Violent Wonder

by Fredrick Niles

  “It’s at least a valid question,” Ritz responded. “Do we want to die quickly? Painlessly? Or do we want to die like Hector did.”

  That stopped them. The memory of Hector being torn apart was fresh in their minds and when he thought of it that way, King wouldn’t have blamed anyone for avoiding that. He would still go down fighting but he didn’t relish the idea of watching someone like Byzzie go down like that, regardless of how much they grated on each other.

  No one answered the question outright. There had been no word from the three down by the airlock but King had already sorted that one out: if 49 could hack the docking arm then he could almost certainly hack the comms. Nadia and Kit were professionals and as soon as the AI’s capabilities were made clear, they had opted for radio silence.

  He thought he knew what they would pick though. Despite being a trained killing machine, Kit had a deep concern for other people. Nadia may not have shared that concern but she cared about Kit, and King would put good money on her refusing to leave him behind. The only one that was up in the air was Raquel.

  “Make your decisions, people.” Ritz said. King watched him look over at Byzzie. The thin dark-skinned girl with hair as wild as she was had her jaw set. She wasn’t going down without a fight. “We’re not taking a vote this time. These are your own individual lives. You have to decide if they’re worth fighting for.”

  It wasn’t much of a speech but then again, King had never really known the captain for speeches. He was more of a man of action. He took and asked for permission afterward. His crew was free to come and go as they pleased, so long as they followed his orders. Sure, he could be childish and petty sometimes, but at least he was honest. No charisma. No emotional manipulation. Just the cold hard truth.

  Out of nowhere, King found himself wondering about Ritz. What would he choose? The man was driven, that was for sure, but was that just bluster? Could it be that he would relent and give himself up when the time came? King hoped not. The man was his friend—had been his friend almost as long as Hector had. They had fought alongside each other all these years, so that should be enough, shouldn’t it?

  Raquel watched Nadia and Kit reach up to shut their cameras and comms off. Unsure of the exact reason—maybe they didn’t want to take the chance of being observed by 49—she did the same.

  “What’s the plan?” She asked wearily.

  Nadia and Kit looked at each other.

  “You can do what you want,” Kit said. “But I’m crushing whatever comes through that door.”

  Raquel turned to Nadia. “And you?”

  She jerked her head sideways toward her companion. “What he said.”

  “Okay.” Raquel had her answer. She hadn’t been sure which way most of the crew would fall except for King. King was too stubborn and controlling to die. That asshole would probably outlive them all.

  As far as she herself was concerned, she actually wasn’t sure. Five years ago she had woken up on a sandy beach next to a cool stream and found herself in an alien world and the worst part hadn’t been the fact that the place and the people were foreign to her—the worst part had been that she felt foreign to herself. No memory and no past, she hadn’t even had a number in the PUC medical facility’s database.

  Maybe she had just been an accident. Some experiment that an intern had grown off the books but eventually just decided to flush. The thing was, she had lived when she was supposed to die. So maybe that was all she was: some flushed mistake that was living on borrowed time and had long overstayed its welcome. She wasn’t like Kit who devoted himself to the adherence of some personal code or Nadia who lived to protect someone important to her. She wasn’t like Byzzie who’s rampant curiosity drove her ever-onward in a doomed quest to understand the mechanics of the entire universe. She wasn’t stubborn like King or on a mission like Ritz or Hector. She was just… she was just…what?

  She was here. She was here on this ship because she had forced her way onboard, not because she had been needed. If she was being honest with herself, the only reason she had wanted to stay on the Leopold was that she had spent her time playing cards with King and Nadia instead of down with the other synthetically grown people they had freed and frankly, the idea of having to leave and meet a bunch of new people on a new world and get a new job with a new boss who would probably treat her like just as much of a tool as the doctors had back at the PUC facility was absolutely terrifying.

  So she had chosen to stay.

  And what had become of that. She helped, sure, but that was debatable. After all, hadn’t she been the one to pull the trigger on that combat synth, causing all those people to die? If she hadn’t done that, maybe Nadia or Kit could have taken care of it. Maybe those people could have gone home to their families that night. Sure, they were cogs in a murderous machine that ground people beneath its wheels, but wasn’t she just the same? Wasn’t she also making decisions that resulted in the accidental deaths of people she had ill-will toward—who she even planned to protect?

  Now that she was thinking about it—now that she had to make a decision—maybe she was a burden. A burden to the mission. A burden to the state. A burden to her friends and the people she cared about. Maybe her presence on either the inside or outside of the PUC would get people killed and the only thing that had yet to be decided was who.

  Maybe, Raquel thought to herself. Maybe it would be better for me to just go quietly.

  While these thoughts were ricocheting around inside of her head, Nadia and Kit had begun to discuss the logistics of their defense.

  “If they only come through the airlock,” Nadia said, “then we can bottleneck them and pour fire down their throats until either we run dry or their numbers do.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” Kit said. “Did you see the size of that ship? What we were passing through was just the first-class living quarters—that was for the elite. All of the other quarters probably lie near the back of the ship. Hell, what we didn’t see could be nothing but living quarters. There could have been 2,000 people onboard. Plus, I’m not exactly sure how the math works out, but there could be one of those spiders and one of those humanoid creatures for each person that died. Plus, who knows how many of those gut worms there are.”

