Wheezing and fatigued as a result of running on his sore feet for a long time, John Sterling puts his palms on his kneecaps as he stands near the edge of a promontory overlooking a forest of giant trees with dark green leaves. It is one in an insurmountable palisade of cliffs, part of a massive wall of jagged, white rock embedded with bits of mica and quartz that shimmer blue and violet in the dim, purple light of Santamaría I, the planet's moon.
Feeling the spacesuit's cold metal around his knees, he wishes he could unlock it to give his throbbing feet and knees a massage. Dismantling the backpack containing the primary life support system, the communication systems, and the in-suit computer will help his hurting back. The planet's atmosphere is just like Earth's, the significant difference being that the percentage of oxygen is higher here than on Earth. So if he removes his suit, he'll be just fine.
But, interplanetary safety policy dictates that in no world, whether Earth-like or not, should a person remove their suit outside a base. The last time he broke the rules near Brulzas Mayor, it didn't go well. He had to pay a hefty fine of 6000 space credits, as required by the United States Interplanetary Safety Laws (USISL). Forget the law, the AI in the suit won't allow him to unlock it until he reaches an establishment: a base, terminal, station, or outpost. Only when the spacesuit faces "serious" damage will the AI make an exception to this rule; but, what constitutes "serious" damage, he doesn't know.
Once, a colleague of his at Strategic Corporation got squashed by a boulder in a nearby mineshaft. When the medics arrived and pushed the rock aside, they found her with her bones crushed and a shard from a panel stabbing her left lung. The paramedics were unable to remove that splinter because her suit wouldn't come off, no matter how hard they tried to unlock it. Only when they took her into the mining outpost's main walls, were they able to get the spacesuit off and pull out the shrapnel. But, by then, it was too late; she was already dead. Investigations that followed revealed that the AI software installed on suits then, Clarisse by AdelleTec, apparently couldn't recognize being crushed by a hundred-ton rock as "serious damage." A subsequent company-wide update replaced the software on all suits with 'Marcus by Earlhart, Brockbaston & Charleston.'
John can only hope now that Marcus won't fail him like how Clarisse failed his colleague. He was never in a situation where he needed to remove that suit outside a base to see if Marcus will allow him to open it, nor was it his desire to be in one. However, should that thing undergo severe structural damage, John needs it to come off when he wants it off.
An icy-cold draft blows against him, but the metal exoskeleton he's wearing prevents it from caressing his skin. He can only tell that the wind is blowing this way because the readings on the augmented-reality display built into his helmet's visor say so.
Atop that rock, three hundred feet from the ground, he pauses to consider the exuberant landscape, even though the altitude frightens him, making his heart pound faster as his pupils dilate. The adrenaline coursing through his body heightens each of his senses. Every color is brighter now, and every noise louder.
The trees below are hissing as they sway gently, guided by strong gusts of wind. Thick snow blankets the serrated sky-stabbing mountains lining the horizon, like powdered sugar on donuts. The crinkled, halo-white peaks of those hills effortlessly dwarf the tallest mountains on Earth, Mount Everest, and the Kilimanjaro. The night sky is laden with stars of a myriad of colors — birthstone-blue, sequin-silver, molten-gold, and polar-white — all dispersed like as if they're diamonds hurled into space by a giant hand, flashing and flickering, sparkling and shimmering, gleaming and glittering.
Marcus, the suit's digital assistant, detects that Sterling wants to see something far away and switches the view from the visor to a screen that slides in front of it. John is now seeing the same scene he saw before, but this time he does so through the cameras outside his helmet, not through the tinted glass of his visor. Marcus zooms further until John can see Lake Emerhyst in the distance, its placid, sapphire-blue waters lapping its sandy shore speckled with greenish-yellow pebbles and quartz, as cylinders of gentle moonlight move across the water's surface. The aromas of lamb stew, toasted marshmallows, and roasted sausages from his memories of his camping trips there, before everything went wrong, flood John's nostrils until he forces himself back to consciousness.
