Cabal of Lies

by Michael Anderle

  In the cargo bay, Erik finished strapping the laser rifle to his carryaid.

  He would have preferred a full exoskeleton for fighting whatever the hell they were about to fight, but the mechanized backpack, combined with the tactical suit he found in one of Alina’s provided boxes, would have to do.

  He slung his TR-7 over his shoulder.

  He’d stuffed all the magazines he could into the carryaid, along with extra power cells. He wasn’t going to risk explosive grenades on a space station, and he didn’t think stun grenades would stop the prisoners.

  He couldn’t help but glancing Jia’s way as she shimmied into the formfitting tactical suit, her shirt and pants lying on the ground. Erik shook his head. It wasn’t the right time to be thinking about his partner’s tanned body.

  They had crazed super-prisoners to take down.

  Jia finished putting on her tactical suit. She’d already filled her carryaid and hung her rifle on the side. She knelt, slipped her arms through the straps, and stood.

  Erik tapped his PNIU, which he’d grabbed on the way out of the prison. He looked at Cutter, who was watching them arm up with the excitement of a child. “Cutter?”

  “Yeah, Blackwell?”

  “I’m sure you’re a smart enough guy to disable that docking clamp if you really want to.”

  Cutter chuckled. “I’m sure Emma could do it faster.”

  “She’s not going to because she’ll be with us,” Erik explained. “But if it hits the fan, I’m not going to ask you to stay and die for no reason. That said, I’d prefer it if you stick around. I’d like the option to evac if this goes bad.”

  “If you flee, I’ll haunt you, fleshbag,” Emma insisted.

  “Can she do that?” Cutter eyed the speaker her voice came out of.

  Erik laughed. “I don’t know. She’s one of a kind. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “I better not chance it,” Cutter concluded. “I’ve been in rough situations before. I’ll try to stick around in case you need evac. I should have known it’d end up this way.”

  “Why is that?” Erik slid a magazine into his TR-7.

  “Because this job was too easy,” Cutter replied. “And the universe has a way of balancing things.”

  “Okay, Emma, open the back,” Erik ordered. “There’s no way we’re climbing down the ladder decked out in all this stuff.”

  The cargo bay door groaned open, then descended until it became a ramp. Erik and Jia bounded down the ramp and jogged toward the security door, both performing a quick check of the docking bay. There were no crazed prisoners, just the patrol craft and the docked cargo ship that had been there since before their arrival.

  “Let us in,” Erik shouted. “I know you can see us in there. We know what’s going on, and we know your people got cut off from the armory. You need serious reinforcements, and that’s what we are.”

  “We can’t let you in here with that gear, Detective,” came a voice over a speaker. “Those are unauthorized lethals. No lethals allowed except those from the armory. We need an official override order, and you can’t give it.”

  “Who am I speaking to?” Erik asked.

  “Uh, I’m Cho,” the guard replied.

  “Cho, did you hear what I just said? The warden contacted us. He’s cut off, and those crazy-ass infected prisoners are going to take him down. Someone’s jamming transmissions outside the prison, and I’m betting you’ve noticed by now that there’s something wrong with the system. The warden tried to knock everyone out with gas, and it wouldn’t let him. The bots aren’t working, either.” Erik pulled his rifle down. “Someone has fucked you all over and is going to get you killed unless you let us in. Screw your official override order. Let us in there so we can take those things down.”

  “Y-you can’t bring outside lethals into the prison,” Cho replied. “Without the override order.”

  “Have you seen one of the infected prisoners in action?” Jia shouted. “Stuns don’t work. We had to destroy his brain to stop the last one.”

  “We can wait for reinforcements,” Cho insisted, his voice shaking. “Someone will figure it out. There are confirmation signals that go out. If the system’s not working, they won’t go out. They can send the official override order.”

