04: A Cure for Sid

We'd been in some tight spots before – some damned tight spots – but my crew had always been known for being careful, and coming out in one piece. We all knew people who had lost their lives, or worse, in the name of our work at the Codex; there were always risks, especially on expeditions in the field, and there were fates worse than death.

The rules of the field were simple: train constantly, maintain an intimate knowledge of the hazards you will face, bring as much ammo as you can carry, have a solid goal, and always, always bring enough vaccine. The last rule was the most important; to knowingly enter an unknown situation without at least a week's worth of vaccine was inexcusable, and I had always been very careful. If there was one thing I had come to realize over years of expeditionary experience, it was that you never knew where an aberrant might be hiding. They had a habit of showing up when and where they were least expected, and one simple bite, scratch, or sometimes even just a brush of their infectious hide was enough to wipe out an entire expedition party, or for that matter, an entire satellite colony.

Well, not wipe out; not exactly. For yeasr, coming into contact with the aberrant-strain meant becoming one of those mindless monstrosities yourself, no exceptions. If you were lucky – and smart – you found someone to put you down before it got bad enough to cause any other, if you were neither lucky nor smart, everyone around you ended up just like you. Then some Wyethfizer doc came out with the first vaccine, and suddenly there was an alternative. Of course, it worked better when you were dosed before exposure, but with the newer versions you could even stop an infection within ten minutes or so. It wasn't much, but it was light years better than the alternative.

One thing you learn at the Codex is that no matter how important an expedition may be, the people involved are infinitely more-so. So, you load up with Vaccine and bullets, and hope for the best. Nothing was more important that survival, not even an expedition like the ruins of Winnipeg had been worth the risk. I had been so careful. The ironic part was that we had left the ruin when the vaccine started to run low, scheduled to pick up a new load during our stop at Rico's.

Unfortunately, that never happened.

* * *

Everyone readied their weapons and headed for the door back into the administration sector. It was quick run up a few flights of stairs back to the garage, and escape. They had just reached the door when a sharp yell came from the rear and Sid, obscured by the shadows, was wrestling with a half-dead aberrant grasping onto his back with its clawed fingers. Before they could render assistance, the archeologist let out a pained wail and threw the ex-human to the floor, ending the fight with two gun shots to the head. “Son of a…“ Sid muttered.

“Are you hurt, Sid?” asked Noal, shining a light on his kneeling companion.

“I’m afraid so, boss. Ow!” Sid pushed ragged bits of jacket off of his shoulder, with a dire look on his face, revealing a nasty looking wound oozing slowly.

Noal went pale at the sight, “Please tell me that thing didn’t bite you.” Sid nodded confirmation. “Damnit!”

“Let’s not panic here; we just need to get him some vaccine. He’s going to be fine,” said Sal.

“That’s the problem,” said Noal, “We haven’t got any vaccine to give him – we used up the last vial yesterday, remember?”

“Maybe,” shouted Naomy, from across the room, “but I’ve got a map here that says the colony had a whole storage room full of it. It’s down in the sub-basement, next to their infirmary, only two levels down and a short jog away. We can get there in less than ten minutes if we really book it.”

“Good,” said Noal, “because in about ten and a half minutes from now, all the vaccine in the world won’t make any difference. Are you okay to run a bit, Sid?” Sid nodded. “Good. Let’s get going!”

Leaving the office, they turned down towards the central administration wing hub. A low groaning noise emanated from the darkness of the hub, and all four of them could smell something very not right coming from that direction.

“Sid, hand me one of those mollies of yours,” said Noal, holding out his hand.

“Sure thing, boss.” Sid smiled weakly and handed over a bottle filled with clear liquid.

“Everybody remember how many corpses we saw in the hub when we passed through? I don’t think they’re corpses,” said Noal, conspiratorially.

“I must have counted at least thirty, just in the hub alone,” said Naomy, “If we just walk in there, they won’t have to work very hard. We’d have no chance to defend ourselves.”

