Retroactivity

by Edwards, Micah

  The government was uneasy with this, uncertain that Seed ever fully understood the terms they had laid out in their three-hundred-page document, but Amygdala assured them that he at least grasped the basic concept: I don’t push you, you don’t push me.

  The creeping expansion of the Neverglades ceased. The government put up its warning signs. And people slowly adjusted to the alien oddity where the Everglades had once been. For the most part, they did this as humans so often do: by not thinking about it and pretending it wasn’t there.

  Mostly.

  “C’mon, Marc!” Sweat glistened off of Jorge’s brow as he held up a thick tree branch for his friend to duck under. “Look, there’s the sign! We’re almost there.”

  Ahead of the two men, a rusting metal sign stood at a slight angle in the soggy ground.

  GOVERNMENT PROPERTY

  NO TRESPASSING

  PUNISHABLE BY FINES OF

  UP TO $5,000 OR 5 YEARS

  Behind the sign, the rich greenery of the forest continued for another hundred yards or so. But beyond that, peeking through the green were glimpses of blue and purple, bright splashes of warning color.

  “Dude, this is a stupid dare,” laughed Marc, shoving through the trees. “What were we thinking?”

  “We were thinking that Delta Omegas don’t lose a bet!” responded Jorge.

  “Delta O!” chanted Marc. Jorge laughed at his enthusiasm.

  “All right, check it out. You wanna just grab a leaf from the edge?”

  “No, man, we gotta prove we took a step inside. That was the deal.”

  “How are we gonna do that?”

  “Look, see that flower growing there?” said Marc, pointing to a spot a dozen yards past where the foliage changed to its alien colors. “There’s a bunch of those inside, but I don’t see any of them at the edge. I’ll go get that, and you take a photo of me.”

  “No way, dude. I didn’t come all the way out here to be your secretary. You take a photo of me.”

  Marc rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. But then we’re swapping.”

  Jorge strode forward, the marshy ground sucking at his feet. Marc fished his phone out of his pocket and flipped it to camera mode while Jorge made his way to the flower and plucked it from the tree. He shook his hand, swearing.

  “Damn, that sucker’s sharp!” Jorge stuck his fingers into his mouth.

  “Quit whining and smile for the camera, you baby.”

  Jorge held the flower up and struck a pose. Just as Marc was taking the picture, though, Jorge suddenly stumbled forward as something grabbed his leg and yanked it backward into the swampy water behind him.

  “Hey! What? Ow!” he exclaimed, reaching into the mists to pull at his leg. Then he screamed, a look of pure pain and terror crossing his face briefly before he was hauled bodily into the water, vanishing in a tremendous spray. His arms windmilled briefly above the water, stirring the gathering mists, before they too were pulled beneath.

  “Jorge!” shouted Marc, dropping his phone and running forward. He splashed into the water, thrashing around. “Jorge! Where are you?”

  With no response from his friend, Marc was left flailing about at random, his hands cutting arcs through the water. Despite only seconds having passed, for long moments Marc encountered nothing but swamp. Finally, after several passes, he struck something solid and fleshy beneath the water, and he grabbed on with both hands.

  “Jorge!” Marc pulled, meeting strong resistance. He set his feet and pulled harder, and the thing in his grip finally tore free with a sound like wet cardboard ripping. Marc fell over backwards at the sudden release, landing on his backside, chest-deep in swamp water. He barely noticed, though. Marc stared in horror at what he held in both of his hands. What he had just torn free from the swamp’s grip was Jorge’s left arm, raggedly severed at the shoulder.

  Marc scrambled to his feet and lurched for the water’s edge. He had nearly made it when something viciously strong wrapped around his leg and jerked, pulling him back into the swamp. In desperation, he lunged forward, his hands wrapping around the trunk of the flowering tree. As he gripped it, though, its razor-sharp bark cut into his palms, slashing the skin. When the thing in the swamp pulled again, his hands slid and the bark cut deeply, scraping against the fine bones of his hands.

