Major Karnage (36 page)

“Doubtless you have all heard the rumours: a plague of
demons has erupted from that cesspool of depravity that is called
Dabneyville. And I stand here before you today to inform you that
these rumours . . . are true. The Lightbringer himself has grappled
with these demons! And he has come here, at this time, to lead us in
the ultimate battle of Good versus Evil!

“These demons conspire to destroy your Inner Worm. They wish
to rip Spragmos from your hearts, and leave you empty—barren—
with no Inner Worm to guide you. They will stop at nothing to
destroy us. So we must act first, and destroy them! In the name of
The Worm!” Tristan thrust her fist into the air. “Ma-ma-oo-powpow!”

The crowd answered her cry. “Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

“I know that you have been taught that violence is against the
teachings of Spragmos, and some of you have failed to understand
the nuance in these teachings.” Tristan paused, and looked out at
the crowd, as if daring someone to speak. “In times of danger, when
the Way of The Worm is under threat, battle is the most glorious
endeavour in which a Spragmite may partake. It cleanses the mind,
and awakens The Worm within. It is a test of your devotion. I know
that you all pride yourselves on being the devoted servants of
Spragmos.”

Tristan leaned down towards the camera, the torchlight
flickering magnificently across her face. “And you ARE devout! You
ARE loyal! You are Spragmites: the Beloved Children of Spragmos!
Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

“Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

Tristan paced across the stage, her heels rhythmically clacking
in time with her words. “All of this talk against violence stems from
fear. Now this is normal. This is natural. When you first enter battle,
you will feel fear. But a true Spragmite will never let fear overpower
their devotion.”

She leaned in close, speaking softly. “For fear is the Worm-killer.
Fear is the doubt that sedates the Inner Worm. Confront your fear.
Set your Inner Worm upon it, and you will feel it disappear. For in
truth, there is no fear. There is only The Worm. And The Worm . . .
is The Word! Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

“Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

Tristan continued. “As you head into battle, remember that the
enemy, too, will be frightened—more frightened, in fact, than any
of you could ever be. For they are not Spragmites! They do not have
Spragmos on their side. Their Inner Worms lie in slumber. They
have not heard The Word.”

“Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

“Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

Tristan beamed out at the crowd. “Oh, I will be proud to lead
you into battle. So proud to fight alongside you all. In the name of
Spragmos! Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

“Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow!”

Tristan strode purposely off the stage while the crowd cheered.
They broke into spontaneous chants of “Ma-ma-oo-pow-pow.”

The crowd was still chanting when Tristan appeared through the
curtains. She smiled at Karnage. “So? How did I do?”

“You’d have made one hell of a military commander,” Karnage
said.

“Yes,” Tristan said. “Yes, I would. I have done my part, Major.
Now it is time for you and Russell to do yours.”

Karnage nodded. “We’ll move into position. Once we see the
first of the worms hit the main gates, we’ll head in.” He turned to
Stumpy. “Let’s go, Corporal.”

Stumpy saluted. “Yes, sir.”

“Good luck, Major,” Tristan said. “And please don’t take this the
wrong way, but I sincerely hope I never see you again.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Karnage said.

“They’re on the move.” Stumpy had his eye on the scope of his rifle.
He stood up. They were on a ridge overlooking Dabneyville in the
distance. Karnage saw the needle-like line of the Dabney National
tower against the thick lush green of Mount Dabney. The clouds
covering the squidbug mothership were white and fluffy.

“Let’s go, Corporal.” Karnage climbed into the front of the
flightpack. Stumpy strapped himself into his makeshift harness
on the back. He was seated higher than Karnage, his feet dangling
above the ground. Karnage hit the activators and the flightpack rose
into the air.

They flew high above the desert, slowly approaching Mount
Dabney. Karnage saw the undulating bodies of the train of worms
as they raced down the Gail Dabney Expressway. The train hit the
gates, and burst through without even slowing down.

“Good old E-nium!” Stumpy shouted.

