by Ben Wolf
Justin turned back to Garth. He knew what Garth was feeling, but they needed Garth. He switched tactics. “Rodney says you’re the only one who can help us. You’re the only one who can save the mine.”
Garth’s eyes narrowed. “Did Rodney actually say that?”
Justin hesitated, but Gerhardt spoke up. “He practically called you the God of IT.”
“He’s…” Garth shivered. “He’s not wrong.”
Justin extended his robotic hand toward Garth. “Come with us. We’ve got a team of security guys protecting us and escorting us to the common area. Carl Andridge called the Inter-Planetary Marines, and they’re coming soon, too. But we need to get you to a computer terminal in a more secure location so you can try to restore power to the life support systems.”
Garth looked at him and exhaled another shaky cloud of vapor.
Justin locked eyes with Garth. “Those things are coming this way. If you saw what happened, you know that locked doors and safety glass don’t stop them. I don’t want any of that to happen to you. We need you, Garth.”
Garth hesitated, but he grabbed Justin’s metal hand. Justin stood and pulled Garth to his feet as well, and his shoulder no longer hurt from the exertion.
“You’re gonna need more than that robo-arm if you expect to get through this,” Garth said. “Those mods in the kitchen? They’re yours.”
Gerhardt’s stare weighed on Justin, but it didn’t matter anymore. Even if Gerhardt figured out the extent of what Justin and Garth had done, it wouldn’t matter unless they got out of there alive. So Justin headed for the kitchen, unboxed the mods, and reinstalled them into his arm while Garth collected what he needed from his command center.
Justin also unfastened his belt and let Garth’s suit pants drop to the floor. He yanked the pants off, over his blackened boots, and left them in a heap on the floor. The stained dress shirt came off as well. Then Justin rinsed his face with half of a bottle of water from Garth’s fridge and downed the rest of its contents.
“Done yet?” Gerhardt glowered at Justin the whole time.
Garth donned a hooded sweatshirt, slung a backpack onto his shoulder, and started toward the door.
Justin reached down and pulled the Nebrandt bud from Garth’s soiled dress shirt and tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans. He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”
When they entered the residence corridor, Rodney glared at Garth.
“What’s your problem?” Garth glared back.
“Did you have something to do with all of this?” Rodney asked him.
Garth looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know who else it could’ve been. No one else had the kind of access you and I have.” Rodney jabbed his finger into the side of Garth’s bulbous belly. “And you’re not even supposed to have that kind of access to begin with.”
Garth swatted Rodney’s hand away. “Don’t touch me, freak.”
“I’m the freak?” Rodney scoffed. “You’re the one who sits in his apartment all day, watching people on the mine’s security feeds. Don’t think I don’t know about that.”
“You’re just jealous. Your job should be mine. I should’ve been head of IT, not a whiny old rustbag like you.”
“You’ll never have my job, or any job, once I prove you were behind this, you pervert.”
“Alright, enough.” Gerhardt separated them with his arms. “We need to get out of here. Then you nerds can argue as much as you want. We’re going. Follow me.”
Rodney and Garth exchanged fresh glares, but they both shut up and hurried to catch up with Gerhardt.
Justin glanced at Shannon, and she smirked at him. Then he caught Harry’s stern, protective eyes staring at him. Justin looked away and followed the others down the corridor.
By the time Justin’s team met up with the others, his lungs had to pull harder with each successive breath. His steps wore him out faster, and the cold had intensified as well.
“We’re running out of time,” Bartholomew said. “We have to get to the common area before the rest of the air depletes.”
It took another ten minutes of walking, but they finally reached the door—more of a large hatch, almost as heavy-duty as the one leading from the common area to the mine—connecting to the common area. As Justin had guessed, it didn’t open at first, but power still flowed to it.
Rodney stepped over to the scanner and pressed his identity card against it. The door swung open.
Something screeched from above, and a mass of gray dropped onto Rodney.
25
Marilyn shrieked, and some of the men shouted.
