2 Hours Post-Sprawl Outbreak
Nicole thought she and Gabe had been careful. Apparently not. It didn't matter how they'd been found out; the two were now at the mercy of the universe's deadliest secret agents.
"That's right. Slowly," the woman added, elaborating on her partner's thoughts. They weren't psychic, but Oracles seemed to have an excellent rapport; the ones she'd run into practically finished each other's sentences. That kind of knowledge only came from years of collaboration. Would have been cute if they weren't so murderous. Gabe sighed, and the two shuffled forward, unable to think of an alternative.
She and Curtis got the better of Oracles before, but there was no guarantee that'd happen again. Even though she believed EarthGov to be incompetent, these people were good at their jobs.
"Jobs," she internally scoffed as she stepped around the corner. Doctors and liquidators diametrically opposed each other. Both worked with the human body, but one healed while the other destroyed. Soldiers, like Gabe, just did their jobs – one of the few able to lift the impoverished into a better life – but Oracles took joy in their work. She couldn't think of a viler profession.
Speaking of opposites, a flickering light illuminated the duo, which may as well have reflected Nicole and Gabe in a warped mirror. A man and a woman, though the former had a meaty hand wrapped around Lexine's head while it rested on his shoulders. No doubt he was trained in how to use it. One little twist, and that'd be it. The only consolation was that they probably bluffed. As she established before, the government wouldn't go to this massive effort only to kill her.
"All right, you caught us," Gabe snarled. "Now give me back my wife, you bastards!"
"I don't think so, Patient One." The way they referred to him must have made him raise an eyebrow under the helmet. Nicole told him and Lexine about six "patients" EarthGov monitored, but it was not until Oracles burst into her apartment that she realized they were all included in that group. Gabe was a smart guy, though. He quickly put the pieces together.
"You knew about us all along!" Not often that he felt surprised, yet Nicole heard shock through the voice filter.
"You locating each other was a happy accident. Fate works in mysterious ways, and it is up to us to take advantage of it," the woman said as both walked backward. They weren't far from the evac bay now, which was presumably where they parked their escape craft. "We merely exploited an opportunity." Assuming she told the truth (and Nicole believed her, since she had nothing to gain by lying), it provided an iota of comfort that their lives post-Ishimura weren't orchestrated by the government to lead to this point. No, they reunited through accident and built their new lives independently. The credit belonged to them for being so resilient. EarthGov only caught on later.
A Pregnant lurched through the hall ahead, probably having come down from the natal ward, itself. What was its uterus morphed into a distended, pus-filled sac. Something squirmed within, and she hoped it had been early enough in development to not have been aware of itself. She was glad Lexine couldn't see it, even when the woman amputated its arms and legs with expert marksmanship.
Though now that she paid attention, she caught a glimpse of her friend's eyelids fluttering.
The claws on Nicole's feet dug into the floor. Either Lexine rapidly regained consciousness, or she had already and now played possum. The Oracles must have administered a light dose of sedative to minimize the risk of overdose. She'd become more cognizant with each passing second, which gave her a reason to stall. Not easy when their enemies continued their trek; Nicole and Gabe tried to stay close, though not close enough to get disintegrated.
"If you knew where we were all along, why didn't you round us up before?" Gabe asked. Nicole had wondered the same thing. "In my experience, the government doesn't have a surplus of patience."
"The happiest, most productive chickens are the ones who don't realize they're trapped," the mountain of a man snapped back. "Fortunately, we have caged and free-range hens."
Though EarthGov monitoring from a distance meant they couldn't see everything, what they did witness was beyond any results they could have gotten from captivity. Nicole never would have become an artist or continue to grow as a scientist if imprisoned in a secret lab. They'd never see how far she and Curtis could go. They might have even tried to measure their psychic connection, which made her seethe. Kendra (or whatever her real name was) said that EarthGov would want to figure out a way to weaponize the Bond.
Right before Isaac shot her in the back.
She felt her eyes widen and stretch the patches of muscle on her otherwise bony face. Caged and free-range hens… The metaphor was odd enough that she hadn't noticed at first. There were six subjects. If she, Curtis, Lexine and Gabe were allowed to wander, there were two more crammed in a coop somewhere. And she knew the man she'd been engaged to had survived the aftermath of Aegis VII.
"You have Isaac." Her legs went taut. It took everything within her to resist springing on the Oracles and ripping them apart. Still, she imagined tearing the bastards apart again and again. Her bloodlust and desire for revenge surprised her. When was the last time she felt this way?
