He made it to a nearby counter and managed to grab onto pruning shears. He carefully leaned back against the counter and manipulated the shears in his hands to get them at the perfect angle so he could cut through the rope. A couple failed attempts later his hands were free.
He cut quickly through the rope around his neck and threw the leash down onto the beast. This is as far as he had thought out his plan. He had heard about the abilities to anticipate and visualize scenarios increasing with the disease. He saw things happening in his head before they began.
Zeke exhaled and reached down to stick his fingers into the fleshy remains of the beast. He wet his fingers with the beast’s bloody tissue and wiped the wetness onto his lips and gums making them red with infected blood. He quickly spat the blood out from his mouth and wiped it off his lips with his forearm.
Infected blood tasted awful.
He spat again miserably trying to escape the taste when suddenly his head snapped up to see Tuna’s face watching him from the vault window. Zeke was not too far gone to feel the shame of a friend watching him with horror and disgust.
Tuna’s eyes darted about in his head as Zeke stepped toward the small window holding the pruning shears. Tuna moved away from the window and Gen appeared.
Zeke stopped in his tracks, dropping his eyes. He did not want her to see him like this. Not her. Not anyone. He did not want her hurt. He thought about killing himself with the shears, to keep her safe from him, but he wanted to live more.
He lifted his eyes like a shy boy and fought to hold onto the power of her beautiful eyes without looking away. He could see love in them and he wanted love, but he could not feel it. Not anymore.
* * *
HER HANDS WENT UP to touch the window. She wanted him to know she longed to touch him no matter how he looked. She knew he had saved them. She knew he was at war with his own blood.
She gasped as he stepped to the door and his eyes left her sight. She heard him scratching on the door with something sharp. When she reached for the handle, Tuna grabbed her hand.
“No,” Tuna commanded. “You will only tempt him more.”
She let her hand fall and listened to the sharp scratching sound he made on the door. Tears streamed down her cheeks inside her helmet. She sat on the floor feeling helpless.
Tuna stepped quickly back to the window when the scratching stopped. Zeke retreated down the rows of leafy green vegetation. At the end of the row, he glanced back over his shoulder to see Tuna’s eyes one last time before he sprinted off.
They waited in the seed vault for a minute to consider their options. Tuna helped Gen to her feet and they opened the door of the vault slowly. When they were outside the vault, they surveyed the entire gardens to make sure they were alone.
Gen turned back to see what Zeke had done to the door.
A message, written in blood. He had stabbed the shears into the leg of the fallen beast for his bloody ink.
The message he carved into the door: Run from Me!
-15-
Tuna raced around the reactor packing anything he could fit into his cloth sack. The other four stood together bewildered and watching his every move.
“What are you all looking at?” Tuna said. “I said, let’s go. Get your butts moving. It’s only a matter of time. They’re coming.”
Trinh started to help Gen out of her suit. Ethan nodded in a daze and searched for his own travel sack.
“I don’t understand. He helped you,” Jax said. “And he killed one of them. Why do you assume he’s bringing the rest? By my calculations, there’s only a couple of the foreign rippers left.”
Jax’s words gave Ethan some hope.
“What do you mean by foreign rippers?” Tuna asked.
“You know. Not one of us. Not from our ship,” Jax explained.
“Do you really think our infected crew members are any less likely to rip the meat from your bones?” Tuna said.
“Zeke didn’t,” Gen said.
“He’s fighting it,” Tuna said. “Soon he won’t be able to fight it anymore. And he knows exactly where to find us.”
“I could still see him in his eyes,” Gen told Trinh.
“Yes, but he knows what’s coming. He even told us how it’s going to be with his lovely message written in blood.”
“Zeke wrote a message to you?” Trinh asked.
The question disturbed Gen. She would not answer.
Tuna considered Gen’s silence and turned gravely to the others .
“He sure did,” Tuna said. “He carved it deep into the metal door using the blood of the beast.”
“What did it say?” Trinh asked eagerly.
