Alien velocity, p.10
Alien Velocity, page 10
Come on, you bastards. Let’s see what you’ve got.
The thumping ceased. Absolute silence clenched into a fist over the arena. For a moment it was all an eerie silver dream, his mind a spinning top unspooling silk. He stumbled sideways, almost fainted.
Clap, clap.
The ground trembled as though a giant horse had reared up and crashed its hooves down onto the thin layer of sand. Charlie looked frantically around the enclosure. The others did likewise.
Clap, clap.
Much closer this time, away to the left but definitely still inside the arena. Where, though? He couldn’t see anything. It occurred to him the noise might be from something underground, but he didn’t think so. The acoustics didn’t tally.
Clap, clap.
A throaty groan ripped his attention to the far end of the crescent. It sounded like the caw of a parrot in agony. Clear liquid blood shot into the air. At once the creatures broke formation, galloping, tumbling, leaping in Charlie’s direction. He had to get the hell out of the way. What had happened? In the opposite corner of the arena, as far away from the gored contestant as possible, he turned to see its carcass being jerked from side to side in midair, as though in the jaws of a beast that was not there.
“What is it!”
The accordion-like midriff of a cowering praying mantis—type creature extended in front of him. The poor fellow leapt at the wall but barely reached halfway up. Its sharp legs then scrabbled for dear life at the base, trying to tunnel out. When Charlie looked across the arena again, the victim’s carcass lay in two pieces. Its killer had now left it. Terrified contestants gazed at one another for help, for a sign, a clue as to what might happen next, each brain desperate to communicate, each mind incommunicado.
Clap, clap.
There! Two prints formed in the sand in front of him. Ten feet away, they were shaped like starfish, only much bigger and with toes of different lengths, the rear one twice as long as the others. He ducked as the mantis was swiped from its crouched position and lifted fifteen feet into the air. Reeling back, he fell over a stray tail. His shoulder scraped the wall. Looking up, he shielded his face as chicken broth—some kind of creamy white blood—poured out of the mantis’s midriff.
“Jesus!”
He barely sidestepped out of the way in time. He sprinted. An awful crunching noise haunted him all the way to the other side of the arena. Again, he saw no sign of the attacker. The mantis lay in two pieces. That same fate awaited all of them unless something could be done to render the invisible visible.
But what? His shoulders boiled and throbbed. His mind cried wolf. The silver-tinted emptiness was now full of claw tips, cold death and other sharp edges everywhere, all at once. An invisible monster?
Clap, clap, clap, clap.
It landed nearby to chase two more contestants into a corner, goring them with unseen fangs, before leaping with legs he could only imagine. Who would be next?
Charlie looked around frantically and considered throwing his black capsule at the beast but it would need a long time to explode in this light. Shit! It was the only weapon he had. Or was it? He quested for inspiration, running around the perimeter while hurdling corpses. At any time, from any direction, he could be plucked up. He ran faster, harder, and soon his vaults glided over two bodies at once, at twice the height. How many contestants were left now? Charlie counted five others.
What kind of spectator sport was this? A sick pastime when the audience couldn’t even see what was happening. Maybe they wore some kind of X-ray goggles to make the beast visible. Sick sons of— As he leapt over the very first casualty, that idea flipped in his mind. X-ray goggles?
Just because he couldn’t see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. What they really needed to do was…paint the bastard.
“Blood!”
He dove for the nearest corpse. Unfortunately, its grey blood had already dried up and was now thick as treacle.
Clap, clap.
Another contestant snatched. Not much time left. The next body he tried had colourless, translucent blood. Not much use against invisibility but it was watery, and quite a lot had pooled in the creature’s cavernous, severed chest. There was no time for anything else. His arms shaking, Charlie managed to break the clover-shaped skull free, pull the slimy contents out and fill it with clear blood from the chest.
He stepped out on tiptoes, hyper alert. Wherever the beast landed, he would have to be quick. Gasping, panicked breaths were all he could manage. It gave him a touch of hope to see another creature, a stooping biped with spines on its back, gather four handfuls of sand. It crept toward Charlie. They were clearly on the same wavelength, but where was the invisible brute?
