by Duran Cross
Rennin didn’t care what he looked like, he was just relieved the pain was over with. “Sh-olen…”
“Dead, I’m afraid. The cure ravages the body to expel the bioweapon. His body couldn’t handle the shock.”
Rennin closed his eyes and let out a huff that may have been an attempt at grief, then looked up at Decora with blurry eyes. “How long?” he managed a little clearer.
“One standard week since the Possession went down. You’ve been here for five of those days. I would have gotten to you sooner, but we were under orders not to bring Indigo Reign into the base, but I know a very clever pilot. So many of your crew were afflicted that I have been able to perfect the treatment.” Rennin was about to answer when a screech of pain across the room deafened him.
Lieutenant Veidan.
Decora ran over to the stricken android that’s more chained down than restrained. “He’s waking up. Valhara, help me.”
Rennin hadn’t noticed the other android in the room and for the life of him he can’t believe he didn’t, she was nearly seven foot tall. She could have been a new model, her skin was too perfect, completely unweathered. “What do I do?” she asked softly with a worried expression.
“Hold him down.”
Valhara did so, but Veidan’s convulsions were so intense it didn’t seem to help much. He vomited up cold steaming blood. “Hurry!”
Decora injected him with something once, twice then a third time. Veidan initially failed to respond but was eventually finally subdued back to sleep.
Decora sighed. “Thank you, commander.”
Valhara simply nodded, looked to Rennin then sat back down near to Veidan’s bed. “How often does he do that?”
Decora narrowed his eyes staring at the wall for a moment. “Every three point six hours on average.”
“You have the,” Rennin took a fluidic breath, “cure,” he panted. His lungs felt like he could only take half a breath.
Decora smiled. “He is cured. It’s just very complex, his code has been almost completely rewritten. All his buffers have been shut down, and it has introduced new coding regarding his pain receptors,” he said, as if admiring it.
The Medtech’s eyes turned fierce and Rennin felt a sudden chill in the room. “Whoever designed it knew a great deal about our algorithms.”
“An inside job?” asked Valhara. “Who?”
“Unsure, I am still collating. A GA scientist, Azra Onorati, is credited with engineering it.”
“We should have killed her when we first discovered her,” Valhara said.
“She’s a civilian.”
Valhara inclined her head for a moment, “They’re easier.”
Rennin felt faint, but didn’t want to sleep yet. Seeing Nexarien Decora face-to-face is so rare and Valhara rarer still. “Is Veidan… contagious… to you?” he huffed.
“Not anymore, no, but even though we’ve stopped the viral cells reproducing we’re having a difficult time recoding him from the nano-cell reprogramming.”
Rennin gurgled a query.
“Basically, his body is being instructed to be in pain. We’re going through his code and correcting the foreign input.”
“How can a virus… work… on…”
“Yes I believe I know where you’re going with that. Try to think of an android virus as a tiny little factory rather than an invasive cell. And once the antivirus works, we can install the modification in the rest of us that are still afflicted by Indigo Reign.”
“H-how many?” huffed Rennin.
“Forty-eight of us are currently in induced coma because of it.”
“Why didn’t… you test…” Rennin’s eyes rolled up briefly.
“On others?” Decora finished for him. “Because Saifer is the first one afflicted that has a real chance of surviving the test treatment.”
“We were left… to die.”
“Originally, yes. Godyssey thought it appropriate to let you sit out the infection until you died, thereby providing hard evidence that Indigo Reign is a weapon to be outlawed. Your sacrifice would have saved many more lives. In theory. But we still wouldn’t have an antidote or vaccine. I found that unacceptable.”
“W-where are these others?”
“Here.”
“Where’s… here?” he asked blacking out.
“You are aboard the Crucible.”
◆◆◆
Rennin had never been aboard the grand medical frigate. Four capital ships had been specially built in matching arcs to fit together, making a cylindrical unit to house the central medical body between four armoured gun platforms. CryoZaiyons were clearly no longer tolerating medical craft being fired upon.
