Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  That lake certainly would have been a pretty sight, under different circumstances. For I saw a multitude of fish. No tench, but there were many perch, at least three kinds of trout, shad, chub, zander, and pike. As I think back, maybe I did not see all of those species on that first foray into Lake Three, but I vividly recall being impressed by the fish in that lake on that first excursion.

  “Keep an eye on the bottom,” Lazlo instructed. “We saw some tracks which led into the lake from that dairy, but unless the Jellie left tracks on the bottom, which I doubt, we are going to have a hard time finding it in this much water.”

  “We checked all the way around, but no signs of where it got out,” Ella reported back from the boat. “There are a couple spots where it could have walked out without leaving much of a trail, but my bet is it is still in the lake.”

  “I am in the water now as well,” Prezsky added. “If we link our systems, especially with Ella in the boat, we can do a rough sonar sounding. It should show up anything substantial in size. Certain a Jellie would show up.”

  “Excellent idea. Ping us when you are ready. I will link it into the transceivers,” Lazlo replied.

  As I progressed deeper into the lake, the makeshift sonar that Prezsky set up rippled through the water, across the chasm at the center of the lake, and up the slope to the opposite shoreline. My transceiver started to show various images. In the display, the lake’s shoreline was a rough green rectangle, and the sonar ripples floated through that as yellow lines.

  “I see it! The Jellie is out there!” I exclaimed.

  My transceiver showed a flashing red blob on the small display, where the yellow rippled had passed. Then another came blob came on, and another, and another, and another. I counted eight red blobs of various sizes, all about our section of the lake.

  “There is a legion of Jellies out there, hovering over the chasm,” I cried.

  “Hold on,” Prezsky cautioned. “This lake apparently has some large fish. I just saw a sturgeon swim away, and it was probably five meters long, and over a thousand kilograms. It showed up on the transceiver sonar just like what we are seeing out in the middle. Let me fine tune this emitter.”

  “I just checked the library, and got an automated reply,” Ella related. “I tried to access the lattice to speak to an AI from fisheries or something like that, but only the library responded.”

  “Why does that matter?” I barked. “There are Jellies in here!” I was rushing as fast as possible underwater toward the nearest red blob on my display.

  “Kalju, it matters because according to the library, Lake Three here, has not only sturgeon, but also stingrays, paddlefish, and taimen. Those can all get about human sized, and some can get very large,” Ella replied. “Those sonar marking are not necessarily Jellies.”

  “How will we know?” I sighed out. I switched to semi buoyancy so I could use the boosters to propel myself faster in the water. It was not like being in vacuum or even in air, but much quicker than walking. Sort-of a powered swim.

  “I got the sonar adjusted to only register things over four meters in size,” Prezsky said. “That should screen out a lot of the fish.”

  All but two of the blobs on my display disappeared with the next ripple of sonar pings. I still continued toward where that blob had been. I caught sight of something swimming quickly away. I think it was a paddlefish, but I am not sure. I know it was not a Jellie.

  Well, that first underwater chase ended in nothing but frustration. There were no sightings of Jellies, not even a hint of their strange purplish light. I did have a greater appreciation for the immense amount of megaliters of water that Lake Three held.

  “We need a systematic method of searching,” Lazlo ordered. “Head for the Red Guard instruction base, and we will coordinate our efforts there.”

  “Why those people?” I asked.

  “Because Kalju, while we have been searching here, and having nice conversations on our private channels, our LT has been in a heated debate with some officers from the Red Guard. I have been asked repeatedly about what we are doing here. Those Red Guard are worried about disruption of aquaculture and loss of fish eggs, and that we are messing up their habitat. Their precious caviar extraction is not to be disrupted.”

  “What?” I snapped out. “You would think the killing of that dairy farmer and his family would show them the Jellies are deadly.”

  “I agree with you Kalju, but we have nothing to show for our search yet. Meet with those Red Guard, and we set up training sessions which will take us to each part of this lake. The LT got that approved, so we will keep up the search.”

  Months went by, and all of us Blue Tigers searched Lake Three in teams. We found nothing but lots of fish, some very big, a sunken fishing boat, and a deep, dark chasm which had nearly vertical walls in its lowest parts. I was convinced that somewhere in that lake there was some passageway, or something, which the Jellies had used, but despite those months of daily searches, we found nothing. The other lakes were also being searched, or so I was told, but with less than fifty of us who were actually looking, a comprehensive search was impossible. Sure, there were ten Red Guard supposedly helping us, but all they did was sit in their armor up on the docks at their instruction base. They made rude and mocking comments, which did nothing but annoy me. Had they been searching, maybe what happened might have been prevented. I think it would have been.

  A little over a year we searched those lakes, and then it all fell apart. But it did not start in the lakes, but rather in the towns. Yes, I saw it happen in Sheba. I was there when the Jellies struck.

