Sunshine (4 page)

“I need you to lock it!” Kyung screamed.

The computer clicked in at the same time the creature slammed into the door. “Done, Miss Kyung.”

“Where is the power conduit?” she asked. “The tunnel?”

“Fifty meters ahead, five meters off the floor.”

Kyung couldn’t believe what she had heard. “What? Five meters where?”

“Off the floor, Miss Kyung. In the middle of the far wall.”

“My fucking legs don’t work!” she screamed. “How am I supposed to climb a goddamn wall?!”

By now the thing had been joined by others, and Kyung thanked God the maintenance door was solid steel, thick, so that it looked like it would withstand more punishment than the glass ones had. Still, they slammed into it over and over. Kyung stared, transfixed by the fact that tiny cracks had begun to appear in the concrete surrounding the frame, before she turned and looked around.

It was an underground power substation. Her skin tingled, electrified by the potential in the air, as huge transformers hummed and switched her faceplate from normal to infrared, the power equipment showing in bright white, making it hard to see. But near the transformers, a narrow set of metal stairs rose to a catwalk, which turned around the far side of the substation and disappeared behind it.

Kyung started for the stairs. She flipped onto her back to watch the door as she moved, her carbine unslung now and dragging beside her so she could grab it more easily.

“I’m almost through the encryption, Miss Kyung,” the computer said.

“I don’t care about the damned encryption.”

Somehow, at that moment, the computer managed to sound insulted. “Oh. Perhaps I should stop?”

“No,” Kyung said, her breath coming in gasps now, limbs running on adrenaline. “Keep working on it, and deactivate my infrared vision; it’s in the way. I found some stairs, and I’m trying to get up to the tunnel.”

Pain threatened to end everything. Kyung’s breath came in hisses and each bump of the stairs felt like explosions, sending billions of needles throughout her legs, and she fought the urge to stop and black out, the loss of blood now making her feel weaker with each movement. Her last bolus of medication was tailing off, useless legs leaving twin blood trails as she pulled herself upward. Finally she was up. Kyung reached the catwalk and wanted to stop, to rest for a moment, but she saw the door shake in its frame while clumps of concrete clattered to the floor. She dragged herself as fast as she could and rounded the corner, getting her first glimpse of the tunnel.

Four major power conduits emerged from a rock wall, their lines about half a meter thick before branching into smaller ones at steel towers, and between them Kyung saw her exit: a narrow space barely large enough to fit her body. Beyond the opening was total darkness. Kyung shivered at the sight and then winced when a wave of agony washed upward, making everything go dark for a moment before she clenched down on her cheeks so hard that she tasted blood.

A short stepladder led upward to the space, and she cursed at it silently, wondering as she pulled herself backward if she’d be able to make it. “I’m here,” Kyung said, her back resting against the ladder.

“Well done, Miss Kyung. Power at thirty percent.”

“Listen to me. I’m losing blood again. Is there anything you can do?”

“No, Miss Kyung, and judging from your vital signs, it appears that soon you will go into shock. I would suggest stopping to administer a tourniquet.”

Kyung had worked her way onto the first step when she heard a loud crack and the steel door groaned as both it and the frame began to dislodge from the wall itself; she reached the tunnel, dragging herself into its darkness at the same time the door slammed to the floor below. The things howled. She gave three last pushes, moving about ten meters deeper into the tunnel before stopping to lift the carbine, resting the weapon on her chest so she had to lift her head to aim, pointing the barrel between her feet.

“I need light amplification,” Kyung said.

Instantly the tunnel became visible, along with her legs; it was the first time she had allowed herself a close look. Shattered ceramic encased both of them so they looked like a pair of sausages that had been mixed with splinters of wood, and she tried to figure out which splinters were her leg bones and which were ceramic before the computer chimed in, breaking the trance.

“Movement, Miss Kyung. Multiple targets approaching the tunnel entrance.”

Kyung tried to slow her breathing until the reticle steadied. “How many?”

