by Tyler Hanson
GLP-GLP-GLP.
The worm drifted toward a cluster of bodies near the far-right side. There would be no better opportunity to escape unscathed.
“Now’s our chance,” Reyansh said, vocalizing Nadi’s thoughts.
Nadi, Ananya, and Aarav walked forward, taking slow, soft steps. Nadi looked behind him to see Indra’s group stop for a moment before following. It seemed Priya had noticed the drone still tucked under Indra’s arm, so she leaned over to pick up one of the hoverboards from the pile on her station.
GLP-GLP-GLP.
They crept across the third floor, edging closer and closer to the ramp. The tension from the worm’s movements and the aching of their stiffened muscles created beads of sweat on their skin, which dissolved under exposure to the ultrasound and to the mounting carbon dioxide in the air.
GLP-GLP-GLP.
There was a sharp, scraping noise behind the two bubbled groups, muffled by the borders of Nadi’s PAUS barrier. They froze, craning their heads to see what had made it. Nadi watched Indra’s group through his bubble, about five long paces behind them, quivering. Looking past the three, his eyes fell on Priya’s workstation. The pile of hoverboard prototypes began to stir, its weight seemingly imbalanced.
Oh Priya, why did you have to take one?
Indra, Reyansh and Priya’s eyes widened into perfect circles, betraying their horror.
A tremendous screech grated against Nadi’s ears, and the whole setup collapsed, its weight bringing the pieces crashing to the floor and attracting the worm’s attention. The creature whipped its body around toward the chaos, sucking in a hoverboard that drifted too close to it.
GLP.
Nadi held his breath and watched the creature devour the board, too transfixed to notice anything else in their immediate environment. He winced when Ananya pinched his arm, and he followed her gaze. The body of one of the black-clad intruders floated above their bubble, directly toward Indra’s group.
“Indra!” He whispered, but it was pointless. With their fields separated, a thick wall of water prevented any recognizable sound from reaching the other group.
The body floated into the other ultrasound bubble, feet-first. Reyansh saw the intrusion and appeared to say something, but before Priya or Indra could react, the entire corpse was ensnared by the shift in air pressure and pulled down, directly on top of Indra.
The other bubble blurred into chaos, as far as Nadi could see through his distorted window of water. Indra had collapsed in panic, possibly thinking another worm had attacked. He leapt back to his feet into a posture that indicated he was yelling. Reyansh and Priya tried to calm him down, but it was too late.
The worm saw them.
The pile of hoverboards near the back of the room flew in every direction as the worm changed direction, snapping to face Indra’s group with the speed of a tripped mousetrap. Instead of getting closer, it lurched with the upper half of its body, as if it were about to vomit.
“Oh, no,” Aarav said quietly.
Time seemed to slow as Nadi tore his attention away from the scene, looking down at the glove on his left hand. As he began to gesture, his mind drifted back to a few hours earlier.
________________
“The control system isn’t flat, though,” Reyansh said. “The computer is one of the thickest and heaviest parts of the device. We can control it with the wireless keyboard, but even then, we’ll have to heft it around.”
Nadi stared at the PAUS, then over at the blast doors. The severed foot still laid there, the blood circling it diluted throughout the water puddle. His eyes drifted over to the drones at Indra’s table, and he widened them as he was struck by an idea.
“I know what to do. Grab your tools and follow my lead.” They assembled around the workstations while Nadi approached Indra. “Indra, what operating system is your drone control based on?”
Indra’s put his hands to his head in realization. “Oh, we both use BOSS Linux, right?”
Nadi looked at him. “Right. And just like mine, you have it designed to map and navigate three-dimensional space, don’t you?”
“That’s how my drones know where to fly,” Indra replied, smiling. “You want to merge PAUS with my gesture controls, don’t you?”
Nadi grimaced. “It’d be a hell of a lot safer than typing on a keyboard while we’re in imminent danger. But it won’t be easy to program.”
Indra extended his hand to shake Nadi’s. “Leave that to me, project partner.”
