0543D43E was in his squad car on a routine mission when the red light of the dashboard flashed.

Red light. Serious threat detected. Your presence is urgently required.

0543D43E took a glance at the coordinates which showed up on the auxiliary display. Place was near, but the other way round. He jerked the wheel. The tyres screeched as his car slewed, until the vehicle had made a complete U-turn. Then he floored it, and his car peeled off flat out.

He skidded to a halt at the designated place. An officer was already here, and other soldiers were on their way. He jumped out of his car, slammed the door and rushed to the officer.

“0543D43E, at your orders. What is it, sir? What can I do?”

The officer gave him a concerned look. “Trictrics, soldier.”

0543D43E’s eyes widened. “Again? I thought we’d exterminated them last time?”

“They must’ve mutated. Developed some form of immunity to our previous compound.”

“Fucking little bastards,” 0543D43E whispered.

The officer nodded.

“So what do we do, sir?”

“Lab has developed a few other – Fuck, look!” The officer pointed his finger at something behind 0543D43E’s back.

0543D43E spun around. On the other side of the road, a structural conapt was bulging. Trictrics for sure. Those freaks were able to gnaw minute burrows into the bricks, then multiply using the energy lines embedded in the walls. It was a matter of minutes before an attacked structure would fail and crumble, freeing the bugs which would immediately set off for other walls to prey on.

“Go get your gun, soldier. NOW!” he officer shouted.

0543D43E dashed to the boot of his car, opened it and grabbed the bazooka that was stowed inside. He loaded it with a shell filled with the standard compound — hoping against hope those trictrics were not of a mutated strand — and strode along back to his former place alongside the officer. The infected conapt’s walls were clearly swollen now, as if violently pushed from inside. At any moment —

The conapt collapsed.

Reflexively, 0543D43E put his hand over his eyes to avoid the cloud of dust that rose out of the rubble. He coughed repeatedly. When the dust cleared over, the conapt was but ruins, and spattered all round the street were tiny black motes. Trictrics, stunned by the blow.

“Quick!” the officier yelled. “Fire!”

“Range’s too close, sir,” 0543D43E replied.

“For fuck’s sake, FIRE! That’s an order!”

0543D43E pulled the trigger. The shell shot from the muzzle and crashed right in the middle of the debris heap. A greenish, viscous liquid splashed every which way, covering everything within twenty metres in a oozy and fetid topping. Splotches of the repugnant mix landed on 0543D43E’s uniform, and on the officer’s legs too.

“I told you it was too close, sir,” 0543D43E said, repressing a sudden sickness.

“Shut up, soldier, and watch.”

At first, there was nothing but silence and stock-stillness. Maybe the compound had killed them, after all?

But then the jelly began to jiggle in many places. Slightly at first, then more evidently. A first trictric emerged from under with a pop. Then another. Then another. Within seconds the place was swarming with squeaking trictrics which skittered away to the nearest walls, and started to nibble their way in.

“Shhhiiit,” the officer hissed.

“What do we do now, sir?” 0543D43E asked, perplexed. “Another shell would be as useless as this one.”

“We wait for the lab to send us that new compound they formulated, soldier. There is little else we can do. We’ll fuck those pests, believe me.” The officer’s eyes were looking in the distance, powerlessly contemplating the trictrics’ ruthless work of destruction.

0543D43E knelt down to put his bazooka on the ground and fished into his pockets for a smoke or a chewing-gum, that he didn’t find. He grunted in dissatisfaction.

The noise of an approaching engine made him look up. 

He gasped.

“SIR! WATCH OUT!” he screamed as he leaped on to the officer, pinning him to the ground.

The nearest conapt collapsed with a rumble.
[hr]
James woke up sneezing. “Shit!” he thought. “That cold is back!” His nose was plugged, he felt feverish. He sighed and sat up in his bed. He groped for a Kleenex discarded on the nightstand, blew his nose noisily. 

He gawped at the snot for a few seconds. Okay. The world wouldn’t stop spinning because of this. He had to kick his arse.