Paphos, p.12
Paphos, page 12
“Put your hand there,” he said to her.
“What? Why?”
“Just do it.”
If Helena refused, he would almost congratulate her on having a spine. But instead, she predictably nodded and placed a shaky hand on the pad. As her skin touched it, it blipped green, sensors activated and swarmed around her, scanning her. The hologram appeared, but it didn’t ask for any selections like it had with Orlean. From what Dmitry had seen, the creature could make doors wherever it wanted to, so why go through the menu? There had to be a reason to use this door instead of ripping it off the wall, maybe to keep from triggering security protocols, like preserving certain failsafe measures. After a quick scan, the big doors slid open. He pushed Helena in and then carefully followed. He didn’t intend to let the creature know it was being tracked.
The room was spacious, with polished black walls, the middle of which tiered up a step, surrounded by dozens of terminals. A broken set of doors waited on the far side, the creature presumably having gone that way. Orlean, however, was crumpled on the floor like a dirty shirt. And he was alive, despite the contorted way his neck looked. There was something else wrong with him, too—something under his skin.
“Orlean!” Helena screamed. Dmitry spun and slapped her in the mouth. An outburst like that might give away their presence, although he admitted he hadn’t told her to be quiet, and she didn’t know he was following the creature. Still, she probably knew better now as she held her jaw in disbelief.
A glare, that was all, it was the most she would ever dare to challenge him.
Orlean, poor Orlean. He had managed to lift his head, and he had the faintest bit of hope when he saw them. Dmitry took a better look at his colleague, at the worms still dangling in his body, watching as they slithered into him. He took a step back and grabbed Helena by the collar.
“Wait…” Orlean gasped. They toyed with his flesh, climbing in and out of him.
Dmitry pulled Helena further away. “We can’t help him.”
“Please…” he managed to say through bubbles coming out of his throat.
“Don’t get close.”
“But, Dmitry?” she protested, unable to grasp reality.
“Leave him.”
Orlean’s eyes were soft steel as he realized he’d been abandoned. If Dmitry feared curses, he’d fear one now. But he hadn’t been the one to condemn Orlean, and there was nothing he could do to help. It was best to move on and appreciate that he didn’t have to cut as much weight before takeoff now. Dmitry stepped around, well away from the hand Orlean reached after him.
The room they were in did not concern Dmitry; it was some kind of control room, and he had given up the constant interest in alien architecture. He had to prioritize his goals, and the creature was goal number one. That said, this room felt out of place, at least compared to the stale exam rooms and drab hallways. He crossed over to where those two doors waited, beckoning Helena to follow. Instead, she collapsed.
Right in the middle of the room, on her hands and knees, he quickly diagnosed her as having a panic attack of all things. He didn’t have time for this… but he might need Helena. She was the only bait he had. He looked down at her, sobbing on the ground like a child, gasping for breath, and hyperventilating at the same time. The right motivation would make her snap out of this…
“I think I hear something.”
She sobered quickly to her feet, grabbing onto his arm. He gave a pretend look around and then pointed down the hallway. “We’d better go this way.”
“But…”
“Come on.”
“But the door is smashed… what if the monster did it?”
Dmitry walked over to the doors. They were obviously smashed by the monster, as Helena called it. “Hmm… no. This doesn’t look recent.” Helena was intelligent; she’d see right through it, but she was also spineless. She would capitulate, and did, to avoid further confrontation. “It’s safe, I promise.”
Helena really wanted to disagree with him; he could feel it. But instead she took a step forward, and he couldn’t help but smile. He followed her because if the beast suddenly came back, she would be a barrier of protection.
