Enormity

by Nick Milligan

  I have brought Natalie up here to meet the beast, knowing that I couldn’t meet my rescuers empty handed. I initially chose her with the same calculating pair of eyes that Dr. Thompson now needles at me. Every drop of blood, every organ removed, weighed and photographed, every specimen jar she is separated into will be a further example of the evil and desperation I was born into. That I have propped like Atlas. That I have used as an excuse to betray others. My compliance in this interview only perpetuates the spread of contagion.

  There is no concept of night and day in the quarantine chamber. But there is a small porthole through which I can see Heaven as the Santa Maria twists through its orbit. Soon I will need to debrief Captain O’Connor about their military capabilities and from where we can find further specimens. More people to abduct and dissect. Hours move sluggishly but give me time to plan my next move. The various experts among the crew will be pouring over the samples I brought with me. They will be pawing over Natalie.

  I wonder if the penny has dropped. If my lover has worked out why I convinced her to come with me. When she realises my betrayal she will never trust me again. I could hardly blame her. Natalie will look on me as she did Brannagh. On a literal level she will comprehend what I have done, but her insight into the enormity of my actions will be hampered by her awe. Her horror. I am the gleeful sadist known only through her planet’s scriptures. I am the archaic ideology. The Fallen One. Natalie will shudder at my cruelty but her intuition will tell her not to fear me. That fear is the blood that nourishes hatred. She will attempt to forgive me, but I may break her forever.

  My quarantine room is sparse. There’s a simple bed, bolted to the floor. It’s comfortable. There is a television screen behind a Perspex panel. The fact that my surroundings are similar to a prison cell is not lost on me. I’m in a metal husk, except for the wall and door by the corridor. These are transparent. This is so I can be observed. A one-sided aquarium. The overall design is decidedly unimaginative, but effectively airtight. I stare at the wall where it meets the floor and ceiling, my brain whirring. It’s well sealed. Escape is impossible.

  A woman appears in the corridor and looks into my room. She is young compared to the rest of the crew, has a kind face and is dressed in surgeon’s garb. I watch as she walks to the other side of the doorframe and talks into a receiver. The corresponding speaker on my side of the frame emits her voice.

  “Hello,” she says, in a British accent. She’s not wearing a facemask and I can see her smile.

  I stand and walk to my receiver, depressing the button. “Hi,” I say.

  “My name is Louise Merchant. I’m an assistant to Dr. Thompson.”

  “Nice to meet you, Louise. You’re a doctor too?”

  “I am. You may not remember, but we have met before. Many years ago at a conference. I was also at your farewell party.”

  “You look familiar.”

  “I’ve been sent to see how you’re doing. Can we bring you anything?”

  “I’d love it if you could tell me how much longer I’ll be in here.”

  “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” says Louise, in a tone designed to reassure me. “Obviously we’re being extremely thorough. There are extensive tests we need to run.”

  “Of course,” I say. “Can you tell me how Natalie is?”

  “She’s fine,” smiles Louise. “I was just with Dr. Thompson looking at some of her results and, well, needless to say, we are fascinated by her. The identical nature of her dialect and biology… it’s unbelievable. It will make things so much easier for us.”

  “I am concerned about her welfare,” I say.

  “She is not in any distress,” replies Louise. “I promise you.”

  “Good.”

  “How are you feeling? Do you still feel well?”

  “Fit and ready.”

  “How about emotionally?”

  “Boredom has definitely set in. Other than that, I’m very relieved to be a part of this mission again.”

  “You’ve always been a part of it. The samples you’ve brought with you are fascinating. Particularly the cancer treatments. We’re already analysing them. There’s every chance we can have them synthesised by the time we return home.”

  “Great,” I say. I pause and ask, “Louise, can you be honest with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s happening back on Earth? What was the last update?”

