The Second Deimos: Unfortunate Planet

Kali cast a weary glance toward her companion. Their band of citizens was dwindling and the travelers would not be able to withstand another attack from the infected. She slumped down sitting on the flattened barren sands allowing the red grains to roll against her metallic body. The upgrades given to her made her a better survivor than the regular humans. Xiya had suggested abandoning the humans, but the humanity still in Kali sympathized with the survivors. She had concluded that it would be best to keep them.

Her arm burned, a warning that more infected were on the way.

“We can’t keep going like this…” she stared out at the frightened faces among the band.

Camp had just been set for the day. The surviving uninfected would sleep leaving Kali and Xiya to serve as the day-watch. Families huddled together in their make-shift scrap tents holding dear what little reserves they had. Many would not be able to eat tonight; there just wasn’t enough food.

Xiya turned giving Kali an unreadable glance. Kali enjoyed the art form that Xiya had become. Xiya was very much like Kali in that she too had elected for the cybernetic upgrades offered to mechanics who would not be put into cryo-sleep during the journey from earth. The cybernetics would eliminate some of the dilemma’s that came with the regular human body. Photovoltaic cells attached to the body provided additional energy sources other than food, a mechanical heart and other robotic organs were used to limit bodily stress and harm, industrial strengthened arms and legs to increase strength and productivity.

Kali kept many of her human features though. She let her hair grow into dusty blonde dread locks and kept her ‘upgrades’ minimal. She preferred her natural ebony skin tone to the silver metals despite knowing the dangers of exposed skin; she even limited organ replacements. She left her digestive track, lungs, kidneys, and mind alone. Her heart kept its steady mechanical beat. Her human lungs had been capable of handling the conditions mechanics were put through, but not her heart. She was required to fix that. She had lost one arm in an accident and a result needed to replace it with the android upgrades. As for her other arm, Xiya placed in a wired upgrade severing the living flesh almost entirely from her robotic skins. As mechanical as she was, she was not nearly as robotic as Xiya had become.

Xiya had once confessed to Kali that she was determined to reach absolute perfection. That perfection could never be achieved in a human body, therefore Xiya could only be perfect if she was no longer human. This led to her into opting for multiple upgrades. Her head was a metallic helmet with artificial coiled wires made to synthesize her hair in recognition of her past humanity. Her body was metallic, her organs were robotic, her fiber optic eyes were man-made, but she was still human. Her mind was all that was left of her humanity.

She was one of the few accepted androids before the plague. It wasn’t a popular idea to abandon humanity completely, but there were a few like Xiya who sought digital perfection. Her upgrades, many dangerously self inflicted, had made her a perfect subject for survival in these harsh conditions. Xiya never suffered from the heat of the sun, she did not damage from rips or tears in the skin, she was physically stronger with her hydraulic muscle distribution upgrade, she didn’t need to eat as much with the photovoltaic cells attached to every panel on her silver and black robotic body, and she fought infected with little fear of being infected herself. But, Xiya could still be infected just like Kali.

The last uninfected citizen closed up their tent pouch hoping to seal in what little moisture the night air brought. Resources were low, and people were getting desperate.

Xiya walked over to Kali. She did not smile, she never smiled, Xiya only analyzed.

“Your arm is bothering you?” her voice wasn’t quite natural anymore. It came out soft and soothing but glitches which gave away to a synthetically simulated sound. She picked her own voice after installing a software program. It was an upgrade she was proud to have completed herself.

“Voice pattern whisper, Xiya?” Kali wondered in admiration. There wasn’t much Kali could do when it came to upgrades. Her options weren’t as open as they were with Xiya due to her humanity.

The android nodded, “I think subtle conversation is the best option.” Her responses were always curt and to the point. Xiya never said more than what didn’t need to be said.

“It’s burning, clickers are near.” Kali noted.

The android nodded, “I had deduced as much from the ground vibrations. We can head out now to fight them off. I sense 4, but there could be a small one. We leave now and the people don’t have to know we were ever under attack.”

Kali snorted, “You mean to greet our attackers? Head on?”

“I never said head on,” Xiya whispered, “I have already devised the most efficient plan to eliminate the infected threat. You have not agreed to go yet. It would be pointless for me to waste energy if you have not verified an action.”

