Salvaged

by Madeleine Roux

  JAX had lodged himself in the brig next to Edison, his head somewhere inside the wall panel. The rest of him jerked and spasmed as if in death throes.

  To her credit, Rosalyn ran in without hesitation, holding her little multi-tool up and diagonal to her right shoulder, preparing to slash. But Piero was faster, and more reckless, diving toward Edison in the brig, using the chaos to grab the captain by his forearm and swing him around. With his other hand he pressed on Edison’s upper back, forcing him to his knees and bringing his neck perilously close to the jagged edge of the broken sheeting.

  “Wait!” Misato cried out, a hot flicker passing across her forehead. Piero—the Foxfire—wanted in, badly, wanted to control the whole chessboard and not just half the pieces. Part of her almost gave in, not out of weakness but desperation. If she were strong enough, stalwart enough, she could connect to him and try to appeal to whatever was left of his better nature.

  Rosalyn heard her, stopping mere feet from the two men, her weapon still raised and trembling.

  “He’ll do it,” Misato breathed, staring into Piero’s silvery-white eyes. There was nothing left of his humanity, she thought, nothing there but savage allegiance to the Foxfire within. This was something new, an evolution. Before, the Foxfire had felt invasive, surely, but the takeover had been gradual and almost friendly, as if the monster could cajole them into buying its propaganda. This was not negotiation but bare hostility.

  She could see Rosalyn’s nerves now as she bounced from foot to foot. The salvager glanced back toward Misato, her eyes huge and glossy, mouth dropping open and freezing there as if to ask, What do we do now?

  Worst of all, Rayan was still lurking somewhere on the ship. Misato looked behind her, but the corridor was empty. Inch by terrible inch, Piero was forcing Edison’s head toward the sharp edge. The captain fought him, lashing out with his fists, punching into a body that was long past recognizing pain. The man had torn most of his own flesh off; a few hard blows to the stomach landed like a child swatting his father.

  Edison was trying to mouth something at them, one word over and over again.

  Stall.

  Rosalyn must have seen it, too. She took a few faltering, careful steps toward the two men but stopped when Piero gave a more determined push on Edison’s neck.

  “Slow down,” Rosalyn said. Her voice was muffled through the environmental suit, but Misato heard it clear enough. “Just . . . just wait one minute, okay? There’s something I want to know. Something . . .” She glanced at Misato for reassurance and received a tiny nod. Yes, chickadee, keep going, keep him talking, whatever time we can gain back is critical. For what, Misato didn’t know, but it was better than watching her crewmates decapitate each other. The comm hub to their left was a disaster, which meant he had probably been successful in cutting off their voice to the outside world. The best outcome they could hope for now was keeping Edison alive.

  “Questions are pointless,” Piero hissed.

  Sweat dripped down Edison’s beard, landing on the shattered remains of the brig and splashing.

  “F-Fair enough,” Rosalyn stammered. “But what about a trade? Is that pointless?”

  Piero’s white eyes flashed. A trade. The Foxfire was clearly intrigued. The shiny blue spores above them on the ceiling seemed to dance as if electrified.

  “A trade,” Piero echoed. “What could you offer us? You’re weak. We have the advantage.”

  “I have something you want,” Rosalyn continued. “Something you’ve been trying very hard to get. I think it will benefit us all, really, and nobody will have to die.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. Misato tried to take a step forward but he saw her, head tilting to the side as he squinted in her direction. She froze, holding up her weapon as if in surrender. Shit. This stalling thing wasn’t doing much of anything.

  “What is it you think we want?” Piero asked, eyes sliding rapidly between her and Rosalyn.

  Even through the bubbled visor, Misato heard the troubled gulp Rosalyn gave. Of course, it made perfect sense. Rosalyn’s arrival had seemed to stir something in the Foxfire, provoking an extraordinary reaction. It was only logical. Logical, Misato thought with a quick shake of her head, but stupid.

  Rosalyn didn’t look back. She seemed to be staring directly into Piero’s eyes, into the core of the monster holding them all hostage. Her voice was small but firm and sent a shiver down Misato’s spine.

