Prog 7 : Queen Bee

"Yes, I recognize him." Heff Jackson, senior partner of Jackson, Wright and Rohe, set the sketch down and pushed it away from him. He took off his wire-rimmed glasses and lay them down on the red-leather surface of his desk, rubbing his eyes with his hand. "But you have to understand he had nothing to do with the firm." He looked at intimidating quartet of Judges standing in his office, hoping they believed him.

"I don't have to do anything, citizen," Hershey reminded him. "Who is he?"

Jackson sat back in his chair and stared blankly at the corner of his office, gathering his thoughts. "I don't remember his name," he said, "but I think we still have his CV on file. He applied for a job here – actually, had the nerve to demand a partnership!" Jackson shook his head, amazed at the temerity. "Of course, that was out of the question – but I wouldn't even have given him a job."

"Why not?" asked Cornelius. "And can we see the CV?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Jackson, starting forward and hitting the intercom on his desk. "Of course. Dana," he called, "do you still have the file from the strange fellow who applied for a job about a month back? Could you bring it in?"

"Right away, Mister Jackson," came back a syrupy voice.

"Cracking little secretary, that one," Jackson said, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. "Difficult to get the staff these days, you know?" he remarked to Cornelius. He glanced at Anderson and Hershey, not hiding his assessing glances up and down. "You've done alright, though," he said.

"Yes," said Cornelius dryly, "they're both a pleasure to work for." One of Jackson's gray eyebrows arched in surprise, but he didn't make any remark. "Why would you not have employed him?" Cornelius asked.

The door opened, and Dana sashayed in. She was a gorgeous brunette with a dark-crimson pout of a mouth that put even Quartermain's venom-swollen lips to shame, her body's alluring curves stretching a pin-stripe suit in all the right places. Barefoot, she would be about Anderson's height but she teetered tall as Hershey on needle-sharp stilettos. She swung her hips as she walked, her stride hobbled by the skin-tight miniskirt that barely reached halfway down her shapely thighs, her curves bending the parallel pin-stripes apart like railroads in the Summer heat. The jacket was sharply tailored, flaring at the lapels and cinched around her wasp-waist with a wide, boned belt that was almost a bustless-corset. The first two buttons of her blouse were undone, revealing the bountiful upper curves of the best breasts credits could buy and underwiring could enhance. Her dark eyes were heavily made up with smokey shadow, liner and false lashes. As she approached the desk, shaking every money-maker she had, she lifted a heavily-manicured hand to lower her square-framed spectacles with the plain-glass lenses, peering seductively over them and making no bones about looking Cornelius up and down. "Oh, hello Judge . . ." she purred.

Anderson couldn't help but smirk at the tableau quickly acted out; Dana training all her weapons on Cornelius, her entire arsenal bouncing off him without even denting the surface of his composure as he barely spared her a glance, the self-satisfied grin on Jackson's face being chased off by jealous anger. "Yes, thank you, Dana," he snapped. "That will be all. No need to bother the Judge – give him the file and you may go."

Dana's beautiful face crumpled with two different kinds of disappointment. "Yes, Sir," she pouted sadly. She turned to Cornelius, handing the file over like it was the key to her chastity belt. She bit worried her plump lower-lip with very even, very white teeth and launched a final salvo. "If you want me to . . . go over anything I'll be at my desk," she said hopefully.

Watching her leave seemed to mollify Jackson – his eyes seemed glued to the hypnotic swinging of her well-padded rear and the plumb-line straight seams in her stockings. "Cracking little secretary, that one," he muttered to himself. "Cracking."

"Yes," said Hershey dismissively, "I'm sure her surgeon's very proud. Now, why didn't you offer our perp a job? Why's he targeting your buildings?"

Jackson snorted, standing up and pacing nervously behind his desk. "I have no idea!" he exclaimed. "Really, who knows why a criminal does what he does? Not I, certainly – I'm a law-abiding citizen; I don't claim to understand degenerate malcontents like him. Isn't he some kind of wretched mutie?" As irony would have it, he turned to Anderson. "Can't expect anything better from those people," he told her. "Don't know what's good for them. You know we designed hab-blocks for them? Would have allowed them to remain in the city – isolated, of course, but within the walls. The first 'block was built, but some bleeding-heart advocacy group kicked up a stink; said it was dehumanizing, all the identical cells . . . er, apartments. Didn't like the fact the walls were bare 'crete – I ask you, is the city made of money? I will admit – the airflow could have been better, and it did get a little warm and damp – but I never accepted the complaints about the garbage and sewage disposal. They were quite adequate for such . . . well, people is generous. For them. Filthy, you know," he said confidentially. "Like to be dirty."

