by Aaron Bunce
A woman pushed up onto her knees and looked to him, her eyes darting from the Planitex logo on his suit to his face and back again. Manis pushed by before she could ask for something. They always needed, wanted. Always.
“Sir, I didn’t even realize that you were on this freighter? Where have you been?” she asked.
This woman was different from the others. She wore scrubs, had a Planitex Biological Development badge hanging around her neck. Manis remembered, despite his urge not to. She was a researcher, a nurse from doctor Misra’s lab. But he couldn’t remember her name. Name. It was on the badge.
Sheila Parson. Parson…a parson. A religious figure, he thought, his brain automatically locking onto the word and some distant meaning.
“No. Stop,” he muttered, slapping his temple. The message was already getting cloudy.
“Stop?” she asked, her face screwed up in confusion. Confusion, or…she took a half-step back, as if walking into a foul odor. Him. Manis sniffed, confirming that it hadn’t been his quarters that smelled so bad, but him.
“We didn’t think any administration made it out onto the freighters. At least not this one. Are you taking control? Do you have a plan? Want to talk to the people? They desperately need to hear from someone, to know that things will be okay.”
The nurse talked too fast, filling the space between them, and thus his brain, with an abundance of thoughts and ideas. They were stacking up, smashing, and smothering the words that he knew he had to send.
“A message of need…the words and numbers are together now but could break up any moment,” he said, fighting hard to banish the unnecessary stuff from his head. The nurse cocked her head to the side, a transparent device sliding from her scrubs.
“Where have you been this whole time? Are you, okay, sir?” the woman said, and before he could pull away, she had grabbed ahold of his wrist. She was so close Manis could smell her–soft, floral notes mixed with something acidic. Orange? Grapefruit? It was such a sharp contrast to his own funk that it suddenly made him feel so very dirty. Why? It hadn’t bothered him before, only the…
A beep sounded and he looked down to find her holding a clear data point to his wrist. My wrist. I.D. chip. Data. More words and numbers. Keep them out.
The transparent screen came alive, his eyes catching on the glowing script before she could turn away. He saw his name, his corporate title, and below that, words like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Chronic Pituitary Dysfunction, and others.
“Responds well to synthetic hormone patches and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,” Manis said, unable to resist speaking the words out loud, “five days, three hours, twelve minutes, and fifteen seconds.”
“Yes, sir, that is what is says. How long have you gone without your medication? Are you feeling okay?” the nurse asked. Her voice was soft, non-threatening, pleasant, just like her smell. Manis suddenly wanted to pull her hair closer to his nose, to rub it against his face. It looked soft.
“I mean, I’m not crazy. Those treatments just help me focus. They help me rest…stay sharp.” He reached up to his neck, his fingers scrabbling against the patch stuck behind his right ear. Its presence broke him out of his quiet second by second count long enough to think about his treatment.
“Six days,” he muttered, his brain latching onto solving her question, specifically the numbers. He’d needed to change his hormone patch the day before things fell apart on Hyde. No, not a day. He was eighteen hours and thirty-seven minutes late swapping out his medication patch… approximately. He knew it. He’d put it off. But there was flexibility in his schedule, wiggle room, because he was in charge. Now his brain was in trouble and he didn’t have any with him. His brain was in charge and it was a chaotic son of a bitch.
“…with you?” the nurse said, Manis only then realizing she was talking. “We didn’t bring any medications with us, you know, with the panic setting in. We just didn’t have a chance to gather any supplies. The freighter crew has some basics, ibuprofen and acetaminophen for headaches, gauze for burns and cuts, some topical cream, and nutrition supplement cubes. Maybe there is some way I can help you rest…” The nurse was talking, still holding his wrist. She was nice, pretty, and smelled so good. Deep down inside Manis wanted her to help him, even so he could just stay close to her for a while longer.
“…the ship’s database is limited, but might contain some helpful messages,” she said, continuing to speak.
