Keystones: Tau Prime

by Alexander McKinney

  The gut-churning dive into the atmosphere lasted for another two minutes before the ship leveled off. Deklan heard the sound of the fusion engines increasing their output to slow their descent. Ashton’s voice came over the intercom again: “Boys and girls, we are hovering five hundred meters over the designated pickup zone in Houston. Prepare for descent.”

  Deklan glanced over at Michael. “Well, that was fun. I wonder what this next part’s going to be like.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than a feeling of plummeting hit him in the stomach.

  This continued for perhaps three seconds before a harsh noise interrupted the relative serenity of the cabin. Deklan glanced over his shoulder at Avery, the source of the noise.

  Avery had swollen to enormous proportions, her seat harness straining against the sudden bulk. The only noise she let out was an angry snarl. As the straps tore free of her body and her uniform shredded, a furry torso appeared. Then her face contorted, the jaw elongating and the mouth widening, as a scream ripped free from her throat through jagged teeth. Her arms were corded with new muscle under advancing fur.

  Propelled from her seat by the grotesque metamorphosis, Avery was forced to stoop under the now too low ceiling. Deklan watched in horror as her hands transformed. First they became thicker; then her fingers grew longer, ending in wicked nails.

  Avery was left with hands that were over a meter wide. The thumb, index, and middle fingers were proportionately normal, but large gaps separated the other two digits on each hand. Leathery flaps of flesh originating in these gaps extended all the way to her ankles and continued on to what appeared to be a still developing tail that had escaped Deklan’s notice.

  Avery looked like a massive, powerful, and dangerous bat.

  Just then the hissing sound of escaping air alerted Deklan to the fact that the rear ramp was opening.

  Avery screeched and took ponderous steps in that direction. The ceiling prevented her from walking upright, and rows of seats blocked her access to the exit. Hunched over, she clawed her way forward and lashed out at the seats closest to her, ripping them from the floor.

  Her path clear, Avery ran toward the light before Deklan could think to call for Captain Ashton.

  “Beal!” shouted Deklan. “We need a tranquilizer now.” Not waiting for a response, he was already moving to the rear of the craft.

  Beal dashed to the medical cabinet. Drawers flew open as she ransacked them. “Pylomin!” Beal tossed a repeater syringe to Deklan. “She’ll need at least two doses.”

  Deklan caught the repeater, which looked like a pistol, and ran after Avery. Michael kept pace by his side, all signs of nausea now gone. They reached the door together, but Deklan was the first out.

  Before them the ramp extended down to the ground. Wide at the base, it narrowed as it came up to the rear entrance of The Madeline.

  On the ground below people gawked as Avery launched herself into the air, spread her wings, and flew over them.

  Deklan didn’t have time to be surprised when hands gripped him from behind and he too exploded into the air. “Any suggestions, Deklan?” asked Michael.

  “Bring us close, and then we can drop onto her. Hopefully our combined weight will bring her down.”

  “Why not just let her go?”

  Lines of acidic green spurted upward from the crowd and hissed into the air behind Avery. There was at least one angry Keystone in the crowd with a power attuned for combat.

  “Because we don’t know what she’ll do, and someone might kill her.” There were no good options. If they let Avery go, she might hurt people in the crowd, or they might hurt her. Deklan didn’t want to carry the guilt for whatever might happen.

  Further conversation became impossible as the roar of the wind and Michael’s wing beats drowned out all other noises.

  Avery’s flight was erratic and unstable. As Michael lessened the distance between them, weaving past green bolts launched from the crowd below, Deklan soon could almost reach out and touch her. When Michael let go of him, Deklan fell onto Avery’s back.

  The coarse bristles of her fur made for a good handhold. When Avery rolled in the air, however, she smacked Michael with a wing, sending him tumbling away. Deklan held on with his left hand, his legs and body dangling in the air. With his right hand he pushed the repeater syringe against the leathery skin. Depressing the trigger twice, he injected Avery with a pair of doses.

  There was no effect. Avery rose higher into the air, and Deklan risked another two squeezes of the syringe.

