Chapter Fourteen: Course Chaotic — Part 6
This man was something out of a nightmare, something both terrible and intriguing at once. This man was probably the only reason that her family had been given Blue Status in the Cynosure, when most medical families were Second Class. His voice was a sarcastic, deadly rasp of hate and hateful admiration as he studied those who stood beyond the glass. His hands clenched as he spoke, and he paced like a cat, seeking its prey. Slowly, looking for an opening, it seemed.
“Is this what the human race has become from one long night’s sleep? Fascinating, vegetarian biological structure, yet perfectly designed for hunting. Omnivorous, obviously.” Jonathan sounded disgusted by this observation. “I see the superiority of the servants, the intelligence in their motions. Humanity must have grown ever so much stronger, to have enslaved or designed such a proficient class of beings.”
“You aren’t on Earth, Mr. MacAnderly, and these are the Antansi. We are allies and equals, not in service to them, nor are we served by them. Currently they are trying to keep you alive. But you are weak, and there is little hope for you, in your current state.”
“Is your entire population designed like this? Who was your creator?” His eyes, looking vacant, were an unnatural shade of purple, and his lips were a deep, bruised blue visible even in the dim light. His eyes shifted to Julia, and he studied her closely. “I’m hungry.”
Jonathan’s fist shot out violently, and shattered the three inches of tempered glass separating him from the others. Bleeding from the impact, but healing almost instantly, his fingers locked around Julia’s throat, drawing her body through the barrier. With three hard pulls, he used her body to shatter the glass completely. His lips curled back, exposing canines, sharp and yellow, more primate than human. As quickly as he was free, Susan was on top of him. Susan yanked Julia from his grip and held Jonathan with a mix of muscle and mind. Enraged, she held him by the collarbone, just off of the left side; letting his feet dangle above the ground. If he was feeling pain, he expressed it only by clawing weakly at her arm. Then he dug his claws in hard and tried to break free even as he violently snapped at her, trying to get a strong hold on flesh.
“What the hell are you?” Susan asked, tossing him against the far wall of the lab.
Even as he fell back, he was shifting for the impact, bringing his feet behind him. He caught the wall and pushed off solidly, landing in a crouch.
“I’m hungry.” He said, flashing his teeth, his body building for the strike.
Calm down or I’ll have to kill you. Susan warned, ignoring the trickle of blood flowing down her arm.
Jonathan bared his teeth and lunged, only to be stopped by the will of Susan’s mind. He hung suspended, struggling against bonds that seemed so physical, and yet he could find no purchase from which to free himself. I warned you. You live or die because of me, and I’m losing my patience with you.
He grabbed his head with his hands, as if fighting some impulse. “Stay out of our head.”
Susan held him in her telekinetic grip, tightening it until his bones groaned with complaint. Raging within her was a terrible debate, one that would determine the fate of Jonathan MacAnderly. She wondered if she should kill him, or let the symbiont finish him off. She wondered which, in reality, would be more merciful.
A child of my tribe could crush you.
She focused on him, sending him thoughts that suggested concern, not fear. His mind snapped under her telepathic pressure, and yet somehow he managed to break free of her hold. With superhuman speed and strength, he lunged for her throat. Before he could even make contact she was on him, using just a hint of her prowess to subdue him. Susan broke his arm, shattered his knee, and crushed his left cheek with the heel of her foot. Thus crippled, he fell to the floor, groaning in pain. Grabbing the skin on the back of his neck, Susan tossed him into the corner of the room, where several more bones cracked. Jonathan forced himself upright, his eyes dull, and his motions listless. With a grimace, he set his arm and stood up, forcing his leg straight. His blood didn’t look healthy, looked almost like water. And his body wasn’t healing as rapidly as it had just moments before. His eyes were beginning to look dilated, and his movements were losing their grace.
“Don’t make me kill you, Sir.” Susan warned. “I can kill you quickly, or let you have the same chance everybody else has. I do not know what of you will survive, given how infected you are, but I do know, nothing of who you are now, can live.”
“If you don’t let me feed, I’m as good as dead.”
