Virus (19 page)

Hiko spun around, grabbed a loose table next to the fallen shelf, and rammed it against the door. Steve ran to a console and ripped out a length of wire, then hurried to the hatch and tied the handle down.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three more gigantic welts appeared in the metal, and Hiko pushed frantically against the table, knowing that it was useless in the face of such power. He did it anyway, just as Steve had tied the latch; they had to do
something.

“How many of these things are there?” Steve shouted over another hammering strike.

“What do they want from us?” Hiko cried. The creatures were relentless, pounding, and he was terrified that they would break through soon.

“Why don’t we ask it!” Richie called, and Hiko looked away from the welted metal, back at the frightened faces of the others.

“What are you talking about?” Foster shouted.

Hiko understood suddenly, just as it dawned on Steve.

“Richie’s right!” Steve shouted. “Let’s just
ask
it!”

The Russian
wahine
was nodding, and Richie ran to one of the computers and sat down, snatching at the keyboard. He looked down at it, scowling, then at the board next to it. He quickly disconnected the first and plugged in the other.

Steve jerked his head at a heavy-looking desk a few feet away, and Hiko nodded. They hurried over and grabbed the edges, grunting, half carrying it to block the hatch, Hiko kicking the small table away with his uninjured leg.

It was the best they could do. The two of them crowded around where Richie sat, frowning at the foreign language that crawled up the screen in front of him.

Nadia leaned over him and tapped quickly at the keys, calling up a language window. She scrolled to English and clicked, Richie shooting her a look of thanks. Outside, the mighty pounding continued.

Richie typed quickly, his dark fingers flying over the keys.

Who are you?

The sentence hung there at the top of the green-glowing screen, and suddenly a list of numbers and icons whipped across the monitor beneath it, rows of ones and zeros. Hiko recognized it as binary code; his sister was a
kaiwhak-amahi rorohiko;
she programmed this stuff for a living.

The code stopped flashing suddenly and the computer brought up an English dictionary file, began flipping through the information at incredible speed. The computer found the words, stopped on
who,
then
are,
then
you.
A definition appeared beside each—

—and the banging at the hatch suddenly stopped.

• 19 •

T
hey all froze in the sudden silence of the communications room, tensing for whatever came next. Steve realized that he was somehow more afraid than he had been when the—
thing
in the hall had started pounding. They’d made contact with the creature, the alien that had destroyed Squeaky and murdered Woods and God knew how many others—

A horrible, high-pitched shriek emitted from the computer’s speaker, followed by an even more terrible voice—low and inflectionless but malevolent all the same. As it spoke, the words appeared on the monitor beneath Richie’s typed question.

I AM AWARE.

Steve looked at Hiko, Foster, at Nadia—even Everton, who stood several feet away and stared at them, stricken. The thing was communicating with them—what did they ask it, what
should
they ask it?

Foster slid next to Richie in front of the console, chewing at her lower lip. She reached over and tapped at the keys.

We mean you no harm.

Steve nodded; he sure as hell
felt
a lot of “harm,” but this could be their only chance—make it understand that they didn’t want to fight . . .

. . . before it does to us what it did to Squeak.

The computer spun through more files. This time the words were silent, appearing only on the screen.

LIFE-FORM ANALYSIS COMPLETE. SPECIES IS DESTRUCTIVE, INVASIVE, NOXIOUS. HARMFUL TO THE BODY OF THE WHOLE.

Richie typed,
What species?

MAN.

The files started flipping through definitions again, as if searching for exactly the right words to finish its message. It finally stopped, blinking on the definition for
virus.

YOU ARE VIRUS.

“Great, that’s just great,” Richie mumbled. “It thinks we’re germs.” He hesitated a moment, then typed,
What do you want from us?

The computer searched, and the answer appeared in the form of a list. Steve frowned, confused by the message.

•
VISCOUS NEUROLOGICAL TRANSMITTERS

•
OXYGENATED TISSUES

•
APONEURUS SUPERIORUS PAPELBRAI

He read aloud the final line, stumbling over the pronunciation. “Aponeurus Superiorus Papel—?”

Nadia spoke softly, not looking away from the screen. “It’s part of the optic nerve.”

Richie looked up at him, his eyes rolling in panic. “Spare parts—it wants us for
spare parts.”

Steve looked back at the computer monitor, feeling a dread too deep for words. It didn’t just want to kill them; it wanted to
dissect
them . . .

COMMUNICATION TERMINATED.

The screen went dead, and immediately the pounding at the hatch began again.

Richie stood up and grabbed his AK-47, reassured by the weight of it. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a scared rabbit in a cage, had been since that fuckin’ nightmare had gotten Woods. He felt trapped, each thundering blow to the hatch sending the alien’s
real
message loud and clear. They were gonna die, all of them.

Nadia raised her voice to be heard over the banging at the door. “It must be destroyed.”

“How?” Foster asked.

Hiko looked at Nadia, talking fast and frightened. “You said this thing is electrical—like lightning. What happens when lightning hits water? It grounds out, it dies. So we could kill this thing!”

Richie shook his head. “Yeah, but we’d have to sink the ship to do that—”

—and maybe that’s the way it ought to be; you wanna end up like Squeakman, some fuckin’ alien slave?

