by M. L. Banner
“Flavio, thank you for meeting me on such short notice. I know this may seem like it came out of the white.”
Flavio wasn’t sure what the captain meant by this, but he heard the captain often said things that didn’t make sense.
“I wanted to personally thank you for all that you’ve done the last few days. Your tireless work has been above and beyond. I would have preferred doing this more formally, out of respect for your recent contributions in saving this ship and so many people on board. But we have little time. And I need you now.”
Flavio was taken aback by all of this, still standing and facing his superior, when he realized the junior officer that had been dogging him, still breathing heavily, moved into his periphery. The officer handed Captain Jean Pierre a small box and then moved away.
The captain turned back to Flavio and held out the case, now opened. It had officer bars in them. He looked back up at the captain, whose smile had grown ocean-wide.
“Flavio Petrovich, you have been promoted to Second Officer, effective immediately. And I would like to offer you the position of Deputy Security Director... Assuming you want it?”
Flavio was flabbergasted. This was Director Wasano Agarwal’s previous position, before they found the then security director killed a few days ago.
Another crew member appeared from behind him—Flavio never remained this long with his back to a doorway. For the first time in recent memory, he was startled, actually flinching a little. The man was from laundry and handed Flavio a fully pressed officer’s uniform. Flavio mindlessly took the uniform while staring at the captain, unsure what to say or how he should react.
Before all of this happened, when he was just a lowly waiter, rarely noticed by any of his superiors, he would have been sure that this whole presentation was all a way for corporate to reward him without giving him the raise that he’d deserved for all his years of service, but never got. And that was because he was already at the top of his ranking, without being an officer. Then he considered the truth, the real truth about their situation.
Neither he nor anyone else would ever be getting paid again, certainly not from a corporation made up of people who were either dead or crazy and running around the head office, murdering and eating their fellow corporate executives.
Flavio shook himself from his mental meanderings and saw the captain was waiting for a reply.
“Guess my overtime work paid off,” he quipped.
The captain chortled. “That and your unique skill-set, which are needed far more now than they were in your previous position... Can I take this as a yes then?”
“Yes, of course, sir. I am honored, Captain.” Flavio firmly shook the captain’s hand.
“That’s wonderful. Now, I apologize for the lack of ceremony, but we just don’t have time for such niceties now.”
Flavio was happy for that. He hated recognition ceremonies, which he had always thought were set up more so for recognizing his superiors who loved to self-congratulate each other and hear themselves make speeches. This was better. Much better.
He wondered what he was supposed to do next, his eyes wandering down to the captain’s table, where he had stood up from. There at his place was an empty coffee cup and a half-eaten Danish. There were other place settings at the table. And he had kind of hoped to have been invited to sit with him and have a meal as well, but knew that was asking for too much.
“I’m sorry I cannot join you for a meal. And I’m afraid you’ll need to be brief as well. As part of your first assignment, please change into your new uniform and at zero-eight-hundred, you’ll need to meet us at the deck 1 port-side gangway. That’s forty-five minutes from now.”
89
Speed
Ted sat enveloped in a bubble of his own personal disquiet. He stared into the large space of the Solarium, lost in thought. With his Cubs baseball cap tugged down tight around his head, the bill covering all but the day-plus stubble carpeting his chin, he was almost unrecognizable, unless someone stopped and really took a look at him. Incognito was preferable at this moment, because he was too busy dealing with what felt like an immense crush of weight bearing down on him. It was the summation of all the ship’s worries and his knowledge of how bleak their future currently appeared. Even though he tried to convince himself otherwise.
Assuming they were able to make a deal for fuel, they’d eventually run out. Then what? And food was going to be their bigger problem, even if they didn’t part with much of it, which they most assuredly would do if they were going to make a deal for the fuel.
And assuming they were able to solve the insurmountable problems of their fuel and food, how could they survive this world now owned by the parasitics? He didn’t even dare allow his thoughts to fall onto his wife, TJ. Each time he went down that road, he’d eventually drive off it, into a ditch of despair, heading down a hole of hopelessness, where his psyche would be crushed beyond repair.
Then his bubble of blues was pierced.
Some lumbering idiot clobbered into his table, jostling the two cups of coffee on top, sloshing out some of their coveted contents.
Ted shot his glare upward, a fusillade of profanities loaded up behind his tongue, ready to be launched at the person who did this. His lips were pursed, his nose drawn up. Then he held his breath.
“Oh dear me. So sorry, Ted,” Dr. Molly Simmons gasped. “I get clumsier with each day.”
Ted’s anger withered immediately. “It’s all right. Please sit. I’ve tried to keep your coffee warm, but...” He pointed to the upside-down saucer resting on top of a coffee closest to the empty seat, drops of black liquid dripping from its edges.
“Oh, thank you. So sorry I’m late—don’t get up.”
Ted halted, halfway out of his chair, then lowered himself back into his seat, abandoning his effort to help her into the empty chair awaiting her.
