Pitch Dark

by Courtney Alameda

  “He attacked me after you left the room,” I say, keeping an arrow trained on the man. “Do you think he’s the one we saw in—”

  The man collapses. When his head hits the floor, his helmet bounces off and rolls toward me. I stop it beneath one foot, like a soccer ball, and lower my bow, pointing the arrowhead at the ground.

  The man seizes for a few seconds, his bald head exposing a network of blackened veins along his cranium and face. The same dark veins thread across his sallow, scarred skin. Frothy saliva bubbles over his mouth as if he’s gone rabid. A white film covers his eyes.

  “Is he dead?” I whisper.

  Tuck takes a knee beside the man, pressing two fingers into his throat. “Dead and gone. See these veins?” Tuck asks, pointing to the spidery network inching under the man’s skin. “Looks like he poisoned himself. Not a pretty way to go.”

  “Do you know him?”

  Tuck shakes his head. “But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this symbol,” he says, tapping the ouroboros snake with his index finger.

  “It’s the insignia for Pitch Dark,” I say. “Well, more accurately, one they appropriated from ancient civilizations.”

  “You’re shitting me?” Tuck looks up at me, gauging my face to see if I’m toying with him. When he sees my stony expression, he swears. Hard. “I just took some skin off a guy tattooed with this insignia earlier. I’ve seen it all over the Muir.”

  “Which means your ship’s been harboring terrorists from the beginning,” I say, putting my arrow back in its quiver.

  “We know someone else survived—we just don’t know who. Supplies go missing. Trams crash mysteriously. Hell, let’s blame the gum shortage on them, too.” He kicks the guy in the arm as he stands up. “Thanks a lot, asshole.”

  “You should know this same insignia appeared on the Conquistador’s screens, right before we crashed,” I say, omitting the greater part of the story, at least for now. “I told you a hacker compromised our navigational systems with the intention to destroy the John Muir.”

  “Well, I guess there’s one less bastard to worry about now,” Tuck says after a moment. “Hasta la vista, baby.”

  He rises, jangling a set of rust-splattered keys at me. “Forget him, let’s get the power back on and get out of here.”

  With once last glance back at my attacker, I follow Tuck into core room A. The six hexagonal-shaped, core-monitoring windows spread throughout the room, their faces opaque. Dark.

  “Once the ship’s power grid comes back online, I’ll be able to communicate with the other curators,” he says, handing me one of the keys. The small piece of metal—browned and dulled with age—seems too small and light to be of any significance. “They need to know about the crash, and someone needs to find the rest of your people.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” I ask.

  He taps his right temple. “Everyone onboard had a coglink chip implanted in their brains before takeoff. We use them to chat telepathically.”

  “You have a computer chip in your brain?” I ask, jaw dropping. “Weren’t your people afraid someone would hack into these coglinks?”

  “Yeah, like who, E.T.? There aren’t any hackers out here.”

  A hacker was responsible for jettisoning your ship, I think. And for crashing mine.

  Tuck motions me over to one of the reboot boxes in the room. As I cross to him, I catch my reflection in the blackened observation windows. Cast in the flare’s green light, I look like a ghost. As the glare rolls over the glass, small white worms shrink away on the other side, disappearing into the shadows. Squinting my eyes, I approach the window, realizing a festering growth covers the opposite side of the glass.

  “We need to hurry,” Tuck says, standing beside the reboot box and holding his flare high. In the windows on either side of him, oily masses throb behind the glass. A heavy thud resounds through one of the windows, and Tuck steps back, swearing under his breath.

  “Tuck?” I ask, my voice quavering.

  “Take the other box,” he says, pointing to an identical reboot panel about five meters away. With another glance at the windows, I cross the room, slide my key into the lock, and glance at him over my shoulder.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Three, two, one.” His lock clicks.

  My key won’t budge. Its metal edges bite into my fingers as I struggle to rotate it in the lock. “I think it’s stuck,” I say. “Rusted, maybe.” We switch places. Tuck tries turning my key with his hand. Failing that, he fetches the wrench from the other room. I admit it’s a little validating to watch him fail, too.

