The Furnace

by Timothy S. Johnston

  He was ready to kill.

  * * *

  My heart thudded in my chest. If I was infected, Manny would no doubt shoot the instant the machine reported back. Even though control wouldn’t occur for another eleven hours or so, there was just so much tension in the room.

  He pressed the button.

  * * *

  Beep.

  He looked down at the display. His face remained blank.

  I thought I was going to pass out.

  “He’s clean,” he said finally. He exhaled. He had been just as nervous as me.

  I deflated and slumped in the chair. “Damn,” I sighed. “I was actually worried.”

  “He’s lying,” Katrina snarled. “I’m telling you, he’s infected! There’s no way Brick would have killed Grossman and framed Tanner. That’s too...devious! I can’t believe the nanos are capable of that.”

  “Believe it,” Manny said. “According to the diagnostic machine, those two proteins are not in his blood.” He gestured with his pistol. “You can stand, Tanner. Here’s the other pistol.” Manny had taken Rickets’s pistol and placed it in his own holster.

  I took it and aimed squarely at Manny. “Now you,” I said. There was no emotion in my voice. I was just as ready to kill as he had been.

  His face registered shock as he saw the pistol aimed at him. His expression grew rigid for an instant, then softened. “Of course,” he said finally. “I should have done mine first.” He coughed. “I guess I’m a little scared of what it’ll say, although I know I’m not infected.”

  “Put the pistol down and test yourself,” I ordered.

  He complied silently and inserted the vial. The room was utterly silent. All eyes were on the captain’s face.

  Beep.

  He studied the device. “I’m clean,” he whispered. I could barely hear him. “Thank God, I’m clean.”

  I checked the readout just to be sure. Bold words on the display spelled out clearly “Protein Not Located.” I relaxed my trigger finger and handed the pistol back to him, happy I hadn’t had to shoot.

  “Avery’s next,” Manny said with a glance at the man. “Watch him closely.”

  “You know I’m not infected,” Rickets said. His eyes were wide.

  Manny nodded. “I know. But I have to test everyone, just to be sure.”

  I raised the pistol, pointed it at Rickets. Manny inserted the vial and pressed the button.

  Beep.

  He looked down and an expression of complete surprise appeared on his face. “Holy God,” he whispered. “The proteins are in his blood.” He jerked his eyes to the first officer. “He’s infected!”

  * * *

  I should have realized Rickets was one of them from the beginning. In hindsight, it was a simple bit of reasoning. I’m not sure where I went wrong. Ever since Mercury and my failure with Michael Flemming’s case, I had second-guessed myself constantly. That screwup had ended in Flemming’s death. I still blamed myself; it had obviously affected my work.

  Jimmy Chin had witnessed the assault in the life-support module during which Brick Kayle had infected someone. Jimmy had reported the incident to Avery Rickets, who chose not to tell anyone else, not even his commanding officer. He had explained why, and it did make some sense. Still, it was contrary to regs, and Rickets usually went strictly by the book.

  After Jimmy died, someone had removed his head and hands in order to cover up the existence of nanos in his body.

  The inevitable inference was that Jimmy had still been human at the time of the assault in the life-support module but had been infected afterward. It stood to reason that Rickets, after finding out what Jimmy had witnessed, had infected the crewman to keep him quiet.

  Anna Alvarez had said that Jimmy had acted weird after reporting the incident, but hadn’t known why. Now I knew.

  What had happened must have shocked him. Perhaps he would have gone to the captain in time, but control had happened quickly. In fact, I recalled now that he had told Anna he had to “make a decision about something.” It was obvious that he’d been trying to decide whether he should take the matter up to the next level in the chain of command.

  Before he had decided what to do, it had been too late.

  * * *

  Rickets bolted straight for me, hands outstretched.

  I fired instinctively.

  “Fuck!” Sally cried. She had been next to Rickets, and she hurled herself away as he reacted.

  I fell backward as Rickets drove toward me despite the energy pulse to his chest. I fired again and spun to the side.

  Manny finally fired. The blast hit his first officer full in the face.

  Rickets fell forward onto the deck with a hollow thud, hands to the side, nose crunched into steel.

  He didn’t move.

  There were tiny droplets of blood on his fingers.

  “Holy shit,” Manny gasped. “I can’t believe he was infected.”

  I continued to aim at the prone man in case he was still alive. The others had clustered against the far bulkhead. I could hear their ragged breathing, their cries and sobs. Smoke rose from the corpse in lazy curls.

  Incredible. During questioning, Rickets had expressed his worry at being assigned to SOLEX. He’d had the impression that his career had faltered. He had totally convinced me that he was innocent.

  The nanos had made him seem so human, in every way. I shook my head, astounded.

  “Get back into your seats,” Manny snapped. “Now.”

  They moved slowly, but they obeyed him. They steered far away from the corpse as they shuffled to the chairs.

  “At least we know the test works,” Sally muttered as she sat back down.

