“The lights are still on,” said Kerys.
“True.” MacLeod gazed up. “Could be we got lucky.”
“Whatever happened here hasn’t affected the computers, but the communications system isn’t responding.” Hellerman pressed a fist to his chin, cracking his neck. “I can probably fix it, but I think the problem is with the transmission array itself… and to check it, I need to go outside.”
“Where is it?” asked Kerys. “There’s gotta be suits left.”
“On top of the dome.” Hellerman switched fists and popped his neck the other way. “Pretty easy to get to, ’long as we don’t run into no more crazy sons of bitches tryin’ to kill us.”
She nodded at him and huddled up against a box, cradling her meal packet in two hands. Not being alone anymore charged her with hope. Whatever had driven the crew mad didn’t seem to work on everyone. Sergeant Gensch sucked another pull from his vape wand, exhaling a strange, sweet fragrance. A small fault appeared in his hardass exterior. For an instant, the look he gave her almost seemed pitying.
Kerys managed a weak smile. She’d always loathed it when Will treated her like a damsel, but she didn’t get the same feeling from the sergeant―more a sense of empathy for someone without combat training stuck in the kind of awful situation only soldiers should wind up in.
“So what now?” asked MacLeod. “Sittin’ here on our asses ain’t gonna do anything. And what the hell am I sniffing?”
Gensch exhaled a thick stream of vapor from his mouth and nose. “Whiskey and cigar.” The right half of his mouth curled into a grin. “Flavor’s called BAMF.”
Kerys cringed, and squeezed a large portion of chicken stew paste into her mouth to distract her brain away from imagining what ‘whiskey cigar’ tasted like.
“Figure we give it another few hours, stay away from people who might be contagious, let the nuts kill each other off. Should make it easier to do what we need to do.” Gensch glanced at Hellerman. “’Less you got a better idea.”
“Not really.” He looked down. “Figure it don’t much matter now. Damn, Ellen…”
MacLeod patted his shoulder. “Hey man. Losin’ your girl is serious bad, but don’t go givin’ up. Whatever whacked out crap did this spared your sorry ass for a reason.”
Hellerman shrugged.
“All right.” Gensch slapped the box he’d been leaning his elbow on. “Next supply ship will be in orbit in five months and three weeks. This outpost’s designed to support a crew of 150 for seven months. We had ninety-four. Down to four. MacLeod’s the head of the maintenance team. He knows every fuse and toilet drain in this place. Hellerman installed every damn computer, electronic lock, and camera. Ain’t no question of if we make it to see the shuttle. We just gotta do it.”
“Yeah,” said Hellerman, raising a water bottle.
“Aye.” MacLeod held up a bottle.
Hellerman tossed a bottle of water to Kerys.
She raised it. “Sounds good.”
Sergeant Gensch grinned. “That’s what I like to hear.”
17
On Edge
The security of no longer being alone afforded Kerys a chance to nap. A merciful lack of dreams ended at the jostle of a hand on her shoulder. She startled awake and grabbed at her pocket for the dumbbell she’d forgotten in the tunnel. Sergeant Gensch held her seated until the instinctive urge to leap to her feet faded.
“Almost time.” His deep, scratchy voice permeated her consciousness, soothing her fear.
Kerys exhaled, relaxed, and summoned up a weary smile from the deepest depths of her foggy brain. “All right. Thanks.”
He maintained a steely face, though snuck in a wink as he shifted back to sit in his usual spot. She looked down before she felt too vulnerable. A required psych course or two got her thoughts circling around her absent father. Professor Heath’s voice nattered on in her imagination, claiming the instant sense of trust she felt toward the aging soldier had to come from some inner longing for the father figure she never knew.
Freud got high and stayed there.
She finished off the last few gulps from her water bottle and stretched.
MacLeod and Hellerman knelt on either side of a cube-shaped cargo box, huddled over an e-pad. They pointed at its screen, muttering about the locations of power couplings and water lines.
“Once the ladies are done checking out the map,” said Gensch, “we’re gonna make for the armory. Might be a rifle or two still locked up. Then, we sweep the place from corner to corner. See if we got any more survivors or any more poor bastards dead on their feet.”
