Progenitor

by Antony J Woodward

  A strange twinge in her side caught Liara off guard as she stood back up.

  It felt like a hint of a stitch, a sharp needle slipping in-between her ribs for a split second. She stepped into the backroom and the overwhelming urge to cough took hold. Before she knew it was she was crashing onto her hands and knees and coughing violently. The painful compressions of her chest, and tearing of her throat, brought tears to her eyes. Over and over again her body spasmed trying to bring up fluid. It felt like her lungs were trying to climb out of her throat. She tried to cover her mouth with a hand but it did little to muffle the noise.

  After a minute of sustained coughing it finally started to subside. When her breath returned, and her chest eased, she had wet eyes and a burning in the back of her throat. She tentatively inhaled, pushing against the slight stabbing pains in her sides. She felt dizzy.

  “Liara? Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t answer straight away. She had a ball of snot at the back of her throat. She hacked it up and spat it on the floor. She would’ve been disgusted had it not been a blood clot. Oh fuck. This was getting worse.

  “Liara? Liara?”

  She wiped her brow. A cold sweat had spread across her skin and she felt grossly moist. She flopped onto her ass and just took a moment to breath.

  She could feel her lungs were compromised. It felt like liquid in there, like a chest infection but worse. Maybe pneumonia?

  “Liara? Talk to me! Are you okay?” Krahm was practically roaring down the radio.

  “I’m ok…”

  “What happened?”

  “Another coughing fit…” She was breathless, speaking felt a little difficult, “What’s wrong with me Krahm…?”

  “…You’re not completely healed…”

  “Healed… from what?”

  “The virus I gave you. The one we designed to wipe out the Fours. I never realised you had Four DNA in you. I didn’t mean for you to be affected…”

  “…So what you’re saying is that the virus wasn’t completely out of my system when I woke up and now it’s…” she stopped. She felt a little whoozy.

  “Yes, it’s reactivated in your system. We were trying to reverse engineer it and cure you but we hadn’t managed to figure it out. We never designed for it to be cured…” he sounded regretful.

  “…Do you have a cure now?”

  “I might do. I’ve found a synthesised virus that should counteract the virus in your system… I was on my way back to the spire with it when the attack happened…”

  It suddenly occurred to her that she’d never wondered where Krahm was. She’d never given it a single shred of thought. Now it sounded like he wasn’t on the spire and he was guiding her from some remote location. Was he topside? Was that why he was pushing for her to reach the top?

  “How long have I got?” She was beginning to feel a little better.

  “A couple of hours… perhaps. The rejuvenation process stalled the virus’ growth. What little bit of the system I can see tells me you were at about 97% when you woke up…”

  “…And now?”

  “If you’re coughing up blood I’d say 90% Coughing up blood clots puts you at around the 85% mark… So if it’s just blood, we’re ok and you’ve still got time…”

  She decided to not educate him otherwise. She took a breath and hauled herself up. The dark red clot of blood was slowly congealing outwards in a pool. Yeah, she wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “At what point will I be…” she stalled struggling for an appropriate term.

  “I’d hazard a guess of 50%…”

  So she had 35% left. How peculiar to be considering her vitality in percentages. Wasn’t that the domain of videogames?

  “Right…”

  “I’ve updated the Hacker…”

  She wiped the sweat from her brow and plucked it up. She felt more herself but she was suddenly aware of a time bomb hanging over her head.

  “Is it a straight path now?”

  “I’m still trying to assess the extent of the damage to the spire, get to the industrial stairwell. We’ll take it from there…”

  She slipped through into the main room and had to instinctively throw herself behind the desk. The group of Tethu were heading in her direction.

  Panic quickly sank its icy teeth into her nerves.

  They had just arrived at the top of the stairs.

  Now what was she going to do?

  “Isn’t there any weapons around here?” She hissed quietly.

