Parasite, page 26
Mitzi rubbed a hand over her face. “Right. What’s the fastest way to the reactor, assuming we can’t get down the first stairwell anymore?”
“Well, you could follow the hallway for a kilometre to get to the next stairwell…”
Mitzi heard typing noises then a frustrated sigh from Nic. “It’s not pretty out there, doll. They’re blocking the door, plus every passageway you could take. I don’t know what to suggest.”
“Go through the roof.”
The voice was so quiet and unfamiliar that it made Mitzi jump. She turned to see Eoin, eyes fixed on his book. He shot her a glance before returning his gaze to the pages in front of him. “This is a load-bearing level. There’s a crawlspace above the ceiling where they put the support beams to prop up the buildings on the planet’s surface.”
Mitzi blinked at him. “How do you know that?”
“I read it.”
“Really?” Mitzi grinned as she crossed the room, feeling a little surge of pride for her black horse. “So that’s what the book is about! You’ve been reading up this station to prepare yourself! Clever, Eoin.”
She plucked the book out of the boy’s hands and glanced at the title, expecting it to be an instruction manual for station maintenance or possibly an architectural guide. She frowned at the book’s actual name. “Prominent English Monasteries of the Eighteenth Century. What the hell, Eoin?”
He shrugged, reaching for the book. “I already read about stations. Years ago. Now I’m learning about monks.”
“He reads a lot,” Ellen said, offering Mitzi a small smile, as though that explained her friend’s behaviour. Mitzi dropped the book back into Eoin’s hands with a sigh.
“Well. Regardless. You’re sure we can get into the roof?”
“Yes.”
Mitzi sucked on her teeth as she worked through the plan. If they could use the crawlspace to get out of the room then drop back into the hallway beside the stairs, they might just stand a chance of getting to the reactor before the Cymics noticed they were missing.
“Okay,” she said, waving Skye and Mir closer so she could explain the plan in whispers. “We’re going through the roof, then. Adam is in no fit state to fight, so he’ll need to rest here.”
“No, I want to fight!” Adam said, trying to push himself up from the lounge.
Skye placed a hand on his shoulder and shoved him back down.
“Perfect, because you’re going to be fighting that concussion until we can get you to a medical team. Now, can I get a volunteer to stay with him?”
Mitzi stared pointedly at Ellen, who only hesitated for a moment before raising her hand.
“Great, that’s settled. Stay with hot shot here, and don’t let him move around too much. I don’t think the Cymics will try to break in. We need food and water, but they have all the time in the world and are probably content to wait for us to come out. That said, keep as quiet as possible once we’re gone. Eventually, the Cymics will realise we got out, and it’s in everyone’s best interests if they think all of us have escaped. They should remove, or at least reduce, the number of guards around the door, which will make it easier to bust you out once we’ve set the detonator. Everyone clear on that?”
Mitzi waited until her entire team nodded before she stood up. “There’s no time like the present. Let’s get moving now while at least some of the Cymics are still asleep.”
She stopped in front of her suit to give it a quick examination before she stepped inside it. The fire had tarnished its beautiful shiny plates, and the right leg, which the parasites had tried to break into, looked horribly mangled. There were dents and nicks over the back where she’d been thrown to the ground, and parts of the paint had been scraped off. It wasn’t as pretty as it had been when she’d first seen it, but it had lived up to Central’s claims of durability.
Mitzi climbed inside and pressed the button to close and lock the suit around herself. The screen flickered to life in front of her eyes, and she checked the little icons along the bottom, waiting until four of them registered as being active. She took an experimental step forward and once again felt the reeling sensation of too much power, but it was less disorienting than it had been the first time.
“Eoin, can you tell me the best way to get into the ceiling?”
His suit turned, examining the support pillars and the protrusions in the walls that indicated braces, then stepped to a spot near the right-hand side and pointed at the ceiling tile.
“Right-o, then.” Mitzi grabbed a coffee table, dragged it to the space under the ceiling tile, then climbed onto the wooden surface. It groaned under the weight of the suit but held, and Mitzi pulled the poly-zincrom tile out of its holder.
