Crescent (39 page)

“Thank you, Gerald. You’re all I…
 
”

“Can it,” he interrupted. “If you know how to get where we’re going, lead the way. We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

The modified collectors ambled around on their strange, curved legs. The machines were joined by Crescent’s standard complement of robots as they collected bodies instead of trash. The robots bludgeoned those who
struggled
the most, using the walls, floors, and ceilings to subdue them. At the outset, it didn’t look like the machines were set on killing. Most of the captives moaned and even moved, if just a little bit.

The human residents of Crescent were doing far worse things to each other. Horrible acts of violence and mutilation.

Gerald could still hear the muffled sounds of killing through the confining maintenance channel’s walls. The collector robots might have been too large for the shafts that he and Ina hustled through, but the crazy people were not, so he was careful to lock each hatch behind them as they went. Small maintenance robots darted this way and that, bouncing off of Gerald and Ina’s feet as the two made their way toward the Vault—toward wherever those big robots were hauling their catches. Not exactly a wonderful idea.

After a long elevator descent, Ina and Gerald came out onto L Deck. At the outset, the level appeared dark and ghostly quiet, but the very air was unsettled. It felt charged as it had on
Anrar
III just before the arrival of the storm. Water dripped from black light panels as they moved through the abandoned residential corridors. Gaping apartment doors watched as Gerald and Ina passed.

The Vault entrance was almost peaceful when Gerald and Ina arrived.

Regardless of the false calm, Gerald’s skin crawled with fear and anticipation. Cold air poured out of a large opening that led into a part of Crescent that Gerald had never really thought existed. Yet, there he was, about to dive right into whatever unknown horrors waited on the other side. He opened his mouth to speak and his breath came out as a cloud of vapor.

A whir of motors sounded from directly behind them. Gerald turned, his hands outstretched. A metal behemoth towered above them. Eye nodes burned like hot coals. The machine examined them, titling its bulbous head this way and then that. Gerald braced himself for what would undoubtedly be a grievous death. The thing cocked its head and looked at Ina for several agonizing seconds. It didn’t move a centimeter. Ina opened her mouth as if to scream but she only produced a gulping sound that was almost comical. The robot turned and strode past them, dragging a catch of bodies in tow. Some of the bodies had crude lacerations across their torsos.

 
Gerald thought of his spectral roommate. He should have seen this coming. He looked at Ina. She snapped her mouth shut and peered through the open door after the robot.

“Food,” Ina said. “It is going to be weak, and so hungry.”

“It?
What is going to be hungry, Ina? Just where the hell are you taking me?” He’d come too far to turn back now, but he didn’t want to go a step further.

“I could never explain it. But the robots—they are part of the station and this life force controls the station now. It is
becoming
the station.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the dark corridor of the Vault. The tunnel was dimly lit—the only appreciable illumination came from the walls themselves, glazed with a strange, black substance. It looked like tar and glittered with tiny flecks of light. Bulkheads stood out in substance like silver islands. Were these offices?
Homes?
The edges of the bulkheads bulged with chrome caulking.

Ina and Gerald were passed by a procession of collectors, and were again ignored.

“These bulkheads.”
Ina ran her finger around the circumference of one oval door. “They’re completely sealed.”

“Either they didn’t want to let something in or…
 
let something out. Let’s keep moving,” Gerald said. Circular windows were set into the face of the doors, but only darkness was visible on the other side.

“They put people in there to die,” Ina said, and then didn’t say anything else.

Gerald and Ina moved into a sea of blackness. Phantasmal clouds of weak light drifted past as the pair pushed on.

Ina and Gerald waded free of the darkness and came to an intersection in the corridor.

“Which way?”
Ina asked. She looked at him and her brow creased with doubt.

“Left,” Gerald said.
“First direction that came to mind.”

The
Aphotic
pounced on them the instant Gerald and Ina stepped through the infirmary door. Gerald threw blind punches in every possible direction and combination. His knuckles connected several times, rewarding his effort with a crack or a yelp. Regardless, he was soon overwhelmed.
Why didn’t you bring a weapon, asshole?
his
conscience spat as he was pulled to the ground. Hands closed around his neck in a death grip; Gerald swatted at them ineffectively. Not far from him, Ina screamed and cried. He could hear her feet kicking at something metal and fought to turn his head. Two cultists were laying her out on a table. Donovan Cortez stepped up to her, a red stone knife in his hand. His skin seemed to be hanging loosely on his bones. He pulled up the hem of his daughter’s shirt and her screaming jumped in volume and pitch, but Gerald could only just barely hear her. His heart was pounding too loudly in his ears.

“
Maerl
…
 
” Gerald gasped as he looked up into the face of the man strangling him. “
Maerl
…
 
Jesus. Please.”

Gerald lost consciousness.

