by Allen Ivers
What was the alternative? Wait for them to seal you in like some kind of diseased dog? Keep you home, alone, without answers or explanations? Keep you blind and ignorant to the movements and the tragedies to come, like an adolescent child? And when the inevitable comes to pass, their well-intentioned design would leave them powerless to stop… It.
What was It? That seemed to be a recurring refrain. Always about It.
Of course. It. They are powerless before It, flies before a genuine titan, mere gasps of thin air before its solid might. But you, you can resist. With my help.
Leo couldn’t deny what Rook had muttered into his radio. This presence, this power he now had. This is what it felt like to be the thrall, the unwilling vassal. He had his mind, his awareness.
It allowed him to keep all of that. And it made its case, whispers in his ear, sowing unease and doubt. What would happen if Leo flagrantly defied it right now? Would it hurt him, torture him? Break him?
How long must this charade continue before you realize I am not your enemy?
Being the lesser of two evils was hardly the definition of a friend. Leo had killed two friends today, and this thing was arguing it was justified in the pursuit of some Greater Evil© that would walk horizon to horizon across all of humankind without so much as breaking stride.
It would enslave and destroy in equal measure. But what made that really any different than the slug fused to his back?
I can see where you’re conflating the two actions. But economies of scale are a factor. You are but one. It will take entire worlds.
How could Leo trust that intent? This creature extended one hand while arming the other.
His knees shook, and his stomach turned like the distinguished dead deep in their graves. Tears filled his eyes. Leo couldn’t pull the memory away, staring ahead blankly at the wall of the prefab.
Because he could smell the dinner laid out at home, the sounds of creaking wood panels, and that uneven mildewed feel of cheap wood varnish under his fingers. He could see the steel box around him but he knew in his bones, he remembered the pull of his eyelids, as he drooped in his scratchy aged armchair.
He had stayed up waiting for his father and been powerless to save him. He would be powerless now.
Could he really resolve to sit back and watch? Could he really wait for the end to sidle through this door and deliver bad news like it was any other bit of junk mail? Like the notice of his father’s murder was an actual annoyance to the being delivering it?
Or would he fight to stop it, right now?
I am Rung. I have done what I have done. And you have a choice, because It is awake.
The rush of air blew Leo’s ponytail forward. The crew had opened the bulkhead. They were coming for him now. Villagers with their torches and pitchforks seeking the monster at the end of the flagstone path.
There would be no subtlety, no peaceful tact. This was the brutish charge of a mongrel horde, seeking purely to overwhelm resistance with acceptable losses. They were knocking on his door, casual but forceful, with foul intent.
The fools.
Leo swooped toward the ladder, taking up a post beside it, waiting for the first unlucky soul. Would it be Piotr and the burning for blood? Or Doctor Gamble and her cold conviction?
These people didn’t know how to mend. Just destroy.
When Piotr’s boots hit the floor of the prefab, Leo was nowhere to be found. His eyes darted from corner to corner, upper lip curled, nostrils flared. He stalked the small space like a dog that had smelled an intruder.
Something at the back of his neck told him true, that Leo was still there. Hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, that ghostly feeling that he was not alone. That something studied him from nearby.
Leo watched, clinging to the light fixture above. The reduced gravity made such feats possible. But his muscles already quivered at the strain. And the screws were not made to support the weight of a person, even so reduced.
An ominous creak growled from Leo’s perch.
Piotr stopped, head tilted. Almost annoyed at himself.
Leo dropped, like a spider onto a fly, all four limbs tangling up in Piotr’s. They tumbled to the ground, struggling with each other.
Pushing, biting, gnashing, scraping. All of the finesse of two school children on the playground. Ten fingers grabbing, pulling and tearing at whatever they could get purchase of.
Piotr slithered his feet up onto Leo’s stomach, heaving Leo off. His back slammed against the ladder, a white hot pain stabbing from his legs to his neck. His knees buckled from the surprise and he nearly vomited right there.
