Chapter 20: Turbulence

Wednesday, March 29th, 7:52 AM

Dungeon Ciara

“So, what do we do?” Rihelah asked, hugging Michael tightly as they stood in my testing cavern beside Siobhán and Joy.

[We do what the floating lizard said we should, Ryebean. Because it’s the best information we have. He hasn’t done anything shady so far, aside from being a royal pain in my rocky backside.]

“I…” Joy started to say something, but left the cavern in tears. Michael and Rihelah followed, moving past Joy while she curled up on the couch to cry and Siobhán joined her.

“Michael, I want to talk with you. Come outside with me?” Rihelah gave him that look she had whenever she was about to chew someone’s ass.

Frustrated by what we'd just learned, I returned to managing my minions and cleaning up the harbor.

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Shit… what did I do this time? Michael knew that look in Rihelah’s eyes—it meant that he’d fucked up, somehow.

“Sure.” Might as well get it over with. We’ve got a ton of work to do.

Outside, Michael was surprised to find Natalie, one of the more talkative girls from UCSC Genomics, falling on her butt as the door to the outside opened and a length of rebar clattered to the ground beside her.

Natalie smiled widely, but it didn’t seem to reach her eyes. She mostly kept her eyes on Michael, but frequently stole glances at Rihelah.

“Uh, Natalie? What were you—” Michael began.

“You two… you’re safe!” I saw you go down inside there, and I thought you were stuck below ground!” Natalie wailed.

“Don’t worry, we’re fine.” Michael smiled as he heard the door close and latch behind them. Rihelah elbowed him lightly.

“So, Michael… I wanted to ask, will… uhm—would you go for a walk with me? I have some questions for you.” Natalie smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes at him.

“Maybe in a bit? Right now, I need to talk with Rihelah.” He shrugged. Rihelah’s elbow, still against him, pressed harder into his ribs.

“Oh. Well, I’ll… uh…” Natalie seemed flustered as she plodded away, sounding like she was about to cry.

Hearing Natalie sniffle loudly, Michael whispered to Rihelah, “Should I go after her?”

“You wanna die?” Rihelah whispered back, giving him the look.

Michael knew better than to argue.

“Not really. It’s just—she seemed upset.” He nodded toward Natalie as she moved slowly away from them.

Rihelah got closer, and he felt the warmth of her breath in his ear. “Crocodile tears, Michael. How can you not notice? Besides, I asked you first. Are you going back on your word?” Rihelah raised her eyebrows.

Indignation rose inside Michael and he stiffened.

Damn. She really knows how to twist that knife.

Setting his jaw, Michael replied, “No, I’m not breaking my word. Let’s go. There’s some grass near the Lagoon. Sound good?” He kept his eyes locked on Rihelah’s, which seemed to calm her a little.

“Okay.” A hint of a smile crept back onto Rihelah’s face.

After a short walk in silence toward Schwan Lagoon, Rihelah sat down on the grass and patted the ground beside her. Her jerky motions made her seem nervous, and that threw more gas on the fire of Michael’s discomfort.

Michael sat beside Rihelah with a slight pang of dread.

To his surprise, Rihelah looked at him with softness in her brown eyes as her trembling hands gently took his.

She leaned closer.

“Michael, I’ve wanted to say this for a long time—years, really.” Rihelah stumbled over her words, half-laughing as she spoke. “But, either the timing wasn’t right, or I was—.” She pressed her lips between her teeth and took a breath, then nodded for some reason.

The softness behind Rihelah’s eyes was joined by determination as she changed her grip, and her fingers intertwined with Michael’s.

A lump grew in Michael’s throat.

Rihelah smiled, lowered her eyes, shook her head with a forced chuckle, then looked at him again. “W-what I’m trying to say is, since we were kids, Michael, I’ve—”

Gunfire sounded from somewhere close to the harbor inlet, cutting Rihelah off and leaving her looking shocked.

Michael stood abruptly. “Shotgun blasts. Let’s go. Gotta find out what’s going on.”

“Y-yeah,” Rihelah replied.

Rihelah wouldn’t let go of Michael’s hand as they ran, and there was an urgency in her grip.

Angry yells rolled across the landscape from the direction of the Crow’s Nest, and they glanced at one another. Rihelah gave Michael a determined frown as she removed her hand from his and accelerated. He blinked in disbelief.

Tightening his mouth in determination, Michael quickened his pace to catch up, and they raced over the ash-covered streets so fast, that Michael could scarcely believe what was happening.

The Crow’s Nest came into view as they crested the gentle rise in the landscape. A small crowd of unfamiliar figures had gathered around the entrance.

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I’d ordered my girls to retreat after the new human arrivals had shown aggression when the Labs greeted them. That could have been the end of things, but one man dared to fire his double-barreled shotgun twice at my Labs while they fled through the Crow’s Nest entrance.

