Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,107
humanity. I don’t even particularly like most of humanity all that much. It’s why I spend most of my time online or in deep space with a small crew. But even if I did, I’m not cut out for playing soldier and cutting down swaths of the enemy. I want my life back. I want to go home.”
I heard the longing in her voice. I knew it wasn’t just for the Persephone or her hide on Daedalus. It wasn’t even for getting back to playing white hat hacker in cyberspace, or whatever it was she did when she wasn’t working salvage. It was a deeper yearning than that, and I sensed that, more than anything, what she missed was her self. That indefinable part of her that was, at least on some level, intrinsically linked to how she saw herself, to who she was. Being coiled in the expedient shell she now wore was a subtle form of torture for her, the kind that would take its toll day after day, hour after hour, for as long as she was forced to remain within it.
“We’ll get it back, Shay. I promise you. One way or another, we’ll get it all back.”
“Sure,” she said, not sounding particularly confident. “If Bliss doesn’t scour humanity from the solar system.”
“There is that,” I muttered. “That, there is.”
“Contact!”
The word cut across the comm, coming in on the channel reserved for tactical communications with the security force. It brought the entire unit up short, everyone once again squeezing tight against the bulkheads. I didn’t hear the gunfire, of course. We were still in vacuum, despite the gravity, but a moment later the same voice said, “Got the bastard. Shit! More inbound.”
My HUD started to light up as the heat map shifted, a previously green chamber going deep red and then spilling into the corridor in front of us.
“Damn it!” Shay exclaimed. “That room must be shielded from the sensors.”
I didn’t have time to reply as Korben’s voice cut through the chatter. “Stand your ground. They don’t have any ranged capabilities. Take them down. Remember, you have to disrupt their cores. Head and neck and spine, people. Head, neck, and spine.”
The front ranks peeled away from the walls, forming a living barrier across the corridor and then kneeling down. The rear ranks took up position behind them, leaving me and Shay standing at the back, still pressed up against our own bulkhead. It reminded me of ancient fucking history, an army lining up to volley-fire inaccurate black-powder weapons across an open field. Only, the corridor was much tighter than any open field and the Genetechnic team’s weapons were anything but inaccurate. The passage was wide enough for six team members to line up abreast. I was grateful for the vacuum as a dozen firearms opened up, hurling their projectiles against the flood of coils spilling into the corridor.
I didn’t have a line of fire but I kept my weapon at the ready. I glanced behind me and saw that Shay had drawn her Gauss pistol. Her hands were visibly shaking as she clutched the butt of the weapon in a two-handed grip. “Easy, now,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could. Over the heads of the firing line, I could see the horde of Bliss-infected driving forward centimeter by bloody centimeter. They were all armed now, with makeshift clubs and kitchen knives, and they seemed oblivious to the losses they were soaking.
“Stand your ground!” Korben’s voice snapped. “Keep firing.”
The two soldiers who had been at the rear of our little formation pushed past us, moving forward, ready to take up their own positions on the line if anyone fell or had a weapons malfunction. In the first few seconds, dozens of coils, at one time as human as Shay or me, fell. The cyber-zombies in their wake had to literally climb over the mounded dead, slowing them further and giving the security teams time to reload. It was slaughter on a scale unlike anything I had ever seen; it was slaughter I hoped I’d never see again.
After a minute of near continuous fire, Shay turned away. A minute later, and I found myself looking anywhere but at the seemingly ambulatory wall of dead as it crept closer and closer to the firing line. I was aware, vaguely, of the sensor-driven data display that showed that, despite the charnel heaps slowly filling the corridor, the intensity of the heat map showing the location of the