by M. R. Forbes
“I have detected a gamma wave spike in Research,” David said. “Reviewing.”
David froze with his hand still on Riley’s arm. She looked up at the helmet, using her free hand to reach for the manual release on the side. He didn’t react at all to her movement. She got her finger against the small latch and started reaching for the release beneath it.
“He is there,” David said. “It is confirmed. A trap is highly probable.”
He had to see her hand reaching for the helmet, but he didn’t react to it.
“Who’s there?” Riley asked
“David.”
Riley pulled the release at the same time he said it. The faceplate slid up and away.
A chill swept through Riley’s body, instant and overpowering. She started to shake, her mouth dropping open as she stared past the helmet and into a featureless, semi-translucent gel material which had filled the shape of the armor.
“What are you?” she managed to say with the last of her breath.
In the back of her mind, she already knew what it was. There was only one thing it could be, and the material composing it was all too familiar.
“You will help me recover the energy unit and the landing codes, or you will change and every other human on this ship will die.”
The words came from the front of the material, which rippled to create sound waves. Riley continued to stare at it, every effort at forming more words escaping her.
What had she done?
Chapter 30
“I don’t understand,” Sho said. “You’re David Nash?”
“I already told you I am.”
“Where’s the Cerebus armor? Where’s Doctor Valentine?”
She was thinking the same thing Caleb had been thinking. David responded by shaking his head, a sad smile washing over his face. It vanished a moment later.
“It’s a long story, and it doesn’t tell all that great. Maybe you can help me? You’re Marines, right? Marines?”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “My name is Sergeant Caleb Card. Those are Privates Yen Sho and Joe Washington.”
“A pleasure,” David said.
“How did you know we’re Marines?”
“I saw you in the hangar. I followed you. I wanted to talk to you there, but I was afraid. The Reapers are always there. No matter how far you try to go, no matter where you try to hide.”
Caleb could have kicked himself for thinking the feet he had seen were part of another hallucination. He glanced down at David’s legs, recognizing the shape and color. If he had said or done something sooner, they might have saved themselves a lot of trouble.
“The Reapers are dead,” Sho said. “We killed them.”
“I saw what you did. You succeeded where I failed.”
“You were trying to kill the Reapers?” Caleb said. “Doctor Valentine told us you created them.”
David started laughing. “Doctor Valentine’s tongue is sharper than a snake’s. Whatever she told you, I guarantee it was only what she wanted you to hear. The only way I created the Reapers was by not dying when she edited my DNA.”
Caleb and Sho looked at one another, the statement confirming everything they had felt instinctively.
“We can talk about that soon enough,” Caleb said. “Right now we need to find Flores. Sho, do you remember where you left her?”
“I remember a Reaper was coming at me out of nowhere. I shot her, Sarge.”
“In the face?”
“No. In the chest. Just long enough to make her back off.”
“Then she’s probably okay, but she might be hurt. David, if you’ll excuse us.”
“I’ll come with you,” David said. “You might need my help. And you definitely might need this.” He held up the stick he was carrying.
“What is it?” Caleb asked.
“A neural feedback generator. Or, what I like to call my Wand of True-seeing. It generates a high-pitched alpha wave that helps combat the signals being transmitted through the ship. It’s those signals that make you see things. It uses them as a weapon, Sergeant.”
“It?” Sho said.
“Later,” Caleb said. “I want Flores back with us. And I want my SOS back.”
Sho smiled. “You’re cute in your BBs, Sarge.”
Caleb blushed despite himself, recalling the way Sho had revealed her true feelings. “Knuckle-up Guardians. We’re in business.”
“Roger that,” Sho said.
Washington reached to his back, grabbing Caleb’s MK-12 off his armor and handing it to him.
Caleb took it and turned back to David. “Do you know how to use a rifle?”
“I’ll pass, Sergeant.”
“Suit yourself. Let’s go.”
Caleb led them out of the crew quarters, down the short corridor to the control room and out into the passageway. He didn’t feel the same need to maintain caution, and he hurried back to where he had left his armor. He quickly pulled it back on and clasped it shut before continuing.
The Guardians moved in silence, following Caleb at a near run. They found Flores a minute later. She had her back against the wall, and her head lolled to the side. A thick black mark surrounded melted armor plates, revealing the truth of the damage Sho had done.
“Oh no,” Sho said, seeing her. She hurried to Flores’ side, kneeling down and putting her fingers to the other woman’s neck. “Flores, can you hear me? Mariana?” She looked back at Caleb. “She’s alive, but her breathing is shallow.”
“Bring her back to Research,” David said. “I can take a look at her.”
“Are you a doctor?” Sho asked.
“Not originally, but I’ve had a long time to study.”
“Wash, get her up,” Caleb said.
Washington approached Flores. Only it wasn’t Washington anymore. A Reaper appeared suddenly, lunging at the downed Marine.
“Sho, watch out!” Caleb shouted. He shifted his MK-12, raising it toward the Reaper.
