Haywire, page 10
“If you want to have any hope of surviving the next five seconds,” she said, raising one of her blades toward the pirate’s head, “you’re going to tell me how many more of you are out there, and where.”
Shawn shivered in Alicia’s hands, and hope faded in her heart like a dying ember. She looked up at the Titan as she stroked his damp forehead. “Please, help me. My son is dying.”
The Titan lowered her arm, looked down at her, and then tossed Laroux backward with a flick of her wrist. He slammed against the far wall with a loud, fleshy thud before sliding to the ground in an unconscious heap. As he slumped onto his side, she walked to Alicia and squatted onto her heels.
A detached part of Alicia’s brain wondered at the sudden change in the Titan. Whatever sickness had ailed her before now seemed all but gone. Her voice was steady, her movements sure, and her armor looked solid. Alicia couldn’t begin to guess what had wrought such a transformation, and she would have been delighted if her son wasn’t dying in her arms.
“I’m sorry,” the Titan said, “but I’m not a doctor. I can’t help him.”
Alicia’s heart fluttered, sending spasms of pain through her chest. “Then help me get him to one. He’s dying because he wanted to help you. Do something, goddamnmit.”
The Titan looked his body up and down, the lights in her eyes twirling back and forth, and her hands lightly examined his wound. After a moment she shook her head. “It’s too late to get him out of here. I don’t know if he’d even make it to the surface. I’m sorry.”
Grief crashed against Alicia like a tidal wave. Tears burned her eyes and cheeks as they fell, and she balled her bloody hands into fists. “Then damn you,” she whispered. Her son was fading away in her lap, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. His mouth moved soundlessly, like a fish out of water trying to draw breath. She wanted to comfort him, help him, do something to save him, but her anguish was too much to allow her mind a way to think through it. She’d never felt so helpless in her entire life. Her muscles contracted until her bones ached under the strain.
The Titan touched his face, then let out a long sigh. “Do you really want to save him, no matter the consequences?”
Filled with sudden hope, Alicia’s face was numb when looked up and nodded, her lips held tight against the screams that wanted to fly out of her. If there was even the slimmest possibility of saving Shawn, she had to take it.
“Then let me have him,” the Titan said with a firm nod.
Alicia’s instinct was to clutch her son to her, but she resisted it and leaned back. The armored giant gathered his body up like it weighed nothing.
“You see that canister I set down? The one your son found? Grab it and follow me.”
The Titan turned and walked away before Alicia could ask questions, so she grabbed the metal canister in blind faith and ran to catch up. When they reached the elevator, she expected them to enter it and ride up to the surface, but instead the Titan kept walking, taking them down a dark corridor that stretched in the opposite direction from which they’d come. A dozen meters later they passed through a doorway and entered a dark room.
Near the back of the room Alicia could just barely make out the Titan shoving several large switches upward with the arm not holding her son. The floor began to hum and overhead lights sputtered to life. In their glow Alicia saw a massive machine sitting at the far end of the room. The right half of it was all computer displays and buttons, with a badly aged plastic chair sitting before it. The left half, which was composed of a long metal tray situated beneath an array of nozzles and probes, had a distinctly medical appearance. It looked familiar, and yet not. Alicia had no idea what it was, but it scared her. It sat there like a beast of chrome and silicon chips, silent, waiting.
“What is that?” she asked, setting the canister down on the floor with a dull thunk.
The Titan stepped toward the tray and laid Shawn down on it. After clamping restraints over his wrists and ankles, she shifted to the right and flipped a toggle. The computer monitors powered on and buttons began to glow. A light swept over his still body.
“I asked you what that is.” Alicia’s anguish was slowly giving ground to an understanding she wasn’t ready to process.
“You already know,” the Titan replied as her fingers pressed buttons. “Want me to stop?”
Alicia wanted to reply yes, she did, he was her son and just a child, but as her eyes locked on his pale, bloody face she stopped herself. If it could save him, that was all she needed to know. Blood still seeped from his wound, but it was slower now, and that terrified her more than anything. But it wasn’t until the Titan picked up the canister and shoved it into a chamber of the machine that her mind fully grasped the magnitude of what was about to happen.
“Wait, I’m not sure I–”
The armored woman nodded sternly and pressed buttons. “I am.”
“But it’ll kill him! His body won’t–”
The Titan grunted loudly, cutting her off. “Despite the wound, his odds are favorable. He’s young, and the scanners say his genetic markers are good. Astoundingly good, actually. Correcting physical issues and ailments is part of the process. One of my initial duties after becoming a Titan was assisting Groesbeck. Trust me, I’ve done this before.”
“But he’ll–”
“He’ll live. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Uncertainty flickered through Alicia’s heart like a moth caught in a jar. She wanted to save Shawn more than anything, would have traded her life for his in an instant if she could, but the drastic action the Titan suggested would change her son forever. He would live, but what would he become? Would he still be Shawn? How much would still be him, and what would be other? She didn’t know the answers, and the doubt tore at her insides. Ultimately, though, she knew there wasn’t really a choice at all.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The Titan nodded, pressed a button, and stood back. “You’ll want to look away. This won’t be pretty.”
