Vhiper hadn’t worked at the ice cream parlour long, but each time he walked through the door he wished it was his last day.
It wasn’t the work, it was the wasps. One of his jobs was to take out the garbage, which included empty syrup containers.
The midday sun had brought out more of the little devils than usual and Vhiper edged his way towards the garbage cans. Before he could reach them, two of them buzzed around his arms, their target - the container lids.
Viper dropped the tubs and ran for the safety of the kitchen.
Within seconds five or six of them were buzzing around the plastic boxes, but all he could do was watch from the doorway. He shivered in the heat, knowing he had to go out there and pick them up. As he closed the door their buzzing still sounded in his head, their song singing in his skull. Something tickled his ear and he darted away so fast he didn’t see Carla come into the kitchen from the hallway.
He knocked the tray full of sundae dishes out of her hands so hard they scattered across the room. A half full dish spat its contents at his face.
"Hey, Vhiper. Watch where you’re going!"
He hardly heard her as he turned to scan the room, looking for any sign of a small humming insect. He heard wings behind him again and twisted around sharply to see a bluebottle land on the shelf behind him.
It was only as the wave of relief hit him that he noticed the look on Carla’s face. She wasn’t laughing.
"Err sorry Carla," he said, and immediately started to pick up the dishes.
"What on earth is the matter with you?"
He couldn’t tell her he was afraid of wasps so he replied, "I was just rushing back to help out, and I slipped on the tiles."
She looked at the floor. "I don’t see how you slipped, the floor’s not wet."
Vhiper piled the bowls onto a tray, "Lucky all this stuff is plastic”.
"Hmm, suppose so," she answered, taking the tray from him as he stood up. She looked at him and grinned. "You have ice cream from your eye to your ear."
Carla started to load the dishwasher, glancing out of the window.
Vhiper ignored the now drying ice cream on his face. He knew she’d see the containers. He had to distract her.
"Hey Carla, I heard you dumped Mike."
She turned sharply. "Who told you that?"
She sounded annoyed, but it was worth it to keep his secret.
"Oh can’t remember who told me, but I heard he was really cut up about it."
She switched on the dishwasher and Vhiper hoped she’d not ask anything else.
*** *** ***
Across the city Dr. Gerry Chambers picked up the shards of glass from the lab floor. Although there were no windows in the room, there were ventilation ducts in the wall. He listened for the sound of wings buzzing.
Nothing.
He remembered the pig they’d used in the last experiment. Although the animal had lived, it had been so badly eaten away that they had had to destroy it.
The insects became more intelligent with each new batch. They were bigger, with larger heads, and the venom was more potent. When let loose on the pig, it had only taken a dozen of the wasps four minutes to completely immobilise it while the animal screamed in pain.
The larvae had reproduced into adult wasps far quicker than the last time, emerging from the pig in greater numbers.
When Gerry had first joined the project he’d been told that the wasps were only being bred as a weapon against crop pests, but the government had realised these wasps would make the perfect agents of warfare. If they could be bred to attack humans they could wipe out entire cities within days. Then they would simply move in with the wasp killer, and burn up the bodies.
They were close to their objective; very close. Gerry wondered how long a human victim would live.
The Parasitic wasp: but bred to be bigger, cleverer, and deadlier than ever.
And now they were out. He made his way to the hospital, praying the report was false.
Due to his security clearance the hospital had been forced to give Gerry access to the admissions records. Gerry wanted the twenty one year old male who’d been admitted an hour earlier to have some normal illness. A believable diagnosis. He hoped that this case had nothing to do with the wasps, but the swilling in his gut told him it did.
A nurse came into the room, "Hello Mr. Andrews, I believe you want some information?"
"Yes, I need to know the cause of the paralysis of the female patient who was brought in recently."
She pushed a stray strand of black hair behind her ear, he sensed her resentment.
"Well Mr. Andrews, I’m not happy about discussing patient information with you." She glared at him. "But, we don’t know the cause of the condition, though we have found what appears to be an insect bite on his upper right arm. We are trying to find out if he’s been out of the country lately.
That was all Gerry needed. They’d found a bite mark.