Broodcomb
Chapter 1
Emily slammed the trunk shut, then slid the hiking backpack on and buckled it around her waist. “So, what are we looking for again?”
“Mountain Lady’s-slipper. Orchid. Looks like a white slipper, hence the name. “ Claire explained as she adjusted her own pack, frowned as the sleeping roll on top wobbled dangerously, then slipped the pack off and placed it on the ground. She knelt down and adjusted some slip knots. “This is one of the few natural habitats remaining in the California Cascades. We’re gonna try and map out its current extent.”
Emily nodded along. “Lead the way?”
Claire stared at her a little too long, then shrugged and threw the pack back on. Emily followed her as she stepped off the cracked asphalt of the parking lot and onto the packed dirt of the trail.
“So, we’re gonna be up here three days?”
“Three days, yeah. “ Claire explained, and raised a hand to tick off fingers. “One day up to the campsite, one running around the reserve, one going back to the lot. That’s the plan, at least.”
“Still not sure why we couldn’t have just driven around the edge of the reserve.” Emily complained.
“Central location’ll let us cover more ground, faster. “ Claire looked over her shoulder at Emily and smiled wryly. “Besides, have you seen the price of gas these days?”
“Point.” Emily sullenly coincided. Then she perked up as she saw a white shape wiggling beside the trail. “Here’s something. “ She squatted down, peering at a white, bell-shaped flower that rustled together in the morning breeze. She didn’t notice how long Claire stared at her butt before shaking herself and looking away. “Huh. What do you make of this?”
Claire knelt down besides her, carefully avoiding eye contact. “That’s not it. That’s a honeycup.”
Emily felt her mouth tighten. “Oh...”
“It’s OK, it’s not like we’re gonna find a Lady’s-slipper this far out.” Claire tilted her head and wondered.” In fact...that’s pretty weird, this being here. They’re only native to the southeastern US—I’ve never seen one in the Cascades, actually. Good catch.” She almost patted her on the shoulder, but stopped herself, glanced at her hand, and kept walking.
They were three kilometers down the trail, and the sun had arced high into the briskly cloudy sky, when a low buzzing noise interrupted the natural quiet and closed in from behind them. Emily looked over her shoulder curiously, then blinked and recoiled a little as a fat, black shape buzzed in front of her face and flew in dizzying circles around her. “Woah!”
“Bumblebee.” Claire shrugged and kept walking. “Woods are lousy with them. Don’t worry, they’re pretty chill.” After a moment in which the bee apparently lost interest and left, Emily followed her up.
The buzzing came back again. Emily looked back. The bee was following them, stalking almost, hopping from flower to flower as they walked down the trail.
“That bee’s really keen on following us.” Claire observed.
“Maybe we’re close to it’s hive?” Emily guessed.
“Maybe? There’s a couple more, here...and they’re not usually this... ” Claire looked down at her hand, then brought it up for a closer look. “...Ah, huh. Emily?” She turned around. In her palm was a bumblebee much like the one that was following them. “This doesn’t look like any bumblebee I ever—Gah! Fuck!” She swung her hand and swatted it off. “What the hell?”
Emily stepped in closer. “What happened?”
“Fucker stung me.” Claire looked up from examining her palm at the buzzing of the bee. The bee that was still flying, despite having stung her. “Uhhh.”
Emily blinked. “What?”
Claire shook her head, wobbling drunkenly. “Sorry, dizzy for a second. I, uh. What the hell?” She turned her palm over, and then back up in front of her. “This is supposed to hurt?”
“It’s not?” Emily reached under and cupped Claire’s hand to take a closer look.
There was a tiny red pinprick in the center of her palm. As she watched, it turned pink, and then stopped bleeding as the flesh swelled and sealed it up. In seconds, the pinprick was gone, leaving a little lump of inflamed skin.
“That’s...weird.” Emily concluded.
“Weird, yaaahholyshit.” Claire suddenly stumbled forwards and dropped both hands onto her shoulders. Emily yelped as she was pushed back, just managing to stay upright and on the trail. Claire’s face, she suddenly noticed, was alarmingly flushed. “Sorry, sorry, still dizzy. Uh, what, what was in that—“
Emily yelped again, swatted at the air. Claire looked down with sudden concern. “Emily?”
“Stung my arm! I...wooah.” A wave of sexual warmth and dizziness swam up her arm and poured into her body. She wobbled under Claire’s weight. “Woaah, fuck, this is weird. And not the good kinda weird.”
