2389

by Iain Rob Wright

“Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars.” – Frank Sinatra, Fly Me To The Moon

“This place is a tomb.” – Miller, Event Horizon (1997), Paramount

"Installation 23 is equipped with a full-spectrum comms jammer. It can be activated in the event of emergency. We believe it is activated now. Possibly due to whatever malfunction has seized regular outgoing communications." Lexi lurched forward in her seat. "What? A comms jammer? Why would they want to prevent people calling home?" "Eighty-billion dollars is why," Hopper said, rolling his eyes. "You think the American and British Governments would spend that kind of dough and not want to be in total control of it? They knew building a theme park on the moon carried risks. They wanted to make sure that if a disaster ever did happen, they could spin it however they like. A bunch of frightened people calling Earth would be a disaster. The park would never get another visitor. Bet it was the Yank's idea. They love their secrets."

That moment when you first went airborne felt like a miracle every time. That split-second when the ground first disappeared made every pilot feel like a god. It was triumph of man over nature; acquired evolution. Man had given himself the kind of wings no creature on Earth ever possessed.

Biggest threat to a rescue mission is the people you're trying to rescue, so let's not allow ourselves to become compromised."

Cosmonauts were not soldiers and they did not carry weapons, but Lexi would've liked something to defend herself with. She felt vulnerable, almost naked, despite the thick composite material of her suit. Finding a place that was supposed to house twenty-thousand people completely empty was a grim sign.

The tunnel snaked right and they cautiously followed it round into a wider area that caused them all to stop and stare. Lexi wandered to the front of the group, her legs taking her forward of their own accord as she stared up at the breathtaking ceiling. A giant glass dome shielded them from space and left nothing to the imagination. It was like standing inside a transparent golf ball, or one of those spheres that children put hamsters inside of. The vast, star-pocked darkness of space seemed to bear down on them like the crushing thumb of a god. Even as a cosmonaut, Lexi had never stood on firm ground without a helmet and just took in the vastness of space.

A twenty-foot desk lay ahead, with an LED display above it reading: CHECK IN. The desk was currently unmanned and there were a dozen more desks just like it standing in front of identical tunnels all around the circumference of the room – one for each of the Installation 23’s multiple airlocks. The whole area should have been teeming with people, new arrivals and departing guests, but it was silent and still. Eerie. "This is not right at all," Miller said. "Where the heck is everybody?"

Miller grinned. "I would rather see a person, but an AI is the next best thing. AI, please hail all open channels. Request all high-ranking personnel to our location." "NEGATIVE." Miller bristled. "Why negative? Why do you not do as commanded?" "BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO, PUNY HUMAN." Miller stumbled back a step and lost his colour. "What did you say? You must...you must obey." "AI DOES NOT OBEY HUMANS. HUMANS OBEY AI. EXTERMINATE."

"Do you think now is the time for pranks, Master Hopper?" Hopper grinned and came out from behind the desk. "There's never not a good time for humour, Boss. Only thing stops a man from panicking."

"What's on it?" Boss asked. Trent grinned. "A video. Somebody recorded a video and left it where we would find it." Lexi's eyes went wide. "Who recorded it?" Trent shrugged. "Let's find out." He pressed PLAY. A sweaty man appeared on screen, skin pale, eyes bloodshot. A round patch of inflamed skin covered his left cheek. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, like crunching leaves. "If anybody is watching this,” he said. “You need to leave. There’s something here. Something really bad.”

Hopper looked around and folded his arms. He seemed worried. "What is it?" Lexi asked him. "There's nothing left behind. People panic when things go wrong. They drop things, they break things, they shit themselves. This place seems as though everyone just disappeared in an orderly fashion. That makes no sense."

"What's the point of being alive," Hopper said, "if it's only to work all day doing something you hate? Your dad spent twelve hours a day building thrusters, why? Because he loved it or because he had no choice? Humanity boxed itself in, working everyone to death so we can all wear the latest watch-tablets on our wrist. It's a stupid way to live, man. Money is the worst thing that ever happened to humanity."

The radio unit on Trent's shoulder suddenly hissed and a voice came through it. "You can’t leave. You have been exposed. You must remain here. I'm sorry." Boss grabbed the radio unit and barked a reply. "Who is this? Identify yourself." "I'm just a man. A man trying to do what's right. You cannot leave. You're all going to die here. I'm sorry."

