"The Ant Farm Horror"
May. 13th, 2022 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The Ant Farm Horror"
7/13-7/14/2005
I.
Bane awoke with the first ring, rolled over and snatched up the phone next to his bed. The nightstand clock read 2:27 AM, but he was used to dramatic calls in the middle of the night. "Yeah?"
"Hey, Mr Dire Wolf! Montez here. Get over to 60th and 7th Avenue, you're gonna love this one." The connection broke off. Jeremy Bane lived like a firefighter, with all his gear laid out before he went to sleep. He tugged on the flexible Trom armor which looked with wet silk, leaving only his forearms and head exposed. The twin silver daggers came from under his pillow to be strapped on his forearms, hilts forward. The black slacks and long-sleeved turtleneck, the heavy boots, the black sport jacket were put on within seconds. The .38 Colt revolver was behind his left hip. As he spun the cylinder critically and holstered the gun, he was ready. He kept his wallet and PI license case, his keys, his specialized tools and weapons already stowed in their assigned pockets. In less than a minute from when he had picked up the phone, the Dire Wolf was going out the door of his apartment. He had lived like this all his life.
Out on Third Avenue, he decided he should get his car. There was no telling where this case, if it was one, might lead. Breaking into a run, the Dire Wolf crossed from 47th to 40th and then over to Lexington. He loped down the wide concrete apron leading down into IMPERIAL GARAGE. At the moment, he was driving a dark green Nissan. On its driver's sun visor, two blue and green lights winked to indicate no one had touched it. Bane got behind the wheel and headed out. He made a left and got to the 7th Avenue, then turned north. At 59th Street, he saw a perfect open space and whipped in to claim. Traffic was light at twenty to three in the morning, but New York traffic seldom stopped altogether.
Up ahead was the front of the Chase Manhattan bank, where a uniformed officer stood blocking off the sidewalk. Two men in suits were taking pictures and talking in their cell phones. Off to one side, hands on hips, was the familiar bulk of Lt Joseph Montez. His weight went up and down, but tonight Bane estimated him at about two hundred and forty, so he had been cutting down on fried foods again. Montez spotted him and waved him over.
"Hey! Good morning. Here's something you haven't seen before," he said.
Bane stepped closer. The little nook which held the bank's ATM was almost covered with dead ants. He glanced up and saw the security camera also had ants sticking out of its minute crevices. For a long moment, he didn't speak. Then, "Okay, give me something to start with."
With a chuckle that gave away how much he was enjoying this, Montez drew Bane to one side. "Common black ants. Some of them crawled up and got inside the security camera and jammed it. That was at 1:18 AM according to the last image recorded. Then a couple hundred more of them squeezed in through openings in the ATM and shorted it out. But get this! The little buggers got the machine set on DISPENSE and left it there. Every bill in that ATM poured out."
The Dire Wolf was staring at the scene. "And then the ants carried the money away...? I mean, come on."
"No. We know a person in a long coat and wearing a floppy fedora walked over at that point and gathered up all the cash in two shopping bags. A camera across the street caught him, but the image is too small and grainy to be useful."
Bane was pacing back and forth. "You know, lieutenant, aren't you assigned to Homicide? Why are you covering this weirdness?"
"Because of you, my friend, because when the NYPD finds something creepy or supernatural or just impossible to believe, I get a phone call to go take a look. And that's because they're counting on me to bring you in on it."
The two CSI investigators seemed to be wrapping things up, arguing with each other as they made notes. Bane stepped closer to the scene with all its dead ants. "All unofficial and off the record and this never happened," he said as if repeating a familiar list.
"That's right. Well, Dire Wolf, what's your thought about this mess?"
Bane turned his pale grey eyes on the lieutenant. In a narrow feral face, they stood out dramatically. "First, I'm no scientist. I don't even have a high school diploma. All I remember reading somewhere is that ants communicate by dripping chemicals from their butts."
"I read that, too. Pheromones, they're called."
"So. My first guess is that some whacko scientist sprayed these pheromones on the security camera and into the ATM and the ants blindly forced themselves inside. That's okay as far as it goes. But setting the ATM to spit out all the money. I draw the line there."
Montez was still grinning. "Go on."
"It's a trick of some kind. Just off the top of my head, I'd say the ants are a distraction. Some genius hacker found a way to make the ATM cough up its money and the ants are there to confuse us." Bane folded his arms angrily. "It's working. I'm sure confused."
"Listen. Confidentially. You fight vampires and invisible men and invaders from Mars and crazy things like that." Montez had lowered his voice. "Ever cross someone who can control insects? You know. make an army of spiders, that sort of thing?"
Bane considered. "Never. I never even heard about such a thing. But there are people who know more Midnight War history than I do, I'll ask around."
Montez headed over to where the CSI investigators were loading gear into their van. Over one shoulder, he said, "Worth getting up for, though?"
"Yes," said Bane thoughtfully. "Thanks for the call." He stood there regarding the scene for a few more minutes, came up with nothing, and headed back to his car. He made a right at the next corner and headed back down to 40th Street. Nocturnal by nature, Bane was wide awake now. He left his car at IMPERIAL and started walking up 3rd Avenue. At 44th Street, he paused by the four-story yellow brick building where his office was. It was all dark now. He walked on another few blocks to the slightly shabby building where his apartment was, went up the worn wooden stairs to the second floor and his door at the end of his hall. Just before dawn one night, he had moved the Trom security alarms he had installed himself inside a wooden panel he had rigged to hinge open. He intended to do this now and then.
Flipping open the panel, he saw the blue and green lights were winking steadily. Bane closed the panel and clicked it shut, then unlocked his door and stepped into the cool dark apartment. It must be close to four AM by now and although his instincts were to just stay up until dawn, he was trying to keep some sort of schedule. Carefully arranging his clothes in case he got another call, Bane slid between the sheets. This was where Tel Shai training came in. He started a circular breathing pattern, slowing it, slipping into a state which soon became natural sleep. No dreams of ants came to his sleeping mind.
II.
At just before eight, he snapped back to full awareness, took a hot shower and shaved and dressed in the outfit he had only had on for an hour or so the night before. The refigerator was seldom stocked properly, but today he found half a package of bacon, wheat bread and packets of instant oatmeal so at least he wasn't going to go out starving. Bane took some dried leaves from a cannister on top of the rerigerator and made a mug of Tagra tea. Only available at Tel shai, this was a Velkandu plant- it enhanced healing to an extreme degree and extended active lifespans. Bane sometimes wished it could be shared with the world, but the Teachers at Tel Shai were adamant.
Taking his plate to the coffee table in front of his couch, Bane searched fruitlessly for the remote. He never watched TV shows or movies or listened to music, which puzzled his friends and had led them to try to change him with success. Finally, he went over and clicked on the TV, wheeled its cart closer and sat back to check out the local news. It was the usual... a fire in Queens, a serial purse-snatcher, the mayor cracking down on street vendors. Nothing about ants robbing an ATM. He didn't expect there to be, but maybe some producer at WPIX might have thought it amusing, like videos of cats playing a keyboard or a car with sod glued all over it. He sat through the news on another station and also saw nothing about larcenous ants.
Bane washed the dish and the frying pan before leaving. He glanced in the mirror behind the door, brushed his short black hair with his fingers, and headed out into the hall. Behind him, Trom alarms clicked into ARMED. The Dire Wolf headed out in a cool breezy July morning, his mind preoccupied with ants. He paused to buy three newspapers and walked through the automatic glass doors of his office building. No one was in sight, although the EMERGENCY ONE walk-in clinic was open. Grudgingly, he opened his compartment from the bank of mailboxes just inside the door and found almost nothing in there. Good.
Ahead of his was the staircase going up, and to that left was a narroway hallway between the stairs and the wall. At the end of the hallway was a metal exit door marked ALARMED -DOOR WILL SOUND IF OPENED. To the left was a simple wooden door with a brass plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. Bane stepped through the tiny reception room, barely enough for a coffee table and two chairs- and unlocked the door to his inner office.
As usual, there were calls recorded and he played them as he got behind his desk. None of the messages were from Lt Montez. There were a few offers to hire him to follow a cheating wife, a plea from Unicorn to not forget Wednesday was Pizza Night at KDF headquarters, a reminder he had an appointment with legal counselor Taylor Worth on Friday at 1 PM. Bane took it all in as he started digging through the newspapers. Many times over the years he had uncovered Midnight War activity from some seemingly minor item buried on a back page. Today seemed barren though.
After half an hour, he got and started walking around the office. Sitting still took effort for him. His superior reflexes were tied to an enhanced metabolism that kept him restless and hungry. Despite the huge amounts he ate daily, Bane remained gaunt. At nine forty-five, the puzzle of those damned ants was bothering him. Pulling his laptop from where it hung in a satchel at the side of his desk, the Dire Wolf settled in and started Googling. 'Ant behaviour,''can ants be trained,' 'how do ants communicate.' He read slowly and thoroughly, not quite sure what he was looking for. It sure seemed that no one could train ants to anything they weren't going to do anyway.
Next, he looked up Experts On Ant Behaviour, and got hopelessly bogged down in college theses and technical journals. He erased his searches and started a scan, then stepped away from the laptop. His cordless phone rang in its charger and he felt a little twinge of excitement as he recognized Bleak's number.
"Hello, Bleak. What's up?"
"I think you will want to know about this," came the sour voice of Bane's best reporter. Bleak had once been a fighter in the Midnight War himself, but after hitting his sixties, he contented himself with gathering information. "I got this my buddy who was standing there personally. Credit union on Broadway and 23rd, not fifteen minutes ago, an armored security truck pulled up. Two uniformed guards opened the back of the truck and took out two heavy canvas sacks of you know what. Here we get weird. Thousands of ants swarmed over them, out of nowhere. Of course, the guards dropped what they were holding and started screaming and rolling on the ground. A man wearing a long beige topcoat with a wide-brimmed hat ran up and threw the satchels in a car. My friend says it's a Hyundai Sonata but he didn't get the plates. By this time, people are trying to help, stomping on the ants and getting bit themselves. A few minutes later- get this- the ants dispersed. Just went about their business."