Twenty feet apart, they stopped near the centre of the arena. The three other contestants waited in opposite corners for their signal to flee…again. Event number two had become a countdown of the most horrific kind. Charlie wondered if the overlords had a separate zoo for breeding these monstrosities, or whether they just…
Clap, clap.
Quick. The stooping creature saw the huge prints first. There! In the far corner.
Charlie bolted over and, just as the next poor contestant dodged out of the way, hurled the contents of the skull over the fresh footprints. The clear liquid exploded as though it had hit a wall. A vague, blurry form took shape. Immediately his stooping friend tossed all four handfuls of sand onto the haze. Charlie threw a few of his own. The sand stuck.
The monster was tall and thin. Bowlegged, it nonetheless possessed an extraordinary agility, able to catapult itself fifty feet into the air. When it landed again, the trace of one tentacle arm appeared, but Charlie guessed there were many more. He couldn’t see its mouth because it had its back to him. The problem suddenly rang out.
“We can’t let it turn!” he yelled. “We won’t be able to see it from the front.”
Since the sand had only stuck to its back, he had moments before the thing either turned to face him or sprang away, perhaps to dust itself off.
As if from nowhere, a sharp, broken bone landed at his feet. He looked up to see one of the other contestants, having cottoned on to the plan, armed with a sharp object of his own, run at the beast. Charlie grabbed the weapon and dove at the beast’s ankle, slicing and hacking. It kicked out but quickly shuddered, staggered to one side, then keeled over. He’d nicked something vital. It made him even more determined. The brute writhed, convulsed on the ground, but all four contestants had joined the attack. The others diligently dug into its neck. For Charlie’s part, victory came much too soon. When bone finally met bone, he cursed the brute for not having more flesh for him to cut, yet even its insides were invisible.
He lay back, exhausted but still fuming. The invisible beast was dead, yet Charlie knew this ordeal would haunt him forever. Here, the reality after the dream was the nightmare, because there would be more events to come. But the unexpected victory offered him a glimmer of hope. If each contestant had continued to evade the beast, running aimlessly on his own around the arena, they would all have certainly died. Yet that one creative, defiant spark had ignited this cooperative force to win the day—a triumph over invisibility.
Charlie tongued the black capsule in his mouth and nodded. The spark was his. He’d done this but he couldn’t have done it alone.
Chapter Six
The spotlight reappeared minutes later and, with it, the voice inside his ear. It led him out of the arena and more than half a mile to another. He kept checking behind for signs of his fellow contestants, but none appeared. So it was to be him again, the sole graduate to the next ordeal. Though he’d survived two events in under an hour, the respite of a slow walk did him wonders. He was Charlie Thorpe-Campbell after all—one of the fittest men to have ever competed on or above the earth.
Two dozen disparate creatures poured inside this square enclosure—the largest one he’d spotted from the running track—through a ten-foot-tall doorway. The black walls were about forty feet high. Every shape and colour of creature was represented, as well as the most unorthodox arrangements of limbs and features he’d never dreamt of. He recognized one with an enormous cut-diamond eye and huge arms scraping the sand when it walked. It had to be related to the poor runner he’d left in the dust next to him on the track, perhaps its co-pilot. When Charlie entered this new arena within the arena, the voice in his ear said, “The winners from every event will now compete for the grand prize. To the victor goes the spoils.”
He puffed his cheeks and shook his head. This sounded deadly, the finale of an intergalactic games. What events had the others had to endure to reach this point? What unique skills did they boast? Which skills might give an advantage this time?
A vertical structure about thirty feet high stood in the centre of the enclosure. Pale lime, smooth and metallic, it resembled a rudimentary rocket with a cone-shaped nose. A gridiron slope to a single hatchway six feet up provided the only means of entry. There was no seat inside, only what appeared to be a flashing control panel and enough room for one medium-sized occupant. Being the second-smallest creature in the lineup, and probably among the weakest, Charlie swallowed, self-conscious. If it came to a dog-eat-dog fight for the right to pilot the rocket, he’d have no chance.