Messages. Manis’ brain locked in on the word. It jarred something loose in his brain. He suddenly remembered what he’d been fixated on before. He was going somewhere…to the bridge, perhaps, to find out who was blocking his messages.
“Negative fourteen degrees. No, twelve. Dropping…no, rising. Thirty-seven unsent messages. Need to find out why. Need to send it. I need to find the one blocking my messages. Blocking them for five days, three hours, fourteen minutes, and three seconds! Corporate must know.”
“How long has it been since you slept, sir? Or ate anything? Maybe I could take you to the showers, reconstitute a soup cube for you? Let me help you. Just come…” The nurse pulled his arm, gently but firmly tugging his whole body towards a side passage. She reached for his other hand.
“Sleep? Food?” Manis snorted, the nurse’s false smell burning his nostrils. She groped for his left arm, but missed as he jerked away. He broke her grip on his right arm and turned, twisting out of reach.
“I just want to hel…” she cried as he shoved her backwards. The force sent her stumbling back into the bulkhead, her body hitting with a surprisingly loud bang. The nurse crumpled in a pile, both hands cradling her head. A small spot of blood smeared the wall just above her.
Manis turned and ran down the passage, his feet pounding loudly against the grated metal decking. He heard the commotion behind him, people yelling and calling out, but they were just trying to distract him. They didn’t understand how important his task really was.
The message. The sample. They were both more important than any of their lives.
He grabbed ahold of the handrail and flung his body up the stairs, tripping and almost falling on the last step. His heart was hammering and breathing labored when he reached the top of the short flight, but kept going. A short passage extended at the top, terminating with an airlock.
Manis opened the door and staggered inside, then slapped the button to cycle it closed. Something collided with the door behind him, and he turned to find faces shouting at him through the small, round window. They were slapping against the door, punching the metal.
“Five days…five days,” he muttered, cradling his arms. It was five days down and would be five days more, but he needed to do something. Before…before.
The airlock cycled before he could even hit the button, the door ahead, not behind, opening. Someone walked through–tall, straight, well-built. They wore an olive drab flight suit, the Planitex logo shining on one breast, a name tape on the other. Manis read, drawn to the letters.
Bishop. Sarah. Co-pilot.
“What in the hell is going on? What happened? Why is everyone yelling?” the woman asked.
“Five days…” he whispered, tearing his eyes away from her name. Then he took a deep breath, centered himself, and pulled his arms away from his body. It took every ounce of strength to straighten his fingers, to suppress the hunger and fatigue he’d been fighting for days. His whole body shook. He took another deep breath and lifted his eyes to the woman’s face.
“A message,” he managed slowly, “I have an urgent message to send.”
EGCSS Tugboat “Betty”
2058 Hours
Jacoby planted his feet and stretched his shoulders, then pulled the harness straps tight again. He snugged the chest strap down and popped the guard into his mouth, clamping the elasta-gel into position between his teeth. It tasted horrible but smelled worse, like gum that he’d chewed far too long.
The lights dimmed suddenly, a diffuse, blue glow setting the Betty’s small
bridge into long shadows. He stretched his neck and wiggled his head back against the wall. The head restraints clicked and buzzed, automatically adjusting to a tighter fit.
He smashed his eyes tight and sucked in a breath through his nose, trying and failing to keep his hands from shaking. But it wasn’t just his hands. There was tension in his chest and stomach, an underlying anxiety he couldn’t quite get to release. And worse, it was slowly growing, subtly, spreading farther and deeper into his body. He’d slept well the last few days, all things considered, but couldn’t shake his nagging sense of dread.
“Maybe this one won’t feel like my guts are going to paint the wall behind me, eh? Not sure pulse acceleration is something I’ll get used to anytime soon,” he said, tilting his head to the right.
Anna didn’t respond. She hung in the acceleration harness on the other side of the door, her attention locked singularly on the glowing heads-up display dominating the fore windscreen.
