Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
JETT
Neon lights flickered off pools of blood in the streets of Neo-Tokyo.
“How many are dead now?”
Jett looked back at his people. Ten of them had come down and now eight followed behind him. They limped, held arms to their sides, and supported each other as they walked. Two of them were now corpses, their blood swelling the puddles beneath their feet.
“Too many,” Jett responded. He didn’t want to think about the three attacks that they’d endured already in the hour that they’d been down on the streets.
“You should evacuate.” Eddie’s voice was insistent, had been insistent the last two times he suggested they just evacuate. “I’m going to blow the ship anyways.”
Jett sighed. “Ed, we know this happened because someone from the Golden Lion made it to the Neo-Tokyo. If that someone is still here, I’m fucking killing them.” A shallow breath came out as a sigh. “We can’t let this spread.”
And I’m not leaving without you, Jett thought to himself.
A moment passed in silence. Then another.
Jett gritted his teeth as he spotted another crowd of Affected.
They stood in concentric circles, limbs dangling at their sides or held to the roof in adoration.
The larger the group, the more likely there were active ones among them.
The larger the group, the more likely that Jett’s team was going to get attacked again.
In the distance, dark star-scrapers signaled the boundaries of District 3 and the lack of power there. Jett wondered if he would still be able to contact Eddie when he got there.
“What am I supposed to do if you die?” His voice was softer than usual, more emotive.
Jett groaned internally, wishing that Eddie hadn’t said that. “I told you before, I’m not dyin’ down here.” A little of his old Charon accent slipped out, rough and slurred. “Don’t say that shit. Don’t even think it.”
“How can I not? I am watching everything, Jett. Everything.” He made a small sound, a sigh or sob barely audible that Jett couldn’t be sure which. “Just like before.”
Jett’s response was interrupted as something moved on his right.
A small group of Affected suddenly turned toward them and started running, following the lead of a Cetian.
Their pale blue skin was splattered with black gore, their arms torn apart under the ripped grey suit jacket, fluids sloughing off their form as they picked up speed.
“Seven on the right,” he called out before ducking behind a bench.
It wouldn’t provide a lot of cover, but it was better than nothing.
He popped up, clicking the safety off on his rifle as he did, and fired at the leading Cetian.
Two shots brought them down, their limbs twisting from the overcharged shots.
In early skirmishes with the Affected, Security learned that their electric shots were effective if overcharged to double the normal. One to two direct shots were enough to bring down even Affected Centaurians.
Beside him, Jack and Johns took down the next three, while Kepler focused on the further back Affected.
Sometimes the Affected injured themselves so badly that they couldn’t move normally.
They walked or ran with muscles and tendons flapping from torn gashes in their legs, with broken bones and marrow dripping down their flesh.
After all seven were down, two of the team checked the bodies to ensure they wouldn’t get back up and follow after them.
Jett changed out his battery, dropping the spent cartridge to the street.
Trashing Neo-Tokyo would normally bother him and not saving the battery to be recharged was a waste of resources, but soon it wouldn’t matter.
Soon the Neo-Tokyo would be but dust amongst the Void.
This glittering city that had traveled Sol for nearly fifty years would cease to exist. Jett didn’t like thinking about it that way, didn’t like the thought that the physical places he’d spent his happiest years would be obliterated in a second.
“We good?” Jett called out to his people.
When an affirmative came from each, Jett nodded and turned to continue toward the distant darkness of D2.
Several long moments passed with only the sounds of boots on the ground, crunching over debris, splashing into pools of blood, squelching as they cleaned out the soles.
They avoided as many circles of Affected as they could, not knowing which would contain the active ones.
“I do not know how long I can watch this, Jett.”
Eddie’s voice was a whisper. He sounded terrified.
“Then don’t,” Jett snapped. He needed to focus, he didn’t need Eddie sitting in his head, distracting him with every worry that plagued him.
But a small intake of breath brought Jett back to himself and Jett felt bad for the tone he’d used.
“Sorry,” he said, genuinely unhappy with himself for snapping at Eddie.
He had pushed them to do better, and here he was doing worse.
Even with circumstances as they were, he still should do better.
“Tell me what’s going on everywhere else.
” Hopefully that would distract his beloved.
“The final lifeboats have launched. The signal has been sent to the remaining Crew to make their way to their assigned shuttle by the end of the hour or they will be left behind.” There was a coldness to his report that shouldn’t be there, too much of the man that had wanted to be Captain, the man who had pushed Jett away.
“And the Bridge Crew?”
“We are all still present. Once the Crew has evacuated I will set the self-destruct and then the Bridge will also evac.” There was something about the way he said that, a slight hesitation before he said “Bridge” that worried Jett.
But it could just be the stress of the situation and their nerves getting the best of them.
It was making Jett snap and he didn’t have to oversee the entire process.
“Good,” he finally said.
“Valla?”
Jett turned to Kepler who had stalled behind the group, staring across a wide lawn of wildflowers that had been trampled.
The pinks and blues and purples and yellows squashed and stained red and black from passing Affected.
He approached Kepler, who was standing with his rifle pointed down at his side, a squint on his face.
“What is it, Kepler?”
He watched Kepler swallow, watched as he raised an arm toward the distant hull and the glass that allowed them to look out into the black of space.
Jett followed Kepler’s pointing finger, too similar to the ones he’d seen on the Golden Lion, to a larger than normal group of Affected.
Even from this distance Jett could see that the arrangement was different, too.