(•••)

It was quiet when Gerald came to. Not even the ceiling vents made a noise. His blurred vision cleared to reveal a dust-covered medical suite. Cult members lay dead around him, their throats crudely slit. They each held a razor blade in their dead hands.
They killed themselves
, Gerald thought, and then heard Ina’s voice add,
“It’s going to be hungry.”

Maerl’s
body sat close to the frosted glass exit door, propped against a cream-colored wall panel. The club owner’s chin rested on his blood-soaked chest. Gerald probed his own throat with hesitant fingers. It was still intact.

 
He steeled himself to find Ina. The feat wouldn’t be easy solo; not with the zealots wandering in the shadows. He thought of calling Marisa in for backup, but she was more than half a station away. It was a one man show now.

Gerald didn’t have to go far to find the archaeologist. She lay on a gleaming surgery table. Her abdomen was opened wide, the incised flaps of skin held in place by four shiny clamps. Gerald hurried to her side. He checked for a pulse, but knew the gesture was meaningless.

She was as dead as the cult members.

His eyes stung with tears that wouldn’t come. He took several steps back from the table and shook his head.

“Shit. Ina,” he whispered.

Suddenly, Gerald felt a sense of disparity, like two worlds were overlaid one on the other—two worlds that had no business coming together. Whatever Ina and Marisa had been so afraid of
happening,
was happening. His ears felt like they wanted to pop, but wouldn’t.

Small clouds of dim blue light grew out of the air before his eyes. The shifting, glowing clouds effloresced into child-sized ethereal flower shapes, filled with watery light. Gerald gazed into the petals—it was like staring through an undulating window into a stormy, endless sky. The ghostly blooms drifted across the room and disappeared through the far wall. Wraith-like figures rose from the floor panels and joined the floating lights in their ethereal procession. Gerald tore his gaze away and ran from the infirmary. More cult members lay dead in his path. He leapt over them as he hustled down the passageway.

He skidded to a halt at the junction. A light twinkled at the far end of the other corridor. It shone through an unexplainable murkiness, as if from behind dark green water. The light source was not on the station. Gerald gazed into a place that human eyes had never glimpsed. It made his head hurt. The surface of the water rippled and a figure stepped through and into the corridor. The being’s mass was insubstantial and so black it seemed to absorb light. The force of its presence froze Gerald where he stood—he could feel the thing reaching out for him and his heart began to slow as if life were being sapped from him.

Ina’s words came back to him—
it’s going to be weak, and so hungry.
It was feeding time.

Collectors emerged from the wall of water, trundling in his general direction. Their forms were black and ominous in the glare. It was enough to break Gerald’s trance. He took a step away from the junction and his movement drew their attention. Robotic heads snapped up and tentacles unfurled. It would be the maintenance shaft, or death.

Gerald ran for it.

The clanking of jointed metal feet became louder with each burning breath that Gerald took. A metal tentacle slashed across his back, cutting through his shirt and his skin. He stumbled, but did not fall. The open hatch into the crawlspace was so close he could almost touch it. Again, the tentacle lashed out. It hit his arm this time and almost found purchase.

A few more steps.

Just a few more steps.

(Part XXIII)

The wounds were mortal—that much was apparent. Dark liquid hemorrhaged from the deep gashes with startling persistence. A gurgling whistle accompanied each of Captain Benedict’s labored, ragged breaths. Marisa had found him outside of HQ. How he had managed to hold on for so long was a mystery. Half of his leg was missing, and his exposed torso was a cross-hatch of nasty lacerations. She stroked his blood-soaked hair and whispered all the calming sentiments she could think of. Captain Benedict tried to speak. His lips moved soundlessly and Marisa leaned in to listen. Blood frothed from his mouth; he swallowed it back and tried again, but the light went out of his eyes. Marisa fought back her tears and laid his head down on the blood-soaked office carpet.

There’d be plenty of time to grieve later. She did not have that luxury now.

Marisa turned her attention to the security feeds. She hoped to catch a glimpse of Gerald, but had no such luck. A warning flashed across each one of the displays and filled Marisa with dread, cold and pure. Kendall, that crazy son of a bitch, had set Crescent to gas every living thing onboard. Her stomach dropped and the resulting nausea nearly doubled her over. She sat at a control console, took a slow, deep breath, and then began entering commands on the keyboard. Her fingers moved with deliberate care at first, but each time the display screen taunted her with her lack of clearance and refused her entry to the system, her fingers moved faster. When the computer would not relent, she beat at it with open palms, alternating between shouted curses and sobbing pleas. She was in a full sweat when she finally gave up.

To make matters worse, Nigel was nowhere to be found. As far as Marisa was concerned, he was on his own now. She snapped open her PDA and dialed Gerald. The small LCD indicated that he was not on the station. Interference, Marisa thought dismissively. She set her PDA to keep calling the salvage pilot until it could get through.

