Chapter 16
We ran back through the empty hangar and sprinted toward the entrance to the main part of the space station. Even though part of my mind was screaming at me to turn around and get the hell out of here because running toward the Brainworms wasn’t a good idea, that voice was drowned out by my own moral compass, which was telling me that this was the right thing to do.
It was beyond unlucky that we had encountered the creatures in the middle of our journey to the Lilacrons’ colony, but we couldn’t ignore it, either. It was our responsibility to destroy this newfound threat to the entire universe while we had it contained in one place and before the worms had the chance to take over entire planets.
Of course, they had to have come from somewhere, but if we could at least destroy the ones at the space station, then we would be saving countless lives. The space station was often extremely busy and was an advanced medical center, which meant the probability of some other unlucky soul arriving here and taking one or more of the worms with them was extremely high. So, that was the main reason that Rayne and I were running back toward the worms instead of away from them, as most people probably would.
“This somehow feels like a really good idea and a really bad idea at the same time,” Rayne said.
“It’s a good idea,” I replied, both to assure her and myself. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“I know,” she sighed. “I just wish the right thing didn’t include Brainworms.”
“Don’t we all,” I laughed. “Francine?”
“Yes, Will,” the AI replied.
“Make sure Bob guards the ship,” I said. “I don’t want any of those Brainworms getting anywhere near the Lilacrons. I can’t imagine a stasis tube is gonna hold them back.”
“They will not get anywhere near my creators,” Francine said. “You can trust me on that.”
“I know I can,” I replied.
“It is very brave what you are doing, Will,” Francine said. “Stupid. But brave.”
“Why do your compliments always sound like put-downs?” I chuckled. “I just know that if we don’t deal with this now, then it’ll probably come back and bite us all on the ass in the future.”
“Good point,” Francine said. “And knowing your luck…”
“That’s exactly what would happen,” I said. “So, you can see why I think this is such a good idea?”
“Yes,” Francine said. “Just try not to let a worm drill into your head. That would be very inconvenient.”
“I will try not to inconvenience you,” I laughed.
The laughter died off, however, when the door into the space station entrance level came into view. Rayne and I stayed close to the edge of the path that led up to it and used the dim, flickering backup lights and shadows cast from the ships as cover. As we drew closer to the entrance, I signaled Rayne by squeezing her hand, and we both slowed to a creeping pace.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Bob moved the body out of the way,” I said as I pointed toward an empty spot near the door. “It should be right there.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“So… where’s the body now?” she asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m wondering,” I replied with a shudder.
“Well… that’s worrying,” she whispered.
“Just a little,” I replied.
We both looked around the area by the doors for any sign of the body, which we both assumed that a worm had reanimated, but I couldn’t see any sign of some eerie corpse lurking in a corner. I looked through the double doors to the entrance hall, but all of the other bodies still appeared to be lying dead on the floor. I knew that we probably didn’t have long until they all woke up, so we had to move fast.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
I took off toward the doors, and Rayne hurried after me. Both of us ran on our tiptoes and made it to the doors quickly and quietly. Once we were there, we slipped through the open doorway and snuck into the entrance hall.
The bodies didn’t move or even register our presence, but I quickly scanned the ceiling for any worms that were about to drop down on us like lethal devices out of a bomber plane. I couldn’t see any at the moment, so it was so far, so good.
Rayne took the fire-launcher off her back and held it with both of her hands, ready to fire. I gave her a questioning look, since there didn’t appear to be any immediate danger from the bodies, but then I felt the air go cold and still.
My breathing slowed, my mouth went dry, and my senses sharpened. A sinking feeling in my gut told me that something was wrong, and I knew that Rayne had felt the exact same sensation in hers.
She gripped the fire-launcher tighter, and her head whipped around as she tried to catch sight of any movement from any of the bodies, but for now, all of them were still and gave no indication that there was a worm inside them. At least the bodies up here were clean and didn’t have any injuries, though the same couldn’t be said about the ones on the lower levels.
“Will, I have accessed the blueprint for the station,” Francine said inside my head, since Bob wasn’t there for her to talk through. “The control room is on the third level down. Once we are there and I can look at the controls for the space station, I will be able to instruct you on the easiest way to destroy this place.”
“Perfect,” I said, and then I turned to Rayne and pointed at the stairwell we had used earlier.
It was only a few levels, and the elevators definitely attracted too much attention. The stairs seemed like the better option, and besides it was more difficult to get trapped on a staircase than in a tiny metal box, or so I told myself.
