Battle of the Beetles

by MG Leonard

  ‘Darkus, put the gun down,’ his dad said, taking a step towards him.

  ‘NO!’ Darkus cried, rage suddenly sweeping away every intention he’d had not to fight. ‘You said you were going to try and stop her, but you’re doing nothing! You’re standing by her side as she sends beetles out into the world to destroy harvests and start wars. Millions of people will starve. Children will die. Don’t you care?’

  ‘Darkus, son, listen to me. It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Yes, it is. She wants the world to bow down to her.’ Darkus straightened his arms, pointing the gun at Lucretia Cutter’s heart, his finger on the trigger. ‘She’s breeding an army of giant beetles, and cloning herself.’

  ‘Cloning?’ Barty looked at Lucretia Cutter, and she shrugged, feigning ignorance.

  ‘She kills without thinking or feeling anything. She kidnapped you. She burnt down Beetle Mountain. She’s forcing millions of people to die of starvation. She’s a killer.’

  ‘Answer me this, Darkus,’ Lucretia Cutter hissed his name. ‘How many creatures do you think mankind has killed?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Darkus shouted, ‘it doesn’t change what you are.’

  ‘Isn’t an animal life still a life? Isn’t it just as bad to kill an elephant as it is to kill a human? Let’s talk about extinction. Let’s say it’s not as bad to kill an animal as it is to kill a man, but how about destroying every single type of elephant that ever existed? Is that as bad as killing one human? How do you measure life and death, Darkus?’

  ‘Lucy, he’s just a child.’

  ‘You underestimate your own son, Bartholomew,’ she snapped. ‘This is the boy who befriended thousands of beetles, broke into my house, rescued you and took a bullet for you. He followed me to America and ruined my broadcast at the Film Awards, and now, he’s somehow made his way to Ecuador, into the Amazon cloud forest and found my Biome, when all the governments of the world have failed.’ She stared at Darkus, her antennae twitching. ‘And now he’s pointing a harpoon gun at me, looking as if he wants to kill me.’ She snorted. ‘I would not call him “just” a child.’

  Lucretia Cutter took a step towards him and Darkus shuffled back, trying to move towards his father, without taking his eyes off her.

  ‘Darkus, I’m not destroying the crops out of a desire to rule, but out of necessity. The human race is growing. The planet cannot cope.’ She shook her head. ‘As humanity spreads like a plague, we chop down rainforests and flush plastic into our oceans, we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up.’ She opened her arms as if she were going to offer him an embrace. ‘The ice caps are melting, habitats are being destroyed. We live in a new epoch, the Anthropocene. Humanity is changing the climate, and it is a time of mass extinction.’ She bent down, so that her face was at his height. ‘How does that make you feel, Darkus? To be growing up in a time when the worst thing for this planet is your own species? You say that I am greedy for money and power, but you’re wrong. Look at me.’ She framed her face with her human hands, inching forward. ‘I’m a beetle. What use do I have for money? I can’t bear what we are doing to this planet. It tears at my heart and mind every day. I was ashamed to be a human, and so now,’ she held up her arms, proud, ‘I am a beetle.’ She stepped closer. ‘I cannot stand idle, not when I have the power to do something. I will stop human population growth by cutting off the food supply. Hunger will make the humans fight for food, and they will kill each other. A cull, if you will. We justify culling deer or badgers for the greater good – well, I’m culling humans. When I rule the world, people will have to request permission to have a child. I’ll re-wild the planet. Humans will live in urban habitats, powered by eco-fuels and the only jobs available will be as planet gardeners.’

  Darkus stared into Lucretia Cutter’s fathomless black eyes and his arms burnt from the weight of the harpoon gun.

  ‘Doesn’t that sound good, Darkus?’ She moved a bit closer, nodding. ‘Hmmm? Wouldn’t you like to be a planet gardener? Wouldn’t it be better with the beetles in charge?’

  Darkus felt Baxter’s horn against his neck, the soft brush of wings against his skin telling him the rhinoceros beetle was frightened and ready to fly. He heard a low warning hiss.

  ‘No!’ Darkus shouted, jumping back. ‘You’re no beetle. You are the very worst kind of human. You think you know better than everyone else alive. You built a mountain of money and power from making people feel that they’re not pretty, or wearing the wrong clothes, and now you’re using it to force the whole world to agree with you. Do you think a beetle would do that? NO!’ He stamped his foot. ‘Beetles are noble, hard-working, selfless creatures.’ He looked at Baxter. ‘They are true heroes, and you, you have,’ he struggled for a word, ‘perverted that. You have turned beetles into an army, into a plague. You have made them monsters in the world’s eyes.’ He was so angry he was shaking.

