“Oh…” I said, thinking that over. I didn’t like the sound of it.

  “Anyway, there are a lot of barricades in there around the main medical bay, in the center of the complex. We can’t risk damaging that equipment, James—but that might be exactly what we have to do to defeat these aliens in the end.”

  “Huh…” I said, losing interest.

  My mind was already going through what I was going to do, what I was going to face when I stepped onto Blue Deck proper. Naturally, I’d like to have had a full squad at my back—or possibly my entire unit. But that option had been scoffed at by my superior officers. To them, one fool—namely me—was expendable. I’d already faced and survived these creatures in the past. They were hoping for me to roll all sixes once again and solve their problem for them nice and clean. If nothing else, they figured they’d get some good intel out of my tapper while I was being shredded.

  Going to the vault door, I thumped a gauntleted fist on it. “How do you get this thing open?”

  Thompson continued to stare at me. “This is suicide, James. You do know that, right? You saw what happened to my specialists.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been exposed to whatever this is before back on Earth. For some reason, it doesn’t seem to affect me the way it does everyone else.” I didn’t mention that I wasn’t entirely sure why that was the case, or whether my supposed immunity would hold up under direct assault.

  “James, I just can’t authorize this. If you get infected—”

  “If I don’t try, how many more people are going to die? How are we going to get your Blue Deck back for you? Just one revival machine is worth a dozen McGills—you know that.”

  “Yeah,” she admitted. She looked troubled all the same. I decided to throw an extra fear out there to get her ass moving and get me into that door before anything got worse. “What happens if they figure out how to use the revival machines to mass-produce infected troops?” I asked her.

  That got her attention. The revival machines could theoretically create unlimited copies of any stored biological pattern in the hands of a coordinated intelligence that had access to the ship’s databases.

  “Okay,” she said reluctantly, “you’re going in. Don’t break anything that doesn’t have to get broken, James. So please—”

  “Open the frigging door already,” I said, “I’m all kid gloves and cotton balls. Nothing special is going to break. Don’t you worry.”

  I reached out and gave her a heavily gloved pat on the cheek. She didn’t appreciate it—not the thought, nor the gesture. She simply sighed and began to open the vault doors.

  Oh, how the four hog-like bio-orderlies began to complain about that.

  “Get ahold of your panties, boys,” I urged them.

  They whined, and they moaned, but at last, the big vault doors swung open.

  Everybody, including me, had their guns trained on the entrance. It was dark inside, a dark round portal going into the unknown.

  I stepped in quickly. Even faster, they slammed the vault closed again behind me.

  “Testing, testing.” Thompson’s voice cut through the gloom clearly. “Can you hear me, James?”

  “Loud and clear. Say, when I get out of here, how about you and me—?”

  “Not a chance, James.”

  “Okay…”

  Passing the vault doors, I found a lobby. There were some messes on the floor that had once been human. I poked at them briefly and moved on.

  The next door led to Blue Deck’s medical section. It hissed open under my fingertips. At least Evelyn had been possessed with the forethought and decency to unlock all the doors on the interior.

  A corridor was revealed, and the interior looked like a war zone. The walls were plastered with dark stains that could have been blood, but a lot of that goop had an oddly metallic sheen that caught the emergency lighting. Ceiling panels hung loose, sparking with damaged electrical systems. The air recycling units were struggling, creating an uneven humid atmosphere that fogged up my visor. Bodies were scattered throughout the corridor, or what remained of them. There didn’t seem to be one that was completely intact. These were the bio specialists, I figured. They’d clearly put up a bit of a fight, but they’d been overwhelmed by something that didn’t follow the nicest rules when in combat.

  Some of the corpses showed signs of teeth marks, but others had been slashed with surgical incisions. Bodies turned to hash by a medical instrument.

  Or maybe they’d been experimented upon. It was hard to tell.

  “Holy fuck…” I breathed, stepping over a severed arm, which was still wearing its bio specialist glove.

  “What are you seeing in there?” Thompson’s voice was tight. She sounded a bit fearful. Not that I could blame her, but at least she was on the other side of the vault door.

  “Looks like your people fought hard. They did themselves proud in here. Whatever took them out, though… they knew what they were doing.” I moved deeper into the medical bay, my boots squelching on surfaces that should have been nothing but sterile metal. The emergency lighting cast everything in hellish red shadows, making it difficult to distinguish between actual threats and tricks of illumination.

  There was a sound then that echoed ahead. It must be one of the things, the things that had been banging on the vault door. Leastwise, something had to be roaming around in here.

  With my rifle held up to my cheek, I advanced. I was aiming intently.

  The approaching sounds were rhythmic, mechanical—like an industrial machine operating at precise intervals.

  Something appeared at the far end of the hallway—but it wasn’t a robot. In fact, it was breathing. That kind of made my skin crawl a little bit. I hadn’t been hunted by too many machines that could breathe before.

  Whatever it was, it retreated before me. Was it luring me in deeper? Was it running from me? It was hard to tell.

  The main laboratory beyond that was quiet. The revival machines were each in their separate chambers off this one, each humming ominously.