The hallway was well-lit compared to the others, the walls were bright yellow with decorative tiles and the occasional panel. The path split into several possible directions, and the first one they tried was a dead end, or rather just incomplete. They backtracked, and the second hallway forked off into more branches. The left path went to a room vibrating with the hum of generators. He sensed movement, hadn’t seen it yet, but out of reflex, he ducked down. He grabbed Helena by the wrist, pulling her around the corner of an empty room. At least she didn’t ask ‘what is it?’ this time. He waited until he saw it. Bless his instincts, he was right. The creature came out of the generator room and turned down the hallway away from them. Helena covered her mouth and hid.
Dmitry felt for the tranquilizer he had in his left cargo pocket. He had grabbed it to assist him with the parasite. Had he known about this creature instead, he would have grabbed five more. He stole a glance around the corner, spotting the creature at a panel outside the generator room. If he had to guess, he would say the creature was studying a blueprint.
Just how intelligent was this thing? Fully sentient, like him? As his answer, he watched the creature lumber back into the generator room and power up a specific switch. The electricity in the hallway dipped as heavy currents of electrical power redistributed to whatever the creature had in mind. Monstrous, but no animal. It was smart. He’d seen enough to know that now.
He ducked down as the creature turned, not wanting to be spotted. Even using Helena as a shield, it was different when the beast was right there. After an extended period of silence, he again poked his head around the corner and down the hallway.
What the hell? He wondered. Where did it go? So much for testing the tranquilizer. He stood and again dragged Helena by the wrist. He stopped at the intersection outside the generator room, but the creature was nowhere to be found.
He went into the generator room, wondering what he had witnessed. If it gave him some clue to the creature’s plan, he’d be better for it. The room was vibrating with an ungodly sound, with about half of the units illuminated while the other half were not. Heavy cables adorned the ceiling and floors, pumping energy throughout the facility.
“What is this place?” Helena asked.
“This is the power room, or one of them,” Dmitry practically had to shout. Obviously, he said to himself. Dmitry gazed about, hands over his ears. It wasn’t exactly deafening, but he didn’t want to lose any temporary hearing with that thing wandering around. Dmitry examined the octagonal shape of each generator, layered in rows three by three. He went to the one he believed the creature had activated, without certainty, since his view wasn’t the best at the time. “I think the creature activated this one. Any ideas why?” he asked. He did not expect any sort of useful response from her.
“Probably an exit or an elevator, or something like that.”
He almost choked. She’d composed an intelligent idea, but he had dismissed that possibility a while ago. Once the surprise wore off, Dmitry had to ask himself what he intended to do. “I have an idea.”
He grabbed the lever and pulled it shut, effectively undoing what the monster had done. He felt it exhale and quit vibrating.
“What are you doing? That thing will come back!”
“Quiet, I’m still thinking this through,” he said, studying the cables, looking at the distance from the generator to the door. The creature would presumably be forced to return, double-check why its pathway wasn’t powered. It’d have to come in through there.
“It’s going to be here!” Helena cried, terrified.
“I’m counting on it,” he said with a smile before punching her square in the nose. Helena toppled to the ground in an unconscious heap. He had work to do before that thing came back.
CHAPTER 18
Athen had known despair before, the kind that dragged you into unreachable places, and from there you either kept going or you died. She had broken her ankle once on a hike through Kazakhstan Prefecture during the Global Trekkathon at the ignorant age of seventeen; she had broken it twenty kilometers away from the next checkpoint, where she could get any kind of help. One grapefruit-sized rock had twisted her ankle just right and ruined everything. She’d looked up at the clouds first, instinctively, she supposed. Then she’d looked at the mountains which were forever on the horizon, wondering when help would come. And with no one and no thing around for kilometers, she looked at her ankle and realized she was in trouble. That part of the trek was a pure and untouched place, and you could go days without seeing anyone else on that race. It took so much to stand, and even more to hike twenty kilometers with a broken ankle. Yet as dark as that moment was, she’d made it through. Athen discovered at age seventeen that she was mentally strong. What she just saw was enough to make most people sit and cry until someone came to save them. But Athen, wounded leg and all, was not going to abandon Orlean so easily.
