Major Karnage (22 page)

Karnage’s eyes goggled. “That
thing
is your uncle?!”

The sphere blinked its lens at Karnage. “Of course not. What a
preposterous supposition. What you are looking at is simply a drone.
One of many, in case you haven’t noticed. They are my eyes and ears
in the compound. I am sequestered elsewhere.”

“Why?”

“I have my . . . reasons.”

“He’s a close family friend,” Sydney said. “And he is doing
everything in his power to save your life.”

Karnage looked down at his bandaged shoulder. “Why? What’s
wrong with my shoulder?”

The drone bobbed up and down. “Very little, actually. The bullet
passed right through the shoulder, missing the scalpula and brachial
plexus completely. You should be laid up for a few days at the most.
No, your shoulder isn’t the problem.”

A second pair of drones floated down and pulled back the sheet
covering Karnage’s leg. A shining metal band wrapped around the
middle of its shin.

“What the hell is that?” Karnage said.

The nearest drone flashed its lens at Karnage. His tentacles
quivered with excitement. “That is all that stands between you and
the unknown frontiers of science!”

“What the hell’s he talking about? What the fuck is wrong with
my leg?”

“Technically, nothing,” the drone said. “Which is the source of
your trouble.”

“What do you mean? What the hell are you talking about!”
Karnage barked.

“It’s your ankle,” Sydney said. “You twisted it in the arena. You
could barely walk on it. Remember? And then on the ship, hours
later—”

“It was fine.” Karnage looked down at his foot. The hairs on the
back of his neck stood on end. “What did those squidbugs do to me?”

Sydney turned to a drone hovering by her shoulder. “Show him.”

The drone beside Karnage swivelled its lens at Sydney. It
squealed: “Delighted!”

Three drones descended from the ceiling. Their lenses zoomed
out, and projected light, each one projecting a different primary
colour. The beams intersected, creating a holographic projection of
a DNA double helix.

“Human DNA,” the drone beside Karnage said. “The building
blocks of all life on earth.”

The double helix shifted to the right, and three strings of
vibrating noodles affixed with shifting coloured beads squiggled
in beside it. They tangled and untangled themselves randomly,
twitching in agitation whenever they made contact. The coloured
beads jumped from one strand to another when the strands touched.

The drone beside Sydney hovered closer to the projection.
“Extraterrestrial DNA,” it said. “The building blocks of the alien
infestation. Unstable. Volatile. Infectious.”

The twitching strands lashed out and grabbed the double helix,
tearing it apart, wrapping itself into the debris. The beads flew loose
from the strands and rocketed about the morass like a hurricane. It
looked like a violent feeding frenzy.

“What happened? What is that? Is that what’s happenin’ inside
o’ me?!”

“As near as Uncle can tell,” Sydney said, “the squidbugs fixed your
ankle with an injection of their own genetic material. But it’s doing
something more than just repairing the damage. It’s . . . rewriting
your genetic code.”

“Rewriting it into what?!”

“And that is where we stumble into the unknown!” The drone
beside Karnage squealed. “It is rewriting your genetic structure,
taking the best genes from your DNA and combining it with select
genes from itself, synthesizing a new hybrid creature.”

“What do you mean a hybrid creature? What the hell is it turnin’
me into?!”

The drone clapped a set of tentacles together. “It’s unpredictable!
The infestation takes so many shapes. The possibilities are endless!”

“I wish you wouldn’t sound so pleased about this, Uncle,” Sydney
said.

The drone beside her placed a tentacle on her shoulder. “I’m
sorry, my dear. I just get so excited about new discoveries. Please.
Forgive my enthusiasm, Major.”

Karnage didn’t care. He was staring at his foot. It didn’t feel
different. And yet, somewhere, deep inside of him, the squidbug
DNA was attacking, changing him into something he didn’t want.
Suddenly the invasion had become personal. So much more personal
than Karnage could ever have imagined. Rage boiled up inside him.
He wouldn’t let them get away with it. He wouldn’t let them win. Not
like this. Not now.

Karnage laid back and closed his eyes. “Cut it off,” he said.

