Carrier

by Timothy Johnson

  Wendy leaned forward toward the door, reaching out from across the room, feebly attempting to engage the electronic lock. She didn't care who that person was or what they were afraid of. She simply knew she didn't want it. She wanted to hide from it and let it pass her by, and locking the door was the only way she could ensure that happened.

  But she couldn't move. Fear froze her muscles, and the burning in her stomach became a stabbing that was too great to bear. She collapsed back to her bed in defeat and clutched to the hope that, if she were quiet enough, she might remain unnoticed.

  The shape was back on its feet again and was hurrying toward her room. Wendy could tell it was female by the tone of its gasps. Behind the shape followed a faint dragging sound, like a metal rod sliding across the floor. It came at regular intervals. Slowly, at first, and then it picked up speed and was accompanied by the unmistakable pound of a footfall.

  Wendy tried to run to her door, but even though her adrenaline lit her veins like fire, giving her the shakes in her limbs and flutters in her stomach, the pain overpowered her again. She could not move when the dark shape crossed once more in front of her room and stopped at the door. The access hologram flashed from red to green and announced the Atlas' signature chirp. Daelen entered the room and quickly swiped her link and input a code to close and lock the door.

  She backed away, clutching her own heaving chest, not even glancing at Wendy.

  "Daelen?" Wendy whispered. "What's going on?"

  Another shape appeared in front of the frosted glass. It lumbered and lurched, the slow and regular pound and drag growing louder. It released a deep sound somewhere between a moan and a growl, and Wendy did not think it sounded human.

  The shape stopped at the door.

  Wendy expected it to pound in frustration. She expected an angry cry. Instead, she heard a sliding sound as the shape ran its hands over the metal door, searching for a way to open it.

  They knew that, unless it possessed incredible strength, it would not be able to get through. The door was not a bulkhead or hatch. It would not withstand depressurization. However, it was still a metal plate running into a metal frame. They found relief in that.

  Their regaining sense of security waned as the shape's hands moved outward around the door, scratching the frosted glass, its nails leaving red streaks.

  Glass was not as strong.

  It lowered its arms to its sides and stood silently outside the door for such a time that Wendy and Daelen wondered if it had disappeared. The streaks of blood collected and ran. A moment passed, and they heard its feet shuffle and begin its pound and drag once again. It crept away, and neither of them moved until they heard a far-off scream outside medical, audible through the ship's vents and pipes.

  Daelen refused to take her eyes off the locked door as if it might open and let the thing in if she turned.

  "What was that?" Wendy whispered

  Either because of the shock or because she didn't know how to answer, Daelen didn't make a sound.

  Eight

  On the bridge, no one would shut up.

  Pierce stood at his platform leaning upon his railing, his fingers rubbing his forehead, desperately digging for relief. Voices all around him called out status reports. The department heads shouted information to each other, a stamp of urgency accompanying everything. Problems needed solutions, and Pierce grew tired of answering obvious queries. He needed his crew to take off its training wheels. He needed them to use their common sense. He needed them to give him time to think.

  "Sir," Evans said. "Cargo bay quarantine is already requesting provisions. Food and water."

  "They're going to have to wait," Pierce said. Something was building within him like seismic activity before a volcanic eruption.

  "What should I tell them, sir?"

  "Dammit, Cooper! I don't care what you tell them! Just shut them up!"

  The cacophony of voices silenced. All the personnel on the command deck stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Instead of feeling relieved, he felt shame. He'd forgotten his own first lesson of dealing with crises. He'd lost his cool.

  And he realized he'd been selfish. Like every truth he would never speak of, he realized he wanted them to figure things out on their own so he could have the time to worry about Emra. Anxiousness was like grief in that something inside him wanted it to surface. And as they drew nearer to her, it became more powerful. Work helped to push it down, but eventually, it would have to come up.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Evans," Pierce said, standing upright and straightening his overcoat. "That was uncalled for."

