Zee Bug Killas - Part 1
Alright, Part One of my latest short story. Deliberately pulpish, set in my usual scifi universe, it features two new characters: Zee Bug Killas cousins. They’re also monster hunters, but just normal blokes of flesh and blood, so they must be careful about what they get into.
Now, this is a draft fresh off my creative process. Forgive me for the typos and other errors. Which I am quite sure will be there, honestly.
I used again generative AI to produce the associated image, and while the visuals aren’t quite what I imagined for the two cousins. But somehow it managed to capture perfectly their spirit.
Enjoy the story. And let me know, do you want the second part?
Zee Bug Killa Cousins
“What I mean is, why don’t just use her real looks?”
“A rendered avatar is different… it’s like a skin thigh suit.”
“I know, but why? What has she got to hide?”
“Nothing, she’s a honest girl!”
“Everybody’s honest… until you realized they lied their arse off. Remember Ajesha?”
“Don’t talk about Ajesha, really.”
“Yeah, sorry cuz. But I’ve been burned too… remember Armanda, or better Harmand?”
“That was just for laughs, you cannot compare...”
“Still, I wanked in front a a guy with fucking dreadlocks in his CHEST HAIR!”
Billy tried to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t and burst into laughter.
Johnny scoffed at first, but then joined in the hilarity. After the laughter died down, he took a look at the bleak, washed out desert rushing past out of the armored window.
“But seriously, Ajesha traumatized you, Billy.”
“Yes, it’s true. But now leave it, please.”
After a pause:
“You met Galina too. Do you think she would pull that kind of shit?”
“I don’t know… no, she seems alright.”
“She’s a girl of old-fashioned values.”
“Who has been cyber-sexing with you for months...”
“We did it only a few times… and that’s the whole point of the rendered avatar.”
“I still don’t get it.”, Johnny closed and made a show of studying the tac display, while puffing from an e-fag. But there was nothing on the display; at least during the day and in the right season that part of desert was safe. So much that they carried only sidearms at all times; the assault rifles and grenade rifles were stowed behind their seats. As it was a 59mm Baby Gustav, and the stowed turret carrying two 6.5mm miniguns. And more gear, food and drinks. The Marx Desert was no place to be caught unprepared.
Beacons along the dusty macadam highway kept broadcasting their reassuring data: sparse traffic, no issues to report. Some vehicles had their transponders on; others didn’t.
The cousins chose as call sign “ZEE BUG KILLAS”, confirming that important decisions should not be taken after vaping large amounts of pot. But changing a call sign once registered with the distributed registrar was too much of pain, so they didn’t bother and kept broadcasting it proudly.
First Zastava was still a couple hours away and they expected to arrive shortly before sundown.
“Let’s revise the plan.”, Billy said.
“For the fiftieth time?”
“We reach First Zastava, meet with Lemmy and Yoko to brief the mission. Then we have dinner, no ore than a couple beers, and a good rest. I booked us a room already.”
“You hit the sack with Galina…”
“Come on man! Tomorrow at sunrise we leave for Green Gulch and get our job done.”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”
A call came in on the tactical network, high priority. It was Lemmy himself, only audio.
“Hey Killas!”
“Hey Lemmy.”
“Look, there’s a change of plans. This job for Oboe has gotten even more batshit crazy. I can’t tell you how because we signed a big ass NDA… and you wouldn’t believe it anyway.”
An horrendous sound, like an elephant trumpeting through a trunk full of jelly, came from a distance.
“Fucking hell, there’s another one!”, Lemmy cursed, “To make it short, we cannot be there today, neither tomorrow. Fuck knows how long it will take here. You’ll be on your own for this job. That’s why the mission objective now is just observe and report – to me. Even if there are hostiles, do not engage. DO NOT FUCKING ENGAGE, is it clear?”
Bobby managed to sound not too dejected:
“Yes Lemmy.”
“You can make it on your own lads, just don’t act like idiots. Now I got work to do over here.”
“See you.”, Bobby added when the line was already closing.
“That sucks!”, Johnny blurted.
