by Scott Reeves
And then nearly the entire heap upon which she had been standing while in the claw came crashing down on her. She felt bones shattering within her, ribs breaking, spine snapping.
More pain, as if such a thing were even possible.
Yet she somehow maintained a preternatural fixation upon her plan. Everything that was happening to her was precisely what she had been expecting, which was why she had been balking at actually doing it.
But she had already died once, and had somehow recovered.
No, some deep, detached part of her realized. She hadn’t recovered; she had resurrected. Her amputated leg had been regenerated.
And she figured she could do it again.
So as the dump truck lurched into motion, she fought her way from the heap that had fallen upon her. She thrust with her arms and torso, she kicked with her legs. She wormed through narrow gaps in the debris, daring passages that she would not have otherwise attempted, letting glass and sharp metal fragments slice her open as she squirmed her way out of the heap.
Eventually she was successful in regaining her perch atop the garbage. Her flesh was shredded with a dozen gaping gashes that should have been the death of her, but weren’t; ragged wounds that oozed her lifeless blood and absorbed all sorts of nameless bacteria from the slime that greased her naked skin. In places, bone was visible.
From her vantage point atop the heap, she looked out across the vast landscape of garbage. Her truck was rising, rising up toward a narrow bay opening high in the wall.
She had no idea what lay beyond that opening, and began to second-guess herself. God Almighty, what had she been thinking? Why had she thought that being up here would be better than being down there?
With what little time remained before the truck carried her through the opening, she looked out across the cavernous room of trash, to see if there was some exit she might have used had she remained below.
She saw nothing. The room was just so immense and filled with a dense fog due to the tremendous heat and humidity that she couldn’t see the entirety of it. But what little she did see reassured her that she had done the right thing. There were no other exits that she could see. The path she had chosen offered the only hope for her.
Her truck soared through the bay opening.
And then her hope died, and panic seized her.
For beyond the bay opening was a large room about two hundred feet to a side. And the entire floor of the room, which was set twenty feet below the lip of the bay opening, was one huge transmat pad.
“No!” she cried out.
Who knew where the transmat would take her? Obviously the truck’s load was going to be dumped on the pad, with no effort made to sort the junk into useless refuse or recyclable material. If there was to be no separation, then the pad most likely led to an incinerator, or to some point in the far depths of space, where the garbage would trouble civilization no longer.
Whichever the case, the path she had chosen could only lead to her certain doom!
“No!” she cried out again.
She braced herself to leap off the truck. There was no obvious safe place to leap to, but she couldn’t let that stop her. If she jumped, maybe she could land at the edge of the pad. There was a narrow two-foot strip of ordinary metal plating between the edge of the pad and the wall. Maybe she could make that. Or maybe leap high enough into the air that by the time she fell back to ground, the transmat field would have taken the garbage and shut off.
But before she could leap, the truck rolled one hundred and eighty degrees. The bed’s contents, including her, fell.
Tumbling head over heels in the midst of a rain of garbage, the transmat activated, not reaching high enough to engulf the truck itself.
But Samala and the garbage were caught. She felt the transmat field tug at the atoms of her body.
“No!” she began to scream again, but before the entire word had left her lips, she had dematerialized and was streaming through subspace to what she assumed was her final death.
Andy Watson
Inside the maintenance building, Andy pressed a button on the console, causing the wall-length window to retract up into the ceiling, giving them access to the railed platform outside.
“What’s your plan?” Andy asked Malfred. Andy still couldn’t believe he was accompanying the teenager. Andy had just arrived on Caldor the previous afternoon. Then the catastrophe had struck, and all he’d wanted was to get back off the planet. Now, here he was, about to go into the depths of the world city with a foolish young man on what was most likely a suicide mission. He had to keep telling himself it was to help a fellow Christian who had been murdered, and to help a potential Christian, which was how he saw Malfred.
Mal went to the stack of force rifles that Rodor’s men had left along the wall to the left of the panoramic window. “We’ll ride that maintenance platform down as far as we can. Hopefully it will reach all the way to Samala’s floor.”
Andy carefully bent past the ledge to peer down the side of the megascraper. It was a sheer vertical plane of concrete punctuated by occasional windows or arched entranceways that let out onto bridges spanning the chasm to the neighboring building. Since there would be no one up here to halt the platform when they got to a stopping point, they would be forced to make a quick jump through a window or onto a bridge as the platform crawled past.
“I suppose it will be okay,” Andy said dubiously as he pulled back from the open window.
Mal was checking the charges on the force rifles, looking for the fullest ones. “Yeah, I know it’s not the best plan,” he said. “But we can’t use the elevators, since they’re not open to the public. Unless you want to haul along our new friend Rodor. His thumbprint will get us access.”
“No,” Andy said.
“Thought not. He probably wouldn’t be very cooperative right now. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to use the stairs, or walk through the hallways and corridors, which, you might not be aware, are currently thronged with bloodthirsty psychos.”
“So I’ve heard,” Andy said.
Mal stepped onto the platform carrying two force rifles. “So hit the button and climb on.”