Of course. The Rung on his back had just gotten a bit pinched, hadn’t it?
Piotr was on his feet and rushing forward. He wasn’t going to wait for Leo to collect himself. Not very sporting.
Leo grabbed onto the ladder and flung himself up, the simulated gravity weaker with each successive thrust up and up. He guided his way up by tapping his palms off on the walls of the tube.
The further he went, the further away from the end of the swinging arm. No more gravity.
It was a nice way to slam your head on something, but he’d done this a couple dozen times. He wouldn’t have refused the head injury at this point either. Maybe it would finally kick this waking nightmare from his skull.
Piotr started up after him, clumsily bouncing off walls and slipping back down the tube, unable to finesse the vertical monkey swing.
He craned his neck, calling out, “He’s coming your way!”
Three others in front him, somewhere. Gamble, Romanov, Mathers. One by one, stop them.
Leo tumbled head over heels, swinging his legs around to brace for the impact against the bulkhead. He landed with the grace of a house cat, silent and easy.
He could see them all. Mathers and Gamble were further down the spine, working their way back to trap and slay the monster.
But Romanov was arm deep in the oxygen processor. It was unlikely he was trying to improve on Leo’s work.
Leo grabbed Romanov by the legs and pulled him free. Romanov squealed, offering scant resistance. But he’d clearly hooked on something because as Leo’s surprising strength popped Romanov free from overhead, there was also a distinct ‘pop.’
The hiss that followed could only mean something had ruptured.
The scream from Romanov told Leo all he needed to know, and he really didn’t want to watch as the liquid ammonia coolant burned his eyes and mouth.
The acidic qualities of ammonia weren’t the most corrosive in the world, but in proper quantity and purity, it would burn like oil in a pan. Romanov’s eyes, throat and skin boiled. It wasn’t long before the only sound was that crackling hiss of well-done meat.
He had no hazmat suit and the emergency shut-off was front of ship. He could seal them all back here with the leak, wait for it to suffocate them all.
Burn them. Silence them.
Leo held his breath, closed his eyes. Minimize his exposure. With a bounce off the bulkhead, he was able to launch himself forward, through the green gas cloud.
The tingling sensation, that slow burning refused to abate. In a mere half of a second, Leo felt the hairs on his arms crisp and melt. His skin screamed in discordant notes that drove tacks into his mind.
If you open your eyes, if you try to scream, if you stop -- you will die.
Leo came out of the cloud, bouncing hard off a bulkhead. The fluid coated his skin, however thin the solution, and it was actively ripping him apart at the molecular level.
He would simply have to wait for the corrosive salve to neutralize. There was no time for anything else.
He forced his eyes open, and nearly snapped them shut again from the pain. Though his vision blurred from the damage, he could see that Romanov wasn’t moving anymore. The others were lost somewhere in the density of that pale green cloud, swirling like a gathering storm.
Or they had been just as brave as he, as he felt the needle of a syringe dr
ive hard into the side of his throat. He swung about, flailing for the assailant. His skin slapped hard against flesh, hard enough he actually felt his knuckles crack.
Or maybe the bones in his fingers had finally given way under the intense conditions subjected to them. But the assailant did not waver, buckling about as much as if Leo had flung his hand against the wall.
Hands slithered in, pulling his arms backward and pinned behind him as the drugs took hold.
Diprivan. His anti-anxiety meds, double dose.
He could feel the cold fluid pump down his neck, through his shoulder and down to his heart, where it exploded like a firework of soothing refreshment ushering him to lay down his burdens.
And maybe he should, as the pain fell away in equal measure with the arrival of darkness.
Chapter 20
Murcielago
The shuttle drifted up to the Murcielago’s airlock, the very last of its RCS fuel finally spent. Six hours of sobering silence were broken up only by Locklear’s half-witted attempts at patching up the wounded.
