ALIEN THE COLD FORGE

by Alex White

  //I NEED TO FIND MY FRIEND

  The moment she hits “return” she realizes how absurd the query is.

  >>IS YOUR FRIEND ALIVE OR DECEASED?

  Blue’s breath hitches.

  //UNKNOWN. DEATH WOULD HAVE OCCURRED WITHIN LAST 2 HOURS.

  The screen flashes and shapes fall into place. Blue recognizes the image as the pixelated feed from the SCIF break room. Anne stands in the dead center of the frame, her back turned. Blue holds her breath, expecting the skeletal black shape of a snatcher to descend upon her. Instead, Anne half-turns as Dorian enters the frame with an aluminum chair, swinging it directly into her face.

  “No,” Blue breathes, but it’s there in stark electronic truth. It won’t be denied. He catches her flat-footed and beats her to the ground, savaging her over and over with the chair.

  “No,” Blue repeats, but she knows how this ends.

  Dorian drags Anne and the chair out into the hall, and the camera feed switches to the exterior. Anne gathers her wits long enough to cut him with her boot knife, and Blue dares to hope this is the story of Dorian’s death. But the director slinks off-camera, and Anne screams as one of the creatures descends upon her.

  Cold fear becomes unassailable reality.

  Blue can’t bring herself to blink, to move. She knew Dorian was fucking evil, always knew there was something horrifying about him, but this is too much. Why did he do it? She gnashes her teeth and her hands shake, and a raw fury grows inside of her. It’s unlike anything she’s ever experienced. She wants nothing more than to rip his arms from their sockets. With trembling fingers, she reaches down and types.

  //GO TO BEGINNING OF INCIDENT

  The feed jumbles and rewinds to the moment before Anne takes a chair to the face.

  //TRANSCRIBE WHAT IS BEING SAID

  Juno plays through the footage several times, running further back with each cycle. When it reaches the point where Dorian tries to get into Anne’s pants, Blue stops in disgust, then moves forward to their discussion.

  //There are two thousand packets in here. So that’s fifteen calories per packet. Thirty thousand calories total.

  That fits with what the other survivors told her, but at some point the conversation changes.

  //There are other supplies. You said there were bars in here.

  //I needed to talk to you alone…

  * * *

  Minutes later, Blue has what she needs to understand. Her head throbs. There’s something wrong with her physical body. It’s as if she’s losing her mind, and it’s leaking out through her ears. She wants to tear this place to pieces and burn away everyone inside—everyone who sided with Dorian Sudler.

  Everyone who let the monster come here.

  She could probably do it, too—kill them all. At the very least she could snap Lucy’s little neck for siding with the enemy so many times. She could get access to where they were hiding and turn the creatures loose on them.

  Or she could continue with her mission, getting Marcus and her body to the remaining escape pod.

  Or she could send Marcus to help the others and wait for rescue.

  Or she could take the easy way out.

  Before making a decision, though, she needs to beat Dorian to death, wherever he is. The key is to find him. She begins to type.

  //VIDEO ANALYTICS

  >>WHAT SHOULD I ANALYZE?

  //LOCATION OF MALE FROM INCIDENT

  >>TITUS & JUNO EMERGENCY NETWORK

  Blue shakes her head. The goddamned thing is going to reboot in the middle of her query. She slams a hand down on the console, before remembering that any noise could bring the creatures down upon her. The screen doesn’t go to the next line, either—it’s just stuck there.

  She checks the connection panel at the base of the system, listening for any arcing or sputtering. Maybe Silversmile took a chunk out of the console when it rampaged through the server farm and burned up some of the boards. As she stands her eye catches on the ready cursor. The system is waiting for input. She types.

  //LOCATION OF MALE FROM INCIDENT

  >>TITUS & JUNO EMERGENCY NETWORK

  “Marcus.”

  The voice comes from behind her.

  She turns to see him emerging from the stairwell, long-legged and malicious, his face oozing blood from his knife wound. Rage fills her soul, and all she can think about is throwing him through the side of Juno’s cage. She’s going to pound his body against the bulletproof glass until only miserable broken bits remain.

  “Engage override Epsilon.”

  24

  EXTINGUISHED

  “Override confirmed. Locking out pilot controls.”

  Dorian’s heart soars with glee.