  Evans silently accepted the apology with a nod. To do any more would have been disrespectful. After all, Pierce was his captain. He didn't need to apologize to anyone for anything. He did what he wanted and felt was necessary, and Evans trusted his judgment. Although, Evans respected Pierce's humility. It was important for leaders to be right, but it was more important that they knew when they were wrong.

  "Sir, quarantine procedures are almost complete," Evans said. "What do we do now?"

  "Now?" Pierce said. "Now, we wait."

  Nine

  Several hundred crew, including Carter Raines and the rest of the water plant crew, were unlucky enough to be assigned to cargo bay quarantine, where so many cranes had been inoperable for the pickup that the bay had been rendered useless. The Pandora Protocol found a use for that space. Anyone who couldn't be quarantined elsewhere was stored there. Trams dropped them off at the nearest platform, and it took more than an hour to feed them all through the tight corridors, down the ramps, and into the belly of the Atlas.

  Security Officer Desmond Brannigan thought they seemed relieved to enter such an open area after the tightness of the Atlas' hallways. It must have felt nice to be able to spread out and put some space between each other, get some elbow room as it were. Any good cheer disappeared, however, when they noticed the young security officer at the hatch door, barring their exit with his rifle, waiting for the last of the crew to make it through so he could lock them in. His grip on his weapon was awkward, but the mere sight of it was enough.

  Carter didn't mind the rifle, and the shock of being forced to be near so many people at once had long since passed. He was beyond it and into something else, something primal. He could feel it surging through his veins, throbbing in his head.

  It had started when Stellan had told him they would have to leave their solitude. When the news reached his ears, his breathing picked up until he thought his lungs might burst. Since then, he hadn't been able to catch his breath or slow his heart, but it wasn't debilitating. He actually felt empowered.

  Everything angered him. The way other people looked angered him. The sounds they made, the way they moved. He wanted them to shut up. He wanted to shut them up.

  Oddly, he could sense that same hostility in some of the others. He could tell by the way they looked; their brows pressed together like molded clay, and their faces flushed red as if their blood boiled. He felt a kinship to those people. They understood his mounting rage; they were united.

  Out of a murmuring, aimless crowd, Tram Operator Nathan Philips approached Carter. His eyes indicated he was looking for someone to latch onto, someone to console him in his confusion. Carter did not want to be that person.

  "Crazy, eh?" Nathan said, his voice ramming spikes into Carter's ears.

  "Yeah," Carter grunted.

  "A few people party a little too hard. Security freaks. A few bad apples ruin it for everyone."

  Carter thought Nathan was ruining whatever serenity he had left.

  "You're one of them hermits, right? You live and work in the water plant?"

  Carter nodded.

  "I always wanted to see the inside of that place," Nathan said. "Still, I never envied you guys up there, shut away from everything. That is, until recently with all the crazy shit that has been going on. I guess we end up in the same place anyway. If you aren't one of them, you're one of us."

&n
bsp; Carter resented Nathan lumping them together like that. They weren't alike. They were nothing alike, and Nathan had no right to think they were. But he understood the sentiment that authority would never go away. They didn't want anarchy. They wanted peace, to be left alone, and even so deep in the black, it seemed they would never escape their oppressors.

  Nathan continued to speak, and Carter pretended to listen. Although, he would have rather found a quiet corner to sit by himself. He understood that, in times like these, other people wanted the comfort of company, someone to talk and listen to. That wasn't him, and the fear and shock had built in him so much that he didn't feel like putting up with that anymore.

  And Nathan just kept talking. The words he chose to use picked away at Carter's skull. Then it was the very sound of his voice, like driving nails into his brain. It built within him, and the more he held it back, the more it built until he knew he would explode.

  By the time he let it out, the anger had moved beyond words. It exploded into action. Carter threw fists at Nathan. He threw feet, elbows, knees. Then, when Nathan was on the ground, Carter jumped on top of him and used his fingernails. Nothing registered in Carter's mind, not the blood, not the pain in his own hands, only the satisfaction and pleasure of shutting Nathan up. The man's cries for Carter to stop only made him hit, scratch, and tear harder. And finally, in an act he could not understand, as if something else drove him to do it, Carter bent and sank his teeth into Nathan's neck, tearing away a mouthful of flesh.

