Chapter 51: Chapter 51: Pod Person

“How sure are you that it’s bite wound? Her hand is covering most of it, right?” Vera looked down at the pod, her hands twisting as she fidgeted.

“I’m not completely certain, to be honest. But it doesn’t look good.”

“Well what can we do? We can’t just leave her here,” Sam said from behind Vera.

“Some of the pods here have failed. I am not sure what caused the failures, but there are more than a few here. I do not know whether Ileane or the remaining patients are safe in the pods that are still active,”

“That’s a good point, Z. Sam, Vera, can you two check out this pod without interrupting the stasis field?”

“Sure thing, Del.”

Doctor Delveccio stepped away from the pod as Sam exited his combat suit and the two prepared to examine the pod.

“May I borrow the node detector for a few moments, Vera?”

“Sure thing. We should probably make a habit of checking around wherever we go when we’re not in combat,” she replied.

I took the sensor box and powered it up. A notification appeared on my HUD, telling me that there was a new and unknown device nearby that I could connect to. Accepting the connection was seamless and much quicker than the paranoid device security that most modern technology that took several long moments to approve.

A few seconds later, several map pings appeared showing possible node locations. There was a cluster of them another row over, and a few faint looking ones further out. I shared what the device was showing with the rest of the group.

“Are these things everywhere? No wonder we got infected,” Sam grumbled as he carefully removed a covering panel from the base of the stasis pod.

“I still want to know where the things come from. And how they’re made,” Vera replied.

“That would certainly be good information to have. If we can determine how they are made, it might be possible to not only detect them from afar but prevent them from infecting a ship or station’s systems. That would leave only direct transmission as the vector, and vastly simplify containment and study of the two different virus types.”

Sam and Vera had begun speaking softly to each other about possible uses of the tiny power producing devices at some point. I hadn’t noticed this happening while slowly flying towards the large cluster nearby.

“I think they stopped listening to you when they started talking about the nodes again,” Doctor Delveccio remarked.

“Ah. It will be interesting to see what they make of them, should they ever find a way to interact and move them or even create such things.”

“Understanding the biological vector would be of greater immediate impact, though. If we can find a way to make other people immune as you seem to be, we could do so much more. That’s why we need to restore regular communications as soon as possible,” she said.

“We still need to make sure the station doesn’t fall apart on us as well. That was the original reason behind the expedition to the lab section, after all.”

“I suppose,” she replied, falling silent after that. I was beginning to get the feeling that she considered restoring communication even more important than addressing the power situation, though.

Before attempting the node cluster there was at least one other matter to attend to. My stomach was becoming increasingly insistent that it receive sustenance. The area here was relatively free of floating bodies and gore.

It took two meal bars to finally quench the hunger pangs. Raspberry appeared to have fallen asleep at some point after our most recent battle. She tended to hiss at the zombies she could see through my visor when I fought.

An empty bottle drifted past my face. It went back in a pouch with the other empties. There were two full ones left. After a moment, I taped the full one to the inside of my helmet with some rigger’s tape. She could reach it when she woke. After a moment to put my helmet back on, I paused.

Every node network was different. This wasn’t the most densely populated one I’d seen, but every time I risked forcing my nanites in was a risk. There was no way to tell what could happen if the rogue colony was too large and swarmed its way back into me.

Most of the time, numerical superiority was enough. The nanite bloat that seemed to want to explode out of me was useful, even if it was also dangerous. The stress it put on my body had taken a toll. For all that I was getting better at fighting zombies, my muscles were sore and strained and my bones felt like hot lead had been poured into them. The irregular pulses of pain that I’d been getting worried me, too. And now I’d just acquired a new concerning discomfort in my gut.

A part of me cursed at the weakness that pain brought. Weakness made you slow.

I slapped my palm against the pod in front of me with a growl. This was no time to be weak. My nanites poured into the pod and wormed their way towards the network, cutting away small knots of rogues as they went.

The lack of stiff resistance surprised me. There were at least a dozen nodes in this cluster, a handful more were spread out in the thirty foot shell the detector had shown. This sporadic pattern continued even as my threads closed on the first target, a solitary node near the main cluster.

It fell with almost no resistance. Its defenders barely had the time to respond before they were consumed. As the node’s allegiance shifted and it began to mirror my own colony, I sensed something new through my threads. Almost like a faint pulse.

More little groups of rogues began to appear as my colony approached the next node. This one looked to be in the process of reinforcing its defenders. It took only a bit longer to conquer this one. But that was enough time for all the other nodes to send reinforcements.

A wave of rogues swarmed toward my newly acquired node. This time they were packed together instead of spread out in easily defeated parcels. A few scouting threads disintegrated under the weight of their numbers, but my colony stopped the wave at the node.

Though the wave was halted, it still managed to savage the dense threads that defended the node before the last of the rogues was felled. I sent out scouting threads again. Another wave was coming.

My scouts did not find a way around the wave. The rogues seemed to be coming from nearly everywhere except the one direction where my two nodes were. Even the first node I’d captured came under attack, though not as severely as the newest one.

My threads needed to be reinforced, but I kept the two nodes from being recaptured despite the mass attacks twice more. Something bothered me about it, though.

There should have been more rogues. With ten more nodes to call upon, the forces assaulting my two should have around five times as many nanites to call upon, not counting the ones that normally resided in my own body. But each wave seemed to be only three times as numerous.

Another wave of rogues crashed into my defenders and was ground down, becoming raw materials for the node to process into new friendly nanites. The two under my control were producing roughly equal amounts. From what I recalled, all the other nodes I’d acquired seemed to be about the same.

So why send so few?