The central block contained both medical and living quarters, with a large amount of storage. It was big enough to treat an entire battalion of critically wounded soldiers, and capable of dealing with all known surgical procedures.
The capital ships around the outside were mostly hollow to make room for excessive armour plating, and incredibly huge drive engines that enabled the gargantuan ship to make leaps to hyper transit. The capital ships themselves were all armed with standard defence turrets and energy turbo-cannons but the heavy artillery between them were something designed especially for the Crucible.
It wasn’t only the largest of their ships but also a devastating weapon.
Once upon a time, the medical units brandished Red Cross emblems across unarmoured hulls, shifting troops from the battle zone to rehabilitation clinics. But once the GA humanist forces began blasting relief frigates out of the sky, the CryoZaiyons weaponised their medical ship to defend the wounded.
Rennin was in a recovery area in the quarantine section of the Crucible. He was placed in a ward with other people recovering from Indigo Reign and even some CryoZaiyons who were still considered a possible threat to the general population of the ship and Earth itself.
The cure Decora was working on wasn’t quite finished, but Veidan had finally stopped screaming and shaking. At first he was only lying down, completely incapacitated. Eventually they’d locked enough of his system down to keep him stable but anytime he tried anything else, even sitting up, he’d begin to convulse and involuntarily spasm. At least he was no longer in pain. He’d just start shaking, go to jelly and collapse.
A week passed since Rennin first awoke without maddening agony, and this was the first time he’d seen Veidan, albeit in a wheelchair, outside the critical wing. Rennin found himself in a constant state of numbness since his initial recovery but seeing such a powerful figure, an icon of the army, in that state made something inside him feel sick. He wasn’t sure if he pitied this android but this was no way for a war hero to spend his last days if they couldn’t cure him.
Veidan was willing to sacrifice himself to keep others safe. Rennin was quite the opposite and proved that during planet-fall. That act was the first time since the war began that Rennin Farrow didn’t want to die. Another thing he found quite remarkable about Veidan was that he ordered them not to shoot him when the bioweapon began taking hold, no matter what. No matter what.
Rennin walked at a slow hobble with his cane over to where Veidan sat, staring at the floor, heavily bandaged and looking utterly defeated. Rennin’s left shin, left forearm and right hand were all broken from over tightened muscles, his tear ducts had pushed out blood, and his capillaries had burst. At one point he must have curled up in a ball so tightly he broke his own ribs, puncturing his left lung. All over his body he felt an ache just like the growing pains a child has, but the concept pain held little to no weight with him anymore. Nothing could be worse than what he just endured.
Decora entered the area in full bio-wear with CryoZaiyon Captain Angelien Zillah. They walked over to Veidan, asking Rennin to step aside. Decora injected Veidan with something clear then took ten or so steps away.
“Alright, Saifer. Stand up.”
Veidan looked up briefly and shook his head. “I can’t. I feel the same as yesterday.”
“Yesterday you wallowed as well, you need to keep trying,” said Decora gently but with a hint of command.
Zillah’s expression usually looked like detached aggression but now it was cold rage. Rennin had seen her in the field once or twice; she was never one to mince words. “Get up.”
Veidan shook his head very slowly as if worried it would fall off. “I can’t.”
“Forty-eight CryoZaiyons were in cold storage when you were brought here, now there are over a hundred. You’re the best hope any of them have of ever being reactivated but we have to get a working antivirus code from an android. The current stalemate at the Geneva Convention means the GA hasn’t stopped using Indigo Reign on frontier garrisons since it’s still not illegal. They need you to fight, Saifer,” said Decora.
“You know what they do to us when we’re no longer viable,” said Zillah.
Veidan pushed out a lot of the air from what Rennin guessed must be lungs. “I feel so weak. Every time I move I might drop and wriggle like a caught fish.”
Zillah stepped up to him, though this time her expression had softened. Rennin still thought she could stare down an enemy tank. “I’ll help you stand, and you walk, alright?”
