There was an art to scavenging in the Murks; for bodies of the Forgotten, especially, one had to know exactly when to use just enough explosive material, so as not to waste the precious resource (should the target survive bombardment), and not so much as to blow themselves up along with the loot.

For Lennon, that golden ratio was fifty kilograms of SC4, and just pinch of STNT for good measure when dealing with the rare Beetle find. Lennon’s carefully cooked explosive mix, like spicy grey-white dough, stuck to the Forgotten’s exoskeleton easily.

Lennon was the tallest of the maggots; standing at nearly 188 centimeters—much taller than most of Diptera blood. But the Forgotten Beetle dwarfed him.

Lennon carefully placed the explosive mix on precise locations for maximum effect: the limbs, abdominals, thorax, etc. But there was no point in placing any on the back. While the entire exoskeleton boasted unyielding defense (against common arms, that is) the elytra on the back were especially so unless opened.

And this Beetle died with her elytra tightly shut. It’d only waste his explosive material to try blowing them open. That wasn’t his immediate concern. Lennon’s focus was on her hands, the blade she held in place; impaled in her abdomen — his true target.

“Isn’t that a bit much?” Millie asked; looking at the Forgotten wrapped in wads of delicately kneaded explosive dough.

“Not when we’re dealing with a Beetle, it isn’t,” Lennon said. “It might not be enough to damage it really, but if we can just free the long sword from that icy grip, it’d start a bidding war amongst the Coleopterists; maybe even some Sapiens, considering its quality.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Lennon clicked his tongue, then shrugged, placing three strands of flammable line silk in his mouth as he fixed the other two into the explosive dough.

“Let Len do his thing, Mill. Why don’t you join Oliver on the military ‘thopter, see what that SOS was all about?”

“I can handle myself around explosives, Cher,” Millie said, puckering her lips at her sister. “I’m not that little maggot anymore.”

“I know you’re not; it’s why I’m letting you go onboard the thopter. Let me know if anything seems off,” Cherilyn said.

“Alright... but be careful, too.”

Millie lingered for a bit, then walked further into the marsh; making her way toward the large ornithopter. Millie saw Oliver staring at it in a trance, his lips parted slightly. She had to admit, the military ‘thopter must’ve been quite the sight in its heyday. Just thinking about flying that beast of a contraption gave her goosebumps.

“Looks like they’re a few more sentries around here, all Forgotten?” Millie said; standing next to the Oliver.

“Yeah, there’s a lot more that way; fifty total ‘round the crash site,” Oliver replied, neither looking at Millie nor the direction he pointed a finger at. The ornithopter had all his attention. Millie sighed.

“Hey, about the Homeland Security anthem’s subjective inclusivity, all I meant was--”

“That doesn’t matter. You worry too much about what others think, Mill.” Oliver said.

“Not others... just family. I’m not ashamed of who I am, is what I’m saying, Ollie; I’m a fly of the Diptera foremost,” Millie said; turning around and flashing the crest on the back of her brown aviator jacket depicting two wings—one black, the other white.

“Hmm, okay, look, here’s the deal: I don’t care that you’re also a Homelander; you’ve nothing to prove. All I know is you can live your dream if you put your mind to it; don’t let anyone’s opinion hold you back... watching you perform the autopsy was amazing, Mill,” Oliver said; meeting Millie’s gaze this time; still wearing his aviator goggles.

“Let’s go onboard?”

“Um, okay... but the Ladybug sneer was just mean!” Millie said, smacking his shoulder.

Oliver laughed, motioning for Millie to follow with his hand. Millie sighed and run after him.

As the two maggots got closer to the ruptured hull, Millie spotted a large logo emblazoned onto the ornithopter’s surface: a bug with an afro wearing shades; grinning.

“It’s a Robber ‘Thopter!”

“Yeah, Model Ryu... took you long enough, Captain,” Oliver said, smugly.

There were a few smaller whirlpools here and there, but nothing Oliver couldn’t see through; Millie treaded lightly wherever Oliver did. They soon got to the rupture and as Oliver traced his fingers onto the logo, the hairs on his skin stood erect; he had goosebumps all over his body; he could feel the blood rush to his face as he grinned. This was an authentic Robber ‘Thopter!

“She’s beautiful,” he said.

“You know the Robber Brothers didn’t build this ‘thopter themselves, right?” Millie asked. “They didn’t have the tech in their time.

“I read in The Aviator that the last living brother started the Robber Foundation so their legacy would live on; the foundation licenses the brothers’ patents and name for a small commission.”

“Yeah... someone probably assembled her on a production line at the turn of the last century; but the Robber Brothers designed all her components, Mill,” Oliver said. “Their minds were centuries ahead of their time; they designed a prototype on which every other ‘thopter’s modeled.”

“I know that better than you do, [Flyer]-junkie. A Sapien Aeronautics Professor at HU said the Robber Brothers’ independent wing controls and their efficient wing-coupling systems were the last two original ideas in Ornithopter Design Theory; that anything we’d ever come up with would only be variations of the original; that good contraptors accepted the fact and worked creatively within those limitations,” Millie said with a scowl as she heard Oliver snicker.

