Web of Fire Bind-up (12 page)

Straight away, Sam recognised it as a red ant; he had studied them many times in his garden. He knew that they had a painful bite and an excellent sense of smell, but he had never before had any reason to fear them.

But then, the ones in his garden were just a few millimetres long and generally paid him no attention. This one was the size of a bus and it wanted to kill him.

It was a crucial difference.

A worker at a nearby tank dropped his spade and tried to make a break for it. The ant swivelled its head at the sound of the spade hitting the concrete floor and with lightning speed seized hold of him and yanked him up into the air. He flailed his arms around and cried out for help, but it was of no use; the
ant crunched its powerful jaws together and tossed his broken, lifeless body to the floor. Then it began to move towards them again.

‘Run!' shouted Skipper.

The ant's shadow fell across the feed pile and Skipper hared off between the breeding tanks with Sam sprinting after her. He felt the wind from the ant's head as it lunged at him and heard the hiss of poison as its jaws cracked down onto the hard floor where he had been standing only seconds before.

Ahead of him, Skipper reached the end of tank thirty-seven and took the corner at full pelt, holding the edge with her left hand as she skidded around it. Sam flew around after her, tripped over a spade and crashed into Skipper's back, sending them both tumbling to the floor. He looked up and saw that another ant was advancing rapidly towards them.

‘What now?' shouted Sam. He glanced over his shoulder to see the head of the first ant emerging between the tanks. ‘We're trapped!'

He turned back to see Skipper interlacing her fingers and turning her hands palm upwards. She held them out to Sam like a kind of stirrup.

‘Skipper, what are you doing?' he cried. ‘They're going to kill us!'

‘No, they're not,' she answered, her voice surprisingly calm in the circumstances. ‘Put your foot in here.'

‘But –'

‘Just do it, Sam!' Her voice was more urgent now.

The ants were nearly upon them. He could hear the clacking of their legs on stone and the snap, snap, snap of their jaws.

He stepped forward and placed his right foot into Skipper's upturned hands.

‘Hold on to my shoulders,' she instructed.

Sam quickly did as he was told and felt her lift him off the ground. He could see out across the murky waters of the nearest tank now, see the dark shapes of the mosquito larvae hanging upside down, the breathing tubes in their tails breaking the surface like snorkels.

He just had time to turn his head and register the fact that he was staring directly into the hideous, slavering jaws of a monstrous ant before Skipper jerked her hands upwards and threw him, arms flailing, over the side of the tank.

He hit the surface with a loud smack, sending a plume of water high into the steamy air. Waves cascaded over the sides and as he sank down into the warm, soupy water he opened his eyes and saw larvae the size of dolphins wriggling away to the shadowy depths beneath. Above him, a trail of bubbles marked his own unexpected descent.

His lungs empty and crying out for oxygen, Sam gave a desperate kick and swam up to the surface. Coughing and spluttering as he emerged, he trod water and frantically looked around for a means of escape.

Below him, dark shapes moved through the murky waters. Gradually the mosquito larvae began returning
to the surface, probing the air with their tails once more. Sam felt a strange current swirling beneath his feet. Trying not to panic, he attempted to lift his feet clear of whatever was down there.

Without warning, something clamped itself hard onto his leg and pulled him violently beneath the surface. Opening his eyes in the gloomy waters he saw to his horror that one of the larvae had fastened its mouth to his calf and was trying to drag him down to the bottom of the tank. The large maggoty white head twitched and jerked blindly from side to side as it tugged him lower and lower, its pale, sightless eyes unable to distinguish anything but light and shadow.

Exhausted and starved of oxygen, Sam felt like giving in. It was all too hard, too much effort trying to stay alive when everyone wanted you dead. The light was fading and the darkness closing in. Soon it would be over. He could sleep for ever.

But as his eyes closed and he started to drift away, Sam thought of Skipper. Hadn't she risked her life to save him? She could have run and saved herself, but she had stayed to help him instead. He couldn't let it all be for nothing. He had to survive, if only for her sake. She needed him.

He shook his head and, with a supreme effort, opened his eyes.

The light above him was fading fast. The creature was dragging him down towards the darkness at the bottom of the tank and Sam knew that he would have to act quickly. Summoning all his strength, he drew back his
free leg and kicked at one of the larvae's unseeing eyes. The resistance of the water slowed his movements and when his foot struck the creature's eye it bounced off again. It was like kicking a child's inflatable toy.

Undeterred, he kicked out again and again until finally the creature recoiled and released its grip. Thrusting his arms above his head, Sam cupped his hands and swam hard until he broke through the surface into the harsh glare of the factory lights. Treading water for a few seconds to get his breath back, Sam saw the shadows begin to move beneath him and he quickly struck out for the side of the tank.

Pulling himself up so that his stomach was resting on the edge, he was relieved to find that there were no ants patrolling the section of floor below, although several pairs of antennae were visible between the tanks nearby. Skipper, however, was nowhere to be seen.

He had to try to find her.

He jumped over the side and ducked down, staying low and running along the alleyways that criss-crossed between the tanks. Reaching the end of one of them, he peered cautiously around the side to check that the coast was clear before darting across to the cover of the next. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was either spotted from above or hunted down by the vicious ants, but this time he wouldn't give up until he had found Skipper. He owed her that much.

His heart racing, he finally reached the end wall of the factory and found himself beneath a gantry that ran
along its entire length. Above he could see the shiny black boots of the guards pacing back and forth, but he knew that unless they looked directly beneath their feet they were unlikely to spot him.

For the moment at least, he was safe.