  By reflex, Marc let go, and was hauled bodily into the muck. His scream was cut off as his head dipped under the water, converting to a brief stream of bubbles. Soon, even those stopped.

  Marc’s phone lay unattended in the green grass, feet away from the Neverglades. The plucked flower floated on top of the swamp, bobbing in the settling water. A bloody smear dripped halfway down one side of the tree. Otherwise, there was no outward sign that the two men had ever been there.

  Within the swamp, though, Seed noted the trespass on its territory, and was displeased.

  Seed felt unwell. It was a persistent, nagging discomfort, nothing as clear-cut as the previous day’s intrusion. If the two humans on its land had been the equivalent of a stubbed toe, this was more akin to a stomach cramp. It was much more difficult to pinpoint the cause, and also potentially more concerning.

  The origin of the pain was from another border area, a fact which put Seed on alert. There were many things that could be causing this that were perfectly natural, everything from sinkholes to an overabundance of rain. However, they were much more likely to occur in the broad swathes of its interior, simply by virtue of size. Anything that happened on the borders was suspect by its very nature, and this reeked of humanity.

  Seed did not precisely think any of this. Seed was simply aware of it.

  Nothing in the area was currently capable of providing more feedback than the low-level awareness of a problem, so Seed directed winged investigators to the area. These had once been birds, but had now become part of Seed. In addition to their original purpose of seeding plants and maintaining the food chain, they now also provided much of the higher-level input Seed received. They were even capable of limited processing and analysis, a useful feature allowing them to function semi-autonomously once directed.

  The investigators’ report was worrisome. A large truck had stopped on an old road overlooking a remote finger of the swamp, and was offloading several tons of dirt into the area below. On its own, this would have been mildly irritating, but not worth addressing. However, dirt alone could not explain the unpleasant sensation Seed was feeling, so it probed further, raising tasters to sample the soil.

  Tendrils of mist uncurled from the swamp, slowly rising in a thickening cloud. Slowly, deliberately, they gathered and rolled forward, their feathery touch brushing over everything in their path. Seed felt the familiar sensations of the crystalline plants, the murky soup of the waters, the sharp grip of the investigators’ silicate nails where they grasped the trees. It felt its own life, and was pleased.

  But then the mists reached the new soil, and Seed’s mood swapped immediately to rage. The soil the truck was dumping was poisonous, radioactive. This was no mere oversight, an innocuous incursion. This was a deliberate assault. Whether it was caused by ignorance, recklessness or dislike, Seed neither knew nor cared. It had communicated with these people, reached an agreement. It had held itself in check out of respect and a mutual understanding of the importance of life. And for this agreement to be so flagrantly, callously violated spoke of a deep disrespect.

  It was possible that this was the action of a single rogue element. Seed understood that humanity did not live in harmony as it did, did not function as a single organism. And therefore, it would not yet retaliate in full. However, a message must be sent. Humanity needed to keep its factions in check, or Seed would hold humanity as a whole responsible.

  The truck continued to idle at the edge of the road while below it, the mists thickened into an opaque soup. The dirt pile slowly disappeared as the mists clambered up its sides, eventually blanketing it entirely. Seed began to deposit tiny fragments of the materials needed to isolate and contai
n the radioactive material, but that would be a slow process and would take many days to complete. The more immediate purpose of the mists was just to provide a blanket for what was about to come.

  The swamp miasma reached halfway up the hill to the road before the attack finally occurred. A tremendous tentacle, thicker around than a man’s torso, lashed up out of the mist. It wrapped around the truck’s rear axle and pulled, and the protesting truck was dragged backward to tumble down the slope. It crashed onto its recently deposited pile of dirt, momentarily scattering the mists, and for a moment something serrated and horrible was revealed, all edged tentacles and glittering facets.

  The mists rolled back in, and from within them came the sounds of crunching and metal under stress. Only minutes later, the badly mangled truck was launched out of the swamp, clearing the road entirely to crash down in the field on the far side. It had been crushed as if clenched in a giant fist. The cab dripped red with the blood of the driver.

