Blaedergil's Host by C.M. Simpson (reading well .TXT) 📕

A loud thump on the lab door made us all jump—except Delight. She shifted her attention from the scientists to the door in one smooth motion, changing direction as she drew the Glazer and sighted on the door.

“Tens...” I said.

“Doors are locked, but you might want to brace it with one of those benches. There are...” He didn’t finish the sentence, but highlighted the security feed.

“Well, fuck me.”

I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it emerged on a breathless whisper that had Delight in my head in seconds. She spun on her heel and pointed to one of the lab tables.

“We need that across the door, now,” she snapped, and then, when we hesitated, “Move!”

We moved. The scientists got the picture when I started to push the bench towards the door, hurrying out from behind the table with the computer terminal on it, to throw their weight behind it with me. It made a horrendous noise as it scraped across the floor, but that was nothing compared to the low moaning chorus seeping into the room around us.

“That sound,” the technician whimpered, but I turned the table side on the door, and tipped it over.

There was a clatter as what was on it hit the floor, and the high-pitched tinkle of glass shattering. I hoped it was nothing important, or irreplaceable.

“You’ll need to brace that,” Tens said over the intercom.

I nodded, breathing hard from pushing the weight of it hard up against the door. Together, the scientists and I turned for the next closest table, maneuvering it so it was wedged between the one across the door, and a bench that was hard-bolted to the floor. The door shook, and the moans rose to a howl.

“What the fuck is out there?” Delight demanded, and I glanced towards my two assistants.

Both were pale-faced as they stared at the door.

“We don’t know,” they whispered.

I glanced at Delight, and waved the pair back to the computer terminal.

“Work out how to fix it,” I said, putting an edge of command in my voice like the one I often heard in Mack’s. “We’ll watch the door.”

As I spoke, I caught sight of a shadow dropping out of the vent that had been used to funnel the virus into the station.

“No, you fucking don’t,” I told it, drawing and firing my own Glazer even as Delight reacted.

When she saw I had whatever it was under control, she moved so that we stood back-to-back and had a good view of all of the room around us.

“You got this?” she asked, as the scientists looked from me to the eight-limbed corpse on the floor.

“I need a bigger gun,” I said, and she gave a humorless snort.

“Don’t we all.”

“I’m not exactly loaded for bear.”

“How about loaded for those?”

She took out the two shadows that came out of the vent on the other wall, and I shot the third and fourth one that entered using the same shaft as the first.

The scientists stood, transfixed, two feet from the terminal they needed to be using.

“Find me an antidote!” I yelled, trying to work out a way to seal the ventilation shafts, as I wondered how they were getting past the security droids.

The droids.

Damnit.

“Tens?”

“Busy. Two minutes.”

We probably didn’t have two minutes.

“I’ll cover you.” Delight.

I glared at the two scientists.

“Move!” I growled, and they crowded close to the computer terminal.

Seeing them get down to work, I closed my eyes, sinking into the security system, and chasing the code that led to the droids. Strange how much they reminded me of the roving Ghoul patrols, in Bastien’s complex. Pushing that thought to one side, I found the protocols controlling then, and sent them the coordinates for the lab’s location.

It seemed selfish to pull them away from other areas that might contain people hiding from the spider mutants, or the plagued, but there was only one place the cure could be made, and it had priority. I wrote a program that had the remaining droids sweeping the ventilation shafts closest, and then I went looking for the nearest motion sensors, and coded their alarms as high priority response requirements.

Delight was shooting over my head, when I surfaced from the implant.

“Tens is right; that is some handicap,” she said, and I wondered how I came to be on my knees, with her hand on my shoulder.

Oh... yeah, she’d just applied pressure, and my body had obeyed while my mind was busy. I wasn’t sure I was okay with that, but it was better than having her shooting through my head.

She patted my shoulder, then shifted her grip to lift me to my feet.

“Now, you get it. Go see how the two stooges are getting on.”

I went.

“You ready?” I asked, as though they’d have had anywhere near enough time to work the process through.

Actually, given they’d already completed part of it, it wasn’t an unreasonable an expectation.

They raised their heads, and I cursed as I realized they’d been waiting for me to come out of my implant.

“We just need the replicators.”

“Where?”

They pointed to an alcove at the back of the room.

“Back there,” they said, and I could see why they hesitated; I couldn’t see beyond the corner, either.

“Delight?” I asked, and she started reversing towards the blind spot.

I moved with her.

“Bring what you need,” I ordered, and heard the hum of a printer.

Scanning the room, I found it, not far from the tumbled corpses under the vent Delight had been covering. I reached out and tapped her on the shoulder, pointing to it, as I headed in that direction.

“You two! With me!” she snapped, taking my Glazer as I passed and turning so she could aim in both directions. The scientists stepped up behind her, and I hurried over to collect what was coming off the printer.

I kept a close eye on the vents as I did, all too aware of the long, drawn-out scratching coming from the lab door. Occasionally, a thump would punctuate the sound, and we’d all jump. How long the