Langses, Master of Scarabs

Realistic Transmutation

They lined the hallway dishevelled, despondent; like customers in a queue outside the most miserable fruitshop on earth. From beyond the doors of the terrasium the murmurings of the countless technicians could be heard, but most of the men here in the dim-lit corridor, however, were sighing conflicts to each other or flicking their fingers against the cool, disinfected air, eyes bulging and easing with the stark fact of the upcoming event. A few sobbed standing or sitting down against the wall with sage-like realization of their fate.

Thony Langses chose to spend his final moments with memories of Hara and the many world-sized dreams they had pursued, their souls complete, secure. That was a long time ago now, but her effect and affection had never left him, and it gave this time in his life a startling, near feeling, even though an unmarked grave now separated them.

Grimacing, he realized that even he, a soon to be executed criminal, would receive more respect in death from this pantomime government than Hara would ever know. And Hara had been one of the greatest scientist he had ever met in all his thirty years as a bio-engineer.

Fair is a fate for the fortunate, he thought, remembering the terrible journey Hara had had to take before college had even begun, and the vicious way her body had been concluded. It sent sparks of sorrow, of rage, of-

“I'm gunna f**k you up!” roared a man from the back, disturbing Langses' last chance at tranquillity, and soon a scuffle broke out. Langses heard the breezy sound of turning heads behind him as the other's crooned to look, but he kept his own attention set straight ahead. The small-framed man in front seemed lost in his own world as well, for he never even flinched.

Scuffed shoes clicked across the cold concrete as the guards rushed fourth to break up the weary confrontation.

 

“Just wait a few seconds,” one of them yelled through clenched teeth. “And you can eat each other alive.”

This seemed to calm them and the rest of the short wait proceeded as before, till finally the guard at the top of the pile muttered something into his shoulder, nodded, and, with booming lungs, croaked out the last warning. Then the door slid aside and the prisoners were ordered through the opening.

The scale of the interior was without precedent. The roof above was almost beyond visibility, and the entire wall to the right was a one-way mirror behind which a stadia of 'fans' cheered, cackled, and postulated. All noise was cut off entirely by the sound-proofing, so a sinister silence followed the prisoners to their stations. Between the audience and the row of stations lay the actual terrasium, a patch of grassland six metres by six with transparent fencing, packed with an amalgam of plants, and almost pulsing with life. Langses' focus was fixed here when a shimmering object caught his attention. Two blue spheres in his periphery held within them all the nostalgia of his lateral life.

Hara was sat at one of the tech-stations, her face long and pale, unmasked by torrents of emotion.

Darting her eyes back and forth, she sought a second to scurry, to speak, to help. But there'd be no opportunity.

Tears brimmed on the lids of the shocked Langses, then trickled down his thin cheeks as the view became obscured by a stage-tech arriving to secure the simplistic-looking equipment to the convict.

On the crown a gauze was placed to emit and then synchronize brainwaves between the inmate fighter and the insect host. A range of cables flowed around the chairs at the stations like overly-protective snakes from another planet, and a screen floated just above and to the right of each chair.

When the stage-technician stepped to set up the screen by Langses, Hara's beautiful disbelief once again revealed itself.

“Any ideas what species you want?” asked the kind-faced, bald technician.

Langses watched Hara; she placed three fingers to her chest. Even with the unthinkable terror about to erupt, he knew what that meant. Without turning from the view of his ghost wife, he said, “scarab.”

The stage-tech paused, shook his head. “I'll give you one more chance to change your mind,” he said, but Langses ignored him.

Hara was now trembling visibly, realizing the scene before her. After all the years of separation, these few seconds would probably be there last. No explanations, no excuses...and the void would forever be a vortex.

“Right, all set,” said the stage-tech, and went to leave. “I just have to say Mr. Langses, I don't agree with everything you said at the hearing, some of it was just crazy-fucked-up...but I know you're heart was in the right place...” He went to turn again, but instead leaned in closer, almost eye-to-eye, and whispered, “those smug-fuckers deserved to die...” he stepped back, raised his voice, said “good luck!” and paddled off down the aisled steps along with several of his colleagues.

