Genetic Drift (23 page)

DAY 285

TIDES TURN

FORTRESS ENTRANCE

Ethen jumped out of the tree line and led the charge toward the door.  “What the hell is he doing?” Marcus asked as he ran out of the tree line.   The rest followed him and they ran to the fortress in a straight line.  Their course was unobstructed as Ethen approached the ramp.  His left foot landed on the ramp followed by his right continuing his stride.  The door to the fortress had been left open by Maddie and the others.  Ethen broke the threshold and stopped 20 feet into the hall.  He raised his gun and checked for Trolls in his sight.  Marcus soon followed and then the other soldiers.  Ben was the last one through the threshold and squeezed into the hall.

A blue glow formed in front of Ethen and he readied himself.  Marcus saw the glow as well and raised his gun.  A humming sound approached them as a blue orb hurtled through the air.  Ethen jumped to the right and Marcus to the left.  The soldier behind them did not react fast enough and as with most people without names in stories, he was hit by the blue orb and collapsed to the floor.  “Aim for the head,” Marcus hollered to the others.  Bullets started to fly toward the Troll and the glow disappeared.  Charles and another soldier ran up to the Troll and saw its head healing. 

Charles aimed his gun at the Troll’s head and fired.  The head chipped away with every bullet.  Once blue blood began to pour out onto the floor, Charles released his finger from the trigger.  “Piece of crap,” he said as he spat on the Troll.

A clicking sound on the metal floor was coming down the hall.  The other soldier had his back turned to the sound because he had positioned himself on the other side of the Troll.  The clicking stopped and a whistling sound was heard.  The soldier turned and a spike flung through his chest.  The spike opened and the line attached to it retracted.  The soldier was lifted from his feet and flew down the hall.  Charles could not see because of the dim lighting.  He did not know where to shoot and retreated back to Ethen and Marcus.  The clicking sound started again. 

“I don’t know what it is,” Charles told Ethen and Marcus.  They looked down the hall and could not see into the darkness.  The clicking sound stopped again.  The whistle was flying again and the spike followed right through Charles’ chest.  Ethen and Marcus watched as Charles’ arms flung to the side of his body.  The spike opened.  They grabbed Charles to prevent him from being pulled by the line attached to the spike.  The line began to retract and Ben and the other soldier grabbed Charles as well.  The line went taut and they held Charles in place.  The clicking sound started again and Ethen saw the figure appear from the darkness.  A faint outline began to form as it approached the light. 

“Is that a scorpion?” The soldier saw the outline as he struggled to maintain his hold on Charles.

The figure came into the light and its blue hue was the same as the Trolls.  It stood on four legs with one nail protruding from each of its feet.  It did not have a head but dark blue eyes were positioned on its body.  It had a tail just like a scorpion and the line attached to the spike originated from its tip.  The scorpion was pulling on the line but each pull dragged it closer to its spike and Charles. 

“Shoot it!” Marcus yelled to Ethen.  Ethen grabbed his gun and pointed it at the blue scorpion.  Shots rang out as the scorpion was hit.  It tried to turn and run away but its tail prevented it from fleeing.  Each shot hit the scorpion until Ethen had expended all of his bullets. 

“I’m out, you shoot!” Ethen shouted to Marcus.  Ethen grabbed Charles with both hands and Marcus reached for his gun.  As he aimed his gun, the scorpion jumped toward them.  Marcus pulled the trigger as the scorpion flew through the air.  The line from its tail was still taut.  Its mouth opened showing rows of sharp teeth.

The blue scorpion landed on Charles’ stomach and knocked him over.  Ben and the other soldier fell back with the impact.  The scorpion grabbed Charles and lifted him up.  The spike flew out of his chest and set back into the scorpion’s tail.  It turned toward Marcus and he shot it again.  It reared back its tail and flung it forward.  The spike shot out towards Marcus and barely missed, cutting him on his shoulder.  Ben shot the scorpion several more times and it fell to the ground. 

“Just die,” Ben said with every shot.  The blue scorpion lay on the floor. 

“Ben, Ben,” Marcus said as he wanted him to conserve his ammo now.  “It’s dead, Ben.” Ben stopped shooting his gun and placed it back in its holster.  He stepped on the scorpion in between its four dark blue eyes. 

“I’m getting pretty tired of this crap,” Ben said. 

“Me too,” Marcus said.  He bent over Charles and grabbed his gun.  “We need to take as much ammo as we can.”  He handed the gun to Ethen then started to pull clips from Charles’ belt. 

Only four of them remained.  Ben said, “At this rate, none of us are going to make it down the hall.”   Ethen looked down the hall and shook his head.