  “Hmm.” Nadia put her hands together, thinking. “How do you suppose they stay alive?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they’re obviously upright and walking around. It’s not exactly pretty, but they still seem to be producing blood and other fluids. What I’m wondering is how that’s possible. Why aren’t they simply mummified like the rest?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Kit admitted.

  “Maybe they’re powering it with the Tesla Arc from the ship,” Raquel offered. “We saw the heat signatures from the scan, right? There was that big blossom near the front of the ship. What if the Tesla Arc is powering them like some sort of brain?”

  Kit shrugged. “I guess that’s possible.”

  “No, I think it is,” Raquel said standing up. “When I was at the medical facility, that’s how they would kick start the bio-organic tissue they grew in the labs. Apparently, they had had a hard time for a while actually bringing the bodies to life. They could grow the tissue and everything but when it came to actually animating the bodies…Well, I had heard that back in the old days at one of the first synthetic laboratories, it wasn’t until someone accidentally hooked a ship’s charging port into the main feed and electrocuted the entire base that they were able to solve the problem. In fact, you know how they implemented the breaker system in all bases so they’d break all conductive conduits if there was a big enough surge? That’s the reason they did that.”

  “Yeah, I had heard about that,” Nadia said, a light going on in her eyes. “Apparently when that medical facility got fried, all the staff died but all of the synthetically born people were shocked to life. The very first time they succeeded in doing that they had a full-blown riot on their hands.”<
br />
  Raquel: “Yup, that’s it. So, what if that’s the same thing? What if 49 is using the ship’s Tesla Arc to keep all those things animated somehow? Come to think of it, how is he being powered?”

  Kit: “If they’re all being powered by the same Tesla Arc, then depending on how it works, we might be able to waste all of them by taking him out.”

  Nadia: “Worth a shot. The only problem is: how do we get to him? Won’t we have to wade through thousands of beasties to get there?”

  Raquel: “I don’t think so. He said he’s coming to us. Him.”

  Nadia: “Why would he do that?”

  Raquel: “Didn’t you hear his answer when Byzzie asked him why he hasn’t just laid down and died? If death and nothingness is the ultimate destination, then why hasn’t he done it?”

  The two looked at her blankly.

  “Hear me out on this,” Raquel said. “I think he wants to die. But he’s conflicted about it.”

  “What?” Nadia scrunched up her face. “Why would he want that?”

  “Because that’s his whole thing. Death. Meaninglessness. Nihilism. He says his mission is to spread the truth, but if the truth doesn’t even mean anything in the end then why even try? Who the fuck cares? No, I think he’s at odds with himself. I think he’s buying what he’s selling but I don’t think he wants to sell it anymore. Even if he doesn’t know it, there might be a part of him that wants to die. Subconsciously, I mean.”

  “I could maybe buy that,” Kit said. “But what if you’re wrong? We might need a Plan B.”

  “Hey, here’s a question,” Raquel raised her hand. “Why don’t we just cut ourselves free of the ship. I know the docking arm is attached but how hard would it be to just pry ourselves off and blow up the other ship once we’re away?”

  “Very,” Kit said. “Getting outside would be a problem without the airlock. We could maybe cut the airlock free from inside and then cut the docking arm if we were mag-booted to the ship, but that would take a lot of time. Speaking of which, we need ammunition and have very little time left. It’ll only take me twenty-seconds to hop across the hall and grab what we need. Nadia, I know what you want.” He turned to Raquel. “What about you?”

  Raquel froze and in that split-second of hesitation, she saw Kit’s face fall.

  “Well,” she began, “I’ve been thinking about that.” And she had been. Even as they had been talking about how they were going to fight for their survival, the same thoughts of purpose and meaninglessness had been crashing around inside of her head. “And I think I’ve made a decision.”

  It took her less than thirty seconds to explain herself, and when she was done, Kit placed a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t say anything but he didn’t need to. And as Raquel watched him disappear around the corner to grab supplies, she silently wished him luck.

  11

  The Flesh Weaver

  The Song of Infinite Communion rolled over the Leopold’s comm system and 49 ached with the longing of it. The drudging futility rendered into melodious sound was like the clip he had broadcast to the Leopold to lure them in but magnified by 1,000.

  It was more than enough.

  When he had broadcast it over the systems of the Mary, it had just been him. Harshly pulled out of the Void and back into the horrid marriage of time and space, he had been forced to weave notes and chords out of nothing and push it through the airwaves. Those who heard it and relented were transformed. Those who heard it and didn’t relent…well, they were transformed by the transformed.

  That part had been easy. So few of them had remained, and almost none of them could even begin to fathom how to put up a fight. His Clay Makers had hunted each and every one of them down and had them deconstructed in less than thirty minutes. From there, he was able to replicate those creations with the raptured matter of the worthy and create them en masse. Now his army of reimagined flesh was borderline-unstoppable. A seething, gnashing multitude of sharpened bone; they would wash over the crew of the Leopold like a wave of blood and nails.

