Symbiosis, page 14
Soon, the princess and her Msingi are touching down by the entrance to the cave that houses Shuri’s lab. “You can go,” the princess says to their pilot. “I will transport us from here.”
The man looks at Nakia for confirmation.
“Well?” the Dora says, clearly peeved. “Are you going to heed the princess’s directive, or be insubordinate?”
That sure straightens him up. Literally: He sits stock upright in his seat. “Yes, Your Highness.” He nods reverently at Shuri. “My sincerest apologies.”
“Don’t let it happen again,” Nakia says. “As you were, Princess.”
Shuri isn’t sure how to respond, so she doesn’t initially. Is this what it feels like to be treated as something other than a small child? she thinks as she and Nakia traverse the cave corridor to her laboratory entrance. Once they’re inside and the door has closed behind them, sealing them in, Nakia turns to Shuri. “So what can I do to help?” she asks.
Shuri has never felt so … warm inside. It almost brings tears to her eyes, this grown-up not questioning her capabilities. “Ahh … I’m not exactly sure yet, but once I figure it out, I will let you know.”
“Understood.”
Shuri heads to the left lab station and goes directly to the panel in the wall that leads to her weapons arsenal. Not even K’Marah knows it’s here.
“Ahh, Nakia?” she says, realizing she actually does need help. “I could use your assistance with something … but I also need you to not freak out? Or like … tell my mother of what you’re about to see.”
“I am your Msingi,” the Dora says, making her way to the princess. “The designation exists for good reason.”
After an intensive deep breath, Shuri presses the button that reveals the palm scanner and then places her hand against it. A section of wall slides free, revealing a small chamber lined on three sides with weapons of various shapes and sizes. There are different types of gauntlets that fit on the hands like a glove, and objects that are shaped like firearms but utilize mechanisms such as high-frequency sound waves and small electromagnetic pulses instead of projectiles like bullets. (So primitive.) There’s even a row of what looks like panther stuffed toys that release different chemical compounds capable of incapacitating an opponent long enough to run away.
“Uhhh … wow,” Nakia says, peeking inside. “Quite the setup you have here.”
Shuri smiles. “Most of these are prototypes, but there’s an entire section devoted to the use of sound waves. Here.” She hands Nakia a larger version of the sonic blaster they used to blow the symbiote off Henbane’s body. “I have to admit: This haven’t been tested. So let us pray to Bast that they will actually be useful.”
After grabbing a few other objects—a pair of gauntlets that have both sonic and electromagnetic capabilities, a Frisbee-shaped device that emits a high-pitched howl when thrown, and one of the stuffed panthers that releases a noxious laughing gas—the princess and her Msingi walk through the laboratory kitchen to the hangar where Shuri keeps her personal transport vessel, the Predator.
“Oh my,” Nakia says, walking around the panther-shaped craft. “I’ve heard stories of this thing, but to see it with my own eyes … the general did not do it justice with her lackluster description.”
Shuri smiles at the memory of General Okoye accompanying her to a salt flat wasteland in Ethiopia to rescue a group of kidnapped girl geniuses, K’Marah included. These Dora Milaje ladies aren’t so bad after all.
They board the Predator and head out.
“Soooo … where should we start?” Shuri says.
“Excellent question,” Nakia replies. “I think maybe we need to figure out what’s happening where.”
“Valid.” There’s a part of Shuri that is anxious to plunge into the fray … but what exactly could she do? Alien symbiotes running amok doing who-knows-what who-knows-where isn’t exactly a thing the princess—or anyone in Wakanda, for that matter—has ever encountered before.
“All right,” she says. “I guess we can begin with some terrain scans.”
* * *
It takes fewer than seven minutes for Shuri and Nakia to discover that the situation on the ground is far worse than either could’ve ever imagined. The symbiotes are everywhere.
“Initial count has us at one hundred and fifty-two of the organisms,” the princess says, reading the results aloud. “Eighty-nine of them took hosts who were wearing Kimoyo bracelets, so I could potentially utilize the Kimoyo-capture mechanism to gather that group, but … I don’t know what we would do with them. Any host who is bonded with a symbiote will be possessed of superhuman strength, speed, and agility,” Shuri continues. “So, barring some sort of confined area we could drop them into—and I certainly can’t think of one—the moment we let them go, they’ll likely run off. That’s not to mention the sixty-three that we have no means of capturing. Plus, who-knows-how-many the scan might’ve missed.”
“This … isn’t good,” Nakia says.
“That certainly bears repeating …” Shuri worries her bottom lip between her teeth. She has an idea—has had an idea since experiencing what she can only assume was some sort of flashback when she touched the cube earlier. But she knows how outlandish it’s going to sound to her Msingi. Yes, Nakia has been fantastic thus far and has trusted Shuri’s judgment on just about everything. But this has the potential to break all that.
She takes a deep breath and forges ahead anyway. “Okay, so … I think I may know what to do?”
Nakia looks at her expectantly, and Shuri gulps. “Be forewarned,” she says, “this is likely to sound absolutely absurd … But I can’t see any other way—”
“Spit it out, Your Majesty,” the Dora says. “Lest you forget, I grew up running alongside your brother. There are some stories I could tell. Trust me.”
