Alien, page 5
“Alec,” she said, and then, remembering the squad and catching their tiny, knowing smiles, “Sergeant Brand, what are we up against here?”
He shifted to look at her, and in his eyes, she saw a number of emotions clashing. The uncertainty was there, as was concern for her safety, and the safety of his squad. The uncertainty was what worried her most of all.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We need to get in there and find out.”
Elkins, Roots, and McGowan pulled their hazmat gear out of their backpacks and began putting it on—long rust-orange coveralls with gloves and boots, as well as heavy black masks. Built-in speakers made it possible for them to communicate without having to use their comms.
Compton touched the windshield. “Why do you think they contacted us? Why didn’t they call the Weyland-Yutani Hazmats?”
“No time—not if people were hurt in there. Besides,” Alec added with some distaste, “the WY teams wouldn’t know how to handle a genuinely dangerous situation. They just come and clean up after… something like this.” Before they could press him, he added, “Get your gear on, Compton. We’ve got to get moving.”
That shut down the discussion.
Compton nodded and joined the others in getting ready. Camilla stood by, watching placidly, holding Siobhan’s hazmat gear. It was slightly different from the military-grade ones issued to the Colonial Marines; hers was a Seegson-brand suit for scientists and medical personnel, more lightweight, pale gray in color, and devoid of the weapons fittings the military suits had. She wished in that moment, though, that she did have a weapon—or at least knew how to use one, beyond the cursory weapons training the outpost personnel underwent before assignment to a foreign planet. Something in her gut told her that whatever had broken out in the Menhit Lab, it wasn’t bacterial or viral in nature.
It was something more, something worse. Something that could tear a synthetic person in half.
Siobhan hadn’t forgotten about that, and she didn’t think Alec had, either. An explosion would have left burn marks on the synthetic’s skin, and she hadn’t seen any. Nothing she could make out of the background suggested an explosion, either. So the question was, what could the Weyland-Yutani team have possibly been working with that was capable of that level of destruction, employing that kind of strength?
“You ready?” Alec gently touched her shoulder, breaking her out of her thoughts. She jumped, then nodded and followed him and the others as they opened the APC door and stepped out into the wildlands.
Elkins took point, drawing his M41A pulse rifle. His hazmat suit, like those worn by the other marines, had been fitted with a small but powerful flashlight on his right shoulder that sent an almost blinding brightness out into the dark around them. He moved with quick, light, careful steps that Siobhan tried to match as she and Camilla followed. McGowan and Roots, then Alec, all similarly armed, brought up the rear.
As they approached the main door, Elkins held up a fist and the group stopped. Siobhan held her breath, listening along with the others. They heard nothing. Only when Elkins motioned them silently forward did Siobhan exhale, and it was shaky.
One by one they slipped through the gap, crossed a lobby with a large front desk, and through another open doorway that led into a long hallway. The walls were a dark gunmetal gray, fitted with pipes and wires that looked to Siobhan like veins, carrying shadows to and from the heart of the place. She had heard once that the architectural design had been deliberate, particularly the structure of the interiors. It had something to do with insulating the building or perhaps protecting it from the periodic radiation storms which occurred out in the wildlands. The dark floor and ceiling panels, she assumed, served the same purpose.
Peering through the plastic of her suit’s mask, she tried to see ahead, beyond the thick gloom to whatever might lie at the end of the hallway. Even with Elkins’s flashlight, she couldn’t discern much more than the pipes and wires.
They moved with cautious steps. Occasionally a pair of marines would peel away from the group, their shoulder lights stabbing into a side hallway or closet, and eventually, the administration rooms which made up the front suite of the building. These rooms showed signs of sudden abandon, and of some whirlwind of destructive activity. Chairs were knocked over, desks and tables badly damaged, paintings and knick-knacks cracked and smashed.
As far as people went, though, the rooms were empty. There weren’t even bodies, or parts of bodies.
