They took Clawhauser to Cathusia's lab, one of the few places in Zootopian Prospect that still had full security even with backup power. The ventilation ducts were smaller than the normal shafts, intentionally too small for a corporate spy, much less an alien lifeform, to pass through. As such, the marines in the area had turned it into an impromptu fortress. The traitorous doctor was sitting in his office, a private at his side keeping watch, while Judy and Nick anxiously watched over Clawhauser. He was sitting on a gurney salvaged from Medical, wide eyes staring at nothing. Nick suspected poisoning to be the cause of his prior state of unconsciousness, especially after the story he'd just told them.
"Wow." Nick said.
"So… these spider creatures…" Judy said slowly, trying to picture it in her mind. White faceless spiders with long tails used to strangle their victims unconscious, like one had tried to do to Clawhauser. Like another had succeeded in doing to Hornbull. "They attach themselves to your face, stick some sort of appendage down your throat, and place something inside you?"
Clawhauser nodded. Corporal Morris, a polar bear who Nick had always liked for having a good heart, handed him a glass of water. The cheetah took it with a meek, "Thanks."
"And the thing they put inside you gestates for some time and then…" Judy tried to find the gentlest word she knew. "Exits its host?"
"I know it sounds nuts, but it really happened." Clawhauser said.
"We believe you." Nick said. "It would explain why they took Hornbull alive. But what happened to his body?"
"There was this other thing. An armored creature wearing a mask and carrying weapons. It came out of thin air. It saw Hornbull had given birth and got angry. I think it was after the embryo he was carrying. Then it used this blue vial to destroy the body, and the spider that attacked me." Clawhauser sniffled and wiped his eyes. Nick felt his own twinge of grim sympathy. He had never really respected Hornbull. The big guy kissed a lot of corporate butts just for the chance to get off of this green rock, but he didn't deserve this. And thanks to that chameleon creep, they couldn't even cremate the poor bastard.
"Great. Just fucking great!" Private Hunslet, a carachal guarding the sealed exit with a flamethrower, cursed and spat. "A bug hunt I can deal with, but now we got alien men in black out there trying to cover it all up! Anyone wanna guess what our how-fucked-are-we rating is right now?"
"Give it a rest, Private!" Morris snapped. "Administrator, you sure you're not- infected?"
Nick swallowed and traded glances with Judy. Clawhauser shook his head furiously.
"No. I can't be. I killed it before it could."
"Don't want to worry you, but without a powered autodoc, we can't know for sure. Maybe you should stay here 'till we get the power back on. You'll need to be quarantined either way."
Clawhauser grimaced, looking physically sick at the possibility that he was carrying one of those monsters, but nodded and gave no more complaint. Nick didn't want to think about it. Watching Fangmeyer die to those things was bad enough…
The entrance slid open, and in rushed Bogo and a full squad of grunts. Flanking the buffalo were Santuaures the ox and Wolfowitz the wolf. Nick stared in shock at how terrified the massive buffalo looked. With all communications down, he must have been scared shitless throughout the entire journey from Fort Meadowland to Rainforest, wondering if his fiancé would still be alive when he got here. The moment he saw Clawhauser, he actually dropped the heavy pulse rifle he was holding and fiercely embraced the cheetah before he could say a single word of greeting.
"Don't you ever bloody do this to me again, do you copy?" He breathed.
"Affirmative." Clawhauser said. Despite the trauma he'd just endured, he actually grinned sheepishly.
With one arm still around Clawhauser, Bogo turned to Nick and Judy with eyes threatening bloody murder if they didn't answer the following question. "What happened to him?"
Nick gave the short-version of everything Clawhauser had told them, from Hornbull's horrific fate to Clawhauser's attempted impregnation. When they got to the part about the chameleon covert agent, his eyes hardened.
"That must be the son of a bitch who attacked Lionheart's Gate."
"Lionheart's Gate?" Clawhauser asked. "What happened at Lionheart's Gate?"
Bogo didn't answer. He returned to the rifle he'd dropped and picked it up, checking the chamber to make sure he hadn't jammed it.
Judy walked over to him, a brave feat considering the ominous aura he was emanating. "Sir, I think we seriously need to reconsider your no-fly order. Colonists and marines are disappearing, and the backup generators won't last forever. We need to get off of this planet."
Bogo found a round stuck in the chamber. Without looking at the rabbit, he nodded. "I agree. Morris, tell McHorn I'm putting him in charge of the evacuation, but I want it done in three steps." He ejected the magazine. "Step One: Get every marine you can find without a radio and order them to bring every colonist in the complex to the bay." He brought the rifle to a clear work bench to check the weapon's mechanism. "Step Two: do not open the dropship door unless you are bringing colonists onboard. Search the dropship for any creatures that may have snuck onboard before takeoff. Use infra-red to check for the invisible one." He reloaded the magazine, bringing up a shining 97 in the ammo counter. "Step Three: before bringing the dropships onboard the Avellanos, they're to check the ship one more time. Do not enter the Avellanos unless they're absolutely sure they didn't bring any of those things with them."
