Wayfarer: AV494

by Matthew S. Cox

  Bingo. “Tedium I can deal with… My job is all about tedium.” She grabbed another blue card. “My job was about tedium. Xenoarchaeology can go to hell.”

  Board by board, she inserted and removed them until, the better part of two hours later, she had only one left to seat. As soon as she pushed it into place, a noticeable change in the air occurred above her, a sense of energy that hadn’t been there before. All forty lights glowed a bright, lovely green. With reverence due for sealing a ceremonial tomb, Kerys bowed her head and shut the cabinet doors.

  It’s too important that this works. She snapped her head up. “That’s what Chen meant! Don’t let it get off the planet… she was talking about the microbes!”

  24

  Not On You

  Kerys rushed to the ladder and climbed back to the ground. Forgetting some random crazy person might leap out at her at any moment, she sprinted east toward the garage. At least outside, the odds of someone being around had fallen off to near-zero.

  She hoped.

  Out came the gun.

  What if someone else turned into whatever Corporal Guillen was… She racked her brain trying to come up with an explanation for the bizarre blue algae-like substance that oozed from his wounds. He’d been outside… The microbes must react differently to the natural atmosphere. Maybe our air weakens or kills them?

  She crept back to the garage, stalking behind her raised firearm as she cleared her way to the airlock. Inside, she tapped her metal boot impatiently after hitting the button, waiting for the machinery to cycle. The two-minute process felt like an hour―even longer when staring at the countdown.

  After stowing her e-suit back in the locker, she sprinted to the command room and fell into the chair she’d been using. The SFT client kept a log of ‘sent messages.’ A folder full of icons appeared, each showing the face of some person in an olive-drab jumpsuit, along with their weekly status reports back to Earth. On the last three icons, Kerys’ weary face stared back at her, more forlorn and desperate than she remembered feeling. Those had a red X at the top right corner, indicating errors, while all the others had green dots. She tapped one after the next and poked the ‘re-send’ button.

  “Come on… come on… work, dammit.”

  The error marks disappeared forty seconds later, but no green dots appeared.

  “Oh, now what? Did it transmit or not?”

  She hit re-send again and waited. No error came up, but no confirmation message displayed either.

  “Ugh. Maybe the messages got corrupted…”

  Kerys opened a new message, and hit ‘record.’

  “This is Kerys Loring on Wayfarer Outpost, planet AV494. A dangerous microorganism has been released here. As far as I know, there are only two survivors: myself, and Corporal Gina Mitchell, USIC. I’m no doctor, but whatever this stuff is, it gets into the brain and causes people to lose their grip on sanity. Everyone became mindlessly violent. They spoke of hearing voices telling them to kill. Some people took their own lives. One man drank acid. I know there’s a supply ship on the way already, and the fastest anything will get here is another five months and two weeks. I don’t know if I’ll survive that long.

  “I’m not sure why the microbes haven’t affected me yet. Maybe the two of us got lucky and our immune systems fought it off. I had a cold and got over it, but maybe it wasn’t a cold. I know sending this message might cause you to just write the place off as too dangerous. I want to go home. I don’t want to be left here to die, but I have to warn whoever comes here to take precautions. Do not take your e-suits off. I can’t say for sure if the air in here is still contaminated or how long those things survive in Earth-type atmosphere. I understand we’ll need to be quarantined if you’re willing to risk picking us up. That’s better than being stuck here. Please send help.”

  She tapped send.

  Forty seconds later, the message appeared as an icon, without an indicator either way. No error, no confirmation.

  “What the hell now?”

  A scuff came from behind.

  Kerys grabbed the pistol and spun, but relaxed at the sight of Gina creeping in the door. The young woman looked like a terrified orphan about to beg for food. With a sigh of relief, she put the gun down on the desk and stood.

  “Hey,” whispered Kerys. “About Gensch. I… umm. Had to, umm….”

  “Yeah.” Gina bowed her head. “I know.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not angry or upset with you for running. I ran too.” Kerys offered a hopeful smile.

  Gina took two steps closer. She kept her arms tight to her chest, glancing around the room as if navigating a lab full of deadly substances. “Gensch was a hardass, but fair. I only served with him for eight months, but felt like I knew him for a lot longer.”

