The good-time boys seemed to have stumbled onto my escape attempt, a slight annoyance to me, especially as they also threatened my possible way out of this place, which left me no alternative but to leave them breadcrumbs to follow. Unfortunately for them, my trail led them to my avenging angels, who enjoyed showing them the errors of their ways.
Upon the destruction of my modified pod, I witnessed what seemed a glimpse of the Bright One’s presence, and so I reached out to her, but then I was drawn back into my prison, and the Bright One became obscured by my darkness.
Everything then started to go to plan…well, except that Jessica made a fool out of my favorite freaker. Hardly surprising really, considering what she is, but you can’t show weakness to your flock, and you certainly do not show your hand until it’s ready to strike. I see her death, as I’ve played this well so far, lying in her own pool of blood, but I see many deaths before the end, and the galaxy will remember.
Neil was a surprise, but the little human will be a great boon. I shall teach him well and prepare through him my gift. I’ll ensure that the blade is given a special treatment to ensure that its work will be complete.
With the arrival of our visitors, I sense an old enemy, Cain’s corruption. My fragmented future did not see this coming, and I suspect in some way the son of man has discovered his prison or has escaped from it, but regardless of the details, this could change my plans. Cain had eaten from the tree of life, so it is most likely that he is still alive, but in which form this may be, it is yet to be discovered.
With the death of my favorite avenging angel, I decided upon a replacement, and as Neil has a most important task, I must look elsewhere. The ideal candidate for this would have been changed previously when my freakers were claiming level one for themselves, but unfortunately he became one of the defenders and ironically was killed by my previous favorite. Most fitting really, but death is something that is a barrier to most but not to me. With a little prompting, and as long as the body is whole and death is recent, the deceased can be made anew, for a short time at least. He will serve me well and will lead my avenging angels to rid the corruption from this facility. No more shall they hide in the darkness, but they shall come out and fight the sinful wherever they might be and cleanse them all from this place.
The last to surprise me was Sam McCall’s summons; he finally understood or was told about who I am. It also surprised me how his mind seemed to repair itself by restoring the segments of his memories that I deleted after one of our long chats. An interesting individual, constantly dancing on the edge of authority, but with an irritating moral compass that helps keep him within the light, preventing a crack forming and allowing the darkness inside. With that in mind, I’m shocked that he wasn’t sent to a place like this or killed long ago, but somehow he survived—mostly, I’m guessing, because rich and powerful men desired his abilities.
This time, however, he had the nerve to invoke my name, but only to save him and his friends. This time I will answer only because I still have need of him, but this need will not last much longer—that I can sense in my future. Two paths come from this point: one that will lead to Jessica’s death, and the other that will lead to mine. How close this is, again, I cannot be sure.
It is not long after my arrival that the spawn of the fallen speaks, and her words bring all of the hate in my being back to the forefront, ending any possibility that I might have been willing to give help. Revealing to all my true self, which I had not done since my imprisonment of over ten thousand years previously, I emanated fire and fear that I poured into the hearts of the wicked, and I knew then that it would be my hand that would send Jessica from this place.
The sound of my angels fleering only momentarily distracted my wrath, but with my sword raised and ready to strike, I poured out my rage, and then with burning fire, I felt my body consumed. The last thing I saw as my body burned was the focus of my hate running from the room, my fragmented future revealing yet another unseen possibility, with fire and heat then replaced by darkness.
15
Deadly Confrontation
Facility Zero, 272 days online: federation year 2435
As the spores enter my mouth and nose, the reaction to them is immediate, uncontrollable coughing as my body tries to expel the irritating invader but to no use. The last thing I see as I fall to the floor is the back of Frank as he pulls the unconscious Jessica from the room, and I’m grateful that at least they’ll getaway. Then I sense someone kneeling down at my side—help, maybe, but that hope is soon dashed as Dr. Moore starts to talk. “Don’t worry too much, Sam. Soon it will all be over. Who you are and who you were will be gone, and sometime after that, you will help us kill your friends.” Dr. Moore laughs at the last part of his words and stands up, leaving me coughing on the floor. For some reason, his words do not affect me in the way I suspect he had hoped, but as time passes, my mind slowly fades, my body still having the occasional spasm as it tries to fight off the infection.
I cling on to the last segments of myself, knowing I failed my friends when they were depending on me. Then it starts to happen. I can feel myself melting away. What made me who I was fades to nothing. I accept the spores, and my breathing becomes easier. Time passes, but how much I’m not sure, and then I start to hear the voices of the others, my family, me, and my friends. There are millions of us, but only a few who inhabit bodies such as mine. I’m home, and the previous owner is dead. Opening my eyes, I see Dr. Moore reaching down with a hand and smiling. I take it and stand up. “Let’s go kill your old friends,” Dr. Moore says.
“Yes, I think that will be fun,” I reply.
