CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
"Since only Cyber can be counted on to take the logical and reasonable approach, there cannot be any free-thinking Bios left. They need to be deleted like obsolete computer programs." - Makr, the One and Only
"Marlene, come on," Harry whispered, not sure of who or what was around the next corner. It could be Cyber, a monstrous beast, or Carlos and his deadly Shadow squad. A shame, thought Harry. Carlos had seemed to be an all right guy.
"You could at least have let me put on some boots or even regular shoes. These pumps are killing me."
"Sorry. No time. Stealth garb was all I could find. Besides we'll definitely need it once we're on the surface. I don't know if Carlos or someone else saw the flicker on the scanner, but I did. That flicker means we're sending signals to Makr. If yours is flickering, it means mine is for damn sure, and who knows what information I'm passing."
"Any idea where we are?"
"Unfortunately, no. It wouldn't be safe to go out the way we came in. You know the dangers. I remember Carlos said there is an easier way, and I'm hoping this is it."
"Easier? Feels like we've been wandering around for hours."
"I know. More like two, I think."
"Can we rest for a minute?"
She sat down before Harry could answer. She tore the heel off her left shoe, then the right one. Then she put both shoes back on.
"Much better," she said.
He looked at her questioningly.
"The shoes were already ruined. I can walk better without the heels."
Harry nodded and looked around. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. He spotted a dry spot next to the wall, squatted and leaned up against it.
"Could be worse," he said. "This isn't the same sludge we had before. Much drier."
"Oh yeah, if you can call sewer mud dry."
Harry was silent, thinking.
Marlene saw his pre-occupation, but broke his silence. "Are you still angry with me? You have every reason to abhor me."
Harry eyed her suspiciously.
"I don't understand. You even protected me when the Shadows got rough."
"I'm not really angry with you. I don't know why, but it's true. We have all been brainwashed in some way. I'm no different."
"But I am," she insisted. "I'm mad at myself and I'm mad at the world, I guess. I hate its existence. I hate my existence."
"I know what you mean."
"Oh?" She looked a little hurt.
"No, I mean I've felt the same way, too. I blamed the Shadow People for all my fears, but they aren't who or what I should fear. I respect them. They live a hard life, and they have a dream they will overcome this nightmare. At least they're doing something about it."
"Can we not talk for a while? I have a splitting headache."
She was holding her head in her hands.
"Of course. Headache? Chip? Back of the head?"
"No, here." She pointed between her eyes. She shook her head and wrinkled up her nose. "Harry, what's that smell?"
"I'm not sure. Smells like rotten eggs. Sulfur?"
"I'm sleepy. Why don't you let me sleep a little while. Just a little while. You keep watch, okay? The war can wait."
She seemed on the verge of losing consciousness when Harry nudged her to a rude awakening.
"You can't sleep."
"Not ever?"
"Don't be ridiculous. This smell? It isn't just sulfur! It's natural gas. These are ancient structures. Probably some natural gas left in these pipes. It was used a lot in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The gas is odorless so they added a smelly ingredient."
"Early detection?"
"Exactly. So they would know there was a leak before it was too late," he said as he pushed her along the drier, narrow path next to the wall. "Be careful about touching anything on the drier surfaces. We don't want any sparks."
"Okay, okay. Don't push."
"First thing we have to do is find fresh air," Harry said, taking her hand and trying to lead her away from the gas concentration.
"Too bad we can't walk on the ceiling. Air seems to be cleaner up there."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You said, 'ceiling.'"
"Yeah, so?"
"We need to go up."
"Now, who's being ridiculous."
"No, I mean it. I saw ladders and sections that break off and go to the surface. There's our way out. We won't know where we'll end up, but at least up there we can see where we're going and we won't have to worry about the gas."
They began to backtrack through the tunnel, looking for ladders and hatches to the surface, noting where the rotten egg smell had been and moving until the smell was too faint to notice. There were noises—mostly soft scratching noises. Nothing to get excited about, they both thought. Just a few Bio critters. A shadow of something shuffled to the other side of the tunnel. Must have been a rat. Small? Like only twenty pounds. Big rat. The shadow that had shuffled by changed direction and was suddenly in enough light for Marlene to see it. It was not a rat, but a big black furry spider half a yard in diameter!
Marlene screamed.
"Careful," Harry cautioned her as he tried to cover her mouth to prevent further screams.
Marlene pulled away, looked at him for a second, then, "Did you think I wanted to pet it?"
Harry shrugged.
"Does everything around here bite?"
"Probably. Scared the hell out of me."
