Alvin Baylor Lives!

by Maximilian Gray

  He went to the door to open it. It gave a whine as though it were stuck. He tried it again. Same thing.

  He peered out the peephole. It was dark. Red lights flashed outside. He saw movement in the shadows. Two men charged at each other and collided in a heap. They snarled like rabid dogs. One bit the other then pounded on his head. The unconscious man was dragged off into the darkness by his foe.

  What the hell is going on?

  Alvin moved away from the door and woke his Opti-Comp.

  I’ve been out for an hour.

  He felt his stomach turn.

  Where is she?

  He recounted his steps. They’d come back to the room with breakfast. Then talked and—he remembered her hugging him tight. He remembered her choking him.

  He stumbled and fell against the wall.

  The alarms continued to bellow. His mouth hung open.

  Why?

  He connected to the security server in his Opti-Comp and began looking at camera feeds. The path to the dock showed several battered bodies lying on the deck. He pulled up the mess hall camera—a full-on riot was in progress. A mass of people knocked their way through the place. They wrecked everything in sight, pausing only to fight one another.

  What is happening?

  He rolled the camera back. Past the carnage, past the shift start and breakfast—further back to find—her.

  Katy entered the mess hall wearing a black flight suit. She moved from food printer to food printer. She was reconfiguring them.

  Alvin gasped.

  He watched as she went to each of them before exiting. He changed cameras and followed her to the dock, where she entered hopper fifteen. She glided out of the airlock. The time stamp was forty minutes ago.

  He felt rage surge within him suddenly, then he stood and ran at the door, smashing into it with no effect. He tried it again, twice, then sat on the edge of the bed panting.

  She had been playing him the whole time. He pushed the thought away.

  No. No way. No fucking way.

  He started to peep out a message to Rinsler, then stopped.

  He’ll never get it through his interference. I have to get out of here.

  He called Buzz and got an answer. “Stay up on Dactyl. We have a situation here,” said the younger man.

  “I’m locked in my room, Buzz.”

  “Did you just say you’re in your room?”

  “Yes,” said Alvin.

  “That’s a terrible place to be. Everyone’s gone mad. I think it’s the food. Everything went to hell at breakfast,” he exclaimed.

  “I know. Buzz, you have to get me out of here.”

  “I can’t leave. Have you looked out there?”

  “Yes. My door is jammed. It won’t open,” said Alvin.

  “Good, keep it that way. Trust me, you don’t want to be out there.”

  “Damn it, Buzz! She’s getting away! I’m as good as dead if she gets that sphere.”

  “Alvin, I think we’ll both be safe if we just—your engineer lady friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was gonna say she seemed too hot for you.”

  “I screwed up, Buzz. Please, I’m looking at the cameras, there’s no one outside your room. Come now. I’ll watch the halls.”

  “Okay, but you owe me a lot of Nutri-Paste.”

  Alvin kept his eyes on the camera feeds as Buzz ran down the hallway waving a telescope like a baseball bat.

  “Good, you have a weapon,” said Alvin.

  “You just let me know if I’m going to need it. How’s the mess hall look?”

  “Brutal, but they’re all fighting in the back of the room. You should be able to run by.”

  Alvin pulled up the hallway camera and watched it side by side with the interior of the mess hall. Buzz walked into frame as two people were exiting.

  “Wait,” said Alvin.

  Buzz froze as the man and a woman ran out of the mess hall.

  Was that Tosh and Yumi?

  “I think that was Tosh and Yumi,” said Buzz.

  Alvin watched him run after them and call out. Then Buzz stopped. The couple’s heads returned to the bottom of the camera frame.

  It is them.

  “What’s going on, Buzz?” asked Alvin.

  “Alvin did this!” yelled Tosh.

  The ’roiders in the mess hall stopped fighting.

  They heard him.

  “Buzz, turn around. They’re coming out of that room,” said Alvin.

  The first three ’roiders scrambled out into the hallway.

  Buzz started shuffling backward as Tosh and Yumi dashed the other way.

  “Go!” yelled Alvin.

