Survival Page 2
His lungs burned. He tried to control himself, tried to think, tried to act like a man….
He kicked, but his legs flailed uselessly, connecting with nothing. He shoved at Amelia’s shoulders. She didn’t budge.
He gasped. Nothing.
Gasped. Not working…
His vision was narrowing, blackness creeping up at the edges. He felt his legs start to relax.
Then the blackness receded. Amelia sat back, and Yago was assaulted by the sight of her tongue oozily slipping back into her mouth like an overgrown snail retreating into its shell.
“Will you help us?” Amelia asked sweetly.
Yago didn’t reply. He stared up at her, breathing in deep, rasping breaths and massaging his bruised throat. Breathing was still difficult. It hurt — she’d done something to him, damaged him somehow. Turned him into another freak.
“Do it,” Amelia said less kindly, “or you’ll be the first to be absorbed.”
Yago nodded numbly. Now he really wanted a soda.
Tate walked until her mind quieted and stopped circling around and around her worries —
were the Remnants who were abandoned on Earth dead? Was Yago about to attack her? How would she survive without food or water?
She kept walking until the sound of her footsteps made her whimper with aggravation and the doubts crowded back in. She was alone! Her friends had to be dead by now! She would be dead, too, soon.
Her legs were tired. Her big toe pushed through the top of one of her ragged gym shoes. The nail on that toe ached. Her throat felt like sandpaper. Her eventual confrontation with Amelia or Yago or Charlie or Duncan played in her mind like a bad horror movie.
The Troika was dangerous.
Violent.
Ruthless.
Charlie had destroyed Kubrick by turning himself into some sort of freaky porcupine with deadly needle quills. She didn’t want to die the way Kubrick had died….
And Amelia … Tate would never forget the sight of Amelia turning into a seething collection of pus and bacteria and filth caustic enough to melt a Blue Meanie into nothingness.
Tate had never seen Duncan. She didn’t know if he was a killer. If he had mutations. But considering the company he was keeping, she definitely had her suspicions.
Tate told herself she should be scared, but she wasn’t really frightened. What she felt was —
numb.
She kept walking, all the time uncomfortably aware that if Amelia was hiding in one of the computer pits, she would be able to see her coming from a long way off.
Well, too bad. She couldn’t sneak up on Amelia when she didn’t even know where Amelia was. Or what she was.
Tate walked on. She couldn’t think of anything else to do. She was completely unprepared for a fight — or even for a long walk. She had no water. No food. No weapons. No plan. She wasn’t clear on what she was going to do if and when she managed to find Amelia or figure out who was controlling Mother. She had no idea how to pilot the ship. No clue of how to once again locate Earth in the inky expanse of space.
Under different circumstances, the walk might have been boring. There wasn’t much to see.
Up above was the massive glass ceiling. When Tate had seen it last, the enormous space had been filled with an environment Mother had created for the savage two-headed Riders.
Copper-colored water. An occasional island. Trees with too-pliant trunks and branches. An otherworldly landscape, but beautiful in its way.
Now the world above was as dry, barren, and sad as a fishbowl after all of the fishies are gone. Tate wondered if any of the Riders were still alive. Somehow that seemed hard to imagine. The ship was so silent, so still that it was easier to believe she was entirely alone.
The ship felt like a tomb. The only sounds she could hear were a low hum of the hull vibrating as the ship slipped through space — that, and her own footsteps.
Tate plodded on, suddenly wondering if Amelia and Yago weren’t coming after her because they were dead, too. Now Tate felt her first quivers of fear Maybe she was the last human alive in the universe.
Hours later, Tate finally reached the corner of the ship. She squatted on the hard metallic floor and pressed her aching back against the riveted seam where the ceiling came down and met the floor.
She stared out over the vast, utterly still basement. And she began to cry.
She was hungry. Thirsty. Tired beyond belief. Her chest throbbed with loneliness. She felt guilty and disappointed that she hadn’t come up with a better plan to help her friends.
It was too late to help them now.
She had to admit that.
She had to face the fact that she had failed them. She had to face the fact that there was literally nobody left in the universe who wished her well or wanted her to survive.
She wished — she wished she had stayed on Earth with her dog, Lily, in her apartment, five hundred years ago. Stayed at home when the Rock hit.
Tate let herself drift.
Sometimes she dozed off. That was nice. She looked forward to sleeping, to the release.
When she was awake, she sat against the same wall and studied the horizon of the basement and tried to ignore the hunger clawing at her belly.
She told herself she was staying still to conserve her limited physical resources. Already the waistband on her pants felt loose. She was losing weight. Probably dehydration. Staying put made sense. Why waste energy chasing down Amelia now? Nobody was waiting for her to save them.
Sure, there were other factors at work. She knew that.
She was too depressed to move.
And besides, there was nowhere to go.
Tate picked at the hem of her frayed jeans and waited for something to happen.
CHAPTER 3
WHY WAS SHE STILL ALIVE?