"Oh, Patient Four has been very, very useful. Almost as useful as you." The woman nodded at Nicole; her lips pursed in a sinister smile. They enjoyed the torment. "But you all have your roles… or had them. Except Zero. She's the only one we still need." Thought she saw Lexine twitch at her "designation" being said, though she did a spectacular job of pretending to be conked out. Unless Nicole misread the situation, which she supposed was possible. Again, she could deceive herself better than the Golden Marker.
The woman placed her free hand on a door while the one with the laser remained pointed at them. Now it was the man's turn to talk.
"Because of that, we are magnanimously providing you an opportunity to flee. You will not be harmed if you go away." Two more Necromorphs burst out of a nearby vent; Nicole and Gabe filled their limbs with plasma and lead before they emerged the whole way. She didn't run low on ammo yet – these pockets were able to hold a lot – but she couldn't afford to blow entire clips. "Not by us, anyway. The Marker's servants may not be so kind."
"I'm not leaving until you two have holes in your heads," Gabe growled, finger twitching on his Pulse Rifle. Nicole agreed. She wasn't going to let her friend be dragged away and shoved in a hole while the galaxy burned.
The woman answered again while the threshold opened. The one down the hall led to the shuttle bay; if they wanted to save Lexine, she needed to think of something before they got there.
"Weller, you were always the least useful of our Patients: no abilities, no knowledge, no undead biology, no metaphysical link. The only thing we ever needed you for was to get Zero pregnant." Oof. Gabe didn't flinch, but that had to hurt. It was true; he didn't have the same weirdness going on as the rest. In Nicole's opinion, though, he was just as remarkable because he still chose to stand beside them. "Impeccable timing, by the way."
"What do you want? What's the purpose behind all this?" Nicole asked both because she wanted to keep them distracted and because she needed to know. She'd hadn't realized she was in the dark until these people yanked away the veil. Besides, they loved to monologue.
"Though their doctrines are twisted, the Unitologists are correct about everything. The Markers are alien, perhaps even divine. They contain knowledge from countless civilizations that arose before our own. Those touched by them are granted immortality after a fashion." She'd realized the same. Then again, she possessed that everlasting "life", so how could she not? "Our goal is to tap into that potential without releasing these malevolent side-effects."
One of the Oracles she encountered on the Ishimura called her the same thing: a side-effect. To them, Necromorphs were obstacles that stood in the way of nirvana. They didn't understand that the Necromorphs were the point. Whatever other secrets the Markers held were incidental or only present to bait species into a trap the same way some carnivorous plants lured flies with nectar. They wouldn't see it until the jaws snapped shut.
"Patient Zero or her daughter may well be the key that unlocks it." Then her hypothesis was correct; Lexine's abilities were passed down from generation to generation. That wasn't what surprised Nicole.
Daughter? At only four or five weeks, it was too early in the pregnancy for sex to be determined with even the most advanced methods. How the Hell did the Oracles know it was going to be a girl? Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, but she took nothing for granted with these people. They already knew about Lexine through her heritage. It was possible they could predict something like this. Hmm… She'd tried to study the family tree before, but it wasn't easy to get her claws on genetic information. This wasn't even about Lexine's family records being covered in black ink – the government had such data, but sending those documents never ranked high on their priorities. If she ever did access the annals, though, she had a new theory to test…
Their backs pressed against the last door. Inches of metal and a few dozen feet separated them from their ship. Nicole and Gabe would never see Lexine again if they boarded.
"Leave. This is your final warning." The woman put a finger to her chin. "Oh, and Patient Two: drop the hard drive you removed from your computer." Nicole almost forgot about that. Patted her pocket to make sure it remained intact – yep, still in one piece thanks to its sturdy case. "Clever way to keep us out. Being solid-state kept it impossible to remotely access, and we never received authorization to enter your dwelling, since you were always present. But it's time you shared your expertise." It encouraged her that the Oracles didn't know everything.
On one hand, she'd sacrifice years of research – the code she'd dedicated her afterlife to cracking – to these monsters. On the other, it might give her a bargaining chip to free her friend. Nicole valued pragmatism; that was why she hadn't stopped to save everyone she could. At the same time, she had a heart. The Oracles bluffed about killing Lexine, but hurting her was on the table.
It should have been an agonizingly difficult choice. Instead, she reached into her coat and pulled out the drive without hesitation. Maybe it was because she had seconds to decide, or perhaps Gabe being there inclined her to try anything for his wife.
In the end, though, whatever she resolved turned out to be for naught. The Oracles pushing their backs against the aperture was enough for the system to scan their DNA. Even though they acted as bestial as most Necromorphs, the computer determined they were human.
