Once more Malcolm found himself standing on the edge of the fungal pit in his backyard. Once more he stared down into that strange, infinite void.
“It’ll be okay.” He told himself. “I’ve been down there already.”
He tightly gripped a duffle bag, closed his eyes, and leapt.
Once more he felt the walls constrict around him. Once more he felt his lungs being squeezed and felt as if he were going to pass out. Warm air flooded into his lungs, and he felt a claustrophobic panic quickly welling up within the deepest depths of his mind.
Yet as before, the fleshy walls expanded and he continued his descent into the bowels of the Earth.
When he landed, he withdrew a small light and pointed it toward the ceiling. The duffle bag was heavy, but he wouldn’t need to carry it far.
The tunnels seemed to be breathing. Pale spider-crabs scuttled around the shallow canals. Everything seemed to be the same, more energetic, perhaps, save for some red vine-like growths that formed nets on many of the walls. Those were new. Last time they visited, those growths had been far deeper in the tunnel.
He ignored them. He focused on his plan. He had one last Hail Mary.
“Malcolm?” Lori asked, stepping out from the fungal walls.
“Not now.”
“Malcolm, what’s going on? You weren’t in your room. What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to kill you.” He said.
“Oh Malcolm…You’ve already tried that. You know it won’t work.”
“This will.” He said.
Lori looked at the duffle bag. “What’s in there?”
“You’ll see.”
She sighed. “Mind if I follow you?”
He didn’t really want one of his enemies in tow…And yet he knew she’d do nothing to stop him. Indeed, if it came down to it, she may even help him should the need arise.
He grunted, and the two continued down the long corridor in silence. He continually scanned the ceiling for what he thought he remembered seeing…Until, after some distance, the innocuous object came into view. He quickly ran toward it, then stood beneath it.
A pipe.
A pipe with running water.
A water main? Sewage? The latter would be far more disgusting, but might also be more effective.
He opened the duffle bag and began extracting two-foot lengths of lumber. Using a drill, he fastened them together into a makeshift ladder.
Lori watched. “You know I can help, right?”
He grunted.
She sighed, and all at once he felt the ground around him beginning to rise. For a second he thought the tunnel was defending itself, and would squish him between the floor and ceiling like a bug…
…But it stopped a few feet from the pipe. The living floors had elevated him right to where he needed to be.
He stared down at Lori. She gave him a smile.
“Thanks.” He grunted.
“You’re welcome.”
She stared up at him, transfixed as he removed a metal grinder from the bag. By far this was the heaviest single component. It felt awkward and ungainly in his hands.
He pressed it against the pipe and turned it on. He nearly lost control, but he pulled back and repositioned it and it began throwing off white and red and orange sparks of metal. It was hard work, but soon the cut began to grow deep.
Water began to drip. A smell filled the air.
Sewage.
He tried not to gag, and instead focused singularly on his task. A high-pressure spray began to coat his hands and body with fowl brown water. This time he did gag, but he didn’t throw up.
“Malcolm?!” He could hear Lori shout.
He ignored her.
He was exhausted. He smelled bad. He was on the verge of hurling.
The water soon started gushing, and every part of him that had remained dry suddenly became soaked. He felt it in his hair. He smelled it in his nose. He tasted it in his mouth. He gagged, but kept cutting.
“Malcolm!”
Again he ignored her words.
He continued cutting. He eventually cut halfway through the pipe. He pulled out the grinder and moved it so he could remove a wedge-shaped chunk…That would certainly be enough.
It was a difficult task. It required a lot of energy. It was one of the worst things he’d ever had to do. Cutting…Sprayed nonstop by pressurized feces…Coated in human waste…
…And after ten minutes he felt the second cut give way. The wedge-shaped cut disappeared as the volume of sewage spraying out of the pipe multiplied.
He didn’t smile as he slid down the incline to join his clone-sister…He was far too disgusted to smile, yet even with his dim flashlight, he could tell that he’d greatly polluted the canals. The water was growing unmistakably dark, and the pale crabs were nowhere in sight.
“Malcolm, that was so stupid and reckless!” She hissed.
This time he did smile. “Afraid I might’ve just found a way to destroy you?”
“Of course not…I was afraid you were going to hurt yourself.” She grabbed the tool in his hand and stowed it away in the duffle bag. “Come on. I’ll carry this. We need to get you back home so you can get a shower and a good night’s sleep.”
“Aren’t you worried all this sewage will damage you?” Malcolm asked. He was beginning to feel as if he’d ruined his night in vain.
“Don’t be stupid!” Lori hissed. “The colony will take care of whatever mess this causes. We’re fungal-based, remember? We break down waste for fun.”
felt the bottom falling out from his stomach. Forget ruining his night, Lori’s words basically ruined his entire future. There was no way to kill the Mycelloid colony…They’d won. They were the new caretakers of Earth.