Bobby sucked in his cheek, thinking.
“Maybe not. Maybe it’s our chance to shine on our own.”
“You heard him, he said to observe and report only.”
“Then we will do it well.”
Johnny said nothing, but opened his arms, palms upwards as to invoke god’s grace. His Italian ancestry was clear in how much and widely he gestured
The autopilot drove the solid Armadillo fighting vehicle forward at a steady pace, and they reached First Zastava perfectly on time. The sturdy front gate of the fort was still open on that pleasant day; the two young men stopped just enough to let the computers handshake, and moved slowly into the yard that was buzzing with activity.
The armored side windows rolled down only a third of the way, but that was enough to let the sounds and smells in: it felt more like a day at the park with meat on the barbecue than an outpost in a hostile desert.
A solid-looking young woman milled about, apparently checking vehicles. She had short dark-blonde hair, wore a khaki-colored fatigue with a matching wide-brim hat and carried a long rifle with a skeleton stock slung across her shoulders. Yes, that was the famous Galina. Johhny thought she was too matronly, though certainly not an ugly woman.
Billy tho was smitten with her, and somehow managed to seduce the most desired woman of the whole Marx Desert. Although she was competing in a rather restricted market.
The two young men dismounted, just while Galina casually strode by the driver’s door. Billy greeted her, she greeted him, then they hugged and after studying each other and murmuring something awkward, they exchanged a quick kiss on the mouth.
Johnny left the lovebirds to their own devices, and headed straight for the toilets instead. Then he milled about, puffing from his e-fag. He went up to the observation terrace to take a look at the desert… everything to stay away from the bar, because it wouldn’t do good to roll into action while hungover the next morning. There was not much to see in the desert except the desert itself, but the sight was still gripping, even more so with the long shadows of the coming dusk.
Then the imperious DING! of his cousin’s message jerked him out of that semi-dreamlike state. Billy was asking where the hell was he, and to join him for dinner. Johnny tho remained up there to see the star setting in a glorious blaze, and only when the evening chill creped into the air, walked to the dining hall.
Billy was sitting alone, a mug of beer on the table, and no Russian temptress in sight. Johhny sat in front of him, ordered a beer too and asked him what he’d done in the meantime. But Billy was barely listening, barely there at all. And one didn’t need extra-sensorial perception to know why.
“Right, you’re lost in Galina-land now.”
“Eh? Me” No, I was just thinking… Lemmy sent update info about our mission.”
Billy handed him his rugged tac-tablet.
“There is a transmission from Green Gulch. Weak, probably from a wrist tablet.”
“That’s good, right?”
His cousin’s face said otherwise.
“Right?”, Johnny asked again feeling like he was in an ancient Internet meme.
He found the audio file, and opened it.
The blather of the hall covered the finer details, but it was a woman’s voice. Harsh, anguished and scared, it murmured:
“They’re inside our heads.”, or “They get inside our heads”, over and over for nearly half a minute. Then it cut off mid-sentence.
“This shit is creepy. What does Lemmy say?”
Billy pointed at the tablet, so Johnny checked the chat.
<<DEAL WITH IT AS YOU WANT, I GOT BIGGER FUCKING FISH TO FRY HERE>>, he wrote.
“Very helpful. Well, I guess we just go and do a recon, see what’s up.”
“We gotta stay sharp. At least we know there’s survivors.”
“With things in their heads...”
Billy looked ready to berate his cousin, but a female figure appeared at the table. It was Galina, in the same clothes as before but without rifle for once. She still had a strange-looking compact semiauto pistol in a holster on her belt. She planted her hands on the table, in a very masculine position.
“What are you drinking, Killaz?”
“Just beer, Galina. You know that we have a mission tomorrow at sunrise.”
“Is that a reason not to drink?”
She hailed a robo-server and requested a sixpack of vodka shots.
“Ah yes, you told me earlier. You’re going to check out Green Gulch; they’ve gone dark for a few days now.”
Billy nodded.
“Why nobody else has gone over there to check?”
“From First Zastava? We take care of our own first here. The Green Gulch people have always been dicks, too.”
