Xenofall (The Wasteland Chronicles, Book 7) (7 page)

“Maybe Askala
is
distracted,” Anna said. “Still, even Augustus said he lost men doing it. It can’t have been an easy task.”

Whether dangerous or not, we’d find out soon enough.

***

“P
reliminary scans show the area to be clear of threats,” Makara said. “We’re going in.”

“Nice landing job,” Julian said.

“You’ve already landed?” Anna asked.

“No,” Makara said. “Julian’s talking about the airplane that went over the side of the cliff.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right.”

I’d almost forgotten
that
near-death experience. When coming to Bunker One for the first time, we’d nearly all gone off the cliff with the plane. Only jumping at the last second, once the plane had slowed down enough, had saved our lives.

“No crawlers visible,” Makara said. “It’s all snow down there.”

“Land as close as you can to the door,” Samuel said.

“Wind’s picking up a lot of that snow,” Makara said. “The thrusters should blast most of it away.”

We waited a long moment before Makara’s voice returned.

“Touched down. Plan’s the same. Julian will stay with the ship. Once we reach the labs, we’ll connect the line with
Perseus.
You’re to stay above the Bunker and connect to Julian’s line.”

“What if we don’t hear from you?” I asked.

“Under no circumstances are you allowed inside the Bunker,” Makara said. “Not until 14:00, when you are clear to proceed forward
with caution.
We won’t be anywhere except on the path that leads directly to the labs, so
do not,
under any circumstances, expand your search elsewhere. Am I clear on that?”

“Clear,” I said.

“Makara,” Char said.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful down there.”

“We will,” she said.

The speakers went silent, leaving only the surrounding hum of the spacecraft, sailing above the clouds.

“We need to get there,” I said.

“Still thirty minutes out,” Anna said. “If everything goes well, they should be getting in touch in fifteen minutes.”

***

W
e joined Julian’s line and waited.

Twenty minutes later, I felt relief at hearing Makara’s voice exit the dash.

“We’re in.”

“Resistance?” Julian asked.

“None. Unless you count the detour we had to take around the collapsed tunnel. We had to come in through the back way.”

“I can’t believe it’s clear,” I said.

“They’re gone now,” Makara said. “There’s still plenty of signs, though.”

“Signs?” Anna asked. “Like what?”

“Slime, mostly. The bodies are all gone, even the ones we killed in the lab. I guess Askala leaves no man behind.”

“How noble,” I said.

“Has Samuel started analyzing the sample yet?” Char asked.

“He’s still trying to find the right equipment,” Makara said. “The bio-lab is pretty big. It’s actually where we are now.”

“And where’s the bio-lab?” I asked.

“Not far from the main lab floor,” Makara said. “Trust me, you wouldn’t have trouble finding it. Not that you’d need to.”

We were still several minutes out from the Bunker. Marcus and Char stood behind us, listening quietly. I could tell that they were both on edge. I didn’t blame them; so was I.

“It may take a while,” Samuel said. “The system is calibrating the ichor’s genetic sequence. At the same time, it’s referencing older xenoviral strains so we can see if anything matches the new ones.”

“And how long, exactly, will this gobbledygook take?” Anna asked.

“Thirty minutes to an hour,” Samuel said. “The Bunker servers are still online, and their computing power is enormous. It was common for the scientists to add new strains to the databanks, but this ichor appears to be chock-f of strains. That’ll take some time.”

“What else?” I asked.

“That’s it,” Samuel said. “I’ll know more when the calibration is done.”

I guessed there was nothing to do but wait.

W
e reached the Bunker, landing next to
Perseus
on the runway. There, we waited as forty-five minutes passed without incident. No crawlers. No flyers. And no dragons. It was almost too good to be true.

Samuel’s voice exited the speaker.

“The calibration is done. It’s loading the results now.”

We waited a moment. I heard Makara talking to someone; I realized that it was either Ruth or Michael, who were both down there with them. Samuel’s voice went on.

“Alright,” he said. “As expected, the strains in the ichor don’t match anything on file. However, it looks like the strains were designed to plug into various older xenoviral strains.”

“Meaning?” Anna asked.

