Pitch Dark

by Courtney Alameda

  Now that’s an EVA suit.

  Damn, Mom. Damn.

  “The conquerors write the histories, Dr. Smithson,” Laura shouts. “I will not let you write mine. And after I have saved this ship, I will make sure you are forgotten. When the world discovers what you’ve done to me, what you’ve tried to do to my family, you will be forever ruined, shamed, and cast out of society.”

  Dr. Smithson steps forward. “Laura, st—”

  “No, you stop!” Laura shouts, pointing at Dr. Smithson. “I will never take orders from you again. And if I have to shout to drown out your voice, so be it!”

  With a mighty flap of her wings, Laura launches herself almost fifteen meters in the air, landing beside Mom’s skybike. The EDDA suit cushions her landing, blue light pulsing under her feet. She dislodges the bike from the mourner’s huge corpse, flinging some gore off the seat.

  As she straddles the bike, I shout, “Laura!”

  She looks back over her shoulder. “Yes?”

  “Don’t do this,” I say. “Not alone. Let Alex and me come with you.”

  “What was it that you told me before?” Laura asks, a slow smile creeping over her face. “Oh, I remember now—hasta la vista, baby.” The EDDA’s helmet cascades around her head. She cranks the skybike’s throttle, spins it around, and races toward the sagging bulkhead door panels.

  In seconds, she’s gone.

  USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

  SHIP’S DEEPDOWNS

  LAURA

  I shoot through the park’s Ingress bulkhead, moving too fast to be caught by the mourners’ shrieks. My muscles tremble, full of nervous energy. Fury races in my veins, right next to fear. Did I go loca? I shouted at Dr. Smithson, and almost expected her mercenaries to shoot me when I leaped away. Under normal circumstances, my actions would have brought swift repercussions down on my head.

  But my current circumstances are anything but normal.

  I slow down on the train tracks outside the Ingress bulkhead, pausing beside the armored tram Tuck and I rode in on. Ping messages rumble through my wrists. Out here, the bike’s headlights spill over the forms of several white lumps on the tracks. Mourners. Their bodies quake, rib cages expanding and contracting with furious speed, fighting to get enough oxygen into their lungs. I almost feel bad for them—but if they can’t breathe because of the low air pressure, they can’t scream, either, and that’s a relief.

  The EDDA’s nanites scroll back to reveal my bioware beads. I shake my ioScreen on, checking my messages. Mami begs me to come back to the park. Dad threatens to ground me for the next year, but who is he kidding? It will be a miracle if my parents ever let me fly again after this mission.

  My bioware rumbles with another ping, this one from Alex. Tuck and I are coming after you, flaca, he says. You may not need our help, but we’re coming along anyway. His message brings a smile to my face.

  Faye’s message wipes it right off again: Thanks to you, I almost died in that medbay, you little malinchista. The word malinchista hits me with physical force. It means betrayer on the surface, though the word’s historical significance is far more complex. It’s possible—given my history with Sebastian and the way Faye teased me about Tuck—that she knows exactly what she’s saying, but I’m not sure. I try to shake it off, to tell myself she’s reacting out of fear and grief; after all, she lost her father today. But for her to call me a traitor when I’m risking so much to save us, well …

  It hurts.

  The next message comes from Sebastian: You’re making very dangerous decisions, Laura. My mother is sending a team after you, one with orders to shoot on sight.

  I want to snap, What, so your puta mother can cover her tracks? but my subjugator won’t let me type those words. Besides, the next time I see Sebastian, I’ll have saved the John Muir from obliteration.

  I don’t answer him, or Faye, or Alex, or my parents. I have a ship to save.

  After uploading Dr. Morgan’s map into my heads-up helmet display, I punch the skybike’s throttle and head downtunnel. Unlike our skybikes at home—speed-inhibited and protected by airflow shields—this one moves so quick, my insides spoon my spine. Adrenaline pounds in my ears as I shoot through the darkness.

  A ping message from the Noh Mask hacker appears next, popping up on the helmet’s display: Headed somewhere, Laura? I ignore the message, lip curling. Whoever the hacker is, I’m going to find them. Expose them, and make sure they’re brought to justice.

