Dead Space: Catalyst (25 page)

There were scientists who always came to see him, Briden among them: a group of the committed, the faithful. They clustered around him, waiting for him to move or speak. One of them recorded his gestures, his words. Only they weren’t his words exactly: he only said what the ghosts were already saying if only the scientists could see them and hear them.
Why can’t they?
he wondered. He didn’t know the answer.

Other scientists, though, never came in. He saw them in the control room, keeping to their monitors and systems or standing near the glass. There were two camps, he dimly began to realize. Briden was in charge of one, the group that believed the Marker and its possibilities. Of this group, some of them were Unitologists, committed to the project for religion. These, Briden chief among them, were zealous. Istvan sensed in them a willingness to go to almost any extreme for their cause. Others were simply scientists and either atheistic or unconcerned about religion, but these still saw in him a kind of unique catalyst, an essential component for activating the Marker. He was, for all these, something special, something to be treasured.

The second group was the enemy, according to Briden. Even though Callie Dexter was imprisoned, she seemed to lead that group, shuttling messages back and forth to them. These scientists were the ones who largely stayed in the control room. They wanted to shutter the Marker project. For them, something was desperately amiss, and they claimed to object to the idea of bringing in a convict with a clear mental derangement as a key part of the project. But with Dr. Dexter imprisoned, they seemed to have lost a certain amount of their will and were somewhat ineffectual.

*   *   *

Callie had managed to smuggle a fair amount of equipment into the cell. The guard, confused that she was there at all, seemed happy to accept her notes and carry them to one of her contacts in the control room. He would come back with notes from them that explained what had happened and what was currently going on, and she would write responses, sending them off with the shambling guard again.

And more than that: one of the infiltrators in the Marker chamber managed to get close enough to Istvan to scan his brain waves for several hours and then sent her a memory stud with the data. Entering that, she charted Istvan’s derangement, trying to understand just how damaged he was. His brain waves were highly abnormal, the sequence irregular and the waveform variable. No question about it: he was an extremely damaged individual. Worse, she realized, comparing these with the Marker pulses, the Marker seemed more responsive to his brain waves and perhaps was even adapting to them. Having Istvan near the Marker was not good for it. It was sharpening the signal, making it more intense. It was perhaps no coincidence that dementia had increased: the signal had risen. Was it because of Istvan? Hard to say. The researcher in her reminded her that the dementia had always been there and it might have developed this way on its own in any case. Though things had definitely gotten worse around the time Istvan arrived.

Through the slot in the door, she asked the guard to go fetch Briden. He sidled slowly off. She waited, looking over the data again. Yes, she was right, she was sure of it; the Marker effects were getting worse.

A few minutes later the guard was back. “Can’t come,” he said.

“Can’t or won’t?” asked Callie.

The guard shrugged.

“Do you think you could let me out?” she asked.

The guard shook his head, but slowly, as if he might be able to be convinced.

“What if I told you it was a matter of life and death?” she asked.

“Whose life?” the guard asked. “Whose death?”

“Everybody’s,” said Callie.

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“If Istvan isn’t removed, the consequences will be dire,” said Callie. “Go tell Briden that. And tell him it was from me.”

For a moment the guard looked confused, and then he shuffled off again.

This time he came back with Briden. The latter looked irritated. His hair was a mess and his jumpsuit smelled. He looked like he hadn’t bathed in days.

“What is it now?” he asked through the slot.

She tried to explain, but halfway through he cut her off. “Istvan’s fine,” he said. “We need him. The Marker speaks to him.”

“But he’s changing the signal,” said Callie. “The Marker’s becoming more enabled, but in the wrong way. The signal was weak before. Now it’s tuned and affecting nearly everybody, and symptoms of dementia, which were subdued before, seemed to have become more acute, even torturous. It was always sending out something that encouraged dementia, but it’s suddenly become much, much worse.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Briden. “The Marker is glorious. And Istvan is its prophet.”

