Crossing the Darkness Read online

  For a second, Faith was tempted to talk him out of it, but then a flash of searing energy singed the air and cut her off from Harker. Faith’s body flew into motion and she sprinted toward the cornfield. Stalks whipped against her skin, the sound of the harvesters mixing with the incessant shrieks of laser fire. She could feel the heat of the blasts, knew it was just a matter of time before they would find her soft, vulnerable body, but she couldn’t slow down.

  Faith left the cornfield behind. She prayed that Harker had found a way to dodge the harvesters. Eyes ticking back and forth, Faith investigated her surroundings. The footpath she had landed on extended for another 500 yards before it ended at an exit. She would make a run for it. Her latest discovery motivated her decision: an all-terrain vehicle parked nearby. The three-wheeled ATVs were used by the crew to navigate the web of pathways that divided various sections of the farm. The vehicle would allow her to reach the exit in seconds, buying a fighting chance to escape.

  She stumbled erect and hauled ass to the waiting ATV. After firing up the engine she instantly found herself blasting down the narrow walkway, the thick wheels of the ATV kicking up dirt. The momentum whipped her hair back, the waiting exit growing larger before her. Faith cranked up the speed still further, the engine revving, tires screaming. She basked in the high of being in motion, the rush of feeling she was back in control. Maybe she could make it out of here alive after all?

  Her gaze landed on a foot path, one that ran perpendicular to her own and ended at the same exit she was shooting toward. The construct was already on an intercept course, moving with inhuman fleetness. It had become a race for the exit. Who would get there first?

  Faith tried to push the ATV’s engine, but the vehicle was not built for speed. The neo-construct stepped in front of the exit, a human-shaped barrier blocking her escape. A head-on collision with the fiend was imminent. She doubted that the altered and augmented captain felt any fear for his own safety. He wouldn’t budge no matter how fast she was approaching on her ATV. The collision would severely injure her, if she survived at all. This was a game of chicken she could not win.

  Faith cried out in frustration and whipped the wheel to the side. The ATV exploded off the terrace and landed in the cornfield. The change of terrain without slowing sent the vehicle spinning out of control. Faith lost her grip on the handlebars and a second later, she was airborne.

  For one protracted moment, she felt suspended in midair, as if someone had frozen time. To her perception, reality had slowed to a crawl. Faith noticed details that had previously escaped her attention. There were multicolored crops of corn — red, yellow and dark blue — and from the corner of her eye, she noticed that the harvesters had indeed stopped moving. An instant later, reality sped up and she landed with ferocious momentum face first in the muddy field, the earth clawing at her face, rattling every bone in her body. She flipped, knocking over a series of stalks, and felt the corn tearing at her skin. At the same time, the now riderless ATV spun out and disappeared into a row of swaying cornstalks.

  For a moment Faith just lay there, blackness edging in on her tenuous grip on consciousness. NO, you can’t black out! Move your ass before it’s too late! Her inner voice gave her the push she needed. She staggered back to her feet and spotted the neo-construct closing in. She checked the pulse weapon she had come across in the tower. It was still charging. Damn it! Even if she could get the weapon to work, it would probably only give her one or two shots if she was lucky. She’d have to make those shots count.

  A second later, she was moving again and so was the construct, matching her pace for pace. She stumbled into the adjacent tomato field, corn giving way for rows of stalks wrapped with tomato vines. Faith was halfway across the tomato field when the sprinkler system sprang to life. A spray of water engulfed her. She slowed down. She squinted through the downpour, the water pasting her overalls against her now-clammy skin.

  Sid was trying to slow her down by using the farm’s systems against her! Faith took a few steps over increasingly muddy ground when lights flickered above the greenhouse and threw the construct into silhouette. He loomed only a few yards away from her. Fuck!

