29 – INFECTION

MARIE KHOROFF – BIOLAB 4, HEAVEN HUB

One of the first real assignments came soon after the recording ended. She too had been among the few selected to see it just a few milliseconds after Eve had finished processing it, and was just as shocked as everyone else by its contents.

The assignment was something she herself would have begun working on if Eve hadn’t beat her to it. It was a simple request: find ways to kill an Interloper. And effective ones at that.

The piece of matter that was attached to the boot had finally started growing some time ago, and had filled the space inside its glass box pretty quickly. It was a sickening mass of flesh, veins and crystal growths all crammed into the enclosed space of the box. It did not look capable of thought, instead only acting on instinct to grow and expand as much as possible.

That was until it began to try to pierce the reinforced glass with a crystal. The makeshift spear was growing like a bamboo shot in an attempt to punch a hole through the glass, and it was the first evidence that a critical mass of interloper matter was capable of deliberate actions.

There was no way to tell if it was just an instinctual response or a thought-out plan, but one thing was certain. The mass was not only capable of acting on its own, but could also react to its surroundings.

The doctor prepared an x-ray for the box. She was wondering just how had the mass managed to grow like this without her feeding it any more matter. The mass of the box had stayed the same of course, or that would have been rather disconcerting, but at the same time it did not seem like the living matter had been stretched thin in any way. But there was no way to see what was happening beneath the surface, as the matter had covered all the glass walls in a layer of opaque grotesque stuff.

She readied the machine and left the room. As soon as she entered again, she saw that the matter was on a frenzy. It seemed capable of transforming x photons into energy apparently, and much more efficiently than visible light too. Of course, the x ones carried much more energy, but it shed light on the adaptations the matter had underwent as it evolved.

If indeed the Interlopers had evolved to thrive off of high energy light, then it meant that they were either evolved in space or for deep space operations, or that their home system was constantly bathed in high energy radiation. She made a note to test gamma light later, and hoped Eve would remind her of that. Her memory was definitely getting worse, the trains of thought mysteriously disappearing from her mind before reappearing as if inserted there by someone else.

She looked at the image, depicting what little of the inside of the box the few surviving x-rays managed to gleam. For starters, the boot was no more. It was something she had predicted already, as the Interloper trapped in here had to feed in some ways. It made sense, as they seemed to live inside of asteroids.

Probably the whole cavernous system the away team reportedly found inside the asteroid that was still on its way towards the sun had been dug as a food source. She had still to observe the process in which they remade inorganic carbon or silicate matter into organic tissues. The crystals were probably a way to process the waste materials that could not be converted, and they doubled as structural support and weaponry as well.

Indeed, it had been a crystal that had been launched at the Desolation and had grazed its hull, not a metal rod like a normal railgun would shoot.

So basically, the interlopers were capable of building structures out of almost any kind of matter they managed to get their tentacles on. Their preferred organic was silicon based, but they did not seem to shy away from carbon either. It was just the most inert of substances that went into the crystals, making them incredibly hard and dangerous. And they appeared unable to process metals, as the remains of the boot suggested.

The question, then, came to her mind once again. How do you kill something like this?

ALISSA PARCES – DESOLATION OF INFINITE DREAMS

The captain gingerly touched the panel to automatically open the door. She had no idea what she would find behind the thick composite plate doors, and she was not eager to find it out. Most importantly, she would have to find out how did the enemy even manage to get inside the Tesseract room, considering that it was shielded to withstand errant blasts of energy in a near-zero kelvin environment.

It was so cut off from the rest of the ship that it was basically impossible to get inside of without going through the door in front of her. She stopped for a moment, realizing that this room was still an old design. There still was the energy conduit going from the reactor all the way to the tesseract housing module, as the schematic in front of her eyes showed.

This design was now outdated, as the big brains had found a way to feed energy to the thing entirely from the other end. This meant that it could be isolated almost perfectly to create the right environment for a connection.