The thick door shot open with barely a sound. This should not have presented an issue. However, the Oracles were distracted. They lost their balance. The man carrying Lexine tumbled over the edge!
It happened so quickly, even for someone as fast as her. Gabe had the Pulse Rifle drawn the instant Lexine passed out of harm's way. A couple of bullets nailed the female Oracle in the leg, but most went through the door. The low-caliber rounds posed no threat to metal.
The woman grunted and retaliated with a burst of stasis aimed at Gabe. Once he was slowed, it'd be a simple matter to blast him with the laser (even moving at a fraction of its normal speed, light was still the fastest thing in this universe) and reduce him to a steamy mess.
On instinct, Nicole whipped the hard drive she already held into the blue ball's path. It slowed to a crawl instead of her friend. The medical cutter was drawn the next instant, creating a standoff like in the vids. The Oracle held the superior weapon, but she was outnumbered, and her thigh leaked blood. The odds weren't in her favor. Therefore, she leapt over the edge to join her companion.
"Not the kind of ambush I expected, but I guess we didn't have a choice!" Nicole shouted as the two scrambled over to the berm. The Oracles talked about "fate" as if it were a deity. She thought that was bogus, but by their own logic, Nicole and Gabe were destined to gain the upper hand… at least for the moment. She hoped Lexine stayed in one piece. The chances weren't as good as she wanted, considering what she saw.
There used to be a ramp connecting to the bay's floor. Its wreckage was scattered to the left and right, leaving a surprisingly precipitous drop of 15 or 20 feet. Must have been wrecked in the last few minutes.
A sea of blood and bodies sloshed about. The floor had been painted crimson. Emergency lights shone red upon red. Most shuttles were gone; someone must have figured that it was no longer safe. The sole exception was a nearby government gunship, which was painted with scarlet handprints. People were left behind when Necromorphs breached the chamber, and they tried to claw their way inside. Speaking of which, they were still present in the graveyard.
The Infectors were busy with hundreds of cadavers; more rose to "life" with each plunging proboscis. It was like… she struggled to find a simile, but it was like shore birds pecking on bugs buried in toxic sand. Didn't matter. Not when they ran at the Oracles, roaring and flailing all the way. Only a blue-tinted sealant grid held everything in.
Lexine's presence made it impossible to detect her kith beforehand. Now, though, all saw and smelled and heard each other. And her relatives were not happy to see them.
The Oracles limped to their ship – quite literally for the man, who broke an ankle in the fall. An easy fix for the Somatic Gel that his RIG doubtlessly injected into the area, yet it'd still take a minute to set. The Necromorphs charged, tripping over the bodies of those who had not yet become like they were. The shuttle's door slid open for its inhabitants, and it was a race to see who'd arrive first.
Frankly, she hoped neither side crossed the finish line.
"We need to get down there!" Gabe barked, stepping back into the role of the grizzled commander. Nicole agreed. They'd only be throwing themselves into as much danger as Lexine found herself in. Which was a lot, but she'd die without their help!
Gabe squatted to lower himself over the edge – a straight drop probably posed no danger because he wore a decent RIG (unlike the Oracle) and would land correctly. There was always a chance he could injure himself, though. Always a concern, for he was human.
Nicole, not so much. Not anymore.
She snatched the hard drive from its position in the air before darting down the hall to use it as a runway. Multiple Exploders dropped from the ceiling ahead, bellowing their characteristic woodwind wail. That was a good incentive to stop and spin around; she'd already gotten enough of a launchpad. Lowered her head and dropped into a four-point sprint start. Any normal athlete would be left in the dust, even ones with cybernetic legs. Running speed was one area where she had humanity beat, at least. No amount of technology could make the human body as swift.
Something happened the instant before she broke the stance and rocketed forward: a million voices popped into her head. The Sprawl's population was several million, so the Necromorphs had a lot more to go despite how many had already been turned. No way EarthGov could've rescued more than a few hundred thousand during the evac window. Lexine scraped just far away enough to let them back in.
And they were deafening. Dozens of times more than on the Ishimura and Aegis VII combined. The voices that lurked behind the Markers were far away, unable to exert their full influence. These ones were next to her. All whipped each other into constant frenzies with their turbulent emotions. There was a time when she would have gladly been swept up in the flood, believing they all acted in harmony instead of being egged on. Now, she pushed against it. That was made easier by one mind in there that she knew as well as her own.
Wait, Nicole?! Is that you? Curtis shouted from the miasma. He was somewhere in the building! Both were whole again, if only for a moment. The Exploders closed in behind her, and she needed to leap into the fray.