"Me too," Marlene admitted. "Can we just get out of here?"
"Question is where? I thought from the way Carlos explained it that it would an easy way in and out."
"I'm sorry I seem so cross with you. It's not you. But let's go before that spider comes back. I think I can take the rats, but not the spiders. Okay? I'm just so tired I doubt there's much in this world that can scare me."
"I hope you're right!"
They made their way through the tunnels, each one looking exactly like one they had passed before. Constant disorientation was making them both irritable. Blind alleys. Dead-ends. Up this ladder or that stairwell only to find an entrance welded shut. A maze. One way through hundreds of tunnels to confuse the enemy. Cyber couldn't really get lost unless there was a malfunction or they had never been programmed for that function, but they would have to check every tunnel, giving the anxious Bios precious time to escape both the Shadows and the Cyber.
"I think I see some kind of light up ahead," Harry whispered. "It's coming from around that corner. Stay here until I check it out, okay?"
She nodded.
Cautiously he made his way to the corner and peeked around it. He was so stunned and disappointed by what he saw that he felt a hollow pain in his chest. Damn! Right back where we started from! Or rather, where we ended up after the croc attack when we came here in the first place! The light must have been someone venturing out, but went back in immediately when they heard a noise. Harry turned on his heel and went back for Marlene, who was getting a welcome rest.
This time she was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, maybe asleep. Dark spots moved on her Stealth garb.
"Marlene, stay still. Don't get excited, and don't move. Do not move."
"What?"
She could keep still, but she couldn't halt her fear. Harry's serious look and silence made her more anxious.
"Something crawling...dark furry creatures..."
"Are you kidding? Because if you're kidding..."
"Small ones. Be still. Hold on," he kept saying as he inched his way toward her.
Stopping in front of her, he stopped talking altogether and started motioning with his hands. He wanted her to take off her top layer of Stealth. Finally, she loosened it enough so Harry could yank it off. He flung it to the muddy floor, then shook and kicked it with his foot until a half a dozen or so six to eight-inch spiders that had been creeping across her chest were dislodged and scurried off. She couldn't help screaming. The tension was too great. Then, she started crying hysterically. S
piders, a dozen or more, were crawling very fast across her back. She screamed again, and tried to get up and run away. Harry held her back with one hand, then picked up her muddied Stealth top and used it to brush the unwanted arachnids off her back. He finally flung the top, with some spiders still attached, into a gooey puddle. The spiders, unfazed, scrambled off in the direction of drier land.
He went to her and held her close for a moment.
"It's okay now. The spiders are gone," he lied to comfort her. He knew they weren't.
Behind him—back the way they had come—he saw an arachnid army, thousands of them scampering over, and covering, the sludge in their masses.
"I think we better keep moving, fast."
"But Harry, I'm sooo tired," she protested.
"I know. This icky swill doesn't help, but we've got company I'd like to avoid."
Harry looked to their rear and Marlene followed the direction of his gaze.
"Oh, Makr!" she exclaimed.
"I don't think Makr had much to do with these creatures. Not directly anyway. I've come to believe if something bad happens, it must be Makr's doing somehow."
"I don't think this is the time to joke. Harry! Harry, they're getting closer. Harry! What do we do? Harry!"
He didn't appear to be listening to her. Odd, he thought, they can't be smart enough to attack us as a group, so why this massive movement toward us? It's more as if something is chasing them.
"Do you want the good news," Harry said, "or the bad news?"
"Harry, this is no time to be playing games," Marlene said furiously. "Oh well, the good news. Tell me the good news, Harry."
"The good news is that the Shadow entrance is ahead of us."
"That's the good news, Harry? You mean we've been going in circles?"
He shrugged. "Believe me, that is the good news. The bad news is there are a lot of spiders in front and back of us, but that's not all."
"I hate spiders," Marlene said almost calmly. "Only one thing I hate more."
"Yeah, what's that?" Harry would say anything to keep her calm.
"Rats."
"Rats?" He listened intently up ahead and then behind them. The sounds were different. "I hate to say this..."
"We're dead." She said and started to scream. Harry held his hand over her mouth.
"Listen!" commanded Harry. "I think your worst nightmare is coming right to us."
The spiders made little clicking noises as they scurried on top of the hardening sludge, along the walls and ceiling. Harry heard other noises in the background coming toward them too. The high-pitched squeals and splashing noises, while not loud at first, reached a crescendo. Harry and Marlene both looked up and were horrified to see a horde of sewer rodents charging them.