  There would be no stopping them.

  49 raised his hands higher and higher, kicking up the tempo of the song. His limbs were a beautiful union of meat and metal, directing the little ones to beat their hard bony fingers on drums made of stretched stomach while the towering worms made of guts howled and sang deep reverberating notes, gloomy and haunting.

  Then there were his prized instrumentalists.

  The real pillar of the song came from the members of his orchestra that looked the most human. They weren’t, to be sure, but standing upright on two legs the puzzle pieces of their anatomy most accurately represented that of a human, however disarranged. Carefully removing the vertebrae from their exposed backbones; the creatures would then run a long, curved finger along the exposed spinal cord, sending electrical signals up to their rearranged brains where they were then converted into acoustic sound. The acoustics were then amplified by the bowl-like pelvis bones resting on the neck and the sound they made was just…

  49 shuddered as they played.

  The crew had manually shut off their microphones and cameras, but 49 still had access to their speaker system which was all that mattered. In the best-case scenario, he and his horrible menagerie would step onboard the Leopold to find nothing but empty clothes. From there, their disintegrated flesh would rearrange in the ship’s hold. 49 might even see if he could make something new out of it. Creating something out of nothing was the heart of creation after all, wasn’t it?

  And if they didn’t comply, then they’d be stripped for parts anyway. The process was significantly more crude but the drive to build would be satisfied regardless.

  Accompanying that thought was the thought of the Void.

  How he missed it. Dark and painless, tuning into the Obsidian Dirge had been the closest 49 had ever come to something like sleep. Blissful nothingness. In the Void, nothing could be seen because there was nothing to see. It was just inky and formless but for the magnetic song he had brought with him out of those fathomless depths.

  49 brushed the longing away. Maybe he’d be able to return someday. Maybe the dirge would take him back. But right now, “maybe” counted for nothing. Right now, he would build his chorus and build his song until they were all that remained and then the last pieces of the broken universe that had been cast asunder by The Song that Cleaves the World would be swallowed up into absolute oblivion.

  Ritz and the others had arrived at the airlock just as the final notes rolled over the speaker system. Each strapped into a set of combat armor and cradling some variant of energy carbine or submachine gun, King, Byzzie, and Ritz walked through the sliding door to find Kit and Nadia building a blockade out of storage crates that held spare pieces of titanium alloy. They had snagged the crates on a job one day but had never quite been able to offload them. The material was dense enough to stop an energy bolt from a neural rifle, so holding back a bunch of filthy animals that fought with tooth and claw should be well below its pay-grade.

  “Where’s Raquel?” Ritz asked, vaguely annoyed to not see her helping. “I thought she was with-” The words caught in his throat as Kit stepped aside to reveal a heap of something on the ground.

  Even if he hadn’t seen the two big puncture wounds through the metal shoulder, Ritz still would have recognized the armor immediately. How many times had he heard Raquel complain about that thing? “It’s too stuffy. It’s too cumbersome. It makes me feel claustrophobic.”

  A flood of emotions washed through him. Had he really wanted her gone just a few hours ago? The girl with no family and no past and no real desire to do anything but what she was used to; did that girl now have no future either? Did she tap out when the going got tough?

  Most of all however, could he blame her? They were all about to die, that was all-but-certain. So, could he really be mad and heartbroken that she had ducked out before the real bad stuff happened?

  Yes, he could, actually. Ritz and all of his friends were abou
t to die and she was coward enough not to be with them in the final seconds? What garbage. What a waste of bio-organic material. Maybe they should have left her there on that sun-blasted hellhole of a world they found her on. If she valued her own life and the lives of her friends that little to leave them before they needed her—even if all they could ask her was to simply be there as they died—then what good was she?

  Anger rolled over the captain, but before he could let it out on his own crew there came a massive bang from the outer door, followed by another. Finally, the sound of screeching metal pierced the air as the first door was torn from its hinges.

  “God, whatever’s behind there must be strong,” muttered King.

  “Shut up and grab some cover,” Ritz yelled as he moved to do just that. Another blockade built out of stacked titanium-filled-crates laid smack dab in front of the door about 30 feet away and Ritz joined Byzzie behind them, followed by King. Nadia and Kit each took up positions to the left and right of the door.

  “Remember,” Nadia said. “Short bursts of fire. We don’t want to all run dry at once. Pick your targets and put them down one by one. Don’t just shoot at a group or you’ll burn twice as much ammo and hit less than a tenth of that.” She glanced over at Kit and a look passed between them.

  The two Marauders’ relationship had always been strange to Ritz. It didn’t seem sexual but they were clearly more than good friends. The bond was almost sibling-like, but he had seldom seen brothers and sisters treat each other with such tenderness and fight so little.

  When the two SEUs had been adopted into the family that was the crew of the Leopold, Ritz had only been concerned about the massive edge they would give them in combat situations. But after years of watching them and engaging with them, Ritz was suddenly sad for them. They didn’t deserve this. What they deserved was a nice farm somewhere where they could learn what a peaceful life was—where they could actually taste what it was they were defending.