We started to carefully step over each of the bodies as we made a beeline for the stairwell. I felt awful just walking unceremoniously around all of the corpses, which each deserved to be respectfully laid to rest, but it wasn’t like we had time for thousands of funerals. Besides, we didn’t know which ones were now rental housing for the worms and which ones were just dead bodies. The best thing that we could do for all of them was to blow this space station up because at least then the parasitic bastards couldn’t use their bodies as puppets for their own agendas.
I tried to ignore the lifeless eyes staring up at me as I skirted around the second and then the third body in my path. But then, I heard a footstep from behind me. I looked up and saw that Rayne had gone ahead of me a few paces, which meant that it couldn’t have been her. I hoped it was an echo, but at that moment, I wasn’t too sure.
I slowly turned around to look behind me, and I sighed when I saw what was standing in the doorway. It was the body of the doctor that Bob had moved out of the doorway just a couple of minutes ago, only this time it wasn’t lying dead on the ground. No, now it was looking right at me, and it looked pissed.
“Uh, Rayne,” I said to her, since she hadn’t turned around yet.
“What?” she asked as she spun around. “Ah. I see the problem.”
“Yeah…” I sighed.
“But I think we have a bigger one,” she said.
“Which is?” I asked.
“Turn around,” she said with a quivering voice.
I slowly turned around to see most of the bodies had started to twitch, and then some of them sat bolt upright and turned to look at us in a very weird coordinated move. I looked back at the doctor, and it grinned at me.
“Fuck,” I said. “Run!”
Rayne and I sprinted as fast as we could toward the stairwell. The suits amped up our speed as we raced toward the doorway, and I tried to ignore the sound of all of the bodies crunching and groaning as they got back to their feet. I didn’t dare to turn back to look at how many there were behind us because there were more than enough in front of us that we would have to deal with. So I just made sure that I kept my tunnel vision directed at the stairwell and threw myself at full tilt toward it.
Rayne kept up with me at first, but after a few moments of hard running, she disappeared with a thud.
I skidded to a halt as soon as she fell and turned to check on her. I could see that her foot was caught on something, and she kept kicking at whatever it was as she tried to free herself. I thought she’d gotten caught in one of the small grates, but that didn’t make sense since those were all near the walls.
That was when I saw the hand wrapped around her ankle and the zombie that was attached to it. It snarled and gargled as its grip tightened around her leg.
“Get it off!” Rayne shouted.
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I shot my laser at the zombie’s wrist, and the hand was severed off from the arm, but the zombie didn’t even flinch.
Rayne scrambled away from it and then realized that the hand was still tightly wrapped around her leg. She yanked it off and threw it across the room. I watched it fly, and then my vision focused on the background behind the hand.
“Rayne, get up,” I said.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “That’s a lot of meat puppets.”
“Don’t look at them,” I said as I helped her to her feet. “Just run.”
“There’s a lot--” she began.
“Rayne!” I shouted. “Run.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, and then we took off toward the stairwell. We tore across the entrance hall, no longer concerned about the bodies we stomped on, though it was a relief when we reached the door of the stairwell.
I yanked the door open and stepped inside, but before Rayne followed me in, she turned around, raised her fire-launcher, and sent two blasts off at the slowly rising dead army behind us. The explosions hit over half of the gathered bodies, which started writhing as they burned. But we didn’t wait to watch them turn to ash. She darted through the door after me and slammed it closed behind us.
“I still think that launcher is so awesome,” I chuckled.
“And you’re still not getting your hands on it,” she laughed as she took off down the stairs.
“Aww, come on,” I said as I followed after her. “Even just one time?”
“In your dreams,” she said and a maniacal laugh escaped her.
We leapt down the stairs to the third floor, which was only one above the medical bay. We hadn’t checked the level before, so we had no idea of what lay beyond the door, but this was the only sure way to destroy the station and the Brainworms. A whole lot of lives depended on what we were about to do, and I secretly hoped that the station didn’t require a large operations staff because I wasn’t sure how many zombies we could hold off.
We finally reached the third landing, pushed the door open, and stepped out into the hallway. It was empty for the moment, but we had seen a zombie on this level when we had used the elevator, so I knew that they were around. I wasn’t sure how much time we had before the creatures realized we were here, so we needed to move fast.
“Alright, Francine,” I said. “Where’s this control room?”
“The room at the very end of the hallway,” Francine replied. “There are a number of safety doors that you will need to pass through, but I am able to access the security system to allow you to pass through.”
“Excellent,” I replied. “Thanks, Frankie. Now, we just need to get there without any worms getting to us first.”
“Let me guess, it’s the room at the end?” Rayne asked.
“Yep,” I replied.
