by Ally Blue
The changed doctor fell to the floor, dead. Youssouf stepped around her and entered to the left. The rest of the group fanned out across the med bay bulkheads like they’d been soldiering together forever, weapons live and aimed, gazes scanning for more poor bastards like Ngalo.
“That was Ngalo, right?” Ling edged to the desk and around to the other side. “Shit. Three dead. Eviscerated. And their eyes are gone, what the fuck, man?”
Mo kept his weapon up and his attention on the apparently empty space ahead while Youssouf knelt to check the one Jem had killed. “It’s her, all right. Still got her badge on.” She stood, gun aimed at the ceiling. “I knew this stunk to high heaven. Goddamn it.”
“Mo. Ling. Check the rest of the bay.” Jem jerked her chin toward the half-closed curtains on the other side of the desk. “If there’s survivors, we need to take care of them, one way or another. Understand?”
They nodded in tandem. Mo liked having Ling with him. He knew they were on the same page. They’d both lived through a lot. They didn’t have to discuss it to know who to protect, and who to kill.
As it turned out, that wasn’t an issue. Jem had already shot the only living being left in the med bay. Everyone else was dead—some cleanly, some not so much. Which accounted for the stench of blood Mo had picked up from outside the med bay.
“No survivors,” Ling reported after their sweep. “Looks like one or two might be missing. But there’s nothing alive in here other than us.”
“Missing.” Youssouf turned in a slow circle, studying the floor, the ceiling, the cabinets, every spot that might hide a person. “You checked everywhere?”
“Every possible spot, yeah.” Mo followed her gaze to a small medication refrigerator. “Even that. No one’s there. Not that anybody could hide in there and live.”
She didn’t snap at him, or even give him one of her shut the fuck up looks, which told him how serious their situation must be right now. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’m going down to the engine room. I’ll destroy the cooling system, and let the core go critical. The rest of you, go straight back to the sub. I’ll give you as long as I can, but I can’t promise anything. You’ll need to be quick. Make for the mainland. BathyTech has a research installation in Chile. You know the place, Jem?”
To Mo’s surprise, she nodded. “I know it.”
“Good. Report everything that’s happened to BathyTech central command while you’re on the sub, then head straight for the research installation. Command’ll get the Chilean government involved, if necessary.”
Mo watched her with an unexpectedly strong pang of sadness. “What about you?”
“I’ll make for the lifeboats.” Youssouf gave him a crooked smile. “If I get to ’em in time, maybe I’ll see you in the mountains.”
“I’m bringing up guide lights to the engine room.” Jem did something at one of the computer terminals. “Hope you like blue.”
“Right now, blue’s my favorite color.” Youssouf crossed to the hatch. Mo covered her while she opened it. The passageway outside was as silent and empty as before. Youssouf stepped through. The others followed. “If there’s a problem with the sub, com me. I’ll com you if I think there’s anything you need to know urgently. Use text codes, not voices. Otherwise, it’s complete radio silence. Got it?”
“Got it.” Jem shut the hatch. “Be careful.”
“You too.” Youssouf positioned her weapon and strode along the passage, following the blue lights.
Mo turned and followed Jem back the way they’d come. They’d traveled a couple of eerily silent passageways and slid down one dark ladder before Mo realized that none of them had even questioned the idea of destroying a ship full of people without regard to who was changed and who wasn’t. He wondered what that said about him. About all of them.
As they descended the second ladder from dimness into near-blackness, the skin pebbled on the back of Mo’s neck. He swept up his weapon, searching for a target.
He didn’t need to speak. Jem and Ling, evidently feeling the same gut-level warning he did, had their weapons up. The three of them stood back to back to back, peering into the dark. Waiting.
Mo felt the attackers coming before he saw them. A wave of destructive purpose slammed into his mind with tsunami force. He staggered, shook himself, and recovered in time to shoot the first shining-eyed, white-skinned, needle-toothed face that emerged from the gloom. It splattered red and gray on the walls and floor. The body—male, wearing an engineer’s uniform—collapsed.