Andy pressed the button on the console, and the platform lurched into motion, beginning a slow crawl downward. He hurriedly climbed aboard.
Mal tossed one of the rifles to Andy, who fumblingly caught it.
“Lock and load,” Mal said.
Andy looked distastefully at the rifle in his hands. “I don’t know if I can bring myself to shoot those things,” he said.
Mal grinned. “Trust me. When the time comes, you’ll shoot.”
Wheels squeaking, the platform crawled down the side of the building. Andy and Mal settled in for a long journey.
Doctor Kulash Dmitriyano
Kulash was in one of the isolation wards of the Delphic Oracle’s infirmary. He, the minister Joyce Rider, and the two force cubes encaging Rodor Batsalam and Emilia Hocking had been brought here a short time earlier, after a preliminary medical scan on the rooftop hadn’t turned up any known contagions. The two in the force cubes were obviously infected with something, but the cubes’ fields would keep any germs or viruses sealed within.
The rest of Kulash’s small band was in a neighboring isolation ward, being closely monitored by Doctor Chebbors’s assistants. With, of course, the exception of Andy Watson and the boy, Milfred something or other. Kulash had observed them slipping back into the maintenance bunker earlier, but had kept his silence. Personally, he didn’t care where they had been going or what their intentions were. He had no need or use for them, so their absence was irrelevant.
Doctor Chebbors himself was standing next to Kulash, along with Captain Jayce Michaels.
Kulash had taken an instant dislike to the captain. The man seemed too gruff and overly confident. Over-confidence was one of the ingredients of catastrophe.
And it was clear that the Captain returned Kulash’s dislike.
&n
bsp; But Kulash was a professional, and had every confidence in his ability to set his dislikes aside in this moment of crisis.
“There seems to be two types of zombies,” said Kulash.
“Is that what we’re calling them, then?” interrupted Doctor Chebbors.
“It’s not a very scientific term, I admit,” Kulash said with a dismissive wave. “But it is accurate. For all practical purposes, we are dealing with zombies.”
“Fine,” Chebbors grudgingly allowed. “We’ll stick with the name for now.”
“And what are the two types?” Michaels asked.
“I guess you haven’t been out there,” Kulash answered, waving his hand in a vague gesture that took in the world beyond the ship. “But you should know, it’s a completely obvious difference.”
“Enough with the superior attitude,” Michaels growled. “Just answer my question.”
Kulash, nonplussed, answered, “Why, slow-moving and fast moving. That’s the two types of zombies.”
“So why are there two types?” Michaels asked.
“Obviously, captain,” Kulash said, “the fast-moving ones come out of the transmats, which is the source of their infection. The slow-moving ones caught the infection when they were attacked by the fast-moving ones.”
“But what’s the reason for the difference in their movement?” Chebbors asked. “Why should it matter how they’re infected?”
Kulash shrugged. “I don’t really think it does make a difference, other than that the fast-moving ones are a bit harder to fend off if they attack you. My best guess is that if you’re infected through the transmat, you’re instantly infected throughout your entire body due to your existing as a disassembled bunch of atoms. Whereas if you’re bitten, the infection takes time to spread throughout your body. My prediction is that once the infection has been fully dispersed throughout the body, a slow-moving zombie will become a fast-moving one. This hypothesis can be tested at a later date. But they’re both just as fatal. You’re just as doomed to zombie-dom no matter which infects you.”
“You say they’re spreading an infection?” Michaels asked.
“Again, Captain, that much is obvious.”
“You should know,” Michaels said, “that I am on the verge of beating you senseless. Consider this as your only warning, and adjust your attitude appropriately.”
Chebbors moved between the two. “Cut the shit, you two. Doctor, do you have any idea as to the source of the infection, and how to stop or cure it?”
Kulash nodded and walked over to the two force cubes. Emilia Hocking was still a raging beast within hers, throwing herself at the force field, gnashing her teeth at them, as she strained to get at Kulash.
Rodor Batsalam, on the other hand, was now quiescent; he hunched within his cube, his chest heaving as he took deep, massive breaths as though he couldn’t get enough air and his heart thumped at three times its normal rate. But other than that, he appeared calm, and was showing signs of returning awareness.
Kulash indicated both cubes. “We have here two infected specimens. The first,” he said, indicating the raging woman, “is my one-time secretary Emilia Hocking. The second,” he waved at Rodor, “is some sort of government official. You will note the differences in the intensity of their activity. My theory is that this difference is due to the fact that Emilia, as I happen to know from personal interaction with her, is —was— an atheist, while Batsalam here is a confessed Christian. Are you familiar with Christianity, Captain?”
“An ancient, dead religion,” Michaels said. “I’ve only met a couple practitioners in my life, and both of them were kooks.”
Chebbors picked up a scalpel from a nearby tray, and examined it with idle interest. “And why is that significant to this epidemic, Doctor?”
“Galactic pandemic, Doctor,” Kulash corrected. “But to answer your question: it’s significant because I believe that we are witnessing not a plague, but a re-emergence of the Death Cure.”