Get to the evac bay! she replied, beaming the location into his mind as easily as they shared other memories. That was all she had time for. She hurtled forward, feeling wind against her exposed nerves, and scooped up Gabe as he was about to drop. Then, at the precipice, she sprang forward with all her might.
If only the gymnastics tutors saw her now. Eat your hearts out. She hit the ground between the Oracles and their ship, surprising herself with how much air she got. Not as much as she shocked them, though; the bafflement on their faces, which remained stoic until then, was deliciously palpable as she released Gabe and rolled the rest of the way. Her durable ligaments and cartilaginous skeleton let her safely absorb the impact.
A stream of bullets nailed the woman in the chest. The trauma – "vulnus sclopetarium" in medical Latin – would have been manageable if she wore an armored RIG. Not something that could be walked off, but she might have lived.
The hole in her torso the size of a head killed her outright. Nicole could endure the loss of biomass (though it'd seriously slow her down), yet humans weren't so lucky. Such was the cost of remaining subtle. Or maybe the Oracles drank their own Kool-Aid and thought they were invincible. Well, they just received a rude awakening.
Nicole halted her momentum by digging the claws of one hand into the floor while the other reached for the tissue slicer. Gabe turned the Pulse Rifle to the brute of a man, who lined up his laser. The Oracle would find his mark first, and Nicole was too slow to save the day.
Thankfully, Lexine had her husband covered.
A knife plowed across the man's neck, splitting his jugular and sending a spray of blood across the metal. Lexine snatched the Oracle's utility tool from his belt or pocket at some point while he was distracted. Then she tore free from his grasp and landed on the floor behind him. The guy was on the way down before his partner hit the ground.
She knew her friends, each having iced one of the government's top assassins, needed breaks. The Necromorphs would be on them in seconds, though; Nicole grabbed them by the collars and hauled ass towards the shuttle.
"Oh, God. I think I'm gonna throw up," Lexine said, stumbling forward while angry monsters surrounded them. Gore soaked her hair and streaked her face. She'd never killed a human being before, and Nicole hoped with all her heart that it wouldn't happen again.
They drew close to the ship. Not quickly enough, though. Her siblings would be on them in seconds. On Gabe and Lexine, at least. Her soul tied itself in a knot. She was fast enough to escape the monsters. Curtis would understand and accept why she made that choice, even if Nicole never did. Row upon row of beady eyes stared at her, all daring her to make that choice. My husband needs me, she told herself. Her head turned to her two best friends during the final moment of their desperate struggle. But they need me, too.
She knew from experience that dying alone was one of the scariest things imaginable. These two people – ordinary in many ways and extraordinary in many others – needed her.
Even so.
Humanity needed her more. Billions would die if Nicole fell. The same may have been true of Lexine, however. The galaxy may already have been damned. Everyone died, she told herself. A poor excuse for what happened, but it was all she had.
That was when Curtis burst through a hole in the wall, his Line Gun ablaze with fury and plasmatic fire.
…
It was only a few blocks to the hospital. If not for that, Curtis might have broken down over what he witnessed. He'd seen it before, but not on this scale. Not with these demographics. A couple of the bodies were… they couldn't have been older than…
He didn't look anymore. Didn't pay attention to the fresh kills, nor the screams of pain and terror, nor the acrid smell of smoke that permeated every crack. He kept driving, and the undead that ran out of civilians to slaughter took notice. Still, they weren't a huge danger with the street-width tunnels crisscrossing the Sprawl mostly clear. Moving at 30 miles per hour let them outpace most Necromorphs giving chase. The fleeter ones… well, Karrie was still pretty good with the Plasma Cutter.
She mopped them up by the time Curtis pulled up to the front of Titan Memorial Medical Center. The building stretched almost a mile into the void; everything above the third or fourth floor, where the atrium's "glass" ceiling met the skyscraper, was sealed against vacuum. That system was how the Sprawl bore any resemblance to Earth cities instead of a gigantic hornet nest.
It'll look like that soon, he thought, helping Karrie out of her seat. The moans of the dead told him Necromorphs approached – he already saw shapes shuffling toward them through the smog. Grabbed his friend, and the two bolted through the front doors. There are easier pickings.
He couldn't save everyone. Necromorph instinct was to attack the weak and helpless first, just like the predators of Earth before most were wiped out by the apex hunter: humanity. Now his species was the prey, and those tactics turned against them. Karrie could still walk (for the moment), and Curtis was in fine shape. For now, other people stood in as sacrificial lambs. All he could do was swear that they'd be avenged.