  “We haven’t had contact for six months but before we left, the situation was bleak,” says Louise, solemnly. “When you didn’t return on schedule and news spread that your mission had failed… people panicked. The wild zones increased. They were evacuating San Francisco as we were leaving. It was believed it might be below sea level within three months. The people of every continent are receding from the coast. In terms of politics… let’s just say that the redistribution of populations is not going smoothly.”

  I’ve dreaded my next question. “What about… Amber?”

  Louise pauses. “The last I heard… Amber was back in rehab. She is still confined to the clinic. But, as you know, she’s a fighter. I’m sure she can beat it. She’s getting the very best treatment.”

  “I’ve never believed she can beat it.”

  Louise seems genuinely shocked. “Oh, well… until the addiction wins we should entertain the idea that she will get better.”

  “Anything is possible,” I smile.

  “Hey there, buddy,” says Atticus O’Connor from across the interrogation desk. He’s lost his sunglasses, but still has the facemask. It doesn’t hide his smugness.

  “Atticus,” I smile through my own facemask.

  “Fuck I wish they’d hurry up with this quarantine shit,” he laughs, shaking his head. “How fucking ridiculous do these things look?”

  “Very.”

  “Now first of all, I’m going to turn this bad boy off,” he says, flicking a switch on the lie detector. It powers down. “You and I have had the exact same training. You were the star at the academy, so if I can beat this piece of shit then there’s no doubt you can.”

  “I’m a bit rusty,” I reply, pulling the electrodes from my forehead and the straps from my wrist.

  “You’ve been out in the wilderness, brother!” laughs Atticus again. I’m not actually his brother.

  “But still on a mission.”

  “Of course,” he says, his tone calming down. “Which is why you and I are here. It’s time to talk turkey.”

  “Alright.”

  “Now I’ve been going over the stuff you brought with you. The data, the books and all that.”

  “Is it helpful?”

  “Very, very,” he replies nodding. “I hate to sound… a little twisted, but this is going to be a piece of cake, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I reply. “Their military capabilities are limited.”

  “Well, as you know, captain, if they’re hospitable and, you know, extend a welcoming olive branch, then it won’t matter what their fire power is.”

  “I don’t believe they will show resistance.”

  “Okay,” nods O’Connor. “So that’s your official assessment?”

  “Yes. They are peaceful. Very peaceful.”

  “In what sense?”

  “I’m not saying they’re all floating about, high on life, but they are very calm and rational.”

  “Violence is a last resort, then?”

  “In a broader sense, I don’t think they view violence as any resort. It doesn’t factor in.”

  “Right…” says O’Connor, clearly perplexed.

  “There is violence in them, especially when they need to defend themselves… I have witnessed violent crimes during my time there. But… it is, sort of, contained. It’s comparatively rare. It’s dealt with and learned from.”

  O’Connor nods, taking this in. “What sort of violence?”

  “Well, their media would report random things. The odd stabbing and shooting. Lover’s tiffs. A few hit-and-runs. There was
one particularly bad case in which a man was killing drug addicts.”

  “Drug addicts?” asks O’Connor.

  “Yes, he was a serial killer. But… he was apprehended and dealt with.”

  “Right,” nods O’Connor. “But what about larger stuff. No military conflicts? War zones? Dictatorships?”

  “No,” I reply.

  O’Connor asks me for more details on their military capabilities. He quizzes me on their battle psychology to obtain insights that aren’t in the texts I brought with me. I advise him on locations where our “life rafts”, as they are called, can arrive from Earth and which less populated areas will be easier to claim as our own. When I tell him all I know about Heaven, O’Connor changes his line of questioning.

  “Now, one of the other things we need to discuss is the accident on Endeavour. I need a full debriefing. What did you see? Do you know what went wrong?” he asks.

  “As I told you when you were on your way here,” I reply, casually, “I really don’t know. There was an explosion. I happened to be in the section of the craft that had the escape pods. Otherwise I would have been killed.”

  “You said you saw the wreckage?”