Everyone stopped to listen to Tuna’s response.
“Run from me,” Tuna answered. “It said, Run from me!”
Trinh and Jax absorbed the words slowly and, once satisfied with the meaning, hurriedly searched for their travel sacks.
Tuna picked up Gen’s sack and handed it to her. “Only food and weapons,” he said staring into her eyes so she would understand.
They allowed themselves five minutes to decide exactly what could be safely and quietly transported to a new hiding spot. Tuna tasked Ethan with figuring out a workable place for them to go, some place Zeke would not be able to anticipate.
“Why can’t Ethan tell us where we’re going?” Gen said.
“Because we might not all make it there,” Tuna said.
“What if I don’t make it?” Ethan said.
“Jax and Trinh will make sure that you do.” Tuna tied his supply sack to the ankle of his protective suit and climbed up into the pipe to lead them out of the reactor for the last time.
* * *
EACH HOLSTERED A GUN. Four of them had a pulse gun while Tuna insisted that he should have the short straw and be the one to carry the tranq gun. They stopped at the door of the transistor room.
“This is as far as I go,” Tuna said.
They all heard his strange words in their helmets and turned back to find Tuna facing what looked like a ghost in the distant darkness of the corridor. The ghost walked closer.
“It looks like its alone,” Jax said. “I can kill it with my knife quietly.”
“No, she’d kill you with your own knife, Jax,” Tuna said. “It’s Lexi.”
The words stunned them. She started humming a haunting tune. No words, just a familiar melody.
“I’m staying,” Tuna said. He reached up and pushed the pressure points on his neck to release his helmet. He quickly twisted the helmet slightly and lifted it off of his head.
“Tuna!” his friends all screamed.
“What have you done, Tuna?” Gen moaned sadly.
“It’s suicide,” Ethan accused.
“I know what I’m doing,” he said. “It’s a calculated risk. Now go, quickly, let me deal with Lexi by myself.”
Lexi slowed her approach confused by Tuna taking off his helmet. She closed her eyes and sniffed his sweet blood in the air.
“Go, I said!” Tuna yelled at his friends.
Jax grabbed each of their suits and pulled them away and into the transporter room where they would begin their hidden ascent to another deck within the walls. Tuna kicked the door to slam it shut.
Alone with him now, Lexi began to skip towards Tuna with a wild excitement on her face. She had never smelled such candied goods as his hot blood sugar.
He stood his ground studying her every feature as she began to croak and moan. Suddenly, she ran with wicked speed toward him.
Tuna turned his cheek to let her bite into his face and knock him back onto the ground. He watched her chew the small bit of meat she’d ripped from his cheek before she collapsed fast asleep onto his chest.
He pushed her lovingly off of him and then climbed to his feet. He stood with his cheek bloodied and his hand holding the tranq gun.
He had fired a long, steel-tipped dart into her. It pinned her short, white gown to her belly.
* * *
&n
bsp; ZEKE WANDERED THE SHIP staying in the shadows whenever he could. He ate crackers and drank milk and did his best not to throw it all back up. Human food hit his stomach now like a gaseous brick.
He stayed high up in the walls when he tried to sleep but he slept very little. His eyes burned. His mouth burned. His gums drove him to madness with a pulsating itch. He waited days and then he waited a week and then he waited another week.
During the third week he forgot why he was waiting. He climbed down out of the walls and went to the commissary. He found the two biggest knives he could find in the kitchen. He spun the knives around in his hands and grunted satisfied.
He rode the elevator boldly to flight deck. The bell rang and he stepped out into the hallway. No one greeted him. The doors of flight deck did not open. He walked at a determined pace down to the double doors and still no one came out to greet him.
Zeke stopped ten feet short of the doors and grunted. He sniffed the air and made a croaking sound, then he continued walking toward the doors which slid right open and showered him in light.