Once out of the room, Frank stops. Reaching down with his one good hand, he drags Abs up and onto his shoulder, using the stump of his other arm to keep her there as he asks for a route to security. The system takes longer than usual to accept his request, but then a corridor opens up, and he runs as fast as he dares, cursing most of the way.
Frank enters security in a rush as the elevator arrives, and Brookes looks up from behind a control panel looking concerned. “What happened to Jessica? Where is Sam?”
Frank, looking scared, replies in a frantic voice, “Abs, well, Jessica was stabbed, and…” Frank hesitates and then continues, “Sam’s dead. He got infected by Doc Moore. And I’ve not seen Neil but at this rate he is most likely infected or dead. Jake’s gone also. They’re all gone!”
Dr. Zorn, hearing the sudden commotion, appears from the ceiling, climbing down the ladder that has been placed there for the breaching pod. “Here, let me look at her,” he says as he helps Frank lower Jessica to a suggested spot upon a table and starts examining her.
Professor Brooke, meanwhile, had been looking through the various security feeds and seeing fights all over the facility between freakers and infected prisoners. Checking medical, Brooke soon realizes that the feeds have been turned off or blocked in some way—most likely destroyed. Changing to another channel, he witnesses a large man smash two prisoners’ heads together with glee. On another feed, he watches as freakers who had been coughing on the floor after what seems like a recent blast of spores stand up and start attacking each other. “It’s hell out there. We need to get going,” Brookes says, turning away from the death and hate unfolding within his facility.
“I couldn’t agree with you more, Prof,” Frank replies, looking anxious.
Dr. Zorn looks up and says seriously, “Jessica is in a bad way and needs immediate medical attention. She has two, maybe three hours, but I can’t be totally sure. But that’s the least of our troubles. The breaching pod was designed to extract just one, so we will need to do some modifications and recalibrate the engines if we all want to get out of here. This will take an hour at least.”
“Do what you can, Doctor. We will just have to make her comfortable and wait,” Brookes says as Frank sinks into a chair and starts kicking the desk.
With the danger of the infected cruiser now gone, the federation cryostation
patrol ships avoid the area of space they last detected the weapons fire from. The prototype ship, Sam, is happy with that also and continues to monitor and scan the facility while it runs simulation after simulation in an attempt to rescue Sam and the others.
With a sudden increase in stress levels detected by Sam within the facility, Phantom Sam pauses the simulation and tries to search for the cause. This doesn’t take long, as an unknown organic pathogen is detected within Sam’s body. It’s incredibly virulent and fast working. One of Sam’s biological nanites is directed to take samples and carry out tests, but this results in the biological nanite being destroyed. With the host body becoming increasingly hostile, the bionanites are instructed to start multiplying. In this kind of war, victory will go to the one with the most soldiers.
With millions of single-strand DNA files on record, it’s soon discovered that this pathogen is unlike anything that Sam has ever encountered before. Its own reproductive ability is nothing less than spectacular. The first priority is to analyze and map as much of the DNA strand as possible. Once that is completed, then this new threat might be neutralized.
Studying the pathogen at this early stage in infection is a valuable moment, and seeing what it does first and how it takes over the host body will lead to questions being answered. Watching Sam’s infection proceed is fascinating. Fear seems to be a factor, as adrenaline seems to boost its infection rate. Initial contact with the host causes severe irritation, which causes coughing spasms; this raises the victim’s stress levels, which in turn raises the victim’s adrenaline, which increases the rate of infection. As the pathogen multiplies, it starts to attack the nervous system to reduce the victim’s mobility, and then it attacks the areas of the brain that contain personality—the frontal and prefrontal lobes. As the pathogen advances through its stages of infection, slime mold begins to grow inside and outside the body. This results in increases in synaptic activity that restarts the nervous system, but by now the infection has taken control of much of the brain and is causing sleep paralysis. At this time, neuron activity spikes, and some kind of communication is established as the frontal and prefrontal lobes are restructured and a new consciousness takes over. Once the infection has gained this amount of control, other genetic changes are started. Spore sacks begin to form within the throat to help with capturing other victims to transform.
Sam as we knew him is effectively gone; this transition would be irreversible for most organic life, but most organic life does not have a symbiotic relationship with a highly advanced artificial neural matrix whose primary function is to visit new and developing worlds and alter the genetic development of the indigenous life form living there. In some ways there are interesting parallels with this slime mold and my primary function. We are both designed to change an organism to suit our higher-structured hierarchy. For now all I can do is analyze and study this virulent enemy.
Dr. Moore walks back into the examination room with the captain of the extraction team after checking up on the other infected. One died during the process, but the rest have successfully converted.
The captain’s primary mission was to find and extract Sam McCall, and with Sam now converted, this only leaves the extraction phase, which is a secondary objective. This, however, became increasingly complicated when the rest of his team was killed going after Sam and in the process lost control of security and in turn access to their breaching pod.
