creature. It stopped momentarily. One of the soldiers signalled to Arion.

  He understood and took out his equipment as fast as he could. Just when the pieces were on the floor, a major explosion happened. The creature had made its way out of the sand and was shrieking in their direction. They were in its territory. As the soldiers shot at its stomach, it opened its mouth and screamed at them. Many youngsters screamed within its mouth, making the whale look more like a giant worm monster.

  As small red dots came out of the bottom, Arion powered up the machine. He only had a couple of seconds, while it loaded,

  ‘Get out of the way!’ He screamed. As he said this, the soldiers moved and the machine powered up. He sent forth his command and the whale stopped in mid-air as if out of breath. He had pointed the device straight up towards the air. After what felt like an age, the whale came down and slapped itself onto the sand pit. The children inside were dead as well.

  After a moment of debating, Arion was able to persuade the soldiers to move the infants away from the mouth. When they moved the creatures from the vicinity of the mother, looking oddly like giant tadpoles, they were laid down to the floor. Arion used the GOD particle once more to bring them to life. Once alive, they dug their way down and disappeared from view. He turned his attention to the mother,

  ‘What do we do with this?’ he asked Cordell.

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The Nargus eat humans, but prefer walrus. We’ll wait for them to come here. When they have taken their load, as it were, we’ll follow them to their base.’

  ‘Sounds easy enough, but what about us?’ One of the soldiers asked.

  ‘We’ll have to stay in our wagon until they arrive. No more scouting I’m afraid.’

  ‘I really enjoy that as well,’ the captain mentioned, momentarily smiling and then scowling once he noticed Arion saw him.

  ‘What are you doing Lloyd?’ Cordell asked, noticing the jibe.

  ‘Nothing sir.’

  ‘I hope it was nothing as well.’ he answered dangerously.

  Lloyd said nothing and the rest made their way back inside. They would have to wait till nightfall, since the Nargus rarely travelled during the day.

  *

  The remaining soldiers couldn’t avoid Arion in this small confinement, so one of them tried to begin a conversation with him.

  ‘So what kind of science do you do?’

  Although Arion could easily have said, ‘What do you mean ‘Kind of’ science’ he decided to answer,

  ‘Weapons development.’

  ‘Oh right,’ some of the others nodded their appreciation of this, whilst some stayed silent. Lloyd was still scowling away. The same person asked, ‘Did you build anything from here?’

  ‘Yeah, that compact helipad was my creation, one of the first things I did.’

  It took them a few seconds to realise what he was talking about as everyone strained their necks to look at the helipad in a new light. One of them turned around,

  ‘You made that?’ he asked, rather sheepishly. Arion held his laughter when he answered,

  ‘Yes, I made that.’

  They sat there admiring the machine as they began asking him about the other stuff he had done. What they found surprising was that he had made or helped develop most of the weapons they had in the trunk. One of them asked,

  ‘Do you know how to use these weapons?’

  ‘Well, yes. We have to test them all the time. Although I admit, I’ve never shot at anything living yet. That’s probably why I didn’t panic as much when the walrus attacked,’ he mentioned in retrospect.

  ‘Yeah I were wondering why you didn’t’ one of them asked. He seemed rather simple minded, but humbler than the rest. He asked his name,

  ‘Patrick,’ he answered.

  ‘Well it’s nice to meet a kind soldier.’

  They all laughed as one of them spoke,

  ‘Schoolboy ain’t kind, he’s just stupid.’

  ‘I’m not, I know me stuff,’ Patrick answered. Arion wanted to tell him that it was ‘my stuff’ not ‘me stuff’ but decided against it.

  ‘C’mon, you know everyone calls you schoolboy because you failed your exams.’

  ‘So, some people can’t do ‘em,’ he answered.

  ‘Everyone has their talents,’ Arion intervened. He quickly added, ‘I mean, he was pretty good with a gun’

  They all murmured their agreement at this. Finally, one of them spoke,

  ‘Don’t mind Lloyd. He’s a bit of an asshole.’

  ‘Yeah, I figured.’

  ‘It’s just…h
e likes attention, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘And a nice dick up his ass.’ another one spoke. They all laughed at this and Arion joined in, knowing he was courting favour in his direction. Just then, Cordell entered,

  ‘What you lot sniggering about?’

