Virus (14 page)

He figured if they just kept going, stuck to the main corridor, it’d circle back around to a stairwell eventually. There was another turn ahead and they moved on, Richie still thinking about what Steve had said. Russian crewmen with rifles, Squeaky missing—the poor sap must’ve unbolted the door and gotten himself shot. It was a goddamn shame.

Just try it on us, Ruskies; we’ve locked and loaded, gonna blow you a new asshole . . .

They turned the corner and stopped, staring down at the mess that littered the dim hall. Thick cables had been ripped out of the ceiling, and were strewn like spider webs crisscrossing the corridor.

“What happened here?” Woods whispered, slurring his words together.

Richie shook his head. “Somebody doesn’t like electricity.”

They stepped carefully through the snaking cables, Richie noticing that the corridor turned again up ahead, to the left. There was a hatch at the end of this hall, though; maybe it led to stairs.

They reached the hatch and Richie stepped forward, trying to make sense of the sign next to it in the dim light. Russian was weird-looking, mixing up perfectly good letters with shit that didn’t make sense—

Something streaked up in front of him and hovered, insectlike, an inch from his face.

Fuck—

He stumbled backwards, nearly tripped over Woods. A bright light flashed on from the buzzing thing, blinding him.

Richie batted it with his rifle, too startled to think straight. The barrel connected with metal, solid, and the thing fell, thrashing wildly, humming and buzzing as it twisted across the floor.

He aimed at it, fired—and it stopped moving, the light and sound cutting off instantly.

Jesus H. Christ!

What
was
it? Richie stared down at the metal—
thing,
unable to figure out what it was he was looking at. Like a giant insect, made out of machine parts. Less than a foot across, winged, a lens on the oblong body where the light had come from—

It’s a robot! A fuckin’ ’droid!

Richie prodded at it with the barrel of his weapon, but it didn’t move. His bullets had severed a twisting cable that jutted out of its back, and he realized that he must have cut off its power.

He looked down at the cable, saw that it snaked down the corridor to their left, trailing off into darkness. Richie crouched down and picked up the ’droid, amazed at how light it was in spite of the obvious fact that it was made out of metal.

“What is it? It smells like dog shit, Richie.”

Richie stared down at the strange, insectoid body in his hand, thoughts racing. “It’s robotics, man. High-tech robotics.”

Woods sounded as awed as Richie felt. “What’s it for?”

Richie blew out slowly, shook his head. “I don’t know. Never seen anything like it, look at this engineering . . . With shit like this, how’d the Russians lose the Cold War? C’mon.”

They both raised their rifles and started down the hall to their left, following the severed cable that would take them to its source of power. Richie grinned to himself, eager to see more and feeling wired out of his skull with excitement and curiosity.

So this is what they’ve been up to out here: fan-fuckin’-tastic! No wonder they don’t want us to see this . . .

Reminded of the enemy, he clutched his weapon tighter and they moved off into the darkness, Richie leading the way.

Nadia was dreaming, a dark and terrible dream of blue fire, and there was distant pain, in her head and chest. It seemed to go on for a long time, this dream, but the pain grew stronger, sharper—and the dream faded out like an old, ugly memory, the surface of reality rushing towards her like a light . . .

She opened her eyes groggily and there
was
light. Bright light, shining down from above. And people, the people who had done this thing. Real people.

Panic flushed through her, panic and a terror so great that she almost couldn’t breathe.

“The lights, no! Shut off the power, it needs power! You have to listen, I didn’t know you were real before, you’ve made a terrible mistake!”

There was a woman leaning over her, a pretty woman with a worried expression. The woman babbled gently at her in a foreign language, the words soothing but wrong, all wrong.

Nadia took a deep breath, concentrated.

“EE-zee,” she said. “Easy”? English? Oh, thank God!
Nadia
knew
English, she’d had to in order to work with the American astronauts.

The woman spoke again. “We’re American, you know, U.S.A.? English?”

Nadia pointed at the lights, finding the words quickly. “Power! Turn off the power, shut down the ship! You’re all in danger!”

They all looked at her and she looked back, searching for comprehension in their pale faces. A young, dark-haired man in scrubs with a shotgun. An older man with a sailing cap. The pretty young woman in a reddish shirt, and there was another, he looked Polynesian, Maori perhaps.

“What’s she going on about?” The Maori, asking the others as if she weren’t even there.

The dark-haired man shook his head. “Beats me. I’m going after Squeaky.”

What’s “Squeaky”?

The woman looked at the young man with concern. “Be careful. Meet up with us on the bridge.”

The man met her deep gaze and nodded, chambering a round in the shotgun. Nadia saw that they were lovers, and felt her stomach knot with sadness.

“See you on the bridge,” he said, and left the sick bay.

Nadia closed her eyes and raised a shaking hand to her head, searching for the words that would make them understand. Already they acted as though she were crazy—

—and why wouldn’t they? You tried to kill them, you probably look like hell, haven’t slept or bathed in days.

She opened her eyes, saw the older man in the American captain hat and the Maori moving closer to where she sat, expressions tight with suspicion. The captain held a crinkly bag, and as he neared her, she smelled roasted nuts.

Without thinking, she snatched for the bag, mouth watering. The captain pulled away, exchanging a look with the woman.

Nadia felt her eyes well up. “I have not eaten in three days,” she said softly.

The captain frowned, then handed the bag over. Nadia couldn’t even thank him, she was too overcome by animal need. She stuffed a great handful into her mouth, hardly chewing the rich, salty peanuts.

She felt her stomach clench, but it didn’t reject the nourishment. She nodded thankfully, could already feel her exhausted mind clearing as the protein hit her system.