He entered cautiously. In a flash he had counted eight infected and not one of them turned to defend themselves. He gripped his knives and croaked again to announce his arrival. One of the kids who he vaguely recognized from some forgotten past turned his scarred face to him and croaked, but as quickly the boy turned his attention back to whatever he had been doing before.
There was no reason to kill these creatures, he thought. They won’t even put up a fight and their blood would taste nasty anyway.
The Alpha Beast, who had been fixated on a navigation console near the flight screen, finally turned around. He laughed when he saw the blades Zeke gripped in his hands.
“You’re here,” the beast grunted. “We’ve been expecting you.”
-16-
Adam found Artie and Max in the officer’s lounge. Max was telling a series of bad jokes because he knew it amused Artie who had come out of his shell with the wild successes of the light-speed pushes.
They were more than four weeks into the final push to Epsilon Eridani. In two weeks, they would be close enough to send a weather probe down onto an exoplanet and determine if it could be made livable.
They were well ahead of even the most optimistic projections and that was all Artie. He found an energy modification that would reduce stress in the antimatter reactor so they could safely increase speed in bigger increments than anticipated without additional risk to the core.
“How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?” Max asked tongue-in-cheek.
Artie’s expression went from annoyed to suddenly amused.
“I don’t know,” Adam quipped. “How much deeper would human intelligence be without Max?”
It took a moment, but Artie began to laugh heartily. “A lot deeper,” Artie spat out between chuckles.
Max grinned too. All three of the boys were in chipper moods.
Adam slapped Max’s back and squeezed his shoulder. “Anybody up for some popcorn and putting an old war movie on the wall screen?”
Max and Artie grinned. They jumped onto their feet and raced to the console near the wall screen.
“I get to pick the movie,” Max demanded.
“No way,” Artie said. “We’re not watching drone war movies again. I want pilots in the planes. I want soldiers on the ground.”
“Come on, guys,” Adam yelled back over his shoulder as he walked into the officer’s kitchen. “Let’s watch two. I’m tired of one of you being disappointed every time.”
Now they both seemed mildly disappointed. Fighting over the movie was one of the best parts of the ritual.
“We’re watching mine first,” Max said fighting for position at the console.
“Fat chance, drone lover,” Artie said elbowing his way ahead of Max.
Adam smiled from frustration as he pulled a popcorn pouch out of a sliding food file, threw it into a stove slot, counted out a four count and waited for the pouch to push back up through a countertop hatch all hot and swollen with popped corn.
When he grabbed the bag, he juggled it trying not to burn his hands. He flicked one side of the bag and it magically opened like a spout allowing Adam to pour the corn into a white bowl.
“Whoever can tell me who invented popcorn, gets to pick the first movie,” Adam announced.
“Mister Popcorn,” Max blurted out.
“Native American Indians,” Artie said calmly.
Adam stopped in his tracks to eye Max with amused disgust. “Really, Max? Mister Popcorn?”
Max lifted his hands in defeat. “Well, you never know.”
“Artie goes first,” Adam said as he sat down with the popcorn and waited for Artie to start the movie.
Max jumped onto the couch next to Adam and snatched a handful of popcorn from the bowl. “Fine, but it better not be one of your weepy ones, Artie.”
Artie ignored Max and started the movie. Adam picked up a remote and lowered the lights as the opening credits began to roll.
* * *
MAYA HAD ENLISTED SYLVIA to help her organize a Push Party for the final push before they reached Epsilon Eridani. The moment Sylvia woke from deep sleep and Adam let them know they were three weeks from the new star system, Maya insisted they finally hold a dance.
Maya liked the idea as a bonding experience for the newly assigned intended mates until she remembered Max, her way too young intended. If a good opportunity arose, she thought, she would still like to kill Adam for assigning her a new intended who was twelve. Ridiculous.
They found the boys laying all over each other on the couch. Maya turned up the room lights. They had popcorn crumbs on their shirts and the wall screen was playing some movie about drone wars.
“Pathetic,” Maya said.
“I don’t know,” Sylvia countered, “it’s kind of cute.”
