by Rob May
‘We heard gunshots,’ the woman said. ‘What’s goin’ on? What are you kids doing?’
‘What you got there, Squirt?’ the man drawled, eyeing-up Kat’s laser pistol. ‘Hand over all your weapons. Slowly. Point them at us though, and you’re fish food.’
Kat heard Brandon’s voice in her head. Now what’s your plan? He sounded calm and amused.
Oh, um, can you put them to sleep with the bionoids? she thought back.
I can do, but only one at a time. Difficult to concentrate on both at once. Might be risky either way—they’re ready to shoot at the first sign of trouble. Reckon you can disarm the girl with the Uzi?
The girl with the what?
The Uzi! The big bad ass pistol!
Kat laughed, which only made their opponents scowl and inch forward. Okay, she thought to Brandon. On three then! Three …
Two … Brandon counted.
One … go!
Kat offered out her laser pistol, muzzle pointing down. But quick as a flash she jerked her wrist and spun the lightweight weapon around, shooting at the Uzi woman before she could react.
Uzi woman’s hand vanished in a flash of light and the Uzi itself dropped to the floor with a thud. There was another thud as the man next to her fell too and embarked on an afternoon nap.
‘Run,’ Kat recommended to Uzi woman, who took her advice and fled.
Brandon slung the machine gun over his shoulder, clipped the Uzi to his belt, and they set off down the mall … literally down it, since the tilt of the ship was now worryingly apparent in the long corridor of shops. To make matters worse, for thirty terrifying seconds the ship seemed to shake and vibrate, accompanied by a horrible groaning sound from below decks. The lights in the mall flickered off and on and off again.
Kat and Brandon paused at the foot of a stairwell. ‘The generators and turbines probably just flooded,’ Brandon guessed. ‘We might need torches before we need water wings.’
Kat gave him a nudge. ‘Just keep moving. Right now I just want to be up near the top deck and not get trapped down here.’
Brandon leaped up the steps two at a time, despite being weighed down with guns. What had put him in such a playful mood? Kat guessed that it was the sheer pressure and excitement at having to focus on one simple goal: surviving. For the next few hours at least, Brandon wouldn’t have the cares of the universe on his shoulders.
Below them there was a clang as something was knocked over, and a smash as glass was broken.
Kat and Brandon froze. ‘What was that?’ Kat asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
‘I can’t sense anyone nearby,’ Brandon said, ‘which means …’
‘… that it’s not human this time,’ Kat finished. ‘Come on, keep going! Let’s just hope it finds other people to chase!’
They made their way up and back to the topmost cabins near the stern of the Proteus. They took a wide berth around other passengers they encountered, but they could still hear shouts, bangs and the occasional scream echoing about the ship. It was a chaos they definitely wanted to avoid. Eventually, they made it to the cabins, and were hurrying up a long corridor, with doors on either side, when Brandon motioned for them to stop.
‘What is it?’ Kat hissed. ‘We’re almost there!’
‘Gem and Jason are right up ahead,’ Brandon confirmed, ‘but there’s someone or something else …
‘Something?’ Kat squeaked. ‘Human? Thanamorph? Saoirse? What is it?’
One of the doors ahead was ajar. Kat noticed a trail of red splatters that led along the carpet and into the cabin. She didn’t need Brandon’s bionoid powers to work out that a trail of human blood meant that someone was still alive … or at least had been when they entered the cabin. Someone who had been injured, bitten probably, and was now desperately trying to find some help from friends …
She went ahead of Brandon and pushed the door open with her foot.
‘Liam?’
The engineer was sitting on the cabin floor, propped up against the edge of the bed. He had one hand pressed against the side of his face, and was sweating profusely. His long brown hair was matted and greasy, and his skin was pale.
Kat knelt down next to him. ‘Are you alright? What happened?’
‘I thought … I thought I could save the Captain,’ he said softly. ‘I thought if I got us to a lifeboat, I could then put him in the water … float him on the end of a rope or something … keep him chilled like the others in the freezer … so that he wouldn’t turn, and maybe even the other things would steer clear of us too.’
