Kzine Issue 5

by Graeme Hurry

  Two hours of oxygen left.

  Dean is a fuzzy blob in the distance, masked behind the pale glow of the generator. The crack in the glass is getting longer. My ability to cope in this death trap is getting shorter.

  ‘Take a look at the power supply, make sure nothing’s wrong with it,’ I tell him. We’ve been at this for over thirty minutes now. The generator is still sending out surges, but they’re too weak to stabilize the generator.

  Dean moves down to the bottom tip, and begins checking the connection. It’s attached to a long cord that extends to a gigantic copper-filament net hanging far into the depths to where the flashworms congregate in mass numbers. This net absorbs and condenses the natural bio-electricity emitting by the creatures into a current to then be fed into the generator.

  A quick twist of Dean’s wrist to lock it tighter in place, and the generator’s glow doubles in wattage. A view screen on the wall flickers on and off in a steady three second burst. There’s a man on the screen. A recording. He’s speaking in hurried words, but the feed is cutting out too quickly to understand their meaning. I can hear it playing on a short delay in the other room with Clara. It must be on every screen in this place.

  The sound of it wakes the girl. She begins to stir from underneath the wetsuit, never uttering a sound.

  ‘I think that may be it, Dean. Good job, now get to the wires and finish the bypass.’

  ‘On it. I’ll give you the count of damaged wires in a second.’

  ‘Good. Let me know,’ I say.

  Suddenly, in my peripherals I see a thin, blue dusting of some kind of particles seeping into the room.

  For a moment, I’m completely mesmerized. The strange, blue dusting fills the air everywhere I look. It’s barely visible, as if a screen has been stretched across my vision. I can almost imagine it penetrating my suit, filling my lungs. But oddly, there’s no fear with the thought, only wonder.

  In the background, the man’s voice on the viewscreen is becoming more intelligible. It’s the original distress call playing over and over in a fifteen second loop.

  ‘Jason, get your ass back in here.’

  I close my eyes and rub my temples, wishing it would all go away. Getting pulled back and forth by these two was doing nothing for my sanity. Aren’t I supposed to be their boss?

  ‘Jason!’

  ‘Damn it,’ I say under my breath, then louder, ‘I’m coming.’

  The blue cloud is thicker as I pass into the next room. It drifts around my body with a strange, fluid movement that almost seems hypnotic.

  At the far end of the room, Clara is crouched low, still next to the body. I look closer and realize the cloud is coming from the body.

  A sound escapes the old woman’s cold, dead lips, something like a tire rapidly deflating, as her body slowly collapses in on itself. It gets louder with each passing second, and there’s a strange edge to it. Almost… electronic. Like a digital scream.

  Clara flinches and moves back a few steps. The particle dusting flows with her movements, surrounding her, but never getting too close.

  The little girl walks into the room and over towards Clara, plopping down beside her. The head of a yellow and green, stuffed turtle peeks from the collar of her bloodied shirt. You would think this is just another, typical day for all the expression on her tiny face. Then, I realize. For her, this probably is.

  A thicker cloud drifts nearer, passing in front of the smooth glass of my faceplate. A closer look has me gasping. They aren’t particles. They’re embryos. Flashworm embryos. But different. They look as if they’re made of thousands of tiny metal filings.

  ‘Are you seeing this?’ I say to Clara.

  She lifts her arm, letting some of the embryo’s collect on the palm of her glove, and distantly says, ‘Haven’t you wondered why the flashworms are only species on this entire planet?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just…’

  Suddenly, past the embryos, past the dead deflated corpse, I see Clara’s eyes go wide.

  The message on the view screen is now playing in its full, uninterrupted entirety. Definitely the distress call. The man’s panicked voice betrays the fact that he held on to little hope of a timely rescue.

  ‘Jason, look at the date on the screen.’ I did. May 17, 2133. Eleven months ago. They sent this over five months before we were contacted. Five months before the generator was said to have blown.

  Clara walks over to the screen and begins punching through readouts. After a few minutes, she apparently finds what she’s looking for. ‘Here. Six months,’ she simply says as if I know what she’s talking about.’