Marisa limped out of HQ; her ankle caught fire with each step. A procession of collector robots marched past the T intersection at the end of the corridor. Marisa ducked back into the office before the door had a chance to slide shut. She activated the door lock and pressed her ear to the frosted glass. The sounds of the robots faded. They hadn’t seen her. She hazarded a look into the hallway and found it empty. This was her chance—maybe her only one. She made a break for it, ignoring the pain.

Marisa didn’t feel safe until she was in the maintenance tunnel, the grate firmly locked in place behind her. She had to shuffle along sideways to move forward. Small maintenance drones bounced off her feet, blipping and chirping. She was a trespasser in their cramped domain, and the little machines did not seem pleased about the intrusion. But at least there was no way the collectors could get her in there. The thought brought her comfort, even if her heart did flutter with claustrophobia. After a short distance, the tunnel grew wider and she was able to pick up the pace, despite her injury.

The passage curved. A body flew around that bend from the opposite direction, colliding with her in a tangle of limbs. Their respective cries of surprise were nearly in unison. She shuffled in reverse and got to her feet. Mayor Kendall
lay
sprawled flat on his back, breathing hard. She couldn’t believe her fucking eyes.

“You!”
Kendall growled and struggled to get upright. Marisa did not give him the chance. She grabbed him by the collar and planted her fist in his face. The first punch felt so good, she straddled him and went to town.

No. There’s no time. You have to get to Bean.

Marisa dismounted and kicked the former mayor hard in the ribs.
One.
Two.
Three.
He cried out each time. Her bad ankle threatened to give with the last blow, but she maintained her balance. The pain was distant now. She moved away.

“I should’ve…
 
blown you…
 
out the airlock…
 
like your friend
Swaren
, when I had the chance,” Kendall said between big, gulping breaths.

She stopped and turned. Her lips peeled back in a snarl.

“What did you say?”

Kendall caught his breath. He wiped his hand across his mouth and looked at the resulting blood with a smirk.

“You should have seen his face, Marisa. He looked quite surprised when we opened that hangar door.”

He wants me to stick around out here. He wants me to get distracted…
 

“You’ll get yours, Kendall.
But not from me.
There’s a higher power playing here now. And you’ve got no control.”

Hatred and pain could wait for some other time.

Marisa ran.

She ran until spots floated in front of her eyes and her lungs burned. She slowed to a halt only when she feared she would pass out, bending over with hands on her knees, struggling to control her breathing. She dry-heaved twice before composure finally returned. She straightened, and realized in dawning horror that she was lost. In her blind flight, she must have missed one of the turns.
An important turn.
How far back had it been? Marisa looked back the way she had come, but couldn’t tell.

Her heart began to hammer in her chest again and she doubled over with more dry heaves.

Relax, Marisa,
she thought.
Main Street should be just up ahead.

The hangars could be reached by crossing the wide thoroughfare—if she survived being out in the open.

Main Street was an embodiment of hell itself. The shops in the bazaar burned. Beyond the sprawling market, jagged holes in the station walls were all that remained of former storefronts. The ruined businesses spewed forth blasts of angry flames. Bodies lay everywhere. The sun globes cycled through color and brightness rapidly.
Purple, orange, yellow, orange, purple, white.
Shadows, shrunk, lengthened, and changed directions at an alarming rate. It made Marisa’s stomach twist into a knot. She wished she could close her eyes and leap the final distance to the big exit tunnel.

Marisa took a deep breath and looked for the collectors. None were to be seen, so she went for it.

An ear-piercing clang rang out from behind her before she could get very far. Marisa turned, not ready for death, but willing to accept it so long as it wasn’t too painful or prolonged.

Naheela
stood outside what had once been a sidewalk cafe. Mutilated corpses sat propped up at the cafe’s tables. Big burning umbrellas lit the grim parody of life in mad, orange light.
Naheela
stood beyond the tables. She held a metal pipe and trash can lid in her hands. She seemed poised to clang them together again, but when Marisa took notice, the crone dropped them. She waved to Marisa, beckoning for her to come. Marisa jogged to her.
Naheela
met her at the center of the boulevard.

“Most everyone is either dead or on their way to dead by now. I know that Ina has failed us.”
Naheela
shook her head, her deep-creased features looked impossibly sad. “You have to get out of here very soon. What I have to do next is final.”

“You need to leave, yourself. Kendall has the station set to gas everything living within the hour,” Marisa said. She breathed through her mouth, but was nearly overcome by the scents of burning hair and flesh.