He heard the whirring of the lens on the drone beside him.
“What?”

“I said cut it off! I’m not gonna just lie here and let those squidbugs
turn me into something I’m not. I’m me. I’m Major Karnage. Any
part of me that says otherwise can go to hell. So cut this fucking
thing off. NOW!”

Sydney stared at Karnage in shock. “You can’t be serious.”

“What part of my little tirade made it sound like I was joking?”

“You won’t be able to walk—”

“I’ll strap a fucking chainsaw to my leg if I have to! I’m not lettin’
those squidbug bastards get the upper hand!”

“Upper hand? Listen to what you’re saying! It’s like cutting off
your nose to spite your face!”

“Who said anything about cuttin’ off my nose?! It’s my foot that’s
gettin’ all up in my face! So cut that monkeyfucker off!”

“Ooh!” Another drone descended from the ceiling, squealing.
It stopped above his leg. “So dramatic. So final! And so wholly
unnecessary.” The drone tapped the metal band on Karnage’s leg.
“The UVL blocker is containing the infection. It soaks it up, like a
sponge, and should prevent further contamination until I discover
a means of extraction.”

“Extraction? You mean you could cure me?”

“Not at the moment, no, otherwise I would have. Extraction is
not yet within my grasp. But I will find a cure, rest assured. Some
sort of stem cell vaccine is my current favoured approach. While
not exactly the most elegant of solutions, it just might do the job.
I’ve taken the liberty of harvesting some of your unfused genetic
material and cataloguing it in my database. You don’t mind, of
course. I thought it would be prudent in case some unforeseen
complication causes the infection to spread.”

Karnage’s mind was reeling from the mental assault. “Wait. How
do you know so much about the squidbugs?”

Sydney took a breath, as if she’d been dreading this. “He’s been
studying them,” she said.

“Oh yes,” the drone beside Karnage’s head chirped. “Quite
extensively, if I may be so bold.”

“How extensively?” Karnage asked.

“Would you like me to show you?”

“Please,” Karnage said. “Do.”

The drone clapped its tendrils. “Excellent!” It turned to Sydney.
“Please be a dear and let the good major up.”

Sydney looked warily at Karnage. “I don’t think that’s such a
good idea,” she said.

“I do,” Karnage said.

“As do I.” The drone beside Sydney patted her on the arm. “You
have been outvoted, my dear.”

Sydney moved beside Karnage’s bed and prepared to tap him on
the neck. “I’ve always hated democracy,” she said.

A drone led Karnage and Sydney out of the room and down a spiral
staircase. They came out into the glare of sunlight, at the base of a
water tower. The tower was in the shape of Dabby Tabby’s head, the
oval windows making up the cat’s long-faded eyes. Streaks of rust
ran down its face. The words WELCOME TO LAKE DABNEY were
still visible across Dabby’s forehead.

The water tower stood in the middle of an abandoned amusement
park. Twists of sagging roller coaster stretched across the sky,
threatening to give way and fall on their heads. The bright colours
of the fairground had long faded to a dull grey. Splash pads stood
empty and cracked. Bright red water slides had faded to sickly pink
in the harsh sunlight. Tattered canopies on sagging shelters leaned
against each other like drunkards so that the whole compound
looked like a teetering house of cards that threatened to fall down if
you looked at it funny.

“What kind of idiot builds a waterpark in the desert?” Karnage
said.

“Waterpark?” Sydney said. “What is this waterpark you speak
of?”

“The one we’re standin’ in,” Karnage said.

“You must be mistaken,” Sydney said. “There is no waterpark.”

“What the hell are you talking about? We’re standin’ right in the
middle of it!”

“Nope,” Sydney said. “Must be your imagination. The Dabney
Corporation never built a waterpark. Especially one that failed
catastrophically. Not here. Not anywhere. If they did, people would
know about it. And they don’t. And that has nothing to do with
the Dabney Corporation wiping their failures off the record books.
Because the Dabney Corporation never makes a mistake. Never does
anything wrong. Go ahead. Ask them. They’ll set you straight.”

“Okay, I get it. Thank you, Madame Sarcasm.”