The elevator had briefly gone to another floor, but she found the button that took her back to where she’d last seen him. The door slid open at counter angles, a slick architectural nod to alien technology. She leaned against the wall, her weight resting on her good leg, hands clenched. Maybe it was the painkillers making her feel so bold. She staggered out of the elevator using the wall for support.
The crackling fires and smoke were subdued, though charred walls and acrid smells remained.
It wouldn’t be hard to find him. Orlean had left a trail of blood. Even in this dim light, it was easy to follow.
The hallway was a little more industrial than the previous areas, with long metal pipes lining the walls and crisscrossing overhead, occasionally emitting gushes of steam. Athen shielded herself with her hand as she crossed beneath a geyser. The facility clearly spanned far more terrain than any of them had expected. And here she’d thought it was just another boring little planet. She closed her eyes and took a few more steps, still holding the wall. Her leg was angry, but not as angry as she was.
Athen wiped her forehead and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Her good leg wobbled; she was running out of stamina. She couldn’t see far down this hallway as it arched, and it was taking her too long to make any distance. The trail continued. Frustrated, she propped an arm against the wall. She pictured Orlean dangling like a worm for that thing.
The pain swam through her, fueling her. She used it, forcing herself onwards. She navigated a pipe that threatened to obstruct her path, one that stuck above the otherwise beveled ground. She continued on, mumbling to herself about what a great day she was having, until stopping at a secured doorway, different than the simple ones at each room. Large recessed lights focused on a rectangular set of steel doors. The trail of blood also disappeared inside.
“Orlean, you waiting for me on the other side?”
Massive hinges held the door on both sides, and adjacent to them waited a chest-high panel that blinked red. Athen paused as a hologram appeared, backing away instinctively.
The hologram came to life with exotic symbols, then a small picture of a round and gangly creature. Athen blinked, recognizing a warning even if she didn’t recognize the language. The hologram then flashed. It was a short warning that disappeared after playing, and Athen didn’t really understand it. The only part she recognized was the part where the creature in the video was zapped to death by a probe coming out of the wall. Athen looked at the wall, noticing fine grooves where similar death-probes might be hiding.
“Are you kidding me?”
She stared at the door, then looked up and down both directions, searching for another solution. “Damn you, Orlean,” she whined. “You owe me a drink.” It was a door, and doors were meant to be used. So from that logic and the little video, she figured the wrong species got zapped, while the right species got in. And the blood trail went on in, so it must have let Orlean through. Cross-multiply and solve for x. Maybe that meant it’d let her in, too?
Big maybe.
Before she had a chance to think better of it, she placed her hand on the security panel and watched as a dozen sensors swarmed her. She shut her eyes, too spent to care if she was disintegrated. Something turned green, and she felt the locks behind the wall click open. Strange how, even here, green was the GO color. Some things really were universal, she supposed. The big doors opened, and she let out the breath she’d been holding.
Lunar Central Station… that was her first thought. Her schema of experiences reminded her of Lunar Central Station, which everyone who traveled off-planet had been to, or LuCent, as most called it. Space travel, leaving Earth, stopped at the moon as the big orbiters preferred the weaker gravity. Eight million people a year flowed through LuCent, she had heard. What Athen saw inside looked like a travel hub to her. Big, gaping entrances and exits, an oval control center in the middle of one giant room, smaller station cubicles for some kind of business, huge billboards hanging from the ceiling, black walls. The ceilings vaulted almost beyond sight, and dozens of control stations and monitors were housed around her. She walked inside.
“Athen…”
She jumped at the sound of Orlean’s groan, finding him on the floor, barely able to hold his head up. “Oh god.”
Orlean suddenly stood to his feet. She had started towards him but then stopped. Something about the way he moved wasn’t right, nor was his head at an angle on his neck.
Orlean walked towards her, slowly. “Athen…” he moaned.
