35
Em’s gun didn’t seem to be stopping the Hive tendrils. She began to wrestle with the snake-like tentacles, ripping them off her legs as quickly as she could. Pawny helped by blasting them with his own gun, which seemed to drive them off, if not actually hurt the Hive’s writhing fingers.
She was dimly aware that H was back on his feet again, and that he had gone toe-to-toe with the Hive monster, swinging a broken two-by-four at the thing’s almost mummy-like head. The creature slapped H into an open nest of metal gears and springs underlying the metal grillwork floor near the portal machinery. H was cut, burned, and crushed in a spray of sparks and metal.
Free of the burden of H for the moment, the Hive monster spun, giving Em its undivided attention. A barrage of new tendrils lashed out at the agent and Em scooted back and tried to roll out of the way of the living, squirming onslaught. Several of the strands hit Em and knocked her down into the same open mechanical trenches that resided under the depot’s main floor. On her way down, she saw that H was currently climbing back out of one such pit.
Em fired wildly as she fell, blasting a few strands. She hit a series of pipes and they broke her fall, but her De-Atomizer was jerked from her hand and clattered down into the darkness beyond the pipework. Fortunately, the pipes she landed on were insulated. One of them had broken when she hit it and a howling blast of steam was spilling out of it. She could feel the heat coming off the pipes. It was lucky she was behind the curtain of scalding air. Of course, this place is steam-powered, she thought as she struggled to reach the edge of the trench without getting burned.
A mass of Hive strands slithered down in pursuit of her, and Em, out of desperation, swung the broken pipe in their direction. Em watched as several strands shriveled and seemed to die under the blast of steam. The others crawled back up, making a hasty retreat to the Hive monster that spawned them.
Em wrestled the broken end of the pipe back up to the depot floor as best she could and aimed at the retreating Hive strands, and the Hive monster itself. Where the steam hit them, the strands shriveled and died. Many rejoined with the Hive creature, wrapping themselves about the monster like extra muscle fibers. The Hive monster howled in pain for the first time as the steam enveloped it. It staggered out of range of the blistering cloud and glared with hatred at Em. It began to shift and change, growing larger, more muscular and massive.
Pawny, who stood on the edge of the pit Em had fallen into, watched the Hive thing grow and glanced over at Em. “I’m not sure that helped.”
The now larger and meaner-looking Hive creature spun to confront H, who had just made his way back up out of the gear nest. H, panting, and not looking too happy himself, held a large metal gear in one of his hands, gripping the center of the cog. Each of the gear’s teeth were pointed and very sharp. The Hive monster charged at H, sending a swarm of its strands ahead of it. H spun, grunting as he sliced tendril after tendril. He fought his way closer to the Hive creature that had been his best friend. Just as he was about to reach the range to strike, the Hive thing used its superior reach to drive a jackhammer of a punch at H’s jaw. The agent flew backward and smashed into one of the support posts for the catwalk, sliding to the ground.
As the monster moved in to finish off H, Em let out an angry cry of defiance from behind it, and charged, wielding a piece of metal pipe. Em thrust with the pipe, trying to impale the monster, but it shifted and opened its body to allow the pipe to slip harmlessly through it. However, doing that freed the puzzle box from within the creature’s chest and it clattered to the steel-grate floor of the old depot.
Em’s satisfaction was short-lived. The monster tightened its body’s grip on her pipe and ripped the weapon from her grasp. The next thing she knew, the pipe was coming at her too fast to dodge. A cloud of pain enveloped her, and then blackness.
36
H let loose an angry bellow as he saw Em fall and lie unmoving on the floor. He was dead on his feet, but he summoned up his strength again and drove a few powerful uppercuts into the Hive monster’s rope-like abdomen, and then a devastating right hook that would have shattered a human’s jaw. The Hive monster didn’t even seem to flinch. It drove its winding fists down like a hammer onto H’s skull. The agent’s legs buckled and he fell beside his incapacitated partner. He was relieved to see Em had come to, but they were both too stunned by the Hive monster’s blows to move.
But they couldn’t just lie there. Even as they watched, the Hive monster recovered the puzzle box from the floor and affixed it to its chest with a mass of ropy strands. It lumbered toward Portal II and home. H and Em helped each other pull themselves to their feet and leaned on one another to stay standing. The thing that had been High T had its back to them, ignoring them as it made its way to the portal. From their vantage point, H and Em could see into the Hive’s world. They both wished they couldn’t.
In contrast to the other planets on the other side of the portals, teeming with life and light, the home planet of the Hive was a desolate graveyard of cold rock with a sky of starless void, punctuated by ghostly streamers of wan, red light from some distant nebula. The crimson glow gave the whole landscape an infernal look. The surface was moving, undulating, and for a moment Em thought it might be the surface of some black, oily ocean. But then she realized what it was, and real terror clawed its way up her throat from her stomach. The surface of the planet was covered, teeming in billions of Hive monsters, like the one they were facing now. The horrific mass had spotted the portal on their side and let out, en masse, a terrible, frenzied shriek. In that nightmare window, H and Em saw Earth’s future, and knew they couldn’t stop now.