“Be quicker if Scotty here’d stop hoggin’ the map.” Hellerman jabbed his finger at the e-pad.
MacLeod threw an empty water bottle at him.
Sergeant Gensch chuckled.
“Knock that shit off.” MacLeod tore open another case and sucked down a whole bottle of water in one shot.
“You shouldn’t let that get under your skin, man.” Gensch toked on his vape, his next words came written in fog. “Name o’ MacLeod, working in engineering, come on.”
“Both of ya can go straight ta hell.” MacLeod drilled his finger at the e-pad, dragging the image to one side. “Figure we check the spot where―”
“Stop hoggin’ the goddamned screen!” Hellerman yanked a knife off his belt and jammed it into MacLeod’s chest.
The big guy wheezed and collapsed over sideways.
Kerys backed against the wall. As Gensch went for his sidearm, Hellerman pulled and threw another knife, forcing the older man to dive to the floor. He cross-drew a third knife and pounced on Kerys. She got her arms up to catch his wrist before the blade bit into her. They struggled for control of the knife until Gensch aimed his weapon from the ground. Hellerman dragged her away from the wall, flipped her around, and grabbed her from behind with a blade at her throat.
Gensch shoved himself up to his knees, aiming high. “Louis, what the fuck?”
“Ungh,” wheezed MacLeod.
Hellerman ducked, keeping his face at the back of her head. “There’s a ship. That’s what Chen was screaming about. They shuttin’ the place down, right? She ain’t wanna tell no one nothin’. We all laid off. Screwed again.” His breath blasted warmth down the back of her neck. “I’m gettin’ on that damned shuttle.”
“You cut her, you’re a dead man,” said Gensch.
“Kill the bastard,” muttered MacLeod before groaning and passing out.
“Outta my way, old man,” muttered Hellerman into her hair.
Gensch’s finger twitched. Kerys closed her eyes, bracing for a bullet slicing the side of her head. Four seconds felt like four hours.
“Do it man.” Hellerman edged to the left, dragging her. “They’re tellin’ me the ship’s here.”
“They who?” asked Gensch.
“All them whisperin’ dead. Everyone who died here. They’re talkin’ to me now, even Ellie.”
Kerys slid her arm up.
Gensch flicked his gaze at her creeping hand and pushed his gun forward, raising his voice. “It’s waiting for you on the shuttle pad. Just let her go and I won’t stop you.”
“Bullshit man.” Hellerman shied away from the weapon, hiding behind her. “You just sayin’―”
Kerys grabbed his forearm with both hands and yanked it down while shoving her right elbow up to force his arm over her head. Twisting toward him, she slipped away and flipped him by the arm to the floor.
Bang.
She jumped back from the spatter of blood, staring at Gensch in shock. “Y-you shot him.”
“Yeah.” Gensch holstered his gun. “Were you expecting him to get un-crazy?”
“Umm.” She brushed her fingers at her throat where the knife had been. “Guess not.”
“Nice move.”
Kerys paced. “I haven’t even thought about jiu-jitsu since I was a freshman in college.”
“Must’ve had a good instructor then. Muscle memory never forgets.”
She cringed away from the dead Hellerman. “Never thought I’d really need it… only took the classes ’cause yoga put me to sleep.”
“Yoga puts me to sleep, too. Whenever I see someone doing it.” He took a knee to check on MacLeod. “Hmm. It’s bad, but he’s not dead yet.”
“Infirmary?”
Gensch rubbed his chin. The scratch of silvery stubble filled in a short pause. “Haven’t seen the doc since it hit the fan.”
“Everything’s automated. Even the damn shuttles. It’s probably only a few buttons. We have to at least try.” She sighed. “So much for being lucky.”
He hauled MacLeod upright, looping the man’s arm across his shoulders. “You got a strange definition of lucky, kid.”
“I’m not a kid, I’m twenty-eight.”
He gave her a flat look. “You’re a kid.”