He wasn’t walking; he was being carried, held upright by dozens of wormy veins. She covered her mouth in terror as they slithered him towards her. She grabbed a pry-bar from her toolbag. Wieldy and heavy, it was her first instinct. Somehow, he was still alive, calling her name, but she didn’t know what that meant. She’d imagined no fate like this, and she stayed her distance as the worms clumsily bounced him into the wall. It almost made her throw up.
“Help me… please help me…”
“How?!” she begged, frozen. He was in there, crying for help. But this? Her stomach turned when she watched one of the worms pulsating out of his stomach to help carry him.
A worm slithered closer to Athen, and she smacked it. The hit resonated through the mass of wriggling; they recoiled in agony, and so did Orlean.
“Ahh!!” he cried, as hurt as if she had struck him instead. Orlean fell back, and the worms wriggled excitedly.
“I came to get you, and I’m not leaving until I do!”
Those things, those parasitic worms, appeared to be as vulnerable as one could hope. She could cause pain, though it caused Orlean pain too. But he must have known that, and he’d still asked for help. There was only one way to help that she could see. Athen dropped the pry-bar and grabbed her laser cutter instead. She unscrewed some wires from the battery and made a little device she’d concocted in college once. She’d stunned herself by accident years ago doing this, but she knew how to circumvent a few safety features to get a nice jolt out of a laser cutter. She calculated her time, quickly twisting wires loose and wrapping them in places they didn’t belong. Then she steadied herself against the wall and let the worms get closer to her. One bold little vein came towards her stomach; she swiped it into the wall, pinning the end of the laser against it and holding it in place. She pressed the button.
Laser cutters had very concentrated battery power. An electric arc zapped from the thin wires, searing the parasite and causing it to flex uncontrollably. The current ran up into Orlean.
He screamed as those things lost their balance. The parasites flopped and folded, looking for something to wrap around, while others wriggled out of Orlean’s body with sounds she would not soon forget. She released her grip and backed away, the scent of scorched flesh in the air.
Orlean was on hands and knees, with the remaining parasites trying to re-enter his body or attack hers. She marched towards him. One darted at her like a snake, which she blocked with the flat end of her laser cutter. It fell, and she stomped on it, with pain in her leg warning her not to do that again. The parasite coiled around itself, dying, but there were at least a dozen more. And Orlean still needed her help.
Swallowing her fear, she stepped in and swung, zapping the laser cutter into squishy worms she painfully reached. It would be much easier if she could properly crouch. The electricity stopped; her battery was depleted. Still, she’d caused enough carnage; the worms fled. When they were all gone, Athen threw up.
She leaned against one of the alien terminals, which had a monitor in sleep mode. She was spent, and the pain was no longer dulled. Orlean was trying to breathe, still on his hands and knees.
“Damn you, Orlean,” she said, catching her breath from the adrenaline dump. She limped over to him, and when he looked up at her, she looked away. She wasn’t ready to see what was in his eyes. She gathered her bearings and smiled at him.
“I should… be dead,” he managed to say, blood bubbling air through tiny holes in his throat. His body was a pin-cushion of entrances, and he should have bled out by now.
“No. You definitely should not be,” she smiled. She reached into her pocket. “Here, take this,” she handed him a liquid vial. “Dmitry gave this to me, it’s for the pain.”
He touched his chest, still slouched over his knees. “There’s… not much blood,” he continued, clumsily trying to examine his fingers after probing a hole in his chest.
“They must…” she almost choked trying to say it. “…must carry a natural coagulant, or something, just… let’s just get out of here,” she said. “Drink that, we’ll leave together, and a few months from now you buy the drinks,” she ordered.
Orlean brought the vial to his lips and drank. He dropped the empty vial and slouched over himself again. “I didn’t think… You were real… I had hallucinated before seeing you,” he said. The medicine worked quickly, Orlean took an almost comfortable breath, and looked up at her. “You should have seen yourself just now,” he said, wiping blood from his mouth.
