Chapter 2 Planetarium

Everything sighed to silence. The constant mechanical noise dropped to nothing with a falling woosh. The ship's interior was coated in red emergency lighting. Charlie had been sitting on the observation deck. The earth before him, the same one he had seen explode and quake was gone. Darkness, no stars, nothing. Only red emergency lighting that cast its colour on everything. His first thoughts were of Sam, he hadn't time to think about what had happened. In the back of his mind as he ran, the fear and the adrenaline battled. Running down the stairs he and Sam met sprinting towards each other in a corridor. "Everything's gone dark outside." "We need to find the Captain and find out what happening." They ran the same way to the office, as they had months ago, witnessing earth destruction.

Primula had carried out her mission. She had kept the ship running for 6 months, even through the most ridiculous of tests. It had been two weeks since she was to be relieved of her duties. The lights that usually flickered in the pilots cabin were out. Just more red.

"Okay, were going to have to do this the hard way, i thought they would have come by now. Gather everyone in the kitchen, we will disembark together once I've briefed them."

The 3 pilots left the cabin and scuttled off, Alain ran into Sam and Charlie.

"The Captain wants everyone to meet in the kitchen now."

He ran off unconcerned that they were heading in the opposite direction to the kitchen. Sam arrived at the door that had barred her way last time. It was open a crack. She looked up at the camera and microphone that spoke to her last time, and pushed the door open. The captain looked behind her.

" Sam, kitchen please, I'll explain there. with everyone else."

"Where is everything? Is the ship broken?"

Primula shook her head. Sam was obstinate, self certain, she knew it would feel good to see her shattered, speechless.

"Sam 6 months ago when you were sedated because the G-force would be too much for you, you were actually taken to a simulation pod. The world was reproduced around us and you were made to think you were in space."

She was harsh, explaining with no trace of emotion.

"Cheaper, easier, there are lots of reasons we did this. There is a mission to space you can apply for that will be leaving in two months."

"So the world, its not gone? I MOURNED, for my family, for EVERYTHING."

Charlie looked on in horror. Sam had her face in her hands.

" So it was a test, you knew?"

" Yes, well i didn't know they were going to blow up the world. You signed contracts knowing there would be potential mental trauma."

"How dare you, I want to speak to my family, i want to get off"

" Follow me."

She started out the door.

"We're going to explain to the rest of them and then we can all get off this ship together. Even I don't know what's going on."

The rest of the group took it about as well as Sam did. One of the prominent disappointments was not actually getting to space. Primula assured them that there was an real mission to space, due to leave after their test finished.

The ships exit doors opened, casting red glow on the black walls of the room. Difficult to make out the shapes and sizes but the faint redness showed the ship sitting in a huge black dome, like a planetarium. "Sneaky bastards" Charlie said looking up and around as he stepped out into the dark room. Primula walked to the wall and brushing her hand along it she found the seam, pushed and swung open the door. The light that came from the new area was a beige colour, but no more illuminating.

"HQ is on emergency lighting, it must be running on back ups."

The planetarium they had lived in was contained in part of the building hermetically sealed from the middle. Emerging from a stairwell they came to the actual launch pad. They walked past the cylindrical hole in the floor, on a walkway that skirted the room. The roof, sealed with glass, showed daylight outside, clouds. They came to the door. People stiffened in surprise as it slid open in its usual manner, revealing a vinyl floor with footprints indicating where to stand. The building still lives. Primula, used to the sliding doors, stepped forwards onto the footprints. The lights went from beige emergency lighting to illuminating.

"Welcome home, please step forwards one at a time."

Alis spoke the clear and familiar accent of every artificial voice in the Agency. It was like hearing an old friend. The door slid closed behind Primula. There was an identical one in front of her. The group watched through the glass as she was scanned in red beams and the room took samples of her breath and photos of her retinas.

" Please choose weather you would like.."

"Verbal"

"Verbal analysis: you are deficient in iron. Welcome home, please step forwards one at a time."

Primula found herself alone after the antechamber. The main hall of the headquarters was silent, she studied it. Standing on the raised platform and stared out into the fields of desks and cubicles on the open plan floor. she saw her desk her friend's, and the glass meeting room where she first heard details of the mission. The door made a hush as it slid open and Bikaner came out interrupting her thoughts and from his silence apparently amalgamating them. Primula set off down the stairs as others filtered through opting for Verbal analyses.

" Type 2 diabetes, blood sugar 3.04,Welcome home, please step forwards one at a time."

