Virus

by S. D. Perry

  “That hurts,” it muttered, then stepped towards Foster again.

  She lowered her aim and emptied the clip, five more explosive shots that splashed into Everton’s chest in a steady rhythm. The biomechanoid walked steadily into the small-caliber rounds, gripping the ax loosely.

  Its back was to Nadia. She saw the tangled river of wires that connected to the spine from the power cable and knew what to do.

  She snatched a thermite grenade from her bag and stepped forward, pulling the pin in the same fluid motion.

  She stuffed the explosive into the thickening of the wires and screamed at the same time.

  “Steve, Foster, GET BACK!”

  Before she could dive for cover, Steve tackled the biomechanoid, low. He drove the captain backwards and through the open hatch to the storage room, then pushed himself off of the unbalanced Everton.

  The creature fell down in the second room as Steve leapt past a console and ducked next to Foster. Nadia took one running step and dove into a crouch behind the chart table.

  The explosion shook the control room, assorted shrapnel whizzing overhead, and the creature started to scream, a screeching, human counterpart to the electronic squeal of the intelligence. Foul, chemical-scented smoke poured into the room, aluminum and iron oxide tainted with burning flesh.

  Nadia stood, saw Foster and Steve rise and watch.

  Everton was flailing wildly, had flipped onto its side as the white-hot cinders erupted from the back; the thermite plasma had melted through its spine, but it still shrieked, thrashed, threw sparks from the liquefying circuitry.

  The molten heat was burning through the deck as Everton divided, the abdomen gone. Still, the legs kicked, the furious mask howled its eerie cry as the widening hole opened up beneath the creature.

  Bones snapped as the Everton-thing convulsed and spasmed, metals burning, white smoke clouding up and filling the smaller room. With a final cracking crash the deck gave way—and the captain disappeared, plunged through the smoking hole and into the raging darkness below.

  The thundering of the storm was a blessed silence. Steve and Foster edged cautiously towards the hole, Nadia stepping out to join them.

  “How’s that for respect, Captain?” Steve whispered.

  Everton was gone—but how much had the intelligence heard and seen? Nadia turned to them and spoke quickly.

  “Listen—through your captain it knows what we are planning.”

  Steve stared down at the black, storming winds below. “I never did like that guy . . .”

  Foster moved back into the control room and scooped up three life jackets, tossing one to each of them as Steve slung his bag and Nadia tied on her pack.

  Nadia touched her dog tags lightly and hoped that they would make it in time—and that Alexi would be waiting for her when it was all over.

  They worked their way down the aft emergency scuttle that Nadia had led them to, a thin, dark passage that would take them straight to the fuel oil bay.

  Flood the hold, set the timer, and get as far away as we can . . .

  Steve wished they had more time to work out the details of their plan, but the creature wasn’t going to wait for them to catch up. He didn’t want to think about what it was up to as they hurried down the scuttle—but he didn’t imagine it was going to stand by idly and watch them destroy the ship.

  He called up to Nadia, past Foster. “How do we know we’re not gonna get welded in down there?”

  “This way there are no corridors, no doors—nothing to weld,” she answered. Her voice was strained with exhaustion, but she sounded certain.

  Steve hoped she was right; although they stood little chance against the storm, he preferred drowning to going up in a fireball. They’d blow the Volkov either way, there wasn’t really a choice there—but if he was going to die, he’d rather not have it be in a biomechanical death trap, running from some stinking monster.

  His foot hit air and Steve dropped the four feet from the last rung to the corridor. He reached up and slipped his hands around Foster’s slender waist, helping her down—and was surprised by the rush of emotions he felt, just touching her. Regret, sadness, admiration . . . lust.

  Steve shook his head. If there could possibly be a more inappropriate time or place, he couldn’t think of it. Normal reaction, he supposed—there hadn’t been a chance for him to catch his breath since they’d boarded the ship, for him to work out his feelings over Squeaky and the others who had died, even Everton. It was all just catching up to him and he hadn’t slept more than an hour in the last twenty-four—

  —and she’s an incredible woman, and ain’t life a bitch.