  A blur of white dashed past them, reaching out for Deklan but missing. Michael circled back and regained speed. Deklan meanwhile held on with as tight a grip as he could manage, digging his fingers into the leathery skin and clutching at the bristles. Unsure of how long it would be until the sedative took effect, he was reluctant to dose Avery again. Just then she flipped upside down, an aggressive maneuver that cost Deklan his grip.

  He had no time to appreciate his new situation before it felt as though he’d been hit by a truck. Michael, moving at top speed, had caught him in the air.

  Deklan struggled to get his wind back. Between gasps he yelled, “I’ve got to get back to her. I still have a few shots left.”

  As Michael arrowed back toward Avery, he shouted, “Do you think it’ll help?”

  “I’m not sure,” replied Deklan, “but look at her. We can’t just let her go. She might be a danger to others, and anyone who sees her is either going to run away or try to kill her.”

  Michael nodded and adjusted his flight to bring the two of them into alignment for another dive at Avery. As they drew closer, Deklan prepared himself for the maneuver. Avery lost height in an attempt to evade them, while Michael corralled her back toward The Madeline.

  Drawing to within an arm’s length, Michael dropped Deklan again onto Avery’s back. Deklan’s fall lasted for a single heart-stopping second. Upon impact he gripped Avery’s torso with his right hand and wrapped his legs around her, slamming his left hand with the repeater against the thin skin of a wing.

  Avery again rolled in the air, but this time Deklan was ready for the response and held on. She ignored Deklan and turned her attention to Michael, snapping her jaws on the midsection of his left wing and biting through the bone.

  Blood sprayed from the wound, and half of Michael’s wing tore off. Falling through the air in an uncontrolled tumble, Michael slammed into the ground and rolled before ending up in a limp pile.

  Deklan swallowed the bile in his throat, maintained his hold, and emptied the last dose of Pylomin into the now slowing Avery.

  Doing his best to time a release, Deklan dropped from Avery and hit the ground hard, knocking the breath from his body. Avery crashed to the ground seconds after Deklan.

  Deklan pulled himself to his feet and ran to Michael, who lay unconscious on the ground. Blood poured from his bite wound, soaking the dirt. A filthy pool of mud was forming around his body. When Deklan looked up, he saw that The Madeline wasn’t far away. “Beal,” he shouted. “I need bandages now!” As a stopgap measure Deklan applied pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding.

  Beal came running over with bandages and a medical kit. “Shit, this isn’t good,” said Beal before spraying a compound over the injury that staunched the flow of blood.

  “Is there anything on board The Madeline that can help him?” Deklan asked, his voice high-pitched and his words rapid-fire.

  “I don’t know,” answered Beal. “Keystone physiology is unique, but this blood loss looks serious.” She applied disinfectant and wrapped the wound. “How many shots of the repeater did you get into Avery?”

  “Six.”

  Beal nodded. “We’ll have to hope that doesn’t kill her.”

  “Take care of Michael first. Then we need to get Avery back to The Madeline and somehow secured. After that we’ll have to convince people that it’s still safe to get aboard.” Deklan thought of his experience with the dog. “Beal,” he asked, “do you have an
ything that we can use to test Avery’s saliva?”

  “Her saliva?”

  “We need to make sure it’s not venomous or poisonous.”

  Beal’s face went blank as she processed the question. “Um, yes, I can check for standard poisons with a field kit.” She ran her hands through her hair, careless of the blood that she spread. “I hadn’t thought of that. Why did you?”

  “That’s how Michael and I met. I was attacked by a Keystone dog with venomous fangs. Michael carried me to the hospital.”

  “Ah.” Beal looked satisfied with his answer and went back to checking Michael’s vital signs with an instrument that Deklan didn’t recognize. “He’s not in immediate danger of dying,” she said, “but I can’t make promises about his long-term stability. I just don’t know what that injury and fall will do to him. I need him back on the ship. We have basic scanning equipment there.” Over her shoulder Beal shouted, “Where are we on that stretcher?”

