The Ganymede Legacy

by A C Bonesteel

  "Leo! What are you talking about?" Alice demanded. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  Leo watched Annabelle blindly scrabble around on the steps, searching for rocks to throw. "What's wrong with me? A lot... So, so much... It's not right, but I can still make sense of it. It's not as bad as I thought it'd be..."

  Alice had no idea what to make of Leo's behavior, but at least he wasn't being aggressive...

  With no other reasonable options, she bent down and picked up another rock, then chucked it at the forehead of the one leading the group up the stairs. It smashed into his head with a sickening thunk, but he barely even flinched and continued toward her.

  Alice turned and grabbed Annabelle's hand, then pulled her up the stairs, trying to gain any distance she could on the advancing mob. They walked right past Leo as he lazily stepped aside, and reached Alice within seconds.

  Then, the foremost of the servants reached out and grabbed Alice's arm. She tried to lash out at him with her feet, but she had been through that situation before, and knew her struggles would be a useless waste of energy.

  With a sense of sad acceptance, she put up little resistance as another servant grabbed her other arm and the two lifted her into the air.

  Annabelle screamed in panic as the strong hands grabbed her. "Leo?! Please!" she begged, but Leo didn't respond. He watched in silence as Alice and Annabelle were carried back down the steps.

  The servants set Alice down next to Leo and released her, then did the same with Annabelle. More of Exony's servants quickly shuffled past Alice as she tried to make sense of what was happening.

  She watched with amazement as the servants that had carried her walked up to the caved-in rocks, then began to pick them up and carry them down the steps. They were quickly joined by the rest of the mob and the whole group immediately fell into an organized pattern of movement. In teams of two, they dug out and lifted the rocks, then carried them down the long stone staircase.

  Alice grabbed Annabelle's arm and pulled her against the edge of the tunnel as the mob quickly went about their work.

  Leo spoke condescendingly and wore a critical frown as he watched the servants work. "I told you... I called them. I may be infected with Exony's plague, but I'll never lie to you. Even this... The thing inside me can't force me to betray you. Exony isn't controlling me. If the voices are telling the truth, she might even be dead..."

  Leo then fell silent and continued watching the servants. He eyed them critically, as if to ensure that they were doing a good job, and like he was prepared to discipline them if they weren't.

  "I'm... I'm sorry, I guess..." Alice gasped, trying to comprehend what Leo's state of mind might be.

  He appeared to be in control of his mind, but he had somehow co-opted the servants to help them. Was he vulnerable to being controlled by others as well? Had Exony's unexpected death affected the silver liquid? Could her death have made her creation less dangerous?

  "I don't know what's happening to you..." Alice tentatively offered. "We don't know anything about what's inside you. We don't know what it is or how it works..."

  Leo turned to her as anger and judgment entered his voice. "Well, maybe you can study me and figure it out! Maybe you can take me to the Council, and they can lock me up! I imagine those are your standing orders now that Exony is dead!"

  "What?" Alice asked with bewilderment. "No, Leo! Never! My orders are to kill Exony, which I did. We completed our mission. My orders are to free you!"

  "Ah..." Leo replied with dark condescension. "Well, Alice. I'm infected with Exony's agent, so you should probably incinerate me to destroy it. Did you not consider the fact that I'm infected? Do you really think that I can make it out of this? Even I accept that I have to be quarantined at the very least. Hell, I may have already infected Annabelle when she kissed me. You can't risk letting me go free!"

  Annabelle piped up when Leo stopped speaking. "Shiiiiiiit... Just my luck! First I get acid sprayed on my face, then I get my mind half-jacked by a crazy A.I, then I get paralyzed! And like that wasn't enough, I get fucking blinded when some worm chewed through my brain, and now, I'm infected with Exony's agent of mass death?!"

  Annabelle took a breath, then threw her head back and gave an almighty scream. "CAN A GIRL CATCH A FUCKING BREAK?!"

