The more people that become infected, the more voices there are, and the number of new voices is increasing almost by the minute.
Sindaris is terrified to sleep because when he closes his eyes he sees things, abhorrent things. He has already watched them eat, seeing through their eyes. He has watched them lay traps with the ones the military calls ‘Screamers,’ watched them infect their own families. At first it was visual only; now he can feel what they do, taste who they eat, feel their fears, and when they become hungry so does Sindaris.
Something is different with him, compared to the other infected. He feels all the things the masses of infected feel but does not, at any point, hunger for human or animal meat as they do. Sindaris has been eating out of cans, though his appetite has increased dramatically. Another thing he’s noticed is that the infected become less and less intelligent the longer they exist after they reanimate. Their minds degenerate into something more animalistic and stupid. No such mental decline is happening to Sindaris and the others can sense it. He is not like them and they are being directed to hunt him down.
They call for him in feverish masses, babbling his name.
Sindaris has to hide wherever he can, and has learned to move around without looking at landmarks or street signs; he’s sure they can see through his eyes as he can see through theirs. He can think about where he wants to go because his more complex thoughts are hidden from what he thinks of as the ‘Sharemind,’ but basic impulses like his desire to flee are not. His best hope is to lay low as long as possible until the contaminants are too witless to track him. But whatever is directing them isn’t one of them, Sindaris can sense it. And it is certainly not stupid.
He feels the tell tale scratching in his ears like someone is tickling his ear hair with a toothpick. Sindaris knows the controlling entity is about to speak into his mind and he wonders if it’s going to say anything new or just repeat the same threats of dismemberment it has been mumbling since it discovered his existence.
It speaks with its genderless voice. It sounds like it has a thick layer of some awful substance lining the back of its throat creating a slight bubbling affect, causing a distortion in the sound. “Where are you now, Tessol?”
Sindaris curses. He’d run across a contaminant several days ago and they’d seen his face. What one sees the masses do. One of the contaminants in the hive, or whatever it is, must have recognised him and so now they all know him despite his youthful appearance. Damn it.
“I don’t know,” he answers, “therefore, neither do you.”
“We will find you.”
“So do it and be silent,” says Sindaris aloud, despite the voice being inaudible to all but himself. He has to speak because when he thinks the answer the entity can’t seem to acknowledge it. Which means he can swear at it all he likes mentally and it’ll never know.
The voice remains silent for a time leaving Sindaris staring at his own mutated eyes in the mirror but the scratching sensation in his ears remains. It’s still listening. But, predictably, it speaks again. “Give yourself up. It will be painless.”
Sindaris scoffs, “For you or for me?”
“Where are you going to go? The military will execute you on sight and you’ve outlived everyone who ever cared enough to help you.”
Sindaris feels a pang of grief as he thinks of his dead wife. They were married just under the half a century that Sindaris has physically lost and she died seven years ago. The surge of grief is felt as strongly as it was the day she died. Crisp, clean and hopelessly overpowering. Though he finds some comfort in it, it means he’s still human. Sindaris is about to retort but the scratching sensation is gone. He is alone again.
Sindaris’ thoughts are then drawn to what he’s going to do but he knows that dwelling on it might reveal his desperation. Moods are picked up on quickly and cleanly by nearby contaminants, so he attempts to remain detached from every situation.
His heart skips a beat as he realises that the entity may have been trying to provoke his grief so nearby contaminants would pick up on it. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The infected closest to him will be able to sense his distress the most, painting a metaphysical bullseye to his location through each of their interconnected consciousness. It would also explain why the entity just stopped talking to him. His half-panicked pondering is answered when he hears his name called across the silent streets nearby. He tries in vain to suppress a rush of terror that envelops him as a winter wind would a naked body.
He bolts out of his hotel room and into the temporarily empty motel courtyard and sprints off in a random direction into the night, focussing his panic into an image of the Mega Hall as a symbol of his salvation but running in what he hopes is the opposite direction. He doesn’t know where he’s going, he just runs, and runs, and runs.
Rennin has taken Dead Star several blocks away then straight up. Now he is sitting in the clouds, paralysed by his decision. Leaving his unit to fend for themselves is little different from just shooting them himself. He has only been serving with them for a day but it makes no difference.
He thinks back to the soldiers on the street who were overwhelmed by the contaminants. Can he really do it? Can he really follow through and desert? He wrestles with it while staring at his reflection in the glass in front of him. Where would he be now if Lieutenant Veidan abandoned him when the Possession went down? That android, his friend, dove aflame through the atmosphere on the back of a Wolf-droid to save that pod, and was exposed to Indigo Reign as a result. Rennin still hears Veidan screaming when he tries to sleep some nights. No amount of alcohol will ever erase the memory of the purity of pain produced through android larynx.
Rennin grunts and slams his face into a clear space on the control panel. He feels a trickle of blood run out of his nose but doesn’t bother to see to it. He sits up again, looking to his reflection with a grim face. “I earned it! Haven’t I lost enough?” he yells, hitting the throttle.
Dead Star is propelled into motion but after barely two seconds he slams the reverse thrusters and is stationary again looking at his own reflection fiercely. Would he ever be able to look at that face again? He feels like his hand is back on the purge switch in the Possession’s escape pod rather than Dead Star’s throttle.
Ready to kill more just to save yourself?
Morally speaking it was just blind luck their steep re-entry had caused the jettison mechanism to melt and malfunction, otherwise he would have killed those four troops himself. It is irrelevant that they died later because he couldn’t have known that would happen. Though if he did purge those other survivors Jolen wouldn’t have died his friend, wouldn’t have entrusted to him that letter he wrote to his loved ones in the minutes prior to the devastating effects of Indigo Reign really kicking in.
He looks away from his reflection unable to bear his own appearance any longer. His hand grips tightly to the throttle but it still feels like the purge switch in his hand. He grits his teeth so hard that they probably would crack if they weren’t Thermosteel. What would Jolen say if he lived through Decora’s treatment and Rennin had died instead? At that point, the last act Rennin attempted to kill four of their own men to save himself. He can hear Jolen’s voice at the back of his mind, speaking with a subtle derision that he had when brandishing a wry smile. “Pussy.”
“Fuck you, Jolen! No! I’m not dying here!” he screeches slumping forwards. “God damn you,” he whispers, then thinks of Carla. “Why did you give me something worth losing?” He isn’t sure who ‘you’ is, but someone’s responsible for this poetic justice.