by Aaron Bunce
“You don’t understand, officer–” Soraya argued, turning to face him.
“I think I understand pretty fuckin’ good. It’s simple. It always is. You cushy folk hob knob your way to a juicy contract out here in the black, come out and soak up an ass-load of company credits, act like the rules don’t apply to you while you’re here, and when your contract is up, just leave. What happened? Did he catch you in bed with another guy? Freak out and break some stuff, scream a lot? Is that it? Well, look at this,” Blake said, jabbing his baton at the bloody interior of the elevator. “You people are all the same. Don’t think about the consequences…until someone ends up with their guts smeared all over the inside of a lift. Then we have to clean up the mess.”
Anna slapped her arms as the crawling, sickening feeling intensified. She massaged her forearms, the sensation so strong it made her want to pull her skin off. Soraya shuddered next to her. They could both feel it.
“No! We just need to go…now!” Anna gasped.
“I can’t get the alarm station on the freaking radio, man. It’s all static...just static. The network is down, too…no data point connectivity,” Garrett said, cutting off Blake’s tirade and moving directly outside the elevator doors.
“What’s wrong with her? Is she tweaking out?” Blake asked, looking to Soraya, then back to Anna. “Are you brain boiling, honey? Oh, this is rich. Were you all tweaking together and he lost his shit? Is that it?”
The elevator car shook violently, the light swaying from side to side.
“What in the hell was that…?” Garrett asked, turning back to the doors.
A shudder vibrated the ground beneath their feet a heartbeat before a massive, dark form dropped through the elevator. The ceiling exploded in a shower of broken metal and shattered plastic, the light crashing against the wall and going dark. Garrett pitched back as something lashed out of the darkness, hitting him with a startlingly loud and wet crunch.
The security officer picked up his baton and staggered to a knee, but a long, white shape shot out of the dark elevator and hit him square in the chest. It punched clean through his back, a perfect line of pulpy gore splattering the ground behind him.
Garrett fell back and started to flop about, his baton dropping out of his hand and rolling towards Soraya’s feet. A long, bone-white shape pulled back from the fallen man, folding in on itself and disappearing into the dark lift.
“Garrett! Man, get up! What in the fuck was that?” Blake cursed and jumped around them. He kicked Garrett’s body, but the officer just twitched and jerked. He hadn’t seen what Anna did…hadn’t seen the spear-like shape plunge right through him.
“Weapons are prohibited on the station, asshole! Throw it down and step out of the lift! Now! Do it, and get on the fucking ground!” Blake growled, widening his feet and snapping his baton out to full length. He snapped something on the handle and the glowing end shone brighter in the dim hallway, electricity snapping off the prong.
“I said step out of the goddamn lift! Now! Do it or I’ll fry your ass crispy and then dump you in an airlock! I’ll space you, motherfucker!” He swept his baton through the air just outside the door, the blue flash flickering off something dark and moving inside.
“Garrett, get up, man!” Blake nudged his counterpart, and the man moved in response. He coughed, gagged, and started to roll over.
Long, boney fingers appeared around the lift doors, and with a grinding crash, they slid open the rest of the way.
“Got ya,” Blake snarled as the man-sized form moved out of the lift. He jabbed his baton straight ahead, but staggered back as two long, pale appendages streaked out the darkness and punched clean through his shoulders.
A wave of sickness washed over Anna, her knees giving way and sending them both tumbling back to the ground. She tried to cry out, to scream and deny the horror, but she knew the sound wouldn’t come out.
Blake shook and convulsed, his angry curses devolving into pathetic, twisted cries. He slumped towards the ground, but immediately started to rise, his feet lifting clear of the ground.
Anna fumbled over Soraya and managed to get her feet straightened. The sickening churn in her stomach, the almost slimy crawling feeling over her skin, intensified. It radiated out of the elevator, from the darkness, washing over them like putrid, loamy rain.