  Captain Ashton ran full-tilt back toward them with a yellow board. Deklan saw a problem: boards were perfect for normal people, but with Michael’s wingspan it was going to be awkward. Ashton placed the board on the ground, sliding it under Michael’s healthy wing. Deklan then took Michael’s shoulders and Beal his legs as they lifted him onto the board.

  “Beal,” said Deklan, “give me something to test Avery’s saliva. I’ll join you two in a minute.” Beal nodded and passed Deklan a field chromatographer before she and Ashton lifted the board and trotted with Michael toward The Madeline. On any other occasion the sight of his wings flopping out to the sides and bouncing as they ran would have been comical.

  Deklan raced toward where Avery was on all fours, moving with slow and uncoordinated paws. From behind her massive wings made her look almost like a tent of fur and leather. The evacuees maintained a safe zone of thirty meters away from the large Keystone.

  Deklan threw caution to the wind and approached. Avery was aware of him, he could tell from her body language, but her movements were sluggish and growing more so by the second. Not willing to wait for her to collapse or for the Pylomin to take full effect, Deklan darted in and ran a swab over her mouth.

  Avery snapped at him dully but did nothing else. Deklan jumped away and slipped the swab into the field kit, waiting on the result while judging when it would be best to force Avery’s jaws open to check for teeth that might deliver venom.

  Avery eyed Deklan warily as might a feral dog. When she took a lumbering step away from him before collapsing, Deklan took that as his cue. Crouching near Avery’s enormous head, he first prodded at her snout to see whether she would react. When there was no immediate response, Deklan grew bolder and gripped Avery’s upper muzzle, allowing the lower jaw to drop. Drool pooled onto the ground below. He reached into the uninviting maw and examined the teeth. There didn’t seem to be anything to worry about other than the nasty damage that could be inflicted through tearing force.

  Deklan abandoned his task when he remembered the rest of Michael’s wing. It hadn’t been eaten or swallowed, just bitten off. Maybe, if found, the wing could be reattached. Dropping Avery’s head, Deklan looked at the crowd that had gathered around him. “The wingtip,” he called out. “Does anyone know where it fell?”

  A cluster of people waved him over to where they stood in a ring around Michael’s wingtip, like pilgrims honoring a relic after a long and arduous journey. The severed section of wing was perhaps two meters long. Undaunted by its size, Deklan sprinted with it cradled in his arms to The Madeline.

  Bursting up the ramp past men and women who had begun to trickle aboard, he yelled, “Beal, I have the rest of his wing. Can you save it?”

  Beal looked up from the table where Michael lay with intravenous lines snaking their way into him. Her eyes darted from the jagged edge of the wingtip that Deklan held to the bandages on the end of Michael’s wounded appendage. “Nothing is ever easy,” she grumbled. “Yes, I’ll try, though what I’m doing will be little better than guesswork. What about the saliva?”

  Deklan held up the kit. “It’s clean, I think.”

  “That’s a small mercy. Really, could this have gone any worse?”

  Deklan looked at her steadily. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Michael could be dead, and Avery could be feasting on the refugees.”

  Beal blanched but took the wingtip from Deklan’s hands. “I don’t even know where to begin with this,” she said. “There’s nothing like a precedent.”

  “Can you keep it cold and preserved until we get back up to the Rings?”

  “I’ll do the same as I would for a severed limb and hope that it works.”

  “Good. Now we just need to get Avery back on board.”

  Beal looked up sharply from her work. “What?”

  “Avery. She’s dangerous now. Do you think it’s a good idea just to leave her there to sleep off the Pylomin? We need to get her back in here and restrain her in case she wakes up.” As an afterthought Deklan added, “Though with the amount of sedatives pumping through her system, that does seem a shade unlikely.”

  “What are we supposed to do after that?” asked Beal.

  Frustrated that he didn’t have a good answer, Deklan replied, “I don’t know. Maybe see whether someone can reverse the transformation.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Based on what? We’ve had deformed Keystones like her for five days now. I doubt that we have the slightest idea of what is or is not possible. If I were the one who had just turned into a massive steroid-bat, I know I’d want people to try to fix me.”

