by Isaac Hooke
Rifles in hand, two guard robots stood watch in front of the target hallway. The same robots that had escorted Hijak here, I thought.
The ship-wide firearm sensors could only be triggered by the motion of fast-moving projectiles. If I could bring my rifle right up against the brain cases before I fired, I could avoid setting off the alarm.
Now I just had to figure out how I’d get close enough to unleash two shots like that.
I ducked behind the bulkhead and retreated far enough to unload a spare magazine without drawing attention. I approached the T intersection, carefully peered past the edge to confirm the robots remained in position, and then threw the magazine down the opposite corridor.
I ducked against the bulkhead and held my breath.
The clang of polycarbonate-on-metal echoed down the intersection. I didn’t dare look, but given the loudness of each tread, I was certain both robots approached in unison.
Not good.
I had counted on one of the robots staying behind.
This was highly unusual.
Obviously, these aliens didn’t give a damn about proper watch tactics.
The clangs grew louder. My heart beat in time to each polycarbonate footfall.
I reviewed the map in my head, trying to remember if there was a way I could double back and come at the corridor from another direction while the two robots were distracted.
No. This was the only access point.
I had to deal with them here and now.
The clangs became nearly overwhelming—
The robots passed the bend.
I jabbed my rifle into the brain case of the first robot and fired.
I was already flowing toward the second robot—
Which trained its rifle on me—
The barrel of my weapon touched its brain case first—
I fired.
The robots toppled one after the other.
The firearm Klaxon didn’t trigger.
I’d evaded detection yet again. My luck wasn’t going to last forever though. If I hadn’t been wearing a strength- and speed-enhanced jumpsuit, I would have lost that battle. Another one of my nine lives used up.
I dragged the robots around the bend, to a storage alcove containing firefighting equipment.
I noticed a Phant was slowly oozing from only one of the bodies, toward me. The other robot didn’t exhibit any signs of alien possession. It must have been reprogrammed then. I was lucky it hadn’t contacted Security. Or maybe it had . . . I hoped my friend on the bridge kept quiet a little while longer.
I gave the liquid Phant the finger, then hurried down the T intersection to the now-unguarded hallway. I dashed toward the door directly opposite the Convalescence Ward.
It irised open when I approached. Normally these doors would open only to those with proper clearance, but I suspected the security protocols had been disabled. Probably a good thing, because I had neither a SACKER privilege escalation kit handy, nor the know-how to use it. I promised myself I’d fix that glaring hole in my spec-ops arsenal when I got back.
I stepped inside.
A sickly, septic odor immediately assailed my nostrils.
My eyes were drawn to a Weaver, which had been wheeled to the central operating table. One of its telescoping limbs operated a bone saw. Spinning at high speed, the saw approached the table . . .
. . . Where Hijak lay restrained, facedown. Naked from the waist up, he struggled frantically—his skull and spinal column were directly in the saw’s path.
Weavers were stand-alone units, and could be attached or detached to gurneys or tables as the operator saw fit. I hurried across the lab and, giving the bone saw a wide berth, I unlocked the Weaver from the table. The saw immobilized instantly. I wheeled the medical robot to the far wall, where I parked it and tentatively stepped back.
The machine didn’t attack me.
It wasn’t possessed then, but merely following the surgical procedures input by its operators.
I returned to Hijak. Bindings wrapped his hands and feet, and a steel vise secured his head to the operating table. His hair was shaven around the previously installed metallic knob.
I set the rifle down and removed my glove assemblies, knowing my own nimbler fingers would undo his binds faster.
Hijak couldn’t tell who I was, as he still lay facedown. He was whimpering, and from the smell I knew he’d soiled himself.
“Hijak, it’s me,” I said quietly.
“Rage!” The raw emotion in his voice got to me. It sounded like he was crying. I almost did, too. “Oh, Rage. Thank you. Thank you!”
“Make sure your Implant is off,” I said.
“It’s off, it’s off,” he said. “Thank you. I owe you everything.”
“You’re welcome, bro. I’d never leave you behind. You know that.”
He forced a laugh through his tears. “Of course you wouldn’t. I knew you’d come back for me. I knew it.” His body stiffened like a board. “The woman—did you—”
I had just finished unbinding his feet when the pain came.
Jiāndāo.
I don’t know where she was hiding, but she’d bided her time well. She got me right when I was at my most vulnerable.
I lay curled up on the floor. The pain went right through my jumpsuit, thanks to the steel knob installed in my skull.
When the fog of pain finally lifted, I heard her voice.
“You have returned to the fold, Floor,” Jiāndāo said. “I must say, I am glad you came back. Oh, what joy we will have together. I will step on you, and step on you again until your little heart stops and you are dead. Then I will chuck your lifeless body from the airlock so your UC friends can find you and manually extract the contents of your embedded ID. This last session will be my gift to you, and to them. Do you have anything to say before we begin? Or should we continue your friend’s operation first, so you can enjoy his last sentient moments? Maybe once he is integrated he can help torture you to death.”