A distinct lack of available supplies, his own copious injuries, and laughable expertise weren’t going to keep him from working.
The rag-tag remainders of the ship’s crew had managed to actually capture their own wee beastie, but that’s all they would say. As Locklear had wrapped up Jazmin’s shoulder, he had tried to picture what this thing could be.
The delicate shards he’d removed from the canyon did not seem to measure up to their descriptions of it. Its size, shape, whatever material its flesh was made of.
Did it bleed? The vague accounts of the frightened survivors gave him precious little to go off of.
While gouges to the meat had been sealed, Jericho needed proper medical attention from his extended exposure, and Raines’ own injuries had likely gone by the expiration date on the label.
The rather superfluous injuries to Jazmin and himself paled in comparison. They might very well make it onto the Murci, just to limp into cots and die all the same.
The hatch swung open to an empty corridor. Jazmin helped pull Jericho’s limp body along the weightless interior, floating him sans stretcher towards aid.
No hands to greet them. Locklear’s eyes pored over the simple tube -- plastic, metal, cloth interior. Panels and bulkheads. Just a day before, he had bid goodbye to Leo here with a full complement of police officers down on a pyrrhic rescue mission.
Now, he returned half-alive, and Leo…
Locklear pawed his way through the ship, following his injured team to the medical bay. It may not have been as quick as it felt, or Locklear may have just blacked out again.
He arrived to find Jericho already in bed, Doctor Gamble working her magic – her hands curiously bandaged as though she had laid them on a hot burner. Ammonia damage, she had said.
Meanwhile, Raines rifled through a cupboard for something to treat her own aging wounds.
In the back was the clear plastic quarantine room. The size of the medical module only allowed for a small space, but they fit a bed, toilet and even a bookshelf inside those walls. Its own oxygen system kept pathogens contained while the patient worked the common cold out its system.
Common cold. Feh.
Inside, curled against the far wall, was Leo Taggart -- his ponytail ragged and loose, stray hairs greasy and pasted to his forehead. His gear hung loose on his frame, as though he’d somehow lost forty pounds in the last day alone. His eyes fluttered, halfway between sleep and waking.
Withering.
Outside the cell, the young colonist -- Mathers -- sat with a notepad. He may not have had much use, but he was going to do something, even if it just meant keeping tabs on the prisoner. His borrowed clothes hung loose on him too.
That thing had left a rather peculiar mark on its hosts. It was as though both had fallen ill, some pox having sapped away their strength.
Someone approached Locklear from behind, just inside that respectful conversation space.
“Status report,” Locklear blurted, unable to peel his eyes off of the imprisoned Leo.
The voice gave away the Cabbie, despite dehydration and stress giving it a raspy tenor. Piotr cleared his throat, “He’s been docile since his capture. There was an… attempt to remove it surgically. He went into cardiac arrest. We force it off of him, we’ll kill him.”
He just couldn’t get over how sick this mouthy little janitor now looked. The blood matted in his hair. Under his fingernails. The frost tinging his lips and eyes.
The raw amount of strain it had put him through. And he just went along with it, willing. Eager even.
Locklear glanced to one side. Jazmin stood at a bedside -- yet another full cot in this hospital room – occupied by a body covered with a sheet. She dared not to look, afraid to confirm what she already knew, wanting to reach for the sheet but already certain of what she would find.
Everybody else was accounted for, except one. Maybe they’d told her the foul secret while he was locked into his daze, but personal experience told Locklear that she was plenty intuitive enough to conclude what must be under that shroud without hints.
Locklear marched over, peeling the sheet back to reveal -- something that nearly made him retch.
What was left of Romanov was barely recognizable, a sludge of his former self. Some kind of acid had melted him away, his flesh burned on to his visage. When he died, it took some time.
The others were over quick. Rom -- little stuttering French bull dog -- experienced real suffering.
Locklear sent him up here, to safeguard a survivor. Locklear sent this young man to his fate.
