Major Karnage (28 page)

“Quick! Through here!” Sydney led Karnage up a set of concrete
steps. The groaning overhead turned to cracking, and increasingly
bigger chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling. Sydney pulled on
the door. “It’s locked!” Karnage aimed his pistol up at the knob and
shot it off. His Sanity Patch crooned “Frothy Cream” as they dove
through the door. The ceiling gave a final creak and came crashing
down behind them.

Karnage and Sydney lay coughing in a heap on the floor. The dust
slowly settled around them.

“You all right?” Karnage asked.

Sydney nodded. “I think so.”

They got up and looked at the doorway behind them which had
disappeared, replaced with a twisted pile of metal and concrete.

“Guess we’re not goin’ back that way,” Karnage said.

Sydney looked down the other end of the hatchway. Pipes
ran along the walls. “Looks like a maintenance tunnel,” she said.
“Hopefully it comes out somewhere on the other end.”

“Hopefully? You mean you don’t know where this goes?”

“It should come around to another platform or tunnel.”

“It should?”

“Yeah.” She pointed at the mangled mess behind them. “So long
as it doesn’t end like that.”

They followed the tunnel deep into the darkness. It ended at
another maintenance hatch. They opened it, and found themselves
in another subway tunnel. The air was thick with toxic yellow mist.
Creeper hung from the ceiling in long draping strands. The floor of
the tunnel was thick with pinkstink, and Karnage caught a glimpse
of the back of a purple ladybug burrowing into the undergrowth.

Sydney brushed the creeper aside and read a set of numbers on
the wall. “88-01,” she said. “We’re near the city’s core. We’re on the
wrong side of it, though.”

“What do you mean, wrong side?”

“The city’s built around the mountain, so the core is spread
around the base. It’s going to take some time to get to the other
side.”

They felt the ground shake and rumble as if a subway train was
approaching. They scrambled back through the maintenance hatch
as a train of horned worms rumbled past, squiggling and screeching
as they went.

They waited for the shaking and screeching to fade to nothing
before peeking back out.

“What the hell is going on down here?” Sydney exclaimed.

“Only one way to find out.” Karnage stepped out and looked
down both ends of the tunnel. Light seemed to be coming from a
junction near the north end. “What’s down that way?”

“Nothing,” Sydney said. “It’s a dead end.”

“Doesn’t look so dead to me. There’s light coming from down
there.”

“There shouldn’t be. That would lead straight into the mountain.
There’s nowhere for the track to go.”

“But it’s goin’ somewhere. Let’s find out where.”

They pressed themselves against the wall of the tunnel, following
it towards the light. They kept an eye out for maintenance hatches
in case another train of worms came down the tunnel.

The air grew thicker with yellow mist, stinging eyes and
offending nostrils. Karnage heard Sydney cough and gasp behind
him.

The tunnel ended at a thick canopy of creeper. Bright shafts of
light poked through. Karnage and Sydney parted the creeper and
walked through.

They were in a wide clearing. Sheer rock walls scaled up behind
them. The ground was covered in pinkstink. Grey trees grew up from
the underbrush, their bare branches laden with orange creeper.
Giant pods expelling yellow mist covered the ground. Karnage felt
like they had walked into Uncle’s squidbug terrarium.

Sydney tugged at Karnage’s arm. She was staring straight up.
“Look,” she whispered, eyes wide.

They were at the bottom of a chasm. Sheer rock walls rose up
on all sides, hemming them in. Tunnel entrances laced with orange
creeper ran around the perimeter. The mountain had been hollowed
out, and they were standing inside it. High above them, just visible
through the yellow mist, green lights flickered across a black,
panelled mass.

It was the squidbug mothership.

Karnage grinned. “Perfect.”

“Perfect?” Sydney stared at him, her mouth agape. “I think this
is a hell of a long way off from perfect! In fact, I don’t think you can
get any further away from perfect than this! We have to get the hell
out of here.”

“No,” Karnage said firmly. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

“You can’t take on all these aliens by yourself.”

“I know that,” Karnage said. “I’m talkin’ about gatherin’ intel.

