I unload the turret at the mouth and unfold my sleeping sack.
The night is full of noise and movement. The sea is so rough that the crashing waves spray water even this high up. The water rains in, but it does nothing to deter me from a good sleep. My wounds throb, especially my eye, and I am exhausted.
I beg for sleep, and when it quickly comes, I embrace it.
When I wake, the sun is already up and beaming through the cave opening. Hundreds of empty shells surround the turret and both belts are empty. I peer over the edge and see the corpses of a hundred, maybe more, flying monsters, all different types. The sea is crashing the bodies against the rocks.
It’s time to leave. The fresh kills will bring others here.
Sleeping sack rolled away, and I am on the rocks once more. Ex Materia over my shoulder makes it harder to climb, but there is no way I’m leaving her behind. I climb until the scent of grass fills my nostrils. My damaged body is hoisted up onto the edge of the land, and I am ready to push on.
“Racker, can you hear me?”
There is no response.
“Racker, this is Captain Reed. Do you copy?”
“Go ahead, Cap.”
“What are you doing up there?”
“Sorry, I was just having my morning mug of coffee.”
“Still in your favourite mug?”
“Oh yeah, of course. You know I love this mug, Cap. It always reminds me of home, of Mitch, you know? Hell, sipping this now, and it almost feels like he is here with me. He keeps me going, Cap.”
“I know, Racker, I know. He knew you did this for him. He has a better life now, and it is all because of you.” The lie hurt just saying it.
“Yeah, his life is just peachy, Cap. Anyway, I thought I would let you sleep until you woke on your own. You are not far away now. You might want to get a move on though; there is a herd of Dinos advancing on your position from the way you came.”
“What are they CETI?”
She doesn’t respond.
“CETI, what are the organisms?”
“Sorry, Cap. I took sole control of CETI when you were away. I took it upon myself to make extra security measures for the Dweller, and I needed to be the only ‘Captain’ to override the door lock.”
“Okay, Racker, just change it back first chance. Please ask CETI to advise.”
“CETI, please advise the Captain and me what those approaching organisms are.”
“With pleasure, Captain Racker. There are six Triceratops Prorsus, of the Triceratops genus, approaching Reed. They are all thirty feet in length and weigh twelve tons each. They are strong, with short legs and hooves. Although herbivores, they will charge and kill when threatened.”
Did she say Captain Racker? I can’t help but smile. Racker is a good man, but the least likely Captain ever.
I start to move through the forest, but my leg gives way under my weight. The damp forest floor meets my face, and I can taste the gritty soil. The thigh that one of the Pterodactyls tore a chunk out of is burning hot and swollen.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, Cap, but you better get out of there.”
“How far are they?”
“I don’t know. Monitoring has just gone down! The screens are dead, Cap! We seem to be having a technical issue on our side, and I can’t see a Goddamn thing here! You just run. Follow the cliff edge the way you were heading, and you will reach the Dweller. RUN!”
Only static comes through the piece in my ear now. “Racker? CETI? Can you hear me? Racker?”
Nothing.
The communications that the Seeker Project developed were guaranteed not to fail. The team hired the best engineers and software developers to ensure that should one line fault, another will open up immediately. And the Marauder’s satellite programme should never fail, it should be constant.
Millions of tests and prototypes, and there was never a single failure. Something isn’t right.
“Can anyone hear me? Sarah? Evangeline?”
All of the comms are down. I need to get back to the Dweller and manually log into CETI from my quarters.
A branch snaps to my left side, and the canopies above are rustling. I manage to get to my feet by using Ex Materia as a prop. I see a horn, bigger than a rhino’s, come through the long reeds, and I forget the pain in my leg.
I’m running. Running and gritting my teeth. I can feel the floor beneath me move and hear the snorting and snarling behind me. I turn to see the six chasing me, spying only glimpses of them through the trees. They are bigger than rhinos.
