by Jake Bible
“A what? But how?” the Voice shouts.
“Collette! Now, please!” Worm yells.
54
Collette leaps from the med pod, wincing at the pain that shoots through her. But she ignores the discomfort and grabs up the Morganfeld orb that floats next to the rear hatch. She hurries outside the transport and raises the static pistol gripped in her other hand.
One shot is all it takes to sever the connection from the transport to the Control dome, isolating the Voice/Other inside the transport’s systems.
Collette turns and starts running as fast as she can out into the Sicklands, putting as much distance between her and the transport as possible. She jams her pistol into her belt and pulls out a small box. It has a single button just like Worm said it would.
She makes it about fifty meters when the ground goes out from under her. It takes her a second to realize that the ground didn’t leave her, but that she left the ground as a blast from one of the transport’s cannons sends her flying head over heels through the air.
She loses her grip on both the small box and the orb as she slams back to earth. The wind is knocked out of her and she desperately gasps for breath as she claws her way to the small black box a couple meters out of reach.
Another blast rips a six meter hole in the ground only steps away from her and rocks and debris pelt her head and face. She coughs and chokes on the dust then cries out as she sees the box has been knocked more than twenty meters away.
“Fuck,” she rasps as she rolls over to watch the transport come at her, its cannons trained right where she lies. “Suck my dick, you Control fuck.”
She slowly pulls herself up to her feet and stands there, ready for the death that is coming at her. She raises both hands and flips off the transport.
It explodes into thousands and thousands of pieces.
The blast knocks Collette onto her ass and she just sits there, staring at the flaming and smoking wreckage. After a second, the orb bumps against her shoulder and she looks over at it.
“That you, Worm?” she asks. The orb bobs up and down.
“Good. Did you press the button?” The orb bobs again.
“Great, Worm. At least one of us did their job,” she smiles. “What’s going to happen to everyone else now that the Other’s noggin is all busted?”
The orb doesn’t respond.
“We should really wire some speakers onto that thing,” she laughs. The orb bobs up and down repeatedly.
55
The speakers above the Other’s body fill with feedback and the humans in the room clamp their hands over their ears. Then the feedback stops and the massive blob of bacterial flesh begins to shudder and shake. And move.
“Now,” Tanya says casually. “You can kill it now, Ton.”
Ton doesn’t wait to be told again and opens fire on the blob of mottled and semi-putrid flesh. His static blasts rip into the thing, spilling various colored liquids everywhere.
“April!” Red yells as he fires at the two guards while he sprints forward towards Dr. Charter.
One of the guards panics and turns to run, but is quickly enveloped in a slice of scorched flesh that Ton has blasted off from the main body. The flesh wraps itself around the guard and begins to dissolve the man, white armor and all. Once consumed, the slice of flesh starts to crawl its way over to the second guard, catching that man by surprise as he fires back at Red.
“Oh, dear,” Tanya says. “That clever bastard. He’s made sure each piece of him can work independently. I wonder which bacterium he used for that?”
“Does it fucking matter?” Blaze snaps. “Now we have more of him to kill!”
“Please, son,” Tanya smiles. “You seem to think my surprise means I am worried.” She reaches out and pats him on the shoulder. “I know how we’ll get out of this. I am Control.”
Blaze just stares at her, waiting. She sighs.
“I’m talking about you,” she says. “Go do what you do best.”
Blaze smiles and then turns and gives Jersey a quick kiss.
“Have fun at the office,” Jersey grins as Blaze runs into the fight, his fists reaching for the first hunk of Other flesh he can find.
“Thank you for helping my boy,” Tanya says.
“No problem,” Jersey says then looks at the older woman out of the corner of her eyes. “You know, we have a lot to talk about. You and I are going to have a sit down where you come clean on everything about you and how all of this started and happened.” Tanya opens her mouth, but Jersey holds up a finger, stopping her from speaking. “Nonnegotiable. I am really fucking sick of secrets. Really fucking sick.”
“Fair enough,” Tanya says and nods.
The two women stand and watch as the man they love tears a hunk of flesh in half. Only one half of the flesh reanimates and becomes independent, Blaze’s touch seeming to keep it from multiplying into exponential iterations of itself.
A few feet away, Dr. Charter is standing up and patting herself down, looking around for something.
“April!” Red yells as he reaches her side, his rifle still blasting away at the mound of flesh that is continuously splitting into more versions of itself. He grabs her arm and yanks her backwards. “Come on!”
“No,” she snaps, still hunting.
“What are you looking for?” Red asks.
“Something to cut with,” Dr. Charter replies.
“Here,” Red says. “Take my static blade.”
He pulls the blade from his belt and activates it. She grabs it from him and starts moving back towards the Other’s undulating body.
“What the hell are you doing?” Red asks. “You can’t cut that thing with a static blade!”
“I don’t need to cut it,” Dr. Charter says as she puts the blade to her wrist. “I need to cut me.”
She slices down her arm and her skin splits open. Blood begins to pour from her wrist and she rushes forward and starts flinging the fluid across the Other’s body. Everywhere the blood touches, the flesh dissolves and transforms into a dense mist.
