Hive

  HIVE

  Copyright © 2012 Griffin Hayes

  Cover design by Kit Foster

  Edited by Andrea Harding

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  -1-

  -2-

  -3-

  -4-

  -5-

  -6-

  -7-

  -8-

  -9-

  -10-

  -11-

  -12-

  -13-

  -14-

  -15-

  -16-

  -17-

  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  -22-

  -23-

  -24-

  -25-

  -26-

  -27-

  -28-

  -29-

  -30-

  -31-

  What’s Next?

  Also by Griffin Hayes

  Novels

  Malice

  Dark Passage

  Primal Shift Vol. 1

  Primal Shift Vol. 2

  Novellas

  Bird of Prey

  The Neighbors

  Hive

  Hive II

  Hive III

  Short Stories

  The Second Coming

  The Grip

  Fatherland

  Collections

  Night Terror

  Nightfall

  -1-

  “Whoever sealed this opening did it in one hell of a hurry,” I say, planting my hand firmly on the curve of my waist. My repeater is slung over my right shoulder, its weight digging into my back. That's good, because I know it’s right where it should be. I can have it in my hands in well under a second if I need to.

  Bron steps forward. Nearly three hundred pounds of raw muscle, but it's the robotic implants that usually draw most of the attention. Especially his arms, two polished chrome killing machines. “Looks more like a barricade to me.”

  The others stir uncomfortably and I know it doesn't have a damn thing to do with his thick Norse accent.

  Pennies is fiddling with the cuff of his tunic. His eyes keep dropping to my breasts and I’m a second away from knocking his teeth straight into his nasal cavity. “What do you think they were trying to keep out?” he asks.

  Ret, my second in command, is sitting on a nearby rock, watching a dark patch of clouds roll in. He's wiry and handsome, and more than one fellow Mercenary has taken those traits as a sign of weakness. A mistake they’ll never have the chance of repeating.

  “Have a look at the way those metal beams are welded together,” he says coolly, still watching those clouds, low and heavy on the horizon. “They weren’t trying to keep anything out. Whoever did this wanted to keep something inside, and badly.”

  There’s a narrow opening below the tangle of beams, no more than few feet high. Keeper Oleg braces a hand on his knee and bends down to study the hole. “This was where the Prospectors entered from,” he proclaims. “I'm sure of it.”

  Yeah, no shit it is. That’s the thought running through my head, right along with a savage thirst that's been building from the moment we left Sotercity. But as long as The Keepers are footing the bill, I don't have much choice but to keep a lid on it.

  Keepers of Knowledge. They’ve been around since long before I was born. Formed during the end times – an era beyond memory, now – when an advanced civilization slowly self-destructed. They are tasked with gathering whatever scraps of knowledge and technology they can get their hands on.

  As a child, I remember the Keepers telling stories about cities swarming with hordes of monsters. They’d swept across the planet like a plague of locusts with an insatiable appetite. A single bite was enough to kill you or turn you into one of them. The Keepers said it had been a chemical in the water, supposed to calm the people down. But something had gone terribly wrong. It had taken years to destroy the monsters, and by then there wasn’t much left to save.

  Civilizations rose and fell, and great ones usually died by their own hands. That's about all I know of history. All that really matters, I suppose.

  Oleg stands watching me, then waves his hand dismissively at my men: Bron, Ret, Jinx –my temperamental explosives expert – and Sneak, my tunnel rat. “Hiring Mercenaries was Prior Skuld’s idea, not mine. Look around you. We’re surrounded by ruins just waiting to fall on people’s heads. A rescue mission requires the proper tools.”

  Oleg is name-dropping now. He thinks that because the Prior runs The Keepers and The Keepers run Sotercity, we’re supposed to be scared.

  Bron clasps a massive beam in the jaws of one of his gleaming, metallic arms and lifts it with ease. “Is this tool good enough?”

  I put a hand on Bron’s firm shoulder and he lowers the beam. Tact is in order, not quick tempers.

