by Aaron Bunce
Jacoby followed Lex out, but didn’t stop in the locker room. He closed the storage room door behind him and dressed in his spare modesties, before pulling on a pair of work coveralls. The boots were brand new, the reinforced soles and leather uppers stiff and unyielding around his feet.
He rolled up his sleeves, scooped a pair of hand wraps and the chip guard off the table, and turned to leave. Something buzzed angrily behind him, vibrating against the table.
Jacoby spun, scooped the data point off the table, and woke up the screen. More than a dozen connection requests showed in the notifications, at least as many text format messages waiting to be read. A solitary audio recording icon flashed in the middle of them all. He pressed play and smashed it to his ear.
“Jacoby, its Anna. Oh my god…glad you’re all right! Soraya and I are still on…ring. Where are you? We’ll come…tell me…and we’ll find you.”
Jacoby’s heart leapt, an electric buzz shooting over his skin at the sound of Anna’s voice. The recording faded in and out, a chorus of shouts and screams drowning out her voice. A loud, hollow boom filled the data point’s small speaker, before he could understand Anna again.
“…there’s something happening to the people. Preston is…we think he’s dead….monsters…horrible. We’re waiting to…transit elevator down to A…their evacuating…habitat rings…find you!”
The recording ended and Jacoby pulled the data point away from his ear, shaking it in frustration. Anna said “monsters” and “horrible”. Somehow what had happened to Janice and the others in the clinic had spread.
If it is an infection, it could be anywhere.
Jacoby spun, lifting the data point to his mouth.
“Anna, get to A ring. Go someplace public, with a lot of people…the commissary. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. Send me a message when you get there! Stay safe…I’m coming.”
Jacoby dropped the data point into a pocket and pushed out of the storage, immediately turning right and walking back out into the lab. Lex sat on a table to his left, combing through her hair with her fingers.
“Glad to see you finally found some clothes,” she said, and hopped off to follow him.
They found Doctor Reeds at a computer terminal halfway up the long room, two nurses in scrubs and a single young man in a lab coat standing around him.
“Where are the others?”
Reeds spun to meet him as he walked up. His mismatched eyes were glassy and red, the skin underneath puffy and dark. He looked exhausted.
“Emiko, Erica, and Yani here are the only members of Layla’s team that felt compelled to help. So, we locked the others in the office with Mr. Nazzar.”
“Smart,” Lex said, settling in next to him.
Jacoby glanced down at the workstation. The shattered Palmer Module he’d pulled off his arm sat to the left, another broken and bloodied unit sitting next to it. Both devices were connected to the terminal by long, glowing cords.
“So, what was Doctor Misra doing? Did you find out what is going on?”
“Find out?” Reeds scoffed, reaching up and wiping his forehead on a sleeve. “Rarely do these things follow such linear or simple paths. Medicine and science, as they say is more akin to mice navigating a maze in the long hope of finding some cheese. Now, mind you, I’m not a clinician, and I have spent the majority of my time practicing general medicine. So, you could say, I doll out antibiotics and immune boosters for a living. You know? Misery does love company, and it has kept me busy!”
Jacoby nodded and smiled, silently urging him to continue.
“We’ve been able to gather enough information to start piecing together the puzzle, I believe. I’m afraid the implications will affect all of us, but you, Jacoby, and well, now you, too.” Reeds glanced to Lex, but the redhead didn’t look sheepish or embarrassed. If anything, she stood up a little straighter.
“What are you saying, doc? I’m not sick like Janice and those other people,” Jacoby argued.
“No you aren’t, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t affected. Infections manifest in people differently, and by that I mean symptoms. That much I do know. And I think now, thanks to your congenial time in the showers, she will be affected, as well,” Reeds said, looking at Lex.
“I’m an adult, doc, and can make my own decisions. Were you spying on us? Do you like to watch? Is that it?” Lex argued, her voice raising several octaves.
Reeds chuckled awkwardly and stammered.