Red reaches her again, but he doesn’t try to pull her away, he just stands there, his mouth hanging open as Dr. Charter’s blood does more damage than any of his static blasts could do.
The Other’s flesh melts and continues to transform, the dense mist sucked up into the room’s ventilation system. In minutes, all that’s left are random hunks of flesh that have separated from the main mass. Blaze is busy crushing those, stomping them into smaller and smaller bits until none are left moving.
Dr. Charter sways on her feet and Red grabs her before she can fall.
“Here,” Jersey says, running up to them. “I can stitch that up.”
While Jersey works, the rest of the group stand there in exhaustion and awe at the scene before them.
“That shit going to be a problem?” Ton asks, pointing at the vents above them. “It would suck if anyone breathes it and we have to go through this fight all over again.”
“I believe Dr. Charter’s blood has neutralized the Other’s strains,” Tanya says. “Which is quite remarkable. I have a few strains of my own I was going to try, but her’s appears to be vastly superior.”
“I know,” Dr. Charter says weakly as Jersey works on her wrist. “I have had a few years to test it and make sure it would do what I hoped. But the real test will be the mutation. Not only will it destroy the strains, but it will command any new ones that mutate on their own and try to become dominant.”
“Command?” Ton asks, his static rifle still at the ready. “That sounds like a mistake waiting to happen.”
“Not at all,” Dr. Charter says. “It will be a culture we can all utilize. Giving humanity final dominance over the bacteria on this planet.”
“Yes, well, if only that were true,” Tanya says. “I believe you’ll find that may not be the case.”
“I believe you’ll find it is,” Dr. Charter says. She looks at Red. “We need to go outside. I have something to show y
ou.”
“What?” Red asks.
“Our son,” Dr. Charter replies.
“I’ve seen our son,” Red smiles. “I raised the little bugger.”
“You haven’t seen him like this,” she says. She looks at the whole group. “Trust me. None of you have.”
Tanya begins to laugh and clap her hands together. “Bravo! That is why you carried the boy to term inside you. You mixed your new bacterial strains with Red’s, creating a superior, innate strain within your son. Well worth the subterfuge, Dr. Charter. If the Other had found out, he would have captured that child and used him for his own purposes.”
“I know,” Dr. Charter says. “That’s why he was raised by GenWrecks. Safest place for him to be.”
56
Collette stands in the middle of the Sicklands as she watches the disoriented Clean Guard and cooties stumble about, unsure of whether they should fight each other or just let things be.
In the middle of the mass of formerly controlled people stands a boy. A smiling boy with a hundred sick mutts sitting behind him and a ring of scarred bug hounds that stand like stone sentries, ready to leap into action at the first sign of a threat.
“Jude?” Collette calls out. “Jude!”
“Hi, Collette,” Jude says and waves.
He walks towards her and the bug hounds and sick mutts follow in lock step.
“Uh, I see you made some friends,” Collette says, her eyes watching the sick mutts carefully. “Do your friends bite?”
A cold nose nudges her hand as soon as she is close enough and she happily scratches between Ajax’s ears. The bug hound’s tongue lolls from its mouth and its lips pull back in a happy, canine smile, despite the obvious wounds that are still healing across his body.
“Jesus, is he going to be okay?” Collette asks.
“They all are,” Jude says. “And don’t worry, my new friends don’t bite unless they have to.” He glances over his shoulder at the swath of cootie and Clean Guard corpses behind him. “They had to for a while there.”
“That was some impressive shit, kid,” Wallace says as she staggers up to Collette and Jude. “You saved our asses there.”
“Sorry I couldn’t save more,” Jude replies. “It took us a while to get here. The dogs can’t run as fast as a transport can move. But I couldn’t leave them behind.”
“Good thing you didn’t,” Wallace says. “I’d take an army of these giant bastards over a dozen squads of GenSOF operators any day.”
“Hey,” Buntu says, limping up next to Wallace. “Don’t fire us yet.”
“Don’t worry,” Jude says. “I don’t think the dogs want to work for GenSOF. Cities aren’t their thing. They’ll just stay out here and keep the Sicklands safe.”
“Keep the Sicklands safe?” Buntu asks. “Safe from what?”
Jude just shrugs.
Then he sees a group emerge from the Control dome. His whole body lights up and he takes off running, leaving the adults and dogs behind. Collette smiles at Wallace and Buntu then looks at the sick mutts.
“You two scared as shit to even twitch right now?” Collette asks.
“Yes,” Wallace and Buntu answer together.
“Right,” Collette says as she watches Jude run into the arms of his father and mother. “We’ll just hang out here until he comes back.” She looks at the lead sick mutt, the one slightly larger than all the rest, the alpha. “Good puppy. Nice doggy.”
57
Tanya waits for the last member of the Clean Guard to be loaded into his stasis tube before she starts the cleansing protocol. The thousands of tubes that line the main Control bay begin to bubble and churn. She turns from the walls and looks out at the hundreds of small orbs that fill the rest of the bay.
“Are we ready for launch?” Tanya asks as Jersey walks between the rows of idle orbs. “Time is still very much of the essence. The longer we wait, the more we risk the remaining Strains mutating. I believe I have all bases covered, but Caldicott was a wily son of bitch. He could have genetic traps built in that I did not anticipate.”