Small saplings fall under their stampede. Birds caw overhead and dart through the sky in fear.
I unclip the light-grenade from my belt and pull the pin. I’m guessing that they are five seconds behind so I drop it straight away and pick up the pace. My one eye is closed. I hear the grenade go off and feel the heat at my back. The thinner trees all lean the way I am running, as if caught in a strong breeze. I open my eye and continue running. The floor is still rumbling, harder and faster. I’m not sure if I hit any, but I know one thing, I think I made them even more pissed.
The gap is closing.
The floor is vibrating more and more. I can hear and feel the breath at my back, and the hairs on my neck are on end. The fact that there is six means I cannot dart left or right. They are charging in a line, and any which way I go, I get trampled to death.
I’m not going to make it.
After breaking through a patch of long reeds, I see a tree on the horizon. It is bigger than the rest and climbable. It has one huge branch that stretches right out over the ocean below us. I’m going to have to climb.
My legs push me up to the first branch, and my arms pull me up to the next. I feel the tip of a horn graze the bottom of my boot just as I pull my leg out of the way. I keep climbing until I am at the thickest branch. My leg is throbbing worse than before. I need Evangeline to treat the wound. There is a good chance of infection and even the loss of the limb.
I take a moment to catch my breath before peering over the side.
Five Triceratops now circle below. I must have taken one. Their amber eyes glisten with hate. For herbivores, they seem quite intent on killing me.
One breaks the line and charges the tree. The blow takes me by surprise, but I manage to steady and cling on. The trunk below cracks and creaks. The beast’s horns are lodged, and for a second I think I am safe, but he pulls free and retreats a few steps backwards.
A second one charges, and this time the tree groans even more.
I’m trapped. I have no charge on my left on Ex Materia and no light-grenades. I could take the plunge and risk swimming back in a sea full of creatures, the giant crocodiles and the bastards that took Simon’s leg. There is no way I can climb along the cliff-face with this leg how it is. The final option is to wait it out and hope they grow tired before the tree is felled.
A third charge at the tree knocks me to my knees, and then I see it down on the rocks below: a light rifle.
It’s a sock-grey version, not Sarah’s Widower but a standard Seeker light rifle. The water won’t have damaged it, but there is a risk it has no charge. It is a risk I will have to take.
I climb back to my feet and undo the buttons on my all-in-one Seeker uniform to my waist. I tie the top half and sleeves around me to cover the wound on my hips. I can feel the breeze on my skin as I shuffle closer to the edge. The strap on Ex Materia is tightened and I ready a dive, but a fourth charge knocks me from the tree.
The ocean is salty and I swallow a mouthful. My head breaks the surface, and I am quickly on the rocks, the grey light rifle now in hand. Half full of juice; it is enough. I climb as best as I can until I can peer over the top.
My feet are shoulder width apart on two rocks. I raise the light rifle and take aim.
Each bolt blasts the intended targets to smithereens. Chunks of flesh, bone, and horn spray out. I shoot and shoot until I am breathless, and all five are dead.
Evangeline Nik
osa
Racker’s words still haunt me. They even made me sick earlier just thinking about it. I feel nauseous, tired, and I just want to go home.
They haunt me more than what I did to Ximena. I did something horrible to someone else, I killed her. Indirectly, but it was still murder. Yet, Racker’s words haunt me more, because I worry what might happen to me.
The Seeker Project was meant to be a group of humans coming together to carry on through sharing and caring. It was intended to be an extended family unit where we would care and nurture each other. But we are still human.
Possibly too human. We all have our own goals, our own agendas, our own lives. And we all want the best for ourselves. Ximena was a casualty of my life, of my desires.
And now I fear being a casualty of Racker’s, and it haunts me, chills me.
“Captain Reed, Racker, CETI,” Sarah is still trying to get comms. “Can any of you hear me?”