  He’d been gambling that things were too hectic for Blue to have perfect control of Marcus, and it’d paid off massive dividends. Because of her negligence, he gets to live. He gets to win. Dorian takes a step closer to the android, passing his hands in front of its face.

  “I can still see you, Director Sudler,” Marcus says. “I’m simply awaiting orders.”

  “Terminate all speech and motor functions,” Dorian says. Instantly Marcus snaps to the ground in a fetal position, a puppet with his strings cut. Dorian leans down to touch his forehead, running his fingertips over the all-too-perfect skin. He strokes the wavy blond hair, jerking some free at the temple.

  “I love this place, Blue,” he whispers, sitting down next to Marcus. “I think… I think these might be the greatest hours of my life. You’re still logged in, aren’t you? I know you’re listening to me.” He pulls out his cigarette case; he’s down to the last three. Dorian has always been a pack-a-day smoker, but ever since arriving on the Cold Forge, he’s essentially quit. He only wants one now because he’s about to fuck these people harder than he’s ever fucked anyone in his life.

  “I didn’t enjoy killing Anne,” he says, “but I couldn’t have her talking to everyone about me, telling them I tried to leave them all behind. That might impact how the others think of me, you know? I liked Anne. She was a great lay, and quick with a knife.”

  He pats his pocket for his matches and draws out the case. Only three left, one per cigarette. Must be fate—but the striker is missing. Rage rumbles inside him like distant thunder, but he tamps it down. He can’t show Blue how angry he is.

  “You know I can’t believe this is the second time I’ve had to get rid of your body. My father always said, ‘If you don’t have time to do it right, you must have time to do it twice.’” He claps Marcus on the shoulder. “Guess I better do it right, buddy.”

  He glances up at Juno’s monitor to see that it’s blank. “Looks like the system timed you out. You want to see something interesting?”

  Dorian drags Marcus and props his curled body against one of the cabinets, so the synthetic has a good view of what’s happening. Dorian then flexes his long fingers and types Javier’s user name and password into the console.

  “First, let’s seal the doors,” he says, and asks Juno to go into full lockdown. His heart skips a beat as the entrance to the server cage hisses closed, but it’s fine. No creatures inside with him. Even if there were monsters lurking outside, they probably couldn’t get through the thick glass.

  Marcus’s eyes remain fixed on the screen. Dorian imagines Blue in her room, frantically trying to regain control of her surrogate. While it’s a delicious image, she might actually succeed, and then he would die.

  How to stop her from further interference? That’s the real question. Dorian spots a cabinet with a fire extinguisher inside, so he opens it and takes the red cylinder into his hands. It has a lovely weight to it, an undeniable density. Then he strides over to Marcus and gently thunks the android on the scalp, eliciting a bass tone from the steel. He swings the pressurized bottle in front of Marcus’s eyes, shaking it like he’s dangling a treat.

  “I like it this way…” Dorian says, hitting Marcus’s forehead with the rim of the extinguisher, a little harder this time. �
�…destroying someone with a device meant to save lives. There’s some poetry in that. What do you think, Blue?”

  Using it like a battering ram, he smashes the cylinder into the side of Marcus’s head, pinning the android’s brain case against the edge of a server rack. Marcus makes no response, but Dorian can almost feel Blue shrieking for him to stop. Maybe she’ll choke on her own spit.

  “Tough to answer with no motor functions, eh?” Dorian strikes again, putting his back into it, using the corner of the rack like a splitting wedge. Spasmodically the android’s eyes flick left and right, but he sees no visible damage. That won’t work. He won’t be happy until he’s washed his hands in Marcus’s milky blood. “What do you think, Blue?”

  Dorian presses a foot into Marcus’s shoulder, pushing the android’s skull up against edge of the rack. Taking the fire extinguisher by the neck, Dorian swings it like a baseball bat, and is rewarded with a loud crack and a clang for his efforts. A small ridge emerges across Marcus’s forehead, evidence of a fractured brain case.

  “There we go.” He strikes the fake plastic head again, and Marcus slumps face up onto the ground. “There we fucking go.”