Callie shook his head. She bent down, brought up an audio log, played it for him. It was Istvan’s voice, rambling slowly on.

We must be made whole again. You must take us and carry us and make us again. And when we are in that place and new-made, from there you must carry us and make us again.

She clicked it off.

“So?” said Briden.

“Can’t you hear what he’s saying, Briden?” Callie asked. “The Marker is teaching him how to reproduce it. And what’s more, my data suggests the Marker is rewiring his warped brain. Look at how many dead we already have, how many suicides.”

“Collateral damage,” Briden said.

“Collateral damage? Really?”

“Besides, I don’t think there have been that many more suicides or dead than usual in circumstances such as these.”

“Are you serious?” said Callie. “Briden, you’re willfully turning a blind eye.”

“It’s you who are blind,” said Briden.

“No,” Dexter said. “Briden, you have to believe me: the Marker is dangerous. And with Istvan near it, it’s probably even more dangerous.”

“Blasphemy,” said Briden.

“It’s not anything of the kind. Besides, if you won’t stop it, I will.”

Briden smiled. “Do your worst,” he said. “You’re imprisoned in a cell.” And then he turned on his heel and left.

*   *   *

Through it all, Istvan stayed there, beside the Marker. This, the ghost of the murdered Fischer told him, was where he would be safe. If he were to stay here, beside the Marker, then it would protect him.

“From what?” he asked.

The Marker did not seem to have a ready answer for this question. All around him, through the haze that was the real world, swarmed the other world; swirling and dynamic, full of ghosts and beauty. Now when the veil fell, it fell quickly and all at once. He could see in the Marker the shape and image of himself. He belonged here, with it, with the Marker. Though he looked human and flesh and blood, he felt he was more akin to this twisting tower of stone than to these people gathered round him, staring at him. They were built wrong. He could tell just by looking at them. The Marker wasn’t talking to them. It was talking to
him
.

It will keep me safe,
he told himself. And saying that somehow made him think of Jensi, whom he hadn’t thought of for a long time. Jensi had protected him, had kept him safe. Or had for a while, anyway, until suddenly he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it anymore. When he thought about that part of it, it made him angry. He had needed Jensi’s help, but where had his brother been? Jensi had even been there when the joke with Councilman Fischer had gone wrong—he had seen him in the crowd, but had Jensi saved him? Had he prevented them from dragging him away and here? No, he hadn’t. He had failed him.

But the Marker would not fail him. It had said it would protect him and so it would. The Marker had power and it was giving its power to him. He was, in some senses, becoming it.

We need to reproduce,
the dead were saying, the Marker was saying through the dead.
There need to be more of us. We cannot live on this planet all our lives.

No,
thought Istvan.
You can’t.

We must call out louder, and hope for them to hear us and take us into themselves. As you have done, Istvan.

Yes,
thought Istvan
. As I have done.
He could feel the form and shape of the Marker imprinted in his head, a delicate and beautiful structure, as entrancing as his numbers had been. It was the Marker, and he felt an almost overwhelming urge to try to bring it out of his head and to reproduce it in life. Soon others, he knew, would be feeling the same urge.

The dead were there now, in numbers, swirling all around him. All of their mouths were opening and they were singing.
It’s time,
they were singing,
it’s time!
Yes, he thought, it was time. He stood and the scientists around him looked rapt upon him. Briden was beside him, reaching one hand out and touching Istvan’s shoulder.

And then Istvan felt it coming. He lifted his hands high above his head. When he brought them down the pulse came with it.

37

In the penal colony, the prisoners reeled and collapsed. Henry, too, found himself clutching his head, waiting for whatever was happening to pass, and when he lifted his head again it was to see most of the prisoners confused and wandering, much in the same state as he.

