Parasite, page 7
“Jeeze,” Kala muttered, watching as the bird-like creature stilled. She pressed the button on the desk’s stopwatch and waited.
Nearly three minutes had passed, and Kala was half-convinced the bird was dead, when the amettal finally leapt upright and began strutting around the bowl. It looked and behaved exactly as it had before—the only difference was that it paid no attention to the pipka, which had also fallen still. Kala watched with a mixture of fascination and revulsion; she wasn’t prepared to cut open the bird, but she knew what she would find inside: an inky black mess filled with twitching, writhing tendrils.
Kala slammed a lid on the glass bowl to prevent the amettal from jumping out. She stared up at Stanos; he blinked back at her, unhelpfully silent as she grabbed her microscope.
“I’m kind of freaking out here,” she said, aware that an edge of panic was creeping into her voice. “Now would be a great time to share whatever knowledge you have.”
“Calm down, Holcroft. Just focus on your job and tell me what you can.”
Kala drew a ragged breath and brought her tweezers and scalpel down on the original sample. The black ball began flailing its tendrils again as soon as she touched it, and Kala tried to slice off one of the tips. To her shock, the severed tendril immediately stretched back towards the main body and reconnected, making the ball whole again. “Self-healing…” she muttered and tried again.
It took her four attempts before she managed to separate a portion and get it out of the bowl without it reattaching. She dropped the tiny blob onto one of the slides and put it under the microscope.
“It’s incredible.” She watched the creature’s mass shift and reform itself into different shapes. “It’s almost infinitely adaptable. From what I can tell, it can take over living creatures, absorb their mass, and convert the body into a host. It can heal itself almost instantly and repair its host animal flawlessly. Even more alarming”—she paused to poke at the black blob, making it squirm and swirl—“it can mimic the host’s behaviour. You saw the amettal back there, right? It’s been consumed by this—this—thing, but it’s still behaving normally.”
“Yes, I saw.”
“You know what that means, right? It’s absorbing and adapting to its host’s characteristics and intelligence as well as its body.”
She looked up from the microscope and rubbed the back of her glove over her sweating forehead. “This is big, Stanos. It could wheedle its way into any sort of animal colony without raising suspicion. Possibly even… even…”
“Even humans,” he finished for her. “I’ve considered that already. Can you tell me what you think its weaknesses would be?”
“Weaknesses?” Kala laughed. She’d intended it to be a light noise, but it came out panicky. “We’ve already seen it deal with scalpels pretty well, so I’m going to guess knives and bullets might not do a lot. First thing I’d try is fire, based on how it shied away from the heat pen. Neurotoxins might also stand a chance against it, but with those aggressive healing properties, you’d have to hit it fast and hard.”
“You’d consider it a fairly resilient creature, then?” Stanos pressed, his dark eyes watching her face eagerly.
“Yeah, that’s the problem! It can reproduce nearly instantly, clone its host, heal injuries, disguise itself perfectly—we need to tell someone about this,” she said, the realization hitting her. “This—it could already be spreading, taking over the native animals on moons and planets, and we’d have no way of knowing.”
“Want to know what its biggest flaw is?” Stanos asked. He had his arms folded over his chest, and a spark of something fierce and exultant shone in his eyes.
Kala nodded.
“It can’t learn on its own. It can absorb knowledge and memories perfectly and replicate its host, as you said, but it has no way of using that knowledge to increase its own intelligence. It can’t learn; it can only assimilate.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Kala asked. Then she saw the crack running down the length of Stanos’s face. It was so fine that at first glance, it looked like an out-of-place hair, except that it was too precise. It ran between his eyes, down his nose, over his chin, and down his neck, dividing his face into two perfect halves. As he smiled at her, the line crossing his mouth widened a fraction, and Kala thought she saw something dark moving inside.
“We’re reliant on having new knowledge passed on to us through our hosts. You’ve been very helpful tonight, Holcroft. Thank you.”
