Battle of the Beetles Read online

  Lucretia Cutter wheeled around to face him. ‘No!’

  Gerard froze.

  ‘You will stay away from the girl. You are sentimental, Gerard, I have seen it in your eyes when you look at her. You are not to go near her any more.’

  Gerard took two steps back and bowed his head.

  Barty looked at Novak. Her face was blank, expressionless.

  Lucretia turned to her bodyguard and chauffeur, who lightly leapt down from the pilot’s seat. ‘Ling Ling, take the girl to the cells.’

  Novak stood up, getting down from the helicopter and walking past the French butler without giving him a glance. He held out the umbrella as she passed and she took it.

  The door opened beside Barty. Mawling grabbed his arm, yanking him down to the ground.

  ‘Thanks for the assistance,’ Barty glared up at the muscle-bound wrestler in his black vest and unbuttoned camo shirt, ‘but I’m quite capable of walking.’ He was going to say more, but the view silenced him. At the end of the helipad clearing, nestled amongst the luminous greens of rainforest foliage, rose a giant dome constructed from glass and steel hexagons. It reached up into the canopy of trees, the size of a stadium. Barty spotted one, then more, satellite domes arranged at a distance from the main building. He stood staring in wonder as a river of rain fell out of the sky and soaked him to his skin.

  Mawling grunted and gave him a shove. Barty stumbled forward, Lucretia fell into step beside him. ‘What do you think?’ she gurgled. ‘Isn’t it the perfect place for a laboratory?’

  ‘It’s incredible,’ he whispered.

  She stalked towards the dome, eagerly, and Barty hurried after her. ‘It’s invisible from above,’ she declared. ‘And what you can see,’ she waved her hand at the dome, ‘is just the tip of the iceberg. Two-thirds of the facility is below ground.’

  ‘Two-thirds?’ Bartholomew looked about him, incredulous. There was no obvious entrance to the Biome. Plants and impossibly tall kapok trees, centuries old, grew thick between the central dome and the six smaller outer domes.

  When Lucretia Cutter reached the edge of the landing pad, a rectangular hole the size of a van opened up in the ground. An invisible grass-covered door sank down and slid out of sight to reveal a sloping tunnel. Lights flickered on as Lucretia Cutter lurched down the incline.

  Barty followed her out of the torrential rain and on to a floor of white stone. Inside the tunnel the walls were a glossy white polycarbonate, with a ceiling of tessellating lights. Ahead of them a giant hexagonal door lifted. Standing in the doorway was a tall man with spiky silver-blond hair, a humourless face and ice-blue eyes. He looked at Bartholomew Cuttle with undisguised hatred.

  ‘Henrik Lenka,’ Barty said, without extending his hand. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Arcadia

  Lucretia Cutter strode past Henrik Lenka, who turned his back on Barty and scurried along beside her. ‘Lucy, I’m so glad you’re home. I—’

  She silenced him with a wave of her hand. ‘Prepare the Hercules suite in the residence dome for Bartholomew. Make sure he’s comfortable. Get him whatever he asks for – and, Henrik – be nice to our guest.’

  Barty followed them, a pace or two behind.

  ‘The Hercules suite?’ Henrik snarled.

  ‘That’s what I said. Run along.’

  ‘But I need to hear what happened at the Film Awards? Did you do it?’

  ‘The wheat weevils have been released. The world has been notified. The Biome is on high alert and the beetle borgs have been sent up into the canopy of the cloud forest to watch the skies.’

  ‘Then I should be helping you, not fluffing up pillows for him.’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Barty.

  Lucretia Cutter grabbed Henrik Lenka by the collar with a chitinous claw, lifting him off the ground. ‘I wouldn’t allow you to be a part of the defence of this Biome if my life depended on it.’

  ‘Please! It was a mistake. What can I do to prove to you–’

  She dropped him and he stumbled backwards, falling to the floor. Pivoting on a claw, Lucretia lurched through another rising hexagonal door. Barty’s eyes lifted with it, and he found himself gazing into a green paradise of vegetation, flowers, beetles, birds and beasts.

  ‘Why did you bring him here?’ Henrik Lenka barked. ‘He’s not one of us. He’ll betray you.’

