Attack of the Mutant Horde Fin Fahey Jerry had discovered the Kao-An's deadly cargo three days ago. As a biochemist attached to the Trinidadian govern- ment, he was on a mission to study the after-effects of Agent Green on the dying jungles of Venezuala - the nation that had been all but wiped out in the Oil Skirmish of '93. He had decided to calibrate his equipment and had chanced to open the wrong crate. Precision-guided munitions... ground-to-air, ground-to-ground, the lot - some of the weapons nuclear-tipped, all of them deadly. Which of the several belligerent governments in the Caribbean had ordered the stuff, Jerry could only guess at from the nationalities of the Kao-An's crew. It soon became clear that they sensed that he knew some- thing. Collier, the cocky little Australian mate, had stopped cracking jokes in his presence. The grossly fat Captain Beesley, who appeared to live entirely on chocolate bars, began to direct menacing glances at him, while the big Afrikaaner, Witter, had taken to eyeing him specula- tively while stroking the butt of the old Mauser automatic he always carried. When Jerry's carefully placed bugs revealed the extent of their plans for him, he moved fast. He felt no bitterness towards the crew - after, all few people in this last decade of the millennium were not involved in the War - but he'd seen enough co-destruction not to wish any more on an already devastated continent. After setting the shaped charges and collecting equipment and provisions, he'd slipped overboard in a small dinghy, to make for one of the small tropical islands visible on the horizon. The old tramp steamer had gone up when he was little more than half-way. From the violence of the detona- tions, it seemed likely that the crew never had a chance. Jerry shook his head pityingly. He was thankful that none of the nukes had seen fit to go off. He turned away and, bending his back to the oars, con- tinued to appraise the island looming up ahead. Like most of the once lush tropical land in the region, it had suffered. Something had removed most of the tree cover, the pathetic remnants of which stood out as tufts silhouetted against the sky. Jerry patted the Geiger counter at his side with a worried look. The black polymer radiation suit he wore was proof against most things, but not for ever. He was hoping that his radio signals were picked up within the week - and then - well, almost everyone needs biochemists, and that was only one of his skills. After what seemed an eternity of rowing he staggered ashore and dragged out his detector kit. Neither the air nor earth in his immediate vicinity contained any of the agents of death currently fashionable, so Jerry ripped off his mask and collapsed gratefully onto the pebbly beach. The stress of the last few days, coupled with his recent exertions, had told, for he slept deeply and woke to find a swollen sun rising balefully through smoggy clouds. There was no sign of the Kao-An - she'd evidently gone down during the night. Jerry activated the automatic dis- tress transmitter and began to evaluatet his surroundings. The tide lapping at his feet bore a chemical scum, the detritus of industry and war. The air was acrid with a faint hint of decay. No birds sang, no insects buzzed. Sniffing, he gazed inland. The scraggy abused-looking tree- line hardly seemed inviting; still, he would have to check it out. Jerry wandered through the scarred palm trees, warily checking his detectors, nerves on edge. Huge areas of jungle had been replaced by patches of barren, wind-stirred dust. Like a corpse, he thought, the bones protruding through the decaying flesh. Here and there shrubby vegeta- tion sought to regain a foothold - in time, perhaps, the island would recover. If left alone, he thought bitterly. The Geiger emitted an agonised squawk. Checking the read- out, Jerry found the background radiation count increasing as he moved inland. Abruptly the trees gave way to a sheet of lucent green glass, shimmering in the morning sun. The soil itself had been fused by thermonuclear heat. A test? he wondered... or had there been fighting here, and if so what over? Shrugging, he moved on, skirting the zone of worst radiation. He became aware of a distant throbbing - drum beat - heart beat? Remembering old Caribbean voodoo tales, he told himself his imagination was playing tricks. He shook his head and certainly the sinister pulsation seemed to have stopped. No one after all could have survived in this place of death. Breasting a shallow rise, he found himself on the edge of a plain packed with many shallow depressions each about ten feet in diameter. About to return to the beach he froze in his tracks - the throbbing bass note had returned. It seemed to be emitted by the depressions. Investigating, he found that each one was inhabited, not by shadow, but by a glistening, oily black mass, which simmered and boiled with a furious activity. Every now and then the puddles would