“Exactly,” Noal answered, “So I’m going to sneak up there and create a little diversion, and when I do that, we all run across the hub to the sub-basement stairs, got it?”

Everyone nodded agreement and Noal snuck down the hall, careful not to make a sound. It was a good thing he had had a lot of practice sneaking around aberrants, Noal realized, or else they would have detected him before he was within a hundred feet. Coming to the end of the hallway, Noal sniffed the air and grimaced; there were aberrants in the hub alright, and lots of them. Judging the distance to the middle of the room by memory, he threw the bottle as close to the mark as possible. The administrative hub ignited with an explosion of red and yellow flames, illuminating a room full of aberrants that had been quietly waiting for the party to arrive, and were now set ablaze, screaming and writhing around in pain from a fire that wouldn’t go out.

“Everybody move!” shouted Noal, making a dash across the hub, slashing out at a few hostile aberrants that made a move on him despite being on fire. Sal and Naomy followed next, guns blazing, and Sid pulled up the rear. He wasn’t walking well. The molly-fire was starting to die down; many of the abbies were down for good, but the few that were still standing started making their way toward the group. Noal opened the heavy door into the stairwell and ushered the others inside, locking the door on the inside with a heavy bolt. “We’ll have to get back up a different way.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” said Naomy, pulling out the map she had snagged from Rico’s office. “The next stairwell is at the end of this passage—look out!“ She looked up suddenly and whipped out her shotgun, blasting a large crater in an aberrant dog, snarling in the midst of leaping for Sal’s jugular.

Sal leapt to the side and put a few slugs in the dead abby, “For my own, personal, peace of mind,” he said. “Looks like we’re not alone down here; who’s got a light?”

“Here, I’ve got some flares,” said a weakly-voiced Sid, tossing a sparkling stick into the darkness. Several distinct growls came back in response to the intrusion, and several pairs of eyes sparkled, reflecting the light.

“Sal, we could use some suppression up here,” said Noal, loosening the zweihander in its sheathe. “Naomy, you be ready for dodgers, and Sid, you just relax, okay? We’re going to get you vaccinated as soon as these dog-abbies are out of the way.”

Sal made his way up front as the abby-pack bolted toward them, using his auto-recoilers to create a defensive screen of bullets. Any that got through the screen were taken down by a quick shot from Naomy. Noal hung back to keep an eye on Sid, killing one dog, that made it past both Sal and Naomy, with a quick thrust of his blade.

When there was nothing else left to kill, the group moved forward to the outer edge of the flare’s light, and tossed another one into the blackness ahead. A single dog-aberrant rushed past Sal, seemingly out of nowhere, and clamped its teeth onto Naomy’s right arm, knocking her to the ground. Naomy wrenched her arm free and ended the abby’s life with a punch that exited through the back of the creature’s skull. “Picked the wrong arm to bite,” was all she said.

A few feet later, they found the end of the passage, and the stairwell down into the sub-basement. Descending cautiously, they threw flares every few feet, and found no aberrants waiting for them, much to their great relief. Sid came last; he wasn’t walking or breathing well, now. A hundred yards down that passage they found the infirmary, with no one inside. The vaccine store-room was empty.

“I don’t understand,” Naomy sighed, “it was supposed to be here.”

“Hold on, I think it might have been moved,” said Noal, staring at an oddly out-of-place series of lines and dots, scribbled hastily on the wall. “I think they used to call this morse code. If I’m reading it correctly, there should be a service ladder down the hall that leads into a storage locker in the upper-level living quarters. It seems like this is saying that someone had the vaccine moved there, for some reason. I’ll lead the way.”

A short way further along the passage they came to a steel ladder, bolted into the wall and running up through a lightless shaft to the upper levels. “Sid, can you climb? I know it’ll hurt, but we have to get you up there. It should be a short run from to the Gravedigger, okay?”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Sid did not sound good.