"Got it. Anything else?" Morris asked.
Bogo paused. "Once you've given McHorn my orders, return here and escort Ben, Hopps and Carthusia back to Fort Meadowland and evacuate using my personal dropship."
"What about you?" Judy asked.
Bogo turned to him. In the emergency lights, his brown eyes were the color of torn flesh. "I'm going hunt, and kill, every last one of them."
He paused. His eyes fell on Nick. He snapped his fingers and motioned for the fox to come other. A cold hand of dread closed around his heart. "We're going to need your experience, Wilde. And that flamethrower."
"Permission to ask what for, sir?" Nick asked. Don't shake, he thought. Don't let them see you're a coward.
"Those creatures are taking the colonists somewhere. We're not abandoning them until we're sure they're dead."
Nick looked to Judy. She stared back at him with wide eyes.
"Bogo, just one of those things killed Fangemeyer and nearly killed us." She said. "Does he have to go?"
Bogo grimaced, but Nick spoke first. "Carrots, be honest. If you were a marine, wouldn't you be chomping at the bit to save some lives?"
Judy paused. "Yes."
"Then you know I have to do this. No matter how scared shitless I am."
"Then… then you should take that." She pointed to a metal case that had been lying on Carthusia's workbench. "It contains equipment for containing biohazardous material. If the big one is destroying evidence, you should gather what you can for me to study when I'm with MINERVA."
Nick looked to Bogo. He nodded and gestured for Santaures to collect it. "Thanks, Carrots. Sorry you weren't invited to the party."
Judy snorted, but fear was still evident in her eyes. Fear for him, Nick realized with a flutter in his chest. "Just try not to get yourself killed on the dance floor."
It wasn't that great a comeback, but Nick laughed anyway.
The Hunter crouched high up on a ledge on the side of the Rainforest building.
Using its scanner drones, it took the Hunter a full hour to produce a full holographic map of the ventilation system. It didn't have much time before the Queen began growing. It would take days for the infant to grow to full size, but that was time it may not have.
A mere two minutes ago, it had witnessed a serpent ambush a bull and ram outside of the medical facility, dragging them both into the dark waters of the canal before the Hunter could aim its plasmacaster. The attack had happened suddenly, even less time than it took for a crocodile to drag a wildebeest to its doom, but it had also given the Hunter an idea for where to search for the Queen.
The sewers connected to the canal were unlikely to be large enough to be a permanent hive, but ideal for a serpent's hiding spot. Even in infancy, the Queen's first instinct after feeding would be to breed. With drones and warriors still alive and gathering hosts to infect, she would almost certainly seek them out.
An alert from a drone still inside the vents. It had caught a glimpse of the infant Queen before the creature fled deeper into the vents. Fled downward.
The Hunter dropped down from its perch, recalling that the nearest entrance to the sewer was inside this very building. It was time for another descent.
Bogo liked the quiet, but he missed the peace that came with it.
The only sound other than his men's footsteps and the occasional rattle of their guns and equipment was the steady tick of the motion tracker held by a visbly uneasy Private Santaures. Any time anything came within range, appearing as a white dot on the little black screen, it would disappear just as quickly as it appeared. Bogo had commanded everyone to make as little noise as possible. He'd also ordered Wilde and Wolfowitz to take point with their flamethrowers, intent on testing his theory that the creatures didn't like fire any more than the Gorgons did.
He brought his men to the late Hornbull's quarters at the top of the Administrative building. In the main control room was a map, a massive computer built like a table where the Adminstrator could examine everything from schematics to maps. It was also where he could track every colonist and marine implanted with a tracking chip, which was exactly what Bogo needed for his operation.
The table was designed to function on backup power to make it easier for rescue teams to find missing mammals. After double-checking that Ben was safe in Carthusia's lab with everyone else, he began looking for those who were not so fortunate.
The marine trackers appeared as triangles, guiding the colonist circles through the colony hallways toward the dropship bay. The monorail was down, so they had to walk. Bogo realized then that he hadn't advised McHorn on whether or not to tell the colonists the truth about the situation. Even he wasn't sure if it was wise. The truth could cause a panic, but the consequences of lying could be even worse. In any case, if the map was any indication, whatever the colonists had been told was causing them to cooperate for the time being.
He switched maps, bringing up the schematic for the underground levels. The creatures had inhabited a cave system, and there was reason to suggest they wouldn't prefer a similar habitat here.
In the widest tunnel, he found at least twenty circles and four triangles, all grouped up in a white cluster. There you are.