  The driver had been dead well before this attack. Seed was unaware of this fact, and likely would not have considered the import had it known. Its truce was being violated, and a response had to be made.

  Seed reached out to its borders and pressed in all directions. The taster mists slowly rolled forth, the water lapped at the edges, and slowly, the ground, plants and any insects or animals unwise enough to remain in the area began to change.

  Seed felt the worked metal of the warning signs, a thing which it had been given to understand marked its borders. It rolled inexorably past them, luxuriating in the stretch.

  Days passed, and Seed’s fury grew. Far from accepting the chastisement at their invasion of its self, they had chosen to counterattack, as if not understanding that they were the aggressors here. It was still wounded and working to heal the seeping damage from the poison soil the truck had dumped, a painstaking process which was going more slowly than Seed had expected. And now it had a new trespasser, another human within its boundaries.

  Unlike the two from the other day, this one was not merely creeping around the edges, but was striding boldly inside. And rather than picking a single flower, this one was laying about with abandon, causing wanton destruction. Trees which had stood for decades, well before Seed’s conversion of the land, were being destroyed. The only motivation seemed to be the carnage itself. The felled trees were simply left lying on the ground or floating on the swamp as the intruder continued to carve a path deeper into Seed.

  At Seed’s direction, a thing which had been an alligator moved swiftly through the swamp. Stealthily, it swam up behind the intruder and latched onto its calf, pulling backwards and down to cripple it and drag it into the swamp.

  Shockingly though, the teeth barely even penetrated the skin, and its grip slid free entirely when it tried to pull downward. Before the alligator could make a second attempt, though, an enormous hand seized it by the back of its neck and lifted it bodily out of the water.

  “Look at you,” rumbled Molt, holding the thrashing creature at arm’s length. As the swamp muck dripped from the alligator’s scales, their bluish-purple sheen was revealed. Its eyes were gone, armored over like the rest of its body. Its stomach was no longer white but covered in a hard blue shell like the lower plate of a turtle.

  The alligator snapped and bit, lashing its tail and clawing out with all four feet in an attempt to gain purchase, but to no avail. Molt held it as easily as if it were a kitten.

  “I thought I got it bad,” she said. “But you can’t even function outside of here anymore, can you?”

  She switched her grip to the front of its neck, grasping it by the throat. With her other hand, she grabbed it just above its back legs, ignoring the thrashing claws that tore at her skin. With a grunt, she hefted the flailing creature above her head, then brought it crashing down across her knee.

  On the impact, its back snapped with a crack like breaking wood. The crystalline plate protecting its stomach shattered, sending shards everywhere. Seed felt its death like a broken finger and keened, mourning its loss.

  “Always wanted to do that,” said Molt. She stood up, rubbing her knee. “Ow. That hurt a lot more than I expected.”

  “You just smashed a stone alligator into your leg,” Lacuna’s voice spoke from a drone hovering above. “That’s probably gonna leave a bruise, yeah.”

  Molt grinned. “Still worth it.” She picked up the alligator’s corpse by its tail and swung it violently into a tree. With a crack, its skull collapsed. Broken teeth sprayed from its mouth.

  “Huh,” said Molt, disappointed. “I thought that’d be a better club.”

  She fished around in the swamp to recover her axe, then chopped at the tree with it, biting deeply into the trunk. Half a dozen more hits took a tremendous notch out of the tree’s base, leaving it rocking and unsteady. One solid shove from Molt sent it toppling over, crashing through small shrubs and sending up a brief fountain of water. Molt shook her hair in the spray and laughed.

  The drone dipped lower, its motors humming. “Molt! Time to get going.”

  “But I’m having fun,” pouted Molt.

  “Seed’s doing something. It’s time to move.”

  “What’s it going to do? More alligators?” Molt pounded one meaty fist into her opposite palm. “I could take a whole pack of alligators.”

  “No, something’s moving. I’m not sure what’s up. You’ve done good here, but it’s time to roll.”