  I was just coming off my shift. I had again been deep in the chasm at Lake Three’s bottom. The intake and outflow ports were a reference place in that dark chasm, and we had set up a grid search pattern from those spots. The permalloy grids across those aquatic tunnels had been intact every time we checked them, and the water flows had tested normal. Well, anyway, I had searched again for some hidden passageway, but found nothing. So, I was just off shift, but had not yet taken off my armor, when the sirens rang out from the towns. It was far louder than when I had pulled the fire alarm in that dairy barn.

  We had set up a temporary camp on the shore of Lake Three, and I heard the sirens. A trunk went rolling on the roadway past the abandoned dairy farm. Oh, I forgot to tell you that. The dairy farm, where the Jellie attacked, was never reoccupied. There had been wild rumors about cattle mutilations in the area, and strange sightings of things, but nothing was ever confirmed. We lacked the personnel to fully investigate everything. The Red Guard could have done a lot more, but did not. Well, anyway, at that dairy barn, the surviving cows were sent off somewhere, and the barn just sat empty. Well, that truck rolled by coming from across a field, and I ran out to it.

  “What is happening?” I asked before the truck picked up more speed. The faceplate of my helmet was locked open, as I kept it that way whenever I was out of the lake.

  “This lorry is moving onto the road, foreigner. What is that to you?” the Red Guard said.

  I jumped up on the step and grabbed onto the side. “You might need help.” The footing was tenuous, and my grip on the side of the truck was not secure.

  “Oh, bother with you,” the Red Guard said, “get inside before you fall off and hurt yourself.”

  I really was surprised he did that, but I climbed in. There were only two others in the truck and the three of them all gave off some seriously nervous tension. The truck could hold up to twelve people, and I wondered where the others were. I knew these Red Guard were from the instructional base they had set up, as I recognized their voices. I never did learn their names.

  “So, is it a fire in town?” I asked.

  The man who had opened the door pulled up the faceplate on his helmet. “Foreigner, I am… I have watched you going into that lake every day, and you are determined. I admire that, but…” he hesitated and then he said, “there is some incident in the town. A sewer main line has exploded, a
nd people are injured. We are going to offer our aid and assistance. If you do not get in the way, you may help.”

  The driver pushed the truck to what I thought was a reckless speed, but we arrived quickly in the town of Sheba. Smoke was billowing up from somewhere beyond the outlying houses.

  “Lazlo! Lazlo! There is something bad happening in the town!” I used my transceiver to report.

  “We heard the sirens,” Lazlo reported back. “There is also brown sludge pouring in from the inlet valves at the bottom of the lake. Gushing in from the reports. I have two people trying to weld off those inlets, but I doubt we can succeed.”

  “Sludge? Like the Jellies did before?”

  “Exactly. Stay in town and report back to me what you find. You are the only Blue Tiger there,” I could hear something in the background. “The LT just told me every lake has sludge pouring in. I am shifting a direct channel to the LT for you.”

  On my transceiver a blue light flashed.

  The truck turned a corner, and I saw where the smoke was originating. A wooden building was a jumble of shattered splinters and broken parts. Fire was raging in that pile. A blue engineering automacube was trying to spray fire suppression foam on the ruins.

  Screeching to a halt, the Red Guard soldiers jumped from the truck. They pulled some hoses from a compartment in the truck’s bed, and rushed over toward a water hydrant.

  “The Jellies are flooding the lake with toxic gunk!” I called out.

  One Red Guard made a dismissive gesture with his hand as they connected in the hose. They all snapped down their faceplates, and set to the task. As the valve was turned, the house swelled and the other Red Guard pointed it toward the burning building. Globs of brown goo dribbled and spurted out of the nozzle.

  “It is the Jellies! They must be attacking!” I tabbed the common communication link, but kept my faceplate open so I could see and hear the outside.

  “Not working!” the Red Guard said in disgust and his words came through my helmet’s speakers. He just threw the hose down. It continued to leak out the brown sludge, and the hose was throbbing with built up pressure. He looked around for another source of water or some other way to fight the fire. His associate was trying to shut down the valve, but I could see it would not budge.

  I heard screaming. The Red Guard did not appear to have heard it, probably because they were sealed in, but maybe they just ignored it. One of the nearby buildings was a three-story apartment complex. The screams were coming from there, so I ran toward it. As I did, I thought about how I was lacking in weapons. I had the gimp which I always carried, but no bullpup, or cutter, or anything else. I had left those by the lake. Then I wondered where all the people were. Usually, people flock out to see a fire, but except for the person who was screaming somewhere in that apartment building, there was no sight or sound of anyone else.

  The entry door was locked, but I kicked it in and rushed inside. The foyer was small with steps leading up and down as well as a hallway toward the back. The screams were coming from the lower level and I bounded down the stairs. In the basement apartment, I saw the glowing purple light I hate so much. I flipped down my faceplate, turned on the image filters, and set my external audio pickups to maximum. I drew out my gimp.

  A dozen people or more, I am not sure exactly how many, were strewn around the basement apartment. Most were dead. Their crushed bodies had been recently dismembered and splattered against walls, ceilings, and across the furniture and floor. In the corner of the main area there was a large and gaping hole from ceiling to floor with jagged edges. A rough tunnel extended downward at a slope. The purple light was coming from there.