  ‘Enough!’ Lucretia Cutter turned her back on Darkus.

  ‘No, you will listen to me.’ Darkus was adamant. ‘Do you know what the real battle is? It’s teaching people how important, how beautiful, beetles are – all insects are. If people went outside and said good morning to the insects in their garden, knowing how they helped make things grow, then they wouldn’t fear them or kill them with pesticides. But you,’ he poked Lucretia Cutter’s back with the harpoon gun, ‘you’ve given people a reason to fear, to want to kill them.’ He shook his head. ‘The real battle of the beetles is not to conquer the world, but to be appreciated and understood. Turning yourself into a beetle and killing lots of humans won’t win that battle or change anything. The human race will rise up and fight back. You will bring war and destruction. It’s a human instinct to be violent first and think second, and that is exactly what you have done. It doesn’t matter if you have six legs, two elytra and compound eyes, you are behaving like a human. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A HUMAN!’

  Bartholomew Cuttle was looking at Darkus with pride. ‘He’s right!’

  ‘No, he’s not!’ Lucretia Cutter whirled around.

  ‘Son!’ his dad cried out as Lucretia knocked the harpoon gun from Darkus’s hand and grabbed him with her middle legs, lifting him off the ground.

  ‘Dad!’ Darkus cried out as he felt the spikes on Lucretia Cutter’s legs scratch his stomach. She held one of her sharp claws against his throat.

  Baxter reared up, flying up from Darkus’s shoulder, charging at Lucretia’s eye. He struck a blow, but he was weak and she barely noticed, smacking him out of the air as if swatting an irritating fly.

  ‘Baxter!’

  ‘Lucy, put him down.’

  ‘Now we shall see whether you’re really committed to the Fabre Project,’ she spat.

  ‘Lucy, Darkus has nothing to do with this. Just let him go and I, I . . .’ Darkus could see the fear in his father’s eyes.

  ‘You’ll what?’ Lucretia looked down at Bartholomew.

  ‘What are you prepared to do, in exchange for the life of your son? Hmmmmm?’

  ‘Lucy, don’t.’

  ‘How about stepping into my pupator?’

  ‘No! Dad!’ Darkus felt like his chest was going to burst open. This was what his father had been frightened of. If she has you, son, she’ll be able to make me do anything.

  ‘Lucy, I . . .’ Bartholomew’s shoulders slumped and Darkus saw him give in. Just like that. And Lucretia Cutter knew it too. She laughed, a peal of spite. Darkus punched and kicked at her abdomen, not caring how her spikes tore his skin.

  ‘I have everything prepared,’ she said, ignoring Darkus’s struggling. ‘I thought you’d like to be bonded with the genes of the Goliath beetle that started this whole beautiful project.’

  Barty’s head snapped up, his expression shocked. ‘You have Prometheus?’

  ‘Of course. Where do you think I got your DNA from?’ Lucretia smiled. ‘Esme gave him to me.’

  ‘Esme?’ His father’s voice was strangled.

  ‘Yes, Bartholomew. When yo
u and that old fool Appleyard decided to abandon the Fabre Project and close it down, some of us refused to let our years of work be tossed away like garbage. Esme believed, like I do, that something needs to be done to change the path humanity is on. The path of self-destruction. She happily gave me Prometheus, and copies of the parts of your work that I needed.’

  ‘Mum helped you?’ Darkus couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  Bartholomew was shaking his head. ‘No. She wouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Your mother was an eco-warrior,’ Lucretia Cutter told Darkus. ‘More militant than your father here. She wanted the work of the Fabre Project to continue, but oh no, Appleyard and Cuttle decreed that the work was leading us down a dangerous path, and that was it, all the funding stopped. So I took it upon myself to continue, and set up a fashion business to fund the work. Esme did what she could to help.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Barty growled.

  ‘Am I?’ Lucretia laughed. ‘Then how do you explain this?’ She opened a specimen drawer beneath the lab work bench and pulled out a dead Goliath beetle by the pin stabbed through its elytra and abdomen.

  Bartholomew gasped.