"That why you didn't give him a job?" asked Anderson coolly. "No personal hygiene?" Jackson snorted.

"Don't be silly!" he exclaimed. "His suggestions for general habitation were ridiculous – little more than a prison, identical cells, no care for the person. I told him they were terrible – he wouldn't listen, ranted and raved about efficiency, about discarding individuality for the sake of the group, sacrificing for the good of the swarm. He wouldn't shut up; I had to have security throw him out – you know he leered at poor Dana? Promised her the world – jewels, flights, clothes. Said she would make a wonderful queen – as if she would be interested in someone like him!" He shook his head. "Some people just don't know how to treat a cracking piece of totty like that," he opined.

The three women shared a disbelieving look. "I think we have motive," said Cornelius dryly. "He's angry, biter, marginalized – probably his only friends are the wasps, he starts to think like them. No wonder he studied architecture and engineering – that's what they do, instinctively. He has ideas for buildings – they're more hives than homes, so he goes to the architects who've already built that kind of thing. Then Prince Charming here," he flicked his chin at Jackson, "kicks him out on his ear and tells him he's an idiot. So he decides the Lord of the Flies will show us all."

Jackson gawped. "Are you suggesting this is somehow my fault, Judge?" he asked. "How dare you! I've been nothing but helpful and this is what I get? I've got a good mind to report you to your superiors! I think this interview is over." He pressed a button on his intercom. "Dana?" he asked. "Have security show our guests out." There was a muffled noise over the speaker, a suppressed shriek and the crash of falling furniture. "Dana?" asked Jackson.

Cornelius was already in motion, drawing his lawgiver and running for the door – but Quartermain was quicker. She dived for him, wrapping her arms around him and trying to shove him to the side.

Of course, she had about as much chance of doing that on her own as she had lifting the Hall of Justice, but Cornelius understood what she was doing and grabbed her, picking her up one-handed and diving clear of the explosion that blew the door off its hinges. Anderson had a splintered second warning thanks to Quartermain's psychic scream – she shoved against Hershey and the two of them tumbled together to the floor in a confused tangle of limbs.

The explosives were home-made breaching charges; powerful enough to cut the hinges and latch, but so dirty-burning they filled the small room with thick smoke. Jackson coughed and hacked, waving his hands to try to clear the smog from the air. "He's here . . ." murmured Anderson.

As if summoned by her warning, a solid stream of wasps howled through the open door, a buzzing tide that flew straight towards Jackson. He shrieked horribly, howling in agony as they stung him, flailing his hands in a futile attempt to slap them away. Anderson rolled to her knees, fingertips pressed to her temples, her face a mask of fierce concentration. The swarm, which had covered Jackson in a shimmering second skin of rustling black and yellow, broke apart and hung in the hazy air. Hershey crawled to Jackson's side, watching the quiescent insects warily – but it was too-late. He was gasping and choking, his face and hands a mass of pus-oozing welts, stung thousands of times in a matter of moments.

Cornelius sprinted for the ruined doorway. A burst of automatic fire made him draw back, bullets shrieking past his head and bouncing off his armor. The Lord of the Flies and a couple of gangbangers were there, the crazy mutie addressing the terrified Dana with impassioned urgency. "Come with me and be my Queen!" he begged her. "You shall dine on naught but the finest royal jelly and my drones shall serve your every whim! We shall live in the heart of the hive, a life of buzzing joy!" For her part, Dana struggled and tried to scream – but the burly ganger holding her over his shoulder and the gag around her mouth made such efforts futile.

Cornelius stuck his head out again – another burst smashed into the doorframe and he ducked back. But in that instant he'd got a snapshot of the room. "Armor piercing," he ordered, stepping back and putting two bullets through the wall. The ganger with the machine gun doubled over as he was shot, the weapon falling from his hands.

"Time to leave, my love!" exclaimed the Lord of the Flies, suiting the action to the word. His henchman followed, the sobbing Dana bouncing on his shoulder. Cornelius chased him, but flung himself to the floor as the wasps howled past in a buzzing confusion, stinging him once or twice in their haste to catch up with their master.

He picked himself up as Hershey reached his side, the two of them sprinting after the perps. They were running through the cubicles of the open-plan office, ducking and weaving, and neither Judge could get off a shot without risking hitting either Dana or a worker. "They're heading for the roof!" yelled Hershey.

