A long moment. It was time to change the subject and shift the focus away from her. “What about you, Harker? What's your story? How does an ex-police officer end up on a colony ship? What made you quit?”
“Why do you care?”
“Who said I did?”
After a pause, Harker's voice grew somber, his eyes distant and forlorn, swept up by his memories of his dead partner. “I was working the global beat. Cairo, Singapore, Pakistan. After I lost my partner in a gang hit, the pressure started to mess with me. I couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Couldn't do my job.”
“You lost your nerve.”
“A perfect case of burnout. That's a direct quote from my psych evaluation.”
“So you traded in a badge for a colony run.”
“I figured my greatest challenge out here would be boredom.”
“You sure got that right.”
“No shit.” He flashed Faith a grin. “An ex-con and an ex-cop. Don't we make a nice pair.”
“I was thinking the same,” Faith smiled for only a second before she turned serious again. “Any theories about what is going on here?”
From the way Harker looked at her, she guessed he did.
“You know something, don’t you? What happened while I was in the cell?”
“I saw a lab on the cargo deck.”
Faith shot Harker a long look.
“A state-of-the art research facility,” he elaborated, “filled with surgical operating hubs.”
“Why would there be such a lab on a c-class colony ship?”
Harker shook his head. “I’m not sure. But I think the technology in the lab might’ve been used to modify the captain.”
Modify? You mean transform him into a monster!
“Who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know. But you wouldn’t be able to set up a lab like that unless the crew was in on it.”
Faith was reminded of the empty cryo-tubes and the security footage of the various groups of colonists.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened.”
It was Harker’s turn to ask a question. “What are you talking about?
“Back on the bridge, I saw a series of older security files. Each file showed a different group of colonists waking up from cryo and none of them had any idea why they were awake…” And now they’re gone, Faith mentally added. Just like most of everyone in our group.
Harker regarded Faith with a trace of suspicion. “Why would whoever is behind all this show you these security files?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
Harker stared into space, chewing over all the pieces.
“They were running experiments on us, weren’t they?” Faith said.
Harker grim silence suggested he was speculating along the same lines. “The lab reminded me of some the black tech genetic research labs I’d helped shut down when I was a cop. Shady outfits dabbling with gene-splicing in live populations…” Live populations. A nice euphemism for living, breathing humans, who might not want to be turned into guinea pigs in the name of science.
“There are no legal watchdogs in the darkness of space,” Faith said.
“The mining corps are obsessed with the idea of altering humans to make them more adaptable to the rigors of the colonies as they expand their operations in space, but their hands are pretty much tied on Earth.”
Faith shook her head, unwilling to accept that the same corporation that had promised her a new, better life in the main belt had sold her and other colonists out in the name of profit.
“It’s the perfect set-up. Four-thousand test subjects a million of miles away from the prying eyes of law. These fucks turned the whole ship into one giant experiment.”
“How could they expect to get away with it?” Faith asked. “We’re talking about four-thousand people here.”
“Ships get lost, never make it. It’s a long, dangerous journey.”
Faith mulled it over. “Why alter the captain? Or turn on the crew?”
“Something must’ve gone wrong. Maybe one of their experiments turned on them…“
“Sid had other plans for us.”
Faith and Harker spun, caught off guard by the ghostly voice that had emanated from a shadowy corner of the cramped chamber.
They weren’t alone any longer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FAITH AND HARKER scanned the space, searching for the mysterious speaker. A manic cackle rang out and this time it sounded closer. Faith exchanged a curt nod with Harker. They slipped into the narrow passageway and followed the ghostlike voice that was now chattering away in the darkness. Some of the words uttered made sense while others degenerated into indecipherable nonsense.
They eased their way through the tight space. After a half-minute of fighting their way down the cramped passage, they arrived at a larger chamber dominated by a series of giant metal vats. Hissing pipes and hoses extended from the gargantuan tanks into the ceiling. Faith assumed that they were containers for the cryo-gases and nutrient mix that supplied the hyper-stasis chambers of the 4000 colonists on the deck above.
Faith combed the area, searching for the speaker. “Show yourself. We’re not going to hurt you.”
After a moment of hesitation, a skeletal silhouette slid from the darkness and stepped into the dim light. Faith almost wished he’d chosen to remain hidden. The sunken eyes in a sallow face hadn’t seen sunlight in ages and his long, greasy hair was matted to his skull in stringy clumps. The man’s emaciated, wisplike frame had been pushed to the brink of starvation. Black stains tattooed his once-white uniform. Faith didn’t want to know how long this wretch had been down here, hiding out, unwilling to confront the horror waiting for him beyond these cramped passageways and choosing instead the slow death of starvation accompanied by growing madness. “There was no way we could anticipate how Sid would respond to our research…”
Our research.
The words chilled Faith. This man knew what was happening aboard the Orion. Before she could enquire further, Harker barreled into the bony figure and pinned him against the giant vat, eyes ablaze. “Who the hell are you? What the fuck is happening here?”