‘Not a bad plan, actually,’ Brandon grunted from where he was leaning against the door frame. ‘A warm-blooded host wouldn’t transform as fast, if at all, in cold water.’
‘But he did turn, right?’ Kat said. ‘Before you could get him off the ship?’
Liam burst into tears and lowered his hand from his face: his right ear had been chewed off, and awful teeth marks scored his cheek and neck. ‘Can you help me?’ he sobbed.
Kat looked to Brandon, who shook his head. His eyes fell to Kat’s laser pistol, and Liam caught the look.
‘Oh god, oh god, oh god, just do it! Do it now! Shoot me now and get it over with. I don’t want to become one of them. The Captain’s whole body tore open when he changed. The flesh just fell away …’
Liam had put his hands over Kat’s and guided the laser pistol up to his forehead. Brandon gave Kat a curt nod and left the cabin. She had the implicit permission of two people, but Kat’s fingers were frozen on the trigger. She just couldn’t kill a fellow human, not even as an act of mercy.
Then another hand appeared and took the pistol from her. It was Jason. ‘It’s okay, sis,’ he said. ‘Let me do this.’
Kat got up and went to join Brandon in the hall. She held him close and tried to block out the conversation inside.
‘Hello, mate. You look rough.’
‘I’m sorry, Jason. I wanted to come with you, into space and all that, but it just seemed too fantastical and unreal. I just couldn’t believe it. The Captain’s always been good to me, so I …’
‘It’s alright. I don’t believe some of the crazy shit that I’ve seen sometimes either. Hey what’s that? Look out there, you can see the Moon …’
‘What? I don’t see—’
ZZAP!!
17—DELUGE
Kat found Gem in the cabin, throwing supplies into a holdall: torches, waterproof jackets, tins of food they’d had with them since leaving the mainland, and a couple of distress flares they had scavenged while aboard the Proteus. She had another of Saoirse’s laser pistols, which she happily gave to Kat. Jason swapped the other with Brandon, in exchange for the submachine gun and the Uzi.
Kat went for her Bowie knife that was stashed under her pillow. Its thirty-centimetre clip-pointed blade was strangely comforting. The question was, would she ever actually get to use it? Could she take down one of the silver-armoured thanamorphs with just a knife?
She examined the weapon wistfully. The handle was covered with dark green rubberised plastic; at least it would be nicely camouflaged in the jungles around Perazim, if they ever made it to Corroza.
Jason was going through a professional inspection of the new firepower, at the same time as telling Gem about Liam’s fate. Kat noticed Brandon turn away in response to her brother’s offhand manner. She watched him walk to the window and stare out over the turbulent grey sea.
‘The sub is fully loaded,’ Jason reported, ‘but even so, thirty rounds aren’t going to last long. Let’s hope Saoirse gets back soon.’ Jason had dressed himself in matching red tracksuit top and bottoms, and bright white trainers. He looked ridiculous, but somehow tough and threatening at the same time.
‘Where is Saoirse?’ Kat wondered aloud, looking around the cabin.
‘Out scouting for ammo and supplies,’ her brother told her. ‘I offered to go with her, but she insisted she operates better alone. So I decided to stay and guard Gem instead.’
Gem gave him a look. ‘I told her that it would be me keeping you out of trouble,’ she said.
Kat started telling Gem and Jason of her plan to try and remain on the ship for as long as possible, but she tailed off when she heard Brandon punch the window in frustration. When she looked over she saw it shiver and vibrate as if he was pummelling it with the bionoids.
‘I wanted to help Saoirse, Kat,’ he said when she went to him. ‘She came all the way from Corroza for my help and I’ve just been useless to her. She gave me a simple job: monitor the thanamorph DNA, and I screwed it up. I could have saved Liam if I’d have just done something, anything to stop him letting the Captain out.’
