Nilologue - Part 8

I was covered in blood.

While Simon forced the door back shut, I inspected the state of my clothing. Despite only removing a moderate amount of blood from Annie's face, I'd somehow managed to spread it in a thin layer all down my front.

Gen poked her head around the corner, and softly let out an "Oh, fuck." she came scuttling up towards me, head on a swivel, and wrapped her arms around me. "Bec, what did she do- I heard her out there and- and none of you were back and I, I just-" she was running her hands up and down my arms, then over my face, turning my head this way and that. I think, ostensibly, Gen was looking for the horrific wounds Annie had inflicted me with her teeth and claws. In practice, it felt like being slowly shaken about by a child. I eventually grabbed Gen's hands, and stared her in the eye. She hiccuped.

"Gen. I'm fine. None of this is mine. We're all fine, see?"

"Then-"

"This is all, uh, Annie's? Sorry."

"Oh! Ew." she held her hands away from me, then placed them gingerly on my shoulders. "Let's, let's go get you cleaned up then, shall we?"

"Gen, I can do that... myself."

"Oh! Right. Yes. Yes of course." A red blush was rising from the collar of Gen's uniform.

"NOT- another word." I said to Jack, without looking at him. "I haven't got time for your shit right now."

"Whatever." he said. He had his face half in a bowl of something, chewing mechanically. "Not like this day could get any worse."

"I don't know about that." said Simon. He was prodding at his own bowl. "We're all alive. No injuries. Can't say the same for Annie out there. So, I'm reckoning it could be worse."

Jack shot Simon a side-eye. "What, we go schlepping out there, nearly get burned to death by that, that thing, and Ingrid and Bec get knocked unconscious by poison gas, and we crawl on back here after dragging half a ton of garbage, and- not get injured? That's the great outcome?"

"Well, we figured out that my device works." said Ingrid. "And it saved your life. You're welcome. Now, I'm having a shower. I smell like poison gas."

The next day, the food came in big grey blocks that hurt my teeth. Tasted alright, once you got over the skull-rattling sound of your molars grinding away.

"Jack if you don't come back with those right this second I am going to KILL YOU! With my BARE HANDS!"

I thought I just was having this same dream again, and rolled over, but the thumping footsteps, the crash of a door slamming open/shut/open, and Jack's laughter all eventually pulled me from half-sleep. I yawned, started crawling out of the bunk bed, there was a clonk from below, and I found myself fully awake in midair. I had enough time for a muffled squeak of distress, before landing on a pile of Jack and Gen. It wasn't soft.

"Oof. Gerrof." said Jack, from around a mouth of my elbow.

"Ow. That was your fault..." said Gen, rubbing her head. I tried to lever myself up, accidentally putting my full weight on Gen's midriff. She made a surprised noise and curled up around it, bashing Jack in the knee with one of her legs. It took a while until we were disentangled, all very slightly bruised. I'd just woken up, and I was already sweating, for whatever reason.

Jack carefully stood up, and made to start shuffling towards the door, Gen kicked him in the foot about it. "Come onnnn Gen." he whined, hopping back. "Surely I can keep one? Just one? You don't need all four, surely? Please Gen? Pleeeease?"

Gen slowly reached out a hand, and grabbed a small black box with a white cross off the floor. Jack patted down all his pockets.

"Gen. Be reasonable." he took a step forwards. "It'll be great. I'll let you have some...? We can all have some, together! It'll be a party!"

"No!" Gen lunged, grabbed me by the shoulders, and dragged me around to face Jack. "Don't you remember what you did to Bec!" I got a shake for my trouble, and gave Jack a pained little smile.

"Ok, wow." He stopped, holding up his hands. "I guess I won't share then, next time I make something. Way to be selfish Gen, keep it all for yourself then, see what I care. I can't believe you."

"Jack, stop being so bloody dramatic." said Simon, leaving against the door. "Gen, give him one."

"But-"

"Just! One, Gen." He held up one finger. Gen was shushed. "Not the whole box. I'll not have Jack scheming, or getting high as a kite without us knowing. It's dangerous." I hadn't heard him talk to Gen that way before. He turned to Jack. "And I found those originally, not that it matters."

"Yes Simon," I heard Gen say quietly from behind me. She had ended up draping her arms around me, and gave a squeeze for some reason. "Whatever you say, Simon." And I certainly hadn't heard that in her voice before.

"You get one of them, Jack. And whatever you end up doing with it, you do out in the open, no more skulking around in closets."

"Yesssss! Sure sure fine, whatever, Gen you heard the man, give it here."

"And nothing for Bec." Simon said. Jack didn't respond, just started peeling apart the box under Gen's disapproving gaze. It was padded, with a bunch of dark, needle-tipped cylinders inside.

