DAMNED WASPS!

There had never before been so many wasps.

In all of the years he’d been going to Berge Lake Provincial Park, Larry had never seen anything like it. Sure, there’d been wasps, like the odd nest he’d have to get rid of, ballooned around the Starlink receiver or under the outhouse. But this, Larry knew, wasn’t normal. This was different.

To protect himself Larry wore a bug jacket wherever he went, which was always by ATV. At first the bug jacket was all the protection he needed. He could pull his boat to the launch unmolested. He could wear his bright green crocs without one of those bastards crawling into the holes. Hell, he could wear his shorts however short he wanted.  

But then the wasps came, and so Larry took to wearing not only a bug jacket but bug pants and a bug hat, too. August had only just arrived and, because Larry was also feeding a very smoky fire, it was hot. And so, very often, the bug jacket and bug pants and bug hat were the only things that Larry wore; which was the case on the day he disappeared.

He threw another piece of an old bench into the fire.

The smoke kept the wasps away. Well enough, anyway, and it was better than nothing. And after emptying the last Raid canister into a nest he found under his boat trailer, nothing was all Larry had.

He stepped closer, into the smoke.

He could hear them circling, keeping their distance. Granted, the wasps cared very little about Larry. They carried on as wasps normally did. They flew into hair. They landed on faces. They landed in glasses of single malt scotch. It was their general abundance that made them dangerous. Wherever he walked, wherever he sat, wherever he fished – all had a very good chance of insulting a wasp. And when a wasp is insulted – however slightly and unintentionally the insult may be – it attacks. And, over the summer, Larry had insulted them many, many times.

He had lit them on fire. He’d gassed them. Foamed them. Sprayed them with horrible bitter-tasting chemicals. And for it all, he had been bitten many times in return.

The wasps were too much for his neighbours. They had all left several weeks ago, drove back to Thompson, back to Winnipeg, back south. And this meant that, aside from a couple of very determined campers up the hill, Larry was the only one left in the park. And although that should have meant silence and stillness and the peaceful calling of loons, it wasn’t.

Berge Lake was buzzing. Droning. Humming in all directions. To Larry, it sounded like radio static. Or the TV fuzz between VCR tapes. It was loud. And it was louder at night.

Feeding the fire, making the smoke – that was only part of Larry’s plan. It was what allowed him to do his main task: wasp-proofing his cabin. He had added metal siding to cover any access to the crawl space below. And to make sure that no gaps remained, he would pile soil around the bottom.

Larry walked from the fire, grabbed the shovel he had leaned against the deck railing, and thrust it into a mound of sand to throw around the cabin’s base. He walked from the mound to the cabin and back, continuing to fill any gap between the newly added siding and the ground.

Larry was nearly done when his shovel hit something hard in the sand. He thumped it again. A hollow sound. A wooden sound. He scraped off the sand as best he could and knelt to brush away the rest with gloved hands.  

It was a plywood square, roughly four feet wide. He pushed the shovel’s blade under one of the corners and pulled on the handle, leveraging the square loose. He flipped it up and away, and it was then that Larry saw what the plywood had covered. A hole. A circular hole. It extended deep into the darkness; past sand, past silt, past clay, and likely through the underlying granite bedrock.  

Holy hell, he thought, before saying it out loud. How many times had he walked over it? Any one of those times he could have easily fallen in. He looked down, wary of how close he stood. If he did fall in, he’d have a hell of a time getting out. Probably wouldn’t.

Who had made it? What had made it? And what for?

A cloud of wasps, like black raindrops that never quite fell, buzzed loudly all around him. Larry turned and saw that his fire, although still smouldering, had gone down. Only a thin wisp of smoke curled up into the hot summer air; it reminded him of a forgotten cigarette. He’d have to add more wet logs, more molding pieces of the old bench, more green leaves. Plus, he needed a smoke himself.

Holding the shovel, Larry walked toward the fire. Although he guessed at the hole’s depth, he knew there was no way he could fill it. Not at the moment, anyway. He’d have to cover the hole with something stronger, something that wouldn’t rot, something that wouldn’t kill him. Or his neighbours, when they returned.

Larry was only several paces from the newly exposed hole when he felt the ground give way. Gripping the shovel tight, he fell into the sand; the handle wedged itself across the opening, saving him.

He dangled, arms extended above, over what could well be a bottomless hole into the very center of the Earth. Into Hell itself. His neck strained. His face reddened. And he pulled himself up, kicking at the sides of the tunnel to help.

With his chest resting on the shovel’s handle, Larry felt his initial terror subside, only to be replaced by another. How would he pull himself out? There was nothing to grab on to, no rope, no tree roots, not even a garden hose.

Above him, as the fire died and the smoke stopped, the buzzing intensified. Wasps flew nearer and nearer. They landed on his head, his strained arms, they lined the edge of the hole like an audience waiting for him to go down, as if they knew what was to come, as if they knew Larry’s unfortunate fate.

Larry shuffled toward the shovel’s hilt, hoping it would hold. The hole was small enough that he thought he could wedge his body against the sides and slowly bring himself up and out.  

But before any of that could happen, Larry heard a clicking sound from below, from deep inside the hole. It was like someone running a stick over a fence; like a starving animal that could no longer stay quiet as they stalked their prey; like a cat’s chitter.

There was nothing Larry could do. Suddenly, a long, segmented tentacle wrapped around his flailing leg, piercing it with its small serrated hairs, gripping him tight. And it pulled.

Larry screamed as he fell into the hole, into its darkness, into the pit, down toward the source of the clicking, the chittering, down into the ground, into its unknown depths, and toward certain death.

And during it all, the buzzing of the wasps above him grew louder and louder.

Kids’ Korner was a 90s staple of Saturday morning television. Each weekend, thousands of Manitoban children – Thompsonians and Winklerites alike – tuned in to watch Merv and Matty on Channel 13 at eight in the morning. Bowls overflowed with sugar; cereal was mindlessly scooped into fiendishly starved stomachs; and, with mouths full of Froot Loops or Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Apple Jacks, couch-encumbered six-year-olds mumbled the words to the opening song:

“Come on, kids! Let’s have some fun!
Watching cartoons until the day is done.

It’s the Kids’ Korner show,

And Merv and Matty know

Everything under the sun! Fun!”

The show was only marginally educational. Although it contained segments that taught kids about letters and numbers and the types of animals that kids could encounter if they ventured off into the wilderness by themselves, this was secondary to their primary function: hyping the latest cartoons, like Greta and Wilbur, Ninja Mountain, Paradox Fox, and many, many others.

In doing so, Merv and Matty became not just household names but Manitoban royalty, as well. Simply walking down Portage Avenue, they could not help but be recognized and swarmed by crowds of keyed-up children, who, in their fandom, called themselves “nutters”. It was an apt description, as children went crazy whenever Merv and Matty showed up to an event, be it the Santa Claus Day Parade, the Children’s Folk Fest, or at any of the thousands of birthdays they attended during their brief but busy career. Their fame – their celebrity – was so great that many thought it was only a matter of time before they each had a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.

But fame, even the tenuous fame of being “Winnipeg famous”, can be short-lived, and this was the case for Merv and Matty, and for Kids’ Korner generally.

Fashions change. Technologies advance. Mores and ethea shift. And, in the process, there are those animals – squirrels, for instance – that get left behind.  

Although on TV, Merv played a squirrel – the zany, and playfully dumb, forever friend of Matty – off TV, cast free of make-up and prosthetics, Merv was, in fact, a rabbit. And a small rabbit, at that.  

It was with amazement that Kids’ Korner had been able to hide Merv’s secret for as long as they did. And, when the public found out that Merv was, in fact, a rabbit, and not a squirrel, as inevitably would have occurred regardless of what had happened, it caused a scandal that far surpassed the modest confines of educational children’s media circles.  

Soon after, no one – not even their biggest fans – wanted to be called a “nutter”. And a lack of nuts meant only one thing to Merv and Matty: redundancy. In a matter of days, Kids’ Kornerhad been Kancelled.

After years of service, years of sifting through the finest cartoons – the funniest, those beautiful and artful – after years dedicating their creative spirit to children’s entertainment, to making children laugh, to have them feel joy and jubilation, this was the sorry result of all that – that – that work: they were fired. Let go.

Merv took it harder than Matty did. Matty moved back in with her parents and laid low. Merv didn’t. He went, according to himself, “more nutty than a nutter”, and ruthlessly mocked his former fans. After a series of booze-fueled rants about “tree rats”, Merv was persona non grata in Winnipeg, and, with an extra helping of non grata, in rural Manitoba, too.  

Naturally, Merv skipped town.  

To where, Matty hadn’t heard. She stayed in Winnipeg. And after everything calmed down – after the public’s attention caught another innocent rabbit in its toothy snare – Matty moved into an apartment at the end of Roslyn Avenue.

And she went back to school.  

There was a rumour that Matty, like the majority of Manitobans, was unaware that Merv was a rabbit. That Merv had tricked her, too. She hated this rumour. She knew all along that Merv was a rabbit. Wasn’t it obvious? What kind of squirrel had ears that big?

No, hearing that type of thing pissed Matty off. Merv had been one of her dearest friends. To see him so broken – so ill– filled her with immense sorrow. It wasn’t fair. Rabbit or squirrel or bird or beetle – Merv helped create something special. And although it would have been easy for Matty to pretend otherwise – for no one would begrudge her if it was so – the shame of turning away from her friend would have been too much for her to bare.

And, she knew that, having trained as an actor, and having majored in squirrel psychology, when you pissed her off, what you received back was both skillfully delivered and backed by the latest advancements in behavioural science. It was also, in her opinion, entirely deserved. Squirrels should be able to get along with rabbits. And rabbits with squirrels.

And then, out of nowhere, after years of silence, Merv contacted her. It was during her second broadcast as the Manitoba Broadcasting Corporation’s new reporter that she received a text. It read: “Hey Matty it’s Merv. Letting you know I’m alive.” Another, sent a moment later, read: “Nice hair.”

Nice hair. It was something she told him before every broadcast of Kids’ Korner. Merv, adjusting his grey toupee in the dressing room mirror and trying to hide his unyieldingly floppy ears, would look likea mess. Nice, hare, she’d say, mocking him. Yes? It’s nice, is it?, he’d reply, looking satisfied, in on the joke. And Matty would laugh, step behind him, and comb back the hare’s faux-squirrel hair.

Merv was older than Matty by several years, and his robustness – to the squirrels watching – countered any semblance of youth he may have had, especially when he stood next to the doe-eyed teenage Matty.  

Lost in thought – with echoes of Nice hair swirling in her mind – Matty was thrust onto camera, back onto television, back into the trees and homes of many of the same people that watched Kids’ Korner all those years ago. And all she could think about as she reported the news – a throw-away story on how to properly identify wasp nests – was Is Merv watching on TV?And where is he? And why now?

Always the professional, Matty conveyed none of her inner turmoil for the camera. Despite her past, the Manitoba Broadcasting Corporation was glad to have her. And with a grace and poise rarely seen in reporters, Matty delivered the news.

“This is Matty Squirrel, with the nice hair, reporting for MBC News.”

LARVA: INSTAR II: A Night of Hole Hopping

In fact, Merv was watching. Although he’d known Matty got a job as a reporter, it wasn’t until seeing her on MBC that it really clicked in his head.  

Seeing her back on TV brought with it a wave of memories: of being on set for the pilot of The Merv and Matty Show, before the name changed; of their first live taping, and how nervous Matty had been; but most of all, of how much fun they’d both had during that time.

But, of course, that was when Matty was still a kid. Now, years later, she had grown into the beautiful squirrel that he’d always known she’d become. While he – he looked from the TV to his phone and switched on the camera; his hair was long and scruffy, his left front tooth chipped, large bags sagged under his eyes, as if they, too, tried to get as far away from him as they could – looked only slightly better than roadkill. But he was alive.

He texted Matty, the first time in – what – like, ten years. Maybe more.

Hey Matty it’s Merv. Letting you know I’m alive. Send. Then: Nice hair.

Instantly, he regretted it. He never faulted Matty for losing touch. He would have done the same thing as Matty did, as many did. It was his fault, really. Merv was a social pariah. Without redemption. How would Matty like it if Manitoba was reminded that, at one time, Matty the reporter was Merv’s syndicated sidekick, that she was a “friend of rabbits”. In short, she wouldn’t. Her life – her future – would be better without Merv.

He turned off his phone. And the TV.

Merv was back in Winnipeg. Had been for a while. He’d gone to the West Coast to hide out and unwind. He figured he could outrun the wolfish media, but instead he simply ran out of money. Booze and bacchanalia will do that. And so, having dug himself a small den on the exposed banks of the Assiniboine river, near the Granite Curling Club, Merv was back in Winnipeg.

His home wasn’t much. A single room. Dirt floor. Bed. TV. A table. At one time he’d had plans to expand – an office would have been useful, he’d thought – but no doubt a raccoon would get in, trash the place. Several already had. The more you have, the more will get stolen. And in Winnipeg, thought Merv, sometimes it’s better to have nothing at all.

He unlocked his den’s door and peeked out. There was no use texting Matty. No good would come from it. Not for Matty. Not now.

Merv could hear the not-too-distant hum of the Beer Can. Night, thought Merv, was a stalker, and it was getting ready to pounce. Although Merv wanted nothing more than to drink himself dumber than a fish, or pick up an ounce of Gaze, he had other places to be. Plus, he needed to be sober.

If nothing else, rabbits – and Merv, specifically – were good at fitting in. The dog days of summer were behind him, and Merv’s hair – Nice, hare! –although messy, was still a dark mottled brown. Soon, as the temperature dropped and winter latched on like an indecorous leech, his hair would pale to a blinding white. But for now, the nights remained warm, and his hair remained brown. It was one of the things he was very thankful for. His camouflage – his ability to disappear into the background, to be and yet not to be – had saved him on more than one occasion.

And, he hoped, it would save him again tonight.

Merv hopped out of the hole and locked the door behind him. He walked under Osbourne bridge, where two members of the Trash Pandas were tagging a concrete pillar. Red spray paint looped in an elegant and yet unreadable script. Merv recognized them: Randem, the tall, lanky raccoon; and Bullet, the shorter, quieter one. Both wannabe tough guys. Merv wouldn’t have been surprised if they were the ones who kept breaking into his den. 