The shriveled-up skeleton flailed out at Harker, his arms the impotent sticks of an animated scarecrow. Harker didn’t loosen his iron grip. Faith approached, realizing diplomacy might be called for even as every fiber in her body wanted to grab the pathetic figure and pummel him until answers flowed from the hideous slit that was his mouth. Instead, she squeezed Harker’s shoulder, feeling the tension in the man’s muscles, and said, “Let go of him.”
Harker hesitated for a moment before he backed off.
The madman met Faith’s eyes, appraising her. She caught a whiff of nausea- inducing body odor and nearly gagged. The man hadn’t bathed in months, if not years. “You’ve been hiding down here. Surviving. Doing your best to avoid that monster…”
“The neo-construct isn’t a monster. He represents the next step in human evolution.” The madman continued to whisper to himself, a delirious singsong monologue of the damned.
Faith could feel her impatience growing and once more it took all her self-control not to grab the man by his grime-encrusted collar. “What’s your name?”
The skeleton met her impatient gaze and broke into a crooked grin. “I’m Dr. Lagos…”
“You were conducting experiments on the colonists,“ Harker said.
“We were building a better future for humanity.”
“I wonder what the colonists who ended up on your operating table would think of your better future.”
“Progress demands sacrifice.”
Faith finally understood why Lagos had corrected her when she called the killer a monster. The creep took pride in the horrors he and his team had unleashed. Faith’s disgust with the shriveled-up scientist broke through her numbness. She would show him progress.
“Productivity in the Main Belt is running below projections. The c
ompetition is fierce and everyone is looking for an edge. A genetically enhanced worker, better suited to the harsh environment of the outer colonies, could make a significant difference to the company’s bottom line.”
Dr. Lagos’ words confirmed what up until this point had just been wild speculation. The feelings of betrayal and violation hit Faith hard. The colonists were never meant to reach their destination. The promise of a new life was just a cruel joke at their expense. After all, C-rank mining technicians were a dime a dozen and could easily be replaced. The colonists aboard the Orion had been chosen to serve a far darker purpose.
Harker stopped Faith before she could lash out at the scientist. She was shaking with fury. Worse than the horrors perpetrated by Lagos and his team was the nonchalant, casual tone in which he discussed his twisted work. Faith sensed that to the man’s way of thinking, conducting lethal experiments on these poor people was justifiable in the name of so-called “progress.” To him it wasn’t a crime against humanity, but one committed for humanity, each colonist another small sacrifice in the glorious pursuit of knowledge.
“This isn’t about achieving perfection. It’s greed. And assholes who don’t give a shit about who gets hurt while they line their pockets,” Harker spat out the words, regarding Lagos with the same undisguised contempt Faith was feeling.
“You may think me a monster, but my team and I were hoping to improve life, not destroy it.”
“Tell yourself whatever lie you like, but you’ll pay for your crimes,” Harker said.
Lagos’ thin, chapped lips pressed into a tight line, his jaw muscles grinding. Harker’s last words had gotten to him, and Faith was glad. When she initially set eyes on the man, she had felt sorry for him but her empathy was long gone. He deserved everything that had befallen him and then some.
“This construct of yours that is roaming the decks, it turned against you and the crew, didn’t it?”
“The neo-construct is just a tool, a servant following the instructions of its true master.”
“Somebody else aboard this ship is controlling your monster?”
Lagos eyed Harker for a second before he erupted into nervous, heaving laughter, clearly a feeble attempt to mask his terror. The guffaws shook his wispy frame and for a second, Faith thought he might topple over. The laughter died down and Lagos’ eyes narrowed into impenetrable slits.
“Sid is in charge.”
“Who the hell is Sid?” Harker asked.
Lagos stole nervous glances, his lips quivering with fear. “Sid is like a god. He controls the air we breathe, the food we eat. His eyes and ears are everywhere. And now he holds the power over the future of our species.”
“What the hell are you babbling about?”
“Sid — the ship’s computer — controls the construct.”
The words were followed by another burst of nervous laughter that echoed eerily within the thrumming inner walls of the Orion.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HARKER’S EYES DUG into Lagos. “Stop talking in riddles. You’re making no sense. How could the ship’s computer build the neo-construct?”
Lagos remained silent.
Harker’s hand tightened around the scientist’s throat and began to choke him. The gasping, screeching sounds emanating from the man’s throat sounded more animal than human.
“Talk to me, goddammit!”
“Evolution,” Lagos coughed. “The computer saw the logic of what we were trying to do and took it one step further.”
“The ship is trying to build the perfect colonist,” Faith said.
“Sid took the ship off course. The Orion won’t return to the Main Belt until Sid accomplishes his new objective. It will go through every one of the colonists aboard until he improves the original design. Until he has achieved perfection.”
Faith took note that Dr. Lago kept referring to Sid as a he and not an it.
“What did you sick fucks do?” Harker bellowed.
“Our research was hitting a dead end,” Dr. Lagos stammered. “Certain elements of human physiology could be improved, but with each advance came a cost. You build a human who can survive in space without life support, you end up with a reduced lifespan, metabolic limitations, unforeseen side-effects….”
“So your team recruited the ship’s computer to help with your research,” Faith said, filling in the blanks herself.
