Parasite, page 30
Mitzi rolled and picked herself up just in time to see that Skye had followed her—and was falling off the edge of the walkway. Mitzi threw out a hand and grabbed Skye’s arm, pulling her forward, away from the edge of their precarious lifeboat. They were just in time to get out of the way; Mir and Eoin had come down together in a reckless tumble of limbs, and they slammed into the ground with a sickening crunch.
Hoping they weren’t hurt, Mitzi grabbed their suits, hauling them up. “Towards the centre! Move!”
Then they were running, leaping over the gaps between the chunks of concrete, darting and weaving to avoid the enraged black tendrils that were slipping through the cracks, and racing towards Adam and Ellen. The concrete was rising alarmingly quickly, and the force of the momentum made it difficult to move, even with the suits. Mitzi reached the final two members of her team just as the concrete blocks passed the jagged edges of the roof they had once belonged to. She gazed up and was shocked to see the sky, clear and bright, after so long underground. A black spot hovered not far above them, and Mitzi focussed on it, praying it was close enough. “Nic, we’re gonna need that pickup now.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
They were shooting upwards so harshly that Mitzi nearly lost her footing. She stretched out her arm to Eoin, yelling, “Hold hands! Make a chain, and don’t let go!”
The concrete was crumbling under their feet as the Cymic rushed them up, pushing them towards the sky, trying to purge itself of the concrete lid, just as Mitzi had hoped it would. She focussed on the ship above them. The doors had been opened, and a rope ladder swung down.
The pressure was so severe that it was a struggle to stay upright. Eoin held her hand tightly enough for Mitzi to feel the pressure through the glove.
Then the momentum stopped, and Mitzi felt the horrible sensation of weightlessness. The Cymics had thrown their crumbling cover free. Mitzi spared a glance downwards, but the surface of the planet was so far away that the buildings looked like children’s toys.
Nic had cut the ship’s engines, letting it drop like a rock in a desperate attempt to meet them. The ladder swished close to Mitzi, and she grabbed for it, missed, grabbed again, and hooked her free arm through the lowest rung.
“Up, Nic!” she yelled, and the ship’s engines came back on. Suddenly, their plunge was broken as the rope went taut in the crook of Mitzi’s arms. Metal groaned, the ship keeled, and white-hot pain rushed through Mitzi’s chest as the fractured ribs were strained.
She clung on, eyes squinted closed as blackness swam at the edges of her vision. Don’t let go. Don’t let go… She fought to keep conscious, aware of the weight of Eoin’s hand in hers. Then the ship steadied, hovering, and Mitzi finally dared to open her eyes.
The pit stretched below them, vast and seeming to bubble like a cauldron of black ooze. Her team clung to each other.
The Cymics can see us, Mitzi realised as a multitude of white specks—the human skins—began to appear on the surface. They’ll come for us.
“Climb,” she gasped, struggling to breathe despite the pain in her ribs. “Whoever’s at the end of our chain, climb up and get into the ship. Quickly.”
Ellen gave a terrified whimper then began to scramble up them, grabbing their hips and shoulders, anywhere she could get a foothold. Mitzi closed her eyes again as nausea grew in her stomach, but she felt the girl climb over her and grab the rope ladder. She was quickly followed by a second suit, then a third, and Mitzi forced her eyes open again.
The tendrils were already rising towards them, growing like unnatural trees. Eight of them aimed for the ship. They’re too fast. We’re not going to get away in time.
Eoin, the last of their human chain, grabbed for the rope ladder. Mitzi caught a shimmer of light reflected from one of the grenades on his belt—she pulled it loose and let it drop.
Finally free of her teammates’ weight, she looped both hands through the bottom rung of the rope ladder and held on tightly. She could just barely see the grenade spiralling downwards before it disappeared between the vast tendrils that were seconds away from snatching at her feet.
Wouldn’t it be awful if it was a dud. Delirious with pain and exhaustion, she chuckled at the idea.
Then a burst of light burned out of the shadowy pit between the tendrils, followed by a bellowing roar. The tendrils fell away, thrashing and shuddering as the fire burnt them.
