S.T.Y.X. Humanhive

by Arthur Stone

  “Eh, it was an easy one.”

  “So how’s your head feel? Still pounding like a growing colony of rabbits just won’t stop screwing around in there?”

  Strangely enough, his head felt like it was normal size again. Even that unbearable pain was vanishing, and the desire to vomit had disappeared completely. His hearing seemed to be improving, too—that crazy alarm bell sound had dropped to a distant, quiet ring.

  “Well? Say something! Looks like my unwashed sweat-marinated sock juice has some serious potential!”

  “That’s actually not the worst business pitch I’ve ever heard, believe it or not.”

  Nimbler chuckled. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Leland.”

  “Leland?” The man’s face clenched up like a lemon scarfing contest champion. “No, forget about your old name. You won’t find any Jacks or Johns or Liams or what have you here. Forget them.”

  “What’s wrong with ‘Leland’”?

  “People like us have honest nicknames. Hive monikers. Don’t you ever introduce yourself like that to anyone. I’m no name Nazi myself, but most people will laugh you to scorn, for we’re simple people here, with simple names. What did you do before you came to the Hive?”

  “The Hive? Like we’re a bunch of bees?”

  “Yeah, you’re in the Hive. Around here nobody calls it by its name, ‘Styx.’ Best not to mention that name at all, in fact, but ‘the Hive’ is easy to remember, and easy to communicate.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “So what did you do before coming to the Hive? How’d you earn a living? Did you have a nickname?”

  “I worked out at the oil rigs.”

  “So you were a driller?”

  “No, geophysicist.”

  “No help there. And you’re not tiny, but definitely not huge, either. What about ‘Moose’? That’d make you sound, well, strong. You like it?”

  Leland forced down another gulp of the mysterious muck, grimaced, and shook his head.

  “Moose are angry. And smelly. And I’m not married yet, but I plan to find a wife someday, and ‘Moose’ would wreck my Tinder matches.”

  “I doubt you’ll ever marry here, but hey, it’s good to plan ahead. So, other options. We could go with ‘Driller,’ or even just ‘Drill’? Geophysicist—nah, can’t say I see any potential there. Maybe you could go with ‘Bore’ or ‘Borehole,’ what with your personality traits. Wait, no, I got it. ‘Oiler’ is almost as bad as ‘Borehole,’ but add one letter, and ‘Boiler’ is a proper moniker. I doubt it’ll get you made fun of too much, especially if you make up some nickname origin story about frying one of these monsters alive. What do you think?”

  Leland replied with an apathetic hand wave.

  “Hey now, this is serious. This is your new name day. You’ll be Boiler until you die, which is probably pretty soon, and I’ll be your godfather. Welcome to the world, godson!”

  “What is this shit?” The swamp green slush had quieted his head and stomach in a matter of minutes. “Some kind of drug?”

  “I look like a dealer to you? I don’t know what life you lived before, Boiler, but drugs are hard to come by here. This stuff, however, is everywhere. Now take a couple more swallows and give it a break, and you’ll be good as new soon enough.

  “They call me Nimbler. It was almost ‘Zippy,’ but I dodged that bullet, quite literally. Don’t even ask what my name was before, and forget your own. Even in the civilized stable clusters, never bring it up. I’m a good judge of people, and you don’t look like the kind of loser that clings to his old moniker, so just eject it from your mind. You’re Boiler, godson of Nimbler, and that’s that.”

  “Huh. Well, I have some questions about what’s happened.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

  “You said it. Hell.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “I’m no theologian, but you pegged it.”

  “I intended that to be tongue in cheek.”

  “Still. This particular level of hell is called ‘the Hive.’ Hey, go easy on that. Lifejuice is poisonous if you gulp it, so sip it slowly.”

  “What is the Hive?”

  “Every hive has honeycomb, Boiler. Beehives have other things, too, but I’m talking about our happy humanhive. The honeycomb cell or ‘cluster’ that we’re in right now went through a reset last night, meaning the portion of your hometown you found yourself in materialized into this world, replacing the old cluster that was here before. That’s how people end up in the Hive. Get it?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Meaning no. To be fair, being misunderstood is nothing new for me.”