  “Erm…”

  She peeked over the counter and spotted the motley crew of Tethu were coming her way. They looked surprisingly alike, three of them had green mottled patches of skin. One had brown. One had an inky blue and the final one was shaded in an interesting choice of hot pink. The pink Tethu had a headpiece attached to the back of her skull, it looked like a braid of pink and black ropes. It pointed up and away from the skull, dangling to her buttocks just like a ponytail. She was one of the aliens holding up the rear. The inky blue Tethu was leading up front, he had straps of what Liara assumed was ammo draped over his chest. One of the green Tethu had a malformed tentacle in its beard.

  The two remaining two Tethu were similar looking to one another and had no distinguishing features.

  Liara ducked down again. Were they going to come this way? What if they found her?

  “No weapons at all? It’s a fucking security desk!” She hissed angrily.

  “If there was they’d be in the backroom…”

  “Fuck!” she spat. She peeked another quick look. They definitely appeared to be coming her way. She crawled quickly into the backroom.

  “I want you to know Krahm, humans have had weapons for thousands of years. We even had fucking fire…” she hissed angrily. She swept her eyes across the backroom, there was nothing but the goddamned computers. Her eyes darted frantically to and fro.

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing but the computers. No lockers, no shelves, no cabinets - not a thing.

  She scuttled to the back of the room and hid behind one of the platforms a row of computers stood upon. She rolled the volume down on the radio as she heard the Tethu conversation. They were in the front.

  Shit! God she wished she had a weapon.

  It was something of a recurrent theme in her life. Middle of a shit-hole with no weapon. What she would do to have a gun…

  From her hiding spot she spied the two Tethu sweep their way into the room. They were followed by the two green Tethu carrying rucksacks.

  Their conversation was strange to Liara’s ears. It sounded just like whale songs, only played in reverse. It sounded too beautiful, too poetic, to be used as normal conversation. She was suddenly struck with the humorous thought that the aliens were actually singing to each other. A sinister alien musical unfolding right in front of her.

  Inky Tethu noticed the blood clot and pointed to it. The group surrounded it and conferred amongst themselves.

  That wasn’t good. Not good at all. Inky stood sharply and trailed his attention across the rest of the room.

  He stepped forward, in the direction of Liara’s hiding spot.

  A new alien voice entered the conversation. The pink Tethu with the braid stepped into the room. She was holding a radio to her ear. She shook her head and handed it to Inky. Inky stopped his sweep towards the prone Liara and proceeded to talk on the radio.

  Gunfire erupted suddenly and everybody in the room jumped. Whoever was on the other side of the radio stopped talking and gunfire proceeded to blast from the speaker. The pink alien made sounds that struck Liara as deeply concerned. Inky continued to just stare at the radio in his hand. Then it suddenly stopped. The radio went silent.

  That one burst of gunfire had filled the room with a peculiar energy. Liara was confused and wary. The Tethu seemed shell-shocked.

  All four Tethu present in the room turned their attention to Inky. He took a moment and then he gave them a command. They all turned and left.

  Liar
a waited till she couldn’t hear their footsteps any longer.

  She craned her neck around the platform, just to be sure they were indeed gone. She rolled the volume up on her radio.

  “-the noise? Is something going off?” Krahm had been mid sentence.

  “Something’s happened. The Tethu have left…”

  “I heard gunfire?!”

  “It was on their radio…”

  “I thought it was you! I was worried!”

  “I’m going to head towards the stairwell,”

  Liara didn’t want to hang around and find out what the gunfire was about. If something was going down then it should be the perfect opportunity to slip by unnoticed.

  Liara kept low as she left the security booth. She reached the top of the stairs just in time to see the group of Tethu begin hacking their way into the stairwell. The fact they were heading in the same direction made her a little uncomfortable. Where were they headed?

  Suddenly her plans felt like she was heading once more into a lion’s den. How many times could she emerge from the lion’s den victorious before her luck ran out? It was like a cruel game of Russian roulette.