  “Not now,” he says to the lock, glancing over his shoulder. I follow his line of sight, examining the windows in turn. Perhaps I’m still haunted from the surprise attack, but some old instinct tells me we’re being watched.

  Tuck steps back from the panel, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “If I’m not careful, I’m going to snap the key in half.”

  “So what do we do?” I ask, thinking, This is why analog keys fell out of use.

  He kneels, rifling through his bag. “We need some WD-40 in there,” he says. “Some lubricant to, uh, reduce friction…”

  As he talks, the fester convulses in the window above the room’s control panel, shuddering like a rotted version of the tías’ multicolored gelatins. The sight makes my stomach feel as if it’s been turned upside down. If I’d eaten anything more than a chalky energy bar today, I might have vomited.

  “Where is it…?” Tuck asks, still digging through his bag, his reflection visible in the glass. “Dammit, I could’ve sworn I had some—”

  Something thuds behind the window. “Tuck?” I whisper.

  “Hang on,” he says, not bothering to look up.

  Pinpricks of light appear in the fester. I step closer, cocking my head. Then something cleaves through the muck, its claws screeching against the glass.

  Tuck leaps to his feet, the big vein in his throat throbbing, jaw clenching. “No time for lube, we gotta go,” he says, taking hold of the wrench.

  “What is that thing?” I ask, backing across the room.

  “There’s more than one kind of mourner,” Tuck says. “And the worst ones grow out of the fester—”

  A growl crawls into the room, making the windows around us shiver. I remember how the mourner on the Conquistador turned a floatglass case into a veritable dirty bomb.

  I don’t want to be in the room when this monster screams.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I say.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

  “That’s Capitana Obvious to you!” I race to the reboot panel, gripping Tuck’s key. Adrenaline slicks my hands with sweat and makes my heart beat hard.

  “Turn the keys in sync. One, two, three—” Tuck grunts as he tries to get the key to budge. The metal inside the panel groans as the key moves a few degrees, and I turn mine to the same angle.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” he says to the stuck key, glancing over his shoulder as another growl rolls through the room. “Ah, crap.”

  “Shut up and turn your key!” I half shriek, my pulse pounding in my fingertips.

  He swears as he puts his back into turning the wrench, winning another fifteen degrees or so, putting our keys at the halfway mark. “Almost there,” he says, switching up his grip on the wrench handle.

  The monster slams its forehead into the glass, startling me. Long, silvery cracks spread out like wings, glittering in the light. It cocks its head and growls again. The glass tremors, the cracks spreading to the window’s edges.

  “Now!” Tuck puts all his weight on the wrench, forcing the key to turn farther.

  I copy his angle until our keys click home. Tuck races to the control board, flips two switches, and the six cores around us rumble like scramengines, their whine drowning out all other sound. The HVAC coughs a mouthful of dust into the room. The lights flicker, die, and then burst into full brilliance as the
floor bucks and quakes.

  “Let’s go!” I shout, sprinting to the threshold of the room before I realize Tuck isn’t following me. I catch myself on the door, looking back.

  I almost wish I hadn’t.

  Behind me, only the silhouette of some massive beast is visible through the fester-covered glass: the creature stands on two legs, but that’s where its similarities to a human being end. As the monster steps up to the window, something slithers away from its back—a hundred long, thick tentacles unfurl like diabolical wings, writhing as if they each have a mind of their own.

  Tuck kneels on the ground by the control board, holding his head.

  Mouth open in a silent scream.

  USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

  AUXILIARY POWER ROOMS, AKA “THE HIVE”

  TUCK

  In another breath, I’m under siege. Voices scream through my head. My HUD flashes back on. Glitching up. A thousand distorted shapes flare across my lens, stabbing laser lights straight into my cornea.

  “Tuck! Do you read? Are you okay?” Aren shouts through the coglinks.

  A chorus of twenty curators calls my name. Their questions hit my brain like bullets:

  “What’s going on?”

  “Where’s Holly?!”

