Infinity Squad

by Shuvom Ghose

  I turned on the lights to show that Zazlu, Juan, Butcher and I were already in full battle gear, having already gotten body armor and rifles from the armory. Ann-Marie had even drawn those cute black lines under her eyes.

  "Of course we are," I said, walking out as Hughes' jaw dropped. "We were waiting for you."

  "Maybe he stopped for coffee," Zazlu said, right behind me.

  "Some folks need it in the morning," Butcher added as she followed Zaz out.

  "Where's your rifle, sir?" Juan asked as he passed Hughes and shut the lights off on the still sleeping privates.

  I loved my squad.

  "Just four of you?" Flores sneered, looking up from the square Master Map table. "Most of the Immortals are coming."

  The ten clones with murder in their eyes lined the other side of TacOps. They had only been half ready when we and Hughes had gotten to their barracks, and Hughes had let them hear it all the way here.

  I shrugged. "I guess each Infinity is worth two Immortals."

  "Two and a half," Zazlu said.

  "Sorry, two and a half," I corrected with a smile. "Forgot about the exchange rate."

  "Less people means less noise," Butcher added right before Hector was going to curse at me. "Less noise means more sneaking which means more spiders."

  Even though we had disagreed last night, everyone was pulling together now to play their roles. Zazlu and I were antagonizing the Immortals to throw off their game and Butcher was the calm voice to make their outbursts seem silly. We were playing it loose and flippant like this was just another patrol even though I had no idea what would happen. And I wasn't going to give some nameless bureaucrat standing near the back wall the satisfaction of seeing me panic.

  He looked like he had gotten up even earlier than us. And went to the salon. He was shaved, his hair and suit perfect and he looked rested, well fed and alert. The bastard. Maybe he never slept, just plugged into the wall every eight hours.

  Even Flores now gave the bureaucrat a worried look before continuing. "Well, don't use your low numbers as an excuse for not getting any kills. A lot is riding on this patrol."

  Did the bureaucrat have something on Flores too? Who the hell was this guy- evil Santa?

  "We're sending you south and west of the valley," Flores continued, not looking at the suit. "To almost where the swamp starts. Ground penetrating radar shows there's an extensive cave system there, and we all know spiders live mainly in caves." He looked up, daring me to object.

  I just gave him a nod. "Agreed. Go on."

  "What!" Flores yelled. "What about all the god-damned webs in trees bulls-"

  "Captain."

  The bureaucrat had said only one word, quietly. But Flores turned ghost white, then coughed and continued.

  "Okay. So. There are three separate cave systems. They each have many rooms but the three systems do not connect. Some may be flooded, some may be enemy occupied, some both. The helos will drop you here, you will approach on foot-"

  "Stealthily approach," Ann-Marie said.

  Flores made a face. "You will stealthily approach on foot through this path until you reach this hill, and then use your judgment on which cave system to enter first. Understand?"

  I understood his plan. Ours was to have Butcher and Juan scout ahead and steer us away from any spiders. And hopefully into some boazelles or the edge of a lightning snake swarm, forcing us to retreat. And maybe we could get a spider cameo or something, from a long distance off.

  Three-Spot? Red-Stripe has taken most of the hunters north, but would any be left near the swamp?

  No response.

  Make sure there are no women or children roaming around these caves I am picturing.

  Nothing.

  "Lieutenant?" Flores demanded. "Do you understand?"

  I put on my best lazy, cocky grin. "Sounds like a plan."

  I was still nervous as we got on Jinx's helo and a tech synced our implants to the same channels as the Immortals in the other two helicopters. I hated this mission- we had no good plan and literally everything could go wrong, with so many eyes and ears watching our every move. And I couldn't even discuss it with Zaz or Butcher now that the damned mikes on our collars were live.

  Three-Spot didn't answer my prayers as we lifted off, and I went top to bottom through Red-Stripe's hunters as we passed over the valley but couldn't reach any of them. I knew spider-to-spider communication stretched almost as far as our radios, but maybe my mind wasn't calm enough or they were on the other side of the north mountains.