  She waited till they disappeared into the stairwell before she began her descent.

  “Sure there’s no other way up? No emergency access tunnels…?” She prayed as she took the steps rapidly.

  “No. It’s your only way. I’ve scanned the spire, well scanned what I can. The lift up and out, it’s on the tenth floor of the residential block…”

  “And our little monster? Any trace of it?”

  “No. I can’t see any trace of it. Majority of the cameras are offline but no trace. It’s gone. You got rid of it Liara.”

  “Can you see any gunfights? The Tethu overheard gunfire from somewhere on the spire…”

  She really wanted to know where the gunfire had taken place. She was going to add it to her list of places to avoid.

  “There seems to be fire damage on the top levels of industrial stairwell, maybe it was there…”

  “Am I going anywhere near that?” she was close to the close to the door now. Its little light was pulsing red again. The Tethu had obviously locked it behind them. She was going to have to hack her own way in. It would just be too easy otherwise, she reflected bitterly to herself.

  “No. It’ll be about thirty floors above the residential floors…”

  She recoiled in surprise. How big was this goddamned spire? Thirty floors above the residential floors?!

  She brought up her Hacker and began tuning in.

  “You’ll be looking for a pair of symbols in the stairwell. They’ll look like a dissected ‘S’ and a capital ‘V’. That’s the correct floor!”

  She found the right frequency for the door.

  A dull boom froze her mid gesture on the touchpad. “What was that?” she enquired nervously.

  “I’m scanning now…”

  She finished the gesture and followed the more complicated pattern of icons.

  The door hissed open. The passageway felt faintly of smoke. The staircase was made of thick dirty synthetic material that was slightly spongy like rubber. She stepped inside and began to ascend the stairs. She spotted giant painted symbols on the wall at each platform between stairs, they were hard to miss. She had to ascend a set of stairs and then turn back and run around to ascend yet again. It was tiring and as she ascended the fourth set of stairs she felt her lungs crackle. She had to slow her pace a little, she couldn’t go too fast.

  She coughed into the back of one hand as she climbed the sixth.

  The faint trace of smoke was becoming stronger.

  She carried on, ignoring the blood on the back of her hand.

  She ascended the seventh and needed to stop for a minute. Her breathing was laboured and hurt in her chest. She couldn’t take enough oxygen in. The smell of smoke wasn’t helping any.

  She glanced upwards, there was a faint flicker of flames well above.

  The eighth set of stairs weakened her and the ninth brought her to her knees. Her legs had jellified and her head was spinning. The urge to cough rose in her chest.

  She gritted her teeth and tried to pull a handle on the urge. She needed to move, she couldn’t risk being so prone on a stairwell. She had no idea where the Tethu were, they could emerge from anywhere at anytime.

  She coughed, a barking harsh hack that tore her throat. Her suppressions of the next cough worked and she merely spluttered.

  Come on, she willed herself up.

  In her mind the Queen Four leered, that look of terror as the bitch dissolved from the inside out didn’t feel so wholly satisfying anymore. That was to be her fate if she didn’t reach Krahm in time.

  She just had to reach the lift. That was all. Then it took her all the way to the surface.

  Easy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  The sprinklers suddenly erupted into life and began dousing the stairwell in water. She was still hunched over, summoning up the will to get to feet once more. The cold harsh jets of water hit her back and jolted her to life. Spurred into action Liara threw herself onto her feet and recommenced her ascent. She took it slower, unable to rush. The water was icy and within seconds she was drenched. Thankfully her suit was a form of body suit and the water rolled off her. Her hair was doused quickly and she merely plastered it back. The water unfortunately made the steps a little slippery and she slipped on the eleventh climb. A quick grab of the handrail stopped her from tumbling backwards.

  How much further did she have to go?

