“I know you had a thing for her, but here’s a secret, so did I. It’s why I had to kill you. She’s still asleep. For now.”
He crouches down over me, and I feel his nakedness resting on my hip. He pats my shoulder. “Still warm. Saved you for last, that’s why. Well, not quite last. Time for Cap to wake up. I hope she doesn’t mind the mess.”
I shiver as he walks away, the motion unseen, the slippery squish inaudible, thanks to the tune he’s now whistling. I turn my head, watching him go. He hops through an obstacle course of naked bodies and twisted limbs. The occupants of cryo-chamber five are all dead.
Almost.
Death looms near, and help is clearly not coming. The others are either dead, or gone, and if they really did flee to the surface of Cognata, without supplies, or advance testing, or food, they’ll be dead soon enough. Cognata might be an Earth-like planet, snugly located in the sun-like Kepler 452’s habitable zone. It has an atmosphere, water, soil, acceptable temperatures, and a gravity twice as powerful than we’re designed for. But no one really knows what we’ll find, or if we can survive on the surface. Our voyage to the planet is what people used to call a ‘Hail Mary.’ I don’t know the source of the term, but I know it means the odds are against us.
I try to move, for Cap, but I only manage to slip onto my back. The ceiling is pale white, like the imaginary psychologist’s office, but it’s pocked with evenly spaced orb lighting, casting a pleasant, sun-like glow. It’s supposed to feel like sunrise, greeting us to our new lives in the far reaches of the Milky Way, but I just feel mocked.
Our mission was about saving lives.
Saving humanity.
Instead, we’ve already returned to our basest form. We were born out of primal violence, and we’re destined to be ended by it.
Cap deserves better, but maybe she’ll choose to live. With Tom. My friend turned mass murderer. I don’t blame him. Clearly, his mind is gone. But for our mission to end like this...
I take a deep breath and let it out.
It doesn’t hurt.
At all.
I lean my head over and look down. The blood has stopped pumping from my chest. But is that because I’m no longer bleeding, or just out of blood? Are these my last thoughts before I die for good, or...
I wipe my hands through the blood covering my chest. It’s sticky, like nearly dry paint, but it wipes away. I’m expecting excruciating pain when my fingers slide over the wound, but I feel nothing beyond a slight tickle. I wipe again and again, clearing the puncture site.
There’s no hole.
The screwdriver still lies beside me, covered in my gore. But the hole it made is gone.
It’s healed.
The first real act of my third life is clutching the screwdriver. Then I spring to my feet, slip on blood and plummet onto the corpse of Mike Burgess, a botanist who would have tried to grow Earth crops on Cognata. I apologize to the corpse, and crawl over him and the slick bodies lying beside him. Until I reach the hallway, which looks like a modern art painting of red streaks on a white canvas. If I didn’t know the paint was blood, I might ponder its meaning. Instead, I pull myself up against the wall and add a new streak, sliding my way toward cryo-chamber two, Cap, and Tom.
3
The Galahad, so named for the nobility of its quest—to find a new home for humanity—is perhaps the most perfect creation mankind has ever conjured. It can achieve FTL travel without killing everyone on board. It can detect and repair malfunctions autonomously. It contains every written word, audio recording, video, and virtual experience ever created, from a digital scan of the Gutenberg Bible, to the HoloPorn, Raunchy Ranch Extravagasm. The entire biomass of Earth is contained in a cryogenic laboratory the size of a skyscraper, ready to be bred, planted, grown, and set loose on a new Earth. From seeds, to genes, to eggs and sperm, Galahad has everything we will need to start anew and pave the way for the colonists destined to follow.
For all I know, some are already en route.
Unfortunately for them, the Galahad’s crew is not nearly as infallible as the ship. I don’t yet know how many survived and escaped to Cognata’s surface, but the amount of blood decorating the walls didn’t come from just one victim. The cryo-chamber entryways I pass are open, each one filled with a collection of gore. I don’t bother to stop and count the dead. It’s all just red smudges in my periphery. My eyes remain fixed and focused on the white, curving hallway ahead. Cryo-chamber two is just ahead.