That’s why we’re here. To figure out what’s goin’ on. We wanted to
know what the Dabney Corporation had to do with the squidbugs.

Now it’s lookin’ like they’ve got quite a bit to do with ’em.”
He led them away from the tunnel and behind a creeper-laden
boulder. Karnage peered out from behind the boulder, observing the
squidbug invasion in action.

A line of trucks emerged from a tunnel entrance beside them.
Dabby Tabby was painted on the side, jumping out of a blue
container. Karnage pointed them out to Sydney. “What are those?”

“Automated sanitation trucks,” she said.

The trucks pulled up to a giant pile of debris in the middle of the
clearing. They dumped their contents onto the pile and disappeared
back into the tunnel. Squidbugs stood around the pile, sorting the
debris into bins. One of the squidbugs picked up a plastic water
bottle and covertly ate it. Another squidbug swatted the first, and
pointed to the pile. The chastised squidbug bent down and resumed
sorting.

A horned worm rumbled up to the pile. Its face was covered with
a metal plate. A squidbug stood atop the worm, steering it by the
horn. It lined the worm’s metal faceplate up with the nearest bin.
The bin latched itself onto the metal plate, as if pulled by magnets.
The squidbug steered the worm around and carried the bin to a
massive smoking pit where it dumped the contents of the bin into
the pit. Flames shot up from the pit’s depths.

“What the hell are they doing?” Sydney hissed.

“They’re suckin’ up our resources,” Karnage said. “Suckin’ the
planet dry.” He watched the recycling trucks motor back through
the creeper, and clenched his fist. “And the Dabney Corporation’s
helpin’ ’em do it.”

“But why? What’s in it for them?”

“Let’s find old Stevie boy and ask him,” Karnage said.
They heard a rustling behind them, turned, and saw a bright
burning ember just visible through the trees. Green energy crackled
along an invisible shaft as the air behind the trees started to
shimmer.

“Run!”

Karnage and Sydney jumped clear just as an energy ball
vaporized their boulder. Sydney rose up on one knee and fired a
blast of goober, pinning the squidbug to the tree. Other squidbugs
were racing towards them, their energy spears crackling.
“Let’s go, Captain!”

Karnage ran towards the nearest tunnel opening. He ripped aside
the creeper, surprising a squidbug in the middle of eating a D-Pad.
Karnage punched it in what he hoped was its jaw. He didn’t hit bone,
but the squidbug squealed and went down. His neck buzzed, and
the Sanity Patch hit Lemon Breeze. The air behind him sizzled as an
energy ball flew by.

“Keep moving, Major!” Sydney shouted.

Karnage raced down the corridor with Sydney close behind. They
pushed through creeper as energy balls crackled behind them. A
deep, jagged line of sound tore through the tunnel, nearly knocking
them off their feet. The earth shook. Without looking back, Karnage
knew that somewhere behind the veil of creeper there was a worm
hurtling towards them.

“Over here!” Sydney pointed to a set of concrete steps poking out
of the creeper. She raced up the stairs and pushed the vines aside,
revealing a metal door. She pulled on the knob, and the hinges
squeaked in protest. It opened a fraction of an inch. Karnage stuck
his fingers through the opening, and together they yanked the door
open. A green ball burned a tunnel through the creeper behind
them. They caught a glimpse of squiggly crimson head as they ran
through the door.

It was a steam tunnel.

They ran blindly down the corridor. They could hear the
clattering of squidbug claws on the concrete, and on the giant pipe
running beside them. Karnage looked down at the pipe, and watched
the stencilled words fly by on its surface as he ran. The words flew
by in sync with the squidbug’s clattering:
caution-steam-hot-cautionsteam-hot-caution-steam-hot.

Karnage looked at Sydney’s back through the gloom getting
smaller and smaller. She was pulling ahead. Karnage was starting
to slow. His muscles burned; he wasn’t as young as he used to be. He
heard the squidbugs getting closer behind them, their claws clacking
along the pipe:
caution-steam-hot-caution-steam-hot-caution-steamhot.
Sydney turned. “Come on, Major! You can do it!”
Karnage shook his head. His shoulder was starting to ache. He
stopped and caught his breath. The clacking along the pipe grew
louder:
caution-steam-hot-caution-steam-hot-caution-steam-hot.
Sydney stopped running. “What are you stopping for? Come on,
let’s go!”