The Dweller still has power, but all of the software based systems have died: comms, CETI, the auto-doc and auto-fix, the light rifles, all of it. I can’t help but feel Racker is involved. I can’t shake off the feeling that he has done this.
“This is Sarah; do any of you read me?”
No one responds. Even the cameras have stopped chasing us around the Dweller.
Racker’s words resonate. “I’m coming, Evangeline. Mitch and I are coming, my love.” Mitch is Racker’s brother, or was. He left him back home to join the Project and has felt guilty since. Racker is secretive of his sibling and of his old life. We would all share stories of family and friends, but Racker always closed up to the group. I only know of Mitch because I heard him talking to Captain Reed one day.
Reed has become his confidant, his brother. He was able to tell the Captain about Mitch, about his old life, sad and pathetic as it was. And Racker’s life on the Marauder was just as sad and as pathetic.
Is that why he is doing this? Is he punishing me?
Sarah throws her earpiece across the room. “Where the fuck is that little rat? Why isn’t he responding?”
“I think I know why,” I say glumly. “But I think he might already—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it, Evangeline.”
“But it’s true. You think it as well! There is a good chance that Racker isn’t fixing the issue because he isn’t there. He will be in the escape pod readying himself for Domus, for me.”
“Do you think he did this? Do you think he sabotaged the comms and CETI on purpose?”
“He has lost it, Sarah. If he is coming for me, then sabotaging the equipment means that we will not be able to see where he lands. CETI will have no visual on him, and he can stalk me for as long as he likes. He knows where we are, and the state of mind he is in, I wouldn’t like to say that he hasn’t done this on purpose.”
There is a knock at the Dweller door, and we both stop dead.
My heart is beating outside of my ribs, pounding its way through my chest. My mouth has gone dry. I want to shout, I want to tell Racker to drop dead and go to hell, but I can’t find my voice.
Sarah has gone ghostly white too. We have no working weapons and no escape. She is a big girl, but Racker could be armed with a light rifle that he hasn’t turned off.
The knock is a pounding now, a threatening thump that matches my heavy pulse. My hands shake as I bring them over my mouth to stifle my worried sobs.
Sarah moved towards the door.
“What are you doing?” I whisper sharply after swallowing my sobbing. Is she crazy? “Don’t let him in here, he has lost his mind, and we have no weapons!”
Sarah’s hand presses on the metal. “I can’t open it, it’s locked, remember? Besides, if it was Racker he would have just opened it already. Is that you, Captain?”
“It is, Sarah. Can you open the door?”
I feel relieved to hear his voice again. The Captain is a strong man, a sturdy man. He looks built to weather storms, and a big one is brewing.
“Negative,” Sarah sighs. “The Dweller is locked down. The rifles, the cameras, the comms. It’s all down. Only the emergency lighting is working, and only because that is running on solar panels and on a separate circuit.
“Captain, is Racker with you?”
“No, Sarah, why would he be? Racker is up in the Marauder.”
“I don’t think he is. We need to get you inside, Cap, we have a lot to discuss. Everywhere is sealed, but I have an idea. Get on the roof and head towards the botanical garden, Captain.”
“Whatever you are planning, Sarah, you need to make it quick. I’m injured.”
The words hit me hard. The Captain is the only person that may be able to talk sense into Racker, or at least beat the living hell out of him should he come here. It pains me just as much to learn he is injured.
The Captain is silent for a while.
Nothing stirs outside of the Dweller. And then there are footsteps on the roof. We hear them start from the front door, and then they travel towards the east wing, towards the botanic garden.
Through the tough glass I can see the Captain’s boots. He jumps and slams down his weight, but the glass doesn’t break. He tried again, then twice more, but the glass is too tough.
Sarah is already working on her idea. She begins to loosen a few bolts with a spanner from her tool belt—she always has her tool belt. And then I remember, the panel fixing the glass is loose. It’s the panel that nearly cost us the wing on entry. She circles around until all of the bolts are removed.
