Chapter 23

Alex grinned broadly. “What did I say. I said a dinosaur trader.”

Next to him Tamara giggled at the confused look Daniel was giving Alex. “It’s a trader that looks like a dinosaur. Not a trader that only trades in dinosaurs.”

“Are you trying to get a rise out of me?” Daniel spluttered in mock outrage.

Alex sent an irritated glance at Tamara for ruining his fun. “Would I ever do that?” he said dryly. “But terminology aside, the fact there’s a trader here now will make things a lot easier.”

“I assume it’s a full trader with all the standard goods.” Tamara asked immediately.

Alex nodded.

“Which means, providing we have the components from various monsters and the rare herbs around here we can buy everything.”

“Exactly.” Alex said immediately. “I’ve given instructions that no one is to do any trading until, as a community we’ve assessed our resources and needs. My kids are recording the energy value of our stock of goods.”

“Energy?” Daniel asked.

“I’ll explain later.” Tamara whispered.

“Once we understand where we’re at from a purchasing power perspective, we’ll work out what we need and spend the energy to get it.”

“Like a forge?” Daniel asked.

“Maybe, but also who we want to boost up the fighters. For example, collectively getting Luke a top quality shield and sword might be the best way to increase our attack capacity.”

“And you organised all this in what twenty minutes back at the hotel.”

“Yes, while I was waiting for the lizard to depart. To be honest, my kids, Luke and Trudy did the hard work. I only agreed with their recommendations.”

“I imagine stopping people from spending their money will cause issues.” Daniel said.

Alex shook his head. “Surprisingly little. In fact, none while I was there. The simple truth is that most people have nothing and the unofficial plan is to still let everyone sell their own stuff. For everyone in the hotel, we’ve been collecting and placing centrally all the useful parts of monsters and their cores for days. We’ve already been putting it in the communal pot for you and the crafters to do your thing with. Those new to the hotel really don’t want to get kicked out and most have voluntarily done the same, so there is scant room for friction. By the way, they outnumber us now. The refugees from outside exceed everyone we collected within the hotel.”

“We’re all human.” Tamara pointed out immediately.

“Yes, yes.” Alex said distractedly. “I was talking purely political grouping. Our power base is still safe because we’re a single unified fighting force.”

“You can’t talk like that.” Tamara protested. “Politics doesn’t belong here.”

“And we control the one area of safety,” Alex continued, ignoring Tamara. “That should keep everyone docile.”

“And no one wants to piss you off.” Brian said quietly to Daniel. “And I haven’t even been part of this group for that long and I know that.”

“Really? No one’s calling us. A nanny, state or claiming…”

“Nope. Some are probably thinking it, but once you’ve seen a couple of people ripped up or eaten in front of you, you start worrying about the important things rather than conspiracy theories.”

“But it’s not a conspiracy theory. We are actually trying to take their stuff.” Daniel pointed out.

“No,” Alex sounded frustrated, and Ivey along with most of the members from teams three and four were grinning in amusement. “That’s not what we’re doing at all. We’re endeavouring to get the resources into the hands of the people they’re most suited to.”

Daniel chuckled before he could help himself and that sufficient to break Alex’s tirade.

The older man examined Daniel and huffed in annoyance. “You’re teasing me! We’re in the middle of an apocalyptic landscape. There might be monsters around the next corner and you’re taking the time to mock me!?”

“You started by talking about the dinosaur trader.”

“But we have a dinosaur trader.”

Daniel shrugged. “The intention was what counted.”

Tamara laughed.

Alex studied the fallen building he had been absently staring at more closely. He gave a slow shake of his head. “I can believe you survived that.”

“It landed on us.” Carly told him. “We were very under 5 m of rock.”

Alex shook his head. “My mind is leaping to my stasis spell. It is the only thing that I can imagine that might have allowed someone to survive that, but I’m guessing your plant magic did the trick. Is that right Daniel?”

“Yep. I unlocked a niche ability that was perfect for it.”

“What you can now reinforce wood with magic to strengthen it or something.”

Daniel glanced over at Alex. It was a good guess even if completely wrong.

“Yeah. I can fashion it to be harder than diamond.

“You serious!”

“Yep. We won’t need your friendly dinosaur because I’ll make weapons faster and stronger than any natural material.”

“And… you just learnt this now. This would have been so useful earlier when we were fighting down the tower.”

“He did not.” Carly injected with a laugh. “He didn’t just discover the ability. He doesn’t have anything that does that. He’s pulling your leg.”

“Carly.” Daniel complained with mock indignation. “That’s unfair. You can’t spoil a joke unless you’re adding to the punch line to make it funny.”

“It wasn’t a joke. It was stupid.”

“I was leading up to it.” he protested and then stopped himself. There was no use engaging in an argument with a fifteen-year-old.