  The taste of Nathan's blood registered in Carter's mind. He knew what it was, and he liked it. It felt right to destroy this man. It felt like he'd always wanted to do it, like all his life, this rage had built up, and he was finally setting it free. He let out all the hate for the New Earth Council. He released his disdain for his ex-wife who left him and took their child. He set forth his contempt and revulsion of his father, who had abused him and his sister.

  When Nathan was still, Carter couldn't stop. A woman's scream attracted his attention, and he jumped onto her, tearing at her clothes and into her flesh. A man tried to pull Carter off, and he bit the man's arm so hard the bone broke.

  In moments, Carter's rage downed three people. He was on another when a deafening gunshot stopped the crowd, and he felt a white-hot burning in his chest. Darkness followed as he crumpled and lay still on the cold deck of the cargo bay.

  "See?" said Security Officer Andrew Reynolds to Desmond Brannigan. "Easy peasy." The excitement in Andrew's voice disturbed Desmond. Neither of them was exactly comfortable with their weapons, but Andrew had just ended a man's life. And he had enjoyed it.

  Feeling saved, some of the crew moved to aid the injured. Nathan Philips was bleeding out on the floor, and a woman removed and pressed her overcoat against his neck, sobbing as she stared into his wide eyes.

  Andrew twirled the gun playfully in his hand. He felt powerful. Killing a madman and saving everyone gave him a rush, but one of the injured saw him waving the gun and shrieked. He put out his hand to reassure them it was okay, that he had the situation under control. One of the injured stood with a fiery rage in his eyes like Carter's. His attendants, who only moments ago showed great concern for his wellbeing, backed away. The man tackled Andrew, latching onto his back like a monkey.

  The madness spread almost as quickly as the panic, which overtook the crowd, and several hundred of them raced toward the hatch door Desmond guarded. A window expanded from Desmond's link.

  "This is the Captain," Pierce said over the comms. "Close that hatch, son."

  Desmond couldn't. He knew the finality of it. He knew that, when he closed the hatch, it wouldn't open again until the quarantine was lifted, if ever.

  "Andy!" Desmond screamed. "Come on!" Andrew spun with the man mounted on his back, biting into his shoulder. Several others swarmed around him, and then Andrew disappeared into a flood of flailing bodies. Desmond pulled his rifle to his shoulder, his uncertain hands shaking, and the approaching crowd slowed.

  "Don't you do it, Desmond!" Stellan broke in over the comms. "I'm almost there."

  "Stellan, get off this line," Pierce said. "Close that door, or we could lose the whole ship!"

  "Andrew! Come on! Get out of there!"

  Behind the flood of people circling Andrew, blood sprayed into the air as more of the madmen tore into others. Andrew didn't know where all these mad people were coming from. Then he saw Carter back on his feet, blood still flowing from the gaping wound in his neck, using the last ounce of his lifeforce to tear into a woman who was fleeing for her life.

  The madness was spreading. The people falling to it succumbed to its control.

  In the confusion, no one knew what was happening, and one man figured risking that Desmond wouldn't pull the trigger was better than waiting for certain attack. He ran toward the door. Another followed. Two more joined in, and then they all came rushing toward Desmond, who knew they would not stop.

  He debated opening fire and even began to squeeze the trigger only to find he could not do it. He could not take a life. However, when faced with the choice between leaving his friend and succumbing to the crowd of frantic people rushing him, he closed and locked the door, telling himself it was to save the rest of the ship from this breach. It was different than pulling a trigger. It was so others may have a chance.

  Through the bulkhead, he felt the wave of bodies collide with the door. He wondered if the hatch would hold.

  Pierce's consolations and commendations came through the comm system but did not reach Desmond's ears. He could only watch as people pleaded with him through the porthole window.