Justin tensed, and he raised his plasma repeater, but he hesitated. He couldn’t be sure of hitting the mutation and not Rodney.
It pinned Rodney to the ground and raked its spiked forearms across Rodney’s chest again and again. He screamed and tried to push it away, but it wouldn’t stop.
The mutation’s deformed jaw unhinged and clamped onto Rodney’s head.
A blast of plasma knocked the mutation off of Rodney’s chest, and a barrage of successive pulses reduced it to a steaming red carcass while Stecker pulled Rodney away.
It all happened in about four seconds, but it had lasted long enough.
Rodney lay there writhing, with half of his face torn to shreds. His chest resembled bloody ground beef.
Gerhardt and Stecker began administering first aid to him while everyone else watched, too stunned to speak.
Except for Carl Andridge. “Leave him. We have to keep moving.”
Bartholomew gawked at him. “We need him. He’s the head of IT. He may be the only one who can help us save the mine.”
“That thing butchered him. He’s as good as dead.” Carl pointed at Garth. “Can you bring the life support systems back online?”
Garth looked up from Rodney, wide-eyed, his mouth agape. He didn’t respond.
“Hey.” Carl clapped twice. “Wake up, blondie.”
“I think so.” Garth swallowed and glanced down at Rodney again. “Yeah.”
“Congratulations. You’ve just been promoted.” Carl tried to wave everyone toward the door. “Now let’s get going.”
At that moment, Justin realized that he could breathe considerably easier. They’d opened the door. The ghost must not have broken through to the common area’s sub-network.
It came as small consolation after what he’d just seen.
No one moved to follow Carl except for Noby. Even Garth stayed put.
“Hey, blondie.” Carl clapped again. “What’s the holdup?”
Garth stared down at Rodney as Gerhardt and Stecker stanched the blood from his wounds and applied bandages to him from a pack Stecker had grabbed from the security office.
Garth muttered, “This is not how I wanted to get promoted.”
Carl’s glare shifted to Bartholomew. “Either we go now, or I’m requisitioning your security team and going without you, Bartholomew.”
“He needs urgent medical care,” Stecker said. “And the medbay is on the way to where we’re heading. We’ll take him there ourselves. If Dr. Handabi and the androids can get to work on him, they might be able to save him.”
“I’ll carry him.” Justin held up his repeater. “I’m no good with one of these anyway.”
“I’ll carry him too.” Harry passed his repeater to Shannon and nodded to Justin. “One arm around each of our shoulders, and we can get him there.”
Gerhardt and Stecker kept bandaging Rodney while he moaned and writhed, and Bartholomew looked at Carl.
“Fine,” Carl said. “But if you slow us down, we will leave you behind.”
Justin shook his head. For all his posturing, wealth, and supposed high-class style, Carl Andridge was as big of a prick as Dirk. Maybe even bigger.
Stecker and Gerhardt finished binding Rodney’s wounds and hefted him upright. He yelped, then he went silent, and his head drooped.
Thick gauze c
overed the worst of his wounds, but blood had already started soaking through at various spots, making his chest resemble a red-and-white checkerboard. More gauze covered the left side of his face, also reddened with blood.
Justin clipped his repeater to his jeans, and he and Harry replaced Stecker and Gerhardt in shouldering Rodney.
“Are we ready now?” Carl picked up Rodney’s repeater and tucked it into his jacket.
“Yes. Let’s go,” Bartholomew said.
Carl entered the common area first, followed by Noby and Garth, and the rest followed behind them with Justin and Harry assisting Rodney and Gerhardt and Stecker bringing up the rear. Stecker hauled the door shut behind them, and the heavy lock engaged automatically.
“There’s an access terminal in a room near the medbay,” Garth said from ahead. “If we can get in there, I can log in and try to address the life support systems.”
They progressed down the corridor and eventually reached the medbay. Carl, Garth, and the others continued on to the access point.
Dr. Handabi and two androids met them at the door.
