My Dead Space saga is back, and the timing could not be better. The Callisto Protocol came out just a few days ago (I consider it a Dead Space AU in its own right) while the Dead Space remake launches early next year. I have not been this excited for any video game in a very long time, and I'm hoping it'll breathe new life into the DS series and fandom alike.
However, this story isn't just Dead Space. As I've alluded to with the references to Weyland-Yutani and smaller details, elements of the Alien franchise are also present. If you want to learn more about that, check out my friend CelfwrDderwydd's excellent canon spin-off Dead Space: Beast (it's the only story in my profile's "Favorites" tab). Not required, but it sheds some light on what really went down during the Wanat Disaster in this universe. I have resisted labelling this as a crossover, since it is much more Dead Space than Alien, but those elements are stronger than ever in this entry. You can probably guess what that means for Curtis and Nicole.
Oh, and like last time, be sure to keep an eye on the first letter of each chapter. They might just have something interesting to say about the future of this series…
To provide a small update on my personal life, I've finished the first semester of the teaching program I'm enrolled in; still two more to go, and it's going well. Yeah, I am aiming to become an English teacher, though we'll see how that pans out. If nothing else, it's an interesting experience, and I'm glad to learn a thing or two that could improve my writing. But as I've said many times before, this isn't a blog, so I will leave it at that.
Finally, here's a link to my Discord server, if you want to join me and some friends of mine in shitposting shenanigans and talking about my stories in general. Very occasionally, I post exclusive content there, as well. It's really nothing special, but we all have a good time (remove spaces and asterisks):
www*.discord*.gg / HPcMTpxVsH
Saturn Orbit
Titan Station
2 Years, 6 Months Post-USG Ishimura Outbreak
Curtis popped another batch of plasmatic power cells into the Model 211-V Plasma Cutter. He aligned the three targeting lasers with a seam in the rock before firing a single shot. A chunk the size of a briefcase crumbled from the wall and fell into the mining cart; didn't even need to use his kinesis module.
Looked at the nearly full wagon with a hint of nostalgia pricking the back of his brain… or maybe that was the Marker's influence at work. The hallucinations had been gentle that day, at least. Regardless, his final shift ended in minutes, so this may well have been the last cart of ore he ever hauled back.
Almost felt disappointed that his ultimate day at work didn't feature anything interesting. He wasn't repelling into a dark ravine for a deposit of rare minerals or surviving a cave-in. Not that such situations were common parts of the job, though he had gotten into several scrapes over more than a decade of mining that almost cost him a limb. Ending on such a mundane note just seemed anticlimactic.
Still, he couldn't complain. Life was about to get "exciting" whether he wanted it or not. The mining industry – along with everything else – would fade away. That's why Curtis quit; he wanted to spend what little time remained with the woman he loved.
And my friends, too, he thought, pushing the wheelbarrow with his own two hands, for his RIG gave him strength enough. Beyond Nicole, he was so lucky to have Gabe and Lexine. They needed his help, and he needed theirs. He could think of no better way to celebrate his early retirement than spinning the two a text log asking if they wanted to do anything. Wait, Lexine said something about a fertility examination at Titan Memorial today. Probably not the best time to bother them, then. At least she got a day off work.
What about Karrie? She was his other friend, and a far more normal person, given that she didn't know about the insane world of zombies and alien rocks that threatened to overrun their reality.
But she was also currently unavailable. Curtis recalled that, while fixing his busted Force Gun a couple days ago, she remarked that she had something very important scheduled with the Church of Unitology that day. Probably working in one of their soup kitchens or something, which she did occasionally. More worthwhile than going to the bar or catching a vid, which were his normal excursions. I should join her sometime. Soon. The vibrations of pushing the cart along the track rattled his teeth. She offered, and it would be nice to serve others.
Despite their secret doctrines being anathema to mankind, at least the Church tried to help people and legitimately thought they paved the way for a better tomorrow. Good people like Karrie were in it because of that aspect, unaware of what the upper echelons of Unitology really sought to accomplish. EarthGov and megacorps, the other big factions in 2511, only believed in money and themselves. Curtis refused to think about which of these sprawling entities was "the best" (all of them tried to screw him and Nicole over on the Ishimura), yet Unitology had them beat in that department.