  “Yeah.” She stared once more at the screen, fighting the building need to cry. She had other things to deal with before surrendering to grief. “We need to come up with a plan. He wanted to, uhh, what did he call it? Sweep and clear the place. Check for other survivors or threats. I’ve never even gone to the reactor area or the storage pod. There’s a leak in the tunnel to Lab 1, but we never checked Lab 2. Hydroponics is a bloodbath. Not sure I trust any of that food. Once we’re sure there’s no one else left, we have to do something about all the bodies.”

  Gina crept closer, hands folded in front of her. “I was right.”

  “What?” Kerys put a hand on her shoulder. “About what?”

  “It’s in the air. Whatever’s making people lose their shit.”

  Kerys’ heart sank. No… “It can’t be in the air. I’m fine. You’re fine… we’re going to get out of here.”

  “I can feel it.” Gina lifted her head; tear trails glistened on her dark brown cheeks. Her emotion made her look even younger than nineteen. “Voices in my head been whisperin’ at me for a while now.”

  “No.” Kerys choked up. “Please, no…” She pulled Gina into a hug, wracked with fear and sorrow. “Fight it.”

  Gina sniffled, clinging to her. “It’s okay. You didn’t know you’d kill me by bringing me inside. Thought I could keep myself safe if I stayed out at the forest site. Damn shuttle didn’t have any more filter pods. I scavved a couple from dead people, but….”

  “You’re not dying.” Kerys pushed her out to arms’ length, gripping her shoulders. “Shuttle?”

  “Yeah.” Gina shivered. “There’s a shuttle over there. They were using it to haul the big machinery from the outpost to the campsite. Won’t do you any good, though, unless you want to starve in orbit. Need a starship to get back to Earth. And you ain’t no pilot.”

  Kerys took her by the hand and pulled her toward the door. “We gotta go to the infirmary; maybe the machine’s got a setting for amoebic brain infection.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Gina held her ground. “Visor was fucked. If I didn’t go in, I’da died out there. Hell, I was so scared shitless out there of every little thing, maybe I had it already. Thought I saw people hunting me in the forest, but no one was there.” Tendons on the sides of her neck tensioned and released as her jaw locked for a second. She twitched, her expression shifted furious and melted back to innocent. “Not now. Not now.”

  “Gina… please, at least let me try.” Kerys dragged the smaller woman a few feet closer to the door.

  “Ain’t gonna help. I seen how these people went. One way trip. I’m dead already.” She twitched, eyes darting left and right. “Damn things won’t stop whispering at me.”

  Kerys kept pulling. “I’m not giving up. Don’t quit, Marine!”

  “I ain’t no Marine. I’m USIC. Interstellar Corps. Not quite the same. Marines don’t leave Earth.” Gina giggled, scowled at the corner of the room for two seconds, and jumped away from Kerys, holding her face and growling. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Gina…?” Kerys clenched and released her hands, feeling helpless. “I… can’t just do nothing and watch you die.”

  “Not on you, babe.” Gina eyed the pistol o
n the desk. “I know I’m done. Look…” Shuddering like a zombie, she forced her head around to make eye contact. “’Fore I check out, I gotta confession to make.”

  I let Gensch down. He didn’t want to succumb… With tears leaking from her eyes, Kerys edged around Gina, who rotated to keep facing her, and grasped the gun. Gina’s lips flickered to a smile for an instant.

  The small woman leaned forward in as aggressive a posture as her frame permitted. A repetitive tic twitched her face, eyes fluttering. “Before I die, I gotta tell you how I feel. Had a crush on you since I first looked you in the eye, but my ass was too chickenshit to say anything.”

  “I’m flattered, but… uhh.”

  Gina chuckled. “Not into women. Yeah, I figured when you didn’t pick up my signals in the shower. S’all good. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Sorry.” Kerys looked down. “But, hey, I dunno. Never tried dating a girl before. We gotta live with each other for a couple months. Fight that crap. Let’s try the auto-surgeon. You fight that off and we can give it a shot, okay?”