"Nicole!" he shouted as they walked past the receptionist's desk, which dripped ichor. Yelling was his best chance to find her with Lexine around. That didn't mean he was going to scream to the heavens, yet it might not be a bad idea to scream once per floor. Her hearing was good enough to not need more.
He jumped at every shadow. Anything could come from anywhere. He was good as dead if more than three came at him in these close quarters. That was why he shoved himself and Karrie into an elevator and hammered the button to close the shutters.
Fuck, what now?! His legs twitched, his eyes flew all over the confined space, and he wondered how they'd get out of this. He tried to hold it together, but his emotions spiraled out of control. It'd be difficult to find Nicole even if she was –
A presence popped into his mind that blew all the others away. The Golden Marker no longer animated nightmares to destroy his brain from within. Even his own doubts were quelled for the moment. The comforting embrace put a seawall between him and the other voices trying to drown his existence. Millions of them.
Wait, Nicole?! Is that you? He asked the obvious, for it could be nobody else.
Get to the evac bay! she yelled in his head. A fraction of a second linked them long enough to experience the highlights of her journey, and vice versa. She had it almost as bad as him. Then she slipped away, having gotten close to Lexine again. A pregnant Lexine – the fact was at the forefront of his wife's mind despite everything else. That let the Marker back in… though he now knew where they were. Several floors up, down a few halls, past a couple of offices. They could make it in less than two minutes. His finger poked the correct button out of hundreds.
"I know where Nicole is," he told Karrie. Too tired to question this, so she just shrugged. The elevator shuddered more than the ones at Titan Heights. It must have suffered over the last hour from all the people cramming aboard.
The door pinged open; he hauled Karrie along, hoping she was still drugged up enough to not feel pain. Once there, it was easy to find the correct path – they followed the roars.
His wife and friends found themselves in hot water, yet he hadn't been able to tell how hot. Now he understood it to be a rolling boil. Thankfully, the journey was swift. No walls had collapsed, and they ran into zero Necromorphs. Sounded like they were busy trying to murder everything in the shuttle bay.
Which Curtis quickly found himself at. Such a place possessed plenty of entrances to facilitate patients being moved. However, doors weren't the Necromorphs' style; they'd chopped holes in the wall to pour through. When their bodies were designed to be hammers, every obstacle became a nail.
It didn't matter how many there were, though. Nothing in the universe could stop him from blowing apart whatever tried to hurt his wife and friends. Karrie was in no shape to fight, as she pointed out with a wheeze, so he'd have to be enough. The amount of noise made him think they'd need more help to tip the scales, but jumping into Hell was the only answer. Therefore, Curtis spun around and unloaded into the first monster he saw.
The Slasher's raised arms popped off at the elbows. It remained standing, though it could no longer hurt anybody between that and its missing jaw. The most it seemed capable of was kicking people, which he'd never seen. The Marker's missing a big opportunity. The humorous observation did not quell his terror.
There were so many of all shapes and sizes. More joined every minute, both resurrected by Infectors and streaming through other portals. They rivalled the polluted sand of the seashore in numbers. Curtis and Nicole never fought this many at once. They'd always fled from such overwhelming odds, or at most held off the wave for precious seconds.
The tide now crested, and it was about to crash on his friends. Nicole bared her claws at the horde, which crawled over the sole remaining spaceship (must have belonged to the Oracles following them). The Necromorphs ringed them with a radius of about 20 feet, and that circle shrank by the second. They'd fight to the end… what an awful end it'd be.
These may have been the direst straits they ever found themselves in, yet they always managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. There was often a trick or angle to exploit. They hadn't gotten this far by coloring inside the lines. Curtis saw a way to win. The downside was that it could easily kill his allies. They were already dead without his intervention, though. He gritted his teeth, bit the bullet and pulled the trigger.
A glowing power cell launched from the barrel. It soared over the Necromorphs, who paid it no heed, before clanging against the far wall… right at the place where gray metal met blue sealant grid. It fell into the swarm, lost to his eyes. The most he could do to prepare his friends was scream at the top of his lungs and hope they heard him over the thousands of other shouts.
"HIT THE DECK!"
Those three words nearly blew his voice. He hoped to save a few shreds of his vocal cords for the rest of the day. Sure enough, though, he overpowered the ocean, if only for a second. Nicole, Gabe and Lexine saw him dive to the floor, and they did the same. Karrie also mimicked him, though she was already on the verge of toppling over. A couple of zombies looked his way with glassy eyes, but most remained focused on the easier pickings.
