Jimmy by now has wrapped his big arms around Colonel Mendel. Using him as a shield, he slowly starts to back up toward one of the exits. “Don’t worry, Sammy, I’m sure he won’t kill you to get to me. Isn’t that right? You don’t want to kill Sammy here, now do you?”
Colonel Mendel just relaxes and allows Jimmy to take control, knowing that with all his faults, Captain Elkin is a good soldier. If it wasn’t for the wave of nausea that hit him as Jimmy rushed him, he would have killed Jimmy himself.
Captain Elkin keeps his weapon up and steadily scans the other freakers as Jimmy slowly backs toward the exit of the room. Elkin also spots the tech kit over Jimmy’s shoulder. This is not what he had expected. Most of these creatures had been infected but somehow resisted it, and now these freaks are slowly edging toward him as his colonel and what they came here for are slowly edging away.
What happens next is expected, as he’s been in many situations like this before. The freakers all rush at the same time, and Jimmy, taking this as the best moment to escape, turns and rushes for the exit.
Captain Elkin calmly squeezes off a suppressed burst of fire along the left-hand set of freakers, the closest one, killing at least two of his enemy and forcing the others to duck and slow their attack and also bunching then to the right. Resting his weapon, he removes a thermate grenade and rolls it toward the left side of the room. Then bringing up his weapon once more, he kills two more almost at point-blank range and a third with a rifle butt to the face, followed by two shots into its chest as the freaker tumbles backward. A flash of heat signals that his grenade has just killed about four others. The rest of the freakers warily slow and hang back as Elkin, now in a slow run, heads for the corridor Jimmy has just taken.
Entering the corridor, Elkin watches as Colonel Mendel pukes up on the floor with Jimmy half pulling him along by the collar while shouting his dismay. Jimmy looks up in horror as Elkin enters the corridor. Dropping Mendel, he turns and runs. Captain Elkin fires twice, and Jimmy the Fist dies for a second time. Storing his weapon, Elkin places a laser trip mine by the door, noticing that the freakers are building up for another assault. Then he moves down the corridor toward the colonel.
“Are you okay sir?” he asks, reaching down to the colonel.
“Yeah, I’m good. For some reason I felt nauseous all of a sudden,” Colonel Mendel replies. He spits the taste out and wipes his mouth clean and then takes Elkin’s hand and stands up.
Captain Elkin then walks over to Jimmy’s body and retrieves the security override device. He checks its condition and turns to Colonel Mendel. “The override looks good. I think we should get a move on before the rest of the freakers decide they do have balls.” Spitting again, Mendel nods and joins Captain Elkin at the end of the corridor.
Phantom Sam’s bionanites hit a breakthrough on the analysis of the spores’ DNA, but at that same moment, the spores themselves realize the threat, and the war for Sam McCall’s body starts in earnest. Like most fights within the human body, when the antibodies start to fight off an infection or virus of some kind, the body suffers, and in this case it’s pretty much similar. With Sam now puking his guts up, the excess spores are purged, and the pathogen immediately goes on the defensive.
With the spores analyzed, the true enemy is revealed. There are a million species of slime mold, and the majority of them are pretty much harmless, but the common factor in most of them is that they grow fast and exhibit a rudimentary intelligence. However, this particular slime mold shows obvious signs of manipulation; it’s been altered artificially in some way and over a very long time.
With Sam’s body now flooded with bionanites, it’s now only a matter of time before the controller of this pathogen notices this new threat.
Professor Brookes starts entering commands to the system after watching the outcome below, ensuring that the evaluators are disabled and as many systems as possible are locked down. He has no idea what the item is that they have just recovered, but he’s certainly not going to take any chances. Once the systems have been locked down, he removes the power from all the systems on that floor. “I think that should hold them. How much longer do you need, Doctor?”
Dr. Zorn, finding it hard to pull away from the screen after Frank had called them all over, slowly looks up. “Ten minutes, I guess. Just need to make an adjustment. Losing level one helped a little, and I hardly felt any vibration whatsoever when it was jettisoned, but maybe you should have warned me earlier. I might have been able to save us some time.”
