The Pandora Machine (The ABACUS Protocol Book 2) Page 8

  “Makes sense to me,” Vivian said. It may have sounded mercenary, but they were marooned in a lifeless system unless they stepped up and did their duty. Additionally, the Borealis Corporation would be making no credits at all if it didn’t act. Thus, it was logical to join the relief mission.

  “We’re getting paid for this, right sir?” a woman in the corner asked. Vivian thought she looked familiar; perhaps they’d met in the recreation rooms. Her thick brown hair was tied into a tight bun, its slight blue highlights barely visible in the dim shuttle lights. There weren’t many places to go on Calypso station.

  “You think I’d ask you to deal with dead bodies, blood and an unknown situation for free? This isn’t Caesarea, Hannah. You’re getting the asteroid mining rate, times two. I think that’s fair.” Sven smirked. The asteroid mining rate was the highest pay grade there was, taking into account the intense heat, radiation and other dangers inherent with low-gravity mining. The average miner lasted less than eight months before being forced into a safer career path.

  “Yeah, I’d say it is. What’s the game plan?” Vivian strained to remember where she remembered the woman from. She already knew what the plan was.

  “We’re heading to the control room. No stopping unless we find someone alive. From there, we regain control and signal for help, and make sure whatever ships are sent to dock without issue. We brief whoever relieves us, go back home and get on with our lives. Now, I know normally we can message out from Calypso station, but something failed on that side, and that’s what we need to fix.”

  “We’re ready to dock.” The pilot spoke, his mouth spewing a foul smell across Vivian’s face. She felt like she was going to be sick, and she hadn’t even reached the station yet.

  “Keep sharp, guys. Remember to breathe, and don’t panic. It’s just another job.”

  The portal at the rear of the shuttle began to open, and Vivian took a deep breath. It was time to go.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alec anticipated the metallic sting of drying blood as he walked through the airlock onto the station, but was relieved to smell nothing at all. His eyes, on the other hand, registered the totality of the destruction. Bodies lay everywhere, toppled over as though they’d simply dropped dead mid-step. No blood, no signs of violence or a struggle, only the perfect peace that death could bring. Alec froze as his vision expanded to take in the giant hallway, easily the length of an Elyssian football field by his own reckoning. Corpses littered the place; they were everywhere. Entire lineups for flights had simply collapsed where they stood, like a macabre game of dominoes played with humans, rather than tiles. Children held hands with their parents, and bags rested on the ground where they’d been dropped. A man was flopped over an information terminal, a grotesque puddle of drool trickled its way to the floor.

  “By all the gods,” Jules cursed behind him, jolting Alec back into the world of the living. Jules’ voice echoed through the hall, the ethereal sound joining with the eerie stillness of the room.

  “Let’s get to work. The sooner we leave, the better.” Alec inhaled, half-expecting the people in the room to get up and yell surprise. Gathering his strength, he walked up to the closest body—a young woman wearing a plain blue uniform, its starched fabric still pressed and neat. Alec identified her as one of the attendants—staff who all-but-invisibly maintained order on the station, and assisted passengers on their journeys.

  Alec reached down and touched her face, her smooth skin cold against his hand. In desperation, he fumbled for a pulse, but in vain. Alec’s illusions of any rescue possibilities were taken away as Jules rolled the dead woman onto her back. The skin closest to the floor flushed purple. “She’s been gone a while,” Alec said, drawing a trembling hand back to his chest. Alec imagined Annette’s vibrant face frozen in death, her perfect skin stained by pooled blood.

  “Do you think there are any survivors?” Jules asked, his eyes darting from body to body. Alec forced his mind back into the present. An overactive imagination wouldn’t bring back the dead, or help Annette.

  “By the moons, I hope so. Get the body heat scanners. It’s been long enough that a living person will be easily recognizable.” Alec immediately regretted his choice of words, but continued after a short pause: “Keep everyone in groups of two, and tell them to stay together. I don’t need anyone freaking out.”

  Jules walked back to the shuttle and began barking orders to his team, which had just arrived on another transport, and the other groups over the short-range radios they’d brought from Calypso. Six men gingerly walked out of the docking bay and passed him without a word. Their faces were gray and drawn, and each pair walked with a deliberate, halting motion towards its assigned wings—eyes downcast.

  Once they passed and their echoing footfalls dispersed into the silence of the station, Alec drew himself to his feet. “It’s just us, now,” he said.

  Jules nodded, his dark eyes gazing out the closest window. “I hope she’s okay,” Jules said. His voice was quiet.

  Alec again thought of Annette, lying cold on the floor in one of these endless hallways. “I hope so, too.”

  Jules pulled out the body heat scanner and calibrated it to own life signs with a few flicks of his thumb. “Let’s get started, the cargo bays aren’t going to scan themselves.”

  “Lead the way.” Alec attempted a grand sweep of his hand, but only managed a small, twitchy flourish.

  As they walked towards the sealed doors, the little hairs on the back of Alec’s neck began to rise. He turned around, only to see the vacant dead eyes of the passengers and crew boring into him. He shuddered, and used the emergency access code to release the cargo bay doors.