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The answer seemed immediately obvious. To keep my threads pinned here. If none of my colony could stage a break out, that only created a stalemate. Could that be all that it was? I felt a bit foolish, attributing subtlety to the simple rogues assaulting my two nodes for a fifth time.

Rogues formed from nodes. They infected people and turned them into zombies with the help of the biological virus. Zombies made more zombies. That was the theory that fit the observable facts thus far. But what if there were something more to it?

I had to know.

Pushing out more threads cost me a growing headache, but the pain was still bearable on top of my other various aches and injuries. Instead of scouting threads, I punched a thick spike of nanites in the direction that the node detector indicated the next part of the cluster lay.

The wave was still forming when my assault spike grew close enough to sense the rogues. The first pocket of the enemy only slowed my attackers for a moment. The second and third slowed it even more.

But that was enough for me to sense the next node through my threads. I withdrew half of the defenders from my closest node and sent them forward as the rogues began to coalesce around the rogue’s node to defend it.

In that moment, my threads struck. Without the local density to resist, my colony stripped out small groups and annihilated them piece by piece. By the time the rogue reinforcements arrived the node was already under my control.

Another wave arrived after I defeated the latest disorganized group. Was I mistaken? The rogue nanites were still operating strangely, but they did not seem to be reacting intelligently. Of course they weren’t, but their strange behavior still puzzled me. Where had the rest of them gone?

With three nodes under my control the rogues could only send three times my numbers if they used all their forces. But they did not. My suspicions grew by the second.

I split off four thick threads and cast them in a wide arc, away from the cluster. Two more waves arrived and were crushed while my colony defended. I could have attacked, sweeping away the defenders one after another. But some sense of urgency made me expand my reach and sight instead.

A third wave arrived. Nothing. I couldn’t find anything with my threads’ reach. A fourth. My threads began searching in expanding patterns, curving outward and over the node cluster in wide arcs.

Two of the threads found nothing. One found a solitary node off by itself. As I sensed the new forces marshaling to defend, at the edge of my nanite’s perception a few disappeared off into the distance instead of returning to defend.

My last thread diverted to follow the ones that ran away. Rogues don’t flee. They attack. Always. Except these were not. What could be more important than...

Of course.

Only one thing had changed recently in the pod room recently. One major occurrence that would draw the interest and attention of both rogue nanites and zombies.

Dimly, I could hear agitated voices over the com. Something was happening, but it wasn’t combat. Doctor Delveccio’s voice sounded stressed. Sam sounded tense, but focused. But since the distraction was not something that required immediate action, I focused on taking my three threads and pushing them towards where he and Vera were deep in the guts of Ileane’s pod.

Along the way there were small groups of rogues, none large enough to be a significant threat to my threads. But there were a lot of them, spread over a long stretch of the network. All following the power and data lines, going in the same direction.

Time seemed to slow down, mocking the clock in my HUD. My colony captured another node while my attention was largely on chasing the rogues down. That meant that it was only a matter of time before the rest of the cluster fell.

All of a sudden a large mob of rogues appeared ahead of my threads. The mass stretched as far as could be sensed. Some of them turned to rush at my threads, but the majority of the rogues seemed to be occupied with something else.

Even with the nanite bloat from draining the odd zombie earlier the strain was beginning to tell on me. Managing the fight at the cluster and dealing with the attacks on my threads along their length and now the ones gathered here so far from any node made the growing headache worse.

If all of the rogues had attacked at once my threads would have been shredded immediately. Yet they only attacked in sufficient numbers to keep me away, stalemated once again. Another node in the cluster fell as my threads attacked and defended, cutting away smaller groups of rogue nanites and annihilating them.

If things continued, the rogues would eventually lose. No intelligent opponent would allow that, and the rogues had never exhibited such qualities before. All the same I could not help feeling that time was running out.

It did not matter that this was an irrational emotion. Rather, it mattered less than it should.

With four nodes at the main cluster and one out in the middle of nowhere, despite having fewer nodes under my control the rogues were losing. At least, they were losing there.

Two more nodes fell while I tried to find a way around the groups that kept attacking me. The large force would not be receiving any more reinforcements. Something about how the rogues kept moving in small groups suddenly made sense to me.

I threw my threads forwards in a single sharp assault. My nanites were getting reinforced. The rogues no longer were. There were still too many to overcome quickly. But that wasn’t my aim.

The rogues weren’t as densely packed as my threads. I took ruthless advantage of this as it was one of my few advantages at the moment, punching through the defenders, then the strangely unaggressive rogues.

It only lasted a few seconds before the rogues cut off the threads. But it was enough to see the what the rogue nanites were doing.

They were eating into the network somehow. I saw through my threads as rogues broke down bits of what appeared to be a high power transfer bus.

After that, more of the rogues turned to attacking my threads in earnest. They were no weaker for their losses, as more and more of the ones waiting to dig into the transfer bus joined the fight.

Loud voices nearly distracted me as I prepared another spike to pierce through the mob. Whatever the rogues were up to was nothing good. As there were no zombie howls or gunfire I forced the new spike through. In the few seconds before losing contact my colony cut down the eater rogues by the dozen.

I immediately began making more spikes. The third spike failed to penetrate. The rogues finally managed to counter the greater density by massing and pushing the spike off course. The fourth punched through, largely because the rogues were starting to fail from lack of numbers.

There was no need for a fifth spike.

The high power transfer bus was leaking energy. Any nanite that got close received lethal shocks, and the network that my nanites used like roads were degrading.

The cluster where everything began was now under my control. A few rogues appeared here and there and were eliminated almost immediately. I withdrew my threads. My head pounded in time with my heartbeat and all my other bodily complaints spoke up to make themselves known.

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