“It’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing, I swear,” Oliver said, clearing his throat. “But wait... is that why you majored in Sapien Forensics and Criminology, despite getting into HU for the avionics program?”

“That’s not the only reason I switched majors, but yes. I don’t want to just imitate others, no matter how much I look up to them,” Millie said.

“Hmm, if you say so.”

“Then there’s Len, who dropped out after only a year and a half,” Oliver laughed. “It’s a good thing I never got in. You’re too proud—both of you! But I don’t care about how it’s made. I just want to fly the thing.”

“I know you do, [Flyer]-junkie. But that was a waste of a good scholarship on Len’s part,” Millie said, bringing a hand to her face. “For the record, I would’ve persisted if the Coleopterists paid me every month just to study; Lennon’s the proud one here.”

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“And, Ollie, I remember you sulking for an entire month, when you didn’t get in.”

“I remember no such thing. You must’ve imagined it.”

Oliver cleared his throat, then they both laughed.

Oliver then got down on one knee near the rupture. The composite material of the hull had caved in; like it was subject to extremely high stresses.

While the composite was an incredibly light and resilient material, it was nowhere near as strong as a chitinous exoskeleton. Still, one couldn’t compromise the material with ease; even when dealing with dirty bombs, according to The Aviator, in an often quoted article on military ornithopters that had won Oliver many an argument over the years. Whatever had torn such a large rupture through the composite material was nothing to scoff at. Oliver had an inkling who was responsible.

“A Sapien did this,” Millie said.

“Yeah, I had the same thought,” Oliver said. “They must’ve gotten the SOS long before we did... but out here? It’s gotta be--”

“One of Daddy’s Offspring? Great, so they’ve made off with the loot already,” Millie said, bitting her lip.

“Not necessarily; it could’ve been in-fighting: ‘the Beetles were uncivilized brutes, barely Sapien in the genuine sense of the word.’” Oliver quoted.

“Lennon’s a Beetle and he’s okay — he’s not even Sapien.”

“A Beetle only in hemolymph; but he’s Diptera blood, my blood!” Oliver said as he sprung to his feet; his face so close to Millie’s, Oliver could see his scowl in her eyes as his nostrils flared.

“Your spit’s flying; don’t scream at me, Oliver! Blood doesn’t mix with hemolymph; I know. You’re the one quoting the Book of Beetles. A rogue Coleopterist—a zealot—sucking up to the nobility wrote that old tome.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Only one way to find out,” Oliver said, his short antennae perking out of his dark hair, eyes hidden behind iridescent aviator goggles. “Let’s go in.”

“Okay, fine!” Millie said, arms crossed.

Water flooded the inside of the military ornithopter; more of the bioluminescent algae stuck in its walls; producing a pale blue light. It had mixed in with the water over the years, so as they walked through it, the water glowed the same pale blue light. The two maggots stood in the shallow water for a while; unmoving, taking in the ethereal sight.

“It’s beautiful,” Millie said.

“Yeah... it really is.”

***

Lennon carefully placed flammable line silk into the spicy, explosive dough. Cherilyn dragged the silk along the marsh; weaving around the small spirals of clear water. These whirlpools were smaller but just as deep as the larger ones; the pressure down there would pop her like a balloon.

“Is this far enough, Len?” Cherilyn asked.

Lennon looked back at her. He was pleasant to the eyes: olive skin, sharp facial features, hard around the stubble of his jaw. His eyes, pools of darkness now, but iridescent in a certain light. Long antennae stuck out of his black-green hair. Lennon’s sharp nose completed the look; giving the young maggot’s demeanor an air of calm confidence.

“Just about,” he said. “Let’s light her up.”

***

Aesthetic effects having waned, Millie and Oliver noticed there were two paths within the flyer’s hull: One leading to the back, toward the cargo hold, the other, to the cockpit; past the cabin. Either location promised some juicy loot; but Oliver and Millie both wanted a view from the cockpit.

Oliver looked at Millie, arms crossed, a mild whiff of annoyance still pasted on her face with that pout; he hesitated, saying:

“Rock-paper-scissors? I’ll keep my goggles on.”

“That won’t do,” Millie said. “Close your eyes, just in case.”

“How do I know you won’t cheat?”

“You don’t,” Millie said.

***

Cherilyn and Lennon were inside their rented ornithopter. Lennon held the detonator, connected to five flammable line silks in hand. The other ends of each line of silk inside a strategically placed explosive dough on the Forgotten Beetle’s exoskeleton. Cherilyn activated their ornithopter’s shields, and the air crackled as an electromagnetic field enclosed their small ‘thopter.

“... and you’re sure the explosion won’t get to the young ones?”

“They’re further away from the epicenter than we are; and that’s a military-grade ‘thopter they’re in. You’d have to nuke it to deal it any serious damage. But I bet your stash of Sapien loot has some chitinous weapons and who knows what else, that could do worse with less effort,” Lennon said. “Also, young ones? I’m the same age as Ollie and Mill, you know that, Cher.”

“You sure don’t act like it when you want sex,” Cherilyn said. “And you’re a lot more dependable. I forget sometimes, my bad.”