  “Me.”

  29

  The bastard alien inside Piero was thinking it over.

  One simple word had brought the whole screaming panic of the moment to a standstill. She could hear Edison’s shattered breathing, and Misato’s, too, and her skull ached from the deafening pound of the blood in her ears.

  She had stared the devil in the eyes before. I’ve been here, she thought. I’ve seen the snake coil before the strike. I’ve seen the humanity fall away from a man until there’s nothing left but madness and rage.

  It was going to work. Or at least, this part of her hastily patched-up plan was going forward. The rest? Well, one step at a time. It had been her mantra after Glen; it would have to serve again now. One step at a time. Shave your head. Throw out your makeup. Wipe the lip gloss off your mouth and smear it on your jeans. Go to space. Lose yourself. Remake yourself. Forge something new.

  A snarling beast had tried to control her before and won. Not this time, motherfucker.

  “Admit it,” Rosalyn pushed. “You want all of us. You’re hungry for more bodies. More knowledge, right? You want more knowledge for the . . . for the cluster. You want to be mother to us all. It’d be stupid to throw Edison away. Look at him. He’s strong. He’s smart. He’s got . . . he really likes dogs. I don’t know if you know this because you’re not from Earth, but that’s a big deal to us humans, so don’t toss him away when you can have us both. It’s simple math. You . . . you can do math, right?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was grinning or hissing. Most of his face was a sloppy, disfigured mess. His grip seemed to relax a little on Edison’s neck, and the captain half smiled at her, his face shiny with sweat. It was working. Or something was happening. It was an improvement over the pandemonium.

  “Mother sees the wisdom in your suggestion,” Piero said slowly, as if debating each word. “She knows you. She . . . knows your face. I know your face. But she does not trust your intentions.”

  “Why not? You said it yourself, you’ve got the upper hand.”

  “You think Mother is foolish. You think she’s blind.” The canopy of blue above them twinkled, a grim reminder of just how much she was up against. She wondered if maybe in addition to a master engineer, bioengineer and programmer, Misato was a champion javelin thrower. That would simplify things considerably.

  “I know you’re not blind,” Rosalyn replied, fighting impatience. “Just be realistic, you want me to calm down. We’ll just go in circles unless we . . . unless we find some kind of truce.”

  “Truce,” the Foxfire—Piero—tested the word, hesitating.

  And he wasn’t moving. Rosalyn knew what they were waiting for. All she had to do to end this was remove her environmental suit. She had assumed they would get to this point and that another part of the plan would occur to her, but now she was drawing a blank. Either Edison or Misato performed a miracle or they were going to be stuck in a standoff for eternity. Then again, Piero could simply call her bluff and slit Edison’s throat.

  She wondered if that would matter. Well, of course it mattered, but in the abstract . . . Piero looked to be held together with a prayer, yet his strength was overwhelming Edison’s. Even Foxfire couldn’t survive a severed head, she thought with a shudder.

  Rosalyn slid the multi-tool into her suit pocket and sighed. Then she reached with both hands for the seal clasps on her visor. Edison and Misato made a sound in unison, one a gasp, the other a groan.

/>   “Don’t,” Edison whispered. “Rosalyn? Don’t.”

  She met Edison’s eyes, blinking once, calmly, hoping he got the message. Not much of a message, but she did at least have a brain cell or two to rub together. She fidgeted with the seals, letting the thickened pads of her gloves rub uselessly over them. Grunting, she yanked and yanked, throwing in a theatrical twist of her hips for good measure.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “It’s stuck.”

  “It is not,” Piero growled. “You’re stalling.”

  “It is! Ugh.” This was rolling the dice, she thought, knowing she could easily slip and actually release the seal and blow it all in spectacular fashion. Misato took a few shuffling steps toward her.

  “No. Do not assist her. Stay where you are.” Piero leapt to his feet, one hand still gripping Edison by the nape, but his stance was considerably less menacing.