“Dicks… how?”
She forced her way onto the bench next to Billy, who seemed happy to oblige.
“Greedy bastards. They always ask ridiculous amounts for their opals. They’re pretty, yes, but not that pretty.”
She pulled up her necklace, showing an opal pendant encased in crystal. It was bright yellow and had specks glowing a faint green inside it. Radium opal, Green Gulch’s finest product.
The robo-server returned with vodka and beer, and Galina insisted they had a round of shots first. She downed hers, and continued:
“There are always been stories about Green Gulch. Not our regular desert monsters. Ghosts, strange things happening at night, people going crazy. Homicidal crazy I mean.”
The cousins exchanged a look.
“All that radium in the soil...”, Johnny deflected.
“Maybe… but I’ve seen a healthy and strong eighteen year old boy going there thinking he could make a killing with opal. He returned half-insane after two months, gaunt like a ghost. And there was no excess radioactivity in his body.”
She grinned and lifted her second shot, prompting the others to follow her.
The she bid them goodnight and french-kissed Billy.
“Tasted like vodka,”, he explained dreamily.
“Somebody going homicidal crazy, and someone saying ‘They’re in our heads’. Doesn’t bode well, does it?”
“We can’t back out now. We’d lose the money.”
But something about how he said it, sounded off.
“Not just the money, cuz. I’d bet your Galina is not gonna spread her legs for a man too scared to run into battle. Da, kamerat?”
“You are really obsessed with sex! And… you know Mikhail doesn’t like that fake Russian stuff one bit.”
Johnny looked around apprehensively; Mikhail the owner and boss of the whole place AND Galina’s father was no softie.
They ordered some food as well, and revised again their tactical plan. Green Gulch laid roughly along a perennial creek, at the bottom of a small valley where some vegetation grew.
It was made up of couple dozen houses and several warehouses; some were nice prefabs, others little more than makeshift huts, scattered randomly around the main road. There were also a store and inn, and a town hall. And that was about it, a population estimated at 200 or so – there were no formal records. The main road continued for a couple kilos to the north, into the opal mines area. There, sheds for tools and machinery, open pits and piles of excavated dirt scarred the arid land.
The initial plan was simple: take position at the edge of the valley, slightly above the village, and observe. Then – if things looked alright - do a careful recon all along the road, to the mining pits and back. No dismounting, in and out, observe and report only.
Satisfied with the plan, the cousins lingered around at the bar for another beer, then walked up to the panoramic deck for a few puffs of top-notch ganja extract and soon afterwards retired to their room early for once.
They slept well and woke up rested. So just before sunrise the two men were boarding their Armadillo, checking one last time all the gear and equipment was present, in the proper place and functional.
Galina milled about again: of course she was just checking stuff herself and happened to walk by them. Johnny chuckled at the thought. She and Billy exchanged some words and another long kiss. In the end they could make a quite good couple, if only she would tone down the bossiness a bit.
Johnny checked his tablet. He had a shag buddy called Anna at the moment, and he’d mentioned they were going on a dicey mission. But he made it sound like it was no big deal.
<<Shoot straight (gun emoticon) and good luck! I’ll make you happy when you come back! (sexy dancer emoticon).>>
He smiled; maybe it wasn’t love but its was still good.
They rolled out of the gate in style, psytrance music playing and sunglasses on – even if the gate faced north, so no attacker could catch the defenders blind. Johnny even had a tactical beard to sport.
The road to Green Gulch branched out of the highway some eighty kilos away from Prima Zastava, and went north-by-northwest for about fifty more kilos. It was a road in name only, more like a track cleared in haste with a bulldozer and hardly maintained. They proceeded carefully to avoid damage that could compromise their mission, and also because the deployed minigun turret raised the vehicle’s center of mass.
Johnny drove to the point the road branched out, then Billy took the wheel – and turned the music down to a background sound level. He was older by two years and regarded himself as the leader. In fact, he was more serious and focused. They reported their position to Lemmy, who only acknowledged, and moved onwards to their destination.
