“Captain, you aren’t seriously saying you believe her, do you?” Hodges asked.
“Hodges, McNeil, I want both of you to go back down,” Bernhard said.
The two of them stared at Bernhard for a long moment. With each second that ticked by, the silence in the huge room became more and more oppressive.
Then both Hodges and McNeil spit at him.
Chapter Fourteen
Bernhard was prepared for the attack this time. He easily ducked both worm spitballs, then used slammed the butt of his rifle into Hodges’s stomach. He hit with enough force that the man, if he could still be called that anymore, staggered back and hit the railing. Bernhard pressed his advantage and smacked Hodges directly under the chin, causing him to lose what little balance he had left and tumble over the railing. Bernhard didn’t have time to look over the side and see whether or not the two-story fall had killed him or not. McNeil had run back down the catwalk just far enough to be out of Bernhard’s immediate reach, then turned around, aimed, and fired at him. Bernhard ran right down the catwalk toward the central pillar, putting it between him and McNeil. From below him, he could hear gunfire erupting. Bernhard looked over the edge of the catwalk to see Chow putting a bullet into Hodges as he tried to crawl away, while Zersky concentrated his fire on something Bernhard couldn’t see at the far side of the room. The three scientists were shooting – badly – in that direction as well, making Bernhard suspect that was where the two masses of Nerve worms had fallen to the floor and come to a rest. Above him, there were more shouts and sounds of a fight, but from his current vantage point, he couldn’t get a clear view of whatever was happening. Someone grunted, someone else screamed, and then Yeow dropped backwards from the catwalk. Apparently, Hodges and McNeil weren’t the only ones who were part of the Nerve. Bernhard couldn’t take a moment to assess what was going on overhead, though. He had to deal with McNeil.
Bullets hit the pillar as Bernhard hid behind it, although just like in the room earlier, they didn’t ricochet. Someone fired at McNeil from above, forcing him to back up onto one of the stairwells and use it for partial cover. That gave Bernhard the chance to peek around the side and line up a shot of his own. It missed, but he could clearly hear McNeil when he spoke. In fact, it wasn’t just McNeil speaking, but also Ngai from above as well as the voices of Sorensen, Stroebel, Hatch, and Pai from below, two each coming from beyond both of the doors below. All of the infected members of the team were here, and all of them spoke at once with the words of the Nerve.
“Trying to resist this is foolish,” the Nerve said, their voices echoing throughout the entire room. “Even if you stop me here, I still have worms all over the ship. And if I don’t destroy you, then the Cortex will as soon as they wake up.”
“But the Cortex can’t wake up!” Bernhard said. “Aren’t the signals from Earth blocking the hive mind from communicating with the soldiers on the Visitor?”
“Houston was right, Bernhard,” the Nerve said. “The Visitor does indeed have a Heart. And while I’ve been working on my duty of exterminating the intruders, the Heart has been fulfilling its own duty. In a short period of time, the Heart will succeed and wake the Cortex. And once that happens, your civilization will join all those others you witnessed in the Trophy Room. All that will remain is to teleport a few of your buildings and weapons in there, and the Visitor will go on to its next world to wipe clean.”
Bernhard would have asked the Nerve what the hell it was talking about, but the gunfire started up again. There was a splash of blood from one of the upper catwalks.
“Bernhard!” Teng called down. “We’ve got Ngai. Let us hold down McNeil, and you find another way down to help Zersky and Chow.”
Bernhard called back an affirmative, then took stock of his surroundings. He was too far up to simply jump off the catwalk without serious injury to himself, and McNeil was holding the stairs where he had come up. But from here at the center pillar, he could make his way around the catwalks to some of the stairs that the other two groups had used. Looking over the side again, he saw that, while Stroebel and Hatch were being held back at one door, Pai had managed to get into the room far enough to grab the gun of one of the fallen soldiers. He was laying down enough suppressing fire that Chow, Zersky, and the scientists were starting to back themselves into a corner, which only left more room for Sorensen to get in behind Pai in an attempt to get his own rifle. Bernhard fired a burst in their direction, hitting Sorensen multiple times in the chest. Although he flew back and hit the ground, Sorensen looked like he was still trying to stand back up. Bernhard tried again, this time aiming for Sorensen’s head. This time, the body that had up until recently been a United States Army Ranger did not get back up.
Bernhard rushed on down a flight of stairs, then found a position on the catwalks that gave him the opportunity to cover those on the ground. Zersky managed to get a shot off through the door that took out Hatch. For a second, all firing in the room stopped, leaving a moment of silence that the Nerve soon decided to fill up.
“My surprise advantage has diminished, it would seem,” the Nerve said through its remaining mouths in Pai, McNeil, and Stroebel. “I suspected that was possible, so I set up a contingency. If you let these three bodies go, I will tell you the location of the thermonuclear bomb that you happened to misplace.”
