part of a network,” Anderson said quietly as he tapped at the keyboard, “a bio-command network, like an ant hive.”
“So that’s normal then?” Hendricks asked. He would have sworn at that moment, that if they could, Dr. David Anderson and Annie would have exchanged a knowing look.
“That would be normal, yes,” Anderson answered, spinning around the screen to show him lines of symbols and numbers that he didn’t understand.
“But?” he asked the computer programmer.
“But they’re using MY code to do it,” Annie answered, for the first time displaying a genuine hint of fear in her voice.
Chapter 30
THE NEEDS OF THE MANY
Feeling rested and safe, Harrison patrolled the ramparts of the high walls in front of his town. The guards, all volunteers, who would keep watch over their people during the brightest of the dark nights greeted him with admiration and respect. The rumors of the newcomers from space, with their superior technology and their total lack of understanding of their new home, had spread like a fire in dry grass. The people believed in Harrison, believed in his ability to lead them safely into a new era where at least one threat could be dealt with, and they could live in happier and more peaceful times.
He always did this, and even took regular night duties on the wall himself to protect his people from harm, but tonight he had taken the night off after his recent exertions, and made his rounds as the sun was setting because Tori had told him she wanted him back in their bed as soon as possible. He was eager to abide by her command, but he was sure to abide by his own standards before he went to her.
If anything, the act of being out on the walls at a dangerous time only served to heighten his anticipation.
Walking every part of their defenses and setting foot on each fire step to exchange words with his people, he stopped to congratulate a young man on the birth of his first child and asked him if he would not rather be at home with the baby and his woman. Standing tall with a shock of almost white-blonde hair, his answer that he would get more sleep on the walls than at home made the men and women around him laugh raucously, as he knew the answer would, and Harrison smiled at him as he walked away, reminding himself to reward the man and his woman for having a healthy child.
Finding his way back to his room, he peeled off his stiff leather vest with his long knives still strapped to the back of it and smiled down to Tori.
~
In the dead of the night, Harrison woke up and sat bolt upright. The sound which had ripped him from a satisfied, deep sleep was undeniably a scream. A scream here, so far from the walls, terrified him.
Flying from the bed he threw on his pants and boots, stooping to snatch up his vest and blades as he blasted from the room to head toward the ramparts at a sprint.
When he hit the walls, ignoring the shouts and questions coming from those he passed, another sensation assaulted him. It hit his nose and his eyes, and he knew what it was long before he found the place in the newest section of wall that was ablaze. The closer he got to it, the more people he saw fleeing inwards toward the gate into the old part of the town.
As he found the section ablaze, yet another sensation struck him. Above the sounds of the crackling fire and the shouts and screams coming from the people, came the high-pitched whining screech of The Swarm.
Looking down and squinting his eyes against the acrid smoke coming from the burning timbers at the base of the wall, the screeching noise rose in intensity as a single chunk of burning wood fell inwards to land with an ominous and resounding thud against the packed earth below.
That sound and the horrifying vision that accompanied it, was rapidly followed by the inexorable flow of dark, shining shapes pouring through the gap to be illuminated by the flames. Their black carapaces reflected the light of the fire, highlighting them as they burst through the wall to spread out in search of flesh to consume.
Harrison, frozen momentarily in dreadful dismay, watched the shining black flood disappear between the huts below just as new screams wafted up to him; screams, this time, of the animals left trapped to their fate as their masters fled toward safety.
Sparked into action, Harrison’s feet started to move his body fast back toward the gate where the old town met the new even before he consciously knew he was doing it. He looked down to the gate which was thronged with a mass of people panicking and pushing their way through the gap as they desperately sought safety from the terror pouring in behind them.
From his unique vantage point, Harrison could see the whole scene spread out below him in almost slow-motion. The gap in the outer wall behind him still admitted a steady stream of reflective black bodies highlighted by the flames, and beneath him a crowd of men and women, some carrying animals and children, were all trying to pack though a gateway that wasn’t big enough to accommodate them. Glancing back toward the advancing swarm, he looked back to the inner gate and locked eyes with the guard stood above it. Boring every ounce of his authority into the tall blonde man, he shouted the single command which could save them all.
It would save the town, but it would condemn every man, woman, child, and animal left in the new part of the town. Maybe a hundred people would have to pay the ultimate needed to save the whole of Three Hills.
Drawing in his breath, his brain reminding him that this was his last chance to find another solution, he bawled the order.
“Cut it!”
The tall blonde man swallowed, hefted the blade in his right hand, and chopped down on the rope holding the gate up to make the heavy wood slam down and seal the gap.
The screams from below, Harrison knew, would stay with him for his entire life.
Epilogue
Harrison walked along the burned, blackened ramparts that had survived the spreading flames. All night the occupants of the walled town had passed bags and buckets of water from their supply hand over hand until the last of the fires had been extinguished.
Those who had been trapped below, locked out of the safety they all enjoyed inside an un-breached wall, screamed incessantly until their screams were stopped either by the swarming insects the size of cats or by the choking fumes of the fires.
Now that the fire and Swarm ravaged area could be accessed, Harrison donned his vest and long knives and led a party of warriors in to seal the hole in the wall and search for survivors.
There were none.
Using his foot to break down a damaged wooden door to one of the single-story buildings, the scene before him broke his heart and threatened to rob him of the ability to walk.
The bright white bones arrayed before him told a tale of love and desperation. Of bravery and utter acceptance of a terrible fate. A skeleton had the long bones of its arms wrapped around a pile of smaller bones, all picked as clean as the others he had seen. Leaning forward, his body froze as his eyes locked on to the two small rounded shapes in that pile, and the presence of the tiny skulls made him imagine a scene that he would never forget.
A mother, or a father as the skeleton would not tell him which, had covered their children as The Swarm broke in and devoured them where they lay. He imagined the crying as the screeching, roiling mass of bugs splintered their way through the flimsy barricade, then the screams of agony as the first bites were taken from their bodies and the rapid absence of human sounds as they died and were consumed.
But Harrison did not cry. He did not break down and scream and curse anyone. He did not vomit and fall into a catatonic state, but instead he closed the door on the heartbreaking family scene and organized the repairs to the wall to be made and for graves to be dug.
He had work to do, and there was no time for sentiment.