Merv pulled up his hoodie, covering his ears. Randem chittered, and laughed at something Bullet said. He saw Merv.

“Oh look – speaking of disappearing acts, there goes the ghost-chaser himself! How’s the spook hunting, Merv? Find anything that goes bump?” Bullet smiled. “You know,” Randem continued, “if you wanted to make some money, I got some... uh... errands you could run.”

Merv ignored him and kept walking.

“I know you got nothing, Merv! You’re a has-been. Why don’t you join us never-wases?” 

“Stay out of my den!” yelled Merv, not looking back. More chittering. And the sound of spray paint.

Good, thought Merv. The last thing he needed was for those goons to paw at his pockets, rifle through his backpack, rough him up. He had more important things to worry about. Although the TPs were punks – and they could be dangerous punks – Merv had a feeling that what he was about to do was going to be much, much more dangerous.

Merv didn’t chase ghosts. He investigated them. Hauntings, the paranormal, cryptids – they interested Merv. Not that he was a believer – as stories often had a way of getting exaggerated – but he always thought that there must be something behind such tall tales, some kernel of truth. And that’s what Merv chased. Not ghosts. Not spooks. The truth.

Or so he tried to convince himself. Some stories were obviously played up. Room 202 at the Fort Garry. The Burt. The St. Norbert Monastery. Nothing had ever seemed out of the ordinary to Merv. No excitement. No bumps, as Randem mocked.

But Winnipeg’s underground tunnels, now that was a different thing altogether. They were real, and everyone knew they were real. Some you could easily access, like the tunnel between the Norquay and the Archives. Some were sealed, decommissioned – a little harder to get into, but still possible. 

And others were simply impossible. Or, as Merv hoped, nearly impossible.

Merv walked up Broadway Avenue to Fort Street, where there was heavy road construction. He ducked under an orange barricade and crouched between two large piles of rebar-infested debris. The crooked metal bars looked like large metal worms. Or the head of Medusa.

Although unnecessary – he’d practically memorized it by now – Merv unfolded a map of Winnipeg and studied it one last time. He’d dotted it with points of interest, extrapolated lines, scratched out leads, circled others.

If Merv was right, the construction at the corner of Broadway and Fort had come very close to one of the inaccessible tunnels. A sinkhole had nearly exposed it. And with any luck, Merv would only need to dig through a couple of feet.

He kneeled before the hole in the ground, flipped on his flashlight, and peered inside. The walls looked wet, and water from yesterday’s rain had pooled at the bottom. It would not be easy. Or pleasant. Or fun. But, he consoled himself, finding the truth never was.

And so, after one last look around, to make sure that no one, including Randem or Bullet, had followed him, Merv breathed in deeply, and hopped in.

LARVA: INSTAR III: The View From the Top of the Beercan

By the time Matty had finished work, the sun was near the horizon; it hovered, like a hat on fire, over a distant building down Portage Avenue. Outside the MBC building, a breeze, carrying with it a whisper of autumn, gusted around her, and she wrapped herself in a tan-coloured overcoat.  

She checked her phone again. Nothing. As soon as she was off the air, she’d texted Merv back. But there was no response. Years had gone by, years where she’d called and called, left voice messages, emails, texts. All without a reply. Eventually, she stopped trying; eventually she stopped caring. And yet, how quickly all of that changed when she saw his message. Hey Matty it’s Merv. Letting you know I’m still alive. Emotions that she was not aware she still had – compassion, frustration, understanding, hatred, concern; all braided together, twisted into a knot, like the tails of a rat king – hijacked her thoughts and flooded her body with a jittery and surprising awareness.

What an asshole, she thought, and texted him again. Matty was so concentrated on her phone that she didn’t notice that Leeland Fraser and Johnny Salamander, her co-workers, stood beside her. Leeland, an older squirrel who must be nearing retirement, was MBC’s meteorologist; and Johnny, only slightly older than Matty, but with many more years of experience, was the city reporter.

“Matty,” said Leeland, again. Startled, Matty jumped, and mashed the phone’s keyboard with her thumbs. Her text to Merv now ended in a string of autocorrected gibberish and consonants. She pressed send anyway.  

“We’re going to the Beer Can, want to join? There’re some others who’ll likely join.”

“Francis, Julia – you’ve met them,” added Johnny. Matty, thanks to Julia’s unfiltered mind and mouth, was aware that Johnny liked her. No doubt he was building up the courage to ask her out, something that Matty wasn’t interested in. It wasn’t that Johnny wasn’t good looking – she knew Julia thinks he is, which is true, he is – but a relationship wasn’t what Matty wanted. Not now. And, even if she was interested in a relationship, Johnny, for reasons she didn’t quite understand, wasn’t her type. There are other things she had to concentrate on: her job, for instance, on which she had worked very hard to get. And, especially today, she was concentrating on Merv.

“That’s very kind of you, Leeland – thank you – but I’ll have to pass. There’s something I wanted to check on. There was something Marigold said –.” Matty caught herself. She was still learning how to follow her instincts, her inner journalist, but there was something very odd, something that didn’t sit right with her, about Professor Marigold, about what she had told her. Rather than pitching another segment on wasps, Matty decided she’d pursue it on her own time. Like a private detective. Was that even something that she should be doing? Was it naive? Either way, it was something she didn’t want either Leeland or Johnny to know.

“Marigold!” laughed Johnny. “Is that who you interviewed? Is she just as crazy as ever?”

“Crazy? I –”

“Did she tell you about how she’s not allowed up north anymore,” said Leeland. It wasn’t a question.

“Frankly, I’m surprised she’s still at the university. Wasn’t there something about Fortune Mining, the nickel and gold company? Water quality research, wasn’t it? Toxic leaching and biodiversity loss. They eventually chased her out of town, didn’t they?”

“Who did?”

“Fortune Mining. And the town, for that matter. Hey, are we going for some drinks, or what?”

Matty shrugged. Maybe a beer wasn’t such a bad thing right now. She checked her phone again, just in case. Nothing.  

Professor Marigold had said nothing about Fortune Mining or Lynn Lake or anything of that sort. And to Matty, she didn’t seem crazy. Intelligent, yes. Eccentric and kooky, perhaps. But not crazy.

The reason why Matty wanted to talk to her again was because she had gone on and on about the number of wasps in the city. She was particularly concerned with some of the samples that people had sent her. Restaurant owners, schools, even construction workers had sent her dead wasps. They’d collected them in small pill vials and plastic Ziplock bags and sent them to Marigold’s lab at the University. To do what with them, Matty didn’t know. Marigold had suggested that there was something odd about the wasps, but had left it unexplained. Maybe they were larger, maybe they were a new species, maybe it was nothing at all.  

None of it was anything that Matty could have used for her segment, but she felt there was something that Professor Marigold wasn’t telling her. She didn’t know what that thing was, but maybe Leeland and Johnny could help fill in some of those missing details. Who was Professor Marigold? Why was she banned from the north? What wasn’t she telling her about the wasps?

The Beer Can was packed. Squirrels, raccoons, skunks – animals of all sorts – huddled around picnic tables, lounged on benches, and hung from tree branches that were coiled in colourful lights. To Matty it looked as if it were a miniature Marti Gras. A cover band played 90s CanCon classics.

Matty and Johnny found seats on a raised patio that hugged the walls of the Granite Curling Club. It overlooked the small bar and Matty could see the river and, beyond it, her apartment through the trees. Her window was like a square black hole. Like an empty grave, she thought.

Leeland struggled up the stairs, a beer in each hand, and squeezed past a large (and quite drunk) rabbit. He slid the cans on the table, not sitting.  

“None for you?” asked Johnny. Leeland’s face sucked inward, as if he’d eaten something sour.

“I can’t, sorry,” he jiggled his phone. “Something’s come up. I’ll see both of you Saturday, yeah?”

With Leeland gone, Matty and Johnny sat quietly for a short while. Matty sipped her beer. Too bitter, she thought.

“Look, to be perfectly honest, I knew Leeland wasn’t going to stay. He won’t tell me exactly what’s going on, but it’s something with his kids. Or his wife,” Johnny paused for a moment, thinking. “Who knows, actually.” Matty ignored it. Of course, it would be just her and Johnny. She should have known. She took a big sip, filling her cheeks before swallowing.

“Tell me about Professor Marigold.”

“Why? Don’t you trust her?”

“No, I do. Why do you think she’s crazy? What has she done?”

“Done? I guess nothing. She’s always been very opinionated, very vocal. She likes the camera, I know that. Doesn’t pass up a chance to be on the news. She said yes to you, didn’t she? Why are you interested?”

Matty, feeling the alcohol doing its job, loosened, and described what Professor Marigold had shared with her: the wasps, their numbers, the samples she’d been collecting.

“Construction workers? Really? Why would they be disturbing wasp nests?”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

“There’s work being done all over though – it’s insane that it’s all happening at once. Osbourne is one-way, Main Street is single lane only, it’s nearly impossible to get anywhere in the city on time. More construction workers, more wasps. It could just be a numbers thing – but I get what you’re saying, if I’m a construction worker, unless all I’m doing is leaning on a garbage can, which, don’t get me wrong, may be the case – I hardly ever see them actually doing any work – but why would I encounter wasps? It’s not like they’d be interested in potholes, there’s got to be a –.”  

Matty interrupted.

“What about sinkholes?”

Johnny paused, considering it. But, before he could answer, an enormous WHUMP sound engulfed the Beer Can. It sounded like a bomb. Matty looked behind her and saw flames shooting high up into the sky. It lit the tree canopy with an orange brilliance.  

The legislative building had exploded.

LARVA: INSTAR IV: A Haunting Under Broadway

Merv could feel his muscles weakening. He’d been digging for hours, hacking, as best he could, through the hard clay wall that separated, or so he thought, the sinkhole from one of the underground tunnels of Winnipeg lore.

Sweat dripped down his forehead and neck. Was he wrong? Had it all been a waste of time? This entry seemed the easiest, but if he had to find another way in he would. There was more construction near Graham and Kennedy, maybe he could –

And then, with his frustration giving him renewed strength, he was through.

Merv fell forward as the shovel’s blade disappeared into a small hole. He had done it! He was right after all!

He quickly widened the small hole, scraping away its corroded metal and faded red bricks, bashing them inward with a hurried frenzy. 

When the opening was large enough, Merv poked his head through. A thought suddenly occurred to him: was the air breathable? He inhaled, and coughed. Dusty, but the air was fine. Faintly sweet, even.

Merv knocked another chunk loose and brought his arm inside. He flicked on the flashlight and peered behind the darkness. This was it, all right. A long tunnel, its floor strewn with its own decay – from the ceiling, from the crumbling walls – extended in either direction. To the east, Merv was certain, was Union Station. And the west – Merv swung the flashlight in that direction – according to his map, would lead back to Broadway. 

He’d heard ghost stories about these tunnels. That many of its builders – immigrants, freemasons, secretive government agencies; who knows – had died or been killed during its construction. Or that prisoners, fleeing punishment, had used them to escape, and that they’d gotten lost in their labyrinthine twists and turns and dead ends. That politicians, seeking clandestine and, at the time, illegal, sexual encounters, used these tunnels, too. And that their spirits, trapped underground, still roamed the long dark halls, searching for a way out of their eternal desolation.

Merv shivered. It wasn’t ghosts he was afraid of. It was becoming one of them. The ceiling could collapse. The walls could cave in. The floor could open up into a bottomless pit. And then he’d be just another lost soul. Remembered by no one. Forgotten by all.

Merv grabbed his backpack, bashed loose another chunk of clay, and wedged himself inside the tunnel. He’d go west. Toward Broadway.

As Merv walked, slowly at first but then, as he became more and more comfortable being underground, with more confidence, he marked his position on the map. He counted his paces, he checked the compass that dangled on a cord around his neck, he tied neon pink flagging tape to whatever he could – all of which helped calm him, helped keep his fears distracted.

After traveling several hundred metres, Merv guessed he must be below Broadway. Had he been able to reach Carlton already? 

It was then that Merv heard a sound. Not the distant rumble of vehicles passing over him. Not the hum of traffic or the wail of an ambulance. Not muted honks heard through a bed of asphalt. It was a voice, singing. It was a song. And it was coming from somewhere ahead of him.

It was familiar, too. Merv knew he’d heard it before. Somewhere, long ago. Or was it recently? He couldn’t place it. A man’s voice. The melody. That refrain. No, he knew it. Whose was it? What song? It was... Merv closed his eyes to concentrate. He had it. It was... It was...

Gone. 

Then, a chittering noise, a laugh. Coming from behind him. He turned, sweeping with the flashlight.

A voice spoke in the darkness.

“I knew you were stupid, Merv. I just didn’t know you were this stupid.”

LARVA: INSTAR V: A Monster Howls in the Dark

It was Randem.

“Hell, even I’m not stupid enough to climb into the sewers!” He chittered. “But now look at me, Merv! A regular spook hunter – just as dumb as you!”

Even in a crowded mall, surrounded by a hundred witnesses, the Trash Pandas were dangerous. But alone and underground, and cornered, Merv knew that was much, much worse.

“It’s not a sewer.” It was all he could think to say.

“No? Well, it sure smells like a sewer in here, or did you shit your pants?” More chittering. 

With the flashlight shining on Randem – and, he thought, hopefully blinding him – Merv reached into his pocket and grabbed his knife. The blade, about ten centimetres long, could do damage. And it was sharp.

“What do you want, Randem? Why are you following me? I don’t have anything you want. I don’t have any money. I don’t have anything of value. I don’t even have a phone. What do you want?” The phone was a lie, it was in his backpack; but the money part was, unfortunately, very true.

“Why would you assume I want something? A raccoon can’t wander the sewers at night without getting called a thief? What has this world come to, Merv? And no phone? Merv, you of all people should know that it’s incredibly – incredibly – dangerous to go anywhere without a phone. Especially down here. What if you get injured? How would anyone find you?”

Merv cursed at himself. Maybe he was as stupid as Randem said he was.  