The line of worms disappeared behind the city walls. They caught
sight of them again when they were closer to the city. The worms
were moving slowly now, inching their way through the streets.
Some of the Spragmites had dismounted. They were looking around,
confused. Karnage could see why. There was no resistance. The
streets were empty. There was no one for them to fight. Karnage’s
heart jumped, and he looked up at the clouds.
If they ain’t there . . .
what am I gonna do?

Karnage caught a small dot of movement. A sewer grate popped
open, and somebody crawled out.

No,
Karnage thought.
Not somebody. Some
thing
.

The creature had four arms and tentacles undulating from its
back like Karnage’s clone.

Karnage pointed it out to Stumpy. “Humbug,” he shouted.

It carried something in its hands. Karnage couldn’t tell if it was
a goober rifle or an energy spear. One of the Spragmites rounded
the corner and stopped when he saw the humbug. He turned back
to his comrades, then motioned towards the humbug. The humbug
levelled its weapon and fired a green energy ball. The Spragmite
disappeared. More creatures poured up out of the sewer and charged
the Spragmites head on. The humbugs charged through the streets,
firing pink and green balls at the Spragmites. They were quickly
decimated.

The second wave of worms came barrelling through the wall
and ploughed through the humbugs, spilling them in all directions.
Spragmites jumped down from the worms and grabbed stray
weapons. A Spragmite grabbed an energy spear and accidentally
shot himself, disappearing instantly. Another grabbed a goober
rifle and fired, winging a humbug in an arm. The Spragmites and
humbugs became a quivering, roiling mob of arms and tentacles,
accentuated by the occasional green and pink flash.

“Major! Look out!” Stumpy pointed towards the mountain.

Karnage looked and saw a pair of Dabneycops flying towards
them in flightpacks. As they approached, Karnage saw they had
four arms sticking out from their uniforms, and a mess of mouth
tentacles fringed the base of their visors. Their extra arms held
goober rifles. They fired at Karnage and Stumpy.

“Squidcops!” Karnage shouted. He dipped down, out of the path
of the goober. “Return fire!” he barked.

Stumpy aimed and fired, hitting a squidcop in the leg. It spun out
of control and struck its partner. There was an explosion of yellow
smoke and the two squidcops plummeted towards the ground.

“Here come some more!”

Another pair were flying up from the town. Karnage increased
his altitude, heading for the cloud.
Almost there. Almost there.

Stumpy strafed the incoming squidcops with goober. One of the
squidcops took a blast to the face. The flightpack flipped end over
end as the ball of goober expanded over the flightpack’s controls. It
tumbled back down to the town below. The other squidcop levelled
a goober pistol at Karnage and fired. Karnage tried to duck, but
it struck the back of his hoverball. He spiralled out of control and
the flightpack started spinning towards the mountain. “Stumpy!
Solvent!” he yelled.

“On it!” Stumpy pulled out the can of solvent. He reached over
the edge of the balls and sprayed down the goober. It pulled off
and liquified into a long stream of pink. Karnage restabilized, and
just missed hitting the trees. A spray of pine needles stung his legs.
Another couple of squidcops joined the first in the chase as Karnage
banked up into the cloud.

“Major, look out!”

The mothership instantly appeared through the mist. Karnage
pulled back and yanked the emergency brake. A parachute shot out
of the back of the flightpack, slowing them down, but not enough.
The flightpack clipped the top edge of the ship, and something
sheared off. “Rear stabilizer’s gone!” Stumpy shouted.

“Abandon balls!” Karnage and Stumpy unstrapped themselves
and tumbled down onto the mothership, rolling across its surface.
Karnage came to a stop facing up, and saw a pair of squidcops fly
by above them in pursuit of their damaged flightpack that cavorted
and frolicked until it disappeared into the mist. The squidcops
followed, and the buzzing of their flightpacks slowly faded away. He
turned and saw Stumpy struggling to his feet nearby.

Karnage looked down. He was standing on the squidbug
mothership. Panels flickered with green light. An occasional sliver
of white light cut a squiggling path along the surface.

