by S. A. Lusher
“There is oxygen stored in the bay you are in,” Sierra replied.
“Perfect. I'll also need food and water. Medical supplies and spare parts.”
“There is an emergency medical kit in the rover already and two more in the bay, as well as many spare parts and tools necessary to repair both the rover and your suit if need be,” Sierra answered coolly.
“Great.”
Eric spent the next fifteen minutes hurrying around the bay, hunting down the supplies he needed. There was a cargo compartment in the back of the rover that could be accessed both internally and externally. On top of the things listed, Sierra also suggested multiple backup batteries and canisters of the primitive liquid fuel the rover ran on. He found these in the area and in the hangar adjacent to it. Once it was finished, he secured the cargo compartment and stood still for a moment, taking a break and leaning against the rover.
“How far is the nearest mess hall or food storage?” he asked after a bit.
“Fifty meters. I can guide you.”
“All right, might as well get this over with,” Eric replied.
He set off.
* * * * *
The trip to the nearest mess hall and back went without any real problems.
Although it was becoming obvious that the creatures were more active than ever. Had they picked up on his gambit? Did they know? Or were they just looking to take down the final active human? Did they need more spare parts?
He made it to the mess hall and found a pair of storage crates. He packed one full of any and all packaged foods he could find, filling it up and packing it as tightly as possible, then filling the other with bottles of water and, when he ran out of those to pack, cans of Vex. Once those were packed and sealed, he found a hover-dolly, loaded them and then shoved them back to the rover. He placed them in the cargo compartment, making sure he could easily access them, then he checked on Luna. She had finished off the can of food, licking it almost clean. He grabbed it, washed it out with some water, then filled it up with water and slipped it and another can of food into the cage with her. He petted her a few times gently on her little gray-white head before closing the grate. She seemed to have calmed down and set to lapping up the water.
Eric took the time to double-check everything and consult with Sierra about anything else, and she reassured him that he was about as set as he was going to get. Once that was finished, he set out again into the facility.
This time to rescue Sierra.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sierra asked as he headed out into the corridors once more.
“Yes. Why do you ask?” he replied.
“I'm not entirely certain that the potential risks of rescuing me outweigh the potential gain,” Sierra said, her voice quiet over the comms link.
“Do you want me to leave you here to die?”
“No. I want to continue my existence. But I also don't want the entities to succeed at whatever ultimate goal they have.”
“We can do both,” Eric said firmly. “How long have you been here? How long have you been alive?” he asked, coming to the corridor's end and sliding around into the next one, making his way back to the AI Core.
“I've been in service for a little over two years now. I've been serving here for nine months,” Sierra replied.
“I see. What can you tell me about yourself?”
“I'm a Class Eight Commercial Grade Artificial Intelligence. I am mainly utilized for running the day-to-day tasks of an installation or vessel, such as crew rotation, inventory management and maintenance tracking.”
“...is there anything else?” Eric asked, hitting the medical wing and hurrying through it.
“I'm not sure what you mean.”
“I've come to understand that some AIs developed hobbies and interests.”
“Oh. Yes. I collect and organize photographs of landscapes,” Sierra replied. An odd hesitation had crept into her voice.
“That sounds nice. How many do you have?”
“Just over five hundred,” she replied.
“That seems a little low, I mean, for an AI.”
“I had limited personal storage space at Theseus Station. Technically, I had none, but I managed to find some unused storage for this purpose.”
“Oh. They didn't allot you any for your hobby?”
“They did not know. I've found that humans are...uncomfortable, when they witness Artificial Intelligences displaying such behaviors. I also enjoy games of chance.”
“What about them?”
“I enjoy their unpredictability. As an AI, even a basic one, it is simple to discover the most effective routes to success in games. In short: it's often too easy. With games of chance, there is a factor of chaos. A challenge.”
“That makes sense. And I'm sorry you've had to put up with...uncomfortable humans.”
“You seem different than most.”
“I suppose I am in that regard. Okay, I'm here,” Eric said as he came to the AI Core and stepped inside.
“There is an infoclip in the workstation, second drawer down on the right. Find it and insert it into the proper slot on the workstation.”
“Got it,” Eric replied, finding the infoclip and slipping it into place. “Now what?”
“I am repurposing the infoclip...please wait...”
He stood around, occasionally glancing back at the door, getting more and more apprehensive the closer he got to actually escaping.
“Okay, I am downloading myself into the infoclip. Once I'm inside, a chime will sound. I won't be able to communicate with you any further.”
“All right. I'll see you when I hook you into the rover.”
“Affirmative. And, thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
He waited until there was a chime, then pulled out the infoclip and secured it in his most durable pocket. Once it was sealed away, he turned and left the AI Core. He made his way quickly through the facility, feeling the ticking of his chronometer eating away at him, the weight of his responsibility threatening to slowly crush him. He had to dodge two more of the creatures as he made his way back to the hangar, but he managed to arrive at his destination intact. He got into the rover and hooked Sierra into it.