A whistled tune tickles my ears. I can’t identify the song. I’m not even sure it is a song. Just random notes reflecting the chaos that is now Tom Holden’s mind.
We all knew some form of madness could result from cryo-sleep. It happens sometimes, especially over long periods of time. But we were tested. Vigorously. For years.
And this kind of murderous insanity, to my knowledge, has never been documented. One of the first candidates to be weeded out was left in a vegetative state after just a week in cryo-sleep. Ten years turned Tom into a psychopath.
If he was awake the whole time, like me, it could make sense.
Then again, I’m not trying to kill anyone.
Madness crept up on me from time to time, but never latched on. I suppose some minds are more flexible than others. I really don’t know. The human computer has never been my specialty.
“One sheep, two sheep, never sleep sheep.” The sing-song slows my approach. The slap of my sticky bare feet becomes a whisper. My lungs seize, holding the perfectly blended, algae-generated, O2-infused air. I peek around the entryway.
There are five bodies on the floor in various states of disrepair. The most complete of them appears to have been strangled. Deep purple rings her throat. The worst of them has been dismembered. The work of a crude butcher with blunt instruments.
How did he have the time for this? He must have woken up first, but he should have been...
Shit.
Tom and I performed the final system check together. Cryo-chambers fell under his purview. He must have adjusted the wake-up sequence in advance. I don’t think he was crazy then. Probably just wanted bragging rights. The first to wake. The first to see Cognata. He couldn’t have known waking first would have resulted in slaughter.
Unless he did.
Could he have been mad before we left?
Could the army of psychologists have been fooled? I’ve heard sociopaths can be charming.
Still, it doesn’t seem possible.
But here I am, spying on Tom Holden, the man about to kill—or worse—a woman I care about more than I’m allowed to.
Our crew of twenty-five men and twenty-five women were paired up by teams of geneticists and reproductive specialists. Upon successfully reaching the planet’s surface and establishing a viable colony, our genetic partners would be revealed. Loveless relationships blessed by the sacred institution of genetics, would help humanity flourish in its new home. The odds of Capria being my partner were one in twenty-five. Not impossible, but not great. That’s why detachment was so important; to stave off distraction, and jealousy, which could poison a tight knit community.
I’m not jealous now. I’m enraged.
But there is barely enough blood pumping through my veins to keep me upright, let alone to propel me to violence. I haven’t been in a fight since second grade, though I suppose the circumstances are similar. I fought and won for the honor of Renee Something-or-Other. I have to at least try for Capria.
“I am going to enjoy you,” Tom says. “We’re going to see the universe together. Forever and ever. Happily ever after.”
Tom’s words trigger my senses. There’s a vibration beneath my feet. It’s subtle, but it’s there, and I know exactly what it means.
We’re moving.
Fast.
I’m not sure how long it’s been since the Galahad stopped at Cognata, but I do know we’re no longer there. Tom is one of a handful of people with the know-how to reprogram the ship’s course.
How
long has he been awake?
When Tom leans down to the control screen mounted to the side of Capria’s cryo-bed, I decide to make my move. I’m not a fighter, but if I’ve learned anything from Tom, a screwdriver can kill a man.
Except for me, apparently.
I don’t make it a single step before announcing my presence. The sound of my sticky foot peeling away from the smooth floor is how I’ve always imagined the crisp shhhh of tearing paper would sound. I’ve never used a piece of paper, let alone torn one, but it rings true in my imagination.
Tom shouts in surprise, flailing away from Capria’s cryo-bed like he’s been shocked. He looks to the ceiling first, like there might be something up there, and my brain says, ‘Rush him!’ while my body tries to stay upright.
I don’t rush him. I stand still, like a gazelle clutched in a lion’s jaws, when such creatures still lived.
When he sees me, Tom staggers back again. He wiggles his fingers at me, casting a spell. “You’re dead! Screwdriver in the chest. Like Mike. Like the others. Well, not all of them, but enough. Sharing blood like that. Not sanitary. But it’s not really a concern for the dead, which you are. And aren’t. I think.”
