“Handsome fella, don’t you think?” Pynchon had insisted on looking at the photographs on the tablet, flicking through them with no sign of the discomfort that had assailed Huxley. He lingered longest at the first image, the man the phone-voice claimed to be his husband.
“Too tall for my tastes,” Rhys said. She spoke with forced humour, eyes red from the tears she wiped away with angry determination. “Prefer men I don’t have to stand on a box to kiss. At least, I think so.”
“It didn’t…” Pynchon winced, head bowing under the pressure of another agonised spasm. The bandage covering his wound was dark with matted blood, the seat he was strapped to streaked with it. He straightened and swallowed, breathing deep then trying again. “Didn’t give you… a name, I suppose?”
“Sorry.” Huxley shook his head.
“Wonder how long we were together.” Pynchon traced a trembling finger over the tablet. “Wonder why I didn’t… dream about him.”
“We, uh.” Rhys coughed. “We have a decision to make. I think it should be unanimous.”
“To nuke or not to nuke.” Pynchon tossed the tablet onto the dashboard. “That’s the shitty question.” He reclined, quelling a shudder as his eyes flicked between them. “Not sure I should get a vote. After all… it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
“Even so,” Rhys said. “Unanimous. Or I’m not doing it.”
“My vote may be biased.” Pynchon gave a weak smile. “What with my imminent death and everything… but I vote yes. It’s what we came to do. Remembering it doesn’t matter. I know I chose to do this. Also, gotta nagging suspicion… so did you two.”
“Two-hour timer,” Huxley reminded him. “It’s possible we can make it in there, get back to the boat, get you out of here…”
Pynchon flailed a hand in dismissal. “Enough… I voted. Your turn, Mister Policeman.”
Huxley glanced back at the ladder, knowing the sat-phone lay below awaiting their word. The phone-voice was a machine but he also knew there were people behind it, a whole room full of white-coated or uniformed figures staring at a speaker in tense trepidation. He found he hated them. Hated them for the test subjects they had killed to make this all happen. Hated their remoteness from the horror they had sent others into. Where were they? Deep underground in some bunker? Safe from it all. Perhaps they even had food supplies and water to last a lifetime in the event their grand scheme went to shit. He was aware they felt they had no choice, that they were the guardians of a species driven to extremes. But still he hated them, because he was here and they weren’t.
“They could be lying,” he said. “We could carry that thing in there and it’ll go boom the instant we switch on the timer. We go ahead with this, we have to assume we’re not coming back.”
“Agreed,” Rhys said. “Your vote.”
The promptness of his reply surprised him, even though he hadn’t known how he would vote until the word slipped from his lips. “Yes.”
Rhys’s face remained impassive as she spoke, her tone as flat as anything said by the phone-voice: “Yes.”
The receiver on the sat-phone must have been far more sensitive than they suspected, or a hidden listening device had eavesdropped on their discussion, because at that moment the boat’s engines roared to life. A chorus of electronic whirring drew Huxley’s attention to the dashboard. Panels slid aside to reveal hidden controls, each of the previously inert display screens flaring to life.
“Looks like I finally get to be… captain of the boat,” Pynchon muttered. He reached out a tremulous hand to the newly revealed throttles but it quickly fell back into his lap, revealing the mark on his wrist. It had more than doubled in size and its texture was different, a glistening, angry red, swollen into a series of blisters. Huxley’s hand instinctively went to his own mark, finding it marginally larger but the rough feel of it unchanged.
“I’ll get the phone,” he said.
“Steer twenty-three degrees to starboard of current heading,” the phone-voice instructed. “Maintain speed. Hostile infected are known to proliferate in this area so keep an armed watch.”
Huxley took over the controls while Pynchon advised on how to steer and interpret the various dials and readouts. Rhys retired to the aft deck with their remaining weapons, night-vision goggles in place. “Plenty of movement,” she called to them above the growl of the engines. She had her carbine raised, continually tracking for targets as the boat ploughed through the water at walking pace. “Hard to tell one from another.”
“Low level drone reconnaissance indicates the outer wall of the PIZ is dense and possibly inaccessible,” the phone-voice said. “You will need to create an access point.”
“How do we do that?” Huxley asked.
“Improvise.”
“That’s really useful. Thanks.”