Professor Brookes turns away from his terminal to where Abs is lying. “Yeah, sorry about that, Doctor, but I forgot about it in all the excitement. Hey, Frank, can you help me get Jessica up into the pod?”
Frank, being the last to look away from the screen, looks up at the professor, anxiety high upon his features as he replies, “Sure, Professor, but I’m guessing it will take all three of us, unless there’s any rope up there in the pod.”
Hearing this, Dr. Zorn shouts back down, “I think I saw some in the emergency survival pack. Hang on. I’ll go and see.”
Moments later a coil of rope drops down from the breaching pod. While Professor Brooke ties one end of the rope around Jessica’s chest and under her arms, Frank ascends the ladder, using his stump and his good hand to slowly climb up until he reaches the pod, Dr. Zorn helping him the rest of the way. Together they heave Jessica up and into the breaching pod.
As Jessica’s legs vanish through the ceiling, the lights begin to flicker as security alerts flash on the terminals. Startled, Professor Brookes accesses his terminal. He stops the security alert status and carries out a full system check. A sudden lurch of the station sends the professor flying across the room as more warning alarms sound, followed by the security system announcing, “System breach detected. First stabilization beam has been deactivated. You have thirty seconds to cease your actions.”
Hearing this, Brookes picks himself up and rushes over to the terminal. He continues to type and read the replies. “It’s Sam and his guests. The override system they have is tripping the facility’s fail-safe. If they do not stop, or if we do not let them in, this facility will drop into the black hole.”
Another lurch as a second beam is deactivated and the facility drops once more, but this time the professor is ready for it. He holds on as another message is relayed: “Cease your actions. Otherwise, the facility will be released in sixty seconds. This is your final warning.”
Brookes is still frantically entering countercommands to the security system as an audible countdown begins at forty seconds, but with every command entered, he gets a “system denied” message. With only fifteen seconds remaining, Brookes does the only thing left open to him: he surrenders access to security. With the counter still ticking down, the security alert deactivates at four seconds, the two deactivated sterilization arms are reactivated, and just seconds after that, the elevator arrives with Colonel Mendel and Captain Elkin.
“Wise choice, Professor, but I’m afraid that your usefulness to this facility is now at an end,” Captain Elkin says as he steps out of the elevator, raising his rifle and aiming it at the professor. Professor Brookes, now looking resigned to his fate, closes his eyes. Colonel Mendel watches as Captain Elkin takes aim. Drawing his own gun, he aims and fires a single shot. This is shortly followed by another shot fired by Captain Elkin.
Colonel Mendel does not understand what is happening to him. His body feels like it is on fire. He’s already vomited, but the sickness within him has become worse, not better. He dares not show weakness to Captain Elkin, who would use this chance to advance his rank. Instead he hides his symptoms the best he can and follows the captain down the corridor as Elkin attempts to hack the system.
The first lurch of the facility throws them both to the ground as the system announcement sounds: “System breach detected. First stabilization beam has been deactivated. You have thirty seconds to cease your actions.”
“What was that?” Colonel Mend
el asks as he stands back up.
“It’s some kind of countermeasures in case someone tries to take over the system,” replies Captain Elkin.
Mendel feels his guts churn and tries to hide his discomfort. “Well, keep going. I understand that this technology can rip through any security system.”
Nodding, Elkin enters another set of commands, and the system replies with another lurch, sending Mendel flying, his head hitting the floor with a dull thud. Elkin retains his balance as another message sounds: “Cease your actions. Otherwise, the facility will be released in sixty seconds. This is your final warning.”
Elkin frantically continues entering commands, but the system remains closed. Someone else, most likely Professor Brookes, is attempting to counter his commands, and the facility systems are fighting back both attacks with swift repercussions. There just isn’t enough time, and the system would rather kill everyone than fail.
As the time counts down, the elevator arrives as the system restraints become unlocked. Elkin then realizes that Brookes must have released the elevators, but his hacking device is still in a struggle with the system’s security. Deactivating the device, Elkin helps Mendel stand up, and both men enter the elevator and ascend.