  “Someone has hacked your system.” Jia pulled her rifle off her carryaid and held it in both hands. “If they’re smart enough to do that, they’re smart enough to spoof whatever signal they need to send out. If we wait, those things are going to overrun the prison. I don’t need to see everything, but let me ask you one question. Are the normal locks active and in place?”

  Cho groaned. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  Erik patted his TR-7. “I’m sure a burst with four bullets to the brain will take one of those things down nice and quick. If you want anyone to live through this, you’re going to open that door.”

  Jia added, “Let me summarize your position for you. You have multiple prisoners infected with some sort of bizarre nanites that enhance their ability to take damage and make them irrationally violent. The guards’ only available weapons don’t work, and your backup, the stupid bots, aren’t helping. We, however, have heavy weapons and are prepared to risk our lives when we could just be getting on our ship, hacking your docking clamp, and fleeing and sending a message to someone else to handle it, while leaving you all to get eaten.”

  Cho didn’t respond.

  Jia turned to Erik. “Could we blow the door with the launcher or plasma grenades?”

  The security door bolts thudded, and it slid open.

  “We’re letting you in,” Cho announced, “but if you come in here, we can’t let you out until the situation is under control, or we get an official override order.”

  Erik switched off his safety. “Sounds like a good plan. It’s time to pacify some prisoners.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Jia had wondered if the guards intended to trap them in the inspection room, but the second door opened once the first door had closed. She and Erik jogged forward, glancing toward the security station, where Cho and his partner sat, temporarily safe. She couldn’t resent them for hiding from danger.

  They wouldn’t last thirty seconds against one of the infected.

  “Look for an IO port,” Emma recommended. “Note that due to the jamming, I won’t be able to communicate with you if you’re more than a short distance away, or otherwise in a long, uninterrupted line-of-sight where I try something in the optical or infrared ranges.”

  “Understood,” Erik replied.

  The detectives jogged forward a few meters until Jia found a panel. She pulled it up to reveal an IO port. “Here we go. That was easier than I anticipated.”

  Erik pulled the crystalline matrix that was Emma’s heart out of his pocket and slid it into the IO port. “The best bet is for you to work on regaining control of the prison systems. If that’s going to take you some time, we’ll leave you here to do it. We can’t wait around while those things are killing people.”

  “Interesting,” Emma replied. “This might be more difficult in some ways and easier than others.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m seeing various subsystems failures. I think the overall system isn’t under the control of another. It’s less that it’s been hacked than it has been disabled because of damage to the underlying systems’ programming. I’m attempting to reroute around the damage, but it’ll take time to make decent progress.”

  “Can you give us the blueprints?” Jia asked, watching the long corridor for signs of movement.

  Emma chuckled. “Yes, because I already had that information. Transmitting now.”

  “Without Emma in control of the system, we’re blind. The warden might be able to help her, or she might be able to help him regain control sooner. We should head toward his office.” Jia tapped the PNIU to bring up the blueprints in a data window. They didn’t trust the smart lenses with the jamming, so they hadn’t put them b
ack on. For all they knew, the nanites might mess with them.

  Jia jabbed the aerial map. “It’s a hike, but at least it’s not on the other side of the station.”

  Erik patted his weapon. “I wouldn’t bother with anything like knee shots. Aim for the brain if you see one.”

  They hurried down a long hall before turning into a new one that ran past open doors that mostly led to offices or storage rooms. Distant screams echoed throughout the area, their sources impossible to trace.

  Jia took a deep breath. Her heart didn’t race.

  Killing twisted monsters had become part of the job. They needed to focus on regaining control of the prison, and that started with the warden and Emma.

  “This is like a jiangshi attack out of a bad horror movie.” Jia advanced alongside Erik, keeping a firm grip on her weapon. “I get weird yaoguai in the Scar, but on a prison station in the middle of space?”

  “More like a zombie. Nanozombies.” Erik nodded with a satisfied look. “Perfect place for an artificial outbreak.”