Shuri eyes the small compartment where her backpack is stored. “Okay, well …” UGH! “Do you remember when K’Marah and I were speaking with Venbane behind that museum in Birnin Bashenga?’
“How could I forget?” Nakia replies with a shudder. “I was so terrified that the thing was going to eat you both, I could barely keep myself from launching my spear in his direction while you had him distracted!”
Shuri almost laughs. Almost.
“Well, he said something that I think might be related to our current predicament.”
Nakia cocks her head. “Really?”
“Mm-hmm. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but …” Shuri sighs again, bothered that she didn’t think to take the threat seriously when he said it. “When he was talking about the gem thing he came here to find, he said that … Well, he said that if I didn’t give it to him, he would call his ‘friends.’ ”
The Dora’s eyes widen. “And you think that’s what happened?”
“I think …” Shuri says, unable to hold Nakia’s gaze, “that I might’ve been there when said ‘call’ went out.”
From there, Shuri tells her Msingi about the “lucid dream” she had that likely wasn’t a dream at all. The parts she can remember at least … which include the hole in the dome and that terrible sound that ripped through the air from Shuri’s open mouth.
“So you’re saying you invited all these … beings here?”
“I mean, not exactly me. The symbiote was using my body.”
“Uh-huh,” Nakia says, crossing her arms. “And precisely how did the symbiote get to your body, Princess?”
“That’s …” Oh boy. Probably shouldn’t mention that, if the flashback she had earlier is accurate, she likely waltzed right into her dressing chamber and opened the container while half-asleep. “… neither here nor there, Nakia. The point is, I have an idea of what to do to get all the symbiotes to gather in one place.”
Shuri watches suspicion creep onto her Msingi’s face. This is going more poorly than she anticipated.
“Before you share this clearly harebrained idea, based on the way you are hedging, do tell me: Precisely what will we do with these symbiotes once you’ve accomplished your gathering mission?”
“Well … my hope is that I’ll be able to talk them into leaving. But I’ll … need some assistance.”
Nakia shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “Do I even want to know what you are going to say next?”
“Probably not, but I have to say it anyway, don’t I?”
“Yes,” Nakia says. “Yes, you do. Spit it out.”
Shuri stares in the direction of her stowed backpack. “I think I have to achieve symbiosis.”
Nakia … doesn’t get it. “You need to what?”
“Oh, come on, biology master!” Shuri says, looping around the plain again for another scan. “You know what symbiosis is!”
“Of course, I know what symbiosis is, but …”
The map screen lights up with four concentrated clusters of oddly shaped blobs and a few random scattered dots. Shuri launches a three-dimensional rendering into the air.
“Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?” Nakia continues, working her way to the nitty-gritty. “You want to … bond? With one of those things?”
“Not just any one. The one I think I already bonded with. I have him …” Shuri swallows and looks sheepishly at the Dora. “In my backpack?”
“You what??” Nakia’s head whips around, completely ignoring the floating map and highlighted masses moving about on it. “Here, Shuri? You have an alien here? As in on this vessel with us?”
“Ahh … yes,” the princess replies. “I grabbed it from my closet just in case—”
“Just in case what, Your Majesty?”
“In case we needed it, Nakia! Look for yourself!” Shuri gestures to the map. “The beings are everywhere! T’Challa and our foot soldiers and you lovely Dora Milaje are all excellent in combat, but you must admit that this is a different type of threat. The symbiotes are not only faster than even T’Challa, they have sharper claws and mouths full of razor-sharp fangs! The one we’ve been dealing with can climb walls and hang from ceilings and shoot this webby stuff that gives him the ability to basically fly from place to place—”
“Okay, okay, I see your point.” Nakia raises her hands.
“I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think it potentially benefic—”
But Shuri stops as her eyes lock onto the compartment where her book bag is stored. “Wait one minute,” she says, slowly approaching the space.
“Ahh … Princess?”
But Shuri ignores her Msingi. And when she pulls open the slender door, it’s not the backpack she reaches for. There’s a shelf above where the bag is hanging, and on that shelf, there is a small box. “How could I have forgotten?” Shuri says below her breath as she pulls it down.
“Forgotten what, Your Highness?”
Shuri is so focused on the box, Nakia’s voice startles her, and she almost drops it. “Eeks!” she shouts.
“My apologies,” Nakia says. “But, ahh … what’s in the box?”
Shuri doesn’t respond, just sets it down and takes a deep breath, hoping her sudden hunch is a good one.
“Princess?” Nakia presses.
“Do you remember that invasion attempt by Zanda of Narobia a while back?”
Nakia’s face darkens. “How could I forget? That senseless woman has had a thing for your brother for years.”
Shuri swallows her chuckle. “Well, I didn’t think about it until just now, but before Queen Ororo left to return to Kenya, she handed me this box. ‘To the winner go the spoils’ is what she said. And she winked.”
“Okay …”
“I only gave it a brief glance then because there was so much transpiring. I shoved it into the closet over there and forgot all about it until just now …” Shuri flips the lid open, and whatever words she would’ve said next dry up and disintegrate on her tongue.