The Necromorphs must have thought their enemies surrendered to death, for a crush of them leapt upon the survivors to rip them apart.
An explosion rang out half a second before the swell of teeth and blades came down. The shockwave from the overloading fuel cell sent a geyser of gore into the air. That wasn't the point, though. What mattered was that the equipment maintaining the stasis field took a crippling blow. In an instant, the paper-thin azure barrier collapsed – and the atmosphere vented into open space. Given how many holes had been blown in the walls, there was plenty of air to go around. He could only hope all the humans in the area were already dead.
The midair Necromorphs made sharp turns; they were gone with the wind. Dozens were swept off their feet and yanked into the outer darkness. Curtis resisted the pull of oblivion with a strong grip. His ears popped, and he remembered doing this once before. Mining Bay 10 on the Ishimura experienced the same calamity when that shuttle from the colony crashed. Not everyone survived that, and he'd been tempted to let go by the voices in his head.
Needless to say, that wasn't currently a problem. His only concerns were holding to a crack in the floor and hoping none of the Necromorphs had the time to get a grip. Karrie tried to do the same, but she wasn't strong enough. Fuck. I should've told her before so she could get farther away. Then again, he only came up with this "plan" half a second before implementing it, so he didn't have the opportunity to give more of a warning.
A desk chair beaning her in the head was the final straw. Her fingers gave out, and she let go. Either she was too tired to scream, or the noise was lost in the howling gale. His heart stopped as he followed suit. Every fiber of his being told him this was a terrible idea – good thing he was nothing if not impulsive.
Plummeted sideways to the giant hole in the wall, which they were mere seconds from hitting. It wouldn't kill him, since he had enough air in his RIG to fly back, but Karrie wouldn't be so lucky with the ruptures in her suit. Exposure to hard vacuum atop all her other trauma would be the final nail in the coffin.
He snatched her collar a few yards from the edge. So many stars. Necromorph juggernauts lurked among them, waiting until the time was right. Curtis knew he'd meet them one day. Not today, though.
He propelled himself with the full power of his thrusters. About evenly matched with the air shooting into space, which showed no sign of running out. Still, he inched forward as he cradled her with two tired arms. He'd burn in Hell before letting go again.
Most of the monsters were gone, even the big ones. The gambit turned out to be effective thanks to the element of surprise. However, he couldn't imagine many other scenarios when blowing out a wall would be the best course of action. A psycho or suicide bomber scraped together enough explosives to do the same thing every few years (probably happened on every space station), yet it took a lot. He was only able to do this with a single Line Rack because he sabotaged particularly sensitive equipment.
His friends held on, thank whatever God was out there, if any. Nicole and Gabe would be fine if they fell into space, at least for a few minutes. Lexine and her "passenger", on the other hand, were in trouble. Unprotected people immediately freezing or exploding in space was a myth, but it still sowed havoc on the human body. She gripped a groove in the floor with all her strength, ignoring the increasingly large chunks of debris that flew over her head. Even a few pieces of the floor were wrenched up by the decompression!
It began to abate after a few more seconds, though. The phantom pull slowly petered out, allowing him to make headway. Stormy "weather" subsided as he planted his grav-boots on the ground. It reminded him of the typhoons that pummeled the North Carolina Hubs every few years. Not as bad as the Trinity Hurricanes, which left whole cities underwater, but nevertheless devastating. Of course, Curtis knew a thing or two about civilizations being destroyed.
Lexine shakily stood and sprinted into the shuttle ahead of him. He followed her aboard and shifted Karrie into a seat before activating the ship's sealant grid over the open door. This way, the two least protected people would be spared when the pressure outside dropped below the Armstrong limit. He and Gabe were fine with their intact RIGs, and Nicole barely felt the water in her flesh boil. Speaking of which, Curtis ran back to check on the others.
The two on the ship weren't tagging along for the "adventure"; one wouldn't risk her baby for the world (he knew Nicole to be a little resentful of that), and the other could barely move. Nicole staying was a given, yet he didn't know about Gabe. Supposed he'd see in a second.
The breeze further decreased since he went inside. The atmosphere wouldn't last longer than another minute, not that it mattered. Nobody left to breathe out here. Not much of anything.
Nicole took her tissue cutter to a couple of Necromorphs that held on through skill or luck, so he knew she did OK. Gabe pushed himself up from his spot on the floor before –
Something lunged from under the shuttle and tackled his friend. No, someone. What he at first thought was a Pregnant turned out to be man practically made of muscle. He worked out for hours a day, took steroids or had enough gene editing to turn him into a brick shithouse. Must have crawled underneath the ship before Curtis blew out the forcefield and been lodged tightly enough to not be flushed down the drain.