Karnage sniffed the air. It stank of squidbug. He looked at
Stumpy. “Looks like we made it, Corporal,” Karnage said.

Stumpy looked around with wide, terrified eyes. “How do we get
in?”

Karnage spotted a thin streak of white light flickering towards
them. He dropped his foot on it as it was about to speed by. The
light curled back and started spinning around Karnage’s foot.
Another sliver of white cut a zig-zag pattern across the surface of
the mothership. It headed right for Karnage, and joined the first in
orbiting his foot.

More and more lines of white joined the others under Karnage’s
foot, until it had formed a bright quivering puddle of white. Stumpy
watched in awe as the puddle spilled forward, urging them to follow
it. The light rippled and ebbed across the rough surface of the ship.
It flowed around panels, occasionally darted back to avoid a random
burst of green, and finally pooled in a ring around a large hatch. The
ring glowed brightly, then winked out. The hatch spiralled open.

Karnage turned to the disbelieving Stumpy and grinned.

“Open sesame,” he said.

Karnage and Stumpy landed in a narrow tunnel. Long squiggly
tubes of light ran along the walls, floor, and ceiling. The tubes were
layered on top of each other, length-wise along the floor. Pulses of
green light flowed through the tunnels at a frenetic pace, pulsing
and strobing in a violent electric light show. The occasional line of
white randomly twirled and flowed through the tubes, as it moved
around and under the green.

Above them, the white ring of light around the hatch pulled away
from its opening, and sprayed out, disappearing into the vast tubes
of green. The hatch spiralled shut above them.

Stumpy shielded his eyes against the bright flashes of green.
“Where are we?”

“I dunno,” Karnage said. “This doesn’t look like any part of the
ship I’ve seen before.”

“I feel like I’m stuck inside a fibre optic cable or something.”

“Maybe that’s what this is,” Karnage surmised. “Like a giant fibre
optic cable. Or a steam tunnel—or crawl space o’ some kind.”

“Seems kinda large to be a steam tunnel,” Stumpy said.

“Trust me, this is cramped by squidbug standards.” Karnage
pointed to the squiggling green lights shooting all around them.
“What do you make of all these lights?”

Stumpy studied the tubes as the lights shot through them.
“Well, if I were to guess, I’d say it’s some kind of communications
system. There’s something in the way that they pulsate. Like a sort
of pattern to ’em, see?”

Karnage shook his head. “I ain’t no C&E guy.” A thin white streak
shot through the green. Karnage pointed to it. “And what about the
white lights? What about them?”

Stumpy studied them as they passed through. He shook his
head. “I don’t know. I don’t think they’re the same. They don’t fit
the pattern.”

“Don’t fit the pattern how?”

“There’s just something about them. The green ones are a lot
more focused. Direct. They’re going somewhere and they make no
bones about it. But the white ones . . .” Stumpy pointed to one that
was circling nearby. It shot off, heading back in the direction it had
come from. “They’re all over the place. Like they’re trying to appear
random.”

“They’re
trying
to appear random?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think they are. Like a pirate broadcast. Like
somebody’s hackin’ the system.”

Karnage grew excited. “Can you track where the white ones are
comin’ from, Corporal? Trace ’em back to their source?”

“I don’t know.” Stumpy looked at Karnage with a glint in his eye.
“But I can sure as hell try.”

Stumpy followed the lights through the tunnel, with Karnage
close behind, his goober rifle at the ready, keeping an eye out for
squidbugs.

Stumpy traced them through the pipes, sometimes doubling back
as they changed direction. At one point, the white lights stopped
completely. The pair paused to wait for any further sign of them,
slowly growing more anxious by the minute. Just when Karnage
thought they would have to double back and try to pick up the trail,
a white light shot straight past them, then diverted into a tunnel
opening overhead. Stumpy cursed something fierce as they tried to
find somewhere they could climb up after it, but the walls of the
tunnel were too smooth. Karnage finally resorted to firing goober
balls up the wall of the tunnel in order to give them something to
hold onto.