Never mind the spiders for now! These were rats! Big rats, the size of dogs, weighing 50 to 60 pounds! The spiders at their backs seemed to be the least of their worries now. The giant rats were stampeding over the spiders that had made it past the Bio pair and had been climbing over anything else that got in their way, including each other. The rats, too, appeared to have been routed by something fiercer than they were. After forcing their weaker brethren into the sludge and using them as stepping stones, the stronger rats were rushing over the drier part of the same path next to the tunnel wall, heading straight for Harry and Marlene.
"Harry!" Seeing the rats coming her way, Marlene jumped into the chest-high sewer sludge, grimacing at the squishy feel of the blackish goo. But that was the least of her concerns as she saw the lumps in the goo were not floating garbage.
She was now face-to-face with spiders—spiders like those behind them. These spiders were struggling to escape being caught in the poisonous gooey tar. Occasionally one would free itself shortly and scurry as fast as it could to the drier safety of the tunnel walls. Making matters worse, many more rats were scurrying over the tops of the spiders to find safety from whatever horror was chasing them.
All were trapped: spiders, rats and humans. Trapped! No place to go! Marlene could hardly move forward in the morass that was now almost up to her neck. She screamed at the first appearance of the rodents, and again as they came nearer. Now, she was almost eye-to-eye with them; she saw their gnashing razor-sharp incisors dripping with blood and green and black muck—and hypnotic blood-shot eyes that gave off a strangely evil and ruthless quality. Rats, after all, were even better survivors than other biologics.
Harry jumped in, too, when he was aware of what had happened to Marlene. As he inched toward her, her screams become more and more hoarse. He was exhausted himself after fighting the sludge just to get to her side.
Now what? Just as he was about to give up, the adrenaline that surged through his body gave him more strength to fight. This time the fight was moving forward one step at a time through the murky, syrupy liquid waste.
"We don't have a choice," Harry shouted. "We have to go back to the Shadows. Keep moving forward. We're near their entrance."
"You mean we've been going in circles?" She shouted back.
"Yes! Sorry." He had almost reached her back and had stopped shouting.
"So our choice is death by deadly Bio-creatures—human or otherwise?" Her voice was lower in volume but shaky.
"Maybe Carlos doesn't want to kill us after all," Harry said, trying to sound positive.
"If he doesn't want to kill us, then I'm going to kill you!" she exploded. She looked like she would have turned on him in a rage if she had had the strength. "Put me through all of this and Carlos might not even be mad!"
"Don't bet on it." Harry stopped to listen. He knew her rage wasn't real—just a distraction from the horrors that lay before them.
Then, something didn't sound right to Harry—not the clicking or splashing noises of the spiders and rats filling the sewer around them.
That noise? What noise? It is not what he was hearing, but what he wasn't hearing. That's a problem, Harry thought.
"Harry, what are we going to do? Just tell me."
"Do you hear any zapping sounds?"
"Zapping? What..."
"The exterminators. I hear animals coming our way, but no zappers. Why?"
"Too many of them," she answered timidly. "Makr?"
"I don't know. Could be, I suppose. Or simple cybert adaptations. These creatures serve a purpose of controlling the Shadow movements.
"And us."
Harry shrugs, then says, "I make it an easy decision. Cyber or Shadows?"
"Do you have to ask?"
Another noise. This time a scraping, a scratching coming from the steel door as the rats were trying to claw their way in. Then a lot of scraping and scratching. The door in front of them was covered, stacked with a wall of rats and spiders higher than the humans trying to get in.
Both shoved rats or spiders, hesitantly at first, then viciously and desperately out of the way and pounded the steel door with their fists. No result, nothing except the dull echo reverberating in the tunnel. No response from behind the door either. Harry looked around for a rock, piece of metal—anything. He found what looked to be an abandoned Cyber forearm with the hand shaped into a fist. This will do. Clang! Clang!
"That's enough to wake the dead," he said out loud to himself.
"Must you use that word?"
She joined him in pounding on the door again, this time with relish until her hands and wrists hurts so badly she had to stop.
Inside, Carlos, the Mother-General and several others were giving final instructions to their groups before leaving through this exit. They heard a slight dinging. Not very loud on their side when, in fact, on the other side the sound was deafening. Of course, the noise wasn't bothering the residents outside the door. Then it became louder, much louder as the owners of the knocker grew more desperate.
Outside, the metal door reverberated with a deafening clang after clang as Harry's "Cyber fist" struck it. That's sure to bring them running—both Cyber and Shadows, he hoped. Question was, who was coming first?
/> Simultaneously, Harry was concerned that the door was too thick for those inside to hear their banging. He couldn't predict a human response to his pounding, but he knew Cyber would be coming quickly to investigate their noise. It was an interruption of normal sounds coming from the area.
