Aaron shrugged. “I think it’s supposed to be buried in the ground like this. That’s what a corkscrew does, right? It embeds itself. From the size of this section above ground, I reckon it must go down really deep. Ten feet, maybe more.”
“What would be the point though? Why bury a corkscrew in the ground filled with some strange chemical?”
Aaron furrowed his brow in thought. The shy, socially stunted teenager gave way to an excited, confident young man, the mystery clearly something he enjoyed. “It could be a terraformer,” was his first suggestion. “Maybe the government is working on a chemical to make unsuitable land better for farming. The green fuzz all over Sean, maybe it’s like some kind of nutrient meant to enrich the soil.” He looked down at their feet, at the spoiled grass and rocks. “It’s spreading through the ground. Maybe it’ll make all this rocky ground farmable.”
Ryan chewed his top lip while he thought about it. If what Aaron said was true, it made a lot of sense. A third of the world was starving, hadn’t he read that somewhere? If there was a chemical to make mountains and deserts farmable, it would be a massive triumph for mankind. “I want to believe you, little brother, but it all seems a little too easy to explain. Whatever this oil is, it’s clearly dangerous – just look at Sean. The government wouldn’t release something that wasn’t safe, would they?”
Aaron shook his head incredulously. “Don’t you know anything about the government?”
“They’re not the villains from the movies, Aaron. The worst thing about the government is that they’re incompetent and greedy.”
Aaron smirked, clearly ready to continue the argument, but before he opened his mouth, he flinched and hopped back. “Whoa, what the hell!”
Ryan hopped away too. Insects covered a patch of earth near where Aaron had been standing. They were thick and slimy like slugs – except they had legs.
Ryan shuddered. “Are they some kind of beetle?”
“No.” Aaron spoke confidently as he leaned over to examine the lumpy creatures about the size of an unshelled peanut. “They only have four legs. That doesn’t make sense at all. Insects have six legs. Arachnids have eight. Only mammals have four, but no mammal is this small.”
“You positive about that?”
Aaron shrugged. “I guess not.”
Ryan watched as the tiny lumbering creatures stomped about on their four thick legs, and he could find no memory of ever seeing anything resembling them before. Not at the zoo. Not in an Attenborough special. “What are you saying?”
“That we need to capture one of them to show to Brett. Maybe it’s a new species.”
“No way. We’re not touching those things.”
Aaron wasn’t listening. He was clearly fascinated. “They look like slugs, but they have thick little legs.”
“Hey, we need to get down off this hill, okay? If it is something new, then they need to send a bunch of scientists up here to run tests and that. I’m sure we’ll get the credit for finding it. We can name them Aaron Bugs. As in, Aaron bugs me because he won’t listen to me.”
Aaron started looking around, searching. “Hey, there’s a water bottle over there.”
Ryan nodded. “Loobey dropped it last night when Sean tried to grab him. So what?”
Aaron picked up the bottle and crouched beside the critters. “They’re slow. I can catch one.”
Ryan’s skin was crawling by now, and the longer they stood there, the more insects – or not-insects – emerged from the earth. They seemed to be coming out of the ground around the base of the corkscrew. Had the massive chunk of metal unearthed some colony of undiscovered wildlife deep underground, or had they come out of the corkscrew itself? “Just hurry up and do what you need to do, okay? I’m freaking out here.”
Aaron reached out towards one of the tiny bugs without hesitation, scooping the neck of the plastic water bottle into the green-tinged dirt and easily capturing the creature. It tumbled into the bottom of the container and immediately tried climbing up the sides. Whatever it was, it was cumbersome, and its attempts to escape proved futile.
Aaron held the bottle up to Ryan, beaming proudly. “See! Piece of piss.”
“All right, smart arse. Can we go back down now?”
“You want me to hold your purse?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
Aaron flinched. “Whoa!”
Ryan jolted. “Jeez, will you stop doing that!”
“The insect just squirted something.” Aaron held up the bottle. Inside, the frantic creature had elongated, less a fat slug now and more of a slender beetle. Behind it, a green smear covered the plastic.
“It’s the oil,” said Ryan, stepping away. “Aaron, put it down.”
“It’s okay, it can’t get out. Let’s just get it to Brett.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Hey, you said be a man. Maybe you should take your own advice. Panicking won’t help anything, right? Let’s just do this.”
Ryan grunted. “Fine, but it’s on your head if that thing escapes.”
“It’s just an insect, Ryan.”
“No, little brother, you said it yourself. It’s something else.”
Brett and Loobey were looking under the Stelvio’s hood when Ryan and Aaron returned. Brett was still clearly unnerved by the situation, but Loobey seemed focused on what he was doing. His forehead was sweaty and his expression grim as he prodded at the lifeless engine.
“See anything?” asked Brett, holding his glasses and chewing on one of the arms.
“Nah, it’s the same as last night, mate. I hoped I’d see something in the daylight, but it all looks fine – not that I would really know.”
“Still dead?” asked Ryan, the answer obvious.
Loobey dropped the bonnet down and wiped his hands on his tracksuit bottoms. “Dead as a donkey. To be honest, I only had a mooch because I was bored.”
Brett surprised Ryan by grabbing an open beer from the roof of the
