The Cloud

by Daniel Boshoff

  “What happened?” Seren asked, pulling her from her thoughts. “Last thing I remember we saw” – she paused, glancing at one of the prone figures – “them ... up on the ridge, then they shot at us with those things.” She reached a hand up to her head. “It was like being hit by a truck … in the brain.”

  “Matthew and I managed to get the drop on them.”

  Seren raised her eyebrows. “I'm impressed.”

  “We got lucky.”

  Seren looked like she wanted to ask something more, but suddenly she groaned and clutched her belly. “Please excuse me. I think I'm going to be sick.”

  Evelyn left her and went over to where Matthew was just coming round. He looked at her with dazed eyes.

  “Hey,” she said, crouching down beside him. “Listen, you really saved my butt back there.”

  He frowned and opened his mouth to speak but his face immediately went green and he barely managed to get his helmet off before retching into the stream. She averted her eyes, trying to offer him some privacy.

  “Anyway, I … I wanted to say thanks.”

  He groaned in response.

  “Sorry. I'll leave you alone.”

  “Wait,” he said. He splashed some water onto his face and pushed himself up gingerly, turning to her. “How did you get the last one?” he looked over at where the body of the man who had shot him lay.

  “I didn't. Someone – or something – pushed him off the cliff. I didn't really see them clearly, just a movement in the trees.”

  Matthew stared up the opposite side of the creek. “This place gives me the creeps. And these … people... If there are more of them and they find out we did this I doubt they'll be very pleased.”

  “They didn't seem too friendly to begin with,” Nelson joined them, also glancing around at the trees. He seemed to have regained his composure. “We should get back to the shuttle. There may be more of them around.”

  “Do you think we should take their weapons?” Clove asked uncertainly.

  “Yes, though I hope we never need them,” Evelyn said.

  Seren pushed herself up and looked around at the woods that had completely lost their charm. “Something tells me we will.”

  12

  Brenner leaned her head against the cool polycarbonate siding in the generator room. She could feel the gentle hum of the nuclear core vibrating against her skull. She'd spent the two hours since the others had left trying to reconnect the tangle of wires and cables that had been cut, hoping to restore operation to the water filtration system and computer terminal. Without those two things she knew their chances of survival on this planet weren't great, and, as ridiculous and impossible as it seemed, survive was what they had to do.

  She'd reconnected most of the wires using their colors and sizes to identify where they went, and was relatively certain she'd done it correctly, Now she only had a few left to go. She was incredibly thirsty, and her fingers, back, and eyes were beginning to ache from the tedious work crouched down in the dim alcove, but she was so close. Reaching up to wipe the sweat from her forehead, she leaned back into the alcove and searched for the last few wires, stripping them with a pair of scissors she had found and twisting them carefully together before binding them in strips of plastic from the wrappers of the dehydrated food supplies and melting these in place with a lighter. Reyner had not bothered to send any electrical tape or shrink-tubing with them. Surprise surprise.

  The last wire reattached, she pulled her head of of the alcove and straightened up, stretching her back and neck. “Okay, here goes nothing,” she murmured to herself as she reached for the mains switch she had located and turned off before starting the repair project – the last thing she had wanted to do was electrocute herself. Holding her breath, she flipped the switch and hurried out to the main room. The screen of the computer terminal glowed blue as it started up.

  “Yes! It's working.” She glanced over to Holly, who hadn't budged from the bench in the corner the entire day. Holly gave her a weak smile, before continuing to stare into space. Brenner was worried about her, but there seemed little she could do for the girl.

  Instead she went and sat at the computer. Matthew had asked her to work on the message from his father, see if there was a way they could hear the full recording, and she was only too eager to try. Miles Tucker had been trying to warn them not to trust someone, and apparently justifiably so. Brenner would love to know who it was who had cut the wires and destroyed their food stores. And as soon as she found out she intended to punch that person in the face. For starters, anyway.

  Of course, it was quite doubtful there would be any kind of audio editing software on Indi's computer system. She'd have to write her own, and the LARRI code was definitely not one she felt confident in. Then again the program would only need to perform one function. It probably wouldn't take more than a day or two of tinkering to get a workable piece of software. She began tapping away at the keys, mindful of the fact that as long as she kept busy she wouldn't have to think about any if the menacing thoughts that hovered at the back of her mind and threatened to overwhelm her if allowed: thoughts of family; thoughts of friends; thoughts of home.

  She didn't notice Holly rise from her position on the bench and slip into the storage room.

  It only took a few minutes of working with the code before she felt she was getting the hang of it. She had always been a quick learner, and was fluent in most common coding languages. That was why she'd been selected for the internship at OrbiCor, or so she had thought. A humorless laugh escaped her mouth, and she shook her head at herself. Some internship. She still couldn't quite believe Damien Reyner would send a bunch of kids into space, through some freaking dark matter rift or whatever, to colonize a planet. It was utterly absurd. And there was certainly no way she would be making babies with the sperm of some random dude, whether the survival of the human race depended on it or not. No sirree.

