Titan: A Science Fiction Horror Adventure (NecroVerse Book 3)

by Aaron Bunce

  “Yes, we do. And we will. But time is exactly what we have right now, Shane,” Soraya interrupted, “we’re in the black. The void. Hyde is cold, dark, and thankfully, behind us and getting farther away. The ore freighters are a month away from the closest colony station. They’re not meant for hard burn acceleration, or carrying people for that matter, so they’ll have to travel on a stretched travel schedule. We’ve got no way to send a warning. No way to reach out for help. Time, in fact, is all we really have, right now. If you unclench your fists and sit down, Lex and I will tell you anything you’d like to know. And firstly, Jacoby is not dangerous. He isn’t going to turn into anything unnatural, attack anyone, or infect anyone.”

  “He could, ya know, infect them all. It just wouldn’t turn them into flesh-hungry, mutating organs of death and destruction. We only really need Lana and Emiko. The others? Dead weight if you ask me,” Poole said, suddenly hanging upside down next to her.

  Lex jumped and cursed, the others spinning around to look at her. She faked a cough and settled back against the wall.

  “Asshole,” she mumbled, “if you’re going to help, that usually includes doing something helpful.”

  “Just trying to be truthful, Alex. Soraya wasn’t being totally honest, if you think about it. We want to win them over, not give them more reason to doubt us. I don’t feel like spending eternity frozen in Jacky-Boy’s brain pan while his body floats through the cosmos. That sounds horrible.”

  Lex watched Poole continue circling the table, his legs and arms once again flapping and tapping in their strange dance. He approached Soraya, who watched him quietly.

  “This!” Erik spat suddenly and Shane nodded animatedly in agreement, “ever since we left the station, I–I–I don’t know. When I’m around you,” he pointed at Soraya, “her or them,” he pointed right at Lex and then the shower room, “it’s like you all are seeing, hearing things we can’t. Or…or…you’re having silent conversations with each other the rest of us can’t hear. It’s really starting to freak me out.”

  Lex instinctively looked to Emiko. That told her the nurse had not shared everything with the others. Or had she shared anything at all?

  “We’ll tell you, but it’s up to you whether or not you believe any of it,” Soraya said and again motioned to the seat.

  “Fine,” Shane said, his voice sharp and strained. Then she watched the big man settle stiffly into the seat furthest from Soraya. His back remained straight as a board, one knee bouncing nervously. He looked ready to bolt.

  You go, girl. You diffused that bomb like a fucking pro! Lex thought. She undoubtedly would have already gotten into a fist fight with the big man. Evidently, telling someone to “sit down and shut up” didn’t work in all situations.

  Soraya looked up from her bandaged hand and threw Lex an almost imperceptible wink.

  Like a goddamned boss.

  “Emiko told us that Jacoby is infected. That he was likely the first to come into contact with this…this thing. She also told us that you,” Shane said, turning to point at Lex, then to the shower door, “and Anna are, too. Is that true? How were the four of you infected? And why haven’t you turned into those…things?” he looked to Emiko for guidance, but she shrunk under his gaze, her arms wrapping tighter around her body.

  Okay, so that answers that question. But exactly how much did she tell them? Strangely, the nurse remained quiet.

  “Emiko would know more about the ‘science’ than the rest of us, but I can tell you that he is not infected with what turned the people on the station into those things. He was…” Soraya paused, waiting to see if Emiko would take over, and when she didn’t, continued. “He was infected with something else.”

  “What does that mean, exactly? ‘Something else’? He’s infected but not sick?” Shane asked, his voice dripping with skepticism.

  “Jacoby cracked a rock, and there was something alive inside. It got in his head and fused itself to his brain. It started working with his body, healing, and improving him. The cells or microbes it produced to help him ended up getting passed on to someone who was sick with the flu bug making its way around the station. The same microbes that strengthened and healed Jacoby attached to the sick people’s cells…the ones also infected with the virus. It mutated their cellular structure into something, well, monstrous. I know it sounds crazy, like some bad horror movie, but that is the truth. You’re going to have to trust us,” Soraya said, again looking to Emiko.