  He raises the extinguisher over his head, and with a final shout, smashes Marcus’s skull open with a spray of white blood. Dorian drops the bottle and stumbles back, breath rushing in and out. His face prickles with heat, and he touches his clammy neck, sighing away the heavy breathing. He presses his fingers into his neck and checks his pulse, just as he’s done a thousand times before while jogging. His heart rate slows as his body reaches rest.

  He looks down at his hands, covered in milk. He’d felt Blue’s terror, her anger, and her understanding that she’d lost, inexorably, to the greater man. She won’t be getting off the Cold Forge. The others won’t be able to help her. Dorian has begun to devour her, and killing Marcus was the first, lethal bite.

  He should’ve done this to his father, instead of paying for the man’s nursing home bills. That would’ve been some justice.

  Dorian touches his cheek, and his fingers come away with his own blood. His wound needs stitches, but that’s only so he can bring his skin back to an earthly standard of beauty. The cut is the doorway to something underneath—something greater. He imagines pulling back the skin to find black chitin.

  Dipping his fingers into the pooling synthetic blood in Marcus’s wound, he lifts them to his lips. It has a taste like aspartame, with a breathy undertone of truffle oil.

  He shouldn’t be wasting this precious time.

  He rises and returns to the terminal, tries to remember how Anne said they were going to rescue Blue. Something about the maintenance tubes… It’d been so hard to pay attention to what she actually said in that moment before he killed her. What was the correct phrasing?

  //EQUALIZE PRESSURE FOR MAINTENANCE TUBES AND UNSEAL.

  >>DOCKING BAY STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.

  >>POTENTIAL FOR DECOMPRESSION IN THE EVENT OF FURTHER DAMAGE.

  >>CONTINUE? (Y/N)

  Dorian rolls his eyes.

  //Y

  Unlike human beings, the computer doesn’t protest.

  >>EQUALIZING MAINTENANCE TUBE PRESSURE… 100%.

  >>CONFIRMED 1 ATM PRESSURE MAINT TUBES.

  >>WARNING: EXTREME DANGER. CREW USE SHOULD FOLLOW EVA PROTOCOLS.

  That’s enough to bridge the gap, but not enough to attract the snatchers. They’re naturally precocious— they’ll get out there, eventually, but it could take hours. He racks his brain to think of what else he can do in the meantime to smoke Blue out. He wants to open the heat shields on that side of the station, but he’s not sure how they work.

  And Blue needs to be eaten.

  //SHUT DOWN ALL AIRFLOW IN CREW QUARTERS. DISABLE HEAT DISPERSERS.

  Within minutes, that module will be more than twenty-five degrees Celsius. The air will grow close and muggy. The bitch can die miserable.

  He tries to think back to his arrival in this magical place. There were those lights, the ones that showed him the way. What had Cardozo called them?

  //NAVIGATION SYSTEM STATUS

  >>COMMISSIONED AND ONLINE. WOULD YOU LIKE DIRECTIONS?

  He licks his lips and considers the best way to phrase the request. He’s never been much for information technologies, but these servers are supposed to be intuitive. Besides, he’s a fast learner.

  //KENNELS TO CREW QUARTERS ROOM 08.

  >>THIS PATH INCLUDES MAINT TUBES.

  >>NO NAVIGATION AVAILABLE IN MAINT TUBES.

  >>EXTREME DANGER. CONTINUE? (Y/N)

  //Y

  //MAXIMUM BRIGHTNESS, PLEASE

  >>ACKNOWLEDGED

  He strides to a clear section of window and looks down. A thin green line of light appears across the floor, pulsing toward the central strut. He watches with delight as one of the creatures appears, skittering across the open bay to investigate.

  But he doesn’t want all of them going to the crew quarters. He still has a use for them inside the SCIF. He needs to track them. Blue had a trick for that.

  //VIDEO ANALYTICS

  >>SUBJECT OF ANALYSIS?

  //NON-HUMAN LIFE FORMS

  >>ADVISORY: CANNOT IDENTIFY MICROSCOPIC ORGANISMS WITH CURRENT VIDEO LOADOUT

  Dorian snorts in annoyance.

  //PLOT LARGE NON-HUMAN LIFE FORMS. PROVIDE ACCESS CONTROL.

  >>PLOTTING… 100%

  The terminal changes to a station schematic, with several dozen red dots roving around. They’ve begun to converge on the green line running to the maintenance tubes. They’re curious beasts, quick to react to any changes in their environment—a lot like people, except they aren’t useless.