“Well, now that I think of it,” Randem continued, “you do have something I might want. Information. Information can be very valuable, wouldn’t you agree? Look around you, Merv. This – this – is information worth knowing about. You know how much can be hidden in a tunnel like this? Mr. Mercury has been dying for a place like this. A place that no one – no one – knows about.”

“I know about it.” He said it as if to himself.

“I know you do, Merv. I know you do.”

“Were you singing?” A distraction, a deflection. Divert his attention.

“Was I singing? No, I wasn’t singing. I don’t like when people sing, Merv. You know what I like? I like silence. Dead silence, Merv.”

Merv remained silent, still. Randem motioned with his snout, behind Merv.

“Where does that go?”

“That’s...,” Merv faltered. “That’s what I was trying to find out. It could be a dead end. It could link to other tunnels or to buildings, the legislative building. It could be anything. No one knows. No one –”

“No one knows, eh? But that’s not entirely true, now, is it? You know, Merv. You know about it. You know all about it.”

More silence.

“Let’s do a bit of a hypothetical. You know about a secret passage, but you say you don’t.”

“I don’t know about a secret passage.”

“You play along well, Merv. Okay, and let’s say that I also know about it. And, being a Trash Panda, it’s no stretch of the imagination that it wouldn’t be long before other Pandas are in on our little secret. If I were to divulge to Mr. Mercury that not only do I know about a secret passage into the legislative building but that a little washed up bunny rabbit also knows, what do you think his response would be?”

“This is ridiculous, I –”

“Shut it! He would ask if I’d taken care of the wittle wabbit. And you know what I’ll say, Merv? What I’ll hypothetically say?”

Merv didn’t answer.

“I’ll say yes, Merv. I’ll say yes.”

Randem pulled out a knife – a bigger knife than Merv’s – and smiled, as if barely holding in a laugh.  

Without thinking, Merv turned and ran. Deeper into the tunnel. And Randem followed.

The tunnel twisted and forked. Darkly shadowed intersections flew by him. He jumped over rubble, over pools of water. Ducked under collapsed wooden beams. Mentally, he tried to remember which way he went. He pictured the map in his mind. Right, left, straight. Distance, direction. He moved with speed, and yet he could hear Randem keeping pace.

And not only that, he was catching up.

The light from Merv’s flashlight arced up and down, ceiling to floor. It’s no use, he thought, he’ll get me, he’s a raccoon, he can see in the dark and he’ll get me.  

The tunnel turned left and Merv took the opportunity to look behind him, to see how close Randem was. He could hear him. Huffing. Gaining. Randem’s knife sparkled in the claustrophobic dark.

Merv didn’t see it until it was too late. Distracted, and chased by the promise of a painful death, Merv ran into a different kind of painful promise.  

He ran into the grey papery walls of an enormous wasp’s nest.  

His body sank into its dry flesh. His legs kicked uselessly. He was stuck, embedded like a helpless fly in a spider’s web. He strained his head to look behind him, as the spider – Randem; his shadow giving him eight legs – creeped nearby.

The flashlight was gone, it had disappeared deep into the hexagonal bowels of the giant wasp’s nest. The only illumination, a horrific candle in the dark, was the flame that came from Randem’s zippo.

Merv’s face contorted in terror as he watched Randem toss the lighter toward him. Toward the pallid monstrosity that held him. And before Merv could do anything about it, the monster, fueled by the fire, howled.

LARVA: INSTAR VI: The Reunion Special

Matty and Johnny Salamander ran from the Beer Can. Across Isabel, down Assiniboine. And when they arrived, they saw that it wasn’t the legislative building that had exploded, but the plaza’s fountain. Where once it stood, there was large crater, as round as if God had punched the ground. A mangled pipe – like a lone metal rib – hung in the air, water gushing from its bent end. Pieces of the fountain littered the ground. Lampposts lay dead, their bulbs smashed.

“Matty, don’t get too close to the edge. It could collapse – be careful.” 

Matty looked down. A pool had already started to form at the bottom. A hunk of something – Matty didn’t know what – was smouldering. It smelled like burning lawn clippings.

Johnny wasn’t looking. He was typing into his phone. Leeland, thought Matty. What had caused this? How could a fountain explode? Vandalism? Terrorism? But why the fountain?

At first Matty thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. A piece of the rubble had moved. Settled. And moved again. And then, as if someone had dove up from below, a body emerged, thrashing like an injured bird.

“John, there’s someone in there! John! I’m going down.”

“Matty! Wait –”

Before Johnny could stop her, Matty jumped down onto a slab of cracked limestone rock, and then into the water. She smelled burnt hair and saw a bald patch on the flailing arm before her. Matty grabbed onto it and pulled its owner, coughing and sputtering for air, up and out of the water. Matty saw it was a rabbit.

“My backpack – I had to go back for it.”

“Merv?”

He looked up, recognizing the voice.

“Matty?”

“Holy shit, Merv, are you okay? Did you blow up the fountain?” And then, as an afterthought, “Why didn’t you text me back?”

“Matty, I –”

“Let’s get out of here. John!”

Matty pushed from below as John helped him out, and both pulled Matty up and out of the fountain’s quickly filling crater.

“Matty, we need to go, the Trash Pandas, they –” Merv didn’t finish. His head snapped in the direction of the siren. The police, the fire department, paramedics – they’d all be coming. “We need to go.”

“Merv, are you alright? If you need a doctor –”

“I’m fine. Really, I’m fine. I was chased. The Pandas. I got lost, fell into the hole. I don’t really know what happened. But I know we shouldn’t stay here. Matty.” He pleaded.

Johnny was back on his phone, and spoke without looking up.

“Matty, if your friend is involved with the Trash Pandas then you should go now. I’ve been looking into them for Leeland – for MBC – and it’s not good. Mr. Mercury, Sid Rider, Red River Construction, Cinnamon Virtue –” Merv flinched. “They’re all connected somehow. Look, we should talk later. I have theories – nothing proven – but all these city contracts, all this construction; there’s something going on. Corner cutting, land transfers...” He trailed off, reading a new text. “Leeland’s coming with a camera crew. Go, now!”

Matty and Merv hurried past the Louis Riel statue and down the steps to the river trail. Merv limped, his burned arm, draped around Matty’s neck, held him steady.  

“Matty, I’m sorry I texted you. I’m sorry I didn’t text you back.”

“Merv, what happened? What really happened? It wasn’t just Trash Pandas, was it?”

“It’s big, Matty. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen. The biggest anyone’s ever seen.”

“What is? What’s big?” They stopped at a bench to rest.

“Wasps!” said Merv, his eyes bulging with incredulity. “There was a nest. Randem – the Trash Panda chasing me – he set it on fire.”

“Wasps?”

“Matty, I can’t go back home. They know where I live. They’ll come for me and they’ll hurt me. And if you’re there, they’ll hurt you, too. Matty, what do I do?” Merv, on the verge of tears, began to hyperventilate.

Wasps, thought Matty. She was right, there was something going on. Something interesting. Something special. She had felt it, and now she knew it was true. Her mind raced with possibilities.

But all that was for another day. Right now, Merv needed her help.

“We’ll go to my place. It’s not far, just across the river.”  

As gently as she could, she helped Merv back onto his feet, and the two, reunited at last, crossed over Osbourne bridge and disappeared into the village.

What neither realized, however, was that they were being watched. Not by the Trash Pandas or rubbernecked onlookers or police helicopters that hovered loudly above, but by a statue. By Louis Riel. Like an owl, he swiveled his head backward to watch as Merv was pulled out of the wreckage that was once the plaza fountain. His beady red eyes saw it all. Watched them pass him by, down the steps to the river. To the bench. And, furrowing his brows to focus, watched them walk down a deserted Roslyn Avenue, too.

The only thing Louis Riel did not see was the dark, grave-shaped window of Matty’s apartment, and the movement, like restless corpses, that lay buried behind it.

LARVA: INSTAR VII: Interlocution I

“And they are managing, I hope?”

“Very well, yes, thank you. There are a few complaints, but nothing they can’t handle.”

“Complaints?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, I assure you.”

“Such as?”

“To be sure, it is nothing. But, if you insist, the chamber was smaller than expected.”

“Smaller than expected? Has she grown that much since her last visit?”

“In her defense, it has been many years since we last had the honour.”

“It will be fixed. You have my word. Please let her know our sincerest apologies, we should have accounted for her... her... ahem, we should have known.”

“No need, it has been taken care of. As I said, it is nothing they can’t handle.”

“Taken care of?”

“Yes, Premier.”

“Wilbur.”

“It has been taken care of, Premier Wilbur.”

“Just Wilbur - now stop it. What do you mean it’s been taken care of? Are you telling me that’s why there’s been so many sinkholes lately? You are, aren’t you? Ah goddamn it, it is what they thought. Look, that last one took out our fountain. Do you see what everyone’s saying about me? You can’t just make the chamber bigger like that. Do I even want to know how bad? How bad is it?”

“We both know there wasn’t any way of stopping her.”

“I get that, appreciate it, truly I do, just make sure it doesn’t take down a building is all I’m saying. Anything else, and I don’t know what I’ll do. They’ll eat me alive.”

“Her architecture is perfect, Wilbur.”

“Of course, of course – no, I didn’t mean to say otherwise. I meant that I want to assure you that we are doing our utmost to meet the terms of the agreement.”

“The agreement will be honoured.”

“Well, it better be. Because tearing up every goddamn road in the city is killing me in the polls. There’s an election this month – did you know that?”

“We were aware, yes.”

“And so, what will they ask of me? Or am I not supposed to know?”

“We come for what we have always come for, Wilbur: food. We will share that we intend to honour the agreement. She will ensure it.”

“Honouring.”

“Yes, Wilbur.”

“Can you tell me what happens if she decides that we haven’t been... honouring, as you say, our side of the bargain?”

“No, I can’t tell you.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“You know?”

“Yes.”

“But you won’t say.”

“It would be impolite.”

“It’s better I don’t know?”

“Yes, Wilbur.”

“Premier Forrest.”

“Yes, Premier Forrest."

Merv woke up sore. His muscles ached. His head throbbed. Half his body felt like it was on fire, which, Merv thought, was understandable. Last night, half his body was on fire. He remembered the look on Randem’s face – his smile – in the tunnel. His surprise as the blast sent both of them tumbling like ragdolls. Merv hoped Randem got it worse than he did.

He sat up – gently, slowly – and tested his movement. He expected an unbearable pain to shoot through him, to awaken just as he had, but it remained asleep. Merv wouldn’t argue. Let it sleep.

Matty had made a bed for him on her couch. He’d insisted on it. She’d bandaged his shoulder and arm, blotted his skin with disinfectant, gave him aspirin and anything else she had in her medicine cabinet. Sleeping aids, melatonin. Merv hadn’t cared what it was and took it all.  

He twisted himself to face the coffee table and, with the glass of water Matty had left him, swallowed four more aspirin tablets. He pocketed the bottle.

The living room was immaculate. A large cherry-coloured buffet table held an equally large TV, potted plants on either side. A bookcase accented the wall behind him; knickknacks and tchotchkes arranged around framed photos, around books. Paintings, prints, stained glass. There was a record player, too, but Merv didn’t see any records. Everything was neat. Everything was tidy. Everything was... Matty.

He looked out the large windows. Not far from the apartment – just across the river, in fact – was Merv’s place. His den. His home. His hole, more like it. It was the opposite of clean, the opposite of neat and tidy, the opposite of Matty. What had he done? How could he continue to do this to Matty? It was the first time in years that he’d seen her, and what did he do? He made it all about himself, and, worse, because of him, her life could be in danger, too. It was just as it was after Kids’ Korner ended. Merv was dragging Matty into his... mess.

Merv got up and saw his backpack by the door. Down the small hall beyond it was Matty’s room, the door closed. Merv considered leaving a note, decided against it, and, as quietly as he could, opened the apartment door and left.

He shuffled across the bridge. He didn’t know whether it was the movement or the pain meds finally kicking in, but he felt better. Not perfect, no way. Not even great. But better. Plus, he thought, he’d been on benders that had felt worse. Much, much worse.

As he neared his home, he saw Devon was waiting for him.  

“Merv! There you are! Thank God, I thought something terrible had happened to you.”

Devon was a chickadee. He was perched on a tree branch that bent precariously under his substantial weight. By his own admission, Devon was not just a chickadee, he was a thickadee.

“Something terrible did happen to me.”

“It did? Well, then I have some more terrible news for you.” Devon motioned to the open door. The metal hatch, anchored into the ground as securely as possible, and locked several times over, looked like the flimsy lid of a tin can. Its hinges broken. The locks busted.

“Let me guess, the Trash Pandas.”

“You got it. They went in and came out with something, Merv. I don’t know what it was, but it was something big.” His book. His life’s work. Pain returned, and Merv grimaced.

“You didn’t do anything, did you?” asked Merv.

“No, I did what you said I should do. Document!” Devon flew from the branch, which shot up, relieved of its burden, and landed on Merv’s shoulder. Thankfully, it was his uninjured side.

Devon flipped through pictures on his phone. It was the Pandas, alright. Bullet, the smaller of the two, stood watch, while Randem went inside. It was only a slight relief to see that Randem’s face, and much of his body, was also burned. His fur looked as if it had melted off, like he had rabies or mange or was addicted to Gaze. Knowing the Pandas, he probably was addicted.

Merv knelt down, let Devon hop off, and went inside.

The place was a mess. Having just come from Matty’s apartment, the contrast hit Merv in the gut. The place was a mess. But it had always been a mess. Drawers were opened, their contents spilling out; dirty dishes filled a grimy sink; a mirror – nearly opaque – its fringes splotched in black mold; and papers and books everywhere, as if a library, like a confetti-filled balloon, had popped.

But this was Merv’s home, and so even in its chaos, he knew what was out of place. And, to his immediate despair, he saw the nightstand – the nightstand behind which he’d dug a hole into the earthen wall, the hole in which he kept his book, his life’s work, safe – and the nightstand had been moved.

He rushed to it, pushed it to the side, and saw only an empty hole. The book was gone.  