  ‘Lloyd,’ one of them answered simply. Cordell nodded and then sneered, as if he knew what they probably meant. It was most likely not the first time they had done this. Lloyd was sat driving at the front seat. Before Arion could ask, Cordell answered,

  ‘We’ve spotted a Nargus taking the carcess away. We’re following it now. Hopefully, they’ll take us to their lair. At least I hope’ and with that, they were silent as they prepared for the inevitable showdown.

  *

  They had slept for the night, as the Nargus were too few. Cordell mentioned it would be best to do this to lure them into the vicinity. Though Arion felt it would be safer to simply take out a few and move on, one thing he had learnt about the Nargus over the years was that they were extremely territorial beasts. As they got up, Arion looked outside and saw a great vision in front of him. There were many cliff edges beneath them. Upon each crevice were lying down the Nargus, not hiding, but in the shade taking in the small drops of water that was coming out from the rocks.

  It seemed as though water still existed in remote areas of the world. There were these great crevices lying around as far as the eye could see. All in all, there were well over a thousand Nargus, full adult sized with a few smaller ones simply resting. He woke up the remaining comrades to take a look. As they marvelled at the vision in front of them, Cordell spoke,

  ‘Well, let’s see if your formula works.’

  ‘Ha, oh yes, I’ll get it out,’ he had almost completely forgotten about the apparatus. Lloyd moved out of his way as Arion opened up his box to find…the boxes were broken.

  ‘What the hell?’ he screamed out. As the rest looked onto the broken apparatus, Cordell was about to question his cadets. Arion held out a hand,

  ‘Don’t bother, I know who it is,’ and after a pause, ‘I can still make this work.’

  *

  They were practically crawling outside. The computer unit was still intact, and besides Arion knew the formula by heart, he could add that into anything. As they tried to move at a snail pace, the Nargus would occasionally move in the distance. Unsure what these movements meant, they tried to be as quick as possible. Arion found an old metal door on the earth,

  ‘Must be an abandoned piece,’ he mentioned, knowing that civil country occasionally dumped their metal in the dry ocean to increase the concentration of phosphine gas. He tried to pick it up, but found it to be exceptionally heavy. It was a large square, about 10 metres high. They all worked together to push it up. Once the plate was straight, two soldiers stood on either side to keep the plate stable. No easy task as this giant piece of metal weighed a ton. In the distance, the Nargus were now wide awake from all the noise. They seemed to be contemplating what to do as they were still unsure if these humans were a threat.

  ‘What now?’ one of them asked, clearly struggling to keep the structure intact.

  ‘Simple, I initiate the formula and touch the metal piece.’

  ‘So you didn’t need the other bits?’ one of them asked.

  ‘No. There’s only one problem. I’ve got no idea what the range of this is.’

  ‘What do we do then?’ Cordell asked. There was only one thing for it.

  ‘Let go of the metal piece when I tell you. The impact of the particles should be enough to keep it stable,’

  ‘That’s insane,’ Cordell mentioned.

  ‘Not much choice,’ he initiated the formula, ‘three seconds.’

  He waited a moment as the console charge and finally shouted out,

  ‘NOW!’

  They let go as instructed and, against all odds, the entire vicinity became still. Many of the Nargus were now making their way towards them, sliding along the dry ground at a ferocious snake-like speed. The soldiers had jumped back, and seemed to be safe for now. The metal piece was suddenly suspended in mid-air. Arion let go of the console and it also hovered in mid-air. That hadn’t happened before, he told himself. He made his way around and saw for the first time that the formula had a range of 100 metres.

  Then the most unexpected thing happened yet. As he went back to his console, the metal bar shook. It went in and out of composition which created a manual shockwave. Another idea came into his head. Arion stopped the formula and initiated in a split second. It was as if an atom bomb had gone off. The shock wave spread across the full crevice of the nest. The other soldiers were simply too shocked to say anything. He continuously switched the formula on and off, creating this shockwave effect, and he ordered Cordell to get the helipad, so they could get every nook and cranny before anything escaped.