“Relax,” Pynchon groaned, extending a finger to the chain gun controls. “This beauty can cut a hole in just about anything. Even if she can’t, we’ve still got plenty of C-4 left.”
“If we’re left alone long enough to use it.”
As if to underline his statement, Rhys opened fire, three rapid shots. Huxley looked over his shoulder to see tall spouts cascading in their wake. “Something below the surface,” Rhys shouted by way of explanation. “Something big.”
“Plath, maybe?” Pynchon wondered.
“Who knows?” Huxley adjusted the joystick controlling the tiller to bring the heading back in line with the readout on the display screen. “Got a feeling she isn’t far away, though.”
“Whatever happens…” Pynchon paused to cough, wiping the red smear from his lips. “Before this is over… you get her. For me. Yeah?”
Seeing a broad swathe of darkness loom in the fog beyond the spider-webbed windscreen, Huxley reached for the throttles and powered down to dead slow. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get her.” He turned towards the aft deck, shouting to Rhys: “Looks like this is it.”
“Lotta disturbed water out there,” she called back, tracking her weapon in a broad arc. “Pretty sure they’re chasing us!”
“Gun display,” Pynchon said and Huxley moved to the chain gun controls. At Pynchon’s direction, he adjusted the camera settings to reveal what lay ahead. The growths were taller and denser than they had seen before, a wall of overlapping, bulbous organics arcing away into the fog. In accordance with the phone-voice’s prediction, Huxley could see no obvious entry point.
“OK.” He moved his hands to the gun controls. “Where’s best to aim?”
“Try…” Pynchon coughed, shuddering through the pain. “Try just above the waterline. Short bursts… Ammo stocks, remember.”
“Right.”
Huxley depressed the trigger for a half-second, fighting the urge to shrink from the screaming, accelerated rattle of the chain gun. A blaze of muzzle flash and tracer beyond the windscreen then a thin drift of vapour as he released the trigger. At first the damage appeared considerable, a ragged, dark lateral tear in the fabric of the wall. However, closer inspection of the gun camera screen revealed only marginal penetration and still nothing that resembled a way in.
“Try again,” Pynchon told him. “Aim for the centre of the damaged region. Two second burst.”
More flashing tracer, producing a chaotic, arcing torrent of shredded matter. When he stopped firing, Huxley saw a deeper rent in the wall, but no hole. His rising annoyance turned to surging anxiety at the sound of Rhys’s carbine now repeatedly loosing off three-round bursts.
“Getting closer!” she shouted. Huxley glanced back to see her slotting a fresh magazine into her carbine. Beyond her, the water rippled and splashed in several places, a spiny, elongated limb rising up here and there to flail in predatory hostility.
“Looks like they don’t appreciate our company,” he observed to Pynchon.
“Fuck ’em… for being antisocial.” Pynchon gestured at the gun controls. “Keep at it.”
Huxley proceeded to blast the barrier with four long bursts before the chain gun ammunition ran out, creating a deep horizontal gash in the wall that refused to turn into an entry point. All the while, the bark of Rhys’s carbine grew ever more frequent.
“All right,” Pynchon groaned as they both stared at the damaged but unyielding wall. He coughed again but this time didn’t bother to wipe the blood from his lips. “Reverse engines. And bring me the C-4.”
Huxley could read Pynchon’s intention in the resignation and resolve evident in his sagging features. “We could try priming a block and throwing it…”
“Just do it, Mister Policeman!” The soldier jerked as he grated out the order, clenched teeth red with blood. “We’re all out of time.”
Huxley bit down on further argument and took hold of the throttles, shouting a warning to Rhys: “We’re scooting back! Look alive!”
Water rose in a white froth as he reversed the boat, closing the throttles when Pynchon began to nod. “Now get… the stuff. And pack enough ammo… for you and her. Hurry!”
Huxley scrambled down the ladder to the crew cabin, filling two packs with all the pistol and carbine magazines he could find. He also added canteens of water and some protein bars. What the hell. Might get hungry. He tossed the packs to the upper deck then turned to gather up the C-4, pausing at the sight of their remaining flame-thrower. Most things that live are scared of fire. He pulled the flame-thrower’s strap over his head and hefted the pack with the C-4. The climb up the ladder took less than a minute but felt interminable, his ears thrumming with the sound of more gunfire from Rhys and Pynchon’s rasping demands he get a move on.
