CATACLYSM

Chapter 10: FELIX

Chapter ten: FELIX

Cas fell into Tier’s arms as she slid into the Tempest Horizon through the roof, the hatch closing tight behind her.

“Cassandra!” He helped her get her footing as the crew gathered around. “Thank goodness.” He turned to his daughter and said, “Ema, get us back to the hideaway. Quietly.”

“How did you find me?” Cas asked.

“We got your last message,” Tier explained, “but we took damage fighting that giant wyrm. We were grounded for a few days up on the hills. Once we got airborne again, we started searching for you.”

“But I commanded you to leave and return to Daedalus.”

“Oh, hm,” Tier said, rubbing his beard in faux confusion, “I guess that part of the message didn’t come through!” He grinned. Before Cas could protest, he continued, “Then we started tracking the giant wyrms. We figured if we’d seen one near you before, maybe they could lead us to you.” Tier gestured to another crewman. “It was actually Rose’s idea.”

Rose stepped forward, a diminutive little thing with gorgeous eyes and intricate braids. She must be the apprentice Necrope. Cas had little, if any, contact with the apprentice Necropes, since they would fall under the care of the senior Necrope. Without Vektor, only this Rose remained.

“Our Necrope,” Cas said, smiling, acting as if she remembered.

“Yes, captain,” Rose said, avoiding Cas’s gaze, “If you look here, captain, I can show you the giant wyrms.” Rose gestured to a screen on the wall. She manipulated it to display a map of the area with a few moving dots. “Since you told us the afflicted here were sentient, I started to think, what if there is a connection? So we found some giant wyrms near the surface and shot trackers into them.” She showed a time lapse of the dots moving around the map. “We’ve found four so far. They all circle the hospital where we found you.”

“The afflicted call them ‘hydras’.” Cas studied the map, trying to hide her furrowing brow. Four? “What do you mean, a connection?”

“I think there might be a different breed of wyrm that links the hydras and the sentients, especially given what we’ve found with the conglomeration.”

Cas spun on Tier. “You’ve made progress on the conglomeration?”

“Some.” He hesitated. “It’s been an unfortunate process. We can show you.” And he gestured them out of the room. The crewmen left first, but Tier grabbed Cas’s arm to hold her back for a moment. “Cassandra,” he whispered, “when I last saw you, that voice from inside the building - I could have sworn it was your father’s voice.” When she glanced away, he said, “You need to tell me. Is Castiel Cassidy alive?”

Tier’s fingers dug into her arm, beads of sweat forming on his face. Castiel hadn’t wanted Tier to know he’d been afflicted. “Yes,” she said, finally, “My father is alive.” He just needs the cure.

* * *

The corpses stank, thick with rot, as if they’d been submerged in stagnant waters for days. Even the deep cold of the freezeroom where bodies were stored on the Tempest did not hinder the curious stench of death.

“The first subject that we detached survived several hours,” Rose said, raising the cover to expose the staring eyes, “and you can see in the cavity here that he had substantial brain matter remaining.” She lifted off the top of his skull to show the mushy grey flesh. In the center of the mass was a cavernous hole. “But you can see, detaching the wyrm caused significant damage.” Rose replaced the bone and covered him again. She slid the body on its metal slab back into the wall and closed the little square door.

“The wyrm wouldn’t release on its own? Not even with the serum?” Though not a Necrope herself, Cas knew that many wyrms fled their hosts when dehydrated and flooded with a particular poisonous cocktail. She knew little else about it, but that it was highly effective.

“This wyrm was quite different than what we’ve encountered in the past. Look here,” Rose pulled the next drawer and revealed the body on the metal slab. “Subject two never survived separation.” She again exposed the brain, pointing at strange thorn-like fragments within the pulverized flesh. “See here, the wyrm attached with these barbs, and when we pulled it out it tore the brain to pieces.” Rose again replaced the skull and slid the body away.

Cas’s stomach roiled. She wondered if Vektor would have had better luck than this mere apprentice.