Pain had overwhelmed Shawn’s body when he’d been shot, but that was nothing compared to the agony raging through his body now. It came in waves that had no beginning or end - it just was. Every cell within him filled with fire that forced away all other sensation, and the way it moved through him was like a living thing, which, in a strange way, it was.
In a distant part of his mind he heard his mother’s screams echo with his own.
“Let go of me! Shawn!”
His trembling arms reached out for her from where he laid convulsing, but the Titan kept her metallic arms locked around his mother.
“There’s nothing you can do for him. He has to finish this.”
Shawn heard the words, and a small part of his brain even recognized what they meant, but the rest of his mind was driven into an animal frenzy of fear and misery that was unable to listen. His body was invaded, attacked, infected, and his natural reaction was to fight back.
“Then stop it! Stop hurting him! Get him out of there!”
He stiffened and vibrated at a fresh surge of pain. Padded metal restraints secured him to a bed or gurney, and he ached from the strain of pulling against them as he twisted in torment. His muscles burned, and his skeleton was pounded to dust.
“We can’t stop it once it’s begun. He has to go through the infusion process, and he has to do it on his own, just like I did.”
Hell pumped through Shawn’s veins, filling his body with torture, and the idea of a painless existence seemed like a faraway dream. He heard himself cry out, felt his limbs flex and spasm. Needles of fire dug deeper and deeper into his skin. His eyes felt like they were melting into his skull, and every cell in his body vibrated until he was sure they would all shatter. The agony increased until he was convinced it had gained life within him and was desperately clawing its way out. In the throes of his suffering the metal restraints shattered, and his convulsions sent him shuddering near the edge of the slab. But, before he could fall, the pain eased just the tiniest bit.
“It won’t be much longer. The infusion process is painful, but the nanites make quick work of it.”
His thrashing lessened as the flames within him slowly died, and the chill that crept across his skin was sexual in its pleasure. His muscles relaxed, his fingers uncurled, and his mouth opened in a prolonged sigh. All of the pain evaporated away until he felt almost human.
No, not human. More than human.
Better.
“It’s finished,” the Titan said.
His mother soon hovered over him, her hands touching his face and chest. “Shawn, can you hear me? Shawn! Answer me!”
Slowly he opened his eyes. Above him was a length of metal polished to a mirror finish, and in it his eyes shone with an inner light, tiny sparks flickering in his pupils. When he reached up to rub them, his hands and forearms were laced with metal, as though his skeleton was mapped on his skin. Next to him his mother cried.
“What happened?” he asked. His voice was tiny and dry.
The Titan stepped toward him, but she kept a good distance between them. “You’ve become a Titan. The pain you felt was the infusion process. I’d congratulate you, but I don’t know if we’ll live long enough for it to matter. Welcome to the war, soldier.”
Shawn couldn’t believe what he heard, but he couldn’t deny his own senses. Along with the metal on his skin, his vision was filled with words and numbers and graphs. He tried focusing on them, but they jittered across his eyes like static and faded in and out. When he looked at his mother, he saw her terrified face staring down at him, but he also saw colors overlaid against her, indicating her body heat, respiration rate, and blood pressure. Information flooded his vision until he squeezed his eyes closed and moaned.
His mother caressed his cheek, and more information lit up in his mind – how many pounds per square inch her touch created, that there was a scar on her right index finger he’d never noticed before, that her heart was beating 143 beats per minute.
A quiver filled his mother’s voice. “Shawn, please, are you okay?”
“His body is adapting, and that takes time.” The Titan’s tone was all too knowing. “He’s experiencing the world in ways you couldn’t begin to understand, and it can be overwhelming. His body is becoming something far greater than it ever was before, but it isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t pleasant.”
“Why did you do this?” he asked as he turned to look at the two women beside him. His mind was erratic, a jumble of noise and static, and it took all his effort to focus on a single thought.
His mother reached across him and laid her hand on his chest. Beneath her fingers he could feel a cold burning sensation, as though a lump of ice was buried in his skin. When his mind focused on it, text appeared in his vision – “Internal Damage Assessment” – accompanied by repair estimate graphs. It was a blunt reminder of what had happened.
“We had to,” his mother said. Her eyes were red and pleading. “You were dying. She said she could save you. I had... I had to do it.”
“So now I’m one of them?” His voice rose as panic welled up in his chest. “You’ve turned me into a… a machine?”
The Titan frowned at him. “You’re more than that, Shawn. In time, you might become more than you ever dreamed possible. But right now we’ve got more pressing matters to deal with, so suck it up.”
Resentment quickly overpowered the pain filtering through his body. He’d been shot and nearly killed defending the Titan, and instead of thanking him she gave him attitude. Her towering condescension was a big change from a little while ago, and not one he appreciated.
“Suck it up? Screw you. Last I saw, you were a babbling idiot that had to be led around on a leash. What happened? You finally found your precious nanites and decided to wake the hell up? Not as sick as you thought anymore?”