More followed, snarling with their viperfish teeth, grasping for Mo, Jem, and Ling with long, thin, jointless fingers as flexible as tentacles. Their eyes glowed blue, purple, and black. Mo fired again and again and again, along with Jem and Ling.
For a little while, the passageway rang with weapons fire. Then the changed finally stopped coming, and the quiet seemed deeper than before.
Jem counted the bodies sprawled in a soup of blood, brains, and bits of skull. “Seventeen. Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Yeah, well, these creeps’re no match for a good piece.” Ling patted her Triton.
Mo had his doubts about that. Sure, they died when you shot them. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that these guys hadn’t been trying to kill them. Not that he was anxious to find out what would’ve been done to them if they’d been caught.
Jem cast an anxious glance around them. “We need to get going. All the gunfire’s bound to draw more of those fuckers.”
She didn’t need to argue her case. The three of them moved out.
They ran into two more groups of the changed—five and three—before reaching the sub bay. Just like the first group, the smaller ones seemed intent on catching them rather than killing them. Neither succeeded, though one of the group of five managed to nip Ling’s arm before he died.
“Why weren’t they trying to kill us?” Ling wondered as they approached the sub bay. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“None of this shit makes any sense. Stop trying to understand it and just deal with what comes up.” Jem stopped at the end of the passageway and peered into the bay. “Oh. Fuck.”
Mo’s pulse shot up. He sidled up next to Jem and leaned over to look.
His stomach dropped into his feet. Bodies lay scattered over the sub bay floor, some ripped open, others slashed neatly across the throat. Blood splattered the floor, the walls, even the ceiling.
The sub was gone.
Mo heard Jem talking. Giving orders. Laying out a plan for dealing with this latest disaster.
He ignored her and strode into the bay, his weapon ready to fire at anything alive that wasn’t one of their people. “Armin? Where are you?”
He picked his way through the dead without looking at their faces. His heart thudded fast enough to make him sick. Fuck Jem’s plans. He’d just appointed himself the finder of survivors.
“Armin!” he called again, louder this time. “Answer me!” He crossed the bay. Aimed his piece at a locker and opened it. Moved on when he found only dive gear. “Armin, damn it—”
“Mr. Rees, over here.”
Dr. Jhut’s voice hit him like a million volts. He whirled and jogged to a passageway on the other side, where she stood outlined in feverish-orange light. “Jem! Dr. Jhut’s alive. Over here.”
She gave him a thumbs-up and tapped on her wrist com. Mo hoped she was messaging Youssouf.
He reached Dr. Jhut and looked around. “Are you okay? Where’s Armin?”
“I’m fine. Just a bit bruised. Armin’s in there.” She gestured to a vent in the bulkhead. “He and I were hiding there with a few others. There aren’t many of us left. They took most of our people, and killed the rest.”
Mo wanted to shout with relief that Armin was safe. But it seemed they all had bigger things to worry about. “Who did?”
“Changed people. I assume they were ship’s crew, once. But they were far gone.” She rubbed her arms. The horror of what had happened was etched into the new lines i
n her face. “They broke into the sub. Literally knocked the hatch loose. It landed on Rashmi and killed him.”
“Oh damn.” That hurt. Rashmi had been a good miner, a good friend, and a good person. He hadn’t deserved to die that way, squashed like a fucking bug.
“I know. I’m sorry.” She touched his arm in sympathy. “After that, they herded some of us out into the bay and started killing. Armin was kept in the sub, but he rushed out, grabbed me and the man next to me, and simply ran for it. I don’t think they expected it, honestly, because there was sheer pandemonium for a while. Several others were able to escape from the sub and from the ranks of those they were attempting to kill. Once it became apparent that we couldn’t rescue anyone else, we hid in the ventilation duct. I suppose they weren’t keen on trying to reclaim any of us because they simply shot the ones they wanted dead, dragged the others into the sub, and left.”
Ling aimed a fierce glare at the slice of empty ocean visible through the open bay doors, as if she could bring back their people with the power of her mind. “What the hell do they want with the sub?”