The creature slid slowly out of the elevator, long, skeletal arms bending and propelling it between the doors. It stomped forward on long, muscular legs, another entirely different set of limbs sprouting out of its pelvis. A foot fell free, landing on the ground as it moved. The hall light gleamed off the human skull, what had formerly been Soraya’s husband. The skin and jaw was now gone, his frayed tongue flicking and lashing at the air.
It held Blake off the ground with long, sinewy appendages, the air filled with the creak, rattle, and crunch of grinding bone and popping cartilage.
“W-W-What…the f-f-f…” Blake groaned and sputtered.
Soraya got her feet under her first and heaved Anna up with her. They staggered back, falling against the wall as the creature’s chest opened, sharp ribs splayed like curving teeth. A human-shaped head appeared from the within the chest cavity, its jaw working silently and its eyes milky white.
Anna rolled against the wall and pushed off, but Soraya lurched forward before she could stop her and scooped the fallen batons off the ground. She turned as two smaller boney appendages unfolded from the creature’s chest cavity, rose up like bent spider legs, and snapped down, plunging violently into Blake’s chest and face. They pulled back in a flash and lanced out again and again.
They were running down the hall then, the sickening crunch and thump of bone sinking into flesh and muscle filling the space.
0445 Hours
“Who were you talking to?” Doctor Reeds asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Manis stared back, his blue-gray eyes heavily lidded and unblinking. Jacoby watched the lanky man’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, the faintest hint of a twitch pulling at the corner of his lips.
“What was Layla doing with these people down here? Why were they taken from the hospital block? What is your interest in all of it?” the physical followed up quickly, the questions piling up.
“You are a physician. I am an administrator. Your job is to see after my employees. Mine is see to the proper operation of this station,” Manis snapped back, but Jacoby saw the twitch in his lip again.
“You saw what those people did? You saw what they were capable of? What happens if they get out into the station proper? If they are infected with something, we could…” Reeds stopped suddenly, and paused. “This station is like a big, sealed can. The air, we’re all breathing it. We’re all at risk.”
“I don’t…uh,” Manis stammered, his eyes twitching from Reeds to the ground and back again.
“How did Layla find out about this? Better yet, what data was she able to collect? What was the premise for her observations?” Reeds asked, pulling a data point out of the pocket of his coat.
“Administration streams and monitors all data collected on this station. We see everything. It is our job. Then we decide what is appropriate for you to see.”
“How…how were you…?” Reeds stuttered, and turned, searching the air as if looking for a word. “Goodness gracious, that word escaped me. We saw you using a data point. How? I haven’t been able to connect for some time now,” Reeds asked, animatedly waving his device between them.
Manis eyed it but looked away quickly. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead, the twitch in his lip more pronounced. Jacoby could smell it on the air. He was terrified.
“Administrative privileges, which don’t extend to you. I have status, you know – protections unavailable to just anyone. If something happens to this station, I’m taken care of.”
“You’re unwillingness to help is putting every person on this station at risk,” Reeds said.
“The only one putting this station at
risk is standing behind you. You let him out of containment, and now we’re probably all, uh, contaminated or infected,” Manis shot back, his eyes fluttering to Jacoby and away again.
False. Liar. Paper man playing like he is real. Fold him over and watch his true nature reveal itself. Peel him open! Expose the coward. The voice accompanied an unequaled wave of anger – the heat and angst bubbling up and setting his hair on edge.
Jacoby didn’t necessarily disagree, although the idea of peeling someone open made his stomach squirm.
“Doctor Misra has had administration filtering all medical data coming out of the clinic and the hospital block for some time now. It was her directive…uh, from corporate, I believe. She also had access to alter records and save others on her private server here in the lab,” a woman said, speaking up behind them.
Jacoby turned to find a nurse standing between two men in lab coats. She looked Asian, perhaps Japanese. She was short, with a slight build and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. The two men immediately looked at her and stepped away.
