Infinity Squad (8 page)

The spider was looking exactly a foot over my shoulder, at a blank wall.

"Hello! The mountain? You told me how to avoid your hunting parties on the Night Hunting Grounds?"

"You are different,"
he said, snapping to look at us.

"Fuck," Ann-Marie said, grabbing her head.

"Fuck!" Zazlu said, grabbing for his sidearm.

"No, it's okay! That's how it feels!" I said, grabbing his arm. "It's not mind control, just words! You get used to it." Zazlu was slowly backing off his sidearm. I turned back to the spider.

"Yes. Different. I have brought new people. These are my-"

"No. YOU are different," the gravelly voice in my head said. "YOU have changed."

"You
have
resurrected since you saw him last," Zazlu whispered.

"But into the same cloned body," Ann-Marie whispered back. "You're saying he can tell the clones apart?"

I shook my head. "That'd be bizarre." Then, to the spider, "How have I changed?"

"You ARE different. You look... different to me."

I shook my head again. Cleaner uniforms? This was the trouble dealing with alien species. Especially ones that walked around naked.

"That's fine. But it is me again. We don't have much time before we are noticed. I wanted to tell you, you can talk to these two humans as you talk to me. I trust them."

I pointed to my left. "This is Ann-Marie Butcher. That is her name. Do you understand?"

The Hell-Spider considered my five-foot-three Intelligence Sergeant for a second, then said, "Yes. Butcher. One who slaughters animals with precision. Yes, I understand this name."

I pointed to my left. "And this is Zazlu Mohammed. That is his name."

The spider tilted its head strangely and said nothing.

"Zazlu
Mohammed
," I repeated. "My Second Lieutenant."

"Your words are... muddy again."

"Mohammed probably won't translate," Zazlu said, then stepped forward. He crossed his huge, muscular arms over his chest. "When I was a wrestler they called me-"

"Wrestler," the spider interrupted. "To grapple. To pin to the ground and kill. Yes, this I understand." He nodded to Ann-Marie. "Butcher." He turned to Zaz, nodded again. "Wrestler."

I looked at them. "Close enough. And so you can recognize me again, I am First Lieutenant Jonah Forrest."

"Forrest. A... collection of trees?" The spider looked down at me. "A strange name for one who leads a Butcher and a Wrestler."

"Oh yeah? And what's your great warrior name?"

The spider drew one of his razor claws in a flash, causing Ann-Marie and Zaz to jump back. But he just tapped his head with the impossibly strong, needle-sharp tip. "We use the image of our mind to recognize each other. The complete image of who we are. It would be impossible for you to see. Or know."

He scratched his head, then continued. "But when our hatchlings are young, before their minds can see well, we let them use markings to call us. These markings." On his spotted black skull, he tapped three yellow spots which stood out more than the rest, then put his claw away.

"Three Spot? That's your warrior name?" I laughed.

"He did call it a name for children," Zazlu whispered.

"Fine, whatever," I said. "We don't have tons of time. First of all, Three-Spot, thank you for your advice before. We got on and off the Night Hunting Grounds without needing to kill any of your brothers. And we got most of what we needed." I started digging in the backpack I had brought. "And we would have gotten
everything
we needed, if you had bothered to tell us about
these
!"

I slammed a dead, crispy snake up against the glass like a defense attorney. It didn't have the dramatic effect on Three-Spot that I had pictured. It also left a smear on the glass.

"Yes, the lightning snakes appear when the mountain is warmed by the sun," the Hell Spider said, calmly looking at the sample Zazlu had snagged on the trip back. "That is why it is the
Night
Hunting Grounds."

"You stupid EIGHT LEGGED-" I yelled, pounding the glass. "Do you have any idea how much their bites HURT?"

Three-Spot took his razor claw and pointed at his foreleg, at the tough skin behind his armored shin and two small, long-healed, puncture marks there.

"Yes. I do. At a certain age, the males of our species are disposed to ignore the warnings of their elders and go exploring." He rested back onto his legs. "Many new hunting grounds are found this way. But also many painful scars."

The two fresh burn marks on my neck throbbed. Lesko had crossed me in the hall and I don't know why I had let him mark me again. To teach myself a lesson, I guess. I held my neck and dropped the snake on the table. Three-Spot looked at it with interest.

"Would you mind if I... It has been a while since I have eaten," he said into our heads. I looked at Ann-Marie and Zaz.

She shrugged. Zaz crossed his arms and said, "We can provide many lightning snakes. Many. But we need information first. On where your young males may have ventured recently and not returned."

Three-Spot looked him over, tilting his head one way, then the other. "You wish to collect their skulls."

Zazlu's negotiating face was legendary in the barracks. No human, private to admiral, could read those impassive muscles to tell if the deal being offered was a lemon or the chance of a lifetime. But I saw it flicker for an instant then, as the Hell-Spider looked right through him.

"Zaz, he's psychic, we can't buffalo him," I said, collapsing into the chair. "Yes, Three-Spot. Or General, our commanding officer, wants us to return with skulls to prove we have killed more of your kind."

"But you do not wish to engage us in battle."

Finally.

"That's right. We do not want bloodshed on either side. We will leave your kind alone if you direct us to where they will not be."

The spider considered this, staring at the far wall. We waited politely. It seemed to be taking a long time until-

"This is acceptable," he said. "We will not kill your kind if you do not attempt to kill us or our prey."

"That's great, now where-"

"Our hunting grounds must be respected. You and I will clear 'patrols' with each other, to keep our sides separate."