Bane was silent for so long that Bleak said, "Hey! Jeremy, you still there?"
"Attack ants," Bane said. "Damn. Did you ever hear of anything like this?"
"No. Never. Both of the guards are in critical condition. That's a lot of venom to absorb. Listen, I'm going to waiver my usual fee for information because this will be on the news. I charge you for items I have to dig up myself."
"Thanks, Bleak. I'll look into it."
A slightly sinister chuckle came over the line. "Yeah, I thought you would."
Putting the phone down, Bane went to sit down and cupped his chin in his hands, elbows on the desk. He was thinking that by now the authorities would be checking out ant researchers - entomologists, he thought they were called- and trying to see if any expert had anything useful to offer. He himself couldn't add anything to what the police would be doing. He imagined the FBI's department 21 Black would be looking into it as well.
But they would be approaching it from a scientific angle. Bane realized that, if he were going to make any progress, he would be going in from a different direction. The Midnight War. Of course. Suddenly he thought it made more sense that this was the work of a Human warlock or Dartha, something like that. All he knew was that ants were responsive to each other's pheromones. Someone who could produce those pheromones in slightly altered formulas...
An Alchemist. Bane almost snapped his fingers at the thought. He snatched his phone and dialed a number in Poughkeepsie, just an hour upstate. The phone rang five times, and then a young girl's voice said, "Dr Vitarius residence."
"Hi. Is Mercado home? Tell him this is Jeremy Bane."
"I'm sorry," the voice said in an odd accent. "What name is that?"
"Bane. Jeremy Bane."
"Just a minute," said the voice. That accent, Bane thought. Ulgoran? Yes, he was speaking to a Gelydra from Ulgor. Teenager, too, by the timbre. Odd, but then he reflected, he had an unusual assortment of associates himself.
A few seconds later, he heard that voice say, "There you are, Master," and an elderly voice replied "Thank you, Jin." Bane frowned. That did not sound like the Mercado Vitarius he knew.
"Hello? Jeremy?" said the wheezing voice.
"Mercado? Are you all right?" Bane asked with obvious concern.
"Ah, you did not know. My Alchemy is starting to fail. It has kept me young and vital for more than a hundred years but everything has its limits." A chuckle came over the line. "I don't know if you would recognize me on the street these days."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I imagine our Tel Shai diet of tagra tea will also stop working at some point," the Dire Wolf.
"You yourself have forty, maybe fifty years left before you fall apart," the Alchemist told him. "But I know you. You have not phoned me just to chat."
"No, Mercado. I'm afraid it's business as usual with me." He filled the Alchemist in on the two outre crimes involving ants, going into some detail. "So I figured I know zip about science but there is Midnight War alchemy behind these crimes. If maybe someone was using Velkandu potions to control the ants..."
"That I might know who?" Vitarius added. "Good thinking. I have never experimented along those lines myself. The most I crafted was something to draw hummingbirds to my garden. Let me think a minute. There are not many true Alchemists still active."
Bane waited, and the voice continued. "Ah, the Sphinx has some little knowledge. Mostly poisons. He was deported back to Egypt the last I heard. Wu Lung was an expert, but he's dead now. Whatever happened to Felezak? Haven't heard about him since the 70s. Megistus, of course, you know him. Let me see. Ah, there are still two learned students of Velkandu and both are in America now. There is Gustavo, unpleasant fellow, he had a home in Pennsylvania the last I heard. A brilliant alchemist but a very reclusive and abrasive man. The other was Dr Mary Eisenbach. She started as a regular entomologist and got detoured into Alchemy. Sad, as she lost a good-paying career and her peers think she's just a quack. But we know better, don't we?"
"Where would I find her?" Bane asked.
"Out on Long Island, I believe, but that was years ago. People do move. That's all I can recall. I'll let you if my poor old memory dredges up some more."
"Thanks for the help. I'll let you know how things turn out." The Dire Wolf's voice softened a bit. "I need to get up to Poughkeepsie soon. We should talk over a good dinner. You haven't met the new KDF team."
"By all means," said the aged voice. "I'm always home. Thanks for thinking of me when you look for answers."
"See you later." Bane hung up and leaped to his feet. Maybe he was wasting time looking for alchemists, but he didn't think so. His instincts were going full blast. This bizarre crime wave by ants was going to end right now.
III.
Back in the green Nissan, he headed out to Long Island, stopping for gas and to grab a 12 inch mixed sub and a bottle of water. He was out past Flanders when he found the area he was looking for. Quite a bit of woods. The two story house in brown wood had a deck with steps leading down to an above-ground pool. Parked half out of sight was a red Dodge SUV. It was past noon by now, and the daylight through the trees made the house and the yard look like restful. Reflections on the water in the pool shimmered on the big sliding glass doors.
Bane pulled in and backed up, so he could make a quick getaway. This was the address he had pulled out of tax records. Dr Raymond Eisenbach and Dr Mary Eisenbach had lived here for four years, both working at Templar University in different departments, before the seperation. They had never finalized the divorce, and were still peers in their field who occasionally had to work together in a civil way. Somehow, Raymond had kept the house; one report said that Mary hoped someday they would both be living there again.
Marching up to the front steps, the Dire Wolf sensed motion behind the front door. Perhaps just the barely heard sound of a doorknob turning, perhaps a glimpse of a shadow through the frost glass panel. In any case, he was planted at the bottom of the steps when Dr Eisenbach opened the door and stopped in mid-step. The pool was just to his right, his car to the left and this ominous-looking man right in his path.
"Hello?" said the man uncertainly. "Can I help you?" Eisenbach was soft-looking, with a paunch and the beginning of a double chin. He was wearing old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses and a neat blue suit with a black tie.
He also seemed unsettled by the Dire Wolf. Dressed all in black, gaunt and intense, with pale grey eyes that seemed always suspicious, Jeremy Bane was not a friendly-looking sight. He had come to count on this to intimidate people but getting their trust was difficult. Now, he held up the leather billfold that displayed his New York PI license. "Dr Eisenbach, we need to talk. It's about a recent crime in which one Brinks guard was killed and another remains in guarded condition."
The biochemist came down the steps and peered at the ID. "You're a private detective? I don't believe I have any legal requirement to speak to you. Get off my property."
"Talking to me now," Bane answered evenly, "is better than talking to the police later." He let that sink in, then continued. "You are not accused of any crime. Your ex-wife is, though."
"Mary? That's hard to believe. You mind explaining?"
The Dire Wolf described the attack on the Brinks guards, not mentioning the ATM incident. "Mary had done research in the chemicals used to prompt attack behavior in various insects, mostly ants. That was before her funding was cut off. I saw in one report that you voted to cut off that funding."
Eisenbach drew himself up, still not impresive. "It was the right thing to do. She was wasting university money needed elsewhere. She herself was needed in a more practical project."
"She didn't see it that way?" Bane asked.
"Well, no. She felt I should support her plans, no matter how wrong I thought them. It was a big element in our separation." Eisenbach suddenly glared down at the Wolf. "Wait. You think Mary used her distilled pheromones to trigger those ants to attack a man... to use ants a weapon? That's absurd."
"Somebody did just that," said the Dire Wolf quietly. "If not Mary herself, she at least can point me toward the right person. The police tend to grab the first suspect and try to get a confession by wearing her down."
As Eisenbach was about to reply, a white Ford Explorer rolled quickly up and came to a halt right by Bane's car. The man behind the driver's wheel had a bald head that was distinctly pointed and thick round-lensed glasses. As he saw the two men by the front door, he leered a wicked grin and popped the trunk from within.
All of Bane's instincts were screaming. "Get in the house!" he barked at Eisenbach, drawing his revolver. When the man hesitated, he yelled, "Your life is in danger! Get in there now and close all the windows."
As the scientist stepped back in the doorway, still peering out uncertainly, a wave of bristling black matter flowed from the back of the Explorer and headed straight for them with terrifying speed. It looked at first like a rustling carpet but as it hurtled toward them, the mass could be seen to be thousands of black ants.
Bane moved to shove the man inside the house, but before he could set foot on the lowest step, a branch of the swarm poured up and over the man like a black blanket. Eisenbach screamed and fell through the open door into the house. Bane took a step, uncertain what he was going to do to help, and the other half of the swarm hurtled right at him.
The Dire Wolf had never moved more quickly. Spinning on one heel, he took two quick steps and did a standing dive that cleared the retaining wall. Splashing down in the center of the pool, he had gulped a breath and he stayed down as long as he could. Ants climbed the wall and fell in, but drowned as soon they were in the water, not having any mechanism for holding their breath. In the exact center, Bane lifted just his face out of the water and took a deep breath and submerged again. The surface of the pool was thick with floating black bugs.
After a full minute, he took a quick look. Something caught his eye. Standing on the rim of the pool was what looked like a tiny man, no more than an inch tall. Bane blinked. The miniature creature was standing between two ants. He seemed to have a poncho of red cloth wrapped around him and as Bane stared, the little man jumped down out of sight. No more ants were entering the pool. Standing up in the chest-high water, Bane saw the last of the swarm flowing back into the trunk of the Explorer and the lid go down. He splashed forward and climbed out of the pool as the Ford made a three-point turn to get away. In the driver's seat, the bald-headed man grinned at Bane and gunned the motor.
A second later, the mastermind got a rude surprise as the window by his shoulder shattered from a bullet. A properly maintained revolver will work well after a brief submersion. Bane snapped off two more shots, cracking the windshield in a starburst effect and smashing a tailight as the Explorer roared off. The Dire Wolf slowly lowered his gun and growled deep in his chest. He had the license plate and a description of the driver.
Bane went up the wooden steps to the deck where Eisenbach's feet protruded, toes down. These were not South American army ants, they had not eaten the victims. Thousands of repeated bites, each injecting venom had been enough to kill the man. Eisenbach had been in a lot of pain when he died. Bane slowly went back to his car, not proud of his decisions. He could have run up and shoved Eisenbach bodily in the house. Or he could have seized the man and dragged him in the pool with him. The speed which which the ants attacked had been greater than he had expected but he reproached himself that that was just an excuse.
