Alien alien 3, p.26
Alien--Alien 3, page 26
She had the cover off in seconds, then stood back while Hicks shone his flashlight into the duct.
“Okay, people, it’s hands-and-knees time,” he said. “You got anything that doesn’t fit in your pocket or anything that feels heavy, leave it. This time, I’m first, then Jackson, then Spence, and then everyone else. Colonel, you’re on our six. Everybody got that?”
They all nodded except Rosetti, who looked dubious as well as apprehensive. Deciding he didn’t care, Hicks clipped the flashlight to the barrel of his weapon and slung it across his front, shortening the strap so it hugged his chest, then climbed into the vent.
“Right behind you,” Jackson called after him. The beam from her light-pen swooped away as she turned her cap around. A chorus of protests told her to shut it off again. After that, there were only grunts of effort, muttered curses, and loud panting from Rosetti.
The man had pushed ahead of the civilians, Hicks realized with a brief but intense surge of anger. Not that he could do anything about that now, but later he was going to make sure Rosetti got a rip for that one, even if it were posthumous.
After several minutes, the incline started to become steeper, harder to climb. Everyone was breathing heavily now, struggling just to keep themselves from sliding back down. Worse, the growing heaviness in Hicks’s eyes warned him carbon dioxide was building up the way it always did in close quarters.
Hicks paused, wedging himself in place. “Everybody keeping up?” he called. “Sound off!” To his relief, they were all present and still alert.
“Barely ten more meters, folks.” Jackson’s breathlessness made her voice reverberate more strongly than Hicks’s had. “Then we’re into area K-58-A, and from there it’s a straight shot to the lifeboat bays. No more ladders or airducts. Unless we have to walk through the walls.”
Rosetti’s head popped up behind Jackson. “Yeah, that’s great,” he said, even more breathless. “Now could we get moving?”
“Yes, sir.” Hicks looked up to see light coming through the vent cover at the other end of the duct. Not the proverbial oncoming train, he thought; that would have been too easy.
The surface went from bare metal to a smooth enamel coating; probably an anti-static overlay to resist dust building up. Why it was only on the last few meters he had no idea. Maybe they’d run out. Typical—the Company shorted everyone on everything.
He reached the vent and peered through the narrow slits at the area beyond. “Hey, Jackson, any ideas on how I get this thing off?”
Jackson gave a single, breathless laugh. “It’s just crappy plastic—one punch oughta do it.”
And not a particularly hard punch at that. Hicks slid out of the duct and broke off the sharp edges before he reached in for Jackson.
“They use metal covers in the maintenance shafts and conduits,” she added as he helped her out. Her front was covered with dust and grime, and so was his, he realized. They had cleaned out decades of build-up with their bodies. “But the common areas don’t see heavy industrial activity, so they don’t make anything better than it has to be. They’d probably make the fucking walls out of paper if they could get away with it.”
Hicks couldn’t even look at Rosetti as he and Jackson tugged him out of the duct by his arms. Spence came next, followed by Talisa. Behind her, Tatsumi was gasping raggedly, trying to catch his breath as he held out both hands.
Suddenly, everyone behind him in the duct was shouting and screaming. Something else was in there, something very large and very strong, hissing and banging around in a vicious frenzy that didn’t drown out terrified voices begging for help they already knew couldn’t come.
Tatsumi cried out in pain as something tried to pull him back into the duct. Keeping a tight grip on him, Hicks braced one foot against the wall and pulled as hard as he could with Spence yanking on his other arm and Jackson tugging on fistfuls of his shirt. The three of them managed to haul Tatsumi farther out of the duct and the alien came with him, slimy with human blood and festooned with ragged pieces of flesh and clothing, its jaws still clamped on the man’s lower leg, too kill-crazy to let go.
In one swift movement, Hicks unslung his rifle and slammed the butt down on the creature’s head. The thing gave a nasty wet hiss but hung on until Hicks hit it again. Tatsumi screamed in agony as acid-blood splashed onto his leg. Hicks finally pulled him all the way out of the duct and told Spence and Jackson to drag him a few meters farther away, then bent to peer through the opening.