“Do they make you feel like you’re going to pass out, too? My head goes funny and then everything sort of squishes down, like I’m being smashed through a funnel,” he asked, after adjusting the mouth guard. The nerves made him chatty, like he had to siphon off the angsty energy or he’d eventually explode.
Anna didn’t move. Not even her eyes. Jacoby cleared his throat and followed her gaze to the front again, where the screen was cycling through untold lines of data. A large, transparent number counted down overtop the feed, an orange circle framing it all in. But it was the large, red optical sensor that eventually caught and held his attention. It was roughly the size of a tennis ball and glowed with a bright, red light. It was the Betty’s eye, the simple-minded flight computer’s way of tracking bridge personnel and their commands.
48-47-46…
“Pulse engine at full operational temperature. Prepare for acceleration,” the computer said, it’s eye pulsing in response. Anna’s voice echoed the message, almost as monotone and lifeless.
He turned back to Anna and moved to speak, but faltered. There was so much he needed to tell her, needed her to help him digest, but so far had been unable to say. Between sleep and a regular acceleration schedule, Jacoby hadn’t had a chance.
Bullshit, he thought, cursing his cowardice. He had every chance, especially while the others were sleeping. Yes, he’d chickened out. But it wasn’t just that.
It’s not just that. Anna isn’t herself right now. She just needs time…we all do, he thought, as if arguing with himself. In truth, Anna was different, even if he couldn’t necessarily articulate all the reasons how or why. She’d be there one moment, talking to him, her eyes bright and engaged, and then she’d be gone in the next. Her eyes were still open, locked onto his, but it was like the lights just turned off.
The nylon straps bunched up the fabric of her oversized Planitex jumpsuit, her blond hair now clean and pulled back in a ponytail. She looked more muscular than before, too. She was changing into someone else right before his eyes, and he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it.
“I’m not sure I can…” he started to say but the computer cut him off.
“Pulse thrust incoming. No movement detected. Respond immediately to acceleration chamber. Cancelation window for scheduled acceleration expires in sixty seconds.”
“Five pulses? Why are we doing five? There were three last time and before that.”
Jacoby turned to Anna, but she didn’t give any indication she’d heard him or the computer. Then he spotted her left arm, the symbols etched onto her skin pulsing a gentle blue. She wasn’t even there with him…her mind, was in the computer somewhere. He was still trying to wrap his head around the idea.
He turned back and watched the number countdown, despite his every desire to look away. It hit fifteen seconds and his bladder tightened. At ten his vision blurred sympathetically. At five, he held his breath. At one, he wished that he’d peed before strapping in.
The Betty thrummed around him, every surface, even his ears, buzzing in time with the engine’s harmonic frequency. It was like the rapid fluttering of insect wings. But more so, he swore that he could taste and smell it, too. If that was even possible.
Possible? Poole laughed, his voice echoing inside his head.
“Pulse,” the computer cut in as the timer hit zero.
The floor rattled as the engine fired. He felt it in his chest, face, arms, and legs. Everything gained weight, his body smashing back into the gel padding. The weight increased until it felt like he was stuck in a hydraulic press.
Yes, you…should…have pissed first, Jacoby, he thought. The acceleration pulse ended, and the weight promptly lifted. It felt like his bladder sloshed forward from his spine. Shit.
The blue under-lighting flickered. Normal.
The holographic display shifted, the time reappearing. Normal.
Anna hung next to him, her eyes vacant and locked forward, her mind hovering somewhere in the ship’s electronics. Not normal.
“Four more left. Four…just four,” Jacoby mumbled, his gaze lingering on Anna for another moment, before pulling forward. Somehow, he felt more alone than he did back on Hyde…in the darkness and cold.
“Pulse,” the computer said.
Jacoby felt gravity shift a split second before the engine fired. The weight hit him harder, the pulses of every cycle building in intensity. The first was always a pussycat compared to the last one.
Bring on the suck!
