Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
EDDIE
Jett crossed the Control Room, his boots scraping over the floor. He slowed, stopped at the door, and turned back. Eddie watched, knowing that Jett would take Eddie’s heart with him.
Eddie stood on his podium, tabs of scrolling data surrounding him, but Jett was the only thing on his mind as their eyes locked.
No matter what the man had said, no matter how fervent his words and promises, Eddie was afraid that he would never see Jett again.
Never see those eyes, that smile, hear his deep, gruff voice whisper sweet nothings against his skin.
Jett smiled that crooked, almost-smirk that unnerved everyone but Eddie.
He was confident in himself, in his experience as a soldier.
He was in his element. And he’d already escaped death at least once.
A moment passed. Then another. The smirk grew on Jett’s beautiful face, and Eddie could almost hear him laugh. Then a voice pulled his attention away from Eddie and he stepped through the door.
Something sank in Eddie’s gut, pressure built in his chest, and a headache formed behind his eyes as the door to the Control Room slid shut. Too many moments lately had felt like they were the final one. The final chance for them to be together.
Another had just passed.
Eddie counted down the seconds as he stared at the door, waiting for the buzz and the sparkle to make themselves known.
When the Song started, it was softer than before.
Just a gentle rise in volume from the background noise.
It crackled and sparkled and one star shrieked before it all settled down once more into the ever-present hum of life.
Eddie turned back to his tabs, his data, the reports from the tail-end of the evacuation, the lists of missing and dead.
So many people—passengers, residents, crew—had failed to arrive at their designated lifeboats in the allotted time and been left behind.
The list of presumed-missing and dead filled one whole tab, endlessly scrolling, the number slowly ticking up as crew lifeboats left.
Three hundred and fifty thousand.
And the number kept rising. Not as fast, or in as great jumps as it had over the last three days, but still it rose.
And with it rose a sense that Eddie should have done something, could have stopped some of those people from whatever horrible fate waited for them.
But he had no idea what he could’ve done, or if Augustus would have done better.
Not for the first time he regretted every action, every decision, that led to him being the Captain of the Neo-Tokyo.
“Sir?”
Eddie looked up and met the face of a Tech Officer sitting across the room from him. His thoughts had continued their earlier spiral. It was becoming a nuisance. “Captain, Officer Wort has made it to Engineering.”
Eddie’s hackles still rose when someone called him that. He pushed those thoughts to the side and pulled up Ollie’s bodycam and feed. A hum blossomed in his hearing as he did, a deep ache in the base of Eddie’s skull, twisting, looping around his spine.
“What is the status of Engineering?”
The scream of a dying star faded in and out of his hearing.
“We arrived with only minor inconveniences. There was a horde of Affected crowding one of the doors and we had to wade through them.”
Eddie clenched his jaw. “Did any of them attack?”
“No, these were the inert kind.”
Violent conflicts with the more active Affected grew more common as time passed.
There was no discernible pattern to their behavior: sometimes they reacted to the presence of others, sometimes they didn’t.
Sometimes they attacked, sometimes they collected the bodies of their own and stacked them neatly against buildings, in parks, in stairwells, places out of the way, yet also accessible.
No two seemed to react to any stimulus in the same way.
“And Engineering is full of them.” Ollie’s voice was darker than usual, closer to a growl. “Just standing there, creepy as shit.”
Eddie focused on the bodycam image. Dozens of Affected stood still, arms hanging limp at their sides, throughout the maze that was Engineering.
“Have any of them perceived you yet?”
“Not sure. If they have they haven’t reacted.” The camera swayed, moved forward, surveying the room. “There’s five of us and…oh, fuck!” Ollie’s voice cracked as he yelled.
“What is wrong, Wort?”
There was a delay before Ollie responded. “Michi’s down here,” he said, voice small and broken.
Eddie blinked, trying to figure out who Ollie was talking about. He ran through the list of people he knew through Jett, and the people on the Golden Lion mission before he landed on the most likely. “Takeuchi?”
A star sang in his ears.
A vision of Michi Takeuchi’s face hovered before him as if he was half in and half out of consciousness.
Where her eyes once were was now a mess of gore: chunks leaking out of the empty sockets, one optical nerve dangling down her cheek.