Chapter Fourteen
The plethora of little clues Kala had overlooked came crashing in on her all at once. He didn’t help me at all. He knew about the creature but wanted me to examine it and give him my findings. He needed me to explain its weaknesses—
The hairline crack in Stanos’s face widened, peeling back his beautiful eyes and sweetly smiling mouth, exposing the twitching, reaching tendrils inside. Kala opened her mouth to scream, but no noise came out. She tried to step backwards, but the desk blocked her escape. She felt a hot, sharp pain on one of her hands; she’d brushed the heat pen’s holder and scalded herself.
Stanos would always chide me when I forgot to turn it off, she thought sluggishly as the thing that had once been her best friend split its suit in half. The skin was coiling around, releasing more and more of the black, glistening core, and tendrils as wide as her arm extending forward to snatch at her. He’d chide, but in a kind way. He never got angry with me. Not once. Jeeze, I’m going to miss him.
She grabbed the heat pen’s plastic base, which was hot enough to be uncomfortable but not quite hot enough to burn her. To her horror, the tendrils wrapped around her legs. They tightened until the pressure was painful, then began dragging her towards the remains of Stanos’s body. She imagined being enveloped in the inky black mass, swallowed by it, and converted into it. Nausea rose inside her.
She was close enough to see the detail, to watch as the black flesh undulated and see Stanos’s sagging skin hanging limply from the creature. Anger grew to drown out the horror, and Kala thrust her arm forward, sinking the heat pen into the place where Stanos’s face had once been.
She’d guessed fire might be one of the creature’s weaknesses. She hoped the scorching-hot heat pen was hot enough to wound the monster.
She was right. The slimy black skin began convulsing and shrivelling where the pen had touched it, and a terrible screaming, wailing noise rose from the beast. Stanos’s arms, which had shifted to hang behind his back like malformed wings as the body opened up, began twitching. The tendrils around Kala’s legs tightened and sent a shock of pain up her thighs. She pulled the heat pen back, stabbed it into one of the tendrils that clung to her leg, and felt the heat radiating through the slimy, twitching flesh. It tightened more, and Kala bit down against the pain. Then suddenly, the pressure was gone, and she was free.
Most of the heat had been sapped out of the pen—it was meant to be used on small specimens for short amounts of time—but she gave a final stab at the thrashing, wailing beast as she ran past it. That seemed to be the last straw for the creature. It expanded, black limbs shooting out in all directions, and the remaining parts of Stanos’s body were shredded under the motion. The tendrils hit the cold storage, blowing the door off and scattering little plastic packets everywhere. Another arm hit the wall holding the protective suits, cutting through the thick yellow fabric and leaving a large dent in the wall.
So much for hoping my suit would protect me, Kala thought, ducking as she ran for the door.
Another of the tendrils launched at her. She felt it coming more than saw it and dove to one side. It grazed her shoulder, knocking her off balance and cutting a large hole in the suit before sailing past her and hitting the door with enough force to smash it off its hinges.
Without even pausing for breath, she kept running, ducking underneath the tendril, and racing through the open doorway. The thick suit made it hard to run, but she moved her legs as quickly as she could, leaning forward to use the momentum. She didn’t stop to collect herself until her left foot got caught on her right pants leg and sent her crashing to the ground.
The creature was still in the lab; she could hear it thrashing, breaking their priceless equipment, and smashing through the glass windows that looked into the room for larger specimens.
I hope you cut yourself, she thought furiously, pressing her palms against her eyes. It was a stupid thing to hope for; even if the creature did cut itself, it would be repaired in a matter of seconds. She suspected that even the burns wouldn’t bother it for long. Strangled laughter rose in her throat as she began to realise just how dire the situation was.
Get it together. You’ve got to tell someone. Got to warn them.