  “I glimpsed it,” I reply. “But I didn’t have time to take it in. I saw through a window that an area of the ship’s outer wall was blown away. Near the storage area. I can’t be sure what caused the explosion.”

  “Neither can we,” says O’Connor. “As you would be aware, very few explosives are kept on each craft and the ones that are require activation. There wouldn’t have been anything explosive in the cargo area.”

  “That had occurred to me,” I say.

  “Do you have any reason to believe that one of your fellow crew members may have been responsible for the explosion?”

  “No.”

  “As the sole survivor, the idea that you are responsible for the explosion remains a valid inference,” says O’Connor. “I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

  “I can, yes,” I say. “I would ask you the same question if our roles were reversed.”

  “For protocol’s sake, do you mind if I turn this lie detector back on?” he asks.

  “Not at all,” I reply.

  As O’Connor switches on the lie detector a piercing siren explodes around us. My interrogator clearly believes the two are linked, flicking the machine on and off. But the emergency alarm continues to screech, almost shaking the walls. A bright red light above the door blinks rapidly. My muscles lock. I haven’t heard an evacuation alarm since the explosion on the Endeavour. In a heartbeat I’m back on that ship, racing to the escape pod.

  O’Connor yells something at me through his mask, but it is drowned by the piercing, dizzying siren. He rises from his chair and races to the door of the room. Instinct animates me and I move after him. As he grabs the metal of the lock to rotate it and exit, I punch him in the right kidney with all my strength. When he instinctively grabs at his lower back, I wrap my arms around his throat in a choke lock. One hand pushes on the back of his head to force his throat down on my other arm, which is immovably braced across his larynx. With the mask sealed around his face, there’s nowhere for his head to move. The pressure crushes his throat.

  O’Connor, like me, has been trained to escape most hostile situations. But racing through his brain will be the realisation that he won’t escape. Without a weapon, all he can do is lift his feet and kick at the door, which he does. With his weight forced against me, I stumble backwards. But I manage to stay on my feet as we slam into the opposite wall. The hand behind his head finds the thick rubber strap of the mask and twists. My other hand shifts to the front of the mask and aids the rotation. Even though the emergency alarm is overwhelming in volume, I hear O’Connor’s skull snap away from the top of his spine. His body goes limp and we now fall sideways down the wall, across part of the observation window, before crashing to the floor. I push his body away from me, trying to get to my feet. Propped on an elbow, pinned against the wall, I turn his head towards me. It shifts with sickening ease, twisting backward. His eyes are still wide, parted in horror. But above the facemask he is looking through me. Lifeless. Somewhere else.

  I shift up to my knees, extricating myself from his corpse. Looking over the interrogation desk I see the door to the room is open. O’Connor must have unlocked it and kicked it open before I grabbed. But then something moves into the room. I drop down, peering above the table. Two feminine hands hold the barrel of a rather large hand-cannon. They’re shaking, red streaks of blood splattered along toned, bare arms. Natalie steps into the doorway, dressed in a hospital gown. She’s covered in blood. The right side of her face is caked with dark chunks of what appears to be brain matter. Her hair is matted. The white garment draped over her looks like a Jackson Pollock. When I realise it’s Natalie I raise a reassuring hand. But as her wide, terrified eyes turn on me she fires a bullet. I feel it displace the air around my head. It misses and ricochets into the ceiling. I scramble away from her, staying low against the wall until I run out of space to flee. I curl into the corner, my hands raised in surrender. Natalie shudders as she steps further into the room, moving around the interrogation table. The gun stays pointed at me. I wrench my mask from my face and toss it to the floor. I see a flicker of recognition. Her eyes dart between O’Connor’s body and my own. On the side of her weapon is a small red dot. Just at the side of the chamber. She doesn’t realise this means the clip is empty.

  “Natalie!” I yell, above the siren. “It’s me! It’s Jack!”