  Beal’s slow nod signaled unwilling acquiescence. “You may have a point,” she conceded, “but how are we going to move her? She must weigh hundreds of kilograms.”

  Deklan sighed again and raked his fingers through his hair. He knew that he wasn’t getting paid enough for this. “I’m sure that I can find someone in this crowd who can help. Just clear a space, preferably near the door where I can deposit her.”

  Turning to the crowd of people who were filling the undamaged seats of The Madeline, Deklan said in a loud voice, “Can anyone here help us bring that woman”—Deklan pointed to where Avery’s bestial form lay—“back aboard the ship? We’re going to restrain her and make sure that she’s not left here as a danger to others in the city.”

  At first there was no response. Then the unlikeliest person stepped forward. The volunteer was a short man whose face was dominated by a massive nose. Thin shoulders conveyed an impression of frailty, and a greying comb-over spectacularly failed to hide a receding hairline. His voice was thin and reedy. “I can help,” he offered.

  “Excellent, sir. Thank you,” replied Deklan politely. He turned back to the crowd. “Do I have any more volunteers?”

  “I don’t need help,” commented the man. “I can do this on my own.”

  Deklan was taken aback by the statement and unsure of how to proceed. The skinny little man looked as though a strong gale could topple him. “Okay,” murmured Deklan. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Follow me.” So saying, the diminutive man walked over to Avery with slow steps.

  Curious, Deklan followed him. The man stopped a few paces short of Avery and held out a hand. Initially nothing happened, but lines of tension formed on his forehead, and his veins bulged. Soon Avery levitated from the ground as though suspended on an invisible platform.

  The little man then made a small twirling gesture with his hand and marched toward the ship with Avery in tow. Deklan kept pace with him, staring in shocked wonder as the man kept going, despite the obvious strain. By the time they reached the ship, sweat streamed from his forehead and had matted down his comb-over. “Where do you want her?” he asked.

  Deklan looked around. Ashton hadn’t prepared a spot yet, since no one had expected such a speedy resolution to the problem. “Um, over there on the left should be fine. I’ll have to move some seats so that I’ll have something to strap her to.”

/>   Deklan busied himself with unbolting seats from the floor in a space that was at least three square meters. “Beal, Ashton,” he asked, “do we have anything that will work as a restraint? Chains would be good, anything that we can use to anchor Avery in place.”

  “Actually, yes, we do,” replied Beal. “It’s standard procedure, at least on ambulances, to have restraints for passengers or patients who prove to be unruly. We should be able to use several on Avery. For the most part we’ve had to use them on people who were drunk or high, but they should still work. At least I hope they will.”

  “Great! How many do we have?”

  “I’m not sure. This craft is anything but standard. It appears that we have about thirty, which is really much fewer than we should have for this many people. Let’s hope that Avery is the only one who needs restraining.” Beal diverted her attention from Michael long enough to show Deklan where to find the straps.

  The restraints were made of a tough fabric that Deklan didn’t recognize. They didn’t end in anything suitable for easy latching to the floor, which meant that Deklan was going to have to rely on knots. He brought the straps over to the cleared area and tried to work out how best to approach the task. Without any prompting the telekinetic man floated Avery over to Deklan, who pulled the straps over Avery and affixed them on either side. Ashton and he created a crisscrossing pattern using all thirty straps.

  When Deklan looked up again, he saw people clustered against the walls in order to keep their distance from the restrained Avery. Another group of reluctant refugees stood at the top of the ramp hesitant to come aboard The Madeline. They were eager to leave Earth but terrified of Avery and what she might do on the journey to the Rings. Deklan watched impatiently, worrying about his friend. After an interminably long wait all available seats were filled, and Beal signaled Captain Ashton to take them up.

  Deklan stood with Beal in the stripped-down medical area looking from monitor to monitor and keeping track of Michael’s vital signs. Both Beal and Deklan were forced to strap themselves in for the launch, but as soon as possible they freed themselves from their harnesses.