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“Uncle Jo, what’s going on??”
Alarms screamed overhead, and the red emergency lights that flashed framed her rounded cheeks like the beamers of an oncoming car, seconds before the crash. He’d sprinted to get to her, sweat making the neckline of his jumpsuit unbearable as he panted to catch his breath. She’d asked him a question, small in her nightgown shielded by her teddy hugged tightly to her chest. He didn’t know how to answer. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Grab- uhm.” Taking a second, Joseph pressed his hands to his face, eyes squeezing tightly shut as he tried to pull his racing thoughts together.
’Emergency! Emergency! System shutdown in: fifteen-minutes.'
Lily’s big blue eyes looked worriedly at him - terrified of the computerized voice of the nice lady that usually told her good morning every day. To Joseph, that voice had been attached to progress reports for simple animal testing… not… the oncoming doom it forbode now.
They were both scared, and for good reason.
Prying his hands away from his face, Joseph pushed up his glasses and moved to hurriedly scoop up the parts of Lily’s room that mattered the most.
Not two-minutes and the pair were all but running down grated hallways, both breathing heavily as they turned down grid-like corridors and scrambled over blasted doorways that were portals to massacres Lily had no time to see. Bless that. On his way over Joseph had seen them all - some even when they were in the process of happening.
“Wh-where are we going??” Lily’s hand was tight in his, her voice wobbly as tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks. Her fear had begun to devolve into panic, a sentiment Joseph shared when they turned down another hallway and something standing dead center halted him in his tracks.
It wobbled with uncertainty, human legs gangly and fitted poorly like a loose sleeve. On a whim Joseph tucked back around the corner, Lily’s things dropping to the ground as he picked her up and folded her protectively against his chest. He’d sucked in his breath to hold, and as if noticing her own rattling lungs, the small thing hurried to mimic him where she was hunkered against his front, nose buried into his collar.
Her tears stained the front of his uniform, and he closed his eyes tightly as the blaring alarm backlit the uncoordinated shuffle of boots. Lily was so quiet against him, her empathy a godsend when they needed it most.
The scuffling footsteps felt like they took eons to toddle away, probably back into the room it came from, and once the coast was as good as clear Joseph released his breath and drew back until he could press a finger against his lips with the expectation Lily would see him, and understand. Her round face nodded quickly, and just like before she copied with precision the slow exhale and shallow inhale that disguised itself underneath the alarms.
He smiled shakily at her, and then adjusted her on his hip so he could bend to grab her gear before he slipped around the corner and very carefully trekked between gaping doorways and arcs of blood spray. Seeing them, Joseph pressed a fistfull of Lily’s jumpsuit to the back of her head, a silent encouragement to shield her face so she didn’t have to see it. Yeah, of course he knew she would eventually but… if he could control her fear until they reached the deep-sleep pods…
’Emergency! Emergency! System shutdown in: ten-minutes.'
Through another series of oval-shaped corridors, Joseph carried Lily through carnage and horrifying scenes of destruction until they reached a hall fitted with nothing but glass on the one side. He’d developed jitters the closer they’d gotten to this point, eyes flitting up through old-world wayfarer’s to read the holographic sign that listed the room beyond the glass as ’Deep-Sleep Chamber 02’. The door was intact, the material much thicker than the crew-rooms and snack-hovels that had flanked their way here. It was barred by an access code but, after adjusting Lily again, all Joseph had to do was punch in a familiar set of numbers and step back when the light flashed green and the door opened with a rush of hydraulics and pressure.
Getting inside was like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. The emergency counter screamed their time at ’five-minutes’ and his heart rate jumped again as he lowered Lily to her feet and pointed to a nearby couch for her to sit on while he got to work. She seemed unsure of herself, cold and in desperate need of warmth to comfort her but he just didn’t have the arms - he didn’t have the time.
Securing the door shut behind them, he then made long strides towards the command center to rapidly type in the emergency protocol to shudder the windows. It all happened with the fall of loud, metal slats that dropped like bombs over the exposed glass but once it was said and done Joseph didn’t give a flying fuck who or what heard them. They were as protected in the room as they were going to get, which meant he needed to very quickly do what he’d come in here to do.
Through slow and even pulls of his breath, Joseph turned from the flashing screen of the security computer to stare at the hulking machine that took up a majority of the deep-sleep chamber. In it were pods, ten in total surrounding a central neural network of cables that fed into the ceiling. He eyed them with apprehension, subtle relief filling him when they seemed whole and untouched. This was one of the heavier guarded rooms of the station, of course it had yet to be desecrated.