  ‘O…k?’

  ‘That’s how long reserve life support systems were designed to last. Six months. Something happened before they blew the generator or they would have still been alive when we got here.’

  ‘What, that doesn’t make sense. Why would the G.E.I. have lied to us about the date it was sent?’

  ‘They didn’t respond to it. They let these people die. Jason, we can’t go through with this.’

  I look at her incredulously. ‘You still haven’t explained why?’

  ‘To keep their schedule for the generation ship. Think about it. If this every got out, the scheduled departure would be postponed. Maybe years. Maybe indefinitely.’

  ‘No. It’s got to be something else. Where’s your faith in mankind?’

  Clara looks at me as if I’m a complete idiot. ‘What would be easier, spend millions, maybe billions of dollars staging a mass rescue, and then hoping for the silence of over four thousand people, or just let them die, send more people, and continue as planned?’

  I don’t respond. We spend a few moments in tense silence with eyes locked. Mercifully, the com buzzes in my ear, saving me for her cold gaze. ‘Jason, where are you?’

  ‘Whatever,’ I say to Clara, ‘I need to get back to work.’

  I walked back into the next room, and over to the window. Clara and the girl follow me. The former with determination. The latter with curiosity. Both stop just inches away from me, too close for comfort. I look down at my wrist. One hour of air left. I can’t wait to get off this fucking rock.

  I flip back open the manual as Dean begins reading off numbers.

  Behind me Clara is saying, ‘Jason, just listen to me for once. It’s the flash worms that were killing these people, and the G.E.I. knew it.’

  Over the com, Dean says, ‘Anytime, Jason…’

  I rub my eyes, and stare at the manual, trying to think about anything but what Clara’s telling me. I can’t read, apparently. Those pages could have been written in Greek for all I could tell.

  Behind me, Clara is saying, ‘That’s what the flashworms do. They break down and feed off everything—absorb everything, then multiply. We retriggered the cycle when we powered up the generator.’

  Over the com, Dean says, ‘Jason, come on man. I’m dying of heat in this fucking suit.’

  Too much is going on. Every word said to me is like a dagger twisting in my brain. A second of peace. A second to think. That’s all I want.

  Behind me Clara is saying, ‘They must breed by way of their electrical discharges. In just a few generations they were able to adapt and merge with the nano’s, reaching them through the feeding process. How long do you think it’s going to take to evolve that next step to any human, with or without nano implantation?’

  ‘Jason!’ Dean.

  I stare at him in front of the generator. My eyes lose focus until all I see is a blue haze, surrounded by darkness. The fifteen second loop of the distress call is blaring in my ears.

  I think of the old woman, what kind of death she died. I think of the girl, all the days of living alone on minimal, lingering life support. I think of the long days of training, preparing for this moment. I think of the pain and suffering of over four thousand people left for dead.

  Behind me Clara is saying, ‘That’s why these people blew the generator. They knew rescue
wasn’t coming. They were trying to kill off the evolved flashworms. It’s only then the G.E.I. stepped in. Maintaining the appearance of thriving colony is all they care about. And if we’re here to fix it, they’re just going to send more and more here to die for as long as it takes to get the generation ship approved by the U.N.’

  ‘Jasonnnnn!’ Dean again.

  Finally I lose it and slam my fist into consol. ‘Enough!’ Clara takes a step back. The girl doesn’t flinch.

  After taking a deep breath to calm myself, I think of the five million dollars promised to me on the completion of this job. ‘Listen, we have a job to do,’ I say as calmly as I can muster.

  Clara doesn’t relent. ‘Fuck the job, how could you live with yourself after knowing what goes on here, what will happen if this place remains.’ She swells as she approaches and rips the manual from my grip, tossing it across the room. A quick, hard slap to the side of my helmet, then she’s says in a tone that’s irritatingly calm, ‘Jason, we’re not meant to survive this. I know you’re an intelligent man. I’ve worked with you for years. Please, just think about it a second. Really think about it.’

