by Watts, Peter
Vega and the passengers of his ship, the Phoenix, were currently on a course for Zeta-12, to get Batch 779 inoculations. Vega had put his son in stasis with the intention of getting him the curative before the parasite turned him completely. And the plan would have worked if the boy hadn’t awoken early, six months before reaching their destination.
Vega tried to convince Arrycc to return to his sleep pod with the promise of a cure. He first appealed to him with reason, then begged and pleaded, and later threatened the boy. But Arrycc refused, clearly under the influence of the parasite. Back on ORION, the space station closest to Earth, his son had been bitten less than twenty-four hours before going into stasis on the Phoenix. However, according to Sona's daily logs, the boy woke eight hours before Vega had. This meant that technically—not counting the five years they had been in stasis—his son had been infected for four days. The incubation period was approximately a week. During the first few days, victims would generally maintain some semblance of their original identity. But inevitably they would succumb to the parasite’s influence and become what some crudely referred to as ‘walking meat puppets.’
How Arrycc had awoken from stasis was still a mystery. He could only assume that the physiology of the parasite, which was completely alien in nature, gave it some sort of resistance to the stasis field. The thought of how far they had come, how much they had been through, only to lose the battle now—was almost too much to bear. The parasite epidemic had destroyed everything Vega had ever known or cared about, his best friend Tallic, his little sister Norra, and his wife Ahn.
ORION had been ill prepared for the parasite invasion, their armory woefully inadequate. The Earth Defense Network discovered, quite by accident, that the parasites were vulnerable to microwave and UV radiation. Once word got to ORION of the parasite’s weakness, they had retrofitted as much weaponry as they could, but there simply hadn’t been enough time to battle the parasites effectively.
Vega was the captain of the Phoenix, the only interstellar ship docked at ORION at the time of the attack. As the highest ranking military officer on the station, he was forced to make difficult decisions, such as initiating a lottery to decide who would gain access to the Phoenix, and who would have to stay behind.
Some of the lottery winners were immediately disqualified, as blood samples revealed that they had already been infected. Vega used his power and influence to sneak Arrycc on board the ship and bypass the screening process altogether.
It had been a long shot to save his son, and he’d risked everything for it; his crew, the passengers—even himself. If his plan were discovered, he would face a court martial and most likely, the death penalty. But it was a risk he was willing to take. Arrycc was all he had left to live for.
Humankind’s survival had been foremost on Vega’s mind since he’d awoken. Between his passengers, crew and the 74 inhabitants of Zeta-12—there were 574 human beings that represented the remainder of humanity.
From 10,000,000,000 to 574 in the span of a year—it was still unfathomable.
And yet there was hope. The terraformed planet on which Zeta-12 stood was in its final phase; and according to Dr. Tael, it was capable of sustaining the passengers and crew of the Phoenix for a lifetime.
There was one small problem.
Arrycc.
Vega realized, with growing dread, that if he didn’t get his son back into hyper sleep soon, he would have no choice but to kill him.
~
He found Arrycc in the same place as before, sitting entranced in front of the holo-screen. He moved a few steps toward his son, who sniffed at the air absently, and then went back to watching the screen.
It was Gloop and Gloopy again, Arrycc's favorite show since as far back as Vega could remember. It revolved around the misadventures of two teenaged aliens who had crash-landed on Earth after taking their dad's spaceship for a joyride.
Vega stood there for a long moment, staring at his boy, longing to hold him. A swarm of memories surged up all at once. The first was of the day he’d been carrying his infant son, and the naked boy had taken a poop—right in his hand. Vega cried out to his wife for help, but Ahn was too busy crumpled on the floor with laughter.
He smiled at the memory.
Next, he remembered the first time Arrycc had ridden a hover-board by himself, and the pride he’d felt watching his boy soar. He recalled reading to Arrycc before bedtime, who would beg him for old stories of ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. Afterward, he would have to promise that the monsters weren't real.
And now his son was becoming one.
Two days prior, when Vega thought Arrycc had turned, he’d been prepared to kill him. But now, as he stood in the doorway, watching his own flesh and blood, he knew he couldn't—not if there was the slightest chance he could save him.
He entered the room and made his way to the lounger. As he sat next to Arrycc, his body tensed. The boy revealed no emotion; it was all the more eerie listening to the cartoon’s canned laugh track.
They sat in silence for an uncomfortably long time. At first it seemed like a perverse joke, a dark and twisted mockery of times past, when they’d huddled together in front of the holo-screen. All they needed now was a bucket of popcorn and a bucket of blood to wash it down.
However, as the hours passed, Vega’s revulsion began to pass. The desperate need to connect with his son was like a silent third party. Sitting there, he could almost pretend that things were normal. He could even imagine his wife, Ahn, off in the kitchen making one of her amazing dishes.
When the longing became too much to bear, he reached around his son's shoulders; it was as if he was watching from outside himself—not completely in control of his actions.