She stumbled to her feet, tugging off her gloves and throwing the face mask behind herself. She wasn’t far from where she’d been standing earlier that evening, waiting so anxiously for Stanos to return. The door to the living quarters was only a few dozen paces ahead of her. She began to run for the door, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the creature behind her figured out how to get out of the labs. She couldn’t risk it entering the main parts of the station.
Her thoughts were so focussed on what was behind her that she didn’t notice what was happening ahead until she swiped the door open. Screams filled her ears, followed by a staccato burst of gunfire. Kala stood in the doorway, shocked dumb, as she watched two guards race past her and disappear down one of the curved hallways leading to the bedrooms. One of the guards had a splash of something wet and red across his helmet.
Stanos came back with two co-pilots. A sick sensation boiled in Kala’s stomach.
Gunfire from a passageway to her right drew Kala’s attention. She wanted to scream, “Bullets won’t hurt them. You’ve got to use fire,” but she knew no one would hear her over the racket. A siren started far off in the building. More screaming—loud wails that rose then cut off in strange gurgles—came from immediately ahead of her.
Think! She pressed her palms against her temples. What do you need to do?
She could leave. The station had three hangars, and the entrance to one was just behind her. She wasn’t a qualified pilot, but she’d watched her co-workers fly the ships often enough that she thought she could get one of the smaller ones off the ground and out the hatch.
Another scream and more gunfire rang out. The siren bored into her head, its sombre whoop whoop whoop whoop uselessly warning the building’s occupants that there was a problem, as though they didn’t already know.
She could stay and try to fight the creatures, but she didn’t have any combat training. I’m a scientist. I’m not supposed to have to deal with these sorts of problems! My best weapon is my brain, and it’s not like that’s going to do much good against—
Kala opened her eyes as a plan hit her. She might not be able to fight, but she had something that the people in the station desperately needed: knowledge of how to stop the creatures. Fire.
Half a dozen communication boxes were scattered around the station—they could broadcast her voice into every room. The closest one was in the recreation area to her right. She set out for it at a run.
A scientist burst out of one of the hallway’s doors, screaming. Something dark red was sprayed across her chest and face, and her eyes were huge with panic. She dashed past Kala, senseless to her surroundings. Kala called after her, “Use fire!” But the woman showed no sign of having heard.
Kala swore and picked up her pace. She shoved open the recreation room’s door and stopped short. The room had been painted with blood. Red sprays dribbled down the walls. Pools of it were spreading over the floor, changing the crystal-blue carpet into a dark muddy purple, and even as Kala stood frozen, little drips fell down in front of her from the ceiling.
Bodies lay about the furniture, some whole, others torn in half. Others were mangled so badly that they looked like piles of dirty, wet rags with white bone shards poking out.
A hundred and fifty-nine people lived on the station. How many of them died in this room?
Kala turned towards the wall, only half-aware that she was hyperventilating. Her body was coated in slick, cold sweat, and she guessed that only the combination of shock and denial stopped her from mingling the contents of her stomach with the flesh littering the ground around her feet.
She reached for the communication unit, but something seemed different about it. She blinked through the haze of stress and fear. It had been smashed—broken, probably—by one of the thrashing tendrils or a body that had been thrown against it.
Well, that’s it, her brain sang cheerfully. You tried, but there’s nothing to be done. Better get to one of the ships and hightail it out of here.
Kala squinted her eyes nearly shut, fighting against her body’s desire to collapse. The smell of blood and body fluids was thick, sticking in her throat and coating her tongue. This isn’t the only unit.
She stumbled towards the door, averting her eyes from the carnage, half-afraid that it would burn onto her retinas, half-afraid that she would recognise one of the bodies. Her head felt foggy and light as she forced her legs to carry her to the door, out of the room, and down the hallway. As soon as her nose cleared of the visceral odour, she drew a deep, shaky breath and broke into a jog.
Where’s the next closest system? The kitchen or the bedrooms or—
A tall figure burst out of one of the rooms in front of her. Kala had been so focussed on watching her feet that she nearly ran into the tip of the gun.
