by Greig Beck
“You don’t have a choice,” Alex replied. “We know your lander left, and you three are now stranded.”
“It was stolen.”
“By who?” Alex already knew but wanted their take on it.
The Russians looked at each other for a moment and then Borgan shrugged. “We don’t know.”
Alex turned way. “Then you’ve got nothing we need.” He thumbed to the open bay doors. “Franks, show these people out.”
“With pleasure.” Casey walked forward, displaying the skull on her silver armor. She pointed her weapon. “You heard the man.”
“Wait, wait,” the woman said. She glanced at Borgan and then Alex. “The lifeform, it evolved.”
Alex turned back. “You have less than two hours of breathable air left before you suffocate. You tell us everything or you can walk home and wait a few weeks for your supply ship to come to collect your dehydrated bodies.”
“No one will come from Russia, ever. My name is Doctor Irina Ivanov, and I was one of the scientists assigned to work on Project Cyclops.” She tutted softly. “And maybe I think suffocation on the moon would be a mercy.”
“Project Cyclops?” Alex seethed. “What the hell were you doing?”
“Is not good.” Irina slumped. “I will tell you everything, because everything and everyone is at stake now.”
Alex stared for a moment before he turned to wave Casey down. He faced the trio. “We’ve lost about forty people to your Cyclops project. You better have some good answers.”
“Maybe we are already too late,” Irina murmured.
“Not while we’re breathing.” Alex turned to the cameras overhead. “It’s okay, we’re coming in.”
Immediately the external doors slid shut, and moments later the room flooded with breathable air.
After they had all passed through decon and Marion had injected the Russians with the iron solution without any frightening results, they were led to an area beside the control room. There, Alex and Casey, plus Marion, waited as the Russians introduced themselves – Doctor Irina Ivanov, their lead scientist; Grisha Lebedev, a soldier; and their commander, Yuri Borgan.
The room had a long table and chairs, and Alex sat opposite the Russians with Casey at one shoulder and Marion at the other. The Russians were given some water and that was it. Alex sat forward and stared, his gaze making Borgan sit back.
Irina sighed and nodded. “Captain Hunter?”
“What is this thing, and where did it come from?” Alex asked.
Irina looked at him with watery eyes. “Was Olga infected?”
“No,” Alex replied.
“Interesting. Where are you up to? What do you know? We will fill in all the blanks.”
“Bullshit. That’s not how it works,” Casey began. “Why don’t –”
Marion held her hand up. “It’s okay, Casey, we’ll go first.” She began: “We know this thing seems to be something like an advanced or mutated fungal form of the cordyceps ascomycete fungi. We know that most cordyceps species are endoparasitoids, and parasitic mainly on insects and other arthropods. But somehow this thing is attacking – ingesting – people and also mimics its prey – us – to get close. And it’s smart. Maybe at least as smart as us, or maybe even smarter.” Marion frowned. “And it seems to be getting smarter, evolving hour by hour.”
“All of this is true,” Irina replied.
“Surprise,” Casey spat. “We aren’t the problem – you are.”
“Did you find it in the mine?” Marion asked. “Was it indigenous to the moon, or something else?”
Irina bobbed her head. “You can say it came out of the mine. But we put it there.”
Casey seethed. “I fucking knew it. It was a fucking lab experiment gone wrong, wasn’t it?”
Irina nodded, but Borgan and Grisha just shared confused glances.
“What was your role? What were your orders?” Alex asked the Russian commander.
“I never knew any of this,” Borgan said. “I was told the base had been attacked. Probably by you Americans.” He sighed. “My superiors told me to investigate why our base had gone dark. And support the science team in securing their research data.” He chuckled, but there was pain in it. “We dumb soldiers are the last to know.”
“Always. That is the way,” Alex replied evenly.
Marion stepped in front of Irina, who had her head down. “You must go on – tell us everything.”
Irina sat back and her eyes were glistening and red rimmed. “We built it from scratch. From gathering the elements, to creating the genome and then splicing it into live cordyceps DNA to create an entirely new species. We used cordyceps because they exhibit superior vitality and adaptability. We just boosted its viability and its growth rate, and that was all.” She closed her eyes. “Or so we thought.”
Marion frowned. “My analysis couldn’t recognize the base species other than that it was like a cordyceps. But it’s so different, even accounting for you tinkering with the genomes. You said you complemented the fungal DNA that was Earth based?”
“Yes and no.” Irina opened her eyes. “Do you know how many elements there are in fungi? Over forty, and some of them are extremely rare. We used a lot of our core stock because there were significant errors and wastage to begin with. It took months to get our supplies replenished from Earth. So, we took shortcuts.”
“Shortcuts? Where did you get the elements?” Marion asked softly.
“We have a mine, right here, so we mined them of course – fortuitously, the rare ones are in abundance in lunar soil.” Irina shrugged. “Maybe there was contamination.”
“Jesus Christ.” Alex tilted his head back momentarily. “You used lunar ingredients, and it created a monster.”
“They were just inert elements – we thought. But there must have been something else hiding within them.” Irina stared straight ahead. “It grew so quickly. We were delighted at first.”