  She climbed the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth at a more considerate pace. Her lungs were burning, she was audibly crackling and her legs were jellified but suddenly she was faced with the correct floor. She almost shrieked in delight at the recognition of the symbols Krahm told her to look for.

  She stepped towards the door and it hissed open.

  She was not prepared for what she found.

  It was a massacre. The hallway was awash with blood. The thick black blood was up the cream walls, smeared across the bevelled ceiling and pooled on the floor. Half devoured corpses littered the sides. The light ahead flickered twice and powered off. It felt like an omen.

  “Fuck…” she whispered. She was still catching her breath. Her audible breathing sounded wet and congested. She was all but rattling. Maybe Krahm’s estimations about the virus were off? Maybe it was now accelerating?

  “What is it?”

  “Can’t you see it?”

  “Hold on. I’ll try and log in… This system’s shot to shit…”

  She crept forward. The hallway spanned on past several junctions but there was no lift to be seen.

  A door opened beside her, hissing softly. She jumped in fright but nothing lunged out at her. It was merely her presence triggering the automatic door. She was afforded a brief glimpse into an apartment. It too was a bloodbath. Personal effects and furniture painted a picture of a struggle. The blood up the wall and claw marks gouged in the wall depicted the outcome. A little stuffed toy laid half submerged in a pool of blood in the middle of the room.

  She carried on walking.

  “Dear Sh’vah, it’s a bloodbath…”

  Krahm had finally tuned into the camera systems.

  “Did your little accident make it up here?” It was the only thing she could think of that could achieve this level of destruction. She looked left and right down the junction but carried onwards. A little minefield of broken glass forced her to step carefully around the edges. She was glad to be back in the light but it did little to comfort her. If anything Liara felt a little more exposed.

  “When the quarantine process was undone, it could’ve got anywhere…” Krahm sounded horrified.

  She made it to the next junction. Just where was this goddamn lift?

  She saw it! It was on her left, her heart almost skipped a beat.

  “That’s the wrong lift. That’s the glass elevator…” Krahm perforated her enthusiasm.


  She looked up to the ceiling. She spotted a little black circle, it was near a vent opening. The giant vent opening made her shiver. She remembered what had fallen out of those, she was convinced she’d never be able to forget.

  “Well which way…?” She asked the black circle. She was convinced that was the camera system Krahm was watching her through.

  “Behind you, then turn left… but before you do…”

  “What?”

  “Check the apartment to your right for me…”

  “Why?”

  Krahm audibly faltered. She crossed to the door. It didn’t open at her arrival.

  “Open it… please…” Krahm sounded desperate.

  “I don’t have a key…”

  “You can hack it…”

  She stopped and began to use her Hacker.

  She hacked her way in.

  The door hissed open.

  This room was untouched.

  It felt like a peculiar haven amongst the destruction. Like an oasis on a battlefield. It didn’t belong.

  “What am I looking for?” She stepped inside. The alien living quarters weren’t too dissimilar to a human apartment. A large screen on the wall, a curvaceous and plump sofa, a neat wooden coffee-table, a decorative lamp, these were all decidedly almost-human.

  She closed in on the bookshelves. Amongst strange marbles and other stone oddities, was a slice of glass displaying a picture. It was two Tethu, foreheads pressed together looking at the camera. They were somewhere exotic. Liara wondered if they were smiling.

  “In the bedroom…?” Krahm sounded like he was about to cry. Hearing her own voice so close to tears had an unsettling effect on her. Liara turned and passed the kitchenette filled with strange metallic appliances and warped cutlery. The bedroom was just a giant bed, set upon a raised platform. The sight of a blanket and pillows made Liara homesick. She would’ve loved to have climbed into the bed. Maybe if she slept she could wake up and this distended nightmare would finally be over…?

  Liara turned her attention to the little room adjacent. It looked like a shower.

  “Who exactly am I looking for?”

  “…She’s gone…”

  Liara felt a cough rise up from her gut and she had to stifle it.