His arms were slightly sore when he reached the waystation, one of many housed in the honeycombed asteroid. From these, the ore was weighed and then ferried via tractor beam to smelting and processing centers on the fringes of the Government Sector, where cargo shuttles could pick it up. If only they had transportation for humans, he thought with a shake of his head. GovSec proper – the maze of laboratories and administrative departments – was connected with its own tram system, or so he'd heard; the miners weren't allowed to delve that deep. Out here on the fringes of Titan's corpse, the only way around for people was with their own feet.
He stepped into the industrial space, which reminded him of a garage. All he needed to do was find the mechanic. Should have been one around.
"Hello? Anyone here?" he called, his voice echoing around the room before bouncing into the depths. After that faded, the only reply was silence. Not unusual in the deeper quarries, where he worked that day, but it always gave him goosebumps. Just ominous to think of all that empty space with nobody else around. Then he noticed a door that must have connected to a breakroom. Whoever's here must be listening to music or something. Curtis did the same thing, so it was no big deal.
He rapped on the metal slab before putting his hand on the central hologram, which rose with a pneumatic hiss. "Hey, I have some ore to…"
Curtis trailed off when he saw the saw the person to whom he spoke. Or, rather, the body.
The man splayed on the floor, his limbs spread wide as red pooled around him from a couple of ugly stab wounds in his abdomen. It evoked the image of a bloody eagle about to take flight. Curtis halfheartedly tried to rationalize this as a suicide or the work of a serial killer like the Clogger, yet there was no mistaking the jagged gashes that exposed organ and bone.
He stared for several seconds, though it felt like longer. There should have been more horror, he realized: a shiver down his spine or the Plasma Cutter clattering to the ground. There were no tears, though – only a grim pit in his stomach. He always knew it would come to this. The Black Marker looked through his eyes, and he sensed a similar fear radiate from several AU away. This was the day his patron recruited him for.
THE TIME HAS COME. THE CYCLE BEGINS ANEW.
A voice boomed in his brain. Curtis guessed it was about:
15 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak
Or something like that, for he wasn't a forensic expert. But it couldn't have been long since the zero hour. Otherwise, he would've heard a lot more screaming, and the people he passed on the way wouldn't have been people anymore. Given how it unraveled on the Ishimura, he expected this ignorance to break within the hour, especially if the nascent horde included Infectors, which seemed likely. There wasn't much time.
Before he did anything else, though, he needed to call his wife. Their Bond didn't reach the whole length between the Public and Government Sectors, but they could lean on technology instead of biology when the situation called. Curtis shakily sat in the chair that the dead man must have occupied before being murdered, and his legs trembled as he spun a vid-log to his and Nicole's shared computer. Their living space was so small that she was guaranteed to hear the pinging alert.
Indeed, she picked up a moment later, blissfully ignorant of the danger for a few more seconds. She smiled her beautiful, toothy smile, and her four eyes lit up in delight. Rare that he dared to send her a vid-log in public, since anyone could see over his shoulder that the person he talked to wasn't human… though to be fair, cosmetic modifications and gene therapy stretched the definition of "human". There were whole colonies of people who'd altered themselves to the point that those who didn't know better might genuinely think they were aliens.
"How's your last day of work going?" She couldn't see whatever mortified expression he wore behind the helmet, so he wordlessly panned the holo-screen down to the exsanguinated body.
"It's finally happened," he rasped. "The Necromorphs are back."
"What do we do?" she asked after a moment, her own voice warbling.
They'd had more than two years to plan for the end of the world all over again, yet that was still the question of the hour. How did they approach the apocalypse? They knew that they needed to stand and fight. On a prosaic level, that was because the Black Marker demanded they destroy its brethren before the Necromorphs annihilated humanity. Much as he came to like the space rock, even think of it as a friend, inasmuch as that was possible, it held leverage over them by being what sustained Nicole. If they disobeyed and ran off, it might remove its power, leaving his wife to melt into a puddle of slime.
But there was also nowhere else to run. If they didn't stop this outbreak, the plague would keep growing until it consumed them all. The government built more Markers than just this one, but every one they took out was one less tool for the eldritch force that lurked behind the stone. Maybe it'd buy humanity a little more time; taking out the Red Marker did.
