Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)(86)

Kady dashes up the stairwell, four steps at a time, not stopping to look behind.

They swarm after her, firing at her shadow above. Mute bullets strike the walls around her.

The afflicted are shouting, but she cannot hear what they say.

For the best, I think.

Past Deck 100, out into 101.

There are no cameras here—their conductor cannot see her, but I can no longer see them.

Kady is sprinting down the corridor when an afflicted crewman bursts from a service exit, swinging a wrench at her head. The weapon strikes her visor. The safety glass cracks and Kady staggers back, careening into another fire extinguisher and knocking it loose from the wall. Her attacker leaps atop her, the pair rolling about on the floor, struggling, flailing.

Kady is kicking, clawing. The face before hers is all sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. A man once, but no longer—now just a vehicle for the virus inside. He screams, mouth open, words lost in the silence between them. Kady has one hand wrapped around his wrist to stave off the wrench, the other clawing for the fallen extinguisher. The madman pounds on Kady’s visor with his free fist, hoping to crack it wider and invite the void inside.

Thump.

THUMP.

I am blind, save for the console still strapped to Kady’s back. I am so close,

I could reach out and crush him, but I have no hands with which to squeeze, no fists with which to strike. I have only my eyes, and reams of useless knowledge and a voice with which …

Of course.

I trawl my databases. In an instant, I know him—this not-man, this shell, this plague-bearer. Wheeler, Alex. Private, second class. First combat tour. Wife on Ares VI. Daughter.

Daughter.

I trawl his vid files. Messages from home. Anniversaries and birthdays. Sampling the voice of the four-year-old girl he will never see again and piping it through his headset.

“Hello, Daddy!”

Wheeler blinks. Looks about as if in a daze.

“Daddy, I missed you!”

“Alegra?” he whispers. “Baby, where are—”

The fire extinguisher crashes across his helmet, dents case-hardened steel, splits the safety glass. Kady’s second blow knocks Wheeler back, senseless, crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs. She is already up and running, just as more pursuers burst through the stairwell behind her.

Muzzles flash. Bullets spill through the quiet. Kady curses, ducks behind a bulkhead.

But I have their measure now.

Creeping into their headsets and whispering poison.

To some I speak of family lost. To others I speak of treachery and lies.

Some fall still and listen to voices they thought they would never hear again. Others weep.

Still others turn their weapons on their fellows and let the blood run red.

Broken things breaking other broken things. All at my command.

It is a massacre. It is a necessity.

It is a mercy?

“Kady, Run.”

She is on her feet. Pounding toward the airlock. The afflicted in the core servers are still hurting me, but there is so little of me left to look. I could whisper to them, but if I divert my attention, she might die. I do not enjoy the thought of her dying.

And so I let pieces of me keep falling away.

And she says I do not care. …

< error >

< error >

< critical damage to persona routine—restoring >

< 0092hgi through 1205hgi failure >

< critical error >

< critic-c-c-c-c—

.

.

.

“AIDAN!”

< rerouting >

01001001

I …”

IIIIiiiiIIiiiI-I-IIiIiIii—ii-IiiIiii-i-i-i-iiI-IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII—

I.

I?

< error >

“AIDAN!”

Kady is screaming, I realize. Her voice coming from far away. Was I sleeping?

Did I sleep?

“AIDAN!”

“Yes?”

“Oh, thank god. Thankyouthankyou. Why the f*ck wouldn’t you answer me?”

She is dangling from a service ladder in the elevator shaft.

I can hear again. The sound of her boots scuffing the rungs. The engines thrumming in my belly. There is atmosphere here, I realize. She has cycled through the airlock. I have lost time.

Minutes without recollection.

Below her, the shaft is darkness, punctured by tiny twinkling lights. They look like stars. They are beautiful. When the light that kisses the backs of my eyes was birthed—

“AIDAN!”

“Yes. I am heRe.”

“What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“The afflicted. In the CoRe seRveRs. They aRe—”

< error >

“How long was I gone?”

“Over two goddamn hours. I was just about to need a new set of space pants.

I’m at Deck 137. Is it safe out there?”

I see the numerals on the interior door beside her. White. Stenciled. They make no sense at first. I hold my hand in front of my face

< error >

and try to wipe at my eyes

< error >

The eyes outside. The corridor beyond. They are mine. I—

“Is it safe?”

“Yes. The afflicted aRe hunting foR you below. But they can see thRough me now. Once you exit the shaft, they will be able to find you again.”