“The third subject did not seem to be truly alive when attached to the conglomeration.” Sliding out the third corpse, Rose again exposed the interior skull. Only viscous goo oozed out of the empty cavity. “This was all wyrm. One long arm up the spine and curled in the skull. No brain matter left at all.” She replaced the bone. “Obviously, subject three never had consciousness separated from the group.”

Cas furrowed her brow. “One long arm, you said?” She turned to Tier and asked, “What does that mean?”

“Like Rose said, this wyrm was very different from anything else we’ve encountered.” Outside of the freezeroom, Tier accessed diagrams on consoles. He displayed a three-dimensional rendition of the conglomeration, with what initially appeared like a giant branching vein inside all four bodies. “These people weren’t separately infested; there was one large wyrm housed in subject four, with tendrils that spread into subjects one, two, and three.” Tier pointed to the diagram, explaining. “They were connected, like one organism.”

Cas studied the image, eyes wide. What had Vektor said? “Like fingers.”

“Yes, captain,” Rose chirped excitedly, nodding, “that is a good way to think of it!”

A chill scattered down Cas’s spine.

“What of the fourth subject?” Cas asked.

“She is alive,” Rose said.

“For now,” Tier added.

He brought them to one of the twelve chambers meant for curing afflicted. Indeed, this chamber was larger, having been reconfigured some days before with hopes of fitting the entire conglomeration. Now, looking through the slitted window in the doorway, Cas saw only one human female lying in a soft bed.

“So the dehydration is done?” Cas asked, “The treatment was successful?”

Rose hesitated. “Well, we did remove and euthanize the wyrm. And scans indicate subject four is free of the infestation.” She added, “But the patient has not regained consciousness.”

Cas watched the woman’s chest rise and fall. He is not sick, Mylo had said. He cannot be cured because he is not sick. She noticed three empty beds in the room.

Cas turned away. “Show me the wyrm.”

Harvested wyrms were traditionally euthanized and then fixed in some medium to prevent decay and allow for additional study and necropsy. The biggest Cas had ever seen had been the length of her arm - at least, until Rose opened a storage locker to reveal a glass cylinder that stretched from floor to ceiling, filled with a pale blue formaldehyde mixture, that contained the conglomeration’s wyrm.

The thing was so long it filled the tube, doubling back on itself to fit. Its main trunk was thick and ribbed, somewhat like a tree with branching tendrils winding and weaving in every direction. Fierce barbs jutted out at the tips of its tails. It angled back and forth like a crack in glass, but it was pale and bloodless as a winter moon. The mouth gaped with thousands of individual needle teeth. Suspended, it was perfectly still.

Cas swallowed. “What the hell is this thing?”

“As far as we can tell, it’s a wyrm like any other.” Tier added, “Though, not exactly like any other.”

“It took days to detach it,” Rose said, putting her hand on the tube to admire the wyrm. “I got it out almost all in one piece.” She smiled a pretty little smile.

Cas recalled the pulverized brain. “And what do we know now that we didn’t know before, besides that the subjects on the barbed ends are not likely to survive?”

“I have a hypothesis,” Rose said, missing Cas’s discontentment, “What if we’ve only seen one kind of wyrm out west, because that’s what populates in more arid climates? What if out here, where there’s more water, more ocean, more space, what if the wyrms have evolved?” Rose blinked excitedly and said, “And then you told us, captain, that there were sentient afflicted. So what if the wyrms evolved to their new environment - or rather, to their new hosts?”

Images of Mylo swirled in Cas’s mind, their scent still on her shoulder where they’d pressed their face. Her heart thumped as she studied the wyrm, its limbs, its fingers, its pale flesh and dark mouth. She recalled the mouth of the hydra. And the way Mylo’s eyes had glowed when they saved her. The way their eyes, green soft mirrors, flashed up when they smiled at her. The needle teeth frozen in the blue formaldehyde. Mylo’s face reflected in the cracked mirror. The pulverized brain.

Cas turned to Tier and said low, “We need to speak somewhere alone.”