  “Four Prospectors are missing,” I say, scanning the tiny hole that had been cut into the barricade, “and this is their last known location. Doesn’t look like much more than your run-of-the-mill, shake-and-bake operation. We do ‘em all the time. Head in, locate your boys and then hightail it out. One thousand USC each, ten for me since I’m leading this crew, and we all go our merry way.”

  USC. Units of sodium chloride. Fancy talk for tiny pouches of salt. Just don’t get caught out in the rain with it or you’re liable to lose a fortune.

  I pause to let this sink in, even though I’m sure he knows most of this already. “Besides,” I say. “Prior Skuld already signed the papers. If you think our fee is high now, just wait till you see what it costs to cancel. Now, as far as your partner goes, if you wanna bring Pennies along so he can keep an eye out for anything valuable, fine by me. But my team works fast and we work alone, so you all better keep up ‘cause Bron’s not gonna carry you.”

  Bron flashes a mouthful of brown teeth.

  Oleg is spearing me with his icy stare, and we hear a voice shouting in the distance.

  “Wait for me! Please! Please, wait!”

  Ret lifts a pair of binoculars. “Azina, we got company. Grinder from Sotercity, by the looks of it.”

  I grit my teeth. “Perfect.”

  A Grinder is a term of endearment Ret coined for the hundreds of maintenance men laboring day in and day out to keep Sotercity from drowning in its own shit and dying of dehydration.

  Apparently, since the world went sliding down the crapper, things have become much simpler. At least that’s what the billboards say.

  Come to Sotercity for a Taste of the Good Old Days.

  There’s something here for everyone. You got yourself a big brain? Join The Keepers of Knowledge. What’s that, you say? You’re a greedy bastard? Become a Trader like Pennies. You got a fetish for squeezing into tiny holes looking for artifacts? I understand The Keepers are always looking for new Prospectors. Oh I get it. You like to work with your hands. Grunt work for little or no pay. Got it, not a problem, Public Works goes through Grinders like some people go through dirty tunics. But no, you want it all, don’t you? Then find yourself a trusty weapon – they’re lying around all over the place – and start freelancing as a hired gun.

  Sounds like one of those damn brochures they’re handing out on every corner, I know. But it’s true.

  Ret’s still got the binoculars to his eyes. “It’s Glave,” Ret says, snarling. “Rosaline’s husband.”

  I snatch the binoculars and watch the man stumble over a boulder and fall flat on his face. I turn t
o Oleg. “A panicked husband searching for his Prospector wife is the last thing we need. Send him home.”

  Oleg chuckles. “Worry doesn’t suit you, Azina. You said so yourself; this job is a cake walk. The Keepers are paying you a lot of money. I’m afraid you’ll just have to roll with the punches.”

  I sigh. So much for tact. I wanna spit so bad, but my mouth is too dry.

  -2-

  We squeeze through the tiny hole. Oleg curses under his breath as he snags and tears his long, crimson robe on a nail. I'm behind him, cursing myself at what an unwieldy group we are. Sightseers and tourists mean this is turning into a babysitting job, not a rescue mission, and I'm tempted to call the whole thing off; but the truth is I need the money more than I care to admit. I duck under a cracking concrete slab and I’m hit right away by the silence.

  The place is quiet. Too quiet.

  “Gimme a light!” I shout, hoping to drive away the ominous feeling that’s creeping into my bones.

  Sneak scurries up and hands me a florescent glow stick. I bend it back and forth until it snaps. The room fills with glowing green light. We're in a sewer system; I can tell by the concrete walls and rusted metal pipes overhead. Relics from a bygone era. Murky, brown water sloshes about our feet. The smell is too foul for Pennies, and he buries his nose into the neck of his tunic.

  Bron lets out a bellowing laugh. "Maybe you’d prefer to be back home, counting your money. To me this smells like breakfast.”