  “One more tree,” said Molt, swinging the axe.

  As the axe head buried itself in the tree, a great rumbling shook the ground. Molt stumbled as the mud shifted beneath her, then lost her balance as the swamp waters suddenly began rushing past her legs, pulling her with them. She grabbed out at the nearest tree for support, but the sharp bark bit through even her thickened skin.

  Molt swore loudly, but held on as the rushing waters attempted to drag her away. Above her, the drone crackled out, “He’s opened a sinkhole! Molt, you’ve got to run!”

  With a herculean effort, Molt hauled herself entirely out of the water and crouched on the exposed roots of the tree. She surveyed her torn hands and sighed. “This is just gonna hurt.”

  Her first leap carried her over a dozen feet to the next solidly-rooted tree, its bark tearing at her already shredded palms as grabbed the trunk to steady herself on the landing. The tree shook under her weight, but remained upright. The next jump repeated the process, carrying her steadily toward solid ground.

  Over two dozen leaps later, Molt collapsed on her knees in the crystalline grass, her chest heaving with exertion. Her clothes were torn and blood ran freely from her hands.

  “That really sucked,” she gasped. “Ow! Even this damn grass is sharp.”

  “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” said the drone, drifting easily overhead. Molt cast a sullen glare at it.

  “You did good,” Lacuna told her again. “Exactly what we needed. You were perfect.”

  “Wouldn’t be any stupid razor trees if we were robbing a bank,” Molt muttered. Lacuna’s laughter pealed out through the drone’s speakers.

  Behind Molt, the mists roiled as Seed seethed. The sinkhole it had opened hurt, but not as much as the awareness that it had not stopped the attacker. No foreign body had been captured. Seed longed to continue the pursuit, but the shattered form of its alligator berserker gave it pause. Clearly, this intrusion was no accident. The attackers had come prepared, intent on doing damage and ready to protect themselves against retaliation. Seed had to assume that they were ready to counter anything it could send against them outside of its own territory.

  The waters bubbled, heaved and slowly subsided to fit the new configuration of the land as Seed considered. This could not go unanswered, but neither was it wise to rush in unprepared. It would craft a reply, something that would make its displeasure known. It would depend on no intermediaries, but would construct a component to speak for it directly.

  In the shallow muck of one of its outlying regions, Seed found t
he perfect base material and began its new construction. Simultaneously, it took steps to increase its perimeter defenses. Its new stormcrows would not be ready for a day or more, and it could not assume that there would be no further attacks in that time. Although Seed was not yet ready to strike, it would assiduously defend against any further attacks on itself.

  Along Seed’s expanded borders, the purplish grass began to harden and crystallize further. It was a slow process and the grass looked much the same afterward, but an observant watcher might have noted that this grass no longer waved with the breeze or the slow ebb and flow of water. However, there was no one around to observe.

  XI

  “Naturally, no one outside of the swamp knew any of this. Yet.”

  Jerry Kinkaid loved to people-watch. He always told his friends that that was a large part of the reason he’d moved to Miami. Tourists were the most fun to watch, because they were most likely to be doing or wearing something ridiculous at any given time. And Miami was constantly full of tourists. Even the people who actually lived there acted more like tourists than the residents of any other city Jerry had ever been to. Day or night, there was always something entertaining, unusual or bizarre to be seen.

  Today was no different. Already Jerry, sitting on his usual bench in the park, had watched an engagement, a breakup, and what appeared to be a man rehearsing lies to tell his boss about why he’d missed work. Jerry had to hand it to the guy; he looked very earnest when he delivered the lines to the air. If he was half as convincing when he gave the explanation to his boss, he’d likely get away with it, in Jerry’s opinion.

  Suddenly, a strange figure caught Jerry’s eye. It was the walk that first attracted his attention. The man moved at a good clip, his walking speed slightly faster than average, but he limped as if his left leg pained him. His lurching, jerky stride made him stand out from the people around him, causing his head to bob and weave in and out of Jerry’s view.