When Hara came back into view again, she was crying silently, nodding. Langses knew in that nod there whispered the promise that she'd be there if he got back. She then stood unsteadily to her feet, turned, and walked slowly away to a side-entrance.

Before he could even half-comprehend what had just happened, a low growling noise began and the enormous barrier in front of them began to descend. The sound-proofing remained; only the sight behind the screen was shown. Langses' three solicitors could find no reason for this ceremonial unveiling of the crowd. But Langses didn't need three solicitors to know that it was purely to enlist fear, to heighten entertainment through the sheer terror in the convicts' reactions. And it was a good trick.

Aisles upon aisles, row after row, reaching up higher and higher evading human vision, they stood or sat, some clapping and pointing; others watching wearily with pity in their eyes.

The most disturbing aspect of the unveiling was the utmost silence despite the raving activity beyond. Langses knew from the display that the place was bustling, could nearly feel the vibrancy of their excitement, but the only noises were that of the strapped-down inmates, cursing, calling, crying out.

The mortal deceleration came in the form of a drilling buzzer that clawed the bones and poked the heart. With just three seconds before Transit, Langses could not even imagine being inside the body of an insect, let alone controlling one with enough skill to save his life. But with one second to go he thought of Hara, of answers, and he knew he had to survive.

A spark of light blinded his eyes and he shut them automatically. His whole being sizzled from inside with some current not electric. This reverberation stretched to his bones and, much to Langses' horror, it seemed even to reach the soul. Finally, an alluring sphere of white filled his mind, sent smooth tendrils of peace throughout his form. His next experience of life would be as a species almost alien, on a plain dimensions apart.

2

Shimmering yellow above. Totally quiet. A row of bristled arrays poked forward from his body; one twitched against the soil. Amazingly, the beetle's body felt heavy when Langses tried to move. When the peripheral curtain of green wavered slightly he thrust ahead and moved with incredible agility. Three quick tremors cut the soil and Langses the Scarab stopped short in his stride. Eyed his environment. Thrilling above the panic, this unique animal viewpoint could only excite Langses, but visions of Hara calmed his team of legs " answers alone was reason to live.

The ground trembled again and a shadow appeared to the left. Langses pivoted but saw only a fat blimp-like fly receding on its path high up in the fake blue sky. Langses forced himself away from the dazzlement of experiencing this alternate reality, and returned his focus to the conflict in front.

Before he had a chance to take stock of weaponry something surged rapidly from the left again. Only a glimpse was had before the thing was on him, its manic mandibles chopping and slicing. Langses tilted swiftly, dipped his heavy head low to protect the soft organics, and when he felt a faint hesitation, he lashed out viciously, rays and all.

With stark clarity he felt his claws shred the flesh of his opponent, heard the slapping crunch of bone when he sunk his gnarled fangs in. The grasshopper twisted, rose up almost tearing his own body apart, and Langses' loose grip was undone. The aposematic warrior then crouched down on his spindly legs and shot up into the sky, vanishing in an instant to some far away creek in this miniature forest.

The stunned scarab stood still for a few seconds in shock. He knew another predator could arrive at any moment and he had no qualms about killing the others - they were all murderers at least, and most were much worse - but the pressure of survival was now mountainous in the wake of the mute reunion, the stakes raised by magnitudes.

Wait it out, he thought, settling back into a shade of weeds. Leave them kill each other one by one, and I'll take my chances with the last bug standing. Even at the time he knew this was wishful thinking. The battlefield had a generous peppering of hiding places but this secrecy was just an illusion. In truth, no place here was safe; people didn't watch the Wars to see ants and spiders play hide and seek.

From his outpost shrub, Langses assessed the land visible from this angle. If only he had-

A harangue of sirens wailed through the air.

Given his current earless condition, Langses could only feel the broken resonance, but he knew that the source of the sound was artificial. This revelation seemed preposterous; over the past three weeks every detail of the event had been scrutinised by his gang of solicitors and there was no mention of a noise like this, except…….

3

Flickers of purple light gently illuminated the walls of the ward. Langses, however, awoke showered in darkness; only traces of the exterior violet could be seen floating up from beneath the door like mystic mist. His throat and chest were heavy from many hours of breathing in the toxins of the segregated dorm. A pin of discomfort told of nearby saline. Parched head resting on the sweat-damp pillow.