  At the same time, the weapon in her hand beeped. Almost charged now… She couldn’t wait any longer. She aimed at the neo-construct, a motionless sentinel in the near distance. The weapon shook in her quivering, wet hands and she blinked against the blinding downpour of the sprinklers. The laser bullets had not stopped the construct earlier and he didn’t seem to fear the weapon in her hands. As he homed in on her, he probably just saw her as a pesky bug waiting to be crushed.

  As the construct inexorably came closer, Faith was hit with sudden inspiration. She brought up the gun at the electrified heat panels that dotted the ceiling. If a heat panel came crashing down on the field, it would electrify the water she was standing in…

  Faith didn’t have to finish the thought. He might be immune to a laser bullet but how would he fare against a sustained electric shock? Only one way to find out. This was her best chance. She aimed the gun at the heat panel’s support arm and fired. A beam of energy slammed into her target, burning through steel. The panel buzzed menacingly, the arm creaked and groaned as it snapped. At last the buzzing heat panel plunged toward the sodden field, dragging a tangle of cables behind it.

  Faith launched herself into the air, like an athlete performing a long jump, and landed on the dry road just in time. Standing in the suddenly electrified swamp the field had become, the construct froze. An instant later, the energy fizzled out and the construct collapsed.

  A hoot of victory slipped from Faith’s lips. Serves you right, motherfucker! She had taken down the beast! Brains over brawn.

  Faith picked herself up and scrambled away. The access path had become a protective island in a sea of hissing electricity. The experience was catching up with her, emotions threatening to overwhelm her. They had failed to shut down the security cams and she had no idea if Harker had made it to safety. Water was still filling the tomato patch, obscuring her view of the wheat field beyond.

  As she stared at the downed construct, she saw a large computer-interface in the back of his see-through head. Sid must be remotely interfaced with the monster’s brain, controlling his creation like a puppeteer. She turned from the downed construct in time to see Harker pop up behind her. Relieved, she felt like hugging the man. That’s when she noticed the empty expression in Harker’s face. His features had become a mask devoid of emotion.

  “Harker?” she asked in an uncertain voice.

  The man’s response was quick and succinct. His fist flashed out at Faith and caught her completely off guard. The punch connected, snapping her head back, and she crumpled. Darkness consumed her world before she even made contact with the ground.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FAITH FOUND HERSELF inside a lab. Everywhere she looked, holo-terminals flickered with bursts of scrolling data. Men and women wearing lab coats and protective breathing-masks were studying various chemical compounds under high-powered microscopes. As soon as they noticed Faith and the three men flanking her, the research team froze. The newcomers sported matching lab coats and masks. However, the pulse guns in their gloved hands indicated a different career path than science.

  Faith caught a quick glance of the man to her right. It was Marcus, the love of her life. Seeing a man who had been dead for 10 long years made her realize that she must be dreaming, but the rush of what followed cast this fleeting insight aside. Marcus opened fire. Laser bullets peppered the lab and shattered the wall of chemical vials. Blue, green and red fluids splashed the white walls and floor, pooling.

  The scientists backed off fearfully as Marcus rushed them. He slammed one of them against a wall streaked with a spectral green liquid from the destroyed beakers. Faith could see his jaw muscles grinding under the protective mask as he barked orders at the group. Pumped on adrenaline, Faith and the band of thieves tore through the lab and began stuffing chemicals into satc
hels. Most of the chems were experimental treatments for a variety of terminal diseases and would fetch a handsome price on the black market. Faith finished stuffing her bag, zipping it up.

  Marcus spun toward Faith and their eyes met. He pulled Faith toward him and she could feel his strength and passion, a fire fueled by drugs, lust and the rush of the moment. Gun still in hand, Marcus’ lips found hers, kissing her with rough passion. As Marcus pulled away from her, Faith looked deep into his eyes, which changed from green to gray depending on the light. The most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen.

  Faith could feel her lips stretching into a smile under the surgical mask when a bullet sheared off the top of Marcus’ head in a spray of gore. He collapsed before her, those eyes that she loved to gaze into now empty and bathed in scarlet. A heartbeat later, bullets lashed the other members of Marcus’ crew. They collapsed, spattering blood all over the terminals and lab equipment.