“Alright, I’ll go first. Sid you come after me, then Naomy and Sal.” He grabbed the nearest rung and started climbing as fast as he could. They might just make it on time if they climbed fast enough. After they climbed through one or two levels, the light from the last of their flares left at the bottom of the ladder was no longer visible, and the shaft got very dark. Sid was audibly groaning with every rung and had slowed the rest of the group significantly, but at least Noal could climb ahead and get the vaccine ready. He felt above his head every few seconds and finally felt his fingers touch the bottom of a metal hatch. Wasting no time, he pushed open the hatch and climbed into the blinking electric light of the storage locker. Broken glass crunched beneath his metal feet. “God-damn.”

“Give me a hand, would you?” said Sid, peeking out of the ladder-shaft to see Noal standing and staring at something before him. Noal shook the stricken look off of his face and helped Sid out of the shaft. Sid looked around to find out what Noal was looking at, and his face fell.

“Oh shit!” Sal exclaimed as he climbed out of the shaft and took a look around. The storage locker had been intentionally and completely trashed. Medical supplies were strewn about the room, all broken and useless. Smashed vials of vaccine littered the ground with glass and the partially evaporated serum. It was all gone, and from the look on Sid’s face, he knew what that meant.

“Sid… I’m sorry.” Naomy looked about ready to burst into tears. Sid already had, though he was doing his best to hold back. Sal wandered around the place, swearing and cursing at everything he saw. Noal was quiet, contemplative.

“It’s time to get out of here,” he said, finally, “We’ll find you some help, Sid, I promise.”

“With all due respect, boss, I can’t go with you and you know it. I’m bloody infected now, and there’s no going back.”

“No! Core – we’ll go to Core!” Noal declared. “Kasim was working on a better vaccine – he may even be able to cure the Strain by now, who knows? If we run the ‘digger into the ground we can make it there in five days—“

“I’ll be eating your livers for breakfast in three!” Sid shouted back. “I know you don’t want to give up on me, man, and I appreciate it. But I’m also sure I like this situation a whole hell of a lot worse than you do. There’s nothing that you, or anyone else in the world can do for me, now.”

“Well, we have to try, don’t we?” Noal said, flatly. “No arguments, Sid. That’s an order. Let’s go.”

Sal re-loaded his weapons and got ready to open the door into the rest of the colony. “Intuition tells me there’s a whole mess of severely pissed off abbies on the other side of this door. Naomy says it’s a nice, short jog to the garage, but unless we were planning on walking to Core, we’re going to need to get some fuel into the ‘digger. I saw some intact canisters in the fuel-processing chamber next to the garage, so fueling shouldn’t take more than two or three trips. That’s more than enough time for a whole whack of those abby bastards to follow us in, though, so we’d best all be ready for action.”

Noal unsheathed the zweihander, while Naomy loaded and cocked her shotgun. Sid had a clear bottle in each hand and nodded, a sick look on his face. Sal popped open the door, and they ran as fast as they knew how, shooting, slicing and exploding through swarms of aberrants of the human, dog and even big-cat varieties. Despite the odds, they made it to the garage with time enough to slam and lock the metal rolling-door shut behind them, but it wouldn’t keep the abbies out for long.

To their immediate left was the fuel-processing chamber, with a steel-grated fence locked tight. Sid did something to the lock and pushed open the gate, “Careful with this – if it closes again, it won’t open from the inside or outside.” The sounds of steel buckling and tearing echoed from the locked rolling door, as the aberrants thrashed against, trying to rip it open.

Sid picked up a fuel canister and immediately began filling it from the main colony pump. “I’m too weak to carry these to the toyo, so I’ll stay here and fill them.” He handed the first one to Noal, and went on to fill up a second.

Noal carried the fuel rod around the corner to where the Gravedigger had been parked and started transferring the hydro-fuel into its tanks. Naomy and Sal showed up a few minutes later with a full canister each.

“You two get your fuel into the tank and get ready to travel,” said Noal, “I’ll go help Sid with that last canister.”

“Don’t be long,” said Naomy, a momentarily frantic look coming over her face, “I hate worrying about you.”