  “Nanozombies. Perfect. But the question is, why are there more? If it’s not spreading through a bite or the attack, how is it spreading? The nanites are Talos tech if I had to guess, but we still don’t know a lot about them.” Jia raised her weapon as they approached an intersection. The security door that normally would have blocked access was wide open, almost taunting them.

  Erik frowned as they turned a corner. “Emma, can you still hear us?”

  There was no response.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “We don’t know that it’s spreading, Jia.”

  “There’s more than just Esposito,” Jia pointed out. “That implies it is.”

  “If it didn’t infect the guards or us earlier in the small room, I doubt it spreads.”

  Jia nodded. “True.”

  “It’s not hard to persuade lifers to go nanozombie for some money for their families.” Erik crept closer to another open security door with a frown. He flattened against the wall and waited, then spun, sweeping his rifle back and forth. “Got a body.”

  Jia cleared the doorway. A guard’s corpse lay on the ground in a pool of blood. It was obvious more than a few bites had been taken out of him, and he was missing a hand. She spun toward the sound of heavy footfalls.

  “They got this far?” she whispered. “That security checkpoint at the front might not hold.”

  “It’s not like these things are going to fly a ship out of here,” Erik replied. “There’s a docking bay, then nothing but space for thousands of kilometers.”

  The detectives continued to advance, their next turn taking them closer to both the warden’s office and the cell blocks. More remains of mauled and mangled guards littered the ground, but the occasional inmate’s body lay on the ground as well, their wounds resembling those of the guards. The corpses who still had eyes didn’t show any sign of the nanoinfection.

  Panting and footsteps sounded from around the corner. The path led to the warden’s office. Jia and Erik backed up, both aiming their weapons high. Heart shots might stop the nanozombies, but they couldn’t be sure, and finding out in the middle of a fight would be suboptimal. The footsteps and panting grew louder and closer.

  Jia held her breath, her heart beating fast. She selected burst fire mode and waited. The noise grew closer.

  A form rushed around the corner, his bright uniform marking him as a prisoner. He skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees, putting his hands behind his head. “I’m not one of those fucking things. Don’t shoot. For the love of all that’s holy, don’t shoot.”

  “Show me your eyes,” Erik ordered.

  The prisoner stared at him—no striations, no bulging veins. He whimpered rather than growled or snarled.

  Jia gestured for him to stand with her rifle. “What are you doing out here?”

  He let out a hysterical laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me? You just checked my eyes. You know what’s happening. Guys have gone nuts. They’re eating people. They’re crazy strong. I saw one guy all but tear Kevan’s arm off, and Kevan’s a big guy. And that’s before…” He doubled over and vomited.

  Jia wrinkled her nose. She waited politely while the prisoner emptied the contents of his stomach. “What are you doing in this part of the prison?”

  “I was part of a work detail.” The prisoner shook his head. “Suddenly alarms are flashing, the doors are all opening, and people are eating people. I looked for the guards for protection, but their stun rods weren’t doing shit.” He licked his lips, a hungry smile on his face as he eyed the guns. “But you’ve got real guns. You can protect me, right? I don’t care how strong a guy is or what he’s on. You blow his head off, and he’ll stop moving.”

  “We’re going to the warden’s office,” Erik explained. “We lost contact with him. If you want to tag along, that’s fine.”

  The prisoner ran his hands through his hair. “But they are that way. The warden’s probably already dead, and they’re having dinner.”

  Erik let out a quiet grunt. “Maybe, but he’s also one of our best bets for regaining control of this place.”

  Loud growls and snarls sounded in the distance. Quick, rhythmic steps came right after.

  The prisoner shook his head, tears running down his face. “No, no, no. I’m not staying here.”

  “There are plenty of offices and storage rooms,” Jia mused. “You work here. Go find one and hide. We’ll handle the nanozombies. Just don’t come out until you hear normal people talking.”

  “Nanozombies?” The prisoner groaned, spun on his heel, and sprinted away.

