Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain (5 page)

“Thank you,” said Zala, “but we won’t be staying long.”

Cal cocked his head to one side, as if acknowledging the buzz of an insect he was only vaguely aware of, before addressing me.

“We have taken the liberty of preparing the finest saltwater treatment based on your previous visits with us. I’m sure you’ll find it a most satisfying way to relax after your flight.”

“Tempting,” said Zala, “but we’re in a bit of a rush.”

He put his arm around me like we were old friends. “And we have a special order of Neptune sour kelp that the chef assures me is fresh and delectable.”

It’d been a long time since I’d eaten anything other than nutrient extracted paste.

“It can’t hurt to stay for dinner, I suppose. I wouldn’t want to be rude.”

Zala scoffed again. Louder this time.

“I didn’t think it was possible to maintain Neptune sour kelp on Terra,” I said. “Where did you even get it to begin with?”

“Ah, trade secret, I’m afraid.” Cal smiled devilishly.

He turned and led us to our suite. The unspoken understanding was that none of this was free, but a cephalopod of refinement didn’t comment on such things.

“Don’t you find it a bit odd,” asked Zala, “that they’re so prepared for your arrival? Including a rare dish that even you don’t have access to? It’s as if they were expecting you.”

“They were expecting me.”

“Doesn’t that concern you?”

“It would if it was surprising, but I told you already that the entire point of this attack was to bring me here. Isn’t that right, Cal?”

The lieutenant didn’t turn to face me, but I could hear his unflinching smile. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss it, Lord Mollusk.”

I dispensed a few gold coins into Cal’s hand. His fingers tested the weight and value of the metal although he did so with discretion. When it met with his satisfaction, he said, “Yes, sir. We were told to expect you, should you survive the assassination attempt.”

I nodded knowingly to Zala, who only shook her head, annoyed.

“And how much is it going to cost to find out who your mysterious employer is?” she asked.

He did his best to ignore the question of an underling, but Zala wasn’t so easily discouraged. She seized him, spun him around.

“You will answer me, you pompous excuse for a soldier.”

The Atlantese and Venusians drew their weapons. Snarg hissed curiously.

Cal ordered his soldiers to stand down. “Now, now, that’s no way to treat a customer. Though we would appreciate it if you could keep the help in line, Lord Mollusk.”

“I don’t work for him,” she said through clenched fangs. She ordered her battleguard to lower their weapons.

I kept quiet. I’d never been good at diplomacy, and anything I said was just as likely to make things worse.

“How long do we have to play your game, Cal?” said Zala, very pointedly skipping over the space where she failed to acknowledge his military rank.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss all the details of the contract,” he replied with equal disdain.

“This is nonsense.” Zala threw her hands into the air. “One doesn’t negotiate with the enemy. One crushes the enemy with merciless precision.”

“And yet, I’m considered the evil genius,” I said.

She glared, proving that I was right about my ability to make things worse.

“I’m sure that we’re here for a reason, Zala. And that reason will present itself when the time is right.”

Her terse, accepting response was smothered by a tremendous shriek.

Toward the setting sun, a faint pink glow appeared, at first indistinguishable from the glimmer on the water’s surface. A phosphorescent mountain rose from the depths, and the shimmering, seventy-meter creature unleashed a fearsome howl.

“By the Twelve Gods,” said Zala, “what is that?”

“An unnatural combination of genetic enhancement that, in any reasonable ecosystem, would never exist,” I replied.

“How do you know that so quickly?”

“Because I created it.”

The bioluminescent behemoth strode onto the shores of Atlantis’s capital. Its glowing mass dragged itself, with great clumsiness, across the land and toward the high-rise.

Zala wheeled on Lieutenant Cal. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I have no idea,” he said.

She grabbed him by his collar. His soldiers were too shocked by the approaching monster to rise to his defense.

“How much are they paying you for this?” she said.

“Put him down, Zala. I doubt the Atlantis Executive Command was expecting this. They might be greedy, but even they would have a hard time convincing their citizens to allow a monster to destroy their prized capital.”

“Why would you create such a thing?” she said.

“It’s called a jelligantic. Never really liked the name, but I figured I’d change it later. But then I shelved the project and forgot about it.”

“But you just said you created it.”

“I researched the design. It was a thought experiment, an exercise in whimsy. I always assumed it would take too long, and I wasn’t convinced it was a viable life-form.”

The jelligantic (The gigantiglop? The slime-asaurus? The goopanormous?) was mostly a mound of quivering pudding, but it did have tremendous mechanical tentacles that allowed it to lurch across the ground. It wasn’t very fast outside of the water (or very fast in it either), but what it lacked in speed, it made up for in inevitability. It was significantly faster than a glacier and far less forgiving.

Cal barked an order to scramble. Within minutes, aircraft were deployed. They strafed and bombed the creature with all the hardware at their disposal. It howled and roared, giving the false impression that they were hurting the thing.