  Alice absorbed Annabelle's outburst fairly and was silent as she thought about Leo's concerns. He was infected, and he would have to be quarantined. But, if he was infected, she could be too, even if it did seem that Exony's agent seemed opposed to contact with her. At the very least, it was likely that Annabelle would become infected, if she wasn't already, and would also have to be quarantined.

  "Listen!" Alice shouted. "If anyone is getting quarantined, then all three of us are. We all made contact with the agent, and we all have a stake in figuring out how to counteract it. But mark my words! We are not going to go back to the Council for them to study us. We're going to quarantine ourselves and figure out what Exony's agent is and how to counteract it. We're going to find a cure for it on our own! I'm not going back to a fucking Council lab, either! Not alive, at least!"

  Leo listened, but she could tell he had become preoccupied with Annabelle's condition. As she spoke, he moved to Annabelle's side and placed his arm around her comfortingly.

  Alice saw his concern, and she shared it as she continued. "And, we're going to get you your sight back, Annabelle. There are implants and treatments that can fix it. You are getting your sight back, I promise you!"

  Annabelle leaned into Leo's embrace and took a few breaths to calm herself, then took on a serious tone.

  "To be honest, I'm not worried about being blind. I know it's fixable. I just really don't think we should be arguing right now. We aren't even out of this... Wherever the hell we are... A cave or something I assume... Once we're safe, we can decide what to do about our condition, but right now, we need to focus on getting out of here!"

  Annabelle paused for a second, as if debating whether she should continue. After several seconds, she did.

  "Alice... Idi did something to me. She implanted me with something, and it really messed with my head. I could hear her in my mind, ever since I woke up after my acid treatment on your ship. Not only that, there were other changes... My mood and my thoughts have been... Odd. She was controlling me, and I'm sure of it, though it was in a very subtle, almost unnoticeable way. Did you have anything to do with it?"

  Alice didn't immediately answer. Ever since she had seen Exony pull the small A.I. interface out of Annabelle's temple, she had known that Idi had done something bad. An A.I.'s programming should never allow it to do something so radical as to install an implant without orders to do so, and that was a disturbing thought. If Idi could break those rules, then Idi could not be trusted.

  "I had nothing to do with it," Alice finally declared. "It's likely that Idi is far more autonomous in her operation than I had assumed. She may be programmed to act radically in certain situations, or even to take actions outside the scope of what's legally allowed by an A.I. It may be that she thought she had no other option to enable you to rescue Leo and me back on Osiris. Once we were safe, she must have elected to continue using you... It honestly makes a lot of sense that she would do those things if she has been programmed to complete the mission at any cost."

  Leo gave Alice a critical look. "If that's true, that kind of programming makes her very dangerous. A.I. conventions were made for a reason. If she's operating outside of those, she could end up being incredibly dangerous."

  "I know," Alice agreed. "We'll figure it out and deactivate her if we have too. But, I swear I had nothing to do with it, and I'm glad that whatever she put inside of you is gone, Annabelle!"

  Annabelle was silent for a few seconds, then slowly nodded. "Okay. It makes sense, and you've never lied to me, so I believe you... For now..."

  "Well, I agree with Annabelle," Leo announced, still obviously not entirely convinced of Alice's innocence. "We have bigger fish to fry
right now, anyways. How are we going to get off this moon? Hopefully, Randell was able to get control of his ship back, and he hasn't just left us here."

  "He won't have left yet," Alice replied. "I still owe him a lot of money, remember?"

  "Oh yeah..." Leo grunted, the slightest note of positivity creeping into his voice. Then, he closed his eyes and smiled. "They're done!"

  Alice snapped her head to look at the cave-in. It looked like Exony's servants had cleared enough of the rubble along the left side of the tunnel to squeeze through, while still leaving the majority of the rubble where it was to provide support and avoid any further collapse.

  "Okay, let's get out of here before any aftershocks bring this cavern down on us," Alice ordered as she walked confidently up the steps and past the now idle servants.

  She squeezed into the gap and saw that it was only a few meters to the other side. She turned sideways, sucked her chest in at the narrowest point, and was able to slide through.

  Once she was on the other side, Alice stared up the long tunnel and saw no pale light at its end. Before she had time to fret, Leo and Annabelle emerged from the cave-in and stood beside her.