“When was this? When did it start?” Alex asked.
Irina sighed. “When we started the experiments? Nearly four months ago. When did things start to go wrong? Just a few weeks ago. The information we were receiving from the laboratory staff was excited at first, and then concerned, and then …” Her eyes shifted. “And then they vanished.”
“Try and think back, about the experiments. How did you initiate such rapid growth?” Marion asked.
“I remember it was specimen X37; it turned out to be extraordinarily robust, and it learned quickly. It moved from feeding on the other fungus in its tank to ingesting plant material, and then small arthropod species. Our technicians then asked for authorisation to move to the next phase and introduce higher-order live organisms.” She smiled brokenly. “So we introduced a mouse into the tank.”
As Irina continued, her eyes grew glassy and her speech became trance-like. “It ingested the mouse, absorbed it from the inside out, and did what all cordyceps do – took over the mouse’s physiology. But this time it was different, and we recorded a strange thing happening: the fungi didn’t just infest the mouse, it became the mouse.”
“It hadn’t done that before?” Marion asked.
“No, and we saw that it was a primitive first attempt and didn’t really look like the mouse due to the fungal load it was carrying. But it began acting like a mouse.
“We introduced more mice, and they could immediately tell the cordyceps copy wasn’t a real mouse. But after it absorbed them as well, it began to get better at its mimicry. It was learning. With each specimen we provided, it got better and better at being the mouse. And then by the last one, we couldn’t tell specimen-X37, the fungus, apart from a normal mouse. And neither could the other mice.”
“It created the perfect copy.” Marion shook her head. “Did that not concern you?”
“Not at the time. Not then. The laboratory team was ecstatic.” She smiled again but there were tears in her eyes. “It allowed the mouse to get close to its prey. It allowed it to infiltrate.”
&n
bsp; Casey glanced at Alex, who nodded. He knew the infiltration was the objective.
“How did it jump from mice to people?” Marion asked gently.
“The base laboratory manager requested experiments with larger, more complex organisms. So, we sent them some rabbits. Then we sent dogs.” She looked down at her hands as she spoke.
“You flew dogs to the moon to feed to your pet mushroom?” Casey leaned forward. “I know who the real fucking monsters are.”
Borgan and Grisha glanced at each other and shook their heads. Alex bet this was not what they signed up for.
“Every species it ingested, it took on their characteristics. It was amazing, as it grew in size, strength, and intelligence. We had never seen anything like it. Maybe that should have been a warning to us. But the laboratory staff were too excited by their success to slow down – it pulled a veil over our eyes to the dangers.”
Marion came and crouched in front of her. “Irina, this is important now. Tell me how it jumped to humans?”
The Russian scientist looked up and her eyes were dead. “We let it.”
Alex glared. “Because that’s what you wanted all along, wasn’t it? It was to be used against your enemies in a conflict theatre.”
Her eyes shifted to him. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Fuckers,” Casey growled.
“Go on,” Marion urged.
“One of our base personnel, a miner by the name of Andrei Andropov, was killed in an accident, a suit breach. We always planned to use more advanced biological specimens, so this was an opportunity too good to let slip by.” She snorted softly. “We gave it Andrei’s cadaver. It ingested it, and then it became the cadaver.”
“It became Andrei,” Alex said.
“No, not exactly. That’s how it deceived us. It waited, planned, and then executed its escape plan. Andrei, the new Andrei, seemed in a vegetative state, and we assumed that the human physiology and brain were so complex that it might not be able to control and animate them. So, some of technicians entered the laboratory to perform some tests on the body, and take samples. That was when it attacked.”
“And then it went on to infect the entire base?” Marion asked.
“They didn’t even know what was coming. The laboratory work was secret and kept apart from the mining operations. The first we knew of something going badly wrong was when we received garbled messages from the laboratory command – they were little more than incoherent screams and terrified babble, but they told us everything we needed to know. It was the worst-case scenario becoming every dark thing we feared.”
Irina looked from Marion to Borgan. “By then it had absorbed everyone in the laboratory, outwardly became one of the lab staff, and then simply walked into the base. But it was patient, we think because it wanted to learn and grow. We were more complex in our behaviors, so it took more time.”
“You mean it wanted to be more efficient in learning how to get close to us. To ambush us,” Casey said.
“It studied you,” Alex added softly.
“Yes.” Irina exhaled long and slow. “My mission in coming here was to organize the collection of lunar samples, and also take charge of the military contingent to eradicate any aberrant lifeforms. But after it had finished with the base personnel, it must have evolved considerably.”
“Olga tried to stop it and failed,” Alex said.
“Then it came here.” Casey’s eyes had murder in them.
“Why did you come if you knew it was hopeless?” Alex asked.
“We thought … we thought that Olga might have killed it with the detonation. I guess we hoped that we’d have little more to do than clean up our mistakes, collect any records left, and maybe some biological samples.”
“Who’s the dumb mushroom now, bitch?” Casey spat.
“And it’s on its way to Earth. In your lander.” Alex straightened and folded his arms. He stepped away from the table.
“But maybe not all of it,” Marion said. “Maybe what is on its way to Earth is just a portion, a bud of the main thing?”