Kali groaned, as much as she enjoyed looking at Xiya as a subject of clever engineering and art, talking to her was a matter entirely different.

“You speak of the infected as a constant threat,” Kali grumbled.

Xiya didn’t take the statement lightly, “They are a constant threat. If ever my mind were to become infected with them, they could have free reign of a perfect body. One that would not twist under their pressures and continue on indefinitely.”

“If you are so worried about your ‘perfect body’ then, why haven’t you killed me yet, Xiya?” Kali held the leather wrap that covered her arm tight to hide her burning skin.

“Your infection will not spread to any other portion of your body. It has been localized,” Xiya’s voice was like ice. So vastly indignant was her tone that it was hard to tell if she cared or didn’t care. It was flat and unemotional, but the fact she expressed an opinion on the matter at all meant it was something she thought about, therefore she must have cared.

Kali shivered at the words and goose bumps emerged on her human skin. “I’m not worried about the infection spreading Xiya… not entirely. You localized it for now, but the pressure in that arm grows everyday…”

Xiya raised Kali’s arm. Warmed metal fingers gripped around the soft flesh as she stared over it. No doubt Xiya had elected to analyze the arm with one of many of her sight functions (heat vision, x-ray, CT, etc).
“You should lose the arm Kali…” she released her grip on Kali forcing her arm to fall. “I know you have an attachment to your flesh, but the residents within are preparing for spore production.”

Kali shivered, “Not yet… I need a replacement. We can’t keep fighting off these clicker’s if I’m disabled in any way!”

Xiya shrugged, “we can’t fight them at all if you infect our survivors or re-infect yourself. I localized it for now, but the spores…” Xiya’s sentence trailed off into silence. Nothing else needed to be said to remind Kali of the dangers that came with spore release.

When the parasites reproduced it was done by one of two mechanisms. They either directly transferred juvenile parasites into a new host through various forms of contact which was how Kali had been infected from a scratch, or the bodies hosting the worms would explode releasing a fine powder of osmobiotic cryo-state eggs. Many of the eggs would float back into the water and become harmless, but the few that are inhaled re-infect the human survivors left.

“Let’s fight off the intruders first, then we’ll deal with my arm. Right now all I can properly focus on is the burning sensation that desires retribution for the families we now protect.”

Xiya frowned, “I care not for the families we protect. Only to reach my final goal. I will stand with you and keep you alive until you can grant me that final request.”

Kali shivered. Xiya was the last friend she had left alive and her addiction to the cyber-genetic enhancements barely made her human anymore. Kali kept Xiya with her by promising Xiya to someday perform the last upgrade to her body. At the cost of her own life, Xiya wanted her mind downloaded into a mechanical vessel, but with as much information as the mind can hold it was impossible to find a data base large enough to perform such a dangerous function.

Kali nodded, “We keep moving then. You keep these people alive, and I’ll keep searching for your big ol’ brain backup.”

Xiya lifted herself from the ground stretching in the sunlight for a brief moment, possibly even bothering to run a systems performance check. “I will move ahead, track my movements. You will be the second front for the creatures who get past me. I will go first and take many out.”

From the corners of the metallic helmet that encased Xiya’s porcelain face a mask covering emerged and wrapped itself around any open orifice. Xiya had a thin protective plasma encasing built into her upgrades, “Do not inhale the air around you, we do not know which reproductive cycle these parasites are in.”

Kali groaned as she stood up reaching into her pack. She pulled out the archaic gas mask that the group had managed to scavenge up. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as the flexible plasma based shield Xiya could command to cover any orifice on her continence, but it would serve its purpose. She strapped it under her long flowing dreadlocks and gave a nod to Xiya confirming she was ready for their encounter.

The soles of Xiya’s feet jutted outward as wheels fell out of the locking mechanism in them. Two large all terrain roller wheels extended out on each side of her feet and Xiya set off without any further conversation. Kali followed the two-lined tracks left embedded in the sand as Xiya skated over the red dunes.

Kali sighed, she wouldn’t need to rush to catch up to Xiya. Xiya on her own was a death goddess but some would trickle through and that was what Kali was needed for. She trudged forward preparing her body. In her human hand she held a machete but her mechanical arm prepared a more interesting weapon.

