Tunnels 06 - Terminal

brought in, his skull had been crushed on one side, and the enormity of that injury combined with the others he’d suffered made it seem unlikely he’d last for very long.
    ‘So, unless a run-of-the-mill Styx has miraculous powers that mean a major injury heals in hours rather than months, then what we’ve bagged ourselves here is an Armagi,’ the MO suggested.
    ‘They haven’t, and it would appear that we have,’ Parry said, his eyes flashing with excitement. This was the break he’d been looking for – an opportunity to evaluate what they were up against. ‘The Styx do have amazing powers of recuperation, but nothing like this. So I have to agree he must be an Armagi. Have you found anything else unusual about him?’
    The MO grinned. ‘From my external examination, he has a heart, lungs – all the body organs you’d expect, and in the right places. The only anomalies I’ve found are in his throat, where there’s some sort of extra gland, and beside it a small protuberance I can’t explain.’
    Parry guessed immediately what that was likely to be. ‘It’s an ovipositor. Eddie told us that the Armagi could breed like the Styx females, so they probably impregnate hosts in the same way.’
    The MO pinched the Armagi’s bicep. ‘And the density of his muscle fibre is off the scale. The man weighs a bloody ton, which is why it took four troopers to carry him in here. Butall that pales into insignificance in relation to what I’m about to show you.’ The MO went to a bench behind where the man was laid on the gurney, and raised one end of a long stainless steel dish so Parry could see the contents.
    ‘My God!’ Parry exclaimed. He wasn’t sure whether he was more shocked by the fact that the MO had lopped off the Armagi’s arm just below the shoulder, or that the Armagi had apparently grown a completely new one.
    ‘Quite so. You asked for incontrovertible proof,’ the MO said, grinning. ‘So I began with some small incisions to his skin, which healed within seconds, and worked my way up to the removal of an entire limb. And, lo and behold, it grew back in around three hours, and appears to be right as rain again.’ The MO paused for effect. ‘And if you think that’s impressive, here’s something else I’ve just discovered.’
    Beside the amputated arm on the bench was a device in a khaki-painted crate which the MO switched on. ‘I know it’s not very scientific, but I came across this ancient piece of interrogation kit in the stores,’ he said. ‘Of course, it’s only fit for a museum of human rights now that the Geneva Convention precludes the torture of POWs, but I’m not sure it would apply to these combatants.’
    The MO picked up a metal probe connected to the device by a cable. ‘I’ve set the charge at 200 volts,’ he said, then extended it towards the Armagi and touched his forearm.
    A small spark sprang across from the probe to the Armagi’s skin when it was close enough. The MO didn’t stop there, pushing the probe hard against the Armagi’s arm. ‘Note the lack of a normal reaction at this voltage,’ the MO said. He was right – there was no convulsion of the muscles as there would have been with a human being, even when unconscious.
    Instead the most curious thing happened. Spreading out from the probe where it made contact, the skin was becoming silvery and crystalline, as if diamond-shaped scales were spreading across the arm. Then the whole limb suddenly became transparent, and began to transform into something else altogether.
    ‘We think it’s changing into a wing,’ the orderly beside Parry said. Parry had to agree – the arm was flattening all the way up to the shoulder, and it certainly did appear to be more than a little bird-like.
    The MO removed the probe, and the limb lost its translucency and immediately reverted to its original form. ‘So they shape-shift, and electrical impulses are somehow involved. Like nerve impulses, I presume.’
    ‘The Major has experimented with a range of different voltages,’ the orderly said, holding up his clipboard to show Parry the small sketches he’d made. ‘We got a wing as you started to see there, and also something like a flipper.’
    ‘Sea, air and land,’ Parry remembered. ‘Eddie told us that they can transform into different entities with different morphologies to suit whatever environment they’re in.’
    ‘Yes, what we’ve seen here would bear that out,’ the MO said.
    Parry’s brow was