His son glanced at him for a moment. Deep within those sunken eyes, there appeared to be a spark of humanity.
It was enough.
Vega didn’t move for some time, afraid that any motion might disturb the boy and shatter the illusion.
Arrycc didn't move either.
Vega knew that at any point the boy could turn, literally and figuratively. But something about the look they’d shared told him he wasn’t in danger.
Not yet.
How long would their father-son bond protect him? The amount of time it took to succumb to a parasite’s influence varied from person to person. He had heard of extreme cases on Earth where particularly strong-willed individuals managed to retain their identity for several weeks.
Arrycc certainly had a strong will going for him, something he’d inherited from both his parents. And, of course, the boy’s love for him had always been strong. But how long would love and the will of a seven-year-old boy last?
The hunger was inevitable.
For now he wouldn't think about it. For now he would cherish what might be their final moments together.
~
The hunger came.
Four days later he found Arrycc in the stasis chamber with a new victim, dragging a teenage boy with thick red hair from his sleep pod. The boy was unaware of what was happening and would remain that way unless chemically induced to consciousness.
It was a blessing.
The look on Arrycc's face was one of defiance, a look with which Vega was intimately familiar. Without his disrupter or armor he posed no threat—Arrycc could dispatch him easily.
"Arrycc," he heard himself say. It sounded rather weak, with a hint of despair. "Please… don't."
His son looked at him quizzically.
"Please…"
And then the expression on Arrycc's face seemed to melt into something else. Vega had seen it many times before, whenever his son wanted something desperately, like a brand new toy or an extra helping of dessert.
He had always had a hard time saying no to him. Ahn had often teased him about it. How can a man used to ordering around a crew all day have such a hard time saying no to a little boy?
But they had both known the answer. Vega’s career kept hi
m from his family so much that he wanted to make sure he gave his son whatever he wanted when he was around. Grimly, he realized that the past week had been the longest stretch of time he'd ever spent with his son at one time.
And now, when saying “no” was the most important thing he could do, he knew it would do no good. Arrycc had the hunger now. He could see it in his eyes. God help him, there was nothing to do now but let his son feed.
Vega turned and walked away. He couldn't stop the boy from his first kill, but he sure as hell wouldn’t stand around and watch.
He had barely taken a step when the grisly sounds of flesh being torn and the lapping of blood began.
~
The first death was the hardest for Vega to stomach. But as the long weeks turned into longer months, the guilt that gnawed at him began to dissipate. Like most horrible things, prolonged exposure deadened the effects.
By the third month he had lost count of the bodies. Was it 16...18?
Once the victim’s bodies were drained of blood, Vega dutifully jettisoned the remains into space through the garbage chute, standard protocol for corpses in deep space.
The missing passengers would have to be accounted for at some point, but he’d already worked out an explanation. He would blame their deaths on Sona. Droids weren’t perfect, and breakdowns weren’t unheard of. A simple miscalculation in cryo-fluids from the ship’s droid would explain the passenger’s deaths easily enough.
No one would suspect foul play from a twice-decorated captain with a spotless military record. Besides, survival would be first and foremost on everyone's mind once they reached the outpost.
How he would deal with Arrycc was a bit more complicated. He figured there were three ways it could go. The first option was that Arrycc would kill him. The second, he would kill his son. Third, and the least likely, he would find a way to keep Arrycc hidden while they docked at Zeta-12, just long enough to get his hands on Batch 779 and save him.
He was still trying to work out the last option. But it wasn't easy with such an unpredictable variable as the parasite.
It had now been over four months since he and his son had awoken. Arrycc was, for all intents and purposes, a bloodsucking monster. And yet, the boy’s disposition had hardly changed. He had stopped speaking, of course, but that was typical. The parasites were able to communicate with each other without speaking, most likely telepathically, although that had never been proven. It was possible for them to speak through their human hosts, though rarely seen—victims of the parasites tended to simply grunt or snarl.
When Arrycc wasn't feeding or sleeping, he spent his time watching old movies and documentaries or reading through endless archives about Earth—on every conceivable topic. The sophistication level of his research had grown exponentially in all areas of math, science and the arts. He seemed to especially enjoy reading about world religions and theology.
Was there any shred of Arrycc left? Vega had convinced himself there was. Why else had he been allowed to live? Of course, he was a critical member of the crew. Arrycc certainly couldn't navigate the ship by himself. But Vega clung to the former idea like a life raft, hoping Arrycc was still somewhere inside the silent figure that had become his only companion.
Arrycc didn't appear to mind Vega’s presence. They would often sit next to each other in the entertainment room, watching the holo-screen. For hours they would sit quietly, often viewing documentaries, which seemed to be Arrycc’s favorite.
Vega found it comforting to sit next to his son. In his mind he could almost pretend that everything was still normal. Sometimes he thought he could spend the rest of his life like this, just he and his son, spending quality time together—the kind of time he’d never had a chance to experience on the space station. He realized that if he never awoke the rest of the crew, there would be enough food to last him a lifetime.