The Terra Project headquarters was so advanced it couldn't exist yet. The huge opaque domed ceiling had ribs that ran the length of it, it almost looked like a giant shell. It tapered at one end and the other was rounded, like a teardrop shape. The building that had been buzzing with energy, loud with rumbling machinery and the hum of human chatter now stood dead still. The group weaved their way through the dimly lit work floor between the desks. Some of the computers still had lights on but the screens were black and they hibernated. A thud reverberated around the hall. Everyone looked about hoping to see someone take the blame. It sounded again. Thud, people started to home in on it coming from the front of the building. Alain arrived finding Primula standing next to the entrance doors. The sliding door that lead to another chamber, which lead outside. In the poorly lit chamber, a dark figure stood in the doorway, it swayed back and then lurched, striking the door with its face, smearing it further with blood. Thud. People made their way to where the sound was emanating from. They peered through the glass doors and watched the figure sway.

"Zombies ohh man I knew it, there, oh god."

Bikaner turned and scurried back into the gloomy work floor he once crept through with fear. His mind now on the thrashing Zombie a door away blocking their exit. Primula stared at the creature, it's hands clawed at the glass.

The captain had been staring at the zombie, though she wasn't calling it that in her head, for 10 minutes now. This was the only way out of the building. It occurred to her the destruction of the earth they saw, may have happened. This thing, was not a human anymore. The eyes were squinting, bloodshot in the gaunt face. Dark varicose veins riddled the neck. It had no clothes on its torso, bleeding from a wound on its side and drooling blood from its mouth. She made the decision to remove it from the chamber, for it to be disinfected. Alain grabbed her shoulder, she hadn't realised anyone was still with her near the door.

"Captain, you have a plan?"

"I must clear that exit, there is only one way to."

"i would like to volunteer."

"I will be facing the, I will be facing it alone. Whilst you, and the rest of the group are behind the space port doors. I will then clear the room and submit myself for analysis."

" With all due respect ma'am the violence in this creature is clear, I'm not saying you cant handle it alone, I'll stay at the consoles as back up, and run tests whilst the others are safe behind the other doors."

Primula had turned and started walking before she answered

"Very well."

Alain was to run tests to see if there was an airborne virus, she would gather weapons. Alain remained thrilled and challenged under her command. She seemed to constantly operate at full throttle. The Space port doors hushed closed as the last of the group, except the two on the office floor, arrived back where they started. They couldn't see or hear much through the sealed doors. It was more painful to try and glimpse, guessing than to put your back to the wall and hide from your thoughts. The Captain went off her limited knowledge of zombies to prepare for her apparent attacker. Bikaner's definition as he fled from the scene was reverberating around everyone's head. Primula only knew what they were, had never watched a zombie film. She decided her analysis was better than presumption; the thing was clearly injured, slow moving, unable to use its voice. It looked violent in its movements, it's mouth clasping shut and opening. It did look a lot like a zombie, so she decided to presume, to kill it; stab it in the head. Alain's voice came over the radio.

"I got an analysis; Alis detected pathogens in an otherwise healthy person, was given a blood sample and decided to quarantine. They had this virus when they came in, but no symptoms. I don't think it's airborne."

"Check Alis's logs for what happened, tell me after."

The corridor lights blinked on as she walked down them on her way to the kitchen.

"I don't know what it is but you don't die from it. It's pretty grim, I didn't watch the whole thing. They died of dehydration. Their pulse had stopped completely, for almost 2 hours, then they woke with a lot more wrong with them. Most of the body dead, core functions remaining. Which was the walking, the screaming."

Primula was walking and thinking about the ramification of re-animated corpses. The western corridors were already lit, as was the kitchen. The possibility sunk in and she pressed her back to the wall for cover.

" Radio silence, possible multiple enemies."

She slid one of the smaller knives from the block, it fit neatly in her hand and she crouched towards the door with it. The noise at first wasn't perceptible, only the change from silence, and then it grew. Breathing, wheezing. The doorway next to the kitchens was a few meters away. The knife tightened in her hand , as a low groan entered the silent corridor. She peered around the corner and saw a shadow reflecting on the white walls coming from the room next to her. it was moving, hobbling. she stood in the hallway, her heart thudding.

"OOOOOHHH Oohhhh goodness!"

The elderly man ran back into the doorway he came out of. Primula had stood still, it had taken all her might. The adrenaline pulsed through her veins, her body was ready for the fight. There was Only and old man who turned so quick his dressing gown flapped in the air behind him.