But this room was an old design. Cold sweat formed on her forehead, the beads only growing bigger in the lack of gravity of the ship. A direct connection to the fusion reactor, basically free energy mostly in the form of gamma particles. She hoped the buggers would die from such an irradiation, but she doubted it.

It was quite the opposite in fact, she would learn later.

She pressed the touch sensitive panel again, but the door didn’t budge. It had not responded to mental commands either, so it was nothing strange that the panel was not working either. She sighed and moved aside. Eve was watching intently from her connection to the people’s implants, but she was still blind as to what was happening inside the room. The sensors not only disabled, but utterly invisible to any analysis. Even the lack of data, something that should have alerted her as soon as it happened, managed to pass through her superficial scans with ease.

“Ramirez, it’s all yours.” She said, looking at the short woman clad in her suit.

“Aye captain.” Ramirez said, and made her way to the door. The other three soldiers were standing at the sides, the captain still in front of the door but quite some distance away now.

The hydrogen-oxygen torch flared to life, a miniature sun in the small space of the corridor. Everyone’s visor adjusted quickly by changing its permeability to light in the general direction of the torch. Ramirez began cutting into the reinforced steel in earnest.

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It was a slow process; the steel was built to prevent the very thing that was being done to it. The seconds turned into minutes as a small circle was being cut in the outer panel of the door. Then it came loose, and the process repeated for the inner one.

A loud thud was heard as the thick metal plate landed on the floor. Its inner part was corroded and misshapen, as if it had been attacked by a powerful acid. Where the hole should have been, a wall of flesh instead blocked the view.

“So, this is the stuff.” Said the captain, seeing the Interloper matter for the first time.

“Yep. Pretty nasty.” Replied Ramirez, stepping aside to let the others through. She had already had contact with the stuff, but she didn’t seem to have built much resistance to it. The captain shared the sentiment, it wasn’t something one could get used to easily.

Dr Khoroff, who had just arrived on the ship, handed a small vial to the captain. The vial was entirely made of metal, the seal as well, and was not labeled. The captain took it and fiddled with it for a moment, eyeing the wall as if waiting for something to happen. The Interloper matter was not reacting, leading her to think that it was protecting something inside the room.

“You sure this is going to work?” Asked the captain.

“The enzyme has been tailored specifically to target Interloper matter, as long as they are silicon or carbon based.” She said. “Which is what we observed at the lab.”

“But they corroded the metal of the door. Couldn’t they be using that as their base material?” The captain asked, frowning.

“It is unlikely. But even if that were so, the enzyme will dissolve the organic tissue holding the metallic matter together.” She said, quite calmly. There was annoyance in her voice, as if she was talking to ignorant children.

The captain was about to retort, but stopped herself. There was no use in arguing against the Doctor, it was her who came up with the formula after all. She handed the vial to one of the soldiers and watched as he carefully poured its contents onto the pulsing red-violet matter.

The point of contact erupted in black smoke, and a sizzling sound could be heard from inside. The red veins began to pulse and enlarge, their color quickly becoming black. The solid matter in the middle started dissolving and liquefying, splashing on the ground with sickening wet sounds. It was as if a bag of animal guts was being emptied on the floor.

Soon, the sound stopped, and a circular hole the size of the opening in the door was left where the wall of flesh stood. Its edges were still melting slightly, and veins still black in color were trying to knit the wound close and failing.

“I think it worked?” Asked Ramirez, voice unsteady.

“Is it safe for us?” Asked the captain.

“The suits are specifically made to resist interloper matter infection and are of course resistant to the acid-enzyme solution.” Assured the doctor from the other side of the hall. She was peeking her head to better see inside the room, quite fascinated.

The captain was sick of this already, but she grit her teeth and swallowed the stomach acid she could feel at the bottom of her throat. A deep breath later, she was ready to go.

She stepped inside, Dr. Khoroff following closely behind her. The others stood behind, ready to pull on the metal chain that connected the two who just entered the room to the outside.

