Parasite, page 15
“Five-one-one-six-eight-two-seven,” Saul said, his voice quiet again, his gun still trained on the closed door. Gin entered the access code, sealing out the monsters. As soon as he heard the quiet beep of the door locking, Saul dropped his gun to the ground and leaned against the wall. He’d been putting weight on the broken leg, Maren saw, and his face was ghost white as he held out a hand to her. “Come here.”
Leaving the water carton on the ground, Maren stepped towards the defence technician. He gripped her shoulder then raised the hand to press against her neck, his large fingers seeking her pulse. When he found it, he let out a sigh and closed his eyes. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She took a shuddering breath and smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“It’s my job.”
He let go of her, and Maren realised how unwell he was. His eyelids fluttered as he slid down the wall, his broken leg at an odd angle. “Gin,” Maren said, quickly grabbing Saul’s arm and pulling him up. Gin hurried to his other side, and they managed to drag him to one of the maroon four-seater lounges and lay him down. Being as careful as they could, they lifted his broken leg.
Maren hurried to one of the tables and grabbed a bowl of potpourri, which had been left there by one of the station’s old staff. She tipped the dried flowers out, dusted it clean with her sleeve, and filled it with water from the jug.
“Here,” she said, kneeling beside Saul and pressing the bowl to his lips.
He drank then laid his head back and closed his eyes. His breathing was still ragged but at least a little less raspy. With an overwhelming sense of helplessness, Maren stayed kneeling beside him, watching his chest rise and fall.
Gin sat beside Maren, her large green eyes filled with a mixture of awe and fear. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I think so.” Maren wiped her sleeve over the sweat on her forehead. Her heart was still beating hard, and her legs felt weak, but at least she wasn’t hurt. “Sorry about that. I put you guys in danger.”
“Got us some water, though,” Gin said, a little of the usual optimism creeping back into her voice. “So that’s pretty cool, I guess.”
Maren glanced at the jug of water she’d left by the table. It held eight litres. That should last the three of them… a little over three days. She grimaced. “Central better get its rescue teams organised pretty damn quickly.”
Gin squeezed her hand, and Maren squeezed it back. Then she clambered to her feet, the aches, bruises, and strains suddenly returning with a vengeance as the adrenaline wore off. She stumbled to one of the cupboards that held bundles of throw blankets and spare supplies. She grabbed three of the blankets and the first-aid kit that was stored on the top shelf. She gave one of the blankets to Gin then spread the other two over Saul’s unconscious form.
Then, very carefully, she unwrapped the bandages from Saul’s leg. The bruising had spread and turned an angry red. Maren frowned, wishing she’d joined the optional emergency medical care course offered during her training. She repositioned the crooked braces and strapped the leg back up. Saul shivered but didn’t wake fully.
“That’s the best I can do.” Maren sighed and closed the first-aid kit.
A pounding noise on the door behind them made Maren jump. One of the creatures had circled around to try the other doors, she guessed. Gin grimaced then got up and crossed the room to where Saul had set up his security video equipment. She unplugged it, pushed its gurney across the room until it stood in front of Saul’s lounge, and re-plugged it into the nearest wall. Images from the cameras positioned about the station filled the screens.
“Here.” Gin grabbed a bundle of pillows from the nearby lounges and threw half of them at Maren. “We may as well get comfortable. We might be here for a while.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The hours ticked by slowly. Both Maren and Gin watched the screens, trying to keep track of Holly and Mark, who had split up to rove through the station. Every now and then, they would return to one of the rec room’s four doors and try to open it, first by pressing on the handle then by entering their access codes, but Maren and Gin had no intention of opening any of the passageways if they could help it.
Saul stirred a few times before falling into what Maren hoped was a natural sleep. When she pressed her hand to his forehead, she found it hot and feverish, so she’d used a small amount of their precious water to wet a cloth and dab it over his face. Gin took stock of what was kept in the rec room’s fridge and found a few cans of fruit juice, some packets of chips, gummy sweets, and a bag of dehydrated fruit slices.
They ate some of the food to replenish their energy and drank enough water to keep themselves hydrated. Maren ran the calculations through her head a half dozen times: if they drank just enough to stay healthy, they would have enough fluids for three days. They would either need to be rescued or have to take their chances in the pantry again.
Saul’s leg would need to be set, and soon, before the bones started fusing. Neither she nor Gin knew enough to do it themselves. Suriya had doubled as their medical officer during the hibernation.
Mark and Holly stalked the hallways of the station for nearly four hours before settling down in the pantry, hidden behind the rows of shelves. Nearly an hour passed before Maren saw more motion on the screen.
“Hey,” she said, nudging Gin, who’d fallen asleep on her shoulder. “Look.”
Suriya shambled down the central hallway. She moved slowly and erratically, pausing frequently, her head swivelling to watch the passageways around her. Her right hand gripped a long, sharp serrated knife; Maren could see the fluorescent light glinting off its edge.
Gin shivered and rubbed at her face. “Jeeze, I’d forgotten she was still here. You don’t think…”
“She’s still human,” Maren said, watching in fascination as the older woman bent forward to look down one of the side passageways. “That’s why Mark and Holly were going through the station; they were searching for Suriya, but she must have managed to hide somewhere they didn’t think to look.”
