The Second Sphere

The moments came and went. Thoughts seemed like bees buzzing in my head. One minute they were there. The next minute they weren’t. I swatted at them, trying to get them away. But the harder I tried, the more frustrated I became, and the more certain I was that there was doom on the horizon.

What I didn’t have time to do was stare out my window and think about what Luis had just told me. Yet there I was, staring at the tops of buildings. I smelled set-up coming from thousands of miles away. But the fact that I smelled set-up didn’t exactly matter. The only thing that mattered was who. If I could get the who, then I’d be in business. Until then, I’d wait for someone to read the report Luis would write and come lock me up. It was only a matter of time until that happened.

A career Laslow man was a GR mole? Too bad Victor Newberry was dead. Someone, somewhere waited for that headline to break.

I thought about getting ahead of that information, going straight to Bryant and telling him about this bullshit set-up. The truth was so beautiful and so real. But the lies were stronger, sexier. Doubt filled my stomach. Why would anyone believe me when there was evidence that I was responsible for inserting the virus? The uncertainty was heavy. It pushed me down so I couldn’t leave my seat.

As my mind began to wander along paths that it had no business going down, I heard a beep on my link-up. Bryant appeared in front of me.

“Orion, I think it might be time for you to get down here. The man who was attacked this morning? The doctor wants to wake him up.”

“Right now?”

“You said you wanted me to tell you when he wakes up. Well, the doctor is going to wake him up any minute. So, get down here.”

“Is he restrained?” I asked.

“He is. Don’t worry. Everything’s been taken care of.”

“Okay. I just have a few things I need to finish, then I’ll be down there.”

“Len’s just gotten back and he’s down here, too,” he said.

“Good. Okay. Let me get off so I can finish this up.”

The medical center was connected to Laslow by a narrow walkway that went over a narrow, dirty alley between the two buildings. The facility was non-descript, bleak gray, as unimpressive as most of the other buildings on the second sphere. There were no windows, which made it appear like a storage facility, which it most certainly wasn’t.

I strode down the walkway headed to see what our troop would say. Each step echoed in my ears. Inside was a white room with a scuffed black floor. There were two couches and a digitized painting of elephants along the far right wall. At a desk in front of me was a petite blonde woman staring at a link-up. She gazed at the image in front of her, mesmerized. It took her a few moments to realize I was there.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked.

“I’m here with Intelligence. Bryant Valek sent for me?”

“Oh yes, Mr. Valek is in Room 35. That’s just down the hallway to the right.” She gestured to the door behind her.

“Thank you,” I said. The hallway beyond the locked door smelled like antiseptic.

I saw the sign for Room 35 and stepped into the room. The walls were white and covered with various machines, which made the room seem much smaller and darker than it might have otherwise. On the far side of the room, gathered around a bed, were Bryant and Len and someone I could only assume was a doctor. It was the white lab coat that gave it away. They spoke to each other in hushed voices.

There were several large machines that had colored tubes running to the injured man’s body. Some of the machines blinked. Others hummed quietly. Beeps came intermittently from a few. The man’s neck was bandaged tightly. In the center of the cloth was a bright, red stain.

I cleared my throat.

“Hey, Orion,” Bryant said. “This is Doctor Hammond. Doc, this is Orion Cox.”

“Nice to meet you,” Doctor Hammond said. “I was just telling them that we need to get this man conscious as soon as we can. It’s not good for his chip to be unstimulated for so long.”

“Unstimulated?” I asked.

“After he was bitten, the corporal was shot up with a strong synthetic opiate. Now these new, stronger synthetic opiates like the one that he got block all chip activity. That means that right now, even though he’s breathing, he’s not thinking about anything. He’s been out for about five hours now. Any longer than that, and the quality of his chip might be compromised,” the doctor said.

“Well, let’s wake him up,” Len said.

The bitten man’s face was pale. His blond hair clung to his forehead. Heavy straps covered his arms, chest, and legs. His chest heaved up and down. There was something off about his appearance, something untamed.

“Are those restraints enough?” I whispered to Bryant.

“Will you relax?” he said.

The doctor pressed a button on the wall. “Nurse James, can you come to Room 35, please?”

A moment later, a woman dressed in a starched white uniform appeared. She greeted us with a smile and went to stand by the side of the doctor. He whispered something in her ear and the woman left the room. I shot Bryant a questioning look. But his gaze lay on the wounded man.

Then the nurse came back. She carried a small syringe filled with a pale green liquid. She walked past us to where the man lay and jabbed the syringe directly into his arm.

The soldier’s eyes opened, suddenly. A gasp came from the man’s throat as he searched for air. His gaze fell upon Len, then his eyes moved to each of us. Panic filled his face. He began to struggle.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Corporal,” Len said as he put a hand on the man’s foot. “It’s okay.” The man stopped flailing for a moment. His eyes again moved to each of our faces like he wanted to figure out who we were.

“Is it normal for him to be this agitated?” Bryant asked.

“Well, it’s not particularly unusual,” the doctor said. “When you come out of a coma like that, there’s bound to be some shock. And considering he probably doesn’t remember what happened to him, it’s not surprising that he’d behave this way.”

“Good to see you awake, soldier,” Len said. He gave the man an awkward smile and a nod.