No. He wasn’t responsible. But he knew who was.
He marched over to the surgical table where Gamble tended to Jericho. The doctor tried to protest, but her sharp commands meant nothing to him right now. He fished in Jericho’s belt, drawing his sidearm.
Sig Sauer P255. Three pounds. Copper-jacketed .40 caliber rounds.
Locklear checked the action, verifying there was a live round, before striding back over to the quarantine cell and cocking the hammer.
Mathers and Piotr immediately blocked his path, Piotr waving his hands in Locklear’s face. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Space cowboy, back off!”
“Out of my way, Piotr.”
Piotr might as well have been snarling, “Take a fuckin’ breath, goddammit! He’s one of us!”
That was a laugh. “He’s not one of mine.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing is wrong,” Mathers choked out, “It’s that thing. It’s playing him. It suggests things and it just…. sounds so right all the time and--”
“I don’t really care. He killed three people. He’s going to kill more. Out of the way.”
“Can you boys measure your dicks somewhere else?” Gamble snapped, tending to her own rather time-sensitive problem, “And if you’re going to hurt each other, the painkiller’s in locker C12.”
“That’s my best friend,” Piotr said, pointing wildly back at the cell, “You kill him, you better have a bullet for me in there.”
“You know I just can kill you and just make up why I did, right?”
“Lock, settle.” Two words from Jazmin, and he did not need this right now.
He exploded. “I will not let anyone else die! Nobody else!”
She came right back at him. “You didn’t kill anyone, you moron! Neither did he! It’s been them! Those fuckin’ things, everybody who’s dead was murdered by them! Do you get it? Do you not fuckin’ remember what we saw down there?!”
“She is correct.”
Locklear raised his pistol, and Piotr might’ve stood in the way, but everyone parted to look at Leo, standing at the edge of the glass.
Nobody saw him get up. It was Leo’s voice, but something was off about it. Almost mechanical. It reminded him of hearing Amelia speak.
His finger wrapped around the trigger, half reflex, half homicidal.
Leo was still, like a strong and centered oak tree that fo
und that strong gust of wind downright adorable. This storm of people shouting and spitting threats and epithets was categorically pathetic to him. “But if you are to kill me, I would much prefer the bullet. And quickly now.”
“What if I don’t give a fuck about your preferences?” Locklear sneered.
“Oh, you will kill me, Sergeant,” Leo said, with a divine kind of patronizing certainty, “Because the Beast… is going to make you. Your hands will pull my body apart, shred by little shred, and they will not stop. Your final task in this insanity will be grabbing pieces of me and separating them until there are no more pieces. You will do this with a single mindedness you thought not possible, a singular focus towards violence and to me. That hatred that burns will consume every cell, until there is nothing left of you. When you are done with me, you will turn to your friends, before finally yourself. A single bullet is by far more preferable to receiving that kind of treatment. Wouldn’t you agree?”
That was a rather apocalyptic judgement. No one had anything to say, but meditated on that thought, the only sound coming from Gamble and her medical gear. But even she twisted her head about to listen.
“Quickly now, we haven’t much time. Grant me that mercy.”
Locklear lowered the gun, confused by this plea. “Let’s assume there’s another option.”
“There is not.”
“Think outside the box,” Locklear demanded. “Maybe you let my friend go.”
Leo smirked at that designation. “Friend? Suddenly a change of heart?”
“Got a bit of sense of who I’m talking to now,” Locklear bit back, a quick jab to mask his mistake.
“It’s still me, Sergeant. I just have their…” he paused, choosing his next word with care, “Experience.”
Locklear stepped up to the glass, granting some little ground. Maybe it would punch through the glass and break his neck before the others could even move. Who knew what this thing was capable of? That cell was not made as a prison. It was made to hold bacteria, not a monster.
“I’m not making any deals while you’re holding my friend hostage. Let him go. Right now.”