He wed Carlota, his now probably dead wife, on that shore before he was transferred to Aeternitas I, the last frontier outpost of Nostrum: the small portion of this enormous planet humankind colonized, where John is now. He has never heard of her ever since the Red Agony spread, and she contracted the virus before being taken to Magnar Ultrum, a medical station not so far from the Dracastoika Mountains, where Strategic Industrials had most of their on-planet mining concerns, near a small now-abandoned city called New Houston.
The pandemic changed lives forever. If it didn't occur, Carlota and John would have completed their assignments on-planet and boarded a ship back to their home Mars, from where they could fly to Earth. It was Carlota's lifelong dream to live on Earth, in New York. Ever since she was little, she would post pictures of New York City all over her room; she dreamed of seeing Times Square one day, of admiring Brooklyn Bridge from a distance, and going to the top of the Empire State building. She loved the place, even though she hadn't been there, not even once in her lifetime. Once they paid off their college debt, John and Carlota planned on saving up for going there.
But, things took a turn for the worse when that outbreak happened; their plans hit the dirt. The disease ravaged through Nostrum, killing thousands of people: colonists, workers, and troopers. Interplanetary travel ceased. The community in Nostrum fell apart as every station and outpost grew isolationist, every man for himself.
The peculiar thing about that pandemic was that it didn't spread because someone ate some local bush-meat. The Red Agony was the work of Strategic Corporation. They made it in their secret labs at Dromovyst — a now razed base just three hundred miles south of Aeternitas I. Only they didn't know how to contain it. Within a few months of production, the virus killed everyone at Dromovyst before spreading like wildfire all over Nostrum.
To save their face and to hide the number of people sick and dying under their watch, Strategic began to bomb the medical stations that contained tens of thousands of quarantined people, disguising it as mercy-killing.
It took a court order from the US Federal Court on the Martian Colony of New Massachusetts to stop that. But the order came too late; no medical station remained, by then. Not all of the inmates perished, though. Some fled into the forests and surrounding wilderness before missiles turned their stations to ash. John doesn't know if his wife was one of those who escaped. There was no way he can confirm that unless he sees her face-to-face because Strategic erased all records of the people quarantined.
After the disease ravaged station after station, base after base, outpost after outpost, only two establishments remained on the planet — Aeternitas I, and Olson, — both abandoned and betrayed as part of the Great Disconnect: an umbrella term for the ruthless actions Strategic Corporation took to contain the sickness after it exploded beyond control.
These measures included shooting down ships that tried to leave, cutting communications, and moving the nearest space station so far away that no escapee ship could refuel. In Strategic's eyes, it was better if everyone on-planet died because the dead don't demand reparations; neither do they speak.
Olson. That's where he is heading: the mighty fortress, the mother base. He hopes that it will be safe, that the Red Agony hasn't breached its secure defenses. When the disease began spreading, the citadel was the first to shut its gates on every desperate soul seeking refuge. They wanted to keep the people inside safe, and resources were too scarce to be shared. Olson was very strict about outsiders staying where they were supposed to be: outside. And if anyone tried to breach those enormous castellated walls laden with embrasures for cannons and ray guns, they were more than willing to pull the trigger. Though brutal, those measures helped them keep their record of having had zero known cases of the Red Agony. For this reason, and the fact that they're armed to the teeth, John thinks Olson can keep him safe from the illness and those that appeared after the fall of Aeternitas I.
After the Great Disconnect, Aeternitas I acted as Olson's off-base research outpost. On Olson's behest, the scientists there travailed on countless research projects to find a way out of the planet and to survive. One of those projects failed, taking out all of Aeternitas I's systems. But that isn't why John is fleeing towards Olson. That failed project awoke something, something horrifying, something terrible, which he alone managed to escape. And if he needs to live, he has to reach the citadel in time.
"Marcus, how far is Olson? By foot?" John asks his digital assistant.
"According to the map, going to Olson will take you twenty-four hours, if you take the quickest route," Marcus replies. A map appears on the screen with a blue line designating the route he must take. According to the computers, John should step back into the woods behind him, hike down the slope, and walk to the part of the road on the other side of a broken bridge. From there, he has to continue trekking along the abandoned highway until he reaches Olson.
Not possible. No.
The alarm in his suit starts beeping, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"What is it, Marcus?"
"Unidentified object approaching. Unidentified object approaching." A warning card appears on-screen.