  I’m certain she recognises me. Anger tenses Natalie’s face. She again looks at O’Connor’s body and I hope she takes his murder as a sign that I’m on her side. That she can trust me. Natalie levels the gun at my head. I can’t wait for her to pull the trigger. When she realises she’s out of ammunition she might run. I spring to my feet and pounce, covering the six feet between us in a split second. She clicks at the useless trigger and as I tackle her to the ground the gun bounces across the floor. Natalie flails about and I keep a strong hold on her. She repeatedly elbows me in the ribs and I brace against the pain of the repeated blows. But I don’t stop yelling next to Natalie’s ear. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

  The scene in the autopsy room would have made a nice addition to Brannagh’s Marioneta de Carne exhibit. I stand in the doorway, scanning the area, my ears still ringing from the alarm. Natalie remains outside in the hall, huddled against the wall of the corridor. She doesn’t want to see inside the room. She is well aware of the state she left it in following her desperate escape. The anesthetic they used on Natalie, despite their reassurances that she would feel no pain, didn’t work as planned. While her muscles were briefly paralysed, her brain was awake and her ears heard everything.

  “They were going to cut me up,” said Natalie, shaking, as we walked through the Santa Maria to this room. “I heard everything. What they were going to do to me.”

  When Dr. Thompson briefly stepped out to retrieve part of his equipment from another laboratory, Dr. Merchant turned her back. Natalie had regained feeling in her body and grabbed the nearest weapon, which happened to be a thirteen-inch surgical blade. Now it lies in the middle of the room, its glistening edge sharp enough to separate flesh and bone as if they were slow-cooked lamb. Natalie slashed at Dr. Merchant’s face and it divided her from ear to ear. As Dr. Thompson calmly returned, having not heard Dr. Merchant’s shocked, almost silent gurgle, Natalie was waiting behind the door. She pushed the knife through his throat.

  “Fuck me,” I say, looking at the two bodies. “You really did a number on these two.”

  “I had no choice,” responds Natalie.

  Dr. Merchant lies in a pool of blood, dark liquid congealing at the edges of her immense facial wound. I notice her chest move. Then her throat shifts, trying to breath. A fish next to its tank. I’m reminded of Natalie’s gun in my hand, which I have since reloaded. From what she told me, the firearm belonged to Hal Cortez, whose body I will
find on the floor of the flight deck. I step into the room and walk to where Louise is lying, her hands outstretched by her sides. I’m grateful that her eyes don’t look at me as I pull the trigger.

  In the corridor, Natalie is still pressed against the wall. The soiled gown is wet and sticks to her quaking figure, the pungent smells of blood and sweat are heavy around us. I put the gun on the ground and try to hold her. She pushes me away, uncoiling in anger. I try a second time to pull her into my arms and she slaps me across the face and fires punches into my chest.

  “Why?” she screams, “why did you bring me here?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I don’t fucking care! Why? Tell me!”

  “If I arrived empty handed, without a specimen, they wouldn’t trust me. I knew you could handle yourself. I couldn’t just bring some innocent person up here…”

  “You fucking used me, Jack! You knew they were going to cut me up!”

  “I hoped I could stop that from happening. I was going to save you, I swear.”

  “Were you? Really? Well you fucking didn’t!”

  “You’re right,” I reply, feeling heat behind my eyes. I turn to walk away.

  “Where are you going?” she yells.

  “I’m going to find the escape pods.”

  “Of course you are,” she scoffs. “You’re a survivor. You always know where the exit is. It doesn’t matter who you leave in the room.”

  I fight my urge to respond and keep walking.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you,” says Natalie.

  When I turn back she is aiming the gun at me.

  “It wouldn’t be self defense,” I say.

  Her face contorts in frustration. “Then tell me why. Why are you here? Why were they going to cut me up?”

  “To study you. To learn your weaknesses so we could take everything from you. You won’t ever understand, Natalie. We’re everything you’re not. You’re everything we could have been. You made a fist of your existence. We made a farce of ours.”