  That gave me an immediate worry. I could tell they were all active, all in the middle of gestating out some new body, some new form. Somehow, I kind of doubted they were going to be giving birth to fresh, spunky bio-specialists and nurses and orderlies to replace those who had fallen.

  Tanks sloshed. The maws dripped. The guts of the big machines gurgled. Yes, they were definitely producing a whole lot of somethings.

  I carefully stepped over dead bio people. There were more of them the farther I went. They were contorted into positions that suggested they’d died in agony.

  At the end of the chamber, there was real movement. Something lurked there. A dark, circular shadow. Possibly, it had just stepped out of another revival chamber.

  Staring, squinting, I could make out a figure. Its movements were efficient and purposeful.

  I crept closer. I could see the figure was wearing bio-specialist gear—but the way it moved was wrong. Too fluid, too coordinated. It was like a person being operated by remote control.

  The figure turned toward me, and I got my first clear look at what the infection could do. The bio-specialist’s face was still recognizably human, but metallic threads now traced patterns across his skin like circuit boards made of living metal. His eyes had been replaced with glowing orange sensors that tracked my movement with mechanical precision.

  “Intruder detected,” he said, in a voice that was human with vocal cords operated by something that had never learned proper intonation. “Neutralization required.”

  Then, suddenly, he moved faster than a human should have been able to. He closed the distance between us in three fluid strides.

  Claw-like hands came up. They’d been modified. The fingertips had been replaced with surgical instruments that gleamed with fresh blood.

  The creature—because I no longer classified this dude as human—swung at my head with enough force to cave in my skull. I ducked and drove my shoulder at his midsection, but it was like hitting a steel beam wrapped in flesh.

  Naturally, I’d been firing my rifle all this time, but it only managed to stitch a large series of sparking rounds all up and down the walls of the corridor. The infected bio-specialist didn’t even grunt from the impact of my shoulder.

  No, instead, he brought his own hands down on my back. The surgical instruments attached to his fingers penetrated my bio-suit and scored lines across my shoulders.

  “Suit breached,” my helmet told me in a calm, unflappable voice. “Contamination possible.”

  I threw my assailant away from me and came up with a scalpel I’d pulled out of my own back. We were a bit too close for the rifle.

  The infected specialist tracked my movement, trying to grapple with me. Those strange orange eyes kept calculating angles and trajectories like a targeting computer. When the thing lunged at me again, I was ready.

  The scalpel jabbed for his throat and sunk in just above the Adam’s apple. Instead of blood, a thin stream of what resembled dirty black motor oil and metal flecks spurted out. The wound sealed itself almost immediately, the metallic threads in his suit writhing to close the gap.

  “Self-healing robots?” I mumbled to myself, because this thing wasn’t interested in listening to me.

  I backpedaled as he advanced again. This time I went for the eyes, driving the scalpel toward one of the glowing sensors.

  The blade connected, and sparks flew. I destroyed whatever passed for his visual system on that side. He stumbled momentarily, disoriented, so I pressed the advantage. I grabbed a heavy piece of medical equipment, something that was used as a diagnostic scanner, and brought it down on his head with everything I had. The impact crushed his skull with a wet crunch, but those metallic threads immediately began to repair the damage.

  “Thompson?” I called to my intercom. “These things can self-repair. How do I make sure this one’s actually dead?”

  “Complete destruction of the nervous system is recommended,” her voice crackled back. “The parasites need neural pathways to maintain control.”

  I looked around wildly in the laboratory and spotted exactly what I needed. One of the high-intensity sterilization units that were used to clean surgical equipment was handy and nearby.

  I dragged the still-twitching body over to it and activated the system. The blast of concentrated radiation and heat turned the infected bio-specialist into a puddle of organic and metal components.

  The metallic threads still writhed with determination for a few seconds. They finally gave up the ghost when the host was reduced to component atoms.

  “One down!” I reported in a cheery tone. “But you know, I’m hearing some more movement deeper in the facility.”

  “James, come on back,” Evelyn said. “I can tell you’ve already been hurt.”

  I thought about the stab through my suit and in my spinal region. Fortunately, I didn’t think any of my vitals had been hit.

  “Just a scratch,” I told her.

  “You’ll get infected, James. I won’t be able to let you out.”

  “If I can kill them all, then you won’t have to worry about it, anyway. The quarantine will be over with.”

  I moved toward the sounds, passing through a series of progressively more secure chambers. The heavy vault doors were duplicated at the innermost sanctum, and a secondary revival complex was there with the individual vaults standing open. Their massive locks had been disengaged from inside. Someone with command-level access had opened up every door in this place.

  The revival chamber complex was a cathedral of medical technology. Dozens of massive organic revival units lined the walls with their bioluminescent components pulsing with alien life. Each machine could reconstruct a complete human being from its stored genetic and neural patterns in something like half an hour, bringing the dead back to life in a process that was equal parts science and dark magic.

  Actually, as far as I was concerned, it was all magic.

  Standing in the central console area was a figure I recognized immediately—especially from behind.