I stood up, rubbing my forehead. It was starting to ache. Caffeine crash? "Yes, that's fine. Now, for the next time we need skulls-"

"Your thoughts are muddy again," the voice said in my head, but it was wavering in and out like a weak radio signal. And I was so tired. I leaned on the table for support, holding my head.

"Sir, we'll take it from here," Ann-Marie said. "You look like you really need to get some sleep."

"Yes, boss," Zaz agreed, clasping my shoulder. Then he started cutting the lightning snake up into pieces on the table. "
This
type of discussion I can handle."

I staggered back to our barracks. The last thing I remember before pulling my privacy curtain was seeing Juan hoisting a giggling news reporter into his bunk as her four inch high heels fell off.

When I woke up in the cloned body, I tried to fall asleep and wake up again.

I had been dreaming of riding Hell-Spiders through the jungle chasing salty, juicy steaks. First I was a soldier, riding Three-Spot as we hunted wild porterhouse, then I was a civilian, galloping with a whole pack of spiders, and finally I dreamed of being a Hell-Spider myself, enjoying the juicy, medium-rare results of the hunt.

The taller, brown-skinned body just seemed like another dream and I closed my eyes again, looking forward to waking up and getting my real body back. Until I remembered. I sat up with a pang of sadness. I also could have really gone for a steak right then. I pulled my privacy curtain and Zazlu and Ann-Marie were sitting at the table, drinking coffee. They looked unhappy.

"What time is it?" I croaked, blinking and pulling on my shirt. They could have told me anything and I would have believed it.

Butcher checked her watch. "0613."

"I meant local."

Zaz shrugged. "Sunrise was an hour ago. You have slept for quite a while."

"Twelve hours," Ann-Marie added.

I got out of my bunk and stretched, looking at their frowns again. "Is there a problem?"

They looked at each other, then Zaz said, "General Oakley is very pleased about the two skulls we brought back from the mountain."

I checked my buffering band and grabbed a cup of the coffee. "That's good."

"He has had them cleaned and mounted in the cafeteria."

"That's... exactly what I'd expect Oakley to do."

"And he wants five more by the end of the week," Ann-Marie took over. "Omega squad's patrol ran across two spiders last night but couldn't bring one down. So Oakley ordered us out again as soon as you woke up."

I sighed. Let no success go unpunished. "Fine. What were Three-Spot's recommendations on-”

"There's something else, sir," Butcher interrupted. She looked over her shoulder to check the bunks. Most of their owners were out at breakfast, only Juan remained, starting to stir. She turned back to me. "We were reviewing what the Hell-Spider said to you."

I sat down at the table with them as Juan pulled his privacy curtain and bounded out of his bunk, a huge smile on his face. "Yeah, what about it?" I said.

"The spider said they recognized each other by how their mind projects, every part of their being and consciousness represented in a visual image."

Juan was dancing around in his boxers, whistling as he poured his coffee. "So?" I asked.

"We look at faces," Zazlu said. "They look at
souls
." He gripped my forearm. "And it had trouble recognizing you after your second resurrection."

That got my attention. "What? Seriously- what?"

"The spider said you looked different after your second time in the tub," Butcher said to me. "Not your body- your
mind
."

I felt the blood draining from my face. "Fuck."

Juan plopped down at the table with us, just grinning his ass off. "Great morning, isn't it?"

"No, that can't happen," Doctor Murphy said, shaking her head. She leaned around her door, her curly red hair and flannel pajamas disheveled in an adorable way. "The bands capture your consciousness exactly for transmission to your new body. End of story."

"Now when you say 'exactly' Doc," I replied from the hallway, with Zazlu, Butcher and Juan behind me, "you're measuring this by some sort of brain thermometer or..."

"Packet loss. Goodput. CAT scans, MRIs," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose where her glasses would have sat. "It works. We've tested it. End of story."

I looked back at my squad. Who were we going to believe more? Her or the Hell Spider? And how could we explain where our doubts came from?

"If you're so worried about it, Lieutenant, just keep a log of your thoughts, hopes and dreams," Murphy said. "We can review it from time to time, to see if it changes."

"A diary?" Juan laughed. "You want him to write a dairy? Maybe we all should have a sleepover and-"

Juan shut up with one cold look from my eyes. I turned back to Murphy. "It's not that we don't believe you Doc, but maybe I could just talk to you privately about it sometime." I looked at the solid door she was hiding behind. "You know, your room looks a lot more private than our barracks, what with this big steel door that we could close if-"

"Good night Lieutenant," she said, closing the door in my face and locking it.

No one said anything until Juan whispered, "I bet this is totally going in his diary."

Captain Morse looked up as we ducked our heads into his office.

"Oakley's sending us out again, sir," I said. "Another bug hunt."

The pile of papers on Morse's left side had shrunk somewhat. The one on his right side had grown a little. "Very well," he nodded, then went back to it.

"It sounds a little more dangerous than last time," I added. "I was wondering if we could take two Heavies. Oakley said it was okay last time but we didn't."

This time he didn't look up as his pencil kept making marks on the paper. "Approved."

After a few seconds, I said, "Sir, he's mainly sending us out for trophies to hang in the cafeteria. It may not be the best way to actually win the war."

He still didn't look up. "General Oakley dictates the overall strategy, Lieutenant. We just choose the tactics. Carry on."

I looked at the others. "Aye, aye sir. Carrying on."

The technician powered up two Heavy exoskeletons and looked at his computer readouts. "So, besides the standard load out," he asked the four of us, "what type of special weapons do you wan-"