  They quickly helped Nadia down and Steve turned his flashlight on and aimed it through the rungs—

  —and they all gasped, Steve so startled that he nearly dropped the light. A man, only a few feet away—

  —Richie?

  “Richie, you scared the shit out of us!” Foster said.

  The deckhand’s face was covered with black grease, what Steve realized was a homemade camouflage. Night vision goggles were propped up on his forehead and he carried two giant coils of cable, one over each shoulder—as well as an AK-47 which he raised towards them, the whites of his eyes rolling wildly.

  The three of them backed up a step; Richie looked completely insane.

  “Richie, it’s us,” Foster said slowly.

  “How do I know that?” Richie snapped, his demented gaze flickering between Foster and Steve.

  They didn’t have time for this; Steve cut to the chase.

  “We’re blowin the ship. Come with us.”

  Richie lowered the rifle, apparently satisfied that they were human. He grinned suddenly, a flash of white against his blackened skin.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, and started backing down the corridor.

  “Richie, don’t be a fool!” Foster shouted, but he wasn’t listening. He pulled down his goggles and turned, disappearing into the darkness.

  Steve looked at the two women and shook his head. At least they had been able to tell him what they were going to do—what they were going to try to do. If he didn’t want to help, they couldn’t make him; Steve just hoped that he was planning on an evacuation of his own . . .

  Nadia started towards a hatch and they followed, Steve still wondering what Richie was planning—and what the creature would throw at them when it realized that it was almost over.

  The ladder that stretched above him was clear as day, the rungs glowing soft green through the night vision goggles. Richie worked his way up as quickly as possible, lugging the heavy cables that he’d found back on E.

  He’d been surprised to see Steve and the two women, he wouldn’t have guessed that they’d survive this long—but he was even more surprised that he’d been sorry not to see Hiko with them. He didn’t give much of a shit about Everton, but Hiko hadn’t been some money-grubbing fuck-head. A little freaky-looking maybe, but a decent guy . . .

  He shook the thoughts as he reached the entry to C deck. He’d left the hatch open and he leaned out into the corridor and gave it a thorough look before throwing out the cable; all clear.

  He started back towards the weapons locker, moving carefully but not as slow as he’d gone before. If the other three were going to blow the ship and they were down on E, they probably meant to ignite the fuel oil, probably on some kind of timer. He hoped they got out before his own little surprise; he had enough cable now, the warheads were stacked—he was gonna depart this hellhole with a great, big bang, and he was going to do it as soon as he got back and hooked up the grenades—

  Richie turned a corner in the hallway and froze. There was a body on the floor not twenty feet in front of him, and there was a power cable coming out of its back.

  He could smell it now, the same rotten odor that came from all the biomechanisms—or at least the ones made out of Russians. He trained the AK-47 on the still figure, but it didn’t move.

  A trap, some kinda l
ure?

  He didn’t think so. The alien hadn’t been particularly subtle so far, it didn’t need to be . . .

  He kept his rifle on the downed biomechanoid just to be on the safe side and started to edge around it, prepared to blast if it so much as coughed—and stopped suddenly, listening.

  He was in the corridor near the workshop, where he and Woods had first seen the tiny ’droids. When he’d passed it on his way down to E, it had been humming and clicking, the little bastards still plugging away. Now there wasn’t a sound from that direction. In fact, there was no sound anywhere—the Volkov had been quiet before, but there had been the constant, faint vibrations of machinery at work, of computers and lights and video systems in operation.

  Richie turned, sought out the closest video surveillance camera; it was dead, all right, no little red light, no tracking. He realized that he could still feel the shift of air, the ventilation was working, which meant the engines were still on—but everything that the alien had taken over was dead, as dead as the Russian corpse-machine in front of him.

  Why would it do that? Why would the alien suddenly turn everything off, like it was—

  Like it was drawing up all its power for something else.