However, that was not all that was moving in the tunnel. The sewer vermin were starting to rush through it too. They were running headlong toward the most unstable portion of the tunnel: the sludge. He hoped it was not one or more of the crocodile-like creatures coming their way. If not them, though, what else? Rats and spiders don't scare easily. Harry would be the first to admit he didn't know what else was out there, but he did know something scary was driving these animals to them. The animals and insects were fleeing death, which meant death was heading straight for them, too!
To make matters worse, now there was sloshing coming from the other direction. Another croc? More rats? Dark solidified sludge seemed to be floating on top of the sewage. Could be feces or other debris. It isn't. Taking a closer look, he found it wasn't sludge at all, but rats and insects climbing on top of one another to keep from drowning. He fell back and almost went under. Then, came the sound of rushing water.
Harry turned to see the level of the water in the tunnel rising dramatically. The water seemed to be thinning out the sludge until it took on the density of motor oil. The volume of the sewer water now was a problem in itself. If they were still going to make their way through the river, they would be moving through a chest-high mess of water, sewage, chemicals and poisons. The advancing flood could have made the animals and insects run. This wasn't the same muck they'd been trudging through, but water. The water smelled as bad as the sludge, but it was still water. Just with a slimy, oily film floating on top.
Harry saw ten...or twenty...or thirty rats that appeared to be swimming in it. It could have been hundreds of rats. They were so numerous that he had trouble making out individual bodies. He was faced with a mass of stringy, disgusting, yellow-teethed furry cannibals—Bio eating machines—so locked together they appeared as a single monstrous entity. Unfortunately and fortunately, he and Marlene occupied the driest area, the shore by the door. While they were not immersed in the raging river of sewage, they were now face to face with horrible mutated rodents, drenched in water and oil, frantically driven to escape drowning, gnashing teeth and squealing in efforts to get to the high ground. Marlene was so far holding off the rats with a club—a two-foot piece of scrap iron. She found it somehow fulfilling to bash their heads in as they emerged from the water to come on shore. The diversion kept her mind off what would happen when the creatures broke through; she knew she and Harry could only fight them off for so long.
While Marlene occupied the higher ground closest to the door, Harry, a little more than a yard away, was preoccupied with sound again; this time it was coming from the other direction. He heard the unmistakable sloshing around of the crocodiles, as well as a constant splash after splash, like someone walking easily through the water and sludge with a steady rhythm. That could only mean one thing: Cyber! Worse! Cyber and monster crocs?
Here they were on the Shadows' doorstep. It was ironic that the Insiders should be out and the Outsiders in. All of Harry's fears up until then had been of Cyber. So far this horror was one hundred percent Bio and Cyber were secondary. He and Marlene could pick by which species they preferred to be killed.
As the rodent and insect frenzy mounted, Marlene was becoming so weary that some of the rodents got through her club defense. She bashed one of the largest on its head without noticeable result. The rat, at sixty or seventy pounds, managed to fight its way to the drier place that she and Harry shared, and immediately turned to fight them fearlessly with teeth gnashing violently and claws ripping human flesh. Numb with fear, pain and sheer exhaustion, Marlene took her steel club to batter the giant rodent's head repeatedly until she felt the skull crack open. Blood gushed freely, followed by brain matter that splattered her forearm and face. Rage engulfed her. She continued to bludgeon the rat until its skull was nearly flattened. She wiped the tears that had streaked down her face and mingled with the rat blood and brain speckles. Her face was now catatonic except for a scowl of disgust. She used her club to prod and push the dead creature back into the water. As it hit the water, the other rats received the carcass and immediately tore into it with such zeal the water surrounding it seemed to boil.
Harry heard her hysterical screaming. By the time he had moved to her side, she was sobbing uncontrollably. It was obvious she'd lost the will to fight. At the same time, several more rats gnashed and gnawed their way to the dry island. There seemed to be no end to them. Those rats who found a dry corner of the island were fiercely protecting their property from all the others. No teamwork there. It was every rat for itself.
"Harry. Harry I need help here. Can't...keep...them...back. Too...many." She was nearing a total collapse.
"I'm here," he said, but she hardly noticed him. She was losing consciousness.