He was hoping the creature would jump out to attack him, so he could kill it giving anyone behind it an acid shower. For the briefest of seconds he saw the ugly, eyeless monster, baring its teeth and hissing furiously as it slithered back toward the three horrified faces behind it. Then something slammed into him hard, knocking him sideways. Hicks staggered and recovered his balance just as Rosetti thrust his pulse-rifle into the duct and fired on full automatic until the magazine was empty.
Hicks’s reaction was reflexive yet completely mindful. He could feel himself twist to drive the punch with his body; the impact of his fist on Rosetti’s face registered on every nerve. He saw every moment of the man hitting the wall behind him in preternaturally high definition, heard with utter clarity the sharp rap of his head against it and the rustle of his uniform as he slid down to the floor.
Instantly, Jackson was standing over the colonel, pointing his own pulse-rifle at his head. “You know, I think some part of me has wanted to kill you for quite a while, motherfucker,” she said in that quiet, have-a-canapé voice. “Maybe since the day you got here.”
Rosetti looked up at her. “Go ahead.” As if offering hors d’oeuvres of his own.
Hicks shone his flashlight into the duct and saw only the ragged edges where acid-blood was still eating through the metal. The rest of the duct had fallen away, taking the alien and the other three lab techs with it. No more screams, no hissing, no more cries of pain and terror. He hoped the fall had killed them.
He became aware of Tatsumi whimpering in pain but he turned first to Jackson, who was still standing over Rosetti with the pulse-rifle.
“Forget it, Ops,” he told her. “It’s empty anyway.” He pulled a fresh clip out of a vest pocket and tossed it to her. Jackson ejected the empty one and reloaded, then slung the weapon over her shoulder, giving Rosetti a defiant glare as she took ownership.
“Hicks.” Spence was kneeling beside Tatsumi with Talisa. “We could use some light over here.”
He obliged, watching as Talisa carefully slit Tatsumi’s pant leg while a wisp of smoke rose up from where the alien’s blood was still burning through the cloth.
“Watch out,” Spence said as a drop of acid landed on Talisa’s flexi. The tech ripped it off her arm and hurled it away, then went back to Tatsumi’s trouser leg without missing a beat. Hicks stared in amazement. She had the steadiest hands he’d ever seen. Spence reached up to reposition his flashlight slightly as the other woman bent over Tatsumi’s leg.
“My God.” Talisa’s face went ashen.
A good chunk of Tatsumi’s calf muscle was gone, and the remaining flesh was black around the edges. The acid-blood had lost some potency before it could reach the bone, maybe because the alien was so new. Hicks had seen worse in combat, but this poor guy was a lab rat, not a soldier. He’d probably never been in so much pain. Hicks could see it was more than a few of Rosetti’s precious pills could handle. Not that the colonel would be inclined to share.
Hicks pulled a small medical kit from a zippered compartment in the lining of his vest and removed a single-use syringe.
Spence frowned at it, puzzled. “What’s that?”
“It only looks like a kid’s squirt gun.” Hicks pressed the business end against Tatsumi’s leg just above the wound and squeezed the handle. “Only one dose, but it’s the good stuff—the real good stuff. Can’t get this at Happy Hour on the Ginza. Do they even have Happy Hour on the Ginza?” he added to Tatsumi, watching the man for signs of an allergic reaction. Tatsumi’s whole body relaxed, his face going from agonized to composed. Good thing; there was no epinephrine injector in the kit, which Hicks thought was one hell of an oversight.
“That was fast,” Spence marveled. “And it’s not even intravenous.”
“Told you, it’s the good shit.” Hicks chuckled a little. “Six times stronger than Heroin 3.0, plus eight additional ingredients to keep you up and rockin’ the house. We get caught just holding one of these without a good reason, and it’s a year in the brig.”
Tatsumi looked around at them with a mildly bewildered expression and said something in Japanese.
“What’d he say?” Talisa asked Jackson.