  “I don’t sense any consciousnesses out there but yours, Tuck!”

  “How did you get the power back on?”

  “What did you do to the girl?”

  Everything hits like a jackhammer. The physical agony, the guilt. I cradle my forehead in my palms, hunching over. Individual coglinks weren’t built to handle this much traffic. A thin line of blood drips out of my left nostril. I tap the outside of my right eye with a thumb. Frantic. My HUD won’t shut down.

  “Shut up, all of you!” Aren shouts over the noise. “You’re overloading his circuits!”

  The voices in my head snap off. The ship, on the other hand, screams, pops, and quakes. Though it sounds like the world’s about to end, I think we just saved the day.

  A hand alights on my shoulder. Laura kneels next to me. A strange blue light erupts from the crystal-like objects in the backs of her wrists. “Tuck?” she whispers, taking hold of my biceps and looking up at the glass window.

  That’s right. Griefer. Focus, man.

  Don’t let her end up like Holly.

  Not again.

  Never again.

  “What’s wrong?” Laura whispers.

  “Coglinks,” I gasp. “Too much, too…”

  “Ándale, get up. We need to go.”

  I lift my head. The griefer slams itself against the glass again, the motion disjointed. Inhuman. In all my time on the John Muir, I’ve never managed to gank one of these assholes. Got close, once. Let’s just say it involved rocket propulsion, an old stuffed teddy bear, and zero gravity. I’ll let your imagination take care of the rest.

  Laura’s nails dig into my arm. The griefer’s chest expands, the tips of its rib bones poking out through its flesh like teeth. Taking in air to power a scream.

  “I will answer your questions,” Dejah says to the rest of the crew. “Tuck is currently code yellow and cannot assist any of you.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year!” I grab Laura by the arm and sprint for the core room door, tapping the touchlock and shoving her through the door when its panels slide open. We both scramble out of the room, tripping over each other and landing in a tangle in the hallway. I prop myself over her, shielding her with my back.

  The griefer screams. World-cracking. Glass-shattering. Eardrum-breaking. Laura claps her hands over her ears. Echoes hit the ground in front of us, denting the metal floor like ricochets in an old shoot-’em-up movie.

  The griefer leaps into the core room, thumping on the floor and sliding into view. It vaults toward the doorjamb, tentacles wrapping around the edges.

  Launching myself off the floor, I slam the edge of my fist against the touchlock. The door’s ocular panels slam shut. Meaty bits of tentacle thud on the floor near my feet. I kick one away, then tear open the touchlock’s control panel. Sparks explode and glitter around my hand as I rip out a handful of wires.

  On a scale of one to ball shriveling, griefers are a puss-out.

  You don’t fight them.

  You run.

  The bastard slams himself against the door. The ocular panels part a few centimeters, but hold.

  “Screw this, six cores will be enough. Hasta la vista, baby,” I say, putting a hand on Laura’s back and shoving her toward the deepdown tunnels.

  As we run down the octagonal path between core rooms, the ceiling thumps. A crack appears overhead, spreading like a slow-motion lightning bolt. Dust tumbles down. Wonderful, he’s found a way into the maintenance ducts. One lone tentacle slides out, curling, suckers undulating. Laura ducks beneath it, eyeing it as if she expects it to grab her by the neck. When she looks back at me, I put a finger to my lips. So long as we keep it quiet, we might be able to slip away from the bastard before he finds his way out of the ducts.

  “First,” Dejah says, “the starship Conquistador crashed into the USS John Muir at approximately 0230 hours this morning—”

  Another burst of excited voices slams into my temple. “Shut. Up!” I snap at them all, massaging one of my temples as we reach the antechamber’s blast door. I tap the touchlock.

  The doors slide open.

  A small pod of mourners turns toward us, hissing as they gulp down air.

  How did they get in here?! And then I see the crank left in the tunnel-side door panels.

  Our little EVA-suited terrorist friend forgot to lock up behind himself. Damn him!