Jiāndāo emerged from the far corner of the room, and pointed the Snake at my groin. I almost pissed myself just thinking of the coming pain.
No! a part of my mind yelled. You’re more than this! You’re more than a man! You’re a MOTH!
I wasn’t going to go out this way. Cowering like some dog in a corner.
I was going to go out roaring.
I turned my head to look at Hijak.
No one tortures my platoon brothers.
I started singing the marching cadence I’d learned in Basic.
“Everywhere we go-o!”
She cocked her head in amusement, and activated the Snake.
I gritted my teeth.
No pain. There is no pain. I am a MOTH.
Through the red haze of torment, I spotted a Weaver connected to a gurney behind Jiāndāo. One of the many medical robots in the room, this Weaver didn’t possess a bone-saw attachment.
Still, it would do for what I had in mind.
I continued the song, though the words came out slurred by agony.
“People wanna know-o.”
I stood up.
Jiāndāo increased the pain level to some of the worst I’d ever felt. Heart-stopping.
But my heart beat on.
There is no pain. I am a MOTH.
I took a step toward her. It helped that I wore a jumpsuit. I wouldn’t be able to do this with my tortured body alone.
She pointed the Snake at my gut, one the most sensitive regions of the torso, obviously trying to stop me.
But she couldn’t.
Not now.
“Who we are-r!”
The pain was all in my mind.
It wasn’t real.
I flung myself upon her.
She applied the Snake frantically now,
concentrating on my heart, trying to stop it.
But I ignored it all. Even ignored the frantic fibrillations of my heart.
I just had to live a little longer . . .
I wrenched the Snake from her and hurled it aside. Then I shoved her backward, onto the gurney, and turned her over.
“So we tell them!”
The agony began to subside, though I knew the ghost pain would linger for some moments. It always did when the intensity was so great.
Jiāndāo struggled beneath me on the gurney.
I hauled myself on top of her. Studiously avoiding the Phant-covered bar, I dug my knees into her back, and flipped open the control panel of the Weaver connected to the gurney.
I had limited knowledge of medical robots. I’d taken a corpsman course in MOTH training, though it was mostly battlefield training. I always regretted not taking the advanced version, but I knew enough about Weavers to do what I needed.
“We are the Navy!”
The touchscreen menus were labeled in Korean-Chinese, but seemed to contain the same number of options as a UC Weaver. I flicked through the unreadable options by memory until I reached the procedure I desired. At least, I hoped it was the procedure. If the menu positions were different, or if my memory was wrong, I could seriously mess up her body.
Not that she didn’t deserve it or anything.
All Weavers had the capability to perform low-invasive surgery by injecting a nanoprobe into the desired organ, such as the brain, eye, or heart. The probe was manipulated via a set of eight tightly coiled electromagnets.
I had turned on those electromagnets without actually injecting a probe.
Full power.
“The motherfucking Navy!”
I slid off Jiāndāo, who still lay facedown on the gurney.
The electromagnets only needed a few seconds to reach their full charge potential, and when they did, Jiāndāo slammed upward into the magnets. The metal bar embedded in her spine was glued fast.
I collapsed to the floor, my breath coming in ragged heaves, like an old man who’d just been stabbed in the heart. The pain came now in weak, sporadic waves, and I knew it would soon cease. Just a few more moments.
Jiāndāo remained quiet the whole time, silently flailing her arms. I guess the alien parasite was entirely unable to comprehend what I had done. Or maybe it was too shocked to say a word. Jiāndāo didn’t weep, didn’t scream, didn’t even beg. She just thrashed.
“No one . . . tortures . . . my platoon brothers.” I rose drunkenly to my feet and opened the remainder of Hijak’s binds.
“Rage,” he said, giving me a hug.
“We’re not free yet,” I wheezed. “Don’t go all celebratory on me.”
“Are you all right?” he said, glancing at my arm.
I was clutching at my chest, near my heart, though I hadn’t even realized it. I lowered my arm. “Yeah. Fine. Just a little out of breath.”
Hijak nodded at the woman. “What are we going to do with her?”
Behind me, Jiāndāo was still flailing, though less vigorously.
“Nothing,” I said.
Abruptly she slumped, and ceased all motion.
Intrigued, I walked toward the gurney. Beneath the electromagnets, I saw condensation pooling on the bar grafted into her spine. The liquid sweated directly from the metal, drawing into an ever-expanding line down the middle of the bar.
I thought the magnet was drawing the Phant out at first, but as the liquid continued to aggregate, moving toward the center of the bar, I realized that was not the case. In fact, it was going to spill off soon.
Right onto Jiāndāo’s skin.
“Must be some sort of fight-or-flight mechanism,” Hijak said. “And because you’ve trapped it, the Phant is choosing flight.”
Some of the drops had already seeped over the side of the metal, and slowly drizzled down toward Jiāndāo’s skin. I wasn’t sure if a single drop would burn through her flesh like acid, or whether her whole body would dissolve on contact.
I didn’t want to find out.
Even after everything Jiāndāo had done to me, I couldn’t let the Phant incinerate her. I knew the real owner of that body hadn’t been responsible.