“Then what?” Alex asked, deciding not to get involved in the word play. “You did something to keep you alive. Rapid growth?”

“Nothing so visible. I unlocked an engineering program to allow me to implement a complicated building design without having to focus on placing each piece of wood individually.” It was practically a lie by omission. The program the interface shards were running was far more than that.

“He built a structure over us and it got flatten almost instantly. We were lucky to survive.”

“We were…” Daniel confirmed after a moment of hesitation. “Lucky to survive. Thanks for expressing it like that Carly. However, the building worked as I envisaged. Absorbing the energy from the collapsing roof, but it almost wasn’t enough. I badly broke my leg.”

“Iris lost hers.”

“Iris lost hers.” Daniel acknowledged. “But given the amount time the lizard gave me to prepare, getting anything up before it crushed us was a minor miracle.”

They kept chatting as they marched down the middle of the road, taking the most direct route back to the hotel.

Unlike the earlier trip they had taken just after dawn, nothing accosted them, and Daniel found his eyes permanently drawn toward the flags that fluttered in the window. They remained on all clear status the entire time.

It was very thankful that someone smarter than him had thought to put them into action. Without that warning system in play, Daniel was not sure he would be happy to be walking outside so casually and would probably have forced everyone to sprint back to the safety of the hotel.

He remembered that flashing tail, and how it had demolished the building. It had been a casual, effortless blow, and it had made concrete look like brittle plastic.

That had only been the tail. The lizard also had teeth and claws. For the immediate future, there was no way to fight such a monster, so all they could do was avoid it and if they wanted to range further from the hotel, they would need a method to escape or hide from it.

“How deep of a bolt hole do you think we’ll need to protect ourselves from the lizard?” Daniel asked.

Next to him Tamara winced at that question. “A lot. It would have to be ten metres deep and then extend horizontally for at least a hundred of metres, in case it dug down to get you because it definitely could.”

“That’s a deep sewer network or underground public transport type of setup.” Alex said thoughtfully.

It’ll take at least that much to elude it if it attempts to capture you. Tamara insisted.

“No, I agreed.” Alex said thoughtfully. “Not only do you need depth to avoid the immediate threat, you also require flexibility to move freely at the lower level in case it digs you out. If you’re ten metres underground, which incidentally is a long way, it’ll only take the lizard a few minutes to dig you out. You need to navigate underground to avoid it.”

“There’s no deep sewer systems here are there?”

Alex shook his head. “No, there’s not. We’re in Port Melbourne. A hundred years ago this used to be swamp land, basically part of the bay. I doubt there is any infrastructure deeper than a couple of metres.”

“We’re going to have to look into creating bolt holes.” Daniel stated.

“No.” Alex disagreed. “We’re basically at sea level. We dig and I’m sure we’ll hit water. The solution is to monitor the flags better.”

“No. That’s not good enough. If the lizard surprises us away from the hotel, we need people to lead it away from the hotel, not toward.”

“I get what you’re saying, but I’m not convinced it can be built.”

“Magic?”

“Daniel, not everything can be solved by magic.” Alex said, exasperated.

“Bolt holes can. I can see how to do it with my skills so someone else will have a better solution. However, I understand your point. Bolt holes to avoid the lizard are a longer-term concern. We have more pressing issues, but when we’re talking to the trader it’s something that we need to keep in mind.”

They trailed off into silence and pretty soon reached the hotel.

At ground level, the purple vegetation was the dominant feature. It almost hid all the floor to ceiling glass windows that used to give the hotel lobby its airy daylight feel. Then the leaves stretched up multiple stories. However, when Daniel looked up, there were more green sections than he expected.

Derek was making progress.

Then he remembered the croldlics and knew that it wasn’t sufficient. Their defences were not strong enough. The next couple of weeks were going to have to be spent turning this place into a fortress. There was nothing they could do against the lizard Daniel understood that. Against something that could effortlessly destroy a building, all you could do was to avoid it.

The croldlics were another matter. All of his various ideas to supercharge the defences remained on the table. Plants that sent everything to sleep, others that would actively hunt for flesh, weaponising Dereck more fully.

They were all things he would have to pursue. The entire community had to utilize all available resources to survive what was coming.

He glanced across to Carly who was walking next to the wheelbarrow that contained Iris. One of the fighters from team three was driving it to help her out. She had taken over a block ago when Carly had struggled visibly with the effort of pushing the very heavy Iris into and then out of some of the many potholes that filled the street.

Above Carly, or more precisely, Iris was an almost solid whirlpool of flies that continued to rotate flies through the space Iris could give them new commands.

“We need to find a place for Carly and work out protocols for the flies.” Daniel said, coming to a stop thirty metres from the hotel. His stomach rumbled, but it could wait till the latest issue was sorted.

“Protocols?” Carly asked.