So at least they knew that they'd remain on Titan Station until either they or the Golden Marker were dead. The specifics remained much hazier. There was so much they still didn't know, so they couldn't come up with specifics. All they understood about this new Marker was its color, gleaned from glimpses in visions when it taunted them, and the fact that it had been built in GovSec, probably somewhere…
His mind trailed off as the screen began to flicker. At first, he thought it nothing more than choppy signal, yet it quickly worsened. Never had that happen before. EarthGov ensured the Transnet ran with peak efficiency. Then he felt his eyes widen; the government shut it down!
"Stay in the apartment!" he shouted, trying to convey a message before the whole system crashed. "I'll see if I can do anything here and then get back somehow. Then we'll come back over here and destroy the Marker!" The whole feed glitched. Though there was more to say, he only had time for a few words. Chose the most important ones. "I love you so much."
"I love you, too."
The holo-screen cut to an error popup, leaving him alone with the Markers. One of which he expected to start attacking him very soon.
…
The signal connecting Nicole to Curtis was severed like an arm chopped from the body. He was snatched from her in a burst of static. She pounded the monitor a few times in a fruitless attempt to get him back. Didn't care that she cracked the screen; that was the least of her problems.
Desperate, she opened the Transnet browser to see if anything worked. No dice. Every link led to a dead end. As of now, Titan Station was cut off from the rest of the universe. Both the FTL Relaynet, allowing instantaneous transmissions across the solar system and other stars, and the local intra-Sprawl network connecting the space station, were blacked out. While Markers were able to interfere with wireless communication, it did not happen so suddenly on such a wide scale. No, EarthGov threw the kill switch this time.
It was no mystery why; information spread faster than any virus. If evidence of a zombie plague got out, the censors wouldn't be able to stop it. EarthGov would face riots and unrest unlike anything in human history. The dead rising didn't happen under every regime.
Unless Titan Station Security contained the outbreak early on (something she doubted, given how quickly the USM Valor was overrun), a good chunk of GovSec would be gone. That left the issue of getting the Necromorphs across the void, but this Marker would be crafty if it was anything like its "father". She had no doubt the reanimated would swarm over the Sprawl in less time than the length of the average big budget vid. Then EarthGov could say Titan Station had been razed by a terrorist attack like they did once before.
Nicole leapt up and slashed the floor with her claws like a wild beast, hopefully not scaring whoever lived below them. In all likelihood, that person, as well as most other people in Titan Heights, would be dead by midnight Local Standard Time. She suppressed a roar, since that'd only draw more attention to her hovel. Still seethed with rage because, regardless of her knowledge or power, she wasn't saving anyone. Not yet. Curtis was right that she needed to stay put, even though that fact made her burn. Only when her kith began to emerge and slaughter the living would there be people to help, plus the relative anonymity of not being the only "monster" running around. Leaving now would cause more problems than it solved.
Sighing, Nicole slumped to the floor and put her head between her knees. The Black Marker was in there with her. It didn't try to console her or anything, since it still didn't grasp the finer points of human emotion, but that was all right. There was nothing anyone could have said to make her feel better. The only thing capable of doing that was reuniting with her husband.
She put a talon to her temple and pondered what could be done. The most obvious thing was calling Lexine and inviting her to their apartment to be a little safer, but the woman was in the hospital that day for fertility testing, and the Transnet being down made that impossible! They already agreed with the Wellers that all would meet up at Nicole and Curtis' apartment in this scenario, though. Hopefully society is around when she gets out.
Still, there were a couple of ways for Nicole to prepare. First, she spritzed Larry the snake plant with the spray bottle on the windowsill. Wasn't going to take the flora with her when she left, obviously, but tending to it had been the closest thing to administering medical care she'd been able to practice during her years cooped up in the same room, except the EEG readings she occasionally took from Lexine. Wanted to take care of the organism one more time.
Then she crawled over to the bed and reached under it for something too large to fit into any cabinet. With a grunt, she hauled out the Timson RIG, as well as a Line Gun literally held together with scrap metal, solder and duct tape. The former was no longer the prototype it used to be. She knew through Curtis that Timson's rollout had been so successful that their advances, such as reinforcing the metal frame with advanced polymers and enhanced self-repair capabilities, quickly became standard across the industry. The latter was unnecessary, too; Curtis had access to thousands of tools in the mines. Both may have been superfluous, yet it'd be good to have them ready in case Curtis needed a backup when he barged through the door.