  “How about trying a clearer explanatory tactic, then?”

  “You’ve experienced a clusterwipe, a phenomenon where the whole area you’re located in is brought to the Hive. Your head is killing you and is unable to think straight, and the fog might last a few days, or even a few weeks. You’ll suffer memory lapses, forgetting things that just happened as well as things from long ago. Just remember this: you’ll never see your old home again. There is no going back. So forget everything about the past life you had, starting with your old name. That’s the best advice I have for you, and if you manage to make it past this first day of your new life, you’ll thank me for every piece of it. I’m dead serious. In this world, if you have a choice between running around with no pants and using your old name, pick the former. The wiser path in such dilemmas is always the pantless one.”

  “I had some friends who thought that in the old world, too. But I get it. I’m Boiler.”

  “Alright, then, next lesson. Remember, these honeycomb cells are called ‘clusters.’ We’re in a fresh cluster right now, filled with ruined people like you and like them”—he gestured at the rapt audience just outside the store—“and also full of all kinds of priceless junk nobody’s claimed yet. But soon treasure hunters will strip everything clean, and the mature infecteds will come running, too, looking for easy meals. And there are plenty of meals. Even if they can’t find an immune like you, they grab some of these empties to feast on.”

  “An immune?”

  “Yeah, people like you and me, who don’t become mindless zombies when they come to the Hive.”

  “Empties?”

  “Weak infecteds, in the impotent first stage of an infected’s life cycle. Only a select few of them ever reach the higher stages, thankfully.”

  “So do you call them zombies?” said Leland, now Boiler, pointing at the watching and wandering ghouls out the window.

  “You can call them that if you want, but they’re not zombies. They’re infecteds. They have beating hearts, breathing lungs, and veins pulsing with blood. You don’t have to put a bullet in their brains to kill them, and they don’t have their sights set exclusively on your brains, either. If they bite you it might ruin your day, but it won’t turn you into one of them.”

  “At last, some good news.”

  “I know, right? My biggest fear at first was getting bitten, too, but later some smart folks explained to me how the infection works. Anyone who ends up here without some kind of gas mask or respirator becomes one of them before a few days have passed.”

  “Everyone except immunes.”

  “Exactly. You can go for another swallow now. You need to recharge. Anyway, you’re also infected, but you won’t turn into an empty. But you will die if you go too long without some of that lifewater. All of us immunes, for the rest of our lives, must maintain a regular intake of lifewater.”

  “That’s... less good news.”

  “The lifewater you’re holding is simple to make. Nothing added for taste. Some people mix it with brandy, add cinnamon or nutmeg, heat it somehow, and end up with a cocktail. As far as I see, that’s a perversion of it, polluted pornography for the palate. Smart immunes drink it pure, like that,” Nimbler pointed at the flask.

  “I don’t know. Mixing this with do
g vomit would be an improvement.”

  Nimbler laughed aloud. “Plenty of people complain about it. But the real culture shock is yet to come: time for you to learn what it’s made of!”

  “Wait, don’t tell me. My dirty socks guess was right.”

  “Not quite. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Grabbing his hook, Nimbler pulled the severed head of the mutant over, turned it upside-down, and pointed at the base of its cranium.

  “See that growth on the back of its skull that looks like half a head of garlic?”

  “It’s enormous!”

  “Look closer: the skin here is hardened and can’t be cut with a knife, but it can be cut here along these curved lines, like cutting out cloves of said garlic.”

  Nimbler drew a short, wide knife from its sheath and proceeded with the revolting lecture.

  “This is called a spore sac. The empties don’t have them yet, since they’re new infecteds who’ve had no time to mature. But if they consume enough food, they undergo metamorphosis, and the parasite grows into this. It’s some kind of reproductive organ, I think, but scientific debate rages on that point, with many learned men and women defending each side of the disagreement. Developed spore sacs eventually generate what we can sporites, or just spores. Here, have a look.”