  As we approached landing however, I did hear something.

  "First to kill, first to die, first to hear the bullet's cry!"

  "Immortal Squad! Immortal Squad!"

  Hector's voice started again right after the chorus of his men. "Others build, others grow, we fight things that demons know!"

  "Immortal Squad! Immortal Squad!"

  Ann-Marie rolled her eyes. "Give me a fucking break."

  Zazlu shrugged. "It does get the heart moving."

  Hector was reaching a fever pitch. "Gods cheer us! Demons fear us! Devil Dogs won't come near us!"

  Hand over my mike, I talked over ten clones repeating the chorus. "I don’t know any chants. Do you guys want me to recite some Kipling to you or something?"

  "Nah. That would totally kill the mood," Butcher said.

  Zaz nodded. "I agree."

  "What's a Kipling?"

  "Shut up Juan."

  "Immortal SQUAD! Immortal SQUAD! Immortal SQUAD! Immortal SQUAD!"

  And then we were landing.

  The Immortals sprinted out of their helos like they were taking Normandy. Since Butcher and I had been scanning the area with our binos as Jinx set down, I knew there were no threats beyond two boazelles which were bounding away from the noise of the helos. We stepped out leisurely.

  It was hot and muggy this close to the swamps. And local noon was just a few hours away, and I could hear running water. Good lightning snake conditions. I caught Zazlu's eye and made a slithery gesture with my hand, then pantomimed eating it. He nodded, tucking his flamethrower away and pulled out his K-knife and a long, forked stick. Maybe we could take a few back for Three-Spot.

  I sent Butcher and Juan bounding ahead, and with Zazlu literally beating the bushes for snakes, that left me walking, stealthily, alone with all ten Immortals. They did the standard cover-and-advance, crouching behind every rock and bush, using silent hand signs, rifles ready, for about a hundred yards, until they realized it made them look like complete tossers. Hector gave a motion with his hand and then the Immortals just walked down the path like I was.

  A path? And it was the double path that spiders made. I started getting more nervous.

  "Nervous?" Hector laughed.

  "Indigestion," I said, patting my stomach. "It's hard to eat in the mess hall with all those skulls we put up staring at us."

  "Fuck off."

  "Maybe we should just knife him and say the spiders did it," Hector's Intelligence Lieutenant Samson said, drawing half his blade. "No one would know."

  "Put that knife away, Samson," I said, loudly and clearly into my throat mike.

  The wolf-eyed clone just grinned at me. "I bet we could probably cut his balls off before his girlfriend could skip back here to save him."

  "Lieutenant Hector," Hughes' voice rang in our ears. "Civilians are listening to this channel- control your men!"

  I made a face at Hector like he had just been called to the principal's office and he cursed under his breath and made a sign to his second in command. "Not now, Samson."

  I winked at the sneering Samson. "Good puppy. Now follow me." Then turned and gave my back to him with much more confidence than I felt. I barely managed to keep my knees from shaking, expecting to feel the knife plunge into my back at any second.

  But it didn't. And it had been the bureaucrat- undoubtedly the 'civilian' listening next to Hughes- that had saved me. Maybe he was useful after all.

  Ann-Marie
and Juan kept ranging ahead, Zazlu in the bushes to the side, and I continued forward with 10 murderous clones at my back. I didn't attempt to make small talk.

  I did, however, keep calling out to any spider in Red-Stripe's clan whose name I knew.

  After two miles of walking through in the hot, sticky plains, a timid little voice burst into my head. "You are Bunches of Trees?"

  Yes- who is this?

  "I am green-shell-two-dots. We played tag. Blue-Wave is using me to pass you a message."

  Where is he?

  "In our village. He is the strongest hunter left. He cannot leave. But I was chasing snakes and heard you calling his name. He has a message."

  Okay. Go ahead.

  "I'm going to cut off your balls one day, faggot," Samson whispered into my ear, cupping his hand over his mike. "Trust me."

  I just gave his statement a goofy smile, because I was straining so hard to hear the young spider's reply. My reaction actually freaked Samson out more than his words did me, and he backed off, giving me a strange look.