“Hey, you can’t tell them that! You shut up! You signed a full non-disclosure agreeme…” Manis pushed around the desk. The nurse immediately cowered, but before Jacoby could cut him off, Lex slid in front of the woman.
“Back off,” she growled, her bruised cheek and cut lip only adding to her intimidating presence.
“Officer, I order you to take this woman into custody. Cuff her…gag her!” Manis demanded, reaching over Lex’s shoulder to jab a finger at the nurse. Lex eyed his finger for a moment, and shook her head.
“Answer the doc’s question. What did Misra know? Why did she have these people down here? What is happening to them?”
“I can’t tell you that! I’m just doing my job. Now I gave you an order, officer,” Manis snapped, spittle flying as he talked. The tall man cleared his throat and made an effort to stand taller, before jabbing an index finger into Lex’s chest. She reacted in a flash, twisting his arm aside, capturing his thumb in her right hand, and wrenching it back towards his body.
She is magnificent, the voice chimed in, a part of Jacoby watching with rapt interest.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarled, her left fist driving hard into the pocket of his shoulder. Manis cried out and fell back, stumbling and dropping ungainly into the office chair.
“Don’t! No, get away,” Manis shrieked as Lex came forward, his hands and feet twitching up towards his body. Lex grabbed his wrist, wrenched his data point free, and stepped back out of the office. She slapped the door close button, and locked it without a second look.
“Doc, I think our nurse friend will feel a little more comfortable talking now…unless anyone else has an issue with the doc trying to save lives,” Lex said, looking around the handful of lab assistants. The group shook their heads animatedly.
“Thank you…thank you,” Reeds said, nodding to Lex and moving towards the nurse. “Your name?”
“Emiko,” the nurse offered, throwing Lex an appreciative smile, before following Reeds back out into the lab.
“Okay. Perfect. Yes. Perfect. Show me everything. And this, I…I don’t know if it can be done, but can you see if the data on this Palmer Module is still intact?” Reeds bobbed the damaged device in the air between them, talking faster than Jacoby had ever heard him.
“Yes, Doctor. Right this way, Doctor,” Emiko said, nodding.
Jacoby casually followed Reeds and the nurse back out amidst the tables, consciously trying to pull his hospital gown closed behind him. The cold draft was horrible and he felt like his ass was hanging out.
“You…Peter,” he said, pointing at one of the young men in lab coats, and reading his name badge. “How safe are we in here?”
“Uh…well,” the young man stammered.
“The entire lab is sealed off from the rest of the station,” an older man with a beard said, stepping forward, “but this part of the lab was built with strict biological safety in mind. It is completely isolated and has its own dedicated climate control and air purification systems. The only way in or out is through that door. And she locked us in.”
“So you’re saying, we’re relatively safe in here,” Jacoby asked. The bearded man turned and considered the door.
“That door is four inches thick and hermetically sealed. As long as no one opens that door, we’re safe,” he said, turning back.
“Alright, good…” Jacoby said, quickly scanning his nametag, “Yani”.
Yani? the voice laughed in his mind.
“Yani… Jacoby said, and coughed, fighting to master a sudden impulse to snigger. It wasn’t him…at least not the him him, but the other one. Damn, he silently wished for the day when he only had to worry about simple shit, like a hangover or making enough money to buy their next meal. Now his head was half-full of angry tirades, inappropriate jokes, and the kind of perverse horny ideas that would make a prostitute blush. “…is there somewhere I can clean up…maybe something I can wear besides,” he said, catching the neckline of his flimsy gown with a thumb.
“Sure…yes. We have a locker room and showers. Right this way,” Yani said, and waved him forward.
They moved back towards the front of a lab and passed by Reeds, the physician now hunched over a wide terminal, the screen’s glow casting his face in a bluish glow. Emiko huddled next to him, reaching over to type on the keyboard and point at the screen.
“Anna…was she the young woman with you in the clinic?” Reeds asked, not looking up.