Eoin had been right. There was a space between the ceiling and the floor above. It wasn’t quite high enough to stand, but they would be able to run at a crouch. Mitzi hauled herself into the gap, using the metal beams to carry her weight, and held a hand down for her team.
“Quietly,” she murmured as she pulled Skye then Franc up. “Don’t let them guess what we’re doing.”
Eoin let Mitzi pull him into the crawlspace, but Mir hesitated.
“You want to stay?” Mitzi asked, hand extended.
Mir glanced at her then at the door separating her from the Cymics before gripping the offered palm.
Mitzi grinned. “Good girl.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Mitzi pulled Mir into the ceiling space and waved to Adam and Ellen, who were still out of their suits. Adam looked sulky and jealous, but Ellen seemed relieved to have a job she could cope with.
Mitzi turned back to the crawlspace. It was a mess of pillars and metal brackets coming through the floor in odd formations and often at strange angles. Metal cables thicker than Mitzi’s arm speared through the area.
“Go straight ahead,” Nic instructed. “I’ll tell you when to get back into the hallway.”
Mitzi, bent double, began slinking through the jumble of supports, weaving under cables and around metal pipes. She’d always enjoyed stealth missions; the pressure to move both quickly and quietly combined with the danger of discovery made her feel alive like little else could. Mitzi didn’t try to stop the grin that grew across her face.
She didn’t think her team was enjoying it as much as she was, though. The breathing coming through her headset sounded ragged and stressed, and they were having trouble keeping up with her pace. Mitzi slowed down so they wouldn’t be separated.
“You’re doing good,” Nic said. “All of the heat signals are converging on the rec room. I can’t promise there won’t be Cymics when you get back into the hallway, but at least they won’t be human. Bear left a little.”
Mitzi altered her direction, dropping to her knees to get under a series of cables that had been bolted to the ceiling. The surface changed from poly-zincrom interspaced with metal bars to metal sheets, and she had to slow to a snail’s pace to keep the noise down. Every time her suit touched the metal, it set up a dull, echoing clang.
“Tell me we’re close,” she said through gritted teeth, inching forward.
“You’re still a little way from the stairwell, but feel free to drop down any time. You’re right above a hallway.”
“Thank goodness.” Mitzi halted, unzipped her utility bag, and grabbed the screwdriver inside, then she felt around until she found the edges of one of the metal sheets and unscrewed the bolts holding it down.
She pulled it aside. The hallway below glowed green in the night vision, but she couldn’t see any suspicious shapes. Mitzi eased her legs over the edge while Skye held her hands and lowered her to the ground as quietly as possible. She then reached up and helped her four teammates down.
The hallway was completely still and dark. Open doors and empty passageways created pockets of darkness every ten feet, and the hair on the back of Mitzi’s neck prickled as she beckoned for her team to follow her.
It was an absolute maze, Mitzi realised as Nic directed them when to turn. There were small plaques at each corner, giving the name and compass direction of their pathways. If the section went for as far as it seemed to, Mitzi might have spent the entire day meandering through it and still missed large areas.
“Take the next right, and you should see the stairwell,” Nic said.
Mitzi squinted around the corner and, to her relief, saw the indistinct ridges that marked the stairwell leading upwards. Inky black filled the passageway down. She approached the opening and hesitated on the top step, holding her breath to listen. A dull drip echoed off the concrete walls.
“Brilliant.”
The Cymics must be getting halfway down the stairs, between floors, and breaking through the walls to get to the water pipes. If we’re lucky, the ones that used to live here will have gone to wait outside the rec room.
Mitzi began moving down the stairs, every nerve in her body alert for signs of movement in the grainy green below. Their suits made dull thuds on the worn concrete stairs, but she hoped the parasites were too far away to hear or see.
“Nic?” she whispered as they reached the landing. “No sign of them?”
“No heat spots, at least.”