  Come on, girl. They’ll believe you, Lex urged, looking to the nurse as well.

  “I’m not sure I want to see or hear anymore, to be perfectly honest,” Shane said, burying his face in his hands. “All that messed-up shit back there–people getting sick, their bodies falling apart, blood and guts everywhere, was because of something living in a space rock? And a flu bug? I’ve never seen the flu do that to someone. This sounds ridiculous.”

  “You beauties are doing a splendid job. Just keep talking to them, keep telling them the truth, and it will get easier. You can see it, feel it. His guard is coming down. If you can bring him around, perhaps Emiko will gain a little confidence,” Poole said, sharing a rare moment of encouragement.

  “And you two,” Erik said, gesturing from Soraya to Lex, “you two have those same alien rock creatures living in your brains, too? How can you know that it won’t kill you, or eventually turn you into something else?”

  Soraya took a deep, steadying breath. “Not quite–” she started to say.

  “Sexual contact,” Emiko said, her voice barely audible above the air handler’s hum.

  “Yes! See, I told you. She just needed time,” Poole cried.

  “Did you say, ‘sex’?” Lana asked.

  Emiko nodded, swallowing hard. “Jacoby passed the alien organism’s biological byproduct to them through bodily fluids.” The nurse’s voice broke, but gained a fragment of its strength back.

  Shane reacted immediately, looking from Emiko back to Lex, and finally to Soraya. “Jacoby? With you two? And Anna? I thought they were just friends?” He reached up and rubbed his eyes, exhaling loudly.

  “Well, this is awkward!” Poole laughed. “Kind of like finding out your best male friend has been slipping it to your posse of girlfriends and your sister behind your back.”

  “Androstadienone,” Emiko whispered.

  “Sorry, Androsta…?” Shane echoed but couldn’t seem to get the whole word out.

  “It is what flagged his bloodwork in the clinic and why the system sent it to doctor Misra for deeper analysis. Androstadienone is a pheromone. Jacoby’s blood was super-saturated with it, as well as toxic levels of testosterone and stranger yet, a modified version of progesterone, which is linked to the female menstrual and pregnancy cycles. Beyond those chemical imbalances, we identified unusual and unidentifiable marker compounds attached to his red blood cells. Doctor Misra hypothesized that he’d somehow become hypersensitive to other people’s pheromones. But also, he was excreting this specially designed mix himself…one evidently incredibly effective at not only gaining the attention of the opposite sex, but also initiating a strong, almost overpowering sexual drive. Brain scans identified a mass growing on his hypothalamus, with fingers branching to his amygdala, hippocampus, and limbus lobes.”

  “A mass? So, he’s got a brain tumor? I don’t understand,” Shane said.

  “A mass of foreign cells, yes. And although Doctor Reeds initially diagnosed it as a tumor, we discovered that it was not only a foreign body to his brain tissue, but foreign to his physiology altogether.” Emiko’s voice was small, fragile, but in the quiet galley, carried well.

  “So…that thing you were talking about, the ‘overpowering sexual drive’, is that what happened outside the acceleration chamber?” Lana started to ask. “Just standing near him I got lightheaded, and my insides got weird…like warm and tingly. We were just talking and yet my heart was racing in my chest. I didn’t know what was happening.”

  “That isn’t right.
That sounds like rape. No one should be able to do that to someone without their consent,” Shane said.

  “It wasn’t Jacoby doing that,” Soraya cut him off.

  “What does that mean?” Shane asked.

  “You say it isn’t Jacoby doing it, that we’re supposed to believe some lump of alien tissue in his brain is responsible. And yet, we’re supposed to not consider him a threat?” Erik said, cutting in.

  Lex fidgeted with her jumpsuit’s zipper, their tone and the thick, palpable tension in the air putting her on edge. She wanted to slap them on the back of the head and tell them ‘what do you think it means, dummy?’. But they were right. It did sound ludicrous.

  Just stay quiet, Lex. The last thing Soraya needs is you to start a fight.