  Nimbler skillfully cut the growth from several directions and pushed the severed parts aside, and a small cavity became visible, filled with a biomass resembling sticky, filthy spiderweb. Nimbler easily tore out the disgusting contents, squished them around in circles, and separated out three small grayish-green objects not unlike spherical grapes, plus a yellowish ball the size of a large pea. “Look at that. Our raffler’s ticket was a winner!”

  “Huh?”

  Nimbler tapped the dead, severed head with his knife. “Some places just call this beast a devourer, or some variation of that. It’s much more dangerous than the early-stage empties, though like every mature infected it’s merely an empty who got itself lucky. The places I frequent call them rafflers. Weaker infecteds can hold spores, but this guy’s the youngest creature you can get peas from, if you’re lucky. Your chances are small, but now and then you hit the jackpot.” Nimbler twirled the little ball he’d found in front of Boiler’s nose.

  Boiler shrugged. “What’s so special about that? Looks like tightly packed sugar.”

  “True, which is why some call it ‘sugar.’ It has a long shelf life, but you have to dry spores a little for them to keep. I’ll wrap them in cotton and put them in a pouch later so they’re free of moisture. You don’t even have to dry peas—they don’t suck up water, and don’t dissolve in it, either. Peas are the simplest, and often the only, ways you can develop your abilities.

  “The empties grow fast as they eat each other, and then they undergo changes, becoming what we call runners, then rafflers, and eventually pearlmakers, the elite leaders of their disgusting tribe. We immunes are quite unlike them, retaining our minds and our memories and even our human faces. But we are still changed, in dramatic, diverse ways. We evolve, we learn new talents we did not possess before. But we must work on these talents, for like the infected physique, they will not mature unless fed. Not with human flesh, but with peas like this one.”

  Boiler was struggling to keep up, but his attention level was sufficient to make his stomach twinge again. “You eat those?”

  “Not like this. Don’t ever do that, ever—pure peas are poison. But you can dissolve them in vinegar, and once the bubbling dies down add soda and filter the mixture through several layers of gauze. You should drink the resulting concoction right away, since it won’t last long.”

  “I wouldn’t drink that if you paid me.”

  “You’re in hell, Boiler, remember? You can’t just drink whatever you like here. You drink what you’re given, or you die. Everyone learns to love spores, in the form of lifewater, which, incidentally, just saved your ass.”

  Leland held his head, this time not in pain but in unfiltered confusion.

  “Sporegrapes are like peas. Same principle. Not exactly the same, but close. Everybody’s first time seems disgusting, but they’re clean. No filth of any kind, no germs, either. Completely sterile. Just pretend you’re downing a pot of mushroom tea.”

  He had been drinking zombie innards. His mind screamed that he should vomit, but his stomach was unwilling to mind this revelation. “Brewed fresh from zombie mushrooms.”

  “Some think these are in fact mushrooms growing inside the infecteds. Not your typical white cep mushrooms, but some distant relative. If so, these spore sacs are the mushroom’s fruit. But many others have radically different theories. Just remember the key point here: we immunes must drink lifejuice from time to time, or death comes quick.”

  The nausea was still present, but diminishing. “Tell me more about what happens if you go without it.”

  “Did it make you feel better?”

  “Yeah, I feel like new. Almost.”

  “Without drinking lifejuice, you would feel worse and worse. Then you’d go through withdrawal, like a heroin addict’s. Soon you’d be lying in a puddle of your own piss, howling like a wolf until one of these rafflers came and ended you. But even left alone, you wouldn’t last long. Without this stuff, you’re a goner. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Is there any other way to make it? A way that doesn’t require sporegrapes?”

  “Nope. Spores don’t grow on trees, only inside infecteds. These creatures are our scariest enemies, but in another sense, they’re our best friends.”

  “Wait. There’s something I don’t get. How did this all get started? All of... all of this.”