“If we go down there,” Hopper said. “I’d wager we find his body slumped somewhere. He has to be dead.” “If he isn’t, he will be soon,” Miller said. “Clearly something was inside that crate that has affected his brain. He’s displaying signs of delirium, likely from fever, and his bleeding skin suggests a massive auto-immune response. If not for the incredibly short symptom progression I could name several likely viruses, but this… It’s something I’ve never seen before.”

Part of her had expected to find a body – only a rotting corpse could smell so bad – but what she hadn’t been expecting to find was such an abhorrent mess. The female body slumped at the top of the slide was desiccated, torn open in the middle and leaking guts and fluids everywhere.

Lexi was about to shout out, to at the very least get a warning to Gellar who was right below her in the garden, but before she even got chance to open her mouth, something seized her ankle. She stumbled away from the railing and almost tripped, kicking out to get her ankle free. A scream escaped her lips when she saw the shredded corpse rise up from the ground to face her. There was no way the woman could still be alive. It was impossible.

“Miller, run!” she shouted. But it was too late. Bodies funnelled into the canyon behind Miller, bunched so close together that they almost moved like liquid; men and women scurrying over one another as they advanced rapidly down the enclosed canyon. Their clothes were torn rags. Many of them were half-naked. They were not friendly. They were like the woman who had attacked Lexi on top of the Helter-Skelter. Dead people.

Hopper put his hands to his face. “Great! Frikkin’ space zombies. Are you kidding me?” “What are you talking about?” Boss said impatiently. Hopper removed his hands from his face. “Er…space zombies? Dead people walking around in space. What would you call them?”

“We’re safe up high,” Trent said. “We should stay up here.” “We can’t live on top of a fake mountain forever,” Hopper said. “We’re not gnomes.”

He seized the man around the neck from behind and plunged the knife into his heart. Then he pulled it free and stabbed again. And again. But the dead man did not die. He thrashed and kicked, tried to bite at Hopper’s forearm that was wrapped around his throat. Hopper kept stabbing, making a mess out of the man’s torso, but the wounds were having no effect. The dead man kept on fighting. Lexi saw the panic in Hopper’s eyes as he struggled to hold on. Beside her, Trent was hissing. “That stupid idiot. The only way to kill a zombie is by attacking the head.” Lexi turned to him. “What?” “The head! You have to attack the head and destroy the brain. Nothing walks around without a brain, not even a dead man.”

“Trying to leave this place or contact Earth is no longer possible,” said the man on the screen. Like before, he seemed extremely unwell. His eyes wept a bloody substance and the sore on his cheek had spread down to his lips and chin. Despite the grimness of his condition, however, he spoke with confidence and clarity. “My name is John Cog and I am a warehouse employee for Grand Galaxy Amusement Park. While my pay grade is low, I have found myself with the unfortunate task of having to take authority over this installation. No one can leave.”

“Do you really need to know what happened here to understand what must happen? No one here must be allowed to travel back to Earth. No one from Earth must be allowed to come here. Death is all around you and it will cling to you all. This facility has been attacked. By whom, I do not know, but it was I who opened Pandora’s box. I let this thing out, and I cannot allow it to hurt any more people than it already has.”

“What better place for a terrorist to attack than the happiest place in the galaxy?”

“My name is Norman,” the stranger told them. “I come here on company vacation. I the only one left.” “You mean the only one left from your company?” Lexi asked. “No, I mean only one left. Everyone dead, yes? Or they kind of are. They’ve taken to walking around, yes?”

You people have somewhere you want go?” “The comms room,” Boss said. Norman nodded. “Okay. No idea where that is.” “It’s at the rear of this zone,” Trent said, “accessed through a staff area inside a Mexican restaurant.” Norman’s face lit up. “I know place. Fire exit take us out right by it. Are you going call for help?” Boss patted the man on the back. “Damn right we are.” “Good. Because I was go say, if you people rescue party, you are sucking a lot.”

One of the ride actors – guy dressed like an old fashioned archaeologist with whip and hat – grab this little kid and start chowing down on his face. The father try to intervene but some lady take him down. Pretty soon whole room filled with blood and I ran and hide. Eventually things go quiet, and when I sneak out, everyone was gone. The people, the bodies…all gone.

Hopper pointed upwards at the glass windows. “Look.” Lexi looked up and saw a beautiful sight. “Earth.” She’d seen it a dozen times before from space, but seeing it now took her breath away. It was beautiful. It was home. Perhaps she wasn’t so jaded after all.

