Authors: Griffin Hayes
Ret
The sound of thundering footsteps and grating metal joints echo around us as Dhal leads the charge. He’s strapped into that twenty foot, smoke belching monster and, even behind the protective metal visor, I can still hear him whooping and hollering with joy. The fool thinks he’s invulnerable. The rest of us struggle to keep up. With all those Zee chasing something in the surrounding hills, we might just make it into the city before they return. We make first contact with a few Zee outliers at about the same time we reach the foot of the hill. They barely have a chance to hiss before Dhal plows into them. A red burst of blood and bone explodes off the machine’s legs. At a full run, Bron lobs a handful of grenades ahead of us to clear a path. He’s timed each detonation to trigger a half dozen feet in the air, tearing gaping holes in their ranks. Some of them are beginning to notice our assault and turn to face us. That’s when Bron plants his feet and unleashes a hail of fire. The explosive shells rip into them. Arms and legs are sent spinning in mid-air.
We’re approaching the gate when a pack surge
s in at us from the side.
“Contact right,” I yell. The Zees are less than a dozen feet away when I open up with my automatic shotgun. One Zee out front
, who looks like a Grinder from Sotercity, has his head blown clear off. The rest of him keeps running for three more steps before crashing to the ground.
Now Bron’s got one arm pointing right, laying down a hail of destructive fire
, his explosive shells penetrating five or six Zees deep before detonating. The carnage is awe inspiring. The sheer look of exhilaration on Bron’s face tells me he agrees. On our left, another group of Zees comes charging in at us. Oleg pops away with his pistol and I’d be surprised if he hit a single one. I swing left and engage them. I’ve already used a quarter of the ammo in my drum magazine and I’m doing my best to make every shot count. The last thing anyone wants is to be in the middle of a reload when a pack of Zees reaches your lines.
The dead and dying are piled at our feet, but these aren’t just Zees. These are the citizens of the capital, caught in the crushing wave of snapping jaws. Already some have changed into creatures themselves and joined ranks with the Zees. On the walls, a handful of Keepers are still firing down into the streets when they’re attacked by a group of Zees, rushing along the battlements, hissing, their eyes glowing white hot.
Before me, Dhal is taking out dozens of them at a time with giant sweeps of his arm. Others he’s crushing under the heel
s of his metallic feet. I see one Zee jump on him and begin scaling his back. Then another and, soon after that, a third. It’s almost as if they know Dhal’s in there. Swinging the shotgun around, I blast them off, but I see more of them coming.
“We need to get out of here,” I shout. “Before we’re overrun.”
Dhal’s still pounding away, oblivious to the six Zees climbing up the Titan’s back. That’s when I spot a Hive leader and realize their organized behavior isn’t just by random chance. This guy’s big, his skin red with black patches. That can only mean he isn’t just one of Skuld’s sergeants. This guy’s something more and he’s marshalling all of his resources to take us out.
I level my shotgun and
blast a few rounds but the bastard doesn’t do anything more than smile. He isn’t stupid, that much is certain. He knows I don’t have the range. Although I know someone who does. I tap Bron’s right side and he swings around.
“
Hive leader, on the roof of that food depot,” I shout over the hail of fire. “Two o’clock.”
Bron growls and lobs three grenades in
his direction. The explosions send up a cloud of concrete dust and debris and, when it settles, the Hive leader is gone. Splattered on the roof tiles I hope, although I’m certainly not counting on it.
It’s only when I glance behind us that I realize
the least of our troubles. That horde of Zees in the hills is coming back and our only hope is to close the city gates before they reach us.
Skuld
Slowly the air clears and a room begins to take shape, a room human eyes would find too dark to see, but seeing without light is one of many benefits to being a Zee. We’re in a wing of the old prison. A battered sign on the wall in the old language advises: ‘No warning shots fired.’
A signal from
Krall informs me that a handful of mercenaries, accompanied by one of Goliath’s predecessors, have breached the main city gate. I direct him to pull together all surrounding forces to annihilate them. But the truth is I can’t be bothered to care. Not when I’m so close.