  The others rioters poured out in a stream. Henry’s man, Rodriguez, walked in the middle of the pack. He towered above everyone and directed them with a point of his finger. They ran after Buzz.

  “You’ve killed me,” said Buzz as he ran.

  “Just run,” pleaded Alvin.

  He saw Buzz rush past the med lab. Twenty ’roiders were now in pursuit of him.

  “I don’t see anyone ahead. Keep going,” said Alvin.

  Alvin watched him pass the med lab window. Carroll Henry and Chickowski were still strapped down on their gurneys, only now pools of blood gathered around their necks. Their throats had been cut and the room ransacked.

  “Alvin . . . I think—”

  “I see them. Don’t look. Keep running.”

  Buzz kept going and Alvin rewound the camera view of the med bay until Katy appeared. He watched her cut Chickowski’s throat with a scalpel. Then he rewound further to see her kill Henry. Finally, she emptied the cabinets of medication. He felt sick inside.

  That’s what she put into the food printers.

  “Sioux!” he heard Buzz yell.

  He went back to the hallway cameras and saw Buzz banging at the atrium door.

  “She’s only eats organics grown in the garden,” said Buzz. “Is she in there, Alvin?”

  Buzz kept banging at the door.

  Alvin switched to a camera inside the atrium and saw Sioux hiding behind her desk. She was out of sight of the translucent front door.

  “Buzz, she’s right there. Tell her to open it,” said Alvin.

  He heard him yell to her, but she didn’t budge. Buzz looked terrified and the ’roiders were coming up the hall.

  I’ve got to do something.

  Alvin searched his Opti-Comp for the controls to the PA system while Buzz continued to pound at the door. He selected the atrium and spoke.

  “Sioux, it’s Alvin. Open the door. Buzz is outside. He’s not sick.”

  She stood up from behind her desk and peered out the clear door then rushed to let Buzz in. Moments later, the marauding ’roiders arrived and began banging at the door with their fists. Sioux and Buzz hid behind the desk.

  “I’m sorry,” said Alvin.

  “Sure you are. Sorry you’re still stuck in your room,” said Buzz.

  It was the truth. He was trapped, waiting for the mob to come devour him, waiting as Katy absconded with the spheres.

  It’s my fault.

  The color drained from his face.

  Some of them hated him. Some of them feared him. But only one person had betrayed him.

  Determination rolled through him. It was all a game and she’d been playing for keeps.

  I’m not going down like this!

  “Let them come,” he growled over his comm.

  “Huh?” said Buzz.

  “I have an idea,” said Alvin.

  “Dear god. I hope it’s a better one.”

  Alvin peeped back over to the PA app in his Opti-Comp and opened the line to the whole facility.

  “Attention, disgruntled assholes. This is Alvin Baylor. I’m in my room. Come and get me.”

  En masse, agitated ’roiders everywhere turned and ran for him. Buzz and Sioux went limp with exhaustion as the atrium door cleared.

  “You are a very brave, very dumb man,” said Buzz.<
br />
  “Thanks.”

  A clang rang out at Alvin’s door. The first ’roiders had arrived.

  “Gotta go. They’re here.” Alvin ended the call.

  Alvin hurriedly slid on the gloves of his space suit while the pounding at the metal door continued. He heard a scraping sound and watched the door shimmy in the frame. The ’roiders outside had removed whatever Katy used to bar the door. He could escape now—if he could get past them. He needed a weapon.

  He looked around for something to use. The bed was molded to the wall. His clothes and VR goggles were useless. He had the small knife on his multitool and that was it. If he had to slash, he’d go for the throat. He walked up to the door and peered out the peephole. There were just two of them. Tosh and Yumi. His heart sank.

  If I don’t stop Katy, I’ll never see Earth again.

  He opened the knife up and heard what sounded like a stampede outside. The sound grew louder and was joined by a chorus of yelling voices. Alvin stepped away from the door.

  “Baylor’s friends!” he heard someone yell.

  Yumi screamed. Then a hard thump at the door dented it.