Regardless, the Oracle that hunted his friends had not been felled by whatever cut his throat. His pale face and maroon chest weren't enough to keep him from pulling out a showstopper in the form of a grenade. If the agents couldn't capture their targets, then death was the final option.
"Just… following… orders!" the beast screamed in dwindling air as he primed the explosive. Sure, Curtis believed it was nothing personal – just like the Markers didn't hate most individual people. What the Hell did it matter? They died all the same.
Curtis had no time to intervene, nor did Nicole, who finished pulling the tail off the last Leaper; the fuse had been set for less than a second. Gabe elbowed the man in the face, reducing his nose to pulp, before trying to dive out of the blast zone.
A flash engulfed him. The RIG's visor automatically darkened to protect his eyes, and tenuous dregs of oxygen meant the explosion wasn't very loud. Small pieces of dust and debris were sucked out by the last of the venting, allowing him to quickly witness the aftermath. His heart sank as he did… though not as deeply as it could have.
The Oracle was a complete write-off, having been reduced to pieces no larger than pebbles. That would have been Gabe's fate if he hadn't escaped the grapple. Because he had, only the body parts closest to the bomb had been so blasted badly. That didn't stop Curtis from almost throwing up.
He'd seen more people without limbs than he could count over the last couple hours. Sadly, it was part of the scenery. Hit differently when the amputation happened to his friend. Call it revenge for all the Necromorphs whose extremities they pruned.
Gabe no longer had legs below his knees, and the parts of them above those joints were riddled with shrapnel.
And with that, the air was gone. No idea if his friend felt agony or had been knocked out, but his squirming suggested the former. His screams, if any, were lost to the void. Curtis couldn't even "hear" Nicole's reaction because Lexine was so close. Completely deaf to the universe, the couple picked up their friend and hauled him through the sealant grid before his blood began to boil. The yelling started the second he breached the barrier.
"Oh my God! What happened?!" Lexine shouted as she sprinted over. Her mien was one of shock; it seemed like they were going to ride off without a scratch, but something upended those plans at the last second.
"One of the Oracles wasn't dead," Nicole succinctly answered, plopping the man down and beginning first aid with the supplies on the shuttle. They were in humanity's most prestigious hospital, yet they only had time to rely on scraps. Still, Nicole was good enough to stabilize someone with a paper clip and chewing gum. "He wrestled Gabe down with a grenade."
Curtis couldn't bear to look at Lexine. Somehow more tolerable to focus on his other friends, who looked like they'd been thrown into a smelting machine.
Their team had been fractured before it formed. Even if Lexine wanted to stay and fight – which she sure as Hell did not – Karrie and Gabe were dead without her extracting them. The ball was in his court as he steeled himself. Had a lot of time to practice acting brave, at least.
"Get as far away as you can. Then call Stefan Schneider; he'll be able to help," he told Lexine, who already had his contact information. As long as the man hadn't sealed himself in his doomsday bunker on a distant rogue planet, anyway.
She'd already retreated into the cockpit, both so that she didn't have to see her mutilated spouse and to prep the ship for takeoff. Not a pilot, but she didn't have to be to fly in a straight line away from Saturn. Anywhere else was better than here. Nicole finished up with Gabe and went over to Karrie.
"You must be Curtis' wife," she slurred, but he took the statement as a sign of lucidity. The woman knew she was being treated by a Necromorph on their side, and she connected the dots based on what she learned earlier.
"That's me," Nicole grunted, wrapping her legs in so many bandages that she looked like a mummy. That was another kind of undead monster from the vids they could have fought. "And you're Karrie."
Gabe grunted, which grabbed Curtis' attention as the women continued what might generously be called a conversation.
"Really want to mop up zombies with you like in the old days, but I don't think that's in the cards," he wheezed. Curtis cracked a smile through the pain – not just his or Gabe's, but that of everyone in the little dinghy. Despite it, he refused to surrender to despair. Doing so meant the Marker already won.
"I'll take a rain check. Just as long as you promise to help out next time."
"Heh… you got it, bud." His sparking helmet retracted into the RIG just in time for him to spit a gobbet of blood. "I never thought this would happen to me. I survived Scorpio VI, pirate skirmishes and a goddamn zombie apocalypse, only to get my legs blown off like this…" Curtis wanted to say that Oracles were supposedly the best of the best; the fact that Gabe emerged the victor, even without his legs, meant that EarthGov's greatest warriors didn't live up to their reputation. His friend really wouldn't want to hear it, though, so Curtis kept his mouth shut. Instead, his attention was taken by the woman strapped in across from him. Wheels turned in his head as he tried to remember through the fog. "Karrie, right? Good to see you again."