  Richie took off running, really scared for the first time since he’d left the missile room. It was time to get out. Now.

  All across the ship, the machines were dying. In the thick shadows of the corridors, behind welded metal doors, crawling between decks—lights dimmed and limbs froze into position as their energy source drained away, their strange bodies slumping and falling where they stood. An eerie, pensive silence swept over the lifeless halls and dark chambers of the Volkov as power surged away from the creatures, robbing them of purpose—and funneled towards the machine room on E deck, rushing soundlessly to the giant computer that controlled the ship.

  The mainframe welcomed the massive incoming flux of alien life, wires heating and lights flashing, information whipping through stimulated circuits. The computer fed obediently, taking the energy in and manipulating it, refocusing it for its final destination.

  Arcs of electricity snapped through the air as the intelligence moved from the mainframe through a massive, bloated cable strung across the room. The cable jumped as the creature pulsed through, its power swarming towards the form that was its own creation. Sparks showered and flew against the rising hum of new life.

  Steel and bone arched and flexed. Flesh and metal sang as the intelligence flowed into the powerful armature that it had designed and built as its ultimate home.

  The mainframe went dark, the last of its lights fading out, its task complete.

  The intelligence was embodied in something new.

  It lived.

  • 24 •

  Nadia had hooked up the timer after they’d opened the valves, all three of them nervously waiting while the ballast tanks emptied, each spout blasting fuel oil at over a hundred gallons a second. They could hear the splashing below, through an open ladder well in the far corner of the bay. After a few minutes, Nadia nodded at them and Steve picked up the grenade.

  Foster watched him set the detonator and attach it and the thermite grenade to a row of pipes that ran below the valve wheels, just out of sight. When it detonated, the deadly plasma would burn through the deck at something like three thousand degrees centigrade, plunging through to the flooded hold below . . .

  “I gave us fifteen minutes,” he said.

  “Checkmate,” said Nadia softly.

  Foster took a deep breath, nodding. There was no going back now. She snapped into her life jacket quickly and moved to check Steve’s, then Nadia’s while Steve tugged against hers. It was time to face the storm—and while she wasn’t looking forward to it, nothing could be worse than what they’d discovered on the Volkov.

  They were walking towards the hatch when Foster heard it. She stopped, turned, and saw that both Steve and Nadia were listening as well, eyes wide.

  A heavy booming. Metal pounding against metal, and it was coming from outside the bay, close—and getting closer at an incredible speed.

  They backed away, all three of them looking for another way out—but there was only the hatch and the cargo door, and the ladders that led down into the hold. Nowhere to go, to get away—

  The booming stopped in front of the cargo door.

  Before they could take another step, there was a massive strike against the huge steel door, a blow that crashed through the metal and ripped half of it down in a single motion.

  Even partly revealed, it took her breath away. A mammoth armature, twelve feet tall, an abhorrent mixture of flesh, bone, and steel. Dancing arcs of blue electricity pulsed across its form, snapped and crackled.

  Another thundering blow and the cargo door was torn completely away. Foster saw four arms, four legs—all of them hydraulic at the joints but made up of stretched muscle tissue and flesh, riveted metal and wire. A huge, blocky head of murkily glowing lenses and what looked like insect mandibles, although there was no mouth.

  Goliath, thought Foster, and then it slammed its way into the bay.

  “It has evolved,” Nadia whispered.

  Steve unslung his pack and the creature stepped forward and lashed out with one giant arm. The blow knocked Steve across the room and into one wall, where he crumpled—and didn’t move.

  Foster started to scream, heard Nadia join her, and the two of them ran for cover as Goliath turned to seek them out.

  Richie stood on the launch platform in the missile room and surveyed his handiwork, eager to be on his way. Over five hundred feet of cable lay coiled up between the escape seat and the explosives; he’d rigged up the perfect solution to the problem of alien invasion, if he did say so himself.