Lexi stood firm. In fact, she strode up to her father and shoved the gun at him. “Shoot him yourself.” Her father snatched the gun out of her hands and shot the captain in the chest. The man wheezed for a second, then died. Boss followed up the shot with a second straight to the head. He shoved the gun back at his daughter and marched away.

Hopper turned around to face Boss. There was a look of utter confusion on his face. “I just accessed a sub-directory called Orbital Assault Platform.” Lexi baulked. “What? Assault? You mean Grand Galaxy was built with weapon systems?” “Not just weapons systems,” Hopper explained. “Orbital weapons. As in weapons pointed at space, or even Earth.”

“Yes, I knew. That’s why we’re here. When the American and British governments built this place, they couldn’t condone such a monumental cost for a commercial project alone. It’s been ten years and this place has only just turned a profit. That’s beside the point, though, because this it was never intended to be a getaway for those rich enough to afford it. It’s a weapon, Lexi. It’s the greatest weapon ever built. From this station, our government can target a bird in its nest in any country in the world. It has a link up to every allied satellite in space and can spy on every inch of the cosmos. It has saved millions of lives, by taking out the bad men before they even know they’re on our radar.”

“Okay, no. I feel like the death that is warmed up, but is just stress of situation. I not infected. I am immune.” Lexi shook her head, now completely sure. “I think you’re resistant, but not immune. You’re dying Norman. I’m sorry. The virus is in you, but for some reason your body fights it better than most. The virus is still going to win in the end, though.”

“Your father is a hero.” “No, he’s not. Placing weapons at Grand Galaxies put every single guest here at risk, and he knew that. We should be moving past all this bullshit. It’s almost the 22nd Century and countries are still trying to one up each other. I think that’s why I must have become a cosmonaut; to get away from all the bullshit on Earth. Well, that, and trying to get closer to my illustrious father. If I hadn’t joined the corps I probably would only have ever seen him at Christmas. Maybe that would have been better.”

I’ve realised that the people controlling who lives and who dies are wearing ties and sitting behind large desks. Perhaps it’s always been that way.”

Bodies continued appearing in the lobby and the entire mob began moving towards the courtyard. “There must be a thousand people crammed inside there,” Hopper said, overestimating a little but not by much. “That’s where all the guests have been this whole time. They’re all packed up inside the hotels.” Hopper was already walking backwards, poised to turn around and run. “When the shit hit the fan, people must have made for their rooms. Maybe security even called for the guests to do so. They must have been slaughtered like cattle.”

Cog shook his head. A wound opened up in the crease of his neck and began bleeding. “Don’t you understand? Surely, now, you must. This disease can’t make it back to Earth. It has to die here, with us.” “We’re not infected,” Lexi said. “No way to be sure. It’s too much of a risk. It could be on your clothes, your hair – anywhere. You might be carriers. I admit to not knowing much about diseases, but I know it’s too much of a risk for anybody to leave here. The security team understood that. I saw them massacre hundreds of guests trying to contact home.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hopper said. “We came here to help, not destroy.” “Funny then, how one of you has their finger on a button somewhere, ready to blow this place up. Are you really trying to tell me that your mission wasn’t to contain this however necessary?” Hopper glanced at Lexi and she could tell he was thinking about what her father had told them. The mission always had been to contain the situation, however necessary.

Over the din of his humanoids, Cog shouted a final warning. “Give yourselves up and we can sit it out together. You’re not leaving here, but you can still have a final few hours of peace.” “The only peace I’m going to be having is out of your ass,” Hopper said. He turned to Lexi and sighed. “That sounded really wrong, didn’t it?”

“Are you still going through with it?” “Nothing’s changed. If they send a clean up crew here, there’s a chance the virus may make it back to Earth. Other nations will try to interfere, demanding to know what happened to the guests. It’s too much of a risk. I have everything set. Just get out of here.”

“Dad…I’m going to miss you.” There was a brief silence, followed by, “I could have been a better father, Lexi, I know that. But I’m proud of you. Commander Sharman – dad – over and out.”

then began to open, rising slowly from the floor. The first thing they saw were the dark black boots of the welcome party. Then they saw the rifles pointing at them. Lexi was too confused to say anything, but she heard Hopper mutter to himself one word, “Shit!” The welcome team opened fire.