“Fly higher,” Mitzi murmured, hoping Nic would hear her over the commotion.
The fire below her wasn’t fading as she’d expected, and her eyes widened. She’d forgotten the tendrils had been basting in the reactor’s fuel. They acted like fuses; the fire raced over them, flickering downwards towards the reactor.
Will that be enough? she wondered groggily, feeling her grip on the ladder slacken as something shook it. Or will the defences kick in before the fire can spread?
The ship was rising, and the motion of the ladder threatened to throw her off. She felt drained and didn’t even have enough energy to raise her head to check that her team were safely inside the ship.
They’d better be. I got them this far. If they somehow manage to die now, I’ll be so mad at them.
She relaxed her grip and felt the ropes slip out from under her arms, but instead of the gentle falling sensation she’d expected, something grabbed her hand and pulled her up.
The fresh bout of pain from her ribs cleared her head. When she opened her eyes, gasping in aching breaths, she found herself on the floor of the ship. Skye and Eoin were on each side, dragging her inside. Someone slammed the door behind them, and she heard Nic speaking, though she couldn’t make out the words.
“Yes, clear!” Skye called back, and the ship’s engines rumbled under them as Nic kicked it into a higher gear.
Mitzi was propped upright against the wall, and someone—Mir, she thought—pressed the buttons on her glove to open the suit. The helmet was pulled off her head, and she drew a deeper breath, relieved to taste clear air again.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled as someone tried to give her a towel. She looked about the cabin. The others were climbing out of their suits. In proper lighting, the amount of damage the exoskeletons had sustained was obvious. The beautiful polished metal had been scorched, scratched, and dented. Her crew, as they stepped out, didn’t look much better. They were all sweaty, dishevelled, and bruised. Fresh blood ran down Adam’s face from the head wound that must have reopened.
Well, at least we don’t have to worry about him being a Cymic.
“Ellen,” Mitzi said, trying to inject some strength into her voice, “show me you can bleed.”
“What?” The girl blinked at her then gasped as she realised what Mitzi meant. “Oh, yes, of course! Hang on!”
She fumbled for the knife in her suit’s pouch then pressed it to her finger, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain. A bead of blood appeared at the site, and Mitzi nodded, satisfied.
“Okay. How’re you all doing? Anyone seriously hurt? Hands up if you’re gonna need a lifetime of therapy.”
Adam ignored her. He was bouncing around the ship’s hull, beaming and flushed with success. “That was awesome! I bet you thought we’d be useless, huh, Cap? We sure showed you, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” Mitzi said drily. “You certainly showed me a predisposition to insanity. How did you manage that, anyway?”
“Nic was directing us towards the place he was hoping to pick you up from, which wasn’t far from the reactor. You couldn’t hear us, but we could hear you, and it sounded like things weren’t going according to plan. Collapsing the roof was Ellen’s idea.”
Ellen, clearly terrified by being associated with the plan, shook her head quickly. “No, no, all I said was—”
“She said, ‘I wish we could get down to them somehow.’ And that made me think of how you’d used grenades to break through the floor and get to a lower level, and I thought it might just work. So I got Nic to give us the coordinates to the top of the reactor, which was a big strip of concrete, and we threw our entire collection of grenades around to blast our way down.”
“Creative,” Mitzi said, cringing at how insane the idea had been. Then she remembered that she herself had come up with the plan to use the Cymic’s propulsion to throw them into the ship. “Thank you, anyway. And you’re right—that was pretty awesome.”
That was apparently what Adam had been waiting to hear. He crossed his arms and rocked on the balls of his feet, looking smugly thrilled.
The door at the back of the room opened, and Nic came out. His face looked five shades lighter than it had the last time Mitzi had seen him. He took quick stock of the room then held out his hand to Mitzi, who took it with a grateful sigh and let herself be pulled up.
“Ship’s on autopilot. C’mon, let’s get you a proper seat, doll.”