This was not just any book. He’d compiled, not merely an anthology, but a complete and unabridged history of hauntings in Manitoba. It had yet to be written, but the book held every note, every interview, every investigation and report and news clipping he had. Stories that preceded civilization, stories of murder and revenge, stories of goblins and ghouls and grimoires. It was to be his Grimms’ Fairy Tales, his One Thousand and One Nights, a book of legendary Manitoban tales that would announce his triumphant return to society. To fame and fortune. Or so Merv dreamed. Perhaps that, too, was another tall tale. Another lie.

He looked around the room. The book was a way out of this hellhole, this shithole. And now that, too, was gone. No, he would get that book back. He needed it back.

Merv left. Devon was waiting for him outside.

“Which way did they go?” Devon pointed to the legislative building, and, without responding, Merv trudged off.

The fountain, or what was left of it, was taped off. Security, a couple of serious looking grey squirrels, stood nearby, preventing anyone from getting near.

Merv knew what Randem wanted. He wanted the map. The Trash Pandas wanted information on the underground tunnels. For what, Merv could only imagine. Nothing good.

There were scraps of it in Merv’s book, but nothing that would help them. The only real map – the complete map – was somewhere under the crumbled remains of the fountain. Much more likely, it no longer existed; destroyed, burned even worse than Randem.  

Lost in thoughts of despair and self-pity, Merv did not hear the crunch of gravel as someone approached him from behind. Nor did he see the hand that reached out to grab his shoulder.

PUPA II: PLANS MADE, BESTLY LAID

“Matty! You scared the living shit out of me.” Merv had leapt into the air when he felt her hand.

“Merv, I’m so sorry – a bit jumpy still?” Her concern struggled to hide a smile.

“I’m a rabbit, what did you expect? We’re always jumpy.” Her smile escaped.

“When I woke and saw you were gone, I started to worry. Are you feeling better? I thought you might come back here.”

“Matty, I’ve got nothing left. It’s all gone. Everything I’ve done is gone.”

“What do you mean? What’s gone?”

“My book! The map of the tunnels! Everything – it’s all gone.” Despair creeped back into his voice. “Years, Matty! I worked on it for years!”

Years in which you never called, thought Matty, and she pushed the thought away. Another time.

“What book?”

“My ticket back. It would have been great, Matty. It was a tour – a pilgrimage of sorts; legends, fables, tales from all over Manitoba. The paranormal, UFOs, bigfoot – I’d compiled everything I could find!” Merv was getting excited, animated, as he spoke, and, in it, Matty saw, with only a sliver of sorrow, how important it was to him.

“And what happened to it?”

“The Trash Pandas took it. Randem took it. He was after the map, I know it.” He looked up at Matty, and saw her confusion.

“Okay, so I had a map of the underground tunnels. Some you can easily access. Some you can’t. And there are so many stories about those tunnels that I needed to go down there, I needed to find them. So I made a map. I wasn’t sure if it was accurate, and so yesterday I wanted to test it. Like, was I right? And I was, Matty! I was right! And that’s when Randem followed me in. The Trash Pandas want access to the tunnels, too. They took the book thinking the map was in there. But it wasn’t.”

“Where’s the map, then?”

“Down there.” Merv nodded to the fountain. “Burned, most likely.”

“Well, we’ll have to get it back. The book, I mean.”

“From Randem? The Trash Pandas? From Mr. Mercury? No way that’s gonna happen. I’ll have to start over. From scratch. And to think, what I saw down there was incredible! The size of it, Matty. I mean – If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it myself.” He paused, trying to read Matty’s expression. “Do you believe it? You must think I’m losing it, that I’ve lost it.”

“Merv, we have to go back down there.”

“Back down? Now you’ve lost it, too!”

“No, listen. I believe you. There’s something down there. There’s –”

“Wasps – that’s what’s down there.”

“Exactly, that’s where all the wasps are coming from. This must be what Professor Marigold was worried about. The nest that you saw wasn’t active, was it.”

Merv hadn’t thought about it until then, but Matty was right. When he ran into it, he wasn’t stung once. The nest had been a dead nest.

“Which means there are more down there.” 

Merv considered it. If he was going to start his book all over again, he’d have to start somewhere. And a giant wasp’s nest in the underground tunnels of Winnipeg’s downtown was as good a place as any. Map or no map.

“We’ll need a camera,” he said, at last. “Something to document it all.” 

Merv looked back to the fountain, to the security guards. One of them was scraping mud off the bottom of his boot. “And some way to get by them.”

Matty knew this, too, but hadn’t the faintest clue how. From what she could see, the city had been working overtime. The larger pieces had already been collected in the back of a dump truck. A pump had dried much of the basin. At this rate, if they waited any longer, the scar would have healed. And then what?

“I’ll go,” said a voice behind them.

PUPA III: THICKADEE INCORPORATED

It was Devon. And he was bigger than usual.

He rested on one of the cement bollards that lined Assiniboine Avenue, and he was covered head-to-toe in recording equipment. An elastic band held a camera to his forehead, a small microphone poked out from under his beak, other mics branched out in all directions, other cameras, too; and on his back, looped around his wings, was some kind of mechanical pack that blinked and whirred without obvious reason. All of which added to his already very rotund frame.

“I’ll go,” he repeated, clearly out of breath. Merv gaped, astonished.

“Are you sure you can even fly with all that on?”

Devon pressed a button on his wingstrap, and four small rotary blades retracted from his backpack and started spinning above his head. In short order, Devon was lifted above the bollard.

“Hot dang, Devon! That’s amazing!” cried Merv.  

Matty was impressed. It was just what they needed. And in no time at all they hatched a plan.

It was a simple plan. Merv and Matty, although washed-up celebrities, were still celebrities after all. And they guessed that the two security guards were about the right age to remember them from their glory days on Kids’ Korner. Nostalgia is a deceptively alluring vice.

And it worked. Distracted, the surprisingly stealthy Devon-mobile flew in behind the backs of the star-struck security guards, and he entered the dark and dirty – and, most importantly, empty – tunnel below.

Once inside, Devon breathed a sigh of relief. If he had been seen, he would have told security everything, spilled his guts. He wouldn’t have been able to help it. Devon hated confrontation. It gummed his gears. He clammed up. But he’d made it through with ease, and that gave him a sense of confidence. Hovering as he was, despite the tunnel’s stagnant gloominess, Devon was in his element.

Merv and Matty left and sat at a bench near the Louis Riel statue. Devon’s feed, if all went well – if being underground didn’t cut out the signal – would be relayed to Matty’s phone. And so, the two huddled together, as if they were a couple resting after an enjoyable late morning’s walk, and watched Matty’s phone.

“Devon, can you hear me?” asked Merv; it was nearly a whisper.

“Thickadee hears you loud and clear, over. How’s the video on your end?”

“It looks good, Devon... uh... Thickadee. Hey – can you turn around? I want to get a look at those repairs.” Devon angled the rotary blades accordingly. “There – stop!”

Matty squinted, leaning near the phone.

“Is that plastic?” Much of the debris had been cleared away, and where the tunnel’s walls had once been there were two large plastic cylinders in its place, one to either side of the only opening that remained.

“Looks like it,” said Merv. “Shouldn’t that be concrete? Some kind of cement? Plastic seems so...”

“Cheap,” Matty finished. “It’s a quick job, Merv. Don’t you get it? They’re covering it up. They don’t care whether it lasts or not.” She looked up at him. “They want it gone, and not eventually gone – they want it gone now. They know and they’re covering it up.”

Merv pressed a button on Matty’s phone.

“So, when I asked you to watch my place...”  

Devon’s voice came back, tinged with a faintly cavernous echo.

“I watched your place. I have hi-res video, hi-fidelity recordings of their conversations, both in and out of your den.” Devon paused, as if thinking. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Devon – do I mind? I’m goddamned thrilled! That’s the best news I’ve heard all day!”

Matty turned and looked at Merv. She watched him be engrossed in the chase, as if reinvigorated. At that moment, Matty saw he had regained something. It was like the old Merv – the Merv she remembers from Kids’ Korner– had returned. He was smiling, for one, not something she’d seen from him since she’d pulled him out of the fountain’s crater. He was excited. So was she, for that matter, but Merv had nearly died last night. And now they’d sent his friend – Matty thought Devon may be Merv’s only friend – into that very same place. Maybe Merv really had lost it.

She pressed a button and spoke.

“Devon, please be careful.”  

He responded immediately.

“Roger that, Matty. Initiating operation Be Careful.”  

Merv’s eyes widened.

“Operation what? Devon, what are you initiating?”

“No need to worry, Merv. All indications are that systems are a go.”

“Devon...”

A barred cage emerged from the backpack, and it wrapped Devon a protective shield. For Merv and Matty, it was like a series of metallic talons had gripped him.

“Power banks are as expected. Reserves are stable. Thickadee is waiting for direction.” He paused.

“Over.”

Matty leaned over and into the phone.

“Proceed, Devon. To the north.”

They watched the feed. A beam of light cut through the darkness, illuminating the way. Matty couldn’t help but feel like Devon was traveling down a limestone-lined throat, as if he were being swallowed by the very earth itself. Motes of dust floated by – each the silent ghost of a wasp.

“There!” Merv yelled. “Devon, go back. Ah – there! That’s it, right? The side of the nest?”

Devon flew nearer the tunnel’s wall. The feed showed the charred fringes of what was once a gigantic paper nest. It frilled the tunnel like ribs. Burnt serrations that showed how large it once was.

“And there!” Merv, again. “That’s my knife! I must have dropped it.”

Devon flew to the ground. He flipped a switch and two arms, like pincers, extended from the backpack, grabbing the knife with a practiced ease.

“Keep going, Devon. I want to see where this ends.”

The charred ruins of the nest continued for several meters, like a paste of black rumble strips.

To Matty, Merv said, “It looks like someone torched the place. There’s no way everything was burned, is there? Devon, what do your sensors say?” Merv assumed Devon had sensors. A pause.

“Sensors are good,” he replied. “Nothing anomalous... Except... Are you hearing that?”

Matty turned up the volume on her phone. Nothing.

“It’s like a static,” said Devon, “like a hum... or a buzz...”

Matty responded.

“Devon, if there are wasps there, don’t go too near. Just watch.” She searched for the word. “Just document.”

“Roger that, Matty. Documentation in progress.”

Devon continued north. He increased auditory sensitivity, enabled noise reduction, normalized sound waves, but still Merv and Matty couldn’t hear what he, with his own ears, could clearly hear.

It rose and rose to a fevered, ache-inducing pitch.

“You can’t hear that?” He asked, one last time, his voice raised above the loud and piercing dissonance.

And then before him, as if it appeared from nothing, was a ghost. In the shape of a man. A man made of wasps.

Merv and Matty could do nothing but watch as the feed was cut.

Matty jumped up from where she sat on the bench, clutching her phone. She played back the clip, paused it.  

“Merv,” she said, getting his attention. “Look.” She handed him the phone. The still image showed the grainy face of a young man, and yet, blurred though it was in what looked like continuous motion, Matty could see he was handsome. And frightening. It looked like the face of a cold-hearted killer, an assassin with few, if any, regrets.  

“What kind of wasp does that, Matty?”  

Merv looked up, and past her, his face suddenly flush.

Matty ignored him.

“We’ve got to go get Devon. C’mon!” Matty pulled Merv to his feet, holding him steady, seeing him wince. “Merv, look at me – your friend needs you. We sent him down there, and now we have to go get him out!”

“Matty,” whispered Merv, “behind you. The Louis Riel statue. It’s moving.”

Merv watched the statue hop off its base, crushing the colourful flowers that had been planted around it. The statue turned its head and glared. Riel’s eyelids flipped up mechanically to expose two blood red camera lenses, behind which recorded everything he saw. It took a few uncertain steps, and then lunged at Matty.

Merv, reacting instinctively, pushed her out of the way, and Louis Riel crashed into the bench, breaking off a piece of the back. It struggled to right itself and clubbed the ground with The Manitoba Act. Matty scrambled to her feet and ran over to Merv, and the two stumbled backward, and onto the street.  

“Merv, we have to go – now!”  

Louis Riel stood with an emotionless fury.

They turned and started to sprint toward the ruined fountain, ready to jump over the barricade that circled it, ready to dive back into the tunnel, back underground, ready to save Devon, ready to save their friend. But they stopped fast when they saw two figures step out from behind the bushes, blocking them.

From the east emerged Leo Mol’s Queen Elizabeth II statue, holding an iron shawl like a net; and from the west stepped Nellie McClung, who twirled a bronze pen in her hand with dangerous ease.  

Merv and Matty looked at one another.

“From the north,” said Merv, unsure of himself. “We pull them in and loop around, and we go in from the north.” Matty nodded.

They split. Matty ran east and onto the grass, bouncing off trees and lampposts to quickly change direction and evade the grasping hands of an angrily determined Queen Elizabeth.  

Merv ran directly for Nellie McClung, and, at the last second, leaped as high as he could into the air.  The statue swiped at him from below, nicking him superficially in the thigh, and he crashed into a flowerbed behind her. He landed hard, and pain exploded in his shoulder.  

Matty doubled back. She ducked under a barricade and bounded over a hedge. She saw Nellie McClung ambling toward Merv. Louis Riel was not far behind.  

Merv rolled out of the raised flower bed and fell onto the hard ground. Matty was running toward him.

“Merv!” she yelled. “One more time! Jump!” The Queen was gaining on her.

Merv got up, looked quickly behind him, and understood. Just as Matty was about to run into him, he kicked himself into the air. At the same time, Matty slid between the arched legs of a lumbering Louis Riel, and the Queen, hardly slowing at all, tackled him mistakenly. The bronzed statues collided with immense force, like the weighted thud of a car crash.

Merv ran west, weaved around a thick elm tree, and hid behind the corner of one of the long greenhouses that bordered the government house. He could see Matty. Nellie McClung had pursued her up the stairs to the south doors of the legislative building. Merv was impressed, as it looked as if Matty was having fun. She launched herself from one of the large limestone pillars, swung from an overhanging tree branch, and landed in a bed of mulch and pine needles with an unexpected expertise.

A bronze pen struck the ground in front of her. Matty knew she had to move fast. She needed to lure them away from the fountain, so that Merv could get inside.