  Alvin peered through the peephole. A mob of ten men attacked them. Yumi was limp, her head bleeding. Tosh was on the ground kicking at his attackers.

  This is my chance.

  He placed his helmet on. The screams outside fell away. He heard only his own breathing.

  He pressed the door control.

  The dented metal panel slid away into the pocket with a clank. He ran out past the mob then glanced back. They hadn’t seen him in their drug-induced frenzy.

  Tosh was being kicked in the ribs by three men. Another was crouched over his head bouncing it off the ground. The other ’roiders had Yumi’s arms and legs and they were trying to pull her apart.

  I can’t fight them all, but I have to do something.

  “Hey, you stupid fucks!” he shouted.

  His voice echoed in his ears.

  Fucking helmet.

  He started waving the knife and the mob stopped and turned dagger-eyed stares upon him.

  They tossed Yumi’s limp body to the ground and abandoned Tosh as they ran at him. They had no fear of the blade.

  He backpedaled and nearly slipped.

  The ’roiders rushed forward in a snarling clumsy mass. Whatever Katy had put in the food had destroyed their coordination as well as their sanity.

  Alvin spun on his heels and ran. He got to the corner where the ramp sloped up like a corkscrew to the hopper bay. He felt the floor vibrate as the stampede rushed after him. They were gaining. The suit was slowing him down.

  He clipped the multitool back onto his belt and pumped his arms. The sound of his labored breathing increased and it fogged his face guard. His mind flashed over images of the mob clobbering him.

  What if I don’t make it?

  Then he slipped.

  He spun his arms in circles to keep upright but flopped down onto his knees. Only a few feet ahead stood the door to the dock. He fired the gas jets in his suit and skidded clumsily along the ground to slam into the door. He tapped the controls and yellow lights flashed. He felt the floor vibrate harder as the mob rushed up the ramp behind him. They were within feet of him. The doors began to part. He squeezed between them and grabbed the railing to pull himself through. Straight ahead was the empty boarding lane for his rock hopper. The one Katy had taken.

  A large red button sat on a pedestal at the end of the row. The autorecall.

  Will she be in it?

  The ’roiders began clambering through behind him. One of them leaped up and grabbed on to his leg, pulling his floating body back toward the mob.

  Fuck!

  Alvin fired his suit thrusters with a thought.

  His body shot across the zero-g dock in seconds with the man in tow. The ’roider screamed as small pinholes of hot gas shot out from Alvin’s leg, searing his hands. He let go and his body crashed into a support beam and went limp.

  Alvin stopped his flight and came down to activate the return button. He turned to watch the ’roiders enter. There were more of them. He tried to slow his labored breathing.

  Hurry up, ship!

  They came pouring through the door, fighting one another for position. The absence of gravity sent some careening upward. Those who were close to the ground grabbed on to the balustrade that led to the hopper slip. Their mania made them awkward. A few drifted out of the lane and began pinwheeling as they frantically tried to right their course. Suddenly a tall man cut through the crowd. He was wearing a brown space suit and flying fast.

  Alvin took a deep breath.

  This is no different from a VR game. Now win.

  He fired his jets and flew at the suited man while pulling himself into a ball. At the last moment, he stuck out his leg and his foot came down on the guy’s helmet. Alvin felt the rattle of cranium against the helmet.

  The man bounced off the floor and drifted away. The back of his suit said “Rodriguez.”

  Henry’s last goon.

  Behind Alvin, the giant doors rumbled. He turned to see the hopper entering the bay. The other ’roiders were almost on him. They gripped their way along the railings as the ship glided in to slip fifteen.

  Are you in there?

  He flew up and landed atop the back of the egg-shaped craft and yanked open the cockpit.

  It was empty.

  You’ve ruined me, Katy.

  Alvin jumped down into the cockpit and closed the hatch as the ’roiders leaped onto it. The hopper shook. He turned on the front viewscreen and saw Tosh’s paranoid little friend, Ravi, and several others on the hull. Their faces were contorted in anger, their teeth bared.