His eyes are wide. Unblinking. Like an insect. A very surprised and confused insect.
I step into the cryo-chamber, screwdriver tucked up behind my right hand and forearm.
“You’re hurt,” I say, pointing at Tom’s chest. He’s clothed in blood and stark naked at the same time. Despite that, the claw marks crisscrossing his chest, swollen on the sides, stand out. Someone put up a fight, and I hope the memory of it, or the fact that he’s hurt, and no doubt in pain, will distract him.
“Just an ouchy,” he says. “You got much worse.” He waggles a finger at my chest. “Not even a hole. You were dead. I stood over you. Gave you a gamer’s goodbye.”
I try not to show my revulsion. When Tom crouched over me, letting his manhood rest on my hip, he was sending me off to the land of the dead in true video game fashion: the classic teabag. I had thought it was an accident. While I’m not technically a gamer, like Tom, we did play together on occasion. When I think back to those matches now, played offsite and off the record, I feel like I’ve seen murderous Tom before: slaying his enemies, back-stabbing teammates, and insulting the dead and dying. It was all good fun in the virtual world. In real life...it’s sick.
“I am dead,” I say.
He inhales like his mouth has become a vacuum. “A zombie?”
While the widespread popularity of the undead faded hundreds of years ago, they remain popular with holo-game players, spanning the test of time like other fictional monsters: Dracula, Nemesis, Werewolves.
“A ghost,” I say.
“You are dead!” He tries to snap, but his fingers are too slippery with blood. “I knew it.”
“I needed to tell you something,” I say, stepping closer, lowering my voice.
“Do tell.”
I take another step. Paper tears.
Tom squints. “Sticky for a ghost.”
“I don’t make the rules.” Step. Tear. Step.
Tom purses his lips and taps agitated fingers against his thin hips. “You’re not dead.”
“You killed me.” Step. Tear. Step. “You were there.”
“I did, and I was, but now I’m here, and so are you. There was a hole in your chest, and now there is not.”
“Ghosts don’t keep injuries.” Step. Tear. Step. I’m just a few feet away now, but Tom looks ready to run. Or attack. I can’t tell which. His face is turbulent, caught in the middle of opposing storms.
“But the blood!” Tom flicks both hands at me like he’s revealing the latest model android. Gore flings from his fingertips and slaps against my chest, where it clings. “The blood! It...it sticks.”
I turn my final step into a lunge. The screwdriver comes up in my hand, and then drives down in an arc. Our bodies collide with a slippery thumping of knobby limbs, scrabbling fingers, and screaming voices. This is how computer scientists fight. As we descend to the ground, putting on a pitiful display for dominance that makes me wonder how Tom could have actually killed most of the crew, I’m almost glad no one is around to see it.
Though Tom and I collide with the smooth, hard floor with roughly the same speed and force, he recovers faster. Perhaps I’m the greater nerd, or his mania shields him from pain. I’m not sure which, and at the moment, it doesn’t matter. His fingers wrap around my throat and squeeze, constricting both my airway, and the limited flow of blood supplying my brain with oxygen—and consciousness.
I bring my fists up against him, noting first the lack of a screwdriver, and then the lack of focus.
My nails dig fresh troughs in his skin.
I slap, and punch, and kick.
None of it matters.
There’s a ballet of dancing lights, like stars twirling to the music in Tom’s head. Then the curtain falls.
And I die.
Again.
4
Weight presses me, constant and unmoving. It’s like a blanket. A pile of them, really. I’m compelled toward sleep once more, mind drifting back into a comfortable dark bliss. I turn over and curl a handful of fabric beneath my chin, just so. But the twist of my body upsets the balanced covering. It slides off my body and thumps onto the bed.
Beds don’t thump.
The thought rings true, but my barely conscious self doesn’t care. I’m exhausted. I reach out for the blankets and find them, cold and wet. My nose wrinkles in disgust.
What happened to my blankets?