“You know what?  If that is the hardest thing we have to fight today, then we’re doing just fine.  We took down that Troll pretty easily,” Ethen said.  Ben hadn’t thought about how easy it was becoming to kill the Trolls, now that they knew that they had to prevent them from regenerating. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said to Ethen.  Ben started to walk down the hall toward the darkness.

The hall contained areas of darkness and dim light as Ben led the way.  Marcus decided that since he was the most experienced in the group, he would overtake Ben and be the lead.  Ben moved to the side as Marcus tapped his shoulder and nodded that he would move to the front.  After they passed a few patches of light, Marcus came to the end of the hall.  A wall stood in front of him with the choice of left or right.  To their left, light shone about 100 feet away.  Their right was well lit and contained the blue tubes running the distance of the hall. 

“Which way, Marcus?” Ben asked. 

“To the right, those blue lines will lead us to the Trolls,” Marcus told Ben. Marcus started to walk down the hall to the right. 

“What do you think we’ll find down there?” asked Ethen. 

“Last time I went down something like this, I found Maddie,” Marcus said as he kept his head facing forward.  The scars on his back began to burn as he relived the assault on the alien bunker.  Marcus led the group by following the blue lines of fluid.  They reached a doorway where the blue lines entered the wall.  “Do you see that?” Marcus pointed to the wall.  “Last time, that line went into a room with tables and vats and Maddie,” he said as he started to examine the door.

The door did not have a handle, latch, or any other type of physical opening device.  He tried the pad next to the door first and nothing happened.  Marcus pushed the door but it did not budge.  He started tapping the sides of the door to check for a way to enter the room.  All of his efforts failed and he was at a loss for ideas.  “Any of you want to try?” he asked the others. 

Ethen stepped up to the door, “I’ll take a crack at it,” he said.  Marcus moved to the side to let Ethen try to open the door.  He ran his hands along the flattened frame and tapped on the door just like Marcus had.  He lifted his hands up in surrender and told Marcus, “Same result as you.”

“Well, we can stare at this door all day or keep moving,” Ben said. 

“You’re right.  Marcus, you going to lead the way?” Ethen asked.  Marcus nodded and started to walk down the hall.  The others began to follow and then the door that they had attempted to enter quickly slid open.  Marcus, Ben, and Ethen hastily turned around and aimed their guns at the door.  The soldier following them faced the door.  Several blue rodents rushed toward the man. 

“Rats!” he screamed and began to shoot his gun.   They approached his legs and he began to high step.  With each landing of his foot, he crushed rodent after rodent.  The rodents began to pile and each step landed on the mix of flesh and blood rather than the floor.  He lost his footing and fell to the floor.  The blue rodents began to enter his clothing and he screamed in pain.  There were no more live rodents on the floor as they had all entered the soldier’s clothing.  He grabbed at his shirt and his pants in vain.  His body started to spasm and then stopped. 

Marcus realized that in his shock, he was watching more than acting and he ran to the soldier.  He grabbed the soldier’s foot but the rodents ran out of the pants leg every time the foot moved.  With his eyes half-shut, the soldier opened his mouth.  Marcus shifted to his head to listen.  As Marcus bent over the man, a blood-covered blue rodent climbed out of the soldier’s mouth.  Another rodent exited and then another. 

Marcus jumped back to avoid the onslaught of rodents and took his lighter out of his pocket.  Before any more rodents left the soldier, he bent over and flicked the lighter.  He quickly touched the flame to the soldier, starting with his hair and moving to his shirt.  The fire took and the flame started to build.  Marcus jumped back again to avoid the flames and the rodents.  A few rodents chased him but he squashed them before they could attack him.  Squeals emitted from the rodents as the soldier became engulfed in flames.  The rodents that fled from the fire were still ablaze and Marcus, Ethen, and Ben stepped on them as they tried to escape.

With the rodents either dispersed or dead, Marcus took a deep breath, shook off the disgust he felt at what he had just witnessed, and walked through the doorway.  The room was nothing like he remembered from the bunker.  There were no tables and there was no blood.  There were blue vats like the ones from the bunker but these were much larger.  Ethen walked around the vats seeing that they were empty.  Ben cautiously went through another row and saw some creatures still in their vats.  “Look at this,” he called to the other two.  Marcus and Ethen followed the sound of his voice and met him in front of a filled blue vat. 