Moving somberly, he took off his sopping-wet jacket and spread it on the hood of his car to dry. Reaching in the back seat, he found a clean rag and began disassembling his gun to dry it. He was moving automatically. After a few minutes, he took out his Link and patched into cell phone signals to call Homicide. "Hey. Montez? Glad you're on duty. Yes, this is Bane again. There's been another ant attack. This time it's murder."
IV.
Five hours dragged by. Montez explained under his breath that the new DA was on a campaign to clean up and polish the NYPD, and having the notorious Dire Wolf released from one crime scene after another was something that he wanted to stop. Bane was questioned backward and forward on details that seemed irrelevant. Every word he and Eisenbach had said was analyzed, including tone of voice and facial expression, and the Ford Explorer was described as minutely as if Bane had built it himself from scratch. They confiscated Bane's gun, taking it away in a clear evidence bag, for use if the Ford was found. Bane didn't mind, he had two others in the hidden pit in his office.
The only detail Bane omitted was seeing a tiny man an inch high mingling among the ants. The subject wasn't brought up and he knew he was not obligated to volunteer information not asked for.
At a quarter to five, Montez was exhausted. The uniformed officer who had been listening to all the questionings would serve as a back-up in case of an internal investigation, also looked tired. Bane was merely annoyed at all this. It happened now and then. Finally, he said, "What are you going to do with all the dead ants?"
"Huh? Oh, we have no use for them. Leave them there, I suppose. Why?"
"I've been watching them. Regular ants are coming up and carrying the bodies away. I read that ants do that."
Lt Montez finally groaned. The body of Dr Eisenbach had long been taken away, the forensics team was done. "You're free to go for now, Bane. Don't leave the metropolitan area for the next 48 hours in case we need to talk to you."
"I'm right where I should be," answered the Dire Wolf. His jacket had dried off enough that he could put it back on, wrinkled though it might be. "Am I dismissed?"
"You can go," Montez waved a broad hand.
Bane opened the door of his Nissan and turned to look back. "In my capacity as a licensed private investigator acting on behalf of an unnamed client..."
"Get on with it."
"I think this is just the start of a crime wave. These guys are getting to like it." He slid behind the wheel and pulled away. Bane kept heading toward the east end of Long Island, to the second address he had tracked down. It was surprisingly empty out here, with long stretches of road dotted with convenient marts and strip malls. He pulled into a service station for gas and to his usual check of the car's tires and fluids. His clothes had dried and he was glad he had only been submerged in a pool. More than once, he had had to act after being in salt water, which was much more uncomfortable. At the next strip mall, he pulled up to a Chinese take-out where he rushed through a plate of orange chicken, two big iced teas and some cookies. Bane used the bathroom, cleaned himself up a bit and was soon on the road again.
Of course he was thinking about the ant-sized man. It reminded him of one of his very earliest cases for Kenneth Dred. He had only been 21, a tough street thug who was good at fighting and not much else. So long ago.. 1978? Yes, February 1978, it felt like a thousand years ago. Someone had found a way to make golems out of a new synthetic protein. "Other Clay" it was called. He had made one that was life sized, one six inches tall and one eleven feet tall. He had been able to project his awareness into them, one at a time. What the hell was his name. Bane couldn't quite remember. But it didn't matter, the guy had been dead thirty years now. It seemed as if someone had invented the same technique.
It was getting dusk. The Dire Wolf was starting to wonder if he was going to run out of land and have to turn around and search going the other way. The ocean was in sight, not too far ahead. Property ahead to his left had a waist-high stone wall around it, and he could see a dark two-story brick building with only a light over the front door. This looked promising. An opening in the wall was flanked by squat pillars and a sign INDUSTRIAL RECLAIM CENTER- KASSEL INC. Whatever that meant. Bane pulled past a parking lot with only one car in it, a new Toyota Tundra. This had to be it.
Going down the road another mile, the Dire Wolf pulled off as far as he could and parked under two apple trees. He wished he had brought his field suit but it was too late now. Getting out, he popped the trunk, dug through its assortment of metal cases holding various equipment and came out with an anesthetic dart gun in a detachable holster. He inserted a clip of the potent darts and threaded it through his belt to replace the .38 the police had confiscated. He started moving through the sparse woods back to the place marked INDUSTRIAL RECLAIM CENTER, stealthily as possible. It was just dark enough to sneak up and his black outfit helped.
This also reminded him of that 1978 case. Then it had been Dr Auerbach working in a similar building, but that had been a research lab. This looked like some sort of industrial plant that had been closed and the property recently purchased. Bane crept slowly until he could watch the front of the building. He waited but there were no signs of activity. Then a light went on in a window near the front door. A woman emerged and hurried toward the Toyota Tundra, got in and sped away.
That's my invitation, he thought. He had spotted two security cameras but wasn't concerned. The protective Eldar talisman he wore around his neck had the effect of blurring video and fogging photos, so anyone watching on a monitor would think there was something wrong with the equipment. He dashed across the deserted parking lot and to a side door. Here was where the Trom lockpick was useful. Its array of thin wires entered a lock, reshaped themselves and stiffened, and he opened the door as if he had used a key. There was a device by the door for sliding an ID card for entry, but it seemed disconnected.
Bane found himself in a corridor dimly lit by tiny nightlights at the corners. The interior smelled really strange, a sort of bitter acidic aroma he didn't like at all. The Dire Wolf trotted quickly toward where the front door should be. The woman who had left answered the description of Dr Mary Eisenbach and he didn't know how long she would be gone. His guess was that she had gone to pick up the bald-headed killer, who would have abandoned the damaged vehicle he was in and started walking. But they could be back any second.
To his right were double wooden doors that swung inward and he decided to take a look. The inside of a high-ceiling room was as dimly lit as the rest of the building, but his innate night vision had kicked in. The room was filled with wire cages stacked up along the walls and some animals the size of cats were moving around in them. But they weren't cats.
VI.
Ants. Red ants as big as tomcats, scuttling around on their six legs. The antennae moved curiously as he entered. Bane pulled a pencil flashlight from his jacket and played it over the insects. Suddenly he had an image of a swarm of thousands of these monsters running over a crowd in Times Square...
There were voices in the hall outside. Bane snapped off the flashlight and flattened up against the wall besides the doors. He could hear a woman's voice, with a man answering. They weren't coming closer. As the voices faded, he exhaled slowly and glanced over the room full of cages holding those ants. This was where that bitter smell was coming from.
Well, at least they don't make any noise. If these were dogs or monkeys, the uproar would have given him away. Bane peered out in the hall and headed toward where the voices had gone. Ahead was a pair of doors with square glass panels at head level and he took a peek. It had been the cafeteria when this building had been in use. A man and a woman were getting coffee from a big urn and heading for a table where they dropped into folding chairs. They had not turned on the overhead lights. Maybe the ants liked it dim.
Slowing his breathing, holding the door inward just an inch, Bane waited as his awareness settled into his hearing. This was a Tel Shai technique. After a minute, he could hear them clearly even though they were speaking in low tones.
"... a fugitive now, Gustavo," the woman said in an annoyed tone. "Luckily no one knows you came here to work with me. You'll need a disguise when you go out. I'll buy a wig."
"It's losing the car I regret," came the answer in an East European accent. "but Dire Wolf put a few bullet holes in it and I'm sure he gave the plate numbers to the police. He would."
"What is this 'Dire Wolf' business?" asked the woman.
"You wouldn't have heard of him, Mary. In the Midnight War, he is a well-known vigilante. Supposed to be dangerous, although I'm sure our pets can handle him."
She made a scoffing noise. "I'm not happy my ex-husband is dead, to be honest. We hated each other but he didn't deserve to die like that. No one does. I don't think you had to eliminate him."
"Back to business," Gustavo said, and there was a clink as he put his coffee mug down. "Two more of the golems are ready. We will be both able to animate one and meet the regular ants at their own level.
"I was unhappy in that golem at the house. How do I know I'll be able to get back to my real body? I don't want to be an inch tall the rest of my life."
"The transfer only lasts twenty or thirty minutes. But if the golem is destroyed while your mind is in it, I think your real body might die as well. That's what happened to Dr Auerbach when Dire Wolf-"
Bane was seized from behind, unbearably tight grips squeezing into his ribs like a mechanical crusher. It was one of the few times he had been taken off guard, because all his attention had been on listening to the conversations. He kicked and struggled but had no leeway as he was lifted off his feet and smashed into the door, swinging it open. Bane twisted his head behind him and stared down at the face of a red ant as big as he was. He lifted his arm and drove his elbow down between the opaque eyes with murderous force. The ant faltered. Bane struck downward again, a blow he used to break tiles and bricks, and the chitinous shell of the ant's head had a crack running along it. Still the monster scurried across the floor to bring him before Gustavo and Eisenbach. They had jumped to their feet at the intrusion.
Bane crashed his elbow down a third time with all the Kumundu impact and the ant swayed unsteadily. The giant mandibles did not loosen though. Without he flexible armor under his clothes to give him protection, he would have already been killed. The Dire Wolf turned and saw Gustavo at close range for the first time. The alchemist looked about sixty, pudgy and out of shape in a white dress shirt and dark blue slacks. His head was shaved, a faint five o'clock shadow showed and he peered at Bane through thick eyeglasses.
"Oh, this is priceless. We were just talking about you. You missed my head by an inch when you shot at me today," Gustavo said.
"I won't miss next time," answered Bane. He drew his knees up to his chest and thrust them out, kicking the alchemist in the chest so hard that the man fell back and knocked a chair over. Swinging his legs up to face level, the Dire Wolf shifted his center of gravity enough that the ant lost its balance and toppled over sideways. Bane's dart gun clattered from his holster on the cafeteria floor. He still could not get loose. The mandibles seemed to have locked into place. The Dire wolf struggled and got to his feet, furious. It was rare he had so much trouble fighting anything.