“We should evacuate this location,” said Zala.

“I can assure you,” said Cal, “that we have this well in hand.”

The jelligantic used cybernetic tentacles to swat a fighter from the sky like an elephant flicking its tail at flies. They could’ve blasted it all day with negligible results. The only vital point in the creature was its nucleus, protected by a bulk of highly absorbent flesh. The jelligantic never paused in its march toward the building, but it would be another few minutes before it would reach us.

I stared at the monster laying waste to the city. I moved closer to the window and studied the beast, a beautiful spawn of genetics and engineering. It was glorious, a triumph of science. If Neptunons could’ve cried, I would’ve shed a tear.

Zala shook me out of my delirium.

“We have to leave.”

“Right.” I forced myself to focus. “We have to get to my ship.”

We ran back to our craft. Cal trailed behind us, offering weak reassurances, though nothing the Atlantese threw at the monster had any effect on it. I boarded my saucer with Snarg and Zala, lifted off, and flew toward the jelligantic.

“What are you doing, Mollusk?” she asked.

“I need to get closer,” I replied.

The monster waved its tentacles at my saucer, but the craft’s navigation system was able to avoid them with ease. The anti-inertia function kept the ride smooth as my saucer zipped among the deadly metal tendrils.

The jelligantic’s every movement inflicted millions of dollars in property damage. The death toll should’ve been in the thousands, but if there was one lesson Atlantis had learned from its previous cataclysm, it was how to plan orderly evacuation. Escape pods were a standard of their architecture. Hundreds of the spherical pods shot into the sky and on to safety. So many, my ship was in more danger of being hit by a pod than a tentacle.

Zala said, “Mollusk, are you insane? Get out of that creature’s reach.”

“Just let me get a few more sensor sweeps.”

The saucer zipped between a pair of tentacles, dodged another escape pod, zoomed beneath some falling rubble.

“One more scan,” I said.

Zala turned me away from the monitor.

“Don’t you get it, Mollusk? This thing is the perfect tool of assassination for someone like you. You can’t resist it. Any sensible being would turn and fly away, but you can’t. You have to get up close and take a look at it.”

“Hmmm. You’re probably right.”

I was only half listening as I pondered the creature. It had stopped worrying about the Atlantese and focused its attentions on my ship. My original design wouldn’t have allowed that because it would have had photosensitive pigmentation pools that allowed for the detection of light and dark but not distinct shapes. There was no need for more than that since the jelligantic had been intended for mass destruction. It was a weapon to destroy cities, not individuals, and being half-blind wasn’t a problem.

“Attention, Atlantis Executive Command, this is Emperor Mollusk,” I transmitted. “Have your fleet stand down. I will neutralize the hostile.” I added with a smile, “We’ll discuss my fee later.”

“Are you mad?” asked Zala.

“I designed it. More or less. I can destroy it.”

“I don’t doubt you can,” she said.

The jelligantic toppled a twenty-story building with the swing of a careless tentacle.

“Okay, I do doubt it just a bit. But if you know that this thing is a trap, why are you playing into it?”

“If I walk away, then I lose.”

“But you get to live.”

“True, but I’d rather not settle for the consolation prize.”

I set the ship to maintain evasive maneuvers while leading the creature back the way it came—to minimize damage—and into the ocean.

“The jelligantic is too powerful a weapon to be in anyone’s clutches, Zala. Unchecked, it could cause untold devastation.”

“Since when do you care about that?”

“I will not tolerate outsiders using my own science to do harm.”

In the cargo bay, a robot handed me a fifteen-pound cube. Another secured the rocketpack and microwave emitter to my exo. I opened the cube, pushed a few buttons, twisted a few dials until I was comfortable with the setting.

“What is that?” asked Zala.

“Silica bomb.”

“You’re going to blow it up?”

“Not exactly. If this device works—”

“If?”

“I don’t have time to field-test everything.” I opened the loading bay doors and stared into my opponent’s sea of shimmering flesh.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she said. “I told you I can’t allow that.”

“I remember.”

A robot grabbed her from behind. It failed to immobilize both her arms, and with her free hand, she drew her scimitar and sliced the robot in two. Several more jumped on her. She would make short work of them, but it gave me all the time I needed.

“I don’t have time to program and arm a missile,” I said.

Growling, she kicked aside the last robot.

I winked at her and jumped out. As soon as I was out of my saucer’s artificial gravity and inertia dampeners, I plummeted into free fall. I engaged my rocketpack just in time to avoid being squashed by a towering tentacle. Evasion was easy because the tentacles were designed for crushing buildings, not a single fast-moving exoskeleton.

I punched through the monster’s outer skin with minimal resistance and swam through the opaque pudding of the jelligantic’s interior. Neptunon vision was adapted for murky waters, so I could see well enough. I switched over to my aquajets and headed toward the nucleus.