  The hacker’s next ping sends a hot flash through my veins, followed by a slow, roiling chill. I’ll be watching you. He can track my location via my subjugator, as can the Smithsons. My best hope now lies in speed.

  On the skybike, it only takes a few minutes to reach my destination:

  PLATFORM 4

  B-CLASS QUARTERS

  BIOSPHERE GREENHOUSES A, B, AND C

  BIOWASTE RECYCLING

  BACTERIAL CLEANSING PLANTS

  The headlights wash over faded letters and numbers on the tunnel walls. I ease up on the bike’s throttle as I approach the platform. The bike’s free-energy engine is silent, displacing debris underfoot. Aged papers and bits of rubble roll away, whickering over the ground. Small tendrils of the ship’s fester covers the tracks, recoiling when light touches them. The stuff coats the platform, hanging off the edge in thick, heavy sheets.

  I swing myself off the bike and stash it out of sight under the train platform. No need to leave evidence for Dr. Smithson’s people. I’ll go the rest of the way on foot, according to Dr. Morgan’s map. She hasn’t given me a straight path; rather, it meanders through the rest of Sectors Two and Three, dumping me somewhere in the foredecks’ middle tier.

  Deep groans rumble through the ship. A few casual shrieks, too. I expect to see white shadows lope out of the darkness, but nothing stirs. A few wall-mounted signs flicker and spark as I cross the tracks and climb up onto the platform, procrete crumbling under my grip. The fester squelches underfoot.

  It was one thing to go charging out of the park, riding a high wave of adrenaline. It’s another to head into a dark hall, my fury evaporating, nerves startling at every small sound. One lone bulb flickers in the distance. Paper flyers and notices shudder on the walls like old flaps of skin. Odd piles of bones climb against the walls, stained with dried blood. Dust motes tumble on shifting air currents.

  In the distance, a light flickers.

  On.

  Off.

  On.

  Off.

  Each time the bulb dims, the two lights mounted on my shoulders flare bright.

  On.

  I step into the tunnel, glancing over my shoulder.

  Off.

  When the light flicks on again, a lone figure stands under the bulb, tentacles sliding up over its shoulders and curling around its waist. Two-legged. Shadows pool under its eyes, the erratic light throwing its shape into silhouette. It tries to draw a breath, its throat sac fluttering in the low air pressure.

  I skip back a step, courage shattering, grabbing for my bow as the light goes out. My heart feels like it pounds on my lungs, making my breath come in fast jerks. I nock an arrow and fire at the darkest part of the shadows. Even if the monster can’t scream at me, it still has its claws.

  When the light blinks back on, the pendejo’s gone.

  Where did it go? I ease forward, keeping an arrow nocked. My footsteps fall silently, cushioned by the EDDA. Step by step, I ease into the tunnel’s depths. Fear grips my heart so hard, I feel its nails bite into my flesh. On my helmet’s HUD, a bright dot indicates my position on the map. I follow the path in my peripheral vision, hurrying toward an area of the ship called BIOWASTE RECYCLING.

  Lovely, Dr. Morgan, I think, glancing back again. Thanks for sending me through the ship’s biofarm.

  Nothing moves as I cross the last twenty meters of tunnel. The intersections look clear. I find my arrow in shatters along the wall, still surprised the griefers move as fast as they do.… Or worse, that the monster’s doing it
in a no-air, low-pressure environment. Nothing living should be able to survive in this sort of a climate without an EVA.

  I open the biofarm doors, air rushing from the room into the tunnel. I push inside, using the EDDA’s interface to bolt the doors behind me. Dim light shudders from the high ceiling. Huge cylindrical tanks hold bubbling liquid and gaseous materials in putrid shades of green, black, and brown, their colors not unlike the storms on gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. The tanks march in neat lines across the processing field; some cracked or leaking, matter caked on the outside and inside. Big sluices run on either side of the floor—which is made of interlocking grates—which would have allowed the ship’s former workers to push processed waste into the sluices to be flushed away.

  In Tuck’s era, it would have taken a ship almost five years to travel from Earth to Mars. The crews aboard Exodus ships wasted nothing, using biofarms like this one to break down biological waste and recycle it into its component materials.