Bloodstains marred her face, her neck. Blood and gore had soaked into the collar of her red shirt, tinting it black; it crusted her ears, her silver-dyed hair.
Blood oozed from scrapes and cuts, seeped from the cuffs of her shirt to drop from gore-covered fingertips.
The image faded from his mind and no time seemed to have passed around Eddie. The rich taste of blood and viscera filled his mouth, coating his tongue. Copper and sweet decay filled his nose. He coughed to clear the taste and stench,
“Ollie, avoid Takeuchi if at all possible.” His voice sounded weak to his own ears.
“But sh—”
“Stand down, Ollie. She is Affected.” Eddie put every ounce of command into his voice that he could muster in that moment, tired and drawn thin as he was. “There is nothing we can do for her.”
The earliest Affected people had shown no interest in or recognition of their family or friends.
And an experiment in taking those same Affected away from the Neo-Tokyo had shown no change in their state.
Once whatever it was had a hold of them, they were lost, barely alive, if the state could be considered living.
They didn’t have time to do further testing, evacuating everyone before the affliction spread was more important.
“You don’t know that,” Ollie growled. Eddie watched him take another couple of steps toward his friend. He must be in denial about Takeuchi’s presence here, amongst the rest of the Affected.
“I said stand down, Head of Security. That is an order from your Captain.” A few people turned to look at Eddie. Cosma shifted on the floor beside the platform.
A sharp intake of breath and a muttered “bastard” were all Eddie got in response. Eddie knew what he thought, but there wasn’t time now to argue or to mourn.
Ollie continued approaching Takeuchi.
“Michi?” His voice had returned to its normal playfulness, though softer, as if he were wooing an animal or child.
“Is that you, Michi?” His gloved hand appeared in the video, reaching for her shoulder.
He turned her and Eddie closed his eyes against the gore.
He knew it would be worse than his vision had shown, worse than what was still imprinted behind his eyes.
A strangled yelp cut through comms as Ollie saw the damage she’d done to herself, the blood still trickling out of her wounds, the swinging nerve. He backed away.
“H-help.”
The words came out strangled, as if her throat were clogged, filled with blood, or she had no tongue and couldn’t properly form the word.
“Michi?” Ollie backed away from her, his voice breaking on her name.
“Hel-lp. H-help.”
The gargling was worse, thicker, it twisted Eddie’s stomach and he wasn’t even standing in the same room as her. She retched, blood poured out of her mouth, sprayed onto the floor in front of her. It was too dark, congealed; chunks of something hit the floor and Ollie with wet slaps.
She repeated the word over and over as Ollie backed away.
“Stone, has anyone else had an Affected speak to them?” Panic laced his voice, as thick as the blood dripping down Michi’s lips and chin.
Eddie turned to a pair of Officers manning communications. “Have there been any reports of Affected speaking directly to someone?”
A white-haired woman turned to him and shook her head. “We have had reports of people hearing voices in their presence, but not of Affected speaking directly. They say the words seem to come from around them.”
He nodded. “No. Are you certain that she is saying the words?”
Ollie’s cam panned up to Takeuchi’s face. Her bloodstained lips did not move as she uttered another gulping, gasping, horrible, “H-help.”
Crash.
Clank.
Buzz.
Eddie was struck by a sudden impression: the voice was a lure. It came from the same source as the sickness that turned people into the Affected. It drew in victims, adding to the legions of animated corpses that clogged the streets and the stacks of bodies along the margins of the city.
“Get out of there! It’s a trap!”
Michi Takeuchi, or the body that once housed her, launched itself at Ollie. Darkness filled the feed, followed by the hurried sounds of rifle shots and screams. When the image was restored, it moved too fast for Eddie to clearly follow.
Silence fell.
The feed settled on the ceiling far above Ollie’s body.
“Ollie?”
No response. Beside him, Cosma stared at the screen. Eddie patched her into the feed and gestured with a hand.
“Ollie? It’s Cosma. Are you there?”
A few seconds of static passed.
“Fuck! Yeah, I’m here. Shit. They jumped us all at once.” The cam shifted as he sat up. It panned over dozens of bodies crumpled on the floor. “I think we lost Rose and Garde.”
Ollie called for his team to check in. Rose and Garde did not check in and Aert confirmed that they were dead.