Naheela
chuckled and shook her head. “Don’t you worry about me,
dearest.
What I’m going to do will be more permanent than a little bit of poison gas.” She put a finger on her chin.
“Though, gassing those who have been brought to the Vault and not yet…
 
processed for supper—that could be a blessing for them.”
She paused and looked up at Marisa. “No time to listen to me babble. The coast is clear; as far as I can tell, the collectors are all trekking back to the hive now with their last batch for the new-born
Other
.” She waved her hand. “Get off the station. Go!”

Marisa did not have to be told twice.

Crescent’s main hangar was in chaos. Straggling survivors fought each other to clamber aboard the few lifeboats that remained docked. The biggest
mob of them were
clustered around the colony ship, climbing frantically one over the other in an attempt to ascend the wide docking ramp. The evacuation was without order. No one took notice of Marisa as she ran to where Bean sat at the far end of the vast chamber. The hauler’s running lights flashed. The engine exhaust ports glowed softly. The vessel was ready for take off, but Bean’s hatch was sealed tight when she reached it. She called the ship’s name, hoping it would recognize her voice and open up, but it did not.

The PDA vibrated in her chest pocket. She retrieved the device. It almost fell free of her sweat-slicked fingers.

“Gerry,” she gasped. On the small display screen, he was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. His face was covered in dirt and blood.

“Where are you? Tell me you’re close.”

“I think I’m close,” he gasped. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Bean.”

“Good. I’ll be there in five minutes—I’m hoping less.”

“Hurry,” she said.

The sound of rending metal came through the phone’s speaker. Gerald cursed.

“Oh, I’m hurrying.”

She closed the phone and looked up. A group of collector robots waded into the crowd of panicked station residents. Blood and rust covered the machines’ exteriors. Eye nodes flared through a tacky coating of viscera and oxidation. The bots began hauling people away—soon, they had them all. Marisa marveled at their savage efficiency. She knew it was pointless for her to hide. The creatures had spotted her and four of them were closing in. She wouldn’t run. Maybe they would take her and leave, allowing Gerald to get on his ship.

“Hey!” Gerald’s voice cried, and she whirled. He was several meters behind her. His head poked out of an open hangar grate. “Talk about a hole in …
 
holy shit!” The robots had already covered half the distance to Bean. She leaned down with an outstretched arm and yanked Gerald out of the pit.

“Bean.
Bean, open up, you motherfucker!”
Gerald shouted. The hatch opened on Bean’s belly and the docking ladder descended. The collectors were too damn close now. Their metal tentacles whipped out in gleaming arcs.

“You first, Gerald.
You have to get this bird in the air before I’m even in my seat.” He looked at her but didn’t argue. The pilot bolted up the ladder. His head reappeared at the top.

“Come on, Marisa. Quit fucking around.”

She started up the ladder, but her hands slipped when a rusted tether grabbed her bad ankle and yanked hard. She cried out. Gerald reached for her hand but missed entirely. He wasn’t even fucking close. The collectors dragged her across the deck with a back-jarring pull.

“Go!” she screamed at him. “Go!”

The ladder ascended and the bulkhead sealed. She felt a pang of disappointment, but she knew there was no way he could have helped her. He would have been snagged if he tried.

The pointed tip of a tentacle lanced toward her face. The barbed end missed her by a fraction of a centimeter, but came close enough that Marisa felt a breeze. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the shortest prayer she knew.

(•••)

Gerald practically fell into the control couch. It was all wrong. Why should he be the one to get away unscathed? He could see the collectors dragging Marisa away the through front viewport.
All fucking wrong.
The collector’s tether should have been around
his
ankle.

Inspiration struck and he grabbed the manual controls for Bean’s hauling lines. Silvery tentacles flashed out from the underside of the ship. The first thick line hit the collector that had Marisa. It clipped the side of the robot’s metal head, knocking it free of the rusty shoulders. The collector’s long appendages went limp and Marisa fell to the deck. She began crawling toward the ship. Gerald caught her with one of Bean’s other tethers and began to pull her back across the floor. The remaining collector robots changed direction and darted after her with alarming speed. Gerald lashed out again, taking out the legs of one of the big machines. The collector sailed through the air and smashed into the hangar wall with a flash of sparks and smoke. A final robot continued in pursuit, but it was too far behind—nearly half a hangar’s length away.

“I’ve got her on board, Captain,” Bean said a heartbeat later.

“Then get us the hell out of here.”

The collector robot crashed into the front viewport. Gerald jerked back in the control couch with a yell.
How did that fucker move so fast?
But the robot was mangled. It fell from the viewport, crashing to the deck in a rusted heap. With the window clear, Gerald could see how the robot had closed the gap in a matter of seconds.

It had been launched.

A metal spike had erupted from the hangar floor, sending the robot skyward. The growth was like the murdering shafts that Gerald had glimpsed in Heathen’s, but those barbs had been the size of a bee’s stinger by comparison. This metal protrusion bisected the flight deck and was easily as wide the hauler’s bridge. Another spike burst out of the floor.