Major Karnage (40 page)

“You never found a better choice than me. You were duped.
Bamboozled. Cookie figured out a way to use your own damn
arrogance against you. I get it now. Oh, I get how he did it. And it’s a
thing o’ beauty. The kind of thing only somebody like Cookie would
see.

“You think you’re better than me. Thought you could do better
than some crazy old man locked up in an insane asylum. I think I
damn well offended your sensibilities. Hell, you probably hung your
head in shame when you saw I was the best the Earth had to offer.
You couldn’t stand it, could you? And old Cookie, all he had to do
was whisper that sweet poison in your ear: ‘Here’s someone better.
Here’s someone a little more to your likin’.’ And you fell for it. Hook,
line, and sinker. What a dupe. Oh, what a dupe.

“So go ahead. Kill me. Destroy your perfect host. Considerin’ all
the time and effort you put into finding little old insignificant me,
I’m thinkin’ you need the host to be perfect. Otherwise, why go with
me? Why not a Dabney? I bet they were linin’ up to volunteer. No.
You need me for some reason. I don’t get what, but you do. But it
don’t matter, does it? Cuz you’re gonna kill me anyway.”

“You lie,” the Intelligence said. “You’re trying to save your life.”

Karnage shook his head. “Nope. Wrong again. It ain’t me I’m
tryin’ to save. It’s Sydney. Let her go. She ain’t a good match. She’s a
tight fit, remember? You’re not gonna wear her in. You’re just gonna
wear her out. And what happens then? Shit, I’d love to see that. Love
to see you with egg on your face. You’ll probably spew some bullshit
to cover your ass, but that won’t matter. Cuz I know—I know right
now. So you torture me all you like, cuz I’m gonna laugh my ass off
the whole time. I’m gonna laugh my way right to hell.”

The Intelligence looked suspiciously at Karnage from behind
Sydney’s eyes. Karnage went on: “You got ways of checkin’ this, don’t
you? I’m sure someone as high and mighty as you must have some
way of sniffin’ out a primitive old mind like Cookie’s. Go on. Give it
a shot. See for yourself if I’m wrong.”

The Intelligence made Sydney scowl. Green energy blasts shot
out of her hair and up through the pipes. The pipes all glowed,
flowing back and forth, coursing with activity, becoming more and
more frenetic until a single little line of white streaked up out of the
green. It shot through the green and back into Sydney’s hair. The
Intelligence made Sydney scream in fury.

“See? You’re not so shit hot after all, are you? Just another
blowhard, tryin’ to act like you’re all god this and infinite that. But
you’re nothin’. Cuz I’m right here, and you ain’t inside of me.

“So come on, buddy. Let’s go. You and me: brain to brain.
Cerebro
a cerebro.
Quit hidin’ inside her, and let me see what you’re really
made of.”

The Intelligence filled Sydney’s face with hate, and then her eyes
rolled into the back of her head before she dropped to the ground.

A railroad spike slammed into Karnage’s brain, splitting it
in half. His vision clouded over as a strange voice inside his head
reverberated strongly in his ears.

Ah, you were so right, Major. This is much more comfortable.

A jagged streak of squiggles tore across Karnage’s eyes. His head
throbbed. He felt the Intelligence stab needles through his brain,
pulling apart his mind from the inside. The walls of his consciousness
were caving in. His vision was a jumble of vibrating squiggles. Only
a tiny corner of his eyes were his own. He struggled up on all fours.
His body refused to work properly as it tried to process orders from
two separate consciousnesses. He tried to crawl around the room,
barely aware of what his own body was actually doing. Pain coursed
through his head, ricocheting from one lobe to the other.