Several of the outermost rings were posed dramatically, with their arms flung over their head, or bent at the waist.
Something drew Jett across the flowers and grass toward the Affected, some strangeness to the air.
Some whisper on the wind that was half hidden in the wheeze of the life support systems. He dodged fallen bodies with limbs ripped off, the skin torn and hanging from bloody joints.
These didn’t appear to be Affected—the blood was red in Jett’s suit light, not the black that ran from Affected wounds.
Time stretched again, as it had so many times since Jett woke to the ship stalled. Every breath took an hour, every step a year. He crossed the grass, feeling himself age in the process, felt the weight of the ship settle on his shoulders.
Jett breached some unseen bubble around the group and the feeling disappeared.
He shook the lingering impression of time and weight off his body.
No steps sounded on the grass behind him and Jett looked over his shoulder to see that all seven of his remaining people stood in a line, staring at the group ahead of him.
They were back beyond the bubble, outside of the halo of parts and broken bodies.
There was a gasp in Jett’s headset.
“Eddie?” he asked quietly, wondering if the man had seen something.
When there was no response, Jett called Eddie’s name again. Then he entered the outermost ring alone in mind and body.
Jett stepped between two bent-over Affected, their arms outstretched toward the center. The next ring had kneeling figures, some prostrate completely. Others leaned forward with their right arms out and palms facing upwards, the left pushed into the ground keeping their bodies upright.
Each Affected was covered in the expected self-inflicted wounds, black ichor dripping from where blood should have run.
Faces were ripped to shreds, eyes dangling from their sockets, teeth visible through cheeks, tongues lolling out of black-stained mouths.
Jett didn’t know what about the affliction caused their bodies to change so drastically.
Whatever it was that caused them to be both alive and dead at the same time.
The innermost ring was just pieces.
Blood coated the arms and legs that pointed toward a gore-covered figure standing in the center of this ring with their back toward Jett.
The parts were pressed together, alternating between arms and legs, in an unbroken circle five meters in diameter.
The parts hadn’t come from any Affected.
They had been torn from normal humans, possibly while still alive if the blood splatter was any indication.
Jett thought back to the scattered corpses he’d seen on his way over and wondered if they littered the lawn in a circle surrounding the tableau.
Jett grimaced as he stepped back and leapt over the limbs.
It felt like touching them would have been a violation of the people they’d once been.
There was a wide gap between the final ring and the center figure where blood and ichor and fluids collected, creeping out from the figure and in from the Affected worshiping it.
Worship.
Jett wondered why that term had come to mind just now.
He looked at the Affected, at their oozing faces, their outstretched arms, then back at the figure who faced directly toward the hull, toward the Void outside.
It really did look like vids of those Old Terra cults that prayed and begged to some strange embodiment of the dead planet on hands and knees.
But more than that the display was, in its own way, just like the tableau outside the Bridge of the Golden Lion.
Something sank in his chest as Jett slowly circled the figure, staying close to the arms and legs, the pointing hands and feet.
He sidestepped until he came face to face with the remains of a partially skinned Centaurian man in black-stained grey pants.
Their eyes were closed, but blood had dried on the cheeks like tears, dripping down the neck.
The figures chest was bare and in it was carved in the same symbol that Captain Mox had held in his hand; the necklace that was now around Jett’s neck.
Jett stared in horror at the ravaged body of Captain Augustus Ro-nold.
He resisted the urge to fidget with the symbol that suddenly burned hot against his chest and took a shallow breath. “Eddie, do you read me?”
Static buzzed in his ears. Then it cleared.
“I see him.”
“I’m sorry.” Jett hadn’t expected to find the Captain alive, but he’d held on to a sliver of hope that Eddie could be freed from the burdens placed on him.
“I did not expect you to find him, Jett. But this is grotesque.” Jett could hear Eddie getting himself under control, suppressing the emotions that he’d have to tangle with later, once they were off the Neo-Tokyo and safe.
His voice was colder, his speech stiff. “Whoever is behind this needs to be stopped.”
Jett pressed his lips together to stop himself from chuckling.
The situation was so out of control and Jett had so much pent up feelings that needed to be expressed in one way or another.
“I’ll check in with you before we cross into D3.
” He jumped back over the limbs and reached the spot he’d entered.
“Try not to dwell on him. We’ll deal with this together when we’re off the ship. ”
“I know, love. I will do my best.” The line went silent. Eddie had turned it off, killed the lifeline between them. It hurt for just a second, but that was irrational.
Jett looked back once more at Captain Ro-nold’s corpse and then headed back toward his people still standing outside the ring of ripped and ruined bodies that surrounded the tableau.
Jett was far from the group when a small group of five Affected appeared behind them, running silently across the lawn.
“On your rear!” he yelled, but it was too late. The Affected plowed into his team. One ripped Kepler apart where he stood, blood and body parts flying in all directions, another barreled over Johns and then into Jack. The others disappeared into a tangle of twisted limbs.
The screams made it to Jett before he could react.
He sprinted forward, dropped his rifle, and pulled out his pistol, hitting the overcharge as he did. It was better for close combat. He stopped, aimed, and fired until the battery was spent. Three of the Affected were dead, but so were most of his people.
He ran forward as he changed out the battery. Someone else was firing now, but the shots were erratic and went wide. Jett stopped, took down the final two Affected. When the bodies stopped twitching, Jett approached, trying to pick through the tangle of corpses with just his eyes.
Only Jack was still alive.