“Okay, think, idiot, think.”
He half expected a droll hint of instruction from the monotone voice. None came. Or the clap, clap of an even bigger monstrosity? Nope. The doorway in the wall closed behind the last contestant. Roughly six acres, the enclosure appeared inescapable except by rocket. Charlie clenched his fists at the overlords’ latest sick contrivance. This was obviously designed to test problem-solving intelligence and, more importantly, cooperation under pressure.
The two dozen of them had to decide which one would live. Blake had told him about survival being the most selfish of instincts, that when a life-form had its back to the wall, regard for its own preservation would invariably prevail. He agreed wholeheartedly. Everything about the scenario told him to bolt for the rocket, get there first and try to fend off the others as best he could. Then again, why hadn’t any of the others done that already? They had to have perceived the puzzle the same way.
One did buck for the rocket—the creature with the cut-diamond eye. It managed about ten feet before two bigger competitors wrestled it to the ground. Another tried its luck, barging through four aliens before receiving a crippling blow from the tail of a coiled sidewinder with protruding ribs and a mass of flailing arms. Charlie kept his distance but twitched a smile nonetheless. He liked the tacit understanding on display. Creatures galaxies apart, with absolutely nothing in common with one another except for being alive and together, they were intelligent enough to realise the danger of panic in a group.
With a low rumble, two opposing walls began to converge.
“Oh, crap.”
Once again, time was short. If things didn’t work out, he’d toss the pill over the wall and let it bake in the sun until…yeah, but not yet. The walls might not crush the rocket and they could all survive in single file either side of it. Hmm, that would be pretty dumb on the overlords’ part and too easy a solution. They’d probably manufacture these rockets by the thousand, one for each day’s finale.
He thought about having some of them climb the rocket’s exterior and hang on while it lifted them to safety but there was nothing to grip on the lime metal, and the extra weight would probably ruin the takeoff. He hissed in frustration. How many times had this puzzle been performed, and how many had survived it? How had they survived it? Was there another solution? He looked around the walls.
“Give us a chance, for chrissakes.”
Then one of the contestants, another stick-thin fellow whose method of quick locomotion was to roll in a cartwheel, held his arms aloft and made a loud clicking sound. Since he was nearest the rocket, everyone observed. His clever contribution was to solve the communication barrier pictorially. With skinny fingers as long as Charlie’s arms, he drew a sketch of the wall in the sand then he added a tower of stick figures, five one on top of the other, in front of it.
Everyone crowded around. Reactions varied from head-scratching to ball-scratching to downright sulking, alien gestures that could have meant anything in their respective body languages. For Charlie’s part, it looked dicey. For one thing, there was no time, and even if they could raise someone high enough to reach the top of the wall, what then? How many could he pull up before the walls crushed the rest? It might help if they had a rope of some kind. Clothing perhaps? Nope. Everyone was naked.
They had five or six minutes, tops.
The stick-thin fellow cartwheeled to the wall and eight or nine others followed. He yanked the bulkiest-looking to the fore and thumped the ground between the brute’s hooves, a gesture for him to stay put. Then he pulled the second-biggest forward and pointed him to the first one’s shoulders—the start of a tower. The others got it, too, scrambling up one on top of the other until five teetered, some way short of the roof, in the most bizarre totem Charlie had ever seen. The bottommost creature in the tower also had to back-step in keeping with the approaching wall.
“No chance. That’s never going to hold!” Charlie was now desperate for another solution. Everyone seemed to be mesmerized by the acrobatics as if its success would save them all. “Don’t just stand there.” He scowled at the rest of them. “Come up with something. You lot have built spaceships. What’s the matter with you?”
A few started running frantically around the arena. One even tried to dig a hole in the sand. “That’s not gonna work either.” Charlie shook his head. “It’s only a top layer of sand. It’s solid underneath.” The poor creature found that out the hard way.