“Good.” Mitzi turned the corner and hesitated. The dripping sound was louder, but the walls were intact, and she couldn’t see any exposed pipes.
Then a drop of water hit her helmet and rolled down the glass screen, and a surge of dread rose in Mitzi’s chest. She raised her head towards the shadowed stairwell ceiling four feet above her head and felt her blood run cold at the sight of a tendril reaching towards Franc.
“Run!” Mitzi swung her flamethrower nozzle up and pulled the trigger in one motion. The bright fire overwhelmed her night vision, blinding her, but she focussed on the place the monster had been as her companions stumbled past her. Then the night vision clicked off. There wasn’t just one Cymic; there were dozens, all clinging to the ceiling where they’d been absorbing water from the broken pipes that ran between the floors. Three of the creatures had reached around the flame, so close that their sticky black flesh nearly grazed her helmet. Mitzi threw herself backwards to avoid them, letting the motion of her body turn the nozzle upwards. Fire connected with the tendrils, and screeching, wailing screams filled her ears.
She rolled out from under the monsters then kicked herself to her feet. “Get moving!” she yelled, sprinting towards her team, who had hesitated up the hallway. “Go, go!”
Sounds followed her as she ran, and Mitzi glanced behind herself, but the passageway seemed empty. She paused, unzipped her pouch, and pulled out the torch, trusting proper light more than the grainy night vision. The narrow beam of golden light flickered over the stone walls and ceiling as Mitzi scanned every shadowy corner until she was certain she was alone with her team.
“They didn’t follow us,” she said, backing away from the stairwell, where she thought she could still see the dark shapes hovering on the ceiling, reluctant to move. “Why not?”
“Mitzi,” Franc said, his voice very quiet and filled with dread.
She turned to see what had caught his attention, and her breath seized in her throat.
Franc had his own torch pointed down the hallway, in the direction they needed to travel to get to the reactor. Eoin and Mir were frozen, but Skye had drawn her flamethrower and was pointing it at the creature caught in Franc’s shaking light.
A child of no more than ten or eleven, judging by her height, stood facing away from them. Her waist-length auburn hair shimmered in the golden light, and her dress, a pretty white thing dotted with pink flowers, seemed to shift in a non-existent breeze.
Mitzi swallowed, drawing her own flamethrower. Don’t hesitate. It’s not human. It’s not a child. Don’t let it fool you.
And yet, even as she raised the gun and aimed it at the girl, she hesitated to pull the trigger. The child was missing a shoe; her left foot still wore a little black boot, but the right one was only covered by a dirty white sock, frayed from walking through the building.
Her mother wouldn’t like seeing her like that, Mitzi thought then mentally slapped herself. She doesn’t have a mother. Not anymore.
“Captain?” Skye whispered. Mitzi had drawn even with her and could see Skye’s eyes through the helmet, wide and frightened. She was waiting for Mitzi to make the first move, but for all of the certainty she’d felt in the Teal Riot when she’d instructed her crew to never hesitate, she wasn’t sure she could pull the trigger. Her hands were shaking too much to hold the gun steady.
Then the doors along the hallway opened, and the girl became the least of Mitzi’s worries.
People filed into the hallway. There were all ages, from children to the elderly. Some towered above Mitzi, while others looked as though an over-enthusiastic hug could have broken them. Dark skin mingled amongst pale skin, and long hair with short crops. And yet, somehow, they all looked incredibly similar.
It took Mitzi a second to work out why. They all wore identical expressions: bland, with a faint smile tugging at the corners of their lips. It was uncanny enough to make the hairs across the back of Mitzi’s arms rise.
“Mitzi? Doll, answer me!” The voice in her headset finally made its way into her brain. Nic had been talking for at least half a minute, Mitzi realised, but she hadn’t caught anything he’d said. “Mitz, there are red spots everywhere. Can you hear me? They’re everywhere.”
“Yeah, I see them,” Mitzi murmured. It felt surreal, as if she’d slipped into a disturbed dream and was just waiting for it to get bizarre enough to wake her up.