pulsate in unision, producing the strange drum beat. Jerry squatted by a particularly large hole towards the centre of the plain. The air was steamy, chemical-laced. He took samples and checked the temperature of the stuff - about blood heat. Oil probably, he thought, released by the nearby nuclear detonation. Presumably some sort of low-level volcanic heat had also been released, and this was stimulating the activity. But... the crude oil shouldn't boil at blood temperature! As he contemplated the enigmatic pool, he realised that its matt surface had altered - it was now reflecting his features. He blinked, and felt a shock of fear - it was no reflection. A human face was emerging from the fluid! Jerry drew back in horror as an entire human head appeared above the surface, to fix him with an unblinking oily gaze. Panicking, he swivelled to run, only to find that by many of the black pools stood human shapes. Or per- haps humanoid, he hastily corrected himself. For examining the nearest of the beings, Jerry realised that it was a caricature of his own form, right down to the detector kit clutched in the right hand. Only - the equipment and the hand formed a seamless whole. Mimesis! thought Jerry - he grasped at the word, needing an explanation to bolster his sanity - the ability of some living things to imitate their surroundings. The mass beat intensified until Jerry felt his head would burst, and then, as though activated by a common signal, the creatures began to shuffle towards him, faces writhing in an obscene travesty of human expression. Zombies! Jerry thought, remembering his voodoo - he half expected the monstrous Baron Samedi, Lord of the Undead, to come leaping and cavorting across the plain to reap his soul. With a cry Jerry unfroze. He ran, twisting and turning between the puddles in a deadly game of tag. He was fast, but the zombies had numbers on their side. Sweating and panting, he found himself hemmed in, a puddle behind, three of the things approaching from different directions. It suddenly seemed, however, that there were fewer zombies than before. As he watched, one of them disappeared into a puddle. There was a series of sickening gurgling sounds and the puddle boiled furiously, finally lying still as though satiated. Straight lines! he thought - they only travel in straight lines! Like heat-seeking missiles, the mutants' only imperative was to home in on Jerry, their prototype. Jerry dodged around the nearest puddle and began to move towards the edge of the desolate plain, keeping puddles between himself and the zombies. He had one or two close shaves, but by the time he reached the jungle edge, all the things had disappeared. He stopped to catch his breath, and seeing no further signs of life, trudged back to the beach. He spent a fitful night there, his dreams haunted by monstrous mutant beings, but the next day he was picked up by a Panamanian hydrofoil. The crew laughed at his story - they were a hard-headed lot, returning from a search-and- destroy sweep against pirates, now enjoying a come-back in the Caribbean. They were happy to put him ashore at Panama City - since the demise of the Northern Hemisphere, techni- cal expertise was in short supply. Only then did Jerry seek to understand his experience in depth. When analysed, the samples he had taken proved to be full of chemical structures resembling RNA, the 'memory molecule' of living cells. There were, however, no cell membranes. Whatever was on the island resembled a giant amoeba - one huge living cell, permeating the geological structure of the whole island. What hellish interaction of hard radiation, war chemicals, and Caribbean crude had spawned the monster, it was impossible to guess, but there was no opportunity for further study. By the time Jerry had convinced the Panamanians of the need for an expedition, the island, and in fact the entire northern seaboard of South America, had disappeared when the Indonesians demonstrated the Earthquake Bomb, thereby ending The War. For a while Jerry was glum - he'd thought of a thousand industrial uses for a mimetic life-form. Finally calmed by the tranquilities of post-war life, he found other matters to divert him. Game Instructions To play Mutant Horde you must first enter a number to randomise the game, always ensuring it's different. [Well, you used to have to. The Spectrum has a RANDOMIZE command which seems to have escaped the author, and I've replaced the randomising loop with this command. It's still there if, for some unholy reason, anyone wants it, but it gets skipped.] Within the square island, Mutants are shown as "M", Puddles as "O", and you, Jerry Cornwall, as "*". To move you must use the following keys: E W | R \|/ S---*---D /|\ Z | C X When you have moved, it is the Mutants' turn. You may be killed by falling into the ocean or a puddle, or by an encounter with a Mutant. You win when all the Mutants have fallen, and you now may go on to another game. Good luck.