A sharp tone in his ear distracted him, and when he looked again Washington had returned.
“It seems so real,” he said.
“As far as your brain is concerned, it is real,” David said, holding up the neural feedback generator. “As real as anything else around you. You’re fortunate if you’re only transposing onto existing physical forms.”
“What do you mean?”
“The signals can make you see things that aren’t there. But if those things attack you and you see them wound you, your brain makes it real. You feel the pain like it was real. If the damage is fatal you’ll die, even though there might not be a scratch on you.”
“Geez,” Sho said. “What the hell is going on here, David?”
“I’ll tell you everything I know, I promise. Now, pick her up and let’s go.”
“Roger that,” Caleb said, silently directing Washington to carry Flores.
They hurried back to Research, making it to the module without incident. Washington gently lowered Flores into a reclined exam chair, and then just as tenderly removed her armor. The plasma had gotten through the SOS, burning her undershirt and leaving an ugly wound between her breasts that made Caleb sick and caused Sho to flee the room.
David was right behind him, and he leaned over Flores, examining the damage. “This would have been easier if the damned Reapers hadn’t kept chasing me away from here.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Let me see what we have in the fridge.”
David headed to the freezer and opened the door. The inside was lined with hundreds of labeled vials. He rifled through them as if he knew what he was looking for.
“Doctor Valentine was studying the phenomena of regeneration,” David said. “Did you know that?”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “She told us her goal was to create humans who could heal from trife attacks.”
“It might have been a noble goal if she weren’t such a psychotic bitch. Did she tell you what the Deliverance is for?”
“It’s a generation ship, carrying colo
nists to their new home. Essex. We’re only about one AU away.”
David froze, his head whipping back to Caleb. “We reached the planet?”
“Nine years ago,” Caleb said. “The ship’s been stationary, waiting for Valentine to enter the landing code, or for someone to manually bring it in.”
“So that’s why you woke up?”
“No. We woke up because the ship’s power stores are reaching critical. We’re at six percent.”
“Six percent?” David’s face flushed. “Damn it. I would have woken you sooner if I had known you were out there and alive. Here it is.” He grabbed one of the vials and returned to the chair. “Like I was saying, Doctor Valentine is obsessed with regeneration. Did you know scientists believe jellyfish regenerate? They think some of them are millions of years old.”
“I didn’t know that,” Caleb said.
“This is a topical formula Valentine and her team were working on,” David told them. They were testing it out on trife.”
“We killed all the trife before we went into hibernation.”
“You thought you killed all the trife,” David replied. “Research stocked a few away for safe-keeping. Enough of them to create a weak queen and keep them reproducing. Where do you think the material for the monsters came from?”
“Son of a bitch. She stocked you away for safe-keeping too, didn’t she? Wash and I were chasing the trife chasing you not long after we left Earth.”
“I remember. But I didn’t know that was you. You saved my life. Forgive me if I’m not convinced I should thank you for that.”
“No apology needed, all things considered.”
“This stuff works on trife. I have to be honest. I don’t know how it will react to human skin. The trife have a ninety-eight percent identical genome, but the demons are in the details, aren’t they?”
“What if it kills her?”
“She’ll probably die without it, Sergeant.”
Caleb looked at Flores’ face. It seemed peaceful. He could end her pain and suffering. He could leave her with her peace. He glanced at David. It wasn’t his place to make that decision. Besides, he needed her. “Do it.”
David poured the liquid onto the wound, taking his time to be sure he covered it. Caleb watched as the burned flesh began to change, Flores’ skin turning into a bubbling cauldron. Her eyes snapped open, and she started to scream.
“Hold her down!” David shouted as Flores tried to sit up. Caleb rushed to the side of the table, grabbing her left arm with his artificial hand. Washington took hold of her right.
“Flores, it’s Caleb. Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”
She continued to scream and struggle. David took hold of her legs, keeping them still. They all watched the flesh on her chest writhe and shift as though it were alive.
“Damn, it burns,” she whimpered, collapsing suddenly. Tears ran from her eyes. Her entire body went limp.
They waited in silent expectation. One minute passed. Two. Three. Caleb watched the skin begin to settle and harden, a thick, scaly scab forming over the burn. It was only there for a minute before sliding off and revealing new, pink flesh beneath.
“I think it worked,” he said.
“Doctor Valentine said this was a good sample,” David replied. “The alterations she gave me were derived from the work she did on this solution.”
Flores became completely still in the chair while evidence of her burns faded away. A couple of minutes later she opened her eyes, tilting her head and looking down at the wound. Then she glanced up at Caleb.
“Sergeant,” she said. “How come I’m naked? I wasn’t hallucinating I was sleeping with Antonio Banderas, was I?”
Caleb smiled. “Hold on, Flores. I’m going to get Yen.”
Caleb left the laboratory to retrieve Sho, finding her in the control room and bringing her back to the lab. She nearly squealed when she saw Flores alert and sitting up, wearing a too-big t-shirt that had come from Washington. She rushed over to the other Marine, putting her arms around her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“For what?” Flores asked.
