(This October, InsectPOD is celebrating with a special “creepy story”, the Hopper Case Files, told in installments. New readers should start with the first case file, The Missing Mayfly.)
Once the Mayfly started talking, I eased back and lowered the globby-needle thing. The hornet stinger gland, or HSG or whatever it was, got heavy quick.
“The first thing you need to know about Heinrich G. Mantis,” Carlos began, “is that he is the most brilliant reconstructive surgeon you’ve never heard of. I mean, you know how praying mantises make the best butchers, what with those big blades right on their arms? They also make the best surgeons. And Heinrich is probably the best there is.”
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“He works for Halberd Tech in a secret lab. Well, labs, really. Runs the whole place, dozens of experiments going on, thousands of subjects at a time. I was one of the assistants. Fetch me this type of pollen, hold this retractor, watch this bug die. That sort of thing. A lot of watching bugs die, actually.”
“He experimented on bugs to death?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Not so much at first. At first it was all about working with terminal cases, trying to help them. But later… Look, I know what you’re thinking: he killed bugs, and I helped him. Well you’re right. At least, I never tried to stop him. He did so many good things that it was easy to overlook the bad. For a while.”
Carlos looked at me critically. “The average mayfly lives for less than one day. Anything about that statement strike you as odd?”
I nodded. “Okay, I’ll bite. How old are you?”
“Fourteen,” he said.
“Fourteen days? That’s incredible!”
“Incredible doesn’t even begin to describe it. I am fourteen years old.”
“But that’s not even possible!”
“Cicadas hibernate for longer than that. Heinrich figured out how they do it. Then he figured out how to duplicate it. Then he figured out how to duplicate it without spending all that time asleep. That’s just a fraction of what I mean by brilliant.”
“Then how… how old is Heinrich?”
“Older than me is all I know. Lots older. At least twenty years old. Maybe thirty. Maybe more. His wings were a little crispy and wrinkled, but other than that, you wouldn’t know him from this crop of Summer mantids.”
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“Okay,” I said. “Tell me about this HSG or whatever you call it.”
“The hornet experiments,” Carlos said. “And a very good question, because this was when I knew I had to leave.”
“You’re an example to us all,” I growled. “Keep talking.”
“Hornet stings used to be fatal, remember?” I nodded, and he continued. “Well, guess who invented the antivenom.”
“That was ten years ago,” I said.
“Nine, yeah. I see you’ve got a nice chaw-collar yourself. You’ve been stung more than once, looks like. Anyway, yeah. And I helped. So, you’re welcome.”
“Do I need to tell you to get on with it?” I asked as I raised the HSG. “Because I’m not going to.”
“Okay, okay. Mantis captured thousands of hornet queens. He bred and cross-bred hundreds of thousands of hornets. He had this breeding board that went on for hundreds of yards, I’m not kidding. It took all afternoon just to cross it. It was all drilled with holes for tending the broods. Heinrich would work them himself.”
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I said nothing, but lowered the weapon.
“At first, Heinrich focused on identifying the animals with the most resistance. He found a caterpillar that could take a dozen stings and walk away. So we bred the caterpillars until we had one that could take twenty stings. Then a hundred. And so on, until we had caterpillars that were effectively immune. It took years, but finally we had the antitoxin.”
Carlos looked away. “It would have stopped there and we’d have been heroes, if it hadn’t been for hornet 9618.”
“What about him?”
“Her,” he said. “Hornet Queen number 9618. She was a freak. She stung the immune caterpillar and it died instantly. She stung another hornet queen, it died. We experimented. Wolf Spiders. Centipedes. Scorpions. One sting, instant death. Every time. Every time. Heinrich never found a cure for it. He never found anything that could even touch it.”
I turned the HSG over in my hands. “So let me guess. Instead of finding a cure, he turned her venom into a weapon.”
“Not her venom,” he said. “Her. You are holding her royal highness, Queen 9618, herself. Or what’s left of her. Just the stinger and gland. And enough gadgetry to keep it alive indefinitely. She was dying, and Heinrich was nowhere near a cure. He considered artificially extending her life, but in the end decided it would be more efficient to gut her and keep just the part he needed.”
I looked closely. Fine lines traced the surface of the gland. With a start I realized that they were scars, long healed over.
Carlos went on. “He made hundreds of those. Out of ordinary queens, you see. He was practicing and perfecting his technique. That’s when I started to realize he was insane.”
“When did you finish realizing?”