Behind him, he heard Gustavo say, "My chest. Owww. Damnation. Oh, look. I've heard of this toy." Bane swung his head around just in time to see the renegade alchemist fire Bane's own dart gun at him. The sting of the heavy dart in the side of his neck burned, and in half a second he was dazed. The Dire Wolf went foggy and suddenly passed into darkness.
VI.
Waking up took effort. He felt sick and weak. The dart should not have affected him this much. Bane was lying face down in dirt somehow. He got up on his elbows, tried to stand and fell. After a few more minutes, a second attempt got him on his feet. What the hell... He was standing on hard packed dirt under bright lights. A few feet ahead of him was a glass wall. Bane took an unsteady step, almost fell again and looked down. His feet were simple pads, without toes, on the end of thick legs. He raised his hands and saw crude paws with only two thick fingers and a thumb. The skin was orange. With a surge of panic, he ran those hands over his head and felt no hair, no ears.
For a few minutes, Bane's mind stopped working as it tried to digest the situation. Decades of weird experiences in the Midnight War had left him open to almost anything or so he thought. But this....! He kept touching his body in disbelief. No, not his body. He was in one of the inch-high golems. The miniature construct wore a simple poncho of red cloth glued together, reaching just above his knees.
After a little while, his breathing slowed and he got hold of himself. That damn Gustavo! Bane swore he would not leave the man alive for doing this to him. He began to move around. The golem felt numb and detached, as if under local anesthetic. He threw a few punches experimentally. This body did not have his enhanced speed but it did seem a lot stronger than he had expected. The eyesight was okay, the hearing normal. Bane walked over to the glass wall and looked up. The top was open but to him it seemed about sixty feet up. Quite a problem.
Then Mary Eisenbach's face loomed up over him, bigger than a house. She was an attractive woman around forty, with a wide jawline and long dark brown hair. Over a tan blouse, she wore a white lab smock. "You're up quickly. Gustavo said you'd be unconscious for an hour and it's only been thirty minutes."
"Where's my real body?" he yelled up. In the stressful situation, he did not wonder how they could hear each other. His voice should have been a shrill almost-inaudibile squeak but she seemed to understand him.
"Don't worry, it's fine," she said. "We have it on a table in the next room. Gustavo is trying to find a way to project his awareness into it. He says he'd rather live in your body than his own." She giggled. "Can't say I blame him."
Bane raised a tiny fist. "Do you know what Gustavo does to his partners? Ask him where Mordecai is. Or where his brother Anton is. They're dead. Once someone stops being useful to him, they become liabilities."
She frowned. "That's an obvious trick. But I think I will ask him, just to spite you."
"Mordecai and his brother Anton. Not to mention the four men who brought him into this country illegally. Ask him where he buried them!" Bane watched as she stormed off. He remembered overhearing that the transfer into this body was not a long-term process but how long had he been animating this golem already? The horrifying possibility occurred to him that maybe Gustavo had put him in here permanently. This was not science of any kind, it was gralic magick and the rules were different.
He glimpsed movement from the corner of his eye. A raised mound of the dirt had an opening in it and a black ant emerged. It was the same size he was. The antennae moved around as if sniffing the air and the curved mandibles clicked together like sabres. The monster heaved up out of the hole and rushed at him.
There was nowhere to hide, nothing to use as a weapon, but all Bane's instincts were to fight in any case. He ran directly at the ant and leaped up at the last second with some idea to get on top of the thing. To his surprise, he shot high up in the air and hit the glass wall to bounce off. He landed some distance away from the ant, which swung around in evident confusion. Bane hadn't realized he could jump like that. In some part of his mind, he realized it had something to do with the golem being overly strong for its size but his attention was on the ant.
The ant was charging him again. If those pincers closed on him now, they would cut him in half. Bane leaped again, not as high, and landed right on top of the creature. Swivelling around, he grabbed the antennae, one in each hand, and yanked. He expected to maybe tug the creature's head back like pulling on someone's hair but to his astonishment, both antennae came completely out of their sockets. He threw them away in disgust and jumped clear as the ant went into seizures.
Stepping away from the distressed creature, Bane wondered just how strong this golem body was. He felt like Sulak. The wounded ant got down and lay there, still alive. Two more of the beasts reared up out of the hole in the dirt. They ignored Bane for the moment and started tugging the injured ant back toward the hole.
A man's voice boomed down at him. "King of the ant farm eh? You've started trouble with Mary, Dire Wolf. I had plans for her, warm plans for a while at least, but now she wanted to know what happened to my former associates. I had to eliminate her. You are nothing but trouble."
Gustavo was wearing a strange cloth apron that had two dozen glass vials fastened in pouches to its front. Each was labelled and capped with a cork. He pulled out one vial and checked his label, holding it close despite his thick eyeglasses.
"Hey!" Bane yelled up. "Did anyone tell you your head looks like an egg? With the pointed end up? You must have got teased as a kid!"
"I hope you enjoyed your feeble attempt to rile me," Gustavo said. "Here, let's try this. With Mary's knowledge of biochemistry and my alchemy, we have these synthetic pheromones down to exact functions. This causes aggression." He tugged out the cork and gingerly let one drop of the clear fluid splat on the dirt of the ant farm. Instantly, a dozen of the creatures came swarming up through the hole. Gustavo laughed wildly, as if he had never seen anything funnier.
Bane met the attack. This body was not fast, but it had strength. Its muscles had not been trained for Kumundu fighting as his real body had but Tel Shai martial arts came from the mind as much as the muscles. Bane leaped next to one ant and shoved it hard against the others. He seized both antennae of that ant and tugged them violently out of the creature's head. A pair of mandibles clashed together like scissors as he jumped back and drove a straight punch right between that ant's glistening eyes to crack open the hard shell. Bane jumped straight up, almost reaching the top of the glass wall and came down to flatten an ant.
He could not afford to stop moving. Climbing up on the back of one ant, he seized its head and twisted it with all his strength. The head snapped off. Bane jumped far to one side and watched the confusion. Some of the ants stopped the attack to carry their wounded and dead back down the hole. This seemed to be behavior they couldn't control.
Given a breathing space, Bane glared up at the enraged face of Gustavo. The man's face was almost purple. "Look at you!" yelled the tiny golem with the mind of the Dire Wolf in it. "Get your blood pressure checked before you have a heart attack."
"Why won't you just die?" roared Gustavo, leaning over the open wall of the ant farm. "God, I hate you!"
The ants were coming back out again. Bane rushed forward, got under one and straightened up to hoist the creature overhead. He threw the ant to the other side of the tank, whirled to meet the next one and seized those deadly mandibles, one in each hand. It was like squeezing an alligator's jaws shut. Bane twisted the mandibles and the ant's head rotated until it snapped. Three ants more to go. A wave of dizziness swept over him from nowhere and his vision went black.
VII.
He woke up in a dim cold room, lying on a table. He was fully dressed. Relief at being back in his own body was almost too much to bear. He was hypereventilating and forced himself to breathe more slowly and deeply. Bane swung off the table and felt a little nauseous but that was an effect of the anesthetic dart. The time limit for being in the miniature golem must have run out while he was fighting the ants. Bane had a predatory smile as he rushed from the room out into the hall. He had no idea where he was, but he would find Gustavo and there would be a payback. One of the human-sized ants scuttled down a side corridor but ignored him. There must be a few of them roaming around as guards, he figured.
Light came from under a door further down the hall, and he hurried to peer in. Yes. There was an ant farm on a table and there was Gustavo next to it, his back to the door. Bane stepped silently into the room.
"Ah, they've got you now," he was chuckling. "Not so tough now are you, Dire Wolf? Look at them rip you apart. Good boys, get him."
Getting up behind Gustavo, Bane grabbed the man by the shoulder and swung him around. As the alchemist gaped in bewilderment, the Dire Wolf punched all the glass vials on the man's smock and liquids poured out all over the apron. A backfist from the same hand spun Gustavio around to drop to the floor.
"I lasted longer in there than you expected, you bastard," said Bane quietly.
Gustavo was pawing at the apron, trying to get it off. "You don't know what you've done.."
"I have a good idea," Bane said. "You're soaked with those damned pheromones." As he said the final word, two of the man-sized red ants rushed through the open door and went for Gustavo like hungry tigers. The pheromones had them in a killing frenzy. Bane turned out the light as he closed the door on the alchemist's screams.
Out in the hall, he searched until he found Mary Eisenbach. She was sitting slumped in a chair, with a knife in her chest and bright red over the front of her smock. Gustavo didn't have to kill her, Bane thought. It had just been a sickness with him. He checked but she was obviously dead. The Dire Wolf suddenly felt tired as the adrenalin left his body. He couldn't rest yet. Searching the building, he found a laptop and some journals and he took them outside. They were the only notes he could locate.
There was a shotgun and some shells by the front door. With a resigned sigh, he took it back to the room where the ant farm was and went in. There was not much left of Gustavo, identification was going to a problem. Bane killed all three of the man-sized ants with the shotgun, then went to the room with the wire cages and put down all the cat-sized insects as well. He didn't enjoy doing this, it made him feel sick at heart, but he didn't want the secret of growing these monsters to be known.
After searching the building for another hour, Bane was satisfied. Going to a wall phone, he dialed the number of the New York office of 21 Black. The FBI department concerned with the supernatural had given him plenty of grief in the past, but they had their uses. He just gave the address he was calling from and the code word 'tiara.' Within an hour, a crew of silent men in neat black suits would arrive in black SUVs and start clearing away everything here. The public would learn nothing. Black 21 would know it was Bane who had called, but they had used him as a weapon before on cases like this and they would not bother him further.
Taking the laptop and journals with him, Bane walked slowly from the building into the woods. As he fell into his car, he slumped behind the wheel. The horror of being put in that golem body, the stress and anxiety of the past few hours, caught up with him all at once For the first time in many years, Bane began to cry. He held his face as tears came and then, feeling better, drove away with an occasional sniffle. He was surprised at himself.