No one spoke as Bernhard considered this proposition. It wouldn’t take much more of a fight for them to remove the former Pai, McNeil, and Stroebel from this equation, but knowledge of the bomb’s location could be important. However, something didn’t seem right about the proposal. It was too easy. He hadn’t seen anything yet to disprove the Nerve’s claim that it wouldn’t lie once exposed, but it had shown that it could still keep secrets. He went over the words the Nerve had just said to them, looking for whatever loophole the alien organism had left for itself. Given that its sole purpose was to destroy them while protecting the Cortex, it didn’t make any sense for it to give the bomb back to them. That could only mean that, once it told them where to find the bomb, it would either be in a location that they couldn’t reach, or else it had something else planned that would prevent them from getting there. In fact, it seemed likely that the Nerve might even have a backup plan for keeping them from even leaving this room.
“Teng?” Bernhard called up. “Can you hear me?”
“I can.”
“How close are you to Dufresne?”
“I have eyes on her now. She’s still one story up from our current position.”
“Secure her first, then maybe we’ll negotiate with the Nerve.” Not that he planned to actually do that, but he wanted to buy some time to figure out what the Nerve was up to. Even though the Nerve had had three moles still hiding within their group, this hadn’t been the most advantageous of places to make a stand against them. The Nerve would have been better suited waiting until it could infect a few more of them with worms.
Unless, of course, that was exactly what it had planned to do here. Bernhard slowly looked up at the ceiling far overhead. Somewhere in the shadows, he thought he could see something moving.
“They’re on the ceiling!” Bernhard yelled. “Everyone take cover!” Just as he finished saying it, worms started to rain down from above.
Bernhard took a position directly underneath one of the catwalks, already realizing the irony of having to do exactly the opposite of he’d warned everyone else against when they’d entered the room. His position didn’t allow him to see what might be happening to the groups still above him, but below, he had no choice but to watch as both Chow and Li failed to get out of the way of the worms in time. Chow made a good show of fighting off the worm currently wrapped around his neck, but Li wasn’t so lucky. She batted away at the creature, screaming all the while, which only gave the worm a nice open orifice to aim for. With a speed that shouldn’t have been possible for something like the worm, it threw itself into her mouth. It appeared to angle itself upward for the back of her soft palette,
and for a moment, Bernhard could see the absolute terror and pain as the tiny monster burrowed up into her brain. Then, as the last portion of the worm pulled itself in and disappeared within her, Li’s eyes glazed over, soon to be replaced with the same blank look Bernhard had seen on Stroebel’s face during the interrogation.
Bernhard only had a moment to line up his shot, but his angle on Li was good. His bullets blew open the back of her head, destroying the worm inside before it had even had a chance to fully assume control. Bernhard could only hope that the poor woman hadn’t spent long being aware that everything unique about her was being devoured from the inside out.
Chow managed to wrestle his own worm away, throwing it aside only for a second one to land on him and immediately force itself into his ear. Before Bernhard could try taking him out, Johnson turned around and shot him from only a few feet away. The bullets ripped apart the man’s chest and throat before the worm had even completely burrowed itself into Chow’s brain, and for one almost comical moment, it looked like the worm was trying to change its mind and back out. Zersky turned on him and fired directly into the ear, finishing the job Johnson had started.
For half a minute, Bernhard became distracted by the worms crawling along the catwalks as he systematically exterminated every single one he could find. Then, when his path appeared to be clear, he finally realized that all shooting had ceased. He looked down again to see that both Pai and Stroebel were dead, along with a large number of worms now shriveling up on the floor. Johnson, Houston, and Zersky stood next to each other, all three of them panting with the exertion.
“Zersky!” Bernhard called down. “Please tell me you’re sure that neither Houston or Johnson was infected.”
“I’m positive, but how do I know you weren’t?” Zersky asked.
“I was keeping an eye on him,” Johnson said. “There wasn’t any moment where he could have been taken over.”
“Teng!” Bernhard said in the direction of the catwalks overhead. “What about you? How do I know none of you were infected?”
“Taam was infected,” Teng said with an uncommon note of sadness in his voice. “I had to put him down. I was able to kill McNeil, though, and Dufresne is safe. She and Tshien can both vouch for me, and I can vouch for them.”
Bernhard took a deep breath at that. It could be the case that Teng, Dufresne, and Tshien all managed to avoid getting a head full of worms, or it could be that all three of them were now a part of the Nerve and pretending they weren’t. However, it seemed unlikely that they would have gotten infected then killed two others that were, so Bernhard decided it was more likely than not that they were safe.
So that meant that all humans infected with the Nerve now appeared to be dead. While that might seem like a cause for celebration, it also meant that their entire team was now reduced to just the three American scientists, two Chinese soldiers, and two Air Force Spec Ops. Considering they still had a whole ship full of sleeping alien warriors to contend with, as well as an unknown number of Nerve worms still waiting to make a play for them at any time, Bernhard considered this particular battle to be a loss. The odds were very much looking to be against them now.
Chapter Fifteen
There were a few more stray worms they needed to kill, but otherwise, the room with the pillar was secure soon after the battle. Zersky and Tshien guarded the doors while the others gathered up the bodies of the fallen and did their best to lay them respectfully to rest in a far corner. It was highly unlikely that their bodies would ever be retrieved and given a proper send-off back on Earth, but Bernhard wanted them to be somewhere they could find them again if such a thing later became possible. This was followed by an awkward reunion between Houston and Dufresne where they almost but didn’t quite kiss. After that, they were all finally free to properly inspect the room they currently found themselves in.