A blob of cybernetic protoplasm, the equivalent of a white blood cell, reacted aggressively to my invasion. Its mechanical limbs tried to drag me into its smothering mass. I burned it with the microwave emitter, shriveling it into blackened goo.

It wasn’t the only one. Dozens of defending organisms closed in. Twice the globs managed to grab me, and I had to jettison my damaged legs, deadweight anyway, to avoid being dissolved.

It was slow going. The creature’s thick pudding and the army of goo were troublesome. But there were no surprises. Everything was close enough to my original design that I had to stop myself from appraising the results to improve the next generation of jelligantic. Perhaps it was the rogue scientist in me, the same young squid who built desalination bombs and genetically modified six-headed piranhas for the simple joy of it, but there was something inspiring about the jelligantic.

I buried my scientific instincts and pushed deeper. I reached the nucleus, a pulsing yellow glob with a cybernetic mesh that acted as the mind, such as it was, of the beast. I paused. I’d never planned on building this monstrous weapon, but now that it was here, I hesitated to destroy it. Just for a moment.

It had to go. If I didn’t trust something like this in my tentacles, I couldn’t trust it to anyone else’s. The challenge had been posed, the gauntlet thrown, and if I didn’t destroy the jelligantic then it would be a loss. I’d lost before. But never willingly. It wasn’t in my nature.

I noticed a computer node on the jelligantic’s nucleus that didn’t belong there. It wasn’t much. Just a small component, barely noticeable, along the wiring. It was probably nothing, a built-in redundancy, a simple modification, but in the very cursory examination necessity allowed me, it appeared to not only be unnecessary, but not even connected to the rest of the system. Upon closer study, I discovered it came right off with a simple twist.

The jelligantic’s defenses closed in, returning my attention to my mission. I activated the bomb, threw it into the nucleus, and pushed my jets to their limit, not even bothering to avoid the defense slimes, just rocketing through them, taking the damage, pondering if there would be anything left of my exo to carry me out. I lost an arm, and my battery was barely able to power the jets as I burst out of the jelligantic. My rockets kicked in, sputtering and nearly useless, but they got me clear of the creature’s flailing limbs. My remaining exo was nothing but deadweight. I grabbed the node in my tentacles and ejected the pilot dome as the exo fell from the sky.

The dome’s emergency anti-graviton pods slowed my descent, but weren’t good for much else. The jelligantic screamed as my bomb scorched the nucleus and burned its way through the protoplasm. It took a while for a creature of this size to die. It lurched from side to side, howled as its goop grayed and calcified.

Six minutes later, the jelligantic was a fossilized mountain.

I walked among the rubble left in the jelligantic’s wake. All things considered, the destruction could’ve been worse. Property damage meant new construction projects on the island, which was almost a boon from an Atlantese mind-set. And casualties were minimal though there were those who had failed to escape unscathed.

A child, half-buried in rubble, cried out to Zala. She rushed to his aid.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said.

She ignored the warning. It took her several minutes to clear away the debris, but she wasn’t strong enough to move the better part of a wall.

“You could help,” she said. “These people wouldn’t be in this situation if not for you.”

Sighing, I summoned several dozen worker robots from my saucer. They trundled among the damage, beginning the rescue work. A pair threw aside the wall, and Zala helped the child to his feet.

“Ow,” he said. “You didn’t have to pull so hard.”

“We should get you to a hospital,” said Zala.

“Yes.” He rubbed his shoulder. “I think you wrenched my arm.”

“Can you walk?”

“My legs are fine.” He moved his right arm and winced dramatically. “But my shoulder feels dreadful.”

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry about that. I guess I should’ve been more careful, but I was—”

“So you admit you were careless,” said her charge.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. You were half buried alive.”

“But my shoulder was just fine before you helped me up.”

Zala rolled her eyes. “Fine. I don’t see how that’s important, but it’s possible I could’ve caused the injury.”

“Aha!” The child pointed to several other people being dug out of the rubble by my robots. “You all heard her. You’re my witnesses. She caused my shoulder injury.”

“This robot stepped on my hand,” said an old man.

“I think this one aggravated my tennis elbow,” said another.

The other rescued victims registered their own complaints, ranging from broken bones to vague psychological trauma.

“What’s your name?” the child asked Zala. “I need to know who to sue for my medical bills.”

“You’re still in shock. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Zala put her hand on his shoulder. He howled.

“Now you’ve exasperated it!”

“I saw her do it,” said another. “Witness.”

Zala stepped back as they advanced on us.

“Are you all mad?” she shouted. “Your city faces disaster, and you’re all out to make a profit from it?”

“The Atlantese find optimism through litigation,” I said. “If they can fatten their bank accounts then at least some good can come of this.”

“Well, I am a native of Venus and not beholden to their stupid laws.”

The citizens murmured among each other. It was a gray area. They might have been willing to fight about it, but why bother when the former Warlord of Terra was within range.