Extermination, page 10
“So this organism uses our own weapons to kill us.”
“If you want to put it that way.”
“Why don’t we reverse the situation, then?”
“You mean, use its weapons to kill it?”
“Something like that. Could you potentially make it copy certain things, things you wanted it to copy?”
“Oh, I like that.”
“Yes. Not sure how we’ll do it.”
That was the good thing about talking to Gaby. She always gave him ideas.
But it would be hard to train the organism to copy exactly the bit of code he wanted to the place he wanted it. All within an hour.
But what if. . . ?
He said, “I know what we’ll do. Epidemiology.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“This is a disease, so we’ll treat it like one. Hundreds of years in the past, fledgling scientists discovered that if you inoculated people with weaker strands of a disease or strains that didn’t cause any symptoms, people would not get the virulent strain of the disease that killed them.”
“Yes, I am a doctor. I know the principles of vaccination.”
“We are going to vaccinate the station against this threat. We’re going to make the infection copy something useless.”
He went back to the systems administrator. “Can you give me a piece of code with a function that moves data to a partition or separate system, or something like putting data in a holding queue.”
“I have something like that,” the woman at the other end said. “We get routine communication, news updates and non-vital information sent to us all the time. We put it in a separate database that people with varying levels of authority can access. I can quickly adapt code for the information to go in there, but not attach any access codes.”
“Is it very long?” None of the snatches of copied code were very long.
“A few lines.”
“Yes, that should work. Get that to me as soon as possible.”
Then Jonathan went back into the control room and found a plug to connect his pad to the main computer.
“What are you doing?” Fred Wilkins asked. “You’re infecting your pad.”
“It’s infected us already. If I give this thing a place to go to where it’s out of the way of the station’s operations, it may go there and be harmless to us. And then, because future infections will recognise that this organism is already at work in the station, they won’t infect it further.”
Would it work?
It had to, because the alternative was just too terrible to contemplate.
Jonathan got his code, but it turned out to be twelve lines. He went back to the woman at Systems.
“It’s too long. Is there anything in that code I don’t absolutely need?”
“Let me have a look at it.”
It was taking too long for his liking. He pulled out old-fashioned cables to connect his pad to the system. Fred Wilkins looked on silently, his eyes wide. The gelatinous mess on the control panels was growing visibly.
Finally the systems programmer gave him another piece of code. “I’ve taken out the routines that set the authority parameters,” she said. “I hope it will still contain the contamination.”
“I hope so, too. What’s your name?”
“Cora.”
“I’m Jonathan. Thank you for your help. I guess if it works, we’ll be speaking again soon. If it doesn’t . . .”
He pressed “copy”.
The code vanished from his screen.
Jonathan held his breath while watching the screens in the control room.
Lines of white text scrolled across several of the screens, too fast for him to see what they said.
He waited, and waited.
He watched the blue lights in the gelatinous threads flicker on and off and on and off. . . . What did it mean? What would he do if it didn’t work?
How quickly could they get military ships to turn up to rescue all those at the station? He had no doubt that ships were already underway. Would they be able to get everyone off before something catastrophic failed, seeing as they couldn’t use the air lock and would have to use a soft dock tube to get people out? If you weren’t used to crawling through those things, it would take a while. He had to do this as part of his regular training updates, but the civilian scientists—
One of the screens went blank.
Jonathan held his breath.
The station’s Lemura logo came up. And then, “The system has been restarted, please enter your passcode.”
Jonathan did.
The ceiling fans came on.
All the blue lights in the slimy threads stopped blinking.
“I’ve got a partial restore of the system,” Cora said. “It looks like we’ve contained the infection for the time being.”
“All right. Let’s get everyone off as soon as possible. Does the lift work?”
“It does.”
Jonathan ran to his room and grabbed his bag. Then he joined Colonel Patel and the two officers in the lift.
The door shut, and then the light flickered. Damn, no. They were not out of trouble yet.
But the lift jumped into motion and reached the other side of the station after what had to be the longest five minutes of Jonathan’s life.
When Jonathan came out of the lift, there was a squeal, and Gaby ran across the foyer to him. “Jonathan!”
She flung her arms around his neck. He lifted her off the ground and swung her around. When he set her back on the ground, he noticed that her cheeks were wet.
“Oh, that’s not really necessary. No one said I wouldn’t come back.” He wiped the tears away with his thumbs, but new ones rolled down.
“They took you away. You didn’t come back and then they said you escaped. They said that they wanted you about the disappearance of this man, and then the lights went off. I was so worried.”
“It’s all okay now.”
And it was, on a small scale, even though Colonel Patel’s men were making preparations for the evacuation.
Then he decided to do something he should have done days—maybe months—ago. He held out his hands. “Gaby, we have a task to fight this overwhelming enemy. Will you fight by my side as my colleague and my partner in life?”
Her face split into a broad grin.
“Oh, Jonathan. . . .” She wiped more tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, and then she brushed his lips with hers. “Of course. You’re the craziest person I have ever met. My life would be very boring without you.”
Thanks for Reading
Thank you for reading Extermination. Don’t forget to sign up to be notified when the next Jonathan Bartell story is out!
About the Author
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold fiction to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone SF and Aurealis.
Patty has written over thirty novels in both Science Fiction and Fantasy, including the Icefire Trilogy and the Ambassador series.
pattyjansen.com
More By This Author
Quick link to all Patty Jansen’s books
* * *
In the Earth-Gamra space-opera universe
* * *
RETURN OF THE AGHYRIANS
* * *
Watcher’s Web
Trader’s Honour
Soldier’s Duty
Heir’s Revenge
The Return of the Aghyrians Omnibus
* * *
The Far Horizon (For younger readers)
* * *
AMBASSADOR
Seeing Red
The Sahara Conspiracy
Raising Hell
Changing Fate
Coming Home
Blue Diamond Sky
The Enemy Within
The Last Frontier
The Alabaster Army
Red Crystal Desert
Lost Forest Secrets
* * *
Hard Science Fiction
* * *
In the ISF-Allion universe
Shifting Reality
Shifting Infinity
Charlotte’s Army
Juno Rising
* * *
SPACE AGENT JONATHAN BARTELL
Contamination
Observation
Extermination
Permutation
* * *
Epic Fantasy
* * *
GHOSTSPEAKER CHRONICLES
(formerly For Queen And Country)
Innocence Lost
Willow Witch
The Idiot King
Fire Wizard
The Dragon Prince
The Necromancer’s Daughter
Ghostspeaker Chronicles Books 1-3
* * *
DRAGONSPEAKER CHRONICLES
The Bastard Prince
The Wizard Priest
The Dragon King
* * *
Epic, Post-apocalyptic Fantasy
* * *
ICEFIRE TRILOGY
Fire & Ice
Dust & Rain
Blood & Tears
The Icefire Trilogy Omnibus
* * *
MOONFIRE TRILOGY
Sand & Storm
Sea & Sky
Moon & Earth
* * *
Short story collections
Out Of Here
New Horizons
* * *
Self-publishing (Non-fiction)
Self-publishing Unboxed
Mailing Lists Unboxed
Going Wide Unboxed
Indie Writer Unboxed
* * *
Visit the author’s website at http://pattyjansen.com and register for a newsletter to keep up-to-date with new releases.
Patty Jansen, Extermination