“Figures,” she snorted.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Always,” she replied.
“Shall we, my dear?” I asked as I offered her my hand.
“We shall,” she laughed.
We started to jog down the hall. I kept my gun out in case any worms came flying at us, and Rayne did the same with her normal gun. She kept the fire-launcher across her back, since there weren’t large hordes of zombies coming at us right now, so she didn’t need to waste the limited shots she had left in it on any single zombie that we came across.
When we had almost reached the door at the end of the corridor, we started to slow slightly. I looked around again to see if there were any corpses nearby, but I couldn’t see any. Rayne ran ahead to the door at the end, while Francine stayed quiet as she worked on getting it open.
The lights were so dim at the end of the corridor that my night vision had kicked in, and I used the extra boost to do a careful check for any Brainworms that might be waiting for us. I checked all of the walls around us, looked in the shadows of the doorways, and finally, I turned to look up at the ceiling. I stopped in my tracks as soon as my eyes landed on what was hanging right above our heads.
“Oh, my God,” I gasped as I stared up at the roof.
“What is… Oh, shit!” Rayne said as her eyes landed on what I had seen.
Above us were about a hundred worms dangling from the ceiling. Only, they weren’t looking for us or getting ready to drop down on us, but instead, they were each encased in a clear gel-like substance that was suspended from the rafters like caterpillars inside chrysalises.
“What the actual fuck,” Rayne hissed.
“I think this is how they grow,” I replied. “In those cocoons. You can’t say they aren’t efficient, I suppose. They’ve already started making more of themselves.”
“So, these are baby ones?” she asked. “They’re making more of them as we speak? I mean, there must be at least two hundred of them up there.”
“It’s the best way for a species to invade an environment,” I replied with a shrug. “Breed fast, learn fast, feel nothing. These were probably made as soon as they got here, and I’ll bet they’ll hatch any minute now.”
“You know, you need to learn that sometimes it’s actually better not to keep talking,” she said.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I chuckled.
“How far has Francine gotten with getting the door open?” Rayne asked.
Right on cue, a light above the door went blue, and the heavy, metal lock inside it retracted with a clunk. Rayne and I rushed over to the door, pushed it open, and stepped inside.
“Oh,” Rayne said as we found ourselves in a stubby hallway facing an identical door. “That was underwhelming.”
“She did mention there might be a few doors to bypass before we got to the control room,” I said.
“I see,” she sighed. “Well, let’s just make sure that nothing sneaks up on us before we get inside.”
“Yep,” I replied.
Both of us kept our guns raised and our backs to the door that Francine was working on while we waited for anything to appear. Luckily, nothing did, and eventually, Francine got the second door open, and in turn, the third.
As soon as door three opened, Rayne and I rushed inside and closed the door behind us.
The first thing I noticed was how bright it was inside the control room. I clamped my eyes closed for a moment and then carefully opened them again while they adjusted to the harsh light inside the control room. Rayne and I both removed our headpieces for the time being and rubbed our eyes, which had gotten used to the dimmer light inside the space station.
“Whoa,” Rayne said as she closed her eyes for a moment. “It’s like someone’s shining a flashlight in my eyes.”
“I think this room has its own power source,” I replied. “It makes sense. If the power to the rest of the station fails, and then the backup generator does, too, there still needs to be power to run the control room so they can contact people for help or make sure the place doesn’t blow… Oh, damn.”
Both of our faces fell when we turned and saw the alien sitting in the chair in the middle of the room. He had his back to us, but I could see that he was surrounded by a bunch of different computers and other pieces of technology.
“Is he alive?” Rayne asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I can’t imagine the worms managed to get in here. Uh. Excuse me, sir? Or ma’am… I can’t tell.”
“Smooth,” Rayne said.
The alien’s head moved slightly as I spoke, but they didn’t turn around. Rayne glanced over at me, I nodded, and then we both carefully walked over to the chair. I put my hand on the back of it and spun the chair around to talk to the alien.
Only it wasn’t going to be doing much in the way of talking.
About four worms had burrowed into the poor person’s body. Two into the ears, one through its mouth, and one in its chest. The holes looked small considering the size of the worms I had seen, but I realized fairly quickly what was going on when one of the tiny worms slithered out of the body’s mouth and into its eye.
“They’re the young ones,” I said as an icy shiver ran down my spine. “And they’re learning how to burrow into people.”
“That’s disgusting,” Rayne groaned. “I think I might be sick.”
“Please don’t, you’ll set me off,” I said.
“I’ll deal with these,” Rayne said. “You deal with getting this station to explode.”
“Seems fair,” I chirped as I hurried away from the body and over to the control panel.
