FountainCorp Security

by Watson Davis

  I shrugged. "Sorry I freaked out, guys."

  "This place is spooky," Vanessa said, shoving a broken pipe back into position. "No problem."

  "Yeah," I said. "I've spent most of my life in a gravity well. Not used to things moving around like this, I guess."

  "Don't sweat it." Vanessa floated past, patting me on the back, her flex-steel gauntlets thudding against the synthsteel of my back armor. "I grew up on a station like this, and the utilities cutting off is like one of our worst nightmares—the gravity going down, atmo going off. Happens sometimes, though. You get accustomed to it."

  "Someone needs to scoot back in here and snag a couple of power packs," Kevin said. "Take them up to Missy."

  "Is there a situation?" I asked, checking on the other units’ readouts—at least, what I had enough privilege to check.

  "Palson has a glitch in his power pack," Kevin said. "He's down to less than half power and sinking fast."

  I checked my own juice readings, making sure they were up, confirming the bars showing 100 percent. I said to Vanessa, "Check yours?"

  "Hmm," she said. "I'm operational. I'm at 67 percent."

  "Sixty-seven?" I navigated myself close to her. "I'm at 100."

  "Oh?" Vanessa switched over to Kevin. "I'm down too, looks like."

  "Every mission, there's always something." Kevin sighed. "We must have requisitioned a batch of bad power packs. Come on in, get yourself a new pack, and then grab a couple of packs for Palson."

  Vanessa turned her faceplate toward me.

  "Kevin?" I held my finger up to her, asking her to wait. "Are you sure we should split our section?"

  Kevin chuckled. "Aw, is poor little Hero afraid to be left alone with the scary corpse-sicles?"

  "Shut up." I laughed, waving Vanessa to go on. Once she’d headed off, I caught another big chunk of debris and pushed it aside, but kept watch on those corpses out of the corner of my eye.

  Just in case.

  # # #

  Vanessa flew out of the docking bay, topped up now with a new power pack, firing jets from her boots to give herself extra speed, holding Palson's replacement power packs in her right hand and waving at me with her left hand as she passed by.

  "I'll save some bodies for you," I said to her.

  "It's okay," she said. "You can finish up."

  I floated in a corner, surveying the now mostly cleared corridor, biting the inside of my lip; only the two corpses remained—a little girl and a woman—and I couldn't put that part of the job off any longer.

  "The first team is in the data center," Kevin said, surprising me after a long silence.

  "You don't sound happy." I grabbed a long, cylindrical light bulb, yanking it from its fixture, sliding it out whole, careful not to snap it or break it. Last thing I needed was a bunch of glass shards and the fine mist of crap inside a light bulb floating around.

  "It's not a data center at all," Kevin sighed. "It's a damned lab."

  "Of course," I chuckled. "This is the way of all things." I stopped in midair, happy for the excuse to ignore the bodies a little while longer, switching my viewscreen from my own field of vision, to a multiscreen showing what the other members of the team were looking at. I selected Motayen's screen, bringing the display up for a closer view. I zoomed in. "Are those...?"

  "Yeah," Kevin said. "They found one living, teenaged girl. Not sure how she's alive. The cell must be shielding her from the environmental shutdown. Trapped enough atmo for her to breathe for a bit, but she’s almost dry at this point."

  "What's Motayen going to do next?" I placed the tip of the long light bulb against the little girl's shoulder, turning her to face away from me, breathing deeply, keeping myself calm. "Search for the data center? Try to track down the database?"

  "Yeah, he's got Callus cutting through the ceiling while Moritz is cutting through the floor. He's hoping the data center is a level up or down, that our intel isn't totally screwed."

  “And the survivor?” I asked.

  “Nothing in our mission specs about rescuing anyone.”

  I switched my display back to local to concentrate on my own damned job. I set the light bulb's tip against the girl's back, trying to find her center of mass, and gave her a good shove. I didn't get her center quite right, and I sent her spinning down the hallway, heels over head, a doll I hadn't noticed flying out of her arms.

  She retreated away from me, no expression on her face, no strange movements. I breathed, and realized I'd been holding my breath. I'm such a dweeb.