The squiggles populated and multiplied, filling every corner of
his mind. He recognized each for what it was: a million and one
communications to every part of the ship—to every part of the
invasion. Even from this far out in space, the Intelligence continued
to calmly give out its orders. He caught glimpses of Velasquez and
Koch firing round after round into an oncoming horde of squidbugs
that poured out of the hatchways. He saw the floating bodies of
Darla and Upchuck in their spheres as the alien DNA slowly went
to work beneath their skin, experimenting with new shapes and
forms. Faint strands of white were also visible through the morass
of squiggles. He reached out to them, and they gave him strength.
Karnage wasn’t sure if it was Cookie, or just his own mind trying to
remind him of what he had to do.

Karnage was drowning in the Intelligence’s thoughts. He felt like
he was swimming in the ocean in the middle of a hurricane, trying
to navigate a never-ending barrage of roiling tidal waves. Karnage
twisted his head, trying to see what he could of the oval chamber—
the cerebral cortex of the invasion. He knew how all of the pieces
worked. How the Nucleus provided more than just a safe haven from
attack, but was also a gateway to other dimensions. Other realities.
It was an anomaly unto itself, created long before the Intelligence
first gained awareness as it had slipped from its own dimension into
this one.

And then there were the memories of all the times before, on
other worlds, where again and again beings of impossible varieties
had tried to stop the Intelligence and its invasion. It had been
dispersed by thousands of explosions over the years. Some with the
power of a hydrogen bomb. Some with the power of a hand grenade.
But the result was always the same: it coalesced, willed itself back
into shape, and resumed its attack. Sometimes it took years to pull
itself back together. Sometimes millenia. But it always came back.
And it always won.

But there was something else that was clear as well: it always
hurt. It hurt like hell to be dissipated by an explosion. And it would
do anything to avoid that pain. It had bluffed Karnage, banking on
his affection for Sydney not to fire that rocket. And it had worked.

But it couldn’t hide behind that bluster now. Karnage knew
everything it knew. But if he didn’t figure out something fast, soon
he wouldn’t know anything else. He was losing his mind to the
Intelligence. He could feel his memories slipping away. He tried to
hold on to what Cookie had told him:

“You just gotta use your head.”

But Karnage was
losing his head. He was losing it fast. His
mind was being sucked into the Intelligence, becoming an
indistinguishable collection of squiggly synapses within its vast
consciousness. He thought of what Sydney’s Uncle had told him:

“I have learned to work within my limitations. You should learn to do
the same.”

But he was becoming more limited by the second as the squiggles
ripped layer after layer of his psyche away.

Karnage did what he could to hold on. Pulled together the bits
of himself that he could. The white strands pushed through the
squiggles and fed into his mind, reciting his mantra to him:
Cookie
Velasquez Heckler Koch Stumpy Sydney.
He joined its chorus, repeating
it more forcefully than ever:
Cookie Velasquez Heckler Koch Stumpy
Sydney. Cookie Velasquez Heckler Koch Stumpy Sydney.

The Intelligence laughed at his feeble efforts, and rubbed out each
name as the squiggles flayed them from his mind and incorporated
them into the Intelligence’s psyche.

Cookie Velasquez Heckler Koch Sydney

Cookie Velasquez Heckler Sydney

Cookie Velasquez Sydney

Cookie Sydney

Sydney

Sydney

Sydney

He didn’t know why, but his mind wouldn’t give her up. Perhaps
it was because she was still there where he could see her. Perhaps it
was something else. Perhaps it was those persistent white strands.
The squiggles poured in closer, and some of the white strands
disappeared. But the few that remained kept pumping thoughts into
him. They repeated her name louder and louder in his head:
Sydney
Sydney Sydney!

Karnage caught the tip of the energy spear in his vision. And
suddenly he knew everything about it. He knew how it worked. It
wasn’t a weapon at all. It was a teleportation device. Any target shot
with it would be taken to central processing on the main ship where
it would be analyzed, filed, sorted, and then put into storage before
being pulled out whenever the Intelligence saw fit to do so. Karnage
grabbed hold of the spear and flicked it on—it was so easy to do
now. How was it that he had never figured it out before? He aimed
a crackling ball of energy at Sydney and fired. She disappeared,
leaving a smoking crater behind. Karnage knew she would be safe
in central processing. At least for a while. Until the Intelligence was
done with him. Until he could figure out what to do. Until he could
figure out if he could do anything.