“Oh, my goodness!” Dr. Handabi motioned Justin and Harry into the medbay. “Please put him on the table in examination room five. The androids and I will attend to him immediately.”
Justin and Harry complied. One of the androids lifted Rodney’s feet while Justin and Harry laid him on the table. Rodney groaned and twisted his upper torso.
“Please stand back. I will administer a sedative,” the android said in an emotionless voice.
Justin and Harry backed away, and Dr. Handabi pushed between them. He waved some sort of scanner over Rodney’s torso. It emitted a yellow light from its underside.
“What happened to him?”
Justin glanced at Harry, then he cleared his throat. “I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you, Pradeep.”
Dr. Handabi stopped scanning and looked at Justin. “This man is dying. I need you to tell me everything you know about his condition right now.”
Justin explained what had happened, with Harry filling in additional details where he could, and Dr. Handabi set to work, starting with removing Rodney’s bandages.
“Pradeep, whatever’s happening is taking down the mine’s sub-networks a piece at a time,” Justin said. “We need to get out of here.”
Dr. Handabi nodded but continued removing Rodney’s bandages. “I will evacuate if necessary. My primary concern right now is saving Mr. Marshall’s life.”
Harry nudged Justin’s elbow. “We should catch up to the others.”
“If either of you requires medical attention, one of the androids can examine you.” Dr. Handabi looked Justin and Harry up and down.
“It’s not our blood,” Justin said. “But thanks. We’ll come back once we know more.”
Dr. Handabi kept working on Rodney without giving a reply.
Justin and Harry left, and Harry led the way to the access terminal room, a room so small that only Carl, Garth, Bartholomew, and Noby had been able to fit inside. Everyone else stood outside, waiting.
“Any updates?” Justin’s eyes met Etya’s, Stecker’s, and Shannon’s.
Gerhardt shook his head and answered. “Still working on it. He can’t get in.”
“I can get in,” Garth’s voice carried from inside the room. “And I just did.”
Justin peered between Gerhardt’s and Stecker’s shoulders to try to get a look, but too many bodies blocked his view of Garth’s screen. He could barely even see Garth.
“And?” Carl asked.
“The shield to the common area is still intact, but it won’t hold for much longer.”
“How can you tell?” Bartholomew asked.
“All due respect, sir, even if I explained it, you still wouldn’t understand,” Garth said. “Just trust me when I say we’re in trouble.”
Bartholomew grunted. “How much trouble?”
“Evacuate-the-whole-damned-mine trouble.” Garth added, “Now.”
“There has to be something we can do to stop it,” Bartholomew said.
“Stop it?” Garth scoffed. “Whatever ‘it’ was that showed up in your office, it’s got the mine’s entire network by the balls. Once it gets through this last sub-network shield, it’s gonna start squeezing. Only a matter of time before something pops.”
“Where’s it coming from?” Justin asked.
Everyone looked at him, then they stepped clear so Garth could see him as well.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean, is it based anywhere? We know it originated in the mine, right?”
“No, we don’t know that,” Bartholomew snapped. “This could’ve been outside interference for all we—”
“He’s right, boss.” Garth shook his head. “It started in the mine.”
“Any specific location?”
“Dude, I don’t think it matters at this point.”
“Just check. Is it coming from Sector 6?” Justin asked.
Garth squinted at him and nodded. “I think I know what you’re driving at.” A few keystrokes later, Garth turned back again. “Sector 6 indeed. There’s an old mainframe connected to the network that’s been mostly inactive for the last three years. But it looks like it reactivated when mining operations restarted a couple of months ago.”
“On its own?” Bartholomew asked. “Can it do that?”
“That sector’s supposed to be closed down,” Shannon said. “It’s off-limits and sealed.”
“I don’t have that information. All I can tell you is that it activated on March 14th of this year, and the security logs… let me pull those up…” He tapped at the terminal some more. “…don’t record any anomalies around then. Not until the day Justin first claimed to have seen the green light entering the mine.”