  "Okay," I said, rotating the light bulb around, pushing myself toward the redheaded woman. "Keep me posted."

  "Wait. What the hell?" Kevin said. "They are moving. Edmund—!" His voice cut out with the click of a shifting of channels.

  I shoved the end of the light bulb against the woman's torso, right in the pit of her stomach. "Kevin?"

  I pushed her at an angle, to direct her back to the hallway intersecting this corridor, well out of the way when the team returned. Her hands came around, moving of their own volition, her head whipping forward, slinging all her red hair around.

  Her mouth sprang open and she howled at me, cords of muscle rising up on her throat, with her eyes wide and wild and black and inhuman, her fingers seizing the light bulb; she pulled herself to the side, moving herself up the light bulb, hand over hand, toward me.

  I rocketed away from her, my right hand brushing my side, raising my FC-BA-1500 slugthrower a moment later and waving the barrel in her direction. Despite my pounding heart, I reached out with my left to find a wall to stabilize myself against so I wouldn't send my own damned self spinning down the hall. My finger squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  Edmund and Kevin had all my weapons on lockdown, cold. Opening an emergency channel, I screamed, "Goddammit, Kevin! Fire me up! I need to kill something."

  The woman flowed toward me, her eyes unblinking and black, her arms outstretched, fingers wriggling.

  "Everyone calm the fuck down," Edmund's voice growled in my ears. "We are in suits. They are not. They're biologicals without weapons. They're freaking softies. They can't do anything to us. So compose yourselves, and start acting like soldiers. Wade through them like they're air. Kevin, turn everyone's guns off. Callus, what do you have upstairs?"

  "More lab stuff, but it's more of a chemical lab. The whole place is like a stew of liquids," Callus said with a voice much calmer than anything I'd have been able to manage.

  “I really want my w-weapons b-back on,” Palson said, voice jittery.

  I hit the wall and bounced off it, angling myself toward an innocent bench stuffed into a corner, not bothering a soul until I landed by it. The woman twisted toward me, her business suit jacket rising around her, her hair swirling.

  I pulled the bench out of the corner and swung it, striking the woman across the chest, sending her careening down the corridor. I'm not wading through anything.

  "Bingo," Moritz said, her voice high and pure.

  "Moritz?" Edmund said. "You got good news for me?"

  "Computers," she said. "Lots of them. Maybe too many of them. And a squad of techs drifting around, too. They’re looking downright unhappy to see us."

  I snared the light bulb as I passed it, storming down the hall toward the woman. She had stopped her progress, turning toward me, mewling in a high-pitched squeal from deep in her chest like a cat in heat. I charged toward her. She launched herself off the wall, stretching toward me, bluish sparks radiating from her fingertips.

  I brought the light bulb back and jabbed it toward her like a javelin, stuffing it into her mouth and down her throat, the point of the light bulb jamming into the soft flesh, and snapped it off so it shattered in her mouth. The impact changed her trajectory, flipping her over, sending her spiraling out of control down the hallway, away from me.

  She clawed at her mouth, her movements growing jerkier, weaker, slowing until she was completely still; she slammed against a wall, bouncing o
ff.

  “Getting hard to breathe,” Palson said over the team channel. “I need some fresh air.”

  My indicator flashed in my peripheral vision, alerting me that my reserves were down to 25 percent. "What the hell?"

  I looked down, around, hunting for a problem with my suit. The little girl—I'd forgotten about her—clung to my thigh without my feeling it, hugging me, her arms glowing red where they touched the thigh plates, blue arcs of plasma dancing from my armor to her. Her eyes were closed, her lids quivering, mouth open but moving slightly, making suckling noises. My energy had dropped down to 10 percent.

  I struck down with both hands, smashing her head on either side, crushing her skull beneath my palms, ripping her off my leg, bits of her skin adhering to me. I hurled her down the hall.

  "Kevin!" I nudged myself into the docking bay, lunging toward the airlock. "I'm coming in. I'm almost dry."

  "Oh, Nemesis-be-damned," Kevin said. "Get your ass in here, now. They're coming."