My eyes lingered on the inside of her wrist, where, for the first time, I noticed a small eagle inked onto the skin. A symbol of hope and freedom, it only reinforced the notion that this person had been something other than a Keeper before her “integration.”
I disconnected the Weaver from the gurney.
“Rage, what are you doing?” Hijak said.
I slid the gurney aside so that Jiāndāo floated in midair.
“Rage?”
I grabbed the Weaver’s handhold and tilted the swivel arm of the main unit, slanting it and Jiāndāo slightly downward and to the side.
The liquid Phant flowed across the surface of the metal bar and began dripping from the lower segments, pooling on the deck below. Some of the liquid spilled down the sides of the bar first, coming dangerously close to Jiāndāo’s skin before trickling off.
“Is this a good idea?” Hijak said.
When the last few drops leaked onto the deck, the pool began moving.
Toward me.
I stepped around the glowing liquid and wheeled the Weaver—and Jiāndāo—away from the Phant. I deactivated the magnet.
Jiāndāo dropped to the deck like a deadweight. She remained motionless, even on impact.
“Help me move her,” I said.
Hijak reluctantly grabbed her legs and together we lifted her onto the main operating table.
“We can’t leave her here,” I said. “The Phant will just take her again.” I gave her a gentle pat on the cheek. “Jiāndāo. Get up. Jiāndāo.”
Hijak scooped up the rifle I’d set down, and trained it on the woman.
“Forget her, Rage,” he said. “Like you said, there’s no coming back. She’s had an alien species living inside her head for weeks, maybe months. Even if her mind is intact, she won’t be who she was before. You can’t go through something like that and expect to be normal. Plus she’s an SK. We know how trustworthy they are.”
I ignored Hijak, giving her a harder pat. Still nothing.
The Phant continued to approach.
I pinched her earlobe. Her head recoiled slightly, but she didn’t open her eyes.
I grabbed a light pen and held her eyelids open. I angled the pen so that it shone into both eyes at once, and I noted her pupils constricted equally, right away. I turned off the pen, and both pupils dilated back to baseline. According to my corpsman training, the brisk reaction of both eyes was a good sign, and indicated she hadn’t suffered complete neurological shutdown. Jiāndāo, or whoever she was before, was still in there somewhere.
I searched the drawers beside the table.
“It’s getting closer, Rage,” Hijak said.
I found an epinephrine autoinjector, a rectangular device about the size of a pack of playing cards. The black bar indicated the inject side, and was protected by a red guard in the middle. Normally reserved for treating anaphylactic reactions, the epinephrine in the device would certainly give her a kick.
I applied the injector to her thigh. The thing didn’t activate.
“If you are ready to inject, please remove the red safety guard,” came the voice from the device.
That’s right.
I did so.
“Place black end against outer thigh. Press firmly and hold in place for five seconds.”
I held the device to her outer thigh, above the fabric of her clothes, and the device counted out the time necessary for the drug to diffuse into her bloodstream.
“Five.
“Four.”
“Rage,” Hijak said. “Let’s go!”
“Three.
“One. Injection complete.”
I tossed the device aside.
“Please seek emergency medical attention,” the device intoned from the corner of the room.
Hijak had stepped back, and his gun was aimed downward now. “It’s climbing the table.”
I pinched the woman’s earlobe again.
This time she jerked upright and looked directly into my eyes. “You.”
“Me.”
Hijak tensed beside me, and he lifted the rifle, aiming it squarely at the woman’s head.
“How?” She glanced at her surroundings, taking in Hijak, and the Weavers.
“Magnets,” I said. “We set you free.”
“Then if I am free,” she said, “why is he pointing a rifle at my head?” Her tone was different now. Less assured. More accented.
I nodded at Hijak. “Lower it, bro.”
His eyes flicked toward me, then back toward her. Finally, reluctantly, he lowered the weapon.
He gazed at the deck and took another step back. “Rage . . .”
The woman followed his eyes, leaning forward to peer over the operating table.
She exhaled with a hiss and shoved me violently away.
Fear mixed with anger on the woman’s face as she leaped down from the table and grabbed one of the mobile IV drip stands. She lifted the long steel rod like a weapon.
“Stand down,” Hijak said. “Stand down!”
But she wasn’t even looking at him.
I intervened. “Hold, Hijak! She’s not attacking you, bro!”
He kept the weapon trained on her, and we both watched as the woman spun toward the operating table. She repeatedly bashed the IV stand into the glowing liquid at the base of the table, as if she could somehow harm the Phant. She wielded the thing like a sledgehammer, but it was no use, because all she did was displace the liquid. Glowing droplets splashed dangerously close to her feet.
I wrapped my hands around her upper body and pinned her arms. “Jiāndāo. Stop. You’re not harming it. Jiāndāo. Please . . .”
I dragged her away.
She was breathing hard, her body tense in my arms. Abruptly she relaxed and let the IV stand fall to the deck.
I released her, and she turned toward me, keeping her eyes lowered.