1/29/2014
7/13-7/14/2005
I.
Bane awoke with the first ring, rolled over and snatched up the phone next to his bed. The nightstand clock read 2:27 AM, but he was used to dramatic calls in the middle of the night. "Yeah?"
"Hey, Mr Dire Wolf! Montez here. Get over to 60th and 7th Avenue, you're gonna love this one." The connection broke off. Jeremy Bane lived like a firefighter, with all his gear laid out before he went to sleep. He tugged on the flexible Trom armor which looked with wet silk, leaving only his forearms and head exposed. The twin silver daggers came from under his pillow to be strapped on his forearms, hilts forward. The black slacks and long-sleeved turtleneck, the heavy boots, the black sport jacket were put on within seconds. The .38 Colt revolver was behind his left hip. As he spun the cylinder critically and holstered the gun, he was ready. He kept his wallet and PI license case, his keys, his specialized tools and weapons already stowed in their assigned pockets. In less than a minute from when he had picked up the phone, the Dire Wolf was going out the door of his apartment. He had lived like this all his life.
Out on Third Avenue, he decided he should get his car. There was no telling where this case, if it was one, might lead. Breaking into a run, the Dire Wolf crossed from 47th to 40th and then over to Lexington. He loped down the wide concrete apron leading down into IMPERIAL GARAGE. At the moment, he was driving a dark green Nissan. On its driver's sun visor, two blue and green lights winked to indicate no one had touched it. Bane got behind the wheel and headed out. He made a left and got to the 7th Avenue, then turned north. At 59th Street, he saw a perfect open space and whipped in to claim. Traffic was light at twenty to three in the morning, but New York traffic seldom stopped altogether.
Up ahead was the front of the Chase Manhattan bank, where a uniformed officer stood blocking off the sidewalk. Two men in suits were taking pictures and talking in their cell phones. Off to one side, hands on hips, was the familiar bulk of Lt Joseph Montez. His weight went up and down, but tonight Bane estimated him at about two hundred and forty, so he had been cutting down on fried foods again. Montez spotted him and waved him over.
"Hey! Good morning. Here's something you haven't seen before," he said.
Bane stepped closer. The little nook which held the bank's ATM was almost covered with dead ants. He glanced up and saw the security camera also had ants sticking out of its minute crevices. For a long moment, he didn't speak. Then, "Okay, give me something to start with."
With a chuckle that gave away how much he was enjoying this, Montez drew Bane to one side. "Common black ants. Some of them crawled up and got inside the security camera and jammed it. That was at 1:18 AM according to the last image recorded. Then a couple hundred more of them squeezed in through openings in the ATM and shorted it out. But get this! The little buggers got the machine set on DISPENSE and left it there. Every bill in that ATM poured out."
The Dire Wolf was staring at the scene. "And then the ants carried the money away...? I mean, come on."
"No. We know a person in a long coat and wearing a floppy fedora walked over at that point and gathered up all the cash in two shopping bags. A camera across the street caught him, but the image is too small and grainy to be useful."
Bane was pacing back and forth. "You know, lieutenant, aren't you assigned to Homicide? Why are you covering this weirdness?"
"Because of you, my friend, because when the NYPD finds something creepy or supernatural or just impossible to believe, I get a phone call to go take a look. And that's because they're counting on me to bring you in on it."
The two CSI investigators seemed to be wrapping things up, arguing with each other as they made notes. Bane stepped closer to the scene with all its dead ants. "All unofficial and off the record and this never happened," he said as if repeating a familiar list.
"That's right. Well, Dire Wolf, what's your thought about this mess?"
Bane turned his pale grey eyes on the lieutenant. In a narrow feral face, they stood out dramatically. "First, I'm no scientist. I don't even have a high school diploma. All I remember reading somewhere is that ants communicate by dripping chemicals from their butts."
"I read that, too. Pheromones, they're called."
"So. My first guess is that some whacko scientist sprayed these pheromones on the security camera and into the ATM and the ants blindly forced themselves inside. That's okay as far as it goes. But setting the ATM to spit out all the money. I draw the line there."
Montez was still grinning. "Go on."
"It's a trick of some kind. Just off the top of my head, I'd say the ants are a distraction. Some genius hacker found a way to make the ATM cough up its money and the ants are there to confuse us." Bane folded his arms angrily. "It's working. I'm sure confused."
"Listen. Confidentially. You fight vampires and invisible men and invaders from Mars and crazy things like that." Montez had lowered his voice. "Ever cross someone who can control insects? You know. make an army of spiders, that sort of thing?"
Bane considered. "Never. I never even heard about such a thing. But there are people who know more Midnight War history than I do, I'll ask around."
Montez headed over to where the CSI investigators were loading gear into their van. Over one shoulder, he said, "Worth getting up for, though?"
"Yes," said Bane thoughtfully. "Thanks for the call." He stood there regarding the scene for a few more minutes, came up with nothing, and headed back to his car. He made a right at the next corner and headed back down to 40th Street. Nocturnal by nature, Bane was wide awake now. He left his car at IMPERIAL and started walking up 3rd Avenue. At 44th Street, he paused by the four-story yellow brick building where his office was. It was all dark now. He walked on another few blocks to the slightly shabby building where his apartment was, went up the worn wooden stairs to the second floor and his door at the end of his hall. Just before dawn one night, he had moved the Trom security alarms he had installed himself inside a wooden panel he had rigged to hinge open. He intended to do this now and then.
Flipping open the panel, he saw the blue and green lights were winking steadily. Bane closed the panel and clicked it shut, then unlocked his door and stepped into the cool dark apartment. It must be close to four AM by now and although his instincts were to just stay up until dawn, he was trying to keep some sort of schedule. Carefully arranging his clothes in case he got another call, Bane slid between the sheets. This was where Tel Shai training came in. He started a circular breathing pattern, slowing it, slipping into a state which soon became natural sleep. No dreams of ants came to his sleeping mind.
II.
At just before eight, he snapped back to full awareness, took a hot shower and shaved and dressed in the outfit he had only had on for an hour or so the night before. The refigerator was seldom stocked properly, but today he found half a package of bacon, wheat bread and packets of instant oatmeal so at least he wasn't going to go out starving. Bane took some dried leaves from a cannister on top of the rerigerator and made a mug of Tagra tea. Only available at Tel shai, this was a Velkandu plant- it enhanced healing to an extreme degree and extended active lifespans. Bane sometimes wished it could be shared with the world, but the Teachers at Tel Shai were adamant.
Taking his plate to the coffee table in front of his couch, Bane searched fruitlessly for the remote. He never watched TV shows or movies or listened to music, which puzzled his friends and had led them to try to change him with success. Finally, he went over and clicked on the TV, wheeled its cart closer and sat back to check out the local news. It was the usual... a fire in Queens, a serial purse-snatcher, the mayor cracking down on street vendors. Nothing about ants robbing an ATM. He didn't expect there to be, but maybe some producer at WPIX might have thought it amusing, like videos of cats playing a keyboard or a car with sod glued all over it. He sat through the news on another station and also saw nothing about larcenous ants.
Bane washed the dish and the frying pan before leaving. He glanced in the mirror behind the door, brushed his short black hair with his fingers, and headed out into the hall. Behind him, Trom alarms clicked into ARMED. The Dire Wolf headed out in a cool breezy July morning, his mind preoccupied with ants. He paused to buy three newspapers and walked through the automatic glass doors of his office building. No one was in sight, although the EMERGENCY ONE walk-in clinic was open. Grudgingly, he opened his compartment from the bank of mailboxes just inside the door and found almost nothing in there. Good.
Ahead of his was the staircase going up, and to that left was a narroway hallway between the stairs and the wall. At the end of the hallway was a metal exit door marked ALARMED -DOOR WILL SOUND IF OPENED. To the left was a simple wooden door with a brass plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. Bane stepped through the tiny reception room, barely enough for a coffee table and two chairs- and unlocked the door to his inner office.
As usual, there were calls recorded and he played them as he got behind his desk. None of the messages were from Lt Montez. There were a few offers to hire him to follow a cheating wife, a plea from Unicorn to not forget Wednesday was Pizza Night at KDF headquarters, a reminder he had an appointment with legal counselor Taylor Worth on Friday at 1 PM. Bane took it all in as he started digging through the newspapers. Many times over the years he had uncovered Midnight War activity from some seemingly minor item buried on a back page. Today seemed barren though.
After half an hour, he got and started walking around the office. Sitting still took effort for him. His superior reflexes were tied to an enhanced metabolism that kept him restless and hungry. Despite the huge amounts he ate daily, Bane remained gaunt. At nine forty-five, the puzzle of those damned ants was bothering him. Pulling his laptop from where it hung in a satchel at the side of his desk, the Dire Wolf settled in and started Googling. 'Ant behaviour,''can ants be trained,' 'how do ants communicate.' He read slowly and thoroughly, not quite sure what he was looking for. It sure seemed that no one could train ants to anything they weren't going to do anyway.
Next, he looked up Experts On Ant Behaviour, and got hopelessly bogged down in college theses and technical journals. He erased his searches and started a scan, then stepped away from the laptop. His cordless phone rang in its charger and he felt a little twinge of excitement as he recognized Bleak's number.
"Hello, Bleak. What's up?"
"I think you will want to know about this," came the sour voice of Bane's best reporter. Bleak had once been a fighter in the Midnight War himself, but after hitting his sixties, he contented himself with gathering information. "I got this my buddy who was standing there personally. Credit union on Broadway and 23rd, not fifteen minutes ago, an armored security truck pulled up. Two uniformed guards opened the back of the truck and took out two heavy canvas sacks of you know what. Here we get weird. Thousands of ants swarmed over them, out of nowhere. Of course, the guards dropped what they were holding and started screaming and rolling on the ground. A man wearing a long beige topcoat with a wide-brimmed hat ran up and threw the satchels in a car. My friend says it's a Hyundai Sonata but he didn't get the plates. By this time, people are trying to help, stomping on the ants and getting bit themselves. A few minutes later- get this- the ants dispersed. Just went about their business."