  My ambient mics picked up the sound of distant weapon fire.

  I crawled up the tube to the airlock, hurled myself inside, tabbed it shut, and set it to cycle. I relaxed, breathing heavily, waiting for the airlock. "They're coming? Motayen and the away team?"

  "No. All the people on the station we thought were dead."

  # # #

  My suit slowed, the hydraulics shutting down, the movement-augmenting functions turning off, forcing me to move the suit myself with my own strength. The pain meds no longer flowed from my med unit, leaving my side in white-hot agony. My breath fogged up my internal screen, the air inside my suit stinking of me, of sweat, of urine and excrement, gagging me. I grunted, straining to move my arms, the armor weighing me down, fighting against me, my shoulder refusing to move past a certain point, and I clawed myself into the hatch, fighting the urge to pop my helmet off, fighting the feeling of the suit closing up around me.

  Boultinghouse grabbed my head, his hands thudding against the sides of my helmet, reverberating through my head, and pulled me through the hatch into the ship.

  "I'm locking up," I said, not knowing if anyone heard me, a dull echo of my voice ringing in my own ears. “Keep going, keep going.”

  A crackle, a snap, and Sly Boultinghouse's voice, almost buried in digital static, said, "You and everyone else."

  “What?” My suit went dead, even the enviro. I held my breath, choking back a desperate scream.

  My power jumped up to 55 percent.

  "There you go," Sly said, his voice now clear.

  My automatics sprang back to life, clean-smelling, cool air flooding into my lungs, my internal screen clearing up so I could see again.

  Sly handed me a power pack. "You can get the other side."

  I slapped my hip, popping the dead power pack out, and rammed the new one in. I set my comm channel to inside the ship. "So what's going on?"

  "We're leaving," Boultinghouse said, swimming backward into the C&C room.

  I followed him, kicking off from a bench, cycling through the team's feeds and not finding much there. "Where is everyone?"

  "Drained." Fine sat at the main console, checking knobs, sliding from position to position. Captain Lu and Major Stemple, visible in the cockpit through an open hatch, flipped switches and turned knobs, going through their pre-flight checklist.

  All the screens were dark except for the three of us in the C&C room, their energy reduced to zero.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Edmund ordered us to kick off, nuke the station, and call in the cleaners," Fine said, his voice devoid of emotion, the voice of a man going through the motions, ignoring the pain, doing his job.

  "How many more power packs do we have?" I asked, grabbing the side of the hatch and slipping back down into the transport room.

  "No, don't even go there," Fine said. "We've got orders."

  Boultinghouse turned his head to me. "We've got 20 fully charged in the locker."

  "How much time before you guys leave?"

  "You guys?" Fine turned to me, shaking his head. "You mean ‘us guys.’ I don't care if you won medals for valor on Mars; you're not going back into the station. Those are the orders."

  "No." I shook my head, ducking down, flying across the room to the cabinet where the power packs were stored. "I'm sure he commanded you to get out of here and blow this baby. He didn't say anything about me not bringing some power packs back and helping them get away." I snatched a bag and started tossing cells into it.

  "I'm not going to wait for you," Fine said from the C&C room.

  "That's why I asked how much goddamned time I've got." I reached out to grab another bag, but Boultinghouse snagged it first, pushing me aside and sweeping the rest of the power packs into it with his arm.

  "You don't have any time!" Kevin bellowed.

  "Just turn my damned weapons on." I took hold of the bag, but Boultinghouse didn't let go.

  "Come on, Hero," he said. "Let's go."

  I leapt into the airlock with Boultinghouse beside me, sealing the hatch behind us. I banged my fist against the cycle button. As the air cycled, my weapons systems flashed to life, indicators along the edge of my vision flashing green.

  The door opened, revealing the little girl. My slugthrower roared to life, firing a single bullet, and her not-so-cute little head exploded, her body stiffening. I pushed her remains away, careful to touch only her blood- and brain-spattered dress, careful to stay away from her twitching limbs. Boultinghouse leapt from the lock, bounding through the cloud of bodily fluids and dissolved tissue floating in the air.