“Jeeze,” Gin muttered. “Should we let her in?”
Suriya turned to glance behind herself, and for a moment, Maren was able to see her face. The commander’s eyes bugged, her lips were drawn tight, and there was an edge of ferocity to her that Maren hadn’t seen before. Suriya swung the knife slowly as she turned forward again, and Maren realised what was so disquieting about the way she was behaving. She wasn’t hiding; she was stalking. Instead of trying to reach a safe part of the station, she was searching for prey.
“Nope,” Maren said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t think that would help anyone.”
“Good call,” Saul said, and both women swivelled to look at him. His eyes were open, and his face had regained some of its colour.
Maren felt a rush of relief. “Hey, you doing okay?” she asked, getting to her knees. “Want some water?”
“Not just yet.” Saul was watching the screens, and Maren had the impression he’d been awake for some time without them knowing.
Suriya continued down the hallways, searched in the communications and dining rooms—barely twenty feet away from where Holly and Mark lurked in the pantry—and finally tried the rec room. Maren heard the door behind her rattle a second before she saw Suriya shake the handle on the screen. Their leader then turned, seemed to think for a moment, and continued down the hallway that led to her office. She slipped inside, closed the door, and was lost from their view.
“What do you think Holly and Mark are doing?” Gin asked. “Do you think they’re tired?”
“I’d guess they’re waiting.” Maren stretched, arching her back. Everything felt sore. “I don’t know if they need to eat, but they know we need to, and that we’ll be forced out of here when we run out of water.”
Gin sighed and rubbed her palm over her face again.
She looks exhausted, Maren thought with a pang of pity.
“So we’re just going to cross our fingers and hope help comes before then?”
“That’s the plan, yeah. At least we’re a pretty important station.”
“Not quite important enough.” Gin chuckled, but it was a hollowed sound. “Remember, Central probably dispatched just about all of their emergency response teams to the early requests, back when no one knew there was a problem. How many of those teams would have made it back? Alive, I mean. Central won’t care about having a highly connected communications system. They’ll care about fortifying and protecting the planets they can still save. We’re unnecessary.”
Maren sighed. She hadn’t thought about it that way, but Gin was right. There was no point in saving a communications station that received signals from remote planets if you were preparing to let those planets fall.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
Gin shrugged, still watching the screens. “Survive as long as we can, I guess. We’ve got a gun with enough bullets to… you know… if we don’t want to be absorbed by whatever got Holly and Mark.”
“Jeeze,” Maren said.
Gin leaned her head on Maren’s shoulder, a small act of comfort in the face of certain death.
“Do you have any regrets?” Gin asked.
“Huh?”
“Like, things you wished you could have done.”
Maren thought it over briefly. There were a lot of things she’d be sad to never have the chance to do, she realised. “I never got that promotion to defence technician. And I was sort of looking forward to my leave coming up next year. I miss my home planet. I want to see trees again. Lots of trees and rain and snow and real dirt. Everything’s so dead here.” She could feel her throat choking up, so she cleared it quickly. “How about you?”
Gin was quiet for a moment before answering. “I really wanted children.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Find a nice guy, settle down on a civilian planet, have a couple of kids. Maybe four or five.”
Maren laughed. “Four or five? I’d go crazy.”
“Shut up. Children are adorable.” Gin poked Maren’s arm. “You can dress them up in really cute clothes and tiny shoes and hats and cook them pancakes in the shape of smiley faces and take them to the park on Sundays… yeah, I guess I really wanted some of my own.” A mischievous smile spread over her face. “I guess we have the opposite problem. I spent too much time on my career, you didn’t spend enough.”
Maren laughed then tilted her head back to look at Saul upside down. “What about you? Did you want kids?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Okay, okay. Anything you regret?”
“No,” he said, leaving Maren with the distinct impression that he was lying. They sat in silence for another minute before Saul spoke again. “I can’t get you back to your home planet, but I can give you something else.”
“Hmm?”
“As of now, I’m officially resigned from the defence technician post. As the only other qualified crew member on the station, that role now belongs to you. Congratulations.”
Maren stared at him then felt a huge grin spread over her face. It was a meaningless position now that they were trapped, but the thoughtfulness touched her deeply, and she blinked back tears. “Wow. Thanks, Saul.”
“Hmm.” He closed his eyes again, but she thought she saw the corners of his mouth twitch up.
They sat in silence for a long time, sharing a bag of gummy sweets and water. After an hour of the silence, Gin got up and started pacing the room while Saul slept and Maren watched the screens. It was mind-numbingly dull, and Maren had started to drift off when a siren made her jump. The screen in the corner of the room had turned red and was counting down from two hours and fifteen minutes.
Maren clambered to her feet and stretched. Her muscles had become stiff, but at least the aches were easing.
“Wish there was a way to let the rays into the station,” Gin said from where she was perched on the billiard table near the back of the room. “I bet it would fry them up real good.”
“Yeah.” Maren flashed a smile at her friend, who returned it wearily.