  “Now do you trust me?” I growled at Katrina. She refused to meet my eyes.

  I studied the body for a long moment. I had seen a lot in my career. I had hunted hundreds of murderers and shot more than my share. Despite that, I had never seen one take a shot at point-blank range in the chest and not die—or at least drop—immediately. The blast was supposed to stop the heart instantly. The energy charge shorted the nervous system.

  Manny had noticed my expression. “What is it?”

  I shook my head, unsure how to say what I thought.

  “Maybe his momentum just carried him forward?” he suggested.

  My brow creased. “I shot twice and still he didn’t stop. It wasn’t until you fired that he finally went down.”

  A long silence fell over us. The acrid smell was pervasive.

  “What are you saying?” Shaheen finally asked.

  I gestured at the body with my pistol. “Is it possible that the nanos are stimulating them in some way? The adrenal glands, or the part of the brain that can increase their strength?” A look of shock appeared on Shaheen’s face. I turned to the doctor. “Well?”

  His eyes were fixed to the corpse on the deck. “I didn’t program that into them,” he muttered.

  “I noticed the same thing with Bram,” I continued. “He looked strong, but he was quite a bit more powerful than I anticipated. And during the attack in my cabin, the pressure on my arm...”

  Shaheen grunted. “It’s an interesting theory. We already know they’ve disregarded their programming. It’s possible. I’m not too familiar with neurology, Tanner. I wouldn’t know what parts of the brain they could affect.”

  In fact, weren’t there numerous areas the nanos could stimulate or access? Could the hosts be smarter than us too? Faster? Better problem solvers? The list was as endless as it was terrifying.

  I sighed. We needed to be aware of the possibility. After all, if the nanos could do that—create enormous strength in their host—then it was possible a woman might be responsible for some of the murders after all.

  The
faces that looked back at me were now mostly women.

  Manny fixed a steely gaze on them. “Who’s next?”

  * * *

  Beep.

  Shaheen tested negative. I had been a little worried; after all, her expertise with all things mechanical had made me wonder about her more than a few times. We knew Malichauk had created them, but there was a slight chance that he had received help from someone like Shaheen. Still, without her we wouldn’t have known nearly as much as we did about the nanos, and we probably wouldn’t have had the test.

  Next was Sally. I had also been worried about her since our search of the station. She had left the group for just under ten minutes and claimed that she had used the lavatory. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going; she had simply disappeared.

  I watched her closely as Manny tested the blood. The older black lady sat with head bowed, shoulders slumped. She didn’t even watch.

  Beep.

  “Negative,” the captain reported.

  She exhaled loudly. “Whew. I was worried.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Well...if we were infected, would we even know it?”

  I pursed my lips. “I don’t know. Impossible to say.” It was a fascinating observation, one that I’d had earlier.

  Next was Lingly. She had seemed awfully scared since this all began. I had wondered if the nanos could simulate the normal fear that someone would experience in order to throw others off. If so, they had done a marvelous job with her.

  Beep.

  She was clean. She almost fainted from the stress. Her hands trembled and she was paler than ever.

  Malichauk was next. Everyone moved away from the doctor; if there was anyone else infected, we figured it would be him. He had helped Brick escape from me in the corridor earlier. He had not been cooperative in creating the test. He had ejected Jimmy’s body before I could perform an examination. He had lied multiple times.

  Manny picked up Malichauk’s vial of blood.

  I aimed at the man and prepared to fire.

  A flash of movement caught my eye.

  Squinting, I tried to see better in the gloom. Something under the doctor’s chair? It was so damn dark...

  There it was again. What the hell?

  I took a step forward to get a better look.

  My mouth went dry.

  Blood. Malichauk’s hands were at his sides, palms down, hidden from view. Blood dripped from his fingers.

  Holy shit, he was infected.

  I squeezed the trigger—

  —and Katrina bolted from her chair and dove right for me. I got a shot off at Malichauk, though my aim was off. I hit his shoulder as he flung himself sideways and away from me. Shifting my aim to Katrina—who was now only a meter from me—I took a step back and fired again.

  Manny looked up from the diagnostic device to see what the commotion was. In a flash, he understood what had happened and got two shots off. Combined with the pulse from my pistol, the blasts seared every part of Katrina from her waist up.

  Her blackened and smoking body hit the deck with a crash, right at my feet.

  I spun back to Malichauk, but it was too late. He had bolted from the clinic.

  * * *

  “Holy shit,” Shaheen muttered. “Katrina was one of them all along.”

  Guilty people often accuse others to deflect blame, but Katrina had done a masterful job of it. The nanos were devious indeed.

  I kicked myself mentally. After the attack in my quarters, Katrina and Brick had been the only two people with alibis. They had supposedly been together at the time; they had obviously protected each other from potential discovery. I groaned. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have realized she was infected.

  “Malichauk was one of them all along,” Manny snorted. “I suspected, when he wouldn’t help us with the test, but still. He probably even infected Rickets like he did Brick. Never even knew the nanos were amplifying within him.”