  ‘Like you did?’ Lucretia spat, glaring at him over her shoulder. He turned his face away from her scalding hatred. She waved a human hand at him. ‘Bartholomew is bound to be hungry after his long journey. Go to the kitchens and order him some food. Have it sent to his suite.’

  Henrik glared from Lucretia to Barty as he scrambled to his feet, and then stormed away.

  ‘Ling Ling, I want an update on the Biome’s status. We need to be ready for whatever comes our way.’

  Barty jumped as Ling Ling stepped forward beside him. He hadn’t realized she was there. She bowed and was gone.

  ‘So,’ Lucretia purred, ‘what do you think of my Arcadia dome?’

  ‘I, I, I don’t know what to say,’ Barty stammered. ‘It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Come this way.’ Lucretia slid a human arm through his and led him into the cavernous dome. ‘Once you’ve seen Arcadia, you’ll think Noah’s ark was nothing more than a row boat.’

  A river coursed through the vast space, bubbling up on one side of the structure and tumbling out of the other. On the near bank, he saw three huge river turtles, and across the water a family of giant otters.

  ‘Careful of the fire ants.’ Lucretia pointed, and Barty saw that his right foot was barely a centimetre from a bustling trail of Solenopsis, eviscerating everything in their path. ‘And don’t go for a swim, unless you fancy being nipped by predacious diving beetles or piranha.’

  ‘You made all of this?’ Barty said, his voice a breathless croak. ‘It’s unbelievable.’ With a tiny shake of his head, he turned his gaze upwards, to the steel and glass roof of transparent hexagons a hundred metres above him. The rainstorm had passed, grey mist was giving way to blue sky. ‘How long has this been here? How did you build this place? How did you plant it? How did you even get the land?’ The questions were tumbling out of his mouth, leaving no space for answers. ‘I mean, we’re in the Amazon! How did you even get permission?’

  ‘The Ecuadorian government got into a bit of debt,’ Lucretia replied. ‘They were considering selling a chunk of rainforest to the highest bidding petroleum company, for oil drilling. I stepped in, matched the highest bid, requested a smaller piece of land for my research, only a million hectares. I guaranteed no oil drilling and protection of the indigenous tribes who live here. They inherit the land upon my death.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you care about indigenous tribes.’ Barty couldn’t hide his surprise.

  ‘On the contrary.’ Lucretia looked away. ‘They are part of the ecosystem of the rainforest. I’m more than happy to protect them.’

  Barty was struck dumb by what he was hearing and seeing. He pulled his shoulders back, standing up straight. His head no longer felt heavy. The tiredness and aches from the long helicopter journey were gone. ‘So, where’s this famous laboratory you’ve been talking about?’

  ‘Here, in the Arcadia dome,’ Lucretia replied, looking amused. ‘And below us,’ she stamped a beetle claw on the dirt path, ‘is my insect farm.’

  ‘Insect farm? I’d like to see that. Are they all transgenic? I have to admit to being curious about the beetle borgs? What are they?’

  ‘One thing at a time, Bartholomew.’ Lucretia stepped off the path and swept aside a waterfall of hanging creepers to reveal the metallic doors of a lift. ‘You’re like a child in a sweet shop.’

  ‘It’s odd. I feel lighter, stronger . . .’ Bartholomew followed her into the lift, ‘. . . younger!’

  ‘It’s the oxygenized atmosphere in Arcadia. It’s set at thirty per cent.’

  ‘That’s nine per cent more than t
he earth’s atmosphere.’ Bartholomew gazed at Lucretia Cutter’s face, part human, part beetle. Compound eyes perched atop a human nose, descending into giant jaws, stunted mandibles and flailing palps, all sitting within a human skull. She wasn’t wearing her sunglasses and wig any more, there was no need to hide what she was. He gasped. ‘You’re bringing back giant insects!’

  ‘Ha! Hardly a brilliant deduction, seeing as the answer is staring you right in the face.’ She made a theatrical gesture to her own body as the lift doors opened. ‘Really, Bartholomew, do keep up.’

  Barty had to pick up his pace to match her long strides, and he marvelled at how much easier it was to jog in an oxygenated atmosphere. He felt great. ‘You like your hexagons.’

  ‘They are as close to magic as science gets,’ Lucretia replied. ‘Nature loves hexagons; just ask the bees. Or look into my eyes.’ She turned so he could see. ‘They’re constructed of hexagonal cells.’