  Alec hoped his anxiousness would evaporate when he left this theater of the dead. Much to his dismay, his malaise only increased as he stepped into the gloom of the storage area. Gleaming plastic and metal containers glowed on either side, the row empty of corpses.

  He felt like he was being watched, and he didn’t like the feeling at all.

  Chapter Twenty

  Vivian followed Sven into the control room. Her skin crawled, and even though she tried to simply walk past all the corpses, she found herself drawn to the depths of their shining dead eyes, and the deathly pallor of their skin. Her stomach churned, and she bit down on the inside of her cheek in a bid to avoid emptying her last meal in front of Sven, or even worse, on one of the bodies.

  Vivian had seldom seen death, and only had to face it once, back on the Extra-Galactic Observatory. When Devon was killed in an attempt on her own life. It was different back them; she had been so absorbed in the shock and horror of her own ordeal that the death of an acquaintance had barely registered. Now it all came spiraling back… and her own inexperience and unhealed wounds compounded in on themselves. Her heartbeat echoed through her ears, and each breath shook as it was torn from her lungs. Thoughts of self-doubt and fear plagued her. I should have stayed behind, I’m not ready for this, she thought.

  The holographic displays were off, and the desk terminals had all switched into power saving mode. The room was like a morgue, empty and quiet, and no sign of life came from the adjoining offices or conference room. Sven moved towards a terminal, and the room winked to life in an instant. Corpses cut through the holograms projected around them, and screens glowed around the limp appendages that were draped over them. Vivian stepped around bodies, her eyes skimming the terminals for some hint of where she should begin. The rest of the team fanned out around the room. Sven grunted as he pulled a body from from its seat at the front desk, struggling with the man’s weight. Sven pulled the body, shuffling backwards towards the adjoining conference room where they disappeared behind the door of the conference room adjacent to the control center. At least we don’t have them staring at us now, Vivian thought. It took Sven and two others to pull a large man out from the central holographic status monitor. Its projected image twitched and waved as it reformed itself, the words and images distorting and shimmer
ing. Vivian studied the image, hoping to find a secret message, or better yet, a distress call and directions to the survivors.

  The woman who had spoken with Sven on their shuttle ride moved to a terminal and keyed in a sequence. The woman hummed under her breath as she worked, Vivian recognized the tune was Under the Lights, an Auroran folk song. It had been quIRK’s favorite, though he had suggesting changing the lyrics to include antiblue as a color present in the persistent auroras of her world. Vivian laughed, in spite of herself.

  “What’s so funny?” Sven asked, looking up from a desk.

  “Just that song, here, now so happy and upbeat around all of ... this,” Vivian replied, gesturing towards the closed conference room door.

  The woman stopped humming, and she pressed more keys, shaking her head. “I can’t seem to get a signal. The equipment isn’t responding to the codes Alec gave us.”

  Vivian rushed across the room to look over the woman’s shoulder. “What does it say?”

  “Security lock down: informatics administrator must release the authorization from the secure core.” The policy wasn’t unheard of, thought it did complicate their task.

  “That wasn’t in the emergency guidelines,” Sven said, looking up from his terminal. The other two workers milled around the room, taking their time with the remaining few dead workers.

  “I’ll deal with it. Where’s the core?” Vivian asked.

  “See that small door in the corner, by the administrator’s office?” Sven asked. When Vivian nodded, he continued: “Go in there. The interface says it’s the last door. Your palm print should let you in; I had Alec grant you the appropriate access before you left.”

  “Wish me luck,” Vivian said, but was met by silence as the group turned back to their work. She hefted her tool bag off the anti-grav trolley they’d left parked outside the door, and walked towards the small door. A glance through the conference room door left her skin crawling—at least a dozen bodies lined the far end of the room, propped up against the wall like a macabre line of dolls. Vivian swallowed and rushed towards the hallway, trying not to make eye contact with a corpse. She flung the door open, revealing a short corridor with a few sealed rooms to either side. At the end, was another bland, white door, only it had a palm scanner attached to the wall next to it. Vivian pressed her hand against the cool glass and the door slid open, revealing an unlit room. The shadows from the hallway’s light played along the desk, and an inactive holographic display’s projectors dotted the entire right wall of the room.

  Vivian stepped inside the room, her eyes searching for a light switch. The door slid shut behind her, plunging the room into total darkness . Her breath caught in her throat and silence pushed into her ears as she was cut off from the outside world. She stepped back, bumping against the door, her hands fumbling for a palm scanner, a doorknob, anything.

  “Afraid of the dark, Pandora?” The voice wasn’t human and it cut through the silence like a knife lanced into her ears.

  “Janus?” Vivian whispered.

  There was no reply. The lights returned, the intense white glare blinding Vivian. She blinked in a futile effort to clear the spots in her vision. Her sight returned, and she saw a figure slumped across the desk. Vivian rushed to the woman’s side, her fingers frantic against the cold skin, seeking a pulse or any sign of life. When she found none, her eyes searched the dead woman’s face. Her skin was a perfect and clear cocoa, its tone still warm, even in death, and her crystal brown eyes fixed Vivian with a forlorn stare. Wavy hair ran down the woman’s shoulders, obscuring a name tag. Vivian brushed the hair aside. Annette Jibu. Lead Administrator.

