Tension at home part 2
The last of the rabbits disappeared through the pasture gate in a loose, confused wave, some following the others simply because that was easier than deciding where freedom was supposed to be. I watched them scatter into the grass for a few seconds, knowing most of them had no idea how to survive outside the routines humans had bred into them.
Then my drone, One, screamed an alert through my tablet. I turned toward the fence. Something was standing on the other side.
At first my brain tried to call it a spider because that was the nearest available category, but the word felt increasingly inadequate the longer I looked. The creature was nearly the size of a car, its glossy black body stretched across too many jointed limbs, with wet patches of pale, humanlike tissue showing between plates where no humanlike tissue had any business being. Clusters of red reflective eyes caught the weak morning light, and its mouthparts opened around a trembling hiss I felt behind my eyes more strongly than I heard with my ears.
The Matriarch's pressure touched me through it. Not her body. One of her larger children. But there was intelligence. Enough to make my stomach tighten.
Leona: "...that's new."
The creature climbed over the fence without slowing. Wire snapped beneath its weight while smaller shapes emerged through the grass behind it, fist-sized and dog-sized Progeny crawling through gaps, under rails and over one another. Then the big one lifted its body. The psychic hiss sharpened.
Every smaller spider stopped. For one heartbeat the entire pasture went still. Then they moved together. That was when I understood the larger one wasn't merely part of the swarm. It was directing it.
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Several came for me. Others didn't. They turned toward the house. Toward the truck. Toward Kira.
Leona: "Mom!"
Elara appeared in the doorway carrying another box.
Elara: "What?"
Leona: "Keep packing! Faster!"
She saw the thing crossing the pasture and froze.
Elara: "Leona—"
Leona: "Mom, inside! Get everything you can and get ready to leave!"
The first small Progeny reached the truck. Six came out from underneath it at full speed and rammed the creature sideways before it could climb into the rear compartment. One descended from the truck roof a second later, its damaged leg making the landing ugly but not stopping it, and both drones intercepted the next pair trying to reach Kira. Metal legs struck chitin.
Six drove one spider beneath a tire while One caught another against the truck body, stabbing repeatedly until it stopped moving. They were homemade machines built in my bedroom, damaged, underpowered and never intended to fight a biological swarm. They fought anyway.
Leona: "One! Six! Guard Kira and the house!"
Their programming recognized the zones. Six repositioned near the truck. One limped toward the porch, optic sweeping across the yard.
The larger Progeny watched all of it. Then its red eyes turned toward me. The pressure behind my forehead deepened. Recognition. Not of my face. Of what was underneath it.
I felt the Matriarch somewhere far behind that creature, it was a individual but also with a hive connection to the matriarch or something. My skin crawled.
Leona: "Yeah. I don't like you."
I glanced back at the house. Mom was moving again. Good. Kira was still mostly unconscious in the truck. Less good. The swarm was already reaching our farm, which meant the evacuation window I'd imagined having was rapidly becoming fictional. I dropped the pretense.
Four black limbs tore free from beneath my borrowed shirt and unfolded around me, stretching wide for the first time beneath open sky. The fabric split along my back as they locked into position. Electricity crawled from my shoulders through the chitin, thin blue-white arcs jumping between their tips while I rolled Dad's bent metal staff once through my hand.
The car-sized creature recoiled. Only slightly. Then its mouth opened wider.
The smaller spiders rushed forward. I lowered the staff.
Leona: "Fine."
Electricity snapped along the metal.
Leona: "Let's find out what I built."