  In the John Muir’s heyday, this place could process thousands of pounds of biowaste per day. Old tools litter the plant’s tables, rusted and dull: bone saws, scalpels, and other wicked-looking, nameless things. The fester spreads over everything here, hanging like gory medieval tapestries from the walls, or bubbling from broken cylinders. It forms mounds along the floors and shrouds the lights in the room.

  The EDDA scans the air quality, a red light blinking three times in the upper right-hand corner of my vision. High levels of methane present, a notice says. The suit also reports stable air pressure levels. I’ll have to be careful.

  As I head into the plant, a splash echoes from under the floor’s wide grate. I freeze, looking down. Large drops of mossy green liquid quiver on the toes of my boots. In the low light, a single thread-like tentacle surfaces, slipping through the grate and looping around a bit of metal. Heart pounding, I ease away from it, taking a knee between two large tanks. More tentacles rise from the murk and take hold of the grate, punching through a square of the flooring and tossing it away. One hand reaches up, sludge dripping off its fingers as it grips the edge of the floor.

  My thoughts scatter like panicked birds. Blood pulses through my limbs, hot and energizing and mind-numbing. I back away, heading down a new row of tanks, listening as the griefer blows out a wet breath. I glance over my shoulder. Through the urine-yellow contents of one tank, I watch the monster rise, its tentacles writhing off its back. Before it turns, I duck low, slinking between the tanks, following Dr. Morgan’s map as best I can.

  A small ioScreen pops out of the node on my wrist, displaying a ping. A Noh Mask icon appears beside the message, These ancient cameras have terrible definition, but I can see you cowering behind that tank.

  Mentally cursing, I scoot to the next row. Heavy footsteps clank across the floor. I hold my breath, straining to hear which direction they’re headed.

  Let me help you get out of a … sticky situation, the hacker writes.

  An alarm sounds, startling me. The tanks around me begin to beep like heart monitors. An announcement rolls through the plant as the floor lurches, almost knocking me off balance: “Plant purge initiated. All staff exit immediately. I repeat, plant purge initiated—”

  The floor whirs, clanks, and groans. Sludge pops through the grate’s holes like rising loaves of bread. The stuff sucks at my footsteps, slowing me down.

  Oops, the next ping reads. Maybe that wasn’t helpful?

  I slip in the rising muck, going down on my hip with a loud bang! The murk bubbles around my body. As I push myself back to my feet, the bam-bam-bam of quick footsteps resounds through the floor. Metal shrieks overhead. I look up and lock gazes with the griefer, who’s perched atop one of the tanks, its tentacles fanning out from its back.

  It grins.

  USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

  BIG VALLEY BULKHEAD

  TUCK

  The bulkhead door yawns open in Laura’s wake. I jam my EVA helmet back on my head.

  Of all the idiot ideas I’ve had over the last twenty-six months, this ranks in the top ten.

  Nah, top five.

  What I’m about to do is way more stupid than zero-gravity windsurfing in the HVAC systems.

  “Let’s go!” I shove Alex’s shoulder forward.

  “What?” he shouts at me.

  “Move! Now or never, hambre!”

  “Gringo, it’s hombre!” he snaps as we take off running.

  “You say hombre, I say—”

  “Just shut up and run!”

  Fair enough. We sprint down the road, headed for the bulkhead door as the adults shout “Stop!” at our backs. But what are they going to do, shoot us?

  The bulkhead door towers over us, its huge, interlocking metal teeth still open. I swing left, jamming my palm into the closing mechanism. Alex leaps up, pulling himself atop the bottom partition’s toothy lip. The top panel screeches inside its metal frame, moving slower than it should. Damaged, perhaps, by that big bastard. The door lowers toward its partner.

  Alex vaults past the bulkhead door as it groans closed. I scramble after him, tumbling off the door’s teeth and into a pile of trampled mourner corpses. Alex lands on his feet and drops into a crouch.

  Meanwhile, I’m over here, flopping around arse-deep in corpses. Overhead, the bulkhead door rumbles as it slides shut. The great boom sends a shudder through my chest.