“Hello?” he called, and the room lit up immediately. Langses shut his eyes, cringing. The worst headache of his life began to spark dark agony in his skull. He could feel the blinding light beyond his lids, and knew that short glimpses were needed to appreciate the scene in its entirety, but before he could get his bearings a male-mechanical voice announced, “prisoner 3379G, Dr Czersky will be here in under four minutes.”

A cleft in the headboard slid out with a faint him revealing a small plastic cup of warm, tepid water. Langses drank it down in one gulp, placed it back in the holder, and sat up. Compared to the cell back in Hollow Grove, the private dorm was degrees above-

Hara!

He had seen her before the savagery began and it wasn't a hallucination, he could tell. But how was that even possible? He had examined the details of her death at length, yet he was positive that it was Hara he had seen. She had made the sign, three fingers across the heart; the joke cult signal they had made on their first date while discussing radical new theories on the heritage of the oddball Pharaoh Akhenaten. So it had to be her.

And now that he was free, he could finally understand what happened. But then, was he free?

The so-called 'Accident Survivors Clause' allowed a combatant victory if the other remaining fighters killed each other simultaneously. However, this only applied if said combatant had killed at least one opponent.

Did I kill that grasshopper? thought Langses, fear filling up his senses. The mere idea of returning to that death-ring of marauding crawlers gave Langses a grim suit of sweat. A flash of the recent encounter: two bulging blobs of black and the wry, demented face of a murderous grasshopper, the harsh bitterness of the soil on a tongue-like body. The futuristic blue-bottle like an alien shuttling toward a rose-bush constellation.

“How are you feeling?”

Langses rattled in the bed; he had not heard the mousy doctor open or close the door.

“I wanna talk to my solicitors.”

“No problem,” said the doctor, “after I've assessed your well-being.”

Biting the flesh of his inner jaw, Langses nodded.

“First off,” said the doctor taking a seat adjacent, “you haven't earned your freedom yet. Prisoner 66S survived your attack on him and was later devoured by a woodlouse I believe.”

He studied Langses resignation, then consulted with the tablet in his hand.

“So where does that leave me?” asked Langses, glaring at the screen of pixelated hillsides hanging behind recently sterilized curtains. A long unprofessional silence proceeded before the doctor looked up and said, “that'd be up to the state...but from what I know of the Accidental Survivors Clause is that a public vote is implemented.”

“A vote on what?”

“On whether you should be sent back in or set free.”

“So there's a chance I'll be let go?” said Langses, sitting back, his eyes quietly misting.

“Of course,” said the neutral doctor, “if you think the general public feel a momentary encounter with an insect sufficient punishment for the crimes you've committed...then why not?”

A smile, not completely devious, dawned his squirrelly, intelligent face.

4

Back in the dismal, familiar cell inside which he'd spent the last eight years, Langses mulled over the brief discussion with his flock of legal aids prior to leaving the terrasium's medical ward. Nothing new of value was established; the nutshell definition of his position relayed by the rodentesque physician had done the dire job. Regarding Hara: an unprecedented vibe had warned him not to tell even his most trusted advisors of her emergence. This conspiratorial feeling had not been felt since the moment during his trial when the evidence gleamed a certain way and he saw for the first time the heartless glow of his framing.

In his cell, he waited for the black-frosting barrier to clear, for the guard to be standing there, declaring immanent chaos. Hours passed, days. Solicitors came and went in packs or alone, their faces haggard from the weight of many sleepless nights in political limbo. Langses' crimes had been spiritual, the fact that his so-called 'manifesto' had led to the deaths of four people were not taken into consideration at the trial so his cell was blank and boring, but comfortable enough. However, a jacuzzi could not have distracted him from this purgatory of unknowing. He needed wildly to find out.

About Hara, about his very freedom.

Every time a food-tray dropped from the chute or a schedule siren sounded out, he thought it was the resounding announcement of his fate.

“Owlreach Media are milking the publicity,” one of his solicitors had said, “viewership went up five points when you picked the scarab….what the hell were you thinking?”