“We needed its processing power to help us take our experiments to the next level. But something went wrong when we reprogrammed it. Sid concluded humanity was flawed, vulnerable. He became obsessed with perfecting us, no matter how many lives might be lost in the process.”
Faith wondered how this programming error made the computer so much more different than Dr. Lagos’ team, or the corporation that funded their inhuman research, but she remained silent.
“Once Sid began taking over our research, we tried to shut him down. Sid struck back. He switched off life support on the upper deck and murdered the crew, only sparing me and my team.”
Faith recalled the dead members of the crew she had stumbled upon in their quarters. They must’ve died in their sleep when Sid disabled the life support systems.
“My team and the captain managed to seal ourselves in the lab. At first we didn’t understand why we were spared, but then it dawned on us. Without a physical body, Sid wouldn’t be able to continue his research. He needed us to remove the test subjects from cryo and physically transport them to the research facility.”
“You obliged.”
“We wanted to stay alive.”
“Eventually the computer didn’t need you anymore.”
“Sid chose the strongest crew member and turned him into his servant aboard the Orion. If the ship’s security feed were Sid’s eyes and ears, then the construct would be his body.”
“The construct murdered your team?” Harker asked.
Lagos nodded. “I was the only who managed to escape.”
Eying Lagos, Faith thought death would be preferable to this slow decline.
“Sid is searching for ways to improve his creators. I know he’s hoping to build a better construct. Running tests to see which colonists respond best to extreme stress and might serve as the perfect template from which to engineer the next step in human evolution.”
A wistful, faraway look crept into Lagos’ expression and for a second Faith could have sworn the mad doctor actually admired the crazed computer. Lagos’ last words also gave Faith a new perspective on the events that had played out on the bridge earlier. At the time she’d wondered why the killer released her from the holding cell and why he’d shown her the security feed of the other colonists. She’d figured the killer was playing mind games but perhaps it was more like a test, a way for the ship’s computer to gauge her suitability as a future subject. Had she earned the honor of a spot on Sid’s operating table? A chill ran up Faith’s spine. This was one test she wanted to fail.
“If the ship is behind this, why are you still here?” Faith asked. “Couldn’t it turn off life support?”
“Sid would have to shut down all the decks to flush me out. The construct could be destroyed in the process. Besides, I believe Sid enjoys seeing me waste away down here.”
Faith considered this. Was Sid punishing Dr. Lagos?
“It’s not so bad, once you get used to it,” Dr. Lagos said. “At least we’re safe here. There are no security cameras. It’s the one place aboard this ship where Sid can’t monitor us.”
Lagos pointed at the giant tanks clustered around them. “Those vats contain the nutrients that are keeping the colonists alive. It may not be your mother’s cooking, but it’ll keep us going.” The scientist grinned at his own joke, his tongue smacking the rotten stumps of his teeth.
Faith suddenly felt sick to her stomach. Whatever calories Lagos was getting from the tanks, it was barely sustaining him.
“We’re not staying down here and slowly wasting away,” Harker said in a voice that allowed for no argument. “W
e must destroy the construct.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Lagos asked with a nervous tremor in his voice.
“This monster of yours has a brain, a nervous system. Trust me, it can be killed.”
Lagos shook his head as if responding to the foolish pipe dreams of a child. “If you destroy the construct, Sid will just build another, even deadlier model. Like the heads of the hydra, they’ll grow back, each more fearsome than the one before. It’s hopeless.”
“Then we need to find a way to shut down Sid. We hit the mainframe, take out its logic center.”
“Don’t think we didn’t consider that option, but it’s impossible. Even if you could somehow defeat the construct and reach the mainframe before his replacement picks up the chase, Sid would turn off all life support and kill everyone on board before you ever got a chance to deactivate him. The ship cannot be defeated.”
“There’s always a way.”
Lagos held Harker’s unwavering gaze for a moment. “There might be a better option.”
“We’re listening,” Harker said.
“There’s another option… It’s risky, I couldn’t attempt it alone; the construct would have caught me the moment I returned to the upper deck. But maybe together we stand a chance to get off this ship…”
“What are you talking about? All the lifeboats were launched.”
“That’s true, but my team and I arrived on a separate research shuttle. It’s berthed on the lower deck, docking bay number two, near the lab. If we can make it to the shuttle...”
Faith perked up. Making a run for the shuttle sounded a lot better than going up against a mad supercomputer. “How do we get past the computer?” Faith asked. “There are cams everywhere. What good is it if we make it to the shuttle and we can’t even get the cargo bay doors to open?”
“How do you think I managed to escape Sid?”
Dr. Lagos’ chapped lips curled into a crooked grin as he held up a device the size of a thumb-drive. It was attached to a necklace, like a pendant. Faith had spent enough time among thieves to be able to identify the item in question. It was an EMP disruptor-key capable of projecting a coded series of electromagnetic pulses that could disrupt most locking mechanisms, possibly including cargo bay doors. All of a sudden, Lagos’ suicide run was starting to sound like an actual plan. A plan that, with a little luck, might work. The key would allow them to navigate the various corridors and decks of the ship. This gave them a fighting chance. She turned to Harker and knew he wasn’t on board.
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