Scanning the deserted factory floor, he realised that it must have been cleared to make it easier to track him down. There was still no sign of Skipper. All he could see were the huge ants weaving their way methodically between the tanks, antennae twitching, searching him out.

He leant heavily against the wall, exhausted. His eyes stung from the feed in the water and he rubbed them in an effort to ease the pain. As he did so he heard a clatter, followed by a loud clang. It came from the direction of the nearest tank.

Dropping his hands from his eyes, he saw to his dismay that an ant was standing only a few metres away from him.

Sam flattened himself against the wall and held his breath.

The ant stopped and moved its head slowly from side to side as though sniffing the air. Its antennae twitched, searching for clues.

Oh, please
, he prayed.
Please don't find me …

The ant turned and took a few steps in the opposite direction, then stopped again.

That's it – go on, keep going!
urged Sam silently.

The ant seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if uncertain how to proceed.

Then it turned and stared directly at him.

Sam looked desperately around for an escape route, but there was none. The huge, monstrous ant scuttled straight towards him and, as the terrible jaws lunged forward, Sam sank to his knees and moaned in terror, waiting for it all to be over.

There was a loud thud, followed by silence. He waited for the pain, for the agonising slice of the jaws, but they never came.

Gingerly, Sam opened his eyes and was faced with the unexpected sight of the ant standing with its front legs bent and its head, which was the size of a small family car, resting on the ground in front of him. A small pool of yellow poison steamed on the floor next to its powerful jaws and its antennae continued to twitch unabated. It was staring straight at him and was obviously still very much alive.

As Sam watched, a patch of skin on the top of its head appeared to become much thinner. It wobbled and shimmered like tarmac in the heat, then suddenly dissolved away to nothing, leaving a neat, circular hole.

To his utter amazement, a small girl popped her head out of the top and winked at him.

‘Hello, Sam,' said Skipper. ‘Did you wonder where I'd got to?'

‘Don't step in that stuff,' Skipper advised as Sam skirted around the steaming yellow poison pooled beneath the ant's jaws. ‘It's acid. It'll burn your feet.'

Sam stepped over it and put one foot on a section of pincer that looked poison-free. He put his hands against the cold skin of the creature's head to steady himself. It felt taut and smooth with a slight grain, like old leather.

‘Here,' said Skipper, leaning down and stretching her hand out. ‘Grab hold.'

Sam took her hand and used his feet to scramble up the side of the head as Skipper pulled from above. After several slips, he made it to the top and sat with his feet dangling over the edge. His grey uniform steamed and he wrung out part of his sleeve. There was a hiss as droplets of water hit the poison below.

‘I think we'd better get moving,' said Skipper.

She jumped back through the opening and then stuck her head out again.

‘Come on in,' she said.

Sam climbed down through the hole in the ant's head and found himself sliding into a leather seat with armand headrests. It was very comfortable.

Laid out in front of him was an instrument panel with numerous backlit dials which glowed red in the darkness. He noticed one marked ‘GLUCOSE LEVELS' and another with ‘FORWARD-SPEED INDICATOR' written next to it. A third showed a three-dimensional diagram of the ant and had ‘DAMAGE INDICATOR' printed underneath. A small red light was flashing on the underside of the diagram.

Further along was a small, square screen displaying the words ‘CHEMICAL ODOUR MATCH' with some sort of green block graph above it and ‘93% MATCH' showing at the top. Next to it was another screen with a line down the middle. It had the words ‘SUBJECT IDENTIFICATION' written beneath it.

Sam was surprised to see that on one side of the line was a picture of him standing against the factory wall with his mouth open in terror, obviously taken only minutes earlier. More shocking still, however, was the image next to it. It showed him standing in his bedroom next to the window, wearing his stripy pyjamas. At the top of the screen were the words ‘100% MATCH'.

Skipper tapped her finger on the screen displaying the image of Sam in his pyjamas. ‘Nice outfit,' she said. ‘
Very
nice.'

She stood up, took a silver torch-like object from her
pocket and pointed it at the hole above them. The end pulsed with a brilliant blue light and the hole disappeared, as if painted out with an invisible brush, leaving no sign that it had ever been there.

‘Wow,' said Sam. ‘How did you do that?'

‘With this,' said Skipper, waving the little torch. ‘It's a compact generator with an enhanced CRB. I whipped it from Hekken's pocket when I was being all soppy and pretending to cry. He'll go nuts when he finds out I've nicked it – they cost a fortune.' Seeing the confused look on Sam's face, she said, ‘Sorry. A CRB is a cellular-restructuring beam. You can use it to rearrange the cell structure of biological organisms without actually damaging them. It's like jumbling up the pieces of a puzzle and then putting them back together again. It was originally used in medicine for surgery and that kind of thing. But now it's used in all the insect programmes. It means you can have a door where and when you want it without causing any long-term damage to the organism.'

She leant forward and began flicking switches. A large, curved screen lit up in front of them and Sam could see an image of the factory wall where he had been standing a few minutes earlier. He watched as she pulled a pencil-sized stick towards her and he felt the head of the ant begin to rise.

‘I should fasten your seat belt if I were you,' said Skipper. ‘I think we could be in for a bit of a rough ride.'

Sam pulled the belt across his chest and clicked the buckle into place. He looked up at the screen and saw that they were turning round.

‘What I want to know,' he said, ‘is how you got into this thing. I mean, weren't there already people in it?'

‘Yes, that was a bit tricky,' Skipper admitted. ‘After you went into the tank I managed to climb up one of the legs and used the CRB to make a small hole underneath the ant. Then I climbed onto the ant's head and used it again to open up a hatch into the cockpit.'