H staggered after the Hive monster, grabbing a big, rusty wrench off an old shelf. “I’m going to get it back.”
“H—a plan?” Em called after him.
H hurled the wrench at the back of the Hive monster’s head. It connected with a loud thud, and bounced off. The monster turned and glared at H.
“High T,” H began, “that’s who you are. There’s still some of you left, there has to be.”
The monster closed the distance between the staggering MiB agent and itself in less than a second. It grabbed H violently and pulled him closer. H searched for something, anything, in the creature’s eyes.
“I was like a son to you? Well, you were like a father to me.”
Em could feel—could see—this all going badly very quickly. She looked around for anything that might harm the Hive monster. It was hard to stay upright. Her head was pounding and she was pretty sure she had a concussion. She heard the hissing of the steam pipe and looked over to see one tip of a piece of steel rebar rod had been heated red-hot by the broken pipe. Em picked it up by the other end.
H was still trying to reason with the thing, trying to find High T in there somewhere.
“You wanted me to take your place,” H said. “Remember?” For a moment, there was an echo of T’s face, his features, in the twisting, writhing face of the creature. Then it was gone.
“And you will,” the Hive monster replied in a rumbling bass. The thing grabbed H by the head and forced him down to his knees. Smaller, vein-like strands slithered free from the thing’s hand that clutched H’s skull. They slid over his face and slipped down into his ears. H began to convulse, his eyes rolled back in his head as the Hive began to devour him and change him, from within.
It’s trying to do to H what it did to High T, Em thought as she charged at the monstrosity, wielding the red-hot steel rod. She began to swing at it, trying to sever the tiny threads invading H’s body without harming him, but the monster slapped her with its free hand and sent her flying through the air. She bounded against the ramp in front of Portal I and fell through the other side of the wormhole gateway.
She was drifting in the void. What had she said to O, back in that interrogation room? “I want to know how it all works.” Well, she was seeing it all now. Flaring stars and swirling clouds of living art. It was so beautiful, and she was
so small, Earth was so small. There was a drumbeat in her ears, her lungs were freezing, her eyes too. Her heart was going to burst. She was made of ice, but her blood was lava, ready to erupt. She thought she heard something from so very far away. Em’s body spun in space, so that she was facing back the way she’d come. There was the warm light of the portal door. A tiny figure stood in it.
“My Queeeeeeen!” The impossible cry seemed to come from far away—too far to save her. But the figure was coming closer now, moving at great speed. It was Pawny. Em was fighting to not pass out. On the back of his armored breastplate was a small jetpack that he was using to maneuver around her.
He was wrapping her in a snug sling of wire line. He used the last of the pack’s fuel, apparently, to give her mass a nudge toward the portal entrance. Then, when they had drifted close enough, he raised a tiny grapnel gun with a motorized spool and fired it in the direction of the portal. The line went taut and Pawny clicked on the motorized spool. They shot at great speed toward, and then back through, the portal.
Em coughed and gasped. Her lungs were on fire. Had all that really happened? She couldn’t have been out there very long or she would have been in much worse shape. Em rolled over and blinked as her blurry vision began to clear. Back to the nightmare.
H was being devoured by the Hive.
37
H convulsed. His thoughts, his memories, maybe even his soul, were being sucked away and replaced with a squirming, ugly entity. It was the Hive and it knew only hunger and conquest. H heard Em and Pawny behind him. He fought to stay him; he fought the minds of the trillions of things all across the galaxy that had been converted into that one, terrible, blunt thing.
He focused and saw the puzzle box held by a few squirming strands on the Hive monster’s chest. H summoned every last drop of his humanity and willed his arms, his hands to act.
What are you doing? the Hive buzzed inside him.
He grabbed the box and ripped it free before the monster could strengthen the tendrils. He threw it to Em with all his remaining strength. It was up to her now. That thought comforted H a great deal as he swirled down into horrible, humming darkness.
* * *
The puzzle box skittered across the floor and right to Em’s feet. She bent and picked it up, fighting to not pass out. She looked up to see that the Hive monster had retracted its tendrils from H and tossed him aside. It charged at her, at full speed, back from the brink of Portal II.
Em’s fingers worked of their own accord. She ought to be terrified, but she wasn’t. The stellar compression weapon unfolded in her hands just as the Hive monster launched a mass of tendrils to grab it, grab her. She had a second, tops. Em slid the power scale to maximum as she keyed the trigger.
“Bye, T,” Pawny said.
There was no wait, no buildup like there had been in the desert. An annihilating beam of near-infinite energy ripped through the Hive monster that had been High T. Nothing remained of it. The beam kept going, reaching its maximum discharge range on the other side of Portal II—Hive space.
The Hive home world ceased to be just as quickly and as completely as the Hive monster had. And still the beam kept going until it released all of its energy at its maximum range, destroying world after world, system after system, until the entire Hive sector of space was empty and silent. No world would ever again have to fear the threat of the Hive.
Portal II crumpled and collapsed in a shower of sparks and shattering metal. Outside, the night sky became as bright as day for just a moment, then the stars regained their dominion.
Pawny hopped up onto Em’s shoulder. It was almost enough to knock her over. The stellar compression weapon folded itself back up into the puzzle box and Em put it in her pocket.