Maya reconsidered the boys with their mouths hanging open. “That’s cute, huh?” Maya shook her head while she took the empty bowl from Adam’s lap. “Well then, you can be the one to wake the little puppy dogs.”
Sylvia ran through different ways to wake them in her head.
“On second thought,” Maya said and banged the bowl loudly against the wall.
The three boys jumped in their sleep and pushed against each other as they sat up disorientated.
“What the hell?” Adam complained.
Maya put the bowl on Max’s head and slapped Adam’s shoulder. “Why are we always the only ones who remember party preparations?”
“I’m confused, Maya,” Adam began, “did I ever say we were going to help with that?”
“Of course, you didn’t,” Maya answered. “You’re a jerk. We said you are going to help.”
From behind Maya, Sylvia mouthed to Adam that she was sorry.
“I’m happy to help,” Max said to Maya.
“See that, Commander,” Maya said glaring at Adam. “Even junior here is more generous than you are.”
Artie cleared the popcorn off his chest before he realized Maya was now staring at him. “Oh, yeah, I’m going to help. Of course,” he quickly said in fear.
Adam turned to his young, so-called buddies disappointed in their easy concessions. “Fine, Maya,” Adam said. “We’re helping.”
Maya walked away and winked at Sylvia on her way out.
“And one more thing,” Sylvia said, “be good boys and pick the popcorn up off the ground before you join us.”
Sylvia spun around and followed Maya out. She was surprised how good it felt to be bossy. She might try it more often.
-17-
The girls all wore spring dresses with colored ribbons in their hair. The boys wore dark, dress blue uniforms with small purple ribbons pinned to their right lapels. Ethereal music from the twenty-second century wafted quietly over boisterous group conversations.
Nadia held Eli's hand as he took a few uncertain steps. Whenever he was about to fall, she pulled him up by his arm and let him get his footing t
o take a few more steps. Leo followed along carrying two cups of punch.
Artie walked into the party with Hanna, his intended, who was possibly the only person on the ship that could make Artie appear big. The new couple stopped when they reached Adam and Sylvia who towered over them. Sylvia immediately played with Hanna's adorable curls. Adam softly punched Artie's shoulder, the traditional greeting of male crew members.
"Look at you, Artie, you dapper dandy," Adam teased. "I thought we'd have to come pull you out of your lab."
"Maya already did," Artie said grumpily, "an hour before the party."
Hanna saddened hearing Artie's lack of enthusiasm.
"Artie!" Sylvia said a little too loud. "Doesn't Hanna look pretty?"
Sylvia lifted Hanna's sad face by putting her fingers under Hanna's chin. Artie swallowed as he attempted to study the shy girl's face.
"It's very nice," Artie managed to utter.
Adam covered his mouth trying not to laugh.
Sylvia glared at Adam. "Artie," Sylvia said, "tell Hanna, not us."
Artie looked down to Hanna. "You look very pretty, Hanna. I like your ribbon."
"That's better," Sylvia said taking Hanna's hand. "Let's go talk to the girls, honey." Sylvia led Hanna away and Artie exhaled deeply.
"That's the game, sport," Adam said rubbing Artie's back. "Life's not all scientific riddles. Sometimes it's much harder than that."
"I can’t breathe normally around girls," Artie hypothesized. "It’s as if they emit unusually large quantities of carbon dioxide.”
“You’ll get over it, trust me.”
“This is all right though, right?”
“The party?” Adam questioned.
“Yeah. It’s like a real thing.” Artie said. “People went to dances.”
“It’s real, Artie,” Adam said impatiently. “Now tell me about the weather probe.”
“By now it should be breaking through the atmosphere of the planet,” Artie said, “the dark side of the planet.”
“Already?”
“Dude, it launched just after the push ended. That’s almost ten hours ago. We’ll be there in six hours ourselves and we’re moving at a snail’s pace on the approach.”
The Eden Project (Books One & Two) Page 24