“That thing is ugly,” Ethen said as he examined the blue creature residing in the vat.  It looked like a hybrid between a catfish and a beetle.  It had a defined head and tail like a fish but its body was sectioned by armor.  Small legs protruded from its underbelly.  It looked like an aquatic creature.  He leaned over to get a closer look and the creature lunged towards him but was stopped by the glass.  The creature’s mouth opened against the glass and sharp teeth extended from it.  It was rabidly trying to bite Ethen.  Ethen fell backwards as the sudden movement startled him.  Marcus grabbed his arm to prevent him from falling to the ground. 

“I don’t think it’s too much of a threat,” Marcus noted, “but we need to kill it before the Trolls release it.” 

“Yes we do.  How many vats do you think are in here?  How many creatures do you think that they released?” Ben asked.  Marcus shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know.  There are hundreds in here and most are empty,” Marcus said.

“If most of these vats are empty then everything that was in them is now released out there,” Ben replied.  Ethen shuddered at the thought of how many different creatures were running in the wild. 

“Still, how are we going to kill this one?” Ethen asked.

“I guess we break the glass,” Ben said.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Marcus said as he raised his gun. “You guys might want to take a step back.”  Ben and Ethen walked in between the vats behind Marcus.  Marcus aimed and pulled the trigger.  A large gunshot resonated through the room as the bullet hit the vat.  The bullet did not penetrate the glass but it did cause it to crack.  The crack was growing slowly as Marcus joined Ethen and Ben behind the empty vats.

The vat continued to crack until it burst.  The floor was flooded with the blue liquid and the beetle catfish gushed out with the fluid.  It was two-feet long and flopped around on the floor.  It righted itself as it landed on its little legs.  This one did not attack the three men after it noticed them.  It simply changed its path to travel unabated.  “Talk about things that I didn’t expect,” said Ethen as the creature walked away from them.

A shot rang out and a bullet struck the creature.  It stopped and turned around toward the shot.  Ben lowered his gun and the creature scurried towards him.  Marcus shot it as it walked in front of him and Ethen joined the barrage.  The creature slowed down but was still trying to reach Ben.  Ethen took a few steps and hovered over it.  He unleashed a fury of bullets into the creature until it stopped moving.  Then he crushed it with the heel of his boot.  “I knew you were going to do that,” Ethen reprimanded the creature as he stomped one last time.

“Let’s see if we can find anything else.  And while we’re at it, let’s try to conserve our ammo.  We don’t have an infinite supply,” Ben said, directing his voice to Ethen.  The three men explored the rest of the room.  There were only a couple of creatures left, no larger than the rodents.  They handled the small aliens with no problems.  Near the back of the room, Ethen noticed another doorway.  This doorway led to an ascending stairwell. 

“Hey guys, I think I found where we need to go next,” Ethen called out.  Marcus and Ben were close by and met Ethen within seconds. 

Marcus looked up the stairwell and said, “Now we enter the world of the unknown.” 

Ben looked up the stairwell and said, “Yep.”  He started to walk up the exceptionally large steps designed to accommodate the Trolls.

DAY 285

RHO
’S TURN

FORTRESS CHAMBERS

“Which way do we go?” 
Maddie asked
Rho
as they came to the end of the hall. 

“I do not know the structure, that is another reason that we need to find the interface,” Rho
replied.  Maddie looked to her left and then to her right.  Hope, Jay and Quill were standing behind her.  She saw some movement down the right hall then she looked to the left.  “I think this is a good way to go.  There are probably Trolls down the other way,” Maddie said as she clutched her orbitizer. 

“You don’t want to kill the aliens Maddie?” Quill asked in his raspy voice. 

“No, I want to avoid them and get to the computer interface,” she answered Quill.

Maddie started to walk down the hall to her left and hastened her pace as she thought of a Troll coming from the other hall.  The others were right behind with Quill continuing to bring up the back.  The hall was dark for the first stretch until they came to a corner lit by a blue bulb.  Maddie looked at the blue fluid flowing through the fixture.  There was only one way to go. Maddie turned right and went down another dark corridor.  She led the others to another blue bulb with a door across from it. 

“Should we go in here?”
she asked
Rho
. 

“Yes, we might find the computer interface in here,”
Rho
told her.  Maddie placed her hand on the pad next to the door.  The door slid into the wall and she peered inside. 

Seeing the room was unoccupied, Maddie took her first step into the space.  The area was well lit and she lowered her orbitizer because there was nothing hostile in the decent sized space.  It appeared to be a lounge of some sorts.  There were oversized booths and a bar with tall stools.  The room hadn’t been used in quite some time as seen by the thick layer of dust on the top of the bar. 

“We need to find where the computer interface is.  Touch everything and see if we can get its location,” Rho
told Maddie.  Maddie thought that
Rho
was being too pushy about this interface.