The soldier’s gaze fell upon the ceiling. His mouth hung open slightly. He whispered something that we couldn’t hear.

“What did he say?” Bryant asked.

“No idea,” the doctor said, shaking his head. The man whispered again.

The nurse leaned over the man, her head just over his.

“Be careful,” I said.

A growl came from the man as he raised his head and bit into her. Synthetic blood spurted from her neck in sharp red streaks. A shriek came from her mouth, and her face crumpled with pain. I stumbled back, clutching Bryant’s arm as I did. The doctor pressed a button on the wall, and a siren began wailing. Another woman ran into the room.

The wounded man let go of the nurse. Synthetic skin and tendon filled his mouth. The nurse pulled away. Blood covered the soldier’s face. A snarl erupted from his mouth as he tried to jerk away from the restraints that held him down. His eyes were dark. The bed moved suddenly as he flailed.

Just in front of us, the doctor tended to the wound on the nurse’s neck, bandages in his hand. He worked furiously, trying to stem the flow of blood, covering the wound; but it wouldn’t stop coming. The nurse’s eyes were wide open like she’d just been pumped full of air. Then her eyes rolled back in her head. She began to make a throbbing noise as the doctor worked. The darkness took her away. She suddenly sank her teeth into the doctor’s wrist.

He cried and ripped his arm away from her. The nurse fell to the floor, her joints bending, the savagery filling her. The woman who had just entered ran to the doctor.

“Don’t!” I said to her as I backed out the door. “Leave him! Leave him!”

But the woman ignored what I said. She had her hands over the wound on the doctor’s wrist trying to staunch the flow of blood. But the pressure was too great, and blood spurted all over her face. That was when the nurse jumped and sank her teeth into the woman’s neck.

I grabbed Bryant by the collar, dragging him behind me as we sprinted for the front waiting area. Len almost fell over us as he followed, his arms pumping. When we reached the waiting area, the door to the hallway closed behind us. I knew it wouldn’t hold. I heard the screams from behind the door, the sound of glass breaking, and thought, for a split second, about the people we left behind.

The woman behind the desk stood, her frightened eyes flashed back and forth between Bryant and me.

“Please,” Bryant said to her, “this facility needs to be locked down. Call ops, tell them…” We heard the steps coming from the hallway. Len threw his body against the door and kept his weight pushed against it.

“I, I, I,” was all the woman behind the desk could say. More screams came from the hallway. Thuds crashed against the door. The veins in Len’s face were close to popping.

Bryant pushed her out of the way and moved to the woman’s link up. “Emergency protocol one. Emergency protocol one. This is not a drill. Hospital facility requires immediate lockdown and quarantine,” he said.

“Bryant,” I said. I realized that my hand clutched his sleeve. I needed to get out of the building as soon as possible. The door behind Len slowly slipped open. The woman stood behind her desk, frozen. Len’s force weakened. With each moment that passed, his feet slipped further and further. There was a crack at the door that grew wider as we stood there, trying to figure out what we should do next.

Bryant slapped the link-up off of the desk, scattering it across the floor. He put his hands underneath the desk and tried to move it.

“Give me a hand with this,” he said. I moved to the desk. We flipped it onto its side and began to drag it toward the door. Len moved a few inches so we could let the desk fall into place, an impediment that would hopefully give us enough time to get to safety.

At that moment, the door came open about six inches, and a hand reached out, grabbing me by the throat. All I could see in front of me was that hand, covered in blood. The fingers felt powerful as they choked the air out of me. I struggled, trying to gather my breath, trying to rip the fingers away. But I couldn’t find any leverage.

Len, who stood behind me, reached in front of me and grabbed the hand. He squeezed it hard and twisted. A shriek rose from behind the door. The hand let go of my throat, and my lungs filled with air. The desk shoved hard against the door. I fell over. Len still held on to the hand even as the door opened a bit further, and a head appeared. It was the nurse. She sank her teeth into Len’s shoulder.

A bellowing cry came from his mouth. That was when I moved. I didn’t care at that moment whether anyone else lived or died. It was the natural instinct programmed into my chip that made me run. One foot in front of the other, I ran down the narrow walkway that attached the Laslow Building to the medical facility.

I peeked over my shoulder to see what was behind me. Bryant was there, to my left, almost on my heels. Farther behind me, I saw the woman who had been behind the desk. She ran as fast as she could, her thin arms and legs pumping. Then I saw a hand grasp her by the shoulder and pull her backwards.

Terrifying screeches filled the hallway. Then we were back in the Laslow Building. A warbling siren blasted, and I covered my ears. Underneath that, I heard footsteps pounding toward us. The troops came around a corner quickly. Their rifles were aimed directly at us.

“No!” I yelled. Bryant and I rolled on to the floor as the shots opened up. To our left was a long hallway. We scrambled down it. Ahead and to the right, I saw the elevators. When we reached them, I urgently called the elevator.

Automatic weapon fire filled the air. Len moved from right to left in a flash of green. Then, I saw the nurse, a white, ghoulish creature. She moved along the ground like some kind of monster, her joints bent awkwardly, her face filled with darkness.

“Come on,” Bryant said as he pulled me onto the elevator. The doors closed with a ding. Bryant opened a panel and pressed a button. A light flashed across his chip. In a moment, we rocketed into the sky.