  “The doctor gave us a lot of information about the nanos,” Sally said. “Why would he do that?”

  “He never gave us anything vital,” I responded. “Nothing he ever said involved how to access them, how to shut them down, kill them or anything like that. He told us why he did it, but nothing to really help us survive.”

  “He may have even infected himself,” Manny added.

  I had considered that possibility too. After all, he had originally programmed the nanos to be harmless to the host unless it was a Council member. Perhaps he had infected himself to set this whole chain of events into motion.

  Moreover, I realized sadly, Larry Balch’s and Anna Alvarez’s bodies gave some compelling evidence: someone had hit them from behind with a blunt object. No doubt Malichauk had done it. It’s why the hatch had been forced open; he didn’t have the code for it. He had never intended to help with the test. He had been one of them all along, possibly infected by Brick, Katrina, Jimmy or even by himself.

  Lingly, Sally, Manny, Shaheen and I were now all who remained.

  Twelve hours until power failed.

  We had to find Brick and the doctor and kill them. There was now no other way.

  Part Five: Crash

  Investigator’s Log: Lieutenant Kyle Tanner,

  Security Division, Homicide Section, CCF

  From the moment Malichauk escaped, things steadily got worse.

  As if they hadn’t already been bad.

  I checked the readout on my vacsuit and felt my stomach drop. Only two hours of air remained, and then I’d have to switch to my final bottle.

  For the past hour, my communit had broadcast a simple message that I had recorded and set on repeat. “Attention,” it said. “This is Lieutenant Tanner of the Confederate Combined Forces, currently en route from the now-destroyed station SOLEX One. Requesting immediate assistance. I’ve nearly depleted my oxygen supplies. Radiation exposure is approaching lethal levels. My current coordinates are—” The suit’s computer provided an accurate location for each broadcast.

  The message played over and over. I kept the transmitter aimed at Mercury’s approximate position and hoped that some signal would make it through the intense solar radiation. It was doubtful, but it was all I had.

  My makeshift shield had done better than expected: my radiation indicator had not grown much darker. There was still a chance that medical care could counteract the radiation exposure should I survive this debacle, but I would need it almost immediately.

  I turned my head and studied the distant stars. I had never liked zero gravity, and here I was hurtling through space without a ship’s protection. The sun was behind me, still only a few million kilometers away, burning intensely with an energy few could comprehend.

  I had passed the stage of terrified abandon and had accepted with a kind of dull comfort the blackness of space. Infinity surrounded me. The universe was my home; it was where human beings lived and traveled.

  It had been my womb.

  It would be my grave.

  A feeling of utter tranquility had begun to overcome me. Was that what happened when death was so near?

  It felt fitting, in a way. If I was going to die here, today, there could be no better place for a space traveler’s corpse. I had no family. No friends. I was alone—and had been all my life.

  Only a short amount of time remained. I had to finish my story.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A transport to SOLEX would need eight hours to arrive—if someone would even come for us. Based on the last words Lassiter had said to me, the chances of that were slim. Whatever the case, we had just four hours to take care of the last two infected people. When that was done, then we could attempt a desperate call for help.

  Still, I had doubts that it would wo
rk.

  “Why can’t we just call now?” Lingly asked.

  “Because Brick and Malichauk are still threats,” I replied.

  “But the CCF doesn’t know they’re still alive.”

  “She’s right,” Sally said. “Why not just call first, then take care of Brick and Malichauk?”

  I frowned at the suggestion. I understood their motivations, but it went against everything I stood for. It would contravene my military background, and more importantly, it would be a lie.

  Manny eyed me. “What is it, Tanner?”

  I sighed. “We can’t call for help until we know for sure the infection is gone. I have to complete my mission. It’s my duty as a homicide investigator. And I won’t fail.”

  “But surely we can take care of—”

  “What if we call and they send a transport to rescue us? And what if those two manage to kill us in the meantime? We’d be willingly allowing the infection to escape!” I pressed my lips into a thin line. “I can’t allow that to happen.”

  Lingly glared daggers at me. She looked ready to skin me alive. It was the first emotion other than fear that I had seen from her in a long time. “How dare you put us in this position? Call for help. Then we’ll take care of Lars and Brick.”

  I hesitated, my frustration growing. I turned to Manny. He too watched me with hope in his eyes. “I just can’t do it, Captain,” I said. “For the good of the Confederacy. I know it’s hard, but if we have to die to protect the Council, then so be it.”

  He looked pained at first. Eventually he nodded, but he still didn’t seem happy about it.

  “I can’t believe you’d do this!” Lingly snapped. Her hands were on her hips, and she had stepped so close that her nose was an inch from my face.

  “Why don’t you stop arguing so we can start searching?” Manny said.

  “How can you just give in to him? How—”

  Shaheen’s eyes were downcast. “Tanner’s right, Lingly. We can’t risk it. We have to kill the infection before we call. We need to be sure.”