Wayfarer: AV494

by Matthew S. Cox

“Found her transponder. Set a waypoint. Looks like she’s about 308 meters north, northeast of you.”

  Kerys rotated to her left until the yellow triangle pointed straight up. “Okay.” She started to run, but stopped. I’m an idiot. After doubling back to the garage, she pounced on a quad, twisted the handle, and backed up into a rack of tools hard enough to knock it over. Muttering curses, she pivoted the handlebars toward the door, leaned forward, and cranked the accelerator.

  Fat, knobby wheels squeaked on the steel ground for a half second before they caught traction, launching her across the garage. The quad bounced down the ramp onto the shifting regolith, kicking up a spray as she hauled it around a left turn to face the waypoint. Once lined up, she accelerated more than she’d ever dared. The quad reported fifty-four MPH, the distance counter ticking down too fast to read the last digit. About sixty meters from the garage, she steered for a gap between a pair of large, boxy machines, catching a glimpse of a yellow ‘high voltage’ lightning bolt on one.

  She blew past them, emitting an uneasy wail at the narrow channel, and cruised across the huge hexagonal landing pad, the grind of gravel replaced for a few seconds with the banshee wail of knobby tires on metal gridding.

  The quad devoured an incline on the far side of the landing pad with ease. Cresting the top of the berm gave her a much better view of the surroundings. Blue-teal ‘forest’ painted the horizon in front of her with an ominous presence. Without a dust storm, endless black dunes filled in everywhere else, except for the silvery-grey mountainous ridge behind her to the right. She twisted the handle more, gaining speed on the downhill slope. The quad buzzed a warning as it hit sixty-four MPH. Kerys ignored the warning, focused on the distance readout to the waypoint counting down.

  At sixty-two meters, she made out the dullness of an e-suit’s dark armored panels against the shimmery ground.

  “Keep going,” said Gensch, “Forty meters… twenty… fifteen… ten…”

  Kerys jammed on the brake, throwing another wave of sharp rocks into the air as the quad skidded to a stop. Gina lay face down at the end of a long trail of footprints that seemed to come from the forest several miles away.

  “Gina!” She hopped off the quad and rushed to the woman’s side, grabbing and shaking her. “Say something!”

  Corporal Gina Mitchell didn’t move.

  Kerys rolled her over. The young woman stared into space, her mouth open. Rigid arms clung to a compact assault rifle; a glowing red ammo counter read: ‘32.’ Fog on the inside of her visor glittered blue in the cloud-filtered sunlight. “God dammit…” She shook Gina by a two-fisted grip on her chest. “Don’t die! You’re not allowed to die!”

  Gensch’s thick sigh leaked over the comm. “Uhh, kid… her vitals aren’t there. Come on back inside. You did all you could do.”

  “Dammit…” Kerys squeezed the gel capsule in frustration. “I brought this out here for you, and I’m going to damn well give it to you.” She shoved Gina back on her chest and opened the hatch at the bottom right of the backpack module. The old capsule’s gel had turned pale white. Usually, the ‘dead’ ones still had a little cyan tint to them. “I brought you a new one.” She tossed the spent one aside, rammed the fresh one in, and slapped the hatch closed. “There.”

  Kneeling in the gritty regolith, Kerys bowed her head, too distraught and angry to cry. The tiny list of names at the left of her vision made her think of her first time setting foot on this planet: two soldiers eager to get out of here and go home, two others looking forward to an adventurous new tour of duty, ninety some other people she never met.

  Her whole team had already died. Scraps and flashes of memory came back and faded. She pictured Marco smiling, frazzle-haired Don trying to figure out if his food was chicken, and Paula’s smile when she talked about her kids.

  “I probably shouldn’t fill this damn helmet up with tears, huh?” She sniffled. “C’mon. I’m not going to leave you out here to be forgotten.”

  Kerys dragged Gina’s body over to the quad, draping her over the back end before climbing on. She eased on the accelerator, steering toward the outpost while driving at a running pace. Gina might be dead and unable to feel pain, but she still didn’t want to drop her.

  In somber silence, she drove over the hill and across the landing pad, steering for a narrow passage between giant metal boxes full of machinery.