“What is your name?” The woman, her voice gentle.

The captain spoke before she could answer. “What happened on this ship? Where’s the rest of your crew?”

Nadia swallowed, listened to the words, and looked between the captain and the woman, desperate to say the right thing and make them understand.

She focused on the captain, their leader. He was the one she had to convince.

“Dead. All dead. You must shut off the power. It needs power to move through the ship.”

“What
needs power?”

How could she explain? Nadia fixed her gaze on his and realized there was no word for the thing.

“It,” she said again, and pointed upwards. “From the MIR.”

The woman studied her seriously. “The space station?”

Nadia nodded and stuffed another handful of peanuts in her mouth, chewing around the word.

“Yes!”

The captain rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Jesus, we got us a—”

Nadia frowned, swallowed. She didn’t know the word.

Froot-caik?

The woman looked at him, upset. “Hold on, Captain—”

The captain waved a dismissive hand at her, and she didn’t need to know the exact meaning, she could see it in his face, hear it in the way he spoke. “She’s a fucking nut-bag! Look at her!”

Nadia realized that he wouldn’t hear her, that his ears were closed. The leader of these people thought her insane, wouldn’t listen until his crew was dead—or worse than dead, and with the power on, that wouldn’t be far away.

She had to get out, try to turn off the engines before it was too late.

Nadia took a deep breath, and when the captain turned back to her she sprang at him, lacing her fingers together and bashing at the side of his head.

He fell against a cabinet and to the floor and she was running, sprinting from the medical lab and into the corridor, praying that there was still time.

• 14 •

T
he Russian jumped out of her chair and hit Everton with both hands, hard, dropping him. Before Foster even had time to blink, the woman ran out of the sick bay.

The captain was down, Hiko couldn’t run—she realized that there was no one else and took off after her, reaching for the .32 pistol in her pocket that Steve had given her a seeming eternity before.

She hit the hallway, heard glass breaking. She whipped around, saw the woman reach into a mounted case on the wall at the end of the corridor and grab a fire ax. Then she was running again, around a corner and out of sight.

“Ah,
shit.”

Foster sprinted after her, rounded the same corner, and saw an open hatch, leading to a set of stairs different from the ones they’d used to get Hiko to the sick bay; these started on the B deck. The woman could only have gone down.

There was light, at least. Foster gripped the pistol tightly and ran down the steps, three at a time. She turned at the midflight landing—

—and saw the Russian stopped at the hatch to the C deck, pushing desperately at the thick metal. It seemed to be blocked from the other side. Bits of electrical cord littered the floor.

Foster stopped midway down the steps and pointed the .32, struggling to catch her breath. “Hold it right there!”

The woman turned, saw the weapon, and held very still, her face pale and afraid. Foster motioned at the ax.

“Drop it!”

The woman lowered the ax slowly, then dropped it to the floor, the blade clattering heavily against the metal landing. She sank down beside it, looking as deeply upset and exhausted as Foster had ever seen another person look. It was as if the life had drained out of her, her very will to live suddenly gone.

Foster edged closer, the battered pistol still trained on her, but she couldn’t imagine the pitiful woman even standing up again, let alone attacking. The knuckles of her right hand dripped blood slowly.

“What were you going to do with that?” Foster asked.

The woman turned a pleading, anxious gaze up to her. “You don’t understand,” she said softly.

“I understand that you just hit my captain,” Foster said, and before she could stop herself, whispered under her breath, “something I’ve wanted to do for a long time . . .”

The woman was trembling, terrified and miserable, and Foster lowered the gun, took a deep breath, and put it back in her pocket. If the Russian was faking this, she deserved an Oscar; she honestly seemed to be having some kind of a breakdown and no longer seemed violent at all. Foster raised both her hands and stepped forward, now only a few feet from her.

“My name is Kelly Foster. I’m a navigator.”

The woman gazed at her warily, then said in a small, hopeful voice, “I am Nadia. Nadia Vinogradova, chief science officer.”

There was a clatter down the steps behind them and Everton ran down the stairs, Hiko limping along behind him. Both had firearms, both trained on Nadia.

Foster took a calculated risk and turned towards the two men, leaving herself wide open for attack. She looked at Everton seriously.

“That isn’t necessary. You too, Hiko. Put it down.”

She turned back to the shuddering woman, keeping her hands in sight and her voice low and easy, her words simple. “Nadia, once again. Slowly. Where is your crew?”

Nadia seemed to realize that this was her chance to explain. She blew out slowly, met Foster’s gaze. “I told you. Dead or deserted.”

Everton scoffed loudly. “Deserted? In this storm, three hundred crewmen? Bullshit.”

Foster shot him a look. “Captain, please . . .”

Nadia went on, frowning in concentration. “Eight days ago, during a transmission from the MIR space station, something came onto the ship. We thought our transmitter and receivers were malfunctioning, so we shut them down. It took control of computers, scanned all—information. Language, encyclopedias, medical data. It was learning.”

“Learning what?” Foster asked, crouching down in front of her.

“How to—kill us. My captain, Alexi, and I were the last to survive. We cut their cables, smashed them.”

Foster frowned. “ ‘Them’? You just said ‘it.’ Who’s
‘them’?”

Nadia said a word in Russian, her face crumpling as she spoke, eyes tearing and mouth turning down. Then in English.

“Machines,”
she said, and buried her head in her hands, weeping. “I’m telling you the truth!”

Foster stood and walked back to Everton and Hiko; the deckhand looked openly skeptical, but Everton seemed almost . . .

Triumphant?

“Well?” Everton asked softly.

Foster sighed. “You’re right, she’s nuts. But
something
sure scared her. Let’s get her to the bridge.”