  Just then Bron stumbles over a dead rat and lets out a noise that sounds like a whimper. Now Pennies is the one laughing. “Looks like you found your breakfast after all,” the Trader says.

  Bron throws Pennies a menacing look. The big man doesn't like it nearly as much when the joke is on him.

  I stop in front of the dead rat. Or is it a cat?

  Whatever this once was, it isn’t just dead, something has turned it inside out.

  “Do you think one of the Prospectors might’ve done this?” Oleg asks.

  Ret shakes his head. “Not unless they’ve taken to eating the uncooked flesh of sewer rats.”

  We don't get more than a few yards before we find more mangled corpses. None are larger than small dogs and all have been ripped apart. A few are little more than mounds of bones peeking out from the putrid water.

  Jinx wipes the sweat from his brow. He’s got enough explosives in his pack to drop and seal this tunnel for the next thousand years, and from here it looks like he’s fighting the urge to do just that. “These floating meat bags were caught and killed before the Prospectors cut their way in here,” Jinx says.

  For once, I have to admit he doesn't sound so sure of himself. “Why’s that?” I ask.

  “Well, for one, we ain’t found nothin’ bigger than a house cat. Which is strange considering there’s no shortage of wolves and cougars roaming through No Man’s Land. Surely some of ‘em would’ve wandered in.”

  Bron cracks his own glow stick. “But some of these are half-eaten.”

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with the meat,” I say, diverting my eyes from the pulverized flesh. “Look at where these rats are living. Drinking this shit-water all day, I can guarantee they don’t taste like the chicken we're used to in Sotercity.”

  “Did you have to mention chicken?” Ret asks. “I can hear Bron’s stomach rumbling from here. How many full chickens was it you ate at the fair last year? Twelve?”

  “Twenty-six,” Bron mumbles. “I was in bed with a bellyache for a week. That Dehlia, I swear she rubs some kind of drug into those little chicken bodies.”

  I pull to a stop. A clump of what looks like hair rests on a dry patch of concrete. Strapped to my back is a twenty-eight-inch Katana, and I nudge it from its sheath and use the tip to scoop up the mound. I hold it up high and the others look on in disgust. There’s some kind of netting underneath and the hair is stuck to it. I look at Ret, and he moves in beside me. “What do you make of this?”

  He shakes his head. “I’d say someone was scalped, but I don’t see any flesh or any knife marks.”

  Oleg snickers behind us. “It’s a wig.”

  “A what?”

  Oleg sighs. In his world, Mercenaries are nothing more than barbarians, and it's starting to show. I pretend not to notice.

  “Before the end times, wealthy citizens bought hair if they didn’t have any of their own or if they wanted to change the way they looked.”

  Bron erupts into thunderous laughter and rubs the smooth top of Pennies’ head. “Why don’t we give it to Pennies? His head’s as bald as a baby’s bare ass.”

  Pennies swats Bron’s thick hand away.

  “Could it have belonged to one of the Prospectors?” I ask.

  Oleg snickers and now I really want to kick his head in. “You’re looking at a museum piece. Judging by the cut, it probably belonged to an upper-class woman.”

  “A wealthy woman who liked to hang around in sewers?” Ret asks. “Makes perfect sense. Anybody else wondering what we’ve got ourselves into?”

  Something catches Pennies’ eye. He reaches down and comes up with two twinkling stones, each hanging from a tiny hook.

  “Earrings,” Oleg proclaims. “And by the looks of them, they’re quite expensive.”

  Pennies’ eyes are shining. He slips the jewels into the pocket of his tunic.

  “Leave it to Pennies to sniff out the valuable stuff. You’re lucky we’re on a rescue mission, or I’d have to confiscate those.”

  “Don’t be bitter, Bron,” Ret warns. “You’ll get yours. Maybe hanging out in sewers was a favorite pastime for rich people back before the world sent itself to hell.”

  “Yeah, or maybe Pennies just found the only good stuff in the whole stinkin’ place.”