“Sun Sparrow out.”, called Johnny releasing a PV-powered recon drone, when they were about ten kilos away from the highway and the beacons’ signal was fading out.
That was the real, bleak wilderness of the Marx Desert. Nothing but rocks and sand and scattered inedible if not outright poisonous bushes. There were lifeforms, of course, but most of them weren’t they type one wanted to meet up close. The light of the local star hammered down hard and the air shimmered with thermals in the distance. Air temperature reached forty centigrades, and it wasn’t even the hottest part of the day.
They spotted a small herd of iron horses, grazing by the roadside. They looked like small, stocky terran horses, already clad in medieval plate armor. Those weren’t too dangerous – unless you managed to piss them off. The alien beasts studied indolently the passing vehicle, then returned to their meal.
Nothing worth of notice happened for a long spell. The cousins didn’t talk much but remained concentrated on the mission.
“There’s a wreck ahead, about half a kilo. I see a burnt-out offroader and two bodies outside.”, Johnny reported when they were just past halfway along the dirt track.
Billy stopped at a safe distance from the wreck and they dismounted holding rifles at the low ready. Johnny quickly wore a half-face mask when the foul stench of burnt and rotting flesh engulfed them.
The vehicle was traveling towards the highway, and stopped at the roadside. A man’s body, that should have been pretty scraggy even when alive, lied in front of the vehicle. The local lifeforms hadn’t disturbed the body too much; his battered rifle was still near the body together with several standard 6x50mm spent casings and one 24-round discarded magazine. From the missing part of his head, it looked like suicide.
There were two charred bodies on the backseat, and Johnny gave those only a glance. The fourth one was a woman, some fifteen meters away form the passenger door at the end of a trail of burnt bits, scuff marks and even more disturbing stains. Despite the extensive second and third degree burns, she crawled out of the window and that much distance over the gravel, before dying.
Johnny kept scanning all around a couple more times; it was better than looking at dead bodies. Especially burnt bodies.
Billy instead examined the scene in a more forensic manner. There were also bullet holes in the car’s hood, now reduced to bare, soot-stained metal with just a hint of rust on it. The man took a walk around the wreck: the fuel jerry-can attached to the tailgate had bullet holes in it too. Entry holes.
“Hey Billy, there’s prints over here. Some weird ass prints.”
Billy walked over. Yes, there were prints coming from the outcrop of low, flat rocks about thirty meters away. Four-pronged prints like a terran bird’s, but as large as a dinner plate. The were shallow and difficult to see, but once noticed they couldn’t be unseen. The prints went around the car, to the two bodies outside and back towards the rocky outcrop, where there could be no prints to follow.
“Let’s see the bodies.”, said Billy already on the move.
“I’ll take the dude, cuz.”
And there it was; the dead man’s torso looked like it had been pecked in several spots, almost down to the bone.
“Something… pecked at this guy.”
“Same here.”, Billy called, then moved away from the woman’s body looking relieved.
The cousins regrouped.
“I don’t like this shit at all.”
“Neither do I.”, Billy agreed, “Lemmy, do you copy?”
“Yeah, go ahead and to the point.”
Johhny accepted the conference call invite.
“Do you see my feed?”
“It’s the kind of barbecue you don’t wanna join...”
“What happened here?”
“That’s for you lads to figure out, if you wanna work on your own.”
“This guy in front… he was the driver. Stopped, then he shot up the jeep. Maybe he set it on fire too. Then he offed himself. The woman survived enough to crawl away, but was too messed up to go far.”
“I agree.”
“But why?”
“Again, YOU gotta figure that out.”
“He just went crazy. Galina said it happened before. ”, Billy ventured.
“Or he didn’t want anyone to get out of Green Gulch alive.”, added Johnny.
“Can’t help you there, I can’t read dead people’s fucking minds. Look, you’re adults and I’m not your daddy. If you wanna pull back now, I won’t think any less of you.”
Lemmy gave them a moment to let that sink in.
“You got the contact for the Flying Brothel, right?”
“The what… Ah yes, got it.”, Billy replied.
“”Good, I’ll give them a heads up. You can call them if shit hits the fan, but they can’t be there in five minutes.”