His mind started to drift as his weight ebbed, the room’s dim light and soothing thrum surprisingly peaceful. But it was the red eye that his attention locked on, burning like a bright sun straight ahead. Jacoby jumped back to the surgical suite on Hyde and his last conversation with Reeds. He remembered the large hypodermic needle, the burn as it punched into his skin, and the doc’s trembling finger pushing the plunger in and forcing the clear poison into his body. The doc’s eyes flashed, but it wasn’t malice or anger. It was fear…desperation.
“Pulse,” the computer said, distantly.
“I just want a chance…just a chance to survive this,” Reeds said. The physician’s face was pale, his differently colored eyes glassy and unfocused. A dribble of black mucus crept out of his nose, and then from the corner of his mouth.
Reeds looked scared and sick–a man on the ragged edge. And as much as Jacoby wanted to hate him, to despise him for trying to kill him, he understood why he did it. Hell, if he were in the same situation, he’d probably make the same justification. Emiko lost her nerve and ran, but only because Jacoby put her in that position. People weren’t built for situations like that.
“Pulse,” the computer chimed again.
He struggled to breathe as his thoughts spiraled, but it wasn’t just the weight of acceleration. It was those nerves. The anxiety floating just beneath the surface. It was a tangible thing–just as real as Poole’s strange, alien microorganisms drifting through his blood.
Jacoby flashed back to Lex tumbling off the concourse, her body punctured and bleeding, wrapped in the puffy infected man’s arms. He’d tried to talk to her about it, to find out what she had been through before crashing through the surgery’s thick window. But Lex wasn’t the same either. She’d shied away from the topic, dismissing his questions with monosyllabic responses. There was more there. He just needed to find what it was.
She just needs time. Shit, we all almost died. She just needs time to digest it all, he thought. But even that was a struggle. The pressure crushing his body back against the wall and stealing his breath seemed to even compress his thoughts. Or was it the stress? The doubts, the questions, were piling up. He needed to get them out, pick them apart with the others. And soon.
“Pulse.”
The weight was so intense now Jacoby couldn’t ignore it. He forced out his breath and struggled to suck air back in. His vision dimmed as pain flared in every joint. The display flashed blue, the holograms spinning and dancing, but he wasn’t sure if they were changing, or it was just the increased gravit
y’s effect on his brain. Or maybe it was his eyes coming part.
The weight unexpectedly fell away, and he coughed, sputtered, and sucked in a breath. It sounded impossibly loud, the air whistling in through his nostrils and squeaking in his throat.
Okay…that one was bad. That one fucking hurt, he thought, and again looked over to Anna. She still had not moved.
“I wish I could download my brain into a computer to avoid the pain,” he mumbled.
One more. But why five? They’re getting stronger. Why? Lana had explained how the ship’s drive worked. It all sounded so technical–magnetic fields, shaped thrust ignition pulses, and reactor capacitors. All he really took away from the conversation was that acceleration stress would become more manageable as they approached target velocity. That’s what he’d expected, at least. This…this was not what he’d expected.
“Don’t pass out,” Jacoby hissed, the time hitting three seconds before his vision finally cleared.
He didn’t hear the computer say ‘pulse’ but felt the drive’s final cycle fire off. The ship shuddered and the display blurred, the intense gravity smashing his eyes out of shape. The subtle blue lights dimmed in the blur. A quiet voice echoed somewhere far off in his mind, the chaos of his thoughts and the groaning ship merging into one.
His vision abruptly went black, his heart labored, and his breath stuck. Time seemed to slow as the blood surged laboriously through his veins. Bones vibrated in time with the ship around him, ligaments and joints stretching under the force. His insides compressed, smashing back against his ribs and spine. All of his pain and stress became one.
The voice broke out of the fog again, but it wasn’t his father. It was a woman, her voice delicate and soft. Not Anna, or Lex. Soraya? No.
Pressure mounted in his head. His thoughts scrambled for a moment but snapped right back. He felt Poole moving in his mind, sliding through his brain like a shard of ice. The acceleration pulse ended and the weight smashing him against the wall fell away.