Bane was silent for so long that Bleak said, "Hey! Jeremy, you still there?"
"Attack ants," Bane said. "Damn. Did you ever hear of anything like this?"
"No. Never. Both of the guards are in critical condition. That's a lot of venom to absorb. Listen, I'm going to waiver my usual fee for information because this will be on the news. I charge you for items I have to dig up myself."
"Thanks, Bleak. I'll look into it."
A slightly sinister chuckle came over the line. "Yeah, I thought you would."
Putting the phone down, Bane went to sit down and cupped his chin in his hands, elbows on the desk. He was thinking that by now the authorities would be checking out ant researchers - entomologists, he thought they were called- and trying to see if any expert had anything useful to offer. He himself couldn't add anything to what the police would be doing. He imagined the FBI's department 21 Black would be looking into it as well.
But they would be approaching it from a scientific angle. Bane realized that, if he were going to make any progress, he would be going in from a different direction. The Midnight War. Of course. Suddenly he thought it made more sense that this was the work of a Human warlock or Dartha, something like that. All he knew was that ants were responsive to each other's pheromones. Someone who could produce those pheromones in slightly altered formulas...
An Alchemist. Bane almost snapped his fingers at the thought. He snatched his phone and dialed a number in Poughkeepsie, just an hour upstate. The phone rang five times, and then a young girl's voice said, "Dr Vitarius residence."
"Hi. Is Mercado home? Tell him this is Jeremy Bane."
"I'm sorry," the voice said in an odd accent. "What name is that?"
"Bane. Jeremy Bane."
"Just a minute," said the voice. That accent, Bane thought. Ulgoran? Yes, he was speaking to a Gelydra from Ulgor. Teenager, too, by the timbre. Odd, but then he reflected, he had an unusual assortment of associates himself.
A few seconds later, he heard that voice say, "There you are, Master," and an elderly voice replied "Thank you, Jin." Bane frowned. That did not sound like the Mercado Vitarius he knew.
"Hello? Jeremy?" said the wheezing voice.
"Mercado? Are you all right?" Bane asked with obvious concern.
"Ah, you did not know. My Alchemy is starting to fail. It has kept me young and vital for more than a hundred years but everything has its limits." A chuckle came over the line. "I don't know if you would recognize me on the street these days."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I imagine our Tel Shai diet of tagra tea will also stop working at some point," the Dire Wolf.
"You yourself have forty, maybe fifty years left before you fall apart," the Alchemist told him. "But I know you. You have not phoned me just to chat."
"No, Mercado. I'm afraid it's business as usual with me." He filled the Alchemist in on the two outre crimes involving ants, going into some detail. "So I figured I know zip about science but there is Midnight War alchemy behind these crimes. If maybe someone was using Velkandu potions to control the ants..."
"That I might know who?" Vitarius added. "Good thinking. I have never experimented along those lines myself. The most I crafted was something to draw hummingbirds to my garden. Let me think a minute. There are not many true Alchemists still active."
Bane waited, and the voice continued. "Ah, the Sphinx has some little knowledge. Mostly poisons. He was deported back to Egypt the last I heard. Wu Lung was an expert, but he's dead now. Whatever happened to Felezak? Haven't heard about him since the 70s. Megistus, of course, you know him. Let me see. Ah, there are still two learned students of Velkandu and both are in America now. There is Gustavo, unpleasant fellow, he had a home in Pennsylvania the last I heard. A brilliant alchemist but a very reclusive and abrasive man. The other was Dr Mary Eisenbach. She started as a regular entomologist and got detoured into Alchemy. Sad, as she lost a good-paying career and her peers think she's just a quack. But we know better, don't we?"
"Where would I find her?" Bane asked.
"Out on Long Island, I believe, but that was years ago. People do move. That's all I can recall. I'll let you if my poor old memory dredges up some more."
"Thanks for the help. I'll let you know how things turn out." The Dire Wolf's voice softened a bit. "I need to get up to Poughkeepsie soon. We should talk over a good dinner. You haven't met the new KDF team."
"By all means," said the aged voice. "I'm always home. Thanks for thinking of me when you look for answers."
"See you later." Bane hung up and leaped to his feet. Maybe he was wasting time looking for alchemists, but he didn't think so. His instincts were going full blast. This bizarre crime wave by ants was going to end right now.
III.
Back in the green Nissan, he headed out to Long Island, stopping for gas and to grab a 12 inch mixed sub and a bottle of water. He was out past Flanders when he found the area he was looking for. Quite a bit of woods. The two story house in brown wood had a deck with steps leading down to an above-ground pool. Parked half out of sight was a red Dodge SUV. It was past noon by now, and the daylight through the trees made the house and the yard look like restful. Reflections on the water in the pool shimmered on the big sliding glass doors.
Bane pulled in and backed up, so he could make a quick getaway. This was the address he had pulled out of tax records. Dr Raymond Eisenbach and Dr Mary Eisenbach had lived here for four years, both working at Templar University in different departments, before the seperation. They had never finalized the divorce, and were still peers in their field who occasionally had to work together in a civil way. Somehow, Raymond had kept the house; one report said that Mary hoped someday they would both be living there again.
Marching up to the front steps, the Dire Wolf sensed motion behind the front door. Perhaps just the barely heard sound of a doorknob turning, perhaps a glimpse of a shadow through the frost glass panel. In any case, he was planted at the bottom of the steps when Dr Eisenbach opened the door and stopped in mid-step. The pool was just to his right, his car to the left and this ominous-looking man right in his path.
"Hello?" said the man uncertainly. "Can I help you?" Eisenbach was soft-looking, with a paunch and the beginning of a double chin. He was wearing old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses and a neat blue suit with a black tie.
He also seemed unsettled by the Dire Wolf. Dressed all in black, gaunt and intense, with pale grey eyes that seemed always suspicious, Jeremy Bane was not a friendly-looking sight. He had come to count on this to intimidate people but getting their trust was difficult. Now, he held up the leather billfold that displayed his New York PI license. "Dr Eisenbach, we need to talk. It's about a recent crime in which one Brinks guard was killed and another remains in guarded condition."
The biochemist came down the steps and peered at the ID. "You're a private detective? I don't believe I have any legal requirement to speak to you. Get off my property."
"Talking to me now," Bane answered evenly, "is better than talking to the police later." He let that sink in, then continued. "You are not accused of any crime. Your ex-wife is, though."
"Mary? That's hard to believe. You mind explaining?"
The Dire Wolf described the attack on the Brinks guards, not mentioning the ATM incident. "Mary had done research in the chemicals used to prompt attack behavior in various insects, mostly ants. That was before her funding was cut off. I saw in one report that you voted to cut off that funding."
Eisenbach drew himself up, still not impresive. "It was the right thing to do. She was wasting university money needed elsewhere. She herself was needed in a more practical project."
"She didn't see it that way?" Bane asked.
"Well, no. She felt I should support her plans, no matter how wrong I thought them. It was a big element in our separation." Eisenbach suddenly glared down at the Wolf. "Wait. You think Mary used her distilled pheromones to trigger those ants to attack a man... to use ants a weapon? That's absurd."
"Somebody did just that," said the Dire Wolf quietly. "If not Mary herself, she at least can point me toward the right person. The police tend to grab the first suspect and try to get a confession by wearing her down."
As Eisenbach was about to reply, a white Ford Explorer rolled quickly up and came to a halt right by Bane's car. The man behind the driver's wheel had a bald head that was distinctly pointed and thick round-lensed glasses. As he saw the two men by the front door, he leered a wicked grin and popped the trunk from within.
All of Bane's instincts were screaming. "Get in the house!" he barked at Eisenbach, drawing his revolver. When the man hesitated, he yelled, "Your life is in danger! Get in there now and close all the windows."
As the scientist stepped back in the doorway, still peering out uncertainly, a wave of bristling black matter flowed from the back of the Explorer and headed straight for them with terrifying speed. It looked at first like a rustling carpet but as it hurtled toward them, the mass could be seen to be thousands of black ants.
Bane moved to shove the man inside the house, but before he could set foot on the lowest step, a branch of the swarm poured up and over the man like a black blanket. Eisenbach screamed and fell through the open door into the house. Bane took a step, uncertain what he was going to do to help, and the other half of the swarm hurtled right at him.
The Dire Wolf had never moved more quickly. Spinning on one heel, he took two quick steps and did a standing dive that cleared the retaining wall. Splashing down in the center of the pool, he had gulped a breath and he stayed down as long as he could. Ants climbed the wall and fell in, but drowned as soon they were in the water, not having any mechanism for holding their breath. In the exact center, Bane lifted just his face out of the water and took a deep breath and submerged again. The surface of the pool was thick with floating black bugs.
After a full minute, he took a quick look. Something caught his eye. Standing on the rim of the pool was what looked like a tiny man, no more than an inch tall. Bane blinked. The miniature creature was standing between two ants. He seemed to have a poncho of red cloth wrapped around him and as Bane stared, the little man jumped down out of sight. No more ants were entering the pool. Standing up in the chest-high water, Bane saw the last of the swarm flowing back into the trunk of the Explorer and the lid go down. He splashed forward and climbed out of the pool as the Ford made a three-point turn to get away. In the driver's seat, the bald-headed man grinned at Bane and gunned the motor.
A second later, the mastermind got a rude surprise as the window by his shoulder shattered from a bullet. A properly maintained revolver will work well after a brief submersion. Bane snapped off two more shots, cracking the windshield in a starburst effect and smashing a tailight as the Explorer roared off. The Dire Wolf slowly lowered his gun and growled deep in his chest. He had the license plate and a description of the driver.
Bane went up the wooden steps to the deck where Eisenbach's feet protruded, toes down. These were not South American army ants, they had not eaten the victims. Thousands of repeated bites, each injecting venom had been enough to kill the man. Eisenbach had been in a lot of pain when he died. Bane slowly went back to his car, not proud of his decisions. He could have run up and shoved Eisenbach bodily in the house. Or he could have seized the man and dragged him in the pool with him. The speed which which the ants attacked had been greater than he had expected but he reproached himself that that was just an excuse.