"Alain there's someone else in here, kitchen, western hallway."

She clicked her radio off and stood by the doorway.

"My name is Captain Primula Cor.."

" CORADINI!"

The elderly man joined in towards the end of the sentence. She turned into the doorway just as the man jumped up from his bed, his dressing gown open, in shorts and vest.

"Ailbe?"

primula loosened her grip on the knife only now. When Ailbe, the eccentric hermit who had been living in the Terra-Project headquarters met Primula and Alain, his hands were pressed in earnest to his chest.

"Splendid greetings to you!"

They both had the same look on their face. After a while though they were glad of the old mans strange way of speaking. Primula was the least surprised of the two at Ailbe's ways, and the fact that he was still here. Wandering around the corridors of the headquarters as he had when others wandered too. Ailbe was a senior research scientist. The only thing stopping him from being too eccentric to have around was his ineffable genius. Especially in a fair few of the fields Terra-Project concerned itself with. Due to the top secret nature of the project and its agendas, it suited Ailbe. If he had worked for a company even remotely in the limelight he would produce constant terrible PR. The mission he had was selected for, and chose willingly, was to the moon. One of the planned missions was to take him to a permanent base on the moon. Possibly to get him away from generating bad PR.

"You've been inside all this time?"

The three of them sat in chairs in Ailbe's office come bedroom.

"Happily yes, not a soul else"

Ailbe flicked his hand under his chin and brushed his beard forward.

"What happened at the end? where did everyone go?"

"Well there was a jolly great deal of rushing about, the news was showing some pretty horrid things and all of a sudden everyone went home, to their families, cats. They ran out the door of the most secure building in a hundred miles, blaggards, poor souls i mean."

"Only one realised their error and tried to get back in, Alis quarantined them, i almost overrode it too! Skipped over to the console just as the turn came over our friend and he started using his face to try and break the door."

Prim and Alain looked on waiting for the rest.

" Poor Soul"

Ailbe added.

"The turn?"

Queried primula.

"Ah yes, once one is infected by means of a mucus membrane encountering infected tissue; A bite or scratch. They turn into the disheveled beasts you have most likely seen in the doorway. At least that's what i got from the TV."

Primula stood.

" We need to take care of that thing, the others will be getting worried."

"You intend to go outside? There's more of you?"

He shook his head. "

The last i saw of the world it was a ruin."

She had taken butter from the staff fridge. This was one thing she had learned the hard way, butter on a shiny floor was as friction-less as week old ice. She stood a few paces to the side of the door and gave the nod to Alain. The door hissed open silence, then the wretched breathing and sore screams coming advancing. It fixed onto Alain and spread out its arms as it picked up speed to a hobbling walk towards him. Alain froze in terror at the maniacal beast that struggled towards him thrashing, screaming. It exited the doorway and with its hands clenching and clawing at Alain. It's first foot glided on the slippery surface, drew apart from the other until its legs kicked up in the air. It landed with a sickening crack on its head. blood trickled away and the silence of the room was restored. it lay on its back in a patch of blood, Primula with the shock of what she had encountered and of the easy victory came towards it. Lurching into life it reared it's head, spat and snatched for Primula's legs it had one hand clasped onto her shin and was moving its open mouth closer to her trying to bite when the captain plunged her knife into its temple. It fell back again and began spilling a separate patch of blood from its open wound. Dragging the body outside, the Sun hit and her skin immediately began to bake. Thee body rolled over as she dropped it and she took her first breath of fresh earth air in 8 months. The quiet was like space when you weren't around bleeping machines or people. The birds were all that she could hear, there was an eerie beauty. As per her orders, Alain told Alis to decontaminate the chamber. The blood was washed away and the air purified, this process took 15 minutes. The doors slid open, behind her. Primula was enjoying the sun so much. She took a last deep breath and stepped into the room, the door hissed shut behind her.

" welcome, please say your name."

" Primula Corradini"

"Welcome captain Corradini, please choose weather you wou..."

" Verbal" "Unknown pathogen, unknown risk, unknown sub-type. Iron deficiency. Recommendation: quarantine. Medical staff have been alerted. Please issue a blood sample."

The smell of the cleaning chemicals still hung in the air of the analysis chamber, she took a stiff breath in, heaving her chest up. The entry door opened.

" Whatever it is; You have it, but it wont kill you."