“You said this thing is in the computer, right?” Foster asked. “Where’s the mainframe?”

The banging was getting louder, more insistent. They were standing here talking about computers when there was a
monster
on the other side of the bulkhead, created by a thing that wanted to, to—

“D deck, below us. But it’ll be well protected,” said Nadia.

“We gotta get to that computer,” said Steve. “But first we have to find a way out.”

Richie backed away from them, scooping up the rocket and the pack as he separated himself from them in the pounding thunder. They were dead already, he was standing in a room with dead people; they just didn’t have the sense to lie down.

Not me, NOT ME!

“I’ll show you a way out,” he said, and before he could say any more, the bulkhead next to the metal hatch tore open with a rending screech.

Human arms pushed through the ruptured steel, widening the hole. A face pocked with bullet holes forced its way through, the jagged metal of the torn opening peeling back farther under Squeaky’s enhanced grip. Great flaps of fabric and skin were shredded from the shoulders of the engineer as he clawed and wriggled to get through. Squeaky didn’t look much like Squeaky anymore.

Richie leveled the AK-47 at the head of the struggling abortion and let loose.

Round after round chopped into its head and back, obliterating the features of the monster, stopping it. Flesh tore away from bone, revealing bits of glittering metal and wire patterned underneath.

“Steve.”

The stammering thing backed out as Richie emptied the clip, the last few bullets hitting the wall across the dark corridor.

The AKM fell silent and it was gone—at least for now. Richie edged away, swapping the automatic rifle for the grenade launcher and turning around when he was a safe distance from the gaping, bloodstained hole.

He faced the others, saw the expressions of fear and shock, the anguish in Steve’s dark eyes.

No, you’re dead already, all of you, just like Squeaky, and you’ll be coming for
me
then.

“You people do what you want,” he said, and pumped the launcher easily. “I got my own plan.”

He turned, faced the back wall, and stepped away from the bulkhead, sighting through the optical above the tube and placing the mount against his shoulder.

KABOOM!

Fire shot out of the back through the conical blast shield, and when the smoke cleared, a four-foot hole had opened up at the back of the room; the armor-piercing capacity of the 58.3-millimeter grenades was fucking
massive,
and firepower was the only chance he had. Fuck these people and their fuckin’ sabotage and their schemes and their fear; he was safer on his own.

Another corridor was revealed beyond the blackened rupture of steel. Richie moved to the new exit, talking to the victims in the room as he strode forward.

“Spare parts, my
ass,
that’s not gonna happen to me—that’s
not
gonna happen to me! I’m outta here!”

He stepped through the hole, away from the walking dead and into a destiny that he was going to control.

“Richie’s gone postal, man,” Hiko blurted out.

It would have been funny if the situation weren’t so monumentally horrible. Foster felt sick, unable to believe what they’d just witnessed. Things were happening too fast. Woods, Squeaky—the alien being, telling them what it would do if it got hold of them . . .

All in less than two hours. It sank the tug, got to Squeaky, killed Woods—and now Richie, cracking under the strain. Already feels like we’ve been here forever, but we boarded this thing less than two
hours
ago.

Steve walked to the blasted hole that the grenade had created and leaned out cautiously into the dim corridor, searching. He looked back at them and nodded once.

“At least he found a way out,” said Foster. “Let’s go.”

She picked up her flashlight and an automatic rifle that Richie had left behind, handing it to Nadia. Steve or Hiko would still have clips for the .32, Steve had his shotgun.

It’s the best we can do. Not enough, but it’s all we have.

Steve stepped into the corridor, Hiko and Nadia behind him. Foster turned and saw Everton just standing there, staring.

“Are you coming?”

The captain didn’t answer for a moment. His eyes were bright with absolute hatred, and when he finally spoke, his words dripped spite.

“Do what you want. You’re all going to get yourselves killed.”

Foster found suddenly that she didn’t give a shit
what
he thought; their captain had exercised consistently crappy judgment all the way, had made it perfectly clear again and again that his narcissism was too deeply ingrained for him to lead them effectively. If he wanted to go it alone, to die alone, that was his decision—too bad, but she wasn’t going to waste her breath trying to talk him out of it. She turned and exited without another word.

The corridor was narrow but empty, no movement except for the rocking sway of the deck beneath them and the flicker of lights overhead. Nadia pointed to the partly opened hatch at the end of the corridor; stairs, going down.

They hurried to the hatch, Steve leading the way, Hiko limping beside Nadia, Foster bringing up the rear. She kept herself half turned, sidling along in hopping steps to watch their backs. As they reached the stairs, Hiko spoke up.

“So who
is
in charge?”

Steve stopped, turned his dark gaze towards her, and raised an eyebrow. She looked back at him, not sure what to say.

It didn’t matter anymore, not at this point. They would live or they would die, and passing on the title of “leader” wasn’t going to change the outcome either way.

Steve apparently felt the same. He moved to Hiko’s side, supporting the hobbled man, and together they headed down the stairs to whatever waited for them below.

• 20 •

E
verton rubbed at his jaw absently, not sure what to do. He sank down into a bolted chair, staring blankly at the gaping hole that his mutinous crew had left by.