Weirdest sword fight ever.
Bunny had his hands full trying to keep the monster’s teeth away from his neck, so I needed to end this. The man-wasp wore a hospital gown. Yeah, the kind that flaps open at the back. I stuck that stinger deep into a place where nothing sharp and pointy should ever go.
Not my finest moment. Made even less so by my shouting out, “Tooshie!” the way a fencer yells, “Touché!”
I don’t think anyone heard me, though, because at the same time Top emptied an entire mag into the third man-wasp. The creature dropped to the ground, his torso resembling a giant, blood-streaked slab of honeycomb.
“A little overkill, don’t you think?” Bunny said, shoving away from the man-wasp I’d killed.
“I did not want to get stung by that thing,” Top said, looking around at us. His eyes landed on Sanders, who had an angry red bump the size of a golf ball on his neck. “Oh. Uh, how are you feeling, Sanders?”
The base guard managed a weak smile. “I think I’ll be okay, actually,” he said. “Maybe I’m not allergic to mutant human wasp venom.”
We continued on, but while I knew I should stay alert for more threats, I found myself constantly glancing at the big bug bite, until it got to the point where I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
It was growing.
It was the size of a baseball now.
I put my hand on the rapid-release folding knife clipped to the edge of my pocket. “Hey, Sanders,” I said. “That bump looks uncomfortable. You want me to poke a hole in it? See if some monster puss drains out?”
Sanders turned and opened his mouth to speak, but only a gasping sound came out.
Forget pricking the bump, I was ready to amputate it. That wouldn’t help him, though, if what he really needed was a giant EpiPen.
As if reading my thoughts, Top said, “He’s not going into anaphylactic shock, that thing’s grown so big it’s crushing his throat!”
He was right and there was not a damn thing we could do about it.
Sanders gurgled out some words that sounded eerily close to the fruit fly men’s “Kill me,” but I didn’t have to make that hard decision. Sanders’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, then he collapsed, his chest no longer moving.
Guess he really was allergic. Poor bastard.
I looked toward Bunny and Top, who were both staring at Sanders’s neck, and it took my mind a moment to process what I was seeing behind them.
A tall naked woman — the term Amazon came to mind — appeared to be twerking, of all things. I thought she was trying to mesmerize me with her booty shake. As a battle tactic, I have to admit it almost worked.
Until I noticed what was above the full moon.
Just in time, I realized she was actually winding up to do a giant swing toward my teammates… using her massive stinger like a sword to slice them both in half.
“Down!” I shouted.
Top and Bunny obeyed without question.
As the queen bee completed her swing, she continued the motion so that she stood facing me. The chitinous scales that covered her naked body reminded me of a girl with freckles I’d once dated. “You must be Captain Ledger,” she said in a surprisingly normal voice. Deeper, raspier, sure, but very feminine and seductive. “I’m going to eat you alive,” she said.
I almost considered letting her.
The Warrior overruled the Horn Dog and I aimed my pistol at her. Blood and gore exploded from her chest.
Weird thing was, I hadn’t pulled the trigger.
She lifted off the ground, yet her wings weren’t moving. She flew sideways, crashing into the wall. She fell dead to the ground.
She’d been impaled and flung away by the maze’s alpha predator. The Minotaur.
“Thanks?” I said.
He glared at me, nostrils flaring. “Don’t thank me,” he said, his voice labored, as if it were a struggle to speak properly through his mutated mouth. “Dr. Goldman promised to reverse my mutation if I kill you. I just didn’t want her to get the credit.”
He looked ready to charge me. Bunny and Top already had their laser sights on him and I could get off several shots before he reached me, but his leathery hide looked tough. Would our bullets even slow him down? I wore light body armor, but I didn’t think it’d be any match for those powerful horns.
The Minotaur’s eyes widened when I raised my gun and fired toward his head.
“That’s not going to stop me,” he said when he realized I’d been aiming at the video camera on the wall behind his head. “I don’t need Goldman to see me kill you. I’ll just drag your body to the next camera.”
“That’s what I was planning on,” I said.
The Minotaur looked just as confused as Top and Bunny.
I holstered my gun and used my knife to cut two horn-sized holes in my jacket. I rubbed some of the wasp woman’s blood onto my chest to complete the disguise. I was a dead man.
“What about us?” Top asked.
“What about the other two?” Halverson echoed a moment later, when the Minotaur used Sanders’s radio to inform him of my death.
“They said they were with you when Goldman’s brother died. They said you should let them go.”
To my surprise and relief, Halverson replied, “Okay. You can bring them, but they have to leave their weapons. Remove Captain Ledger’s weapons as well.”
Well, damn.
As the Minotaur dragged me roughly along by my left arm, the walls rearranged themselves to give us direct passage to the entryway.
“Have his friends bring him out,” Halverson said when the door opened. “You stay there.” He pointed his gun at the Minotaur.
Top and Bunny each grabbed an arm and dragged me out next to Halverson. They weren’t any gentler than the Minotaur. Payback for all the times I’d kicked their asses sparring.
I left my eyes open. It was a calculated risk since it was going to be hard not to blink, but I wanted to be fully aware of my surroundings. And right now I could see that Dr. Goldman had joined Halverson. Like his twin brother, he wore thick glasses and had the nervous habit of running his tongue along his lips.
“You don’t need to point that gun at me,” the Minotaur said, struggling to control his anger. “I just want what was promised to me: the cure.”
The doctor sighed, actually looking apologetic. “Do you remember Nurse Joy?” he asked. I couldn’t move my gaze off Goldman, but I assume the Minotaur nodded an affirmation, because the evil scientist continued. “I turned Nurse Joy into a Minotaur as well. I did it so I could test the cure on her. I figured if it didn’t work, you would at least have some companionship in the maze.” He shook his head with fatherly sorrow. “Unfortunately, not only did the cure not work, it killed her.”
“You lied to me!” the Minotaur screamed. Goldman might as well have waved a red flag at him. But the beast didn’t move. Halverson’s weapon kept him in check.
The head of base security took a nervous step backward nonetheless. That was enough of a distraction for Top to make his move. He had the man disarmed before he even realized what had happened.
Goldman blindsided us by whipping out his own gun and pointing it at Bunny. “Don’t move,” he said to Top.
I didn’t recognize the gun, but I could tell it shot sedative darts.
“I’m a trained soldier, you’re a mad scientist,” Top said, steel in his voice. “I could shoot your man, then you, faster than you could get off a single shot with that tranq gun.”
“Tranquilizer? No. The dart in here will pump a special cocktail into your friend. Then the maze will have two Minotaurs. Remember, there is no cure.”
Top cursed and returned the Glock to Halverson.
The only upside to the confrontation was that no one was paying any attention to me. I inched along the floor, getting closer to Goldman.