  There were twenty uncased warheads grouped on the deck, with a half dozen thermite grenades duct-taped on top. The fuse hookup was attached to one end of the cable. All that was left was to strap himself into the chair and ignite the rocket motor, which would also open the launch doors. When he hit the button, he’d become a space cowboy—and the cable would pull tight, trigger the fuse-VT, and blow the fuck out of ol’ Visitor in an explosion that would put the typhoon to shame.

  The walkie-talkie suddenly spat to life over by his bag of stuff—and screams filled the missile room, frantic, terrified, wordless cries. Female.

  “Who’s a fool now, Foster?” Richie said, but it didn’t feel as satisfying as he thought it would. He wondered who was pushing the transmit button; it sure as hell couldn’t be Foster or that Russian, they were both howling their damn heads off . . .

  . . . and maybe he was a fool, after all. Because he wasn’t picking up his shit and strapping into the chair, the way he should’ve been. Instead, he stood there listening to two women he didn’t even care about shrieking in mortal terror—and he was starting to feel a little . . . strange about it. He hadn’t needed them, that was for certain. But maybe they had needed him; maybe if he had stayed with them, they wouldn’t be screaming right now.

  Richie snarled at himself and started gathering up his stuff; there was nothing he could do for them except what he already had planned. The sooner he got outta here, the sooner they’d shut up—and the sooner he could stop feeling the strange, unpleasant feelings that were hammering at his guts, telling him maybe he wasn’t such a good guy.

  Oh, Steve, NO—!

  He was unconscious or dead, his unmoving body huddled over his pack, his life jacket shredded—but there was no time to check, no way to get to him; Goliath had fixed on them.

  Foster and Nadia ran, took cover behind a steel support beam that bisected the fuel bay. Goliath took a single step forward, raised one massive arm—

  —and backhanded the steel beam with such force that the six inches of metal snapped in a rending thunder. Both women were knocked back, slid across the deck—

  —and into an open ladder well. Foster reached out in desperation, fingers scrabbling wildly as she plummeted. She caught on to a rung an
d her arm jerked painfully in its socket. She managed to hold on, barely, legs kicking in open air.

  Nadia didn’t grab on in time. She hit Foster on her way down, deflected off of her and landed somewhere below with a solid thump. Her scream cut off short, a final frantic resonation pulsing through the darkness.

  Foster reached up, caught the rung with both hands, and looked down. Nothing but blackness and the heavy, greasy smell of fuel oil. Above, she heard the monstrous creature ripping the bay apart, the crash of metal and the hiss of steam, pipes torn and burst by the furious rampage of the machine . . .

  She tried to pull herself up, but it was no good. She was exhausted, her overused muscles aching and quivering, her hands slick with sweat. She was slipping, and she just had time to relax, go limp before the rung escaped her grasp.

  She fell. Thick air whipped past her face and she squeezed her eyes closed, prayed that she was above the viscous liquid—

  —and she hit the lake of fuel oil with a tremendous splash, plunged under and bobbed to the surface, choking. The cool, sticky fluid coated her hair, her face, dribbled across a thousand tiny cuts, burning and stinging. She rubbed at her eyes, disoriented, saw that there was light coming from somewhere as something brushed past her in the syrupy ooze.

  Foster pushed away, panicked—and into another bobbing object, and another. She could hear the lap of oil against them, against many more of the unknown objects, surrounding her. She stopped flailing, let the life jacket hold her steady as her eyes adjusted to the murky gloom.

  The light was from somewhere overhead, a single shaded fluorescent that illuminated a catwalk high above and filtered down to the shadowy lake, showing her—

  Foster screamed, unable to help it, her body thrashing of its own accord to get out, get away from the nightmare that she could barely see. Dozens of bodies floated on the sticky surface; the corpses of the Russian crew bobbed all around her, pale, dead skin gleaming through the shining oil. Everywhere she turned she saw matted hair, groping, lifeless fingers, blind eyes covered with dark and gleaming fluid.