But Langses had kept his mouth shut, trailing away as he had so often done since seeing Hara's angelic face after so many years. All the memories he had thought long-lost broke free again forming vast hurricanes in his head.

And then out of one such hurricane, within a mist there formed the clearing image of Hara, his wife, his soul. He had to blink a few times at the miraculous sight of her. She was close to tears again, as she stood, almost swaying behind the now-deshrouded barrier.

“Just listen to me,” she said in a calm, unyielding manner. The last time he had heard her speak like this they had been nineteen and twenty respectively, and she was half-joking about how she could get away with murdering and concealing the body of doctor Gurning, their ethics lecturer. But this time the containment of emotions was not for comic effect; it was eerily functional.

“Are you listening,” she asked, her pale blue eyes fierce in the glare.

Langses nodded, but couldn't stand up.

“I thought you-”

 

Hara hushed him and the fragile wave of her hand gave the timeline away.

“Tomorrow, you're going back into the terrasium,” she said, “pick the scarab again, and when you do…” she eyed the cell suspiciously, chose her words carefully, said, “choose the sky.”

“Choose the sky?” he echoed. And then the murky fog started to muddle up the barrier, but just before it fully blackened he saw several armed guards intercept and then arrest his wife.

He stayed up all night in a manic mess; he was sure that he would never see her again, that all chances of answers had now disbanded. However, he would see her the following morning strapped to a station awaiting brainwave manipulation alongside the other convicts.

Then, later: floating calmly, knowingly, on soft-coloured wings toward death.

5

Much sooner than Langses expected, the morning guard arrived informing him of his impending re-entry into the creepy-crawly warzone. Afterwards Langses asked about the woman who had been in the corridor the night before, but of course he kept the details at a distance. However, the guard only muttered, “what woman?” and moved on.

Langses was led out first, which was unusual, and had to stand in the corridor as the others were awakened and ordered from their cells. He kept glancing back but only the frightened eyes of tired deadmen met his gaze, their withdrawn expressions bleak even under thunderous illumination.

He didn't really know what he was looking for, surely not Hara? There'd have to be a trial first, and that would take at least a week yet he continued to crane back, expectant.

The routine was carried out as before: a leading guard called out, all men stiffened with terror or anticipation, and the doors opened. As soon as the whooshing graphene slid aside, Langses saw the row of heightened stations. Hara was propped in one, limp, eyes closed, face vacant. He stopped dead in his skulk causing the nervous man behind him to wince upon the mild contact. A guard cursed Langses as he made his way over.

“We don't have all day, Mr Langses, hurry the f**k up.”

“What's that woman doing here,” Langses demanded.

The guard gave a grotesque grin that all but said, 'dying again, because of you, you stupid b*****d.'

“Special case,” he said, “now come on, if we're late for the televised opening, I'll be on the dole by this time tomorrow...”

“You're asking me to walk to my death...in a more timely fashion?”

“There's worse fates than death and the Wars here in Hollow Grove,” said the guard, annoyed, and was about to facilitate Langses' journey with force but Langses saw the approach and proceeded forward without encouragement, all the while staring helplessly over at Hara.

At his station Langses six seats down he looked down on the terrasium and the fragility of Hara's life-force both fascinated and disturbed him. She was in there somewhere, he thought, scurrying around petrified, trapped inside God knows what. I have to find her, protect her. I'm going to make sure she gets out of this in one piece, if it's the last thing I do. And, he knew it probably would be.

With the last of the sanity he had in reserves, he remembered what she had said to him just hours before. Choose the sky. He knew from exhausting research that the ceiling of the terrasium was highly charged, and fatal to any flying object. So what could she possibly mean?

In the few remaining moments before insertion into the Field, Langses sifted through his entire relationship with Hara, trying to find anything that would help clarify these three words, but no references surfaced. And then the bald, merry stage-technician arrived again.

“Wow,” he said, skimming his fingers across the set-up screen. “I'm in the presence of a warrior.”

Langses was leaning back in the chair, to see behind the floating screen. Hara was still slumped in the chair, well, her body anyway. But her true being was now chained to some minuscule beast, and he found himself rocking in the seat, urging the tech to hurry up. The hairless worker chuckled.