Shit! It can't be that, can it? John faces the forest behind him. "Increase feed volume, Marcus."
"Increasing volume: feed." The feed from the microphones, which are recording sounds outside his suit, gets louder.
"Reduce system volume."
"Reducing volume: system interface." The sound of the beeps gets softer, allowing him to hear noises outside clearly
"Any data on the said unidentified object?"
"Living organism. Body temperature possibly ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Approaching at a faster rate."
John's suit detects vibrations on the ground.
"Tag as — Shit!" He swallows hard as he sees the trees behind the precipice moving. The cracks of branches being ripped out and splintered are getting louder and louder. "It's here!" he whispers.
"Tagging unidentified object as 'Shit it's here' successful. 'Shit it's here' approaching."
He hears a deep growl. "Grrrrr."
A chill trickles down his spine. His fingers trembling, he horripilates, agitated, and pale with fright. His heartbeat palpitates as his breath gets shallow. He can taste the bile rising at the back of his throat. His quivering legs threaten to buckle. The screen zooms in and out by itself, but he can't see a thing in that darkness.
The guttural rumble is nearing him, the muffled beeping inside his helmet approaching a crescendo.
Without his knowledge, he is tiptoeing backward step-by-step, stopping right at the edge of the cliff. The alarm's beeps reach a crescendo and blast into a siren's deafening, elongated wails after the AI seizes access over all the volume controls.
Red lights start blinking inside the helmet, and a robotic female voice begins yelling 'WARNING! MOVE AWAY! WARNING! MOVE AWAY! WARNING! MOVE AWAY!' into his ears. A message pops up on the screen: "Unsturdy Ground. Caution!" Before he realizes, the ground beneath him gives away.
That thing's growls grow into an ear-blistering roar as it breaks through the last few trees standing between John and it.
"Ga-ah!" John gasps, as he falls just before the thing pounces onto the precipice and lets out a howl, more like an ear-agonizing shriek.
Thud! The padded glove on John's right-hand thwacks the edge's rough surface as he grasps on to it to stop himself from plummeting while that repulsive howl echoes throughout the valley.
The beeping and siren wail has stopped. The warning messages are gone. The screen inside John's helmet has been rolled back; he is now seeing through the visor.
John's feet and left-hand are dangling in the air, in uncertainty, like the rest of his body. Even though his mind tells him, Don't look below, he takes a glimpse, only to recoil in terror as he sees the part of the cliff that gave away strike the ground, smashing into several pieces. John retches; he can sense his bowels contract as his bladder gives away while his heart is pounding.
The cliff overhead vibrates as the thing trudges to the right, making that screeching cry once again. John wants to cover both his ears. But, he can't do that hanging off the precipice with a helmet on his head. The shrill noise stresses the feed microphones, distorting the sound. The spacesuit has entered 'emergency mode.' It won't allow some manual control, including the ability to change the audio feed volume unless John is on solid ground or until one disables the AI using a button somewhere under the panel on his right forearm. The problem is John can't reach that button without putting more strain on his right hand. So, he must deal with the feed microphones' gain set to the maximum, against his will, by the computers.
As the moon shines directly on his face, reflecting off the visor, he hopes that the thing above won't see his hand.
Wanting to find a way to reach the ground safely, he scans the bottom of the cliff, searching for some sturdy stalagmite that he can use as a stepping stone to get to another rock formation before reaching the seemingly insuperable wall of white rock facing him. He can then try scaling down; it might be a cumbersome descent but not necessarily an impossible one.
The promontory trembles again as the thing overhead starts moving again, making another croaking howl. John gulps. Then the tremors begin to fade, the cry still reverberating. That thing is heading back into the trees.
"Phew."
Things are not over for him, though; he still needs to get off this cliff alive before heading towards Olson.
He waits for a while and then says, "Marcus. Headlights, please."
"Turning headlights on." The LED lights lining the edge of the visor's other side emit a blinding white beam, illuminating the overhanging rock's underside, revealing a plethora of hidden rock formations.
"Can you estimate the sturdiness of the dripstones ahead?"
"Negative. That function is not available."
"Damn!"