Harry looked behind him in time to see a rat— at about 75 or 80 pounds of muscle and sinew the biggest he'd seen so far— making its way to the top of the heap close to the dry island. Rising up on its hind legs, it came up onto the 'dry land,'—Harry's face and shoulders. The giant rodent took him by surprise, landing full force on his chest. As it viciously bit and clawed his arms and shoulders, Harry cried out at the burning pain each open wound caused when it encountered the rising water. It had already left several smaller rodent carcasses in the disgusting soup, as it fought to destroy the human obstacle in its way now. Face to face with the furry monster, Harry couldn't help breathing its foul breath and seeing the incisors edge dangerously close to his eyes. The fierceness of the rat's attack pushed Harry back until he was in the water again.
Until now, Harry had been able to hold himself up with the help of the thinned sludge, but the creature's weight and relentless frontal attack caused him to lose his balance, falling backward. He twisted as he fell so he would land on the island. Getting submerged in this would only seal his death. He managed to hit the bottom with a small splash, with only his face and hands above the murk. As he fell, the creature went with him, relentlessly tearing at the man's chest that was only superficially covered by the rough Stealth cloak. A few seconds more and the cloak would offer him no protection at all from the animal's razor-sharp front and rear claws. Harry screamed in pain, as several claws sliced through the cloth and gouged his flesh. Then he heard Marlene scream. Her scream was not a scream of pain. It was a scream of terror unlike anything he had ever heard before. His mind on her survival, he tried to ignore his own pain.
Inches from his face, the gigantic rat gnashed ugly, yellow, four and five inch teeth. It was taking every bit of Harry's strength to keep it from tearing his face off. Rat claws—six or so inches long-held him down as even longer hind claws were already tugging at his Stealth armor, kicking and ripping at his abdomen and chest in an effort to gut him. He held the creature back by squeezing it hard as he worked his hands up and around the neck. The rat's sinews and muscles hardly had any give. He felt his own muscles burn as they lost the strength to continue.
Rather abruptly, the giant rodent pulled back as if it had just discovered a weak point, but attacked again immediately. Just as the creature came inches from his throat, there was a blinding flash and a simultaneous scream, a death rattle of enormous intensity, warning others that Death's doors were still open and strength wasn't the only factor in determining survival of the fittest. The rat in Harry's grip was decapitated and burned beyond recognition. But where did the flash come from?
Silence except for Marlene's whimper and the steady slosh...slosh...slosh of the Cyber.
Harry shoved the headless beast back into the water and, lacking the strength to pull himself up, he collapsed half-way face down. He laid covered in blood - most of it his - from head to toe. As he opened his eyes weakly to survey the area, he saw someone standing over him.
&nbs
p; "Do you know that the rat has been called the world's most destructive mammal—other than man?" he said.
It all seemed like a dream so he closed his eyes again. Marlene? What's happened to Marlene? She is okay. Okay, good. She's crying in fear, but still battling the rats. Can't move...have to have help!
It was a losing battle. For every two she repelled, one made it on to her island. Those that made it hung back as far as possible, darting out occasionally to nip at her. The small ones—those less than twenty pounds—weren't nearly as troublesome as the larger rats that were less intimidated by the size of their human attacker. The smaller ones could also only take smaller bites. She knew it wouldn't be long until they all got her, too. Poor Harry, she thought. At least he fought them to the end. He turned out to be a hero after all.
She didn't know he wasn't dead. Not yet, anyway, he wanted to tell her. Not yet. He was just tired. Tired. Needed to rest. He couldn't keep his eyes open. Cold. He shivered and saw this reality go to black.
Marlene's worst nightmare seemed yet to come. A spider more than a yard in diameter appeared from the passageway, fighting its way to the drier ground. If that one made it to the island, it would be over. The largest and strongest of the spiders were now making their way to the island, but using the walls and ceiling, climbing over floating corpses in the water. There was no stopping them.
At the same time, the two heard the irregular splashes of a crocodile coming from the opposite direction. The sloshing sound became louder. Louder! The unmistakable horror she and Harry had experienced earlier was far from forgotten. He forced his swollen eyes to see the croc. It was big. Roughly the same size as the one he had helped vanquish. It was coming right at them! He hoped their deaths would be quick. With that thought, he lost consciousness and there was only black silence—an eerie peace.
Shadowy arms reached for Harry and pulled him inside. Carlos stepped out and grabbed Marlene from behind. She screamed until she realized who had her. The steel door slammed shut as quickly as it had opened.
The rats and spiders had the island to themselves in their attempt to survive they continued to eradicate the weakest of their own species, and each other. The rats had an obvious size advantage, but the spiders had a poisonous bite. It wouldn't be long until there was nothing alive on the tiny island again—except for maybe the crocodile coming to mop up and rest after feeding on the fresh remains of the sewer creatures on the slightly lower end of the food chain.