Distortion Offensive by James Axler Page A

Right now, however, the cafeteria was almost entirely deserted, with just a few personnel sitting finishing a late lunch or enjoying a relaxing drink while they took a well-earned break from their shift. As ever, the room had that scent of all cafeterias the world over, the indefinable musk of warm foods served at strange hours for hungry personnel.
    â€œWell, then,” Clem began in his warm, friendly voice as he took the seat opposite Grant, “let’s take a look at what you have there, shall we?”
    Grant tipped the bag upside down and carefully laid the six dead crustaceans on the table between them.
    Clem reached for the largest of them, then retracted his hand, clearly thinking better of it. “Are they dead?” he asked.
    â€œOh, yes,” Grant assured him. “We couldn’t find any live ones. Believe me, we looked.”
    Fascinated, Clem took the largest of the mollusks—roughly circular and about seven inches in diameter—and held it up to his eyes, turning it over and over in the light. “Where did they come from?” he asked, still gazing at the coruscating patterns on the strange creature’s oil-like shell. The light seemed to waver across its surface, as if seen through a heat haze, and Clem was already speculating that it in fact had a double shell, the dark one below the clear surface shell that created the slightly disarming optical effect.
    â€œWe picked these up on the beachfront at Hope,” Grant explained, “off the Snakefishville coastline.”
    â€œSnakefish,” Clem muttered, as though doing a quick calculation in his mind. “You mean California.”
    â€œI mean Snakefishville,” Grant growled, the ancient frame of reference largely lost of himself, a child of the twenty-third century.
    Clem placed the first mollusk down and examined one of the smaller creatures, using a pen to poke at the inside of the shell until the dead creature inside plopped out. It looked like a slug, finished in a dull gray-pink color, and it was clear that it was now wizening up in death, wrinkles marring its fleshy skin. “It’s definitely some kind of shellfish, but I must admit that I don’t recognize the specific type. Where did you say you found this?”
    â€œHope,” Grant repeated.
    â€œNo, I mean—” Clem looked up, smiling self-consciously “—in what circumstances?”
    â€œThey’re washing up along the shoreline, just a few here and there, but enough so you can find them if you go looking,” Grant explained. “We found a couple of teens out of it, like they were on something, and it turns out they’d cooked some of these things and been eating them. Figured maybe they had some hallucinogenic properties.”
    Bryant swept his hand over the little array of dead sea creatures that were spread out on the plastic-coated table between them. “You’d need a lot for a decent meal,” he observed.
    â€œThe people in Hope are starving, Clem,” Grant told him. “We were there on a mercy mission to distribute nutrition bars, stuff like that. Domi and Edwards are still there now, helping with basic medical needs withsomeone…can’t remember her name. Penny something, I think.”
    Clem looked at the broad-shouldered ex-Mag as he tapped at one of the hard shells of the unknown creatures. “I’ll check a few reference tomes and see what I can come up with if you’d like. Would you mind if I take one?”
    â€œBe my guest,” Grant encouraged. “We brought them back for you to study.”
    â€œThen study them I shall,” Clem announced as he pushed himself up from the table, gathering the half-dozen shells and placing them back in the plastic bag.
    Grant finished his coffee as he watched the slender figure of Clem speak to his coworkers before making his way from the cafeteria. At the door, Grant saw, Clem met with Mariah Falk, the