“You should've been a wrestler,” he said, “what form would you like this time?”

“Scarab,” said Langses. The guard's grin diminished to a concerned o.

“Listen mate, you got lucky last time, you can't rely on that to happen again.”

“It's not up to me,” said Langses and turned his head back to the battlefield to indicate that his mind had been made up.

Soon, the degenerate reverberation of the sky-sized border lowered revealing that vile, applauding audience again. Manic faces chanting, raving, but the room here quiet, so quiet. And then they were gone, cut off by the big black barrier. Drenched with sweat, he awaited return to the circus of strange consumptions. With one last glance he promised Hara's absent vessel that she would wake again, that he would kill the nightmare on her behalf.

His eyes closed against consent and once again, Langses became the scarab.

6

Knife lights in his tiny sun-sensing eyes. The grainy prickle of sand on his many pointed feet. This time there was no opportunity to assess his altered form; a creature he had never seen before came lashing out of some nearby overgrowth, and lunged at him. The thing was all eyes and fangs, it seemed. Definitely a spider of sorts, it towered above him, trying to suck the life out of him and into its cold, dark abyss. Langses' insect instincts kicked in and the golden wings on his chrome-coloured back flickered into life. He was sure he saw a startled expression in the gaping face-hole of the arachnid, not unlike the scowling grasshopper. Langses the Scarab rose a few inches from the dirt, wings blurring rapidly, and prodded two of his razored mandibles down, one in the monsters beading eye-socket, the other poked straight through the spider's delicate head-flesh. The thing staggered back, letting loose its sickly grip just in time for Langses to land a few scaled paces away. Staying airborne required too much energy and he knew it would only happen in short, infrequent blasts...if he was lucky.

An uncharacteristic vein of violence sparked into life, and he met the soil at a dash. Again, that look of astonishment came over the giant spider's scouring-pad face, and it actually held up it's legs like so many fictional villains killed in the first acts of B-movies. This time Langses struck out with a barrage of sword-like protrusions, ripping, slicing, stabbing. Clotty goops of green wicked his instruments as he aimed for the brain over and over and over, till finally Goliath collapsed in a heap of breathless meat.

Langses' eyes were filled with tears, not the insects eyes, or even the eyes back on his own body; but the eyes inside the soul that see what the body cannot. He had just killed someone, and for all he knew it could have been Hara. Although, intuition counselled otherwise.

A black object moved at slow speed right by him and it took Langses a few seconds to realize it was the passing shadow of something fluttering above. It was too high to see but he decided to follow anyway, or rather, was led by the eccentric magnetism of the flying animal.

Up and over a grike he went, his little legs lapping against the brambles. Atop, he saw the source of the shadow, a magnificent butterfly soaring slowly, effortlessly, like some organic vimana. He knew beyond a doubt this heavenly being was Hara, and he scampered with more haste toward whatever fate awaited.

Not long into the journey he was intercepted by two similar creepers with high, probing antennae and thick, gelatinous eyes. They seemed to be working in concert; one slowly approached from the front while the other began to flank him on the right. Shedding all fear by way of desperation, Langses attacked first, whipping his rays forward like a tiny aggrieved octopus, but the onslaught only mildly discouraged the bizarre creature. While Langses was making his move, the other, circling insect slashed out with its own furry tentacles, but the occupier evidently had not gotten used to the bug under his control because the invading rays flung over his head and then slid painlessly down the side of Langses' glistering body, grotesquely tickling. The mighty scarab then upped the entire initiative by quickly rising from the dust, hovering for a moment as a thin mist formed in the wake of his lairy wings, then dropping down fast on one of the assailants, jaws clamping up and down.

He heard a distinctive crunch and thought the target's skull had imploded between his fangs but it was only the sound of a partial facial collapse and when Langses returned to the soil he was attacked from both angles. A slobbering nook of nails tightened around one of his primary claws and tried to rip it off, but Langses slapped the thing on its shiny head, stunning it long enough for him to detach. However, he was not so lucky with one of his legs.