  "Blue-Wave says do not go into the caves."

  Why not? What's in there?

  "In the caves lives a... lives a..." I could feel him fumbling with the images, like a child with a limited vocabulary. "It is hard to explain."

  "Sir. We've spotted the first cave system," Ann-Marie radioed. "There seems to be a-"

  "Now not Butcher," I interrupted.

  "What?" I heard her say as I was concentrating, very hard. What lives in those caves, Two-Spot?

  "A... bad idea lives there. Do not go in. Very bad idea that will spread, Blue Wave says."

  And that was all.

  "Can I make my report now, sir?"

  I sighed. "Go ahead, Butcher."

  "The path you've been following. It bypasses the first cave system and goes to the second. Right into the second, sir."

  "Then that's where we'll go," Hector said. "This trail has to be a Hell-Spider one- look at how wide apart the two footpaths are!"

  I racked my brain, but there was no way I could refuse. The caves didn't connect, and my stated mission was to close with Spiders and kill them. I couldn't turn down this intelligence, not after everyone back at base had just heard it.

  I sighed. "Very well. We approach the second cave system- slowly. Butcher and Juan, stay hidden and observe the entrance. Zazlu, pull close and get the thrower ready. Everyone else- fingers OFF your fucking triggers. Don't fire until I give the order or I'll cut your balls off."

  I looked just like any other cave entrance. With a well-worn spider path leading right up to it. We had watched it for thirty minutes as the Immortals got more and more fidgety but nothing came in or out.

  I had a hard time explaining to Green-Shell-Two-Spot which cave we were looking at, but after he sent it to Blue-Wave, the answer was definite. "NO! That is the worst one, Bunches of Trees! Do not go in!"

  "What are we going to do, sit here and pick our ass all day?" Hector said, standing up. "Let's go."

  "Sit down, Lieutenant," I said, giving him my best Look. "We'll go when I say we're ready."

  I saw Hector's jaw tightening when we heard a calm, slightly Spanish-accented voice in our ears. "You are ready now, Lieutenant Forrest. We have you on satellite. Assault the cave, that is a direct order from General Oakley."

  Fucking bureaucrats.

  I sent Juan in first, then Samson, and gave Juan specific non-verbal instructions to throw Samson in the way of anything dangerous they saw. Anything.

  We covered the entrance from the bushes, getting mobbed by flies, but after thirty seconds, Juan said, "Looks clear."

  I took the rest of us in, leaving Lesko and two other Immortals at the entrance with orders to report if ANYTHING showed up. They couldn't fuck that up, right?

  The entrance room was typical cave. Dark, wet, slippery. We turned on our headlamps.

  "I guess we have to go in deeper," I sighed.

  "That's what she-"

  "Shut up Juan."

  The second room was even darker and more slippery. But at least it was cooler. There was a type of seaweedy thing hanging off some parts of the ceiling. Zaz, Juan, Butcher and I gave it a wide berth as we passed, but the Immortals just brushed it away as they stepped through it.

  "Everyone, keep your eyes wide open," I said as we entered the third room. "There's something not right here- I can sense it."

  My guys nodded or said "Yes sir," in such away that I could tell they knew. I had just relayed a warning from the spiders.

  "OOOhhh, you can sense it," Hector said, watching us creep through the room like it was haunted. "How the fuck did you posers beat us in killing spiders?" he laughed, pushing through another hanging seaweedy thing. "I bet you don't even kill them. I bet you just wait for them to die of natural causes and take their skulls."

  See, the trick is to not over-react, because then they know you're guilty. The play here is to go with it.

  "That's exactly what we do Hector," I said. "We talk to the spiders and they tell us where grandma eight-legs is buried, and we go dig them up and no one can tell the skulls are a year old."

  "That's why the monster we hung after the monsoon was still warm to the touch and dripping blood," Zazlu added, creeping around a hanging weed. "Because we're grave robbers."

  "I bet you guys hadn't ever seen a spider head that big before," Juan said.

  "We've seen big enough," Samson sneered. "The wave we held off when your Lieutenant Ridley bought it would make you shit your pants."