  Barty moved closer to Lucretia. ‘They are beautiful,’ he said, his gaze unwavering as he studied her face.

  She froze, her neck retreating, pulling back from his stare. As the door rose behind her, Barty wondered if underneath all that chitin and bile she still harboured feelings for him. She’d done a good job of persuading him she had no feelings of any sort, but he thought he sensed a flicker.

  She spun away, stepping into the laboratory. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

  The laboratory was an open-plan hexagonal platform with only two solid walls. A silver balustrade, at waist height, separated the lab from the jungle of Arcadia. A young man, too skinny for his lab coat, stood at a sloped desk covered in dials and switches in front of a wall of toughened glass. A rectangular door of reinforced steel at the end of the desk was the only way into the room beyond the glass. Inside, Barty saw a cylindrical chamber that stretched from floor to ceiling. That must be the pupation chamber! He stared at the giant egg-like capsule suspended within the cylinder of fluid, his eyes following the spaghetti of wires and tubes making a nest at its base, and he wondered how it worked.

  ‘This is Spencer.’ Lucretia’s face was reflected in the polished white surface of the lab benches. ‘He’s the Biome lab assistant.’

  ‘Madame Cutter!’ Spencer bowed his head, blinking furiously through rectangular glasses. ‘You’re back!’

  ‘Spencer, this is Dr Bartholomew Cuttle. He has come to work with us. I want you to show him around and explain how we do things here. You will be assisting him.’

  ‘Yes, Madame,’ Spencer looked stunned as Barty shook his hand. ‘Pardon me, sir, but are you the Dr Bartholomew Cuttle?’

  ‘Yes, I believe I am,’ Barty replied, noticing a large dung beetle poking its head out of the breast pocket of Spencer’s lab coat.

  ‘It’s an honour to meet you, sir.’ Spencer smiled and cherubic cheeks sprouted like crab-apples beneath his spectacles. Barty thought how young he was – only a handful of years older than Darkus.

  ‘You must call me Barty.’ He put his hand on Spencer’s shoulder.

  ‘Enough,’ Lucretia declared. ‘There’s work to do.’

  Bartholomew winked at Spencer, then bounded after her.

  ‘The Biome is built on a hexagonal footprint,’ she said as she walked. ‘The Arcadia dome is designed to accommodate the river. We generate electricity from the current, and charge our power generators with it.’

  ‘You power the whole place using the river?’

  ‘We are on the edge of a waterfall. The current is strong, but no, we use solar power too.’

  ‘Impressive,’ Barty replied.

  ‘On each side of the Arcadia dome is a smaller dome connected by an underground corridor.’ She threw her hand up to indicate the one they were travelling through. ‘The ones you need to know about are the residence dome, the infirmary, and the supplies dome, which has a recreational space.’

  ‘Oh, do you have a ping-pong table?’ Barty smiled winningly at Lucretia. ‘I love ping-pong,’ He heard a stifled gasp from Spencer, but Lucretia ignored his impudence. ‘No ping-pong? That’s a shame. What’s in the other domes?’

  ‘One houses the security centre, power generators, facility controls and server room, one houses the prison cells and the refrigerators, and the last dome is mine.’

  As they turned the corner, Barty heard the rumble of cascading water then stopped dead as he saw the wall ahead was sheet glass. He was hit by the panoramic view of the rainforest. The Biome is high up, he thought, at least halfway up a mountain. The cloud forest was shrouded in mist, beautiful and wild, its secrets and mysteries a powerful magnet. He came right up to the glass and looked down at the thunderous waterfall tumbling hundreds of feet down the sheer cliff face at his feet.

  Spencer came to his side. ‘You never get used to it.’

  Ling Ling appeared along the corridor. Lucretia made it clear with a hand gesture that they were to stay where they were and went to talk to her.

  ‘Spencer,’ Barty hissed in an urgent whisper. ‘Listen to me, I . . .’

  Spencer gave a tiny shake of his head, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling. Barty looked up and saw a small black semi-circle protruding from the ceiling. A camera.

  ‘I err . . . just wanted to say, that, um, I am looking forward to working with you, and that . . .’ Barty tipped his head forward, as if nodding, and as soon as his mouth wasn’t visible to the cameras he spoke softly but clearly, ‘I’m here to stop her and to bring you home.’ He straightened up. ‘I may get a bit lost in this white labyrinth, so I’m going to need your help.’