And he would come back, Nicole told herself, mostly believing it. They had already survived so much, and this time they were more prepared any stronger than ever. However, it'd only take one lucky blow or a single instance of Curtis being caught by surprise to kill the best hope humanity had to endure. That's why she needed to see him again. Tough as they were alone, they stood even more formidable together. They were Bonded, both in mind and by marriage.
Next, she walked over to a cupboard and pulled out two more pieces of machinery, these ones procured by Stefan Schneider. Too bad we can't tell him what's going on, she thought as she put these new devices on the bed beside Curtis'. The man would quickly learn the truth with his connections, though. Her four eyes inspected the objects to make sure they remained intact during their year or so in the closet, and indeed they had. The first was a light yet sturdy RIG that resembled the kind of white lab coat she used to wear over her scrubs.
It only barely counted as tech, since it omitted even the basic interfaces that differentiated RIGs from regular clothing, such as a spinal health readout, to say nothing of the stasis and kinesis modules implanted into the most advanced industrial units. The only scientific components were nanomachine self-repair and a small air tank with a jet that could be used for propulsion. One of the biggest challenges she faced on the Ishimura was only being able to move in straight lines in Zero-G environments. This simple fix would allow her to keep up with Curtis, as well as be able to top off his oxygen supply in a pinch. It also had pockets, which was something she missed.
The other machine was a modified medical tissue laser, similar to the one she wielded in life during the first outbreak. Packed more of a punch than a standard model, being able to cleave through bone on the higher settings instead of only muscle, fat and skin. Could turn it down and use it to cauterize wounds during an emergency, as was one of its intended purposes. It had also been customized with a special grip that better suited her meat hooks than any grasp intended for human hands – Schneider also got her a similar setup for her digital drawing stylus, for which she was grateful. She could've wielded any mining tool with equal efficacy once Curtis returned by tapping into his skills and memories, yet none held the same personal connection.
If she was going to die again (a real possibility, despite her confidence), it would be on her own terms. She would show the Marker and anyone else who cared to see that she was an individual, not a mindless beast or an extension of Curtis. She was Nicole Brennan, and she would fight while dressed and armed as a space-age, gunslinging physician!
The other upside to her accessorizing was that it made her distinct from any other Necromorph. Some had the remains of shredded clothes hanging from their frames after the metamorphosis, but that hardly counted. Being so unique would hopefully make clear to anyone she met along the way that she was unlike the other creatures and didn't possess any homicidal tendencies.
She stepped back and surveyed the setup, which made the shriveled remnants of her heart beam with pride. Though they didn't know exactly what to do now that the Necromorphs were back, they had the machines to handle whatever got thrown their way.
Machines. Though she'd made peace with the fact that technology was more adaptable than biology, at least with how humanity developed them, she was still a creature of flesh. Some feelings of conflict remained, though not many. After years of exercise, she'd built her Marker-enhanced muscles to be even stronger than Curtis with his RIG on, so that counted for a lot. Despite her litheness (some would say scrawniness), she could flip over a car with some effort. And other Necromorphs leaned on the crutch of metal more than her. Some had pieces of technology integrated into their physiologies – most notably Twitchers with stasis units, but there may have been other phenotypes they never encountered on the Ishimura, or the Golden Marker might whip up something new.
Finally, there was one last thing she needed to do. She unplugged her computer's solid-state hard drive and slipped it into a sturdy case that'd protect it from the rigors she expected them to face: physical damage, explosions, EMPs, extreme temperatures, vacuum, etc. In turn, she put that inside an inner, secret pocket of her RIG. It contained much of what she and Curtis did over the past years – most notably all her research on Lexine's brain (which Nicole slowly neared cracking, she believed), but also backups of all her art, their marriage certificate and much more. She refused to start over from scratch.
That was it. That was all she could think to do. Nicole sat on the floor and waited for the eventual clarion call to stir her to action. Until then, she needed to wait for the end.