She raced toward the Holocaust monument.  

“Matty!” yelled Merv. But it was too late.

There was another statue lurking in the shadows. It was the little Ukrainian girl from the Bitter Memories of Childhood statue. Holding her solid bouquet of wheat as if it were a lance, the little girl tripped Matty, and she cried out as she fell, rolling awkwardly, grating herself on the rough pavement.

Matty was in trouble, and Merv rose to run to her.

It was then that a hand pulled him back and into the low-lit shadows of the greenhouse.

A hand covered Merv’s mouth.

“Quiet! You want them to get you?” It was a woman’s voice. “Don’t be a fool. Do you hear me? Be quiet.”

Merv relented, but could see that all four statues had surrounded Matty. The hand relaxed.

“But Matty, she’s –” he gasped, before cutting himself off.

“Hurry, come on. They’ll be looking for you soon. We need to get out of here. Follow me.” She spoke in urgent whispers.  

Merv agonized. He had failed Devon. And now he had failed Matty. One lost to a nebulous underground horror, a wasp man. The other to the golemic instruments of state security.

Merv followed the stranger, and was led through a small hatch that went up and into the greenhouse.

Once inside, the woman soundlessly closed it behind her, drawing a latch to lock it in place. She pushed an opened sac of soil over it. Merv could tell she’d done this before. Whoever she was, she was familiar with the greenhouse. And its secrets.

They hung low, well below long tables that held all sorts of flowers and ornamental grasses.  

She pressed her finger to her lips as a shadow was cast across the building’s gabled roof.

It was the Queen.

Merv held his breath.  

And the shadow moved on.

Only when the woman peeked through a thick tuft of ornamental grasses did Merv exhale. The Queen was back on her pedestal in the east garden.

Shifting back into a seated position on the floor, the woman spoke, her voice still hushed with caution.

“How do you know Matty?”

“How do I know Matty? How do you know Matty?” She watched him closely, intelligently.

“I teach at the university. Matty interviewed me several days ago.”

“Professor Marigold?”

“Professor Amethyst Marigold.”

“Matty told me about you. You were the one that told her about the wasps. She wanted to talk to you again.” Merv remembered the nest. “We have something to show you. Sorry,” he added, “I’m a friend of Matty’s. Merv. My name’s Merv.”

“Is that why she didn’t show? We were supposed to meet this morning.”

“You were?” asked Merv. Her eyes narrowed.

“Are you sure you’re friends?”

“Old friends.” It was Merv’s turn. “If you work at the university, why do you have access to the greenhouse?”

“I know the gardener. Look, Matty’s a good kid. She’s a smart kid, and that’s why I wanted to help her. I could tell she thought there was something off about all the wasps. I didn’t even have to tell her as much and she knew. That’s true journalistic instinct. That’s why she deserves being on the camera again. Do you remember that show on MBC?” Understanding suddenly dawned on her. “Oh shit, now I recognize you. Friends? Really?”

“Matty needs help!” Merv burst out uncontrollably.

“Quiet down!” Marigold scolded. “And she’ll get it. But first that means we can’t let ourselves be caught. And that,” she emphasized, “means that both of us just need to chill. Can you chill?”

“Where are they taking her?”

“My guess is to jail.”

“Jail?! Oh god, this is bad.”

“No – jail is good.”

“Good?”

Professor Marigold smiled.

“Fortunately for us, jail is the best thing that could’ve happened.”

Matty sat in a dark and windowless room. Pipes of all sizes – some the width of her arm, others large enough to crawl through – coiled the walls and criss-crossed the ceiling, as if they were all part of some never-ending metallic snake. Matty waited for it to constrict, to squeeze the life out of her, to attack.

She had been caught, thrown into Queen Elizabeth’s heavy shawl, and carried to... wherever she found herself. Plopped unceremoniously onto an ancient wooden chair.

And wherever she was, it was hot.

Sweat beaded on her forehead. It dripped down into her eyes and she rubbed it away without thinking. She wasn’t going to cry, and didn’t want anyone to think she was crying either.

An empty chair faced her. Behind it, and leaning onto the top rail, stood one of the meanest looking raccoons that Matty had ever seen. His snout and lips pulled back to reveal a set of very stained, but still very sharp, teeth. She recognized him at once. It was Mr. Mercury. Leader of the Trash Pandas.

Behind her, to her left, though she dare not look around, was Randem; and to her right, Bullet. Between them, as if ready to strike Matty down if she did anything untoward, was the little Ukrainian girl; her bundle of wheat gripped menacingly tight in her small and shiny hands.  

Mr. Mercury stepped around from behind the chair.

“You must forgive me, Matty,” he spat, his voice sounded as if it were full of Jell-O. “For reasons I hope you understand, security has been...” He searched for a word. “Tense.”

Matty stayed silent.

“You’re a reporter with MBC, are you not? You don’t have to answer. I know you are. Matty Squirrel. You know, my sons used to watch your show back when they were little. What was it? Kids’ Hour? Kids’ Club?”

“Korner,” said Matty, dryly. “Kids’ Korner .”

“Korner, eh?” Gelatinous, like he was clearing his throat. “You know, it should have been raccoons instead of squirrels – it could have been Kits’ Korner then, eh? Ha! Get it, Kits’ Korner?”

He gestured, trivially.

“The other one, too. The rabbit. Merv, he was on that show, too.” Matty didn’t react. Mr. Mercury shrugged.  

“I take that’s a yes. Interesting guy, Merv.” He held a large book up in front of him, claws audibly tapping the cover. “I can’t help but think you know the importance of this book. Has he shown it to you? He hasn’t, has he. No, I can see why. It seems like your friend has gone off the deep end.” He flipped to a random page and read.

“‘And that’s when I was swallowed by a massive carnivorous tree near Molson, Manitoba.’ Or how about this one,” he flipped several pages. “Legends say that Manitou still lies at the bottom of Lake Winnipeg, that Manitou is the bottom of the lake... and after diving into the north basin, I can confirm that the legend is one-hundred-percent true.’” He looked up to emphasize his point. “One-hundred-percent, Matty. He’s lost it – ah, what do you squirrels say – he’s nuts!”

Matty could not hold back.

“Why do you care! It means nothing to you!”  

“You know, you’re more correct than you think. This –”, he raised the book, “it does mean nothing to me. And I was really wishing it would mean something, Matty – that would have made things much easier for the both of us. Especially you. But you’re right, it means nothing.” He dropped the book to the floor, where it thudded loudly, sending out a plume of dust. “It means absolutely jack shit.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you take from him?”

Mr. Mercury glanced behind her, looking at Randem.

“Because it was supposed to mean something to me, Matty. My intelligence–”, he said it sarcastically, “said it would tell me about the tunnels. But those pages, if they even existed, are missing.”

“So why are you telling me? I don’t know anything about the tunnels.”

“Why?” He sat down in the chair, pushed his head back, combing it into place with his claws. He was excited about something, and that scared Matty. “Why? Because without that map my men are going to keep disappearing. I send ‘em down there and they hardly ever come back! And when they do come back, they’re even uglier than before.” Bullet chittered behind her.

“I need that map, Matty. And I know Merv’s got it.” It’s no use telling him it’s gone, thought Matty. Let him find out on his own.

Mr. Mercury removed a phone from his breast pocket, looked at it briefly, and then turned it around for Matty to see.

“Tell me, who is this?” he asked.

It was Cinnamon Virtue. Matty remembered what Johnny Salamander had told her about Mr. Mercury. And who was that other guy? Sid someone?

“It’s Mayor Virtue,” she said, flatly. Mr. Mercury nodded. He put away the phone, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. A photograph. He held it up.

“And who’s this?” His thumb covered half of it, but Matty could see it was Merv, from their Kids’ Korner days. It suddenly struck her how old he had become. He would have been around Matty’s age at the time. He was young and smiling. Laughing. It must have been right after one of their shows because Merv was still in his squirrel make up. Or nearly. Half of it was falling off his face, exposing the rabbitness underneath. Looking at the photo now, Matty had to admit, Merv had been good-looking.  

“That’s Merv,” she said, surprised that she said it proudly. “Merv Mapleton.”

“And this?” Matty looked.

It was Cinnamon Virtue. Only it wasn’t. Her arm was draped around his shoulder. Like Merv, she was laughing. Like Merv, her face was made up. And like Merv, it, too, was falling off. Matty marveled at the similarity of their features, their eyes, their small nose, their ears. There was no mistaking it: Cinnamon Virtue, the mayor of Winnipeg, was a rabbit.

Seeing the look on Matty’s face, Mr. Mercury smiled and took the photo back. He flipped it around and read, his voice filled with an effervescent mucus: “Love you always little brother. Your sis forever, Sia.”

Merv was unaware, but much of his map of the subterranean network of tunnels was correct. His calculations, his guesses, both educated and uneducated, would have been, if he had had the chance to do so, proven right. But there was at least one detail he missed.

There was a tunnel that led from greenhouse to Central Powerhouse and beyond; to the Manitoba Archives, the provincial court, and to the jail. It was a detail known by less than a handful of people. One was the provincial gardener. And the other was Professor Marigold.

In the greenhouse, she pushed aside a water barrel, and opened the secret door it obscured. They climbed down a metal ladder, its rungs oddly warm, and Professor Marigold, who had, Merv surmised, traveled the corridor many times before, led him through its winding darkness and toward Memorial Boulevard.  

“The Powerhouse heats all of these buildings,” she explained. “We should be coming up to it shortly.”

The heat told them they were close.

Professor Marigold intended for them to skip past Central Powerhouse and travel to the main tunnel, the one that lead to the provincial jail. But as they climbed the ladder, Merv heard a voice – Matty’s voice – and saw that their journey beyond that point was unnecessary.

They opened the hatch and peeked out; a slit of light projected on their eyes. There was a short hall before them, and beyond, through an opened door, Merv saw the back of Mr. Mercury’s head.  

And then, Matty, flashes of her face through waving arms, sitting opposite him. There she was! Professor Marigold held him from running. There was nothing they could do, her look said. Just wait. And so, as they did, they also watched and listened.

They heard him drop Merv’s book, saw Mr. Mercury walk around the chair and sit with Matty, heard him talk about Merv’s sister. Which he continued to do.

“The mayor is not only a friend of rabbits, Cinnamon Virtue – Sia Mapleton – isa rabbit! You’re a journalist, Matty. Isn’t that news? Shouldn’t that be the top story – for weeks! – on MBC Nightly?”

“You’re blackmailing me,” said Matty.

“I’m convincing you. I’m blackmailing Sia.”

“To do what?”

“Bring me the map or bring me Merv.”

“Or what?”

“What do you mean ‘Or what?’ Or the only viable replacement for Wilbur Forrest goes down in flames – that’s what. No one’ll vote in a rabbit. You know it and she knows it. That’s why she hides. That’s why Merv hid it. And I don’t give two shits about The United Animals Act, it didn’t change a thing. The wolves ripped apart your brother, and they’ll rip apart his sister, too.

“So let me ask this one more time. Where. Is. MERV!” Mr. Mercury’s fury foamed at the edges of his mouth; spit fell as he kicked the floor; and, if it wasn’t an act, Matty feared he’d caught rabies. If was an act, it was a good act. But if it wasn’t... there’d be no predicting what he might do next.

“I – I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t! We sent Devon down the tunnel, and we were watching Devon’s cameras, and then Devon was attacked, and we ran to go save him, but then we were chased by Louis Riel and the other statues, and so we split up, and I didn’t see where he went, honest – I don’t know!”

“Attacked? What do you mean, attacked?” He calmed, visibly.  

“A thing! It was like a ghost. Devon filmed it! He said it was loud but we couldn’t hear anything. Not until the end. And then heappeared. The ghost. I could hear it buzzing, and then it went black. The feed was cut.”

“A ghost that buzzes?” he asked.

Professor Marigold was thinking much the same thing. But whereas Mr. Mercury was deciding whether or not to believe a ghost took out Panda after Panda, Professor Marigold’s mind instead buzzed with excitement. So, it was true. It was what she had thought. Those weren’t were just any kind of wasp. What Marigold had collected, what had been sent to her in vials, what had been caught on camera – it all pointed to one single, incontrovertible, unarguable fact: that Professor Marigold – Professor Amethyst Marigold – had discovered a species completely unknown to science. A new species! And she discovered it!

Lost in thought, Professor Marigold didn’t notice she was alone. Only when Merv shouted did she snap back to reality. And by then, it was too late. She could only watch.

Merv had walked through the door.

Merv entered the room, felt its sweltering heat. An unlocatable hiss permeated like a mist, and he heard the low rumble of the pipes, the distant grumble of a firing boiler. His voice echoed.

“Matty!” he called.

The Trash Pandas descended on him with displeasure, twisting his arms back and up, bending him forward, forcing him into a state of vulnerable acquiescence. Pain bloomed in his shoulder and he could not refrain from crying out.

“Let him go, Randem,” said Mr. Mercury, calmly. He turned in his seat as if only mildly interested. 

“There’s no need for violence.” Yet, he did not need to add.

Randem pushed him to the floor, to the space between Matty and Mr. Mercury. Merv looked to Matty, then to Mr. Mercury, then to... His book! He went for it, fighting through the pain, but he was too late. The black boot of Mr. Mercury stomped on it aggressively, pulled it back out of his reach, and kicked it under the chair.  

The Trash Panda boss leaned into the back of his chair and smiled, baring his teeth. He pulled out the folded photo of Sia, glanced at it briefly as if to confirm that the haggard rabbit that lay before him was the one pictured, and put it back into his pocket.

“One would think that with a sister as mayor, you’d be living in something a bit more...” He searched for the word, as if trying to taste it. “Modern. From what I hear you’ve been living in a hole in the ground.”

“A hole?” Merv heard Matty say.

“Let Matty go,” demanded Merv. He pushed himself up. “I have what you want – now, let her go.”

“You have my map?”

“Yes – I mean, no. No, I don’t have the map. My map,” he stressed. “But I have something just as good.”

“And what is that?”

“I have me.”

“You?”

“I know the map. I can remember it. I know it by heart. I know it like a squirrel,” he said, emphasizing the word.