Kerys picked up the knife that had been at her throat, and moved past the barricade. “I was trying to understand how everyone lost their minds, hoping Annapurna’s terminal might’ve had an answer, but I didn’t make it to her office. When I found you guys, I thought maybe it’s got a genetic component, like the way mosquitos like some people and never bite others, or that one friend who never gets sick. It’s gotta be something we can’t see… some kind of microbial―” She froze in shocked guilt, staring at the wall.
“Hmm. Don’t think that would’a hit everyone all at the same time. Don’t those kind of infections need a cut or somethin’?” He glanced at the knife sticking out MacLeod’s left pectoral. “Andy’s got a bit of a nick.”
“Holy shit… the head.”
Gensch’s eyebrows crept up. “No, it’s in his chest. Hey, why’d you stop?”
“It can’t be… Anna said the organisms were dead… dried up.” Kerys shivered, but got moving again.
“Gotta go a little slower for this old man to keep up, and I mean the explanation. You could walk faster. I’m sure Andy’d appreciate it.”
She jogged out of the dead-end where they’d taken refuge, looking left and right at a T intersection. Crap, where am I? “Which way is closer to the stairs?”
“Right, then the first left.”
MacLeod woke for an instant, gurgled, and passed out.
“We discovered a stone head in the cavern. It had a hollow space inside that they found these dead microorganisms in.”
“Think it’s in the water?”
Kerys jogged to a door by the stairwell and held it open while Gensch carried MacLeod past. “I don’t know. It spread so fast…” How much more time do I have before I snap like Hellerman? “I want to go to the lab after the infirmary. Maybe Anna found something.”
Gensch grunted with the effort of hauling the big Scot up two flights. “Could be anyone out there, batshit crazy, ready to kill anything that moves.”
“Yeah, but we have to do something.” She exited the stairwell at the third floor, glancing left and right down a frigid, dark hallway. “Shit. The lights are out. It’s not supposed to be this cold, is it?”
“It’s been pretty quiet in the dome for a while. Haven’t checked the lab pods yet.” He loped out behind her. “Come on. Keep moving. Andy doesn’t have time for us to dick around.”
“I mean after. And didn’t your plan include a full sweep? If we gotta live here for six months…”
“Yeah, yeah…” Gensch grunted. “Andy, you need to ease off on the damn donuts.”
MacLeod emitted an incoherent murmur.
Kerys got her bearings and headed down the hall to the right. By the time she reached the empty command room, her breath appeared as fog. Four conference rooms away, stark white light glowed from the passage on the right that led to the infirmary. The huge wraparound windows that had once lined the corridor covered the floor in a thick layer of glittering bits.
Kerys shivered in the over-cranked air conditioning. Staring at what appeared to be snow only made her colder.
“Watch out. Glass all over the floor here.”
Gensch grunted. “It’s safety glass. That black shit outside is more dangerous.”
“Right…” She took a hesitant crunching step. “Kinda sounds the same.”
“Get a move on, kid. MacLeod’s not in great shape.”
Kerys clenched her fists and jogged over the glass to a four-way intersection, and went left. The infirmary sat at the end of the next hallway like a single light left on in a dark house. She bee-lined for the room with the auto-surgeons, finding Doctor Sekhar’s desk empty. Aside from a couple of bullet dents in the supply room door at the rear left corner, the area looked pristine.
The lack of blood anywhere reassured her.
Gensch hauled MacLeod in, the unconscious man’s boots squeaking over the polished floor. He placed him seated on the edge of the nearer surgery table, and Kerys helped ease him back to recline. The man’s shirt had become saturated with blood, his injury no doubt made worse by being carried up two flights of stairs.
Kerys rushed to the console, exhaling into her hands for warmth.
Items on the main menu included: diagnostic, trauma, preventative, chronic.
She tapped ‘trauma.’
A submenu offered a long list of options. She tapped ‘penetrating injury: chest.’
Sergeant Gensch’s white caterpillar eyebrows rose when the egg on the ceiling split open.
