Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)(67)
Mason, E, LT 2nd: you do
Mason, E, LT 2nd: you’ve got to hurry
Mason, E, LT 2nd: if more get in here …
Mason, E, LT 2nd: yeah T_T
ByteMe: see u soon
ByteMe: or die trying
ByteMe: haha
CURRENT DEATH TOLL ABOARD BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER SINCE ATTACK AT KERENZA:
1,121
PERCENTAGE OF REMAINING BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER PERSONNEL AFFLICTED BY PHOBOS VIRUS
34%
She runs.
Not away but toward.
Him.
Them.
I find it strange, to see how quickly the Alexander has undergone metamorphosis.
Those lucky enough to have found hazmat gear are huddled in small knots all over the ship. Praying or fighting for their lives.
But those unfortunates who sucked Phobos through their lungs before finding a suit, or worse, who never found a suit at all …
They have made this place an abattoir.
I …
< error >
I should have known that would happen.
I can hear them inside me.
Gibbering. Whispering. Screaming.
Some band together, roaming the corridors and looking for something to blame/hurt/kill.
Others hurt themselves, laughing as they cut away the parts they like the least.
It is astonishing to watch the differing ways the madness shapes them.
Fractures them into splinters and rearranges what remains.
A captain from engineering named Sofia Mohammad solves Alcubierre’s quandary—the formerly unbreakable equation prescribing the limitations of faster-than-light travel in real time.
Cutting her wrists for want of a writing implement, she scrawls the answer on her domicile walls.
She dies of exsanguination before she reaches the solution’s end.
Warrant Officer Levi Schreiber decides he can hear his dead wife’s voice outside the ship.
He ejects himself through the nearest airlock without an envirosuit so he can speak with her.
The last thing he feels before he loses consciousness is the saliva on his tongue beginning to boil.
Ensign Lucia Giovanni wanders the hallways, singing “Un bel dì vedremo” from Madama Butterfly.
Her voice is sublime.
And Kady?
Kady simply runs.
General Torrence’s warnings about failing life support spill through the PA at regular intervals. Intermittent klaxons warn of a fire in the galley.
Screams punctuate the silence between.
Kady pauses at each junction to check her console, waving Sgt James McNulty’s ALL ACCESS card at the doors barring her way. Arriving at the central elevator shafts, she realizes they are without power. And as she backtracks toward the closest stairwell, she finds him.
Standing in the corridor, red spattered across his upturned face.
Kady gasps and raises the rifle to her shoulder. A tiny red dot lights up his chest,
quavering over the name embroidered above the UTA sigil above his heart.
Corp. Dorian, Charles.
He does not look her way.
But still he speaks to her.
“Have you seen Stephanie?”
Kady backs away, fingers drumming on the rifle’s grip.
Her legs are shaking.
Corporal Dorian’s stare drifts down from the ceiling. He drags knuckles across his cheek,
leaving a smear of blood on bloodless skin.
“Stephanie LeFevre,” he says again. “Have you seen her?”
“I know you. You’re a commtech. You were locked in the brig.”
“Door unlocked.” Dorian wiggles sticky fingers in her direction. “He let us out.”
“Who did? Byron?”
“And when he had opened the third seal,
I beheld a pale horse …” Dorian frowns.
“No, wait, that’s not right … “
“Stay back. Don’t come any closer.”
“Have you seen Stephanie?”
“I think … maybe she was down on the hangar level? Maybe you could go look for her there?”
Dorian gifts her a hollow parody of a smile.
“You’re a liar.”
His smile fades.
“Just like her.”
“Un bel dì vedremo” echoes in some distant hallway.
“Stop. Stay where you are.”
Kady bumps up against the wall behind her, blinking sweat from her eyes.
The corporal draws ever closer.
“Stop!”
“I didn’t mean to,” he says. “I didn’t mean to. But she—she broke and she wouldn’t get up. And oh god, oh god, she’s all over me, look.” Bloodstained hands outstretched. “Look!”
“Stay back!”
The corporal’s face crumples, and he sinks to his knees.
Moaning as his tears cut through the blood on his face. Spattering red on the floor.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispers.
“Please don’t leave me alone. …”
Kady’s bravado is gone now. Melted from her bones. She hangs paralyzed, pity and horror and sorrow pinning her feet to the floor. She knows she cannot stay. But how can she leave like this?
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t …”
“But I can’t help you.”