“That, uh, that can’t be—” They both looked up as more buzzing hummed between the trees. Claire shook herself. “Shit, they’re coming back. “ She pushed Emily along the trail. “We gotta move.”
They proceeded down the trail at speed. Or tried to. Whenever one of them made to run, the dizziness came back and they stumbled dangerously on the occasional rock sticking out of the foot-pressed dirt. After Emily nearly broke her nose on a boulder before catching herself, they stuck to power walking.
The buzzing chased after them, but slowly faded away until it was gone entirely. They stumbled to a halt and collapsed onto the convenient seating of a couple of mossy logs.
“Well at least the bees are gone.” Emily huffed. “Maybe we’re not...” She trailed off as the woods suddenly became alive with the buzzing of insect wings. “Oh, fuck me.” They threw themselves to their feet, wobbling as the dizziness struck again, but they managed to remain upright.
Then hundreds of bumblebees swarmed out of the woods and began circling them, just out of arm’s reach, like vultures stalking a dying animal. Including, Emily could swear, some of the ones that had stung them earlier. “Bees are...they’re supposed to die when they sting, right?”
“Uh, huh?”
“Because all the ones that stung us are still around.” Emily’s mind raced, or at least it ran as fast as it could. Every thought was coming up sluggish, fuzzy and warm at the edges. What was in that stinger?
“Fuck.” Claire’s mouth hung open for a long moment. She managed through an effort of will to close it, barely stopping herself from drooling all over her shirt. Then she looked up suddenly, wobbling but alert as the buzzing took on strange and ominous notes. “Emily. I think these are bugbots.”
“Shit.” Several possibilities came to mind with sudden clarity. None of them boded well. “We need to-ah!” A bee had darted in and stung her elbow. Her swatting hand, slowed by whatever drugs had infiltrated her body, failed to do more than make it walk along her arm and sting her again before it flew off.
Then the swarm closed in.
Somehow Emily managed to duck under Claire’s drunkenly swinging arm and shoved her back upright. “Shit, shit, come on!” She dragged Claire along for a few meters before her feet started working again. They broke through the swarm, wincing as a few more stingers went in, but then they were through.
They stumbled along the trail, Emily holding Claire up as they ran. The swarm chased after them, the buzzing of hundreds of wings echoing weirdly off the trees and cliffs.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the buzzing faded away, and Emily dared to look back. The bees had fallen behind, and were only barely visible as they darted between the trees. They were outpacing the swarm. For now. “We’re outrunning them, at least.”
“We can’t keep this up.” Claire forced out, as they began to slow down. Exhaustion was setting in. “Soon as we stop...”
“We have to, have to exceed their range at some point.” Emily thought aloud, then grunted as Claire tripped again, leaning even more of her weight onto her poor, abused shoulder before she recovered. “It’s not like there’s—”
And then they rounded the bend and found themselves at a lakeside beach. They skidded to a halt as the gravel underfoot gave way to sand.
“Shit.”
“Fuck.” Emily concurred. She looked up and down the beach, but at both ends it terminated in thick bushes and woods. Even fully rested and lucid, they would never be able to outrace the swarm running through that. “Maybe, maybe we can—”
The buzzing suddenly loomed behind them. They turned around just in time to see the swarm bursting out of the woods.
Then Claire clumsily spun her around to face the lake. “Wha—”
“Go!” Claire screamed as she shoved Emily down the slope. She reeled backwards and sat heavily on a piece of driftwood. Her head lolled back, then snapped forward again by force of will. “The water, Emily. Go.”
Emily stared at her, at her dilating, unfocused eyes. Then she was stumbling down the beach, frantically ditching her pack. She splashed into the lake, gasping as the sudden chill invaded her feet, and then she was wading into it, pushing into the water with strength born of panic.
Then she stubbed her toe on a rock and tumbled bodily into the water.
The cold slap across her body shocked some lucidity back into her. She threw her head back above the surface, took a deep breath, and then flipped forward and kicked downwards.
The bottom of the lake sloped down and away from her. She followed it down until it threatened to disappear into the murky depths, and then leveled off and swam parallel to the surface, putting as much distance between her and the shore as she could.
A shadow briefly fell across her. Shit. Are they following me? She flipped onto her back and looked up.