While she worked in space it was often easier to use high blasts of energy to seal down any loose materials rather than carrying out additional tools. Her arm had been fitted with a sonic cannon capable of high impact blasts. It was a formidable weapon against the clickers despite being an everyday tool. The blast was loud enough to deafen a human, and sometimes strong enough to rip through heavily infected creatures. The only problem with such a tool is it required a lot of energy. She could use the photovoltaic cells to recharge every 14 blasts, but a full recharge took days. Their last encounter had occurred earlier as the surviving uninfected was setting down for the day. She had 4 blasts left.

Kali could hear ahead farther than the regular living humans. Her upgrades were called ‘bat-work’ since it was often sound related, including her adjustable hearing range. She threw out the arm holding the machete and prepared for a sweeping strike. The first mangled form limped its way over a small lull of a dune. She raced at it cutting into the already injured flesh of the parasite colony. The clicker’s skin broke and a green-yellow slime squirted out from one of the bulges on its body.

Kali hastily moved to dodge the flow of liquid. It landed on the glass sand no longer reactive, but any experienced fighter knew that if the acid had touched her clothing it would have done quick work of her protective layers dissolving them away to expose flesh beneath. The acid bulges in these monsters helped tear down a new host to relieve juvenile parasites into.

Kali bent low then thrust the machete directly upwards opening what she could only assume to be the front cavity of this disfigured thing. When the sunlight made contact the unprotected parasites within it began to shrivel and dry as they burned in the light. It was sickening watching the long extended bodies of the parasites try to burrow further deeper into this mangled corpse in an attempt to save themselves. Kali cut it several more times lopping limbs away from the torso ensuring this thing would never be able to move on its own ever again. It sizzled under the sun drying out in slices.

A faster clicker zipped across the landing. It was a more recent infection, Kali could still make out a human body not completely destroyed by the twisting skin, there was a gender, patchwork hair, and even an age. The teenage boy screamed out with still functional vocal chords and rushed at her. His movements were blind and direction was only given from what little sensory glands the parasites had positioned on him.

Kali tick-tocked moved over a step temporarily confusing the creature. The parasites found new hosts by observing movement and she could easily replicate the robotic patterns. Her machete flew across the neck first decapitating it. Then she got to work with the rest of the body. A continuous flow of expeditious blows over until she had minced it into a pile of meat and rapid decay.

A smaller creature leapt over the dune. Kali had no way of ever knowing what this deformed maniac could have been as the colony within it was bulging at the seams of what was left of the skin.

Despite the large amount of acid pouches and spore pockets on it, this thing was quick. It’s small height only made the fight more difficult as it raced around Kali popping spore pouches in hopes to relieve the colony of the overcrowding within that body. It needed to reproduce, and Kali needed to kill it. She dodged left, down, right, she was forced back into a roll and stopped short of the lull in the small hill the creature emerged over. Its body clicked and twisted, and somehow through that mangled mass it was able to growl at her. The sound emitted was a high pitched eerie shriek forced out from two slits on what might have been its face. The vocal chords were so compressed that this was probably the lowest noise it could produce.

“You want some noise?” Kali retorted.

She lifted her blast cannon and moved into an appropriate stance. The sound wave erupted from deep within the canon. It was almost entirely invisible if not for the slight triple ring distortion that indicated to location of the pulse settings. The wave was set so low that only a select few cyborgs had the equipment to detect such a noise. Xiya would probably ignore the sound regardless.

The burst slammed into the body of the small beast instantly impounding it. The first wave acted much like a heavy impact punch and the tightened skin wrapped around its body rippled until the second wave lashed across breaking the taught external. The third wave simply removed the fragment pieces off of the body leaving the creature's insides exposed. The parasites within fizzled up and crackled in the sunlight. They were unequipped to handle the harsh elements outside the body and they could not survive.

Kali breathed a sigh of relief but held position waiting for the next clicker to drag its unnatural form over the little ridge. Sand swept to the side and soon she heard the movement of feet without the distinctive cracking and clicking noise of the infected.