“The showers echo really bad. Trust me, it’s loud. We hated it most when particular coworkers would sing during their showers,” Emiko said, speaking up.
“Oh,” Lex said, shrinking back a bit.
“But what do you mean? What is affecting us? If you know, spit it out! You tested me in the clinic and said I was clear, that I wasn’t sick,” Jacoby spoke out, more worried and frustrated then embarrassed.
“Thanks to Miss Emiko and Jani’s help, I’ve determined that Doctor Misra wasn’t just using the Palmer Modules to keep you and the other patients sedated. She was also using their sensory and artificial intelligence to gather data…a lot of data, in fact. You see, she knew that you had cracked an asteroid and hit a void, but her suspicions went deeper than my own. She believed that you were possibly infected by something…well, something biological trapped inside that rock. Well, I mean, I would have known, but it looks like that information had been filtered out when the report was sent up to me from production.”
“It was a gas pocket,” Jacoby blurted, even though his heart wasn’t in it. “How could something live…sealed in a rock and floating in space? There is no air and it’s like negative a thousand degrees out there.”
“Ha ha, yes, cold, but not quite that cold, I think. There are forms of life on earth that have adapted to live in the harshest of environments…in very low or high temperatures, without light, some even in almost oxygen deficient conditions. Some bacteria has adapted to live within swirling eddies of sulfur-polluted water. But that is not my field of study. Like I said, I can only look at the data they were collecting and make educated guesses.”
Jacoby lifted his hand for the doctor to continue.
“Through these Palmer Modules we’ve been able to learn some…well, I can only call them ‘startling truths’,” Reed said, lifting his fingers into air quotes. “First, that the mass I identified on your cranial scans is not a tumor, at least we do not believe that it is. It isn’t growing, you see. The testing equipment in my clinic is designed to evaluate and identify key compounds and only very basic blood and fluid tests. It was flagging your blood with incredibly high levels of androstadienone, but it turns out that it isn’t that at all. Yes, the compound in your blood is similar, and in reality it may end up being a derivative of Testosterone, too but it is unlike anything Doctor Misra had ever seen before. Or, that’s what she wrote in her notes at least. We managed to isolate some from blood samples trapped in your Palmer Module and analyzed it under an electron microscope,” Doctor Reeds said, clicking through to a series of images on the computer.
Jacoby shifted, moving forward to look over the doctor’s shoulder. Emiko and the other staff edged away from him. It was subtle, but he noticed.
“Okay, now here is a skin cell we managed to extract from the torn catheter at five hundred times magnification.”
Jacoby watched the cell, which just looked like a blob in the middle of the screen, suddenly split in two.
“Fascinating, isn’t it? I haven’t studied cellular activity since medical school. The power of these microscop…” Reeds said, pointing excitedly and swiveling in his chair, but Jacoby cleared his throat, interrupting him.
“Sorry. There,” he said, pointing at the screen.
“And…? Lex asked. She was next to Jacoby now, squinting at the image.
“Doctor Misra documented in her notes that your cellular division rate was off the charts…easily twice that of a normal person. This cell has been removed from your body for hours now. It shoul
d be dead, and yet it continues to divide. And that is not all. We have detected abnormalities within the plasma membrane of your skin, tissue, and red blood cells. Those membranes are semi-permeable boundaries, only yours are not. Something is creating an almost unbreakable barrier around the building blocks in your body. And…and the compound flooding your blood to an almost toxic degree? It is a chemoreceptor, but unlike any we’ve ever seen or documented. Your body’s pheromone release and olfactory sensitivity are off the charts. I mean, to a crazy degree.” The doctor swung around in his chair again, his face pulled into a look of almost manic excitement. “Do you know that dogs have a sense of smell one hundred thousand times more powerful than humans?”
“Yeah, sure, I think I’d heard something like that before. But what does that have to do with me?” Jacoby responded, taken off guard by the doctor’s seemingly random change in direction.