A squirrel? Mr. Mercury seemed doubtful.

“And I have something that you’ll want to see.” Merv patted his pocket and held up Matty’s phone. He turned the screen toward Mr. Mercury.

“Watch.”

Merv played the clip, the one that showed scorched remains of the wasp nest, the one that showed a ghostly visage of whatever it was that attacked Devon. As he watched, Mr. Mercury could not hide his surprise.

“I’d bet that’s what’s been taking your men. It’s what got Devon.” Merv felt a pang of guilt saying Devon’s name.

Mr. Mercury replayed the clip.

“What is it?” he asked, impatient for the answer.

A woman’s voice came from behind them all. It was Professor Marigold.

“It’s a king-in-waiting,” she said, matter-of-factly. “A drone prince. A swarm of males. I’ve seen it before only once, but never so large, never so organized. It’s as if, collectively, they function as a single unit, like a super colony – a super organism! What the video shows is that they’ve achieved – quite literally, I should add – a hive mind. Chemical signals, of course, but this is significantly well-advanced.”

“And who are you?”

“Professor Amethyst Marigold. Biological Sciences at the University of Winnipeg. I specialize in behavioural ecology and non-linear emergent phenomenon.”

Silence.

“Matty interviewed me about wasps,” she continued.

“And that... thing is a wasp?”

“Yes and no. It could be a lot of things. It’s definitely a hymenopteran, but its taxonomic features are unlike anything I’ve seen. A blend of vespid and ichneumonid traits. It’s unknown to science.”

“And you think that’s what killed my men?”

“Actually, they may not be dead. If it’s a parasitoid then your men could still be alive...” She hesitated. “But they may not be for long. The wasps, they’d need a host for the eggs. But a dead host is bad host, and so they’d be paralyzed instead. Not dead. Then the eggs hatch and burrow inside. They may not even be unconscious. They could be fully aware of what’s happening to them.”  

They all grimaced at the thought.

“The brain is eaten last,” she added.

Mr. Mercury ignored the comment and turned to Randem.

“I want that thing destroyed. Kill the wasps, kill that...” He remembered what Professor Marigold had called it. “That Drone Prince. I want it dead.”

Marigold interjected. She pleaded to allow the scientific process to run its course, to study the great unknown, to catalog and preserve what may be a revolution in biological understanding. All of which was unsuccessful.

“You think I care about a bug! Randem, Bullet – kill every last wasp you see. You hear me? And you three.” He turned back to Matty and Merv. “You’re going with them.”

“Us?” said Matty. “Going where?”

“Where do you think?” He patted his breast pocket, the one that held the photograph of Merv and Sia. “You’re going back into the tunnels.”

“You think you’re being funny, barricading every goddamn street like that?”

“You must understand there’s a lot of work to be done. As you know, schedules are strict and must be maintained. Plus, I’d hate to miss a deadline.  After all, that’s my name on the contracts, not yours.”

“I gave you the contracts!”

“Then what are you complaining about? The work – as it has always done – is progressing. You must give it time. Rome was not built in a day.”

“To hell with Rome! They’re pissed!”

“Who’s they?”

“Everyone, Red. Every one of them.”

“Oh? Well, consider it civic engagement. It’s their duty, you know.”

“Red, I know you mean well, but this kind of shit has got to stop. It’s going to backfire – I can feel it. I may not deserve much, but I don’t deserve this. Don’t humiliate me, too.”

“Humiliate? I would never humiliate you, Sia. What kind of animal do you think I am? I’m helping you. Every step of the way, I’ve been helping you. Surely, you can see that. If Wilbur is pissed, well then good, let him be pissed. All that means is that it’s been effective.”

“Effective.”

“When people are angry, Sia, they’ll listen to anyone that tells them their anger is justified. But it has to be the right kind of anger. Take away their rights, degrade the social contract, sell off public institutions, destroy healthcare, poison their water – hell, you could murder entire families and the wolves would barely make a peep, let alone howl. But traffic – traffic is an altogether different beast. Traffic not only angers, it not only enrages, it deranges. And if the polls are any indication, you need all the derangement you can get.”

“Is that all?”

“Is that all what?”

“Is that all you’ve come here for. This mindless, endless chatter. Is there anything else I can do for you? Or is that all?”

“Well, now that I think of it, yes, in fact, there is. You wouldn’t happen to know who the fountain job went to?”

“What fountain job?”

“The explosion – don’t act like you don’t know. The plaza fountain. Who’d the contract go to?”

“You don’t have enough as it is?”

“It’s a lost opportunity is all I’m saying. I thought we had a deal.”

“Shit, Red, I don’t know. Would you like me to find out? Is that it? Call up civil engineering and... No, wait, what am I saying. That’s not us, that’s the province. They handle their own contracts.”

“There was no contract...”

“Not with us. Why are you asking?”

“Just that it’s nearly done. Already. Two days, if that, and that it’s like the explosion never happened. That doesn’t seem suspicious to you? That doesn’t raise your hackles? Put you on edge?”

“Make me angry, you mean?”

“It’s a quick fix, Sia. An expensive fix, too, I can guarantee you that.”

“You’re right, that does seem odd.”

“They’re hiding something.”

“What?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“Just fix the damn roads.”

“All in due course.”

Emile struggled to pull a shopping cart out of the shallows of the Assiniboine River. The aging raccoon was thin and his fur, where it wasn’t completely absent, faded as if it’d been bleached by the sun. He barked in frustration, rocked the cart back and forth and to the sides, trying to loosen it from the river’s muddy grasp.

“Rotten – it’s all damned rotten,” Emile mumbled. The cart stubbornly remained in the mud, its front tipped forward as if it were taking a sip of the dark and dirty water. He resigned himself to the fact that if he wanted the cart, he’d have to dig it out. And, to be sure, Emile wanted it. His last cart, which he’d filled with his belongings – extension cords, plastic jugs, propane cylinders, a tarp, much of which he’d stolen – had, itself, been stolen the day before. It was nothing new for Emile, but it was rotten luck, damned rotten, right to the core.

There weren’t many things that Emile cared about in life. Food, shelter, sleep – all, to him, were secondary concerns. Much more important for Emile – and for many like him, raccoons and squirrels and skunks alike – was Gaze. Emile stole – collected, he called it – whatever he could get his paws on. Phones and electronics were generally what he targeted, but as of late, those were hard to come by. Nowadays, everybody wanted electronics. Because nowadays everybody wanted Gaze.

Emile knew he was addicted. He’d not intended to spend the day trying to wedge a beat-up shopping cart (which probably didn’t even have wheels) out of the river. He’d been expecting to cash in, to get high, to gaze into the abyss. Not now though, he thought morosely, not without anything to cash in.

Before it was stolen, Emile had pushed his cart between two dumpsters on Edmonton Street. He’d even covered it with a crusty bedsheet to hide it. Not that that did any good. He’d climbed up the side of one of the dumpsters and jumped in, clawing open trash and searching for anything of value. Someone had thrown out an old computer monitor, its screen webbed with fractures. A microwave with no door. He’d even torn open a garbage bag full of bread, green with mold, and a plume of spores covered his face and made him cough. Not only was it a waste of time, it was, in Emile’s drug-addled mind, a rotten time. And the city was not yet done with Emile. In one more act of indignity (in what was a long sordid line of continued indignities), when he emerged from the dumpster, he saw that his cart was missing. The crusty bedsheet, too.

Emile sighed. There was nothing he could do about it now. What Emile really needed was a shovel. Something – anything – to dig out the shopping cart. But Emile didn’t have a shovel, and so it was one rotten thing after another.

It was then that Emile heard someone singing. He loosened his grip on the cart and looked around. Gaze had long ago taken his sense of smell, but he flared his nose and sniffed the air out of habit. There was no one. The river trail remained much as it usually was at that time of day: empty. But for Emile.

And a voice. It sounded far away and tinny, as if it was carried on the wind from across the river. Its distant reverberations wafted around him like a sweet perfume; its melody infectious.

“There’s not much time left today,” it sang.  

Emile laughed and relaxed. No, thought Emile, there isn’t much time at all. In fact, the day was almost over. And to Emile, a day without Gaze was a day wasted. It was a day gone rotten.

Emile turned back to his task. Perhaps he could use a stick or broom handle for leverage. Perhaps he should simply find another cart. He gave it one last pull.

It moved! Barely, but Emile felt it give.

He pushed it back, and pulled again, harder. Finally, as if the singing had provided him with the necessary strength, the river loosened its hold on the cart. He hummed along, grateful.  

Of course, it was a silly idea, for it was not without effort that Emile wrested the cart up and onto the footpath, where he cut off the clay that stuck to it like flesh, hacking it to its bare metal bones.

When the cart was as clean as it was going to get, Emile again heard the singing, like a gust, around him.  

“There’s no load I can’t hold,” it sang. It was closer. Like a breezy whisper tickling his ear.

Emile looked up at the river bank above him. Surrounded by trees, a scruffy collection of elms and maples and young cotttonwoods, and nearly obscured by a patch of stinging nettle, was a metal pipe. A meshed cage capped its opened end, which jutted out of the angled embankment; inside, Emile knew, was only darkness.

Emile also knew, but did not know exactly how he knew, that that was where the singing was coming from. Someone, a woman as far as he could tell, was inside the pipe.

As he listened to the song, memories of Linda floated into his head. Linda, who had abandoned him. Linda, who he had abandoned. Linda, who loved him more than anyone else ever could or would. Linda, with whom he once shared a warm bed. Linda, who had locked him out of their home. Linda, the beautiful. Linda, the kind. Linda, the love of his life. Linda, before he had known Gaze. And Linda, after.

Where she was now, Emile didn’t know. She’d moved. Out of Winnipeg, out of Manitoba maybe. Who knows. But wherever she’d gone, she didn’t tell Emile. She was – and Emile didn’t blame her – out of his life for good.

To be certain, it had been years since he’d thought of her. Emile’s mind, attuned to little else, was centred, nearly exclusively, on Gaze. But when Emile heard the song, he was fondly reminded of his wife.

Ex-wife, Emile corrected. Had she sung this same song? When it came on the radio, had not she turned up the volume as loud as it could go? Had she not sung along to its chorus? Emile was almost certain she had.

He parked the shopping cart behind the back of a stone park bench and scampered up the embankment, pushing aside brush and branches in the process.

When he reached the pipe, he saw that the grate that capped it was unlocked. It screeched – a rusty shrill – as he swung it open.

“Linda?” he called. For a moment the singing stopped, and Emile thought fleetingly that it was, indeed, all in his head; that his mind, as if refusing to acknowledge the subtle effects of withdrawal, had, finally, snapped.

But then the singing resumed. Like a hiss.

“Won’t hesitate...” it sang.

Emile stuck his head into the pipe. “Linda!” he called again. His voice echoed loudly. No response.

He reached into his pocket, withdrew a lighter, and flicked it on. The small flame lit the pipe’s interior, and its surface, where it wasn’t caked in leaves or grime, shimmered. The pipe angled up slightly, and, after fifteen or so metres, turned left. It was also, Emile saw, more than large enough for him to crawl into.

And so he did.

When Emile rounded the corner, he found he could easily stand up, and so, holding the lighter out before him like a torch, he got to his feet and surveyed the area.  

There were cardboard boxes black with mold. Blankets and a makeshift bed – it, too, molded over. Piles of discarded clothes. Containers that at one time must have held food. Someone had been living there. And, by the look of it, not recently, thought Emile.

“Hello? Is someone there?” he asked the shadows.

The voice returned, coming from deeper down the pipe, as if it came from the very darkness that Emile’s lighter repelled. The source of the song – like an itch that must be scratched – was always just beyond the next bend, just out of sight, out of reach.

“I love you,” it sang. “Like I loved you then.”

It really was Linda. It was her voice. Of that Emile had no doubt.

Entranced, as if caught in the magical conjuring of a spell, Emile followed Linda’s voice further and further underground.  

As he continued, Emile saw that long, wet roots had begun to line the pipe’s curved walls. At one point the passage became so narrow that he was forced to pocket his lighter to squeeze through. On the other side, he flicked the light back on.

Suddenly, the voice returned, but it wasn’t the distant tinny hum that it was before; instead, it was all around him. Gone was the lightly sweet and melodic purr. Gone was its gentle caress and intoxicating allure. Gone was any sense of love and Linda.

What remained was a savagely hungry shriek, an angry and alien wailing of impossible size, a monstrously terrifying sound that is very often heard only once.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme!” it screamed.

A wormlike tendril wrapped around Emile’s leg. Another coiled around his neck and face, the tip of which disappeared into his surprised and open mouth, and down his throat. Emile’s muscles tensed, his eyes bulged, unseeing. A blinding red-hot pain coursed through him, as if every nerve in his body had been dipped in liquid fire.

A horrible face appeared, lit by the flame that Emile still unknowingly clenched. Black chitinous plates pulled back and unsheathed a row of sickly yellow teeth. It lunged forward, biting, and tore Emile in half.

After a long and deathly silence, interspersed only with the sounds of tearing flesh and chewing, the singing returned. Its trill soothingly satiated, its melody a gentle lullaby, its words unmistakable:

“You’re in my blood now. You’re in my blood.”

Following Professor Marigold, Merv and Matty, and Randem and Bullet, made their way from Central Powerhouse back through the underground tunnels and to the legislative grounds, where they popped out through the same secret hatch that Professor Marigold had shown Merv.

Along the way, Matty nudged Merv and mouthed Devon. Merv, interpreting her concern, nodded. If Devon was still down there, they’d need to find him. They had to. It was their own selfishness that caused it. Merv prayed, for both their sakes, that he was still alive.  

Below them was an unfathomable labyrinth, and without a map Merv felt like they’d be running around in the dark; and, more likely than not, literally. Even with his map, Merv wasn’t confident they’d be able to find Devon. The best he could do was to remember, and so, as they all climbed the ladder that led up to the greenhouse, he hoped that somewhere inside him, hidden in his own internal labyrinth, he still had the mind – and memory – of a squirrel.

Professor Marigold rummaged under a table and pulled out a small handheld sprayer.