Noal smiled, “Sid and I will be right back, don’t worry.”

He jogged back around the corner and found Sid fueling up the last of the canisters. The rolling door was pushed up from several significant gashes and dents, and the noise from the other side had increased. They had to go right now.

“Here you go, boss,” said Sid, looking up, “We should have more than enough juice to get us to Core, now. Just set it down outside there, would you?”

Noal picked up the heavy canister and set it down outside the processing chamber, fussing with its placement to make sure it didn’t fall over and rupture.

“It’s been nice knowing you, Noal,” said Sid, from behind him.

“Nice knowing me?” Noal turned around in time to see Sid slamming the fuel-processing chamber gate between the two of them, remembering what Sid had said about it not being able to open again. “Sid, what the hell are you doing?”

Sid had wasted no time in opening up the hydro-fuel reservoir lids, the heat release scalding him as each lid came off with a loud hiss. “It’s the only way, Noal!” A metallic screeching sound came from the rolling door as a large rent was broken open and aberrant growling could be heard through it.

“They’ll be through that door in one minute, maybe less! A thousand bloody aberrants let loose to do God-knows-what! I won’t let them, Noal!” He held a molotov cocktail in each hand, over top of the main hydro-fuel lines. “These fuel lines run through the entire colony and below. When they blow, this entire place, and all the god-damned aberrants inside of it, will be history, you understand?” The hole in the rolling-door had widened, and aberrants limbs began to push through.

“I can’t just leave you here!” Noal shouted.

“That’s exactly what you have to do! I’m blowing Rico’s End whether you’re in it or not! Now get out of here – I don’t need your deaths on my hands, too!” Sid looked anxiously at the rolling-door as it gave way even more.

“Goddamnit, Sid!” Noal grabbed the fuel canister and started running for the Gravedigger.

“Hey boss, say goodbye to Naomy and Sal for me, would you?”

Noal turned long enough to get a last look at his friend and crewmate. “I will, Sid. Good luck.”

Noal rounded the corner in a dead run to the Gravedigger, shouting at the other two standing around outside. “Get into the ‘digger!” Sal and Naomy looked up, curiously. “Get into the goddamned ‘digger, we’ve got to go!”

Noal tossed his fuel canister into the back of the toyo and jumped into the cockpit, pulling the monstrous vehicle around and jammed it up the exit ramp and out into the ice-covered landscape at full throttle, while Naomy and Sal bounced around in their hastily-taken seats in the back.

“What happened to Sid?” Naomy was in the middle of saying, when massive, blue fireball erupted behind the fleeing Gravedigger, accompanied by a deafening roar and a quaking of the ice-shell that nearly tore the tank-like toyocar apart. Noal punched it, getting as much distance as possible from the fall-out of the hydro-fuel explosion. Sal and Naomy were being trounced around too much to say anything.

Behind them, Rico’s End was completely gone, melting into slag from the first explosion, and then vaporized by the explosions that followed. The entire shelf of the ice-shell had been demolished and was collapsing into the burning crater, the ripples of destruction spreading to overtake the speeding Gravedigger as great slabs fell away behind it.

Then, as quickly as it happened, it was over, and the shell was still. Noal slammed on the brakes and spun the toyo around to look out over the damage. What used to be Rico’s End was still burning with a bright blue flame, and all around it was a giant, black crater in the ice. A few seconds later, and everyone onboard the Gravedigger would have been in that hole.

“Godspeed, Sid Pinnings,” whispered Noal, “Godspeed.”

“So what the hell are we supposed to do now?” asked Sal.

“We’re going to find the bastard that did this, and make him pay.”

“Him?” asked Naomy, “You mean…”

Noal reached into a pocket, taking out the crumpled piece of paper that Hugo had pressed into his hand before he’d died. Opening it up, he was confronted with a hastily scrawled drawing of a face, or more accurately, a mask. A cruel mask, hiding a cruel hunter’s face. A mask out of the most painful memories Noal had inside him.

“He’s back. The Hunter is back.”