“Wow, that thing is hideous,” Nakia says, peeking over Shuri’s shoulder at the overwrought golden cuff covered in various gemstones. Shuri recognizes a piece of tanzanite, a very large diamond, and a small hunk of Wakandan Vibranium (where had she acquired that?) among a smattering of other rare and precious gems.
It’s not lost on the princess that the evil giantess Zanda truly is some sort of collector—the amount of wealth she could’ve acquired by selling off just a few of these known sparkly rocks is astonishing. But the one Shuri really cares about—
“You see that pale pink stone at the center?”
“It would be so much prettier if it weren’t attached to that ghastly thing. I’m guessing it belonged to Zanda? Only she would ever consent to wear something that tacky.”
There’s no holding back the snort this time. And Shuri is thankful; it breaks the tension she’s feeling. She really can fix this.
She thinks …
“I’m pretty sure that’s”—Shuri lowers her voice in case the symbiote is listening (this makes her feel more than a little ridiculous, but oh well)—“the nebular gem.”
“The what?”
“Shhhhhh!” Shuri glances at the closet. “This is what the original symbiote intruder was looking for. I’ve apparently had it the whole time and didn’t realize.”
“Okay …”
“I think I can use it to get them all to leave …”
“It sounds like there is a ‘but’ coming?”
“Well,” Shuri says, resolving to at least give her plan a try. She goes back to the closet and retrieves the cube this time. Nakia shrieks and stumbles over the copilot’s chair, and it takes everything in the princess not to laugh. “As I mentioned before,” she continues, “I think that in order to pull it off, we are going to need his assistance.”
* * *
They bring the Predator down just above the baobab plain—the only area the symbiotes have stayed away from. (Odd, but Shuri tries not to think too much of it.)
“Will you keep watch?” the princess asks her Msingi. “I need to, umm … get dressed.”
Nakia looks more wary than Shuri’s ever witnessed, but she complies. And the moment she’s off the vessel, Shuri pops opens the host hexahedron and sticks her hand inside. “All right,” she says to the wriggling black form. “Let’s get on with it.”
It slowly creeps up her hand and then wraps around her arm before spreading itself over the rest of her body. It feels like a bucket of cool, viscous liquid overtaking her bit by bit until it envelops the top of her head, fingertips, and toes simultaneously. The moment the bonding is complete, the symbiote starts yakking in Shuri’s head.
Princess have gem. You find. I take.
And the princess can feel her body turning toward where she stashed the box with Zanda’s jillion-U.S.-dollar cuff.
WAIT! And she successfully resists the movement. Guess there’s something to be said about being awake while bonded.
Gem from Klyntar. I take. Can see in mind.
STOP poking around in there, Shuri replies. It is a flagrant invasion of privacy!
No can resist. Much chaos in Princess brain. Like flea market. “How rude!” Shuri says aloud. Which she only knows because Nakia comes running.
And stops dead when she actually sees Shuri. “Uhhh … Princess?”
Shuri waves but doesn’t speak. She knows what that voice sounds like and would rather not shred her own eardrums and her Msingi’s at the same time.
Nakia nods but doesn’t come any closer. “Sooooo … not to be, ahhh … discourteous. But as your pal is a symbiote, is it possible for him to take on your form instead of the other way around?”
Huh … I hadn’t even thought of that, Shuri thinks. Can we do that? she asks the symbiote.
“Ah, much better!” Nakia says.
Shuri turns to look at her faint reflection in one of the Predator’s windows. She looks precisely like herself. “Huh,” she says.
“Now we can walk places together without it looking like I am fraternizing with the enemy.”
Not en—!
“He’s not our enemy!” Shuri says aloud, finishing the symbiote’s thought and trying to keep him from getting angry. It might be the strangest mental thing she’s ever experienced. “In fact, he doesn’t actually want to be here. He only came to Wakanda because he was looking for the nebular gem so he could get back home.”
(Okay, she lied before. Strangest mental thing ever is seeing inside the mind and intentions of an alien symbiote and being able to communicate with them plainly.)
“So, what about the horde that arrived before dawn? You said it called them here, yes? Forgive my skepticism, but that sounds more like an attempt to make this home.”
Shuri (Or are we “Shurom” now? Vuri?) shakes her head. “It only called them because I couldn’t find the gem,” she says. “It was … lonely and tired of feeling out of place.” The light bulb pops on. “Just like Henbane.”
“Okay,” Nakia presses. “So if it was able to call its … cohorts, and they were able to just show up at will, why can’t it return utilizing the same mechanism by which they arrived? Did they not come from the same planet?”
An excellent question, and one Shuri admittedly hadn’t considered (which definitely feels a bit out of character for the princess, but it has been a peculiar week).
The answer hops to the tip of her tongue as if it’s coming from her own mind: “It was exiled. For not wanting to … do bad things. So it can’t teleport back and forth from there like they can.”
“They answered the call of an exiled member of their kind?”
“They apparently like adventure.” Shuri shrugs. “Earth seemed very ‘shiny object.’ ”