  “Not sure it works that way.” Gina’s cheeks darkened with a blush. “’Preciate the effort. Y’already saved my skinny ass once. Nothin’ you can do for me now. I’m ’bout to lose it. Got all sorts of chatter in my head tellin’ me to do awful shit to you, an’ a headache like… damn.”

  “No… I can’t kill you too.”

  “Not on you, babe. The shit killed me. Do it. Don’t let me hurt you.”

  Kerys stared down at the gun draped in her hands as Gina twitched like an android with bad actuators. Reluctant hands lifted it to aim.

  They stood in silence, eyes locked, for over a minute. Grief closed off Kerys’ throat. This isn’t fair! Gina grabbed two fistfuls of her hair, her whole body shaking from the apparent effort it took to hold herself back. Her expression shifted from pleading to threatening.

  “Do it,” whispered Gina. “I can’t keep this up.”

  “I’m sorry…” Kerys straightened her arms, aiming. “You gotta try and―”

  Gina sprang forward, in one fluid motion drawing a combat knife from her hip and slashing high.

  With a startled cry, Kerys jerked her head back as the edge came for her face. She backpedaled, waving her arms for balance. Gina rushed after her, alternating between slicing at her chest or swiping at her throat. A flash of pain caught her in the left arm, along with the telltale trickle of warm blood on her skin. She stepped on the wheeled spur of a chair, her retreat becoming a stumbling near-fall. Each time she tried to aim at Gina, another flash of steel made her flinch away.

  The small woman’s frenetic assault backed Kerys against the wall. Gina pressed herself close, chest to chest, pinning her. Kerys scooted up on tiptoe, trying to get away from the blade held to her throat.

  They stared into each other’s eyes. Kerys jammed the handgun into Gina’s side, but hesitated when the murderous glee in the woman’s expression faded to anguished determination.

  “Do it,” rasped Gina. “Do it before I can’t stop myself. I’m already gone.”

  “I’m… so sorry,” whispered Kerys. She squeezed the trigger.

  The weapon discharged with a muffled whump.

  Gina’s strength evaporated from her arms. The knife fell to the side. All the tension and conflict melted out of her, leaving her face once again youthful and angelic. A dark spot spread down the front of her olive drab jumpsuit as she swayed back a step. “S’not on you, girl.”

  The young soldier collapsed in a heap, a look of peace on her face.

  “Not on you,” whispered Gina.

  Kerys dove to her knees and took her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Gina’s jaw twitched, but no sound left her mouth. A second later, she stopped breathing.

  Sobbing, Kerys dropped the gun to the ground by her knee, and gathered Gina’s limp body in a hug. She swayed with her for a little while until a wave of anger and grief subsided. Damn you, Will. You careless, arrogant, son of a bitch.

  She eyed the gun, thankful Will had disappeared since everything went to hell. If he’d been within sight, she might’ve shot him without a word. Pain on her left forearm dragged her away from her daydreams of vengeance. A roughly three-inch slash opened her arm about a hand’s width from her wrist.

  This needs more than a bandage. Remembering the infirmary ‘as cold as a morgue,’ she decided to bring Gina there. Couple days… if I’m still sane, I’ll start burying everyone.

  She stuffed the handgun in her pocket, cradled Gina’s body in both arms, and stood.

  Despite the woman’s diminutive size, Kerys found her awkward to carry. She took care to keep her injured arm away from Gina’s blood, fearing it may be infectious… but then again, it had been (or perhaps still remained) in the air. I should’ve been exposed to this shit too. Why am I still here?

  Her heart grew heavy with guilt, and she found herself not caring if someone ambushed her on the way down the hall to the infirmary room. Being the only living human for a couple thousand light years brought with it a whole new level of alone. She stepped into the frigid third-floor air, almost amused that the idea of being attacked by someone who’d gone insane seemed better than being the only one left. With that came a pang of regret at killing Mai. She seemed a little more sane than the others. Okay, cannibalism aside. Kerys sighed. She would’ve killed me in my sleep.

