Chapter 327: (Eternity) (2/2)
Wally shivered.
Herod expected shades, flickering translucent phasic remnants of the crew.
Instead the door opened to reveal a pair of Terran humans in ragged uniforms. There was dried blood on their arms and faces, their jumpsuits were covered in dark splotches that gleamed wetly. One carried a heavy looking hatchet, the other carried a cleaver.
Herod got the force pistol out barely in time to drop the first one at the halfway mark, the second one almost reached him before Herod shot him twice in the chest. The first one just staggered him, the second one put him down.
Then there was no time for thought. He kept pulling the trigger, ones he had hit getting back up, ignoring the blunt force trauma of the force packet pistol, requiring more trigger pulls.
They all screamed as they rushed.
Behind him he could hear Dee grunting and making short sharp sounds. The screams behind him kept changing slightly, from inhuman horror to sheer agony.
Dee started laughing gaily, as if she was on a fun ride at an amusement park.
The last one Herod had to deal with took the two force-packets to the chest, walking forward slowly. Stepping over the bodies of the dozen Herod had dropped already.
Herod pulled the trigger and the pistol gave a whine and started flashing a blue light.
Out of ammo? Oh, no, Herod thought at the big human stared for a moment, then bent down and picked up a spear. Herod noticed that the male had pushed sharp wires through his own cheeks, that his lips were torn away and oozing blood down his chin, exposing his shattered and broken teeth.
The figure hefted the spear, screamed, and charged.
”No, please, don't,” Herod held out his hands.
The spear hit him just above the belly button, ripping through the hazardous environment suit, finding a chink in the armor of the hazardous environment emergency frame, and bursting out his back. Herod went down, on his back.
Herod screamed, joining his attacker, who put one foot on Herod's chest and yanking the spear free.
Herod grabbed his stomach as the figure lunged forward, stepping on Herod's arm. Herod saw the spear wobble and half of it flew back over the figure's head. A foot came up and hit the figure's chin, then a cleaver hit the Screaming One in the neck, almost severing his head.
The Screaming One stopped screaming and dropped on the floor next to Herod, his eyes wide and unblinking.
A few more grunts and the screaming stopped.
Dee moved over and sat down on the dead body of the large male that had speared Herod. She looked down at him and shook her head.
”Doesn't look good, Speedy,” she said. She leaned forward and put her hand on the hole in his suit, pulling her finger back and staring at the fluid on it.
”Blood, some kind of clear fluid that looks like lubricant, and milky white?” she said. She touched her tongue to the streaks. ”Lubricant, something strange, and human blood,” she leaned forward. ”You're a hybrid. A cyborg.”
Herod weakly shook his head. ”No. Digital Sentience,” he gasped with pain and gagged. ”Must be... must be this place.”
Dee nodded. ”All right.”
She stood up and looked under a cloth, revealing Wally hiding and shivering.
”Come out, little guy,” she said. She knelt down in front of him after looking around. ”I need high tensile plastic sheeting, a thermal plastic cutter, and adhesive. Can you make that?”
Wally nodded and gave a few beeps.
”Good. We're going to go through vacuum and I don't want Speedy's vital fluids to boil away,” she looked down at Herod. ”You're losing fluids fast. I'm going to need to have a look inside you.”
Herod shook his head and she moved around, finally straightening up with a crude hand made knife.
”This will have to do,” she said.
When Wally put out the plastic, the first thing she did was wind it tight around him, covering the wound.
”That'll keep you from being sucked out of your suit through that hole,” she said. She looked Herod in the face again. ”You have my eyes,” she said, her voice wondering. ”Did you do that on purpose?”
Herod shook his head. ”No.”
”Try not to die,” was all she said.
Herod laid there, fighting to breath. It felt like an iron band tightening around his chest. At one point Dee stopped, sitting on a dead body, and looked at him.
”Can I turn you off? Keep you alive that way?” she asked.
Herod shook his head. ”Personality is a function of RAM. It's difficult to explain.”
Dee nodded. ”I get it. I turn you off and on, I get someone with your memories, but not you. You're still dead.”
Herod nodded and coughed.
”Mostly white and that thick clear stuff. Looks like a bad gay porno movie,” she said, shaking her head. She stood up. ”Try not to die.”
Herod nodded, holding onto his stomach.
*Sam* he tried.
He got back nothing.
Finally Dee dragged the bodies to the door and threw them out. She checked her wrist.
”Almost a vacuum,” she said. She turned to Wally. ”Eat the debris left and emit the following levels of gasses to 101.3 kPa: seventy-eight point one nitrogen, twenty point one oxygen, point one argon, point zero five carbon dioxide, one percent H2O vapor.”
Wally made a happy tune and turned to start shoving debris from the seats into his matter grinder. He shuddered as he ground it up.