  “Help me!” The scream did not come from the hole, but rather from off to the side. A child was sitting inside a crumpled permalloy cabinet. Its doors were not quite closed all the way, and I could see her eyes as she looked at me.

  I turned and sprinted over to that cabinet. As I did, I was struck in the back by a purple tentacle. I felt the impact, and was knocked almost off my feet, but my armored spacesuit held up against it. I spun about and fired the gimp right into a tentacle as it wrapped itself around my leg.

  Bang!

  The bullet popped into the tentacle, and as it struck that small, narrow part of the appendage, it had some effect. The tentacle quaked a bit, and I pulled my leg away quickly. I looked up and the Jellie was lurking there in the tunnel opening. The faceplate’s filters made the purple glow tolerable, but it was still annoying. This Jellie was nearly a sphere in shape, but had four legs it was resting upon, and two tentacles coming out from the main body. The one I had shot did not show any damage, and was coiling like a spring ready to strike me. That was when I remembered the lights in the dairy barn, and so I flipped on my helmet’s flood light and set it to rapid strobing.

  The brilliant white light pierced into that purple glow. The effect was more than I had any reason to hope for. Both tentacles retracted very rapidly and just sort-of were absorbed into the sphere. The legs moved and the Jellie disappeared down the tunnel.

  “Lazlo! LT! The strobe lights work!” I yelled into my microphone. I had it set to broadcast on all bands and frequencies.

  I heard the child screaming again, and I turned back.

  “Are you a person?” the child asked in a quaking voice. Her dark face and brown eyes were shaking in terror. Her hands were trying to block out the strobing light.

  I shut down the flood light, flipped open my faceplate, and said, “I am a person. Come with me!”

  “My mommy and daddy?” the small girl cried out.

  I wrenched open the broken cabinet, and lifted her into my arms. She was younger and much lighter in weight than I expected. Her eyes were wide as she tried to adjust to the lack of my flashing lights.

  “I will get you outside now. Come on honey,” I said and headed for the stairway. She wrapped her small arms about my armored neck and hung on.

  Just before I reached the stairway, a tentacle yanked my legs out from under me. I rolled to keep my armored body between me and the purple glow which had just returned with a vengeance. I flipped on my strobe light again as I held tightly to the girl, and fired the gimp with my free hand.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The purple light flared, and my legs were released. But then tentacle whips smacked down on my shoulders in two quick smacks. I hustled up the stairs, and burst into the foyer.

  “No! Oh, not her too!” I yelled as I looked at the girl in my arms.

  A tentacle whip had slapped across her face, ripping loose skin, muscles, nerves, and breaking bones. I shouldered open the door to the outside and yelled into the common communication link, “Medical emergency! Red Guard! Anyone! Help this child!”

  The fire was raging, and the blue automacube was lying on its side in a crumpled heap. The Red Guard were nowhere to be seen. I rushed over to the truck, and tossed the girl into the front seat. I looked through the compartments for some kind of first-aid kit, and finally found one. It was in a yellow box, and as I opened it, I could see the purple glow reflected off the seats in the truck. My helmet light was still flashing, but out under the light of the sky tube it was diffused and seemed feeble.

  Taking a bandage out, I quickly and crudely wrapped it around the girl’s mangled face, spreading medical gel all over her. I saw it congealing and stopping the bleeding. I strapped her in and vaulted over her into the driver’s seat. The truck surged to life, and we sped away.

  “I need the nearest hospital!” I called into my transceiver. “Right now!”

  There was no answer.

  As the truck spun around a corner, I saw a hole opening up in the road. The pavement was crumbling and cracking and falling in. The purple glow outlined the cracking roadway, and I accelerated the truck past that. More houses and buildings were on fire, and yet I still saw no other people. I flipped down my faceplate and scanned the deck plans and street plans for Sheba. I located what looked on the plans to be a hospital and drove towa
rd there.

  I was too late. That poor little girl died in the front seat of that truck before we reached the hospital.

  Not that getting to the hospital would have her done any good anyway. As I pulled the truck up to the hospital, the side wall of that building collapsed. It was pushed out from the inside. The permalloy wall struts bowed and then melted as the wall fell away. The purple glow emanated from inside. A Jellie was spraying some kind of liquid all over the wall. The liquid was lumpy and a tawny, sort-of orange color, but I was seeing it through the filters on my faceplate. The effect it was having on the permalloy was terrible. The hardest metal humanity had ever created was being melted away, like it was butter melting on a hot day. I glanced down at the dead girl who was strapped into the seat by me, and my rage boiled. I swung the truck away as quickly as I could, since I had no weapons beside the gimp.

  “Where is anyone?” I called out as I toggled the transceiver to send on every channel I was linked with.

  Static came back, and there might have been a voice in it somewhere, but nothing was understandable. I checked the display in the popup images inside my faceplate and wondered where I could go. I again thought of the dead girl, and all the dead people in that basement. Looking back, I could see the hospital was collapsing, not only that one wall, but its roof was sagging down as well.