A ping grabbed Eddie’s attention. He turned to Cosma. “Keep an eye on this?” She nodded and Eddie changed the channel.
“Can you hear me?” Jett’s voice was always higher in comms than in real life, a quirk that Eddie didn’t understand.
“Yes,” he breathed into the headset, happy for the distraction, for the reminder of their connection.
“Good, we had problems calling a tram, so we climbed down to the streets.”
Eddie pulled up Jett’s bodycam on another tab and was hit by a wave of déjà vu as he watched him descend a long stairwell. “Be careful,” he begged.
“I told you not to worry, Ed. This is what I do. I’ll check in when I have something to report.”
Eddie’s earlier premonition of impending doom strengthened as he recalled the Golden Lion, their first encounter with the Affected there, the visions that grew stronger, watching Jett die on that stretcher.
“Ollie made it to Engineering,” he said, hoping that Jett was still on the line.
“And?”
“We have learned that something is projecting voices to draw people in toward the active Affected.” He took a deep breath, unsure how Jett would respond to the information.
“Michi Takeuchi was in Engineering and she attacked Ollie after asking for help several times. I heard her ask but her mouth was not moving. Then I got the impression that she was a lure and would attack.” He didn’t mention the state that the team found her in.
“Fuck.” Jett didn’t say anything further for a few moments. “That’s just another name to add to the list. Shit. The bastard who started this is going to be on the receiving end of my knife before this day ends.”
Eddie was glad that the tone Jett used was not directed toward him.
“Do you have anything to report other than the trams and the Affected?”
“Nothing. We haven’t been attacked yet, but we stopped by a cache and restocked on batteries and supplies.” He called out to someone, the words garbled as the buzz distracted Eddie. “Did you say you had another vision?”
“Yes, I saw that Michi was Affected before Ollie approached her. And then the impression that she was a lure.”
“Have you had any others since I left?”
“None. I have heard the Song, but it is quieter than normal while we are separated.”
Eddie focused on the bodycam, on the clack of metal under boots. Around him the Bridge continued and inside of him the Song swelled.
Crash.
Sparkle.
Scream.
A building loomed. neon lights flickered once then went dark.
Dark shapes huddled against walls, crowded a cavernous room, draped themselves over the bar.
Eddie staggered, words caught in his throat. He’d prepared himself for the vision, but it was stronger than the earlier one.
Buzz.
Living.
Dead.
Human.
Affected.
Iron filled Eddie’s senses. A shiver climbed his spine.
Clank.
He braced himself against a panel, hoping it wouldn’t crumble under his weight.
Thump.
A heartbeat.
Thump. Thump.
Blood rushed through veins, carried fear, triumph, worship.
Something fed on life, on blood, on flesh, on essence.
Greedy for more.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A flitting, floating figure hovered nearby.
Darkness, sparkling stars, hunger.
A sense of hunger lingered as the vision faded. Eddie heard voices around him, but he was too addled to decipher them.
A muffled “Eddie?” mixed with a concerned, “Captain?”
Eddie pressed his hands to the sides of his head. Slowly everything cleared, but the afterimage of the building remained, tickling a part of Eddie’s mind, but he couldn’t summon the memory it belonged to. There was an impression of music, of hot skin under his hands, but nothing more.
“Whoever started this is definitely in District 3,” he finally said, choking on the words at first. “And there are more than one. Two beings and one human.” His voice echoed in the room. He didn’t know how to describe the flitting, floating figure, or the thing that fed on life.
“Did you see them?” Jett’s voice, heavy with concern.
“I saw a building and watched the lights flicker off. Inside were Affected like in the Atrium of the Golden Lion. The rest I sensed.”
“Did you recognize the building?”
“Yes, but I cannot remember where it is.” Eddie paused, reflected on the images of the bar and the large, open room. “I think it is a club though, one we went to together.”
Jett hummed on the other end. “That narrows it down a bit. I’ll work with that unless you come up with something else.”
Eddie looked around the room. None of the officers present were paying obvious attention to him, though some of them let their fingers rest too long on their tabs, seemed too focused on something besides their work.
He wondered how many people would report him to Quasar for unpredictable behavior after this.
“I’ll call back when we are closer to D3. Or something happens.”
The line went silent.