  I do. And I know she’s right. About everything. Six more months and this place will be back, up and running. Then it will be business as usual.

  And for sure, we would be silenced. After we were first contacted, I wondered why us. We were the just a small IT consulting firm on the verge of bankruptcy. Didn’t the G.E.I. have specialist for this kind of thing? But the answer is obvious. We’re completely expendable; resources to be used and discarded once they got the end to their means. Thrown away. Like so much waste. Like every person who died in this colony. The G.E.I. could make up any of a thousand reasonable excuses for how we met our end, and no one would even think to question them. Space travel is a dangerous thing after all.

  What’s worse, in the back of my mind I think I’ve known all along. I just didn’t want to admit it. All I saw was the money.

  I look at Clara and nod ever so slightly. If we fix it, we die. Probably will anyway, but at least we’d be doing the right thing.

  Over the com, I say, ‘Dean, get back in here. Make it quick.’

  ‘What? We’re not finished. Just—’

  ‘Don’t argue,’ I say, and sever the connection.

  Outside the glass, Dean begins pulling himself back through the water by the umbilical connected to a harness around his suit. In five inches of pressure resistant material, looking graceful is an impossibility.

  In seems like an eternity of waiting before he pops up from the wet hole in the next room over, and clamps on to the side. Through the round, grilled hole on the front of his helmet, his face is invisible behind a thick layer of condensation.

  I pull it off with a twist. A small re-breather mask is covering his nose and mouth. He’s shivering. Clara helps lift him from the water. Once out, he drops to the ground breathing heavily.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

  ‘Change of plans. We’re going to blow the generator. And this time we’re going to do it right,’ says Clara.

  Dean laughs as if it’s a joke.

  We don’t share in his mirth.

  The generator’s control monitors have just enough power to function. Clara’s typing furiously on the display, bringing up a holographic schematic of the generator. With every new push of a button, a layer disappears from the image.

  The girl playfully tries to grab at it. I still haven’t heard her mutter a peep the entire time since we found her. Who knows how long she lived here in isolation after everyone died? From what I can tell, that last month of power and air reserves meant for an entire colony were directed to her single re-breather mask. It makes me wonder, how long could she have continued to survive this way if we never came? Being a natural birth, the colonist must have known she’d be without the nano implantation and safe from the flashworms.

  An entire colony, all for one little girl.

  ‘Here we are,’ says Clara.

  I look from her back to the hologram. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Just one,’ she says. She points to a large cork-looking thing at the bottom, covered in wires. ‘Disable the power restrictor, and the thing should overload. Probably take out half the colony with it.’

  Perfect.

  ‘Do it,’ I say to Clara.’

  ‘We sure about this?’ says Dean, still out of the loop of everything that has transpired.

  I silence him with my eyes as Clara quickly works through a few commands on the screen. ‘And… that should do it. I’m guessing we’ll have about ten minutes,’ she says with one last exaggerated press. The monitor turns red instantly and displays the words: ‘Warning. System failure imminent’.

  Twenty minutes of air. Twenty minutes until the auto-pilot in the space transport triggers the takeoff sequence that will bring us home. Ten minutes until overload.

  All it took was the press of a few buttons. It’s amazing what’s so seemingly impossible to fix, is so easy to destroy.

  We reach the lift, but something’s wrong with the doors. They won’t budge open despite anything we try. Clara plugs in her notepad in an attempt to hack the system.

  ‘Just give me a second here…’

  The little girl begins trashing in my arms in a struggle to get down. Her hands are reaching to where her mother lays dead on the floor nearby.

  After I lower her to the floor, she runs to her mother’s body and pulls back a flap on her shirt, revealing an exposed breast.

  It’s lactating.

  Then the truth of it hits me like a nuclear bomb, and I pull the girl away, feeling as if I’m going to vomit. Even after death, the nano’s within her mother’s body continued to produce milk, feeding off the still growing, cancer-like growths and turning it into the milkly excretion. This is how the girl survived this long. This is how she fed.