________________
Now it’s my turn to help you, project partner, Nadi thought.
He waved his gloved hand in short, frantic motions, tracing a rectangle in the air.
Okay, that’s about six meters tall . . .
Priya and Reyansh, realizing what would soon occur, dove away from Indra. He turned toward Nadi’s group and tried to flatten himself against the ground. Nadi splayed his fingers, waving them in a horizontal line across his face.
By ten meters wide . . .
The worm released a white, slimy substance from its mouth. It began its journey as one solid mass, but quickly dissipated into hundreds of interwoven strands, very much resembling the root system of a large tree. At the tip of each of the strands was an open, suctioning tube.
Nadi clenched his fist and twisted his wrist twice, beads of sweat forming on his brow.
Two meters is a stable thickness.
The tubular strands of the worm’s proboscis latched themselves across Indra’s entire body, and though Nadi couldn’t hear it, he saw the man screaming in terror and pain. As quickly as the proboscis released, it retracted, faster than a bullet. In transit to the worm’s mouth, the tubes compressed back into a narrower, solid mass, and the collapse compressed Indra, too. The water carried the muffled sounds of his cracking bones to Nadi’s ears while Indra folded in half, his arms and legs balled together to fit into the worm’s mouth. Blue sparks lit up the water as Indra’s PAUS crumbled to pieces and his ultrasound field disappeared.
GLP-GLP-GLP.
“Indra!” Nadi and Ananya cried at the same time. The former gritted his teeth, shoving down the bitter sensation of hopelessness.
Focus. There’s two more out there.
As the worm pulled Indra away from Priya and Reyansh, it also stole their bubble of air. They floated in place, five paces from Nadi’s bubble. Nadi crept at a snail’s pace toward them with Ananya and Aarav in tow. He worked on new PAUS coordinates as they moved, and the two floating scientists tried their hardest to maneuver a gentle, calm path into the remaining bubble.
Nadi punched out in a series of one-handed symbols.
Distance . . . twelve meters.
The worm reared back and scooted across the floor in a serpentine motion, barreling toward the spot Indra had been. At the rate they were traveling, Priya and Reyansh would collide right with the creature. Priya must have also realized this; while still clutching her hoverboard, she wrapped her legs around Reyansh’s waist and draped the prototype over his back, the propulsion end facing the charging worm.
Nadi raised his glove. 4,000 PSI in-field. Okay.
Priya activated her board, and the air intakes on each side pulled the water around it. A jet of concentrated water kicked the two scientists across the room like a torpedo. The worm noticed this and turned to pursue them.
As soon as they traveled past the point Nadi had targeted, he activated his final PAUS command. A two-meter-thick expanse of water, running floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall, shimmered between the worm and the five surviving humans. The worm ran into the barrier and bounced off, sending waves of force to stir up its side of the room. The worm reared up and spat out its proboscis once more, but the tendrils glanced away from the space Nadi had affected, jerking backward as a scolded child jerks his hand from a cookie jar.
Priya and Reyansh rocketed into Nadi’s bubble, their curled forms entering about a meter up from the ultrasound wall, so they fell to the ground with a heavy thud. The ultras
ound field had stripped all water from them as they passed through it, so despite their brief swim, the two stood up to find their clothes and hair as dry as desert air.
Reyansh hugged Ananya.
Priya hugged Aarav.
Nadi stood with his gloved hand extended, entering a few more commands into PAUS.
“What the hell happened?” Aarav asked.
Nadi glanced his way. “The short answer? The PAUS uses ultrasound to modify water pressure, too. I created a high-pressure area between us and that thing. Imagine a hundred fire hoses constantly firing in a small space.”
Aarav shook his head. He seemed relieved, but exhausted. “My goodness. You saved our lives.”
Nadi turned to the worm, watching Indra’s drone drop from its mouth and drift to the floor. His face fell back into despair. “I should have saved Indra, too,” he mumbled.
Reyansh fell to the ground, quivering. “I don’t feel so good.”
Priya turned to Nadi. “We’ll mourn later. How long do you think it will hold?”
