“Hello, Major,” she said.
“Captain, what the fuck is going on here?! What the hell was that thing?! Where are we? Why the hell can’t I move?!”
“You were shot,” Sydney said. “You were in danger of bleeding to death. So I brought you here.”
“Where the hell is here?!”
The sphere floated down again, and blinked its lens at Karnage. “Here is home.”
Karnage craned his neck. He was lying in a rescue basket, a thin sheet draped over him, the basket suspended from a complex grid of scaffolding running across the arched ceiling. Floodlights dotted the scaffolding. Just visible beyond the lights were more hoverballs fixed with lenses and tentacles. They stared down at Karnage, the lenses zooming in and out, changing focus as the spheres hovered closer or farther away.
A pair of oval bay windows projected out from the wall, filtering sunlight through the grime-streaked glass. Various bits of medical equipment were pushed up against the walls.
“Home? Whose home? It sure as hell ain’t mine! And you still haven’t told me why the hell I can’t move!”
“You can’t move because you’re a very uncooperative patient,” Sydney replied. “I don’t need you pulling your stitches out. Not after all of Uncle’s hard work. As for whose home this is, it belongs to Uncle.”
One of the spheres dropped down from above. It placed a tentacle on Sydney’s shoulder. “Don’t be so modest, dear. You know this home is just as much yours as it is mine. If only you would visit more often. And in less brutish company.”
Karnage’s eyes goggled. “That thing is your uncle?!”
The sphere blinked its lens at Karnage. “Of course not. What a preposterous supposition. What you are looking at is simply a drone. One of many, in case you haven’t noticed. They are my eyes and ears in the compound. I am sequestered elsewhere.”
“Why?”
“I have my… reasons.”
“He’s a close family friend,” Sydney said. “And he is doing everything in his power to save your life.”
Karnage looked down at his bandaged shoulder. “Why? What’s wrong with my shoulder?”
The drone bobbed up and down. “Very little, actually. The bullet passed right through the shoulder, missing the scalpula and brachial plexus completely. You should be laid up for a few days at the most. No, your shoulder isn’t the problem.”
A second pair of drones floated down and pulled back the sheet covering Karnage’s leg. A shining metal band wrapped around the middle of its shin.
“What the hell is that?” Karnage said.
The nearest drone flashed its lens at Karnage. His tentacles quivered with excitement. “That is all that stands between you and the unknown frontiers of science!”
“What the hell’s he talking about? What the fuck is wrong with my leg?”
“Technically, nothing,” the drone said. “Which is the source of your trouble.”
“What do you mean? What the hell are you talking about!” Karnage barked.
“It’s your ankle,” Sydney said. “You twisted it in the arena. You could barely walk on it. Remember? And then on the ship, hours later—”
“It was fine.” Karnage looked down at his foot. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “What did those squidbugs do to me?”
Sydney turned to a drone hovering by her shoulder. “Show him.”
The drone beside Karnage swivelled its lens at Sydney. It squealed: “Delighted!”
Three drones descended from the ceiling. Their lenses zoomed out, and projected light, each one projecting a different primary colour. The beams intersected, creating a holographic projection of a DNA double helix.
“Human DNA,” the drone beside Karnage said. “The building blocks of all life on earth.”
The double helix shifted to the right, and three strings of vibrating noodles affixed with shifting coloured beads squiggled in beside it. They tangled and untangled themselves randomly, twitching in agitation whenever they made contact. The coloured beads jumped from one strand to another when the strands touched.
The drone beside Sydney hovered closer to the projection. “Extraterrestrial DNA,” it said. “The building blocks of the alien infestation. Unstable. Volatile. Infectious.”
The twitching strands lashed out and grabbed the double helix, tearing it apart, wrapping itself into the debris. The beads flew loose from the strands and rocketed about the morass like a hurricane. It looked like a violent feeding frenzy.
“What happened? What is that? Is that what’s happenin’ inside o’ me?!”
“As near as Uncle can tell,” Sydney said, “the squidbugs fixed your ankle with an injection of their own genetic material. But it’s doing something more than just repairing the damage. It’s… rewriting your genetic code.”
“Rewriting it into what?!”
“And that is where we stumble into the unknown!” The drone beside Karnage squealed. “It is rewriting your genetic structure, taking the best genes from your DNA and combining it with select genes from itself, synthesizing a new hybrid creature.”
“What do you mean a hybrid creature? What the hell is it turnin’ me into?!”
The drone clapped a set of tentacles together. “It’s unpredictable! The infestation takes so many shapes. The possibilities are endless!”
“I wish you wouldn’t sound so pleased about this, Uncle,” Sydney said.
The drone beside her placed a tentacle on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, my dear. I just get so excited about new discoveries. Please. Forgive my enthusiasm, Major.”
Karnage didn’t care. He was staring at his foot. It didn’t feel different. And yet, somewhere, deep inside of him, the squidbug DNA was attacking, changing him into something he didn’t want. Suddenly the invasion had become personal. So much more personal than Karnage could ever have imagined. Rage boiled up inside him. He wouldn’t let them get away with it. He wouldn’t let them win. Not like this. Not now.
Karnage laid back and closed his eyes. “Cut it off,” he said.
He heard the whirring of the lens on the drone beside him. “What?”
“I said cut it off! I’m not gonna just lie here and let those squidbugs turn me into something I’m not. I’m me. I’m Major Karnage. Any part of me that says otherwise can go to hell. So cut this fucking thing off. NOW!”
Sydney stared at Karnage in shock. “You can’t be serious.”
“What part of my little tirade made it sound like I was joking?”
“You won’t be able to walk—”
“I’ll strap a fucking chainsaw to my leg if I have to! I’m not lettin’ those squidbug bastards get the upper hand!”
“Upper hand? Listen to what you’re saying! It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face!”
“Who said anything about cuttin’ off my nose?! It’s my foot that’s gettin’ all up in my face! So cut that monkeyfucker off!”
“Ooh!” Another drone descended from the ceiling, squealing. It stopped above his leg. “So dramatic. So final! And so wholly unnecessary.” The drone tapped the metal band on Karnage’s leg. “The UVL blocker is containing the infection. It soaks it up, like a sponge, and should prevent further contamination until I discover a means of extraction.”
“Extraction? You mean you could cure me?”
“Not at the moment, no, otherwise I would have. Extraction is not yet within my grasp. But I will find a cure, rest assured. Some sort of stem cell vaccine is my current favoured approach. While not exactly the most elegant of solutions, it just might do the job. I’ve taken the liberty of harvesting some of your unfused genetic material and cataloguing it in my database. You don’t mind, of course. I thought it would be prudent in case some unforeseen complication causes the infection to spread.”