  “Christ, I should’ve had a maintenance check on this thing months ago. Procrastination is a real bitch,” Rosalyn chattered to herself, still pulling at the seal knobs, letting her fingertips slide off at the last second each time. Putting some real muscle into it, she screwed up her face, the actual, very not-pretend sweat on her face adding to the performance.

  “It’s not coming free,” she whined. “Shit.”

  “Enough. Mother is impatient.” Piero lunged toward her, annihilated arm swinging grotesquely as he barreled in her direction. His better arm lifted, long fingers stretched out toward her as he slammed into her, sending them both crashing to the ground. She felt the floor hit her tailbone with a crunch and she winced, crying out, pushing against the dead weight of Piero’s body as he crushed her into the tiles.

  His huge hand landed on her visor with a smack, slick white teeth gnashing as he leered down at her.

  This was the moment she had feared, the loss of control, the panic, the same stomach-churning sensation of knowing a bigger, stronger, angrier body was on top of her. Hot tears poured down her cheeks, into her ears, itchy and slimy. Why couldn’t she move? Why couldn’t she see? It was getting hard to breathe, hard to think. Every time she tried to draw air, it choked her.

  Not again, not again, not again . . .

  She blinked rapidly. Someone was screaming. A blur rushed above her head and she heard Misato, but it was so far away. There was a sound like rushing water, quick, sloshing bursts. Everything was fading. When the tears finally cleared, she was staring up into Glen’s face. Square chin. Icy gray eyes. Perfectly stubbled jaw.

  “You don’t speak to me that way. You do not ever speak to me that way, Roz. It is so fucking condescending, okay? I don’t know why you have to be so smug all the time. It brings out the worst in me.”

  Not this time. Fight back.

  “No!” she heard herself scream. “No, no! Never again. Never again!”

  When it was Glen on top of her she had fought back, too, but this was different, all new but somehow also all terribly familiar. She knew that she could fight this, knew that she was more than strong enough. Her left hand slid into her pocket, the only motion she could manage, and her fingers closed around the multi-tool. It was like someone else was guiding her, her own ghost aiming the two-inch knife, finding with luck or experience the base of the skull, the approximate location of most AR implants. Her own ghost plunged the knife in deep, breaking off, hitting something harder than bone.

  The hand covering her visor shook, peeling away and leaving a long smear of blood.

  Sound, vision, feeling all rushed in too fast and she drew breath as if resurfacing from deep, dark water.

  The weight on her chest lifted and she watched Piero roll to the side, the multi-tool still stuck in the base of his skull, the AR chip shorting, sending him into a seizure. She had spent countless hours studying methods of integration with AR, always careful to make sure their tech didn’t interfere with the implant and cause irreparable damage. And she had been good at it. Careful. Precise. But someone had pushed her to the ground, invaded her, and the only thing that numbed the panic was vodka. Then gin. Losing time. Skipping work. Glen was such a nice guy, who would ever believe her? Running. Running. Running until she was there, watching Piero shake and seize.

  It was only a temporary solution, and Rosalyn watched Piero scuttle back against the wall, tangling himself in the cords he had pulled from the Brigantine. His legs shot out in front of him as he reached with his better arm for the knife in his back.

  It wasn’t enough. She had to finish him off. Fight back. Maybe Tuva was watching somehow, lending her strength. Rosalyn crawled weakly onto all fours, blearily finding she was not the only one fighting for her life. The blur above her head. The sounds of rushing water. Rayan. Foxfire would have their ambush after all, taking a page from her slapdash handbook, their second piece on the board arriving with a fire extinguisher, filling up the observation room with blinding white foam.

  30

  They were both moving to help Rosalyn when Rayan appeared, announcing his arrival with a blast from a fire extinguisher. His timing couldn’t have been worse. A wall of white mist separated him from Rosalyn, but he saw Misato fight through it, screaming, her shiv raised high and ready to strike.