There was blood sometimes, and for some reason that was worse, although she couldn’t have said why. To see the blood without any bodies accompanying it. There were splatters on the flat counters of the office breakroom, smears on the supplies closet door and cabinets. There were streaks and pools and sprays and even clots that turned her stomach, not just from the visceral violence, but from the meat-gone-bad smell they left in the air, detectable even through the suit’s filter. While filtering out dangerous materials, Seegson hazmat suits allowed wearers to detect scents that might provide warnings.
Siobhan knew the smell of death in both plants and animals; it clung to the inside of the nose—and sometimes, she thought, it lingered on the inside of the mind and even the soul.
“What do you think happened here?” McGowan asked in a low voice. Siobhan flinched at the sudden break in the silence. Maybe it was instinct, or the vigilance drilled into marines during their training, but they moved as if through hostile enemy territory, and their tension was infectious.
“Don’t know,” Alec answered, studying one of the bloodstains. “Maybe one of the scientists caught a bad case of cabin fever—or maybe a conscience—and started tearing the place up.” He turned. “Camilla, do you detect any signs of life?”
The synthetic checked a sensor implanted in her left wrist. As part of her role in the lab, she’d been designed to pick up the biometric signatures of living things, and while it wasn’t terribly sophisticated technology, it had proved useful for tracking animals in the past.
“It seems,” Camilla said in her soft, modulated voice, “that there is some indication of life, though not nearby. I’m sensing biolife signs in at least three areas northeast of this location.”
Alec nodded and led them around another corner.
Siobhan followed, then jumped. A wire, torn loose from the gloom of the ceiling, dangled at eye level. Its occasional sparks caused it to jerk and twist. The group moved carefully around it.
At the end of the hall, they found a closed door. Affixed above the doorframe was a metal plaque.
TESTING AND RESEARCH
“Here?” Alec asked.
“We’re getting closer,” Camilla said.
Alec tried the button for the door and it slid open. Inside, a light flickered momentarily, not long enough to see anything, then went out. He shone his flashlight through the doorway, gun nosing around as he crossed the threshold and disappeared. After several moments, he stepped back into sight and motioned for them to come in.
Siobhan followed Camilla, moving off to the right to let McGowan and Compton step past. She wanted to move closer to Alec. It was hard to feel safe anywhere in this place, here in the dark without a gun or any other way to protect herself, but being close to him made her feel a little more secure.
It wasn’t, as Camilla had so casually pointed out, just because Alec was a good-looking guy, although he was. Thick dark hair with hints of gray, blue eyes, rugged build, the scruff of a beard just starting along his jaw—sure, he was a good-looking guy. It wasn’t that, though. Perhaps it was his voice, the look in those blue eyes. Both were reassuring, strong… and mostly confident, except maybe when they were alone.
Those times, there was a kind of vulnerability in him that Siobhan found endearing—a willingness to let his guard down around her, and she liked that. It reminded her that she could be strong and confident and reassuring, too, when needed.
Siobhan moved closer toward Alec and stumbled—that old McCormick grace—but caught herself before falling.
“You okay?” He looked concerned.
“Yeah, I…” She looked down to see what had tripped her up and the gorge rose in her throat. She took several breaths to keep from screaming. “Oh God,” she managed, and the others followed her gaze downward.
It was a body.
5
Alec frowned. He reached out and gently pulled Siobhan away from the corpse. Crouching to get more light on the thing made the carnage look worse, a spotlight on so much red in an otherwise colorless environment.
The body had several long claw-marks across the chest and stomach. The wounds were exceedingly deep, the lowest one on the torso exposing the ripe swell of intestinal loops. Blood had pooled and soaked into the carpet like an aura all around the mutilated figure. One of the arms was missing. There was also a large hole in the head, too large to be caused by a gun. It looked caved in, as if something had punched through the skull right in the center of the forehead. It was hard to tell if the body had been male or female, since many identifying characteristics had been chewed off, including most of the face.