Nadi examined his PAUS. It was humming from the increased ultrasound output. “It’s not a physical wall; it’s made of energy waves. The worm can’t break through. The PSI is set to four thousand, so the worm would shred itself to pieces trying to push into the barrier. As long as the wall is within the PAUS’s broadcasting range, it will remain stable; once it’s out of that range, though, the weak signal will collapse. That being said, we should be able to make it out of the facility before that happens.” He turned to Aarav. “The tunnel you told me about. It’s on the next floor?”
The scientist nodded.
“Good,” Nadi said. “They’re surely guarding the Waste Water Treatment Plant above.”
Ananya and Priya helped Reyansh to his feet, draping his limp arms around their shoulders.
“Move, people,” Ananya demanded.
Huddled securely inside the ultrasound bubble, they quickly strode onto the ramp. They circled the corkscrew corridor and found themselves emerging onto the second floor. The view was more of the same: Floating corpses, disheveled machinery, and murky gloom. Aarav turned to the other four and pointed down a side corridor. “This way.”
They marched around to the wall adjacent to the ramp, across from the now-worthless elevator. Aarav pulled back a table to reveal a pearl-white paneled door, and Nadi moved closer so that the space around them would remain dry as they opened it. Aarav pulled it open, revealing cylindrical pipes and other large containers, all leading into the floor, ceiling and walls.
Against the back wall was a circular, dirty, copper-colored porthole. It was about the size and shape of a bank vault door, though it didn’t seem locked, and it appeared to have a pressure gauge embedded within its frame.
Aarav walked up to the door and pulled a series of bolts from the side. “This waste outflow system runs underground at the same level as this floor’s lab. The maintenance tunnel leads to the collection chamber for the lab’s waste before joining the outflow system beneath the Varuna Canal.”
He was interrupted by the telltale hissing of depressurization. Pulling against the mounted handle, Aarav slowly opened the heavy sliding door. Inside was nothing but darkness.
Nadi felt a squeeze against his left shoulder, and glanced toward it to see Reyansh’s shaking hand resting there. He heard a soft clicking noise, and then a circle of white light beamed out from the PAUS into the blackness ahead.
“I added it back in the lab, just in case,” Reyansh said, offering a thin, weak smile. His face was pale.
New sounds reached their ears, accompanied by a loud grinding of metal beneath their feet. Nadi heard glass break, the noise more closely resembling snapping twigs in this underwater hellscape. More metal screeched and tore, louder than before. The group craned their heads toward the ramp, their confidence shaken, but they couldn’t see anything. Aarav turned back to the door, opening it enough for people to squeeze through.
“No water will enter the tunnel if you stay close enough to the entrance,” Aarav said to Nadi, gesturing for him to stay where he was. “You go last.”
Nadi nodded and leaned against the wall, keeping an ear out for more noises. Reyansh extended his arm toward the exit, looking at Ananya and Priya.
Priya walked into the dark tunnel with her hoverboard still clutched to her chest. She patted Aarav on the arm as he stood there, holding the door open. Ananya was quick to follow, but as she crossed the threshold, she stopped, straightening her spine.
She rotated back to Nadi and met his eyes, speaking in a loud, worried tone. “Nadi . . . was your barrier placed in front of the elevator or behind it?”
Nadi’s eyes began to widen in terror. “ANANYA, RU—“
The elevator doors behind them exploded.
From the wreckage of floating glass and metal emerged the worm’s enormous, purple head. It thrashed around in jerky, violent movements, and despite having no facial features, it seemed focused entirely on their escape attempt.
“GO, GO, GO!” Aarav yelled, shoving Ananya into the tunnel.
Reyansh began to run toward the door. As soon as he moved, the worm aimed itself at him and reared back. Its bottom half seemed stuck in the elevator shaft, but it didn’t need complete freedom to catch its prey. The sticky, white proboscis emerged from its mouth and snagged Reyansh by the upper torso and head mid-step. The attack altered his momentum, and he flipped into the air. Before he ever had a chance to land back on the ground, the proboscis retracted.