The space was cramped and vile. The very walls were alive, undulating and full of the same red veins that seemed to be the central vascular system of the whole living matter. Here and there some black was slowly spreading from the wound they made at the door, an indication of just how strong the acid was. The matter was not dying fast enough though, and was filling in any holes quite quickly. She hoped she would not be sealed inside the room.

Tendrils of deep purple flesh dangled from the walls and the ceiling, the red veins coiling all around them and following their support. The whole room seemed focused on what laid at the center, a growth around the size of a head with a perfectly clear crystal poking out in the middle.

The red converged and entered the crystal at the base, going through the purple flesh that was its pedestal. the crystal was glowing slightly, its white light eerie and odd amidst the other colors.

Suddenly, as they stepped towards the central construct, something began to move on the ground. There were things like ropes, or cables coiled there, but they seemed alive now. They were subtly tightening around the two women’s legs, trapping their movements and limiting their escape.

“Pour it.” The captain said, and the Doctor poured another dose of acid on top of the things on the ground. The same sizzling sound and smoke rose from the living matter as it died and writhed aimlessly, leaving behind only a puddle of blackened goop.

They made their way towards the central structure, cutting the vine-like growths of flesh that anchored it to the walls. As they cut them, they released their contents with a splash, red liquid and white globs pouring out of the arteries and onto the floor. Where they landed, veins popped out of the very flesh to absorb them back and then disappeared.

They seemed to ignore the two women now, probably afraid of the acid. The resistance increased again, however, the closer they got to the center of the room. The crystal was now glowing intermittently, its light slightly intensifying with every cycle. Something was about to happen, as the veins were pumping more and more of their contents onto the living base of the crystal.

The whole room seemed to pulse with the same rhythm as the central device. Vines lashed at the two, trying to stop their advance. They failed, however, as they dissolved and harmlessly slid off the suits.

They reached the central part of the room, and finally got withing arm’s reach of the crystal. The vines were thick and hardened around here, making the place secluded from the rest as if inside a grove of trees.

There was no movement yet, as all the living matter seemed to focus solely on feeding the crystal. It was now or never.

“You need to sever it.” Said the Doctor.

“I know.”

The captain pulled out her blade, a sharp edge only a few microns thick. With a fluid motion, she separated the crystal from its base and pulled it free.

Immediately all hell broke loose in the room. The tentacles, the veins and even the seemingly solid matter of the room came to life, no longer engrossed with their task of feeding the crystal. They started lashing with great violence, the ground opening and trying to entrap their feet, and the ceiling spitting dangerously looking substances at them.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here, run!” the captain yelled, and yanked the immobile doctor away from the path of a tentacle. It struck the wall with enough force to crush a human, suit and all.

“Doctor! What the fuck are you doing?” She yelled again, shaking the unmoving woman. “Fuck it.” She said finally, and making use of her suit’s servo mechanisms put the other woman on her shoulder and made a run for the door.

The hole they made was now closing fast, but another splash of acid quickly fixed the issue. She threw the doctor through it first, then immediately followed; the crystal still safely tucked under her arm.

But as she was about to leave the room, she felt something around her waist.

“Shit.” And she was yanked backwards with incredible force, the crystal tumbling away. She cut the thing, but it was too late. She was back at the center of the room, the crystal surrounded by tens of tentacles and hundreds of red pulsing veins.

She spat, the liquid splashing in the inside of her helmet and revealing blood, but a mad smile crept on her face. They would not get her so easily. She pulled out the last vial of acid and doused the whole mass of flesh with it. She then stuck a hand inside and pulled, then broke into a run. The people outside pulled on her chain as well, and she finally managed to exit the room, pulling several broken tendrils and snapped veins with her.

“Take this shit to a lab.” She said, handling the odd crystal to a soldier. Then she turned to face the doctor, who was still unresponsive.

“She needs medical attention.” She said.

“I know.” Ramirez replied. “Eve has stabilized her brain, and a team is on its way.”