Jacoby stopped, his gown flying open as he turned around.
“Yes…why? What’s wrong?”
“When is the last time you spoke with her?”
“Uh, well…” Jacoby sputtered and tried to think. “It would have been in the clinic. When, you know… is she okay? Tell me if she isn’t!”
“Perfect. Yes, perfect,” the doctor said, bobbing his head excitedly. “Emiko here has granted me access to Doctor Misra’s notes. It says ‘note two – secured rock specimen from production floor before processing completed. Specimen moved to clean room. Collected subject personal affects’…I think she meant effects with an ‘e’ not an ‘a’ here though. Grammar, it is such a pain, as you know…just like sickness. As I always say, misery does love company.”
“But what about Anna?” Jacoby interrupted as Reeds rambled.
“Yes sorry! ‘note three – dispatched security team to habitation ring D level six to secure subject quarters and quarantine roommate – Anna Vullinova.’ It says she dispatched them at just two fifty a.m. today,” Reeds said, leaning in close to read off the screen. “But there is no follow up, which I guess makes sense since we’re here now and she isn’t. What does this mean, here?” he asked then, gesturing to the screen and turning to Emiko.
Jacoby hovered for another minute or two, but he could tell that Reeds was too absorbed in the data on the screen. He turned back to Yani and gestured him forward. They walked into a locker room, the outside walls covered with open-air cubbies. White coats and dark scrubs hung on hooks in some of the spaces, while athletic or personal clothes hung in others. Yani walked to the middle of the space and turned around.
“This is our locker room, obviously. Through there is the showers. You’ll find soap and shampoo and all that stuff is already in there,” he said, pointing to a set of glass double doors against the longest wall. Then he turned to another door on the right wall. “That door is the security team’s ready room, but it’s always locked. I don’t know what they keep in there. If you need something to wear, I guess you can poke around in the lockers in here. Most of them won’t need this stuff anymore.”
Jacoby watched the young man, his dark eyes flitting from locker to locker, before crawling slowly up to him. There was a weight to his gaze, a sadness that Jacoby felt. He was mourning…grieving, even if he wouldn’t say it out loud.
Yani slowly moved to walk out, but stopped by the door. “Oh, wait,” he said, and pushed open a small door set just off the door to t
he lab. He reached in and waved on a light.
Jacoby followed him in, immediately taking in a small, rectangular room, the walls to his left and right both covered in floor to ceiling shelves. Yani walked in and pointed to a table set at the far end.
“So, yeah. This stuff is all yours. We took everything from your locker and your workstation on the production floor. It has all been swabbed and decontaminated. Didn’t find anything on any of it, it was all clean. So, here you go.”
Jacoby walked up to the table, almost every spare inch of space covered. He saw two heavy work suits, some modesty undergarments, gloves, boots, a protective scarf, safety glasses, his work helmet, and in the middle of it all, a shiny newish plasma saw. A stack of fusion plugs sat in a box next to it, the small charge indicators all glowing green.
“Don’t worry, Janice, I’ll take extra good care of this one,” he whispered and pushed one of the plugs into the saw’s cord port. The tool hummed in his hand, the small indicator lights on top all shifting from yellow, to blue, to green.
“What is all of that?”
Jacoby spun to find Lex standing in the doorway. She walked forward slowly, her hands wrapped protectively around her midsection, but didn’t meet his gaze.
“It’s all of my work gear from the production floor. I guess they snatched it all up to run some tests on it or something.”
“So, you’re a rock cracker?” she asked, picking up the protective scarf and running her thumb along the tight weave.
“It’s what I do, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily what I am. I have ambitions beyond this place…this job. I always wanted to be a pilot…to explore places no one had ever seen before.”
Lex nodded and set the scarf down. He watched her move as she settled her hands onto the table and leaned forward. She let her head sag a bit and reached back to rub her neck. His hand lifted halfway, but froze in the act.