“When he started eating his assistants.”
“Praying mantises do that.”
“Heinrich didn’t. He was all about healthy eating, controlling his diet. He was obsessed with finding cures, immunities. I actually saw him shrug off a black widow bite once.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“I’m not. She bit him, and he just laughed and stung her with the HSG. He had taken to carrying it with him. He looked her in the eyes and said, ‘Let us see who will die first!’ She died, and two years later he’s still alive out there somewhere.”
“And eating assistants? Why do I suddenly get the feeling I’m in a zombie movie?”
“It was the HSG. It terrified him. He had developed antitoxins for all sorts of things, things that are still out there now and very deadly. But he couldn’t find anything to even begin to beat the HSG. He got irritable. He started… weaponizing everything. Necrotic pollens, sprayable spider venoms, that sort of thing. He even made a sort of clipper tool based on his own arm. I saw him cut an earwig clean in half with it.”
“Okay,” I said, “So far I’ve got an insane zombie praying mantis arms dealer and an invincible superweapon. Tell me how you ended up here.”
“Well, when he started killing assistants I realized the next one might be me. So I left.”
“You just left,” I said in a tone that very clearly said “You did not just leave.”
“Okay, yeah. I… packed a few things. Some exotic toxins, and their antivenoms. Drugs. Some of the weapons. Enough to sell off here and there and live comfortably for the rest of my life.”
“When was this?”
“Spring of last year.”
“So you’ve been trafficking all manner of pesticides and chemicals for nearly two years. And here you are, changing your face and name to hide from the mob. What on earth made you that stupid?”
“I didn’t know it would be that hard to sell these things! I lost all the weapons the first week to a gang of hornets. I thought they’d be grateful to know about the experiments! Instead they tried to kill me and take everything.”
“All the weapons but this one,” I said.
“Well, yeah.”
“And the mob?”
“Big mistake, no argument there,” he said. “I’ve spent all my money trying to vanish. Look, I’ve told you everything, I swear. Please, I don’t want to die. I didn’t know that guy was a cop, and I’m—”
“Don’t!” I said. “You don’t even get to say you’re sorry.”
Carlos nodded glumly. “Please… just don’t kill me. Take the HSG if you want. I’d give you anything else, but there’s nothing left. You can search the place if you want.”
I raised the HSG when Carlos reached under his hindwing, but when he withdrew his hand it was holding a holster. He handed it to me. The HSG fit into it perfectly.
I stared at Carlos for a long time, while he stared at the floor. Finally I tucked the holster under a wing.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I gotta be honest with you, buddy. I really want to kill you. But maybe I won’t. Now, don’t get all excited. If I don’t kill you, you are going to prison. Don’t think for a moment that you’re going free.”
“If I have a choice,” he began.
“None at all,” I replied. “I’m still….”
Movement over Carlos’ shoulder caught my eye.
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Viridiana G. Mantis slid into view around the end of the apartment without a sound. If I hadn’t been looking right at her she could have easily come up behind me. Carlos was facing me, and away from her. Her eyes locked onto his back as she glided around the corner, then she looked up at me.
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“I’ve made up my mind,” I said finally. “I’m not going to kill you. But tell me, Carlos. Do you think you could fly right now, if you really had to?”
Viridiana slid forward, closing the distance in utter silence.
Carlos flexed his shoulders gingerly, spreading his wings wide. “I… I think so,” he said. “Yeah.”
I kicked one outstretched wing, right near the shoulder. He screamed as the vanes crushed, nearly tearing the wing all the way off. It collapsed in tatters.
“How about now?” I said.
“What are you doing?!?” he cried, clutching the destroyed wing.
“Not killing you,” I said. I looked Viridiana in the eyes, who had crept nearly to within striking distance of Carlos. She had cocked her forelegs for striking.
“I found your boyfriend,” I told her with a smile.
I jumped for it as Carlos spun around.
Click for larger version » Better yet, click for wallpaper!
Behind me, Carlos’ scream had barely begun when it ended with an abrupt SPLUTCH.
I took the “Heinrich” pictures in Houston, Texas at the beginning of September. I actually don’t know if that’s is a male or female praying mantis. If it’s a female, she’s either not very pregnant yet, or she has already laid her eggs. The “Viridiana” pictures were taken on my screen door. She is definitely a female and VERY pregnant.
By the way, don’t miss the wallpaper of Viridiana!
Slowly getting the site back onto an even keel. It's nice to get back into the old posting rhythm.