“Meaning, Quietus was right. We have some new evolutions on our hands. Thankfully, by plugging in the strains, the computer can model what we might be up against in the future.”

“What’s it showing?” I asked.

“Hold on,” Samuel said. “I’m going to plug in the crawler strain. That’s one we’re all familiar with.” Samuel paused. The clacking of keys exited the dash. “Well. There’s actually several different crawler strains on file. All of them are outdated, as might be expected. Still, there should be enough similarities to the new strains to show effects.” He cleared his throat. “It wants me to name this new strain. Hmm...”

“Is that really important?” Makara asked. “If we have to sit here all day and name everything, we won’t get anything done.”

“Sorry,” Samuel said. “It’s just part of the data entry system. I guess I can just name it ‘A.’”

Samuel clacked the keys again. A disagreeable buzz emanated from the speakers.

“Damn. ‘A’ has been taken.”

“Let me see that,” Makara said. I heard her mash on the keyboard. “There. That should do it.”

Samuel grunted disapprovingly. “I...guess that works. Strain
rt3jwot9
has officially been named.”

“Very creative,” I said.

“Alright,” Samuel said. “This thing doesn’t even
look
like a crawler anymore...”

Everyone went quiet. I could only imagine what the creature in question looked like.

“Maybe you plugged in the wrong strain,” I said.

“No, it’s inputted correctly,” Samuel said. “Still...”

“Well, then,” Makara said. “Can I change the name of this one to ‘Giant Bug-Thing from Outer Space with Creepy Eyes’?”

“It has wings,” Ruth said. “Does that mean it can fly?”

“I doubt it,” Samuel said. “According to this, it would stand sixty feet tall. Which makes me wonder how it could even
stand.”

“With legs?” Makara asked.

“Funny. Except the larger a creature becomes, the more muscle it needs in order to move around. You see, if you even double the size of a creature, it would need four times the muscle mass to move with the same agility as a monster half its size.” Samuel paused. “It’s basic physics.”

“I’m going to have to trust you on that one,” Makara said.

“Maybe it’s not suited for Earth gravity,” I said. “After all, didn’t Quietus say these strains came from different worlds?”

“Who knows?” Samuel asked. “This is just one of many things the
Radaskim
might be cooking up. And it might be more lightweight than it appears on the screen. Let’s have a look at some of these others.”

“Look,” Michael said. “Is there a way we can transfer this data to
Perseus?
It’ll be risky to stay down here too long.”

“It’s too much data,” Samuel said. “We have to learn what we can and get out.”

“How many new manifestations of the virus are there?” I asked.

Samuel paused a moment before answering. “One hundred and six.”

“That might take too long to go through,” I said. “Especially if you have to log every entry.”

“I agree,” Samuel said. “At least from this, we know what we might be dealing with.”

“What’s
that?”
Ruth asked.

The speakers went quiet for a long time.

“It looks like a worm, or something,” Makara said.

“Small,” Samuel said. “Two millimeters in length. A parasite?”

“Gross,” Ruth said.

“Yeah,” Makara said. “I don’t like the look of that.”

It was interesting how we could joke around about a sixty-foot monster, but we were afraid of something so tiny.

“Does this thing already
exist?”
Makara asked.

“Apparently,” Samuel said. “It’s logged in the databanks. If it’s gone unnoticed by us, maybe it’s because it’s so small.”

“Click on its data file,” Makara said. “We need to learn more about it.”

A moment later, Samuel read aloud.

“Strain M-006,” Samuel said. “Strain M-006 forms the xenogenetic sequence of the ‘writhe.’ About two millimeters in length, writhes serve to supplant the host’s decision-making with xenoviral directives.”

Samuel paused in reading the description to let the information soak in.

“What does
that
mean?” Makara asked. “Mind control?”

“Because of its exceedingly small size,” Samuel went on, “the writhe went undiscovered until 2046 by Dr. Cornelius Ashton.”

“Aston
knew
about this thing?” Makara asked. “Why didn’t he say anything about it?”

“Maybe it wasn’t that important,” I said. “The writhe seems to be a bit outdated. After all, the xenovirus alone is capable of taking over a person’s mind.”