"What?" I wasn't so much insulted, as confused. Alright, a smidge insulted. "Don't I get a say in any of this?" Simon looked at me, or sort of, looked in my general direction. His eyes crinkled up in the corners, and he gave a kind-of smile. Jack and Gen turned to look, briefly distracted from divvying up the loot. I glanced between the two of them, but there was nothing there either.

"For fuck's sake Simon." I rolled my eyes. "You're worse than Annie." and stormed off.

A major problem about living here, unless you actually want to run off into the endless night of the hallways and risk death (or worse), there's really not very many places to go. And if you do feel like dramatically storming off into the darkness, you have to go through the mess hall. Where someone usually is, which makes it awkward. So, lacking options, I ended up hiding from everyone in the cryopod chamber. Simon kept the place clean. Very clean. The sort of clean that hints at how much mess there was only a little while ago. Despite the sting of lemon, I couldn't get away from the whiff of dried slime. Of blood. Of fluids. The room was clean, so maybe it was me that smelled like that...

I went and had a shower. It didn't feel like I was in there for long, but I heard someone (Gen?) mincing around near the sinks. I didn't say anything. Neither did she. By the time I came out, pink skinned, fingers wrinkled, nostrils full of water, Jack had already gutted the remains of his still from the supply closet, and staked his claim across a table in the mess hall. Suddenly, the name seemed more apt. He seemed to be halfway puzzled by what he himself was doing: adding and removing pipes, grabbing bottles from under the various counters, mixing stuff together in little jars and giving them a sniff. Ingrid was watching from a far corner, arms crossed, frowning at every decision he made.

"Hey." I said.

"Hey." she turned to look at me for just a second, then immediately went back to her observations.

"So is..." I started, then tried again, quieter this time. "Is this like. Ok, I don't even know what to call it...?"

"Simon calls it our training." she replied, without looking away. "Like me with computers, or you with, uh, guns. And - no," she sighed. "This is most definitely not Jack's training."

"I can hear you, you know." he said, staring into a flask. It was full of something faintly blue, and cloudy. I vaguely recalled taking a swig of it, on my first day awake.

The door slid back, and Simon stuck his head in. He saw me, marched over, and immediately started talking. "Even though you are the newest of us, I shouldn't treat you any differently than the rest. You are your own person. And should be free to make your own mistakes. I mean, make your own decisions. Even if they are the wrong decisions."

"..." I said.

"Gen told me to say that."

"... right. Ok."

"Ok. Great!" he smiled. "Come get some food with me. Do you know what's in today?"

"No idea." He turned to clank over to the dispenser. I shook my head, then wandered over after him. The food today was a single unbroken cylinder of some faintly translucent green substance. It wobbled in the bowl Simon was holding, and reflected the lights.

"I - I feel like I do not want to eat that." I said, peering down at the dubious substance.

"It smells like," Simon took a big sniff. "Green. It smells like green."

"It can't-" I leaned over to take a whiff. "-I guess it can."

It tasted like that as well. Green. I swallowed, then drank a full glass of water to try and encourage the flavour to keep moving. Green. On the far side of the hall, Jack was cursing, and trying to twist two glass pipes together. I tilted my chin towards him. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked Simon.

"Don't worry, I'll keep watch." he said.

"That wasn't- ah." I shut my mouth, and kept watch as well.

"Jack, this isn't going to work." said Ingrid. Each word she spoke seemed unwilling to come out from between her teeth. "Jack?"

"What." he didn't look up.

"I said-"

"I know! I know. It's fine. Don't worry about it. I've got this. You all." He turned, shot Simon a glare. "You can all just clear on out. I don't need you breathing down my throat."

"Neck." I said.

"Whatever." Jack turned back. I was still eating the Green, so I stayed where I was, munching away. My teeth seemed to bounce off the skin of it, and I had to gnaw at it with my incisors until it split. Then: Green.

"So, where'd you get the drugs from?" I asked Simon, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Green.

"Oh, just some guy."

"What." I dropped the spoon. It bounced off the Green and ended up on the floor.

"Yeah, out in the halls." He waved his spoon vaguely towards the doors.

"What? Where, what's his name? Why didn't you bring him back?"

"Ah." he frowned. "Well, it was a bit of a ways away from here. And he was dead."

I sat back. "So a dead body. You got them off a dead body."

"Yeah. Like I keep saying, it's dangerous out there. Poor guy had a dead flashlight and no water. Shit luck too, if he'd kept going little longer he might have made it all the way here."

"You've seen others out there. Like us. Not just Annie." I leaned forwards, grabbing his hand.

"Well not, seen exactly. But I've found some signs of life." he said.

"You told us it was a pile of vomit." clarified Ingrid.