  Sudden motion from the right startled her as the quad exited the gap on the far side. An e-suit bowled into her hard enough to knock her clear off the quad, which kept on going. Screaming, Kerys landed sliding and tumbling, unable to get a grip on anything to stop herself. Dark blue sky and glittery black ground traded places too many times to count.

  She stopped rolling on her back, still sliding down a hill.

  The other e-suit jumped on top of her again, straddling her thighs, one hand on her shoulder.

  Kerys gazed up into the face of Corporal Guillen. Half of his helmet had been melted off. Bubbled plastic surrounded an inch-wide opening from jaw to his missing left eye. Violet ichor oozed from the empty socket, dripping over a cheek studded with small undulating pods nestled in thumbnail-sized holes. Skin and muscle at the jawline had been incinerated, leaving only blackened bone and teeth where the laser had hit him.

  “Gah!” she screamed.

  Corporal Guillen’s remaining eye held no trace of familiarity. He raised a combat knife over his head while pushing her shoulder into the ground. Scratching at the back of her helmet sounded like a dozen little razor blades slicing at the metal.

  “Shit!” yelled Kerys.

  She struggled, but couldn’t move him.

  The knife came down and glanced off the top of her helmet with a loud clack.

  “Aaaah!” She punched at the arm pinning her, barely fazing him.

  Corporal Guillen jammed the knife down again, striking her in the chest. The point gouged the rubber-coated metal plate above her left breast, but didn’t pierce.

  Primal fear overrode disgust; Kerys thrust her arm up and dug her thumb into his empty eye socket. He twisted his head toward her grip. She gouged and pulled until he let go of her shoulder and wrenched himself away.

  “Gensch! Guillen’s trying to kill me!” The regolith shifted under her boots when she tried to stand, taking her feet out from under her and sending her sliding down a steeper section of hill.

  Guillen grabbed her by the backpack. She flailed, but couldn’t turn enough to get a hand on him. He hauled her into the air, raising her horizontal over his head. She kicked and thrashed, causing him to topple over before he could slam her into the ground. Losing balance, he hurled her at the last second before he fell over.

  She landed in a bouncing, tumbling roll, flipping over and over again before winding up on her chest, facing uphill while sliding down. Her fingers raked grooves in the loose ground, but did little to slow her. Guillen stood with the slow deliberateness of an android, rotating side to side, searching. Her slide came to a stop about thirty meters from the top of the ridge; she remained still.

  Maybe he won’t see me if I don’t move?

  He stopped twisting back and forth, staring straight at her.

  “Or not.”

  Guillen, or whatever he had become, walked toward her.

  Kerys shoved herself upright and ran. Twice, she tried to head for the outpost, but the shifting ground beneath her boots nearly tripped her, forcing her to keep going down the hill to avoid wiping out. Between the cumbersome e-suit and the uneven terrain, she had to put more effort into staying upright than moving fast. He’s going to catch me if I try to go uphill… The dig site! There’s gotta be a laser in there.

  A hand grasped her backpack.

  She screamed and swatted to the rear, forcing herself to pump her legs faster despite the heavy boots. Her every breath reflected from the visor, fogging it and washing back over her face. Building claustrophobia and burning lungs made her feel as though she drowned.

  Again, Corporal Guil
len’s hand seized the backpack, pulling at her.

  Kerys roared and twisted away, stumbling when her feet collided with a loud crack of metal striking metal. Arms flailing, she kept her balance, wheezing and babbling in an attempt to yell for Gensch. Her breaths turned gaspy, her throat dry and raw. Heavy crunches kept at her heels, urging her forward.

  The bright glow of lamps up ahead gave her a second wind. She leaned into her stride and sprinted for the narrow strip of level ground by the base of the mountain. A last, desperate surge of energy pushed her out in front of Guillen, and she homed in on the dig site entrance. She got her hands up in time to catch herself on the silicon-silver wall, before pushing off and staggering into the hallway.

  Lacking finesse, Guillen ran straight into the stone behind her, bouncing away and landing flat on his back. She spared only a half-second to look at him, then rushed inside.