  "The door is closed, but, I can open it..." Leo muttered as he closed his eyes.

  Alice looked on in awe as a sliver of pale orange light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Leo may have been infected with Exony's agent, she thought, but if he hadn't, they might have died in that cavern.

  "Good job, Leo! Now, let's get the hell off this moon!" Alice stated as she began to lead them up the stairs.

  Chapter 45

  The disturbing view of a bizarre, apocalyptic wasteland rendered Leo speechless as he climbed the last stair and walked out of the tunnel. The towering clouds that had obscured their view when they first landed on the moon had dissipated, and the landscape of Exony's moon was now fully visible.

  Leo ignored the thousands of whispering voices that filled his mind and absorbed his surroundings. He, Alice, and Annabelle stood on a ledge halfway up a massive rocky mountain, overlooking valleys and other tall, jagged peaks.

  As Leo walked closer to the ledge, an avalanche of grim realization threatened to bury him. The mountain on the other side of the valley was erupting and spewing a silvery mist high into the air above. As he stared at the silvery mist blowing into the sky, it began to blot out any hope that remained in him. The mountains were erupting with Exony's creation.

  He looked farther into the distance and saw other mountains erupting in the same manner. Each of them was the launch point for a massive bloom of silvery liquid - the same liquid that now flowed through his veins.

  His eyes moved to the valley below and he saw hundreds of threading silver streams bursting from the side of the mountain and flowing down into the valley below.

  He looked to his left and saw, only fifty meters away, a torrent of the liquid gushing from a crevice in the same mountain they stood upon. To his right, more torrents burst forth along the mountain face, one of which began jetting out of the rock even as he watched. When he looked up, he saw a column of silver mist extending high into the sky directly above.

  "This is insane..." Alice whispered as she stood next to him and stared out into the distance. "Exony's agent... It must be a self-replicating nanomachine... It's probably been growing here for years... I wonder how much there is..."

  "What do you see?" Annabelle demanded as she grasped Leo's hand. "What is it?"

  "Exony's agent..." Leo whispered as he squeezed her hand. "She filled the mountains with it, and like volcanoes erupting, the mountains are blasting it into the sky."

  "So, that's why the cavern collapsed..." Annabelle reasoned. "Well, it's just here, right? No one lives here... Well, Exony did, but no one else, right?"

  Leo stared at the blooms of silver mist soaring into the sky. "The agent must be designed to leave the atmosphere and travel to other worlds. How else could she expect it to infect anyone?"

  "We have to warn people..." Alice suddenly growled. "We have to get off this moon and warn everyone! We have to tell the Council!"

  Leo frowned; it seemed a little late for preventative measures. "We can't stop this. We can't contain it..."

  "Exony is dead..." Annabelle argued. "Maybe it won't work now that she's dead. I mean, look at you, Leo! It's in you, but you still seem normal!"

  "I can hear thousands of voices in my head," Leo replied as he squeezed Annabelle's hand. "I'm not normal..."

  "It doesn't matter!" Alice shouted. "We have to get off this moon. Let's head back down to Randell's ship. I think I know the way..."

  Without another word, Alice turned to her right and began walking along the slight downward slope of the rocky ledge.

  Leo's eyes lingered on the rapidly widening river of silver in the valley below. As he gazed down, the whispers in his head grew louder. There were many voices, but each of them spoke of only one thing.

  "Exony?"

  "Where is Exony?"

  The silver river seemed to hum to Leo, and it throbbed in time with the voices' droning call.

  Only when Annabelle tugged his arm did he tear his eyes away from the horrifying sight before him, force the voices to the back of his mind, and turn to follow Alice.

  Alice led the way as Leo and Annabelle followed her along the rocky ledge that cut across the mountain face. The ledge was wide, perhaps twenty meters, but after several hundred meters, it narrowed.

  Suddenly, Alice stopped and waited for Leo and Annabelle to catch up. As Leo caught up to her, he surveyed a spewing flow of silver liquid that was rushing across the outcropping.