“Your body, it appears, has become similarly efficient. Goodness gracious, with these numbers, it could almost be hypothesized that you might be able to feel a person’s mood, or…or make them feel yours. Shit, you might even be able to alter another person’s disposition! There have been documented studies supporting how some ‘hyper sensitive’ individuals can suffer dramatic up or down swings in moods due to the presence of some external hormonal stimuli. Women can sync menstruation cycles with other women living in close proximity.”
Jacoby’s mind reeled as he tried to make sense of everything Doctor Reeds said, but he talked so fast, turning logical corners with every breath.
“But…but why? I mean I feel fine…and those people. Janice…what was wrong with them? Is it…the same thing?”
Reeds expression darkened, while Emiko and the other medical staff shared a look. There was something there, something Jacoby wasn’t sure he wanted to learn.
“Their blood samples show some startling things. Some things that we…just…don’t…” Reeds began, but faltered. He turned back to the computer and started to flip between screens. Lex coughed quietly, while Emiko leaned back against the desk and shared a look with Yani, but no one spoke.
Breaking bones and boiling blood, what was inside became outside, and known unknown. Do you feel it…beyond the lust, the heat from the computer equipment, and the stench from their industrial cleaner? Do you feel their fear? There is something…some knowledge that scares them…these people of logic and science, of mathematics and measurement. If it scares them, then it should scare us. Make him tell us!
“Is it the same thing that’s happening to me?” Jacoby asked, voicing an unspoken doubt building in his mind.
“It’s just…it’s just,” Reeds stammered, clicking through another series of screens. Jacoby spotted pages upon pages labeled blood panels and other data, but it flipped by so quickly he couldn’t imagine how anyone could actually read it.
“Doc?!” Jacoby said loudly. Reeds jumped, his eyes snapping up from the screen at the sound of his voice. “What is it, doc?”
“It’s just so very bizarre…very bizarre. The blood workup from the sick individuals showed marked similarities…except for significant and rising levels of certain hormones not present in your labs…mostly cortisol and adrenaline. And they all tested positive for the one thing you didn’t…the influenza virus.”
Emiko jumped as a crash sounded down the lab behind them. Jacoby spun, but Lex slid over the table behind her, and moved down the row of tables towards the door.
He followed Reeds down the aisle, moving slowly, but paused as another loud crash sounded beyond the door. The sound was muffled and distant, definitely not in the room with them.
Beyond the door…in the dark, where the monsters lie waiting.
Lex stood just before the lab’s solitary door, the white and gray pads of her armor floating as her dark bodysuit seemingly disappeared in the shadows.
“What is it?” Emiko asked, hovering tentatively behind them.
Lex leaned into the small windows on the metal door, cupping her hands around her face to block out the ambient light.
“I don’t see anything…” she started to say.
We are trapped. You…we will need to fight.
“Wait. I see something moving, but it’s so dark out there. Can we turn out some of the lights in here so I can see…?” she turned to ask, but a violent tremor shook the door. Jacoby jumped forward and pulled her back, another violent impact jarring the portal and shaking the floor.
Jacoby pulled Reeds back as something struck the door again and again, the metal frame rattling loudly.
“You said they all tested positive for the virus. Why is that significant? Tell me!” Jacoby said, hooking Reeds under the arm and turning him around.
“Layla’s observations were still very early, but she was a brilliant clinician. She completed a fellowship in virology at John’s Hopkins. These are her observations, not mine. Whatever is living within your brain is changing you…refining you at a cellular level. Hell, the ability to accelerate the cellular division rate within a person could be worth billions on the pharmaceutical market. But the other people? Well, a virus is a simple organism. It invades a body, and when not warded off by the immune system, attaches to a person’s cells. The cell accepts it in, and the virus takes it over, forcing a person’s own body to start replicating and creating more virus cells. You see? It takes over, invading and turning a person’s body against them. Something…I don’t know, let’s call it an alien, bacterium, or symbiotic organism…yes I like that, is streamlining, strengthening, and improving the cells in your body. What if that same organism came into contact with tissue infected with this virus? What would something with that capability due to a microscopic organism designed to do one thing…invade and reproduce?”