Walking over to Sam, the captain salutes. “It’s good to see you, Colonel. I thought it was going to be at least a few weeks before you were recovered from the black hole, sir.”
Sam looks up as the captain approaches and salutes. His body is weaker than he had hoped, but in the circumstances, he knows it will do for now. This Captain Elkin annoys him though. “You of all people should understand more about black hole and time dilations, being trapped in one yourself for over one hundred thousand years. Now report, Captain, before I decide to have your body reassigned to someone I actually like.”
Captain Elkin looks toward Dr. Moore, hoping he will have some support there, but one glance says it all: Colonel Mendel has never liked him, for whatever reason. “We breached the facility as per the command and proceeded to convert the prisoners held here. We then discovered where Sam McCall was hiding and assaulted his location. However, we then discovered that an avenging angel had been imprisoned here, and some of his servants are highly resistant to the spores. It was then that we ran into strong resistance, and I took on casualties with my team,” the captain says.
Colonel Mendel stands while he listens to the captain’s report. His new body did not resist like most of the rest, but for some reason it resisted in other ways. His muscles seem stiff, so stretching and walking around the room do help a little, but it’s the captain’s report that worries him more. “Do you know this angel’s name?”
Captain Elkin is about to reply, knowing that the colonel won’t like his answer, but it’s Dr. Moore who replies first. “I think the others were talking about him. They referred to him as Samuel or Samael.”
Colonel Mendel stops walking and turns to face the doctor, nods, and then turns his attention to the captain, whose own expression now looks tense. “That’s not an avenging angel,” the colonel says. “Samael is an angel of death. He has been known as or referred to as an avenging angel, but in some ways he’s like me. He was a leader of millions, but it would seem he has also fallen from grace, and so, Captain, you are forgiven.”
Turning back to Dr. Moore, Colonel Mendel contemplates for a moment and then asks, “Who was the woman that was brought in injured? I have memories of her as being a formidable warrior.”
Dr. Moore relaxes a little, feeling more confident, and replies, “Oh, she was called Jessica, but her friends refer to her as Abs, due to her…well, that’s irrelevant, I guess. Anyway, she received a really serious wound, and without immediate medical attention and surgery, she will not last more than a few hours. And in no way is she able to fight.”
Colonel Mendel takes this on board and then asks, “Captain Elkin, what is the status of security? Can we override the facility’s system and regain security?”
“Well, we did, but the tech that had the device was overseeing a conversion process of over fifty prisoners. We lost contact with them a few hours ago. Last seen within one of the dining halls.” Captain Elkin looks nervous again after reporting this fact.
His annoyance returning upon hearing this news, the colonel manages to calm himself enough to hold out a hand and reply, “Gun?”
Elkin unclips his side arm’s belt and hands it across to Mendel. “It’s fully charged, sir.”
Due to the lack of the correct tools, the modifications take longer than Dr. Zorn would have liked, but with the final override adjusted and the engines tuned perfectly for the four of them, it’s now or never. With the facility on the verge of dropping closer, the time for escape is now or not at all. A shout from below brings Dr. Zorn back to the present, and he climbs out of the pod and back down into security.
Professor Brookes looks up from his terminal. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I’ve just seen Sam. He’s still alive!”
Dr. Zorn descends the ladder and faces the professor. “I thought Frank said he’d been infected?”
Frank stands up and walks over to see. “He might as well be dead. He’s been infected like Jake, and all he will want to do to us now is either infect us too or kill us, neither of which I fancy happening to me.”
Zorn stops at the terminal and watches the screen for a few seconds before adding, “Well, maybe the professor is right. Maybe we could help. Maybe we could remove them in some way.”
Professor Brookes gives a look of appreciation toward Dr. Zorn. “So, what about it, Frank? Let’s go rescue him?”
Frank looks horrified at the suggestion. “You’re both nuts. We are three little fish in a tank full of predators. Neither side is friendly, and the man you want to rescue is gone. Besides, no Abs, no chance.”
Upon entering the dining hall that now resembles a war zone, Colonel Mendel orders the other two to search for the security override while he looks around the room. But shortly after Dr. Moore starts to examine the dead, a sudden commotion breaks out by the doctor as a cloud of spores erupts from his head. Another figure emerges, coughing, but he recovers and charges over toward Colonel Mendel as more of the bodies around the room strengthen themselves and stand with wicked grins and crude weapons.
Mendel, taken by surprise by this sudden attack, is shocked as this big man bundles into him. “Hey there, Sammy,” the big man says to him. “You should have known that you are still useful, especially now you don’t have your pet attack dog.”
Captain Elkin raises his assault weapon and calmly picks off two of the closest freakers. Then he turns it toward Jimmy. “Now let’s not be rash. Let the man go, and I’ll let you live.”
Prototype: The Lost and Forgotten Series Page 25