  “We don’t have a name for it, the alien thing in his head, but Jacoby did seem to maintain control over his body. Although it was altering his bio-chemical makeup, he was still operating on an independent and biological level. It was still Jacoby. The mass Emiko mentioned. You see, to us, it is more of a who than a what. And beyond improving and strengthening us, it wants nothing more than to pass its microbes, its influence, on to other people and bring them into its…network.”

  “Network? The thing in his head is a person?” Shane asked, his face wrinkled up with confusion and doubt.

  “Not a person, an asshole,” Lex blurted, every face in the room swiveling to her as one. It was eerie, no, creepy, like one of those horror movies she watched as a kid where the possessed dolls all moved and acted as one. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Soraya squirmed in her chair similarly. Did she…? Yep, she felt it, too.

  “Asshole?” Lana asked, talking over Erik.

  “If you keep a really open mind, this will eventually make sense. If that is possible,” Lex warned, and then jumped right into it. “The alien organism in his brain only became self-aware when it joined with him. It turns out that it wasn’t meant to function alongside evolved, sentient beings, like humans. Anyway, when it fused into Jacoby’s brain it sort of woke up, and after a while realized that it needed a voice, a way to communicate with him—his host, so it latched onto a fractured part of his psyche…one from when Jacoby was a kid, and his dad would abuse him. That is how it appears to us…like a hardened, sarcastic, and brutally honest version of Jacoby–the one that took over and survived the worst shit. With a little Anna, Soraya, and myself thrown into the mix as well. Basically, he’s an asshole who can tweak and modify people genetically.”

  “He appears to you…” Lana interrupted, “like a real, flesh and blood person? How…? Why…? You have conversations with this…person?” She sputtered for a moment, looking to both Shane and Emiko, before giving up. “Am I the only one that thinks this sounds completely bat-shit crazy? If Jacoby has an alien…thing, growing in his head, and it’s not nice, then maybe we should cut it out. Or, I don’t know, freeze him or at the very least, put him in quarantine.”

  “Oh, Lana-Banana, how I wish I could show you how real I really am. And while we’re on the topic of putting blades to Jacky-Boy’s brain, I’d like to strongly argue in the negative. I’d very much like all of us, me included, to continue living and avoid any unnecessary lobotomies,” Poole said, stopping his absurd dance. He turned to Lex, winked, blew her a kiss, and said, “it’s not ‘flapping my legs and arms’, Red. It’s a dance called the Charleston. It used to be quite in fashion way back in the day. Look it up.” Then he danced off to circle around the others.

  “We call him ‘Poole’,” Soraya said.

  Shane’s brow furrowed. “Poole? It has a name?”

  “That’s what the asshole has us call him. Mr. Poole, actually,” Lex offered.

  Lana snorted loudly. They all turned and looked to her.

  “For fuck’s sake. You mean, like the ‘Mr. Poole’ from the Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde book?”

  Lex looked to Soraya, who shrugged.

  Lana explained. “I own the holo-vid adaptation of the classic book. I’m kind of a junkie for gothic horror stories. Doctor Jekyll is a genius, but he struggles against a darker, alternate personality that goes by the name Mr. Hyde. Poole is the doctor’s butler, and he tries to get him help when he locks himself away in his laboratory.”

  “Ding-ding-ding! We’ve finally got a winner, Johnny. Two hundred points to Lana,” Poole yelled into his hand, after jumping up onto the table. “And what does she win? Well, I’m glad you asked. She’s won the grand prize, the whole enchilada, the big kahuna!”

  “Okay that makes way too much sense,” Lex said, trying not to look at Poole. Down to the name of the freaking station. Shit. It was like the perfect storm.

  “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, Alex. That was Mr. Poole’s curse. If you ask me, he was the hero of the story. So very much like me. Although Jacky-Boy is no genius scientist, the similarities are simply too on the nose to ignore–half Debbie-do-right innocent, and half Darby-do-wrong bad ass. He just didn’t know it until I came along. Yes, I inherited his darker nature. Alas, we work with what we’ve given.”

  “Jacoby is not a threat. He’s just struggling to find a new balance–” Lex said.

