The read out inside his RIG's HUD became less grim as the energetic blue cocktail swirled through his blood stream. A once disorienting and throbbing pain located somewhere in the back of the kit's skull faded, replaced instead by a euphoric feeling of energy. Oxygen levels rose along with his white blood cell count. Every metric a doctor might use to judge his condition was improving, and by now his body was hard at work on repairing any damage from the concussion.
After the wave of relief, Tail's focus switched instead to the lifeless carcasses rotting away before him. It was easy to forget they were people once, with jobs, families, and purpose. This marker had reduced them down to nothing more than husks of their former self, hell bent on destroying rather than creating. The thick leather like skin stretched over their bony figures did little to help build a resemblance to a former self. Tall Mobians could hardly be distinguished from short humans. Only the occasional tail help set them apart. It seemed as if Doctor Robotnik had succeeded in creating his unified race.
"Doesn't he care?" the two tailed fox finally asked.
The vixen's gaze had been transfixed in nearly the same place his had, a pair of lost and soulless eyes belonging to a once vibrant individual. It was easy to get disoriented in their depth an emptiness.
"Does who care about what?" she asked, not removing her stare.
"Doesn't Ivo care that everything that it means to be us will be gone? He will be gone! Everything that he worked to build, lost in a blood bath. What's the point?"
"The point?" Fiona snorted, "Why does there need to be a point? What's with you nerd types, always looking for the answer? Can't things just be? We're on a derelict space craft surrounded by the undead with whispers begging us to do the unthinkable, and you want to to know the point? Did you ever stop to think that someone might have listened?"
His companion had a way of being blunt. Maybe it was the soldier in her, but he couldn't fault her logic. Letting the whispers in brought the madness along with it. As indecipherable as the voices were, the longer he listened the more he felt like he understood what they were saying. They made it hard to forget he was virtually alone, save for the depths of his minds which was quickly betraying him. When the hallucinations were not preying on his weekend psyche, his diminishing self confidence was.
"I guess," he allowed with a sigh, "but then who's behind the whispers?"
If Doctor Robotnik was just a pawn, then the meaning behind all of this got messier. There was no person to blame, just an inexplicable alien force. While that might be an acceptable answer to some, Tails wanted to know what he was up against.
"God, the Devil, something else…" she trailed off. "What does it matter anyway?"
By the sound of her voice, her confidence was fading as well. Given what she had been through, he had little reason to wonder why.
"It's hard to fight what we don't understand."
"It's hard to fight the inevitable, and as far as I can tell we're fighting death itself," she proclaimed before walking over to a burnt corpse. "I mean look at this thing. What is this?" She asked while kicking it with her boot. "It used to be someone right? Now, it's… it's nothing. It's only purpose as far as we know is to kill."
"All the earmarks of a virus," the kit allowed himself to say before returning to his feet. "Spread the contagion to all available hosts and multiply."
"Then how are we still alive?"
"I've been wondering that for quite a while. It's not a pathogen that is transmitted by touch or air, we know that much."
"It certainly works when people are dead," the vixen quipped.
It was true. Nearly everyone that had died had become one of these things, but there was no rhyme or reason for how it came to pass. The mental havoc caused by the Marker's electromagnetic energy seemed to assist in fostering unforeseen deaths, perhaps something else took over afterwards. Weak minded individuals would succumb to the maddening whispers in no time, taking their own life and possibly other's in the process. From there, some type of pathogen took over, speeding up the rate at which people perished dramatically. Dying was just part of the process.
"Then lets not die," Tails suggested.
"Best thing you have said all day."
Day was a generous term for what they had been through. His mission clock was well past twenty-four hours and counting. However, thanks to the new cocktail of drugs flowing through his veins, the kit felt as if he had just woken up.
"And do me a favor this time," the vixen continued, as she reached down to the ground to pick something up. "Try not to loose this one."
In her hands was another plasma riffle, only this was covered in as nearly as much blood as he was. It had obviously seen its fair share of action.
"Thanks," Tails replied gruffly before accepting his new weapon.
The soldier she had relieved it from was dead in far too many ways to ever come alive again. He was wearing the same military grade armor Fiona was, but it had done little to prevent him from being cut in half length wise. It was beyond a gruesome sight.
"Sergei," the crimson fox sighed.
Judging from her exhale, it was someone she knew, maybe even cared for. Although the vixen didn't seem surprised to find what could have once been a wolf in such a state.