He watched her slowly pull the chair farther out from the table, turn it toward her and then fall into it.
Just before she was done adjusting her seat, a couple walked by their table and glanced first at Molly and then at Ted. Ted could see the spark of recognition in their eyes, but he turned away before he’d confirm it and they passed by without saying a word.
It was another reason Ted didn’t care to meet in the Solarium. This place was way too open. It may have been less populated than in previous days, since the cessation of food service in all restaurants except the MDR. And since most every passenger was given a job, there was less time for leisurely sitting and resting in an area designed solely for recreation. More than anything else, Ted was afraid their open conversations would be heard by others. But Molly liked this space. So this was where they met each day.
She argued that it was warm and the canopy of glass brightly illuminated the space, even with their recent days being heavily clouded over.
“Oh, that’s so good,” Molly said, taking in her cool coffee in short sips, as if it were hot. In fact, it had lost most of its heat a half an hour ago, when he brought their coffees down from the MDR for their daily meet.
“You’re not drinking yours—say, you look tired... Are you all right, Ted?” Her ancient-looking features were twisted with concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine. And yes, I need more sleep. Speaking of sleep, what about you, Molly?”
“Me? Don’t worry about me. I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead. I’m too busy for sleep.” She took a big gulp of her coffee, her eyes still uncomfortably riveted on him.
“All right, then. So how are our monsters sleeping?”
Her eyes dropped from his, to the cup she was holding. “Well... that’s why I’m late.” She set her cup down and then looked back up to Ted. Her persona instantly changed from enthusiastic to something more serious. “As a scientist, I have to tell you I’m both excited and terrified by what we’re witnessing. I cannot explain it, except to say...”
She looked down again, took a deep breath and then exhaled. She lifted her gaz
e back up to Ted’s again.
“I think we’re looking at the next stage of human evolution. Assuming I believed in macro-evolution the way it’s taught in schools nowadays... Scratch that, was taught in schools.”
Considering his own dour mood, Ted almost needed to debate her point about evolution, sensing—and needing—another sermon from her about God’s providential hand changing the events around them in His favor, and theirs. He was just too tired to get into another weighty metaphysical discussion. He chose to buttress his own hopelessness instead, “All right, so it’s survival of the fittest. So who’s going to be the fittest in the end, us or them?” He knew the answer.
She smiled a little at his question. He was pretty sure that she enjoyed having someone who could engage her intellectually, especially someone who possessed a similar love for science, like Ted did. “Short term, we may survive this, if providence still chooses to lay His hand upon us, like He has so far.”
Ted couldn’t help but smile at this, knowing she would go there. Maybe I wanted this discussion after all.
“But long term, the future probably belongs to our parasitics.” She cast her gaze back down, almost as if she were embarrassed to having just given such an ungodly forecast of the future, because surely God couldn’t support these evil creatures over his beloved people.
And even though he knew she had to say this if she were being faithful to science, it still shocked him. Molly was someone who he’d come to know had a rock-solid hope in tomorrow, buttressed by her faith in a God that loved His children. Ted wasn’t so sure about the whole creator thing.
He had admitted to her that he was much more agnostic than atheist. Until recently, he had always believed in the human condition, and that through science and the good nature of many, humankind would be able to figure a way out of this mess before something ended it for them. Even in his fiction, he offered hope for his characters. But it was getting harder to believe in humans when there weren’t that many around anymore.
He realized Molly was watching his reaction to her words now. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. What recent finding makes you believe this?”
“Oh yes, I hadn’t told you yet. As you know, we learn so much each day as we study them.
“We’re already aware that parasitics have an ability to use their muscles and tendons like those of a chimpanzee, giving them, from our observations, two to ten times normal human strength.”
“I think you told me it had something to do with our brains getting in the way of our latent strength, as a means to protect our bodies.”
“Yes, think of all of the reports you’ve read of a meek housewife lifting a car off her injured husband, or the daughter lifting the farm tractor off her father and so many other instances which prove this point: it’s during times of extreme stress, or anger, that we can be at our strongest.”
“And with parasitics, that’s all the time, except when they’re hibernating,” Ted added so she knew he was following.
“Precisely.”
“Okay, so what’s the newest revelation?”
“Yes, sorry. You’ll recall we’ve observed the parasitics hibernating in cylindrical groups that rotate periodically, sending those on the edges to the center, so as to maintain their body temperatures above the ambient temperature in the lounge.”
Ted did remember this and found it fascinating. “Yes, I do. It seemed odd, but made sense when you first reported it. I was worried that if enough of them warmed up too much, our efforts to lower their body temperature would fail.”
“And until last night, they seemed to remain in this rotating hibernative state, efficiently transferring their body heat to the others—”
“As if they were waiting us out, knowing the low outside temperatures were not going to last,” Ted added. His dour mood was kicking back in again.
“Perhaps.”