“I want to stand,” Mitzi said stubbornly, but she allowed Nic to push her into one of the plush seats that lined the room. He opened a cupboard beside them and pulled out seven water bottles, tossing five of them to the crew and handing the last to Mitzi as he sat next to her.
“I’m not going to lie—I’m pretty damned relieved to see you again.”
“Same to you,” Mitzi said, drinking deeply as she reclined in the chair. The pain in her ribs had subsided to a dull ache, and she let her eyes rove around the occupants of the room, watching them, assessing them. Adam had collapsed into one of the seat, legs splayed, grinning like an idiot despite the blood that was drying on his face. He’d probably come out of the experience better than all of them. She wished him luck in getting his friends to believe his story, though.
Skye had seated herself in a chair in the corner and was watching her unopened bottle. She seemed okay, if a little unsteady on her feet.
Mitzi wasn’t surprised to see Eoin had his book open again. He seemed thoroughly engrossed in it. Ellen, after hovering about the room for a moment, had settled next to him, and rested her head on his shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind, and Ellen, whose face looked horribly pinched and pale, was at least calm with him.
Mir sat down on the other side of Mitzi and offered her a shaky smile. “That was kind of a wild ride, huh?”
“Yeah,” Mitzi said, feeling an unexpected fondness for the girl. She had to reassess all of them, she realised. As she gazed about the room, the old tags she’d given them disappeared.
Adam was no longer an idiot; he was brave, resourceful, and at least a little bit selfless. Ellen had proven that she wasn’t so weak that she would collapse at the first sign of stress. Mitzi knew she would still be better suited for a calmer, safer occupation, but she’d shown that she could fight if pushed to it. Mir, the sulky teenager, had followed every command Mitzi had given, and more than that, she seemed to have incredible insight. She’d saved Mitzi’s life in the maintenance room, and she’d kept her wits about her long enough to ensure Mitzi was still human.
Skye, as Mitzi had suspected, had incredible potential. Her pretty face hid a rock-solid, loyal interior. And Eoin had proven himself capable of handling the horrors of the Cymic world, and his knowledge had gotten them out of a locked room.
Franc, the only lost member of their team, had shaken off his fussy accountant appearance and made the ultimate sacrifice to save the mission. Mitzi squeezed her eyes shut against bitter tears. Losing a part of her team always stung, and Franc had been a part that she would have very much wanted to work with again. She hoped, wherever he’d gone after death, he knew just how much good his sacrifice had brought. He might have just ensured a future for his grandchildren, after all.
“Look,” Nic said. He’d turned in his seat to gaze out of the window, and Mitzi followed his eyes. At first, she couldn’t understand what she was looking at. It looked like an ocean in sunset; shadows and red-gold light fought for dominance on the waves. Then she realised the station was burning.
She stood up to get a better look, grinning from ear to ear. One at a time, the others came to stand beside her, peering out of the ship’s windows to admire the destruction they’d created. The fire rolled and billowed, sending up huge clouds of black smoke. Every now and then, something would explode in a pop of white.
“It’s spreading,” Nic said, pointing to the edge of the fire, which clawed its way across the surface of the planet. The light was rippling outwards, absorbing the darkness of the buildings, consuming the shadows and Cymic Parasites alike.
“That’ll be enough to get rid of them all, won’t it?” Adam asked.
“Should be.” Nic grinned widely. “Even if the fire doesn’t make it to every corner, the heat should kill them. I’ll send a signal once we’re back in the atmosphere, and the construction ship will leave this afternoon. By the time it arrives, the fire will have died down, and they can get that communication tower set up.”
Skye, who had been standing at the end of their line, dropped her water bottle and strode towards the doors at the back of the room.
“You okay?” Mitzi called, but Skye didn’t answer. Instead, she pushed inside the bathroom. Mitzi heard the door lock, followed by retching sounds.
“Oh, dear,” Nic sighed, and Mitzi reassessed her opinion of Skye for the third time that day. Guess she’s not so good with stress after all.
They turned back to watch the burning planet as the ship took them closer to the atmosphere. Closer to home.
The war had only just begun, but at least now humanity had a chance.
THE END
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Darcy Coates, Parasite