Moving somberly, he took off his sopping-wet jacket and spread it on the hood of his car to dry. Reaching in the back seat, he found a clean rag and began disassembling his gun to dry it. He was moving automatically. After a few minutes, he took out his Link and patched into cell phone signals to call Homicide. "Hey. Montez? Glad you're on duty. Yes, this is Bane again. There's been another ant attack. This time it's murder."
IV.
Five hours dragged by. Montez explained under his breath that the new DA was on a campaign to clean up and polish the NYPD, and having the notorious Dire Wolf released from one crime scene after another was something that he wanted to stop. Bane was questioned backward and forward on details that seemed irrelevant. Every word he and Eisenbach had said was analyzed, including tone of voice and facial expression, and the Ford Explorer was described as minutely as if Bane had built it himself from scratch. They confiscated Bane's gun, taking it away in a clear evidence bag, for use if the Ford was found. Bane didn't mind, he had two others in the hidden pit in his office.
The only detail Bane omitted was seeing a tiny man an inch high mingling among the ants. The subject wasn't brought up and he knew he was not obligated to volunteer information not asked for.
At a quarter to five, Montez was exhausted. The uniformed officer who had been listening to all the questionings would serve as a back-up in case of an internal investigation, also looked tired. Bane was merely annoyed at all this. It happened now and then. Finally, he said, "What are you going to do with all the dead ants?"
"Huh? Oh, we have no use for them. Leave them there, I suppose. Why?"
"I've been watching them. Regular ants are coming up and carrying the bodies away. I read that ants do that."
Lt Montez finally groaned. The body of Dr Eisenbach had long been taken away, the forensics team was done. "You're free to go for now, Bane. Don't leave the metropolitan area for the next 48 hours in case we need to talk to you."
"I'm right where I should be," answered the Dire Wolf. His jacket had dried off enough that he could put it back on, wrinkled though it might be. "Am I dismissed?"
"You can go," Montez waved a broad hand.
Bane opened the door of his Nissan and turned to look back. "In my capacity as a licensed private investigator acting on behalf of an unnamed client..."
"Get on with it."
"I think this is just the start of a crime wave. These guys are getting to like it." He slid behind the wheel and pulled away. Bane kept heading toward the east end of Long Island, to the second address he had tracked down. It was surprisingly empty out here, with long stretches of road dotted with convenient marts and strip malls. He pulled into a service station for gas and to his usual check of the car's tires and fluids. His clothes had dried and he was glad he had only been submerged in a pool. More than once, he had had to act after being in salt water, which was much more uncomfortable. At the next strip mall, he pulled up to a Chinese take-out where he rushed through a plate of orange chicken, two big iced teas and some cookies. Bane used the bathroom, cleaned himself up a bit and was soon on the road again.
Of course he was thinking about the ant-sized man. It reminded him of one of his very earliest cases for Kenneth Dred. He had only been 21, a tough street thug who was good at fighting and not much else. So long ago.. 1978? Yes, February 1978, it felt like a thousand years ago. Someone had found a way to make golems out of a new synthetic protein. "Other Clay" it was called. He had made one that was life sized, one six inches tall and one eleven feet tall. He had been able to project his awareness into them, one at a time. What the hell was his name. Bane couldn't quite remember. But it didn't matter, the guy had been dead thirty years now. It seemed as if someone had invented the same technique.
It was getting dusk. The Dire Wolf was starting to wonder if he was going to run out of land and have to turn around and search going the other way. The ocean was in sight, not too far ahead. Property ahead to his left had a waist-high stone wall around it, and he could see a dark two-story brick building with only a light over the front door. This looked promising. An opening in the wall was flanked by squat pillars and a sign INDUSTRIAL RECLAIM CENTER- KASSEL INC. Whatever that meant. Bane pulled past a parking lot with only one car in it, a new Toyota Tundra. This had to be it.
Going down the road another mile, the Dire Wolf pulled off as far as he could and parked under two apple trees. He wished he had brought his field suit but it was too late now. Getting out, he popped the trunk, dug through its assortment of metal cases holding various equipment and came out with an anesthetic dart gun in a detachable holster. He inserted a clip of the potent darts and threaded it through his belt to replace the .38 the police had confiscated. He started moving through the sparse woods back to the place marked INDUSTRIAL RECLAIM CENTER, stealthily as possible. It was just dark enough to sneak up and his black outfit helped.
This also reminded him of that 1978 case. Then it had been Dr Auerbach working in a similar building, but that had been a research lab. This looked like some sort of industrial plant that had been closed and the property recently purchased. Bane crept slowly until he could watch the front of the building. He waited but there were no signs of activity. Then a light went on in a window near the front door. A woman emerged and hurried toward the Toyota Tundra, got in and sped away.
That's my invitation, he thought. He had spotted two security cameras but wasn't concerned. The protective Eldar talisman he wore around his neck had the effect of blurring video and fogging photos, so anyone watching on a monitor would think there was something wrong with the equipment. He dashed across the deserted parking lot and to a side door. Here was where the Trom lockpick was useful. Its array of thin wires entered a lock, reshaped themselves and stiffened, and he opened the door as if he had used a key. There was a device by the door for sliding an ID card for entry, but it seemed disconnected.
Bane found himself in a corridor dimly lit by tiny nightlights at the corners. The interior smelled really strange, a sort of bitter acidic aroma he didn't like at all. The Dire Wolf trotted quickly toward where the front door should be. The woman who had left answered the description of Dr Mary Eisenbach and he didn't know how long she would be gone. His guess was that she had gone to pick up the bald-headed killer, who would have abandoned the damaged vehicle he was in and started walking. But they could be back any second.
To his right were double wooden doors that swung inward and he decided to take a look. The inside of a high-ceiling room was as dimly lit as the rest of the building, but his innate night vision had kicked in. The room was filled with wire cages stacked up along the walls and some animals the size of cats were moving around in them. But they weren't cats.
VI.
Ants. Red ants as big as tomcats, scuttling around on their six legs. The antennae moved curiously as he entered. Bane pulled a pencil flashlight from his jacket and played it over the insects. Suddenly he had an image of a swarm of thousands of these monsters running over a crowd in Times Square...
There were voices in the hall outside. Bane snapped off the flashlight and flattened up against the wall besides the doors. He could hear a woman's voice, with a man answering. They weren't coming closer. As the voices faded, he exhaled slowly and glanced over the room full of cages holding those ants. This was where that bitter smell was coming from.
Well, at least they don't make any noise. If these were dogs or monkeys, the uproar would have given him away. Bane peered out in the hall and headed toward where the voices had gone. Ahead was a pair of doors with square glass panels at head level and he took a peek. It had been the cafeteria when this building had been in use. A man and a woman were getting coffee from a big urn and heading for a table where they dropped into folding chairs. They had not turned on the overhead lights. Maybe the ants liked it dim.
Slowing his breathing, holding the door inward just an inch, Bane waited as his awareness settled into his hearing. This was a Tel Shai technique. After a minute, he could hear them clearly even though they were speaking in low tones.
"... a fugitive now, Gustavo," the woman said in an annoyed tone. "Luckily no one knows you came here to work with me. You'll need a disguise when you go out. I'll buy a wig."
"It's losing the car I regret," came the answer in an East European accent. "but Dire Wolf put a few bullet holes in it and I'm sure he gave the plate numbers to the police. He would."
"What is this 'Dire Wolf' business?" asked the woman.
"You wouldn't have heard of him, Mary. In the Midnight War, he is a well-known vigilante. Supposed to be dangerous, although I'm sure our pets can handle him."
She made a scoffing noise. "I'm not happy my ex-husband is dead, to be honest. We hated each other but he didn't deserve to die like that. No one does. I don't think you had to eliminate him."
"Back to business," Gustavo said, and there was a clink as he put his coffee mug down. "Two more of the golems are ready. We will be both able to animate one and meet the regular ants at their own level.
"I was unhappy in that golem at the house. How do I know I'll be able to get back to my real body? I don't want to be an inch tall the rest of my life."
"The transfer only lasts twenty or thirty minutes. But if the golem is destroyed while your mind is in it, I think your real body might die as well. That's what happened to Dr Auerbach when Dire Wolf-"
Bane was seized from behind, unbearably tight grips squeezing into his ribs like a mechanical crusher. It was one of the few times he had been taken off guard, because all his attention had been on listening to the conversations. He kicked and struggled but had no leeway as he was lifted off his feet and smashed into the door, swinging it open. Bane twisted his head behind him and stared down at the face of a red ant as big as he was. He lifted his arm and drove his elbow down between the opaque eyes with murderous force. The ant faltered. Bane struck downward again, a blow he used to break tiles and bricks, and the chitinous shell of the ant's head had a crack running along it. Still the monster scurried across the floor to bring him before Gustavo and Eisenbach. They had jumped to their feet at the intrusion.
Bane crashed his elbow down a third time with all the Kumundu impact and the ant swayed unsteadily. The giant mandibles did not loosen though. Without he flexible armor under his clothes to give him protection, he would have already been killed. The Dire Wolf turned and saw Gustavo at close range for the first time. The alchemist looked about sixty, pudgy and out of shape in a white dress shirt and dark blue slacks. His head was shaved, a faint five o'clock shadow showed and he peered at Bane through thick eyeglasses.
"Oh, this is priceless. We were just talking about you. You missed my head by an inch when you shot at me today," Gustavo said.
"I won't miss next time," answered Bane. He drew his knees up to his chest and thrust them out, kicking the alchemist in the chest so hard that the man fell back and knocked a chair over. Swinging his legs up to face level, the Dire Wolf shifted his center of gravity enough that the ant lost its balance and toppled over sideways. Bane's dart gun clattered from his holster on the cafeteria floor. He still could not get loose. The mandibles seemed to have locked into place. The Dire wolf struggled and got to his feet, furious. It was rare he had so much trouble fighting anything.