  He lost track of her in the foam gouts that came one after another. Judging from their direction, Rayan was trying to protect Piero, who was struggling somewhere against the wall. Panting, Edison wiped at his face, shielding his eyes, peering into the disorienting fog long enough to see Misato slide toward Piero, jabbing her makeshift sword into his chest, pinning him to the wall. They both made horrible sounds—she an anguished cry and he a wet gurgle. Froth bubbled and spilled from his mouth like a secret. Rayan laid on the fire extinguisher again, leaping over Rosalyn to smash the heavy butt end of the extinguisher against the back of Misato’s head. She went down hard, landing in a heap at Piero’s feet.

  It was then that Rayan turned his attention to Edison, charging him, brandishing the extinguisher canister like a battering ram. Edison planted his feet loosely, dodging, pivoting to use the man’s momentum against him, just as Piero had done to JAX. It worked, but only for a moment. Rayan spun to meet him, slipping a little on the extinguisher residue covering the floor but not enough to lose his footing. There was no telling if Rosalyn was in a state to help him; Edison was on his own.

  He lifted his arm just in time to block a close-range blast, his arm aching with the sudden freezing cold of the powder. Coughing, he gasped, the spray leaving him breathless. Rayan swung the canister, missed, then brought it back on the rebound, managing to clip Edison’s shoulder. The kid’s eyes were white, furious, his expression alarmingly blank, as if he had no idea that he was in the middle of bludgeoning his own captain.

  “Rayan! Stop! You don’t have to do this!” Edison shouted, batting half-blindly at the fire extinguisher, hoping to knock it out of Rayan’s grasp.

  There was no answer, only rage and another flurry of blows from the biologist. Edison let them come, waiting for an opening and finding one when Rayan swung too forcefully and overbalanced. Jamming his shoulder into Rayan’s, Edison reached for the extinguisher, and they wrestled against each other. Under ordinary circumstances Edison felt confident he could outbox the kid, but this wasn’t Rayan’s strength against his—Rayan’s body knew no fatigue, no pain, and his sole purpose now was to do as the Foxfire directed.

  “Let . . . go,” Edison growled. “It’s over. Just let go.”

  They danced back and forth, one gaining ground until the other found a reserve of strength and pulled and pulled, dragging the other man down until the canister was at their knees. Edison’s fingers were slippery with sweat, numb with cold, and he could feel his grip failing. A sudden female scream made them both freeze, hands clasped over each other’s as they looked up in unison. Motes of foamy white powder settled slowly to the floor, as soft as a snowfall, and beyond that stood Rosalyn, trembling, backing away from them and into the a
djoining corridor. But Edison didn’t watch her for long.

  She had screamed at Piero, at the slow, horrible push of his hands against the pinning knife that drew it through his body. His face was as blank and inscrutable as Rayan’s, which made it all the more horrifying, seeing the knife disappear into his chest cavity, the thin pole of the handle jutting through before that too was gone, in him, then out the back of him as he came free. He had torn a massive hole in the center of his body, the bottom of one rib visible as he staggered to his feet, seemingly unaware of the catastrophic wound that oozed fresh blood down his abdomen, soaking into his jumpsuit trousers.

  All at once the canister flew out of Edison’s hands, ripped away, his stunned disgust the only distraction Rayan needed.

  No, he thought with a grunt, no.

  The hit to his chin seemed almost like an afterthought. It was hard enough to knock him dizzy and send him spiraling to the floor, but not enough to disable him entirely. Rayan was no longer interested in him, it seemed. Instead, he strode purposefully away, joining Piero as they followed Rosalyn out of starboard observation and into the corridor.

  His body shook with panic. Misato hadn’t moved. On elbows and knees, Edison pulled himself across the floor, giving sluggish chase, head spinning.

  We’ll come back for you. When the salvager is ours we will return for you.

  “Fuck that,” Edison spat, fighting for breath in a room that felt like all the oxygen had disappeared. The extinguisher powder felt like ice in his lungs, but he slithered through it, ignoring the spreading numbness in his forearms and knees. He tasted blood in his mouth and swallowed with a wince. It was no use. He was too slow.