“You there?” he asked.
“Affirmative. I am intact and have meshed with the land rover's systems.”
“Perfect. Can you detect me outside of the rover?”
“Affirmative. The rover has limited scanning abilities.”
“Good. I'm going to go open the inner door of that airlock. When I do, drive it in, it'll save some time. I want this thing as close as possible to departure. I get the feeling that when I come back again, it'll be on a bit of a tight schedule.”
“Understood.”
Eric got out and moved forward to one of the airlock bays. He opened it up, checked it out, then waved the rover forward. It shifted, rolling slowly into the bay. He closed the bay behind him, as there was a manual hatch built into it for people to go through, then he moved back to the rover.
“Well...this is it,” he said as he opened the passenger's door and checked on Luna. She'd eaten about half of the food and had drained the water.
“Yes. Please, be careful. You must succeed,” Sierra replied.
“I'll do my best,” Eric murmured as he replaced the water and gave Luna a few more pets. He realized, suddenly, that he had forgotten to find some cat litter. Well, it wasn't like there was exactly a lot of time. He supposed he'd just have to live with the smell of cat waste and hope that they didn't have to be in there for too long.
“Do you remember the plan?” Sierra asked.
“Yes. Stop by the armory, get some bombs, get to the core, plant the bombs, get back here, get out of this base, blow the bombs.”
“Correct.”
“All right...” Eric took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then he left the rover and stepped back out into the hangar bay. “Here I go.”
He set off into t
he Theseus Station one last time.
CHAPTER 14
–Resolute–
Once more into the breach.
Eric stood before the exit to the hangar bay that held his one real method of escape and survival, and the only two beings left in his life that had any real impact on him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, briefly fogging his visor. He was tired, the short breaks he'd indulged in earlier seemed like a distant memory, like faded sunshine and lost childhood. He was telling himself that he could do this, that he was technically capable of every task required of him. It was easy to believe. The real question here was would he do it?
Would he survive?
He wasn't sure if he would endure this final run, but he knew there was no turning back. It just wasn't in him to do so. With a soft sigh, Eric reached out and pressed the open button. The door unlocked and slid open, revealing the corridor beyond. He stepped out, peering quickly from left to right. Nothing but long, lonely stretches of deckplates and bulkheads. Eric broke right, heading towards the dark heart of Theseus Station.
They were waiting for him there, of this he had no doubt, performing whatever malignant tasks compelled them. Despite the stomach-churning terror he felt as he crept down the corridor, there was also a deep sense of curiosity. What could they possibly be doing with the bodies? What was this inter-dimensional energy? Where had they originally come from? If they were constructed beings, then who constructed them and why?
The notion that he would likely never be able to attain answers to the vast majority of these questions, possibly all of them, saddened him. He was a naturally curious person, he liked to know things, sometimes even at a cost. During one of his first few jobs after leaving the military when he'd been living aboard a space station that served as an intergalactic pit stop, he'd been dating another engineering, a beautiful blonde woman with a bit of a temper problem. He'd begun noticing little oddities about her that, at first, had seemed like nothing. But then he began to get the notion, after about three months, that she was cheating on him.
He'd ended up pursuing the investigation relentlessly, and ended up uncovering the truth: she was cheating on him. The knowledge had cost him his happiness for quite a while but, even then, with a sort of grim certainty, he felt that it had been worth it. He knew. That's what mattered. And now, Eric had to know whether or not he could do this, pull off this seemingly impossible task. He continued navigating the maze of passageways, passing through flickering, bloodied sections, so used to the choice decorum that he hardly noticed it now.
Somewhere up ahead was the station's reactor core and somewhere before that was an armory he was going to investigate, looking for the bombs he so desperately needed. Worries were piling up inside his head, but Eric allowed a sort of Zen calm to settle over him. At the moment, he had his objectives and a few contingencies if he ran into trouble and that was it. That was all he needed. He turned another corner and spied the armory up ahead. Good. This was going fairly quickly. Of course, this was the easy part.
Hurrying up to the entrance, he opened the door and slid inside. Like the armory he'd visited before it, this one was largely emptied out. Racks, shelves and crates stood in silent testament to the no doubt frenzied stocking up the survivors had done in their ultimately fruitless battle for survival. Moving quickly but proficiently, Eric began a thorough search of the room. It took nearly ten minutes, but in the end, his search proved worthwhile. After turning over tables, searching every crate and locker and checking out every shadow, he had them.
Three powerful mining explosives.
As he grabbed some detonator pins and the detonator itself, he hesitated, a tremor of absolute pain shifting through him, like a jolt of icy lightning, as he remembered Autumn doing this exact same thing not all that long ago.
Eric turned away from the thought.
It was too much, too powerful a hurt, and he didn't have time for it. If and when he survived, then he could cry and grieve.