  The room around me begins to spin. I’m dizzy. Specks of light swirl in my vision. I want nothing more than to rip the revelation from my mind. My hatred for the G.E.I. has never been stronger. This girl deserves better. She deserves to have a mother. She deserves to not have had to feed from a dead body for countless months in total isolation.

  I try to tell myself this girl will never remember any of this. That she’s too young.

  It doesn’t help.

  ‘Jason?’ The words barely register. ‘Jason!’

  ‘What,’ I say, snapping out of it.

  ‘We have a problem.’

  ‘Of course we do. Lay it on me.’

  ‘The space-transport is broadcasting a subroutine manually overriding all functions to the lift doors. There’s nothing we can do about it. They’re not going to open.’

  So that’s how they planned to kill us. Well, no doubt about it now. ‘Ok. Think. What can we do?’

  Fifteen minutes of air. Five minutes until overload.

  My mind works quickly, trying to figure out a solution. ‘Clara, pull up a schematic of this place. How far away are the escape pods?’

  Her fingers are nimble on the notepad. ‘Two buildings over. We can make it if we run.’

  ‘Well, then…’ I say scooping up the little girl in my arms. We take off at full stride before I can finish the sentence.

  We run through buildings and clear connecting tube-ways alike. We pass living quarters. We pass dining halls. We pass congregation areas, bars, and small, dead greenhouses. Twitching bodies are in every one of them.

  Finally, we reach the emergency escape pods. Standing upright, they line the perimeter of a round room at least one hundred feet across. In here, Flashworm embryos clog the air so thick, visibility is almost zero.

  Dean opens a hatch on the nearest and we step in. It’s big enough inside to hold at least fifty people, packed tight.

  The walls shake as a massive shockwave slams through the colony.

  ‘It’s beginning. You better start praying these things have enough reserve power to work,’ says Clara as we strap in.

 
She hits the button and the engine comes to life screaming. On top, a giant drill bit emits a high-pitched squeal as it begins to spin and heat up. In seconds it’s white hot.

  A sudden acceleration has me against the chair as the escape pod launches into the ice pack. Drill at the front. Rocket on the back.

  Halfway through the ice, the generator reaches overload. The following explosion is long and loud. The entire world is set to vibrate.

  Through clear windows lining the side of the escape pod, the smooth walls of the newly formed ice tunnel we’re rocketing through begins to crack and fragment. Sparks fly from the corners of the pod as they scrap against the ice.

  Clara begins screaming. Dean begins praying.

  A minute passes.

  An eternity passes.

  We erupt from surface like a bullet, leaving an explosion of fire in our wake.

  When we hit a hundred feet, the engines of the escape pod sputters out, completely drained of all fuel and energy. A parachute deploys. As we begin our slow descent, I see our space transport in the distance. Clara jumps on a set of controls at the front of the pod and begins aiming us in its direction.

  I look at the oxygen meter strapped to the wrist of my suit. Six minutes of air. We’ll make it to the transport in three. Plenty of time.

  A strange silence fills the pod. Nobody’s speaking but everyone’s smiling, even the girl. As we slowly drift down to the surface, I look where she’s staring out the window. My eye’s go wide and her awe becomes my own. Jupiter fills the entire sky. It’s absolutely beautiful.

  Suddenly, Clara reaches over, grabs my hand and whispers, ‘We did it. Thank you for taking me seriously.’

  ‘I shouldn’t ever have doubted you,’ I say. Then smiling distantly, I lean my head back on the seat feeling completely exhausted.

  For one perfect moment, I forget about everything.

  IT’S ALL PART OF THE EXPERIENCE

  by Donald McCarthy

  Chris’ eyes opened and he wondered if he was waking up from a nice sleep or coming back to consciousness. The usual features of waking up, of the eyes blinking away the cloudiness, of the mind coming to terms with what the day would hold, were not there. Instead, Chris sensed a fogginess in his mind, like parts of it couldn’t be accessed. Even odder, the ceiling above him was colored purple, decidedly not the color of his own ceiling. He should’ve panicked but a feeling he couldn’t put his finger on kept him calm, as if this wasn’t a crisis, as if this was… what was the phrase?