  Pushing these thoughts from her mind, she focused once more on the code.

  Something cold touched her neck and she almost leaped out of the chair in fright. She tried to turn, but thin fingers clamped down on her esophagus.

  Brenner clutched at her attacker, trying to pull the hands away from her neck so she could draw breath. They wouldn't budge. She reached blindly behind her, raking her nails across flesh, catching an ear, a nose. She felt slippery blood on her fingers. The hands around her neck only seemed to tighten.

  Her vision was beginning to blur.

  The hands gave a last tug, nearly lifting her from the chair, and as her head came back she looked up into a familiar face.

  “Hol … ly ...” she choked.

  Black, hollow eyes started back out of Holly's face. Their blackness seemed to engulf Brenner, filling her vision. She was going to pass out, she knew, and then she was going to die. She had to do something.

  Curling her legs up, she braced them against the computer terminal in front of her and kicked herself backwards, sending herself and Holly to the floor. Holly's hands released her neck and she heard something hard bounce from the floor. Scrambling to her feet, she backed away as Holly rose. A thin line of blood ran from her scalp where she had hit her head on the floor. Along with the red lines on her face where Brenner had scratched her and her black eyes, Holly was a terrifying sight. Brenner fought the urge to run. Though Holly was taller by almost a head, she was wounded, and she hadn't eaten. Brenner knew she could take her. And now the anger was starting to come … It was Holly who had thrown out their food stores and cut the wires! It must have been. Brenner's fingers balled into fists and she stepped forwards. “I don't know what you're playing at, but I'm going to make you hurt, you bitch.”

  Then Holly pulled a knife from the pocked of her pants, and tossed the sheath aside.

  “Oh, shit.” Brenner cast about, looking for a weapon with which to defend herself. There was nothing. Then her eyes fell on the airlock. It was an escape, if she could get the door closed in time. If not, it was a dea
d end. Holly was advancing. Brenner was running out of time.

  She turned and ran for the airlock, slamming the button for the door. Holly was right behind her. Brenner spun, ready to defend herself. Holly swiped at her with the knife held backhand, and she raised her arm to catch the blow. Holly hadn't been expecting that, and though Brenner knew she would heal, the steel passing through her flesh stung like nothing she'd ever felt. It had been a calculated move by Brenner: now Holly was off balance, and Brenner kicked her in the groin hard, sending her tumbling backwards. This was her chance. She sprang into the airlock and hit the button immediately. The inner door closed, and she watched through the glass as Holly rose and stared at her with eyes blacker than night. The outer door opened behind her, and Brenner jumped out. She knew Holly would be coming for her. She had a thirty-second lead – that was about how long it took for the airlock to pressurize. Without wasting any time, she turned and ran towards the darkening forest. She stopped herself. That was exactly what Holly would expect. Once again fighting the urge to flee, Brenner swallowed her fear and returned to the shuttle. She found a spot in the long grass nearby, where she lay down in hiding and waited.

  Thirty seconds later the outer airlock door slid up and Holly jumped down. She looked left and right, then jumped down and walked slowly along the way Brenner had originally run. Brenner could no longer see her from her position, and she strained her ears, listening. She thought she heard Holly moving away. She swallowed, trying to calm her breathing. Her pulse sounded like thunder in her ears. She glanced towards the airlock. It was barely five paces away. If she could get back inside the shuttle she could disable the air lock and trap Holly outside. Suddenly she heard movement. It was close. She couldn't see anything through the thick grass, and she didn't dare move. A few seconds passed by, seeming to Brenner like hours. A shadow passed overhead and she glanced up in fright. Just a bird, she thought in relief. Then a voice behind her turned her blood to ice.

  “Found you.”

  The voice was Holly's

  13

  A somber silence lay over the group as they picked their way warily through the darkening forest. With the setting sun, the creatures of the woods seemed to be awakening, and the trees were coming alive with the outlandish hoots and shrieks of unknown lifeforms. The interns walked close together, glancing nervously into the shadows at every sound, and holding their new weapons at the ready. Large swarms of mosquito-like insects had also emerged with the onset of evening. They buzzed around the interns, looking for a way into their suits. Thankful for the protection, Evelyn remembered again how the strange swarms of black mist had assaulted her. She wondered what would have happened if they had found a way inside.

  After some time Nelson, who had taken the lead, halted them.

  “We should have been out of the trees by now,” he said uncertainly, squinting into the darkness.

  “Oh no,” Clove moaned. “Don't tell me you've gotten us lost.”

  “Oh, great,” Kenji said. “Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse.”

  “I … I really thought we were going in the right direction.”

  “It's not your fault, Nelson,” Evelyn reassured him. “It's impossible to see anything in this light.” The truth was she felt guilty for not paying more attention. She'd been so absorbed in her thoughts she'd completely neglected to take note of her surroundings. Now that she did look, it seemed the woods had gotten denser instead of thinning. They were definitely not on the way back to the shuttle.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Kenji asked, the beginning of panic in his voice. “I don't like the idea of spending the night out here. The local wildlife sounds as hungry as I am.” A loud shriek rang through the woods not far off as if to illustrate his point.