“The number keeps changing, Miss. At least a hundred, but more are moving in range, and I—”

The first one leaped into the tunnel as the computer spoke, and Kyung opened fire, her screams competing with the noise of snapping fléchettes and the dog-thing’s howl. Another one came, then another, until finally the three blocked the tunnel, their bodies lodged on top of each other.

“…But that shouldn’t be a problem,” her computer finished. Kyung didn’t bother to ask it to repeat what she had missed and continued moving backward, not knowing how long she’d have before needing to open fire again; the others were already tearing up the corpses of their brothers, trying to remove the blockage.

“I’m not going to make it,” she hissed.

The computer tried to cheer her up. “Statistically it’s unlikely, but in actuality your odds have not decreased much since the last I checked. Would you like to know them?”

Kyung didn’t have the strength to shout. “No,” she whispered.

“Here they come, Miss.”

She had moved another twenty meters so that by now Kyung saw everything in green, the tunnel completely dark except for small patches of light from where she had entered. Whatever came now was different. The things weren’t large, and at first Kyung thought a couple of pups had come after her, but then they got close enough for her to see.
Babies.
An army of infants, their gurgles coming clearly through her helmet pickups, crawled toward her with smiles, each of them connected to the others by a string so thin that Kyung almost didn’t pick it up.

“Those aren’t children,” the computer said.

Kyung lifted her carbine and aimed, but the reticle trembled on her heads-up display. “I know.”

“Five meters. Open fire, Miss Kyung.”

“I know they’re not babies.” Now she was crying again. It seemed unlikely that Kyung would make it; why did she try so hard in the first place? A few hours ago and she could have let the suit administer a lethal dose of painkillers to put her asleep, wrapped in a cocoon of narcotics so that one of the dog-things could have gnawed her leg off and Kyung wouldn’t have woken up. If she had only fallen headfirst through that shaft, it would have been over even sooner.
Why?
she wondered. What point was there in making it all unfold like this so that Kyung would almost escape, only to be forced to experience the end firsthand, to watch them bite and bite until finally it was over?

“Three meters,” the computer said. “Open fire, Miss.”

And she did. This time the things fused into two animals, and both of them died horrifically, screaming and flailing in the tight space, their limbs pounding against the power conduits to make a deep drumming sound.

“I’ve got it, Miss Kyung,” said the computer.

Kyung had already started moving, but she went slowly now, the last of her strength fading, and she was surprised to find her fear disappearing too. Everything was slipping away until eventually she thought it might not be so bad. Dying.

“I broke the codes, Miss Kyung,” the computer insisted. “It was very difficult. There were, in fact, several layers of encryption, and the data—”

This time the things didn’t bother to try subterfuge. Three of them howled and pushed their way through the bodies so that all she saw were sets of teeth so huge that Kyung could make out the saliva dripping from each one. She fired. Her arm felt like lead, and Kyung didn’t know if she was aiming in the right direction, but she kept her finger squeezed tight on the trigger and waved the barrel back and forth, almost not noticing it when a fléchette slammed through her right foot. A second later she ran out of ammunition, but the creatures were dead.

“What data?” she whispered. “Who cares about your data?”

The computer sounded surprised. “Miss Kyung! I think you might want to use it. I found one phrase that identifies you as a friend, someone who the creatures aren’t supposed to attack, and it would probably be a good idea to at least try it.”

“What are they supposed to eat?” she asked. Kyung started laughing, finding it suddenly hard to concentrate, and the rock floor began to feel warm. So warm, she thought. Like Pusan in the summer when the hot winds blew in from the north and everything was dry…

“Excuse me, Miss?”

“These things, what do they eat? They couldn’t have been designed to eat people; there wouldn’t have been enough corpses to feed all of them for however long the production line has been on. It’s so funny—all of it.”

The computer paused for a moment before answering, “Complex proteins, Miss Kyung. Synthesized by Samsung. The fact that their own proteins are extremely long and elastic means that the Sunshine organisms have unusual requirements when it comes to amino acids, but as a backup they have also been designed to consume animal flesh, including that of humans. Probably after winning a battle.”