The console buzzed and displayed, ‹patient position fault.›
Kerys lifted MacLeod’s dangling right arm to rest on the cushion next to him. The error went away. A robotic armature swooped down and projected a blue scanning laser over his body, zeroing in on the protruding knife in seconds. Three additional robotic limbs descended, focusing on the area while four tiny ‘spider legs’ extended from the edge of the table and pierced his arm with needles. Vital signs appeared on the screen, reading a measurable heartbeat. Another sub-window offered a computer-generated model of the wound channel, showing the knife had pierced the lung.
“How bad is it?” asked Gensch.
Kerys shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a doctor… I think the machine is feeling optimistic since it’s doing stuff.”
The screen emitted a boop noise with the text: ‹Tension Pneumothorax detected. Patient lung deflated. Script ready. Operator: remove foreign object now.›
She threaded her hands between the robotic arms, grasped the blade with both hands and took a breath. After a second to psych herself up, she pulled it free. Moving at the speed of blur, robot arms peeled away clothing around the wound while another suctioned up blood welling out of the hole. Two thin probes extended deep inside. On the little screen, a magnified view showed the tips poking around severed blood vessels in the top of the lung.
“Anyone out there?” Corporal Guillen’s voice crackled from a little black box on Gensch’s belt. “Repeat, is anyone listening?”
Gensch wandered away from the whirring auto-surgeon and squeezed his shoulder mic. “Copy, Corporal. Gensch here. Go ahead.”
“There’s something going on at the excavation site. I’m picking up some kind of activity inside I can’t explain.”
“What’s your status, Corporal?” asked Gensch.
“Are you reading, Sarge? Got activity in the ruins. I’m gonna check it out.”
“Stand down, Corporal. Stay clear of that place. Where’s Cortez?”
Kerys bit her lip. At least the electric heartbeat chirps coming from the auto-surgeon sounded like a normal speed.
“Dead. Cortez is gone. So’s Murano. I couldn’t do anything for them. Gonna head inside and see what the hell all that light is.”
“What what light is?” asked Kerys. “Is he serious? Activity in the alien site?” She remembered feeling watched in the ‘head room.’ Had they woke up the locals?
“Son of a bitch,” muttered Gensch before squeezing the mic again. “Corporal Guillen, do not go in that ruin. Return to the airlock.” He listened to the hiss of a dead radio for a few seconds before looking at Kerys. “He’s either hallu
cinating, or someone’s in there jacking off with a laser excavator.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Heh. Aliens… right.”
“You stay here.” Gensch trucked out of the infirmary like someone had lit his pants on fire.
I would not want that man angry with me. She edged up to the console, mesmerized by the microscopic feelers dancing on the 3D image. It looked like the lung had already been closed, and another long arm suctioned a pool of blood out of it.
“Hey…” She patted his leg. “That thing seems to know what it’s doing. You gotta promise me you won’t go crazy on us, okay?”
Kerys stared at the screen for a little while more before shifting her attention out past the broken windows. There’s no way we woke up aliens. Her lip quivered at the idea Guillen had succumbed to the madness as well. “This isn’t fair….”
“What are you doing?” whispered a man.
She started to turn, but something struck her across the back of the head, knocking the room into a smear of color. The next thing she knew, she stared across the floor at the side of a desk, her cheek on icy metal.
“You’re not authorized to operate that.” Doctor Sekhar crouched down, his face looming close to hers. He thumbed one of her eyelids wider, smirked, and let go.
The room slipped away into a tunnel of blackness.
18
Malpractice
Merry humming seeped into Kerys’s consciousness, along with a sharp pain in the back of her head. Soft padding under her body caressed her cheek and lured her back to sleep, but the odd singing needled at her with a sense of wrongness. She tried to sit up, but her body refused to listen. A pall of dizziness made her feel like she flew among the clouds, twisting and spinning on her cushioned pedestal.
A man whistled and hummed. Wet squishing noises preceded a gooey slap on the other side of the room.
Fake leather met her fingers when she squeezed.
I’m on a surgery machine…
Her eyes fluttered open. She lay on the second station, a few feet away from MacLeod, whose skin held a deathly pallor. The injectors that had been in his right arm had retracted. His head faced away from her, and he didn’t seem to be breathing anymore. She looked past him at blood sprayed all over the wall. She tried to scream, but the sound occurred only in her mind.
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