This answered one key question. It was plain to see that whatever had killed the person hadn’t been some chemical leak or viral outbreak; at least, none like he’d ever seen. It looked to Alec like an animal attack—something had clawed and gored and gnawed on the body. Could it have been a vurfur? He didn’t think so. Vurfur didn’t have claws, and their antlers—massive though they were—gored rather than slashed, and the rack on the biggest vurfur buck couldn’t punch clear through bone like that.
Unless maybe the scientists here were experimenting…
Alec stood, and let out a small groan. His joints ached after years of combat, mixed with gravity and pressure changes across multiple planets and moons. He was tired—tired of putting out fires that weren’t his. Tired of seeing bodies of people who should have lived out long lives, but couldn’t because some greedy corporation somewhere was paying for things which shouldn’t exist. He did his best to hide such sentiments from his squad, and from Siobhan—especially her. Trying to be the rock that others turned to and relied on.
It was easier not to have to open himself up to the feelings such sentiments brought. That weariness, though, and the jaded way it made him feel, had worked its way down inside, into the meat and bones of him. Moments like this, when the state of a body showed that the shit was about to hit the ancient proverbial fan—he couldn’t just shrug it all off, no matter how much he might want to.
“Let’s move,” he said finally. “We’ve got to find those survivors.”
“What did this?” Compton asked, and she turned. “Doc, what could possibly have done this?” She looked at Siobhan like a frustrated child might look at a parent, needing answers that would right the world again.
“I—I don’t know,” Siobhan admitted. “Plants are my thing, not animals, and I—”
“So it’s an animal that did this?” With the toe of his shoe, Elkins nudged at the body. “Like a vurfur? That must’ve been one hell of a pissed-off deer.”
“Not a vurfur,” Alec said. “There’s no telling what it was, not for sure, but not even a genetically enhanced vurfur could do… that.” He stepped toward the door. “Come on, we need to keep looking.”
They moved back out into the hallway and continued down to the next door. There was a small sign on the wall to the right.
MAINTENANCE
This door, made of thick metal, looked as if someone had tried to fold it in half but hadn’t entirely succeeded. There was dried blood in the dent, and something had corroded the edge of the doorframe.
McGowan and Compton each took a side of the door and managed, with some grunting effort, to force it open wide enough for them all to slip in. Leading the way, Alec tensed, his weapon ready.
The room beyond was large, with sections of massive machines fenced off behind tempered glass walls. Brightly colored signs warned of high voltage and chemical toxicity. The big metal beasts looked to be mostly generators for lights, air quality filtering processors, and the like. The metal casings featured a few dents, though nothing as severe as the door’s.
Many of the large pipes and wires that had lined the hallway seemed to connect to the machines through multiple ports in the ceiling and surrounding walls, although some of the wires had been pulled free or sliced apart. A plaque on one machine read
EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN
and the complex control panel exhibited fail-safes, overrides, and other assorted buttons and levers, as well as a screen which offered them nothing more than a pale green glow.
Camilla scanned the control panel for fingerprint patterns and processed the codes they might need, but there was no way to tell if they would work. Periodically static cut into the glow, racing across the screen like angry little bolts of lightning, but it made no sound.
What damage there was didn’t appear to be professional sabotage. It was messy, imprecise. This hadn’t been done by a person, but rather had been a clumsy attempt by… well, whatever had dented the door. He refused to allow his mind to settle on any memories of what might wreak such havoc, tearing through flesh, bone, and metal with equal efficiency.
As they filed back out into the hallway, Roots—who had been uncharacteristically quiet—spoke up.
“Sarge, something don’t feel right with all of this. I been thinkin’—”
“There’s a first,” McGowan quipped as he nudged his gun around the corner of a doorframe and peered inside.