Dr. Jhut shook her head. “I have no idea. But I couldn’t help noticing that the ones they killed or attempted to kill were all uninfected, and the ones they took all had the growths.”
They kept Armin in the sub. He’s only safe now because he ran. The nearness of Armin’s escape made Mo weak in the knees. He knew he should feel worse about so many others being taken or killed, but all he could think was, Thank God Armin’s safe. He didn’t like where his mind went when he thought about why the changed would want to take only those who had the growths.
Jem walked up, her weapon aimed at the ceiling and her gaze roaming. “Okay, Youssouf’s sabotaging the cooling system now. She’s gonna try to meet us at the lifeboats, but she said don’t wait for her under any circumstances. She doesn’t want anybody still here when the ship blows.” She leaned down to squint into the vent shaft. “C’mon out, folks. We all have to take a walk now.”
A few scared, dirty, blood-spotted refugees crawled out of the vent shaft. Dr. Jhut soothed them and helped Jem gather them into an easily defensible huddle. Mo frowned. Where was Armin?
He emerged after the others and stood studying them as if they were a separate breed. Worried, Mo touched his dust-smeared cheek. “Hey. You okay?” He took Armin’s elbow and got him moving when Jem gave him the stink eye.
Armin looked startled, as if he hadn’t seen Mo approach. He let Mo lead him like a child. “Oh. Yes, I’m fine.” His eyes widened, finally focusing on Mo. “My God, what happened? Are you hurt?”
“Not even a little. But you should see the other guys.” Mo grinned.
Armin stared, obviously not finding Mo’s lame little joke at all funny. “They were going to take me.”
He said it like he was discussing a new breed of bacteria, not his own attempted kidnapping. That worried Mo a lot. Once a person checked out emotionally, their risk of checking out physically went way up. Mo had seen it happen more than once. He didn’t want it to happen to Armin.
Luckily, Jem let him get away with acting as rear guard so he could keep an eye on Armin. Ling walked the middle, while Jem took point. Dr. Jhut worked her way through the ranks as they went, easing everyone’s fears as much as possible, keeping them moving along and especially keeping them quiet. Mo wasn’t convinced silence would help them any, but it couldn’t hurt. At least they’d be able to hear any potential attackers coming. He hoped.
Dr. Jhut also dropped back every few minutes to check on Armin, for which Mo was grateful. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with Armin, but something was definitely not right. And the more Mo watched him, the more it became clear—to Mo, at least—that this was no simple posttraumatic reaction. It was something else. Something deeper. More sinister. Meaning Mo wasn’t letting Armin out of his sight for one minute until he figured out what was broken, and fixed it.
As their group neared the lifeboats, the changed rushed them from side passageways in ones and twos. Jem, Ling, and Mo shot them without any trouble. To Mo, the whole thing felt like a performance. Like the changed were attacking this time not to capture or kill, but because it was expected.
“I don’t like it.” He filed on deck behind Armin and Dr. Jhut. “What’ve they got up their sleeves?”
Dr. Jhut pursed her lips. “Perhaps they already have what they wanted and they were simply doing what they could to keep us from escaping.”
“Yeah, well, they did a piss-poor job of it.” Mo turned to face the passageway they’d just exited while Jem and Ling helped the refugees into one of the lifeboats. “They had to know that if they hit us one or two at a time, they’d just get killed. So what the fuck?”
“They have plans.” Armin’s voice was soft and slow, with a singsongy rhythm that raised goose bumps up and down Mo’s arms. “You can’t stop them. But they don’t want you. Not yet.”
What he said made Mo feel cold all over. Not because Armin sounded unhinged, but because, for reasons Mo couldn’t pinpoint, he didn’t. His words rang true.
Mo helped Dr. Jhut into the boat, then Armin. He glanced around the deck before climbing in himself. “I don’t see Youssouf anywhere. Jem? Have you heard from her?”
Jem shook her head. “Haven’t heard, haven’t seen any sign of her.” Her fingers clenched her piece and released, clenched and released, so hard her knuckles paled each time. “I commed her just now. Sent her the radio silence code for mission accomplished. She didn’t answer.”