30 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak
With a final stomp, the corpse was nothing more than gory mulch. Curtis' stomach squirmed. He hated defiling the dead, yet it needed to be done. If he didn't, the guy would eventually resurrect and kill more people. Well, his individual cells would still reanimate, but they would merely become part of the Corruption wave that'd quickly sweep through, with the bigger chunks becoming Swarmers. He didn't have the time or equipment to burn bodies, though, so he settled for what he could reasonably achieve.
Wiped his grav-boots on corrugated metal before striding out the door without so much as a backwards glance. He stopped and strained his ears, and indeed, he thought a few distant screams brushed the edges of his senses… though it could have easily been his imagination or the Marker beginning to play tricks on him. Now that whatever plot it hatched to breach containment worked, it could devote most of its energy to driving him and the rest of the station – but mostly him – over the edge. One of the many reasons he needed to return to Nicole ASAP.
Yet his heart tugged in a different direction. People here stood directly in the Marker's crosshairs, while PubSec would be "safe" for a little while more. This was the place to help people for the time being.
Could you save anyone? Curtis shivered as the words of his shift supervisor on the Ishimura, whose name he didn't even know, were whispered into his ear. The answer turned out to be yes… but not many. Not enough.
The first time around, he managed to ultimately help get Gabe and Lexine out, and maybe Isaac. The book might never be closed on that one if the government had him rotting in a dark prison somewhere. The second time, Schneider. Third time was the charm, though, or so they said. Didn't know how many people it'd be reasonable to save from a threat that devoured a million civilizations before theirs. At least four or five? To even accomplish even that pittance, he needed to devise a way out of GovSec.
He looked at a map of the mines conveniently plastered across the wall. Didn't want anyone getting lost (even though people could access directions on their RIGs, too). If EarthGov cut the comms, they certainly halted transport across the three Crossover Tubes. The obvious option for returning to civilization was eliminated right away. Racked his brain for alternate solutions.
Pedestrian walkways in the form of carbon nanotube tunnels ran parallel to the tram systems. Though they were ostensibly available for public use all the time, they were primarily utilized during tram outages. He'd never heard of anyone willingly walk several miles through a barren pipe while free public transportation was right next to it. Still, those were the most obvious alternate means of escape. Both the Marker and EarthGov surely knew that, too.
The former would send its forces through once it felt it had enough biomass in this area while the latter would post elite soldiers at the other side and perhaps take other precautions. One didn't have to aim for the limbs when it was possible to pump a nearly infinite number of bullets down a straight tube. As long as they had the ammo, whatever soldiers the government mustered had an insurmountable advantage. Until the Necromorphs found some other way in, which Curtis felt certain they would. The last Marker may have been single-minded in its dedication to destroying him and the woman he loved, but it wasn't stupid. None of them could afford to be.
Curtis stomped his foot, really racking his brain now. Nicole would've thought of something if she were present. What about finding an airlock and just blasting over to the Sprawl?
Well, even with the upgraded oxygen supply this RIG had compared to his last one – 15 minutes instead of five, for that one wasn't built with the intention of operating in a vacuum (nor was this one, however) – it wouldn't be enough to fly all the way across. Perhaps momentum would eventually carry his asphyxiated corpse over, but he'd more likely go off course and drift in the space around Saturn forever. His body would eventually be mutated into a Necromorph, so whatever he became would have a really, really boring – OK, I'm not doing that.
He shook his head and just started to walk, sensing that he just wasted time. Anyone he helped might have some insightful thoughts about how to escape their predicament, not to mention getting off Titan Station as a whole.
Moved at a light jog as he generally followed the tunnels leading to the entrance of the mines. Wanted to go faster, but he was only human; if today ended up being anything like the first time around, it'd leave him physically unable to move if he started out going full throttle. He got lucky then, yet that wasn't something he could always count on. That was very hard, since he now knew the screams he heard weren't his imagination; they were visceral, scared and very real, though still distant. Impossible to tell which direction they emanated from given the echoing acoustics. All he could do was go where his sinking gut directed him.
Seemed he guessed correctly, for Curtis quickly found claw marks and smears of blood along the rock, but no bodies. Didn't know whether that meant people escaped or if the Infectors already got to them. One was much more likely, though. His feet thudded along the ground while his trusty Plasma Cutter traced the air for any sign of movement. Preferred the Line Gun, but this implement worked just as well. The upside to being down here was that he could choose any tool he wanted.