  Spencer’s eyes darted over Barty’s face, searching for evidence of truth.

  ‘I’m excited to learn more about the work you’ve been doing here.’ Barty clapped his hands together. ‘Lucretia has promised me a place by her side at the cutting edge of scientific research. I find her work fascinating. Her transgenic developments are extraordinary. She has become a power to be reckoned with.’

  Spencer nodded. ‘She is very powerful. It would take an army to defeat her now.’

  ‘Yes.’ Barty nodded emphatically for the camera, but said in a low voice. ‘Although, Goliath was felled by the boy David.’

  ‘That’s just a story, Dr Cuttle.’ Spencer’s expression made him look older than his years. ‘This is real – very, very real.’

  ‘Spencer, stories only last if they tell a universal truth.’ Barty saw the reflection of Lucretia returning, in the glass, and changed his tone. ‘I’m sure there’s plenty you can teach me once we are in the lab, I’ll need to be brought up to speed.’

  ‘Bartholomew, there’s something I want you to witness,’ Lucretia said, sounding very pleased with herself. ‘Spencer can show you to your room afterwards.’ They followed her through a dizzying series of turns and tunnels, ending up in a room with white leather sofas and a large flat-screen television on the wall.

  ‘You’ll like this,’ Lucretia said as the TV flickered on. ‘I’ve given Australia a second Christmas.’ She pointed a black claw.

  Worldwide Network News was showing images of Sydney harbour. They cut from footage of the city to the beach, and everywhere you looked, crawling and flapping about clumsily, were thousands upon thousands of chunky metallic brownish green scarabs. Branches of trees were so heavy with coleoptera that they were bending down to touch the water.

  ‘Did you know the poor Christmas beetle was in decline, due to habitat destruction? I was so saddened by this news that I thought I’d send the Australian Prime Minister a gift of several billion of them.’ She threw her head back and chittered.

  The news cut to an image of Kirribilli House, the second official residence of the Australian Prime Minister. It was barely visible under the blanket of beetles.

  ‘What do you hope to achieve with this cheap trick?’ Barty asked, unable to hide his disgust.

  ‘Did you know that Australia has the second biggest sugar cane harvest in the world, after Brazil?’ Lucretia drew herself up on to her hind legs. ‘T
ogether with the Christmas beetles, I sent their Prime Minister a proposition. I’ve offered to decimate the Brazilian sugar cane industry with my bugs, in exchange for their sworn allegiance. The Christmas beetles are there to demonstrate that I am capable of delivering my end of the bargain. You see, Australia will be the first country to bow down to my rule – shortly followed by America – who, after losing their wheat harvest, know that I can wipe out their soybean harvest too with a single command.’

  ‘You’re dreaming.’ Barty shook his head. ‘The American President will never bow down to your rule.’

  ‘Am I?’

  There was a knock on the door and Dankish padded in.

  Lucretia looked surprised to see the thug. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Uh, we went back to the helicopter, to get the luggage.’ He paused, clearly nervous about delivering his news. His eyes were glued to the floor.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The latch on the luggage compartment of the helicopter is broken, and all the luggage is gone. It’s empty. It must have fallen out on the flight.’

  ‘You idiot!’ Lucretia hissed, lurching threateningly towards him.

  ‘Madame.’ Ling Ling appeared from nowhere. ‘The President of the United States is on the phone for you.’

  ‘HA!’ Lucretia Cutter instantly forgot Dankish and the lost luggage. She swung round to face Barty, victorious, her ghastly mouth a grinning pit of molasses. ‘See? They will all bow down to me eventually or their people will starve.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Helicopter Hideaway

  ‘Humpty?’ Pickering hissed, prodding his cousin’s blubbery bottom with his bony forefinger. ‘Wake up! Wake up! Do you hear me? Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ It irritated him that Humphrey slept so soundly, and snored so raucously. Pickering had climbed into the helicopter luggage compartment first, because he’d wanted any wild animals that found them to kill and eat Humphrey first, but now he was trapped inside by Humphrey’s mountain of a body, and he desperately needed a wee. ‘Humphrey Gamble, will you wake up, you giant oaf!’ He raised his hand and slapped his sleeping cousin on the rump.