  She carried Gina out from the darkened hallways around the command room to the bright-white hospital area, squinting from the harsh change. Hellerman’s body occupied the chair at the desk, posed with his legs up and arms folded. Gensch had even put Sekhar’s sunglasses on him. A reminder of the old soldier’s dark sense of humor got her maudlin again. MacLeod remained on surgery table 1, in the same position as before―an attribute she found reassuring for a corpse.

  Wow. Maybe I am slipping. I keep expecting him to sit up.

  Kerys cleared a spot on the counter by the diagnostic machines and laid Gina out as flat as possible before stepping over Doctor Sekhar’s corpse to the second surgery machine. She selected trauma, followed by an option for ‘laceration, external’ with one hand, while working her zipper with the other.

  ‘Patient position fault’ appeared on the screen.

  She opened her jumpsuit, pulled her arms out, and shoved the garment down to her waist. Standing with only a sports bra on from the waist up in what amounted to a freezer brought instant chattering to her teeth. The console beeped a warning tone. She hopped up on the table, squealing from the cold cushions at her back, and rotated her bleeding left arm palm up to bring the wound into view.

  The egg in the ceiling split open, and an array of robotic arms descended. A boxy device at the end of one swept wide across her body before homing in on the cut. The other arms followed it to the injury site.

  Kerys closed her eyes and rotated her head away so she didn’t have to watch. She gasped in surprise when three needles jammed into her right arm, but forced herself not to move.

  The next thing she knew, she lay still and cold in a silent room, her head foggy and all the robotic arms gone. A chirp emanated from her left thigh pocket. She raised her right hand to wipe her face. Tiny needle dots on her arm reminded her of why she lay on an auto-surgeon, and freezing cold air on her mostly bare chest helped her push past the inertia of post-anesthetic lethargy.

  “Ugh…” Woozy, she sat up and examined her arm. A thin line of pale skin denoted where the slash had been. She pressed her hand over it, testing the area with a gentle rub. The wound had closed, but the muscles remained tender. Marco said something about it taking a day or two for synthetic stem cells to work… “Fuck this place!”

  The wave of anger that hit her at remembering Marco surprised her. She pulled her jumpsuit up and sealed it before wrapping her arms around her knees and curling in a ball for warmth, staring across the room at Gina’s body.

  “No… I’m not going to die in this place. If those miserable little fucking
bugs don’t get me, I will make damn sure people know what happened here.”

  Electronic chirping came from her thigh pocket. It took her brain a second or two to process the meaning of the noise: someone called her e-pad. Kerys slid her hand into her pocket, grasped the device, and pulled it out. The contents of the screen caused her brain to shudder to a screeching halt.

  Over a portrait of his giant, shit-eating grin, floated the words: ‹Incoming call from: Braxton, Will.›

  25

  Primitive Creatures

  Kerys slipped off the auto-surgeon to her feet, e-pad in hand, staring in disbelief at Will’s face. Her body felt numb, but not from lying half-exposed in the freezing infirmary for however long she’d been out. She watched it ring, dreading the call from a dead man may be the first sign that the tiny aliens had gotten into her brain at last.

  “I’m hallucinating this. I’ve got to be.”

  It stopped ringing, and she sighed with relief.

  “As soon as I realize it’s in my head, it stops. Shit. I guess that means I’m―”

  Her e-pad rang again, startling her into almost dropping it.

  She caught it to her chest, clinging as she hurried out of the infirmary, down the hall, and to the stairwell in search of warmer surroundings. It continued ringing the whole way. She debated going to the hydroponics pod to bask in the heat for a few minutes, but dreaded what a 102-degree chamber would smell like with decaying bodies in it.

  I’m going to have to deal with that eventually… Or not. Maybe I can just seal the place off and live on Hydra packs… if there’s enough.

  Will called again.

  “Shit. I can’t be imagining this.” She tapped the green ‘answer’ box. “H… hello?”

  “Hey,” said Will, though the screen remained dark. “About time you picked up. Look, I need you to go right away to the storage pod and give me a hand with something.”

  “What? Are you serious?” She glared at the device. “Who are you giving orders to? You know, Will, the most infuriating thing about you is that you still don’t understand why I left. Everyone exists for your benefit and everything is always someone else’s fault.”