This should do. John reaches out for one sturdy-looking dripstone with his free hand, swinging towards it. He's almost there, about to make contact. "Come on — just a little bit. Nearly there," he grunts.
He holds his breath as he extends his arm. He can hear his heartbeat get louder and louder in these quiet, strenuous moments as blood whooshes through his head.
No, no, no! A gust of wind pushes him back. He gasps, sucking in as much air as he can from the helmet's oxygen feeders. He tries harder to catch that dripstone, only to stare in disbelief as the gap between him and the rock formation widens. "This can't be!" he whispers to himself, panting.
The wind-blast now propels him far out to the other side. His grip slackens, his hand slides down a few inches until he stiffens his hold again, heaving a brief sigh of relief afterward.
Crack.
Too late.
John is free-falling, confused about what just happened.
He tears through the air as he plunges. The vision of him shattering like that piece of cliff flashes before John's mind. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he wavers in and out of consciousness, the ground getting closer and closer. The oxygen feeders in the suit are overworking upon detecting that John is tensed and unable to breathe.
"MARCUS. RETRO-BOOSTERS!" He screams.
"Activating retro-boosters in —"
"Ah-Ah-AAAAH!"
"3"
"Pronto!" The gap between him and solid ground is burning away like toilet paper set aflame; with every millisecond, his fall accelerates.
"2"
He shuts his eyes as his body tips down, nose-first. He braces for a collision.
"1"
After a humming sound and a click, two thrusters emerge out of hatches that flip open in the backpack's underside, giving off a loud rumble, followed by a whoosh as blue exhaust flames appear. The rockets bend, adjusting his position to one where the soles of his feet now face the ground, before straightening up and pushing him upwards, giving him lift to soften his fall. His descent is slower now.
"Whew!" He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath as his heartbeat starts going back to normal, his body cooling down.
His momentary relaxation dissipates when a series of beeps stab his eardrums. "What now?"
"System Overheating. Cooling Mechanism Failed," Marcus kept repeating.
Shit!
Before he can react, he hears a spark and then a loud explosion behind him. By the time he can look over his shoulder, the blast has hurled him towards the rock-face.
"No!" He smashes into the rock, vomiting blood, which splashes onto the visor, obscuring his view. Dazed, he falls back and resumes rushing towards the ground, accelerating with gravity.
Smack!
He crashes on the ground, head first, and all goes black.
John wakes up giddy after his fall, nauseated, his eyesight blurry. His head aches like it has been caught between a hammer and an anvil. As he lies on the ground, he can feel thick liquid on his forehead, reeking iron, which he recognizes as blood. His blood. His fractured neck is overwhelmed by sharp stabs of pain. John tries to raise his upper body using his right hand. Nothing happens, nothing moves. He then tries the other arm and attempts to kick at the air with his legs. No result.
"F**k, no!"
The disturbing realization that he's paralyzed below his neck hits him like a ton of lead.
The helmet seems to have endured much damage; it has stopped his skull from being bashed open, from emptying its contents like a cracked egg. He must have fallen from about thirty-five feet after the backpack exploded. Even though the visor is intact, the glass stained with blood, the augmented-reality display is off.
"Marcus. What's the status?" John asks and waits for a reply.
Nothing. Not even static. The systems are down.
"F**k!"
He feels his head vibrate. "Huh?" It's the ground beneath, not his head, he realizes. There are many vibrations this time. The tremors are growing intense, moving towards him from all directions. He can't hear any of the noise outside, because the feed microphones are out.
Sweat trickles down his forehead as he gulps.
It can't be. Not this many.
Clenching his teeth, he turns his head to the side, facing the eighty-nine-foot trees.
They are pushing their way through the elephant-sized bushes growing between the trees. He cannot see them yet, because they haven't fully debouched from the thicket; but, he knows they're coming for him.
He screams as loud as he can, trying in vain to move his arms and legs to get up and run. His shrieks peak, but no one can hear them through the soundproof helmet.
Within a few hours, after sunrise, nothing remains in the spot where John was except for bits of bloody, crumpled metal. Thick fog engulfs the place. In a pool of blood slowly sinking into the mud, lies a ripped-out leg still encased in the suit's robust paneling. Blood is splattered everywhere, on the ground, and on the bushes and the trees.