  Seren stepped forward, looking up at the treetops, through which a few stars twinkled intermittently. “I'm pretty sure it's this way.” She gestured in a direction roughly perpendicular to the path they had been taking.

  “Oh, you're navigating with the stars now?” Kenji raised his eyebrows at her.

  “No, but I can hear water in the other direction, presumably the same stream we visited earlier. We need to be moving away from it, not nearer.” She started off in the direction she had suggested, and after a few glances and shrugs among the others they set off after her. Evelyn waited a moment, straining her ears to hear the river, but she heard nothing. Strange. She was possessed of rather keen hearing... There was, of course, a lot of noise in the woods. Seren must have heard it through a break in the animal sounds. Without giving it another thought, Evelyn hurried after the others, a rustle in the bushes nearby reminding her that she had no idea what could be lurking in the shadows.

  Seren set a fast pace, seeming confident that she was leading them in the right direction, and the group struggled to stay close. Evelyn followed Nelson, just able to make out the back of his suit a few paces ahead of her, but beyond him she could see nothing. The woods around them had once again fallen eerily quiet, and the silence was even more unnerving than the previous ruckus. She wondered what could have caused the creatures of the woods to fall so suddenly silent. Were they afraid of something?

  A sharp rustle in the brush behind her made her spin, holding her weapon in front of her. She squinted into the darkness but could see nothing. She held her breath, listening. Silence. It could have been anything, she told herself: a falling branch, a scurrying critter. Releasing her breath, she shook her head at herself for being so easily spooked and turned around to find that she was alone. Nelson's back was nowhere in sight. The others had kept on walking.

  The thick silence of the woods immediately began to feel menacing, and Evelyn's eyes started to conjure moving shapes in the darkness. She blinked the images away, and hurried on. The others can't have gone far.

  “Nelson!” She called out, trying not to let her fear into her voice. “Hey!”

  The woods seemed to swallow her cries, and she called out again, louder this time, straining her ears and praying for a response.

  Then she heard it, a shrill scream. She stopped in her tracks, listening. Sounds of shouting reached her. The others were in danger! Evelyn dashed through the trees, heedless of the twigs and vines that stung at her face. As she got nearer she made out Matthew's voice.

  “It was you, all along. You're Reyner's AI!” Then his voice changed, from angry to afraid. “Why are you doing this? No ... don't. Please do–” his words were cut off by a strange thump that Evelyn recognized as the sound of one of the blasters they'd taken being discharged. Then there was silence. Her mind raced as she crept forward. Who had Matthew been talking to? Her heart hammered in her chest as she strained to make out movement ahead. Judging by Matthew's voice she guessed she was still about twenty paces from the clearing. She heard the crunch of footsteps on dead leaves approaching her. She crouched low, holding her weapon ready. Then the footsteps stopped. Evelyn didn't move. She could barely see anything in the darkness, but a sudden stream of moonlight broke through the canopy and she was able to make out a figure standing just in front of her. The distinctive silhouette of the protective suit it wore meant it was one of her companions, but she could not make out the facial features. Then the figure removed its helmet. A bald round scalp glinted in the moonlight.

  Seren. Seren was the AI.

  She and Matthew had been right.

  But Seren had bled … Evelyn had no time to contemplate how that was possible, for Seren seemed to be staring right at her. Could she see her? Evelyn hoped the darkness was enough. A full minute passed where neither of them moved. Then the AI turned away from her and vanished into the trees.

  Evelyn crouched in silence for another minute, feeling numb. She had to do something. She had to go and see what had happened to the others. She was about to rise when she heard something large approaching through the woods off to her left. It was coming quickly. She didn't even feel afraid at this point. She had no more room for fear. Instead she grit her
teeth and trained her weapon on the noise, waiting for some savage animal to leap at her. A panting figure burst through the trees and Evelyn was about to squeeze the trigger when she realized the figure walked upright. It stopped a short distance away. “Evelyn?” it said.

  “Holly?” Evelyn couldn't keep the surprise from her voice. Holly wasn't wearing a protective suit. How had she found them? “What are you–” she began in an urgent whisper. “Never mind. Listen, the others are in trouble. It's Seren, she's … she's not who we thought.”

  “What do you mean?” Holly asked from the shadows. Evelyn couldn't see her eyes but she got the feeling Holly was watching her intently.

  “She's not one of us, Holly, she's not human, and she's attacked the others. We need to try and help them.”

  Holly's head turned toward the clearing. “No,” she said.

  “N-No?”

  “We don't need to help them. You need to come with me.”

  “What?” Evelyn instinctively took a step back. There was something very strange going on with Holly. “Go with you where?”

  Holly stepped towards her, and her face came out of the shadows into a beam of moonlight. Evelyn looked into her eyes: they were blacker than the night itself. “Oh no ...” Cold dread ran through her chest as she realized that though the person standing before her was Holly, whatever she was speaking with wasn't. “Wh-What have you done with Holly.”