GLP . . .
“Reyansh!” Nadi cried.
GLP . . .
“Fucking get in this tunnel now!” Aarav replied, horror and anger filling his voice.
GLP.
Nadi dove through the door’s opening, rolling into a thin sheet of waste. Behind him, there was another, much louder, metallic tearing. Aarav quickly followed him, working his way around the outer side of the door as he pulled it closed.
“It’s all the way out of the elevator now,” Aarav said, his voice strangely calm.
Nadi jumped to his feet to support the door’s weight so Aarav could squeeze through. As soon as he touched it, though, there was a mighty SLAM, and the door pushed against him. Something warm sprinkled against Nadi’s left cheek.
“It . . . has . . . me . . .” Aarav managed to wheeze, his voice wet and strained.
“Oh no,” Priya whispered.
Aiming his shoulder flashlight at Aarav, Nadi saw the man trapped, his upper torso diagonally bisected by the pressure of the door against the frame. Blood oozed from his nose and mouth, his eyes pink and bloodshot. Nadi could hear the slow cracking of Aarav’s spine and ribcage, like thick branches pulled from a tree.
Eyes welling up with frustrated tears, Nadi slammed his shoulder against the door. “No! You’re so close!”
The metal didn’t budge. In trying to catch Aarav, the worm must have slithered against the door, and the pressure and weight was keeping him trapped there. Nadi pounded against the metal, trying to scare away the creature, but nothing happened. He looked back over at Aarav and, through his tears, saw the man go limp, his eyes unblinking.
Nadi stepped away from the tunnel door, his body numb. A rustling noise came from the other side of the door, and some pressure must have relieved, because Aarav’s body slid all the way to the ground. Before long, Aarav was pulled through the crack back into the laboratory.
GLP . . .
The distance between the PAUS field and the tunnel entrance left a little room for water to begin pooling into their side. Nadi strode back to the vault-like door.
GLP . . .
He clutched its handles and slammed it closed. Through the metal, he heard the worm one last time.
GLP.
Then, deafening silence.
Nadi’s face contorted in anger, and he punched his knuckles against the door. “He bhagavaan! Madarchod ke aulaad!”
He kept punching the door, over and over, ignoring the blood that began to drip from his
hand.
Something wrapped around his arm and Nadi yelped, jumping. He whipped around to see Ananya standing there. He leaned his head on her shoulder and wept into her hair. They huddled there for a moment, while Priya stood close by, her head hung in sorrow.
Slowly, quietly, Nadi’s sobs petered out. He looked up the two women. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
The three trekked onward, forging into the darkness ahead.
Aquifer’s Report
01.07: “Flight”
Karnataka, India
April 18, 2006-B
The next hour passed uneventfully, and Nadi was grateful for the solace. The PAUS was no longer protecting them, so he deactivated the device, keeping it in standby just in case. A strange mix of energies filled the air, and he suspected that Ananya and Priya felt similarly. They should be happy to be alive and proud of their tenacity, but he also felt the poignant loss of their friends and . . . guilt. Others died while they still lived.
We will deal with this together, once we are safe.
After miles of travel, sunlight burned his eyes, announcing their emergence from the tunnels. Looking down, he could see the trickling water of the Varuna Canal at their feet. The group crawled up the grass-covered bank and reached level ground. Standing to his feet, Nadi observed their surroundings.
Dirt and patchy grass filled most of the horizon. Ahead of them, to the West, he could see the outline of the Waste Water Treatment Plant over some green trees a few kilometers away. To the right and behind them—the North and the East—they could make out small grey homes and businesses. A small mining town. To the South, all he could see was kilometers and kilometers of grass and trees, with Ennehole Lake near the horizon. Finally, to the Southeast, he saw the Mysore Airport runway stretch out like a welcoming arm.
“That’s where we’re going,” Nadi said, pointing toward the runway. “I have a friend there can help us get somewhere safe.” As the trio shuffled in the direction of the airport, he looked over at Ananya and nudged her. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