  "We've got a leak," Fine said. "Your shot punctured the tube."

  "Of course," I covered my faceplate and my camera with my arms, jumping through the blood, guts, and gore into the tube, twisting and bouncing into the bay at the end.

  Boultinghouse hugged the doorway, arm extended, slugthrower coughing and spitting fire, holding himself steady with his left hand grasping the door facing. I came up behind him, all my weapons safetied until he stopped shooting and pulled himself through, the bag of power packs banging against his back, secured around his neck.

  I launched myself out behind him, spinning to cover the adjacent hallway opposite from the way he faced. Two shapes moved in at the end of the hallway, ethereal shades. I pulled my sniper rifle from my back, extending it and slapping ammo into the chamber, the targeting reticle appearing in my primary screen. I tagged the head of the first figure and the second, programming the weapon for two successive double-taps.

  Using my wrist jet, I lowered myself to the floor, giving myself a stable and steady platform. I gave the command and fired four shots—two bogeys double-dead.

  Boultinghouse slid across to the wall of the corridor before us, sighting down the hallway. I rotated to protect our rear even though I knew it was clear, following the routine. The Sergeant Major always told me to follow the routine even when I didn't need to, so I'd always follow it when I did need to.

  We leapfrogged down the hall, guarding the front, then the back, killing anything unfriendly—not that there was much friendly. We made it to the intersection where Third Unit had stalled.

  "Crap," Boultinghouse said.

  Watching our rear, expecting him to move to the next position, I slammed into him, back to back. I twisted around, ready to fire, afraid I'd find Boultinghouse with one of these damned things on him, but instead I saw the remnants of Third Unit, with mounds of people from the station clinging to the suits of the unit, the suits frozen.

  "Wake up, man," I said to Boultinghouse, tabbing my sniper shot, marking targets. "You've got the left side of the room."

  "Um, yeah," he said, holstering his slugthrower and yanking out his sniper rifle, which hummed to life as he unfolded it. He flagged his targets, setting his feet.

  I initiated my sniper program, the program running through the sequence of targets I’d marked, ending the once-human things, filling the room with blood and gore, recoiling more than I’d expected
and driving me back, my legs pumping to keep from toppling over. I tried to reposition my feet, abs tightening to keep the suit steady.

  Once my first batch finished, I searched through the detritus and debris, looking for more bogeys outlined by my suit's sensors, labeling my next batch of shots. A whirlwind of destruction, our rifles barked, sputtering, throwing slugs out. My ambient mics shut off and my ears blocked, but still the sound roared deafeningly loud.

  My ammo getting low, I broke down my rifle, slinging it back into its holster on my back. Boultinghouse's fire ceased a heartbeat after mine, and he holstered his weapon.

  My eyes strained, searching my optics for some sign of movement besides the flood of once-human insides swirling in the zero-G across the room, spraying against the floor. The view cleared, showing Lorber's suit kneeling in a textbook firing position, energy drained; Malordo's suit drifting through the air, arms up like she was trying to drive something away; Tam lay curled up next to Palson's feet in a fetal position, her arms wrapped around his leg.

  A shape moved, separating itself from behind Lorber, hurling itself across the room at us—a man in a crumpled business suit, stained some unnamable color, screaming, his voice raw. I shot him twice to the head before I even realized I'd unholstered my pistol.

  Palson shrieked, trapped in his suit, gasping, his eyes wild, inhuman, his face bloody. His faceplate was open and his eyes were dark, the black traces of his veins spreading out from his eyes.

  “Fuck me,” Sly whispered, “this shit’s contagious.”

  "Are they alive?" Fine asked.

  "I think Palson's lost," I said. "You want to check on him, Sly?" I knelt down without waiting for an answer, pulling out one of Tam's power packs and inserting a new one.

  Behind me, Boultinghouse's slugthrower barked and Palson's screeching stopped.

  I nodded, biting back the sting of cowardice of surrendering the dirty job to him. New to the team, I was the last one able to make that decision; Sly had to make it. I tapped on Tam's helmet, opening up a link to her. "Sergeant Tam? Are you in there?"