Irina shrugged. “I don’t know. The answer to that is probably still in the mine.”
Alex stopped his pacing and turned. “It all comes back to the mine.”
“Source of the infection,” Marion said.
“Is it still in your base?” Irina asked.
As if in answer, the lights went out.
CHAPTER 56
“What the hell?” Sam looked up as the room went dark.
“Wait for it,” Roy Maddock said.
The tiny red emergency lights scattered about the room began to glow.
Maddock frowned. “The backup generator should have kicked in by now. Comms is a critical facility.”
“And air isn’t?” Sam said. “The backup generator is in the machine room.” He threw the tool he’d been using onto the desktop. “So much for running a final test.”
“What do you want to do?” Maddock folded his arms. “Draw straws on who checks it out?”
Sam exhaled. “Boss ordered us to stay here. I figure the power going out might be an attempt to draw us out. I already fell for that once.”
“Then we do nothing?” Maddock asked.
“For now.” Sam wiped his hands on a rag. “We call it in.”
Sam used the comms to try and reached Alex, but there was nothing but white noise.
“Of course, local comms also down.” He shook his head. “Can anything else go wrong?”
The pounding on the door had both HAWCs pulling their guns.
Sam held up a hand and then approached. “Who’s there?”
“Mia.”
“What?” Sam’s brows snapped together. “What are you doing here? Who’s with you?”
“I came alone. I, um, was worried about you,” she replied, a little softer.
“Sam Reid, moon base heartthrob.” Maddock chuckled, and walked toward the door.
Sam half-turned. “I’m off the shelf.”
“Great, then put in a good word for me.”
Sam turned back to the door. “Mia, you fool. You could be killed. And the power’s out,” he said redundantly and put his hands on his hips. “Door won’t open anyway.”
“Yes, it can.” It sounded like her face was pressed close to the door. “Take the faceplate off the switch housing. Inside you’ll see another button, blue, that will use a temporary battery charge to manually open it.”
“I’ve got it. Hold tight.” Maddock walked back to the toolbox and grabbed a screwdriver. He removed the faceplate, and sure enough saw the small blue illuminated button – she was right, there was still a small charge.
“Here goes,” he said and pressed it.
The door slid back with glacial speed, and Mia came in fast, first taking a glance over her shoulder. “Thought I heard something.” She headed for Sam.
Sam looked past her down the dark corridor. It was impossible to see more than a dozen feet now. “Close it,” he said.
Maddock nodded, stepped back, and pressed the button again. The door closed, but a lot slower than it opened.
Sam turned. “You’re crazy.”
“Guilty.” She held up her hands and smiled. “But, no, just concerned. Without communications, we’re in deep you-know-what. I wanted to see how you were doing. We hear nothing upstairs, so I was worried.”
Sam looked across to Maddock, who had his arms folded and a knowing smile curving the corner of his lips. Sam sighed. “We’re about done here, and were getting ready for a test but then this –” he pointed up at the lights, “– shut us down.”
She nodded. “I’m sure it’s just a temporary glitch. I’ve learned that on this base, if something can wrong, it will go wrong.” She walked toward the console Sam had been repairing and looked down. “You actually rebuilt it? I thought it was beyond repair.”
“I’ve rebuilt it but won’t know if it works until we test it.”
“I knew it – brains as well as brawn. Any problems?” s
he asked.
“Well, it’s held together by spit and a prayer right now. Angus McCarthy was the real genius. I’m hoping it just holds together long enough for us to get a message back to Earth.”
“He’s being humble,” Maddock said. “He did masterful work.”
Sam held his hands up. “It’s true, and I deserve a raise.”
“So, you’re ready to send a message?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.
“I think so.” Sam returned the smile.
“What will you say first? ‘Send help’ or ‘send beer’?”
Sam snorted softly. “Of course. But our priority is to establish contact to let everyone down there know we’re okay. Priority two is to ensure that the Russian ship that departed doesn’t land.”
“Oh, the Russians.” She looked down again at the console. “Were there any problems? I heard they found Olga in here.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, not pretty, jammed into one of the relay units. Hidden. Weird thing was she was in one piece and hadn’t been converted.” He went back to his tools and replaced the screwdriver. “Nothing makes sense anymore.”
“That is weird.” Mia frowned and joined Sam where he was working. “Do you think it was because of her sickness? What was it by the way?” She trailed her hand over the tools.
“We said she was dead, not sick.” Maddock turned. “Who said she was sick?”
Mia shrugged. “I think Tom Briggs mentioned it.”
“Briggs, huh?” Maddock asked.
She shrugged. “Or maybe someone else did. Can’t keep secrets in a closed environment like this.” She smiled.
Sam’s eyes slid to Maddock.
“Vin,” was all Maddock said.
Sam returned an almost imperceptible nod. He moved around the console. “Mia, how long have you been out of the control room?”
“Not long.” Mia looked from one man to the other. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Just back up a step,” Sam said as he approached.
“Why?” She looked down at the repaired console. “What did I do?”
Mia didn’t move and for some reason Sam felt a deep animal fear begin in his belly. Though the woman was only half his size, his senses screamed for caution.