“Try it now, Captain,” she shouts.
Reed jumps into the air and back down. The whole glass panel comes down with the Captain knelt on top of it. The glass finally shatters when it hits the floor, spraying shards and fragments all around.
The Captain’s uniform is undone to his waist and wrapped around his middle. Blood has seeped through the blue-silver on his left hip, and his right thigh is missing a chunk. He falls to his side and loses consciousness.
Sarah helps me carry him to the med-bay. The old corpses have gone, and Yun and Barros did the best they could on clean-up, but a smell of rot and decay still seems to linger here.
We hoist him onto a gurney, and I look the Captain over. We cut him free of his uniform and only his underpants protect his modesty. His wounds need dressing, and he needs a strong course of antibiotics to fight the infection.
I use my manual override on the medical cabinet and retrieve items to clean and bandage his wounds. I will have to stitch his hip, or the wound will not tie together. The thigh is missing a chunk of flesh, but a dissolvable gauze bandage will better suit it. I choose a round of injected antibiotics and close the cabinet.
Sarah cleans and dresses the wounds, and my needle finds a vein first time.
That is all we can do for him for now. I must admit, even in his state, he looks good almost naked. His body has aged, and his hair has greyed, sure, but his body is firm and muscled. He isn’t as hunky as Simon, but far more grizzled and gnarled.
Not that any of it matters now. The Seeker Project is over. It is done.
Sarah and I close the med-bay doors and leave the Captain to rest.
Even in the rec room I can smell the rot. I thought it was just in the med-bay at first, but it’s circling around the Dweller now. Every room smells like spoiled meat and old cheese.
“What is that smell?” I ask Sarah, but she is more concerned with something else.
She moves towards the Dweller front door and presses up against it. She pushes her ear right up to the cold metal.
I hear it now too. There are noises coming from outside. There is a thud of something hitting soil, a scrape, and then an impact sound of the soil. It sounds like something is digging out there.
Could it be Racker?
“Who is out there?” shouts Sarah.
The digging stops, only briefly, before continuing in the same pattern as before.
We keep our heads pressed against the cold metal. Just listening. For a mom
ent I think I hear whispering, but after investigation it turns out to be the Captain snoring and talking softly in his sleep.
After an hour or so, the thudding stops. A dragging noise follows, but it grows quieter now, moving away from the Dweller.
“What are the two of you doing?”
It is the Captain. He is awake and looking better already. “You need to rest,” I tell him. “Your injuries will not heal without rest.”
“I’m fine; just tell me what the hell is going on?”
“It’s Racker, sir. He has lost his mind. He threatened to kill the both of us; he had CETI wire up the pesticide to the air conditioning, and he threatened to kill us if we told you.”
“Told me what?”
“He killed Yun. He murdered her.”
“You know this?”
“We only suspected it at first, but he as much as admitted it. He has taken full control of CETI and was preparing the launch pad. It will be ready any minute now.”
Captain Reed’s face flashes with pain. He trusted Racker as a friend, as a brother. He leaves in the direction of his quarters, and we follow.
“There is a manual override for CETI here,” he tells us. “I just need to press this switch…” Life buzzes back through the Dweller once more. Sarah checks the Widower, but it is still lifeless. “CETI, do you read me?”
“I do, Reed.”
“It is Captain Reed. Run the programme user override, and re-install all users to their default state.”
“Task completed, Captain Reed. Most of the Dweller functions are restored, but the weapons and light rifle programme is stored on the Marauder. Your weapons are still without power, and communications are still down. How else may CETI assist?”
“CETI, can you confirm that Racker instructed you to bypass the pesticide to the air conditioning?”
“I can confirm.”
“What happened to the comms, to the light rifles, and the systems?”
“They were taken offline by Pilot Racker. This would normally need two users for me to grant access but Pilot Racker installed himself as the only user to access you private reports. He took the whole system offline.”
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