A sense of calm replaced the adrenaline in his veins as he swept from the computer, gaze falling to the pods before they narrowed on one in particular cocooned in tempered glass; CB-201. A face was resting peacefully beneath the dome, hair swaying against the flow of filtering liquid and mouth covered by the large breathing apparatus standard for the pod. Joseph sucked in a troubled breath as he scooted close to it, hand lifting to press against the cold glass as he thought about all of the deep-sleep testing rooms and how the people inside had no idea of the horrors happening as they slept.
’Emergency! Emergency! System shutdown in: two-minutes.’
Joseph sniffled and sidestepped to the panel next to the pod, index-finger flying over the holo-keys until a prompt asked him in bold letters, ’ARE YOU SURE?’ He hit the button with finality, and then took a few steps back as the pod began to whirr to life, its entire pill-shape rising until it was vertical and the fluid within started to drain into the reservoir. Typically this process took a few people but… it was just Joseph. It’d have to do.
Cautiously, he shot a look towards the vital signs of CB-201, listened to the hiss of the pod door releasing its seal. Vitals were steady. Everything seemed normal.
When the body inside began to list forward, Joseph hurried around and reached his arms out to catch it, his front soaking in the gel-like fluid. There were restraints he had to undo with one hand, then some cables and tubes and wires. It was done with trembling fingers that grew slippery with the fluid, but with determination and patience soon all the connections were free and Joseph could step back and carry the heavy weight until it was completely free of the pod.
Per protocol, once removed from the pod there was supposed to be a medical professional around to rouse the individual up from deep-sleep. It was a handful of steps to integrate back into the waking world, and required eval after eval to ensure the subject was ready to face reality beyond the simulation.
Because that’s what deep-sleep was. A simulation that took weeks at a time for test subjects and specialists to go through before they were given policy-driven downtime to rest their minds and remind them what the real world was. In his arms, breathing soundly as limbs began to fidget and twitch, was one of the test subjects and one he knew well.
Sebastian Castellanos, official title and rank leagues above Joseph’s.
The father of that little girl that was still sitting curled up on the couch, her attention rapt on a version of her daddy she had never seen before.
Holding the saturated form of a man that size, after the journey Joseph had taken to get here, buckled him down to his knees and the drop must’ve been exactly what Sebastian needed to open his eyes. He was groggy, vocals unused and broken as he looked around in confusion, body weak and sluggish when motor skills were put to the test. Joseph, who was not a medical professional and was only one of the station’s lead scientists, pieced together in his memory of how Sebastian told him this usually went.
“Sebastian… you’re awake." He pressed, voice thin and unsteady. "Really awake. The cool-down procedure was not complete, so I really- really need you to pull it together as soon as you can.”
”... J’sph…?”
’Emergency! Emergency! System shutdown in: 30-seconds.'
Turning in Joseph’s lap like a flopping fish, Sebastian’s gaze rolled up to the ceiling, his eyelids blinking hard like he was trying to come to grips with what he was seeing. The red lights were probably disorienting, as was the incessant alarm. Sebastian seemed to look around in a disconnected daze before some clarity rushed into his eyes and he slid his elbow up underneath him, taking up most of his own weight.
Joseph spread his knees a little and tried to help him up the best he could but the gel that had slicked up his hands also covered Sebastian like a second skin. It took some joint effort to operate the larger man into a sitting position, and by then the voice overhead came in staccato like beats.
’Emergency! Emergency! System shutdown in: ten.’
“Joseph… what the hell is…”
’nine.’
In Joseph’s throat was a lump half the size of his heart, and Joseph swallowed it down as he met Sebastian’s wide brown eyes underneath the flash of red.
’eight.’
“I’m sorry, Sebastian.”
’seven.’
Sebastian blinked at him and twisted more at the waist to face him fully.
’six.’
“What-what do you mean sorry?”
’five.’
“It all happened so fast.” Cadence thick, his own tears beginning to bead up in his eyes.
’four.’
“Joseph- stop- stop you’re-.”
’three.’
“-scaring the hell out of me.”
’two.’
“I’m sorry, Seb-.”
’one.’
”-I’m so sorry.”
The lights that flashed red and the wheezing alarm that had ricocheted around the station went out like they’d never been there to begin with. It bathed the pair of them in darkness and both looked up to the ceiling before a horrible wail startled the already tense air. Lily could be heard falling from the couch, Joseph’s name and then a series of frantic, ’daddy daddy daddy!’ filling the room and before Joseph could so much as breathe Sebastian was up on his feet.
Any other time the mess of slippery feet on the rubber mats would’ve been amusing.