  "We'll have to wade through; there's no other way," Alice warned.

  Leo stared at the silvery flow, trying to determine if it would sweep them away when they tried to cross it. It looked to be only a few inches deep, but it was moving fast... Very fast...

  "Too bad we don't have any rope..." Leo remarked.

  "What is it? What are you looking at?" Annabelle asked, squeezing Leo's hand as she did so.

  "The silver liquid is flowing across our path, and we have to cross it. Hold my hand tightly, and be careful. Alice will go first to make sure we don't get swept away..."

  Alice nodded, then stepped cautiously into the silvery cascade. She walked carefully, but quickly, and stayed as far from the ledge as she could. It didn't appear to be much of a struggle for her. She maintained her stability and composure and reached the other side safely in the span of just a few seconds.

  "Okay, Alice made it. It looks safe. I'll lead you through," Leo said reassuringly to Annabelle.

  Together, they stepped out into the slithering, sliding torrent and began to walk through it. Leo kept his stance wide to maintain his balance as Annabelle felt her way along.

  They made it almost entirely across when Leo suddenly felt the ground under his left foot give way. He almost lost his balance, but managed to take another quick step and recover. Unfortunately, Annabelle wasn't expecting his awkward movement. She fell face-first into the silvery flow, then shrieked in shock and terror as Leo quickly grabbed her and pulled her back up.

  As Annabelle coughed and sputtered, Leo hurriedly pulled her onward, and they both managed to reach the safety of solid ground.

  "It got in my mouth..." Annabelle despaired.

  "It got in my mouth, and my lungs, and every part of me..." Leo replied as he wiped the liquid away from her eyes. "It was only a matter of time, anyways. I don't think anyone is going to be able to avoid this stuff for long..."

  "We'll figure it out..." Alice interrupted as she hurriedly inspected Annabelle. Then, she turned and waved for Leo to follow her.

  Leo squeezed Annabelle's hand comfortingly as Alice led them down, her head rapidly flitting from side to side as she kept a lookout for any more potential hazards.

  Above them, the clouds had cleared, and they were greeted with the awe-inspiring sight of Uranus as it lit up half the sky with its pale blue glow. Leo turned his eyes upward and admired
the beautiful ribbons of blue that cut stark, exact lines across the planet. Exony's moon could be the birthplace for the end of human civilization, but at that moment, he couldn't deny its remarkable beauty.

  They continued along the rocky ledge in silence until they reached its end. There, it connected with a ridge that wound its way down from them, before ascending in the distance, to meet with other hills that led up a neighboring mountain.

  "This way," Alice directed as she walked along the ridgeline, then cut down across it and hopped down onto a steep, rocky slope leading to the valley below.

  Leo hopped down after her, then guided Annabelle down the ledge. She nearly lost her balance and fell down the severe slope, but he caught her securely in his arms, and quickly set her down on solid ground.

  Based on the amount of time they had been traveling down the mountain, Leo thought they should reach Randell's ship within a few minutes, and as they slid their way down the rocky slope and reached a small ledge, he was rewarded with a sight of the ship below.

  Any optimistic thought of escape quickly left his mind.. When he looked down over the ledge, he saw only a burning wreck. The ship's hull had been shattered and scattered across the ground below. Roaring blue flames burned in an inferno that encompassed much of the wreckage.

  "Oh my god!" Alice exclaimed. "What happened?"

  "It could've been anything..." Leo grunted. "We're obviously not leaving this place on Randell's ship."

  "Is it destroyed?" Annabelle inquired; her tone indicated she already knew that was the case. "Did Randell and Sila make it out?"

  "I have no idea..." Leo replied. "We need to get down there and see if there's anything useful we can salvage. Weapons, food, water..."

  Alice said nothing, but Leo saw a look of angst on her face as she hopped down the small ledge, then began to slide down the steep shale slope towards the burning hulk of Randell's ship.

  Leo followed by bracing his hand on the edge of the ledge and lowering himself down. Then, he calmly beckoned Annabelle to hop down after him. She did so, trusting him without voicing the slightest of doubt.