“Get back! Get back!” a voice screamed at her. It was familiar, somehow.
Kala raised her eyes to stare at the woman looming over her. “Vivian?”
Chapter Fifteen
Kala had never seen the immaculate, precise scientist look so fierce… or so dirty. Vivian’s long black plait was mussed, and patches of hair poked out at odd angles. Strands fell over her sweaty face, partially blocking one of her intensely wild eyes. Her neatly pressed suit was scuffed and stained with dark spots, and the hands gripping the gun had turned pale and veiny.
They stared at each other for a moment, the tip of Vivian’s gun pointed at Kala’s head, then Vivian let out a sigh and lowered her weapon. “Be more careful, Holcroft. Not everyone will give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Kala rubbed a hand over her face. “There’s, uh, alien, body snatcher—”
“You noticed, did you?” Vivian barked. Her carefully cultivated aloofness was gone; in its place was cold fury. She kept turning her head, peering up and down the hallway. “There were only two of them to begin with, but they’re taking over their victims’ bodies. You can’t trust anyone.”
“Wait. Why are you trusting me?”
Vivian snorted. It sounded almost like suppressed laughter. “They don’t stare at you stupidly when you point a gun at them.”
“Ah.” Kala glanced at the weapon and shook her head. “Bullets won’t hurt them. They can repair damage at a phenomenal speed. You’ve got to burn them.”
“What?”
“Burn them. You know, fire. I was trying to get to an announcement unit to—”
“But the one in the rec room’s broken.” Vivian grabbed Kala’s arm and pulled her down the hallway. “Okay, we need to get to the weapons room. There are flamethrowers in there.”
“What? Really? How did you know that?”
Vivian paused just long enough to give Kala an incredulous glare. “I’m ex-military. I never stay in a building if I don’t know the exits, defences, and emergency plans. Come on; we need to hurry.”
“Okay, but the announcement box—”
Vivian’s grip was too strong to fight as she dragged Kala around a corner and down the hallway leading to the military sector. “Stop being stupid. You won’t be able to help anyone if you get killed halfway across the station.”
It took Kala a second to latch onto the logic, but then she broke into a jog, following Vivian into the metal-lined passageways. Vivian stopped abruptly, and Kala nearly ran into her back. A body in the middle of the hallway blocked their path. Kala recognised Denise, one of the senior researchers. Her bushy hair was thrown out in a halo around her head, and her open eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Vivian swore under her breath and pointed her gun at the prone woman.
“What are you doing?” Kala hissed, snatching the tip of the gun and pushing it down to face the ground.
“She’s changing,” Vivian said simply. Her face had taken on a pale-grey tinge, but her eyes were hard. “I saw it in the rec room. The creatures can do one of two things to you: they can kill you, or they can take over your body. Trust me on this—the first option is the far greater mercy.”
Denise’s fingers were twitching. Kala thought of the amettal and the way it had twitched in the glass bowl before leaping to its feet like nothing had happened. She realised she did not, under any circumstance, want to see Denise get up again. Kala let go of Vivian’s gun, feeling sick.
“It’s the kindest thing I can do for her,” Vivian said, her voice unusually soft. “Look away if it upsets you.”
Kala turned to face the wall and squeezed her eyes shut as Vivian opened fire. The loud snapping sounds seemed to go on forever, and when the noise died off, Kala opened her eyes again. The hallway was filled with dust from the chipped concrete floor.
“Better safe than sorry.” Vivian pulled Kala past Denise’s now-still remains.
“They can’t take over dead things,” Kala said, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
“That’s the logic I’m working off.” Vivian led her around another corner at a fast jog. “They can infect you while you’re alive, but a corpse is no good to them.”
The door leading into the weapons room was hanging open. Kala and Vivian entered cautiously, but it was empty. Most of the guns had been taken, but the more unique weapons—grenades, knives, and the flamethrowers—were still on their racks.