“Rho, we will get to the interface.  Are you planning something that you’re not letting me know?”
  Maddie asked

Rho
quickly replied,
“Maddie, I have told you what we need to do and our intentions are the same.  That is, to survive.” 
Maddie felt a little more guarded since
Rho
did not fully answer her question. 
Rho
sensed her apprehension.

“Maddie, if we do not reduce the queen mother’s army by something other than face-to-face combat then we are doomed,” Rho
said.  Maddie figured that she didn’t have any better choices.  She decided that
Rho
was still worth trusting.  If she died,
Rho
would die with her.

Maddie started to look around the lounge for anything to touch or help
Rho
find the computer interface.  Hope watched as Maddie placed her hands on everything and decided to do the same.  As Maddie slowly walked by the booths, she touched the back of the chairs, then the tables, then the chairs on the other side, and then the separator between the booths.  She waited for
Rho
to respond each time she touched something.
”That isn’t something we can use,”
Rho
would tell her with one item after another.  Hope did the same thing at the bar.  She watched Maddie.  Mirroring Maddie’s actions, she touched a stool and waited.  When Maddie moved to the next piece of the booths, Hope moved to another stool.  Hope didn’t know what she was trying to find but mimicked Maddie anyway.  Jay and Quill stood just inside the doorway.  Jay was watching Hope walk in front of the bar as Quill kept a vigilant watch of the hall. 

Maddie made her way to the end of the booths with no success.  Hope walked to the end of the bar and did not get any reaction from the stools that she was touching.  Maddie walked to the center of the lounge, “Nothing over there.”  Her lips shifted to the side and her nose crinkled as a look of consternation displayed on her face. 

Jay saw Maddie’s face but his gaze soon shifted to Hope, who was climbing over the bar.  There were dust-covered dark steins sitting under the lip of the bar.  She wiped her hands on her jeans after touching each stein. “Gross,” she called out each time she retracted her hand from a glass.

Hope slid off of the bar and onto the preparation area.  The black rock of the bar top glistened as her clothes wiped away the remnants of dust from its center.  She jumped down to the floor.  Jay walked over and went through the side entry to the bar.  He stood next to Hope, “There was an easier way to get here, ya know?”  Hope squinted at the three cabinet doors running along the bottom of the bar. 

“But not as fun,” she told him as she bent over to open the cabinets. 

She opened every cabinet, one by one.  The first cabinet contained more steins cradled in the shelving.  Not happy with her first selection, she slowly opened the second cabinet anticipating something worth seeing and there was nothing.  Disappointed, she swung the third cabinet door open and saw something that seemed out of place.  She bent over to pick it up and when she touched it, she froze.  “Hope, Hope,” Jay nudged her to get her attention.  Hope didn’t react.  “Hope, stop messing around.” Jay straightened Hope from her hunched over position and her body reacted to his adjustments like a poseable doll.

Hope’s eyes were sealed shut as she held a small glowing tube in her clutches.  Jay transferred his grasp from her torso to her hands and began to peel away her fingers.  Maddie rushed in to help as Jay loosened Hope’s grip on the tube.  Maddie grabbed the tube and froze just like Hope.

An image filled her mind as her hand connected with the tube.  The image looked like a Troll but it was a light brown color with a smaller nose and the lower lip was in a normal position.  Maddie thought that this had to be one of the aliens.  Then a voice entered her mind:

I am Theta.  Welcome to our new world.  This is one of the many Introduction Transfers that I have designed to assist you in your new life.  You have been injected with specially designed nanocytes that will heal you as your body decays through time.  As a cell dies in your body, the nanocyte will locate it and assume its function.

Why can you hear this?  The nanocytes, of course.  Not only are they designed to heal dead cells but they are also used to communicate with your fellow Syrsyrians and the electronics that were made before we escaped, like the ones on board this craft.  You are filled with a finite amount of nanocytes.  As each one is used, it will not be replaced.  That is why it is very important for you to recharge or consume more of the amino bath that you have been resting in all these years.

Well, my fellow Syrsyrian, welcome to our new world and I hope that you enjoy life as it was meant to be.

Images of an alien world flashed in Maddie’s mind and then stopped.

Maddie slowly opened her eyes and saw Jay holding the tube.  Hope, still reeling from her experience, asked Maddie, “Did you see that?”  Maddie put her metallic hand behind her head and scratched it.

“Yeah, I saw it,” she said.  Jay wasn’t seeing anything.

“Okay, I’ll play your game.  What was it?” he asked.  Hope stood up on her own.

“It was really cool. This alien guy said that we are filled with nanocytes and that is why we can heal ourselves,” she said as she faced Jay. “And then I saw pictures of some strange places.” 

