Toxic (84 page)

"Get that thing away from me," the patient said once again, in English this time.

From then on, the human race had hope, the nurse thought. A fragile hope, but hope nonetheless.

"You speak our language, very good," she said.

Joana raised a hand.

"I'm thirsty."

The lab's doors opened brutally to reveal Richardson. At the head of several men, he rushed towards them.

"The aliens are coming! We have to go!"

"We can't transport her. She's barely just woken up," Elaine objected.

"That thing's friends," the man in charge of the site said, pointing his M4 at the reptilian. "they aren't bringing us any presents. They're coming to capture us."

As an echo of his words, the sputtering of a machine gun exploded outside.

The alien turned towards the nurse.

"He's not wrong, but you're not going to stop them with your weapons."

"Shut it, monster."

"We sabotaged the laboratory and the adjacent facilities. We're going to destroy everything so that they don't get their dirty hands on the antidote. You have the knowledge. We can start again elsewhere and you'll have other patients to take care of."

Elaine's gaze went from the unshaken reptilian to the terrorized face of the Roman and then back to the man in charge.

"I can't leave her."

"God dammit, Elaine. Now is not the time for feelings!"

He made a gesture as if to grab her, but she moved back.

"No! I'm staying here. The alien is right. We can't do anything against them."

Richardson looked at her for a brief moment and then turned towards his men.

"Take her! We'll need her."

"No!" she yelled, trying to flee.

The colossal men were already on her and dominated her in no time. The alien hadn't budged. Elaine was taken from the lab by force. She saw a vessel that resembled a giant beetle in front of the setting sun. The ship, identical to Jave's, was floating above the helicopter platform. Drones were attacking the positions held by the defenders of Site A, who were on the high points of the superstructures.

"Over here!" Richardson ordered, pointing to a staircase. "We need to get under cover."

In the second that followed, he received a bluish charge and fell towards the bottom of the stairs. Two other giants fell at Elaine's side, flattened in turn. The last of them exchanged a panicked glance with her. His gun in hand, he hesitated. Shooting wouldn't do any good, he realized. The nurse dragged him by the sleeve of his combat suit. They managed to take a few steps and then the man's eyes rolled back and a spark appeared at the base of his neck. He fell at her feet.

Elaine went down the stairs and stepped over Richardson's body. She ran in the hopes of escaping from pursuers all the well knowing that it was in vain. A drone whined above her head. She dove to the ground but the device flew straight ahead without shooting at her.

The crackling of automatic weapons diminished and then ceased.

Why didn't they shoot her?"

She felt a presence close by, she realized upon getting up. A few meters from her, a giant with a blue shell was standing. She then spotted a muzzle similar to that of a bear under a transparent visor. That wasn't Jave.

"You are the emissary's spy?" he asked in English with guttural accents.

She nodded.

"I'm officer Kuhn. You're coming with me."

W
as this paradise?

His vision cleared but his surroundings remained imprecise. Uniform and milky. That awoke a livid memory from not so long ago. Masters stood up with a jump and everything was clear. He understood exactly where he was: inside a perfect circle of three hundred meters in diameter topped off with a force field. It was like being an insect imprisoned under an insurmountable cup.

Back to step one, he told himself.

Just like the first time, he wasn't alone under the dome. He recognized the nurse. She was beside him. Almost smiling.

"Are you OK?"

"Elaine! You're alive!"

The colonel hugger her in his arms.

"You're alive..."

"I don't know for how much longer, but yes, I survived."

"I thought I would never see you again."

He grabbed her by the shoulders.

"What happened on the island the night you disappeared?"

"A long story, we'll talk about it later."

The group was reunited once again. That was unexpected. It also seemed to have grown, if he was to judge by the men sitting just beside the core. Unknown faces, tired for the most part. No women.

"I made new friends," Elaine explained.

"I see that."

With a nod of his head, he greeted Bruce, who joined them. Alison and Dewei smiled at him. Alva, laying on her side, was asleep.

"She's had a hard time," the biologist told him.

"Where's the Colombian? I don't see him."

"He didn't make it."

Masters gulped and closed his eyes, listening to Brue's summary.

"Those bastards killed him? If I ever find them again..."

And then he noticed a group to the side, an isolated trio that he recognized easily. Dan, the Reverend and another guy. He rushed at them.

"Colonel!" Elaine yelled, holding him back by the arm.

"I'm going to skin that bastard," he exclaimed, his fists clenched.

The nurse put her hand on his chest to force his to step back.

"Leave it be. It's not worth it."

"They took you, they killed Hector, they shot at me when I was trying to save you. Those psychos organized fights of humans against L-Ds..."

"I know all about it, colonel, I was there. They threw me into the pit. Look at me," Elaine said.

"So it was true?"

Elaine frowned. "Yes."

The worried face of a man emerged from Elaine's new group of friends. Deep down, he didn't like this change very much. The marine frowned when the man looked him over.

"Do you need help controlling him?"

"It's OK, Jon," Elaine declared. "Let me present you colonel Masters."

The man who had come out of nowhere extended a hand to him.

"I'm Jon Heiss."

Tense, Masters didn't take his eyes off the three men. An insult to his honor was only a few steps away.

"Killing each other won't be of any use, right?" the nurse responded.

He calmed down but kept his fist clenched.