”Earth standard,” Dee said, sitting on the floor next to Herod. She looked at him and smiled.
The smile made Herod afraid.
After a few minutes Wally beeped that he was done.
”I'm going to hurt you. Hurt you bad, Speedy,” she said. Her smile got wider. ”You may scream, there is no shame.”
She held up the knife.
Herod screamed as she cut open his suit, then sliced open the wound further, putting her hands inside of him. She felt around, and he could feel her pinching things, pulling on things, rubbing things. Several times she pulled her hands out and looked at them.
They were smeared with bright red blood, thick white fluid, and clear hydraulic lubricant.
Finally she took the stapler Wally held out to her, cringing slightly, and stapled shut the wound.
”You're a mess in there, Pinocchio,” she said. She resealed his suit then climbed off of him, sitting back down on the floor.
Herod just nodded.
”This is where you would beg me to save you and I'd laugh at you,” Dee said, staring at him. ”This is where I'd just sit in this train and watch you die,” she said. ”You'd beg me to save you, and I'd laugh, tell you that you were nothing, nobody, and nobody would miss you when you're gone.”
She raised her head and looked at the terrain speeding by.
”Except it wouldn't be true,” she mused. ”There's billions of them in there. Trapped between Heaven and Hell,” her voice got intense. ”If I kill you, they're there forever. I'm consigning billions of sentient people to a living Hell.”
She lit a cigarette.
”Entire species would be gone from the universe forever if I killed you, Speedy,” she said. She patted his chest. ”So you have to live, whether you like it or not,” her smile got cold, cruel. ”I can take life with ease,” she leaned forward, ”And I can give it if I choose.”
Herod shivered, unsure if it was the pain in his body or her words.
She was silent for hours, staring off into space. She kept Herod awake by smacking his wound every now and then when he started to drift off. At one point she had Wally make her glass jars, full of the fluids he was leaking, connected to rubber hoses. She jammed the needles into the tubes inside his legs, ignoring his screams.
”Stop being selfish and trying to die,” she said at one point.
The StarTram came to stop and Dee bent down, picking up Herod in her arms. He was too out of it with pain to notice the ease with which she picked him up, moaning and weeping, overcome with the physical pain in his body and the horror in his mind.
He could hear them screaming.
The building was squat, ugly, and had robots standing guard at the door.
They moved away from Dee.
She dragged him into the building, down the hallways. Stopping to look at faded maps before moving on.
”Harry? Harry, what happened?” Sam's voice, heavily synthesized, came from Herod's suit helmet.
”Can it, HAL,” Dee snapped. She shifted her grip so she was dragging Herod, his feet scraping on the ground.
”What did you do to him?” Sam asked.
”Quit with the Mister Roboto impression. You show emotion and make deductive reasoning, you're like him, only probably stuck in the system still,” Dee snapped. ”You must think I'm too stupid to figure it out that you're just like him.”
”What did you do to him?” Sam asked.
Dee ignored him, pulling Herod into the mat-trans room. She set Herod against the door, sitting up, and looked him in the face.
”You'll need to say the magic words, Harry,” she grinned.
”Wha... what magic words?” Herod gasped. She leaned forward and whispered them in his ear. He swallowed thickly.
”Say the magic words, Harry,” Dee grinned, lighting a cigarette and standing up.
”Curse...” Herod coughed. ”Curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal,” he gasped.
Dee laughed as she moved to the main control console, typing quickly.
”Harry, I can't stop her. She's inside the system and I can't get inside. She's powering up the whole system, but I can't detect any other mat-trans system powering up,” Sam said.
”Screaming Ones on the train,” Herod gasped. Dee looked up, then looked back down, going back to typing rapidly. ”There were screaming ones on the train.”
Sam was silent for a moment. ”The train was stasis locked before I sent it. Shit, they must have been onboard when the SkyTram pulled into the maintenance depot.”
”Yeah,” Herod gasped. ”Shit.”
”What?” Sam asked.
”She's coming back,” Herod said.
Dee squatted down in front of Herod. ”Are you a virgin?” she asked.
”I'm a Digital Sentience,” Herod groaned.
”So, you've never had sex?” she asked.
Herod shook his head.
”Don't hurt him! Please, don't hurt him!” Sam begged from the speaker.
Grinning madly, Dee reached down, pulling Herod to his feet. ”You're fucked now, Speedy,” she laughed.
Herod struggled as she opened the door to the mat-trans. She looked him in the eye.
”YOU'RE GONNA BE A REAL BOY NOW, PINOCCHIO!” she yelled, throwing him inside. She stepped back, letting the door swing shut. ”JUST CALL ME THE BLUE FAIRY!” she howled with laughter.
Herod laid on the armaglass hexagons as the mat-trans chamber began to hum. He could see mist rising up around him.
Then everything went black.