But Arrycc would only last about five years, factoring in the rate at which he fed on the bodies in the stasis chamber. If he had been a full-grown adult it would have been half the time...
The only chance his son had now was to get him to Zeta-12 and pray that Batch 779 would still work on someone this far along in the transformation process.
~
Vega had never been so happy to see and speak to another human being in his life. If he could have reached through the communication screen he would have hugged Dr. Tael.
Now less than 24 hours away from docking at Zeta-12, they had finally reached sub space communication range. Tael was an attractive looking woman in her late sixties. She had already gone over their standard quarantine protocols, and Vega had agreed to keep his passengers onboard until proper inoculations were dispensed. No one would be allowed to enter Zeta-12 until they had been screened and cleared.
Eventually the conversation turned from strictly business to more personal issues. "How are you holding up, Captain? You don't look well."
Vega felt self-conscious, realizing at that moment how much he'd let himself go during the past six months. He'd done nothing but eat and sit with Arrycc when he could. He'd gained twenty pounds easy, and despite shaving that morning for the first time in half a year, the perpetual sleep deprivation, constant worry, and lack of any physical activity had taken its toll. He looked like hell, and he knew it.
"I haven't slept well these past few months," Vega said. That part was true. Then the lies began as he interweaved the threads of a true story he'd heard about back in his Academy days. "We had a serious droid malfunction—total systems failure. She made some miscalculations on some of the passengers’ cryo-fluid levels. We lost 24 people. The backup systems woke me up before anyone else died."
Tael looked shocked. "That's terrible news, Captain. I'm so sorry. Every life is precious—now so more than ever. When did this happen?"
"A few months ago…goddamned droid was in full meltdown when I woke up—had to take her down with a disrupter. As if things hadn't been bad enough before..." He rubbed his face with his hands dramatically.
"And you never went back into stasis,” Tael said. It was more of a statement than a question.
"I figured, what’s the point? I knew we'd reach you in a few months.”
Tael’s brow furrowed at that. "Being alone on that ship, with no one to communicate with—you know the risks as well as I do."
Vega was well aware. ‘Solipsism Syndrome’ was a serious risk for anyone who spent long periods alone in space. It created the overwhelming feeling that nothing was real—or simply a dream. Sufferers had been known to feel so lonely and detached from the world they became utterly, and terribly indifferent.
But he wasn't alone was he? He still had his son. And he certainly wasn't losing his mind. He was just weary and emotionally drained. Who the hell wouldn't be after all he’d been through since the invasion?
“I appreciate the concern, Doc. But I'm going to wake my crew in less than 24 hours—once we’re in navigation range.”
Tael seemed to accept this answer and nodded politely. “I look forward to seeing you, your crew and passengers soon.”
After a few more pleasantries Tael signed off.
Within a day Vega was going to have to wake his crew. He had no choice but to make a decision about his son.
He sat there for a long time collecting his thoughts...and his nerve.
~
He found Arrycc a few hours later, sitting rigidly, staring blankly at the holo-screen; his face was drenched in fresh blood. Vega was reminded of a time when Arrycc—who was two years old at the time—had buried his face into his bowl and covered it with tomato sauce. It was a sweet memory that was now twisted forever in his mind.
In Arrycc's hands was the gouged and glistening head of his latest victim. Curled under his feet like a human footstool was the body it had once been attached to. He was watching a movie and holding the head as if it were a bucket of popcorn. As Vega stepped closer, he recognized the face of the teenage girl. She was the one he’d saved from Arrycc all thos
e months ago. Her eyes were wide open now and staring up at the face of her killer.
The boy didn't acknowledge the presence of his father. Vega did his best to ignore the blood pooled around Arrycc on the lounger as he sat down. On the screen were images from ancient Jerusalem and a man nailed to a cross.
A vampire watching a documentary about Christianity…
After a protracted, awkward silence, Vega said, "I have to wake my crew in a few hours. We'll be at the Zeta-12 outpost by this time tomorrow.”
The boy said nothing. He stared at the images on the holo-screen with a look of bemusement. It was the first hint of emotion Vega had seen on his son's face since as far back as he could remember.
"Arrycc, listen. I can't help you...cure you...unless you work with me. We have to talk. Figure this out—now."
A grin appeared on the boy's face.
Vega slammed his fist against the lounger. "Goddamnit, Arrycc I'm talking to you!"
The boy turned toward him slowly and began to speak; it was like a winter grave had opened—cold, moist and dark.
"There is...no…Arrycc...here.”
Vega recoiled at the voice that sounded only partially human. It appeared to be a great effort for the boy to speak, as if he were learning to use his vocal chords all over again.
"Such..…a...primitive…way to communicate."
Vega stifled the impulse to scream. He was accustomed to his silent son, had fooled himself into thinking that he was still reachable. But the voice emanating from the boy brought a hideous new reality crashing down.
Arrycc turned back toward the holo-screen. “Your…religious wars fascinate me.”