* * *

Outside the Tempest Horizon the midnight air hung dense with the promise of rain. Ema had parked the ship on a grassy knoll abutting a brick building, surrounded on three sides with shallow black water. As Cas climbed down her feet sank into the damp soil, mud sucking at each step. Off in the distance stood the upper half of a statue sticking out of the river. In the dimness she could make out its helm and raised sword.

Cas and Tier sat on an ancient brick wall that overlooked the open water. “We have a problem,” Cas said. But when she opened her mouth to speak again, her voice caught in her throat. She turned away. Why am I crying?

“What is it?” Tier asked, then added angrily, “Those sentients hurt you.”

“No, no,” Cas said, breathing in heavily and clearing her throat. “They didn’t hurt me.” She turned back to him. “But we may need to hurt them.”

Tier cocked his head. “You don’t mean kill them?”

“No - I mean cure them.”

“Well that’s not hurtful.”

Look at me, and tell me I am not alive. “They don’t want to be cured.”

Tier blinked. “What?”

“They don’t want to be cured,” Cas repeated. “It would be one thing to take them all back willingly, and cure them one by one - but it’s a completely different operation to snatch them all forcibly.” Cas added, “The sentients think they are alive.”

Tier gazed out at the water, rubbing his short beard. He whispered, “Perhaps they are.”

Cas startled. “They’re zombies.”

“So was the conglomeration,” Tier said, not looking at her, “but when it entered the ship it had four minds. Now we barely have one left.” He shook his head. “Bloody business we’re all in.”

“You think we should leave them be?” Cas’s heart sank to imagine leaving Mylo forever.

“We can’t leave them,” Tier said, “our orders are clear: capture, cure, and clear the infestation.” He sighed. “And of course we must rescue Castiel.” He looked at her with glossy eyes.

Cas couldn’t tell him. “My father may be difficult to extract.”

“Whatever it takes, we will get him back.” Tier blinked back tears. “I must get him back.” He said, unbidden, “You were too young when you came to Daedalus to remember, but with your mother dead and my family lost, for a long time all Castiel and I had was each other.”

Cas swore she felt graveworms crawling through her hair. “Until your second wife and new family.”

Tier chuckled. “Like Job,” he said, softly, “You can’t replace children, Cas.”

Cas sat up straight from the inkling of an idea. “If you found your children now, and they were infested, would you want them cured?”

Tier seemed confused. “Of course, if it was possible. Why?”

“And if you saw them cured, rid of the infestation and returned to their humanity, how would you feel? As a father?”

“Elated, I imagine - overjoyed. Thankful.” He scrunched his brows. “What are you getting at, Cassandra?”

“We don’t need to capture all the sentients,” she said, getting up and heading back towards the Tempest, “We only need one.”

* * *

Cas slipped into a clean shrinksuit, pulling on her gloves and hanging goggles around her neck. Her crew likewise readied for their new mission: targeted capture of the afflicted, Felix.

From the bridge Cas guided Ema through the moonless, soundless streets of New Brunswick. The smothering of low, dark clouds masqueraded the city as abandoned. The Tempest was a little mouse creeping through an empty home. As they neared the hospital Ema lowered the Tempest onto the surface of the water so she could cut the upper engines and coast, quieting their approach. Tier worried about the hydras - but Captain Cas Cassidy intended to be in and out before any of the sentients or their beasts realized what was happening.

The garage came into view, its horizontal openings like gashes in skin. The Tempest came to rest along its side. Cas went to open the hatch with her snare gun in hand when Tier stopped her.

“Captain, we just got you back. Certainly Paul or Stevyn can capture this one afflicted?”

“No.” Cas wouldn’t have her remaining crew killed or afflicted. Worse, she could not risk any of them learning the full truth about the colony, and her relationship to it. The mere thought of another human meeting Mylo made Cas sick with jealousy. No - if there was to be this deception, it would be by Cas’s hands alone. “Just be ready to get underway as soon as we have him.” She put up her hood and secured her goggles and breathing mask.