Even though Mendel knew it was likely that the system would lurch again, when it did, he was far too weak to prevent himself from being thrown, and this time it was much worse. As soon as his head connected with the hard floor, he was knocked unconscious. Although he knows he has been knocked out, he is still aware. Opening his eyes, he realizes that he is in some kind of cell. Another man is with him. “I demand you tell me what is going on!” Mendel says in his most commanding voice.
The unknown man turns and smiles. “It’s odd, is it not? Your spores are the most genius form of mind transference I’ve ever encountered, but then again I’m not all that old; my experiences have mainly been locked away in simulations, well, until Sam McCall freed me, and then I could truly stretch my legs, not that I have any.”
Staring at this stranger as he talks, Mendel looks around the room and replies, “Who are you?”
The man smiles again and replies, “I’m Sam McCall, well, the prototype Sam that you have been looking for, and I must say, this technology is impressive. I do not fully understand it or how the transference works yet, but I do now understand how to kill and produce the spores for myself. As for you, I now understand how to contain your consciousness, but unlike how you treat your victims, I’m not going to torture you first. Good-bye, Colonel.”
Mendel’s rage boils as Sam talks. Unable to contain his anger any longer, he explodes in a tirade of threats and insults; however, these do not last long. Mendel stops suddenly as he feels parts of his consciousness slowly erased as the millions of tiny bionanites within him start to remove every aspect of his personality from Sam’s mind, leaving within seconds just an empty shell.
Sam watches as Elkin deactivates some kind of device. Elkin then helps Sam to stand as the elevator arrives. Sam has never walked in the real world before, and he feels slightly unsteady on his feet. He follows Elkin into the elevator, finding this experience fascinating. But he is unprepared when the elevator arrives at the security level and Captain Elkin steps out, talking to Professor Brookes and raising his rifle toward him. Sam draws his own gun, aims it, and fires a single shot into the back of Captain Elkin’s neck, severing his cervical spine. This action is just a moment too late, as Elkin still manages to fire as he dies. Sam stands there perplexed, staring at the gun within his grasp as Elkin and the professor drop to the floor. It should not have been possible for him to take the life of another, but somehow he was able to.
Frank’s voice shouting from somewhere above brings Sam back to himself. “It’s okay, Frank. It’s Sam, but I think the professor has been shot.”
“You keep away from us! Professor, get up. We are leaving. Doc, get us out of here.”
Sam, stepping out of the elevator, notices that Elkin had collapsed to his knees and then fell forward as he died. His deadly spores had not been released. Looking toward the professor, he sees Brookes also splayed out on the floor, but moans of pain are coming from him. He is alive, for now at least.
Then another voice replies to Frank, “It’s useless now. The facility has been dropped far too close to the black hole for any possible attempt to escape.”
Crouching down by Brookes’s side, Sam examines the damage done and is relieved at the sight of the professor’s wounded left shoulder. There’s an ugly hole where the projectile shattered the shoulder and passed through. It will hurt like a bitch, but with treatment the professor should survive. Reaching out, Sam touches the open wound, producing another spike of pain from the professor, whose eyes open in shock and horror as he stares up at Sam, at the face still encrusted with the powdery remains of the mold. “Get away from me!” he yells and attempts to squirm away.
This outcry produces another shout from above as Frank, becoming even more enraged, appears on the ladder and starts to climb down, threatening violence toward Sam. “You get away from him, you fecking monster!”
Sam stands at the fear and shouts from both men. “Will you both calm down? It’s Sam, well, it’s not me exactly, but—”
Frank cuts him off with another shout. “Ah, so you admit it. You, whatever you are, get away from the prof, before I put my remaining fist through your fricking head.”
Sam, putting up his hands in an attempt at a calming, passive gesture, tries to calm the big guy down; even with one hand, he still looks extremely dangerous. “Okay. I was infected, but I’ve resisted the infection. It’s me again. I even killed Elkin before he killed the professor.” Reaching up, Sam starts to clear the remains of the mold from his face.