Gin’s eyes were rimmed with red, and her cheeks were missing their healthy pink flush. Maren tried to remember the last time Gin had slept properly. It must have been at least a day—Gin’s shift had been nearing its end when the communications system had broken, and she’d had nothing but stress since then. “Hey, grab a blanket, find a quiet corner, and get some sleep.”
“No, I’m good,” Gin said, making her smile a little larger to demonstrate.
“Really, you need sleep. We’ve got to watch the screens in shifts, anyway, so you may as well rest while I’m awake.”
Gin nodded, kicked off the billiard table, and fetched some throw blankets from the cupboard. Then she retreated to one of the lounges in a shadowy corner of the room.
Maren paced through the recreation room a few times to wake herself up before returning to Saul and the screens. There wasn’t anything to see; Holly and Mark continued to camp in the supplies room, carefully hidden from sight, and Suriya hadn’t ventured out of the office. Maren couldn’t help wondering what their commander was doing—sleeping, maybe, like Gin, or awake, sitting in the wicker chair nestled in the corner, watching the door, that vicious kitchen knife swinging like a pendulum in her bony hand.
The red screen in the corner of the room counted down to the next flare: two hours, then one hour forty-five, then one hour thirty. Maren felt as though it were echoing the countdown on her life. She had four days, with luck, before thirst forced her into the supplies room or compelled her to face Saul’s gun. Four days isn’t long. There’s so much I wanted to do. So many things I’d planned for.
You got one of them, at least, she reminded herself, glancing at Saul’s sleeping face. You get to play defence technician for a handful of hours. Tick that one off the bucket list.
Motion on the screens caught her eye, and Maren leaned forward. Suriya was hurrying down the hallway, apparently not trying to be quiet anymore. Maren glanced at the screen monitoring the storage room entrance, expecting Mark or Holly to come out, but they didn’t seem to have heard.
“What’s she doing?” Maren hissed, watching as Suriya went into the communications room. The older woman pulled the small chip off the chain she’d retied around her neck and fitted it into the communications panel. Maren felt a rush of horror as she realised what was about to happen.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Gin?” Maren reached behind herself to shake Saul. “Gin, this is bad!”
“I’m awake,” Saul muttered when Maren didn’t stop shaking him. “And yes, I’ve been watching.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Maren wasn’t able to keep the panic out of her voice. The metallic taste of fear had returned to her mouth, making her feel queasy.
Saul’s silence was an answer in itself.
“What?” Gin asked, kneeling on the cushion pile next to Maren. “What’s happened?”
Maren pointed at the screen, where Suriya was typing on the panel. “She’s used her chip. She’s going to override the lockdown, I’ll bet. She’ll open the doors and let the gamma rays fry the Cymics.”
“Well… that’s good, isn’t it?” Gin asked, looking between Maren and Saul. “This is an emergency lockdown room. It’s safe against the rays, even if they contaminate the rest of the station. The Cymics will die, and we’ll be safe.”
“Yeah,” Maren said, right as Suriya turned away from the panel and looked directly at the camera. A sickening smile stretched over the woman’s face. “That would work great if Suriya hadn’t gone—what’s a polite way to put this? Nuts. Bonkers. Psycho. She’s going to kill us all.”
Gin blanched. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“You think? She doesn’t know whether we’re still human or if we’ve been taken over. And by this point, I don’t think she cares. Remember what she said earlier? I’d rather see all of you die than let one of those beasts into my station. She’s going to make good on that threat.”
“Oh, hell,” Gin said.
Suriya’s whole body started shaking. For a brief, hopeful second, Maren thought she might be having a fit, but then she realised the commander was laughing.
Maren squeezed her eyes closed, trying to think. “If we stay here and do nothing, we’ll cook. We go out to try and stop her, and the Cymics will hear and come after us.”
“And even if we do stop her, all it does is buy us a couple extra days.” Gin slumped back, her face drawn, as she pulled a grey tasselled pillow to her chest. “We’re not going to get rescued. We’re not making it off this station.”
“We’ve—we’ve got to try.” Maren shook her head. “There’s still a chance someone will come.”
Gin pressed her forehead into the pillow. “Don’t, Maren. The odds are far too slim.” She sighed, the sound muffled by her cushion. “If it was just a choice between death and death, I’d say yeah, let’s try for those three extra days. But Maren, I’m scared. I don’t want to become… like Mark. Or Holly. I don’t want them stealing my body.”
Maren swallowed. “I don’t, either.”
Suriya finished typing then swivelled away from the bench with a happy clap. Maren remembered how Mark had moved when Holly had infected him. He’d twitched, jerked, and finally fallen still, only to stand up again, his body no longer his own. The idea of having her skin taken by one of the Cymic Parasites was unbearable.
“What do we do, then?” Maren asked. “Wait for the gamma rays?”
“It’s the lesser of two evils for me.” Gin raised her head. Fresh tear tracts sparkled on her cheeks, but she looked surprisingly calm. “If I have to go some way, I could do a lot worse than a quick, hot death.”
Maren nodded slowly then turned to the man behind her. “Saul?”
“I agree with Gin,” he said. “But what about you?”