Normally, a Snatcher team would approach a target on their own, the home ship left somewhere at a distance for safety and secrecy. But Cas had done this sort of fly-by capture a few times before. She opened the hatch and climbed onto the roof of the Tempest Horizon, the smell of rain and rot and rust permeated her mask. She breathed in deep. She remembered Mylo sitting next to her in the poleboat on the way to the archives, their face spattered with droplets like stars. She looked up now. A few misty raindrops fell on her goggles before the suit cleared them away.

Cas positioned herself at the highest point on the Tempest, which was near the entry hatch. Her boots had excellent grip with the corrugated metal of the hull in this area. Cas crouched, calibrating her snare gun, as the Tempest rose slowly into the air so she could see inside the garage.

She touched the buttons on her wrist to zoom in the camera in her goggles, scanning over the slumbering horde. A few of the afflicted still had their eyes open, though each stood still as trees, their hair leaves rustling in the wind. It only took a few moments for Cas to spot Felix, asleep amongst a copse of zombies.

“Found him,” Cas said through her mask to the crew within the Tempest, “Ema, bring me in.” She transmitted the video from her goggles to the ship so Ema could maneuver. “Closer,” Cas ordered. The Tempest edged further into the wound. “Hold steady. On my mark,” she said, fixing Felix in her sights, “Three, two, one - now.”

Cas squeezed the trigger of her snaregun and a quiet rush of nanites exhaled from the barrel. They shot towards Felix. Cas released the trigger and used a variety of knobs on the side of the firearm to manipulate the nanites’ path. It would have been easier to simply shoot the gun and let the tech take over automatically to make the snare; but doing it manually gave the Snatcher greater accuracy, and allowed for nearly silent snatches.

The nanites hovered into place around the sleeping Felix. Once everything was in position, Cas activated the net. The nanites instantly wove metal threads amongst each other and encompassed the target. When the net closed Cas pressed a button on the snare gun to secure a tether to the bag. She heard Felix moan from within, but no other afflicted reacted.

“Get us out,” she ordered, and the Tempest withdrew sideways, pulling Felix into the open air. He splashed into the water off the side of the ship. Cas began to hoist him, then was joined by Tier who quickly got him inside. Felix must have been disoriented because he did not struggle.

For a moment Cas thought she could exhale a sigh of relief, but the sound of a misplaced lap of water made her pause. Standing up, she looked out over the side of the Tempest Horizon. The ship hovered just above the river. Below the surface blinked a hundred silver eyes.

“Tier-” was all Cas could manage before the field of hands burst through and grabbed the underbelly of the ship. The Tempest rocked sideways at the weight of all the zombies. Cas stumbled but caught herself just as the faces began to spring forth like a hundred decaying daisies.

Then a dark shape fell from the sky and landed hard on the ship. They stood slowly, balancing, their black trenchcoat fluttering in the building wind.

“Mylo!” Cas gasped, heat blooming up her neck.

They cast their eyes around frantically before resting on her. “What are you doing?”

Cas swallowed. “We’re going to cure Felix.”

Their eyes widened. “What?”

“He can be cured,” Cas explained, “Mylo, please, he’s animate, he’s young, he’s perfect for the cure.”

“I told you he is not sick.” Their brow furrowed with worry.

“We can bring him back to life!”

“He is alive! Cassandra, please,” they said, their eyes wide with fear, “Do not do this. He is my son!”

“We already have him.” The ship lurched as it tried to free itself from the growing horde, sending Cas to her knees. Next to her, Tier appeared in the open hatch, but he froze when he saw Mylo.

The wind whipped their coat. “I trusted you,” Mylo said, water forming in their eyes, “I only let you meet Felix in the first place because I…” They stopped, their face contorting in anger, “I trusted you.”

“My god, it’s true,” Tier said breathlessly, “they really can speak.”

Mylo’s focus darted to him. Their head tilted ever so slightly. “Tier Eckho.”

He startled. “How do you know me?”