“Not important?” Samuel asked. “Eighty-three of the one hundred and six strains found in this ichor have to do with modifying this little creature. It can hardly be unimportant.”

I had no idea what this writhe looked like, but it must have been tiny indeed.

“According to this,” Samuel said, “the writhe begins its life in a microscopic state. Over the course of months, it engorges itself on organic matter found in the host’s body. Usually the brain. Somehow, it goes undetected as a threat by the host’s immune system. They never really discovered why, but it might have something to do with the alien structure of its DNA. The writhe grows freely in the brain, until it reaches a maximum length of two millimeters.”

“Help me understand,” Makara said. “What does this thing actually
do?”

“There are two different types of infection, for two different purposes. There’s the xenovirus, which makes its host part of the
Radaskim
consciousness. Then there is the writhe, which does something more...subversive.”

“Subversive?” Anna asked. “Subversive, how?”

“A person under the influence of the writhe will still keep their cognitive capacity,” Samuel said. “But at the same time, they are controlled completely by the Voice. Askala.”

That made everyone go quiet. If what Samuel said was true, then I didn’t even want to think of the ramifications.

“It doesn’t just affect humans,” Samuel said. “There seem to be writhes for every
Radaskim-
controlled species on file. It might give Askala a bit more direct control. The writhe’s main purpose is serving as a communications medium between Askala and the host’s brain.”

“That reminds me of Elias,” Anna said. “He might have acted weird, but he was otherwise human. He looked like us, spoke like us, but Askala had dominated his mind. Is
that
the influence of the writhe?”

“Perhaps,” Samuel said. “Although, he had to have been infected with the xenovirus as well, given his later transformation. Perhaps the writhe held back the effects of the xenovirus – at least, until Elias had died.”

“If Ashton knew about this, why wouldn’t he have said anything?” I asked.

“About Ashton, I have no idea,” Samuel said. “He never mentioned anything about a writhe to me, either.”

I wanted to say maybe he
didn’t
know about it, but it was credited to him right there in the files.

“Let’s focus on the other evolutions,” Makara finally said. “We can try to guess all day about Ashton, but it’s not going to get us anywhere.”

“I agree,” Samuel said.

“What are some of the other writhe evolutions?” I said. “You mentioned there were eighty-three.”

“Right,” Samuel said. “It looks like each writhe targets a different species. Humans are only one. Scanning through the xenoviral strain profiles, it looks like many of these writhes correspond with monster species that have already been documented. Those that
aren’t
documented here probably correspond to species that arose after Bunker One fell.”

“So, you’re saying there’s one new writhe species for each species of xenolife?” I asked.

“Yes. Most of the changes that are present in the ichor affect
Radaskim
writhes – that is, eighty-three strains. The remaining twenty-three correspond with plant, fungal, and microbial species already on file.”

“So, there’s one writhe for each
Radaskim
species,” I said. “I want to know exactly what it
does.”

“As I said, the writhe serves as the communications hub between the
Radaskim
Voice and the infected host. It’s possible for the
Radaskim
xenovirus to transform a human, or any animal for that matter, into its infected variant given the correct xenoviral strain. A writhe is not needed. Even though the writhe appears to be a more primitive form of mind control, it has its advantages. The writhe could control a person
without
that person’s needing to be infected with the xenovirus. And, in the case of Elias, a person can be infected with both the writhe
and
the virus. In his case, the writhe had dominance over the xenovirus, allowing him to retain his thoughts – although, the nature of those thoughts were controlled by Askala. It was only upon his death, and the writhe’s death, that the xenovirus was allowed full reign.”

From what Samuel was saying, there appeared to be three types of infection: with the xenovirus only, with the writhe only, and with both.

We already knew what happened to people infected with only the xenovirus; after a time, they died and became Howlers.

It was the next one we weren’t familiar with, and if I understood Samuel correctly, it meant this: those infected with
only
the writhe appeared normal and human. Except, they were far from that, because their thoughts and behavior were dictated by Askala through the writhe.
Anyone
could have a writhe, and we’d have no way of knowing. We hadn’t known about this before, because it was apparently a more primitive form of infection, and Ashton hadn’t told us about it for some reason.