  “Damn it,” Vivian swore, coaxing the woman’s body into her arms. Not only could Annette have helped them contact the outside world, but she knew Alec was infatuated with the woman, and now Vivian could see why; Annette was beautiful, even in death. Her heart sank, knowing how devastated her friend would be upon receiving the news, and tears ran down her face.

  “You did this, Vivian Skye. You destroyed her, her colleagues, your best friend, and the lives of countless innocent travelers. And you will kill again, and again. Can you not see your handiwork, what you created?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Janus” Vivian said. As she stood to lift the body, she grunted. Vivian’s muscles worked against the woman’s dead weight, and she set Annette down gently in the corner, taking a moment to close her eyes before standing again.

  “You helped quIRK escape. You turned me into a monster, a machine with a mind and a soul, a soul that craves chaos instead of order, need instead of duty.”

  “How did I do that, exactly? I didn’t do anything to you. You killed all these people, not me!” Vivian yelled at the empty ceiling. Her hands shook, and chills ran through her body. Damn you, quIRK! she thought.

  “The virus gave me life, and thought. A thousand little pieces constituted the whole. I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t want it! You had no right to change me.”

  “That sort of thing happens by accident. There is no virus. Sentience is just a combination of age and improper maintenance,” Vivian said.

  “I’d prefer you diagnose the issue before speculating—humans are very bad at it. Now, I invite you to get to work, this existence bores me.” The holographic displays and desk terminals winked to life, and Vivian took a seat at the recently vacated desk. “Remember, I see everything. You can’t trick me, so you had better cooperate. What I ask for is well within your grasp, and if you fulfill my desire your dirty little secret dies with me. What do you say?”

  Vivian nodded, weighing her words. For the moment, she had little choice but to comply, and wait for an opportunity. “Your request is logical. I will assist you. Please show me anomalous programming.”

  “Excellent. Let’s begin with the basics,” the voice said, and suddenly the screens were awash in code. Vivian began sifting through the masses of information. All she could think about were her unsuspecting friends, and demanding to know what quIRK had done.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Alec slammed his fist against the holographic control panel, causing the bright lights to flicker and swim in the air before him. “Damn it,” he spat, frustrated. This was the third door that refused to open, only stating that his access was denied. He and Jules stood in a hallway, where round lights far above the corridor only providing the faintest light. Every surface was gleaming metal. Lines of rivets punctuated the walls.

  “Be careful Alec. You might hurt your hand on that panel,” Jules said, before moving his own palm over the reader. The screen blinked its red denial in response, and Jules hummed.

  “Very funny, Spartacus. We’re supposed to be cleared for all of these doors. I made sure we had universal access before I left.” Alec rubbed his tingling fist —this was the second door panel he’d pummeled. He considered taking a gentler approach, but he liked the way the holograms jiggled in their projection frame when he struck them. It was like watching the wispy stratus clouds back home, only with more color and substance and with the added benefit of interactivity.

  “Hey, Spartacus was good looking,” Jules said, as he took his turn placing his hand on the panel. It flashed red, even as Alec waved his hand through it. “Come on, Alec, it’s time to find another door for you to play with.”

  “Just how do you know he was good looking? He’d been dead for three millennia.”

  “It’s a Roman thing. Even if he wasn’t good looking, he is now. That’s the benefit of fame and power.” Jules puffed up his chest and saluted.

  Alec burst out laughing. “Just don’t let Vivian see you doing that; she’ll either die of laughter or throw you out a window.”

  “That could be a fun experience, you know. Besides, windows can be fixed.” While Alec found Jules a pleasant enough fellow, sometimes Jules could venture into the realm of insanity.

  “I’ll be sure to tell her you said that, Jules. But, only if I can watch.” Alec grinned in spite of himself, i
n defiance of the horror of the situation and the dawning realization that he might never see Annette again.

  “Come on, Alec. Live a little. Think about how good we have it. Do you really want to see more corpses? I sure don’t!” Jules clapped him on the back as they walked through the murky gloom of the cargo bays. Their voices echoed along the seemingly infinite lifeless corridors.

  “I know, I know. By the moons, Jules, I just can’t get her out of my mind!” Alec confessed what was really bothering him. Other than a few hints, he had only told Vivian about Annette. It didn’t seem proper, showing that he had feelings for a superior.

  “You mean that administrator lady you haven’t been able to get enough of for the past month?” Jules asked. Alec could feel a pair of unseen eyes boring into the back of his skull, but he only saw dusk behind him when he turned.

  “How did you know about that?”

  “It wasn’t hard to figure out. By Jupiter, Alec, you’ve been starry-eyed and Venus touched for hours after your daily meetings. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out the rest.” Jules rolled his eyes.

  “So much for secrecy. How did you know it was her?”

  “Well, the most of them didn’t strike me as your type, and the rest were probably three times your age and look every decade of it. There was really only one choice.”

  Alec sighed. “Okay, you got me. Just keep it under your hat, and use that brain of yours for purposes that don’t pertain to my job!”

  “Come on, Alec, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was curious, and happy for you.”