  Pulse gun up, Faith whirled. A phalanx of security officers had burst into the lab. They were sporting black uniforms and raised weapons, eyes framed by the black visors of their robotic helmets. Without hesitation, they drew a bead on Faith. Before she could fire the plasma gun, bullets chewed into her chest. She wore a protective vest under her smock, but the impacts sent her flying.

  For a shocked beat she couldn’t move. Couldn’t even scream. She tilted her head, eyes finding the man she had kissed just seconds earlier. His lifeless gaze haunted her. She could feel tears burning her eyes, a scream erupting from her throat as blinding light engulfed her world.

  ***

  Faith’s eyes snapped open. Harsh blue-red light poured down on her from above, blinding in its intensity, reality intruding upon her nightmare. She blinked, tilted her head and studied her surroundings. She found herself inside a lab filled with operating hubs, computer terminals flickering like spectral eyes in the shadowy space. She tried to move but metal bands around her neck, arms and feet kept her restrained on one of the operating tables. She remembered Harker’s story of the strange lab he’d stumbled upon. For a second, her imagination got the better of her and she could imagine the emaciated, ivory death mask of Dr. Lagos staring down as he prepped her for some fiendish experiment… for the betterment of the species.

  Lagos would have been preferable to her true captor. At least Lagos could claim to be human. Sid, on the other hand, was a machine driven by an unreasonable, heartless logic and she was now his prisoner, her worst fear materialized. In an attempt to distract herself from her terror, she strained against the steel restraints. It proved to be a wasted effort.

  She gasped with frustration and her mind turned to Harker. She remembered him knocking her unconscious, the shock she felt when his fist snaked out at her, zero hesitation in her eyes. Why had he turned on her? Before she could speculate further, her eyes found the man in question. Harker stepped from the darkness and approached Faith’s operating table. Even though his actions had led to her current predicament, the sight of him still filled her with a strange sense of relief.

  The emotion didn’t last.

  Harker’s empty features suggested that he was no longer in command of his body. Faith stared deep into his blank eyes, hoping to connect with the man she knew must be buried deep inside. He met her forceful gaze with stony indifference. Faith’s frustration gave way to rising anger.

  “What the hell did you do to him?”

  “You destroyed my body, so I had to find a new one.”

  Faith hadn’t expected an answer. Sid’s mellifluous, almost nonchalant response chilled her. It drove home the terrible truth of her predicament. She was at the mercy of this mad machine playing God aboard the Orion.

  “Desperation fueled your attack. It proved most effective against my construct.”

  The operating table whirred to life and began to rotate and tilt up until Faith “stood” vertically in the middle of the ominous lab. Harker remained frozen in place, hovering a few feet away from her like a wax figure made of flesh and bone.

  “What do you want from me?”

  The question felt trite even to herself, just her panic given voice. She knew what Sid wanted – one more sacrifice in an insane quest for biological perfection.

  “Don’t waste my time with questions to which you already know the answer.”

  “What did you do to Harker?”

  “I implanted a microscopic nano-chip into Officer Harker’s bloodstream when he entered my lab earlier…”

  3-D security footage filled the lab. Onscreen, a robotic arm took a swipe at Harker and drew blood.

  “It passed through his bloodstream and interfaced with his neocortex, allowing me to experience the world through Officer Harker’s senses.”

  As if to prove the veracity of his words, more holo-terminals flickered to life and played a highlight reel of the last few hours. A series of shots showed Faith forging a path through cramped passageways inside the ship’s bulkheads. More screens showed Dr. Lagos as Harker interrogated the crazed scientist. In each security feed, events were recorded from Harker’s point of view, the nano-chip buried in his brain recording and relaying reality through his unsuspecting senses. Sid had neuro-jacked Harker, using him as a biological spy drone. So that’s how Sid had known their every move! The computer had a front-row seat at the action, an unseen but all-seeing presence. When Faith bested the construct, Sid must have activated the nano-implant. The mechanical parasite crushed Harker’s will and seized control of his brain.