Cornelius and Hershey followed them, he in the lead, bursting through the door at the top of the stairs instants after their quarry. A hail of bullets greeted them as a gunman sitting in the open door of a light helicopter hosed them down. Cornelius doubled over as gunfire hit him in the gut, the abdominal plates of his armor holding but the impact knocking him down. Hershey cried out as she was hit, clutching her shoulder as she dived to the side.

From where he was lying prone, Cornelius fired wildly, bullets tearing through the gunman and the fuselage of the yellow-and-black painted aircraft. He would have taken out the pilot, but Dana was between him and any possible shot. The Lord of the Flies and his ganger clambered aboard even as the helicopter was lifting off like a big, rattling, ungainly insect. It howled overhead, battering the Judges with the downdraft as it flew away. "Drokk it all to spug," muttered Hershey.

Cornelius sucked air into his lungs and slowly stood. The wasps had followed the perp onto the roof, but now didn't seem to know what to do – this high above the city, the wind was fierce and cold and they were trying to bivouac together in a shivering mass to conserve body heat. They couldn't manage it – there was no shelter on the bare roof, nothing to cling to and nowhere to hide from the cold. The wind tore the swarm apart as fast as they gathered. Cornelius shook his head. "Poor little bastards," he said with feeling.

"Hey," said Hershey, "when you're done being all Francis of Assisi, how about a hand up?" Cornelius looked down and grinned, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her upright. "I'm contacting city air defense," she said. "SAM'll blow it out of the air." Cornelius caught her wrist in one massive hand before she could activate her communicator, shaking his head. Angrily, she tore herself free. "What the Dok? Case leads drive, remember?"

"I'm pulling rank," he growled. "You're not sacrificing Dana."

Hershey rolled her eyes. "So that's what cracks the bronze, huh? Frankly, I thought it'd be a blonde – you and Novak, you know?" An unworthy thought occurred to her. "Or are you wanting to collect the hair color trifecta?" she sneered, insinuating and perhaps not-a-little jealous.

For a long instant, Cornelius looked at her with silent contempt. "She's an innocent hostage, one of the eight hundred million reasons we put on the bronze," he said with dreadful calm. "If you don't remember that, then Grud help you – because I certainly won't." He turned and moved rapidly to the stairwell, but Hershey wasn't done.

"Security of the City Act!" she called after him. He didn't stop. "Cornelius! Alright – I shouldn't have said that, I'm sorry, I was angry but . . ." He wasn't listening; she had to run down the stairs to catch up. "Think about it logically!" she implored. "Yes, it's sad – but it makes sense to sacrifice her for the good of . . ."

Abruptly, Cornelius turned. She couldn't stop herself in time and ran smack into his chest – it was like bumping into a wall. She bounced off, staggering back, as he fixed her with a withering stare. "For the good of the swarm?" he asked coldly. He didn't wait for her to respond, instead marching through the cubicles. Anderson met him at the door to Jackson's office, carrying the CV. Cornelius all-but snatched it out of her hand.

"Pervy McBigot's dead," she said grimly, "and the file's useless. A name – Wayland Sumner – and some contact details. I ran it all – no matches, it's a burn 'phone and the SSN is fake. But I know where he is – probably," she added as a coda.

Cornelius tossed the file down on a nearby desk. "You can psychically track him?" he asked.

She shook her. "He's too far away, too much psionic noise, but I'm more than a one-trick robopony, John," she added with a smile. Almost as a reflex she pulled the bottle from her belt and swallowed two painkillers with a grimace. Cornelius watched warily, but without comment. "I can guess where he is."

"And where is that?" asked Hershey. Anderson turned to her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"He's in the condemned hab-block they built for muties," she explained. "It's ideal for the wasps – and for him. Bare 'crete walls, warm and damp microclimate, no-one taking out the trash. It's the perfect location for a hive."

Hershey glanced at Cornelius, who nodded. "Let's hit it," she said.

"You!" Cornelius pointed at a cowering worker who shied away as if his finger were a gun. "Address and blueprints for the hab-block, now." Terrified, the man nodded and ran to comply. "We could request back up, but with the Department stretched . . ."

Anderson shook her head and spoke urgently. "John, listen to me," she said. "That place is going to be crawling with wasps – literally. It's their home, their hive, where they raise their young – and they will defend it to the death."

"But you can stop them attacking us, right?" he asked. "I've seen you do it, Cassie – I have no idea how, and I know it takes effort, but . . ." She shook her head.

"I can block him from talking to them," she explained, "that's it. If he's not telling them what to do, they behave like any other wasp. But if we come to their house . . ."