“Lily!” Just as the reserve lights kicked in Sebastian was tearing across the room to the distraught cries of his daughter. Vaguely through the dim lighting Joseph could make out the large frame of Sebastian hauling her up into his arms, fingers combing her hair as she sobbed and hiccuped into his gel-soaked shoulder. She hadn’t known what was going on since the beginning of this, and Joseph mourned her innocence as he maintained his seat on the ground. He didn’t feel like moving yet and after accomplishing his primary mission, wouldn’t be unless he had to.
Which was coming up quick, if Sebastian’s thunderous steps his way were any indication.
“Wh- what,” his voice was reed-thin and stressed to high hell, ”the fuck is going on?”
Without proper lighting Joseph was left empty-handed in determining the ashen panic barely kept beneath the surface on Sebastian’s face. Lily had calmed some but not by much, her small frame was wrought with shakes and heavy breathing only quelled by Sebastian’s palm cradling her back. Oh what Joseph would give to be held like that, right now.
Before he could answer the sound of the nine other pods entering their own emergency cool-down filled the room, and to the shadowy vision of their rising upright, Joseph knew he only had so much time until the deep-sleep chamber was full of confused, bleary-eyed bodies. Just looking at them made him dizzy knowing they’d all probably need help climbing out of those things… he’d barely had the strength to do the one.
Wet slaps padded over to him, and Joseph jumped a little when tacky fingers stroked through his hair. Obediently he tipped his head back, peering up at the concern aimed down at him. Sebastian was only going to be patient for so long, and as nice as it felt to be touched so gently, Joseph was aware of the weight bearing down on his head.
After a series of deep breaths, he made a gesture for the back of the chamber where a room branched off into a series of showers and designated lockers.
“Let’s get the ick off and you dressed before I get into this… it’s… it’s a long story.”
~*~
They took turns holding Lily as the other washed.
Possible despite the shutdown because what a ‘system shutdown’ actually meant was most of the power to the station was cut, not all of it. A total blackout for communications and major systems, but certainly not the generators that kept the emergency lights and life-support running down in the medical bay. It was rare to have one - that being a system shutdown - but both Joseph and Sebastian were well-versed enough in protocols and procedures to trust the availability of something as simple as warm water. It wasn’t infinite by any means but there was plenty for all of them and then some.
When it was Lily’s turn, as she was covered in the stuff from being coddled, it was just the two of them staring at one another in the quiet and dark locker room. Having gotten his own jumpsuit drenched in gel-like substance Joseph had been given Sebastian’s PT hoodie to wear over his standard issue t-shirt and joggers. It’d take a special kind of soap to get all that liquid out of the material, none of which they had on them.
“Alright...” Sebastian’s boots squeaked on the floor as he neared where Joseph was sitting, his dog tags glistening under the back-up lights. He threw a leg over the bench, gray shirt being pulled on over his head while he made to straddle the seat. “We’ve got a few minutes until she’s done… why don’t you catch me up in the meantime?”
Catch him up. As if it was so informal.
Rolling his ankle, Joseph drew a knee up onto the bench and scooted around until he was facing the other man a little better. He’d calmed since the lights and sirens had gone off, his adrenaline having hit a flatline once it was all said and done. Despite the cool-down procedure having been skipped… Sebastian seemed fine. Based in reality and all that.
Crisis averted in one area but not so much in others.
“You’ve been in that sim for a couple weeks, right?” Joseph clasped his hands in his lap, monitoring the brow as it raised up on Sebastian’s face. The older man bobbed his head as if agreeing and finished tugging his shirt down to his hips. “Well in that time the neuro-lab received some… patients. Miners from the digsite back on Tytan-3. I guess they had been displaying problematic behavior after they had that cave-in so they wanted us to look at them.”
Not a typical turn of events given the station they resided in was for neuroscience and research, but as the document had read; medical in the main sector hadn’t known what to do with them. Rather than flood the med bay with the strange cases that had come up from the planet below, they’d sent them to those who dealt with that sort of thing. The only specialists around on the entire ship.
In a herd of six, Joseph remembered watching burly men in jumpsuits shuffle in through the double-doors and slump onto the tables they were directed to. “We did look at them. Vitals were fine at first but the brain scans told us exactly what was wrong.” Masses wrapped around the cerebellum like vines, a still image to a team of gobsmacked scientists. “Thought it was some kind of… contagious tumor or a parasite at first.”
’Is it… moving?’
’Oh my god. I think it is.’
“Whatever it was, it was clearly causing disruption in motor skills and coordination. We couldn’t get answers out of any of the patients that weren't a mash-up of slurred syllables. Within a day of their arrival we knew-we knew what was wrong in a sense but not yet… how to fix it.”