A minute later, screams were supplanted by something a little more coherent. A little.
"Die! Mother! Fucker! Die!" Rounding a corner, Curtis saw a person slamming a Slasher into goo against a steel bench. It was already missing an arm, but that didn't dampen its rage as it struggled. Wanted to help, yet he couldn't. For one thing, he might accidentally shoot the human! For another, seeing a Necromorph that wasn't Nicole after so long gave him pause. The look in its dead, glassy eyes was beyond comprehension. Not because there was so much; on the contrary, there was nearly nothing. Just an undead animal.
They were predators, and he was the prey. Though he flipped that script plenty of times before, the Necromorphs never stopped coming. The times they displayed any sort of self-preservation were few and far between, all happening in situations where the monsters faced insurmountable odds. Only then did dregs of independent reasoning bubble back to the surface. This one thought nothing anymore, though. Not after the other armored person applied a nice dose of stasis and tore chunks off the thing's torso. Just enough to put it down when the time dilation expired. Then the broken body was tossed aside.
"Who are you?" they demanded in a deep, inhuman voice, just noticing Curtis. Made him flinch. Though their RIG appeared to be a stock engineering model (very similar to the one Isaac wore, actually), it had been modified somewhat, since he didn't believe they had voice filters installed by default. Still, engineer; couldn't have been too tough. He guessed the person was male, given their height, but it really was impossible to tell with the filter. Despite what porn artists on the Transnet depicted, heavy-duty RIGs were unisex. Trying to scare the Necromorphs with a fearsome voice was a good idea, but unfortunately for naught.
"My name's… Curtis," he said, raising his hands a little to indicate he meant no harm. Considered introducing himself as Lance, the fake identity Schneider whipped up for him, but there was no point. The world ended; he could afford to use his real name. "You?"
"I'm Vandal." Curtis heard several monikers throughout his life that he thought strange, but this was the first which really took him aback. Way for anarchist parents to burden their child with the most anti-government name possible! Wondered if that got the guy profiled. "Not my real name. Just call me that, OK?!" Oh, that made more sense. This guy didn't feel the same way about honesty. That was fine. Armageddon and the breakdown of known science wouldn't put him in the most trusting mood, either. Vandal glanced at the pile of meat. "I've killed… three of these things."
With just his body, it seemed. Punching and stomping just one Necromorph to oblivion was a feat. Sure, stasis made it easier, but it still wasn't a walk in the park. He was lucky none had been Twitchers, or he would've been the mess. Only a few proven blue-collar workers, like him and Vandal, were trusted with the CEC's rare portable stasis units, fortunately. Otherwise, the whole complex might've already been infected! Kinesis modules were somewhat more common; apparently less expensive to manipulate gravity than time. Didn't seem like the last Marker had much use for them (never met any telekinetic monsters), but maybe this one would be more creative.
"I call them Necromorphs," Curtis said. Other than liking the name, it was intrinsically good for people to know. He found that naming things made them a little more real. For example, merely knowing that Vandal was Vandal dampened the intimidation despite his voice filter. If they could be identified, then they could be stopped – that was one reason he named all the Necromorph phenotypes, in addition to specificity.
Seemed Vandal knew a thing or two about names, himself. "Means 'dead shapes', or something along those lines, in Latin, right?" Curtis nodded. "You sure figured out a lot since these things escaped," he added with a hint of suspicion. Again, not entirely unwarranted. Far more concerning was Vandal's choice of words.
"'Escaped?'" Were the Necromorphs down here for a long time, and something let them out?! That'd make sense, because he didn't think they could reproduce so quickly in a relatively brief span of time. It took a couple hours on the Ishimura for the infection to hit its stride, whereas here it'd been perhaps 30 minutes, and people sounded like they dropped left and right. What did Vandal know that he didn't? Before Curtis could ask, a bellow blasted down a nearby corridor, and the shadow of blades danced on the rock wall from a floodlight. More came.
"I'll explain later!" Fair enough!
"Well, I have one more fact for you, Vandal," Curtis said while cocking his Plasma Cutter. He'd find the man a suitable tool soon. "Aim for the limbs."