The white strands pumped more thoughts into his emptying
mind:
Good work, old man. We’re not beat yet. Remember what Cookie
told you. It’s already in you. You just have to—

Karnage felt his vocal cords vibrate with laughter. The
Intelligence forced him to speak words. “My, my, Major. You are
surprisingly resilient. I haven’t had this much trouble absorbing a
mind in quite a while. But I grow tired of this game and, really, there
are just so many more interesting things for me to be doing, so . . .”

Karnage’s vision clouded over completely, his world filling with
frenetic squiggles. The last of his consciousness was being stripped
away; only a single strand of white remained. It grew taut as the
squiggles moved in, trying to rip apart his last connection. But it
held fast, vibrating like a plucked guitar string. It pumped as many
thoughts into his mind as it could.

. . . come on old man don’t let that monkeyfucker win don’t make all
our sacrifices useless remember how we took out General Mayhem it’s
your only chance now old man remember what Cookie said remember
what Uncle said come on old man come on . . .

The strand snapped, curling up into the core of Karnage’s psyche,
hiding within the last chunk of himself that still remained. A tiny
vault, firmly held shut, stuck away in the darkest corner of his mind.
The remains of the strand leaked out, but without the glue that held
them together, they cluttered together into a collage of random
thoughts with little meaning.

. . . I have learned to work within my limitations you just gotta use
your head you should learn to do the same I have learned to work within
my limitations you just gotta use your head you should learn to do the
same . . .

The squiggles found the vault—little more than a safe deposit
box—and Karnage felt fingers pulling at its seams, trying to force it
to give up its secrets. It leaked the rest of the strand fragments, like
radiation from a leaky nuclear reactor.

. . . I have learned to work within my limitations you just gotta use
your head you should learn to do the same I have learned to work within
my limitations you just gotta use your head you should learn to do the
same . . .

The squiggles tore deeper and harder at the safe deposit box,
slipping into the cracks, trying to pull it open. It leaked wisps of
feelings and emotions, so powerful and terrifying that Karnage could
almost remember them. But it wasn’t him that was remembering: it
was his lizard brain. The primal beast inside that lay dormant, that
only emerged when it could break free. There was something that
would let it go, but Karnage couldn’t remember what it was. He tried
to concentrate on the words leaking from the box, tried to decipher
their meaning:

. . . I have learned to work within my limitations you just gotta use
your head you should learn to do the same you just gotta use your head . . .

And then it hit him.

. . . you just gotta use your head . . .

Karnage stopped fighting. The squiggles tore apart the last of
his mental blocks, ripping open the black box, releasing the lizard
brain, and revealing Karnage’s locked away memories of . . .

THE WAR!

Bullets and brains and smoke and death poured out into the squiggles,
overwhelming them. The squiggles pushed back, twitching in fury, trying
to sift through the chaos, put it all back in the box, but they were thrown
into disarray again and again, as the vestiges of Karnage’s lizard brain
overwhelmed them with its primal rage—and with them, the Intelligence.

What’s going on?
It cried.
What’s happening?

You’re supposed to be smart,
Karnage thought.
You figure it out.

Somewhere through the noise, Karnage could feel his Sanity
Levels rocketing upwards, faster than they had ever gone before, each
level upgrade truncating the next. He could feel the Intelligence’s
panic—its dread as the levels rose higher and higher.

You know what happens when I hit Tricycle Red,
Karnage thought.

It won’t affect me!
The Intelligence screeched.
You’ll just kill
yourself! I’ll still live! I’ll still live!

Sure you will,
Karnage thought.
But it will hurt like hell, won’t it?

It doesn’t matter!
It cried.
I will return! I always return! Your death
will be meaningless.

Yeah, but I’ll give you one hell of a bloody nose in the process, won’t I?