Carl turned and glared at Justin. “So he is connected to all of this.”
“No, Mr. Andridge,” Garth said.
Had Carl glared at him any harder, he would’ve cut Garth’s head open. “Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that as soon as we flipped the mine’s switch to ‘on,’ that system switched on shortly after, independent of IT reactivating the mine’s sub-network. That happened long before Justin and the other miners even landed on the planet. Possibly even before they got hired.”
If that didn’t exonerate Justin, nothing else would.
“Like I said,” Garth continued, “none of this matters. We have to get out of here before that last shield goes down. It’s the only thing keeping more of that gas out, it’s the only thing keeping the life support on, and it’s the only thing keeping any more of those monsters from getting to us. Once the shield goes down, he can unlock all of the common area doors.”
“We need to leave now.” Marilyn started shaking. “I-I-I can’t be here anymore. We need to leave before something else happens. Something worse.”
Shannon wrapped her arms around Marylin’s shoulders. “Shhhh. It’s okay, Marylin. We’re going to get out of here, and everything will be—”
A hellish shriek split the air and sent Justin’s heart skittering in his chest.
It came from the medbay.
Justin ran back to the medbay with Gerhardt, Stecker, and the two other security guards close behind. The medbay doors slid open as Justin approached, and he turned toward the room where he’d left Rodney with Dr. Handabi and the androids.
On the table, Rodney thrashed and wailed, his voice hoarse and edged with an inhuman timbre.
His bandages were totally off, and fresh blood pulsed from his chest and his face and spattered all over the room. It dotted Dr. Handabi’s white lab coat in bright red splotches, and it streaked down the androids’ smooth faces and bodies, now no longer sterile.
The androids, strong as they were, struggled to restrain Rodney. The machines and monitors hooked to his body trilled with urgent beeps and squawks. Rodney bellowed again until his voice gave out.
Dr. Handabi rushed to a cart and rum
maged through the top drawer. “Hold him still!”
Justin started to move forward to help, but a firm grip clamped onto his robotic wrist and kept him from entering the room. He looked back.
Stecker shook his head. “Wait.”
The two other security guards, Wallace and Janikowski, hurried into the room and tried to secure Rodney’s legs, but Rodney’s thrashing continued.
Justin marveled at how such a small man could give two androids, two security guards, and one doctor so much trouble, all while screaming his lungs raw.
Dr. Handabi ripped an old-fashioned syringe from a plastic package, jammed it into a vial of clear liquid, and drew out a dose. Then he planted his left hand on Rodney’s jerking shoulder and shoved it hard against the bed. He jabbed the needle into Rodney’s arm and injected the dose.
Within seconds, Rodney calmed down. He lay on the examination table, his eyes puffy and glazed, his mouth quirked open to one side, his fingers and toes twitching. The blaring machines slowed their beeping.
“Is he alright?” a female voice behind Justin asked.
He turned back. Shannon stood behind Gerhardt and Stecker, along with Etya and Marilyn. The others must’ve stayed at the access terminal.
Justin faced Rodney again. For all of Rodney’s thrashing, Justin hadn’t gotten a good look at his face until then. The side that the mutated human had bitten was still red and bloody, but it had puffed up to three or four times its original size.
Justin blinked. He couldn’t have missed that, even with Rodney struggling. It had to have just happened.
Wallace and Janikowski released Rodney’s legs and stepped back. The androids let go as well and straightened upright.
Justin could see Rodney’s face even more clearly now. He could see Rodney’s skin stretching and expanding. His cheeks puffed and expanded as if popcorn were lazily popping between his skull and his flesh.
Dr. Handabi’s attention shifted to the swelling on Rodney’s face. He pointed to one of the androids. “Get me a scalpel. His face is swelling too much. We need to lance it.”
The android retrieved one from a nearby cart and handed it to Dr. Handabi. He lowered the scalpel toward Rodney’s lacerated, engorged skin and pressed the scalpel blade against it.