“I shot you. Don’t you remember?”
“No. Where are we? Who are you?” She stared at David. “And why do you get to have hair?”
“I’m David Nash.” He said it with forced confidence while his face turned a deeper shade of red.
“You’re David Nash?” Flores said, looking him over. “Aren’t you a little short for a mutant serial killer?”
“Flores, cool it for now,” Caleb said. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel great. If this is David Nash, that means we won, right?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Flores’ face fell. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“David, you said you could explain,” Caleb said. “I’m ready to hear it now.”
“Right. How much did Doctor Valentine already tell you, Sergeant?”
“Up to the part where they shot you in the head,” Sho replied. “And you came back and killed most of her team.”
David shook his head again. “Omissions and careful wording are one thing. Outright lies are something else. Mariana, you’re a little more, how can I say it delicately? Curvy, than Mackie was, but her uniform should stretch enough to fit. It’s the fourth door on the right in the crew quarters. The shower should also be functional unless you shut it down?”
“We didn’t,” Caleb said. “Do we need to be worried about anything while we’re in here?”
“There’s a chance it might come to Research, but it isn’t likely. I’ll set the door to trigger an alarm if it opens.”
“That’s the second time you said...it,” Sho said.
“I’ll get to that.”
“Sho, why don’t you help Flores get cleaned up and meet us back here in ten minutes?” Caleb asked.
“Roger that, Sarge.”
“Let’s head over to the mess then,” David said. “There are chairs in there, and this is going to take a while.”
Chapter 31
“The first thing you need to know, Sergeant,” David began, “is that what I tell you about Doctor Riley Valentine, I’m telling you as a man who knows her better than anyone on this ship, and maybe better than anyone ever has. Not only did I spend a year and a half as her prisoner, but I spent the last two months of my captivity as her secret confidant and lover.”
He stood in front of the seated Marines at the front of the small mess. He looked out at them, meeting eyes with them in turn, still in a partial state of shock that this moment had actually arrived. He had spent years daydreaming of what it would be like to have company again. To be with other people again. To have help in finally ending the nightmare that his life became the day he boarded the Deliverance and developed into across more than two centuries until now. He had spent countless hours trying to find a way to kill the Reapers and to try to put right what Riley had gotten so very wrong.
He felt a little guilty as he started speaking because he already knew he wasn’t going to tell them everything. He would give them the important parts. The things they needed to help bring the colonists safely home. For one, he wasn’t going to admit to them he still loved Riley Valentine. Despite her betrayal. Despite the years.
They didn’t need to know about that.
“I’m surprised you didn’t get frostbite,” Private Flores said. “But I guess you probably regenerated it out of your makeup, right?”
David smiled at the remark but didn’t respond to it directly. The private had changed into one of Mackie’s uniforms, a stretchy two piece gray and blue uniform with the Space Force eagle and star logo over the left breast. It was repeated on the belt to the pants and in smaller embroidery on the shoulders. She looked whole and healthy, the results of the topical solution Riley had created better than even he expected. Experience suggested there would be long-term side-effects from the use of the solution, but he wasn’t going to tell them
about that, either.
“Flores,” Sergeant Card said. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but try to keep the random innuendos to yourself.”
“Roger that, Alpha.”
The sergeant glanced at David and nodded. David couldn’t help but respect Caleb Card. He had the quiet confidence of a Marine, the charisma of a leader, an easy tone that could turn hard when needed, and an undeniable will to survive. David couldn’t relate to most of those traits save the will to survive, but he also believed it was the most valuable one of them all.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” David said. “I understand Riley already covered what happened leading up to my first death, so all I’ll say about that is that most of what she told you is probably true. When the gene editing first began to take effect, it left me in a wildly chaotic state. I had never been a highly intelligent specimen of human to that point, and the sudden changes threw my equilibrium completely out of whack.”
“Hold on for a second, David,” Sergeant Card said, raising his hand. “I’m eager to hear everything you have to say, but there is a gap of time I’m missing that I hope you can fill in for me. I was chasing you through the corridors outside Metro after the city was first sealed. How did you wind up out there alone? Where did you come from?”
“I joined up with a group of nomads in Atlanta about four months before the Deliverance launched. Their leader, a man named Juan Espinosa, was convinced the government had secret bunkers spread around the country and that’s where all the VIPs were going. He claimed he had seen military teams enter areas of heavy trife activity to pull people out. Doctors, scientists, engineers, politicians, and so on. He started following the jumpships; I believe you called them hoppers, back toward their source. He told everyone he encountered about how he was going to find one of the bunkers and either make the government take him in, or he was going to take the bunker by force.”
“So you were part of the group that attacked the hangar?” Sergeant Card said.
David nodded. “When I say that I was, understand that it was a wholly different version of myself. The genetic editing was intended to force evolution, and it did. It isn’t only my healing factor that improved. My intelligence is higher, my reflexes and coordination is better, my stamina is greater. My body hasn’t aged a single day since I was given the injection.”