Xiya leapt up and stared down at Kali with a look of questioning, “was it necessary to use the sonics?”

“Threat was eliminated in the most efficient manner possible,” Kali shrugged.

“Efficient would have been to keep vibrations down to a minimum as well as reserving charges. It will take time for your secondary energy reserve to refuel… and now that we’re low on resources too your body may be dipping into the back up source just to maintain itself.”

Kali shivered. Xiya presented a legitimate argument. If Kali’s energy wore down too far her heart would no longer beat, and she would die. Energy could be gathered from the sun, but not enough to keep her entire body powered and going.

“It's fine Xiya,” Kali sat back on the red sands, “besides, the bastards gave me an idea about what to do with my arm.”

Xiya moved over to her compatriot. She had blood splatters and other mixes of disturbing colors splattered across her healthy figure.

Kali pulled out her machete and held it out to Xiya, “Wanna sterilize this for me?”

“Your arm is already infected,” Xiya retorted choosing not to take the device.

Kali sighed, “so much for asking.”

She carefully removed the leather wrap that covered the infection in her arm. The skin wrapped around again and again tightly, but the arteries, bone, and much of the internal liquid had already been replaced by Xiya with synthetics. It was an infection for a surface organ, and not to the rest of her body. Kali carefully pressed the machete into the flesh of her own tormented skin cutting deep enough to reveal her metallic bone. The sunlight rushed into her arm and the bloated parasites within began to shrivel and dehydrate. Many of them were dying, and many more had parts on them dying.

“You plan on filling your arm with the bodies of parasites?” Xiya stared in wonder.

“No, just trying to prevent to suckers from creating a spore cloud in my arm. I think I’m going to have to keep bloodletting and sun treating. These nasty things really can’t handle that sun.”

Xiya agreed, “Most living things cannot handle that sun. We are superior to regular organic life forms.”

Kali cocked an eyebrow, “You say regular life forms. Do you imply there is something out there on par with us?”

Xiya almost always was set in the idea that the technological was the ultimate perfection of humankind, and that humans were but a shadow by comparison.

“There are interesting creatures everywhere learning to adapt and survive. The bodies that host the parasites are stronger to enduring this sun. Stronger than the human bodies that do not host the infection.”

“Interesting observation,” Kali said standing up as she re-wrapped her arm, “and it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Shall we get back to our little wandering colony?”

Xiya nodded, “we’ll need to keep an alert out. The sonic blast from your canon may have been powerful enough to draw the attention of a horde. We’re close enough to an outpost; the number of clickers we are running into is gaining.”

Kali groaned, “I need to rest too Xiya, and so do you! We’ll just have to have some of the group put in a shift for watch while we sleep.”

Xiya shook her head, “too dangerous, we need to press on. Get what you can from the sun, and if we need to we’ll ask for extra food rations.”

“Energy is always a problem…” Kali grumbled.

The sand-tread wheels under Xiya’s feet retracted and she pulled her arms back and up to stretch out the elastic muscles in her artificial body. Even androids needed to keep track of their bodies and simple maintenance was the best method to prevent future disasters.

“We can rest tonight, you will need to take someone’s ration Kali. Tomorrow will not be a good day. We should only take those who are efficient. We might lose some of our best people trying to ransack what I’m hoping is a nearby town.”

Kali nodded as she followed Xiya back to the camp, “are we going to tag team? One group distracts leading as many away and a second to move in for recon?”

Xiya sighed, “Ideally I’d like to have the numbers for three groups. One to get the masses of clickers out of town, and a second group to get the stragglers so the recon group can go in with at least an hour’s worth of safety.”

Kali groaned, “We don’t have the numbers for that, unless you plan on having the weaker members of our group run in unprotected.”

“It’s tempting…” Xiya muttered, “But too risky.”

Kali reached back to an attached metal pack on her thigh and pulled out scraps of fabric and started wrapping up as much of her organic skin as she could. “Warning lights are going off, I’ve gotten as much vitamin D as I need. At this point the sun’s radiation is more harmful than necessary.”

“Leave the solar panels exposed,” Xiya cautioned.

Kali’s face grew thinned out and serious as she responded, “It would be suicidal to do so otherwise.” Energy was always the problem with humans and androids alike.