Neither of my pups were seriously harmed, but some of the pellets had stung their hindquarters as they ran, and I saw red.

My mind went from zero to bitch in an instant, and the Dungeon in me came out to play. For the first time, my two halves completely agreed on a course of action.

Those wretched people had no clue that forty Devilflies were already making a beeline toward them.

“Aww c’mon, Nico! You’re wastin’ our ammo! Use the bat if you wanna smack a bitch!” The tan woman had tattoos down her arms and bleached blonde hair. While insulting Nico, she smacked against the outside of his shoulder with a brushed-nickel revolver in her left hand.

Nico swung his arm to backhand her, but she ducked the blow and laughed while their three companions chuckled.

The man to the blonde’s right had a shaved head and carried a dark blue canvas duffel bag and a baseball bat. The other two men had short dark hair and rifles. All were dressed in filthy T-shirts and jeans, with various high-top tennis shoes.

Every one of them laughed when Nico shot at my girls.

You think attacking my family is funny?

My rage intensified, and I ordered a quartet of Dire Widows to head for their location.

Mike and Joe stalked up, through the entrance with weapons drawn, while the rest of the initial crowd of humans hid among the foliage in my orchard.

Siobhán and Joy lay asleep on the couch in my basement, while Michael and Rihelah raced over the ruined streets on their way to intercept the attackers.

Joe ducked back inside after a brief look at Nic and his friends. The blonde woman who spotted Joe aimed her pistol too late to get a clear shot at him.

She hissed to Nico and the others while pointing at my entrance. “That was him. The big fucker who killed Mitt and Javier is in the building!”

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The men with rifles trained their weapons at the entrance.

“Fuck yeah. Then it’s time for fun!” Nico exclaimed. His reedy, baritone voice dripped with arrogance and it grated at me.

“You assholes wanna see how we handle shit in Tijuana?” Nico smiled with his tongue out for a second as he unzipped the duffel, and grabbed a bundle of stubby red fireworks taped around the center portion of a dark green propane cylinder intended for camping. On closer inspection, at least two fireworks were stamped with bold, black print that read, m80.

A half-meter length of fuse hung from one side, and looked like it had been wrapped beside the points where the firecrackers’ fuses protruded. Screws, nuts, and small bolts were also taped in two bands around the propane cylinder.

The blonde woman bit her bottom lip and smiled excitedly when Nic handed her the strange contraption that I assumed was a makeshift bomb.

From inside the building, Joe’s deep voice called out, “U.S. Marine Corps! Lay down your weapons or you will be shot!”

The response from the five humans outside included a fit of rifle fire that ricocheted off my Crow’s Nest, chipping a bit of the stone. Nico followed up by flipping his middle finger toward the building as his friends snickered.

I won’t give you the chance to hurt anyone I care about.

With imperious contempt, I watched hungrily as the first six Devilflies arrived to carry out my orders.

My minions flew low to the ground, landed briefly to attach silken lines to the glass panels above my orchard, then darted toward the hostiles while Nico rifled through the duffel bag. Ten more Devilflies arrived a few seconds after the first wave, following the same procedure.

Nico had just produced a plastic cigarette lighter with a triumphant expression when my Devilflies orbited the small group of humans at high speed, weaving up and down and coordinating their flight paths as they wrapped silk around them.

All five looked up in surprise, when they heard and felt what was happening.

“What the fuck?” the blonde woman screamed in horror.

She dropped the makeshift bomb and fired her pistol, but failed to hit anything. By that time, all sixteen Devilflies were now orbiting the humans, who huddled closer as they shrank away from the silk.

By the time the humans reasoned out what was happening and began to struggle, there was no escape. The rest of my Devilflies had reached the glass atop the orchard and joined in.

Inside the Crow’s Nest, Joe and Mike appeared in the doorway beside one another.

“Hold fire,” said Mike as both furrowed their brows at the scene.

That was when the screaming began.

No proper words—just wails of abject terror from the humans who’d been wrapped up.

I drank in their anguished wails, smiling wickedly while their faces twisted with frustration and suffering and my Devilflies continued wrapping.

Those people, who’d made a sport out of attacking my babies, were suffering at my hands, and I relished every second.

Limbs that had been tied down strained uselessly against hundreds of silken strands as several dozen more were added every second. Thin red lines and drops of blood appeared wherever multiple strands had come together and the humans pushed until it sliced through their skin.

Seconds later, one of the cocooned humans discharged their weapon, and the marines took cover.

My Dungeon-half cooed when a puddle of blood formed beneath one of the dark-haired riflemen as the screaming continued.

My logical self wasn’t happy about it, but my Dungeon mind was ecstatic.

Michael and Rihelah, who’d just arrived nearby, ran for cover behind the Crow’s Nest at the sound of the gunfire.