"Time to saddle up." He muttered. If he had his radio, he would summon more marines to assist. If any of those mammals were still alive, they would need to be evacuated to Fort Meadowland and quarantined along with Ben.
The squad travelled to the Engineering sector, the quickest and easiest way to get to the sewers. It was eerie how quiet the massive garage was. Even Park wasn't in her grungy office. Then he remembered that her tracker had been among those being evacuated.
They descended two levels down before reaching the wide entrance to the sewers. It had already been forced open. The steel doors were bent like crumpled clothes. On the grated floor below it was a puddle of clear goo.
"We're on the right track. Kill any tailed spiders you see." Bogo said. He checked the pad in his hoof, a miniature version of the map in Hornbull's quarters. The cluster of colonists was about ten minute's walk into the sewer, give or take. Or it be if the place wasn't a blood labyrinth of tunnels, many of them filled with all manner of filth.
He wasn't going to abandon the mammals down there if he could help it.
"Watch every shadow. Don't use flashlights unless I give the order."
The small bulbs lighting the hallway negated the need for flashlights, fortunately. They checked a small cluster of rooms along the way, a locker room, decontamination room, and office all accessible from one door. The locker room was a mess. The contents of several lockers were strewn all over the place, specks of small colors standing out against the splashes of red. The long bench in the middle was upended. A streak of red curved around the partition separation the lockers from the showers.
"Poor bastards. They must have been clocking out when those things showed up." Wolfowitz grumbled. Sauntaures was too focused on the motion tracker to say anything. Wilde stalked toward the partition, following the blood trail. The light of the flame at the end of the flamethrower's barrel merrily danced like an amber star.
"How many guys d'you think died here?" Khan, an Indian elephant, asked.
"Two at least. Sewer workers go down in pairs." Bogo said.
"Oh shit!" Nick almost yelled. He was standing just within the shower area, flamethrower pointed at something behind the partition. Bogo and Wolfowitz both stormed over and saw what had shocked the fox.
It was a camel, dressed in pants and a shirt, laying slumped against the corner of a shower cubicle like a drunk. Only this particular 'drunk' had a gaping ragged hole in her chest. Bogo could see the lungs and what was left of her ribcage, and he knew the mammal had to be dead.
"Is that what killed Hornbull?" Wilde asked. The light of his flamethrower illuminated the curled-up carcass of a tailed, eyeless spider in another corner of the shower area.
Bogo smiled humorlessly at the sight. Thanks for the advice, Miss Hopps.
"Wolfowitz, collect that. Swap your gloves first."
Wolfowitz swapped his standard-issue gloves for latex as he pulled a plastic box from the case Hopps had offered them, quickly gathering the specimen. It was a small victory against that alien bastard, but Bogo wouldn't be satisfied until he had the bastard itself on an autopsy table.
He noticed was Wilde was kneeling beside the camel, strangely interested in her left arm. He reached out and pushed up her sleeve, revealing more of the mark he'd noticed.
"Oh shit." He said again.
"What is it?" Bogo asked.
"Sir, have you seen this tattoo before?"
On the camel's shoulder was the face of a camel with devil's horns, and a forked tongue curling from its mouth. Bogo thought it familiar, but shook his head.
"The Canal Camels. Every member has one. Even the tattoo artist who designed it."
Canal Camels. Drug dealers and scum. Bogo's blood boiled. "How the hell did one get past the Company's background check?"
"Who said it was just one?" Nick asked.
Bogo stared at him. Nick looked worried, too.
"I mean, someone killed Green, didn't they?" He said.
That's right. Someone did.
Carthusia glared down the barrel of the pulse rifle with silence defiance at the jarhead pointing it at him. Through the thick window separating his office from the rest of his laboratory, he saw Miss Judy Hopps pacing back and forth, while the other marines were guarding the door and vents. Clawhauser lay on the table, staring at the ceiling. He'd removed his jacket, but his pants were still red with Hornbull's blood. There was still the possibility that the cheetah was infected. Carthusia wished they still had power so they could scan him. From what he'd heard of Wilde's recollection of their alien encounter, these creatures had properties worth investigating further. After his work on the Night Howlers were finished, of course.
Carthusia had positioned his arms so one was resting atop the other on his lap, so they wouldn't notice he was looking at his watch. Seven minutes to go. He was lucky he'd managed to make the arrangements before Clawhauser had him arrested. El Demonio was a mental freak of nature, but his promise of helping Carthusia escape the Company, and then paying him to continue his work, in exchange for putting the current product on the drugs market, had been too good an offer.
Six minutes to go.
Stupid Company Cocksuckers. If they hadn't tried to take him off the project he'd sacrificed ten years of his life for, they'd had kept his loyalty.