The girl finally turned, rotating slowly to show Mitzi her dark unblinking eyes. Her face held the same bland, faintly smug expression as the others. The front of her dress was stained with dried blood; it bloomed across her chest, and Mitzi knew the girl must have collapsed facedown for it to have pooled like that.
Mitzi had let the flamethrower droop during her stupor, but she raised it again and replaced her finger over the trigger.
The girl’s face was changing. She was grinning, her smile unnaturally wide and stretching her face in ways it was never supposed to bend. The girl’s smile held none of the sweetness Mitzi would have expected to see in a child’s; hers held only dark, deep maliciousness. Then her face started splitting. A crack ran from her hairline down the centre of her nose and across that maniacally grinning mouth then disappeared below the neckline of her dress. The skin peeled apart like a banana, and inside was the horrific black substance that writhed and stretched outwards, grasping for her.
Mitzi pulled the trigger, even as she realised it was too late. The flames engulfed the girl as her friends around her changed, rushing forward and reaching past the pluming flame.
“Back, back!” Mitzi yelled, staggering backwards herself as three streams of flame joined her own.
“They’re behind us,” Mir shrieked, and Mitzi risked a glanced over her shoulder. The Cymics from the stairwell had crawled out of their shelter to block the team’s retreat.
Mitzi swore, her brain racing to find a way out. “Backs together. Keep the flames going.”
Her team obediently crowded around her, Franc facing the same direction as Mitzi, the other three turned towards the stairwell. Their five streams of fire weren’t able to completely surround them, but it was enough to deter most of the parasites.
We can’t keep this up. Mitzi panned her flame from side to side, covering as much of the hallway as she could. How long until the fuel runs out? Six minutes? Five?
The Cymics were writhing just beyond the flame, changing shapes in the flickering light. As they shed their human skins, the living darkness inside spilled out. Mitzi glanced to her right, where Franc was waving his gun’s nozzle too quickly, making the flame ineffective. Beyond him, edging forward in search of an opening, was a merged Cymic.
Chapter Fifty
Mitzi’s mouth filled with a metallic tang as she bit the inside of her cheek. The creature, inky black and covered in the twisting tendrils, towered almost to the ceiling. Its human skin hung from its front, the toes hovering a foot above the floor. The stubbled face of a young man was full and looked natural, but the body hung limply, like a deflated balloon. The pale flesh contrasted with the black monster behind it as the limbs swung, boneless and shrivelled, whenever its host moved.
The Cymic’s grinning human head was incongruous with the empty body below it, as its eyes followed Mitzi. She turned towards it, passing her stream of fire over Franc’s, and felt a small spark of satisfaction as the flame hit the human face, twisting its sardonic grin into a shriek of horror.
“Watch out!” Franc yelled, twisting to shoot his flame at a monster that had tried to take advantage of the gap in Mitzi’s guard. She turned back to help him, and her heart faltered as she saw more of the Cymics had become merged, showcasing their deflated human forms like desecrated trophies.
There’s too many of them. They know our fuel will run out eventually, so they’re not giving us the chance to move forward or escape to the stairwell. And we can’t use the grenades, or the building is likely to collapse…
Though, she thought as she took a half step forward to dissuade a Cymic that had skirted too close, is that such a bad thing?
“Hold on to your boots!” Mitzi yelled, dropping her flamethrower. She pulled four grenades off her belt and threw two into the mass of parasites ahead of them. After flipping the other two behind them, she snatched the final two off her belt and tossed them to either side. “Brace yourselves and get ready to run!”
Her team dropped their nozzles and hunkered down beside her. For a second, the Cymics surged into the opening, then everything went white as the explosions shook the building.
Mitzi forced herself to keep her eyes open. White dust burst from the decimated hallway’s stone floor, and bricks and chips of rock sprayed out, showering the huddled team. Then fire, lagging a second behind the dust, rolled outwards, enveloping both the parasites and her suit. She only became aware of the heat when it had passed over her, and by then, the grenades she’d thrown to either side had detonated.