“Prime one block,” Pynchon said when Huxley opened the C-4 pack on the seat next to him. “Don’t worry about the timer.”
Huxley jammed a detonator into a C-4 block then raised a questioning gaze. “The controls…”
“I’ll manage.” Blood plumed from Pynchon’s lips as he shifted forward, clamping one hand to the steering column and latching the other to the throttles. “Get the bomb in the inflatable then… cast off. I’ll go as soon as you’re clear.”
Huxley wanted to say something but all he could do was meet Pynchon’s fevered but steady gaze. They stared at each other for maybe two more seconds until a thin, reflective smile played over the soldier’s lips. “I think his name… was Michael,” he said, voice just a thin croak now. “He looked… like a Michael.” Pynchon gave a minuscule jerk of his head and Huxley tore his gaze free.
The bomb was less heavy than he expected, weighing about four kilos and easily lifted thanks to the handles its designers had placed on both sides. Even so, he had to shout for Rhys to help him get it to the top of the ladder and together they hauled it into the inflatable.
“Is he…?” she began, turning towards the wheelhouse.
“Staying. Yeah.”
The surrounding water continued to ripple and splash as things beneath shifted, though a few judicious shots from Rhys succeeded in keeping them at bay. “I think they’re confused,” she said after casting another bullet at a flailing appendage a dozen yards off the stern. “Don’t know how to react to all this.”
“Hope they stay that way.” Huxley dumped the flame-thrower into the inflatable and gave it the final shove it needed to slip into the water. “Get in.”
He held the small craft in place as she climbed aboard, taking station at the outboard. Before jumping clear, he allowed himself one last glance at the wheelhouse. Pynchon was just a dim, slumped silhouette against the displays. Huxley saw no movement but something told him the soldier still clung to life. Surrender isn’t in him.
“We’re clear!” he shouted, the instant the inflatable swung away from the boat’s stern, the engines drowning his voice with a roar. The upsurge of churned water threatened to swamp them until Rhys activated the outboard and steered them clear. Huxley perched himself at the inflatable’s prow, carbine at his shoulder. He should have been scanning the water for signs of Diseased but couldn’t look away as the boat sped towards the barrier.
Pynchon steered the prow directly at the ragged tear left by the chain gun, building speed all the way. The boat shuddered and swayed upon colliding with the wall, water fountaining from the stern while the engines continued to try and drive it forward. Huxley’s view of the prow was obscured but he guessed Pynchon had managed to bury the boat in the barrier up to the windscreen. He hoped it would be enough.
He turned to Rhys, gestured for her to get lower. “Best hunker do—”
The explosion came sooner than he expected. He knew there must have been multiple detonations as the single primed block of C-4 shared its energy with the others, but it felt like just one huge blast. Before protective instinct clamped his eyes shut, Huxley saw the boat evaporate in a flare of white-yellow light, the subsequent destruction swallowed by the blossom of flame. The surrounding water seethed with falling debris, most of it mercifully small. It also had the beneficial effect of dissuading the submerged Diseased from resurfacing, at least for the moment.
Huxley blinked and peered through the pall of grey-black smoke, finding the boat completely gone, the only sign of its existence a dark smear surrounding the rent in the wall. Pieces of matter fell from the edges of the damaged region, the smoke preventing Huxley from making out details.
“We’re in,” Rhys said, Huxley turning to find her peering at the rent with her night-vision goggles. “Can’t see much of what’s inside, but there’s definitely a hole.”
Something churned the water a few yards ahead of the prow, Huxley reflexively bringing his carbine to bear and blasting it with two quick shots. “Then let’s go.”
Rhys took them directly towards the rent, the inflatable infuriatingly slow as it traversed a surface scummed with bobbing debris and slicked by a rainbow-sheen of oil from the boat’s disintegrated fuel tank. Twice more something raised bubbles in the surface in front of the prow and twice more Huxley shot at it. The wisdom of Pynchon’s instruction to aim the chain gun just above the waterline became clear when Rhys was able to steer the inflatable straight into it. The blast had created a ramp of sorts from the destroyed growths, enabling her to push the prow clear of the water before killing the outboard. Huxley found the surface surprisingly firm as he leaped from the inflatable, holding the bow rope while Rhys went about unloading the remaining gear.