Maddie added, “They were images of the alien planet.”  Jay held the tube up to his face expecting something to happen. 

“You’re not going to see anything, you doof,” Hope told him, “you have to have the nanocytes in you.”  Jay grimaced and put the tube on the bar.

“Something’s coming,” Quill shouted in a hushed whisper.  Maddie, Hope, and Jay all looked toward Quill.  He was waving to come toward the wall in order to be less exposed.  They rushed to the wall and Maddie took position behind Quill while Hope and Jay stood on the opposite side of the doorway. 

“Maddie, don’t let the crazy one kill it.  We need allies.  Hope and Kappa can ask it to join us first,”
Rho
told Maddie.  Maddie looked over toward Hope and Hope returned a glance.  Maddie nodded and Hope nodded back.  Hope understood that it was her time to do the same as Maddie had done to her. 

“Now don’t go killing it when you see it,” Maddie whispered to Quill.

“And let it kill me first?  I don’t think so,” Quill shot back and Maddie rolled her eyes.

“Do you want to fight every one of these things by yourself or do you want help?” she asked.  Quill pondered killing all of the Trolls himself, but realized that having someone to do it with would be much more enjoyable. 

“Fine, but don’t think that I won’t kill it if it tries to attack me,” Quill informed Maddie.

They waited by the door as the slow footsteps grew louder.  Quill had his blade ready to slice anything that showed its face, or any other body part.  Hope was also ready.  Her hand was by her side while she rolled her fingers, prepared to touch anything that came close.  The footsteps stopped in front of the door.  Hope was ready to lunge.  One more footstep landed and Hope saw her chance.  One leg had entered the doorway.  She curled her lips at the sight of the disgusting appendage but didn’t let her disgust stop her and she jumped. 

She grabbed the Troll’s leg.  It stopped walking and Hope maintained her grasp.  There was a transaction in process between Hope and the Troll but it did not stop Quill from worrying.  The Troll was standing in front of him.  “It would be so easy right now,” Quill said as he raised his blade next to the Troll’s head.  “It would be so easy to just get rid of you,” he turned his blade, reflecting the light from the lounge. 

“Stop it Quill.  Let Hope do this,” Maddie whispered.  Quill huffed and lowered his blade but kept a tight grip on the hilt.

Hope let go of the Troll’s leg.  She came to her feet and the Troll just stood there.  Quill was still ready to strike at the slightest movement.  “It wants to speak with
Rho
,” Hope said as she straightened herself out. 

“
Let’s introduce Rho,”
Maddie said, and let
Rho
know to prepare itself.  She walked around Quill to the Troll, putting herself between the two.  She extended her hand and touched the Troll. 

I am Rho.

Another voice entered Maddie’s head.

Rho, the queen mother has given the directives that most have followed.  You might think that we are all drones incapable of making our own choices but you are sadly mistaken.  Not all of us have consumed our vessels without remorse.  Their memories are no longer theirs but they are not forgotten.

Maddie listened to
Rho
’s reply.

Being, the queen mother attacks without remorse and smothers any type of individuality.  If the queen mother continues with the current directives, we will all perish.  We will no longer have a sense of self.  We could have easily lived side-by-side with the humans but the queen mother decided to eliminate them.  Why would the queen mother think any differently about us, as individuals?

The other voice responded without hesitation.

Maybe you misunderstand me.  I am going to join you against the queen mother.  But I am not doing it to help you.  I am doing it for me.  I want you to understand that we do not mindlessly follow the queen mother.  Given no other options, the queen mother’s lead is all we have.  Rather than telling others to fight against it, perhaps the strategy would be to join you in order to have a life similar to the vessels before they were assimilated by the queen mother.

Rho
responded.

Very well, I have considered your advice and with this new information, it is valid.  I must find the computer interface to convince others to join us.

The other voice was quick to reply.

Follow me and I will lead you to where you want to go.

Maddie’s hand released the Troll and she immediately turned to Quill.  “He is going to help us,” she said as she pushed her open hand toward his blade.  Quill lowered the weapon as the Troll turned around. 

“How do you know that he is not setting us up?” Quill asked. 

“How do you know he is not going to help us?” Maddie snapped back.  She told Quill, “You can either stay here and do nothing or you can follow it to where we need to go.  Either way, Quill, I don’t care what you do.  I’ve had enough of this ‘everything is going to kill me’ mentality of yours.”  Maddie turned around and walked out of the door.  Hope and Jay were already following the Troll.  Quill stood in place to think about what Maddie had said. 

“I am always ready for something to go wrong,” he muttered as he followed them out of the door.