“Insecticide,” she explained, and a mournfulness she could not hide tinged her words. “If there’re wasps down there, this should do the trick.”

Randem looked to her and scoffed.

“Spray as much water as you want – just don’t get any on me. There’s only one thing that’ll kill that... thing, and that’s firepower.” He pulled up his shirt to expose a concealed handgun. Bullet, too, true to his name, held up a gun. “And anything else down there, for that matter,” he added. “You included.”

“Don’t we get anything?” asked Matty.

Randem huffed as if bored and looked around the room.

“Here,” he said, and threw something at Matty, who caught it easily. A flashlight. “And before you get any ideas, I want you to know that I only have one rule: you do what I tell you to do and you won’t get shot. Got it?” There was no dissent.  

Randem motioned to the exit. “Now get going.”

They did. They crossed the lawn, Merv leading, climbed down the fountain’s remaining rubble, and hopped into the tunnel.

“How far is it?” asked Matty, turning on the flashlight and pointing it north.

Merv closed his eyes and tried to picture the map he had so painstakingly created. There were parts he knew with certainty, especially the parts he’d traveled; but others – and much of it fell into the latter category – remained veiled behind a cloud of fog.

“Not far – we’ll find where Devon was...” he stopped, not able to bring himself to say attacked. “To where we last saw him.”

Merv, with Matty by his side, led them to where he had met Randem the night before, when Randem had lit the wasp’s nest on fire. Careful not to let Randem see, Merv caught Matty’s attention and mouthed knife. Devon had found Merv’s knife, had grabbed it before the Drone Prince appeared, before the feed was cut. As they continued down the dark tunnel, Matty scanned the floor and it was with a slight defeat that they couldn’t find it.

Merv stopped at an intersection. Three directions – presumably north, west, and east – branched out before them. It was here, as best Merv could remember, that Devon met the Drone Prince.  

Randem pushed by Professor Marigold and loomed over Merv.

“Which way, rabbit?”

Merv looked in each direction, and then back the way they’d come.

“This way,” he said, pointing west.

“That way.” Randem considered it. “And why not this way. Or that way.”

Merv couldn’t say. He searched his mind, saw the map laid out before him, but was unable to see through the fog.

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.” A frustrating feeling, Merv did not add.

“And what if you’re wrong?”

“Then I’m wrong.”

“I’m not here to play games with you, rabbit.” Randem held up his gun.

In his mounting frustration, Merv could not hold back, and raised his voice in response.

“If you weren’t such an idiot – torching every goddamn thing you see – I’d still have the map!”

Randem struck Merv on the side of his head and he fell to the floor.

“Look here, you little shit. The Trash Pandas don’t like being jerked around and –.” He didn’t finish.

A voice – singing – resonated from somewhere far, far away. Fragments of a song that seemed to call out to them personally. From where he lay, rubbing his temple, Merv distinctively felt vibrations. 

Something was coming, and it was big.

“What was that?” asked Professor Marigold.

“It came from there,” asserted Randem, his gun pointing east. The singing, as if it could hear them, intensified.

“Matty,” choked Merv, “it’s west. I know it.”

“I had one goddamn rule,” Randem muttered. “Bullet, watch them. If they run, shoot them dead.” 

Bullet obediently cocked his weapon.

Although Merv may indeed have the mind of a squirrel, he undeniably had the hearing of a rabbit, and so it was him who first heard a slight tonal shift in the sound. The singing – its lilting mellifluence – transitioned, slowly at first but then with a rapid acceleration, into a distorted fuzz.

And then, appearing as if from nowhere, was the Drone Prince. Suddenly, the harsh saw-like buzz was all around them, serrating the air between them with deadly commitment.  

Randem and Bullet fired their guns in near synchronicity, and two holes formed in the chest of the Drone Prince. The swarm quickly filled the gaps, and in little over a second the Drone Prince was, once again, whole.

“Run!” yelled Merv.

The Drone Prince held up a hazy hand, blurry with wasps, and a series of stingers were flung from it with the speed of arrows, each catching Randem and Bullet in the neck. They crumpled to the ground as easily as if their muscles had instantly dissolved.

Matty picked Merv up off the floor and, along with Professor Marigold, they ran west.

The Drone Prince evaporated into a plume and set chase, flying in a swarm of disorienting complexity and deafening malevolence.

Professor Marigold knew what she had to do.

“Go on!” she yelled to Matty, and she pumped the handle of the insecticide-filled sprayer with vigourous determination. “I’ll slow it down!”  

She could hear the buzz of the Drone Prince getting louder and louder as it raced toward her. It was like the sound of a torrential rain, an industrial hum that pierced and pained her ears. As it neared, when its feverish cacophony reached its peak, she pressed the trigger, and the spray gun released its poisonous mist.

The Drone Prince recoiled and screamed with a surprised agony, and in a defensive burst, sent stingers in every direction. One caught Professor Marigold in the stomach and she slunk to the side of the tunnel, paralyzed.

Merv and Matty continued to run. They sprinted west, turned north again, and then, when the tunnel veered right and turned back south, they came to a dead end. A metal gate barred them from any further travel.

Merv pulled on it with all his strength but it wouldn’t budge. They were trapped.

Matty spoke. “Merv, look.” 

Above the door, scrawled with neat precision into a stone archway were the words The Garden. 

“What’s The Garden?”

Merv didn’t need to look.

“I don’t know, Matty. But I have a feeling that it has something to do with that.” 

Merv looked through the gate’s bars and into the incredible expanse beyond. Before them, its ceiling several storeys tall, was an ancient cavern. And in the middle, a creature of grotesque size thrashed as it laid, row upon row, hundreds upon hundreds of faintly translucent eggs. Its elongated whip-like ovipositor bent around the beast as it did so, and she flared her abdomen with proficient ease.

Merv did not need Professor Marigold to know that the horrifying monster below them was a queen, and that they were standing at the entrance to her royal chamber.

They looked on with horrified fascination, but they did not look for long. Behind them, once again, and buzzing with a thunderous roar, was the Drone Prince.

Matty grabbed Merv’s hand just as two stingers shot toward them, and then all was black. They fell, unconscious even before they hit the floor.

When Merv woke, his mind still swirled in a cloud of nauseous and noxious confusion. He had a headache, and each heartbeat felt like a sucker punch to the face. His stomach, emptied of its contents, nonetheless churned violently, and he retched and coughed and moaned – all to no effect. He blinked, and felt that even his eyelids hurt.

Memories, dammed by the poison that still lived in his blood, began to flow, at first like a trickle but then, as consciousness returned, like a flood spilling over a riverbank; and as Merv was torn from his underwater dreamworld, a nebulous world without direction or purpose, full of fear and panic and instinctual alarm, he, at last, broke the surface, and gasped for air.

“Matty!” he sputtered.  

He could see. The lightly illuminated cavern – the Royal Chamber – came into focus.

He could hear. A song – a melody – floated by him.  

“There was a distance between you and I,” it sang.  

He tried to grab it, as if it were a log or a raft, but Merv couldn’t move. It was the same song he’d heard when he first broke through to the tunnel on Carlton Street; but, just as it did then, the song escaped him.  

Merv looked to his left and saw Matty, her eyes closed, asleep. She was held upright against the wall, her limbs bound and hidden behind a wrap of grey and glossy paper. To his right, he saw Professor Marigold, similarly encased in a waspish pod. Beyond her, there were others, Randem and Bullet among them, each looking as if they could be dead.

No doubt they would be soon, thought Merv, his mind still thickly murky. He remembered what Professor Marigold had said. It was something about how the wasps – the queen, he guessed – injected their victims with eggs, and that when they hatched, they’d eat them from the inside out. She said they eat the brains last.

No, he couldn’t let that happen. Not to Matty. But was it already too late? What if there was already an egg – or eggs – inside them. Inside Matty. What if they were already crawling, eating? Was that the pain he felt? Was there more pain to come?

Merv struggled against the sticky binding, but it held him firmly in place. Helpless and weak, he looked back at Matty. It was all his fault, he thought. If Matty died, it’d be all his fault. And there was nothing he could do about it.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” A voice – deeply resonant – spoke.  

For a brief second, Merv thought the voice referred to Matty, but then, when he turned toward its source, he saw that the man – his back turned to Merv as he stared into the vast expanse of the Royal Chamber – was talking about the Queen.  

The man, Merv realized, stood on four very spindly black legs, each with multiple knees that bent unnaturally; clasped together by taloned hands, and held behind his back, were his arms – or what Merv guessed were arms – which crossed two sickly deformed wings that could easily have been deflated balloons. Merv knew they weren’t.

“What is it?” Merv asked, partly to himself, partly to the misshapen man before him.

“She is the Queen of Lynn Lake,” the wasp man sighed audibly. “And, I’m afraid to say, that if a new agreement is not signed soon, she’ll be the Queen of not just Winnipeg but of all of Manitoba as well.”

Merv looked past the man and down into the Royal Chamber below. From where they looked, recessed into the wall in a roughly carved alcove, they saw the gargantuan Queen as she laid her eggs. Her raised abdomen pulsed in bulbous paroxysms. A translucent skin-like disk formed at its tip. And her long tail – the ovipositor – carried each egg to its host.

The alcove Merv found himself in was not the only one in the Royal Chamber. Similar alcoves descended below and rose above. Each dotted with captives, each filled with paralyzed prey. There were hundreds of them. All asleep. All oblivious to what was soon to happen.

The wasp man turned around and Merv saw the loose facsimile of his face; like a child’s drawing, its features, haphazardly arranged, were distorted and mangled; like bruised fruit, splotches of discolouration ran rampant across its cheeks and forehead; and it drooped, as if haggard, in all the wrong places. Merv’s eyes bulged with recognition.  

“She is the one and only Tom Cochrane,” the wasp man exclaimed.

The singing, thought Merv, the melody. He’d known it after all. It was “Life is a Highway”!

“So am I, for that matter,” continued the wasp man. “Despite my best efforts to not be, I remain, as ever, King Cochrane.”

“Tom Cochrane...,” said Merv.

“King Cochrane,” he corrected. “In the flesh.”

“But how?” asked Merv. “I remember you... When I was a kid...”  

“And I remember you, Merv Mapleton. Her, too,” the King gestured toward Matty. “Many years ago, you had me – us – on your show. On... what was it... ah, yes... Kids’ Korner. You introduced us to millions of households across Manitoba, and to millions more worldwide. In this respect, we are in your debt. Without your show, we would not have become what we are today.” He spread his arms and bowed precariously.

“No!”

“You gave us the break we needed. Did you know that thousands claimed to be related to us? Cousins, nephews, nieces – no matter how tenuously linked, everybody wanted a piece of Tom Cochrane! And why not? Those were some of the happiest days of my life. We traveled the world playing sold-out shows. Our popularity was seemingly endless.

“Me, I was content. But Queen Cochrane...” the King paused briefly, as if lost in thought. “For her, it was never enough. For her, each day needed to be bigger than the last. She needed to be praised, to be worshipped in ever-increasing amounts. For her, a day without acknowledgement, without any accolades being heaped upon her, was a day wasted.

“And now, all she can think about is the agreement! It’s like a drug. First, there were the Junos, then the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and then the Order of Canada. It would never end! By the time they dedicated a highway to us, I knew she was completely addicted. She wants more and more and more!

“How sick I am of it! How weary! And how very, very tired... But what am I to do? I am – we all are – powerless against her. Her smell, her pheromones – her song – is all too strong. It forces us into obeisance, it controls us relentlessly...

“And my son... My poor, dear Prince... Once I am dead, he’ll be forced to replace me. I must remind myself that as long as I live, the Drone Prince will be spared my misfortune. But those days are quickly coming to an end... Look! Look around you – do you not see the destruction she has wrought! Your city is crumbling! Winnipeg is falling apart!

“She has gone too far, and we can do nothing to stop her... Merv, hear me, you must kill her for us. Please, I beg you! Believe me, I have tried. But we – the Drone Prince included – none of us can betray a Queen. Her smell, her song, her orders make that an impossibility. Merv, spare us our misery. Spare us our painful suffering.

“Listen to me,” King Cochrane slumped forward, close enough that Merv could smell his pungent breath. “You must do as I say. Bring her to the surface, she’ll be vulnerable there. Follow the song, the directions, and you’ll –”  

King Cochrane stopped, his eyes wide with shock, and looked down.

Merv did, too, and saw that sticking out from the King’s chest was the sharp tip of a bloodied knife.

It was Merv’s knife. Red with blood, the tip slipped back inside, audibly sluicing as it did so.

King Cochrane gasped as his life poured out of the dark slit, and he fell to the floor, dead. Behind him, still holding the knife and hovering in a small helicopter, Merv recognized the pilot. It was a plump chickadee.

“Devon?”

“Merv! Oh thank God you’re alive!”  

“How did you... We... I thought we lost you,” he sputtered, trying to find his words. “I’m so sorry we sent you into the tunnel alone. We should have gone with you. We didn’t know about the Drone Prince. We shouldn’t have...”

Devon flew closer, steadied his helicopter, and very carefully cut into the flesh of the grey paper pod that bound Merv.  

“It’s not the Drone Prince we need to worry about, Merv,” said Devon, “it’s her, she controls them.” 

And, as if on cue, Queen Cochrane howled. Both Merv and Devon flinched.

“The Drone Prince doesn’t want to be the new king,” continued Devon, quietly. “But he can’t help it. She controls him. Just like she controls everybody. And if we don’t get out of here soon, she’ll start controlling us, too.”

“But how did you escape?”

“Escape?”

“We watched you get attacked.”  

Devon cut through the pod and Merv fell to the ground, freed at last.

“The Queen was controlling him. The King, too,” Devon looked at the mushy and deformed pile that was once King Cochrane. He looked like a gooey puddle.

“The Drone Prince promised to distract her while I...,” Devon looked down. “While I killed him.”

Merv took back his knife, and began to cut down Matty. Her eyes fluttered as her consciousness slowly returned.  

“Matty,” said Merv. “Matty, wake up! It’s Tom Cochrane. The Queen is Tom Cochrane! We have to get out of here.” He held Matty to prevent her from falling forward, cut the last straps that encased her, and then lowered her to the ground. Marigold, too.