Jacoby knew the doctor had stumbled onto at least a fragment of the truth, he could feel it in his gut – just like he could feel the things moving just beyond the lab door. They that used to be human like him. He felt them inside, a gut-cramping, spine-tingling reaction, as if his body recoiled and disapproved of their proximity.
As if in answer to the doctor’s question, the door shuddered. Jacoby threw his arms around Lex and heaved her back as the small window exploded inwards, shards of glass raining over the floor.
“Get back!” he yelled and pushed Emiko out of the way.
Jacoby spun to find an impossibly long and boney arm stuck through the small window – segmented, hinged, and ending in a sharp point.
“My god…they have weapons! Where did they get weapons?” Yani asked frantically, after the spidery leg pulled back through the glass.
“They didn’t find them. They grew them,” Jacoby surmised, and looked to Doctor Reeds.
Lex cursed as the door shook again and again, shuddering as if a breaching ram was striking the other side. Reeds nodded grimly and swallowed.
“How long will that door keep them out?” Lex asked, recovering quickly and moving into their midst.
Reeds looked to Yani and said, “You said that door was designed to seal the lab, correct? How, uh, strong is it?”
Yani jumped as the door shuddered again, metal starting to grind in the walls. He shook his head, his mouth starting to move well before he could form words.
“I-I-I don’t know. I mean, they said it was designed to hermetically seal the lab in case of a biological release. Seal it against fire and vacuum. Strong? Yes. But I don’t think they designed it to hold out monsters!”
“And that door is our only egress route, correct?” Lex asked, moving directly before the bearded man and gathering his focus. Yani nodded.
“It’s a choke point. But…we have no weapons. So, we’re screwed–”
“Yani,” Jacoby said, cutting Lex off.
The lab tech flinched as the door shuddered again, the grinding noise growing in intensity. Was it the mechanical workings of the door failing? Would it just slide open and let them in if it gave way completely?
“You said the other door in the locker room is for Doctor
Misra’s security team, correct? Their ready room?”
“Uh, yes…” the young man sputtered, but seemed to gain confidence with the realization. “Yes! They have weapons in there! We’ve seen them, long black ones.”
Another crash sounded outside, the glass in the left side door shattering in. The boney arm pulled back and bent, latching onto the door. Then Jacoby watched as another appendage eased in through the other window and hooked onto the other side. They snapped out, wrenching on the doors. A small crack appeared in the center, as the doors started to pull apart.
Jacoby spun around and made for the locker room, but Lex was already moving. She hit the door with a boot and smashed it open violently. By the time he ran into the locker room, she was already at the door.
“It’s locked, and there is some kind of hand scanner. It’s not letting me open it!” she yelled. He moved in behind her, and caught sight of her right hand pressed up against a glossy, black panel. A red silhouette flashed around her hand and the door buzzed.
“Access restricted. Step away,” a cool voice intoned.
“I’m station security! How do I not have fucking access?” Lex growled angrily and kicked the door.
“It’s biometrically coded to her security team members only. That’s how the directorate wanted it, or at least that’s what I heard Doctor Misra say once,” Emiko said, appearing through the locker room door.
“Hey-hey-hey! Whatever you are going to do…please do it fast!” Reeds screamed from the lab. Jacoby could hear metal bending, breaking. Lex screamed and threw herself at the door, clawing for a grip as she tried to wrench it open.
We can give her what she needs. But you need to move…now! the voice said, booming in his mind.
Jacoby spun before he knew where he was going, but by his second step he was cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner. He ran right by Emiko and Yani, the young woman’s eyes wide with fear.
“Is he leaving us? Where is he going?” he heard her cry, but Jacoby wasn’t really paying attention.
The storeroom light blinked on but he was already halfway to the back table, his gaze locked on his goal. Lex continued to scream and pound on the door in the room behind him as he scooped up the pile of fusion plugs and jammed them into a pocket. He flung the chip guard around his neck, snugged on his gloves, and threw his safety glasses on.