I looked closer at the bleeding man, who had a large hole blown out through the side of his abdomen. My logical mind recoiled from the sight of his sundered entrails but the Dungeon in me bared its teeth. Two of my Devilflies had been killed.

The rest of my minions continued wrapping. The deaths of their comrades had no effect on their behavior.

Then I felt a rush of mana so delicious and fulfilling, it made me yearn to murder every living thing in sight. I'd read that it can be unwise to allow captive-bred predators to taste blood, and now I understood why. The man's death felt like heaven. His mana was ambrosia, and I wanted more.

Wrestling with my nature, I strained to avoid turning my minions against all the humans.

No! That will remove a huge source of mana. Think, Dungeon-me!

My bloodlust ebbed.

The four Dire Widows I’d called slinked through holes to the exterior of the Crow’s nest, then abseiled to the sand.

My sleek spider minions skittered across the ground toward the bound humans. I had the Widows wait a few more seconds while my Devilflies finished wrapping.

The bound enemy humans made my human self chuckle, but they looked appetizing to my Dungeon mind—a misshapen amalgamation of useless flesh, ripe for consumption.

My best guess was that the entire “fight” had taken twenty seconds from when my Devilflies started wrapping, until the final gunshot went off.

Joe and Mike stepped out together as the Widows climbed onto the wrapped humans and headed for the faces of those who still lived.

I had my Dire Widows locate each person’s nose and bite. I laughed to myself as Nico and his three surviving friends shed tears through the silk, wailing with raw terror as my minions’ fangs lanced into their cartilage.

Unknown to their victims, my Widows weren’t injecting venom. My aim hadn’t been to kill those humans. Well, okay, my Dungeon-half yearned for their deaths, but since my mana was full, I’d managed to persuade it that this would suffice—for now.

Like Uncle Roger used to say, “sometimes, a good ol’ ass-whoopin’ is just what the doctor ordered.”

The violence was disturbingly cathartic, despite one of them dying.

I couldn’t help that Nico had been crazy and stupid enough to shoot his friend, so I shrugged while Joe and Mike slowly approached the scene with scrunched brows.

At least I wasn’t the one who killed him.

By the time Mike and Joe stopped to stare from a meter away, the only sounds made by those I’d subdued were hoarse groans. It sounded like they’d used up their voices with all that screaming.

I sent Sunny and Sandy to Mike and Joe.

[Is safe.] [Mommy stopped bad humans!]

“Tell the Dungeon to call off those spiders.” Mike growled.

Michael stepped around the Crow’s nest to join Joe and Mike while Rihelah remained where she was and assumed a fetal position after hearing the word, spiders.

Nothing’s changed, there. My Ryebean never did like creepy crawlies.

[Spiders not kill. Only bite.] [No venom, this time.] [Warning.] [Not hurt Mommy’s girls!] [Mommy punish if humans hurt girls!] The dogs growled.

Joe shook his head, grimacing when my Widows abseiled to the ground, then darted around him and Mike to return to the Dungeon.

Michael followed them eagerly, crouching low to admire my minions, but Mike and Joe didn’t relax until they’d crawled out of sight.

“Sometimes I wonder if I did something wrong.” Mike shook his head.

“Nope. I turned out just fine, Dad. No arachnophobia here!” Michael grinned while his father pinched the bridge of his nose.

Then Michael spotted the blood and gore, and his smile vanished.

“These idiots shot at you, girls?” Joe asked my dogs, his voice hardening.

[Bad human shot at girls.] [Hurt us with guns…] My pups whined.

“Well, at least this Dungeon seems to have her priorities straight. Apart from the poor bastard who got shot by his buddy, they’re all still alive.” Mike shook his head with an exasperated sigh.

Joe shrugged, and Michael nodded.

“Damn shame. Shotgun turned his ribs to hamburger.” Joe crouched to stare at the gaping hole in the dead man’s chest. Michael inhaled sharply at Joe’s words, cupped a hand over his mouth, then trotted stiffly back to rejoin Rihelah.

“You know how people can be,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Shit, even seasoned marines can panic under fire when shit goes too far south.”

“Yeah. Even the best of us are only human.” Joe stood.

“Not your superhero ass.” Mike chuckled, and Joe rolled his eyes.

I was floored by their words.

These men understand what I’ve done here, and why.

They didn’t panic over my spiders or kill them.

I’m impressed.

“So, what now?” Joe asked Mike.

[Mommy says good humans decide.] [Bad humans are a gift.]

Sunny and Sandy looked at Mike and Joe with happy faces while their tails swished merrily.

“This shit’s gonna take some getting used to.” Mike rubbed the side of his head.

“Oorah,” Joe replied.

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Minions: 100/100

Residents: 10/10

Denizens: 10105

Traps: 1/5