  A moment later, Stellan appeared. "Out of the way!"

  Desmond stepped aside. "I had to! Chief, I'm sorry! I had to!"

  Stellan tried to open the door with his link, and the holographic lock would not disengage. He tried to pull it open, and it would not budge. It was the first time on the Atlas that he could not access something.

  Through the porthole window, he saw the horrified eyes of fellow crew, pleading for their lives, and behind them, arterial sprays launched into the air like geysers. He could see the wave of madness approach them from behind, but it clearly had not reached them. He knew the look of the madness as it stared back at him through holding cells, and these people did not have that murderous gaze. He saw only hope and fear, a desire to simply be given a chance.

  "Pierce!" Stellan called. "Open the door!"

  "We can't risk it. I'm sorry."

  "They're getting torn up! I can help them!"

  "You wouldn't know who to save and who to put down."

  On the bridge, Pierce thought about acceptable losses. In a time of war, he and his men often joked about being expendable. Ironically, it wouldn't have been funny if it weren't true. The laughter made it easier to cope, to bolster their spirits as if they could demoralize death like the enemy. But when it came down to it, they were resources to leadership, and every man had a price tag. Men could be bought, but they also could be sold if the mission was worth it.

  Numbers. When they were soldiers, that's all they were.

  Pierce began to understand the coldness of the calculation. Faced with the reality of the situation, he thought about the purpose of the Pandora Protocol. With such a sledgehammer approach to quarantine, they hadn't admitted to themselves they were mingling uninfected people with infected people, and they would have to lose some to save the rest.

  When you led, it was about the numbers.

  But he couldn't let people in cargo bay seventeen suffer. He couldn't let his men watch the crew get slaughtered by madmen that killed and no doubt spread the madness to them all. Daelen had said it spread through body fluid contact and even could be transmitted through bites. The mad did a lot of that in their thrashing, relentless assaults.

  "Ready the fire-stop system," Pierce said.

  "Sir?" Evans said.

  "No!" Stellan cried. "Open the door!"

  "We have to consider them all a loss no
w," Pierce said. "They've all been exposed."

  "No!"

  Evans hesitated. He reached out to his holographic interface and froze. Pierce walked down the ramp to Evans' station, steadying the boy's hand with his own.

  "It's okay, son," Pierce said. "It has to be done."

  Pierce called up the window on Evans' terminal and entered the command himself.

  If a soul be damned, he thought, let it be mine. He concentrated on Evans' eyes, and he wanted this boy to have a chance. He wanted them all to have a chance, and it was tragic that some had to pay for that.

  Pierce forced himself to watch as the fire-stop system sucked the air out of cargo bay seventeen. In moments, they fell down weakly. They moved slowly, gasping, flopping, twitching, one by one becoming still and quiet.

  Ten

  As Stellan charged toward the command deck, his anger temporarily cleared, and he experienced a moment of perfect clarity. The hallways folded in on themselves, and Doug's labored attempts to appeal to Stellan's sense of reason silenced. In the darkness of Stellan's mind, there were only three residents: Stellan, his instinct, and the innocent boy.

  For the first time in as long as he could remember, these three sides of his persona aligned. There was no conflicting guilt, as he'd done everything he could. His compassion, the mechanism that made him a killer, and the boy that split these two sides and continued to haunt him all agreed that what Pierce ordered had been murder. They had other options, and they should have turned to them. They should have tried to save everyone they could.

  The clarity faded, though, with the thought of Daelen. Unlike every conflict he'd been involved with, he had an investment. Daelen. Her life was in danger, and Stellan realized it wasn't about seeing the individual or seeing the crowd. Lives, indeed, had worth, and Daelen was worth everything to him. If things got any worse, he'd have to adjust his thinking. He'd have to do what it took to protect her.

  The lives of the crew in cargo bay seventeen had been out of his hands. He couldn't bear the thought that Daelen's life could be out of his hands.