The silhouette of a bee stalked the sparking veil of sunlight on the surface, buzzing low and slow as it searched for her. Then it sullenly flew off. She floated down there a few more seconds until her lungs began to burn, and then tried to swim up.
She rose, but slowly—too slowly. She was being weighted down.
For a bad moment she panicked until swimming lessons from half a lifetime ago came back to her. Her hands scrambled at her belt buckle, unhooked it, then unbuttoned her jeans and shoved them down.
Then she kicked them off. They sunk away into the murk below, while she kicked up for the surface.
Emily broke the surface with a deep gasp, then laid flat on her back and paddled until she ran aground on the far shore. She hauled herself to her feet and stumbled up the slope, sand crunching underfoot, until she reached a log and sat down heavily on it.
“Claire?” Emily searched the far shore of the lake. “Claire?” But she was gone. Emily’s pack, abandoned in her haste, was the only sign anyone had been there. She shivered. They take people? How?
The shivering intensified as the mountain breeze chilled her wet skin and clothes. Shit, exposure. What do I do—.
Then she gasped as another stinger planted itself on her thigh. She stumbled as she leaped to her feet. She turned around, saw the swarm closing in from the forest. The other side of the forest, on her side of the lake. They waited for me. She stumbled backwards and threw her arm up as yet more stingers sunk into it, stomping deep imprints into the sand.
The wave of dizziness smashed her off her feet, and her legs wildly splayed out from under her. She fell on her backside, briefly stunning her. She rolled over onto her chest as insect legs began to crawl all over her exposed skin, worked her hands and knees under her, and pushed herself up.
Then something crawled up onto her neck and punched a keratin needle into her carotid artery. As she twitched and cranked her head sideways, a heated chill flowed up her neck and into her brain.
Midway through reaching up to cover the sting, her hand slowed, wavered, and stopped. Her other arm trembled, then gave way and dumped her face-first into the sand.
She laid there, staring blankly at nothing. The bees still buzzed and crawled around her, occasionally stinging her again to keep her dosed, but it was not the overwhelming assault the first swarm had been. She didn’t notice how her nipples had begun to come erect as bees worked their way under her shirt and cluster around them, or how her panties became a little more soggy and puffed as a trio of them crawled on it and punched stingers full of aphrodisiac into her inner thigh. Her last distant, disconnected thoughts slogged through a thickening soup of arousal and sedative, bogging down, drowning.
One insect crawled up to her ear, and began whispering instructions. Still staring mindlessly, she slowly climbed to her feet and began to walk.
She walked for a long time. She did not remember where she walked. She didn’t have to. The voice in her ear spoke deep into her addled mind that she wasn’t scared, that the bees didn’t hurt at all, that they would guide her to safety, that this great reward awaited her at the end, and that everything would be alright if she just obeyed the voice and walked where it directed. As she walked, the bees on her breasts buzzed in time with the voice, subtly tugging her in one direction or another.
Eventually, she walked into a clearing. A carefully camouflaged pickup truck waited there, surrounded by men in beekeeper suits who bustled this way and that. The air was alive with bees scurrying in and out of a honeycombed box at the front of the truck’s bed, while four spherical pods sat heavily in the back.
One of the suits walked up to her, asked her a question she didn’t quite parse. The voice whispered the answer into her ear. She said, very slowly and deliberate, “Capture One, Five, Zero, Five, ready for processing.”
The suit nodded, and lightly gripped her arm. He guided her over to the truck, and slid a pod door open. At the voice’s urging, she walked up the stepladder and stepped inside.
The interior was cramped, barely bigger than a walk in closet, and brightly lit by LED strips set into the walls. Most of it was taken up by a very odd-looking machine. If she was paying attention, it would look like a cluster of robotic arms with their ends arranged like a vaguely humanoid silhouette. On the floor, there was a device that looked like someone had taken a shoe and peeled it like an orange, again mounted on robotic arms.
She stopped as the voice whispered again. Discarded her soaked clothes, carelessly dropping them onto the pod’s floor mat. Stepped in the machine’s shoes.
The machine closed around her. The shoes refolded themselves around her feet. Gloves slid loosely onto her hands, then shrank until they clung like latex paint around her limp fingers. Bands closed around her arms, and then her legs, and then her chest. Behind her, unseen, the suit collected her clothes and slid the door shut. Some sort of complicated-looking mask slid down on yet another arm, and then suckered onto her face.
Reality disappeared. Something else appeared in its place.
The voice told her to walk. She walked.