Kat shook her head. ‘Liam made the wrong choice, not you. He paid the price …’
‘I tried to teach Saoirse how to use the bionoids herself earlier on the voyage,’ he went on, ‘before all this craziness went down—I mean, she’s clever enough to control them—but I couldn’t quite work out how to sync her brainwaves with them. Now look at the mess we’ve gotten into. She must be wishing she never bothered coming here.’
Kat didn’t know what to say. Brandon trusted Saoirse enough to try and teach her to use the bionoids, but he didn’t trust me. Or maybe he just didn’t think I was clever enough!
She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, trying to find something to say that would help. ‘Sometimes you can’t be the one saving the universe all the time. Sometimes, when things go to hell, you’ve just got to be brave and hang in there!’
The ship rolled and a great wave of water sloshed over the deck and smacked against the cabins below them, sending white spray up that splattered against the window, making them both jump in surprise. A flash of lightning lit up the violent sea, and then a jarring groan of thunder completed the triple whammy.
‘Well that’s just great,’ Brandon said, but at least he flashed a grim smile. ‘Just what we needed: a storm to liven things up. I think it would be safer in hell!’
‘Come on, troops,’ Gem said, slinging her pack over her shoulder. ‘Let’s make a move.’
They filed back out into the corridor. Jason took the lead, holding the submachine gun up high at his shoulder, in the kind of threatening position that showed potential enemies that he meant business. ‘Where are we heading anyway?’ he called back along the line.
Kat was bringing up the rear. ‘Take the next stairs up,’ she said. ‘There’s a restaurant I found at the rear of the ship. Nobody goes up there now—nobody human, anyway. And there are windows looking out over the rear deck, so we can watch for rescuers.’
Jason kicked open the door to the stairs. ‘And what are our chances of being rescued … honestly?’
‘Fifty-five-point-five percent,’ Brandon said with a straight face, which he held as Jason looked back at him with an incredulous expression.
‘I sent out a distress signal, remember,’ Kat said. ‘From the bridge. We’ve just got to trust that—Jason, look out!’
Something was crashing down the stairwell: something humanoid and silvery. Jason let rip with the submachine gun. Bullets sprayed in all directions. The noise the gun made was a surprising light airy whipping sound. Some shots hit the thanamorph as it careened down the zig-zagging steps, tearing into its broad chest and ripping away chunks of its knife-like claws. But still it kept on coming.
‘Jason!’ Gem shouted. ‘Short controlled bursts, remember!’
Jason paused for a fraction of a second. The thanamorph rounded the final twist in the stairs and crouched as if ready to pounce. But it didn’t get the chance: Jason squeezed the trigger and hammered five rounds right between the monster’s red eyes. It collapsed in a heap with a sound like that of a bag of scrap metal hitting the floor.
They picked their way carefully around the creature’s remains. As the others started to climb the stairs, Kat knelt and picked up a piece of the thanamorph’s metallic armour. She dragged it around in the sticky black blood, marking out an arrow on the floor that pointed the way they were going.
‘That’s so Saoirse knows where to find us,’ she explained.
Gem was impressed. ‘You know you’d fit right in on the MI Zero training program. Lateral thinking in high-pressure situations … that’s just the kind of skills they need when it comes to dealing with unpredictable scenarios such as alien invasions. We could be agents together one day, Kat!’
Kat sighed. ‘Maybe if I train hard, I’ll be ready for the next alien invasion,’ she said. ‘We don’t even know yet if anyone’s left from MI Zero. I hope Lieutenant Hewson is still around at least.’
‘It’ll be just us four then,’ Gem insisted as they climbed the stairs. ‘We’ll continue the fight in their name!’
‘I don’t want to fight,’ Kat said, trying to shrug off Gem’s excitement.
‘You don’t want to avenge your parents? I think about mine all the time, and poor old James … those aliens destroyed my entire life. If we ever get off this ship I’m going to go after them so hard …’
‘I don’t want to fight,’ Kat said. ‘I don’t want to avenge. I just want to live, Gem. Is that too much to ask?’
‘Living well is the best revenge,’ Brandon chimed in philosophically.
They reached the top of the stairs. ‘Turn left here,’ Kat said.