Jackson consulted her flexi. “Translator says he wants to know if he’s late for his shift.” She looked past her to Tatsumi. “No, you’re right on time. We’re doing something different today.”
Hicks passed the single dressing from the first-aid kit to Spence and tossed the empty case aside. “We’ll have to carry him.”
“Then we carry him,” Talisa said simply, as if it went without saying.
Tatsumi raised himself up on his elbows to watch Spence winding the dressing around his calf, a bit dismayed but still calm. If the meds worked on lab rats like they did on Marines, Hicks estimated he’d be cruising for another eight hours.
Then he turned to see how his other problem child was doing.
One side of Rosetti’s face was swelling but other than that he hadn’t moved a muscle, not even to top up from the vial in his pocket. Maybe he was afraid Hicks would take his pills away and give them to Tatsumi. Or maybe he was running low.
“Get up, Colonel, it’s time to move.” Hicks turned back to Jackson and nodded at the pulse-rifle slung over her shoulder. “I think you’d better hang onto that for now. Okay by you?”
Jackson nodded.
41
It wasn’t until Bishop was nearly at the elevator that he remembered the distance between the ladder and trapdoor, which surprised and disturbed him. The memory lapse was a phenomenon of organic brains. It rarely occurred in artificial persons while they were active, although it wasn’t impossible.
Perhaps it was a glitch caused by the loss of artificial hemoglobin. He hadn’t lost enough to affect the functioning of his central nervous system, so his cognition shouldn’t have been impaired. But brains could be tricky, even the artificial kind. Under normal circumstances, he’d have set a diagnostic to run continuously in the background. As things were, however, he couldn’t afford to use onboard resources for anything other than the immediate situation.
As he got closer to the bottom of the elevator, he saw the section of floor closest to the doors was badly cracked and broken. The alien queen had been trying to punch another hole in the floor, then stopped, probably to go after easier prey.
It wasn’t hard to finish what the queen had started—as soon as he pulled at the damaged floor, it came away in chunks. Another argument for luck, he thought as he squeezed through the gap to clamber up into the mall.
For a few seconds, he lay quietly with his cheek against the floor to catch vibrations from anything large and dangerous moving around nearby, but there was nothing. Even the artificial waterfall had finally shut down. It wouldn’t stay this quiet, but for the moment he could hunt undisturbed through the detritus for something he could use to improve his mobility.
His gaze fell on a long strip of metal on the floor, part of the frame around the elevator doors, and he picked it up. The alloy was light but very strong—not strong enough to withstand an enraged alien but strong enough for an artificial person with a bum leg.
Working with it took longer than usual—he could feel the strain in the artificial muscles in his arms, shoulders, and upper back. He’d lost nanos along with hemoglobin and the remaining quantity couldn’t fortify or repair overworked tissue as quickly as usual. Couldn’t be helped; time was growing short and he had furlongs to go before anyone could sleep.
Not as graceful as Frost’s original, he knew, but it was humans who had a way with words, not artificial persons.
* * *
Hicks felt like the only thing he’d ever done was slog through smoky passageways, wheezing and coughing as he and Talisa half-dragged Tatsumi between them. Spence and Jackson led the way, also wheezing and coughing, with Rosetti stumbling along at the rear, all of them heading toward a destination that Hicks wasn’t sure existed anymore.
Rosetti was having a harder time than the rest of them—the painkillers depressed his breathing. Tatsumi was coughing least, his respiration even more depressed by what Hicks had given him. The sedative effect of the painkiller seemed to have overridden all the other ingredients in the good shit; rockin’ the house was off the agenda.
Well, medication was tricky. As Dietrich had often said, injuries never read the instructions on the container. Hicks had given Tatsumi something formulated for an active, physically fit Marine badly injured in combat. It had not been made for a middle-aged scientist whose natural habitat was a laboratory where he did a lot of strenuous thinking. Hicks imagined Tatsumi was tripping comets, but at least he wasn’t in pain.
After a bit, he noticed Talisa kept glancing behind them. At first he thought she was keeping track of Rosetti, then realized she wasn’t actually looking at him.