“Didn’t skimp, did you?” she grunted, dragging the flame-thrower and one of the packs onto the ramp.
“Thought it best to be prepared.”
The shape that sprang from the water behind her bore a vague resemblance to a crab with its elongated limbs, each one ending in a hand deformed to resemble a pincer. However, the head that leered at them from atop shoulders thickened by impossibly honed muscle was all human. Huxley half expected to find Plath’s stretched visage but this was a man, the face swollen into a grotesque parody of something from a superhero comic. As he trained his carbine on it, Huxley experienced a spark of amazement at the fact that it wore glasses. Round, John Lennon-style shades, concealing the eyes, the stems embedded in the enlarged flesh that had expanded the wearer’s temples. He screamed as he lunged for Rhys, pincers aimed for her back, garbled words smothered by the crack of Huxley’s carbine. Although he raised and fired the his sights one handed, his aim surprised him, one round through the Diseased’s gaping, leering mouth to explode the rear of his skull. The bespectacled face went slack, trailing blood as the crab-like form collapsed back into the water and slipped from view.
The death appeared to act as a signal for the Diseased’s aquatic brethren, water roiling as a forest of flailing, elongated arms broke the surface. “The bomb!” Huxley shouted to Rhys. He lowered his sights and fired a volley at the emerging Diseased, keeping hold of the bow rope as she dragged the bomb clear of the inflatable. She pushed it up the ramp then turned to retrieve the second pack. Another Diseased surged into view at the inflatable’s stern, this one with arms tipped by daggers of revealed white bone. Rhys reeled away as the daggers descended, shredded rubber rising as it ripped into the inflatable’s hull.
“Leave it!” Huxley shouted, seeing Rhys dart a hand towards the remaining pack. “Let’s go!”
He released the bow rope, raising his carbine to his shoulder, thumbing the selector to fully automatic and unleashing the rest of his magazine into the Diseased’s face. As it slumped in lifeless ruin, another, smaller creature scrabbled onto its back. It splayed webbed hands at Huxley while its child’s face chattered a set of elongated teeth. Huxley slung his carbine and dived for the flame-thrower, activating the igniter and pressing the trigger, releasing a fiery torrent that caught the chattering Diseased in mid-air as it leaped at him.
The thing landed close to his boot, wreathed in flame but still moving, making a sound that was far too much like a human child in extreme pain. He kicked it into the water and backed away, triggering the weapon again when he saw more Diseased claw their way clear of the water. The fire-stream swept over them, setting each alight and producing a chorus of shrieks, then licked over the oil-covered water beyond. The blast of heat and displaced air sent him onto his back, making him grateful for the fact that he had no hair, though he was obliged to expend a few seconds pawing at his eyebrows to banish a cascade of embers.
Regaining his feet, he found the water dotted by islands of flame. Ripples disturbed the surface in a few places but apparently the surviving Diseased still harboured some survival instincts and none revealed themselves.
“Huxley!” Rhys hissed urgently and he turned to join her at the crest of the ramp. She crouched in the ragged hole created by Pynchon’s sacrifice, night-vision goggles in place, scanning an interior that appeared solid dark to Huxley.
“Movement?” he asked, settling his own goggles over his eyes.
“Nothing.” He saw her mouth form a bemused grimace. “Lot more spacious than I expected.”
Activating his goggles, he saw what she meant. The green and black scene before him resembled a cathedral more than anything else. Tall growths formed dense spiralling columns ascending to an undulating ceiling twenty feet high. Lowering his gaze, he found the floor a sprawl of pooled water interspersed with ridges that resembled the ribs of some fallen titan.
They both started as the sat-phone clicked then spoke: “Proceed inside. Further delay will endanger the mission.”
“Oh, shut up!” Rhys snapped back. Taking a breath, she glanced over her shoulder at the flame-speckled water and sighed. “Though, she’s probably got a point.”
“You want to carry it?” Huxley asked, nodding to the bomb case she had dragged to her side.
“Wouldn’t want to undermine your masculine pride.” She gestured at the flame-thrower. “Swapsies?”