"We have more numbers, so I doubt they will try to pick a fight with one of us," Elaine started again. "We would be better to concentrate on finding a way out of the dome."

"God damned sons of bitches," he mumbled, moving away.

Elaine's gaze followed the marine until he went back to his place.

"Is everything OK? Your friend looks like he's about to explode," Jon remarked.

"He's angry. Nothing more normal than that. We have to leave him be for a while. The wake up was hard for everyone. Hector was a good man."

She never would have thought she would say that about a drug trafficker.

"He was with the singer. That's why she's in such a state," she admitted, pointing to the diva.

"She'll get through it too. She's a fighter."

He looked skeptical, but in the middle of the ocean, she had demonstrated that she could overcome challenges.

"Go back to your men. You're their boss, considering we don't know what happened to Richardson. They're counting on you."

Jon raised his head towards the ceiling.

"They're likely cooking him right now."

The nurse doubted it. The fall down the stairs had probably killed him, but she wasn't sure.

She went back to Alison and Dew.

Seeing the both of them allowed her to put aside for a few moments the questions that she hadn't stopped asking herself since she had opened her eyes in that strange place. An intricate fog enveloped the chain of events that had brought all of these people here. When he woke up, Jon had vaguely remembered an ambush that had gone bad at Homestead.

Alison curled up against her. Dewei bobbed his head and gave her a timid signal of the hand. He had lost his notebook and could only communicate with movements.

"What's going to happen?"

"I don't know, my dear. For the moment, we're going to try to rest."

"So, we wait for them to kill us?"

The girl was talking about the aliens.

"I don't think they're going to kill us."

"If your alien promised you, why are they keeping us here? We don't even know where we are!"

She hugged the girl to her.

"I don't know what these beings have in mind. I only know that some of them were trying to save us."

"So, everything will be like before? I'll find my dad?"

The nurse responded to her with a worried silence.

She remembered Jave's words. He had been very clear.

The mercenaries on the logistics station were on combat alert. Jave was glad. His arrival couldn't have come at a better time.

While the troopers ran around trying to save a situation that had become catastrophic, he was able to devise a way to get to the initiation console for the planet scorcher. He waited for a few moments near the operations room airlock. On the main display, a multitude of shining dots shone near the fourth planet. The troopers whistled and moved around inside their virtual spheres flooded with information feeds.

A blue face sprung up between the tactical representation and himself.

"Emissary," the Sybarian greeted him, moving her pointed tail.

"Abza'n Nijtekt. What is the situation?"

"Very bad. We lost two tamers in the mines released by the poisoners. Their trick worked perfectly."

Of course
, the Lynian thought.

"The Primark?"

"On his way back. His ship was hit, but he survived."

Naakrit had solid scales, he told himself. In a litter of lizards, the saying went, there was always one as tough as leather, gifted with a particular resistance.

A movement attracted his attention. Two troopers approached him, their hands on their vibroblades, their faces serious.

"The Primark also gave instructions regarding you. You are to be placed in detention until his arrival. I'm sorry."

Jave remained calm. He yielded to the whistles of the two reptilians, who inspected him, searching for possible weapons under the stare of the blue-skinned female.

"You must know that this treatment will have consequences for commercial relations with the Combinate."

"As a mercenary, Emissary, I'm not paid to ask questions, but to follow the orders of my Primark."

"You know that he ordered officer Kjet to kill the abza'n Sarejt, right?" the Lynian then tried.

The news didn't seem to shake her. Either she already knew, or what they said about carnal fusion between Sybarian females was actually just fantasy.

Rumors were making their way around.

Under the dome, secretive meetings were multiplying among the groups of men. Many of them gave her funny looks. She could almost guess the subject of those muffled conversations: the nurse, or the traitor to the race who had made a pact with the monsters. Something like that, and probably with more and less offensive variants.

Beyond her original group, the people who spoke to her were rare. Jon was the exception, but his position as interim leader allowed him to justify himself to his men. If they were there, it was their fault, she had managed to hear while going to refill her water. In a certain way, they weren't completely wrong.

Where was Jave? And Jool? And the reptilian doctor?

Her alien "friends" had flown away, leaving her the bitter sensation of having been taken for a ride.

The milky lighting of the dome was uniform. There was no shade and not the least point of reference. They didn't even know if it was midnight or noon outside. To top it all off, they hadn't eaten anything. Their stomachs grumbled and with hunger came aggressiveness. At least they controlled the only water source, a faucet and a few plastic cups. Apparently, Jon had decided to not share the precious resource with what remained of the Reverend's troop. Maybe he wanted revenge.

They were still there. Humanity didn't learn anything.

Elaine got up and picked up her, Dewei's and Alison's cups and then went to the water source. Nobody got in her way because they didn't know what she had in mind. It was only when she had filled the recipients and walked towards the outcasts that the ranks became agitated. Jon intercepted her half way.

"Elaine, what the fuck are you doing?"

"You can see. I'm bringing them water. These guys are dying of thirst."

"I can't authorize that."

"Listen to me well, Jon. We won't get through this if we fight with one another. Do you understand?"

"Those bastards killed your Latino friend and two of my men at Homestead."

The nurse closed her eyes and then reopened them.

"I know. Now, let me pass."

After a moment during which he tried to convince her by putting on a tough look - an attitude that was doomed to fail - he stepped aside. "Watch out for those nuts. We did business with them; I know how they think."

"I know what I have to do."