  Dorian looks at the name of the nearest screen, printed on a peeling sticker at the bottom.

  //GIVE ME VIDEO FEEDS ON SCREEN JUNO-2A.

  >>ACTIVATING.

  The monitor flickers to life, filling with tiles upon tiles of labeled security camera feeds. Dorian doesn’t recognize all the locations, but he can follow the map from the terminal monitor. Selecting a door in a secluded corner of the SCIF, he toggles it open and closed. Some of the red dots rush over to inspect it. Dorian tries another door somewhere else, opening it up. The beasts follow his cues without a moment’s pause.

  If only they could sense his hand guiding them. They would follow so much faster. He’ll bring them treats.

  Watching the security feeds, he spies “Rose Eagle Laboratory Alpha.” Peering at the screen, he watches the people inside, scurrying about what remains of their little lives, working in some vain hope of rescue. Even if they could get a message to Earth, nothing would’ve spared them. Starvation and slow roasting would’ve been their fates.

  Dorian has never experienced a joy like this in his life. Giddy, he thinks of the ancient Prince of Denmark, accused of madness.

  “I must be cruel, only to be kind.

  Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”

  25

  NEVER, NEVER

  Blue jerks the helmet off her head, her throat stoppered by a laryngeal spasm. The more she fights it, the less she can breathe. Salty tears stream from her eyes, and her teeth chatter with rage. How had she been so stupid?

  Anne is dead.

  Anne, who never loved her.

  Anne, the last to touch her.

  She has to force herself to calm down, or she’ll aspirate when her throat comes untangled. Blue holds the breath she doesn’t have, eyes bulging, head growing light. She feels a trickle of cool air in her throat, and it takes everything to fight her instinct to gasp. If she gasps, she’ll close it up again.

  Taking the tiniest breaths, she tries to relax, can’t pass out. She might need intubation again, and there’s no one to help her. That son of a bitch can’t kill her like this—

  But, in a way, he has killed her.

  Without Marcus, there is no sample. Without the sample, there’s no rescue waiting for her. No one will come and get her from her room, or drag her to an escape pod
.

  More tears roll down her cheeks. It’s all over. Now all she has to do is lie back and wait to die. She wraps her arms around herself and reclines in her bed, too lightheaded to stop the coming sleep, too weak to give a fuck. She tried her best, and that wasn’t good enough, and now she’s going to fall into a star.

  The useless helmet rests upon her hips, its wiring harness running down to the wall terminal like a tail. She wants to take it and throw it across the room, but she doesn’t have the strength. She’s about to push it off the bed when she remembers that Marcus isn’t the only thing to which it can connect.

  There’s the Caterpillar P-5000 Power Loader.

  Her heart thumps with explosive rage. With that exoskeleton, she can tear apart anything that comes between her and Dorian. The loader has all of Marcus’s access, so it can move about the station freely. She wonders if he uploaded any of his persona into it. Will it be angry when she uses it to snap Dorian like a twig?

  Faced with his own death, will he be glad?

  Who gives a fuck?

  She’s about to put on her helmet when the door to her room opens. The sudden noise jolts her so hard she almost vomits. The corridor outside is dim—it must be the night cycle. Reflected in the shadows is a weak green light, pulsing slowly like a buoy floating on the waves. She leans forward, trying to make out its source, but can’t quite figure it out.

  Then, the white noise disappears from her room, ventilation fans spinning down into silence. Blue works her jaw, the sudden lack of sound giving her the distinct impression of having clogged ears.

  Perhaps it’s a glitch in the failing computer system. Blue considers ignoring the new development and putting on the helmet, but it nags at her. She needs to investigate, but that’ll involve some crawling, and she’s not sure she’s up to it. Peering over the edge of the bed, she tries to ascertain whether her knocking knees will carry her safely to the floor.

  The green beckons to her.

  Blue slides the helmet to safety, then convinces her legs to leave the bed. The rest of her comes tumbling behind like a sack of potatoes. Her forehead slams into the metal floor, and she cries out in pain. She pushes herself up onto her arms, the only muscles with any strength left, and inspects the spot where she hit. The impact will leave a knot, but she’s been through a hell of a lot worse in the past few hours.