Roots ignored him. “What I mean is, any kind of fuckup—pardon my language, Doc—I mean, any shit going down at a lab is bad, right? We know that. You let loose a virus or blow something up and yeah, you got yourself a world of trouble. But they’re supposed to have, like, three times as many people stationed here as we got at Seegson, and that includes, what, like, six PMCs?”
He paused, looking around the building, then back at Alex.
“There ain’t nobody here.”
“So what’s your point?” Elkins said. “You lonely?”
“My point,” Roots replied, annoyance tinging his voice, “is that there ain’t no emergency personnel, no team leaders barking orders, no clean-up crews. Hell, there ain’t even any synthetics around—not even that one in the video. Whatever lockdown procedure they went into here, it’s over now, but there ain’t no one waiting at the door to get out of here. Come to think of it, there ain’t even locked doors anymore. I mean, shouldn’t there be, if something bad happened?”
“He’s right,” Siobhan said. “I thought maybe an explosion could have damaged the lockdown circuitry and left the doors open. The only other way would be if someone had manually overridden everything, and in a lockdown, that would be against protocol.” She glanced around. “None of this makes any sense.”
They came upon an open door with a sign that indicated a new wing.
MEDICAL RESEARCH
A body, propped up in a sitting position, blocked the way.
“We got it, boss,” Elkins said, and he and McGowan dragged the body out of the way. Alec couldn’t help but notice that as their lights flashed on the dead man’s chest, a gaping hole filled the space that should have been the chest cavity.
“Wait a minute. Wait,” Alec said, crouching down to look at the body. Sure enough, the ribcage had been forced outward from the inside, cracking the bone. The flesh, the muscle, even the organs looked chewed and torn—at least what was left of them.
Alec felt a knot in his gut.
He’d seen that kind of injury before—too many times before. In fact, sometimes it seemed his whole life had been decided and shaped by the things that made injuries like that. He stood slowly, the light passing over the jaw slacked in pain and horror, the rolled-back, glazing eyes. Alec fought down a panic that rose from deep inside him, a familiar terror that had been a part of him since childhood.
“What is it, Alec?” Siobhan said, studying his face with concern. He forced the gorge of dread back down. He couldn’t bring himself to lie to her, but he did his best to appear reassuring with a light squeeze of her arm.
“Maybe nothing,” he said. “Maybe coincidence. I want to be sure first.” To the others, he said, “Either way, we get in and out. I don’t want us here any longer than we need to be—got it?”
“What about survivors, Sergeant Brand?” Camilla tilted her head.
Alec fought the urge to grimace. If the dead guy’s injury was any indication, there weren’t any survivors, not really. Anyone they found now was going to prove a liability, one way or another. He didn’t voice those thoughts, though.
“Are you still getting readings on them?” he asked.
Camilla checked her wrist and nodded. “Through there,” she said, pointing to the door to the medical wing. “I’m picking up two of them in that direction.”
* * *
The medical research wing was in worse shape than the outer corridors and offices. There were more bodies, each with those bizarre chest injuries that especially seemed to worry Alec. An ill-defined but present anxiety hung over the group like a fog, increasing Siobhan’s sense of vulnerability.
They reached a hallway that ran perpendicular to the one where they stood. Signs pointed out the medical bay to the right and a storage room far down on the left.
“We should go to the medbay,” Siobhan said. “If there are survivors, it would make sense for them to go there.”
“That is consistent with the biolife readings I’m receiving,” Camilla said. “There are survivors farther away, as well, and they seem to be moving… but there are stationary life signs in or near the medbay.”
“Okay,” Alec said. “Right it is, then. Let’s get them first.” He led the others down the hallway. As he did, there was another tremor, not as strong as the earlier one, but enough that they had to stop and brace themselves. After a short time it passed, and they continued.
At the far end was a reinforced steel door, its adjacent control panel dark. As they approached it, a clang resounded from the other side. They stopped, silent and waiting, but no other sound issued from inside the medbay.