“Are you sure?” Sydney said. “I could go on.”

“I’m sure you could.”

“This way, if you please.” The drone led them towards a cracked
concrete building. A sagging fish-shaped sign read JOURNEY
UNDER THE SEA. They entered the dark building, its cool concrete
walls a relief from the harsh desert sun. The drone led them through
a long grey tunnel, their only company the echo of their own
footsteps. The tunnel walls changed from crumbling concrete to an
arched corridor of scratched acrylic. Beyond the tunnel walls lay an
entire alien world. Karnage recognized orange creeper hanging from
a grey alien tree, its branches twitching like fingers. Giant purple
ladybugs scuttled through the pinkstink undergrowth, hiding
behind massive blue seed pods that swelled and exhaled plumes
of yellow mist. Occasionally a drone appeared through the yellow
gloom, repositioning a purple lady bug, or pruning a bit of creeper
before disappearing back into the mist. They reminded Karnage of
old women tending their gardens.

The drone stroked the glass with a tendril. Its lens zoomed in
towards the enclosure. “Such fine specimens. It’s taken me so long
to develop this collection. To think it all started with just a few
spore samples. They matched nothing in the records. They weren’t
even carbon-based life forms. They were sulphur-based. At least, in
the beginning. Then they did something marvellous. Something I
still can’t quite explain. They became compatible with carbon-based
life. You recall the Carpathian Flu epidemic?”

“No,” Karnage said.

“I do,” Sydney said. “It killed thousands. Took ’em years to come
up with a vaccine.”

“That wasn’t a vaccine,” the drone said. “It was a genetic modifier,
designed to improve our compatibility with the spores. They were
the cause of it, you know. Not the Carpathians.”

“It’s always easier to blame Carpathia,” Karnage said.

The drone bobbed, as if nodding. “Better to blame Carpathia
than admit the truth: they were taking the first steps to adapting
us to the alien DNA.”

“I thought you said the squidbugs were adapting to us?” Karnage
said.

The drone nodded. “They were. And we, in turn, have been
adapting to them.”

Karnage gazed out into the misty alien landscape and scowled.
“Evolution at work.”

The drone’s lens flickered, as if blinking in surprise. “Oh no.
There is nothing natural about these selections.” The drone turned
towards the glass. “Look at these creatures. They have been adapted
so perfectly to life on this planet. One establishes a foothold, subtly
alters its environs, allowing the next in the chain to establish a
foothold. Each successive creature becomes more and more complex,
until . . .” The drone stared into the mist, adjusted its lens as if
searching for something. “Now where
is
he?”

A soft shadow was just barely visible through the gloom,
shambling slowly. The drone tapped the glass excitedly. “Here, Fido.
Come here.”

The shadow stopped, as if listening, then drew back, and
disappeared into the mist.

It burst out of the fog, and slammed into the glass, scratching at
it with its claws. It snarled and screeched, its skin flashing a deep
crimson red.

It was a squidbug.

“This is my latest acquisition,” the drone said cheerily. “I only
picked him up about a week ago. I’m hoping that he completes my
collection. Admittedly, this collection still requires the horned
worms and winged leviathans, but they’re simply far too large to
keep in this enclosure. One must make sacrifices after all.”

The squidbug snarled and scratched at the glass, pounding at it
with its fists. The tentacles around its mouth splayed out, revealing
a sharp beak. It turned to bite and snap at the glass, its twin tongues
slithering out, smearing slime across the glass.

“I’ve never seen one so enraged,” Sydney said.

“That’s because it has been cut off,” the drone said. “These
creatures do not act of their own free will. There is a guiding force
behind everything they do. They are analogous to workers and
warriors in a giant ant colony. There is something—a queen of
sorts—that guides the entire ecosystem. These creatures adapt
and change to their environment almost instantly. They have
been engineered by some sort of intelligence, and that intelligence
continues to mold them as the infestation progresses.”

“How?” Karnage said. “How do they do it?”

The drone shot out a hologram of a rotating three-dimensional
graph of gyrating squiggles. As Karnage saw it from different angles,
he was reminded of the squiggles on Cookie’s arms.