"You knew him?"
"I knew almost everyone… when you work on a ship, even one this big for so long… he was one of the sweet ones. Older, wise, and teased me as much as I teased him."
"I'm sorry," the kit managed.
"He didn't go down easy," Fiona replied looking at the bodies that littered the floor around him. "Not that I would have expected him to. He's the only one on this ship I might have been afraid of."
That meant a lot coming from her. What was left of the Mobian did look formidable. While his prime years may have been in his past, the wolf was far from weak.
Tails felt compelled to ask, "Do you want a moment?"
"No," the answer came back firmly. "Idle paws will get us killed… then again so will wandering aimlessly around this ship."
Stepping past her, the kit wandered closer to the nearest terminal. With a few prods the system responded. Tails was surprised to find this section of the tram in operational order.
"Isaac must have come through here," pointing to the approaching tram.
Fiona nodded in agreement, "Having you two around certainly makes things easier."
When glass doors slid open, the two-tailed fox stepped aboard, taking extra care to examine the tram for unwanted passengers. He didn't need another close call.
"The last time I got on one of these, things didn't go well," the kit said to answer the question he could feel Fiona asking with her eyes. "I was only just getting acquainted with the ships crew and didn't realize how persistent they were."
"Quiet as a whisper," she reminded him.
"Yeah," the two-tailed fox muttered as he fumbled for the tram controls, "they are."
The hydraulic actuator hissed as it shut the glass doors behind them. After a moment of silence, the deck disappeared from sight as they began to float through the bowls of the Ishimura. Even with two layers of armor between his ears and the fox next him, Tails could make out the subtle increase in Fiona's breathing. She was scared to go where they were going.
He felt compelled to ask, "What's back here?"
"I already told you, I don't know."
"It seems like you do."
"I only know what I heard."
"Which is?"
There was a pause as the waste control facility station drifted through their peripheral vision.
"A large unknown organism was reported to have jammed up a lot of the water treatment facilities. It was unconfirmed, and whatever it is, wasn't supposed to have any intelligence, just some type of growth… Although it was around the same time communications started going to shit."
"Do you think it started it hurting people. Are you afraid to tell me because of Cosmo?"
"I'm afraid period," Fiona declared resolutely. "I can deal with these walking types, they're predictable. They run at you, slash at you, try to gnaw any appendage they can sink their teeth into. It's everything else, the radiation, the super mutants, the unknown organisms, and whatever these markers are that I'm not sure how to handle."
She was afraid of the unknown, but who wasn't. The things people don't understand were often what scared them the most. Fiona was used to having a defined enemy, one that she could shoot at. There was nothing defined about what they were up against.
"You don't need to come with me. I can do this alone."
"Like hell you can. We're better off sticking together. I may not like where we're going, but I'd rather go there than anywhere else on this ship by myself."
Tails was inclined to agree. He was happy she wouldn't be leaving him.
The tram eased itself into the station, slowing to stop at a painfully slow rate. It had grown painfully quiet again, even the whispers fled. His fur was standing on end, each hair like a needle trying to poke its way out of his suit.
"Do you hear that?" she asked, interrupting a silence he was almost beginning to enjoy.
"Hear what?"
"That's just it, there's nothing."
"Maybe this part of the ship is okay," he laughed lightheartedly. "No whispers, no problems?"
The stare the vixen was giving him indicated that she might have disagreed. Turning their focus back to the task at hand, the vulpine stepped out onto the platform. This station was uncharacteristically clean compared to the last one they had visited. Although the warning flashing across his HUD was beginning to help explain why.
"Is your suit giving you any atmospheric warnings?" Tails asked as his RIG switched over to its internal supply of air.
The vixen shook her head in response.
It was another difference between military hardware and the stuff that was designed to work in potentially hazardous situations. Gas leaks caused by accidental cuts in pipes could kill hundreds if undetected. The levels selenium and silicon in the air were off the charts and more in line with what they used on earth to control pests or weeds.
"I would switch over to your supply then."
"I've only got 20 minutes," she complained.
His own tank wouldn't last any longer, but inhaling this stuff would kill them in a couple of minutes. Tails suspected his filter wasn't able to handle this level of toxicity and forced the switch.
"Do you enjoy coughing up blood?"
With a sigh, Fiona's respirator went quiet, "what is it this time? And I swear if you say radiation…"
"It's not," he replied before looking away bashfully. "I think someone deliberately poisoned the air."