“Castiel has told me everything about you.” Their mouth twisted into a smile. “I have seen you in his mind’s eye, and all the things you have done together.”

“Leave him alone!” Cas shouted, regaining her footing as the wind picked up. “This is between you and me.”

“Not anymore.” Mylo lowered their voice and looked at her. “You take one of mine, fine. Then I will take one of yours.” Mylo’s eyes widened and shone brilliantly silver, that same color Cas had seen underwater when they saved her. But now, Mylo let themselves fall backwards off the Tempest and gracefully into the ripping waves below.

And the hydra with silver scales and crimson lights thrust itself out of the water and directly at the Tempest.

* * *

Its body crashed onto the ship, splashing it hard into the river. Tier grabbed Cas by both ankles and yanked her inside. They fell on the floor together, soaked, the crew scrambling as the ship’s sensors screeched and flashed.

“Get us out of here!” Cas screamed just as a second blow crunched the hull, sending the crew stumbling to the sound of the ship sinking.

Tier helped her stand. “That sentient knows Castiel?”

Cas scrambled for a lie. “They’re keeping him captive, like they kept me.”

Another blow hit the ship and they grabbed onto consoles to stay standing.

Tier screwed up his face. “They’ve kept him all this time?” A hint of disbelief.

“We have bigger issues right now,” Cas said, unsure how to handle his questions. She ran to the bridge where Ema sat in the pilot’s seat wearing the visor to maneuver the ship. On the display screen was nothing but black water. Cas commanded, “Get us out of here.”

“I’m trying,” Ema said, pounding on buttons on the console, “Something is pulling us -” and she screamed.

On the screen, a massive hydra appeared from the shadows. Its head was the size of the ship even at a distance, growing larger as it slithered towards them. Its dark scales, brown and silver like rusted metal, hid its full length - but Cas couldn’t begin to count the flecks of crimson lights picked out along its skin that disappeared into the depths. In a moment its entire terrible, conical face filled the viewscreen. Ema tore the visor off. Cas worried it would open its mouth and swallow them whole -

But instead it glanced off the side of the ship, bumping them somewhat deeper into the water. Cas caught herself. “It won’t destroy the ship,” she said to Tier, who had followed her, “Not while Felix is onboard.”

“How does it know what the sentient wants?”

“I don’t know,” Cas’s voice was drowned out by a sharp crunching sound. “What the hell-” again the metal crunching. Cas grabbed the visor from Ema and slipped it on.

Through a series of cameras Cas could see entirely around the outside of the Tempest Horizon. Normally they combined to create cohesive three-dimensional imaging of the ship; but too many of the cameras were covered by something. Cas searched along the body of the Tempest until she found the trunk of a hydra coiled thrice around the ship, its head facing down in the river.

Swimming down. With them in tow.

“Fuck.” Quickly she checked the top of the Tempest, which was just barely above water, where the exit hatch was located. Cas removed the visor. “They’re trying to drown us. Fuck.” Mylo could drown us all and Felix would be fine. She blinked back tears. Would they really drown me?

“We need to get that hydra off,” Tier said, “Maybe we can reconfigure the grapple hook, that got under its skin before.”

Under its skin. She spun. “Rose!” she yelled, and the little Necrope appeared at once. “How did you implant the trackers into the hydras?”

Rose answered, her voice shaking like a leaf in the wind as the sound of the ship crunched around her, “We modified one of the grapple guns to be a harpoon.”

“Give it to me.”

Rose ran and retrieved the gun, a long-arm thin weapon equipped with nanite ammunition. “We just used it on the lowest setting so it would implant without causing harm.”

Cas toggled a knob on the side. “If we increase the power, will it do more damage?”

“Theoretically.” The ship groaned again.

Cas pulled on her mask and goggles. “Open the hatch.”

Tier protested, “But captain-”

“Tier, I need to get outside before we’re underwater,” Cas said. “Your orders are to leave and return to Daedalus as soon as the Tempest is free. Do you understand?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Good,” she said, “Now open the hatch.”