“I think that’s what you’d call it. I’m assuming we’re going to require do not enter signs for the area the flies are going to occupy. I suppose they’ll have to forage for food. Then we need to discuss how long Carly and Iris are required to spend with the hive. Is Iris with them permanently and Carly visits or does Carly stay out of the hotel constantly. Is there a period they are both in the hotel? There’s lots to contemplate.

“None of the adult flies that I’ve got with me.” She glanced up at the spinning tornado above them. “Will target humans. The problem, of course, is once new flies are born. Until Iris has personally given them instructions, they will act upon their instincts. They’ll attack humans just like any predatory animal would.”

“And how does gestation work for silver flies?” Alex asked her.

Carly hesitated clearly consulting her memory from discussions with Richard and cross-referencing that with what Iris knew “It’s complicated, but new babies are not related to Iris at all. The workers established a hive. They bring back meat and metal or ore. They lay eggs and two days later, providing there were sufficient resources fully formed flies emerge.”

“And I assume it’s not something convenient like they all hatch at dawn?” Tamara asked.

Carly shook her head. “No, once the hive grows Iris is going to have to spend a lot of time there to imprint instructions on young flies. They’re impressionable and the mature flies can send them off to the queen at which point they can be reprogrammed but till then they’re dangerous. Extra deadly if you think the area is safe because one of these hitting you from the blind spot.” She shuddered at that thought.

“Iris is going to have to live there.” Alex guessed.

“We’re going to have to live there.” Carly corrected. “I’m not leaving her out there overnight by herself.”

“And what happens if the lizard comes for you?” Alex asked.

“I’m more worried about the croldlics.” Daniel said.

“Why would it? Or they? For one person, there’s no reason.”

“The croldlics will presumably target the silver fly’s queen.” Daniel reasoned. “The lizard I agree won’t be a threat but the croldlics will be, but we’ll work out a solution. We’ve got a few days before they breed, so in the meantime Carly and Iris stay well defended in the hotel. Pretty much everyone else is expendable to keep her alive, including me.”

Daniel then pointed at the block closest to the bay from the hotel. “I think that church is the best space.”

“That’s a bit…” Alex trailed off.

“Insensitive.” Tamara said, having no compunctions in challenging Daniel.

“We’re not reclaiming the church for humans.” Daniel said flatly. “It’s an abandoned building and will remain so. The unfortunate fact is that it is perfectly located and setting the hive there will form a buffer between us and the spot where the croldlics are coming from. And unless I’m mistaken the wide open spaces suit the flies.”

“It will.” Carly agreed.

“Daniel, you’re talking about giving a church to monsters.” Tamara repeated.

“I know, and I’m not making the choice flippantly. But if people are truly concerned about it.”

“We… Some are,” Tamara corrected, looking away slightly embarrassed. “Some of us, myself included would like to pray.”

“Then let’s do that.” Daniel said with a shrug. “There’s no reason we can’t designate a room in the hotel in a defensible location as a chapel for people who want that.”

“I’ll organise it.” Tamara said immediately. “I guess if we have a dedicated chapel, moving the hive into the church won’t rub people the wrong way. I think many people would be relieved to know there was a devoted church space available to them.

“Yes, we’ll assign a floor and make it clear that any religion can set up on it.”

“Do you have a floor number in mind?” Tamara asked carefully.

“I was thinking fourteen or fifteen. Then, as a community, we take over twelve and thirteen with higher floors dedicated to food production and crafting.”

“Are we worried about the moths in the corridor?” Alex asked, referring to the floors ten and eleven.

Daniel shook his head vigorously. “No, I’ll probably take care of them tonight.”

“You’re not going to fight them without backup.” Tamara said in a warning tone.

“No, I was just planning on dividing and conquer strategy. The first thing will be to cut them off from the elevator shafts and stairwells they’ve been using. Then I would shut doors and seal spaces one by one. Drive them into smaller and smaller areas till they’re exposed enough for me to kill easily.”

“Well, I think we’re agreed.” Alex said finally. “During daylight and with Carly this area is pretty space. John and Anna.” Alex said, addressing two of the newcomers. “Can you escort Carly to that church? And protect her as long as it’s required.”

The man and woman looked at each other each with a small grin. They knew Carly didn’t actually need protection with her escort of thousands of the deadly flies, but then it would have been right to send a fifteen-year-old effectively alone into a monster infested area.

“We can do that.” Anna said right away.

Daniel immediately found out that the two commanded all the fighters that Alex had brought back with him. They departed, leaving the small group who had run the decoy and Alex.

They entered the lobby area to find it empty.

“Where’s the dinosaur?” he asked, looking around confused.

Alex pointed up. “It’s settled on the 6th floor. I think anywhere below that is too dangerous.” he slapped Daniel on the back. “Ready to see your first honest to god talking dinosaur?”