Behind him, he heard Gustavo say, "My chest. Owww. Damnation. Oh, look. I've heard of this toy." Bane swung his head around just in time to see the renegade alchemist fire Bane's own dart gun at him. The sting of the heavy dart in the side of his neck burned, and in half a second he was dazed. The Dire Wolf went foggy and suddenly passed into darkness.
VI.
Waking up took effort. He felt sick and weak. The dart should not have affected him this much. Bane was lying face down in dirt somehow. He got up on his elbows, tried to stand and fell. After a few more minutes, a second attempt got him on his feet. What the hell... He was standing on hard packed dirt under bright lights. A few feet ahead of him was a glass wall. Bane took an unsteady step, almost fell again and looked down. His feet were simple pads, without toes, on the end of thick legs. He raised his hands and saw crude paws with only two thick fingers and a thumb. The skin was orange. With a surge of panic, he ran those hands over his head and felt no hair, no ears.
For a few minutes, Bane's mind stopped working as it tried to digest the situation. Decades of weird experiences in the Midnight War had left him open to almost anything or so he thought. But this....! He kept touching his body in disbelief. No, not his body. He was in one of the inch-high golems. The miniature construct wore a simple poncho of red cloth glued together, reaching just above his knees.
After a little while, his breathing slowed and he got hold of himself. That damn Gustavo! Bane swore he would not leave the man alive for doing this to him. He began to move around. The golem felt numb and detached, as if under local anesthetic. He threw a few punches experimentally. This body did not have his enhanced speed but it did seem a lot stronger than he had expected. The eyesight was okay, the hearing normal. Bane walked over to the glass wall and looked up. The top was open but to him it seemed about sixty feet up. Quite a problem.
Then Mary Eisenbach's face loomed up over him, bigger than a house. She was an attractive woman around forty, with a wide jawline and long dark brown hair. Over a tan blouse, she wore a white lab smock. "You're up quickly. Gustavo said you'd be unconscious for an hour and it's only been thirty minutes."
"Where's my real body?" he yelled up. In the stressful situation, he did not wonder how they could hear each other. His voice should have been a shrill almost-inaudibile squeak but she seemed to understand him.
"Don't worry, it's fine," she said. "We have it on a table in the next room. Gustavo is trying to find a way to project his awareness into it. He says he'd rather live in your body than his own." She giggled. "Can't say I blame him."
Bane raised a tiny fist. "Do you know what Gustavo does to his partners? Ask him where Mordecai is. Or where his brother Anton is. They're dead. Once someone stops being useful to him, they become liabilities."
She frowned. "That's an obvious trick. But I think I will ask him, just to spite you."
"Mordecai and his brother Anton. Not to mention the four men who brought him into this country illegally. Ask him where he buried them!" Bane watched as she stormed off. He remembered overhearing that the transfer into this body was not a long-term process but how long had he been animating this golem already? The horrifying possibility occurred to him that maybe Gustavo had put him in here permanently. This was not science of any kind, it was gralic magick and the rules were different.
He glimpsed movement from the corner of his eye. A raised mound of the dirt had an opening in it and a black ant emerged. It was the same size he was. The antennae moved around as if sniffing the air and the curved mandibles clicked together like sabres. The monster heaved up out of the hole and rushed at him.
There was nowhere to hide, nothing to use as a weapon, but all Bane's instincts were to fight in any case. He ran directly at the ant and leaped up at the last second with some idea to get on top of the thing. To his surprise, he shot high up in the air and hit the glass wall to bounce off. He landed some distance away from the ant, which swung around in evident confusion. Bane hadn't realized he could jump like that. In some part of his mind, he realized it had something to do with the golem being overly strong for its size but his attention was on the ant.
The ant was charging him again. If those pincers closed on him now, they would cut him in half. Bane leaped again, not as high, and landed right on top of the creature. Swivelling around, he grabbed the antennae, one in each hand, and yanked. He expected to maybe tug the creature's head back like pulling on someone's hair but to his astonishment, both antennae came completely out of their sockets. He threw them away in disgust and jumped clear as the ant went into seizures.
Stepping away from the distressed creature, Bane wondered just how strong this golem body was. He felt like Sulak. The wounded ant got down and lay there, still alive. Two more of the beasts reared up out of the hole in the dirt. They ignored Bane for the moment and started tugging the injured ant back toward the hole.
A man's voice boomed down at him. "King of the ant farm eh? You've started trouble with Mary, Dire Wolf. I had plans for her, warm plans for a while at least, but now she wanted to know what happened to my former associates. I had to eliminate her. You are nothing but trouble."
Gustavo was wearing a strange cloth apron that had two dozen glass vials fastened in pouches to its front. Each was labelled and capped with a cork. He pulled out one vial and checked his label, holding it close despite his thick eyeglasses.
"Hey!" Bane yelled up. "Did anyone tell you your head looks like an egg? With the pointed end up? You must have got teased as a kid!"
"I hope you enjoyed your feeble attempt to rile me," Gustavo said. "Here, let's try this. With Mary's knowledge of biochemistry and my alchemy, we have these synthetic pheromones down to exact functions. This causes aggression." He tugged out the cork and gingerly let one drop of the clear fluid splat on the dirt of the ant farm. Instantly, a dozen of the creatures came swarming up through the hole. Gustavo laughed wildly, as if he had never seen anything funnier.
Bane met the attack. This body was not fast, but it had strength. Its muscles had not been trained for Kumundu fighting as his real body had but Tel Shai martial arts came from the mind as much as the muscles. Bane leaped next to one ant and shoved it hard against the others. He seized both antennae of that ant and tugged them violently out of the creature's head. A pair of mandibles clashed together like scissors as he jumped back and drove a straight punch right between that ant's glistening eyes to crack open the hard shell. Bane jumped straight up, almost reaching the top of the glass wall and came down to flatten an ant.
He could not afford to stop moving. Climbing up on the back of one ant, he seized its head and twisted it with all his strength. The head snapped off. Bane jumped far to one side and watched the confusion. Some of the ants stopped the attack to carry their wounded and dead back down the hole. This seemed to be behavior they couldn't control.
Given a breathing space, Bane glared up at the enraged face of Gustavo. The man's face was almost purple. "Look at you!" yelled the tiny golem with the mind of the Dire Wolf in it. "Get your blood pressure checked before you have a heart attack."
"Why won't you just die?" roared Gustavo, leaning over the open wall of the ant farm. "God, I hate you!"
The ants were coming back out again. Bane rushed forward, got under one and straightened up to hoist the creature overhead. He threw the ant to the other side of the tank, whirled to meet the next one and seized those deadly mandibles, one in each hand. It was like squeezing an alligator's jaws shut. Bane twisted the mandibles and the ant's head rotated until it snapped. Three ants more to go. A wave of dizziness swept over him from nowhere and his vision went black.
VII.
He woke up in a dim cold room, lying on a table. He was fully dressed. Relief at being back in his own body was almost too much to bear. He was hypereventilating and forced himself to breathe more slowly and deeply. Bane swung off the table and felt a little nauseous but that was an effect of the anesthetic dart. The time limit for being in the miniature golem must have run out while he was fighting the ants. Bane had a predatory smile as he rushed from the room out into the hall. He had no idea where he was, but he would find Gustavo and there would be a payback. One of the human-sized ants scuttled down a side corridor but ignored him. There must be a few of them roaming around as guards, he figured.
Light came from under a door further down the hall, and he hurried to peer in. Yes. There was an ant farm on a table and there was Gustavo next to it, his back to the door. Bane stepped silently into the room.
"Ah, they've got you now," he was chuckling. "Not so tough now are you, Dire Wolf? Look at them rip you apart. Good boys, get him."
Getting up behind Gustavo, Bane grabbed the man by the shoulder and swung him around. As the alchemist gaped in bewilderment, the Dire Wolf punched all the glass vials on the man's smock and liquids poured out all over the apron. A backfist from the same hand spun Gustavio around to drop to the floor.
"I lasted longer in there than you expected, you bastard," said Bane quietly.
Gustavo was pawing at the apron, trying to get it off. "You don't know what you've done.."
"I have a good idea," Bane said. "You're soaked with those damned pheromones." As he said the final word, two of the man-sized red ants rushed through the open door and went for Gustavo like hungry tigers. The pheromones had them in a killing frenzy. Bane turned out the light as he closed the door on the alchemist's screams.
Out in the hall, he searched until he found Mary Eisenbach. She was sitting slumped in a chair, with a knife in her chest and bright red over the front of her smock. Gustavo didn't have to kill her, Bane thought. It had just been a sickness with him. He checked but she was obviously dead. The Dire Wolf suddenly felt tired as the adrenalin left his body. He couldn't rest yet. Searching the building, he found a laptop and some journals and he took them outside. They were the only notes he could locate.
There was a shotgun and some shells by the front door. With a resigned sigh, he took it back to the room where the ant farm was and went in. There was not much left of Gustavo, identification was going to a problem. Bane killed all three of the man-sized ants with the shotgun, then went to the room with the wire cages and put down all the cat-sized insects as well. He didn't enjoy doing this, it made him feel sick at heart, but he didn't want the secret of growing these monsters to be known.
After searching the building for another hour, Bane was satisfied. Going to a wall phone, he dialed the number of the New York office of 21 Black. The FBI department concerned with the supernatural had given him plenty of grief in the past, but they had their uses. He just gave the address he was calling from and the code word 'tiara.' Within an hour, a crew of silent men in neat black suits would arrive in black SUVs and start clearing away everything here. The public would learn nothing. Black 21 would know it was Bane who had called, but they had used him as a weapon before on cases like this and they would not bother him further.
Taking the laptop and journals with him, Bane walked slowly from the building into the woods. As he fell into his car, he slumped behind the wheel. The horror of being put in that golem body, the stress and anxiety of the past few hours, caught up with him all at once For the first time in many years, Bane began to cry. He held his face as tears came and then, feeling better, drove away with an occasional sniffle. He was surprised at himself.
1/29/2014