“Understood. Thanks. What about the prints?”
Yoko too chipped in, her feminine voice absolutely calm:
“The best database match for those prints is only 48% with Dodomodo. You may have to deal with monsters of an unknown type.”
Johnny took it with dark sarcasm:
“Good news just keep piling up!”
Lemmy wasn’t going to be stopped so easily:
“This fucking desert, it shits out a new breed of monster every other month. If you find new monsters, try to take back a specimen. Or at least fragments. The head is the best.”
“Er… if tactically feasible, yes.”, Billy replied without much commitment.
“I’m out now.”
The cousins exchanged glances. Billy spoke first:
“You know that if we get branded as cowards here, our career is done. Even if Lemmy keeps backing us.”
“I do. So we gotta go in, right?”
“Yeah…
“Let’s suit up at least.”
Billy nodded in approval. Before walking back to their Armadillo, Johnny knelt down and took the man’s rifle, a well-worn KA33 with an electronic scope. There were no signs of foreign materials, but as a precaution he sprayed the gun with a decontamination solution he carried around. He then removed the magazine and ejected the chambered round: only one shot had been fired from that mag. Johnny sprayed everything again, pocketed the loose round, put the rifle into safe and slapped the mag back in its well, taking the gun with him. It wasn’t proper to leave functional guns and ammo out there.
They helped each other wear the Class C3 suits, which offered a reasonable degree of NBC and organic assault protection, life support and enough force augmentation to offset their own weight and bulk. Above those there were the Class C4 suits they couldn’t afford… and then the fascinating world of the fully-powered armor suits.
“I have a red light. Left ankle seal.”, Johnny lamented.
Billy knelt and fiddled with the seal.
“It’s done, all systems green.”
“Just one thing before leaving. Let’s give the dead a proper farewell.”
“We don’t have time for grave…”
“Just a prayer for their souls.”
“Fine.”
They did the sign of the cross and silently recited the Eternal Rest, two bulky khaki figures standing quitely on the hot gravel. Then boarded the Armadillo and drove onwards. Those four bodies were by no means the only ones without a proper burial out in the desert.
Johnny launched also a Dove close-range recon drone and fired up a real-time image analyzer software. They were still crossing desert lands, but far to their right they could spot a thin green-bluish strip of vegetation growing along the banks of the stream, before the water was lost in the permeable soil.
Something blinked on the drone feed screen. Johnny barely saw the red square highlighting something, then it disappeared.
“We had a contact. It’s gone now.”
“Where?”
“One-thirty-hours, over one kilo out. Reviewing.”
Johnny checked the chronology: the AI detected an anomaly, but it could only label it as UNKN. He replayed the video taken at high frame rate and definition: a shapeless spot a little lighter than the background appeared in a handful of frames at the edge of the field of view. Even forcing video reanalysis, twice, the result remained UNKN.
“Shit, not even the AI can help. It’s gone into the bushes I think”
Billy just grunted, armed the machinegun turret, and kept driving. Johny acknowledged he had control of the guns, and kept his eyes on the miniguns’ sight video feed.
They went up a slight incline, and reached the crest above the village without any other incident. Billy pulled over, engine idling, there at the top. It wasn’t a tall ridge, maybe forty meters. From there, the track curved left and descended cutting across the bank at a reasonable slope.
The Sun Sparrow kept circling to cover all around them, while Johnny sent the Dove over the village. The cousins also scanned visually the scene, using the optic integrated in the suits. The village was eerily still; not a human sound reached them. There were some dead bodies in the streets… or better remains, after something pecked them to the bones.
“It’s the same monster that left prints around the jeep.”, Billy commented.
Then they saw a figure, definitely human, darting across an alley from a house to a warehouse.
“Contact!”, Johnny went, “Did you see?”
“Yes, I’m keeping eyes on that.”
Johnny pulled again info from the software: it identified the contact as a human male, 20 to 30 years. No visible weapons and no apparent physical injuries.
“It’s a man, seems to be fine.”