  ‘You see, and soon you’ll know what it feels like to be him.’ She waved her human hand towards the room that contained the pupator. ‘Go on. In you get.’

  ‘Dad, no!’ Darkus shouted, struggling desperately to free himself from Lucretia Cutter’s iron grasp.

  His father looked at him with sad eyes. He swallowed. ‘I love you, son,’ he said, then he turned and walked through the metal door into the room behind the glass and up the steps into the pupator.

  ‘NO!’ Darkus screamed, as Lucretia Cutter slammed her hand down on a button on the control board and the door slid closed. He kicked at her, and she tightened her grasp on his neck, choking him, then flung him hard, into the corner. He hit the wall, and all the breath was yanked from his body. He fell, landing awkwardly on his wrist, which made a snapping sound, and he cried out in pain and anguish. ‘Dad . . .’

  ‘Pathetic,’ Lucretia Cutter snarled. ‘Enjoy the last minutes of your life, because after you’ve watched your daddy transform into a beetle, I’m going to order him to kill you.’ She laughed and pressed a series of buttons, turning lights on. A strange whining noise came from the pupator.

  ‘You will not touch him or his father!’ came a cry, and Darkus looked up to see Novak somersault into the room. Her antennae were up and her eyes black as she hurled a barrage of kicks at her mother.

  Lucretia Cutter, taken by surprise, was knocked to the ground. On her back, for a moment she seemed comical, her beetle legs flailing around in the air, but then her human arms pushed against the floor, and she was on six legs, close to the ground, scuttling towards her daughter. Novak let out a strangled cry, the kind Darkus had heard in kung-fu movies, as she delivered a jumping front kick, her foot landing under Lucretia Cutter’s chin and firing her head back with force.

  ‘Novak, where’s Gerard?’ Darkus asked.

  ‘With your uncle,’ she replied. ‘He’s hurt.’

  Ling Ling ran into the room. She blinked at Darkus, her face blank.

  Lucretia Cutter snarled, ‘Ling Ling! Get her!’

  Darkus looked at Ling Ling in alarm. There was no way Novak could fight her and Lucretia Cutter, but the bodyguard’s face remained a blank. She didn’t move.

  Darkus threw himself across the floor, dragging his body to the console, pulling himself up with his good arm, before Ling Ling could stop him. He hit the same buttons he’d seen Lucretia Cutter press. The lights went off inside the pupator, and the whining noise died away. He sank down to the floor and saw Baxter, stuck on his back, five legs waggling, under the desk. He scooped the rhinoceros beetle up.

  ‘I need to get Dad out of there,’ he said to Baxter, ‘but how?’

  Lucretia’s elytra flicked up, and her wings unfolded. She rose up into the air, shaking off the impact of Novak’s blow.

  Novak spun around, running at the wall, her claws gripping as she rose up three metres before vaulting backwards in an arch, bringing both her clawed feet down on top of Lucretia Cutter’s head, making her scream.

  ‘I’m going to rip you apart!’ Lucretia cried, throwing herself after Novak, who cartwheeled and flipped away. Lucretia towered over her daughter, but although she was stronger, she was clumsy.

  Darkus glanced at Ling Ling. She was just standing still watching Novak, probably waiting until the girl made a mistake and let her guard down. He had to do something to help his friend. He pulled the device from his pocket. ‘Bertolt, I need you to turn the oxygen down in here. Do you hear me? I need you to turn the oxygen right down.’

  ‘I hear you, Darkus. I’m on it. Are you OK?’

  Darkus couldn’t reply, his eyes were locked on the fighting mother and daughter.

  ‘Darkus, beetles are flooding out of the Biome. There’s a sea of them.’

  ‘Beetles? Yes! That’s it! Bertolt, is there an intercom? Does the Biome have an intercom?’

  ‘Yes! Patching you through right now,’ Bertolt replied.

  Darkus tried to stand, but his hip burnt. He looked at his right hand hanging limply from his broken wrist. The fire of pain up his arm was so intense that he thought he might pass out. It was all he could do to keep focused on Novak, who whirled and danced around her biological mother like a sprite, landing kicks and scratches wherever she was able. He must help her. He tilted his head back and holding the device to his mouth with his good hand, he sucked his back teeth and made a pattern of clicking sounds, repeated it, again and again.