I wipe my now moist hand against my hip and find it barren of clothing. When I was a child, I would wake up in the morning, stark naked, pajamas piled next to me. I never had any memory of how or why I stripped down. It just happened.
That’s not what happened this time, I think. I went to bed naked.
All this thinking tickles my consciousness to the forefront. It’s early morning bright. Mars bright. Where there are no trees and no atmosphere to dull the more distant sun. And the bed...it’s torturing my left elbow, ribs, and hip, the bones grinding against a cushionless surface.
This isn’t a bed.
I squint against the bright light from above, and then open my eyes wide, when I find myself caught in a staring contest with Tom. Since corpses can’t blink, I lose. Quickly. His dead eyes snap me from the last tendrils of sleep, but as my memory returns in full, I find myself unable to move.
Fear holds me in place, pinning my neck to the floor with the promise of fresh horrors to follow. But nothing happens. Tom’s dead eyes just keep staring. I shift my eyes, and I’m relieved when his don’t follow.
Definitely dead, but how?
My neck throbs with pain as I push off the floor to my hands and knees. The grunt of pain rising from my throat comes out as a hiss and a pop. I feel my throat, probing the skin with my fingers. Pain bursts with each touch, but it’s not nearly as bad as the strange way my neck is compressed.
As fear wells anew, my neck pops out, reverting back to its original shape, and my scream finds its voice. The pain starts to subside, too, enough for me to focus on Tom.
He lies next to me, candy-coated in blood. Mine, his, and everyone else’s. A familiar yellow handle rises from his back, between shoulder blade and spine. Following the Phillips-head’s path through his body, I find the tip poking out of his chest.
I stabbed him. When we collided. Adrenaline and mania carried him through the pain and gave him the strength to strangle me, but madness wasn’t enough to deny physical death.
But something is, I think.
Something has kept me from dying several times over in the short duration I’ve been out of cryo-sleep.
Thank God, Tom lacks the same ability.
Or does he?
Each time I’ve died and come back, I’ve lost all sense of time. I could have been lying on the floor for seconds, minutes, or hours. Death provides freedom from the fourth dimension. But ther
e was no white light this time. And Leonard wasn’t there to greet me. If Tom can come back, how long do I have?
Fear of being killed again, and again, gets me moving. Lines of pain follow the contours of my body as my blood-glued skin stretches and peels from the cool floor. A warmth tingles from my head to my feet, blood shifting about. I see little lights, a moment of darkness, and then my body’s reset is complete.
“Capria,” I whisper, and I stagger to her cryo-bed. I place my hand on the frigid glass window while starting a rapid diagnostic on the bed, and on Capria. The results are nearly instant, and green across the board. I lift my hand from the glass. Beads of moisture have formed where my body heat warmed the surface, allowing me to see Capria’s face. Her eyes are closed. At peace. Oblivious to the fact that her crew is dead or gone.
I envy her, and then I remember Tom.
I bend down, clutch his skinny wrists in my arms and pull. He’s heavier than he looks, or maybe I’m just weak from blood loss and repetitious death. Either way, the effort it takes to drag the man is agonizing.
“I hate you for this,” I tell the corpse, as I step into the hallway. “How hard did we work for this? I gave ten years. Ten fucking years. Training. Eating that shit they fed us. Getting poked with needles. I hated every second of it, but I did it because I loved the idea of what we were doing so much.”
Tom’s foot snags on the door, unwilling to bend. I yank him hard, venting my frustrations. He doesn’t budge.
“You.” Pull.
“Are a.” Pull.
“Fucking.” Pull.
“Asshole!” I twist his body as I heave back again. His foot cracks and we spill free.
My heels thump against the floor as I stumble back, still clinging to Tom. His weight and my tacky feet keep me upright, and for a brief moment of chaos, we make good progress. Then it’s step, drag, step again.
“I hope you do come back. I hope you wake up the moment I open the airlock and launch you into space.” They’re the harshest words I’ve ever spoken, but I mean them. He not only slaughtered the crew and doomed those who escaped his lunacy, but there’s a good chance humanity itself will face extinction because of his actions.
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