Cornelius nodded. "Have Harmon meet us there with whatever he's got," he ordered Hershey. The worker hurried over to him with a bulky file. He glanced at the address. "Short drive," he said. "Let's roll."

oOo

"Welcome to your royal chamber, my lovely queen!" Sumner gestured grandly at the buzzing, writhing horror that was the infested basement of the condemned hab-block. "Here we shall live in happiness and joy, feasting upon the fungal banquet and royal jelly, raising our broods of drones and workers until we fill the city with a buzzing swarm of those like us!"

Dana had fainted during the flight, but she came to as the ganger carrying her set her down on the floor. Blearily, she looked around – and just screamed, pulling her limbs as tight as she could into herself to avoid touching the haze of insects buzzing around her or the thick carpet of mouldering garbage glistening with translucent fungus. From the bare 'crete walls and ceiling festoons of hexagonal hives hung, long bundles of six-sided tubes descending like stalactites, their mouths buzzing with movement. The air was hot and humid, dark and damp, thick with the sickly-sweet stench of mold and rot. Dana flailed her trembling hands and shrieked as insects crawled over her, burrowing into her hair, tickling her skin with their wings and antennae – but not stinging her. The Lord of the Flies looked at her with concern.

"My love!" he exclaimed. "How can you not be happy here? Does it not satisfy your every whim? Here you shall have no rivals for any affection, no other females to judge yourself against – but who could compare to you, my queen? You will rule by my side, far-removed from the drudgery of choice, the prison of individuality. With me you shall command the Swarm and let the Swarm command you!" He bent down and scooped up a handful of glutinous fungal matter, offering it to her. "Food, my love?" he asked, the disgusting mass dripping through his fingers. She heaved and clapped a hand over her sultry mouth, growing pallid-green beneath the tan.

Like all abandoned buildings in Mega City One, the dilapidated hab-block had quickly become the haunt of muggers and tappers, pimps and hoes, drug dealers and cookers. The flaws in the building's design – not to mention that criminal tweakers weren't the most house-proud of tenants – meant trash quickly accumulated in the warm, damp basement – the perfect breeding ground for 'crete-wasps and the ideal location for the Lord of the Flies secret inner sanctum.

The gangbanger that had set her down looked around with wonder and disgust, sickened and horrified by what he saw. He'd never been in here before – none of them had; the boss had met with them in bars and rented garages, as well as the premises of front organizations they owned. They'd always thought of him as crazy, but his credits had been as good as anyone else's and with their gangs broken up by the Judges they had few other options. And they had to admit the bank job had netted them a tidy payday, with the extortion demands promising more. But now things were getting out of hand; Mega City One gangsters were not sentimental people – virtually all of them had murdered, and many of them brutally and in cold blood – but a quarter-million dead simply to send a message sickened all-but the most jaded of them.

"Er, boss?" the ganger said nervously. "If it's okay, I'll wait outside with the other guys, okay?" Irritated, Sumner brusquely dismissed him.

"Yes, of course – begone from our royal chamber! Wait outside for my orders – soon our demands will be met and I shall send you to retrieve the money and you shall have your reward." Eagerly, the perp nodded and left. "Disgusting creatures," Sumner said contemptuously to the trembling Dana. "So complex, so full of contradictions and uncertainties. Imagine living life like that – not knowing your place in the world, not knowing what the Swarm requires of you, having to make your own decisions! But all of that is behind you my love!" He stepped towards her, squishing through the rotting garbage. "We shall be happy here! You shall have aught you desire!"

"Please . . ." she begged. "Please, let me go. Just let me go – I promise I won't tell anyone where you are, just let me go. Please . . ." She broke down, burying her face in her hands. "I don't know what you want!" she sobbed. "Just let me go, please – I don't have anything for you!"

Sumner looked puzzled. "But you are all I desire, my love!" he exclaimed. "Your beauty is like a sting in my heart – it called to me, just as the Swarm called to me when my parents died!" He took her hands in his – her fingers crawling away from the fungal slime clinging to his – and drew her further into the room. "I have had the Swarm build you a throne, my love – sit upon it and I will tell you the tale of my life, and our future life together!" Tottering on her heels, her feet squelching through the garbage, Dana let herself be led towards an ornate, fluted mass of hexagonal tubes forming a grand chair.

The Lord of the Flies gently pushed her into the throne, where she slumped – tears streaming down her cheeks, smearing her mascara into dark streaks on her face, her nose dripping snot – begging him. "Please! Just let me go! I just wanna go home . . . I don't . . . please!"