Kyung laughed. It should have made her vomit, the thought of these things standing over their foes on a battlefield and cracking Chinese armor to lean over and feed, pausing every once in a while to howl. But it didn’t. Nothing bothered her now, and she was surprised to find that she had stopped moving.

“Miss Kyung!” the computer shouted.

“What?”

“They’re coming again. Ten meters.”

“You do it,” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

Kyung grinned and closed her eyes so she could rest for a minute. “You tell them I’m their friend. Ask their doctors to operate on me, and when I’m awake, I’d like them to bring me come champagne and some noodles. And fish.”

Kyung opened her eyes for just a moment, aware that the computer was saying something over her external speakers, but she couldn’t understand the words, which mixed with numbers and nonsense so that she thought she laughed again but couldn’t be sure because the edges of her vision faded into a dark fuzz, her hearing muffled. She thought one of them stood over her, its face close to her helmet. The thing drooled, baring multiple rows of shiny black teeth, but then it shifted, its head melting into a nebulous globe of dark skin before transforming into the face of a Unified Korean officer, a captain, who smiled at her and said something like, “We wondered when someone would come, the food is almost gone.” And then, the last thing she remembered, Kyung felt something dragging her back from where she had come, back to the facility, and she smiled at the thought of her bones being added to the pile. The Chinese were on Koryo, she knew, but who cared? It didn’t matter anymore.

Kyung woke with a scream; her legs felt like they were on fire, and her eyes barely opened in the bright light that now surrounded her.

“Take it easy, Miss Kyung,” someone said.

Kyung’s eyes finally focused, and she saw a doctor standing over her; he wore the green overcoat of Unified Korean forces. “Where am I?” she asked.

“Field hospital. We owe you and Samsung a lot, Miss. Your company will be sending for you soon.”

“Where is my armor?” she asked. “It’s a prototype. I’m not supposed to let it out of my sight.” What was wrong with her, she thought, the first thing she asked about was
her armor
? But the fact was that she didn’t care about its secrets or keeping them safe anymore, the fact was that she
missed
the computer, wanted to hear its voice to make sure that she was actually speaking with a human doctor. How could she trust anything now that she had seen those
things
? Her computer was the only safe bet because it was synthetic, and it would tell her the truth when the entire world could be a shape-shifting lie.

“We have it outside. What an incredible system! When we first found you, we thought it was the suit occupant; it scared the hell out of me when I first opened your helmet. I’m still not used to combat suits with integrated, fully aware synthetics. I’ll go get it.”

“Who brought me out of the underground facility?”

The doctor looked away. “I think it’s better if we don’t talk about that particular aspect of your rescue, Miss. The general was clear that anyone who had contact with
them
was to keep their mouths shut and speak to nobody. Samsung made it clear too. I will say that your suit computer kept those things from attacking our boys, and Command was shocked to receive communications from a facility that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.”

Kyung laughed at that, but the effort made her nauseous. The doctor left and returned a minute later with her suit, leaning it against her bed, then taking a few minutes to help attach the headset. “There you go, Miss Kyung,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it. We gave your suit a new set of fuel cells; it was almost out when we found you.”

She waited until the doctor had left and glanced around to make sure she was alone. “Computer,” Kyung said.

“I’m glad to see that you’re alive, Miss. It was touch and go for a while. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you what happened after you went unconscious, but Samsung gave me orders. I already wiped that section of my memory. You should know that the doctors had to amputate both your legs, but don’t worry; Samsung indicated they intend to give you new ones, better than before.”

“You’re in touch with corporate?” she asked.

The computer sounded excited. “Yes, Miss. Now that we’re inside UK lines, I have full communications capabilities and was able to route through their systems.”

Kyung thought for a minute, not even worried about her legs.
She was alive!
But the memory wipe bothered her. What would Samsung do now that its secret was out? She imagined John going into damage control mode, calling in every marker and using every piece of information he had to threaten, bribe, or beg for the company executives to handle it his way, to arrange for her murder and total silence.