“Hey!” she shouted. “Someone help me here! Galaxy’s best pilot, suffocating in a box right here!”
Someone knocked on the top of her pod—rap-tap-tap-tap—and then it was pried open. She squinted as the light and, most importantly, fresh air rushed in.
“Patricia,” said Doctor Brooks, offering her his hand. “What a surprise seeing you here.”
Huffing to catch her breath, Guano took the hand and eased out of the pod with a groan. “Where’s Flatline?” she asked. “Where’s Roadie?” She went to stand, but her knees felt weak.
Doctor Brooks caught her before she fell. “Hey, easy,” he said. “You okay?”
“I don’t feel good,” she said, and she meant it. Maybe there hadn’t been enough oxygen in that escape pod thingie … she felt vaguely lightheaded as she looked around, trying to sort out where she was. There were buildings, but her pod was way, way out from all the others. “Where are we?”
“We’re on Chrysalis,” said Doctor Brooks, reassuringly. “Just on the outskirts. The industrial sector.”
Industrial sector … that didn’t sound good. “We gotta get back to the main settlement … area … place … thing.” She blinked as her eyes swam. “I’m real dizzy.”
“Don’t worry. You’re mildly hypoxic and it looks like you just need a moment to recover.”
Fair enough. “Stupid oxygen,” said Guano. Brooks began to lead her toward a nearby building, short and squat and painted a mundane grey, with no windows and a single door. “And stupid escape pods. Coffins. Space coffins. They can’t maneuver for shit.” She let out a hacking cough that burned her throat. “And they … and they choke me to death apparently.”
“That’s fine, just come in here.”
It was … odd that he was being so specific, but Guano couldn’t really think about it. She gulped down air as Doctor Brooks pushed open the door with his foot, and then half walked, half carried her through the threshold into some kind of unmanned, unstaffed reception area. A steel pressure door, similar to the internal doors on a starship, stood against the far wall.
What was this place? “Is this a water treatment plant?”
Without stopping to take in the sights. Brooks led her toward the steel door and waved his wrist in front of the sensor to the right. The door opened with a faint hiss. Beyond was a room lit with a series of green lights, and full of large tanks filled with fluid. Purposefully, Brooks walked past the tanks.
She was full of adrenaline and gulping down air like it was pills at a rock concert, but she swore that inside the tanks were people. People of a myriad of forms; tall, short, male, female, some she couldn’t even tell. They were all sleeping … peaceful, eyes closed, relaxed.
There was no way this was real. Her head swam. She sat down on a nearby seat. There were rows of them, nearly a dozen, each placed before one of the strange vats.
“What is this place?” she asked, squinting as she looked around. The tanks were huge … and the glow seemed to be coming from within, shrouding the faces in light and harsh shadows.
“What are those things?” asked Guano, her eyes slowly widening. Some of the faces were identical. The same person, multiple times. “Are those … clones?”
“Something like that,” said Doctor Brooks, as he reached over and injected her in the arm with a syringe. “And so much more.”
“Ow!” Guano yelped, rubbing her arm ruefully. “What the fuck was that?”
“Just something to help you sleep,” said Doctor Brooks, smiling reassuringly at her. “Now. Close your eyes.”
She definitely did not want to sleep. Guano went to stand but her legs didn’t work. A creeping numbness spread up her body, from her knees to her hips to her waist, enveloping her and stealing away her motor control. Her arms flopped weakly down by her side and she could only gurgle.
She stared, wide eyed, at the tanks further down the corridor. Through the thick, almost opaque glass she could see a dozen of them with Doctor Brooks’s face. All of them pale white, eyes closed, almost as if sleeping. Or dead. Or….
Oh. Shit.
“Who are you?" she asked, her voice slurring. “What are you?”
“I am the man who will defeat Admiral Jack Mattis,” said Doctor Brooks, a slow smile creeping across his face. “And the man who will save humanity. Make it better. Oh, so very much better. I have many names.”
“Nah,” said Guano, spots dancing in front of her eyes. “You’re … you’re Doctor Brooks.” It was getting really hard to think….
“That is one name I’ve used,” he said. “One face. One identity. I have others; other versions of me, like reflections in a mirror. Many of them. Mattis knew but one of them … and the best part is, now he believes that person is dead.”
It was babble. Bullshit. Guano tried to suck it up, force herself back to consciousness, but whatever she’d been injected with was powerful. She couldn’t move. Just lay there, drooling, on the floor.
Doctor Brooks observed her with a cautious nod, and then replaced the syringe on his belt. With careful deliberation, he unhooked a communicator from his belt, dialed a few numbers, and then spoke into the line.
“Yes,” he said, “this is Spectre. The escape pod went right where you programmed it to go.” There was a long pause, and then Doctor Brooks smiled in a way very much unlike him, and very much like someone else she’d seen wandering around the ship. “You can come get her whenever you like. Tell Spectre-Intel to start operation Ad Infinitum. We’re ready.”
And then the sedative finally took hold, and there was only darkness.
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The Last Dawn: Book 3 of The Last War Series Page 29