"But you are home, my love!" exclaimed Sumner joyfully. "Sit upon your throne, oh queen of the Swarm, and hear the tale of the life that has led me to you! I knew always that I was different, not like the other children at school. I remember it clearly, the first time I became aware of the Swarm, when its ordered majesty first called to me – in the attic of our home wasps had made a nest. I could hear them, sense them, know the pattern of their lives. Their thoughts were my thoughts. I longed for the order of their existence, so far from the chaos of merely human life.

"But my parents did not see it the way I did – how could they, for they had not heard the Swarm call to them? They hired a murderer who came to our home and destroyed the nest, killing hundreds of my kin! I heard their screams, their panic, saw their desperate attempts to save their young, to protect the life of the nest. It was all for naught – that monster slaughtered them, as if they were nothing to him." Tears were streaming down his face now, and for the first time he seemed to notice Dana's. "You do well to weep, my love," he said seriously, "but more than tears are needed to salve this wound. Only revenge can do so.

"Oh, but fear not – for I had my revenge," he told her confidently. "I erred – I told my parents of the Swarm, how it called to me, how I could speak to it. They dismissed it as a childish fantasy at first, and I was not wise enough to keep silent – I insisted, and they realized that I was not as they were. They were ashamed of me, fearful of my power, terrified lest I be taken from them. They hid me away, forbade me to leave the house, reported me dead. My education was from machines, not people – but I welcomed it. Oh, yes, my love! I welcomed it – for they were logical, and remorseless, devoid of compassion or emotion. They were like the Swarm, teaching me what I should do, showing me the way.

"I grew older and wiser. The Swarm still called to me, drawing me to learn the ways of building, of construction – for look at the magnificence the Swarm can build!" He gestured wildly at the grotesque hangings on the ceiling, at the paper-thin complexities of the horde of hives. "I would learn this myself, and know the secrets of the buildings of men. Soon, I matured and was ready to emerge from my chrysalis into the world – but my parents would have none of it."

He spread his arms and threw back his head, screaming his victory to the ceiling. The noise of his voice disturbed the wasps and those perched in the hives and on the walls flew into the air, swirling around him and making Dana shriek and sob all the louder. "And so I called the Swarm to me!" he roared. "And they came, a glorious buzzing tide. They came to me, hundreds, thousands, millions of them! They killed my parents and freed me from their slavery. I took their money and followed the Swarm here – to this glorious building, this building designed by man but perfect for the Swarm. Warm and dark and damp, filled with nooks and crannies for us to build and breed!

"I had to know what kind of mind could build such a thing – and so I found Jackson. You know the rest – I came to him, like a student coming to the master, seeking knowledge, seeking to help him even as he helped me. I would have apprenticed myself to him – how foolish I was!" He snarled and shook his fists in Dana's face in raw rage. She cringed backwards, pulling her legs up and clinging to them, rocking herself back and forth in time with her tears. "He rejected me, told me my ideas were trash, revealed his motivation was to mistreat those like me, not to harbor the Swarm. But I knew why I was called there, my love."

He knelt before her, his kneepads sinking into the rotting rubbish on the floor. He grasped her feet with his hands, kissing her filth-smeared shoes. "You were there, my love – so beautiful, so fair. You were sharp with me – sharp like a sting. Your words were venom – but I knew, I knew you loved me too. How could you not? They treated you so badly – they would never have made you a queen, never have offered you this." He held his hand out, his psychic concentration palpable, and a writhing mass of maggots wormed their way out of the chambers in the throne into his palm. "Look, my love," he breathed, showing them to her. "What jewels can compare to these?"

Dana clutched at her mouth, fighting against the urge to vomit. She lost the struggle, throwing up her sushi-and-three-martini lunch with a convulsive heave. Sumner beamed and danced with joy. "You feed our subjects, my queen!" he exclaimed. "From your own mouth, you feed them! You care for them, as I do – our mutual love shall . . ." He stopped abruptly, cocking his head as if listening. "The Judges are here!" he exclaimed. "The Swarm has millions of eyes and naught hides from us! But do not fear, my love!" he assured her, squelching through the garbage to the door, "we are safe here!" He ordered his gunmen inside, stationing the horror-struck perps around the room as guards. "The Judges shall pay for their temerity!" he promised her.

A/n : I don't think there is anything in this chapter that needs explaining – but, if you feel there is, why not ask it when you write your review? I mean, you were going to review, right? Box is right there – just tell me what you think! I always reply and I always return the review love!