Beside Professor Marigold was Randem, and beside him, Bullet. Their mouths were bound shut, but their eyes remained wide open, alert with fear, attentive and pleading. They struggled against their bindings and moaned to be cut down as well. And, for a brief moment, Merv considered it. Randem had tried to light him on fire. The Trash Pandas had captured Matty. Merv doubted that Randem would have cut him down if their situations were reversed. But, then again, what would have happened to Merv if Randem hadn’t followed him into the tunnels? Would Merv have been attacked by the Drone Prince? He may still have stumbled into the Royal Chamber. He may still have come face to face with Queen Cochrane. And, if he did, he would have been all alone. He may have died; his insides having been eaten from the inside out by a carnivorous larval worm that the Queen Cochrane was laying with alarming abundance. And, perhaps most importantly, thought Merv, had it not been for Randem, he may have never have reunited with Matty.

Professor Marigold coughed and shook her head in amazement.

“She’s enormous,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never met a...” Celebrity, Marigold was going to say. Tom Cochrane. The real Tom Cochrane.

“We need to get going,” interrupted Devon. “The Drone Prince won’t be able to distract the Queen forever. We have to get out.”

Out, thought Merv, and his memory, as if short-circuited by the recent events, clicked back online.

“Tom Cochrane – King Cochrane – said something about directions. Before Devon...,” Merv motioned to the puddle. “Before he died, the King told me how to get out of here. It seemed like he wanted to help. Like he was being controlled by the Queen, too. What did he say? Follow the... follow the what?” He looked around the cavern, searching for clues.

Matty held onto Professor Marigold and stared at the monstrous Queen Cochrane. Its angular features – so very much like Tom Cochrane, but in a feminine, yet handsome, kind of way – strained as the long black ovipositor bulged and pulsed, laying egg after egg into a series of hexagonal cells that ringed the chamber’s walls. The Queen cooed, and her voice – the beautiful, motherly voice of Tom Cochrane – rang out with a loving jubilation, as if instilling in her children an eternally beneficent wisdom.  

“Life’s like a road you travel on,” it sang.

“The song,” said Matty, transfixed. It was unmistakable now; how could they not have recognized it before? It was Life is a Highway.

“The song? The song!” exclaimed Merv. “Matty, that’s it! We have to follow the song. Follow the directions, follow the song.” He turned to Devon.

“Devon, where’s the gate? Where’s the Garden Gate we came through? That’s the exit, I know it. We have to break down the Garden Gate.”

In his mind, Merv ran through the lyrics, and added: “We’ll tell ‘em we’re survivors.”

The Garden Gate, Devon shared, was above them. They’d have to climb the steeply sloped cavern walls. Easy enough for Devon, thought Merv, who had his helicopter. Matty and Professor Marigold, too, as they were more than capable of scurrying up trees and sides of buildings. But Merv, who was neither bird nor squirrel, was a different story altogether. A rabbit could do many things, but flying and climbing weren’t among them. Or at least they didn’t come by him with ease.

Merv looked up at the gate. He’d played a squirrel on television – all those years ago – and now he’d have to play one in real life. But in some ways, Merv wasa squirrel. His memory was excellent, and, at times, it was even better than a squirrel’s. And when Merv realized that King Cochrane meant for them to follow the directions of Life is a Highway, he felt that that moment was one of those times.

The song looped in Merv’s head. The lyrics scrolled by his mind’s eye and Merv read them just as if he were reading a billboard’s scrolling marquee. He pictured a world map – a globe – and countries and cities twinkled in the night like stars.

Below the alcove, Queen Cochrane continued to sing, and Merv, concentrating as best he could, hummed along with her. Slowly at first, but then with increased speed, the obscuring shadows of his mind were swept away, as if its dark refugia were lighted under the full exposure of the day’s new sun and he could see the world with exquisite detail; its ice-crested mountains and sunken hollows, dotted with lakes, blanketed by tundra; its built-up metropolises and barren deserts.

Merv knew exactly what he had to do.

“Follow the directions”, he said, repeating King Cochrane’s words. “From Mozambique to Memphis, what direction is that?” Matty looked to Professor Marigold for help, but shrugged. 

Merv continued. “The shortest route is... northwest? From Memphis to the Khyber Pass...” Merv turned the globe over in his head, and found Pakistan. “That’s north. And then from there to Vancouver – that’s pretty much east.”

He looked up.

“So that’s what we do. We go through the Garden Gate, and then go west, north, and east. That’s our only way out of here.”

They climbed without delay.

Matty and Professor Marigold lead the way, clinging to the rockface, and jumping, where necessary, from one platform to the other until they reached the one that contained the Garden Gate.  

Merv was much slower; his grip less firm, his balance unsteady, his leaps less certain. Several times Merv thought he was destined to fall.

Suddenly, Queen Cochrane erupted in tormented agony. They looked below and saw she was standing on her hind legs, her large head level with the alcove they had just left. The Queen was staring at the deflated, soggy corpse of her royal husband. With a seething rage she roared, and they all covered their ears. All except for Merv, who remained dangling over the last lip.  

Merv cried out in pain.

“Be quiet, Merv! Be still.” Matty and Professor Marigold leaned over the ledge, held out their hands to Merv.

Below, Queen Cochrane’s antennae twitched, looking for the King’s killer. The size of baseball bats, they dipped and twirled around her head, tasting the air, searching for... Them, thought Merv.

“There was a distance between you and I,” she sang. “One day you’re here and the next day you’re gone.”

Professor Marigold held Matty as she stretched as far as she could to grab hold of Merv. Devon hovered nearby and watched as the Queen’s large and monstrous form cradled what remained of the dead King.

Matty grabbed Merv’s wrists and together with Marigold they pulled. Merv’s legs flailed in the air, they scrambled for a foothold, searching for something to help push him up and over the edge. And when he found it, he kicked, and they all fell, with a loud clang, against the Garden Gate.

Queen Cochrane’s head snapped in their direction, and Devon’s eyes widened with alarm.

“Hey Merv,” he said, his voice excited and anxious. “We've got to go. Now. She’s climbing up the wall!”

They all ran into the darkly lit tunnel. Behind them, there was a jagged sound of tearing metal as the Queen effortlessly ripped the Garden Gate off its hinges and tossed it to the side; it clanged loudly as it tumbled down into the Chamber. They heard the scraping of stone as the Queen’s armoured bulk pressed against the tunnel’s walls.  

As he ran, Merv felt a rumble. She would be coming, he thought. And fast.

“This way!” Merv yelled, and ushered them to the right of an intersection. Merv’s mind map was clear and bright in his head. At each fork, each intersection, they weaved through the confusing maze of tunnels. He led them from Mozambique to Memphis, and from there to the Khyber Pass.

But when they reached Vancouver, Merv saw that there was still one more choice he had to make. Left or right. Had he missed a city? Did they need to go from Vancouver back to Winnipeg? That would be east.

Merv checked his mind map. No, that didn’t make sense. There’s something else. Something’s not right. Something’s missing.  

A horrific scream – like claws on a chalkboard – vibrated Merv’s bones. The Queen was closer. Much closer.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme!” she wailed.

“Merv! Which way?” yelled Matty.

“I – I – I don’t know,” he stuttered. “This should be it. We should be out.”

Just then, between the Queen’s furious cries, they each heard another noise. A buzzing that came from all directions. As it swirled around them, its buzz intensified, and drowned out all else.

Like a dark and shadowy apparition, the Drone Prince materialized before them. Yet his form, shifting ever so slightly, was not as thick, not as present, as before. She had not realized it at the time, but now saw that the pesticide that Professor Marigold had showered the Drone Prince with had done more damage than she had originally thought. The Drone Prince was noticeably weaker; he was ill.

The Drone Prince spoke, and his voice was a harsh whisper, barely audible over his body’s buzz. 

“Sometimes you turn your back to the wind.” He coughed, spitting out small drones that then circled around to reform with the rest of him.

“Turn your back to the wind?” repeated Merv. And then he felt it. A faint breeze, hardly a wind at all, was blowing from the tunnel that curved to the right.

“The left tunnel!” yelled Merv. “Hurry! It’s the left tunnel! Go now!” Matty, Professor Marigold and Devon rushed past him. But before he followed, Merv looked back at the Drone Prince and felt a tinge of concern. Would he die? Did he feel pain?

There was no time to wonder. The Drone Prince, as if composed of a thousand starlings, took flight. He disappeared, and behind him Merv saw the serrated jaws of Queen Cochrane snap open; she smiled menacingly. “Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

Merv veered left and ran after the rest of them as the Queen clawed and pulled her way through the tunnel toward him. After him. After them all.

Merv came to a ladder.

“Up here!” yelled Matty, who held her hand out to him. A small circular opening, like a halo, glowed behind her, and she pulled Merv up with haste.

They emerged into a harsh and blinding daylight, and saw that the ladder had led them up and through the body of the Queen Victoria statue. They were on the front lawn of the legislative grounds. Queen Victoria’s head – the lid to the hidden escape route – dangled to the side as if severed, and Merv and Matty scrambled down her front and leapt to where Professor Marigold and Devon waited.

It was just in time, for as they landed, knees buckling, the Queen Victoria statue burst open from within and an array of fragments – arms, legs, pieces of her chair – were scattered around them.

The long silent and stoic statue of Queen Victoria was, in such shattering chaos, replaced with the very vengeful – and very much alive – Queen Cochrane. And with maleficent intent, as if cracking her knuckles, she expanded her thorax and abdomen to an unprecedented size, and raised a muscular appendage, adorned with deadly pointed claws. Ready to strike. Ready to kill.

Queen Cochrane loomed over Merv and Matty, and swung.

But before her bladed appendage could reach them, terrified and huddled together as they were, Queen Cochrane was hit from behind with a force so powerful that it knocked her off balance. The blade, which would have sliced through Merv’s and Matty’s bodies with ease, instead struck the ground beside them, narrowly missing them.

Queen Cochrane howled in surprise and turned to meet her attacker.

It was the Golden Boy, wielding its torch like a massive bronzed hammer, and he brought it down again, clipping the shoulder of the Queen, whose howl, once tinged with anger and frustration, became fraught with pain. And, for the first time ever, with fear, too.  

In the chest of the Golden Boy, standing inside a protective cage, like a racoon homunculus, was the stout (and snarling) Mr. Mercury. A series of dials, foot pedals, and pulleys helped him to control the giant metallic golem.

Mr. Mercury brought the Golden Boy up to its full height, and he readied the torch for another pummeling blow.

“Get away from them, you bitch!” he yelled.  

Queen Cochrane flared her mandibles, readied her tarsi, and rose to meet Mr. Mercury’s challenge.

With her distracted, Matty and Merv scrambled out of harm’s way.

The two fell into one another, trading blows and twisting in a froth of blood and sparks.

But the Golden Boy’s godly strength could not be matched. Nor his godly speed.

Using the statue’s muscular arms, Mr. Mercury battered and clubbed the Queen into an acquiescent surrender. Blow after blow fell upon her. Haemolymph, thinly yellow, the colour of old glue, spattered Mr. Mercury in his unstoppable barrage.

“Life!” she wailed. “Life! Gimme, gimme, gimme life!” Her desperate pleas held a high-pitched agony. 

She was defeated. And scared. “All night long! Life! Life...” Her voice bubbled with blood.

“Yeah, yeah – we know, life is a highway,” said Mr. Mercury; and then added: “To Hell.”

Mr. Mercury raised the solid flameless torch above the Golden Boy’s head, and then with all his might, commanding the statue, he brought it down on Queen Cochrane one last time.  

She could do nothing to defend herself, and so the torch struck her clean in her frons, caving it in, and killing her instantly.

Queen Tom Cochrane, born and raised in Lynn Lake, Manitoba, was, at long last, dead.

Premier Cinnamon Virtue, flanked by two bison security guards, stood at the base of the Grand Staircase in the Manitoba Legislative Building.  Her voice, charismatically confident, echoed loudly throughout the domed space, and a throng of attendees – press and fans alike – gathered shoulder-to-shoulder to witness what would be forever thereafter known as The Great Induction.

“As the newly elected Premier of Manitoba, I can’t thank each of you enough for saving our dear city – and province – from the terrible wasp infestation that had plagued each and every one of us last summer. We could not dine outdoors without one of those damned wasps pestering us, stealing our scrambled eggs or drowning in our beers. Our roads and highways – the infrastructure that underpins our diverse and resourceful economy – crumbled because of the network of underground tunnels that those damned wasps maintained, in the process costing us hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year. And although it may take a long time to repair the damage that those damned wasps caused, I know that we will. Manitobans will step up, as they have always stepped up – as you five have undoubtedly stepped up – and, because of that, I know that tomorrow will be a better day. And so will the tomorrow after that.

“Today, I can proudly state that those damned wasp nests have been destroyed. Their insidious tunnels have been sealed. Their Queen is dead. Because of you all, because of your heroic actions, a deserved relief has washed over all of Winnipeg, over all of Manitoba. Because of you, our great city has no more damned wasps!”

A wave of applause, peppered with whistles and woots, swept through the boisterous crowd. They were impatient, and Premier Virtue knew exactly who they had come to see.

She continued: “Merv, Matty, Professor Marigold, Devon – on behalf of all Manitobans, I say to you: ‘Thank you’. It is with great honour and privilege that I hereby award each of you the Order of Manitoba.”

Cheers rippled around the room. Merv held up the medal on his neck.

“And to you, Tom Cochrane, without which none of us would be here. We cannot award you something for which you have already been awarded, so I can’t offer you another Order of Manitoba. But I can offer you something.” A knowing smile. A knowing pause.

“On behalf of all Manitobans, it is with great humility and pleasure that I announce that Tom Cochrane has been inducted into the Manitoba Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame!

“Ladies and gentle creatures, give it up for the one – the only – Tom Fucking Cochrane!”

It was then that Tom Cochrane, looking cool as hell in his dark-tinted shades – which obscured most of his compound eyes – plugged in his electric guitar. A familiar buzz, sounding much like the Drone Prince, spilled from the nearby amplifiers.

And then a familiar song began. Yes, you know the one: Sinking like a Sunset.