So that was that, then. Dr. Youssouf’s life had ended here, on a dead ship, saving her people from something none of them really understood. He wanted to scream for everyone they’d lost, for the unfairness of it all. He wanted to find those half-human fuckers and tear them all apart with his bare hands. But he couldn’t. All he could do was run, protect what was left of the BT3 crew, and hope he lived to take revenge one day.
With everyone on board, Youssouf likely dead, and the ship’s engine hopefully on a course for nuclear meltdown soon, there was nothing to do but leave. Jem ordered everyone to secure themselves, Ling unlocked the boat, and it fell into the ocean with a bone-rattling thump.
Ling took the helm and set a course for the coordinates Jem gave her on the South American coast. Mo had never been to BathyTech’s rumored research facility in the wilds of Chile’s coastal mountains, but he was relieved to be going there. Isolated—and preferably heavily guarded—was exactly what they needed.
They’d been riding the heavy Pacific swell for nearly two hours when a whump almost below the range of hearing hit Mo’s eardrums. Several minutes later, their lifeboat rose on a tremendous wave. Then another, and another.
No one said anything, but they knew it meant Youssouf had succeeded in her mission and the Peregrine was gone, along with anyone left on board.
The boat’s small population seemed to take a collective breath. Mo saw the same thought in every suddenly hopeful face—It’s over. Nothing left to hurt us now. All around him, the handful of survivors from BathyTech 3 settled down to rest.
Because he hadn’t shaken the sense of something lurking around a corner, he sat with his Triton across his knees and guarded Armin’s restless sleep.
In Armin’s dreams, he cut through the deepest, coldest water as if it were a warm summer afternoon. The tarry blackness became a universe of gauzy watercolor, blues and purples and softest grays. He swam, his body sleek and powerful, his eyes finding each particle of light with marvelous efficiency. He snagged an octopus with his teeth. Its intelligence exploded into his mind as its sweet, rich blood poured down his throat. God, how had he never known this before?
You can have this for always. This, and so much more. More than you ever imagined. Soon now. We’re coming for you, Armin. We’re coming.
Ahead, a crack opened in the seafloor. Shadow poured out like a negative of sunlight. It called to Armin with a promise of knowledge—dark things, hidden things, all the answers to all the questions ma
nkind had feared to ask since the beginning of time. Armin swam toward it. To dive into it, give himself to it, learn all that he’d never realized he needed to know.
He was close now, close enough to look into the void and see . . .
The world shook, the darkness of knowledge vanished, and he was back in his human body, sitting on a utilitarian bench, blinking in the blue-tinted dimness of the Peregrine’s lifeboat. Confusion gave way to a curious blend of disappointment and profound relief.
He looked up at Mo, who stood beside him with weapon drawn, his entire body tight and alert. “Mo? What’s happening?”
“Kevin Bhagat just went batshit and jumped overboard.” Mo glanced sideways at Armin with wide eyes full of the fire and steel Armin so admired. “He was changing. I saw it. We all did.”
The I know you know what’s happening, now tell me remained unvoiced, but Armin heard it nonetheless. Smiling, he stroked the hard, graceful line of Mo’s thigh. “I’m going to miss you.”
The considerable force of Mo’s full attention zeroed in on Armin. Dropping his weapon, Mo sat beside Armin and grasped his shoulders. “No, you’re not. Because I’m going to be right here with you. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not letting you out of my sight.” His eyes narrowed, his keen gaze drilling through flesh and bone into Armin’s core. “Whatever you think they’re gonna do to you, they’re not. I won’t let them.”
My hero. Armin wanted to laugh at himself, but his heart hurt too much.
Across the boat, a woman screamed. Everyone scrambled over one another to get away from the other woman—only a girl, really, she couldn’t have been older than twenty-two—suddenly lunging at everyone in sight. Her long, waving fingers and shining cobalt eyes told the tale. Jem put a bullet in her head.
Armin felt his fate approaching. Too fast, too fast.
His pulse hammering in his ears, he splayed his hands on Mo’s cheeks and captured his mouth in a kiss that said everything he hadn’t put into words and now never would, because he was out of time.