“Nice grab, Pawny. You served your queen well.”
“Thank you, my lady. It was nothing really. Just timing, and aim, and extreme bravery.”
H staggered to the spot where the Hive monster—once the man who had been his friend—had died. There was nothing left of the thing that had taken over High T—the thing that had tried to take him over, too. Portal II was nothing but scrap metal and a gaping hole, through which there was a new view of the City of Lights. Despite the destruction, the view was still beautiful.
Em joined him. She knew exactly what he was going through and she knew that, for once, he didn’t need to talk. She put her hand on his shoulder as they looked together at the radiant city and remembered, again, why they did the job.
38
The sky lightened with the rising of the groggy sun. As Em and H walked away from the Eiffel Tower, they saw a fleet of MiB-sanctioned Lexuses and a containment truck parked around H’s new car. There were Men in Black stationed at every vehicle.
“She as tough as they say?” asked H.
A smile of recognition came to Em, and she quickened her pace and straightened her posture as they approached the Men in Black.
“In a word?” she told him. “Yes.”
Agent O stood at the edge of the street, projecting an authority that made it seem like all the monuments surrounding her were there because she willed it to be.
“Well,” O said to Em as she and H approached, “you didn’t screw up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Em replied.
“There were some bumps along the way,” H said, summoning Classic H, “some friction at the start…” He stopped when O gave him an impatient look. “Sorry, ma’am.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, we didn’t screw up.”
Em spoke up again. “You said, ‘We may have a problem in London.’ You knew.”
“I hadn’t trusted London branch for some time. I never would have guessed why.” O’s stern face softened for a moment. “T lived for this organization. He was the very best we had to offer. He will be missed.”
O took a moment to collect herself and then turned to Em, extending her hand. “Welcome to the circus, Agent Em.” Em shook her superior’s hand. “You’re no longer probationary.”
H smiled at Em. “Well, my work is done here—”
“You are,” O said, cutting him off.
H nodded in agreement, then did a double take as O’s actual words sank in.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “what’s that, now?”
“Probationary head of London Station,” O said.
Em could see the surprise and the pride cross H’s face. The raw emotions were quickly hidden away behind his usual carefree façade.
“Probationary head?” he asked. “Did I just get demoted and promoted at the same time?”
“Several years ago, before all this,” O explained, as she, H, and Em took in the MiB clean-up and containment operation going on around them, “T mentioned to me an up-and-coming field agent who possessed certain leadership qualities.” She gave H a look as if she were judging the very qualities of his immortal soul. “Was his faith in you misplaced?”
H stood tall, his demeanor serious, as if he were before a Marines sergeant major. “No, but there are other more experienced agents better suited for the job.”
“Yes, there are.” O nodded. “And you have the support of all the senior agents. Including Cee.”
H looked over at a group of his fellow senior agents. They were not-so-subtly eavesdropping on the conversation with O. They nodded their support.
Serious now, he turned back to the New York station chief, sounding more solemn than Em could recall. “Thank you, ma’am.”
O spun on her heels and addressed Em. “You’ll need to tidy up your affairs in London. You report to MiB New York on Monday.”
O saw the look that passed between H and Em at the news. It made a distant part of her heart, that she had long ago promised to seldom visit, wince. She thought for a moment of K, of what might have been, could never be. She ordered the feelings back into their box, and they departed as quickly as they had come upon her.
“Congratulations, probie,” Em said, summoning a smile. She extended her hand to H. H took it and shook it. Alrea
dy his mask was slipping back into its old, comfortable place.
“Congratulations to you.”
They were both all smiles. O noticed they both held the handshake a second too long and then reluctantly let go.
“You’ll want to go brief your agents,” O said to H, waving him on to his duties, and he turned away. “Walk with me,” she added, to Em.
O walked Em away from the bustle of the crime scene until no one was in earshot of them.
“You wanted to know how it all works,” O reminded her. “Now you do.”
Em didn’t answer O. She didn’t want to. She glanced over to H addressing his agents. His agents. H’s put-on confidence had been replaced by a true authority, one she had only glimpsed in him before this moment. It suited him, like he had been born to it. In a very short time she had come to think of her universe always having an H in it. He challenged her, complemented her, made her laugh, and kept her thinking about what she believed and why. She trusted him. She willed H to look over at her, but his back remained turned, busy with his new job, his new responsibilities.
“But, as you may have divined,” O went on, “there’s a price.”
O moved on to assess the scene and see where they stood in the process. Em fell into step beside her.
* * *
With his circle of agents around him, H explained High T’s fate as delicately as he could. The men were visibly shaken by the revelation and wounded by their leader’s loss. As they moved away, H turned to Cee.
“Thank you,” H said.
“You’ve got so much paperwork coming your way,” Cee said, a little of his old wicked smile returning.
“Which I’ll send to you,” H replied without missing a beat. Both men laughed. For now, the hatchet was buried.
H turned to see if he could catch up to Em but she and O were already gone from the spot, moving quickly away, engrossed in their work. She never looked back.
Pawny popped up from H’s jacket pocket. The little warrior looked like H felt.
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