  It was Megan, the girl I rescued from the underground facility on Earth, the one whose infection had apparently triggered this entire disaster.

  But she was different now. Metallic threads traced patterns across her exposed skin, and her movements had the same fluid, unnatural precision I’d seen in the infected bio-specialist. She was working on a revival machine with expert efficiency, punching buttons, moving slides, charging liquids that gurgled in tanks.

  “Hello, James,” she said without even turning around. Her voice was still recognizably human, but there was an underlying harmonic that made my teeth ache a bit. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

  She finally turned to face me, and I saw that her transformation was less complete than the bio-specialist had been. Megan was displaying metallic threads like the bio, but here they were forming elegant patterns across her skin rather than overwhelming crude replacements. Her eyes were still human, although they held flecks of the same orange glow I’d seen in the infected man.

  “Uh… hey, Megan,” I said uncertainly. I kept my hand on my rifle, but I didn’t point it right at her. I felt that might be too rude “What are you doing, girl?”

  “I’m improving your revival process,” she replied with a smile that was both warm and terrifying. “These machines are remarkable—but they’re a little crude. They’re limited to human perspectives. With some proper modifications, these units will create something far superior.”

  “Superior? Like how?”

  “I mean better coordinated. More efficient and faster-moving. Such improvements are things the heart of every man yearns for.”

  “Well… maybe…”

  “Imagine, sweet James—no chaos, no conflict. No plague of doubts and fears. How much happier these new versions of humans are going to be than the old were.”

  “I’m not a man who’s accustomed to a lot of doubt—and even less fear. But I know people are bothered by such things. How exactly are you, uh, fixing them?”

  She gestured toward the revival units, and I could see that several of them were already indeed running, the organic components working to create new bodies.

  “For one thing, they will be reborn with my brethren inside their skulls. These new men will integrate seamlessly with the core nervous system of the ship, creating perfect unity between each individual and the will of the collective purpose.”

  My eyes squinted up as I struggled to understand what she was describing: The mass production of an infected army. New soldiers, born of the old, who were more coordinated. Enhanced humans under the control of whatever intelligence was behind the parasites.

  “Hey, uh, Megan? I don’t want to seem rude and all—but I kind of have to stop this. You should help me. These things—whatever they are—they’re using you. I know and remember the real Megan.”

  It was an appeal to the human side of her. I could tell she still had some of that in there. After all, she’d recognized me, and her eyeballs hadn’t turned into chips yet.

  Her expression shifted at my words, showing a flicker of the girl I’d rescued some weeks earlier. “They aren’t using anybody, James. They’re completing me. For the first time in my life, I understand my purpose—and I want to share that understanding with you.”

  She took a step toward me. Her movement was still fluid, but now tinged with something that might’ve been affection. It was downright weird to witness.

  “You were immune before—back on Earth,” she said. “That makes you special to us. The integration process will be different for you—voluntary rather than forced. You can keep your individuality while gaining access to our collective knowledge.”

  “Wow, that sounds like a really good bargain,” I lied. I even perked up like I cared.

  “That’s right, James. We are bound to become your new masters here in Province 921.”

  I frowned at that. “Masters? We’ve already got the Mogwa.”

  She made a fluttering gesture of dismissal with her hands. “The Mogwa are backward, absurd meat-puppets. They’re insects that crawl about on their crowded planet without purpose.”

  I was the one squinting at her, now. She seemed to know a hell of a lot about how the Core Worlds operated. Especially Trantor, which was indeed crawling with Mogwa.

  Megan was close. She extended her hand toward me, and I could see the metallic threads writhing just beneath her skin, eager to make contact.

  Her smile, for all its weirdness, seemed genuine. It was warm, filled with the same affection she showed to me back on Earth.

  “Join us, James. You’re not like any of the others. You won’t be harmed. You’ve already done us a great service by helping me board Scorpio. Help us save humanity from itself and from the lesser Galactics.”

  I looked at her outstretched arm, then at the revival machines which were still sloshing and slurping with deadly purpose all around us. This girl… she was right. I’d helped her get here. I’d been more than partially responsible.

  I’d risked everything to rescue her, and now she was offering to transform me into some kind of inhuman monstrosity as a fitting reward.

  Naturally, I knew what I had to do. But didn’t relish it. My hands felt heavy as I considered my next move.

  “I’m sorry, Megan,” I said quietly, raising the scalpel I’d use to kill the infected bio-specialist. “I don’t think humanity needs this kind of saving.”

  Her smile faltered, replaced by something that might have been disappointment. “I was wanting to make love to you, James, but now I see that you’re going to reject me. How sad.”

  All this talk of lovemaking, along with her half-clothed body sneaking closer every moment, was getting to old McGill. I’d have to admit, if sworn to tell the truth, I was interested—but not quite interested enough to go for it.

  After all, Mrs. McGill hadn’t raised a total fool. Even I could tell when an offer was too good to be true.

  The metallic threads under her skin began to glow and writhe, and I realized our friendly conversation was about to take a very different turn.