“Hey,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Something I should know about?”
“I’m afraid we’re leaving a trail.” She jerked her chin at Tatsumi’s leg. “Not breadcrumbs.”
Hicks saw she was right; something thick and yellowish was leaking from the dressing on Tatsumi’s wound, which in his experience was never a good sign.
He was about to call a break so he could see how bad Tatsumi’s leg was when Jackson suddenly stopped short and pointed Rosetti’s pulse-rifle at a shiny sign on the wall to their right:
LIFEBOAT BAY 20 METERS
“See that? We made it!” she said with a faint laugh that became a coughing fit.
“Damn.” Hicks blinked at the sign. “You’re right. We did.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said, and coughed some more. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”
“The day is young.” Hicks wiped his stinging eyes, noting absently that he’d been doing that for quite some time.
“Not as young as it used to be,” Jackson said and the grim note in her voice gave Hicks a sudden chill. Hudson smirked at him in his mind’s eye. Goose didn’t just walk over your grave, son, he said. Goose walked over everybody’s grave.
Hicks shut him down as Jackson took them around a corner into a large circular area with a reception desk. The entrance to the lifeboat bay was to the left but the door itself was featureless. A large sign on the front of the desk declared:
LIFEBOAT & LAUNCH ASSEMBLY POINT
CHECK IN • HEAD-COUNT • ALLOCATION
Hicks felt surreal. The reception desk made boarding a lifeboat seem as mundane as a dental appointment or a job interview. Go in when they call your number, proceed directly to your assigned bay, and don’t forget to fill out the customer satisfaction survey. Thank you for your cooperation, bon voyage and have a nice life. Next.
“I thought we were meeting groups from other areas of Anchorpoint,” Spence said, concern large on her face. “It can’t be just us. Where is everyone?”
“Probably launched already,” Hicks said, hoping he didn’t sound as uneasy as he felt.
“Guess again,” said Jackson from behind the reception desk. She’d turned her cap around to use the light-pen on the countertop screen. “All lifeboats are still docked and prepped.”
“But—but that would mean we’re the only ones who made it.” Talisa went over to Jackson, dragging Tatsumi and Hicks with her. “Could that really be—that we’re the only ones?” She looked at the others; no one said anything.
“There are other lifeboat bays,” Hicks said gruffly. He gave Jackson a warning look and mouthed, Shut up. Some questions had one answer, some had several, and some didn’t have any. And when you only had answers nobody wanted to hear, you shut the hell up.
Abruptly, Rosetti came out of his painkiller fog, went to the door, and pressed his thumb to a spot at eye level. The door slid up, revealing a long hallway with soft blue indirect lighting. Hicks wondered what the hell was it with the blue lighting as he and the others watched Rosetti march toward the very wide door at the end of the hall.
“I really shoulda greased him,” Jackson said wistfully.
“Nah,” Hicks said. “What’d be the point?”
“The point?” Jackson looked at him, her still-grimy face incredulous. “In case you forgot, the point is he let those bastards run their fucking experiments. He coulda said no but he didn’t. You and Bishop tried to stop it, but not him. Rosetti let them do whatever the fuck they wanted.”
“No, he didn’t,” Hicks said, realizing he really did feel sorry for the man. No Marine deserved to have their military career end in a state of total and absolute FUBAR. The only thing worse than getting wiped out with your command was being the only survivor.
And the only thing worse than that was being the only survivor twice.
But then, it wasn’t over yet, Hicks reminded himself. There was still a strong chance he wouldn’t live to regret this one.
“Rosetti’s rank didn’t mean shit to the bastards who brought this down on Anchorpoint,” he went on. “He was nothing but a buffer to keep the rest of us away from them. And it wouldn’t do any good to grease them, either.”
“Bullshit,” Jackson snapped. “Why the fuck not?”
Hicks gave a short, humorless laugh. “Because what you really want to grease is the Company, and I’m not sure that’s even possible.” As they moved down the corridor after Rosetti, he gave Talisa a questioning look—Tatsumi was getting heavier. She gave a small shrug.