Yago was coming.
Tate watched him approach slowly, her eyes narrowed down to slits. A tiny dot on the horizon, but definitely Yago. She could make out the white shirt, greenish hair. She recognized his stride.
Easy and careful and menacing all at once.
He was alone. Interesting.
Tate dozed. When she woke, Yago was closer. She could see he didn’t look too good. His head was too small — no, his neck was too big. Also interesting. A puzzle. She’d always liked doing puzzles.
Another stretch of time passed. Yago continued walking toward her, and now Tate could see the bruises stretching from his collarbone up over his chin. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Tate said out loud. She was surprised to hear how raspy her own voice sounded. How long had she gone without water? She had no way of counting time. A day? Two?
Tate amused herself watching Yago. She didn’t move. Not even when one of his cruddy-looking sneakers touched her knee.
“Come with me,” Yago said. He spoke in a half-dead monotone. He was missing a patch of hair over his right ear As Tate watched, his hand went up automatically. He yanked a few greenish-brown hairs out by their roots and let them drift to the floor. This was not a sign of mental health.
“What happened to your throat?”
“Come on,” Yago repeated dully.
“Amelia do that?” Tate could see the fléchette gun sticking out of the pocket of Yago’s jeans. She wondered why he hadn’t drawn it. Maybe he’d forgotten he had it. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week.
“I said, come on!’
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Tate said calmly. “I like it —”
Yago leaned over and moved his face toward hers until their noses were nearly touching. Stared into her eyes.
Then, with one fluid movement, Yago grabbed her arm and started pulling her up. He grunted, yanking Tate up onto her knees. Now he was starting to tick her off.
She tried to give him a shove. The effort sent her stumbling. Her knees buckled. She was weak. Her legs wouldn’t support her. She fell awkwardly onto one knee, Yago snarled
like a rabid dog. He pulled out the fléchette gun.
Tate put up her hands. She halfheartedly tried to reach whatever it was inside her that turned her into the Mouth. From somewhere in her memory came the sound of a link ringing, ringing, ringing …
Something connected with her skull. She saw a burst of red light and then nothing.
A secretive shush-shushing. Tate’s brain played pictures for her, trying to make sense of the sound….
She was in study hall with her heavy chemistry textbook on her knees. Yvonne Flattery and Susan Nichols were whispering in the row behind her —
Shush-shush…
She was moving cautiously through a Rider swamp, the wind whistling through the weird bending trees —
Shush-shush…
She was on a camping trip with the Camp Fire Girls. She could see herself sleeping peacefully, a fire dancing around the brave circle of tents. The fire spreading slowly through the dry grasses until her nylon tent went up with a soft woof Her sleeping bag was afiame, and her arm —
Her arm was on fire!
Tate’s eyes popped open and she found herself lying on her back, watching the glassy ceiling of the basement pass overhead. Yago was dragging her across the basement by her arm. The shushing sounds were her clothes dragging over the floor.
“Stop,” she muttered feebly. Then, louder, more urgently — “Stop!”
Yago stopped. He let go of her Tate rolled into a fetal position and lay there feeling miserable.
Why was she still alive? Why didn’t Yago just get rid of her? Tate turned her face to the ground and groaned.
Yago nudged her with his shoe. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Tate mumbled.
“Amelia wants to — see you.”
“Oh — so now you’re Amelia’s assistant or something?”
“No!”
Yago’s voice. There was something wrong about it. His usual arrogant tone was gone. His lofty messianic tones were gone. He sounded — scared.
Tate opened her eyes and looked up at Yago.
“Come on,” Yago repeated.
Tate got to her knees and pulled herself shakily to her feet. She actually wanted to see Amelia now. Yago was pathetic. But maybe Amelia — well, maybe Amelia would help her draw this little drama to an end somehow. Tate didn’t have the energy to hope for a happy ending.
“Which way?” Tate asked.
“Upstairs,” Yago said. His expression was hard to read. Tate thought she saw something like relief mingling with wariness.
She took a step toward the elevator before she realized what Yago was telling her. Her guilt and inadequacy welled up. “Amelia is upstairs? I think — I was looking for her down here. Isn’t she controlling the ship from one of the pits?”
Yago shook his head no and gestured with his chin toward the elevator. They walked single file with Tate in the lead. Yago was silent — no wisecracks, no self-aggrandizing remarks. Geez, Tate thought, maybe whatever Amelia was doing to him wasn’t so bad…
The elevator moved silently upward, and seconds later they were walking out under the towering arches into the alien hallway. Tate stepped forward cautiously — half-expecting Amelia or Charlie to jump out and tackle her Nothing. The place felt as deserted as the basement.
Tate relaxed for a moment — and then the smell hit her. It was a humid, salty smell. The smell of growing things — like the sea at low tide.
Tate felt the fear welling up in her belly. Adrenaline pumped into her veins. She looked around wildly, trying to locate the origin of the smell.