Lennon sighed, hitting the red button on the detonator in response. A spark surged, burning out nearly half of the 200 meters of silk in the blink of an eye.

***

Oliver kept his aviator goggles on, closed his eyes, and, at Millie’s insistence, had one hand over his goggles. Millie also closed her eyes when she was certain he wasn’t looking anymore; but that mischievous grin on his pretty face made her doubt that.

“Rock. Paper. Scissors,” they both drawled, waving their hands slowly.

Oliver drew scissors, Millie paper; but before the maggots opened their eyes, a tumultuous explosion went off, sending gusts of wind and water jets into the ‘thopter through the rupture in its hull.

Oliver opened his eyes a second quicker than Millie did; looked at their hands, changed his scissors draw, then gazed at the marsh through the rupture in time to see the water shoot up hundreds of meters in a steaming geyser of death.

“Whoa. Look at that! Len sure doesn’t know when to hold back,” he said.

Millie’s eyes shot open, she looked at their hands, noticed Oliver drew rock; losing to her paper. She saw him taken by the explosion; his dark hair was wet. Millie grinned as she covered his rock with paper hand.

“You lose, [Flyer]-junkie!”

Oliver looked at their hands, pulled a defeated scowl in caricature, said,

“Aw shucks, you got me, Captain. But only ‘cause I got distracted by the explosion; best of three?”

“Boo, no stinkbugs here! Flight control’s calling this little Blowfly’s name!”

***

The rented ornithopter’s shield crackled, its hull rocking as the shockwave made contact. A deluge of steaming water and boiling mud rained onto the electric field; the light composite material of their ornithopter rattled with such force it felt like above their heads was another bombardment.

Their ‘thopter’s six legs sank at least half a meter into the uneven soil, tilting on one side.

“Holy dungbeetles!” Cherilyn said, glad she’d strapped herself to a seatbelt. “Was that just a pinch STNT you added to the dough, Len? Millie was right, that was too much!”

“We’ll know soon enough, Cher,” Lennon said. He was inside the Compound-Eye Cockpit (CEC). His attention on the ommatidium cells currently focused on the old military ornithopter. The cells had small images on them; each one coordinating with thousands of others to form larger blotches of mosaic panels.

One panel showed all organic heat signatures on the military ‘thopter. Near the rupture were two bright figures immersed in water up to their knees, one’s hand covering the other’s fist. Lennon couldn’t to tell them apart, his eyes weren’t that good in a CEC. “Ollie and Mill are okay; I think they’re... playing rock, paper, scissors?”

“See why I call them young ones?” Cherilyn laughed.

Lennon shifted his gaze along the other blotches of mosaic panels; peering into the old military ‘thopter’s hull.

There were hues of reds and blues or complete blackout, only specialized eyes could discern anything tangible on some of the mosaics’s polarized light images.

But a few were clearer: One that had his attention was a wireframe mosaic image of the old military ornithopter; showing compartments, hidden doors, stairways, and... Lennon paled; something he saw out of the corner of his eye gave him chills.

Lennon’s neck craned back to the Mosaic image with the organic heat signatures.

“Fruitflies...” he said, under his breath.

“Len? What is it?” Cherilyn asked; unstrapping herself from the stubborn seatbelt. She hesitated for a few seconds, then walked into the CEC, taking a deep breath. “What’s wrong?”

It was difficult to focus on a single thing when one was inside a CEC. The ommatidium cells gave a nearly 360 degree view of the world outside; each of the thousands of cells focusing on infinitesimal segments with startling resolution and depth; everything seemed to slow down at that scale of the minutiae. It was a sensory overload. Even a small part of the world, when viewed with such clarity, was overwhelming to observe for unfit eyes.

The sight gave Cherilyn a headache as her eyes strained. It felt like she was looking at the world through the wrong lenses—through thousands of wrong lenses at the same time. Vertigo hit her like a maglev Centipede Train cutting through the wind at breakneck speed.

Just holding onto a headset that connected a pilot’s eyes to the ‘thopter’s sensors, directly superimposing images onto their natural ommatidia, made her head throb. Cherilyn shuddered as she remembered—no! Away with that thought. Cherilyn shut her eyes.

“Len, tell me what the fruitflies is going on, right now!”

“There’re infected bugs out there—we’re surrounded by Mindless, Cher!” Lennon’s usually calm voice sounded panicked to Cherilyn; a normal reaction when death... no, something worse, smiled at you, she thought.

If Cherilyn looked at the Mosaic blotches, she’d see dozens of bright, red figures approaching their rented flyer, and one more, a dull, pink glow on --

“There’s a third organic heat signature on the military ‘thopter. Either Millie or Oliver’s heading for it. I can’t tell who. But it’s not Mindless, Cher... I think it’s a Green!”

This makes no sense! We sent drones, scanned every nook of this marsh. Was the Green a dormant seed? Did it just sprout? How? Why now? Cherilyn thought, her face pale.

“Please tell me it’s Vegeterian, Len.”

“I-I can’t tell. My eyes are hardly any good in here. They’re getting closer, Cher. We’ve gotta --”

The rented flyer’s shield crackled violently. Something was forcing its way in—something mindless.