Even as he spoke, Shawn knew what he said wasn’t entirely true. His eyes saw her as she was, tall and mighty and majestic, but overlaid against her was a shadow that repulsed him, made him want to get as far from her as possible. She was still infected, and his enhanced eyes could see it filling her like a ravenous cancer.
The Titan glared down at him, flexing her hands. “We don’t have time for a situation report. Suffice it to say, those pirates shouldn’t have used all those electric whips on me. They’d hoped to control me with them, but instead they gave my head and heart a much needed kick start. I’m better now, but it’s a temporary solution, so we have to make every second count. There’s still a lot to do.”
“Like what?” Shawn asked, looking down at his metal-laced arms and hands. “What could be more important than this?”
“Pirates, for one thing. There are still two standing guard topside, and if my memory is correct there are a lot more on their ships, all of them waiting to hear from their captain. They know about me, and they certainly know about the two of you. And then there’s…”
Shawn’s mother looked up when the Titan’s voice trailed off. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“Something dreadful,” the Titan replied, her lips barely moving as she stared into a distance they couldn’t see. “Something we never thought possible. I… I don’t know if you’d even understand it.”
His mother leaned against the metal tray Shawn was stretched out on, and the look of worry etched into her face was replaced with her typical scholarly expression of interest and intelligence. “Try me. Let’s start with your name.”
Chapter Ten
“My name is Artemis, and I’m the last of the Titans.”
Alicia’s head ached as her pulse pounded blood through her veins like a hammer on an anvil. Too much had happened in too short a span of time. In less than a day she’d seen a man murdered in cold blood, been kidnapped at gunpoint, forced to lie her way into her own museum, walked through hidden hallways, watched a Titan slaughter a room full of pirates, seen her son shot, and then watched him become the very thing she’d spent her entire life studying. It was too much, too fast, and her mind struggled to keep up.
“What?” she said. “The last? When… how?”
Artemis shook her head and scowled. Her black hair and dark skin blended into the shadows of the room, and her armor turned from amber to ebony, but her bright eyes stood out like stars. “We don’t have time for this. They’ll be here any moment.”
“They who?” Alicia asked. “The Hezrin?”
The Titan barked out a sharp laugh. “That would be difficult since the Hezrin are extinct. No, this… this is far worse.”
“Worse than the Hezrin? What could possibly…?”
“It’s the Titans.”
The spinning sensation Alicia felt whirling through her head got worse. “But you said you were the last.”
“I am,” Artemis replied, leaning against the wall and sliding down into a sitting position. Her armor became flat black in color, which seemed to match her state of mind. She looked down at her gauntleted hands and squeezed them into fists. “They… we’ve… all been infected by a Hezrin nanovirus. It’s created within us an overwhelming need for destruction, compelling us to destroy the only thing we know still stands – home.”
“But if you’re infected, then why aren’t…?” Alicia wasn’t sure she wanted to finish the question, yet she had to know the answer.
“Because I was the last to be infected by it. I was out scouting the outer moons of Crucible when the Hezrin unleashed their final weapon. By then it was too late to stop their extinction, but for them I guess it was the principle of the matter. We were their destroyers, and their parting shot was to make sure we destroyed ourselves, too. There’s a sad poetic symmetry to it. But, because I was the last one to become infected, I had a chance to see what was coming and setup firewalls in the nanites laced through my neural network. After I did what I could to stop the rest of the Titans from leaving Crucible, I made my way here as fast as I could. I know Thanatos, though. I didn’t stop him. He wasn’t our commanding officer for nothing. All I did was delay them.”
When Artemis first mumbled about being infected, and through her actions showed what the infection was doing to her, Alicia had been afraid of what that meant. Titans were strong enough to tear through the hulls of starships, and the weapons they crafted from their armor were the definition of deadly, so a Titan driven insane was something any sensible person would fear. But what about two crazed Titans? What about ten? A hundred? What sort of destruction could a group that powerful and demented be capable of?
As much as those questions needed to be answered, Alicia’s first fear was still the most pressing – what was happening with Artemis? She’d been out of her mind, mentally lost in the woods since Alicia had first seen her, and though she seemed to be holding herself together now, how long would that last? Artemis herself had said her improved condition was temporary. So, could Alicia trust her? For how long? And did she even have a choice? Shawn’s new condition only made her questions more complicated. If Artemis was sick, then Shawn could become infected too.
Alicia wanted to grab her hair and pull it out in fistfuls. It was an impossible situation to get her head around. On one side they had an insane super soldier, and on the other the impending doom of even more. She shook her head and sighed. She had to focus. One problem at a time.
“If you protected yourself, then what’s happening to you?”
Artemis grimaced and looked away. “The goddamn nanovirus is harder to fight than I thought it’d be. The security software in my nanites has been doing everything it can to fend off the infection, but I’ve been losing ground constantly. When the pirates attacked me with their energy whips, though, the virus took the brunt of the attack. That allowed my neural nanites to push back. For now the firewalls are back in place and holding, but it won’t last long, and the damage done to my neural network was severe, so it’s not a trick I can repeat. I’ve got… a day, maybe two if I’m lucky, before the virus overwhelms me again. Meanwhile, the Titans are still coming.”