“You said, “Until last night.” What happened last night?”
“Two recorded events, which have me troubled. The first occurred yesterday morning. Each cylindrical parasitic pod has kept one parasitic in the center, so as to warm up its temperature even higher. We only noticed this because yesterday, one of the parasitics darted from the center of a pod and tried to attack one of our guards on morning feeding duty. It was close, but our guard retreated behind the door, just in time.”
“That shows strategy. Not something we expect from them,” Ted interjected.
“Precisely. The second event which has me a little frightened is actually tied to the first. Last night, at the start of the second feeding, it happened again. Like the first attempted attack, a parasitic leapt from the center of its pod. Also like the first, it was a little clumsy and not particularly fast. But this time, halfway up the aisle, it literally shot up the remaining distance like a cheetah. I have never seen a human move that fast before. I had Mr. Deep rewind and replay this part over and over again, because I just did not believe what I was seeing.”
“So you’re saying they’re becoming not only stronger than us, but faster too?” Ted’s stomach was a boiling cauldron of acid right now.
“Precisely. Of course, this is just one incident, but I think you understand why I’m so worried now.”
Ted thought about the repercussions of what this meant to all of them. It was too awful to consider right now. Parasitics with lightning speed?
~~~
TJ rapped on the window with two knuckles, generating a loud enough sound on the other side that it startled the store clerk. The man was self-jolted from his seat, dropping the clipboard he’d been holding.
He snapped his head in TJ’s direction and then yelled inaudibly, “We’re closed.”
She knew what he said, even though his voice was almost completely muffled by the glass. But she wasn’t taking no for an answer. So she acted like she couldn’t hear him.
She mouthed, “What?” and raised her arms up as if she didn’t know what he was saying.
The man violently shook his head and abruptly returned back to his work, yanking his clipboard from the floor, and continued to examine it and his inventory. At least, that’s what she guessed he was doing.
Her anger grew. She hit the glass harder this time, causing the whole frame to shake. She was pretty sure if she struck the glass just a little stronger, it might break. Don’t want to do that more than once, she thought while glancing at the broken window panel to the left of the door, now covered by plywood.
The clerk rose from his seat this time and stomped over in her direction, his shoulders stiff and aggressively pointed at her. As if he were going to win this showdown.
She almost guffawed at this.
The clerk plunged his metal key into the lock, turned it and cracked the door open. “We closed. Not sure when open again, but you—”
It was pure reflex, because without thinking, her hand shot through the door crack in a blur—much more quickly than she would have thought herself capable—and grabbed the man’s forearm.
His eyes went wide and he looked down at his arm, convulsing with a jerk when he saw that she was clutching him, almost like he didn’t know it was her who had a grip on his arm. He attempted to tug away, his face twisting into comical proportions as he pulled with his whole body. Her hand remained, an immovable vise clamped around his arm.
Then she squeezed harder, just to demonstrate she was in control. But she felt his tendons beneath her hand about to give, so she loosened her grip.
“Owah. Why you do this?” he whined, his face turning red.
TJ had planned a much more diplomatic approach, but when this guy stomped over to the door, it pissed her off. So she abandoned diplomacy for something more dramatic. And now she was short on time and just wanted what she came here for.
With her free hand, she pulled off her sunglasses and glared her scary eyes at the man. “If you don’t let me in and give me what I want, I’ll snap your arm off and eat it for breakfast.” She said this deadpan, not really meaning
it. She really had no desire to eat this man’s arm.
The man’s giant white orbs welled with tears and he tried once more to unsuccessfully yank his arm free.
Then she let go.
The man tumbled hard to the floor and he tried to desperately waddle away from her.
TJ snapped her sunglasses back on, slid into the shop, closed the door and locked it, using the key still inside. Then she glared at the man, who had shrunk into the recesses under a display of Regal European T-shirts.
“Look, I was just kidding about hurting you. I just need one thing. Give me that and I’ll go away. I promise.” She flashed him a smile to show she was sincere.
The man glowered at her from behind the T-shirts, hesitant to trust this offer, seeking comfort behind the clothing.
“Ya-ya-you promise to la-la-leave, if I give you what you want.”
“Absolutely.” She flashed a bigger smile at the man, like she meant it. In fact, she actually did: she was done dealing with this little man. If he didn’t help her, she was just going to look and take what she wanted herself.
She glanced around the store and quickly saw the display. “Right there, that’s all I need. Please get me that. I’m late, and then I’m going to accompany the captain to get us the fuel our ship needs. Please.”
The man tried to right himself, but started to fall back over again.
Again she reacted so lightning-quick, lunging forward and yanking him up, she even surprised herself. The man squeaked in amazement, again drilling his tear-filled eyes at her, like she was some sort of freak. Now she genuinely felt bad for putting this man through such terror. “Sorry, thought you were about to fall. Just trying to help.”
She let go when he felt steady on his feet. He backed away from her and moved toward the display she had pointed to.