‘Look ahead with the bionoids, Brandon,’ Gem added.
Brandon nodded. ‘Remember I can see ahead but not sense thanamorphs, so I could miss something that's hiding. But I think it’s safe.’ He turned to Jason as they advanced carefully. ‘How does it feel letting Gem and Kat come up with all the ideas and call the shots?’
‘I don’t care,’ Jason replied. ‘Just so long as I still get to shoot things!’
———
They made it to the restaurant where Kat had hidden earlier. It seemed like days ago now, but in fact it had only been a few hours. The spectacular view out of the wide rear windows was now a roiling vista of crashing waves, grey dust clouds and violent rain. Hail was battering at the deck beyond, and visibility was so bad that they could barely see the white navigation light at the stern of the ship.
Kat found the switch that turned on the lights in the chandelier. The elaborate crystal structure swung about as the ship rode the waves, and the lights flickered constantly. Jason straight away found Kat’s tinned-bean curry, which was still warm. He spooned some into his mouth straight from the pot, and didn’t even flinch when the chilli powder hit his taste buds. Kat and Gem got busy right away pulling tables into the centre of the floor to form fortifications. Brandon used his powers to set up visual feedback in nearby passages, from where enemies might approach.
‘Don’t give yourself brain-ache,’ Kat told him, going over to where he was sitting on a barstool concentrating. ‘Save your strength until we really need it. We’ll get through this with barricades and bullets!’
‘It’s just so frustrating,’ he said. ‘After all we’ve been through, to find and master this amazing technology, and now we can’t use it.’
‘Trust me,’ Kat said. ‘We’ll get through this too, and then you’ll get your chance to save some people back on your home planet.’ She kissed him and delighted in the awkward face he made. ‘Come on, show me your laser pistol! How many blasts have you got left?’
They held their weapons side-by-side and checked the glowing read-outs on the back of the barrel, where the hammer would have been in a conventional firearm. Brandon had enough charge for twenty-two shots; Kat had twenty-four. ‘How many bullets you got, Jason?’ she called over to her brother.
‘Only ten rounds left in the sub,’ her replied. ‘This curry could do with spicing up a bit, you know. I feel like something a bit stronger, seeing that this could very well be my last meal. Oh yeah, and the Uzi’s fully-loaded: twenty rounds!’
Kat shivered at the casual morbidity in Jason’s voice. There didn’t seem to be any fear or shock in any of them anymore, just a grim acceptance that things were goi
ng to be tough now, forever. The way that her brother obsessed about guns and ammo; the way that Gem acted like she was leading a mission; the way that Brandon felt like he had to save the universe … they certainly weren’t kids anymore. What a way to grow up!
She tried to stack two tables on top of each other, but Gem talked her out of it. ‘Put one in front of the other. Height won’t help us here—it will just restrict our views. We just need to create obstacles to slow the thanamorphs down so we can get in clean shots and conserve ammo.’ She passed Kat a pile of white linen tablecloths. ‘Here, use these to bind the barricade together, or else this whole structure is going to slide apart at the next big wave.’
Kat gave Gem a salute, but her heart wasn’t really in the mood for joking around as normal. What was that strange feeling at the pit of her stomach, rising up to her mouth? A metallic taste, like aluminium … Fear, that was it! She looked out into the storm. There was almost as much water in the sky as there was in the sea; a rescue ship would most likely pass right by them without even seeing them, and surely no helicopters or planes could fly in this weather.
She secured the obstacles to one another, and also to the columns that held the ceiling up, grimly noting that, despite the swell of the rollers, one corner of the restaurant was noticeably lower than the others. The ship was listing quite badly both to prow and starboard. How fast would they go down, she wondered. Would the Proteus simply slip beneath the waves, or would it suddenly plunge nose-down like a dropped stone?
Jason must have noticed the fear in her eyes. ‘Come on, Sis, we’ve gotten out of plenty of other tight spots. Remember Stonehenge?’
‘At least the sun was shining that day! Hey, point that thing away from me!’