"Same," she wheezed. "Wish it were under better conditions; we're both fucked up enough that the ghouls will think we're on their team." Actually, that trick might work with Lexine around; Necromorphs wouldn't be able to psychically ID each other, so could they sneak by if they slathered themselves in gore? It was worth keeping in his back pocket, though he hoped to never pull it out.
"Oh, you're that engineer from the mines!" Lexine called from the cabin. Right, the two met a few days ago. May as well have been in another life.
"Yeah, that's me." She paused for a moment. "My brother's an officer in the United Systems Military. If I survive this, he's gonna have a lot to answer for." Curtis remembered her alluding to a sibling once or twice.
"Oh, an officer. I know the type," Gabe quipped. Though professional, he took the piss every so often. "Sergeants are assholes, the lot of them."
They shared a laugh, which raised Curtis' spirits. Though both had been broken, he now knew they would survive. Lexine barged out from the front as Nicole finished covering the casualties in tourniquets and Somatic Gel. The rumbling engines let him know the ship was ready to fly, though it was nice for her to tell them, too.
She wanted to ask them to stay. Everyone– well, all of them – could escape this time. The rest of the station was already damned. They'd never accept, though, so she didn't bother to plead. This was their choice, even as the coward within him wanted to flee. He'd never stop running if he retreated now… and there would be few places to go if the Necromorphs won.
"Good luck," she whispered, trying to look at them instead of the now-crippled man she loved. "I don't think you'll need it, though. One way or another, you'll put the Marker on its ass." Yes, they fucking would. They'd squeeze blood from this stone. The last Marker was afraid when it died. Curtis snorted, casting steam from his nostrils; if Red was scared, Gold would go down screaming. Somehow, he'd find a way to make a rock feel pain.
His soul burned with rage, but it wasn't enough to stop him from hugging Lexine. No amount of anger could blunt the fact he cared for her. He'd be as evil as the Marker without love. All the power in the universe, and it lacked a heart. Not too different from a megacorp or EarthGov. Nicole also embraced his friend, telling her that they would be OK. They didn't need a psychic connection for him to know she meant it.
Curtis cast a somber look back. This might have been the last time he saw his friends, and he needed to absorb as much of them as he dared. They all stared back; more likely that they would never see him again. After a few seconds that felt too brief, he took Nicole's hand in his own, and the two walked the plank together.
The door trundled shut behind them, and the world was once again without sound. Only had a few minutes of air, and more Necromorphs may have approached, but he and Nicole stood and watched the ship launch into the dark underbelly of space. The Link erupted back to life. He let the wave of emotions flow over him as their minds and souls again became one. A couple of years ago, the notion made him afraid. When this first formed, he was scared he'd cease to exist and become part of some insidious amalgam.
The other mind didn't subsume him, though. He and Nicole worked together, complemented each other, and they remained distinct unless they wanted to fuse (being a combined mind was good if one of them needed a break… and sex as a gestalt entity was freaky fun).
That's it, then, Curtis thought as he turned around. The Sprawl unfurled before them. Though the routes were myriad, there was only one destination: the rot at the station's heart, which would poison everything. They needed to cut it out and throw it away.
It's only just started, she replied, though she knew what he meant.
Back to basics. There were no allies nor easy answers. Just them, their skills, and the sacred Bond between them.
…
And then there were two. With that, we conclude the introductory portion of Dead Space: Zealot. Lexine, Gabe and Karrie aren't able to tango this time around… but probably next time. Things will start to broadly follow the events of Dead Space 2, though with the twists and garnishes I hope you've come to expect from me.
Gabe and Karrie surviving at all was something I wrestled with. They both died at the ends of their stories, and even though I'm not beholden to canon, it would have upped the stakes to take out established characters. In the end, though, I cared about them too much to let them die. It sounds from most of my interactions with you guys that you agree. And Gabe isn't coming out in one piece, so there are still consequences. I considered having him die and being revived as a Necromorph with free will, like Nicole, but I decided that would've been too complicated. Lexine and her unborn child were the most interesting aspects of this chapter, however. I've said before that their fate is a big cliffhanger full of unanswered questions about her origins and powers that I've never stopped wondering about.
Let's just say those questions will be answered in this story.
Thanks to Urbanator, CelfwrDderwydd, Kaijucifer and AlexanderMugetsu for reviewing since the last update. I appreciate it, and I hope you'll have something to say about this one!