The second perpetrator hugged itself to the scarab and, when it felt secure in its grip, bit down hard on the bloody sinew sending sparks of agony throughout his small frame. The little beast then backed up a few paces, tearing Langses leg off. Even above his own formidable howl of agony, Langses could hear the sound: a damp match striking a nail-file. The thing grinned with the withered leg still in its mouth like a green rose in a groom's grimacing lips. In the same moment an enormous shadow covered the whole area and the majestic monarch dropped swiftly onto the unsuspecting leg-muncher's oblong head, piercing its brain with two long claws.

The second bug scurried toward Hara's butterfly but Langses cut it off with a sweep of its mandible and the bug curtailed to fight. Whether through adrenaline or his generic need to live, Langses found more energy in store than he ever could have hoped for; within seconds he had the bug on its side, legs lashing lazily, as Langses chomped and chewed its face, feeling the slimy innards of the defeated. When he came out of this murderous rage, Hara was hovering just above him and to the left, her compound gaze intense. She then swooped down, agile as the air itself, and bit him softly on the top of his skull. Astonished, Langses staggered back, waiting to see-

 

Thony can you hear me?

Langses eyed the floating apparition above him, saw the light trigger a million visions in his periphery.

Thony, you have to focus, if you can hear me, answer…

...yes, I can hear you...

good, then follow me…

And with that, the butterfly rose up, up, peaceful, devout, toward the sizzling fence in the sky, flapping wondrously amid the entertained screams of distant observers.

Without hesitation, Langses tucked his remaining legs into the soil, wincing at the pulses of pain, then boosted himself into the sky, gold wings glinting in the ominous glow of countless miniature cameras. His body felt too heavy to sustain flight for long, but every time he wavered to the weight, the soaring promise above him lent unknown energies to his soul.

How can I hear you?

Save your energy.

Through the fence? We'll both die.

Nothing ever dies.

Langses dared look down and saw the unspeakable combat below: creatures born in conflict, helpless perpetrators doomed to fight or scurry for insane, secret reasons. Freaks by design, bred to breed and burdened, brains condensed, controlled. Killing each other for closure they'll never get from violence. And Langses felt the fence approaching, could nearly feel death's bony grasp on his mutated form.

We're almost there, keep following, please...choose the sky…

I don't understand how I can hear you, are animals psy-

A large zap rung out above and Hara fell from the sky, wings upturned, curled in.

Hara! What have you done?

The butterfly dipped by him, her face relieved, serene. Suddenly, Langses understood.

He did not wait to watch the butterfly fall to the ground, for he knew it to be but a body.

Choose the sky

He knew now why she had faked her death, why she had failed to emerge from the murk….and why she had come back to save him: her knowledge. Her truths. Her plans.

Crashing upward, his zimmering wings frantic, blood streaming like a hovering waterfall, Langses approached the burnt opening where the martyr had just struck, and zoomed through to the musty-feeling hall.

With his limited sight only the faint flash of the alarm could be seen in the far off distance. Langses was headed in the opposite direction, to the heating vents by the tech-station where Hara awaited, dressed as a beautiful Brimstone butterfly.

7

Thirteen days later all three watchtowers on the south-facing wall of Hollow Grove Correctional reported seeing mass insect migration heading their way. Within a few minutes the radios went silent; no screaming, no calls for help. Shortly after, the prison was invaded by wave after wave of monarch butterflies and a species of scarab beetle long-thought extinct. There were no deaths that day, nor indeed in any of the Global metamorphosis that ensued; the guards on duty were removed quietly from afar.

Deserving inmates were distraught in their cells upon hearing of their continued imprisonment. Others were released in states of shock and gratitude. Workers bowed in awe at the synchronous insects overpowering the facility without a single flake of flesh or bead of blood. And Hollow Grove would only be the first.

Mere hours afterwards, all morphic-technology had been destroyed, worldwide.

The last witness account of a mass-sighting was at the Muon Corporation laboratory in which the original morphic generator had been built. The building was burnt to the ground amid a swarm of scarabs and monarchs. Not one injury occurred, of course. The security guard, the last person to ever see this revolution-inspiring miracle of nature, stated, “I don't know how it's possible that I could tell but, at least two of them were smiling.”

END

 

Kealan Coady July, 2015