The walls are dripping with a strange viscosity. I run my fingers along a section ringing the doorway and see a flash of the Queen’s face burst before my eyes.
Her features are grotesque, without a shred of the person she once was. The mix of her unique human personality and even rarer genetics merged to produce Zee royalty, no accelerators required. But in the process, her body had morphed into something unspeakable, never meant to be seen. And that’s the point running through the nerve endings throughout my body as we make our way into her chamber. If that viscosity confirms anything, it’s that she’s in here, somewhere. The fibre of her being is woven into these very walls and the closer we draw, the more intensely I can feel her presence. Plak and the other councillors feel it too, but the thought of meeting her isn’t nearly as exciting for them.
This was the place where the ancient Keeper documents describe her last stand. The place she was finally cornered and sealed away. Solitary confinement was what they called this wing. How fitting. The air inside is humid and thick. If I still had pores on my body
, they’d be open and producing buckets of sweat.
But why
hadn’t she been killed? I’ve often wondered the same thing myself and the truth is beginning to reveal itself. Perhaps they didn’t think they could defeat her. Perhaps her ability to tap into Zee central itself had begun a mutation of sorts. One that allowed her a foothold into the human brain. An explanation that seemed to make sense, given that every squad sent in to finish her seemed to suddenly turn on each other. Not unlike the way Azina was made to turn on her fellow mercenaries. A small mountain of dusty bones, piled in the corner, offer silent evidence that the reports were correct. That is all that remains of those brave troopers who never returned. And when they sealed her in, they assumed it would be forever. This was a prison, after all, and she was precisely where she belonged.
A pair of invisible hands are running through the stringy remains of my hair and the feeling sends shivers down my spine. A feeling charged with equal parts sexual energy and menace. She can’t possibly know I’ve come here to kill her, to absorb her power and assume her place at the top of the pecking order
. But how can a hand or a foot keep a secret? We’re all connected, in more than just the vague way human beings are connected. I double my efforts to shield my intentions. She must be convinced I’ve come to liberate her.
Rotting cell block doors on either side of us, all coated with that same dark crust. The realization sinks in almost at once. This is not dirt, it’s her skin, shed in tiny particles over the centuries, wafting through subtle currents of stale air until they came to rest on… everything.
The rows of cell doors come to an end and I know she isn’t in any of them. There is only a wall before me, caked black, like the rest of her inky prison, but I can feel her now, crawling through every inch of my body. The Zees are behind me, many of them twitching. One walks into a cell door and keeps trying to move forward, oblivious to the impediment blocking his way.
The wall at the end of the cell block is the darkest of them all and
, even with my ability to see through the darkness, it’s hard to draw any shape from the blackness. Then I see it. A pair of rubies, embedded in the wall, a sea of white surrounding blood red pupils. A cracking sound follows and bits of the wall begin to crumble and fall to the floor. The first to break free is an arm, then a leg. Finally, the Queen tears the rest of herself from the chitinous cocoon, where she’s slumbered for decades and, catching sight of her now for the first time, I see how hideous she really is. The flesh over her face and body is webbed has hardened into some kind of armor. A honeycomb of curved bones protrude from her shoulder blades. She’s also taller than I imagined and my head tilts back to take in a full view of her. She lifts a hand to her lips, draws in a full breath and blows a vile wind into my face. Suddenly, all thought of killing her begins to fade, like a distant ship slipping over the horizon. In fact, she doesn’t appear nearly as ghastly looking as she did a moment ago. A small voice in my head keeps trying to tell me I’m being fooled by what those doddering Keeper scientists call pheromones. A powerful scent so common in the animal and insect kingdoms.
And t
hose thoughts no sooner form than I feel Zee hands grasping my arms and legs. I glance down in disbelief, only to see that not a single one of them is twitching anymore. They’re in sync with the Zee signal, only it isn’t the one coming from me. I try to shrug them off, but their grip is like iron.