“You’re already undergoing changes beyond your control. You won’t need to feed, one way or the other, when the changes are done.”
“I’m not really human anymore. It is nothing more than a shell.” He said, his voice a mix of rage and pain.
Susan let herself get close, locking him tightly in place with her mind. “I think you are dead already.”
“What are you talking about?” Jonathan asked, suddenly concerned.
More accurately, the bacterial collective governing Jonathan’s thoughts was doing the asking, because even now it could feel the invader killing its kind.
Susan remained calm. “Symbiotic enhancement. We tried to explain, but you were too busy feeling smug and superior to listen. You were safe from the environment until you broke the glass with your fist.”
Charles was calm, staring into the eyes of the assassin. “I hope you are more than your actions imply. If you are nothing more than a sentient predator, with no sense of compassion or integrity, it will go very badly for you in the days to come.”
“I like the hunt, the kill impassions me. The twitch of the body as I crush the life out of it. It is what I am.” Jonathan said.
“If that is all you are, then you are dead.” Susan said, wanting to leave, unable to do so until the proper protective measures were prepared.
“Why would the Cynosure send you among a bunch of Combatants into a war zone?” Julia asked.
“Because I’m better than an army. Set loose on a town or village at night, I can kill hundreds, even thousands of people. I am terror. I did it in the early days of the Cynosure. Feeding was good then, when people still kept pets, and the Earth was rife with mammals. They dropped me into Russia in the dead of winter, in the days with no sun. I spent weeks slaughtering, never needing sleep, keeping to the shadows only on the days the sun actually rose. The blood was rich back then.”
“I bet.” Susan studied the man closely.
He was unstable, both emotionally and physically, and she was partially surprised that his entire body hadn’t simply blown apart wherever the symbiont worked at him. As it was, sores were opening everywhere, as if he were a victim of some terrible plague.
“I don’t like the way he thinks.” Julia said.
The bacterium is in every cell of his body, much as the symbiote is in every cell of our bodies. It causes the release of hormones that suppress certain parts of his brain, forcing from him behaviors that will contribute its survival. An Antansi scientist explained. It devours complex proteins, after all, but not the flesh of its host – so long as its host can find it food, it will spare the host, otherwise it will devour its host and revert to a dormant state, waiting for the opportunity to infect a new host.
As soon as Susan released her telekinetic grip, Jonathan rushed her. By the time Susan got done with him, most of his bones were fractured. This time his body lacked the energy needed to heal. He carefully snapped his fingers back into alignment, screaming in pain, eyeing his surroundings, seeking an escape route. He was like a trapped and frightened animal. His bones were stress fractured and his head ached. Around him were some of the strongest creatures he had ever come across. Even one of them could crush him in his current state. Susan had said that even the children could have killed him. Susan, he determined, was no child.
“If I could feed I’d be able to kill you.” He said to Devon, carefully ignoring Susan.
“I doubt it.” Devon said. “Even if you tried to, there are a million more just like me who’d see to it you’d never kill again.”
Susan approached Jonathan confidently. Jonathan cowered away from her and put his back against the cool steel wall. As he looked around, his eyes could see blue beams of light cutting across the center of the glass cage, pinning him in from all sides.
We have created an ultraviolet barricade, strong enough to burn through human flesh. The Antansi native explained.
Susan smiled. “I assume your superior senses allow you to see ultraviolet lasers. You know what it will do to you, I can tell by your fear.”
“It will kill me.” Jonathan looked left and right, wanting to find an opening in the barrier.
“It’s time you went to sleep.” Susan’s mind overpowered Jonathan’s, stressing his brain until he collapsed into a coma.
She knew that the brain was also infected, that the symbiote, should it choose to let him live, would be doing so by destroying and replacing virtually every cell in his body.
Do you wish for him to live? The voice she knew was the symbiotic collective hummed in her head. He isn’t anybody right now. He has no memories, no past, he will be nothing more than a child. A darkly instinctive, worthless child who will need constant watching.
Susan knew that part of that voice was her own bias, part of it was testing her. Let him show us where his worth lies.