“The Death Cure!” Michaels said. “Shit! Now that I do know about. That’s one of the Holy Grails of modern science, right? I’ve taken numerous university scientists on expeditions to track down one lead or another. They’ve all been unsuccessful, of course.”
“Very good, Captain!” Kulash said with overdone enthusiasm, like a teacher praising a dull student who needed encouragement.
Michaels grumbled and bunched up a fist, which he began thumping nervously against his thigh.
“Since this crisis began,” Kulash said, “I have been gathering evidence as well as pondering ancient history. At this point, I am ready to put forth my theory.”
“Which is?” Chebbors prompted.
“Thousands of years ago,” Kulash began in a lecturing tone, “those who had successfully received the Death Cure —namely, Christians— were tossed into a black hole at the beginning of the Second Apocalypse War. The same black hole that had, ironically, been used a thousand years earlier to get rid of those who had worshiped the Beast. Why was this done? Because these Christians were virtually indestructible, of course. How else to wipe them from the world’s stage?
“This black hole was accidentally submerged into subspace when the dictator Jesus Christ was cast into the singularity. At that moment, the accumulation of so much extra mass cracked open subspace for the first time in history, and the black hole sank in. Of course, the crack sealed an instant later, and it took several years of study before scientists were able to crack it open again. At that time it was discovered that subspace consisted of many levels, and Christ and his followers had fallen into the deepest level. It is my contention that they have been trapped there ever since, existing as an amorphous mass of disassociated molecules, including the elements of the Death Cure that were inside their bodies.
“This was the subspace level which Caldor recently cracked open. Every transmat signal sent through that deep level has picked up the Death Cure, and rematerialized passengers are fully infected with it. It somehow shatters their minds, and only followers of Christ recover, their bodies now capable of regeneration and resurrection. In other words, cured of death. This can’t have been the means through which the Cure was administered back in the day, but the effect is the same.
“For evidence of my hypothesis, I would direct your attention to the Encyclopedia Galactica, and to the two specimens now before us. And let us not forget our third specimen.” Here Kulash paused to indicate Joyce Rider, who was sitting silently in a far corner of the medical bay. “A devout follower of the man Christ, her mind recovered from undergoing the Death Cure. So to summarize: we have on hand three specimens, two of which represent one pathway, obviously the desired one, that the infection might take, and the third, the other pathway.”
Jayce Michaels yawned dramatically. “Wow. You really know your history. That’s five minutes I’ll never get back,” he said smarmily. He continued in a more sober tone: “So what can we do to stop it?”
“Stop it?” Kulash asked. “You want to stop the spread of immortality? Captain, we don’t want to stop it! We want to find a way to make it effective against all humanity, not just members of a narrow religious sect. It is my belief that members of this sect may have a unique gene or some other physical factor that everyone else lacks. Given enough time, I’m sure I could—”
Michaels interrupted, vehemently shaking his head. “No, asshole. Your solution lets billions of people die while you search for a way to make this plague more effective. We need to find a vaccine, and once we stabilize the galactic situation, we can start looking for your special factor.”
“Perhaps I can do both at once,” Kulash suggested. “Alternatively, if we wish to take Rodor’s path and gain immortality the most simple and immediate way, we could accept the dictator Christ as our savior and invite him into our lives, which is, I believe, the way it is traditionally done. That is the only inoculation available to us at present.”
“Yeah,” Michales said. “That’s not going to happen. I can’t s
hut off reason and sanity that easily. Tell me, do I need to blow the planet crackers or not?”
“I say no,” Kulash said. “We might still be able to save the population of this planet.”
Chebbors interrupted, motioning them both closer. “I have a better suggestion,” he said, as Kulash and Jayce leaned in.
“Yes?” Michaels asked.
“We all die!” Chebbors shouted. Even as he uttered the words, his hand rose, and in one deft, fluid motion, he slashed the scalpel he’d picked up across the throats of both Kulash and Michaels.
As both men gurgled and clutched at their fountaining throats in a vain attempt to keep their lifeblood from escaping, Doctor Chebbors went to the force cube containing Emilia Hocking.
Joyce Rider was by now reacting to his brutal attack on the two men. She rose to her feet and opened her mouth...
...even as Chebbors deactivated the field encaging Emilia, effectively opening her force cube...
...and Joyce screamed. Screamed both at the sight of Michaels and Kulash writhing and thrashing on the floor as the life went out of them, and at the sight of Emilia leaping from the deactivated force cube.
Chebbors ran from the infirmary, closing and locking the hatch behind himself.
Doctor Boris Chebbors
Doctor Boris Chebbors walked away from the hatch of his infirmary. The bulkhead was soundproof, so he could no longer actually hear the woman screaming. But in his mind he still could. And he liked it. It was always delicious to hear a Christian scream.
He threaded his way through the corridors toward his quarters. He didn’t pass many fellow crewmembers. Not many were out and about; the majority of the crew currently had no duties to perform since the ship was planet-bound. And since they couldn’t exit the ship for shore leave due to the present crisis, they were keeping to their quarters, sleeping, or losing themselves in virtual reality, or fornicating, or whatever their personal pleasure was.
That would make Chebbors’s task much easier.