  It’s a glitching horror film on this side of the bulkhead, something straight out of either The Shining or one of Tarantino’s wet dreams. The ground gleams crimson. Red waves of gore mark the walls, the line as high as my shoulder at one point. Corpses—both humans’ and mourners’—lie in the frothy wake, some still twitching, either shot or killed by friendly fire. Eviscerated guts are splattered in blue-black piles everywhere.

  The surviving mourners look up from the meals they’ve made of their mates. Blood glistens on their lips as they snarl at us.

  Alex jams the butt of his rifle against his shoulder. “This godforsaken ship.” He fires, hitting a mourner right in the forehead. He takes two more down before I manage to get back on my feet.

  “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” I ask as we jog down the corridor.

  “Military flight school,” Alex says.

  I almost take a hard right at the intersection—then, realizing the hall’s full of mourners, motion Alex forward. We’ll go around. “Can you fly a mecha?”

  “Like a biomorphic mecha? Yeah, probably.”

  “Good,” I say as we duck through a set of meeting rooms. “If we’re going to catch up to Laura on the bridge, we’re going to need them.”

  USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

  BIOFARMS

  LAURA

  I’m going to die.

  The griefer leaps off the tank and lands in front of me. He seizes me by the throat, his hands so massive and powerful, they close off my airway despite the EDDA’s protection. I sink my fingers into his hand as he lifts me, a twisted intelligence flaring in his eyes. The creature’s chalk-white skin is riddled with patches of coral pores, each one so large it’s a pit. Tiny gray tentacles writhe inside the holes. Some are blistered, tiny digits twitching inside vats of pus.

  Air! my body screams, sight reddening around the edges. The world turns black from lack of oxygen. Pain makes it roar back again. My helmet beeps as my vitals plunge and my heart rate spikes.

  The creature carries me a few steps forward, cocks his head at me, and then slams me down on a table. My head hits the back of my helmet, which makes my brain rattle in my skull. Something snaps under the EDDA’s rigid spine, dry as a dead bone. Instruments tremble. I open my mouth to scream, but it’s more of an agonized dry heave. I kick my feet, trying to find purchase. The monster’s too strong.

  The griefer picks up a hacksaw with his free hand, and then considers the blade’s edge. I imagine those rusted teeth cutting into the soft parts of my body, the griefer grinning as it pops my lungs like balloons. My nerves shrivel. Sweat breaks out at the small o
f my back. I grasp around the table for something, anything I can use as a weapon.

  My fingers wrap around a metal instrument. Blindly, I jab it into the bend of the creature’s elbow. With a cry, the griefer stumbles back.

  I don’t wait. I roll off the table, landing on my toes. As the creature lunges for me again, I pull a pair of arrows from my quiver and thrust them at his face. Their tips strike the bone of his nose, slice sideways, and plunge into his eye socket.

  He seizes up, but his momentum does not—he slams into me. We tumble through the muck, head over heels, until I strike the side of a holding tank.

  “Ay…,” I say, pain resonating in every part of my body. As my vision clears, I push my torso off the floor, wishing I could cradle my head in my hands. The muck lies ten centimeters thick along the floor now, and rises quickly. Two meters away, the griefer twitches as the dark gunk deepens, starting to swallow him up. The dual shafts of my arrows stick out from one eye socket.

  Trembling, I get to my feet. My head throbs. The world whirls around me for a few seconds, then settles back into its proper place. I’m in pain—I would be shocked if I didn’t have a cracked rib or two—but wedge me, I’m alive. Breathing. Unlike the griefer, who stares at the ceiling, one-eyed, as the plant’s murk crawls up around his shoulders like a macabre blanket. His black blood bubbles in his eye socket.

  A ping reverberates from my wrist. Well, well, Laura, that was very impressive, even for you.

  You’d better hope I never find out who you are, I reply.

  The hacker replies with his signature smiley face.

  Dr. Morgan’s path leads to a door, and behind that lies a room full of pitch-black shadows and silence. The lights mounted on my shoulders flick on, their beams slicing through the darkness. They touch upon piles of body bags, some split open to show the grinning skulls of beasts; barrels of waste are stamped with fading marks that might’ve once read For Immediate Disposal on their sides. Under any other circumstances, I would’ve found this room fascinating … despite its macabre contents.