  “You’re starting to understand. Impressive.”

  “I’ve never heard of a city and all its inhabitants just collapsing into hell like this. But that seems like business as usual here, according to you.”

  “Boiler, my friend, the Hive is a complicated place. You’ll get the hang of things soon, as long as you press on. Don’t wrack your brains too much right now. Just remember that the bowels of these spore sacs are the most important thing in the world to us, more important than food. But while we’re on the subject, let’s chat about food.”

  “Alright.”

  “Every time there’s a cluster wipe, a reset, all kinds of food comes in. All you have to do is grab it. I mean, look at all the shelves here, and then imagine how many of these stores are present in a single cluster. And there are so very many clusters. No one has ever gotten remotely close to a full count of them. So hunger is no problem. This oversupply also means you can’t really run a decent grocery business, unless you specialize in delicacies. Truffles, caviar, that sort of thing. But what would people buy those luxuries with? Dollar bills, checks, and money orders are all good for starting fires, nothing more.”

  “Let me guess. These sporites are your money?”

  “Would you like at that. Even a drowning brain like yours sometimes comes up for air! It’ll be treading water soon, then swimming like a pro. Yes, Boiler, sporegrapes are our currency. Accepted everywhere. Everyone always needs them, so they’re in steady demand. They’re all basically identical and similar in size, and no one counterfeits them, unlike the old flimsy green watermarked cloth backed by intangibility. There’s no greater security in the Hive than spores. The spores give us life.”

  “So they’re always ripe? And always the same size?”

  “I still find it just as surprising as you do, but that’s how it is. Only a very accurate scale can detect discrepancies between them, and no one pays those differences any mind. It seems that whenever they do develop in the spore sac, they do it very quickly, perhaps instantaneously. Same with peas.”

  “But peas are rarer?”

  “Yeah. The smaller beasts, the young infecteds, don’t even make them at all. We lucked out with our raffler here. If your life is a bed of roses, one spore is enough for a whole week, plus or minus a couple days. But if you get sick—even though that’s rare here—or i
f you cripple yourself like you’ve managed to do, then be sure to drink a lot of the stuff, and often, but in small sips. Lifejuice is enough of a regen booster to erase a bullet wound in a couple of days, as long as it didn’t rip through anything vital. We’re mutants now, you and I. Parasitic mutants who feed on infecteds. Don’t grimace like that—be happy we don’t need human flesh like they do. We got off easy. At least we’re still people, even if life is a bit different now. You’ll get used to the lifejuice fast. So, do you feel grateful for my medicine and my words of wisdom?”

  “Yes, very.”

  “So then, my young novice marauder, time to pay me back. Please provide some information in return. What valuable items can be found in this city, without expending too much effort or risking too much danger?”

  “What kind of stuff do you need?”

  “Loot!”

  “More specifically?”

  “Well, you probably don’t know where the biggest caches of peas and spores are. So most of all I’m interested in ammunition. Bullets. Gunpowder. Cartridges. Ammo of all kinds. Can you tell me where I can find it?”

  “There’s a good store for all of that, but I think it’s already been hit. They blew up the whole front of it. I saw the aftermath and decided not to go inside.”

  “Who hit it?”

  “No idea. There was a group of four in a Jeep nearby. Probably not them, though. Two of them only had crossbows, and that store had dozens of guns they would’ve taken for sure.”

  “Dozens? Sounds like a rich store, the kind I drool for at night. But about these four guys—what did they look like?”

  “They were all dressed differently and didn’t tell me their names, then saw I was no use to them and chased me off.”

  “Two with crossbows, you say?”

  “Yeah. One had a double-barreled rifle, and the other had a pump shotgun.”

  “A Benelli?”

  “Huh?”

  “The rifle. A Benelli?”

  “How should I know? I’d check my notes, but I lost them.”

  “That’s fair. You probably couldn’t read the make, too.”

  “It is indeed hard to read a gun’s side when you’re staring down its muzzle.”