  Laura catches her gasp behind her hand, stepping back from the door. Behind us, the griefer roars from inside one of the other core rooms. A whump rocks the floor underfoot.

  We both glance back.

  Trapped.

  In one fluid motion, Laura takes her bow off her back. Nocking an arrow, she fires at the far wall. The arrow shatters with a loud crack! The pieces rattle on the floor. All the mourners turn toward the sound with a growl. Laura sidesteps across the antechamber, heading for the door, firing arrow after arrow. Distracting the mourners.

  Okay, I have to admit—the girl’s fragging brilliant at this.

  I follow her across the room and tap the touchlock, knowing the noise from the door will draw their attention. And it does. As the panels slide open, the terrorist’s door crank clatters to the ground. Mourners spin with a snarl, their lips pulling away from their teeth.

  Pushing Laura through the door, I smash my fist against the touchlock again, hard enough to break the dial and trap the mourners inside. Sparks pop. Crackle. My teeth buzz from the shock. The door panels begin to close. I leap through the narrow gap in the panels and roll, landing on the ground next to Laura. The broken lock will force the griefer to ram through the door. I hope.

  I’ve bought us minutes. The doors to the Hive aren’t flimsy like the ones sealing off the core rooms—it’ll take the bastard longer to break through.

  “Run!” I whisper to Laura. She strings her bow back over her chest. Launching myself off the floor, I sprint down the hall, and I hear her take off after me.

  The maglev station’s about three klicks aft. The ship’s lights sputter overhead now, which means we have no need for flares. Just speed. The griefer will outpace both of us, once it’s through those doors.

  We run. Fast and hard, until the floor turns cold as ice underfoot. Laura breathes too loudly but keeps up. Every passing second winds me tighter. My HUD’s back up, too, red numbers dancing across my vision. Blinking, I center the HUD lens back over my right eye. It shows the pressure in the tunnel (too low); the oxygen quality (deteriorating); the temperature (dropping).

  In short, we’re screwed.

  “There are human survivors from the crew of the Conquistador now aboard the John Muir,” Dejah continues. “I am in the process of downloading their ship’s logs and examining them. At first glance, the crew’s miss
ion seems to be of an exploratory or archeological endeavor.”

  “Can confirm,” I say as I run. “I ran into one of their crew members after the crash.”

  “He with you?” Aren asks.

  “She,” I say. “And yes. We’re heading toward the trams now. Dejah, can you seal off the bulkheads around the worst of the damage? We’re losing too much pressure.”

  “Initiating bulkhead closure now,” Dejah says. “I have a position for the Conquistador’s crew in the deepdowns—Aren, they are within two klicks of your current location.”

  “Roger that.” I count the tunnel’s ribs. We’ve passed ten intersections. One klick isn’t enough space between us and a death punch.

  “Tuck,” Aren says. “What happened to Holly?”

  No way to run away from that question. I’m not sure how to answer it, either, or how honest I’m required to be. I don’t think I’ll tell anyone what happened after the crash.

  Ever.

  After I pass a few more ribs, Aren asks, “Tuck?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I really am. “She didn’t survive the crash. The tunnels collapsed, and…” I don’t dare upload the vidfeed of her last few moments before the crash to everyone’s coglinks. Nobody else needs to see that girl suffering.

  “Everyone, observe a full minute of silence on the coglinks in her memory,” Aren says. “That includes you, Dejah. Holly was beloved of our crew and will be much missed by all.”

  No argument here.

  A few minutes pass. Talk resumes on the coglinks. I tune it out, the memories of Holly’s death chasing me down the tunnel. I can’t focus on anything but putting one foot in front of the other.

  It’s not long before the tunnel straightens out. The tram station’s bulkhead drops into view. I’m relieved.

  No doubt that’ll be short-lived.

  The Muir’s aft tram station is massive, stretching across five platforms with a variety of vehicles capable of traveling by rail. The interior’s raw gray metal. Round train tubes open their giant maws, their propellant rings bleating with blue and green light. The tracks lie dead. Silent. So quiet, I can hear the air throb with a faraway roar. Mourner calls, too.