"Yeah. And abandoned food. Or at least, I assume it was food." He shrugged. "These red bricks of stuff. I didn't touch any of it, obviously. Seems like other people have the same issues with getting decent food out of the dispensers."

"Piles of vomit in the halls. That's all? There's Annie." I said.

"Well, yes, her. Would've been nice if it had been a, a more civilised meeting. But, I see what you mean, I haven't met anyone else except her. But there must be lots of other areas out there. Other places with people. More than enough space."

"And were you ever going to tell me? I thought it was just the six of us and Annie. In the whole world." I leaned back, trying to get to grips with it all.

"Oh, I'm sure there's more. Loads more. Sorry, it's not like I was trying to keep it a secret, it's just been a while since I got someone out of a pod - intact. I kind of forgot about it."

Jack made a snorting sound from his table, sneezed, then started coughing. He turned to us, rubbing his nose. Shrugged.

"Is there anything else you've 'kind of forgot' to tell me?" I looked back at Simon.

"Um. Not... really?" He seemed weirded out by the question. "Like, if I've forgotten then-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Ingrid tapped my shoulder, and pointed at Jack. He had his head tilted all the way back. Staring at the lights. Staring. Staring...

I went to the bathroom. When I got back, the overhead lights were all off. Only the hallway door and the small indicator LED's were left to barely illuminate the scene.

"I luv you man." said Jack. He was leaning on, no, he was draped over Simon. I shimmied along the wall to where Ingrid was watching from, next to the light switches. She seemed to be biting her lip and giggling through her nose.

"Is it... working?" I whispered

"Eep!" she jumped slightly. "Oh, it's you again." she whispered back. "Yeah, he- yeah, it's working."

"I jus-" continued Jack. "I lub you man, I lub you s-s-s-soooo ahhhhh----" he burst into tears, sinking his face into Simon's shirt and bunching it up in his fists. Simon patted him gingerly on the head, elbow stiff, trying to lean away.

"There, there? It's alright, you're alright...?" He half-turned his head to where Ingrid and I were standing, and mouthed "what the fuck?"

I shrugged. Ingrid gave him two big thumbs up and a big smile. Jack bumped his head into Simon's hand, then a second time, then started rubbing his face along Simon's forearm until he got to the elbow. Simon sort of shifted away, but that just made Jack slide further across him until he was splayed over Simon's lap.

"Haaaaa. Whooooo. I'm sooooo-"

Ingrid declared the new "product" to be a great success. Once Jack was sober enough to tolerate the lights being back on, she encouraged Simon to try some. He demurred.

That was how the days went, for a while. For a few nights, I got Simon to say "Remember Your Training!" at me before bed. It gave me weird dreams about these huge spinning noises, but not much else.

Ingrid and Jack kept on picking on each other, whenever they got a chance. Jack had to move all of his "chemistry projects" out of hiding, and Ingrid just would not let them go without passing some comment. I couldn't believe how much stuff he had stashed away. This place had more cupboards and boxes and closets than I'd first realised.

Gen avoided Simon for a while, for some reason. Or at least, she tried to. Seems like I wasn't the only one to wish we had more places to go, when we needed to just. Not be here. I was deeply jealous of Annie. Every so often, I would pull open the doorway, look out into the dark hallway that marked the edge of our little world, and imagine just-

"Whatcha doing?" said Gen, leaning against the wall.

"... Nothing," I said, and nonchalantly slid the- and nonchalantly- I heaved at the grinding, shrieking metal of the door with both arms, until it finally locked closed again. I gave Gen a sweaty little grin. "Nothing at all."

Through the open door at the other end of the mess hall, I heard an echo of the grinding metal. Not an echo. A hiss, a wail, a rising shriek, that kept on rising...

Gen went through a couple different grimaces as the sound went on and on, and on. For much longer than normal. Eventually, suddenly, the noise stopped. We both stood there, Gen and I.

PURGE? (y/n)

y

"That was. A bad one." Gen said quietly. "Someone should go and, and check that Simon is... alright."

She stood there, swaying, until I physically nudged her in the direction of the cryopod chamber.

She came back leading Simon by the arm, and made him sit down. He was gingerly poking at the swelling bruise under his right eye. "Stop that," Gen slapped his hand away. "You'll be fine, you big baby."

"Another... screamer?" I hazarded. He nodded.

"It was very, um, energetic." he said. "I had to sort of- well, I checked it wasn't like, alive, first. Of course."

"Of course." I echoed back.

"But it sort of, didn't want to get back in the pod."

"I... see." said Gen.

"So I had to. Uh." Simon grimaced and made a sort of swinging motion. Gen and I were silent. "But like, it's all fine now."

"It's all- what, you had to beat it to death with your bare hands?" I asked. I couldn't believe this. Or maybe I could.