  Chapter 7

  A full five miles they had spread across the mountainous dip. Nothing was moving, many large creatures had been killed, but many had escaped as well. In all honesty, it didn’t matter, he had done his job. They landed the helipad and he switched off his console, which made the metal piece fall to the abyss. He put the console back into his jacket and came out of the helipad. As the remaining soldiers made their way forward to congratulate him, Arion shrugged them off,

  ‘It’s what I had to do,’ he heard himself saying. Lloyd was stood in the back simply eyeballing him. A surge of anger came up in Arion,

  ‘No,’ he simply said, and ran straight for Lloyd. The sudden shock of what Arion had done was what allowed him to pin Lloyd to the ground. He commenced to simply punch every inch of him he could find. As Lloyd wrestled with him, Arion simply kicked him in the groin, rendering him motionless for a few seconds. It was all he needed as he pinned him down in a half nelson and held him there for a few seconds. Finally, Lloyd slapped the ground three times and he let him go,

  ‘You think you’ll get away with this!’ Lloyd finally screamed at him, when he gained his breath.

  ‘Why, what’s a shitface like you gonna do, beat me up. Because you did that right there, didn’t you?’

  Lloyd got up off the ground and began to run towards him. Arion was ready for any strike. Basic combat was something everyone learnt at a young age, he wouldn’t be a problem. Just as he closed in, a handgun went past Arion, almost in mid-air, until he realised it was Cordell who had hold of it. Lloyd stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Oh yeah, is that how it is? You gonna shoot me now?’

  ‘Did you sabotage the machine?’ Cordell asked.

  ‘What the fuck do you care? You’re gonna shoot me anyway, you old fart.’

  ‘I’m gonna ask you one more time Lloyd. Don’t waste my time any further.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about you or your time. I’m better than you and your shit platoon. You’re not better than me fuckhead. Go ahead, shoot if you got the balls. Go on then.’ he glared at Cordell, who stood there momentarily, transfixed to the spot. Then without warning, he said,

  ‘Ok’ and shot him in the head, splattering his brains everywhere. There was a last fleeting moment of Lloyd looking shocked that Cordell had actually done this. He seemed to lay his gun down in slow motion as Arion took in what had just happened,

  ‘That’s not what I was intending,’ he finally managed to say.

  ‘I know, don’t worry. He’s had it coming for a long time.’

  Feeling that Cordell was not in the talking mood right now, Arion chose not to speak any further. They sat in the trailer for a couple of hours as Cordell was contemplating what to do. The other soldiers remained silent for minutes on end. Finally, Arion sat with Patrick, who welcomed him with open arms practically.

  ‘I fink we just wi’nessed ‘istory’ he said in his rather simple tone.

  ‘Your speech isn’t very good, is it?’ Arion decided to be frank. He took no offence to this, but simply shrug his shoulders and smiled,

  ‘It’s like the others say, I ain’ the sharpes’ tool in the
shed.’

  ‘Well, you’re honest, at least.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So what now?’ Arion asked.

  ‘We waits for Cordells orders, then back home to awai’ furver orders.’

  ‘What was up with Cordell and Lloyd?’ Patrick smiled again, where he showed one missing tooth at the back.

  ‘That’s a long story,’ he finally said.

  ‘We got time.’

  ‘Alrigh’ then. It started about ten year ago. He were always a bit rash aneway. Basically, like, he saved Cordell’s life from a Nargus. Pretty big one as well. ‘e felt that Cordell had made a mistake to go out to take on these creatures and faught that it would be best if he took leadership from him. He even wen’ to council wiv his request. Cordell was pissed. I mean, he went behind his back, tryin’ to better him and almost succeeded, until Cordell argued his case. Lloyds been tryin’a better him since and Cordell always gets stuck wiv him’

  ‘I guess he won’t be getting stuck any longer.’

  Patrick laughed at this, and nodded his head in appreciation,

  ‘You’re all right, you. I’ve met some scientists in ‘past, and they’re all dickheads. Treat me like I’m fick. I mean, I know I’m fick like, but don’t make it that obvious, you know.’

  Arion sniggered in response and they began to dismantle the tent and make their way back inside for the night.

  *

  ‘We’re gonna have to burn the remains.’ Cordell informed them.

  Everyone was taking in the news as they sat there eating there evening meal, in tins once again. Most of the soldiers nodded their approval, but some remained silent.

  ‘Anyone want to say anything?’ Cordell asked. Arion spoke first,

  ‘I suppose it’s just that they’re already dead. Why burn them?’

  ‘Gives us more fuel from their remains.’

  Silence as they comprehended this,

  ‘Besides, it’s orders from the high chancellor.’

  ‘You can disagree with him,’ one of them said, ‘You’ve done it before.’

  Cordell smiled as he responded,

  ‘I’m on thin ice as it is. It’s not worth the risk, mate. Maybe next time.’