  "Bitch, I've killed shit that would eat your wave whole!"

  "Juan, enough," I said. "Let's move on. And Samson's right. When we found what was left of him near Ridley's body, Samson's corpse had shit its pants."

  We went on that way for a while, the squads sniping back and forth as we stepped through one dank, dripping cave room after another. There was a room that was knee-deep in water, then one with

  five ways out of it and then a big one to the left and then a small one to the left... look, to keep it all straight, I’d have to draw you a map.

  Which is exactly what Butcher was doing on the notepad strapped to her thigh. As was I, but in a less detailed way. Because I also had to keep watching for Samson behind me, how the other Immortals were acting, and keep worrying about the green lights we were losing on our buffering bands. We had started with four at the cave mouth and were now down to three.

  It was somewhere in that span that Hector brushed through one of the hanging seaweed things and a white slug the size of a cut fingernail dropped off onto his neck. It must have burrowed into his warm, sweaty skin immediately, because none of us noticed it. But I'm sure that's when it happened.

  The deeper in we went, the more hanging things there were to avoid and the more cave muck there was on the floor. The floor started to slope down away from us, like we were hiking down the side of a funnel. As the turns got more complex and the footing more treacherous, I started to worry about getting back out at all. The point where I cross-checked my map with Butcher's and found two important errors while standing calf-deep in cave muck is when I called it.

  "All right, this is obviously a bust. Let's go back," I said, turning around.

  Hector stopped scratching his neck and didn’t follow us. “What, we’re giving up?”

  “Yes. There’s obviously nothing here.”

  “Pussy,” he said. “This is exactly what Hughes said you guys were doing- always turning back before you actually met any spiders.”

  I glanced up to see we only had two green lights. “Look-“

  “We’re a squad and a half,” Samson sneered. “You guys brought back all those skulls with just four of you! What are you suddenly afraid of?”

  I looked at Zazlu, who agreed with his eyes. We couldn’t turn back without raising questions.

  I tried raising the young spider or Blue Wave again, but got nothing.

  “Fine,” I sighed.

  The next room was sloped even more severe
ly and we had to hold on to the walls to keep from slipping. The cave muck was a maddening mix of slippery under your feet and viscous around your ankles, making it exhausting to slog through. My legs were starting to get rubbery.

  “Look, we haven’t even seen a single sign of spiders yet-“ I began.

  “We saw that huge trail leading to this cave,” Samson said. “It took a lot of spiders to make that.”

  “Exactly,” Hector agreed, eagerly perched at the entrance to the next room, a low hole we had to duck into. “Now come on!”

  “Hold on!” I yelled, just before he would have entered. On a hunch, I turned off my headlamp. "Butcher, how many green lights do I have?"

  She swallowed. "Zero, sir. Red light only. How about me?" She flipped off her lamp so the glare didn’t hide the lights.

  "Zero for you too, Lieutenant. Looks like this cave blocks radio signals, huh?"

  She nodded, and when I turned to Samson, I had to grin. His clone face was as pale white as it could get, looking at the single red light showing on everyone’s bands. We had prepared for this since Ridley, aware of the possibility that each death might be our last. They hadn't.

  I couldn’t help it. "Shit just got real, huh, Samson? Don’t you want to keep exploring? Maybe there's a whole Hell-Spider NEST up ahead!"

  He threw Hector a look that I knew well. A Second Lieutenant warning his CO that this was a bad idea. A look no First Lieutenant would ignore.

  “Come on!” Hector repeated. “That doesn’t matter!”

  “Hector,” I said, “if you want to go through that hole, go ahead.”

  “Fine.” And he was gone.

  We heard the noise of some sliding and then, “See! It’s fine!” I kept looking at that inclined hole, knowing it wasn’t right. “Come on!” he said.

  “Alright Hector, come on back.”

  “No! You’ve got to see this!” he yelled from the darkness. “It explains the spider trail outside! Now it all makes sense!”

  I frowned, but motioned to Ann-Marie. “Butcher, you’re the most sure-footed. Take a look. But be careful.”