Karnage shook his head. “I can’t.” He drew his pistol.

“Don’t be an idiot, Major,” Sydney shouted. “You can’t take them
on by yourself!”

“I’m not.” Karnage emptied the gun into the steam pipe, ripping
open a wide gaping hole. Fountains of steam shot into the corridor,
billowing towards him. Karnage turned and ran. His Sanity Patch
buzzed incessantly as the steam burned the back of his neck. He
heard loud squiggly cries of pain behind him. There was a faint whiff
of steamed calamari in the air, and the rhythmic clacking on the
pipe stopped.

The steam tunnel joined with a narrow maintenance shaft that
Karnage could barely fit in. Thick cables marked HIGH VOLTAGE
hummed inches from his face. As they shuffled along, the Sanity
Patch downgraded from Strawberry Shortcake all the way down
to Citrus Blast. Karnage hadn’t realized how close he had come to
blowing his own head off.
So much for thinking.

They finally came out into a dimly lit maintenance room.
Karnage leaned against the wall and slid down. He looked at the
empty pistol in his hands and tossed it away in disgust.

“What’s up?” Sydney said.

Karnage stared at the discarded pistol lying on the floor. “It
didn’t work.”

“What didn’t work?”

“All of Uncle’s training. At this rate I’m still gonna blow my head
off before I make any headway.”

“It didn’t work because you weren’t thinking,” Sydney said. “You
were reacting. And under the circumstances, I think that was the
way to go.”

Karnage ran his fingers through his hair. “I came this close to
runnin’ out of Sanity Levels. I almost . . .” He moved to throw a
punch in the air and stopped himself.

Sydney crouched down beside him and gently took his clenched
fist. She uncurled his fingers and clasped his palm in her hands. She
looked into his eyes. “You haven’t been doing this long enough for it
to be automatic yet. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just try and focus
on your long-term goals. It’s like learning to ride a bike. You’ve been
able to get up a few times now, but you’re still gonna fall off now and
again.”

“If I fall off much more than that then I’m gonna lose my head.”

“Then it’s a good thing there’s two of us down here, isn’t it? Why
don’t you let me be the brawn for awhile, and you can play at being
the brains. Okay?”

You’ve just gotta use your head.
Karnage nodded. “Okay.”

Sydney playfully slapped him on the cheek and stood up. “Right,
now what say we figure out where we are?”

They opened the door of the maintenance room and found
themselves in a wide hall. The marble floor gleamed. Extravagant
chandeliers hung from the ceiling. A giant statue stood in the centre
of the room of Galt Dabney holding the hand of Dabby Tabby. Great
slabs of marble jutted from the walls, an engraved plaque stamped
on each.

“What is this place?” Karnage said.

Sydney looked around, her eyes wide. “I’d heard the rumours, but
I never thought . . .”

“What?” Karnage asked. “What is it?”

She turned her eyes back to Karnage. “It’s The Vault.”

“What’s ‘The Vault’?”

“The official Dabney archives.” She eyed the slabs lining the
walls. “And crypt.”

They followed the length of the hall to a set of gleaming golden
doors. Galt Dabney’s face was etched into its surface. “This is it.”
Sydney stroked the door in awe. “His final resting place. I wonder . . .”
She pulled on the door.

“What are you doing?” Karnage said.

“I have to know,” she said. Her eyes gleamed. “I have to know if
it’s true.”

She pulled the door open a crack and slipped inside. Her voice
echoed from the other side. “They did it. I can’t believe it. They
actually did it!”

“What?” Karnage said. “What did they do?”

“Come in and see.”

Karnage pushed through the door into the room. The walls were
covered with shelves upon shelves of books. Circular stairways
led up to long catwalks running the length of the room. Crystal
chandeliers hung underneath the catwalks, casting the room in soft
yellow light. The guard rails were decorated with Dabby Tabby faces
constructed from wrought iron. Two arm chairs sat facing a giant
screen set into a carved oak cabinet in the middle of the room. A
polished glass case had been mounted on top of the cabinet.