Story by Charles Hawkmoon. Translation VictorX.
This short story is part of the Science Fiction Storm series. All stories in this series are inspired by randomized prompts, ensuring that each tale is unpredictable and utterly unique. Here are the random seeds for this story:
Confused – stick – black – leak – bridge – hot – unlimited – ilegal – river – caterpillar.
Bris dressed in pure black. He moved like a shadow in the night, as if he were looking for something illegal to do. Dressing like that during the day would be suicide. The nights were hot, very hot, leaving his entire body drenched in sweat. But the days, ah! Those were truly hellish! If he needed to go out during the day, he wore an identical outfit, but entirely white. The fabric was covered with extremely thin aluminum strips that reflected the light, and over his eyes, he had to wear a visor made of inurartite, a valuable mineral that filtered the intense sunlight. During the night, the visor stayed in his compact backpack, always strapped to his back.
The EPSA made his way to the old bridge, observing and listening attentively. He was the inspector responsible for monitoring leaks in the city’s water reservoirs. It might sound tedious, but it was a very dangerous job.
Records that have become legends tell that before the time of the second sun, a river used to run through the bottom of the bridge’s span. In those days, running water was considered an unlimited resource. Nowadays, water only came every decade or two in torrential storms, causing flash floods and making the old watercourses revive for a day or two before everything dried up again. Everything in that world had to adapt to the lack of water and the extreme heat. The humans who survived the Great Evaporation lived holed up in their small cities. All their efforts were focused on building underground reservoirs, mining, and cultivating greenhouses. Eating meat was a luxury, or a thing of the past; protein from insects and their larvae supplemented a diet mainly composed of vegetables adapted to extreme aridity. The cities were complex tunnels dug beneath the ruins of ancient metropolises. Everything was hermetically sealed, with large cultivation corridors covered by roofs made of inurartite plates welded into metal grids. Going to the surface was a job for a few agents, like Bris.
He unhooked the canteen from his belt and took a modest sip of warm water. From his pocket, he took a small glass sphere and shook it vigorously. Soon, the dormant lumens inside awakened, projecting a growing wave of yellowish light. He let the sphere drop from the middle of the bridge. In a few seconds, it fell to the bottom, illuminating the place. The seer had been right again. The place was filled with tar caterpillars.
Bris sighed “I hate these caterpillars!”
The caterpillars were attracted to the moisture in the reservoirs, and if they weren’t eliminated, they would burrow into the rock, potentially causing leaks. Bris tied the elastic band around his ankles and prepared for the jump. He wanted to scream, but that wasn’t wise at night; it could attract predators. He jumped, screaming mentally. “Iurrurrul! This is so good!”
The elastic band stretched and recoiled several times before stopping. Bris bent his body, fastened his ladder, unrolled it, and descended the final meters to the ground. His feet sank a few centimeters into the fine sediment dust, raising a cloud. His mask with filters helped him breathe without coughing. The bright light from the little ball still shone above the fine dust from a point ahead. He took the can of poison from his backpack and attached the application pump while walking toward the cluster of caterpillars. The creatures always crawled over one another, like a kind of shoal, to survive predators attacks. The ground near them was sticky.
“Ugh! This stinks!”
The oily goo climbed up his boots’ shafts. It would be a lot of work to clean them.
“Fluc, fluc, fluc” went to the piston every time Bris pumped the long handle. From the tip of the applicator, the poison sprayed in droplets that settled on the mass of moving caterpillars. The effect wasn’t immediate, but they would all be dead after a few hours. Some caterpillars were quite large, reaching up to a meter and a half.
“Fluc-uc-uc-uc!” Bris pumped faster now.
A cold breeze swept through the place. That wasn’t a good sign. The man thought of his little daughter, Naia. How she cried and clung to him every time he had to work outside the tunnels. She was afraid he wouldn’t come back. It happened sooner or later with the EPSA. It wasn’t a choice; a portion of the population was selected and enlisted for exterior public services. Less than twenty percent survived the five years. He only had three months left. Three months! Bris repeated mentally as he circled the perimeter and pumped the poison onto the caterpillars.
Naia had been an accident. Most of the young people of exterior service age practiced celibacy precisely to avoid starting a family, but Bris couldn’t resist and hastily married after his girlfriend became pregnant. Little Naia was only four years old, but she already understood well that her father’s job was dangerous business.
Bris emptied the can and returned, searching for the metal pendant at the end of his ladder. He saw the glimmering reflection and quickly walked toward it. The stickiness from the caterpillars on his boots was now covered by a thick layer of sediment dust. Bris heard the sound of pebbles sliding down the steep bank and knew something was nearby. What could it be? A gramerlon? A daspize? He had dealt with those creatures a few times. But his mind fervently pleaded. Please, Silam Mudha! Three months! Not an aracnopyl! Not an aracnopyl!
Finally, he reached the end of the elastic. His hand trembled. Hot sweat dripped down his face and into his eyes, making them burn a little. He took out the reagent bar and wrapped it around the elastic band. The reaction started, and slowly, the elastic band contracted, pulling him up. Come on, come on, come on!
“Sliich!” Bris heard something hiss right beside him.
“Silam Mudha!” he let out, desperate.
“Sliiich! Sliich! Sliich…”
“Damn!” Bris shouted as the sticky web shot hit his thigh. He felt the fabric pull, dragging him to the side. He pulled out a stiletto from the leather bracelet on his left wrist and, in desperation, cut the fabric of his pants and a bit of his own flesh. Biting his lip, he kept cutting, being careful not to cut himself again. As soon as he freed himself, he spun around and swung from side to side in a pendulum motion.
“Sliiich! Sliich! Sliich! Sliich!”
The aracnopyl fired its web, trying to hit its target as it swung back and forth. Bris tried to stop spinning, but the elastic twisted, making him spin more. The movement slowed a bit when it reached the limit. Bris grabbed his spare reagent.
This might speed up the ascent.
But when he tried to remove the film and place it in the elastic band, the stick slipped and fell down there.
“Damn! Damn caterpillar!”
“Sliiich! Sliich!”
The shot finally hit. Luckily for Bris, it struck the middle of his backpack. This time the creature pulled him quickly and forcefully. Though he was very fond of the backpack and carried many useful things in it, he didn’t hesitate to release the buckle. One side came off, leaving him stuck at a bad angle, pressing against his shoulder and arm. The elastic was stretched, slowing his movement toward the creature.
Bris came close enough to see the horrifying contours of the beast up close. Several legs spread out, resting in a crevice between the rocks, and there in the middle, several points of reflected light revealed where its multiple eyes were. The backpack strap slowly gave way as Bris’s hand pulled on it forcefully. A deep note sounded when the elastic finally contracted. Bris was hurled upward like a slingshot stone. The arcing motion made him pass behind and then over the bridge, landing on the other side, even hitting the underside of the structure. Confused and dizzy, Bris swung again, hanging from the elastic by the hook at his waist. He felt pain but also a momentary happiness and relief for not having become food.
Bris groaned and used all his strength to climb the elastic. He wasn’t going to wait any longer for it to complete the retraction process. Finally, he reached the bridge, climbed the rest of the way up, and collapsed onto the ground, relaxing for a moment, letting the pain flow through his body. Bris was a survivor.
Many years later, Bris lived peacefully in his burrow and enjoyed recounting that episode to his grandson, Talas, Naia’s son.
“Three months! That was the time left for me to quit the service!”
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