Lowering his eyes, Joseph watched the shadows of his fingers through the lenses of his glasses. His hands were cold, knuckles white from the tension he held in them. “... we attempted radiotherapy first, but after a few days the quality of life of all six men declined at a rapid rate. So after some discussion with the administrators, we decided to go ahead and do surgery. Had doctors and surgeons from medical come in, it was an entire ordeal.”
’A craniotomy? This thing is braided around the brainstem. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.’
’Look it’s that or they die a slow and agonizing death. Which do you prefer?’
Joseph shifted in his place, closed his eyes as he collected his wits to recount what happened next.
“We did the surgery on… just one first. Myself and Liam were on standby to receive the sample of whatever the thing was that was inside of them. Had formalin on the side in a massive bucket and we were just… waiting.” Decked in scrubs, gloves, and facemasks, Joseph had watched rapt with curiosity when the drilling had stopped and they pried the top of the skull off their first patient.
’Jesus Christ what is that.’
’Careful, it’s… pulsating,’
’Fuck me. Is it a parasite after all? Can you hand me the forceps please? I don’t even know where to start… it’s so deep in there.’
Eager to get a better look, Joseph had inched a little closer. It’s the only reason he’d held such a good view of when the doctor started to poke the thing with the forceps, front row seats to the calamity that became that theater shortly after.
To shocked gasps, the thing wrapped so tightly around a cerebellum lurched beyond its home of fat and electrical pulses to coil itself around Doctor Stanton’s fingers. He’d screamed, ripping back trying to fight the thing off and to the horror of every single person in that room the creature slithered up his arm like a breached octopus until it came up to his facemask.
“It-it was a parasite. Or some kind of creature - I don’t know. Either way the moment it had a chance, what we thought had just been a tumor used the opportunity to pry off Doctor Stanton’s mask and attempt to crawl into his mouth. The other doctor and some of the nurses had assisted in trying to get it off of him but that’s when we all discovered it had a defense mechanism that… turned out to be pretty effective.” Forcibly, Joseph unclasped his fingers and without looking he raised a hand up to measure out a size between his forefinger and thumb. “Barbs. Flung out like a porcupine. It nailed a good portion of them and they let go quickly.”
’Ah! God dammit - what is this-?!’
’Fuck- give me a scalpel- anyone!’
By that time, it was too late for that. Liam had shuffled closer to grab Joseph by the shoulder, hauling him back and when that hadn’t worked, the taller man held no reserves about looping his arms around Joseph’s midsection and dragging him back. Without the hands to stop the creature from advancing, it’d done as it set out to do and in a blink it disappeared behind Stanton’s clenched teeth - the bulge of it evident in his throat as it slithered down.
Joseph didn’t know firsthand what happened directly after that. Liam had succeeded in removing his petrified body from the theater and after slamming a fist down on the door seal, it was nothing but frantic gestures and words to get them both running down the hall as screams echoed horribly behind them.
“It seeks a host, is what I’m guessing. Gestates for a while at the bottom of the brain and as it grows it cuts off motor function - the works. When it was exposed it panicked and tried to seek a new host which had mixed results. Doctor Stanton’s head exploded. We reviewed it on the security footage after the fact.” A loud crack before Stanton had fallen to the ground in a twitching pile, blood draining from his eyes and nose. “Everyone else in the room was stuck in quarantine for a few days and the other five patients were put under cryo. Collectively, it was decided to be an isolated incident but…”
He exhaled shakily like he was cold, worked his jaw before he shook his head. “... the nurses ended up showing the same signs as the miners. You can probably guess where that went. There was a scramble to start locking things down; the administrators and chief of medicine wanted so badly for it not to go farther than that. They couldn’t realistically put all those who’d been infected into cryo which meant thawing the miners in an unethical attempt to save MDs and RNs. That’s where it all really went wrong.”
Joseph hadn’t been there when the bodies cooled - had decided he’d seen enough in the operating theater and wanted nothing more to do with it. Burying his head in the sand seemed safer than fucking with ’that extraterrestrial bullshit’ as Liam had explained it to the other scientists and… honestly. That’s probably what saved his life.
It’d been him, Liam, and a couple others cleaning the rabbit pens when the alarms had started to go off. On edge in an instant, calls had been made and from there all of them in the neuro-lab had been informed what happened in the cryo chamber.