Billy had made up his mind:
“We have survivors. We roll in to rescue them. Your primary should be less-lethal then.”
“Lemmy said observe and report only...”
“He didn’t know there are survivors.”
“Alright, less-lethal then.”, Johnny agreed opening his arms wide again, “Polymer bullets for my KA; taking the shottie and beanbags is too much load.”
Billy hesitated: polymer bullets could still cause some serious damage at close range. But he relented:
“Good. Let’s get ready.”
Johnny checked and rechecked there were only less-lethal ammo in the rifle and the three orange magazines he took. He kept only two dark gray live ammo magazines in a closed pocket of the load-bearing vest. At the last moment, he also clipped a long, soft blackjack to his belt. Finally, helped by another Dove drone, Billy began descending down the slope.
“Tell them it’s a rescue operation.”
“Them...”, scoffed Johnny, but still took the mike and turned on the PA system – and a real-time filter to make his voice deep, powerful and clear.
“Attention citizens, this is Rescue One! This is Rescue One, let your position be known. Come out, we will evacuate you.”, he recorded and kept playing while they cruised along the main road.
But with no success; nobody came out, neither made radio contact.
“Where was the man, next alley to the left?”
That alarmed Johnny:
“What cuz, you wanna dismount now? This looks like a trap!”
“Send in a drone first.”
Billy stopped at the intersection and piped the turret’s video feed to his suit’s HUD, so that he could control it remotely with virtual controls. A Dove flew smoothly into the alley, which was wide and clean, paved with compacted gravel where scattered local grass grew. It separated a residential house from a small warehouse, actually more like a large garage. There was a door in the house wall, another right across in the garage wall, and a well-trodden path between them.
“The man was right there, he went from the house to the garage.”
“Let’s go check.”
So the cousins dismounted in formation; Johnny had is rifle at the low ready, and Billy held his 9mm semiauto in retention stance. His rifle was slung on his chest muzzle down. They entered the alley, quiet and methodical, scanning all around before making the next move.
They were approaching the garage door when it flew open and the man they saw earlier jumped out yelling wildly.
He was wearing some kind of choc-chip pattern old protective suit, covered in makeshift patches and modifications. He wore no helmet and that showed his haggard, unkempt look, a sharp face framed by black hair and stubble.
He brandished a long and rusty but still functional billhook. The dream of monomolecular edge had never quite materialised, but it was not very hard to sharpen tools so much they could cut or stab through C3 suits.
He stared at them, growling. Johnny had his rifle’s sight already on the man’s center of mass, but Billy kept his pistol low and used a calm tone.
“Easy man, easy, we’re rescue one!”
The local denizen did not seem impressed, but at least his growling had turned into a string of intelligible obscenities. He kept swaying and moving and waving his billhook around tho.
“We’re the cousins. We mean no harm to you.”
Johnny let his cousin do the talking, while he kept his gun on target. The man’s suit would take a good deal of energy off the light, soft bullets; so he flicked the selector to full auto and aimed lower, at about belt’s height. He was ready to stitch that poor bastard up if needed.
“They want to take my family! Fuckin bastard fucks! I won’t let you fuckheads fucking take me! Fuck shit!”
“He doesn’t seem reasonable, cuz.”
“Your family? We will take you all out of here. Easy now.”
“You won’t get sh-...”, the man yelled trying to lunge forward.
Five polymer bullets, in a vertical line from his navel to just below the throat, stopped him. He fell down in pain dropping the long blade, and Johnny was upon him before he could start fighting back. The young but wiry man put the local’s arms in a police lock, and deftly ziptied him, wrists and ankles. But kept pressing down with his knee between the man’s shoulder blades to stop him from writhing away and gave him a quick frisk. The detectors in his gauntlets reported the man only carried a small knife in a pocket. Not even worth taking it.
“Stop it! Stop fucking around!”
“What the… man, I had it!”, Billy protested, but Johnny just shook his head. He holstered his pistol, took the billhook, and threw it far away – but where he could still see it.
Then he squatted down, getting closer to the prisoner. He tapped a control and his suit’s visor turned clear.
Read Part 2