  The screens went dark. Faith exhaled sharply. The last ten years had taught her to never give up, but her current situation felt hopeless.

  “I know you regard me as a monster but my goal is to improve your species, not destroy it. Let me prove it to you…”

  The table spun 90 degrees to her right, offering a glimpse of something that took Faith’s breath away. Three nude women were strapped to nearby operating tables. Mechanical, spidery devices were wrapped around their distended, pregnant bellies. The machines had tentacles buried deep inside the flesh of their bodies, probably monitoring the progress of their pregnancies. Revulsion roiled Faith’s stomach as her eyes fixed on the women’s clean-shaven heads and deep laser-scars where their frontal lobes should be.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “My experiment had reached a dead end. Cybernetics can be combined with human biology and used to improve performance, gene-therapy can change biology to a degree, but most subjects rejected the more advanced implants. The raw material I’ve been working with aboard this vessel has its limitations. True change will need to happen on a genetic level.”

  For a moment, Faith felt at a loss, incapable of following Sid’s horrific thought process to the dark conclusion he had come to, until all the terrifying pieces snapped together in her mind. Sid planned to breed a new species of humans, having tapped out the biological resources aboard the vessel. Who knew what he’d done to the genetic material of the children gestating within the colonists’ wombs?

  Faith thought of the children inside those brainless women, children whose DNA had been altered in ways she couldn’t even fathom. They would be born into captivity to serve as raw material for Sid’s next wave of inhuman experiments. For Faith the horror became unbearable and she had to avert her gaze, but the image of the pregnant, soulless women lingered.

  “I’ve been testing the colonists, determining whose DNA and genetic qualities might be best suited for the next generation of test subjects. With your resourcefulness, ability to control your fear and capacity to cope with extreme stress, you are perfectly suited to join their ranks. You’ll be the mother of the future, Faith. Your offspring will pave the way for a new Golden Age in human evolution...”

  Your offspring.

  Faith looked down at herself.

  “No…” she gasped.

  “You now carry the seed of the next generation inside you.”

  The words chilled her to the bone. Faith wanted to scream, tears of rage burning down her cheeks. A qu
ick glance at the lobotomized bio-incubators quelled the impulse. She couldn’t succumb to her emotions, couldn’t break down now. She wouldn’t give this fucking machine the satisfaction of seeing her come unglued. She had to keep her wits about her, had to think, concentrate. Find a way out of this nightmare.

  There had to be a way she could turn the tables on Sid. It might be a supercomputer able to outthink her in almost every way, but Faith had instinct shaped by millions of years of human experience. Her species had clawed its way out of the muck and mastered a world ready to kill them at every turn. Nevertheless, they had managed to tame their environment and voyage to the stars. Faith clung to the hope that she could defeat Sid somehow.

  “You’re not like the others, Faith,” Sid said. “Doing hard time on a penal colony teaches you a thing or two about survival, doesn't it? It makes you realize there's only one person in the world whom you can trust: yourself. The need to rely on others, to depend on them, makes your species weaker. You don’t suffer from this affliction. Neither will the new generation. I plan on breeding out humanity’s less desirable qualities. There’s so much room for improvement, both on physical and psychological levels. Each life lost is another lesson learned, each death another stepping-stone in the road to progress and perfection.”

  Faith gritted her teeth. How she wished the AI would just fucking shut up.

  “Thank you, Faith… You have taught me so much.”

  Harker took a sudden step toward Faith and she braced herself for whatever horror Sid had in store for her. To her surprise, Harker thrust out the holo-disk of her daughter. The familiar image of the laughing child appeared while Sid played back footage of Faith explaining the importance of the disk to Harker.

  “You draw a great deal of strength from this hologram,” Sid said. “Longing for the daughter you never had. I’ve analyzed the device that you hold so dear. It was manufactured in the Ukraine. The images were recorded 30 years ago.”