Meanwhile, the tower collapsed, the topmost creature now cradling two broken legs after having plummeted. Its nail marks formed a sideways crescent two-thirds of the way up the wall. Adamant that no one else should die if he could possibly help it, Charlie rushed over to help drag his injured comrade toward the rocket. They barely moved him away in time.
“All right, one of us needs to pilot this thing.” Standing halfway up the gangway, he held up a single finger and pointed inside the rocket. Its controls consisted of one black button, a red toggle and a silver joystick. Four indicator lights flashed purple above, below, and to the left and right of the joystick. It appeared so simple—the button was for lift-off, the stick for manoeuvring, and the toggle—damned if he knew. Ballast perhaps? He felt as qualified as anyone to fly the craft under the circumstances.
The stick-thin creature suddenly rolled up the gangway and barged past him, its skin-and-bone limbs catching him, nearly knocking him off.
“Hell’s your problem?”
It made a beeline for the cockpit and, before anyone could haul it back out, emerged with what appeared to be a silver, folded-up parachute. A cacophony of alien noises assaulted Charlie’s ears. Had they all had the same thought? Now there was a clear solution…
…a pilot had to blast off in the rocket, clear the wall, parachute down on the other side, then throw one end of the rig back over the wall for the others to climb out. But the wall was too high and the parachute probably not long enough. Crap! What else? He snatched the rig from his colleague and unfurled it on the sand to make double sure. As he did, the stick-thin fellow drew a quick diagram in the sand for the others, to prevent them from panicking and rushing the rocket. It mirrored Charlie’s plan exactly. All things considered, it was the only gamble worth taking but when Charlie laid the chute flat, the alien noises resumed, full-throated. His heart sank. The parachute was not a parachute at all. It was a thin, square sheet with a smiley face in the middle. The turtle-shaped face, with three eyes and a gaping mouth, appeared exactly like those of his biomechanical friends.
The overlords, too!
Their practical joke, Charlie realised. The renewed thump, thump from above was the cruel spectators mocking him.
That was that. About three minutes left before the walls met and crushed the life out of them all. Of all the sick goddamn jokes, to put them through this torture then snatch the only possible solution away from them right at the end. Beyond twisted, it was savage, sadistic, ancient Rome at its most decadent.
He collapsed to his knees. He felt awful for failing Blake and Hippolyta, and Marley and little Christina. Being at the head of that procession of children, guiding them to safety for two days over the red mountains, had been the proudest thing he’d ever done. He’d become a father figure after all, and no one could take that away from him.
He fingered the crescent scar just below his elbow. Closing his eyes, he saw Sorcha’s auburn hair blowing across her lightly freckled face. She smiled coquettishly and invited him into her apartment for the first time. The desire to want to replay what had happened next heaved constricting pulses to his chest and shoulders. His breaths hit a low roof. Boiling inside, all he could do was straighten his back, look up and gasp.
He spat the capsule out. His eyes followed it as it hit the sand and lay in stark contrast to the pale yellow. He thought for a moment. A bomb? He snatched the capsule up once more. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that before? Okay, so it couldn’t save him, but they had a rocket. The rocket would explode!
The solution spring-loaded and shot him to the far side of the machine. He screamed his plan but no one understood. Four of them were busy vying, teeth and nails, for the pilot seat. He beckoned everyone over, his desperation so fierce and full of purpose most of them obliged. Christ, there was hardly any time. He couldn’t stop to draw it for them. No, he went immediately to work at pushing the side of the rocket with all his might.
“Come on, for Christ’s sake! I’ll never topple this bastard on my own. Come on. Come on. What’s the matter with you? We push it over and start the engines. Horizontal. There’s bound to be enough thrust to do some damage. That’s it, all of you start pushing. There has to be fuel in it, too. Come on. Once it hits the wall, there’ll be a great big explosion. There! It’s going. A bit further. Heave. Heave for your lives!”