  Jia sighed. “I miss the days when it was just drunks trying to run me down.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  A massive pack of nanozombies swept around the corner.

  Blood covered their faces and shredded clothes. While the new enemies had the same bulging veins and oddly colored eyes as Esposito, the mottled gray skin tone and dark purple of their veins suggested further degeneration.

  It made no sense. How had the staff not noticed?

  But the hows and whys would have to wait until they were no longer a threat.

  The pack growled and bared their teeth at Erik and Jia. The nanozombies hesitated, suggesting some thin strands of intelligence recognized the heavy weapons. Given the speed Erik had seen with Esposito, the monsters would be able to close quickly, but a decent distance separated them.

  There was no way, even in the best scenario, the nanozombies could win without heavy casualties.

  “They aren’t attacking each other and rushing us,” Erik whispered, slowly raising his weapon. “They’re not mindless.”

  “But they are attacking other prisoners,” Jia replied. “More like animals that recognize their own kind and their threats than humans showing careful tactical planning.”

  “It’ll have to do. I don’t care how we win, as long as we do.”

  The nanozombies rushed forward on all fours, an awkward loping gait that propelled them at a surprising speed. Erik fired a burst. The shots blew out a knee, complete with blood and bone, dropping the zombie to the floor.

  A normal man would have been wailing in pain from such an injury.

  The wound didn’t matter. Snarling louder, the creature continued crawling toward them in an even more bizarre mix of one-legged hopping and pulling. Erik’s next four TR-7 bullets almost took the zombie’s head off.

  At the same time, Jia offered some lead to a target on the opposite side of the pack. Her rifle didn’t produce the satisfying hole of the TR-7, but the nanozombie collapsed, tripping a few of his comrades behind him.

  Anything that slowed the pack meant more opportunities to attack.

  Erik sorely missed the clearance power of grenades as he snapped up his rifle to line up with the next target and fired. His target took the rounds in the shoulder, jerking back and snarling while his comrades continued forward. Erik blew the head off another one before taking aim at his original target and ending his
twisted new life.

  Jia’s rifle fired rapidly, quick, careful shots through the head that left more of the pack on the floor, twitching and dying. Another burst went into a nanozombie’s chest, but other than an initial stumble, he continued advancing.

  “Head it is,” Jia grumbled.

  The pack had closed half the distance when Erik ejected his magazine and slapped in a new one. Loud, constant gunfire overlapped and echoed in the narrow hallway.

  The challenging din didn’t distract him as he continued precision-firing.

  Fewer enemies were falling as quickly as in a typical fight, but Jia had just proven he couldn’t risk anything but a headshot to finish them off.

  Neither partner spoke as they kept firing, each aiming at their own side of the pack. For all the viciousness of the enemy, headshot after headshot diminished their threat, whittling them down to half-strength, then quarter-strength, and finally only a few. Those were now within striking distance. The ever-present stress of battle had stretched a brief encounter into what felt like an unending wave of mindless killing.

  Jia nailed one of the survivors and ejected her magazine.

  Erik decapitated another with a burst to the neck. The last remaining nanozombie leapt for him, snarling and dripping blood-flecked spittle. He threw up his left arm and caught him by the throat. He bit into the sleeve of the tactical suit, but couldn’t penetrate. The nanozombie shook like an angry dog, trying to dig his teeth deeper. The small amount of intelligence left in the infected man didn’t seem to extend to understanding the strength of Erik’s and Jia’s defensive outfits. He’d half-wondered if the tactical suits were pointless.

  Now he had his answer.

  Erik shoved the barrel against the hungry nanozombie’s head. “You wouldn’t want to eat me. I’m full of beer, beignets, and spite.” He pulled the trigger, and his opponent’s body fell limp. He tossed it to the floor. The more zombies he killed, the more a sour stench filled the air. It wasn’t the smell of normal death. He’d run into that plenty of times in his career.