“I guess the- whatever they are. They’re resilient to… cryo. From what I gather they ate the bodies from the inside out and wore the skin like a meat puppet. It was a bloodbath in there as per the security officer. They’d grown in that time and adapted - started attacking people. Eating them. Infecting them. It all went to hell so fast no one had any time to react.” Shutdown protocols had been activated, in a rush everyone scattered to the winds scared out of their fucking minds. Those things were loose, stumbling through halls making noises past clenched teeth like a reverse scream.
Most had been heading for the main sector of the ship, desperate to leave the neurosciences and research station. Joseph had abandoned that thought as soon as it had entered his mind - he’d gone deeper into the crew quarters to find Lily and once he’d had her in his arms he’d made a detour for the deep-sleep pods.
That’s where they were now; dead-center of the station and potentially cut off from the rest of the ship. “I-I don’t know what’s happened beyond that. All I could think about was getting Lily. Getting you.” His head was still down, water droplets falling onto the inside lenses of his glasses. “They could’ve gone beyond our station but I don’t know. I don’t know anything else. I’m sorry, Sebastian, I-I just don’t-.”
Arms wrapped around him unexpectedly, and Joseph hiccuped through his shock before sinking into them almost immediately. It wasn’t like he didn’t have fortitude, it wasn’t a moment of weakness, the come down. His own dog tags were pressed into his thudding heart, engraved into them a squad number that matched Sebastian’s down to the letter.
They’d been spec-ops together - before this. Had seen and done things locked behind thousands of vaults in a confidential database somewhere. This though? Something like this?
On his way over, Joseph had watched one of those things - ill fit for the human-suit it was wearing - tear that body in half before flopping onto the grate in a tangle of exposed muscle and sharp teeth. Bits of it had slithered out from the remaining brain from whoever it’d been inhabiting, and momentarily sightless it’d not noticed Joseph in his terror.
Its teeth looked like repurposed human teeth. All the war and the missions dressed in body armor and holding plasma rifles could not have prepared him for the sight of that monstrosity rolling around flaps of skin and bone as if it was collecting the pieces.
“Shhh… Jo.. shhh. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
It wasn’t okay.
Trembling down to his core Joseph made a sound in the negative and his arms came up to push weakly at Sebastian’s chest. “Sebas- if-if the station is locked down they're not going to let everyone out. What about Lily?? What-.”
One of the arms around him slipped free to cup the side of his face, and through the thin rays of the back-up lights Joseph could make out Sebastian’s haunted expression. The older man was doing his best to hold it together.
“Don’t worry about that right now. What matters is you saved her and you brought her back to me, Joseph. Everything else is- we’ll figure it out. God I’m…” His brown eyes squeezed shut, wet hair framing his gorgeous face as it grew tense. Joseph sniffed and started to pull back but on beat, Sebastian tugged him closer. Pressed his lips to Joseph’s hair before bringing his face up to slot their mouths together in a kiss that only lasted a short second.
It wasn’t their first, and by the glint of a wedding ring on Sebastian’s finger, it was up for debate how many more they’d have in the future. Especially now, considering… everything.
Sebastian gave Joseph a quick squeeze to predate his release of him, fingers running through his wet brown hair as he turned to lift off the bench. Lily would be finishing up soon and they’d need to get her dressed in her jumpsuit before deciding what to do next. That and Joseph hadn’t forgotten about the other pods - the other souls that still had no idea what had gone on during their sleep.
“I’ll see if I can’t get a hold of Myra…” Sebastian paced from the bench and for his locker, the mention of his wife loud in the quiet room. “If she’s heard what’s going on she’s- shit she’s got to be frantic.”
Myra. Wife - not ex-wife despite recent developments. At one time it’d been discussed as a possibility however swept under the rug at the flimsy excuse of all that paperwork.
Joseph wet his lips, hand coming up to wipe the tears away as he slowly started to stand up as well. His intent had been to turn for the door, leave Sebastian to that so he could begin the arduous task of getting everyone else out of their pod and up to speed but upon lifting his head towards the door a pair of eyes locked him in place.
Ice-blue and tired, they blinked at him.
“... whatiz happen’ig...” A thin mouth screwed up, one of the deep-sleep participants feigning a headache as he swayed by the door’s threshold. Joseph knew him by name but not personally. Sebastian knew him better but when Joseph glanced at him as if to silently ask ’how do you want to-’ he was surprised to see the trauma mark itself over the older man’s expression.
Like he’d seen a ghost, almost.
Stefano swayed forwards, one hand latched onto the doorjamb while the other was pressed into the side of his head. Lazily he moved his eyes from Joseph to the only other person in the room and then, quite suddenly, what at first had seemed to be a one-sided affair unexpectedly turned into a very. Big. Problem.