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” Malcolm asked with a small, pitiful voice.
“I haven’t yet.” Lori responded. “I don’t intend to start.”
Malcolm closed his eyes. He didn’t want to ask the question for fear of the answer…But he had to know…
“Is it possible for me to defeat you?”
“Defeat us…You keep speaking of us as if we were adversaries. Why should-”
“You know what I mean! Is it possible for me to kill all of you and make you go away?”
Lori took her time responding.
“An honest answer?” She asked.
“Yes.” Malcolm squeaked.
“Nothing.” She said at last. “Even if every last human on Earth unified against us, the Mycelloid colonies branch deep into the Earth, beyond the range of your influence. We’d simply wait until your destructive habits killed a large portion of you off before reemerging…And that’s assuming you’re even able to damage us to the point we’d need to retreat. In truth, even if you seeded every one of our tunnels with your worst poisons and most bombastic explosives, I doubt you could manufacture weapons of war faster than we could recover from them.”
“And even still, you wouldn’t fight back.” Malcolm wasn’t asking…By now he understood. “We could aim all our hate at you, and you’d passively deflect it with friendly subservience.”
Lori nodded. “There’d be no point in us fighting. Yes, we could wait you out and weather every attack you could possibly throw at us, but I think that’s wholly unnecessary. I can’t imagine your people would be happy seeing countless hours of news footage of aggressive humans attacking peaceful Mycelloids. The morale that cradles your collective psyches would falter, and I expect many could not tolerate being so bloodthirsty for so long… And even still, there’s little reason to believe humans will raise much resistance in the first place. Our existence offers too many conveniences to too many. We can be servants and scientists in ways humans never could. When it comes to war, who would willingly attack the ones propping up their civilization?”
“No one.” Malcolm’s words were hushed, his voice and spirit broken.
“Exactly.” Lori agreed in almost a whisper. “We offer an easy life, and there will always be people willing to trade anything for an easy life. You’ve seen that for yourself.”
“Lori didn’t.” Malcolm muttered. “She wanted to go out on her own terms.”
“She wanted to escape hardship more than anyone.”
Malcolm remained silent. He allowed his clone-sister to lead him through the cave and to the bottom of the pit. He barely struggled as the fleshy walls constricted around him and began pulsing in such a way that he was jettisoned upward.
He landed on the back lawn in a wet, slimy mess.
“Go get a shower, and I’ll make you some hot soup.” Lori said, emerging from the pit behind him.
He didn’t fight the request. He trudged upstairs, caring little for the mess he left behind, shed his soiled clothes, climbed into the shower, and allowed warm water to run down his back and body. It felt good. He felt comfortable.
He put on his clothes and found his sister waiting for him by his bed. She had a hot bowl of hearty chicken soup filled with vegetables and tender white meat. He climbed into bed and began eating. It was good. He felt comfortable.
“How is it?” Lori asked.
“Delicious.”
After eating more than his fill, he handed Lori the bowl and tucked himself into bed. He slept more soundly than he ever had. Warm…Safe…
…
“Are you awake?”
“Yeah.”
Malcolm’s clone-mom softly sat at the foot of his bed. He didn’t look up at her.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay.” It wasn’t entirely a lie…Physically, he felt quite content.
“You take all the time you need.”
“All the time…” He repeated. “And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
Malcolm sat up, causing several of the blankets to fall off his chest. “Let’s say I agree to…Agree to be cloned. Then what?”
“Then you spend the rest of your life in pure bliss.”
“But is that it?”
His clone-mom cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean ‘is that it’? Isn’t that good enough?”
“What about struggles? Goals? What about bettering myself?”
She smiled. “You’ll never need to worry about that ever again.”
Malcolm nodded. “I thought as much.” He placed his head back on the pillow. “I think I’d like some time alone.”
His clone-mom affectionately squeezed his calf through the blankets before rising and leaving him alone once more.
Alone with his thoughts…Uncomfortable thoughts…Thoughts devoid of bliss…Thoughts he could choose to get rid of forever.
“A life with no struggle.”
He let the phrase sink in.
“A life with no struggle.”
This time the statement sounded more like a threat than a promise.
“No struggle.”
And then he decided.
He fought against the warm embrace of the blankets, rose to his feet, and began packing an assortment of clothes and goods into his backpack.
“Luckily it’s still Summer.” He murmured. “Still have some time.”
His backpack didn’t contain much, but it had enough. He opened his window and carefully lowered himself onto the front lawn before setting off. When he got to the end of the street he looked back at his house one last time before turning his back on it forever.
He knew that life would be a struggle for some time, but he’d been given the choice, and was happy to take some hardships and uncertain victories over an existence of pure peace.
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