World War T is a series of independent, vaguely interconnected stories about different tentacle monsters invading Earth, very much an erotic homage to World War Z. These short stories do not need to be read sequentially.
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One by one, the husks of flesh had dropped lifelessly to the dirty floor of the warehouse.
Toutatis has cycled through them, gleaning the useful information in a moment before destroying the mind. He relished in the retribution, taking his name from the mind of the Irish professor he inhabited.
Toutatis had been a god, a protector of women...
Now the Irishman only functioned as a vessel, leaving only the brain stem intact as he spoke to the writhing mass buried in the basement of the brothel.
This place was senseless. The female minds are nearly shattered.
He had named the collection of consciousness Lugh, a Celtic god of salvation.
"They are capable of such cruelty. But we can heal them," Toutatis spoke out loud, the creature hearing his thoughts rather than the words.
We could end them. We could end all the suffering caused by this self-destructive race.
He grimaced.
Toutatis had initially shared that idea when first discovering the brothel. The women had been tricked, drugged, beaten, even chained to mattresses in small rooms divided by cloths and plywood. With his heightened telepathic awareness, Toutatis had known every monstrously vile act forced on these women before entering.
He had killed all the men without thinking, cursing himself at having to dispose of the bodies in such an inefficient way. Had Toutatis really considered the problem, he could have commanded them to jump off a cliff... or at least caused them to collapse into a neat little pile that would have been easier to burn.
But he had been enraged.
Even Dagoth, with his brainwashed cult, had never been as sadistic as these humans.
"We have larger concerns," Toutatis answered. "These humans are like little bees, barely able to sting us, but if they acted as a hive..."
They cannot.
"Even so, together they could cause us considerable damage," Toutatis corrected. "Opening us up to an attack by Dagoth."
Thousands of different voices screamed out of Lugh at the mention of the dreaded defiler.
You have earned our trust. What do you suggest?
"I do not doubt the eventual triumph of our race," Toutatis said. "But let us use the human as our model. Man did not need to kill to rule. The bear, the tiger, the elephant, he left these alone and made allies. The dog, the pig, the cow, designing them slowly to particular tasks.
We do not possess bioengineers capable of this.
Toutatis almost laughed.
"We do not need to equal the others in everything," He said. "We can use our resources to make allies of man and of our brothers. We will cleanse places like this, heal those who have been harmed, and barter with our brothers for the services we cannot create."
Yes, very good. Thank you Toutatis.
*****