Plak is beginning to hyperventilate and turns to flee but the Zees descend on him and the other councillors without mercy. His shrieks of terror and agony go on until they’re muffled by the sheer number of Zees crowding his body
, tearing it apart.
The
Zee hands pull my struggling body to the ground, splaying my arms and legs as though in preparation for some bizarre ritual.
Or a sacrifice.
More hands, tearing at my robe. She means to gut me and I struggle all the more, but it isn’t any use. I’m nude from the waist down and here she comes, her hardened skin and red glowing eyes. It’s only when she straddles me and lowers her pelvis onto mine that I have a solid inkling what’s about to happen. She’s using me to mate and suddenly it’s all so clear. No sooner had I mutated and joined Zee central, she became aware of who I was and how useful I could be. Despite appearances, there isn’t an ounce of pleasure in what she’s doing and I try in vain to buck her off. It isn’t long before she has exactly what she wanted all along. The Zees are still holding me tight when her scaly hands cup my face.
“Together,” I say pleadingly, “we could rule the ten territories for the rest of time.”
Her head tilts to one side. She’s trying to make sense of the comment, but there isn’t an ounce of humanity left in her. The sound of snapping bone and tearing flesh comes a second later. I catch sight of my headless body, lying below me, robes that were once white, now torn and stained with dark blood. The pain is excruciating, but a Zee can lose his head and still live, I know that much. She props what’s left of me above the crowd of Zees and already there’s a bulge in her belly and movement there. But maybe she’s had it in her all along, only waiting for the appropriate fertilizer to come along. The Zees before us are slowly rocking back and forth. She isn’t just their leader, she’s their creator, their God. I watch as the glow from their eyes begins to fill the room. Then, with shocking speed, she crushes my skull between her hands and blackness descends.
Azina
Our feet scrape along the dirty passageway floor. Sneak is in the lead, blades drawn, her arms pumping furiously. Behind her is Klaus, robe flowing behind him, bleeding off enough fear the hissing Zees charging after us can almost certainly smell it in the air. And mostly that’s all we hear behind us, hissing; the light from their eyes bouncing off the passage walls. The messenger’s body kept the door from closing and I could already see the first group of Zees cresting the hill and beginning to reach for us when I gave up trying to shut the door and broke into a full run. There’s so many of them there isn’t any use laying down a barrage of fire behind us. Especially not with my puny repeater. If we had Bron’s heavy guns it might be another matter altogether, but the last time we were face to face, he tried to burn mine off with his flame thrower.
Dim light up ahead and my heart begins to swell. Even though I’m technically a Zee, I know they wouldn’t hesitate to tear me to shreds. Sure
, they might not normally attack their own kind, but when orders from headquarters demand it, Zees will follow the top dog every time. In a way, it’s their greatest strength though it might also be their greatest weakness.
A signal barrels through over Zee central that nearly stops me in my tracks. It’s so shocking I can hardly believe.
Skuld is dead.
Th
at’s when I realize the Queen isn’t nearly as weakened as we thought. Playing possum, was what the Dusters used to call it. The details are still rather fuzzy, but I’m sure Skuld’s incredible arrogance probably played some part in his demise.
The light in the distance is drawing closer
, but so too are the Zees. My attempts to seep into their minds still isn’t working and surely won’t, as long as her grip on them continues to grow stronger. But that isn’t the only bit of Zee news I manage to pluck from the airwaves. The Queen is pregnant and suddenly the pieces begin to fall into place. His drive to reach the Queen wasn’t only Skuld’s idea. No doubt his resolve was solidified the minute he mutated himself into what he thought was the biggest, baddest Hive leader on the block. But there’s always a bigger fish and it’s beginning to look like the Queen played him from the start. Played him in order to break her free but, more importantly, used him to mate. And when she was done, she ended the relationship in the way insects have a tendency to end things: by killing and eating the unsuspecting partner. But as bits of code trickle in, it’s becoming clear the Queen isn’t just pregnant, she’s about to give birth, and I’m afraid to think of what monstrosity is about to emerge.