“We’re ready,” Jersey says. “The orbs are programmed and ready to launch. The first wave will head straight for the Clean Nation cities. Once they deploy the new strain derived from the boy then any civilians within the cities should be cleared of the Other’s Strains. It’s going to take a few days before we have confirmation.”
“The second wave?” Tanya asks.
“They’ll deploy to known cootie enclaves,” Jersey says. “If we are lucky, the orbs will disperse enough bacteria to be spread amongst the cooties. This will significantly reduce their bacterially induced dementia and should bring about a modicum of reason to the Sicklands.”
“Third wave?” Tanya asks, smiling at the younger woman.
“Third wave is trickier,” Jersey sighs. “They are programmed to hunt down any of the stray sick mutts that may still be out there. The sick mutts will not be exposed willingly, so I have modified several AiSPs to pilot these orbs. This will give the machines some intelligence and autonomy.”
“But they will still be under a main AiSP’s command, yes?” Tanya asks.
“Yes. Worm has taken that job on himself,” Jersey replies. “He says he learned a lot while dealing with the Voice, which is what he calls the Other, I guess.”
“And this will not distract him from helping rebuild the sat systems and other mainframes and protocols we need help with?” Tanya asks.
“According to him, he’s become quite good at multitasking,” Jersey says. “He even had a little smirk in his voice when he told me so. Not sure what that’s about.”
“Good,” Tanya says. “It looks like you have this all in hand. Once you send the first wave out, come find me. We have a lot more work to do with Control’s systems.”
“I thought you were Control?” Jersey grins.
“And Control needs some help,” Tanya says. “Plus, I’m tired of being Control. I believe it is time we retired the entire concept. No more singular entities running things anymore. I’ve had this job for a long, long time and I no longer think it is needed.”
“We ever going to have that long talk about your past?” Jersey asks.
“We are,” Tanya says as she starts to walk away. “About my past and about your future.”
“My future?” Jersey frowns.
“Your future with my son,” Tanya says. “We’ll need to have a very specific plan in place if I’m going to have any grandbabies.”
“Grandbabies?” Jersey exclaims as Tanya walks off. “Who said anything about grandbabies? Hey! I didn’t agree to having grandbabies! I was just joking when I said that to Blaze! Hey! Tanya?”
A few of the Control personnel that have been cleared of the Other’s bacteria give Jersey amused looks.
“Fuck off and get back to work,” she snaps. “Or I’ll put you all back into quarantine!”
She looks at the rows and rows of orbs before her.
“Grandbabies, my ass.”
58
Everywhere I look, I see bodies.
I race through the streets, my feet carrying me past the dying and the dead. Hands reach for me, voices call out, they all want me to stop and save them.
But I cannot.
I don’t know how. I’ve never known how.
It is too late. Too late for them and too late for me.
I reach the edge of the city and look out at the Sicklands. Look out at the mass of bodies that are marching towards me, towards my home, towards the family I abandoned and left behind.
They march—
“Worm! Answer me!” Blaze yells. “What the hell, buddy?”
“What? Oh, I am sorry, Lieutenant Crouch,” Worm replies in Blaze’s ear as the operator stands on the roof of GenSOF Tower, once again back in Caldicott City.
Although, everyone has decided to change the name to First City, since it is the first of the Clean Nation cities to be cleansed of the Strains and any and all bacterial contam
ination that can wipe out humanity. Antibiotics are no longer needed since each individual’s body is now a bacterial factory, churning out cultures that will keep them safe for the rest of their lives.
“Where were you?” Blaze asks. “Daydreaming again?”
“Daydreaming? I am not sure that is the word I would use,” Worm says. “My thoughts were slightly more morbid than a dream.”
“Daynightmaring,” Blaze laughs. “That’s what we’ll call it. You are one weird AiSP, Worm. Never met anyone one with as much anxiety as you, human or Ai.”
“I have a lot of pressure on me, Lieutenant Crouch,” Worm says. “It can produce a fair amount of anxiety.”
“Let it go, buddy,” Blaze says. “The more you worry, the less effective you become. It’s a nasty cycle.”
“Easy for you to say,” Worm replies. “I do not have the luxury of self-delusion like humans do. I am fully aware of all of my thoughts at once.”
“Then compartmentalize,” Blaze says. “That’s how humans do it. That’s how operators work the best. We see a lot of crazy shit and we shove that shit into compartments. We’ll deal with it later. Only way to make it through the day and get the job done.”
“I will take that into consideration,” Worm says. “Oh, dear, it appears Canine Unit Gorge has relieved herself on the roof. This is not an approved area for urine or feces.”
“Sorry,” Blaze says. “I’ll clean it up. I think all that time in the Sicklands has spoiled her. Not to mention her nearly getting killed. Now she thinks she can shit and piss wherever the hell she wants. Gonna have to work on some training.”
Gorge looks up at Blaze and gives him a dismissive bark.
“Really?” Blaze laughs. “I think we will. Maybe put you into obedience school with the puppies.”