Veidan took her hands and she eased him to his feet before taking a step back. “Okay…”
“Don’t worry about making it all the way to Nexarien, just focus on the first step,” she said.
Veidan stepped forwards once and was slightly off balance for a moment. Zillah took a step back but kept her arms out ready to catch him. Veidan stepped forwards again and again and made it to Decora without falling, though a little unsteadily.
He smiled, “Now what?”
Decora grinned for a moment but his face returned to passive. “You’re going to collapse again but only because we have to see how many things you can do before we find something that triggers a fall. Place your arms straight out at either side.”
Veidan did so. His left hand twitched slightly but only for a moment. He grunted and frowned, willing it to stay still. “Ready.”
Decora’s face suggested he didn’t want to push Veidan into another fall, but a failure was going to come sooner or later. Decora placed a sidearm, missing its ammo clip, in Veidan’s hand. “Aim and support with your offhand and skim over four random people anywhere in the room.”
Veidan placed his hand around the gun and managed a loose grip. He brought his other hand up to a standard shooting stance, trembling ever so slightly. He picked a person, and moved the gun until they were in his sights and his shoulder twitched. He gritted his teeth and moved to the next one and the shaking became a little worse. “I can’t hold it.”
“Pull the trigger,” said Decora.
Veidan tried to but his hand erupted into a fit. He dropped the gun. The spasm travelled up his arm and down his body until his whole form was shaking enough for him to fall into a seizure. “I-I-I t-tried.”
“Sedative,” said Zillah in a tone that would have made Rennin have a surprise bowel movement if it were directed at him.
Decora injected him twice with a sedative and his body soon calmed down. They carried him back to his wheelchair.
“He did well that time,” said Decora looking optimistic.
“Is all this really helping?” asked Zillah.
“Five days ago he couldn’t sit up, let alone stand up, it has to be done this way.”
“Why?” she asked.
“We have to find what the Indigo Reign affected and recode it so it won’t ever afflict him again.”
“This could take months.”
“Maybe, but only for him. We’ll have a full coding system designed to combat the weapon once we’re through, and it won’t do a single thing to any android that is exposed in the future. The modified algorithm will be introduced into every android and mech-orga. The vaccine will be given to every full-orga then the android firewall will be upgraded with a copy of the Indigo Reign signature. Every conceivable variant I can fathom will be accounted for to make sure this is where it ends.”
It was then that Zillah noticed Rennin’s presence. “What is that staring at?” she asked Decora.
The Medtech’s glare would dissolve iron. “He is part of the crew of the ship that saved ours.”
Zillah then regarded him with what appeared to be less scorn by a mere sliver. “You were with Lieutenant Veidan when he was contaminated?”
“I serve him,” said Rennin.
Something in Zillah’s eyes changed. “Keep him company, will you?”
Rennin nodded. Decora and Zillah exited the quarantine zone leaving Rennin with Veidan so he hobbled over to a seat nearby and sat down next to the seemingly unconscious android.
“Lieutenant?”
Veidan didn’t respond.
“Saifer?”
Nothing.
“Fuckface?”
A slight moan.
Rennin huffed out his best attempt at a chuckle and wondered briefly what kind of toxin could sedate an android. He believed it was probably just full of binary code ectoplasm telling his CPU to go into standby.
“When you wake up, let me know,” said Rennin closing his eyes wearily. Even walking around the room really took it out of him and he began drifting off.
“He’s dead, you know,” said a cold voice off to the side.
Rennin opened his bloodshot eyes and glanced over to see a bright pair of neon-green lights staring at him. “Sorry?”
“That one,” nodding at Veidan, “He’s dead. They’re all dead. Walking, talking, dead.”
This was a CryoZaiyon but he sure wasn’t very well. Rennin’s eyes glanced down and saw that this android was heavily restrained to his seat. He wasn’t sure how to respond and so just smiled.
The android’s face was unreadable. “You’re not listening. No one’s listening. You’re not supposed to hear the dead.”
