“You’ve got to use your head, Major.”
Karnage took in what breath he could, and he laughed. It was barely a wheezy chuckle, but he laughed. The Intelligence cocked Sydney’s head to one side. “You find this all funny, do you? I’ll be interested to see how much you laugh with my next blow. It should be quite excruciating. A real scream.”
Karnage shook his head. “Go ahead. Do your worst, cuz the joke’s gonna be on you. You’re so cocksure. So goddamn full of yourself. So sure of your own infallibility. Oh, go ahead and kill me and make sure I’m in agony. Make it last a long, long time. Cuz I want to savour this moment, you little fuckmonkey.
“You never found a better choice than me. You were duped. Bamboozled. Cookie figured out a way to use your own damn arrogance against you. I get it now. Oh, I get how he did it. And it’s a thing o’ beauty. The kind of thing only somebody like Cookie would see.
“You think you’re better than me. Thought you could do better than some crazy old man locked up in an insane asylum. I think I damn well offended your sensibilities. Hell, you probably hung your head in shame when you saw I was the best the Earth had to offer. You couldn’t stand it, could you? And old Cookie, all he had to do was whisper that sweet poison in your ear: ‘Here’s someone better. Here’s someone a little more to your likin’.’ And you fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker. What a dupe. Oh, what a dupe.
“So go ahead. Kill me. Destroy your perfect host. Considerin’ all the time and effort you put into finding little old insignificant me, I’m thinkin’ you need the host to be perfect. Otherwise, why go with me? Why not a Dabney? I bet they were linin’ up to volunteer. No. You need me for some reason. I don’t get what, but you do. But it don’t matter, does it? Cuz you’re gonna kill me anyway.”
“You lie,” the Intelligence said. “You’re trying to save your life.”
Karnage shook his head. “Nope. Wrong again. It ain’t me I’m tryin’ to save. It’s Sydney. Let her go. She ain’t a good match. She’s a tight fit, remember? You’re not gonna wear her in. You’re just gonna wear her out. And what happens then? Shit, I’d love to see that. Love to see you with egg on your face. You’ll probably spew some bullshit to cover your ass, but that won’t matter. Cuz I know—I know right now. So you torture me all you like, cuz I’m gonna laugh my ass off the whole time. I’m gonna laugh my way right to hell.”
The Intelligence looked suspiciously at Karnage from behind Sydney’s eyes. Karnage went on: “You got ways of checkin’ this, don’t you? I’m sure someone as high and mighty as you must have some way of sniffin’ out a primitive old mind like Cookie’s. Go on. Give it a shot. See for yourself if I’m wrong.”
The Intelligence made Sydney scowl. Green energy blasts shot out of her hair and up through the pipes. The pipes all glowed, flowing back and forth, coursing with activity, becoming more and more frenetic until a single little line of white streaked up out of the green. It shot through the green and back into Sydney’s hair. The Intelligence made Sydney scream in fury.
“See? You’re not so shit hot after all, are you? Just another blowhard, tryin’ to act like you’re all god this and infinite that. But you’re nothin’. Cuz I’m right here, and you ain’t inside of me.
“So come on, buddy. Let’s go. You and me: brain to brain. Cerebro a cerebro. Quit hidin’ inside her, and let me see what you’re really made of.”
The Intelligence filled Sydney’s face with hate, and then her eyes rolled into the back of her head before she dropped to the ground.
A railroad spike slammed into Karnage’s brain, splitting it in half. His vision clouded over as a strange voice inside his head reverberated strongly in his ears.
Ah, you were so right, Major. This is much more comfortable.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A jagged streak of squiggles tore across Karnage’s eyes. His head throbbed. He felt the Intelligence stab needles through his brain, pulling apart his mind from the inside. The walls of his consciousness were caving in. His vision was a jumble of vibrating squiggles. Only a tiny corner of his eyes were his own. He struggled up on all fours. His body refused to work properly as it tried to process orders from two separate consciousnesses. He tried to crawl around the room, barely aware of what his own body was actually doing. Pain coursed through his head, ricocheting from one lobe to the other.
The squiggles populated and multiplied, filling every corner of his mind. He recognized each for what it was: a million and one communications to every part of the ship—to every part of the invasion. Even from this far out in space, the Intelligence continued to calmly give out its orders. He caught glimpses of Velasquez and Koch firing round after round into an oncoming horde of squidbugs that poured out of the hatchways. He saw the floating bodies of Darla and Upchuck in their spheres as the alien DNA slowly went to work beneath their skin, experimenting with new shapes and forms. Faint strands of white were also visible through the morass of squiggles. He reached out to them, and they gave him strength. Karnage wasn’t sure if it was Cookie, or just his own mind trying to remind him of what he had to do.
Karnage was drowning in the Intelligence’s thoughts. He felt like he was swimming in the ocean in the middle of a hurricane, trying to navigate a never-ending barrage of roiling tidal waves. Karnage twisted his head, trying to see what he could of the oval chamber— the cerebral cortex of the invasion. He knew how all of the pieces worked. How the Nucleus provided more than just a safe haven from attack, but was also a gateway to other dimensions. Other realities. It was an anomaly unto itself, created long before the Intelligence first gained awareness as it had slipped from its own dimension into this one.
And then there were the memories of all the times before, on other worlds, where again and again beings of impossible varieties had tried to stop the Intelligence and its invasion. It had been dispersed by thousands of explosions over the years. Some with the power of a hydrogen bomb. Some with the power of a hand grenade. But the result was always the same: it coalesced, willed itself back into shape, and resumed its attack. Sometimes it took years to pull itself back together. Sometimes millenia. But it always came back. And it always won.
But there was something else that was clear as welclass="underline" it always hurt. It hurt like hell to be dissipated by an explosion. And it would do anything to avoid that pain. It had bluffed Karnage, banking on his affection for Sydney not to fire that rocket. And it had worked.
But it couldn’t hide behind that bluster now. Karnage knew everything it knew. But if he didn’t figure out something fast, soon he wouldn’t know anything else. He was losing his mind to the Intelligence. He could feel his memories slipping away. He tried to hold on to what Cookie had told him:
“You just gotta use your head.”
But Karnage was losing his head. He was losing it fast. His mind was being sucked into the Intelligence, becoming an indistinguishable collection of squiggly synapses within its vast consciousness. He thought of what Sydney’s Uncle had told him:
“I have learned to work within my limitations. You should learn to do the same.”
But he was becoming more limited by the second as the squiggles ripped layer after layer of his psyche away.
Karnage did what he could to hold on. Pulled together the bits of himself that he could. The white strands pushed through the squiggles and fed into his mind, reciting his mantra to him: Cookie Velasquez Heckler Koch Stumpy Sydney. He joined its chorus, repeating it more forcefully than ever: Cookie Velasquez Heckler Koch Stumpy Sydney. Cookie Velasquez Heckler Koch Stumpy Sydney.