  He released the rock hopper’s tentacles from the anchor-hold below and the ship bobbled upward. Then, with a swipe of his finger, he brushed them away. Ravi floated off screaming and reached after him as the hopper moved toward the airlock.

  One more swipe of the tentacles scraped the rest of the mob free. They flew off in every direction.

  He caught a last glimpse of the dock as he glided across the threshold. The ’roiders were scattered all around with frenzied faces and foaming mouths. He took several slow, deep breaths. For the first time, he felt no fear, only determination. Like he did in the game.

  “She was lying the whole fucking time,” he muttered.

  The hopper entered the airlock and the inner door closed. Suddenly a rumbling reverberated from within the asteroid.

  What now?

  He switched to the rear cameras as he was sucked out into space. He saw no damage at Ida’s massive airlock doors, but below the asteroid gas was venting into space. A white gust of wind swirled off into the vacuum.

  Looks like hydrogen.

  He resolved to tackle the issue at hand.

  I hope I’m not too late to stop her.

  Thirty-Seven

  Buzz and Sioux hid beyond the glass walls of the atrium. Sioux sat, head down, arms wrapped about her tucked legs, her back against a tree trunk. The pink petals of the cherry blossom tree fell around her. Buzz looked into the faux stream beside him at his reflection. He watched the water run up to a small pond filled with koi. A simulated blue sky hung overhead. The beauty of Earth’s flora and fauna matched with the sky above was small comfort now. Both Sioux and Buzz were listless. The hallway had been silent since Alvin had called away the mob, and they had been silent, too.

  Buzz broke the quiet. “Have you heard anything from Beckman?”

  “No, but I saw him with Dr. Choi earlier,” answered Sioux. “You said it was the food, right? I know they ate before everyone else.”

  “Then perhaps he’s still in his right mind. We’ll need to—”

  A series of quick booms were followed by a steady, rushing sound. The floor rumbled. The pair looked at each other in fear.

  “I think things just got worse,” said Buzz.

  He stood and listened. Closing his eyes he hummed in a monotone to himsel
f then said, “It sounds like water.”

  “Of course it does, you’re sitting next to a stream,” she said.

  He looked down at the water. It sloshed around violently, then began to run the opposite way.

  “Wait—it’s going the wrong way,” he said.

  Sioux gave a perplexed face and stood up to look.

  In short order the riverbed became exposed as the water drained away. The koi began flopping in the muddy pond left behind.

  “Damn it. Must be the pump,” said Sioux. “I’ll go check.”

  She crept back toward the entrance, careful to scan the windows for marauding ’roiders. The front door was cracked, but the hallway beyond was empty.

  Up at the console, Sioux accessed the controls. The pump was still running, so she toggled it off and back on again.

  “Did that start the water?” she called out.

  “Negative,” shouted Buzz.

  She checked the status readout for the atrium. There was no water pressure. Nothing was feeding the pump. She made her way back to the stream.

  “We’re not getting any water to this deck,” she said.

  “Just this deck?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I only have access to the atrium status. I think it’s time we found Beckman.”

  “Or his access band,” said Buzz.

  “Let’s try calling him first.”

  He peeped in his Opt-Comp and dialed Beckman.

  “Hello, Buzz? Buzz?” sounded in his ear.

  “Yes, hello, sir.”

  “Buzz, you’re alive. Is anyone with you?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. Sioux is with me. You’re on group.” He added Sioux to the call. “How many are with you?”

  “Just Dr. Choi. We’re in the med lab. It’s a massacre. Henry and Chickowski are dead. It’s the food, Buzz. Something has happened to the printers in the mess hall.”

  “Yes, sir, we’ve gathered that. Listen, we have another situation here. The atrium is not getting any water pressure.”

  “I hardly think we should worry about the plants. We have a riot on our hands,” said Beckman. “I’ve called Corporate Security. We’ll have to sit tight till they get here from Armstrong.”

  “Ah, more charming CorpSec officers,” said Buzz. “In the meantime, I think you should check the base ops status, sir. We can hear a strange sound down here.”