  “Balance…?” Shane breathed dramatically. “Split personalities and alien brain creatures? Stop the clock! Can we reset this conversation back to reality, please? J–J–Just bring this whole ship back to the…real…damn…world! That doesn’t explain why…or what happened to those people on the station. I’m sorry but this is too…” Shane blurted, his face having gone pale. He stood and fell over the back of the chair, and before Lex could move forward to help, stormed over to the ladder. “…stuck on a ship with freaking sex maniacs while mindless killers tear each other apart. Fucking nuts. Too fucking nuts,” he muttered between breaths as he disappeared down into the hold.

  Lex looked to Soraya, who sagged into her hands.

  “Well, Alex, I don’t think ole Shane absorbed that well. But look on the bright side, the other three are still here. That’s a seventy-five percent success rate, which is actually better than I expected. I had my money on ‘total rejection resulting in a hand-on-hand blood bath’!” Poole settled next to Emiko, resting his elbow on her shoulder.

  “I told you this would be hard to believe, but it’s the truth,” Lex said, ignoring Poole and turning to Lana and Erik. “He’s as real to us as I am to you. Unfortunately.” Poole scoffed, but she ignored him.

  “He can correct cellular abnormalities, cure diseases, unlock abilities we’d never dreamt of before. And most importantly, he inoculated us against the virus.”

  “Inoculate? Like a vaccine?”

  Lex and Soraya nodded together. Lana and Erik looked at each other and then turned as one to Emiko.

  “Network?” Lana asked next.

  “Yes,” Soraya and Lex said together.

  Jinx. Then Soraya waved her hands back and forth before her, the movement so fast Lex’s eyes could barely track the movement.

  “I always used to be fast, strong. I mean shit, I was a professional athlete. But ever since, I can move faster than I ever thought possible. And it’s because of Poole.”

  Lana laughed, the noise harsh and abrupt. But it wasn’t humor. She turned and left then, walking quickly, as if desperate to get somewhere, or away from them, quickly, without showing it. Poole’s smile faded.

  “Twenty five percent isn’t horrible. I mean it’s not zero.”

  Well, shit.

  0215 Hours

  Everything was dark and cold. Jacoby hovered somewhere over a void, one with no sides or bottom. It felt like…nothing. But eventually he started to feel an energetic charge start to grow inside him. It was small at first, barely noticeable. But it gained strength quickly.

  He gasped, coughed, and sucked in another breath. He sputtered and opened his eyes, a flash of bright light peeling open the darkness around him. He blinked against the glare.

  Something cradled him off the ground. It pressed in tighter. Arms. Hands. His understa
nding of them came back in waves, well before he could make sense of his blurry surroundings and identify Anna’s face. How did that work? He couldn’t feel his body one moment, and in the next, it was there–achy, sore, and horribly empty.

  “Hey, you,” she whispered, reaching up and pulling a damp strand of hair out of her face. Then she squeezed him. Squeezed him so hard his joints popped, and all the air was squashed out of his lungs.

  “Don’t leave me again. Don’t–don’t–don’t…” Anna whispered. Her face was wet, but they weren’t in the shower anymore. He was wet, damp, and naked. She was crying. His hands and feet were so cold his toes and fingers felt numb.

  Jacoby swallowed and took a breath as her grip loosened. The simple act still felt difficult, but it was getting easier. His strength was returning, building like a low fire in his muscles.

  He reached up and ran a finger over her cheek, wiping the tears away. Anna sniffled and squeezed him again. Jacoby groaned from the pressure, but didn’t complain. He could feel her pain, her sadness, and fear. Something was wrong.

  “Can’t…breathe,” he managed to say.

  Anna sniffled, coughed, and promptly released her hold.

  “My god, Coby. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” he wheezed and with Anna’s help, sat up.

  “I’ve been so stupid, Coby. There has been so much I wanted to tell you since we got off station, but I let fear hold me back. And I’m an even bigger ass, because I know there is a ton you wanted to talk to me about. I can feel it, twisting inside you like a knot. But that is it. I only know that it is tearing you up, but not what it is.”