After securing the pins, detonator and the bomb in pockets on his suit, Eric left the armory, feeling the press of time. As he made his way to the reactor core, he could almost feel the physical presence of whatever dark task the aliens were completing. It was very similar to what he had felt before, whenever he'd gotten dangerously close to the creatures. A kind of cold, radiating feeling, almost like pure evil or if darkness itself had a feeling, a more physical effect on the world around it. This was worse, though. It was almost like some kind of radiation, a slow dread that seemed to sap strength and will, growing only more powerful the closer he got to it.
Eric mustered his strength and kept going.
The closer he got to the core, the harder it became to take another step. It was almost as if he was walking against a frigid wind naked, each step slowly becoming more uncomfortable, edging towards actually painful. He just kept the map of the facility fixed firmly in his mind, making his way ever onwards, one step at a time, trying to keep his eye out for any of the creatures. Whatever it was they were doing, it must be nearing its climax. In a way, it seemed to be both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing, because he hadn't heard or seen any of them so far, which meant he was likely going to get there without trouble.
It was a curse because, well, that was kind of obvious.
If he wasn't fast enough, they would complete their cryptic, dark ritual.
Eric turned another corner and came to another stretch of corridor. He was nearly there. At the end of this particular passageway was the entrance to the reactor core itself. There was still nothing around, no guards, no creatures waiting for him. The base was deathly silent, save for a slowly rising and falling hum that seemed to permeate from everywhere and nowhere. It felt like...sickness. Like cancer. Like death.
It felt like the end of everything.
Eric was beginning to feel physically ill, his stomach trembling, threatening to eject his last meal. Fighting the feeling, he hurried over to a vent, opened it and pulled himself up inside. No way he was just strolling in through the front door. He made his way as quickly as he could down the ventilation shaft, feeling the press of time. He just wanted to be out of here, done with this horrible situation. He wanted to go somewhere and just shut off for several days. He wanted not to think. It'd be nice if he could catch three days' sleep.
The vent shaft came to an end.
As he stared through the grate at the end, Eric became aware of a deep purple light. It made him extremely uncomfortable, sending ripples of disquieting emotions all throughout the shadows of his psyche. Staring through the slats in the vent grate, he couldn't really make anything out. Realizing that he was just going to have to go, he hit the activation button for the grate. It slid up into its recessed niche, showing a narrow alcove that extended away from him in either direction and a wall dead ahead. He poked his head out.
Nothing left or right.
Just more metal and that deeply disturbing purple glow. Carefully, he lowered himself. He realized he must be in a corridor that circled around the circumference of reactor core itself. The tension continued to grow as he made his way around the circular corridor. His entire body was throbbing now, a low, dull pain that reminded him of being extremely sick with the flu. Fighting it, he pressed on until he found an entryway. It was obvious that the creatures had been at work here, first ripping the door out, then forcefully widening the gap.
Eric peered slowly through that gap, into the core itself.
The dark heart of Theseus Station.
At first, he didn't know what he was looking at. He could make absolutely no sense of it. The top of the reactor itself served as the floor of the large, central, spherical chamber. Near the walls, there were huge, towering support struts that doubled as massive power conduits. There were three of them and these were his objectives, where he was to plant the bombs. But it was what was at the center, taking up most of the open space, that so confused him.
It was some kind of...construction. A thing of twi
sted angles and uncomfortable contours. It seemed be constantly shifting and looking directly at it hurt his head. For several moments he simply stood there staring, stupefied. It seemed to be like...lines, lots of weird lines crisscrossing everywhere, covering almost every surface.
He blinked several times, almost as if trying to clear his eyes, then squinted, knowing that he was missing something. Something crucially important, some key feature that should be extremely obvious and yet he was missing it. It almost felt like after he looked at a particularly bright light and there was a dead zone in his field vision, a dark spot that became bright when he closed his eyes, blocking out that portion of his view.
And then, suddenly, he had it.
He realized, all at once, that there was nothing with his eyes. It was his brain that was having trouble processing what he was seeing.
The 'lines' were made out of flesh and bone, tissue and organs, hair and eyes and teeth. The populace of Theseus Station.
They had been repurposed.
Even now, he could see several of the creatures moving around the impossible construction, fashioning more of it from piles of ripped up corpses tossed haphazardly around the edges of the room. They reached up with their long arms, strengthening these lines. No other word would come to Eric's quaking, horrified mind.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to cry.
He wanted to vomit.
Somehow, he managed to hang onto his sanity and do none of these things. Instead, slowly, carefully, he edged along the peripheral of the room, towards the nearest power conduit. His eyes kept drifting back to the inhuman construct. In the center of it, a formless shape of deep purple, the color of bruises, pulsed and flickered madly. It seemed to be growing. Just looking at it felt like staring into the gaping maw of hell itself.
Eric focused on the pillar, focused on being as silent as possible. The creatures seemed intent on finishing their work. Eric moved along, hidden mercifully in deep shadows along the edge of the room, until he reached the first pillar. Kneeling out of sight, he pulled out the first bomb, activated the detonating pin, shoved it in and stuck the square of explosive to the strut. He let out his breath slowly. One down, two to go.