"No! No, nothing like that." He explained. "I uh- I had the crowbar."

"Wow. Wow!" I said brightly. "Much easier then! How lucky that you had the crowbar. For when you had to bash his head in! Whoops, I mean its head in."

"Bec..." said Gen, gritted teeth.

"Oh, not really," said Simon. He leaned back against the table. "A headshot does nothing to a screamer. You have to break a knee first."

"Simon..." pleaded Gen.

"Good to hear Simon, so good to hear." My teeth were squeezed together so tight, my jaw was aching. "I'm just so glad we've got an expert butcher living with us, just tucked away with your little murder assembly line. Disassembly line, even."

"Bec can you-" Gen tried to step between the two of us, I sidestepped to keep staring daggers at Simon.

"Bec, Bec, damn girl, where's all this coming from?" asked Simon. "You wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for me."

"You think I don't know that! You think I don't fucking hate that?"

He said nothing.

"I tried to help you." I said. "I did help you! And it's fucked up, but I did help you! Now, you've got to stop. You're killing people." I insisted, leaning forwards.

Simon paused for a second, looking up at the ceiling. Then he looked me dead in the eye. "No. And no, I'm not."

"You can't be serious, you-" I started, but he stood up, and took one step closer. Too close. So close I could smell him. Smell the soap under his fingernails. Smell the blood under the soap.

"Yes, I am." He said. He wasn't even breathing heavily. "These aren't people. Not in any way that matters. Not like you or I. They're all dead, just with... extra steps. Or, just maybe, some tiny fraction of them might be alive, if someone had the guts to check."

"... fuck you." I gave him a halfhearted push, and he sat back down.

"You know I'm right Bec. Which is why," he frowned "This is so confusing. Why are you even upset?"

I opened my mouth. Confusing? Confusing was it? I couldn't wait to educate the fucker.

Gen put her hands on either side of her head. "Will you both just shut the fuck up." she said quickly. "Bec. None of us like it, but we all have to deal with it. So just-" Simon nodded, but she turned on him in a flash. "And you. You. Where do you get off on being so, so thoughtless? I remember what it was like, waking up, and, shit, after what Bec has been through, I feel lucky."

"Don't you ever call me that again." Simon was deadly quiet.

"What, a murderer?" I said.

"No. Thoughtless." He took a deep breath in. "I won't hear that from any of you. You'd all be dead if it wasn't for me." He flicked his eyes between Gen and I, and sighed. I looked at Gen. She looked at me. Gen took a deep breath in. And then another. "Um, Simon. I'm sorry. You're not thoughtless. But I think - well, maybe Bec is a bit right. At the very least, you shouldn't be opening cryopods by yourself. I'll get, uhh, Jack. To do it with you."

(some time later: "Fuck. Why me? What did I do to deserve this?")

"And." she continued. "And Bec here, will apologise. If you promise not to open any more crypods by yourself. It's not safe." I rolled my eyes. The three of us stood in silence.

"He has to go first." I muttered.

"I'm Sorry Bec." said Simon. "I Won't Do It Again. I Promise." Gen looked at me, gave a little twitch of the head. I puffed my cheeks out.

"I'm sorry, Simon. I shouldn't have called you a murderer. It was uncalled for." He shrugged, no big deal. Gen gave us both a shaky little smile. "Right! Ok. All good then. Great."

Great.

The dark halls go on, and on. Somewhere in the darkness, a combination of three hundred left-turns, and four hundred right-turns away, is a computer. On this particular computer, is a timer, just a number going up. This timer was monitoring how exactly long it had been since am important recurring task was marked: [DONE]. It was very important that this particular task was done regularly, after fives days it would be [PENDING]. Any more than ten days, it was [OVERDUE], and there could be Issues.

For a while, the timer ticked along. One second at a time, the number went up. First the task was [PENDING], and then it was [OVERDUE], and still the number went up. And up, and up and up, and the computer got sadder, and sadder, and sadder. Then, all of a sudden, the task was done! In fact, the task was completed (will have been completed?) several decades in the past, or maybe the future. It was a little complicated, but the maths was sound.

Satisfied, the computer checked its instructions. First, it stopped a blinking light on a control panel. Then, it cancelled the latest notification on the internal messaging system. Then it checked how long until the task would need to be performed again. Since the task had last been completed, let's see here, -2147483647 seconds ago, that would be in... 68 years, 45 days, 3 hours, 14 minutes and 7 seconds. Roughly. Not accounting for leap years.

Since the task had been [OVERDUE] for so very, very long, and was now (thankfully) completed, the computer printed out a short message of encouragement and/or admonishment about the importance of said task.

It joined the other messages in a pile on the floor.

The dark halls go on, and on.