“I was hoping you would be a gentleman and offer to kill the worms instead,” Rayne called out from behind me.
“You overestimate me,” I laughed. “Besides, you can’t hear Francine right now.”
“This sucks,” she pouted.
“Okay, Francine,” I said as I looked at the myriad buttons and displays. “Please tell me you have something.”
“Of course I do,” the AI replied. “Remember who you are talking to, William.”
“Sorry,” I chuckled.
“Just give me one moment while I log into the computer,” Francine said.
There was a high-pitched worm squeal as Rayne stabbed one of them with her knife, which filled the pause until the computer unlocked.
I found myself looking at a screen with a long list of icons to press, only I couldn’t read anything because it was in an alien language.
“Ta-da,” Francine said.
“Well, this is all well and good, but this looks like gobbledygook to me,” I said. “How the hell am I supposed to use this?”
“I can access the self-destruct button,” Francine said. “But it requires a retinal scan to approve it.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
“You and I both know that humor is not my strongest skill,” Francine said.
“True,” I sighed. “Okay, uh, Rayne?”
“Yep?” she replied as she stabbed another worm.
“I need a, uh, an eyeball,” I said.
“Did you just say an eyeball?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Okay, go ahead,” she said as she stepped back from the body.
“Oh, I thought maybe you could…” I said with a winning smile.
“In your dreams,” she snorted. “You already left me to stab the worms, you can take the stupid eyeball.”
“Fine,” I sighed.
I went over to the body and stared down at it. The poor alien was well and truly dead, so I knew I wouldn’t be causing any pain, but still, the idea of cutting out its eye made me wanna hurl. I took a deep breath to settle myself, and mainly my stomach, and then I took one of Rayne’s knives and spooned the eye carefully out of its socket. I tried to ignore the squelching sound it made, as well as the popping sound as it hopped out of the socket. When the eyeball was free, I carefully picked it up without really looking at it and took it over to the control panel.
“Where do I put this?” I asked Francine as I told myself that I didn’t feel ill because I was holding a literal eyeball.
“Above the scanner to your left,” Francine said. “I have illuminated a light above it.”
A red light came on above a tiny scanner, and I walked over. I held the eyeball over the small device and waited while a beam of light flicked on and off a few times. The light then went green, and a large red button came up on the screen.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Press the big red button?”
“Correct,” Francine said. “But before you do, please be aware that you will have ten minutes to leave the space station before it self-destructs.”
“Rayne, have you got your running shoes on?” I asked.
“Huh?” she asked.
“We have ten minutes to get out of here once I hit this button,” I said as I carefully put the eyeball down on the control panel.
“Alright,” she said. “Ten minutes isn’t long.”
“Then we better run fast,” I said, to which Rayne laughed and shook her head.
“Alright,” she said. “I’m ready.”
“Okay, good,” I replied. “Because the countdown starts now.”
I slammed my hand onto the button, and a loud warning alarm began to sound.
“Well, that’s subtle,” Rayne said as we started to run back through the doors toward the corridor.
“Any way to shut off that racket, Francine?” I asked.
“No,” Francine replied. “The computer has locked down now that the self-destruct command has been submitted. I cannot access it.”
“Figures,” I sighed. “We just set off a freakin’ alarm clock for these zombies.”
“Well, hopefully, they won’t be awake for long,” Rayne said.
We raced back through all three of the doors, emerged out into the hall, and took off for the stairwell without even a backward glance. I had never run so fast in my life, and Rayne was only a couple of paces behind me. We both panted heavily as we pushed our bodies to the limit, but we only had five short minutes left to get the hell out of here before everything went kaboom.
We skidded to a halt as we reached the stairwell. I grabbed the handle, wrenched it open, waited for Rayne to sprint through, and then I followed her through afterward. We took the stairs two at a time, though I kept one hand on the banister so I could pull myself up even faster. I felt myself start to sweat while my muscles burned, but in the best possible way. I was running for my life, and strangely, it felt incredible.
We only stopped for a brief moment when we made it to the top floor. All we needed to do was get across the entrance hall, and we’d be in the clear. Rayne pulled the door open and was about to step inside without thinking, and I had to grab her arm and pull her back as one of the zombies tried to lunge through the doorway at her. I hit it with a couple of blasts from my laser, and it fell back onto the army of its kind behind it, and then I managed to slam the door closed behind it.
“Thanks,” Rayne panted.
“There’s too many of them,” I said.
“But we have to leave,” she said. “We haven’t got long left!”
“Rayne, there’s no way through that room,” I said. “We’re trapped.”