“So is this the control room we were looking for or not?” Bernhard asked.
“Even if it’s not, it still must be something important,” Houston said. “Those various nodules on the pillar look almost like they could be computer terminals.”
Johnson, Houston, Dufresne, Bernhard, and Teng all went up to the first level of catwalks and found the pillar nodules there. Houston stepped forward and examined them more closely. “That clear part there could be a view screen of some sort,” Houston said. “But I don’t see any kind of input device like a keyboard or anything.”
“Then how are we supposed to interact with it?” Dufresne asked.
“Simply ask me and I will help.”
The voice seemed to come from everywhere around them. It wasn’t even like it came out of hidden loudspeakers somewhere, but rather was caused by a subtle vibration of every single thing in the room. The catwalks, the stairs, the nodules, the pillar, even the walls themselves seemed to be the voice’s source. That alone would have been startling enough, but even more so was the fact that the voice sounded like it belonged to a child of maybe six or seven. Bernhard couldn’t even determine what gender the voice might be.
“Who said that?” Johnson asked the room.
“I did.”
“Yes, but who are you?” Bernhard added.
“The Nerve already told you who I am. I am the Heart.”
Bernhard tightened his grip on his rifle. “And are you about to try finishing the job that the Nerve started on us?”
“No. That is not my programming.”
Johnson gently touched Bernhard’s weapon and made him lower it. When she spoke again, there was a tone in her voice very similar to an adult trying to address a small child that had just wandered up to them, lost and confused. “Heart, what is your programming?”
“It is my function to ensure that the Cortex has all its needs met in order to carry out its mission. This includes control over all forms of life support.”
“Why do you sound like a child?” Bernhard asked. “And how is it that you speak English?”
“The Nerve downloaded all the knowledge it had regarding the human species into my memory core, including all languages spoken by those human bodies it took over. I chose this particular voice from all the various signals I am receiving from Earth, as I have determined that it is the one most likely to put you at ease.”
“At ease nothing,” Dufresne murmured. “This thing sounds creepy as hell.”
“Aren’t you going to try killing us like the Nerve did?” Bernhard asked.
“There are two problems with that assertion,” the Heart said. “The first is that I have no direct means to do so.”
“What about indirect means?” Johnson asked.
“There would be plenty of options, but the second issue with your assertion is that I am not programmed to do such. My purpose is to do what I can to sustain life on the ship you refer to as the Visitor, not take it.”
“Good to know we’re not going to have all the oxygen suddenly sucked out of the room on us,” Bernhard said. “You seem awfully helpful to us so far, considering what we came here to do.”
“Again, it is not in my programming to try to impede your progress. You are aboard the Visitor. It is my job to help those aboard the Visitor to maintain life functions. Therefore, it is my job to help you.”
“Good to know,” Bernhard said. “Except how do we know that anything you’re telling us is the truth?”
“It is not in my programming to lie.”
“Just like the Nerve,” Houston said. “Seems to me like that might be a major oversight by whatever created all of you.”
“The intent of our programmers is not important,” the Heart said. “Only that the programming be followed.”
“It seems like we might have finally caught a break,” Bernhard said to the others.
“Maybe,” Johnson said. “Although something is bothering me. Hey, Heart?”
“Yes, Dr. Johnson?”
Johnson frowned. “Okay, the mysterious alien computer already knowing my name? That part is a bit creepy. But anyway, the
Nerve said something about you while we were fighting it.”
“That is correct. It did.”
“Specifically, it said that you were working to wake the Cortex up.”
“Again, that is correct. The Cortex is not operating optimally at the moment.”
Houston made a humorless chuckle. “I suppose that’s one way to put it, although it’s more like they’re not operating at all.”
“So you’re trying to wake them up,” Johnson said to the Heart. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to convince you not to do that, is there?”
“That would be a violation in my programming in much the same way that trying to harm you would be a violation.”
“But Heart, you can’t wake the Cortex up,” Johnson said. “At least not according to what the Nerve told us. The Cortex’s ability to link up with their hive mind is being impeded by Earth’s communications.”
“That is correct.”
Bernhard suddenly got a sinking feeling. “The Visitor has a way to try disrupting all communications from Earth, doesn’t it?”
“I am forced to use alternative methods to the problem, but yes. I anticipate that my improvised system will cease all offending communications from Earth when it is ready.”
“And how long before it is ready?” Teng asked.
“As time is measured by your species, the improvised system will be capable of disrupting Earth communications in four hours, twenty-eight minutes, and seven seconds.”
Everyone went quiet and stared at each other in horror. Even Bernhard, so practiced at schooling his features, was sure that Johnson could easily read on his face what he was thinking. If something stopped the various frequencies from Earth that were blocking the hive mind from communicating with the Cortex, then in under five hours Earth, including Bernhard’s own daughter, would be under a vicious, unstoppable alien attack.
Alpha Contact Page 10