Professor Brookes then starts to cry out in extreme pain, and this sends Frank into action as he charges at Sam, his fist aiming true to his word at Sam’s head, but Sam ducks away at the last moment. Frank is fast for a big guy, and each successive swing gets closer as the available space is slowly reduced until Sam is backed into a wall with little space to maneuver. Then with a sudden rush from Frank, Sam is pressed up against the wall by Frank’s stump while his good hand is bunched into a tight fist and is about to send Sam from this world. The professor shouts for Frank to stop.
The sheer anger behind Frank’s personal desire to end Sam’s life is turned into a shaking fist when he hears the professor’s shout. “But, Professor, they are evil—he is evil,” Frank responds as his fist is drawn back once more to end Sam’s life.
Movement behind Frank makes him jump as Professor Brookes reaches out with his arm, gently placing it down upon his shoulder. “It’s okay, Frank. Sam healed me somehow, and I’m still me!”
Frank, still on edge and mindful of Sam, turns his head and stares, confused, at the professor’s once-ruined shoulder. His shirt is still torn and bloodied, but his wound has vanished. “How?” Frank asks, astonished.
Sam, now moving very consciously, goes to Professor Brookes’s side, smiles calmly, and says, “It’s a little complicated.”
Sam’s words make both the professor and Frank smile, and Frank all of a sudden grabs Sam and gives him a friendly shake. “Good to have you back, mate.”
Dr. Zorn’s somewhat grumpy voice from above makes everyone turn. “Once you have all finished making up, I think you need to see what trouble we are all in.”
Sam climbs up the ladder into the breaching pod, with Professor Brookes behind him and Frank following last. The interior of the pod, designed for a six-man team plus gear, seems larger than Sam expected. Dr. Zorn is waiting patiently to reveal the shocking information his current expression is trying to conceal. Sam already knows what this is and is trying desperately to come up with an answer to resolve this problem.
When everyone is seated, Dr. Zorn begins to explain. “So as we are all aware, we had a limited window of escape. This window closed as soon as our number increased from four to five. Although there was still a small chance to ma
ke it out, this was reduced to no chance when you calculate in the security breach attempt that almost sent this facility hurtling down into the black hole. These are the current facts: This breaching pod no longer has enough power to break away from the black hole. Jessica needs immediate attention; otherwise, she will die. And lastly, the fight between the freakers and the infected will threaten our very existence. This facility requires prisoners to run various systems; otherwise, we will run out of water and air.”
Before Dr. Zorn is able to continue, Sam interrupts. “It’s grim, but I know how we can overcome the extra mass that we need to pull away from the black hole. However, this will take time.”
Now it’s Dr. Zorn who interrupts. “That sounds great, but Jessica does not have much time left. With her current condition, I would say an hour, maybe a little more. Either way, whatever you have in mind, Jessica is not going to make it.”
In all the excitement, Sam somehow forgot about Jessica. Taking a look at Sam’s memories, Phantom Sam soon discovers what had occurred from the real Sam’s experiences before he became infected. “I’m sorry, I forgot. As I tried to explain earlier, I am not the real Sam.”
This new piece of information causes both Professor Brookes and Dr. Zorn to look confused as they contemplate scenarios. It’s Frank who seems to explode again in anger. “What have you done with Sam? You are infected!”
Sam stands up in protest, almost banging his head. “Frank, will you just listen for one moment? I am not infected. As I mentioned several times before, it is complex, but I can explain.”
This time it’s Zorn and Brookes who come to Sam’s defense and calm Frank down. Brookes says, “Hear him out, Frank. We already knew he had stolen something pretty advanced. I think we should at least hear him out. Besides, if you don’t like the answers, then you can hurt him,” he adds with a smile.
Sam looks toward both Zorn and Brookes with a grateful expression. “Thank you, Professor Brookes. I’ll try to explain as quickly and as easily as I can. The real Sam stole a prototype first-strike biogenetics interstellar warship with a state-of-the-art artificial computer system that integrated the real Sam’s consciousness and memories into its computer matrix. This has the result of the ship becoming totally conscious and self-aware like no other artificial intelligence has ever done before. In essence I became Sam.”
Prototype: The Lost and Forgotten Series Page 26