Tier obeyed, and Cas leapt out just before the Tempest sank beneath the waves. Some water must have gotten into the ship, but the hatch still closed behind her.

Captain Cas Cassidy dove into the black water.

The waves whipped her deeper, the world of air shrinking away above. Her mask detected the change and began to produce oxygen. She spun on the ship, taking in the breadth of the wyrm coiled around the Tempest. Actually, this hydra was on the smaller side, with thinner scales of light silver and pale red lights along its body. Cas wracked the modified grapple gun. The nanites inside bled out of the tip and formed a long barbed harpoon. She fired - the rod flew through the water and pierced its flesh, sinking deep in through its scales. The hydra let out a piteous moan.

Cas wracked another shot and fired. And fired. And fired.

Black plumes of blood bloomed from each sunken harpoon until the little wyrm began to loosen its grip. But as the Tempest shook itself free, the water began to drag it and Cas deeper.

Cas looked down.

Below them was the massive hydra with the rusty scales, its mouth fully agape like an echoing cavern. Its teeth - mere pins on the smaller hydras - were each curved swords, tipped in scarlet. It sucked in water so ferociously nearby detritus swirled into a cyclone into its throat. It let out a deep, guttural groan, a strange voice not of this Earth.

Cas thought fast. She clicked a few notches on the gun to attach a grappler as she sank closer and closer to its teeth. Cas aimed at first at the smaller hydra, thinking to drag herself back towards the Tempest - but then she turned and fired at the rusty hydra itself.

The grapple sunk into its back, not as deep as she had hoped, but deep enough to hold the tether. Cas activated the gun and zipped through the water ever deeper, around its open jaws and landing on the hydra’s back.

The hydra stopped swallowing.

It closed its mouth and turned its conical face to Cas on its back. Cas held perfectly still. For a few heartbeats, the wyrm just considered her. Behind it she saw the Tempest loosing from the pale wyrm, which sank away bloodied. Slowly, Cas secured her line to the rust wyrm’s back and re-armed a sharp harpoon. The Tempest breached the surface. The rust wyrm turned -

She aimed at the base of its head, intending to try and kill it, since she assumed it would go after the Tempest. But instead, the rust wyrm dove deeper and sped away from the ship entirely. Cas grabbed onto her tether as the cold water rushed against her body. The wyrm’s belly met the sunken city floor, slithering along the ancient roads and buildings. Hundreds of dormant afflicted lay in intertwined piles, eyes closed, choking the landscape. She thought about letting go as she felt them go deeper - but in the night she could barely make out the surface above. Soon only the lights from the wyrm gave her any hint of their location.

And then the streets fell out beneath them entirely. The wyrm had taken her out into the deep waters. And it angled its face down.

A guttural moan emanated from the depths. Cas felt the water vibrate around her. White lights began to blink into existence, stars forming a mysterious constellation of something alive down there.

The rust wyrm screeched when another hydra crashed into its head, derailing its path. Cas looked up - it was Nora, with Mylo on her back, their eyes wide and white. Cas’s heart sank at the pain on their face. They pulled alongside the bigger hydra. For a moment Mylo paused next to her, their upper lip contorted, their brows squeezed together hard. Their hair floated like stormclouds, catching the scant light from far above. Underwater, they did not breathe.

Mylo snatched her roughly by the throat, severing the tether with a pull from one hand, and used the line to bind Cas’s hands behind her. Cas saw no point in struggling. She just gazed over her shoulder at the white lights in the depths as they ascended.

They all surfaced to the very first glimpses of the rising sun out over the open water. Mylo tore off Cas’s mask and goggles, jerking her painfully in front of them. Cas careened her head to search the skies - and spotted the Tempest Horizon escaping into the Earth’s atmosphere. Mylo saw it, too.

Mylo’s white eyes faded back to green with silver halos. “What have you done?”

“I’ve taken one of yours,” she said, her voice steady, “in exchange for me.”

***

Art by John Salvino

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