Yago stood a few steps behind her, grinning and then laughing at her Laughing at her sudden fear.
She felt like smacking him. Yelling at him to shut up.
Because she was afraid. Somehow, intuitively, she knew this smell was bad. That earthy organic smell didn’t belong on this cold dead ship.
Then the sounds filtered into her consciousness. She didn’t know how she had missed them at first.
Moist sounds that went on and on. They sounded — greedy. Like a baby sucking his soggy thumb or a derrick pulling oil from the ground.
“What is that?” Tate whispered.
“Go onto the bridge,” Yago said. “See for yourself.”
Tate hesitated.
She didn’t want to get closer to that smell, that sound. But — she couldn’t run away. She knew she would eventually come face-to-face with whatever was on the bridge. She preferred to face it on her feet. Delay would only make her weaker, more afraid.
Tate pushed down her fear. She took a step forward. And then another She had to go fast or not at all. Yago stayed right behind her, making sure she went through the doorway onto the bridge and then blocking her way out. Tate wasn’t sure what she was expecting but it wasn’t —
Webs.
The machinery, the computers, the clean architecture of the bridge — it had all been covered by webs.
Something like spider webs.
But no, that wasn’t quite right. These were webs but they weren’t clean and precisely built like the webs of spiders. No — these were more like dirty cotton candy. Ugly, dirty swatches of grayish fuzz that made Tate long for a big can of Raid. She remembered a sweet old lady from her neighborhood trying to spray the gypsy moth nests that appeared in the trees around their apartment buildings.
You’d need an awful lot of Raid to take out these webs. They were huge — dirty wrappings stretching from the towering supporting struts all the way down to the chairs just a few feet from where Tate stood.
Tate’s gaze darted to three lumpish masses inside the webs. They were writhing, squirming. Vaguely human forms. Amelia. Charlie. Duncan.
So.
This was their evolution.
This was how the Troika had achieved their “advanced forms.” Tate could almost pity them. They were nothing but bugs. It was almost — sad.
But then—then her eye caught on a fourth lump, smaller than the others and covered in some sort of white goo — and her sadness turned to disgust. She could just make out a familiar jointed shape. It was the leg of a Rider. The leg was about all that was left.
Tate took a fast step back and whacked into Yago. He stood firmly in the doorway, blocking her escape.
“Why — why did you bring me here?” Tate asked, now cold with fear.
“Cells,” Yago said bitterly. “As it turns out, living cells are the Troika’s favorite snack food. I guess their big transformation is giving them the munchies, and since all of the Meanies and Riders are gone, you’re going to be recycled. Sorry, but them’s the breaks.”
Tate let a beat pass as she absorbed this bizarre explanation. Had Yago finally slipped into true mad-ness?
No, no — the evidence was here! The Troika wanted to — they wanted to devour her like they’d eaten that Rider. No. Please, no —
While Tate’s brain skipped, Yago moved swiftly behind her and grabbed her by the wrists. Tate sensed a movement above her — inside the web.
No!
She didn’t want to die like a fly caught in a spiderweb.
How could Yago do this to me? Tate thought wildly. How could he do it to any living being?
He was Evil.
He was Betrayal.
Tate felt barely like herself
Something was happening. She was seeing in red, everything in red. And brighter than everything else, the Enemy….
She/It surged forward.
It was big and powerful.
It was tongue. It was teeth. It was warm and wet and it stank of use.
The Mouth.
It closed over the head of the Enemy and it thought, Now this evil will go away.
CHAPTER 4
“HOW LONG BEFORE THEY — HATCH?”
Tate stumbled, shakily caught her balance. Through a pinkish mist she could see the towering door to the bridge. She was still alive. Yago hadn’t gotten her yet, hadn’t trapped her in the webs….
Where was Yago? On the g
round were nothing but a slick pool of slime.
Tate’s head swam. She half-walked, half-crawled into the hallway, desperate to make sense of what had just happened.
Okay.
She had gone Mouth. That much was clear. She remembered the blood-colored vision from her last — episode.
But… but had she really ingested Yago? The last time she’d just sort of nibbled on him. But the last time. Jobs and 2Face and Anamull had come to Yago’s rescue. This time they weren’t around to do the job.
Tate noticed — well, she wasn’t hungry anymore.
And … and — then there was the foul taste in her mouth.
Tate’s stomach heaved. She tried to hold it down, frightened of what she would see come up. But —
no use. Her stomach cramped and she was powerless to stop it.
She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and felt her way down the hallway. She wouldn’t look, nobody could make her look….
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Yago’s voice. Ringing in her head.
Tate froze. She quickly scanned the hallway.
Empty.
Tate whimpered. “Yago is dead,” she told herself shakily. “He can’t hurt you. He can’t talk —”
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She turned to run down the hallway, back toward the elevator.
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“We’re — we’re not going anywhere!” Tate screamed. “Go away — leave me alone!” Her voice was high with hysteria.
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Either that, or she was going completely mad.
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