"What? Why would they do that?"
"Do you see any space zombies walking around?"
"But what about the whole coughing up blood thing?"
Tails shrugged. Whoever had done this probably had access to a clean supply of oxygen and some pretty handy knowledge of the hydroponics system. These chemicals would have been used to combat bacteria or a foreign infestation. Needless to say the latter applied in this case.
"Could Cosmo have done this?" the vixen pressed. "You said she was smart."
The thought had occurred to him. Everyone else leapt to guns and blasters to defend themselves, but Cosmo would have seen this infestation for what it was. Perhaps she realized it could be controlled. Her knowledge of the systems might have even allowed her to do all of this.
"She is smart," he agreed, but something still didn't feel right.
It's still too damn quiet.
"Come on," Tails continued, "lets sort out the atmosphere and see if we can find any sign of Cosmo."
"If we turn off the poison, won't the monsters come back?"
The kit shrugged again. At this point anything he was will to believe anything was possible.
Steeping into the red glow or the corridors hazard lighting, the two trained their weapons on all the hiding places they could find. Even if the whispers were gone, there was no telling what could be waiting for them.
"What are we looking for?" Fiona asked as followed in his footsteps.
"The control room for Hydroponics should be at the end of this hall. That's probably where we need to start."
Thankfully the captains override key made easy work of the door. After placing his palm over the access panel, the bulkhead slid aside revealing the most intact control room Tails had seen yet. Every terminal was blood free and still functioning.
He felt at home sitting down in the surprisingly comfortable office chair. Spinning to face the array of monitors he pulled up the atmospheric controls.
"That's odd," Tails announced as he scrolled through the code.
"Care to share?"
"Well," he paused before reaching the bottom of the page, "this program was written two days but..."
"But?"
"It was only activated less than an hour ago. Who ever wrote it, never got a chance to run it when all of this began."
This was a crude script, the kind someone cobbled together in a hurry. With a few keystorkes he was able to terminate the process. It would still be a couple of minutes before the air would be breathable again, but at least it would give them some time to look for Cosmo.
"What's this over here?" Fiona asked while pointing at a pulsing red alert overlaid on the hydroponics system diagram.
Shifting his gaze, he reviewed the information, "Looks like something's wrong in the main grow drum. None of the systems are cycling the way they should."
Artificial gravity was a fickle thing. Most long haul ships like this tended to rely on centrifugal force for their crops. Water was absorbed into the root systems better while helping maintain a more traditional yield. The Ishimura had one massive drum that spun fast enough to simulate nearly a full g of gravity. Inside ten acres worth of crops could be grown very rapidly.
"Let me," the crimson fox demanded as she pushed him out of the way.
Tails hadn't taken her for the technical type, but in a matter of second she had pulled up the security footage for the over half the ship. It shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did. She was chief security officer after all.
The two of the them stopped, when the feed displayed what what is in the grow drum, their mouths unhinged and dropping. It was the creature Fiona had feared, the one that had grabbed Tails. Even more worrying was the fact that Isaac was attempting to remove the beast that had entrenched itself into the Ishimura's primary food source.
"We have to help him," the vixen insisted at once.
Tails was inclined to agree. Isaac had likely stumbled across the program designed to release the poison and activated it, hoping that it would kill or weaken this massive creature. All things being equal, the man was fairing better than anyone could have imagined. Ducking and diving out of the beast's flailing tentacles, the engineer released a torrent of high powered ordinance.
"Do you hear me?" she screamed. "Do something!"
He wanted to, but there was something clawing at the back of his mind. This thing, this leviathan of a space creature had to have come from somewhere and Tails had an idea of where. Humans and Mobians were uniform in their composition, and there were only so many ways to modify the body into a weapon. Sedrians on the other hand were plant based life-forms. They could grow much larger and adapt faster assuming there was enough resources to power the evolution.
Like an entire cities worth of crops.
"It's her," Tails whimpered.
"It's who?"
"Cosmo."
"What are you talking about?" Fiona asked as she raced her hands over the keys.
"That thing, it's Cosmo."
The vixen stopped typing and looked up at the footage. There was no mistaking it now. The long tentacles were more branch like than either of them had realized before. The projectiles it was shooting at Isaac were not all that different from seeds. Whatever this madness was, it had gotten a hold of Cosmo and turned her into the most formidable thing on board the Ishimura.