  Dad was trapped inside the pupator and he didn’t know how to get the door open. Uncle Max was hurt and Gerard was with him. Ling Ling was standing like a statue and Lucretia Cutter was wearing Novak down with the strength of her blows. They needed help.

  He called and called, and then they came, like a rush of dark water, a multitudinous sea of invertebrates, a sparkling spectrum of colour spilling across the floor. Millions and millions of them. Darkus saw blister beetles and bombardiers, longhorns and ladybirds, fireflies and chafers, flower beetles and frog-legged leaf beetles, Goliaths and stags, Atlas and Hercules, rhinoceros and elephant beetles, titans and weevils, pleasing fungus and feather-horned, tigers and harlequins, tok-tokkies and death watch, but Lucretia saw them too and grinned. These were her beetles.

  She dropped to the floor and lifted her back leg, rubbing it against her wing cases making a horrendous sound like nails down a blackboard. The beetles halted and she pointed at Darkus.

  ‘No!’ Darkus cried. ‘Listen to me.’ He held up Baxter. ‘She bred you in captivity. I’m here to set you free. Tell them,Baxter.’

  Baxter let out a series of hisses and his antennae swung wildly as he communicated with the Biome beetles.

  ‘NO!’ Lucretia Cutter shouted. ‘I made you. You belong to me. You will do as I command.’

  Darkus threw his head back and made a high screeching sound at the top of his throat, and the tidal wave of beetles, a fizzing sea of tippetty-tappetty legs scurried forward, washing over Lucretia Cutter, overcoming her with their sheer numbers.

  Novak paused for breath and Darkus cheered as the beetles set upon Lucretia Cutter, biting and scratching, weighing her wings down. Novak smiled at him. And then,as if Lucretia Cutter had finally lost all patience, she reared up on to her back legs and spun three hundred and sixty degrees with all of her legs out, shaking the beetles off like a dog would water, and catching Novak off guard. A human fist landed a punch to Novak’s ear, and a beetle claw sliced down her back, spraying blood as Novak fell to the ground.

  ‘Novak!’ Darkus screamed.

  Novak’s black eyes met his. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mouthed, as her mother stormed forward.

  ‘You have outlived your usefulness, Handbag!’ Lucretia Cutter raged, bringing all four of her arms up to smash the life out of her daughter. But they never landed. There was a blur of movement, and Ling Ling was suddenly betw
een mother and daughter. Her body moving in a hypnotic dance of blocks, preventing Lucretia from striking the hurt girl.

  ‘No. I will not allow it,’ Ling Ling said calmly as she danced.

  ‘Traitor!’ shrieked Lucretia Cutter.

  Ling Ling parried and turned aside Lucretia’s blows at a speed that was breathtaking to watch. She blocked and kept Lucretia Cutter off balance without once striking back. ‘I will not stand and watch mother destroy daughter,’ Ling Ling said between moves, ‘nor father hurt son.’

  ‘You work for me,’ said Lucretia Cutter. ‘You will do as I say.’

  ‘I will not kill children,’ Ling Ling said, a whirling windmill of arms and legs as Lucretia escalated her attack.

  ‘Then you will die!’ Lucretia Cutter shouted.

  Darkus dragged himself over to Novak. His body was heavy and tired, and the pain was getting worse. He took hold of Novak under the arms and pulled her away from the fight. She was bleeding heavily.

  ‘Novak. Novak, you’ve got to stay awake,’ Darkus insisted as he pulled her to the opposite wall.

  ‘I tried,’ Novak whispered. Her eyes seemed to roll back into her head as her eyelids closed.

  ‘Novak! Novak!’ Darkus shook her. Her eyes opened, and they were her blue human pupils once again.

  ‘I’m here,’ she said.

  Darkus touched his good hand to her cheek. ‘Please, Novak, you’ve got to stay with me.’ He looked anxiously over at the battling scientist and chauffeur. Lucretia Cutter was slowing down, her weight was troubling her and the mass of beetles continued to harass her, but Ling Ling was tired from the barrage of blows delivered by chitinous armour. Her brow was furrowed in a concentrated look and she was sweating. The lack of oxygen was affecting both of them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Humphrey’s Recital

  ‘Cooooeeeeeeeeeeee! Lucretia, darling. Where are you?’

  Darkus looked up. Above him, on a mezzanine floor, were Pickering and Humphrey. They were standing beside a grand piano, looking out over the forest of Arcadia and calling for Lucretia Cutter.