Aberrant: Prometheans Unbound - Fiction: King Cobra

[phoenix]

Christmas Eve, New York City:

A muffled gasp punctuated the silence outside, in the chilly darkness surrounding the Lincoln Magnet School. Light and music sprayed out from the black box theatre just a few hundred feet away, but two teenagers were ignoring it, splayed out against an external heating duct, which warmed them. A recognizable article of pink female lingerie fell lightly onto the exposed grass.

"You’re so beautiful," murmured an immature male voice. His partner half-hummed, half-moaned in response.

Pheremones, sweat and the scent of blood filled the cold air. The breeding baselines smelled more delicious than the finest pork roast, filet mignon, and Blue Ring’s insectile mandibles salivated a thick, acidic fluid at the scent. Its segmented, chitinous body and stick legs made no noise at all in the soft snow. It crept closer.

"Jake.. please be gentle, okay? I’ve never done this before."

Jake pulled her close.

Suddenly, a voice rang out from the shadows, causing both teenagers to jump, startled. "Hey! Jake! And.. is that Becky? Both of you get inside now!"

"Mr. McCall!" The amorous pair instantly froze.

John McCall jerked his head backwards, in the direction of the decorated theatre. "Get back to the Carnival Ball – both of you, now. I’ll decide what to do about this later."

Both students stayed frozen. Wondering if the cold weather had slowed their wits, John clapped his hands. The loud report shocked them to their feet. The boy hurried past John to get into the theatre and, gathering up her fallen bra, the girl followed him, obviously scared.

John turned to watch them go. He took off his slim glasses and cleaned them on his shirt and wondered if the children were anywhere near as frightened as they should be. Blue Ring was easily among the most merciless and casual of baseline killers; the term "murderer" hardly even applied. And now that he had turned his back, it was his own life in peril. Externally calm, John was powering up as quickly as he could. Rising adrenaline levels pumped his Mazarin-Rashoud node to a quantum hyperdrive, fueled by the terrifying mental image of Blue Ring’s insectile body rearing up behind puny baseline John McCall, coiled for a single, lethal strike…

Suddenly King Cobra was there in John’s mind, and everything was all right. He had done this before.

Like he weighed nothing, the young teacher – whose tweed jacket had rapidly morphed into a darker, tougher-looking material, covering his face – launched into the air in a graceful backflip. He landed on his feet behind the grotesquely mutated Harvester, easily absorbing the shock of hitting the ground.

Blue Ring coiled around itself, turning its hungry stare on the dark man who had evacuated his prey. Its voice was guttural and sibilant when it spoke.

"King Cobra?

"King Cobra, defending baselines," repeated the creature. It emitted a startling laugh at the idea.

Cobra stood his ground. There was nothing else to do.

"Well now, Cobra," hissed Blue Ring. "Coba-roba-roba-king. King King Cobra." It laughed again, then lapsed into silence. Then he added conversationally, "Your baseline suit smells delicious, Cobra. Like the flank of a lamb."

The dark humanoid started to speak, but Blue Ring interrupted him. "And those two larvae! Mouth-watering." The massive insectoid was drooling indeed, though its saliva did not look much like water. "And you walk among them; a true wolf in sheep’s clothing. Still, perhaps you are not so greedy as to refuse to share?"

The sharp mandibles seemed to assemble into a predatory grin as they hung in the air before King Cobra. He paused before responding.

"Known you a long time, Blue Ring. Always got along with you fine. Always got along fine with the Harvesters."

Blue Ring’s monstrous grin grew wider. At that moment, Cobra felt sure that the expression was deliberate.

"Is this a shakedown, Blue? You knew about my baseline I.D. before, didn’t you? What do I have to do to keep you quiet?"

The massive arthropod shook with seething laughter. "What do you have that I would want, Cobra?"

Cobra shrugged. "So," he asked conversationally, "how long have you known?"

"I didn’t know," hissed Blue Ring. "I was just stopping for a snack. You exposed yourself, pal. And there’s nothing I want from you. Except to stand back while I raid the henhouse over there." A wave of motion flowed through the Harvester’s coils in the direction of the black box theatre, the hundreds of students inside for the school dance. Blue Ring’s inhuman, scorpion-like head leaned in closer to King Cobra, and the smiling mouthparts grinned so hard that they lost all resemblance to a human expression. "Don’t worry, Cobra. I’ll probably keep your secret. After all, we Terats have to stick to--"

Cobra didn’t let him finish. Twin bayonets of hissing shadow energy slid out of his gloved wrists. "Actually," he said, "I mostly just wanted to make sure you hadn’t told anyone else." Cobra lunged forward and guillotined the chitinous Harvester in a scissoring double-backslash motion. The insectile head slid gently off the body, and plopped down in the snow, evaporating it with a hot liquid that flowed from the wound.

Cobra distastefully picked it up, and looked into the Harvester’s dead eyes. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy, thought John with a smile from somewhere within King Cobra. Cobra returned the smile to himself.

A few minutes later, there was no trace of Blue Ring ever having stalked or died outside Lincoln Magnet School – the evidence was cut into torso-sized segments, and buried deep underground. John McCall, for his part, was clean and neat as he returned to the relative brightness of the dance hall, forcing wide smiles for the dancing cliques of students. King Cobra, now a recessive identity behind clean-cut John McCall, wondered to himself how long this life could last.