  Little appeared different in the first chamber from when she’d last been here, but the inner room farther east made her gasp. The scaffold she’d been using lay about in pieces, smashed into slabs of steel and loose pipes. To her horror, three of the obelisks had been sliced apart, each chunk having a precision-laser finish. The remaining one in the southwest corner sported numerous divots from bullet strikes.

  Lars lay on his back near the boxes of the team’s equipment. The left leg of his exo suit twitched from a malfunctioning actuator, though the sheer number of bullet holes in him left no hope that he remained alive. Sparks spat from multiple points where the riddling of gunfire had shredded power lines.

  A hard impact to the back knocked Kerys into a stumble. She tripped over an obelisk fragment and landed in a somersault. Corporal Guillen pivoted like a soldier doing drills, stalking around the huge piece of stone. She rolled to her feet and darted to the right, keeping the car-sized chunk of obelisk between them.

  The lifeless expression on his face chilled the blood in her veins. One remaining eye fixed on her with the singularity of a machine bent on destruction, a remorseless killer the likes of which the military could only hope to train. The dozen or so little eye-like pods embedded in his left cheek all seemed to focus on her too, twitching back and forth.

  “Rick? Are you still there?” She edged around the stone.

  He faked to his right and charged the other direction, coming around the edge the same way she’d gone. Kerys bit back a startled scream. A snap decision borne of panic caused her to spring at him. She planted her hands on his chest and shoved. He scrabbled at her helmet, but couldn’t get a grip before he flew over backward.

  “Guess not…”

  A patch of periwinkle blue on his leg grabbed her attention. A glop of bubbling foam swelled out from a hole in his thigh, plugging a wound the same diameter as the excavator laser beam.

  The mass undulated… moving. A clump broke away and slid down his leg, leaving a wet trail.

  That looks like the stuff in the canister Will dropped.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh, shit.”

  “Kerys?” yelled Gensch. “I’m comin’ out the airlock. Where the hell are you?”

  “Ruins!” she yelled. “Guillen isn’t Guillen anymore… that alien shit is inside him. I… I don’t even know what he is. H-his helmet’s breached and he’s still moving. He shouldn’t still be alive!”

  Guillen sat up, grabbed the hunk of obelisk, and pulled himself upright. Again, his lifeless stare bored into her.

  She darted to the left and grabbed a long section of pipe, raising it in two hands. “Come on, thing. Whatever you are.”

  He crept closer. Kerys pushed her memory of the old Corporal Guillen aside. He’d been so handsome, so confident, humble, honorable―everything Will hadn’t been. Perhaps after a couple of weeks around him, she wouldn’t have been able to stay away. But that man was dead. This thing only looked like him.

  Somewhat.

  With a roar, Kerys swung the pipe around, smashing it down on the left side of his head. A loud, resonant ding filled the chamber. He lurched a step to the right, head tilted to the side at a frightening angle. She jumped back, evading a grabbing hand, and howled again as she swung. Guillen made no attempt to avoid her strike.

  The pipe hit him on the shoulder with a dull clank, but he didn’t react, continuing to walk closer.

  He grabbed the pipe before she could pull it away, starting a tug of war that dragged her stumbling side to side.

  Damn, he’s strong!

  Guillien jerked the pipe from her grasp and swung it at her. She leapt backward and ducked as the metal tube passed over her helmet with a whoosh. The fog on her visor thickened, plunging the chamber into a blurry mess.

  Her deteriorating ability to see terrified her, making the already claustrophobic ruin close in on her. She ran to the left, dancing among smaller hunks of obelisk on her way toward the dead Lars.

  Clank!

  Guillen drilled her in the backpack with the pipe, launching her off her feet into the air. She landed a few feet from Lars, a spray of saliva painting her visor. The excavator laser under his right arm wound up directly in front of her, in clear view. Kerys crawled for it, but stopped short as Guillen stepped on her leg. She twisted around and raised her arm to defend her face.

  He brought the pipe down with a two-handed swing onto her left forearm, drilling it into her helmet and knocking her into a slide that came to a crashing halt against the fallen exo suit. A lightning bolt of pain shot from her elbow to her fingertips, numbing her whole arm.

  Guillen’s half-face remained expressionless as he stalked closer, raising the pipe again. The pods in his cheek widened like a nest of eager little eyes.