“He’s not dead, he’s sleeping.”
“They’re supposed to sleep,” his voice rasps slightly. “Forever.”
Rennin was starting to feel a cold sweat building up. “I’ll wake him up and show you he’s alright.”
“He walks, he talks, but he’s not real. How can you live when you’re made of death? We have batteries that keep us ticking,” the android looks at his chest, “but it’s all silent.”
“You mean androids, don’t you? You’re not dead.”
“Yes I am. I’m trapped. I’m stuck in here,” again looking at his chest. “I can’t get out. I tried but I couldn’t, my blood froze the knives and my bones are too strong. Can’t cut.”
Rennin looked at the insane android’s chest. “What’s in there?”
“A coffin. A coffin with us in it. Have to get out. They think I’m crazy but I just want to be free. I must get out before they re-purpose me.”
He wants to get out of his body? “Re-purpose you?”
“Deemed unfit for service. Recalibration failed. Loss of resources unacceptable. Thermosteel too valuable. To be stripped and cannibalised by new dead. Making more of us. Taking me apart and putting parts in others. Get me out of here.”
Rennin was absolutely certain this android didn’t mean out of quarantine or the ship, he meant his body, well and truly. “Kill you?”
His face screwed up into a snarl. “Can’t kill dead things! Take it out and smash it!” he screeched, looking at his chest with wide eyes.
Rennin was about to answer when an orderly injected the babbling CryoZaiyon with something that knocked him out cold. The orderly apologised and wheeled the android away.
Indigo Reign affected androids very differently, Rennin figured. That was a little too much insanity for his liking. He looked over to Veidan to see that the android was now awake, drowsily looking at the spot the crazed android was sitting. He eventually looked to Rennin. “He was complaining of nightmares last week. Now he’s insane.”
“Didn’t realise your lot dreamt at all.”
“What you call REM we call RTP: Random Thou
ght Process. While we power down, our minds shift what’s in our daily bandwidth instant access memory to storage files. The equivalent of your short term to long term memory.”
“You guys scare me. That guy scared me. Who was he?”
“His name is Jas Newry.”
“I’ve never heard an android say shit like that. Hell I’ve never heard a person say that.”
Veidan parodied a smile, “He’s not the first to say we’re walking dead. He won’t be the last either.”
“Is that true what he said about being re-purposed? Being stripped to bits and used as spare parts?”
“Think of it as recycling.”
Rennin didn’t think he could feel any more disgusted. He thought of these androids in the same way he thought of people. He imagined a person being hollowed out of organs while still alive.
Re-purposed.
Being considered insane for an android obviously garners no help; they just use what they can from your body and throw the rest away. Knowledge of mental health regarding people was still grossly inadequate, even in this day and age, so there wouldn’t be any help for an android.
Rennin felt sick.
◆◆◆
Over the next weeks, Rennin had become quite fed up with being in quarantine. The healing process for his broken body was agonisingly long.
So many more have been hit with Indigo Reign that the Crucible is well past maximum capacity. All the cots were now organised in rows and the lines for the toilets were ridiculously long.
Brown alert long.
Portable restrooms were rigged up after a few days but the walls weren’t exactly opaque. You could see enough detail through them to know when someone was gripping their legs trying to force out their sin.
There were also a mass of surveillance cameras installed, increasing the oppressive feeling within the quarantined level that had begun to cause cabin fever, resulting in an alarming rate of suicides.
Jas Newry wasn’t seen again.
Veidan was the only one that seemed to be doing better. And he was improving at an ever-accelerating rate. He’d fall in a fit of convulsions during a new task, be sedated but as soon as he was moderately awake he’d be up and trying again. He could walk, talk and take aim with his handgun but was still having trouble holding the rifle, and sniping was still a while off. He decided to try running and made it fifty metres, swearing and cursing all the while to keep his mind focussed, before collapsing. Each seizure gave Decora new neural pathways to correct and from there repeating previous tasks would no longer trouble Veidan.