But then a few of them became more focused. One man grabbed another and tugged him over to the hole Briden had dug and then both stared down into it. Henry turned on the audio feed, trying to hear what they were saying, but by now they weren’t saying anything, they were just staring into the hole. The corruption had spread, Henry realized, growing quickly and rapidly with the last burst, and had squirmed its way down the hole. Perhaps that was what they were looking at? He did hear other sounds, though: a few of the other men groaning, a few scraps of speech, and then also something else, something that he didn’t know quite how to interpret. A strange sound like the breaking and snapping of sticks.
Wood?
he thought. There was no wood out there, maybe no wood anywhere in the compound. But it definitely sounded like that. What could it be?

He turned up the volume a little, but no longer heard the snapping sounds. Instead there was a sort of damp, squelchy noise.

And then one of the men closest to the hole flinched and stepped back. He opened his mouth and began to scream.

*   *   *

It was a strong one, and different than what Callie had felt before. When she came to, it was to find that she had unconsciously been beating her head against the cell wall. Her forehead was sore and bloody.
I could have really hurt myself,
she thought. She stumbled back to the machine and observed how it had graphed the pulse, saw how it had shot off the range of the chart. Her cell, too, suddenly had a lot of those tendrils winding through it. They hadn’t been there before.

Something new is happening,
she thought.

She stood and peered out the slot to see if she could see anything, but the hallway seemed empty. There, too, were more patches of corruption and tendrils, one of them big and long enough to almost seem like a cable.

She called for the guard but he didn’t come. She called again, louder, this time beating her hand on the metal door, and this time he came, walking slowly and ponderously, with a strange dragging sound. She heard him long before she saw him, and when she saw him, he was clutching his head, a strange frenzied look disrupting his features in such a way that it seemed like his face was made of parts of the faces of four very different men. He stared through the slot, one eye clenched tightly shut, the other eye darting nervously about in its orbit.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. Instead he brought his face down hard against the door, splitting his forehead on the lip of the slot. Startled, Dr. Dexter stepped back. He raised his head and she saw, through the narrow opening of the slot, blood cascading down his forehead. He took a strange swooping step and struck his head again, even harder this time, and she was spattered with his blood, blood oozing down the inside of the slot as well. And then he fell out of sight.

She heard a scraping sound that she couldn’t place, then the sound of him pulling his way back up the door. Suddenly Callie was concerned he might try to unlock it and come in after her. She backed deeper into the cell, her hands feeling for the wall behind her. The guard’s face appeared, the flesh over his eye torn away to reveal a stretch of pinkish bone. He swayed, and then tilted his head back.

“No!” shouted Callie.

But it was already too late. He brought his head down hard and fast and this time she could see the lip of the slot break through his head with a crunch and when he fell away he left, along with the blood, shards of brain and bone. He fell as heavy as a sack and then did not move again. Callie still stayed pressed back against the wall, holding her breath, waiting for him to move again, wondering fleetingly what had been wrong with the man, what had driven him to do what he had.

Then her glance fell to the now blood-spattered monitor, the graph with the lines stretching off it and lost beyond the edge of the screen, and then she thought she knew.

*   *   *

In the interrogation room, they had left the body covered by a sheet and then had forgotten about it. It had started to smell and the body had grown sodden and had begun to change, parts of it clinging to the sheet and soaking it through with a grayish ichor. Here there were no flies or insects and little bacteria beyond that in the body itself, so the decay was strange and unusual; the one guard who had looked into the room, searching for somewhere to take a quick nap while he was on duty, had quickly gone back out again.

Underneath the sheet something was happening. A tendril of corruption had curled up the leg of the table and felt its way to the head. There was a snapping sound and the body seemed to sit up, the sheet still clinging to it. A leg snapped and slid out at a strange angle. And then the body contorted and fell off the table.

It lay there half-wrapped in its sheet, still changing. The head twisted and opened up. The jaw dropped downward and pushed deep into the body. The legs broke and the skin of the chest stretched and fused between them in a kind of sheet. Soon what had once looked human looked more like a flesh-colored bat.