  Kerys twisted to her left and grabbed the handgrip of the excavator laser, but the weight of the exo pinned it to the floor. “Shit!”

  A burst of gunfire roared from above and behind her.

  Three holes appeared in Guillen’s chest. A split second later, a blast of gore flew out of his back with a dull whump.

  He staggered to the side and fell to one knee, syrupy dark red liquid striated with blue leaking from his mouth.

  Another person in an e-suit rushed over, pointing an assault rifle at Guillen’s back.

  “Cut that a little close, Sarge,” whispered Kerys.

  The helmet turned toward her, revealing a young woman’s large brown eyes. Gina attempted to smile, but didn’t quite manage it. “I ain’t no sergeant yet.”

  Guillen lunged upright, rounding the pipe in a silvery blur that caught Gina in the face. She flew almost ten feet before landing on her back and sliding. Evidently forgetting Kerys, he walked after her.

  Kerys rolled onto her knees and shoved at the exo suit.

  “Shit!” said Gina.

  Another burst of gunfire went off behind Kerys. She strained at the giant silver laser while pushing Lars’s dead exo suit with her shoulders. Her left arm throbbed, but she gritted her teeth and dragged the laser free.

  Gina ran around behind Lars, pausing a second to fire another burst. “Gah! He’s still moving.”

  “He’s dead.” Kerys hefted the cumbersome excavator. Oh please still have power.

  Corporal Guillen stumbled toward Gina, oozy periwinkle blue glop filling in the fist-sized holes in his back from her explosive ammunition. She fired again, spraying blood, flesh, and blue slime into the air, but it didn’t slow him down much.

  Kerys clicked the trigger.

  A thick beam of whitish energy struck Guillien in the lower back, penetrating his front and going into the wall. He turned on her; for the first time, a trace of emotion showed in his half-face: anger.

  “Remember this thing, don’t you?” She dragged the beam up to his heart. “Bet it hurts.”

  Sergeant Gensch jogged in and aimed his handgun at the flailing not-Guillen.

  Kerys kept the beam on him for three more seconds, until he erupted in flames like an alcohol-soaked rag. Tiny comets of flaming goop burst out of him in all directions, hitting the ground and burning green. She edged awa
y, trying to catch her breath as the once-humanoid figure withered into an unrecognizable blob.

  “Uhh, got a little problem,” said Gina.

  Kerys looked over.

  The woman’s visor had cracked.

  “You have to go inside.” Kerys dropped the laser and ran to take Gina’s hand.

  The nineteen-year-old looked terrified, but nodded.

  Kerys dragged her down the passage out of the ruin, shocked to find a pair of quads right by the entrance.

  “Thanks for leavin’ me a ride.” Gina jogged to one and got on. “I think… I think…”

  “Gina?” Kerys ran over as the woman slumped over the handlebars.

  “Go!” yelled Gensch. “I’ll catch up.”

  Kerys hopped on behind Gina and reached past her for the handlebars. A spray of little black crystals flew out from the wheels when she cranked the accelerator, showering Sergeant Gensch. Kerys pushed the quad to its top speed of fifty-five, clearing the distance back to the garage in a little under a minute. She drove across the room straight into the airlock, squeaking to a halt and leaving black dust trails on the steel floor next to the dead man.

  Gina coughed and wheezed.

  Kerys jumped off the quad and slapped at the control panel, initiating the airlock cycle. When the flashing lights came on, she returned to Gina’s side and held her hand. The outer doors closed. Seconds after they sealed, the toxic atmosphere drained and breathable air replaced it. As soon as the red dot vanished from her HUD indicating the air clean, she fell to her knees.

  Adrenaline faded, and all the exhaustion of running for her life hit her at once.

  “Holy shit, I’m alive,” muttered Gina.

  Kerys didn’t want to get up. “I second that statement.”

  Gina cradled Kerys’s helmet and lifted her head to make eye contact. Red droplets spattered the inside of the woman’s visor. “Coughin’ up a little blood, but I’ll take it. You look like hell.”

  “Used to run a lot back home. Every day if I could.” Kerys gagged on a dry throat. “Never did a three-quarter-mile in twenty pound boots before, but I had some great motivation.”