  I trudge through the muck and the bickering fades behind me, while an uneasy feeling that I can't quite shake builds inside me. Mutilated rats, killed for the sake of killing. Rich people running around in putrid sewer systems, leaving artifacts behind. It isn't making a whole lot of sense. A little voice is telling me to turn around. It's low and muted, but it's there and I usually listen to that voice; but then another chimes in, and this new voice is talking about a large sum of money I owe and the cost of forfeiting payment. In the silence, the second voice is louder.

  -3-

  I raise my hand and the group halts. The tunnel breaks off in two different directions up ahead. Ret comes and crouches by the foul-smelling water. He's the best Tracker I've ever worked with, but in a watery cesspool, I don't hold high hopes he'll come up with much of a trail.

  Sneak’s looking at me and I sign to her with the fingers of my right hand. She races off down the tunnel and disappears.

  Chained to a Trader's cart. That's where I found Sneak. She was mute and had the body of a child, though her eyes told me she was at least twice as old as she looked. The Trader, a prick named Lars, had been in the throes of beating her for snatching a handful of bread from his duffel bag. She was quick and agile, and by all accounts she didn't deserve to spend the rest of her life tied to a cart, especially one owned by a Trader who was too dimwitted to see the girl's true talents.

  Somewhere, a rumor had started that I'd shoved that Trader's prick into his gaping mouth right before I’d put a round between his eyes. Maybe I’d told the story that way myself, a time or two. Hard to keep track, sometimes. This new world that had emerged wasn’t exactly kind to us women, if you know what I mean. Regardless, earning your right to lead a motley band of Mercs always starts with rule number one: Never show your soft side.

  The far less heroic truth is that I’d bought Sneak's freedom for fifteen thousand USC. Which is why I desperately need the ten thousand I'm getting from this job. For a reason that never made much sense to me, a purchased slave has the same rights as an earthworm. A slave freed in a bankruptcy sale, on the other hand, has all the rights in the world. There's logic in there somewhere, I guess. I’m just never able to find it.

  “They went right,” Penni
es says, pointing, and you can see it in his face he's still glowing from the bejeweled earrings he found earlier.

  “What makes you so sure?” Ret asks, looking skeptical.

  Pennies points to a white hash mark on the dirty tunnel wall. “A good Prospector always marks his route. Just common sense.”

  I slide two fingers into my mouth and let out a sharp whistle for Sneak. We continue down the sewer tunnel on the right.

  Glave is pulling up the rear, pointing into the darkness behind us. “What about–”

  “Sneak?” I finish.

  Glave lets out a skittish cry as Sneak runs a hand up his back. Bron's bellowing laugh nudges a smile onto my face.

  “Lucky for you, Sneak don’t have a mind for thievin’,” Bron says, “or she'd have your wallet before you knew it was gone.”

  In the distance, broken patches of green light dance around an archway. Twisted remnants of an old, metal door are lying askew on the ground. Across the front, letters are inscribed in the old tongue.

  Jinx is fingering the pin on one of the concussion grenades tied to his belt. “That dead language always spooks me,” he says.

  “Oleg, what does it say?”

  He studies the letters. They’re peeling and frayed with time. “Boiler Room. Leads to an old boiler room.” He must see our blank stares. With as much patience as a cranky old school master, he explains. “Pipes and large machinery that were used for heating. The larger the building, the larger the boiler room. Electronic computing devices were doing most of the work by the end.”

  “Thanks for the history lesson,” Bron says. “But what does it mean?”

  I step inside to the suffocating odor of oil and grease. “It means we're heading in the right direction.”

  -4-

  We find the body lying face down beside what looks like a giant, black water heater. Glave pushes through us and collapses before the body, sobbing.

  “Bron,” I snap.

  The big man scoops Glave up by his tunic. Glave’s arms and legs cycle wildly as he's lifted out of the way. Oleg is beside the body, and Jinx and a reluctant Pennies help turn it over.